Work Text:
“Aranea Serket and Dave Strider.”
In the midst of numerous desks, Aranea’s heart sunk upon hearing the professor speak her name adjacent to Dave’s for the purpose of the class’s next collaborative assignment. Aranea wanted nothing more than to protest in that too-small university room, to stand up and stomp her foot in defiance. She was much too well-mannered to act like a child in a class full of twenty-somethings, and and she would not allow Dave the pleasure of seeing her complain.
In an effort to be casual, she turned her head from the front row of desks to the back, where Dave Strider sat. His head rested on his palm, fingers just slightly slid into his tousled blond hair. Had he not been dragging a pen across a piece of paper, she would have assumed he was sleeping behind those ridiculous shades he wore to class every day.
One day, he had been forced to sit next to her due to his late arrival, and the only empty chairs available were the ones on either side of her. He spent the entire class drawing, using the exact same posture that he was in now.
This time, at the sound of his name, he didn’t even flinch. It was unfair that she was paired up with someone who possessed so little drive. It was obvious that she would be the one doing all the work, but as class ended, she knew she would at least try and make him do his part.
After gathering her books and sliding them into her pristine shoulderbag, she marched up to him with her head held high.
When she arrived, he didn’t look up.
“Dave, right?”
He didn’t respond, face tilted downward on a crude and terribly conceived drawing. How dare he not respond to her when she was right there? She had been ignored before plenty of times, but never like this.
“Dave?” she repeated, this time clearing her throat.
He didn’t budge.
She felt her cheeks grow hot at the sheer embarrassment of this situation. He didn’t even know her; he never took the time to—
And then she noticed the wires dangling from his ears, disappearing inside his red hoodie.
Sighing, she resorted to tapping on his shoulder, and he finally looked over at her.
“‘Sup,” he said, pulling just one of his earphones out.
“We’re partners,” she stated as plainly as possible so he could understand. She had concluded his intelligence was incredibly low, so the fewer words the better. Maybe.
“Cool,” he said, putting down his pen. “Hope you mean for school and shit because if we’re talking anything else here I’m about to be a little flattered with a dash of hella concerned for you.”
Despite wanting to glare at him, she maintained a strained smile.
“For school, of course! The teacher said it, but I see you were preoccupied with your music. I took notes!”
“Cool?”
That response fueled her desire to reiterate her vital role in his educational success. “Because you weren't paying attention. I took notes, so you need them."
Dave glanced up at her with an alarming lack of expression.
Aranea cleared her throat.
"They're not even in the syllabus."
"The what?"
"Let's meet tomorrow. My room. I'll email you where it is."
Dave held his hand out. "Give me your phone."
Aranea watches his hand, an eyebrow raising in suspicion.
"Why?"
"Just do it."
She obliged with hesitance, and he started typing away on it until he handed it back.
"Congratulations, you're in the twenty-first century. You now have everything you need to act like it. None of this caveman e-mail bullshit. Seriously, that shit is outdated as fuck. Text me all that info. If you want me to not show up, e-mail me."
"The entire school uses e-mail, that's why we are all assigned one. You must be missing out on a lot of assignments—"
"I'm good," Dave said, standing up and putting his things in his bag before slinging it over his shoulder. "Text me, cavegirl."
As Dave walked out of the classroom, Aranea stayed where she was, a mix of confusion and frustration spinning in her head.
-------------
It was a good thing Aranea had insisted they start their project so early, because working with Dave was a complete nightmare. Not only did he never show up on time, but his focus was terrible. She imagined that in her room, she would have an advantage solely due to it being her space and territory. It was clear after their first meeting that that was not the case.
He drew on her notes when she was talking to him. He answered questions with "dunno" and "maybe" and "whatever." When she asked him about his opinions, he went off on irrelevant tangents using unfamiliar lingo. Half the time, she had no idea what he was talking about.
If it were possible to make negative progress on something they had barely started, they would have done it. Worst of all, he always asked to borrow her pens, but he would never return them and claim to have lost them when she started asking for them.
By their third meeting, Aranea had reached her limits.
Dave took up her entire cerulean sheeted bed, his feet propped up against her black pillow as he lay on his stomach. While she sat at her desk, furiously trying to come up with ideas, he started making a beat using his mouth.
"I'm trying to concentrate," she announced pointedly.
"Okay, good for you. I'll whip up a whole award for you, hang that fucker up on the wall. Good game. You tried. That's what it's gonna say. And everyone who walks in here is gonna soak it up with their eyes and start getting hells of emotional because shit, that's an inspiring story. You really did—"
Aranea slammed her pen on the desk and turned around to stare at him. The time to play nice was over, and her voice left her lips much louder than she intended.
"What is wrong with you?!" she demanded, fingers curling into fists. "You don't shut up! You don't work at all! You're so unbelievably lazy and I did not deserve to be paired up with you! Had I been done on my own, I would have finished it by now! But no!" Her face scrunched up. "I'm stuck here with you! And nothing's been done and frankly, I am sick of it! I am sick of you!"
When she realized just how she sounded, she felt the familiar tingle of humiliation creep up inside of her, and her cheeks grew so warm that she felt the need to cover them with her own hands. This could ruin her reputation, certainly. What she had to her name was so little and so fragile that a story about her exploding on someone could snap it in two.
She could become truly irredeemable.
Aranea expected Dave to leave, her expression one of frustration and sadness. There was a moment of awkward silence where Aranea really did expect to hear her door slam, but she didn't. Instead, she heard silence.
When she finally looked up, Dave hadn't moved at all, save for lifting his feet off of her pillow. He was just watching her, expression seemingly empty with those stupid shades on.
He finally spoke.
"You done?"
Aranea let out a deep sigh, feeling her throat ache with just how worked up she really was. She forced her back to straighten and looked directly at him. "Yes."
"Cool," he said, moving again to sit up. "So where do we start?"
----------
The next two meetings were strangely productive. While Dave consistently showed up late and became distracted at the most trivial things, there was a considerable increase in effort. He followed through when she asked him to look something up, albeit with minor amounts of resistance. Better yet, he never spoke a word about her verbal explosion, like it didn't happen.
One day, he even suggested they meet at his place. Aranea entered the residence hall with a cautious unfamiliarity. Her dormitory housed the honors program students and had a strict no noise policy. Dave's hall was nearly shaking with booming music, yelling, and open doors with students on beanbags playing video games.
She nearly lost her way in this building; the hall's layout resembled a biohazard sign and the lack of consistency or structure gave her an overwhelming sense of uneasiness.
Soon enough, she found his room. The door was closed but music continued to perforate the hallway. She knocked loudly and several times, just to make sure that he would hear her.
Aranea could barely hear Dave yell, "Come in."
She rolled her eyes at his insistence on not coming to the door and opening it for her, but she chose to bitterly ignore it and walk on in.
His room was starkly contrasted by two different themes. One side was covered in movie posters and men with mustaches. The other seemed to be completely focused on music, with a large turntable set-up against the wall.
Dave sat at his desk, finally lowering the music blasting from his speakers. While it was still loud by her standards, at least they would be able to hear each other speak.
"Hey," he said casually, spinning around in his desk chair to face her.
"What are you playing?" she asked, stepping further into the room and attempting to inconspicuously glance at his computer.
"Doesn't have a name yet."
"Yet?"
Dave shrugged. "Yet."
“Who would release a song and not name it?” she said, gaze shifting to every possible direction, gleaning information as she spoke.
“Depends what you mean by released. If you mean getting it produced and distributed on some wack CD with the edited versions at shady Walmarts everywhere, sure. Gotta have a name for that. But if we’re talking me playing my own song in my room and releasing it into the hallway, no. I don’t gotta have a name for it.”
Aranea finally focused her attention solely on him.
“Your own song?” Her interest piqued suddenly. “What do you mean by your own song?”
“Just what it sounds like. A song I made and put together and birthed after many an hour spent in a messy music labor.”
She found it hard to believe. Dave Strider, of all people, putting that much effort into something? More shocking was the fact that she assumed it to be some top 40 hit she never bothered to listen to. The quality was outstanding in her perspective, and, as much as she hated to admit it, it was incredibly catchy.
Aranea couldn’t help the hint of disbelief that slipped through her voice.
“You? Made...this?”
“If I say yeah for an hour straight, are you gonna believe me? ‘Cause I can do it, it’ll just eat up our study time or whatever which is fine by me.”
“No!” She knew she answered much too eagerly. Clearing her throat, she gave herself time to regain her composure. “Please. There’s no need for that. I believe you well enough.”
“Suit yourself. I got the best lungs in the world, hands down. So you’re missing out on some Guinness world record-making, top of the line extended vocals. Should be a spot in the Olympics for that. Also, you can sit down if you want but I know how you like to just kinda loom like that over people, so—”
“I do not loom!” She placed her hands on her hips and then abruptly sat down on his bed, across from him. “I’m just being polite. You don’t sit unless someone invites you to sit.”
“That sounds fake, but okay.”
That phrase sounded all too familiar for a reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on, but she let it slide.
“It’s not fake. It’s completely valid. But anyway! As thrilling as talking about the social expectations of sitting is, I’m actually somewhat surprised that you’ve done this on your own. It must have taken up a lot of your doodling time.”
“Nah, I really only draw in class. I’ve done this kind of thing since I was a kid.”
“That long? But you seem so...”
She squinted at him, debating the accuracy of that claim. But when she thought about it, creating something of that caliber was something that was earned through rigorous and committed practice.
“Unmotivated? Lazy? Unproductive? Yeah, I know.”
Aranea opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. Instead, Dave continued.
“I know, what am I doing here paying a ton of money to go to a university if I don’t pay attention, anyway? Isn’t that a waste of time? This is just kinda the first chance I got to get away from home and do what I wanted, so I took it.”
He spun around in his chair, and it made Aranea dizzy to watch him.
“But aren’t you failing everything? I mean, I don’t see how you absorb any information with the kind of routines you keep up in class.”
“Nah. That’s the one class I can actually do whatever in. The professor posts all the lectures online, anyway, so I just look at them later. Not a big deal.”
“So your grades, they’re...fine?”
Dave nodded. “Yeah. 4.0.”
Something about that made her feel furious, but she bit her tongue instead of letting it out.
“That’s fantastic.”
“Thanks, since you’re being totally genuine right now.”
Aranea huffed, turning away from him. “I don’t see how I definitely study more than you, put more effort into everything than you, and we have the same GPA! That’s just— That’s just stupid!”
Aranea saw Dave’s eyebrows furrow from behind his shades.
“Yo, chill already, will you?”
She stood up all at once to hover over him, and she barely noticed him flinch. It wasn’t enough to stifle her reaction, however. Her fists shook with anger, her eyes alight with an intimidating amount of passion.
“I’m not going to chill! Why should I chill? I put in twice the amount of work that you do and you just— You have the same results! It’s not fair!”
Even more upsetting was how Dave just sat there, looking up at her from his chair.
“Who’s got you doing that much work all the time, anyway?” he asked, and she audibly groaned in response.
“Me! I have myself doing ‘that much work all the time!’ Because if you want anyone to respect you or notice you at all, you have to be the best at what you do. I have to be the best at what I do! And if you’re just— If you’re just skating on through and still at my level, then what’s the point?! What’s the point of even trying to be seen at all if it’s just random?”
Dave’s voice was upsettingly quiet. “There’s not.”
Her expression softened into a mix of exasperation and confusion.
“What?”
“There’s not a point. Even when people want you to bend over backwards to impress them, they’re just gonna want more. So, like I said, no point.”
She placed her hands on her hips and stared down at him, analyzing his face, his tone. He sounded the most serious now that she had ever heard him before, and he turned back around to face his desk.
“Where did you get this cynical idea from?” she asked, remaining where she was while Dave fiddled with one of his pens.
“I just know. From experience, probably. Got my ass pushed into gear way past my limits. And it wasn’t even practice makes perfect shit, it was—” He froze, only trading the pen back and forth between his hands. “It doesn’t matter. All I know is that I didn’t want any of it, and not having to answer to anyone here, well, it’s fucking amazing. And as for you, like, you put a hell of a lot into everything, even if you get hella condescending about it. So if you’re trying hard and no one’s noticing, that’s their problem.”
Despite how it was delivered and the comment concerning how condescending she could be, this was easily the nicest and most genuine thing anyone had ever said to her. And for the first time, she felt seen. She felt heard. Although their circumstances differed, she realized his anxious motions were a reflection of how she felt most days.
Seeing him express his emotions in an outward manner, no matter how subtle, was enough for her to sit back down. The anger in her chest dissipated as she watched him stand up and grab his notebook off of his desk to sit next to her.
Dave wasted no time in opening up his notes.
“So, I started doing some research but got distracted by checking out shit that’s way cooler than this. Took notes, but I kind of draw all over them so it’s more like, open to interpretation. You should really take your notes by drawing them sometime, ‘cause who knows? You could get them hanging up in some sort of museum because it’s way too abstract to mean anything at all.”
Aranea cleared her throat. “Dave, shut up.”
“Can you imagine that if, like, doodles were these secret masterpieces, then we could have douchebag artists everywhere. They just don’t put them where anyone can see them. I’d want that shit plastered over everything for the sake of irony. Every museum, all the—”
“Dave, shut up!”
She could give a few reasons for what she did next, but none of them were worth explanation. As far as he was concerned, she thought, her lips pressed against his in an effort to get him to stop talking.
But the moment she felt his mouth respond to hers, it became obvious that there were indeed more reasons than she initially believed.