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The thought of therapy left him sweaty and overly uncomfortable, granted it wasn't the real deal. Sitting with Rose in a room while she drilled him with questions couldn't, in truth, be counted as the real deal. He had, before departing for the aforementioned room, invited Karkat to come along, a form of comfort. Granted he doubted that Karkat would show, not because he didn't care immensely, but rather because of that. Seeing Dave at his lowest, laid bare, is a scary prospect. Most anyone would shy away from the idea, it's terrifying. Karkat especially finds it a fearful endeavor, in partial because he himself would never strip down to his bones, to his bare feelings and insides. It isn't in his programming. He's not entirely certain he's capable. Something that leaves him shaky and attempting to grasp onto whatever there is, usually Dave. The two of them have, in the course of the lengthy time period have become inseparable. Although the road there was less like two puzzle pieces fitting together with a satisfactory click and more like the savagery of two wounded things fighting for survival. Their relationship was less puzzle, and more Pyrrhic victory.
Dave's journey through the echoing halls is slow, and each step takes more effort than he's had in months. Maybe this is why she demanded this of him. His skinny form hasn't left the couch in too long, but Karkat has been there beside him. Which is what makes the summon to the room so very puzzling. Although he can guess already the topics she'll thoroughly question him on, and the rambling, hour long rant he'll shit out in response. He'll do this all while tugging a hand through matted blond locks, cursing himself for not cutting his hair shorter the last time he gave Karkat the scissors and demanded that he remove the extra mass. Maybe he'll cut it again tonight, sitting in the white tile bathroom and trying not to picture the sounds from last week. Dave is almost positive Rose needs this more than he does. Something that leaves a hard to swallow mass in his throat. Lately, meteor life has been hard to swallow.
The sound of his shoes on the hard floors, he has no idea what the hell the floors are made of, is enough to keep him grounded. Which is a good thing, because he's aware that if he doesn't watch he'll drift off. He's done it for as long as he can recall, really. Talking to his friends before that distant, ice feeling, settles in his chest and spreads to his stomach. The ice takes over, and before long, lifting one finger to click the mouse is beyond what he can exert. This is a topic he has, amazingly enough, brought up to Rose before. Although not in the pesterlogs, in real life. Well, this life. He's not certain this can be called real life, or what can in fact qualify as real. Life has gotten tricky in this way. It's hard to function when reality is in question. Karkat thinks the same thing, he knows this much.
Four nights ago, while the two lounged in the bed they so often share (despite karkat's need for a very different sleeping arrangement), they both found themselves awake at what he could only assume was the bullshit meteor equivalent of four in the morning. Dave had rolled over, expecting Karkat to be entirely gone, returned to his own room but there he was. Yellow eyes rimmed with a darker gray met his own strange set of irises, and his mouth had quirked up into a bitter smile. Karkat is softer at bullshit meteor four in the morning.
"You're still awake."
"So are you." Dave's words are less elaborate this time of morning. He grimaces at the simplicity, but also finds he's very much grateful that this hasn't taken off into one of his especially long morning conversations. Which honestly turn into more of a monologue than a dialogue. The two of them simply stare for a long while, comforted by the other being in the bed.
"You're going to look like shit in the morning."
"I'm going to feel like shit tomorrow."
"Want to talk?" It's the first time Dave has ever heard him offer this, and he ponders the idea of it.
"It's hard to know what the hell can be considered real and fake, you know? What if this," He gestures at the two of them in a quick motion "is the fake shit. What if I'm going to wake up with Lord English towering over me tomorrow and find out this was a mind game? What if, we aren't even really here. You can't know with the game, and it's really fucking me up." His words end with a ragged breath, and Karkat gives him the gentlest of touched on the cheek before nodding very slowly. He doesn't reply, he just nods. There isn't any comfort to be had here, because the game has taken away the simplicity of realness, or falseness. There is only the hope that this timeline is right, that this, will not end in disaster, and that leaves such an empty place in between his ribs.
After this talk, he allows himself to fade into the comfort of a dreamless sleep. Although in a grand total of three hours, he wakes up in a pool of his own sweat, Karkat is gone this time. Dave is fine with that. Afterwards he will stay awake for forty-eight hours, and then he will crash. He does this twice before today. Not a soul on the meteor has thought to question him, or rather feels right questioning him. It's not a matter of forgetting, it's a matter of not feeling entirely comfortable bringing up the way he slumps when he walks, or speaks in his low murmur during their conversations. Karkat has brought it up, and Dave has turned into a rabid thing each time. Rose has brought up, and he's turned into a ghost. Dave Strider is struggling, and Karkat wants to yell at him.
Although the entire meteor has seen what yelling does. In the beginning Dave was an actor of impressive proportions. He could've conned anyone with the skill he had. Nowadays, each shout leaves him flinching, the residual effects of his brother linger. Maybe that's why he's come to find himself in the unused room. There ware two pillows on the ground, and Rose sits on one of them. Her eyes are closed, and he wonders softly if it's the hangover settling in her skull. He's seen his brother hungover more than once, but he thinks that the Lalonde across from him has seen more hungover adults than perhaps any human ought to. He clears his throat, and she cracks open one eye, but doesn't startle. Dave feels a spike of envy, all he does is startle. He's more nerves than boy at this point.
"I see you've managed to find your way here then, Dave. I was beginning to find myself fearing that perhaps you had decided to remove yourself from therapy program entirely." Her lips quirk up into the oddest smile he's ever seen. After a moment of strange eye contact, he sits down on the other pillow and crosses his legs.
"I invited Karkat, figured having the boy toy here might help me feel like spilling my guts for you to pick through."
"He's not going to come." She sounds so certain, and he flinches as her certainty. She will later be proven correct.
"Set the tone, Lalonde, the faster we get this done the faster I can resume staring at myself in the mirror until I decide how short to chop my hair. Some of us have seriously important things to do, Rose. My ego can't handle this haircut for much longer." She scoffs in response to this.
"How about we talk about your brother." She's gone there, and Dave slides hands under his shades to rub his sore, very tired, eyes.
When he finally does talk, his voice comes out hoarse and soft, less Dave, more vacant lot. "There is, in my general opinion, a massive number of shit things I could say about him, I'll go in depth though, just for you. Living with him was progressively worse than this meteor. I'm telling you straight that I would rather live on a meteor with a finite number of days until my ultimate death than remain in Houston. Which is some seriously tough shit to hear, and I'm sorry but the thing is, the abuse endured in that apartment, fucked me up. It's not like he actively went out of his way to beat the shit out of me, or didn't intend to, I think. I'm not forgiving shit behavior, and he did fuck me up on a regular basis, but I fought back. I'm not the helpless kid taking a smackdown, I could defend, you get that, right?" He pauses, moving his hands to stare at her, she is nodding ever so slightly, he exhales and continues.
"But fuck if I didn't despise him. The problem wasn't the constant shitstorm he forced me to endure on the roof until my ribs literally ached, it was more along the lines of the way he made me act. It was manipulation, living like that makes you feel small. Smaller than any person should, do you understand that?" She nods again, he keeps going. "It was like being a rat, or a cockroach or something. I had to scurry around in the dead of night to find scraps, hoard that shit for the winter and pray that he didn't discover the pest problem. I didn't even become aware of how utterly fucked up the puppet thing was until you guys sideswiped me into this shit. If the game hadn't come, I would've died there, like that, I think. There are still circumstances that make it hard to know what hell I would've been hanging around in without this mess." His breathing is rapid, she writes this in her notes.
"But the worst part, the actual worst, the normal days. Days where he didn't leap off the ceiling pulling some spiderman 'we need to train' bullshit. The worst days were the days when he was here totally there, and he was vivid and I thought, that guy, the other guy, it can't be him. That was all a freak accident, he's better now. And then, I'd blink and he'd be there again, katana in hand. It's shitty, you know. People think, they honestly fucking think, it's hard to hate your guardian. How could anyone hate the person that raised you, right? You tell them, you explain, and they still say you should love him. He raised me, I owe him. It's bullshit. I'm calling bullshit on that mentality. You don't owe the people that raised you just because they helped keep you alive before you could handle it on your own. You don't owe them shit." He pauses, to take a breath, and then he's back in full force.
"Everyone assumes you can only hate the dick that raised you if they really fucked you up. Which in my case generally lets me avoid this scenario where people claim I should still be kissing his ass, respecting his memory, what the fuck ever. It's just like, he did more shitty things than I can count, and people honestly still grimace when I say I hate him. It's beyond the point trying to elaborate on this shit with Karkat, because he didn't have a brother, guardian, whatever. He had the crab guy, and he loved him. Something that wasn't even the same species did a better job at raising a kid than my brother." He's done now, she can see it in the way he exhales, fighting back the smallest of sobs. She does the only thing that she can think to do, scoot forward and pull him into her shoulder. He's a mess by the time it happens, and she comforts him, she is doing her best, making the smallest of notes on her little notepad.
"Dave, I think we need to discuss the possibility of a number of problems. This is our third time speaking, and I've come to several hasty conclusions. Although the emergence of serious PTSD on account of childhood trauma is most definitely easily diagnosed. Although, the recent behavior leads me to suspect perhaps, you're one of the thousands that find borderline personality disorder and honest diagnosis. Depression most certainly, Karkat could see that one. He reported your behavior to me, in truth." Her voice sounds harsh in his ears, and he feels like snarling before he pushes her away.
"Thanks for your quote professional unquote opinion." He stands, pushing away greasy hair from his face. When he opens the door, Karkat is standing there, and Dave finds himself stumbling forward to sink into his arms. The smallest of comforts. There are, after all, no real therapists aboard this meteor, or anyone that can with honest science help him push away what tugs at the back of his mind, and for now, he'll savor the smallest of cures. For now, he'll give into they Pyrrhic victory, he'll win, even at a cost. He's come to find that there is always a cost these days. Although for now he only wants to think about the steady embrace until tomorrow, when he will wake up and not so gracefully push himself to move again. He will be sluggish, and he will be sick in ways that can't be so easily cured, but he will certainly keep moving, or make the attempt. There is no cure, only the slow process of attempting to pull himself upwards again, until a real victory can be claimed, one without losses, a real one.