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Your name is Dave Strider and you are currently lying awake in your bed staring at the metal bolted ceilings of your block as you realize that you are kind of having conflicting feelings vis a vis your current living situation on this meteor.
Lucky for you, your name is Dave Strider and you don’t really tend to think all too much about your feelings when they come up. If you think too much, you start spiraling, and nobody wants to bear witness to that.
You decide for a better distraction.
--- turntechGodhead [TG] started pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG]
TG: hey
TG: you up
CG: YES DAVE, I’M UP.
CG: IN FACT I AM TRYING TO GET SOME REST CONSIDERING IT’S, YOU KNOW, THE BUTTFUCK MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING NIGHT. WHAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY WANT.
TG: god damn karks is homie time only limited to certain hours now i just wanted to hang out
TG: have you got a new friend now are you replacing me with some cooler better more charming dude
TG: im joking because they dont exist anyway can i come to your block
CG: NO I’M JUST TRYING TO FUCKING SLEEP AND I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU’RE NOT TOO.
TG: ok ill take that as a no then
TG: goodnight karkat
CG: FINE YES YOU CAN COME OVER.
CG: IF YOU STILL WANT TO.
--- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG]
You didn’t wait for a response anyway, it wouldn’t have mattered because Karkat always says yes to whatever you ask eventually. It’s the Strider charm, you think, or at least that is what you tell yourself.
But, Karkat is right, it is the BUTTFUCK MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, at least you think so; the clock on your computer and phone is constantly just stuck at 12am. You’ve all just developed your own circadian rhythm at this point, you all sleep when it feels right to; Rose tried to keep track of the time via stopwatch early on in the trip but you all just kind of gave up eventually.
You’re not really sure why Karkat is the first person you message in situations like this. To be perfectly honest, you kind of hated the guy when you first met him, you thought he was an insufferable prick.
When you first embarked on this trip you thought you would be kind of probably one hundred percent fucked for people to talk to seeing as you were stuck with your sister, who you only recently found out was your sister and her weird alien girlfriend, some insufferable prick and his weird alien ex girlfriend, some murderous alien clown and possibly one step more of an insufferable alien prick than Karkat.
You ended up spending a lot of time in Can Town, and to your annoyance, so did Karkat. You ended up getting to know him more, you suppose you sort of learned he isn’t all too bad.
He likes watching shitty movies, crying at shitty books and bitching and moaning about everything going on around him. But there’s a sort of charm about it, he’s a weird insufferable prick but in a charming way, you suppose.
Currently, at 12:00am or whatever time it probably is, you plant your two feet outside the metal door of Karkats block and knock five times, in a tune that always really pisses him off, for some reason.
“Dave” the troll opens the door, wiping sleep out of his eyes, “Can you please tell me what was so important you had to trudge your infuriating ass down here right now, at this very moment?” his usually shouty and loud voice is quieter right now, sort of raspy.
“Ok, wow, first of all my ass is perfect, not infuriating” you gasp, feigning offense “second of all, like I said, a bro just wants to hang out.”
“First of all,” Karkat mocks, “maybe you should consider that the other bro, simply, does not want to.”
You know Karkat is just pretending to be bothered, like he always does. Maybe it’s a need for attention thing, you’ll never know. He opens the door wider and gestures for you to sit on his bed, letting the door fall shut behind him before returning position to his seat at his desk.
Paper is scattered all over his desk, some crumpled, some neatly folded. His notebook is sitting wide open with lines and lines of words scribbled all over it. This interests you, or maybe you just want to annoy him.
“What you writing Karks?” you stand up, putting your hands on the back of his chair to peer over his shoulder.
“None of your nooksniffing business, Strider.” He slams the notebook shut, turning round to look you dead in the eyes, or, well shades.
“Sure it isn’t, but I still wanna know.” you rest your cheek on the palm of your hand, maybe you can snatch it off of him.
“I said it’s none of your fucking business” he snarls, turning back around to take the notebook onto his lap “besides, its private”
“Nah, there isn’t such a thing as privacy between best bros, c’mon man what is it?” you try to grab the notebook off of him, sometimes, you aren’t sure why you annoy people on purpose all the time. But it’s entertaining.
“STRIDER I’M SERIOUS JUST FUCKING LEAVE IT HOLY SHIT” he shouts, standing up and pushing you back from him, notebook resting under his right arm.
He argues with you, throwing insults to you as you just jokingly plead with him to see what's inside. You go back and forth for about a minute more before you eventually manage to snatch it off of him.
You run away and jump on top of his bed, Karkat scrambling behind you, as you stand on your tippy toes holding the notebook above your head, taking advantage of your obvious height difference. Karkat jumps up trying to grab it back off of you, his claws digging into your forearm as he tries grasping for it.
“I’m serious just fucking give it back or i’m kicking you out my block forever.“ he grabs at the hem of your jumper sleeve, almost trying to climb up you to get it back, you push him away with your leg.
“Dear Terezi—“ you start reading off of the first page, “Dude is this a love letter or something? Gross.”
“STRIDER YOU HAVE FIVE SECONDS TO STOP.” He's punching you now, you kind of feel like an asshole, but you’ve already gone so far. Sometimes, you never really know when to stop.
“I’m sorry for everything that I’ve-” you continue reading.
“I’M SERIOUS JUST FUCKING STOP.” He cuts you off.
You skip to the next page, you stop reading out loud at this point, ‘Dear Gamzee' followed by another apology letter of some sort, ‘Dear Kanaya’ again, followed by another apology, and, ‘Dear Dave’ followed by what you likely infer is another apology before Karkat grabs it out of your hands.
“Just leave, Dave.” Karkat holds the notebook close to his chest and turns his back on you, sitting down on the side of the bed, facing the wall.
Man, you really are an asshole.
“Dude I’m sorry I was just curious, I’ll stop pushing now, can’t we just hang out like-“ you ramble, jumping down off the bed and standing in between Karkat and the door.
“LEAVE, STRIDER” he bursts out, standing up, and for the first time in your life you think you’re seeing karkat cry at something that isn’t a sappy romcom ending scene.
“Karkat, man, c’mon I’m sorry please just let me stay” you back up closer the the door, Karkat is walking forwards towards you. Maybe you really did fuck up this time.
“NO, DAVE.” he shouts through sniffles “You come in here, and invade my fucking privacy and you just never realise you’re in the fucking wrong. You are an uptight selfish asshole.” he points at you.
“Please ‘Kat I’m sorry”
“You really wanna know what I was doing?” he walks closer to you, edging you towards the door “Maybe, just maybe, I was writing fucking letters to all of my friends, dead or alive, because my life is somehow so fucking miserable and boring and I have nobody to fucking talk to on this fucking meteor.” He’s still shouting through tears.
You stare blankly, blinking, a little taken aback. You open your mouth as if to say something, but decide not to.
“So forgive me, for being so fucking depressed about the fact I’m stuck on this floating fucking rock for another sweep with people that don’t want to fucking speak to me or like me, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?” he’s sobbing now, his tears that he usually hides spilling down is cheeks, and now you realize you’ve been staring at him dumbfounded throughout all of this, “Fuck you, Dave. Fuck. You.”
Fuck, he feels the same as you. He’s still crying, you feel like a fucking asshole, and thats because you are.
You do the only thing you know how to, which is not talking about it; you step forward and hug him and you think this is the first and probably the best hug you’ve had in your entire life. He melts into you, lying his head straight on your shoulder, his hands still by his side.
He’s sobbing still, he’s a wreck. His red tears are probably going to stain your shirt but you don't care. You feel like a prick and you need him to know you understand.
“It’s hard, Dave” he says with a raspy voice through tears, into your shoulder “I just can't seem to be happy anywhere. Life on Alternia was so shit, now I’m away from it all and I should be happy but… I’m not”
Fuck.
Fuck.
Your name is Dave Strider and you think that this alien is the only person who has ever understood you.
“I understand, Karkat,” you finally speak up, you hear him breathe as if to start talking, to object maybe, but you speak up before he can “I do. Life on earth for me was shit too, no one fucking liked me, man. And now I'm here on this floating rock and no one likes me still. I don’t know how everyone else does it”
He nods, into your shoulder, as he moves his head to look into your eyes, well, your shades. He moves his hands up to touch them and you’ve never let anyone do this before. You’re freaking out, no one has seen your eyes but Bro, and everytime he saw them he hated you a little bit more, probably because he saw himself in them. Or whatever.
His hands slide your shades on the top of your head and you see his eyes light up, with shock, maybe, or, something. He wipes away the tears you didn’t know you were crying
“Dave you’re…” he starts, whispering, voice strained, and you think this is the first time you’ve heard him speak this quiet before, “you’re just like me.”
And holy fuck, does he understand you. You’re both the same, you’re both feeling the same thing, with the same experiences. Red, the color you have hated so much, that has tormented you so much your entire life, that nobody would ever understand; he understands. Because he felt the same way his whole life too.
He’s close to you now, you feel his breath against your face, at first you think hes looking closer at your eyes, but fuck, he’s still moving.
And so are you.
You are the one to break the distance, you’re not really sure why, and at this moment you decide that Karkat Vantas is the only person you ever want to be this close to again. Your lips crash together, arms tangling in each others hair.
You spin him around so you’re facing the wall and he’s pressed against the wall underneath you and fuck does he look so pretty. With his messy hair, his short stubby horns and that stupid oversized hoodie that he wears as a pajama shirt.
You move deeper into the kiss, you feel him open his mouth and you melt into him even more. He puts his hand on your shoulders and you pull away softly, he lets out a small whine as his lips follow yours like it's all he's ever wanted to do his entire life.
“Dave, I—“ he starts, still panting slightly, voice disheveled and panting slightly, looking up into your eyes.
“I know karkat,” you run your hand across his tear stained cheek “I know”.
Because at this moment in time, nothing more needs to be said, this insufferable prick is the only thing that exists in front of you.