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It finally happens on a random Tuesday. Or, well, something finally happens.
As is customary most nights, you and Dave are watching a movie. It’s one you’ve seen before, and typically that means Dave would be talking over it the entire time. He’s been surprisingly quiet, though.
He hasn’t even said anything about the fact that you keep glancing over at him. You’re not sure if he’s actually noticed? He usually calls you out for that (not that you stare at him a lot or anything), asks if something is on his face, accuses you of being unable to “get your fill” or whatever nonsense it is he’s always spewing.
You watch him for another moment while he stares off into nothing and begins to pick at the little bits of skin around his useless human nails.
You lean over and nudge your shoulder against his. “Thought you were going to stop doing that.”
Dave jumps a little, and you feel bad for startling him. He stops picking at his hands, at least, but when you actually face him, you notice how flushed he looks.
“Are you sick or something?”
He mumbles something that almost sounds like, “Lovesick, maybe,” but no, that can’t be right. You’ve probably got the television turned up too loud because you definitely misheard him.
When you ask him to repeat himself, he says, “No, I'm not sick.”
“Okay…”
“Just. Y’know. Watching the movie.”
“Riiiiight.”
He doesn’t offer anything more than that. Clearly something is up, but you know from experience that actively trying to get whatever it is out of him will just make him clam up more. As frustrating as that is, you’ve learned to work with it.
You don’t say anything more, pointedly stop looking at Dave, and go back to watching the movie.
Less than two minutes later, Dave speaks up again.
“Oh, hey. Karkat. So. Speaking of movies…”
“I’m not turning it off. It’s my turn to pick tonight.” You internally cringe a little the second that is out of your ignorance shaft. Dave wouldn’t be nervous about telling you to turn a movie off. He does it all the time.
“Wasn’t gonna ask you to. Would never dream of violating the sacred rules of our movie night selecting schedule.”
“What do you want then?”
“You ever been to a drive-in?”
You aren’t sure what you were expecting, but that wasn’t it at all. “We get food at drive-ins all the time.”
“That’s a drive-thru. I know you know that, man, nobody’s ever called those drive-ins.”
You roll your eyes. Neither of you are great at getting to the point, but you really wish Dave would sometimes. “Then no, I’ve never been to a ‘drive-in’. What does this have to do with movies and why is it worth interrupting the one we’re currently watching?”
“You know we never actually watch these things.” Yeah, he has a point. “You’ve seen it a million times.”
You’re just going to ignore that previous thought of yours. “That’s not the point!”
“Okay, but… No. Fuck. I do have a point and you’re right, it’s not that. A drive-in is like a theater. For movies. Of course it’s for movies. I don’t know why I clarified that. Why would I be like ‘haha speaking of movies’ and then ask you to go see a play. Anyway, the theater is outside and you’re in your car instead of in a packed room with a bunch of strangers.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“Naw dude, it’s great. Or it sounds great. I’ve never been to one either. Don’t even know if there was one near me when I still lived on OG Earth. And there wasn’t one on the meteor obviously. Can you imagine if there was? None of us would be able to go. No licenses.”
“Yes, that’s the only reason a ‘drive-in’ wouldn’t have worked on the meteor.”
“Hah, yeah. Also, you’d know if I’d been to one here. You’d probably be with me since you’re like. Always with me.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Pft, you love it.” That nervous tone of his comes back when he asks, “So do you wanna go?”
“Go to what?”
“The drive-in, dude. Keep up. They’re playing some new extended version of that movie you insist isn’t just a troll remake of Ghost this weekend.”
“Why would I want to drive somewhere and sit in the car to see that? We have it right over there on the shelf.” You point at said shelf, where your copy of the Earth C cinematic masterpiece Dave usually refers to by names such as Troll Ghost: The Remix is sitting. You’ve stopped correcting him because his titles are faster to say than the actual title.
“Did you not hear the ‘extended version’ part? It’s got unreleased scenes or something. Because they needed to make it even longer than it already was for some reason.”
“It’s not that long. Why do you want to go anyway? You always complain when we watch it.”
“I complain when we watch all of your movies dude. It’s whatever, you know I’m still gonna sit here and watch them. Or talk to you while they play, same thing.”
“You’re really selling this.”
“C’mon, it might be fun? It’s like. A whole experience, I guess. And I’m not gonna lie, it sounds way better than sitting in those shitty theater seats. Your car is way cozier.”
That does sound better than going to a regular theater, you guess. And you are intrigued about the extended scenes. You’re a little baffled about how Dave heard about this before you did, though. “Okay, sure. Why do you want to see this particular movie at the drive-in? Why not pick something you actually want to see?”
“It’s just, y’know…” Dave looks down at his lap for a moment, then shifts his gaze to your face. He’s not quite looking you in the eye, but it’s close enough. “I kinda wanted to take you out this weekend and it seemed pretty perfect, with it being a movie you already like? That way if the whole drive-in thing or the chilling with me part sucks, it’s still somewhat okay?”
“...You wanted to take me out this weekend.”
“Um. Yeah. Properly take you out, I mean. If that’s okay? I know we hang out all the time but I’ve been thinking we could, uh, go out. As like… you know?”
You wish he'd just come right out and say it, but he's right. You do know.
You two have been walking the line between friends and something more than friends for a long time. Probably since you were still on the meteor, honestly.
But you'd both had a lot of shit to deal with after the game. Settling into a whole new planet, reconnecting with old friends, meeting new ones, working through all the ways your original societies and the game itself had fucked you both up. Honestly, it was a lot.
You’d immediately started living together, of course. There had really been no question about what your living situation would be like as you all made Earth C your new home. Outside of being best friends, there was some sort of unspoken something between the two of you. But you don’t think either of you were ready to put a name to whatever that was back then. Not yet.
You think you're both a lot closer to being ready now. It's just been much harder than you thought it would be for either of you to take that step.
(Even though, as your friends all constantly remind you, you two basically have been in a relationship this whole time.)
You can't speak for Dave (he can clearly handle that himself), but you think maybe you've both just been scared. There is still a part of you that worries Dave will reject you if you make any clear advances that you two can't just awkwardly brush off and ignore.
You must have been quiet for just a bit too long because you’re broken from your thoughts by Dave saying, “Stupid idea, sorry.”
He sounds disappointed, hurt, and fuck, now you feel bad. You didn’t mean to take so long to reply.
“We can go to the drive-in since you already seem to have it all planned out.” Dave still doesn’t quite seem like himself, and that won’t do, so you nudge his shoulder again. “Is this just because you want me to drive you there? Is that what this is?” You know it’s not.
He snorts out a laugh. “Why would I come up with some nefarious plot to make you drive me out to a field to watch one of your favorite movies? I can drive if you really want.”
“I do not want you to drive my car.”
“Then yeah, you’re gonna need to drive, but that’s all you gotta do. I’ll take care of everything else. Well, the drive-in people are gonna take care of the whole putting on the movie thing, but I’ll, uh, double-check the time and buy the tickets and give you the address. All that kind of stuff.”
“Fine. Sure.”
“Great. Cool. It’s a date.”
And there it is.
There was a time when Dave might correct himself, or insist it’s just a phrase that people say, even if it’s not a date. And you would let him brush it off, even though you couldn’t really think of any actual examples of him ever using that “phrase” before.
Because there’s been a few times when you thought maybe he was asking you on a date, or at least that he wanted to. You two would have dinner at a slightly nicer place than usual per Dave’s request, or he’d randomly dress up to go see a movie, or would insist he wanted to go have a picnic in the park “just because.”
There’s also been times when things just felt… different, between you two. More intense, you suppose? He’d sit a little closer on the couch than he normally did while you two were just hanging around watching movies or playing video games. He’d brush his hand against yours while you were walking around, or let his fingers linger a little too long while passing you a mug of coffee in the morning.
There’s even been more than a few times when the two of you hung out in one of your rooms and fell asleep in the same bed, then woke up in the morning in positions that were far from friendly.
Sometimes Dave seems nervous for no reason that you can discern, like he was earlier. He’ll act like he’s going to say something important, only to go quiet, or say something decidedly not important and far more in line with his typical inane rambling.
Nothing has actually happened yet, but you think maybe it’s happening now, for real.
“Hey, Earth C to Karkat.”
“What?”
“I said the movie is on Saturday. Thought maybe you’d like to know what day we’re going instead of me just shoving you into the car randomly. Should’ve probably led with that.”
“I don’t think you could shove me in the car if you tried.”
Dave shrugs, a silly grin on his face as he does so. “Maybe I can. Gonna have to try another time since I already told you the day, though. Which, again, is Saturday.”
“Yes, I didn’t forget that in the last 30 seconds. I already said I’d go to the drive-in thing with you, Saturday is fine.”
The smile Dave gives you in response to that is far closer to a genuine smile. You can’t help but think he looks so handsome when he does that, as rare as it is.
It’s Saturday, and you’re changing before you head out to the drive-in with Dave. He’s been acting incredibly weird all day. All week, actually.
You guess you can’t blame him. You’re also nervous about this whole first-date business, so you can understand some of his behavior. It almost feels like you two have been caught in some sort of limbo since Dave asked you on this date. You’ve just been doing the same things you normally do— hanging out, watching movies, arguing over whose turn it is to go to the store before ultimately deciding you’ll just both go.
But there’s been an undercurrent of… excitement? Anxiety? Maybe a mix of both? Every time you two are together, it’s obvious that things aren’t quite the same as before. Neither of you have actually talked about it, though. Maybe you’re both just waiting to make sure the date goes well, even though you don’t know why it wouldn’t.
You suppose you’ll find out soon enough.
Dave has been in his room for over an hour. He’d made a big show of needing to get ready, even though he was already dressed in perfectly decent clothes. You personally didn’t see why he’d bothered to change out of his pajamas earlier today if he was just going to change again. You two hadn’t left the hive at all today.
That’s really the only reason you’re changing now. For the second time today. You’d changed out of your sweatpants and put on an outfit you thought was suitable enough for the date only a few hours ago.
But then Dave had said you should both get ready to go, and you started to second-guess yourself.
You think you definitely look more than decent now, though.
You’re about to leave your block and head downstairs when you hear a knock at your door. Odd. Dave never knocks on your bedroom door. He just barges in like he owns the place, and if you happen to be indecent when he does so, oh well! Guess you both get to be embarrassed about it.
“What? I know for a fact we’re not running late, I’ll be out in a second.”
There’s a pause, as Dave does not immediately open the door. You roll your eyes and turn the handle to open it yourself. “Why are you being so wei— What is that?”
Dave is standing just outside the door to your block, holding a single, very obviously fake red flower in one hand. “Was gonna get you real ones, but I didn’t really wanna be sneezing any time I went in the kitchen for the next week, y’know?” His cheeks are pink as he pushes the plastic stem into your hand.
You go to smell the flower as if on reflex, then immediately remember that this flower is fake as shit and likely smells like plastic. Dave, thankfully, does not comment on your stupidity.
You let your hand drop back to your side, faux-flower still clutched in your fist, and look Dave over.
He is somehow still far more dressed up than you are. Thankfully, he’s not wearing a full suit because that would be ridiculous. But he is wearing what he claims are his “nice jeans,” along with a neatly pressed dark gray button-up you’ve never seen before.
“Is there a dress code for this drive-in place or something? Do I need to change?”
“Huh? No no. You look fine. Good. You look great. Really great. No dress code.”
“Then why are you wearing that?”
“What, I can’t dress up to take my b— uh, my… you. I can’t dress up to take you out?”
You don’t linger on whatever it was he was about to say because this is already awkward enough.
“Whatever,” you say instead. “Let’s go. At least we don’t have to waste time finding a vase for this thing.”
The two of you put on your shoes and jackets. Dave checks multiple times to make sure he has the tickets you both need to get into the drive-in. You remind him each time he “double checks” that the printed-out pieces of paper are in his jacket pocket.
Dave also grabs a few snuggleplanes and stuffs them into a tote bag. When you shoot him a questioning look, he just offers, “In case it gets cold,” as an explanation.
Once you’re ready to leave, Dave starts to open the front door, only to stop and immediately run off back in the direction you just came from.
“Where the hell are you going?”
“Forgot something!”
“It better not be the tickets because those are in your pocket.”
“It’s not!”
You wait awkwardly by the front door until Dave comes running back, carrying… a small speaker? “Why do you need that?”
“For the drive-in.”
“Wow, thanks. That explains everything. Why do you need a speaker for the drive-in? I don’t think anyone wants to listen to you blast your shitty music while they’re trying to watch a movie.”
Dave laughs and you cross your arms, giving him your best glare in hopes of getting him to actually tell you what’s going on. You pretend the glare worked when he starts talking again. “They play the sound for the movie through the radio. So you gotta tune in to the right channel to hear stuff. Otherwise it would be kind of shitty trying to hear from inside your car.”
That makes sense, you guess. “I have a radio in my car.”
“Yeah, but your speakers are garbage because you won’t let me get you a sick new sound system.”
“Because I don’t need one, you— Fuck it, bring the speaker and let’s go. I don’t want to be late.”
“As if I’d let us be late, c’mon. It’s a special occasion.”
You don’t argue back that you two have absolutely been late to birthday parties and other “special occasions” before because him referring to your date as a special occasion in the first place is doing some strange things to your pump biscuit right now.
Dave loops his free arm through yours while you walk out to the car. You roll your eyes at the cheesy gesture, but you don’t comment on it. You kind of like it anyway.
Then Dave makes a whole show of opening the driver’s side door for you, and you can’t help it, you do comment on that. “Whatever effect you’re going for here is kind of ruined by the fact that I’m the one driving us, you know.”
He does not seem deterred by your words one bit. “Sure, man. After you.”
You get in the car and roll your eyes when Dave closes the door for you, then runs around to the other side of the car to throw the speaker and tote bag in the backseat before he finally slides into the passenger seat next to you.
The ride over to the drive-in is… odd, to say the least.
Dave doesn’t even try to turn on music, for one. After he pulls up the navigation on his phone to guide you to your destination, he just sits there fiddling with the bottom of his shirt for the first few minutes of the drive.
You glance over at him while you’re stopped at a light. “Is something wrong?”
He startles as if he was somehow not aware you were there next to him. In the driver’s seat. Driving the car that he’s currently occupying. “Huh? Oh yeah, I’m fine. Fantastic, even. Excited to see if this whole drive-in thing is all it’s cracked up to be.”
“I have no idea what you’re expecting with this, but sure. Hope it’s what you want.”
“Not really expectin’ anything in particular, I guess.” He moves on from tugging at the bottom of his shirt and starts playing with the zipper on his jacket. “Just, uh. So you know.”
“So I know what?”
“That I’m not expecting anything. Y’know, from you.” He says it so quietly, so nervously, that you get the feeling he’s not really talking about the drive-in anymore.
You honestly didn’t think he was expecting anything from you at all, but the reassurance is nice, you suppose. “Good to know you have zero expectations,” you joke. “Can’t disappoint you.”
The bad joke must land because Dave laughs. “As if you ever disappoint me.”
“Pft. It’s definitely happened before.”
“I guess your taste in movies is still a little disappointing. Thought maybe it would get better eventually, but it sure didn't.”
“In that case, you’ve disappointed me too, so we’re even.”
You aren’t looking at Dave because you’ve got your eyes on the road, but you can practically feel the tension leave him after that. He still doesn’t turn on any music, and there is a lull in the conversation, but it’s a far more comfortable silence than before.
It’s not silent for long, though.
“...I remembered the tickets, right?”
You groan. “Yes. They’re in an envelope, in your jacket pocket, which is zipped shut, so there’s no possible way they could have jumped out and run away from you.”
Despite your words, you hear a rustling that indicates Dave is probably checking his pocket again.
“Are they still in your pocket, or have they transported themselves elsewhere?” you ask.
“Yup. They’re still in there, not yup they transported themselves somewhere else. Crisis averted.”
You’re almost to the drive-in, thankfully. You’re hoping Dave will chill out once you’re parked, and he no longer needs to ensure he hasn’t somehow managed to lose your tickets (which are also on his palmhusk, even if he does manage to lose the paper).
As you get into the line of cars waiting to get inside the “theater,” Dave asks if you’re excited. He sounds so hopeful, though there is that seemingly ever-present nervous undercurrent in his tone. As if you wouldn’t be excited about spending time with him.
“Yeah,” you tell him sincerely. “Are you?”
“Hell yeah I am. I’m gonna buy us so many snacks.”
“Oh, is that all you’re excited for?”
Dave reaches over and pats your leg in an almost reassuring way despite you not actually needing any reassurance at this particular moment. “Naw. I’m also excited to talk shit all we want without other people telling us to shut up.”
You snort. “Yes, that is a plus. Maybe if this whole thing doesn’t suck, we can come back and see something we haven’t already seen.”
“And if it does suck?”
“Then I guess our next date will be annoying everyone in a regular theater.”
Dave sounds incredibly flustered when he responds, “Yeah. Our next date. For sure.”
Once you’re finally through the entrance gate, Dave insists you park in a particular spot near the middle of the lot. “Good job gettin’ here so fast, we got the best spot.”
“How would you know it’s the best spot? Thought you’d never been to a drive-in before?”
“I haven’t. Just did a little research.” You can tell Dave is going for a nonchalant tone, but he sounds a little embarrassed about this supposed “research.”
“You did research. About drive-ins.”
“Yeah, man. Can’t have us showing up not knowing all the etiquette and shit.”
“Well you didn’t tell me any of this etiquette.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll let you know if you make any egregious drive-in errors.”
Once you’re parked and settled in, Dave pushes his door open and jumps out of the car.
“Where are you— Hi.”
Dave opens the driver’s side door and leans down to tug on your hand. “C’mon, let’s go get some snacks.”
“Jesus, I’m coming, don’t pull my arm off.” You try to sound annoyed, but you can’t help but laugh at how excited Dave looks.
“Think I’d have to pull a lot harder to get this thing off. You’re pretty sturdy.” Dave demonstrates this by pulling on your hand again as he walks away from the car. “See? Perfectly fine.”
Dave continues to hold your hand as you two make your way through the lot, toward the back corner where a small building is. You feel a bit ridiculous about how giddy just holding his hand makes you. He only drops your hand once you get to the building’s entrance, and that is to run up ahead of you and hold the door open.
“I am capable of opening doors, you know.”
“Well, yeah, I know that.” That doesn’t stop him from continuing to hold the door until you step inside. “Gotta give you the whole date experience.”
Apparently, the “whole date experience” also involves Dave buying anything you so much as look at. He gets a huge bag of popcorn, which isn’t odd because you two always get one when you go see a movie, but he also raids the rack of candy by the cash register and gets far more than either of you could possibly eat.
You comment that the shitty nachos look a little less shitty than the ones at the theater you usually go to, and he gets those too. Then he insists you both need drinks to wash it all down, even though you know he shoved a few water bottles into the bag currently sitting in the backseat of your car.
You have to hold the door open for him once you two finally head back to the car because he insists on carrying all the food. He only lets you take the drinks because he’d nearly dropped them when he was trying to balance everything in his arms.
Once you’re back to the car, Dave carefully deposits all the food in the passenger seat before opening up the door to the backseat. He starts pulling out all the snuggleplanes and arranging them.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting our setup ready. Gonna be way better to sit back here than in the front. Can lean the seat backs forward so they don’t block our view too, don’t worry.”
He seems to have this all figured out already, so you just stand around awkwardly until he motions for you to get in the backseat with him. “How long did you spend planning this all out?” you ask him once you’re both situated.
“Uh, probably more time than entirely necessary. Don’t worry about it.”
It’s a little awkward trying to balance the popcorn bag, nachos, and drinks in your laps (Dave left the boxes of candy in the front seat, thankfully). You don’t say anything, not wanting to complain too much since Dave seems so concerned about making this nice for you.
He ends up commenting on it when the popcorn bag almost tips over for the third time. “Heh, guess this is one thing the theater has on the drive-in. Cup holders.”
“I have cup holders in the front seat.”
“Well. Yeah. Didn’t think that part through, sorry.”
“I suppose I can forgive you for my car not having cup holders in the back.” You lean forward, reach around the front seat, and deposit your drink into the cup holder. “There. Problem solved. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that before.”
“...Don’t know why I didn’t either.”
Dave tips the popcorn over again while he is also putting his drink in the front seat, but you catch it before it has a chance to spill everywhere.
You’d thought Dave was finally starting to relax, that he was in a less anxious mood now that you’d both made it to the drive-in and gotten settled in, but he starts acting strange again as soon as the opening credits of the movie start up.
He’s doing the thing again, where it seems like he wants to say something, but he never actually says anything. He inhales a few times like he’s going to start talking, but he always cuts himself off with a fake yawn or by shoving some chips or popcorn into his mouth.
You guess it’s nice being able to watch the new scene near the beginning of the movie without the two of you talking over it, but you weren’t expecting him to be silent the whole time. You never expect that from him, even when you’re in a normal theater, and he probably should be quiet the whole time.
About twenty minutes in, you reach your hand into the popcorn bag, only to pull back nothing but kernels.
“How did we manage to eat this whole thing already?” you complain. “It’s not even halfway through the movie.”
“Oh shit, sorry. Didn’t realize how fast we were plowing through the bag. I can go get you some more, hang tight.”
Dave grabs the door handle, but before he can zip away out of the car, you grab his sleeve. “No, just stay here.” You gesture at the pile of snacks still sitting in the front seat. “You bought half the concession stand already, I don’t need more popcorn.”
Dave lets go of the door, but he looks unsure. “It’s fine, I don’t mind getting more. Can grab you a refill on your drink, too.”
"You know you don't have to bribe me, right?” you joke.
Dave doesn’t laugh. Instead, he frowns and looks down at the still very much empty popcorn bag. "I’m not trying to bribe you. I just want you to have a good time."
"I am having a good time. And I’ll continue to have a good time without you running around all over the place when we’re both just supposed to be sitting in the car watching this movie."
Dave still won’t look at you. "Oh. Okay. Sorry."
"You don't have to be sorry, it's fine, just—"
"I know I'm not good at this kind of stuff."
You suddenly feel incredibly lost and you wonder, not for the first time, if you two are somehow having different conversations right now. You have no idea what he could possibly mean. Not good at what, going to the movies? If he wasn’t good at that, neither were you. "What? What kind of stuff?"
Dave’s voice is quiet when he responds, and you have to lean in to hear him over the sound of the moving coming through his speaker. "The whole... being romantic and going on dates kind of stuff. All the things people are always doing in your movies."
"Since when do you care what people do in 'my' movies?"
"Since you care about it? You like all that sort of stuff. And you've been so patient with me, way more than I deserve—"
"Dave.”
“—so I really wanted to do something nice for you—”
“Dave.”
“—but this clearly isn't—"
“Dave!” He tries to continue yet again but you cut him off before he can. “No. Shush. Let me talk.”
"Right. Shutting up."
"First of all, you've been just as patient with me, so fuck off with that whole you don't deserve it nonsense.” He scoffs at that and you glare at him. “It’s true, you have, and I’m not going to sit here and listen to you say otherwise.”
“Okay.”
“And second…” Before you continue, you reach over and grab one of Dave’s hands to make him stop playing with that damn popcorn bag. His fingers are covered in the oily butter topping that was slathered all over the popcorn, but so are yours, so you don’t really care. “I'm sorry if I haven't made this clear, but I’m having a great time. And I’d be having a great time even if you didn’t run around opening doors for me and buying me everything you can think of, okay? You don't... you don't have to act any differently than you usually do. I already like you."
You far more than “like” Dave at this point, but you’re not sure if either of you is ready for that quite yet. This is only your first official date, after all.
Dave doesn’t immediately respond, and you think maybe you’ve messed up somehow, but then he whispers, “I like you too. A whole lot. More than a lot, actually, but I am kinda incapable of quantifying how much I like you right now. But I do. Y’know. In case that wasn’t obvious.”
“It is, but still nice to hear.”
He finally, finally looks up and smiles at you. “I’ll stop with the bribery, then. Promise.”
The back seat of your car isn’t nearly as big as the couch back at your shared hive, so obviously you and Dave are sitting a little closer together than you normally would. You’re fairly certain that was the whole point of sitting back here in the first place, despite Dave insisting it was because the view is better.
Things are a little less awkward than they were when the movie first started. Dave is back to making his usual comments. He does quiet down when the second of the new scenes shows up, but he launches into some new and improved commentary the second it’s over.
He is still being a little weird. You can’t really blame him, though. You’re also not quite sure what to do each time your knees brush or your thighs rub up against each other whenever one of you shifts in your seat.
You see Dave lift his arm a few times out of the corner of your eye. Each time he adjusts one of the snuggleplanes or pretends to brush something off his lap, but you’re sure that is not what he’s actually trying to do.
You eventually decide that, fuck it, you’re going to put you both out of your misery and bridge the increasingly small gap between you.
You lift your own arm, intending to oh so casually put it around Dave’s shoulders.
What you actually end up doing is bumping your elbow into Dave’s because he’d apparently decided he was finally going to go for it for real this time.
He hisses out an, “Ow,” when your arms knock together. “Coulda just told me to fuck off, y’know.”
“I don’t want you to fuck off.” You rub your own elbow because yeah, ow. “I want you to stop fidgeting around and just get over here.”
“The whole knocking my arm away thing is kinda saying the opposite, but okay, dude.”
“I wasn’t knocking your arm away! Just. Do what you were going to do and I’ll try to not mess it up this time.”
Dave doesn’t make a move right away and you’re worried that the moment is ruined, that he’s going to take even longer to work up the courage this time. You’re ready to offer more reassurance, tell him that it is perfectly fine for him to touch you all he wants (you flush at that thought, fuck), but then he’s finally, finally, scooting over closer to you as he wraps his arm around your shoulders.
It’s not like this is the first time he’s ever done something like that. You just very much doubt he’s going to try to play this off as a “bro hug” like he has in the past.
You lean into his side, shift so your own hand rests comfortably on Dave’s knee instead of being trapped between the two of you.
Dave makes a motion that almost feels like a shiver when your hand touches his knee.
“Is my hand cold or something?” you ask him. Your hands are pretty much never cold and you don’t know how he’d feel that through his jeans anyway if they were, but might as well ask.
“When have your hands ever been cold?” he asks in return, echoing your own thoughts.
You shift your hand, wondering if you should just put it somewhere else?
Dave makes the weird shivering motion again and that’s when something clicks.
You grin, then move your fingers a little higher, brushing against Dave’s inner thigh and he—
Stifles a laugh as he starts squirming.
Something different clicks because your first assumption was not correct, apparently. “Are you ticklish?” you ask him.
“No!”
“How have I never noticed this before?”
“Because I’m not ticklish, dude. That’s how.”
You ghost your fingers over his thigh again, purposely trying to tickle him this time. You are rewarded with a full-on giggle as Dave starts to squirm more.
“Kinda seems like you are.”
“Fuck you, two can play at that game.”
Before you can ask what that is supposed to mean, Dave reaches over with the arm that isn’t already wrapped around you and jabs you right in the armpit.
To your horror, your body jolts as a noise very similar to the ones Dave was making comes out of your mouth. You refuse to call it a giggle when you do it, even though that is exactly what it is.
“Hah! Knew it.”
“That hurt,” you insist, despite the fact that it clearly did not. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Dave does not even pretend to care about “hurting you,” which you guess is fine seeing as he did not actually do such a thing. “Uh huh, sure it did.” Dave does it again and oh yeah, this is full out war.
Soon enough, you and Dave are poking and prodding at one another like total wigglers. His knees and thigh seem to be the most ticklish spots so you keep aiming for those. Dave quickly discovers that you, unfortunately, are ticklish in quite a few more spots other than your armpits. You’re pretty sure the two of you are rocking the entire car at this point, but you can’t even be bothered to be embarrassed about it.
If someone were to ask you later when exactly the mood shifted during this completely immature tickle fight, you could not tell them. There’s no reason for it, really. Dave stays clear of any… “sensitive” spots on your body, and you’re fairly sure there is nothing romantic or sexy about the way either of you are touching one another.
But suddenly, Dave’s lips brush against yours and the tickling stops entirely.
You make a surprised noise. Dave starts to pull away and nope, that is not happening right now. You pull him back toward you by the shoulders and he seems to get what you want because he’s kissing you again in no time.
The kiss somehow seems to last an eternity and only a few seconds at the same time. You wonder if Dave is doing something to the passage of time or if it’s just you feeling this way.
Dave is flushed and smiling when he pulls back to take a breath. You’re certain your face mirrors him exactly. “Why haven’t we been doing that this whole time?” he asks with a laugh.
You can’t help but laugh too. “Did you want an actual answer or…?”
“No, absolutely not. You don’t need to recount the last however many years for me, we’d be here all night. There’s other things I’d rather be doing anyway.”
You are obviously not paying attention to the movie at this point, haven’t been for a while, but when the familiar sound of the end-credits starts up, you finally remember that, oh yeah. This version had bonus scenes. And you missed pretty much the entire second half of the movie.
You groan.
“That bad, huh?” Dave jokes in that way he does where you can tell he’s not completely joking.
“Not you, you’re fine.”
“Just fine? Damn, I’m really going to have to step up my game, then.”
You laugh, lean in to kiss his cheek just because you can do that now, then gesture over at the large movie screen. “The movie’s over. We missed all those extra scenes that we specifically came here to see.”
Dave’s lips turn down in a frown and you want to insist that it’s okay, you’re not really complaining, then he grins and says, “It’s okay, I can rewind it.”
The alarm you feel at that comment completely wipes away any disappointment you were feeling about not seeing a few extra minutes of some movie you’ve already seen a million times. “No, do not do that, don’t use your powers over something this fucking stupid. I already told you you don't need to do over-the-top 'romantic' things to impress me or whatever it is you’re trying to do right now.”
Dave looks more and more startled as you continue talking and you’re about to ask why he would think you’d want him to do that, but then he cuts off that thought with, “Thanks for the concern babe, but I meant rewind the movie. Like. The film reel? I’m pretty sure I could sneak into the projector room no problem and just wind it on back.”
“Did you just call me… never mind. No, don’t break into the projector room either! If you get arrested I’m not coming to bail you out.”
“You absolutely would come bail me out, you’d never let me rot away in prison.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Yeah, I’ll bet the bail money that you’re going to use to get me outta there the second they drag me away. But you don’t have to worry about losing all that dough because I’m not going to get arrested. I’m pretty sure if I just slipped whoever’s working there a few bills, they’d rewind it for me no prob.”
You somehow doubt that would work even if Dave did manage to bribe some worker into rewinding the reel. You’re certain nobody who works here wants to stay any longer than they have to, just so you can rewatch half of a movie that they literally just saw.
Not that you were actually entertaining Dave’s ridiculous plan.
“You’re not bribing anyone else tonight, either. Let’s just—”
A knock against the side of the car makes you both jump. Dave leans over to roll down the window. An older human woman is standing just outside, holding a flashlight. “You kids need your car jumped?”
“Huh?”
“Did your battery die? Thought maybe something was wrong, since you’re the last ones here.”
You glance around and… yup, yours is the only car still in the lot.
“Naw, we’re good. Just uh, waiting for the traffic to clear, y’know?” Dave answers. “We’ll get outta here, sorry.”
The woman insists it’s no problem, wishes you both a goodnight, then walks off.
You and Dave quickly climb out of the backseat and return to your seats upfront. Dave almost forgets to remove all of the uneaten, overpriced candy piled on his seat, but you grab it and throw it in the back before he has a chance to sit on it and make a mess out of your poor car.
“I can probably just buy you the DVD of the extended version, huh? I’m sure they’ll release it,” Dave says once you two are finally pulling out of the lot. “Be silly not to.”
“If you want to waste more of your money, sure. Be my guest.”
“Don’t pretend you wouldn’t watch it at least as often as you watch the regular version. I know you, I’d get my money’s worth.”
He’s probably right. You don’t ask how you watching a movie makes him get his money’s worth. You assume the phenomenon must be similar to the strange feeling of joy you experience a few moments later when Dave turns on the radio and some new song he likes is playing, even though you personally don’t get what all the hype is about.
The drive home is fairly uneventful, and soon enough you’re parking in the driveway. Your fingers graze the door handle, but then you turn to Dave. “Am I allowed to open it myself this time?”
He laughs before nodding and making a shooing motion with his hands. “I’ll let you get out of the car yourself, but can I at least walk you to the door?”
“I don’t know where else you’d be walking since it’s your door too, but sure. I’ll allow it.”
You two hadn’t exactly tidied up since you’d left the drive-in in such a hurry, so you both take a moment to put all of the various things that are scattered around your car into Dave’s tote bag. You briefly argue over who is going to bring things inside (Dave insists he can get it all, you insist on at least carrying the speaker in).
Once things are divvied up, you lace your fingers through Dave’s. “Couldn’t do that if you were carrying everything,” you tell him.
“Yeah yeah, you were right.”
You two don’t get to hold hands for long, as it’s an incredibly short walk to your front door from the driveway. You grab your keys out of your pocket, but Dave stops you before you can unlock the door.
“Hold up.”
“What? Did you forget something?” You’re certain you two grabbed everything.
“Yup.” Dave grins at you before he leans in and gives you a quick peck on the lips. “There we go, now I can drop you off.”
You can feel your cheeks heating up from the short kiss, but you roll your eyes at Dave’s words. “Sure, I feel very dropped off. Can we go inside now?”
“Sure thing, dude.”
The rest of the evening goes about the same as it would on any other night, though neither of you even pretend to keep your distance once you sit down on the couch. Dave flips on the television and turns it to some stupid reality show you both insist you dislike, despite the fact that you’ve seen every episode. It’s too much of a train wreck to look away once it starts, you guess.
Not too much of a train wreck not to talk over, though. “So,” Dave starts. “I know we didn’t see them all, but I think those extended scenes really just drive home the fact that that movie is definitely troll Ghost: The Reghostening.”
Great, time to have this argument again. “They did not because it’s nothing like Troll Ghost at all! We’ve been through this.”
“Yeah, and we’ve also been through that it’s a troll Ghost remake, not a Troll Ghost remake.”
“That doesn’t make any se— stop doing that with your mouth, it’s fucking weird.”
“Would you rather I be doing something else with my mouth?” Dave winks at you and it is honestly far more charming than it has any right to be, considering what he said was the opposite of smooth.
“Don’t try to distract me just because you’re losing this argument. You’ve never even seen human Ghost.”
“Neither have you, so I don’t think that’s really a point in your favor.”
He’s right, of course. That is not a movie any of you managed to save from Earths A and B. “It’s not like any version of Ghost just because there’s a ghost in it!”
You realize your mistake when Dave gives you a shit-eating grin. “So you admit she’s a ghost.”
“She’s not!” This sub-argument is probably the most frustrating aspect of all of this. You know Dave knows that character is not a ghost, and he knows that you know he knows this. “You’ve seen the ending enough times to know that by now, but you keep insisting she’s a ghost anyway and that is your entire basis for this somehow being a rip-off of Ghost, even though the movies are completely different.”
“They’re a little different, yeah. The ghost is a girl in this one.”
“That’s not the only difference and you know it.”
Someone starts yelling on TV and you are both temporarily distracted because what the fuck is even going on?
Just when you think that maybe this conversation is over, Dave has to ruin everything yet again. “I guess we can’t really decide either way until the DVD comes out and we finish watching those extended scenes. Shoulda just let me break into the projector booth, now we’re gonna have to wait to see who’s right.”
“Yeah, sure. Have fun spending money on that DVD just so you can prove yourself wrong.”
“We’ve both got like. Infinite money, so it’s really a small price to pay to show you how wrong you are.”
That, of course, launches you both into yet another “argument.” You two are far too predictable sometimes, but you can’t say you mind at all.
It takes you a while to notice that a completely different show is now playing. Neither of you cares one bit. Actually watching whatever happens to be on the television has never been the point of hanging out with Dave anyway.
The end of the night (morning, you guess, considering it’s almost 2:00 am at this point) does not go about the same as it would any other night.
You two are both dragging yourself off to your separate rooms, after nearly falling asleep on the couch for probably the millionth time in your lives. You’re about to walk into your room, leave Dave to go to the end of the hall to his own room, when he stops you with a, “Hey, Karkat?”
“Yeah?”
“Forgot to ask earlier…”
He doesn’t immediately continue so you prod with, “Forgot to ask what earlier?”
“Would you wanna do that again?”
“The drive-in? I guess, if they’re playing something we want to see.”
“No. I mean, yeah, we can go to the drive-in again, that was fun. I meant the whole date thing.”
You honestly didn’t think there was any question about that. “Of course I do. I’ll plan the next one, so you can take a break from all the door opening. Don’t want you to burn yourself out and never open a door again.”
“Yeah, my door opening mechanism is almost broken, you’re right.” Despite his words, he leans over and opens your bedroom door. “One more for the road.”
You roll your eyes at him, but the effect is probably ruined by the fact that you can’t stop grinning. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Heh, yeah. Definitely.”
Dave hesitates for a moment, then leans in and kisses your cheek. His sudden shyness is amusing, considering it’s definitely not the first time he’s kissed you at this point. “Night, Karkat,” he says once he leans back.
“Night, Dave.”
It feels a little silly, making such a big deal about parting ways to go to bed. You’ll see each other in a few hours, have coffee and breakfast and go about your days the way you always do.
Or maybe you won’t. Now that things have changed between you two, in such a clear way, maybe the rest of your routine will start to change a bit too. You think you’d be okay with that, as long as Dave remains a part of whatever that routine ends up being.