Chapter Text
The First Time He Told Me
Unnerving.
That was probably the best way to describe him. Dave Strider was certainly nothing but unnerving to him. In fact, he had thought of Strider as unnerving probably even before they were friends, but now it had just gotten a tad worse.
The thing about Dave was that he was a simple guy. He liked his beats, he liked his apple juice, and he didn’t like puppets. That was about it. His sense of humor sure was buried under layers and layers of irony that were hard to decipher sometimes, but he was never enigmatic about how he felt about other people. He either liked you or he didn’t. He either talked your ear off or minded his business while you were around.
One would think that, being such a chill dude, it would be easy for people around him to understand him. But lately all Karkat did was not understand him at all. He was like a completely different person compared to the infuriating Knight of Time he used to hate.
They had been stranded in that meteor for two years now, and after some silly confrontations during the first half of the sweep, both Dave and Karkat had figured out most of their issues and became very good friends. Since Vriska and Terezi had started a very strong moirallegiance, Rose and Kanaya had been able to spend more time alone, thus leaving the two males by themselves with the Mayor.
And the Mayor, with his silent and friendly demeanor, had somehow helped the two become closer. The two alien teenagers started hanging out and sharing their favorite pretend-government-official, and eventually began spending time with each other just for fun.
Knowing the way their friendship had flourished, it would be understandable to be confused about Karkat still thinking of Dave as unnerving. But keeping in mind the way Dave had been acting in recent months, things did start looking a little odd.
The first weird thing Karkat truly noticed was the random staring.
It was a brand new day like almost any normal day in the meteor. The Can Town ambassadors and their Mayor were hanging out in one of the small chambers they had acclimated for watching movies and playing board games.
Karkat was sitting on a purple bean couch while reading a book to the Mayor, who was listening to him while drawing in a little notepad. Dave was sitting on the couch they always used to watch movies, but he had his headphones on and his computer resting on his lap.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Except, until Karkat absently raised his gaze while turning the page and found Dave looking at him quietly from the other side of the room. He didn’t think much about it and went back to his reading, but when the time to turn the next page had come, his eyes found Strider’s still nailed on him like fishing hooks. His stare was so forward that not even his shades could hide it.
“Is there something wrong?” He dared to ask, unable to disimulate his puzzled expression. The Mayor looked up from his notepad.
As if an enchantment had been broken, Dave flinched when he heard his voice. He then proceeded to awkwardly change his position on the couch, leaning back some and putting his legs up over some cushions.
“Sorry, I was spacing the fuck out.” he simply said before going back to whatever he was doing on his laptop.
Karkat didn’t say anything and went back to his reading as well, but he couldn’t help wondering why on alternia Dave was using headphones if he was clearly not listening to music. After all, if he had been, he couldn’t have possibly heard Karkat from where he was sitting without removing his headphones. That could only mean that Strider was pretending to do other things while he was actually just looking at Karkat for no apparent reason, but Karkat wouldn’t be able to put that together until much later.
The random staring didn’t stop there, and it would continue happening along with other strange events. Actually, some of those events had occurred before in different instances of their trip through the furthest ring, but while back then they seemed to be sporadic weird happenstances, now they looked more like an agenda.
Just to name a few, Dave had gone from having breakfast in the common room alone and waiting for the rest to come out, to waiting outside of Karkat’s room so they could head there together. He had also stopped falling asleep during Karkat’s movies and even asked him questions about them as if he actually wanted to hear more about the topic.
None of those things were bad, evidently. Karkat really appreciated Dave’s gestures, but they still made him feel completely out of place. And what he probably found to be the most unnerving thing, was that Dave suddenly had become extremely considerate. When in the past he had done his best to aggravate him as much as possible just for fun, now he was constantly doing things to keep him content. He always let him choose first, he never joked or rapped about things that made him uncomfortable anymore, he would drop an argument if Karkat insisted enough, and one or two times he shared his apple juice with him without making a fuzz about it.
Clearly, there was something going on. Karkat couldn’t help but think about it almost every day, but he didn’t know if he was even supposed to point it out. Was Dave doing it on purpose, or was it completely unintentional? Were these his usual displays of friendship, or was he trying to get a point across?
Whatever the case, it wasn’t until a couple months later that he found a good reason to mention it. Although it wasn’t a thing he had planned ahead.
During one of their many hours of being brutally bored, everyone in the meteor who wasn’t a juggalo had agreed on playing one of Vriska’s made-up games to pass the time. Probably not their wisest decision to begin with.
The rules were confusing and plenty, not to mention Vriska seemed to be the only one who knew how to play it on the first place; even Rose had been struggling trying to follow the instructions at times, giving the impression that Serket was making shit up as they played.
The game so far had been mostly just scribbling things with chalk on the ground and running around a lot, but sometimes they would be randomly penalized for things they didn’t know were illegal, so they had opted to let Vriska dictate the next step each time and assuming that was what they were meant to do.
In that exact point of the game, all the females and the Mayor were settled in their own base waiting for their turn, but Karkat and Dave were standing at the beginning of the “board”, which was the main entrance to the room. They had both recently “died” and had to start over again from the beginning. It was now Karkat’s turn.
“Okay Karkat, now throw the dice!” Vriska was saying enthusiastically, standing on top of her base, the common room’s table. “Remember! If you get an even number again you must take out one of your remaining monsters and run towards the closest base as fast as you can. If you don’t, the floor will literally turn into lava!”
“Can you stop saying that we will LITERALLY die in all these fucked up ways when we are playing a stupid pretend game based mostly on your twisted imagination?” Karkat complained, but threw the dice anyway. “I mean I guess our imaginations should be part of it too, but we are too busy trying to wrap our thinkpans around the basic rules to actually-”
“You got the six, Karkat! Better start fucking drawing!”
“GODDAMMIT”
Terezi, currently sitting on her base made of a scalemate pile, cackled loudly as Karkat kneeled down and drew a big monster with pincers and spikes as fast as he could. He then ran towards one of the chairs placed in the middle of the room, and quickly jumped to get on it.
Unfortunately, the impulse he had used to hop onto the piece of furniture was a little excessive for the job. When Karkat grabbed onto the chair’s backrest, his own weight pushed the ass-placing instrument and made it fall back, taking him down with it. There was a scream followed by the loud noise the chair made when it hit the floor, and then an eerie silence.
When Karkat realized he remained unharmed, he decided to open his eyes. He was confused when he found Dave looking at him from above, but as the realization of what had just happened started pouring down on him, his face lighted up with red. Dave was flying, or more exactly, floating in the middle of the room while carrying him damsel-in-distress style.
“No god tier powers allowed, Dave!” Vriska yelled annoyed. “What the fuck are you doing?? This isn’t a co-op game! You aren’t supposed to help him!”
“Vriska shut the fuck up for a goddamn second.” Dave snapped. He was clearly frustrated by her constant badgering, but he also seemed abnormally angry at the situation “Your game is idiotic enough without people getting seriously fucking hurt. There should be at least one rule that allows us to help avoiding accidents.”
Dave landed slowly and placed Karkat on the ground. Still with his amber eyes wide-open in shock, Karkat hadn’t been able to say a word, but once Dave answered back with such tone of voice, the crimson red on Karkat’s face started to fade.
“I agree.” this time it was Kanaya speaking, from the couch she was standing on. “If Karkat were to hurt himself during his turn the whole game would have to be stopped. I presume you wouldn’t want us to stop playing completely because of an emergency.”
“Ugh. FINE.” the spidertroll scoffed. “Helping other players is allowed AS LONG AS it is to secure their safety. BUT ONLY THEN. There! Happy??”
“Sure. But I’m not playing anymore.”
“What??”
Karkat couldn’t help noticing Dave was still acting a little weird.
“Yeah, this game is fucking stupid. I’m out.” Strider simply said shoving his hands in his pockets and turning around.
“You can’t just leave in the middle of a session!”
“Just did.” and without looking back, he exited the common room.
“UGH. See, Terezi??” Vriska looked at her moirail. “I told you we shouldn’t allow wigglers into the game!”
Having both Karkat almost dying and Dave bailing on them had ruined the mood set to keep playing, so it didn’t take long before Vriska herself decided to interrupt the session. But even hours later, Karkat was still thinking about that moment. It was weird. He didn’t know what Dave had exactly done in order to save him from breaking his head in two, but something was telling him it probably wasn’t just floaty powers they were talking about. He also seemed pretty pissed off, as if Karkat had actually gotten hurt and Vriska didn’t care. That sprouted a theory in his head, and he couldn’t help wanting to prove it..
A couple hours after they all had gone back to their regular agendas, Karkat headed to Dave's bedroom and knocked on the door. Almost immediately after, he could hear a muffled “Sup’ Karkat” coming from inside.
“How do you even know it’s me?” Karkat inquired failing to hide his surprise as he walked in.
“You always knock twice.” Dave shrugged without turning around. He seemed to be in the middle of organizing his room. He was standing before the bed while trying to figure out how or where to put away all the things he had on it a moment ago, but he didn’t seem to find a suitable place since he kept on looking around while holding a bunch of clothes, alchemizing punch cards, and some terrible magazines in his arms. “Kanaya and Rose knock several times, and the others either don’t knock at all or just never come to my room.”
“Right.” He made his best to try to ignore Dave pulling up the covers a little and hiding his stash of Strider mess under the bed. “Anyway. I wanted to ask you something.” He could criticize his shameful and gross ways of living later.
“Sure. Fire away.” the blond kid turned around and dropped on the edge of the bed. He patted the spot next to him but Karkat pretended not to notice.
“During Vriska’s stupid game…”
“You mean when I saved your horns from disappearing completely into your skull?”
“Yeah. Exactly then.” he paused for a second. It was hard to bring the subject up without making it sound like a big deal. “I was just… wondering…”
“...yeah?” a pair of eyebrows showed up arching above the shades.
“Did you use your time powers for that? I mean, did you actually go back in time to help me or are your flying powers that fast and I was just not aware of it because I’m not a stupid godtier?”
Karkat couldn’t appreciate it because of the glasses, but Dave remained quiet and blinked a couple times in a state of total confusion.
“Is that what you wanted to ask me?” he finally said. Karkat just nodded, unconsciously closing his hands into fists. Dave seemed bothered; he had crossed his arms. “Well, yeah. I actually saw myself save you from eating shit and instantly had to go back and get ready to catch you. What’s the problem with that?”
“But you told me you didn’t want to use your time powers again!” Karkat finally blurted out without hiding both his surprise and concern. “You even said going back in time while we were in the meteor was probably dangerous because the furthest ring has its own weird rules about time and space! Weren’t you worried about more doomed timelines?”
“Well. It is probably dangerous. I’m not even sure. Rose knows more about the dark oblivion void shit.” his voice was soft, but his arms remained folded in a defensive manner. “Look man, I’m sorry I helped you that one time, I wasn’t thinking much about my stupid personal traumas with time traveling. I just reacted out of instinct.”
“That’s not-” Karkat stopped mid-sentence and groaned into his hand. He had now realized his tone of voice had been a tad accusatory the whole time. “Nevermind, this is fucking stupid.” he took a deep breath and then went back to looking at Dave sitting before him. “I don’t want to make it sound like I’m complaining, I’m sorry.”
Dave’s body relaxed. “Then what’s the problem?”
Technically speaking, the problem was Karkat had asked himself that same question over and over since Dave had left the common room earlier that day. Why did it bother him so much? Why was the idea of Dave risking his life to help him in such a mundane situation so anxiety-inducing to him?
He quietly decided to sit down next to his friend and grab onto his own knees a little harder than necessary. He had a lot of conflicting feelings blending inside of him, but the most asphyxiating one was the void in the pit of his stomach caused by not knowing what he actually wanted to feel on the first place. Was this a good thing? Should he be happy? Or was it a horrible thing he shouldn’t bring up if he valued their friendship?
“Dave, you… you have changed.” he managed to say, staring at his knees intensively. “I didn’t even realize when you started doing it, but you really have.”
“Well, I hope so.” he finally unfolded his arms and placed both his palms on the bed so he could lean back a little. “I used to be a very naive and stupid kid, being one hundred percent honest with you.”
“I don’t mean it like that.” he shaked his head no, and a numbing feeling started taking over his body. He could feel the inevitable approaching. “We all have changed, but you have mostly done it when you are with me.”
Dave looked at him, but surprisingly chose not to say anything. Karkat assumed he already knew where the conversation was heading as well. He didn’t dare return the gaze, and he felt the imminent embarrassment and awkwardness crawling up his back. He took a deep breath.
“I don’t know how to even start talking about this, it feels so fucking dumb.” Karkat admitted, aware that his cheeks were getting warmer again. “I know we are friends, and that we are closer to each other than we are with the rest of our friends in here… but sometimes I feel like you might care more than just that.” a pause, followed by his hand anxiously running through his hair. “What I’m about to say might sound pretentious and like I’m full of myself, but just... bear with me for a fucking second, okay?” he clearly wasn’t waiting for an answer. “I think that our friendship has evolved somehow, and that for some ridiculously twisted reason you might have actually started developing stronger feelings for me. The red kind, I mean. Which I guess would somehow make sense because of how close we’ve become?? But even though I consider myself an expert in the intellectual art of romance, I must admit I’m still bewildered by the mere possibility. It still doesn’t make sense to me for some reason. And I can’t tell if you are waxing pale or flushed here because displays of affection can be weird like that, and it’s really getting under my skin now. I would’ve expected you to do or say something about it already, but you haven’t. You are just… hanging out with me like any other day, as if you didn’t know or you didn’t care about it. Am I completely off here? Have I seriously become so pathetic and self-centered that now I hallucinate red-natured advances towards me when you are just being a good fucking friend? Or am I actually right but you just didn’t feel like telling me for whatever asinine reason??
When he finally stopped to breathe, he felt as if a weight had left his chest. It didn’t save him from all the blood that had clogged his face in an embarrassing spectacle he didn’t even want to acknowledge, but at least he felt lighter now. Even if looking at Dave was still utterly impossible to him.
Luckily, he didn’t seem to mind.
“Sweet jesus, Karkat.” he muttered in disbelief. “I mean, wow. I knew you were going to have an outburst like that eventually but I guess nothing could really prepare me for the real thing.” Karkat just clawed onto his knees harder. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s fucking adorable. I just didn’t expect you to be so troubled by it.”
“Don’t fucking patronize me when I’m trying to have a fucking real as shit conversation with you.” Karkat warned him, trying to control his temper.
“Not at all. It’s real as shit alright.” and even though Karkat couldn’t see, he heard the smile in his voice. “The short answer to all of this would be, yes.”
Karkat perked his ears and straightened his posture without realizing. It took him a few seconds to gain enough courage to do it, but he also managed to turn his head and look at Dave sitting next to him. He found the smile he had heard a moment ago now faintly resting on his lips.
“What the fuck is 'yes' supposed to mean here?” he snapped incredulously. “Dave, I just fucking barfed two million units worth of convoluted thoughts on you and your idiotic simplistic answer is YES?”
“Well, what else am I supposed to say?” the kid shrugged. “Yes, Karkat. I like you more than one would like their regular best bro. Big fucking deal. It’s not like I’ve been trying to hide it. I’m sure the others know too.”
A heartbeat skipped, followed by a stumped silence and a pair of yellow eyes widening.
“But why didn’t you tell me?” he asked faintly, his face turning red for the millionth time. In his defense, Dave had taken him by surprise a lot that day.
“I didn’t have a reason to.” and this time Dave was the one looking away, into the other side of the room. “See, I don’t actually know either if my feelings are flushed or pale. But the more I got used to having those feelings, the less I cared. The difference is supposed to rely on the platonicness, right? And I honestly can’t put my finger on if I only want to have stupidly deep conversations in a pile of random shit with you or if I rather hold hands and smack your face or whatever. I don’t care much about that stuff. Either way we would still hang out and have fun like we normally do, and I’m okay with the way our relationship is right now. I just like spending time with you.”
Karkat’s eyes were back on his knees. His heart was beating fast and he had the impression his flesh was about to melt into his skeleton any second.
That was why. That was the reason why Karkat found Dave as unnerving as he did. Because just like that, he had a way of anticipating him and turning things around in ways Karkat could have never imagined. And he knew him better than anyone. He probably even knew that Karkat had been thinking about the whole thing for a while now and hadn’t been able to bring it up until that moment.
“I don’t… know what to say.” Karkat admitted after a self-explanatory silence. He rubbed his arm just for the sake of doing something.
“See, that’s the point I was trying to make. Don’t worry about it, bro.” Dave stood up and gestured Karkat to follow him before walking towards the door. “You don’t have to say anything at all. We cool. Now get up, and let’s go finish Love Actually ‘cause you haven’t seen the part I told you about yet.”
But Karkat didn’t move.
Dave reached the door and stopped to wait for his friend. Karkat remained sitting on the bed with a conflicted expression morphing on his face. Dave opened the door slowly, as if he was expecting to trigger a reaction by doing so.
But no response.
“... Karkat.” the kid let go a heay sigh. He turned around again, but he seemed worried now. “Don’t make this weird, please.”
And his voice sounded so sincere and gentle that it seemed to work its magic on Karkat’s system. Slowly but surely, Karkat’s posture started to relax.
He felt silly. Why was he getting so worked up about something he didn't know what to do with? Even if Dave's feeling were clear and set in stone, his were still a tangled web he couldn't decipher yet. He looked at his shoes for a few moments, contemplating both his shoelaces and the possibility that maybe he didn’t have to make a huge deal out of sharing feelings with someone for once in his life.
Maybe that was the answer. Going bonkers over people's relationship status had never given him anything good in result, even less when it came to his own relationships. And he enjoyed Dave's company didn't he?. It was fun and it was calming to be around him. It was nice having someone holding him by his sweater's sleeve every time his head started to wander into treacherous and complicated scenarios that he didn't know how to come back from. Dave always made sure to pull him back right on time and then distract him with something else. He kept him sane.
A warm feeling took over Karkat's chest. His eyes met Dave’s and a shy smile appeared on his lips before he stood up and walked towards him. Dave returned the smile with relief.
“Just a question though.” Karkat suddenly said, taking Dave by surprise. “Is it still making it weird if I also just say… yes?”
“Yes to finishing Love Actually?”
Karkat held back his laughter and hit him playfully with his elbow.
“Yeah, I guess that too.”
And for the first time in weeks, he felt relieved. That’s what was bothering him so much. He wanted to find a name for the feelings he had been experiencing, and a name for the ones Dave had been displaying, but it was only now he realized it didn’t have to matter. He didn’t have to know if Dave was flushed or pale or just an idiot.
He liked Dave. And Dave liked him.
That was the end of it.