Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was the fourth of July.

Neither of you were in red, white, and blue.

Though, you decided in a morning smalltalk, that between you two, you were in enough red, white and blue.

He was in a blue t-shirt and jeans, with those dumb yellow shoes and you were in your white shirt with the record on it and red jeans.

So that was good enough.

It wasn’t super hot, because it was Washington- and you were so glad that you moved up there for college.

You were really fucking glad that you moved up there to some dumb university to go to with John, and room with John, and fuck even being near him was

was

you guess it was even more home than your stuffy apartment in Austin was.

And you were in your dorm, John out somewhere having some sort of a social life, which you appreciated and were happy for him that he had that.

And if you were being completely selfish with yourself, it made you sad because you used to talk all the time and you never talk now. He’s always out being John, because who doesn’t love a good slice of John Egbert.

And when he serves Dave Strider they all spit out discretely in their napkins and make excuses to leave.

So you stayed in the dorm room with the window wide open to let in the mountain air that was way easier to breathe and made you just the slightest bit, confusingly, homesick, but that was okay.

That was okay because at night, mostly, John came back and you said goodnight and he slept and you did too.

In the morning, you sat there because John was long gone, out to class or some shit, and you were stuck there. You weren’t taking summer classes and you didn’t want to buy a plane ticket to go all the way back home just for, like, two months.

Despite the crisp, thin, air, it was such a small space in the dorm room and you were getting really sickof being fucking stuck there, you decided that it was time to put on your actual pants and go somewhere.

You didn’t know where to go.

The only place you’d been is in the dining hall or one of your lecture halls, the bathroom, or here.

When had you left campus last?

Shit.

You can’t ask anyone, even though that would be Egbert’s advice.

Words don’t come easily to your mouth, and that’s why you’re sticking to music. It’s easier than talking. Especially to not-Egberts.

You’d guessed that you would walk around and see what’s there and decide what to do on your feet.

Just to see what happens.

When you saw a tiny coffee shop on the corner, you decided that that was the place.

It looked empty and you think that’s why it appealed to you.

You walked in, heavy footsteps echoing on the hardwood floor. Furniture covered it, couches and mismatched chairs slid up against round and square tables, metal and wooden.

It was a ragtag group of things, that was for sure, and you were okay with that.

There was a guy behind the counter, big, messy, black hair and some gray t-shirt. He looked sleep deprived and crabby.

“What do you want?” He was demanding and restless, tapping his pen against the wooden counter.

“Oh, uh. Just- whatever. Whatever’s your best here.” You said in a rush, your hand coming through your hair and you bit your cheek.

He scowled, rolled his eyes, and left the counter to go to the back, yelling in a rusty voice to somebody.

You just kind of stood there.

When he came back, he told you to get the fuck downstairs where everyone else is because the fucking coffee would be done soon and he sure as hell wouldn’t give it to you up here.

You followed his stubby finger to ‘downstairs’ and it was really busy down there.

The sound was what kept you from getting fuck out of there. You’d always loved the constant murmur of a coffee shop, clinking and voices and anything, really.

Anything could happen in a coffee shop.

You seated yourself in a corner table, set with two chairs and a napkin holder. You set up your plastic number ‘13,’ in it, crossing your legs and looking around. You slumped, tapping your fingers on your thigh in some unknown rhythm and hummed, because you couldn’t hear your voice here and that was a perfect time to hum.

A lot of people were down here.

The air of it was like a cave, you thought, because it was dark and murky, but something about that made it really cool.

It looked like all the students from your college were here. You’d found the place to be.

You don’t like it all that much, really.

And before you know it, your coffee’s here. Good.

A guy comes over carrying a mug, with some dumbass grin wiped on his lips and-

oh.

You didn’t know Egbert worked here.

And you start to panic just a tiny bit because you were not expecting this.

“Sup.”

Shit, Strider. What are you doing.

“Hey, Dave! I didn’t know you came here, you should’ve told me! Geez, isn’t this place the coolest? I didn’t even know there was this whole... thing down here. It reminds me of the student union.”

And he stops there after another big breath and his smile falls a tiny bit. You want to physically reach out and grab it, but that would be really dumb.

“Mind if I sit down?”

“Oh, no problem, yeah, go ahead.” You bit your lip.

He smiled. “So what’re you doing here?”

You shrugged. “Dunno. Just wanted to get out of that shitty dorm, into the real world. Put my big boy pants on.”

“Pfffff wow, Dave. I would’ve never guessed that that would be something you’d do.”

You tried to get the grin that you felt coming on off your fucking face but it wasn’t happening. “Yeah, well.”

He raised a brow, setting down a the white mug on the table. “Well?”

All you did was grunt. It was quiet between you two because neither of you knew what to say.

John went first.

“So what have you been up to? What classes are you taking?”

What classes were you taking?

“Oh, well, I’m not really taking any right now, because it’s summer and shit. I’m just staying here till the school year starts.”

“Why?”

“I don’t wanna get some plane tickets back to Austin for just, like, two months. Waste of money.”

You can’t believe how alien this has become. Before, when you first came into college, you two wouldn’t let one out of sight. You were like life support to each other or some shit.

And he reads your mind.

“We haven’t talked in so long, Dave! I’m really sorry I haven’t been around lately. It’s just really busy and stuff, you know.”

“Yeah. No problem, man.”

It was a problem, though.

You smiled a tiny bit.

Just a tiny bit.

And he smiled and it was worth it.

Your coffee got there and you two talked a lot. It was awesome because you hadn’t talked, talked to Egbert in a long fucking time.

He also invited you to a fireworks party tonight. Said that everyone’s going and that you should come! His friends are awesome.

And you were sure that they were awesome.

The thing was,

you weren’t.

You agreed anyways.

And you went back to the dorm because this was going to be enough for today, especially with what you were going to do tonight.

You didn’t know how that was going to turn out.

Chapter Text

And you went back to the dorm because this was going to be enough for today, especially with what you were going to do tonight.

You didn’t know how that was going to turn out.

So now, you are sitting on the bottom bunk and you have a red sweatshirt on because it gets cold at night, and you’re listening to music in attempt to calm yourself.

This is going to be the shit. This is gonna be awesome. You’ll have friends after this. That’ll be good. It’s good having friends. Maybe John’ll notice you if you’re out more. Maybe you’ll talk more.

Maybe he’ll fall in love with you.

Are you even in love with him?

You have absolutely no idea because it’s all so fucking confusing.

The light from the cracked window no longer comes in, because it’s so dark outside. You never knew it could get this dark.

And the stars are

they’re

they’re the shit.

The stars are really cool and you look at them a lot.

There’s this one place you go to, it’s on top of this little hill, but the whole campus is built on a mountain, so you’re even higher than the mountain and you’re above everything and it’s awesome.

You and John used to go there a lot. You had some of those cute-ass picnics or you did your homework or just talked and now that you look back on it,

you were a fucking pansy, Strider.

But really, you’ve definetly changed since Texas. And now you’re back to your Texas self, more or less, the only changed thing is that you might be a tiny bit hot for Egbert?

What a little shit.

And he walks in, carrying a backpack, messy hair, and a grin. “You ready, Dave?”

“Why are your classes so fucking late?”

He snorts, crossing the tiny room to a dresser to grab a sweatshirt.

And you throw a jacket on, for better thinking, if John needs a sweatshirt you’re going to need something more. You both get up and head out.

“So who are your friends?” You ask, out of need to make conversation because this is one of the only times you two are alone not doing anything.

“Oh! Well, okay. There is Karkat, Terezi, Jade, Feferi, Eridan-”

“What kind of names are those.”

He shrugs.

Soon you’re there and there are so many fucking people.

John introduces you to most of his friends, most of which are cool, and he leaves you alone,  alone with them, which you are not really okay with.

You’re perfectly fucking fine with it, Strider, why would you not be.

Why would you not be totally fine with Egbert leaving you alone with his friends which are all awesome, while he goes on to socialize with other people, people who aren’t even his friends how the fuck does he do that.

You could not fathom.

No, yeah you could. You totally could because he is an Egbert and that’s what they do. They talk to people and do things that normal college people would do, and they don’t run shitty comic websites or spend all their time mixing music into the vaguely same beat with the vaguely same effects.

Jesus, you’re stupid. Why would John like you. You’re so dumb.

He’s cool. His friends are cool.

And you are pretty sure he likes who was that

who just talked to you.

Victoria?

No. That’s not the name. But that was her. That was who he was in love with. You know it because that was who he talked to the most.

“Dave!”

He trots over, grinning. “Ready for the fireworks?”

And somehow you can still see the color of his eyes, although the moon changed it to a sharper silver, they’re still awesome.

They’re still the coolest thing pretty much ever.

And you being in love with him, apparently, is still a thing that’s happening.

“Dave.”

“Shit, oh, sorry what.”

He snorts yanking your arm to the front of the crowd where several people are sitting or lying on the slight slope of the hill you’re on.

The hill-thing on top of the mountain. As close to the fucking sky as you can be, and the whole world is a game board below you (nice metaphor, Strider). You feel almost godly.

Pretty fucking agoraphobic, actually.

You can almost feel his eyebrows rising at your still not moving, and he pulls you out, sitting on the cold grass. You sit next to him, crossing your legs.

And after a few moments of silence, he asks you, “Is this your first one?”

“My first what?”

He snickers, shifting position. “Your first fourth of July here.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess.”

“What’d you do for the ones in Texas?”

“Nothing.”

He looks at you, pulling your gaze to his.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. We stayed inside on our asses or Bro was out doing some mysterious shit but that’s normal.”

He leans forward, towards you with a mischievous smirk wiped on his face and it sort of scares the shit out of you. “Really! That’s really dumb, Dave. But what else would you expect from the Striders!” And he sighs, falling on his back flat on the grass.

You figure you’ll lie down, too. Easier to see.

But as you do, he’s staring at you.

“What?” You ask, fighting a grin down because he has the weirdest expression on right now.

“It’s late at night and you’re still wearing shades.”

You puff a cheek out, furrowing your eyebrows. “Yeah,”

And his hand comes up, swiftly, swiping your shades off of your face.

And yours comes faster up, swatting his hand down, shades clacking to the ground, just as the first firework explodes with a loud bang.

You both stare at each other, you, slightly angry and him expressionless.

John Egbert is usually not expressionless. You open your mouth and before you could say a word, he stands up, eyes still locked.

He breaks the lock, walking away. Back towards the dorms. You watch him, and after a bit, he crosses into the forest and you’re sitting up now, back facing the world below you. You put your shades back on. 

And as your legs get you up and mock his path, though you didn’t tell them to, you don’t stop them.

You find him in the place you thought he’d be. You always studied here after classes, until he went out with his friends every day after classes, you eventually just locked yourself in your room.

Apparently he still goes here.

He’s lying on the grass, arms crossed over his chest, knees up. He’s looking at the sky.

Oh, no he’s not. His eyes are closed, chest rising up and down slowly, obviously controlled.

“Yo,” you say it hoarsely, quietly.

His eyes open, those big-ass eyes looking right through your fucking soul, to somewhere you can’t even see.

“Hey. Uh- sorry, about that.”

You lie down on the grass above his head, so the tops of your heads are almost touching. “So, are you okay, man?”

“I’m fine.”

The silence after the two words is too empty and blank for that to be believable.

“You’re not.”

“Yeah, I am, Dave!”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Another firework goes off and you hear his sharp intake of breath, feel his body above yours contract and tighten. The sky is aflame now. Must be the grand finale. John stands up, stumbling. You hop up, stepping over to him, “Yo, John-”

He is fucking hysterical. “Dave, oh shit, no, no, nononononono-”

“Wait, what the fuck- John, it’s okay, dude-” You touch his shoulder and he clings to you for dear life oh god is this happening.

“Ssssh, John, shoosh. Let’s go back.” You whisper. You have vague memories of Bro doing this to you.

You can’t remember why.

When you’re back, you’re both in your pajamas, John’s slow, deep breathing against your chest. The room is dark except for a sliver of moonlight coming through a crack in the bamboo shades.

You swear, you don’t know how the fuck this happened, but you’re not going to argue with fate because cuddling with John Egbert is the shit. The curve of his back lines with your chest, and you bury your nose in the crook of his neck. An arm is draped over his waist, fingers loosly around his hand.

You don’t know what happened back at the fireworks, because you walked back in silence and you dressed in silence and you sleep in silence now. He’s not himself, that’s for sure.

For now, you guess, you’ll just remain nestled in his soft ass mane, which is okay with you, you guess.

Chapter Text

He’s gone before you wake up.
There’s a blanket draped over you, and your shades are on the dresser beside your bunk bed. The sun attacks your eyes with a ferocity you didn’t know it had, and you squint, rolling towards the wall.

You suppose you should get up.
And despite what happened last night, you suppose you slept well.

At the coffee shop, you sit at the usual table, order whatever is ‘their best’ and think.
Until Rose appears.
She usually keeps to her little group of... Psych Majors, you guess, and you don’t talk much anymore outside of Skype chats.
“Hello, Dave.” She sits herself in the chair across from you, both hands around her white mug, black lips quirked up in a small smile.
“Yo.”
“How are you?”
“Good.”
She gives a knowing smile, placing a hand on top of yours. Her black painted nails are brighter against your ghostly white skin. “Dave,”
“What.”
“How is John?” Her smile is gone, lips parted slightly.
“Oh,” you start, and of course she knows. She knows everything that’s going on somehow.

She’s Rose.

“David, I want you to tell me what happened last night.”

“He just- freaked out, I guess.”
“When?”
“After he took my shades off.”
She purses her lips, looking to the side. Her hand retracts from yours, falling in her lap. “Nothing else happened then?”
“No, we were just watching fireworks and shit, he took my shades off and ran. I found him and he totally freaked the fuck out.”
“Did anything else happen when he absconded?”
“Uh, I think that’s when the first firework started, bu-”

“When did he panic?”
“What do you mean when?”
“What happened around you.”
“Oh, uh, a lot of fireworks went off, that’s all I can really think of.”
Rose sighs, rolling her eyes at you. “I don’t have any idea what it is, David.”
“What’s it?”
“The panicking. The anxiety, insomnia.” And she looks straight at you, mouth parted in some amused smile that you don’t like at all, but that’s your cousin. “You don’t know, do you, Dave.”
She snorts, shaking her head. “What? No, I know. I fucking know. I saw it firsthand, I-”
“You don’t know that he’s been having this.” She says at as she laughs, shaking her head again and sitting back on her chair.
This has been happening before? “What?”
Her wide smile fades into a soft, sad one as she nods. “Yes, John has had this... condition... for a while now. I thought he’d tell you, but,” she purses her lips, “he obviously didn't.”
You put your face in both hands, elbows on the table and you breathe out a, “Fuck.”
“I’m sorry, David, I didn’t know. Had I known I might not’ve brought it up- or then I still probably would've but-”
“How long?”
She looks up, surprised you cut her off. She usually is the one to do that.

Oh well.

And she shrugs. “I don’t know. He came to me with insomnia a little over three months ago, and from that the symptoms gathered. Anxiety, mood swings, depression. I am extremely surprised he didn't tell you, though. I feel quite honored by his choosing me over you.”

Trying to lighten the mood?

You don’t say anything.

“He thinks it’s nothing.” She says, finally.

“Well it’s something,”
“I know. I’m trying my best, Dave, but I just don’t know what it is. There’s obviously some trigger, like the fireworks, and the only correlation I can make between his symptoms and that is the soldier’s post traumatic stress disorder.”
“He’s not a fucking soldier.” Your voice is quiet.
“That’s the problem. And as of my knowledge now, there are no obvious traumas he could’ve suffered in his childhood or even recently.” She looks you in the eye. “I wouldn’t be the one to know, though, David. You would.”
And you shrug. “We haven’t talked the same. We really haven’t talked, in a while. Not as much as we used to.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. He has friends.”
“And you don’t?”
“No.”
“Why is that?” She smirks.
You shrug. “People don’t like me, I guess.” She lifts her eyebrows. “I don’t blame them.”
“What do you mean by that?” Rose muses, placing her chin in her hand.
“I can see how they wouldn’t like me.”
“Why, Dave, because you don’t like yourself?”
“Wow yeah good job. You got it. You win.”
“Yes, thank you for the congratulations. I believe that they are well deserved on my part, considering how dense I am. Anyways, Strider, as intresting a subject as you are, we’re talking about John.”
“Right.” You roll your eyes.
“Does he still... trust you, or confide in you at times? Or is your connection totally broken.”
“Not really. We talk, but- Jesus, Rose, what are you even getting at.”
“David, I don’t think you understand the pain that John is in right now. He’s come to me more than one time a day to talk, usually starting the chat with a 'Bluuuuuuuuh' and it goes from there to topics that you would never expect such an exuberant young man to have. As much as I want to be the bothersome cousin you've come to know and love, I think this is a serious matter.”
You shrug. You don’t know what to say.
“What relationships does he have, Dave? Who does he interact with after classes?”
“I don’t fucking know!” You almost yell, raising your voice for the first time in... in a while. A couple heads turn, and Rose stands up, nodding. She can tell she's not going to get any more out of you.
“I’m sorry, Dave. Just do your best to care for John. No matter if he’s told you anything about his queries, I’m sure he’d appreciate it immensely if you helped him get through this. And if you need anything, my door is always open, you know that.” She steps forward, and places a hand on your arm, nods, and turns to leave.

You had no idea this was so bad.

You don’t know what the fuck you’re supposed to do about it, but you obviously have to do something.

So when you’re back, you walk in the dorm room. You open the door, quietly, in case John’s sleeping. In case he’s here for lunch, which you doubt. He’s never here for lunch.

But he is. Lying on his bed, textbook and notebook and pencil in hand, biting his lip, staring intensely at the page.

“Hey.”

He looks up. “Hey, Dave. Ugh. This homework is so dumb.”
You lie down next to him, and he doesn’t move. “Sup.”
“Dunno,” he says as he writes something down. “just had lunch.”
“Just had breakfast.”
He snorts, elbowing you lightly. “I’m not surprised, Dave.”
“So what’s with all this anxiety and insomnia and mood shit,” you ask suddenly.
He stops, looks at you, pencil down, textbook and notebook down.

“What?”
“Why didn’t you fucking tell me?”
He shrugs, eyes and mouth wide with surprise. “I- Dave, I don’t-”
“It was Rose.”
He quiets as he closes his mouth, and mutters, “I figured.”
“Spill it, Egbert.”
“Jesus, Rose.” John rolls his eyes, frowning. “Things’ve just been out of whack lately. Like, that’s it. Nothing else. It’s seriously nothing.”
“Dude, it’s more than that, you know it.”
“It’s not, Dave!”
“Even if it’s not, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I- just, I didn’t want you to worry or anything.”
“Okay, now tell me what’s actually been going on.”
“Nothing.”
“John, I swear-”
“What’s going to happen if I don’t tell, Dave?”
“There will be severe fucking punishments Egbert you know it.”
“Like what? What can I not handle, Strider, I’ve been through it all.”
“Torture, Egbert.”
“Oh, pffff yeah like a Strider can do torture. Of course. All they’re used to doing is dueling with cheap-ass swords and then breaking them a-”
“If you don’t tell me right now, you’ll have to endure the pain, John.”
“Not gonna te-”
You poke him in the side, right under his ribcage- the most ticklish spot on any human being ever and he lets out an inhuman yelp, laughing and getting you back.
It’s a battle now.
He’d given up on trying to get a laugh out of you long ago. Bro prepared you for this in the first eight years of your life and now you have virtually no ticklish spots on your body. So you commence the torture until he’s gasping for breath, grinning, laughing and telling you what an asshole you are at the same time.

It’s been productive.

Chapter Text

“Yeah, well, it’s just been hard to sleep. And I’ve had nightmares, not as many as I had back home, but they’re still here. And stuff has been freaking me out, like-”
“The fireworks.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know why?”
He shakes his head.
The two of you are propped up against the bed, legs stretched out.

After a moment of silence, he leans his head back on the bed. “Flashbacks, I guess.”
“From when?”
And he shrugs. “I don’t know. They’re more like fictional flashbacks, like nightmares, except they’re not only when I’m asleep.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.”

“So can we do anything about it, do you think? Or is it just like, a thing you have to get through.”
He crosses his arms, looking down. “I don’t really think there’s anything we can do.”

“God, that really sucks.” You say, shifting to sit cross legged.

“Yeah.”

“How long have you had them?”
He shrugs again. “I dunno. Really, for as long as I can remember- I mean I’ve had nightmares a lot, you know! And then the flashbacks started, and everything kinda went downhill from there.”

John looks at his watch, bolting up. “Oh shit, geez, Dave your stupidity is infecting me. I’m gonna be late to class- see you tonight.”
And with that he’s out the door.

When he comes back, late, you study. You need to study for the music classes you’ll be taking soon and he needs to do homework. It’s quiet. You’re in your respective bunks, occasionally asking a dumb question that vaguely applies to your studies, while John rambles about stupid stuff.

White noise.

Whatever.

Eventually he shuts up, you can’t hear his pencil scratching on paper anymore or pages turning and-
he’s fucking asleep. That dork.

So you get the textbook off his stomach and throw a blanket over him and go to sleep yourself.

And you wake up from him screaming his pants off oh god he better not be getting murdered. You stand on the second rung of the ladder, try to calm him, but eventually you get your ass in that bed and shake him awake.
“Yo, John, dammit, wake up.”

His fast breath slows somewhat, and he sits up, latching onto your arm with a death grip. “Dave, gosh, sorry-”

“Are you okay, man?”

He closes his mouth, breath almost normal. “Yeah, sorry. I’m fine. Thanks for... that.”

“No problem. Do you want anything?”

He opens his mouth to say something, and changes his mind. “No. Thanks, Dave, and sorry. Just- go back to sleep.”

“Egbert you were screaming like someone was killing you. I don’t think even I can just go back to sleep after that.”

He bites his lip, looking at you. “Then sleep here.”

You don’t fucking argue when someone says you can sleep with them. That’s just not a thing people can ever do.

Chapter Text

He’s telling you that you need to watch a Nic Cage movie, or at least Ghostbusters, Daaave I can’t believe you haven’t seen that.

So you plan to have a movie marathon after John has classes, with a couple ‘classic’ Cage films and Ghostbusters.

Hopefully he has good taste in movies, because you can barely sit through one normal one.

You’ll see.

And because you two are the broke college kids you are, you queue up Con Air on Netflix on the laptop. John climbs in the bed, covering himself with blankets. You get in with him, propping the laptop up on one of your knees, one of John’s, so it’s in the middle.

Aren’t you crafty.

He curls up in the blankets, so pretty much his face is all that’s showing.

Jesus, Egbert.

You smirk, shrinking down against the wall to get more comfortable, eventually leaning your head on Egbert’s shoulder. He melts into it, and you two click like fucking puzzle pieces.
No one even does puzzles anymore except for little kids and old people.
You can feel him laughing, against your arm, so you laugh too because you haven’t really been paying any attention at all.
You’re trying to.
Fuck it, you can’t pay attention when he’s this close to you, oh god, and suddenly you’re
you’re fucking giddy with some excitement shit that Rose would be able to diagnose in four seconds.

Despite that, the movie lulls you to sleep, and the warmth of having someone this close to you doesn’t help.

Like a fucking heated blanket.

“Dave,” he hisses in your ear, nudging you. “You’re gonna miss the end.”
You look, Nic Cage in rags presenting the bunny to Casey, the bunny that Egbert now has thanks to you.
He’s grinning, biting his lip with his two front teeth, slightly displaced due to a childhood thumb-sucking problem.

Fuck how do you know that.
Creepy, Strider.

And after, he puts in Ghostbusters. You’re usually asleep by this time at night, and it’s dark out, and you just want to sleep but it Egbert’s happy then
you guess you’re happy, then.
Fuck. You are so fucking in love with him oh god and he doesn’t like you, he isn’t in love with you, it’s just some one-way shit, a dead end that will make you dead if this keeps going on.
Because before, you just thought it was like, really liking your best bro. And then you thought you had some dumb crush that would last a day, but it lasted like two fucking years and here we are, kids, today it’s still going on.

By the middle of Ghostbusters, you’re drifting in and out of sleep, and you’re so tired.

John’s gone still mostly, except for the deep breathing you can feel he’s totally collapsed against you and you’re totally collapsed against him, holding each other up like those Roman arches, how they put the keystone in the middle or whatever.

Sixth grade history.

You don’t know what the fuck your keystone is in this situation, but it’s happening, so you won’t question it.

You think John’s asleep.
The movie is ending.
You’re endlessly tired.

“John,” you whisper barely, moving an arm that nudges him.

“Mmm,”

“It’s ending.”

“Oh,” he opens his eyes, and you two watch in silence until the end, where you slap the laptop shut, kicking it down to the floor where it falls into a cushion of clothes. “How’d you like ‘em?”
“Good.” You close your eyes.
“What was your favorite.”
“I dunno.”
“You didn’t pay attention, did you.” You can hear him snort.
“No.”
“I figured.”
“Your taste sucks.”
“Nic Cage is the best.”
“Nah,”
“Yaaaah,” he exaggerates.
You smirk, burying your face into his neck. It’s like, three in the morning. You’re dead. Six months ago, you wouldn’t have been dead. This would be way too early to be dead. You didn’t really even die, you stayed up for days. Sleep has never been this easy, as easy as it has been since you
shared a room with Egbert.

Shut up.

Anyways.

No shut up.
Okay.

You love sleep now, never really stay up as late as you have, because sleeping is way better than staying up until you feel like crap.

This is fine, though. Staying up once in a while is fine. Especially if you’re with John, then it’s finer.
“Ready for school tomorrow?” He asks.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday.”
“It’s pretty much school, we have so much homework, y’know,”
“Yeah.”
“So much studying, it’s really dumb.”
“Studying is so dumb,”
“I wish I could do other stuff.”
“You do do other stuff.”
“Not really.”

The only thing keeping you from falling is this half-assed three in the morning conversation.

“You’re always out.”
“Mmm, I guess,”
“What would you rather be doing then,”
“I guess hanging out with you.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause I like you Dave, why else. Dumb.”
“Hm,”
He kisses you on what you think was supposed to be the cheek, but it’s so dark and you’re both so tired that it ends up being the corner of the mouth.
You kind of lost your breath a little maybe not no of course not you dumbass you didn’t fucking lose your breath or forget how to breathe momentarily or some other asstrumpet move like that-

No, you did. It didn’t wake you up, but it certainly... broke into some part of your brain where you want.
Want more, you guess.

You grab his cheek, pulling his face to yours, close.

You kiss him softly on the lips.

Your turn to take his breath away haha he’s totally deer in the headlights you’re so evil.

And you kiss him. He kisses back. After what seems like .000001 second, you both pull away and say nothing
You kissed Egbert.
You kissed John Fucking Egbert but he kissed you first which is infinitely better, and Jesus, you’re so tired.

And after that you fall asleep right there, slumped down under twenty blankets (even though it’s summer) against the wall of the bottom bunk.

Chapter Text

You wake up with a face full of Egbert hair. It’s soft, somehow, because it always sticks up in every direction known to man like a fucking anime protagonist, but it’s still soft.

His back is pulled tightly into your chest, legs tangled together, your arm draped over his, fingers loosly laced. You can feel his breathing, deep breaths, and you momentarily panic, because he’s always gone when you wake up.
But you realize it’s Saturday, so you close your eyes and try to go back to sleep.

You can’t.

John halfway wakes up, rolling around to face you. He sleepily presses his chest tight against yours, burying his face in your neck. You wrap your arm around him and he throws his around your waist, pressing your body against his. Most of the blankets are on the floor, bunched together in some heavy bundle, and the only one that’s still on the bed is the sheet. But he’s warm, somehow, so you’re fine. He’s fine too, probably.

You both don’t want to get up, and even when you’re both pretty much awake, the sun is fully up, sneaking into your eyes from cracks in the bamboo shades. He shifts, pulling away and opening his eyes, fucking gorgeous blue, big, like sapphires or any precious stone of your choice.

You smirk and he snorts, and when he talks, his voice is rusty, the early morning voice that you have when you first get up. “Morning, dork.” And he bites his lip, muscles suddenly tensing.
“Morning.”
“Y’sleep well?”
“Mhm. You?” You ask as you reach around him to grab your shades, because it’s too bright in here for your eyes to be drowned out by darkness, and he grabs your wrist, some mischievous smirk on his lips that reminds you vaguely of when you pulled a prank on Aunt Roxy that one time.
“Yeah, I slept well.” He says, hand still grasped firmly around your wrist, above you both, with the sleep leaving his voice. He looks right into your eyes, and he’s seen them before, but you don’t discuss the weird color. You never do. “D’you remember last night?”

You forgot. Of course you did. But now you remember and a rush pushes through your veins for a second, and you try to hold down a smirk. “Yeah.”

“So...?” And you shrug because you can’t seem too overly enthused about all this because you were both half asleep and you can’t- “Pff, Dave, you’re such a bad actor. You can’t even pretend.” He says, smirking. And his mouth opens to say something more, but closes too quickly.

You don’t know what to say, so your hand squirms out of his, and the closeness of your two bodies is becoming weird, and you both separate with the same thoughts.

He stands.

“I uh, need to get to my study group.” His voice is quieter than it was twenty seconds ago. “I’m gonna be late.” And he gives a half-hearted smirk, turning to pull on a shirt and jeans over his boxers. He grabs his backpack and turns out the door.

Fuck.

When you ask Rose to meet you at the coffee shop, she tells you that she has another appointment.

Who the fuck makes fucking appointments with Rose like is that a thing.

You ask who.

She asks why you’re asking who.

You say because you want to know who is limiting your time with your precious cousin.

She says that it’s John.

And you’re pretty sure you know why he’s talking to her, and you’re pretty sure you know why you want to talk to her, and she knows.
She obviously knows, because she’s Rose.

And in a little bit, you hear a knock on your door which is really weird because John never knocks and no one comes in here.
“David, it’s your precious cousin. Let me in right now.”
You get up and get the door. She comes in, sitting on the bottom bunk, as you sit back down in your desk chair, rolling around to see her. “Sup.”
“I just concluded a session with John,” she smirks.

You stay quiet.

“John Egbert is not a homosexual, is what I got out of it.” She sighs, placing her face in her hands. “He is a very exasperating client to work with, let me tell you, David.”

“Tell me about it.” You roll your eyes.

“He talked to me about your scandalous actions last night, Strider.” She snorts, half a grin coming to her lips.

“Yeah, we were naughty, I know.”

“You really get to it.”

You lean back, biting your lip. “I fucked up, though.”

She furrows her eyebrows. “How? You didn’t really do anything anyone can fuck up on. Though, knowing you, you’d find a way.”

You roll your eyes. “Just like you said, he doesn’t like me. He’s not a fucking homosexual.”

“That doesn’t mean he can’t be attracted to you.”

“How?”

“David Strider. I thought this is the one thing you were educated on.”

“Not the psych of sexual orientation, no.”

“I thought Dirk would’ve taught you better.”

“He taught me how to strife, Rose.”

“Okay, I’m sorry.”

“There are more sexualities other than just homosexual and heterosexual. Pansexual, demisexual, asexual,”

“So what is he? Because he’s obviously not homosexual.”

“We talked, and we decided that the word that would best describe his sexuality is pansexual.”

“Okay, so...?” You prod on. You’re not really one for all this psych shit, and you don’t really like labels anyways.

“So he established that he may be in love with you. Congratulations, Strider.”

It took all that to get here, but you’re happy.

Jesus, you’re really fucking happy.

He’s in love with you.

Said through your cousin, but still said.

John
Egbert
is
in
love
with
you.

“There are more important things to be thinking about than your trials and errors with Egbert, Dave. The symptoms are still apparent, although have decreased immensely...?” She looks up at you, raising an eyebrow.

You shrug.

“The insomnia is virtually gone, as is the depression. Nightmares are still here, though not as frequent. Am I correct, Strider? Or do you two never talk and just have half-asleep makeouts.”

“Rose,” you warn. She snorts, amused with herself. You really don’t want to deal with this right now.

“But, am I correct with the symptom observations? I’m getting all this from Egbert, so it’s not the most reliable source, considering he denies it all.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s right.”

“Good. I-” The door opens and John plops his backpack on the floor by the door, looking up to see
you two.

“Oh, hi, Rose!” He grins.

“Hello, John. Strider and I were just discussing his deep love for you.” She’s obviously fighting down a laugh.

You start to protest at the same time John does, and your words get mixed together, so you both stop at the same time, looking at each other.

“I know, Dave, it’s hard to keep your infatuation for me all buried inside you. There’s just too much, isn’t there!”

Rose snorts, standing up. “Okay, I suppose I should be on my way, then. You two do whatever you need to do.” She gives you an amused look.

You watch as she walks out. She was pretty much your only lifeline, and now you have no idea what you’re doing.

John tells you he needs to study, so you do too. You put on some music for the background, and climb up to your bunk with a bottle of a.j.

So you guess you now know that your best friend is in love with you and you’re just sitting here on your ass doing nothing about it. You can’t really wait. Ever since you saw him in real life for the first time, it was pretty much confirmed that you were in love with him, though you denied it until now.

You guess this is good, though. You’ve lived with a one-way love for a long time, so just knowing that he likes you is enough.
You’re pretty sure you can wait.
For him to make the first move.
You guess.
You hope, because you don’t want to lose this
this
thing you have going on with him.

Chapter Text

You’re just now fully realizing how much of a soft-ass pansy you are and how disappointed Bro would be in you for turning into this.

Because you’re just now fully realizing how many nights you ended up falling asleep to scenarios of you and Egbert confessing to each other like a fucking anime.
Or having your first kiss like a fucking anime.

Like a fucking shoujo and that’s really weird.
Or going on a first date or cuddling or watching movies or making out.
You blame Bro partially, because he was always the one who made you watch those.

You’re like a teenage girl.

You pretty much are a teenage girl.

And you’re just now realizing that because you just now realize that that’s all been blown for you. Rose kind of spoiled it. You two know you like each other now. It’s awkward. You’re not calling him a b-baka on your birthday while you’re watching the fireworks on the school roof at night.

You’re in a dorm room that’s way too hot for your liking because people in Washington don’t have air conditioning, and you’re studying in silence and then John will make an excuse about having to go somewhere because he has a life and you’re left all alone until dinner when he comes back with a full stomach and you just have Ramen again because you’re too lazy to get anything else.

Wow, Strider. You just described literally the past two weeks which have seemed like the past two years because it’s been worse than it was before the whole fireworks ordeal.

You really can’t stand going back.

So you currently aren’t standing.
You’re lying on your bed, the top bunk, with a textbook heavy on your stomach, watching it move up and down as you breathe, the hypnotizing rhythm of breath that you amazingly have for once in a lifetime because Egbert usually steals it when he’s around.

It’s like if he’s in the room, he takes it all.

Though another thought, the thought that you really want him in the room all the time contridicts that but really don’t need logic in your life right now. You’re not in logics class, actually, so no time for that. Save it for the class.

Anyways.

The smell of Chinese food pulls you out of your deep thought and John is putting the bag on the desk and throwing a box of rice up to you, followed by a pelting of chop sticks and soy sauce packets.

It brings you back to the days when you still lived with Bro and you had Chinese almost every night, besides the times when you ordered pizza.

You’d think that you’re sick of it.

“Thanks for dinner, Bro.”

He snorts, sitting on the floor. “Beats Ramen every night.”

“How were classes?”

He looks up at you, furrowing his eyebrows. You never really ask. “Good, but I’m glad their ending soon. I’m happy I only took summer classes, y’know?”

“Yeah. Mine are starting soon, though. Better get my ass in gear again. Prepare the engines for maximum boredom-strength mode.”

“Oh yeah. It’s bad. Especially some lectures, but you really do have to take notes, you know.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Hey! I’m just saying. You’ll need them to study and everything.”

You shovel noodles in your mouth, hopping down to sit across from him and you take an egg roll. “Yeah, yeah. I don’t even know what classes I’m taking. I signed up like, a long time ago.”

“Weren’t you going to take photography and, like, some music thing?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know where anything is.”

“You’ll remember when you walk around a bit.”

“Hopefully.”

“Dude, are you nervous? I thought Striders had nerves of like, vibranium or something.”

You snort. “I’m not fucking nervous Egbert and yes all Striders have nerves made of vibranium.”

“Really.”

“Mhm.” You nod.

And after a couple seconds of silence, he goes, “Dave, it’s been kind of... weird... between us, because of Rose, probably, and-”

“I know.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

He shoots you a look, half laughing. “Dave, you’re really good at this.”

“Yeah I am. I’m the best at this thing.”

“Deep Conversations with Dave. It’s a t.v. show. Most words on the show consist of ‘I know,’ ‘yeah,’ and, ‘okay.’”

“Yeah, I know. Okay.”

“Oh my god, Dave. How do you even do that!”

“Practice, my padawan.”

“Ah, okay, Jedi Master Strider or however you address Jedi Masters. Wow, I haven’t seen those movies in a long time.”

“Me neither. Bro and I would always watch them, but that’s it.”

“You and Bro seem pretty close,” he says. leaning back on the side of the bottom bunk. He stretches his legs out.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Dave, you guys did everything together! Dad just cooked all the time, or he was in the office doing business things.”

“Sometimes he’d drag me out of my room and force me to watch anime or movies or shit, but that’s it. He always did mysterious stuff at night, like, he’d be out all night and come back when I was at school, he was just in and out all the time. We didn’t really interact.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“So you just did Dave-has-no-life stuff?”

“Basically. I studied for school a lot, and did photography and Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff- yeah, really shitty, unproductive crap.”

“Wow, Dave. I’m just surprised to hear that studying was on that list!”

“I am a great student, Egbert, and don’t ever forget that pretty much every school day, you’d get your ass on Pesterchum and ask me to help with your math homework, and I’d just end up doing it for you.”

“How could I ever forget? It’s the only thing you have that you can hold against me.”

You laugh, “Wow, Egbert. You’re really one with the words.”

“Of course. Every morning, I meditate with twenty dictionaries on top of my head to make sure the words are with me.”

“How the fuck do I never see that?”

“Because you sleep for half the day. You’re like a cat, Dave.”

“Yeah, and here’s a dead mouse I found for you. You’re welcome.”

He laughs, “I’m honored.”

“You should be, John. You’re my human. You should love me.”

He laughs again and says, “Yeah, of course I do, Stridercat-” He bites his lip.

And there’s some awkward silence between you two. You break it. “Wow, here we are at the subject this conversation was supposed to be about again.”

“From Jedis to cats to this.”

“How do we do it? How the fuck does this happen.” You say, laughing.

“But, y’know, I’m pretty sure we do both... y’know... like, love each other or something. Shit. I totally failed on that, sorry.” He smiles nervously, looking at you.

You smile back, combing a hand through your hair. You’re pretty sure that you’re both freaking out on the inside.

“We’re so dumb, Dave, you don’t even know.”

“We’re definitely dumb.”

“We’re a mess.”

“A pile of shit on your new carpet. Sorry, human. Actually, no, I’m not sorry. You should be happy to have the wonderful presence of my shit on your carpet.”

“A stain of love,” John says, giggling.

“Ew, Egbert, that’s actually pretty gross. We’re talking about carpetpoop here. How does this happen.”

“See? I told you we’re dumb. Dumb people do that.”

“What, shit on new carpets?”

He grins, elbowing you, “No!”

“Then what?” You grin because you really don’t realize you’re grinning so what can you do.

He thinks for a second. “I forgot where I was going with that, actually.”

And when you kiss him you’re both still smiling.

Chapter Text

You don’t think you’ve been breathing for the past however long you’ve been kissing John Egbert.

Actually, you just placed your lips on his after you decided you both were done talking about carpetpoop.

So what do you do.

Like how do you do this.

You don’t know what you did after the movies at three AM but somehow you did it, so you figure you can do it again.

You feel John’s hand on your cheek, the other resting on your thigh and he pushes his lips on yours, laughing still, muttering at you about how dumb you both are.

So you let your hand go up to his shoulder, and move your lips across his and you’re not sure that you’re doing this right, but he’s not running away at hyper speed so you must be doing it at least not horribly.

“Dave have you ever done this before because you’re freaking out.”

“Yeah, I’ve done this before what are you talking about Egbert.”

You’ve never done this before.

“You haven’t?”

“I just said I have.”

“That means you haven’t.”

You began to protest and he cuts you off. “Stop freaking out. You’re fine. Just put your hands here,” he moves one to the back of his neck, “and here.” He moves the other to his cheek.

“I can’t believe you’ve done this before.” You grunt.

“Dave, we’re in college. Everyone except you has.”

You roll your eyes. “With who?”

He smirks as he says, “Vriska. Only once, a tiny bit. Geez.”

“Hm.”

“So what was that?”

“John I’ve been in love with you since I first saw you in real life and for the past two weeks, I’ve been trying not to do this, because for the past two weeks I’ve known that you were in love with me, and-”

He kisses you hard.

You can’t really breathe but that’s okay.

Your hand combs through his impossibly soft hair and the other grips his cheek, pulling it in a bit because you want to get closer, as close as you can possibly be, because you’ve imagined this so many times.

You fell asleep to this kind of fantasy, again, back to the teenage girl thing.

Whatever.

When your glasses clank together not for the first time, he takes yours off and they skim across the wooden floor. You part for a second and he looks deep into your eyes, smiling. “Why do you always wear your shades?”

He obviously knows the answer to that question and he’s just being an ass, but you reply anyways. “They freak people out.”

And his eyebrows come together. “How?” He’s like a mom saying that her child is beautiful why would they want makeup or clothes.

“Because they’re fucking red, how else.”

John rolls his eyes (That you really can’t take your eyes off of because they’re so perfect, especially when they aren’t tinted by your shades). “They’re awesome, though!”

“Not really.”

“Yeah really, man.” He smiles, and kisses you. You kiss back because you’re done with that conversation.

You snicker, “Jesus fuck, Egbert,” when he puts a cold hand on your hip under your shirt, sending a web of chills across your back. He catches a kiss when your mouth is still open, which is a weird and new and intriguing way to kiss, but you decide against it because that’s fucking weird.

You’re so weird.

Your lips are pressed against his and you open your eyes because you want to see what he looks like because you’re weird, and you feel your hand holding his shoulder, right where a wing would go on that weird-ass bone that sticks out of his back, and you suddenly wish you had wings, but that thought is quickly dismissed because you can’t really wish for anything right now.

Because you have everything you can think of that you’ve wished for right here.

(Sappy, Strider.)

And when you separate you’re both breathing like you’ve literally just run a marathon, and you can’t remember the last time you could breathe this easily because like you said.

You have everything you can think of that you’ve wished for right here.

“I love you.” You breathe. “I seriously really fucking love you.”
When he smiles, the word ‘endearing’ comes to mind, but that’s just overboard with the sappiness, so you push it away.

And he says, “I love you too, Dave. I seriously just figured that out two weeks ago but I really really love you, oh my god, Dave.”

You smile.

The rest of the day goes past in a flurry, because John’s friend called and told him he was late to the study group. John ran out of there, because apparently he takes study groups very seriously.

Oh well.

Rose pesters you and checks on everything (John’s ‘symptoms’). That’s the first time you’ve thought about them in a long time. They really haven’t been showing up much, and you guess that’s good. You say to Rose that they’re pretty much gone.

She seems skeptical.

Oh well.

John comes home and by then you two usually just go to bed, so he climbs in after taking his shirt off and putting on pajama pants. “Get in here, Strider.”

You do the same, climbing him and lying behind him, like you’ve done twice (?) before, draping an arm over his waist, pressing your face into his neck, and now you press kisses there too because apparently that’s a thing you can do now.

He giggles and turns around, you press together and kiss his collarbone and he moans, putting his arms around you and kissing your neck and sending the same still unfamiliar chills down your spine, even though it’s pretty hot outside. And wow okay you didn’t know that this could happen but it’s fucking great so it continues until it subsides and you fall asleep like that and you’re pretty sure your life is complete now.

Chapter Text

Euphoria or Utopia.

You don’t know the difference, but both words come to mind when you think of the state you’re in right now, all sappiness and un-irony aside, you’re the happiest you’ve ever been.

According to Egbert, a euphoria is a state of being, while a utopia is a place.

So euphoric would be the better word, then, because the world is certainly not a utopia.

Huh.

You’ve decided that you’re boyfriends now and wow okay, it’s seriously the most perfect state of being right now because neither of you have classes, though you do start yours tomorrow, and John will probably just hang here for the school year, working or some shit. Fieldwork, he said, was the big thing that had to happen in the summer, and that’s why he has a reverse school year, because you can’t do fieldwork in the cold- especially with what he’s studying.

You’ve been hanging with him a lot, Rose already left to go to another college for the school year- studying year around Jesus Christ, Rose.

These are your I’ve-just-woken-up thoughts, and you open your eyes, squinting at the sunrise before you, and you feel John’s chest pressed against yours, actually more like on top of yours but whatever.

You both are crazy sleepers.

Your eyelids fall again because it’s like seven in the morning and Jesus you realize that your phone’s vibrating, lost inside the tangle of sheets, tickling your shin.

“Dave.” John’s lips are on your cheek, then your nose, forehead, you open your eyes and wow Strider you’re so smooth, you place your lips on his. “Oh, I didn’t know you were a-mmh,”

You snicker and eventually start laughing, separate, lying side by side. “Morning.”

“Oh, I forgot! Classes start today for you! Are you ready?”

“Yeah, sit through some long-ass lecture about music theory. What even is that. Like, Bach ate some 1700s shit for breakfast and then laid down some sicknasty rhythms,”

“That’s exactly what it is, Dave. You’re ahead of the game.”

“Great.”

“Yeah, I only have music theory and then I have, like, musicianship shit or something.”

“At least it’s not constant classes all day, like high school, y’know?”

“Yeah, it’s nice.”

John gets up. “‘Kay, well you have to get going then,”

You stand and grab your backpack and a bottle of aj after throwing on a sweatshirt and jeans. “See ya,” and you kiss him on the cheek and step through the door. At least this isn’t like last year, where you didn’t know what the fuck you were doing and you freaked out at every new class. You’ve spent too much time wandering the buildings on campus to not know what you’re doing.

You and Egbert have wandered campus a lot. Your previous lifestyle has been dropped, as have Egbert’s friends (you wonder how that works. Like, wouldn’t they be mad that he completely killed their connection?), and you can’t deny that you like it way more this way, so you’ve been getting off your ass, SB&HJ hasn’t been getting as much attention as it has gotten, and your mixes haven’t either.

You two still study, though.

The wind snaps you out of the summer sort of... hypnotic state you’ve been in since classes ended. It slaps you on the cheek, sharper than it’s been- obvious that fall is coming.

You check the time, and you think you’ll be good, so you slow your pace, looking straight ahead at the forest in front of you.

Campus is built entirely on the side of a mountain. It’s fairly flat, but at certain points, there’s a sheer drop below you, and at others, the trees seem to be growing out of nothing. Some grow out of tiny cracks in rocks, huge rocks, with a slim break in their middle, taken up by the stem of a tree.

It’s a full fucking tree growing out of a two inch crack of a piece of granite. How do they do that.

The clouds move fast above, faster than you walk, which is unusual because usually clouds lazily make their way across the sky, sometimes not moving at all.

Whatever.

You open the door and turn to the lecture hall, sitting in the back, the top row. You pull out your laptop, saving and exiting a long forgotten game of Sid Meier's Pirates because that game is the sickest shit and no one can deny it.

You open Microsoft Word 2007 and title your notes, and the speaker gets there.

You need to get used to this, Strider. It’s gonna be happening a lot in the next six-or-whatever months.

So you wonder if this is still classified as a euphoria. If now that you have classes and Egbert doesn’t, switching roles, is still a euphoria. You’re still glad that you both are together, definitely, but it’s not the same.

It’s not summer.

Summer in Washington is so much better than summer in Austin. It’s clearer and cooler, it’s easier and it’s with John Fucking Egbert.

Jesus, you’re dating him. You would’ve never fucking dreamed.

Euphoria, you guess.

Yeah, it’s definitely a euphoria.

Chapter Text

You kick your shoes off, dropping your backpack on the floor. John is lying on his bed, talking on his phone. “Yeah, I know, but that was, a long time ago, like, last summer.” He says to the phone, eyes holding your gaze as he gives you a small smile. “Yeah, Dad, I know, but-” He’s cut off, smile falling with a sigh. “But I don’t have to, right, it’s just like- yeah I know but,” his lips fall into a frustrated frown as he fiddles with the metal binding of a notebook. “I’m fine here! Everything’s good.”

You cross the room and sit across from him on the bed. You mouth, What? and he shakes his head.

John takes a breath in, opening his mouth and closes it quickly, silenced. “Oh,” and his mouth forms the shape of something like shit but he doesn’t say it out loud.

Jesus, you’re dying here.

“Yeah,” his voice get’s smaller. “Okay. Yup! M’kay, bye.” He bites his lip, looking at you. “Hey.”

“What was that?”

“Dad.” A half hearted laugh, “Yeah, it was about this college, back home that I applied for last summer...” You stay quiet, slightly stunned by your lack of breathing or feeling or seeing or hearing just some cliche-ass heartbeat in your ears, which is the only way you are fucking aware that you’re still alive. You taste blood where you’ve been biting on your lip, you guess, and open your mouth to breathe maybe, because you can’t really get the oxygen any other way. “Yeah, uh. Yeah. They’re giving me a scholarship for the school year, so. Dad wants me to go there for, um, now.”

The words tumble out in rusty chunks between you two. “So what’re you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna go! Dave, it’s a really big school, you know that,” yeah you know that. And you know that Egbert should get a chance to actually have a successful life because you know for a fact that you won’t. You shouldn’t be the one pile of plush puppet ass in his way.

You won’t be.

“Okay, so when’re you leaving,”

“Dave,” he bites his lip again, “you’re gonna be fine, geez.” Rolls his eyes, standing up. “I need to go, talk to my professors,” you nod. “I’ll see ya!” He steps out the doorway, door shutting behind him.

He’s just leaving, god, why is this so easy for him. Stepping out, like, away from... people... how the fuck does that happen.

You love him, though. You love him and you’re in love with him, and you’re fairly certain that he is, too, but you’re not sure.

Not anymore, because he’s just leaving, and you don’t know how he does that oh look we’re back here again good job, Strider.

Full circle.

Shit life, to some euphoria bullshit, to an even more shit life because now he’s fucking gone and you can’t really deal with that because you’re a weak-ass pansy.

And some part of you says-

Jesus, fuck, Strider, he literally just fucking got off the phone with his dad. You just found out, you shitsack. Why are you making all these assumptions that your life is going to be crap because you can’t, really. It’ll tear you down, probably, and make you worse than before. You were a fucking robot machine piece of metal with a couple wires sticking out made in China that didn’t work very well at all. You can’t be that because that would be bad, worse, even, than before all this, and that can’t be a thing that happens.

You go outside, and the sun’s going down and it’s dying everything that orangegolden glow, it warms your side and you duck behind a shadow, bathed in cool shade, giving your eyes some sort of break.

The door slams of the Biology building at a voice cracks across the open, empty square, surrounded with benches. “Dad, I told you, I don’t fucking want to go!”

Silence follows, spreading over the area, freezing time in its path. It’s more empty than you ever thought silence could be, and you both know who you both are but you’re fucking frozen so nothing will really happen.

You’re leaned up against the rough brick, hands in your pocket, towards the forest in front of you, close in front of you, about four feet away. An animal instinct says to run, but you’ve pushed those down long ago.

“Dad,” quiet. “Dad I told you,” soft, brushing against the silence, lightly, testing it’s strength.

Jesus Strider. You’re so poetic.

“Dad, c’mon. I know, it’s just,” he’s cut off. “I know! It’s just-”

Silence, the darkest kind that’s so dark it’s blinding, flaming, hot hot, encasing everything in a flaming body but impossibly cold at the same time. It cuts like a knife across every inch of air, every atom in the air and every molecule and electron or neutron or whatever that shit is.

“Okay.” Dejected. A million times just done, fucking done.

“Okay.”

“Okay, Dad.”

“Got it.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah- thanks.” The last word is barely put out there, placed on the ground in front of him like a puppy who wants to play fetch, so it puts the ball in front of you and looks at you like, hey yo, you’re so great I love you so much and please don’t hate me but maybe you could throw this ball so I can bring it back to you wow you’re so great I love you so much

“Shit,” he mutters, more confidently this time, but also more sad.

You think you can move again, you let your breath go, shifting your foot on the light concrete under you that makes a scuffing sound that is so unnatural, you can fucking feel his gaze on your shadow of the building, you freeze again.

You don’t freeze.

You step out, dramatic villain entrance, out of the shadows, the wind should be blowing lightly in front of you to get the hair out of your face, but unfortunately that’s not the case.

You can see better now, because being in the shade with shades on didn’t really work out well, and he’s sitting on a bench to the side of a stagnant fountain, elbows on his knees, head in his hands, propped up on loose fists, one with an iPhone and one with a pen.

“Egbert,” you try out your voice, and it cracks the silence, cutting it with one of Bro’s rusty old katanas.

He looks up at you, hands falling to his lap. “Hey! Where were you, geez. You’re like a fucking ninja or something.”

“I’ve been trained,” you smirk, standing in front of him

There’s that deadly silence again, until he looks up at you with a sad smile. “So uh, yeah. I’m- I have to go.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t want to go?” And now that you know that he doesn’t want to go, it makes you feel a little better about all this, because he’s not entirely leaving.

He kind of is whatever okay.

“I kind of did, at the time, I guess. It all kind of hit me um, here, and I changed my mind and freaked out and called Dad, but he won’t budge because it’s a lot of money and I don’t even have a scholarship here and,”

He trails off, bringing silence soon, and wow you meet again. Haven’t seen (heard?) you in a while.

“D’you wanna just order pizza or something,” you’re actually starving.

“Yeah, that sounds good! Thanks, Dave.”

“No problem.”

He gets up and you walk back together, kind of half-holding hands, fingers sliding across each other, something weird like that.

You really want to hold his hand right now because you know you’re not going to be able to fucking touch in general soon, so you tell him: “Egbert we’re kind of half-assing it right now. Hold my hand.”

He shakes his head, snorting, and grabs your hand. “Wow Dave. Did you say please? No. So rude. You’re lucky I love you.”

“Yeah I am, you probably would’ve killed me already.”

“Pff, I don’t go around killing people, Strider,”

“With your words.”

“Oh, yeah I guess that’s true.” He laughs. “Stab stab, shoot shoot, bang,” like is that how you kill people with words or am I doing it wrong.

He does the pistol thing with his hands and you grab both of them, scowling dramatically. “Dude, bro, man, Egbert,” you sigh, draw every syllable out slowly, “are these words?”

“You caught me, Strider. I haven’t only been using words.”

“Wow. My life is a lie.”

You start walking again, with you muttering about how fucking empty your stomach is and that it’ll probably start being a black hole soon if you don’t get some delicious pizza in there soon.

Not long at all after the guy delivers the pizza, you’re both filled to the rim with greasy cheese and crust and sauce Jesus you love pizza.

And in the moment, the savory wonder of your best foodfriend takes over your psych and throws thoughts in your head that say all will be well Strider Egbert’s not fucking going anywhere and you two will stay here in this stuffy dorm eating pizza and making out and cuddling and studying for the rest of your lives because the world will stop for you, because you are not one person out of seven-fucking-billion in the world.

“Dave,” John hisses at you, tossing his plate on the floor. You do the same, turning to face him. “So um,” He pauses, not entirely sure that you’re with him yet.

“Yeah, what.”

“I’m leaving in three days. We’re flying there, I think it’s in, like, Illinois or something. The college is big in biology and stuff, and there’s good fieldwork there.”

Your stomach knots at Illi-fucking-nois because that’s like, half-a-continent-width away and you definitely can’t get there, flying or otherwise. “That’s good, definitely.” You’re a broke college student.

“Sorry, Dave,” he swallows, taking your hand and squeezing it.

“No problem, dude,” you smile a little big, looking at his eyes. He takes your shades off and you barely flinch because you’ve had them off more and more lately, just wearing them to go out.

He rolls his eyes, “Yeah, it actually is a problem, Dave, because-” he breaks off into a sort of embarrassed (?) smile, rolling his eyes again, Jesus, and you kiss him because you think that that’s what you both need.

He smiles when you part, holding your neck, thumb skimming your jawbone, “Geez, sorry,” he breathes, and you mutter, “Gave me an excuse,” he laughs and kisses you again.

Pizza and making out and this can’t really get any better if you were completely oblivious to what will happen in three days, but you aren’t, so it’s just kind of sad and the lonely is already tearing at the bottom of your stomach making you want to throw up.

You’ll try to savor it, you tell yourself, but really- how the fuck can you.

Chapter Text

You wake up, the euphoria (of having Egbert curled up against you like a fucking cat) still making your brain swim, having not been worn off from

from the

normal life, you guess, because three days ago is when you found out that John Egbert would be attending the school year in another college and this neverending feeling of nausea has come over you since then.

So it all hits you harder than Bro would when you weren’t aware that you’re strifing, and he smacks you across the cheek with the sword to say yo get your ass off that damn chair we’re strifing

And you honestly think you’re going to puke.

John shifts in your arms, turning around to face you, burying his face in your neck. He presses his lips there, too.

He fucking knows and he hasn’t opened his eyes yet.

And his works his way up, your jawbone, your cheek and then he kisses your lips, hand on your waist and you’re trying to forget everything, but it isn’t really working.

And he kisses you harder, and the first words you hear that morning are, “I love you,” so you tell him, “I love you too.”

You’re making this such a big deal, geez. It’ll be like before.

When you communicated on Pesterchum.

It’ll be like before.

Before wasn’t that bad, no, it wasn’t that bad.

“God,” he says, opening his eyes, looking straight at you and you lock eyes from such close range you think that the two opposite colors are going to collide and explode or something. “I’m so sorry.”

You look at him, and you try to feel everything right now. You need to remember everything that is happening right fucking now because everything isn’t as infinite as it was before.

“You can’t do anything,” you tell him. “you can’t do anything.” And you kiss him lightly, softly.

He pulls away. “Yeah, Dave, I can, actually! I can not go.”

“But you kind of have to-”

“No, Dad just really really wants me to.”

“I don’t blame you for that, Egbert.”

And he looks into your eyes, close, lips moving against yours. “I’m sorry,”

You smile the tiniest smile that you think has ever come across your lips, and he kisses you. He kisses the knot in your stomach away, pushed far below- somewhere that you can’t feel right now.

And that’s fine, really, because as long as you can be deprived from the world right now, everything is okay. Everything will be (future tense) okay if everything is okay right now (present tense). Does that make sense? No. You’re crazy and you hate it, but

but you just think that you’re a pansy and you want to stay in bed kissing Egbert with the morning sun being the only other warm thing in the room, soon to pass- and that’s the problem. The sun can’t go away because then this won’t stay like this forever, and it has to stay like this forever.

Things keep moving and they can’t. They can’t because if they keep moving then that means John has to go to a dumb biology college for smart people in Illinois, the middle of fucking nowhere where all they have is corn and cows and that can’t happen.

Shit you’re crying.

“Dave,” he looks infinitely sad, at you and the occasion, worried, guilty god you fucked up. “Shit Dave why are you crying! No everything’s gonna be okay, right? Pesterchum and Skype and I’ll visit you a lot,” a hand comes up to your cheek and he wipes away the, like, two tears on your cheeks, why is he making such a big deal out of this.

You smirk, “Sorry,” and give a small laugh, and someone’s phone vibrates and you think that the moment you wanted to last forever has now ended because the real world is touching it now, and it’s gross when two foods touch and it’s the same for this.

John finds it in the bundle of sheets and blankets and looks at you, “It’s Dad,”

“Take it, bro.”

He smiles, bringing the phone to his ear.

You rest your head on his chest, protective, like his dad’s gonna come out of the fucking phone and drag him away.

And of course you listen to the conversation how could you not he’s right here.

“Hey, Dad!” Pause, he bites the bottom lip of his smile, looking at you. “Yeah.” Pause, open mouth, he’s waiting to say something else. “I know, I’m going. I know, I’ll be there! Yeah.” This sucks this sucks this sucks this sucks this sucks this sucks everything sucks everything fucking sucks right now. He rolls his eyes, “Oh. Okay, yeah. Okay. I know. I will. Okay. Okay bye.” And he looks at you, “Dad’s here. He got a hotel down the road, he wanted to make sure everything was okay with everything, so,”

You look around at his bag and backpack by the door, most of his belongings, because you both didn’t bring much. You kiss him and, “You better get going, then.”

He nods, “Yeah. You can definitely come with if you want to, though! I’ll be there for a night and then we’ll catch the flight tomorrow morning.”

“I will, yeah. I’ll drive you.” You stand, as hard as it is, and you pull on a shirt and jeans as he does.

And you’re out the door, Egbert insisting on carrying all his stuff, so you keep your hands in your pockets. You watch his every move, though, out of fear and hope and awe, wonder, love, love, want, sadness, anger and guilt and longing, pretty much any emotion anyone could have about anyone ever, wow wow you already miss him.

He sits by you in the car, the front passenger seat and you really just want to be back to cuddling and kissing and talking about everything and nothing at the same fucking time how do people do that.

You realize for the millionth time that you’re a fucking softass pansy, and you’re kind of letting that slide, for now, because Bro always said that love would make you crazy or some shojuo bullshit so you’re pretty sure this is just some dumb side effect that Rose would be able to diagnose in two seconds.

Also, you know he knows that you’re going out with his precious gem of a son, because in the long six-or-something months that you’ve been going out, there were some Dadcalls and John broke it to him, and he was very supportive, whatever made his precious gem of a son happy he could do, as long as they were being safe- and that’s all you heard before you tuned him out and let Egbert do the talking.

You’re in the hotel parking lot before you know it, and Egbert’s nudging you with a shoulder because you’ve just kind of zoned out. “Daaaaaaaave.”

“Hey, yeah, okay,” you look at him, kind of zone out on his face.

“Dave, come on.”

You focus, and suddenly everything’s way too HD for you, because you left your shades back at the dorm oh shit you left your shades back at the dorm.

You guess you aren’t going in, then. And Egbert knows. And the both of you also know that it would also be too hard to say your teary farewells in the middle of some hotel lobby with a rusty old man sitting there behind the counter.

It kind of bothers you that if you were a young male female couple, you could do that and exchange a couple kisses and tears in the hotel lobby and the rusty old man behind the counter would find his heart mushing a little, for the first time in a long time.

Whatever.

“Alright,” your voice is hoarse now.

“Okay.” He says, biting his lip god why is it so cute when he does that what’s wrong with you.

And he smiles. “We’ll see each other again, Dave. It’ll be just like before. You’ll be fine, I promise.”

Oh god there it is there’s the promise that all his sappy fucking movies with Nic Cage or another actor with a name so generic it gets lost in your big ass directory of names.

“Yeah, I know. It’ll be fine.”

“Okay, well, bye, then! We can video chat and stuff, I think Pesterchum just got a new update for that, we can see how it works,”

You really just want him to shut the fuck up. “Yeah, definitely. ‘Kay, bye Egbert. See ya,”

“Bye!” He steps out of the already opened car door and heads towards the door of the hotel with that rusty old man behind the counter probably spying on your disgusting youth shenanigans.

You watch him, because you’re in this sappy movie what other choice is there.

And you will him to turn around and smile or wave because if you’re in a sappy movie what other choice is there.

He stops and here it is, the turn around,

He turns around.

Called it.

And with a backpack on like a Pokemon trainer going on his journey just a little late, and a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, he runs, oh I forgot my grocery list in the car whoops

Who even does grocery lists is the real question here.

He runs up to the car and you open the door and he drops his blue duffel bag and leans over and your lips crash together, and it’s the sloppiest, most sappy kiss, and he breaks away, breathing heavily, muttering, “I love you,”s, and you mutter that “I love you too,” so many times until you both are questioning your consciousness from lack of oxygen to the brain, you part, tips of your noses touching, looking into each other’s eyes.

“I love you,” you say.

“I love you too,” he says.

And then he turns around and disappears behind the hotel doors, leaving the rusty old man behind the counter questioning what the fuck just happened in that car and what the fuck is wrong with today’s youth.

Chapter Text

TG: egbert
TG: yeah youre probably not online
TG: because youre a normal person but what else is new
TG: but yeah you kinda left me here listening to some sick raps
TG: so hows illinois
TG: hows the weather
TG: pretty boring over here
TG: even rose left
TG: leaving me for the shitass school year
TG: youre not even trees
TG: get it because i said leaving
TG: leaves
TG: its really just lectures that suck dick
TG: and yes mom im taking notes thanks
TG: whilst playing sid meyers pirates ill have you know
TG: that game is the shit
TG: sickest shit around
EB: hey dave!
TG: oh
TG: hi egbert
TG: sorry for filling your inbox to the rim with
TG: words
EB: pff, its okay, strider. im used to it.
EB: you dont really seem like youre doing well?
EB: i mean, the rambles arent always a good sign.
TG: no im fine
EB: suuuuuuuure.
EB: if you ever need to talk, though, just remember im here dave!
EB: were just a couple hundred miles away.
TG: yeah i know
TG: thanks
EB: i guess what im saying is that i still love you!
EB: i love you dave!
EB: you know that right?
TG: i love you too
TG: i just miss you i guess
EB: i miss you too dave.

Your name is John Egbert and you are currently in Illinios.
Dad went back, he just made sure everything was okay for a few days and now you’re on your own.

You’re alone, and you’re not used to that.

You also have a dorm to yourself, until someone else needs it. So you spread all your stuff out- which is something you could have never done with Dave because he was the one spreading his stuff out. You guess your stuff was spread out too.

It was all kind of just all over the place okay.

And you miss it.

You miss it because the room feels way to empty, despite it’s tiny, dormy size. It’s empty and blank and lonely.

You lie down on the bed and began taking notes on the next chapter of Psych- and you wonder how Rose does this stuff as her major because it is horrible.

It is horrible and you kind of zone out and find yourself on the edge of sleep, drowning in it, and you fall of the edge and fall asleep.

You wake up with a Psych textbook on your stomach and open your eyes- the bottom of the top bunk, that’s right overhead, is covered in words and scribbles God, what happened?

They’re all blue and red and pink and green, insults, insults, written on the wood base right in front of you and you begin to wonder what the hell is wrong with you.

Rose knows, Rose knows and she will take care of it, but Rose isn’t here and Dave isn’t here or Jade- you don’t even know where Jade is. Neither are any of the trolls- as you called them back in Washington- because they always went on the internet, mostly Pesterchum, and trolled people like the fifteen year old douches they were.

Okay they weren’t really fifteen year old douches but they were the equivalent.

Basically, no one is here and you’re not used to that. And there’s no one to talk to.

A selfish thought slightly calms you, though. Dave must be worse. Meaning, you shouldn’t be sad that you’re so alone.

Because what alone is to you can’t even compare to what Dave’s been through.

Wow and now you feel really bad for Dave!

You remember when you were ten and you met, online- you had stumbled upon one of his mixes on Youtube and you feel in love with his music so fanmail, of course followed, and he said to ‘hit me up on Pesterchum,’ so you did and you talked a lot a lot a loooooooot. About everything. He was your best bro and honestly, you had a lot of bros, so that was saying a lot. You don’t think he noticed that, though. You didn’t talk about it, but he talked about having ‘no friends’ and how ‘school’s shit’ (You always wondered, how could school be shit? And when he talked about it you knew, you knew that you should be really happy with what you have because it could suck way more.) But this was always a one-line, two-worded thing. You’ve talked so much between ages ten and now, that you’ve picked up a lot. You’ve put it together.

You remember when you were fourteen, seeing him in real life for the first time, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, DAVE! In the airport and you ran up to him and hugged him from behind while Dad just stood there watching from afar, a tiny smile on his face.

You remember when you were nineteen, moving in the dorm with him, second year of college- last year, which still seems like a couple of weeks ago. You’re both pretty messy, so that was a plus for your sanity and his. You’re both always eating, snacking off each other’s stuff, so that was a plus for your sanity.

You also remember about three weeks into college, second year, at the new place with Dave in Washington, going to the coffee shop. Alternia, it was called, an oddly familiar name that gave it a sense of home.

Escape. And you met the trolls there, too, sitting at the one long table in the place, they welcomed you, a slightly lukewarm welcome, but a welcome nonetheless.

They were awesome! Especially Vriska, while she was
while she was still
uh...

okay nevermind about that.

Where were you?

Oh well.

After your thirteenth birthday, when the four of you got copies of a new video game, (carefully selected beta testers, apparently) you started having the nightmares.

It started with nightmares, you remember, and soon as you delved into your deeper teenage years, it was depression and you could never sleep.

You told Rose.

Dad caught on, but he thought it was just teenage stuff, so he didn’t do much.

Rose did.

Apparently, as a teen herself, and some sort of child psychology genius, Rose knew it wasn’t right and hasn’t figured anything out since.

The dreams were the weirdest, and the scariest, because they didn’t make sense. They were absurd, because Jade’s dog isn’t evil. You and the other three aren’t gods or anything, and
and
you haven’t died multiple times.

Dave hasn’t.

Jade hasn’t.

Rose hasn’t.

And when you met the trolls, you dreamt that they died a lot too, you dreamt that they killed each other which you didn’t tell Rose because that’s too crazy.

You are probably going insane.

An unfortunate boy gone insane!

You aren’t sure you deserve this, either! You’ve always been the likeable person, according to
you aren’t lying, you swear! But really, everyone has liked you! You can’t remember any bullies in your childhood, because everyone was your friend. You were one of those people, you guess. Which you’re fine with, definitely, you’re thankful for it.

But why you?

Why do you have the nightmares or why can you not sleep and why do you get depressed so easily?

Why do you jump at random sounds and freak out at the things you jump at? Why do you feel sick after and why do have flashbacks of
things
that
never
happened!
You can’t even enjoy fireworks anymore, because you’ll have a panic attack and feel like the world is closing in on you, and you can’t be anywhere high because you get some stupid flashbacks of flying over a battlefield.

And, fuck, you haven’t thought of this for a long time. Right when you moved in with Dave everything got better, and then when you went out with the trolls a lot it got worse,

and

and then when you started, when you started being boyfriends with Dave, it was better.

Shut up.

No, that’s so dumb. That’s dumb because this isn’t a fucking fairy tale and you actually do feel like shit right now, and you can’t take any of this

this

bullshit!

It’s all dumb, because that wouldn’t matter who you were with. If you were with the trolls or Dave, you should still have the same amount of nightmares or flashbacks or happiness.

And just now you realize that you’ve been staring at your mysterious sleep-drawing habits (that’s a new one) on the bunk above you.

You’re sick of it.

You’re sick of everything!

You roll over on your stomach and cry.

Chapter Text

Your name is Dave Strider.

Dare you say that the bed is cold, because hell yes it is it’s the arctic in here, but that would be some chiche country song so you won’t.

You just fucking did. Whatever.

Wow and you feel like shit too.

You try to curl up in the bed, twisting your fingers in the blankets and squeezing your eyes shut like you did when there was a thunderstorm and Bro was out somewhere and you were home alone, you tried to escape everything.

It really doesn’t have the same effect.

You feel lonelier than before. Any time before, really, because hell yeah there’s been a lot of befores, and none of them have been as lonely as now.

So what you do is the complete opposite of what you want to do.

You get the fuck outside and go to your and John’s little tree-spot the night John freaked out and you still don’t really know why he did that.

You keep your boxers on because you think you might be able to get away with that if you’re fast enough, and you slip a red sweatshirt on.

When you’re there, you lie down on the cold grass and look up at the empty morning sky, completely blue, deprived of any and all clouds in sight.

And you realize that you haven’t slept in a long long time.

Or, at least, you haven’t slept well, but not sleeping well is the same as not sleeping at all, if not worse.

It’s probably worse.

Because it’s like, you slept and you’re really happy about that and you think that everything’s going to be fine now that you’ve slept because sleeping cures everything! And then everything’s shittier than ever and it’s just a huge fucking disappointment.

Like when you studied really hard for an exam and you’re all chill-ass confident and you get it back graded and you failed.

That’s happened a lot lately.

Like, a lot, but you don’t worry about that because the bad shit will pass eventually is what you tell yourself.

That’s what people have said. Everything bad passes eventually, so you’re just going to wait the crappy grades out. You think that that’s all you can do anyways, since you’ve found it really fucking hard to concentrate without Egbert around.

Whatever.

You’ll definitely get used to it.

You can’t do anything about it, so you’ll have to get used to it.

Fish couldn’t do anything about not having water so they got legs. Same fucking thing.

You’re pretty sure that that’s what happened.

The sun is right in front of your eyes and even if they’re closed, the sun is still there so you force yourself to get up off the wet grass which takes about half an hour to acess the willpower vault somewhere locked away inside you.

Your wet shoes feel like shit to your bare feet inside them. Who knew those tiny ass blades of grass could hold so much water.

Jesus everything’s really fucking bright what’s going on with the sun today

shit you forgot your shades that’s fucking why.

And Egbert’s not with you.

Egbert’s not with you.

Egbert’s not with you.

Egbert’s not with you.

Egbert is in Illinois.

Egbert is two thousand twenty five point seven fucking miles away is where he is.
Egbert is seven states and thirty hours away and 1,800 minutes away and 108,000 seconds away.

And that’s by car.

Wow you feel like shit.

He’s gone.

You squeeze your eyes shut because you don’t want to see anything and walk back to your dorm.

That obviously isn’t a good idea because after thirty seconds you feel a body collide against yours and suddenly not be there, and by reflex you open your eyes, (temporarily blinded) and there’s a girl on the ground in front of you who stands immediately, muttering to herself, picking up a bag, and looking at you with some weird expression that’s a mix of curiosity, amusement, and amazement.

She begins protesting even before you get to mutter a “Sorry,”’

This shuts her up. “Are you okay,” she looks in your eyes, squinting at the weird color probably.

“What oh yeah no I’m fine,”

“You’re not fine,” she decides, voice becoming softer. “Come with me.”

You oblige because what else are you supposed to do today.

She leads you into her dorm and sets down her bag, begins making tea. “What’s going on?” She asks.

You take in your surroundings first, the walls are draped with various fabrics, and the ground is, too, for that matter. There’s a couple plants and a desk with a sewing machine. It’s lively, and you’re guessing she’s going into fashion design.

She turns around from the stove to look at you, eyebrows raised. She sighs, holding a hand out. “Kanaya.”

You take it and say, “Oh, yeah, uh, Dave.”

She smiles.

“So will you answer my question now,” she inquires.

“What do you mean by what’s going on?” You ask. You know what she means, that you were running around in boxers with your eyes shut like a crazy person.

You are crazy, probably.

You begin to say, “My bo-” as in boyfriend, but you don’t know if she’s fucking okay with that shit.

“Your what?”

Fuck it. “My boyfriend went to Illinois and now I can’t do anything.”

Wow okay yeah you guess that that’s what it is.

She sits down across from you on a pile of pillows, placing two mugs of tea in front of you both.

“Why can you not do anything?”

“Because- I dunno. I can’t do anything.”

“Did he break up with you,”

“No,”

“Then you’re okay,”

You look up at her, surprisingly orange irises, not that different from yours. She opens her mouth, then bites her lip. “I think you’ll be fine,”

“I don’t think you even know me,” you start, but she says something.

“Are you, by chance, Rose Lalonde’s cousin?”

“Yeah.”

Who the fuck is this lady.

A warm smile comes to her face. “That makes more sense then.”

“Why?” You ask, “Jesus, what’s she been saying,”

“Oh,” a smile glints on her lips, “nothing, don’t worry. I’ll properly introduce myself now, I am Rose’s girlfriend.”

What would expect, really. “Oh, okay,”

“She has just exhibited odd worry for your boyfriend, Dave. I do not know what is going on with him, but she often tends to- ah- ramble about the symptoms and her worry for him. Also, you-” Her mouth remains open, waiting for the right words to come out. “She talks about you, too.” She finalizes, and moves on. “So what is it that is happening with your boyfriend, then.”

You guess that if Rose trusts her that you can.

So you tell her what’s been happening this entire time, since the fourth of July. You tell her that you don’t have enough money to go to Illinois and that John’s dad wants him there, and she seems to understand that it’s a good school, so the option that John just comes back is out. You tell her that wow you feel like shit and that you can’t do anything and that you’re being a complete pile of plush assrump right now.

She asks why are you being a complete pile of plush assrump right now.

You say that it’s because you should be Pestering Egbert about this because he has no idea any of this shit is even happening, and that he wants you to talk to him but you can’t and you don’t know why and wow it just makes you feel like shit.

The mug of tea is warm against your hands and it kind of feels like if Egbert’s hand were in yours but that’s really dumb so you shoo that thought away.

You feel like you’re at your most vulnerable right now. That if any outside threat were to come in you would just break the fuck down.

And Kanaya’s just sitting here listening, like a fucking mom or some shit, and it’s really nice.

Jesus, you’re dumb. You’re putting trust in too many people’s hands, like Egbert (you’ve gotten over that one long ago, but it adds to the list), and Kanaya, and

and

Whatever. That’s enough.

You guess that it’s not that you’re putting your trust into too many people’s hands, it’s that you’re putting your trust into people’s hands too fast.

You just fucking met Kanaya and you’re rambling, you’re telling her your life story and your thoughts that you’ve literally told no one else.

You met her about an hour ago.

The only excuse you can come up with is that she’s Rose’s girlfriend, so you can trust her. She’s pretty much Rose, just less snarky.

And that’s pretty good.

“So,” Kanaya breaks your thoughts, “what you are saying is that you can not function normally without your boyfriend,”

Well, when you fucking put it like that-

You roll your eyes, leaning back slightly.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she says, a corner of her lips turning up. “But you obviously know how- detrimental- to your relationship, that is, am I correct?”

“Yeah, but it’s not like,” you expect to be cut off, but she looks at you attentively. Unlike Rose. “It’s not like I can’t live without him,” her expression remains, except for one arisen eyebrow, and you let out a dramatic groan. “Fuck. I don’t know. I just don’t know what to do, I guess.”

“You don’t know what to do without him?”

“Sure.”

She gives a breathy laugh, putting her hand on top of yours. It’s warm, dare you say, comforting. You almost take your hand away, you certainly flinch when she touches yours but you’ve gotten used to the Bro-deprivation, so you’re not as awkward about it as it would’ve been, say, before college. Obviously Bro never did anything like this for you, just fucking kicked your ass at strifing was his way of showing love, and you’re not at all used to it.

“Dave, Rose has told me so much about you. I know what kind of person you are, and I know that you will be able to get through this. She has also mentioned that you and your boyfriend were acquaintances over the internet before attending this university, so it will probably not be such a huge transition.”

“Okay.” You stand, because this is getting weird. “Thanks, though, I guess. For... this.”

She smiles awkwardly, patting your arm. “It was no problem at all.”

You leave, and you guess that you feel better. It helped to talk, definitely, which is a thing you really could never do before college- because, again, Bro. You mean, you talked to him, but it always got really awkward when you went deep. You could talk about a lot of shit. But never, never sincerely.

Basically, your entire life has turned into one long two AM. You’ve felt like it, you’ve talked like it, and you’ve definitely fucking studied like it’s two AM. Which means you haven’t studied at all.

You’re not doing well in your classes. Which is okay, you guess, because Kanaya said it’ll take some time to get used to. You’re still transitioning, Strider.

Jesus.

She’s really fucking perfect for Rose.

You get back into your dorm. The shades are right there on the nightstand,

haha fuck you, Strider. This is another side effect of a lack-of-Egbert. Forgetting your fucking shades all the time because Egbert got you so comfortable with having them off. Nice.

You bite your cheek and knock them off the table, clattering to the floor, you get in your bed, the bottom bunk (the top hasn’t been touched since Egbert left), roll over, and pray to the fucking sandman that sleep will come.

Chapter Text

--turntechGodhead began pestering ectoBiologist at 12:47 AM--

TG: yo egbert
TG: you want to talk about some shit
EB: what is it dave?
EB: whats up!
TG: ok so they might kick me out
TG: like drop my scholarship
TG: right in the middle of a dunkass semester somehow
EB: why?
EB: dave are you doing okay?
TG: yeah im fine

You know that that’s not true.

EB: no youre not.
TG: ok im not
TG: but theres nothing you can do so dont worry about it
TG: theres nothing anyone can do
EB: sure dave i doubt i can totally cure whats going on but i can help!
EB: come oooooon just tell me.
TG: i just havent really been able to sleep
TG: or do anything
EB: since when?
TG: does it matter
TG: seriously does it really fucking matter since when
EB: since i left, huh?
TG: no egbert where are you getting this
TG: bs
EB: you knoooooooow its not bs dave.
TG: ok fine but dont worry
TG: so whats been up with you
EB: youre quick to change the subject.
EB: dave if you need anything, just remember im here okay?
TG: yeah i know
TG: i dont really know whats going on though
TG: and you have all this actual school shit to do so
EB: so you think i dont have time for you?
EB: wow dave.
EB: im so offended right now.
TG: see the scary thing here is that how do i know if youre joking or not
EB: would i be offended by that.
EB: am i not the best prankster in the world dave.
EB: wow now im actually offended that you dont find me the best prankster on earth.
TG: ok egbert forgive me for i have sinned
EB: do you think theres any way ill forgive you for that?

For a couple minutes, no one says anything.

EB: just work hard dave.
EB: maybe they wont drop it if they see that youll actually start trying!
EB: but for that to work you need to actually start trying.
TG: ok yeah
TG: i should probably study then
TG: bye
EB: bye dave! and good luck!

--turntechGodhead ceased pestering ectoBiologist at 1:09 AM--

--ectoBiologist ceased pestering turntechGodhead at 1:09 AM--

--turntechGodhead began pestering ectoBiologist at 1:10 AM--

TG: wait
TG: oh youre not here ok
TG: whatever this is stupid

--turntechGodhead ceased pestering ectoBiologist at 1:11 AM--

--turntechGodhead began pestering ectoBiologist at 1:24 AM--

TG: i love you

--turntechGodhead ceased pestering ectoBiologist at 1:31 AM--

When you wake up, you realize that you’ve never really been this... this deprived of people. Wow! You are LONELY.

And you had such a weird conversation with Dave yesterday, at like, one in the morning. Or you guess it was actually this morning, then.

He’s getting kicked out apparently. Which really,

wow.

Why?

Is he seriously that much of a mess without you? Because you know that that’s not good. That is really not a good thing.

You don’t know what to do about it because he’s obviously not doing well, but you can’t just go swoop in a rescue him,

and you can’t stand here and do nothing, either.

God, this is really confusing.

This is STUPID.

Everything’s stupid right now. Dave really is the least of your concern, because he can figure himself out. He’s a big boy now and he can do what he needs to do. You’ll be here for him if he needs you.

The thing that you’re getting worked up over is the

the Rose stuff.

Like, you know, her type of stuff. The writing on your bunk bed and your nightmares and aaaaall that.

Really, it’s kind of scaring you! Because you don’t know if you’re okay or not. You don’t know if you should tell someone (like Rose, who you haven’t told about the bunk bed thing yet and you probably should,).

You’ve figured that you’ll just have to wait it out for now! There’s nothing you really can do, huh?

And nagging in the back of your mind is some tiny little pinprick of god am I worried about Dave! And I miss him so much.

But can you worry about that right now?

You really can’t.

You just want to feel better.

So you let your mind drift back, back a loooong time to when you and Dave met, and then to when the nightmare stuff started, and to when Rose found out.

And then to when you met the trolls! You loved the trolls, and they were super sad to see you go. You’ll meet up with them again, definitely. You hope. Probably.

See, you tend to walk through life and then just never look back, and you’re not sure if that’s a good thing to do or not. Because if you never look back you can never wave goodbye to anything, and no matter if you hate it or not, you should always wave goodbye to it.

Does that make sense? Whatever. Does it have to? No.

The point is, you might live a little too much in the present. Not even the future, either, just right now and you don’t know whether that’s a good thing. You’re not sure where you should live, where in time you should live-

though if you lived in the past, that’d make you way more sad, that’s for sure.

It’d make you remember a lot of stuff.

Not that you had a bad childhood or anything! Really, you didn’t!

It’s just, you guess, that sometimes you remember things that aren’t really there. And that’s kind of weird! You just have all these memories that hurt you like a sword, and they really, really hurt.

Sometimes it physically hurts, and other times mentally. But usually both! You just remember, ‘remember,’ Dave being, like, stabbed, or something dumb like that! Or, or one of the trolls- Vriska- stabbing you! And you know that she’d never ever do that. She might be a little twisted, but not that badly! She’d never hurt you.

It’s just super dumb, is what it is. It’s the worst.

And sometimes you just don’t feel well. Like, you feel sick, nauseous, and sometimes if Dave wasn’t around, or if you were alone somewhere, you’d try to throw up just to see if that’d make you feel any better, but it didn’t! And you never successfully threw up anyways.

Rose said that that was anxiety, one of your many,

many uh,

what are they called? What do you call them!

What did she call them?

Symptoms?

But you never really had gotten that because they weren’t symptoms. Symptoms work up to something bigger, and worse. A bigger sickness, but you don’t have a bigger sickness! Just dumb ‘memories’ and anxiety, you guess,

you kind consider yourself the one messed up Cheez-it in the box, like, if you have the Scrabble Cheez-its, with the letters on them, you’re the one that just has kind of a garbled letter that isn’t from the Latin alphabet.

And then it’s dumb because there’s nothing wrong with that one, and it just looks weird. It’s okay on the inside.

You’re the opposite of that, but it still pretty much applies. You’re okay on the outside, but on the inside you’re weird and dumb, and you’re the one person (or Cheez-it) that’s messed up.

That was probably the weirdest analogy that you’ve ever made up. Oh well.

You pester Dave, because you just want to talk and you really really miss him.

And you talk about everything and nothing for a while, like you used to when you weren’t ever twenty feet away from each other (now, you’re a couple thousand miles away!) and when you cuddled every night, the top bunk forgotten. You talked until the sun rose in the morning, on weekends and Friday nights because you had an excuse, and on weeknights you stayed silent, because his heartbeat was enough.

Chapter Text

It’s the air.

That’s fucking what it is.

The air here is so thick, and dark, heavy, wet, and it’s unbreathable, because now your lungs are used to Washington air- which is the best air you’ve ever encountered. It’s clean and crisp and it just has the bite to it that’s the best thing, it’s like drinking a glass of lukewarm water or ice water. That’s exactly what it is. Except this is a mandatory thing. You know that drinking water is mandatory, but it’s breathing. Like, you have to do it, and when you’re drinking the lukewarm water, that doesn’t have the same effect that the ice water does, it sucks. Because it doesn’t quench your thirst.

And fuck, Bro’s on some trip to a convention as a guest for Smuppets, so you’re on your own.

You can fucking live here on your own.

A- fucking- lone.

And you hate it.

God, do you hate it. Because the alone is gnawing at you, at the bottom of your stomach, tearing it open, and making you want to throw up. And after you metaphorically throw up, you are metaphorically completely hollowed out inside.

There’s nothing inside of you.

Everything’s gone and you’re just a walking corpse- shell thing. You’re not living.

You highly doubt that you’re living.

Really, you’re broke, you’re not in college, and you don’t have a job.

You’re shit.

You’re fucking shit, all because of one single person who made it all turn to shit. And you’re not even mad at him. The only other thing you could be at a person who made your entire life turn to shit is in love.

It really is either hate or love, the two fucking extremes, that can ruin lives.

It sucks.

It sucks because one makes sense and one doesn’t, and it’s confusing.

Because it’s not his fault, so you really shouldn’t say that he’s the one who did it, because he isn’t. Your life’s shit simply because it is, and that’s the worst kind of shit because you don’t know who to blame.

And being human, you always have to blame someone.

It’s stupid.

You pester Kanaya a lot, and that’s one of the only things keeping you from going insane, because sure you’re grateful for Rose and John, but Kanaya is just really good with this shit. She’s like a mom, pretty much. She’s really the one getting you through everything.

You don’t want to bother John that much with it, if you’re being honest with yourself. Because he has more important stuff to do than deal with and possibly worry about your crap.

And you know that you don’t even matter. You’re just a tiny spec in his life, even if you are his boyfriend. He has a lot of other friends and he’s completely fine without you.

That kind of hurts.

It hurts to think about.

Like, you can feel this hole in your chest. It’s as if the cavity in your ribs has been hollowed out, and there’s nothing there. Literally, nothing there. It’s a vacuum and it’s pulling the rest of you inside. You’re falling inside yourself, you’re turning inside out.

And no one knows.

Except you, of course.

Except you except you except you.

Is that alright?

Since there’s nothing to do right now, because you’re a fucking college dropout, you focus on making music. And you think you could maybe make some money with that. Not much, but enough so you can stand on your own.

You’re really just not feeling really well right now, so you decide to lie down in front of the TV.

That doesn’t take your attention for long. You pull the laptop from the floor beside the couch, up on your lap, and open it. You look up scholarships for various universities, and apply to some. The ones that you can apply for lying right here. You bookmark the rest, telling yourself that you’ll get to them later.

And then, you decide to open the more modern, advanced, and just better in general communication tool, than Pesterchum, that you and John used to use sometimes.

SKYPE.

Alright, he’s online.

Before you know what you’re doing, you’ve clicked video call and the little beepy thing is going and you see your face there, oh shit, what are you doing Strider you’re really stupid.

“Dave?”

It’s him you hear his voice you see his face oh my god

there’s a thing blocking your throat and you literally can not speak. It’s stupid and you don’t know why, but you just sit there with some douchebag expression on, probably, in silence.

“Dave.”

He smiles and you feel the lump in your throat melt into some sort of acidic substance and make the back of your throat burn into an extremely recognizable feeling.

You take off your glasses to wipe your eyes, and fuck, why do you care if he fucking sees you cry.

“Dave,”

His arm extends out, towards the screen a tiny bit, just until he’s actually aware that you’re not there.

John shuts up now, because it’s finally gone through his head that you aren’t going to respond any time soon.

He’s crying too.

A little.

Not as much as you are, and you can definitely see how crappy you look thanks to the nifty little box that shows you your beautiful face as well as a bigger picture of John’s.

Eventually, you find yourself able to utter the three words that have been echoing in your head for days, weeks- however long you haven’t seen him. The words that, since you’re home alone, you’ve screamed at the moon from outside your window, just peeking out from behind a sheath of unnaturally orange clouds, after you collapsed down on your bed, poking your head from the thin sheet just enough so that you can hear your voice crack with tears on the last word of the phrase.

“I miss you,”

It’s something along those lines, you think, more around the vicinity of I want you, but you think that miss is a little bit better of a thing to say right now.

I miss you, more like I love you i want you i fucking need you egbert i love you

Jesus.

“I miss you too, Dave,” he smiles, and a thing pops into your head, making you almost see his what used to be dorky buckteeth sticking out, but they’re not there anymore. And that was the thing that popped into your head is that you kind of miss those teeth.

When did he get braces? Like, sophomore year? Pretty late, you thought, when he sent you a rare Egbert- selfie. But they were fine and he got them off soon enough, and then they were gone- and it’s the weirdest and most stupid thing to miss, but you miss his fucking teeth.

You miss when he was a full on loser, why?

Because that was the time when you had him to yourself, you think, and then when he got all un-losered everyone just magnetized to him because he’s so

he’s so

perfect.

His teeth weren’t a thing holding him back anymore and then when that happened, his nerdiness became attractive, to everyone. Because it’s cute. It’s cute if you’re a perfect nerd.

And suddenly you feel like you’re going to throw up because fuck, you love him, and fuck, you just really really want to comb your fingers through his impossibly soft hair. Or touch his arm or face or whatever, you just want to feel someone’s skin on yours because that hasn’t been a thing with you in a long time.

Sometimes it’s just nice to feel another human’s skin on yours because it reminds you that you’re all living humans and you’re all just animals.

That’s dumb.

“Um, Dave, so what’s up?”

Shit you totally forgot, you got lost in thought.

You bite the inside of your cheek so hard it hurts because you’re seeing him for the first time in a long time and you’re just now realizing how important he is to you, well, you knew all along of course, but the importance is just now in action.

How can he just carry on a normal conversation? Is that a thing? Well, what else are you supposed to do when you’re video chatting with someone.

You suddenly regret ever clicking that green video chat button because it really flipped a switch that said, make Strider a fucking mess and it sure worked.

“Hey, Dave,” his voice is gentle, patient. “You good?”

“Yeah, no, yeah I’m fine sorry. How are you?”

“I’m okay,” he pauses, watching you trying to gather yourself intently. “so, uh, any reason you called? Or just to say hi. Because that’s fine,”

“I dunno,”

“That’s okay Dave!”

“Sorry,”

“Dave, it’s okay!” He falters, “I, uh, just really wish I was with you right now.”

You kind of smile a little bit you don’t know if you’re smiling or not and you will not look in that fucking box in the corner of the screen that shows your face. “Yeah same dude.”

“Look Dave, you look pretty bad. And as the wonderful boyfriend I am, I will offer some advice for you.” He smiles, expectantly.

You nod.

“Just make yourself a hot chocolate and go to sleep, and then in the morning, go research some universities.” He pauses and you don’t say anything. “Okay?”

“Yeah, I will.”

You know your answers are shit but you feel really

really

detached right now.

From him.

“Shit,” you say as the tears come again, the back of your throat ripping open again, as you rack out loud, messy sobs. “I’m sorry,”

The world’s blurry but you can make out John looking like he’s just had to murder a puppy with a hatchet.

You try not to picture that image for too long.

Jesus you can’t stop thinking about that you need to stop

You realized that you’ve calmed down a bit, and that was quick, thank god. You just need to focus on relearning how to breathe now, because you’re in that stage of a breakdown where you take random, deep, loud breaths, and you really can’t control it. Basically a worse version of hiccups.

“I’m sorry Dave,” John says. “Shit, I’m sorry.”

You protest, say in ragged, choppy breathes that it wasn’t his fucking fault.

And you can completely tell that John’s really just trying to keep it together for your sake, because he knows that if he doesn’t, you’ll both fall apart.

“Is there anything I can do?” He asks.

There’s really no one else on the face of this planet that you’d let see you like this. You’ve completely submitted to Egbert, which is fine, but it’s weird. Because he’s usually the one breaking down, after nightmares and shit, and it feel really wrong when it’s flipped.

“No Egbert I’m good. I should probably go, because you have to study and shit. Sorry for calling,”

“Why are you apologizing for calling?”

“I don’t know,” You manage to get your breathing right and you think you’re good.

“Don’t, Dave. I really did want to see you, you know. And as soon as I have a break, I’ll get my ass over there and we can uh, do stuff.”

You smile. You’re pretty sure. “Cool, thanks Egbert. I’ll probably make a hot chocolate too. It’s pretty fucking cold in this apartment. Either the arctic or the sun dude, it’s fucking horrible,”

He smiles. “Alright, I’m glad you’re feeling better. I’ll probably have to make a hot chocolate now that you’ve got me in the mood.”

“Okay dude. See you,”

“Goodnight, Dave! I love you.”

“I love you too.”

And you click the hung-up phone icon thing and the call ends.

But somehow you feel better.

After the whole breakdown shit you think it kind of, cleared that out of you, and you’re feeling better.

So you go get a hot chocolate and see what Nic Cage movies are on Netflix.

Chapter Text

Gray skin, orange horns, goddamn she’s beautiful, but she’s dead. Blue blood spattered all over, and one mechanical (?) arm limp, lying on the ground.

Still thrown on the ground, but in a different setting this time. Eyes closed, blue blood spattered all over, matting her hair down, gluing it to her forehead.

Written across her forehead in the blue blood are two words.

KILL ME

One side of her face completely blue, gray skin covered.

8ut do it fast, ok?
Please don’t make me 8leed to death slowly

DO IT YO8 COW8RD

K8LL M8 K8LL M8 K8LL M8 K8LL M8 K8LL M8 K8LL M8 K8LL M8 K8LL M8K8LLM8K8LLM8K8LLM8K8LLM8K8LLM8

Then a much more serene scene. Less violent while still being eerily horrifying.

She’s standing up a sword poking out of the middle of her chest, she’s been stabbedshesbeenstabbed

she will die.

She’s begging you to kill her.

Please do, don’t make her bleed to death.

Would you rather die slowly or die knowing that your life was taken by someone

you

love.

Who you love and loves you back.

So that’s not you.

That’s not you because you love her back.

But she’s fucking lying there, begging you to kill her,

she knows you love her.

She knows you love her.

You don’t love her.

You did, and you don’t now.

Now there’s Dave, neck slit, dead. A shadowy figure appears before him, slashing his neck, he screams.

You’d never anything that has come out of Dave’s mouth be so loud and pathetic and helpless, desperate and you can’t see anything any more.

Then he’s in his room, the stuffy room in his apartment in Texas, lying across a web of wires on his floor, neck slit, in a red outfit of some sort. His mouth is gaping open, arm bent at an unnatural angle.

And then he’s in some sort of swamp land, being shot in the back from behind from a seemingly endless rain of bullets. A ragdoll body being tossed across the ground in a pile of blood, huge, huge pool of blood god you didn’t know that much liquid could fit into a body. He’s thrown across the grass, the twilight twinkling across his shiny shirt. That shirt, the red and white one that he wears so much is all red now, not white in the middle. You really can’t tell where the white is and isn’t.

Jade runs over, a gun dropping from her grip, flipping over his body and staring at his face. You know that he loves her and that he did love her, or whatever, and she loves him.

Or she should.

How could you not, though?

A stream of blood trickles from slightly parted lips, as the blood begins to pool and stick his shirt to his chest. His lips are probably permanently sealed into a poker face now, his face completely expressionless.

And she leans over right, right near his face

is she going to kiss him

god why would she?

And then you’re barraged with snapshots of all your friends kissing their dead friends and you know why now but you don’t actually know why.

You feel like you’re being stabbed now, it’s you it’s you you’re fighting with Rose now, and you’re ready to avenge Dad and Mom’s deaths (wait what?) and you heave up a huge hammer, you’ll beat him don’t worry Rose is with you she’ll take care of you she always does

and you’re lifting up the hammer when you feel a numbness rithe throughout your body and you look down and your chest is dripping with red blood and suddenly you can’t breathe when you see the black tip of the blade sticking through your superhero shirt.

It hurts impossibly and you stand there and your knees lock and you fall down and you can feel the sword being knocked askew, probably fucking up your insides even more and you black out and you know that you’re dead

You wake up and you feel impossibly numb.

You can’t catch your breath and you’re not sure if the sword is still in there but you don’t want to touch your chest because it’ll fuck up your heart and it’ll probably make the wound worse.

It’ll hurt.

You’ve just been stabbed and when you get your breath back you realize that your chest is wet with blood and you were just stabbed but Dave is dead and so is Vriska

you didn’t kill Vrisk-

And you realize that there’s nothing wrong so you take a really really deep breath and swing your legs around the bunk bed and let them dangle down because you’re on the top bunk.

You take a bunch of really deep breaths. Until you can breathe again. But breathing doesn’t make everything completely fine. You feel your throat burn into a surprisingly comforting feeling (because it’s familiar and you know it’s normal), and rack into sobs, putting your elbows on your knees and resting your head in your hands.

And this is the part where Dave would draw circles on your arm with his finger and that felt really good. And after five minutes not saying anything he’d go, “Wanna talk about it?” And you’d usually shake your head and he’d nod and you’d lie back down without any blankets because you’d be way too hot and you’d fall back asleep with Dave’s arm pressed against yours.

That was great.

You’re used to it now, because they’ve been happening like, twice every night.

It’s not really a good thing but what can you do?

You miss Dave.

You aren’t sleeping on the bottom bunk anymore because you don’t want to see those insults that you somehow drew. You haven’t really looked at them since, since that day.

Realizing that you’re impossibly cold, you crawl back into your bunk bed, curling up in the sheets, half hoping to fall asleep and half hoping that you won’t, because you don’t want nightmares.

It’s like this. People say that you should sleep, that they like sleep, because it’s like not being anywhere. It’s safe and warm and comfortable, except for you it’s not.

its not its not its not its not!

You don’t have an escape. You can’t fucking get away from it.

Geez, you thought that this wasn’t supposed to happen! It’s like you’re playing a video game and it accidentally glitched and this just isn’t supposed to happen.

You take a deep breath and let it out really slowly, thinking of Dave, because you know that he cares about you.You imagine what he’d say and you remember being with him and you remember all the stuff you did with him.

You press the heels of your hands into your eyes, and wipe away all the tears, wishing you were just a little kid again. And then you remember your thirteenth birthday, when Dad baked all those cakes, and you always told him to stop baking those cakes because you were sick of them! But now, you really just want a slice of it to remember home, or you want Dad to hug you.

Homesick!

You remember some dumb word you make up when you were a teenager, like, thirteen to sixteen. It was the opposite of homesick, it was homestuck. Because all of your friends, like Rose and Dave and Jade were all out in the world, and you were stuck in your home. Homestuck.

And now you’re the opposite of that. You wish that you were homestuck again, because it was like some sort of shelter that kind of prevented you from growing up. And then when you went out to college you grew up too fast and now you’re here.

Dave makes everything alright though. He... uh, brought out the best in you, you guess.

Dave was just really cool. Well, not ‘was’, because ‘was’ is a past tense term, and you two are still going out.

Thank God.

Remembering him and what you did with him and everything everything and forgetting everything makes it okay, temporarily, and it gives you just enough time to fall asleep.

Chapter Text

In couple days you’ve applied to, like twenty-five schools. It’s cost you a fuckton of money, buy you figure that you’ll receive more than you spend, if you get a good scholarship.

Some of them were essays, some were music shit, and some were just questionnaires.

You did as many as you physically could do because you’re fucking desperate.

You’re sad and desperate for a school.

What a thing to be.

You don’t know if you were so desperate even before everything. And you thought that before you were as low as you could possibly go.

You were lying on the ground before, and then you started flying, and now you’re like, in middle fucking earth is where you are.

It’s a completely lazy day. You want to say that it’s a summer day, but it’s not. It’s just really fucking hot out.

No wonder, you’re in middle earth. What did you expect. Doesn’t earth have like a molten core or something.

Shit, you’re just not feeling it right now. You have no idea what it is, but you’re not feeling it. You’re just not feeling.

Shit.

No, you’re definitely feeling. Empty, maybe, but feeling.

Bro’s still out, doing Smuppet crap, and you’re sitting here alone waiting for some reply from literally any university.

As if she’s able to help anymore, you get a message from Rose.

--tenticleTherapist began pestering turntechGodhead at 1:32 PM--

TT: Dave.
TG: sup rose
TT: Dave you know that you are my cousin, correct?
TG: yeah
TG: were as cousiny as we can get rose
TG: chum
TT: You would not judge me on any sort of abnormality is that correct?
TG: like what fucking sort of abnormality are we talking here lalonde
TG: is there like
TG: a sixth toe or some shit
TT: I’m sorry.
TT: This really isn’t the time for any of your lackadaisical hypothetical situation, because I have a slight query that you may need to help to resolve, for once.
TG: alright whats going on
TT: So you have confirmed thatjg]’
TG: wait what
TT: Dave its theta ghorreortetrrors
TG: wait what the fuck rose

You are now Rose Lalonde, and you are currently kneeling on the floor of your and Kanaya’s apartment, vomiting.

You haven’t been getting sick frequently, and it really has been making you ponder, at least for the past hour that this has been going on, why you were abruptly thrown off the cliffed edge of wellness into the seas of illness.

The only bizarre part of this period in vomiting is that you are not vomiting the sort of... normal, matter that normal vomiters vomit.

You look down on the tile floor of your rather large bathroom, leaning back on the bathtub’s outside rim. Your head pounds endlessly, and you feel completely hollowed out inside. You try not to look at the matter that you’ve just regurgitated because it is quite disturbing.

Your heart feels like it’s being clenched by a fist, and you can’t help but wonder why you did not learn the signs of a heart attack in one of the classes you’ve taken. You do know, though, that you are too young to be prone to such malady, and that almost none of your physical, mental, or emotional characteristics suggest that you could obtain a cardiac, respiratory, or digestive illness as such.

The pile of black, mutilated goo beckons your gaze. As your stomach settles somewhat, you crawl over to the mound, drawing a toothbrush from the cabinet below the sink. You hold the toothbrush’s brush side in your hand and carefully prod the substance with the blue and white plastic piece. It is much more viscous than you would imagined. Chunky and slimy. Thoroughly disgusting.

Well, you did feel it on your tongue and in your mouth and the like, but were you really paying attention? Of course not.

You see, when something comes up that you really are not familiar with, your mind tends to race. You begin thinking and wondering and hoping and worrying, oh, god you worry a lot.

More than you see healthy even. But you do tend to just try and ignore that observation. You’ve been living with it for about twenty one years, so you can live with it longer.

Probably from holding such an ungodly position for longer than four seconds, you feel your stomach lurch. No, no, no, not another one, you can’t take another one. You don’t know where this came from, whether it was from the sushi you had consumed in the last six hours or some part of the three AM study session you had with Kanaya, you had a couple nights ago, who just happens to not be home right now, of all times.

You utter out a small cough, trying to hold your hair back, leaning over to add to the pile of black goo that has been coming out of you for the past forty-five minutes. You grit your teeth at the sudden throat-clenching sensation you are feeling.

Kanaya is out with some friends- invited to a party on a Friday night. Of course she’d go, and you did urge her to, you will admit. You stayed home to study. Or so you said- the main reason being that you just weren’t feeling your best, after the night before.

No, no the night before was not some scandalous mess of Kanaya and you yelling at the television about who would win on the latest episode of Chopped, or whatever other fantastical presentation set behind thirty cameras and forty video and audio recording devices.

The night before was you two being too tired to watch your daily round of hideous Food Network shows. When you slipped into comatose until the dawned sun drew the horizon in a spectacular array of oranges and reds and awoke you both with its horribly harsh rays.

But it did not.

For Kanaya it did. You let it. But for you, the moon woke you up, or, rather, the manifestations of your own mind and mental health state playing its part into your deep, thoughtless slumber.

You’ve never had dreams, night terrors, or nightmares as badly as you have had them last night.

Also, you remember Dave and you creating a word describing these kind of dreams that you, John, and Dave all have seemed or seem to have or have had sometime in your lives.

Horrorterrors.

You don’t know if those are things that are incorporated into this midday vomiting session, but the two abnormalities seem to have appeared at the same time in your life, both equally unusual in a horrifying way.

Dave’s calling.

Oops, you forgot to pester him after your vomiting incident.

You try to reach for your phone from your spot on the tile floor, against the outside of the bathtub. Pachelbel keeps playing his Canon in D major, and your black fingernails are almost scratching the silver side. Finally, you reach it, picking it up, cutting Pachelbel off in the middle of a crescendo.

“Rose what the fuck was that,” he says, obviously flustered in a massive influx of mixed emotions. You say nothing and relish the thought that you made your deadpan cousin flustered and maybe even the slightest bit worried for you.

That and the fact that you think if you speak you may end up vomiting again, and the last possible thing you want to vomit on is the emergency vehicle-calling device.

When you speak your voice is surprisingly and worryingly weak. “I’m sorry, David.”

“Rose what was that. What happened,”

“Nothing.” You say.

“Rose.”

“Dave.”

“I can help. Rose, I can help with whatever the hell is going on with you, you know that, right.”

“I’m afraid that I am, in fact, helpless. As is the situation I am in right now.”

“That makes me more worrie-” He cuts himself off at the almost-saying of the dreaded, cousinly relationship ending word. The line is dead, and all you hear is white noise. Vaguely comforting, actually, to know that Dave is lost in thought at how to react to your pitiful state.

“Dave, it’s nothing that should worry you.” You finally say.

He sighs. “Okay, Rose, you know what. I’m your fucking cousin, okay, and I need to know what’s going on.”

You’re worried at the fury in his voice. How it wavers as he says ‘cousin,’ and ‘okay.’ “Is there something, you need to talk about yourself, David?”

“Rose!” He shouts. He yells it. Dave is not the one to yell, nonetheless actually show true and blatant emotion. “Rose. You’re the only fucking one I still kind of have. I want to actually help you, for once.”

What?

You’re worried and shocked and flattered and confused and

You feel it in your throat again, too far up to send back down. Hand over your mouth, you cough and it lurches up, into your mouth, making you gag and finally to that coughgagging throwing up maneuver. Your hand is fucked as black, seeming, tentacles? are sent out of your mouth, along with nineteen gallons of that black goo shit.

“Rose, oh my fucking god, tell me what just happened.” Dave’s voice is hoarse and dead scared.

“Sorry, Dave. Just a little raw fish mishap is all.”

“If I’m used to deciphering Aunt Roxy’s shit drunk texting skills, your garbled last line says something about ‘horrorterrors,’ Rose. What’s your bullshit excuse for that.”

Oh. Well.

“Nothing worth your worry, David. Thank you for the concern, and if you need any advice on aaaaaanything, you drawl out, I am here.”

You hang out because you can’t have him worry any more about you.

Pulling yourself up, you leave the mysterious substance lying on the floor and take a towel to wipe off the black goo from your lips. You can’t tell the difference between it and the lipstick that rubs off with it.

Whatever. You’re not feeling well. Emotionally and physically.

You zombie to your bedroom and turn on anything but the Food Network, because you do not want to vomit again, and wait for Kanaya to come home, because it really does seem that she always knows the best next move.

You don’t answer when Dave calls for the second time.

You don’t answer when Dave calls for the third time.

You don’t answer when Dave calls the fourth time.

You don’t answer when he pesters you nine thousand times, either. You can’t talk to anyone right now. Too lost in thought, you guess. Worried? Of course. But the thing that you are discovering right now is being worried for yourself, which is a very new thing for you, is so much harder than being worried for anything, anything, else.

Chapter Text

Dear David Strider,

Congratulations! On behalf of the Board of Admissions here at DPU, I would like to offer you acceptance into DPU School of Fine Arts and Design for the Winter 2019 semester. You were selected from an extremely skilled group of applicants, and you should take pride in your true talent in the fine arts, as well as all you have accomplished in your academic career thus far. I hope you do accept this offer, and on the behalf of the DPU Board of Admissions, I would love to include you in our campus community.

Enclosed is an assortment of materials such as a student room and board packet, academic advising information, and dates for Student Orientatio-

holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck

No. No fucking way.

No way in hell.

You need to tell John. That’s the first fucking thing that needs to happen. You call him, and on the thousandth ring he picks up.

“Dave, what is it! You know I’m in class right now, right?” His voice is hushed.

“Oh, sorry. But uh, I got into DPU somehow.”

“WHAT?” He screams, and you can hear his shrill shout echo in the probably massive lecture hall. And then you hear him get up, muttering apologies before a door slams.

You’re laughing. “John, Jesus Christ. But yeah, I got in.”

“How?” He asks, you can hear the excitement bubbling up in his voice.

“It was a-” oh, oh. “music scholarship thing. They said to just submit one of your originals and they’d tell you if you were chosen.”

“Dave! I didn’t know you were so good!”

“Me either,” a smile cracks out on your lips, and you can’t seem to take it off. Fuck, there’s no one here. Whatever.

“Pfff, you knew. Dave, you know you’re awesome.”

You snort. “Sure, yeah.”

“Alright, I’m kind of missing a lecture here, so I gotta go. I’ll call you right after though. See ya!”

“Oh, right. Okay, see you, Egbert.”

You end the call, dazed. You’re going to be on the same campus again. Again. And unbelievably fluttery feeling wells up from your stomach, erupting into a stupid grin on your lips.

What do you do now. You plop back down on the couch, combing a hand through your hair, and saying out loud, “Rose,” as you find her contact to call her. You feel like this deserves actual phone calls as opposed to dumb pesterlogs. “I got into DPU,”

“Salve? Quid tibi opus est?”

What the fuck.

“Uh, Rose?”

“Etiam? Quæso, domine, quid est hoc? Non possum? Quare non recte loqui?” Her speech picks up the pace as she begins talking, and she spits out words frantically, the garbled speech seeming to freak her out as much as it freaks you out.

“Rose, holy fuck,”

She gasps, trying to catch her breath, “Davus, hunc oportet, o Deus, non hoc quaeritur, non intelligis? Verum tamen nollem, obsecro,”

“Wait, chill, Rose, just. God, wait, can you understand me? Click your tongue if you can understand me.”

She clicks her tongue.

“Okay, cool. Just uh, take a couple deep breaths or something. I dunno. Just calm the fuck down. Is Kanaya there?”

She begins to speak, and then stops herself because she knows that you or her won’t be able to understand it. There’s a sharp intake of breath, and then she racks out in sobs, “Dave, oh my god, I can’t even fucking understa-”

Silence. The line is dead.

“Rose?”

“Yes?”

“I think, uh,” you pause. “I think you’re good now.”

“Yes, oh, ego sum-” as she slips back into it you hear the sobs come back into her voice.

“Wait, just chill.”

You hear her take a couple overly shaky breaths.

“Okay,” you say, trying to stay composed. “try again.”

“Hello,” she says carefully. “Oh, hi, oh, thank god. Alright.”

“What was that?” You ask.

“I’m not sure, Dave, I’m really not sure what that was. Uh, I suppose I may have some explaining to do, though. Regarding last week. I can speak more clearly now, if I don’t slip into that, ah, gibberish again.”

You remember now, when you called her after she pestered you and she was all not Rose-like and scared, Jesus. She’s your cousin, should you, like, not be worrying about her?

God. You’re still a pansy. Even though you and Egbert aren’t physically together, he still has that effect on you.

You think it’s him having that effect on you. You’re not sure, but when you started dating him, it happened. And when you’re still dating, it’s still happening. You guess that makes sense.

“Would you like to hear, David? Or are you still fantasizing about your and Jonathan’s rambunctious reunion in a couple of weeks. Perhaps I should tell you later, or even just over Pesterchum.”

Jesus Christ.

“No, no I want to hear. And no, I’m not fantasizing or whatever, Jesus, Rose.”

“Alright.” You can hear her roll her eyes. “I came home from a lecture that Friday evening, and was not feeling particularly well, for I had suffered lack of sleep from Kanaya and I’s study sessions at the waning hours of the morning. I had also experienced several nightmares- or, ah, horrorterrors. Do you remember that, David?”

“Yeah,” That was when you guys were pretty little, though. They kind of faded as you both aged.

“I had thought that that was a result of some sort of juvenile anxiety that ran in the family, because both you and I had experienced it less and less as we grew out of our years through puberty.

“Anyways, I had begun experiencing those again. When I returned home from the lecture I had felt my stomach become upset, and, by reflex, rushed to the bathroom. I vomited, and I came to the conclusion, at that moment, that I was ill.” She pauses, taking a deep breath. “Dave, there was something extremely abnormal about this regurgitation that was lying upon the tiles of Kanaya and I’s bathroom floor.” She waits for you to say something but you remain silent. “It was black. Dave, this substance was black sludge with chunks of what seemed like tentacles in it. And I’m not sure that it was caused by a poorly cooked Japanese delicacy.”

The line is dead again, all you can hear is the white noise of the phone keeping you two in contact with each other.

“I’m not sure what is wrong with me, David, but lately everything has been tasting of saltwater, my speech has been gibberish, and my thoughts have been impossible to put into sentences. Everything is grim, Dave, dark. The universe is. I have absolutely no idea what is going on with me, but I need it to stop because I am not sure that I can live with it any longer.”

“Well,” you say, your hands shaking. “Rose you’re going to have to live with it until we can figure it out.”

“Yes, of course. I will be as patient as possible, and I have already begun research as to what this seeming disease may be.”

“Does Kanaya know?”

“Yes, she is helping as best as she can, but Dave I think that in all honesty you are the one that can help the most at this time.”

“Why? How the hell would I be able to help, Rose,”

“You’ve dealt enough with John, and yourself. John’s case does seem to be eerily similar to mine, though we are not connected at all by blood. The only thing I can think of is some sort of mental or psychological connection between us, but those are extremely rare and difficult to achieve.”

“Yeah,” you say, “except John didn’t go all...” what’s the name for this. “grimdark.”

“What a creative name, David. No wonder you are going into the fine arts. Such talent!”

She’s back to normal.

“DPU said that I have some real-ass talent, Rose, so you’d better watch your mouth.”

“Is that an exact quote?” She inquires.

“Yes.”

After a couple moments of silence, you can hear a sigh on the other side of the phone. “Dave, could I just- you know. Give you a couple raw thoughts, straight from my magnificent brain?”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever,”

“When I was young... er, like, thirteen, you know. When we really began becoming friends when you introduced Jade to me and I introduced John to you and we just became the inseparable internet posse that we are today.”

You think about the word inseparable. God, you really do consider you guys inseparable. You do. But you aren’t. Not literally, you are not inseparable because you all got torn apart from each other. Everyone went in their own directions, you, to hell, Rose to nerd school, John to dork school, and Jade somewhere cool and exotic. It’s sad, because now you’re back to being pathetic internet friends- except for the fact that you do have lives now. You have shit to do and you can’t interact, so you’re torn apart more than just physically.

“But Dave, the thing is that I didn’t- ugh. I did not appreciate what I had then. My mother bought a mansion, Dave, we had a cat, fuck she got me a pony and I just made stupid faces behind her back and spit out all her alcohol every time I tried it again, because I thought ‘I was old enough to like it now.’ I’m not sure how that thought process worked, or what my theories for that were. Dave I did not do anything. Mom wanted me to have a life and I wrote horrible erotic wizard fanfiction. Tell me that’s not the slightest bit disturbing. You don’t think that this could be, you know. Karma or some superstitious shit like that?”

“Yeah. But like, I don’t fucking know Rose do you expect me to be good at helping you with this shit. Isn’t Kanaya there or something.”

“David, I hate to break it to you, but you can be wildly intelligent when you want to be. Kanaya is wonderful, obviously much more so than you, but you know me, David. You’re my cousin and you can come up with some form of advice, bullshit or not, if you just use your brain a tiny bit for once in a lifetime.”

“Wow, okay. Didn’t know we’d be doing these cousinly deep conversations. I didn’t really expect them from you because you hate drinking and you don’t usually stay up until three in the morning.”

“Drinking and staying up to the ungodly hours of the morning?”

“That’s when you have the deep conversations. Deep as hell. Deeper than any submarine could go. So deep it’ll dig to the molten core of earth and you’ll melt. ‘Oh shit I probably shouldn’t have fucking drunk nine gallons of poison or some shit and then stayed up all night because now I’m dying!’”

“Dave stick to the request I asked you.”

“Oh right,” fuck you don’t want to do this. It’s weird with your cousin. You’re not supposed to do this with cousins. Cousins are made for sarcasm and passive aggressive notes left on each other’s dressers about the argument you had four months ago. “Yeah, well, you were really stupid. Not that you aren’t stupid now but you were, like, thirteen year old stupid y’know. That’s as stupid as you can get. But dude don’t get all depressed because you were fucking dumb when you were thirteen. Everyone was. If your mom wanted you to be grateful for a pony she surprised you with, she wouldn’t’ve given it to you when you were a freedom-craving thirteen year old. You know what I’m saying.”

“Yes, you do have a point. But see, David, you can be smart and give decent advice when forced to by a mentally unstable cousin.”

“Yeah I guess so.”

She sighs. “But anyways, Dave, thank you for your advice. It really did help even if you rarely fire a metaphorical synapse, I- uh,” Pause, quieter voice, “it helped. Thank you, Strider. And remember that you can always contact me if you are in any need of any sort of help, I do owe you.”

“No problem. And uh, same for me I guess. But that’s basically default I mean I didn’t think I actually had to tell you or shit.” Wow you’re great at deep conversations yes let’s become a therapist like Rose it’s your calling bro.

“Alright,” you can hear the smile in her voice. “You should prepare yourself for your reuniting with your dearest lover, David. I mean, after all this time apart from each other you must be exceptionally thirst-”

“All- fucking- right, Rose, I think you’re done, here.” You cut in, and she laughs as you hang up.

Jesus. You wonder when Egbert’s going to call. Dumb kid screamed in the middle of his lecture.

You lie on the couch, turning on Who Wants to be a Millionaire and wait for his call. Jade thinks that getting into DPU with John is awesome! And that she’s really sorry for not talking to you a lot, but on her tiny weird island school she doesn’t have the best WiFi or cell reception. She’s in town though, and she’ll be here if you need her for anything.

Jade is great. You may or may not have liked her a lot when you were thirteen, but then you saw Egbert in person and oh holy shit alright.

After an hour, more or less, of bad tv shows, Egbert calls. “Dave.” He says. “Oh. My. God. It’s gonna be so cool. Dave, I’m really, really happy for you! I’m proud of you, even if I can’t really understand how you got a full ride here, because I didn’t even get that.”

You smile. “Thanks, man. I’m hella glad too. Have- uh- have you talked to Rose lately?”

He’s silent for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“Neverm- nothing. You doing alright?”

“Yeah! I think so. I’m okay. Are you?”

“I’m good. I’ll be there in, like, two weeks.”

“Got it, Dave! Anything else?”

“Not really dude. I’m really excited to see you, though,”

“Me too! I can’t wait, Dave!

“Alright, bye. Love you.”

“Love you!”

You hang up.

You’re glad Egbert’s alright, but the thing most on your mind right now (besides seeing John in real life after, like, eight months) is Rose. That’s some weird shit going on with her. Weirder, dare you say, than Egbert’s case. And you’re still really, really not sure why she said that you’re the best one to deal with this. She’s a psych major, for God’s sake, she should know this. You’re the music major, meaning you know nothing. Or, well. You guess that you’ve dealt with it first and second hand. Rose just knows stuff.

And together, especially when Rose isn’t speaking gibberish, you guess that you guys make a good team.

It’s weird, though. You’re not sure if you should be telling Rose to get her ass to the emergency room, or if you should tell John to go to a doctor since he is, if you put it blatantly, fucked up in one way or another.

Whatever. Ugh, you hate it though. You hate how everyone like, believes in you or shit to solve all their problems. Not that you blame them. Not that you think you’re the one that everyone should be dumping their shit on, but it’s really bad stuff that they actually need help with and you’re a close friend or something, so there’s that.

You should probably start packing. Or call Bro. Both of which seem equally unappetizing, but you choose the former.

So you have a twelve episode procrastination marathon of Say Yes to the Dress, a terrible tv show that you watch for purely and only ironic reasons. Bro got you into that. Fucked up guy. You looked up to him somehow though.

But during your Horrible Bridal TLC Show marathon, you kind of realized that maybe sometime you’d be doing that type of thing with Egbert.

No, fuck, not the whole dress thing and then crying and having mascara run down your face because It’s the one! But, like, getting married and everything.

Is this a normal thing to think about.

Fuck, you’re weird. You don’t even know if that shit’s legal. Wow, you’re dumb. You’re not supposed to be thinking about this Strider it’s weird.

You turn off the Horrible Bridal TLC Shows now that you have that image stuck in your head, vaguely comforting or scary or weird or exciting or dumb or sappy or something and go force yourself to pack, really the only thing motivating you to do so is the excitement that you’ll get to see Egbert’s dumbass face again.

Jesus.

You hope he’s doing okay.

Chapter Text

Dave’s going to meet you today at the dumb statue of some dumb guy that no one knows who this guy is or why he has a statue. Everyone just thinks that this is a Waste of Space.

You’re reading the plaque next to one of his feet when Dave comes. “Egbert,” he says, sauntering up to you, and you stand up right as you hear the first syllable of your name, and close the ten foot gap between you two in probably less than a second or some earth shattering record like that.

He buries his face in your neck, and you press kisses to every square inch of his face, laughing as he’s muttering, “Holy fuck Egbert holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck,”

“Let’s go home.” You say this into his neck, grabbing both of his hands and holding them tightly.

You are now Dave Strider and once you get home you have a feeling of what’s going to happen. 1) John will scold you like the bitchass mom you never had about flunking everything and shit and you’ll have one of those deeperthananysovietsubmarinecouldgo talks which will end in 2) an extreme cuddle session of talking about more undeep things such as the future and your trip here which was highly unintresting but it’s the rule that if you go on a trip you have to explain every detail of it to a loved one. This will slowly form and then accelerate faster than those Japanese bullshit trains into 3) Sloppy Makeout Session Number a lot.

But you’re just holding hands now and heading towards the dorms in which Egbert does not have a roommate because he came later in the school year due to having to move across the United States.

It’s night and it’s turning into winter. The wind feels the same as it did when you were in Texas because you are not in Washington anymore.

You think that if you’re not in Washington then the air will never be the same. It’ll never be as good or as easy to breathe or anything because it will be Unwashington.

But Jesus why are you complaining about the air when you are holding John Egbert’s hand in your own. You notice everything around you. Somehow it spikes your senses, (also your heartbeat) holding hands, and Jesus Christ you just want to kiss him. You’re not sure that in the middle of the probablyengineering quad is the greatest or most appropriate time to do so.

You do it anyways. Bring him to the nearest wall and put one hand on his waist and one on his cheek and kiss him like the goddamn badass you are. He smiles at Sudden Sloppy Makeout Session Number a lot (SSMSNal) and you can feel him doing so against your lips. “Dave,” he pulls away and you smile stupidly. “you can’t wait, can you.” And he rolls his eyes, placing his palm on your temple and another below your chin, kissing you.

“Egbert you don’t know how long I’ve waited for this shit,” you tell him, speaking against his lips. The words would be muddled if he wasn’t as close as a person could possibly get to you.

“Awwww,” He purrs, “Davey missed me!”

“Davey,” you repeat. “D’you think it’s better or worse than Johnny.”

“They’re both equally bad.” John says, and it’s stupid and dumb and really stupid to say this as you’re talking about horrible pet names, but the way the damned moon hits his shiny and not-that-well-taken-care-of hair is amazing and even more so his eyes his fucking eyes are silver.

You were comparing yourself to an anime protagonist but goddamn that title doesn’t deserve John Egbert.

John Egbert is the anime creator. He’s the guy above the world, the supernatural being that gave the not-yet-universe the push into existence. He isn’t some dunkass anime protagonist, god, he’s amazing. John Egbert is the greatest person you’ve ever met and you can’t help but realize that you do not deserve him.

Damn.

You stop kissing him. “Rose is fucked up. Shit, you’re all fucked up and the first fucking thing I did was kiss you. Egbert how are you. Jesus Christ I’m horrible,” you begin, and he cuts you off, taking his weight off the brick wall, and holding your hand, looking into your shaded eyes (you picked up the habit again) and purses his lips. “Yeah,” he says, “okay I’ve been having nightmares but don’t... don’t get all upset. It’s been going on since forever.” John hugs you. “Let’s just get home okay?” and you finally separate and you walk home, you holding his hand and him holding your hand, silently.

He never took your shades off.

It’s late but you don’t expect to go to sleep right away. Or for the next four hours, more or less.

“Dave,” John says, quietly, after a moment of silence. Or a moment of extreme loudness, depending if you factor your wide open windows letting in the sounds of the night. There are crickets and frogs, from the nearby lake and a couple only a couple cars since you’re probably in the nerddorm where no one is out at night. John shifts position to face you. “We. Are. Fucked. Up. Together.” He says this very clearly, articulating every word as his eyes avert down, even though he’s on his side. You find his hand, lace your fingers through it, and say nothing.

“Y’know,” he says eventually, mouth quirking up into some sort of a smile, “the world’s so fucked up already I think that our fucked up-ness should be the least of anyone’s worries.”

“Yeah but,” you begin to protest, you are my world comes to your head but you don’t dare let it fall out of your mouth no way in hell. “you have to start somewhere.”

Your heads are far enough apart so that you can enjoy each other’s faces fully, and so that you can see his eyes, undeniably and unnaturally beautiful in the sliver of moonlight that you’re receiving from the window. John mumbles something, in a sarcastic tone. But that’s all you get.

“What?”

He mumbles it more clearly now, still utterly sarcastic and resentful. “I think I am completely and hopelessly in love with you, Dave Strider.”

It brings such a bigass grin to your lips that you could very well be John Egbert and not Dave Strider. You don’t know what to say to that, you don’t know what you’re supposed to say to that, so you press your head against his chest, still holding one of his hands, while he plays with your hair until you both fall asleep like that.

Chapter Text

Today is a day in which you have a legitimate excuse to not do anything involving school, even though you’re fucking graduating college in like a month and a half and finals are a thing. Your legitimate excuse is as follows:

Some guy is lying in your bed. This is a guy you’ve known for about nine years and have been going out with for, like, three. It just so happens that on this day, the thirteenth of April, is this guy’s birthday. Though it was twenty something years ago that life was shoved up his ass, it was eleven years ago that he began having shitass nightmares and his life basically became complete crap. It is only today, though, that he’ll find out why.

Because Rose told you. Rose told you and warned you and once he wakes up you’ll warn him. Rose warned Jade, too, because they’re all going to go through the same shit tonight.

You don’t want to ruin his birthday. You don’t want to you don’t want to you don’t want to no way in hell are you going to ruin John Egbert the probablyloveofyourlife’s birthday but Rose said you have to do it, which normally would not sway your final action on the problem or your opinion on it in general, but this is Rose’s shit and honestly you can’t say that you know better about this than Rose would.

And you want to make it as good as possible until right before you’re going to go to bed which then he’ll probably want to watch Failure to Launch or A Time to Kill or What Movie Could be Shittier than this? Starring Adam Sandler and Nicholas Cage as a gay couple. But you can’t let that happen. You have to the the bitchcone guy who rains on all of the parades, which you’re fine with. What you aren’t fine with is being the bitchcone guy who rains on the Egbert Parades because those are the Egbertiest of them all and goddamn that is your least favorite activity in the universe.

But then after you tell him what a shit night he’s going to have, you’re going to do some bigass shit. No shut the fuck up. This bigass shit involves praying not to have a heart attack, a fancy restaurant, trying to remember how to tie a tie, and a ring.

FUCK YES YOURE GOING TO DO IT

YOURE GOING TO WEAR A TIE

But more than that, obviously, you are going to ask this guy to marry you oh shit.

ohshitohshitohshitohshit

You need to remember how to unfeel your heart beating like a fucking fifty year old man on his fifth large fry and Big Mac, because if it’s bad now, it’s gonna be shit later.

You already bought the ring, though. Did it around New Year’s when Rose and Jade came down. You guys sneaked away (or they dragged you away) after you told them that this was a thing that you were thinking of maybe doing.

Damn, though.

You keep telling yourself that if Rose was all and completely for it, saying that this age was juuuuuust under the perfect age to get married, and Bro was for it, too.

His blue eyes open and focus for a second, on your face right there oh god that’s kind of weird and a grin spreads across his face. “Morning, Dave!”

“Happy birthday, Egbert.” You can’t help but let out a small laugh, pressing a kiss to his lips while muttering a good morning. John jumps out of bed, pulling on shorts and his favorite t-shirt with the weird Japanese wormthing on it why does he still have that he’s had it since he was thirteen.

“So do you have any plans today?” He smirks, as you rifle through your drawer and find jeans and a shirt that vaguely match or go or whatever.

“Dunno,” you answer, glancing up at him. “Do you?”

John shakes his head.

“Okay, then let’s go to Terezi’s.” You tell him, grabbing your wallet, phone, and his hand, and walking towards the door. He hesitates, looking at you doubtfully. “Terezi’s?”

“Yeah,” you say, “ice cream for breakfast. C’mon Egbert we don’t have all day.”

John walks with you, out the door, beaming. “So why do we not have all day?” He asks, looking at you when you’re outside. No one’s out because it’s hella early in the morning, earlier than the early bird, so you will not get the worm which is great because worms are disgusting.

“We do not have all day to dawdle around our apartment like moms talking when they’re supposed to have picked their kids up but the kids just snuck away again and bought themselves two hours by bringing up the subject of ‘coupons,’ because I have shit planned.”

“Wow I didn’t expect you to be so prepared for this Dave,” he deadpans, “it’s surprising you even remembered this momentous occasion.” And his shoulder bumps into yours as he laughs.

As you get to Terezi’s she smirks at you from behind the counter, drawling out, “Hello boys.” John and you go here all the time since she made this place, simply calling it Terezi’s. It’s not a very attractive storefront, colors splashing all over it, but inside it does look kinda fucking cool.

The only weird thing is that all the flavors of ice cream are named after colors, so you have no fucking idea what you’re getting. There’s, blue, yellow, orange, purple, Dave, green, white, and black.

Her business does weirdly well regardless, though. John orders blue, surprise surprise, and you order Dave because who the fuck would not want to get a taste of THIS SHIT. She puts it in the same bowl, and if you could see her eyes, which are hidden from behind weird red shades which you hope to god are for ironic purposes only, you guarantee she’d be winking.

He asks what you’re going to do when you’re done with ice cream, and you ask what he wants to do.

He shrugs, rolling his eyes. “Dave I don’t know. Last year the trolls and I just went out, and Rose. Dad sent a bunch of cakes and a movie poster, as always.

“Okay,” you say, “so if you don’t have any other plans, I made reservations at Skaia.”

“SKAIA?”

You grin at his gaping expression, silently thanking Bro for offering to pay for this expensive-ass shit. “Yeah. You’re down for that?”

John pauses, seemingly unable to fucking speak. “Uh, yeah, no, yeah I’m down for that Dave!”

“Cool. Reservations are at seven, so we’ll have to leave around, like, six.” The place was pretty far away. Downtown. “Oh, also,” you start, and fuck you’re gonna do this. “So you know your nightmares and Rose and Jade’s shit, right,” he furrows his eyebrows at you, smile fading and fuck you don’t want to do this. “Yeah, okay, so here’s what’s up with that.” You pause.

“Wait, did Rose figure it out?”

“Yeah.”

He nods you on.

“So you know that video game that um, that you beta tested with me and Rose and Jade on your thirteenth birthday, right.” He nods. “That uh, triggered a thing where, well, okay so it fucked up. It caused the end of the world and sucked us into it, we were in that game John and we had to fight and win and everything.” John looks completely confused, so you prod on after a deep breath. “That was in an... it was in an alternate timeline, though. Like, another timeline, you know what I’m saying? You know that theory, right where, there’s an unlimited expanse of universes with every possibility that could’ve happened with everyone? Because the universe is infinite, that’s a thing.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

“So we’re in the universe where the game didn’t happen. We’re in the universe that has such close ties with the game-universe that we kind of remember it. We half remember that. You know how you have flashbacks that you think never happened and stuff, that’s what happened in the game. And that universe kind of rubbed up against this one, so we’re affected by it.”

“How did they like, rub up against each other?”

“It has to do with time and stuff. And uh, yeah well, according to Rose, I was the time guy, so I guess it’s my fault.”

“But,” he pauses, looking down at the plastic teal table. “But why am I so much worse than everyone else? And why did Rose basically go insane? And did we win the game or whatever? And wait, what if I died? How did Rose figure this out? How long did you know thi-”

“Okay let’s do one at a time.”

John shuts up, still flustered.

“You’re worse because it affected you the most, and you didn’t die that soon. John, you outlasted all of us. Except me, but I’m fucking confusing I don’t even know what went on with me. But you just really got affected by the rubbing up against each other of universes, because yeah it’s fucking weird, but you were right there when they kind of collided. You were on like a spaceship with Jade or something. Except Jade wasn’t there at the time, she was in a dreamworld. Fuck, I dunno, it’s confusing. Rose went grimdark because she went grimdark in the other universe, and that kind of dark-ass energy doesn’t go away in any universe, it just puts on different masks. You didn’t die. Rose figured this out in one of her crazy black-magic dreams she got from being grimdark, where her game-universe self sent her a message of what was up. Rose told me, last night, when she got the dream, at like, four in the morning.”

You give him a minute to absorb all this, pursing your lips. He’s still studying the table, eyebrows knit together. “Uh,” he says, “oh. Uh, okay.”

“Yeah. So uh, here’s the thing with all this. The thing is that I didn’t even have to tell you this because this is the day that you won the game in the alternate universe, so you’re gonna have a bigass dream tonight that’ll tell you everything. It’ll all go pretty slowly, but Rose said in real time it was only like, an hour, so I’ll be there and I won’t wake you up because you need to know this shit, but I’ll be there.”

“Why won’t you have the dream?” He looks at you.

Jesus it’s like telling a little kid that Santa’s not real.

“I won’t have the dream because I wasn’t as affected by the whole universe collision thing as you. I was with all the trolls, which yeah- were in the game universe as actual like, gray-with-candy-corn-horns trolls. You’ll see them.”

“Oh my god,” he says, studying your shades, “Oh my god Dave everything is like, geez everything makes sense now!”

“Yeah,” you say, smiling a little, “glad I could help.”

“This is great!”

“It shouldn’t be as bad as some of the other dreams,” you continue, “according to Rose. Though it’s your and her battle, Jade dies way early and I don’t get any of this because I’m not the right Dave that was in that timeline.”

“So you’re not the Dave I knew in the game?” He asks, frowning.

“No.” And then you mutter, “No I think that one died.”

It’s quiet, and you don’t know what you’re supposed to think or say or feel or do so you don’t.

“You know,” John says, “that’s kind of irrelevant! We shouldn’t care about what’s fucked up in other universes, because this one is already fucked up enough.” He smiles, wiggling his hand under yours, and lacing his fingers through it. You both look at your fingers intertwined.

“So you’re good with that,” you ask.

“Dave why would I not be good with that?”

“Because,” you pause, thinking of the right words. “Because like we aren’t ment to be together like you and Rose were. Or you and Jade. You were ment to be with another me who is in the wrong universe, and I was supposed to be swapped with the me in the wrong universe. This,” you stab the table with an index finger of your notinJohn’shand hand, “is the universe where everything’s right except me, John. I’m the fucked up one, not you or Rose or Jade or Bro or your dad or Rose’s mom or Jade’s grandpa.”

And suddenly the whole proposal thing seems dumb and stupid to you now that you actually found out why you’ve had a bad feeling about this the whole time. You don’t deserve John, he should be with Vriska. That’s what Rose said, that she thought that he and Vriska would be together, if she was telling by what happened in her dream.

But John laughs and shakes his head, reaching over to take your shades off. “Dave if you think that out of the group of kids who live on islands alone with somehow great WiFi and cell reception, or who puke up black gooey tentacles, or who literally draw in their sleep, then for once in a lifetime I’m right about something. Okay, I know you helped me with all of my homework and still do but dude, you’re so wrong! You’re just adding to the list. You’re The Guy Who Turned His Fuckup into Something Really Awesome because I don’t know if me and the other Dave or whatever could’ve gotten this far! Dave you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I know I don’t admit that ever but geez Dave get over yourself and enjoy,” he motions encompassingly, “this!” Because this wouldn’t’ve happened if the universe didn’t line up exactly like it did. And this is pretty cool.”

jesus you can’t argue with that what the fuck egbert

After discussing the game a little more with John, you thank Terezi over your shoulder, John tangling two of his fingers with yours, and pecking the corner of your mouth as you step out into the already sticky air of almostsummer in Illinois.

He looks up in the sky, but you can tell his eyes are on yours, because when you thought he wasn’t looking at you, you looked at him, and when he thought that you thought he was looking at somewhere that was not you, he looked at you.

You caught each other, basically. Jesus.

He laughs as you walk around the block to your car. You drive back to the apartment, which you now have- that you got in your summer going into senior year.

It’s kind of weird to say that you haven’t gotten used to the part where shit you can’t just start staring at John Egbert’s dumb face while you’re driving eyes on the road, Strider.

But he can which is unfair. You make dumb and and ironically disgusting faces at the road when you feel his eyes on you, and he doesn’t know that you can fucking tell when someone’s burning holes into your skull it’s a human thing, Egbert, how do you not know this. Anyways, he laughs and punches you lightly on the arm, asking you how do you know when I’m looking and you give him the aforementioned lecture for the billionth time.

Once you get back, you lounge around video games, screaming at each other about WHY THE FUCK DID YOU JUST BEAT ME IN THAT MINI GAME AND HOW IS THE STAFF RECORD THREE SECONDS WHO THE FUCK CAN DO THAT NO LET ME TRY WAIT NO WE HAVE NEIGHBORS SHUT UP

Mario Party Eight can get pretty intense when you’re Peach and John’s Daisy.

At six you’re playing your second fifty-turn game because only birthdays call for fifty turn Mario Party games. You’re aaaaaaaalmost done so you try to finish as fast as possible because everyone knows that you can NOT fucking stop in the middle of a Mario Party game, especially when everyone just lost all of their stars oh shit.

At six fifteen, John finally says that if you’re going to make it to the reservation, you’re going to have to get off your sorry asses and get your suits and ties on because that’s a thing that you have to do when you’re going to a restaurant like Skaia, apparently.

You scramble to your room to also scramble into your suits, and you throw the little velvety box in your pocket, grabbing a wallet, an Egbert, and some keys, and busting out the door at six thirty.

You should be able to make it if Egbert prays the entire time for no traffic.

Also you think you might have a heart attack but you know, whatever. The fact that Egbert looks insanely attractive, even more so than usual, doesn’t help either.

You don’t know if you’re ready. You told this to Rose and she said you were getting cold feet already which you then protested that your feet were securely tucked into your favorite shoes with the ironically pink and purple knitted socks that you’re ironically wearing because Rose knitted them for you, so you’re feet, in fact, were not cold.

She said you’d be fine.

Rose already has a PHD in Psychology so you think that she’s right and you push that shit down, or rather, let it out by screaming the lyrics to Start of Something New from the High School Musical soundtrack that you and Egbert have blasting and are singing the lyrics by heart to with the windows and roof all the way down.

You also know that you’re ready because of the sheer amount of literal and pure happiness that you and Egbert are experiencing right now, him with a hand on the steering wheel, cruising in the convertible that Bro ‘lent’ you for the ‘summer’ (that was last summer and neither of you has said anything so you just decided that you’ll give it back when he says something). The pure happiness bubbling up from the bottom of your stomach is like shit strider youre so ready for this what are you talking about. And you think that it’s completely right because you can’t deny that it the feeling when you look at John Egbert and feel like he’s the other half of you, literally, you’re bleeding over here quick get over here Egbert what are you doing, you’re bleeding too, oh shit, your kidney fell out better go grab that and shove it back in. No that’s your stomach that’s not where your kidney goes you goddamn biology major what the fuck

But Christ. He’s beautiful, you don’t care if that’s a word that some gross guy would say to the cheerleader in an eighties movie while Journey was playing in the background, because by definition, he is beautiful.

Beautiful (adjective)
Having qualities of beauty: exciting aesthetic pleasure
Generally pleasing : excellent

And man is John Egbert just the most excellent guy around. Does he have high qualities of beauty.

You memorized the definition of beautiful ironically.

His messy hair is blowing out of his face, so you can see his eyes which are amazing with the sunset reflecting off of them, and his black tie, light blue shirt, and black jacket, oh shit oh shit oh shit he’s god fucking damn gorgeous you’re the literal luckiest guy in the entire assfucking universe.

You get to the restaurant just as seven o’clock hits and the waiter looks at you incredulously as you two try to fix your hair and look like you were not just singing High School Musical at the top of your lungs. He seats you and you pick up the menu, shit when are you going to do this why did you not plan this thing

The waiter comes, all smiley, asking you what you’d like to order and Egbert goes first, and then you, you don’t even know what either of you order you don’t think, because your head is too loud with let’s not have a heart attack.

You’re at a fancy restaurant, so it’ll take like, an hour for the food to get here. John is grinning the entire time, and you are too because fuck it, John Egbert is in front of you looking goddamn amazing and he is in love with you and you’re eating at a fancy restaurant and everything is fucking perfect Jesus.

You talk about things that people talk about when they’re at a restaurant. You talk just quietly enough to enjoy the restaurant sounds, a low, constant murmur and the clinking of wine glasses and the occasional chair-scrape, the kitchen and waitpeople talking and forks and chewing and eating and drinking and knives cutting and spoons and people slurping don’t fucking slurp what are you.

Your food gets to the table and it’s good, tasteless because somehow your tongue is like shit Strider you’re gonna propose you don’t have to taste anything, so you eat zombily except for the fact that you do hold an okay conversation with Egbert and that takes a lot out of you because you’re waiting for the right moment.

After three and a half years, he asks, “So Strider,” you know what’s coming, he puts an elbow on the table, leaning forward. “What’s my present? Or is this it,” he shuts up, oh shit he thinks he fucked up oh shit is this where you do the thing is this your que.

“Oh no way Egbert,” heart attack heartattackheartattack you’re reaching into your pocket, pulling out the little box and enclosing it in your palm under the table. No why did you do this what the fuck you can’t do this “I got you something.”

He raises his eyebrows.

You feel a surge of ohgod come through you, as you bring the box up to the table, watching his face. You slide your index finger into the mouth of the box, opening it towards him. “John Egbert,” you say, you are no longer having a heart attack you’re just dead now. A smile cracks out on your lips in the middle of the following halfsentence. “Will you marry me?”

His eyes switch from the box, to you, the box, you the box you theboxyoutheboxyoutheboxyouohshit

John Egbert the goddamn gorgeous guy in front of you is also smiling his ass off, eyes finally deciding that you are their final spot. “Yes,” he says, laughing, “yes oh my god Dave, yes, oh my god.”

And then you put the ring on him you’re not sure how that’s supposed to happen because Rose didn’t discuss this with you and neither did Jade thanks guys.

You’re both laughing and he takes your hand after you slide the ring on. He closes the box with his palm and looks into your eyes, like, past them, burning holes straight through your frontal lobe and maybe that’s why your reasoning’s so off today. “So,” you start, “I didn’t have a heart attack.”

He laughs, “I’m surprised. I probably would’ve.”

And you talk like that for a while longer, everything being okay and not perfect because he still has to go through hell and further tonight, but you guess that that’s all you can ask for.

You shouldn’t be talking though, because John Egbert, your goingtobe husband, is sitting right in front of you with the biggest goddamn smile on his goddamn gorgeous face and he’s holding your hand and his hair’s all messed up because of your High School Musical sing-along session on the car ride here but that’s John Egbert.

Everything’s okay and that’s good because you’re going to go home and continue that Mario Party game, even though Egbert is beating you somehow, you’ll make a comeback you swear to god.

And you’ll graduate in a month and a half or something and stay in the apartment that you’re in and try to figure out the rest of your life

wait wait waitwaitwaitwaitwait he just pulled your chin across the table and he’s kissing you just for like, a split second because it’s not cool to make out in the middle of crazy fancy restaurants, but he just kissed you and you both leaned away and he’s asking you if you want to get something for dessert, “like something such as,” he says, “not cake.”

You say sure and you get chocolate cake because you’re a horrible person but god do you love chocolate cake and he gets some sort of weird pudding and eats it while scowling at you the entire time.

After you leave, you’re on the road for the prettylong drive back, singing along to How Do I Live by Leann Rimes because the rule is if you pick music, Egbert gets to pick next, and when you pick something ‘horrible’ (what the fuck john hsm is the shit its quality) he picks something ‘great’ but that you don’t like.

Whatever, at least you memorized all the lyrics to How Do I Live by Leann Rimes just like you memorized the definition of ‘beautiful.’