Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The one smart move Dave Strider makes when he begins his involuntary three year siesta on a psionically hurled meteor through paradox space is that he gets one of the worst moments of it out of the way on his first day.

“Day” is a weird word to employ when you’re living on a floating rock but Dave knows it's still the first day (14 hours, 33 minutes, and change since he awoke in his fancy new pajamas) when he starts looking for a room where he can drop a bed and crash. The meteor is full of quiet hallways, too many rooms for so few people, and signs in jagged Alternian text that Dave can’t read. It’s the first place he’s been to since entering the session that didn’t give him the uncanny feeling that it had been made with him in mind; even sleeping to wake on Derse always felt like a homecoming of sorts. The meteor just feels wrong.

The third room he opens, he finds Karkat inside. His back is to the door, bent over as he picks up what looks like scattered cards, dropped haphazardly and strewn over the floor. Nearby is a table, utilitarian and metal like most of the furniture around the meteor. Across it are stacked neat piles of… just stuff. Rolled up posters in a tidy pyramid, a deck of the same cards Karkat seems to be picking up, a box of orangey luminescent spheres that flicker with something alive inside, and one of those chitinous weird troll laptops sitting closed with its legs folded flush to its body.

Dave lingers too long, looking around, and Karkat stiffens, like he’s just caught the scent of an interloper. “What.” he says, one word, quiet but hard. It’s not a question so much as a demand.

Dave has never met a demand that didn’t make him bristle like a pissed off tomcat. “Just looking for a room. Relax, small, dark, and shouty.” He frowns. “Why are you packing up? Sort of early to throw yourself off the meteor, isn’t it?”

Karkat looks up, and his face looks weird. Troll complexions aren’t quite the same as humans; their skin looks tougher, thicker, and the splotchy angry red of Karkat’s cheeks is less obvious against grey as it would be against most human skin. “It’s not my room, you arrogant mouth breather. It’s-- it was Tavros’, but.” His mouth twists sharply, and Dave bitterly regrets opening his goddamn mouth.

Speaking of, Dave flounders badly in the face of such potent, desperate sadness. He only knows Karkat from lines upon lines of verbosely disdainful text scrolling up his chat overlay, and matching it to the troll in front of him with his hunched shoulders and wounded expression is hard. Karkat is much smaller than Dave ever imagined.

In text, Karkat was so much easier to deal with. Easy to wind up like a top and watch the show.

The skin on the back of Dave’s neck prickles with sweat. “I think I chatted with that guy. Brown text color right? Inverted caps and lots of commas?”

Karkat stares back at him balefully.

“He seemed cool. Or, trying to be. We had a rap battle. He had some…. There was some great ideas in…” Dave feels like the cool grey of Karkat’s eyes are digging into him like knives. He hitches a thumb over shoulder. “I’ll find another room.”

“I’ll just be here cleaning up the effects of all my fucking lost friends. Thanks for the break, Strider, it really helped with my delicate healing process.” He turns and bends to pick up another card. “Bye, get out.”

Dave bails out as fast as he can without outright running. Once the door is shut, he leans against it for a moment.

Three years. About 1094 days, 9 hours, 20 minutes, and change.

He pushes off the door and goes to find Rose.

The room Rose has picked isn’t far from the entrance of the building. Dave thought he wanted more distance from everyone, but lets the idea slip through his hands when he finds Rose sitting on a bed already. It’s a copy of the bed from her room, he thinks, its lavender bedding almost blindingly bright in contrast the the grey grey grey of literally every other goddamn thing.

She looks up when he stands in the doorway, and the wan smile she flashes him is the weakest shit he’s ever witnessed. “Hello.”

“Hey.” He nods to the bed. “Tired?”

“Exhausted, I’m afraid. There is so much I’d like to do but…” she shakes her head once. “Sleep is far too tempting. And I guess we have an abundance of time.”

“S’only thing we’ve got. That, and really pissy trolls.”

One narrow eyebrow lifts. “Oh? I thought you were on good terms with at least one of them.”

“Yeah, but not the one I ran into. Hey, if you see Karkat, the guy with the tiny horns and no indoor voice, I highly advise you not to approach lest you get your head bitten off. Dude’s going through some shit.”

“Aren’t we all.” She scoots back on the bed, running her fingers through her hair, her headband sliding loose. “I’ve realized that when I go to sleep, I won’t be visiting Derse anymore. It’s hard not to find this whole ascent to godhood bittersweet.”

This is the point when Dave is supposed to say something funny or at least wildly inappropriate enough to pass for humor. But more than anything, he’s tired too.

There are other rooms, and Dave should be settling into one, but he hangs in the doorway longer until Rose sighs and says, “We’ve been through a rather traumatic experience. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want to reach out for familiar things in such a trying time.”

“Are you headshrinking yourself now?”

“Just get over here,” she commands, scooting across her bed.

That night, Dave shares his bed for the first time in his life. His sister sleeps against the wall, curled like a comma, a pause, a break for them that’s going to last a long goddamn time.

Her breath hitches a few times, then evens out, and only then does Dave shut his eyes. After everything’s that happened, Dave doesn’t expect to sleep well, but be hit with dreams of green fire and the whipcrack-quick pain that came before darkness.

But he sleeps, and is too exhausted to dream.

A week later, Rose moves to the room across the hall, effectively settling the whole issue. Dave unpacks some things he’d been carrying around in his sylladex to fill the empty space of what’s now his room.

Things are so quiet in the first month of time on the meteor that Dave can sort of feel it digging into his brain. There is a desolation here that makes Dave think of the aftermath of a nuclear strike. It has to be something like this. Back home in Houston, he could always hear the distant sounds of the city, of his neighbors downstairs, of his Bro in the next room doing whatever he was wont. In the Land of Heat and Clockwork, there were constantly nakking consorts, the shifting bubble of lava, and constant movement of clocks (loud clanks of gears, rapid ticks of hands, the occasional faraway gong, and how every hour on the hour the whole planet would ring out in noise). Even Derse had its bells, its little chess people with their tired eyes, and the most dour street music Dave had ever heard. The moon’s chain creaked sometimes, a nice counterpoint to the quiet whispers of the horrorterrors.

On the meteor, it’s silent. Moving through space means he can’t feel their passage through the paradox space. Everyone sticks to their rooms unless they are moving to someone else’s, scurrying along like being out in the open is a risk.

Well. There’s still bloodstains, a lurid scatter of gradient colors, that says it is. Unless Karkat’s cleaned that up already. Dave wonders if anyone’s helping the guy. He also wonders if anyone cares enough to. Trolls are weird.

Eventually, Rose visits him, inviting herself in without knocking, and peers around severely. “You don’t have a chair.”

“Chair kinda implies wanting guests. Best keep a tight lid on that shit or else everyone will be vying for my company. How’d you even make it past my bouncer?” Dave barely looks up from where he’s sprawled on his back over the bed, his leg bouncing on his knee.

“I’m not too familiar with the tradition myself, but I believe the standard admission would be granted by lifting my top.”

Dave pulls a face before he can stop himself. “Please don’t say shit like that now that you’re my sister. Twin? Are we twins?”

Rose pushes some of Dave’s things off the low table next to his bed (which would be a coffee table if, one: he had any coffee, and two: there were any place to sit and drink the coffee) and sits on the edge. “I’ve been your sister all our lives.”

“Technically, yeah, but practically, not really?”

“No, I think I know what you mean.” She reaches out, like she’s going to nudge his sunglasses up, but Dave lets out an annoyed sound and turns his head. “Having a brother to bother is quite an experience. I only regret it took me so long to know we were related.”

“There are, like, at least a handful of other people on this rock to bother.”

“Are you sure? Since we arrived, I’ve only spoken to you and Kanaya. Everyone else has sequestered themselves away. That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.” She leans forward, arms on her knees. “Have you looked at the room next to yours?”

“No. Caught Karkat heading in there the other day.” That’s explanation enough, really.

“It’s the trolls’ old command center. It’s a huge computer room. Lots of space, vaguely central to everyone’s chosen boarding. I want to turn it into a common room.”

Dave snorts. “Yeah? And how’d Karkat react when you totally mentioned this to him before coming to me? He still loudly not being the leader of the trolls?”

“He’s just having a bad reaction to his misassigned guilt after losing so many of his team. Besides, Kanaya asked him. The entire thing was her idea. Apparently her fellow players aren’t doing great on their own.” She extends a leg, poking Dave in the side. “Karkat has already cleared the personal effects out of the command center. Kanaya has a… truly impressive amount of linens in her sylladex. There is an alchemiter lab nearby as well. With a bit of work, we can make something nice.”

Rose continues to poke him until Dave catches her ankle, pushing it peevishly away. “Cool plan. Lemme know how it goes.”

“You are as close to an A/V specialist we have. Come set up a little area for us. TV and things.”

“Do you have a TV in your sylladex?”

“This place is not short on monitors. I believe in you. You can do this and ensure the continued peace on this meteor for humans and trolls alike.”

“Fiiine,” Dave sighs. “Just tell me when and I’ll work my sick magic on the common room and turn it into a swinging fucking crash pad for you and me and maybe Kanaya.”

“Please trust the local Seer of Light on these matters.” She stands and looks down at him, hands on her hips. “This is vitally important to our futures.”

“TV always is. Gospel from the Book of Samsung, right there.”

The room Rose’s setting up looks like a Pier One exploded in a high school computer lab. The dour, sad grey room has been cleaned of the rainbow sprays and pools of blood, and in their place are rugs overlapping on the floor, all mixmatched and angled oddly, stretching to cover paths on the floor. Many of the computers have been removed, replaced with flower pots, of all things. There are empty bookshelves, big ornate gold things stacked against the far lab tables, and a table with a fucking candelabra standing on it. It’s the most ridiculous hodgepodge of styles Dave has ever seen.

“Holy shit, it’s like Beauty and the Beast got into a fight with the Nebuchadnezzar in here,” Dave breathes, whistling lowly.

“Hello, Dave. Would you hand me that featherbeast alarm clock?”

Kanaya is standing behind him, up on one of the lab tables. She has a hammer, and is pointing to a cuckoo clock on the table.

Dave picks it up and looks at its face, nudging the minute hand back a half-inch. “Hey, uh, Kanaya, right. Rose got you working on this little common room project too?”

“The idea was one we both arrived at together. Even as solitary as my species tends to be, the thought of a sweep and a half of so much isolation would have me evacuating the meteor long before our journey’s finished.”

“What, didn’t bring enough crosswords?” He hands the clock up to her, though not before tapping the pendulum, ensuring it’s ticking on time.

“I’m going to assume that is some invention of your species and not actually angry words.” She turns, settling the clock on the nail she’s somehow stabbed into the metal wall. When she makes to step down, Dave awkwardly offers his hand, helping her hop off the table before shoving his hands into his pockets.

“I am pretty sure I’ve got the captcha for a crossword book somewhere. At this point, we should share all our codes with each other, see what we can get going.”

Kanaya smiles, a slow curve of her lips, a dark enough green to nearly be black. Seeing the sharp teeth hooked over her lip makes Dave want to step back. How does she avoid lipstick stains on those fangs? Maybe it was a vampire thing. Sorry, rainbow drinker thing. Harder to take seriously until the actual sharp teeth were suddenly so close.

“Rose mentioned something like that. She should be on her way, actually. We are moving things into the room, as you can see.”

“So more kitchsy shit is incoming? Damn.”

From the doorway, then: “I’ve seen what you consider interior design, and I’m unimpressed.” Rose sweeps in, her orange robes moving counter to her, like a dramatic breeze was rolling in just to help make her godtier outfit seem less silly. “Perhaps we could hang a sword up on the wall, make you feel at home?”

Dave watches her drop a huge red cushioned sofa out of her sylladex onto one of the rugs. “Where in the fresh hell are you finding this stuff?”

“We have been utilizing some of the alchemiters to synthesize some suitable furniture,” Kanaya says. “I have plenty of logged fabrics, and Rose has the codes from her hive. Bold colors should help with how dire some of the meteor’s decor is.”

“I still need to see if we can combine a few items into some nice tapestries. Cover some of the walls.”

“I’m sure between the two of us, we can manage something.” Kanaya smiles at Rose, who smirks back.

Dave blows out a breath. “Well, I think I’m gonna bounce on back to my room and leave you to it at this rate, because god for fucking bid I get in the way of such mastery of textile and knickknacks.”

“No, no, wait a moment.” Rose holds up a hand, quelling, before expending two identical golden pots of roses by the entryway. With a satisfied nod, she catches her fingers at the elbow of his sleeve. “I still would like you to set up a little entertainment area, but I also had an idea I wanted your thoughts on.”

Dave lifts his eyebrows. “Shit, my opinion? That’s new.”

She sighs, short and terse, and looks over his shoulder at Kanaya. “Excuse us a moment, I’ll be back to help.”

“Of course.” Kanaya turns away, head tilting in that instantly recognizable expression that meant someone was accessing their sylladex. Damn, maybe she’d add a chandelier or a papasan chair next. Complete the confused mess of the room.

He didn’t get to see, though. Rose leads him out of the room, into the hallway, and only lets go of his arm when Dave pointedly tugs against her grip.

“Just wondering,” Dave says once they’re out of earshot, leaning on the wall with his hands deep in his pockets, “are you at all worried about playing house with a vampire?”

“Not at all.” Her hands fold almost primly in front of her, chin lifted high. “Kanaya has remarkable restraint. I am sure we’ll eventually have to broach the topic of her eating habits and how they’ll have to adapt to such a small pool of people, but she wouldn’t drink from anyone who wasn’t willing.”

“Uh huh.” Dave stares across at Rose.

She ignores him. “That is related to what I wanted to talk about, though. Kanaya and I have been brainstorming about how to spend our time here. If we do nothing, I fear the extreme isolation and dire circumstances, not to mention the presence of horrorterrors all around us, will drive more than a few of us to go grimdark.” Her mouth twists unhappily. “Not the sort of thing I wish on any of us.”

“If one of the trolls went grimdark, how would we even tell?”

“The speaking in tongues would probably be a giveaway.”

Dave sighs. “You ruin everything. Anyway, what’s your Grimdark Prevention Plan?”

“The common room, in part. Using it enough for it to become a fixture of life on this trip, to stir people out of their rooms. To that end, I was wondering how much you knew about cooking?”

“Cooking? Like, food?”

“Coming from a household with a mother who was wise enough to know when she wasn’t sober enough to man a kitchen, I grew up on a wide variety of oven and microwave meals, all premade. I can follow instructions, but have no practical knowledge of cooking. What about you?”

Blowing out a breath, Dave shrugs. “Most of my kitchen wasn’t used for, like, food storage, so.”

“Of course, the incredibly unlikely and esoteric life of Dave Strider,” Rose murmurs. “Well, lucky for us, I’ve spent my time with the alchemiter wisely and have produced the more infamously simple meal possible.”

“Oh shit, you alchemitized a fucking Chinese take-out menu? Hell yes, I’ll take all the crab rangoons you got, and if they got sushi, I want the little octopus ones because eating an entire creature in one bite makes me feel like a titan or some kind of monster like that.”

“No, but god, I would pay every ounce of grist I have for some really good lo mein.” She reaches into her sylladex and produces a box of spaghetti and a glass jar of store shelf pasta sauce, smiling. “I think this is doable, though.”

To a degree, Rose is right; pasta is pretty foolproof, even for ingenuous fools like them.

Rose has a small kitchen set up in the common room. Though, kitchen is really fucking generous; on the computer tables that line the entire room, Rose has a corner dedicated to cooking things. There’s a sink, a hot plate, a convection oven, and miscellaneous utensils and pots and things. It makes a college dorm look like a full range.

“What, no microwave? Seriously? The staple of the American kitchen?” Dave asks, picking out a decent sized pot and starting to fill it.

“I did figure out the captcha code for one, but the amount of grist needed was frankly disturbing. The game considers microwaves to be endgame items.” She hovers just behind his shoulder. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“More than you do,” Dave says, and points to the hot plate. “Generally you need two of those to make pasta and sauce, Rose.”

Her cheeks color just slightly. “Oh. I should have remembered that. Here, I’ll go make another.”

Shaking his head, Dave puts the half-full pot of water on the heating element and turns it on high. “Don’t worry about it, it’s fine. That sauce isn’t cold, so if we just put it on the spaghetti and put it back on the burner for a bit, that should work.” There’s a cylinder of table salt within reach, and Dave shakes some into the pot of water. “This is going to be a sad little meal.”

“Perhaps I can punch it up a bit.” Rose withdraws a long stick of crusty bread from her sylladex. “I actually got this first, and decided pasta sounded like a good starting goal for my food alchemitizing session.”

Dave takes the long loaf and nods. “Sweet. Hey, did you get garlic?”

“Yes. And cinnamon, but I doubt that helps here.”

“Nah, but good to know for the future. Cough ‘em up, sis.”

Part of Dave expects Rose to jump in and take over as he cooks (which is generous-- he just waits for the water, dumps pasta in, and sets a mental timer before cutting the bread in half and killing it with butter and garlic). She continues to hover, but makes no move to actually take over, instead watching Dave with that haughty, knowing gaze of hers. It’s sort of annoying, but Dave’s busy, so he’s not going to start anything with her.

And he doesn’t mind, exactly. It’s Rose. They held each other as a fucking bomb went off in their faces. He’d like to think they don’t have anything left to prove to each other. Screwing up the suicide part of a suicide mission hand in hand wins as far as bonding experiences go.

She frowns when he strains out most of the water from the pasta before throwing it back into the pot and grabbing the sauce. “You didn’t finish with the colander, there’s still water.”

“You’re supposed to leave a bit of the starchy water in the pot,” Dave replies easily as he mixes in sauce. With the pot back on the hot plate, it starts to bubble just slightly. As long as he doesn’t burn anything, this is going to work. “Did you not watch Food Network, jesus.”

She shoots him an unimpressed look. Or, more unimpressed than normal, anyway.

There are too-big bowls on the table, and Dave fills them and shoves a bit of now toasty warm garlic bread into the pasta. Everything smells fucking divine as the Sistine Chapel, and Dave can’t remember the last time he had a real, honest to god meal, even something as modest as pasta. Long before the start of the session, probably.

“Forgot the most vital ingredient,” he points out as they both twirl spaghetti on their forks.

“Hm?”

“Shitty parmesan romano cheese powder in the big green plastic canister.”

“You might be right about that. Cheese cuts the spice a bit, makes it a bit more palatable.”

“Spice, what spice? It’s fucking meat sauce with a dash of garlic and pepper.”

“You put in far more than a dash,” Rose grouses, and Dave watches her shake a bit of excess sauce from her fork before taking another bite.

Dave’s sort of aware that being Texan affords him a certain fortitude in the taste bud region that Rose might not be able to stand up to, but come on. It was just a bit of garlic, and the most risque thing in the jar had been basil. He snorts and takes a big bite of his bread, peering at her over his sunglasses.

“Think Kanaya would like some garlic bread?” Dave asks.

“If I didn’t know any better, I would accuse you of experiencing some much belated protective brother instincts,” Rose shoots back quickly.  He shrugs, unashamed. It’s mostly just fun to needle Rose a bit. “But you raise a good point in a terrible way. We should see if human cuisine is amenable to the trolls. Do we have enough pasta to bring one of them?”

“Cold pasta, yum. Nah, but since you’re too much of a goddamn wuss to eat your bread, I’ll leave it for one of them.”

“Hopefully they like it, and are not allergic. It’d be a shame if we couldn’t rely on human food. I enjoy their company but have no desire to learn about their cuisine.”

Dave wrinkles his nose. “Ugh. Agreed.”

Dave drops off a plate with a loaf of garlic bread outside a specific door, pulling what he assumes is the nicest ding dong ditch in the history of the universe. Aw, shit, another bag of dogshit. Nope, fucking freshly made garlic bread, free of charge, don’t even have to buy the salad at Olive Garden. Dave is a saint, he knows it, and is gonna ride this wave of good karma for the rest of the week.

carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG]

CG: STRIDER DID YOU JUST KNOCK ON THE DOOR TO MY BLOCK AND FUCKING LEAVE?
CG: ARE YOU A WRIGGLER WITH NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH YOUR TIME?
CG: FURTHERMORE DO YOU THINK THAT I ALSO HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO THAN HUMOR YOUR IMMATURE ATTEMPTS TO STAVE OFF YOUR OWN BOREDOM-INDUCED MENTAL BREAKDOWN?
CG: GET A FUCKING HOBBY. LEARN A USEFUL TEXTILE CRAFT LIKE ROSE AND KANAYA. OR FIND OUT ALL THE WAYS YOU CAN SELF-TERMINATE AS A GODTIER. I DON’T CARE. JUST LEAVE ME THE FUCK OUT OF IT.
TG: how do you know it was me
TG: maybe you got a visit from troll santa
TG: leaving you with delicious treats for being a swell guy
TG: though shit given how troll world worked maybe troll santa would only reward the most ornery asshole kids
TG: sit on my lap and tell me all the terrible things youve done little billy
TG: how many innocent kittens did you dropkick into the river this year kiddo
TG: four? shit thats worth a new xbox
TG: high five billy
CG: I SAW YOUR STUPID CAPE AS YOU RAN AROUND THE CORNER. YOU’RE HARD TO MISS.
CG: I SPEAK FROM EXPERIENCE. I HAVE COMMITTED UNTOLD HOURS OF STUDY TO THE FIELD OF TRYING TO IGNORE YOUR HIDEOUS PRESENCE.
TG: aw karkat am i haunting your waking hours
TG: just cant get me out of your head no matter how hard you try
TG: common affliction
TG: i hear there are support groups you can join
CG: WHO IS THE PERSON IN YOUR LIFE THAT CONVINCED YOU THAT YOU WERE HUMOROUS?
CG: DID YOUR HOME PLANET ADEQUATELY PUNISH THEM FOR THEIR HEINOUS CRIMES?
TG: nah it all comes from my heart
TG: anyway did you try the thing i left you
CG: LEFT ME?
TG: aw shit
TG: i hope its not cold already
TG: i left a plate outside your door dude
TG: go get it quick quick
CG: WHAT THE HELL IS THIS THING
TG: its a delicacy from my home world
TG: garlic bread aka ambrosia of the gods
TG: a mighty and revered morsel with a recipe only handed down to the most beloved and trusted humans
TG: no seriously eat it
TG: if it gets cold its not gonna be any good
TG: im not poisoning you and its not a joke or prank or gag or other semantic variation on jape
TG: disclaimer over did you try it
CG: TAKE A FUCKING DRILL AND AIM IT RIGHT AT YOUR SKULL. IT’S VITALLY IMPORTANT TO YOUR OWN SURVIVAL THAT YOU LOCATE AND UTILIZE THE RARE RESOURCE KNOWN AS “CALM THE FUCK DOWN JUICE,” HIDDEN DEEP IN YOUR THINKPAN.
CG: BECAUSE IF NOT I’M GOING TO FUCKING STRANGLE YOU.
CG: IT’S NOT BAD? IT’S WEIRD.
TG: good weird or bad weird
TG: or shit is it weird tingling in my throat weird
TG: please don’t be allergic to garlic bread karkat
TG: i will write direct shoot and star in a lifetime movie about the tragedy of tolls being allergic to ambrosia
TG: win myself all the emmys
CG: HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A FUCKING LIFELONG MOVIE ABOUT SOMETHING SO STUPID?
CG: IT’S LIKE GRUBLOAF WITH A WEIRD TASTE. I GUESS IT’S NOT COMPLETELY AWFUL, BUT I HAVE LOWERED STANDARDS AND IT APPEALS TO MY STRENUOUS CRITERIA FOR FOOD.
CG: 1. IT’S NOT PACKAGED SHIT OUT OF MY SYLLADEX, 2. IT’S STILL WARM. SO, RELAX.
TG: fucking score one for humanity then
TG: glad we can see eye to eye on the wonder that is garlic bread
CG: DO I EVEN WANT TO KNOW THE WHY BEHIND ALL THIS?
CG: AM I BEING BRIBED? WHAT DO YOU WANT?
TG: what no
TG: its not like youre the leader of anything anymore
TG: mr im not the leader guy
TG: what would be the point
CG: WHATEVER.
TG: eloquent as fuck man
TG: rose wants us to start up a community mealtime
TG: tho i think by us she means me
TG: girl has no idea what to do in a kitchen
TG: but she thinks someone might go off the deep end and maybe even grimdark if we dont do something
CG: THAT’S NOT THE MOST TERRIBLE IDEA I’VE HEARD IN MY LIFE.
TG: holy shit go easy on me
TG: i can’t handle that much enthusiastic gushing praise in one go
TG: hearts racing man
CG: WHY DIDN’T SHE ASK ANYONE ABOUT THIS?
TG: like i dunno man
TG: if only we had a leader guy who she could confer with
CG: WHY ARE YOU FIXATED ON THAT?
CG: YOU’VE MENTIONED IT LIKE FUCKING TWICE IN AS MANY MINUTES.
TG: man cause like
TG: i kinda get it
TG: lots of bad shit went down in your session
TG: and thatd make anyone gunshy around the sawed off shotgun we call leadership
TG: but you fucking know if you dont step up then the spider queen is gonna do it
TG: dont subject us to that dude
CG: OKAY, IT’S A LITTLE WEIRD THAT VRISKA’S ALREADY THOROUGHLY GOTTEN ON YOUR RUMBLESPHERES. LIKE, I’VE DONE MY TIME IN THE SERKET WEB OF BULLSHIT AND ATTEMPTED MURDER. I HAVE EARNED THE RIGHT TO HATE HER.
CG: YOU HAVEN’T BEEN SHARING LIVING SPACE WITH HER FOR LONG ENOUGH TO LOATHE HER FUCKING MANIPULATIVE SHIT THIS MUCH.
CG: WHAT GIVES?
TG: maaaaaan
TG: i did not sign up for nosy troll hour
TG: you up for community mealtime or what
CG: CONSIDER THAT BOOKMARKED FOR LATER, STRIDER.
CG: YOUR GARLIC BREAD FOOD IS SUPERIOR TO THE TUBER PASTE AND GRUBSNACK I’VE BEEN FORCED TO SUBSIST ON.
TG: wait you eat grubs for snacks
TG: arent grubs little trolls
TG: are trolls cannibals
CG: WHAT THE FUCK? NO, IDIOT, GRUBSNACK IS NOT MADE OF GRUBS, IT’S *FOR* GRUBS, FOR US. LIKE GRUBLOAF AND GRUBMEALS AND FUCKING GRUBFRUITS.
TG: whoa hang on
TG: paradigm is having a fucking shift here
TG: world: in the process of being rocked
TG: so trolls combine words to show what they are?
CG: I’M GOING TO GO TO THE ALCHEMITER AND FIGURE OUT THE CRAFTING RECIPE FOR A HUGE FUCKING AWARD AND BRING IT TO YOU AND THEN BEAT YOU UPSIDE THE HEAD WITH IT.
CG: YES, OUR LANGUAGE USES COMPOUND WORDS TO DENOTE MEANING.
CG: WE’RE SCHOOLFED THE BASIC WORDS FIRST SO THAT WHEN WE FIND ONES WE DON’T KNOW, WE CAN FIGURE OUT THE MEANING AND ADD IT TO OUR LEXICON. AND IF WE DON’T KNOW THE EXACT TERM FOR SOMETHING, WE CAN STILL MAKE A WORD THAT IS CLEAR TO OTHER TROLLS AND AVOID WASTING TIME EXPLAINING SHIT.
CG: UNLIKE HUMAN LANGUAGE WHERE EVERY DAMN THING HAS ITS OWN TERM AND EVERY FUCKING DEFINITION IS LIKE FIFTY OTHER UNFAMILIAR WORDS.
CG: BASK IN OUR SUPERIOR LINGUISTICS, ASSHOLE.
TG: so when you call a cat a meowbeast and a horse a hoofbeast
CG: “BEAST” IS THE CORE WORD AND ITS MODIFIED BY A DESCRIPTOR. YES.
TG: that
TG: is pretty smart
TG: so if i wanted to say bird in troll but didnt know how
TG: i could say like
TG: beakbeast or featherbeast
CG: EITHER ONE AND A TROLL WOULD KNOW WHAT YOU MEANT.
CG: EXACTLY.
TG: huh
TG: man i wish TZ and i were still talking
TG: i made a lot of fun of that shit
CG: …
CG: INTERESTING.
TG: what
TG: that the feeble human mind has caught up with your glorious troll syntax magic
CG: NO.
CG: TEREZI’S NOT TALKED TO YOU SINCE SHE STARTED HANGING AROUND VRISKA’S BLOCK, HAS SHE?
CG: I’M TAKING YOUR SILENCE AS TACIT ADMISSION.
CG: ANYWAY, GOOD JOB FOR NOT POISONING ME. IF YOU MAKE MORE GARLIC BREAD, GIVE ME SOME.
CG: I MEAN.
CG: THANKS FOR SHARING. I’D LIKE MORE IF YOU MAKE MORE.
TG: so thinkpan is pan with think as modifier
CG: “PAN” IS A CORE WORD FOR CONTAINERS. A PAN THAT HOLDS YOUR THOUGHTS, THINKPAN, OR BRAIN.
CG: CONGRATULATIONS ON MASTERING THIS SIMPLE CONCEPT.
CG: WHICH I HAD FUCKING LEARNED BEFORE I WAS TWO SWEEPS OLD.
TG: its not my fault english is weird.
CG: I GUESS. BUT AS ONE OF THE LAST HUMANS, YOU INHERIT THE BLAME.
CG: SEE YOU AROUND.

carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling turntechGodhead [TG]

Chapter Text

It doesn’t take long for Dave to accept the fact that Rose is pretty terrible at the whole cooking thing, and he has been roped into being the main food provider for the meteor.

Their little kitchen corner of the common room has expanded like a kudzu vine, sprawling halfway down one wall as they add more hot plates and little ovens to the collection. They have yet to figure out the captcha code for a useful fridge, but they have three dorm-sized mini fridges in a neat row to store things in. It’s functional, in the same way a car without an engine is functional if you push it off a really big hill.

Today is omelettes, because he’s managed to get a carton of liquid eggs out of the alchemiter Russian Roulette. Not as satisfying as real eggs, but it’ll work for now.

Rose is at his side and they each have a pan on a hot plate. She has a little bowl of tomato and cheese waiting, while Dave experiments a bit with his. He’s not certain what to do with a balsamic vinegar, but when he tasted it was tangy as hell, so he’s cooking his onions and tomatoes in it before making with the eggs. He really wants bacon. Like, he would be willing to blow a lot of boonmoney on the code for bacon.

Though they still don’t have a microwave. He’ll have to learn how to make it legitimately.

Rose bites her lower lip as she prods her eggs with a spatula, looking more perplexed than Dave has ever seen her. She holds the pan’s handle firmly, continuing to bite her lip before shaking it, sending the eggs skipping around. “Dammit.” She tries to work her spatula under. “Dave, if you would--”

“Got it, got it, back up,” he tells her, bumping her aside with his hip as he grabs the handle and twist-flips, sending the wannabe omelette up and inverting, bam, right back into the pan. He upends the bowl of ingredients into the pan and gets to folding it all over nicely. “Sup, check that shit out, that is tight as hell, that was clutch.”

Rose snorts and pushes him away again, taking over. “You’ve saved me from the certain doom of scrambled eggs. My hero.”

“It’s all in the wrist, Rose.” He steals her ingredient bowl to store his veg before pouring egg into his own pan. It’s already smelling pretty awesome.

“Then it’s no wonder you’re so skilled.”

Dave pauses, and frowns. “Hey,” he says with feeling.

She smirks, tipping her food onto a plate and dropping more cheese on top. She salts it, and adds the most pathetic dash of pepper, Dave is pretty sure it’s entirely for show.

“Rose, you are the kind of girl that orders the alfredo at the fancy Italian joint, aren’t you?” He adds his vegetables to the omelette. They’re already hot, so they’ll help cook the soft bits, right? That makes sense to him.  He folds it over and lets it sit.

Rose’s nose wrinkles, either at Dave or at his food. The balsamic is a bit drippy and sizzles as Dave sprinkles on some cheese and flips, cooking just enough to give his omelette a crust. He peppers the shit out of it because he doesn’t have many spices to work with yet.  “I think,” she says at length, “it’s important to know when to be adventurous and when to stick to known qualities. There is a great comfort in the familiar, especially when you are light years and dimensions away from everything you’ve ever known.” She shoves a bite in her mouth and adds, a bit muffled, “And I don’t see what’s wrong with alfredo.”

“Do you avoid Mexican restaurants ‘cause the air is too spicy?”

“I don’t like the things you are insinuating about my palette.” She’s so grumpy about it, Dave lets his lips curl up. “If you are-- if we’re going to be feeding everyone--”

“Holy pen island, Doctor Freud, is it black ice out there ‘cause I thought I heard you slip.”

She rolls her eyes, exaggeratedly. “This kitchen isn’t really suitable for what we want. I’m going to talk to Kanaya about the possibility of a dining room.” Picking up her plate and fork, she lifts her chin. “In fact, I will go find her right now. Perhaps she’d like to try more human food.”

“And you’re gonna subject her to yours? Are you allergic to good first impressions? Here.” Making a phenomenal personal sacrifice, Dave cuts off about a fifth of his omelette and slides it onto Rose’s plate, ignoring the way she uses the butt of her fork to push it away from her own. “Have her try both.”

From the look on Rose’s face, she will, but will not enjoy it. Which is fine. If she can get her kicks from driving him up the wall, he can reciprocate that shit.

His omelette tastes as awesome as it smells, too. Today might be a good day.

Dave spends an hour with the alchemiter and still no joy. He wouldn’t download a car, but fuck, he would so download bacon.

Or maybe not. With the way the game thinks, how it charges out the nose for a microwave, he’s not sure he wants to know how much a package of bacon might cost. And he’s weak, and would accept any price, up to and including his soul.

He’s contemplating the economics of the game and punching in another random code into the alchemiter when there’s a shuffling sound at the door, drawing his attention.

Karkat’s leaning on the doorway, dark against the light in the corridor. His eyes lock on Dave’s, or at least where it must seem like Dave’s eyes are, glasses and all. His face pinches. “Oh, it’s you. I was…” He looks out at the hallway again, then shakes his head and walks into the lab. Leading with an outstretched hand, he catches the edge of one of the unused alchemiters, sitting on it heavily. Disturbed dust plumes into the air around him. “Just going to sit here a moment.”

Dave turns to fully look at him. “What the hell happened to you? You look… not pale, I guess going pale is a human thing, but.” He stands, wanders closer. There is something very off about Karkat. He’s not gone pale, but the grey of his cheeks has turned cold grey instead of warm grey.

“I’m fine, don’t hover over me.” He bares his teeth a little, which would be threatening if-- actually, Dave can’t think of a set of circumstances in which Karkat would be threatening. He’s like a really feisty kitten. “What are you doing in here?”

Dave lifts his eyebrows, and sees Karkat reconsider. “Nngh, I mean. What are you doing in this lab, what is your purpose, just… fucking talk to me for a bit, holy shit, is that too much to ask of you or is that beyond the capabilities of the godtier skillset?”

Crabby today. Dave shrugs, hands in his pockets. “Alchemiter roulette. Rose and I didn’t bring much food with us, and we didn’t think to get the codes of the stuff that was available to us. So if we wanna pump up our food resources, gotta pull the lever and hope for the best with the captcha codes.” He nods to the little pile of things he’s gotten already. “Tedious as hell, but the fuck else are we gonna do? You told me to get a useful hobby after all.”

Karkat nods slowly, and shit, Dave doesn’t know much about troll physiology, but the guy looks hella peaky. He kneels down next to him, watches the way Karkat narrows his eyes but leans against the tall mechanics of the alchemiter. “Will this lead to more breads, because if so we need to divert all resources to that vital task. What the hell else is anyone fucking doing on this rock that’s more important, anyway?”

Dave blinks, realizes he has no idea what Terezi’s up to and couldn’t care less about the spider queen. “Nothing is more important than good grub. Or, uh, food. Good food. Not that you aren’t pretty swell yourself, man.”

He lays it on thick, and Karkat sighs, that simmering annoyance he’s always carrying around like a reservoir of irritation in his chest heavy in his frame. “Whatever, just.” He lets out this little growl, but it’s buggy, less mammal and more pissed off stinging insect. “What’re you making tonight? Keep talking, it’s not like you don’t get off to the sound of your own voice.”

“My dulcet tones are the last great wonder of human civilization, it’s true, but dude, are you…” He doesn’t reach out, because he doesn’t do that, but his hand might hover at Karkat’s shoulder in case he sways too hard or something.

“It’s fine, I just need to keep my eyes open until Kanaya gets here. I didn’t--” His throat clicks, and there’s that growl again. “If I’m gonna pass out, might as well be near another person. This fucking space rock has a high enough body count as it is, I’d like to avoid adding to it.”

That sounds super bad, and Dave’s just contemplating messaging Rose or anyone more responsible than him because, man, what’s he gonna do with a passed out troll on his hands? He doesn’t even have a sharpie marker handy for obligatory dick face drawings.

He’s saved from this real conundrum when Kanaya appears in the doorway, and girl’s skin is glowing, literally. “There you are, Karkat, I could not find you and began to worry…”

Karkat lolls his head back to look at her and gives a small, toothy grin. Immediately, he seems happier. Dave’s never actually seen Karkat smile before now. “Right here, it’s fine. Are you feeling better now?”

“Better than could be said for you,” she says, and hurries over. She’s carrying a bowl in her arms, and sets it down next to Karkat on the alchemiter. “Drink this.” She shoves a bottle at him brusquely before sitting and picking up a round thing from the bowl. Her claws dig in, and sink easily, and Dave watches her peel what looks a lot like some kind of alien fruit.

A little voice in Dave’s head goes, Hey, more food, but it doesn’t seem to be the time to ask about it.

Kanaya notices him watching. “I would offer you some, given your interest in food-based cultural exchange, but at the moment Karkat needs them more than your curiosity.”

“What happened, why’s he look like one good wind will knock him on his ass?”

Kanaya… brightens? Her head bows and she studiously dismantles the fruit in her hands, a dark segmented fleshy bit inside. Chunks of cake-y looking fruit tip out of the rind of the fruit and onto her skirt.

“Jegus, this is stupid,” Karkat mutters. “I let her feed off me. She’s a rainbow drinker and hadn’t had anything in weeks. Which was fucking idiotic, and if she knows what’s good for us all she’ll keep on top of that shit in the future.”

Kanaya brightens further, until its hard to look at her, even through his shades. “I heard you the first five times. I simply lost track of time and didn’t realize until today how long it had been.”

“So,” Dave manages slowly, watching as Karkat chugs down the bottle of whatever Kanaya gave him and avails himself to the fruit pieces in her lap. He’s already looking better, eyes open and more alert. “We’re not… pussyfooting around the whole deal with Kanaya being a vampire or troll vampire, right? I’m following this, right?”

“There’s seven people on the meteor, how the fuck would we keep something like that a secret,” Karkat asks incredulously. “No, it’s fine.”

“It’s not,” Kanaya says quietly. “If it were fine, you would not be in this state.”

“Oh, for-- then be more careful next time! Keep yourself fed instead of letting it sit until you’re so weak you can’t see straight! What is the point of this self-flagellation? It’s fucking logical that we should tell everyone, including the humans, and make sure you’re topped up for the trip. There’s no need for you to waste away, it’s stupid.”

The humans makes Dave take a half step back before he even knows what he’s doing. It draws Kanaya’s attention, her big eyes surrounded in florescent skin. She’s as perfectly put together as he’s ever seen her, lips dark and dramatic in their pout.

There is a tiny smudge of red at the left corner of her mouth.

Dave swallows, something uncomfortable skittering across his skin.

“I do not,” Kanaya says slowly, her eyes steady on him, “take from any ally without their permission.”

Karkat glares at Dave, but before he can say anything, Kanaya steps on his foot. “Ow! I’m recovering from an injury and you attack me?”

The tension pops like a bubble as Kanaya shares a fond, but exasperated look with Dave. He smirks. “Karkat Vantas, mighty leader of the trolls. All cower before him.”

“Fuck off,” Karkat grouses, and sullenly shoves more fruit into his mouth.

“Hey, you came into my domain, dude. I was sitting here, minding my own business playing with the creative forces of the universe, and you just waltz in to make about twenty distinct and individual grumpy faces.”

Kanaya’s eyes light up. “Are you working on more human food?”

“Goddammit, not you too,” Karkat grumbles, looking guilty. What, it was fine for him to harbor a tragic addiction to garlic bread, but god forbid another of his brethren fall prey to its toxic lure.

“Yeah. Did you like the omelette Rose brought you?”

“Yes, I--” Kanaya stills, covering her mouth. “I mean.”

“Liked the tangy balsamic mouth explosion of greatness more than Rose’s tepid eggie with veggie? Yeah.”

“Both offerings were illuminating examples of your food,” Kanaya says.

“She isn’t here, you know.”

Kanaya holds Dave’s gaze for a long moment, until Dave looks away, back to the alchemiter.  “Anyway. Yeah, I’m going to shake a veritable farmer’s market out of the game. I’d say that it’s gonna be like Eden up in here, but you guys probably don’t have that bit of human mythology and it’s pretty damn dodgy invoking that shit when it’s just me and my sister here.”

Karkat pauses in gobbling down bits of what’s looking like really kinda appealing fruit, dark tongue flicking against lingering juice. “Looks fucking tedious. Can’t you cheat time or something to speed it along?”

Snorting, Dave continues to punch in numbers to try. “What, you think because I can time travel, the universe is my fucking pearl or oyster or whatever? Time travel isn’t a skeleton key unlocking the door to a life without bullshit monotony. Shit, keeping all the loops spinning is more fucking boring busywork than you can imagine. Do you know how many shitty hand signals I had to invent to communicate shit to myselves so I’d end up where and when I needed to be and know what to do? Move over ASL, Strider Sign Language is on the move and we’ve got all the future tense shit covered, unlike English.”

“Jegus, Strider, no one cares. If you want help, we can take turns with the alchemiter. Just stop running your mouth for thirty seconds.”

Dave points back at Karkat. “That is a sacrifice I am unwilling to make, Karkat.” He lowers his hand, now pointing at the fruit in his lap. “Trade you.”

Karkat’s eyebrows lift up while Kanaya hides her smile. “It seems that everyone has their price,” she intones sagely.

“Worth it,” Karkat mumbles, looking away as he holds out the fruit.

He tries one segmented piece of it to start, in case he’s about to run into some fatal allergy. The chances it’d be ruled as a just or heroic death is slim, but he still doesn’t relish the idea of anaphylactic shock or poisoning.

Like he thought, the texture is thick, almost spongey. The flavor… is hard to figure out. No comparison comes to his mind, except that its tangy first, until he chews, crushing the juice out of it, and the remaining bits swallow like sweet chalk dust. It’s weird, but not awful. Nothing like any earth fruit he knows. Too sharp to be a berry, too mellow for a citrus thing.

It’s good, though. And true to his word, Dave keeps quiet as he chews. And starts counting to thirty.

Dave makes it about 18 hours before he says, “So Kanaya is a straight up vampire.”

Rose is in his room with a tape measure. She’s still on about that idea of making basically a mess hall for the meteor, moving the kitchen out of the common room. However, since Dave is next door to the common room, that apparently puts his quarters on the chopping block. Of course he was not asked about this, because Rose has never voluntarily asked a question she didn’t already know the answer to. But since she agrees to move all of his things for him to the next room down, he can’t really work up any ire. Too lazy.

Still, having her in his space, nebulous and barely enforced as it is, is weird, and he can’t keep his mouth shut.

Rose finishes writing a measurement in her little notebook before looking up, meeting Dave’s eyes. “Hm?”

“Oh come the fuck on, you heard me.”

“Actually, a rainbow drinker varies from a vampire in interesting ways. The fangs and need to consume blood are present, but unlike vampires, they thrive in sunlight. But trolls seems to be more nocturnal than we are, so that difference makes quite a bit of sense--”

“We’re not gonna talk about how, like, your troll is a vampire?”

Rose blinks, and it’s dark but Dave thinks there is a hint of pink in her cheeks. “My troll is a curious way of putting it.”

“Dude, you spend most of your time with her and she was your guide for the game once the trolls crashed in and started telling us how the fuck to play. Like, TZ was mine. And Karkat, a bit, but he just shouted at everyone. Did you hear about the backwards trolling he did to John? Fucking incredible.” He shakes his head. “I’m distracting myself. Anyway. Kanaya. She straight up said she’s a vamp and she totally feasted on Karkat’s life essence, then gave him a bottle of juice. I’m disappointed she didn’t have one of those I Donated! stickers like the Red Cross has.”

“And Karkat was forced to donate, is that your worry?”

“No, dude was fine with it. Just--”

Rose holds up a hand, sighing quietly. “Dave, what is your actual concern then?”

He rolls onto his back, looking at the ceiling instead of his sister. Nudging his glasses up, he rubs his eyes. “When you ask straightforward questions, it’s just a fucking trap.”

“One you set yourself, then.” Footsteps, then the bed dips next to Dave’s hip. “Look. If Kanaya asks-- no. Honestly, I am invested enough in her wellbeing and comfort that I plan to offer my services. I have no doubt that if our positions were reversed, she’d do the same.” Her hand settles on his wrist, lightly. “Is that amenable to your newfound brotherly protective urges?”

“Ugh,” Dave says, putting an arm over his eyes.

“I’m sure you’ll survive. Your concern is noted and appreciated.”

“Just… don’t turn into an alien vampire, Rose, fucking seriously.”

“I think I would make a very good vampire. But I’ll try to avoid that, for your sake.” Her nails tap lightly against Dave’s skin as she hums. “Vampirism implies death and rebirth. Would such a thing even be possible, given our state as godtiers?”

“Stoooop,” Dave moans, and tries pushes her off the bed. “The moment you start talking about game mechanics, we’re all doomed. Stop.”

She grabs his wrist, and firmly puts it back down on his stomach, patting the back of his hand briskly. “Speaking of game mechanics, how’d things go with the alchemiter today?”

The ship is back in safe waters and the danger has passed. Dave breathes a sigh of genuine relief, finally uncovering his eyes and looking at Rose. Then, remembering, drops his glasses back down onto his nose. “Not much. Using the brilliant method of mashing in random codes and seeing what comes up on the holography preview, I got the codes for paprika, pancake mix, diet soda, and a few other things. Also got plastic fruit, for displays and shit. I’m wondering if I can troll Karkat with those, call them a human delicacy.”

“This is a very slow process,” Rose murmurs. “Have you considered using the dream bubbles instead?”

Dave lifts his eyebrows. “Anything we take in the dream bubbles vanishes. Though,” he frowns. “Huh, so if I eat something in the dream bubble, right, and digest it and all that, if I leave, do I lose the energy? Loophole, maybe?”

“That’s worth exploring, but more pressingly:” She taps him again for emphasis. She’s touchier than Dave really ever expected. Maybe because for years he only knew her online, all that aloof distance and impenetrable bullshit she employed in every conversation. In person, she’s something else entirely. “You can take the captcha codes down in the dreams, then use them here. So, dream yourself into a grocery store, and you’ll have everything you need.” She clears her throat. “We need.”

That… is not a terrible idea. “Anything to not spend another four hours in that fucking lab.”

Maybe he could finally get his hands on some bacon. Here comes Dave Strider, in his hands is the secret to world peace; a goddamn bacon sandwich. They wouldn’t need to draw a weapon against Noir at all, damn.

Dave nods. “I’ll get on it.”

Chapter Text

Dream bubbles are the most unpleasant part of the three year tour that is the meteor voyage.

Dave sort of expected them to be some kind of relief. A break from the monotony and limitations of their personal space rock. Follow your dreams! Literally, because you’re enclosed in a weird magic thing in the farthest ring that will manifest whatever you can imagine or remember. It should be the Enterprise holodeck for their little group.

Maybe for the others it is, but Dave… does not have the greatest luck with it.

He goes to bed after meditating on the idea of food. Grocery stores. Outdoor markets. Hell, even food trucks. He tries very hard to dream himself to the right place.

It just doesn’t take.

Houston smells summer hot around him as he ‘wakes’ in his and Bro’s old place. The strongest place memory he has. Immediately, Dave regrets his godtier jammies; they are not built for Texas at all.

He could change out of them. But why. A little heat won’t hurt him, and they’re a symbol. A big red sign saying yeah, don’t start some and there won’t be none but I’m a god of Time and I will bounce your ass back to grade school, I will drop you like you are a foreign language elective, your ass will hit concrete, so let’s just not start, Bro.

Or, bro. Lowercase. If Bro wants to show up and start something, that’s his prerogative.

Dave wonders what he’d do, if Bro walked through the door right now. More importantly, he wonders what Bro would do. Sitting here in his red garb, would Bro be proud? No, but maybe acknowledge him? That he’s accomplished something pretty big?

Probably not. Probably just drag Dave into a strife; what would Bro care about the game’s acknowledgement of the shit he’s done? Not a goddamn thing until it was put to the test under the summer sunset up on the roof.

That settles around his shoulders like a shroud, and Dave doesn’t move from the memory of his bed. Instead, he keeps his eyes on the door and waits, listening to the crows outside and waiting white-knuckled.

It’s not like a memory of his home is going to have anything useful.

Dinner’s in the common room, because… Dave isn’t sure. Probably Rose and Kanaya are still trying to find the right antique mahogany table with the right history for the space, because all that shit matters or something. He wonders if he can use his leverage as the guy who is cooking y’all lazy bastards dinner to make his own design choices for the new room. Probably not. Rose will absolutely See the vital role of the gold candlesticks or the orange rug in their long-term success.

Whatever. At least he’ll have more room. Right now, picking through the kitchen corner is getting increasingly more irritating.

Although.

Dave frowns as he grabs a bottle of ginger ale (not his favorite, but its what they have) from one of the minifridges. What amounts to the pantry is over here, just a cleared space where they keep all the canned stuff they’ve managed to scavenge.

For some reason, all the cans have been neatly stacked up in towers and neat pyramids. They definitely weren’t like that yesterday.

Huh.

It’s a simple can’t-fuck-this-up(-unless-you’re-Rose) meal. Meatloaf is kind of the most prosaic meat-thing possible, but Dave has not yet unlocked the mysteries of alchemitizing chicken or steak, so it’ll have to do. Mac and cheese makes it better though, and Kanaya brought more Alternian fruit to the table, which Dave is grateful for.

Karkat looks pissier than usual, staring over the table and drumming his nails against the surface, eyes on the doorway. His nails, or maybe claws is the better term, made a pretty great, solid tak-tak-tak noise. Dave instantly wants to sample that shit for a beat.

“What, are they just not coming?” Karkat snaps, lip dropping into what looks dangerously close to a pout. “I fucking told both of them to fucking come out and socialize like civilized trolls, but that’s too much for them?”

Kanaya smiles in that strange peaceable way that Dave’s seen her use on Karkat a dozen times now. “It would seem so. They might still be in their bonding period. A new moirallegiance takes time to settle.”

“It’s been months! Strider, how many months has it been?”

“Four months and twenty-- man,” Dave cuts himself off, sitting down next to Rose, across from the trolls. “I am not your fucking atomic clock, don’t take advantage.”

“It’s not my fault your feeble human brain lacks a filter between your thinkpan and windhole,” Karkat replies sharply.

Dave looks to Kanaya and Rose slowly. “Did… Did Karkat just accuse me of not having an internal filter? Anyone else play witness to that intense lack of self-awareness?”

Rose smiles. “Both of you in your glass houses. Mind those stones.”

Kanaya headtilts at Rose, as if she’s the most fascinating thing. Dave’s noticed her doing that a lot. “That sounds very structurally unsound.”

Rose leans her chin on her palm, giving Kanaya a look that is way too fucking keen, jesus. Dave makes himself look away, at the food, and start dishing himself some. As he does, Rose explains, “It’s a twist on a human idiom. ‘People in glass houses should not throw stones.’ Avoid pointing blame and judgement at people you see when you are not so perfect yourself.”

“Oh, we have some phrases similar to those, but… they are very long and tend to involve the care and feeding of one’s own lusus rather than a neighbor’s, lest you be eaten.”

There seems to be a hard limit on how long Karkat can go without speaking, and it runs out again. “Does no one else care that Terezi and Vriska have fucked off on their own for entirely too long? I know becoming moirails is sometimes as fraught as establishing kismesissitude but--” He hit his fists against the table. “We shouldn’t eat until they get here. This is fucking rude.”

“Dude,” Dave says, eyebrow lifting. “Have you ever had cold mac’n cheese? No, but lemme tell you, it’s about a gross and awful as hot mac’n cheese is awesome.”

“Still, it’s--”

“I got more bread. Want me to get it? It’ll make you feel better.”

Karkat blinks, and there is a keen gleam in his golden eyes before he covers it, looking away. “I told you not to bribe me. Shut up and eat your terrible human meal already. I’ll just sit here and show some actual concern for the other idiots living here with us.”

It only takes another 68 (damn, so close) seconds before Karkat gives in and starts eating. Partly because Kanaya’s level stare. Ever since she needed that top off from Karkat’s personal bloodbank, she’s been on him to keep himself fed.

Dave considers that, and is very glad for his sunglasses when an idea hits him and they widen. Fuck, is Kanaya fattening him up? Or, making sure her food source is kept up? The thought that Kanaya’s sweet solicitous nature comes from a particularly bitey place…

Rose drops some fruit sections into her glass, mashing the juice out with a spoon before borrowing a splash of his ginger ale. She’s kinda good at making cool drinks. But the thought of the fruit makes Dave’s stomach flip.

Shit, he was staring at Rose’s hands as she worked and now she’s staring at him. Why does her class have to be so goddamn literal? Dave hunches forward on his elbows, focusing on his fork and spearing some meatloaf (eh, it’s okay, he really needs… spices or something?) and a bit of mac (that beautiful long string of melty cheese is a work of art that belongs in the Louvre if the Louvre existed anymore and had a second dedicated to edible art).

Around him, everyone else talks, because they aren’t weirded out by the kind of shit Dave is discovering he is.

After a while, Rose taps her fingers against his arm, bringing him back to reality from his own head. “Last night’s dream bubble-- did you have the chance to collect anything useful?”

“About four REM cycles and not a lot else,” Dave mutters.

“A shame. I’ve been getting my hopes up, thinking about what you might make with a better arsenal at your disposal. Your inclination towards the culinary arts is remarkable and unexpected.”

He shrugs. “It’s not difficult. I know how to use sharp things and I watched a lot of TV. You just gotta… taste things and go, hey, I guess these things would go together, or, oh shit, these things would taste like warmed up ass in conjunction. ‘Course, that requires you to have taste.”

“I was attempting to pay you a compliment,” Rose snipes back briskly. “I’m unsure what has you so grumpy all of a sudden.”

“What, that’s not the status quo for Strider?” Karkat asks.

“Again, dude.” Dave waves his fork at Karkat. “Glass houses. Stones. Holy shit, dude.”

“I could look through my things and see if there are any more edibles from Alternia,” Kanaya offers over top the bickering. “I have a few other fruits… I’m unsure what else I might’ve collected. I had the luxury of living in an oasis, so my things reflect that.”

“Mm,” Rose hums. “Pies, Dave. I believe I miss pies.”

“I can’t help you there. That’s baking, and baking’s like… chemistry and shit,” Dave says.

“Oh, then I can finally contribute to your little food effort,” she says, as if the entire thing was not her idea in the first place, cruelly thrust into his shoulders against his will.

Dave tries to avoid the gazes of his sister and her vampy BFF. Which leaves Dave looking straight ahead at Karkat, who for all his previous complaining is now working his way through second helpings of food. He adds his weird grubsauce to the meatloaf and tears into it with gusto. It makes Dave want to get over his perfectly rational fear of any foodthing called grubsauce, especially now that he knows it’s probably not made of grubs.

Karkat notices him looking and narrows his eyes back at Dave, face going just a little red. So Dave keeps staring at him for fun.

And because it’s cool to see someone likes his pretty mediocre food offering. It was hard to stop now that he’s started cooking and everyone seems to enjoy it. He is DJ Lagasse up in here, and soon he will have the entire meteor party wagon eating out of his palm.

Or at least Karkat. But Dave’s starting to get the sense that Karkat is all bark and less bite than a bowl of jello. Sort of the opposite of Kanaya.

He’s going to have to work that shit out eventually.

Dave is not really surprised when Rose follows him back to his room, her arm linking through his in that casual touchy way she has. Looking down at her hand, then at her face, he finds her just smiling calmly.

“Answer is no, it’s the anti-yes, a refusal to acquiesce to whatever you’re about to ask me,” Dave says, even as he opens the door to his room, stepping sideways so Rose can continue to hang off him.

“That is an incredible foolish, open-ended opportunity to extend to somebody. I’ll counter by asking something that is not a yes/no question.” She helps herself to the corner of the bed, because Dave still hasn’t procured a chair, mostly out of spite now. “What troubled you at dinner?”

Man, Dave does not want to get into it. Luckily, when it comes to not talking about the shit that’s occupying his mind, Dave’s the double-major masterclass. “Have you been messing with the stuff in the pantry? Someone’s stacking all the cans up and it’s more than a little weird.”

It’s such a strong diversion, Rose looks thrown. “I-- What? No. I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

“Well, someone put all the cans in a neat little pyramid, totally messin’ with my organized clutter, and I was wondering if it was you, because I think the trolls aren’t up for touching all our wacky human things yet.”

“No, I-- I did not stack the cans, Dave, you are being ridiculous right now.”

“What, are you not down for CSI: Paradox Space? I mean, I got the glasses already, lets start brainstorming some incredible can-based puns, get this show on the road.”

Rose crosses her arms, eyes narrow on him.

“What?” Dave asks. “You wanna be Horatio?”

“Dave. Do you want me to start guessing? I don’t think you do.”

For all the shit that Rose gave Dave for kind of latching onto the new sibling thing, Rose did it too. He wonders if she noticed.

“Look,” Dave says after a moment, after thinking about how to phrase this correctly. “You’re so hot to help out with this after totally fucking whiffing it and leaving me to feed the hungry masses, then you can handle the dream part. Next time a bubble comes in, you can morph it into the farmer’s market in space of your dreams. Not everyone has a picture perfect recollection of HEB in their head.”

Rose fixes him with one of her more piercing looks. Dave doesn’t bother holding it, lets his eyes slide away to look at his bedspread, idly counting the card suits printed on it. “You can’t dream of a grocery store?”

“I didn’t go to many. You want to help, or not?”

“Of course I’ll help. Next dream bubble, we’ll both go together.” She rises, crosses the room, walking so close to Dave she nearly steps right on his foot. More piercing stares, her pale eyes flicking over his face, then, weirdly, down to his shoes.

“What?” Dave follows her gaze.

“Nothing.” She lifts her head, chin high. “Next dream bubble. Be ready.” And sweeps out as quickly as she strolled in.

“Right, okay,” Dave says to no one, running a hand through his hair. “Fuckin’ weird.”

There’s no way to predict when the bubbles will mosey their way into the meteor’s path. There is time to kill (and what else do you do with time, really), and Dave struggles to figure out the right kind blunt object to put a few days out of their bored misery.

He catches a break one day, when he finds Karkat in the quote-unquote kitchen, looking through the meager storage with his teeth against his lip. When Dave finds him, he leans against the table, watching with his arms folded over his chest.

When Karkat realizes he’s being watched, he jumps, rolls back his shoulders out of his habitually slumped stance and looks ready to throw down. “What?”

Dave tilts his head just slightly to the side.

Karkat’s grey cheeks go dark. “You said I could have it, so--!”

It’s impossible to hold back a grin at that, at how defensive Karkat is over bread, holy shit. “Yeah, I did. It’s cool, dude, relax. I understand the garlic bread addiction. I only regret awakening this dark beast in you.” He walks over, ignoring the way Karkat’s shoulders tense  when he gets close, and pulls the aluminium wrapped roll from the right fridge. He underhands it, just to watch Karkat scramble for it, unprepared for the toss. “At least heat it up, man. And remind me not to make out with you later.”

“Uh… okay?” An expression of total and stunning confusion crosses Karkat’s face.

“Garlic breath,” Dave explains, and grimaces. “Anyway, if you run out, I can make more, but take it easy. Bread makes you fat.”

“Bread makes you fat?”

Grinning, Dave says, earnest from the bottom of his heart, “That was perfect, thank you.”

“Whatever. I’d ask if I gave a shit, but…” Karkat shakes his head at him, then shuffles over to the little mini oven, seeming real eager to put his back to Dave.

Bothering Karkat was quickly becoming one of the least boring past times around. When they’d arrived on the meteor and the entire long trip was explained, Dave had sort’ve expected that he’d be weathering his time there with Terezi, not Sir Greytext from Capslockia, capital of the No Chill Kingdom along the No Indoor Voice Delta.

What was so great about Vriska, anyway? Dave hadn’t had much experience with her, but remembered well enough now everyone talked about her. How much did it take to make trolls think you go too far with shit? Like, man, talk about your barometers of fuckery.

Dave isn’t bitter and he refuses to get upset at Terezi for choosing her friends, because there isn’t much less cool than that, and Dave is supposed to be the coolkid.

Karkat’s fun. But so was Terezi. Except that time she killed him to make a point, but still. As far as friends went, Dave isn’t exactly the most experienced, so he’s not about to complain.

As Dave wanders along the halls, having what even he has to admit is a major league sulk, Terezi’s voice suddenly booms over the PA system. Dave didn’t even know there was a PA system on this rock, but now it pipes her over the speakers, turning the beaded glass clatter of her voice tinny and mechanical:

“Attention, citizens of Paradox Space!”

“Bubble off the starboard bow, drifting in our direction at great speed!” Dave barely recognizes the second voice, but it’s easy enough to place, just by process of elimination. Vriska.

“Provided that’s starboard. There are stars off every board.”

“I know a thing or eight about ships, thank you. Anyway! Looks like a big one, so either bundle down into your recupercots or load up on your unhealthy stimulant drinks of choice.”

“It’s moving with us, so it might linger a while. Be prepared!”

“Which you are now, thanks to us. You’re welcome.”

“Scourge Sisters, out!”

There’s the unmistakable sound of a high five over the PA before it goes dead again.

Dave shucks his hands into his pockets and starts walking in an actual direction, to Rose’s room. He’s not really excited about the idea of sleeping this time of day (it’s only a little past noon), but she’s expecting him.

When he knocks, Rose opens her door like she’d been waiting for him. “There you are,” she says, stepping back. “Come in. I made tea. Chamomile, though it was charmingly labeled ‘chameowmile.’”

Nodding, Dave walks in. “‘kay, let’s get this over with.”

“Of course you dream of a fucking Whole Foods,” Dave tells Rose.

“At least there was a repository of food in the annals of my mine. Don’t start none, won’t be none,” she replies cooly.

He turns his head and stares at her. “Uh, what?”

“I’m simply trying to speak your language.” She helps herself to a cart, and its the most surreal thing Dave’s ever seen; Rose in her godtier jammies pushing a cart through a empty grocery store. No people, no music over the speakers, just the rattle of one wobbly cart wheel and a bunch of food.

Checking behind them, Dave sees that outside the front windows is nothing. Just… not even black, but a pale grey that feels blank to him. It’s fucking eerie as shit, and Dave averts his gaze quickly.

“Maaan, I’m gonna be real with you, I’m not a huge fan of these bubble things.” He shuffles along with her, watching as she looks over vegetables, springy and green and not out of a can or bag. “What are you doing?”

“Hm? Shopping. Are you unfamiliar with the idea?”

“We could just take down the codes for the things we want. Nothing in the dream can leave it.”

“You don’t have any nostalgia for this?” Rose asks. “Our lives are so divorced from the minutiae of Earth. Isn’t there something sort of… nice to return to the simplicity of our old lives?”

Sniffing loudly, Dave shrugs, reaches out to pluck up an avocado from a dark pyramid of them. Hey. Gauca. Holy shit, yes. “This what your old life was all about? Game was the best thing to happen to you, damn.”

“Hm.” Rose seems to be taking her time with this stuff, and Dave has no idea why all the produce needs to be fondled so much. It wouldn’t matter, they’re just after the codes, and the sooner they finish, the sooner… “I remember you talking about your Bro. Did he teach you to cook?”

“No. He taught me a righteous amount of swordplay and how to be badass. Cooking isn’t hard, Rose, you just got to… God, who cares, can we hurry up?”

“Swordplay, huh? Like, those swords?”

Dave takes a moment to follow where Rose is pointing. She has a single finger extended towards the seafood counter, where there’s a row of fish laid out. Between two stacks of filets, there is a sword stabbed through the tray, a price sign hanging from the hilt.

It’s not the only one. The aisle signs over their heads are suspended from blades, and the handles to the tall freezers are knife grips. It’s like a sharp, pointy I Spy page. Here is a ghost town grocery store, now find two katanas, five greatswords, ten bottlecaps, and twelve kukri.

“Dreams sure are fucking weird, aren’t they,” Dave murmurs.

“Strange and elucidating in fascinating ways,” Rose says. “Perhaps this is your kind of nostalgia. Instead of an old familiar store, you peg an abundance of knives as a piece of home.”

“Wow, I cannot put into words how much you don’t know what you’re on about.” It’s a terrible idea, getting defensive around Rose. It’s like a red flag for a bull, and she’ll charge into it, eager to throw herself headfirst into someone else’s problems. Dave knows it, and yet he can’t putting a fucking lid on the simmering anger he feels at being prodded. “You wanted to help.”

“Believe it or not, I’m trying to,” Rose says. Her vague smug grin fades into something quieter, unsettled as she looks at him. “Dave.”

It’s not hard to hip check her out of the way and take the cart from her hands. The way it makes her stumble in genuine surprise makes Dave feel like a fucking asshole, but not enough to stop him from powerwalking the fuck away. He has shit to do, and it doesn’t involve his sister putting the screws to him, thanks.

There’s not reason to play house and gather all the things he ways in a cart. There’s no cashiers, he has no money, and it’s all just a dream. So Dave takes down the codes he needs, walking up and down each aisle and tracing his fingers along the shelves, ignoring the way a few slice his fingers.

He doesn’t see Rose again until the bubble passes, and he wakes in her room.

Rose doesn’t even look at him as he gets up and leaves. Or he doesn’t turn to look at her. Same thing.

Chapter Text

It takes about six months for Terezi and Vriska to extricate their grey asses out of whatever fucking pink communion they’d been stuck in. Dave’s understanding of the whole it’s moirail Dave not monorail stop being obstinate deal is that it’s a super friendship. And… that’s it, really. Rose said it has to do with being the guardian of your partner’s heart, but that sounds so fruity it was getting felt up in the produce section of the grocery store.

What Dave knows is that Terezi’s super pale friendship with Vriska means more to her than anything else right now. And if a petulant voice in his head wants to stomp his feet and go ‘what about me,’ then Dave plans to ignore it.

That’s easier said than done when Terezi finally shows her face again.

Dave’s in the new kitchen (formerly his bedroom, now a gaudy construction of Rose and Kanaya’s focused interior decorating) watching his sister fail at making fried rice. As the pan starts smoking, Dave snatches out of Rose’s grasp and moves it off the burner. “Goddammit, Rose, what-- oil, jesus, it needs oil or it’ll burn.”

Rose crosses her arms, stepping back, apparently completely fine with foisting her mess off onto him. “Oh. That makes a lot of sense in hindsight.”

“If this shit is part of some reverse psychological bullshit scheme to get yourself banned from the kitchen, fuck you, okay,” Dave grumbles, shoving the whole mess into the sink and running the water.

“Demonstrating my lack of talent is not reverse psychology. AndI assure you, it’s perfectly legitimate unfamiliarity.”

“What, did you not take Home Ec in school or something?”

Rose arches her eyebrows, amused. “No. Did you?”

Dave shrugs. “Didn’t go, what’s your excuse?” The pan’s probably salvageable, but the thick crust of rice and smoldering veggies will take some work to get loose. He fully plans to make her do it.

The amusement in her face fades suddenly, a frown curving her face. He doesn’t get the chance to figure out what that’s about because the moment’s interrupted with a loud, conspicuous inhale, one Dave hasn’t heard in a long time.

Terezi’s in the doorway. She’s just… standing there, red shades glinting, arms hanging limp at her sides, her head tipped back as she sniffs obnoxiously. “What’s that, are we burning things in here? If I knew we had a room for burning things, I would’ve come to see much sooner!”

Some days, instinct is all that keeps Dave going, and it’s instinct that opens his mouth: “This is a private burning party, TZ. You got your invite or what?”

She grins at him, all razor teeth. Even Kanaya’s teeth never seem as sharp as Terezi’s. “I burned it! Obviously!”

“Well, you got Pyro in the name, so.” Dave looks aside at Rose, who still has a strange look on her face, something he doesn’t understand, really. Eyes back on Terezi; that seems safer right now. “You found the dining room and kitchen, actually. Did Karkat finally scream at you enough for you to come to acknowledge the rest of us?”

“We figured it was time to check in with our fellows and test their mettle against ours! And to eat your food.”

We. Our. “Ah,” Dave says. “The truth comes out.”

“Of course! I’m here!” Terezi cackles, and bows right back out of the room, her laughter echoing down the hall.

Rose taps her fingers against her arm, drumming impatiently, like Dave’s keeping her waiting or something.

“Well,” Dave says. “This is going to be interesting. In the same way major traffic collisions are interesting.”

The room is a lot more crowded that Dave’s used to come dinner time. After so long with just eating beside his sister, Karkat, and Kanaya, suddenly having the Scourge Sister party van show up like a couple of gatecrashers is weird. Vriska and Terezi walk in, hand in hand, managing somehow to be fashionably five minutes late despite never having been to group dinner before. Dave’s almost impressed.

It’s taco night, because Dave felt lazy and wanted to do something easy but satisfying for food. Nothing’s really simpler than a lot of raw ingredients with some seasoned ground beef. The hardest part was the gauc.

“Look what the rabid lusus dragged in,” Karkat says testily at Vriska and Terezi’s arrival. “What made you finally drag yourself out of whatever pile you’ve been fuckdeep in for this long?”

Vriska smirks at him. “You’ll wanna keep your nose out of other people’s quadrants, Vantas. Just because you can’t get your own doesn’t mean you can creep on ours.”

Karkat lets out a pissed, clicky growl, and Kanaya grabs hold of the back of his shirt, pulling him down into the chair next to her. He continues to glare across the table at her. “I wasn’t fucking creeping on anything of yours. Just figured I’d extend some congratu-fucking-lations to you for withdrawing your head from your own nook long enough to establish any romance. It’s a feat they’ll fucking immortalize in epic beat poems and statuary. The day Vriska Serket finally decided to give a solitary fuck about anyone but herself.”

“Hey,” Terezi says loudly, drowning out whatever response Vriska has on the tip of her acid tongue, “what’s this stuff?”

Because Terezi had to be Terezi, she picks up the entire bowl of tomato chunks, looking geared up to shove her face into it. Dave has no idea what red tastes like to her, but goddamn, he’d love to live in her head for like twenty minutes just to lick things.

“Tomato. It’s for everyone, TZ, put it the fuck down.” Dave sets down the bowl of meat, lifting the lid off it. “Can everyone please shove some food into your mouths so you’ll stop bitchin’ so much? Can we make that happen?”

Rose is the first to grab a tortilla, with Kanaya instantly following her lead like an eager student of alien cuisine, and start loading up. “Dave will have overspiced the meat again, but the cheese and avocado will help immensely in diminishing the heat of things.”

“Can I disown you or something?” Dave asks, pained.

Introducing trolls to the joys of tacos is entertaining. Kanaya gets the idea quickly thanks to watching Rose, but Vriska clearly doesn’t get the point of the tortilla and tries to eat with her hands. Burning her fingers on the meat puts a stop to that shit right away, and Karkat looks way too cheerful about it. Terezi makes a taco, but Dave is pretty sure it’s composed of fifty percent tomato, drippy and gross. “Remind me to introduce you to red hot sauce,” Dave tells her, to her obvious delight, since, “I do like things that are red and are hot, coolkid.”

Karkat’s fucking awful at rolling his up, so Dave helps, because Dave is the nicest human left in the universe, thanks. And it’s always fun to watch Karkat try new things out, the way the deep furrow of concern and suspicion in his brow smooths out when he decides he likes something.

Vriska can’t keep her mouth shut for long, of course. She stares around at everyone else, looking angry about some unfathomable thing, before saying, “As fascinating as this little get-together has been, and really, I’m loving it, how adorable you all are, like a bunch of beakbeasts before their get their feathers in-- I came here to discuss actually important things?” She waves a hand around, flippant. “So is this the right crowd, or should Terezi and I keep it to ourselves?”

Kanaya, ever the diplomat, nods slowly. “We’ve wanted to see you both for quite some time, Vriska. Please, if you have something to share with us, I am certain you have our attention.”

“She what now,” Dave says. Rose elbows him.

Vriska straightens, tossing back her hair in a really overdramatic way that’s really fucking incongruous next to Terezi, who’s unsubtly stabbing her finger into the various bowls and licking her claw. “I’ve started to get some interesting information about our new session from the unmentionable sources. Enough to begin compiling the things we know to extrapolate what we can expect at the end of this trip. Lots of things are going to be happening when we reach the new session, lots of irons, a planetary bonfire worth of fires.” She looks to Rose. “So we’ll need to start planning things. Strategy meetings are a must. We need to get started soon if we are going to narrow down the possibilities and build scenarios for what’s to come.” She flicks her fingers between herself and Rose. “Light players, obviously we’re going to have the manebeast’s share of the responsibility here, with the guidance and support of Terezi’s foresight.”

Rose dries her hands on a napkin, nodding along. “That sounds very reasonable. I would enjoy the opportunity to see what, well, what Terezi and I can See together.”

“Excellent!” Vriska beams. “And the rest of you need to hone your skills. Especially the non-godtiers. We’re going up against a lot of hurt, and rumor has it we’re going to enter a sort of boss rush situation. So, figure a few training sessions every month for the rest of this sweep, leading into some hardcore daily regimes before we arrive.”

Next to him, Dave notices Karkat’s gone quiet. His head bows lower over his plate, his claws dissecting the last few bites of his taco, the tortilla coming to pieces against his long curved nails.

It makes Dave bristle. “Sorry, I must’ve missed a pretty fucking vital bulletin, maybe I wasn’t invited to the memo, but who fucking died and made you leader?”

Everyone looks at him, especially Karkat, his eyes wide and surprised. Dave doesn’t do anything, just keeps slumping in his chair, one hand wrapped around a bottle of root beer. He finds it hard to meet anyone’s gaze, but luckily he doesn’t need to; it’s not like they’d notice.

Vriska, though, somehow smiles wider, until a truly fucking unsettling amount of teeth are on display. “Well, let me seeeeeeee…” She ticks off on her fingers. “I forget the exact order of names, but I believe it was… Nepeta. Feferi. Equius. Eridan. Tavros.”

Karkat stands, his fist hitting the table so hard it rocks despite being fucking solid wood and heavy as shit. “You killed Tavros, you murderous delusional bitch!”

Vriska tosses her head back on a sharp laugh, and stares right back at him. “You’re still hung up about that? That was months ago!” She leans back on the chair legs, seeming to only gain smugness the more Karkat looks ready to take a swing at her. “Besides, it sort of helped, didn’t it? Less mouths for Strider to feed.”

Dave can feel something. It’s an itch at the side of his mind, something that didn’t exist before the Game took him and did whatever it’d done to him. It’s the same place that hums like a struck chord whenever he steps out of time, the same place that ticks like a clock, it twinges at him, enough for him to pick up on. It’s a forgotten sense-- it hasn’t pinged on him since he got on the meteor, but fuck it used to never leave him alone during his session.

Karkat is going to fight with Vriska. And something might go wrong.

Dave is faster than both of them by a fucking country mile, and uses his long legs to aim one perfect kick into Vriska’s chair.

She overbalances and topples, falling with a resounding crack on her back, loud enough Dave isn’t sure if it’s the wood hitting the floor or Vriska’s head. Either way, she lets out a furious noise, and pushes herself up, awkward with the chair in the way.

By then, Dave’s already flash stepped between her and Karkat and has his hand open, fingers curled, ready to catch his sword if he has to drop it from his deck. “I ain’t really interested in whatever your antagonistic jerking off is about, but where I come from, you don’t pull it out at the dinner table. And seeing as it’s pretty much-- no, actually is technically and actually my fucking room, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.” He shifts his stance, just a little, and holds. “And when I say ask…”

That thing in his head start itching more fervently, and Dave takes in a breath like he’s standing on the side of a long drop and a sudden stop.

It’s Rose who says, quiet and stern, “Vriska. I think you should go. We’ll discuss things later.”

Vriska whips her head to the side, looking at Rose. And Rose stares right back and gives her one short nod.

She rolls, fluid and graceful enough that Dave is fucking glad that she puts her back to him. Nevermind that putting your back to a potential threat is an insult, because right now, he doesn’t mind. “Terezi, let’s go. I hear being a loser might be contagious.”

Terezi fucking sighs. “Right behind you,” she says. And so reassured, Vriska leaves, head lifted high enough Dave can see her nose from behind. Whatever.

Terezi looks at him, mouth downturned. “Thanks. For dinner,” she says, then hurries along after Vriska.

Shit.

He can feel the tension knotted in his spine as he… stops. But at least the warning bell in his brain shuts up, to his intense relief. Doomed timelines are bullshit, and getting out of one if you miss the crucial decision point is even worse. And Dave is… pretty sure he can’t time hop in paradox space anyway.

That was way too close.

He turns and finds Rose’s eyes narrow on him. No surprise there. But Kanaya is looking at Karkat, who…

Karkat is staring down at his own clenched fists and shaking like a leaf. His breathing is funny. And all Dave can think of is Karkat in Tavros’ quarters, putting things neatly away.

No one says anything for a moment, and maybe that’s even worse, because Karkat abruptly jerks into motion, circling around the table and sidestepping Dave to leave just as quickly as Vriska had, turning the opposite way.

Dave sighs as he vanishes. “Fuck.”

Kanaya covers her mouth with a hand, unhappy. “Perhaps I should…”

“No,” Rose says, getting to her feet. “You will be too kind to him, and that’ll hurt him more than what Vriska said. Please, allow me.” She smiles faintly at Dave. “I know I usually help with the dishes…”

Dave nods to the door, and Rose leaves, going after Karkat.

What a fucking mess. Usually things at dinner are calmer, or when they get heated, it’s over stupid shit that doesn’t matter, friendly bickering and trying to get Karkat’s hackles up. He’d gotten so used to that, in a way, that seeing Karkat actually upset is… hard.

He’s snapped out of that thought by the clink of dishes. Kanaya’s picking things up, stacking them. When he stares, she smiles. “Allow me.”

“Oh. Yeah, thanks.” He rolls up his sleeves. “Let’s do this.”

There is something really weird about doing the dishes. If Dave had his way, he’d just alchemitize a ton of paper plates. Like, does conservation and recycling and shit really matter when they’re stuck on a space rock and the threat of global warming was kind of superceded by the whole meteor thing?

But Rose finds it reassuringly domestic and Dave pretty much never gets his way when Rose is around.

“Your parents never made you do the dishes, right?” Dave says. “Or, shit. No parents, so… uh.”

Kanaya’s drying each dish and glass as Dave hands them to her, a towel in hand. She smiles warmly at him in a way that makes his ears hot. “No. Instead we had the lusii. They did not fill the same role as your guardians do, from what I’ve observed. They protected us from harm and felt a strong connection to us that you might call familial, but it rarely extends further than that.”

“So who teaches you how to do basic stuff?” He waggles a damp plate at her.

“Schoolfeed gives us many of the building blocks of troll civilization. Some take to it better than others. I always thought I was more fastidious than many of my friends.”

As she speaks, her low and measured voice reminds Dave vaguely of ESL speakers. She doesn’t talk as quickly as Karkat or Terezi, but it’s clearer, every word carefully enunciated. It gives him a twinge of guilt about his drawl, but he shoves it away; Kanaya’s never seemed to mind and if she’s ever confused, it’s more about weird human idioms rather than his sometimes shitty pronunciation.

When he’s quiet for a while, she goes on: “Humans do this differently, from what Rose told me. Many places have organized schools. Physical buildings young humans are sent to so they can learn.”

Dave shrugs. “Most, yeah. That’s for the average human.”

Kanaya tilts her head, peering at him. He nudges up his glasses, making sure they’re covering his eyes fully. “Are you an average human?”

“Hell no.” He smirks. “I was raised to be a warrior first, an ironic media messiah second, and a lyric scribe third. That’s the kind of shit they don’t teach you in K through 12, you know.” He pauses, dumping the excess food down the disposal and clearing it all out before shutting off the fucking racket of the blades and getting back to washing. “Rose and John, they went to school, which… good for them, or whatever. But I was too busy for that shit. Once I knew how to read, I began my tutelage under my bro.”

“Your lusus,” Kanaya translates for herself neatly. “Is that where your remarkable combat skills come from? You were taught from…”

“Shit…” Dave blows out a breath, thinking about it. “I don’t even remember. Like, I bet Bro was preparing me even when I was a baby. But it’s… all it bits and pieces. When I was six, he put all the food on top of the fridge, and I had to learn to parkour my ass high enough to grab anything. And the medicine cabinet was locked so if I took more than, like, twenty second to break the lock, it zapped me. You learn to be fuckin’ fast with that, when you need some cold meds before bed.”

“Cold meds,” Kanaya repeats.

“Common cold, human illness. Medicine to combat that.” Dave hands her the big pan once it’s clean and rests his hands against the counter, giving her a moment to dry that. “When I was, I dunno, ten, Bro rigged the entire apartment with motion sensors and shuriken traps, so if I didn’t move fast enough or stealthy enough, boom, ninja star.”

“I see. Your aptitude for these things was very strenuously honed.”

“Yeah. Striders aren’t born, they are made.”

They finish off the dishes, putting the aside on the counter to be used tomorrow. Dave’s sure Rose is going to locate some cabinets for the kitchen soon, either through the alchemy system or just breaking down in frustration and building them herself. She clearly missed her calling in interior design. Granted she would only be able to work for the most ancient and cliche castles with her taste in furniture, but still.

Kanaya pats Dave’s arm as they finish up, keeping her distance and lowering her hand again after two quick taps. “Thank you. For before, and for this. It’s always interesting to learn more about humans. Rose’s perspectives on things are quite different from yours.”

“Oh yeah?” Dave doesn’t want to talk about the Vriska thing he did, so he latches on to the other. It’s safer. “How so, are all her explanations built on the ivory fucking pillars of psychology and anthropology and other fancy brand name shit?”

“Well, despite her own complicated experience with her mother, she lead me to believe all human lusii were caregivers or,” she struggles for a moment, thinking, her eyes far away, like she’s recalling a Lalondian verbal thesis paper. Dave knows the feeling. “Or affectionate guardians. But clearly there are as many variations to human lusii as there are to Alternian lusii, like yours.”

Dave… doesn’t know what she means. “Right,” he mumbles, frowning. “What’s mine, then?”

Kanaya taps her fingers against her mouth, that contemplative look still on her face. “I’m reminded of… oh, Vriska’s lusus, or perhaps Feferi’s. As I recall, Feferi’s lusus was a great and terrible sea monster that forced her to hunt for it. She had to placate it on a regular basis, lest it wipe out a huge part of the troll population. It doubtlessly honed her skills, but was a point of great stress to her.”

“Okay,” Dave says, frowning harder. “That’s… no, Kanaya, it wasn’t like that, my bro wasn’t…”

Kanaya blinks, and looks as perplexed as Dave suddenly feels. “I see. I apologize, I was only drawing a comparison. I’m sure the multitudes of differences between our species make this complicated.”

“Yeah, it’s not that easy,” Dave tells her, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Anyway. I’m gonna…” He jerks his head to the door. “Thanks for helping with dishes.”

“I’m happy to assist you anytime.” She smiles gently. “I’m going to go check on Karkat. Have a good night, Dave.”

It’s pretty rude to just grunt and leave, but Dave suddenly, desperately wants to be out of that room.

Dave’s new room is just down the stairs from the common room and the dining area, it’d only take him about three minutes to walk there (average time: two minutes and 42 seconds), but the idea of sitting in his room by himself makes his skin crawl.

So instead, he walks, careful not to wander off into the Scourge Sisters’ area of the facility, but also not too close to Rose’s room, in case she is done with whatever talk she had with Karkat and is available to unload her unwanted solicitous nosy shit on him.

Here is the thing: Dave’s fucking trying, alright?

A long time ago, Dave thought he and Rose were kind of potentially in the early fucking stages of being a thing. Like, the shitty mix tape on cassette that takes about five years and a fucking ballin’ production mastermind to turn into the Album of the Year. But then Rose was his sister, and they were… good at that. Or, he thinks they are.

He cares about Rose, maybe more than he did before all this. Back when she was this big question mark of maybe-future-makeout-partner, he didn’t have this much patience for her. Now, even when she’s driving him up the wall, it’s fine. It’s Rose, his sister who held him as the bomb went off in their faces, that’s… bigger than the Land of Makeouts and Homeruns.

Actually, reverse that. LOHAM was way better than LOMAH.

But now he’s Rose’s bro, and Rose really likes Kanaya.

Which probably should’ve been more of a surprise? The whole lesbian thing. But, shit, obviously if you throw a tall alien vampire at Rose, she’s going to be all up in that. It was her fucking wet dream.

Dave winces. Poor choice of words, never think about wet dreams in conjunction with Rose again, jesus.

Kanaya. Kanaya’s pretty fly for an alien. She’s really nice to Rose too in a way that makes sense. Like, Dave has been around the trolls long enough to know that nice is not the default for them, holy shit. Karkat was starting to become someone Dave sort of considered a friend, and they still had verbal sparring matches more than Dave had actual sparring matches with Bro.

Which is the point, really. Dave is trying really fucking hard to like Kanaya, but there’s the creepy bloodsucker thing and now… for all she seems so level-headed and thoughtful, she doesn’t fucking understand the first thing about humans, even when Dave’s standing there explaining it right to her face.

It pisses Dave off. He’d thought they were having a moment, him and his sister’s potential alien girlfriend, and now his head’s just filled with noise, just metal grinding that sets his teeth on edge.

How dare she just-- say that about his Bro.

Worst part is that Dave wants to yell about it to someone but if he tries to talk to Rose, he’ll have to tell her all the shit he told Kanaya.

Which would be bad. He knows that. The idea of it makes his skin crawl even more.

Before he can examine that, to take apart why he’s not allowed to tell Rose this, Dave trips over something. His foot lands on something round, and it moves sharply under his feet. Back, then forward, then rolling out from underneath him as he pitches forward.

Oh, if Bro could see him now. Sailing through the air like a hot air balloon loaded with elephants, landing right on his fucking face on the hard metal ground.

After a second of laying there, Dave realizes he could’ve flown. Caught himself in the air. That’s a thing he can do now.

“Ow,” Dave says dully, and shifts over onto his back. He gingerly touches his face and winces at the ache. Yeah, he’s gonna look amazing in black and blue. Awesome.

His vision is blurry, and he blinks it clear. It takes a moment for him to realize he’s not alone. The little guy blends in real well against the dark hallway.

The little dersite dude. Or, presumed dude. Dave has no idea. He was left by the weird godmutt on the meteor. Dave hasn’t seen him since they got him healed up. He’s a tiny guy in a dark wrap with a loop of power cords around his shoulder. They support a little sign: Mayor. Mayor of what?

The guy’s hands make quick little clicking noises as he taps them nervously together. When Dave sits up, he scurries back, his one visible eye glinting.

“Hey,” Dave says, holds up a hand. “Chill, little guy. I’m fine. I’ve had way worse, believe me.”

He goes to see what the hell tripped him and finds a can of creamed corn rocking a few feet away.

Then, he looks around and sees a lot more cans.

“Whoa,” says Dave. “Okay. Mystery of the cans is fucking solved. Someone call Gary Sinise. Damn.”

And the rest of Dave’s evening is spent playing tourist in the growth center of paradox space, the bustling settlement known as Can Town.