Chapter Text
==>
Your name is Dave Strider and you are certainly not a wooer.
It’s obviously not some crazy revelation or anything. You mean, you’re only fourteen. It’s only a little weird, having to watch everyone find love whilst you’re just kind of… there. Group hangouts have only become a constant reminder of your ever-growing loserness.
It’s not completely horrible, you guess. It isn’t like you don’t have friends. You still have John and Rose and Jade and…
Your name is Dave Strider and you only have three friends, one of whom is your sister.
So here you are, sitting slouched against the armrest of John’s living room couch, getting your shit rocked in a game of Super Smash Bros. You’ve been zoned out for the past five minutes, your hands on auto-pilot and mostly button-mashing. Rose sits criss-cross-apple-sauce on the carpet while her girlfriend fixes her headband beside her, but it wasn’t even messed up in the first place. Their voices are so hushed, it looks like they’re just mouthing words.
John cracks a stupid joke and his girlfriend cackles . It was a C- joke at best, but you know she’ll just be giggling over that shit for half an hour. Jade’s on the carpet, almost leaning into the fireplace. You take a quick glance over at her phone as her fingers pitter-patter away at the keyboard; she’s texting a boy.
Your mind wanders again. Jeez, how long has it been since you’ve taken your Adderall? Two days? Four? A week? Shit’s too hard to keep track of. Maybe that’s why you should take it. Fuck it, it’s fine.
You snap back to reality for the second time when you see everyone in the room staring at you in confusion. It looks like John beat you again, which would usually result in you throwing your controller at his head. This time, you’ve been staring into space for however long.
John waves a stretched-out hand in front of your face. “Dave? Dave ? Fuck, guys, I think I broke him,” he seems genuinely distressed over this. What a dork. You breathe in and quickly survey the room. Rose is giving you some weird smirk, Jade is giggling to herself, and John’s girlfriend is leaning over to peek at you.
You breathe out. “Oh. My bad,” you murmur, “I think I zoned out for a bit. Fuck, I’m tired as hell.” You try to chuckle, attempting to appear as composed as humanly possible under the growing pool of anxiety in your stomach. So much anxiety, you can practically shovel that shit. Make an anxiety snow cone or something. Jeez, you need to sleep .
John shrugs and goes back to the game. Rose offers to walk you both back home for the night, but you know you’ll feel like a dick later for ruining her lesbianization time with Kayaya… Kakaya? Kanaya. That’s it. Probably.
You hope and pray ‘lesbianization’ is a real word.
Your phone reads 12:18 A.M., but walking home alone in the dark is never a problem for a Strider. You know how to kick ass with a katana , for fuck’s sake. You also live in a crime-free rural town in the middle of Washington, but that’s beside the point. You’re ready to ollie the hell outie. You still don’t have the slightest idea what that means. You think it might have something to do with skating? Oops, getting sidetracked again. Annoying inner monologue shit.
Alright, walk home, take ADHD meds, get in bed. Simple enough.
You only realize you forgot to give them your goodbyes when you’re already out the door. Fuck, John probably thinks you’re a jackass. Whatever, you’ll just pester him later to clear stuff up.
You can barely see the dark street under your shades.
You have some weird ass eyes – something to do with albinism. You aren’t exactly sure, since you didn't care enough to listen to Dirk when he explained it to you for the tenth time. It makes your eyes this reddish-pink color; and it sounds sick as fuck until little kids are running away from you in public because they think you’re a ghost.
Your eyes are extremely sensitive to light, which is why you need the shitty shades. Everyone kind of just assumes you’re a massive tool who wears them for the sake of being a dickhead. You’d probably still rock them even if your eyes didn’t suck butt, anyway.
Too lost in thought for your own good, you’re brought back to reality by colliding with an unfamiliar face. Well, he collides with you, since he’s about a head shorter than you. He takes most of the damage while you stand unscathed, and you’re not even that tall. You mean, you’re taller than John, Rose, and a few other boys your age. Not Jade, though. Damn. Girl’s a skyscraper.
“Jegus-!” he screeches before falling directly onto his rear. You could’ve sworn he was a human at first sight until you spotted the tips of his nubby horns, peeking out from his absolute mop of a hairdo. The burnt streetlights even concealed the grey of his skin for a second.
You remember to maintain your somewhat stoic guise before you lean forward and hold a hand out for him. “Shit, whoops.”
He scowls at you, his features defined under the lights. They flicker, accompanied by a light buzzing.
He swats your hand away with his own before you swiftly pull back and fix your posture, which you now realize has been slouched for the entire interaction. He places one hand on the pavement and rises and damn, he’s short. You choke back a laugh at his attempt to seem authoritative while he’s about as tall as your shoulder.
“Sorry,” you start.
He loses it. “Sorry? You’re fucking sorry? Your nitwitted, rotten egg of a thinkpan somehow succeeded in bumping into me when we were both walking in an empty street . Has all of that hair bleach finally sunken into your head, you dumb-fuck, lazy imbecile?” He’s all hands now, flailing his arms around with almost every word. You’re pretty sure he almost hit you in the face.
You smirk. You’re not doing it to piss him off or anything, but you might genuinely find this dude amusing. “Well, first of all,” you slightly drawl before letting out a breathy chuckle, “these blonde locks are all-natural, baby.” He looks at you like you just pissed in his soup. “Secondly, why the hell are you taking a walk at almost one o’clock in the morning?”
He rolls his eyes and scoffs before crossing his arms. “You’re also taking a walk, shit-for-brains.”
Trying to compress your Southern accent, you involuntarily respond. “Yup, walking home from my friend’s house. Bet that’s something you don’t know shit about, considering your presumable lack of friends and inability to keep it the hell down.” Your southern twang still peeks out at the end of a few words. Whatever, you’ll probably never even see this guy again, anyway. “People are trying to sleep, which I assume would be pretty tough when there’s a five-foot-tall, screeching maniac outside of their houses. Fuck, people must hate you, dude.” A sneer seeps its way through the end of your sentence.
You fix whatever expression lay on your face and return to your wall of stoicism. You are the absolute epitome of cool, Dave Strider. So, so cool.
He huffs from his now agape mouth, his eyes two burning holes of lava, and he looks like he’s trying to explode you with his mind. It’s pretty funny, but you don’t laugh. Not even a mere nose-exhale. Mhm. That’s true Strider manliness right there. Shit, you just smirked at your own thoughts, idiot.
He squeezes his eyes shut and you swear you can see tears welling up in them. Damn, guess you hit a nerve. He shrieks a blaring “Ugh!” before taking his palms and quite literally ramming you to the side. You stumble backward for a second before he stomps his way past you. He flips you the bird without even looking behind him.
“Dicknips,” you mutter, a little bit louder than you intended. You wonder if he heard you.
You shrug it off. The trek from your house to Casa del Egbert’s is about twenty minutes and you’ve only been walking for about seven minutes until you feel a small, cold, moist prick on your back. It is fucking raining. You are thirteen minutes away from home, you’re tired, it’s twelve o’clock in the morning, and the sky has just decided to piss on you. A shiver crawls up your spine and you are now very hastily rushing home.
You get there pretty quick, actually. With a weird mixture of flash-stepping, running, and walking to catch your breath, you get home in… twelve minutes and forty seconds. At least it was twenty seconds quicker than you anticipated.
The front door opens with a soft creak. Dirk lays, splayed across the living-room couch. He looks as if he just finished working on one of his robots, so you know his dumbass is probably getting oil and dirt everywhere. You’d call it gross, but it isn’t like you can say much. You’re currently drenched in a mixture of sweat and rain. It’s nice to see him sleeping every once in a while, though. You know he doesn’t get a lot of rest at all. He looks a lot less stressed when he’s asleep. He looks a lot more like himself.
You head upstairs, take a shower, get into your pajamas, brush your teeth, and fall into bed with a poof. At least tomorrow is a Sunday.
You forget to pester John to clear things up as well as forgetting to take your Adderall. Instead, you stare at the ceiling for a good two hours before finally conking out, despite your hankering for some rest. You will never truly understand how your mind works.
At almost 1:00 in the afternoon, you wake up to Rose vacuuming her bedroom. That damn hoover is so loud it can snap a man out of a coma. Hell, it just did. Okay, clean-freak twin sister. You do you, I guess.
Your medication sits on your desk, having been untouched in days. Have you even taken any in the past week? You barely remember anything from last night, actually. All you know is that you absconded from your friends, ran into some angry asshole on the street, and then got drenched in rain. Well, that means you do remember last night, lyin’ ass.
You untangle yourself from your blanket and trudge over to your desk. The mid-noon sunlight somehow hits your eyes from the worst angle possible, absolutely massacring your retinas for a second. Goddamn. You get through it like the strong young man you are, sit down at your desk, and have your eyes annihilated a second time by your computer screen. Where in the hell are your shades?
The computer pings a few times as soon as you open pesterchum. Perfect timing, Egbert.
-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 12:49 –-
EB: hey, dave! you forgot to say goodbye to everyone last night, haha!
EB: and speaking of last night, were you okay?
EB: i mean, i know you always have a lot on your mind and stuff, but jeez.
EB: rose told me you forgot to take your weird brain medicine, which actually makes a lot of sense now that i think about it.
EB: anyway, i know you’re probably not even awake right now.
EB: i won’t be able to reach you until school tomorrow, so don’t even worry about replying. jake’s taking me and jade on another one of his stupid hikes!
EB: sorry for the rambling, i know you get bored reading these. cya tomorrow! :B
Shit, you need to message him before he goes offline.
TG: yaeh no im awekeok
Fucking hell. Between the double-murder on your eyes (by both the sun and your computer) mixed with your urgency to reply, you totally fucked that up. You can still barely even see what’s on the screen.
Maybe if you squint just a little more… nope. He’s offline. You flump back into your seat and heave a sigh. You proceed to give yourself a nasty face palm, which kind of actually hurts, while trying to decide on something to do for the day. Egbert-Harley-English are off-limits, not that you even hung out with Jake, anyway. Your face stings.
The loud whirr of Rose’s vacuum stops. You usually wouldn’t be in the mood to have your brain hyper-analyzed by your weird twin sister, but there's nothing better to do. You rub the sun out of your eyes before walking out to Rose’s bedroom door and it opens. Well, you don’t exactly open it, but you grip the door handle at the same time Rose is opening it and you’re unceremoniously flung forward.
“Dave,” she starts, “it looks like you’re finally awake. Looking for these?” She holds up your sunglasses before flipping them around in her hand and dangling them between her index and her thumb. You didn't even realize you were squinting at the soft light of her bedroom before you took the glasses and slid them over your eyes. You blink a few times, let your eyes adjust, and finally look at Rose, who is flashing you a Knowing Smirk™. “What do you need me for?”
“I dunno. Jus’ bored, I guess.” You shrug. You note that her hair is neatly done and she’s already dressed for the day. You, on the other hand, are still wearing some ancient band tee and plaid pajama pants. You shove your hands into the pockets of said pants. You are so cool.
“I’m getting ready to visit Kanaya, if you’d care to join me,” she notifies whilst spinning on her heel and making her way to her mirror.
She fixes her lipstick and eyelashes as you grimace. “Nah, I think I’ll pass,” you reply. You don’t ever see yourself hanging out with Rose and Kanaya ever again. Not after the night Rose stole from Dirk’s alc stash and proceeded to drink herself and her girlfriend three sheets to the fucking wind in a Home Depot parking lot. You three are still banned from that place.
Kanaya is also extremely terrifying.
You press your lips into a flat line and stalk out of Rose’s bedroom. Guess you’ll just head over to the corner store near your house and grab some snacks for today, nothing too serious.
You grab whatever clean sweatshirt you can find and slip into your red converse. By ‘slip into’, you mean that you wrestle with your shoes for five minutes until you finally get them on both feet. Your outfit looks like hot ass, but it’s not like anyone will even catch you. You can quite literally view the store from your bedroom window.
The aisles are devoid of all people today. The fridges are also devoid of all apple juices, even the piss-tasting ones. You are not partial to sharing why you know what piss tastes like. Not today, partner. You grab a six-pack of mini orange juice bottles (close enough; both fruits grow on trees, right?) and decide that you aren’t even that hungry. Nothing else is appetizing without your beloved AJ.
You haul your lumber over to the check-out counter at the front of the store. Once again, there’s nobody here. You’re starting to get the creeps over the whole place being a ghost town in the middle of the day. Maybe the lack of apple juice in this place is driving away all of the customers. You place the OJ on the counter and you finally hear footsteps from one of the back rooms.
You’ve never seen anyone working here except for the troll with the funky face paint. You guess this was the only place that hired stoner clowns with weird hair.
Gamzee, you think his name is. You’ve probably read his nametag a billion times.
Finally. May this baked juggalo troll finally come to rescue lil’ ol me. The footsteps are heavy and quick though, unlike his unusual stride. Maybe he invested in some new boots or something. You noticed his old sneakers were stained with about a year’s worth of grape flavored Faygo. They even smelled like Faygo.
The door creaks open and what walks out is not a stoner clown with funky hair. Instead, it’s the same troll who cussed you out at 1:00 in the morning. Nubby horns, the scruffiest hair in existence, and razor-sharp teeth. Yup, the real deal.
“Jegus fuck,” he mumbles to himself before slamming the door behind him and walking over to the counter with the same stomp he left you with the night before. The guy’s stomping is even louder now and he’s not even wearing boots. Is this dude just that heavy-footed? Goddamn.
He slides your orange juice over to his side, scans it, and slides it back your way. He gives you this half-lidded, exhausted stare and leans a bit to the side before you realize you forgot to pay. You hand him a good ol’ few bucks (which is to say literally everything in your pockets.)
“Stupid ass juggalo,” he grumbles to himself once again while counting the money you handed him. You slightly cock an eyebrow. Does he seriously not remember me from last night?
He finally looks up at you when he hands you the leftover change. He’s squinting in frustration and his bottom teeth dig a little further into his lip. Looks like he’s finally putting the pieces together, huh.
“You… hm.” He mumbles. Give him some time, Dave. His ‘thinkpan’ doesn’t seem to be fully developed yet. “You’re… the douche.” He furrows his brows and stares up at you like you just ate a bug. Wait, isn’t that normal for trolls? To each their own, you guess.
“Yup, that must be me. The D in Dave stands for Douche,” you quip, rolling your eyes. You reach for the orange juice, but he grabs it first and slides it back his way with a hum of disapproval.
“You’re not getting this until you tell me why you were such an ass last night,” he asserts.
Are we serious right now? Nubbyhorns is holding my orange juice hostage. What the hell.
You heave a loud sigh. “Just give me my fuckin’ OJ dude,” you groan, “we’ll literally never see each other again.”
He tightens his grip on the juice as you reach for it once more. “I already paid, just give me the damn juice.” you beseech, a tinge of lava now spilling into your words.
“Not until you fucking explain yourself!”
You finally reach over far enough to get a good hold on the orange juice. You assume you can just peel it out of his grip, but damn he’s strong . You didn’t expect this from such a teeny dude. The orange juice is on the middle of the counter now, just between both of you.
“Shit,” he lets go of the juice with a shove. You, being too lost in your mind to realize, don’t release it. It collides straight with your chest. Ouch.
A roaring sob bellows from the back room, followed by a loud sniffle. “-aaarrrkaaat!” He shoots you a quick. blazing glare before spinning on his heel and rushing over into the room.
“Gam? Gog, I’m fucking sorry !” His voice is booming, penetrating even through the solid brick walls of the shop. “Urgh, I’m such a bad moirail, I know. C’mere. Shoosh.” His voice is strangely comforting near the end, like he’s straining to tame a startled cat.
Your mouth curls in distaste as you finally grab your orange juice and haul it out of the store with you. “Poor Gamzee,” you mutter.
You check your phone on the walk back home. Welp, guess that took you more than ten minutes. Stupid fuckin’ angry, idiot troll boy.
The next few hours go tamely. You sit on the couch, messing around in the shitty skating games Dirk buys but never plays. Mid-game, you hear the distant jingle of keys and the typical creaky front door. Looks like Rose is home from her little playdate with her girlfriend.
You don’t realize she’s directly behind you until she speaks. “Kanaya’s hosting a party for her fifteenth wriggling day,” she announces. You don’t pay her any mind, simply because you don’t give a shit and also because you’re too fixated on the game to even comprehend what she said.
She exerts a loud groan before snatching the controller from your hands. “Dave, these video games are turning your brain to mud. Did you even hear what I said?” Her tone is strict now, like how Roxy sounds on a bad day.
“Shit– yes, Rose, I heard you,” you’re a little aggravated now. You had a streak on Skate 3, for fuck’s sake. “What the hell does your girlfriend’s birthday party have to do with me?”
“It’s a wriggling day party,” you roll your eyes before she continues, “and you’re coming.”
“No the fuck I’m not? You know I hate parties and I barely even talk to your girlfriend. It’d be weird if I just showed up uninvited, anyways.”
“Dave, I’m not letting Kanaya think my brother is an asshole. You’re coming whether you like it or not.” Her arms are crossed when you look up at her, and she is menacing . You wouldn’t be surprised if the sky decided to flash lightning right now.
“Fuck, fine.” You groan before snatching the controller away. Damn, you don’t even want to play Skate 3 anymore.
You turn off the Xbox and start with your nightly routine, which is eating anything edible enough in the cupboard, brushing that stale taste out of your mouth, showering, and getting into your pajamas. This time, when you get into bed, It’s only ten o’clock. You go out like a light and you weren’t even tired.
And you don’t wake up until tomorrow morning.