Chapter Text
What a weird turn of events.
Rose’s opinion.
In some ways, he agrees.
Although they both know; it’s not really so strange.
He’s been stewing; clandestine letters; stains on the once ivory page.
Dave chalks him up to the sum of his visible parts.
Peculiar. A little scary. On a different wavelength.
He prefers what’s visible in the low tide anyways.
(A well constructed lie.)
The deep waters are not for poor swimmers, after all.
And Dave likes to flail. He’s got horrifying memories of throwing up sea water, pushed to shore by the vicious waves, his guardian coked up enough to last him several painstaking ‘vacation’ days as he watches him struggle to survive.
John is friendly with him in chat. As friendly as he is with all the other trolls. That’s what he says.
But his stupid digital bucktoothed grin means something more. He knows something Dave doesn’t. Or he remembers more than Dave wants to.
There’s nothing Dave hates more than secrets. Mystery.
…
It doesn’t feel like an allure.
It feels like a vexatious megaminx.
Too many angles to approach from. Guaranteed to confuse him more, before it ever feels solvable.
He’s not going to say it out loud, ever.
They’re standing in the meteor’s common room, watching chaos unfold in its difficult, annoying shapes.
Somehow, they’re side by side, and still in two totally different worlds. Thin, invisible, pixelated lines divide them, instead of layers of time and space, and Dave’s terribly shattered computer screen, rebellious and working regardless of his Bro’s poorly aimed shuriken.
Dave is hyperfocused on how his breathing is shallow. The air must be thin. He doesn’t panic. Not for the public eye, at least.
There’s nothing to be nervous about.
Gamzee is calm, after all. Standing along the same wall Dave leans on for grounding. Watching Karkat yap to Kanaya about something incomprehensibly important to him. Is it a debate or a long winded fact?
Hard to tell.
“Am I in the eye of the tornado? Or on the edge of it?” He’s talking to himself for the most part.
Someone happens to be listening.
“Two steps to the left and find out.” He always sounds half asleep.
Dave is learning it hides his alert nature. He takes two steps in the wrong direction.
Gamzee chuckles at his mistake. Eridan is flipping the fuck out, wand sparking, and hissing.
“Do you like the pre-set holes in your smoothe, motherfucking necknub?”
Dave would laugh if his adrenaline allowed.
“Yep.”
Gamzee is two slow steps in his direction. He catches the wand that blasts from Eridan’s claws rebounding from the porous meteor walls. It’s pinched between his fingers a half atom from skewering Dave between the eyes, and splitting his perfect shades clean in two.
He refuses to flinch. He’s been trained out of it after all.
Eridan hardly cares about the ruckus he’s causing. Sollux looks over his caped shoulder, nervous about whatever look Gamzee is giving him.
Dave isn’t paying attention. He’s fixated on the details across the back of Gamzee’s scarred hands, following the ashen lines in his skin, near purple in the light as they stretch over the bone beneath. It’s faint, but certainly there.
He watches him lower his arm, twirling the wand in hand. His knuckles look blunted, like he’s weathered them in a wall for whatever the hell a few ‘sweeps’ is. Dave has yet to break down the cataloguing of time.
Dave feels strong enough to glance at his eyes. He normally hates doing so, not because of his usual aversion, but because there’s always a startling glance back; survival instincts, he thinks.
Gamzee’s pupils are fine slits. There’s a hint of a grin beneath the paint.
He inclines his head towards Eridan. Dave watches the troll shiver from the bottom up.
Eridan whips around in time to catch his weapon from returning another timelines ill-fated favour. There is no bitching about the way Gamzee teased the flexibility of it before launching it back. Eridan resumes his heated lecture, maybe a little quieter, arms folded over his chest.
“Thanks.” Dave blurts it before he can remember his place.
Gamzee doesn’t say anything. He pushes the frames up Dave’s nose with a claw when he stalks away.
Dave ignores the odd stare Karkat is giving him when he approaches for harassment. He’s not sure when he and Kanaya tuned into the interaction. Kanaya gives an anxious glance to the door Gamzee disappeared through. Dave distracts Karkat from questions he’s uninterested in answering by teaching him how to escape a guillotine choke.