Chapter Text
Dave Strider is cuddling you.
You know how this happened, you were there when he came to the door with a box of chocolates and two of your favourite romantic comedies. You just kind of reacted the way you’re reacting to everything lately. You’re that fucking tired that it’s like, well, whatever, you can just deal with whatever happens because why spare the mental space to think about anything?
You’re not quite on autopilot enough to survive this, though. You had to take the fucking wheel back when you sat on the couch with him, the couch that has always felt the perfect size to contain the stupid positions you contort yourself into as you read and has plenty of room for Terezi or Kanaya when they visit. It feels woefully small now, though Dave is shorter than Kanaya. You’re used to the closeness of your friends. You’re not used to whatever this is.
You hand is on his knee. Knees are innocent, not remotely arousing, just about the most neutral place to touch someone and yet in combination with his arm around you, the shades he dropped onto your coffee table, the fact that under the buttery popcorn you can smell the somehow cold smell of his stupidly boy-flavoured deodorant, it’s all feeling like a lot in the best possible way.
Your brother would lecture you for hours if he learned you were seeing the guy you more than once referred to as your nemesis. You remember how appalled he was when a friend of your dad’s recounted meeting his now wife when she was his student when he first started teaching at the university. Or when Kanaya’s sister was considering an arranged marriage. The circumstances and feelings don’t matter to Kankri, there’s no exceptions to his rules of conduct.
You definitely shouldn’t kiss Dave just because you know it’d piss Kankri off. But you can’t help but smile to yourself at the thought of bringing Dave home for Christmas.
You are ruled by your feelings. And you’ve been burying yours under the weight of a hundred-thousand word monument to Dave’s work. Even if you divorce the academic in you that is fascinated by his work, you still like Dave.
You like his quick wit and his self-deprecating humour. You like the way his cheek dimples when he smiles, even when it’s the half-smile he does when he’s still able to fight off his real one. You like how his hair is always threatening to fall into his eyes, like he’s walked straight off the poster of Romeo + Juliet you definitely had in your room for non-gay reasons. You like how his arm around you is solid and calm, but you can hear the soft click of the switch side of his fidget cube he has hidden in his pocket, giving him away. You like how your stomach drops with complete disregard for the rest of your body whenever you meet his eyes, how the red irises fail to make him look inhuman. You like the way your skin feels charged, on the edge of a shiver, just because he’s close and you’re thinking about kissing him.
You want to kiss him so much.
You peek up at him, thinking about all the ways he’s shown he wants that too. He wouldn’t have come over here like this if he didn’t care, right? He wouldn’t be so well behaved if he was just looking for a Grindr style hookup, and he certainly wouldn’t be bothering with you if he were. There’s hundreds of men in the immediate radius if he were after that.
You glare at the television screen. Kat doesn’t care about Patrick’s shitty past. Maybe I can make Dave buy me a bass guitar, you think sarcastically. If it came down to a bribe, it wouldn’t be a question. Neither you or Kat would be with someone because of a present or a prerequisite amount of penance. She just loves him. You …
You hate this internal debate, like you have to figure out every single feeling you have for the guy before the credits roll. What happens if you kiss him and there’s no spark? Then you’ve agonised over this for literally nothing. You’re being an idiot. And possibly procrastinating due to nerves.
‘Dave?’ you ask, looking up at him again.
He turns to you with a, ‘Mm?’ of acknowledgement.
You don’t know what you were going to ask him, looking at him like this wipes your brain completely clear of every tangled thought you had. You stretch up and kiss him gently, innocent and more shy than you’d been going for.
He follows you as you draw back, twisting in his seat and cupping your cheek to stop you from leaving it at that. His eyes flick back to yours briefly before he kisses you back. He lingers, and you find your hand is holding onto the thin material of his t-shirt to keep him there longer. If you thought your skin was electric just from sitting next to him, it’s a wildfire from kissing him. It burns right up your spine and scorches your brain.
He releases you before you can make an effort to deepen it, and stays in the position he’s gotten himself into. With one arm still around you and the other one on your cheek, it feels like he’s crowded you into the corner, like he’s the smallest suggestion from being on top of you. He tucks your hair behind your ear, still staring at you with intensity, a tiny smile softening the expression.
‘Karkat,’ he says, and you have to fight a shiver at the way his voice has deepened. ‘You won’t be able to get rid of me if you kiss me again, I’m like a stray cat you’ve made the mistake of feeding, I’m—’
You cut him off by pressing your lips to his in what has to be the best and maybe only way to stop Dave Strider from talking. He makes a broken, helpless sound that actually does make you shiver, and you pull his waist closer. When you break away again, it’s only to gasp for breath.
You didn’t mean for that to be the end of kissing, but he leans away from you and well back onto his side of the couch. Though your legs are still touching, he feels much too far away.
‘Why’d you stop?’ you ask, trying with limited success not to stare at his kiss-reddened lips.
‘Because I like you, idiot,’ he says. He drags his hand down his face and squeezes his eyes shut like it’s the only way to keep himself from staring at you. ‘You deserve the whole,’ he gestures at the TV, eyes still closed, ‘rom-com treatment.’
‘The rom-com treatment,’ you repeat. You try and imagine exactly what that is, but despite your embarrassingly full hard-drive, you can’t think of what he means by that. There’s kind of a lot of variety, and there’s definitely several that involve making out during movies. ‘Wait, do you actually just mean romance?’ you ask.
He nods, finally opening his eyes again and looking at you.
‘I can’t imagine you excelling at that,’ you say.
‘I’ll learn,’ he says earnestly. ‘We’ll go out for dinner, right? I’ll cook for you sometime, I’ll think of a date that isn’t centred around food, probably. Presents? Did I get the right chocolates, there were a lot of options and—’
You decide, for science, to test whether kissing works to stop Dave from talking a second time. It does, and there’s something deeply satisfying about the way he only manages to hold onto his rigid posture for a second before he gets lost in your kiss. You think you could break his resolve, and it’s honestly tempting to, but you could stand to be wined and dined. More than that, he’s trying something that you don’t think he’s tried before and you want to respect that, to share that with him.
You pull back and he looks at you with naked, pained longing before he smooths his expression into something more neutral. You can’t help but smirk at how easy he is to get a response out of, but instead of teasing him about it, you pick up his wrist and pull his arm around you, leaning into his side. He holds you closer and kisses you on the hair like he did when he first held you like this. It makes your heart squeeze just as much this time.
*
Kanaya helped you dress up, of course, but even her casually mentioning that Rose was providing the same help to Dave wasn’t enough to prepare you for seeing him in a suit.
It’s floral. It’s tailored. It makes him look slimmer than usual, his white shirt cutting through the noise of the pattern, tieless and with two open buttons exposing his neck. With his shades, he looks like a disaffected actor on a red carpet. But then he sees you and his face breaks into a genuine smile and his gait stutters like he went to take a much larger step and then corrected himself.
‘Hey,’ you say once he’s in front of you. You touch one of his lapels, as if to prove he’s real.
‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Inside?’
His hand brushes yours as you both enter through the small doorway at the same time. It’s a nice restaurant, but probably not suit worthy, even without the tie. You know he doesn’t make that much money waiting tables, so you shouted down his more ridiculous suggestions. You can’t and don’t want to be bought. He wants you to feel how highly he values you. This is a compromise, and you fully expect him to show you in other ways.
You get sat down and grit your teeth through the hostess explaining where you can find the specials and assuring you that she’ll take good care of you. It’s maybe a thirty second spiel, but you just want to be with Dave. He looks at you instead of her the whole time and it’s very distracting.
‘I was going to bring you flowers,’ he says, the second she leaves. ‘But Rose asked me where I was planning on keeping them during the date and I didn’t have an answer. It seems like a thing though, should I have done that?’
‘Not unless you were picking me up so I could put them in a vase before we left my house,’ you say.
‘Right,’ he says, exhaling the word like it’s a weight off. You realise he really doesn’t know what he’s doing.
‘Surely you’ve dated before,’ you say.
Dave half-smiles awkwardly, shrugging his shoulders.
‘I took a girl to Burger King once. I’ve gone clubbing with people. Movies, a couple times. I dunno, I work a lot. My sister is my best friend. A lot of people on the apps are pretty upfront about just wanting to have some fun, nothing more.’
You want to ask him why you. It can’t just be guilt over high school. And yeah, you like this stuff, but you also like what you did last week, just hanging out and watching a movie together. You think you prefer feeling comfortable and homey.
‘I fantasise about it,’ he mumbles. You lean a bit closer, to hear him over the quiet jazz playing from somewhere and other conversations. ‘Like, about finding someone and it’s not a joke to care. I dunno, it’s not like I think I’m actually gonna take the waitress from the four dollar breakfast place on some Disney princess whirlwind adventure. I just wish I was brave enough to drop the en-bee-dee thing.’
‘En-bee-dee?’ you ask.
‘No big deal.’
You nod. That’s adorable, frankly, the idea of Dave staring at someone he doesn’t even know and wanting to do something so innocent. But it doesn’t really clarify why he feels like he can actually live that with you.
‘I think some of it’s your fault,’ he says. You raise your eyebrows incredulously. ‘I mean it, in a lot of ways you’re, like, my template on what gay looks like. And like, I don’t just want to treat dudes right, not that any of them seem to want more than a ‘sup’ anyway. When I eventually figured all my bi shit out, I was kinda freaked out, but you always owned it. So like, I had to be better than you. No offense.’
You roll your eyes at his flimsy ‘no offense’ barrier being activated again. It’d be ridiculous for you to be offended at him basically saying he looked up to you, even though you’ve definitely got a low bar for temper tantrums.
‘So you came out loud and proud?’
‘Nah,’ he laughs. ‘Just pretended like it was no big. Like, was standing in the kitchen with Bro and Mom there, and Rose but she knew like way before I did, and I was like “damn, so, the dude I was seeing last month said the most ridiculous thing, you gotta hear this,” and they both made the very Strilonde decision to pretend they weren’t at all surprised.’
You roll your eyes again. You’re probably going to be doing a lot of that with Dave.
‘So like, there’s no risk playing it real with you, right? ‘Cause you’re the gold standard for playing it real. Except this whole thing still feels risky as fuck. I’m trying, man, but I’m fuckin’ nervous. I sweated right through my first suit.’ He laughs at himself and shakes his head. ‘Should not have said that. I know I’m not playing it cool, but seriously, Strider, there’s a limit.’
You put your hand on the table and make a grabby motion. He stares at it for a second, wipes his palm on his pants quickly, and takes it.
‘You don’t have to tell me all your secrets in the first twenty minutes.’
You squeeze his hand and he squeezes back, fighting his smile into subtlety. You open your menu, leaving your hands linked together as you look at it. He copies you.
You have normal conversation after you place your order, or as normal as conversation with Dave can be. You cover religion, sex and politics before the bread arrives, and you have to grin at how he disregards any conversational rules that don’t suit him. You have a weirdly compatible speaking style, you’ve noticed it before but it’s even more obvious tonight.
‘I can’t wait for you to remeet Kankri,’ you say. He smiles at you full-force, making you realise how presumptuous that was, but you can’t muster the effort to correct yourself into a less-enthusiastic position. This doesn’t feel like a first date, where things are still up in the air about where they’re going. And those dimples are fucking murdering you with cuteness.
‘You have Rose’s approval, by the way,’ he says.
‘You won’t get Kankri’s,’ you say with a grin. ‘It’s going to be awesome.’
He raises an eyebrow (you’ve never met a person who can match eyebrow maneuverability with him and Rose) but nods.
‘I don’t really care what Mom and Bro think of you,’ he says. It’s a little too casual to ring true, but you don’t call him out on it.
‘What’s up with your family situation?’ you ask. ‘I remember your brother, he was a dickhead.’
He snorts. And then very obviously stalls by twirling his pasta around.
‘Yeah. So none of us have any idea who our dads are. We’re not entirely sure Mom didn’t just clone us or some shit, get a donor. She used to tell us stories, but they were like fairytales, kinda unbelievable shit even when we were kids. Bro’s way older than Rose and me, and he’s basically what you get if you try and do the fuckin’ opposite of every lesson Mom ever gave us. She sent us to finishing school, he taught us how to burp the alphabet, that kind of shit.’
‘Classy.’
He grins at you and changes the subject. He asks you about your favourite book, and if you were tied on wordcount before, you well and truly take the lead. It’s just so hard to pick any kind of favourite, so you talk about different genres, but then you can’t pick favourites within genres either. He smiles at you the whole time. Terezi would have kicked you or left the room a sentence into your babbling.
You stay at the restaurant longer than you’ve ever spent for a meal. He talked you into dessert by saying “chocolate lava cake” very slowly and seriously. When you get outside, he offers you his ridiculous floral jacket. You’re absolutely sure it suits him better than you, and you just wrap it over your shoulders because it’s definitely too small for you.
‘Is this a fantasy too? Keeping your date warm while freezing to death like an idiot?’
‘I run hot,’ he says, ‘but maybe.’
‘You’re a fucking dork,’ you tell him.
He just grabs your hand and holds it all the way home, even on the train. He does feel warm. And he won’t stop smiling. It’s contagious and addictive and definitely should be illegal.
‘Come upstairs?’ you ask when you stop at your apartment.
He hesitates, his hands in his pockets now you’ve released him in favour of your keys. You give him a judgemental look.
‘How far is your chivalry going to extend, Strider?’ you ask.
‘I’m givin’ it a workout,’ he jokes. ‘It’s just gonna be easier for me to walk away out here, where it’s really you walking away from me.’
You put your keys back in your pocket and take his hand again.
‘My apartment’s right up here,’ you say, pointing to the street corner. He frowns in confusion. ‘And then a couple turns,’ you continue. ‘Want to walk with me?’
He turns his head away as he smiles and you pull him along. You’re not ready for your date to be over.