This was stupid. It was not even ironically stupid. It was stupid in a way that could be compared to the physical pain felt when looking through a computer screen at the stupidest thing ever and feeling that particular embarrassment for some poor sap that he had never met and never would.

Except that the poor sap was in his room.

That poor sap and he were living in a place where, so far as he was aware, time would never end and they would always both be there.

It was stupid to the point where, were he a weaker man, Dave would have considered seeing if it was possible to commit suicide even though he had already died. At this rate, he would be brain dead by morning.

Well, the closest thing to morning that one could have in a bubble made of memories that was floating in nothingness where space and time did not mean shit and the only populace were dead people and a fairy troll running around like the tour guide of death.

Considering post-death suicide definitely was looking more and more like a viable option.

"Uh, so," the troll standing in his bedroom asked after the fairy troll – Aradia, right? – left to do whatever was on her agenda next. He shifted from one foot to the other awkwardly, although for a moment a flash of what looked like a smile tugged at his lips. Anyone could tell the guy was feeling nervous.

Dave just stared at him and waited. No way was he helping this semi-retarded troll make this any less awkward. He came here to bring the sick fires, and he was going to have to actually start them if he wanted Dave to even consider giving a shit about them.

More shifting.

"Uh."

Now it was shifting from vaguely amusing to just damn painful. The loser really needed some help here.

"Look, Travis-"

"Tavros."

"Whatever. Are you somehow incapable of coming up with your shitty rhymes without the company of another troll around or something?" Dave inquired. "Do you draw your tiny vocabulary through some sort of telepathic troll link?"

"Uhhhhh, what, no way," came the reply as Tavros straightened his back up from where it had bowed when he was stumbling for words. His blank, dead eyes were creepy in an old b-movie sort of way. Dave assumed his probably were just as bad. "All my sick fires are, uh, homegrown! Er, well maybe not grown, but uh, home-started. They're all trademarked to Me, Myself, and uh, Not You Or Anyone Else."

Dave shrugged. "Right."

"You're just totally impressed, right?"

"You know, your waxing romantic about your boner for me was more impressive than your trying to convince me that you are any good at rap battles."

And there was the face that Dave had never had the chance to see through the brown font and funky choice is writing style; Tavros blinked and then, as it sunk in, he looked every bit the embodiment of sheer awkwardness and embarrassment.

"Uh. Can we not do that again?"

"Talk about your passion to finally get your desperate little grey fingers around my throbbing symbol of boyhood?"

Being grey and all, Dave was not sure if it was possible for a troll to blush. But assuming that there was no other reason for Tavros' face to slowly turn a brownish color, that unasked question was answered without a word.

"Dave, that is really something I'd rather, uh, not talk about."

The boy shrugged and turned to leave the room. "Didn't know you were so shy about your desperation for me that's so strong you had to seek me out after death. But being the generous soul I am, I won't force you to confront your hunger for my man-sausage."

Tavros followed him out of the room, stumbling over his own feet but managing to keep his balance. "Whoa, wait, stop saying that like it's the truth."

"You can't even stand to not be in a different room than me. The evidence speaks for itself."

The footsteps behind him stilled. "I, uhhhh, I can definitely not be in the same room. I am so super ok with being alone." The declaration was ignored. Dave made it to the TV and sat down, deciding that what he really needed right now was to forget everything and just immerse himself in some mad virtual boarding.

It was not long though until Tavros could no longer stand the awkwardness of standing in the apartment by himself. It was then that he did the most ridiculous run-and-jump-to-land-on-a-couch-like-a-smooth-motherfucker that Dave had ever seen. He tripped over his own feet – Jegus, did all trolls have terrible control of their feet? – and fell face-first, resulting in those huge ass horns ripping into the couch and burying themselves deep into the cushions. This stopped them dead in their tracks, causing Tavros' body that was still under the whims of inertia to flip over them and he landed on his back. His ankles hit the arm of the couch and Tavros yelped loudly. However, when he reached down to cradle his injured appendages, he could not reach since his horns were still hooked into the fabric and refused to let him lift his head off the couch. In fact, as it was his back was arched and his neck cricked at an odd angle as the horns seemed to have tangled with the metal springs, refusing to move from standing perpendicular to the couch surface.

Dave could not help the snort that escaped him. If he had recorded it, no doubt the video would have been the most watched on youtube within hours. Assuming that youtube still existed. Or that there was anyone to view it.

After a round of game play – riding pixilated rails until the skateboard got caught on nothing and simply continued to grind on a single spot, gaining points like they were mating rabbits and refusing to relent until Dave restarted the game – and Tavros awkwardly stuttered out requests for assistance – mixed in with terrible raps that were meant to hurt Dave's pride as a man as well as his goat's – Dave finally got up and helped Tavros escape the clutches of the evil couch.

Dave did not taunt Tavros about proceeding to sit next to him like a puppy that could not even conceive of the idea of being alone or anywhere that his master was not. Although, being able to use the phrase master and use it to troll the awkward troll next to him was tempting.

Instead he just played and explained the game to Tavros as he started a new round. Of course, Dave made sure to be as condescending about it as possible. In turn, Tavros managed a few choice jabs over the ridiculousness of the game. Trolls just did not understand the concept of ironically enjoying things that should not be enjoyable.

It was stupid, but Dave was starting to consider that this was an acceptable level of stupidity.

Tavros was terrible at rapping, he was the worse troll in all existence, and he had ruined Dave's memory couch. He was the worse bubble-mate that a dead guy could ever fear to have. He seemed to have some unspoken decision that he was going to stay in Dave's bubble for a while.

And he was ironically enjoyable company.

"You're garbage at this."

"Wha—no, I uh, shut up! I'm learning!"

"It's been two hours and you only have a thousand points."

Tavros frowned and stared at the screen intently, attempting to mash the buttons under his thumbs again. There was a jump, a spin, and then bright red pixels bursting out randomly as the virtual skater's face became acquainted with the concrete for the umpteenth time. "Uhhh."

"Total garbage."

"No, give me a second! I, uh, totally almost have a hang of it," Tavros swore. "Uh, you'll see. I'll grind some serious rail and you know, be so sick that the game will do that uh, well, that thing where it stops but doesn't-"

"Glitch."

"Yeah! I'll, uh, make it glitch so hard!"

Dave shrugged and replied, "Whatever. Just tell me when you're done humiliating yourself and I can show you how to really glitch a game out."

There was no response as the troll boy focused all his attention on the screen. So serious was Tavros about succeeding, proving that he could figure out the game controller. His lips were drawn tight and occasionally he would nibble on his bottom lip with teeth that looked like they belonged on a savage beast, and not a failure of a troll that could not figure out how to work a controller.

But sharp teeth were not on Dave's mind. While he did not mean to, Dave couldn't help watching Tavros' dead eyes when the other was not looking. They were frankly really weird. It was not like they were a white slate where eyes used to be; they were still spherical and creepily enough moved like any normal eye would. However, without any iris or pupil, there was no way to tell where Tavros was looking. The most Dave could figure out was that the troll's gaze was moving left or right, up or down.

Whereas before Dave compared them to b-movie quality, now they were quickly rising to the stuff of zombie-movies from the last couple of years.

It probably did not bother Tavros since he could not see his own eyes and never saw Dave's anyway, what with the sunglasses.

But it was starting to bother Dave.

"Tavros."

"Mm?" The troll kept playing, and as far as Dave could tell he did not glance over.

"I'm gonna go find a sharpie and draw some pupils on your eyes, alright?"

The glassy eyes swiveled, and now Dave knew that the troll was looking at him. It helped that his eyes grew wider and his brows shifted between raised and furrowed. "What?"

"Sharpie. Draw pupils in your eyes. Not too difficult a concept to understand."

"Uh, well, I think I object to things going in my eyes." Tavros shifted and scooted a couple inches away. Dave made sure to keep his perfect poker face in place as he shifted to close the gap and more. It was simply too easy.

"It's not like it's a big deal. Just need to hold your eyes open while I color them in. I'll even let you choose what they look like," Dave stated as he moved, as if to touch Tavros' eye. The troll jolted and fell backwards, rolling away as he stuttered out objections.

Just like that, Dave picked up the now discarded game controller and made himself comfortable against the couch.

It took a full minute before Tavros finally asked quietly, "Uh, Dave?"

"Yeah?"

"You weren't, uhh, serious, were you? You were just messing with me."

Dave slid the virtual skater up a ramp and angled it just right to get the board stuck on nothing. With the slightest grin he glanced over at Tavros. "Yup. It was really too easy."

Tavros' reaction had been estimated by what behavior Dave had already observed, and he had predicted the outcome. However, what Dave had not predicted was the felt-covered rump that collided with his face with surprising strength. He could not help flinching and batting it away. "What the hell?"

"I'm so going to, uh, get you back for that," Tavros insisted as he slowly crawled over to sit next to Dave again.

"That was your idea of revenge? A puppet rump to the face? Felt dong to the noggin?"

"That's only the beginning! Uhhh, I'm gonna draw big, dumb looking girl eyes on your eyes when you're, you know, sleeping or something," Tavros explained. "The biggest, dumbest girl eyes! They'll, uh, be rainbow colored and uhhh, have big lashes and stuff!"

"Dude, that's harsh."

"Oh yeah. It'll, you know, be uh, the harshest."

"I mean, wow, eyelashes on my eyeballs? Talk about shitty," Dave continued. The skater was still spinning in circles like a dancer in a music box on steroids. Tavros laughed a bit, and it was not as annoying as Dave had thought it would be.

"Dave, you'll, uh, have the shittiest eyes. Uhhh, that's a promise!"

The boy smirked as he restarted the game and handed the controller back to the troll.

"I look forward to it."

"Dave, uh, I'm gonna have some food from your, um, what do you call it again?"

"What's your phrase for it?"

"Uhh, the thermal hull?"

"You mean the fridge?"

"Uh, I dunno, sure?"

"Would calling it a refrigerator help?"

"Oh. Yeah, that uh, that makes sense. I didn't know that, you know, you were so sophisticated."

"…Sure. Anyway, I wouldn't suggest you open that-"

"Wha—Oh goguahhhhh!"

"Put the swords back when you're done screaming like a little girl, ok?"

The two did not always have something to talk about. In fact, it was rare for them to have long, continuous conversations since they did not have much in common, and what they did have in common they did not want to talk about. It was a lifetime that had passed them both by.

Dave did not like to think about the fact that reality was existing with a Dave, and that Dave was not him.

Whatever worries Tavros had went unspoken, but there must have been something since he did not bring up his life that had passed.

Dave could have asked about being a troll from troll-world, but he found that he did not really care. Tavros in turn only expressed interest in the worlds of the video games that Dave played. Neither seemed to want to think about the reality they were not a part of anymore, let alone talk about it.

It definitely did not help that everywhere Dave looked, there were Bro's posters and puppets laying around, as if waiting for their owner to return.

He was not sure which was weirder: that he was not a part of reality anymore, or that Bro was not either.

Maybe eventually Dave would want to leave the apartment and check out the new world of living in a bubble. Check out other bubbles that bumped into theirs. Or, well, Dave's that Tavros was bumming around in.

But for now Dave was alright with playing endless video games and Tavros seemed satisfied watching.

Why rock the boat?