A fluff piece for my matesprit and my moirail (who's fault it is for being in the Homestuck 'verse as it is). A direct companion piece to "Counter Rhythm" and part of the "Our Lives After" Universe. A playlist can be find on my tumblr site under grimreaperchibi.

~Tawnya

Watching Dave DJ is probably as close as Heaven on Earth gets. It's nirvana and ascension and most importantly, yours.

When you both first started pestering each other, turntechGodhead was just a presumptuous handle. As you got to know each other better, it played to his ironic coolkid arrogance. It was still a bit heavy handed for a thirteen year old, but that's also part of what made it funny. Because when you figured out Dave didn't really take himself that seriously (even if he's that earnest about his music), you really became friends. It became something of a joke between the two of you—a self-depreciating stance on something you truly enjoyed—which left you bugging one another about your handles and the associated interests therein, and thus supported thousands of conversations.

You've never doubted that he truly loves music, and it's not the ironic type either. And as the years have passed, arrogance has been replaced with sure skill. Love has become passion. Music is the movement in his life and he has gained utter mastery of it. He's made that once stupidly over-reaching title a reality. Dave Strider is a god at his turntables, a bodhisattva of sound who has resisted the temptation of Nirvana to remain and teach the less enlightened that simply beauty of a well-placed bass drop.

Never mind that since he really got his career up and going that he's never played to less than a full house. Never mind all the rabid fangirls (and a fair number of fanboys) who stand by his speakers, shuttering in ecstasy, who routinely throw themselves at him, or failing that, their clothes. Never mind that he really does take the time to listen to what his fanbase says, even if he doesn't agree with it. What really makes him a god in your mind is the fact that he plays practically blind.

The aviators rarely come off unless he's safely at home. Wearing the already darkly tinted sunglasses in an equally dark club means his visual acuity is almost zero. Everything he does is by touch alone, every adjustment, every flip of a record, every draw back and escalation forward is wrought through fingers that know his board (almost) better than a lover. It's not a piece of equipment anymore, it's a part of him, an extension that allows him to make the exact sound he wants.

He's told you that, persona aside, he tends to close his eyes anyway, even if he's playing a venue that either offers light or a better ambient illumination than his steady haunts. He gets nervous when he can see what's going on. It's too much like goofing off at home, when it doesn't matter if he flubs the acoustics or misses a transition. People paid good money to have him perform and damned if he was going to give anything less than the best that he could. That means focusing on the sound itself, and how can you do that if you're too busy fussing with the knobs and sliders? So he closes his eyes and lets the music tell him how it should be played. His hands know what's required of them, so it's easy to let them go about their own business.

As if that alone wasn't enough to make everyone with a brain want him, he's drop dead gorgeous while he's up there, moving to the beat he's designed. It's not the hyperactive, jumping around, thrashing some other DJs get into. It's more like a rapid sway. His whole core gets into it, leading with his chest like it's part of his heartbeat. His head will usually bob along with the counter beat, a small side-to-side gesture that shows how deeply he's been taken by the music himself. If he's setting up for a complicated intermix, his heel starts tapping, which augments the sway into a more refined movement—not quite the bump and grind out in the audience, but provocative none the less. The real dancing is done with his hands over the panel. All the power of a conductor, all the grace of a professional dancer, and still enough of that confident Strider swagger that it's totally something he owns. That's what makes him more than an instrument of the music—he is the music.

Then again, Dave's always been the music to you. He's serenaded you for years with his bad rapping where some people would use bad poetry. Provided a beautiful set of lyrics and a voice for the piano piece you played at your father's funeral. Flooded your inbox with updates for all his various projects and you always knew when he got a new piece of equipment because he'd spend a week on the phone with you, demanding immediate feedback for whatever he was messing with. If he catches your voicemail, he'll beat-box his message. He absolutely insisted on hauling your family's piano up five flights of stairs when you moved in with him and always uploads his playlist to your ipod when you can't make one of his sets. Where most people would ask their love interests out on dates, he'd bring home Chinese and the two of you would watch movies and spend hours remixing your favorite bad movie dialogue. When he asked you to stay with him for the rest of your lives, you almost didn't catch it because he actually said it instead of singing it or something.

Tonight, you made it. As usual, it's standing room only in the club and there's not much of that left either. Dave's in fine form this evening, something you like to think is because you're in attendance. The club is hot, the beats are sick, and the dial has long since been twisted past eleven—a pretty standard night for him, actually. There just seems to be more, feels like more. The bass throbs heavier in the body. The shimmy of the crowd is tighter. Dave's dance on the board seems surer and steadier, as if that's even possible. Maybe it's just the alcohol. Maybe it's the heat of too many bodies stuffed together in a single space. All that matters is here and now and if you weren't already so damn twitterpated with the man, you'd be falling in love with Dave anyway.

He plays two encores because the crowd won't let him leave and the bouncers still have to start herding people to the door. They know you on sight by now, but you just wait where you are until most of the people leave before you head for the stage area. Fighting the flow of humanity usually isn't worth it and there's been a couple of incidents where indignant fans see you slip through and think they can do the same. So you wait even though your first instinct is to rush over and kiss the daylights (nightlights, maybe?) out of him.

The rest of the world catches up when you finally have all the equipment packed and hauled out. You could swear it was barely midnight, but the dashboard clock insists it's three am. You still haven't gotten that kiss as you both climb into the vehicle. By the time you got to him, teardown was in full swing. You just started picking up cords and coiling them into neat bundles—no need to interfere with the process. You drive because his head's still buzzing with the music, leaving his peripheral awareness somewhat lacking. The radio stays off so that he's not fighting sources and by the time you get home, some of the adrenaline has worn off. With the efficiency of much practice, everything gets shifted from car to apartment in a slightly tired silence. That's when you finally get your kiss.

It's more than worth the wait.

Your back meeting wood is what closes the door the final time, which means you're slightly off-balance when his lips find yours. The stuff in your hands drops so that you can hold on to him. There's a heavy thump on the floor from the cabling and a moan in your throat as his tongue pushes into your mouth. Dave tastes like cherry something from whatever he was drinking tonight, which mixes pretty well with your own cuba libre breath. You straighten up against the door, pull him closer, and that's when you both find the rhythm.

Push. Pull. Hands sliding under shirts. Shoes hitting the ground. Up and down. He's the one pulling you back into the bedroom, but you're the one who has to make sure you don't kill yourselves getting there. There's a beat to it, dictated by the thump of your hearts, the hisses of breath, the increasingly intense moans even though those things are only part of a greater driving whole. It's like that something from the club followed you home, only in this context, you know exactly what it is.

The first time, you're under him because that's the rule—whoever starts it gets to top. It's glorious, feeling all that built up emotion he gets when the night's gone well beyond expectation come coursing through you. His hands seem like they're everywhere (because they are and they know you better than his board) while his mouth is either attached to yours or that spot on your neck that constantly and consistently turns you into a quivering mess. He's all soft on the outside, but hard inside you, and that rhythm never falters, even when you're both too delirious to follow it consciously anymore.

The second time, he's under you. Your hands get tangled in his as you both pant through this new set, slower yet still just as intense. He likes to be as close as possible, have as much skin-to-skin contact two people can achieve. You like to sit back and watch. Without those "so ironic they're cool again" shades, you can see everything. You know he wears them for more practical reasons, but you also know he hides behind them as well. And you don't want him to hide from you, not when your both entwined like this, free from time, concern, or regret. He meets your gaze with that violently red stare of his, lets you into the private world in his mind. And that's why you've never worried about the groupies, the late nights, the extensive travelling, or the parties.

Because music is the motion of his life, but you're the center of his world.

The sun's coming up by the time the two of you get the night out of your system. That means time's jumped again and it's now seven am. You have to be to work in about three hours and you haven't slept since the previous night; you should have passed out the moment the both of you stopped moving. But you're still sort of awake. Enough to enjoy that hand petting the small of your back, the even rise and fall of the hand laying on his chest, and the utter contentment that comes from having the sheets thoroughly twisted around your legs. You know he hasn't fallen asleep either because he'll periodically nuzzle you, the stubble on his chin scraping against your forehead, a comfort you never thought possible. It feels impossibly good laying there, so neither of you are particularly inclined to get up and move even though your phone's alarm is going off and both of you desperately need a shower at this point.

The harping your phone is doing finally reaches obnoxious levels. With a kiss that would have sent you both back into fits if you weren't already so exhausted, you pull apart to start the day by trying to find where exactly that loathsome piece of technology managed to hide while you and your lover did x-rated things. After getting it to cease it's squawking, you grab a shower. Dave makes coffee and toast, timing it so that both are done by the time you are. Then you switch places, and while he gets cleaned up, you make bacon and eggs. He looks somewhere between sexily mussed and half-dead by the time he rejoins you. Striders are naturally nocturnal creatures you've discovered, so eight-forty-five tends to only happen once on their clocks. You've tried telling him he doesn't have to get up in the quasi-mornings with you. It still pleases you to no end that he does, even if he's practically snoring in his coffee.

He'll crash again as soon as you leave, dead to the world until you text him on your lunch break about two. Once the breakfast dishes are washed, he'll get his equipment back into order and start fussing with whatever his next great new idea is. You'll come home at six and make dinner, scolding him as he steals bits and pieces while you're cooking. It's an off night, so he's got nowhere else to haul his stuff to, so you're hoping you can convince him to make popcorn and keep most of his pithy comments about your taste in movies to himself. (He totally enjoys them, too. He just likes giving you a hard time.)

This pattern has become somewhat established in your lives, so it startles you a bit when your phone buzzes with an incoming message.

turntechGodhead: hey i can't remember if i said this
all i remember is locking the door
and those vile things you call scrambled eggs
yuck btw learn how to fry one already
anyway
be careful okay
and i love you

You know he must really be out of it because he's actually said it twice already as you were trying to get out the door. He says it every time you part company. "Be careful. I love you." He's been saying it since those first tentative dating days, so it's become something of a ritual with you two. You smile a bit at the teasing. Scrambled might not be his favorite style, he still eats them all the same. You also know he's passed out completely at this point, but you text him back anyway.

ectoBiologist: if you don't like my eggs, then don't eat them!
and i'll be the most careful careful can be.
it will be me.
i love you, too.

It's all a part of your guy's rhythm, after all.

Owari