When you first meet Dave Strider, he's a drowning man.
When you first meet him, you can't see that, can't see past his devil-may-care attitude that somehow charmed you all the more for its vulgarity.
And somehow, he's so close, yet somehow intangible.
It isn't long before you realize that something's missing. Shattered.
When you first meet Dave you're a dreamer, caught up in the now, never seeing the full picture.
You're made out of stardust and they can't catch you.
It isn't until one night, laying beside Dave under the night sky (although you're not watching anything but Dave; somehow, the dim light casts dark circles under his eyes, makes him look older than any child should look) he asks you what you're running from.
Something breaks.
Or maybe it was already broken, but you never noticed.
Never wanted to notice.
And the words fly out like birds with clipped wings, and they're not for Dave, they're things that should remain locked away.
You resent him for asking.
And yet they don't come out at all, just hang in the air, which is filled with the doubt of children led astray in life.
Dave understands all the words left unsaid, as you look at him with vulnerable eyes.
'I have a few skeletons in my closet,' you mumble.
And you're supposed to be the dreamer, old enough to know better but too young to care.
You were always the optimist.
(He was the pessimist, preparing for the worst so it hurt less when it came. What kind of life is that, you wanted to ask, existing without hope to keep you afloat when the world's crumbling around you?
…You never did.)
You don't tell him about how life is beautiful, the kind of beautiful that's deadly, because you can never quite hold on to it. Time slips through your fingers, and soon enough it's gone, leaving you with only Dave to hold on to.
Life is so beautiful it hurts, and yet you can't capture it. Not in drawings, not in writing, and not in photographs.
You can't capture the way Dave's forehead creases when he's worried, or his lips pinch together. You can't hold on to his smiles, or quiet, breathy chuckles (he keeps those just for you).
Because if you do, it'll all fall apart like the broken wings of butterflies caught by naive children.
And Dave doesn't tell you of how he never fit in.
He's the shattered shards of something beautiful, thrown away because no one thinks it's worth enough to fix.
He's the bird with broken wings that no one cares enough to save, and all you can do is stay with him.
('I need you,' you say, but he just shakes his head and looks at you. He doesn't need to say the words; they're implied.
'…Liar.'.
And he hides behind shades so no one can see his too-expressive, tragic red eyes, (when you first see them, you wonder if the saying 'the eyes are the window to the soul' was meant just for him) and he hides behind his irony so no one can get close to him.
('Too late.' Dave would say, his lips half smirk, half sad smile.)
And so you reach for his hand because you'd both fall apart without this.
When he kisses you, it's like your lips are his air. He's starving for love, while you're afraid of it.
(What can't come near you can't hurt you. You're stardust… And yet you can't run this time.
…If you're stardust, he's cobwebs. He'll crumble if you leave him alone.)
It's too much, and you want to fight but you can't.
All you can do is trust.
'Love is blind." Dave murmurs.
At night, he'll hold you close and whisper nothings you your ear.
You think maybe, even though you're shattered, you could get used to this.
('I love you more.'
'…Liar.')