It's usually quite quiet in the dream bubbles. The glossy sheen of the outside visible only if you stare hard enough, any sound echoing only faintly, but audible to anyone who stops and listens. There's no real wind for sound to carry on, but the false wind pretends to, making believing ears notice sounds they cannot see the source of.
But not today.
Today, there is yelling within the dream bubbles.
And it's coming from you, you inconsiderate bastard.
"Strider! Slow down!" You yell angrily, your voice bouncing off the rocks around you as you practically jog to catch up with the smug asshole walking away from you at great speed.
Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you are so very, very done with dream bubbles.
"Karkat come on I wanna see what's over that hill before the bubble changes again." Dave calls back, slowing down only slightly to allow you to catch up. Humans' growth spurts happen suddenly, unfortunately, leaving your small-for-a-troll body running to keep up with him. Just a few more sweeps and you'll be his height again.
You struggle onwards, pushing yourself after Dave, only really following him because- no. No, you can't make excuses, you want to hang out with him. He's the only one worth hanging out with these days. You close your eyes, ignoring the lights of strain that dance behind them and the burning of the air in your lungs. You've been running after this asshole for too long.
You stop abruptly as your face collides with Dave's cape and back, causing you to stumble slightly to regain balance. You only grab for the material momentarily, and only out of blind panic.
"Hey douchecanoe, what the fuck was tha-"
You glare indignantly as a hand slaps itself over your mouth, Dave's right arm holding your shoulders from behind as his left hand silences you. You're trapped, only able to pretend to burn holes in his face with your eyes. "Karkat shut up and look over there."
You look to where Dave is staring, to two figures of brown and red sat on one of many rocks in the near distance. If he wasn't holding your mouth shut, it would have dropped open at the sight. You were sure this dream bubble was empty, or you would have seen someone already. You've been walking for hours.
Dave takes his hand from your face and starts turning around, but you grab his arm.
"Karkat no come on," Dave starts, his voice quiet as he pulls against your grip. You tighten your claws on the red fabric, threatening to tear it, "I have seen enough dead Daves I don't think he'll exactly want to chat."
"That's both of us down there you massive shit." You say clearly, your eyes locking onto where you think his eyes are looking, beneath his shades.
"I would have though you'd be the last person willing to talk to yourself." Dave observes, mouth screwing up on one side in confusion. You roll your eyes.
"I'm just saying it would be worth finding out what went wrong for them."
"And why the fuck I'm still hanging out with you even in other timelines?" Dave grins. You let go of his sleeve to punch him lightly, already turning to head down to the two figures sat on the rock.
As you approach, Dave slowing down now to let you stay caught up with him, the two figures don't even bother looking up. They're sat close, facing eachother with crossed legs, talking quietly. Every now and then the-other-Dave will reach up and shove at the-other-Karkat's shoulder, before the-other-Karkat would resume his tirade of talking animatedly. One thing you do notice during this interaction is how much older the two of them are compared to you. You can tell from this far away that the other you is tall. You pretend you're not nervous, biting your lower lip lightly as you approach them.
"Hey!" Dave calls out, hands stuffed in his pockets, probably so he doesn't wave by accident. You've both got to be your best selves for this. These guys are you, sure, but they're also really not and they need to know that.
The other Dave looks up first, smiling lightly and shoving at the other you, who abruptly stops talking and looks over, also smiling. You've never seen yourself smile before, and Dave gasps dramatically in your direction, just quietly enough that they wouldn't have heard. You scowl at him.
"Sup." The other Dave calls out as you find yourselves a few metres away from them, you notice his glasses are cracked, "You must be alpha-timeline-us."
"That'd be a correct assumption." Dave confirms, projecting nothing but confidence towards them. You pretend you're not panicking as you look between the much older versions of yourselves as they turn to face you properly - the other Dave sliding down to the ground as the other you just turns around on the rock, dangling his long legs over the edge and leaning forwards on his arms. You feel a pang of envy towards him, but brush it off.
"How old are you two at the moment?" other-Dave asks.
"15." Dave responds, the other him nods.
"7." You say. The other you smiles.
"What about you guys?" Dave asks, evidently not happy with being asked a question that wasn't mutual.
"19." the other Dave says, tilting his chin up slightly.
"9." the other you says proudly, stretching out his limbs a little, "No god tier." he observes, directing the more-of-a-statement-than-a question right at you and still smiling a little, as if lost in a fond memory. His voice is deeper than yours, and seems to have adopted a slight hint of Dave's accent. It's weird.
"Guess not." a shrug and a slight step behind the tall blonde beside you. He pretends not to notice.
"Come on babe you're scaring the kid." the other Dave says, and the real Dave and you both look at eachother briefly, eyes wide, before looking back to the pair. The other you is rolling his glassy eyes in a way not unlike your own. You remember why you've never spoken to yourself in these bubbles before. Talk about uncanny valley.
"Sorry did you just call him babe?" Dave asks bravely, causing the pair to look at eachother, evidently confused, before looking at you and Dave in turn.
"Did you just actually ask that?" the other you asks, clearly very confused.
"Are you guys...?" Dave asks, stepping back minutely. You wouldn't have noticed if the movement hadn't caused his cape to brush your face.
"Are you guys not?" The other Dave asks, switching from confused to amused, making a point of standing infront of the other you, leaning back to rest his back on the rock between other-you's knees. He seems smug, but still unsure, as if he's forgotten how exactly to 'Dave'.
"Wow I was not expecting this. This is basically as uncomfortable as it gets." Dave says, and you move away from him a little, hoping nobody notices. You're a little hurt by the statement, but you say nothing.
"If you'd been through what we'd been through you'd get it." The other Dave says, his voice hardening slightly. The other you says nothing, dead eyes glowing slightly where the red would have been if he were alive.
"Excuse me?" Dave starts up angrily, "We've been through a whole fucking lot already, I don't know where you come off getting all judgemental and dickish-"
"I wouldn't." The other you says quietly. Too late, though. The swords are out already and metal clashes loudly against metal.
You move out of the way, towards the rocks, as the blade of Dave's - one of the Daves' - Caledscratch smashes down on the ground beside you.
"Don't aim for him you absolute douchebag!" Dave yells, and you know that's the alpha Dave purely from the pitch and pure indignation in his voice. You try and scramble up onto the rock, finding yourself being helped by yourself. You can already tell this shit is going to give you a headache.
"Yeah best to stay up here for a while." The other you says, glaring down at his own Dave momentarily, "They won't hurt eachother though, it's just exercise. He does this with the other failed-timeline Daves, too. They usually give up after a few minutes."
"You haven't met this Dave." You say quietly, already envisioning hours of being sat up here, unable to step down for fear of accidental decapitation. You know alpha Dave would know to avoid you, but you don't know this other Dave.
"You mean your Dave." He corrects you, and you glare in response. He laughs. "Seriously though, why not in your timeline? I mean me and Dave had pretty intense circumstances but we're all still the same people, right? Capable of the same feelings?"
"I guess. I just- What even is it with him?" You ask, still fairly intimidated by the tall, dead-eyed version of yourself. You thought the flecks of colour in your eyes was obvious, you never expected them to get so bright they could almost shine through death itself. You can clearly see where the coloured ring is, under the milky white of the afterlife. You wonder if dead Dave's eyes do it, too.
"What do you mean?"
You shrug, "Like, red or black?"
He laughs, then, an abrupt sort of laugh, to judge if you're serious or not. When you don't laugh too, he stops, looking at you weirdly, "You're kidding, right? You're still following those stupid guidelines? What the fuck, man, I knew young me was stupid, but jesus christ..."
You growl, then, loudly enough for alpha Dave to glance up and almost get hit. You try not to wince at the almost-contact, "So what, when I get older I get soft and forget I'm even a troll?"
"No. You realise some things are worth breaking a few rules for. Your Dave clearly cares about you enough to look up here to check I'm not fucking with you."
He points towards the minature war breaking out on the ground below, the soft shimmer of the bubble's outside casting weird lights over the floor. You follow his direction, focusing on the movements of the two Daves, moving seamlessly together, countering and blocking in perfect rhythm.
"He'll stumble in a minute, because he's usually finished by now. Your Dave will have an opening and probably not take it, because he respects my Dave too much to even pretend to hurt him."
"Oh yeah and how do you know that?" You ask, pride speaking over your feelings of agreement.
"Because I know Dave. There." He nods. Other Dave stumble slightly, tired arm raising too slowly. Alpha Dave backs off, raising his sword to block instead of taking the shot.
"What's your point?" You ask, watching the fight resume.
"You knew I was right. You know him. Maybe not like I do, but we have different Daves. Yours might turn out differently, for all I know. But I know how I felt when I was your age. I didn't know how to place it until about a sweep ago back in my timeline, but it was there."
You shake your head, watching the fight intently. The way Dave bends back to avoid the blade of his older self, sidestepping effortlessly, his eyes never straying from his opponent, always alert. You look at the older Dave, the sight saddening you slightly. You find yourself feeling as if you'd had a surprise taken from you. You know what he's going to look like, now - what you're going to look like. Your fascination at watching the human grow up has been essentially spoiled by a chance meeting in a dream bubble.
"God, I'd forgotten how fucking broody I was."
You glare to the side, seeing yourself smirking in a near-perfect imitation of Dave. It's too weird, you can't handle it.
"Karkat!" Your gaze snaps up and over to Dave, who's fighting with the sword in one hand as he attempts to remove his cape with the other. You lean upwards, showing you've heard him as he dodges the next swing and leans back to throw his cape to you. You reach out over the edge of the rock and catch the heavy material, instinctively snuggling back into it as you sit back down and hear the other you laugh a little as your wrap the material around yourself.
"So what, you learnt the ways of human courtship and now you're so much fucking better than me?" You ask, only glancing at the figure beside you, wrapped in his own god tier outfit. Your god tier outfit.
"No. I thought it was pity at first, because the two of us pretty much watched everyone fucking die and that was awful. He was a mess. We both were. But we managed, and we fought and bitched at eachother and I'm pretty sure I bit him a couple times, and that was just in the first week of it being just us. Just under two long sweeps we lasted. I watched him die, just temporarily, and I realised it could have been blackrom, because he annoyed the shit out of me but I tore those fucking creatures apart for what they did to him. But I couldn't hate him. Not after everything he'd done."
"So it was pity?" You try, still not getting it.
"No." He closes his eyes, clearly annoyed at how stupid you're being. You just want to be on even ground, here, you hate not understanding. "I couldn't pity him, because he wasn't pitiful. He was sad, but strong; he cried, but only when he let himself. He isn't pitiful."
You look out to the pair again, Dave moving even easier now without his cape weighing him down. You think you can see them talking, but you're not sure.
"I wonder what they're talking about." The other you says, and you close your eyes tightly because seriously, fuck hanging out with yourself, it's not even kind of normal.
"Probably the same shit we're talking about. Dave's a nosy little asshole so he's probably completely interested in whatever you guys have going on."
"Yeah probably." The other you says, and goddamn if you're not about to hit him right in his calm stupid face.
You watch them fight, the precision and technique matched almost exactly. The other Dave seems to be swinging a little harder than Alpha Dave, he's more sure of his movements but yo- iAlpha/i Dave isn't slowing. You know he won't, you've trained with him before back on the meteor, hours and hours of sickle against sword until you finally passed out from exhaustion.
"There's time, you know."
You look up at the other you, the dim eyes patronising and awful to look at.
"The fuck are you talking about?" You ask, voice nasally and high in comparison to his.
"Time to figure out what you want and how to get it. You don't want to have to wait almost two sweeps just to figure out how you feel."
You ignore him, turning your gaze back to the fight, both swords clashing lazily now. You know you won't have to wait much longer before you all regroup. You still flinch every time the other Dave comes too close or a block is a fraction too slow.
"What was it like, watching him die?" You ask seriously, looking up at your older self. A different Karkat from a different timeline, but still very much you.
"It was the worst thing I've ever experienced, and I hope to whatever gods are out there that you never have to go through it." He says sadly, shaking his head and looking towards his own Dave with such painful longing that it even starts to hurt you.
"How did it happen?" You don't know why you're asking, you know you're going to picture it and it'll be the worst thing but you can't help yourself, "Sorry if that was insensitive..."
"Nah it's fine." He says, the Dave-esque accent coming back to his speech. You like it. You hope that happens to you. "It was his consorts. After we all lost they kind of... transformed? I still don't know what were imps and what were the nakkodiles, but we found the village and they just turned on him. They..." He pauses, breathing deeply, "They tore at him in ways I didn't even know creatures could tear. Human skin is so frail, so thin and... he was barely recognisable when they were done, and they were barely recognisable once I was done with them."
"Were you scared?"
"More than I'd ever been before." He admits, smiling again, "But then he was there at the edge of the forest, and I wasn't alone anymore. He hadn't left me."
You just nod, wondering what you'd do if Alpha Dave was killed. You'd be scared, too. He's the only one you can talk to for long periods of time without wanting to cut your own head off and use it as a load gaper, but more than that he's your bro and you care about him.
The fighting stops abruptly, then, the two Daves moving closer to speak and lowering their blades. The other you shifts a little towards the edge of the rock, probably trying to guess what they're saying, but the false breeze doesn't bring their words to you and you've never been good at lip reading.
They start to head back over, then, and you wrap the cape around your shoulders a little tighter as you slide down to the floor. The other Dave jumps up to take your place on the rock as you almost rush over to Alpha Dave, covered in a few more cuts and bruises than before, ones you couldn't see happening from far away.
"You alright?" Both you and your other self ask your respective timelined Daves, and both of them laugh the same laugh in different pitches, and your thinkpan does a full 180 trying to keep up with it.
You turn back around to the pair on the rocks, standing a little in front of Alpha Dave as you do. He seems not to notice though, just standing close enough behind your right shoulder that you know he's there. As you look up, the bubble starts to shift again and the pait slide off the rock in preparation for whatever the dream bubbles are going to throw at your small group.
"There any chance of this turning south?" Alpha Dave asks, resting a hand on your shoulder where the cape is covering you. You release it and let him put it back on, the bubble seeming to have a hard time deciding whose memory to go for before it shifts entirely to a scene of red and pure, dry heat.
"Is this LOHAC?" Dave asks, then, as the other two look at eachother in alarm.
"Is this yours or mine?!" The other Dave asks, then, as the bubble finally settles.
"How the fuck am I supposed to know that?" Dave asks, but then you see them and you don't even have to bother asking whose land this is because those beasts are horrendous and fast and coming right for you.
The other two jump up into the air straight away, but you can't fly and you're panicking and they're getting closer - running through the thin line of trees and overgrown flora. The other two are yelling at you both from the air but you can barely hear them. You look to Dave, who looks back at you and then at the creatures in a moment of blind panic before grabbing you and flying upwards, supporting you with one arm around your back and the other on your shoulder. You hate not being able to fly. It is literally the worst thing about being one of the only ones not to go God Tier.
"Are those the nakkodiles?" Dave asks the other Dave, who just nods and shrugs, unwilling to talk about it.
You look down at the swarm of creatures, your arms wrapped tightly around Dave's mid-section as they jump and bite towards their two main targets. The looks on their monstrous faces betrayed, hurt, angry and unnaturally hungry.
"Karkat why don't you do the thing? Flying up here isn't exactly practical..." The other Dave says to the other you.
"I don't know if it'll work on dream projections, it's best to just find somewhere to hide out until the bubble changes or these two wake up..."
"You alright?" Dave asks you, then, still staring at the creatures below you. If you weren't relying so heavily on him to keep you alive right now you'd loosen up your grip and back off a little but you can't, so you stay awkwardly suspended next-to-but-facing him in the air at chest height and pretend you're not dangling metres off the ground. You just nod a little, your left horn bumping his chest. He tightens his grip a little as you start to slip, and you resist the urge to hook your leg around his for extra support because you do not need the other two staring at you any more than they already are.
"Guys," the other you calls out, "if you could go ahead and start thinking of nicer places to be, that'd be fucking fantastic. Apparently neither of us can be trusted with the dream bubbles anymore."
"Well we're not going to my land or Alternia and those are literally the only places I could send us, so over to you." You say to Dave, anger at being told what to do slowly rising to the surface, "Maybe you could just drop me down there while you magically transport us to some other place using only your fucking hope and wishes to guide you. I'll hang out down there with them while I wait! Maybe share a cold drink or two while we get to know eachothers' internal organs!"
"Don't be an asshole to me just because you're being an asshole to yourself." Dave warns, "Now come on maybe we can get this to shift back to the meteor? Those guys seem to think we're asleep for this so we might as well try and explain how we're not."
You nod, then, causing yourself to slip a little further down very suddenly - not enough to make a huge difference but enough for Dave to swear and you to cling a little tighter. You feel him lift you slightly but you can tell this is a strain. The other two are talking a little further away so you just close your eyes and try and remember the meteor, every little hallway and transportaliser, the doors that serve little purpose other than to tell you that there should have been a room there but there are other ways in anyway.
"Guys I don't think it's working, come on and follow us." The other Dave calls out, already heading off in the other direction with the other you.
"Don't-" You start to say as Dave moves and you feel yourself slip lower. He stops, glancing towards the others as he lifts you up further and you can grab his shoulder as he practically swings you onto his back instead. It's not the best position you'd have wanted to be in, but it's better than falling.
They lead you to what you assume was their hideout while on the planet - a small cave opening a good way off the main ground, but not far from the village. Dave's back is warm, and his hands are hooked beneath your knees supporting you, and in any other context you could probably have fallen asleep with your face buried in the warm cape.
"No place like home." The other Dave says as you all land in the cave, you scrambling down from Dave's back faster than necessary and straightening out your clothes. He gives you a weird look but you don't say anything.
"We don't have long left in this bubble." Dave says then, more to you than anyone else present.
"How do you-" You start, before cutting yourself off because obviously time shenanigans. Dave just nods and goes to sit down by the entrance to the cave, looking out at the alternate version of his own game world. You figure it must be weird for him seeing something both his and not his own. You're starting to feel that looking at the other you present. Dave's used to other Daves - you, however, are used to avoiding talking to other versions of yourself any time you see one.
You want to go sit with him but the other two are talking together and glancing to you and Dave and you really think you need to know what they're saying.
"-least there's no chance of them actually coming into danger if they get up here so we might as well stay." Other-you says, shrugging and sitting down on one of the rocks.
"Yeah if they die here they just wake up so I guess-"
"No." You say then, loudly enough for them to hear you. The other you goes to question you but you continue, "If we die in here, we idie/i, we're not asleep, we're on a meteor hurtling through space that just so happened to pass through this bubble."
The other you looks uncomfortable, the other Dave goes to talk to your Dave at the cave entrance.
"What did he mean when he told you to 'do the thing'?" You ask, walking over to your other self, "Back out there?"
"My- our god tier power. It's nothing too impressive." He shrugs, as if the fact the other Dave had turned to him for help for this apparently unimpressive power meant nothing, "Something about uniting groups against a common cause and manipulating the group dynamic. Spoke with a few other god tier usses about it."
You bite your lip so hard it cuts it, and you're about to start a rant about how you'd been uniting people since the game started and that is a shitty power to give someone, but the bubble begins shifting again and the other Daves are coming over.
"Hold on tight." The other Dave says calmly as the side of the cave weakens in colour and smooths down to show a very familiar corridor.
"That's the meteor." Dave states, "That's not a new bubble, that's our ticket out of here."
You sigh in relief as you start walking towards what you've come to accept as your home, but a hand on your chest stops you. You look up to the eyes of your older dead self, very much like you but more world-weary and battleworn.
"We might not get another chance to speak, so just try not to fuck up too bad because I'd honestly prefer never seeing you in one of these bubbles permanently."
"Thanks that's really supportive." You scoff, begrudgingly accepting the fist-bump the other Dave leans over to offer you before offering the same to your Dave.
"Just stay safe alright guys." The other Dave says, linking hands with the other you as you walk towards the meteor corridor, turning back behind you to see the bubble gone and Dave walking towards you from further down the corridor.
He laughs, looking around, "At least I didn't get stuck in a wall this time, fucking glitchy as shit game graphics."
You say nothing, turning back and walking towards the communal block to rendezvous with the others who, no doubt, have their own thrilling stories to tell. Dave walks close to you, not quite touching but close enough that you can almost feel he's there, he's real, still alive. You walk up the winding stairs slowly, imagining the images the other you had described, Dave dying, torn to shreds...
You bump into something - someione/i and look up, face to face with the felty warmth of Dave's bright red god tier outfit, still dusty from the desert-like wasteland and radiating heat from LOHAC. You look up to his face but he's expressionless, tilting his head slightly towards you from a step above. You don't know when he got infront of you, you were too busy thinking.
He says nothing as he leans down, and you're confused and concerned right up until the point his hand lifts your chin and he kisses you, stepping down to your step and pushing you lightly into the wall so you're not quite leaning on it but there's no chance of you falling down the stairs. He's always been touchy about stair safety.
You kiss him back lightly as he flattens his hand out on your jaw and neck. He doesn't try and kiss you any deeper but you feel every exhale he takes. You don't know what to do with your hands, so you just kind of leave them limply at your side. No sudden movements, you don't want to scare him off.
You're not sure what you feel as he kisses you, but it's definitely not repulsion and that's always a bonus. When he breaks away, stepping back and wiping his thumb across his lower lip, looking at you, you don't want him to go away but you don't know what you ido/i want him to do, so you say nothing and just look at him instead. He smiles.
"Just wanted to see what all the fuss was about." He states simply, turning and walking further up the stairs, only pausing to let you catch up with him.
"...and?" You ask, curiosity getting the better of you.
He smirks, "Ten out of ten, wouldn't kick you out of bed."
You shove him into the railing.