This is really short...less than 1K words, its one-sided DavexDave, and I realize its a pairing that for the most part is used for smut, but this is not smut, just an idea that came into my head while waiting in the bitter cold for the bus.
Hope you guys like it!
Disclaimer: I do not own Homestuck, that overly-complex nonsense belongs to Andrew Hussie.
On a related note, have you yet hear the Word as preached by our lord and Saviour Hussie? No, well, the comic of truth of the only true fandom, the MSPA, states...
Empty Ego
It was his first time making a stable time loop. He had tried doing that for a while, always resulting in straight failure, but he had a game to beat, friends counting on him, and he was determined to succeed. Dave found that admirable. He thought about the innocence of that kid, how he would grow to learn more about loneliness, death, and responsibility in the next three years of his so-called life than he could have ever imagined.
In the beginning, it was just a game. Dave missed the naivety, missed the simplicity, of everything that had been back then. He had promised to never go back, to stop messing with the timeline, but he allowed it. He was a doomed copy anyway. Destined to die somewhere, a pointless existence, courtesy of time's fucked up way of dealing with loops.
He had been here, with the Dave from the beginning of the session, for a while now-almost since he had first entered the session. Never interfering, resigned to only watching until he ran out of borrowed time. The original Dave was interesting. He had a lot of quirks, a view of life quite different from his own. He was younger, obviously, but also more alive. Less muscular, but slender, and yes, more attractive in his own way. The shades younger Dave wore were also exactly but not quite his own. Those shades were newer, shinier, and for as much as Dave had tried his sunglasses had faded, lens still crystal clear but no longer shiny, gold frame almost unnoticably bent and scratched. His personality was less dented, still headstrong, convinced in his ability to finish this, to always know what he was doing, looking forward to a bro-ly wife beater encounter with John.
For a time-weary Dave, this kid was a breath of fresh air.
Which explained why Dave was not at all surprised at first when he noticed he was starting to fall in love with this kid.
No, the nausea, the self-hatred that became a routine part of Dave's life came later, when he realized how fucked up this really was.
He was in love with himself. An ultimate egotism, that made him miserable the more he fell in love.
Not only that, but he was in love with a younger Dave, something borderline pedophilia, borderline incest, something that made Dave's insides twist sickeningly. But he couldn't help it.
Sometimes, he thought Dave could see him. A stupid thought, really, but even after years of experience it's still hard to tell exactly which way a person wearing shades was looking. So he was extra careful. A mess up here would change the alpha timeline, and change the course of everything. Not good.
So as much as Dave wanted to burst from the shadows, hold the younger Dave in his arms, kiss the gentle innocence, protect this kid from the miseries he himself went through, from the responsibilities young Dave would soon have to assume, he couldn't. It was painful, but it had to be done.
In times like these, Dave thought about ways of ending this. He was scared to time travel somewhere else, because of the risk of creating an unstable loop. He thought, while he followed alpha Dave around, and imagined all the possible situations where he could escape to. It was a relief when he finally thought of the answer.
He had to go back to the time when he first thought of going to see younger Dave, and kill himself.
As a Dave, he could truly appreciate the irony going in here. He was doomed to have done this the whole time, it was never even an option. He was doomed to die at his own hands, to prevent the sadness he had caused himself, yet at the same time fulfilling the fate all doomed timelines had to end up at.
By this point, alpha Dave has reached the stock market, and had begun to make the doomed Daves that would help him loot the stock market. Another Dave would not be noticed. This might be his only chance to be noticed. He positioned himself behind a pillar, and waited patiently, holding his breath.
Younger Dave glanced around, admiring his work. At the right moment, they were all going to move their boondollars and blow this economy sky high. All of the Daves were standing around.
Well, except for the Dave behind the pillar.
They met eyes for a moment, a flash something sparking between them. The doomed Dave flashed him a thumbs up. They locked eyes for a moment, before alpha Dave looked away, to give the signal.
Dave turned away from the pillar, from the young Dave crashing the stock market, like he once had. He hoped that that thumbs up would do some good, without messing with the timeline too bad. He flashed away, to do one last deed, and finish this offshoot before it even began.
He reappeared, behind himself, watching himself mull over the decision to go back. He brought out his sword, pulling it back. The other Dave heard the sword unsheath, and turned around.
"You should have never even thought of it." He stabbed, feeling the sword go through the others chest, scraping bone. He felt the pain in his own chest, saw himself dying. He crumpled to the ground.
"F -fuck" He didn't think dying would hurt this much. He felt lighter, almost like his soul was being pulled out of his body. The last edge in his mind dissolved.
Far and a while away, Dave felt a greater appreciation for himself.