Terezi can smell Dave's tenseness as he enters her room. She smiles kindly in his general direction, but he doesn't respond. This is a surprise. He's always been unfailingly kind to her, and they've only grown closer recently. Especially since her declaration of flushed feelings in the halls a week ago.
She frowns and turns towards her cocoon, where he is sitting. "Dave, what's wrong?"
The kid doesn't say anything for a few moments. There's a certain scent on the air that makes the hair on the back of Terezi's neck stand on end, but she can't place it at the moment.
"Have you used your weird Mindy powers to look at… you know… us?" he asks eventually, almost nervously.
She has. "There are a lot of… outcomes," she replies carefully.
"Give me one."
"Umm…" Terezi tries to think of a suitably happy ending. "We're together for maybe half a sweep before we both decide to end it. For certain reasons."
"Sounds shitty. Another one."
Terezi recalls another timeline that might make Dave happy. "You leave me for the other human when we meet up with them." Personally, she hates it.
"Which other human?" He sounds moderately interested.
"The John human." It comes off angrier than she'd intended, and Terezi sniffs briefly in his direction. But no, he's smiling. She sighs and grabs Pyralspite from her desk, burrowing her face in his soft white-scented horns.
She's thinking of maybe going online to see if anybody's there to talk to—not Karkat, all he's been doing lately is whining—when Dave speaks again.
"Wanna hear another outcome?"
"How'd you get it?" she asks in some surprise. "Alternate universe time-traveler?"
"Yeah."
Terezi has nothing better to do, so she shrugs and nods.
"Alright." There's that familiar smell again, strong and rusty and red. Or maybe it's been there all along… "You're not Karkat's girlfriend or whatever anymore, so all he can do is sit in his room and have angsty chats with his past and future selves." He pauses, and Terezi gets a sense that he's looking pointedly at her. Then his voice goes flat. "He eventually kills himself."
Terezi feels as though her chest has been filled with stuffing. She clutches Pyralspite, unable to speak.
"Without his friend, Gamzee—that's his name, right? The insane juggalo one? —flips out again. He kills everyone except for Rose and me." He stops to take a breath. "Rose goes grimdark again, because he killed Kanaya. She goes after Gamzee."
Dave pauses, as if waiting for Terezi to say something. She bites her lip, thinking.
"Just or heroic?" she finally asks weakly.
"I don't know. Just, maybe. She was grimdark."
Terezi leans back, allowing everything to sink in. "Jegus," she hisses softly.
"Yeah."
The dead silence stretches on. "Guess I'd better go see Karkat," Terezi murmurs eventually.
"No shit," Dave says, and she narrows her eyes at the speed of his muttered response. "What?"
"Dave… Are you sure you'd be okay with that?"
"Yeah." He shrugs, and his voice falls to a mumble as he looks at his feet. "I mean, I always saw you as more of a friend anyways…"
"Dave." He looks up quickly at the quiet snarl. "Are you sure you got this timeline right?"
Terezi hears Dave mutter something and collapse back on the cocoon. "What did you say?"
"Shit," he says.
"Hey! Answer me! Are you sure?"
Dave snaps. "Damnit, I am sure! You think I didn't just hold my own dying body and listen to myself tell the story of how everyone died as a result of my—his—your—our stupidity? Can you see the fucking blood on my hands? Oh, right, you can't," he finishes snidely. "Blind girl. Then smell it."
To her dismay, she can. It's stronger than ever, and is chokingly crimson. Terezi grinds her teeth, refusing to believe him, and snarls, "I can't believe you'd go to this level just to break up with me!"
"Exactly, I wouldn't! This kind of horseshit is your and John's domain," he spits, and then stops. "Oh Gog, this is turning out just like that time you killed him. Shit… Can't you just go and talk to Karkat? Please?"
Terezi pouts. "He's being Mr. Grumpypants today, and yesterday, and every day before that! I don't want to talk to him…"
"Well, maybe that's because you're not. Talking to him." Dave scowls at her. "Seriously, think about what you're doing. Of course he's gonna be bitchy; his girlfriend just left him for a worthless human piece of shit." His voice is shaking with sincerity and rage.
Terezi frowned sadly, and opens her mouth to say something, but Dave speaks up. "Karkat's your leader. He cares about you," he mutters, his voice muffled by his arms. "He's worth more than me."
She stands there for a few moments, unable to speak, and leaves so he can't see her tears.
Karkat stares at the blank screen. He considers trolling Terezi or something, but doesn't. She's probably having sloppy makeouts with Dave right now, he thinks angrily.
He has just finished talking to his past self on a memo. "Jegus," he mutters. "I am such a horrible, fucked-up idiot." I want to kill myself.
The thought, familiar, now is an even more compelling idea. He glances towards the corner—his old sickle, his cocoon… a bit of rope. It's like paradox space has it all ready for me. How nice.
The door opens.
Karkat sits back down and glares at the entering troll. His glare is short-lived, however, and dissolves in her mocking, toothy smile.
"Hey Karkat," she says, almost weakly.
"Where's Strider?" he asks suspiciously. It must be some kind of manipulation, a trick to see how he's going to react.
Terezi comes to stand beside him. "Oh, I don't know. In my room. Staring at the blood on his hands…" She leans to examine the screen, and gasps a little in happiness. "Oh!"
"What? Hey, don't lick it, you freak."
"You're typing! You're typing in candy-red!" She wriggles a little in a happy dance, and then grabs Karkat for a hug. "I'm so proud of you!"
He collapses into her arms, half-losing himself in her warmth and scent of trees and teal blood. "I missed you," he mumbles before he can stop himself.
"I missed you too," she says, and is surprised to find that she means it.
Basically, my reason for this fic is to explain just why Dave/Terezi does not work. It is not meant to be anything much more than that. (For chronology, this was finished just after the update in which Karkat and himself start talking about their feelings, and FCG starts keysmashing.)