For the first time in three years, Dave Strider felt the entire weight of gravity chain his physical form to the ground. He landed in the all-encompassing white space, hitting the ground hard, John, Jade, and Rose falling in similar fashions around him.
They had lost their final battle.
What were they going to do now?
The plan had been to encounter the young Lord English while he was still in lordling training diapers, hoping to get the jump on him before he could reach the last tier of ultimate douchebaggery and become the unbeatable end game boss.
But it didn't matter.
None of it mattered now.
Dave could feel it in his bones.
Or, more accurately, something in his aspect.
Paradox space had set them up once again. They hadn't retconned into that particular moment to take Lord English out. They had just been pawns, used to facilitate his eventual existence.
And now they were stuck.
He looked around, taking in his surroundings. White walls, way too bright to even think about removing his shades. Looking up was even worse. He didn't even think a shade of white that bright could ever exist. Not even a million advancements in laundering technology could create something that white. Suburban moms would be paying top dollar minus coupon clippings for clothes that clean.
His friends also seemed to be getting their bearings, finally fidgeting and starting to move around. Jade got up and walked a ways off before sitting back down again, her ears drooping downward. Rose remained where she had fallen, pulling her legs to her chest and burying her face in her knees.
John stood up. "What happened? Where are we?" No one answered him. Dave didn't even know if he'd finished processing what had just went down. "Are we in the ultimate weapon? There were whoosh noises and then suddenly we were falling…" He trailed off when no one made a move to reply. His voice came out meek, tentative, "Guys?"
John's eyes went to him, giving him a look, pleading. Dave thought about how hard it must be to be the assumed leader. He sure wasn't fit to play the part, even though John just seemed to fall ass backward into so naturally. Really, his optimism was admirable to some degree.
But in this case, it wasn't appreciated.
"We lost," Rose's tone was monotone and grave, as if she had said her final piece on the matter.
John shook his head. "Come on, Rose! We haven't lost yet! We've still got our ecto-relatives on the other side. They'll come through for us."
"They won't!" Dave had never heard her so emotional, so uncontrolled. Not even when she had been struggling with her drinking did she sound this upset. He was surprised to find that there were sides to his sister he still didn't know. Agitatedly, she whipped around. "Don't you get it? Without your teleporting abilities, they're stranded in that pocket of time and space!" Her anger faded into grief and then quickly settled on guilt. "And we stranded them."
John was persistent in remaining optimistic, "Rose, we'll make it through this. If we can just-"
Rose pushed herself off the ground, "Goddammit, John! Enough! You don't get it and maybe you never will. You were raised with all the care in the world. You were given every sign of affection a caregiver could possibly provide until the game uprooted us, so you don't know what it's like," Her voice cracked, "You don't know what it's like to finally get to meet the person closest to you without the negligence and cloud of gin and derision muddling everything. I finally had her! And now I'll never see her again!"
John looked stricken. Indignation filled his eyes. Then, full on anger. This John was a stranger to Dave too. "I don't know what it's like? I don't know how it feels? I lost someone too, Rose! My dad is dead. I'll never see him again. Not even in ecto-junior form. You don't think I haven't been feeling miserable this entire time too? I'm just trying to put those feelings aside and keep everyone together!"
"Liar," Jade's hushed voice stopped both of them from continuing their argument. She got to her feet now too, turning to project her rage at John. "Liar! You wanted to keep everyone together? How can you even say that with a straight face? You made the choice to leave me on that damned boat for three years by myself. Three years drifting between long periods of nothing but sleep and your Nanna's cakes to try and stop thinking about how I could have prevented you from dying. How can you justify making someone go through that?"
Rose scoffed, "Oh, please, Harley. It's hardly a new concept that you had to spend a few years alone."
Jade growled deep and threatening in her throat. "You don't think that growing up isolated affected me in some way too? I've been alone and having to deal with all this scary bullshit my whole life." She grit her teeth, her fangs now her most prominent facial feature. The fire smoldered out from her eyes. "And now it seems I'm gonna have to do that all again."
Dave didn't say a word.
How could he?
He had no idea what they were going through.
They had lost everything twice.
It was only his first.
Their quarreling only grew louder, reaching the point where words and their speakers were no longer differentiable. He had never grown up in a particularly loud household. This was also something new and frightening.
Something he really didn't want a part in.
"Please stop…" He spoke softly, reserved and monotone, like always.
No one heard or, if they did, they didn't care.
His head pounded and a sickening ache wrenched his gut.
"Please…" He thought of his room. It had been his area of solace, the safest place back on earth, his easy beats drowning out the sounds cars honking outside. Then that led to thoughts of the safest place on the meteor. He thought of Karkat's respiteblock, the voice of a loudly orated story drowning out the distant honking in the vents. Then his thoughts drifted to and landed on
Karkat.
"PLEASE STOP!" He managed to put in all the emotion and volume the troll used when he spoke on the daily.
They stopped bickering, a little stunned at his outburst. Suddenly, he was aware of a few warm trails of tears were running down his face.
When had he started crying?
He didn't like crying in front of anyone.
He also didn't like raising his voice, especially not in front of a crowd.
And suddenly the attention was all on him and how out of character he was.
When had he become this type of person?
When had any of them changed so dramatically?
"You have something to say, Dave? Please enlighten us on how you've suffered the most from all this bullfuckery," Rose's cynicism cut through him, "I'm on the edge of my seat awaiting to record all that needs to be said on how traumatizing you find puppet dong."
He tried to level his voice, "No, I-"
John's eyes widened. "Holy shit. Dave, are you crying?" Something in the way John emphasized that word made it sound more patronizing, like he found the ordeal amusing. Was Dave overthinking things now? Was he being paranoid?
"Spit it out, Dave!" Jade rolled her eyes, finally impatient. When had she lost the silly demeanor that used to relax him even just a little bit? Their online chats of playlist sharing and goofy smiley faces?
Their eyes bored into him, waiting expectantly.
He took a step back.
Where could he run to?
Jade's eyebrows furrowed, face softening a little in guilt. Rose hugging herself, looking guarded and nervous. John took a step forward. "Dave?"
He tried to get something out, anything, "I-"
What did his breathing sound like?
He couldn't hear it over the blood pounding in his ears.
Did it sound normal?
No. He could hear it, although distant.
It sounded ragged, shallow.
His heart was working so fast.
A deep thrumming he felt through his entire body.
There wasn't enough air getting into his lungs.
He was suffocating.
Air. Air. Air.
Not enough space.
Not enough air.
"He's hyperventilating!" Rose, face suddenly clouding with worry, jumped forward.
Everyone was fading, their features gone. Images now hollow black silhouettes against the painfully white backdrop. White backdrop now the bright and scorching Texas summer sky.
Someone was moving towards him.
They were moving so fast.
Were they flashstepping?
His nerves reacted faster than his brain.
Every part of him was alight with the instilled fear.
Bro.
"No!" he put his hands up and dropped down, his knees giving out. The dark figure stopped advancing on him. Its hands went up, palms facing outward, communicating through the gesture that it was not going to touch him.
Rose's soothing but anxious voice started to slowly reach him, "Calm down, Dave. You're okay. Everything is okay. Just breathe. Good. That's good. Keep breathing."
Details were returning little by little. The faces of his concerned friends. Their obnoxiously colored godtier outfits against the white white walls.
He pushed his shades up and wiped away tears to see them better. His heartbeat began to slow, his breathing steadied.
He sat there, out of breath, terrified of his friend's unnerved expressions, absolutely mortified that they had to watch him undergo that experience.
Rose knelt down at least a foot away from him, still cautious about maintaining her distance. "Um... Do you want to tell us what that was about?"
Did he?
Could he?
"I don't think-" He cut himself off to clear his throat, "You probably don't want to hear about what caused that. Don't think about it too much. It was nothing. Just the same kind of bottled up stress you guys were dealing with."
Jade joined Rose and flopped down. "That was hardly nothing. Dave, if there's something bothering you, you can tell us. We're your friends… right?" She didn't sound very sure or convincing, probably still trying to convince herself, after having just declared that she was once more alone. Or maybe he was just that uncomfortable to be around now.
What was he doing?
What had he done?
He had upset them enough to make them question their friendship?
John ambled over and sat down on Rose's left, crisscrossing his legs. "Come on, Dave. We're all ears right now. If you've got something you need to say, we are obligated by the human disease called friendship to listen to it."
Dave actually cracked a smile at that. "I'm gonna tell Karkat you stole his words. He's not gonna to be too happy about that flagrant display of plagiarism. He's gonna get legal on your ass. There will be debriefings and punitive action."
"Will there?" Rose smiled.
They laughed together, John's snicker, Jade's guffawing, and Rose's high-trilled giggle. It felt nice. Like old times. Before the game.
He felt a fluttery feeling in his chest. He could do this. He could tell them. He wanted to tell them.
"Guys, this is gonna sound a little fucked up." He chuckled but a few new tears slid down his cheeks. He looked down so he didn't have to catch their initial reactions. "But… I was abused for the first thirteen years of my life." They were quiet. Another bout of fear was starting to mount. He continued, trying to fill the heavy silence his words had left behind, "And I'm just starting to come to terms with that."
He didn't know what to expect. Pitying stares maybe? A sullen silence or thunderous applause? How was a person supposed to react to that kind of news?
He stopped thinking about it as soon as a pair of arms pulled him into a warm hug. Then he was face deep in the dark tangled web that was Jade's hair. Her voice slipped out gentle and sounding very much like the girl he had known three years prior, "Dave… I'm sorry."
He looked at John and Rose over her shoulder. Rose looked on the verge of tears, but they both smiled at him. It didn't look like they were pitying him or thinking he was weak. In that moment, they just looked relieved to know he was safe with them.
And he loved them for it.
He shakily brought his arms up and returned Jade's hug, burying his face in her shoulder as the waterworks began anew.
The hug ended when he made the move to pull back and when he felt like he'd gotten enough snot on Jade's godtier jams. He sniffled and a small bout of laughter came out, suddenly reminded of something else he needed to get off his chest, "Also, I'm dating Karkat."
There came a chorus of, "What?!"s and "I knew it!"s from them as they began to spring probing questions on him and all at once.
Before he could answer anything more, the space around them rumbled and shook. They gripped each other's hands to anchor themselves in place. Something was happening above them. An outside force entering from above. The white ceiling shifted to reflect the black void of space, a few stars dotting the sky. A large hand crept its way inside. It continued until an entire arm was in sight, the blue of a short sleeve shirt visible on the other side.
"Hey, it's my arm!" John pointed, almost comically, at the giant limb.
The walls of the space around them began to shift too. Stills from things they'd seen on their journey blinking in and out of focus, like their collective lives were flashing before their eyes. In one instance, and much to his chagrin, Dave even fancied he might have seen Nic Cage's grimy, wife beater-wearing mug.
Then the room shook one last time and then the arm shuddered out of existence.
"What the fresh fuck was that?" Jade was gripping his hand a little too tight for it to be comfortable, but he didn't tell her to stop. The fur on her ears was fluffed up and stood on end.
John smiled, seeming happy to know the answer. "Well, I encountered Caliborn's ultimate weapon once before. A pirate ghost Vriska was searching for it to take down Lord English so I sort of tagged along for the dreambubble treasure hunt."
"And you decided it would be a great idea to stick your arm inside something people were calling 'the ultimate weapon'?" Rose sounded impressed with John's lack of caution.
John threw his hands in the air. "Bluh! Well, when you put it that way, it does sound kind of dumb."
"How do they plan on using the ultimate weapon?" Jade's interest looked piqued. "We're already trapped inside. Are they just going to throw Lord English in here too?"
"Well no…" John looked confused. "Vriska was telling me all sorts of stories about it. Caliborn got it for beating his denizen and could only use it once. It's a juju meant to trap just four people in here since it only has four ports. But he can only use it once and so now that it's been used it's his greatest weakness. I would assume our timeline's Vriska also plans to use it to defeat him."
"John…" Rose stood up. A smile crept along her face. "John, I think I know what the ultimate weapon does." She turned to Dave. "And if that was John's arm right now… Dave is it safe to assume that time is moving faster out there than for us in here?"
Dave shrugged. "I mean, by now you guys have probably noticed our powers aren't working in here, but I am still in touch with my aspect, and, being that I am the residential expert on time, I'd say we are definitely traveling at a speed faster than one second per second, if that was indeed John's scrawny chicken arm goin in for the down low just now."
"Hey!" John pouted. "I put on some muscle."
Jade jumped up excitedly. "If Rose is implying what I think she is, then we're all going to be free from here real soon!"
Rose nodded. "We're also going to be facing Lord English as soon as we escape."
Dave smiled. "That's okay." He unsheathed his sword from his strife specibus. "We'll get out of it like we always do."
His friends smiled back at him. He held out his sword.
"Together."
A pair of wands, a hammer, and a rifle all fell onto his blade.
"Together," They replied in unison.