For DaveJade Week 2016 - Day 2: Memes.

This takes place in the same universe as a series of oneshots I wrote that you can find on AO3 by the title of Slice of Life Sunday.

You can also find this story on AO3 (my username there is Snowy_the_Sane_Fangirl), Deviantart (SnowytheSaneFangirl), and Tumblr (dog-ears-and-shades).


Dave Strider had a lot of regrets. Some of them were for things he actually remembered doing, some were for things he knew some alternate version of himself had done, and he had been forced to clean up. His regrets were soaked in blood and water, action and inaction, anger and passiveness. He had killed where he shouldn't have, and stopped death where he should have let someone die. In dreams, he sometimes still walked the bubbles and met a doomed version of himself who could never seem to shut up about the mistakes he'd made. Sometimes he found himself in the shoes of one of those Daves, doing things he would never consider doing in waking life. If he dared tell anyone about those dreams they would assure him that they were only dreams, his subconscious manifesting his fears, but it felt so real as he watched his own hands swing a blade, press a button, write a sentence. He felt certain that he was seeing other hims who had not done so well in life as he had managed to, and he regretted it. He regretted ending that conversation, following that advice, setting foot in that room.

But in this moment, Dave knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that no matter how much death and bloodshed his own mistakes had brought about, he did not, nor would he ever regret anything more than he regretted his actions of two days previous. He regretted pressing the enter key, sending the link to an image and the few words "reminds me of you dog girl". It was adorable how Jade still seemed to like every dog-related thing she was sent, even after she'd gotten thousands and thousands from Dave and John, and probably a fair few from Rose. Mostly from Dave, though.

"Much kid, very cool, so Dave. Wow."

"I swear to god, Harley, I will travel back in time and make sure you never hear about memes period, let alone that one. It will be a sad memeless wasteland of a life you'll have led. Grew up on an island with nothing but the internet to entertain? You won't be able to hack the virus that blocks the word "meme" from ever reaching your computer. You won't even know what that shit is. There will be a barrier around your island. No memes allowed. There's a fucking embargo on that shit."

Jade's eyes danced and her ears twitched. "Big pity," she said. "No Dave. Much sad."

"What?" Dave asked. "Seriously, speak some fucking English, Jade. Your prankster's gambit is not getting any bigger."

Jade seemed to consider the request for a moment. "If you make it so I never hear about memes, then we'll never meet," she said.

"We first met on some Pokemon forum," Dave replied. He actually could barely remember that. It was just a fact about Jade he had stored away in his head. They'd both been four years old. He was relatively certain that most people didn't remember the exact circumstances surrounding having met a friend at age four.

"Yeah, on the meme thread! Don't even try to pretend it wasn't you who started the discussion about a hamster dance themed Pokemon."

"I honestly don't remember that, but it sounds like some level-two ironic shit, so I'm gonna go ahead and assume you're right."

Jade shrugged. "I thought it was a good idea. Some other people did too. It spawned three or four fanfics."

Dave shook his head. He still didn't remember it. "Well, maybe I'll leave that one open spot. You know, just so we can meet so I don't don't wind up shoving us all into a doomed timeline or something."

Jade's grin was far too reminiscent of John and Jane's when they were getting an idea someone else would regret. "Oh, and I thought you liked knowing me. You're only dating me. So rude. Much disappoint."

"I used to like knowing you. I'm not going to know you much longer if you drive me fucking insane. Is that what you want? Do you want me running around tearing my hair out and screaming like I'm being murdered? Do you want my dear parents to have to take me off to the loony bin? Is this really all a plot to traumatize Dirk and Roxy? Low, Jade, low."

"No trauma. Much bad. So lol! Meme! Wow."

Dave could only roll his eyes behind the safety of his shades. Maybe Jade wasn't quite as impressed as he thought with the dog-related memes. Either that or she thought it was unbelievably cute. It was probably the latter. Dave wasn't entirely sure Jade had it in her to be that passive aggressive. He was a little annoyed, but he knew there was no harm in it, and Jade would stop when she decided it was necessary. In the meantime, maybe he would try shutting her up with a pillow to the face. He grabbed the one he was leaning against and used it to push Jade over. But he could still hear her, through the muffling of the feathers:

"Pillow. Wow! Much fluff. So fight!" And then she ducked out from under the pillow she was buried under and retaliated with the pillow from the other end of the couch.