Musickind
A Homestuck Fanfiction
DaveJohn / JohnDave
Chapter Ten
You are Dave Strider and you have come home from an almost 12 hour shift at work today, and you are pooped the fuck out.
"Dave! You're hooooome!" a cheery voice calls out from behind you. Before you could turn around, your fiancée, Jade Harley-Soon-To-Be-Strider, wraps her arms around you from behind.
"Woah, Jade!" you shout, almost hitting your head against the wall. She releases her grip just enough so that you can turn around and give her a quick kiss of the forehead and a pat on the head. "You're home early today."
"Hehe! Well you're home late!" She lets go and gives you one of her (dare you say it?) adorable pouts and puts her hands on her hips. "I came home early to spend time with you! But you ended up coming home later than expected…"
"Sorry," you reply, setting down your belongings on the table. "Did you already eat? It's already pretty late."
"Yeah, I got kinda hungry," Jade replies, looking away, embarrassed. "Sorry I didn't wait for you!"
"Nah, it's fine," you pat her stomach playfully. Being with Jade has made you a bit goofy, but only when you're with her. You're your usual cool self when you're in public. "I already ate on the way home."
"Dave!" she gasps, punching you playfully on the shoulder, trying her best to give you her angriest look. Try as she might, she can hardly look angry. In fact, she looks so much like a constipated blowfish that you can't help but to chuckle. "Don't tell me you ate fast food again!"
"Of course not," you reply, scoffing and flipping your imaginary long hair. "They took forever getting my food to me! They should rename it to slow food."
"I can't believe you, Dave," she sighs, walking away into the kitchen. "I thought you said you'd start eating healthier! I know we can't afford fancy meals, but at least get a salad or something."
"I can't help it; they have free meals for employees," you say, shrugging and crashing on the couch. You're so tired that you forget to take off your shades. You always instinctively put them on, no matter what. They're not for ironic purposes anymore, but for prescriptive purposes. Your slick shades are now prescribed for your eyes, which have been slowly going bad, for reasons unknown. But you haven't mentioned that to anyone, not even Jade. You figured there would be a good time to tell her. Just not now. She doesn't need the extra stress; you got this.
"I'm going to start making your meals from now on," she says from the kitchen. You just wave from the couch, hoping she'd see.
"If you want me to die, sure," you reply. No way in hell were you ever going to eat Jade's cooking ever again. You don't know how the hell she survived on an island eating that shit. She told you that she thought it was just fine and, get this, delicious, but you knew better. You actually ate human food.
"Daaaave!" she whines, coming over to the couch and sitting on the edge. You scoot over enough for her to lie down, which she does. The two of you wrap your arms around each other and she places her head in your chest. "We haven't died yet."
"Yeah, but how many times have we gotten sick?" you retort, rolling your eyes. She squeezes you a little harder.
"Gosh, Dave! You don't even know it's because of my cooking!" Jade gives you a squeak and a humph! and buries her face deeper into your shirt.
"Moving on," you suggest. "How was work for you today?"
"Ummm," she hesitates, trying to think of an answer. "The usual. No progress whatsoever. But then again, there isn't much I can do when I'm researching plants all the time. It's so exciting, watching grass grow."
"I should try it sometime," you smile and give her a nudge, perhaps a little too aggressively, as she almost falls off the couch.
So the two of you lie there, just enjoying your free time and each others' presence, freeing yourselves of the stress you've been having recently. It was good to get some time to relax and just hang with Jade. You've been so busy working lately that you've hardly had time to see her. Sometimes, she even slept at the lab, but she always called in the middle of the night to let you know she was still alive and not blown up or eaten by any mutant plants.
"I think I'll go take a shower now and get ready for bed," you suggest, patting Jade lightly on the head to let her know you're getting up. The two of you are sitting upright when she suddenly stops you.
"Dave," she says, looking down at the ground. "There's… something I've been meaning to tell you for a while now. I've been a bit too scared to, but I think you should know now."
You're looking at her seriously now. She hasn't been this serious since you asked her to move in with you, and to be honest, it's scaring you a bit. You guys haven't…. done it, so she couldn't possibly be pregnant or anything! She took a deep breath.
"I've been lying for a while now," she started. "I don't actually research plants. I am actually part of a team that has been researching a way to travel to the trolls' universe. And my salary isn't as low as I said it was. I actually… make a lot more than that, but I've been using it to fund my research project. I'm so sorry, Dave."
Silence. You're so stunned by this surprising news that you're speechless. Your thoughts aren't even coherent. Jade squirms a little in her seat; the silence was indeed pretty aggravating.
"So, you've lied to me all these years, and you've basically been taking all the money you've earned," you say, slowly and deliberately, piecing the information together. "And poured the majority of it into finding a way into the trolls' universe? Are you fucking kidding me, Jade?"
"I've meant to tell you all this time," she says, voice wavering. She turns to you, and you can see that her lips are quivering and her eyes are shiny and glazed. "I knew you'd act this way, which was why I didn't want to!"
"I wouldn't be acting this way if you had only told me sooner!" You're practically shouting at the top of your lungs now, and you hate it. You hate arguing with Jade, because she is the nicest and sweetest girl and you love her so much. You just love her so much. But this was too much. Way too much to handle. You've worked your ass off all these years, and she had lied about her salary AND research. "Why, Jade? Why did you lie about your research?"
"I…" she hesitates, looking away and hooking her fingers together. She always fidgets when she's hiding something. But what?
"No," you say in disbelief, throwing your hands up in the air, making her flinch. "No, don't tell me. Don't fucking tell me that all this was so that you could meet Karkat again."
"Dave." There she goes again, shoulders hunched. Saying your name like a broken record. How ironic is that?
"Dave!" Jade was pleading you to stop, tears starting to form in her eyes. "I'm sorry! I know I shouldn't have lied. This isn't just about Karkat! It's about building a bridge from our world to theirs. I just-… Don't YOU want to see them again too?"
"No, Jade," you stop her before she could say anymore, holding a hand up. "Don't give me any of that for-the-greater-good bullshit. I've moved on. If anything, they've moved on too. We already decided that we don't want anything to do with each other anymore. And if you're talking about Terezi, nothing happened between the two of us. Nothing. Even if anything did, I would be past that by now. Because I have you, and you have me. At least, I thought I did. I guess I'm not good enough for you anymore."
You couldn't help it anymore. You turn away, unable to meet her gaze anymore. You want to stop saying these horrible things to her, but you can't stop. You don't want to stop.
"Jade," you say, barely able to control your voice. You're not showing weakness now. Not now. "Just get your things and get out. I can't work this hard for the both of us if you obviously don't want to do the same."
"Dave!" She's sobbing now. She's sobbing and your heart is breaking. This is so unbelievably cliché and unironic. Your heart is breaking into a million pieces. You hate yourself for yelling at her. You hate her for lying to you. You hate yourself for kicking her out. You hate her for choosing a troll over you.
So you storm out. You hear her calling for you, but you slam the door shut.
You basically slam the door on the best thing that had ever happened to you in a long time. Now, you've lost that forever. You're pretty sure you would never forgive her.
So you start hating her. It was hard at first, but you convinced yourself she deserved it. You convinced yourself that you were right in what you did. She had loved you, but she had also loved Karkat at the same time. You hated her for a long time.
But then you started to regret that hate. You started to regret kicking her out. You couldn't accept the fact that she was basically gone forever. So you tried to find her, but her team had been good in keeping their research top secret, which explained why there was never any mention of it in the newspapers. Otherwise, that fight might have happened long before, but the outcome may have been a little different.
Then you realize, it probably wouldn't have been any different. You probably would still have lost your cool. You still would have stormed out on her. You still would have kicked her out. You would still be living that day over and over in your head. Just like a broken record.
And then you'd be lonely again. All by yourself.
And now you're suffering all by yourself, living day after day, living paycheck by paycheck. You're all alone. You're not important anymore.
But then something happened a few weeks ago that sparked something inside of you. You were reintroduced to music. You gained a friend. You gained a new light in your life. Someone had given you the breath of life again.
And he's sitting right next to you. You're starting to become overwhelmed with all these feelings. Feelings you haven't felt in a very, very long time. Feelings that you're confused about. Feelings that have plagued you for the past few weeks.
But you can't figure out what they are, and you're not entirely sure you want to. Because you don't want to be hurt again. You don't want to lose someone else again. You don't want to be lonely again. You want to be important. And you want that so much.
"Dave," he says, placing his hand over yours. Gripping it. "Thank you."
"What the hell for?" you laugh dryly. "I'm so glad my pain and suffering has brought you so much joy."
"No, silly!" he says, laughing too. "For sharing this with me. I'll always be here for you, Dave. Always and forever."
Something pulls at your heart and makes it ache. You look away, feeling the ironic tears about to spill.
"God damn it, Egbert, I'm allergic to mush," you say, sniffing dramatically, trying to hide your tears. But it's not working, and you both know it.
And the two of you just sit there for the rest of the night, reflecting on what just passed between the two of you. Time passed by quickly. Much too quick for your liking.
When you wake up, you're admittedly glad to see Egbert's face again. He was still asleep, snoozing peacefully. Your neck hurts from lying on the piano, but you're praying that time would just slow down again. Slow down enough for you to see Egbert's face. You want to memorize that face. The face of your savior.
You want to remember, before the time comes when you will never be able to see that face ever again.