A/N: Quick updates are always nice, right? Hopefully after I finish this fic I can get that damn MeuLoz finished.
Chapter 2! I don't even know what's happening here. Enjoy anyway~
Homestuck belongs to Uncle Huss
Days and days and days go by. You can't control when he comes and when he goes but Dave Strider has sufficiently thrust his way into your life. He's everywhere with you on some days. The coffee shop, the library, the clothing store, the place you buy your glasses because you always seem to get them broken. The two of you never seem to stop talking, him because he just doesn't, you because you're embarrassed by a good chunk of what he says to you and you really don't want to show him that what he says gets to you. Your friend Gamzee tells you he probably doesn't mean it the way you think. You're almost completely certain he's still getting his kicks, making fun of you silently behind your back, plotting something malicious.
The problem with that is, Dave only treats you like a friend, or the way you think a guy like him would treat a friend. He's not embarrassed by you. And maybe that's because he enjoys your humiliation. That ignorant fuck, he'd probably do that, too.
You feel like the ugly little new girl in every romcom you've ever seen, except in the movies, the girl gets the guy.
At the moment in which you make that analogy, you are standing alone in the line for the coffee shop, burying your chin in the neck of your sweater. It makes you pause. It makes you look back on things. It makes you wonder what the actual fuck is possibly wrong with you, how can you think that? Not Dave Strider. You'd rather fall for anyone but Dave Strider.
This is the worst possible scenario you've ever come up with.
And who should appear in the next moment but the aforementioned ass hole! Today is really not your day, and you grumble about it to yourself, subconsciously fixing your hair as he walks—strides—towards you.
"What the fuck do you want, Strider," you snap before he has a chance to say anything.
He stops where he is, evidently raising an eyebrow at the man in front of you in line, who appears put off by your vulgarity. "Just wanted to come say hey to my favorite bro," he says, that blasted mysterious voice doing nothing for your nerves.
You manage to snort through the confusion anyway. "Ha! Best bro, what a laugh. Go pester some other undesirable for a change, stupid mutt, I'm sick of you following me around all the damn time."
The idiot with the shades just chuckles at you. "Did you just call me a mutt?" he teased. "Wow, Karkitty, I had no idea."
"F-fuck you!" you scream, very loudly, and you retract back into your sweater as the entire coffee shop turns to glare at you. "I didn't mean it that way, you dicklicking dunderfuck." You decide saying anything else is just going to get you into deeper shit than calling your nemesis-crush-buddy-guy a dog. A dog, Karkat? Seriously? He could have taken that two ways and just because he's Dave he chose to take it the completely wrong way, even though neither way was really right anyhow and wow you're getting a headache.
Fuck Dave Strider. Just, fuck that guy.
BUT NOT LITERALLY FUCKING DAMMIT!
So you sulk. You sulk in line and you grumble your order to the barista and you stay silent as the grave while Dave rambles on about shit you don't even bother to pretend you care about. God you wish you could just tell him off, but every time you try, he just doesn't seem to get it. He always comes back, and you are just so brilliantly fucked that it isn't even pretty anymore.
Okay. It's time to slow down, Karkat. Live in the moment. Right now, Dave is looking at you from behind his shades. He's smirking at you. "It's the middle of Spring, Vantas," he's teasing. "You look like you're from the Amazon and you're all bundled up because 63 is cold compared to down there. You're like a tropical Eskimo man. And I guess that makes me your sled team. Considering I'm a dog and all. Woof."
"Mush," you utter after a slow sip of coffee. You try to keep your face indifferent and your voice as stoic as his usually is.
His grin grows wider; you've never really played along with his dumbass metaphors before, so this is like his fucking birthday or something. Similarly, he's never smiled like that before. In fact you don't think you've ever seen him smile at all for anything. It's…kind of nice. Makes him seem like less of the enormous jerk you know he really is.
Your eyes are locked for a moment—well you choose to believe they are, I mean you can see them gleaming behind his shades, if only very vaguely—before you decide it's gone far enough. Nobody knows what's gone through your mind in that short amount of time. Not even you. You push your glasses up the bridge of your nose and take another sip of coffee.
And that's that moment. Everything else after that is a blur until you arrive back at your house two hours later with a boner and some shitty record the bastard in the red hoodie lent you. You're not going to listen to it. Hell no. No fucking way. Not a bit.
Well…maybe a little.
Later. Because the moment you walk in the door you're barreled into by a short, kind of chubby, relatively mental man. You have almost no time to react before the breath is knocked out of you and your side collides with the floor in an extremely painful manner.
"Dammit, Deuce!" you curse, gripping your shoulder and letting a string of expletives fly from your mouth. It isn't like you're not used to it, but you sure do wish you didn't have to deal with it here.
And you broke another pair of glasses.
"Sorry, sorry, Karkat!" the old man apologizes, bustling around trying to set you upright again.
"Stop whining, Deuce, he's fine," your foster father grumps, walking into the room, tossing an 8 ball in the air. "Get off yer ass, kid, you ain't hurt."
"Fuck you, Slick!" you growl. "Fuck you and your stupid henchmen! God DAMMIT I was hoping to not have to DEAL with broken BONES every week again!"
"Suck it up, kid, broken bones make ya tough," your foster dad says. His buddy Deuce is still worrying all over you, making sure you're okay to stand and such as that. You're fine, you think. Dave's record is laying on the ground, though, and you're kind of afraid that you broke it.
"What's this?" Slick asks, picking it up and turning it over in his hands.
You bristle like a cat queen whose litter is being threatened. "Give that back!" you screech, pouncing on your foster dad's back like the feline you've always tried not to be seen as.
Slick is surprised by your sudden energy—you're excitable, but he's never seen you like this before. "Okay, okay, kid, easy there!" He coaxes you off of his back with the record. You snatch it, thankful to have it back in your grasp, and bolt upstairs, hoping to hell and beyond that Slick didn't feel your issue in that single tiny little moment.