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With your headphones around your ears, the song that plays is gentle and lilting. Soft, resemblant of how it feels to have Dave draped against your side with his legs hooked over yours. It’s been over two sweeps since he shared that song with you on the meteor, and after all of the numerous amount of songs and playlists he made for you, it's still your favorite. It should be a crime to be this good at making music, finding a symphonic harmony between steady, rumbling beats and earnest notes that cloud your head with feeling.
It’s a crime to be that amazing, and yet Dave manages to pull it off with no extra charges.
Said musical perpetrator is lightly tickling your side because he wants attention.
You glance down at Dave and immediately feel the blood rush to your face.
Because he's looking at you like you’re the universe. Of fucking course, that isn't true in the slightest, considering you're not a galaxial frog diagnosed with cancer.
But his shades are pushed up into his hair and his eyes are relaxed and just staring at you with this unabashed joy that took him so long to learn how to express, without a fuckton of façadism and emotional constipation between you both.
His eyes are squinted and laughing, and he has a small sliver of a dopey smile that you know is hiding a disgusting case of morning breath.
You love him so much it’s almost overwhelming.
Dave attempts to wink at you with that stupid smile still on his face. He fails, because this loser has no eye coordination and ends up blinking out of sync.
“Wow, a fucking wink. You're so suave Dave, I can feel my bloodpusher vomiting out hearts. They’re pulsating and writhing on the floor, asshole. You have no right to render me useless like this.”
His smile grows even wider. “I could file some paperwork, make me legally capable of winking. It’s a destructive weapon, I know. We gotta be careful, shit like this is catastrophic as fuck.”
He somehow manages to edge even closer to you, “One wink and the ground breaks apart and the crowds keel forward, vulnerable to my wooing. They’re longing to be near the vicinity of such suaveness, powerful as troll Thanos’ snap, more secluded than Alcatraz. They search and wander for the source of power they’ll never find, because it’s stored in only the safest place fathomable to the human imagination.”
He leans in close to your ear, and after years of experience you can tell he’s just waiting to whisper a verbal atrocity.
“...It’s stored in my asshole.”
You shove him off, enough to jostle his arm off your shoulder but not to move him off your lap, because curled up on you like this it looks like he’s shorter than you.
(Dave may be an unfairly half foot taller than you, but fuck it if you aren’t taking every opportunity to act like the taller one. Getting stuff from the tall cupboards, being the big spoon, falling off and being caught when you try and get stuff from the tall cupboards.
It’s been a running joke to tease each other about being short. Dave always wins.)
“Your speaking privileges are revoked, shitbreath. No more asshole talk for you.”
Dave is undeterred, pillowing himself back onto your shoulder.
“Asshole asshole asshole asshole.”
“What? No, stop that.”
“Asshole, asshole. That’s asshole talk for ‘what are you listening to and can I hear it’, asshole.”
Oh, yeah. You still have the song on loop.
Dave can get his own headphones, though. There’s a good reason why you have separate ones.
A reason that involves Roxy, a family scrapbook, and an incredibly embarrassing picture of you and Dave using a large pair of headphones to squish your faces together. And then another picture shortly afterward, with broken headphones and red faces.
“Get your own headphones and plug them in, Dave. Asshole.”
Dave runs his fingers through your hair- your one weakness- and you melt. Fortunately, your resolve still remains strong.
“Aw, come on, Karkat, please? Babe.”
“Babe.”
“Baby.”
You sigh. “Infant.”
Dave’s hands are fully ensnared in your unruly mop of hair. Regretfully, he pulls them away.
“I'm not sure if you understand that babe and infant aren’t synonyms, babe.”
“What? Of course they fucking are, it just depends on the connotation that determines their meaning. For example, I’m calling you an infant because you’re acting like one when I won’t give you my headphones, despite being fully capable of flying a few feet away just to grab them.”
“But I can’t! My ass is permanently glued to your lap. There’s even an indentation in it like a Hollywood star. The hands being my ass and your fucking fantastic lap being the star. Look.”
You peck him on the cheek. “I’m not looking.”
Dave pouts. “Why not?”
“You can’t look at something that never existed.”
He bursts into a laugh, his shoulders shaking and those horrid (beautiful) fucking curls falling in front of his face and obscuring his eyes. He hasn’t cut his hair in a few perigees, and to be honest, neither have you. Dave’s already made too many jokes about being mullet perpetrators.
You brush away Dave’s hair, and he lets out a content sigh. “That’s harsh, dude. I’m calling a divorce.”
“We’re not married yet.”
‘Yet’, because the small band on your finger speaks of a promise.
“I’m calling a future divorce,” Dave raises both of his hands to flick your horns. “And then I’m going to remarry you again, like how it goes in the troll dramas.”
There were never such scenes that happened in troll dramas. He’s just fucking with you.
“It never goes that way in troll movies.”
“What, you don’t remember? There’s totally a ton, you probably just forgot them.”
“Really? Name five.”
Dave hesitates, and there's finally a chance that you finally caught him in his own trick.
“Nah, I’ll do it later.”
“You’re impossible,” you lament.
“Am I?” He retorts.
You’re both impossible.
“I’m impossible.”
“Impossibly fantastic, yeah.”
You groan. “Fuck you. That doesn’t even make sense. I can feel my thinkpan shrinking from participating in this- this fucking incomprehensible drivel, you dumbshit ass-stain.”
It’s so hard , trying to restrain your smile.
While you’re masking your face with a double facepalm combo, Dave smoothly snatches your headphones from around your neck and places it over his ears. You peek through your fingers to see his face shift from curiosity, to surprise, to sweet nostalgia. He looks down to where you’re slowly lowering your hands.
“This is the first song I made for you.”
“Yeah, dumb-dumb, I didn’t forget.”
“But I made you a fuckton of other songs too,” he protests.
“And I listen to them all! I just like this one the most, just...because.”
“Probably because it’s like, sentimental and saccharine as shit,” he teases. “All honey-sweet and tender memories stored in those notes, brought back to life like it’s your own personal romcom soundtrack. Not that you or me or both of us had any love life resembling the typical romcom, but fuck that. We’re like, the big kings and shit now. We can make our own lowkey fucked up romantic trope. Just like davekat.”
You slide your headphones off his ears. “Do you even remember what ‘tender memories’ were stored in my notes?”
Dave bites his lip.
“I know it was the first song I made for you to commemorate our epic broship. I made it after we built a can pyramid and accidentally knocked it down when you tried to uncaptchalogue your book and you just completely fucking failed to catch it. That book went careening two full feet away and you tripped over a can and crashed into more cans, and then I caught you. ‘Caught’ being more like ‘you slammed into me and I broke your fall,’ because that’s more or less what happened.”
Mayor assigned you can detention on that day. Despite not being included in your punishment, Dave sat with you for your full thirty minutes, mumbling and mixing music next to where you were reading.
“I’m so glad you remembered that mortifying day.”
“Hey, it all worked out in the end, though. Also-”
Dave hums some more, deep in thought. He eyebrows raise with a small “oh shit”, and he points a finger at you and smiles.
“You also had it playing in the background when you proposed , you bastard! I never realized that until now, wow.”
You gently thump his back. “It was also the first song that was playing when we had our first kiss! You forgetful stench-bulge. I forgive you for not realizing that.”
Dave’s hands wind around your wait. “Was that even a first kiss? Not to discredit us or anything, but all I remember was us touching foreheads all emotionally bare as we can be, before you just shifted your head and gave me a little cheek bunp. There may have been a brushing of lips, but I think it was mostly cheek.”
What the fuck? You recall your memory and mull over exactly what happened.
Your eyes are closed, both of you mumbling about inane shit and how dark the meteor can get sometimes, with only the luck of grubtops and palmhusks to light your way and how it’s… nice, doing this. Yes, you’re not sweating. No, it’s fine. You’re comfortable with this. Your foreheads are touching, and you’re so close you can just…
You don’t open your eyes, and instead just hope you’re facing the right way before you lean forward without abandonment. Your cheek brushes against his.
Shit, you two really did just cheek bunp. A complete sbahj cheek bunp , complete with past teenage buffoonery and a slapstick laughtrack.
Wow, that’s fucked up. Your life is a lie.
You spastically wave your hands. “Our first kiss wasn’t even a kiss , Dave, what in the entire fuck? When was the last time we saw people rubbing cheeks? Only the elderly human ‘aunt’ lusii in movies do that! We aren’t aunts or lusii, Dave, does this mean our first kiss didn’t count? Is our, fuck, second kiss our first kiss? How does this work?”
Dave rubs your back. “Don’t make that big of a deal out of it, babe, literally zero rules come with kissing. Except maybe not to bite the tongue but I think that just goes unsaid. Point is, our first kiss was completely valid. Even though it technically wasn’t a kiss, it’s hella bona fide.”
“I mean,” Dave continues, “there’s also the possibility of re-doing our first kiss if you want to do that too. Romantic shit, all spewed over the place like a fountain-”
Oh! Imagine that. Having a kiss where you’re both happy, in love, and safe in a new world.
“-there’s like, hearts everywhere, its fucking Valentine’s day and it arrived early with a pink Santa-”
Right next to a kiss where you were emotionally constipated, conflicted, and trying your best. Both of them labeled as a first kiss because you damn well say so.
“-and I come careening down in a floral bouquet, dressed in sashes and holding chocolate mousse-”
You look at Dave in the eyes with a new determined iron in the fire. “Can we re-do our first kiss?”
Dave’s rant sputters down to a stop. His eyes widen in surprise. “Like, right now? Now now? I would’ve thought you wanted to schedule something like that, but I’m totally down for doing that right now if you are.”
It’s a good day, and you want to commemorate that. “There’s no sweep like the one you’re fucking in, as they say.”
Dave chokes down a barrage of giggles. “Who the fuck said that?”
“I don’t know, it’s some old Alternian saying.”
“Well I dunno about you, but that sounds like a great motto.”
Dave leans forward to touch your forehead with his, hair tickling your forehead. This is it. You’re making this...hapen. Dave’s such a bad influence on you.
“Karkat fucking Vantas,” Dave begins, “would you care to redo the honors of having our first kiss, for the second time?”
“Dave dumbass Strider, I woefully accept your suggestion to redo our first kiss.”
He leans a little bit closer, his smile wide.
“You’re the one who suggested it, dude.”
“This is so fucking stupid.”
“Nah, this is great. Kinda like you.”
“Shut up and take that back.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, dickface.”
“Shit muncher.”
“Ass wrangler.”
“Shorty.”
“Foot enthusiast.”
“Hey, remember to aim for the lips. Can’t have the cheek brush happening twice.”
You’re both grinning so wide your cheeks hurt, and you continue to smile when you close the last few inches between you.
You don’t miss this time.