You explore the land, looking for memories you might share. You’ve been doing that since that damn black hole sucked you in. Fucking black holes.

Well, you are looking for a certain person in particular.

Yo repeat his name under your breath, afraid to forget the only person you ever really loved. God, remembering his fluffy neck feathers, his tail wrapping around you, his lips on yours…

You stop in your tracks as you catch a glimpse of orange Ben Stiller shades from the corner of your eye. When you turn around, however, it’s gone.

You won’t stand by this. So you followed where you thought you saw those shades. Fuck, you missed him. You can’t let him go, not again, please not again…

You end up in an opening. A round table seems set up for tea time. Five little stools stand around it. On one sat ARquiusprite. You’d never know his deal. On another there was Nepeta. Then Feferi, some kind of merge between Jaspersprite and Rose who somehow has legs, and…

Your breath caught in your throat. It was the shades from earlier. Except the wearer isn’t him. Or maybe he is, but not at the same time. He seemed to have merged with Nepeta. He also has legs. He’s so different, yet… You know this is him. So you call out to him.

“Davesprite!”

He turned around and fuck, you want to cry. He’s not wearing any shades, and his eyes alternate between lime green and orange. He has Nepeta’s mouth, but you recognized his nose and freckles. He gasped.

“Dave?”

His voice changed, and as much as you think it’s cute, you miss the old him. The real him, not this… not this version that looks like someone threw your Davesprite (your Davesprite) and Nepeta and mixed it all like the alphabet soup. And somehow the universe managed to give out a being that was so close to your beloved, but not quite there.

“Oh!” Feferi gasped and you just want the earth to swallow you whole, oh yeah earth was fucking obliterated, it can’t, “you must be pre-retcon Dave, aren’t you?”

“Seems so,” Jasper Rose muses, “he seems to be our Dave.” Our Dave. It sounds like they own you, and you feel fucking sick. You only want one person to own you, ever, and now he’s a fucking abomination. You turn around to leave.

“Wait, Dave!” Not-Davesprite calls at you, “you don’t want to have tea?”

“No,” you grit out. You don’t want to hang out with them. With people who don’t care about you. With someone who you used to love so much but has changed.

Must be what Davesprite thought, you thought to yourself.

You can still hear them, calling after you, shouting, inviting, but you use up all your willpower not to crumble. Then you heard Not-Davesprite fucking pleading, and you just. Break.

“You’re not him!” You scream, and damn it feels so good getting it out. So long image, no one gives a fuck. “You’re not fucking him, and you prefer new company, and you’ve changed, Davesprite, and I don’t want to fuckin face you because I’ll fucking break down, and I thought we had something but I can’t continue, not with you now. Fuck, I don’t want you trying to convince me that you’re him, that you’re still the same because right now, you’re - not - him!”

You can hear Nepeta gasp in shock, but you no longer give a fuck. You turn your back on them and stomp away.

Later on, Jasper Rose found you overlooking a cliff near Tavros’s home, crying. Jasprose (that’s what she said her name is) sits down beside you, and in no time the two of you were chatting like lost long friends.

“I just miss him,” you admit, your head on her lap.

“I know it’s hard, but can’t you just give him a chance?” she asks.

You shake your head. “I… I can’t, Rose. I… He’s… changed. And I can’t.”

Fuck, you miss him.

You are now Davepetasprite^2, and you do not understand what the fuck you did wrong.

One minute you were merely preparing a tea party for your friends (and moirail! Can’t forget ARquius!, and the next you hear someone familiar call out your name like a guy in a desert just found an oasis. Which is justified once you locked eyes with him after discarding your shades.

Your mind comes to a screeching halt, as does your perception of time. Hell, maybe time itself stopped. You never know which fucker does it. But right then, his name stumbles out of your lips and you could only focus on him, his blond hair and red threads and pale skin you wished you could claim and fuck his eyes are pure white-

Your train of thought stopped when he turned around with a scowl on his face. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck. What did your friends say that he would turn away like that!?

“Wait, Dave!” you’ve called out to him. “You don’t want to have tea?”

You heard him, clear as day, even as he grits out his answer. “No.”

Everyone started calling him. Then inviting. Then, when that didn’t work either, shouting. But you could only stare at his back, slowly getting smaller and smaller, before something snaps inside you. Striders don’t beg, your subconscious berate yourself, but to hell with that. You don’t feel like a Strider, all of Bro’s rules are bullshit anyway, and you can’t stay in your boundaries when the only person a part of you has ever loved is walking away from you. So you take three steps before shouting, “Dave, please! Come back, I need you here!”

Then he turned around at you and started screaming at you about how you’re not ‘him’ and fucking hell, you just want to fall to the ground and cry. You didn’t of course.

When he went out of sight, everyone starts chattering about what just happened, but you can only hear buzzing, and you don’t want to think about it, and you just want them to-

“Shut. Up.”

Everybody silenced, clearly shocked by your sudden change of demeanor, and nothing can be heard for a while except your breathing, which you’re struggling to keep steady.

Jasprose speaks up first. “I think I’m going to chase after him, make sure he’s well and all.”Then there she goes, leaving you with three pairs of curious eyes.

“You never told me you dated him,” ARquius says.

You don’t notice, but you started shaking. Shit, this whole ordeal is doing things to your emotional baggage, and for the first time ever you feel your two components clashing. The Nepeta in you wants to apologize. The Davesprite in you wants to punch him in the face.

‘He could crush your spine if he wanted.’ Never mind. You’ll just be here, chilling. You still want to retain your spine, thanks.

You are Dave Strider, god tier alpha timeline pre-retcon version. And you just heard rustling from behind Tavros’ hive.

Yo turn around, then turn back when you realize it’s Not-Davesprite, again. Why the fuck would he go here?

He sat down next to you. There’s a stretch of silence before he quietly says, “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Who says I wanna see your sorry ass again.”

“Listen Dave, I-” he sees your attempt at interrupting, and quickly retorts, “Listen, Dave. Let me explain.”

You wait, motioning him to start.

He gets your cue. “You see, after-after you… Died, i wandered around the Furthest Ring. When I returned, there was Rose, and Nep, and… I guess Jake? So anyway, Jasprose invited me down, and we chatted a bit. Then she introduced me to Nep, and we shook hands. The usual, right? Except Nep’s only been prototyped once, I ended up as second prototyping, and… well I happened. Davepetasprite^2.” a chuckle. “Wasn’t the most normal thing, but when we merged, i felt some sort of… Clarity.  Like the knowledge of every Dave was stored inside me, and… You know, self-discovery shit.”

“So… You know about me and…”

“Oh. About… That.” You swear you see Davepeta blush. “Yeah. I know. And call me a creep, but when I found out that you returned my... feelings, the Davesprite in me felt… Happy.”

“And Nepeta?”

“Screaming in the back of my mind going ‘kiss the boy already’.”

You can’t help it. Imagining Nepeta pushing Davesprite off to confess was too hilarious. You laugh, and not the kind of cute giggles. You literally howl with laughter, and Davepetasprite follows a few seconds in.

By the time you stop, you’re out of breath. Davepeta smiles at you (sprites don’t need air, that fucker) as you regain your composure. “I know I may not be Davesprite anymore, but I still love you. So… maybe you wanna try again?”