Wake me up when this bullshit ends

That’s when a familiar scent rose, candy red. Apple specifically, sure she would call it cherry all the time, but this was Dave. Dave smelled like cherry lollipops mixed with an overwhelming apple scent. It was something she always loved.

Squish squish squish.

She could hear the sound of her own feet as they pressed into the mud, the sound of her heart nearly beating out of her chest from the adrenaline racing through her entire being.

It couldn’t be him, she hoped it wasn’t him.

The scent was too real, even if masked under a layer of dirt it was unmistakable. She couldn’t help but pull the blindfold up, pushing her bangs back as it rested on her forehead.

Blood.

So much blood. 

It was true she didn’t need to see to know this, didn’t need to see the mangled corpse before her to know it was Dave. She had already known, the evidence was all piled before her in a heap of red. Digging him out wasn’t too hard, everything was loose and wet and she’d managed to slide his body out rather easily, cradling him in her arms as she buried her face into his muddy chest.

She didn’t care.

Tears streamed down her face as she let out a sob, followed by several more until she was shaking. Each sob rattling her entire frame. 

She should have known.

She should have been there. 

But she wasn’t. She wasn’t there and now one of the most important people to her was dead. Crying wasn’t something she did often, and even crying over a previous Dave’s death she had known was going to happen had made her.

This wasn’t a dead alternate Dave though, their powers didn’t work to that extent- did that? 

Her question was answered when a voice rung out, Dave clearly calling her name and she easily spotted him. Within seconds she had set the body down gently, getting to her feet and rushing over to Dave. Sure a lot of people died on the planet and came back, not quite the same, but this… this Dave she knew was her Dave.

Her arms flung around the males waist, holding him close and pressing her face against his shoulder. “You idiot! I… I-I thought you were dead! Inst-instead it was one of your copies.” She couldn’t help stammering or stuttering, didn’t care she was getting this Dave filthy with mud, tears, and blood. She was just overcome with relief that he was still somehow alive and that his own powers made that dead, mangled duplicate and it wasn’t really him.

He fell silent as she went ahead and rattled off exactly what had gone wrong, why she had crashed into him so hard and held him so tight. And was she... crying?

Teal teal sharp teal don't let her hear don't let her...

Slowly, numbly, he squeezed her back, arms a reassuring coil around her waist. He didn't know what to say, his own thoughts already a here-to-there jumble of what was and could of and maybe and teal and far, far too much teal and far too dark. God, a crooked part of him wished he could see her right then. To see her damage but also see that she was solid, alive and overall okay. It was a selfish need but it was there. He needed to compensate somehow, so he brought her closer and maybe a little too tight, feeling her wholeness against his front and mooring himself to it. 

It was okay. 

She was okay. 

They were okay.

So he continued to hold her, saying nothing aside from a hush or coo when he felt and heard her sobs making their occasional ragged comeback. He ran his fingers through her hair, parting the places where the mud had stuck and clumped the ends and absentmindedly massaging between her shoulderblades until she didn't feel like she was about to shake apart in his grasp. 

"Yeah, well excuse me for thinking you’d get your lazy ass up during some point of this sentence?"

Dave still wasn’t getting up. John swallowed up dread, clamping down on the implications before they could bloom into fully realized panic. He was the best steel trap, it was him. Very delicately, John squat down and placed a hand on Dave’s shoulder. His sock was soaking up a whole ocean’s worth of damp in the meantime. Blech. BleCH! The things he did.

"Catching up with you went a little differently in my head!" he admitted, squeezing Dave reassuringly, quietly unnerved by his stillness. "You were standing and weeping into my shoulder, in that scenario. But I guess that doesn’t fit into that dumb coolkid persona you’re aiming for, huh?" His other hand clasped Dave’s wrist. The current plan was hoist Dave to his feet, then promptly get the fuck outta dodge. 

Dave was going to continue on another longish ramble, probably something incorporating more Walkenisms and more references to shitty movies, but John cut him short when he started peeling him out of the mud. Dave braced one arm against John's while his free hand flew to his shades, making sure they didn't slide off. While he had no idea what his eyes looked like, he imagined it was nothing pleasant if not downright shocking. Sure it meant smearing more grime onto his precious shades and the side of his face but it wasn't like he was clean to begin with.

Which, okay, yeah, he’d noticed while scrolling through the long list of handles on his wrist computer, but it was something else to get pinged by the shitlord himself! John swung himself to his feet. He and Jane had been sitting pretty, tucked away in a cave to survive the winter. It was the kind of situation dashing Han Solo found himself in; overall a mess, with the Rebel Base successfully infiltrated by the Empire, but at least there’s nice, still-warm Tauntaun guts to stave off the more immediate threat of hypothermia and the grim popsicle possibilities that followed.

In short, they had a reliable shelter and food. Jane was a shade less handy with outdoorsy stuff, since she was forbidden from camping excursions without a SWAT team and body armor, apparently. Which sucked, because John had only been a member of Troop 413 for a few months before the Great Reese’s Cup Debacle and his Dad pulled him from Boy Scouts altogether. 

He was able to rustle up some grub, though! It was touch and go for a while, but he liked to think that he’s gotten better at skinning rabbits or hares or whatever the fuck they were. Now they were dinner for him and Jane. Team Crockerbert survived off of fresh meat and dried bunny jerky. It was funny, in a morbid, horrible way. John privately thought Jane hid away how much distress it caused her. Both their respective Striders, Lalondes, and Harlish friends had gifted them a bunny at some point on their convoluted timelines. It was just too bad sentimentality didn’t fill him up like roasted rabbit.

Speaking of Striders, though. John snatched up his jacket, stuffing his pockets with jerky and strips of cloth. Grizzled action heroes were always tearing their shirts to ribbons and using them as bandages. Dave wasn’t super specific in his messages, but John had a sense that something was very wrong. Aside from that… all John had were his windy powers. The scraps of what had once made him a living god. Shaky control over gusts and a few inches off the cracked ground. Big whoop.

John sent Jane a message, saying was off to save Timmy from a well and he’d be back soon.

Then he walked off into the land of dripping wet and sloshy slush. Faithfully, he tracked his progress to Dave’s waypoint, checking his watch every so often. The afternoon sun put him in the very uncomfortable position of having the heat beat down on his shoulders, but encasing his shins in chilly muck. Blech.

"Dave?" His heart dropped. According to his fancy tech bracelet, he was standing at the correct coordinates. But according to his admittedly not great vision, no one was here but some very bedraggled bushes and a trio of uprooted trees. Time was essential in these kinds of situations. John didn’t want to be caught out here in the dark. Finding his footing was hard enough as it was, without capitalizing on his poor vision. 

He lifted his arm, snapping his wrist in what he hoped looked like a short noncommittal wave. "Yo, Egbert. Over here blind bat."

He smirked to himself, silently appreciating his own wicked irony. Who said sardonic humor was dead? Nobody, that's who. Good thing too, because it was pretty much the only thing keeping him calm enough not to start slip-stitch-sliding around and creating dead copies all over again. He didn't sit up, though. Not yet.  Fuck that. Too much work too soon. He was perfectly content in his slush puddle, thank-you-very-much.

would it make you feel anybetterif i said i literally didnt see anyof your messages

like

1M CURR3NTLY R3S1D1NG 1N 4 TR33 BY OUR SPOT 

while id loveto track you down and be your knight in frozensolid armor and all

would it make you feel anybetterif i said i literally didnt see anyof your messages

like

also what the fuck kind of statement is that

i am currently grade-a snarky troll deprived

theres a fuckin deficit of pyrope and if thats not fixed soon imightjust flip the fuck out of atmosphere to the moon and back

hi dave!

and you cant bag me forbein me

heresto hoping that thisll be the last massive fuckall well have to deal with 

would it make you feel anybetterif i said i literally didnt see anyof your messages

like

1 4M S3NS1NG 4 LOT OF BL1ND M3NT1ONS H3R3 4ND 1 DONT TH1NK TH3YR3 M34NT FOR M3

you shoulnt of and yet you did

hi dave!

…uhm, anyway.

as far as being stranded in a seemingly infinitesnowglobe goes, pretty half decent

but i wouldnt say no to rags

im kind of operating on an emptytank overhere

would it make you feel anybetterif i said i literally didnt see anyof your messages

like

SHOULD 1 B3 OFF3ND3D H3R3??????? OR DO YOU JUST R34LLY NOT W4NT TO T4LK TO M3 

look

can we take a walkdown familiar turf and turna blind eye to what happened?

hi dave!

not in their genes

you gotta believe inyourself

takes the heart of the marcos to utterlyslaythe polos

but since youre not up toembarking the marcopolo only legends couldspeakof

here you go

hi dave!

im prettysure a waypoint will do aboutjackshit for me right now

maybe you could just

yell a lot

and wecanrendezvous like that

Once the blades were removed one of the droned pried Dave’s eyes open, keeping them that way through metal instruments. Ice cold and making sure he wouldn’t be able to close them. Of course that would only make it so much worse when the pain happened.

Precise movements, a sharp, thin blade cutting through his chest before piercing his only working lung. They wanted to see how long it would take before the human nearly passed out, recording down to the very second until he did. Of course they had to repair him, a dead subject meant no real subject at all! It was quick work to rebuild the lungs, making both work and inflate, draining them of any liquid so that Dave may once more breathe.

As if to make sure he woke up they sent an electric shock through his system, painful enough to jolt him back into the now and then, but enough not to severely damage him or his reflexes. What would work the best anyway? Ah yes this human was an interesting one after all, pain seemed to hardly match when it came physically rather than mentally.

The Overseer foresaw this though and had a few special videos prepared just for Dave. “You might want to watch carefully. Not that you have a choice.” A voice rung out through the room, over the screams of the female who wasn’t far from him in the complex. “It might bring some insight, especially with that hero complex of yours.” A screen came down, and a video that most likely looked eerily similar to something that had happened to Dave.

It was the night he was with Terezi and they had slept in the same sleeping bag. The problem? There was no one but Dave there. No sleeping bag, no sewing supplies, no Terezi. Just Dave talking to himself, touching nothing, lying in the mud and rain pelting him through the trees. 

"It seems you just can’t let that girl go. My, how intact with your mind are you really? Imagining progress in the field of romance with a being that doesn’t exist. You even killed her in your own mind, didn’t you? All so you could die and be Our little experiment." The tone to the voice was pleasant, amused, and sinister all at once- mocking the little lab-rat that was strapped down and forced to lucidity. 

Taken in for experimentation, Dave Strider.

My my how you wanted to protect those so bad, too bad your powers do not work well. You almost had a chance at saving those poor fools. Seems you’re just not the hero you wanted to be. Thank you for offering Us the chance at examining your anatomy. Do be careful in the future, and remember to stay lucid lest you want your loved ones to fall peril to something even worse.

Of course not literally, but something in Dave's mind akined this deathly taste with that of dust. It was familiar, for one. Something that was unpleasant but so ingrained you just had to accept it. Like opening a old novel or cracking open an unused cabinet, an abrasive and somewhat nostalgic smell and taste that was expected. But instead of bringing back memories of forgotten stories of trinkets, it brought about the memory of crunching knuckles and steel skimming across his shoulder blades.

Pulmonary arteries sliced open with the strike of the blades, oxygen starved blood having no place to escape aside from welling up and out past his lips. It spread heavy salty and hot across his tongue leaving a bitter aftertaste that settled in the bridge of his nose. He coughed and choked but it seemed to cling in a thick, indifferent layer which lined his gums. Every ounce of his attention, poured into the burning, choking pain at the base of his throat rather than the actual site of his impalement. Slow burn over sharp flash, naturally his masochistic mind chose to linger on the one that was prolonged. 

He didn't know if he had the chance to fall before the drones came. Everything was topsy turvy, his mind having not completely left the time fabric weave-worker headspace when his own body had begun to tear. Like some sort of cruel reversal-- he's spent so long digging and tearing the space around him now it was finally getting him back and paying him double. So he could have remained hanging off of the blades. Only thing he knew for certain was the look of horror in Jade's eyes as he faded out for good.

Or, so he thought.

Quicker than a time skip he found himself roused lying somewhere hard and cold. Chilly hands fussed around him, plucking broken blade shards from him like flowers from a garden. Nothing to numb their removal, they only served to add to the overall agony, to the blood flow. At first he thought he was screaming in his haze, but it didn't take him long to realize most of the sound he tried to make was muted by the sheer amount of fluid trapped in his trachea, diminishing it to a rasping, gasping gargle. The screams belonged to someone else.

The maze. The recording. Seeing Terezi tormented.

The scream was hers.

She's here. She's alive. How is she-- how am I?

He bit down on his lip as they finished removing the shards, further attempting to silence himself and only ending up hacking and coughing when the removed the largest piece from what he now figured was a punctured lung that was in severe need of mending. He was barely able to get enough air from the undamaged one to keep vaguely conscious, spasming to the point he had to be restrained. Funny. Crooked funny that he has to be held down not for a decision to fight back, but simply because he was so far gone he could no longer hold full control of his body.

Luckily there was no such thing to worry about, and soon enough was grinning against his skin, pressing closer to him and just getting comfortable. There were no words that needed to be shared between either of them. She could tell he was thanking her by his actions- the subtle movements, actions, the way he kissed her head. All of it was enough for her to tell what he had wanted to say- in return she simply moved one of her hands to his cheek, resting it there for a moment before trailing her fingers along the cool skin and letting them get tangled in his hair.

That was enough of a response she thought, simply keeping her hand there as her other arm just rested on his chest. The skin was soft and she couldn’t help but gently rub circles with her thumb. Honestly she had nothing more to say, anything that would come from her would most likely be some rambling about his eyes or the way she could smell his skin flushing at the onslaught of the rain.

Though with that thought in mind she took a brief moment to pull the sleeping bag up a little more- to try and cover their heads the best she could so none of the rain would get either of them. At least their bodies were enough to keep them warm, flesh against flesh and the bag to keep the warmth in.

Dave pulled a hand up from the small of her back, taking hers from his face. It wasn't a defensive gesture, he made sure to make that clear in the way he wove his fingers between hers. It was merely an impulse, a way to fend off his chatty habit for a little longer so this moment might last. The panic of the stall ebbing away. The security of the sleeping bag. The undivided attention from... well, Terezi. As well as the ability to pay the same attention back to her. A fact far more intimate than shedding clothes in front of one another.

He rested their clasped hands beside his head. Their knuckles barely grazed the edge of the sleeping bag, close enough to still feel the cool mist of the rain despite Terezi moving the bag further up. His mind flickered to his discarded shades, and how more intense Terezi's proximity was without the makeshift social sheild. As blind as she was, she sure knew how to pin him down with a look.