[CLOSED]

[turntex]

Who| Dave, Kubo, Sariatu
What| Everyone is distressed after coming back from their missions and a sleepover is very much needed.
Where| The meteor on the Hab Deck >> Kubo and Sariatu's rooms
When| The night of the return from the SH and NSC missions
Warnings/Notes| A lot of sads

[When Kubo goes to fetch Dave for the night's plans, he'll unfortunately find his normal room empty. After his post to plea for help and Babbage's unfortunate news, Dave had swallowed down what felt like an oncoming panic attack and fled down to the Hab Deck where he could be properly alone. Down into the depths of the meteor, through silent stone and metal halls until he came to the part of the lab they'd converted into something of a communal living room.

Dave slumped onto the couch there, curled up, and pulled his cape up over his head. Yeah, he's down with just laying there for a few hours. Not sleeping, just lying still in the quiet far away from other people where he can focus on his breathing and not panicking and not worrying about anyone seeing him upset.

Distantly, he still remembers that Kubo and his mom wanted him to come have dinner with them, and there's a little pang of guilt over ditching. But it's numbed down enough by the overwhelming anxiety and depression that he can kind of just ignore it. He shoves his shades up to rub at his eyes, at tears that don't actually form no matter how much he feels like they should be -- and god, it only makes everything feel worse that he's so emotionally fucked he can't even let himself just cry properly, like a normal kid who's lost someone they love. It briefly feels like anger, at this Time Trapper shit or himself or Bro or who knows, but even that quickly sputters out into just more sadness.

Fuck.]

Comments

[bachido]

Kubo had checked back on Dave's network post enough to know that the news was bad, that on top of having been present for the breaking news of a new friend's death, an older, closer friend had been lost to him. At least here, where old friends were so hard to come by.

So when he didn't find Dave in his room, he kept up the search. The next place to look wasn't too hard to pick. Dave had pointed out the meteor to him, so Kubo went exploring that.

It took him a while to find the lab, and a while longer to find anywhere that looked like it had been used for living, but eventually he did locate the couch where Dave lay.

At least, he thought it was Dave. No one else wore a cape like that that Kubo knew, so it probably was him.

"Dave?"

He wondered if he ought to bring up the comms post yet, or if Dave wouldn't want his attention drawn to the loss of his friend. (As if he were likely thinking about anything else.)

He spoke gently, concerned, as he wondered how best to be compassionate to his friend just then. "I came to get you for dinner. Mother is waiting for us."

[turntex]

Sound traveled like crazy down there in the depths of the lab, and Dave heard the footsteps coming far in advance. He'd even been hopeful for half a second, but no, those steps were way too gentle to be Karkat. Karkat did absolutely nothing quietly.

He had plenty of forewarning of company, but as much as he didn't want to deal with anyone he didn't want to have to move either. But it was fine, the meteor labs were mazelike and unsettling, chances were whoever it was would get lost or leave the first time they passed a tank with a weird dead chessmonster floating in it or--

Or they'd wander right into the living room. Fuck.

Dave peeked out from beneath his cape just briefly, a quick glimpse of a tired red eye before he spotted Kubo and retreated right back into Capetown. Goddamn nice kids and their compassion.

"Hey," he answered from beneath his shield of red fabric, aiming for chill nonchalance but hitting more of a hollow croak. "I, uh. Don't think I'm gonna do dinner after all, sorry. Not feelin' great."

[bachido]

That hollow croak made Kubo's heart ache. He paused for a second, thinking. Wondering what Dave needed in this situation - it didn't seem to be left alone if not being alone was an option he had.

Kubo sank down next to Capetown, pulling his shamisen around, but only to set it to his side so he could lean back without crushing it. This wasn't really the time for music.

"I saw what Babbage said, about your friend," he said, once he'd sunk down. "I'd be sad too."

The idea that his mother could vanish DID make him sad. More than he wanted to consider. And here was Dave, having to live it. It was hard, and sad.

But Dave still needed to eat.

"You don't have to talk to us if you don't want to, but you should still eat." He paused, considering. "Mother could come here if you would rather stay here than come with me."

[turntex]

Any chance he could ward Kubo off? Doubtful, the kid was too sweet and thoughtful for his own good, let alone to abandon a sad friend. Dave briefly considered just letting Kubo get his mom and doing their awkward lab floor picnic, but the idea rubbed him the wrong way. Something about seeing other people here felt wrong. After three years of living in this space with nothing but a couple of aliens and his sister, having this human kid sitting there on the floor felt trippy. Like something that didn't belong, someone intruding on a place that mattered a lot to him despite all the frustration and boredom associated with it.

Or maybe that was just the depressive mood talking. He didn't think he'd really mind showing the others here the meteor normally.

"Ughhh." Groaning, Dave sat up, the cape slipping back off his head. He half-assedly ran a hand through his hair to smooth it back down and reached for his shades. "You're not gonna let up on this so let's just go. I don't feel like doing the redundant reluctance and well-meaning pestering bit back and forward for ten minutes only to end up giving in eventually no matter what."

[bachido]

If Kubo hadn't known Dave for a while now, he might have mistaken Dave's response for anger, but he was starting to get a handle on how Dave covered up sadness. And how part of that handle involved lying alone in the dark on a couch.

Maybe Dave needed to lie alone in the dark for a bit, but he'd done that, and now it was time to eat and connect with people who cared about him.

"You're right," Kubo agreed, standing and putting his shamisen back over his shoulder. "This way is a lot quicker."

He didn't even have to bring up his mother and how worried she was about Dave to guilt him into going, and he was glad not to have to break out those big guns so early.

[turntex]

Nodding absently, Dave slipped his shades back on, expression going once again unreadable behind them, and got up to head back out, trusting that Kubo would follow.

The trip back out of the meteor was fairly speedy with Dave leading the way, knowing the main pathways of this thing like the back of his hand by now. But time probably didn't seem to fly with how quiet he was being. For someone who normally couldn't shut up if a he had a gun to his head, the silence was heavy and uncomfortable.

Emerging back into the light of the Hab Deck from the Meteor's dim halls, Dave sighed heavily, again running a hand through his hair.

"Are you doing okay?" he finally asked, glancing just briefly over his shoulder at the boy as he started in the direction of the room he knew Kubo and Sariatu shared.

[bachido]

Kubo trailed after, catching up on the Hab Deck.

It was unnerving, Dave being so quiet. And it was hard to know what to say, when there wasn't anything he could really say that was both positive and truthful.

'I'd be a screaming wreck still if I didn't have Mother here' was the truth, but it wasn't the right thing to say when Dave was also struggling without someone he cared for.

"I'm sad about Karina," he said. They both had to be. They could agree on that one. "I'm worried about you."

He didn't have nightmares about plains of acid or crawling through miles of pungent, humid tunnels in the dark all the time.

"I don't know about okay," he admitted. "But I could be worse."

I'm glad you're still here, he thought, but didn't say. Dave might be wishing to be back on his real meteor at that point, when his friend had obviously meant so much to him.

"I'm sorry I didn't get to meet your friend, too," he added.

[turntex]

He could heard the careful way Kubo was picking his words. Like Kanaya, but born of a hesitance to say the wrong thing rather than a simple quirk. Was that just your standard reluctance to talk about the really awful shit, or was Kubo walking on eggshells because of him?

The idea that it might be the latter was depressing.

"She deserved better," Dave agreed simply, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. "Kinda makes it feel shitty to be upset about anything else, huh? Like, someone fuckin' died, everything else should kind of pale in comparison."

It didn't, though.

Frowning, Dave fell silent for a minute and angled towards an elevator to leave the Hab Deck. There was only a forest separating his meteor from this one, a patch of large evergreen trees that he could only assume was significant to someone else.

"You would've liked him," Dave finally went on after a bit, shrugging. "He's funny. He gets worked up over everything. And he eats up love stories like he needs that shit to live."

[bachido]

"You can be upset about more than one thing at a time," Kubo pointed out. He was, after all.

"And if he's back home . . . maybe you'll get to see him again. Maybe he'll come back here. Or you'll see him again when you go home -"

Assuming, either, that Dave disappeared like Karkat did. Which was a depressing thought for Kubo - but he could muster up happiness for his friend, if Dave was back with HIS friends and family. And it didn't seem like too much to believe could happen, when his mother had come back from the dead to be here.

"- I guess you probably don't want to be cheered up right now, though," Kubo added. Otherwise Dave wouldn't have been lying alone in the dark on a deserted meteor. "What would he do, if he were here now? After a mission like that?"

[turntex]

Dave smiled thinly, a bit bitterly, as they came to the elevator and he hit the call button. He shrugged.

"Probably make sure everyone was doing alright. He always makes a big fuss about seeming tough and and he always seems mad but honestly, he's a big softie, always lookin' out for everyone."

And meanwhile Dave had just wanted to go hide away with his boyfriend after a mission like that. Shows who's the better person between him and Karkat.

[bachido]

"You must miss him a lot."

Kubo slid into the elevator, holding the door for Dave to follow. He didn't distinguish Dave's downness yet as anything but due to missing a friend - certainly he didn't recognize that it had turned inward.

[turntex]

The elevator slid down smoothly and quickly, and Dave just shrugged.

"Yeah."

More than he could possibly say. More than would be "normal" for a dude just missing his best dude friend, certainly, so he didn't expand on that.

The doors opened up again at the ship quarters, and Dave stepped out with just a little incline of his head. "C'mon," he said instead, "Your mom's waiting, I assume."

[bachido]

Dave had the advantage in this regard of Kubo not having a very good understanding of what "normal" looked like. He hadn't had friends he was close to back home. He had a growing sense that he would be deeply sad if Dave went home, in a way that was more severe than he would have been devastated if any of the kids in the village had moved to another.

As far as he knew, having an older friend did mean missing them this much.

"She's worried about you, too," he said. Then went on, thinking that Dave ought not to think he was only inviting him over because they cared from a worried perspective.

"We both wanted to see you. Even if you weren't having a hard time . . ." he shrugged a bit. "It's comforting to see your friends when you've been through a terrible thing, and you're our friend." He paused. "The Silent Horizon was a terrible thing. So Mother and I wanted to see you again, too."