CLUSTERFUCKSTUCK MASTERPOST

[rv]

oh dear god this au

CHRONOLOGY
=> Dave & John: Partake in one-sided accidental voyeurism. [ N S F W ]
=> Eridan & Sollux: Get drunk and attempt sexytimes. [ N S F W ]
=> Eridan & Sollux: Deal with hangovers and talk about feelings.
=> Eridan & Sollux: Consummate mutual UST-feelings. [ N S F W ]
=> Sollux & John: Get together.
=> Sollux & John: Roleplay. [ N S F W ]
=> John & Dave: Cry and get together. ==~*~== FINISHED ==~*~==

Comments

AU // We talked for hours || And now it seems so long ago || I cut my hands and I close my eyes

[knightofcool]

[Dave's been awake, on and off, for the last 18 hours. Apparently, he'd been in a coma for the first two and a half days of his stay in the hospital, if the nurses who talk gently to him are telling the truth. They're still trying to figure out who he is, because his face is destroyed- broken jaw, broken cheekbone, gashes across what's left. Apparently he'd landed on his damn face after getting hit by the car. And he's still not dead. Head to the pavement yet he's still alive and recovering.]

[Dave Strider, unable to die properly. How awkward. He can open the eye not trapped by the swelling, but he can't move, tangled in casts and restraints and machines. They know he tried to kill himself. No sober person runs onto the highway like that without an honest death wish. The words they use to talk about him bounce around his damaged skull.]

[Blood loss. Broken ribs. Heart rate. Might not walk again. Collapsed lung. Transfusion. Morphine. Stitches. Infection.]

[His favorite is "Lucky". God, they keep saying that one. It hovers through the air with all the coughing and crying and disinfectant. He doesn't feel lucky. He's alive and conscious, and that feels distinctly unlucky. It all just keeps replaying in his mind. They were smiling. Smiling. He's never been haunted by a smile like this. His fever dreams are swirled with painkillers and pleasured, giddy smiles. He wants to rip his arms out of their web of machines and claw through his skull to get those smiles out. He needs to get away from them, but the drugs and doctors and injuries all play together to keep him from tearing his wounds open and blissfully bleeding out on the floor.]

[He's alone in his head and there's nothing to fall back on, nothing that's not tainted with John or Dirk, so he just listens. He focuses on the whoosh of the machine keeping him breathing and the beeping that watches his heartbeat. He lets the beat of them spin together and it's barely music but it's enough to play with in his mind. Soon he'll be able to move, and then this will be over. Until then, the melody of the beeping machines will carry him through.]

[He doesn't hear the door open.]

[putthebunnyinthebox]

[He doesn't understand. Rose had immediately, without hesitation, and maybe before it even all happened with that freaky fortune-telling thing she seemed to be gifted with. Jade had caught on because she's Jade and that's what Jade does, but John? No. No way in hell.]

[He pulls his letterman tight around him through the pockets in which his cold hands are stuffed. He doesn't get a fucking thing. Age did absolutely nothing to make him understand things from the get-go, not without a push from a third party. He's still the fucking clueless 13-year-old trying to get through a Gaia Online event. Having Rose or Vriska around helped him think ahead, probably because they were each really scarily good at it and it just rubbed off on him or something. But right now none of Rose's sixth sense or whatever is helping him, and he's left in the dust in terms of getting what's going on. Dave ran onto the highway. Rose and Jade and everyone gets it but him. How the fuck did he ever fantasize how he could be a good boyfriend for Dave when he didn't have a damn clue about why he did anything?]

[John runs his hand through his hair as the nurses sign papers on clipboards and prepare to let him in to see Dave. He's nervous. He loves Dave so, so much, and it's why he feels horrendously guilty for what happened. Yeah, his business with Dirk wasn't really Dave's business, but it'd obviously done something to him if he ran off for days and into oncoming 70mph traffic and...fuck. He messed up, and he's not even sure where or why. He just knows Dave is upset, and that it probably has something to do with him catching his brother and best friend fucking in the bathtub; John wants to kick himself for only thinking of that with the help of Rose's slapping and general existence. Dave is his best friend, and now, more than ever, he feels like he doesn't understand a damn thing about him.]

[When the nurses nod him the OK, John releases a breath he was only a little aware he was holding. He tries to smile at them, flash a set of mostly-straight pearly whites, but it comes up flat and he can't make himself care. He opens the door, and when he walks in he completely forgets what he was just thinking about. Dave is hooked up to machines, he may as well be a medical mummy, and John feels like this is somehow his fault. And, god, how did he think he could punch Dave in the face like this? It was a high-emotion moment when he said it, but now he's thinking of asking Rose for another slap.]

[He clears his throat and shuts the door. It's only the two of them, now, in a room that smells like hospital and nothing like warm gooey best bros reuniting. It reeks of guilt and betrayal to him, and it being damn cold doesn't help. John tries, again, to smile, only for it to not even happen at all and his face to tighten. There are so many things wrong here, and he doesn't know where to start.]

Uh...hey.

[knightofcool]

[Dave had his working eye closed, but it flies open when he hears John's voice. John. JohnJohnJohn.]

[There's none of subdued drifting of a moment ago in his expression when he looks at John. He's trying to open his dysfunctional eye and the one that opens on its own is pure shock and maybe a hint of panic. The despair hasn't had time to sink in yet, because he's just too surprised for something that complex. The attempt by the muscles in his face to display his alarm pulls at one of the stitches in his cheek and a little trickle of blood starts.]

[His jaw is wired shut to keep him from doing just what he is trying to do-- open it and talk. It would fuck up the work they'd done resetting the bones, and it's not the kind of thing that can be monitored with restraints. The restraints are doing a good job of keeping Dave from jolting back against his pillows like he subconsciously attempted, rattling a few of the feed lines that are giving him fluids and nutrients.]

[The painkillers aren't strong enough to override the way the hint of movement shifts his broken ribs and torn insides, and Dave's expression pinches in pain. He's silent, though, save for a heavy exhale. He fights down the flinch instinct to open his working eye again, desperately searching John's face.]

[putthebunnyinthebox]

[John flinches when Dave does. God, why can't he help but feel like this is his fault? He can't think of any reason why it would be, other than him and Dirk fucking, but why would that...he can't reason it in his head. Friends don't jump into oncoming traffic when their friends mess around with their siblings normally, right? Well, there was probably nothing "normal" about that, but his point still stands. He bites his lip and approaches Dave, fishing a Kleenex from his pocket. He gently presses it to the blood on Dave's face, because god, he can't stand seeing him bleed ever.]

[He's out of words to say. He thought he had a lot of them, but he's drawing a complete blank right now. What do you say to a guy who nearly got killed of his own volition? If it actually was, anyway, everyone said there was no other way but...John doesn't want to believe that unless Dave tells him straight-up. Obviously he can't right now, so John will just hold out that he won't have to worry about a suicide watch on Dave. He needs to say something, though, because he just does. It's hard, because it's all fucked up, and it's just...hard. But he has to. He has to clear a mess up before he can try to help with the one Dave is in. It'd be a start, at least.]

[John takes a deep breath, and exhales.]

You must be fucking pissed at me.

[He scoffs, directed at himself, and pockets the Kleenex with Dave's blood spotted on it when the trickle of blood ceases. He should probably throw it away, but he can't be assed to find the trashcan nearby. He just wants to talk to Dave, that's really it. Well, it's going to be mostly talking at Dave.]

Understandably, I guess, and...and I'm really sorry if that scared you, or hurt your feelings or whatever.

[The chair by the table gets pulled over, and John sits in it, leaning forward with his hands clasped tight.]

Dirk's been real worried about you since...y'know. He wouldn't tell me much, but Rose said he was upset. I figured I'd just make things worse if I bothered him too long; we're not that close, not like you two or him and Rose or him and Roxy or Jake or Jane or...you get the picture.