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Cold air burns in his lungs as Dave pedals his bike down the street at night, backpack on and jacket unzipped. He glides by all the suburban houses and front lawns, being careful not to run over any cats. He slows and hops off the bike as he turns into one driveway at the end of the road, and walks his bike around to the side of the house where he can hide it in an unlit corner. As the old routine goes, he selects the perfect handful of pebbles from off the ground and tosses one up to tap against a window on the second floor of the house.
After a few pebbles, the curtains are pulled aside and Jade Harley’s face appears in the window. She pushed up the glass and smiles down at him. “You’re late!” She whispers badly.
“I know,” he motions with his hand for her to hurry up and send down the ‘rope’.
Jades face disappears, there’s some giggling, and then a string of three old bedsheets tied together at the corners is tossed out the window for Dave to climb.
“You got it?” Dave asks the empty window, taking hold of the makeshift rope and giving it a small tug.
“Yes,” her voice calls back, “come on up!”
He hears some grunting from inside the window when he puts his full weight on it, but manages to scale up the side of the house. Dark tan arms grab him when he gets to the edge of the window and help him inside, and Karkat catches him.
“We were starting to think you wouldn’t show up!” He says, giving Dave a big hug. Moments after, he pulls away awkwardly and steps back.
“Yea, sorry,” Dave scratches the back of his head and looks around Jades room. She’s still neglected to clean up any more than absolutely necessary, but the place is nice. Cozy. Posters line the walls and stuffed animals of various types fill every available surface. “My brother went out to eat today and I went with him, I had to wait outside for him while he worked. On the bright side we nearly have enough money to get a trailer, so.”
“That’s good news!” Jade seems to forget that she’s supposed to be quiet sometimes, as to not wake up her brother or her dad. Dave can’t imagine that her dad would approve of her having two boys over in the middle of the night. She reels in the bedsheets and shuts the window, tucking the ‘rope’ away under her blankets and sitting back on her bed. “Maybe you two can move into the trailer park just down the road.”
“That would be cool, yea.” Dave watches Karkat flop down onto a bean bag chair, but sort of just remains standing awkwardly himself. “It’s been like several months since our apartment burned down so it would be nice to finnaly have an actual place to fucking live.”
“I keep telling you,” Karkat scoots over a bit on the bean bag and pats the space next to him, “my parents are all over this whole foster child thing, I could just tell them you’re my friend and you need a place to stay and they’d take you in in a heartbeat. They adopted me, of all people, man. If they can look at me and think, ‘yea, that’s a kid we could raise,’ they’ll probably adopt anybody.”
“Karkat,” Jade says in a tone of light sympathy and friendly disagreement, “don’t be like that. You’re a great kid. We all really like you.”
“Shit, Jade, I’m joking. It’s alright.” He smiles at her quizzically while Dave sits carefully next to him on the bean bag chair. In the nature of bean bag chairs, it was inevitable and unavoidable for Dave to wind up smooshed against Karkat. In this manner, Karkat takes the opportunity to rid Dave of his back pack and pull it into his lap, and also to lay his head on Dave’s shoulder. “So what insane loot did you rake in for us?”
Dave relaxes and rests his head on top of Karkat’s. “Well if you check the front pocket, you’ll find a sample of the shit I had to watch my brothers friends guzzle all night.”
“Oh, shit, wow.” Karkat pulls a bottle of bourbon whiskey from the front of Dave’s backpack and holds it like it’s a precious stolen artifact from a highbrow museum.
“Woah, Dave,” Jade scoots closer to them and leans forward to see the bottle better, adjusting her big round glasses. “What kind of restaurant did your brother take you to?”
“One that I wasn’t allowed in.” Dave smiles and leans back like he’s chill but is actually very tense.
“How’d you get this?” Karkat moves Dave’s backpack off his lap and holds the bottle there instead.
“Snuck in the back, they had a bunch in the storage room.”
Jade leans all the way to rest on her side, leaning on her elbow, as if in a ‘draw me like one of your French girls’ pose. “And they didn’t catch you?”
“I’m small.”
“No shit,” Karkat turns to laugh lightly at Dave, “you’re all bones and tendons, sometimes I wonder if you stopped growing at thirteen. But that doesn’t explain??”
“Look y’all do you want the liquor or should I go put it back before they arrest my bro for petty theft.” Dave shifts a bit uncomfortably as if trying to get an inch of space between him and Karkat, but the black magic of bean bags only squished them closer together.
“I’ll take it!” Jade reaches one hand forward and wiggles her fingers at them, less in an actual attempt to grab the bottle and more just for the effect.
“Hey now,” Karkat holds the bottle away from her and raises one big black eyebrow. “We should be careful with this shit. This is, what,” he checks the label on the bottle with a squint, “45% alcohol? Whatever that means. I think it just means it’ll fuck you up fast. The oldest person in this room isn’t eighteen, we should be careful.”
“Seventeen is probably old enough,” Jade leans back and let’s her head drop to the side. “We should play a drinking game.”
“Yeah?” Dave relaxes again and puts an arm behind Karkat, taking a moment to appreciate the pink glow of Jades lampshade on her tan features. “What game?”
“I know,” Karkat sits up like he’s just had the best idea, putting his hands in front of him with the bottle still clutched in one and everything. “We watch a horror movie, and every time the characters do something stupid we take a shot.”
“A horror movie.” Dave turns back to Karkat, amused. “That’s new, usually your go-to is rom-coms.”
“Well, tonight I’m feeling fucking spooky.”
“I like it!” Jade smiles and sits up to grab her laptop from the foot of her bed. “You two get up here with me, it’s scary movie night.”
“Awesome.” Dave gets up first and crawls into bed next to Jade, but she turns to him and yelps, which throws him way off his game.
“Ah! No, shoes! Take off your shoes!” She shoves lightly at his shoulder until he complies.
“Oh, shit, alright damn off go the shoes my bad.” Dave sits on the edge of the bed to take off his shoes, and Karkat does the same before joining her on the bed.
It’s a somewhat small bed, but there’s somehow magically enough room for all three of them if they don’t mind being super friendly. Karkat brings the booze with him, and Jade boots up her laptop and unlocks it.
“Hey Dave,” Jade hands the laptop to him, “you pick out a scary movie with Karkat while I go find a shot glass.”
“Alright.” He takes the laptop, and Karkat sets the bottle on her nightstand. Jade gets up and quietly leaves the room, leaving the two of them in a sort of awkward silence. There are many breeds of awkward silence, and this was one of those kinds that had an ungodly mother and a dreadfully horny father, while also being gay.
In a feat of miraculous bravery, Karkat broke the awkward silence by its back. “So…”
“Hm?”
“What movie do you wanna watch?”
“Oh my god dude,” dave huffed in a bantering manner, “you were the one who suggested we watch a movie.”
“Yeah and I have already picked the genre so I’ll let you pick the movie.” Karkat nudged Dave with his shoulder, as the two lay side by side on their backs.
Dave nudged him back and they wound up just sort of rubbing their shoulders against each other till it got weird and they stopped. “Still man I thought you’d have like an idea already of what you wanted to watch.” He pulls up a pirate website for movies and browses the horror genre till he finds one of reasonable stupidity.
By the time they’ve picked out a movie and are snickering to themselves about it, Jade has returned with a single shot glass. She crawls back into bed with them and lets them look at it. It’s a souvenir shot glass from Iowa, with pictures of corn fields painted on the sides.
“Neat.” Says Dave, as he inspects the shot glass between his thumb and pointer finger, holding it up to the light.
“I see you’ve picked out an exceptionally delightfully silly horror movie!” Jade says as she snuggles up beside Karkat and takes a look at what they’ve got loading on the screen.
“Damn right it is.” Dave reaches over both of them to set the shotglass down on the nightstand next to the bottle of liquor.
As the movie starts to play, Karkat glances at the bottle beside them and then at Jade. “Hey, do we have a plan for how we’re going to hide if your dad comes in?”
“Oh, no I hadn’t thought of that.” Jade suddenly sounds a bit worried.
“Damn Karkat that's even scarier than anything that’s happened in this movie so far.” Dave says.
“Fuck you Strider the movie hasn’t even started yet.”
“Okay if my dad comes in,” Jade starts, turning down the volume on her laptop a little, “You two hide under my blanket and I’ll distract him from noticing the alcohol.”
“Prime plan Jade,” Dave snuggles his head in between her jaw and shoulder, “never heard a better one.”
“Oh hush, it’s starting.”
Not five minutes in, all three of them collectively agree that what the lady did in the opening scene was moronic and take a shot each. They share the fancy souvenir shotglass from Iowa, as none of them really mind drinking from the same glass.
“Hey, I have an idea,” Jade reaches over to grab a pen off her nightstand, “We should mark how many shots we take so we don’t go overboard.”
“That’s,” Dave pauses, considers it, then continues. “Actually a pretty good idea.”
“Alright yeah,” Karkat agrees and watches Jade mark her wrist with one pink tally. “Let’s do it.”
Halfway through the movie, Jade looks at her wrist to see she has collected five pink tallies as well as a queasy stomach. On the screen, one of the characters tentatively steps up to a darkened doorway and asks “hello?”
“Oh my god,” Dave says as Karkat sighs and sits up to pour another shot, “we need to stop.”
“Do you want to stop?” Karkat passes the shot to Dave, who quickly shoots it back and swallows it whole, and then hands the glass back to Karkat.
“Ugh, mm. I mean, no, but man I’m gonna get sick.” Dave settles back down on the bed while Jade draws a sixth tally and accepts the shot Karkat hands her.
“Goodness, we aren’t even halfway through the movie!” She gives Karkat the glass so he can take a shot too.
“How many are we at, now?” Dave talks slow like he’s tired and a little fucked up.
Jade has to check her wrist again to make sure. “Six.” She says, and Karkat takes his shot next to her and coughs, shedding a tear.
“Here,” Jade hands Karkat a bite off her pop tart to help with the taste and the burning.
“Can I get some of that?” Dave asks, to which Jade nods and hands the package to him. “Mm, thanks.”
The movie continues, and not seven minutes later after some more shitty scares, something stupid happens again.
“Shit, y’all,” Dave groans and throws an arm over his eyes. “I give up. This is my last shot. This movie blows ass.”
Jade giggles, “we don’t have to take any more, Dave. And yea, I agree with you, this movie is terrible. But you picked it!”
“You got me there.” Dave says, muffled by his arm.
After Karkat takes his shot and gags again, Jade offers him more pop tart and stops the movie. “Hey, guys?” Karkat sits up completely and rocks back and forth a little, looking off into the distance wearily. “Would you want to stop the movie and just, make out, or something,”
“Yea man,” Dave moves his arm off his face and rests it above his head. “I’m down.”
“Yes I’m also down.” Jade smiles and kisses Karkat on the cheek, then lays down to snuggle up to Dave and giggle.
“Wow,” Karkat lays down next to them and joins the cuddle pile, “I was worried you two would be disgusted by the proposition.”
“Why would we be disgusted, shithead?” Dave looks at him lazily, his shades sitting crooked on his face. “You’re the bomb. Making out is awesome. Combine the two and you get fuckall to the moon and back and Jesus comin to town.”
“The hell does that mean?”
“Boys! Boys,” Jade smiles ear to ear and looks from one to the other, “boys, ...boys, boys, boys…” what started as a means to get their attention has dissolved into a somewhat dreamy and wistful contemplation of the word “boys.”
“Yes Jade,” Dave shuts the laptop and sets it aside, “the boys are here.”
“The boys are wonderful,” Jade says, “and I would like to snog with them.”
Dave rolls onto his side to rest his forehead against hers. “Then let the snoggin commence, wondergirl.”
“hell yeah!” Jade sounds so cute when she says it, and Dave kisses her messily but with his whole heart.
Karkat watches them contentedly from the side, not noticing time pass, just soaking in the moment. They’re so pretty together, pretty even on their own, he can’t seem to wrap his head around it. The sweet little noises that come with kissing each make their voyage down through the labyrinth of Karkats ears to strike something up in him that makes him warmer than the liquor could manage. After a moment, Jade breaks the kiss and reaches for Karkat, grunting softly. The caveman speak is understandable enough in this situation.
Without really being able to process it, He’s pulled down and to his own amazement the world goes blurry and he has the weightless sensation of spinning in circles or dropping on a roller coaster. Jade's mouth is on his, and it’s always a bit odd at first but after a moment it makes sense. Karkat can’t believe how sensitive he is, he swears to himself that his lips are never this easy to ignite until someone comes along and decides to kiss them.
Beside them Dave hums, and takes off his shades to set them on the nightstand. Currently Karkat is somewhat on top of Jade, but soon she rolls them over and takes his hand in hers to hold down against the bed, making him gasp a bit and shiver.
“Yo, shit,” Dave whistles and Jade breaks the kiss to remind him to be quiet. “Sorry, you’re like, hot, and stuff.”
Jade smiles and blushes and giggles, and Karkat gets a fistful of Dave’s hair to pull him down. “Shut up, bitchstick.” Now Dave and Karkat are kissing, and the sensation of dizziness comes back fourfold, with Dave swallowing hard and not breathing for fear that some embarrassing little noise will slip past him. Jade puts a hand on Dave’s back and kneads tension out of his shoulder, then kisses the other one. Then bites it. The embarrassing little noise slips past him.
They start frenching, and Karkat tangles and claws his hands through Dave’s hair as they do so, fucking it up beautifully. Jade giggles when Dave makes another tiny unintentional noise. He physically goes tense, so she works that tension back out of his shoulders and kisses his neck more, grinning. Their whole concept of time has gone completely out the window, but they must have been at this for a while because Dave’s arms are starting to shake under the weight of holding himself up.
Helpfully, Jade rolls Dave over again and pulls Karkat on top of him so she can give Karkat a turn with the massages while they continue kissing.
Outside, crickets sing, calling for mates, calling for the hell of it. Bugs hum like most all of nature does, for the sake of finding a partner. In this moment, Dave feels somewhat complete, like these two beautiful people kissing him are what he’s been looking for this whole time. The dizzy, whimsical feeling one gets after staying up all night or after spinning in circles for hours is amplified ten times over in his stomach and he’s not even moving, just lying on his back as Karkat bites at his lips and staves off the loneliness with him.
He hums, and Jade kisses his cheek, and Karkat moves so she can kiss him again. Jade sighs happily and giggles against Dave’s lips as Karkat starts massaging her back like she did for him. She smells like everything comforting and sweet and cheerful in the world, and right now Dave would pay anything to bottle up the scent and keep it as a candle so he could burn it and breathe it in every time despair came knocking again.