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edenfallingSummary: Rose Lalonde meets Dave Strider for the first time on a college tour. They're not emotionally well equipped to have a touching, heartfelt reunion, but that's okay. They wouldn't be comfortable with that kind of thing anyway. (1,300 words)
Note: This fic was written for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
cottoncandy_bingo, in response to the prompt: comfortable / content. It is also a 15-minute fic that got wildly out of hand, once I realized it was heading into Alpha Timeline Fluff territory and figured I might as well see if I could knock off two birds with one stone. :-)
Fair warning for standard alpha timeline background levels of angst, plus Rose and Dave being their own special morbid selves. Also, yes, I set this in Ithaca because that obviated the need for research. I have never denied being lazy. *wry*
[ETA: the slightly revised and expanded final version is now up on AO3! Please go read that instead.]
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Some Company Would Be Nice
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Rose stands near the back of the crowd at the front of Day Hall, listening absently to the tour guide give a standard spiel about Cornell University. She already knows she won't spend four years at this school, though she will, naturally, apply. (She'll also be accepted. Or at least she's had extremely vivid hallucinations of a sheaf of acceptance packages spread over the black and purple comforter her parents gave her for her seventeenth birthday. It was a relief to open the package and see the familiar patterns. Unless, of course, that familiarity is simply a hyperactive sense of déjà vu.)
But it's a warm, sunny day in mid-spring, however -- "Don't expect this very often!" the guide says, laughing, "but make the most of your luck. Ithaca's putting on her best face for you. You should go visit some of the gorges-- no, wait, how about Buttermilk Falls or Taughannock Falls while you have the chance!" -- and if nothing else Rose intends to enjoy the walk and the pleasantly Gothic architecture of several buildings she can already catch glimpses of behind the bulk of Day Hall itself, rising over the arts quad at the heart of the central campus.
She enjoys them so thoroughly, in fact, that before the tour gets past the two main libraries she finds herself separated from the group by nearly fifty feet and several gaggles of undergraduates. She swears under her breath. Hurrying to catch up is so undignified, and she's been doing so well convincing people to treat her as a very-nearly-adult on this trip, especially since her parents are finally willing to go play tourist on their own instead of hovering over her shoulders, relentlessly grilling admissions offices for cheat codes, and generally cooing at her as if she's a beloved and hapless kitten.
"Oh damn, looks like we've been abandoned. Welp. Tell you what. I won't tell anyone you got hypnotized by the gothic glory of a big-ass penis metaphor, otherwise known as a clock tower, if you ditch the tour and come explore the gorges with me. I heard some poor asshole jumped off a bridge on Stewart Avenue last week and there's still a makeshift shrine. You seem like the kind of girl who'd enjoy morbid shit like that," a male voice says from behind her shoulder.
Rose suppresses a flinch. Then she suppresses her urge to hit the stranger who has invaded her personal space without asking her permission or snagging her attention.
She turns.
"If you believe you can determine so much about me without so much as a proper introduction, then I'm sure you won't mind if I return--" she begins, before the foam-pale hair, brown skin, tacky sunglasses, and features that are almost like looking into a mirror register with her conscious mind.
A second later, she drowns.
(red) swords flash and break too fast to see (red) gears tick and grind against a black sky and molten stone (red) crows wheel in the sun-scorched smog-filled air (red) jokes and evasions and metaphors and questions and every word but the ones he means the most (red) death and life and rising together through burning green (RED) staring at the sky as a spirograph spins and grows and eats the world (RED) oil slicks New York harbor and mutant gulls scream through the air as they draw their weapons and (REDREDREDREDRED)
Rose blinks back to herself. She's seated on a low concrete wall rather than splayed on the ground the way she so often is after major episodes. Dave's hand (narrow fingers, callused palms) is wrapped around her upper arm, holding her steady. His voice (monotone, faint southern accent) is murmuring a soothing string of rambling non sequiturs that wash like water over her aching brain.
"You're the one more likely to be seduced by timepieces, Dave Strider," she says. "Do you remember Sburb?"
He stops mid word.
Rose looks up with watering eyes, blinks through the shimmery veil of sun refracted through a film of tears.
She's never seen Dave this old, she realizes, never seen him lanky and stretched out to what must be nearly his adult height. She's never seen him balancing a sketchpad and pencil on his knees or wearing battered Walkman headphones around his neck, instead of typing on an iPhone or holding a sword or scribbling shitty jpeg art on a flatscreen monitor. She's never seen him look at her as if she's a stranger, wary rejection in the set of his shoulders and the sudden lift of his hand off the bare skin of her arm.
Her heart sinks.
Then Dave shoves his horrible novelty sunglasses into his sylladex and his eyes are still an impossible ruby red, exactly as unnatural as her own and twice as unnerving and difficult to overlook.
"Yeah. I remember. I was hoping it was all a dream," he says. "Except the web and smartphones and stuff. Those I like."
"Ah," Rose says.
"And you," he adds. "You know, as much as any cool guy ever likes a snarky broad who can't keep her nose out of his business and has a strange obsession with proving he likes sausages stuffed up his enchilada."
"Proving that, you say? That implies something exists to be proved. Is this your roundabout way of finally admitting your desperate desire for anal intercourse?" Rose says sweetly.
She bites her tongue the moment the words leave her mouth. Whatever she knows -- or thinks she knows -- about Dave from another world, another life, here and now they've only just met. And she's fairly sure that if either of them is homosexual, it's her and not her brother.
(How strange to have a brother. And yet, already she wonders how she lived without him, without knowing he was real and breathing and just waiting for her to find. She wonders what other essential facets of her life may still be missing.)
Dave seems equally awkward, but then he rallies. "Jesus, Lalonde, lay off the psychobabble for once, can't we have a touching reunion without diving straight into the giant steaming shitpile of wizard slash that lurks in the depths of your twisted brain?"
Rose pulls her face into a smile that is probably more wobbly and relief-stricken than she would prefer to show the world, or even show Dave on a normal basis. But he's right. They deserve a heartfelt reunion, no matter how bad they are at sincerity. Their relationship will dissolve into comfortable bickering and one-upmanship soon enough without any need to hurry things along.
"Just this once, and just for you," she says. "Now, I believe you said something about a shrine to a recent suicide...? And after that, I'll treat you to lunch."
"Deal," Dave says.
He tucks away his sketchpad and pencil, then stands and offers his hand, pulls her to her feet in an unnecessary and unthinking gesture, steadies her as she sways, still wrung out from her vision. Rose hides her smile and waves off his oblique attempt to ask if she's all right, badly disguised as a digression on fainting gothic vampire victims and alcoholic stupors. He's still a knight, still doing his best to protect anyone he lets into his all-too-fragile heart. He's still the boy she knew inside and out, no matter that they're decades displaced from their first run at life, and this world feels wrong in a way their old one never did.
They died at each other's sides once, Rose thinks. She's pretty sure they'll do the same again. Some things never change.
It's good to know she won't die alone.
She tucks her hand into Dave's elbow. They walk down the hill toward Stewart Avenue and the gorge together.
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Inspired by the 11/5/1315_minute_ficlets word #184: dawdle
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Okay, that took stupidly long to edit from rough draft to beta draft, and I really need to go to bed now. Good night! (Or good morning, as the case may be. *headdesk*)
Note: This fic was written for
cottoncandy_bingo, in response to the prompt: comfortable / content. It is also a 15-minute fic that got wildly out of hand, once I realized it was heading into Alpha Timeline Fluff territory and figured I might as well see if I could knock off two birds with one stone. :-)Fair warning for standard alpha timeline background levels of angst, plus Rose and Dave being their own special morbid selves. Also, yes, I set this in Ithaca because that obviated the need for research. I have never denied being lazy. *wry*
[ETA: the slightly revised and expanded final version is now up on AO3! Please go read that instead.]
---------------------------------------------
Some Company Would Be Nice
---------------------------------------------
Rose stands near the back of the crowd at the front of Day Hall, listening absently to the tour guide give a standard spiel about Cornell University. She already knows she won't spend four years at this school, though she will, naturally, apply. (She'll also be accepted. Or at least she's had extremely vivid hallucinations of a sheaf of acceptance packages spread over the black and purple comforter her parents gave her for her seventeenth birthday. It was a relief to open the package and see the familiar patterns. Unless, of course, that familiarity is simply a hyperactive sense of déjà vu.)
But it's a warm, sunny day in mid-spring, however -- "Don't expect this very often!" the guide says, laughing, "but make the most of your luck. Ithaca's putting on her best face for you. You should go visit some of the gorges-- no, wait, how about Buttermilk Falls or Taughannock Falls while you have the chance!" -- and if nothing else Rose intends to enjoy the walk and the pleasantly Gothic architecture of several buildings she can already catch glimpses of behind the bulk of Day Hall itself, rising over the arts quad at the heart of the central campus.
She enjoys them so thoroughly, in fact, that before the tour gets past the two main libraries she finds herself separated from the group by nearly fifty feet and several gaggles of undergraduates. She swears under her breath. Hurrying to catch up is so undignified, and she's been doing so well convincing people to treat her as a very-nearly-adult on this trip, especially since her parents are finally willing to go play tourist on their own instead of hovering over her shoulders, relentlessly grilling admissions offices for cheat codes, and generally cooing at her as if she's a beloved and hapless kitten.
"Oh damn, looks like we've been abandoned. Welp. Tell you what. I won't tell anyone you got hypnotized by the gothic glory of a big-ass penis metaphor, otherwise known as a clock tower, if you ditch the tour and come explore the gorges with me. I heard some poor asshole jumped off a bridge on Stewart Avenue last week and there's still a makeshift shrine. You seem like the kind of girl who'd enjoy morbid shit like that," a male voice says from behind her shoulder.
Rose suppresses a flinch. Then she suppresses her urge to hit the stranger who has invaded her personal space without asking her permission or snagging her attention.
She turns.
"If you believe you can determine so much about me without so much as a proper introduction, then I'm sure you won't mind if I return--" she begins, before the foam-pale hair, brown skin, tacky sunglasses, and features that are almost like looking into a mirror register with her conscious mind.
A second later, she drowns.
(red) swords flash and break too fast to see (red) gears tick and grind against a black sky and molten stone (red) crows wheel in the sun-scorched smog-filled air (red) jokes and evasions and metaphors and questions and every word but the ones he means the most (red) death and life and rising together through burning green (RED) staring at the sky as a spirograph spins and grows and eats the world (RED) oil slicks New York harbor and mutant gulls scream through the air as they draw their weapons and (REDREDREDREDRED)
Rose blinks back to herself. She's seated on a low concrete wall rather than splayed on the ground the way she so often is after major episodes. Dave's hand (narrow fingers, callused palms) is wrapped around her upper arm, holding her steady. His voice (monotone, faint southern accent) is murmuring a soothing string of rambling non sequiturs that wash like water over her aching brain.
"You're the one more likely to be seduced by timepieces, Dave Strider," she says. "Do you remember Sburb?"
He stops mid word.
Rose looks up with watering eyes, blinks through the shimmery veil of sun refracted through a film of tears.
She's never seen Dave this old, she realizes, never seen him lanky and stretched out to what must be nearly his adult height. She's never seen him balancing a sketchpad and pencil on his knees or wearing battered Walkman headphones around his neck, instead of typing on an iPhone or holding a sword or scribbling shitty jpeg art on a flatscreen monitor. She's never seen him look at her as if she's a stranger, wary rejection in the set of his shoulders and the sudden lift of his hand off the bare skin of her arm.
Her heart sinks.
Then Dave shoves his horrible novelty sunglasses into his sylladex and his eyes are still an impossible ruby red, exactly as unnatural as her own and twice as unnerving and difficult to overlook.
"Yeah. I remember. I was hoping it was all a dream," he says. "Except the web and smartphones and stuff. Those I like."
"Ah," Rose says.
"And you," he adds. "You know, as much as any cool guy ever likes a snarky broad who can't keep her nose out of his business and has a strange obsession with proving he likes sausages stuffed up his enchilada."
"Proving that, you say? That implies something exists to be proved. Is this your roundabout way of finally admitting your desperate desire for anal intercourse?" Rose says sweetly.
She bites her tongue the moment the words leave her mouth. Whatever she knows -- or thinks she knows -- about Dave from another world, another life, here and now they've only just met. And she's fairly sure that if either of them is homosexual, it's her and not her brother.
(How strange to have a brother. And yet, already she wonders how she lived without him, without knowing he was real and breathing and just waiting for her to find. She wonders what other essential facets of her life may still be missing.)
Dave seems equally awkward, but then he rallies. "Jesus, Lalonde, lay off the psychobabble for once, can't we have a touching reunion without diving straight into the giant steaming shitpile of wizard slash that lurks in the depths of your twisted brain?"
Rose pulls her face into a smile that is probably more wobbly and relief-stricken than she would prefer to show the world, or even show Dave on a normal basis. But he's right. They deserve a heartfelt reunion, no matter how bad they are at sincerity. Their relationship will dissolve into comfortable bickering and one-upmanship soon enough without any need to hurry things along.
"Just this once, and just for you," she says. "Now, I believe you said something about a shrine to a recent suicide...? And after that, I'll treat you to lunch."
"Deal," Dave says.
He tucks away his sketchpad and pencil, then stands and offers his hand, pulls her to her feet in an unnecessary and unthinking gesture, steadies her as she sways, still wrung out from her vision. Rose hides her smile and waves off his oblique attempt to ask if she's all right, badly disguised as a digression on fainting gothic vampire victims and alcoholic stupors. He's still a knight, still doing his best to protect anyone he lets into his all-too-fragile heart. He's still the boy she knew inside and out, no matter that they're decades displaced from their first run at life, and this world feels wrong in a way their old one never did.
They died at each other's sides once, Rose thinks. She's pretty sure they'll do the same again. Some things never change.
It's good to know she won't die alone.
She tucks her hand into Dave's elbow. They walk down the hill toward Stewart Avenue and the gorge together.
---------------------------------------------
Inspired by the 11/5/13
15_minute_ficlets word #184: dawdle---------------------------------------------
Okay, that took stupidly long to edit from rough draft to beta draft, and I really need to go to bed now. Good night! (Or good morning, as the case may be. *headdesk*)
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-21 03:21 pm (UTC)also i love the decor XD it gives a nice atmosphere. XD
(no subject)
Date: 2014-03-21 07:22 pm (UTC)Cornell has a very attractive campus, by and large. There are a few inevitable ugly mid-20th-century institutional blocks, but there's a lot of lovely stone Gothic construction from earlier decades, and more recent construction has at least paid lip service to that aesthetic.
As for the suicide shrine thing... well, suicide by bridge-and-gorge is an old tradition in Ithaca, and specifically at Cornell. The actual suicide rate is no higher than anywhere else -- in fact, it may be somewhat lower due to extra attention given to suicide prevention -- but that method is pretty final (no way to take it back once you've jumped) and the successes are the dramatic sort that get a lot of news attention, rather than someone taking sleeping pills and dying quietly in a dorm room. (People also die in the gorges from general stupidity -- swimming despite warnings about rocks and vicious eddy currents, getting drunk and falling over the cliff edge, etcetera -- but it's the suicides that get mythologized.)