Chapter Text
There’s nothing Dave likes more than late nights skateboarding. The asphalt is still hot from the blazing Texas heat, but not unbearably so. Even though he lives in an expansive city, the streets still feel barren past 1 am. He can blast some shitty rap and aimlessly wander down alleyways and torn-up sidewalks.
The best part, though, is getting out of his fucking apartment. Somehow, it’s always ten degrees hotter in there than outside, and someone’s always bugging him; whether it’s Dirk with some weirdo experiment, or Bro quietly observing him with a stare that’s a little too intense, he never truly feels alone. Seriously, what’s a guy got to do to get a little bit of peace and quiet around here?
Sneak out of the fire escape and skate down Texan roads with reckless abandon, apparently.
It’s not like Bro would really care or anything, so he technically doesn’t have to sneak, but god forbid Dave wants to feel cool sometimes.
One summer night, after an unbearable heatwave and a dumb fight with Dirk, Dave decides to skate around and do stupid shit until he needs to go home. A day or two, he determines. He doesn’t even know what the fight was about, really. Maybe the microwave again, or Dirk’s insistence on Dave following the stupid chore chart he made up. Whatever. He just knows Dirk’s voice got sharp and pointed, and Dave felt like maybe he should crawl into a hole forever afterwards. Skating around until he can’t anymore will have to suffice.
He puts on his headphones, garbled, satire soaked rap already leaking from the cushioned ears, and fucks off into the metropolis nightmare known as Houston.
His shirt sticks to his back, glued down by sweat. His converse, which are practically worn through on the bottoms, scrape along the uneven pavement with every push as he lazily weaves and bobs on his board. His right hand is in his pocket, his shades are on, and you could probably sense the ironic detachment radiating off of him. Hell yeah.
When brought to a four way intersection, Dave stops for just a moment, and chooses to go down a road he hasn’t been on before. “Dave Strider, explorer extraordinaire,” he remarks quietly, smirking slightly as he propels himself forwards.
After a few minutes and one too many nearly-fatal potholes, Dave decides he doesn’t like this road. He’s about to call it quits and turn back around when something catches his eye.
A bright, almost green light is emitting from a dark, closed off alleyway. It seems to pulse erratically, and when Dave pauses his music, he feels like he can hear it faintly. “Holy shit. I’m Indiana Jonesing up in this place.” He says, a hint of glee ghosting across his face.
He skates forward without much hesitation, deciding what would be the coolest outcome of his new escapade. “Aliens. No, some sort of weird, discarded government project. A weird government project involving aliens!” He says out loud to himself, dismounting his board as he steps closer to the light.
As he reaches the origin of the invasive glow, he immediately becomes disappointed. It’s just a lightbulb, still ominously glowing, but suddenly much less cool.
“Dude, who left their funky little light fixture outside?” He says, once again speaking to no one. He crouches down, watching as the bulb goes from barely glowing, to nearly blinding, and back again.
He reaches for it, deciding that maybe it’ll be cool to have. It’d probably freak his brother out, at least. That’d be funny.
As his hand clasps the base of the lightbulb, suddenly everything goes strangely still. The humming noise it was emitting becomes unbearably loud, and the light nearly blinds him. For a split second, he feels as if his body glitches, a strange jolt running from his hand down his spine.
The light almost feels like it hurts, grabbing onto his skin and pushing against it. The sound buzzes in his skull, and he can feel it in his molars. He wants to drop it, to let go and move on, but it feels like his fingers are broken, not moving quite right. Time slips, and for a moment, it’s just Dave and the stupid lightbulb.
It stops as suddenly as it starts, and Dave is knocked back onto his ass. “What the fuck?” He exclaims, breathing heavily. It takes him a moment to get his bearings, and he notices the lightbulb has stopped glowing. He huffs and elects to leave it in the alley.
He stands up and gets back on his board, a strange metallic taste in his mouth and a killer migraine brewing behind his eyes. Shit, maybe he needs to go home sooner than he thought. Whatever. The stupid lightbulb had kinda drained him of his energy, strangely.
He notices a weird, fine dust covering his hands, the same slightly green hue that the lightbulb gave off. He frantically wipes them against his jeans, trying and failing to brush off the glowing fragments. They stick to his skin like static.
“I’ll just go home and sleep this crazy shit off, I gotta be hallucinating or something,” he mumbles, pushing himself back onto the main roads.
As he drifts home, the shadows around him seem… wrong. He feels like he’s been here countless times before, even though he knows it’s a new street. “This migraine is making me crazy or some shit,” he says, turning his music up louder.
He doesn’t notice that every once in a while, the streetlights above flicker and go out as he rolls past.
~
The next morning Dave wakes up with a groan. His migraine has subsided, now only a slight throbbing behind his eyes. He kicks his worn, red blanket off of his bed and sits up stiffly. He checks his phone; it’s 7:14, and his only notification is from Bro. Cool, he doesn’t feel like a loser at all.
He resigns himself to actually getting ready for school. He looks at his messy floor, picking up a red graphic tee that’s acceptably wrinkled and tugging it over his head. He switches his pajama pants out for cargos, and finds two socks that’re similar enough in color that the fact they’re from different pairs isn’t noticeable. Probably.
He sluggishly makes his way to the bathroom he shares with Dirk, muttering under his breath when he sees that Dirk reorganized the sink, again. He brushes his teeth languidly, too busy thinking about nothing to really think about anything at all. He tugs a hairbrush through his hair a few times, not enough that he looks like he actually cares about his appearance but instead a respectably detached amount.
As he exits the bathroom, he feels his phone buzzing in his pocket. He pulls it out, a small smile tugging at his lips when he sees a notification from John. He glances at the time, it reads 7:12.
Wait, what the hell?
There’s no way that’s right. He woke up two minutes into the future, apparently. He shakes his phone, frowning. When that doesn’t work he resets it, convinced it’s just a glitch he might have to force Dirk to look at.
He walks into the kitchen, mumbling a groggy hello to Bro as he sits at the table. He messes with the salt and pepper shakers and glances at the oven clock, expecting it to say 7:30 or something as equally reasonable. Instead, it says 7:03. Okay, what the hell. He checks his phone once more, and sees 7:14. Great, that stupid lightbulb either made him crazy or fucked with his phone somehow. Or both.
He decides to ignore it, standing up and grabbing a bowl. Breakfast will fix him. It is the most important meal of the day, after all. He pours some gross fruity cereal concoction he happens to be a fan of into the bowl, and grabs the milk from Bro.
As he pours it, however, it seems to move erratically. It’s slow, pouring more like honey or slime than liquid. “This is the weirdest fucking expired milk I’ve ever seen,” he says, staring at the slow-moving stream with morbid fascination.
Bro looks over with a grunt, lowering his shades ever so slightly to get a better look at Dave. “Expired? I just bought it yesterday, kid. Doesn’t go bad for two weeks.”
Dave shoots him a look, wondering why he isn’t remarking on how damn slow this freaky milk was pouring. Yet, when he stirs his spoon around the bowl, he finds that the milk was acting perfectly milk-like, not a syrupy particle in sight.
Alright, something might be up here.
Just then Dirk walks in the room, still in his pajamas, which consist of orange sweatpants and a Rainbow dash t-shirt. He yawns, then seems to notice Dave, looking slightly taken aback.
“You’re peculiarly punctual today, Dave.”
Dave fidgets slightly, palms suddenly feeling very sweaty. “Me? No, never. It’s the time I usually get up.”
Dirk cocks an eyebrow, using his head to gesture towards the kitchen clock. “It’s 7:10, usually you’re in bed for another ten minutes at least,” Dirk leans towards him, smiling slightly as he says: “For the first time ever, does David Elizabeth Strider actually care about something?”
Alright yeah, call Dave Niagara Falls because his hands are straight up waterfalling sweat. He laughs, nervously at first but he tries to keep it flat. “Yep. You got me. I have a uhhh… presentation. In history. Pretty riveting stuff,” he says, shifting uncomfortably as the lights above him start to flicker.
All three Striders look up, watching as the lights dance erratically. It feels almost eerie, and for a second Dave swears the flickering lights cast the same green hue he’d seen last night.
Bro is the first one to break the spell. “Damn fuse box,” he mutters, wandering off to presumably tinker with it needlessly. Dave takes the opportunity to jump up, quickly shouting some lame excuse over his shoulder as he runs back to his bedroom. Dirk just watches him go, a determined look growing on his face.
Dave gets back to his room and leans his back on the door as he closes it behind him. Okay. What the actual fuck was wrong with him.