asherdashery (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
asherdashery) wrote2012-08-28 04:01 pm
asherdashery) wrote2012-08-28 04:01 pm
Entry tags:
DVD Commentary: Stitches
[Stitches is one of the earliest things I wrote in the Homestuck fandom, when I still wasn't playing Davesprite at a game and was just futzing around with him in testboxes and stuff, I think. Or I was just starting to apply with him to a game. I was still really scared of getting voices wrong--actually, you know what, that shouldn't be in past tense, I'm still scared of that. Especially with Jade. She's too cool to do anything less than justice to.
But like nice seeing you jade, this was a story that wouldn't get out of my head, so finally I buckled down and wrote it.]
-- gardenGnostic [GG] started pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --
GG: excuse me mister hideypants but i think enough is enough!
[You don't know how glad I was, while re-reading some of Jade's pesterlogs after writing this part, to come across her saying things like "mister cool guy." I was worried I was out of character with her from the get-go but that sort of made me feel like, oh, maybe I don't have her completely wrong in my head.]
TG: what
GG: you know exactly what im talking about :|
TG: ok look
TG: im kind of a busy guy
TG: ive got a latrine ditch about three miles wide to dig just to hold all the colossally important shit i have to get done
[I can't read that line without remembering that Crissy said she was happy that I made Davesprite say the word "latrine." He's a lettered kid. He knows a lot of words. Plus I only write Daves that have spent months to years with Rose as their sole human companion.]
GG: yeah right!!!
TG: its like the bfg took a dump over mexico city
TG: this shitpiles the size of lil waynes ego
[That actually took some research on my part. I'm still pretty ignorant as far as the rap/hip-hop scene goes, as much as I like my handful of indie artists. But then I figured, he's famous, he probably has an ego problem, right?]
GG: its been a whole day :\
GG: and honestly.......
GG: youre being kind of a child about this!
TG: ouch
TG: im telling ma
GG: fine!
GG: if youre going to act like a stupid troll wiggler then that is just how i am going to treat you
GG: prepare to get SCHOOLFED!!
[I wish we could've seen more interactions between Jade and Karkat. Karkat's grown on me so much.]
TG: what
TG: wait
Flash.
Davesprite found himself in a room on the ship staring into the sparking [SPARKING, not sparkling.] green eyes of an exasperated and unyielding Jade Harley. He pretended her teleportation shtick wasn’t as disconcerting as fuck (that the transition wasn’t completely disorienting made his head spin) [Ugh, confusing syntax, little importance, would cut.] and just turned aside. “Hear that?”
“What?” she asked, arms crossed, tapping her ruby red slipper against the linoleum. Her devilbeast ears pricked forward like satellite dishes. It wasn’t just her eyes that were sparking green; she crackled with power that made his skin prickle. He ignored the sensation.
“That was the sound the idea I had any free will made as it executed an impeccable ten-point somersaulting swan dive to its brutal spine-cracking death at the bottom of Spacewitch Mountain.”
[I would cut a phrase or two out of that, too. It's hard to even just silently read in one breath. Maybe "brutal spine-cracking." "That was the sound the thought I had any free will made as it executed an impeccable ten-point somersault to its spine-cracking death at the bottom of Spacewitch Mountain." That's at least a little better.]
“Ugggh, really, Dave?” Jade rolled her eyes and steered him to a stool.
That’s how it was with them. Alpha Dave wasn’t there, so, with her, he got to be just Dave, feathers and all. [Well that got jossed as heck. Though at this point (one day after EOA5), maybe she was just calling him Dave.] And it was okay, because--he was pretty sure--she missed him. ["Him" being alpha Dave, in this case.] Sometimes in the twenty-eight hours since the Reckoning he’d caught her looking at him too hard, eyes huge behind her glasses and teeth worrying her lip, and sometimes she’d push past him with a canine growl almost close to a whine, and he knew he would never ask her what happened to Dave on LOFAF (John had said enough) and he took it as gratitude that she never asked about Bro.
[Jade did ask alpha Dave about Bro, but she'd been perfectly ready to drop it when he seemed like he didn't want to talk. But then he went ahead and talked anyway and she didn't really seem to know what to do. I think Jade and John really would rather turn away from tricky problems--as long as they have other things to do that they CAN handle.]
“I don’t remember signing a consent form.” Davesprite balked from the stool and folded his arms over his chest, watching her bustle towards a cabinet. A quick look around the room confirmed it: a row of standing curtains and identical patient beds in cheery-sterile Prospitian gold, nightstands with fake flowers, fluorescent lights--yeah. Ship’s infirmary. It was time to abscond the hell out of there.
He inched towards the exit but she turned and pointed. “Sit!” [Hi unnecessary italicization, my old friend.] The stool vanished only to hit him in the back of the knees (if he’d had knees). “Dave, you’re still bleeding, so you are getting these stitches whether you want them or not! Woof!”
“That sure is a nice opinion you have there but I’ll have to get back to you after I talk to my agent.” [Possibly a callback to a bit of RP I did where Davesprite was riffing to Jade about his agent, or then again maybe I just say the same things over and over.] Summoning all the speed he had left, Davesprite dove over the stool and made a sweet ninja break right through the door--
Flash. He was suddenly square on his ass on the bed nearest the cabinets, back against the wall, and Jade had gotten right up in his grill. She was leaning over him with one hand planted to either side of his head. “Dave.”
He forced his feathers to lie flat. [A Davesprite who can't control his body's birdy reactions is the funnest kind of Davesprite to write.] “Help, I need an adult.”
“You wouldn’t if you’d stop being such a baby! And when I asked the grown-up Prospitians you said no.”
[Twenty-eight hours is kind of a long time to go without medical help WITH A GIANT HOLE THROUGH YOUR TORSO. Of course Jade assumed command of the ship, since she's the only one familiar with the Prospitians, and of course there's probably a doctor on board. There always is.]
“The list of people I trust with sharp shit within six inches of this fly bod is about as long as the list of decent movies John actually likes.” He straightened so she wasn’t looming over him anymore. “We’re talking A-list secret handshake exclusive here, check your ID at the door.”
[The list is Bro and Rose, and maybe Jade. Dave himself is not on this list.]
The stubborn set of her mouth softened a little. She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest, but the frustration slipped from her shoulders. “Wow, Dave, that sure sounds like a really big deal! What do I have to do to get into the cool sharp things club?”
[I like Dave and Jade best when they spiral off each other and nobody even knows what they're saying anymore besides them. Actually, that's what I like best between John and Rose, too. This conversation doesn't go that far, but it was starting to.]
“Jade, come on, it doesn’t even hurt,” he replied, adjusting his shades. “I think sprites aren’t programmed to f--”
To his credit, he didn’t make a sound when she pressed one fingertip to a spot an inch to the side of the stab wound. [Because she wouldn't actually poke the wound, that would be mean.] He didn’t breathe, either, because every nerve and tendon in his body seized up in an electric-hot yellow power surge of mind-razing holy fucking shit jesus christ pain.
[That last bit used to be italicized but when I pasted it into AO3, I decided I didn't need it. Go me!]
His expression didn’t change, but Jade’s melted into pure dismay and she snatched her hand back like a snake. “Oh no, Dave, I’m sorry!” Before he could pull air into his paralyzed lungs she reached out again and cradled his head carefully against her shoulder. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she repeated around the saddest woofs in the world.
[I'm not sure about this hug now, but I've always seen Jade as a really tactile person. She was raised by a dog, and I just re-watched her and Bec's silly dance at the end of their "strife" when they hug and he wags his tail and stuff, so even if he is an omnipotent figure he's also very doggy. And you know, besides having those instincts, maybe she misses him.
Still not sure about it, but hey, this is a shipfic, I guess.]
He’d never been so close and he would have jerked away if he could move, but she was warm and solid and then she was stroking his hair. When the spasm subsided, he just let out a shaky breath against her collarbone and she let him sit up.
“Can I please stitch it up?” she asked, eyes bright.
All right, maybe she had a point. He managed a shrug. “Yeah. Okay. If that’s what you’re into.”
She chuckled and rubbed her eye [Also bleh, if I wrote this again, I would not have her be so almost-weepy! She gets teary for Jadesprite but that's about it. Davesprite is obviously not bawling his eyes out like Jadesprite was, and Jade's clearly got a more important job to do right now than wibble.] and got up to rummage through the cabinet. Davesprite leaned casually (not weakly) against the wall and watched her as she stood on her tiptoes to see. “Where’d John blow himself off to?”
[He's still getting used to having a live John to grouse at, so he's taking every opportunity.]
“He’s still trying to get the computers to connect beyond the ship. [I read at least a couple fics about John trying to get back in contact with the trolls either during this period or after the game before I wrote this.] Can you undo your bandages for me?” Everything in the room--everything in the ship--was the same eye-smarting gold, even the contents of the cabinet, but somehow Jade found what she was looking for and placed a small tray on the counter, followed by a little bottle and some cloths and other things he didn’t want to know too much about (but knew he would).
[I'd edit that, too. "...and other things he didn't want to find out too much about (but knew he soon would)."
I did some research for this, but mostly the imagery for the actual stitch stuff came from watching my dad.]
“You’d think a guy could waste three years doing other completely pointless bullshit.” He found the end of the bandage and started peeling it away, grimacing when it stuck to his skin.
She huffed. “Don’t be mean, Dave. He misses them.” The stool he’d knocked over disappeared again only to pop up next to the bed, and then Jade reappeared cross-legged on top of it with the medical gear in her lap. [If I had unlimited cosmic powers, I'd abuse them, too.] “And I know you’re just pretending to be too cool to care because you miss them, too.”
[Rose and Dave. Not the trolls.]
“Okay.” [Dave doesn't fight with Jade to prove himself like he does with John or Rose. If she doesn't humor him, he drops it. He doesn't really give in and admit she's right, but he drops it. Because she knows she's right, even if he doesn't.] She was fussing with the bottle and one of the little cloths so he focused on getting the bandage all unwound and then, for the first time since the fight, checked the damage.
There sure was a huge bleeding gash through his torso.
He didn’t realize Jade was talking until she flicked him in the temple with her finger. “Come on, Dave, snap out of it! You need to let me see or else I am only going to poke you full of little holes.”
“Been there, bought the t-shirt,” he said, pointing at his stomach, but he shifted for her anyway.
Her expression drained for a moment to an emotionless thin line that he didn’t know how to read [Because HE'S not the Dave that knows about being full of little holes, now, is he?], but then she shook herself, woofed, and placed a hand on his chest to keep him still. “Okay, this...will probably hurt a lot,” she admitted, and she leaned forward to dab at the wound with her cloth.
The alcohol burned and he jerked under her hand. “Oh god, sorry!” Jade said, dropping the cloth to steady him with both hands. “Do you--durr, Jade, I should have--I can get you a painkiller or something, if you want it!”
“Just--no, don’t worry about it. Let’s just get this over with.” He took her wrist and moved her hand away. She bit her lip, but he kept himself together as she continued to clean the wound. It took three of her makeshift wipes to finish the job and of course it was still bleeding sluggishly, but Davesprite didn’t really feel nervous until Jade tore open a couple of innocuous-looking little packets and picked up some weird scissor-tweezers. “So how long have you been in practice, Dr. Harley,” he drawled, more deadpan than usual as his fingers tightened in the bed sheets.
[Oh, I didn't talk about Davesprite's negative reaction to getting patched up in the first place. Obviously he's used to getting hurt, but if he's hurt so bad he needs attention then he did something wrong. He messed up, and he's not making Bro proud, and that's worse than just getting hurt. I'm sure more than anything else, as a protective Guardian, the most important thing Bro taught Dave was don't get hurt.
Plus we know Dave doesn't do well with his own blood.]
“I have had a lot of practice with this kind of thing, Dave!” she answered as she removed an evilly curved sliver of metal from the first packet.
[You know, I don't actually remember that all these medical things are called because Davesprite didn't know what they were called, so I just described them.]
He raised his eyebrows behind his shades. “Really?” She did seem to be handling the tweezers like a pro and was attaching some thread from the other packet to the metal bit, but--
“Yes, really! On dead things.”
His face fell back into complete impassivity.
“Jee-e-eez, Dave, you don’t have to look at me like that! I had to do all the stitching on Grandpa after he died and I had to stuff him, and my Manthro Chaps all came with medical kits.”
[I researched that, too, at the time. They're vaccination kits, but shh.]
“Great. Awesome. I am feeling so assured right now, I could out-Zen Siddhartha Gautama for the Grand Title Championship of well-being. You get an A for legitimate experience and an A plus for professional bedside manner.”
“Woof!” She rolled her eyes, but looked reluctant to proceed, in spite of herself. “Well, hmm, I don’t know. Since you’re part bird, you’re basically just a big orange Manthro Chap yourself now! Except not quite as cheerful and pleasant, though of course you are still a wonderful friend.”
He ruffled his wings. “Thanks, Jade. My dream was always to be compared to a creepy wall-eyed squeaky toy for four-year-old furries. My life is now complete.”
“Good! [See? I like when they just bounce off each other forever, especially when she is being kind of sassy at his expense.] Now hold still.”
He braced himself, but she still hesitated. After a moment, he lowered his chin a little. “Jade.” She looked up from the wound. “It’s fine. There’s no way it can hurt more than it did going in unless you decide to go psychomurder on me.”
“Hehe.” Her smile was watery [Meh. Jade's a powerful lady with the universe in her paws. She might be hesitant, but I now think she wouldn't tackle this with anything but the staunchest determination.], but she steeled her spine and got to work. Davesprite had to look away but her hands were steady, and it didn’t hurt any worse than an average hash-rap battle with Bro.
[In fact I'm sure it hurt significantly less.]
“So what were you so busy doing in your apartment?” she asked as she cut a finished stitch from the suture thread.
[Honestly, the following part was just filler for me, where I felt like I needed to provide a sense of the time the stitching would take. I wasn't really planning for it to go in the sad direction it did.]
He glanced at her--her head blocked his view of what she was doing, and all he could see of her expression was her ears, and fuck if he could read dog body language. “Oh. You know. Stuff.” He glanced back at the wall.
“Cool stuff?”
“You know it. Mixing beats and taking names,” he lied. The apartment had felt--after so long, and with the SBURB gear in place of his bed and the TV, and with Bro gone--it had all felt unfamiliar. And dead. He hadn’t done more than stand in the center of the living room and stare at his brother’s posters.
The needle slipped in one more time and brought him out of his morose funk. “You better not keep all those swee-e-e-eet jams to yourself,” she said, tying the stitch off. “All your stuff is really, really great! So if you finish anything, I want to be the first to hear it. And we’re done!” She snipped the thread one last time and grinned up at him.
“Cool.” He started to look down, but Jade poked him in the forehead. “Wha--”
[For his benefit more than hers. I think at this point she knows that Daves are kind of wussy about wounds, while if their situations were reversed she might kind of stare fascinatedly at the sutured gash and chatter away.]
“Don’t move yet! When I said done, I didn’t mean done done. I am going to clean you up again, okay?”
He sighed and slumped back against the wall. “Yes, Mom.”
“Dave!” But she laughed as she wiped down the stitched-up wound and then applied some stinging, mystery ointment to it. “Son, if you don’t behave, I’m going to ground you for the rest of your life! And take away TV privileges! Sit up, okay?” [I'm sure I missed some fantastic opportunity here for choice banter, but at this point I was tired and wanted to be done.] She teleported a roll of gauze into her hands. He had to rest his arms on her shoulders to get them out of the way [Haha. Had to. Sure. But I wonder whose suggestion it was, hm?] as she wrapped him up again, and their heads were so close he could smell the cucumber melon shampoo she used on her hair.
[Because I like cucumber melon shampoo.]
He didn’t notice she’d finished until she slid her hand into his feather ruff. “Hey, Dave?” she said, still looking down.
“Sup.”
She kissed him.
It was soft, and light, and he almost didn’t know it had happened until she pulled away. Her eyes were so full and blindingly sincere that it hurt to look at her, but she trapped his gaze. Her lips trembled.
“You’re warm,” she said, voice choked and low, and then she disappeared in a flash.
[And this is why I tagged this Jade Harley/Dave Strider before Davesprite/Jade Harley, because in this moment, she's not thinking of him but of alpha Dave, how she had to kiss him and he was dead and cold and his mouth was full of blood, and it's her apology and he isn't there to take it, and in a way she's kind of just using Davesprite, because maybe she knows he maybe has feelings for her, but she can't look at him without thinking of Dave, and it's an awful mess.
If I was going back to edit this, I'd put a separator here to indicate some time went by.
Oh, god, I remember starting to write this part and groaning because I had to write John. John is so hard for me, guys. SO. HARD.]
-- gardenGnostic [GG] started pestering ectoBiologist [EB] --
GG: hi john!
GG: hoooows it going with the computers? :o
EB: hey jade!
EB: augh, i don’t know, this is just so frustrating and impossible and lame!
GG: :C
EB: can we really not connect to rose and karkat and vriska and dave??
GG: i really think we cant
GG: not until were all in the new session, anyway
EB: lamey lame laaaaaaaame.
[And there's Vriska's influence.]
GG: i know!!!
GG: well
GG: let me know if you make any breakthroughs!
GG: there is someone i want to hear from, too
EB: oh man.
EB: i bet i know who it is.
GG: um what?
EB: it’s karkat isn’t it!
GG: :O
EB: i know i’m right, you don’t have to answer.
EB: he totally wooed you over with his angry yet affectionate ways, just like in a japanese love manga.
EB: you two are totally going to get hatemarried and break dave’s heart!
[John's just teasing her. He doesn't think she has feelings for either Karkat or Dave, but he's been working with uncooperative technology all day and he doesn't even know basic data structures, and he's gotta blow off steam.]
GG: derp yes that is totally what is going to happen, me and karkat are secretly in anime love!!
EB: i knew it!
EB: but what about dave?
EB: the very integrity of karkat’s shitty shipping diagram is at stake!
GG: i am going to go now
EB: aww, ok! [I would change that exclamation point to a period now.]
EB: don’t be too sad, ok. i’m sure he misses you too.
EB: karkat, i mean.
GG: :p
EB: and in the meantime you have me and casey and dave sprite and all those chess guys to help you with any problems you might have, even if you are a space goddess and also a dog.
[I really like the way John puts the space in "dave sprite." I really miss it when people write him and don't put it in. It's just. So John. I don't know?
I also think John sort of suspects--well, maybe not that he hit a nerve, but that maybe she has something on her mind. And there's a reason every Beta kid thinks of John as their best friend.]
GG: john...
GG: .................
GG: yup bye!!!
-- gardenGnostic [GG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] --
[This is still my most popular prose piece on AO3, so I'm pretty fond of it, despite what I think its weaknesses are now. I miss writing/RPing Davesprite.]
But like nice seeing you jade, this was a story that wouldn't get out of my head, so finally I buckled down and wrote it.]
-- gardenGnostic [GG] started pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --
GG: excuse me mister hideypants but i think enough is enough!
[You don't know how glad I was, while re-reading some of Jade's pesterlogs after writing this part, to come across her saying things like "mister cool guy." I was worried I was out of character with her from the get-go but that sort of made me feel like, oh, maybe I don't have her completely wrong in my head.]
TG: what
GG: you know exactly what im talking about :|
TG: ok look
TG: im kind of a busy guy
TG: ive got a latrine ditch about three miles wide to dig just to hold all the colossally important shit i have to get done
[I can't read that line without remembering that Crissy said she was happy that I made Davesprite say the word "latrine." He's a lettered kid. He knows a lot of words. Plus I only write Daves that have spent months to years with Rose as their sole human companion.]
GG: yeah right!!!
TG: its like the bfg took a dump over mexico city
TG: this shitpiles the size of lil waynes ego
[That actually took some research on my part. I'm still pretty ignorant as far as the rap/hip-hop scene goes, as much as I like my handful of indie artists. But then I figured, he's famous, he probably has an ego problem, right?]
GG: its been a whole day :\
GG: and honestly.......
GG: youre being kind of a child about this!
TG: ouch
TG: im telling ma
GG: fine!
GG: if youre going to act like a stupid troll wiggler then that is just how i am going to treat you
GG: prepare to get SCHOOLFED!!
[I wish we could've seen more interactions between Jade and Karkat. Karkat's grown on me so much.]
TG: what
TG: wait
Flash.
Davesprite found himself in a room on the ship staring into the sparking [SPARKING, not sparkling.] green eyes of an exasperated and unyielding Jade Harley. He pretended her teleportation shtick wasn’t as disconcerting as fuck (that the transition wasn’t completely disorienting made his head spin) [Ugh, confusing syntax, little importance, would cut.] and just turned aside. “Hear that?”
“What?” she asked, arms crossed, tapping her ruby red slipper against the linoleum. Her devilbeast ears pricked forward like satellite dishes. It wasn’t just her eyes that were sparking green; she crackled with power that made his skin prickle. He ignored the sensation.
“That was the sound the idea I had any free will made as it executed an impeccable ten-point somersaulting swan dive to its brutal spine-cracking death at the bottom of Spacewitch Mountain.”
[I would cut a phrase or two out of that, too. It's hard to even just silently read in one breath. Maybe "brutal spine-cracking." "That was the sound the thought I had any free will made as it executed an impeccable ten-point somersault to its spine-cracking death at the bottom of Spacewitch Mountain." That's at least a little better.]
“Ugggh, really, Dave?” Jade rolled her eyes and steered him to a stool.
That’s how it was with them. Alpha Dave wasn’t there, so, with her, he got to be just Dave, feathers and all. [Well that got jossed as heck. Though at this point (one day after EOA5), maybe she was just calling him Dave.] And it was okay, because--he was pretty sure--she missed him. ["Him" being alpha Dave, in this case.] Sometimes in the twenty-eight hours since the Reckoning he’d caught her looking at him too hard, eyes huge behind her glasses and teeth worrying her lip, and sometimes she’d push past him with a canine growl almost close to a whine, and he knew he would never ask her what happened to Dave on LOFAF (John had said enough) and he took it as gratitude that she never asked about Bro.
[Jade did ask alpha Dave about Bro, but she'd been perfectly ready to drop it when he seemed like he didn't want to talk. But then he went ahead and talked anyway and she didn't really seem to know what to do. I think Jade and John really would rather turn away from tricky problems--as long as they have other things to do that they CAN handle.]
“I don’t remember signing a consent form.” Davesprite balked from the stool and folded his arms over his chest, watching her bustle towards a cabinet. A quick look around the room confirmed it: a row of standing curtains and identical patient beds in cheery-sterile Prospitian gold, nightstands with fake flowers, fluorescent lights--yeah. Ship’s infirmary. It was time to abscond the hell out of there.
He inched towards the exit but she turned and pointed. “Sit!” [Hi unnecessary italicization, my old friend.] The stool vanished only to hit him in the back of the knees (if he’d had knees). “Dave, you’re still bleeding, so you are getting these stitches whether you want them or not! Woof!”
“That sure is a nice opinion you have there but I’ll have to get back to you after I talk to my agent.” [Possibly a callback to a bit of RP I did where Davesprite was riffing to Jade about his agent, or then again maybe I just say the same things over and over.] Summoning all the speed he had left, Davesprite dove over the stool and made a sweet ninja break right through the door--
Flash. He was suddenly square on his ass on the bed nearest the cabinets, back against the wall, and Jade had gotten right up in his grill. She was leaning over him with one hand planted to either side of his head. “Dave.”
He forced his feathers to lie flat. [A Davesprite who can't control his body's birdy reactions is the funnest kind of Davesprite to write.] “Help, I need an adult.”
“You wouldn’t if you’d stop being such a baby! And when I asked the grown-up Prospitians you said no.”
[Twenty-eight hours is kind of a long time to go without medical help WITH A GIANT HOLE THROUGH YOUR TORSO. Of course Jade assumed command of the ship, since she's the only one familiar with the Prospitians, and of course there's probably a doctor on board. There always is.]
“The list of people I trust with sharp shit within six inches of this fly bod is about as long as the list of decent movies John actually likes.” He straightened so she wasn’t looming over him anymore. “We’re talking A-list secret handshake exclusive here, check your ID at the door.”
[The list is Bro and Rose, and maybe Jade. Dave himself is not on this list.]
The stubborn set of her mouth softened a little. She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest, but the frustration slipped from her shoulders. “Wow, Dave, that sure sounds like a really big deal! What do I have to do to get into the cool sharp things club?”
[I like Dave and Jade best when they spiral off each other and nobody even knows what they're saying anymore besides them. Actually, that's what I like best between John and Rose, too. This conversation doesn't go that far, but it was starting to.]
“Jade, come on, it doesn’t even hurt,” he replied, adjusting his shades. “I think sprites aren’t programmed to f--”
To his credit, he didn’t make a sound when she pressed one fingertip to a spot an inch to the side of the stab wound. [Because she wouldn't actually poke the wound, that would be mean.] He didn’t breathe, either, because every nerve and tendon in his body seized up in an electric-hot yellow power surge of mind-razing holy fucking shit jesus christ pain.
[That last bit used to be italicized but when I pasted it into AO3, I decided I didn't need it. Go me!]
His expression didn’t change, but Jade’s melted into pure dismay and she snatched her hand back like a snake. “Oh no, Dave, I’m sorry!” Before he could pull air into his paralyzed lungs she reached out again and cradled his head carefully against her shoulder. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she repeated around the saddest woofs in the world.
[I'm not sure about this hug now, but I've always seen Jade as a really tactile person. She was raised by a dog, and I just re-watched her and Bec's silly dance at the end of their "strife" when they hug and he wags his tail and stuff, so even if he is an omnipotent figure he's also very doggy. And you know, besides having those instincts, maybe she misses him.
Still not sure about it, but hey, this is a shipfic, I guess.]
He’d never been so close and he would have jerked away if he could move, but she was warm and solid and then she was stroking his hair. When the spasm subsided, he just let out a shaky breath against her collarbone and she let him sit up.
“Can I please stitch it up?” she asked, eyes bright.
All right, maybe she had a point. He managed a shrug. “Yeah. Okay. If that’s what you’re into.”
She chuckled and rubbed her eye [Also bleh, if I wrote this again, I would not have her be so almost-weepy! She gets teary for Jadesprite but that's about it. Davesprite is obviously not bawling his eyes out like Jadesprite was, and Jade's clearly got a more important job to do right now than wibble.] and got up to rummage through the cabinet. Davesprite leaned casually (not weakly) against the wall and watched her as she stood on her tiptoes to see. “Where’d John blow himself off to?”
[He's still getting used to having a live John to grouse at, so he's taking every opportunity.]
“He’s still trying to get the computers to connect beyond the ship. [I read at least a couple fics about John trying to get back in contact with the trolls either during this period or after the game before I wrote this.] Can you undo your bandages for me?” Everything in the room--everything in the ship--was the same eye-smarting gold, even the contents of the cabinet, but somehow Jade found what she was looking for and placed a small tray on the counter, followed by a little bottle and some cloths and other things he didn’t want to know too much about (but knew he would).
[I'd edit that, too. "...and other things he didn't want to find out too much about (but knew he soon would)."
I did some research for this, but mostly the imagery for the actual stitch stuff came from watching my dad.]
“You’d think a guy could waste three years doing other completely pointless bullshit.” He found the end of the bandage and started peeling it away, grimacing when it stuck to his skin.
She huffed. “Don’t be mean, Dave. He misses them.” The stool he’d knocked over disappeared again only to pop up next to the bed, and then Jade reappeared cross-legged on top of it with the medical gear in her lap. [If I had unlimited cosmic powers, I'd abuse them, too.] “And I know you’re just pretending to be too cool to care because you miss them, too.”
[Rose and Dave. Not the trolls.]
“Okay.” [Dave doesn't fight with Jade to prove himself like he does with John or Rose. If she doesn't humor him, he drops it. He doesn't really give in and admit she's right, but he drops it. Because she knows she's right, even if he doesn't.] She was fussing with the bottle and one of the little cloths so he focused on getting the bandage all unwound and then, for the first time since the fight, checked the damage.
There sure was a huge bleeding gash through his torso.
He didn’t realize Jade was talking until she flicked him in the temple with her finger. “Come on, Dave, snap out of it! You need to let me see or else I am only going to poke you full of little holes.”
“Been there, bought the t-shirt,” he said, pointing at his stomach, but he shifted for her anyway.
Her expression drained for a moment to an emotionless thin line that he didn’t know how to read [Because HE'S not the Dave that knows about being full of little holes, now, is he?], but then she shook herself, woofed, and placed a hand on his chest to keep him still. “Okay, this...will probably hurt a lot,” she admitted, and she leaned forward to dab at the wound with her cloth.
The alcohol burned and he jerked under her hand. “Oh god, sorry!” Jade said, dropping the cloth to steady him with both hands. “Do you--durr, Jade, I should have--I can get you a painkiller or something, if you want it!”
“Just--no, don’t worry about it. Let’s just get this over with.” He took her wrist and moved her hand away. She bit her lip, but he kept himself together as she continued to clean the wound. It took three of her makeshift wipes to finish the job and of course it was still bleeding sluggishly, but Davesprite didn’t really feel nervous until Jade tore open a couple of innocuous-looking little packets and picked up some weird scissor-tweezers. “So how long have you been in practice, Dr. Harley,” he drawled, more deadpan than usual as his fingers tightened in the bed sheets.
[Oh, I didn't talk about Davesprite's negative reaction to getting patched up in the first place. Obviously he's used to getting hurt, but if he's hurt so bad he needs attention then he did something wrong. He messed up, and he's not making Bro proud, and that's worse than just getting hurt. I'm sure more than anything else, as a protective Guardian, the most important thing Bro taught Dave was don't get hurt.
Plus we know Dave doesn't do well with his own blood.]
“I have had a lot of practice with this kind of thing, Dave!” she answered as she removed an evilly curved sliver of metal from the first packet.
[You know, I don't actually remember that all these medical things are called because Davesprite didn't know what they were called, so I just described them.]
He raised his eyebrows behind his shades. “Really?” She did seem to be handling the tweezers like a pro and was attaching some thread from the other packet to the metal bit, but--
“Yes, really! On dead things.”
His face fell back into complete impassivity.
“Jee-e-eez, Dave, you don’t have to look at me like that! I had to do all the stitching on Grandpa after he died and I had to stuff him, and my Manthro Chaps all came with medical kits.”
[I researched that, too, at the time. They're vaccination kits, but shh.]
“Great. Awesome. I am feeling so assured right now, I could out-Zen Siddhartha Gautama for the Grand Title Championship of well-being. You get an A for legitimate experience and an A plus for professional bedside manner.”
“Woof!” She rolled her eyes, but looked reluctant to proceed, in spite of herself. “Well, hmm, I don’t know. Since you’re part bird, you’re basically just a big orange Manthro Chap yourself now! Except not quite as cheerful and pleasant, though of course you are still a wonderful friend.”
He ruffled his wings. “Thanks, Jade. My dream was always to be compared to a creepy wall-eyed squeaky toy for four-year-old furries. My life is now complete.”
“Good! [See? I like when they just bounce off each other forever, especially when she is being kind of sassy at his expense.] Now hold still.”
He braced himself, but she still hesitated. After a moment, he lowered his chin a little. “Jade.” She looked up from the wound. “It’s fine. There’s no way it can hurt more than it did going in unless you decide to go psychomurder on me.”
“Hehe.” Her smile was watery [Meh. Jade's a powerful lady with the universe in her paws. She might be hesitant, but I now think she wouldn't tackle this with anything but the staunchest determination.], but she steeled her spine and got to work. Davesprite had to look away but her hands were steady, and it didn’t hurt any worse than an average hash-rap battle with Bro.
[In fact I'm sure it hurt significantly less.]
“So what were you so busy doing in your apartment?” she asked as she cut a finished stitch from the suture thread.
[Honestly, the following part was just filler for me, where I felt like I needed to provide a sense of the time the stitching would take. I wasn't really planning for it to go in the sad direction it did.]
He glanced at her--her head blocked his view of what she was doing, and all he could see of her expression was her ears, and fuck if he could read dog body language. “Oh. You know. Stuff.” He glanced back at the wall.
“Cool stuff?”
“You know it. Mixing beats and taking names,” he lied. The apartment had felt--after so long, and with the SBURB gear in place of his bed and the TV, and with Bro gone--it had all felt unfamiliar. And dead. He hadn’t done more than stand in the center of the living room and stare at his brother’s posters.
The needle slipped in one more time and brought him out of his morose funk. “You better not keep all those swee-e-e-eet jams to yourself,” she said, tying the stitch off. “All your stuff is really, really great! So if you finish anything, I want to be the first to hear it. And we’re done!” She snipped the thread one last time and grinned up at him.
“Cool.” He started to look down, but Jade poked him in the forehead. “Wha--”
[For his benefit more than hers. I think at this point she knows that Daves are kind of wussy about wounds, while if their situations were reversed she might kind of stare fascinatedly at the sutured gash and chatter away.]
“Don’t move yet! When I said done, I didn’t mean done done. I am going to clean you up again, okay?”
He sighed and slumped back against the wall. “Yes, Mom.”
“Dave!” But she laughed as she wiped down the stitched-up wound and then applied some stinging, mystery ointment to it. “Son, if you don’t behave, I’m going to ground you for the rest of your life! And take away TV privileges! Sit up, okay?” [I'm sure I missed some fantastic opportunity here for choice banter, but at this point I was tired and wanted to be done.] She teleported a roll of gauze into her hands. He had to rest his arms on her shoulders to get them out of the way [Haha. Had to. Sure. But I wonder whose suggestion it was, hm?] as she wrapped him up again, and their heads were so close he could smell the cucumber melon shampoo she used on her hair.
[Because I like cucumber melon shampoo.]
He didn’t notice she’d finished until she slid her hand into his feather ruff. “Hey, Dave?” she said, still looking down.
“Sup.”
She kissed him.
It was soft, and light, and he almost didn’t know it had happened until she pulled away. Her eyes were so full and blindingly sincere that it hurt to look at her, but she trapped his gaze. Her lips trembled.
“You’re warm,” she said, voice choked and low, and then she disappeared in a flash.
[And this is why I tagged this Jade Harley/Dave Strider before Davesprite/Jade Harley, because in this moment, she's not thinking of him but of alpha Dave, how she had to kiss him and he was dead and cold and his mouth was full of blood, and it's her apology and he isn't there to take it, and in a way she's kind of just using Davesprite, because maybe she knows he maybe has feelings for her, but she can't look at him without thinking of Dave, and it's an awful mess.
If I was going back to edit this, I'd put a separator here to indicate some time went by.
Oh, god, I remember starting to write this part and groaning because I had to write John. John is so hard for me, guys. SO. HARD.]
-- gardenGnostic [GG] started pestering ectoBiologist [EB] --
GG: hi john!
GG: hoooows it going with the computers? :o
EB: hey jade!
EB: augh, i don’t know, this is just so frustrating and impossible and lame!
GG: :C
EB: can we really not connect to rose and karkat and vriska and dave??
GG: i really think we cant
GG: not until were all in the new session, anyway
EB: lamey lame laaaaaaaame.
[And there's Vriska's influence.]
GG: i know!!!
GG: well
GG: let me know if you make any breakthroughs!
GG: there is someone i want to hear from, too
EB: oh man.
EB: i bet i know who it is.
GG: um what?
EB: it’s karkat isn’t it!
GG: :O
EB: i know i’m right, you don’t have to answer.
EB: he totally wooed you over with his angry yet affectionate ways, just like in a japanese love manga.
EB: you two are totally going to get hatemarried and break dave’s heart!
[John's just teasing her. He doesn't think she has feelings for either Karkat or Dave, but he's been working with uncooperative technology all day and he doesn't even know basic data structures, and he's gotta blow off steam.]
GG: derp yes that is totally what is going to happen, me and karkat are secretly in anime love!!
EB: i knew it!
EB: but what about dave?
EB: the very integrity of karkat’s shitty shipping diagram is at stake!
GG: i am going to go now
EB: aww, ok! [I would change that exclamation point to a period now.]
EB: don’t be too sad, ok. i’m sure he misses you too.
EB: karkat, i mean.
GG: :p
EB: and in the meantime you have me and casey and dave sprite and all those chess guys to help you with any problems you might have, even if you are a space goddess and also a dog.
[I really like the way John puts the space in "dave sprite." I really miss it when people write him and don't put it in. It's just. So John. I don't know?
I also think John sort of suspects--well, maybe not that he hit a nerve, but that maybe she has something on her mind. And there's a reason every Beta kid thinks of John as their best friend.]
GG: john...
GG: .................
GG: yup bye!!!
-- gardenGnostic [GG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] --
[This is still my most popular prose piece on AO3, so I'm pretty fond of it, despite what I think its weaknesses are now. I miss writing/RPing Davesprite.]