Work Text:
Dave Strider fully admits (just not in public or in a court of law) that Jade Harley is something of a force to be reckoned with when she gets an idea in her head, which is exactly what he assumes has happened when she drops into the chair across from him in the cafeteria with a crap disposable camera, a newspaper, and a gleam in her eye.
Bad fucking news. That gleam comes with half a dozen attachments: she'll have some damn idea, something she needs help with, and she comes to him first because John asks too many questions and Rose doesn't ask enough, and then she does this thing where she crosses her arms under her chest and screws her face up into a pout and fuck. It's over. Anything to get her to stop looking like she's about to cry.
(Even when he knows she won't. Even when he knows she's just playing, he can say no and she'll be a little disappointed but she'll get over it. Even when it compromises his unflappable hipster douchebag persona. He'll put a stop to it when it gets too much, he thinks, but that train hasn't left the station in three years of this shit and by now he's not sure it ever will.)
He takes a drink of his soda and swallows his mouthful of fries before he speaks, even as she clicks her nails off-rhythm on the faux-wood table surface, waiting for him. “Newspaper, camera. Let me guess. You need help writing a ransom note?” he offers. He's met with a roll of her eyes and that gleam and that laughing grin of hers, wide lips and tongue peeking out between her teeth.
“Nooooo,” she drawls, mouth hanging around the Australian vowel in her funny little piecemeal accent (that he loves, which isn't a thought he lets himself have for long), and jabs a finger at an article. “Tomorrow's the last night of the state fair and I want to go.”
“A fair. Seriously? I outgrew fairs when I was four.”
“You outgrew everything that's fun when you were four, Dave,” she protests, swatting him gently with the newspaper. “And besides, I've never been to one!” She levels a stare at him and fuck, there's that pout, those sad cow-eyes, and her teeth worry at her bottom lip for a second and fuck fuck fuck.
“If you don't want to go, that's fine, but things aren't going so well with--you know, and I thought that maybe Mr. Too-Cool-To-Join-Me-In-Yearbook-Club might be up for taking some pictures for me. In case...”
Then she really does look like she's about to cry, and he doesn't think he can deal with it if she does.
He remembers the last time she used the gleam-pout trick on him, except it felt like less of a trick then, just like it doesn't feel like much of a trick this time either, all because of “you know”; and even though it ended with him in the balls-ass-fucking winter cold at 1 AM in a Seattle parking lot breaking into a slick black-ice Audi for her, he still doesn't regret it. Jade had slipped into the back seat, found the briefcase she was looking for, made a break for it before anyone saw, and he'd spent the car ride back to Egbert's listening to her rifle through paperwork. 'This should buy me some time, at least,' she'd said, a noise so pale and thin he hadn't even been sure he'd heard it.
(And that was it, really. He was freezing cold, and he'd just done something so incredibly fucking illegal, but he'd do it again if it meant those vulture fucks weren't going to have her, and he'd do more than that to get her back to looking like she loves the world and really means it.)
Maybe he'll regret doing it in front of so many people later--if any of them are even looking--but he slides his hand over hers and gives it a gentle, reassuring squeeze that is not in the least bit protective (or possessive).
“I'm not using that piece of shit disposable camera,” he says, finally. It's as good as concession to her, based on how the smile finally reaches her eyes. “I'll bring mine and you'll get a photographic smorgasbord of gangly, horrifying carnies and fat kids screaming for cotton candy. You can put them in your 'shit I'm glad I don't have to deal with daily on the mainland' scrapbook.”
“Then it's a date.” She steals one of his fries with a sort of smugly satisfied look on her face, because he's frozen at the word that vaguely terrifies him, and he's not wholly sure why he doesn't correct her. “Pick me up at six?”
#1, #2, #3
“Egbert, stop fucking with my camera,” he grinds out through a clenched jaw, and is met with mangled protests of 'I just want to see it!' and 'don't be a stingy douchebag.' Dave's just about sick of grappling for control until he finally gets a brilliant idea: he clicks the button and the flash goes off right in John's face.
“Fuck!” is the predicted response. Then: “You are such an asshole, Dave.” It does the trick, though; John lets go and rubs defensively at his eyes. “Can't I just see it?”
“No, you'd break it. There's only so much retard-flailing you can do before you finally fumble something valuable with your giant sausage fingers, and it sure as fuck isn't going to be my camera.”
“Are you two fighting again?”
Jade's voice is followed by the click of boots down the stairs, and later, Dave will conveniently forget the way he holds his breath for just the tiniest fraction of a second. She's wrestled her hair into some kind of messy chignon, all vague waves and flower pins (Rose's doing, he's sure); her skirt hangs in soft layers of ruffles (Rose's doing) and her flat-cut shirt and high-necked bolero outline a triangle of skin he's pretty sure didn't exist on Jade before now (Rose's doing). He recognizes the boots, soft brown leather that end just below her knees. They're Rose's.
Suddenly he feels woefully underdressed, unprepared, and utterly clueless, because Rose has just poured all her expertise into Jade Harley and didn't bother to warn him. And it only strikes him now that Jade was dead fucking serious.
“I'll be waiting outside while you two have your lovers' spat, then,” Jade says with a teasing grin, making for the front door, and Dave wonders, briefly, if her hips always did that.
Fuck.
Then the door closes and she's out of hearing range, at which point John gives him a half-frowning, scrutinizing look. “Stare more at my sister,” he says dryly. “Please. I want you to.”
“I wasn't staring,” Dave protests. He wasn't. He was not staring at all, ever.
“Hey man, if you don't want to admit it, that's fine.” John shrugs, quirking his lips. “I want her home before midnight, when your shitty car turns back into an even shittier car. And for god's sake, use protection.”
Dave doesn't really have any kind of coherent response for that, so he clicks the button on his camera two more times, firing the flash off into John's face, and feels at least a little satisfied in the “Jesus, quit that shit and go on your dumb date, Strider” he gets in return.
#4, #5, #6
Okay, so it makes him feel kind of like a voyeur, or at least a bargain basement paparazzo, but she hasn't seen him yet and it's a good shot, goddamnit, so it's not like he's going to let it go to waste.
Because there's something a little Mona Lisa sad in her smile as she sits on the trunk of his car; something a little urban elegant in the way the streetlight casts her face in sodium-vapor orange, something a little Spanish doña with her hair in profile. He snaps three pictures quickly, afraid she might notice him and he'd lose the shot for good.
She does, after that; she looks in the direction of the noise, gives him a tilted head and tight, confused eyebrows and not-quite-yells, “What are you doing?”
“Testing the settings,” he not-quite-yells back, and thinks that's got to be a recovery for the record books, because the answer seems more than good enough for her.
#7
“It's like there's something in the Egbert genes that wants to try to waste my film,” he says at the mechanical click. “Glad as fuck I didn't go with analog tonight. Do you know how expensive film is?"
“Not a clue!” Display light floods the car's interior, lights up the planes of her face and her grin. “But come on, Dave. It's a great picture of your floorboard.”
“I'll show you how to delete it when we get there."
#8
“So you go through this menu--”
“--Oh, whoops!”
He just rests his head against the steering wheel and laughs.
#9, #10
Dave thinks going in that Jade of all people would probably be happy about all the little idiosyncrasies that make a fair a fair, down to the mingling smell of wet pavement and funnel cake and the shitty calliope music heard a hundred feet away from the carousel even in the din. Kind of childish, kind of innocent, kind of simple. He forgets sometimes that she's anything but, and it's always a whiplash of a lesson to relearn when he remembers.
She stands frozen off to the side of the entrance on a patch of scruffy grass and seems--overwhelmed, by the sound and the press of people. He watches her for a few, her stiff posture and the way the black of her hair swallows up the neon lights, all the image of a hackles-raised stray dog who's just been taken in and transplanted. Shaking, slightly. Nervous. Alert and watchful and more than a just little feral still, and he thinks that the island is always going to stay with her like this; she can fit herself into nice clothes and make-up, but it's not her world no matter how hard she tries to force it.
He takes two shots to snap her out of it, which she does with a heavy, melodramatic sigh and joke agitation, but they aren't just for her. She wants him to take pictures to remind her, but sometimes he needs something to remind him, too.
#11
She takes his hand about halfway down the midway. Actually, she takes his entire damn arm and the hand is mostly just collateral damage; she's got one hand wrapped around his elbow and another insinuating itself into his own, linked and locked tightly and she doesn't seem to mind the awkward angle this demands from her wrist.
“Is this okay?” She doesn't even have to pause for him to hear the hitch of hesitation in her voice, and it makes him a little--uncomfortable? It's been an unspoken agreement between them for years now, a lesson taught to him by Rose in her sharp, disapproving mother kind of tone: that Jade's been isolated all her life, he's a novelty, she's touch-starved, and if he could prove he's a human for two damn minutes and take a page out of John's book and let her have some comfort, he'd find she wouldn't wibble her lip and tear up nearly as often.
And it was good, true advice. Jade was thrilled like he'd never seen her, even though he'd stiffen and flinch at the contact at first, until even that went away and it just felt--pretty okay.
(He'd never admit it, but he was a little touch-starved too, and when he started to reach for her hand on his own, he'd justify by saying it's just a preventative measure against those goddamn vice-grip full-body hugs. Ounce of prevention, pound of get the fuck off me, whatever the hell. It never stopped her, and he never minded.)
What makes it pretty okay is that it just isn't something they talk about. It's something that happens, like breathing or blinking. Talking about it makes it noticeable, makes it real, and if they're talking about it tonight, then tonight is real and he doesn't have enough of a plan worked out in his head to be ready for that yet. The way he finds it hard to swallow is a little too real for him, so he doesn't answer.
She adds after too many moments of silence go by, rushed, panicked, apologetic: “I mean. You can still take pictures one-handed, right? If not I can just--”
“It's cool.” To prove how cool it is, he doesn't even look through the view when he snaps a modestly interesting background shot. She cranes her neck over to see the display and smiles wider than he thinks the picture deserves.
“Perfect,” she murmurs. “You're so good at this, Dave.”
“Yeah, well.” It's all he says. It's all he thinks he should say, if talking about it makes it real.
#12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17
“Come on!”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No. Ferris wheels stop being cool when you're eight, and start being cool again when you're seventy and what you think is cool doesn't matter. Nine through sixty-nine means ferris wheels are bullshit. Scientific fact.”
Anyone else, it would've been case fucking closed, verdict: Dave Strider does not do carnivals, or fairs, or amusement parks, or anything where people have fun hanging off of thirty year old rides that might not pass the next safety check. But this is Jade Harley, who is a force to be reckoned with when she gets an idea in her head, and he really doesn't have a choice in the matter. She does that thing, the one where she plants her hands on her hips, cocks her head, and pouts, and fuck. Don't do this to me, he thinks with the slightest edge of desperation.
But she does. Jesus Christ, she always does. “Daaaaaaave! There's nowhere else on the grounds where you're gonna get pictures from that height, and you're the one with the camera, so you have to go! Please?”
Fuck.
The next thing he knows, he's getting barred in and Jade's got herself wedged under his arm, draping it over her shoulders like she belongs there, grinning like a goddamned cheshire cat, all teeth and triumph. He hates that grin. (He loves that grin.)
They sit in silence as they go up, and stop, and go up, and stop, and it feels weird taking pictures without her talking because--well, he's not her, and he doesn't know what she'd want to see (what she'd want to take with her if she has to go, and the thought...hurts, more than he wants to admit). And he feels at least five different varieties of “guy you warn security about” when he's up so high and taking pictures of people he doesn't know, so he turns the lens on the town, because maybe she'd appreciate that at least. The clocktower, all lit up at night; downtown, and the hazy orange, starless sky behind it. He feels like an idiot.
When they reach the top and the ride grinds to a halt, he finds himself one-upping that feeling, because he's been thinking about it ever since the cafeteria, and he's been thinking about it with every button click, and he's always had the shittiest habit of saying exactly the wrong things on his mind.
“...So the case is really going to goatshit, huh.”
Fuck. She looks like he just sucker punched her, wide eyes and thinly drawn lips and shit, she really looks like she's about to cry and he doesn't think he can handle it if she does. Way to fucking go, Strider.
“...Yeah. I mean it's all a bunch of stupid technicalities in Grandpa's paperwork, but pay someone enough money to tear into every little word and draw a bad judge 'just by chance' and, well...”
Silence, again, filled only by click, click.
“But it'll be okay,” she more or less soldiers on, even if it feels like she's trying to convince herself more than him. “I kinda miss the island and maybe it'll be nice to be back. And the pictures will help a lot, I think. And--I'd be able to get a visa when I'm eighteen no matter who I'm related to. Two years isn't that long!”
(Two years is forever.)
He should be doing something. This is where he's supposed to be a smooth motherfucker, charming and eloquent and charismatic, whipping out just the right thing to make her laugh, or at least make her think he's not dead retarded, even if he always feels exactly that when they're alone together.
But what's he going to say?
“Don't worry about it, you'll win.”
Grade A shit right there, if he was trying to look like he's reading off a teleprompter.
“Ms. Lalonde knows some people, they'll have the job done and a cleaning crew out in under an hour.”
He almost wants to challenge himself to think of anything less funny than a not-entirely-a-joke about murdering the people making Jade's life miserable. Because if there's one thing he knows she loves, it's assassination. Amazing.
“I'll come with you.”
It comes up before he even realizes he's thought it, and the revulsion rises up in his throat until it tastes a whole lot like bile. He's a goddamn genius. That's some real undiluted brilliance, implying that she's going to lose, and that going back with her to her triple bermuda triangle shit-island would do either of them any good.
And most of all, he's not that desperate.
(He's that desperate. Jesus Christ, Strider, don't forget to pick up your gold medal from the useless fucking creeper olympics on the way home. That should really make her stop crying.)
By the time he comes up with anything decent, the ride's over and she's already walking away.
Fucking ferris wheels.
#18
He realizes as he loses her in the crowd that she has his camera.
Motherfucker.
#18
Alright, well. He's an asshole. Commander of the 32nd asshole regiment, with honors. That's pretty clear by now from the way he's plowing through the crowd, pushing where he can, shouldering where he can't push, elbow-ramming where he can't shoulder, and he's pretty sure security is going to have some words with him if he keeps it up, but he really doesn't give a shit about that. He's even got his shades pushed into his hair while he scans all the different heads, looking for black hair that swallows neon lights; looking for a girl who's got her arms folded and she's crying, because she really needed someone else to make her life impossibly crappy right now. The crowd surges against him and he surges back.
And yeah, maybe he's working out a little aggression. Bro laid the foundation for his pretentious pseudo-knighthood, but he did it by teaching him how to talk with his sword and his fists and his feet, and that's honestly all he wants to do right now. He's mad at himself, yeah. Mad at her, a bit. But this goes so far beyond them.
He only sat in on one day of the trial, and he couldn't even stomach that much. He's crap at playing the supportive friend; he couldn't even sit up with her, where he could at least--fuck, hold her hand or something. Instead it was just hours of greedy corporate pricks trying to squeeze Jade dry for her money and ownership of her companies, because they could without Harley there to shield her. And that's not even enough for them because now they're trying to ruin her.
He stormed out when they started talking about clones. It's one thing to try to take her money. It's another thing entirely to question her status as human, null the adoption, reverse naturalization--and for what?
(And now she's going to lose and they're going to send her back and he can't do a goddamned motherfucking thing about it. All the skills he's honed, all the power he's kept, and he gets his ass kicked by bureaucracy while she sits and she cries and he just cannot fucking deal with it.)
And maybe it's better this way--ruining the date (if it's a date at all, if they haven't talked about it to make it real yet), letting her down, losing her now to his own damn fault instead of later, when it'll take a fucking SWAT team to pry her out of her home.
So he pushes and shoves and shoulders and elbows and doesn't say a goddamned word of apology to anybody. He shouldn't have to.
(Because if anything, the world should be apologizing to him.)
#18
The crowd gets thinner and thinner until he realizes he's on the opposite side of the grounds with still no sight of her. No response from her cell, either; it just goes straight to voicemail over and over again. At this point, he's just going to have to go to security and hope he finds her before the gates close and try like a boss not to flip his shit.
He's doing pretty well, all things considered, and he's about to prep a great excuse for John--”hey, lost your sister, sorry bro” doesn't seem like it's going to cut it--when a flash of light explodes in his face without his shades to block it.
(He'll never admit that his first instinct is to reach for a sword that isn't there, and he wonders--can someone have war flashbacks when they're only sixteen?)
She's standing there when the spots clear with her sad Mona Lisa smile, camera held against her chest, and he just sort of--breathes.
“Hey, you,” she calls, and he hasn't heard her voice stretched so thin since that night with the Audi and the briefcase. “...Sorry about the flash, I just--wanted to get a picture of you without your glasses. I guess that's want I want to remember most when I go back to the island, you know? You, and--well.”
He moves for her (afraid she'll be gone again), takes his camera, and wraps her in a vice-gripped, one-armed hug. She sinks against him with a sigh, and a hiccup, and--
Goddamnit. She's crying.
He pats her back and awkwardly strokes her hair and feels like Egbert, briefly, because his sole reasoning behind the motion is “this always works in movies.” She makes a wet mess out of the shoulder of his hoodie for a solid three minutes (and twenty-four seconds) before her shudders even out, and he thinks--he hopes--she might be okay. He's not really sure what he's going to do if she isn't.
“S-sorry--” she sputters, swiping at her eyes with the heels of her hands, pressing and holding them there. “God, I can't believe I'm being such a crybaby about this, I just wanted a nice night out and squeeze in a couple of things before they make me leave--”
“You aren't going anywhere, Jade,” he says, and he's not even all that surprised at the conviction in that statement, since, well--she isn't, not as long as he's around, because this has been his job since they were just text in a chat client to each other. It's enough that she pulls her hands down and looks at him, and for once in his life, the eye contact isn't all that difficult. “I'd like to see those goatfuckers try.”
She can't help but crack into a wide, appreciative smile that takes the edge off the almost-sarcasm in her voice. “That's...That's...really sweet of you, Dave.”
“Diabetes incarnate. You know me.” Before he knows it, he's smiling too.
“Yes,” she says, reaching for his hand. She links and locks their fingers, squeezes tightly, and it feels--pretty okay, he thinks. “Yes, I do.”
He doesn't ask if she's ready to go, but he doesn't really need to, either; there are lots of things they don't talk about or mention. It's just an understanding.
They walk hand in hand to the parking lot, and she never once gives a glance back.
#19, #20, #21
“I think it's pretty,” she says when they're back in the car, idle at an intersection and waiting for the light to turn. Her face is lit with blue and red and orange, looking down at the camera display. “I mean. Trying to take pictures of moving lights. Not really what I was trying for, but I like how they're kind of smudged. It's imperfect, but it's pretty.”
“Jade Harley: professional art critic.” She sticks her tongue at him and jabs him in the shoulder, and he finds it easy to grin back at her.
“Seriously, though! Mr. Fancypants Photographer already knows all this stuff, but give the new girl a break, huh? Maybe next time you'll let me take the pictures, since...”
He watches her scroll through the pictures until the light's green, and.
Okay, no, he doesn't like the pause, and he doesn't like the way his stomach tries to punch into his throat when he's waiting for her verdict (the way it always does). The photos were for her, and it's not like they can both repeat the evening, so retaking them is pretty much out of the question--
“Why so many pictures of me? ...Oh my god, I can't believe Rose let me walk out of the house wearing that, and--do my teeth really look like...? I have the profile of a horse! Dave!”
“Hey, calm down. You look.” (Great.) “Just fine. And photographers...” He doesn't even want to finish the sentence, but when it's clear that he won't, she just repeats and photographers... and waits for him. He can practically hear the pout in her drawn-out vowels.
Fuck. “We take pictures of what's interesting. Deal with it.”
The pause makes him feel like he crossed a line somewhere--bargain basement fucking paparazzo, seriously--but she only says, “...You think I'm interesting?”
“Oh hell no. I've been thinking of replacing you with a plank of wood for months now. Maybe draw a face on it.”
Any other person might've taken offense after a night like tonight, but the car fills with her laughter and it makes it easy for him to risk a real smile. Maybe he didn't do as bad as he thought.
#22?
“The porch is great and everything, Dave, but you could, you know.” Hands occupied holding his, she uses her head to gesture at the door. “Do something crazy like come inside.”
“Holy shit, Jade. Keep your voice down; the neighbors might hear.” He does actually lower his voice, leaning in next to her ear, and she's already giggling. “I'd just get a slap on the wrist, but they'd probably stone you for adultery.”
“Wouldn't you take those kinds of risks for an exciting affair like this? Come on, Dave! All this holding hands is making me kinda woozy.”
Funny way to phrase it, but he relates, the way he's close enough to smell the jasmine of her hair, the faint touch of cut grass and soap and motor oil. This is the part where he should be doing something, he thinks. Not saying anything; not when humor and dodging and deflecting isn't enough, and he doesn't know how to say anything else.
Doing, though. Doing is different. So he does. He slips his hands down the curve of her hips (and he knows they definitely didn't used to do that), hesitates for the barest of moments and three years of thinking about it turns into digging in his fingers, crushing her close, and taking her lips for a kiss.
It's a little too forceful (a little too possessive), a little too awkward, figuring out how their mouths fit together (anything short of perfect makes him feel like that), but her fingers twine in his hair and she works her teeth at his bottom lip (and she hates her teeth, really?) and he wonders why the fuck he didn't do this sooner.
They have to part, eventually, and he notes with no small stab of pride that she's breathless and flushed, those petal-pink lips of hers softly swollen as she pulls them back wide. One breath to gather her thoughts, two breaths to catch up, and on the third she teases, “Geeeeez, what took you so long, Strider?” and her tongue peeks out with shy triumph and a quiet dare. He loves that grin. “Finally notice it's a date?”
He loves that grin, but not so much that he doesn't lean in again without a word to kiss it off her face.
And while he never does take up her offer to go inside, they don't leave the porch for a long time.
#22
The following Tuesday, John slides into the seat across from Dave in the cafeteria, pushing a glossy-finish photo across the faux-wood table with a gleam in his eye. Bad fucking news, generally, in a roll his eyes and groan kind of way, though John has a lot of practice in store for him if he wants his pout to match Jade's. The silence over Sunday and Monday was sort of eerie, though, so he can't say that he hasn't been expecting this, just sort of.
Dreading it.
“I want to play a game, Dave.”
“The retarded movie reference game, great. I don't. It's basically the last thing in the world I want to do.” Dave picks up the picture between his fingers, considering. “You know, I'm surprised you paid extra for the gloss. You're kind of a cheapass.”
“Well, you know how it is. Nothing but the best for my sister,” John says, folding his hands in a vaguely cartoon villainesque way, resting his chin on his knuckles. Dave wonders how long he's been planning this, but figures the answer is something like 'all John's goddamn life,' so he doesn't bother asking. “So what are we gonna do, Strider?”
“Field of honor at dawn, obviously.” Dave makes his point by ripping the photo into neat quarters, tossing them back at John, who just grins. First course of action: finding out how many copies were made, destroying them, and melting the negative. (And it's not like he's ashamed or anything, just that--god, he looks awkward, and this is not a moment he thinks should be on film.)
“So it's a gentleman's challenge.”
Second course of action: strangling John. “Wow, could you try not to look like you just hit the sperglord jackpot? Christ, I can't even fucking imagine what you would've done if it had turned out you were an only test-tube baby."
John shrugs. "Waited for you to get a boyfriend, probably. You would've looked great in Jade's outfit."
"Don't have the hips for it," Dave says, standing up with his tray, but not before taking the time to flick a fry at John, who only looks all the more smug for it. "But maybe I'll try the boots on just for you."
"I'll be waiting."
Dave only rolls his eyes.