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there is something really sad about senior prom.
the theme this year is neverland.
there are peter pan cut-outs on the walls, pixie dust and fairy wings and drapes of cheap silk decorating the gym, and, if john narrows his eyes and tries to ignore the tacky dresses, the tasteless buffet and teachers smoking just outside the gym doors, everything seems soft and bright and ethereal.
the last three years of their lives have been nothing but wanting to be older, and now that they’ve come to this point, now that a new beginning is being painted like this, like a mourned ending, it feels as if john has lost something that he’s going to miss forever.
(it feels as if john is losing something that he’s going to miss forever, but for the life of him he can’t figure what exactly.)
vriska looks pretty.
she’s snug inside a cute little black dress with blue sparkles and matching transparent wings, her long hair in up in a bun, and it’s the first time john has seen her in anything remotely girly.
she looks pretty, and he feels like it is expected of him to tell her so when he picks her up at her house before prom night, her scary mom looking at them through the window with her good eye. it feels foreign in his mouth, like maybe she’s too good for compliments and he shouldn’t bother.
she asks him to dance and he refuses.
“sorry,” he mumbles, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he can stop himself, cutting and bit rude. for a moment, he’s scared he might have offended her.
vriska tosses her hair out of her face —her updo long undone—, and gives him this one look..
john knows she knows what he means when he says ‘sorry’.
sorry i liked you better when you looked like a boy. sorry, i don’t like you like that.
sorry, i shouldn’t have asked you out, it’s not fair to you.
all apply, in all honestly.
she shrugs, apparently unaffected, all sleek elegance and dangerous eyelashes, and in that moment john tries to like her.
he imagines himself pressing her body against his body, spending the night in his car, parked in a cliff lit only by moonlight. she knows better.
he refused to dance an hour ago, and he last saw her dragging that boy with the stutter and the fake leg into the dirty restrooms and john thinks he should be offended but he isn’t. not really.
he is dressed up in a tux that used to be his dad’s and he thinks about how proud he looked when john tried it on and it fit. thinks about the hundred pictures he took when he and jade walked down the stairs, like he wasn’t going to see them ever again. thinks about how maybe his dad is right. the taste of the punch is still fresh in his mouth, and his date is somewhere else, kissing some other guy, and john realizes he’s surrounded by people who are full of dreams, and wanderlust, and anticipation.
john he wants to feel the same way, he wants it badly, but for the life of him he can’t.
dave strider glances up when john he sees john approaching.
he’s drawing messy patterns in the dirt, swinging his feet like he’s young and he’s small, his eyes wide and strangely vulnerable, his face pale and oddly open with his hair slicked back like that.
he says, “hey,” when his eyes meet john’s in the fields at midnight.
at midnight, the fields feel empty and soundless and still.
like maybe this place will never be filled with people ever again except for john and the boy in the red suit, their bodies small and bony and awkward in a place meant for triumph and glory and a dream in the horizon, too big and too empty for only the two of them.
"hey," john answers, jamming his hands into his pockets.
they’ve never talked much before, except for a pen borrowed in math class that dave never bothered to return, a brush or two of their fingers that one time john gave dave a crash course on literature ten minutes before midterms, small talk that one and only afternoon john spent in detention, a nod or two of recognition in the hallways.
dave turns to look at him and tilts his head to the side, just a bit, like a bird.
“hey,” john repeats, looking down. "we used to be in the same classes? we didn’t talk a lot, but—"
"i know," dave says. he doesn’t sound annoyed, though, just vaguely distant. his voice is hoarser than john remembers. thinks he remembers. there’s an attractive drawl to dave’s voice, and he tells himself this is why he paid so much attention to their last oral reports, months ago.
he wonders if maybe he should leave.
he has never seen dave strider spend more than half an hour in the company of anyone, and john isn’t dumb enough not to realize when someone is alone because they choose to.
what dave wants is to be left alone. what john should do is leave him alone.
instead he says,"oh." and shifts from foot to foot. the silence is stifling but not unpleasant on his skin. just vaguely cloudy and a little itchy, like an old sweater fresh out of the dryer. "oh. great. i think.”
dave gestures vaguely in the gym’s direction with his head. asks, "why are you here?" and it doesn’t sound intimidating or anything. maybe just aloof and slightly curious, like it would be the same to him if john answered or not.
"what about you?" john asks.
dave looks at him for long moments, at the way he fidgets with the too-long sleeves of his blazer.
he has his shades on top of his head like he slid them some time ago and he forgot he put them there, and his face is open and inscrutable, but he doesn’t look mad or anything.
john tries not to feel intimidated by the way the weight of his gaze settles on him, like maybe something’s wrong and john should apologize.
maybe it’s all in john’s head.
dave says, “thinking.” and after a moment he asks, “you?”
john shrugs, a little awkwardly. “fresh air.” and it feels like the conversation could die any moment so he scrambles for more words to throw into the air. asks, “what are you thinking about?”
he stares at the sky and the constellations reflect in his eyes, warm and washed out in a blaze of red.
“leaving.”
“oh,” says john, looking down at his shoes. he laughs a little, and it sounds shy. “where, home? it’s a crap party anyway.”
dave looks at him for a moment, and john doesn’t realize he’s trying to figure out whether he’s making fun of him or not. “no,” dave mumbles. “away.”
“oh,” john answers again, stupidly, voice small.
“it’s weird.” dave continues when john doesn’t add anything else, and dave is surpisingly soft-spoken, like a sad bird song. “i had all these high expectations of a perfect teen flick movie night, but i can’t even bring myself to like a girl enough to dance. i’m kind of bummed.”
john nods. he understands.
and there’s something about midnight and how it always feels like he can do anything.
in a moment of braveness in his bones, recklessness in arteries, john asks, “do you want to?”
“want to what?”
“dance.”
dave snorts, looking ahead, at the empty field. “buy me dinner first.”
john laughs a small laugh, but still walks up to dave and tugs at his hand, unceremoniously, until they are both standing up in the middle of the football field, and they can feel the grass crunching under dave’s converse and john’s shiny party shoes.
their hands are cold when john interlaces their fingers, and they don’t really fit, not at all.
john supposes it doesn’t matter, not really, when there’s no time left to figure it out and no one around to point it out.
dave pulls his walkman from his pocket and presses a few buttons until he finds a song he likes, pushes an earphone into his ear and they dance a whole slow song under the flickering field lights.
the air is chill but dave is warm, and john closes his eyes and tries to make out the sound of his breathing, the tick tacking of his heart.
john tries to remember all those times he sat next to dave in sophomore year, heard him snoring slightly when their class was too early, mumble under his breath, crack a cheesy joke or an impromptu rap in the middle of math class; tap beats on his desk, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.
he wonders why he didn’t talk to dave back then.
the song is wistful and the singer’s voice carries, like he’s dying of nostalgia. dave hums bits and pieces into john’s ear, and it’s the first time in a long time that something feels right.
“i like this more than i probably should,” dave whispers, nose cold against john’s cheek, quietly, and there is no doubt as to what this is.
two boys just don’t hold each other like this, not here, not in this town.
(and john wants to say, you don’t belong here.
john wants to say, you don’t belong here, not in this shitty town, not where nobody gives a fuck about anything and not where there’s nothing to hope for, not here where nobody cares because our class is made of idiots and jackasses and the teachers don’t care if they beat each other to death and they don’t care if we don’t. you’re different.
he wants to say, you’re different, you know? soft and whispered and painfully earnest.)
he says nothing.
(this town is too much of a shit place and he’s always scared of fucking up.)
instead, he kisses dave’s cheek as gently as a boy with rough hands and two left feet can, and john will swear, years from now, that he can almost feel dave shiver.
dave breaths, “wanna come with me?” the words out of his mouth before he can stop and think about the implications. the need to just run is becoming overwhelming and this feels like the turn of a page, like the start of a new chapter. his throat is dry when he adds, like a second thought, “we can stop at your place if you need clothes and shit.”
john wants to say yes.
he wants to say yes more than anything.
he's eighteen, and he already feels like there's nothing worth being excited about, nothing worth anticipating. he lives surrounded by people who love him, and love each other, and he is desperate to feel the same way about all of them, but he can't.
he’s surrounded by people who are full of dreams, and wanderlust, and anticipation, and he wants to feel the same way so badly; but for the life of him he can’t.
john wants to say yes more than anything. imagines himself doing so.
he whispers, “no, thanks.” with his eyes closed, his voice almost breaking when he gives dave a shy smile, their foreheads almost touching. an afterthought; “good luck.”
dave nods, swallows.
“okay.” he says, and plays with the keys of his car inside his pocket.
later that night, he’ll jump into his car and hit the road and he will never come back, won’t even say goodbye to his brother. they’ve never been good with words and his brother has already seen this coming, has been expecting it for years.
but right now, neither of them move. there are a million things they don’t know how to put into words, but it’s midnight and they can do anything.
dave asks, “another song?”
“yeah,” john says, and feels dave’s arms wrap around his waist.
maybe next time.