parodeity | subnautica ic inbox 1.0;

[Dave draws the same conclusion (the exact same, there could be no other, much more understandable interpretation Dave is talking about, Rin would know, he's an honours student damnit), and Rin feels a little bit more mortified with each passing second]

[is this because of the things he said about Jack and Rose? is this his own damn fault? how the fuck is he supposed to react to this in real time, with a guy casually talking about set ups like he's known all along, while Rin has showed up in work-out clothes and laughed potato chips out onto the floor at the world's shittiest movie]

[say something!!!!]

Yeah... he must be. [HE SHOULD MIND HIS OWN BUSINESS??? SO WHAT IF RIN SAID HE WANTED A LOVE LIKE TITANIC, THAT WOULD GO ON AND ON?] S-so, do you like swimming?

[sure, go with that, mouth. do whatever!! have a fucking party!!]

[ ok that's a random topic change but dave strider is the king of those so he doesn't even blink at it, just switching gears without any protest at all. ]

Sure. I didn't used to do a whole fuckin' lot of it since I didn't really live that near to the ocean, but since getting here I've done lots? I think it's kinda calming. You're a fan, I take it?

[ok. ok, this is fine. talk about swimming until all of the horrifying things that are currently happening stop seeming like they're happening. go to your swimplace, matsuoka, your happy swimplace]

I'm nationally scouted and working towards going Olympic, so, I guess I'm a mega-fan.

[that's it. that's all he has to say about the all-consuming passion of his life, apart from spicy kimchi, which is that he's "a mega-fan"]

[“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.”

― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar]

[yeah, maybe death will come soon]

[ dave...continues to not mind rin being weird...this isn't even the weirdest anyone has ever been at him. ]

What do you need to do to go Olympic, anyway?

[ he's mildly curious, although to be honest Sports are kind of a vague concept for him. ]

[rattles nervously, continuing to Be Weird, but at least that's a topic he can talk about for basically forever without actually needing to tune into himself]

Train your ass off every moment of every day. Regulate your diet and say goodbye to alcohol and anything else chemically recreational. Buy expensive equipment that constantly has to be replaced. Sacrifice your home life, social life, love life, and life outside the pool in general, and hope your team doesn't drive you to murder one of them before you get on any starting blocks.

Then you get scouted by the next level up of teams and coaches and start from the beginning, until you qualify to compete at the Olympic level.

[wait, shit, now he sounds like a closed-off neurotic mess? (rin, you are -- )]

[blurts, horribly self-conscious and showing every bit of it on his face]

Sorry, I haven't done anything like this yet. Because of -- basically because of swimming, like I said.

[ ?????????? anything like what? ]

Hanging out watching movies? It's fine, man. If you ever get the urge to watch something - and I won't make you sit through SBAHJ, but like, if you feel like watching something Kitkat won't watch - feel free to call me up or whatever. I'll always have the time.

[ because. he's a time traveler. not because he's hitting on rin. ]

Wait, so does this mean you can't do junk food?

[two conflicting inputs, this time; Dave's calm response about watching movies actually... doesn't seem so datelike... but then I'll always have the time lands on Rin like a judo-kick in the chest]

[what? is? going? on?]

I -- I can, just sparingly. I work out a lot, so I can afford cheating sometimes.

[and now, not only has he insulted the potato chip offering, but he sounds like he's trying to brag about his physique. has anyone ever been more of a mess than rin matsuoka? he doubts it, he doubts it]

[clarifies, because he is just a walking corpse at this point, soon to be a floating corpse when he is dropped off the base and into the sea, his home]

But, I didn't mean movies, I meant, you know.

[enjoy this vague hand gesture between himself and Dave. what a good, non-ambiguous way to hash this out]

[ ............dave can be dense about some things, but he isn't a complete idiot and rin looks about as flustered as, like, karkat gets whenever he starts flirting.

"you know" is ambiguous, though. he doesn't want to jump to conclusions and scare of karkat's bro? because karkat clearly wants him to get along with rin. so. pissing rin off by assuming things would be a bad idea.

he pauses. ]

Imma need you to say what "you know" is, to be sure we're on the same page here.

[Rin feel the very last intact part of his soul escape out of his body, like in a gag anime. jk he just feels like throwing up!! that's not your soul, dummy]

[each word comes out with great difficulty, as he's concentrating on only words coming out]

...Getting set up, with a guy I don't know... or like, any... body...

[great. now that he's completely shat this bed let's flip the sheets and start over]

Not that, I mean i'm sure you're great, but I wasn't expecting anything but, you know, a shitty movie and a guy to watch it with? I don't know what Karkat was doing, we should have watched an action movie instead, I haven't seen Point Break in a really long time, but he seemed interested in Titanic, so, here we are!

[So, Here We Are: the words on Rin's gravestone]

[ ah. karkat is going to kill him. that's dave's first thought, although his second thought is "no, he'd probably worry i would actually dump him for this guy". he holds up his hands in surrender. ]

Whoa there. Uh, we're definitely not on the same page. I'm taken? Like. Super taken. 100% happily taken. And Karkat was definitely not setting you up with me, except as, like, friends.

[ that's clear, right.

...

just to add to the clarity: ]

Like, I love my boyfriend, so. Yeah. Sorry?

Holy shit.

[and Rin's just going to slowly put his hands over his face fully this time, because if he has to look at how horrified Dave looks for another second, his skin will actually start to blister off with how red he's getting]

I -- when you said he wanted to make sure we liked? each other? I --

[this is it. this is finally how it happens, when he maxes out his capacity for fucking up royally and being mortified; he's not coming out of his hands anytime soon.]

I'm so relieved, but I don't think we can be friends now, 'cuz I'm going to swim to Aurora and shove a stick up a Horrorsloth's ass to see what happens.

[ he snorts, but then tries to pretend like he didn't halfway laugh for a second. ]

Dude, it's fine? I'm flattered and all, but - like, I don't think we should push friendship off the table? You do seem cool, and Karkat clearly wants us to get along. I'm not gonna, uh, tell anyone about. This.

[DON'T BE FLATTERED, RUSHES TO INTERJECT]

I wasn't -- on you, I just thought the wrong thing, about why Karkat... [trails off, realising that everything he has ever tried to do in this conversation is meaningless, so] -- Yeah, let's actually make a pact to never talk about this again?

[there. a friendship forged over That of Which We Do Not Speak]

[finally removes his hands from his (still extremely red) face, holding one out for a shake]

[ like HE KIND OF WANTS TO TELL DIRK / KARKAT / ROSE but in the interest of friendship dave reaches out his own hand to shake rin's. ]

No one ever has to know you thought we were on a date.

You broke the deal literally as we were shaking on it. The pact includes us, oi, us especially. I take it back, I don't need to be friends with a guy like this...

[MUCH LESS DATE... RIP]

Hey, we didn't stop shaking yet, the deal isn't fully in effect?

[ but dave will. drop rin's hand while laughing lightly. ]

Seriously, though, don't sweat it, dude? It's chill if you don't want to be friends with me 'cause you don't like hangin' with me, but I don't think that's the case? I can outwait any amount of embarrassment. I got all the time in the world.

[your shitty time puns... he doesn't understand them because #nocontext, he just thinks you're a slacker with tons of free time to watch movies and now I guess chill with swimmers who need to get a grip. in sum, Rin has not learned his lesson about assumptions making an ASS out of him, just him, only him, forever him]

[as a final word, to solidify the fact that he is not a homewrecker, oh my god]

-- I didn't realise you were together. Karkat never said anything. [another interspecies gay romance? is he up to three? shit, Dirk was right, people really don't care here] It's nice you've both got someone, here.

[thinking pure romantic thoughts outside the context of himself is chilling him out. he likes Karkat a lot, so that's some pretty great news, to hear he's got a boyfriend who's here for him]

[but that raises the strange question of]

Are you from the same place Karkat's from, or your brother?

[he sounds like an American, like Dirk, but he knows more 21st century things, like a normal person, and he's also dating an alien and has magic powers. what's up with this shit?]

Uh, yeah, he's never gonna. He doesn't want to go public.

[ currently. dave...has decided he wouldn't mind that, but he's fine with waiting until karkat changes his mind or something. so. ]

We're all from different universes technically but also I guess the same bullshit one?

Ah.

[Rin can understand that; wanting to keep something personal and intimate like a relationship private. he supposes it might even be a little romantic -- and practical, not having everyone up in your business. so, he won't pry more, unless Dave wants to volunteer more deets]

I guess I should get used to "it's the the multiverse's fault" as a reason for everything being confusing basically all the time, with everyone. The worlds I hear about that are most similar to mine actually feel the weirdest to understand -- I mean, alien lifeforms were basically a given with the scale of universe, so meeting Karkat wasn't as big of a deal as it could have been. Hearing about alternate histories of Japan or Earth in general are still weird as hell, though.

I guess it would be to most people? I'm a time-traveler by trade though, so I'm kinda not weirded out by the thought of alt timelines.

-- Like "Back to the Future" time traveling? Or the kind where you can't step on a butterfly or whatever or you'll become your own dad?

N...either, really? I can go back and forth, but I can't do anything that would change anything if I haven't already done it, here. I could back home?

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