Chapter Text
“Wake up, slacker.” A wadded ball of paper left his hand and struck his sleeping servant smack in the forehead, evoking a crude huffing sound from the target. “We’ve got shit to do today. Meetin’ with someone. Don’t mess it up.”
The prince pulled on his casual clothes, his signature white-and-red shirt emblazoned with his personal broken record symbol. He wore it every day, despite the fact that he was expected to wear more formal clothes as royalty – he simply did not give a shit about that. Today, especially, was one of those days he wanted nothing to do with fancy clothes. Today he was meeting up with his best friend, a common occurrence for Thursdays, and there was no way he was going to act like some royal prick while the other boy was around. He had a gut feeling that he’d seem like it anyways, though. It didn’t matter, however, because today was an extra-special one. Nothing would mess it up. Nothing.
Dave Strider, Prince of the Kingdom of Derse, was sure of it.
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Dave and his servant waited patiently in the park for the boy to arrive. Well, Dave was patient – his servant was not, his hands becoming heavy from the package he held. It wasn’t big, but the servant didn’t have much muscle tone – no thanks to Dave, who locked him in their royal flatroom all day and mostly ordered him to be quiet so as not to disturb Dave’s music, leaving the servant with little to do than fiddle with small electronics in the corner. He didn’t speak much. Dave wasn’t sure he could – and honestly it didn’t bother him. Servants weren’t supposed to talk back. He did, however, make considerable amounts of animalistic sounds – grunts, growls, hisses, chirps and huffs, usually of annoyance, graced Dave’s ears almost daily.
And, just as Dave thought about this, his servant was making a loud chirp, his head turned in the direction of two dark shapes approaching. One of them Dave recognized as his best friend, John Egbert – a ball of energy and excitement, skipping as he went. The other one was walking more slowly, its back hunched a bit, shuffling as it went and making some rather grouchy noises. Dave hadn’t noticed its small horns at first, but upon closer inspection, it was, indeed, a troll.
“Dude, Egbert. Why’d you bring your troll? It looks pissed.”
“Ahem. He,” the dark-haired human began, taking a seat at a nearby picnic table, “doesn’t like to go places, so he’s kind of mad at me for bringing him, but it’s my birthday, and I told him I wanted him to meet you!” He giggled, waving to the grey-skinned creature to take a seat next to him. It made an irritated grumbling sound, crinkled its nose and plopped unceremoniously down next to its master.
“So you wanted me to see your troll for your birthday. Can’t say that’s the most exciting of your birthday wishes, bro.” Dave eyed the angry troll with a look of displeasure before motioning to his own to hand over the package it had been carrying. It dropped it in front of John with a sigh and went to sit across from the angrier troll. The two of them began to chitter away in a language unknown to the two boys, the small-horned one making snarling sounds the entire time. Dave made a mental note to make sure his own troll didn’t pick up any sourpuss syndrome from it.
John’s face lit up as the package appeared before him. “Daveee, you didn’t have to!” He squeaked, practically jumping from his seat in anticipation.
“’Course I did. What kind of an asshole doesn’t give his best bro a little somethin’ for putting up with him all year? It sure as hell isn’t the Strider kind.” Dave leaned his head on his hands as he watched his bucktoothed friend tear the wrapping to shreds.
“Dave, you aren’t an asshole! Right, Karkat?” John said.
“Sorry, Kerr-what?” Dave said, his face scrunching slightly to express subtle confusion.
“Karkat!” John exclaimed, poking the troll next to him on the shoulder. “You haven’t said hi to Dave yet!”
“Hi, fuckass,” the troll offered to the prince, and then returned to his non-English conversation.
“Wh-what?” Dave stammered, his usual cool slipping away. “What the fuck, Egbert?”
“Huh? What? Did I do something?” John said, working at removing the tape preventing him from his present.
“That thing just cussed me out! And you gave it a name?”
John stopped unwrapping for a moment. “What do you mean, Dave? He always had a name. His name is Karkat Vantas, in fact - and yeah, he has kind of a foul mouth, but he means well!”
Dave just stared. John… John treated this… thing, this troll, this monster as if it were just another teenager sitting with them. Didn’t he see its huge teeth? The huge horns? Those nasty-looking claws?
The prince examined John’s troll again, this time paying more attention to detail. To be honest, the thing really did look a lot more human than Dave’s troll – its nose was soft and round, its jaws smooth, its mouth filled with dull white teeth – those were definitely not like Dave’s troll’s teeth – its round ears, fluffy hair, circular yellow eyes – and… its horns, which were pretty round and really small, as well. The troll was just round in general – not fat, definitely not, but not angular and pointy like Dave’s troll at all. The troll crinkled its nose and squished up its face as it grumbled something particularly sour at the other.
Dave’s troll… wow. Dave didn’t even know its name. Did it have one? Has it always had one? Dave didn’t know.
“Hey, you, slacker.” Dave snapped, and it turned to face him, expressionless as always. Damn, that was freaky. Dave was always pretty expressionless too, but the troll’s default face was pretty freaky. It made a monotonous hum at its master in recognition.
“What are you called?”
It pressed its eyebrows together, as if thinking of how to answer. It turned away, as if avoiding the question – it looked down at its feet, shifting a bit.
“Are you fucking deaf? Answer,” Dave demanded.
It whipped its head back up to meet his gaze, fighting to keep its expression neutral. “Thh…” it hissed. “Thhhhol…”
It scrunched its eyes shut and shook its head, clearly aggravated with something, shooting a disappointed look at John’s troll – sorry, Karkat – as if expecting him to have the answer.
Which, he did.
“His name’s Sollux Captor, asshole. What kind of a dick doesn’t know the name of someone who’s been with them for their whole entire life?”
Dave put his hand down, a little bit too hard. “Hey, watch your fucking mouth, troll. I’m top-class material, cut from the finest threads of badass royal fabric there is. Don’t you dare talk to me like that. And why the fuck didn’t he answer me?”
“D-Dave!” John squeaked.
“He can’t say it, you ass! See those teeth? Yeah, poor bastard can’t say his own name. You’d know that if you EVER talked to him,” the round troll snapped.
“Why would I TALK to it?” Dave raged, tensing up at the negativity in the air. “It’s a fucking TROLL! YOU’RE a fucking troll! Why am I talking to you? God damn, you’re acting like a haughty bitch, you know that? ‘Ooh, my master permits me to speak like a human, this must mean I can be a disrespectful shit in front of all the other humans! I know, let’s badmouth the prince, that’s a great idea!’ Is that what you think, bitch? And how dare you act like Egbert’s your equal, you little shit. Next to him, you’re nothing. You’re a slave, asshole, learn your place.”
“DAVE!” John screeched, jumping up from where he sat. “D-Don’t talk down at him like that! He..” John bit his lip. “He’s… my best friend! Stop being such a jerk! C-can’t we just get along on my birthday?”
Everything was silent. John sat quickly and stared intensely at his hands in his lap. His troll reached a hand to clamp onto John’s arm, its glare focused on a point somewhere far in the distance. Dave’s troll (Sollux, that was his name, right?) was pulled into a tight ball and avoiding eye contact with the rest of them. Dave just sat and stared, blankly, straight at John, his mouth open slightly.
“Your… best friend?” Dave whispered.
“Y-yes, Dave.”
“But.. I thought I was…”
“You…” John hid his face in his arms. “Y-you’re a j-jerk, Dave.” He started to sob.
Karkat shot daggers at Dave with his eyes. “Way to go, douche.” He stood and put a hand on John’s shoulder. “Keep your damn present, John doesn’t want it.”
Dave could only stop and stare as John got up and the two of them slowly walked away, the bespectacled boy sobbing softly into the troll’s black shirt, its arm secured tightly around his shoulders.
After a long while of sitting in complete silence, Dave stood. He began walking back to the tall building containing his flat.
Sollux followed sheepishly behind.