Horns Over Heels (Dave X Karkat)

[S] Karkat: Attend Strider's Party

"This is great, this is awesome," John Egbert is repeating as we unpack my luggage into my new dorm room. "We're at Sburb University. Karkat, Sburb University."

"Yeah, great." I reply sarcastically, folding my sweaters and putting them away in the dresser I found in the garbage. Students throw furniture out all the time, and I might as well make use of it. It's not that I'm broke. "Us and everyone else we played with. Like we're not already sick of each other to begin with."

"Who's your roommate anyways?" John asks me, working on hanging up posters with thumb tacks; we have nothing better to use.

"Gamzee. But of fucking course, he's not gonna get here til last minute."

Knowing Gamzee, he's just going to goof off the whole time and not make any effort in class. It'll be just another year where I let him copy my homework every day and take notes for classes I'm not even in for him.

"Oh, well if you see him today let him know about the party." he pushes his glasses all the way up the bridge of his nose. "You will come to the party, right Karkat?"

"What?" I shout, playing dumb, acting as if I don't know about Dave Strider's party. "I'm not going to a fucking party, John."

"Why not?" he smoothes over my poster of 13 Going On 30. The troll version, of course. "Dave invited you."

"No, he sent you to invite me. You invited me." I correct him, moving on to my next box.

John frowns but doesn't argue. We work in silence for a bit, until John sets up my TV and puts on a shitty movie. Where would our friendship be without our taste in movies?

After about an hour John says he needs to unpack in his own dorm, and he asks for help but I'm worried I'll run into his roommate.
Dave Strider.

Everyone knows him, and we might have spent a lot of time together on the meteor, but since then we've basically become strangers.

He's tried to talk to me a couple times since his newfound popularity among both humans and trolls, but I kind of blew him off because I don't fit in with his scene at all.

And also I get kind of nervous around Strider, which is opposite from when we were on the meteor together. Back then, I could tell him everything. He taught me how to smoke weed and cigarettes, and sometimes we'd watch movies and get closer than we needed to be.
I remember he would fall asleep on my lap, or I'd fall asleep on his chest, and sometimes we would hold hands and rub our thumbs over the other's, but we never addressed that we did those things. It just kind of happened.

As John leaves, I look at my Speakercrab for any alerts from anyone, and I see one from Gamzee. I open a chat with him:

TC: WhAtS uP LiTtle MotHeRfUcKeR, aRe YoU rEaDy To GeT FucKed Up WiTh Me?
CG: WHAT
CG: THE EVERFUCK.
CG: DO YOU TAKE ME FOR
TC: BrO i SeEn YoU gEt FuCkEd uP wItH tHeM hUmAn MoThErFuCkErS aLl ThE tImE
TC: dAvE aNd RoSe, ThEm MoThErFuCkeRs
CG: NOT REALLY DUDE. JUST WEED AND BEER. NOT YOUR WEIRD SLIME PIE SHIT
TC: MaN iM nOt EvEn TaLkInG aBoUt SliMe Pie
TC: ThIs mOtHeRfUcKiNg hUmAn sHiT iS nExT lEvEl
CG: IM NOT DOING DRUGS WITH YOU GAM.
carcinoGeneticist ceased trolling terminallyCapricious

I need a new roommate.

My eyes scan everyone online, and stop when they land on Dave's Pesterchum. I haven't messaged him in so long, would he even reply if I did?

My heart hurts. It's like an agonizing desire to hold him or be held by him like we did back on the meteor. But he's basically a stranger now.
I resist the urge to message him, I'll see him at his party anyway. Right, I should probably get ready for it.