Work Text:
> Be Jade.
Your name is Jade Harley, and you are in the closest thing to Hell you can conceptualize.
You hop from dreambubble to dreambubble, your feet barely alighting for seconds to scan for a Dave. Your Dave is somewhere out there, and you’re sure of it. You have to be sure of it, otherwise you’d have to admit this was all for nothing.
Dead Dave after Dead Dave. Mangled corpses, glistening sinew, flesh rent from bone. The sickly sweet smell of decay, the sing of iron in blood, faeces from wide, weeping gashes in the stomach. It’s death and war and destruction and it never gets easier.
Dead Dave. Dead Dave. Dead Dave. Dead Dave.
Alive Dave.
You stop.
There he is, laying supine on the ground. A long katana shines argent and crimson, impaled all the way through his left lung and into the terracotta earth beneath him. You assess the damage quickly. His inhale is sharp and rattles wetly in a way that turns your stomach, and his exhale shakes and wheezes on the way out. He’s dying. He’s got a matter of minutes left to live.
You should move on. This isn’t the Dave you’re looking for. This isn’t your Dave. You’re just about to leave when he reaches out, his hand trembling.
DAVE: jade
You tense sharply. You don’t say anything, but his breathing shifts just the slightest bit, and you know he’s trying to get your attention.
DAVE: jade please
DAVE: look at me
You turn and you meet his eyes. His shades are three feet away, cracked and bent beyond repair. His eyes are bare when he gazes upon you, and tears gleam in them. Rattle, shake. You feel sick.
DAVE: please
DAVE: come here
Your stomach twists, and the acrid wash of bile threatens your palette. Your mouth fills with wet, thick and hot and you’re going to vomit you’re going to do it you’re going to be sick and you can’t even be strong for the one living Dave you’ve seen in two hundred seventy-nine dead ones-
DAVE: youre
You swallow down the thick viscous saliva and the sickness, and you creep closer to him. He coughs, and blood dribbles down his chin.
DAVE: mal
Malachite. Jade. His nickname for you.
Is this… your Dave?
Your breathing shallows, and your chest feels tight like a vice grip, tight like a clenched fist. You don’t have time to panic about this before he starts speaking again. Rattle, gasp. Rattle, shake.
DAVE: i dont
DAVE: i dont got a lot of time
DAVE: knight of
DAVE: time fuck
DAVE: fuck
DAVE: not enough
DAVE: never enough
DAVE: please
His lips form around the word, his name for his brother, and his eyes tilt skyward like he’s going to pray.
Dave was never a religious man. He had been surrounded by it in Houston and he went to church when his Bro brought him (ironically). But he’s never prayed before; at least, not in front of you.
DAVE: can you
DAVE: can you tell me
DAVE: is the baby okay
You find your words. Panic seizes you.
JADE: dave
JADE: DAVE
JADE: WHAT DO YOU MEAN IS THE BABY OKAY?????
He chokes; coughs, and more crimson spills down his chin. You want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, but you can’t -- you can’t be the one to cause him pain. You can’t see agony on his face because of you.
DAVE: dont
DAVE: dont name her yiffany okay
You laugh. Damn him. It’s a broken, pathetic sound, rough and raw as you collapse over his prone form. Your hands tremble, shaking as you reach out to brush a strand of scarlet-stained blonde hair away from his forehead.
JADE: i wont
JADE: i wont
JADE: dave
JADE: please dont do this
JADE: you cant
He meets your gaze. A single tear drips down his cheek, carving a path through the grime of war and desolation.
DAVE: tell her
DAVE: her daddy woulda been proud of her
DAVE: tell her to keep me waiting
DAVE: as long as she can
DAVE: goes for you too mal
DAVE: i love
His eyes slip shut, and his mouth wraps itself around the last word. You don’t get to hear it. What you do get to hear is a wet, sickening gurgle, then silence.
Silence.
You break it.
You sob.
You inhale.
And scream.
Weeks in the future, but not many...
You are staring at a pregnancy test. Your hands shake.
Two lines.
One of you.
Months in the future, about nine of them...
You sob as you wrap your arms around your newborn. She is a healthy baby girl, seven pounds and three ounces, twenty inches. She is radiant.
She has black hair. She’s yours.
But when she opens her eyes for the very first time, you see the deepest shades of scarlet you can imagine.
For the first time since it happened, you see red and don’t think of the blood. You think of the way Dave’s eyes used to crinkle before he laughed. You think of the way they gleamed when he told a joke. You think of the way he would blink when you took his shades off.
You hold your baby girl tight to your chest.
And you pray.