Round One Entry: Moments

[claudiaasd]

No warnings
Summary: time traveling is a gamble. Always has been, always will be. But when something as precarious as time gets twisted in a fluid place like the Outer Ring, will Dave be able to get out of the time stream? The answer is no. Will Aradia be able to help him out? That answer is yes. As for for how she does, that I won't tell you.

Dave stood on the roof of the lab, idly flickering forward in time to make sure all was well on the meteor. One moment though... Jack seemed a bit too close for comfort. 
He whipped out his timetables and slipped into the timeline, quickly sifting through the timestream and finding the place he wanted to be.
Time traveling was so much easier than manipulating time. Once you got over the tremendous influx of every terrasecond that ever was in the space you happened to be occupying, that is. 
The first time he had time traveled had actually been so overwhelming that he slipped right back into the second he had been in, and nearly passed out. 
Now though, it was a simple matter of filtering. Not to say it still wasn't difficult. Kind of like a math problem, you know how to do it, but you still need to work through each one. 
In the Outer Ring though, everything was muddled and twisted and took Dave longer than usual to find his place.
He stumbled into the proper moment, feeling like a door had closed and he wouldn't be able to go back to that moment again. He saw the meteor just behind him, with Jack in front of him, fast approaching. He equipped caldescratch, just in case, and flew a bit off to the side, knowing Jack would follow the more recent trail.
He saw Jack's path slowly readjusting toward him and he figured he had at least made a diversion on Jack's pursuit, and given them more distance. 
With a spin of cool vinyl beneath a calloused finger, he was back in the timestream, and he found not one moment where the meteor was passing through his space, or anywhere near it. 
For a moment, he truly felt fear.
Being in the timestream meant being a non entity. He wasn't alive, nor was he dead. He was a consciousness, a mind, a god. A god over empty space, a god able to do anything in about a square foot area.
He grasped blindly for Aradia, his mentor in this mess of Time, and found only dark space.
But wait- a moment with a presence. He nearly brought it up to his forefront but pushed it away when he felt a deep evilness emanating from it. He saw Rose when she was Grimdark, and that's not something he wanted to experience firsthand.
He flashed through a thousand things he would never experience firsthand, straight A's, high school, college, drugs, sex, a relationship, seeing John or Jade.
He thought suddenly of Rose, and tried with all his might to summon a moment with Light in it. Just a speck, a remnant, something, anything. Light was the only thing that could truly guide him at this point.
Then, he felt a pull towards one moment that had been obscured until this moment. A beacon. Not exactly Light, but something akin to it...
He leaped into the moment without even studying it, so sick of the all-consuming dark.
He saw in the distance two silhouettes, both in purple pajamas, and he silently drifted toward them, vaguely recognizing one of them that the pull was coming from... Until he realized.
It was Bro, but... younger. From after the scratch. He looked about 15, and the closer he got the stronger the pull from inside him got. It hurt to get too close though, like a fire, drawing you in, but not too close. It was like he was burning from the inside out.
He took a ragged breath and choked on nothing, feeling like his insides were being twisted and ripped apart.
Almost on instinct, he  took out his timetables and slipped away again, this time finding dreambubbles scattered around many of the moments he could find. Most of them were neither trolls nor humans, and as he sifted through and got farther away from the aura of destruction that had enveloped him by his brother, his heart stopped burning and started sinking.
This was why Time was so critical. You could get lost in it so easily. You could die, trapped in its confines, suffocated by trillions upon trillions of moments all trying to pull you in.
And then; a glimmer of red sparkles, left behind by a god tier Time player... With wings.
Dave glanced at the moment before leaping into it, and realizing as he materialized that Aradia had been looking at him before he had even went in.
She smiled at him and held out her hand. He looked around, and found she was only with Sollux.
"Terezi misses you. Visit her sometime." With that, he grabbed Aradia's hand and was pulled into the timestream.
Two consciences occupying nothingness was such a paradox. It made everything more complicated, and yet they shouldn't've even been aware of each other.
Low plucking notes reached Dave and he relaxed instinctively. Aradia was the best for this kind of thing, because she could calm a tempest within him and guide him with a gentle breath.
He felt a soothing presence around him, like a hug of ectoplasmic goo, and he closed his mind to the moments, but didn't leave the timestream. 
Aradia's voice appeared in his head, and said simply, "Don't fret." Dave could feel her gentle smile and wanted to see it. He knew he couldn't. Not yet.
With a low pop and the end of the tune on the music box, they landed in reality. He didn't open his eyes, trusting that Aradia brought him somewhere safe. 
He was lying down on the floor, with his head in her lap.
He wondered how she had done that, because most of the time he couldn't change his position that much from his entrance to his exit from the timeline.
They stayed like that for a while more, then the fingers that were stroking his scalp stopped and tapped him. "C'mon cool kid. You need to get up."
"I'm not done cuddling with the most beautiful damsel ever though," he said, slowly opening his eyes and looking up at her regardless. He saw those beautiful crimson eyes and a soft smile and felt like he could do absolutely nothing for the rest of his life and be okay.
That gentle smile was so charming, and he could just look at her forever, and be totally calm. There was a clock somewhere nearby, adding to the tranquility of the moment with the steady metronome it provided.
Dave started tapping out beats to accompany it on Aradia's hand, which he hadn't realized he was holding. She replied by setting her free hand on his shoulder, tracing a staff, then tapping her fingers on notes with Dave.
Dave broke the silence with, "change to five-four. Three, four, one, two, three, four, five, two two three. "
Aradia changed her melody in response and it took Dave a moment to piece it together in his head.
It was the theme to an Alternian war song Aradia had sung him once.

And to my moirail,
Always before my pail,
I'll be back before 
You can make another pile,
And though it may be a while,
I'll pap you no matter what or
Maybe it will be the other way around
Or I might come back and go underground

It started off happy and light and like a ballad, but then it sped up and got to the part at the end about burials and Dave hadn't been able to sleep well that night. 
As Aradia approached the last line, Dave stopped the beat, ending on the second to last line. It was happier that way.
Aradia stopped when Dave did, and the concentrated yet relaxed atmosphere morphed into something tense before Dave finally said, "Spit it out Aradia." The slightest tone of affection creeped into his voice, although it would've been unnoticeable to a stranger.
"That was a risky gamble you took. And unnecessary. Time out here is so twisted anyway, you should've at least told me. Buddy system, right?"
"I give not one shit about Vantas' buddy system, and he was catching up, and there was no telling how fast. There was no time."
"Dave we always have time."
"I apparently didn't."
She papped his forehead. "Hush, you. It's hard manipulating time out here. Just practice with me more until you try another big jump like that."
"As you wish my princess."
Aradia smiled at him, and he gave a small smile of his own in return. 
"But Dave, you're the princess." Aradia said inoccently.
"Ya had to ruin the moment" Dave smirked and shook his head.
Aradia laughed lightly and bent to kiss his forehead.