doov:
the clingy adventures of dave the boyfriend
pt. 938
sdjfhakjhdfgakudgjhksjbfv
here u go pirate
thank u
[[ OKAY I’m going to put all things johndave here ]]
A couple days passed fairly quickly even though you figured it would take forever to pass. It was mostly due to your dad making you do all this stuff, which wasn’t too bad, and you didn’t complain. You got some time to go into town though and found a trick deck and some dice for no reason. They just looked really cool. Also a couple more things for Dave.
On non other than April the Thirteenth, you woke up to your dad throwing a pie in your face which you took a twenty minute shower to clean yourself off, only to re-enter the hotel room to be exposed to eight cakes showered over the room and four gifts wrapped in the corner. You talked to Jade and Rose in the morning and they wished you a happy birthday right off the bat, and claimed that they had sent their gifts and you should have got them. You never did tell them that you weren’t at home because you wanted to really keep it from Dave and didn’t tell the girls yet. Letting them know, they both seem excited (in their own way) for you to be visiting your best bro but Jade seems a bit disappointed that you didn’t tell her- your ecto-sister after all!
You opened your gifts and surprisingly got stuff you actually thought was pretty cool; a bunch of unique clever disguises and a new modus, however you were so used to the one you’ve had for a year, you don’t really want to change. You got a monocle and a magicians handbook thing as well. This is the second best birthday ever. You don’t think that you could imagine one so great as your 13th. You dwell on the positives, in spite of taking a moment to remember the ones who died on that longest day ever, too; who although only having known them for so long.By noon you get dropped off at Dave’s once again getting through the doors without needing to be buzzed in and knocking on his door exactly four times, this time a lot less nervous. You are wearing the same shirt you wore last year on your birthday actually; with kakhi’s, carrying a red box and a small shopping bag with a few extra little things you didn’t bother wrapping.
The night John left, you had been reminded that it was April, and looked up the date only to realize that the ‘couple days’ John had referred to was in fact April 13th.
His birthday.
The anniversary of… everything.
For a minute you had stared at the wall blankly, wondering WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE A GIFT FOR HIM. Then you remembered you had sent it in the mail ages ago, as was tradition. It was probably nearly to Washington now. You had decided upon something else, basically just trying to make his trip cool as fuck.
You had accidentally managed to wake up at four in the morning on this day, possibly because you downed half a can of squeeze cheese before bed, possibly because you dreamt of Sburb, and possibly because your mind needed to be awake to suitably spend the next several hours stressing over what at your house could possibly be enjoyable enough to serve as entertainment on one’s birthday.
In the end you didn’t really come up with a damn thing, and so it was with slightly bagged eyes that you answered the door when Egbert arrived with a beaming smile and a conspicuous amount of things in his arms. Instead of the “happy birthday” you were expecting to say, what comes out of your mouth is “Hopy shit Egbert what even is all that crap?”
You approach the door a bit more as it’s opening in front of you, grinning even as Dave questions you carrying your gift for him. You forget for a moment the exciting day that it is, and question your friend a moment in confusion. “Not crap; jeeez i thought i told you i had a gift for you; i also picked up a few other uh things,” you lift one of your arms a bit to show the plastic bag hanging off of it.
You still stand outside the appartment though, as if you wouldn’t be welcome to come in, and hand Dave the box. You start thinking about how it should be tradition for the four of you to exchange gifts even though it’s technically your birthday, on the thirteenth of April as a sort of a holiday.
“happy uh-er… sburban anniversary?” you contemplate on a name to call it. You may have to think this over. Grinning crookedly a bit, you examine your friend; by his stature he seems tired or worn out. Did he stay up late or something? You meet his eyes even throught the glasses he wore constanty, “wow dave, you seem tired,” you point out.You stare at John vaguely, running your fingers through your hair. You consider responding to either of his comments, but instead have to address what seems to you the pressing question here. “Dude, why the fuck would you bring me a present on your birthday?”
Since he seems to just be standing there with that grin of his, you sigh and take the box, putting it on the counter and drawing him in the threshold so you can close the door behind him. You had honestly completely forgotten that Egderp had said he was bringing you something. You instantly feel even worse. You really hope the ‘other things’ are just some random stuff and not also for you.
You wonder how he could tell you were tired, automatically reaching to push up your shades, reassuring yourself that they are there. “Yeah, I mean no,” you blink and shake your head, rubbing your temple. “I’m fine man, when do I ever sleep anyway?”
“haha i think thats the reason you seem worn out or something then,” you note but don’t draw to much attention to that topic. You’re sure he’ll be fine. Maybe it was just your imagination.
You walk into his appartment as he puts your gift on the table and of course see no problem. You had a gift for him anyway, and you just saw him then so it fit perfectly. Your confusion is obvious in the expression you make, as you carry the bag in the other hand. “just open it already,” you order lightly, shifting your grin to be a tad crooked. You fully expect birthday wishes of course but for now you are pretty much dead set on having him open the lousy gift you got. The sad thing is that it isn’t ironic though. It is legit sincerely Dave.
|| This is the content of the box ||“Dude,” you repeat. “It’s your birthday.” You are fully prepared to stare at him like the insane person he is for however long you have to, but you admit to yourself it wouldn’t do much good. Clearly he will not be satisfied until you open the gift. Shaking your head with the faint beginnings of a scowl, you grudgingly untie and open the box, removing its contents.
Once you open the lid of the container inside and see the gift John has got you, you can only blink at it for a moment. Your first thought is that it is incredibly tacky. But immediately after that you have to admit it incredibly matches you. A watch for the knight of time, red for your favorite color, and a crow for your rad awesomeness, or more likely all the crows in your bedroom, which have become rather of a motif. Taking it out and holding it against your wrist, your expression softens almost imperceptibly. Christ jegus, Egbert.
Of course he would.
You glance at him. “You’re such a dork,” you say, meaning ‘You’re my best friend and I’m actually kind of touched.’
You get the meaning behind that, immediately, as if you didn’t hear ‘you’re a dork’ but a thank you and that he appreciated it. Right? “haha okay so i know its not totally ironic and that its not as good as the glasses i got for you but …” you trail off, handing him the plastic bag, “i found these too,” basically the bag consisted of some random things that made you laugh when at a dollar store the other day. A cow that when you squeezed it “pooped” with it’s eyeballs sticking out, a bouncy ball with a clock inside, a couple strange candies, some licorice, one of those street signs that was supposed to look like it was saying “no people allowed” (but the person legit looked like some sort of puppet so you figured it fit sort of), a stuffed crow and a few dinky childrens toys for no reason really; you just wanted an excuse to buy them. You also picked yourself up some kids magic trick things, which ended up breaking as soon as you got home with them, so you didn’t bother bringing them to show Dave.
Of course you realise that this day is far more important than just your birthday, and you need to have long chats with both Jade and Rose, but for this time it’s going to pretty much be for you and Dave to have a good time without worrying about trying not to dye all the time. “today is a celebration of sorts or something, i mean so its not all about my birthday” you explain cheesily before realising you do kind of wish you had Dave’s gift but you have to wait until you get home.
You scratch your head casually, watching your friend’s expression seemingly absently even though you can’t really see past his glasses.“Don’t be stupid,” you retort with a scoff. “Of course it’s about your birthday first.”
Stupid Egbert.
Of course, you know just as well as the rest of them that this day means a lot of things. Really important things. Universe-saving, life-changing things. Things that haunt your dreams and invade your memories. But still, you don’t think you can ever consider April 13th to be anything but John’s birthday. It just is.
Pausing to stare at the watch on your wrist awkwardly, you add, “… your present is in the mail,” with a faint frown. Feeling pissed off at yourself for not having anything, you look away from your friend and instead into the bag he’s handed you. You rummage through the cheap items, feeling worse about yourself and inexplicably fonder of your friend with each lame item. “Egbert, you are such an idiot,” you say, reaching to punch him on the arm, and then find yourself pulling him in for a hug, despite the oddness of this action for you.
You make sure to punch him in the shoulder again before you let go. Just to be clear.
You are actually brought to grin more so as he calls you an idiot. You don’t even see it as an insult when /he/ says it. It’s more than that anyway. You grin wider though, letting out a bit of a chuckle as he hugs you, letting it turn to be very ungraceful when you are punched in the shoulder.
“yea okay so they arent that lame then! the little gifts… horrah” you add the last bit a little sarcastically before adressing the topic of you birthday, “but uh yea thanks for seeing my birthday as so important,” although you still see that day as more important for the game, but either way. “and ill get your gift when i get home! i mean that way when i leave you i still have something to look forward to right?”“I can’t believe you brought me all this shit on your own birthday,” you mutter. “And yeah, but I mean, Christ jegus fuck, Egbert, you aren’t exactly making me look like a knight in shining armor of a best friend right now you know. I mean, it’s like I’ve given you a negative number of birthday gifts of something.”
You rub your brow, wanting to feel a little more sour but unable to maintain too grumpy a disposition around the spectacled doof. Furrowing your expression lightly and meeting his eyes, although yours are hidden, you break out of your sullen silence with a grudging, “Happy birthday, idiot.”
Again with the idiot! You roll your eyes a tad, “thank you striiiiiiiider!” you reply with exactly eight i’s but he doesn’t know that. You can tell he’s looking you in the eyes, even though his own are hidden; it’s just that feeling you get, that makes it completely obvious yet you can’t explain how.
“you can just pay me back for these gifts by enjoying them and you know that song that pretty much says how being with you is a good enough gift?” you sum it up. You know it’s a love song, but it still works in the scenario of good bro’s, or perhaps in that ironic homoeroticism that you and Dave were talking about before.
You move into the kitchen now, after taking your shoes off and lean against the counter, not really paying attention to your surroundings all too much. You keep forgetting you probably have to do that around here.Sighing, you step into the kitchen and fetch some tape from a drawer, fixing the trip wire booby trap John would have set off had he decided to stand about two inches to the left. Figuring it’s probably better to disarm most of them, you go around doing the same to the majority of the other dangerous things around the kitchen area. “You’re such a sap,” you remind him. Not that it’s not nice to hear, you suppose. Knowing John, he probably actually means it.
After binding back the last set of shuriken (and nursing two cuts on your fingers from doing so), you slowly slide your hands in your back pockets and face Egbert. “So,” you drawl. “What’s the birthday dumbass craving?”
“That hurts, dave,” you comment sarcastically at his casual insults as he moves about the kitchen doing something with tape or what not. You raise a brow but not really so questionably but solely because it makes you look cool, when you look like you are questioning his antics. You are so weird.
You don’t bother asking what he is doing but watch him anyway; you chucklesnort at his question though, “what do you mean? well, anything that doesnt have flour and eggs in it i guess.” was Dave even referring to food? Maybe you’re just weird for having food on the brain, but you assume that it can’t mean much else.
“Did you have anything plaaaaaaaanned for today?” you make a mental note that it was “planned with eight a’s”.“Jegus Egbert, are you putting eight goddamn vowels in all your words?” you demand. He has stretched out his words again and you are certain it is the sort of thing he would do. Ooof course he would be thinking of Vriska. Swallowing a scowl, you search for anything non eggs-and-flour-having, not that you would have anything with eggs and flour anyway. You don’t find much except an uncut salami and a box of wheat thins. “You want either of these?” you ask, gesturing. Your apartment is incredibly unsuited for hospitality.
You unscrew some orange juice yourself, take a swig, then immediately spit it out. It is definitely not good anymore. Ugh. Whatever. You lean against the counter.
“I dunno man.” You finally answer his actual question. “I figured we might mess around with my camera. There’s always more games and crap. We could go out too if you want.”
“uh…” you note that the last time you came by, Dave tried to offer you something perhaps to be hospitable or something, but you already feel extremely welcome so think it’s a little funny. You shake your head slightly, “its fine”
“and of course im not putting eight vowels in that word, jeez dave,” you lie lightly, actually surprised on how well he can guess. That guy sure knows you well for some reason. Maybe it’s to do with him pretty much being your best friend.
“did you end up making your easter thing? we could do that, yea?” you suggest.You put away the food, rolling your eyes at his obvious lie and pausing before responding. “…I do have a spare costume. If you’re up for it.”
You are rather set on him being up to it, in fact, as you have planned to add a special dedication to this video and upload it early. You have lots of dedicated viewers, after all, and if you can’t get Egbert’s birthday gift to him on time, you can at least do something pretty rad for him.
“uh… a spare costume of what exactly?” you question but you are already set on agreeing to whatever he is planning for his video. You shift your weight onto the other side and look as much as you can into Dave’s eye’s but estimation on their whereabouts behind his glasses.
“You like rabbits, right?” you ask instead of answering. You figure that because of the whole Con Air bunny thing he’ll probably feel obliged to say yes. The Strider household contains a bunny suit for each Strider, though you’ve never seen Bro in the other and probably wouldn’t want to.
You realize belatedly that his eyes are peering intently at your shades, searching for yours. It throws you off a bit, but you remind yourself he can’t see them. Honestly, it’s actually kind of hard to see from behind them, even. Dark shades are actually DARK.
You’ve never had a guest in any of your ironic videos before. Unsuspecting victims, yes. Guests, no. Not even Bro. You suppose this is a first.
Egbert had better feel damn honoured.
Well you get where Dave is coming from in his question, and you can’t say no to it. Not that you would completely enjoy it, but the idea of a rabbit brings about memories of your favourite stuffed animal and you figure anything ridiculously ironic or involving a disguise (although you are certain that nobody would think of you as an actual giant rabbit anyway) is not something you would turn down.
You grin - widely - as you nod, “oh alright then, well i guess youre the boss then mr strider!” you cant help but laugh then, jumping up a bit so you are no longer leaning against the wall. “sounds good i mean”“Dude it’s your birthday,” you remind him, although just to be fair you add, “…but yeah, I am.”
Because you’re a Strider.
You take a moment to fetch the costumes, which are stuffed in the back of a closet, dusty and wrinkled - well, they would be, if whatever the hell this fabric was wrinkled. It was apparently sturdy as all fuck, though. Just as well.
“You get this one,” you say, tossing the light brown suit to him. Yours is candy pink, naturally. Nothing but the best for a Strider.
You roll your eyes as you are reminded yet again that it’s your birthday, “im glad you havent forgotten haha” of course being fourteen you still get fairly excited for such a day even though there are a lot of things to be excited other than it being your birthday, and reasons to hate it, such as memories which kind of can be negative or the outrageous number of cakes in your vicinity.
You follow your friend to the closet standing fairly close behind him and he tosses you a brown suit, which for some reason took you by surprise and almost leads you to lose your balance but you catch yourself on an adjacent wall not taking a moment to think before trying to get into the suit. You think this is perfectly normal…“Yeah, I totally forgot the date in between two seconds ago and right now.” You roll your eyes and drag your suit into your bedroom, stripping and redressing with the door open because you live in a household where privacy means nothing and modesty means less. Soon enough you are both suited up, so you grab a variety of random shit, your camcorder, and your keys. “Let’s go,” you say.
The adventure begins just around your own block, where you parade down the sidewalk and stop in front of every homeless person and play them the trumpet. Badly. You don’t actually know how to play the trumpet, nor do you care. You let Egbert hold the camera for these parts, because you know if he’s on screen he won’t be able to keep a straight face. The picture will be terrible, from the way he’s giggling, but you don’t mind. You think it’s funny how awkward he seems in his suit, but are at the same time determined to make this enjoyable for him (it is his birthday, after all), so you decide to let him have the next pick.
“Prank number two, go,” you say, hopping up on a bench and reaffixing the camera to his hand.
You stupidly put the bunny suit on over your clothes not realising that you’d probably heat up in this weather but it doesn’t really matter, as you found it quite easy to ignore in the midst of things. You cannot help but chortle at so many of the things that you two do or more so that Dave does and you film, but now with the camera on you you can’t help but turn a bit red as if you were camera shy or something, but of course youre not.
“well uh i dont think what youve… uh weve been doing counts as pranks, but well we should start talking to people in some made up language or something trying to find our way uh, out of narnia; and uh or we could do what rabbits do and get a bunch of carrots from the … ” you look away from dave, who you’ve been staring at instead of the camera like you probably should have, at to a market which you passed down the road some ways, “market and start shoving them in people’s bags and stuff… see i dont think it’s really all that ironic, but…” you trail off. Of course you are the master of pranks but when it comes to being in a rabbit suit and acting things out, around real people, it’s a bit different.Maybe you just don’t think Dave will like your ideas as they don’t fit in his ironic scheme of things.
You stare at John, intrigued by this newfound shyness. You end up going along with the carrot idea, and John is at least pleased by the fact that he gets to give things out to people, and cheerily chirps your script of various other holiday greetings that have nothing to do with Easter.
Once or twice he begins to get into full conversations with the strangers you are bothering, earnestly trying to explain irony, before you drag him away because that is not cool and geez he’s such a doof. Although you can’t say it doesn’t make you smile a little bit when you catch him doing things like that on camera. You don’t know if it’s just the surprise or what, but every time you do, he turns bright red and tries to hide.
Your shenanigans don’t last as long as you would have liked them to, mostly because Egbert starts to sweat pretty soon in, and you realize you forgot that he is not used to the Houston sun, much less in the trapping heat of a furry suit. By afternoon you are loping lazily along with the suits’ upper halves tied loosely around your midsections - at this point, since there are no pranks to film, you resort to sneakily following John the whole time with the camera - and when you see an ice cream parlor in the shade, you both agree it’s probably a good idea.
You send Egbert to save a place in line while you grab a bag from a nearby store for your costumes - or so you tell him. You are doing that, too, but in the meantime you grab a few strangers and conduct an interview or two. A birthday surprise, if you will. You meet him at the parlor soon enough, hair tousled with sweat but expression as cool as ever.
The whole talking to strangers thing was pretty cool actually, as after doing a bit of your prank or so, you explained why it was so cool what you were doing and a few times you pointed to your friend explaining the situation and trying to get a laugh out of the strangers but for some reason they didn’t seem to care or pay any mind to what you were trying to say, or a lot of the time when you were discussing things with these people, dave would pull you away. A couple times you’ve caught yourself on camera which was all right you supposed, but you still felt a bit awkward with it there, for reasons you weren’t really sure.
By the time you and your friend quit the pranking, you didnt notice the camera on anymore (although you just were blantantly unobservant that a lot of the time strider still had it filming you randomly). After he points out an ice cream parlor you immediately agree that it’s a good idea, but before agreeing, say, “but since its my birthday i think you should pay for it” you grin widely obviously not really that serious. You don’t mind paying if need be but Dave obviously agrees along with some sarcastic comment before asking you to save a spot as he goes to get a bag or something.
You comply hopping eagerly on the tips of your toes as you look at the flavours before getting to the front of the line, with no idea in mind (although youre pretty set on simply strawberry).
A couple days passed fairly quickly even though you figured it would take forever to pass. It was mostly due to your dad making you do all this stuff, which wasn’t too bad, and you didn’t complain. You got some time to go into town though and found a trick deck and some dice for no reason. They just looked really cool. Also a couple more things for Dave.
On non other than April the Thirteenth, you woke up to your dad throwing a pie in your face which you took a twenty minute shower to clean yourself off, only to re-enter the hotel room to be exposed to eight cakes showered over the room and four gifts wrapped in the corner. You talked to Jade and Rose in the morning and they wished you a happy birthday right off the bat, and claimed that they had sent their gifts and you should have got them. You never did tell them that you weren’t at home because you wanted to really keep it from Dave and didn’t tell the girls yet. Letting them know, they both seem excited (in their own way) for you to be visiting your best bro but Jade seems a bit disappointed that you didn’t tell her- your ecto-sister after all!
You opened your gifts and surprisingly got stuff you actually thought was pretty cool; a bunch of unique clever disguises and a new modus, however you were so used to the one you’ve had for a year, you don’t really want to change. You got a monocle and a magicians handbook thing as well. This is the second best birthday ever. You don’t think that you could imagine one so great as your 13th. You dwell on the positives, in spite of taking a moment to remember the ones who died on that longest day ever, too; who although only having known them for so long.By noon you get dropped off at Dave’s once again getting through the doors without needing to be buzzed in and knocking on his door exactly four times, this time a lot less nervous. You are wearing the same shirt you wore last year on your birthday actually; with kakhi’s, carrying a red box and a small shopping bag with a few extra little things you didn’t bother wrapping.
The night John left, you had been reminded that it was April, and looked up the date only to realize that the ‘couple days’ John had referred to was in fact April 13th.
His birthday.
The anniversary of… everything.
For a minute you had stared at the wall blankly, wondering WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE A GIFT FOR HIM. Then you remembered you had sent it in the mail ages ago, as was tradition. It was probably nearly to Washington now. You had decided upon something else, basically just trying to make his trip cool as fuck.
You had accidentally managed to wake up at four in the morning on this day, possibly because you downed half a can of squeeze cheese before bed, possibly because you dreamt of Sburb, and possibly because your mind needed to be awake to suitably spend the next several hours stressing over what at your house could possibly be enjoyable enough to serve as entertainment on one’s birthday.
In the end you didn’t really come up with a damn thing, and so it was with slightly bagged eyes that you answered the door when Egbert arrived with a beaming smile and a conspicuous amount of things in his arms. Instead of the “happy birthday” you were expecting to say, what comes out of your mouth is “Hopy shit Egbert what even is all that crap?”
You approach the door a bit more as it’s opening in front of you, grinning even as Dave questions you carrying your gift for him. You forget for a moment the exciting day that it is, and question your friend a moment in confusion. “Not crap; jeeez i thought i told you i had a gift for you; i also picked up a few other uh things,” you lift one of your arms a bit to show the plastic bag hanging off of it.
You still stand outside the appartment though, as if you wouldn’t be welcome to come in, and hand Dave the box. You start thinking about how it should be tradition for the four of you to exchange gifts even though it’s technically your birthday, on the thirteenth of April as a sort of a holiday.
“happy uh-er… sburban anniversary?” you contemplate on a name to call it. You may have to think this over. Grinning crookedly a bit, you examine your friend; by his stature he seems tired or worn out. Did he stay up late or something? You meet his eyes even throught the glasses he wore constanty, “wow dave, you seem tired,” you point out.You stare at John vaguely, running your fingers through your hair. You consider responding to either of his comments, but instead have to address what seems to you the pressing question here. “Dude, why the fuck would you bring me a present on your birthday?”
Since he seems to just be standing there with that grin of his, you sigh and take the box, putting it on the counter and drawing him in the threshold so you can close the door behind him. You had honestly completely forgotten that Egderp had said he was bringing you something. You instantly feel even worse. You really hope the ‘other things’ are just some random stuff and not also for you.
You wonder how he could tell you were tired, automatically reaching to push up your shades, reassuring yourself that they are there. “Yeah, I mean no,” you blink and shake your head, rubbing your temple. “I’m fine man, when do I ever sleep anyway?”
“haha i think thats the reason you seem worn out or something then,” you note but don’t draw to much attention to that topic. You’re sure he’ll be fine. Maybe it was just your imagination.
You walk into his appartment as he puts your gift on the table and of course see no problem. You had a gift for him anyway, and you just saw him then so it fit perfectly. Your confusion is obvious in the expression you make, as you carry the bag in the other hand. “just open it already,” you order lightly, shifting your grin to be a tad crooked. You fully expect birthday wishes of course but for now you are pretty much dead set on having him open the lousy gift you got. The sad thing is that it isn’t ironic though. It is legit sincerely Dave.
|| This is the content of the box ||“Dude,” you repeat. “It’s your birthday.” You are fully prepared to stare at him like the insane person he is for however long you have to, but you admit to yourself it wouldn’t do much good. Clearly he will not be satisfied until you open the gift. Shaking your head with the faint beginnings of a scowl, you grudgingly untie and open the box, removing its contents.
Once you open the lid of the container inside and see the gift John has got you, you can only blink at it for a moment. Your first thought is that it is incredibly tacky. But immediately after that you have to admit it incredibly matches you. A watch for the knight of time, red for your favorite color, and a crow for your rad awesomeness, or more likely all the crows in your bedroom, which have become rather of a motif. Taking it out and holding it against your wrist, your expression softens almost imperceptibly. Christ jegus, Egbert.
Of course he would.
You glance at him. “You’re such a dork,” you say, meaning ‘You’re my best friend and I’m actually kind of touched.’
You get the meaning behind that, immediately, as if you didn’t hear ‘you’re a dork’ but a thank you and that he appreciated it. Right? “haha okay so i know its not totally ironic and that its not as good as the glasses i got for you but …” you trail off, handing him the plastic bag, “i found these too,” basically the bag consisted of some random things that made you laugh when at a dollar store the other day. A cow that when you squeezed it “pooped” with it’s eyeballs sticking out, a bouncy ball with a clock inside, a couple strange candies, some licorice, one of those street signs that was supposed to look like it was saying “no people allowed” (but the person legit looked like some sort of puppet so you figured it fit sort of), a stuffed crow and a few dinky childrens toys for no reason really; you just wanted an excuse to buy them. You also picked yourself up some kids magic trick things, which ended up breaking as soon as you got home with them, so you didn’t bother bringing them to show Dave.
Of course you realise that this day is far more important than just your birthday, and you need to have long chats with both Jade and Rose, but for this time it’s going to pretty much be for you and Dave to have a good time without worrying about trying not to dye all the time. “today is a celebration of sorts or something, i mean so its not all about my birthday” you explain cheesily before realising you do kind of wish you had Dave’s gift but you have to wait until you get home.
You scratch your head casually, watching your friend’s expression seemingly absently even though you can’t really see past his glasses.“Don’t be stupid,” you retort with a scoff. “Of course it’s about your birthday first.”
Stupid Egbert.
Of course, you know just as well as the rest of them that this day means a lot of things. Really important things. Universe-saving, life-changing things. Things that haunt your dreams and invade your memories. But still, you don’t think you can ever consider April 13th to be anything but John’s birthday. It just is.
Pausing to stare at the watch on your wrist awkwardly, you add, “… your present is in the mail,” with a faint frown. Feeling pissed off at yourself for not having anything, you look away from your friend and instead into the bag he’s handed you. You rummage through the cheap items, feeling worse about yourself and inexplicably fonder of your friend with each lame item. “Egbert, you are such an idiot,” you say, reaching to punch him on the arm, and then find yourself pulling him in for a hug, despite the oddness of this action for you.
You make sure to punch him in the shoulder again before you let go. Just to be clear.
You are actually brought to grin more so as he calls you an idiot. You don’t even see it as an insult when /he/ says it. It’s more than that anyway. You grin wider though, letting out a bit of a chuckle as he hugs you, letting it turn to be very ungraceful when you are punched in the shoulder.
“yea okay so they arent that lame then! the little gifts… horrah” you add the last bit a little sarcastically before adressing the topic of you birthday, “but uh yea thanks for seeing my birthday as so important,” although you still see that day as more important for the game, but either way. “and ill get your gift when i get home! i mean that way when i leave you i still have something to look forward to right?”“I can’t believe you brought me all this shit on your own birthday,” you mutter. “And yeah, but I mean, Christ jegus fuck, Egbert, you aren’t exactly making me look like a knight in shining armor of a best friend right now you know. I mean, it’s like I’ve given you a negative number of birthday gifts of something.”
You rub your brow, wanting to feel a little more sour but unable to maintain too grumpy a disposition around the spectacled doof. Furrowing your expression lightly and meeting his eyes, although yours are hidden, you break out of your sullen silence with a grudging, “Happy birthday, idiot.”
Again with the idiot! You roll your eyes a tad, “thank you striiiiiiiider!” you reply with exactly eight i’s but he doesn’t know that. You can tell he’s looking you in the eyes, even though his own are hidden; it’s just that feeling you get, that makes it completely obvious yet you can’t explain how.
“you can just pay me back for these gifts by enjoying them and you know that song that pretty much says how being with you is a good enough gift?” you sum it up. You know it’s a love song, but it still works in the scenario of good bro’s, or perhaps in that ironic homoeroticism that you and Dave were talking about before.
You move into the kitchen now, after taking your shoes off and lean against the counter, not really paying attention to your surroundings all too much. You keep forgetting you probably have to do that around here.Sighing, you step into the kitchen and fetch some tape from a drawer, fixing the trip wire booby trap John would have set off had he decided to stand about two inches to the left. Figuring it’s probably better to disarm most of them, you go around doing the same to the majority of the other dangerous things around the kitchen area. “You’re such a sap,” you remind him. Not that it’s not nice to hear, you suppose. Knowing John, he probably actually means it.
After binding back the last set of shuriken (and nursing two cuts on your fingers from doing so), you slowly slide your hands in your back pockets and face Egbert. “So,” you drawl. “What’s the birthday dumbass craving?”
“That hurts, dave,” you comment sarcastically at his casual insults as he moves about the kitchen doing something with tape or what not. You raise a brow but not really so questionably but solely because it makes you look cool, when you look like you are questioning his antics. You are so weird.
You don’t bother asking what he is doing but watch him anyway; you chucklesnort at his question though, “what do you mean? well, anything that doesnt have flour and eggs in it i guess.” was Dave even referring to food? Maybe you’re just weird for having food on the brain, but you assume that it can’t mean much else.
“Did you have anything plaaaaaaaanned for today?” you make a mental note that it was “planned with eight a’s”.“Jegus Egbert, are you putting eight goddamn vowels in all your words?” you demand. He has stretched out his words again and you are certain it is the sort of thing he would do. Ooof course he would be thinking of Vriska. Swallowing a scowl, you search for anything non eggs-and-flour-having, not that you would have anything with eggs and flour anyway. You don’t find much except an uncut salami and a box of wheat thins. “You want either of these?” you ask, gesturing. Your apartment is incredibly unsuited for hospitality.
You unscrew some orange juice yourself, take a swig, then immediately spit it out. It is definitely not good anymore. Ugh. Whatever. You lean against the counter.
“I dunno man.” You finally answer his actual question. “I figured we might mess around with my camera. There’s always more games and crap. We could go out too if you want.”
“uh…” you note that the last time you came by, Dave tried to offer you something perhaps to be hospitable or something, but you already feel extremely welcome so think it’s a little funny. You shake your head slightly, “its fine”
“and of course im not putting eight vowels in that word, jeez dave,” you lie lightly, actually surprised on how well he can guess. That guy sure knows you well for some reason. Maybe it’s to do with him pretty much being your best friend.
“did you end up making your easter thing? we could do that, yea?” you suggest.You put away the food, rolling your eyes at his obvious lie and pausing before responding. “…I do have a spare costume. If you’re up for it.”
You are rather set on him being up to it, in fact, as you have planned to add a special dedication to this video and upload it early. You have lots of dedicated viewers, after all, and if you can’t get Egbert’s birthday gift to him on time, you can at least do something pretty rad for him.
“uh… a spare costume of what exactly?” you question but you are already set on agreeing to whatever he is planning for his video. You shift your weight onto the other side and look as much as you can into Dave’s eye’s but estimation on their whereabouts behind his glasses.
“You like rabbits, right?” you ask instead of answering. You figure that because of the whole Con Air bunny thing he’ll probably feel obliged to say yes. The Strider household contains a bunny suit for each Strider, though you’ve never seen Bro in the other and probably wouldn’t want to.
You realize belatedly that his eyes are peering intently at your shades, searching for yours. It throws you off a bit, but you remind yourself he can’t see them. Honestly, it’s actually kind of hard to see from behind them, even. Dark shades are actually DARK.
You’ve never had a guest in any of your ironic videos before. Unsuspecting victims, yes. Guests, no. Not even Bro. You suppose this is a first.
Egbert had better feel damn honoured.
Well you get where Dave is coming from in his question, and you can’t say no to it. Not that you would completely enjoy it, but the idea of a rabbit brings about memories of your favourite stuffed animal and you figure anything ridiculously ironic or involving a disguise (although you are certain that nobody would think of you as an actual giant rabbit anyway) is not something you would turn down.
You grin - widely - as you nod, “oh alright then, well i guess youre the boss then mr strider!” you cant help but laugh then, jumping up a bit so you are no longer leaning against the wall. “sounds good i mean”“Dude it’s your birthday,” you remind him, although just to be fair you add, “…but yeah, I am.”
Because you’re a Strider.
You take a moment to fetch the costumes, which are stuffed in the back of a closet, dusty and wrinkled - well, they would be, if whatever the hell this fabric was wrinkled. It was apparently sturdy as all fuck, though. Just as well.
“You get this one,” you say, tossing the light brown suit to him. Yours is candy pink, naturally. Nothing but the best for a Strider.
You roll your eyes as you are reminded yet again that it’s your birthday, “im glad you havent forgotten haha” of course being fourteen you still get fairly excited for such a day even though there are a lot of things to be excited other than it being your birthday, and reasons to hate it, such as memories which kind of can be negative or the outrageous number of cakes in your vicinity.
You follow your friend to the closet standing fairly close behind him and he tosses you a brown suit, which for some reason took you by surprise and almost leads you to lose your balance but you catch yourself on an adjacent wall not taking a moment to think before trying to get into the suit. You think this is perfectly normal…“Yeah, I totally forgot the date in between two seconds ago and right now.” You roll your eyes and drag your suit into your bedroom, stripping and redressing with the door open because you live in a household where privacy means nothing and modesty means less. Soon enough you are both suited up, so you grab a variety of random shit, your camcorder, and your keys. “Let’s go,” you say.
The adventure begins just around your own block, where you parade down the sidewalk and stop in front of every homeless person and play them the trumpet. Badly. You don’t actually know how to play the trumpet, nor do you care. You let Egbert hold the camera for these parts, because you know if he’s on screen he won’t be able to keep a straight face. The picture will be terrible, from the way he’s giggling, but you don’t mind. You think it’s funny how awkward he seems in his suit, but are at the same time determined to make this enjoyable for him (it is his birthday, after all), so you decide to let him have the next pick.
“Prank number two, go,” you say, hopping up on a bench and reaffixing the camera to his hand.
You stupidly put the bunny suit on over your clothes not realising that you’d probably heat up in this weather but it doesn’t really matter, as you found it quite easy to ignore in the midst of things. You cannot help but chortle at so many of the things that you two do or more so that Dave does and you film, but now with the camera on you you can’t help but turn a bit red as if you were camera shy or something, but of course youre not.
“well uh i dont think what youve… uh weve been doing counts as pranks, but well we should start talking to people in some made up language or something trying to find our way uh, out of narnia; and uh or we could do what rabbits do and get a bunch of carrots from the … ” you look away from dave, who you’ve been staring at instead of the camera like you probably should have, at to a market which you passed down the road some ways, “market and start shoving them in people’s bags and stuff… see i dont think it’s really all that ironic, but…” you trail off. Of course you are the master of pranks but when it comes to being in a rabbit suit and acting things out, around real people, it’s a bit different.
Maybe you just don’t think Dave will like your ideas as they don’t fit in his ironic scheme of things.
A couple days passed fairly quickly even though you figured it would take forever to pass. It was mostly due to your dad making you do all this stuff, which wasn’t too bad, and you didn’t complain. You got some time to go into town though and found a trick deck and some dice for no reason. They just looked really cool. Also a couple more things for Dave.
On non other than April the Thirteenth, you woke up to your dad throwing a pie in your face which you took a twenty minute shower to clean yourself off, only to re-enter the hotel room to be exposed to eight cakes showered over the room and four gifts wrapped in the corner. You talked to Jade and Rose in the morning and they wished you a happy birthday right off the bat, and claimed that they had sent their gifts and you should have got them. You never did tell them that you weren’t at home because you wanted to really keep it from Dave and didn’t tell the girls yet. Letting them know, they both seem excited (in their own way) for you to be visiting your best bro but Jade seems a bit disappointed that you didn’t tell her- your ecto-sister after all!
You opened your gifts and surprisingly got stuff you actually thought was pretty cool; a bunch of unique clever disguises and a new modus, however you were so used to the one you’ve had for a year, you don’t really want to change. You got a monocle and a magicians handbook thing as well. This is the second best birthday ever. You don’t think that you could imagine one so great as your 13th. You dwell on the positives, in spite of taking a moment to remember the ones who died on that longest day ever, too; who although only having known them for so long.By noon you get dropped off at Dave’s once again getting through the doors without needing to be buzzed in and knocking on his door exactly four times, this time a lot less nervous. You are wearing the same shirt you wore last year on your birthday actually; with kakhi’s, carrying a red box and a small shopping bag with a few extra little things you didn’t bother wrapping.
The night John left, you had been reminded that it was April, and looked up the date only to realize that the ‘couple days’ John had referred to was in fact April 13th.
His birthday.
The anniversary of… everything.
For a minute you had stared at the wall blankly, wondering WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE A GIFT FOR HIM. Then you remembered you had sent it in the mail ages ago, as was tradition. It was probably nearly to Washington now. You had decided upon something else, basically just trying to make his trip cool as fuck.
You had accidentally managed to wake up at four in the morning on this day, possibly because you downed half a can of squeeze cheese before bed, possibly because you dreamt of Sburb, and possibly because your mind needed to be awake to suitably spend the next several hours stressing over what at your house could possibly be enjoyable enough to serve as entertainment on one’s birthday.
In the end you didn’t really come up with a damn thing, and so it was with slightly bagged eyes that you answered the door when Egbert arrived with a beaming smile and a conspicuous amount of things in his arms. Instead of the “happy birthday” you were expecting to say, what comes out of your mouth is “Hopy shit Egbert what even is all that crap?”
You approach the door a bit more as it’s opening in front of you, grinning even as Dave questions you carrying your gift for him. You forget for a moment the exciting day that it is, and question your friend a moment in confusion. “Not crap; jeeez i thought i told you i had a gift for you; i also picked up a few other uh things,” you lift one of your arms a bit to show the plastic bag hanging off of it.
You still stand outside the appartment though, as if you wouldn’t be welcome to come in, and hand Dave the box. You start thinking about how it should be tradition for the four of you to exchange gifts even though it’s technically your birthday, on the thirteenth of April as a sort of a holiday.
“happy uh-er… sburban anniversary?” you contemplate on a name to call it. You may have to think this over. Grinning crookedly a bit, you examine your friend; by his stature he seems tired or worn out. Did he stay up late or something? You meet his eyes even throught the glasses he wore constanty, “wow dave, you seem tired,” you point out.You stare at John vaguely, running your fingers through your hair. You consider responding to either of his comments, but instead have to address what seems to you the pressing question here. “Dude, why the fuck would you bring me a present on your birthday?”
Since he seems to just be standing there with that grin of his, you sigh and take the box, putting it on the counter and drawing him in the threshold so you can close the door behind him. You had honestly completely forgotten that Egderp had said he was bringing you something. You instantly feel even worse. You really hope the ‘other things’ are just some random stuff and not also for you.
You wonder how he could tell you were tired, automatically reaching to push up your shades, reassuring yourself that they are there. “Yeah, I mean no,” you blink and shake your head, rubbing your temple. “I’m fine man, when do I ever sleep anyway?”
“haha i think thats the reason you seem worn out or something then,” you note but don’t draw to much attention to that topic. You’re sure he’ll be fine. Maybe it was just your imagination.
You walk into his appartment as he puts your gift on the table and of course see no problem. You had a gift for him anyway, and you just saw him then so it fit perfectly. Your confusion is obvious in the expression you make, as you carry the bag in the other hand. “just open it already,” you order lightly, shifting your grin to be a tad crooked. You fully expect birthday wishes of course but for now you are pretty much dead set on having him open the lousy gift you got. The sad thing is that it isn’t ironic though. It is legit sincerely Dave.
|| This is the content of the box ||“Dude,” you repeat. “It’s your birthday.” You are fully prepared to stare at him like the insane person he is for however long you have to, but you admit to yourself it wouldn’t do much good. Clearly he will not be satisfied until you open the gift. Shaking your head with the faint beginnings of a scowl, you grudgingly untie and open the box, removing its contents.
Once you open the lid of the container inside and see the gift John has got you, you can only blink at it for a moment. Your first thought is that it is incredibly tacky. But immediately after that you have to admit it incredibly matches you. A watch for the knight of time, red for your favorite color, and a crow for your rad awesomeness, or more likely all the crows in your bedroom, which have become rather of a motif. Taking it out and holding it against your wrist, your expression softens almost imperceptibly. Christ jegus, Egbert.
Of course he would.
You glance at him. “You’re such a dork,” you say, meaning ‘You’re my best friend and I’m actually kind of touched.’
You get the meaning behind that, immediately, as if you didn’t hear ‘you’re a dork’ but a thank you and that he appreciated it. Right? “haha okay so i know its not totally ironic and that its not as good as the glasses i got for you but …” you trail off, handing him the plastic bag, “i found these too,” basically the bag consisted of some random things that made you laugh when at a dollar store the other day. A cow that when you squeezed it “pooped” with it’s eyeballs sticking out, a bouncy ball with a clock inside, a couple strange candies, some licorice, one of those street signs that was supposed to look like it was saying “no people allowed” (but the person legit looked like some sort of puppet so you figured it fit sort of), a stuffed crow and a few dinky childrens toys for no reason really; you just wanted an excuse to buy them. You also picked yourself up some kids magic trick things, which ended up breaking as soon as you got home with them, so you didn’t bother bringing them to show Dave.
Of course you realise that this day is far more important than just your birthday, and you need to have long chats with both Jade and Rose, but for this time it’s going to pretty much be for you and Dave to have a good time without worrying about trying not to dye all the time. “today is a celebration of sorts or something, i mean so its not all about my birthday” you explain cheesily before realising you do kind of wish you had Dave’s gift but you have to wait until you get home.
You scratch your head casually, watching your friend’s expression seemingly absently even though you can’t really see past his glasses.“Don’t be stupid,” you retort with a scoff. “Of course it’s about your birthday first.”
Stupid Egbert.
Of course, you know just as well as the rest of them that this day means a lot of things. Really important things. Universe-saving, life-changing things. Things that haunt your dreams and invade your memories. But still, you don’t think you can ever consider April 13th to be anything but John’s birthday. It just is.
Pausing to stare at the watch on your wrist awkwardly, you add, “… your present is in the mail,” with a faint frown. Feeling pissed off at yourself for not having anything, you look away from your friend and instead into the bag he’s handed you. You rummage through the cheap items, feeling worse about yourself and inexplicably fonder of your friend with each lame item. “Egbert, you are such an idiot,” you say, reaching to punch him on the arm, and then find yourself pulling him in for a hug, despite the oddness of this action for you.
You make sure to punch him in the shoulder again before you let go. Just to be clear.
You are actually brought to grin more so as he calls you an idiot. You don’t even see it as an insult when /he/ says it. It’s more than that anyway. You grin wider though, letting out a bit of a chuckle as he hugs you, letting it turn to be very ungraceful when you are punched in the shoulder.
“yea okay so they arent that lame then! the little gifts… horrah” you add the last bit a little sarcastically before adressing the topic of you birthday, “but uh yea thanks for seeing my birthday as so important,” although you still see that day as more important for the game, but either way. “and ill get your gift when i get home! i mean that way when i leave you i still have something to look forward to right?”“I can’t believe you brought me all this shit on your own birthday,” you mutter. “And yeah, but I mean, Christ jegus fuck, Egbert, you aren’t exactly making me look like a knight in shining armor of a best friend right now you know. I mean, it’s like I’ve given you a negative number of birthday gifts of something.”
You rub your brow, wanting to feel a little more sour but unable to maintain too grumpy a disposition around the spectacled doof. Furrowing your expression lightly and meeting his eyes, although yours are hidden, you break out of your sullen silence with a grudging, “Happy birthday, idiot.”
Again with the idiot! You roll your eyes a tad, “thank you striiiiiiiider!” you reply with exactly eight i’s but he doesn’t know that. You can tell he’s looking you in the eyes, even though his own are hidden; it’s just that feeling you get, that makes it completely obvious yet you can’t explain how.
“you can just pay me back for these gifts by enjoying them and you know that song that pretty much says how being with you is a good enough gift?” you sum it up. You know it’s a love song, but it still works in the scenario of good bro’s, or perhaps in that ironic homoeroticism that you and Dave were talking about before.
You move into the kitchen now, after taking your shoes off and lean against the counter, not really paying attention to your surroundings all too much. You keep forgetting you probably have to do that around here.Sighing, you step into the kitchen and fetch some tape from a drawer, fixing the trip wire booby trap John would have set off had he decided to stand about two inches to the left. Figuring it’s probably better to disarm most of them, you go around doing the same to the majority of the other dangerous things around the kitchen area. “You’re such a sap,” you remind him. Not that it’s not nice to hear, you suppose. Knowing John, he probably actually means it.
After binding back the last set of shuriken (and nursing two cuts on your fingers from doing so), you slowly slide your hands in your back pockets and face Egbert. “So,” you drawl. “What’s the birthday dumbass craving?”
“That hurts, dave,” you comment sarcastically at his casual insults as he moves about the kitchen doing something with tape or what not. You raise a brow but not really so questionably but solely because it makes you look cool, when you look like you are questioning his antics. You are so weird.
You don’t bother asking what he is doing but watch him anyway; you chucklesnort at his question though, “what do you mean? well, anything that doesnt have flour and eggs in it i guess.” was Dave even referring to food? Maybe you’re just weird for having food on the brain, but you assume that it can’t mean much else.
“Did you have anything plaaaaaaaanned for today?” you make a mental note that it was “planned with eight a’s”.“Jegus Egbert, are you putting eight goddamn vowels in all your words?” you demand. He has stretched out his words again and you are certain it is the sort of thing he would do. Ooof course he would be thinking of Vriska. Swallowing a scowl, you search for anything non eggs-and-flour-having, not that you would have anything with eggs and flour anyway. You don’t find much except an uncut salami and a box of wheat thins. “You want either of these?” you ask, gesturing. Your apartment is incredibly unsuited for hospitality.
You unscrew some orange juice yourself, take a swig, then immediately spit it out. It is definitely not good anymore. Ugh. Whatever. You lean against the counter.
“I dunno man.” You finally answer his actual question. “I figured we might mess around with my camera. There’s always more games and crap. We could go out too if you want.”
“uh…” you note that the last time you came by, Dave tried to offer you something perhaps to be hospitable or something, but you already feel extremely welcome so think it’s a little funny. You shake your head slightly, “its fine”
“and of course im not putting eight vowels in that word, jeez dave,” you lie lightly, actually surprised on how well he can guess. That guy sure knows you well for some reason. Maybe it’s to do with him pretty much being your best friend.
“did you end up making your easter thing? we could do that, yea?” you suggest.You put away the food, rolling your eyes at his obvious lie and pausing before responding. “…I do have a spare costume. If you’re up for it.”
You are rather set on him being up to it, in fact, as you have planned to add a special dedication to this video and upload it early. You have lots of dedicated viewers, after all, and if you can’t get Egbert’s birthday gift to him on time, you can at least do something pretty rad for him.
“uh… a spare costume of what exactly?” you question but you are already set on agreeing to whatever he is planning for his video. You shift your weight onto the other side and look as much as you can into Dave’s eye’s but estimation on their whereabouts behind his glasses.
“You like rabbits, right?” you ask instead of answering. You figure that because of the whole Con Air bunny thing he’ll probably feel obliged to say yes. The Strider household contains a bunny suit for each Strider, though you’ve never seen Bro in the other and probably wouldn’t want to.
You realize belatedly that his eyes are peering intently at your shades, searching for yours. It throws you off a bit, but you remind yourself he can’t see them. Honestly, it’s actually kind of hard to see from behind them, even. Dark shades are actually DARK.
You’ve never had a guest in any of your ironic videos before. Unsuspecting victims, yes. Guests, no. Not even Bro. You suppose this is a first.
Egbert had better feel damn honoured.
Well you get where Dave is coming from in his question, and you can’t say no to it. Not that you would completely enjoy it, but the idea of a rabbit brings about memories of your favourite stuffed animal and you figure anything ridiculously ironic or involving a disguise (although you are certain that nobody would think of you as an actual giant rabbit anyway) is not something you would turn down.
You grin - widely - as you nod, “oh alright then, well i guess youre the boss then mr strider!” you cant help but laugh then, jumping up a bit so you are no longer leaning against the wall. “sounds good i mean”“Dude it’s your birthday,” you remind him, although just to be fair you add, “…but yeah, I am.”
Because you’re a Strider.
You take a moment to fetch the costumes, which are stuffed in the back of a closet, dusty and wrinkled - well, they would be, if whatever the hell this fabric was wrinkled. It was apparently sturdy as all fuck, though. Just as well.
“You get this one,” you say, tossing the light brown suit to him. Yours is candy pink, naturally. Nothing but the best for a Strider.
You roll your eyes as you are reminded yet again that it’s your birthday, “im glad you havent forgotten haha” of course being fourteen you still get fairly excited for such a day even though there are a lot of things to be excited other than it being your birthday, and reasons to hate it, such as memories which kind of can be negative or the outrageous number of cakes in your vicinity.
You follow your friend to the closet standing fairly close behind him and he tosses you a brown suit, which for some reason took you by surprise and almost leads you to lose your balance but you catch yourself on an adjacent wall not taking a moment to think before trying to get into the suit. You think this is perfectly normal…
A couple days passed fairly quickly even though you figured it would take forever to pass. It was mostly due to your dad making you do all this stuff, which wasn’t too bad, and you didn’t complain. You got some time to go into town though and found a trick deck and some dice for no reason. They just looked really cool. Also a couple more things for Dave.
On non other than April the Thirteenth, you woke up to your dad throwing a pie in your face which you took a twenty minute shower to clean yourself off, only to re-enter the hotel room to be exposed to eight cakes showered over the room and four gifts wrapped in the corner. You talked to Jade and Rose in the morning and they wished you a happy birthday right off the bat, and claimed that they had sent their gifts and you should have got them. You never did tell them that you weren’t at home because you wanted to really keep it from Dave and didn’t tell the girls yet. Letting them know, they both seem excited (in their own way) for you to be visiting your best bro but Jade seems a bit disappointed that you didn’t tell her- your ecto-sister after all!
You opened your gifts and surprisingly got stuff you actually thought was pretty cool; a bunch of unique clever disguises and a new modus, however you were so used to the one you’ve had for a year, you don’t really want to change. You got a monocle and a magicians handbook thing as well. This is the second best birthday ever. You don’t think that you could imagine one so great as your 13th. You dwell on the positives, in spite of taking a moment to remember the ones who died on that longest day ever, too; who although only having known them for so long.By noon you get dropped off at Dave’s once again getting through the doors without needing to be buzzed in and knocking on his door exactly four times, this time a lot less nervous. You are wearing the same shirt you wore last year on your birthday actually; with kakhi’s, carrying a red box and a small shopping bag with a few extra little things you didn’t bother wrapping.
The night John left, you had been reminded that it was April, and looked up the date only to realize that the ‘couple days’ John had referred to was in fact April 13th.
His birthday.
The anniversary of… everything.
For a minute you had stared at the wall blankly, wondering WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE A GIFT FOR HIM. Then you remembered you had sent it in the mail ages ago, as was tradition. It was probably nearly to Washington now. You had decided upon something else, basically just trying to make his trip cool as fuck.
You had accidentally managed to wake up at four in the morning on this day, possibly because you downed half a can of squeeze cheese before bed, possibly because you dreamt of Sburb, and possibly because your mind needed to be awake to suitably spend the next several hours stressing over what at your house could possibly be enjoyable enough to serve as entertainment on one’s birthday.
In the end you didn’t really come up with a damn thing, and so it was with slightly bagged eyes that you answered the door when Egbert arrived with a beaming smile and a conspicuous amount of things in his arms. Instead of the “happy birthday” you were expecting to say, what comes out of your mouth is “Hopy shit Egbert what even is all that crap?”
You approach the door a bit more as it’s opening in front of you, grinning even as Dave questions you carrying your gift for him. You forget for a moment the exciting day that it is, and question your friend a moment in confusion. “Not crap; jeeez i thought i told you i had a gift for you; i also picked up a few other uh things,” you lift one of your arms a bit to show the plastic bag hanging off of it.
You still stand outside the appartment though, as if you wouldn’t be welcome to come in, and hand Dave the box. You start thinking about how it should be tradition for the four of you to exchange gifts even though it’s technically your birthday, on the thirteenth of April as a sort of a holiday.
“happy uh-er… sburban anniversary?” you contemplate on a name to call it. You may have to think this over. Grinning crookedly a bit, you examine your friend; by his stature he seems tired or worn out. Did he stay up late or something? You meet his eyes even throught the glasses he wore constanty, “wow dave, you seem tired,” you point out.You stare at John vaguely, running your fingers through your hair. You consider responding to either of his comments, but instead have to address what seems to you the pressing question here. “Dude, why the fuck would you bring me a present on your birthday?”
Since he seems to just be standing there with that grin of his, you sigh and take the box, putting it on the counter and drawing him in the threshold so you can close the door behind him. You had honestly completely forgotten that Egderp had said he was bringing you something. You instantly feel even worse. You really hope the ‘other things’ are just some random stuff and not also for you.
You wonder how he could tell you were tired, automatically reaching to push up your shades, reassuring yourself that they are there. “Yeah, I mean no,” you blink and shake your head, rubbing your temple. “I’m fine man, when do I ever sleep anyway?”
“haha i think thats the reason you seem worn out or something then,” you note but don’t draw to much attention to that topic. You’re sure he’ll be fine. Maybe it was just your imagination.
You walk into his appartment as he puts your gift on the table and of course see no problem. You had a gift for him anyway, and you just saw him then so it fit perfectly. Your confusion is obvious in the expression you make, as you carry the bag in the other hand. “just open it already,” you order lightly, shifting your grin to be a tad crooked. You fully expect birthday wishes of course but for now you are pretty much dead set on having him open the lousy gift you got. The sad thing is that it isn’t ironic though. It is legit sincerely Dave.
|| This is the content of the box ||“Dude,” you repeat. “It’s your birthday.” You are fully prepared to stare at him like the insane person he is for however long you have to, but you admit to yourself it wouldn’t do much good. Clearly he will not be satisfied until you open the gift. Shaking your head with the faint beginnings of a scowl, you grudgingly untie and open the box, removing its contents.
Once you open the lid of the container inside and see the gift John has got you, you can only blink at it for a moment. Your first thought is that it is incredibly tacky. But immediately after that you have to admit it incredibly matches you. A watch for the knight of time, red for your favorite color, and a crow for your rad awesomeness, or more likely all the crows in your bedroom, which have become rather of a motif. Taking it out and holding it against your wrist, your expression softens almost imperceptibly. Christ jegus, Egbert.
Of course he would.
You glance at him. “You’re such a dork,” you say, meaning ‘You’re my best friend and I’m actually kind of touched.’
You get the meaning behind that, immediately, as if you didn’t hear ‘you’re a dork’ but a thank you and that he appreciated it. Right? “haha okay so i know its not totally ironic and that its not as good as the glasses i got for you but …” you trail off, handing him the plastic bag, “i found these too,” basically the bag consisted of some random things that made you laugh when at a dollar store the other day. A cow that when you squeezed it “pooped” with it’s eyeballs sticking out, a bouncy ball with a clock inside, a couple strange candies, some licorice, one of those street signs that was supposed to look like it was saying “no people allowed” (but the person legit looked like some sort of puppet so you figured it fit sort of), a stuffed crow and a few dinky childrens toys for no reason really; you just wanted an excuse to buy them. You also picked yourself up some kids magic trick things, which ended up breaking as soon as you got home with them, so you didn’t bother bringing them to show Dave.
Of course you realise that this day is far more important than just your birthday, and you need to have long chats with both Jade and Rose, but for this time it’s going to pretty much be for you and Dave to have a good time without worrying about trying not to dye all the time. “today is a celebration of sorts or something, i mean so its not all about my birthday” you explain cheesily before realising you do kind of wish you had Dave’s gift but you have to wait until you get home.
You scratch your head casually, watching your friend’s expression seemingly absently even though you can’t really see past his glasses.“Don’t be stupid,” you retort with a scoff. “Of course it’s about your birthday first.”
Stupid Egbert.
Of course, you know just as well as the rest of them that this day means a lot of things. Really important things. Universe-saving, life-changing things. Things that haunt your dreams and invade your memories. But still, you don’t think you can ever consider April 13th to be anything but John’s birthday. It just is.
Pausing to stare at the watch on your wrist awkwardly, you add, “… your present is in the mail,” with a faint frown. Feeling pissed off at yourself for not having anything, you look away from your friend and instead into the bag he’s handed you. You rummage through the cheap items, feeling worse about yourself and inexplicably fonder of your friend with each lame item. “Egbert, you are such an idiot,” you say, reaching to punch him on the arm, and then find yourself pulling him in for a hug, despite the oddness of this action for you.
You make sure to punch him in the shoulder again before you let go. Just to be clear.
You are actually brought to grin more so as he calls you an idiot. You don’t even see it as an insult when /he/ says it. It’s more than that anyway. You grin wider though, letting out a bit of a chuckle as he hugs you, letting it turn to be very ungraceful when you are punched in the shoulder.
“yea okay so they arent that lame then! the little gifts… horrah” you add the last bit a little sarcastically before adressing the topic of you birthday, “but uh yea thanks for seeing my birthday as so important,” although you still see that day as more important for the game, but either way. “and ill get your gift when i get home! i mean that way when i leave you i still have something to look forward to right?”“I can’t believe you brought me all this shit on your own birthday,” you mutter. “And yeah, but I mean, Christ jegus fuck, Egbert, you aren’t exactly making me look like a knight in shining armor of a best friend right now you know. I mean, it’s like I’ve given you a negative number of birthday gifts of something.”
You rub your brow, wanting to feel a little more sour but unable to maintain too grumpy a disposition around the spectacled doof. Furrowing your expression lightly and meeting his eyes, although yours are hidden, you break out of your sullen silence with a grudging, “Happy birthday, idiot.”
Again with the idiot! You roll your eyes a tad, “thank you striiiiiiiider!” you reply with exactly eight i’s but he doesn’t know that. You can tell he’s looking you in the eyes, even though his own are hidden; it’s just that feeling you get, that makes it completely obvious yet you can’t explain how.
“you can just pay me back for these gifts by enjoying them and you know that song that pretty much says how being with you is a good enough gift?” you sum it up. You know it’s a love song, but it still works in the scenario of good bro’s, or perhaps in that ironic homoeroticism that you and Dave were talking about before.
You move into the kitchen now, after taking your shoes off and lean against the counter, not really paying attention to your surroundings all too much. You keep forgetting you probably have to do that around here.Sighing, you step into the kitchen and fetch some tape from a drawer, fixing the trip wire booby trap John would have set off had he decided to stand about two inches to the left. Figuring it’s probably better to disarm most of them, you go around doing the same to the majority of the other dangerous things around the kitchen area. “You’re such a sap,” you remind him. Not that it’s not nice to hear, you suppose. Knowing John, he probably actually means it.
After binding back the last set of shuriken (and nursing two cuts on your fingers from doing so), you slowly slide your hands in your back pockets and face Egbert. “So,” you drawl. “What’s the birthday dumbass craving?”
“That hurts, dave,” you comment sarcastically at his casual insults as he moves about the kitchen doing something with tape or what not. You raise a brow but not really so questionably but solely because it makes you look cool, when you look like you are questioning his antics. You are so weird.
You don’t bother asking what he is doing but watch him anyway; you chucklesnort at his question though, “what do you mean? well, anything that doesnt have flour and eggs in it i guess.” was Dave even referring to food? Maybe you’re just weird for having food on the brain, but you assume that it can’t mean much else.
“Did you have anything plaaaaaaaanned for today?” you make a mental note that it was “planned with eight a’s”.“Jegus Egbert, are you putting eight goddamn vowels in all your words?” you demand. He has stretched out his words again and you are certain it is the sort of thing he would do. Ooof course he would be thinking of Vriska. Swallowing a scowl, you search for anything non eggs-and-flour-having, not that you would have anything with eggs and flour anyway. You don’t find much except an uncut salami and a box of wheat thins. “You want either of these?” you ask, gesturing. Your apartment is incredibly unsuited for hospitality.
You unscrew some orange juice yourself, take a swig, then immediately spit it out. It is definitely not good anymore. Ugh. Whatever. You lean against the counter.
“I dunno man.” You finally answer his actual question. “I figured we might mess around with my camera. There’s always more games and crap. We could go out too if you want.”
“uh…” you note that the last time you came by, Dave tried to offer you something perhaps to be hospitable or something, but you already feel extremely welcome so think it’s a little funny. You shake your head slightly, “its fine”
“and of course im not putting eight vowels in that word, jeez dave,” you lie lightly, actually surprised on how well he can guess. That guy sure knows you well for some reason. Maybe it’s to do with him pretty much being your best friend.
“did you end up making your easter thing? we could do that, yea?” you suggest.You put away the food, rolling your eyes at his obvious lie and pausing before responding. “…I do have a spare costume. If you’re up for it.”
You are rather set on him being up to it, in fact, as you have planned to add a special dedication to this video and upload it early. You have lots of dedicated viewers, after all, and if you can’t get Egbert’s birthday gift to him on time, you can at least do something pretty rad for him.
“uh… a spare costume of what exactly?” you question but you are already set on agreeing to whatever he is planning for his video. You shift your weight onto the other side and look as much as you can into Dave’s eye’s but estimation on their whereabouts behind his glasses.
“You like rabbits, right?” you ask instead of answering. You figure that because of the whole Con Air bunny thing he’ll probably feel obliged to say yes. The Strider household contains a bunny suit for each Strider, though you’ve never seen Bro in the other and probably wouldn’t want to.
You realize belatedly that his eyes are peering intently at your shades, searching for yours. It throws you off a bit, but you remind yourself he can’t see them. Honestly, it’s actually kind of hard to see from behind them, even. Dark shades are actually DARK.
You’ve never had a guest in any of your ironic videos before. Unsuspecting victims, yes. Guests, no. Not even Bro. You suppose this is a first.
Egbert had better feel damn honoured.
Well you get where Dave is coming from in his question, and you can’t say no to it. Not that you would completely enjoy it, but the idea of a rabbit brings about memories of your favourite stuffed animal and you figure anything ridiculously ironic or involving a disguise (although you are certain that nobody would think of you as an actual giant rabbit anyway) is not something you would turn down.
You grin - widely - as you nod, “oh alright then, well i guess youre the boss then mr strider!” you cant help but laugh then, jumping up a bit so you are no longer leaning against the wall. “sounds good i mean”
A couple days passed fairly quickly even though you figured it would take forever to pass. It was mostly due to your dad making you do all this stuff, which wasn’t too bad, and you didn’t complain. You got some time to go into town though and found a trick deck and some dice for no reason. They just looked really cool. Also a couple more things for Dave.
On non other than April the Thirteenth, you woke up to your dad throwing a pie in your face which you took a twenty minute shower to clean yourself off, only to re-enter the hotel room to be exposed to eight cakes showered over the room and four gifts wrapped in the corner. You talked to Jade and Rose in the morning and they wished you a happy birthday right off the bat, and claimed that they had sent their gifts and you should have got them. You never did tell them that you weren’t at home because you wanted to really keep it from Dave and didn’t tell the girls yet. Letting them know, they both seem excited (in their own way) for you to be visiting your best bro but Jade seems a bit disappointed that you didn’t tell her- your ecto-sister after all!
You opened your gifts and surprisingly got stuff you actually thought was pretty cool; a bunch of unique clever disguises and a new modus, however you were so used to the one you’ve had for a year, you don’t really want to change. You got a monocle and a magicians handbook thing as well. This is the second best birthday ever. You don’t think that you could imagine one so great as your 13th. You dwell on the positives, in spite of taking a moment to remember the ones who died on that longest day ever, too; who although only having known them for so long.By noon you get dropped off at Dave’s once again getting through the doors without needing to be buzzed in and knocking on his door exactly four times, this time a lot less nervous. You are wearing the same shirt you wore last year on your birthday actually; with kakhi’s, carrying a red box and a small shopping bag with a few extra little things you didn’t bother wrapping.
The night John left, you had been reminded that it was April, and looked up the date only to realize that the ‘couple days’ John had referred to was in fact April 13th.
His birthday.
The anniversary of… everything.
For a minute you had stared at the wall blankly, wondering WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE A GIFT FOR HIM. Then you remembered you had sent it in the mail ages ago, as was tradition. It was probably nearly to Washington now. You had decided upon something else, basically just trying to make his trip cool as fuck.
You had accidentally managed to wake up at four in the morning on this day, possibly because you downed half a can of squeeze cheese before bed, possibly because you dreamt of Sburb, and possibly because your mind needed to be awake to suitably spend the next several hours stressing over what at your house could possibly be enjoyable enough to serve as entertainment on one’s birthday.
In the end you didn’t really come up with a damn thing, and so it was with slightly bagged eyes that you answered the door when Egbert arrived with a beaming smile and a conspicuous amount of things in his arms. Instead of the “happy birthday” you were expecting to say, what comes out of your mouth is “Hopy shit Egbert what even is all that crap?”
You approach the door a bit more as it’s opening in front of you, grinning even as Dave questions you carrying your gift for him. You forget for a moment the exciting day that it is, and question your friend a moment in confusion. “Not crap; jeeez i thought i told you i had a gift for you; i also picked up a few other uh things,” you lift one of your arms a bit to show the plastic bag hanging off of it.
You still stand outside the appartment though, as if you wouldn’t be welcome to come in, and hand Dave the box. You start thinking about how it should be tradition for the four of you to exchange gifts even though it’s technically your birthday, on the thirteenth of April as a sort of a holiday.
“happy uh-er… sburban anniversary?” you contemplate on a name to call it. You may have to think this over. Grinning crookedly a bit, you examine your friend; by his stature he seems tired or worn out. Did he stay up late or something? You meet his eyes even throught the glasses he wore constanty, “wow dave, you seem tired,” you point out.You stare at John vaguely, running your fingers through your hair. You consider responding to either of his comments, but instead have to address what seems to you the pressing question here. “Dude, why the fuck would you bring me a present on your birthday?”
Since he seems to just be standing there with that grin of his, you sigh and take the box, putting it on the counter and drawing him in the threshold so you can close the door behind him. You had honestly completely forgotten that Egderp had said he was bringing you something. You instantly feel even worse. You really hope the ‘other things’ are just some random stuff and not also for you.
You wonder how he could tell you were tired, automatically reaching to push up your shades, reassuring yourself that they are there. “Yeah, I mean no,” you blink and shake your head, rubbing your temple. “I’m fine man, when do I ever sleep anyway?”
“haha i think thats the reason you seem worn out or something then,” you note but don’t draw to much attention to that topic. You’re sure he’ll be fine. Maybe it was just your imagination.
You walk into his appartment as he puts your gift on the table and of course see no problem. You had a gift for him anyway, and you just saw him then so it fit perfectly. Your confusion is obvious in the expression you make, as you carry the bag in the other hand. “just open it already,” you order lightly, shifting your grin to be a tad crooked. You fully expect birthday wishes of course but for now you are pretty much dead set on having him open the lousy gift you got. The sad thing is that it isn’t ironic though. It is legit sincerely Dave.
|| This is the content of the box ||“Dude,” you repeat. “It’s your birthday.” You are fully prepared to stare at him like the insane person he is for however long you have to, but you admit to yourself it wouldn’t do much good. Clearly he will not be satisfied until you open the gift. Shaking your head with the faint beginnings of a scowl, you grudgingly untie and open the box, removing its contents.
Once you open the lid of the container inside and see the gift John has got you, you can only blink at it for a moment. Your first thought is that it is incredibly tacky. But immediately after that you have to admit it incredibly matches you. A watch for the knight of time, red for your favorite color, and a crow for your rad awesomeness, or more likely all the crows in your bedroom, which have become rather of a motif. Taking it out and holding it against your wrist, your expression softens almost imperceptibly. Christ jegus, Egbert.
Of course he would.
You glance at him. “You’re such a dork,” you say, meaning ‘You’re my best friend and I’m actually kind of touched.’
You get the meaning behind that, immediately, as if you didn’t hear ‘you’re a dork’ but a thank you and that he appreciated it. Right? “haha okay so i know its not totally ironic and that its not as good as the glasses i got for you but …” you trail off, handing him the plastic bag, “i found these too,” basically the bag consisted of some random things that made you laugh when at a dollar store the other day. A cow that when you squeezed it “pooped” with it’s eyeballs sticking out, a bouncy ball with a clock inside, a couple strange candies, some licorice, one of those street signs that was supposed to look like it was saying “no people allowed” (but the person legit looked like some sort of puppet so you figured it fit sort of), a stuffed crow and a few dinky childrens toys for no reason really; you just wanted an excuse to buy them. You also picked yourself up some kids magic trick things, which ended up breaking as soon as you got home with them, so you didn’t bother bringing them to show Dave.
Of course you realise that this day is far more important than just your birthday, and you need to have long chats with both Jade and Rose, but for this time it’s going to pretty much be for you and Dave to have a good time without worrying about trying not to dye all the time. “today is a celebration of sorts or something, i mean so its not all about my birthday” you explain cheesily before realising you do kind of wish you had Dave’s gift but you have to wait until you get home.
You scratch your head casually, watching your friend’s expression seemingly absently even though you can’t really see past his glasses.“Don’t be stupid,” you retort with a scoff. “Of course it’s about your birthday first.”
Stupid Egbert.
Of course, you know just as well as the rest of them that this day means a lot of things. Really important things. Universe-saving, life-changing things. Things that haunt your dreams and invade your memories. But still, you don’t think you can ever consider April 13th to be anything but John’s birthday. It just is.
Pausing to stare at the watch on your wrist awkwardly, you add, “… your present is in the mail,” with a faint frown. Feeling pissed off at yourself for not having anything, you look away from your friend and instead into the bag he’s handed you. You rummage through the cheap items, feeling worse about yourself and inexplicably fonder of your friend with each lame item. “Egbert, you are such an idiot,” you say, reaching to punch him on the arm, and then find yourself pulling him in for a hug, despite the oddness of this action for you.
You make sure to punch him in the shoulder again before you let go. Just to be clear.
You are actually brought to grin more so as he calls you an idiot. You don’t even see it as an insult when /he/ says it. It’s more than that anyway. You grin wider though, letting out a bit of a chuckle as he hugs you, letting it turn to be very ungraceful when you are punched in the shoulder.
“yea okay so they arent that lame then! the little gifts… horrah” you add the last bit a little sarcastically before adressing the topic of you birthday, “but uh yea thanks for seeing my birthday as so important,” although you still see that day as more important for the game, but either way. “and ill get your gift when i get home! i mean that way when i leave you i still have something to look forward to right?”“I can’t believe you brought me all this shit on your own birthday,” you mutter. “And yeah, but I mean, Christ jegus fuck, Egbert, you aren’t exactly making me look like a knight in shining armor of a best friend right now you know. I mean, it’s like I’ve given you a negative number of birthday gifts of something.”
You rub your brow, wanting to feel a little more sour but unable to maintain too grumpy a disposition around the spectacled doof. Furrowing your expression lightly and meeting his eyes, although yours are hidden, you break out of your sullen silence with a grudging, “Happy birthday, idiot.”
Again with the idiot! You roll your eyes a tad, “thank you striiiiiiiider!” you reply with exactly eight i’s but he doesn’t know that. You can tell he’s looking you in the eyes, even though his own are hidden; it’s just that feeling you get, that makes it completely obvious yet you can’t explain how.
“you can just pay me back for these gifts by enjoying them and you know that song that pretty much says how being with you is a good enough gift?” you sum it up. You know it’s a love song, but it still works in the scenario of good bro’s, or perhaps in that ironic homoeroticism that you and Dave were talking about before.
You move into the kitchen now, after taking your shoes off and lean against the counter, not really paying attention to your surroundings all too much. You keep forgetting you probably have to do that around here.Sighing, you step into the kitchen and fetch some tape from a drawer, fixing the trip wire booby trap John would have set off had he decided to stand about two inches to the left. Figuring it’s probably better to disarm most of them, you go around doing the same to the majority of the other dangerous things around the kitchen area. “You’re such a sap,” you remind him. Not that it’s not nice to hear, you suppose. Knowing John, he probably actually means it.
After binding back the last set of shuriken (and nursing two cuts on your fingers from doing so), you slowly slide your hands in your back pockets and face Egbert. “So,” you drawl. “What’s the birthday dumbass craving?”
“That hurts, dave,” you comment sarcastically at his casual insults as he moves about the kitchen doing something with tape or what not. You raise a brow but not really so questionably but solely because it makes you look cool, when you look like you are questioning his antics. You are so weird.
You don’t bother asking what he is doing but watch him anyway; you chucklesnort at his question though, “what do you mean? well, anything that doesnt have flour and eggs in it i guess.” was Dave even referring to food? Maybe you’re just weird for having food on the brain, but you assume that it can’t mean much else.
“Did you have anything plaaaaaaaanned for today?” you make a mental note that it was “planned with eight a’s”.“Jegus Egbert, are you putting eight goddamn vowels in all your words?” you demand. He has stretched out his words again and you are certain it is the sort of thing he would do. Ooof course he would be thinking of Vriska. Swallowing a scowl, you search for anything non eggs-and-flour-having, not that you would have anything with eggs and flour anyway. You don’t find much except an uncut salami and a box of wheat thins. “You want either of these?” you ask, gesturing. Your apartment is incredibly unsuited for hospitality.
You unscrew some orange juice yourself, take a swig, then immediately spit it out. It is definitely not good anymore. Ugh. Whatever. You lean against the counter.
“I dunno man.” You finally answer his actual question. “I figured we might mess around with my camera. There’s always more games and crap. We could go out too if you want.”
“uh…” you note that the last time you came by, Dave tried to offer you something perhaps to be hospitable or something, but you already feel extremely welcome so think it’s a little funny. You shake your head slightly, “its fine”
“and of course im not putting eight vowels in that word, jeez dave,” you lie lightly, actually surprised on how well he can guess. That guy sure knows you well for some reason. Maybe it’s to do with him pretty much being your best friend.
“did you end up making your easter thing? we could do that, yea?” you suggest.You put away the food, rolling your eyes at his obvious lie and pausing before responding. “…I do have a spare costume. If you’re up for it.”
You are rather set on him being up to it, in fact, as you have planned to add a special dedication to this video and upload it early. You have lots of dedicated viewers, after all, and if you can’t get Egbert’s birthday gift to him on time, you can at least do something pretty rad for him.
“uh… a spare costume of what exactly?” you question but you are already set on agreeing to whatever he is planning for his video. You shift your weight onto the other side and look as much as you can into Dave’s eye’s but estimation on their whereabouts behind his glasses.
A couple days passed fairly quickly even though you figured it would take forever to pass. It was mostly due to your dad making you do all this stuff, which wasn’t too bad, and you didn’t complain. You got some time to go into town though and found a trick deck and some dice for no reason. They just looked really cool. Also a couple more things for Dave.
On non other than April the Thirteenth, you woke up to your dad throwing a pie in your face which you took a twenty minute shower to clean yourself off, only to re-enter the hotel room to be exposed to eight cakes showered over the room and four gifts wrapped in the corner. You talked to Jade and Rose in the morning and they wished you a happy birthday right off the bat, and claimed that they had sent their gifts and you should have got them. You never did tell them that you weren’t at home because you wanted to really keep it from Dave and didn’t tell the girls yet. Letting them know, they both seem excited (in their own way) for you to be visiting your best bro but Jade seems a bit disappointed that you didn’t tell her- your ecto-sister after all!
You opened your gifts and surprisingly got stuff you actually thought was pretty cool; a bunch of unique clever disguises and a new modus, however you were so used to the one you’ve had for a year, you don’t really want to change. You got a monocle and a magicians handbook thing as well. This is the second best birthday ever. You don’t think that you could imagine one so great as your 13th. You dwell on the positives, in spite of taking a moment to remember the ones who died on that longest day ever, too; who although only having known them for so long.By noon you get dropped off at Dave’s once again getting through the doors without needing to be buzzed in and knocking on his door exactly four times, this time a lot less nervous. You are wearing the same shirt you wore last year on your birthday actually; with kakhi’s, carrying a red box and a small shopping bag with a few extra little things you didn’t bother wrapping.
The night John left, you had been reminded that it was April, and looked up the date only to realize that the ‘couple days’ John had referred to was in fact April 13th.
His birthday.
The anniversary of… everything.
For a minute you had stared at the wall blankly, wondering WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE A GIFT FOR HIM. Then you remembered you had sent it in the mail ages ago, as was tradition. It was probably nearly to Washington now. You had decided upon something else, basically just trying to make his trip cool as fuck.
You had accidentally managed to wake up at four in the morning on this day, possibly because you downed half a can of squeeze cheese before bed, possibly because you dreamt of Sburb, and possibly because your mind needed to be awake to suitably spend the next several hours stressing over what at your house could possibly be enjoyable enough to serve as entertainment on one’s birthday.
In the end you didn’t really come up with a damn thing, and so it was with slightly bagged eyes that you answered the door when Egbert arrived with a beaming smile and a conspicuous amount of things in his arms. Instead of the “happy birthday” you were expecting to say, what comes out of your mouth is “Hopy shit Egbert what even is all that crap?”
You approach the door a bit more as it’s opening in front of you, grinning even as Dave questions you carrying your gift for him. You forget for a moment the exciting day that it is, and question your friend a moment in confusion. “Not crap; jeeez i thought i told you i had a gift for you; i also picked up a few other uh things,” you lift one of your arms a bit to show the plastic bag hanging off of it.
You still stand outside the appartment though, as if you wouldn’t be welcome to come in, and hand Dave the box. You start thinking about how it should be tradition for the four of you to exchange gifts even though it’s technically your birthday, on the thirteenth of April as a sort of a holiday.
“happy uh-er… sburban anniversary?” you contemplate on a name to call it. You may have to think this over. Grinning crookedly a bit, you examine your friend; by his stature he seems tired or worn out. Did he stay up late or something? You meet his eyes even throught the glasses he wore constanty, “wow dave, you seem tired,” you point out.You stare at John vaguely, running your fingers through your hair. You consider responding to either of his comments, but instead have to address what seems to you the pressing question here. “Dude, why the fuck would you bring me a present on your birthday?”
Since he seems to just be standing there with that grin of his, you sigh and take the box, putting it on the counter and drawing him in the threshold so you can close the door behind him. You had honestly completely forgotten that Egderp had said he was bringing you something. You instantly feel even worse. You really hope the ‘other things’ are just some random stuff and not also for you.
You wonder how he could tell you were tired, automatically reaching to push up your shades, reassuring yourself that they are there. “Yeah, I mean no,” you blink and shake your head, rubbing your temple. “I’m fine man, when do I ever sleep anyway?”
“haha i think thats the reason you seem worn out or something then,” you note but don’t draw to much attention to that topic. You’re sure he’ll be fine. Maybe it was just your imagination.
You walk into his appartment as he puts your gift on the table and of course see no problem. You had a gift for him anyway, and you just saw him then so it fit perfectly. Your confusion is obvious in the expression you make, as you carry the bag in the other hand. “just open it already,” you order lightly, shifting your grin to be a tad crooked. You fully expect birthday wishes of course but for now you are pretty much dead set on having him open the lousy gift you got. The sad thing is that it isn’t ironic though. It is legit sincerely Dave.
|| This is the content of the box ||“Dude,” you repeat. “It’s your birthday.” You are fully prepared to stare at him like the insane person he is for however long you have to, but you admit to yourself it wouldn’t do much good. Clearly he will not be satisfied until you open the gift. Shaking your head with the faint beginnings of a scowl, you grudgingly untie and open the box, removing its contents.
Once you open the lid of the container inside and see the gift John has got you, you can only blink at it for a moment. Your first thought is that it is incredibly tacky. But immediately after that you have to admit it incredibly matches you. A watch for the knight of time, red for your favorite color, and a crow for your rad awesomeness, or more likely all the crows in your bedroom, which have become rather of a motif. Taking it out and holding it against your wrist, your expression softens almost imperceptibly. Christ jegus, Egbert.
Of course he would.
You glance at him. “You’re such a dork,” you say, meaning ‘You’re my best friend and I’m actually kind of touched.’
You get the meaning behind that, immediately, as if you didn’t hear ‘you’re a dork’ but a thank you and that he appreciated it. Right? “haha okay so i know its not totally ironic and that its not as good as the glasses i got for you but …” you trail off, handing him the plastic bag, “i found these too,” basically the bag consisted of some random things that made you laugh when at a dollar store the other day. A cow that when you squeezed it “pooped” with it’s eyeballs sticking out, a bouncy ball with a clock inside, a couple strange candies, some licorice, one of those street signs that was supposed to look like it was saying “no people allowed” (but the person legit looked like some sort of puppet so you figured it fit sort of), a stuffed crow and a few dinky childrens toys for no reason really; you just wanted an excuse to buy them. You also picked yourself up some kids magic trick things, which ended up breaking as soon as you got home with them, so you didn’t bother bringing them to show Dave.
Of course you realise that this day is far more important than just your birthday, and you need to have long chats with both Jade and Rose, but for this time it’s going to pretty much be for you and Dave to have a good time without worrying about trying not to dye all the time. “today is a celebration of sorts or something, i mean so its not all about my birthday” you explain cheesily before realising you do kind of wish you had Dave’s gift but you have to wait until you get home.
You scratch your head casually, watching your friend’s expression seemingly absently even though you can’t really see past his glasses.“Don’t be stupid,” you retort with a scoff. “Of course it’s about your birthday first.”
Stupid Egbert.
Of course, you know just as well as the rest of them that this day means a lot of things. Really important things. Universe-saving, life-changing things. Things that haunt your dreams and invade your memories. But still, you don’t think you can ever consider April 13th to be anything but John’s birthday. It just is.
Pausing to stare at the watch on your wrist awkwardly, you add, “… your present is in the mail,” with a faint frown. Feeling pissed off at yourself for not having anything, you look away from your friend and instead into the bag he’s handed you. You rummage through the cheap items, feeling worse about yourself and inexplicably fonder of your friend with each lame item. “Egbert, you are such an idiot,” you say, reaching to punch him on the arm, and then find yourself pulling him in for a hug, despite the oddness of this action for you.
You make sure to punch him in the shoulder again before you let go. Just to be clear.
You are actually brought to grin more so as he calls you an idiot. You don’t even see it as an insult when /he/ says it. It’s more than that anyway. You grin wider though, letting out a bit of a chuckle as he hugs you, letting it turn to be very ungraceful when you are punched in the shoulder.
“yea okay so they arent that lame then! the little gifts… horrah” you add the last bit a little sarcastically before adressing the topic of you birthday, “but uh yea thanks for seeing my birthday as so important,” although you still see that day as more important for the game, but either way. “and ill get your gift when i get home! i mean that way when i leave you i still have something to look forward to right?”“I can’t believe you brought me all this shit on your own birthday,” you mutter. “And yeah, but I mean, Christ jegus fuck, Egbert, you aren’t exactly making me look like a knight in shining armor of a best friend right now you know. I mean, it’s like I’ve given you a negative number of birthday gifts of something.”
You rub your brow, wanting to feel a little more sour but unable to maintain too grumpy a disposition around the spectacled doof. Furrowing your expression lightly and meeting his eyes, although yours are hidden, you break out of your sullen silence with a grudging, “Happy birthday, idiot.”
Again with the idiot! You roll your eyes a tad, “thank you striiiiiiiider!” you reply with exactly eight i’s but he doesn’t know that. You can tell he’s looking you in the eyes, even though his own are hidden; it’s just that feeling you get, that makes it completely obvious yet you can’t explain how.
“you can just pay me back for these gifts by enjoying them and you know that song that pretty much says how being with you is a good enough gift?” you sum it up. You know it’s a love song, but it still works in the scenario of good bro’s, or perhaps in that ironic homoeroticism that you and Dave were talking about before.
You move into the kitchen now, after taking your shoes off and lean against the counter, not really paying attention to your surroundings all too much. You keep forgetting you probably have to do that around here.Sighing, you step into the kitchen and fetch some tape from a drawer, fixing the trip wire booby trap John would have set off had he decided to stand about two inches to the left. Figuring it’s probably better to disarm most of them, you go around doing the same to the majority of the other dangerous things around the kitchen area. “You’re such a sap,” you remind him. Not that it’s not nice to hear, you suppose. Knowing John, he probably actually means it.
After binding back the last set of shuriken (and nursing two cuts on your fingers from doing so), you slowly slide your hands in your back pockets and face Egbert. “So,” you drawl. “What’s the birthday dumbass craving?”
“That hurts, dave,” you comment sarcastically at his casual insults as he moves about the kitchen doing something with tape or what not. You raise a brow but not really so questionably but solely because it makes you look cool, when you look like you are questioning his antics. You are so weird.
You don’t bother asking what he is doing but watch him anyway; you chucklesnort at his question though, “what do you mean? well, anything that doesnt have flour and eggs in it i guess.” was Dave even referring to food? Maybe you’re just weird for having food on the brain, but you assume that it can’t mean much else.
“Did you have anything plaaaaaaaanned for today?” you make a mental note that it was “planned with eight a’s”.“Jegus Egbert, are you putting eight goddamn vowels in all your words?” you demand. He has stretched out his words again and you are certain it is the sort of thing he would do. Ooof course he would be thinking of Vriska. Swallowing a scowl, you search for anything non eggs-and-flour-having, not that you would have anything with eggs and flour anyway. You don’t find much except an uncut salami and a box of wheat thins. “You want either of these?” you ask, gesturing. Your apartment is incredibly unsuited for hospitality.
You unscrew some orange juice yourself, take a swig, then immediately spit it out. It is definitely not good anymore. Ugh. Whatever. You lean against the counter.
“I dunno man.” You finally answer his actual question. “I figured we might mess around with my camera. There’s always more games and crap. We could go out too if you want.”
“uh…” you note that the last time you came by, Dave tried to offer you something perhaps to be hospitable or something, but you already feel extremely welcome so think it’s a little funny. You shake your head slightly, “its fine”
“and of course im not putting eight vowels in that word, jeez dave,” you lie lightly, actually surprised on how well he can guess. That guy sure knows you well for some reason. Maybe it’s to do with him pretty much being your best friend.
“did you end up making your easter thing? we could do that, yea?” you suggest.
A couple days passed fairly quickly even though you figured it would take forever to pass. It was mostly due to your dad making you do all this stuff, which wasn’t too bad, and you didn’t complain. You got some time to go into town though and found a trick deck and some dice for no reason. They just looked really cool. Also a couple more things for Dave.
On non other than April the Thirteenth, you woke up to your dad throwing a pie in your face which you took a twenty minute shower to clean yourself off, only to re-enter the hotel room to be exposed to eight cakes showered over the room and four gifts wrapped in the corner. You talked to Jade and Rose in the morning and they wished you a happy birthday right off the bat, and claimed that they had sent their gifts and you should have got them. You never did tell them that you weren’t at home because you wanted to really keep it from Dave and didn’t tell the girls yet. Letting them know, they both seem excited (in their own way) for you to be visiting your best bro but Jade seems a bit disappointed that you didn’t tell her- your ecto-sister after all!
You opened your gifts and surprisingly got stuff you actually thought was pretty cool; a bunch of unique clever disguises and a new modus, however you were so used to the one you’ve had for a year, you don’t really want to change. You got a monocle and a magicians handbook thing as well. This is the second best birthday ever. You don’t think that you could imagine one so great as your 13th. You dwell on the positives, in spite of taking a moment to remember the ones who died on that longest day ever, too; who although only having known them for so long.By noon you get dropped off at Dave’s once again getting through the doors without needing to be buzzed in and knocking on his door exactly four times, this time a lot less nervous. You are wearing the same shirt you wore last year on your birthday actually; with kakhi’s, carrying a red box and a small shopping bag with a few extra little things you didn’t bother wrapping.
The night John left, you had been reminded that it was April, and looked up the date only to realize that the ‘couple days’ John had referred to was in fact April 13th.
His birthday.
The anniversary of… everything.
For a minute you had stared at the wall blankly, wondering WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE A GIFT FOR HIM. Then you remembered you had sent it in the mail ages ago, as was tradition. It was probably nearly to Washington now. You had decided upon something else, basically just trying to make his trip cool as fuck.
You had accidentally managed to wake up at four in the morning on this day, possibly because you downed half a can of squeeze cheese before bed, possibly because you dreamt of Sburb, and possibly because your mind needed to be awake to suitably spend the next several hours stressing over what at your house could possibly be enjoyable enough to serve as entertainment on one’s birthday.
In the end you didn’t really come up with a damn thing, and so it was with slightly bagged eyes that you answered the door when Egbert arrived with a beaming smile and a conspicuous amount of things in his arms. Instead of the “happy birthday” you were expecting to say, what comes out of your mouth is “Hopy shit Egbert what even is all that crap?”
You approach the door a bit more as it’s opening in front of you, grinning even as Dave questions you carrying your gift for him. You forget for a moment the exciting day that it is, and question your friend a moment in confusion. “Not crap; jeeez i thought i told you i had a gift for you; i also picked up a few other uh things,” you lift one of your arms a bit to show the plastic bag hanging off of it.
You still stand outside the appartment though, as if you wouldn’t be welcome to come in, and hand Dave the box. You start thinking about how it should be tradition for the four of you to exchange gifts even though it’s technically your birthday, on the thirteenth of April as a sort of a holiday.
“happy uh-er… sburban anniversary?” you contemplate on a name to call it. You may have to think this over. Grinning crookedly a bit, you examine your friend; by his stature he seems tired or worn out. Did he stay up late or something? You meet his eyes even throught the glasses he wore constanty, “wow dave, you seem tired,” you point out.You stare at John vaguely, running your fingers through your hair. You consider responding to either of his comments, but instead have to address what seems to you the pressing question here. “Dude, why the fuck would you bring me a present on your birthday?”
Since he seems to just be standing there with that grin of his, you sigh and take the box, putting it on the counter and drawing him in the threshold so you can close the door behind him. You had honestly completely forgotten that Egderp had said he was bringing you something. You instantly feel even worse. You really hope the ‘other things’ are just some random stuff and not also for you.
You wonder how he could tell you were tired, automatically reaching to push up your shades, reassuring yourself that they are there. “Yeah, I mean no,” you blink and shake your head, rubbing your temple. “I’m fine man, when do I ever sleep anyway?”
“haha i think thats the reason you seem worn out or something then,” you note but don’t draw to much attention to that topic. You’re sure he’ll be fine. Maybe it was just your imagination.
You walk into his appartment as he puts your gift on the table and of course see no problem. You had a gift for him anyway, and you just saw him then so it fit perfectly. Your confusion is obvious in the expression you make, as you carry the bag in the other hand. “just open it already,” you order lightly, shifting your grin to be a tad crooked. You fully expect birthday wishes of course but for now you are pretty much dead set on having him open the lousy gift you got. The sad thing is that it isn’t ironic though. It is legit sincerely Dave.
|| This is the content of the box ||“Dude,” you repeat. “It’s your birthday.” You are fully prepared to stare at him like the insane person he is for however long you have to, but you admit to yourself it wouldn’t do much good. Clearly he will not be satisfied until you open the gift. Shaking your head with the faint beginnings of a scowl, you grudgingly untie and open the box, removing its contents.
Once you open the lid of the container inside and see the gift John has got you, you can only blink at it for a moment. Your first thought is that it is incredibly tacky. But immediately after that you have to admit it incredibly matches you. A watch for the knight of time, red for your favorite color, and a crow for your rad awesomeness, or more likely all the crows in your bedroom, which have become rather of a motif. Taking it out and holding it against your wrist, your expression softens almost imperceptibly. Christ jegus, Egbert.
Of course he would.
You glance at him. “You’re such a dork,” you say, meaning ‘You’re my best friend and I’m actually kind of touched.’
You get the meaning behind that, immediately, as if you didn’t hear ‘you’re a dork’ but a thank you and that he appreciated it. Right? “haha okay so i know its not totally ironic and that its not as good as the glasses i got for you but …” you trail off, handing him the plastic bag, “i found these too,” basically the bag consisted of some random things that made you laugh when at a dollar store the other day. A cow that when you squeezed it “pooped” with it’s eyeballs sticking out, a bouncy ball with a clock inside, a couple strange candies, some licorice, one of those street signs that was supposed to look like it was saying “no people allowed” (but the person legit looked like some sort of puppet so you figured it fit sort of), a stuffed crow and a few dinky childrens toys for no reason really; you just wanted an excuse to buy them. You also picked yourself up some kids magic trick things, which ended up breaking as soon as you got home with them, so you didn’t bother bringing them to show Dave.
Of course you realise that this day is far more important than just your birthday, and you need to have long chats with both Jade and Rose, but for this time it’s going to pretty much be for you and Dave to have a good time without worrying about trying not to dye all the time. “today is a celebration of sorts or something, i mean so its not all about my birthday” you explain cheesily before realising you do kind of wish you had Dave’s gift but you have to wait until you get home.
You scratch your head casually, watching your friend’s expression seemingly absently even though you can’t really see past his glasses.“Don’t be stupid,” you retort with a scoff. “Of course it’s about your birthday first.”
Stupid Egbert.
Of course, you know just as well as the rest of them that this day means a lot of things. Really important things. Universe-saving, life-changing things. Things that haunt your dreams and invade your memories. But still, you don’t think you can ever consider April 13th to be anything but John’s birthday. It just is.
Pausing to stare at the watch on your wrist awkwardly, you add, “… your present is in the mail,” with a faint frown. Feeling pissed off at yourself for not having anything, you look away from your friend and instead into the bag he’s handed you. You rummage through the cheap items, feeling worse about yourself and inexplicably fonder of your friend with each lame item. “Egbert, you are such an idiot,” you say, reaching to punch him on the arm, and then find yourself pulling him in for a hug, despite the oddness of this action for you.
You make sure to punch him in the shoulder again before you let go. Just to be clear.
You are actually brought to grin more so as he calls you an idiot. You don’t even see it as an insult when /he/ says it. It’s more than that anyway. You grin wider though, letting out a bit of a chuckle as he hugs you, letting it turn to be very ungraceful when you are punched in the shoulder.
“yea okay so they arent that lame then! the little gifts… horrah” you add the last bit a little sarcastically before adressing the topic of you birthday, “but uh yea thanks for seeing my birthday as so important,” although you still see that day as more important for the game, but either way. “and ill get your gift when i get home! i mean that way when i leave you i still have something to look forward to right?”“I can’t believe you brought me all this shit on your own birthday,” you mutter. “And yeah, but I mean, Christ jegus fuck, Egbert, you aren’t exactly making me look like a knight in shining armor of a best friend right now you know. I mean, it’s like I’ve given you a negative number of birthday gifts of something.”
You rub your brow, wanting to feel a little more sour but unable to maintain too grumpy a disposition around the spectacled doof. Furrowing your expression lightly and meeting his eyes, although yours are hidden, you break out of your sullen silence with a grudging, “Happy birthday, idiot.”
Again with the idiot! You roll your eyes a tad, “thank you striiiiiiiider!” you reply with exactly eight i’s but he doesn’t know that. You can tell he’s looking you in the eyes, even though his own are hidden; it’s just that feeling you get, that makes it completely obvious yet you can’t explain how.
“you can just pay me back for these gifts by enjoying them and you know that song that pretty much says how being with you is a good enough gift?” you sum it up. You know it’s a love song, but it still works in the scenario of good bro’s, or perhaps in that ironic homoeroticism that you and Dave were talking about before.
You move into the kitchen now, after taking your shoes off and lean against the counter, not really paying attention to your surroundings all too much. You keep forgetting you probably have to do that around here.Sighing, you step into the kitchen and fetch some tape from a drawer, fixing the trip wire booby trap John would have set off had he decided to stand about two inches to the left. Figuring it’s probably better to disarm most of them, you go around doing the same to the majority of the other dangerous things around the kitchen area. “You’re such a sap,” you remind him. Not that it’s not nice to hear, you suppose. Knowing John, he probably actually means it.
After binding back the last set of shuriken (and nursing two cuts on your fingers from doing so), you slowly slide your hands in your back pockets and face Egbert. “So,” you drawl. “What’s the birthday dumbass craving?”
“That hurts, dave,” you comment sarcastically at his casual insults as he moves about the kitchen doing something with tape or what not. You raise a brow but not really so questionably but solely because it makes you look cool, when you look like you are questioning his antics. You are so weird.
You don’t bother asking what he is doing but watch him anyway; you chucklesnort at his question though, “what do you mean? well, anything that doesnt have flour and eggs in it i guess.” was Dave even referring to food? Maybe you’re just weird for having food on the brain, but you assume that it can’t mean much else.
“Did you have anything plaaaaaaaanned for today?” you make a mental note that it was “planned with eight a’s”.
A couple days passed fairly quickly even though you figured it would take forever to pass. It was mostly due to your dad making you do all this stuff, which wasn’t too bad, and you didn’t complain. You got some time to go into town though and found a trick deck and some dice for no reason. They just looked really cool. Also a couple more things for Dave.
On non other than April the Thirteenth, you woke up to your dad throwing a pie in your face which you took a twenty minute shower to clean yourself off, only to re-enter the hotel room to be exposed to eight cakes showered over the room and four gifts wrapped in the corner. You talked to Jade and Rose in the morning and they wished you a happy birthday right off the bat, and claimed that they had sent their gifts and you should have got them. You never did tell them that you weren’t at home because you wanted to really keep it from Dave and didn’t tell the girls yet. Letting them know, they both seem excited (in their own way) for you to be visiting your best bro but Jade seems a bit disappointed that you didn’t tell her- your ecto-sister after all!
You opened your gifts and surprisingly got stuff you actually thought was pretty cool; a bunch of unique clever disguises and a new modus, however you were so used to the one you’ve had for a year, you don’t really want to change. You got a monocle and a magicians handbook thing as well. This is the second best birthday ever. You don’t think that you could imagine one so great as your 13th. You dwell on the positives, in spite of taking a moment to remember the ones who died on that longest day ever, too; who although only having known them for so long.By noon you get dropped off at Dave’s once again getting through the doors without needing to be buzzed in and knocking on his door exactly four times, this time a lot less nervous. You are wearing the same shirt you wore last year on your birthday actually; with kakhi’s, carrying a red box and a small shopping bag with a few extra little things you didn’t bother wrapping.
The night John left, you had been reminded that it was April, and looked up the date only to realize that the ‘couple days’ John had referred to was in fact April 13th.
His birthday.
The anniversary of… everything.
For a minute you had stared at the wall blankly, wondering WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE A GIFT FOR HIM. Then you remembered you had sent it in the mail ages ago, as was tradition. It was probably nearly to Washington now. You had decided upon something else, basically just trying to make his trip cool as fuck.
You had accidentally managed to wake up at four in the morning on this day, possibly because you downed half a can of squeeze cheese before bed, possibly because you dreamt of Sburb, and possibly because your mind needed to be awake to suitably spend the next several hours stressing over what at your house could possibly be enjoyable enough to serve as entertainment on one’s birthday.
In the end you didn’t really come up with a damn thing, and so it was with slightly bagged eyes that you answered the door when Egbert arrived with a beaming smile and a conspicuous amount of things in his arms. Instead of the “happy birthday” you were expecting to say, what comes out of your mouth is “Hopy shit Egbert what even is all that crap?”
You approach the door a bit more as it’s opening in front of you, grinning even as Dave questions you carrying your gift for him. You forget for a moment the exciting day that it is, and question your friend a moment in confusion. “Not crap; jeeez i thought i told you i had a gift for you; i also picked up a few other uh things,” you lift one of your arms a bit to show the plastic bag hanging off of it.
You still stand outside the appartment though, as if you wouldn’t be welcome to come in, and hand Dave the box. You start thinking about how it should be tradition for the four of you to exchange gifts even though it’s technically your birthday, on the thirteenth of April as a sort of a holiday.
“happy uh-er… sburban anniversary?” you contemplate on a name to call it. You may have to think this over. Grinning crookedly a bit, you examine your friend; by his stature he seems tired or worn out. Did he stay up late or something? You meet his eyes even throught the glasses he wore constanty, “wow dave, you seem tired,” you point out.You stare at John vaguely, running your fingers through your hair. You consider responding to either of his comments, but instead have to address what seems to you the pressing question here. “Dude, why the fuck would you bring me a present on your birthday?”
Since he seems to just be standing there with that grin of his, you sigh and take the box, putting it on the counter and drawing him in the threshold so you can close the door behind him. You had honestly completely forgotten that Egderp had said he was bringing you something. You instantly feel even worse. You really hope the ‘other things’ are just some random stuff and not also for you.
You wonder how he could tell you were tired, automatically reaching to push up your shades, reassuring yourself that they are there. “Yeah, I mean no,” you blink and shake your head, rubbing your temple. “I’m fine man, when do I ever sleep anyway?”
“haha i think thats the reason you seem worn out or something then,” you note but don’t draw to much attention to that topic. You’re sure he’ll be fine. Maybe it was just your imagination.
You walk into his appartment as he puts your gift on the table and of course see no problem. You had a gift for him anyway, and you just saw him then so it fit perfectly. Your confusion is obvious in the expression you make, as you carry the bag in the other hand. “just open it already,” you order lightly, shifting your grin to be a tad crooked. You fully expect birthday wishes of course but for now you are pretty much dead set on having him open the lousy gift you got. The sad thing is that it isn’t ironic though. It is legit sincerely Dave.
|| This is the content of the box ||“Dude,” you repeat. “It’s your birthday.” You are fully prepared to stare at him like the insane person he is for however long you have to, but you admit to yourself it wouldn’t do much good. Clearly he will not be satisfied until you open the gift. Shaking your head with the faint beginnings of a scowl, you grudgingly untie and open the box, removing its contents.
Once you open the lid of the container inside and see the gift John has got you, you can only blink at it for a moment. Your first thought is that it is incredibly tacky. But immediately after that you have to admit it incredibly matches you. A watch for the knight of time, red for your favorite color, and a crow for your rad awesomeness, or more likely all the crows in your bedroom, which have become rather of a motif. Taking it out and holding it against your wrist, your expression softens almost imperceptibly. Christ jegus, Egbert.
Of course he would.
You glance at him. “You’re such a dork,” you say, meaning ‘You’re my best friend and I’m actually kind of touched.’
You get the meaning behind that, immediately, as if you didn’t hear ‘you’re a dork’ but a thank you and that he appreciated it. Right? “haha okay so i know its not totally ironic and that its not as good as the glasses i got for you but …” you trail off, handing him the plastic bag, “i found these too,” basically the bag consisted of some random things that made you laugh when at a dollar store the other day. A cow that when you squeezed it “pooped” with it’s eyeballs sticking out, a bouncy ball with a clock inside, a couple strange candies, some licorice, one of those street signs that was supposed to look like it was saying “no people allowed” (but the person legit looked like some sort of puppet so you figured it fit sort of), a stuffed crow and a few dinky childrens toys for no reason really; you just wanted an excuse to buy them. You also picked yourself up some kids magic trick things, which ended up breaking as soon as you got home with them, so you didn’t bother bringing them to show Dave.
Of course you realise that this day is far more important than just your birthday, and you need to have long chats with both Jade and Rose, but for this time it’s going to pretty much be for you and Dave to have a good time without worrying about trying not to dye all the time. “today is a celebration of sorts or something, i mean so its not all about my birthday” you explain cheesily before realising you do kind of wish you had Dave’s gift but you have to wait until you get home.
You scratch your head casually, watching your friend’s expression seemingly absently even though you can’t really see past his glasses.“Don’t be stupid,” you retort with a scoff. “Of course it’s about your birthday first.”
Stupid Egbert.
Of course, you know just as well as the rest of them that this day means a lot of things. Really important things. Universe-saving, life-changing things. Things that haunt your dreams and invade your memories. But still, you don’t think you can ever consider April 13th to be anything but John’s birthday. It just is.
Pausing to stare at the watch on your wrist awkwardly, you add, “… your present is in the mail,” with a faint frown. Feeling pissed off at yourself for not having anything, you look away from your friend and instead into the bag he’s handed you. You rummage through the cheap items, feeling worse about yourself and inexplicably fonder of your friend with each lame item. “Egbert, you are such an idiot,” you say, reaching to punch him on the arm, and then find yourself pulling him in for a hug, despite the oddness of this action for you.
You make sure to punch him in the shoulder again before you let go. Just to be clear.
You are actually brought to grin more so as he calls you an idiot. You don’t even see it as an insult when /he/ says it. It’s more than that anyway. You grin wider though, letting out a bit of a chuckle as he hugs you, letting it turn to be very ungraceful when you are punched in the shoulder.
“yea okay so they arent that lame then! the little gifts… horrah” you add the last bit a little sarcastically before adressing the topic of you birthday, “but uh yea thanks for seeing my birthday as so important,” although you still see that day as more important for the game, but either way. “and ill get your gift when i get home! i mean that way when i leave you i still have something to look forward to right?”“I can’t believe you brought me all this shit on your own birthday,” you mutter. “And yeah, but I mean, Christ jegus fuck, Egbert, you aren’t exactly making me look like a knight in shining armor of a best friend right now you know. I mean, it’s like I’ve given you a negative number of birthday gifts of something.”
You rub your brow, wanting to feel a little more sour but unable to maintain too grumpy a disposition around the spectacled doof. Furrowing your expression lightly and meeting his eyes, although yours are hidden, you break out of your sullen silence with a grudging, “Happy birthday, idiot.”
Again with the idiot! You roll your eyes a tad, “thank you striiiiiiiider!” you reply with exactly eight i’s but he doesn’t know that. You can tell he’s looking you in the eyes, even though his own are hidden; it’s just that feeling you get, that makes it completely obvious yet you can’t explain how.
“you can just pay me back for these gifts by enjoying them and you know that song that pretty much says how being with you is a good enough gift?” you sum it up. You know it’s a love song, but it still works in the scenario of good bro’s, or perhaps in that ironic homoeroticism that you and Dave were talking about before.
You move into the kitchen now, after taking your shoes off and lean against the counter, not really paying attention to your surroundings all too much. You keep forgetting you probably have to do that around here.
A couple days passed fairly quickly even though you figured it would take forever to pass. It was mostly due to your dad making you do all this stuff, which wasn’t too bad, and you didn’t complain. You got some time to go into town though and found a trick deck and some dice for no reason. They just looked really cool. Also a couple more things for Dave.
On non other than April the Thirteenth, you woke up to your dad throwing a pie in your face which you took a twenty minute shower to clean yourself off, only to re-enter the hotel room to be exposed to eight cakes showered over the room and four gifts wrapped in the corner. You talked to Jade and Rose in the morning and they wished you a happy birthday right off the bat, and claimed that they had sent their gifts and you should have got them. You never did tell them that you weren’t at home because you wanted to really keep it from Dave and didn’t tell the girls yet. Letting them know, they both seem excited (in their own way) for you to be visiting your best bro but Jade seems a bit disappointed that you didn’t tell her- your ecto-sister after all!
You opened your gifts and surprisingly got stuff you actually thought was pretty cool; a bunch of unique clever disguises and a new modus, however you were so used to the one you’ve had for a year, you don’t really want to change. You got a monocle and a magicians handbook thing as well. This is the second best birthday ever. You don’t think that you could imagine one so great as your 13th. You dwell on the positives, in spite of taking a moment to remember the ones who died on that longest day ever, too; who although only having known them for so long.By noon you get dropped off at Dave’s once again getting through the doors without needing to be buzzed in and knocking on his door exactly four times, this time a lot less nervous. You are wearing the same shirt you wore last year on your birthday actually; with kakhi’s, carrying a red box and a small shopping bag with a few extra little things you didn’t bother wrapping.
The night John left, you had been reminded that it was April, and looked up the date only to realize that the ‘couple days’ John had referred to was in fact April 13th.
His birthday.
The anniversary of… everything.
For a minute you had stared at the wall blankly, wondering WHY DO YOU NOT HAVE A GIFT FOR HIM. Then you remembered you had sent it in the mail ages ago, as was tradition. It was probably nearly to Washington now. You had decided upon something else, basically just trying to make his trip cool as fuck.
You had accidentally managed to wake up at four in the morning on this day, possibly because you downed half a can of squeeze cheese before bed, possibly because you dreamt of Sburb, and possibly because your mind needed to be awake to suitably spend the next several hours stressing over what at your house could possibly be enjoyable enough to serve as entertainment on one’s birthday.
In the end you didn’t really come up with a damn thing, and so it was with slightly bagged eyes that you answered the door when Egbert arrived with a beaming smile and a conspicuous amount of things in his arms. Instead of the “happy birthday” you were expecting to say, what comes out of your mouth is “Hopy shit Egbert what even is all that crap?”
You approach the door a bit more as it’s opening in front of you, grinning even as Dave questions you carrying your gift for him. You forget for a moment the exciting day that it is, and question your friend a moment in confusion. “Not crap; jeeez i thought i told you i had a gift for you; i also picked up a few other uh things,” you lift one of your arms a bit to show the plastic bag hanging off of it.
You still stand outside the appartment though, as if you wouldn’t be welcome to come in, and hand Dave the box. You start thinking about how it should be tradition for the four of you to exchange gifts even though it’s technically your birthday, on the thirteenth of April as a sort of a holiday.
“happy uh-er… sburban anniversary?” you contemplate on a name to call it. You may have to think this over. Grinning crookedly a bit, you examine your friend; by his stature he seems tired or worn out. Did he stay up late or something? You meet his eyes even throught the glasses he wore constanty, “wow dave, you seem tired,” you point out.You stare at John vaguely, running your fingers through your hair. You consider responding to either of his comments, but instead have to address what seems to you the pressing question here. “Dude, why the fuck would you bring me a present on your birthday?”
Since he seems to just be standing there with that grin of his, you sigh and take the box, putting it on the counter and drawing him in the threshold so you can close the door behind him. You had honestly completely forgotten that Egderp had said he was bringing you something. You instantly feel even worse. You really hope the ‘other things’ are just some random stuff and not also for you.
You wonder how he could tell you were tired, automatically reaching to push up your shades, reassuring yourself that they are there. “Yeah, I mean no,” you blink and shake your head, rubbing your temple. “I’m fine man, when do I ever sleep anyway?”
“haha i think thats the reason you seem worn out or something then,” you note but don’t draw to much attention to that topic. You’re sure he’ll be fine. Maybe it was just your imagination.
You walk into his appartment as he puts your gift on the table and of course see no problem. You had a gift for him anyway, and you just saw him then so it fit perfectly. Your confusion is obvious in the expression you make, as you carry the bag in the other hand. “just open it already,” you order lightly, shifting your grin to be a tad crooked. You fully expect birthday wishes of course but for now you are pretty much dead set on having him open the lousy gift you got. The sad thing is that it isn’t ironic though. It is legit sincerely Dave.
|| This is the content of the box ||“Dude,” you repeat. “It’s your birthday.” You are fully prepared to stare at him like the insane person he is for however long you have to, but you admit to yourself it wouldn’t do much good. Clearly he will not be satisfied until you open the gift. Shaking your head with the faint beginnings of a scowl, you grudgingly untie and open the box, removing its contents.
Once you open the lid of the container inside and see the gift John has got you, you can only blink at it for a moment. Your first thought is that it is incredibly tacky. But immediately after that you have to admit it incredibly matches you. A watch for the knight of time, red for your favorite color, and a crow for your rad awesomeness, or more likely all the crows in your bedroom, which have become rather of a motif. Taking it out and holding it against your wrist, your expression softens almost imperceptibly. Christ jegus, Egbert.
Of course he would.
You glance at him. “You’re such a dork,” you say, meaning ‘You’re my best friend and I’m actually kind of touched.’
You get the meaning behind that, immediately, as if you didn’t hear ‘you’re a dork’ but a thank you and that he appreciated it. Right? “haha okay so i know its not totally ironic and that its not as good as the glasses i got for you but …” you trail off, handing him the plastic bag, “i found these too,” basically the bag consisted of some random things that made you laugh when at a dollar store the other day. A cow that when you squeezed it “pooped” with it’s eyeballs sticking out, a bouncy ball with a clock inside, a couple strange candies, some licorice, one of those street signs that was supposed to look like it was saying “no people allowed” (but the person legit looked like some sort of puppet so you figured it fit sort of), a stuffed crow and a few dinky childrens toys for no reason really; you just wanted an excuse to buy them. You also picked yourself up some kids magic trick things, which ended up breaking as soon as you got home with them, so you didn’t bother bringing them to show Dave.
Of course you realise that this day is far more important than just your birthday, and you need to have long chats with both Jade and Rose, but for this time it’s going to pretty much be for you and Dave to have a good time without worrying about trying not to dye all the time. “today is a celebration of sorts or something, i mean so its not all about my birthday” you explain cheesily before realising you do kind of wish you had Dave’s gift but you have to wait until you get home.
You scratch your head casually, watching your friend’s expression seemingly absently even though you can’t really see past his glasses.“Don’t be stupid,” you retort with a scoff. “Of course it’s about your birthday first.”
Stupid Egbert.
Of course, you know just as well as the rest of them that this day means a lot of things. Really important things. Universe-saving, life-changing things. Things that haunt your dreams and invade your memories. But still, you don’t think you can ever consider April 13th to be anything but John’s birthday. It just is.
Pausing to stare at the watch on your wrist awkwardly, you add, “… your present is in the mail,” with a faint frown. Feeling pissed off at yourself for not having anything, you look away from your friend and instead into the bag he’s handed you. You rummage through the cheap items, feeling worse about yourself and inexplicably fonder of your friend with each lame item. “Egbert, you are such an idiot,” you say, reaching to punch him on the arm, and then find yourself pulling him in for a hug, despite the oddness of this action for you.
You make sure to punch him in the shoulder again before you let go. Just to be clear.
You are actually brought to grin more so as he calls you an idiot. You don’t even see it as an insult when /he/ says it. It’s more than that anyway. You grin wider though, letting out a bit of a chuckle as he hugs you, letting it turn to be very ungraceful when you are punched in the shoulder.
“yea okay so they arent that lame then! the little gifts… horrah” you add the last bit a little sarcastically before adressing the topic of you birthday, “but uh yea thanks for seeing my birthday as so important,” although you still see that day as more important for the game, but either way. “and ill get your gift when i get home! i mean that way when i leave you i still have something to look forward to right?”
