Chapter Text
With a lump in throat, the forever cool, eternally stoic Dave Strider stood awkwardly in the airport corridor, his eyes, behind his trademark shades, glued to the corner around which all new arrivals walked. He had been waiting for this day more eagerly than he would ever let on for months. While it had all begun with a simple proposition, it blossomed with plans and permissions, growing into a fully realized expectation; and now it was here. Today, he would finally meet John Egbert face to face.
It had been all the way back in September when John suggested they meet each other. He offered a bed for Strider to stay in for a couple of months, knowing that his dad would be fine with it. Dave wasn't, though. He had never been that far from home, always staying within the confines of the city, and the thought of him losing his cool and growing homesick was more than he was willing to put up with. So instead, he reversed the offer. John could come to visit and stay with him in Houston sometimes between school ending and starting.
It seemed, at the time, like a far-off dream. The two of them had barely started ninth grade, overly stressed with the new pressures of high school, and the thought of getting through one year of it was almost silly in its impossibility. However, as the weeks passed and they settled into the rhythm of more classes and more work, they started to gain hope in the knowledge that another sweet summer was closer than it seemed. And, eventually, John brought up visiting Dave with his father.
Dave could still remember how excited Egbert was that day when they were both home from school. Dave had signed on long ago, getting home before John due to time zones, but even then he could tell John had rushed to get on his computer. Instantly after signing in, he messaged Dave proclaiming he had big news. His dad had said yes. In place of a normal birthday present, he was being flown out to Texas to visit his best friend. Dave coolly replied with his usual nonchalant statements of semi-amusement, but he was smiling like a dope behind his computer screen, his heart fluttering with excitement.
Then came the waiting. Once dates had been set and tickets had been bought, both of them were eager for summer to arrive. Each had the day John would arrive marked on their calendars, though Dave's calendar was on his iPhone instead of his wall, and they counted down the days. Slowly, like sand grains in an hourglass, the days passed by. Then, as though all of the months spent passing time had only been a dream, Dave was waiting for John to round that corner and face him for the first time.
Each minute spent standing there, pretending to text on his phone as to seem occupied, was overly frustrating. He glanced over at the flight schedule which was being updated constantly on a large LCD screen. John's flight, the ID number of which Dave had drilled into his brain days ago, had already landed. A slow trickle of stately-looking businessmen and well-dressed women, the passengers of first class, no doubt, was threading into the corridor of baggage claim, waiting for the metallic carousel to bring them their luggage.
Dave's gaze returned now to that teasing corner, releasing more and more people from cheapskates with over-sized carry-on bags to full families pulling along myriads of whining little kids who were cranky from the flight. Occasionally, Dave would see someone who had looks similar to his mental image of Egbert, but once the came closer, he was disappointed in seeing they weren't his best friend. Fewer and fewer people began to round the corner, clearly indicating that most of the passengers of the latest flight had already come through. He looked nervously over at the schedule again, just to ensure that his flight had really-
"Dave!" Someone called from far away.
His head whipped back towards the corner, knowing immediately who would be shouting his name.
The fact that he was waiving his hand high over his head didn't hurt either.
There he was, John Egbert, in all his goofy glory. His hair was disheveled, a mop of messy raven hair falling down over a bespectacled face. His wide smile showed off his overbite, for which he seemed to hold absolutely no embarrassment. Clad in a t-shirt, sporting a green slime ghost, and a pair of tan cargo shorts, at least he had dressed for warm weather. A dark green backpack was slung over one shoulder, no doubt holding gaming magazines and other rags to hold him over during the four-hour flight. He quickly scampered towards Dave, his entire face lit with excitement.
For just a moment, the coolkid Dave Strider cracked a smile.
"Hi, Dave!" John grinned giddily.
"Oh, hey Egbert," he replied, composing himself once more.
"So, uh, glad to finally see you," John tried to keep from starting an awkward silence.
"Yeah, it's cool, I guess," Dave shrugged, his hands plunged firmly into the pockets of his black jeans. "You got any bags or something?"
"Oh, yeah, we should probably get that," John chuckled under his breath, forgetting his luggage in his state of heightened excitement. He turned and looked for the lane in which his bags would be circling, finding the correct one and approaching it without pause.
Dave followed behind, looking his friend up and down without a word. Though his anticipation was now wearing off, a new feeling was bubbling up from his stomach to replace it. It was something like nervousness, but not quite. He couldn't put a name to it, but it wasn't something he all together disliked. It was...pleasant.
John found his bag with ease, having tied blue ribbons to the handle to pick it out from the sea of similarly looking pieces of black luggage, and placed it on the ground, looking at Dave for what to do next.
"Bro's waiting out in the car. Said he didn't want to pay the toll for parking, it's hells of expensive."
"Ok, we shouldn't keep him waiting then," John replied, heading towards the exit without further prompting. Dave walked closer this time, sidling up to Egbert, wondering if he should offer to carry his backpack or something. Then again, the little derp seemed to be fine on his own, so Dave didn't chance sounding strange. Walking through the automatic doors, he spotted his Bro waiting in his convertible, the top down, of course.
Dave helped John load his bags into the trunk and then sat in the back with his friend. Bro offered John a friendly nod, but said nothing else, peeling out of the loading zone like the badass he was.
The ride back to the Striders's apartment was mostly uneventful, the wind whipping up John's hair into even more of a frenzy and keeping them cool in the blazing heat. He mentioned a few times how much warmer it was here than in Washington, to which Dave replied with uninterested remarks amounting to "no shit, Sherlock."
Bro dropped them off in front of the building, offering no explanation as to where he was going of why he wasn't coming up, but Dave was far from concerned by this. He had few expectations as to where his brother would be at any time, unless they happened to agree beforehand, such as they had this morning, or before another on of their utterly one-sided duels. John followed as the younger Strider entered the went though the front entrance and headed for the elevator, pressing the up button.
Dave avoided John's gaze as they waited for the elevator to get there, and also as he waited for it to stop at his floor. He was still nervous, but passed it off as indifference. Sometimes, when he was purely too curious, he would look at Egbert out of the corner of his eye and could see him happily looking back at him. Dave was glad that he wasn't yapping hyperactively as he had expected, but was still surprised at just how damn happy John was. It was something he had never experienced himself or from his brother, and couldn't relate to that kind of elation. He had been trained, mostly by himself, to be poker-faced from the time he woke up to the time he went to sleep, and seeing John's wide smile cease to fade was almost unnerving.
Finally, as they arrived to the door, Dave took his house key from his apartment and unlocked the door, leading John inside.
The place was a wreck, as usual, though Dave had tried to straighten things up a bit for his friend's arrival. The door opened into the living room, about which numerous colorful puppets were strewn. The furniture was mismatched and decaying from use, everything cracked or busted or chipping in some form, but not useless enough to be chucked out on the curb. Various pieces of audio equipment from soundboards to amps were placed against the walls or tucked under tables, waiting to be used. The network of wires which connected them all like a web streaked across the floor, seeming to have absolutely no pattern at all. Outlets were fitted with power strips, sometimes chained with multiple strips for optimal distribution, and it was a wonder that the whole place hadn't gone up in flames years ago.
Dave didn't bother with showing him around the place, seeing as there wasn't much to show that wasn't obvious. The kitchen was nestled into one corner of the living room, the appliances stuffed mostly with things that were clearly not food, and the bathroom door was open at the end of the hall, the floor littered with a few dirty towels. He lead John to his room, the only door which was firmly closed besides that of his Bro's room, and let him in.
Here his attempts at organization were a bit more obvious, seeing as he spent most of his time in his room anyway. His dirty clothes were stuffed into a laundry basket and not laying around on the floor (though many shirts were also stuffed into the bottom of the closet as well). His bed, sporting freshly washed sheets, was made to the best of his ability, though the corners had come untucked within the night of their being placed on. Finally, his various pieces of music-making electronics were neatly stacked next to his computer, which was nestled in the near-left corner of the room.
Dave told John to put his stuff down anywhere and clicked on the fan, relieving some of the building heat in the room. Egbert placed his suitcase and backpack next to the table holding Dave's sampler which was sitting under the open window. He looked around again, taking in Dave's residence, when a question popped into his head.
"Hey Dave, where am I gonna sleep?"
"Oh," he paused for a moment, "hadn't really thought about it."
"Well, I could take the couch in the living room, I guess," John suggested.
"Uh, I don't think that's such a good idea," Dave responded, thinking of how many times he had been awoken by Bro busting into the apartment at all hours in the morning. If he could be roused from his room, Egbert would probably be knocked to the floor in fright if he tried to get any rest out there.
"I think we have an air mattress in the closet or something," Dave said after a moment of thought.
"That'll work," John smiled, unzipping his backpack. "Oh, by the way, I have a present for you!"
With his interest no piqued, Strider watched as he rummaged through his bag, searching for something. Finally, after digging down to the bottom, he pulled out something which looked like a big in a block of clear plastic.
"I know you like collecting weird dead things and I saw this store at the strip mall when me and Dad were out last week getting stuff for the trip." He held up what Dave recognized to be a Rhinoceros Beetle preserved in Lucite, probably having been sold as a paperweight.
Dave took it from John's outstretched hand and stared at it for a moment, pondering the object. Its quality wasn't what fascinated him, as it was pretty ordinary as preserved bugs go, but it was the simple fact that Egbert had bought it. Dave's somewhat strange passion for taxidermy wasn't something he discussed often with John, or really anyone. He had mentioned it a few times, sure, referring to the collection of small prizes on the shelf that was bolted to his wall, but he never expected anyone to remember that. Could he remember something just as obscure about Egbert? Would it make him a bad friend if he couldn't?
Dave walked over to the shelf and placed the beetle between a scorpion and a large spider, both preserved in similar ways. His hand paused after placing it down, as though something clicked in his head.
John had waited months to see him, given up his birthday present just to visit him, flown hours on a cramped plane to arrive where he lived, and even through it all was cheery and eager to please Dave with a token of affection that betrayed far more than he probably even realized. John was kind and compassionate and maybe even cute.
In that moment, Dave Strider realized he was in love with John Egbert.