Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shitty lighting, check.

Controller, check.

Recording software, check.

”Cooome On. Dave.”

Annoying best friend, check.

You finally turn on the camera, careful not to mess with the past hour's set-up.

”Welcome to an other round of PalhonchosPlay, I'm Turntech and today we're going to play a something quite a lot of you've requested...”

” The amnesia 'My little pony' mod!” The boy next to you screams a bit to close to your left ear for your liking and only years of training by a certain brother shoving unmentionables in your face makes you remain stoic. The training did nothing against your whining though as you let out an exasperated drawl;

”Turn it down a notch will ya Egbert! I bet you just made all our subscribers deaf.” , as you raise an eyebrow at the darkhaired offender.

”Pffft. No more than than you did when we played the actual thing. Remember when the water-monster jumped and you screeched like the girliest banshee this side of ...”

”Still no match for the face you got when you first saw the no-face”

”but Daaaaaveee. He didn't. Have. A jaw.”

”Whatever man. You ready to get dooown to buisneeesss.”

”haha bring it ON.”

You press a few keys and the familiar loading screen pops up and you exhale a breath you didn't know you been holding. Truth is you actually have tried to film this let's play four times now, but the shitty mod didn't want to load. Eventually you had to get your tech genious and ethical porno director extraordinaire of a brother, have a look at the code before being able to open the damn file . A while you were even convinced you'd been trolled and that the shitty thing was a trojan disgued behind pinkie's laughing face.

You click on the mod with a sense of deja vu, as you have the many others before it and it's time, to, play.

Chapter Text

Be Dave Strider, co-founder of the now 3^rd most successful gaming channel in the US.

BetaKids, very lame name, you know. I mean why beta when you could name it alpha? It's like setting yourself up to be second best forever. However, you aren't to blame for that fuck up, that honor goes to your best friend for a whole of 5 years and other founder, John Egbert. Technically you have been online friends for as long as you were old enought to use a keyboard and get lectures about stranger danger and internet pervs. Thankfully those lectures were prombptly ingored the day John and his over-protective dad packed up and moved to Texas of all places and the lil nerd transferred to a school in the same district. They'd been best friends since first sight, bootiful tru story, I know.

The whole thing with youtube and gaming was actually said best friend's idea. Even if you were the man with the cam so to speak. It had started out just the two of you being stoopid, with shittier lightning and a cam stolen from your bro. It was good times.

Your friend Jade joined the channel until about a year after and it took six months more to bribe your half-sister, Rose, to become a regular after her one hit wonder as she beat the shit out of you two on pokémon. Truth be told, her addition of Call of Cthulhu, Bioshock and just a general array of obscure horror games had really helped put your channel on the map. Whereas Jade had stood for the cuteness factor, as she started out only playing dress-up games, squiggle-mania and such, before eventually moving on to japanese adventure games.

Then Rose started dating a sweet chick named Kanaya, who turned out to be close friend to your biggest rivals and second best satewise channel, GameGrubs, which after some back and forth eventually lead to your newest collaboration; Kids vs. Grubs,

which had really boosted your subscription rate as of late and that didn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon.

GameGrubs aren't just gamers though, actually most of there stuff were more 'game-related', like 'CG's rants and reviews' or Gallows very liberal playthrough of Phoenix Wright. Though, all in all they have a lot more people involved and were therefore a lot more versitile. You'd think that the more stuff added would make for more of a messy channel, but for every new mini-series thing, the closer they came to stealing the first place from you. An other reason to be glad you now work together.

Things in general are actually too good to be true right now, so good to be true that you all can pay your rent and more with the earnings. Granted, there are some haters that claim you guy's popularity was only due to the what one would refere to as 'insane-fangirls' and 'your shippably good looks'. But as far as you're concerned, they were just jelaous because they didn't have an ad revenue above minimum wage and enough swag or looks to ever make it to their 15 minutes of fame.

That being said, shippers were why you were currently sweating like someone who just let a huge one rip in an elevator so full the gas knocked 'em all unconcious, sent it into weight-overload and spiraling into the dark abyss. That and the tiny miniscule maybe-crush-thing you've had on your best friend since he first sent you a real pic of himself via msn in 2008.

”Welcome back, loyal subs, today we're here with yours truly and EctotheNERDologist-”, a comment which earned you a ”Hey!” and a friendly jab to the shoulder, which you answered with a snicker before continuing.

”- as I was saying, today we're doing a new thing. You guys better untag your secret slash because we're diving into the deep dark depths of our tumblr tag”

”pffft, no need to be so dramatic, what do you think we're gonna find there?” It's an innocent question from an oblivious mind, but it sends your mind reeling.

Hopefully not naked Egbert. Hopefully not fanfiction.

Hopefully not naked you.

Hopefully not fanfiction featuring naked Egbert and you.

”... Death.” Is what you say instead, completely deadpan. John stifles back a snort and you suddenly feel like everything's back to normal.

”Ok, then johndave it is.” You say as you type in something you haven't dared do before and press enter.

The first pic is a picture of two llamas but with your faces, with shittily edited sparkles overlayed and you are both laughing hysterically.

”Well that started off well.” John chortles as he clutches his sides.

It's all fun and games as you scroll through poorly-made edits of you in flowercrowns, gif-sets in higher resolution than your actual videos and shitty comics where you both have anime eyes and yaoi proportions. Then the first fic appears.

You almost both just stare for a while.

”Underneath the stars” John reads sceptically. Your eyes scan the description, yup defineatly a slash fic. Your face heats up and excess saliva makes you swallow repeatedly. Only one thing to save this situation of awkward: dramatic reading time.

The fic is awful and hilarious and makes you both laugh, until you get to the porn. Suddenly John's beetred and not meeting your eyes and that makes your heart do the squeezy thing. So you carry on, on your own, reading both parts, including sex noises. You act as if it's a bad porno and make a show of being as dramatic as possible in hopes of making your friend laugh.

”Ohhh Dave. I'm gonna-”

”And with that I think it's time to stop.” John decides and interuppts you mid-sentence. You move to turn off the cam.

Once the recording device is off, John turns to you as if got something on his mind.

”Isn't it sorta weird how there is thosands out there who're delusional enough to think we're a couple?” He finally blurts out.

”Nah, man. I mean you maybe, but no chick can resist the Strider Swagger.”

”pfft. But you and me tho? Like neither of us is even gay.”

”Yeah...” You almost hope that one day John will actually here how uncertain you sound everytime he uses the not-g. You want him to figure it out because you are to much of a chicken to ever say anything. Today will not be that day though, as John seems way too worked up by now to even notice you answered.

”What do we even DO that comes across as romantic? I mean come ON.”

You mean besides spending every waking moment together?

Besides having 'bro-cuddles' when you force me to watch your awful movies?

Besides your dad giving me the talk because he was convinced we were dating because you are really fucking homophobic and too dumb to realize... But words..

As per usual they die in your throat. Instead you only get out a meek: ” I don't know why you're making such a big deal outta this, they're just desperate fans wishing they could have some, because they've fallen desperatly inlove with our beautiful faces, but know they never will and are now forced to drool over their own fictious man-romps instead.”

”Yeah, you're right. You and me, delusional's the word. Pffft.”

You feel your heart shatter but laugh along anyway. 

Chapter Text

This segment has always been your favorite to film; Game of the week. It's a show where you or Dave chose a multi-player game and take turns beating the utter shit out of eachother. Although today, is superspecial. Your hands are positively shaking with excitement as you put in the disc while Dave fumbles with the camera.

This game is a classic or, well, not too everyone, but to you two it is. This random street fighter ripoff is essentially what got you guys through high school. You and Dave would meet up every friday to have pizza, watch movies and play this game. It didn't start out that repetative, you swear, but you just settled into this pattern that became routine. I mean it was during all of those hours you finally got to know the 'elusive' Strider more than just the person he pretended to be in school and online.

People say things they wouldn't dare, even behind a screen, in the safety of a blanket fort and with a tummy full of soda. Though you think it might be your inner sap, you are positive this game might be the reason you guys became... y'know, palhonchos. Those days spent worrying about his brother's creepy puppetry and bordeline abusive training regimes or your dads weird obsession with pride and you becoming a man, you wouldn't trade them for anything.

”Earth to Egghead!”

You hear it as you get hit in the face with plush. Plush filled with something significantly less soft. The world is spinning slightly and you spot one of the ton of plushies fans sent Jade through the years.

”Daaaave. OW, those have MAGNETS in them, what was that even for?” You whine in annoyance.

” You were smiling, no grinning like a kid on christmas day and sighing like a maiden full of woe. One second longer and I'd lost you into whatever ”jolly old” dreamspace Jade's weird uncle lives in.”

”Oh, fuck off.” You say and throws the squiggle back at him. He doges. ”You can't blame me for being excited about playing the game that started our glorious bromance.”

Dave just rolls his eyes at your sap, as per usual. Even if he's let a lot of the 'irony' thing go once you left high school, he's still not the best at, well, feelings. You don't blame him though!

After all the shit he's been through at home you sorta understand it. Maybe not as much understand as you have an agreement that his more fucked-up-than-tragic past sorta gives him veto for being a sarcastic douche most of the time. You don't make the rules. Besides, you happen to know that he's really a sappity sap as well deep inside. You are best friends after all.

”Now stop your smiling Egderp and let's get this positively killing slaughterfest going!” Dave says and presses record.

You really hope your fans will enjoy it as much as you have.

Poorly made renditions of wannabe-anime characters flash onscreen as you start up banter. You pick the cute ninja girl with Leia hair and booty shorts. Dave goes for the super pumped lumberjack character, complete with comically large buckteeth that makes him look like a beaver. Before long you've descended into giggles over bad graphics and 'bouncy booby effects' and your heart swells.

It's just like the good old days.

The happiness you feel doesn't stop you from going in for the kill as so many times before. It's just another X X and – that's when you feel a sharp pain hit you hard enough to send you tumbling off the couch. You just lay on the floor and breathe for a while. As Dave's character does a little victory dance in his side of the screen, and the ranking unravels, the situation becomes all too clear.

”...Dave.” You breathe out between guaffs for air.

”Yeah? John” Is the hesitant answer.

”You took my breath away.” You say and smile brightly because you've always wanted to use that pun. A little cheating is not enough to ruin your perfectly good mood.

”... no.”

He reacts just as dramatically as you expect by abruptly exiting the room on camera and conveniently slamming the door wide open, which you'd booby-trapped for laughs. Revenge is sweet as Dave just stands there, shades askew, too shocked to even stop the recording, all while covered in your dad's famous cherry pie.

Some things never change.