Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

John knows that Dave’s not exactly going to be in tip-top shape when the ER staff finally deems him sober and sorrowful enough to pop in for a quick visit. He’s not stupid, after all, and he was actually there to witness first-hand Dave breaking his everything trying to ollie over a couple of stairs (or twenty) on the ricketiest second-hand skateboard their combined inventories could produce.

(Dave’s eyes may or may not have been closed at the time.)

(His sword, however, had most definitely been drawn.)

(There’d been alcohol involved.)

(And a bet involving a cantaloupe, somehow?)

(Things got a little sketchy after their fourth round of Super Mario Shots.)

Point being, John may not recall all of the specifics leading up to the Great Ollie Wipe-Out That Broke Dave, but he remembers the sickening crunch of his landing with sobering clarity. He’s had the past few hours slumped over bad waiting room coffee to dwell on the memory of Dave still and silent at the bottom of the stairs (how black the curtain blood streaming over half his face had looked in the dim yellow streetlight, how angry and accusatory the wailing siren of the ambulance had been as it cut through the darkness of their shitty college neighborhood), the breathless stretch of time before he’d shifted with a pained grunt under John’s hands.

(Somewhere lost in the jumble of crisis John must have learned how to fly, because he doesn’t remember his feet ever touching a step in his rush to aid his fallen friend.)

He’s not stupid. He’s not. He knows Dave is going to be pretty busted up. But there’s a nagging part of his brain offering up a dim recollection of taking a screwdriver to the hardware of one of Dave’s decks, never to retighten it, and that’s way more shit than John is able to process right now so he pushes it all back, convinces himself that he did nothing wrong, this was just an accident, and that Dave is going to be okay. Not sunshine and lollipops, obviously, but okay.

Just like he always is.

He browses the 24-hour gift shop as he waits, picks up this really sweet “It’s a girl!” balloon that Dave is absolutely going to love. It’s pink, and shiny, with a little smiling anthropomorphic train on it.

A train! Pulling a car full of nonsensically stylized exotic animals!

Nobody could ever be mad at anyone bearing such a fine specimen of foil and helium.

Buoyed by his purchase and renewed sense of optimism, he pushes back the curtain encircling Dave’s bed, his best Hey-Dude-Sorry-I-Was-Involved-In-the-Shenanigans-That-Lead-To-Your-Hospitalization grin firmly in place, ready and eager to annoy his best palchum good roommate back to full health.

Reality, however, has a less than kindly disposition.

“Holy fuck, Dave. You look like shit!!”

Dave is almost unrecognizable. He’s got some sort of collar on and bandages wrapped around half his face, thick white padding completely covering one eye. There’s blood matted in his hair, and what little of his sickly pale skin is visible is mottled with bruises and stained yellow from generously smeared antiseptic. John’s so caught up in trying to make sense of the tangle of tubes and wires and straps encasing his friend that it takes a moment for him to register that the two heavily-swaddled and inhuman looking lumps folded stiffly across Dave’s lap are his arms, his fucking arms and oh my god.

Oh my god.

John is never getting drunk within spitting distance of a skateboard ever again.

Any other day Dave would shoot back with a quip about the less than aesthetically pleasing proportions of John’s own features, maybe turn the insult around and reclaim it to crow about how ‘yes mr egbert i am the shit how kind of you to sing my glorious praises now pass the fucking dr pepper’, but today he just blinks, his un-bandaged eye swollen a shiny, angry red and surprisingly naked looking without his shades, and briefly lifts the two un-taped fingers of his left hand in greeting.

“Yo,” he croaks.

“Dude.” John approaches the bed cautiously, balloon held in front of him like a shield. “I knew it wasn’t gonna be great, but I didn’t know it was gonna be bad.”

“Both arms.” Dave shifts as if to lift them up in victory, blanches, and carefully resettles. There’s sweat on his forehead, and his voice is tired and tight with pain. Whatever they’ve got in his IV, it’s obviously not enough to block everything. “Left took the worst’ve it. Fractured some carp—metacarp…? Buncha hand bones, some fingers. Snapped my collarbone ‘n fucked my elbow over pretty good. Eye should be okay, though.”

“Jesus.” John can’t take his eyes off of the fascinatingly grotesque swell of Dave’s fingers. He takes a cautious step towards the bed, reaches out...

“Don’t!” Dave snaps.

He jerks back his hand, as if burned. (Way to go, Egbert.) “Sorry, sorry!” He smiles sheepishly, but Dave just bites his lip, doesn’t smile back.

John’s still holding the balloon. He feels faintly ridiculous about it, so ties it onto the rails of Dave’s bed for want of something to do. He can feel Dave’s eyes watching his every movement, wary and tense like a cornered stray.

(He hates feeling like he’s screwed up.)

He scrubs at his face with both hands, sighs. “So, what happens next? You’re getting casts put on, right? What color are you thinking?”

Dave doesn’t exactly relax relax, but the hard set of his mouth softens slightly at the corners. “Not yet. Gotta have surgery first, pin some shit back together, and they can’t do that ‘til tomorrow.”

“What, like, tomorrow tomorrow, or today tomorrow?”

“I don’t—” For a moment, Dave looks genuinely lost. “Fuck, what time is it?”

When John checks his watch he’s as surprised at the answer as Dave is. “Past four,” he laughs. “Shit.”

“Shit,” Dave agrees, sounding dazed. His fingers curl slightly in the sheets, seeking purchase. “Did you call my bro?”

Oops. Knew he was forgetting something. “No, not yet.”

“Call ‘im,” Dave sighs. “Might still be up. Tell ‘im the breaks are all closed, nothing through the skin, and that I’m on concussion watch for a bit longer but should be in surgery soon.”

“Okay.” Should he be taking notes? It feels like he should be taking notes. Maybe talking to a doctor or something. “Anything else?”

“Go home ‘n shower,” Dave mumbles, his eye slipping closed. “You stink.”

John’s not going to argue with him there. The other humans and lone troll in the waiting room have been giving him a wide berth, so he must be pretty rank even by hospital standards. “I’ll let you sleep, then.”

Dave groans, dragging his eye back open with visible effort. “Can’t. Won’t let me. Not until they’re sure m’brains won’t slide out my ears.” It’s fucking bizarre to hear him sound so helpless and frustrated like this, so different from the cool bravado he personifies most of the time. He snorts bitterly. “This sucks.”

“Yeah, I know.” He does, kind of. John broke his wrist when he was six, falling out of the tire swing, and hospitals are pretty generally terrible. Dave looks like he could use a manly embrace of comfort, but given how hard he’d flinched away from John’s first attempt to touch him John settles on patting awkwardly at one of his ankles.

This, at least, earns him a soft but genuine chuckle.

“Hey, John?”

John’s got one hand on the curtain, but he stops, looks back. “What?”

Dave’s staring up at his balloon, watching it slowly twist and bob in the air currents.

“I’m thinking neon,” he says. “For my casts. Green for one, pink for the other.”

John beams, shoots him a double thumbs up.

“Go for it, bro.”

*

If the pre-dawn bus ride of shame back home was bad, and having to call Bro Strider at bugfuck o’clock in the morning with news that his little brother is in the hospital was ten times worse, confessing their ER-destined shenanigans to his own dad is downright shame-puddle inducing.

Upside of it is that there are several care packages and at least one get well cake already in the mail to await Dave’s return home, which is always a boon to their food budget. The downside of it is that those care packages are sure to come with ten tons of guilt in the form of several hidden, earnestly written notes from Dad detailing just how much he loves him even when he makes mistakes, how proud he is to have a son willing to turn to him for help in times of pain and need.

God, his dad…

His dad is the absolute worst.

A shower, a few hours’ sleep, and a heaping plateful of scrambled eggs (patron foodstuff of hungover bachelors the world over) has John feeling halfway human again. It feels weird without Dave in the apartment, empty and conspicuous in a way that’s never bothered him when Dave was out at a gig or one of his long, meandering walks or stuck on campus for a couple of hours. John busies himself with cleaning up the remnants of last night’s misadventure—even the deer on their half-empty bottle of Jägermeister glowers at him disapprovingly—but washing out shot glasses and wrapping up Nintendo controllers isn’t nearly enough to fill the void left in Dave’s absence. He palms his keys, stomps into his shoes, and sets off back to the hospital.

Dave’s out of surgery and in an actual room now. The bruising is darker and more extensive, but he’s lost the collar and the worst of his gray-tinged pallor. Still no casts, probably has to wait for some of the swelling to go down, but it’s good to see that Dave’s awake, sitting up, and coherent again.

Well.

Sort of.

“J’n!” he slurs. “Heyyy… Hey Eggert. Lookit… I broke m’ arms, John.”

At least he’s happy to see him.

“Hold still,” chides the nurse snipping through the gauze wrapped thickly around his head. John seems to have walked in right in the middle of a bandage change. “You’re cut up enough already, don’t need me stabbing you accidentally on top of everything else.”

Dave’s range of motion is limited, but he manages a convincing enough double take.

“You’re new,” he frowns. He’s a lot more expressive without his shades, and his voice has the slow, concentrated cadence of someone who is heavily medicated and trying (and failing) not to sound like it, his twanging drawl more noticeable than ever. “Where’s’a other nurse? Th’ hot one?”

John cringes, glancing anxiously back at the nurse—a freckled, thirty-something woman in maroon scrubs with a soft, pleasant face that reminds John of his third-grade teacher— but she just laughs and shakes her head.

“Shift change, honey. I’m Nurse Robbins, but you can call me Darla, remember?”

Dave doesn’t, apparently. She pats him sympathetically on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry. You’ll see Nurse Nitram again tonight.”

Dave—there’s really no other way to describe it—beams at her. Like a kid on Christmas Eve.

(It’s kind of terrifying to witness, actually.)

“Awesome.”

And with that he surrenders himself, soft and compliant, to Darla’s very capable hands.

There’s no denying it. Dave is on DRUGS.

John leans back against the wall, well out of the way, and watches with morbid fascination as the layers of gauze and wet cotton padding are peeled back, revealing—

Oh.

Oh, gross!

Dave’s right eye looks like something out of a horror movie, swollen completely shut and gunked up all to hell. There’s an angry line of stitches running down his forehead to slice clean through his eyebrow (missing the eye itself, thank god) only to pick up again for an inch or so right at the top of his cheek.

With a lurch to the pit of his stomach John realizes that Dave must have landed face first on his sword.

“Ow,” Dave mumbles as she carefully probes the area with a soft wipe. “F’k’n… Tha’ hurz.” He sounds more annoyed than genuinely pained, restless under all the fussing. John decides to give him (and himself, fuck, Dave could’ve lost an eye…) a distraction.

“So I called your bro.”

This gets Dave’s attention. “What’d he say?”

“He, uh…” In deference to Nurse Robbins’s professionalism (she really is doing an excellent job pretending not to eavesdrop as she readies a fresh dressing) John decides to censor the more… intimidating specifics of the conversation. “It wasn’t bad. He just called us a bunch of idiots. Affectionately.”

This does not go over well. Dave tenses on the bed, his good eye narrowing until only the barest hint of red iris is visible. “Liar.”

So much for fucking censorship. “It was terrifying,” he confesses. “I almost shit my pants.”

Dave sighs, relaxes. “Tha’s my bro.” The corner of his mouth quirks back in what for Dave counts as a sloppy grin. “Fess up. Gimme the play by play of your epic verbal beatdown.”

The thing’s John’s willing to do for broship.

“Dude, there was just this… silence. Stretching on and on forever, like the floor dropped out of the universe and left me stranded of space. I kept looking around thinking he might actually be in the apartment somewhere already, insta-revenge teleportation or something, y’know?”

“He can do it,” says Dave. “I’ve seen him.”

Greeeeat. “Thanks, Dave. It’s not like I needed to ever sleep again, anyway.”

Dave dismisses this most genuine expression of gratitude with the barest twitch of his fingers. “Don’mention it.”

“Anyway.” John pushes his glasses back up his nose. “He did eventually call us a bunch of idiots, though. After grilling me for like fifty years about how fast you were going and how you landed and whether there was any damage to a whole list of nerves that I cannot even fucking remember right now but trust me, it was extensive. He says he’s working a rave tonight, all-nighter, but after that he can take off for a visit. Help you get resettled into a routine, make sure your casts are appropriately disfigured with Sharpie, the usual drill.”

This next bit requires a more delicate delivery. “He also said to tell you—seriously, dude, this is all him, not me—and I quote:“

Dave groans, with it enough to see where this is going.

John clears his throat, straightens himself to his full height.

“’I warned you,’” he intones solemnly, “’about stairs, bro.’”

If Dave were in full control of his upper extremities, this would no doubt have earned John a most impressively executed double flip of the bird.

“There,” says Darla, smoothing the last bit of tape into place. “All finished.”

John has to suppress a snort as Dave goes cross-eyed attempting to inspect her work. “How do I look?”

John opens his mouth, but Nurse Robbins beats him to the punch.

“Pitiful,” she says. “Just absolutely pathetic.”

To John’s great puzzlement, she and Dave exchange sly, conspiratorial winks.

She tops off his pain medication before she goes, leaving with a promise of lunch (Dave looks apathetic about the idea until he finds out apple juice is on the menu) followed by a consultation with his orthopedist. As soon as the door clicks shut behind her, John gets right down to more serious business.

“So,” he says, eyebrows all a-waggle. “You have a hot nurse?”

Dave’s been drifting ever since Darla administered the dose, but he seizes onto the topic with all the intensity and focus he and his IV drip full of opiates can muster. “Hooooo-leeeee fuck, John. So hot. So… so hot. Fuck, you don’t… You don’t even know, ‘s so hot.”

“Oh?” He pulls up the visitor’s chair and settles himself in for some good, long TMI. It’s rare for him to hear Dave gush unironically about, well, anything, but especially his love life, and John’s committed to thoroughly enjoying the experience (while filing away this conversation for future blackmail use, of course). “Why don’t you tell me?”

“Mmm.” Dave’s eye swirls slowly in its socket as he tries to refocus on John’s new lowered elevation. “Tall,” he mumbles. “Like, so tall. Wanna… climb that. Like a tree. Wanna get all koala on that hot bod. All muscles and… muscles. And a rack out to, like…” He spreads his arms as much as he’s able (which isn’t much, but the message is clear). “But more.”

John’s mental image of a trim track and field star in a tight white minidress and matching cap balloons suddenly to cartoonish proportions.

“Dude,” he laughs. “You dog! Did you even get a look at her face?”

Dave just stares at him blankly, so John reframes the question. “What color eyes? Blue? Green?”

“Brown,” Dave sighs, his own eyelids drooping heavily under the inevitability of sleep. “’N Gold. And really… warm. Like choc’late. Golden… choc’late.”

This shit is getting downright sappy. John’s set to press for more details—had Dave scoped her ass? what was she wearing? had he said any embarrassing shit to her while under the influence?—but there’s something else gnawing away at his subconscious. Something from this morning, on the phone with Bro, something he’d registered at the time but not really understood.

“Hey, Dave?”

“Hm?”

“When I talked to your bro, at one point he promised to kick my shit all the way back to Seattle until I was nothing but a mound of pulp on my dad’s front doorstep if he got so much as the slightest hint that I’d pulled a… What was it.” He squints up at the lights, trying to remember. “A Gene Forrester on your ass. What’d he mean by that? Is that a band or some other musical allusion I’m way to uncool to ever fully understand?”

Dave’s quiet for so long that John starts to wonder if he’s already asleep. “Issa book. A Sep’rate Peace. Dude’s all… envious an’ shit ‘bout his best friend’s game, and straight up knocks him outuva tree.”

John shifts faintly in his seat, uncertain as to why he suddenly feels so uncomfortable.

“Or mebbe it was’n accident,” Dave continues dreamily. “Dude doesn’ even know… hisself, mosta th’ book. Anyway. Other bro dies, ‘n the end.”

“Well,” John chuckles, horribly conscious of how forced he sounds. “Good thing for my dad’s doorstep that this was definitely an accident!”

“Yeah,” says Dave, almost too soft to hear. “Good thing.”

*

As John discovers the hard way during Dave’s next bandage change (his arms, this time), Dave’s surgical team used some sort of grub-based biosealant while closing him up.

On the one hand it’s good, because that shit goes deep and has a much better prognosis as far as fighting off infection and minimizing secondary nerve damage. The scarring isn’t exactly cosmetically appealing, hence their reluctance to use it on something as relatively shallow as the cut on his face, but beneath the strips of puffy, blood-colored flesh all of Dave’s fine motor long stringy bits should be right as fucking rain, all said and done.

On the other hand, Dave is stuck in the hospital for a couple more days while they watch to make sure that the tiny, teeming grubs don’t interbreed too vigorously.

Ugh. Xenomedicine.

It freaks John out kind of a lot just thinking about it. He prefers his applied ectobiology entirely fictional or at the very least locked away in sterile labs for people in rubber gloves and snazzy lab coats to deal with.

After becoming intimately acquainted with Dave’s emesis basin (how could Dave just lay there and fucking watch as Darla peeled back the bandages and why couldn’t Bro drive cross-country faster so that he was the one stuck dealing with this shit gross gross gross) John is all too happy to slink home for some quality time with the nearest open bottle of eye bleach.

He’s got work the next day, a double shift to make up for calling out the day before. Waiting tables at the local Wacky Theme Chain Restaurant is okay enough for a summer job—definitely less fun than all the flair had lead him to believe, but loads better than Dave’s seemingly never-ending work-study as a one-man scanning machine down in the bowels of the library archives—but he’ll be glad to leave it behind once school starts back up again.

There’s not much of a lunch crowd, for once (maybe the universe is apologizing for all the grubs), but after that work is the usual routine of cleaning, napkin-wrapping, kitchen prep, and the all-too-brief lull of boredom as a few late afternoon diners trickle in followed by a rampaging tidal wave of high-demand, low-tip tables.

If he never has to fetch another four extra sides of ranch dressing or make change for a damp bill soaked in foul-smelling, mystery liquids ever again, it’ll all be too fucking soon.

John clocks out just after ten and decides to swing back by the hospital to tuck Dave in goodnight and hopefully treat himself with a glimpse of Dave’s double-F Florence Nightingale. Technically the diurnal ward is closed to non-family visitors, but he manages to bribe his way past the night receptionist, a bored-looking ladytroll with horns like spears who brightens immediately at the sight of his various and sundry sassy suspender accessories. Soon she’s got a tiny plastic ice cream cone riding shotgun next to the mustard yellow lineage sign pinned to her ID badge and John’s being buzzed through the locked ward door like it ain’t no thing at all.

“Dave?” John opens the door to Dave’s semi-private slowly, quietly, on the off chance that he’s acquired a roommate during his absence. “You awake?”

He hasn’t, and he is. It’s past lights-out, but Dave’s bedside lamp is still on, haloing him in a sickly yellow hues. The grubs have apparently wrapped up their dirty work well ahead of schedule, because his post-surgery dressings have been swapped out for two hard casts—a pink one on his right arm that stops just short of his elbow and a green one on his left that runs all the way up to his armpit.

“Oh wow,” John says, stepping out of the shadows and into the pool of light. “I didn’t know they were gonna wrap you up so high.” He takes a moment to admire them, the fiberglass-wrappings pristine and unyielding, the splash of obnoxious color against the institutional beige and navy of his slings and figure eight brace. “Shit, do you think you’ll even be able to jerk off like that? That would majorly suck. Or how about— Ha ha, oh man, forget shaving, how are you even going to fucking shower?”

“Fuck off,” Dave growls. “Just fucking fuck off, okay?”

John stares at him, dumbfounded. Surely Dave’s thought about all this already, right? “What the fuck, bro?”

“Fuck you,” Dave spits, legs twisting restlessly in the sheets. “Fuck you fuck you fuck your fucking face, you fuck!”

John takes an unconscious step back (message received loud and clear, sir, no need to snarl it twice) but catches himself mid-abscond. He peers closer, notes the sweat dampening his gown in large patches, the mottled flush spreading over his neck and face, the desperate, off-rhythm twisting of his fingers in the sheets.

“Dude. Are you okay?”

“No,” Dave groans, voice breaking on the knife’s edge between frustration and despair. “I— I can’t, John, I can’t. It’s the fucking—“ He jerks his head, eye rolling wildly. “Ffffucking benzos. Switched me over, and they’ve got me all—”

He arches suddenly off the bed, legs spread and heels dug hard into the mattress as he thrashes, gagging in pain as his weight is forced onto his injured shoulder.

“Fuck,” he gasps. “I can’t, I can’t…”

Dave on drugs two days ago was all kinds of hilarious.

Dave on drugs today is absolutely terrifying.

This, John realizes with astounding clarity, is a job for a professional.

If this were TV alarms would be going off everywhere and a team of brilliant but emotionally dysfunctional and sexually promiscuous doctors would be rushing through the door, twenty syringes in each hand, but in reality John, in his panic, cannot find the fucking call button for the life of him, so he has to settle for a more direct approach.

He crashes out into the hallway, dazzled momentarily by the sudden flood of fluorescents. It’s empty as far as the eye can see, the nurse’s station temporarily abandoned, everything still and shuttered and quiet but for the squeak of his sneakers on the blue and white vinyl. He tries the door he came in through, but the lock works both ways, and when he presses his face against the glass the yellow-blooded troll with a fondness for human frozen dairy delights is nowhere to be seen.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck!

A door opens down near the end of the hall, and out steps an absolute beast of a troll. He’s seven plus easy even without accounting for his horns—massive, bull-like protrusions that would scrape the ceiling in any pre-warp hospital—with arms like a linebacker and thick hair cut close in a short, fluffy mohawk. John marks him immediately for an orderly of some sort. Not exactly the help John was looking for, but better than no help at all.

“Hey!” He picks up speed, waving one arm wildly over his head. “Hey, down here!”

The troll stops, looking up from his clipboard with a frown. “Careful,” he calls, voice soft and thick with the throaty, clicking accent of an Alternian-born. “They just mopped, and the floor—”

John skids through the hazard rather gracelessly, but manages to catch himself just before he falls flat on his face in front of the burly troll.

“I need to find… A nurse,” he pants. “Or a doctor. Somebody who can dole out meds? Where should I—?”

The orderly’s expression twists briefly in annoyance, but he’s already turned to follow John back down the hallway. “What’s the problem?”

It’s only now, up close, that John can make out the fine black line work of tattoos running up and down both dark grey arms, the glint of multiple gold piercings rimming the edges of his long, rounded ears. The brightly patterned scrub top that clashes cheerfully with the standard-issue maroon of his pants has to be a decoy of some kind, because this guy’s obviously kept on reserve to manhandle (trollhandle?) only the worst of troublemakers into compliance.

Whatever. So long as he knows what buttons to push to get somebody with some medicinally-oriented secondary schooling and the letters after their name to prove it down here ASAP.

“It’s my friend. He’s… I dunno. He’s freaking out! He broke both his arms and they stuck him in casts today and it’s like he’s having some sort of fit I don’t—”

The troll’s eyes go wide. He’s obviously a student of the “do as I say, not as I do” school of thought, because between one step and the next he switches from a walk to a smooth, hurried jog, leaping over the drying puddle with a single bound as he hones in on Dave’s room without ever having to be told the number.

(There’s a faint, muffled metallic sound when he runs, but John’s too busy hustling to keep up with those long legs to give that particular mystery much thought.)

Steps away from the door there’s a crash followed immediately by a strangled, high-pitched yelp, more animal than human. It’s horrible enough that John pauses at the doorway, unsure whether he needs to see whatever is going on inside, but the orderly ducks in without hesitation.

Blood drops on the floor—clockwork beetles, black, round, and glistening—a tangle of sheets, and Dave, still and very, very white. John’s first, less than rational thought is that he’s dead, oh god oh god he’s dead, but the wounded noise Dave makes as the orderly carefully (so carefully, his huge hands almost dwarfing Dave’s very human frame) turns him over onto his back quickly assures him otherwise.

“It’s all right,” churs the bull-horned troll, and something about the way his throat rumbles around the words makes even John—hovering tense and helpless in the doorway—breathe a little slower. “It’s okay. You fell, and it hurts—quite a lot, I’m sure—but it’s okay. We’re going to fix it, all right? You’ll have to listen and, answer my questions, however you can, but we’re going to fix it.”

Dave looks dazed but manages a quick, breathless nod. He trembles, lips moving soundlessly but for the wet, shuddering gasp of each breath as he fights for air. The pain of falling seems to have shocked all of the obscenities out of him. He offers no protest to the orderly’s persistent questions and gentle but pointed prodding.

(Had Dave hit his head? Was he experiencing pain in his arms anywhere other than the sites of the initial breaks? Did he remember falling? Had he seen or smelled anything strange just before he fell? Had he been felt afraid, closed in, dizzy, for any period leading up to the fall?

No, no, yes, no, wide-eyed, vigorous yes.)

“Okay.” The orderly (or maybe he’s a doctor, he certainly does know an awful lot for a hospital bouncer) tucks away his penlight, settles back on his haunches. “You’re having a bad reaction to your new medication. That is a thing that is, definitely happening. But I think that at least some of it, maybe quite a lot, is all in your head.”

“I can’t move,” Dave whimpers, so nakedly panicked that John feels compelled to turn away, embarrassed for his friend. “I can’t breathe.”

“You can,” the troll assures him. “You are. You’re having a panic attack. When it passes, so will these sensations. Not,” he amends, “that they aren’t real, I don’t mean that. And I don’t mean that your emotional state isn’t, heavily compromised, pharmaceutically, at this point in time. But at the core of this attack are your feelings of, vulnerability, and claustrophobia, and those would be there even without, um, the high-dose benzodiazepines. Which you will be phased off of, uh, quite promptly, I promise.”

Whoever he is, John thinks this bull-dude is doing way too much talking and not near enough getting Dave up off the goddamn floor, but Dave watches him rapturously, transfixed by the rhythm of his long, rambling cadence, breath hitching brokenly as he tries (and fails) to match that pattern himself.

The troll sighs.

“I can’t give you a shot,” he explains. “What I would normally administer, in this situation, is close enough, chemically, to what’s giving you trouble that I don’t want to risk it. But I can try something like what I did last night, when you were having breakthrough pain. Would that be, okay?””

“Oh fuck,” Dave moans. “Yes. Please, just—”

The troll reaches out, brushes one grey, calloused hand to Dave’s temple, and Dave… John can’t really describe it. He doesn’t go rigid, exactly, but it’s like his whole body surges into the touch, like lightning to a wire, and then all the quivering, gut-churning panic in him just… Melts away. He slumps, boneless, on the floor, not even flinching as his casts bump hard against the cold tile.

For some reason, all of the little hairs on John’s arms stand on end.

The troll takes Dave’s pulse, peers deeply into his eye, and nods to himself in satisfaction. “I think you’ll be more comfortable in your human, horizontal recuperation platform, yes?”

“Yeah,” Dave agrees, voice distant and faintly robotic. “Sounds good.”

“Okay. I’ll help you sit up, whenever you’re ready.”

“M’ready,” Dave mumbles, lifting up his arms slightly like a toddler asking to be picked up. With a smile the troll shifts behind him instead, supporting his back until Dave is folded more or less upright.

“Feet underneath you.” Dave shuffles to comply. Beneath his gown his muscular legs look delicate, doll-like, the bony bumps of his feet achingly prominent. “Up on three. One, two—“

The troll ends up taking most of his weight, not that that requires any visible exertion on his part. He chats with Dave as he gloves up and reconnects his IV, tells him they’ll have to wheel him down to x-ray in the morning to check for new breaks but that it’s okay if he sleeps for now. It’s good to sleep, good to dream deep, restful dreams, breezes ghosting across the surface of bottomless black oceans, thoughts quiet and patient until Dave is ready to pick them up again. Dave nods dully along, letting the troll turn and position him as needed as fresh cushions are tucked under his arms, along his sides, and doesn’t protest as the bars alongside the edge of his bed are raised to their maximum height. By the time fresh blankets are tucked around his feet and pulled up his body he’s been snoring raggedly for a couple of minutes.

John watches everything, careful not to blink too much. He’s heard stories, okay, seen this kind of stuff on the news, read it in school brochures, but he never—

It takes physical effort not to flinch when the troll finally looks up at him, gold eyes seeming to glow in the gloom.

“C’mon.” He gestures towards the door with a toss of his head. John thinks about how easily the points of his horns could pierce flesh. “Let’s let him rest.”

Out in the hallway the world is bright and clean and sterile and full of rational right corners. The troll—Jesus, John had almost forgotten just how goddamn big he was, what with all the crouching and the sheet-tucking and the Vulcan nerve pinching—turns to squint down at him (brown eyes, John notes for the first time, soft and warm like caramel, or—), one ear flicking as he chews thoughtfully at his dark lips.

(My, Xenonanna, what big fangs you have.)

“You’re, ah, John, right?”

John doesn’t ask how he knows. John concentrates on keeping his mind carefully blank of anything he wouldn’t want someone with freaky troll powers to pick up on. “Right.”

“Well, I know that that was really scary, what you just saw, but it’s not all bad. You’ll be happy to know that Dave should be able to go home soon, probably tomorrow, even. Barring any, ah, additional complications.” He grins crookedly at John, like a mouthful of bared glinting horrorteeth can be anything close to reassuring.

“Great,” says John, in his best end-shift smile-through-the-pain voice. “That’s… really great. Really.”

There’s something else glinting in the harsh fluorescent lights, something roughly at eye level that’s annoying and flashy enough that John eventually has no choice but to glance its way.

It’s his lineage pin, the silver circle clashing with the gold in his ears, the round, horned symbol filled in with brown. Just like the troll at the reception desk, he’s attached it to his name badge. John’s never really been good at picking out Alternian script—his brain just refuses to switch over to the right-to-left format—but there’s no need for fluency when the troll’s name and position are reprinted helpfully in large Roman letters:

Chapter Text

John has no idea how he completely failed to pick up on the fact that Dave was crushing on a dude nurse, let alone an alien dude nurse.

No idea.

NONE.

Not that he can really stand around and devote critical thinking time to replaying their conversations on the subject with this revelation in mind, what with the arrival of one Bro Strider and Dave coming home from the hospital.

John is really, really glad that Bro’s here to manage that, even if having him around the apartment has him looking over his shoulder and jumping back from the occasional completely innocent shadow way more than is healthy for his underdeveloped fight of flight response. There’s just so much paperwork, so many prescriptions to juggle and pamphlets to keep straight and appointments to make and a thick folder’s worth of forms Dave has to fill out with the college since he’s on the school’s insurance and is going to miss a whole bunch of work and will probably still be in casts and need accommodations once classes start up again and augh!

It makes his head hurt just thinking about it.

John’s got his hands full with get well gift wrangling duty as it is. His balloon has been joined by a lovely tropical bouquet courtesy of Jade and a truly horrifying hand-knitted plush of indeterminable species clutching an anatomically correct heart with “heal” stitched across it in shining black thread (Rose’s doing, obviously; either she’s a lot faster with those deadly-sharp needles of hers or she had the eldritch abomination already made and waiting in the wings for just such an occasion, but neither thought is particularly comforting).

It’s a good thing Bro thought to bring extra clothes with him—sweatpants and a faded, oversized New Kids on the Block t-shirt that they managed to worm over the bulk of Dave’s casts without him turning too alarming a shade of grey—because John kind of forgot how trashed the ones he was wearing when he was admitted were. At least Dave’s long-lost aviators turn up again in the bundle of clothes the ER cut off of him. They’re bent out of shape and scuffed all to hell, and John’s stomach lurches when he sees the deep crack running across the right lens.

It’s a disquieting thought, realizing that a thin sheet of tinted glass was all that protected Dave from a more serious ocular injury. Dave must be thinking something similar, because he holds them in his lap the whole of the drive home, turning them over slowly between his fingers.

Bro’s been silent and stone faced about the extent of Dave’s injuries except for a tiny approving nod at Dave’s new offensively neon color scheme, but even he is visibly disturbed by the state of Dave’s mauled sunglasses.

“Didn’t know you’d trashed your eyewear.” His voice is the same smooth, even baritone he always uses, but from his position in the back seat John can just make out his eyes widening in the reflection of his own shades. “Could’ve brought you a new pair, if you told me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dave mumbles. John can make out his reflection, too, ghostly and slightly warped in the passenger side window, good eye squinting hard into the bright morning sunlight. “Not like I could wear ‘em right now, anyway.”

Bro nods minutely, shifting down a gear with a smoothness that belies just how much of a hunk of junk his old beamer really is. “Pirate’s a good look for you.”

John is struck with an absolutely brilliant idea.

“We should go shopping!” he says, leaning forward between the seats. “I mean, it’s late in the season, so they’re probably out of flamingo shades, but I bet we could still find you some neon frames to match your casts!”

Gosh but this is an excellent idea. John will even pay for them out of his own pocket. It makes total sense, cosmologically, especially since John had bought the aviators for Dave in the first place, replacing another pair of sunglasses he’d gotten for Dave back when they were still in middle school.

He bought it, he broke it. Time to buy again.

“Maybe later,” says Dave, but there’s a note to his usually casual monotone that John can’t place. He fumbles a little folding the shades up with his non-dominant hand (‘Hey,’ John had assured him while Dave was struggling to sign the release forms, ‘at least your drawing style is already intentionally shitty.’), turns them over one last time so that the non-cracked lens flashes briefly, and quietly tucks them into the pocket of his left sling.

*

Dave spends most of his first few days home crashed on their Craigslist couch or napping fitfully in a nest of pillows and strategically piled laundry on his bed. John has to keep reminding himself that it’s perfectly normal—Dave’s on a some pretty heavy painkillers and sure to be sapped of energy as his body works to repair the damage—but another part of him can’t help but wonder whether Dave is suffering lingering consequences of his xeno mind-whammy.

John had thought he’d done a pretty decent job readying and scrubbing down their place in Dave’s absence (not that there’s any need to try go above and beyond to impress Bro or anything, not like when his dad comes to visit, but Dave’s got enough to deal with without getting some horrific infection from the random spots of unidentified black stuff in their shower), but every time he comes back from work it’s clear that Bro’s been rearranging things.

First it’s the toilet paper holder, which confuses the hell out of John until he forces himself to try and reach for the old location using only his right hand and—oh, yeah, that would be kind of awkward. Next it’s the cereal and a lot of their other dry goods, yanked out of the high cabinets and lined up on the counter next to some saucepans and a stack of plates and cups for easier reach. This puts John in a Mood, because it seems like Bro is not-so-subtly implying that John can’t be trusted to cook for the two of them while Dave’s laid up, but when he complains to Dave about it the younger Strider just shakes his head and smirks.

“Dude you’re gonna be gone a lot of the time.” They’re playing Goldeneye on versus mode since the 64 controller is the easiest for Dave to wrap his hands around, but even with John going way easy on him in deference to his pain medication and decreased dexterity Dave’s doing absolutely abysmally. “We don’t exactly keep the same schedules. What am I supposed to do, ask you to swing back home during your break to pour me a fucking bowl of Cheerios?”

“You could always drop the server gig and take up a second career as a nurse,” chimes Bro from his seat at the kitchen table, bent over one of Dave’s old shirts with his sewing kit laid out and Li’l Cal draped comfortably across his shoulders. “I’m sure Dave would like that.”

John gags and pulls a face. Dave seizes his moment of distraction to line up a sniper shot from somewhere up in the rafters, grumbling to himself about the utter suckitude of monocular vision when his headshot breezes harmlessly past Boris’s left ear.

It’s good to see Dave smiling again. He’s been pretty quiet since coming back from the hospital, reserved and closed in on himself like he is sometimes when they go out and the noise hits Dave all wrong, too boisterous and bawdy and the swell and thump of the music outside of his control.

He’s more relaxed around his brother, so much so that John is uneased by their easiness, how familiar and domestic the shapes of their bodies are as they stand in front of the bathroom mirror, dissing the quality of ER stitchwork while Bro trims up Dave’s sideburns and shaves off the rest of his hospital scruff. Dave’s shorter than his brother and narrower across the shoulders, with more pink than yellow in his undertones and hair shock-white when contrasted against Bro’s carefully styled pale brownish-orange dreads. Watching them move together—heads bent, conversation half silence and shared inscrutable gestures—the unmistakable kinship that would be obvious even without the tell of their shared albinism, makes John anxious in a way he doesn’t really understand.

“Okay squirt, let’s try this one.” Bro holds up the shirt he’s been working on: a stained cotton tee dug up from the depths of Dave’s wardrobe with a fresh line of snap fasteners gleaming along the left shoulder.

Dave drops the controller and heaves himself off the couch with a grunt. John pauses the game and decides to use this temporary cease-fire to grab himself a drink. The tab pops open with a satisfyingly icy hiss, and he leans back against to cabinets to nurse at the can and watch curiously as Dave struggles out of his slings and borrowed button-up.

John had been genuinely impressed when he first heard Bro’s idea on how to modify Dave’s clothes to make them easier to pull on, but his enthusiasm had been met by mild puzzlement on the part of both Striders.

“It’s just a standard-cut Alternian style neckline,” Dave had explained. “Nobody’s exactly making waves on Project Runway with this shit.”

John had shut up then, too embarrassed to admit that he didn’t have half a clue what Dave was talking about. Watching him undo the snaps now and step into the shirt collar first, wiggling it up his body and slipping his casts carefully through the sleeves, one after the other, before snapping the fasteners closed with his “good” right arm, John is beginning to figure a few things out. Dave’s needs are centered around his limited range of motion, but John can see now that his assumption that troll fabric was just super stretchy or something might not be entirely correct. This approach does seem a lot easier, especially for some of the trolls he’s seen with horns like corkscrews or radio antenna or forked out three feet across like antlers. Less prone to tangling, certainly.

Dave struggles with the last snap, the angle awkward with his unsupported cast, but manages in the end. Bro watches the whole process with a critical eye, reaching out to adjust the modified seam so it lies flat, mouth thinning as he feels along the line where the strap of Dave’s sling presses the metal into his skin.

“Another snap?”

“There, yeah. Open up the sleeve a bit. But take out—”

“These two, got it. Want me to pad it out any or—?”

“Naw. The brace’s got plenty of koosh. But could use some new lining for both—”

“Gotcha. Plush those mothers up.”

“Awesome.”

Bro sets to work on the pile of shirts set aside for the onesie treatment while Dave starts the slow process of undressing again. John chugs the rest of his beer, expecting to pick back up again with their game, but Dave drags out a chair and sits opposite his brother, resting both arms on the table with a contented sigh.

John is glad that Bro is here. Really, really glad.

It’s just that he can’t wait for him to leave.

*

Even after Bro does finally leave John is still on edge. The morning after the elder Strider’s departure he kicks back the covers only to discover the splintered remnants of Dave’s wrecked skateboard nestled at the end of the bed like the severed head of a prized stud horse. There’s no note, at least (he gets enough of that shit from his dad), but John spends the rest of the day going over the apartment inch by careful inch, looking for booby traps.

There aren’t any, as far as he can tell.

This is not a reassuring finding.

Only after two weeks have passed sans spring-loaded shuriken assault is John able to relax. Bro has his suspicions, certainly, but no concrete proof. Not that John did anything that would warrant a full-fledged investigation with Dave’s older brother as lead detective, prosecuting attorney, forensics expert, judge, and jury, and even if he did do anything it’s not like John had expected—

Know what? Scratch that. John didn’t do anything, period. So really, he shouldn’t have anything to worry about, and if anyone who wasn’t actually there looks at what happened and thinks otherwise then that’s their problem, not his.

It was an accident, a prank gone wrong.

Nothing more.

Dave’s lost the head-wrappings and had his stitches out (once his casts are off John is so taking him bar-hopping just to spin wild tales about Dave’s shady past as an ex-super spy turned street fighter Casanova, the scar looks just that badass), and he’s finally spending more time awake. He’s also become more attached to his phone than ever. At least he’s able to text normally, poor guy. All attempts to type on his computer to date have resulted only in strings of nonsense typos and excessive cast-induced spacing.

At first John assumes that Dave’s chatting with Jade or Rose as usual, but when he finally catches a glimpse at the screen one night while they’re watching TV the capslock and overabundant comma usage proves him wrong.

“Who’s that?” he asks, leaning over to see more of the conversation.

AT: i WAS ABOUT SIX, wHEN I FIRST CAME OVER,
AT: sOME OF MY FRIENDS HAD ALREADY MADE THE JUMP, fOR VARIOUS REASONS OF THEIR OWN,
AT: sO I KNEW I’D HAVE A SUPPORT NETWORK, eVEN IF IT WAS, vERY SMALL,
AT: aND , uH, aNGRY,
AT: vERY, vERY ANGRY, a LOT OF THE TIME,
AT: bUT YEAH, i HEARD THAT THERE WAS A RESEARCH TEAM OUT IN BOSTON, wHO COULD HELP ME, mAYBE, aND

Dave tilts the screen away before he can finish the rest of the line of text. “Just my good friend Nunya.”

“Oh?” The name rings a bell, maybe somebody Dave works with at the library. If he cranes his neck a little he can just make out the tail end of an emoticon. “Do I know her?”

Dave quirks an eyebrow. “Nunya Beeswax? I’m sure you’ve met.”

John can’t believe he walked right into that one. He retaliates with a kick to Dave’s shins, which Dave returns, and soon they’re both flat on their backs at opposite ends of the couch, stocking feet bicycling madly between them in an all out, no-holds-barred game of foot war.

John wins two rounds to Dave’s one and goes to bed feeling unusually pleased about all of the bruises down his legs.

His first, still mostly-asleep thought when Dave toes him out of a nap on their living room rug a few days later is that Dave’s itching for a rematch.

“Hey.” Dave jostles him a little with his foot. “Tavros is coming over tonight.”

“Who?” John yawns, groping for his glasses.

“My nurse,” says Dave. “From the hospital.”

John blinks up at him, still too sleep-muddled to make proper sense of the situation. “Wait… what? Like, to hang out, or—” That’d be weird, he guesses, but maybe it’s some in-home physical therapy thing.

“He’s coming over,” Dave repeats. “To hang out. And maybe kiss and stuff, but let’s not jinx things, okay?”

Oh. “Oh. So you and, uhh, him? You two are…” He waves his hands vaguely mid-air.

Dave’s defiant expression is undercut with a hint of nervousness, but he doesn’t even have the decency to blush. “I’m bringing home a gentleman caller. Consider this your official notice.”

“Jesus.” John sits up, scrubbing the last bit of sleep from his eyes. This was the absolute last thing he expected to happen today. “Okay, so… Do you need me to, um. Go? Somewhere? Or—”

“I need you—” Another poke to his side. Cripes, Dave really needs to trim his toenails. “—to do my hair.”

John stares at Dave.

Dave stares at John.

Dave does not appear to be kidding in the slightest.

“What?!”

*

This shouldn’t be weird. It shouldn’t. It’s just…

Yeah, he’s had to help Dave with the shower every couple of days since Bro left, but that was mainly just adjusting the temperature, helping him tape the plastic bags over his casts, making sure the towels are laid out somewhere where he could reach, shoving a soaped up poof into his outstretched, plastic covered fist from behind the safety of the shower curtain, and cutting him out of the bags again when he was done.

But this. This is… different.

Dave’s sitting on the edge of tub in a pair of swim trunks, bent over just far enough to stick his head under the spray, garbage bags taped dutifully in place and a towel draped around his shoulders to shield his brace and slings. At least he’s not sitting in the tub like a little kid or something. The balance of power in this cramped, steamy room is a shifty enough prospect as it is.

“So why do you need my help with this again? I thought you were fine washing it all on your own.”

“I’ve been doing okay.” He leans back, shaking the water from his eyes. “But what I’ve got in mind is a little more intensive than what I can manage one handed and wearing a big plastic mitten.”

“Can’t Tavros just help you out with this when he gets here?” John knows he’s whining, just a little, but the weirdness of the whole situation seems to warrant it. “I mean, he’s a nurse and everything. He probably does stuff like this all the time.” Also, sponge baths. Which is kind of sexy, John supposes, though for the life of him he can’t understand how you’d be able to look anybody in the eye ever again after they’ve helped you pee into a hand-held urinal.

Dave scowls.

“That’s so not even the point here. I’m trying to nail his flushed quadrant, all right? Not make him trip over himself in diamonds.”

Urgh, quadrants. Talking about them always gives John flashbacks to the one semester of Alternian he had the displeasure of taking back in freshman year, where every example sentence in their workbook had been like its own self-contained troll soap opera. “Dave, you know I don’t understand any of that shit.”

“Trust me,” he says. “It is painfully apparent. Grab the conditioner.”

John had been reaching automatically for his own bottle of shampoo. “Wait, don’t you need to shampoo first?”

“No, I only shampoo once, maybe twice a month.” John’s not too heavily invested on hair care himself (or shaving, though at least he’s got enough of a scraggly college beard that it looks halfway intentional), but his reaction to this news makes Dave roll his eyes in exasperation.

“Oh fuck off. Your hair is a lot different from mine. It’d break if I tried to scrub it all the time. Now grab the fucking conditioner. Not yours, though. That big orange bottle.”

John honestly can’t remember the last time he touched another guy’s hair, let alone had his fingers carefully working conditioner through it like this. It being Dave makes it somehow both better and worse, but Dave just tells him to suck it up and get used to it, because this is just step one.

Dave’s hair is always a lot kinkier fresh out of the shower. John knows this. They’ve roomed together long enough that he even has a vague idea of how to use most of the products Dave keeps on his side of the sink, and he never even bats an eyelash at the occasional sight of Dave with his hair wrapped up. But when Dave plops down on a stool in front of the sink and starts directing him to grab this comb and that spritzer and that big jar over there John starts to get fidgety, enough so that Dave eventually notices.

“If you’re going to keep being weird about this,” he says, obviously annoyed and tense across the shoulders underneath John’s hands. “You can always just throw in the literal towel and drive me to the barber’s. Hell, not like I can even trust you to touch up the faded bits on the side, with that scraggly-ass half-plucked mink you’ve got on your chin.”

“I’m not being weird about it!” John protests, and to prove it he scoops up a generous glob of moisturizer and starts working it through the longer curls on the top of Dave’s head. “And I totally know how to use a razor! And clippers, too!”

“If you say so,” Dave grumbles.

“You know the rules. The only person who can gripe at me about my hair is my dad.” Not that he ever does. It’s just the principle of the thing, really, John’s shaggy almost shoulder-length mane just another part of the old college experience. (And laziness. Laziness is definitely a factor.) “What’s next?”

Dave cracks his neck, winces slightly as the movement jars his collar bone, and resettles on the stool. “Okay. This is where you really come in handy, Mr. Two-Hands.”

Under Dave’s careful supervision John uses fingers and comb to part his curls into smaller and smaller sections until he’s holding two small, evenly sized chunks of hair that he then twists together from root to tip. Dave makes him redo the first few twists right up at the front (“Christ you suck at this, Egbert, it’s like you’ve never even been to a proper slumber party”), but eventually he gets the hang of it, even if he is bored out of his mind with the repetitiveness of it halfway down the back of his scalp.

“You know you sure are making a lot of fuss about your hair.” Dave’s just informed him that in a couple of hours they’ll have to go through the whole process again but backwards, undoing the twists and fluffing it up into his preferred bird-shaped, kinky style. John is less than pleased at the prospect. “Especially for a troll who’s already seen you with three day bed-head.”

“I just want to look special for the homecoming dance!” Dave sobs, his mocking falsetto edged with something so close to genuine fear that John can almost smell it. “Next thing you’ll tell me that you don’t even like my dress!”

“Yeah,” he says and yanks teasingly at a finished twist. “And your corsage doesn’t bring out your eyes, either.”

Dave laughs at that, at least.

*

The school dance metaphor is a lot less funny several hours later when there’s a knock at the door and Dave is still holed up in the bathroom, fretting over his part. John answers the door, feeling entirely too much like his dad for his liking, and holy shit, what the fuck is tha—

John blinks, and the menacing black shape with glowing eyes and horns like orange flame resolves itself into a slightly less menacing grey shape in a hunter green v-neck and dark wash jeans and a face studded in gold.

“Hi,” Tavros rumbles, his broad grin only drawing further attention to the dense scattering of new facial piercings. Hoops and posts line the outer edges of both eyebrows and a pair of snakebites frame a round labret on his lower lip, but the most prominent by far is a gold ring right through his septum, accented by a smaller stud nestled right in the hollow of his left nostril.

“Hi,” John echoes. “You’ve certainly been, um.” He gestures up at the troll’s face. “Busy.”

Tavros’s laughter is like a kettle drum, big and booming. Outside of the white gleaming everything of the hospital he looks huger than ever, his horns twice as wide and teeth three times as sharp. “I’ve had all these for a while. I just have to take them out when I’m at work.”

“Well, Dave’s not—” John looks over his shoulder just in time to catch a black and white shape flashstepping quickly out of the bathroom, disappearing in a neon-tinted blur down the short hallway to Dave’s bedroom. Typical. “I don’t know what he’s up to, actually. But you can come in, I guess.”

Tavros just stands there, hands in his pockets and one heavily ringed eyebrow raised in amusement. It takes John a couple of seconds to realize that he’s kind of bodyblocking the doorway, one hand firmly braced on each door jam, and he shuffles hastily aside.

“Watch your head. They converted all these big old victorians into apartments before the warp, and the ceilings—”

“Don’t worry,” says Tavros, edging in sideways with slouching, practiced grace. “I know how to duck.”

Despite his assurances John can’t help but track the tips of his horns. He might be able to get away with standing up straight with a few inches of clearance (not in the kitchen, though, where there’s a drop-in ceiling to hide all the non-original duct work and extra plumbing), but better safe than sorry.

“Shoes on or off?” Tavros asks.

“On. Or, uh…” It’s such an ordinary question from such an extraordinary monster that John’s thrown completely for a loop. “Whatever? We don’t really care.”

Tavros nods—a quick, careful ducking of his chin, the minimalist gesture amplified by the alarming dip of his horns—and steps out further into the living room, turning slowly to take in the poster-covered walls, the Ikea entertainment center overstuffed with John’s massive and ever-evolving DVD collection, and the tiny assortment of potted plants huddled in front of their bricked-up fireplace that started out as a gag gift from Jade but that continues to grow and flourish in spite of their combined horticultural negligence. John hovers awkwardly near the door, unmoored and feeling like an intruder in his own place, more of an alien than the actual alien bent over to examine their mantelpiece with interest.

“I’ve always liked these houses. The style, I mean. I’ve got a friend who lives not too far from here, uh, a couple of blocks west, maybe?” He waves his carefully filed claws casually over one shoulder. “They tried to stick him in the basement apartment, at first, ‘cause he’s kind of a shrimp, but he hit them with an HUD complaint and an assault of pamphlets on, various height requirements, as listed in the xenohousing regulations, and they moved him upstairs. Anyway. Your moldings are nicer.”

“…Thanks?” John’s never really thought about their moldings. They’re cracked in places and could probably use a thick coat of builder’s white to cover up the terrible yellow and brown color scheme their landlord picked out back in nineteen seventy something, but nice enough for a dumpy apartment right in the middle of college row.

“These are nice, too.” He brushes one giant paw across the painted over brick. “On Alternia you only see interior funneled fire pits like this further up the continent, where it’s colder and trolls, ah, higher up in the hemospectrum, tend to live.” His thick skin makes soft rasping sounds as he drags his fingers along the lines of the mortar. “But I think it’s really interesting how many humans still include them, even when the climate is technically too warm, to necessitate their use, or when there are more efficient means, technologically, of heating the structure. Also how they are sometimes left in place even when they can’t be used, anymore? I like what it says about your values regarding warmth and a sense of home.”

Jeeze, is Alternian small talk always this awkward? And so architecture-centric?

Dave strolls into the living room like he’d planned his entrance this way from the beginning. For the first time since coming home from the hospital he’s changed out of sweatpants and into actual jeans, and he’s wearing one of his nicer modified shirts, a faded black tee bearing the cracked white call letters of the college radio station from his days manning the three to five am slot back in sophomore year.

“Sup,” he says, way too cool and casual for a guy who spent the better part of the afternoon pacing and muttering about how the pink of his dollar store flip-flops was too dusty and faded to exactly match his right cast.

Tavros turns, straightening to his full height (John winces in anticipation, but the ceiling escapes a vicious goring by mere millimeters), and breaks into a toothy, dark-eyed grin.

“Hey Dave.” His voice clicks oddly around Dave’s name, warm, rumbled tones woven in among the vowels.

Dave flushes oddly purple up to the tips of his ears.

Right. John can see where this is going, and he certainly isn’t wanted along. “I’m gonna watch a movie,” he announces. “In my room. Unless you two are going out?”

Dave mumbles something that sounds vaguely negatory, eyes locked disconcertingly on a point somewhere around the tattooed, faintly glistening hollow of Tavros’s throat. Okay then.

John swipes a handful of DVDs blindly off the shelf, not checking the titles until he’s safely ensconced in his own bedroom. This was a mistake. To his disgust he’s managed to grab one of Dave’s shitty shakey-cam pseudo-documentary horror flicks, two “classics” that his professors keep raving about but which John can’t watch without bubbling over in scathing contempt, and one action buddy comedy that he's halfway through to hating after several recent repeated viewings. Nothing he’s remotely interested in watching, obviously, but from the muted voices he can make out through his door Dave and Tavros are still out in the living room, probably deep in conversation about the baseboards and to hell if he’s getting sucked into that vortex of absolutely riveting bullshit again.

With a sigh John cracks open the case to the least loathsome of his choices. Maybe it’ll get better instead of worse this time if he just gives it a chance.

*

It doesn’t.

Two hours of nauseatingly clichéd and poorly utilized cinematic tropes later and all John wants is a cigarette and a heavy mallet to pound out the memory of ever actually buying this load of garbage and glitter-studded horse flesh of his own free will, and at full price, even!

He doesn’t smoke often, the habit yet another thing that reminds him too much of his dad, but when he’s in a bad mood like this all his usual Freudian-centric objections get glossed over by the craving for nicotine and a small tube of smoldering flame to roll between his fingers. He can’t smoke in his room, though, not since their bloodhound of a landlord slapped them with a fine after last year’s inspection. His window’s been busted for a couple of months, not that it’s been a problem since until now he’s been free to wander hither and yon in his own apartment, up to and including their little joke of a patio just off the living room and even so far as the front door and the wide, selectively smoke-free world beyond.

John tolerates his imprisonment for approximately fifteen glowering minutes before deciding that Dave and his alien dudecrush are just going to have to put up with the fact that he exists. He grabs his lighter and half-crushed pack of cigarettes (probably a little stale at this point, too, though that suits his mood just fine) and makes good on his escape.

It’s late, long past summer sundown, and the apartment is quiet and shadowed but for the gleam of light and murmur of voices emanating from the kitchen. As he edges out of the hallway John can just make out Dave and Tavros seated at the kitchen table, Tavros’s broad back bent low over his roommate’s outstretched arms, bottles and a half dozen of Dave’s Sharpies scattered between them.

“For a guy so covered in tattoos you’re complete shit at this, you know that?”

Tavros swaps out the marker in his hand for another, yanking off the cap with his teeth. “Hey, it’s not like I gave them all to myself. I think I’m doing pretty good, for an amateur.”

“It’s like you’re a kindergartner or a mad genius of post-modernism, I can’t tell.” Dave tilts his head and squints to get a better look at the figure being doodled along his left cast. “Wait, I thought you were gonna give me a sweet-ass traditional terrorbeast tat.”

“I am,” says Tavros, marker squeaking as he continues to draw. “It’s a—” He clicks and trills the name of the abomination too fast for John to make out. “—roughly equivalent to one of your tigers. See? There’s its head.”

Dave’s head tilts back in the opposite direction. “I thought that was the head over there.”

“It is. There are, uh, two. Generally.”

John can all but hear Dave’s skeptically raised eyebrow. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re bullshitting me?”

“I’m sorry that your fantastical Earth fauna are so limited in terms of their cranial capacity, Mr. Strider,” Tavros deadpans, and Dave, to John’s surprise, throws his head back and laughs.

John slips back into his room, dark but for the glow of his computer’s screensaver. He’s got two flashing alerts from Pesterchum but he ignores them, plugging in his headphones and booting up the latest expansion pack for Call of Duty.

Fuck it, he thinks, lighting his cigarette one-handed. Next inspection, Dave can pay the fine.

Chapter Text

-- gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering ghostyTrickster [GT] at 16:25 --

GG: john did dave get my package??
GT: oh hey.
GT: which one? the one with the coconut bra and mutated aloe vera plant or the one with like twenty different pairs of ironically touristy sunglasses?
GT: fyi none of which he’s worn for more than a day.
GG: the one with all the candy! it was supposed to come today
GT: nope, no candy.
GG: darn! are you sure? it was in a green box…..
GT: why am i suddenly supposed to keep track of another dude’s mail?
GT: am i my not-even-my-brother’s keeper?
GG: well id ask him myself but i cant get him to answer my pesterchum messages! :\
GT: yeah.
GT: welcome to the club.
GG: uh oooooh………
GG: trouble in paradise?
GT: says the lady literally stirring up all sorts of troubling mad science shit in actual paradise.
GG: heheheh :D
GG: dont you worry despite all my scientific shenanigans hawaii is still in one piece!!
GG: for a volcanic chain of islands anyway ;)
GT: plus why are you even sending him candy? it's not like we live in a high-fructose desert or something!
GG: dont you mean……
GG: a dessert desert? :D
GT: sure whatever.
GT: he’s got his own money and at least two convenience stores within reasonable walking distance, is all i'm saying.
GT: he can get his own damn candy.
GG: :O
GG: woah somebodys grumpy!!!!
GG: not like you to let such a sweet pun slide like that!
GG: extra emphasis on the sweet ;)
GT: no duh i'm grumpy.
GT: i'm candy-deficient and seriously lacking in fed-ex boxes bearing my own very own easy to spell and dare i say it quite distinguished name and address.
GG: john egbert that is a load of horse hockey and you know it!!!!!
GG: i send you plenty of stuff! you got your own coconut bra and everything!
GT: :B
GT: yeah well its itchy as fuck!
GG: heres the thing about playing with giant physics defying space transmitters all day john
GG: the powers that let me peer into the darkest reaches of the cosmos are by no means fixed!
GG: ive got high girl genius clearance and the authorization to point those bad boys pretty much anywhere i want!
GG: in fact ive done a thorough analysis of our conversation so far and here are my findings
GT: hoo boy.
GG: hush!
GG: the instrument readouts are just about finished printing!
GG: dee doo dee doo……..!
GT: jade is this really necessary?
GG: deeeeeeeeeeee doooooooooo deeeeeeeeeee doooooooooo BWAAAAAAAANKANKANKANK…….!
GT: christ.
GG: bloop bloop bloop!
GG: BEEP!
GG: aha!
GG: just as i suspected! youre dodging my question!
GG: and for the record doing a pretty terribly obvious job of it too!!!
GT: oh no you got me.
GT: damn your scooby snacks and yadda yadda yadda.
GG: you better believe it mister!!!!
GG: i am velma
GG: she is me
GT: you’ve spent entirely too much time talking with dave lately.
GT: or rose, maybe. i can’t really tell.
GG: oh shut your assmuncher! :P
GG: but seriously whats up? have you and dave been fighting or something?
GT: honestly i don’t even know.
GT: i mean…..
GT: well for one thing it’s like we never see each other anymore.
GT: either he’s working, or i'm working…
GG: oh! hes gone back to work?
GT: yeah for about a week now. he's out of one sling but still can’t lift anything so they’ve got him cleaning up old scans or something. stuff he can do with just a mouse.
GG: well dave IS the pixel master!!!
GT: don’t tell him that it’ll go to his head.
GT: but since he works days and i'm evenings it’s like we’re living in two different universes!
GT: especially since i took on all these extra shifts like a dumbass don’t ask me i don’t understand it either.
GT: so to top it off the nights i AM around he’s always doing stupid shit like hanging out on the porch with tavros or going on walks with tavros or texting on his phone with tavros or napping so he can be up later when tavros gets off of work blah blah blah. you get the picture.
GG: awwwww! they sound really cute together! :)
GT: i guess. :|
GT: if you’re into that kind of thing.
GG: mmmhmmm!
GG: dave sent me pictures ;)
GT: BLLLLAAAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!
GT: i didn’t need to know THAT!!!!!!!!!!!
GG: knock it off! not THOSE kinds of pictures!
GG: jeeze….. >:[
GT: yeah well…
GT: i wouldn’t put it past you two.
GT: way to ruin a man’s taste for candy corn forever.
GG: oh! that reminds me!
GG: theres another reason you shouldnt be so grouchy about me sending dave candy
GG: i dont think youd want any of it anyway!!
GG: its all troll sweets for dave to give to tavros :)
GT: bluh!!!
GT: why on earth are you sending HIM candy????!!?
GT: hell where on earth did you even GET stupid troll candy to send??!
GG: ok now youre just being a dumbass >:\
GG: since half the team is alternean and weve got our own warp point right there its easy for the commissary to keep stocked up on the stuff
GT: god i keep forgetting that your life is basically stargate meets troll real genius.
GT: any day now you and your rag tag team of misfit troll val kilmers will break five megawatts and then all the secrets of instant transgalactic communication will be yours.
GG: you bet your britches we will!!!
GG: not that i think there is a troll val kilmer?
GG: there is a troll william atherton though! the universe is a funny place
GG: i know youre sick to death of ghostbusters but hes also in their version of die hard and its pretty good! you should watch it
GT: what.
GT: the fuck.
GT: EVER.
GG: :P
GG: anyway its not all bad or anything! a lot of it is even pretty much the same as earth stuff!
GG: you know how it goes
GG: people just like the stuff they grew up with better even if its just the label thats different!
GT: i'm not so sure of that.
GT: seems at least SOME people i know are all set to drop the stuff they grew up with.
GT: and by stuff i mean their best goddamn friend.
GG: :O
GG: oh.
GG: oh no.
GT: what??
GG: oh nooooooo!!
GT: what whaaaaaaat??
GG: i just figured it out!
GT: figured what out?????!!
GG: john are you…..?
GG: i mean…..
GG: do you have…….. feelings? for dave?
GT: god dammit i knew you were going to ask that.
GT: i fucking KNEW it.
GT: rose i can handle but my own fucking cousin, i just…
GG: :/
GT: NO!
GT: no no no no no!
GT: and for the thousandth fucking time, no!!!!!!!!!
GT: definitely not like that! jesus.
GT: we’re just best good bros is all.
GT: hetero life partners, a dynamic duo of dudes, two penis-toting peas in a platonic pod.
GT: at least…..
GT: i thought we were. :(
GG: okay see thats why i asked
GG: because youre coming across as really sort of jealous right now!
GT: pfffffft!
GT: jealous of dave? don't get me wrong he’s an ace of a guy and i love him a lot even if he’s not the sooooo coooooool wisecracking experimental breakout superstar he used to be.
GT: or never actually was. let’s be honest with ourselves here.
GT: but trust me his decision making process and resulting life choices are not something i envy in the slightest!
GG: actually thats not what i meant at all
GG: though in retrospect maybe a little? theres some serious subtext here that i certainly wasnt anticipating!
GG: i meant jealous of tavros
GT: okay jade. now you’ve stopped making sense altogether.
GG: oh i think you know what i mean
GT: for the record exactly how many times do i have to spell out in graphic detail that i don’t want to jump his wee-wee?
GG: john if you ever so much as think of typing out that word again so help me i will reach out across the literal ocean and continent between us and wallop you soundly with a rolled up newspaper
GT: i do not and have never in my life had a personal interest in dave strider’s dick.
GG: thats better
GG: but what about his other quadrants?
GG: im by no means an expert but rest assured just because hes flushing red for someone doesnt mean theres not room in his life for you
GG: romantically or platonically
GT: no no fuck no not fucking quadrants!!
GT: i do not understand that shit and i do not care in the slightest.
GG: but dave does! thats what im getting at
GT: well that’s his problem then.
GT: not mine.
GG: holy shit john!
GT: what?
GG: this is a lot more serious than i thought!!!
GT: this is nothing that’s what it is.
GT: listen i gotta go. i'm covering the last half of a shift for a friend of mine at work and if I don’t leave now i'll be late.
GG: ………….okay
GG: yknow you sure are working a LOT sounds like :/
GT: yeah well…
GT: it gets me out of the house.
GT: you know how it goes

-- ghostyTrickster [GT] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 17:34 --

*

Work is a horrorshow of rowdy overflow from the packed sports bar next door and smug-looking teenagers taking advantage of the crowd and overworked wait staff to dine and dash. John feels like a total sucker for ever agreeing to come in, and he spends the next few hours resenting the hell out of Jules and her plump, bitten lips, thick curls, and unspecified family commitment pulling her out into the night and away from the hell of free refills. Normally he can gloss over his sour moods with a smile and a cheeky snap of his suspenders, leaving everyone none for the wiser, but some of his bitter inner monologue must break through tonight because even the tables that actually pay their bills leave no more than a cursory tip.

He drives home with the radio off, windows down so even the less than enthusiastic rumble of his Nissan floods the interior with a satisfying sort of growl. It’s a warm night, lots of crickets tucked away in the tall grass that shoots up wild between parking lots, and John rewards himself with a smoke. The smoky breeze swirls around him as he drives, loud in his ears and playful in his hair and hot in his lungs until he feels like he is almost one with it, a force of bluster and current racing invisible through the streets to rattle at windows and churn up stagnant summer air.

Back at the apartment he finds Dave sitting in front of the couch with one of his big sketchpads spread out across the coffee table, right hand curled awkwardly around an oversized marker. At his side lay several discarded pages filled with wobbly lines and hesitant geometric shapes, the pattern drawn over and over again until the clusters of tally marks start to fall into orderly groups, the rims of the circles bolder and the squares more right in their angles. From what John can see of the page currently being doodled upon Dave’s since graduated to shaky, vaguely humanoid forms with clawed feet and long, prehensile tongues.

(At least, John hopes they’re tongues. )

Dave looks up as he enters, quirks a smile in greeting, and salutes vaguely with the marker. Despite his foul mood, John is genuinely relieved to see him. It feels like ages since he’s seen Dave do something as simple and Dave-like as drag his sketchbook out of the safety of his cave to draw or lie sprawled on the couch fucking around with the settings of his camera and taking soft-focus selfies.

“Yo,” he says. “How was your shift?”

John gags theatrically, hands up in a strangling motion, which makes Dave grin more broadly.

“That bad, huh? Did they feed you at least?”

“I never thought there’d come a day where I’d grow sick of cheesy fries…” He shrugs gratefully out of his suspenders, letting them fall to the floor in a jangle of flair and family-friendly one-liners. “But alas. That day has come.”

“Had to happen sooner or later.” Dave turns back to his sketchpad, squinting critically at the tangle of wobbly monstrosities. He’s wearing a pair of cat-eye sunglasses that John doesn’t recognize pushed up over his forehead like a headband, the swirled brown of the frames a naggingly familiar hue. He scowls, huffing faintly in frustration, and turns to a clean page.

“Well there’s takeout in the fridge if you want it. Completely devoid of both cheese and fries, pinkie swear.”

This sounds like the best idea ever to John’s empty and appetizer-sickened stomach. At least something has gone right today.

He makes a beeline for the kitchen, mouth watering even before he lays eyes on the untidy stack of disposable containers tottering just behind the apple juice. He grabs a carton at random, popping the lid eagerly to inspect the contents, only to be met with an eyeful of culinary horror.

“What the hell, Dave!” There’s rice involved. Of that much he can be certain. But the topping… “The fuck even is this shit?”

“…Curry?” Dave calls out from the living room, sounding genuinely confused. “Tavros picked it up from a new place closer to his side of town. Sorry it’s Indian instead of Filipino style. Not as good as your dad makes it, sure, but still pretty tasty.”

John wrinkles his nose at the brownish, gloopy mess before him, bits of chicken and finely sliced onion drowning in globs of a slightly redder brown substance.

“Well I can see that! It’s just… There’s grubsauce on it! Why would you even do that to curry?”

“It’s not bad, I keep telling you!” Dave protests. “Kinda like rooster sauce. Anyway that’s not yours. We left you one plain, should be in the back somewhere next to the naan.”

“Ugh, nevermind.” John drops the container back on the shelf and shuts the fridge with a disappointed thump. “I’m not that hungry, anyway.”

Out in the living room there’s a bang as one hundred fifty sheets of medium-weight paper and a flimsy cardboard backing are struck heavily against chipped wood. Dave appears in the kitchen doorway, shoulders squared and mouth grim under a fluff of white hair held back by kitschy vintage eyewear.

“Okay, we’ve been dancing around this long enough. What exactly is your problem with Tavros?”

John tenses, knowing he’s been found out. “I don’t have a problem with Tavros.”.

Dave is unswayed by this brilliant retort. “Then why are you being all weird and shit lately?”

“I’m not being weird!”

“Bull. Whaddya call all that just now? You were gung-ho for grub until actual grubs entered the picture. Then it’s like anything he might’ve touched is suddenly goddamn poison.”

“I’m just not hungry, okay?” he lies. Then, sensing that this line of reasoning will be short-lived, he decides to deflect. “Besides, you wanna talk about being weird? What the hell’s been up with you lately?”

It works. “What?!”

“You’re never here!” he says, speaking louder than is strictly necessary. “And when you are, it’s like you’re completely checked out! You just… zone in on your cell or stay shut up in your room or just sit around waiting for Tavros to call or come over or click like two fucking syllables from down in the ally so you can jump out the window like a cat in heat. It’s freaking embarrassing.”

Dave grimaces, looking vaguely sheepish as he reaches up to rub the back of his neck. “Okay, fair point. Sorry. I was trying to spare you all the quirky indie romcom fluff, but I guess it kinda backfired.”

“Yeah,” John grouses. “It kinda did.”

Despite his outburst, Dave’s quick contrition is a good sign. Maybe he was wrong to think this would all blow up into a big stupid fight.

Feeling foolish for ever doubting his friend, John crosses his arms, chuckling and shaking his head in disbelief. “Dude, I don’t know how you keep it up for him. Not literally, heh, spare me the TMI, but… I thought you ditched the whole ‘irony’ shtick back when we were kids.”

Dave quirks a pale eyebrow, puzzled. “What are you talking about?”

“This whole sappy sack bullshit!” he laughs. “I didn’t know trolls were even into it but man are you giving it your all!” John grins, but when Dave doesn’t grin back his good mood fades as quickly as it arose, like the passing of a summer storm. “Wait, seriously? I thought you had to be playing up the smitten puppy routine for a laugh somehow.”

“Brace yourself for a shock,” Dave deadpans, “but I am actually capable of emotions other than ‘badass’.”

“Dave, you’ve never been badass. That’s how you broke your arms, remember?”

Dave blushes a deep, bitter crimson.

“Why do you always do this? Why is it that, whenever I start to set up something good for myself, you always eventually find a way to yank it out from under me?”

“Kheeeee-rist!” John wrinkles his nose and sticks out his tongue. “Way to jump straight to the melodrama, Dave. Used to be you knew how to take a joke!”

“Yeah well,” Dave mumbles. “Used to be a lot of things.”

John frowns. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

Dave hesitates before answering, lower lip caught between his teeth and fingers tangled in the strap of his sling.

“I feel like it’s time, all right? For a change. Time for me to—not man up, god, Rose’d thwap me one good for that turn of phrase—step up, maybe? Shift gears? Take a running double back handspring out of this liminal state? Whatever. I’m ready, I want out. I want to do things. If I could finish up school this semester I would—it’d save me a bunch of money—but if I want my thesis to make a half-decent cap to my portfolio I’m gonna need both hands, so that’s all kind of fucked over for me. But this thing I’ve got with Tavros, relationship stuff, whatever. That I can do, you know?”

He looks up to John for acknowledgment, for encouragement, but all John can register is a single word, tolling over with the clear, distant finality of a funeral bell:

Out.

“So what,” he snaps, “you’re just going to leave? Goodbye, so long, thanks for the ten fucking years of fish? When were you going to tell me this?”

Dave throws up his arm in exasperation. “Dude I’ve been telling you. All fucking summer. Haven’t you been listening?”

For some reason, John remembers the night of the accident. The park, the seemingly endless flight of concrete stairs, the pools of yellow street light. Remembers Dave ready to make the jump, remembers standing behind him, laughing.

C’mon, you’ll never make it.

Just who do you think you are?

C’mon.

(He still has no idea what the cantaloupe was all about, though.)

“So that’s it then? Who cares that we’re the only two left in the same fucking state, you’re just going to fuck off and leave me."

“I don’t know why you’re acting like it’s such a fucking shock!” says Dave. “We even talked about— Look, I know you have plans, too, other shit you want to do.”

“Yeah,” John sneers. “But I’m not so hard up to hit the Oregon Trail that I’ll hitch my wagon to the first ox that ambles my way.”

Dave gapes at him, eyes round.

“Wow, John. Did you really just—? Wow.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he scowls. “So what happens when you meet someone else? Later?” They’re barely in their twenties, for god’s sake. “What will you—”

“What if I don’t want to meet someone else?”

Dave says it so quiet, so serious, that he almost doesn’t catch it at first. John stares at him, waiting for the punchline, but Dave just looks away, eyes fixed imploringly on the drying rack as if it could ever understand.

“Really? Not even someone more, uh…” He gesticulates vaguely between them. “You know.”

“What exactly about Tavros makes him so unreasonable a prospect?” Dave hisses through clenched teeth. “What makes you think that I couldn’t lo— Like him, like that?”

“Nothing!” John insists. “Quit sticking words in my—“

Dave whips around, teeth bared and good arm raised in neon pink fury, one finger jabbing pointedly in John’s face.

“Don’t expect me to buy that crap. You’ve made it clear that you have very specific opinions on the subject. C’mon, tell me.”

Dave’s got him on the defense, somehow, leaving John to scramble blindly in unfamiliar territory. “It’s just… I just didn’t know you liked—”

‘Xeno’ sounds fucking horrible, and even John’s self-aware enough to clamp down tightly on that thought. ‘Guys’ is an outright lie, even if he’s been content to never really talk about the exact boundaries and definitions of Dave’s sexuality. He flails about for a suitable alternative.

“—tattoos,” he finishes awkwardly.

Dave stares at him for a long minute, blinks, and slowly shakes his head.

“I swear, sometimes it’s like you don’t even know me.”

This fans the smoldering reserve of anger John’s been riding for weeks now into a white-hot flame.

“I know you,” he spits. “I KNOW you. Wanna know how much I know you?”

Dave laughs. Actually stands there and fucking laughs. “Lay it on me, bro. Enlighten me with your goddamn in-depth analysis. Let’s see you try and out-Freud my own fucking sister with your bullshit.”

John knows better than to rise to the bait. “This—” He gestures broadly with his arms, big hands taking in the space between them, the kitchen, the world beyond, all in a single swoop. Dave flinches and takes an instinctive half-step back before catching himself. John notes the reaction but ignores it. “This is all bullshit, and you know it! Because the truth of the matter is you’re not ready. You’re not fucking ready at all.”

The last of Dave’s humor is gone now. Red eyes watch him warily, narrowed against the bright lights of the kitchen. “The fuck are you even talking about, Egbert?”

“You want someone to take care of you,” he continues, mouth running with the surety of purpose that only a true epiphany can bring. “You’re scared, you think you’re going to be stuck here, think you’ll never get out and make it on your own. That’s what this is all about.”

Dave stands ramrod straight, chin up and glowering down his nose at John like he’s the one with almost four inches over the other instead of the other way around. Just looking at him makes John wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Hell, at least he’s not wearing his stupid, flair-covered suspenders.

“You’re a fucker, you know that? You’re an absolute fucker and you don’t know jack about shit!”

“No no no. I’m actually understanding things, for once.” He is, he really is. All the connections are clicking into place, faster than he can consciously keep up with. “See, here comes this guy, this big, literal alien of a guy, a fucking bull in cartoon pajamas that swoops in on you right when you’re at your lowest, and suddenly all your problems are solved. He can protect you. He can cage you up so you don’t have to worry about the big bad world out there waiting for one misstep to grind you into fucking pulp. And when things do fall apart, when it gets to be too much, he can turn you off. He can take you out of your fucking body.”

John pauses, waiting for the full horror of the scenario to sink all the way in, an icy dagger sheathed in flesh. Dave just stares back at him, brows furrowed slightly in confusion.

Undeterred by Dave’s refusal to see, John presses onward.

“How can you do that, man? That’s what I don’t understand. How can you be that desperate?”

“All right, now you’ve lost me,” says Dave, gesturing vaguely with his one free arm. “Please elaborate so I can be properly pissed at you again.”

“When he does that—” John waves his hands over his head. This time Dave doesn’t flinch. “—thing. With his brain. He sucks you out of yourself, and you like it.”

“Oh that,” Dave sighs, sling and brace creaking slightly as his shoulders sag. His eyes roll up towards the ceiling, as if imploring a higher power for strength. “Look, Egbert, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my body is not exactly a fun place to be right now. Besides, you’re talking out of your ass. It doesn’t even work like that.”

“It does,” John insists. “I was there. I saw it.”

“What—” Dave shifts backwards ever so slightly, flicking dismissively with the fingers of his left hand. “—you live inside my head now?”

“No,” says John. “But Tavros certainly does.”

“Okay.” His voice is artificially smooth and toneless, each breath carefully measured to be just as long and deep as the last. “Okay. You are treading a fine line to a beat down here. Just so you know.”

“I’m sorry.” He softens his tone, hands up in a soothing surrender. Dave shuffles back two more steps. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s just that I think you’re too close to the situation to realize what you’re dealing with here.”

“’What’?,” Dave echoes. Dark purple blotches cloud his features, the ugly flush racing down his neck and under his clothes to stain even the tips of his tightly clenched fingers. “’WHAT’?”

“Exactly! Dave—” John reaches out, but Dave ducks out from underneath his touch, so fast and sloppy that he slams his hip into the cabinets. When did they end up so close against the countertop like this? “Look, I’m just trying to help you, alright? I’m your friend.”

“I wouldn’t be so fucking sure of that,” Dave growls. “Now back off!”

But John stands firm. “What, you asked me what my problem was, and now I’m fucking telling you. You’re different around him than you are around me, and now I finally know why. You like it, like him, because you don’t like yourself. You want someone else to be you for you. You don’t want to be a man, you don’t want to even be fucking human. You want to be an animal, you—”

Blood in his mouth, blooming sudden and violent. The world tilts sickeningly on its axis, flashing too bright and too dark all at once, a disco of strobe-lit vertigo, the dizzying, skull-thumping bass broken only by distant, frantic gasps of pain.

Blinded by indignation and out-of-sorts as he is, dazed and half-choking around a mouthful of copper, John still has to give credit where credit is due.

It’s not every day you get sucker punched by a guy with two broken arms.

Chapter Text

-- ghostyTrickster [GT] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 00:08 --

GT: tell me about black romance.
GG: huh?
GT: that’s the term for it, right?
GT: or was it pitch something?
GT: whatever it is i need you to explain it to me in as excruciating detail as possible.
GG: no you got it right the first time
GG: though someone experiencing black feelings could also be described as being in pitch
GG: just like someone with red feelings can be said to be in flush
GG: that huh? was in regards to your sudden and completely out of character interest in quadrants
GG: what happened between now and six hours ago to bring on this sudden change of heart?
GT: a whole fucking lot, that’s what happened.
GT: and it’s not quadrants plural i'm interested in.
GT: just the one.
GT: the black one with the stupid spade or whatever that’ll let me get my righteous hate on.
GG: uhhhhh
GG: okay?
GG: ill tell you what all i know but
GG: can this wait for like an hour?
GG: im almost off of work and if you give me a bit to wrap things and drive my friend home ill message you back from my tablet
GG: this sounds kind of serious and i want to give you my full attention!
GT: no it cannot fucking wait!
GT: i am SICK and FUCKING TIRED of being shoved off to the side by my SO-CALLED FRIENDS just when i need them most!
GT: i need your help NOW, okay?
GG: okay okay!
GG: just let me lock down my files for the night thatll take like five minutes most all right?
GT: i guess.
GG: brb
GG: done!
GT: finally!
GT: okay so long story short, dave and i had a fight.
GG: oh no! D:
GG: about what?
GT: him being a dumbass what else.
GT: like jade i am fucking serious i can’t even explain his dumbassery in human terms anymore.
GT: i can barely even understand it inside my own head he’s just that fucking obtuse.
GT: that’s why i need to you explain troll hatemance to me.
GT: because i've been stuck in the freaking ER waiting room for god knows how long with my burgeoning crisis of hatesexuality as my only company and i do not have the words to explain to you the depth of my grudgeloathing.
GT: or grubloathing or whatever stupid insect related word they use for it, fuck.
GG: hold on youre in the emergency room?!
GG: you mean you had a FIGHT fight?
GT: fucking jerk broke my fucking nose!
GT: ugh it’s all swollen and scraped and shit.
GG: !!!
GG: he PUNCHED you?
GG: he has two broken arms and he PUNCHED you????!
GT: that’s what i said!!!
GG: holy shit! :O
GG: is dave okay?
GT: is dave okay???
GT: is DAVE okay????!!!!
GT: i'm wallowing in ER purgatory and you want to know if DAVE is okay?!?!?!??!!?!
GG: oh john im so sorry that didnt come across right at all
GG: broken noses suck major donkey balls boy do i ever know that!
GG: but so does banging up an already broken bone!
GT: yeah you should have seen him he was all doubled over and crying afterwards like a total chump.
GT: serves him right.
GG: :\
GG: so where is he now?
GT: back at the apartment i guess.
GT: weav said something about the swelling not being that bad so they made him an appointment to get x-rayed in the morning. archie's babysitting him.
GT: him and weav have been acting all weird about the whole thing and treating dave like he’s made of glass or something. it’s stupid.
GG: wait who?
GT: our neighbors from downstairs. you’ve met them i think? the two poli-sci grad students.
GG: oh yeah! daves buddy and that one guy who really, REALLY likes tab?
GT: yeah that’s them. they heard us going at it and came upstairs to break us up, then weav drove us all to the hospital and blah blah blah this isn’t what i messaged you to talk about AT ALL.
GT: point of all this being, i really, REALLY hate dave right now.
GT: and dave is apparently all about this stupid troll shit.
GT: so tell me how to do black romance because obviously we’re a perfect fit.
GG: NO
GT: no?
GG: NO
GT: why the hell not???
GG: because john!
GG: even disregarding the fiasco that was your last awkward brush with blackrom
GG: if you ever want to be friends with dave again that is literally the worst thing you could possibly do!
GT: well maybe i don’t want to be his friend! maybe we were never even friends in the first place!
GG: that’s a bunch of goose barf and we both know it
GT: >:B
GT: well trolls can be friends and enemies at the same time, right?
GT: that much i remember.
GG: they have the same word for friend and enemy yes
GG: but blackrom doesnt really work the way youre thinking at all!
GT: how does it freaking work then?
GG: well for one its a lot more passionate
GG: and by passionate i mean there are usually buckets involved
GT: bluh say no more.
GT: isn’t there a sexless version of it or something like they have with regular love?
GG: see that right there thats part of your problem
GG: calling it things like regular love
GG: youre coming at it all wrong!
GT: well regular hate then.
GG: thats not any better! >:\
GT: but jade its not like hate is this big complicated thing!
GT: as far as feelings go, anyway.
GG: that2 becau2e you’re an iidiiot wiith the emotional range of a fruiit 2alad.
GT: uhhhhhhhh. . .
GT: what?
GG: and an iin2ufferable 2hiithead, two boot.
GT: wow, cuz.
GT: thanks a lot.
GG: what the hell!
GG: i didnt type that!!!!!!
GG: ehehehehehehe
GG: sollux!!! >:O
GG: omg JD thii2 ii2 2uch a 2hiit2how ii can’t even.
GT: what the fuck?!
GG: UUUUUUUUGH!!
GG: im sorry its my coworker hes keyboard jacking me >:\
GT: well then move to another computer outside of his reach.
GT: duh!
GG: its not that easy!
GG: hes a telekenetic
GG: *p2iionic if you plea2e.
GG: NOT NOW SOLLUX.
GG: 2orry.
GG: iit’2 ju2t kiind of hard two iignore what’2 goiing on iin a2henviile when you’re runniing your chat cliient ten feet hiigh on the biigge2t moniiter iin the compound.
GT: jesus christ jade, you mean i've been spilling my guts out writ large to a room full of troll government spooks???
GG: its not actually ten feet tall!
GG: its maybe like…
GG: two feet?
GT: jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaade! D:
GG: sollux is the only one who can see it and thats cause he sits right behind me
GG: im sorry sometimes hes kind of a nosy little creep!
GG: love you two babe.
GG: ugh don’t you start in on me too!!!!
GG: ive got enough dumbassery to wrangle already
GG: eheheh ii can 2ee that.
GG: look can i trust you not to read our chat from here on out?
GG: as you can see its kind of a delicate situation! :\
GG: 2ure, anythiing for you JD.
GG: human quadrant 2henaniigan2 oh my fuckiing god.
GG: just go already!
GG: ii’m goiing ii’m goiing!
GG: 2hee2h.
GG: . . .
GG: okay hes gone
GT: that was. . .
GT: pretty much the most confusing thing ever.
GG: meh you get used to it after a while
GG: sollux is a good guy
GT: suuuuuure.
GG: no really!
GG: he just gets anxious and fretful about people and has to check in all the time
GT: hold on i'm getting a text from rose.

-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering ghostlyTrickster [GT] at 00:25--

TT: John.
GT: rose thank god!
GT: i need your help okay? now more than ever.
GT: tell me, what the fuck exactly is wrong with your brother?
TT: John, in deference to our many years of friendship and the possibility, however remote, that this will all be naught but an uncomfortable memory we look back upon with a shudder while you recite for the ten thousandth time your deepest and most sincere apologies until we are all half-drowned with your contriteness, I will temporarily delay my textual tirade to tell you this one thing:
TT: Shut.
TT: Up.
GT: What?
TT: No.
TT: Shush.
GT: :B
TT: Better.
TT: Now, as you no doubt recall, though reared apart and under entirely disparate circumstances, Dave and I are in fact blood siblings.
TT: And though he might be older than me by 24 hours precisely, it is I who has generally taken on the advisory and protective role generally reserved for the elder brother or sister.
TT: In addition to this familial investment in the functionality and happiness of Dave’s personal relationships, I also have a more personal stake in the game, as it were.
TT: A very lovely and loving stake by the name of Kanaya Maryam.
TT: Forgive my overly clipped tone, but having learned of your recent behavior towards Dave and his bullish beaux I find myself incapable of the more familiar pleasantries that have characterized our past interactions.
TT: I hesitate now to call them “friendly” because it appears that for some time now you have been fostering attitudes that are not only hateful, but hostile and condescending towards individuals I love and hold quite dear. This obviously colors all of our history in a new and most troubling light.
TT: Under these circumstances, I have found that formality is the only reliable means by which I might check the otherwise dark, uncontrollable depths of my world-devouring rage.
TT: If, at some future date of his choosing, Dave were to extend the olive branch of forgiveness back out to you, despite the fact that you have shown repeated delight in setting fire to such peace-keeping greenery, then I might once again consider reopening more cordial lines of communication.
TT: But until such time as you’ve successfully extracted your truly considerable cranium from the foul-smelling labrynth of your own small intestine, I have no choice but to issue the following ultimatum:
TT: If you even think about hurting my brother ever again, or dare to whisper so much a single bigoted syllable into your pillow as you dream unhappy and narrow-minded dreams. . .
TT: I will fucking cut you.

-- tentacleTherapist [TT] blocked ghostlyTrickster [GT] –-

GT: what the hell!
GT: rose just blocked me!!!!!!! >:(
GT: jade?
GT: jade you there?
GT: helloooooooo?
GG: OMG JOHN YOU FUCKING FUCKASS!!!!!!!!!
GG: OF COURSE SHE FUCKING BLOCKED YOU YOU DOUCHEBAG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! D8
GT: woah!
GG: DONT YOU WOAH ME !
GT: :B
GG: and none of that coy bucktoothed bull either
GG: this shit just got real
GG: rose ccd me a copy of her chat with dave and wow john
GG: WOW
GG: i take back what i said before dave was totally in the clear to wallop you one good!
GG: ive always known you to be a bit of a jerktastic doufus but this is all new levels of low
GG: id block you too to be honest if it didnt mean youd be stuck with nothing but your own idiocy to reinforce your bad behavior!
GT: oh no, not you, too!
GT: you guys are twisting things waaaaay out of proportion!
GG: are we john?
GG: are we really?
GT: YES!
GT: i mean. . .
GT: look, that’s why i wanted to know about blackrom.
GT: this kind of shit is normal for trolls, right? you wouldn’t be having this big of a freakout if dave and i were two troll dudes talking shit and baring our teeth or whatever it is trolls in hatefully committed bad romance do to each other. because then YOU’D be the culturally insensitive ones, wouldn’t you?
GG: oh so now youre the one all concerned about being sensitive to the dynamics of alternian romance
GT: you know what i mean!
GG: thats just it john
GG: i do know what you mean
GG: and its still majorly fucked up!
GG: youve done something really stupid and hurtful and instead of owning up to it youre trying to twist things around so that its everyone elses fault but yours!
GT: i am not!
GG: aaaaaggghhh see THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS TRYING TO EXPLAIN TO YOU EARLIER!
GG: two kismeses might have strongly negative feelings towards each other but in a way they also work closely as partners!
GG: theyre rivals yes but theres equality in their rivalry
GG: if theres a major imbalance in one parties ability to wound and challenge the other then its not really a functioning kismesissitude
GG: because the goal of blackrom is to highlight weakness in the other so they have the chance to grow past those weaknesses and become a better stronger rival who can then challenge YOU to become stronger yourself
GG: thats why youd make a terrible kismesis
GT: what are you talking about sounds like i'd make a GREAT kismesis!
GG: no john
GG: look youve got a temper and when it flares up it is MEAN
GG: sometimes you honestly dont know just how hurtful you can but other times you know EXACTLY
GG: you just play if off like you dont
GG: when evidence of your assholishness threatens to break through you just shut it down and refuse to acknowledge it or worse play it off as some silly little joke!
GG: what you want isnt blackrom its an excuse to beat up more on someone who cares about you and doesnt have the tools to hurt you back in the same way
GG: troll quadrants above all else are about balance
GG: and if you actually LISTENED to dave and valued what he says youd know that thats kind of the whole appeal for him
GG: because he craves that desperately more than anything
GG: and he feels like there arent a whole lot of options for him in human culture to seek out the kind of support he needs
GT: when the fuck did he tell you all this?
GT: have the three of you been having like this secret buddy buddy feelings club without me or something?
GT: because between this infodump and the psychobabble rose jabbered at me before threatening me with evisceration it’s sure starting to sound like it!
GG: woah woah waiit tiime out.
GG: ii thiink ii actually know thii2 dumbfuck iirl.
GG: or of hiim at lea2t.
GG: sollux! you promised youd stop peaking!!!! :O
GG: ii’m not peakiing!
GG: ii'm ju2t readiing through the backlog2 a little.
GG: 2wear two god ii have no iidea what the hell you two have been talkiing about for the la2t few miinute2.
GG: well if youre going to keep butting in at least hack in with your own handle so things are less confusing
GG: fiine, fiine.
TA: ii2 thii2 better?
GG: yes!
TA: ok back to bu2iine22.
TA: GT are you the a22hole wiith the 2hiity human faciial haiir who had iintro two 2creenwriitiing wiith whiitmyer2 la2t 2priing?
GT: hey! my facial hair is NOT shitty!
TA: OMG YOU ARE.
TA: for a whiile ii thought KK had two be makiing you up.
TA: but no you really are ju2t that terriible.
GT: huh???
TA: you broke my best friiend’s biilepump, 2hiithead.
GG: sollux WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
TA: eat piixel2 and diie you biigoted motherglubber!

-- ghostlyTrickster’s smartphone exploded! –-

*

The good thing about having your phone blow up in your hands in the middle of a crowded ER is that you get shuffled up in the triage queue pretty quickly, even if the burns turn out to be relatively minor. At least, this is the spin the far-too-chipper ER tech puts on it as John sits slumped and scowling, mummy-wrapped mitts folded stiffly in his lap, while his nose is finally set and plastered.

John can’t bring himself to view it in quite so positive a light.

Weav at least respects his desire for quiet on the drive home. There’s an awkward moment at the base of the stairs where John’s not sure whether he’s going to be allowed back into his own apartment or not, but from the way Weav pointedly gestures him upward it becomes clear that Dave’s the one who’s been evacuated to neutral territory. John’s not sure how he feels about that, about what it implies about him and his role in the fight, so he stomps up the stairs as loudly as possible to broadcast this displeasure.

He doesn’t sleep well. The tight feeling of his hands under the bandages keeps him awake, along with the fear of rolling over and accidentally squashing the swollen mess of his nose. He wonders how long Dave plans on staying downstairs with Weav and Archie, crashed out on the narrow pink sofa that’s hosted many an explosion-filled action movie night, whether he’ll break lease and move out of the building altogether. John shouldn’t have too had a time finding a new roommate if that happens; they’re pretty convenient to campus and there’s always a couple dozen people scrambling for last minute housing. He wonders half-heartedly where Dave would go, instead (not that he actually cares or anything).

In the predawn dark, even the clicking and sighing of the window unit feels like an admonishment, a tut of disapproval from the universe at large. Gingerly, mindful of the raw, swollen skin of his palms, John raises his middle finger and shows the air conditioner exactly what he thinks of it.

He hopes that Dave’s sleep is just as restless.

*

Dave does come back, eventually. He keeps to his room so long as John’s around, and when they do cross paths Dave’s careful to ignore him completely, expression still as stone and unreadable except for the faintest thinning of his lips. He keeps his sunglasses on all the time like he did back when they first met, a “fuck you” that would be a lot more effective if he weren’t still rocking the rhinestone cat-eyes.

In the four days and nights he’s been gone John’s managed to acquire a new phone (not that he’s given anyone the number yet) and drive himself half-mad with boredom. He can’t wait tables with his hands taped up and the skin around his nose and eyes swollen and purple like a raccoon on steroids. Tired of sick leave and every movie he has ever owned (god, when did his taste in film get so astoundingly bad?!), John finally convinces his manager to let him come in and work in the back. At least salad prep and scraping food off of dishes is mildly less soul-numbing than trying to force his way through yet another John Cusack marathon

After a few days double-gloving it his hands are healed enough and his bruises deemed plausibly badass (“Got smashed in the face playing rugby—no no, you should see the other four guys”) for his manager to upgrade him to wiping glassware and stocking beers behind the bar. John’s nervous at first because Laci, the main bartender, knows Dave from a lot of shared photography classes, but she never asks after him or gives John so much as a hairy eyeball when he’s clocking out of his shift, so John’s in the clear for now. After tattling on him to Rose and Jade, Dave appears to have been tight-lipped about their fight among their circle of mutual friends, a situation that confuses John even as he shamelessly benefits from it.

What’s the point of all this? Is this some sort of game, some subtle social mind-fuckery he picked up from his Bro? If so what’s the payout? Is Dave setting him up, waiting for the opportune moment to yank the rug out from under him? Or does he genuinely not give a fuck, content to let John slip, ignored, over the edge of Planet Strider, so long and sayo-not-ra to the S.S. Egbert?

What, exactly, does Dave want from him?

This last question nags at him all the way home, humming high pitched and annoying at the back of his brain like a particularly persistent mosquito. He grits his teeth, tries mentally swatting it away, but the line of thought will not be banished, trailing along behind him like an annoying younger sibling all the way to their front door.

What does Dave want?

What does Dave…

A single lamp lights the living room, but the rest of the apartment lies in shadows. The dark feels lived in, the current of air measured and even. Dave’s asleep in his room, then, made an early night of it. That’s fine by John. If he can’t have the apartment all to his lonesome, he’ll take the 75% uninhabited by Dave in his comatose state.

He takes a circuit of the no man’s land of their shared living space for the sheer novelty of it, swinging his arms back and forth in all its Strider-free-ness. Somewhere halfway across the kitchen he starts mindlessly tidying: straightening chairs, gathering up cans and bottles to dump in the recycling, shuffling stacks of plates into the sink to soak. Their shared mess isn’t normally a point of contention (even if John has ended up on sole dish-duty as of late), but something about effective solitude always puts him in a domestic mood.

He sniffs at his work shirt, makes a face at the ingrained odor of chain restaurant kitchen, and decides a load of laundry is in order. If his luck holds the shared washer and dryer down in the basement should be empty. John strips out of his work uniform, pulls on a clean tee and lounge pants, and hauls his basket of dirty laundry out into the living room. He makes one last circle around the room looking for stragglers, plucking socks out of his collection of kicked-off shoes in the entryway and rooting out rumpled tees from between the much-abused couch cushions.

There’s a crumple of fabric lying half under the coffee table, but when John reaches for it his hands close around a line of cold metal snaps. One of Dave’s shirts, then. He yanks at it in annoyance, intending to dump it unceremoniously at the foot of his roommate’s door, but when he pulls it into the lamplight he’s met not with pilled grey cotton but a rainbow mashup of fat, coyly smiling cats.

Puzzled, he holds the shirt out at arm’s length, taking in the orgy of dumpy, jewel-tone felines in all their garish glory. What in the world…?

“Thanks,” rumbles a voice behind him, close enough that hot breath tickles across his part. “I was looking for that.”

John spins around, shirt held out in front of him like a shield. He’s met by a wall of patterned flesh looming in the entrance of the hallway, naked shoulders brushing against both sides of the doorway and head cocked to the side to angle broad horns into the room.

Tavros’s mohawk is mussed in a way that would scream sex even without the hint of his half done-up pants. He’s got his piercings in, gold bright in the lamplight. He yawns—black lips stretched wide across pointed incisors and jutting canines—scratches at a bare hipbone, and holds out his hand, as if to shake. John stares at it uncomprehendingly for a long moment—mind stumbling over the incongruity of the alien’s sharp teeth and blunt, carefully filed nails—before remembering the fabric clenched tightly between his own fingers.

“Oh, here,” he says sheepishly, shoving the wadded up cat disco into the large, grey palm. “Sorry.”

Tavros half-smiles in sleepy amusement, studded eyebrows arched high over the hooded slits of his yellow eyes. John expects him to melt back into the dark of Dave’s bedroom, prize in hand, but the big troll steps further out into the living room, forcing John backward. He tenses, uncertain of Tavros’ next move, but Tavros stops just shy of the sofa, straightening and cracking his neck with a groan of relief.

It’s a casual motion, mundane, even, but it makes the thick, corded muscle of his neck and shoulders flex and ripple in the dim lamplight. Half-clothed, Tavros’s alienness is all the more apparent, the musculature of his upper body curving and connecting in patterns just different enough from the familiar human physique to be profoundly disturbing. John tries not to stare, but the thick blackwork of Tavros’s many tattoos—the largest of which includes an oversize copy of his ancestor sign, a circle nearly as big as John’s head topped with two swoops that arch over his collarbones before disappearing behind the meaty curve of his trapezii—keeps drawing his eyes back to places he doesn’t particularly want to look.

No body piercings, as far as John can see. Not that trolls have all that much on front to pierce.

“Looks like they did a pretty good job on you,” says Tavros conversationally, snapping John’s attention away from the arc of Alternian script just above where his navel pointedly isn’t. “Came out nice and straight.”

At John’s blank expression he reaches up and taps at his nose stud in clarification. “Down at the ER. Who’d you have, Pravik? They’ve got an eye for that sort of thing.”

“Uh…” After everything that’s happened, John certainly wasn’t expecting pleasantries from his ex-best friend’s alien boyfriend (his shirtless, post-coital alien boyfriend), and it throws him for a loop. “I don’t… think so? I had, um, a human doctor.”

Tavros gives him a look that says that Dr. Pravik is human, numbnuts, and shakes his shirt out in two sharp snaps. Wait, is he just going to get dressed here? Right in front—

Yes. Yes, he is. John has to take another precautionary half-step back to clear out of his hornspace as Tavros bends over and shifts his weight onto one leg, the undone neck of his scrub top held wide open in front of him. John quickly averts his gaze—still managing to catch a glimpse of even more tattoos down the broad expanse of the troll’s back—eyes searching his immediate surroundings for somewhere modest to look without actually turning his back on the guy or baring his throat, eventually settling on the relative safety of the floor.

“Holy crap! Are those your feet?”

Where John was expecting grey flesh and gnarly yellow-orange talons there’s only the glint of metal plating and cloven toes vaguely reminiscent of hooves. Tavros’s sagging scrub pants cover most of the ankles and the backs of his heels, but there’s no mistaking the decidedly non-organic nature of the structures before him, the dull steel at odds with the gleaming gold scattered across his face.

“Well they’re not my hands,” Tavros mutters, brows furrowed and annoyance clear in his tone, but John’s too busy remembering back to when they first met, the muffled clanging noise the troll had made as he ran down the corridor.

“Fuck me,” he laughs, apprehension momentarily forgotten in light of the pleasure of solving a long-forgotten mystery. “I could hear them! Back in the hospital, you jumped over that puddle and… How high up does that go?”

He cranes his neck, as if to peer through the drape of the troll’s pants. Not up above his waist, obviously, but if Dave’s been dueling swords with a robotic dick he is so going to—

“Look,” Tavros says, expression darkening as he worms the shirt up over his hips. “I know you don’t like me, and I’m sorry if I’m, uh, reading this wrong, but if you’re trying to blackfirt, don’t. I am one hundred percent, not interested.”

John snorts and shakes his head, lip curling slightly at the thought. Something about knowing Tavros isn’t entirely made of muscle puts him slightly more at ease around the guy. “God no. Mutual disinterest, I assure you. Got all the misguided spades curiosity blown right outta me.”

(Boy but past John Egbert sure was a dumbass.)

Tavros nods, shirt high enough now that he can slip his burly arms through the brightly colored sleeves. “Good. So I can tell you to fuck off and quit staring and you won’t take it, as a come on.”

John looks up from his study of the crossed legs of the fairy pin-up perched on his left bicep, caught off guard by the angry click to the troll’s tone. “Sor-ry,” he mumbles, hands raised defensively as his brief flush of good humor seeps out into the ether. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t worry,” Tavros says, teeth flashing in a humorless grin as he yanks his shirt into place and does up the snaps with the one-handed ease of a lifetime’s practice. “I know exactly, what you meant.”

The tiny hairs at the back of John’s neck stand up at attention, the tingling sensation crawling slowly but surely across the whole of his scalp. He’s hyper aware of his own thinking, of the yellows of Tavros’s eyes, the cold sweat on his palms as his hands curl reflexively into fists.

“Is that a threat?”

Tavros quirks his head to one side, the movement strangely cat-like. “Pardon?”

John is no mouse. He will not be toyed with. “You’re in my head, aren’t you? Everyone’s had their shot at me over Dave and now it’s your turn.” He straightens to his full height, shoulders back and chin up. “Well fuck you and your stupid mind-whammy powers. If they were any good you’d be on Endor making Ewoks fetch tea for your tyrant queen, but you’re here helping bedbound Earthlings shit into pans. So what’s that say about you, huh?”

(Forget Past John Egbert, what the fuck is a shitpickle like Present J.E. doing picking a fight with a seven foot Mr. Actual Universe reject?)

John stands his ground, refuses to break eye contact (should he? fuck if he knows how it works). Tavros stares back down at him in, solemn as stone, brown irises shadowed and cold as the furthest reaches of space.

This is it, this is the moment where his frontal cortex gets sucked out through his occipital bone. Well, bring it on, motherfucker.

Bring. It. On.

Tavros bursts into laughter.

Like, actual guffaws, loud and undignified. John hesitates, brows furrowed and fists unclenching slightly, eyes darting to the hallway door with every other pounding heartbeat as he waits for the noise to draw Dave out of his well-sexed slumber, and for some reason this sets Tavros off even harder.

“Sorry. Sorry, I—” He doubles over, swiping tears from his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Your face. It’s like…” He pulls an exaggerated double take, eyes wide and mouth twisted in comic horror, the grotesque mockery broken by a string of mixed Alternian and English cursing after he bangs the curve of one horn hard against the wall.

“Look,” he says, rubbing gingerly along the base of his horn but still grinning broadly. “If it freaks you out that much, I’m fully registered. You could look me up, find out everything I can do.”

“Is that a threat?” John challenges, refusing to let Tavros dictate the terms and tone of this long coming confrontation, but the troll just blows him off with a wave of his hand.

“It’s the law. Failure to disclose psychic abilities is automatic grounds for deportation. Do you know how much additional certification, I had to go through, to be able to use my powers in a clinical setting?”

John honestly hasn’t considered it. He’s not sure how to even begin to reply, having never felt the need to defend his own education in this well-ranked by Princeton Review college town. He rolls his eyes, but Tavros still seems to pick up on all the awkward undertones to his silence.

“Thought not. Now, ah, could you move, please? Gotta grab my stuff.”

John steps aside with an exaggerated sort of bow, a courtesty that Tavros returns (wtf?) with a brief but unmistakable curtsey (no seriously what) before disappearing around the corner to the entryway. John expects him to just leave and be done with it, but the troll returns momentarily with his shoulderbag, helmet, and shoes in tow (John must have been seriously focused on his sock quest to have missed that mountain of crap ). He plops down onto the couch with a familiarity that makes John instantly suspicious about the location of the evening’s human-troll nuptial relations. The old girl groans in protest but holds steady under the troll’s weight, and John—pissed off by how awkward he feels just standing there with half the wind knocked out of his sails and his dirty shorts piled high in plain view—perches himself on the far armrest, long legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankle. Yeah, it’s his sofa, thank-you-very-much, he’ll sit on it however he damn well pleases.

“All right, I’m confused. You and Dave are dating. Dave used to be my friend until we had a fight about, uh…” He falters. Considering present company, maybe this wasn’t the best of subjects to bring up.

Tavros yanks harder than strictly necessary at the tangled knots of his shoelaces, making the cord twang ominously. “Oh yes,” he says, flashing another not-quite-a-smile in John’s direction. Even Tavros’s molars look like something out of a horror movie, and the snakebites sure don’t soften the effect. “I have been made, well aware, of all the various details.”

John shifts on the armrest, folding his arms so they’re tucked tight against his chest. “Right, so… Isn’t this the part where you, I don’t know, beat me up? Crack your knuckles and menace at me for a little bit? Slam me up against the wall and growl at me until I promise to stay away from your… your matesprit?”

John doesn’t know why he spits out the word with such venom. It just sort of spills out of him like a mouthful of phlegm, something sticky with infection coughed up from the depths of himself. There’s a joke to be made about waving flags in front of bulls, but he feels too weighed down by the heavy, bitter taste in his mouth to rise up to the occasion, and braces himself for impact. Tavros, however, barely even glances up from tying his shoes.

“Is that what you want me to do?” he drawls. “Is that what it would take, to make you feel better?”

“No,” John snaps, but this only draws another snort of laughter from Tavros.

“Liar.”

John frowns. “I’m not lying.”

“But you are,” Tavros smirks, sitting up and scuffing his heels lightly along the floor to check the security of his lace job. “And you really, really suck at it. That’s the sad part.”

“So what’s the truth, then?” he asks. “Because honestly, I have no idea what the fuck you’re even on about.”

Tavros turns his head to look at him. Slumped forward, elbows resting heavily on his thighs with his hands clasped loosely between his knees, he looks older, somehow. Grown up despite the childish pattern of his scrub top. The adult to John’s petulant teenager-- even though John’s pretty sure they’re around the same age—studying him and picking out every naïve thought, every inexperienced pound of puppy fat. There’s a tired sort of sadness to the slouch of his shoulders, a surprising softness to the curve of meat and bone, but also a steel coil of strength, a hard, battle-hardened pity that even John can tell falls far outside the boundaries of flush and pale.

“Y’know, most people, when they find out I use prosthetics, the first thing they want to know is how, I lost my legs. Humans, specifically. It’s like they think it’s something they have to know, in order to talk to me or, exist with me, in the same physical space. And I tell them it was, an accident, because that’s all they really want to hear. It’s all they’re comfortable really knowing.”

A long beat, heavy with things unsaid. Just when John starts to think he might have something gross on his face Tavros finally blinks and looks away, first down at his hands, then into a far-off, darkened corner.

“I had this friend,” he says slowly, “when I was very young. At least, she thought she was my friend. She certainly thought I was hers.

“We had other friends in common, we all even played together, but...” He grimaces, one hand raised in a vague ‘make of it what you will’ gesture. “The way she saw things, if you didn’t quite measure up to how she thought you should be, how she thought it was best for you to be, it was her right to push you until you did. And if you didn’t play along, if you got hurt along the way…”

Tavros’s hand sways briefly mid-air, as if on the edge of a precipice, before dropping heavily into his lap.

“Well,” he says darkly, “that was your fault all along, wasn’t it?”

John stares at the limp, familiar curl of Tavros’s fingers in the lamplight. How still they are. The dark shadows pooled in the cup of his palm.

(He remembers, for the first time, running down the stairs in the park, how he’d kept reaching out to keep a hand on the metal railing, like a touchstone, his rough palm making the metal faintly ring as he raced down, down...)

“But you tell people that,” Tavros continues, “you say ‘someone did this to me,’ and they feel guilty. Even if they weren’t there. Even if they’re the ones, who hurt you. And they hate you for pointing out something, about themselves, that they don’t like to think about. But if you say ‘I was young, I had an accident, I fell’…” He shrugs, shaking his head. “They don’t treat you much better, but at least they don’t go out of their way to treat you, any worse.”

Tavros stands up, and John notices, for the first time since they met, since he started coming around and taking John’s place in Dave’s priorities, how he braces most of the weight on his hands as he rises, swaying briefly before his knees lock and he settles onto his feet. The couch creaks in shaky relief, but John is still on edge, unable to exhale. His muscles feel like they’ve locked up on him, and he can only follow with his eyes as Tavros shoulders his bag and picks up his helmet. The expression on Tavros’s face is no longer distant, teeth bared in barely suppressed revulsion as he peers down at him. Even the cats seem to regard him with laughing contempt.

“I know your type, John. You’re a liar because you think you’re fresh shit, but you’re not. Your kind’s as old as dirt, and you don’t ever change. You think you’re the catalyst, some bright spark, at the center of everyone’s everything, but you’re not. You’re the hand on the leash, and you want to get bit, just so you have an excuse to yank, all the harder.”

“But I,” he rumbles. “ am not some beast that you can beat.” He bends forward, just enough to hover at the edge of John’s personal space. “Don’t hurt Dave again.”

John wants to say something in response, wants to spit back something smart to undercut Tavros’s big and bad routine (because really, how could anyone in scuffed white New Balance sneakers and shirt out of the bargain bin at Joann Fabrics get off with that kind of bullshit?) but by the time he opens his mouth Tavros already has the front door half-open, flooding the entryway with blinding light.

“And John?”

Tavros is barely more than a sillouette, a dark, horned outline out of some ancestral nightmare, every hoop and stud glowing and the yellows of his eyes bright like the molten heart of an iron forge.

“That,” Tavros growls, “was a threat.”

He closes the door, leaving John alone with his basket of dirty laundry. John listens to him leave, the wooden stairs creaking distantly under his heavy footsteps, the rumble of an engine as he fires up his motorcycle and eases back onto the street. Eventually the apartment is quiet again, the air humming faintly with only the usual nighttime noises, but John doesn’t move.

He sits there in the half light, just breathing, for a long, long time. If his thoughts have any order to them it’s a system he can’t quite make sense of, a disjointed pattern of firing neurons turning back on themselves in endless mobius loops.