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The crisp evening breeze settled in Hotdog's lungs, short-lived condensation from each exhale dampening his face.
The early night proved to have a chill, but the cold had never been much of an issue for Hotdog before. The wind was quite annoying, though, as it kept bouncing his loosely attached helmet buckle around his face.
He shoved his hands in his pockets, blowing out again.
"Hey, check it out. You can see my breath."
This earned a chuckle from Taunt, who had previously been busy with balancing on a log. "No way dude, that's absolutely wild..."
His body jerked with movement as his foot caught a break in the wood, hopping off and straightening his tank like it had never happened.
The two had gone off on Taunt's whim- (How plans usually were made) -outside the bunker to dick around away from the 'stuffy, boring serious guys' who had been having a meeting of sorts. And, as both Hotdog and Taunt agreed, they'd have better things to do than listen to Bonuspad drone about... about... well, Taunt never really listened in on the meetings, but he assumed it couldn't be that important.
"When you said 'do something fun' this really wasn't what I had in mind, dude," Hotdog said, kicking a stray pebble obstructing his path. Taunt grinned and leaned into his default, terrible posture.
"Aww, c'mon man!! Don't you wanna enjoy the great outdoors?" He gestured around to nothing in particular, as the woods were generally not the 'cool" place to be. Actually, it's probably the place you would go to get mauled by a bear or creature of unidentified origin, but Hotdog decided not to mention that.
"Are you trying to sell me camping stuff or something?" The twig-built boy shook his head, still grinning. "No, dude, just look around!" Hotdog did just that, and found nothing particularly interesting.
The moss, starchy at his feet, had traces of mud and other notable things, like something that greatly resembled shit if we're being honest. Besides that, the trees might've looked majestic come daylight; the sun peeking out from the tops softly, illuminating the otherwise gloomy place. It proved to be a different story under moonlight- Although some natural light did seep through the leaves, it cast a hazy, shadowlike glow apon the dense forest where trees were plentiful and mushrooms, flora and other oddities were there if you searched for them. Hotdog wasn't really searching, though. He mostly only saw Taunt nudging his gaze to a tree.
The bigger man just blinked at it, unsure what he was meant to be seeing. "Are you seeing things bro" Taunt, blatantly ignoring the previous comment, draped his arm around the latter's shoulder. "Dude, wonder why I brought you out here? Because you," he jabbed his thumb at the larger man, "Are my best pal. My buddy, right?"
Hotdog, weary of the fact Taunt didn't use any insults, immediately replied, "I'm not gonna help you drill a hole into that tree so you can crack it bro." Taunt's momentum seemed to have been lost for a second as his grin fell immediately. "I- what? Why would... what? Is that the first thing your mind went to? Actually, you know what, nevermind."
He wiggled his eyebrows, wanting to continue his train of thought. "Nah man. You're gonna help me pick up Banana, Alright?" Hotdog groaned. "Aw, dude, not this again!!"
It's not that Hotdog didn't want his two best friends hooking up- of course not, because that would be silly. It's just that Taunt's way of expressing his feelings often lead to embarrassment on the receiving end, and in one case, salmonella.
Hotdog has known Taunt for years, so he's guessing it'll probably be some stupid shit like carving 'Taunt and BP forever' on a log and bringing it to Banana's room. "So we're gonna take a log, carve out 'Taunt and BP forever', then bring it to Banana's room!!" Hotdog's only response to this was " ok" and choosing a good log because sometimes it isn't worth the conversation.
He kneeled over the fallen log that caught his eye, a somewhat light one he'd picked knowing he'd have to carry it to the bunker. He was thankful for his skateboarding kneepads for blocking the mud and suspiciously not-mud patches on the dirt.
Hotdog managed to heft it over his shoulder, the top of his sweater dampening from the moss infecting the bottom. Taunt usually did a bunch of dumb stuff like this, but in return, so did Hotdog. Out of the three, Banana Peel was ironically the one who had to make some good decisions to balance out the two- contrasting against BP's lighthearted, happy nature.
Hotdog threw down the log at Taunt's feet, nearly clipping him. "Watch it, butterball!" He scoffed, flicking out his pocket knife. He carried it around because he thought it was tuff (it was) but generally not that useful unless you wanted to stab someone, or, in specific situations such as the one they found themselves in, carve names onto a log.
"Dude, you're literally so skinny i couldn't hit you if I tried." Taunt's grin returned as he squatted down and focused his attention to the log. "Man, everyone's a stick compared to you." He hesitated for a second, hovering his unsure knife to the top side of the log, before decidedly piercing the wood. After three seconds it got stuck in the log.
"Just to be sure, you know what you're doing right" Hotdog leaned over Taunt, who was struggling with the weapon. "No yeah dude I'm good trust" Spat Taunt, using every inch of his chicken wing muscles to wrench the knife free.
Hotdog's mind couldn't help but wander- he could be in the bunker, with Banana and Taunt, eating a hot dog and possibly drinking some beer or something if there was any in storage but we'll see.
"Are you just gonna stand there, or are you gonna help me, lardass??" The man scratched his side before kicking the knife stuck on the tree. So far Taunt had managed to form the letters T and something that might be considered an 'A' if you squinted your eyes and were also looking at it from three miles away on a rodeo horse but otherwise he'd say Taunt was doing a pretty good job.
"Nah, see, if you kick it it won't hurt your hands so it'll get disloged." Taunt jumped to his feet and kicked too. "Man, that's such a smart idea." It took them around ten minutes to realize the knife wasn't actually escaping from its wooden prison, and was in fact getting moved around the unspeakable letter so it now resembled less of an 'A' and more of a §, much to Taunt's dismay.
"Man, what a stupid idea. Why would you say that." Taunt remarked as he finally gave up on the knife, which was probably pushed down so far in the log it'd be easier to just pull it out the other side. "Yeah, well at least it wasn't MY idea to carve some gay shit on a log in the middle of the forest anyway." Retorted Hotdog.
The two were now sitting on the ground against a tree, seemingly unbothered by the mud and moss dampening them. Taunt's long blue trousers had dipped into the forest mud a long time ago, so the crust forming at the bottom caused no trouble. It had been around an hour or two since they'd departed, and managed to get absolutely nothing productive done in that amount of time.
Hotdog leaned back into the tree, looking up at the sky. The sliver he could see from the leaves above was speckeled with stars now, the dim ones that easily reflected off your eyes. The breeze caused the effect of almost a ripple on the leaves- the occasional one catching his lazy glance as it fell softly to the ground, lay to rest apon its brothers atop smothered grass. The smell of wet leaves, although faint, became more clear now that the two were at rest. The feeling of accomplishing absolutely nothing during their time in the forest was a strangely welcome feeling.
Although Taunt was admittedly a bitch sometimes (often) (most of the time) (almost always) The two would probably continue hanging out forever, and both of them wouldn't have it any other way. Hotdog could feel the smaller guy's skin pressing against his- cold, shaking.
"Dude, are you really only wearing a tank top?" He asked, the earlier argument blown away along with the thoughts of the log- at least for Hotdog. He didn't tend to linger on things much at all. "Well, some of us aren't storing up fat for the winter like a penguin or something," shat Taunt.
Hotdog wasn't 100% sure if penguins did that, but they probably did so that's fine. "I really can never take any of your insults to heart or whatever seeing the shit-eating grin you have on, like, all the time." Taunt nudged him affectionately.
"You know, some people would say that's a charm point." Hotdog scoffed. "You mean 'Peeler?" Taunt shivered again, giggling a bit. "Check the tank, dude." He closed his eyes proudly and pointed two thumbs to his tank top, which read "GIRLS <3 MY SWAG". He was always wearing some dumb shirt, and this happened to be today's.
Some of the examples included; 'bitches love me for my soft fur and big dick,' 'christ is coming, are you swallowing?'' 'Real bros touch tips' and on one occasion, a shirt with the dead body of Loveshot he'd worn for about three hours before he got the shit beaten out of him ("why??? Why would you have that???" Loveshot had said) and one that just said 'gonorrhea'.
"Sure." Said Hotdog, a smile on his face. "You're just jealous cause you have no huzz." Taunt replied, leaned on him in attempt to steal some of his warmth. Hotdog pushed him off, ignoring Taunt's childish raspberry shot in his direction. "Alright dude, I'm hungry," Hotdog huffed, standing up and stretching out a bit. "Let's go back." Taunt laughed, hopping to his feet with a bounce and turning back to the orange-healmed man behind him. "Yeah, only if you catch me threetwoonego!!" "Hey, skateboards are cheating!!!" "No they aren't I'm just too coo- oh man" "HOLY SHIT DUDE ARE YOU OK" "Dude???????" "dude?" "mmyeahimguod" "haha ok cool" then they all exploded and died
Moral of the story is be cool and do drugs bye