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Floyd stared at the calendar in his hands, small and cutesy, like a lot of the things in his room. A simple date that once didn’t particularly mean anything to anyone. Within spring, of course it was, a season associated with its pinks and its innocence, it was perfect for someone like him, according to everyone else. The twenty third of March.
His birthday.
That knowledge was public, as it was expected to be. Everyone wanted to know the band’s birthdays, and a few more extra ‘fun facts’ to sate their desire in bridging the gap between fan and celebrity. He did appreciate their thoughtfulness, and the letters he always got were certainly touching, but…
Floyd’s face twisted into a grimace, setting aside the calendar and hopping off his hanging wicker chair to slip out of his room and try to find his brothers. It was still pretty early in the day, and Singe’s polite ‘birthday gift’ was that practice would start later than usual. He supposed that was… something. It did mean he got to sleep in a little.
Though if his name was John Dory, he’d probably get the whole day off.
He stepped down the grand stairs in a slow pace, pushing away the bitter thoughts and glancing around to see if he could catch wind of any of his brothers - Bruce just stepped into the main area, having come from the west hall, and he perked up at Floyd.
“Floyd,” he stepped a little closer and offered a half hug. Warm, firm, but gone before Floyd could even get the chance to return it. “Happy birthday! I saw the letters for you at the front, you have fun sorting through those,” Bruce chuckled. “I do not envy you right now.”
Floyd couldn’t say he envied himself, either.
“Where… is everyone?” He dared to ask it, though he knew the answer. Bruce offered a weak shrug.
“Branch’s in the basement, as always, Clay’s eating something in the kitchen, and John- think he was looking for you, actually.”
At the sound of that, Floyd perked up a little. “For- for me?”
“Dunno what he wanted, but he looked excited,” Bruce smiled at him casually then gave a firm pat to his shoulder. “We’ll send your presents to your room, you can have fun opening those later.”
Right. Presents.
Floyd said nothing, tightening his smile in almost the same way Bruce had. The two stood in silence for a few seconds, before Bruce decided to take the initiative and brushed past him.
“Well, I’m off to take a shower - I’ll see you at practice.”
And off he went, making his way up the stairs and going where Floyd had just come from.
He breathed out through his nose, trying not to feel too disappointed. This was an annual thing, they did it every year, no reason to be surprised that the same thing happened again. Since there was nothing better to do, he may as well check to see what John wanted - maybe it was something about today? Hopefully? He didn’t want to be too optimistic about that, though.
He didn’t really have to wonder where his brother was. If John was anywhere, it was typically the dance room. Floyd made his way over without much expectation, but he was still curious; if that even meant anything these days.
As soon as he reached those cursed double doors, Floyd reached up and pulled one of them open to peek inside- and went rigid at the sound of a familiar song blasting, with John breezing through the moves like it was his nature. He was like water, fluid and knowing, and even now he smiled at the mirror as if it was his audience despite no one relevant watching. He didn’t need to smile, he was just doing it because he could. For a little extra challenge.
Even alone, John continued to surpass everyone.
One of the moves was a quick turn, and that forced him to notice Floyd. His eyes brightened quickly. “Floyd!” John snapped his head up and scrambled over, arriving in front of Floyd with a heavy breathlessness as he rubbed his palms against his shirt. “Wow- you’re here? To practise?”
Floyd stared at his brother, noting the beads of sweat dripping down his body, and his weirdly pale face. Had his eye bags always been that dark, or was the lighting doing something funny?
“..I’m here because you asked,” Floyd answered him softly, reaching down to grip his tail. “For… was it because of my birthday, or…?”
A beat of silence, and John faltered briefly.
“It’s- is that today?” John glanced over to the clock on the wall, eyes squinting hard at the time, before they widened and nerves began to flitter on his face. “Hah- uh, wow. How time flies, right?” He grinned as Floyd’s own disappointment tried not to knock at his mind, before realisation struck him and he straightened up. “Oh-! Wait, this is perfect actually, you’re here! And it’s your birthday!”
The way he announced both of those things within context of each other sparked a small fragment of hope within Floyd, eyes softly widening as he watched his older brother spread his arms with a grin-
“Happy birthday, I’m here to fix your dance moves!”
-the hope shattered immediately, and he shoved it deep, deep into the pits of his gut.
“...Sorry?”
“The dance! The hard one, remember?” John grinned, then paused as if realising something. “Or- okay, more specifically, the one Singe was yelling at you ab- okay, more specifically, the one that Clay- okay, okay, hold on- this is coming off bad-”
Every word that spewed out of his brother’s mouth metaphorically sank Floyd deeper and deeper into the ground, fists clenching his shorts tightly while John scrambled to fix his unique choice of words. His heart felt heavy, pulling at his body inwards as Floyd stared at the ground.
“Our song! Debut! That one, right? With the- you know the one.”
Floyd’s teeth grit down hard together, and he forced himself to nod despite wanting to leave this conversation sooner rather than later. John had offered to help him with the dance before, yes, but he didn’t think this was going to be re-crafted into a gift of all things- he’d have liked to leave on the spot, but that wasn’t happening, because one sweaty hand grabbed his arm and pulled him inside his personal torture chamber.
“I was thinking, right? As a birthday gift, I could give you all my tips and tricks and make you nail your section of the song, yeah? Then no one would be mad anymore!”
Despite every part of him wanting to tell John that this was the last thing he’d ever want to do on his birthday, he couldn’t really bring himself to say no and just defeatedly nodded his head. John brightened, as if blind to Floyd’s visible despair.
“Alright! Let’s give it a swift run through and then we can focus on that portion. How's that sound?”
Horrible.
Floyd nodded his head anyway.
The song grated on his ears, but that was nothing new. John kept being his flawless self, and despite saying they were just going to do a quick run through and then focus on ‘that portion’, there was apparently a lot wrong with Floyd’s performance that they just had to keep stopping because John couldn’t help but point out the little mistakes.
“See- when you do this move? You’re putting a lot of pressure on the one leg, do it like this- see? Way better!”
“That’s- that’s good! Yeah! But, um, maybe try a little more oomph with your arms for that one? Like- like really wow the audience.”
“Your tail’s pretty stiff actually, huh? Well! Follow my lead, I got that thing nailed down.”
By the time they reached the actual problematic part of the song, Floyd’s face was running hot with embarrassment. John tried to talk him through everyone else’s parts, as if understanding their moves would somehow fix Floyd’s second left foot. Floyd knew where they were coming from, that wasn’t the problem.
John clearly just wanted to make extra sure Floyd wasn’t being silly about it.
As the song played behind them, John announced each of his steps in rhythm to the song.
“We go Bee, then you, then Clay, then Bruce slides iiin place,” John showed him like it was the easiest thing in the world, because of course it was for someone like him, prancing all across as he made the motions of where Floyd needed to be by the time John was supposed to be doing his flips, until he reached the default point and spread his arms out. “See? Easy!”
…Right, well, Floyd had already seen the dance multiple times. Singe had shown them all how to do it. It was the doing part he was struggling with.
At his lack of enthusiastic response, or any response really, John’s smile stretched wider as he reached over and took hold of Floyd’s arm, then pulled him over until he stood in front of John.
“C’mon, let’s start one step at a time! See- look, I take one step.” He hopped aside and repeated Floyd’s move, then looked over his shoulder. “Now you do it!”
Floyd’s face scrunched up like he’d taken a bite of a lemon, words tickling his lips like they always did- and just like always, they faded before it even lingered long enough to become a problem. Another defeated sigh, and Floyd simply repeated John’s steps.
Only he ended up a good half step behind John.
John looked down at him in confusion at first, opened his mouth to say something probably relating to Floyd’s inability to get anything right, but…
John walked until he stood behind his brother again, then took a side step to spread his legs a comfortable distance. “Floyd? Can you start from where I am, and… just- I don’t know, can I see how far your leg goes? Like, comfortably, not pushing it.”
Wonderful. His incompetence in dancing wasn’t the only thing that was going to get mocked today. Floyd fought off a twisted expression and simply listened to his brother, and took a step to the side. They both looked down to compare - and Floyd did note that John’s distance was almost double Floyd’s.
Short legs, long term curse. Had it since he was born. An affliction the rest of his brothers were fortunate enough to avoid.
John stared for an embarrassingly long time, and Floyd eventually pulled away from his brother to send him a questioning glance. John blinked hard and remembered they were still in the dance room, apparently.
“Oh- uh, well- maybe we can try putting some more jumping power in your little dash! That might fix things!”
Floyd breathed out through his nose.
Happy birthday to him, he supposed.