Author's Note: I'm afraid I don't own these characters. However, that doodle of a cover image is mine, no matter how much it sucks.
AU: No Sburb.
Summary: With no idea how it came to be, Dave Strider and John Egbert find themselves not only in each other's homes, but in each other's bodies. How will John handle the mind games of Bro? How will Dave handle the presence of Dad? In a generation of password locked everything, how will they reach each other and fix this?
Guess What I Just Installed!
"Dave? Dave, can you hear me yet?"
The blond's lip twitched as he watched his screen, wordlessly observing the flustered brunet that tapped rather uselessly at his keyboard for a few more moments before speaking again.
"Dave?"
Maybe it was time to quit messing around, he was starting to get bored with the silent game. Even though it was funny to watch John get more and more irritated with the piece of shit headset that he'd received earlier that day via mailbox, Dave wasn't looking forward to getting Dad Egbert involved even if it was over screen.
"Sup, bro. Is that a manga behind you?"
Just like that, the irritation was gone from the brunet's face, and his grinning expression practically filled the entire screen as he leaned toward the camera.
"Hey, it worked! Wow, can you talk again? That was so cool, I thought I'd never hear your voice!"
John looked exactly how the blond didn't expect him to. Of course, he had seen a picture before, but it was a tiny out-dated box from one of John's old QuiltWithUs! pages and too blurry to determine any significant features. But now he saw his friend clearly, noting the dark rectangular glasses, messy black hair, and somewhat large front teeth that he had already known about. But he hadn't known about John's somewhat chubby cheeks, nor how he parted his hair so strangely or had blue eyes. Dave wondered why he had never asked.
"Chill out, man, damn. I know it's a lot to take in, me being ill as hell and shit. Now move so I can check out that boy love manga behind you. Is it kawaii?"
Now it felt more like their typed conversations. John began to laugh, spinning around in his desk chair so that he could retrieve the subject of Dave's attention. "It's just Naruto, pretty cool, huh?" Dave's view of his best friend's room was suddenly blocked out by the orange haired ninja. "I've only seen a few episodes, but I found this beauty at a yard sale for a dollar! Maybe I can get into it- Wow, Dave, you need to clean your room!" The brunet was squinting into the camera, trying to decipher the dark outlines behind his friend.
Dave already knew what he was seeing; his bed sheets were rumpled and half on the floor, homemade desk cluttered with various items that mostly pertained to his taste in music, and there was likely plenty of laundry on the floor considering it was a week into summer vacation. But at least he didn't have any shitty swords or smuppets laying around.
"Only three minutes into video chatting with my most bro of bros, and he's nagging me about my room. That hurts right here," the blond said with a pat over where his heart sat.
Video chatting wasn't as awkward as he thought it would be. It was awesome to know that his best friend wasn't some sort of forty year old pedophile trying to lure him into a trap all of these years. Dave didn't tend to speak a lot, so this sort of verbal exchange really tested his voice, but John seemed to be doing most of the talking. Before he knew it, two hours had passed and it was beginning to get darker in his room. John's room underwent the same transition, albeit much less dramatically, but the excited brunet didn't seem to take any notice of it as he burnt through almost every topic that came into mind.
"... But I heard that levitating is actually impossible! Silly muggles, magicians specialize in the impossible!"
"Muggles? Dude, Harry Potter is the shit."
"Is that what it's from? I thought it just meant somebody who can't do magic, I didn't know it was from Har-"
"Not true, squibs can't do magic, either."
"-ter, huh? Ugh, I guess not. Squids don't seem to be the magical type."
"False, the Giant Squid, yo."
"What?" John's face scrunched up with confusion, but before he could try to ask again what the devil Dave was talking about, a knock sounded on his bedroom door. "Hold on, Dave, let me see what Dad wants!" The brunet left, and Dave stared at the tacky 'magic' chest that was in plain view from where the camera sat. He also took a glance at John's window to see if he could determine the neighbor's house. No such luck.
"Sorry, Dave, I have to go eat dinner! I guess we eat earlier than you Texans do, huh? Will you be online later?"
"I don't know, man, I'm pretty busy. Busting out these sick jams and raising the bar, y'know."
"Haha, yeah! Well, I'll talk to you later, Dave! See ya!" And then John was gone.
Dave cracked his knuckles and logged out as well, shutting down his computer before it overheated from the temperature as well as the exertion. He wondered if Bro was home yet. Taking John's words to stomach, the blond decided that he was hungry and began to get dressed so he could run over to the 7/11 for some snackage. It would probably be the best thing he'd eaten since school let out.
"Who were you talking to all day, son?"
John picked at his peas, mouth twisting as he considered his next words.
"Dave. And it wasn't all day, we only talked for a few hours! He looks- I don't know." Perhaps he had said too much. He didn't feel very secure giving out too much detail, his father would inevitably get involved if he offered enough. John liked to keep what he could to himself!
"He didn't look how you expected him to? Don't let your Salisbury get cold, John."
The youth winced but obediently cut off a thin piece of his steak for consumption. "I don't know how I expected him to look. I guess he looks like himself, though, whatever that means." But he doesn't. He doesn't look like he'd be my best friend, John thought while chewing.
"How did he look?"
"Uh. He had, um, blond hair and maybe he was tan, but it could just be the really bad lighting in his room. I think he might be tan, though, because he lives in Texas. He was wearing those glasses I gave him for his birthday, so that's pretty nice of him."
"That's good. Is David a nice boy? Did you get to meet his parents, too?"
John had to restrain a sigh from breaking through. He knew that his father was only asking because he cared, and the boy confessed that maybe he didn't talk to the man as much as he used to. But he was growing up, and John felt like he needed his father to be kept in the dark at least sometimes.
"Dave is so cool! Or, he thinks he is- But since he's my best friend, I guess he's right! And I didn't meet anybody else except for him." The brunet didn't get into telling his father that Dave had never mentioned parents and instead was being raised by his older brother. He didn't want to confess that he had been disappointed from not meeting the man who brought Dave up, even if he didn't entirely like Bro because of the small snippets that he'd managed to strangle from Dave. He seemed really violent.
"John, don't squish your peas. I baked you a nice vanilla cake with custard filling once you're done with your dinner."
Dessert? John really wanted to talk to Dave again! With an inner sigh, the boy settled in for what was going to be at least another thirty minutes with his avid father figure and the meals that took too long to eat.
Cheetos were God's gift to the less fortunate. Dave clutched a family sized bag of original Cheetos and a gallon of apple juice in his hands, striding off toward his apartment building before he dug into his prizes. The blond's change made an uncomfortable lump in the pocket of his favorite jeans, but that just meant that he could buy more the next time he was hungry. After all, Dave wore these jeans at least three times a week.
The apartment was quiet when he entered. Bro wasn't there when he left, and he didn't expect him to return while he was gone, but one could never be too sure. Dave tread casually toward his bedroom with eyes scanning and ears wide open. He arrived to his room without incident and sat down on his bed. There wasn't much to do now that he had already updated his comic the day before, and he had already watched all of the stupid films Bro kept around the apartment for ironic purposes. John wouldn't be online any time soon since he took forever to eat, but Dave didn't have to go to sleep at a certain time. He doubted that his brother would notice him breaking it even if he did have a curfew.
Scrolling through some old Cyanide and Happiness comics just for something to do, Dave settled in to eat his supper.
"Come on, Dave, answer!" John huffed as he called his best friend yet again, eyeing the time in the corner of his screen. There was no way Dave was sleeping at eight in the evening, not when he was on summer vacation, too! "Daaaave! Dave, please, I'm going to be sent off into the final crusade. This is our final moment, our last chance!"
"You're not leaving me knocked up, frig off, bro." The voice sounded without a screen to accompany it, though the dark haired boy was too excited, as well as humiliated, to care.
"Dave! I wondered why you weren't picking up, it's not even late in your time! Why aren't you on video?" Their call was already beyond a minute long. John wondered why his best friend in the whole world wasn't letting him see him.
"I just got out the shower, and since Bro decided to figuratively fuck the laundry, I'm air drying. Looking for a peek at the buns of Strider, Egbert?"
"Ew! No way, I'm okay talking to dark."
"Too late, man. You asked and receive." The screen suddenly flickered on, and John clenched his eyes shut while his nose scrunched playfully.
"You're worse than Omegle, Dave, quit!"
"Oh my jay, Egbert, don't be such a wuss. Sometimes you act a little too straight, hiding something?"
"I'm not hiding anything!"
"Then let me see those fine sapphires, sugar lips."
"I'm not opening my eyes until you promise you're not naked."
"I promise I'm not naked."
John groaned loudly, though from between two of his fingers he dared to slowly crack one eye open and peer out. Dave watched him from a few inches away, looking naked.
"You promised you wouldn't be naked! Gah! My eyes need soap!"
"I'm not naked, I'm wearing boxers and a sock. You can't even see my boys, Egbert. What do you want?"
"Geez, excuse me for wanting to see my best friend again! I would have been back sooner, but Dad doesn't let me waste food or leave the table without at least tasting dessert. And he always wants to talk." John inhaled until his cheeks bloated, noisily releasing the carbon dioxide to express his exasperation. "I mean, I like to talk, but not always with my dad! And he always wants to know everything about my friends. He was asking me about your parents and stuff." He dropped the comment casually, but in all honesty, John was a bit curious about Dave's parents and hoped that he would explain without more prompt.
These hopes were for naught.
"Sounds just horrible. A full square meal, dessert, and avid conversation with an interested, caring guardian? Say that one more time, I need to record you for CPS records." Dave's flat voice made the darker haired boy flush, but his cheeks filled up in a huff. The blond just didn't understand how it felt! It felt like he had absolutely nothing sometimes.
"Yeah, yeah, okay. Anyway, where's your brother at? I kind of wanted to see him!" All John could think of was a bigger version of Dave, maybe a man with different glasses considering he had been the one to give his best friend the ones he currently wore. Speaking of which. "And when are you gonna take off those glasses? I mean, I'm flattered you're wearing them, but I want to see your face! It's not fair that everybody in Texas gets to see it, but your best friend doesn't!"
"Bro's not here. And I don't ditch the shades, man. Like nobody sees my face without these. These are my face, John."
"Come oooon! Please, Dave? I promise I won't talk to him, I just want to see what he looks like! And that's stupid, I'm not nobody. I'm your best friend!"
"Bro's not here. The shades are."
John narrowed his eyes at his best friend, trying desperately to imagine what he would look like without the dark aviators. However, it was impossible considering he didn't even know what color Dave's eyes were. Maybe they were blue, like his, or they could be brown. The boy doubted that they were green for some reason. But he didn't even know how Dave's eyes were shaped, and he had no idea what condition his eyebrows could have been in.
"Fine, don't show me. But now I'm beginning to think we're not as close as I thought we were!"
"Did you want to be closer? And all this time you've been playing the straight card, Egbert, you rascal."
"That's not what I meant, and you know it!"
Bickering with Dave kept John's mind off of Bro and his friend's face, but the brunet didn't notice until Dave logged off.
"Frig!"
John was one funny kid. Dave shrugged on a tank top while he thought about his best friend, replaying small snippets of their conversations through his head and thinking about how weird it was that he could see his friend's expressions now. And how expressive he was; the blond wondered if John was just being dramatic or actually made that many faces during regular conversations between them. He'd have to wait a few more video chats to see, though Dave imagined that John would want to keep their chats to video at least for another week.
As he sat down, Dave accidentally rustled the bag of remaining Cheetos, recalling immediately how his friend had bemoaned the torture of enduring a heartfelt meal. The blond wished that he could be punished with real food and maybe some homemade dessert. He wasn't sure how he would deal with or feel about a guardian interested in his interests, but he imagined that it wouldn't be unbearable. As he fell back into bed, the blond popped his earbuds in and closed his eyes. What did he know?
He'd like to know how it felt to be John.
Dave sure was a character! John stretched his arms above his head, popping out the kinks that formed from hours of sitting. He rose from his chair and began to search for some pajamas, carrying them with him to the washroom. He thought about Dave while he showered. The blond wasn't exactly how he imagined a best friend of his to be, but he was a cool guy and had a cool little setup with him and his brother. In fact, if Dave was telling the truth about his older brother, Bro was almost never home and seemed to rarely seek him out even when he was except for some training. John wasn't positive what all of this training was about, but it must be cool to learn how to fight!
How would he like it? John considered his father and then thought about not seeing him so much. It would probably be really lonely. Then again, Dave saw his brother enough for the elder to leave an impression, so John was sure that he could see Dad enough to not get annoyed with him so much and probably have a healthier relationship. It must be cool to have so much independence and freedom! Toweling off and getting dressed in his soft cotton pajamas, the brunet bounced over toward his room and laid in bed to pick up on his manga time. But his mind just kept buzzing about Dave and what the blond might have been doing at that time. What he wanted, that was for sure!
He'd like to know how it felt to be Dave.
Blegh, I'm tired. New chapter likely for tomorrow.