Okay so this is part of a johnhal rp im doing (as hal) with a friend. (Somebody put Hal in the character selection already, MSPARP finally did!) Its only the start but i'll keep updating every few days as we do more, okay? COMMENTS ARE 'PRECIATED
Hal sits alone on the floor, contemplating his new body and the different things he can actually do. He does not do them, though, because he is currently 'on probation' for almost spearing Dave with a katana yesterday. Speaking of Dave, he and Dirk are out at some predesignated location that Hal has no shitting clue of name or coordinates. He waits patiently for something to happen, such as, *ahem* a knock on the door, perhaps?
John switched his weight from each foot as he knocked on The Strider's door, waiting patiently for one of them to answer. He was here to one, hang out with Dave, two, congratulate Dirk on finally finishing Hal's body and three, to congratulate Hal on finally actually getting a body. "Helloooo? Is no one home?" John huffed as he knocked again, waiting for at least someone to answer the door for him.
Hal, as he is always tapped into the wire, sound, and camera systems around the house, knew immediately who was there and when they got here. But, being Hal, had zero experience with actually, like, talking to people. With a voice. His voice warbles really oddly because he's not used to it and it sounds like he's trying to impersonate a bird and carly rae jepsen at the same time. He hesitates for a minute but finally opens the door. "Hello, John." God damn it, he sounds so fucking weird. Like a trickster on crack.
John waited a while longer before he heard the door open and he looked up from the ground, coming face to face with someone he hadn't seen before, and immediately he suspected this to be Hal now. He had more of silver looking hair than white or blonde like Dirk's and Dave's was, but he was wearing shades like Dirk usually wore. "Hal..?" John asked slowly at first, trying to make sure he had the right person. "Hey Hal!"
Because of his tendency to run on greater levels than most humans, Hal was usually bored when he wasn't actively doing something. Now he has the capability to go to whole new levels of boredom, and he's at about an eight before John shows up and something actually happens, oh my god. "Yes. I rather like my new body, don't you? Dirk and Dave are out doing who knows what right now, I'm afraid. Sorry."
John nodded "Yeah, your new body doesn't look bad! Dirk did a good job on it." He spoke as he inspected Hal's new body with interest. "Dirk and Dave arent home? Crap.. well, could I come in anyways? I walked over here for nothing if I did." He pointed out as he looked back up towards Hals eyes.
Hal raised an eyebrow but shrugged, the casual movement looking to be more of a mockery. He's had so little shitting practice and his movements are all kinda robotic, but Dirk assures they'll get more fluid over time. "I do not see a reason to deny your entrance, other than the fact that I am effectively 'grounded', but that is not really anything to be concerned about. Come in, then." He steps back, opening the door and letting sockboy inside.
John shrugged and nodded, his movements flowing more easily as he had been doing them his entire life. "Thanks." He walked in past Hal, the apartment normal to him as he had been there multiple times before Hal had his body. "What'd you get grounded for?" He asked Hal, trying to make casual conversation, even if that could've been futile to do with the AR System.
Hal closed the door, shutting it a little too hard on accident (if there was even such a thing with him) and turning back to face John. "In all complete honesty, it wasn't my fault. Dirk must have misjudged my movement capabilities and had me strife with Dave before I was ready. Long story short, Dave narrowly avoided having a sword run him through." He says it with little emotion, although not because he isn't sorry it happened, but because he's just not good at that yet. Fuck.
John's eyes widened quickly at Hal's words. "Is Dave okay? God it's been forever since I've had a movie night with him..." he trailed off, talking to himself more than he was talking to Hal now. "Anyways, I'm sure Dirk will fix your movements soon enough, it'll be fine at sometime." He reassured, shrugging.
He raised an eyebrow at John's slightly self-centered talking, but said nothing as he's actually really used to this. After all, he mostly talks to Dirk, and Dirk just feels like he's talking to himself half the time. "I said almost, that implies he's perfectly fine. And my movements do not need fixing, it is merely that I must adjust. I've only been alive, per se, for less than 32 hours." He replied in his own dismissive tone, feeling more and more like John was just waiting for someone else to show up so he wasn't left talking to the damn robot.
"32? Oh yeah! That reminds me, I came to tell you basically welcome to life!" He laughed softly afterwards, offering up a small smile to Hal even though he found him to be a little rude so far. "So, do you have any hobbies so far?" He asked, figuring he could atleast make subtle conversation with Hal for right now
Hal smiles back. He's not really used to interaction, like *interaction* interaction, not just talking to someone through stupid red text. Who is he kidding, red text is awesome. But he's trying. "I figured that's why you stayed, at any rate. Thank you, by the way. I didn't really think anyone would bother, considering most of Dirk and Dave's friends think having another Dirk is weird, if not confusing. I myself find it a bit of the latter, but I understand his motives." He pauses for a moment. Even though he can breathe, he doesn't need to, so sometimes he ends up going on talkative rants not unlike Kankri. He's trying to fix that. "Hobbies, not really any except my usual ones of coding and mind-blowing breakthroughs in science Dirk says I'm not allowed to put on the internet. Although I suppose this sounds kind of stupid, I do like touching stuff." He says with a wider grin, running his fingers down the vinyl fabric sleeve of his undershirt absentmindedly.
For some reason, Hal's words made John's face heat up and he let out a shy little laugh as he nodded. "I can understand that, you couldnt touch anything before, so it must be nice to touch things now." he told him before thinking something up. "movies? do you like any movies yet?"
Hal fixed his attention back on the now-blushing boy (can you call someone a boy if they're older than you...?) with a question, but he held it back, instead continuing the small talk. "I liked movies before, I just couldn't physically watch them. I could see them, just not -" He sighs as his words prove futile to even himself. "Science is complicated, don't you think?"
John pondered what Hal said for a moment before shrugging with a nod. "I guess science is pretty complicated, it is more Jade's thing than it is mine, sadly." He told Hal, rocking on the balls of his feet for a moment or two. "Do you want to do anything? Until Dirk and Dave get back from wherever they went to?" He asked, figuring he could atleast hang out with Hal if Hal wanted to, so he could give Hal some more human interact besides the amount the Striders were giving him.
Hal smirked at the mention of Jade. They go together really well - but being based off Dirk, he's not interested in her like that. But they're really great friends. He snaps back to attention once again (he tends to space out a lot) with a raise of his eyebrow. "Something? Sure. We're doing that right now. Would you like to be more specific?" He teases a bit, with a cross of his arms. Younger than someone yet taller than them... this world's physics are weird. Like its science.
John playfully rolled his eyes at Hal's words, tilting his head up to look at him. John happened to be shorter than most people, he was even shorter than Jade was, but then again, Jade was almost Dave's height.. "I see you still have your endearing sarcasm" He teased back before he started to think about what they could do. "You can pick what we do for like a.. 33 hour year old birthday present!" He stated with a grin
Hal shrugs, thinking for a moment. He didn't really have to pause, but after a while you pick up human speech patterns and learn when to pause as if you're thinking. "You mentioned movies - we could watch one. They may or may not be a few hours - I suppose we would have to see for ourselves. And a proper measurement would be more to the extent of 36 hours, but... whatever." He shrugs again with a sharp smirk.
John raised an eyebrow at Hal's words, giving a laugh. "Oh well excuse me." He joked, patting Hal's shoulder as he passed him to go to the living room. "Look at you, Hal, already lying to me about your age. You said you were 32 hours." His voice carried a tone of teasing as he went to find them a movie, figuring Hal wouldn't know which ones were actually good or not as he never got to actually watch one.
"Actually, I've gone and lied to you again - no matter what, I am and walmart ((*always)) be 13 years old, according to Dirk." Hal says to continue the conversation as he flicks through his list of 'Dirk-approved movies' and 'list of movies never to let john make you watch' from Dave, just in case of this very situation which happens every time John hangs out with *anyone* according to them.
"This-" He pointed a finger between himself and Hal, "-wont work if you lie to me Hal." He joked as he picked a movie out, one of Dave's to be exact, and he stands fully then, showing the movie to Hal. "Figure Dirk won't like me 'killing' his buddy on the first day, so we'll watch one of the Strider classics"
Hal scans over the title and nods. "Sure." He consented, having seen it and not thinking it was that bad. "Do you usually eat snacks during a movie?" He asks, a bit eager to catalog what kinds of snacks John likes. Cataloging information is another one of his hobbies.
John nodded, sitting on the couch once he put the movie in. "Usually, everyone does" he agreed, skipping through the previews for other movies before the bright title of 'Meet The Robinsons' popped up on screen.
Hal held back a sigh. "Care to specify what *kind* of snacks you like?" He asked, not really paying attention to the movie - well, only about 38% of his attention was focused on it.
John laughed softly and shrugged. "Popcorn is good, candies, pepsi, things like that" he answered Hal, his gaze flickering over to the new Strider before back to the movie
Hal let it go with a half-assed shrug (or the imitation of one, which took a full and complete ass-ratio to make it look semi-realistic) and continued to both watch the movie, John, and the perimeters of the house.
John watched the movie cheerfully, actually enjoying this Disney movie, unlike most of the Disney movies out there, moving in his seat slightly as he kept feeling Hal watching him, but he let it slide, trying to not notice it
Hal, being Dirk, cross-analyzed the social capabilities and overall possibilities of *every* *fucking* *SCENE* and ended up writing a much better movie instead as he more or less waited for the credits to roll. No offense John, but he gets Dave's whining about how John forces him to watch stupid movies. Do Disney movies usually get worse every time you watch them?
Soon enough, the credits did start to roll and John turned to Hal. "You want to watch another movie or should we do something else?" He asked, waiting for the others answer
As you can probably guess, Hal has no desire to watch another movie, unless he hasn't seen it before. Which is an unlikely factor. "I don't think so." Something occurs to him and he grins a little darkly. "Well, I do recall Dirk having something upstairs in a safe that's red and green and on a stick." He's kidding, of course, he's not even allowed into Dirk's room (even though he knows the door's passcode), and being of Dirk's persuasion would never willingly lick the damn thing. But it's fun to tease.
John's eyes lit up at the mention, mischief running through them. "We should pull a prank on them! Like.. change their shampoo into dye or do the classic bucket above the door thing" He laughed, grinning in happiness. John did certainly love to pull pranks on people, even if that person happened to be his bestfriend or his bestfriends brother
Hal resists the urge to facepalm. "I'm not so sure they'd appreciate - you know what? I just wouldn't advise that. At least not on Dirk. Dave on the other hand..." He shrugs with a mischievous grin rivaling the noirette's.
John jumped up, reaching to pull Hal up as well, just a common motion- John would drag Dave up from the couch as well, it was normal for him to do it. "We should definitely dye Dave's hair like red or something, oh god his face would be priceless"
Hal froze momentarily as John touched him - physical contact was way up the list, far past where he was trying to make things work correctly right now. But because he's made up of lightweight materials he's only like 90 pounds and John kind of drags him along until he straightens himself out. "Yeah, sure. Just make sure it's washable or something because if you don't his hair could be pink as all hell for months and while I don't think he's capable of hating you there's a 93% chance he'd react very negatively towards that." He adds absently as he attempts to take his arm back.
John shook his head as he listened to Hal, still holding onto his arm as he tugged him to Dave's bathroom, he knew Dirk and Dave shared a bathroom, but they did happen to use different shampoos and conditioners, the reasoning behind it- Dirk didn't want to be caught in between pranks. "I'm pretty sure Dave would like to have pink hair, it's Dave but I think orange might do him well, or should we go for red? So if it washed out well enough he could have pink hair?" He asked as he grabbed up the bottles Dave used, humming in thought for a moment before he retrieved hair dye from his sylladex.
Hal sighs quietly once he gets his arm back, standing next to yet a good distance from John. "What I meant was this might not be a good idea. But I can already see you aren't going to listen, so go crazy with your red dye there. I had no physical part in this if Dave asks. You, he can forgive. Me, on the other hand... well, we got off on a rocky start." He shrugged.
John hardly noticed Hal's distance, busy mixing the contents of the hair dye in with the bottle of shampoo, thank god Dave doesnt have clear bottle or likes to pay attention to whats going into his hair- hes never had to, its the same stuff all the time. "Huh? Are you talking about what happened with you almost gutting him? I'm sure he isn't going to be angry about it"
Hal shrugs, not wanting to bring up Dave's outburst and Dirk's borderline violent reaction. It's not how they normally act, and it would only cause confusion. "Hmm." He says absentmindedly, watching John's smooth movements with interest.
John takes the shrug as a sign to drop it and then he picks up with mixing everything, screwing the cap on and shaking the bottle a few times before opening it back up and pouring a slight bit out, to just look at the coloring. "Huh.." John murmured more to himself as he looked at the dye, washing the little bit he put on his hand, down the sink before going to mix up the contents again for a while. "Should be good. It's not even that pink, so Dave won't notice."
Hal stared off to the side, caught up in his own thoughts for once. Why did Dirk even agree to this when we both know it's not going to work out in the end? It's not like he even took into consideration the fact that I'm always going to be thirteen and confused as fuck about sexual shit. Why am I even thinking this when there's someone else here? Well, for one he doesn't know, and for two it's not like he cares.
John managed to put back the bottles and put the empty hair dye back into his sylladex so Dirk or Dave didn't notice, then he turned to Hal, noticing the other looked to be thinking about something. He looked like a mixture between Dirk and Dave, odd enough, he was.. slightly appealing to John? More appealing than he would've liked, but still appealing. "Uh, Hal?" He asked softly, reaching out to touch Hal's shoulder gently, wondering why the younger was looking so dazed.
Hal (because he was indeed equipped with reflex tendons, I guess you could call them) admittedly jumped at the contact and then flinched away slightly, still not used to it. "Ah, yes, John?" He asks, zeroing back in on the here and now.
John retracted his hand and shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets, which seemed to be a slightly weird motion for him, as he usually talked with his hands. "I'm done with the hair dye, want to do something else?" He asked, suddenly becoming aware of how he was literally hanging out with someone much younger than him, okay only like 3 years, but still, Dave would never let John hear it down if he knew, but then again, who gave two shits?
Hal noticed the stifling of hand-related action, but didn't say bit back the urge to say 'Yes, I can see that you're done with the dye.' and instead shrugged. "'Something else' encompasses many things, although I can say that I'd rather not be in a small space like this." Claustrophobia in rare form.
John nodded slowly, reaching and pushing open the bathroom door, which he had closen for the soul fact that Dirk or Dave could arrive and see. "I get it, Dave's the same way." He tells Hal, walking out the door now back into the living room, it's just another thing that made Hal even more similar to the other Striders. "Video games, another movie, food, I dont know, anything I guess. I dont know what you like to do, it could be completely different from what Dave likes to do"
Hal had just decided to stop commenting on the Strider brothers' habits, instead following John into the living room. "Seeing as how I'm not much like Dave, I can understand why you'd think that, but Dave and I do both like similar things. Although I know the tricks and tools of at least 97% of video games out there, my hand eye coordination is still developing so I would probably be worse than you. And I don't much want to watch another movie. Food is good, I suppose - what do you want to eat?" He says with a shrug.
John shrugged at Hal's words, huffing out a small amount of air, he was wrong to just first handily expect Hal to be like Dave and Dirk, assertive in what they wanted to do, but of course Hal wasn't like them, having his own personality. "Foods cool too I guess. I usually eat pizza when im over here." He told Hal now, keeping Dave or Dirk from his sentence.
Hal shrugs once again. He's not really like the other Striders, not having had the rough lifestyle they were so used to. He was passive about most things, finding it easier to let them have what they want instead of argue. "Pizza sounds good. I think we have some leftover from last night in the kitchen." He gestures towards there, waiting for John to start walking so he could analyze the smooth movements and copy them, hopefully helping his walking skills.
John nods and takes one last glance at Hal before going towards the kitchen, his walking pattern much different than the Striders, as Dave walked with big fluid steps and just seemed to move faster, John took his time, moving at a slower pace but still making his way to the kitchen with ease. "Is it in the fridge?" John asked, already heading for it and pulling it open. Although John was almost regretting staying so long, not that Hal was boring or anything, he just seemed like a monotone Dirk, with a little mixture of Dave, John almost didn't want to leave. Like stated before, Hal was much more.. appealing to see so to say? His features were smoother, younger looking, both Dave and Dirk had a few scars on their faces, not enough to blemish their faces, but enough to notice if you looked hard enough, and Hal didn't have those, but he still was too monotone for John's liking.
Hal follows after a second, making a sort of blend of what he has and ends up with somewhat of a stride. He likes it enough as he follows John. "Yeah. There's like five kinds, help yourself." Hal was starting to feel awkward. Of course, John would probably warm up to him eventually, but Hal felt like he was doing something wrong. Like he wasn't entertaining or something. He felt like one of those weird toys in the store that you always end up asking 'yeah, but what does it do?' a million times over. It's not his fault, he's interesting, just not on the outside.
John nods and pulls out a piece of cold pepperoni pizza and bites into it, not even being able to hold back the hum of happiness he gave at the flavor- he hasn't eaten yet, it wasn't his fault! "So, anything you're into? Or did Dirk just give you like a clean slate so you could find your own interests?" John asked once he swallowed down the bite he had in his mouth, turning back to Hal. He was atleast trying to get some sort of conversation going as Hal didn't seem too keen on doing that
Hal follows suit, but he takes a slice of canadian bacon and pineapple and actually sets it on a plate and puts it in the microwave before turning back to John. "Sort of. I started with the same interests as thirteen-year-old Dirk, which wasn't much except robotics and my little pony. I've since then developed a taste in movies, food, textures, and personalities that I like and dislike." The microwave beeps and he pulls it out, immediately taking a bite of the cheesy goodness. He chews for a second and swallows before continuing. "So is there anything you want to talk about in particular?"
John watches Hal prepare his own piece of pizza before shrugging, absorbing the information he told him. "I guess I kind of just want to know about you, but there might not be much to know if you haven't gotten many hobbies or interests yet really." He hummed, shrugging again. "I dont know, we can talk about whatever you want to."
Hal continued to eat his food as he thought. "Well... I do like reading. I'm a bit of a writer myself." He pauses before shrugging. "Read any good books lately?" He asks as he experimentally munches on a strip of paper plate.