Birthday Bash
By: Dragoon-sama

Dave stood in the doorway and just took in the sheer horror of the room in front of him. There were gaudy baby blue streamers draped across every wall, the tape failing on the paper in places so the artistic loops sagged unevenly. There were balloons—so many balloons—on the floor, at least a foot deep, and a few drifted past Dave's feet into the hallway beyond now that the barrier of the door was out of their way. Was that a smuppet cake he saw on the table with eighteen candles stuck in its impudently protruding chocolate rump?

In the center of the chaos, two figures shifted guiltily. Or rather, John shifted guiltily, his eyes going from Dave to the mess around him and back. Meanwhile Karkat scowled as he crossed his arms, wrinkled his nose as if he were about to say something, before twisting to give John a look, then he turned back to uncross his arms and stare at Dave again. This repeated about three times before Dave allowed himself to move, careful to keep his poker face smooth as he waded into the room and let the door shut behind him with a soft click.

For a brief second he swore he saw Cal sitting at the top of the rather mountainous pile of gifts on the table, but when he looked again the puppet was nowhere to be seen. Bastard hadn't even disturbed the balloons. At least Dave knew who to blame for the cake. There was no way John had lowered himself to actually bake something, and Karkat treated the oven like it was the most platonic of hated enemies.

There had been the one disastrous attempt at what the troll had insisted was a suitable replica of grubloaf. Unfortunately the attempt had been made on an Egbert and Vantas movie night. After the cooking area had been cleared of the rancid black smoke, Karkat had declared—in between rubbing at his watering eyes and breathing through his wheezing coughs—that he was banning his future self from ever setting foot in the kitchen again, he couldn't believe what a failure his past self had been, why hadn't you been paying more attention Egbert you sorry excuse for a pink monkey…

"Uh…hi Dave!" John chirped, actually putting a high pitched note into Dave's name. That was probably something he'd picked up from Karkat, who had a habit of pronouncing English words with Alternian sounds. "You're back early?" The questioning tone was because John was craning his head around, searching for the clock that was hidden behind the banner which had been lovingly hand painted to read 'Happy Birthday Dave Wriggling Day Asshole'.

Dave took another step into the room, balloons billowing up to bounce off his chest. "Well," he drawled, "Seeing as I hadn't actually stated when I would be back, I must be right on time."

"Fuck!" Karkat exploded. He kicked out sharply to send more balloons spiraling through the air, some of which were knocked to the side as he flailed his arms. "I told you this was a fucking stupid idea, Egbert! That moronic Bro-lusus was just pulling our collective leg so hard it's twice as long as Eridan's girly-ass scarf. We could created the newest event in the freak-show Olympics; the long step three legged race! One step and you're over the finish line—god damnit stop that Egbert!" Karkat had become the center of a minor wind vortex, balloons battering around in it as John giggled into his hand.

With a shake of his head, Dave finished closing the distance between himself and Karkat. He batted one of the last airborne balloons at John's face, and smirked slightly at the resulting squawk from the accurate hit. Then he turned his attention to the flustered troll in front of him.

If trolls could blush, Dave imagined Karkat would have two bright red spots on his cheeks. Instead, Karkat's mouth was twisted in a half-snarl, his eyes were narrow and glaring at Dave's sunglasses, and his arms were crossed tightly across his chest as he hunched his shoulders forward. It was ridiculously adorable how embarrassed Karkat was over being caught doing something so silly, or possibly pitiable if Dave let himself use Karkat's favored terminology.

Either way, it didn't stop Dave from leaning forward to steal a quick kiss. It was slightly odd thanks to the troll's facial expression, but it was worth it for the whole-body jerk Karkat gave. His eyebrows flew up to his hairline, the snarl evaporated into a look of befuddlement, and his eyes flickered from Dave's glasses to his mouth and back restlessly. "I certainly appreciate it when my men take such good care'a me," Dave said, and put a bit of breathless southern belle into his voice because he was Dave.

"Well," John said, shuffling over and throwing his an arm over Karkat and Dave's shoulder each, "We were going to rig the doorway to rain this really cool mixture of popcorn and foil confetti—you have no idea how long that took to get enough man!—or well, maybe that was just me," John added sheepishly. "Anyway, we'll have to save that for some other time, because now you're here, we can totally have an awesome bro's birthday party!"

"That's a fucking stupid thing to call it," Karkat grumbled as he shrugged against John's arm. It did nothing to dislodge it, which caused his normal scowl to return. "Fucking stupid human tradition. Why do you even celebrate your wriggling day? It's like telling the world 'fuck you all I'm alive and there's nothing you can do about it!'."

"Sounds like a good reason to celebrate to me!" John said with a cheeky grin. "And hey, where's my kiss Dave? You're totally playing favorites. Not cool, dude." The attempt at an upset glare was ruined by the permanent upquirk to John's mouth.

Dave leaned over and paused an inch from John's face. While Karkat's gray skin didn't show color changes very well, John's Washington White was a beautiful pallet for the rising pink color. "That was…wrong of me," Dave said lowly. John's laugh sort of ruined the resulting kiss, but Dave reassured himself it was just because Egbert was a sap and couldn't handle Dave's sex magnetism.

"Come on, you totally got to open your presents!" John cried enthusiastically. So enthusiastically he lifted off the ground, even as he tugged the other two toward the table. "Or well we need to sing to you first, of course. Every birthday needs a rendition of Happy Birthday! Come on Karkat, I taught you the words, so you can't wimp out on me now."

"Hello no! I already told you trolls don't sing, and I'm not going to start now!" Karkat howled, trying to yank his arm out of John's grasp.

Dave followed the bickering pair, and couldn't even bring himself to deny the happy grin on his face. This was just fine, as far as birthdays went.

A/N: An old gift fic for Koorii back when this was her ot3 for a while. I never did figure out how to write Dave...