Snapchat was a sin, Dave decided, carefully angling himself upside down with his knees over Dirk's chin up bar, keeping a death grip on the handle of his selfie stick. He'd already dropped it twice, he didn't need to let the time between viewing John and Jade's last photos extend anymore, that would show the amount of effort he was putting into this, and that was the last thing he needed. His shades were taped to the side of his head and he grunted a little, letting himself hang upside down, face schooled to the perfect level of nonchalant.
He clicked the picture and sent it, and then something touched the small of his back. Dave shrieked, his legs flying up and he fell to the floor like a bag of rocks, the tape holding his glasses on slipping off. His shades skittered across the floor, one of his ankles copped the metal chin up bar, and there was a solid cracking noise as his head collided with the hard floor. He blinked up owlishly at Dirk, staring down at him with a cocked eyebrow that was somehow up above the rim of the pointed shades.
He probably practised that in the mirror. Asshole.
Dirk snorted. "You okay down there prince clumsy?"
"Fuck you," Dave said, except with his shirt bunching over his mouth it sounded more like "Thu-th ye". He spat the material out and tried again. "You okay there Sir Shut the Fuck Upsalot?"
"If I were your English teacher I'da flunked you," Dirk said, leaning on the wall of the hallway and making no move to help him up. To be fair, Dave was making no move to get up, one leg still propped up like an awkward great dane that's been caught digging in the trash, his eyes lolling backwards not quite able to get a proper fix on Dirk.
"So what, you'd fail me in pet names for assholes?"
"It should be Sir Shuts the Fuckupalot."
"And I'm sure the world of grammar thanks you for this sterling contribution."
Dirk bounced his eyebrows up again and rolled against the wall, picking himself up to walk back towards the kitchen. "Thai's on the way. Fix my bar and I might save you some," he called back without looking over his shoulder.
Glancing up, Dave could see the chin up bar hanging loosely from one screw. "That's your fault!" he yelled, ignoring the muffled response he couldn't even hear properly. First order of business, his shades. He reached across for them over the other side of the hall, and discovered his arms couldn't quite stretch that far. New first order of business - make his legs work properly again.
His phone lit up while he was trying to affix the bar back into the wall bracket - why did Dirk have to set it up so high - and he dropped it, banging into the side of his head again, and swore loudly. What sounded like laughter came from the kitchen, but that couldn't be right, that would mean his brother was feeling a human emotion. Wait, it was at his expense, order restored to the internal universe of Dave, all was well.
The photo was of John supporting himself on a mantelpiece with a coke can and a straw at a jaunty angle. There was still an ornamental cat resting by his ankles on the shelf and he was grinning, that stupid toothy smile Dave had officially known for too long. Bastard.
When he looked up again there was a chair sitting innocently under the chin up bar, still hanging from one bracket. Dave narrowed his eyes at the kitchen through the shades, but he couldn't see Dirk moving around. In some ways it was worse than living with Bro - actually, no, nothing was worse than living with Bro, goddamn.
Dave sighed and climbed on the chair, fixing the bracket.
Dirk took a picture of Dave sitting stock still with a bowl of pad thai on his head, a fork sticking out of his mouth, and John sent one back of Jade eating tofu with chopsticks and a puppy balanced on her head. Dave got one from Jade a few minutes later of John wearing a baby salamander as a moustache. Casey Anne probably wouldn't grow to be quite as big as her predecessor, but Dave honestly counted that as a blessing.
Reptiles and amphibians still make his skin crawl in a unique kind of way, like there more intelligent than they're letting on. Like puppets but worse, because he can't convince himself that there's a man behind the green curtain making it all happen.
(Just once, Dave would like to be the man behind the curtain himself. He's sick of puppetry.)
He sends John a video of Dirk doing push ups and eating pieces of chicken on every down, he gets a message back almost instantly.
EB: not a contestant! Foul!
TG: woah dude come on
TG: you and jade have been swapping phones back and forth like molly at a rave
TG: just cause dirk wants in on the rush too
EB: um then dirk can enter properly? You miss a turn you lose fair and square
TG: you can suck my dick fair and square
EB: no one likes a sore loser dave, it's ok, you don't have to win all the time!
TG: hey hey hey no
TG: a foul ain't a strike out
EB: you have literally never touched a baseball in your life
TG: are you accusing me of libel
EB: i'm accusing you of being an idiot
TG: i'm still in the race
EB: you tripped up
TG: hurdle's still standing
EB: doesn't count in a hundred meter sprint!
TG: what?
EB: you are so bad at sport oh my god
TG: shut up
TG: anyway i do not lose you just suck
EB: no you lose and you suck
EB: so there
- ectoBiologist has ceased pestering turntechGodhead!-
Dave flipped off the phone camera for him.
Looking across his bed, Dave could see John's jeans, wrinkled where he'd very obviously grabbed them off the floor that morning, socks mismatched - actually one of those was Dave's, the bastard - shoes discarded somewhere across the room, and his borrowed shirt riding up his belly where his back arched back so he could hang upside down off the bed. When looking over, Dave could see John's glasses were slightly askew and his hair was brushing the floor as he contemplated the meagre selection of plastic cases.
"Why is your movie collection so shit?" John mused out loud, discarding the DVDs and shoving them under the bed where Dave would be too lazy to retrieve them for at least two months or until the next time one of them wasn't available on Netflix.
Dave jabbed him in the stomach, and John made an undignified squawking noise, pulling himself to sit upright with ease. "A," he said, prodding his shades up his nose, "they're not shit, it's not my fault your cinematological palette consists of the idea Matthew McCoughnaheyneigh is the best actor ever and Nic Cage makes movies that are fun for all the family in an unironic sense, B, because fortunately we live in a world blessed by the internet and therefore Netflix, and C, fuck off."
"You're not a very gracious host," John said, flashing him a bright grin and adjusting his glasses so the arm was actually sitting on his ear and not hanging loosely next to it. The borrowed shirt slid down again and Dave internally sniggered. ("Dave I'm not wearing a minions shirt" "This is the highest honour John it's the nicest shirt I own" "Oh bullshit don't even start that with me-" "I am not the one who spilt chocolate milk everywhere, minions or bust.")
Dave flicked an elastic band at his face and watched it bounce off of his glasses. "That's cruel. I feed you, I bathe you, I clothe you, I let you sleep in my bed and this is how you repay me?"
"Our friendship means nothing to you, I get it," John said, dismissing him with a wave. "Your internet's out, dumbass, Netflix is persona non grata to this conversation."
"You're about to become persona non grata in this apartment," Dave said dryly, ignoring the twinge in his chest, instead folding his arms and using one sock-clad foot to toe John in the face. John made a spluttering noise and battered his foot away. "And Netflix-tan is very much persona grata in any conversation, in this one the only unwelcome thing is the reminder of its sorrowful absence."
John snorted and shoved at him. "Okay chuckles, what are we going to do this evening?"
Dave stood up and immediately stooped again, reaching under his bed and bypassing the forlorn and soon to be forgotten DVDs to reach for a powerboard, unplugging a now green lit battery. He stood up again and pushed his shades back onto his face, twisting his hips around to wave it at John. "I don't know about you, but I'm going up to the roof to use the juice in this on capturing pictures of the sunset."
"What?" John asked, giving him a confused look. "Sunsets? I thought you didn't like putting them in your portfolio?"
The camera was on the desk and Dave picked it up, checking the memory card and finding his flash box before inserting the battery into the camera with a cheerful motion. "It's not for my portfolio; there's storm clouds rolling in and the sunset through the cloud cover will look absolutely majestic as backgrounds for white font tragic quotes from popular authors that actually mean something entirely different. 'I would not make her a widow.'"
"I'd ask if you realise I tune out about half of what you say, but sadly I listen to everything, like a chump. You're so lucky you're my best friend."
John followed him up to the roof, ribbing each other back and forth, stopping for a sojourn half way up to complain about Jade policing everyone's firewalls, and then doubling back to get a tripod and apple juice. Thus armed they finally made their way up to the roof, the first rays of dull orange light starting to lower their way through the stormy cloud cover.
Dave set himself up, propping the tripod by the roof's edge and started some long exposure shots while John fucked around trying to tempt the crows with doritos. The first few shots were typically gorgeous, glorious, burnt umber sunsets with rays of light casting ethereally across the frame. The sixth, seventh and eighth had various, incredibly blurred, views of John's profile, hair, and glasses, because apparently crow chasing was more important than ironic art masterpieces. (As if Dave really cared)
Dave picked the camera up off the tripod and started following John around the roof, not bothering to change the exposure time for a few minutes so that John was a blurry mess across half the screen, crows transformed into shadowy demons with talons like Freddy Kreuger fucked the Slenderman, the scene uneasily spinning like something out of a bad shroom trip.
The rain started above them, small spatterings of sharp drips at first, then fat droplets that started to pound down with earnest, and Dave discarded the flash box with the food to stay dry, swapped the shutter speed back to normal, and kept taking pictures.
One shot managed to time up perfectly to the lightning, making the entire roof look as though it were bathed in daylight, a perfect summer storm with John laughing at the sky. The details on the picture captured the exact pattern of droplets on his glasses, the way his hair stuck together unevenly in the water drenching, and the places where that godawful t-shirt clung to him and folded in on itself.
Five dollars had never been better spent.
They spent ten more minutes out in the storm taking pictures while John huddled with the food and flash box, dripping water everywhere, and then Dave called it, sprinting across the roof to get back into the relative dryness of the apartment. There wasn't a single inch of him that was truly dry; he could feel water dripping along his eyelashes behind shades so blotted he could barely see, his jeans were heavy and uncomfortable making water pool in his socks and shoes, and his shirt was so wet it was transparent.
John sniggered with laughter, not looking much better, and threw a towel at his head. "You look like a drowned rat. A wet crow!"
"Yes, make fun of my waterlogged pinfeathers why don't you," Dave joked, rubbing his shades on his shirt and making a face when they came away more smeared.
John grinned and reached a mostly dry thumb up to rub away some water from Dave's eyes. "When they dry you can fly again, it's not like you're clipped," he joked, taking the shades and hooking them in the neck of his shirt.
"Yeah, never clipped," Dave agreed, ruffling through John's wet hair with a small smile.
John kissed him, slow and sweet. His lips tasted warm and of rainwater and Dave smiled against his lips. John stepped back again, laughing, water pooling at the frames of his glasses. "Go have a shower, you're soaked and freezing."