John chewed his lip thoughtfully, staring at his geography paper as he and Dave walked home from school. He'd read through the whole thing twice already, reading each of his teacher's comments.

"Dave, what did Mr. Segal give you on this assignment?" he finally asked. Dave only glanced at the page John was holding before he responded.

"I couldn't scrape up enough of a fuck to actually do that paper," he said simply. John stared at him in shock.

"But this essay counted double! What's your average for geography?"

"Somewhere between an 85 and a 90," Dave shrugged. John was floored.

"How!"

Dave just shrugged again.

All John could do was hurriedly stuff his disappointing 89 back into his bag. Hopefully it wouldn't affect his grade too drastically. It was one of the lowest grades he'd received all year in that particular class. Unless you included those couple times Dave had convinced him to skip homework for a night in favor of going out to do something seemingly pointless and random. He'd gotten zeros for them.

Before entering the Strider house, Dave snaked his arm around John's waist. John settled his head against Dave's shoulder and they walked in like a young couple taking a romantic walk in a park at sunset. As they passed Bro's room, he looked up from what looked like a shiny metallic smuppet to say something. He paused when he saw John.

"Ah, Dave! I see you've brought your boyfriend home with you. Hello, Johnny, darling."

"Of course I did. I couldn't last a day without this cuddly bear, smoochie-bumpkin, my snookums, sweetie cake," Dave responded, not missing a beat.

John just sighed, "Hello, Dirk." At this point, he was used to the weird, possibly-unironic dialogue that those two kept up.

When Dave reached his room, he simply dumped his bag on the floor, which is where it would remain, untouched, until the next morning. John set his bag down a bit more gently, kicked off his shoes, then flopped onto Dave's bed. Dave turned his computer on before sitting next to him.

"Hey, you're not actually worried about that dumb paper, are you?" he asked. John smiled.

"Nah, it was practically the only thing below a 90 I got all year. It isn't really a problem." Dave grinned his genuine, unironic, totally only-ever-shown-to-close-friends grin. He took off his glasses and leaned forward to peck John on the lips.

"I'm glad," he muttered before John wrapped his arms around his neck, kissing him right back.

"Ehem." John jumped, pulling away from Dave's face. Dave simply turned towards the doorway, making direct eye contact with his brother's anime shades.

"Yeah?"

"I hate to interrupt the smoochie-bumpkins mid-smooch, but dinner is ready."

"Cool. Chinese or pizza?"

"Neither." Dave quirked an eyebrow at this obviously unexpected response.

"What's this? Are you implying that you've graced us with an actual, home-cooked meal?"

"What? Fuck no," Dirk said, seeming almost offended at the suggestion, "Indian food."

"Ah, and to what occasion do we owe this extravagant feast?" Dave asked.

"Jakey-poo's coming over in about ten minutes."

Dave nodded knowingly and stood, stretching before following his brother out of the room. He paused and looked back at John, who was still sitting, "you coming?"

John just shook his head, standing up himself, "You are the biggest dork, you know that?"

"Yeah, yeah, keep dreaming Egderp." But Dave grabbed John's hand after slipping a fresh pair of shades on and they went down to dinner together.