"It turns stuff into flying chunks of stuff!" ~Luke Dunphy from Modern Family, on why boys like explosions.
"For fuck's sake, don't stick your gun in your waistband! You'll blow your balls off!" Kobra had sighed in exasperation at Fun's bluntness, but Fun knew that it was necessary.
If he was to teach his friend how to make a proper, powerful explosive within a week, they had to establish basic safety rules, and that seemed to be a good opportunity to try and give him a few additional pointers on things like gun safety.
"The best way to deal with the danger of having other weapons around when you're making a bomb is to not have them, period, and that's what we're gonna do. Let's stash all our gear in the diner before we try anything." He was astounded when he saw that Kobra's only weaponry consisted of his laser and a single knife tucked up his pant leg. While he was well aware of his friend's kung fu skills, that was still far fewer arms than Fun would ever carry.
Kobra seemed just as shocked at Fun's weapons; he stood there and stared, increasingly slack-jawed, as Fun removed grenades, knives, razor wire, guns, detonator cables, mines, a retractable sword, brass knuckles, and all manner of other easily-concealed- and some not so-easily-concealed, like his trusty machete- weaponry, which he set in a pile on the table.
Fun grinned at him and led the way outside, to his favorite test site. With a final, disbelieving glance at the ridiculous stack of dangerous stuff, Kobra followed.
He was getting better at this, or so he hoped. Kobra had tried for four days now to cram his brain full of more knowledge than he thought he really needed (why not just tell him, "you have to put in this much of this stuff and a tiny bit of that, light it, and run?") but Fun had insisted he learn exactly what he was doing at all times and why. So Kobra spent every spare minute trying to remember the ideal ratio of saltpeter to sugar, and how to set up an IED using only things he could get from a Drac vending machine.
Kobra was just thinking that he would almost be ready for the surprise when Fun caught his wrist and said, "Whoa. Not so much black powder!"
He couldn't help but dislike having to learn all this from the very beginning, and being reprimanded like he was in grade school made his blood boil- but then, he had asked, Fun was just trying to make sure no one got killed, and that building had been an eyesore since they'd come here.
And all the exasperation in the world would be worth it to see the look on Jet's faceā¦
"Where are we going?"
"Just a bit farther," Fun replied with an eager laugh, as he guided the blindfolded Jet Star over the dunes.
"C'mon, what is it? What'd you get me?"
"You'll see in a minute, Jet."
While he was not particularly materialistic, Jet was hoping it would be something sufficiently shiny to make up for the birthdays he'd had in years past, which had mostly consisted of gunfights and fleeing, with the occasional unwrapped "gifts," things he could've gotten on his own but never wanted, like butterfly knives. He didn't blame his friends for this; it was all they could get him, and at least they acknowledged his growing older- Show Pony had taken to calling it his "celebration of not dying for another year."
Finally, at what felt like the top of the tallest dune ever, Fun pulled off the old rag that served as a makeshift blindfold and said, "Behold!"
Jet blinked in the blinding sun, squinting ahead; he thought he could see the outline of the hulking storage unit in the equally bright sand. "Why are we here?" he asked, disappointment and slight annoyance in his voice. Of all the things he'd been expecting for his present, it wasn't this.
The storage unit had once served as precisely that for the Drac headquarters nearby. But when the headquarters was attacked and destroyed in the 2017 Pig Bomb, the storage unit had been sitting like this, empty, without any doors or windows, being completely and utterly useless.
"This is the surprise," Fun told him, sounding far happier than Jet would think about an abandoned warehouse.
He looked back at it incredulously, and Fun called out, "Kobra! We're here!"
"Happy birthday, Jet," the Killjoy in question responded, from a few feet behind them. Fun whirled around, and Kobra grinned. "I snuck up on you." He pressed the button of a garage door opener he was carrying, and Jet quickly understood the nature of their excitement.
He had never really understood what their fascination was with explosions, but as the storage unit erupted into a massive fireball, he realized that this impressively incendiary display was just his friends' way of demonstrating their affection, as loudly, dangerously, and warmly as possible.
And he had to admit, it did look pretty cool.
