Musickind

A Homestuck Fanfiction

DaveJohn / JohnDave

Chapter Seven

You are John Egbert. That is all.

Actually, no, that is not all! You just had a really good time with Dave! Man, you haven't had this much fun since… wow, you can't even remember! Getting to know him a little better was the icing on the cake though. You're glad he opened up to you, but also a little upset you didn't do the same. Although, you guess it's better you hadn't! Tonight was all about and for Dave! Not you, although you sort of did steal the spotlight a little…

But now you're home again and you can finally relax. After all, you've got another busy week ahead of you! You kick off your socks and lie on top of your sheets for a while. Yup, today was a success. You can only hope the two of you will be like this for a while longer, if not forever! You're not sure how creepy you sound right now…

You seem to lose track of time, replaying the night over and over in your mind. A slight, mysterious breeze blows through, although you have no windows open, nor do you have your air conditioning on. It's nice and cool, though, so you drift soundlessly into sleep…

Over the next week, you are busy running around doing small concerts, interviews, and DJing on a few nights to blow off some steam. Dave's not the only one that works multiple jobs! However, your circumstances are different. He does it for the money, you for the break from reality.

Then, out of the blue, Dave gives you a phone call! Which surprised you, because all of your communications that happened during the weekdays have all been texts. You hoped you didn't sound too weird on the phone!

"Hel-"

"Stop," Dave's command stops you in the middle of your greeting. There's a pause from both ends. You from shock, and Dave from… what…? "Let me just say this before I change my mind. Because I almost hung up after the first ring. It took all my willpower just to keep the line on. Anyway. You. My place. Christmas Eve. Don't bring a present. You coming will be my present, okay?"

Woah, you're not really sure what to say! You've never been over to Dave's house before! Well, duh, you just met him and he moved from Texas, which you never visited either!

"S-sure, I guess!" You say, failing to mask your excitement.

"If you have nothing else planned, I mean. Sorry, forgot to ask…" he says, trailing off at the end.

"No!" You exclaim, probably a bit too quickly. Great, he probably thinks you're desperate now. "I mean, no, I don't have any plans! Um, but if you had any before that you're canceling because of me, I feel really bad!"

"Egbert, I am poor and have no friends, do you think I have any plans?" He says, quite nonchalantly. You're not sure whether to feel bad or not… considering Dave's cool-guy, lone-wolfish personality.

"Okay then! I guess I'll see you then!" You say, not even bothering to hide your enthusiasm this time.

"Great, I'll text you the address in a bit," he says. He sounded kind of… excited too? You're not sure, but his tone sure is different than usual! You've never really heard him sound excited before. "See ya… I guess." And he hangs up the phone before you could reply.

Um… wow! You guess that's all you can say. This is all so exciting! Wait, why are you acting like a hormonal teenage girl? This is just one dude inviting another dude, who happens to be his best friend since forever, to his house. It's not like this has never happened before, in the history of mankind.

You almost freak out when your phone vibrates and rings, grabbing your phone in midair after almost dropping it to an early death. You check the address and find out it's not too far from your place, which is pretty convenient.

You spend the rest of the week in pretty much the same stupor, whipping out your phone in record-breaking times every time you get a text message. Your manager has been wondering why you never answer her calls in the same manner, to which you simply wave off and walk away with your nose in your phone.

But the day's finally arrived! It's Christmas Eve, and you're standing in front of Dave's door, on the fourth floor, room thirteen. Wait a minute…

However, before you could finish wondering, you hear Dave's footsteps approaching. You look down at the bouquet of red roses in your hand, think that that was the stupidest idea you've ever had in your entire life, and chuck it halfway down the corridor. Jegus, you're dumb.

"Sup," Dave opens the door a bit unexpectedly. But you were expecting him to answer the door! Just not… so… quickly? "What are you looking at?" He proceeds to stick his head out to look in the direction you are looking in.

"Uh… Haha! Look, someone left a bouquet of roses in the middle of the hall! Someone must've gotten dumped or something! Ha… ha..!" Nice save. Dave raises an eyebrow, not totally buying the story.

"Just get your butt in here, Egbert," he says with a sigh and a more pronounced pursed lip. So you sprint inside before he could question the mysterious appearance of flora in his hall.

Dave's apartment was very simple, for lack of a better term. Or perhaps it's very minimalist! That's a bit of a euphemism, though. You guess he only buys the necessities and keeps his demands to a minimum. Nevertheless, his place could have passed for one of those fancy modern apartment homes.

"If you see a stray sock somewhere," Dave calls out from somewhere to your right. "I don't know how it got there."

"Did you clean up like 5 minutes before I came?" You ask, teasing back. He gives you something akin to a scoff.

"Do you think I'm some kind of douchebag that only cleans up his shit at the last minute before such a respected guest comes into his humble abode? Of course I didn't!" You turn his in time to see him duck below the counter, and you swore you could see a smile tugging at the edge of his lips. "It was 10 minutes."

"Simply breathtaking, Dave," you say with a shake of your head.

"I know, now go sit your ass down at the table, I've got dinner ready," he says, still hidden behind the counter.

"You made dinner?" you ask, a bit less cautious than you intended. However, when you see the delicious-looking chicken he brings out, you immediately want to take it back. You hope you're not drooling too much. "W-woah, that looks delicious, man!"

"Hell yeah, I made it," he says. "As in, I made the trip to the supermarket. Do you think I'm a fucking housewife? All I had to do was pop this baby into the stove for a few minutes. Also, it was on sale. Dig in and tell me your life's story."

So you do. And the chicken is delicious. You and Dave take turns telling each other about your lives and what happened after the gang split. You're still not entirely sure how that even happened in the first place. But the nice thing about all this was that it was like you two were never apart. The two of you share secrets, tell jokes, and make fun of each other just like old times.

The chicken is eaten to the bones, with no meat left behind. (Dave told you to think of those poor children in Africa and to eat everything. Everything.) You feel as if your jeans are about to burst open. Dave is looking as equally satisfied with his dinner, sitting across from you on the couch. How did you guys even end up here? You're too full to even think.

"I'll go clean up the dishes," you say, trying to be a good guest. Dave makes a feeble attempt to stop you, but you shoosh him and he rolls over on his side, muttering some crude remark you pretend not to hear. It takes you every ounce of energy you have left to heave yourself off the suddenly very comfortable couch and get those dishes to the sink.

When you reach the kitchen and dump the dishes in the sink, you notice a red piece of paper lying on the counter in the corner. You shouldn't… but… aw hell, Dave wouldn't mind, would he? So you take a quick peek. In bold words at the top, it reads "Final Reminder of Late Payment." You pick up the paper gingerly. The date was marked for today.

"Egbert!" Dave's voice rang out suddenly from behind you, making you jump. He grabs the piece of paper away from you and crumples it up, shoving it into his back pocket. He couldn't even meet your eyes.

"Dave, are you really in that much trouble?" you ask, placing a hand on his arm. He lets you hang on for just a moment, but shakes you off.

"It's nothing," he says curtly. "I can handle it."

"Dave, oh gosh, if you're in so much trouble, I shouldn't have burdened you with this visit!" Now you feel horrible. You knew Dave was in financial trouble, but you didn't realize it was this bad.

"Egbert, stop talking, you're giving me a headache," he says, running a hand through his hair. "I said I'd handle it. It's not like this hasn't happened before. And that time, I had two mouths to feed."

He's trying to assure you that nothing's wrong, but you just feel so awful. You're not even really listening to what he's saying. Without thinking, you blurt out something kinda stupid.

"Dave, move in with me!"

"… What?"

You grab both his arms and give him a good, long stare.

"Come live with me! At least, until this is over, and you can get back on your feet. I wouldn't mind at all! You wouldn't be burdening me in any way. I won't get in your way, and you won't get in mine! I promise! Please consider, Dave!" You're practically begging at this point. You willnot stand by idly and let your best friend go broke and homeless. Dave stands there contemplating for a long while. You let him think.

"Jegus, Egbert, you don't have to give me those puppy eyes," he looks away with a slight smile and you give him a back-breaking embrace. "Just a warning, I rap in my sleep."

So you decide to spend the night at Dave's house, sleeping on his couch after profusely refusing to let him sleep on the couch with you in his bed. You also rejected his shameless proposal to share the bed (as bros, of course) after seeing how narrow it was.

The next morning, the day of Jegu- you mean Jesus's birth, the two of you spend a few hours packing his things and loading them into your car. Luckily for the both of you, he doesn't have many belongings. You are not really surprised to find a bunch of shitty swords tucked away in his closet. Actually, you had to ask why they weren't in the fridge, to which he replied he needed the space for the chicken.

It only took two trips to get his things over, minus the furniture, which you promised to help him get as a house warming present when he found a new place, ignoring his death threats if you did.

When Dave stepped into your house, he was as equally in awe as he was in your phone and car. You're starting to grow tired of that, but it's okay! You don't have anything else, so you guess Dave's all awed out.

"Are you sure this isn't Ikea?" he asks as he gets himself acquainted with your guest room.

"Pretty sure," you reply, revealing your buck teeth in a smile and dropping off the last box in the room. "Do you need help unpacking?"

"Nah, I'll put things where I want," he says, surveying the room. "Find my zen." You leave him ironically chanting some sort of demonic-sounding meditation prayer or something.

You take a quick break by crashing on your couch and taking out your phone to check on messages. You reply to a few emails from your manager and a text or two from the concert hall director before closing your eyes. It feels as if you only closed them for a few minutes, but when you open them again, it's already dark. You guess being around Dave has distorted your sense of time somewhat. You also realize that may be the reason Dave has missed payments on his apartment.

You groan as you get up, having slept the wrong way. Your neck's a bit sore and you have difficulty turning, but you'll manage. You proceed to go down the hall to check up on Dave, but he's already standing in the middle of the dark hallway, so motionless that you have a mini heart attack and slam into the wall, scaring Dave in the process.

"Shit, dude, I almost knocked this thing over!" he grips onto the table with the glass display. The display that held a particular pink scarf.

"God damn it, Dave, what are you doing standing in the middle of the hallway without the lights on? Can you even see the thing in there with those shades on?" You walk up to him, hand still dramatically gripping your shirt over your heart. He turns back to the case.

"Sure I can," he says, with a matter-of-fact tone. "It has a bit of a glow to it. Must be from her Seer powers." You squint at the scarf. In all your years of possessions, you have never seen it glow.

"I think it's because you're related that you can see it glowing," you finally tell him, not really knowing what else to say. No profound words.

You two just stand in silence for a while longer. Finally, he puts a hand on your shoulder. You turn to him and are greeted with a gentle smile, one you haven't seen on those lips for the longest time.