You are Dave Strider, and something very cold and very wet is seeping through your covers. You open your eyes, rubbing them and look over to the other side of the bed where Egbert has wiggled his way into the covers. Which wouldn't be a problem if he wasn't soaking wet. You kick him under the covers to wake him up, but he doesn't move. You kick him a few more times before just pushing him off the bed, but he still doesn't wake up. You look through your bag and find your phone, pulling up the loudest song you can find and blasting it in his ear. Nothing. Man, he's a heavy sleeper. You stand him up and shake him around a little. His eyes open slightly and he mumbles something. "Yo, Egbert. Wake the fuck up bro." You say, jostling him a little more.
"Whaaaaat?" He groans at you, and you can smell the beer on his breath.
"Dude, how drunk are you?" You say, holding him a little farther away from you.
"I dunno. I los' count o' the beers." He slurs, leaning into you.
"Woah, only shirt I have, bro." You push him upright again. "And why are you soaking wet?"
"Wha? I'm wha now?" He groans.
"You're soaking wet bro. Head to toe." You say, finally giving up and letting him slump on your shoulder. You'll just hang your shirt up.
"I think… I think I wen' for a swim." He says, giggling.
"Why the fuck did you go swimming? You don't have a swimsuit. You only have one set of clothes right now!"
"No, I got another set in… in my backpack." Egbert yawns. You set him against the wall and forbid him from getting in the bed. It's already wet enough. You ask him where he put his backpack.
"In the…" He pauses, thinking. "kitchen." You run to the kitchen and grab his backpack and pull out the clothes. You run back to the bedroom and pull Egbert to his feet.
"Come on. Go change." You push him into the bathroom. "Towel dry first!" You shout through the door. You realize you don't have your shades on and look around for them. They're on the nightstand by your bed. You grab them and slide them on your face. You're glad Egbert is too drunk to open his eyes all the way. People get way freaked out by your eyes and you do not want to deal with that. Egbert opens the door and stumbles out. You grab a towel and dry his hair, which he forgot about. You put him on the dry side of the bed and grab a pillow for yourself. You pull off your shirt and hang it in the bathroom before curling up on the floor to try and get some more sleep.
Someone is shoving your shoulder. And yelling at you to get up. You groan and roll over, hitting your head on something sharp. "Ow. Fuck." You groan, rolling back onto your back and opening your eyes a little. Your shades have remained on your face, thanks to some miracle, and you see Egbert standing over you with the biggest grin you have ever seen. "Ugh, Egbert, how do you not have a fucking hangover? You were drunk off your ass last night." You say, sitting up.
"I don't know. I don't remember half of last night, but I'm fine now. Anyway, I got pancakes from the breakfast buffet, and after we eat, we're going shopping! I wouldn't worry about it, except the weather says we're going to be snowed in for a couple days. No flights will be leaving until the snowstorm is over. And we need some winter clothes and groceries. Too expensive to eat out all the time." He says, pulling you to your feet and shoving your shirt at you. You follow him out into the kitchen, pulling on your shirt and glancing at the clock. Eight fucking thirty. You turn around and head back to your room, but Egbert grabs your arm and pulls you back. "Where do you think you're going?" You glare at him even though you know he can't see.
"It's too early Egbert." You try to get back to the room, but he pulls you into a chair and puts pancakes in front of you. He's stronger than he looks.
"Eat. Then we're going to get clothes and groceries." He says, shoving some pancake in his mouth and attempting to calm his hair a little, to no avail. As soon as you take your last bite, he shoves your wallet into your hand and drags you out the door.
"Woah, dude, slow down. Why are you in such a hurry?" You ask, checking your hair in the reflection of the elevator doors. Amazingly, your hair is perfect. Another miracle. Today is the day of fucking miracles. You lean against the door of the elevator and close your eyes, but two seconds later Egbert is once again dragging you out the door. You follow him out to the street, and you start to flag down a taxi, but Egbert stops you.
"We're walking. It's the perfect day for it." He says, starting down the sidewalk. You would stare at him as if he is crazy if he could see it. It's like, 45 and windy out. And you forgot your sweatshirt in the hotel room. You walk next to him until he gets to an ATM.
"Why are we going to the ATM? We have Bro's credit card." You say, pulling it out.
"It's an American card, we can't use it here."
"No, it's my bro's international card." You say, showing it to him. He looks at it and raises his eyebrows.
"That cab driver said he couldn't take it because it was American! Man, I got money out of my dad's account for nothing!" Egbert says. "Oh well. Come on, we gotta get clothes for everyone." He pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket. "I was gonna ask Jade to come with us, but I couldn't find her this morning." You follow him as he heads down the street.
"She's probably sleeping in like a normal person." You mumble as Egbert walks into a store. You lean against the wall as Egbert runs around the store like crazy. It's all girls clothes, so you take a little nap until he calls you over to check out. You swipe the card and sign Bro's name. He actually, legally changed his name to Bro. It gets a little awkward at business meetings, but most people just roll with it. After you sign the receipt, Egbert comes over and grabs the bags and drags you out the door. You follow him down to the next store, where Egbert makes you try shit on. You grab a white shirt with a broken record on it and some red skinny jeans. However, Egbert is not satisfied and makes you find two more shirts, a swimsuit, and pajama pants. You slouch around the store until Egbert is satisfied with what you've got.
After you've gotten all the clothes you need, you and Egbert barely fit in the taxi with all the bags. "We'll go back to the hotel to drop these off, and then we can go grocery shopping." Egbert says, yawning a little.
"Dude, we can do it later if you need some rest." You say, hoping he'll agree so you too can go the fuck back to sleep. You had forgotten how good sleep felt.
"No, I'll be fine. We really need to get the groceries so people will have something to eat for breakfast. Hopefully no one's up yet." He says and you groan. You just want to go to bed. You have never wanted anything more in your life. At least Egbert's not too bad. He does all the talking and doesn't expect you to say anything. You've only been half paying attention, but you've learned that his dad made, like, five hundred cakes when he was little, so he hates cake, he was way into pranks when he was younger, and while he still loves them, he's less into them. He really wants to be a computer programmer, but he didn't have the money for college, so he's playing piano and works as a waiter when he has to. He's obsessed with movies, but none of them are very good. He seems like a decent guy, but it's been a while since you actually hung out with someone, so you might not the best judge of character. He's not the worst person to spend time with, at least. The taxi pulls up to the hotel and Egbert hands the driver some money he probably withdrew last night, and stumbles out, you following him, grabbing some of the bags. "Oh, it's fine, I can get them!" He says, trying to grab them from you, but you pull them away from him.
"Hey, I want to help." He shrugs and pushes through the hotel doors and walks to the elevator, you following him. You get up to the hotel room and hold some more of Egbert's bags while he gets the hotel room key out and slides it into the lock. He pushes through the door and you follow him in, dropping the bags and turning to collapse on the couch, only to see a huge sweaty guy draped over it, with a small girl curled up on top of him. You turn back around and head over to the kitchen where Egbert is making a grocery list. You sit down in one of the chairs and lean over the table to try and get some sleep.
You doze off, but wake up not too much later to Egbert shaking your shoulder and pulling you up. You let him pull you out the door, wondering if he would notice if you fell asleep and just let him pull you around the grocery store. Probably. Oh well. Might as well help him as long as you're up. He leads you down the street to a grocery store called Edeka and heads over to get a shopping cart. The wind is picking up, so you tell him you'll wait inside. You forgot to grab your fucking hoodie again. You're too tired to remember this shit. You walk inside and are immediately drawn to what appears to be a bakery. Hell fucking yes. They have like, ten kinds of cake, tons of donuts, and some other shit you don't recognize. You're about to buy a donut when Egbert comes in. "Ready to go?" He asks and you nod and walk into the main store with him. You'll get one on the way out. You were planning to help him, but the moment you get in there, he starts running around trying to find everything, leaving you standing in the produce section. You shrug and start wandering around the store. You can't figure out where anything is, everything's in fucking German. After wandering around for a little while, you hit the jackpot. The fucking candy aisle. You walk down it grabbing anything that looks even a little bit good. Eventually you can't hold anymore and you run and try to find Egbert. You find him in the meat section, staring at the list. "Twenty steaks. TWENTY steaks. Twenty STEAKS. That can't be right." He mutters to himself. You drop all the candy in the cart and turn to him.
"BRO. There is a sick candy aisle here. It's like 60% Haribo, 20% other shit, and 20% chocolate. Come ON." You say, pulling at his arm.
"Hang on. Read this for me." He says, shoving the grocery list at you and pointing at something.
"Twenty steaks." You say, pulling his arm again. "COME OOOOON" You yell, trying to pull him along. "CANDY DUDE. CANDY."
"But… that can't be right. Why do we need TWENTY steaks? WHY?!" He yells, looking at you.
"I don't know, bro. Just grab them and come OOOON!" You start piling steaks into the cart.
"But… but…" He stammers. You get to twenty and you pick him up and put him in the cart and start wheeling it to the candy aisle. He's still freaking out over the steaks. He really needs to chill the fuck out and get excited about the candy. You push your way into the aisle and start grabbing more candy and piling it in on top of Egbert.
"Yo, Egbert, you gotta get out of the cart to make room for this sweet ass candy." You say, grabbing some chocolate and pouring them over him, trying to snap him out of his little freak out session. He slowly climbs out of the cart and looks around.
"Dave. You so do not need all this candy." He says, looking at the candy that's currently taking up half the cart.
"Hell ya I do. Don't worry I'll share some of it." You say, throwing some Kinder Eggs in. He sighs and starts helping you get candy. "And then we have to get apple juice. Is there anything else on the list we need to get?" You ask, getting about ten packs of Haribo gummy bears.
"Nope. Just anything you want."
"Alright, so Doritos and apple juice. They have Doritos here, right?" Egbert just shrugs.
You are finally heading back to the hotel with about 30 bags of groceries. You didn't know you had to bring your own bags, so you had to buy those, too. You are so mad that they didn't have Doritos. What are you going to eat now? When you finally reach the hotel room, you collapse outside the door while Egbert unlocks it. This is the most physical exercise you've had since that dude stole your wallet in Madrid. Fuck you are out of shape. You drag yourself in the door after Egbert and lie on the floor while he puts the groceries place. You hear a high pitched voice asking if he got any steaks, and a deep voice asking about fruits and vegetables and milk. "Dave, come help me make some breakfast. Or lunch." You groan. You have no idea how to cook, and even if you did, you really just want to sleep.
"Egbert, no. I'm fucking tired. I'm going to bed. I wore myself out jumping around, getting all that candy, which you should wait to give out until I divide it up, and carrying those groceries home. I'm going to bed." You say, pulling yourself into your room, hoping the sheets are dry by now. "And nobody touch my apple juice either!" You yell to the kitchen, climbing into bed between the sheets, and discovering no dampness, fall asleep.