Homebound

"JOHN! Great news! We have plane tickets home! The storm has cleared up, they've sent our luggage home, and we have tickets booked for six tomorrow night! Come on, JOHN get UP!" You groan, your head pounding. You shove where you think Egbert is. "Yo, bro, go tell your sister to shut the fuck up. Some people have hangovers here."

"Ugh, no, you go tell her. My head is in the middle of cracking in half. No more talking." Great. You're both hung-over. You shove him over until he's hanging off the bed.

"Come on, just go tell her to shut the fuck up and bring us some pain meds." Egbert groans but you hear him shuffle out of the room.

"Jade, for the love of God, shut up. And find some pain meds. My head is splitting open, and so is Dave's." He shuffles back into the room and collapses back on the bed. You close your eyes, trying to block out all stimuli. A little while later, Jade pads into the room and hands you each a pill and a glass of water.

"This is the only pain medicine I could find right now, and it only lasts about four hours. I'll go out later and try and find some longer lasting medicine, but this will have to do for now. I told the others not to be loud or disturb you, and I'll bring you something to eat when I get you those pills." Jade says softly. You swallow the pill, (goddamn why is it so big, it's like the size of fucking Rhode Island) and gulp down the rest of the water before rolling over and trying to get back to sleep. You hear Egbert gulp down his water and you feel the arm that he slings out, hitting you.

You spend the next couple hours between waking and sleeping. Your body refuses to sink into unconsciousness and it is SO. FUCKING. ANNOYING. Your head is pounding and your throat is dry, and you want nothing more than to be asleep. It's partially Egbert's fault. He's restless and he keeps hitting you with his arms. At one point you think he rolled on top of you. Around four Jade comes in and hands you both pills and a bottle of water each. "These will last for twelve hours, so you shouldn't need another one after this. I brought you both a banana, an omelet, and a piece of toast. I tried to find some cold packs for you, but they didn't have any at the drugstore. Do you guys need anything else?" Jade spoke softly, like she had experience with people who had hangovers. You groan and wave her off, swallowing your medicine and then taking a bite of your toast. It's plain, so you stick the omelet on top of it and eat them both at once. You save the banana for later and curl up under the covers again. Egbert is sitting up, eating his toast and staring off into space.

"You okay, Egbert?" He nods.

"I'm just trying to remember what happened last night. The last thing I remember is playing the Ghostbusters theme song. Do you remember anything after that?" You do, actually. You remember finally kissing Egbert. You'd thought about it since that night he came home blind drunk. There was just something about him… But you could never tell him. No way would he be happy about kissing you. You weren't someone people wanted to be in a relationship with. You were a one night stand. "Dave?" Egbert breaks through your thoughts.

"Oh, no. Sorry. Guess we'll never know." He finishes off his toast and slides back down under the covers. He falls asleep almost immediately, but you lie awake a little while longer, just looking at Egbert. You reach over and take off his glasses and place them on his nightstand before sliding your own down your nose and placing them next to your phone. You close your eyes and hope you can get some sleep.

Egbert wakes you up at four the next afternoon, and you spend the afternoon trying to fit all your shit in your bag. You eventually get all of it except for your candy, but you put that in one of the cloth bags you had to buy for the groceries. Everyone is running around the hotel room in pandemonium, trying to get their shit together. All through this, Egbert is ranting about how Nepeta ate all twenty steaks over three days, but you only half pay attention. You don't want to have to part with Egbert in Washington D.C. Maybe you can come up with an excuse to keep in touch. There is that super rich couple who need a piano player for their wedding. That will definitely work. You leave an hour before your flight is supposed to leave and take five cabs to the airport. You check in, go through security, and make it to the gate a half hour before six. Egbert goes up to see where your seats are. You sit down next to Jade. "So, Egbert tells me you're adopted." You say as she slides you a sandwich she bought after going through security.

"Yup. I'm from an a small island near the Galapagos. I still go out there to visit my old home. No one else lives there, so I might live there while researching nuclear physics. If I can ever get a scholarship to a college. I've been saving for years now, hoping that way I won't need a full scholarship. John suggested I go into law enforcement to make some money, since I'm so good with guns." She pauses to take a bite of her own sandwich. "I told him he should be the one in law enforcement. He loves investigating stuff. He gets it from his grandma. Before she died, she would set up little mysteries for him to solve. At least that's what Dad told me." She leans back in the seat, putting down her sandwich for a second and tying her hair up in a ponytail. You watch her, fascinated. How she manages to get all her hair into a hair tie is beyond you. John comes back as she finishes and she hands him a sandwich. "So where are our seats?"

"We got three sort of together. There are two on one side and one in the middle. So they are technically together." John plops down next to you. "And I call the window seat. I like watching the clouds." He says, stretching.

"You two can sit together if you want." Jade says.

"Fuck, you don't have to do that." You take a swig of the apple juice you bought at one of the airport stores.

"Oh, I don't mind. I like meeting new people! Plus I'll see John all the time at home. We probably won't see you for a while again after D.C."

"You won't?" You ask, disappointed. You should have known they wouldn't want to hang around you.

"Well, no. We don't have the money to travel right now. We only get bumped up to first class because we fly so much. So we can't travel anymore for a while now. We're gonna have to work at some restaurants to make enough money to pay rent. But I guess if you come visit us, then we'll see you." You breathe a mental sigh of relief. So they don't hate you.

You are so relieved, but all you say is, "Oh, cool. Maybe I will." You chill out at the gate for a little longer before they call for first class passengers and you head onto the airplane. You follow Egbert to your seats and slide one of your bags in the overhead compartment and stick the other one under the seat in front of you. John has already pulled out what has got to be the thickest goddamn book in existence. If that thing hit someone, it could fucking kill them. It's pretty old and it's got a really strong smell, but it's not bad. You pull out your gum and your phone and headphones. You stick the gum in your pocket and you pull up one of your older mixes. It's not as good as your new shit, but it's still pretty sick.

Egbert nudges you and you open your eyes, blinking. "We're about to take off, you have to put your phone up." You nod and shove your phone in your pocket and your headphones in your bag. You pop in some gum and then offer some to Egbert, but he shakes his head, so you put it up. When you look back up, he's reading.

"What are you reading?"

"Harry Potter. The seventh one. Have you read them?" You nod.

"Ya, but it was so long ago, I barely remember them. I'll have to reread them. I think they were the only books I voluntarily read. It's not that I don't like to read, I just can't focus long enough to get through one." You really did try. There was just something else you could always be doing, something that involved moving. You watch movies, but only if you have something you can do while watching, like wrapping your hands, or cleaning your wounds. You like mixing because you can move with the flow of the music, and you can tell what's supposed to come next. It's the same with skateboarding.

"I brought the first one with me if you want to read it." John pulls it out of his backpack and hands it to you."

"Really? Thanks Egbert." You lean your chair back and open the book up. You both read for a while but after half an hour you're only halfway through the first chapter. You groan and poke John, who has fallen asleep. "Hey. Egbert. Wake the fuck up. Egbert." You poke him a couple more times.

"What? I want to sleep."

"Read to me." You shove the book at him.

"Why? Read to yourself and let me sleep."

"I can't focus. Just read to me." Egbert takes the book and asks where you were. "Page 15." Egbert opened the book and started reading to you. Four chapters later, Egbert put the book down.

"Dave, I can't read anymore."

"Alright we'll watch as movie." You say, starting up the screen on the back of the seat in front of you. Everyone is asleep anyway, a movie would probably be less disruptive. You scroll through the movies, but you can't find anything you both agree on.

"We're never going to agree on anything." Egbert says, trying to select Ghostbusters again. You swat his hand away.

"We are NOT watching Ghostbusters. DUDE. You try picking that again and I swear I will punch you."

"Fine. I don't know what we're going to watch though."

"Dude."

"I'm not even close to Ghostbusters."

"No, bro, they have Pacific Rim."

"I've never seen that. Is it good?"

"Dude it's the best fucking movie ever. I can't believe you haven't seen it." You click it and plug in your headphones. You use the shitty ones that came with your iPhone so you can share with John. You hand one headphone to John and stick the other in your ear.

"Well I only have Netflix, so if it's not on there, I haven't seen it."

"Why don't you rent them from Redbox?" You ask, pausing the movie so John doesn't miss anything.

"I can't afford it. The Netflix isn't even mine, it's Karkat's. I still have his password from when we were roommates." You click the movie and lean back. "So what's the movie about, anyway?"

"Shhhh. You'll see."

As the movie progresses, you keep trying to spoil it, but John keeps shushing you. And then proceeds to talk and try to figure out the plot. You are both thoroughly annoying each other. "DAVE! Stop spoiling the movie!"

"Well then, stop trying to figure out the whole plot, EGBERT."

"Both of you, shush. You're going to wake Karkat, and that will not be a pretty sight. If you two don't shut it, I will come over there and make you shut up." Jade whispered from across the aisle. Her eyes flashed and you shut your mouth.

"Let's just watch the movie." Egbert says, and you nod, turning back to the screen. You both continue the movie until you feel Egbert's head drop onto your shoulder. You look over and see that he's sound asleep. You pull the headphone out of his ear and put it in yours, and you pull out your iPhone. You pause the movie, pull the headphones out and plug them in your phone. You start a playlist you downloaded off the internet from some guy, DiStri. Really talented with music and with electronics, he upgraded your iPhone so it would work a billion times better. You close your eyes and let your head fall onto Egbert's.