Digging into your sylladex you find:
One (1) casino chip of indeterminable nature
One (1) mobile phone, with seventeen percent (17%) battery life left.
You did have more before Terezi called you, but calls seem to deplete your battery quicker than texts. You hope you can find your charger soon.
Two (2) twenty dollar bills, hopelessly crumbled and rather icky looking
One (1) plain gold ring of an indecipherable purpose.
Looking at it kind of makes you feel... matrimonial. You'll ask John about it later.
One (1) small pink card numbered 1025, as well as a symbol that looks like a cassette tape printed onto it.
One (1) business card for... some kind of stone bust purveyor?
You look at the card more closely.
You're pretty sure it's for stone busts. You're almost certain.
A loud groan interrupts your inventory.
"Oh my god" you hear John say, in a tone that suggests he just found a decomposing cat on his doorstep.
"Sup?"
"I... um... oh god. I need. Some new... um." He trails off. "I need a spare pair of underpants. If you have them."
You pause. "Seriously bro?"
"Dude no, it's not..." He groans. "It's. It's jizz."
There's a beat of silence.
"Oh my god." You begin to laugh, incredulous snorts behind your hand. "You creamed your pants last night. Holy fucking shit that is the funniest thing I ever heard."
"Shut up you dickwad!" he yells.
"So you got some kind of action last night... musta found some kind of broad to get your grind on with-"
"shut up shut up shut up-"
"It was a broad right?"
"I will fucking cut you!"
You take pity on the tormented soul.
"Look, as luck would have it I have brought just enough underwear to cover your bare ass." You start rummaging around the room, trying to find your luggage. "I'm giving you these brotastic spamprotectors and we can go buy some new underwear later. You have any money?"
"Nope."
Found it. You pull a pair of underwear from your bag, awkwardly disposing of an empty vodka bottle.
"Fantastic. Do you even know where any of your stuff is?"
Gritting your teeth, you realize you only have one pair in your bag. What the fuck. Did somebody go on a panty raid last night or did you throw them off the balcony? For the greater good of mankind, you decide to give them to John. You guess you can live in panties for a day.
"If I knew do you think I would be asking you for clothes?"
"You wear my clothes anyway. Heads up."
You hook an arm through the doorway and throw the pants in his general vicinity, before closing the bathroom door.
"Thanks," you manage to hear him mutter. "I'm taking a shower."
You grunt, deciding that's not a half bad idea, even if the very thought of having to subject yourself to pressured water when you're still very hungover leaves you clutching your head. The violent hiss of the tattered showerhead as John turns it on is enough to make you want to crawl back into bed.
You do, burrowing under the covers and ignoring the smell of stale beer and morning breath.
You had a shower yesterday. It's not that urgent.
Just as you begin to get comfortable your phone goes off again. Swearing, you pick it up quickly answering "Yo."
"Oh thank god Dave!" a girl squeals and you realize it's Harley. "I'm so glad you picked up! Do you know where the Lucky Charms Motel is?"
"No fucking idea."
"Great because I'm stuck here right now and I need a lift. Can you come get me?"
"Fine, I'll try and find you. If I can find anything else, that is. What the fuck are you doing in a dumbass sounding motel anyway?"
"Look, you'll... you'll understand when you see me. I mean, it's embarrassing, kind of. Dave just come and get me already!"
You grin. "One heroic rescue coming up. Shame you picked the most unheroic guy in existence."
"Help me Davey-Wan Striderobi! You're my only hope!" Her voice crackles. "Oops, gotta go, they're waking up, I'm in Room 22B-"
The line goes dead. Your battery has fallen to 16.5%. You sit bolt upright.
"John! We gotta go get Harley!" you yell.
He opens the door, wearing a cheapass towelling robe and soaking. "Let me get dressed first."
"Nope. Gotta run through Vegas half naked at some point. It's a rite of passage."
"We might have done that already though."
"... point. Grab a shirt and lets get out of this hell forsaken dump. If you can find one."
The Vegas sun reminds you of home as you step onto the fading tarmac of the hotel's driveway. The noise of the traffic combined with the endless babble of people in general does nothing to help your newly forming migraine.
"Jesus dicks where did we park the car."
"Uh."
A quick sweep around the car park reveals nothing. John checks his wallet.
He pulls out a ton of casino chips and a business card that sells brass instruments.
You're pretty sure it's for brass instruments. You really fucking hope it's for brass instruments.
"Nope, still nothing," he says. "Shit."
"Dude. Where's your car?"
He flashes you a look that says now is really not the best fucking time.
"We've got to find Casey first. We've got to."
"Your piss coloured car can wait! We gotta rescue Harley!"
"With what? What are we gonna do Dave, just magically float over to this mysterious place that we don't even know the location of?"
You shoot him a glare through your shades.
"I have enough money for a bus."
"Are there buses in Vegas?"
"I don't fucking know."
"Well maybe you fucking should."
"What the hell, how the fuck am I supposed to know if there are buses in Vegas? That's an asshole thing to expect -"
The both of you are interrupted by a yell.
"Hey you!" a man's voice cries, "you kids! I need to talk to you!"
"Oh sugarlumps," John mutters and whirls round to face him.
"You're the idiots who stole all those shopping carts!"
He's dark skinned and is wearing some kind of ill-fitting cotton suit, with a comedy police tape tie that completely fails to be amusing.
"Haha, what?" you say. "Stole what?"
"Shopping carts. Precisely," he says, coming to a stop in front of you, "52 shopping carts to be exact."
"I think you've got the wrong guys," you shrug. He glares at you both, before reaching into his pocket for- for a gun-?
"Woah, shit bro we don't want any trouble-"
He pulls out a set of photographs.
"See these? These are evidence. Evidence. Look." He holds up a picture and yep that's certainly incriminating. It's a CCTV screenshot down some kind of alley, labelled "1 AM". There's you alright, in some kind of... wait is that a dress from Madoka? holy shit - and John as well, wearing the suit you'd decided on at the beginning of the night.
You try not to snort with laughter. The alleyway is filled with shopping carts. From end to end, just a sea of metallic wire and plastic handles.
John flashes you a furtive glance and you can tell he's calculating how much that would have boosted his prankster's gambit.
"That might not have been us," you say, pokerfaced. "I bet there's load of blonde girls in Vegas."
John struggles not to giggle.
"Don't pull that crap," the man says angrily. "I'm the Authoriative Reclamation officer and I deal with dicks like you daily. Do you understand how much it costs the state of Vegas to repair the damage idiots like you do to this place?"
You shake your head. "Are you fining us?"
"Damn right I'm fining you. $40,000."
John stops struggling to laugh and stares at him. "What?"
"I could also charge you with theft, seeing as you haven't yet returned the carts -"
"If we brought all the carts back would you reduce the fine?" he says quickly. "Please. We're sorry, we'll look for them and get them straight back to you with a written apology, and we'll pay the reduced fine plus 5% for damages."
Typical John, wouldn't back down from or apologise for a prank. Unless money was involved.
The man gives you both a long stare.
"Legally I would be within my rights to request full payment even upon full return of the missing items. However, I know you're about 10 times less likely to actually pay me the full amount anyway, and I suppose you could argue a case of excessive repayments..." He shakes his head. "If you bring the carts to this location by 6 pm latest -" he hands you and address for somewhere called Medium Mart - "I'll cut the fine to $6000 dollars and drop the court case, since you're doing my job for me."
"Deal." John says, and the both of you shake hands.
"A reminder that if you don't turn up, we have you on CCTV and already know your names and addresses from the hotel."
With that, the officer gives you both a mutinous look before briskly spinning around and stalking off.
John lets out a groan. "Great. Where the fuck are we gonna find $6000?"
"John. I think the bigger problem here is where the fuck did we leave those shopping carts."
He waves his hand vaguely. "Oh, I know that. I can kind of remember that part, actually." He gives you a tired smile. "Best prank ever."
You nod. "Well, we've got around 6 hours to get those carts to the shopping mall, and Jade is still waiting for us to rescue her like Rapunzel, but instead of a fairy tale tower it's probably some shit hole the other side of Vegas."
You spend a few minutes arguing over whether or not to catch the bus, before John lightens up and says, "Call Vriska and ask her to give us a lift!"
"No."
And yet somehow you find yourself calling Vriska, using up another 0.5% of your precious battery life. "John you speak to her. I can't. I just can't."
He takes the phone off you, rolling his eyes. You catch half the conversation.
"Hey Vriska! Nah it's me John. ... no ... no! Oh my god no. I didn't. If I did, why does everyone think it would be a guy? I woke up with Dave actually - No! Look shut up for a second I need your help! We need a lift to get Jade. Do you know where the, um, Lucky Charms Motel is? You do? Could you give us a ride? ... haaha yeah I walked into that one. Great. We're outside Skaia hotel. See ya in a bit. Bye."
You're only a little jealous of how easily John gets on with Vriska. In no way does your bromance feel threatened by how close they often seem to be. Nuh uh.
"People need to stop assuming things," he says, blushing. "Bros can sleep in the same bed."
"First rule in the bro book," you nod.
You pass the time waiting for the spiderbitch corroborating your broship with fist bumps and lame jokes. You can tell John needs it.
It's like he feels particularly homo right now, you think, and he just needs some biznasty brotime to reassure his girlish sensibilities.
You're interrupted ten minutes later with a "Heeeeeeeey baaaaaaaabe!" and the sound of a car pulling up. "Get in Mindfang, baby!"
John waves enthusiastically while you mutter "please stop naming your cars it's making me uncomfortable". You notice Gamzee in the front seat, creepy ass clown douche. Bros in the back seats it is.
