"So what did you motherfuckers all up and do last night then?" Gamzee says jovially and goddamn, you can smell the smoke tumbling off him like it was trapped in his hair, or the folds of his clothes.
If you get pulled over by the police you are so screwed.
"Ahaha, actually we can't remember most of it." John admits nervously, and it's obvious that the clown freaks you both out.
Gamzee and Vriska grin in unison and it's the scariest thing you've ever seen.
"I mean, I tend to have a bad memory of my drunken shenanigans anyway but this is... even worse than usual? Like, I can barely remember... anything..."
Vriska high-fives the juggalo. "Plan Vriska-Wins-At-Vegas was a success!"
You lean forward, narrowing your eyes. "You guys had a plan?"
Gamzee grins and says "Yeahhhhh", rolling out the vowels and letting the word trail off, before sitting in silence. Everyone stares at him a moment.
Vriska picks up where he left off. "Of cooourse we had a plan! This lame-o trip was going to be a complete FAILURE if we had left it up to you doofuses!" She waggles her eyebrows disconcertingly. "So, we decided to... spice up the beverages a little. Shake things up."
You and John look at her with mouths agape.
"You're kidding right," John says. "you are joking, aren't you?"
"Haha nope," Gamzee chuckles, "we added all sorts of miraculous motherfuckin things to the drinks that you had been poured, when all you motherfuckers weren't in the way of looking."
"Yeah, we spiked your drinks so sneakily."
"You spiked our DRINKS?"
"Calm your tits Egbert! There wasn't anything lethal in there -"
"Oh my god," he turns to you, "oh my god we were drugged, what if the police saw us, what if someone realised, what-"
"Chill the fuck out bro," the juggalo rumbles, "we made sure you didn't come to no harm. It was only up and sopor slime, nothing heavy."
"Sopor slime?" you nearly yell, but restrain yourself with a poker face Bro would be proud of. "What the fuck - we didn't agree to this! That shit's - that shit's -"
"A motherfucking miracle," nods Gamzee, and you just wanna punch his face right now.
"No wonder we were so fucking out of it, I mean god fucking damn..."
John looks mind-numbingly shocked, and you can practically hear his pranksters gambit hit negative levels. His face is a mixture between fear and anger and you feel the need to soothe him a little.
"... at least we know now just how high we have to be, huh," you joke, flashing him a small almost-smile. He snorts for a second and then shakes his head frustratedly.
"That was irresponsible, Vriska. If we'd been caught, we would have been in so much... I don't know, so much trouble! We came to get wasted and have fun, not get high and have amnesia! You never think before you do anything!"
"Your trouble is, John, that you never have any fun!" she snarks back. "I saved this trip. I made it what it is! Maybe you should thank me!"
"Thank you? You want me to thank you for non-consensually doping me, losing my stuff and getting in trouble with the local authorities?"
"You had fun, right? I mean come on when else would you ever have the guts to do what you did, huh?"
"And what the fuck did I do?" His voice is breaking, on the verge of shouting. "I woke up with no money, jizz in my pants and no clothes. I can't remember 90% of the events leading up to where I am now. It turns out we stole 52 shopping carts and have to return them all or face tens of thousands of dollars as a fine. What! The fuck! Should I be thanking you for?!"
The car screeches to a halt. "You know what?" Vriska screams. "Get out. Get the fuck out! You're at your stupid love motel. Go pick up Harley and have sex with your husband and never invite me on anything again, you asshole!"
John goes red and looks like he's about to full on explode, but you take your cue and quickly open the car door, pushing him out.
"Nope nope nope. C'mon John before this gets any worse -"
"Don't fucking push me Dave I can get out by myself -"
As soon as you're out of the door the car screeches off, leaving a trail of dust and the faint smell of weed. Gamzee waves lazily out the window. John sticks his middle finger up at him.
You stand in silence, staring at the dust settle again.
As you've often said to your friends, words are your jam. You can maim, wound, humiliate and tease with syllables and vowels and consonent. That said, words may be your weapon but you don't know how to heal or comfort with them with them, and that's probably what John needs most.
You opt for a "You ok?"
He snaps "No I am not fucking ok Dave. I think I am the furthest from ok I have ever been."
You don't take offense, even though your migraine has turned into the mother of all migraines and you're tired and hungry and put-upon, because you know it's just John being unable to deal with a stress-hangover two times combo. You know John when he gets like this. He just needs to bitch it out.
You turn to him and open your arms in the universal gesture for quality bro hugs.
"I'm not having sex with you," he says viciously, and you flinch but don't drop your arms.
His face softens and he brings a hand up to his face. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." His expression crumples from anger to destitution. "She just, she still winds me up, and she still won't acknowledge any kind of responsibility, and I just - I just can't believe at one time she said she was going to change, I believed she'd changed -"
You aren't waiting any longer. Taking the initiative, you step forward and scoop him into a warm hug. Shit's so unironic you can hear your coolkid alter ego weeping softly somewhere but you don't care.
"-and now we have to fix what we did and pay money we don't have and find everybody and she just, she takes all your love and turns it into hate-"
"Shoooooosh," you say calmly, a technique you picked up from Karkat. Asshole he may be, but kid's a genius at calming down angry fuckers like John. "Shoosh, it's ok. Bro, chill. We got this. Shoosh. Don't need to fight with our exes."
He nods dumbly. "Yeah. Yeah. Ok."
You both stand in the parking lot, surrounded by other people's shabby cars and the cheap motel stucco, and you wrap your arms around him and let him work his anger out inside his head. Rose could probably do this faster, but you're Dave and you're all he has right now, so she can suck it.
"C'mon lets get Jade."