i'm counting back the number of the steps

[heirterosexual]

Characters: John Egbert, Dave Strider, and anyone else who wants in.
Setting: Cafeteria! Saturday the 20th.
Format: Whatever goes.
Summary: Boys, candy, boys in pink skirts. John needs to get out more.
Warnings: Language, teenage boys being jerks to each other.



John was actually starting to get used to and almost enjoy his costume. The pants were a little tight but the jacket was actually sort of cool. He didn't pull the look off terribly well with his coke-bottle glasses, but thankfully he hadn't lost those to the costume since he sort of needed them to see. He had fallen into the habit of always having a candy cigarette in his mouth, to complete the look. He felt like maybe being in character would help his chances of getting candy.

So far it wasn't, really, but he had a good enough haul as it stood.

Currently, he was sitting at a table with his candy all strewn across it, sorting it and counting the individual pieces. He frowned.

"Why is it always banana laffy taffy? Banana is gross."

Comments

[heirterosexual]

John clicked his tongue at the braces, snapping his fingers.

"Well damn! I don't think I trust anybody here enough with orthodontics, even if my teeth are kind of dumb as hell." He frowned and ran his tongue along his overbite. "Guess that's probably what those are for, huh?"

[grislytragedian]

"You see why I haven't bothered trying to find anybody to take them off yet." He's not sure what's going to happen when the time comes for tightening or the inevitable need to have them removed but he'll worry about that some other time...

"But yeah, that's what they're for." Now as to how well they're working...well, let's just say it's a slow process. The Prospitian family teeth are apparently nigh untameable, even with fancy orthodontics.

[heirterosexual]

"Yeah no kidding," John made a face, running his tongue over his teeth again. He was suddenly almost glad for having stupid teeth. At least they weren't covered in metal that needed maintenance.

"I think I'm kinda glad Dad never had the bright idea of getting me braces."

[grislytragedian]

"Well to be honest, it was more my idea than Mom's. But believe me, if I had known that one day I would end up trapped in a nutso death tower, I would have just dealt with the wonky teeth."

[heirterosexual]

John blinked. "...Right, you have Mom instead of Dad because of the Lalonde thing. Wow this is still really confusing." He laughed a little. "Yeah I guess none of us really knew to foresee this kind of crap. Rude, Tower."

[grislytragedian]

"Yeah. And Jade has her bro, Rose has your Dad, and Dave had his Grandpa and Bec. Honestly, it's not as confusing as it could be. At least there wasn't something weird like...I don't know, Jade winding up as an adult and my Mom winding up as a kid or something."

"That would be really fucking confusing."

And what are the chances of something like that happening, I mean really? Guardians as players? AHAHA that's funny!

[heirterosexual]

"...Wow, yeah, that'd just be a mess." He scratched the back of his head. "It's really weird to imagine our parents as kids, anyway. Like, really weird."

[grislytragedian]

"See, not as much of a clusterfuck as it could have been. Thank Skaia for small miracles." Okay, that last sentence was a little too bitter to be anyhting other than sarcasm. "But yeah, it's hard to imagine my Mom as any age other than what she is. Though maybe it's just the drinking thing."

[heirterosexual]

John afforded an equally sarcastic bark of a laugh. Thank Skaia, indeed. He crinkled his nose at the mention of Mom's drinking, shaking his head.

"That's like Dad and his pipe. Stuff smells really gross."

[grislytragedian]

"Heh, I can imagine. It's a shame that something that makes a man look so distinguished is also really disgusting."

[heirterosexual]

"It does make him look pretty dapper," John agreed with a thoughtful frown and a nod of his head. "The fedora helps. I mean I guess my dad's pretty classy, really. Piano, fedoras, always in a collared shirt and tie-- I don't think he owns a single pair of jeans. Even his shorts are fancy pressed khakis." He shook his head with a funny little smile. "...Were, I guess." Wow, way to make yourself sad, John.

[grislytragedian]

Jolal kind of half smiles as he listens to John talk about his dad, at least until that last part. Welp.

"I'm sorry to hear that. The last part, I mean. Not the part about him being classy because that's a good thing."

[heirterosexual]

John scrunched his face a little and reached a hand back to scratch at his neck, shrugging his shoulders.

"Kinda an awkward thing to bring up, I guess. Sorry. Heh."

[grislytragedian]

John waves a hand in front of him. "Nah, it's okay. I don't think it's awkward." What would be awkward would be if he started asking a bunch of questions about it. But he's pretty sure the other John doesn't want to talk about it. He wouldn't really want to talk about it if it were him.

So obviously that means he should change the subject, right? This is how you conversation and discuss feelings, right? Yes. Yes it is.

"So assuming there actually was something, what about your session didn't suck total balls?" Sure, he read a basic overview of the alpha timeline, but as he's learned a few times before, it was missing lots of details. And surely, SURELY they can't manage to get on a depressing topic from here.

[heirterosexual]

Chuckling, John shrugged his shoulders. Well, at least it wasn't awkward for him. He thought it sorta was, given he was talking about his dead Dad and all, but maybe his opinion was a little skewed since it was his Dad and also not really a topic he wanted to dwell on. So Jolal was definitely on a good track with changing the subject.

He scrunched his face a little at the question, thinking.

"I guess once I got to know them the trolls were pretty cool," he said. "I'm pretty good friends with Vriska, and about as close to being friends with Karkat as a person can manage. The guy's a raging wall of angry word vomit."

[grislytragedian]

"Karkat issss..." Now it's Jolal's turn to scrunch his face a little, though in this case he's trying to remember something. "The one with the broken capslock key, correct? Types in grey?"

[heirterosexual]

"Yep. Though I'm actually about convinced that he just holds the shift key all the time. His capslock probably works just fine." A shrug. "He kinda seems like the type to go out of his way to make things difficult."

[grislytragedian]

"Haha, yeah he said it was fine when I asked him about it. Though since I have only spoken to him once, I don't think it's my place to agree with you about his character type. Especially since the conversation was mostly universe comparison and him being upset that I wasn't you."

[heirterosexual]

John made a face. "Wow he's so weird. He bitches about how annoying I am and then is upset that you're not me. Trolls are confusing." A shrug. "He's pretty hilarious overall, though. Kinda like a really grouchy kitten."

[grislytragedian]

"Well his name is KarKAT after all." He laughs a little, despite the fact that that joke was awful and likely done to death. "You're a popular guy though, apparently. Nearly everyone I spoke to on that day was hoping for either you or John Harley."

[heirterosexual]

"Beep beep, meow." John squirmed a little, shrugging. "Well that's cool and all, but also kind of lame because they're totally undermining the cool dude that's sitting here next to me." He gave Jolal a pointed look.

[grislytragedian]

He can't help but notice the squirming. Oh...right, in retrospect that was kind of an awkward thing to say wasn't it? He really needs to work on the 'thinking before speaking' thing.

"Mmm..." Oops time for a topic change again. "So who is Vriska? Aside from another troll. I don't think I've met her...just Karkat and two other girls whose names I never got. One of them had fairy wings and curly ram horns. The other had fangs like a vampire and one bent horn."

#things Jolal pays the most attention to

[heirterosexual]

Jolal was pretty good at the whole subject changing thing. But John didn't actually mind. He'd rather discuss trolls than his own state of popularity.

"Vriska's the one with the blue Scorpio symbol." He frowned. "...or, at least the one from my timeline's symbol is blue. She's got a spidery motif, and one horn like this," he held a hand up with a pointed finger, and the other with a curved c-shape. "And another like this," his hands moved to the other side of his head, one finger pointed and one finger of the other hooked over the edge. "I think the fairy with the ram horns is Aradia? She's all red? And I think the vampire one is Rose's friend, Kanaya."

[grislytragedian]

"Mmm...yeah, haven't met her. Or any other version of her because I guess there a couple different iterations of them running around here as well. But yeah, the fairy one was...very red. She had a time symbol on her uh...shirt......thing." Just what the hell was that, exactly? "I haven't seen either of them around in a while though."

[heirterosexual]

"Yeah, that's my timeline's Aradia, I'm pretty sure." Some kind of weird robe-thingie. Shrug. Fairies, man. John shrugged a little. "I don't know if I've actually met either of them, here or otherwise. I think Vriska and Karkat would be the only ones I'd recognize straight off the bat."