route_1065 | Shenanigans be in here

Dave inspects the bucket as he heads for Route 35. It's one of those supersized kid pails, the kind you give a little girl when she goes to the beach or whatever. It's lavender, with a Starmie on one side and red hearts scattered across the rest. Super ironic.

Inside the bucket are some standard supplies — super potions, antidotes and whatever, and a few bags of cheese puffs. (If Rose was lying to him about that for some reason, Dave... will... have a lot of cheese puffs to eat.)

He just hopes that things won't get out of hand this weekend.

As he approaches, he spots Eridan lurking near the entrance, as promised. Walking up, he does one of those coolkid headjerks in greeting.

Eridan smiles as he notices Dave arrive. He walks over to him and notices the bucket. Raising an eyebrow, he speaks with curiosity in his voice.

"W-what's w-with the...you know...human w-water carryin' dewice?"

And the key now is utter nonchalance.

Dave lifts the bucket to offer it to Eridan.

"The bucket? It's for you."

Eridan stares at the bucket and back at Dave, his face getting flushed very fast.

"A-are you serious?"

And now hit him with the smile.

"Yeah." He smiles, just a bit, and extends his arm, expecting Eridan to take the bucket.

... If he doesn't make a mess of himself first, anyway.

Eridan hesitantly takes the bucket from Dave and holds it close to his chest, almost hugging it. He smiles again, a much more happy smile than before.

"This is the nicest thing anyone's ewer done for me."

Nevermind that in troll culture something like this would be considered perverted or much more serious. Eridan will just forget about that and see this in a different light. Dave was proposing. He wanted to be Eridan's matesprit, right?

And funnily enough, if Dave hadn't heard about Gamzee, he'd be pretty sure that pretending to want to be his matesprit was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for Eridan. (And for good reason, too, he reminds himself. The guy's a douchebag, remember?)

He glances away behind his shades, then jerks his head toward the path in front of them. "We should get going." Hopefully Eridan will chalk the avoidant response up to shyness or something equally stupid.

"Right."

Eridan keeps a hold of his bucket to his chest and follows right after Dave, completely content with how the camping trip was already going.

He glances over his shoulder after a few moments.

"So where's your soul been lately?"

Nice conversation piece, Dave.

"My soul? Do you mean Soul or my soul w-when it w-was out a my body?"

Dave be more clear, he happens to have a moirail named Soul.

He turns around to walk backward, looking wry.

"I know where Soul's soul's been. I heard from him after Rose woke up. I meant your soul. The Shedinjas get you, too?"

"Oh. Yes, they did."

He stares into his bucket quietly. Aside from his own terrible nightmares, he's been in quite a few unsavory places and he'd rather not talk about them.

Dave debates pressing further, but decides that he doesn't want to know about Eridan's personal horrorterrors any more than he wants to know about Rose's.

Instead, he says, "Sorry I wasn't around. Rose got hit, too."

Eridan looks up and smiles a little bit.

"That's alright. I w-wasn't expectin' anyone to help me anyw-way. Since the only person who w-would hawe also had his soul taken."

At least he knows no one likes him, Dave thinks. But that's bad news for Dave, because it means he didn't expect Dave to help, either.

"You're pretty hard on yourself. If I didn't have Rose to take care of, I'd've helped you out."

Eridan blinks a couple of times, kind of surprised.

"You w-would hawe?"

Dave shrugs.

"Like you said, Soul was down for the count. Woulda sucked if you didn't get your soul back."

"Are you sayin' that you w-would hawe missed me if I had lost my soul forewer?"

The right answer is yes, but if he gives it too readily, it'll be suspect, right?

Dave turns to walk forward again with a little shrug. After a beat or two of silence. "Someone's gotta, right?"

Eridan stops and watches Dave walk off for a minute before smiling and hurrying up to catch up with him. It's been a long while since someone had made him feel accepted, liked. And frankly? He really needed to hear that someone actually cared about his well being.

Dave loves the heat, but he much prefers a bed over a sleeping bag, so he's glad when they're finally returning to Goldenrod, the sounds of the city greeting them before they've even crossed the threshold. He drops his bag beside his feet for a moment and stretches, looking over at Eridan.

"So this weekend didn't suck."

He's a little surprised to find that he's not lying.

Eridan notices Dave stop for a second so he puts his bags, and bucket, down as well, rubbing his neck.

"Yeah, I had a lot a fun."

He smiles. It was a great 3 days and he really enjoyed himself.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he glances at the ground. Now he'll go back to the hotel and call up Rose, probably, so he can tell her all about how this weekend went, and laugh about how Eridan's totally falling for it — hook, line and sinker, if you will. Rose will be pleased, because she hates the guy, and from what little Dave's picked up, who could blame her?

But looking at Eridan right now, even if Dave can't blame her, he can't agree, either. And hooking up with her to talk trash about breaking Eridan's heart doesn't really sound like an appealing afternoon, so for the moment, he lingers.

"Maybe we could do it again sometime."

"I w-would really like it if we could."

Eridan looks at the ground for a second though, rubbing his arm. After a moment or so of silence, he looks back up at Dave.

"Dawe? I hawe a question."

Later, when Dave realizes that he should have seen this coming, he'll blame it on the fact that he was absorbed in his own thoughts.

For now, he just glances into the city, still preoccupied by his inner conflict. "Yeah?"

Eridan looks to side a bit, a little nervous.

"W-well I'we been thinkin' for a w-while now and w-we get along pretty w-well, you know? Somethin' just seems really right w-when I'm w-with you."

He scuffs his foot a little and looks at the ground.

"So I w-was w-wonderin' if you w-wanted to, you know...be my matesprit."

He looks back up at Dave, hoping for a yes.

"W-we don't ewen hawe to be matesprits! W-we could be the human equiwalent if you don't like usin' troll terms. W-what did Soul call them again....Ah! W-we could be boyfriend and girlfriend."

What?

Dave's expression blanks flawlessly in response to shock, thanks to years of training from his brother. He stares serenely at the city streets ahead, as if in deep, peaceful thought, while inwardly, he does a triple fucking axle off the handle and sticks a ten-point landing on the mat of what the actual fuck just happened.

Wait, wait, wait. No, this is totally cool. This is exactly what Dave wants, right? It's better if Eridan makes the first move, because then he'll really look like a fucking moron when the big reveal happens. This is perfect.

Discarding all thoughts of remorse for the time being, Dave tosses a casual glance Eridan's way and asks dryly, "And which one of us is the girlfriend, do you figure?"

Eridan opens his mouth to say 'Well you of course' but he quickly closes it. Anything he says now could potentially screw everything up. He sighs a bit and shoves his hands in his pockets nonchalantly.

"I'll leawe that decision up to you."

So, Strider, what's the smart decision, here?

Being the boyfriend means holding open doors, carrying shopping bags, calling the shots — being the girlfriend has ironic value, means being treated and pampered, and has more impact when the gig's up (the line 'who's screwing who now?' comes to mind, and he files it away under 'fuck yes say this whenever possible').

Turning slowly to face Eridan, he shrugs a little. "Well, since you asked me out... I guess that'd make you the boyfriend."

Eridan stares at Dave for a moment. Does that...did that mean that Dave actually wanted to be with Eridan in a romantic way?

"So...that's a yes then?"

"If you think you can handle dating a Strider."

Dave cocks an eyebrow over the edge of his shades, his hands emerging from his pockets to offer a silent 'come at me, bro.'

"I think I can."

And with that, he comes over to Dave and hesitantly wraps his arms around Dave's waist.

So not the plan. Dave tenses up as soon as Eridan gets close enough to touch him. Hugging isn't really his thing, but after a second, he exhales quietly and puts his arms around Eridan.

He should probably be glad he didn't try to kiss him.

"I'm a pretty high-maintenance girlfriend, you know."

Eridan looks up at Dave, still hugging him though.

"And I'm a pretty high-maintenance boyfriend. I think w-we can manage."

Dave is about 98% sure at this point that if he told another Dave about this, the first words out of his mouth would be 'pics or it didn't happen.' He figures there's a likelihood of hearing that from Rose, too ('Photographs, or it did not transpire,' she'd say, looking both triumphant and vastly amused), so he pulls away from Eridan a little, keeping one arm around him as he leans down to grab his 'Gear from his bag.

He flips it open and holds it up above them, then glances out of the corner of his eye at his boyfriend.

"Do you guys say 'cheese' on Alternia?"

"A curse w-we say cheese, Dawe. It's not like the only food w-we hawe on Alternia is completely strange and alien to humans."

Eridan was kind of curious what Dave was doing.

Dave snorts.

"Just smile, you retard."

He glances up at the 'Gear, almost smiling, himself, and snaps a picture.

Luckily for Eridan, he managed to smile just before Dave snapped the picture. After the picture was taken, Eridan rubs his eye.

"You could hawe just told me w-we w-were takin' a picture."

He smiles though, showing that he was only playing around.

"Posed pictures suck anyway." If Dave had really been looking to get a good shot, he'd have done it when Eridan was least expecting it.

He puts his 'Gear away again and picks up his bag, letting his arm slide free of Eridan in the process. (It ends up wrapped around Eridan's arm, instead. The invasion of personal space isn't so bad when Dave's the one initiating it.) Straightening up and shouldering his bag, he jerks his head toward the city in invitation.

Eridan slides his arm away from Dave's and quickly gets his things before returning and slipping his arm back to where it was. He smiles and walks with Dave. This was probably the best weekend Eridan has ever had.

Arms joined and walking again, Dave lets himself lapse back into thought. Now he'll really have shit to tell Rose about. This was more progress than he expected to make.

Before he can second-guess his own motives again, he distracts himself.

"I'd say we should go out to celebrate, but I'm pretty fucking exhausted, not gonna lie. Sleeping on the table in the ice cream parlor doesn't really sound like celebration. We'll have to hook up later."

"I agree. I'm kinda tired myself. Maybe later w-we can go out for cappuccinos?"

"Sure thing. I'll give you a call later; I'm probably gonna crash in the room for a while."

"Alright. I'll stay aw-wake so I don't miss it."

After saying that, he hesitantly leans over and kisses Dave quickly on the lips.

It literally stops Dave's heart, and not in the ironic, breathtaking, butterflies-in-the-stomach sort of way. No, it's definitely in the deadly, horrifying, some-dude-with-a-knife-just-yanked-open-my-shower-curtain sort of way.

Luckily it's over fast, leaving Dave to exhale slowly and reflect on how unlikely it is that he would ever have occasion to think, 'Damn, I'm glad I lost my lip virginity to my sister.'

When he's finished with that, he says, "No need to stay awake; if you don't answer, I'll just call Soul to come kick you out of bed. That, or I'll come do it myself."

Eridan chuckles a little.

"I'm sure I'll answer. Ewen if I do fall aslep, I'm pretty sure I w-would be w-woken up by the call."

"For your sake, I hope so."

As they approach the hotel, Dave reminds himself not to open the door for them. After all, as the girlfriend, it's his prerogative to have doors opened for him.

"I'm a pretty light sleeper."

When they reach the hotel, Eridan notices that Dave wasn't reaching for the door so he opens it himself, stepping aside so Dave can come in first.

Dave steps through ahead of Eridan, pleased. They're off to a good start, so far as perks go.

"That makes two of us. Fucking John can sleep through a tornado and his house killing someone's sister. Me, I wake up when some bitch clicks her shoes together."

Shenanigans be in here

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now backdated to July 5th!

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