[The decision to sign up for Academy took a while for Ryuji to really wrap his head around. In the end, getting an education was something his mom would've wanted for him, and even though he's scared, really scared, that he's going to flunk out, he can only blame himself if he didn't even try. Which is not the Sakamoto style, by far.
And having never step foot in a building that was basically a giant nerd factory for knowledge assembly lines, the interior of the place looks slightly intimidating.
What the hell is Dave doing at the library? AND WHAT DID HE DO TO THAT THING?]
Oh shit dude I'm so turned on you know I love it when I get sent pics of balls
[wow, you can't prove anything, he is completely innocent!!]
there better be balls on that sign
[or not.]
[in any case, regardless of whatever signage Ryuji has prepared in the next five minutes, there's a knock at his door. it might take a little while for the fall school gear to grow on him, aside from the sharp-looking tie, but. whatever. Ryuji seemed serious about doing this, so he'll be serious, too.]
[Shit, 5 minutes is all he has? Ryuji better think of something, and fast, because he definitely didn't have a sign prepared, but he also doesn't want to be caught being a liar, so he hurries to dig through his BIAS-School backpack, or whatever they were given to be model students and rips out a page. Panics a bit, and then settles on just... drawing a picture of a giant dick.
And then he's there, and Ryuji had been so rushed to add a pair of sunglasses onto the thing to really drive the image home, that he barely misses the first two knocks. He's also struggling to figure out how to open the door and still prominently display his sign too, so that piece of paper is going straight up into his teeth to free his hands, and as he opens it.
His mouth opens. It's a really subtle jaw drop, his paper going flying down to the floor. Ryuji doesn't look nearly as prepared as him, the tie is loose and not even done up properly, and the cardigan isn't buttoned. The gnome got the measurements right on the first try, but Ryuji wanted something a little looser, so it sort of just... hangs off his body, but that doesn't matter.
Nothing really matters, because it's hard to look at his boyfriend and not think that he's the most gorgeous thing he's ever seen in his life. And boy, is Ryuji flustered.]
Uh... er... h-hi.
Edited (double negatives might lead someone to believe that he's not actually incredibly turned on rn oops) 2018-11-28 02:26 (UTC)
[he had largely been kidding about the sign, so to see such a well rendered dick in shades floating to the floor like that, to see Ryuji going out of his way to indulge him on even the silliest of offhand requests ... well, that sort of leaves Dave with two things to be flustering about right now. the wang sign in itself is pretty fucking great. the sentiment is what really makes it.]
[he bends over to snatch up the fallen paper, intent on saving it and yoinking some bulk frames out of Fantasy Costco, because this art project's going on the wall. god, poor Roxas?? and when he straightens, he catches sight of Ryuji, and suddenly, there's the second reason he's flustering.]
[play ... play it cool, Strider.]
Hey. [he fumble-not-fumbles to tuck the sign away in his bag, hoists a strap over his shoulder again, and stands there, breathing in.]
You, uh. You really wear that well. [wow .... that was lame? that was so lame. but it isn't a lie, even if the tie could use some work — and actually. here, he'll just close the gap between them, lacing the fabric of the tie between his fingers for a moment, before going ahead and starting to tie it for him.]
[Presumably, up until the time he wasn't, Ryuji was matriculated in Japanese public school his entire life. He knows how to tie a tie, hell, he could probably do it while practicing sit-ups and playing video games with his toes. Doesn't really matter, though, because even if he was going for a punk-ish "I don't care, but I really actually do care a lot" look, Dave fixing him up right and proper is one of those gestures he's abso-freaking-lutely weak to.
He's all soft grins and unruly hair, but Dave's caught him and got him real good right about now.]
H-hey! You don't. Gotta.
[But he is. Wouldn't be fun if he didn't pretend to protest even a little bit at it, while simultaneously slurping it up like it's the last few drops of a cool Khaki Sun.
Suddenly, telling him that he was really into getting pics of his balls doesn't really feel that apropos at the moment.]
You look real good, too. Like. Kinda want to skip the first day of class and just spend the entire day kissin' you, good.
[Dave didn't have to wear ties to school, but he did wear them on purpose while fighting imps and ogres in the middle of a giant planet of lava. and that couldn't have been anything other than an insistence on aesthetic, considering one: the part about the giant planet of lava, and two: bringing a tie to a boss fight doesn't really sound like a good idea from a defensive standpoint.]
[but, uh. he stops what he's doing, still holding on to Ryuji's tie, like both his hands have suddenly frozen mid-Windsor.]
[Easy path: fuck Academy, he doesn't need to learn shit. He could so, so easily fall into his true slacker lifestyle again and just smooch until the cow pies come home. That's definitely a really enticing suggestion, and it takes so much willpower to even think of the second path. Not being a wuss about going back to school and giving himself a second chance to actually succeed at this whole thing. Not just himself, but, Dave too. He should encourage good behavior! He should absolutely tell him that he was just kidding around.]
Like... really good, dude.
[GOD, RYUJI, C'MON MAN.
Healthy life choices.
He breathes in through his nose- okay. Okay! Okay. This would just be a giant cop out. Give him a second to deflate like an air mattress that a cat's gone to town on.]
But... I mean. We shouldn't, right? That just kinda blows the whole thing about tryin' not to be a major Major Dumbass over here.
[Or maybe he's just worried about failing anyway and it'd be easier not to try? Brains are weird.]
[this whole really weird external fight Ryuji is having with his hormones probably says a lot to Dave about what's actually going on internally. but maybe that sort of anxiety is pretty easy to spot when you tend to be prone to it, too. it's the fear of letting someone down, while at the same time you're so far removed from their reassurances that you never actually could. it's the way it's easier to kick those fears down the road and pretend they don't exist instead of facing them.]
[he gets it. and frankly, he's into the idea of ditching and making up for all those times a space date has gone awry, too.]
[that's why his dunk here is only a light one, a mild jab with no bite, a joke meant to diffuse the tension.]
Major Dumbass? Nah. You're more like a private, if anything. [he gently tightens the finished Windsor, but doesn't let go of Ryuji's tie.]
You want my opinion, though? You already cared enough about going to let a weird gnome eyeball you for this uniform — which is as deep in the shit as you're ever gonna get here. Now's the time to roll with it.
Besides, it's not like it's gonna take up the whole day.
The light teasing gets to Ryuji, because that sort of stuff is always effective on him, especially when it comes from someone he knows cares. Can't even be pissed about it, either, so he'll play along. It's a nice way of telling him that he's being relatively out of commission on something, and only following it up with something sincere... man, that combo is pretty deadly.]
Private Major Dumbass, reporting in for duty.
[He watches Dave's hands move about and finish the knot. He's never had this one done on him before, only knowing one variant himself, but it definitely didn't seem like the movements he knows, so he gets the hint that it's a little different. It might look good enough to need him to do this every day for him.]
Uh... yeah, thanks. I kinda... I needed that, I guess.
[Smiling, he feels a lot better about this whole thing. He's right! Of course he's right. If he's committed to something, he should do it. Ryuji never gives half of an ass to anything he does when he's set his mind to it. Academy deserves both cheeks.
[not that Dave, a kid whose planet blew up and then was scratched, and a kid who never even finished junior high, expected to be going back to school. he's smart. but with the exception of subjects he's interested in, he's not much into flipping through piles of books like his nerdy sister.]
[he also has no right to be calling Rose a nerd.]
[he never really expected to be encouraging someone else to go back to school, either, but maybe that's just the sort of effect Ryuji has on him. like he has this desperate need to make sure he's happy, and that he's able to do or accomplish all the things that would keep him that way.]
[so ... book learning it is. making Ryuji's mom proud it is.]
You ask that like it wasn't my football game plan from the start, though. [he lets go of Ryuji's tie, digging his hands into his pockets, turning away as if to start the trek to the Academy. he sure! has a smirk on his face!!]
[See that thing that he did? That thing right there. Ryuji is left in a moment of pure splendor. He's astrally visiting the promise land, a holy place where he's been denied visitation rights up until Dave just turned his back on him. He looks around the room. No one here, right? This isn't some elaborate PUNK'D setup, no Ashton Fucking Kutcher ready to pop out of nowhere and tell him that he's just been hosed.
Dave just might have found the ultimate way to keep the carrot dangling on the stick, but as if, by some chance, that this oh-so-subtle offer gets rescinded if he's not all of three seconds away from being next to him, he'll glide right forward. It's embarrassing. A slow jog, arms swinging- jesus, dude, he's right there and walk right beside him.]
[you'd think he'd be smug about having this kind of power, the ability to turn a punk whose exterior conceals his dorkiness into a ... well, a dork whose exterior conceals his punkiness, judging by the way he's walking right now. but — no, wait, yeah, that smirk he's still wearing straight across his face relays a tiny ghost of smugness.]
[sort of funny how Dave had somehow woven after-school specials into his nervous rambles about having a crush on a guy forever ago, and now they are apparently planning one out? but that doesn't even occur to him.]
Man, you forget who you're talking to. [he's the time guy, Ryuji! being on time is his thing. even the times where it looks like he's late, that's because he was supposed to be.]
[that sounds like a good excuse for basically anything tbh.]
I kinda doubt they're gonna dump too much info on us the first day, though. I mean, isn't the point of the first day is to get your textbooks and otherwise just goof off?
[By the time he's shoulder to shoulder with Dave, he can sort of pull out that he's smirking about this entire thing, and maybe that sort of thing should put Ryuji off, but of course, it doesn't. He's attracted to confidence, and there's some sort of positive feedback loop going on right here that's going on behind the scenes. If anything, he's weirdly proud of Dave for being kind of cocky about it. And that just makes the after-school special that much more of a thing to look forward to.]
Yeah, but then you got these total peasants like us who are just used to walkin' into class late and gettin' chalk thrown at us.
[He says it with such a brutal nonchalance about it; it's incredibly obvious that he's been beamed in the back of the head before. He'll elaborate about that-]
That's how they raise Japanese kids to be ninjas, you know. We learn how to duck at a real young age. And then we grow up wieldin' katana and all that other shit that happens in anime.
[After laughing at himself for that, he has to wonder.]
Yeah, it'll probably be easy gliding. I bet the first day's super chill and then, like... second day hits and it's crazy intense.
[Or, not, their expectations could be wildly off. Like walking into a classroom with a caged grick about to be unleashed on the class. Who knows.]
[no lie, if they walked into class and had to square off against that thing, Dave would have an intense flashback to dealing with the horrorterror diners of the Space Paradox Red Lobster and probably either turn right on his heels to leave or have a lot of really funny shit to say about it.]
[or maybe both. or maybe he's actually dedicated enough to the idea of this after-school special thing that he'll puff up and stick around anyway.]
I dunno which one's more believable, the fact that you run around swinging katanas or the fact that you're an anime character.
[god ... why.]
I had a ninja sword once, actually. It belongs to a bird now.
[They'd stay! They have to. Ryuji can't be the only one with tentacle nightmares and the image of teeth noshing on his swinging arm.]
Yeah, Dave-chan, I thought you knew I was like, hella kawaii and shit.
[If he's going for it, Ryuji will go all in too. He'll even pull off the peace sign over one of his eyes as he says "kawaii" and tilt his head in motion. For the record, Ryuji is seriously not "chou kawaii," but that's a generally known fact that everyone can discern within 2 minutes of meeting him.]
Wait, seriously? [Mid-victory posing] How did a bird just up and fly away with your sword? Y'know, that's like the first rule about wielding a ninja blade. You don't let birds swoop in and steal 'em. It's on page 1 of the Hidden Leaf Village bible dude, c'mon.
[He'll just continue to perpetuate his manga nerd ass status around Dave. It's cool, he feels comfortable enough, and always has, to make a complete ass out of himself around him.]
[if there is one thing Ryuji is really good at, it's making a complete manga nerd ass out of himself around Dave — who just shrugs at literally everything that happened here. the Sailor Moon pose. the Dave-chan. the manga reference that, if Dave knew what it was, and continued down that line of thought, would probably tilt over whatever the subtle attempt at dodging a copyright violation for Naruto is.]
[the question over what happened with the bird and the sword. it's true that no one can ever know about this, but you know how Dave is, blurting shit out before he realizes what he even said.]
Y'know how I said Rose had a pink cat ghost back home? There was something like that for me, too, except it was a bird that accidentally caught the business end of that ninja sword. Then, uh —
[should ... he even bring up what happened after that.]
— Dunno how to explain it without just up and fucking dumping it out on the floor, so here goes: He got fused with another version of me from a doomed timeline, so now there's an orange creamsicle bird me with a sword wandering around back home.
[And on his first day at school, he learned Dave killed a bird and then melded his persona soul into it and made a persona bird Dave out of the entire thing. You'd think Ryuji would be affronted by any of this information, but being with him long enough has taught him that there's really no fucking end to the double sided popsicle of bullshit that Dave's letting drip from both ends. Huh.
But Ryuji, being a man of culture, sees this for what it's worth. A small victory, because that means it's one less dead Dave on the dead Dave spectrum to theoretically have to worry about winding up going the way of the Barbarian.
Far be it from him to start wondering what Dave would look like with wings and he has to viscerally stop for a moment.]
W-wha...? You're anime as shit, dude.
[Which is mostly what he gets out of it, and then reels back into a far, far worse territory. Ryuji leans a bit, flattening a wisp of hair that's curled ferociously.]
Can Dave bird lay eggs? Is that, like, a thing he can do?
[He could be a lot more supportive over this entire thing, but that would possible involve hitting on Davesprite and that's not really going to help anyone here.]
[that whole persona process you laid out just calls to mind what a Homestuck Velvet Room, and therefore a Homestuck Igor, would look like, and quite frankly i don't think the world is ready for whatever eyebrows that guy would be sporting.]
[in any case, as good as Daves tend to be at dying, they tend to be about as equally good at cheating death, so that ping of victory that Ryuji's feeling isn't entirely off base. he has no idea what exactly happened to the Davesprite of his particular timeline, but he does figure if anybody's going to cheat death, it's going to be the ghost video game tutorial version of himself that already managed it once.]
[.......... a ghost video game tutorial version of himself that lays eggs, apparently! Dave's expression is more or less the same one he makes when he's short circuiting a little, as Ryuji asks his question, and does that thing where he wages war and loses against that fluffy curl on the edge of Dave's bangs. it's so fluffy. it'll never be tamed.]
[(it's not like Dave has any room to be short circuiting here; he's certainly blurted out a similar thought about whether Davesprite can lay eggs before. he managed to stop himself before he got too far with the implications.)]
Probably? I dunno, that's not really a question you can just toss in a casual conversation, so I never asked. [there it is. the hint that Ryuji is not alone in wondering about this.]
[You know how you can feel a really bad thing about to be said just waiting to come out, but it's just left the train station and there's way to put that thing back in reverse?]
Wonder what a Dave egg would taste li---
[WOW. He stops himself. Is he grossed out? He's grossed out. And a little horrified at the same time.]
Forget I was just about to ask whether or not your offspring would make a good ramen side dish, dude.
[Maybe that zombie virus never really left him. Maybe it's just been sitting dormant in his spine waiting to re-emerge. But since he's gone down this rabbit hole, there's no real coming back.]
But... baby Dave birds. I... I dunno if that's even an okay thing to wonder about, y'know? You sittin' on a nest and bein' all hot mom status achieved.
[holy shit where the absolute hell is this walk to school meandering!!]
No arguments over here.
[how do you delete someone else's mental image? but as completely weirded out by this entire line of questioning as he is, Dave still manages at least an attempt to sputter together a cogent thought.]
I, uh. I mean ... I've started to really think of him as pretty different than me. Like, more than just the wings and the eggs and — [STOP AND REORIENT, DAVE STRIDER.]
What I mean to say is, even though he's bird me and it's not inaccurate to refer to him that way, I'm also not exactly cognizant of the shit that went down on his timeline. So, you could say we were the same person right up until the timeline splintered, and then he became his own kinda bird Dave deal with his own story.
Where the hell am I goin' with this.
[where is he going with this.]
I guess ... he's technically me and all, but we're not really connected by by the spinning plates bullshit of time loops anymore. I don't know shit about his experiences because I don't get to experience them.
So, honestly, for all I know? He's already got his nest built.
[Where was that thought going, Dave Strider? Because Ryuji's natural conclusion was bird dick, here, and he doesn't want to own up to that thought. Even Sakamotos have limits to their own insanity. He scrunches his lips into a thin straight line, though, and hopes that he can't figure out what's going on through his mind.
Yeah, maybe a quiet walk to school would've been better.]
Huh.
[The wheels are churning, and instead of asking if it would be technically cheating if he kissed bird Dave in that realm of tangential realities colliding straight into a black hole, he refrains from doing that very thing.
Putting on his thinking cap, he gets this version of Dave and this splinter where there's a constellation on his shoulders, and that's really more than he could already ask for. After having met two Gundams now, and seeing how he could so easily fuck it up with one of them despite knowing how the other would've reacted, he gets the sense that it's best not to let worlds mingle like that. For everyone's sake.]
Aight, it makes sense. No use thinkin' about it anyway, even if you'd make one hell of a hot mom ninja bird.
[That's not!! the point!! he was supposed!! to make!! Ryuji breaks off to trail ahead of Dave, though, smiling all the same, walking backward, just to make sure he sees his face and how cocky he is about the entire thing.]
'Cause we got our own nest kinda thing goin' on. In like, a metagorical typa way.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
And having never step foot in a building that was basically a giant nerd factory for knowledge assembly lines, the interior of the place looks slightly intimidating.
What the hell is Dave doing at the library? AND WHAT DID HE DO TO THAT THING?]
Oh shit dude I'm so turned on you know I love it when I get sent pics of balls
no subject
good to know
really gets me feelin like this was an appropriate use of my time
[ah ... yes. they are absolutely ready for this schoolin' thing. assuming the Artificer doesn't commit a murder first.]
anyway where are you
are we doing this
no subject
That's like
My only question here
That color don't seem right and it's just like your name all over it but I can't pin why I'm gettin' that feeling.
[That should be obvious.]
Yeah, we're doing this. We're gonna get smart and shit.
I haven't even left my room yet. Was gonna come swing by and grab you but it looks like you've been out and about
no subject
just for laughs though
you should try asking the otherwise fuckawful foodbot for a pastry
[don't ... encourage this, Dave.]
but yeah alright
ill come meet you
no subject
[Caught, pink-handed. Put 'em up where he can see them, you punk!]
I wouldn't trust that thing to pour me a goddamn glass of water, pass.
Sweet I'll be the one with the blond hair holding up a sign
no subject
there better be balls on that sign
[or not.]
[in any case, regardless of whatever signage Ryuji has prepared in the next five minutes, there's a knock at his door. it might take a little while for the fall school gear to grow on him, aside from the sharp-looking tie, but. whatever. Ryuji seemed serious about doing this, so he'll be serious, too.]
no subject
Yeah, he's mature.
And then he's there, and Ryuji had been so rushed to add a pair of sunglasses onto the thing to really drive the image home, that he barely misses the first two knocks. He's also struggling to figure out how to open the door and still prominently display his sign too, so that piece of paper is going straight up into his teeth to free his hands, and as he opens it.
His mouth opens. It's a really subtle jaw drop, his paper going flying down to the floor. Ryuji doesn't look nearly as prepared as him, the tie is loose and not even done up properly, and the cardigan isn't buttoned. The gnome got the measurements right on the first try, but Ryuji wanted something a little looser, so it sort of just... hangs off his body, but that doesn't matter.
Nothing really matters, because it's hard to look at his boyfriend and not think that he's the most gorgeous thing he's ever seen in his life. And boy, is Ryuji flustered.]
Uh... er... h-hi.
no subject
[he bends over to snatch up the fallen paper, intent on saving it and yoinking some bulk frames out of Fantasy Costco, because this art project's going on the wall. god, poor Roxas?? and when he straightens, he catches sight of Ryuji, and suddenly, there's the second reason he's flustering.]
[play ... play it cool, Strider.]
Hey. [he fumble-not-fumbles to tuck the sign away in his bag, hoists a strap over his shoulder again, and stands there, breathing in.]
You, uh. You really wear that well. [wow .... that was lame? that was so lame. but it isn't a lie, even if the tie could use some work — and actually. here, he'll just close the gap between them, lacing the fabric of the tie between his fingers for a moment, before going ahead and starting to tie it for him.]
no subject
He's all soft grins and unruly hair, but Dave's caught him and got him real good right about now.]
H-hey! You don't. Gotta.
[But he is. Wouldn't be fun if he didn't pretend to protest even a little bit at it, while simultaneously slurping it up like it's the last few drops of a cool Khaki Sun.
Suddenly, telling him that he was really into getting pics of his balls doesn't really feel that apropos at the moment.]
You look real good, too. Like. Kinda want to skip the first day of class and just spend the entire day kissin' you, good.
[GOD, RYUJI NO.]
no subject
[but, uh. he stops what he's doing, still holding on to Ryuji's tie, like both his hands have suddenly frozen mid-Windsor.]
[really!!!!]
I mean, is that what you really want? [DAVE.]
no subject
Like... really good, dude.
[GOD, RYUJI, C'MON MAN.
Healthy life choices.
He breathes in through his nose- okay. Okay! Okay. This would just be a giant cop out. Give him a second to deflate like an air mattress that a cat's gone to town on.]
But... I mean. We shouldn't, right? That just kinda blows the whole thing about tryin' not to be a major Major Dumbass over here.
[Or maybe he's just worried about failing anyway and it'd be easier not to try? Brains are weird.]
... Right?
no subject
[he gets it. and frankly, he's into the idea of ditching and making up for all those times a space date has gone awry, too.]
[that's why his dunk here is only a light one, a mild jab with no bite, a joke meant to diffuse the tension.]
Major Dumbass? Nah. You're more like a private, if anything. [he gently tightens the finished Windsor, but doesn't let go of Ryuji's tie.]
You want my opinion, though? You already cared enough about going to let a weird gnome eyeball you for this uniform — which is as deep in the shit as you're ever gonna get here. Now's the time to roll with it.
Besides, it's not like it's gonna take up the whole day.
no subject
The light teasing gets to Ryuji, because that sort of stuff is always effective on him, especially when it comes from someone he knows cares. Can't even be pissed about it, either, so he'll play along. It's a nice way of telling him that he's being relatively out of commission on something, and only following it up with something sincere... man, that combo is pretty deadly.]
Private Major Dumbass, reporting in for duty.
[He watches Dave's hands move about and finish the knot. He's never had this one done on him before, only knowing one variant himself, but it definitely didn't seem like the movements he knows, so he gets the hint that it's a little different. It might look good enough to need him to do this every day for him.]
Uh... yeah, thanks. I kinda... I needed that, I guess.
[Smiling, he feels a lot better about this whole thing. He's right! Of course he's right. If he's committed to something, he should do it. Ryuji never gives half of an ass to anything he does when he's set his mind to it. Academy deserves both cheeks.
Speaking of cheeks, though.]
...
...
...
...
That a promise?
no subject
[not that Dave, a kid whose planet blew up and then was scratched, and a kid who never even finished junior high, expected to be going back to school. he's smart. but with the exception of subjects he's interested in, he's not much into flipping through piles of books like his nerdy sister.]
[he also has no right to be calling Rose a nerd.]
[he never really expected to be encouraging someone else to go back to school, either, but maybe that's just the sort of effect Ryuji has on him. like he has this desperate need to make sure he's happy, and that he's able to do or accomplish all the things that would keep him that way.]
[so ... book learning it is. making Ryuji's mom proud it is.]
You ask that like it wasn't my football game plan from the start, though. [he lets go of Ryuji's tie, digging his hands into his pockets, turning away as if to start the trek to the Academy. he sure! has a smirk on his face!!]
no subject
Dave just might have found the ultimate way to keep the carrot dangling on the stick, but as if, by some chance, that this oh-so-subtle offer gets rescinded if he's not all of three seconds away from being next to him, he'll glide right forward. It's embarrassing. A slow jog, arms swinging- jesus, dude, he's right there and walk right beside him.]
C'mon. Hurry up. We don't wanna be late.
[You caused this, Dave.
And he's so weak to it.]
no subject
[sort of funny how Dave had somehow woven after-school specials into his nervous rambles about having a crush on a guy forever ago, and now they are apparently planning one out? but that doesn't even occur to him.]
Man, you forget who you're talking to. [he's the time guy, Ryuji! being on time is his thing. even the times where it looks like he's late, that's because he was supposed to be.]
[that sounds like a good excuse for basically anything tbh.]
I kinda doubt they're gonna dump too much info on us the first day, though. I mean, isn't the point of the first day is to get your textbooks and otherwise just goof off?
no subject
Yeah, but then you got these total peasants like us who are just used to walkin' into class late and gettin' chalk thrown at us.
[He says it with such a brutal nonchalance about it; it's incredibly obvious that he's been beamed in the back of the head before. He'll elaborate about that-]
That's how they raise Japanese kids to be ninjas, you know. We learn how to duck at a real young age. And then we grow up wieldin' katana and all that other shit that happens in anime.
[After laughing at himself for that, he has to wonder.]
Yeah, it'll probably be easy gliding. I bet the first day's super chill and then, like... second day hits and it's crazy intense.
[Or, not, their expectations could be wildly off. Like walking into a classroom with a caged grick about to be unleashed on the class. Who knows.]
no subject
[or maybe both. or maybe he's actually dedicated enough to the idea of this after-school special thing that he'll puff up and stick around anyway.]
I dunno which one's more believable, the fact that you run around swinging katanas or the fact that you're an anime character.
[god ... why.]
I had a ninja sword once, actually. It belongs to a bird now.
no subject
Yeah, Dave-chan, I thought you knew I was like, hella kawaii and shit.
[If he's going for it, Ryuji will go all in too. He'll even pull off the peace sign over one of his eyes as he says "kawaii" and tilt his head in motion. For the record, Ryuji is seriously not "chou kawaii," but that's a generally known fact that everyone can discern within 2 minutes of meeting him.]
Wait, seriously? [Mid-victory posing] How did a bird just up and fly away with your sword? Y'know, that's like the first rule about wielding a ninja blade. You don't let birds swoop in and steal 'em. It's on page 1 of the Hidden Leaf Village bible dude, c'mon.
[He'll just continue to perpetuate his manga nerd ass status around Dave. It's cool, he feels comfortable enough, and always has, to make a complete ass out of himself around him.]
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[the question over what happened with the bird and the sword. it's true that no one can ever know about this, but you know how Dave is, blurting shit out before he realizes what he even said.]
Y'know how I said Rose had a pink cat ghost back home? There was something like that for me, too, except it was a bird that accidentally caught the business end of that ninja sword. Then, uh —
[should ... he even bring up what happened after that.]
— Dunno how to explain it without just up and fucking dumping it out on the floor, so here goes: He got fused with another version of me from a doomed timeline, so now there's an orange creamsicle bird me with a sword wandering around back home.
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But Ryuji, being a man of culture, sees this for what it's worth. A small victory, because that means it's one less dead Dave on the dead Dave spectrum to theoretically have to worry about winding up going the way of the Barbarian.
Far be it from him to start wondering what Dave would look like with wings and he has to viscerally stop for a moment.]
W-wha...? You're anime as shit, dude.
[Which is mostly what he gets out of it, and then reels back into a far, far worse territory. Ryuji leans a bit, flattening a wisp of hair that's curled ferociously.]
Can Dave bird lay eggs? Is that, like, a thing he can do?
[He could be a lot more supportive over this entire thing, but that would possible involve hitting on Davesprite and that's not really going to help anyone here.]
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[in any case, as good as Daves tend to be at dying, they tend to be about as equally good at cheating death, so that ping of victory that Ryuji's feeling isn't entirely off base. he has no idea what exactly happened to the Davesprite of his particular timeline, but he does figure if anybody's going to cheat death, it's going to be the ghost video game tutorial version of himself that already managed it once.]
[.......... a ghost video game tutorial version of himself that lays eggs, apparently! Dave's expression is more or less the same one he makes when he's short circuiting a little, as Ryuji asks his question, and does that thing where he wages war and loses against that fluffy curl on the edge of Dave's bangs. it's so fluffy. it'll never be tamed.]
[(it's not like Dave has any room to be short circuiting here; he's certainly blurted out a similar thought about whether Davesprite can lay eggs before. he managed to stop himself before he got too far with the implications.)]
Probably? I dunno, that's not really a question you can just toss in a casual conversation, so I never asked. [there it is. the hint that Ryuji is not alone in wondering about this.]
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Wonder what a Dave egg would taste li---
[WOW. He stops himself. Is he grossed out? He's grossed out. And a little horrified at the same time.]
Forget I was just about to ask whether or not your offspring would make a good ramen side dish, dude.
[Maybe that zombie virus never really left him. Maybe it's just been sitting dormant in his spine waiting to re-emerge. But since he's gone down this rabbit hole, there's no real coming back.]
But... baby Dave birds. I... I dunno if that's even an okay thing to wonder about, y'know? You sittin' on a nest and bein' all hot mom status achieved.
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No arguments over here.
[how do you delete someone else's mental image? but as completely weirded out by this entire line of questioning as he is, Dave still manages at least an attempt to sputter together a cogent thought.]
I, uh. I mean ... I've started to really think of him as pretty different than me. Like, more than just the wings and the eggs and — [STOP AND REORIENT, DAVE STRIDER.]
What I mean to say is, even though he's bird me and it's not inaccurate to refer to him that way, I'm also not exactly cognizant of the shit that went down on his timeline. So, you could say we were the same person right up until the timeline splintered, and then he became his own kinda bird Dave deal with his own story.
Where the hell am I goin' with this.
[where is he going with this.]
I guess ... he's technically me and all, but we're not really connected by by the spinning plates bullshit of time loops anymore. I don't know shit about his experiences because I don't get to experience them.
So, honestly, for all I know? He's already got his nest built.
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Yeah, maybe a quiet walk to school would've been better.]
Huh.
[The wheels are churning, and instead of asking if it would be technically cheating if he kissed bird Dave in that realm of tangential realities colliding straight into a black hole, he refrains from doing that very thing.
Putting on his thinking cap, he gets this version of Dave and this splinter where there's a constellation on his shoulders, and that's really more than he could already ask for. After having met two Gundams now, and seeing how he could so easily fuck it up with one of them despite knowing how the other would've reacted, he gets the sense that it's best not to let worlds mingle like that. For everyone's sake.]
Aight, it makes sense. No use thinkin' about it anyway, even if you'd make one hell of a hot mom ninja bird.
[That's not!! the point!! he was supposed!! to make!! Ryuji breaks off to trail ahead of Dave, though, smiling all the same, walking backward, just to make sure he sees his face and how cocky he is about the entire thing.]
'Cause we got our own nest kinda thing goin' on. In like, a metagorical typa way.
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