[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the ultimate way to keep the carrot dangling on the stick, but as if, by some chance, that this oh-so-subtle offer gets rescinded if he's not all of three seconds away from being next to him, he'll glide right forward.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.
[it was not so much bird dick as it was remembering that birds have cloacae!! which may be an even worse thought? it's ... kind of tough to say.]
Metagorical ... hot mom ninja bird.
[why is everything happening so much right now. but in spite of the absolutely cursed direction this conversation has gone in, and despite the unsaid answer to the unspoken question that yeah, he'd probably be pretty miffed if Ryuji started macking on Davesprite, something about the way Ryuji smiles at him, and adds another little metal chunk to a pillar holding up the thing they've got going on here just.]
[well, it gets a smile out of him, too. not a huge grin, mind, but a larger smile than the usual ones that tend to blip across his features in split seconds.]
Man, I don't even know what to do with like. Half of these mental images you just got done painting. Throw 'em up on the walls of the Space Louvre, I guess.
[or at least the walls of the Academy — now that they've arrived.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[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!!]
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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.]
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[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?
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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.]
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[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.
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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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
Metagorical ... hot mom ninja bird.
[why is everything happening so much right now. but in spite of the absolutely cursed direction this conversation has gone in, and despite the unsaid answer to the unspoken question that yeah, he'd probably be pretty miffed if Ryuji started macking on Davesprite, something about the way Ryuji smiles at him, and adds another little metal chunk to a pillar holding up the thing they've got going on here just.]
[well, it gets a smile out of him, too. not a huge grin, mind, but a larger smile than the usual ones that tend to blip across his features in split seconds.]
Man, I don't even know what to do with like. Half of these mental images you just got done painting. Throw 'em up on the walls of the Space Louvre, I guess.
[or at least the walls of the Academy — now that they've arrived.]