Chapter Text
WRITER: ==> BE UNABLE TO WRITE IN THE PRESENT TENSE.
I was unable to do that before you told me to.
READER: ==> BE JOHN EGBERT IN THE PAST.
You were John Egbert.
You were thinking about Dave Strider.
You didn’t mind the two AM texts from your best friend – if you were up you’d text back, if not you’d text back in the morning. It was no big deal to you, really.
When it started, you got these texts about once a month or so. They were occasional occurrences, made up of nonsensical rambles and complaints of the "lack of Z's up in the house," followed by Dave going back to sleep and allowing his sleep schedule to resume as regularly scheduled.
Over the years, it grew. Eventually, he was texting you every night at unhealthy hours with no intention of receiving a response, and you allowed it to become normal. Dave Strider, you would joke. The man who never sleeps.
The sleeplessness extended into the mornings, as well. You'd get additions to the blocks before you'd get a chance to read them, Dave correcting his previous rants or trying to cover things up.
So, he would send long rants (that surely couldn’t be what was really concerning him) long after you went to sleep, and then he would send ‘good morning’ texts long before you woke up.
You never said anything about it, though. It was a gradual change; you wouldn’t have noticed unless you were paying attention. But, you did get a little tired of waking up every morning with a wall of red texts to read as part of your routine. That was the only thing that you minded about Dave’s lack of sleep.
The day was like any other day. You got up at six, showered, brushed your teeth, flossed, and changed. Then you stumbled downstairs in a tired haze, got coffee, took your pills, ate a bowl of cereal, put rubber bands on your braces, and had your dad drive you to zero-hour jazz band. The coffee kicked in by the time you were at the keys, and thus your day was started. You had Dave and Jade in this class, and you guys made up a good portion of the rhythm section with the addition of a guitar player none of you were close with.
First and second period faded into each other after jazz, neither of the classes doing much to keep your personal attention. And, more than that, they were uneventful, so you were happy to let them pass by.
In third period you had band, and Dave was in this class with you again. He was still a percussionist, but in this band you played the clarinet. You weren’t as good at clarinet as you were on the piano, granted, but that was second instrument you'd picked up and playing piano there would've caused too much of a hassle if your life. Besides, you picked up the clarinet in middle school, and you were about even with the rest of the section, so it was fine.
After band was lunch. You, Jade, Rose and Dave all managed to converge there. It was nice. Everyone talked to everyone, and you were all happy and smiling, almost all the time. This included Dave, your little bubble of friends seeming to be a content little ecosystem.
You and Dave always walked in the same direction to fourth period, but your paths diverged eventually. Often times, this was where you guys got any last quips out, teasing each other in a gently bullying friendship.
You said a temporary goodbye to one another at the stairs. He gave you one last dick joke, making you laugh as you left.
You guy met in the hallway briefly between the following classes. You both had math, but he had Honors Algebra Two while you had the normal version. You guys greeted each other, passed a couple words to one another, and then went to your classes, both glad enough for the small interaction.
Finally, there was the last class of the day. Chemistry. You shared the class, and this was convenient because it meant that you guys wouldn't have to find each other before finding a way to join up after school if time permitted. You always found a way to hang on Monday's, since early release meant that you guys had ample time for play and work.
-
So, you didn’t notice when he stopped eating breakfast – how could you? You didn’t live with him, and you didn’t see him when he was supposed to break that fast. But you also didn’t notice how he would give his food away slowly throughout the lunch period and throw away the picked-at remains. You teased him a little bit when he started going to the bathroom after nearly every meal, but allowed him to use “increased amounts of water consumption” as an excuse. How were you supposed to know that it meant anything?
You were walking to fourth period with him. It was mid-spring, but it wasn’t quite hot yet – it was actually a little chilly. You were in a long-sleeved tee and jeans. He was in a hoodie and jeans, and when you grabbed his hand to hold as a mild joke, you found that it was cold as frost on winter lawns.
“Jesus,” you said, staring at Dave with wide eyes. That was colder than any person's hand should reasonably be. It was nowhere near that cold outside! He pulled his sleeves down to cover his hands, smirked, and shrugged. He was relaxed and unfazed, much like he always was.
“I’m cold as fuck all the time, Egbert. This shouldn't come as a shock to you, man. Not everyone can be so warm-blooded." He chuckled and pushed his hands into his pockets. You returned the care-free laugh, some of the tension draining from your form.
“Yeah, except that I know you have two jackets on!” You patted his back as you guys got to where you had to part ways. He grinned, his inner jacket’s hood resting inside that of the other's, fitting together like Russian nesting dolls. “I bet that you were right under the AC in the cafeteria again, weren’t you?”
“No it’s just my heart that cools me from the inside.” Ha! What a cringe lord. Like you were going to let him pass that off as ironic!
You stuck your tongue out at him and punched his shoulder lightly, teasing him lightly. You hugged his thin form before you left, easily wrapping your arms all the way around him. You considered making a joke about how scrawny he was, but you were sure that he got that enough from everyone else. Instead, you just sent another wave over your shoulder as you left, making faces at your friend.
It was a Monday, and you guys would be going over to your house. You were excited, you loved hanging out with Dave to an immeasurable extent. He managed to make you laugh all the time, taking the joke factory production levels to unprecedented heights. You loved it. (You loved him – wait no what? No you didn’t think that. Though there may be something there, you didn’t love him. That would be insane. You just had a crush – wait, not even that! You guys were just super tight bros!)
(... But you loved him as a bro.)
During class that day, Jade asked you if Dave was okay. You were both sitting in one of your earlier periods, and the question caught you off guard.
You said yeah, why wouldn’t he be?
She left it alone, but it was obvious that she was still really worried about him. You decided to ignore it. Where did that question even come from?
It nagged at you until chemistry, but you kept the thought on the back burner. It was eventually lost in the slew of dick jokes that Dave was slinging, really bringing it that day. He had you cackling, decidedly unfocused on the curriculum, which was made up of a worksheet and the teacher basically telling you to Google what you didn't understand.
When he was done making jokes about sexual encounters, Dave leaned over and explained the foreign information to you - the actual Chemistry bits, of course! You didn't need to know anything more about... things. You were good enough in that sector!
You were clueless as to how Dave knew how much he did about Chem, but you certainly couldn’t complain about his knowledge because he taught you what the teacher didn’t (which was everything). He'd explained it once as "everything just feeling like inherent knowledge," and you came to the conclusion that either you were dumb, or he was studying more than he let on or something. Or, maybe it really did just come naturally to him! It was possible, if not unfair.
You weren’t the only one that Dave taught the lessons to, though. Seeing as the teacher wasn't much for... well, teaching, he generally found himself explaining the concepts to a lot of the other students. He had an entire speech laid out for almost every section, and he would recite it to every person that didn’t understand, explaining that they had to understand the beginning to understand the middle and the end.
You both exited the classroom after stacking your table’s chairs. Finally, the day was over, and you guys could hang!
“I love your bus so much, John,” he said, sitting next to you. “Mine is always too loud. It’s fun, yeah, but Icky-Vrisky never shuts up, and when it’s such a long bus ride it gets old fast. It's lively, though.” Dave, despite that fact that he barely lived out of walking distance from the school, had a terribly long busride because he was the second-to-last stop on a populated bus route.
“Mine is way too quiet, unless you’re riding with us,” you replied. “Like, people miss you when you’re gone because you actually jazz up the ride.” You saw someone (a student from the middle school down the road) nod in the background and you smiled at them, giving a thumbs up.
“Yeah, but a consistent amount of my awesomeness can drive all but John Egbert insane. Like, I’m the awesomeness fairy, twerking my awesomeness all over y’all’s bus. It’s like pixie dust – or the stuff from pixie sticks. A little bit of it is great, but the amount that I am excreting everywhere is drowning everyone in awesome dust. It’s getting into people's lungs and sticking to their moist mouth, and no matter how hard they dance the awesomeness is too much so they target me, the producer of the awesomeness. I shoot ironies from my nipples and everyone gasps and perishes – except John, who had the insight to bring a scuba suit. His tank is his personality that just completely cancels out my awesomeness because of how much of a nerd he is.” Jesus, you thought, does Dave ever breathe?
“Disturbing and hurtful,” you said, raising an eyebrow. “Was that necessary?”
“Absolutely.” You saw a sixth grader with a horrified face over his shoulder and you couldn’t help the chuckle that boiled up past your lips.
The ride was quickly filled with laughter. You and Dave teased each other back and forth, until you could barely finish your killer burns through your laughter.
It went on until you made Dave snort.
You and several other people all yelled at once; “snort point!” - a tradition that had existed for a long time, but you weren’t completely sure where it’d originated.
Everyone was laughing their asses off by that point, their joy and laughter uninhibited and carefree as they went to abodes of varying warmth. Just kids being kids, interacting and all.
The ride continued in such a manner until you got off of the bus, both of you walking to your cozy, suburban upper-middle-class home, where your step-mom was already getting ready for dinner and cleaning, and your little brother was wandering around in his underwear, spouting nonsense in half-English and half-Tagalog and simply being a bright and happy little dude.
When the kid came near, Dave picked him up with ease, coddling him. He blew raspberries onto Ben’s stomach and kept the child’s grubby hands away from his shades. Dave pecked kisses all over his face and hugged him and messed up his hair and asked him questions, a plethora of joyus, innocent love being secreted from the teen. Ben asked Dave if he wanted to play blocks with him and Dave said to ask ‘Mister John Egbert.’ It was genuinely warming to see them interact like this. Dave would've made an unmatched big brother.
“John! John! Can Day and I p-way ?” The four-year-old asked. You ran a hand through his mess of hair, knowing the inability to maintain a sense of neatness in the realm of hair must occur genetically, despite the fact that he was only your half-brother. The effort of the annunciation made you laugh. His speech skills were not yet spectacular, but they were getting there.
“Maybe after dinner, but right now Dave has to help me with my homework, okay?” You told him. He frowned but nodded, running off to your guys’ mom. You smiled warmly to yourself while your eyes followed him. “Ready to go downstairs?” You asked after a beat, pulling your eyes from your little brother to instead focus on your friend. He nodded.
“We’ll be downstairs making out, Mrs. Egbert,” Dave joked to your mom, making an blush spread across your dark cheeks. Your mom laughed while Ben asked her what making out was, reaching up for her. She explained how it was what people do to test if they want to get married and become mommies and daddies together. You landed a hit on Dave's shoulder on your guys' way down.
You could easily predict what Dave was going to do before he did it, but you were still frustrated when he did it, anyways.
He sat down at the table and brought out his chemistry homework, his side-glance telling you to get out your own papers. How rude!
“She’s not even going to check it,” you whined, sitting next to him and rooting through your backpack before locating the binder that had your chemistry homework. Your backpack was a mess of papers, about as organized as your brother’s. Dave, on the other hand, had a red file folder that was kept in careful order and had (“ironic”) unicorn stickers on it.
“Yeah, but you need to pass the test,” he imitated your tone, putting the paper down on the table and pulling a pencil out of his pocket. You had to dig through to the bottom of your backpack to find your own pen, which was missing its cap and almost out of ink.
He then proceeded to teach you everything that the teacher failed to teach you – the teacher referred you to a website, but that wasn’t the same as teaching it. Dave managed to comprehend the material without any problems, his mind working with ease to wrap around the material. It made no sense to you and it was absolutely infuriating, but at least he taught you all of the information. And, now he had time to work in dick jokes to his teaching, instead of having to make enough time during class.
For nearly an hour following, he taught you everything that you didn’t understand from both math and science classes and then you worked on your separate English and History homework. You were in AP History and AP Prep English, while Dave was in the normal version of both – which shocked you because he had straight A’s and he understood your work in both of the classes better than you did sometimes. He'd said he didn't want too much on his plate, but it baffled you further because Dave LOVED History, but the schedule was set and the fight was already lost.
You worked on your French homework and he breezed through his AP Spanish homework, and then, finally, it was play time.
You considered getting out your little brother’s blocks and asking Dave if he wanted to prepare for playtime with Ben, but decided against it. While it would be funny, you knew in the back of your mind that Dave would challenge you on the joking offer, forcing you to get out the blocks to fulfill the offer. So instead, Dave got out a DVD from his backpack and popped it into your PS3. You chuckled and started prepping to watch whatever it was that Dave was going to make you watch.
It was the first season of The Great British Bake Off. You laughed about it quietly to yourself while you guys got comfortable on the couch. The first episode began, and you guys joked and analyzed it. You didn't take it very seriously, but you could definitely appreciate the vibe.
“Why do you watch this shit?” You asked him as the first episode came to a close. You weren't going to admit that you were kind of caught up in the drama!
“For the ironies, of course,” he replied. His voice was flat and serious, but you were pretty sure that the only time his voice was ever serious was when he was joking. Dave was funny that way. It made you laugh.
“What’s ironic about it? Because only British Grannies watch it?” You grinned, elbowing at his side very lightly.
Dave didn’t give a sarcastic reply, but stayed silent for a long time. The air quickly solidified into a choking hold, grabbing both of you around your throats and screaming in your ears. You weren’t quite sure why, but your stomach clenched, as if telling you that there was something very wrong with Dave’s prolonged silence. You felt your eyebrows raise, but you weren’t sure why Dave’s silence worried you so much. Your mind very briefly flitted back to Jade's earlier question.
“It’s too deep of an irony for you to understand.”
His reply caught you off guard and you spared him a sideways glance. He gave a sly half-smirk and you returned it uneasily. His vague reassurance did nothing to calm the churning in your stomach.
You both turned to the show once the air settled, but he laid his head on your lap, and you allowed it because you wanted to keep him close in times of such stress. He was such a little thing, and you loved him (like a friend!) and coddled him.
... Okay, maybe not LITTLE. He was pretty tall! He made you feel short at five foot eight, and you got the vibe he was still growing even. But he was so thin, and he looked to fragile! Like he needed to be protected.
After an episode and a half, your mom called you both up for dinner. Dave rolled over and looked up at you through his shades, claiming that he’d had a large lunch and that he’d probably pass.
“No, you didn’t, Dave,” you laughed, shaking his head. “I watched you eat lunch. You had like, two bites of food. Besides, you know dinner doesn't work like that. We aren't a fend-for-yourself family, now get up."
You watched the muscles at the bottom of his eyes and top of his cheekbones twitch. You were confused about what would worry him like that, but he shrugged and forced out an easy-going laugh.
“Well, you mom does have the best cooking,” he said, rolling over to get up. You felt like there was a reticent air about him, making you frown to yourself. Nonetheless, you followed Dave up the stairs and sat down next to him at the table.
Your mom had laid out all of the food, so you all plated your food and sat down. Dave was sat between you and Ben, so he helped your little brother put together his plate.
Once you were all settled and ready to eat, you dived in while Dave fed Ben his greens and told him that if he didn’t eat his vegetables he wouldn’t be able to create ‘totally ill raps.’
Ben simply responded with the fact that he helped wrap the lumpia, making Dave laugh and tell him that he did very well.
Throughout the meal, you watched Dave. You noticed that he only lobbed a fraction of the amount of food that he’d usually scarf down onto his plate (you’ve watched him eat a large pizza in one sitting in the past). Not only that, however, you also noticed that he didn’t finish his food before he cleared his plate and washed it in the kitchen sink - he’d always been a great houseguest and he always cleaned up after himself and everyone else after they were done, and he would insist on it if you guys told him not to. It was only polite, he'd say.
You kept your concerns about his eating habits to yourself.
When you guys were done with dinner, you guys brought Ben downstairs to play. You watched Dave and Ben build up a large tower, and then you watched Dave tell him to smash it.
Ben, of course, did smash the simple creation, reducing it to a pile of blocks. Ben giggled and Dave laughed right along with him, a dopey grin spread across his lips. You let a small, loving smile spread across your own lips - you couldn’t help but love how well Dave and your little brother got along.
When Ben was sent to go back upstairs to play with your mom, you guys laid out like lazy teens and watched another episode of the ‘ The Bakeoff before he had to go back home. Dave, of course, complained about how he’d miss you in a dramatic manner, but when it was time to go he gave you no actual trouble.
Your mom was the one to drive Dave home while your dad stayed at home with Ben. You rode with them, sitting next to Dave in the back while he “ironically” made you hold his hand. You grumbled, but obliged.
After your mom dropped Dave off by his apartment, she turned the car around and started on the way home. In the tense silence, you could feel that your mom wanted to say something to you, making your skin prickle. After a few moments of consideration, you put your hand out for her, signalling that you wanted to talk. She took it, knowing what you meant.
When she spoke, it was in Tagalog, telling you that she was worried enough to revert to her native tongue. You followed along carefully, having a few troubles following along but filling in the gaps well enough.
“After your dad and I first got married and when I first got to America… things got complicated,” she began. You felt the skin on the back of your neck prickle in reaction to her intense, serious tone. “I gained a lot of weight. There were pictures but I threw them all away because I wasn’t happy with them. So, I stopped eating – that was even worse. Your dad was scared and angry about it. He made me eat and told me that he only cared about was my health. I saw a dietician and other things went on – you were six I think. Everything was… it was dark. You always asked if I was okay and told me that if you had to eat your vegetables then I would have to eat my vegetables, and I came out on top. I eat. I exercise and I worry about everything, yeah, and sometimes I wonder if I eat too much or not enough, but I’m okay now…
“I know that was a bad story. I know you’ve heard parts and I think you remember little bits – like when mommy had to go away for a week and things like that. You cried and I was touched because I’d only been your mom for two years. But that’s aside the point; I’m afraid that Dave isn’t… I think that maybe, just maybe, he’s… going through something similar. I never really see him eat anymore. He’s scared, and I know that he lies about it – and it’s a problem if you’re lying about it, you know that. So… we need to tell his brother, John.” You blinked, absorbing all of the information that you were just given for a few moments.
“So… you think he’s… ” You paused. You couldn’t remember the word in Tagalog (it had never been your best language) so you responded in English. “You think he’s anorexic?”
“I know that something is up,” she supplied. You shrugged a little, the pit of your gut agreeing with her. “And if anything is up then he needs to know that help is okay. And have you seen how thin he’s gotten in these past few weeks? Or maybe these months. It’s scary – though, I wouldn’t be too surprised if you didn’t. You don’t notice little changes in people if you see them every day. You know what I mean, I know you do, John.”
“I’m scared,” you said, your voice a quiet hum as your vocal cords graced against each other. She nodded.
“Watch him for a few days, first, okay John? He’ll try to hide it harder, but that'll be okay. Just tell me, or tell his brother. I'm sorry I'm asking this of you, but I think it'll be apparent. Even if he does hide it more, we'll need to get him help.”
You nodded in return, deciding not to say anything in response. You squeezed her hand nervously, and you both remained silent for the rest of the ride.