Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Beeps echoed through the halls and announcements filled the large waiting rooms. It was snowing lightly, but it soon started picking up. As John watched out the overly large window, he sighed and slid further into his seat, pouting a bit. His flight back to Washington had been delayed because of the snow. His dad had been texting updates and his phone vibrated again; he hoped the message would be a little more positive. Naturally, it wasn’t.

From: Dad

They’ve just cancelled your flight because of the snow. I’m sorry son.

Not a minute after he receive the text, another announcement came up, listing the flights cancelled. Groans collected in the air, including John’s. He quickly texted his father back, confirming his message.

“God this sucks major plush ass,” a voice complained nearby. John looked over at the blonde male a few seats away. His red hoodie looked too big for him and practically draped over his black skinny jeans. His ridiculous, pointy, anime-like shades completely hid his eyes. He stretched out his legs in front of him, red converse squeaking slightly. “On fucking Christmas eve, too.” John giggled quietly but the blonde heard him anyways, his head snapping to John’s direction, “Is something funny?”

“Yeah, you complaining over there is pretty funny,” the buck-toothed boy replied,, “but yeah this totally sucks. You’d think living right next to Canada I’d be used to this kind of crappy weather.”

The blonde raised an eyebrow, “Where the hell do you live, man?”

“I’m not about to tell some random stranger I met at the airport where I live.”

“Oh please, don’t we go to the same college or some shit? We have astronomy together or something.” John looked back over to the blonde. Yeah, he did seem really familiar. The image of a hand running through the back of a blonde head several rows in front of him during a lecture came to mind.

“John.”

“What?”

“My name is John Egbert. What’s yours?” he asked, turning to the other boy.

“Dave. Strider.”

“Pleasure,” John said with a signature buck-toothed smile, “I live in Washington.”

“I thought you didn’t tell strangers where you lived?”

“Well, we exchanged names so I figured we weren’t really strangers anymore,” John replied as he got up and moved to the seat directly across from the other. Dave’s oversized aviators couldn’t hide his smirk. It was so tiny though that John almost missed it, but for some reason it still looked like a smirk.

“Is that right? Pretty quick to think we’re friends John.”

“Don’t push it Strider.”

“Hey, I was only stating the obvious bro.” The smirk grew and that made John laugh.

He didn’t know why but he already really liked Dave. Dave joined in after a moment, their laughter echoing throughout the room, much to the annoyance of the surrounding grumpy fliers. After that, they ended up conversing nonstop late into the night, their conversation starting to slow around 1:30 am, coming to a stop at 2 am. It was incredibly dark outside, and the lights inside the airport dimmed to a very low setting. The two college boys sat side-by-side, Dave listening to his tunes as John spaced out beside him. The raven-haired boy’s eyes slowly starting closing, his head bobbing slightly as he started nodding off. Suddenly, Dave felt a weight on his shoulder and he looked down to find that the shorter boy had fallen against him, sound asleep. Damn that’s adorable, Dave thought as he looked at the boy for another moment before looking up again and returning to his music. Another hour and he passed out himself, head resting atop John’s.

Chapter Text

John blinked open his bleary blue eyes, the room brightened by the light of day. He yawned and felt a weight on his head grumble in protest. He looked up just enough to see a taller blonde boy passed out on top of him, triangular shades a bit askew from leaning on the other boy’s head. This confused John for a moment before he remembered that this was the boy he had befriended the night before. His cheek was numb from sleeping on Dave’s boney shoulder all night and he tried to lift his head. Another sleepy complaint followed.

“Dave,” John whispered, nudging the boy lightly, “C’mon man wake up.”

“Nng, Bro, come on it’s freaking Saturday let me sleep in, just this once.” The blonde mumbled in reply.

John would have laughed, however his back had started to hurt from sitting still so long. “First off, it’s freaking Wednesday. Secondly, I can’t feel my face so please remove yours from the top of my head,” he finished with a shove to the other, quickly getting up as the blond fell onto the row of armless chairs. He groaned and rolled over, accidentally falling onto the floor and bolting upright, glaring at John as he laughed hysterically. “Are we awake yet, Sleeping Beauty?” The shorter boy asked when he had finished laughing.

“Just fine and dandy, Mr slobber-mouth,” Dave retorted, pointing to the side of his mouth. John touched the corner of his mouth to find it wet and quickly wiped it off with an embarrassed chuckle. John held out his other hand but Dave waved it off and stood up himself. He looked out the window, seeing snow clinging to the frame and turned back to Dave.

“Hey let’s go get some coffee or something man, I think we both need it,” John said, to which Dave nodded. The picked up their bags and walked off towards a Starbucks concession stand. Numerous people had already gathered and formed an awkward line curving against the wall. The two boys stopped behind the last girl in the line. From her stature and the way she carried herself, even from the back, Dave could tell she was intelligent and confident. He hadn’t even seen her face but she intimidated him in about 8 seconds. Her short, blonde hair was held back by an orange hair-band, which matched her yellow and orange jacket and white leggings. As they approached, John was distracted telling Dave about his last birthday fiasco with his dad and would have bumped into her had Dave not grabbed his shoulder at the last second.

“Jeez man, pay attention you almost bumped into that girl,” Dave said to the wild-hair boy who smiled back at him as if he almost hadn’t crashed headlong into a female like a freight train into a too-small tunnel. The blonde girl turned her head to look at the two boys who stopped talking at her gaze.

“Well, I didn’t quite expect you to be here, Dave,” she said with a small smile that made her look like she was analyzing a murder scene and already knew who the killer was as the other detectives scrambled about for clues. John looked to Dave curiously as the boy’s smirk disappeared.

“Oh, hey. Yeah this is a surprise,” he replied.

“Planned on going home for Christmas, I’m guessing?”

“That had been the plan until that freak snowstorm last night.”

“Yes, that was quite a rain on our parade, hypothetically speaking.”

“Um, excuse me could someone fill me in real quick?” John interrupted, pushing up his glasses. “You guys know each other?” He turned to Dave with a brow raised.

“Yeah bro, she also goes to college with us,” Dave replied.

“We have Poetry History together,” she added.

“Yup, we were partners for a few projects.”

“Dave, are you going to introduce us?” the girl inquired, turning her violet gaze to Dave again.

“Oh, uh, right. John this is, uh…” Dave trailed off, the hand he was using to gesture towards the girl lowering as he tried to remember her name 

“Really Dave? It’s been a week and you can’t even remember my name?”

“I’m not that great with names, alright?” He grumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets. The girl turned to John again, who blinked large blue eyes at her.

“I’m Rose. Rose Lalonde,” She held out a white-gloved hand to him, which he grasped, smiling up at her.

“I’m John Egbert! Nice to meet you Rose.”

Rose laughed lightly and smiled back, “The pleasure’s all mine.”

Chapter Text

While they had been talking, the line had gotten a lot shorter and they scurried to catch up to it. As they stood waiting in the still-long-but-not-as-long-as-before line, John realized his bladder was trying to grab his attention and he quickly excused himself to use the restroom. I think I saw one down this hallway, he thought as he turned a corner. All of the hallways looked the same to him. The white walls and colorful carpet with the almost plastic lighting; John soon lost his sense of direction. He was looking at the signs for the bathroom when he ran headlong into someone, as Dave was not there to stop him this time, and he stumbled backwards, falling down as the other did. He rubbed his head and realized his glasses had been knocked off in the collision. Temporarily blinded, he patted the ground around him for his glasses. He could hear someone else doing the same and saw a black blur on their knees, searching for something on the ground. John finally felt something metallic and slender under his fingers and quickly grabbed the pair of glasses, putting them on. Suddenly the world was warped and rounded, almost high-definition. Wow these are definitely not mine. The black blur he saw early stood up and braced their hands out for balance.

“Wow, why is everything so like, constricted? Wait a minute, these aren’t mine!” The voice came from said black blur and John turned to look at it. The blur turned out to be a girl in a thick, black sweater with white-striped sleeves and jeans. Her long, wavy black hair covered most of her back and had made it hard to distinguish her body type but when she turned around, John saw it was a girl with round, green eyes and buck teeth just like him, albeit a bit smaller. She seemed to be wearing John’s  rectangular, blue-framed glasses. “Oh! You have my glasses!” She remarked, pointing to John’s face. Lifting a hand and pulling the glasses off, he could see they were very large and round, very unlike his own. He handed them back to the girl in exchange for his own.

“Ah, I’m real sorry about that miss,” John said, “I bumped into you really hard. I totally wasn’t paying attention.” He got up and offered his hand to the girl, who took it in her own. “Are you alright?”

“Oh yeah! I’m totally fine! I’ve been knocked into much harder than that, I just wasn’t really expecting it, you know?” She replied.

“Ha, ok I see. Well, anyways, I’m real sorry. Oh! Do you happen to know where a men’s bathroom is?”

“Sure! It’s down this hall on your right,” she pointed to a door near the other end of the hallway, the little sign lit up above the door.

“Thanks a bunch, later!” He gave her a small wave before rushing towards the bathroom. The place was exceptionally clean when he entered it,  which only made John have to pee even more. Well, while I’m in here I guess… He thought as he entered one of the stalls. After about several minutes, he left the bathroom and proceeded back down the hallway. Now if only I could find my way back to that Starbucks where Dave and Rose are waiting. He wandered for nearly twenty minutes with no luck. He’d started jogging again, looking around for any familiar landmarks when he bumped into someone again.

“Ah, it’s you!” came a female voice. John looked up to see the girl he’d bumped into earlier.

“Hey, what a coincidence,” was his reply, “didn’t think I’d bump into you again. Ah- pun not intended.”

The girl just laughed, “Yeah same. You still look kinda lost, where are you trying to go?” John felt a bit of heat rush to his face when the girl pointed out he was lost.

“I-I’m not lost!” he stammered, “I’m just uh, taking my time getting back, duh.”

“Oh really? I’m pretty sure that running means you have somewhere you need to be, duh,” she imitated, “I’ve been to this airport lots of times because I go to college about an hour away and travel a lot during holidays. So tell me where you’re going and I’ll bring you.” She did a twirl and a thumbs up, almost like an overexcited child, “I’ll be your personal airport tour guide!”

“Oh fine!” John rolled his eyes, “I’m trying to make it back to Starbucks.”

“There’s like a million Starbucks in this airport, you’re gunna have to be a wee bit more specific.”

“Uh, Hanger S-1.”

“Ooh, the closest one to there is right next to the…” She blinked and looked at John before cracking up in laughter. The other didn’t get what was so funny.

“Um, is there a problem?” He asked simply.

“Dude, that Starbucks is literally right next to a bathroom! Did you seriously run right past it and get lost?”

“What? There so was not a bathroom there!”

“Uh, yeah there so is.”

“Ugh whatever, can you please take me to that Starbucks then? I need to get back to my friend.” He crossed his arms impatiently.

“Aw, don’t get your knickers in a bunch, mate. I’ll have you back to your deluxe cream latte in no time!” She turned on her heel and started walking back down the hallway.

“Hey, wait up!”

“You know I don’t think I’ve properly introduced myself,” the black-haired girl said as John finally caught up to her two hallways and several turns later, “I’m Jade Harley!”

“I’m John Egbert,” he responded, “So how close do you think we are?”

“We’re already there, silly!”

“What?” John looked over to find he was standing next to the Starbucks he had left Dave and Rose at; however, the line was completely gone along with his two new friends.

“Yo John! Over here man!” a voice called from the other side of the room and John turned to see Dave and Rose sitting by the window, the blonde boy waving him over.

“Oh, there they are.” He turned back to Jade, “Would you like to come sit with us?”

“Hey that’d be great, thanks!” she followed him over to the others’ table and John introduced her.

“Hey guys, this is Jade! I bumped into her on my way to the bathroom after I got a bit uh, sidetracked and she helped me find my way back.”

“Yo, I’m Dave,” the blonde smirked his signature microscopic smirk and threw her a wave.

“Hello Jade, pleasure to see you again,” Rose said politely, “How is your grandfather?”

“Oh hi Rose! He’s doing great, thanks for asking!” Jade smiled as the two boys looked at Rose with much confusion. Well, John more than Dave.

“Wait, Rose you know her?” Dave asked, a brow raised slightly at the other blonde.

“Why yes I do. She goes to our college and we have Planetary Study together, isn’t that right?”

“Yup yup!” Jade agreed as she sat down, John sitting down next to Dave.

“So wait ok, let me get this straight,” John demanded, placing his elbows on the small table as he gestured to them in turn, “Me and Dave-“

“Dave and I,” Rose corrected.

John rolled his eyes, “Dave and I know each other from-“

“I wouldn’t say ‘know’ bro, kinda more like ‘recognized.’” Dave interrupted.

“Bluhh, Dave and I recognize each other from Astronomy class. Dave knows Rose and Rose knows Dave as they both go to the same Poetry thingie class and Jade and Rose know each other from space class- He stopped as he was interrupted yet again.

“Planetary Study!” Jade giggled.

“Ugh, is everyone done interrupting me?” The wild-haired boy grumbled, annoyed.  The other’s just laughed and John’s pout cracked into a small grin. For some reason, he just couldn’t stay mad them.