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TT: So, meet at the restaurant at 7 pm sharp, then?
EB: yep!! oh man, i hope dave likes jade.
EB: from what you've told me about him, he seems like a real dork! she likes dorky boys.
EB: i mean, i think she does.
TT: From mine and Jade's correspondence, she does indeed seem perfect for Dave. It will be exciting to finally meet her in person.
TT: To matchmaking.
EB: to matchmaking!
John fiddled with his bow tie outside the door to the restaurant, nervously jumping from foot to foot. He was incredibly nervous. He shouldn't be! This was just a normal dinner with his best friend Rose and his other best friend Jade, and apparently some other dude who seemed pretty funny and maybe might be worth becoming good friends with.
Just a normal dinner, which could decide whether Jade and Dave fell in love and got married and had little children together and oh god!! What if he was a creep? John would feel terrible if Jade ended up matchmade with a slimy neurotic asshole!
Jade, on the other hand, wasn't nervous at all. She grinned at John with her familiar enthusiastic smile, adjusting her neat little skirt and her neat little cardigan. Man, she would love to be wearing a good set of hiking boots right now, but John had insisted that she wear some shoes that were actually suitable for a dining establishment - she didn't know why. John was usually terrible at keeping secrets, but he'd managed to keep this one under wraps!
"John, stop jiggling," she said quietly as John bounced on his feet.
"Sorry! It's just... exciting you know? Getting to see Rose and Dave, whoever he is. Maybe he'll be nice."
Jade didn't understand why John kept giving her suggestive eyebrow wiggles. "Are you developing a tic or are you trying to tell me something? Because you should put those eyebrows to rest!"
"The eyebrows can't be rested, Jade! They're going crazy!" John wiggled them a little more for emphasis before being distracted by a sleek black car pulling up beside the restaurant. Oh... wow. Was that.... Rose's mom's car?
Rose looked out the tinted car window with a hint of a smile. Ah yes, there was John with his familiar tousled black hair and set of pearly whites, this time obscured by his rather maudlin expression. Oh, John. No need to worry yourself into a tizzy so much, she thought.
Beside him stood a short girl with long long hair - Rose was enchanted by the soft curves of her face and her green eyes, which set off her dark tan skin. Of course, this was all aesthetic appreciation on behalf of Dave, since the girl must surely be Jade. That was why Rose was writing sonnets about her eyes in her head. Of course.
"Thanks for the lift momma Lalonde," Dave said beside her, beginning to climb out the car. "Sure appreciate it ma'am."
"Pleeaaase," said Rose's mother from the front seat, throwing a couple of twenties at him and Rose.. "Go go go enjoy yourself okay! See you later Rose sugarpie - catch a taxi back, I'm gonna be a little, uh, busaaaaaay."
Rose did not devote much time to deciphering what kind of "busy" her mother's accompanying wink precluded. It was best for her sanity that she just ignored it and pretended it never happened.
"Thank you," she said archly, and climbed out the car. It was despicable. Pulling her passive aggressive bullshit right before she had to go out - ugh, no, no thinking about mothers. Only food now.
John's nervous expression melted when he saw Rose - ah, good old familiar Rose! She'd help him handle any bumps in the evening's schedule. The car door opened on the opposite side and John got a flash of tightly curled white-blond hair, before a skinny black man in shades unfolded himself out of the door and-
And-
Boy he was /tall/. Okay, so John wasn't exactly on the tall side himself - even Rose was taller than him - but this dude towered over both him and Jade! Okay maybe not towered. John tended to exaggerate. Oh fuck quick Jade had to say hi to him and get a good first impression-
Jade tackle-hugged Rose. She couldn't help it! They'd been internet buddies for ages and now, thanks to John, they were finally meeting up in real life! They'd had some pretty cool in depth conversations, and recently she'd found herself thinking about what Rose would be like in person. And now she knew! She couldn't help but grin at her, pulling back a little from the hug. Right now the thing she was most excited for was meeting the woman she'd spent hours talking music, games, feelings with online - she felt her heart burst a little with happiness.
Rose tried to catch her breath. Well. One didn't get a greeting like that every day. Her smile widened into something a little more tangible.
"So, you must be Jade," she said warmly. "Finally."
"Finally!" Jade pulled back completely, before holding out a hand for Dave. "Nice to meet you too! I'm Jade."
"Dave," said Dave simply, shaking her hand. She seemed... she seemed genuinely nice, and that was something he considered a rare trait. He liked the whole big glasses thing that she and that other dude were rocking - the whole retro nerd thing was a good aesthetic to be touting and he found himself appraising the dude's choice of shirt. Where did he even find a shirt that had a calculator hook built in? At least, that's what Dave assumed it was, unless the dude had added it himself. Fucking incredible. Fuck, maybe he- wait, shift focus. He wasn't supposed to be concentrating on the dude.
But yeah, Jade. She seemed nice. He could stand an evening with her. Remind him to thank Rose.
"Okay!" John clapped his hands. "I have a booking soooo we can just go in!"
It was a very fancy restaurant, as restaurants went. The lighting was low, the decorations were tasteful, and there were free baskets of breadsticks on every table. Jade supposed that it would be a good place to take your date on, if you had a date. Hmm. Suspicious. This didn't seem like the kind of place John would choose as a friendly outing of friends.
Her suspicions were not helped by John practically shoving her into the seat by Dave and pushing her closer to him - really, John, was subtlety that hard to achieve? - and the fact he kpt glancing between her and Dave like he expected them to start bursting into a touching duet together or something. She gave Dave and apologetic glance, and she was almost sure that he returned it - the shades made it hard to tell!
Dave shrugged at Jade, making up his mind to tell the John dude to chill at some point. Oh man. He hated set up dates, but whatever, he was here, and nobody here seemed all the disagreeable. He needed to see the alcohol list pronto if he was going to make it through this evening- wait, no, Rose was clutching it like it was her only ticket to salvation in this godforsaken eatery.
"So!" said John, cheerful and oblivious once they were all sat and settled. "Dave, hi. You're a friend of Rose's, right?"
"For my sins," said Rose quietly, and Dave kicked her under the table.
"Yeah, known this girl since we were like eight or some shit, I lost count. Not by choice - we literally cannot get rid of each other. We're like magnetic glue. So, you and Jade... you're... cousins?"
Jade shook her head. "No! It's kind of complicated, but basically we share a family member somewhere along the line! Probably. Our family trees kind of got a bit tangled up at one point."
"Like an incestuous thorn bush," added John helpfully, earning a whack with a breadstick across the forehead. "I mean, a normal thorn bush. Because we don't mention that bit, apparently."
Surprisingly, even without the fallback of strong liquor, Rose found herself enjoying the chit chat and the inane conversation - something that would usually bore her to tears and provoke her sharpest of replies, here instead making her feel... like she belonged. It was felt secretly by all four of the group, even the newcomer Dave, who wrote it off as second hand nostalgia from all these chummy assholes being so welcoming and smiley.
John was pleased. Everyone seemed to be doing okay! He even managed to stop Rose from getting an alcoholic drink with the help of Dave dropping subtle hints in a move of tag team preventative action that luckily stopped short of being awkward. Everything was going well.
Too well.
"Ouch!" yelped Jade, bringing her hand up to her chest and dropping her breadstick. There was a sharp pain in her chest. She'd been stabbed! There was a ghost stabbing her! She was-
Oh, never mind, the underwire of her bra had snapped and was digging into her rib. She felt the snap with a mournful expression, frowning at the increasingly loud coughing and whispering from John along the lines of "stop feeling your boob in public!".
"My bra just snapped!" She pushed herself back from the table, and Rose looked up from the menu, happy to tear herself away from starters and main courses.
"Do you want a hand? I'm proficient in bending bras back into shape - this always happens to me."
"Please!"
Dave watched the two girls go to the toilet with a growing feeling of dread. It was just him... and this John guy. This was going to be awkward as fuck.
"Look, feel here," said Jade, holding up her cardigan in the cubicle and pointing to the snapped wire with a pout. "This was a new bra! I only just bought it."
Rose looked at the smooth expanse of rib, the rounded folds of soft fat, and where it was rubbed raw by the wire. She extended a pale white hand, looking up at Jade's face as she felt the red welts gently.
She felt Jade's breath stutter a little under her hands.
"I see. It looks like it might not be able to be fixed by bending."
"Oh no!" Jade's eyebrows slanted up in a helpless curve. "What do I do?"
"I guess there is no other option but to take off the bra." Rose waited to see Jade's reaction. Some wome, she knew, were not comfortable with going braless.
"If you say so."
Jade took off the cardigan completely, and unhooked the bra at her back. Rose's mouth went dry. Oh.
"Okay..." Jade sighed down at her chest. "I would have put on a less clingy top if I knew I would be going commando."
"You look fine," said Rose, a little too quickly. Jade didn't seem unnerved - she seemed surprised, but pleased.
"Really?"
"Yes." Rose didn't trust her opinions anymore. They were becoming a little biased. "I would have offered to lend you my bra but, unfortunately in this case, I am..." She made vague smaller motions.
"Roooose!" Jade gave her a soft smile. "Are you unhappy with-"
"I'm not sure what you're implying," said Rose a little too quickly again. She really did have to work on her reaction times. "I am perfectly satisified with my cup size."
"Me too," said Jade, and Rose for a moment struggled to fit the polysemic sentence into a meaning that didn't make her pulse stutter. "Anyway."
"Anyway," Rose replied, and they both looked at each other.
"So we go back to the dude, you know behind the counter, and we say-" John snickered a little. "We say 'hey - got any quarters?'"
Dave hadn't laughed this hard, this openly, in years. He didn't know what it was about John, but he had a knack for story telling, and Dave was eating it out of his hand like he was a primary dispenser of the world's most glorious dog food and Dave was a pedigree mongrel.
"What did he say?"
"We got banned. Banned from that Denny's forever. They have a picture of me behind the counter in case I try to come back and it's the one of me in a beaglepuss because I refused to take it off."
The laughter that rewarded John was glorious, John decided. It was pretty flattering that he'd managed to reduce this initally aloof and standoffish guy to tears with a few anecdotes and prize jokes - but they were really getting on! It was kind of a shame Rose hadn't introduced them sooner. He bet Dave was a good guy to go drinking with.
"Unbelievable," Dave snorted, managing to control the laughter a little to give John an impressed glance. "That's some Grade A bullshit right there, come on."
"No bullshit! Just utter my name in that franchise and watch them cower with fear and dread."
The waiter approached for the third time. "Excuse me, are you ready to order?"
John looked around and shrugged. The girls had been gone for a while. "I'm sure they won't mind if we order ahead of them, right?"
Jade gasped as Rose's mouth found her neck, tried to hold it in at the wet slick kisses and the scraping of teeth, felt the blood rush to her head and make her fall back against the cubicle door-
"Excuse me ma'am, are you alright in there?"
"I'm fine!" Jade squeaked. "Just having a bit of a wardrobe malfunction. Snapped bra wire."
The attendant was male, and to him the terrors of bras in all their complicated glory justified the ruckus. Wires? Hooks and eyes? The poor lady in the cubicle was doomed.
"Oh, of course. Sorry ma'am."
"It's okay!"
Rose waited before the rhythmic squeak of uniform regulatory shoes exited the bathroom before breathing a laugh into Jade's neck. "That was a close call indeed. What if they had offered to help?"
"Hmmm. It might have ended up with the same result as we got, and I couldn't risk that with a random waiter."
"True." Rose pulled back a little and wiped off the black lipstick from Jade's neck and her mouth with a napkin. "So I suppose it's different with a random person from the internet?"
"Oh Rose," said Jade, shaking her head. "You're not a random person from the internet. You're my best friend!"
And Rose was stunned into silence, giving Jade an uncharacteristically vulnerable expression before they crashed together again.
Dave took a sip of his wine, and watched John take a gulp of his. The food was excellent. They were both just finishing up their meals, and even though Dave wasn't a fan of people stealing his food, he found he was completely comfortable with John requesting to try some of Dave's lobster in return for Dave having a little of his carbonara. They both knew this was not what adults were supposed to do in polite company, but they both silently agreed that they simply didn't give a fuck.
John put down his glass and leaned towards Dave with a probing expression.
"So. Mysterious shades guy. What's up with that?"
"Swag overdose as a child. Was nearly fatal. I could kill somebody with pure cool if I take these babies off for even a second."
John narrowed his eyes at Dave's impressive deadpan.
"How tragic. I'm pretty sure that's just the shitty power of that lazer eye beam guy, you know, the one with the weird monoeye shades."
"Dude if I was going to have a superpower I would not pick lazer eye beams. I'd pick time travel or something."
"Wow, okay. Why? To eat the same pizza twice?"
"Time travel doesn't work like that, doofus, so no. That's like the lamest reason to get a superpower anyway- wait no I love pizza of course I'd try to eat the same pizza twice. What would you pick anyway?"
John smiled to himself in a way that Dave would call carefree. He'd never really seen it personified in someone before, but when John smiled. When John smiled like that, it was like the worries of the entire world faded away.
"Man," he said wistfully, "I'd fly."
There was a beat of silence.
"... Generic," said Dave finally.
"Shut up!" John said, and punched him in the arm, and laughed.
The formica cubicle wall was cold against her back, but Rose could feel her face growing red, could feel her entire body getting hotter with each second. Jade's hand trailed gently down from her neck to her nipple and she had to bite her lip to avoid any embarrassing noises. Her world was now condensed down to this cubic square, to herself and to Jade, to the mouth against hers and the tongue prodding at her lips inexpertly but no less hot, no less intense - like a point of light, blinding.
Jade could feel her entire world widening, from the hairs on the back of her neck to the soft murmur of the restaurant patrons in the main room, the clank and hiss of cooking in the kitchens, Rose's sighs expanding and geting lost in the noise of the universe turning on in a heady spin that she could only cling to and feel in the base of her bones -
John swirled his spoon in the goopy chocolate profiterole mess that he and Dave had just ordered to share. Look at him, ordering to share. This was a novelty. He was just getting along with Dave so well and - hey, it saved money! Plus it was kinda fun and he just felt like a huge kid goofing off with a friend.
"Okay okay okay," Dave said over a profiterole being waved around rather dangerously on the end of his fork. "You're got two choices. If you leave the girl alone, she'll start killing the other passengers. However, if you kill her, you just killed a little girl and you don't have any evidence that she was kiling the other passengers. What do you do."
John snorted. "What kind of plane ride is this? Murderous little girls, what the fuck? I guess I would... watch her and then hand her in at the end."
"Okay okay," said Dave again, the profiterole waving dangerously close to John's nose. "Now imagine that you are the little girl."
"That's just fucking stupid."
Dave just shook his head and bit his profiterole, finally, giving John a very judgmental look. "You are such an unimaginative bastard. This could happen. This could really happen. You could be killed by a child wielding a sword on an aeroplane."
"What kind of kid has a sword??"
"Well, I did."
John had speared a profiterole and was about to eat it, but when he heard that, he put it down, giving Dave a look. "You- you know what. From what I'm learning about you, that doesn't even surprise me. Why?"
"Bro was wayyy into sports and martial arts with me as a kid. Like dude was a first in line appreciator of the art of swordmanship - he could spin a katana 360 noscope and beat your ass backwards to Paraguay without snapping it once. Course he's less into that now- what am I saying he is still a huge sword fan."
"He sounds like a real otaku."
"He wasn't an otaku."
"He was an otaku."
"He wasn-"
John raised his profiterole and put a dollop of chocolate sauce on the end of Dave's nose. "Don't fight it."
They were interrupted by the sound of a flushing toilet next door, which was possibly one of the most effective things Jade had ever heard in stopping any and all forms of sloppy make outs. Rose panted silently against her collarbone and they didn't say anything for a while, getting back to the rather cramped reality of this being a restaurant stall.
"Perhaps," breathed Rose, "we should take this somewhere with more ambiánce."
"Whatever that is, we probably do need more of it," agreed Jade, slowly calming down and straightening her hair out. "But my place is a no go at the minute - my roommate has her swim team over and they're talking tactics and being loud and giggly and I don't think that would make much ambiánce."
Rose was struck with the idea of being trapped in a house full of buff ladies in swimsuits. It was a hard idea to let go of once it was trapped there, but she managed. Barely.
"Alright. Let's split this joint and go to my place, I suppose. You might find a few cats around the place. Well, just one, but he's fat enough in mass to constitute several." Sweet dear chubby Jaspers.
"I'll go first," whispered Jade, and after rearranging her skirt, she slipped out the cubicle.
They split the bill half and half, and exited the restaurant into the cool night air. John undid his collar a little with relief, having become far too stuffy trapped in the warm glow of fine food and good wine. It was just dark, with the streetlights just turning on with unsure stutters, and he checked his phone for the time. Not too late. Not too early.
"Hmmm," said Dave, stretching out his long arms behind his head and stuffing his wallet into the back pocket of his jeans. "Man, that was good. Do you want to go to a bar for a bit or should we call it a night?"
"I have work in the morning." John sighed. It was a shame. "But we can always do it another time."
"True. So, you sorted for a lift home? Don't tell me you're driving, dude - I saw you down that Chablis like it was cherryade."
John bounced on the balls of his feet. "I'm walking back. I only live a couple blocks away, so."
"I'll accompany you." The words were out before Dave could really stop them - they surprised him as much as they surprised John. But Dave found he was more than okay with the idea. It was a good night for a stroll, not too hot, not too cold.
"Thanks," John said with a smile which bordered on shy, leading the way past parked cars and other eateries full of evening crowds. They walked companionably, and John found himself smiling into his own collar a little, remembering a funny joke Dave had shared with him inside - remembering all of the evening, actually, with a warm glow. Dave was in quiet contemplation himself, admiring the night sky and how blue it looked against the orange streetlamps softening and dulling the colours of their shirts, the colours of their hands dangling near each other.
They talked a little together, comfortable conversation, quiet and amusing, before John held a hand out to gesture that they had arrived at his apartment.
"Here we are," he said, almost apologetically. "Guess my roommate will be waiting for me to spill the details of tonight."
"You gonna tell them it's a success?" Dave smiled gently. "I bet you can't wait to go in and complain about the awful food and terrible company."
"Oh god yeah. My dining companion was a complete dick. He kept making terrible jokes."
"Hey woah, that was you. Don't start."
As the laughter dissolved away, John looked up at Dave, and Dave looked down at him, and maybe something jolted in the pit of John's stomach, a lone butterfly rising up his throat in a bubble of happiness and... something he couldn't name.
Dave looked at him. He looked at Dave. The streetlamp made shadows under their feet, and the shadows pooled and conspired in the corners and around them until it seemed like they were shadows too.
"Goodnight," said John abruptly, pulling himself away with the slowness of treacle, before wheeling back to his door and unlocking it. Dave jerked backwards with something that sounded like a sharp intake of breath - coming back down to Earth.
A glance over the shoulder, a grin at Dave, and John disappeared into the porch of the flats' staircase, disappearing behind the closing front door.
Dave maintained his composure for all of 3 seconds before his knees buckled and he leant against the streetlamp, a very uncool grin gracing his features. Oh lord. Let him wait a minute before trying to get it together.
The taxi ride back was possibly the most difficult thing Jade had ever done. She'd whispered that she felt weird about making out in the back of a taxi to Rose, and now they were sat at a respectable distance from each other in the back, but Jade couldn't stop her hand creeping over the seats to where Rose's rested, pale and ghostly as light passed over it again and again from the streetlamps. She touched her pinkie to Rose's. Rose linked them together.
Jade's heart felt like it was going to burst from her chest.
But she couldn't stop. Her hand rested on Rose's forearm, and ten Rose slid her hand across the gap and placed it on Jade's knee, and there was a long long moment where Jade looked down, looked at Rose, kept looking-
"That'll be $46.50 thanks, darlin'."
The taxi driver's voice interrupted them perhaps thankfully. While Rose paid him, Jade slid out and gasped at the beautiful enormous house that loomed from the darkness, lit only a fraction by the taxi headlamps. Woods stretched away and around her, begging to be explored - dammit, why no hiking boots? - but her view was soon cut off when the taxi drove away.
Rose pulled her into a kiss that felt like jumping into a pool fully clothed.
They stumbled up the path to the front door, a mass of limbs and movement that Rose couldn't help but associate with some of the more imaginative monsters she used to read about in her occult tomes. Perhaps those squiddles of Jade's were not so far removed from their almost Lovecraftian connotations, since she and Jade were pretty much inseparably tangled together and it was definitely more horrifying to the outside observer than cute.
That was exactly how Rose wanted it.
She managed to free up and arm to extricate the keys from her pocket, taking several attempts to unlock the door before the burst into the house, spilling into the room from the dark into the warm light of a hearth fire-
Her mother's eyes confronted her from the couch in front of the fire, and beside her - Rose had to quickly pull away from Jade to be able to see him properly, meaning Jade overbalanced and nearly went sprawling - "Mr Egbert?"
It was definitely him, even without the hat and pipe. The nose was completely recognisable on it's own. He looked vaguely embarrassed to be caught relaxing in front of the fire with a glass of deep red wine with Rose's mother.
"Rosey, sweetie, I thought you'd be back later when it's still so early-" Ms. Lalonde eyed the long haired girl now looking rather flustered. "Mister Egbert, I think that we should leave the younglings be and go out for that drink you promised me."
There was a small noise of protest from Mr Egbert, waving his glass of wine in a manner that suggested that more than one drink was not exactly what he had originally agreed to, but it was quelled by a meaningful eyebrow wiggle from Ms Roxanne. How could a gentleman refuse such a lady?
"But, mom-"
"Gee two gee, Rosiecakes. Momma's gotta run, right (Eg)Bertie?" Rose shuddered at the nickname, and the two girls were pushed aside by a rather enthusiastic woman and her somewhat bemused companion, who had lost track of the evening somewhat.
The door slammed behind her, and Jade saw Rose blink at the carpet. There didn't seem to be much to say after that. It felt a little odd to try to make out after seeing her mom on a date with John's dad. Jade wondered if it was the same for Rose.
Her expression suggested she was thinking the same thing.
"So, uh... Can I see your room?"
John slid down the door to the apartment, his face flushed from having bounded up the stairs, and maybe from Dave. He allowed himself a time to rest a time to put a hand on his chest and feel the strangely hammering beat. A time to smile quietly to himself.
The moment of peace was shattered by his roommate thundering past with her laptop charger in her arms. Of course Vriska was still up. She stayed up late playing weird larping games or something: John didn't really pay much attention when she rambled.
"Soooo. I assume the date went well, then," she said with a wide grin, eyes open wide and dropping her charger on the sofa.
"It wasn't a date," said John falteringly, waving his hand dismissively. But the smile wouldn't leave.
"Sure-" she rolled her eyes - "sure, it wasn't a date. Wait, yeah... wasn't it a secret set up or something? Did you manage to pair up the lucky couple or was it a bit of a flop?"
"Well, Jade's bra snapped and she and Rose kind of disappeared and-"
Cogs fell into place in John's mind. He looked at Vriska with an expression of mild panic, before slapping his own forehead.
"We left the girls at the restaurant!"
The clock told her it was becoming rather late, but Jade wasn't feeling sleepy as she leant her head on Rose's chest on her wide single bed. Relics of Rose's childhood surrounded them, things Jade had only known about when Rose told her about them online. It all felt a little surreal to be so close now in person with her best online friend. Wow. They'd kind of made out! In a bathroom stall! And it was- it was weird and messy and kind of hot. That was not the kind of thing that respectable adults did, and yet here they were, in Rose's bedroom with the lights off and the windows open, listening to the forest rustle in the night. Perhaps they were both disrespectable adults now.
"Jade," said Rose haltingly, running a hand down to smooth Jade's hair across the clean (but messy) sheets.
"Yeah?"
"I'm..." There was a tidal wave of affection that ran through Rose, crashed over her and clogged up her mouth and rendered her speechless. How did she communicate the sheer trust and love that she felt towards Jade, without being overly sentimental? "I'm glad."
"Me too." Jade smiled. "I'm glad too."
In the dark, with a little rearrangement and movement, with the sound of the stream running under the house playing a neutral sonata, they kissed.
EB: that kinda didn't go as planned.
TT: Indeed.
EB: um.
EB: does this count as a fail or a success?
TT: Depends. Perhaps we should arrange a second date and see if the data we collected was a fluke or a pattern.
EB: and maybe plan better this time?
TT: The best laid plans, John. The best laid plans.