artificialIntellect [AI]created the memo "Dave's Surprise Birthday Party" !
artificialIntellectaddedtechnicolorGladiator,turntechGodhead,timaeusTestified,tentacleTherapist,tipsyGnostalgic,and deadPool to the memo!
TG: alright i already have a minimum of two comments about this whole shebang here
TG: comment number one
TG: i dont think yall know what the fuck a goddamn surprise is
AI: You must admit that you tend to not react well to surprises, Dave.
TG: okay yeah that ones actually a fair point but i bet you i can invalidate it in exactly seven words
TG: youre not doing a birthday party
TT: That would be six words.
turntechGodheadleft the memo!
TG: oof
timaeusTestifiedaddedturntechGodheadto the memo!
AI: Someone's been working on their typing speed.
TG: dont encourage him hal
TG: why am i under the chatroom equivalent of house arrest
TG: cuz u gotta help us figure out what u want for ur birthday duh
DP: On a related note, when exactly is his birthday?
TG: middle of summer
TG: nah its in two weeks
DP: Two weeks?
DP: No one was going to tell me. You guys were going to let me walk into my own kid's birthday party completely clueless—
AI: Drama queen.
DP: I know I am, but what are you?
TT: He's also a drama queen.
TT: As are you.
TG: rosie u tried to buy a gran piano on craigslist so u could ""react properly to minor inconveniences""
TG: glass houses n stones sis
TG: look guys we are ALL drama queens in this family okay? i kinda think its genetic or some shit
TG: back on topic
TG: im guessing dirk and hal have a party halfway planned already?
TT: I've been banned from the planning.
AI: (He's sulking.)
TT: I am not.
TT: I can sense your aura of depression and self-recrimination from here, Dirk.
TT: You can rejoin the planning committee once you stop picking fights with Hal. We'd like to keep the notes in one piece.
TG: why do you have notes for this
TG: guys you do know im gonna be fifteen not five right
TG: dont actually need a party here
TG: whoa im getting the whole "several people are typing" thing up now, i feel like youre about to get lectured kiddo
TG: nah
turntechGodheadcannot leave the memo!
TG: oh for fucks sake
TT: The fact that you see birthday parties as juvenile indicates that your former guardian presented them as a reward that you grew out of already. This in turn suggests that you've missed multiple proper birthdays, and while we can't exactly remedy that, at least we can make up for them with some truly rad ones in this and future years.
DP: Hey, if you don't want a party we won't do a party. I can kidnap you again. We can get a flight to Disneyland. Is Disneyland still a thing? Or we can go and get tattoos or something. Kids like body modification, right?
TT: How am I the one picking fights with him, exactly? He's the one who keeps fucking up my keyboard with this fucking double tap thing.
TG: davey we can do whatever u want but liek we gotta do something yknow? cmon bro it can be a fuckin pizza party and a movie marathon of ur fave shit but we wanna make it a good day that makes u happy is all
TG: im going with wades idea
TG: hell yeah, disneyland!
TG: d you dumbass i want a tattoo
TG: oh
TG: okay that works too
DP: :D
TG: ooh shit remind me to send you the link to my fave text emojis site wade
TG: but yeah davey u want a tattoo?
TG: yeah i want a tattoo
TG: like a full chest one
TG: should give people something else to focus on other than you know what like cmon its way more badass to have em staring at the rad ink than at the fucked up scars amiright
TT: That's...an interesting chain of reasoning.
AI: "Interesting" is definitely a word for it.
TG: rose i see you typing and i dont feel like being psychoanalysed right now thanks
TT: Noted. I'll save it for later.
TG: am i the only one here whos gonna point out that daves underage and cant really pass for eighteen even if you get him a fake id though
TG: like im not condoning any of yall getting fakes even though im pretty sure hal and roxy already have them but like that will one hundred percent not work for dave and as the only responsible adult im actually gonna put my foot down here and say that if he gets a tattoo he does have to have a professional do it
TG: no more stick n pokes please dear lord
TT: It didn't get infected.
TG: thats nice but my son and his boyfriend still have tattoos of my stupid doodles from high school on their bodies and thats enough to make me kinda want to die
TG: plus yall got dave to resurrect that incarnation of sbahj so like your amateur tattoo artistry has made a big enough impact on the world dirk
TG: dave gets a professional, this aint up for negotiation
DP: Oh, don't worry. I know some people.
TG: thats not ominous at all
DP: Okay, fair...
DP: I know a hot biker named Nikki Kyle who literally specializes in inking mutants. She also owes me a couple favors.
DP: Or maybe I owe her favors? I'm not really sure, we'll work it out.
DP: Dave can start planning his design, the rest of you can keep working on the party, and I'll text the lady herself, deal?
AI: Sounds perfect to me.
DP: Perfect :3
deadPool left the memo!
TG: okay who the hell showed him that smiley
TG: guess ::3 :3 :3
AI: You too? >:3
TG: :3c
TT: I'm disowning all of you.
TT: Grow a sense of humor, Dirk. =^w^=
Nikki's more or less amenable to doing some work on Dave, after a little persuasion. Okay, a lot of persuasion—half an hour on the phone and a couple of promises she knows you may or may not keep, you have a time and date set. You just hope that it's the right date, since you're still not totally sure of the kid's birthday.
Eh, might as well find him and ask!
That also takes some doing. He's not in the living room, not in his room, not in the kitchen...to be fair, no one else is in any of those rooms either. You've been deserted in the house, Wade. How does it feel?
(Like you got deserted, duh. Except not really, since Dave tends to text you with location updates ever since The Incident. He's still here somewhere.)
...aaaand the somewhere is Dirk and Hal's room, apparently. When you wander past that door it's half open, with all four Striders (and one Lalonde) somehow crammed onto one bed. Dirk's in the center, frowning down at his laptop like he's defusing a bomb.
"What're you guys doing, defusing a bomb?" Dave doesn't even twitch as you come around behind him and rest your chin on the top of his head. It's a very good vantage point, since he's already leaned halfway over Dirk's shoulder. Although D does give you a look when you encroach upon what probably counts as his territory. "Looks...complicated?"
"Not really, Dirk just sucks at straight lines."
"Fuck off, Hal—"
"Hey, the day you do anything straight is the day I tell Jake I was the one who set the two of you up for your first real date." Hal smiles sweetly as his twin looks up from the network of lines that almost looks like a coherent design, answering Dirk's glare with an obvious wink.
You're pretty sure that the only reason that you don't have to break up a fight here is because Rose shifts from her spot on the other side of Hal, squirming in between him and Dirk and separating them with a hand on each kid's face.The disgusted noise they both make is even more identical than they are. Dave huffs at you, tilting his head back when you chuckle, but his next words are obviously directed at Dirk.
"Add a katana behind the gears?"
"Broadswoard," Hal murmurs, blinking around Rose's hand still on his face.
"Katana.."
"You don't have to wear him forever, bro." Dirk doesn't look up as he adds more lines to the incomprehensible mass onscreen. "Do you want it actually behind, or like...dammit, give me a minute."
"You're the boss." Dave shrugs and leans back; if you weren't standing here he would've just gone off the bed. Then again, he wouldn't be leaning back if you weren't here, probably. "Anyway, Wade's got katanas too, right? Chill."
"Aw, I'm honored. Or I would be, if you weren't lying about who's katana Dirk's putting on there for you." (You'd have been disappointed if he didn't reach back to smack you in the face for that.) "Hey Rose, I'm guessing you're here to be the voice of reason?"
"I'm here because Dirk adds colors like he's colorblind."
"...of course he does."
"We're drawing it up now so Dave's got time to think this shit through," D explains, as Dirk does something to the program he's using and most of the scribbling just disappears. "Damn, that's nice."
It really is. Right now it's plain black and white outlines, but the design is clear and obvious—four interlocking gears, three of them smaller than the first. The lowest one is dripping with what you're guessing is going to be blood once the kids add the colors, and the one that connects to it is cracked, with light-lines shining through it. Dirk went with the katana instead of changing it like Hal suggested, but he's put it in the largest gear instead of behind it, like someone decided it was a good idea to stab a clock.
"You know, I feel like 'nice' is a little bit of an understatement, hot stuff." Nikki is going to love this. Or possibly need more convincing in order to actually do it. It's kind of a complicated design, and if you know Dave he's going to want it as large as possible...
Eh, cross that bridge when you come to it.
Nikki takes one look at the printout of the end design (which is only different from the beginning one in that Rose did the colors and Dave added black ribbons streaming down off the katana's hilt) gives Dave a reassuring grin, and says, "Hang on a sec, Wade needs to come sign a release."
You know that she's going to grab your collar and drag you out of the room, and it still takes you by surprise. Nikki doesn't really look like the kind of person who's capable of dragging a fully grown man across the room. Then again, she doesn't really look like a tattoo artist either. You think. Actually, you're not totally sure what a tattoo artist looks like; every time you've gotten one it's been in weird circumstances. Most of them were the results of alcohol and bets, and would actually be a legitimate source of regret if your specific flavour of healing factor didn't tend to erase anything you put on your skin within a month or so...
Nikki has let you go and is standing in front of you with her arms crossed, head tilted up to give her the perfect angle to glare at you. Yep, that's not good.
"What?"
"Dude, you bring me a literal kid and a hugeass project to do on him for his first time? What the fuck?"
"He's not exactly a normal kid—"
"You said he was your kid, yeah, I know, but still—"
"Oh, biologically he's not mine."
"Oh my god." Nikki groans and turns away from you, gently banging her head against the wall. (You hope that's more gentle than it looks, at least. Otherwise it's gotta hurt like hell.) "He's a kid."
"Yep."
"You know this is going to take hours, right? He's going to tap out halfway through, you're going to have to bring him back, he's going to be all tense because this shit hurts, you're going to get caught tattooing a minor—no, wait, I'm going to get caught tattooing a minor. That's how this works."
"Dave can sit through the whole session." Well, he couldn't if it was in real time, but the great thing about mutant powers is that sometimes they can function as real-life video game cheats. "...I do actually have to sign something, right? This isn't purely about chewing my ass out?"
Nikki glares at you for another thirty seconds or so. Then—just like you knew she would—she growls something unintelligible under her breath and shoves past you, stomping over to a file cabinet and snatching a clipboard out of a half-open drawer to pretty much hurl at your face.
You do love it when you're right.
You don't love it when Dave's perfectly balanced on the edge of panic, though, and that's exactly where he is when you follow Nikki back into the main room. He hasn't moved from the chair, he looks damn near perfectly unphased, and you can totally see the way he's got his breathing synched with his timefuckery so you can barely tell he's nearly hyperventilating.
Kid's got skills. You kind of wish they weren't these specific skills, but you still have to recognize talent when you see it.
"Dave. Heya." As you kneel down in front of him, you see the flicker of movement behind his shades; he had his eyes closed. So he's not far enough gone that he can't try to pull himself out; good to know... "Are we doing this? You know we don't have to, right? Say the word and we'll come back in a couple years—you know, when it's actually legal?"
The kid takes a deep breath. Then another, and you see him shudder slightly as he drops back into 1:1 time; as soon as he does that he leans forward, forehead bumping against your mask as you get your hands up and on his shoulders for a little added support. "You sayin' I can't handle this shit, Deadpool?"
"Hey, no matter what you do this is going to hurt like hell for a couple minutes, kiddo. Maybe longer; we still don't know if your healing factor's going to kick in for this." He heals major injuries fairly fast, minor ones not so much. You have no idea how his system's going to deal with something like this.
"It'll be fine. I'll be fine."
"Hey, I'm not the one who needs convincing."
"You got pain pills in the car."
Okay, how the hell did he find out about that stash? You thought you were being discreet. "Do not."
"Sure you don't. Unless I actually need one." Dave's hands creep up and just barely touch yours where you're holding him up. Then he pushes himself back up to sit properly, orienting on Nikki with a confident (and totally fake) grin. "Okay, I have, like, a kind of important question, right? Like it'll make this a hell of a lot easier for both of us, y'know?"
She is one hundred percent buying that smile. How did this kid get so good at this? "Sure, sweetie—what's the question?"
"Okay, so it's two questions, but A, can you do this—" he holds up the picture he wants on his skin, waiting for her to take it before he keeps talking "—in one sitting, and B, how long is it gonna take?"
Nikki loses her own smile at that second question, considering it for what seems to you like a long time. Long enough that you start wondering if she's going to collar you and pull you into the office for another talk, anyway. "Are you sure you want to try to get this all done in one go?"
"If you can do it? Hell fucking yes I do." Dave shrugs, glancing up at you as he takes his shades off; when you hold out your hand he deposits them there and strips off his shirt in one too-fast motion. "But like, I need a time estimate."
"...maybe three hours?"
"Cool; I'm gonna go out for four. Wade knows how to bring me out early." And before Nikki can point out that four hours is an insane length of time to have needles punching ink into his skin, Dave closes his eyes, exhales, and doesn't inhale again.
Nikki obviously does not expect him to do that. After about a minute she looks over at you, raising her eyebrows in what's probably the prelude to panic.
"What? You've got four hours before he has to breathe."
"...how exactly do you wake him up?"
"Well, we can wait and you can work on his ink." You dip one hand into your pocket and come back out with the little device you and the rest of Dave's family started carrying after The Incident, giving Nikki a smirk that she can't actually see. "Or I can taser him."
"You do know that isn't even remotely in the neighborhood of normal parental things to do, right? I'm pretty sure that crosses the line into horrible parenting."
"Sticks and stones, sweetheart. Plus I've never actually had to do it? Usually I just relocate him to somewhere relatively safe and wait. Which I can do now, if you're going to be like that."
Nikki frowns at you for a second, then shrugs. "Go find you one of the folding chairs. You're going to be here awhile."
Exactly four hours later by the apple-shaped clock on the wall, Nikki's been sitting back in her chair and watching Dave for about half an hour. You've thought about giving her an excuse to do something else, but there's a chance she'll put a needle through your throat, and that's never fun, so she gets to do her best hawk impression until he drops back into normal time.
Which he should just about...now.
Dave doesn't shudder this time; this isn't a surprise or something he's forcing himself to do, this is a scheduled thing that he planned out to the second. The only way you know he's synched himself back up with the time everyone else experiences is that he finishes the inhale that goes with the exhale from four hours ago; for the first couple seconds he doesn't even open his eyes.
Then they snap open, and the only reason that he doesn't manage to cross his arms over his unprotected (and newly tattooed) chest is because you're already on your knees in front of him, expecting him to do it. He fights your hold on his wrists too, for a moment; then he obviously remembers who it is that's with him and forces himself limp, bright red eyes fixed on your mask and starting to fill with reflexive tears.
"Holy fucking hell—"
"It hurts, huh?" God, you want to let yourself try to get him to laugh this off, but that's not exactly how Dave operates. Right now you just need to keep your tone low and reassuring, and not give in to the urge to look over at Nikki to check her reaction. "You can't touch it, you know."
"Yeah. Sure. Fuck." He squeezes his eyes shut again; you're somewhere between surprised and impressed that nothing liquid escapes. "Turn me loose, alright?"
Ooh, bad idea. But you do it anyway, and Dave immediately grabs his elbows in an obvious bid to not go straight for the painful area, wincing at how that changes the stress on his chest. Not exactly optimal.
"Want me to go out and grab those pills now?"
"Nope." Ouch; he's not even unclenching his teeth to talk. "Gimme a sec."
"Your sec, or mine?"
At least that gets him to crack one eye open, just so he can give you a look. "One of each."
"That's vague. I like it." You settle back on your heels and wait, finally glancing up at Nikki. At least she looks more confused and less likely to call someone on you for child abuse. "This is normal."
"Wade, this isn't even your definition of normal."
"It's normal." Aw, so sweet; Dave backs you up as soon as he thinks you need it. Which you don't right now, but you still love him for it. "Hey, Wade?"
"Whatcha need?"
"Shoot D a text 'n tell him to put a hold on the party? Like, I need an hour before this shit's healed enough to put my shirt back on...it hurts."
"Sorry, kiddo." You have to stand up to get your phone out of your pocket; that lets you reach Dave's head to ruffle his hair. "Is it worth it?"
"Oh my god." He snorts, leaning his head back to look up at you for just a second. "Hell yeah it is."
Oh, good. Now you can finally relax. "Awesome! Happy birthday, Dave."