Double the Dave.

[shenunigans]

Who| Dave, Davesprite and anyone who knows them, has mutual friends with them (feel free to mingle)
What| The not-twins are 17, technically. Some people threw them a surprise party because they're adorable.
Where| D9 suites
When| December 3rd
Warnings/Notes| N/A

Once the word had slipped that Dave's birthday was on December 3rd, some people were pretty quick to leap into action. Apparently, even in a horrible murder-fest dystopia, there's room for the joint party of a boy and another boy who is a copy of that boy from the future. Let's just call him his twin. His twin with wings.

He happens to be ambling along with the very same twin when he guides him to District Nine to ogle his bird. He has no idea what to expect when he opens the door, but needless to say his poker face is shifted for the longest damn moment.

District Nine is decked out with an appropriate, ironic amount of streamers. Tacos, nachos and as close as you can get to doritos are on the menu alongside a wide variety of disgustingly awful, sugary food. There's also a cake that.. well. It looks like someone put their heart into it. There's plenty of soda, but a distinct lack of booze. Alas, you can probably get your kicks from the party hats and the obnoxious hipster music playing from the stereos. Between one Arena and edging on another, it's a pretty chill, little shindig to relax at rather than whiling away the hours being a bummer.

Comments

[smarterthanthem]

"Dave!"

The gentle pitter patter of thumping Clem feet run up behind him, quickly followed by a pair of skinny arms wrapping themselves around Dave's waist from behind where he has no way to avert the hug assault. "Happy birthday!"

Clementine hugs him tight, smiling against his back before pulling away and hopping round the counter so she's in front of Dave. She's excited to give Dave her present, one she's worked at hard by herself for the past two days, not just because she has no money with which to actually buy him something but because she'd rather make Dave something personally.

[shenunigans]

If Clem didn't call out to him, he still would have heard her coming. He shouldn't be surprised that she's all up in this thing. This is exactly her jam, but when the hell is her birthday? That's a very important question, one he gets distracted by long enough for her to wrap her arms around his waist. He pushes idly at her little arms but he's pretty much just letting it happen at this point.

"How did you know it's my birthday?" His tone is one of mock accusation as he tries to crane his neck around and look at her before he starts trying to grab at her. "C'mere you little sproglet, nobody touches the birthday boy." You know, the birthday boy who said it wasn't his birthday a second ago.

[smarterthanthem]

"A little bird told me." she pipes up, with a mysterious smile. She won't betray her sources, nope. She isn't talking about the pet bird she and Loki got for Dave either.

Clementine laughs, trying to avoid his grasping hands. "I get to! Hey, careful! You'll crease your present!" she has that hidden under her sweater and looks pretty smug about it. Yep, good going there Dave, it's totally your birthday and you're going to have to endure all the affection Clementine has to dole out. "You're almost a grown-up now."

[shenunigans]

"The Mayor would never betray me." Of course he assumes she means his bird, because his bird is awesome and never far from his mind, even if his uncle is babysitting him for the party.

"You don't pick and choose the rules, punk." He snorts, trying to turn so he can look at her and see if he can see where that present is. Goddamn it, he's going to get her back for this if it kills him. "Mentally, maybe. I'm still fresh to death physically, I think." And that weirds him out a whole lot. "What crease ridden present did you get me? An elephant? Please say yes." It's the only creased thing he can think of.

[smarterthanthem]

"No one said you get to either." she sticks her tongue out at him, then turns around. Clementine slips the picture out from under the front of her sweater and turns around with it held behind her back.

Push come to shove she's a little nervous about it, hoping that Dave will like her offering. She wishes she could have gotten him something cooler, really, but she'd worked with what materials she had. "Okay... here goes."

Out from behind her Clementine brings out a picture. There on paper, drawn with loving care by unpracticed hands, stands Dave, resplendent in his sunglasses. Bits of macaroni are stuck to the page with glitter (she knew boys didn't usually like glitter but it had needed glitter) and accompanying this vision of awesome is Dave's bird, fluttering near his head. They are not to scale.

[shenunigans]

"I'm the birthday boy, I will enforce the birthday law with my birthday baton if I need to." He tries to peer around her when she turns, being his typical teen boy self and being unaware of the fact that she's nervous to give him anything. The fact that she's even doing anything for him makes him stupidly delighted, even if he'd never say that.

When she brings out the picture, his hands instantly reach eagerly for it. His brows raise instantly and he draws it closer to himself so he can inspect the finer details of it. He doesn't smile, it's not cool to smile, but it's hard not to let a little one tug at his lips as he soaks it all in.

"The likeness is uncanny. Like looking in a mirror. Especially the macaroni in my gravitational field- that's really true to life." He holds it up alongside his head so she can truly appreciate how much it looks like him, even though she drew it. "This is so cash. Now I don't need to commission a painting by some Capitol scum. A Clem original is gonna go for millions of Capitol money in a few years."

[smarterthanthem]

"I don't see a baton!" she chirps back at Dave, not cowed even a little by his threat. She is only cowed by the idea of him not liking the present she worked so hard on, even thinking it was lame or doing that fake pretending to like something that people do when they don't want to hurt feelings.

"Do you really like it?"

Clementine's eyes are eager and hopeful, she's even leaning forwards a little on her toes, hands clasped behind her back in a failed attempt at nonchalance. A grin spreads across her face when Dave holds the picture next to himself.

[shenunigans]

"Of course I like it, dumbass." He reaches out to give her ear an affectionate flick with his free hand, because it would be far too mushy if he didn't, obviously.

"Who doesn't appreciate a hand drawn picture of themselves? I mean really. Even the Dalai Lama isn't that humble." He moves his hand down, giving her shoulder a push to try guide her the same way he's starting to walk. "C'mon, I have a space on my wall it should feature in. I need to gaze upon my hella visage at all times."

[smarterthanthem]

"Hey!" she squeaks, rubbing her ear after Dave draws his fingers back. It didn't really hurt of course, just surprised her but she'd not above overacting that it did. "That's my ear, you jerk."

Dave makes up for it though with a series of compliments that make her smile widely, taking the opportunity to walk along close to his side. Any closer and there'd be a danger of leg entanglement going on. She has no idea what a Dally Llama is but she puts off asking in the face of being excited to see Dave hang her picture up on his wall.

It means a lot to her that he likes it, it really does.

"That means you need to put it opposite of wherever you sit the most."

[shenunigans]

"I think you'll find it's my ear, actually. Seeing as how I am the birthday boy and that's just the birthday rules." He shrugs, clearly his hands are tied on this one.

Dave pushes the door of his room open with a snort, revealing typical teen boy mess. He's pretty good at keeping the Avoxes out of it for the most part, but they do damage control anyway. There's some clothing draped over furniture and piled around it. The walls are adorned with posters of his friends, all of them lovingly decorated with doodles in red pen.

"Right, good plan." He sits most on his bed, so the wall in front would be the best choice. Or rather, the door of the closet across from his bed. He pads toward it, opening it and stepping into it so he can sit on the shoeless space of floor under the rack laden with suits. "This is where I spend most of my time." He calls out from in the closet.

[smarterthanthem]

"I think you're making up these birthday rules."

Clementine doesn't turn up her nose or anything at the mess in Dave's room, hers wouldn't be much better if not for Avox interference, but does hop over some of the worst bits of mess on the floor. It's more playful than anything, a little game for herself before she turns and looks Dave's poster collection, particularly peering at the doodles on her own.

"I like it, it's cosy." she says, grinning at Dave in his closet and follows. "nicer than other closets I've been in."

[shenunigans]

Trust an eleven year old to understand the plight of a boy who doesn't care about the state of his room. It's not too bad, all things considered. If it's too messy then it's too lived in and it's like he's settled here. If there's no mess then it's a cold and uncomfortable place to chill. It's the perfect level of mess where he can come here and pretend that everything isn't. Well. Everything.

Though he honestly doesn't hang out in the closet much.

"Yeah, well. I'm sure it's great when you don't have to kiss anyone. You know when you hit a certain age, these things become torture devices." He gives the wall a thoughtful pat, he's really just messing with her. "For now, it's a sit box."

[smarterthanthem]

Clementine sits herself down and pulls up her legs to make herself more comfortable in the limited amount of space offered by the 'sit box'.

"Last time I was in a closet Walkers were trying to break in, so this is okay." that probably outranks having to kiss someone in a closet, which why would you even do? "What age is that supposed to be? Yours?"

[shenunigans]

"Sounds like a teen party to me." He doesn't mean to breeze past her trauma like that, but it's his birthday and he'll avoid the past if he wants to. If he squints, this is a normal birthday party with friends he made himself and not allies he picked up alongside a death match.

"Nah, that shit starts at 14, if not younger." He says, like he'd know. "I've reached a new dawn, Clem. Things are getting to boss mode." This is probably not a conversation he should have with a kid, and for once he acknowledges that and veers off. "Treasure your youth, Clem. Relationships are a pain in the ass and kissing is overrated." It really isn't, but everything that comes after diminishes it.

[smarterthanthem]

Clementine doesn't mind, she wasn't bringing it up to talk about her past, just fact-dropping. It's the sort of casual conversation she had back home and sometimes she doesn't think how weird or discomforting it could be to other people to hear things like that.

She shifts a bit and pulls out a shoe from behind that was digging into her butt and drops it on the other side of the closet before answering. "Good thing I'm only 12." Twelve technically, eleven physically, just like Dave is still sixteen if anyone wants to get pedantic about it. Clem doesn't. "I still don't have to worry about that for a while. Have you kissed a lot?"

Okay she might be a little curious.

[shenunigans]

"It's a great thing. Twelve is the golden age- I mean. Not here, probably not back home for you either, but.." He waves her off. "Never mind. Point is, people are less complicated and you don't have to care that much about them." Generally speaking, anyway, he's already clued into the fact that Clementine is more mature than most adults here.

He pulls a face at her question, furrowing his brows at her momentarily before realising he actually needs to think about that rather than saying a flat out no. "A gentleman doesn't kiss and tell." He folds his arms low over his chest. "Plus it's gross and you probably don't want to hear about it." He doesn't know how curious she actually is, here.

[smarterthanthem]

"It's pretty okay. Sometimes it's good here too." she replies, shrugging her skinny shoulders and, while she's not sure about the less complicated part, she's not about to go digging into all that mess on his birthday. She wants Dave to have fun and Clem would like to have fun alongside him. "Especially the food."

Now Clementine gives him a skeptical look, then shrugs, "Usually when people say stuff like that it just means they don't want to say. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, Dave.

"I don't know much about kissing, except it seems to be a big deal to people older than me."

[shenunigans]

His birthday could probably not be more lackluster right now, but that doesn't change the fact that he's still warmed and touched by the mere fact that his stupid friends thought he needed a party. Spending it hiding in a closet and chatting with Clem isn't a half bad way to spend at least part of his party.

"I dunno, don't you find this stuff gross? You're gonna think I'm a hussy. Or frigid or whatever because secretly everyone you know has game." That is, of course, a super likely scenario.

"It kind of is a big deal, but it's hard to explain why until you know why. It's like when everyone digs a movie and you thought it was pretty lame, then you think of it later and realise you can relate to it."

[smarterthanthem]

"What's a hussy?" Clementine asks, opening up her ignorance of the intricacies of these matters for Dave to see. Maybe she wouldn't know even without her life being what it had been the past three years but it certainly doesn't help matters. "I won't think anything bad about you just because you kissed people or not."

Kissing people or not seems stupid to get upset at someone over.

"Everyone always kisses in movies, I know that." she pulls a face, "So you mean I won't understand until I'm older."

[shenunigans]

"Someone who kisses a lot of people. Probably too many people. It's gross, but mostly people get jealous. I dunno, I thought you thought kissing was for stank ass nerds because you're stone cold." Where's the lie, Clem? Still, he warms some when she admits that and he realises he's being fucking dumb trying to keep shit from her when they're practically besties.

"I guess I've kissed a few people, then. It'd be more but I'm kind of picky about quality control." So picky. He has no idea what he's talking about.

"Probably. I'm not gonna tell you to find out. If you want it you'll want it."

[smarterthanthem]

"Well I don't want to do it but what's the point in getting upset at people who do?" she asks with a frown. "That's a dumb way to think." Clementine grins then overdoes the serious face to say, "Yep, I'm cold as ice."

That's right, Dave, you're besties. There's no escape from stone-cold Clem.

"I guess... probably not for a while though. Maybe when I'm seventeen too."

[shenunigans]

"See, from here it sounds like you're trying to mine into the gritty details of my personal life, Clem. If you want a list of everyone who has been lucky enough to enjoy the Strider Experience, you're gonna have to ask nicely." He sounds as haughty as he can about it, now that he's not scrabbling to save face from anything.

"I think it kicks in a little earlier than that." He points out, half because it's true and half because he wants to tease her.

[smarterthanthem]

"I don't think I care that much." she huffs at him, reaching over and flicking her fingers against Dave's knee before grinning and leaning back against the closet wall. The movement knocks her hat askew and she has to reach up and straighten it.

"How early?" Clementine likes to be prepared.

[shenunigans]

"Didn't think you did." He retorts quickly and dryly, happy to abandon that conversation in lieu of her looking stupid with her hat. He just stares her down, she knows what she did.

"I dunno, how old are you? Seven? It usually kicks in about twelve or thirteen years and it all goes downhill from there. Someone brushes against you, you can't stop thinking about them. Next thing you know, you have a shrine up for Soft-Palm Anonymous and you miss them so much. Why don't they ever call? Are they thinking about you?" He babbles, then it fades into silence for a moment. "It's awkward."

[smarterthanthem]

"Well, good then." she snorts, continuing to smile back in the face of his stare down. You don't scare her Lord Davemont.

"It... sounds awkward." which is Clementine speak for not hardly understanding anything Dave just said, which isn't unusual. She's probably safe from it so long as she keeps dying in arena's anyway but it's good to know just in case she does actually manage to age. "I'm good how I am now."