Tag: equius zahhak

turing-tested:

at christmas dave hopes that maybe bro will send him something for christmas, anything, and hal does too, even if he expects it to be horrible? he cant help but feel angry sometimes how easy it was to take dave from him and how he just doesnt care that he made this human being and seems to want nothing to do with him

when christmas comes around hal gently and carefully wraps a present badly and puts the “from” tag to say bro. its nothing big, just stuff for daves polaroid, but he doesnt want dave to be upset and think that hes not worth remembering to get a gift for

and when dave sees it- he doesnt. light up in the way that hal expects him to. he just kind of freezes. amid all the excitement and unwrapping on christmas day, everything just stops, junior stops too, to look at dave and hes so aware everyones eyes are on him

and hals worried hes fucked up but then dave just. looks back at him and equius as if asking of he can unwrap it and hal exchanges a worried look with equius before nodding and then he just.

he unwraps it so carefully even if hal intentionally did a bad job on it and his hands are shaking a little, worried its going to be something awful but when he sees it he kind of. relaxes. he doesnt get excited about it, just holds this little box in his hands for a second, before setting it aside. makes a joke about asking if he needs to write a thank you note and hal says he doesnt think thats necessary

and then the commotion picks up again as junior unwraps a set of ear phones for autistic kids and dave relaxes a lot. hes quieter, but hes still excited. just. thoughtful.

(later on when hes a teenager he puts it together that hal did it for him, but he never brings it up. he doesnt need to. hes laying in bed at 15 and realizes how much hes loved, rolls over, and goes back to sleep.)