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There was no such thing as personal space in the Strider household and John quickly came to terms with that.
Surprisingly the teen didn’t care, he rather enjoyed the constant contact, the human interaction was nice, not to mention completely different from the intereactions he would have with his own father back home. It took him a small bit of time to get used to being snuck up on while making some sort of meal for a from-behind hug from either of the blonds. But he did after a while. Though at first he thought it was just because they were thankful that someone was actually living with them that knew how to cook a decent meal. But as things progressed, the longer John lived there, the more he began to see that the brothers, while still keeping their stoic appearances, were rather touchy-feely.
Of course, John’s mind had wondered whilst making scrambled eggs and fried potatoes, so he jumped ever so slightly when a thick pair of muscled arms wrapped around his torso. There was a heavy chuckle in his ear, followed by the added weight of a stubbled chin that pressed into his shoulder.
“Mornin'.”
“Morning!” John chirped, always the happy morning person of the trio. “Dave up yet?”
“No, brat’s still asleep.” The gruff response made John laugh having already known the answer but, Bro’s responses were always a little comical to him.
“Whelp, hes going to miss breakfast. Again. Like always.” He shrugged a bit, flipping the potatoes that he had frying in one skillet before pressing and stirring the eggs in the other.
They stayed like that for a while, just standing there in front of the stove together. It was nice, and completely relaxing. At one point John could have sworn Bro had fallen back asleep until the older man pulled away, leaving the younger boy’s back to get a little chilly from the loss of body heat. Bro had gone over to the fridge, opening it carelessly and as was expected, there were no swords that came falling out of it.
When John had moved in, he commandeered the fridge, demanding that the swords be put in a more appropriate place and that they started using the fridge for what it was meant for: Food. Of course Bro had ended up sneaking a smuppet or two in there but, John figured if they weren’t falling on him in the morning, or dangerous, a few harmless smuppets could be allowed. The older blond pulled out one of the many jugs of orange juice and poured himself a glass before dropping himself into a chair at the small kitchen table that was set up already, waiting for John to finish breakfast.
One thing John took notice of was that while Dave had an addiction to Apple juice, Bro had an addiction to Orange Juice. So he took care to always pick up at two or three jugs of each type of juice for the two while he kept bottled water on hand for himself. A few minutes later, just as John was setting things down on the table, the younger blond finally shuffled out of his room, rubbing his face, shades in place already.
“Morning sleepy head.” John laughed, setting down the skillet of fried potatoes which Bro started digging into instantly.
"'ornin'.” Dave mumbled, imitating Bro’s morning greetings with a hug but hugging him from the front, sort of cuddling against him for a small bit of time. He pulled away sluggishly and kissed him on the cheek before going to the fridge to grab so Apple Juice as John sat down. And from there on, the morning went as usual, everyone sat in relative silence, a few jibs here and there between the brothers but other then that it was quiet.
When everyone was finished, they cleaned their plates and put them into the sink along with the other dishes to soak. Then they all piled on the couch for morning cartoons and video games. Completely tangled up together, arms around or hooked around others, legs strewn and wrapped around other pairs of legs and heads resting on shoulders and chests.
Yeah, it was just an average every day morning in the Strider house hold, and well…John knew for a fact that he wouldn’t trade this for anything else in the world.