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Everyone puts on a face sometimes, but there are a few special people in your life who put them on every day. Your name is John Egbert, and you have seen the truth behind people's faces.
The first face you saw unmasked was the face of your best friend ever, Dave Strider. He's pretty easy to spot, what with his prominent albinism and shades and gaudy, ridiculous, condom hooded god tier cape (he likes it so much he even wears it with normal clothes, the dork). His mask is coolness.
Actually, you've always sort of known what kind of person he was under it. He's pretty geeky actually, he likes Ghost Busters just as much as you do, and when you watched Con Air all the way through with him the first time he actually cried.
Most of people think he's just a surface guy, or that he is actually the smooth, ironic, stoic guy he makes himself out to be. You, however, know he is actually a really deep person, with lots of actual feelings and he usually only puts up the irony front to get into stuff he loves without people thinking less of him for it and he trips over his cape all the time. He actually has really strong feelings about a lot of stuff.
He collects dead things and he learned all the names for them in latin, he really is a great artist, but he draws badly because he just wants it to be a secret he can surprise people with on random occasions and he's just a little bit Dyslexic so a lot of the spelling errors in his SBAHJ comics are unironically accidental. He also has trouble with self confidence, so he just overcompensates for it by being a tool to everybody else. You know that he didn't own a mirror for years because he couldn't stand to look at his own eyes, and that no matter how many times people say he is cool and that he looks okay, he almost never believes them. Sometimes he gets nightmares about the game now, not that everybody else doesn't too, but he skips sleeping a lot because of it. He gets about as much sleep as Karkat, so they spend their nights together, bonding (but if Karkat asks, you play dumb). Dave wears his shades these days mostly to hide the bags under his eyes, but he'll still take them off when you two are alone. He trusts you with that, even though everyone knows now what color his eyes are, that is why you ended up with the weird troll pale quadrantship. You're just glad to be there for him, and anyway, its the sentiment that counts.
The second person who's face you saw was Karkat. He hides behind his anger, a lot of the time, but beneath all that he actually cares about everyone a lot. Thats probably why you ended up in the black quadrant with him though. You just hate how he is so stubborn about emotions, its almost as bad as Dave! But, unlike Dave, you are the only person he is never willing to let his guard down for.
At first you thought it was just to keep up leaderly pride, but you noticed he got tender with everyone else, even Jade, but as soon as he knew you were watching he would seal up, all anger and front and eventually, you couldn't handle it anymore. You confronted him about it. The first time, he punched you. The second time you tripped him and started a wrestling match in the kitchen. And the third time? Well, it was mostly yelling, then for some reason you were kissing, and by the end of it, Kanaya had to politely escort the others from the room.
It became official at some point in between all of that, but if you ever want to see his soft side, you have to beat it out o him, (a lot of the time literally) or at least win. Your prankster's gambit gets a lot of exercise with him around, but not as much as when you're with your other boyfriend.
Gamzee's face was the one you saw last, and it was literally seeing his actual face. Normally, he's caked with face paint.
When you first met him, it was during the game, or thats the first memory you have. (You may or may not have kissed him while flying in a very strange and poorly drawn impromptu musical number while you were both holding matching hammers.) But when you actually got to know him, after a minor incident involving a double hate date/ moirail movie night you guys hit it off. Apparently your subconscious mind had been okay with clowns for a long time, but there was something special about him. Maybe it was the random honking, or the month long prank war you had, or maybe that he was a really cool friend even though he was sometimes a little unstable. Regardless, it turned into something more, that you both were very okay with acknowledging as a very close probably more than friendship. Even though you really liked his paint, and you had wondered for a long time what he looked like under it, since it was a religious thing you didn't really press. It was his descision.
He actually kisses you first (again?) after you got o see him without his paint. He didn't want you to look immediately, and it was nice enough after the apology for making you freak out you may have let him do it again, and after a while you had to acknowledge it as a relationship and since then things have just been wonderful. You were actually just reminiscing about it with him last movie night, and he told you something that actually got you thinking about all of this.
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TC: hey johnnyboy
EB: yeah?
TC: did you know some clowns dont paint on in smiles?
TC: JUST ALL KINDS OF UNMIRTHFUL FACES.
EB: wow. Why would they not make smiles?
TC: no idea my most main motherfucker.
TC: AINT RIGHT ON ANYBODY'S PART THOUGH.
TC: when a brother paints on his face its about showin what he wants to front with
TC: PAINTS FOR MAKIN THE FACE YOU WANT TO BE ON YOU
TC: all kinds of truth about what kind of face you put on
TC: AND KNOWIN THE TRUTH BEHIND IT ALL
EB: so people paint their faces the way they want to be seen?
TC: yep
TC: SENSE OF TRUTH IN THAT IS STRONG ENOUGH TO LEAK INTO ALL KINDS OF LIFES MIRTHFUL MYSTERIES BROTHER
TC: not a motherfucker out there who aint got a face saved up to paint on when they wanna front