Chapter Text
For all your life, you’ve been going from home to home, family to family. You don’t remember staying in a home for much longer than a few years – three, in fact, has been your longest home, spanning the ages six to nine. You remember in one of your schools (when you were ten, actually just months after your longest family with their three other children had to foreclose their house) that you had to read a book about a kid named Hollis Woods. You always felt that she was a lot like you, except you didn’t actually run from the families and your preferred medium was music rather than drawing. You’ve always appreciated the irony in that otherwise impeccable similarity. But now, at the big bad age of eleven and a half, you’re sitting in the common area of the foster home and waiting for this weird and probably too young guy with obnoxious pointy shades to finish filling out the full time adoption papers and come pick you up for good.
Your name is Dave, and hopefully you can settle the heck down with this potentially Josie-like man.
Chapter 1: The First Strider Birthday
“Rise and shine, lil’ man. 6:30 in the AM and time to get your ass ready for school.”
Bro tossed something at your bed from where he peeked into your room from the doorway, flashed you a thumbs up, and turned to walk to the kitchen area of the apartment where you now live with your guardian of approximately six-ish months. You’ve gotten used to the weird shades he wears, the lame polo, and… well, okay, you still weren’t quite over the revoltingly excessive number of obscene puppets, but Bro was usually very sure to keep those in his own room or under the couch.
You heard him pouring Lucky Charms cereal into a bowl and it reminded you to shove the blankets away from your person and roll off the bed to find pants. As you rolled onto the floor, whatever Bro had thrown at you slipped off, too, landing with a clunk next to your knee.
Curious, you pulled on pants and grabbed the pair of matching obnoxious shades that Bro got you as a welcoming gift in your first week here. You didn’t like to say it out loud, but you did appreciate that he went out of his way to get you a little present, regardless of how ridiculous it was. You wore them once to show your wordless appreciation of the gesture, then the next day just to keep up appearances. You always took them off at school for obvious reasons, but toward the end of the second week one kid saw you pull them out of your backpack and laughed at you. You remember that being the first time in a very long time that your face really burned in embarrassment, but he came over to you and said he thought they were cool. You remember your next thought being something along the lines of “oh, wonderful, another freak like him.” It turned out that this kid, Mark, would become a very good friend of yours in no time.
Back out of your reverie, you set the shades and the clunky box on the kitchen table next to the bowl of cereal. You sat and crossed your legs on the chair – something you were never allowed to do at your other homes – and looked up at Bro, who was showing more emotion than you ever recall seeing him display before by way of a little half smirk as he looked at you.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a box.”
You roll your eyes and resist scoffing at him.
“Yes, I can see that, thank you.”
“Marvelous. You’re a young man. Isn’t there any curiosity piqued in that little heart of yours?”
“That depends, is it going to jump at me or try to stab me?”
“Probably not.”
“Wha- ‘probably?!’”
“You’ll just have to open it and find out. Or not, I don’t care.”
Bro shrugged and started to turn away toward the fridge, from which he pulled out a bottle of apple juice and set it next to your cereal. You mutter a “thank you” and proceed to open the shoddily packaged whatever. It was covered in packing tape and like eight layers of cardboard.
“Bro, what the hell.”
“Just keep going, you’ll get ’em eventually.”
“Alright.”
After what felt like hours but was actually closer to maybe ten minutes, you finally got through it all to find a mess of taped tissue paper.
“Are you freaking kidding me.”
You just went to town on shredding that paper, and this time you found what was actually inside. It was a pair of white headphones wrapped around a laptop. You felt your jaw drop a little bit and picked the things up to look at them.
“God, these are….”
“Happy birthday, lil’ man.”
You looked up at him with wide eyes and gaping mouth.
“No way. Are these…?”
“No, I wrapped them all special so you could smell them. Gotta return ’em tomorrow. Yes, of course they’re yours, dumbass. You’re twelve now and should be trusted with wonderful things like an actual computer and good, functional accessories.”
Your face split into a grin and you hooked the headphones over your neck and set the laptop on the table.
“Oh god, wow. Thank you so much, this is awesome.”
“Hell yeah.”
Bro’s half smirk grew into a wider smile.
“Now, let’s get your birthday butt to school. Sixth grade is halfway over, winter break is soon. You can deal with another week and some. Let’s go.”
You grinned the entire way to school, and even the gross cloudiness of an early December Monday morning didn’t bother you.
~*~*~*~*~
You yawned when you made your way up the first twelve floors in the elevator then trudged up that final flight of stairs to the Strider residence. That day, you were very proud to be a Strider. It had been an awesome birthday. The cafeteria had started to sell Christmas-themed cookies and cocoa, Mark brought you a poster of this cute Lisa Frank pony-unicorn-pegasus thing. You laughed – of course he would get you this kind of a thing. The nerd couldn’t keep his grubby fingers away from an opportunity for dumb friendly mockery of each other. Dave always kept these dumb mocking things because they held an air of irony in the amusement they gave him.
“Bro, I’m home.”
You got in and dropped your bag by the couch in the living area, just outside Bro’s door. You heard absolutely nothing from behind the door, but the light glowing from under it indicated that Bro was at work with something. You shrugged and took your Lisa Frank poster to your room to tack it up, then pulled out your laptop to try it out. You figured you might as well go on pesterChum with it. The laptop would be much more convenient than your iPod and its crappy internet connection. When the little icon pinged, you nodded in approval. This was a decent machine to continue a decent Monday. You had a message waiting, too. Go figure.
-- ectoBiologist began pestering turntechGodhead at 09:38--
EB: hey Dave, it’s your birthday, right?
EB: happy birthday, man, hope it’s great :B
EB: I mean, I guess you’re at school or whatever.
EB: I am, too, but like, we don’t have all this crap blocked! Haha
EB: okay cool talk to you later peace I’m out
-- ectoBiologist ceased pestering turntechGodhead at 10:46 --
You snicker at the birthday messages and type back a little reply.
-- turntechGodhead began pestering ectoBiologist at 15:37 --
TG: hey
TG: thanks for the birthday wishes buddy
TG: the day frickin ruled
EB: hey! nice of you to finally show up :B
TG: aint it though
EB: so did you get anything good?
TG: john listen
TG: im practically an adult now
TG: all twelve years behind me can vouch for this and attest to the very tangible truth that lies in my word
EB: yes, and...?
TG: bro got me a laptop and headphones
EB: what?! no way, he did not!!
TG: but its true
TG: anyway yeah todays been pretty awesome
EB: that’s great. someday i’ll get my dad to let me mail something to you for your birthday. Until then, sorry i couldn’t! :(
TG: nah man its cool B)
EB: hehe i like the dumb shades you put on your face
TG: i like the dumb teeth you put on your face
EB: um, hey, offensive?
TG: B) man you love me
TG: who wouldnt love me though am i right
EB: okay, birthday boy, let me see if i can find a way to see you through your giant layer of ego.
TG: B)
TG: so yeah kinda gotta go now
TG: probably some big birthday bash
TG: or maybe math homework
TG: god i hate math
TG: but we can talk more later alright
EB: hehe alright :B
TG: B)
TG: later
-- turntechGodhead ceased pestering ectoBiologist at 4:10 --
You laugh a bit and put your dumb shades on your face. That kid, John, is probably your favorite person to talk to and has been your sorry excuse of a best friend since you were nine years old and first allowed on the internet. You couldn’t remember exactly the circumstances of how or why you got to the family computer, but you do remember the oldest child was a fourteen year old boy who seemed like he thought he knew everything there was to know about the internet, so you let him show you YouTube and pesterChum, the only two important sites in his opinion. After he had supervised you to a “safe place” (for god’s sake, you weren’t four, you could tell good guys from bad guys), he decided it was okay to let you loose. That’s about when you met John. It was within moments of Anthony’s departure from you and the machine that he messaged you. You remember beginning to speak with him for maybe five minutes, and since then, John has been the only one you’ve really wanted to see all the time.
You snort at the memory and look into your school bag for this evening’s homework. You groaned at the idea of doing work on your birthday, but you’d made it through the day at school, so… you may as well consult Bro on the matter. You stood and rattled Bro’s doorknob, hoping he would answer, then leaned against the white painted wood instead.
“Bro, do I have to do my homework?”
“Yeah,” came a muffled voice from inside. “Homework. Do it. You gotta get through middle school and high school. I won’t require you go to college if you don’t want to, but ya gotta get through this, and homework is part of it. Unless you can do it at lunch or something tomorrow, I literally couldn’t care less how it happens. Don’t suck dicks for answers, don’t hurt classmates. Do your fuckin’ homework.”
You held back a short laugh at this response. Six months of knowing the man and still he never ceased to amuse you. Suddenly, the door opened from behind you, causing you to stumble backward.
“Bro-”
“Dave.”
He used your name for once. That surprised you. Bro was big on informality and casualness whenever it could be employed, including his frequent insisting that you refer to him as “Bro” rather than “Dirk.” You thought it was super weird at first, but you shrugged it off and went with it, as has been your custom. Shortly after he had dubbed you with the title “Lil Man,” you stopped bothering to question it. Bro really seemed to be one of those people who abided by his own rules and only set his own rules on a whim, but when he made a decision, that was that. So his change startled you into looking up at him.
“Dave,” he said again. “Listen, buddy. Now that you’re approaching a manly age, I should really start teaching you how to act like a fully responsible and responsive adult who can take care of themselves. You follow?”
You didn’t, really, but nodded anyway because his sudden very serious tone actually frightened you just a little bit. Or maybe more than “just a little bit.” Either way, Bro saw through it.
“I’m gonna teach you how to fight and defend yourself. Texas is a rough place sometimes, and now that you’ve gotten settled into this area, I think it would be good if I prepare ya for rougher and tougher places.”
“So…?”
“So, here’s a sword called a katana and I’ll be up on the roof for when you feel ready to learn your very first one or six lessons.”
He dropped another shoddy package down at you from over your head, and you did catch it, but fumbled.
“You’re only new to the age of twelve. You’ll learn. You’ll be a pro by thirteen.”
That was more than a little bit disconcerting, but you nodded again and watched the man as he stepped out from behind you and brushed past toward the front door of the apartment. He paused there for maybe half a second to nod before proceeding out into the hall and eventually upstairs into the cool December evening air.
“So another package wrapped by Bro,” you muttered to yourself as you set to work on the totally unnecessary amounts of tape and brown paper. You were very surprised to see that inside all of this was a real, actual blade, and not like a Nerf thing. It had duller, smoother edges than you expected, but maybe that’s because it was for beginners…? You didn’t actually know a single thing about weapons. You kind of hoped that this was all another dumb joke he was going to play, since Bro seemed really fond of those, but by this point that wasn’t looking likely. You took a deep breath and headed for the staircase that led up to the roof of the apartment building, counting each as you set your foot down, and shaking with excitement and nerves and adrenaline. Was this another birthday present? It was hecka rad, even if a bit scary. But seriously, Dave, you’re in sixth freaking grade. Don’t be such a wuss.
Wussiness aside, you finally pushed the door open slowly and peered around to see if you could catch a glimpse of what Bro was doing before he knew you were there. You didn’t see him, and you knew that was a sign that he could actually be anywhere. You tensed your muscles in preparation for his attack. Let’s see…. If you knew anything from action movies, it was that the opponent was always out of view of the action hero, and if the villain was good, he wouldn’t make a sound. Most movies had battles with unnecessary amounts of screaming. You took another breath and stepped out and around to the side of the little doorway box thing. Was there a name for that?
You didn’t have time to wonder, because in no time at all, another katana swung out at your head with a deadly precision and speed, eliciting an unmanly shriek from you when it stopped just short of your temple. Your heart was thrown into a panicked overdrive. Slowly, Bro’s blank face came into your field of view.
“Gotta be faster, lil’ man.”
You nodded rapidly to show your understanding, and that was where it all began.