Chapter Text
Your name is John Egbert, and you are standing on the threshold of what will hopefully be the best time of your life. For the first time ever, you'll get to spend time with your best friends without having to worry about universe-destroying demons, evil kings who accidentally became omnipotent, horrible eldrich terrors from beyond the bounds of time and space, or proper nouns that require special text effects! At least, you are relatively certain that you won't have to worry about such things during your freshman year of college. You're at least 98% sure that's what they reserve for their doctoral students. To say that you're excited would be the world's biggest understatement.
You're a little flustered when Dad drives you to the dorms, so much so that you don't even make an attempt to abjure the cupcakes he made as a dorm-warming gift. Instead, you captchalogue them with the rest of your worldly posessions and give Dad a fierce hug. You know he'll only be a phone call away, but you so clearly remember a time when... well, that doesn't bear thinking about. Besides, that time is behind you! Everything worked out for the best, and now you're going to be living with your best bro ever! And going to classes with your other best friends! With these thoughts in mind, you bid Dad a not-tearful (really!) goodbye and you head for your new home.
The dorms are crowded and a little noisy, and it sets you on edge a little. You have the paper you scribbled your dorm number on clutched tightly to your chest, though it's not like you need it. You are unashamed to admit that you memorized it weeks ago when your assignment came in. It takes a lot of effort to make it through the crowds to the elevator, but you manage finally and sag against one wall in relief when the door closes. You remind yourself that it's only this bad because it's move-in weekend; there's no reason to think that it'll be this out of control all the time. The elevator chimes twice when it reaches your floor and its doors slide open with a distressing clunking sound. You've finally arrived.
Leaning against the wall next to the elevator, you see your bro looking as cool and collected as ever. Sburb gave you all parting gifts after you remade the world: Jade can never get lost and always knows where everything is; Rose can usually tell what someone is thinking just by looking at them; you can predict the weather (and sometimes, if you try hard enough, maybe a little more than predict); and Dave is always in the right place at the right time, like clockwork. You can feel the gigantic, goofy grin on your face as you step out of the elevator and hug him. He stiffens a little but then returns your hug just as hard, if not harder. "Shit, Egderp, are you trying to ruin my impeccably cool track record here?"
"Of course I am, duh!" you reply, but you let him go anyway to survey your surroundings. "So this is home now, huh?"
Dave nods almost imperceptably. "Yup. You are now living on what Rose is affectionately calling 'the Sburb/Sgrub Survivors Anonymous' floor."
Your eyes widen. "Whaaaat?! You mean...?"
Dave nods again. "Yup. Sollux owed me one, so I got him to hack this shit and make sure we got this floor all to ourselves."
As if on cue (maybe it is on cue, because Dave's involved and his timing is perfect), you're surrounded by all of your friends. All of them! Jade is fussing at you for looking so skinny, Rose is critiquing your terrible slouched posture, Kanaya is measuring you for a new outfit, Terezi is trying to get close enough to lick your face (ew!), Vriska is looking smug and trying to pretend she's not that interested in your arrival, and hey, even Karkat is here, looking angry and irritated in one corner of the common room. As you see everyone, you're briefly reminded of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," because your heart feels like it's grown three sizes just from stepping off an elevator.
This is definitely going to be the best time of your life.
-
As it happens, Sollux hacked a lot more than just the housing database. Since everyone in the SSSA (as Rose calls it) is technically a freshman, you were expecting to never see them during class and only see them sometimes when you got back to the dorm. To your surprise, however, you share all of your classes with at least three of your dorm buddies (though not the same three for each class). It seemed like Dave and Sollux had tried to make sure that everyone got the chance to see everyone else at least once during their days, and a part of you wonders exactly what had happened to make Sollux owe Dave something this big. The rest of you is pretty sure you don't want to know.
Your first week of college life is stressful, but nothing you can't handle! It's a huge jump from going to high school in a small town in Washington to attending one of the top universities in the US; there's a lot more people here. You've always been kind of quiet and shy, but now it's like 1,000 times worse because there's people everywhere! A lot of people end up staring at you, especially girls, and it makes you squirm. You're pretty sure that it's because you're the most awkward thing they've ever seen in the history of ever, but Dave tells you it's because you turned into this "freakishly adorkable Adonis" in the years since Sburb. You don't believe him, but you do notice how a lot of girls (and some boys) blush whenever you walk by.
You make it through your days easily enough with your friends by your side. Any time you feel overwhelmed, all you have to do is look to your side and see one of your friends to feel like you can handle it. It's especially comforting when Karkat starts passing you notes written in block letters that curse every aspect of human education, or when Vriska casually rolls dice toward your foot under the desk, or when Dave shares his earbuds with you so you can listen to his latest sick beats.
By week two, you've pretty much got a handle on things. The work isn't that tough; you and your friends managed to beat Sburb and recreate the universe, so Biology I is hardly rocket science. You spend your downtime in the library or the common area of the SSSA floor or (rarely) in the student center. You touch bases with Dad every couple of days, just to make sure he's doing all right. It's a good routine. You're the happiest you've ever been.
It comes as a complete shock when one of the girls in your biology lecture shuffles up to you and Dave after class lets out. She's cute in the same awkward way Jade was cute when she was thirteen, which is probably why you didn't stutter too much when you greeted her. "Listen, um, John..." Her face is practically glowing and her eyes are locked on your shoes. "One of... One of the fraternities is gonna have a, um, party, um... tonight! I, um, was wondering if, um... you know..."
Dave, being the coolkid (cool guy) that he is, jumps to her rescue. "Lemme guess, you and your lovely little friends were wondering of maybe Egbert could class the party up a bit, huh?" You can tell that he's playing up his Texan drawl to put the girl at ease, and it works. She nods quickly and shuffles her feet. Dave's arm falls around your shoulders. "Tell ya what, how 'bout we meet you and your friends right here at 8:30 and we all go to the party together? Sound cool?"
You're kind of surprised that the girl does not explode right there. She squeaks out a strangled assent and runs off. Dave turns to you, and you can tell that he's secretly smirking behind his shades. "Jegus, Egbert, you got invited to a frat party before I did. Do you believe me about why those girls've been staring at you now?"
"What're you talking about?" you ask. "You're coming too."
Your bro nods. "Sure, but that flighty broad was talking to you."
It suddenly occurs to you that your best bro in the history of bros has just volunteered you to go to a frat party. "W-wait a second, I have homework!"
Dave snorts. "Dude, it's Friday. We have all weekend to get over any potential hangovers and do what we gotta do for class on Monday."
"But...!"
"No buts, Egbert. Party time is in six hours and you are not wearing that ghost slime shirt."
You have a feeling that life is about to get significantly less awesome, but you don't have the heart to protest any further. Besides, if Dave's going to be there, how bad can it be?
Dave drags you back to your dorm and starts rooting through your closet. "Oh my gog, do you not own anything that isn't fucking dorky as shit?" He pulls out your ectobiologist's suit with a little bit of a disgusted sneer. "What. Seriously. What. Man, there is no way you even fit in this anymore."
A blush creeps onto your face despite yourself. "It's got sentimental value!" you protest, knowing how lame it sounds before the words leave your mouth. "I mean, I gave birth to us wearing that. And it... y'know, it helps me remember that it all really happened. And stuff."
The sneer disappears, replaced by Dave's default coolkid poker face. He puts your things carefully back into your closet and sighs. "All right, looks like the best we can do is t-shirt and jeans. With any luck, we might be able to get you some action."
"What?!" In this moment, you realize that things have the potential to get really bad.
-
It's 8:30, and you can't stop fidgeting. The weather is balmy with a light breeze coming from the southwest. You know that it's going to rain later, but you completely forget to captchalogue an umbrella. Your bro is with you, looking the epitome of all things cool with his hands nonchalantly in his pockets and his shades squarely covering his eyes. Next to him, you just feel goofy and awkward and you're starting to regret letting him talk you into this. You meet up with the girl and a couple of her friends. The girl from earlier shyly takes one of your arms, which seems to be their cue to fawn over Dave. You're intensely uncomfortable, but you try to hide it because Dave looks so unflappable and you can't bear to disappoint him.
The girl and her friends lead you to a fraternity house just off-campus, and it's obvious that the party is already well under way. The girl (you feel like a jerk because you just now realize you don't remember her name) pulls you inside.
The first thing that hits you is the thrumming beat of the music, and it almost literally does hit you. It's this almost tangible force that seems to reach into your chest and override your natural heartbeat. You nearly stumble as it washes over you. The second thing that strikes you is the sheer number of people crammed into this one little house. There are bodies everywhere, standing, sitting, dancing, sweating... The only reason you don't back out of the frat house now is because you have a very awkwardly cute girl attached to one arm and your best bro in the whole world is giving you the thumbs-up. You let yourself be dragged further in, where you can't even hear yourself think let alone anyone else talking to you, and you try to make the best of it.
Somehow, you and the girl whose name you don't remember make it to a sofa. She tries to make small-talk with you, but it's really hard when you have to make her repeat herself so many times. You lost track of Dave after you arrived, and it makes you all different kinds of nervous. Your eyes keep scanning for any sign of him in the sea of noise and limbs to no avail. Much to your chagrin, you're not even paying any attention to the girl who brought you here anymore. Every fiber of your being is bent toward finding Dave's familiar presence again. You're too hot and you're shaking and you're having a hard time breathing, but you just know you'll be fine if you can just find him.
Then it happens. There's a part of you, tiny and logical and unaffected by emotion, that understands that these things probably happen all the time at parties. They're kind of like stairs that way. But that's not how your brain processes it.
Here's happens: you are sitting on the sofa pretending to be interested in this girl who is probably really nice but you're way too nervous and anxious to really pay attention to her. Suddenly, you find yourself covered in something syrupy and blue. Later, someone will tell you that it was just a spilled drink (a "party foul," if you will), but in that moment, it's not. In that moment, surrounded by a writhing mass of strangers making all kinds of noise, it's something else.
Your name is John Egbert, and you are now having a flashback of being covered in Vriska's blood.
The room goes dead silent, except for this one voice that keeps gibbering on and on about the most inane stuff: "Oh gog, oh gog, oh please, this is not cool, oh jeez," and so on. There's a really indignant and detached part of you that keeps yelling at that person to just shut up for a second because they're just making things so much worse when you realize that you're the one who's babbling. And that just makes it worse. You are covered in your friend's blood and it looks so weird and blue and you can't shut yourself up or do anything useful and you can feel the windy thing stir inside you just a little bit and you can hear rain start to pound the roof above your head.
Someone tries to touch you. Reflexively you reach for a hammer from your strife specibus, but you stopped carrying those eons ago when you won Sburb. Instead you just abjure the fuck out of the action with your bare hands. You aren't even really in control of your body anymore; it's like you're riding on your own shoulder while you scramble toward the door. You haven't stopped your strained gibbering this whole time. It doesn't even stop when you finally stumble outside and feel the warm rain on your face. That just seems to make it worse because now you're on your knees and crying, too.
All of the sudden, Dave's right there in front of you. His shades have slipped down his nose a little bit which lets you see the concern in his red, red eyes. "Hey, hey, John, hold up, what's wrong?" His words are quiet, pitched only for your ears. You can't stop sobbing long enough to say anything, so you hold up your hands to show him the coating of blue syrupy ichor that the rain is steadily sluicing away. He knows what it looks like because his eyes widen just a little and he drops to his knees in front of you. His arms, sinewy and strong from all the strifing he's done with his swords, wrap around your shoulders and pull you in close. He's just a little bit taller than you, so he tucks your head underneath his chin.
"Jesus, Egbert, calm your tits. It's okay, it's over, it's done. You don't have to freak the fuck out about it and lose you're shit. We're all fine. You're the Heir of fucking Breath here, so just fucking breathe, okay?" The words are harsh, exactly what you'd expect from a coolkid, but the his tone is nothing but tenderness. You take in a few shuddering, hiccuping breaths but you're still kind of sobbing into his shoulder. "C'mon, John, snap out of it. It's fucking over."
It takes a few more stuttering breaths, but you finally realize the truth in that statement. The tears stop, and the rain slackens off. You pull away from Dave long enough to take off your glasses and scrub at your eyes with the heel of your palm. "Jeez, I'm such a mess," you say.
"Yeah, you are, but you're m-- our mess," Dave replies as he helps you to your feet. "C'mon. Let's get you home."
You nod. It's not even 9:30, and you're pretty sure that this is already one of the worst nights of your life.