Work Text:
Your name is John Egbert. Unfortunately, this has not been engraved on your placronym. You are given the name John Crocker, which you will have to be satisfied with. You travel to Earth on a meteor soon after being created in an ectobiology lab, but you do not remember this. Eight days later, your ectobiological twin sister arrives in a similar fashion and accidentally shoots your adoptive grandfather, soon becoming your adoptive sister. You do not remember this either. Memories this early in life are often forgotten.
You do remember thing before that, however. You remember being John Egbert. You remember being thirteen and playing a game with your friends and waiting for the universe to end. You remember making more friends, trolls from a different universe. You remember breaking through the fourth wall that Jade created, breaking into a universe where things aren't so impossibly bungled. You remember your father being proud of you.
Your name is John Crocker and you are thirteen years old. Again. You have developed a fondness for baking and practical japery. You have enjoyed growing up with Jade as a sister this time. Sometimes the two of you huddle together at night and talk about the lives you remember. You both ache with sadness at the thought of never seeing Dave and Rose again. The sadness makes you want to curl up and cry sometimes. It makes Jade want to escape.
Your name is John Crocker and you are thirteen years and eight days old. Jade has turned thirteen and decided she can't stay anymore. She has to leave, she says. You wonder how much of it is anxiousness and how much is part of her seemingly endless knowledge about the way things have to be done. The way she looks back at you sadly when she rides away on Halley makes you think it is more the latter. You trust Jade with all your heart, you always have. If she is leaving, her reason must be pretty important. But, in the end, it changes nothing. Your name is John, and you are alone.
You take up baking with a furious passion. Your adoptive mother isn't human, you discover. You face this the way you faced things in Sburb. You level up your skills and scale your echeladder. The results are harder to see this time. You can tell you are improving your baking technique, but there is no progress bar, no fancy titles. You are simply John, heir to Crockercorp, baking enthusiast. Eventually, you move up in the ranks of the company. You wait for the time when you will be the company head. Until then, you decide to make a life for yourself.
Your name is John and you move into the house where you once grew up. You still think of your friends sometimes. Jade is impossible to track down. You imagine her going on wild adventures and hunting dangerous animals. You think of Dave and Rose and feel lonelier than ever. Living alone in this house, you remember how you were supposed to marry Rose and live in a house next door to Dave and Jade and spend the rest of your life with them and you start trying to forget.
Your name is John Crocker and you have met a fine, upstanding lady and gotten married. You are very excited when you become a father. You are startled to see that, through some odd happenstance, you are raising your Dad. Your heart leaps and you start hugging him tighter. You bake for him every day and tell him how proud you are of him. You tell him you know he'll be an amazing father when he grows up.
You start remembering again. You can put things together. You know you are living your Nanna's life. You know Dave will be living his Bro's, Rose will be living her Mom's.
They must be around your Son's age at this point. Maybe a bit younger. You wonder if they remember Before.
You tell yourself you're being silly when you create a Pesterchum account. You feel like a dork. You're too old to doing it. And besides, you're almost certain Nanna never talked to Dave's Bro or Rose's Mom online. They probably never even knew each other.
Your name is John Crocker and you have just become a single parent. You tell yourself that everything will be okay. Your Dad raised you well enough on his own. A dark voice in the back of your head tells you that you are not your Dad, ectobiology aside.
Thing turn out okay despite your misgivings. In the back of your mind you know your birth year (your original birth year) is fast approaching. You know that, before too long, you'll end up as an urn on the mantle. You know you should be afraid, but when you look at your Son you only feel warm. He's opened up a joke shop, and you tell him again how proud you are of him.
Even more time passes and you know you don't have much time left. It'll be your birthday soon. Or, your Nanna's birthday, you guess. You start worrying. You never did manage to take over Crockercorp. You got sidetracked somewhere along the way between growing up and raising a family. You never did find your friends again. But you lived. You got to be a brother to Jade and a father to your Son.
Your name is John and you smile sadly as you decide to visit your Son at his shop. You think Jade would be proud of you, following the rules of the Game, doing thing because you know they will happen. You imagine Rose would scoff at you, though. But this universe has to be protected, you can't afford to screw it up, you have to let the next generation win it this time. You leave your room too soon to hear the chirping from your computer.
--turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ghostyTrickster [GT] at 16:02–-
TG: dude goddamn it i didnt think to try this before now
TG: you remember right
TG: egbert answer me right this second
TG: john
TG: please