If Not For Everything

You decide to tell Bro. He’s your Bro, after all, and also your dad, but again you don’t want to get into that. He has to believe you, or there’s no one else who would. Well, besides John and the others. They would probably believe you, but they’re not here right now, and Jason wasn’t very friendly to you earlier, so Bro’s your only shot.

So you clear your throat a little. “Uh, Bro?”

“Yeah?” He doesn’t look away from the road, continuing to drive as he waits for you to speak in his usual stoic way.

“This is probably going to sound really fucking crazy, all right, but I need you to believe me.”

He doesn’t say anything, so you go on.

“Yesterday, I wasn’t…here. I don’t even know how I ended up here, back in Houston, or, uh, back on Earth.”

Now Bro gives you a brief look before returning complete attention to the road. You can tell he’s probably wondering about your earlier-denied drug use.

You rush to try to explain. “Take me seriously, okay? See, three years ago, John and Rose and Jade and I, we all started playing this piece of shit game called SBurb. And somehow, we were all sent into space, onto these different planets. Then we met these aliens – trolls – and we ended up separated into two groups since our game sessions were wrong. We were all going to travel to a new session that we helped to create, and we were going to be there pretty soon. But then I woke up and I was back here. So I’m kind of thinking that we got there and the new session was…reality, or some shit.”

Bro hesitates and an odd moment of silence passes. “Man, I fucking told you not to drink so much AJ before bed. It used to give you weird dreams when you were a kid, too.”

“Wh-what?” You’re too stunned by his reaction to repress your stutter.

“It’s the AJ or you’ve gone off the deep end,” Dirk said, raising an eyebrow. “You even made up your own characters in a dream.”

“What – John, and Rose, and…”

“Yeah. Them.” Bro’s eyes flick to the corners and you see him give you a weird look.

“You mean I’m – you don’t know—” You look so uncool right now, you know it. But the idea that Bro didn’t know John? I mean, I’d mentioned him a lot since I’d met him. And Bro had a good memory.

Bro sighed, just a gruff little breath released quietly. “Look, I know this is a hard time for you. You’re going to college soon, you’re away from home, and you have to move on. I get it. Not firsthand, I guess. Chose to be a parent rather than a college boy.”

You’re even more horrified. Bro never liked to talk about the fact that he raised you. In all the time you were under his care (you know, since you crashed to earth on a meteor), Dirk had barely said a word about him being your guardian to your face. You know he had to deal with it for stuff like enrolling you in school and shit, but you and Bro had always had an understanding – you cared about each other, but you didn’t talk about it. It wasn’t cool.

“Maybe I just didn’t raise you right,” he mutters, so low you can barely hear, and you think you weren’t meant to. Usually, if Bro doesn’t want someone to hear something, he just wouldn’t say it. “I wanted to prepare you, but all I did was teach you how to dodge and stab.”

You think he’s done and you’re grateful – there’s too much going on for you to think about Bro having actual emotions he’s sharing and him not knowing John. Then he picks back up and you think you should have stayed in bed this morning.

“Mom and Dad would have known how to handle this.”

Your eyes nearly pop out of your skull. “What? Mom and Dad?!” That’s it, Bro’s lost it. You never had parents. You were both dropped to earth on fucking meteors! Bro was your biological dad, and you guess Bro was just…Bro?

“Look, I know you think I’m like this…statue. Intimidating, silent and built for whatever’s thrown at me, but I was never prepared for this. I’ve been winging it since day one and I had to figure out how to wrap a diaper.” Bro keeps his eyes on the road and you know, despite whatever fuckery is going on that Bro is still sort of Bro and this is probably really hard for him to say.

“Well…uh… You’ve been a good parent,” you tell him awkwardly, never thinking you’d have to say that to him. Your mind is still reeling – parents? – but you try to keep your mind in the here and now so that Dirk won’t turn around and take you to the hospital.

A little smile turns up the corner of Bro’s mouth. “Thanks, kid.” The action is so Bro that you’re momentarily relieved, but as Bro’s truck comes within sight of the airport, your heart starts to speed up. Despite being cool and looking all mature, you haven’t had to deal with anything this…human since you were thirteen years old and still hoping that when you opened up the ‘fridge, you weren’t going to be attacked by a puppet.

Hold on. Puppets. Bro never went anywhere without—and you do mean everywhere. The grocery store, the post office, the bank; Bro had been given strange looks at all of them because of—

“Uh, Bro? Where’s ‘Lil Cal?” You do a quick check around the cab of Bro’s truck, but there’s no grey-faced puppet staring with glazed eyes.

Bro has just pulled into a long line for parking in front of the George Bush Intercontinental airport, and he takes the moment to look at you full-on, his shades low enough on his nose to show off the top of his orange irises that wonder what’s wrong with you.

“…who’s ‘Lil Cal?”

Your heart rate increases. You’re not wondering what’s wrong with you, you’re wondering what’s wrong with Bro.

“Y’know, ‘Lil Cal. Your definitely awesome and not creepy puppet-best-friend thing.”

Bro gives you a long look and in that moment the enormity of how fucked up everything is right now hits you. Wherever or whenever you are – whatever timeline or alternate universe you’re in right now – somehow everything is different. You had parents? Bro shows emotion? There’s no ‘Lil Cal? A thought strikes you that makes you feel cold all over. Bro doesn’t know who John is… What if John doesn’t exist?

You want to hyperventilate, but you force yourself to stay calm, clenching your jaw together in silent panic. Bro is looking increasingly stressed, as well.

The line starts to move again and Bro is forced to look away from you and drive forward slowly. You arrive at the curb in front of the terminal for drop-offs, and you shakily prepare to exit the cab of the truck. Before you can unlock the door to get out, however, Bro stops you.

“Hey, look…Dave.” He looks down at his lap. “I dunno what’s goin’ on with you, but you sound…pretty freaked. I know this is all big stuff. If…you wanna talk, call me, okay?”

You try to shrug off your emotions – yours and Bro’s. “Uh. Thanks, Bro.”

Bro just nods. “And I’ll call you later, when you should be on campus. You got your brochures?”

You nod, just trying to focus on coherent thought and real words.

“Okay. Get out of my truck.”

You actually manage to smile a bit, and you open your door. “See you, Bro.”

The terminal is crowded today. Seriously crowded. The last time you were around so many other living beings at one time, you were surrounded by nakodiles becoming a fucking billionaire. You don’t feel as hot as you did then, and you don’t mean because you were in the Land of Heat and Clockwork. You’re still cold, and you shiver a little despite the densely-packed space.

According to the plane ticket tucked in the front pocket of your suitcase, you board at one and arrive at five, time given for boarding and technical plane stuff, you assume.

You suddenly realize that you’re going to be very bored on this flight. Sure, sitting still and looking completely apathetic and cool is something you have down to an art form, but that doesn’t mean it’s entertaining.

You find an empty bench and take a seat, pulling your suitcase onto the bench next to you. You unzip it, hoping that whatever you want to take on the plane with you, you can put in your pockets. Luckily, you before you woke up in this timeline was smart, and packed a small backpack.

In it, you stuff your iPod, the college brochures to look at, and a laptop. You now have carry-on. You wish that you had something else to occupy yourself with, because doing nothing isn’t good for you. You start to think and the thinking leads to wondering and that leads to dreading. You don’t know what’s going on and that is always a horrible situation, as far as you’re concerned.

You don’t wait for very long to board. You file after everyone else in the line to your flight and find your seat. There’s a seat next to you, but no one takes it. Either there are no other single passengers on this flight, or no one wants to sit next to you. The second option isn’t completely dismissible – in the airport, there were tons of people and things to look at, but in these smaller quarters, you’re getting a lot of weird looks. It might be because you’re the only passenger under eighteen on this plane as far as you can see, but you’re ninety percent sure it’s the stupid anime shades. You seriously miss your shades. The ones that John gave you. At least they had a semblance of normality.

Your plan, as soon as the plane was up in the air, had been to take out your iPod and check out any possible sick beats created by you, and then take out your laptop and try to contact one of the others. Hell, you’d even try the trolls’ handles, just in case. Not only was the situation terrifyingly sudden and confusing, but it was a little lonely to think that you could be the only one in it.

Your plan changes as soon as you open up the laptop. What if they really weren’t there? Any of them at all. You didn’t want to deal with any more Jasons. Sure, you’re feeling weird about this whole thing, but you’re on a plane for the first time in your life, independent, going to college… Maybe you should put off the disappointment of being alone in a weird timeline a little longer.

Instead you play Solitaire, the game of the lonely, and you draw a Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff comic, which you find to be a much easier feat with a desktop mouse than a laptop one. It starts out with your usual (or once-usual) bullshit nonsense content, but when at the end you launch Bro into space alone, you draw parallels and decide that Bro and Jeff just aren’t as funny to you three years after the last comic you drew.

You close the laptop and put it away, deciding to just chill the rest of the flight. You listen to your own tracks, which you have to admit are quite sick, and doze restlessly as you look out the window. Nothing fails to remind you of some stupid thing that happened back in the game. The bright blue sky is Skaia, you tell yourself. You don’t take any comfort in it. You never belonged in the Medium, or on Skaia, or even really on Derse. But now you don’t belong on Earth, either, living another Dave’s life.

It’s annoying to you that you’re suddenly so deep.

You land a little after five-thirty in Sacramento. From the airport, you take a taxi to the university, which is much closer than you’d expected, and the cabbie knows exactly where he’s going.

The ride doesn’t cost much and you’re relieved when you hand over your fare and a tip and get out of the car with your baggage. There are other kids and their parents all over the lawn of the university, milling around or grinning excitedly at the college and their peers. You’re not impressed.

Maybe it’s just because you’ve never been an architecture buff, or maybe it’s because there’s been a lot more to be impressed at today, you don’t give the tall (maybe Gothic styled – like you said, you’re not an architecture buff) buildings more than a once-over.

There’s no one immediately at the gates of the place to meet you, so you pull out your invitational brochure the college had apparently sent you after you’d sent in your application. You were assigned to dorm D.

You thought dorms were supposed to have more impressive names. Like, the names of impressive people that would therefore make the dorm impressive. “Dormitory D” seemed kind of generic. But whatever, you guess it’s not your place to assume anything about college. Mentally, you’re still a year younger and on a meteor.

You are in a large courtyard with those little blocks of land where tiny trees are planted and a large fountain in the middle. There is a large concentration of people in front of a building to your left, a pale yellow brick building styled like all of those around you in an ornate, almost gaudily fancy way. It’s almost identical to the building across the courtyard from it except in color, including the crowd in front of it. The second building is built from a more purplish brick with black trim. It’s not any grimmer looking than the other for its looks, but the aura of the people surrounding it seems a bit more subdued than that of the others.

People begin to shuffle away down a path between the largest building directly in front of you and the yellowish building now that a gate has been moved aside. You don’t hear the announcement made by someone you assume works at the school, but people closer to him seem interested, and many abandon their posts by the colorful buildings to follow him down the path.

You take advantage to step toward the closer building, the purple one, and a large plaque beside black double doors reads simply, “D.” You take that to mean that it’s Dormitory D, so you head on inside.

You’re honestly quite impressed with yourself. You’re not intimidated at all by being on a college campus and it makes you feel like a bad ass. Which is a great feeling. Being able to be so human again has been confusing, but it’s also refreshing and empowering, and you decide to try to keep to that feeling for right now.

The inside of the D dorm, it’s cool. Almost chilly. Combined with the already cool weather of northern California, at least compared to the Houston weather you’ve grown up with, you have a few goosebumps on your arms.

As you walk in, a girl of petite build with long red hair is being led up the stairs to the left by a tall man in all black and a ball cap, startlingly white against the room and the rest of his outfit. You already have a couple of snippy comments forming in your head as he climbs out of sight.

There is no one else in the lobby/common room of the dorm, but there is a service desk with a bell that instructs that you ring for service, and you comply with a bit of apprehension.

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” says a voice from behind a door labeled STAFF. The guy sounds highly irritated, like you’ve bothered him in the middle of his favorite soap. You just shift your light backpack and wait.

After a minute, a man emerges from the back room. He’s about the same height as you, and almost as pale as you. If it weren’t for the jet-black hair slicked back under his ball cap and his cold, steel-gray eyes, you might suspect that he was an albino like you. He, like the other guy you just saw tromp up the stairs, is wearing all black – a rather proper complete suit, in this case. His ball cap is hilariously contradictory to the rest of his demeanor, white with light blue trim. In bright blue letters is written, “Welcome, Freshmen!” and a smiling sun sits underneath it. But these are certainly not the man’s most defining qualities, and in fact, when you first see him, you suppress a gasp. A long scar runs through his right eye, from just above his eyebrow to the top of his cheek. His right arm is gone from the middle of the bicep down. An overly-cheery “Hello; My name is” tag reads “Mr. Noir.”

You swallow quietly, and, quickly forming a lame plan, you mouth off. “Your hat says ‘welcome,’ but your expression says ‘die,’” you inform him.

Noir narrows his eyes and scowls, and you hope he’s not about to attack you with a knife. You hope your plan was as good as it was when you were thinking it up. If Noir remembers everything like you do, and you’ve just insulted him, he’s going to attack you like no fucking tomorrow, blades whirring as your limbs go flying. Or at least insult you back. But if he, like Bro, doesn’t know anything, then he’ll make a passive aggressive counter and do his job.

“The hat is part of the uniform,” he says through clenched teeth. “Now can I help you?” He sounds like he wants to do anything but.

You find yourself almost disappointed that an arch nemesis of yours and once-demon-dog thing you feared doesn’t remember the same past you do. It would be nice, even if he still wanted to kill you. Well, he probably did now, due to your comment, but that didn’t matter.

“Uh, yeah. The brochure just told me to come here,” you tell him, and you offer him the brochure tentatively.

He rolls his eyes and snatches it from you. His intense eyes flick over the slick paper and then to his computer. “Strider,” he mutters, entering your name into the computer. “Dorm 307,” he concludes. “Come with me.”

Noir pushes the brochure back at you with his good arm and walks around the desk. He leads you to the staircase on the right.

“The stairs on the left are the girls’ dorm, don’t go up without invitation. Lobby closes at eleven PM.” He shudders, and you lift an eyebrow, about four steps behind him. “Each floor has a communal bathroom and a small kitchen.”

You lug your suitcase up two flights of stairs and reach the third floor while Noir speaks as if he could just die with boredom and spite. He grumbles to himself while you trudge to 307. He pulls out a key from his pocket and you wonder briefly when he’d even retrieved that, but shrug it off.

Noir walks in first and you follow. You’re surprised. The room is a single. There’s a large naked window, no curtains or anything to block cheerful afternoon light. One bed takes up most of the left side of the room, and there’s a desk and a small closet to the right. You have room for turntables, you notice, but decide not to get too carried away, especially until you can make sure that you get curtains.

“It’s a single?” you ask as casually as you can manage, but it’s strange talking to Jack Noir, and stranger being anything like casual with him.

“Yeah,” Noir deadpans. “The third, fifth and seventh floors are all singles.”

You raise your eyebrows slightly. “Big building.”

“Sure. Anyway, I’m Mr. Noir, the dorm manager. I’ll be available if you have a problem or something, so don’t have any problems. Get settled in, and then go to the gymnasium for the stupid…welcome expo or whatever the hell it is. You’ll get your temporary schedule there and meet your…sophomore buddy.” He says the words with loathing.

“Can I not?” you ask, not to be rude, just because you’d rather have some time alone. Maybe work up the guts to try to get back on Pesterchum. You need to call Bro, too; he said he’d be calling you but he hadn’t yet.

“Tch.” The noise sounds almost like a laugh. “I don’t blame you. I guess you could wait a while ‘til the crowd dies down. But you might miss out on good classes. Your sophomore might not wait around, either. Just do what you want.”

Before you can say anything else, Noir leaves the dorm, shutting the door behind him. You sigh a little. You decide to use the time unpacking to figure out what you want to do. You’d still like to have some quiet, but you don’t want to miss out on getting the sweet classes. If you end up with some kind of medieval…art class or something, you’re not sure the irony would be enough to keep you in good spirits. Plus, maybe you should be doing everything now, and let the suddenness of everything strange that’s happened process with you later. You momentarily curse your spontaneous nature and throw your backpack on the bed.