If Not For Everything

Your suitcase empty and your things in the dresser at the end of your bed, you decide that you’re going to go to the welcome thing – scoop up the sweet-ass classes while you’ve got the chance. You can mope and worry later.

Noir left the key in the door of the dorm for you, so you take the key and lock your dorm behind you, then stick the key in your pocket as you walk down to the courtyard with only your brochure in your hands. The name of your “sophomore buddy” was on there somewhere, but you hadn’t sifted through it thoroughly enough to find it. You figure you’ll go down and check things out before finding your tour guide.

The courtyard between the dorms and the big building that you’re guessing belongs to administration or something is mostly empty now. A few people roam, kids going to their new dorms, parents going back to their cars.

The little trail between the yellow dorm building and the administrative building is just a little paved walkway, and you follow it out into a much larger courtyard. This one is about as long as a football field and another two wide. All around it are more buildings, probably ones holding classes, and the little trees that are apparently required for all courtyards.

The courtyard would seem even bigger if there weren’t a thousand people in it. Booths are set up all around the perimeter and in a smaller square inside with the ones that don’t fit just scattered around and in between, making it look sort of like a marketplace for middle-class American families shopping for math classes.

You sigh coolly at all the noise and people and begin making your way to the first booth with a sign high enough to see over the crowd reading Welcome! You think that’s probably a good place to start. Check shit out.

Just in front of the booth, you lose your footing and you jostle someone. They almost fall over, but right themselves and turn around to face you.

“Hey! Watch it!”

Your eyes widen. The voice. Her hair’s the same, just a different color, different skin color, different glasses… Normally you’d assume you were seeing things, but not today.

“Terezi?” you ask, shocked.

She’s certainly not a troll, but it’s definitely Terezi. Her hair is golden blonde, her skin a light peach and the red glasses she’s always worn (despite having had her vision back for quite some time, back on the meteor) are black, and her teeth aren’t sharp. She’s human.

“What?” She crinkles her eyebrows. “Uh, no. It’s Teresa.” Behind her glasses, her unseeing eyes narrow in scrutiny. “Do I know you?”

You quickly open your brochure and read as fast as you possibly can through it while Terezi – Teresa – watches you impatiently, and you reach a paragraph about finding your sophomore guide. Teresa Pyrope. Found at the welcome booth. Damn.

“You’re my sophomore guide,” you tell her, holding up your brochure. You hope that’s enough to cover up the way you’d said her name, with surprise and recognition. A moment later, you realize – you dumbass – that she’s blind. You groan internally at your stupidity. “Teresa Pyrope?” you ask, and you know that her hearing’s excellent. She can probably hear the exasperation and hopelessness.

“Oh, yeah. You’re Dave, then?” she asks, much less suspicious and angry now, and you think that maybe she’s just ignoring how awkward you sound. You need to figure out how to be cool again like now.

“Yeah. Dave Strider.” Teresa holds a hand out and you take it before she takes it back.

“Nice to meet you, I guess, Strider! You’re not very good in crowds, are you?” she guesses.

“Not used to them,” you admit, which is a serious understatement. You haven’t been around a group larger than seven in three years.

“Okay, we’ll start looking around soon so you can pick classes and then we’ll explore. I just gotta…um…” She moves about around the crowd as if she’s looking for someone. But from her expression, you think she’s actually listening for them. “Oh, here he—come on,” she orders, and she grabs your hand.
You have to admit that her hand in yours makes you a bit nostalgic, but it also puts a tugging in the pit of your stomach that you’ve grown to associate with John. You try to shake it off.

You and Teresa get closer to the welcome booth, where sophomores like her – all wearing bright blue and white t-shirts – are working with kids and parents, directing to different booths.

Teresa lets go of your hand. “Karver – Kar!”

“What?!” A redheaded kid behind the booth looks up at us, looking pissed. He gives you a curious glance, then steps to Teresa’s side and takes her hand, probably to let her know where he is.

“There you are!” Teresa says excitedly. “Look, my kid showed up!”

She takes your hand again, showing you off to the guy. He’s got dark reddish hair, pale skin and brown eyes, but it’s unmistakably Karkat. The shadows under his eyes and the way he constantly grimaces is the same. His hair takes the same messy shape.

“Lucky,” Karver mutters. “Mine still hasn’t shown up! What, is she going to be the last kid to get here?!”

“Aw, good luck, Kar. I gotta show this one around.” She ducks in to kiss him on the cheek and is slightly off-mark, kissing closer to his nose.

Half of his mouth actually turns up in a little smile, then he realizes what she said. “Wait!”

“Bye!” she lets go of his hand and starts leading you.

“No – Teresa!” Karver calls from behind you. “You’re supposed to – you’re supposed to take someone with you! You can’t fucking see!”

In front of you, Teresa just chuckles and continues to lead. “Always a charmer.”

“Who, Karkat?” You laugh at the idea of Karkat charming anyone.

“Karkat?” Teresa laughs, too. “Cute nickname. Weird. I’ve gotta try that out sometime.”

You stop by the edge of the courtyard near one of the tiny trees, where there are fewer people. Teresa lets go of you and turns to face you.

“So, any idea what you wanna study?” she asks. “You’ve got five classes. It’s not permanent, obviously, just classes for your week here. You get to sit in and stuff. What are you interested in?”

“Music,” you tell her, thinking it would be awesome to get the chance to maybe show off, just a little bit in a music class. “And…science?”

“What kind of science?” she asks. “Biology, chemistry…?”

“Space. Like, astronomy,” you say, smirking a little at the irony human Terezi doesn’t understand.

“Oh, cool. I think that class is over there, by Aradia…”

“Aradia?” you ask, surprised. Aradia was a troll, too…why did she get to keep her name?

“Yeah, a friend of mine. Over here, I think.”

She doesn’t grab you again, but you follow her to a big red booth.

“Aradia?” Teresa asks upon reaching it. There’s a girl there with tanned skin and really long curly black hair and brown eyes, looking miserable. She stretches her hand out to
Teresa to tap her on the shoulder.

“Right here, Teresa,” she supplies.

“Cool. Do you have the astronomy-planetary-science-thing class? My kid here wants it.”

My kid again? You get the idea that these sophomore trolls really like having a job.

“Yeah…we’ve still got a couple of spots left,” Aradia says, flipping through a folder. “What’s your name?” she asks me.

“Dave—”

“Dave Strider!” Teresa tells her, sounding almost proud.

“Okay…” She finds a few numbers and writes them next to my name, then hands me a card with the course title and the long chain of numbers on it. “There you go, Dave.” She tries to smile, but she still sounds dismal.

“What’s the matter?” Teresa asks Aradia, and half of her mouth curves down in an inquisitive look.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Aradia sighs. “I’m just a little…disappointed, I guess. No one wants to sign up for my classes! Besides astronomy, I have paleontology and of course archaeology.” She looks at you and explains, “That’s my major – archaeology. I was hoping I’d get to meet a lot of freshmen who wanted to take it, even if it was just because they wanted to be Indiana Jones.” Aradia rolls her eyes. “I’d be okay with that. But both classes are nearly empty.”

“Don’t worry! There are plenty of brats running around today. I’m sure one of them likes to dig and stuff.”

“Yeah, thanks, Teresa…” Aradia still didn’t sound convinced.

“Actually, uh, I’m interested in paleontology,” you speak up, thinking of all the dead things in your bedroom back on LOHAC. Or, just your bedroom in this timeline. “Dead things are cool.”

Aradia’s eyes light up. “They definitely are! Do you – you want to take the class?”

“Yeah, that’d be awesome.” You give her a small smile.

She grinned. “I could kiss you but Sol would try to kick your ass and most likely just get seriously injured in the process!”

You raise your eyebrows. “It’s all right, I can feel the love.”

“Great! Okay!” Aradia repeated the process with my name and all the numbers on a different sheet and handed me a different card. You give it a bemused look: she obviously took a lot more time decorating this one than the astronomy card. The other one had a couple of squiggly circles meant to be planets and a couple of typical yellow five-point stars, but the paleontology card had little dinosaurs and bugs on it, with the title of the course in a creative-looking font.

“Did you make the archaeology card as cool as this one?” you ask teasingly, showing her the card again.

“Oh, do you think it’s cool? Yeah, I guess I kinda showed my bias, huh?” She giggles lightly and holds up another card, this one decorated just as brightly as yours.

“Alright, fossil freaks, we’ve gotta get going if I’m going to keep Strider on schedule!” Teresa interrupts.

You glance at her, wondering what she’s on to get her so hyped.

“You’re probably right… Good luck finding your other classes, Dave! I’ll see you later, Teresa!” She waves at you.

“Yep! Thanks, Aradia!” Obviously worried you’re going to stay and continue to chat with Aradia, Teresa skips all implications of gentleness and grabs for your upper arm, her red-painted fingernails biting into your arm through your t-shirt.

“Bye,” you call back to Aradia, feeling very rushed by Teresa and actually rather smothered. Overwhelmed, even. But you think that might have something to do with the fact that your alien friends suddenly don’t remember you. And are suddenly not aliens.

“So, music classes, now, right?” Teresa asks.

“Uh – yeah… You can slow down you know,” you inform her as you push through another small crowd of people clustered around a large gold booth for computer engineering.
Teresa hears you and waits for a moment before letting go and turning to you. “Sorry, Dave. Guess I’m just excited for this. It’s cool to be able to help someone who has absolutely no idea what they’re doing while you have all the answers.”

You suddenly remember the nakodiles and your brief stint as a boondollar billionaire on LOHAC. Not to mention…she’s blind. Being someone’s eyes in an unfamiliar place probably gives her a sense of secondhand sight. You guess it’s just Terezi’s thing, wanting to feel superior while helping.

“It’s okay. Just take it easy.”

Suddenly, Teresa grins mischievously. “Ah… You’re a coolkid, aren’t you?”

You shrug, dismissing her blindness. “Yeah. I’m pretty cool.”

Her grin widens. “Interesting… Remind me to challenge you to a dance-off sometime.”

You can’t help it. You smile, too. If the one constant in this confusing situation is Terezi’s stupid fascination with your undeniable coolness and irony, you figure you can work this out somehow. You at least wouldn’t mind staying in this timeline or whatever long enough for a dance-off or a drawing contest.

“I’ll remind you.”

“Sweet. So, music classes?”

“Music classes,” you confirm.

At a more leisurely pace that you appreciate, Teresa leads you to a booth painted bright indigo. There are a few people milling around or leaving the booth, and behind it stands a tall, lanky kid with unruly curly black hair and dark skin. His face, except the areas around his eyes and mouth are painted white, and you determine that he does indeed look too into the clown look for it to be ironic. Emphasizing this are the black and gray polka-dotted pajama pants he wears. Damn it, Gamzee.

At least he doesn’t look murderously psychotic right now, you think, even if he does look just as high.

He greets you with a lazy smile on his painted face, his dark, almost black eyes heavily lidded. “Hey, motherfuckers. How’s it going?”

You notice that Teresa’s jaw tightens and one of her hands clenches. But she says with absolute friendliness, “Hey, Garrett. Just wanna sign Coolkid Dave here up for a music class.”

“Sweet,” Gam—uh—Garrett approves with a slow nod. “What’re you lookin’ for? What’s your beat, man?”

“Are you asking if I like to drop ill rhymes?” Despite the bitterness and caution you’ve regarded Gamzee with since hearing about his blackrom relationship with Terezi (oh, and the two people he killed, them too), you try to lightly tease. You’ve heard the dude rap before, and even if he’s a lunatic, he’s pretty good. Karkat told you a couple times that he and his friend…uh, the paraplegic one, used to rap like there was no tomorrow. You’ve considered more than once that if he wasn’t such an asshole, you might have gotten along okay.

“Hell yeah, bro. You like rap? We’ve got a class for a slam poetry-rap kind of scene, and a club for our own beats. Our rhymes are only the illest.”

You’re pretty sure “illest” isn’t a word, but whatever, you catch his drift. “Awesome. I’ll have to drop by sometime. Make sure you guys are cool.”

Garrett’s smile widens. “I like you, bro. Drop by anytime.”

“I’m so glad you guys are friends,” Teresa says, and there’s an undertone to her voice that tells you she’s anything but. “Except we’re kind of trying to get Dave the best classes right now, so maybe you can just sign him up for your poetry thing and we’ll leave?”

“No problem,” Gamzee says lackadaisically. “I got you.”

Like Aradia, he takes out a little card, this one with an indigo clown stamp on it, and hands it to you. Then he writes a number next to your name in his folder, and you wonder why they don’t do this by computer.

“See you soon, motherfucker,” Garrett says in parting as Teresa starts leading you away by your forearm.

“Ugh,” she groans, obviously just wanting to leave.

“So I take it you guys aren’t BFFs,” you say drily. You’re surprised you’re not bitter.

You can practically sense her rolling her eyes. “No. We had a…thing, once, but it was short-lived. That guy’s a stoner and a psycho. No matter how much you like your under-the-weather rhythms, I’d stay away from him if I were you. You might end up chopped into tiny pieces in his freezer.”

You think it’s more likely he’d store your body in the refrigerator and attempt to sell your blood, but you don’t want to say that.

“Anyway. You can get two more classes, so what’ll it be, Dave?” Teresa manages to get a smile back on her face as she slows down and releases your arm. Your pale skin has red marks on it from her tight grip.

You tell her you don’t care much, and she grins widely. “Excellent!”

You’re grateful that she keeps her claws to herself, and you follow her to a less crowded part of the courtyard where a simple white booth stands. You wonder if they didn’t get the memo about all the colorful booths.

“Mr. Mayer, Mr. Mayer!” Terezi yells out, waving madly.

There’s not much of a crowd, but a couple of people standing nearby at the booth shuffle away.

“Yes, yes, Teresa? I—I’m over here!” A small man emerges through the people, standing at the booth. He’s short with skin like shining ebony and dressed in a proper tan suit. His face is friendly and his eyes sparkle happily.

“What did I tell you, Mr. Mayer? I told you I’d still help you get students! Here’s one!”

You try to keep a smile off of your face as you realize: it’s the fucking mayor. The mayor! No way…no fucking way... You’ve always wondered what it would be like if the mayor could talk. Of course, it would probably be better if he knew who you were, which, from the polite expression on his face when he looks at you, you can tell he doesn’t. But you’re slowly getting used to that. This is so weird. But if you forget everything else, this is kind of a weird cool.

“Well hello!” Mr. Mayer greeted me with a kind smile. “It’s very nice to meet you…?”

“Dave. Strider.” You smile back at him and take his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, too.” You resist the urge to request for a high five.

“Dave’s gonna take the criminal justice class!” Teresa cheers.

“I am?” you ask.

“Yes! That’s what we’re signing you up for. It’s my major, and the only class is mine, so you’ll get to sit in on my class! I’ll save you a seat.” She grins impossibly wider and gives you a wink from behind her shades.

The professor just chuckles. “All right, Mr. Strider, I’ll sign you up. Miss Pyrope, make sure you’re still paying attention when Dave visits.”

“Of course I’ll be paying attention! I’ve gotta learn how to orchestrate the demise of the wicked somehow, right?”

Oh yeah. Terezi’s justice thing. You forgot how intense she could get about that with all the juggalo shit she’d had going on. Now you just find it kind of endearing if not intimidating. It’s been a long time since you’ve even seen Terezi smile.

Mr. Mayer hands you a card with little pillars and a gavel printed on the sides and gives you a smile, turning back to listen to Terezi jabber on. But another voice cuts through the air and catches your attention.

“That sounds great! We should definitely do that!”

Your head whips around at the familiar voice. It’s deeper than the last time you heard it, but…you’re positive. Your heart rate increases with your excitement.

You hear a man’s laugh. “Well all right, John. We’ll do a weekend-long marathon when you get back.”

“Popcorn?”

“Of course, son.”

You search for the voices in the crowd, but there are too many people wandering around. Finally you catch sight of a rather tall man in a fedora beside a raven-haired boy just shorter than him. Your eyes widen.

“Uh, Terez—Teresa, I have to—stay here okay, I’ll be back.” You tap her arm and start walking away.

“Wait—Where’re you going, Coolkid?! You still have to—” Her voice disappears as you distance yourself, pushing gently as you can muster through the crowd with muttered apologies.

Eventually there’s a large gap in the crowd, but at the pace you’ve been taking, you’ll never reach him before he and his father reach the yellow brick dorm where they’re heading.

You give up and go for it. “John!” you call out. “John!”

Seeming confused, the guy turns around and yeah – that’s definitely John. Older than you’ve ever seen him, but you have seen him and just wow. You take in a quick little breath.

Your heart’s thumping so quickly you’re feeling lightheaded. John sees you and looks at you with wide, curious eyes.
His dad says something to him and John shrugs and shakes his head, then replies. You’re sure he’s going to turn around and keep walking, but to your surprise, he starts walking toward you.

John offers you a little smile. “Hi! Sorry, but, um, do I know you?” He looks sheepishly friendly, as if he’s embarrassed not to have recognized you on sight. Yeah, well, he should be. You’re his goddamn best bro. You realize you’d still had hope that maybe…well maybe he’d remember you. Another human that’d gone through the game with you and hadn’t gone through species transformation. But whatever.

You open your mouth. Then shut it again. Idiot, you haven’t thought of anything to say yet. Just be cool.

“Uh—I—” Not cool, abort. You look down and back up very quickly, hoping he doesn’t notice how flustered you are but your face is on fire. Still, with any luck your shades hide most of the red.

You start over. “No. Sorry, I had you confused with somebody else.” Cool, okay. You now look offhanded and totally casual. Probably.

John’s expression becomes confused, but he continues to smile. “But…you knew my name.”

Damn it. That’s right. Oh my god you’re so stupid.

“John’s a pretty common name.” Ha! Take that Egbert.

John laughs. “I guess that’s a good point.” He offers a hand. “I’m John Egbert. It’s great to meet you!”

“Dave Strider.” You can’t help but feel nostalgia as you take his hand and remember the first time you ever talked. You thought he was so dorky and he thought you were a jerk. You guess that hasn’t changed except maybe that you fell for the dorkiness anyway.

“Wow, that’s a really cool name!” He grins. “Like a comic book character or something. Hey…are you secretly a superhero?” John gives you a jokingly suspicious look as he retracts his hand and crosses his arms seriously.

“What?”

“You know. Superheroes get the best names! Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne, James Howlett…”

“Yeah, and then there’s Dick Grayson.”

John bursts out laughing and you can’t help but smile. You’ve been smiling a lot today, despite the circumstances.

“Okay, fine, you win again.” John recovers from his laughter and is giving you one of the most genuine dorky smiles ever.
You indulge your secretly (so so secret) cheesy ironic side and decide against your better judgment to humor him.

“Well…if you have to know, I really do have a superhero identity. Costume and everything.”
John looks at you first with amazement and then incredulity. “No way. You’ve even made your own costume?”

“Something like that.” You try to shift your weight nonchalantly and nearly stumble.

“What’s your name then? It’d better not be the Striderman or something.”

For the first time since you started bumping into alt-timeline friends, you feel and speak solemnly. There’s too much about the game you can’t joke about without feeling a little sullen.

“The Knight of Time.”

John pauses, considering. “It’s kinda long, don’t you think?” Then he opens his mouth in bemused shock. “Oh my god. You—” he chuckles “—you could be Knighttime.” He goes right back to laughing again.

You stay stoic. “Never heard that one before.” As if Terezi and Karkat and even a drunken Rose hadn’t given you crap for it already.

“John?”

John looks back at his dad. “Just a minute, Dad!” Turning back to you, he offers you another genuine grin. “Sorry, Dave, I gotta get back to my dad. But…I’ll see you around?”

There’s a pink in his cheeks that makes your heart flutter. “Yeah. See you.”

“Great! It was really, really nice to meet you!” He tosses a wave your way before hurrying back to his father.

You raise a hand that he doesn’t see. Then you sigh.

You’re feeling particularly worn down now. Extremely tired, emotionally pained, and, you realize, seriously hungry. When was the last time you ate anything? Not since you’ve been in this timeline. Usually you roll out of these things by now, though. You don’t normally worry about taking provisions with you in a dream bubble.

You’ve still gotta go find Teresa before you can go back to the dorm. Or…maybe you could get Karkat – Karver, or whatever – to do it. He’s her boyfriend, right? You’re closer to the welcome booth than the law booth. You could get him and go crash before finding food. Bro should be calling soon anyway… But you still need a fifth class… Ugh, you don’t know. Your head’s too muddled to make decisions.