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[[I am all sad and creepy and write fanfics. I offer up this sacrifice to the guild. >->]]

Chapter One:

‘Coolkids don’t get shoved in lockers,’ you think with venom as you continue to shove ineffectually against the metal door holding you snugly in your a** scented box.

You are Dave Strider and, despite being one of the “Heroes of Legend”, you still find yourself reduced to these slights every day. Loathe to violate your own ironically ‘knightly’ morals, you are unable to fight back and can only allow the atrocities to continue. Oh, when will the horror end!

You have been missing Houston more and more, which is something you never thought you would be able to admit to yourself.

After the game, Bro had made a sudden move from Houston to Pasadena. He had never really explained it, muttering about heat levels and the general tax situations in Harris County. He had bought a really shitty fixer-upper on the far west side of the city, almost in South Houston. There was three bedrooms, two baths, and despite being the smallest house in the entire area, still way too big for the both of you.

If the house wasn’t awkward enough (no matter how much you shift around your stuff, the room still looks bare somehow), school was much worse. As you tried your best to hold your breath, preferring the spinning sensation of asphyxiation to the rotten smells of whatever strange body soaked clothes were resident in your locker, you try to remember the ridiculously stupid train of events that lead to this day to day torture.

As you remember, it started in homeroom. They were so old school in Sean Royburn High School that you were actually asked to come to the front of the class and introduce yourself. Which you did with an exceedingly chill, “ ‘Sup.” Your classmates had seemed unimpressed, but that was okay. You were also unimpressed by them.

While you were moving to seat yourself firmly in the back of the class, the nice young teacher with a huge rack stopped you with a hand on your elbow. “David, dear,” she drawled, “You’ll have to take your sunglasses off. No glasses inside, school rules.”

It was very hard for you, you recall, to keep your mouth from opening while you groped around in your usually overflowing vocabulary for a string of words that would make her take back that order. Coming up blank and not really wanting to make the wrong impression, you recall nodding coolly, continuing to the back of the room, and quietly taking off your shades, glancing up only to see the happy smile of Miss. Uh, you don’t remember her name. The trauma must have wiped it from your mind.

You didn’t like not having your shades. Your face felt naked. In the back of your mind, a little voice nagged that you would soon have to deal with a lot of dumb-a** questions about your eye color that you had no interest in answering (‘Iron deficiency, man. Yeah, I know, it’s a very rare condition.”) But, though you were loathe to admit it to yourself, you really just wanted to quietly merge into your new school without any fuss and continue your life where you left off as much as possible. So, you were willing to leave the shades in your backpack.

Nobody noticed during homeroom. Nobody noticed during the class change. Nobody noticed during English and Spanish class. It wasn’t until Gym class that the s**t finally hit the proverbial fan.

It was field hockey, which was not your favorite sport, but hey. You were Dave Strider and you were a lot of things, but physically awkward was not one of them.

You got a really good game going, the two or three guys from the field hockey team quickly separating themselves from the pack to really give you a challenge. It was fun and you enjoyed the exercise after the stress of your early morning classes. There were other guys horsing around in the far reaches of the field, but they rarely got the puck.

Of course, it was only when you were feeling relaxed and in your element that s**t went down. One of the guys who had been hanging back and enjoying smacking each other in the shins with their sticks had the puck fly straight for him. You, being the dashing young fellow that you are, went right for the steal. It wasn’t hard.

For just a moment as you moved in to snatch the puck away from your classmate’s ineffectual slapping, your eyes met. And, he screamed.

“Gah! What the ******** is wrong with your ******** eyes?” the teenager screeched as he fell backwards on his a**, his arm half raised as if he was expecting you to hit him with your stick.

You, despite being the cool guy you are could only stand there and stare down at him, your poker face so easily holding its hallowed place across your features. Slowly, everyone on the field began to stop and stare, muttering between one another as what happened relayed back and forth.

The coach quickly broke in and got everyone moving again. But, it was too late. The stares had started. And, they wouldn’t stop any time soon.

- TurntechGodhead began pestering TentacleTherapist –

TG: sup
TT: Dave, I’m surprised.
TT: It usually doesn’t take you so long to bother me on AMC’s Alfred Hitchcock night.
TG: yeah well you know how it is
TG: just couldnt scrape the bitches off me
TG: it was just all like bitches to the left and right of me
TG: wanting all my strider juices and I just had to tell those bitches
TG: whoa
TG: step off
TG: i have a serious date with my ecto-sis that needs some doing
TT: First of all, Dave, I’m flattered that you are willing to scrape young harlots from your soft undercarriage out of consideration for our weekly movie night.
TT: Secondly, Dave, that was a very weak lie fraught with sarcasm and cynicism.
TG: ******** i forgot you can smell that s**t like sharks sniff out blood in chum infested waters
TT: Quite.
TT: A few painfully long years of living with Mom have sharpened my senses enough to cut through your thick veneer of coolkid charm.
TT: So, what kept you?
TG: oh you know the usual
TG: detention late buses and possibly getting stuffed in a locker for an hour or two to be left out by a very awkward janitor
TT: Ha-ha, Dave.
TG: …
TT: Oh, dear. You were serious.
TT: Dave, are you saying to me that, despite the thickly set expression of non-chalance you have cultivated, you are actually being bullied at school?
TG: dont worry about me and my broken selfesteem
TG: you dont have to act all concerned sis
TG: ill be okay
TG: so tone down the concern youre smothering me
TT: My apologies.
TT: It just seems so unlikely for this to happen, for all the effort you make to fit into a preset definition of cool.
TG: i am so offended right now.
TG: never can i escape the evils to bullying
TG: straight from school into the terrifying land of the cyberbully
TG: i may need to take up making shitty youtube videos of me butchering popular hits and gain fifty pounds.
TT: I deeply appreciate your grasp of sarcasm, Dave, and apologize for my frosty reception of your problems.
TT: But, on a more serious note, are you okay?
TG: what
TG: of course im fine
TG: there may be some dicks at school
TG: but its not like i cant handle myself

You are loath to admit it, but you’re pretty sure you can’t handle yourself quite as well as you assured Rose. The bruises that litter your body just seem to keep increasing. The itching healing process bothers you a lot less than the reminder that you’re being pushed around by kids that would be in pieces on the floor, if you were of a different mind set.

But, a lot more than the physical bullying, the emotional toll of being looked at as a freak by all of your contemporaries is starting to play with your head. Your natural confidence has been waning and most of what you do is just bluster anymore. You’ve begun to loose interest in things you once found fun. You haven’t updated Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff in what is approaching a year. More and more, the negative attention is starting to break you down and you feel as if there’s little you can do to stop it. Your own act of indifference can only do so much.

You can’t bring yourself to tell Bro or any of the teachers at the school. Not to mention that the teachers seem to be aware of it already, though at a general loss as to what to do about it. Your Internet friends, your Hero of Legend bros, are great, but you know they can’t do much for you, other than offer their condolences and comfort.

So, you mostly just bottle it up and keep it to yourself.

And keep assuring yourself that it’s only three more years until you graduate.

Just three more years.

[[Oh, wow! That is so awesome. You read my fanfic. . /// . I got it very nearly finished and have been thinking about finally writing the end (there's only one or two more chapters). I'm trying to motivate myself by posting it here, as well. It's also a good opportunity to check it through for errors.]]

Chapter Two:

You are Dave Strider and the p***y punk pacifism crap got old very fast. Like, faster than the decline of Vin Diesel’s acting career after the widespread distribution of Fast and Furious. You have long passed the stage of refining your ability to move above the level of your tormentors. Your ability to pity yourself and submit gracefully to the bullying has buckled under your intense swell of machismo at being made to submit and feel small. You are feeling pretty sure that you are teetering dangerously close to the point of collapsing in the next face you see with your fist. And, that worries you just a little bit. You’ve never been one to lose your cool.

You come home and Bro’s not there. It’s normal. He’s probably busy. He’s been busy ever since you’ve moved. An itching, scratching little voice in the back of your head comments that he’s really been busy trying to keep busy ever since the end of the game, but you swat the voice away. Bro’s problems are not your problems and vice versa. His absence doesn’t bother you, you tell yourself.

There’s a box on the table that has seen better days. The corners made of cardboard have already accordioned with the force of the abuse it withstood at the post office’s hands. Thankfully, whoever sent it (one Johnathan A. Egbert) cocooned the small cardboard box in so much masking tape that you despair that you might never get it open.

You tuck the parcel under your arm, stopping momentarily to grab a Lunchable from the fridge, before moving down the hall (the idea of even having a hall is still somewhat strange) towards your bedroom.

There’s a huge oak tree outside your window and you can hear sparrows singing in the boughs and feel the warmth of the last rays of the sun on your skin as it slants through your window. Your new home is peaceful, you can give it that at the very least.

When you sit on the edge of your bed, it bends and sinks under your weight. You wonder idly if normal beds with headboards, footboards, or frames sink the same way the mattresses that you throw on your floor (and call a bed) do. But, that is silly whiny sissy talk and you are already quite fed up with that.

After retrieving some manner of bladekind (a broken kitchen knife this time) from your hash map modus, you start to work on the box. You’re half-expecting some kind of booby trap from the pranking master himself. So, you’re surprised when you finally pry open the cardboard flaps of the box, pull away some crumpled paper, and open a little white envelope to find the most ridiculous pair of glasses you have ever seen. What the ********, John?

- turntechGodhead began pestering ectoBiologist -

TG: what the ******** john
EB: you got my package?!
TG: what the ******** john
EB: you got my paaaaaaaackage!
TG: stop that
TG: youre insane if you think this pair of ...
EB: the best glasses you’ve ever seen?
TG: ridiculously horrendous …
EB: the most hip of the hipster hip?
TG: cornea impaling …
EB: pretty much the most heart warming gift you’ve ever gotten?
TG: sad excuse for a facial accessory.
EB: aw!
TG: dude theyre hideous
EB: but, you like them, right?
TG: are you kidding, these have to be the most ironic eyewear i have ever been privy to hold in my hands
EB: win!
EB: are you going to wear them to school and show them off to all your admirers?
EB: well?
EB: are you?
EB: daaaaaaaave, hello?
EB: are you pooping?
TG: damn you caught me man
TG: just dropping the kids off at the pool
TG: anyway check this out
- file: kim-jong-jackie.jpg -
EB: what?!
EB: Jackie Chan is dead?!
EB: noooooooo! dave, why?!

Jackie Chan wasn’t dead and you weren’t going to wear John’s stupendously stupid glasses to school, though you could easily remember a time when even the threat of seeing Bea Arthur naked wouldn’t have stopped you from parading proudly around Houston with said shades. You felt yourself resenting your classmates even more with this wondrous gift in front of you, yet out of your reach.

You didn’t belong to them and they didn’t have the right to tear you down like they did. You refused to even think of the names they called you and the things they would snicker behind your back. But, somehow, the words stuck. They stung and wiggled their way under your skin to live in the soupy front part of your brain. Every time you would try to be yourself, one of those prickly words or phrases would drift in front of your confidence and remind it why it was so small in the first ********,“ you grunted at your ceiling as you thought of just how few options you really had in your misery.

You could possibly ask Bro to let you home school. Even the word scraped against your skin in a bad way, tasting like retreat. You really didn’t want to do that. You doubt that Bro would bat an eyelash, but that didn’t make you want to give in any more.

No. It was time to stand up for yourself.

A small voice (the same one that had reminded you of Bro’s true purpose in his absence) spoke up against such an idea, but you squashed the voice before it could make a squeak.

It was time for s**t to stop.

Chapter Three:

You are Dave Strider and you are ******** cool as s**t in your gay a** glasses. Despite the fact that you can barely see through the plastic slats that make up the faux glass of said glasses, you have been keeping your swagger slick and steady. If you could see the bitches, you are sure that you would be witnessing them tripping all over themselves as they run to the bathroom to wring out their soaking panties.

The return of your overbearing confidence is helping you to not just turn around and hide in a supply closet, but it’s not enough to make you completely oblivious to the side long glances that are being slid your way. Even the stupid plastic shades can’t stop you from catching the snickers and giggles as you walk by.

Oh, well. That’s actually the kind of reaction that these ridiculous glasses are supposed to evoke, anyway. Very few teachers have the giant manly cojones that you do, so very few make any sort of comment about your ridiculously phresh new face accessory. A few do ask you to take them off, school policy. To which you coolly reply that without your dope a** eye-wear, your cool may plummet with the oppressive temperature. You could go into cool shock. You might start foaming string cheese from the mouth and develop braces. No one wants that. None of the teachers bring up your glasses after that.

The day goes well. As well as you could have possibly expected, anyway. Laughter follows you down the hall, but you feel like (especially as the day wears on) it becomes less abrasive and more inclusive. A few guys even clap you on your back and compliment your shades. Completely ironically, of course. You wouldn’t have it any other way.

It isn’t until the final bell rings and you twist your way through the crowds of stampeding adolescents to your locker that the s**t finally starts to smell. A handful of guys (as big and wide as bulls and about as intelligent) walk up to you in basic West Side Story formation. This being the biggest one in front with the lackeys fanning out behind. You are not completely unfamiliar with their type. You’ve lived in Texas your whole life, after all. They are the type of boys who wear overalls, trucker hats, croon Kenny Chesney ‘til the cows come home, but have probably never touched a chicken in their life. They are more likely to push over a cow than to milk one. The irony is not lost on you, but the fact that they don’t do it for irony’s sake totally ruins it. Basically, they’re dicks.

“Hey, f**!” the biggest one yells, way too loud and mocking, like he’s making sure that the rest of the stragglers in the hall hear him. “What the ******** are these?” he asks, reaching for your face.

You immediately lean out of the way. “******** off,” you snap.

You immediately realize this was probably the wrong way to go. You probably should have wrapped incomprehensible words around them. They probably would have hit you anyway, but at least you wouldn’t have to macho pose.

“What the ******** did you say to me, you little f**?” the big one spits, puffing up to his biggest size and stepping into your space.

And, your day was going so well.

“Oh, I apologize,” you drawl from where you’re still kneeling on the floor, glancing up over the top of your rainbow vomit shades to stare up the kid’s nose. “That’s not what I meant to say. I meant to ask if you don’t have better ways to spend your precious few brain cells. Don’t you, like, have a stuffed pig to ******** or something?”

You see his muscles tense before he even lifts his arm and clenches his hand into a fist. You’re already two feet to the left when he lunges down, throwing his whole body into a punch that only meets with empty air.

It immediately becomes a mess of ill-coordinated limbs flying for you. But, these buffoons are slow, way too slow. They would put any imp to shame. Within moments, you have them smacking, punching, and kicking each other until they’re all crying, heaving, whining messes. You feel pretty accomplished. Until you hear the vice principle.

Good thing you haven’t seen Bro in days.



It’s three hours later when you finally get home.

The first half hour was spent getting yelled at, then lectured by the vice principal. The second half-hour (after a councilor came in to tell him that she believes you might have been bullied and the secretary said she couldn’t contact your ‘guardian’) was spent with the vice principal trying to gently tell you that violence is not how you solve problems and that you should have talked to a teacher if you were having problems with other students. He then set you up to meet with said counselor once a week with firm instructions to make sure you show up, lest you be faced with disciplinary action.

You don’t bother to tell him that they attacked you first. You fought them (while, admittedly, not laying a hand on them) and find counseling a fitting punishment. You will most certainly find it more punishing than any kind of detention or suspension.

Oh, yeah. The last two hours are spent with you sitting in the receptionist area eating cookies the nurse made while they frantically try to contact Bro. Unfortunately, you don’t really have any leads to give them. You make no secret of the fact that you haven’t seen them in days. The sympathetic looks they give you are just another way of sticking it to Bro for being especially crappy since the game ended.

Eventually, they feel that they can no longer keep you there (they’ve already been there two hours past the time they were meant to leave) and allow you to go home, locking the school doors behind you.

The walk home is lonely and, even though you feel even better about yourself. Even though you are beginning to like yourself again, you are worried about tomorrow. After all, the powers that be have already made it abundantly clear that they believe you to be an arrogant little a*****e and are hell bent on knocking you down a peg. Consider yourself knocked, young man!

Yet, you and your silly a*****e ways end up with you always trying to come out on top. You feel this can only end in disaster. You suppose that only tomorrow will tell.

Chapter Five:

GG: dave i realize this might be a dumb question …
GG: but your brother already has a job right?
GG: like as a puppet porn web master or something?
TG: he did
TG: i mean as far as i know
TG: he still does
TG: but i mean that he has a real ******** job
TG: with a dress code and everything
GG: what does he do? :0
TG: dunno
GG: what shift does he work? : /
TG: no idea
GG: dave did you guys fight or something? <:0
TG: no i dont think so
TG: also your emotes are especially expressive today
GG: thank you! but for real what happened?
GG: this is beginning to become quite mysterious
TG: i agree
TG: on the mysterious front it is definitely filling all quotas
GG: he’s been gone a lot lately right?
TG: yeah
TG: at first i thought he was just enjoying all the new places to hide
TG: and kept expecting him to pop out of crawl spaces and drop ceilings to scare the s**t out of me
TG: but i guess that now i know
TG: he was out at his real job
GG: dave are you okay?
TG: yeah im fine
TG: why do you ask
GG: you’ve just seemed kind of down lately. : (
GG: in your own emotionally dead way.
TG: well i appreciate the concern
TG: but im seriously fine
TG: just reeling from all the changes lately i guess
GG: yeah but!
GG: you didn’t seem so down, even during the game!
TG: meh
GG: don’t ‘meh’ me sir! : P
TG: i will meh the ******** s**t out of you if i find it absolutely necessary
GG: you wouldn’t dare!
TG: oh i dare
TG: i dare

Things get more than a little silly after that, so you eventually fake something very important to do and log off of Pesterchum.

It’s still kind of early in the night for you, but you decide to get ready for bed anyway.

You tiptoe through the halls to the bathroom and brush your teeth on edge. You’ve gotten used to the idea of being alone in the house and it’s hard for you to relax with the thought of a strange and unrecognizable Bro lingering behind the thin wooden door in his darkened bedroom.

You finish your toiletries as quietly as possible. No sounds come from Bro’s bedroom.

When you get back to your room, you collapse on your bed and stare despondently at the ceiling. Bro came home at around 5:00 pm. That would mean that he has a regular shift. Something like an actual nine to five job. But, then that wouldn’t explain why you never saw him before today. Unless he was ******** traveling or actively avoiding the house or something. What if he had a woman he was staying with? Was that why he moved himself and you out of Houston? For some piece of a**?

It started to make your chest feel tight when you started to consider all these possibilities that you wouldn’t give the time of day before. Somehow, you felt like you didn’t know your Bro anymore.

You let a hand travel up your chest and clench there. You feel tight and nervous all over. You’re convinced you won’t be able to fall asleep. Yet, before you know it, you’re out like a light.