What the fuck.

John, explain what just happened.

You cannot explain what just happened considering you yourself have no idea what exactly had just occurred.

You know that Rose walked to school with you in the for the first time in forever. You know that her car gave Rose her notebook, which was really strange. You know that the both of you arrived at school with very few minutes to spare. You remember challenging Rose to a small race, which she politely declined to. And then...

You rounded the corner and that's when it happened. You got a face full of some guy's chest, you're positive that you accidentally punched him in the gut considering the small 'oof' that emerged from him. Running into him was like running into a brick wall. You try to steady yourself from the blow but fail miserably, and your clumsy ass falls right to the floor while a jolt of pain erupts at your lower back and below. It takes everything you have to not whine out in pain and roll away, although you do send a hand to nurse your wounded ass. Your glasses almost fly off your face but somehow manage to barely hang onto the tip of your nose. Thank god that didn't happen, or else you would be like Velma from Scooby-Doo, and have to blindly grope the floor in hopes of finding them.

Wait what is it? You're getting sidetracked, stop that Egbert, who did you just run into?

You look up to face the poor guy who you just accidentally socked in the stomach, and immediately regret getting out of bed this morning. At that moment you realize that there is no point to think about your future anymore, your life is now in the process of ending and you scare yourself with how easily you accept your fate.

The 'poor guy' who you just ran into, socked in the stomach, and now that you realize it, made them drop all their stuff, is the one, the only, Dave fucking Strider. Dave Strider as in the guy who moved here a couple months ago, who apparently has swords and knows how to use them, who could probably flick you and you'd be hospitalized, and the coolest kid in the entire state of Washington who has everyone swooning over him. You know that if he, for some reason, doesn't decide to beat you to a pulp, then someone who just witnessed this crash will. You highly doubt that though, it doesn't matter what you do in this school, someone will at least give you a hard time. Andbyhardtimeyoumeanbeattheshitoutofyou.

You sputter out apologizes to him and gather up his scattered, unfinished, papers in hopes that he could give you a quick and painless death.

"A-ah! I'm so sorry! I-I wasn't looking where I was going and-and I didn't mean to run into you, I was in a hurry a-and I didn't want to be late and-"

Before you could finish vomiting out your apologies, you hear him tell you to stop and that he'll get it.

Oh god. This is it.

He only said that just to get you off your guard. He's going to grab you by the collar and beat you senseless, then his followers will come and finish you off. You wonder what your Nana is like, seeing as you will meet her shortly.

He bends down to rip you off the floor and you reflexively flinch, not really wanting to start off the week with a beating. Ha, you know how this works Egbert, you're already know everything that's about to happen, so ha.... You try your best to humor yourself in situations like these.

"Dude, chill I'm just getting my shit," Dave says, placing his hands in front of his chest to seem non-threatening, while kneeling down on the floor in front of you. "no need to act like I'm going to punch you or something."

You look at him, dumbfounded. Whoa hold up, he's no going to grab you? This is a joke, it has to be.

You watch him collect all of his papers—only because he told you not to—and wonder when he's going to make his next move. You know it's going to happen any second so you try to brace yourself for the 'unexpected' punch.

Once he gathers all of his things, he looks at you.. For a long time..

Is he trying to figure out your weak points? Literally everywhere is your weak point, it's not that hard to figure out. But no, he's full on staring you down, well, you think. You can't really tell if he's glaring, let alone even looking at you because of those ridiculous shades that hide his eyes so well, how is he even able to wear them at school?

Okay shades or no shades, you are confident that he is looking at you. You can feel his gaze on you, and you'd be lying if you said you weren't panicking a little bit. You're looking at anywhere but him, and oh boy is this awkward. Jonathan Egbert, DO NOT let any of your internal screeches leak out of your mouth. You bite and pick at the inside of your mouth until it's raw out of a nervous tick that you have. Wow, you feel like you're going to be crushed right now with all this weight from Strider's stare. You're not used to having someone, other than your friends or family, give you this much of their attention, and if your being honest, you hate this so much.

You feel as if he's judging you hardcore under that blank façade of his. You know he's going to tell his friends about how you ran into him and how stupid you look with your big front teeth, messy hair, and thick rimmed glasses. You know that everyone will hear of this incident and that the teasing and picking will only worsen. You feel sick just to even think about it, you just want to leave and never come back.

UGH! Stop thinking like that Egbert! What do you care about some cool guy's opinion anyway, huh?! I mean, just look at him! Those stupid dark shades, and his extremely blond, almost, nicely kept hair, what a dweeb! Haha, take that Strider, he just internally called you a dweeb! Haha...

You feel a deep form of regret start up in your gut. You feel awful now. You're no better than the kids who throw insults at you. Good job John, you're just as low as them.

The both of you stay like that for what feels like 1,000 years, until Dave extends his hand in reach for the papers that are now, crumpled from your death grip you unknowingly had on them. You basically shove the papers at his hand as if they were burning you, but before he could grab them, you hear Rose's voice emerge from the thick silence.

"David?"

Oh thank god Rose is here, maybe she can scare him away. Oh, but, wait... David? Why did she call him David?

What sounds like the voice of an angel to you, must've sounded like the voice of a parent when they catch their kid doing something bad, and Mr. Coolguyshades freezes. Dave Strider freezes at Rose's voice and you'd be lying if you said you weren't terrified of whatever power Rose posses over him.

Dave snaps you out of your half-terrified-half-uncomfortable state with a groan and drops his head, letting gravity take control over his arm, making him slap the papers out of your hands. You let out a little peep from this, mostly because you thought he was angry with you for crumpling his papers.

"Rose," He groans. Wait, he knows Rose's name? What's going on here, you're so confused. "How many times do I have to tell you, it's Dave, not David." Wow way to be sassy about it, you think as the guy stands up. Whoa whoa whoa, he's told her this before? Does Rose actually know this guy? You turn to look at her and try with your best to say, 'help me' and 'explain' with your eyes.

Rose giggles at both, your eye pleads and Dave's attitude, and says, "Oh my apologizes Dave. It's just such a surprise to see you at school, especially when you try your best to avoid me" she looks at him with a mischievous look, that you've only seen her make to her friends.

AAAAAAA WHATS GOING ON?! You have so many questions swirling around in your mind that it's starting to make you dizzy. What does she mean?! Are they acquainted outside of school? Are they secretly BFF's? What in the actual fuck is going on?!

Today was supposed to be a good day. You're whole week went by without anyone messing with you, you did amazing on that math test last week, and Rose walked to school with you. Now you're a confused mess with a bruised rump. Great..

You hear Rose's voice cut through the swarm of conclusions and questions and look at her.

Rose looks down at you and offers you her hand, that you eagerly take. You whisper a quick 'Thank you, Rose,' before finding a nice hiding spot behind Rose, at least some of the attention is taken off you. Except not really..

"However," She says, her voice sounding like a mixture of seriousness and teasing tones. "I would appreciate it if you didn't bully my friend, John."

You shrink at her words and stare at the floor, silently screaming. Just because you can't hear it, doesn't mean it's not there.

Although you can't see his eyes, you are 100% convinced that Dave is looking at you like you're some complete idiot. You're sure he's probably wondering how Rose is friends with a complete loser like yourself, he's probably a little disappointed with her. You can't tell though, because of those dumb shades. You know you shouldn't really care about what he thinks, but if he's thinking about Rose negatively then you can't help it. It's bad enough that you're a pipsqueak nerd, who only watches movies and cracks terrible jokes(you try to at least), you also have the muscle mass of a deflated balloon. So even if he was thinking about her like that, you couldn't do anything. The only thing that you could do, is try your best to insult him and direct the negativity to yourself. He could probably shove you into a locker if he really wanted to, hell, he could probably—quite literally—throw you into a trash can and leave you there to rot.

You pick at the inside of your mouth again, this time you taste blood but you don't bother to stop. The possibilities of how this situation can end is endless, and its overwhelming you.

Dave scoffs and glances to the side, "Listen Ms. Lalonde, I didn't bully your good friend John," he says, sounding a bit serious. Is it just you, or is everything very tense? You're pretty sure if you weren't here, then this would be a nice light hearted conversation. But no, you just have to go and make everything awkward and tense. Good job. "it just so happens that we ran into each other."

Rose glances back at you to see if what he said is true, even if it wasn't you still would've nodded. No point of getting a guarantee card that you're gonna get your ass kicked for calling out someone's lie.

Ugh, what would be a good way to sneak out of this situation without drawing attention to yourself?

As if some mystical being heard your pleads, you hear the bell ring and for the first time you're actually happy to hear it. You thank Father Time for this glorious moment.

Apparently Dave was just as happy to hear the bell as you were, because he hastily ran off, giving you and Rose a small nod before disappearing in the crowd of teenagers that have started to flood the halls.

You see a small smirk grow on Rose's stained black lips as she walks to her locker. You do the same.

=============

To your surprise, no one seems to know about the incident that happened this morning. You've basically made it through half the day without any trouble, that's a new record.

You let out a relieved sigh as you take your familiar seat in the second row that's closest to the wall, with your friend Karkat in your 4th period Biology class.

You look over at him and see that he's wearing his old, thick, black sweater with his familiar tight, gray pants. You also notice that he is picking at the old, rickety, black science table like he always does. You've chastised him about it before, but your efforts turned out futile, so now you just join him.

The both of you pick at the old desk until the tardy bell rings, signaling your over excited to begin teaching.

Your teacher goes on about a group project that she's been talking about all week. You are pretty excited about this if you do say so yourself, even if the project is just to watch a bean sprout and record it's data.

You look over at Karkat and watch him pick at the desk before he feels your gaze and glances at you. You give him a little smile and nod at him, telling him that you two will be partners for this project. He makes a distasteful face and goes back to peeling the black paint off the table, you see the corners of his mouth twitch up a bit. You smile to yourself and give your attention back to your teacher.

"Okay so, that's basically all I have to say about your experiment. So everyone, please sit quietly as I assign you your partners." She says, making her way behind her big desk and digging through papers to find her list. You hear some groans emerging from your classmates, your teacher giggles at this. Wait, does this mean you won't be able to work with Karkat? You assure yourself that she does not hate you that much and will truly have mercy on your soul, right? But if she doesn't...? You could work with Feferi, she's really nice and always calls you, 'Glubbing cute' whenever you two happen to speak to one another. She also gives you lots of hugs, and she even stabbed some guy with a fork whenever he stole your homework. There's Nepeta, she's always hyper and she's friends with Jade, so that means she's your friend right? She sticks up for you whenever she can, and you even gave her an old cat plushy as a way of thanking her,
you can see the cat in her bag whenever you steal peaks at it. You guess you're friends, but she mostly talks to Jade whenever you see her. But still, she's really nice and you like her, so she could be a good partner. You list off the rest of you classmates and realize that these are the only people that you believe you can work with peacefully, without having to do all the work. Wow, that's pretty sad.

She lists off the first pair and you are very sad whenever you hear that Feferi has to work with Eridan. Poor girl, she always wears herself out with him, she always tries to keep him out of trouble and even tries to help him with his studies. This makes you frown a bit.

It's not until she lists off the third pair that you begin to slightly panic. She calls out Sollux's name and says that he will be working with Karkat. Apparently Karkat wasn't exactly thrilled to work him and even asks to change partners.

"Excuse me?" Your teacher questions, wondering if he actually meant it.

"Can I change my partner?" Karkat repeats, surprisingly in a calm tone. You hear Sollux whisper, 'Well fuck you too KK.' Hints of his lisp slips up into his remark.

The teacher is baffled and lets out a breathy chuckle, glancing at Sollux and then looks at Karkat once again.

"Uh... No.?" She says, brows furrowed in confusion. "Why do you want to change your partner?"

"Because I don't work well with Sollux," He says, looking at her dead in the eyes with a calm expression, "plus I hate him."

"Fuck you." You hear Sollux hiss.

"Fuck you." Karkat shoots back, turning to face him while giving him an angry look.

"Both of you, watch your language!" She shouts, slamming her hands on her desk to catch their attention. "If the two of you can't get along, then the both of you will work alone."

They both groan, sending glares at one another. You're not sure if they really do hate each other, or if this is just the way their friendship is. Karkat is rude to everyone, so it's hard to tell if he actually hates some people or if that's his way of showing affection to them. You can sometimes tell whenever he's not being sincere—mostly with you and the others in your friend group—but at times like these, you're completely dumbfounded.

"Why can't I work with John?" Karkat complains after a short-lived pause, this sends a shiver up your spine and you shrink a little at his words. You know no one is really paying attention—given the fact that everyone is exchanging whispers—but you still feel your cheeks heat up with embarrassment as your dumb body believes that everyone is staring at you now. You know that's a very ridiculous belief but you just can't help it.

"Because John is working with Dave." Your teacher replies, looking at Karkat with a slightly annoyed expression.

What? What? What?

You're working with him? Doesn't she know that you're a complete outcast that everyone hates, while he's a complete cool kid that everyone admires? That kind of combination doesn't work, you're going to die. You, John Egbert, are going to die. The old saying of, 'Opposites attract' isn't true. It only works with magnets, and you are no magnet. You are not the North Pole of a magnet, and he is not the South Pole of a magnet. If any thing, you are both South Poles and he will repel you because that is a fact, a magnet fact. Magnet facts are never wrong.

She really must hate you. Good job John, you somehow made your teacher hate you enough to assign you to Dave. Congratulations, you fucking suck.

You start to full on panic on the inside while only letting small parts slip out, like your terrified expression that Karkat spots.

He's about to speak up and possibly argue with her, before a voice pipes up from the back of the class.

"What?" It's Dave's voice, he doesn't sound upset or angered, he sounds genuinely confused. You bet he probably wasn't paying any attention until he heard his name mentioned. That was to be expected, but it still caught you off guard.

"You're working with John dear." She says, sarcasm slipping into her tone. You cringe at that. You hope he argues or protests so you could at least work alone, but he doesn't. Of course he doesn't. You curse to whatever god is real and ask them to strike you dead. You silently choke on something for a moment.

"Oh, okay." He says, you can hear shuffling from behind and wonder what he's doing. You would turn around to see, but you're too busy panicking to really care at this moment. "Do you want me to go ahead and sit next to him?"

"Why yes Dave, that would be nice." She says in a nice, polite tone.

"Whoa whoa whoa," Karkat cuts in, raising his hands to his chest to motion everything to slow down. "why can't Dave work with Sollux?"

You can see your teacher slowing lose her patience as she pinches the bridge of her nose and hangs her head. Meanwhile, you're tense and begin to sweat a little, you also gnaw at your cheek while you're at it, because Ha h a wh y n o t ? You are slowly dying inside, and it is so very painful.

"Karkat, I assigned you to work with Sollux, and I assigned John to work with Dave. I am not going to change your partners because I already have everyone, with their partners, written in my notes. Do I make myself clear?"

You know that Karkat is going to extend this argument until he's forced to work alone, so you decide to grab his arm and squeeze it hard enough to get his attention. You give him a small, weak, toothy smile as your brows are furrowed with worry, you try your best to make them look normal, but ended up making them look like a knotted mess.

His expression softens a bit, but he quickly scoffs and reluctantly pulls his belongings off the table and heads to Sollux, kicking some kid out of their seat.

You hear a small, annoyed, 'Thank you' from your teacher and catch your breath. Boy are you ready for this class to end. You check the time and see that it has only been 15 minutes since class has begun, so you have to wait 30 long, excruciating minutes before you can go and hide behind your friends at lunch.

You hear a loud thud next to you and jolt around to see that Dave has dropped his brick-filled backpack on your table.

"'Sup?" He says, sitting in what was once Karkat's seat, in a very lazy manner. He's slouched back far enough to where he could rest his head on the back of the seat if he really wanted to. He doesn't bother to push the chair in to let people comfortably walk behind you two, and he's already staring you down. Wow, isn't this fun? You have the best feeling that you are going to love working with him, yup! Hahaha ha ha h a....

Oh shit, he greeted you right? So he's probably expecting a response(that's probably why he's staring you down). Wait how do you respond to that? Do you just say ''Sup' as well? But you never say ''Sup', so just say something like 'Hey' or 'Hi'. That should work, right? You feel your throat tighten and your face heat up with the thought of that. You can't speak without your voice failing you, you know that for a fact, and boy oh boy, you know exactly where your body is going with this.

You wait for a moment trying to figure out how to speak, and see if it's just a false alarm, but it's not. You decided to quickly bailout of that plan once you feel your eyes heat up in that stupid familiar feeling. You turn your head to the side and thank god for this wall, because you did not want anyone to see you flutter your eyelids just to fight off those dumb tears that, for some reason, form in your eyes whenever someone new try's to interact with you. You really hate yourself whenever you act like this, you remind yourself of a small bratty child that doesn't want to meet anyone new because they don't want to share their toys.

You let out a sharp exhale. Have you been holding your breath the entire time? Great, he probably heard that and now he's probably uncomfortable or insulted that you didn't respond to him, maybe both. As if the incident from this morning wasn't the best way to greet someone, you have to go and ignore the guy because you're.. you're.... You don't know what you are. Maybe the worlds biggest dick, or biggest wuss. Yeah, a big wuss sounds about right. Maybe you insulted him enough to the point where he'll get his little posey to come and beat the shit out of you.

Your eyes are dry now, but you don't really feel like turning back around to face him. If you're being honest, you're a little scared to see how he's going to react to your sudden cold shoulder. Will he insult you, will he try to sabotage the project, you don't know.

It's not like you hate the guy, it's just that you never really talked to him and some of the kids that kiss his ass treat him like a prince, and if you disrespect their prince then they will kill you. You never really see him interact with those people though, it's almost as if he doesn't really care for them. You never really see him hanging out with anyone though, maybe it's because he's embarrassed of the kids that shadow him all the time, or maybe he really doesn't want to interact with anyone at all.

You don't know why, but you've always had the feelings that he was a huge prick and a really bad kid. With the few classes that you share with him, you've noticed that he sometimes makes snarky remarks at people and the teachers. You've noticed that the people that he rarely interacts with are into some illegal stuff. You're pretty sure the ringleader of the group calls Karkat his 'Best friend' and you're not even sure if that's true or not.

You're sure if your dad ever knew of this guy, he would not want you to interact with him at all. Just by the way he always wears those sunglasses and the presence he admits into the room, just screams 'punk' and 'Bad Influence'. Dad would have a heart attack if he ever found out that you had to work with Dave.

You mentally slap yourself back into reality once the list of pairs are done being called off. You gather enough courage and steal a glance at Dave. You see him staring at the desk as he blatantly scribbles in the craters that Karkat has previously created. He seems unaffected with your little stunt, but then again, he always hides behind that poker face so no one really knows how he feels. He's probably plotting your death right now, ha ha oh well.

You don't look at him long due to fear of being caught, so you seek out Karkat and find him twisted in his seat with his arm thrown over his chair, watching Dave scribble on his side of the desk with a scornful look. You know Karkat is a little bit worried as to what he's doing to his desk due to the fact that his jammed packed backpack lies in front of his hands, shielding their actions from those that are in front of him. It doesn't take long for him to catch your gaze, he's still wearing that frown and nods to Dave with a somewhat questionable look. He's probably asking you what he's doing, so you sneakily grab a pen—careful not to stir up any suspicion—and make a visible scribbling motion that's barely in the air. You see his frown deepen as he slaps his palm onto his forehead, you smirk at this and raise your eyebrows in a way that could only say, 'Sorry but that's kinda funny'. Once he's calmed down a bit, he returns your gaze and knits his eyebrows together. You silently chuckle at this, careful not alarm Dave. You've always thought it was a little funny to see Karkat get angry at someone for something so small like this.

You see Karkat quickly glance at your partner and then does a double take. You then see him jut out his jaw a bit—a habit that he performs whenever he's mad—and points at someone with his visible arm, he then throws his palm down in a motion that can be read as 'stop'. You have a feeling that you know who that someone is, and that someone is probably Dave. You cringe because now Karkat's mouth is barely open, you can see him even squint his eyes in the slightest in an attempt to be intimidating.

The plan was to ignore everything that was going on with Karkat, in fact you were planning to pretend like nothing ever happened better yet, whose Karkat? You don't know anyone named Karkat. The plan was going to be awesome and work perfectly, so you put all of your attention on your teacher, who is now passing out the beans, cups, and paper towels. Yes, this is perfect, nothing is wrong and nothing will go wrong, you, John Egbert, are 110% okay and definitely not full on panicking on the inside, how absurd that you would even doubt yourself.

You feel a small tap on the side of your arm and you instantly wish for death. Your face heats up immediately with embarrassment of your foolish plan as you stiffly turn to face Dave. You see him with his pen still in his hand as it hovers besides your arm, he's still sitting in his seat in a languid manner which really shouldn't surprise you. He nods over to Karkat and even swiftly twirls his pen to point at him, just incase you were brain dead and didn't know what that nod was for.

You look over at Karkat and see that he's slowly, but roughly, dragging his hand down his face in a fit of annoyance, he drags his lips down and you can see his slightly sharpened teeth. You notice the teacher has stopped at his table and give Sollux a questionable look, which he only responds with a slow shake of his head and a shrug. You see her lightly hit Karkat on the head with the small plastic cup and even hear her chastise him a bit.

You mentally throw a little fit and just want to scream. Why do you even have to do this project?! YOUR TEACHER FROM 5TH GRADE MADE YOU DO THE SAME THING, WHAT THE FUCK?! YOU THOUGHT THIS WAS HIGH SCHOOL!!

It is high school and you sadly know it due to the fact of uncanny amounts of homework in your past years. You're just upset with this whole project ordeal because you have to work with Dave. Poor guy, 'you're just extremely intimidating and terrifying' you think to yourself.

After your teacher gets done handing out everyone's supplies and finishes lecturing the class about the instructions of the project, you're all basically left to your own devices. You take notes on your little bean and before you soak the paper towel, Dave draws a poorly drawn smiley face on the bean. 'He's unique' is all he says and you give him a little, trembling, smirk for that.

Other than that, that's the only thing Dave says to you the rest of class and you both sit in a somewhat uncomfortable silence. You feel the time for this class shorten and almost bolt out of the door when you finally hear the bell ring.