AN: So, here's the first chapter of this new fanfiction I'm going to be working on! Hooray! Sorry it's a little crappy, I wrote it in, like, twenty minutes. ^^;;

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. That would make me Andrew Hussie, and I am most certainly not Andrew Hussie.

Your name is Dave Strider and you just woke up in a fucking hospital bed with those shitty bright-as-all-hell lights shining down in your face, making the headache you had a whole lot worse than it already was. You couldn't recall what exactly landed you in a hell hole like the hospital, but from the fact that you were hooked up to all kinds of crazy machines and shit, you knew that it couldn't be good. You were slightly aware of the beeping beside you (damn that heart monitor was annoying) and of the noises outside of the room you were currently in. What you mostly knew, though, was that you were not alone in this room. You felt a presence and upon trying to sit up to look at whoever was in your room, a sharp pain ran up your spine and your chest and you lied back down with a pained groan, head pounding more than it already was. God, that hurt like hell. You make a note to yourself to not try and sit up any time soon.

"Whoa, little man. Slow down. Don't even try and sit up just yet."

Oh, so now the presence in your room decided to talk. Not only that, but the person decided to stand up and look down on you, which just didn't sit right with you for some reason. The dude had a hat on, though it did nothing to control the blond hair that stuck out from underneath it, a white t-shirt which was tucked into his black jeans, fingerless gloves, and some wickedly ironic anime shades that were dark enough to hide his eyes. You were just about to open your mouth to speak to him before you were cut off by him leaning down to pull you into a hug, a small grunt of pain leaving your lips as he did so.

"Oh, man. I thought you wouldn't wake up. Doctor's said that it was uncertain how long you'd be out for," he said softly, his voice worried despite the pokerface he had on when he was just looking down to you only seconds ago.

You stayed silent for a few seconds before wetting your lips and speaking softly, not moving to hug the taller person back. Instead, you spoke without bothering to even try to avoid the questions that raced through your mind. Might as well be quick and to the point. "Who are you, why am I in a hospital bed, and where the fuck are my shades?" The man hugging you paused, tensing slightly before he let you go and helped you lie back down. Only then did he show the first sign of emotion on his face. He frowned. Not in a disappointed way, but in a saddened way. Like a person that just lost somebody extremely close to them.

"He told me this might happen…" You hear him mumble, getting an eyebrow raised from you in response. "What the hell are you even talking abo-" "You don't remember me." "Of course I don't, I haven't met you before in my life! Why the fuck would I remember somebody I haven't ever met?!" You snap, getting real tired of this bullshit. You remember your life perfectly clear up to this point. You were Dave Strider: a twenty-year-old, ironic, cool dude who threw down sick beats and DJ'd at clubs every weekend to make some extra cash that added to the cash you made by selling your albums online. Without another word, the man in your room handed you your aviators which he pulled from seemingly out of fucking nowhere and left you there alone. Putting your shades on, you crossed your arms with a pokerface and a sigh. That had to be one of the most fucked up things that's ever happened to you, hands down.

**************Be the Stranger****************

You are no stranger to Dave Strider. In fact, you're probably the farthest thing from a Goddamn stranger to him. Or, at least, you were before it became your fault that he was knocked out and then woke up, only having the memory of who he was and nothing else. Your name was Dirk, formerly known to Dave as 'Bro'. Seeing your little brother like this crushed you, even if you never really showed it on the outside. It made your heart twinge with amounts of guilt and sadness - two things which have never been so apparent in your life up until this point. The fact that Dave lost his memory was your fault, and you knew that it was. Your strifes had been gotten more recent since the boy you raised became a man, and the more recent they became, the longer and tougher they got. The memory of kicking Dave in the chest, sending him flying across the rooftop, only to witness him hitting the wall much harder than normal was forever planted in your mind.

Dave was getting good at this, and you had to admit it. His skills with a sword had been improving fantastically due to the frequent strifes you two had and you would have been proud had you not been in the middle of a strife at the very moment. Your brother took your moment of thought to his advantage and flash stepped towards you, sword at the ready. Sure, he was getting better at using his skills, but he still didn't stand a chance against you. Your boot landed with a 'THUD' against his chest and you heard the sickening crack of a few ribs. You stood there with your eyes wide, watching as your brother's body hit the wall next to the door that lead to the rooftop of your apartment building. Immediately, you flash stepped over to him and took his limp body into your arms. His head was bleeding, having hit the wall at a force that would have been deadly had he not been a Strider. Without hesitation, you picked him up carefully and nearly ran down to your car to take him to the hospital, taking off your shirt and wrapping it around his head in a feeble attempt to stop the bleeding. As soon as you got there, they took him away on a stretcher, leaving you in the waiting room in a shaking, shirtless mess. It was all your fault, and there was nothing that you could do about it now but wait.

It played over and over every day that you sat by his bedside for the past two weeks, hoping that he would recover and wake up and everything would be fine. You found the doctor that was taking care of the blond that recently woke up and explained the situation calmly, your voice ever keeping it's cool tone with your hands in your pockets and your posture leaned back slightly. You might have seemed relaxed to everybody else, but inside you were freaking out. What if Dave never got his memory back? What was he supposed to do about being home with him? Why the hell did he forget you of all people, the person that was the most present in his life?

"Things like this happen occasionally with patients that have taken a hit too hard to the head. If we give him some time, his memory may or may not come back. You'll just have to attempt to get him to remember somehow. Try and find a trigger object that will somehow stimulate the part of his memory that has been laid to being dormant for now. There's nothing that we can do that will guarantee his memory to come back. I'm sorry, Mr. Str-"

"Dirk."

"Dirk… I wish there was something more that we could do for David."

With that, you witnessed the doctor walk past you to go into Dave's room to check on him, no doubt. You felt as your knees became weak and a sickness pooled up in your gut. Your little brother - the most important person to you - didn't remember you at all. You managed - although barely - to make it into one of the hospital's bathrooms only to have your cool break down and leave you leaning against the sink, using your arms to keep you up since your knees no longer worked. It was like they turned to jelly right at the most inconvenient moment. The next thing you did was something that you would never admit to anybody. You removed your glasses and placed them onto the counter besides one of the sinks in the bathroom, locked the bathroom door, sunk to the floor, and you cried.