You are now JANE CROCKER and you are hearing some VERY INTERESTING RUMORS about your new school.

"You know, I heard that there's some sort of secret underground cave below this place," a girl from Leo House said to her friend as they headed to the dining hall. It was seven in the morning and a Sunday morning, no less. Jane had no idea why she was out of her bed at such an ungodly hour [although her stomach's growling probably contributed to it] but she was out of bed and once awake, she could not fall asleep again. So she followed the two girls, her mind wandering elsewhere.

"I think it's just some stupid thing they made up to make this school less boring," scoffed the other Leo. "What would they do with an underground chamber anyway?"

Jane sighed and rubbed her eyes, abruptly cutting off a swearword when she felt her face come in contact with…

With Gamzee. Or, rather, Gamzee's chest.

Gogdamnit.

He looked down at her with that accursed smile broadening across his face. "Hey, sister. One motherfuckin' miracle of a day, isn't it?"

Was it a rule of conduct for the male Heads to say the word 'fuck' or some other related profanity in all of their sentences? She resisted the urge to massage her temples in anticipation of the migraine that she knew was coming. "Um. Sure is." Reluctantly looking up at his face, she realized that he wasn't wearing his clown makeup. Up close, she could see that he wasn't that bad looking. His facial structure was well defined, she mused, mentally slapping herself in the face when she realized what she was doing.

"Miracles everywhere," he sighed happily before giving her a tight hug and loping off drunkenly.

Which left her in utter confusion. Was he high? Or was he like that when he was sober? What kind of crackhead randomly hugged girls he barely knew?

"He either really liketh you or he'th stoned," an amused voice commented from behind. She turned to see Sollux and a very grumpy Karkat. Which was not unusual.

"That piece of shit is just being an idiot," Karkat grouched, apparently too tired to come up with a more imaginative insult. He looked exhausted. Dark bags showed beneath his eyes, which were half-closed as he leaned on Sollux.

"He'th not a morning perthon," Sollux snickered as he nudged his friend towards the door that led to the dining hall.

Jane nodded distractedly, watching them go. Karkat's "Don't touch me you shitsponge" was clearly audible as they disappeared behind the door.

She shrugged and pushed open the door herself, immediately spotting Dirk at a table on the opposite side of the room. He still wore his shades and his normal clothes, seeing as they hadn't received their uniforms yet.

He nodded at her as she sat down next to him. "Morning, Jane. You look like someone just locked you in a room full of junkies and mushrooms."

Jane grimaced. "It's not that far from the truth. I was coming here and I ran into Gamzee and he hugged me and then he just walked off like he was drunk." Her words spilled out rapidly as she eyed Dirk's full plate of food.

Dirk pushed it towards her. "Go ahead, I'm not hungry." As she thanked him and picked up a fork to begin eating, he sat back and watched. "And is this getting your metaphorical panties in a figurative twist?"

She groaned and pushed her bangs back from her forehead. "It's so creepy, Dirk! He pops up everywhere with that stoner face and he keeps saying 'motherfuckin' miracles' every single time!" She mimicked Gamzee's deep voice as she said the last section, immediately shoving a forkful of scrambled eggs as if trying to clean out the taste of the swearword.

"Well, the stoner part isn't entirely inaccurate," remarked the strawberry-blond. "It's interesting that you're getting so worked up about it though. Wait one second while my insanely high IQ calculates the possibility of you having 'the hots' for him. Calculating…

With a involuntary smile, she shoved him gently. "Stop ironically acting like your AR! And I do not have the hots for him!" She shuddered at the thought. "Gog, I would die if I did. Being around him scares me."

"Calculations finished," he ended. "It seems the probability of you having the-"

"Don't say it," she begged, taking a sip of orange juice before resuming her work on the pancakes. "What if I develop a phobia? What would you even call that?"

"Juggalo phobia," snorted Dirk, stealing a piece of bacon from the plate.

"Uh, you wouldn't, uh, happen to be talking about, uh, Gamzee, would you?" Jane glanced up to see Tavros, looking rather nervous. "Can I, uh, sit down?"

Dirk smiled. Or did he smirk? He smile-smirked. "Go ahead, bro."

Tavros sat down across from the two. "Thanks. And, uh, I couldn't help overhearing that, uh, well, I guess it looks like you're afraid of Gamzee?" He sped up at the end of his sentence, trying to avoid stuttering again.

She winced. "Is it just me?"

The Taurus smiled encouragingly. "Uh, well, he's actually a pretty nice guy if you get to, uh, know him better, I mean. Just, uh, give him a chance?"

The older Strider's lips curved upwards. "Well, she gave him a chance and he hugged her. And then she proceeded to flip the fuck out."

"I did not," she retorted. "I was just…" Her eyes widened. Tavros, confused, looked over his shoulder.

"Oh, uh, hi, Gamzee," he stammered.

GOGDAMNIT.

"Mind if I join you, Tavbro?" He sat down before Tavros could answer him. Jane squirmed in her seat, not wanting to look at the Capricorn.

"Well, I'm done eating, Dirk," she announced and got up with the plate in hand.

You are JANE CROCKER and you have just made a VERY OBVIOUS ESCAPE.

It was a few hours after the breakfast 'incident' and Jane was feeling emotionally drained. She'd made up her mind to get over her clearly irrational fear of Gamzee because, as she saw it, there was no point to stressing herself out over nothing.

But before that, she decided to go see Roxy. Her best friend's drunken giggles would probably make her feel better.

Probably.

While she was walking past the library, she noticed a slumped figure down the hallway. It looked remarkably like Roxy when she was drunk, which prompted Jane to speed up her pace until she reached the figure and-

GOG. FUCKING. DAMN IT.

And it was Gamzee, passed out against the wall. She stood a few feet away from him, trying to calm herself before she approached him and gently rolled him over.

His eyes were shut, which scared her even more, and his breathing was shallow as well as irregular. Jane looked around for somebody, anybody, but to no avail, as the corridor was as empty as Roxy's bottle of wine. Which is to say, it was completely empty.

She tentatively placed the back of her hand on his forehead, meaning to check for a fever, but quickly snatched it back when she realized just how hot it was. Frowning, she stood back for an objective look at the situation. Gamzee was passed out. He had a ridiculously high fever. And he was starting to mumble deliriously.

"…Jack."

Jack? Who was Jack? Or rather, in Jake's phrasing, who the devil fucking dickens was Jack?"

Gamzee muttered a few more expletives along with 'Noir' and 'Scratch' before his head lolled even further. His face looked oddly innocent, and his eyes were moving behind his eyelids, which made his ridiculously long eyelashes tremble slightly. He was still unconscious, though.

Jane looked around one last time before taking a deep breath and deciding that she would just have to handle this herself.

You are still JANE CROCKER and you have just spent the past twenty minutes dragging a JUGGALO to the NURSE'S OFFICE.

When they finally arrived, she was panting because of the extra weight. She hoped she hadn't inadvertently banged his head and made him even more asinine than he already had been. Gog forbid that from happening.

A nurse hurried in and Jane quickly explained the situation, sighing with relief when the nurse told her she would take care of him. She tried to extricate his arms, before realizing that they were clamped on tighter than Dirk's mouth when he was keeping a secret.

"Don't worry, this happens often," the nurse sighed with a grim expression on her face. They eventually removed Gamzee from Jane, and she thanked the nurse profusely before rushing out of the office.

Your name is DAVE STRIDER and you are SIXTEEN YEARS OLD. You are chilling with JADE HARLEY in the SAGITTARIUS STUDY ROOM because it's a SUNDAY MORNING and because why the fuck not.

"And so Karkat said that he had a date with a machine gun! So Eridan asked if it was to shoot him and Karkat was like "No, it's to shoot myself in the forehead six hundred and twelve times because I'd much rather do that than spend one more second here with you, you fu-"

Dave shushed her, a finger pressed against her lips. "You don't need to repeat what he said, I can imagine," he scoffed.

Jade giggled. "Poor Eridan! He looked really sad, I felt so bad for him!"

"Don't. Dude's a fucking dickhead anyway."

"Karkat or Eridan?"

"Both of them, really." He shifted his position on the chair.

Jade opened her mouth and was about to speak when a muffled explosion interrupted her. Her eyes grew large as she glanced towards the source of the explosion. A few screams were heard and footsteps were instantly pounding towards the noise. "Dave, what was that?"

He got up, took her hand, and led her out of the room to investigate.

Investigating took them to the Head dormitories, where one door was blown open and steaming slightly. He was almost afraid to look inside, it weren't for the fact that he was a Strider and Striders weren't afraid. And if they were, it was strictly for ironic purposes and ironic purposes only.

Jade peeked around the door and gasped, her hands flying up to her mouth as she stared. On the floor was the Scorpio Head, Vriska, who was lying flat on the floor. She was surrounded by scorch marks, blood, and…

"Is that her fucking arm next to her?"

And it was. Her arm had been blown off and it was lying on the floor as well, burnt and bleeding almost beyond recognition. Vriska's face was a bloody mess; her left eye was covered in red stickiness and burns. She looked unconscious. He hoped she was unconscious, because anybody whose arm and eye had just been blown off did not need to be awake and feeling it.

"Oh my Gog," whispered Jade, reluctant to enter the room. Her eyes lit on a few fragments of white. "Is that… is that a cue ball?"

Dave didn't answer, as he was too busy texting Egderp to hurry the fuck up and to get the doctors over here because that Vriska chick was letting more blood out than the Niagara fucking Falls.

When they did arrive, he noticed that her computer was bright and running, with an unread message on it that he couldn't make out from the distance. Standing back with his hands in his pockets, he surveyed the damage to the room which Jade clutching his arm.

"Dave… can we go, please?"

He didn't want to stare at the spreading puddle of blood on the floor, either. "Sure thing, Harley."

And they turned around, walking away from the site of destruction, with Jade still trembling as she held on to his arm.

A/N: Well, writing Karkat, Dave, and pretty much everybody is really difficult. I appreciate any constructive criticism! And for some reason I always associated Karkat with the word 'fuckass'. His insults are just... too awesome for me to imitate.

Hehe. So I guess I blew up Vriska. AT LEAST IT'S ALMOST CANON

Jegus I'm terrible at writing Karkat and Dave. And Dirk. Why are they so awesome ;_; This is preposterous.

And I just wrote out chapter summaries up to Chapter 10. What's wrong with me sdfghj

Well, I like the chapter titles I have planned out. This should be fun (: