A/N: Really?

To be honest, I thought more of you would remember my statement in Chapter 2: "I want to inform you all that there WILL NOT be a character death." Honestly... now go on and read your happy ending :)

Your name is John Egbert and you're... not dead?

The first sense that comes to you hits you like a wrecking ball. Pain. Throbbing, intense pain centered around your wrist. You groan at the sensation and almost instantly there is a beep that comes from somewhere to your left and relief floods over you swiftly afterward. This gives you the opportunity to, without opening your eyes, take everything in. You can hear wheels squeaking on what you assume to be linoleum floors and the static that, if you are correct, comes from an ancient television set that is somewhere in front of you. You can also hear someone breathing gently from where that first beep came from. You can smell a multitude of different things. Body odor is pretty prominent in the mixture. You think that whoever it is could use some deodorant before you realize that, after shifting and disturbing the air, that the smell is coming from you. You cringe inwardly until you smell... strawberries? You mentally shrug and move on. The smell of various cleaning agents hits you like a wrecking ball and you think you are beginning to get a good idea of where you are.

You finally open your eyes and see nothing but white. Initially you think that you were wrong and that somehow you had died and had somehow managed to get into heaven, but you quickly note the steady tick of some machine on your right and realize that your assumption had in fact been correct.

You are in the hospital.

As you keep your tired eyes open, you begin to feel a headache overwhelm you. You are so confused, you had no doubt in your mind at the time that you were going to die. There was absolutely no way around it. The cuts had simply been too deep.

In some panicked wrought adrenaline rush, you try to sit up and get out but significant pain in your chest and a head rush knocks you back onto your back. There was something else that helped keep you down, however, and that something was a hand.

Startled by your realization, you turn you head and look at your arm. There's someone's hand there alright; strong yet lean fingers are resting lightly on your bicep. Your eyes trail up to a red sleeve which contain an obviously muscular arm, but your journey doesn't stop there. You make your way to a well defined shoulder until you finally reach the face that owns the hand currently holding you to the mediocre hospital bed. The platinum blonde hair grabs your attention first, followed by a pair of shades. You recognize him as the guy who helped you pick up your things that last day.

But what was he doing here?

You peer at him for a moment, "Um," you start hesitantly, voice raw, "I don't mean to be impolite, but who are you? And what am I still doing here?"

He smirks at you and you assume it's supposed to have the same effect as a chuckle. He then leans back in the chair he occupies and retrieves a yellow legal pad and a pen from your bedside table. He scribbles on the pad for a moment and then offers it to you. You look at him suspiciously for a moment and then hesitantly take the pad from him. You look down at the red letters that state rather simply as though they would answer any question:

My name is Dave Strider.

And you can honestly say that you're socks are thoroughly knocked off. You snap your head back up and wait for your vision to clear from the accompanying head rush, "W-what?" You look down at the legal pad again to make sure you had it right. How could this possibly be real? You look up at him again and his face is schooled into perfect stoicism. He nods once. You just stare at the letters for a while longer and before you know it, you're crying. You realize that it's immature, but you feel you deserve the right. After all, you've been heavily bullied for the past seven months of your life, your father practically disowned you, you just attempted to commit suicide,

And now possibly the most significant person in your life who you believed not to care about you is sitting by your side miles away from where he's supposed to be.

You immediately feel arms around you and you can't be bothered by the pain you feel in both your chest and your wrists and you wrap your arms around your best friend and sob violently into his shoulder. All the emotions that you've kept hidden from the world rush to the forefront all because of five little words. Five little words and, somehow, being held by your best friend wipes all that hurt away. You didn't even know that it was possible for you to feel this kind of relief anymore.

After a while of silent sniffling and Dave's breath caressing your ear lightly, calming you significantly, you pull away from him and he returns to his seat, his hand gently holding yours. You attempt to wipe away the tears on your face, but quickly give up the impossible task. You then examine Dave and he examines, from what you can tell, you right back.

"Why are you here?" You ask, he tilts his head questioningly, "I mean, not that I'm not glad you're here, but aren't you supposed to be in Texas right now?"

He sighs and extends his hand for the note pad. You hand it back to him. He writes down his response and shows it to you.

Our last conversation scared the shit out of me. I convinced Bro to let me come check on you.

After you're finished reading this, you look back up at him and purse your lips, "Dave, I told you that-" before you can finish speaking, he presses his finger to your lips, silencing you. He writes something else.

I read your note. That's why.

He is literally doing nothing but confuse you, "What is that even supposed to mean? How could you even know what I was feeling?" He got a confused look on his face.

Well, I care about you, John. I know we've only spoken, well, communicated by Pesterchum, but... I just know.

When you look back up at him, he's smiling. You can't help but smile back, "I still don't understand why I'm still here." He simply circles I care about you. Wait a second, "You- you saved me?" he nods at you, his face schooled into a poker face once again, "but, why?" he moves his pen to circle the four words again but you interrupt him. "Yeah I get it, you care about me, but I don't think simply caring about someone warrants flying from Texas to make sure they're okay," you give him a questioning look and he purses his lips in thought before turning back to the paper and writing out:

I don't know, I guess it's because of how you're acting now.

Now you're lost, "I don't know what that means." He continues.

I guess I'll start from the beginning if you don't mind, you shake your head no, Okay. Well I've always been like this. And if you ask me what I will - you know what? Nevermind. But I've been mute since before I can remember.

My parents sucked, I don't really remember them much, but not long after Rose and I were born, my parents took off and bro was thrown in as the daddy-figure and well... it's complicated and not that important, but basically, it'd be hard enough fitting in if I just had to worry about not having a mom when I brought friends over. But I can't speak, so I kind of became a loner.

My bro taught me an important lesson when I was bitching about not having friends one day though, "they don't want to be your friend? Fine, but make sure they regret it." I have no idea whether he wanted me to kick their asses or whatever, but I went with the option that wouldn't get me expelled, I became the cool kid. Now I don't know how or why, but pretty quick after, there were tons of kids who wanted to get to know the mysterious Dave Strider. I just rolled with it, I literally gave no fucks. Zero, zilch, nada. Not a single fuck was given to anyone. But despite all this "power," people still treat me differently. Like, "Hey, he's that cool kid, Dave Strider. But don't expect him to say anything 'cause he can't" or "He never says anything because he's a mute, asshat." I'm never just a normal person.

But then you came along and I couldn't help but feel a little better about my situation. I thought "hey, here's a person who doesn't know who I am, doesn't know about my disability. He'll treat me like a regular human being," and you turned out to be a pretty good dude.

So when you leave me hanging like you did, I panicked I guess. I couldn't handle losing my best friend.

By the time you finish reading this, you are nearly in tears again and he returns his hand to yours where he grips it lightly before writing:

I guess I had nothing to worry about because here you are, couped up in some shitty hospital with a friend you didn't know was mute just sitting here writing letters to you like some thirteen year old school girl with a crush and you aren't saying a damn thing about it.

You look up at him, "Wow, Dave." You manage to get out after a moment of contemplation, "I thought I'd lost you for good," you ignore the pain and squeeze his hand as much as you are capable, which is barely at all, "and your wrong," you continue, looks at you with confusion written plainly over his features, "you're my best friend." He smiles at you and nods, a tear sliding down his face. You can't help but giggle lightly, "I thought cool kids weren't supposed to cry."

He makes a raspy noise that you assume is supposed to be a laugh and he blotchily writes:

It's ironic.

"Yeah, sure," you say, settling into the comfortable banter the you thought you'd never be able to have with your best friend ever again. You begin again after a moment, "So I guess I'm going to have to learn sign language now, huh?" He looks at you in surprise and you can't help but laugh a little at him, "What's that look?" He shakes his head and writes:

No one has ever offered to learn sign language for me before. It's surprising.

"Well what do you want me to do? Just speak to you and wait for you to write everything out? No, not gonna happen," he smiles at you and you smile right back. You two are both content to just sit and watch the shitty t.v. together, but then you feel the corner of the pad prod your arm. You look down at it and read what Dave has to say.

You know, I've really been trying not to press the issue or anything, and you don't have to answer, but why'd you do it?

You purse your lips. You were hoping you could avoid the topic, which you still could at this point. Dave said you don't have to talk about it and if you say that you don't want to, he'll respect that and move on. But you truly feel that he has a right to know. More than anyone, in fact.

So you take a deep breath and start, "It was rough, Dave."

How rough?

You scoff a bit at his words, "You said you found me?," he nods, "That was only the extent of the physical pain. Those people did so much more to me. I convinced myself that I deserved all the torture they bestowed upon me. All the rude comments, all the shoving, making sure I was isolated from the rest of my school mates. And worst of all were the gifts."

The gifts?

"Yeah, there's this girl at school who I guess decided that I was weak or something and decided that I-" Dave prods your shoulder.

What's her name?

You gulp slightly at the memory of her smug grin, "Vriska Serket," he nods and gestures for you to continue, "but anyway, she started giving me these gifts that had horrible things in them..."

You launch into the tale of the last few months of your life with few tears spared at the more painful memories: Karkat leaving, your dad freaking out, when the bullies ruined the shirt you found your mother in, and most of all when you felt that the last person who really mattered to you had left. Dave just holds you during your tale, sometimes stopping you to ask questions. You do your best to hold nothing back, but it is extremely difficult when he asks you about why you thought things the way you had.

Do you still feel that way about yourself?

He asks you after you're finished telling him what you had thought before you passed out. You find yourself unable to give him an accurate answer so you just respond with, "I'm not sure. It feels better now that you're here," and lowering your eyes, you add, "but I still feel worthless," you start crying again like the miserable hunk of carved flesh that you are. You almost immediately feel Dave's arms wrap around you again and it gives you comfort that he cares about you even though you aren't sure that you do.

Once you regain your composure, you say, "I actually have a question for you," he tilts his head in inquiry, "You never actually told me what you think of my sexuality." Almost immediately he writes something down and you hope for the best, but you are unpleasantly surprised when he says:

That's not a question.

You give his smug-ass face a stern look and say, "Don't be a dick, this is important." He rolls his eyes at you and jots down.

Of course I'm okay with it, Egderp. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't.

This almost surprises you.

Just because you've got a thing for dicks doesn't mean that you can't be my best bro. He smiles at you after you read this. You feel a grateful tear slide down your cheek at this.

Now you gotta promise me something, man.

"Yeah, what is it."

If it ever gets this bad ever again, you skype me. Beneath this he writes his username. You smile like a giddy fool and nearly rip yourself from the machines you're hooked up to in an attempt to hug him to death.

"Of course."

You wake up on your new mattress, a sweaty mess.

The heat in your new bedroom is stifling and you can't seem to catch a breath. Your covers are already thrown off the bed and you're only being covered by your briefs, yet you are sweating like a pig and you are really wondering why there is no AC right now. You then here a loud slam and you know what's up almost instantly.

You hurriedly drag yourself out of bed, the scars on your chest and wrists itching slightly, and throw on a set of shorts and a t-shirt. It disgusts you to look down and see the result of your biggest failure, so you never examine yourself in the mirror before your torso is safely covered. You jet out of your room as soon as is humanly possible over to where you know the air conditioning system to be located and you whine out, "It's broken again?"

Your blonde headed best friend turn around and shoots you his signature "no shit" face. He then rapidly signs to you What the fuck else does it do?

"Well I don't know. I don't understand why we don't just get it replaced," you mumble, grumpy because you had to wake up in this insane temperature.

We're broke. That's why.

You sigh, "I'm sick of being broke..."

That's the life of a college student, man.

You groan and go to the kitchen to get yourself some ice to chew on. When you had been released from the hospital, Dave had informed you that he was going to be staying in town for a while. When you inquired to how much longer, he wouldn't say, but you had a sneaking suspicion that he'd never be too far away from you if you ever needed anything. He later explained to you that this included giving you a shoulder to cry on, springing you from your prison of a house in the wee hours of the morning, and kicking the shit out of your dad if the need ever arose. You try your best not to think about the last option.

But basically what happened was that Dave stayed with you until you graduated high school in the spring. He had helped you with every issue you had, emotional, social, physical or otherwise. One of the most important decisions he helped you come up with was which colleges to apply to.

I don't want to sway your decision at all, you recall him saying, but I want you to be aware of the fact that I will be attending my local college, and then it was almost as though he had pulled the pamphlet out of nowhere and placed it in front of you, and I hear they have a pretty decent life sciences department.

And that's where you are now, sitting in the tiny kitchen of your apartment that you share with your best friend. You are currently majoring in biomechanical engineering and Dave is focusing on music theory and composition. And now neither of you know how to properly fix the faulty AC unit. At this point, Dave struts into the room and sits on the counter.

It is literally no use, he signs, I've tried everything from checking the wires to turning it off and on again. There is simply no way to fix the damn thing.

"Did you try hitting it with a wrench?"

Why didn't I think of that?, he asks sarcastically, thanks, smart ass, didn't think of that. He rests his hands on his lap for a second, a drip of sweat sliding slickly down his face, I don't know when it'll be fixed, but we'll be able to survive until then.

You don't think this past year could ever have been expressed more efficiently.

A/N: Okay...

Now I'm done with the actual story. I plan on adding an Epi-epilogue so to speak, so watch for that! Thank you all so much for all your love and support! I don't think I could have written for a better group of people! *sends all the love*

-AJ3