"Hey, uh, can you tell me where the apple juice is?"
Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you look up to see a man standing behind you. You sigh as you stand up from your crouching position to face the customer, "Just go to the next aisle on your left," You point down the aisle you were currently at, "Is that all?"
"Yep," The stranger replied by popping his lips together at the "p", "Thank you...mister…" He bends his head towards your name-tag. His aviators hiding the exact location of his eyes, "Karkat, Nice name." A slight smile appeared as he pulled his head back.
"Thanks?" Your eyebrows gently furrow at the comment. The blonde man walks away to the direction you were pointing. The sides of his red unzipped hoodie flew behind him like a cape.
You go back to work, stocking the shelves with soap boxes, and hair products. Thank god your shift is almost over. After you finished stocking supplies, you go outside to roll stray carts back inside the store for people to use tomorrow. Once you finish, you fold and place your apron under your register number and leave with your hand in your pocket, double checking that your keys were in there.
You walk outside, prepared for the crisp cool air that greeted you once you walked out the door. It must be very cold outside since temperature doesn't affect you as much. While holding your arms, you walk towards your rusted silver car that was parked in the corner of the lot.
A sudden scream stops your tracks, "Help! Someone help me!" You hear a cry. You turn your head to see two people in the distance. One person was wrestling a woman to the ground, the girl looking distressed and helpless. You dash towards the two. You jump on the man in mere seconds, while using your demonic strength to pin him down on the ground as you straddle on top of him. You lift your hand and- "Dude, dude! Stop! She is not what she looks like!" He was the customer you met at the grocery store, his shades surprisingly still resting on the bridge of his nose, you pause, thinking about what he's talking about, but his hand was already holding your fist. He points behind you and you look to see the woman. Her messy black hair reaches to her hips, as she wore a thin white dress, her cleavage clearly visible, and her lips covered in blue lipstick. She looked at you with her brows furrowed, "He was about to rape me!" She cried out to you. The sharp curves of her face were perfect, and the way she hugged herself under her chest was enchanting.
"Don't listen to her. She'll pull you in!" You barely heard the man's words as you relax, trying to find every detail of this woman. She is beautiful, perfect even. She needs help. She is in trouble, and you are the only one who can save her.
"Dude!" You feel your shoulders being held as the man shakes you, "Don't look at her! Shit, I shouldn't have pointed her out. Wake up! She isn't what she looks like!"
You stare into the perfect yellow eyes of the woman. Her left eye containing eight pupils, "Help me." Her lips commanded, fangs appeared as she spoke.
You look down at the person you are on top of. She is innocent, and he hurt her. He should pay.
You slam him against the gravel of the road, your eyes trained on him as you socked his face with your fist, which would kill a human, but he still struggled against you as his broken nose slowly fixed itself, and his bleeding stopped. He pushed you off of him, then ran towards the woman who was trying to run away. Hell no, you are not going to let that happen! You run behind him, and as you were about to jump on him again, he sidesteps quickly, and you lose your balance. Before you could fall on the ground, you feel your wrists being held behind your back, and an arm wrapped around your neck. You were pulled towards the man as your back was against his chest.
"C'mon, you're in her spell. She wants you to follow her after you try and stop me. Dude, listen to me. I am saving your fucking life." He talked in your ear as you still struggled, "Karkat, wake up!" He shakes you again and you yell, "STOP!"
He lets you go as you stumble forward. Your hands in your hair after you regain balance, "What the fuck just happened?" You were protecting a harmless woman. But then she had fangs, and her eye was weird and… what? "What the fuck?"
"Thanks to you, now she got away,"
"What the fuck happened?" You repeat while turning your head toward the man behind you, "What is she?! What did she want?!"
"What do you mean you don't know what happened? Can't you recognize a jorogumo when you see one?"
"A what?! What the hell is that?!"
It drove you nuts that the blonde haired man didn't answer right away. He just looked at you.
"Answer me!" You try to break the silence.
The man took a couple more seconds of not saying anything then talking, "That jorogumo pulled you into her spell so she could buy some time to get away, a fucking spider bitch if you ask me. What she wants? I'm not exactly sure. Her main goal seems to be eating humans and kidnapping creatures to Derse as far as I can tell." He answers.
"Wait wait," You take the time to process the information, "Are you, a creature?" You point towards him.
"Karkat, I think we both know by now that neither of us are human." The man motions his hand towards himself and to you.
"Holy fucking shit," You whisper harshly to yourself, "Are you… a demon?"
"Yep," he nodded in the most casual way possible, "And what are you?"
"I'm a… just like you," Your voice shook a little.
Holy shit. You lived most of your life with your human mother, then after the… event, you lived with your human uncle. You remember your mother telling you stories about your dad, and about creatures. Before all this, you have only seen a creature once and you personally don't want to think about it... now you recently witnessed two.
"I'm Dave by the way." Dave distracts your train of thought, "Just thought you might want to know, since I already know yours. What is up with your name? I mean, nothing is wrong with it, but Kar-kat? Like the catbus from the movie Totoro or somethin'?"
Was this guy serious? "Oh my god, it's just Karkat," You huff, "whether you like it or not."
"Nah, I like it. But I am still mad at you for letting the spider bitch get away."
"I thought you were the one who was the bad guy!" You outstretch your arms, pointing your hands towards him.
"It's called, manipulation," The man exagerated the last word, "She does that, especially when the attacker is a guy. She affected you, but it's harder for her to manipulate a gay dude or someone like that. Since you were under her spell, do you only like girls?" He raised his eyebrow.
You couldn't tell if he was mad at you, or was just hitting on you, "Why the fuck does it matter? I'm pansexual, you asshole." Does this guy always get off topic? "You know what, why didn't you fight her where there were less people?"
"I did, but then you showed up,"
"Why did you fight her in the first place?"
"Do you not know anything about the run-aways from Derse? You know, the rebels against the Queen that no creature likes?"
"Derse?" You heard the man say that word twice, "The queen?" Was your mother right? Is the Condescension still ruling the planets?
"Yeah the planet, Derse. Also yeah, the fucked up queen. You know, The Condesce? A.K.A Sea hitler?"
You nod then take a step back, "I think I need to sit down." You ease yourself down until you sit on the road, your hands tangling themselves into your hair again.
"Woah, dude, you are acting as if this is the first time you heard of this, are you okay? Do I need to drive you somewhere? I mean, depending on how fast you want to be there, I can just carry you and run you there in a flash. That's technically what I do, since we are demons and shit. I like to call it flash-stepping. But seriously-"
"SHUT UP!" you interrupt Dave, your hands left your hair and land on the road, as you give him a death glare, "Okay, I know this is hard to believe but I grew up being told that creatures, including me, exist in this world. This is technically the first fucking time I actually met a creature, and was also fucking hypnotized by another! I am kinda stressed out at the moment!" You exaggeratedly wave your arms as you spoke, showing every emotion you could possibly express.
Dave didn't show any emotion you could possibly pick up. Those stupid sunglasses are blocking his eyes, and even that was making you angry. Jesus fuck, too much happened at once. You clench your fists as you try to calm down your quick breathing.
"Karkat, it's gonna be okay man, chill. Calm down, the spider bitch is gone, and I don't plan on luring you to any traps." Dave said as he squatted down next to you and awkwardly rubbed your back. You smack his hand away despite the fact it was calming you down a little bit. He showed no sign that it hurt, just seemed to stare at you.
"I AM COMPLETELY CALM!"
"Sure you are, I can see it through your uneven breaths, and your frazzled hair that you completely messed up. I mean, damn, It's kinda funny, I never knew hair could reach that high in the air without using gel."
Your attention suddenly leads to your hair as you quickly pet it, hoping to fix up the black spikes that were flying in the air. Dave chuckled, flashing a smile, "Karkat, it's too late. Your hair is already a mess."
"Shut the fuck up!" You growl as you finally achieved to calm down most of your hair, but it probably looks like a flat mop right now. Your hair can be an uncooperative piece of shit sometimes.
"Well, that is some improvement." Dave commented, "But yeah so… you're a demon, I am a demon. I know other demons at this place, plus some other creatures that are not assholes like the jorogumo."
"There are more?" You look at Dave.
He actually chuckles, "Hell yeah, tons actually. Like I said there is this place all of the creatures I know, go to. It's great, It's kinda like a guild or something cause we all work to rebel against the queen. See, like I was fighting against spider bitch cause she hurt one of my friends in the past, almost killed him. Plus she is still around to kidnap creatures to put them back to their original planet. God I hate Derse, I never want to go back-"
"You're from Derse?" You interrupt.
"Yep, the purple planet. Did I not mention that most of the run-aways came from Derse?
You nod, then after a moment Dave starts talking again, "In the bar where the run-aways got to, there are also other creatures who came from the gold planet: Prospit. I don't know which planet the jorogumo came from. But yeah, a lot of creatures came to Earth from the Great Escape."
"Great Escape?"
"Yeah, but I think we should talk about this later. How about after you process all this new information?" Dave touches your shoulder.
"...Okay." You nod slowly in agreement.
"How about at the bar? The Gay Bar to be exact." Dave smirked.
"What?" Your brows furrow, then Dave gives you a business card that was patterned as the pride flag, displaying all the six colors of the rainbow with the name in bubble letters 'Gay Bar'. You turn it over where it showed you the address to its location.
"This is the place the creatures hang out at? Are you serious?"
"Yes, it's fucking awesome. We can talk there… tomorrow night? How does eight' o' clock sound?"
"Dave, I get off of work at eight."
"Nine thirty it is." Dave stood up while looking down at you, "See you then, shorty." Before you knew it, Dave left in a flash. You don't care if he's gone and can't hear you, you stand up and yell, "Oh for fucks sake, I AM NOT SHORT!" Dave wasn't in sight. You sigh and look at the ridiculous rainbow card. You guess you have to go there, it's probably the only way to find others like you, and answers. You need all the answers you can get.
Author's notes:
Heya readers. I have just edited this chapter, and I hope it was for the best. I do plan to continue this story if enough people enjoy it. Thank you so much for taking your time reading this chapter, and lets hope for more to come. ^u^