In the moderately warm weather of Skaia, Officer Karkat Vantas stands in front of the most despised place in the entire world, the gym. A place where nook-sniffing, muscle-loaded shit heads gather around to show off their bulging muscles that threatens to break through their skin. Karkat isn't even in the building and he can already smell the sweat mixed with blood coming off of all the low IQ assholes. Karkat cannot even believe that he has to go here once again.
Chief Zahhak issued long before Officer Vantas was recruited into the Skaia Police Department a requirement saying all officer must be able to pass a monthly physical test. Karkat has been able to scrape through this absurd rule by doing two hours of a harsh work out a week on Mondays, because Mondays already suck. Chief Zahhak does not approve of Karkat's methods claiming that Karkat isn't taking the spirit of exercising to heart and blah blah blah boring shit that Karkat stops listening to once Chief Zahhak starts sweating during the lecture.
There is however one downside to Karkat's strategy because there is only one gym in Skaia, and Karkat can't afford equipment to keep him minimally fit. That one gym is in fact the literal sweat shop standing before Karkat. The doomed troll takes a deep breath, quickly inhales the last of his cigarette, and walks into the gym in his grey sweat pants and stained, oversized, white t-shirt. A wave of heat immediately hits him straight in the face and nearly gags the troll.
A perky man comes jogging towards Karkat when he sees him enter the gym, "Karkat! It is great to see you again." The man has short blonde hair and rippling muscles, he has a grin so wide that it looks like it's stuck that way. He stands wearing a way too tight pair of short shorts, obviously trying to attract a mate along with his famous wife-beater with sweat sliding off his body. The man holds a clipboard by his side.
Karkat rolls his eyes obviously used to this treatment, "Hi Jerry," he says in monotone. "I'm here for the regular routine."
Jerry, the friendly manager, continues to smile as he writes down on his clipboard, "Alright then, I'll just sign you in here, and you can get warmed up."
"Yeah I know how this works Jerry," Karkat grumbles.
The man laughs, "Of course Karkat, but you know how much I enjoy having you here as a regular. It's not often that we have an honest-to-good officer in here. I used to think the police department refused to hang out with civilians and act . . normal." With a finale laugh, Jerry leaves to his office abandoning Karkat.
The troll watches the human walk away, "Did you think that I might just not the money, and this is forced every week?" he mutters. Karkat then walks over to the weight with several of their sizes, but before he can start he does a quick stretch, "Alright Karkat, two hours. That's it. You can do it. It's six o'clock in the evening, work's done and you are alone. Two fucking hours. Let's go."
Karkat takes a deep breath and walks over to the twenty-five pound weights, a little heavy for a start but he can handle it. After five minutes of lifting those shitty lumps of metal, along with ten seconds of breaks every now and again, Karkat is ready to move on to the big weights.
Two iron wheels being held together by one steel bar, a hundred pounds just ready to be lifted. The weights are held up by two metal claws attached to a bench. A spotter is required for this, but since Karkat hates everyone, he usually has to get one of the workers from the gym help him. The troll searches around the room to see if he can find someone like Jerry coming back from his office. But Jerry has not returned, and Karkat is just standing around now like a tool. Fucking great. Karkat stares at the bench press wondering what to do now.
A finger taps on the troll's shoulder a minute later. Karkat jumps and turns around to see who touched him, and what a big fucking surprise before him.
She smiles at his glare, "Need a spotter Karkat?" Jade Harley says. Karkat's partner on the force, Jade is a twenty-one year old human with her hair tied back and is currently wearing green shorts and a small blue top that shows off her midriff. Kanaya would have a heart attack seeing this fashion disaster.
"What the fuck are you doing here, Harley?" Karkat angrily whispers to avoid attention. Jade giggles at his struggle and adjusts her glasses.
"It's a public gym; I'm allowed to exercise here in order to stay in shape."
Karkat grabs her by the shoulders, "You've been in Skaia for months! Why are you here now?"
The troll shakes her shoulders a little before Jade pushes him away, "If you're asking how I exercised before, then you should know that my regular system couldn't work today. I should be able to return to it soon. You see I would-"
"Nope," Karkat interrupts, "Fuck it I don't care. This is the only time you're here is fine by me." Karkat turns his back to the woman and stares at the weights, "Now if you don't mind I was doing something here." The troll lies down on the bench and grabs the steel bar.
"You shouldn't do that without a spotter, Karkat," Jade argues.
The bar is lifted from its perch and the troll lifts it slowly and painfully up and down. "Shut . . . up . . . Har . ley," he grunts between each lift. However, the bar becomes too much for Karkat and it falls down too heavy for him to pick up. Karkat's legs start thrashing from the pressure and lack of air for him to breath. Jade rushes over behind the bench to lift it off Karkat.
"You were saying?" She jokes helping him lift the bar off away from him.
The troll gasps for air to return to his smoky lungs, "I . . stand . by . . what . I . said." Frowning, Jade let goes of the steel bar which drops over Karkat again who goes back to thrashing around while trying to hold the bar up, "Wrong! I'm wrong!" Jade lifts the bar again from Karkat.
The troll gets away from the bench as soon as he's able to while Jade returns the bar to its perch, "You crazy bitch!" Karkat yells, "You could have killed me!"
Jade frowns, "Well I hope that you have at least learned your lesson."
"What fucking lesson?" he screams back spitting onto Jade's face.
She wipes the spit off with one hand, "About listening to me when I say that you need a spotter!" Karkat looks down embarrassed at himself and Jade's idiocy and mutters something unintelligible. "Karkat," Jade calls out with a calmer tone, "Look I sorry, I really shouldn't have done that . . You could have gotten hurt or worse. But still," she says with a fiercer tone, "you shouldn't treat me like shit. I know we are better than that!"
Karkat sighs and rubs his face, "Alright fuck, I'm sorry too. Jade, I'm here for less than two hours, so" he gulps, "I would really like it if you joined me." The human smiles and hugs the troll despite his frowning.
The next two hours go without too much of a hassle. Jade bested Karkat in about every exercise; even though it wasn't a race, but Karkat had to take frequent breaks while Jade moved along. When the two hours were almost up, the duo approached their final obstacle.
"Fucking damnit! I loathe this contraption," Karkat grumbles next to Jade.
She looks back at him confused, "What's your deal? It's only a treadmill." Jade turns to the treadmill and then back towards Karkat realizing something, "Oh is it because you suck at running so bad?"
Karkat turned to her furious, "I do NOT suck at running! I just . . get bored."
Jade snickers, "You tire out so fast because you smoke like crazy. Maybe you should consider cutting back."
"For your information Harley, I highly doubt that smoking caused it. You smoke and you seem to have no problem today! Not to mention troll lungs are evolutionary perfect."
The woman smiles at him, "Karkat, I definitely don't smoke as much as you, or for that matter as long. Besides," she stops to pound her fist over her blue-clothed breast, "I have lungs of steel!" she announces proudly.
Karkat rolls his eyes, "Hoof-beast shit."
"No really, I have lungs of steel," says Jade enthusiastically Karkat gapes at her unsure. "Honest! My grandfather was a scientist of sorts before he died. One of the things he experimented on was improving the human lung, but it wasn't considered 'acceptable' by the government, so he just shared it with me. So now I have the perfect lungs."
Jade smiles while Karkat stares with his mouth wide open, "Okay Harley let me get this straight. Your grandfather experimented with you and gave you super lungs."
"Well he didn't really experimented, he knew they worked-"
"Yeah I'm going to say that this is fucked up, and your grandpa was probably higher than Gamzee when he told you that stupidity."
"Hey!"
Karkat waves off her complaint, "Look I really don't care anymore. Let's just finish and go home." Face slightly puffed up, Jade agrees but stays mad at Karkat for a minute.
The treadmill was as awful as to be expected, Karkat nearly passed out and Jade ran in full stride. "Super lungs my ass," Karkat thought on the floor as Jade ran.
When the two hours were finally up, the partners prepared to say goodbye.
"Aren't you going to shower?" Jade questions.
"Fuck no, this place probably has fungus or other various diseases," the troll retorts.
"Well that's why you wear flip-flops, but whatever. I'm going to shower and I'll see you in the morning." And with that, Jade turns around and head for the female's bathroom; while Karkat watches her go.
Exercise enthusiast Jerry returns with his clipboard, "Hey Karkat, next week?" The troll does a little twirl with his fingers. "Great! Oh hey can I ask you something?" Karkat looks at the man without interest. "How do you know that girl?"
"Jade? She's my partner on the force, I've been working with her for awhile," he responds.
"Alright, so do you know if she's single?" Jerry asks eagerly. Karkat chokes on his own saliva.
"Wait what?"
Jerry shrugs his shoulders, "What? She's hot and I want to ask her out, what's wrong with that?"
For some reason Karkat could think of a million reasons, but he did know why he thought of them or why he cared. "I . . don't think she's your type."
"Really?"
"Uh yeah, she's a . . a lesbian!" Karkat exclaims.
"Seriously?" Jerry whispers broken hearted.
"Yup, she definitely hates those dicks. Sorry." Karkat rushes quickly out of his mouth. The troll abandons the human and heads out the door in his sweaty apparel; he quickly grabs a long desired cigarette, lights it and takes a deep breath. And all the time he is wondering, just wondering, why he said that just now.