Hi everyone! This is my first Homestuck fic, and I hope you enjoy it! I hope the beginning isn't too boring and straightforward for you guys...

Oh, and this contains reference to DRUGS AND DRUG USE.

/Goes to bed because it's 4:45 am~


Karkat seriously hated school.

He absolutely.

Dreaded it.

But the thing he hated most about that wretched, godawful asylum of a building was its inhabitants. You had kids that ranged from Patrick Star to fucking Einstein intelligence-wise. There were boys who thought they were Malcom X and girls who look like those creepy Japanese ball-jointed dolls. Some even looked like Barbies. Either way it was utterly fucking repulsive.

How Karkat survived, even he himself had no clue.

These are the thoughts that ran through his mind as he walked thorough the front doors of his school. He went up a flight of stairs to reach his locker, which was one of the first one in that wing. When he turned the corner, a quite familiar, very tall figure stood directly in front of his locker. Karkat pretended his best friend wasn't there, and reached around to try at his locker combo.

That didn't work.

So Karkat had to acknowledge the existence of his chum, and looked up at Gamzee Makara, annoyance clearly showing on his scrunched up face. Gamzee was the first to speak,

"Morning Karcrab! How's it going, best friend?" Gamzee smiled in his dopey, lethargic way that made irritated Karkat a lot, but also made him comfortable. He was in familiar territory, talking to his friend before school actually started.

To display what he was feeling, Karkat rolled his eyes and grunted.

Gamzee shrugged and smiled a bit wider. "You're always so motherfuckin' crabby, bro. Jesus says-"

Karkat merely cut him off. "Fuck! Just, no. Fucking stop it with the Jesus sayings! I swear, I've heard every single word that has ever rolled off of Jesus's tongue because of you!"

Yes, Gamzee was extremely religious, which would surprise many.

Gamzee is a good person. He has a way of making anyone feel better when they need it, or can be used as a punching bad when they really needed it. However, others didn't think so, because Gamzee was a drug addict. A fucking huge one. He's also was juggalo, which may or may not strike the common American citizen as intimidating. Because of his strange "practices", the poor guy had been through a lot.

Gamzee was kicked out of his home in 9th grade. His parents were done tolerating his "strange cult bullshit", so they made him pack his bags and move in with his grandparents. They made a makeshift bedroom for him in their basement, so basically,Gamzee could do whatever he wanted in there. His grandparents didn't recognize the peculiar smell of drugs for some reason, so he could smoke and sniff all he wanted down there.

In addition to his drug problem, Gamzee was a sucker for obscure clown rap. Naturally, his favorite group was Insane Clown Posse, the gods of the juggalos. The school didn't allow that kind of makeup, so Gamzee practically put the stuff on the second he got out of school, and wore it every moment he wasn't there. He felt naked and exposed without his makeup. Even Karkat was more comfortable when Gamzee wore his makeup. It just wasn't him when he didn't have white and gray paste smeared all over his face.

Gamzee also took great pride in his religion. He was a hardcore Christian. Extremely hardcore. Like, the kind of person who would pray for hours straight if they missed a service, even if they were near death. He always found a way to slip a Biblical reference into all of his responses and answers in class, including math.

Strange, yes?

Actually, Gamzee's strange interests would make him an ideal target for torment and bullying. You know, if he wasn't so fucking... frightening. That was the word.

F. R. Ightening.

First of all, Gamzee was really tall. Like, 6' 1" and still growing. He slouched too, so he was probably even taller. Karkat was 5' 3" and had stopped growing in 8th grade. Huge height difference. Gamzee also had the hair of a madman. It was a bit of an extreme description, but it was almost the truth. His thick, black, oily hair went all over the place, and stuck out in the strangest ways. He didn't even use hairspray. "It's just gravity workin' it's fucking magic, man."

Also, there was something about Gamzee's constant facial expression that could send chills down a kid's spine. The guy could suffocate somebody to death and still keep that same expression on his face. Not that he would.

Despite all that, Gamzee was a really good friend, and a nice person.

Karkat sighed, yawned, and rubbed the inner corners of his eyes. Gamzee rubbed Karkat's dark brunette hair, only to have his arms mercilessly swatted away.

"Move from in front of my locker, polka dots." Gamzee looked down at the black-with-gray polka-dots pajama pants he wore to school every day, put his arms up as if being accused of a crime, and shuffled to the right. Karkat opened his locker and shoved all of his stuff into it. He had an art class first period, so he didn't need anything but a pencil. Or the entire pencil case. So he took that and shut his locker.

Gamzee spoke up, "Hey, man, I'm gonna go ahead and get my leave on, that okay with you?"

"Okay, I'll see you in English, then."

"Alright." And with that, the juggalo spun on his heels and streaked off to class.


Karkat really didn't know why he took any art classes. He wasn't much of an artist, but it was one of the few classes where he didn't feel like he was being bombarded with study guides and essays. His mind could just... Float here, without the risk of things getting too dangerous.

Karkat really took school seriously, to the point where it messed with his social life. He felt really bad for his friends, but like his mother says, school is always-

"Yo."

He looked up as his friend Dave Strider came to sit across from him.

His red and white long-sleeved shirt with the weird scratched record clung to his skinny frame, and his dark wash skinny jeans hugged his legs snugly. The boy's golden blonde hair swiftly swept across his forehead, the very tips hidden by his dark, round sunglasses. He set down his backpack and plopped down in his seat, waiting for Karkat to start their conversation. They did this nearly every day.

"Well, if it isn't the hugest most ignorant poser on the planet," Karkat began.

"Well if it isn't the guy who's balls are made of chili peppers and sandpaper." Dave rested his head on his left hand and smirked. "What'cha been up to, hothead?"

"I feel like I'm drowning in schoolwork, and it's driving me fucking crazy! You know how much I wanted to go to the movies with the jugga-lump last week, my God!" Karkat vigorously tapped his fingers on the table's colorfully stained surface.

Dave sighed. "Did you hear the latest about those two?" He asked. The two weren't actually in the room, but everybody in the 11th grade referred to them as so.

Karkat looked at Dave. "Ampora and Peixes?" He snorted audibly, making a few heads turn in his direction. "No, what happened this time?"

Eridan Ampora and Feferi Peixes were the most famous ex-couple in the school. It wasn't a big deal when they broke up, but the big deal was that Eridan went nuts. He basically annoyed her to the point that she requested changes in her classes. Now they bicker in the hallways every single day. They argued so much that the teachers stopped caring and tuned it out along with every other student in the school.

To be honest, Karkat thought that they had had a lot of potential when they were together. They were fucking perfect, and probably could have been prom king and queen. But now that they were the most annoying duo in the entire fucking school- scratch that- universe, everyone but Eridan knew that all hope was lost.

Dave coughed a bit before he started. "So basically, Feferi was dating this guy, right? His name was Sul, I think. That's what Eridan called him, anyway." He stopped to see if Karkat was listening.

"So basically, Eridan was literally threatening to kill this guy if he tried anything on his girl, and the guy just kept flipping him off as if it was no big deal, and Eri-dick was fuckin' raging at him, okay?"

Karkat nodded slowly. Who the Hell was Sul? Was he new to the school?

Dave went on, licking his lips a bit. "Okay, so Sul couldn't put up with that stupid hipster's bullshit, and decided to dump Feferi. Well soon enough, Eri-dipshit found out, and Sul hasn't shown up since. Classic, huh?"

"He's probably tracking him down on the Internet. Eridan would probably fucking spam his email with messages like, 'I'm gonna cull you with my Harry Potter wand. My magic fuckin' wand is gonna get shoved up an ass tomorrow, so your butthole had better be ready!'" Karkat crossed his arms. "He's such a stupid asswipe, I fucking swear."

"I hear ya, bro."

At this moment, the teacher walked into the class, so Dave and Karkat continued the remainder of the period in silence. They would have talked more if Dave hadn't gone to sleep. At the end, Dave stood, yawned, and stretched.

"Yo, you going to play that game with me tonight? I'm always signed in. We can do some sweet girly gossiping." Dave wiggled his eyebrows and smirked.

Karkat shrugged. "I'll try," His response made Dave frown visibly. So he nodded, picked up his backpack, and left to go sleep in another class. So Karkat sighed and went out the door to go back to his locker.

That was exactly what he meant. Karkat's parents put so much pressure on him so that he'd do well in school, but he barely had time to spend with his friends. Every day he let them down by telling them that he was busy and didn't have time to mess around. Every week brought around new tests and projects for him to study for. Sometimes, he felt like his brain was going to pour right out of his ears, like a mummy in ancient Egypt. It. Was. Fucking. Terrible. If he didn't study and do his best, his parents took away his computer, which was pretty similar to ripping his heart out of his chest for Karkat. The computer was one of his outlets for-

Karkat heard a scream and a brief but heavy thud!

He snapped back into reality and saw a stange, pale looking guy lying on the floor in front of a set of lockers.

Standing in front of him was none other than Eridan.

Motherfucking.

Ampora.