Hussfield, Texas. It was one of those places on a map that your eyes just scan over, close enough to population centers to keep it from being out in the middle of nowhere, but far away enough to keep it isolated from any sort of city life. A town big enough so that it was impossible to know everyone, but small enough to keep out the ever-changing ways of the big cities. Overall, an unremarkable human establishment.

Sure, they had rich folks, poor folks, in-between folks. Teen romances and movie theaters. Schools, malls, attorney offices. Plumbers, public speakers, computer repairmen. Museums and apartment buildings. Ranches and mansions. The typical All-American town, where hopes, dreams and life-long aspirations come true.

Most of the time.

Welcome to the home of one extremely crabby movie theater worker, a slightly schizophrenic hacker with a penchant for metaphysics, a cutesy animal shelter volunteer, a lonely robotics engineer with a complex, a meditative mortuary assistant who has a fixation on death, a cheerful rich heiress with a dysfunctional family, a moody hipster looking for love, a gentle cattle-wrangler paralyzed in a brutal accident, a fearless gambler who's not afraid to go all in, a blind law school student who's spirit is only matched by her eccentricities, a hopeless romantic fashion designer, and the rebel rodeo clown son of an industry mogul.

This is the story of how their lives collide in the ultimate double Mobius reach-around. An impact that changed their lives forever. A cataclysmic event that began with-

"I mean really, do you want you fucking popcorn or not, fucker? I don't give a flying shit about whether or not you wanted butter on the damn thing, you're just lucky I actually stooped low enough to get it for you." The speaker took a short puff of a cigarette and coughed, his normally angry features strained into a grimace. "Dammit Sol, how can you stand these things?"

His coworker leaned against the rough stone exterior of the movie theater, uncut grains snagging the fabric of his tacky striped red-white-and-blue uniform, identical to that of his ornery friend. The calmer of the two took a long drag of his chosen poison and sighed.

"I don't like them, KK, but I keep them 'round to relax. You took that one from me becauth I thaid you wouldn't like 'em." He said, a lisp obstructed his pronunciation, tilting his head back to stare at the sky behind dark shades. It was one of those autumn days when the weather decided to cooperate, a gentle breeze and cloudless views. However, his companion was less than interested in the glory of the natural world.

"Y'know, if it wasn't for Nep, I'd quit this fucking on the spot. Do an acrobatic fucking pirouette off the handle and leave." The shorter scoffed, tucking a bit of his burnt umber hair behind his ear. He'd have to get it cut soon.

"Well, it'th alwayth about family, right? Hey, what about that couthin you thought you could move in with? He ever call you back?"

His friend had a sound halfway between a groan and a chuckle. "Oh, he called me back all right. Goddammit, took me a full hour to erase all of his messages from my voicemail, I swear. Last time I ever ask Kankri a simple question. Long, long, long fucking story short, he's out on the old public-speaking trail and when he's not violently shoving his long-winded speeches down everyone's aural canals, he's being a dick to his family." Karkat crushed his barely-used cigarette into the public ashtray.

"Muth be pretty bad then. How'th Nep doing lately anywayth?" Sollux asked, checking his watch to make sure the boss didn't yell at them for staying out after break time.

The other leaned back against the wall, mimicking his friend's posture. "Well, she's doing okay. Loves her job, and I think it's starting to love her back. The owner doesn't mind having her around."

"Good for her. KK, break'th over thoon, let'th go back in."

"Sure." Karkat sighed, pulling a hand through his messy hair. "Time to serve popcorn by the bucket and soda by the gallon to ignorant malcontents with their heads showed up their asses."

A quick look at the timetables alerted the duo to an unavoidable fact. The 5:30 movie crowd would be there any second. Weaving through the saccharine-drunk crowd, they pushed open a door marked "Employees Only" to get behind the linoleum counter. A few other workers, all dressed in unfashionable stripes the same colors as their own, were quickly prepping for the onslaught to come.

The unmistakable scent of theater popcorn drifted through the air as Sollux added a bag of kernels to the popper. Some oil, a quick shake, and he took up his post on the soda fountain.

Normally, Karkat would be working whatever job had the least amount of contact with people. But thanks to the unexpected, prolonged illness of a cashier, he was quickly trained and deemed up to the challenge. His friend had attempted cashier-work before, but his lisp had become a problem when you ordered Soft Salted Sweet Scoops Supreme.

The grumpy male grabbed a cardboard box of pretzels from the back, shoving the baked loops into the rotating display case topped with the redundant lit-up sign PRETZELS before taking up a spot along the counter, next to the worn apparatus that was narrowly identified as a cash register. He took the spare time to survey the crowd, watching the doors open as increasingly more people came in.

Lines quickly formed, putting Karkat in the position to take his first order of the evening. First up, the teenage couple giggling like hyenas on crack. "Hello, welcome to Cinema 15, may I take your order?" The worker rattled off at top speed, attempting to make this go quickly.

"Oh, me?" The bleached blonde said, blinking with eyelashes full off mascara. She turned to her boyfriend, not missing the opportunity to flip her long, conditioned curls back from her plunging neckline. "Sweetie, why don't you order for the two of us, I need to slip off to the ladies room." Her tone so full of obvious infatuation that Karkat had to resist the urge to gag.

"Sure, baby," her tall, well-muscled date crooned, giving her a quick peck on the cheek. As soon as she was out of earshot, he gave the sales assistant an obnoxious grin, "She's the third one this week. Pretty good, huh? Think I scored." Once Karkat's indifferent expression failed to please him, he cleared his throat and ordered, "Uh, one salted butter popcorn, a large cola with two straws and a box of Junior Mints."

At least he was quick. "Thank you sir, I'll be back with your order in a bit." Couples always made him a bit sour, but that may have been his depressing love life talking. Bitter? Him? No way. He quickly filled a popcorn bucket, squirted on the artificial gunk that was supposed to taste like butter, some salt, shook it around it bit, and yelled "Large coke!" to Sollux. It was almost impossible to communicate verbally above the incessant chatter surrounding them, but Karkat had always managed. The other nodded and turned his impassive shades back to the machinery, reflecting the fluorescent lighting of the displays.

Seconds later, the order was ready. Karkat barely hid a disgusted sneer as he stuck two plastic drink straws through the top, then grabbed a small box of Junior Mints from under the counter and placed it next to the popcorn and drink. "That'll be…" he typed the totals in, added sales tax, and watched the total light up on screen, "26.56." As cash exchanged hands and the register opened and closed, the girl ran up behind her boyfriend and slipped a hand over his eyes.

"Guess who?"

He laughed. "You're quick. Lemme get the stuff and I'll be with you in a sec."

She pulled her hand off, grabbing the mints before he could lay a hand on them. "Okay, but these," she shook the box, "are mine."

"Sure thing. Let's go." And with that, they left, headed to a splendid night of a relatively decent romcom in which the protagonist is a male who attempts to become close to a woman who insists she does not want a boyfriend presented in a non-linear narrative containing about five humorous lines in the first segment-

The next customer rudely interrupted his thoughts by clearing his throat. Karkat was knocked out of his analytic stupor. Realizing he had to repeat the entire spiel, he gritted his teeth before calmly saying, "Hello, welcome to Cinema 15, may I take your order?"

A/N: Hello and welcome to the first fic out of a series I hope to make into a gigantic AU. Pairings will include Johnkat, mentions of AraSol and EriSol, Nepeta and Equius as moirails in just this fic. As the 'verse develops, I'll probably make some huge shipping wall at some point in time. But for now, enjoy! I'm planning to update as soon as I can and I've already gotten several chapters done. In the meantime, feel free to comment, favorite, subscribe, follow, worship, fanart, rage, PM and hug. Bonus points for doing all of them XD The topic I'm wondering about is: Sollux's lisp. It's a bitch to type, and does it really add anything or is it just useless and annoying?