When the Clock Strikes Midnight
By Alice Potter
It was almost midnight of December 31st when Karkat Vantas got a text from John Egbert inviting him to a night around his puny Washington town. Karkat was about to text him back with a sharp "FUCK YOU" and then throw his phone at the wall so he could get some goddamn sleep, but decided to humor John and accept his offer. He didn't really have anything to do and didn't know what to do in the first place, considering he's never even been to Earth before.
When he opened the door, he found John standing there, the one light in the hopeless place of his life. John smiled his big-toothed moron-y grin and said "Ready?"
"Well of course I am, fuckass, let's gogdamn GO already."
John looked taken aback, but quickly and unexpectedly took Karkat by the hand to drag him around and show him the sights of George, Washington. Karkat was thoroughly uninterested in all the sights around him, and instead paid all his attention to John talking happily and excitedly about absolutely nothing that mattered. It was really microscopic how much he cared until they got to a local park, with a winding trail that lead through a flower garden. John pulled Karkat in that direction, which caused feelings in him to bubble up.
If there was one thing he knew about humans, it was that they had weird as hell romantic traditions, including flower-giving. Generally any kind of fuckery with flowers was considered romantic to humans. Karkat couldn't imagine why, and just wrinkled his nose instead.
John lead him to the center of the garden, and placed Karkat right in front of him.
"You know, there's something I've always wanted to do. Now is the best time to do it. I mean, we're in a flower garden and it's almost the New Year."
John leaned in close to get his romantic closure, but was stopped short by a sudden attack from the Midnight Crew.
Don't fuck around during their time.