The prickling feelings were a near constant, and even when the soothing effects of tobacco were administered there were always those spasms deep inside of him, Vantas wondered if they resided in his bone marrow. The typical combination of irritation and anxiety, with a dash of self-loathing and frustration to top it all off. It must be some sort of recessive gene, or that he was somehow cursed. A subconscious reminder to check his blood pressure hung in the air.
An AC/DC song came to an end and the radio host begun babbling on about something irrelevant before a commercial for a breakfast joint aired, Karkat put out his cigarette, throwing it down the sewer grate and the person to the right of him did the same. He bit his cheek from agitation, the smell of cheap marijuana still hung in the air. One could assume that he would be used to it by the point in his life, and one could assume wrong.
"You're going to have to use the employee showers to burn that stench off of your skin again," Karkat scolded the other man, standing from his spot on the curb. "your last boss wasn't another one of those temporal lobe removal survivors and you were damn lucky about it. Neither of us have the money to pay for bail, so unless you want to end up with your infected tattoo posse and play some more ass hockey you would stop pressing your goddamn luck here with Egbert when he's about on par with being as clever as you, and that's saying something."
His speech was lacking the usual luster, an effect from quieting his nicotine addiction. Though it wasn't like it mattered to his poor excuse for a best friend, who just laughed before doubling over to cough a few times. Karkat wanted nothing more than to rip that half-witted grin off the ridiculously tall man, he was so sick of covering up for him and cleaning up all the messes he left, both figuratively and literally.
"You need to motherfucking chill my hot-blooded brother," a hand patted him a few times and Karkat winced with the contact, this was just a poor act of comforting on his part. "can't have me motherfucking working all pent up, you know me."
Karkat snorted. "Yeah, too well."
Soon after the former New York resident was bringing boxes from the back to the numerous checkouts. He thought that living in the suburbs of Rhode Island would be a decent change from the city, but he proved to be as naive as every other young person wishing to get away from their hometown when he discovered that the suburbs weren't much better than hell, either. Next time he wanted to run away, he might as well find a nice cave in the middle of the country, but that would probably prove to be just as a tropical retreat as this was.
His eyes were squinting from the bright lights in the store, his headache just barely held off by the pills he ingested earlier. The thick glasses he wore were no help and with hours left until he could abscond to his terrible example of a livable apartment, he was guaranteed a throbbing headache; which wouldn't be made much better when he would almost certainly dream of saving up enough money to at least get himself into some community college so he can stop working jobs at super stores. But that was only if it came to be that he was actually alive and not stuck in some cruel form of purgatory.
"Karkat! Karkat, come here!" a deranged laughter followed the high pitched words, and he felt himself dreading having to approach the voice that called him. Nevertheless he found himself standing at the other side of the 'Glasses in an Hour' counter, looking at a small ginger lady with a Danish accent and obnoxiously red framed sunglasses.
He was a person that would make some type of kind of witty response, earning him shrill laughter from his blind ex-girlfriend, and words of false offense that would follow; but a blond man stood in his way. His path to insulting her with long-winded humor was officially blocked, and there was no way some stupid Pokeflute was getting this mother out of the way.
Instead he looked up at the stranger, another stupidly tall person, who might be just as pathetically lanky as Gamzee. That of course, was an exaggeration since he seemed built of lean muscle, but the stupid aviators and really well-groomed hair on top of his head brought him to a level of picking him apart mentally.
"This is Dave! Dave, this is the guy I was telling you about, the really angry one!" Terezi laughed, making some sort of spastic motion with her hands. "Karkat! Dave just started here yesterday, isn't he scrumptious? Come on, I know you can't not agree!"
How is she even working here again?
"Not so much, if you wanted to bring someone around to provoke this place into going full throttle Armageddon you could have had the integrity to find someone that wasn't the size of a fucking skyscraper." It was too early to deal with assholes, and with it being nearly three in the afternoon, it was never not too early to put up with these shenanigans.
Terezi just laughed, yammering on too quickly for the words to be comprehensible. The blond may have done something comical like raise an eyebrow, if his ridiculous fringe wasn't covering most of his forehead. Hell, the shorter man couldn't help but unwillingly imagine eccentric expressions on the guy, given that he seemed to have a solid poke face going on. Was he even a real person or did something of Gamzee's manage to get into his food?
Finally the newcomer decided to open his big mouth.
"Did you parents bleach you or is this some attempt to get on the cover of Glamour magazine on account of looking like an extraterrestrial?"
There was something he was told at least once a month since he was a kid, and that was to take deep breaths and walk away when he was angry instead of causing a scene by throwing a tantrum.
This wasn't going to be a day where he listened to said advice.
"Are you for fucking real right now? It's called having albinism you dick, it's nearly the twenty first century why haven't you caught up with the rest of our population on the 'How to be a Decent Fucking Human Being' pamphlet, or is your brain too damaged from alcohol poisoning to read anymore?" By now Terezi's laughter was brought to a level of sounding nearly cartoon-like, her hands pressed together as if she was watching her favorite sitcom. "Hey, here's a tip; why don't you take those glasses off, Corey Hart? Here you are acting like a goddamn Nazi party enthusiast, at least do us a favor and stop trying to pull of the cool and mysterious look, this ain't some late night flick!"
It was too late to return to a calm state of being, Karkat was too far gone into his rage. He went off the deep end and was never coming back. Not even a rescue crew of smartass dolphins could save him now. The cat was out of the bag, and his New York accent was let off the chain, spewing insults like a true resident of the Big Apple. The R's from the ends of words were left in the dust, O's came out sounding similar the the cooing someone may make in the presence of a cute animal and those Italian roots decided to reapply some color to themselves. Even this mysterious 'Cawy Hawrt' would agree that the best thing to do in the situation was to put him down, there was never a mad dog that could be cured, it was much too late.
"Karkat! What are you doing? You're going to scare off the customers again!" And just like that the bull fight was put on pause. "I see you met Dave, don't give him too much trouble, he's new around here." A man with tan skin came onto the scene, a blue vest was thrown over his polo shirt. He was no other than the infamous manager of Super-Mart, John Egbert, complete with crooked teeth and black framed glasses. The whole package, here in the flesh.
The fuming man turned towards the slightly, very slightly, taller man. He was visibly shaking now, but managed to bring his arm up to wipe the sweat from his brow.
"Karkat, you're supposed to be treating new employees like family, not tearing their limbs off!" Terezi happily scolded, reaching out a few times before she managed to poke him in the shoulder. "Have you been to one of your anger management circles recently? If you want I'll go with you again!"
Oh God no. Abort mission, it wasn't worth it, time to high tail it out of here, Karkat.
The albino flushed, his shoulders tense and his eyes quickly darting around at the company. He huffed, balling his hands into fists before stomping away not unlike the way a child would; leaving an amused girl, her new friend and a worried Egbert who shook his head at the boy from Huston. "I think you hurt his feelings, Dave."
The clock was nearing nine now and the resident crab was feeling antsy with the approach of the end of his shift. Just one more hour and he would be free to spend the rest of his night in front of a romcom. To be exact, Jerry Maguire sounded like a good choice right now. A dramatic tale about a successful sports agent who seems to have it all, which is all brought down by a question of purpose that leads to a struggle of discovery and love. With the talents of Tom Cruise and Renée Zellweger, it was hard for him to resist.
His eyes found the sight of the pesky blond from earlier, scanning items and pressing buttons on the cash register. Karkat glared, wrinkles from his annoyance formed around his eyes and forehead.
"Look at him, he thinks he's so great, scanning shit and giving out change. What an insufferable prick, I hope he croaks on his breakfast so I don't have the misfortune of seeing his face again. Why does Terezi even grant him the time of day? He's about as engaging as a pile of feces."
"Who are you talking to?" Karkat stopped his mumbling, glancing over to the manager who was also his good friend. They were pen pals for some middle school project, and despite his insults, disregard of decency and manners they never stopped writing to each other even well into high school. John was one of the reasons why he decided moved to Charlestown in the first place, and another was how his childhood friend Gamze had room to spare, saving him from finding a stranger for a roommate.
"Clearly, I'm spilling my sorrows to these containers of low grade instant coffee," He emphasized by shaking on the the containers before putting it on the shelf. "they make great company when all of your co-workers are from fruity rumpus town."
His words were harsh, but no matter how much venom he put into them John never took any personal offense. He did however put his foot down when Karkat's sour opinions were directed to a special friend of his, specifically Vriska, who was his 'totally cool and righteous' girlfriend.
"Well you do have a thing for gaining friends from this fruity rumpus town." John chuckled at the face Karkat made, as if the reality of the situation was completely unbearable and desired to be forgotten. "Just give Dave a chance, he's not as bad as he seems! He's been my best bro for years! He's just nervous or something, it's his first time living here in the east, he doesn't know what he's doing."
Karkat rolled his eyes, as if that was an excuse to be a complete asswipe.
"Hey, it's not like you're any different! You're just as rude as that, even more so! So don't act like it's the end of the world it's only eight hours, you baby." John prodded at the other man's cheek, which earned him a semi-gentle slap on the hand.
"Now could you go get him some boxes? For some reason he's running low already." John commented, the oblivious curiosity clear in his voice. Karkat looked over to the man who insisted so stubbornly on wearing sunglasses inside the store. There was certainly a favor for his lane to the others, but given the appearances of their average employee it wasn't hard to figure out why. Wait, is that why Terezi was so drawn to him, his stupid expressionless face and well groomed hair? No wait that was stupid, she was blind, of course that wasn't the reason.
While mentally stabbing himself for getting all worked up over his ex-girlfriends new acquaintance, he obliged to John's request and went on his way to fetch more boxes for his fellow Super-Mart resident.
Karkat returned to the front of the store pushing a cart full of cardboard boxes that once held their shipped products. The store was trying to get attention by being resourceful and reusing what they already had under the guise of being Eco-friendly. Though the reality of the situation was that it saved them a good few figures of money, which went straight into the big man's pockets.
He begun placing the boxes at the end of Strider's station, refusing to even look at the other man while he completed his task. The sooner he got done with this and got out of the blond's assigned space the better. Dave finished up helping the customer at hand, who was looking nervous now that the scruffy ruffian known as Karkat Vantas had invaded the area. The man however was more curious about his presence, and spent time glancing at him as he helped the woman who seemed to have a fondness for hoarding cats. He didn't speak until she was on her way, leaving the two to engage in immature banter.
"Hey there sassy, what's eating you up?"
Something metaphorically snapped inside of Karkat, of course things couldn't be as simple as getting a job done and then moving on to his next task. There was always something, and there was no day off for the angry albino.
The young man with a head full of short, choppy, prematurity white hair looked up at Dave, his eyes looking up to the others. They would have made proper eye contact if it wasn't for those damn sunglasses.
"Considering how your attitude is reaching towards the Naomi Campbell level I would say that's self-explanatory." His spoken words, packed with pop culture references and laced with acid bounced right off his new found arch nemesis. Karkat threw a few more boxes into the crate, his feathers still ruffled from their earlier encounter.
"Look, I'm sorry alright." Dave paused, his brain attempting to come up with a decent apology. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."
This only got him a sour look. "You didn't hurt my feelings! My feelings are left completely unhurt!" His body tensed and the task of unloading the boxes became increasingly violent. There wasn't a chance of hell that Karkat would admit to having his 'feelings hurt'. He wasn't some snot-nosed kid, he could handle himself on his own and wasn't about to get emotionally upset because of a Texan with a smart mouth.
Dave shrugged his shoulders in response. "Right. I should of known your delicate skin would burn so easily, my bad."
Karkat made a noise born from his frustration and anger. "Are you seriously still ripping on me for being albino? Jesus get some new material funny guy, no wonder why you're working here."
"Huh," If Dave was a normal person, than perhaps his face would portray the emotion of consideration. But he wasn't any kind of normal person, and regardless of any thoughts going on in his head his face reminded completely blank. "Then what's your excuse for working here?" Dave questioned with a tilt of the head. He leaned against the register, his lane now void of customers now that Karkat had joined him.
Karkat squinted his eyes at him, unsure as to how sarcastic and antagonistic the question was meant to be. He bit the edge of his mouth, lost as to how he should respond to his freaked co-worker.
"I'm just trying to pay the bills like everyone else; it's only a stupid job." He grumbled what was the most amiable few words he had said all day. He finished placing the last boxes he was sent to deliver into the crate, before leaving Dave's station with a certain awkwardness.
The Strider stood there, and in that moment he felt intrigued, silently deciding that maybe working here wouldn't be so bad after all.