Dave was quite furious. It didn't show outwardly - in fact, nothing at all showed outwardly except his inexhaustible stores of disinterest - but fury's icy grip had clenched itself so tightly around his heart that he was scared it would burst all over his insides in a blinding flash of ice and rage so powerful that people would tell the story of the man whose heart exploded into icy shards of wrath for generations to come.
Or something.
Across the table sat Karkat Vantas - Karkat fucking Vantas - in a state of unbridled distress. He had double facepalmed a few minutes ago and had been attempting to peel the skin off of his face as his hands dragged slowly down his cheeks since then. The distant, gratingly horrible shrieking coming from the next room had only increased in pitch since he had panicked and thrown the godawful thing under a blanket. It looked like the only common interest between the two of them was the burning desire to take a sledgehammer to that screaming thing in the living room.
Karkat finally lost it. "When exactly is your brother supposed to come home?" His voice had so much hostility in it, Dave could practically see it dripping onto the floor.
"Just wait a minute, he'll be here any second."
"I don't think I can last another second." Dave sighed and ignored him, electing to stand up and grab another apple juice from the fridge. The slowly growing pile on the floor by his chair said that this would be his eleventh in the past hour.
"You know your teeth will rot out of your head if you drink too much of that stuff. It's disgusting, really."
"Dude don't diss the sweet nectar of the gods. This is apple juice we're talking about. It's so good even the Bible thinks so, and the Bible doesn't think anything is good."
"You do realize that the story actually says that apples brought sin into the world, right?"
"Exactly. That right there's gotta be the perfect fruit." If Karkat had had a third arm, he would have triple facepalmed.
From across the house, and through the screeching of the demon spawn that had taken residence between where they sat in the kitchen and the main entrance, Dave heard the latch on the front door click open.
"HOLY FUCKING JESUS, DAVE, WHAT DID YOU DO?" There was a loud thud followed by panicked footsteps before Dave's brother entered the kitchen, both hands covering his ears and an exaggerated wince distorting his face. "And what's with shortstack here?" Karkat bristled with anger, but before he could say anything, Dave cut him off.
"I'll explain later, just take that thing into your room and make it stop screeching." Dirk stared daggers into Dave's soul, to which Dave reacted by shoving him into the living room.
"You owe me bigtime for this one, Dave."
"Yeah, whatever." Karkat let out an audible sigh of relief as the shrieking quieted and a door shut. The sound was immediately followed by a painfully loud thunk as Karkat's head hit the table.
"I need an aspirin. Or six."
"Okay, but you have to take it with apple juice."
"Fuck you."
~~~ Hours in the Past (But Not Many) ~~~
Are you fucking kidding me.
It appeared that he was not, in fact, fucking kidding him. His health teacher had just finished explaining their new assignment, and Dave was less than pleased. I can't believe this shit actually happens in real school jfc.
"I'm going to assign partners for this project. That way there will be no bickering about who gets paired with who." The class groaned in unison. "All of the couples will be one man and one woman, except for one, which we will model as a single dad and his friend." The blatant homophobia in the statement made Dave physically cringe. Luckily, nobody could see his face behind his obnoxiously large shades.
"Everyone write your name on one of these slips of paper." He gave the head of each row of desks a disjointed mess of tiny paper rectangles to pass back. "I'll put all of the girls' names in one of these containers and all of the boys' names in the other one. Whichever two boys are left after I've picked everybody else will be the single dad and his friend." After a moment of disgruntled whispering and reluctant scrawling, the teacher made his rounds and picked up all of the slips. Sorting them was a simple matter, and then came the moment of truth. I hope I get partnered with somebody that's competent. This shit's gonna be terrible otherwise. Gonna be more fucked up than a superhero origin story.
Time passed, and Dave's name didn't get called. As each couple was announced, they were allowed to come to the front of the room, acquire the needed equipment for the project, and leave class for the day. That was at least one nice thing about having health class at the end of the day. It got out early a lot, so Dave could laugh at all of the unlucky fuckers that still had class while he waltzed out a solid fifteen minutes early.
The room was getting dangerously barren. Dave evaluated the situation. It looked like there were five guys and three girls. He didn't know any of the girls' names; girls weren't really something that interested him, despite the stereotype of raging hormones addicting young teens to the opposite sex. He knew a couple of the guys' names, though. The tall lanky one in the corner was named...Jace? Jeff? Some one syllable name that started with a 'J'.
Okay, maybe he didn't know the guys very well either. Except...
Oh fuck…
He did know THAT guy. Sitting in the back of the room was none other than Karkat Vantas - Karkat fucking Vantas - with his arms crossed and his usual demeanor of unadulterated rage permeating the area around him.
The kid in the corner got called. Apparently his name was John. He got paired with some girl named Roxy who couldn't stop giggling. Dave rolled his eyes and did his best to ignore them.
It was the final countdown now. There were only three boys and one girl left. For some reason, Dave half hoped, half knew that he would end up as the "single dad and friend" group. The question was, which of the two remaining guys would be his totally platonic absolutely no homo how dare you even say the word homosexual in a school of all places "friend" and who would end up paired in a School Approved Heterosexual Relationship (SAHR®). The teacher reached into the girls' bin to fish out the final name in a completely unnecessary moment of blind routine.
The moment of truth…
Dave could feel his palms start to sweat as the final boy's slip was picked. He held his breath.
"Nick, looks like it's you." Sweet! Time to make some old people super fucking uncomfortable.
The teacher clapped, seemingly satisfied. "Alright, that leaves Dave and Karkat to model the single dad and his friend." Does he have to say it like that every...single…
….what?
~~~ Minutes in the Future (But Not Many) ~~~
Dave thought he might die. Apparently there is a limit to how much apple juice you can drink before you literally die from an unexpected rush of apple corruption coursing through your dirty, blemished sin vessel.
Karkat had decided the floor was much more comfortable than the table and had melted into a puddle of indignation a few minutes after Dirk had come and taken the thing away. Dave was seriously considering joining him on the floor so that he could die in peace.
A door down the hall opened. Dave turned slowly to look. His stomach sloshed uncomfortably. Yuck…
Dirk was making his way down the hall. The monstrosity that he had been working on was tied up in a cloth bag which Dirk was holding onto with the tips of his thumb and index finger. He dropped the bag as unceremoniously as he could without breaking it on the table without breaking eye contact with Dave; an impressive feat, considering they were both still wearing their ever-present sunglasses.
"If you ever bring that thing into my house again, I swear to god Dave…"
"You don't believe in god, Dirk." He paused, and Dirk slumped exhaustedly into a chair. Both of them ignored the Vantas Puddle™ that was attempting to melt a hole in the floor with sheer anger.
"Seriously, how did you manage to dislocate the wiring for the voicebox. That thing is built like a lead weight."
Dave shrugged noncommittally. "I wouldn't be surprised if it was broken when we got it."
The Vantas Puddle™ temporarily regained sentience for just long enough to shout, "AND I WOULDN'T BE SURPRISED IF YOU DID IT ON PURPOSE WITH THE SOLE INTENT OF TORTURING THE LIVING FUCK OUT OF ME FOR NO GODDAMN REASON."
Dave picked his ear. "Do you hear somebody talking?"
"AUUUGHHHHHH," Karkat groaned at the top of his lungs and conducted one final double facepalm combo before returning once more to his liquid state.
"Real charmer, that one," Dirk commented dryly.
Dave shrugged again. Dirk stood and walked slowly towards the fridge. "My back hurts. It doesn't do me any favours, bent over that work table, you know."
"You would have been bent over it anyway, don't give me that shit."
"Do you want something to eat? We have leftover pizza."
"You said that like it was a question." Dave looked briefly at the acidic puddle eating its way through the linoleum. "If I could be graced with the attention of the acid on the floor for a moment, my dearest brother would love to know if you want anything to eat."
"Don't put words in my mouth!" Dave waved dismissively at Dirk as he shoved a couple pieces of haphazardly placed pizza in the oven.
Karkat's gaze put the phrase 'staring daggers' to shame. "I think I'll be just fine on my own." He slowly extracted himself from the ever growing hole that his aura had created in the poor tiles and brushed the dust off of his pants. "In fact, I'm going to go home, I'm going to take a shower, and I'm going to try to wipe all traces of that thing from my permanently-traumatized brain."
"Woah woah woah, we haven't decided whose turn it is to keep track of it," Dave protested. Karkat had already walked away into the living room. He picked up his backpack and jacket in one graceful swoop and started for the door. He had to kind of sashay through the various bags that Dirk had dropped there in his initial panic.
"Since you're the one that fucking broke it, I issue an ultimatum that you take that thing tonight or I will fail our project so hard you'll be doing summer makeup work for this class until your eyes bleed." That image did not sit well with Dave, whose nose wrinkled in a half grimace.
"Okay, fine, whatever. It's fine." Karkat's hand reached for the doorknob. There was a tense silence for a moment before Dave continued. "Looks like I'm the dad and you're the friend, then."
Karkat's entire body went rigid, and Dave actually flinched, taking a hesitant step backwards. Even Dirk stopped what he was doing in a kind of half terror. Dave thought he had seen anger, but nothing had ever compared to this. If emotion was visible, a dark black cloud would be consuming every trace of light in their living room. It was insidious; if was infectious; it was paralyzing.
When Karkat spoke, his voice was cold and monotone, contrasting sharply with his usual volatile yelling. "I never want to hear that sentence or anything similar escape your lips ever again. Do you understand me?" There was a deadly calm in his tone that made Dave shiver.
"Uh...yeah. Sure." The time between his words and the door slamming seemed to be cut out of existence, the gap sewn haphazardly together with no segue. Dave and Dirk stood in complete shock for a moment before Dirk turned.
"...what the fuck was all that about?"