i swear to god this will make sense lmfao i swear
it's all part of my nefarious plan
awkward teen karkat is so fucking awkward lmaoo
also remember that this is a game of pReTeNd and that there will be absolutely no character death, a load of creepy shit, but nobody will die
read ON
two
Karkat probably could've worded that better.
"You probably could've worded that better," Sollux said, looking up at him with what had to be the most deadpan expression after anything from the Strider clan. "Otherwithe I would think you were planning on murdering your crush KK what the fu—"
"I am not planning on murder you dumb pile of shit!" Karkat exclaimed, smacking his forehead. "Jesus fucking Christ do I seem that psychotic to you—and if you answer in the positive I will choke the ever loving brain matter out of you Captor."
Sollux shut his mouth with a click of his oddly sharp teeth.
"Okay, okay," the shorter teenager paced his bedroom, scowling all the while. "Since you are so stupid it is potentially traumatizing, I guess I'll have to explain this to you in an easier way. Fuck."
"That would be nithe," his friend replied. "Even though you aren't very nithe, KK."
Karkat glared at him. "Shut the fuck up, asswipe," he said kindly. He stopped pacing, and took a deep breath. "Okay, so I'm not planning on killing Egbert."
"Thank Chrith."
"Fuck you. No, my plan is so much fucking better than anything like that," Karkat insisted, a smile creeping onto his face. Unfortunately, his face wasn't used to smiling, so it probably looked like a pained grimace. "I am going to pretend to kill Egbert."
"And you loth me again," Sollux replied, leaning his head against Karkat's bed. "Please don't kill your crush."
"What part of pretend is beyond your minimal powers of deduction?" Karkat demanded, crossing his skinny arms. "I'm not going to touch a hair on his pubescent fucking body, you moron—but I am going to do a little psychological warfare."
Sollux's face dropped. "KK, you aren't a psychologith holy thit," he argued. "What the fuck are you going to do?"
"I'm going to pretend to be a serial killer," Karkat explained, his eyes glittering with glee. And possibly tears, if he didn't take his contacts out soon. "And John Egbert is going to be my victim. I'm going to pull a bunch of shit like I'm planning on killing Egbert, and every time it happens, I—as normal, not a killer Karkat Vantas—will be there to comfort him. Soon, he'll realize what a great fucking guy I am, and we can watch Must Love Dogs together while almost holding hands." He clapped his hands together, exposing his teeth in a terrible smile. "It's fucking flawless."
"…" Sollux took off his glasses. "KK, you're crazy."
"Wait—"
"This entire plan is pure inthanity," he continued, rubbing his eyes. "And it might be the dumbest thit I've ever heard. Unfortunately, in thith cathe, I've known you for a little over ten yearth, and this only thrapes the top of the iceberg of dumb thit KK hath thaid."
Karkat stared at him, speechless.
"But you haven't done anything so thupremely thupid in a while," Sollux said with a shrug. "Tho, I'll let you do it."
"You were going to stop me?" Karkat demanded. Now that was just rude—you can't stop a man's plan for pretend murder in the name of love and expect to still be cool.
Sollux put his spectacles back on, straightening them before looking back up at Karkat. "Not really," he replied. "I wath juth gonna do the thame thing I'm doing now." He returned to his computer, typing quickly with sure fingers as he stared at the screen.
Karkat sputtered in displeasure. "Wait, what are you doing?" he asked, dropping down to his knees and scuffling towards Sollux's computer.
"Juth updating my Chumpage," Sollux responded. He pressed a button. "Okay, I'm done."
Karkat looked over his friend's shoulder at Sollux Captor's Chumpage profile, which sported a profile picture of Sollux taken with a shitty webcam at a pretty unflattering angle of the teen on his bed.
His latest status read, "ii wonder when Karkat Vantas wiill ever get tiired of beiing a total p2ycho iin a completely hiilariiou2 way" and apparently it was liked by Terezi Pyrope, Vriska Sekret, and seven other people.
"Go suck on a beehive," Karkat grumbled, and then furrowed his eyebrows in anger. "And, and fuck Vriska! She thinks I'm a psycho? Holy fucking shit can somebody call the ironic embassy and get the ambassador of incongruity in here? I mean, the shit she does is worse than anything I could come up with on a good day!"
Sollux hummed in agreement. "Tho you admit that thith ith a terrible idea and that you thould leave thith kind of nefariouth, murderouth thit to our friendth like Vrithka?" he asked with his head tilted in amusement.
"What? No," Karkat scoffed at the mere thought of such. "It's a great idea, and I'm not planning on crippling Egbert from the waist down in the name of love."
"You're juth going to pretend to kill him…in the name of love inthead?" Sollux tried, cocking an eyebrow.
"Yes."
There was a heavy silence in the room for a while after that, where Karkat mindlessly played with the frayed ends of his carpet, and Sollux stared up at the ceiling with a blank expression for some time.
"Okay," the bespectacled teen spoke up, after two painful minutes of that silence shit. "I'm off, KK. I'll text you later, to keep updated with thith…plan, or whatever."
Karkat sputtered indignantly as Sollux stood up and dusted off his backside. "W-where the hell are you going?" he demanded with wide eyes.
"Huh? Oh, I'm going home," Sollux replied, checking his wristwatch. "It'th like theven, dude."
"Oh." Karkat still didn't believe that's why his friend was leaving, but he also suspected that the real reason would make him explode in rage. And he hasn't eaten dinner yet, so he didn't have the energy to verbally tear the idiot apart. "Well—bye then."
Sollux gathered up his things, stuffing them gracelessly into his bookbag, and he hefted the bag onto his shoulder with a small grunt. "Oh, chin up, KK," he said with a small smile that exposed his rather frightening canines. "We'll thee each other tomorrow—you al'tho need to tell me all the happeningth with the unconventhional wooing of John Egbert."
And he walked out of Karkat's room.
Karkat stared at his open door for at least a minute.
Fuck the nonbelievers, he finally thought with a low growl after tearing his eyes away from his doorway.
He didn't care who thought otherwise—Pseudo-Serialstuck was happening, and it was happening soon.
While Karkat actually hated very little more than he fucking abhorred his pathetic excuse of a father—whom of which was a recovering and reverting alcoholic that only spoke in indecipherable grumbles and snarls—he did not deny the man his years of existence which might've lead to actual usefulness.
"Okay, Dad, let's take off our Shitfaced Stickers," he started with clenched teeth as his father knocked back his third beer of the night at the dinner table. "And put on our listening caps, okay? Your son, me, needs some…advice, if that's how I could word it to force something useful out of you."
"Hmmph?" his dad grumbled, squinting at him grumpily. "Mmrrph."
"All right, first of all, go suck a dick," Karkat snapped, glaring into his bowl of alphabet soup. "And when you get enough semen in your system to balance out the testosterone you've lost via being a fucking pussy, I hope you'll understand that, yes, I do need help sometimes. I'm a genius, not perfect."
His dad shrugged. "Grrrggh."
God he had the worst father of all time. How his sperm managed to create something as great as Karkat, science would never know.
"So," Karkat began with shifty eyes, idly stirring the letters in his bowl around. "Hypothetically—"
"Haurrgh," his dad groused, rolling his golden eyes and tipping back his can of beer.
"Shut up, Dad! Jesus Christ," the black-haired teen closed his eyes to calm himself down, before he did something unreasonable. Like, stand up and stalk out the kitchen to sit in the bathroom and scream. "Anyway, like I was saying. So, let's say, hypothetically, I wanted to pretend to kill someone—hey dad, shoosh. Your son whom is leagues more intelligent than you, he's talking, and he'd really fucking appreciate it if you'd listen for once."
His dad rolled his eyes. Again.
"What would you do if you wanted to pretend to kill someone—not actually kill, since everyone's under the impression that I'm a fucking psycho or something."
His dad gave him a really, really significant look that was probably supposed to mean something to him.
Unfortunately for Papa Vantas, it didn't.
"Hmm," his dad hummed, furrowing his thick brows in thought. "Hrrgh, grummbrl mmph."
"I don't want to actually kill the Derpbert!" Karkat exclaimed, eyes wide in horror. "Fuck, and even if I did, I'm pretty sure dismembering him and amputating his limbs would be ridiculously cruel. Even for me."
"Meh." His dad shrugged. He tried.
"Ugh, I knew you'd be fucking useless," Karkat deflated, sliding down in his seat. "Dad, come on. You're the creepiest guy I know after Eridan—you've gotta know something I can do!"
His dad stared at him for a long, long while.
It was actually kind of humbling, and made Karkat want to dip under the table until the hard stare of his father disappeared.
"Grmm haurgh mmmph," his dad responded after a while, crossing his arms.
Karkat gaped, and shot up straight in his chair.
"That, that could work," he said, looking at his soup in wonder. Even the fates were smiling at this idea, as the letters totally spelt 'R K L P D' which was probably Norwegian for 'Karkat is the best fuck you.' "That could really fucking work, I am completely surprised with you right now, Dad."
"Huh." His dad shook his head, and returned to his beer.
The next day, Karkat stalked to his locker with a backpack full of dreams, and shit that could probably get him carted to a criminal psychiatrist if someone found out about it by some freak chance.
When he got to his locker, however, he was greeted with the most unpleasant surprise before he could even enter his combination.
"So I think you need a cool serial killer name, something like, Karkat the Kid, or the Cancer Killer—nice, right?"
"Jesus, Terezi!" Karkat yelped, jumping at the sight of his ex-kind-of-crush leaning against the locker next to his and grinning like she had no care in the world.
It didn't help that she was legally blind with a loud fucking cane, and still managed to sneak up on him.
Terezi grinned wider, leaning all up in Karkat's metaphorical grill as she touched his face and shit. "But, what did you think of the names, babe?" she asked, her tongue flicking out to wet her lips.
Karkat sent a quick prayer to the god he only used so he could take its name in vain, and gently pushed Terezi away from his personal space. "I think they were complete wastes of oxygen that was shitty to begin with, especially to be expelled on someone as undeserving as me," he answered kindly. "And I have no i-fucking-dea where this is even coming from, you crazy bitch."
The blind girl retracted for a moment, only to laugh loudly in Karkat's face. It attracted the attention of everyone in the hallway near them, and when they saw she was laughing at him, they also thought it would be fucking great to chuckle along.
One day I will own every fucking thing you love, Karkat thought maliciously as some dickwad he didn't even know giggled at him in passing. And then I will shove you all off cliffs. Just, a bunch of cliffs. Shoved.
"So now you're playing coy? We're going to play coy?" Terezi asked after her laughter died down, and she wiped an invisible tear from under her glasses. "Right. We're playing coy. Game on, Karkat Vantas." She smirked, and Karkat got a little scared. "So I guess you totally aren't going to kill John Egb—"
"Okay, fuck Sollux!" Karkat snarled, jerking at his locker combination in hopes it would open from his anger. "Did he tell you? I bet he told you. That smoldering pile of thrice digested shit—how the fuck—"
"First of all, stop with the gross insults," Terezi cut him off, wrinkling her delicate nose in disdain. "And, secondly, numbnuts—no, Sollux didn't tell me." She smiled again. "He told Aradia, who offhandedly told Nepeta, who definitely told Equius no question, who told Gamzee, who can't keep a secret from Tavros, who was forced to tell Vriska at the risk of his testicles, who blabbed to Eridan, who obviously told Feferi because he seriously wants that vagina, and she told Kanaya, and I heard it from Aradia in the beginning."
Fucking Terezi.
Just.
Fucking Terezi.
"You were put on this earth," Karkat replied calmly. His locker finally popped open after all this time. "To make me the most miserable sack of muscle and fat in this fucking universe. If there is a god, he fucking hates me, and your senseless existence is proof of this."
He placed his backpack in the locker.
Terezi laughed at his emotions.
What a normal fucking day.
"So I guess we can go with the Karkat-cutioner. It's like your name and executioner. It's fucking genius, babe!"
"I'm not killing anybody, you dumb pile of estrogen," he snapped, jerking open his backpack and rustling around inside it. "If Sollux told the story correctly, of which I'm sure he didn't because all of my friends are fucking idots, then you would know that I'm—"
"Pretending to kill your crush, yeah, yeah, whatever," Terezi waved him off. "Still sounds psycho. Which means it's right up your alley and—wait." She sniffed the air suspiciously. "Are you putting on gloves?"
Karkat looked away nervously as he adjusted the black leather glove he donned on his left hand. "Yes," he answered carefully. "But not for any weird reason since you're looking at me like I'm going to stab you, douchebag."
"If this is how you express your love," Terezi replied gleefully. "Then I am really glad you got over that crush on me. I am extremely pleased Creepkat you don't even know."
Sometimes…sometimes he did want to off Terezi and friends.
But Karkat is a kind man who would never kill off someone who knew so much shit about him. God, fuck friendship—literally the worst thing to ever bestow upon man, no lie.
"So!" the dark-haired girl started again, whacking his legs with her cane. "What are you going to do first? Call his cellphone from a private number and ask him inappropriate questions with a towel over your mouth?"
"Stop hitting me, fuckass!" Karkat yelped, though he acknowledged her guess as a pretty good idea. He took note of it for the future. "And I'm not going to tell you, lest I want the entire fucking school riding my sperm handler about this shit."
"Awww," Terezi huffed, pouting. "Well, I'll find out eventually. How many classes do you have with Egbert, anyway? I mean, you creep really hard on him, so you've gotta have more than one." She cackled at that, even though there wasn't anything funny about her statement.
Karkat grabbed his books and papers for the first half of the day out his locker and slammed it closed angrily. "You are one of the shittiest people I know," he replied with a sigh. "And I have two classes with him, one of which I am on my way to if this fucking bell will ring so I'll have a valid excuse to get away from you."
Terezi scoffed. "You will never escape me."
The bell rang.
"Except for right now," Karkat replied, and he sprinted down the hall away from the blind girl before she could catch up. A lot of people would probably shake their heads at him for trying so hard to get away from a tiny teenage girl who was obviously incapable of even navigating alone, let alone hunting him down.
But these people didn't know Terezi Pyrope.
She made police dogs look like defective four-legged sacks of mental retardation.
His Senior Calculus class came into sight, with the also unwelcome sights of his classmates/sources of psychological trauma Eridan Ampora, Feferi Peixes, and Tavros Nitram waiting for him at the door.
Actually, Tavros wasn't that bad. A bit of a fucking pussy, but not terrible.
Karkat guessed it was hard to be as phenomenal an asshole as the rest of his friends when you were in a wheelchair with a stutter.
"H-hey Karkat," Tavros greeted with a smile. "How are you, t-today?"
Karkat slowed to a stop when he reached the door and nodded at Tavros in the positive. "I want to claw the skin on my unnaturally good-looking mien off," he replied with a shrug. "But that's nothing new." He looked over at the Dynamic Duo of Non-Dating Drama and narrowed his eyes. Eridan sneered in response. "Desperate Dickhole, Femnazi," he greeted, and shoved past them to get inside the class.
"Aww, don't be like that," Feferi giggled, following close behind him as they dodged the paper airplanes and spitballs that flew through the class. This was one of the less quality classes, Karkat would admit with a scowl, and cursed the school counselour for not letting him into AP Calculus with Sollux and Vriska. Fuck her; nearly failing algebra in ninth grade wasn't any fucking reason to not let him into the class. "We only want to support you~."
"Murderous rampages and all," Eridan added, completely unnecessarily.
Karkat ignored them, because there was a classroom conundrum going on. He usually he sat near the back of the class away from the window next to Tavros—but, today, someone was in his seat.
Tavros gasped. "I th-think John Egbert is in your seat," he whispered at Karkat, who didn't know whether to cry or toss a desk out the window.
Eridan coughed in laughter behind him.
Feferi shoved his shoulder excitedly. "This is the perfect chance!" she said excitedly. "He's right there, ripe for the killing—aw, you wouldn't hit a girl, Karkat! And turn that frown upside down, I'm trying to help."
Karkat lowered his clawed hand with a lot of force, and took in a deep breath. "What the fuck am I supposed to do?" he whispered furiously at his friends. Usually he would be completely okay with John Egbert's ass touching his favorite desk—in fact, it was preferable to him touching Egbert's butt. But when he was trying to pretend to kill the guy? Come on.
"Ask for your seat back, retard," Eridan scoffed, and he walked past them to take his usual seat in front of Tavros' desk. Feferi shrugged helplessly, and she wheeled Tavros to his seat before taking her desk behind him.
Karkat was left to stare at John Egbert, who was texting and laughing in his seat, with a helpless expression.
He slowly walked over to Egbert, and cleared his throat. He needed to be cool, be confident, be Karkat. "Hey, fuckball," he said, and instantaneously heard the choked sound of laughter from fucking Eridan's direction.
Egbert looked up, his blue eyes wide and beautiful and so fucking open and Karkat can't deal—he can't deal! "Oh, hey Karkat!" he greeted happily. The golden-eyed teen felt his heart try to barrel through his chest, because holy fuck John Egbert knew his name. "Nice gloves! What's the dealio, bro?"
"You're in my seat," Karkat said in what he hoped wasn't a deadpan. God he hoped it wasn't a deadpan.
Egbert's expression dropped a little. Fuck it was a deadpan, goddammit.
"Aw, I'm sorry, Karkat," Egbert apologized, looking down with a small frown. Karkat felt like the worst fucking being on the face of this decaying planet. "But someone was in my seat, and I only took this desk because I thought you'd be cool with it—"
There was another seat behind Egbert. "Its fine," Karkat replied, trying to school his face into something that wasn't a disgusted scowl. "I'll sit in the goddamn seat behind you."
"Thanks Karkat!" Egbert looked honest to god thankful that Karkat didn't ream him or something. "I promise, you won't even notice I'm here!"
"Tough luck with that, Egbert," Eridan whispered loudly. Karkat idly wondered if the shitbag got paid for his participation in the peanut gallery.
Karkat shuffled to the seat behind Egbert and plopped down in it rather ungracefully. However, inside, he was a fucking mess. He wasn't supposed to be in such close contact with Egbert until Biology, and that was two classes away! That's when he was supposed to begin part one of Pseudo-Serialstuck, and then he was gonna go home and stalk Egbert's Chumpage until the object of his carnal affections inevitably posts a status about it.
Because John Egbert will post a status about anything and everything, jesus Christ.
And his backpack—fucking Egbert's backpack was hanging on the back of his seat, in front of Karkat, with the zipper open and everything.
It's like God wants this to happen, Karkat tried to reason with himself. God or the turns of fate that didn't hate the shit out of him.
There's no time like the present, Mother Theresa said. Well, she didn't actually say it, because it's a proverb, but she seemed like the kind of word breather that would spew some stupid shit like that.
Karkat opened his Biology book, and grabbed the envelope in between the chapter of genetics and the page talking about penises.
I can do this, he thought, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.
(He looked up 'How to kill your first love without getting caught' on Troogle, and with his dad's advice, he's become a lean, mean, fake-killing machine.)
He looked to the side, where Tavros was playing Canadian Wildlife Master Garnet Version under the desk, Eridan was combing the stupid purple part of his hair into different styles, and Feferi was texting and probably being way too enthustiastic about it.
Karkat put the envelope in Egbert's backpack.
And then he took the time to stare at the back of John's upswept bluish-black haircut wistfully.
He really fucking hoped this worked.
When he walked into Biology, Karkat's vision was unfortunately assaulted by his entire class crowded around Egbert's desk.
"What it it?" one cockchoker asked.
"Where is it from?" another dickwipe inquired.
"Dude, this is kinda creepy," some probably sensible young man stated.
Karkat crept closer to see what the hubbub was about, and to look at Egbert but that was basic human instinct.
John Egbert held a card in his hand, one with a completely blank front. At the request of some of his classmates, he turned it around to show the short, red inked message inside.
I THINK ABOUT YOU SO MUCH IT FUCKING KILLS YOU
And that was it.
Karkat thought it was appropriately creepy, and a good start towards alerting Egbert of his possible but not really death.
Egbert, however, didn't look so bothered about it, which Karkat did not understand. "I don't know," he said laughingly. "It seems, funny? Like, whoever put this in my bag is super socially awkward and doesn't know how to use pronouns very well. They probably meant to say 'it fucking kills me' or something. I like it!" He giggled, closing it and opening it again.
Karkat felt a gaze burning into the side of his head, and he knew Sollux was judging the living shit out of him.
"What did your crew have to say about it?" another classmate asked, and everyone else agreed with the question. "Were they creeped out?"
"Oh man!" Egbert crowed, grinning. "Rose thinks it's, like, a psychological goldmine. She wants to borrow it later to do some evaluations or something. Jade does think it's kinda creepy, though, which is reasonable I guess."
Fuck Rose Lalonde—Karkat was not a psychological goldmine. Jesus Christ.
"But what about Dave?"
And a chill rushed down Karkat's spine.
"Oh, Dave hasn't seen it yet," Egbert replied, shrugging. "But he probably won't be that bothered about it. He'll think its stupid or whack or whatever, and then life will go on." But his classmate continued to chatter about, asking questions and making assumptions.
Karkat took this chance to shove through them, not really caring if they yelped or made a sound of pain because he didn't really care about most of the students in his shitty school in general. God he couldn't wait to graduate.
He sat down, and took off his gloves. His hands were getting sweaty in those shits.
"KK," Sollux began right away, not even giving him a chance to get his life together. What an inconsiderate dick. "When I called you creepy, I never truly meant it. Not until right fucking now."
"Quiet down, moron!" Karkat hissed, turning around in his seat. "I'd rather not the entire fucking school know about this, unless you want me to get arrested or something you son of a homosexual union!"
"My dad'th have done nothing to you," Sollux retorted. "And even if they did, it wouldn't be nearly ath bad ath what'th gonna happen when Dave Thrider get'th a hold of thith."
"Fuck Dave Strid—"
"Dave, you've gotta check this out!" And speak of fucking Satan, the Duke of Douche has entered the building. Well, classroom, whatever. "It's creepy as shit, man! Some psycho is macking on your boyfriend!"
Strider cocked an eyebrow over his dark shades. "Like I'd date someone as cool as the Derpbert. I'm telling you that this guy is way too fucking good for a dweeb like me," he replied, and he took a step towards Egbert's desk. The crowd parted like the Red Sea immediately, and the dickwad continued forward. He snatched the paper out of his friend's hand, and opened it. "So what do we have…here…"
Strider made an expression.
It was kind of difficult for Karkat to explain, since he's never actually seen Dave Strider make any expression that wasn't a smirk or completely deadpan before.
His lips did this little downturn thing and his brow furrowed heavily as his nostrils flared. On any other person, it might've looked like apprehension or disturbance, but you can never know with goddamn Dave Strider.
"Yeah, whatever," he threw the card back on the desk. "I guess we can now elect John Egbert as the respectable mayor of Stalker City, let's give this man a round of applause." He clapped twice.
The class actually burst into a round of applause. Like, actual fucking applause.
Karkat gripped the edge of his desk and snarled lowly in his rage.
He may have loved John Egbert like his dad loved German beer, or like Harry loved Sally in When Harry Met Sally—
—but he really fucking hated Dave Strider.
end two