Author: Karkat really loves his glove.
Forget About Fingernails
Karkat lies passed out under several blankets. His fever has gone down since earlier this morning when John and Jane left for school, but only by a couple tenths of a degree. Celsius.
The bleach, though having a strong chlorine smell, couldn't mask the smell of the stomach fluid that had been expelled by Karkat just fifteen minutes earlier. So John walks into the room and is nearly knocked on his behind by the overpowering stench emanating from around the bed and the walls and…Karkat's backside…
…Well, that's kind of embarrassing…for both Karkat and John: Karkat because he isn't doing it intentionally and John because he's probably going to have to check to make sure Karkat hasn't soiled the bed…again. It isn't his fault that humans don't have recuperacoons with sopor slime to dissolve all that literal crap.
Now that the thought crosses his mind, John begins to worry if some of that sopor-slime acid may be responsible for that rash he had down…no, that thought is banned for reasons too personal for you readers to know about. But yes, it does involve the troll on the bed.
John walks cautiously over to the bed, aware that there could either be a puddle of weird brownish-red stuff there for him to clean up, or that there is a loaded cannon ready to fire a brownish-red liquid-y cannonball his way as soon as he moves the blankets. Why does he choose that side to check? Because karkat is lying right next to the edge of the bed and John doesn't feel like reaching all the way across his and Karkat's queen-sized bed to pull back the covers on the other side. When he reaches down he notices something wrong with the nail on his right middle finger. When did it get bruised?
It wasn't really bruised so much as it looked infected. The lunula appeared to have turned a pale shade of yellow. The rest of the nail, excluding the tip, was turning an odd shade of reddish-purple. The tip itself seems to be rotting away. "John," Karkat moans, beginning to wake up from a short, miserable nap.
"I'm here, Karkat. Just relax."
"John…what's wrong…with your voice?"
"My…my voice? Nothing's wrong with it."
"Yes…It's all scratchy and…scraaaaaahhhhhhhtchy." Karkat yawns.
"Hmmm," John hums to himself to see if his voice is scratchy, but he notices no difference. "Karkat, I think you're just hearing things." Karkat is fast asleep once again, unable to hear anything John says or does. "Well, I guess I better check the bed…"
Just as he begins to pull the covers up Karkat reaches his hand out and grabs Johns arm quickly, startling him. "Karkat, I thought you were asleep."
"DO NOT TELL ME WHAT I AM AND WHAT I AM NOT! DO YOU THINK THIS IS ALL JUST A GAME?!"
"What the…"
"ANSWER ME! I DEMAND TO KNOW RIGHT NOW! DID YOU OR DID YOU NOT CHEAT ON ME WITH THAT WHORE PIECE OF SHIT JOHN?!
"Karkat, what are you talking about?"
"GAMZEE, ANSWER ME RIGHT NOW?! DID YOU OR DID YOU NOT SLEEP WITH THE JOHN HUMAN BEHIND MY BACK?!"
"Karkat, I—did you just call me a whore piece of shit?"
"JOHN! GO AWAY AND SLEEP WITH GAMZEE AGAIN! NOW! I NEVER WANT TO SEE YOU AGAIN AND CAN NEVER FORGIVE YOU FOR THIS!"
Jane and Gamzee burst into the room to see what's happening. "John, why is Karkat yelling, besides the normal reason," Jane asks.
"I don't know. I just went to check the bed to see if he soiled the sheets and he grabbed my arm and started this."
"Are you motherfuckin' hurtin him?"
"Gamzee, you do realize he's addressing you in his little rant, right?"
"He grabbed your motherfuckin' arm!"
"Gamzee, this is why I never wanted you to stay here. You get to violent without your sopor slime."
"JUST GO! FUCK YOU ALL!"
"So, does this mean that our rekindlin' moirailship is motherfuckin' over?"
"I don't know. If that's the case then me and Karkat are over too."
"I guess I could probably call Rose over to…Oh my god! John, what's wrong with your finger?!" Jane suddenly becomes more worried about John.
"I don't know." John looks down at his hand to see that not just his middle fingernail, but all of them on his right hand have rotted away, except for the yellowing lunulae. "Jane…call 9-1-1."
"John, 9-1-1 only worked in the old universe."
"Then what's the fucking emergency number for this one?!"
"I don't know! Call dad, he'll tell us!"
"No. I don't want dad to know about this."
"John, your fingernails are rotting away to nothingness. I don't think there's any chance he won't notice."
"Well, call Rose."
"Why not Kanaya," Jane asks, putting a serious look on her face.
"Because Kanaya doesn't know how to listen."
Gamzee's phone rings. He goes out to the hall to answer it and returns a few minutes later. "It was Kanaya. She said she wants to talk to John but he won't answer anything."
"See, John, Kanaya has been trying to get a hold of you ever since after lunch and all you've been doing is ignoring her."
"Fine, call her. Invite her over to dinner. Do whatever, just leave me alone while doing it."
Jane and Gamzee both give John a dirty look on their way out the bedroom door. John looks down at his hand, still missing fingernails. He looks around the room for something to cover up his hand. All he sees is a silver glove with silver sparkles belonging to Karkat. He knew that if he even touched it Karkat would go all kismesis on his ass for a while. And a few nights of hateful love making isn't John's idea of a good time in bed.
But he is kind of desperate. Hopefully Karkat knows that his rant was over a dream and wasn't real. John can only hope. If Karkat believed his dream, that would only add on to the kismesissitude that would half-way develop between them. Seriously, why does Karkat love Michael Johnson so much? After all, he barely even likes troll music back on Alternia.
But desperate times call for desperate measures. Surely enough Karkitty would understand…right? Hehe, right?
Okay, John, Karkat won't get TOO mad. There will only be a little bit of blood left behind. Candy. Cherry. Red. Blood.
"Karkat, you won't mind if I borrow your Michael Johnson glove, would you? Go on another little rant for 'no.'"
Karkat snores.
"Okay…snore again for 'no.'"
Karkat remains silent.
"Well then. Remain silent for 'no.'"
"NOOKWHIFF!"
"I'll consider that a little rant." John walks over to Karkat's desk. Karkat keeps the glove in an airtight jar on his desk to keep it preserved and clean. Karkat sure can be weird…wait, are all trolls psychic? I hope not. Karkat, if you can read my mind, I didn't mean weird in a bad way. And, could you just ignore everything in my mind from now on?
Okay, John has finally lost it. He's crazy. Attempting to keep his mind completely blank, he silently opens the jar and reaches his hand in.
I SWEAR, IF JOHN TOUCHES MY GLOVE, EVEN JUST ONE TINY PATHETIC CELL IN HIS BODY TOUCHES THAT GLOVE, I WILL MURDER THE FUCK OUT OF HIM, SEVER HIS HEAD, AND SHIT DOWN HIS PROTEIN CHUTE!
Okaaaaaaaay, that was a fun little tease that John just now pulled. Now to pull out his hand and replace the lid. It appears that Karkat can read his mind and even put his voice in his head. That's enough for John to reconsider everything he has done and ever will do again.
John looks back down at his hand. The rotting appears to be spreading to the first knuckles on his fingers. The tips are a weird shade of reddish-purple-ish-blue…ish, just like his now-nonexistent fingernails. Now that Karkat has warned him about the glove, he is kind of afraid of it. he has to find another way to hide his hand. Maybe Karkat won't be so mad if we role play with the glove? John, stop thinking like that. Karkat will be pissed if you touch that thing.
"John! Kanaya's here," Jane calls from the living room.
"Oh shit," John says to himself. He suddenly finds himself in a panic. Perhaps if I can just get away with keeping my hand in my pocket…
He shoves his hand in his pocket. His other hand slaps his mouth with his forefinger and thumb pinching his nose to muffle a scream ripping away at his lips. The nerve endings exposed after his fingernails rotted away definitely do NOT get along with the fabric of his pants pocket.
"John, get your motherfuckin' ass in here before I come in and carry it!" Okay, so he thought he could stall a little bit with Jane, but Gamzee? Never. Not in a million years would it ever be okay to make Gamzee wait, unless you're Karkat. Gamzee idolizes Karkat. "I'm coming," John shouts back.
John attempts to hold his hand in a position where the fingertips won't be in contact with the fabric in his pocket. After doing so, he attempts to wear a straight face, though he knows that the pain still shows through anyway. Why couldn't he have bought an extra pair of aviators when he bought one for Dave?
He walks into the living room. Kanaya sits patiently on the couch with Gamzee, Jane, and Dad, who just got home, in the chair across the coffee table. "John," Dad says, "I think your friends have something to tell you."
"By the sound of your voice it doesn't sound good," John replies.
"I haven't been told a thing."
John sits in the love seat between the couch and chair. Kanaya turns to him to begin to talk. "John, I'm not sure about how I should approach this, so I'm just going to say it: there is a very good possibility that you are going to die."
"Kanaya, like I said before—"
"John, I fucking know that you aren't turning into a fucking pile of fucking goo! Just Shut Up And Let Me Talk!"
"Okay. Calm down."
"I put the skin sample on one of the electron microscopes in biology, and something very alarming and surprising came up. it appears that every cell in your body is forming a microbial cyst."
"And that's bad…how?"
"John," Dad joins in the conversation, "a microbial cyst is something a microbe, say, a bacterium, forms around itself when conditions for its life are not ideal. The cysts stay until conditions are ideal. If your cells are forming cysts, that means that something isn't right. Human anatomy cannot handle microbial cysts."
"Oh."
"I talked to Rose about it and she said she would try to contact someone who no one has ever seen before, well, actually, he has been seen, but only at his haunted house on Halloween. He does appear very different."
"Kanaya, why are you all doing this?"
"Because we don't want you to die." Her phone dings. She looks and sees that she has a new message from Rose. "John, would you mind if I take this? It's from Rose."
"No."
- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering grimAuxiliatrix [GA] at 15:45 -
TT: He said yes.
GA: Okay Im Here Talking To John Jane And Gamzee Right Now
TT: Okay. He said to stop by around noon tomorrow.
GA: Okay Where Does He Live
TT: Just meet with me after school and I'll drive us. It will only take a half hour.
GA: Okay
- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering grimAuxiliatrix [GA] -
"We are supposed to meet Rose to go converse with the first guardian tomorrow."
"The who now," Dad asks.
"Not you, sorry, you are to stay here."
Author: Okay, just so I don't get messages regarding this, Michael Johnson is this universe's version of Michael Jackson. Get over it.