"Ooh, John! Who's yrou friend? *your" Roxy slurred at him almost immediately. She always came to school slightly trashed and it never ceased to baffle him how she managed to get away with it time and time again. He could smell the booze on her and one glance at Karkat showed he could too.
Karkat had already made a promise to himself that he would try not to be an asshole to these people so as not to embarrass John. Already this was proving a tough challenge. This trashy blonde was hanging on John looking right at him, she reeked of alcohol and was slurring. He didn't like the way her eyes traveled from his face downward and it made him even more uncomfortable where they rested.
"Uh, Roxy this is Karkat! Karkat, this is Roxy." John was uneasy about this. Karkat had never been one to sugar coat things or put up with behavior like Roxy's'. Things got worse as Roxy detached herself from him and strutted over to Kar, draping herself around him.
"Well hello there, Karkab!" She said breathing heavily into his face. 1,2,3,4 this was a trick John had taught him just count to ten, 5,6,7,8 ,9, 10.
"Hello Roxy, it's uh, nice to meet you. By the way it's Karkat." He said it in an awkward way, half because he was feigning politeness and half because he really wanted to scream at this drunk bitch.
John's mouth hung wide open. Literally hung wide open, he could tell Karkat was actually really trying to be nice so to honor his valiant efforts he swooped in to save him. "Well Roxy we really better get going, lots to do and show!" He said with a fake, overly cheery smile. Without noticing, a small crowd of girls had formed around them. They had come first out of curiosity, then out of desire to talk to the little troll. John couldn't really blame them; Karkat was quite the sight for sore eyes. What am I thinking? I am not a homosexual.
"Hey there cutie, why don't you let me show you around?" one girl catcalls.
"Ooh, I'll come too we can all talk about how interesting it must be to be an albino!"
Is this bitch serious? I'm not even a real albino and I want to rip my hair out.
"Oh wow, are those colored contacts?"
"No stupid, remember what Dave said?" she started to whisper, "It's because of his disorder!"
Yeah, so that was definitely their cue to leave, John grabbed Karkat by the shoulders and steered him through an opening in the girls.
"My god do they always do that to new people? Are they so bulge hungry that they attack any new prey that happens to stroll into their environment?" John snickered at his comment.
Nudging Karkat with his elbow he praised, "Good job with Roxy, I thought you were really going to tear her a new one, but you held it together really well!"
"Yeah well trust me; it wasn't as easy as it may have sounded." Karkat retorted, a slight shudder taking him from the thought of her 'hug'.
It was like a constant battle trying to keep people away, they were always reaching out trying to grab Karkat's arm. Once they even tried to snatch his beanie, luckily John was fast and stopped that train in its tracks. They had gotten to the school a bit earlier than expected and had extra time much to their dismay. Roaming the halls proved to not be an option so John suggested they head to the first hour class. A proposition Karkat was more than pleased to agree to.
"Remind me again why I was so fixated on coming to this place?" he grumbled as they walked into the class. To make matters worse there were assigned seats so instead of sitting next to John he had to sit in the very back with some particularly sketchy looking kids. Cursing his luck, he rested his head on his hand and counted to ten.
A hoarse whisper came from his left, "Hey, hey freak!" His skin prickled at the boys' choice of words. He turned his head to look, the boy had short blonde hair and an eyebrow piercing, his face was square and his nose had a bump of cartilage right in the middle. He looked greasy and had a slight outbreak of acne on his chin and forehead, his eyes were red where they should have been white making his grey-blue irises looked fogged over.
"Can I help you?" Karkat said through gritted teeth, still trying his hardest to be polite despite this asshole's harassing.
"Who the fuck has red eyes? Like really what are you some kind of vampire wannabe? Go back to fucking Transylvania you freak." this comment made the boys around him chuckle. Karkat chose to go back to his original position and count to ten; actually let's make that twenty, Karkat chose to count to twenty because at this point he was going to need twice the time to calm down.
"Hey fuckface I ain't done talking to you, turn your ass around. What? Scared you'll knock off your faggy ass beanie?" The boys around him were practically in hysterics now. Karkat never did understand why the use of homosexuality in teasing was so funny, or why it was so looked down upon, it was a normal occurrence in troll society and even in the human species. Then again, the humans proved repeatedly they had a screw loose in the damn think-pan so Karkat chose to just stop thinking about it.
Rough hands gripped his shoulders, squeezing tight through the knit material, his chair was pulled out from under him, but that didn't really matter seeing as how he had been slammed into the wall. Karkat was under a barrage of hands, some trying to hurt him, others trying to help but still doing more damage than anything. Voices, high and frantic, merged in confusion and frustration. He wasn't really worried about any of that, his primary concern was keeping that godforsaken beanie on his head and praying no one would try to rip it off.
He could tell by the way the teacher moved about the boys this was probably a regular occurrence, but it still didn't ease his nerves. He couldn't fight back; he'd sworn he would behave. He was helpless against this brute and that pissed him off more than anything else. As they ripped the thug off him he felt a hot sting slide across his abdomen, that fuck had a small knife hidden in his sleeve!
Well fuck him and all his ancestors before him. I hope his goddamn lucus is proud of this because the level of fuckery has reach anew and I cannot even begin to comprehend. No fuck him I will not go to the nurse I would rather ride hoof beasts with that fuck Equius than admit defeat to this ass. His thoughts were like fuel to the fire.
"Mr. Vantas are you alright? You seem to be bleeding?" The teacher asks obviously concerned.
"I'm fine." a curt reply is about as polite as it is going to get. Hands are still placed on his shoulders, soft hands, light and feathery, light as air; it's John. When did he get there? He didn't seem hurt, but he was slightly out of breath.
"I'll take him to the nurse's office sir." The tone John used was uncharacteristic of him, sensing this the teacher did not protest and neither did Karkat. He hadn't known how much he'd been shaking until he felt John pull him all the way up; gasps filled the room as the entire class noticed the cut the thug had made. It burned but he refused to show any signs of pain, as he passed he heard a cluster of girls talk about how manly and strong he was.
Gog, this was a terrible fucking idea. He felt Johns hand slide from his arm down to his own hand, grasping it tightly. The cut was really starting to hurt now, most likely because of how fast they were walking, "John I really don't want to go to a nurse, I-" Within a flash John had yanked them into some room. There was cleaning supplies lying around and an array of other miscellaneous items.
"Why the fuck are we in this shit shack?" Karkat exclaimed before looking to the other boy. His head was hung low and now he was the one shaking. Karkat knew he was crying before the first sniffling sob broke out.
"Ah, John! Don't cry, look this…room isn't so bad I guess…" Of course, he would get it wrong. This almost made John laugh.
"No it's not the room!" he managed to say.
"Well then what's wrong?" Well that's a stupid question, obviously if it's not the room it's the fact you just got jumped by some greaseball.
"I couldn't help you!" John murmured as he sunk to the ground. "That asshole attacked you and I couldn't get him off before he carved you like a pumpkin."
This made Karkat snicker, "If you think this little thing is 'carved like a pumpkin' remind me to keep you away from Kanaya." John still whimpered. Scratching the back of his head, Karkat did the only thing he really knew how to do when someone was emotionally freaking out. Sitting down in front of John, carefully though so as not to aggravate the cut, he leisurely reached out his hand and placed it on Johns head. He began to pet John's hair and gradually added his other hand lightly patting his cheek.
"Karkat what are you-"
"Shoosh."
"Karka-"
"Shoo-oo-oosh!"
A hot blush crept across Johns cheeks and he was thankful the room was dim so the troll could not see. Karkat was looking directly at him with a soft look on his face as he continued to pet John's hair.
"Better?" Karkat asked a little concerned.
"Yeah, I guess so," John noticed that they still had done nothing about the cut, "Oh shit, I think I have some band-aids in my locker!"
"Nah," Karkat replied passively, "Just leave it. I've had worse." This made John feel a twinge of the same sadness he'd just gotten semi over.
"Well we at least need to do something about your sweater, it's ripped now." Looking down he realized, yes, the sweater was indeed ripped right across the middle.
"Ah, shit. I didn't think to pack anything else!" Karkat moaned.
"Here," John retorted as he took off his sweater, "Just wear this."
He handed it over to Karkat who set it down. "Well aren't you going to put it on?" John asked quizzically. In response to that, Karkat ripped the remaining parts of the sweater.
"What are you doing?" John shouted, surprised by the sudden removal of the garment. "I don't want to get blood all over your sweater; I'm making a makeshift wrap."
With that, Karkat wrapped a thin piece of the sweater over the wound, which was much deeper than he'd expected, and secured it with the sleeves he'd torn off and tied together. John watched this in awe; his friend really did have an amazing physique, and pain tolerance. Wiping the excess blood off his belly and hands, Karkat slid the light blue sweater over his head and gingerly into its place.
Sky Blue turned out to be a very cute color for him, John noted seeing the way it made Karkat's eyes shine even more vibrant.
"Hello, John? John Egbert are you with us?" Karkat was waving a hand in front of his face.
"Oh, sorry Kar, guess I blanked out."
"Yeah I noticed, let's go I heard someone passing say the bell was about to ring, isn't that a code to all of you that it's time to move to the next fun filled class?"
The last part was dripping with sarcasm; after checking to make sure no one was watching they popped out of the room, which was ironically enough a janitors closet, and headed towards their lockers. The next few classes Karkat had alone; out of the four of them in only one did he sit near the front. He'd noticed a pattern, teachers usually put the misfit douche bags in the back and clustered the normal kids toward the front, every time they set him in the back they promised to make room closer up. He could only pray they were serious.
John was anxious for every class period, constantly worrying about if people were still picking on his friend. He hadn't realized that he and Dave had four whole classes straight that they did not share with Karkat.
"Dude, calm down. The little guy is tougher than you think, gotta be with all the shit he spurs."
Dave lucidly remarked as he sketched yet another idea for his comic blog, SBAHJ.
"Yeah but what if it's not like… You know physical attacks, what if they're being mean to him?" John pondered.
"Yo. He'll be fine. No one's going to pick on the kid. Jeez, did you see how he raked in the bitches this morning? Kid will be fine."
Seriously, are there honestly no other seats besides the ones in the back? Are the teachers just endlessly fucking with him? The past two classes had been nothing but being punched in the back, verbally harassed, and poked with cork pins. Who just carries around a cork pin though? Like how honestly fucked up do you have to be to get out of bed and think, hmm I'm going to jab some poor bastard in the back with a fucking cork pin. BECAUSE THAT'S NORMAL.
He was counting to one hundred now; his senses were on overdrive trying to predict when the next strife was going to occur. Fortunately, there were only 10 minutes left to this class and then it was lunch. He'd already gone through the carrots and pretzels and was left with only the peanut butter and jelly, granola bar, and faygo. Ignoring whatever trash they were tossing at him he thought about the snack pack John had made him. He was most excited for the sandwich. It had been handmade and even had the crust cut off, it may have seemed like a little gesture of kindness to some, but to him it was a big deal. No one ever did things like that for him and even though he was a jerk most of the time, he made sure to show how much he appreciated it.
His phone vibrated, back here the teacher would have no way of seeing if he checked it, and the idiots around him had taken a short intermission on making his life a living hell. Oh great it was from Vriska:
"Just it would 8e nice to tell you, if you fuck
this up and start some sort of crazy anarchy
8ecause they found out that you are in fact
a troll it's all your fault(:"
There seem to be people everywhere, Karkat can feel his heart beating, thudding against his chest in some mad and despite attempt to break free. They have their eyes glued to him, analyzing every nook and cranny of him, they're learning his secret and they don't intend on keeping it. Of course he'd fuck it up; he was the grand master at fucking it up. Fucking things up was his specialty, his talent. The bell rings and a flurry of colors fly past him each ready for lunch, the kids behind him don't waste a free opportunity to hit him off guard.
The teacher foolishly leaves the room and wanders into the hallway, and that's when they attack. One hits him above the right eye, another in the collarbone; he's so tired he doesn't even try to tense up he just lets it happen. He won't fight back and risk embarrassing John or even that fuckass Dave. Another blow to the cheek this time on the left side, he feels heat poor down his face and he cranes his head forward saving the sweater from any overly crimson drops. He's on the floor now, sighing heavily as they leave, the last one kicking him in the stomach for good measure. That's the one that hurts the most; his vision is clouded by stars and colors, his face feels like pins and needles. As he waits for it to pass he hears the teacher come back, but this is ever so faintly as the ringing in his head rather drowns everything out.
Clarity finally comes like a god sent angel and he scoops everything up and dashes out the door, somehow tissues were stuck in his nose and he was actually somewhat grateful for that. Making a mad dash for the restroom, he turned the corner hard and knocked right into someone.
"Oh my Gog are you seri…" He began until he realized who it was.
Dave Strider stared down at him , rubbing the spot Karkat's head had hit on his chest. "Hey little man," shock took over his face, "Holy shit bro, what the hell happened to you half-pint?" He sounded generally concerned but Karkat hated all the damn short jokes.
"Nothing, just some ignoramuses in my classes." he tried to turn his head in a way that Dave could not see the growing bruises or bloody tissues hanging out his nose, but it was to no avail. Dave delicately took Karkat's face in his hands and examined him thoroughly.
"John is seriously going to shit bricks yo." He said nonchalantly. Sliding his arm across Karkat's shoulders, Dave steered him to the sinks. "C'mon, let's clean you up some." This was the nicest Dave had ever been to Karkat and it made him a bit apprehensive.
"Why don't you just fight back? I know you have it in you, you could hand their asses to them on a frying pan if you wanted." Dave interrupted.
Karkat just sighed, "I promised I would behave."