In the morning, the encounter with the stranger seemed like a surreal episode, a hallucination created by the combination from hell: sleep deprivation and silly fears. Still, he was feeling rather curious about the whole business. There was the slim possibility that the events from the night before actually took place. Biting his lip in anticipation, he reached out and tentatively opened the door to the closet, just so that he could glimpse inside.
A gasp escaped his lips when, indeed, the stranger was still sitting there, in the exact same position as the night before and wide awake. This time, John recovered from the surprise quicker.
"Err...good morning and by the way...who are you and what are you doing in my closet?" Yep, this seemed like an adequate thing to say.
The strange person blinked and didn't reply right away. "I don't see how this is your fucking business."
"Well, this is kinda my closet you're sitting in, so I would say this is my business."
The stranger contemplated this, mumbled a few incredibly nasty insults, and finally seemed to accept this explanation and dubbed himself as Karkat Vantas. John couldn't help but giggle. This Karkat came off as rather rude, but reasonable and not really as dangerous as he had assumed earlier. And besides, that was a pretty funny name.
"Quit laughing, you derp!" Karkat growled. His golden eyes were narrowed and the corners of his lips curled in a scowl, but his posture did not change, meaning that he was not about to attack.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to! I am John Egbert by the way!" John introduced himself with a goofy smile he couldn't suppress. Maybe he should call the police or someone who could deal with this better than him. But somehow, he didn't feel particularly compelled to throw Karkat out.
They might have started off on the wrong foot, but Egbert was not one to judge someone by first impressions.
Suddenly, there was a knock on his room's door and he quickly shut the closet and dived beneath the covers of his bed, waiting for the person to enter. He had forgotten about school for a second there.
Jade appeared in the doorway, allowing the smell of cupcakes to drift into his room. His stomach churned uncomfortably and so it wasn't very hard to pretend to be sick. It took some convincing, but because John was usually such a nice kid, she bought it and eventually left him alone.
Actually, this was the first time he really did feign sickness instead of simply exaggerating any symptoms he may have had. When he was sure that his sister was somewhere downstairs once more, he returned to his closet to find that Karkat hadn't moved an inch.
Okay, so now they had both introduced themselves and everything but there still remained the issue why Karkat chose to hide in his closet. And how he got there in the first place. Because seriously, it was really fucking creepy.
The guy in his closet flinched when John asked him and his constant scowl deepened. "Look, I...It doesn't fucking matter how or why. Maybe I can do shitty magic, for all you know." The glare he was giving John almost seemed challenging.
This explanation was crappy as hell, yet John did not press further on the matter. Apparently his guest was uncomfortable with this topic and as long as he wasn't some crazy serial murderer or some other sort of criminal, all was well. And besides, Karkat did look somehow like he could pull off some magic.
"Alright, Karkat!" The bespectacled boy grinned at Karkat and stepped aside for him to leave the closet, however his new friend showed no signs of moving from his spot between John's shirts and his beloved movie collection.
At the quizzical glance John sent him, Karkat merely replied "There is no fucking reason whatsoever to move from this spot, derp. Now leave me alone and fetch me something to eat, human! "
While rather confused by Karkat's choice of words, John stumbled down the stairs, intend on snatching some cake or cupcake for his new friend to eat. No need to get on Karkat's wrong side right at the beginning of their friendship. Those baked abominations would finally be put to some good use.
His dad was nowhere to be seen, so getting the aforementioned abominations was no problem and he didn't have to keep the act of the poor sick child up.
Karkat eyed the strawberry-frosted cupcake with mild suspicion, yet took the offered treat. In the whole time that John had known the weird guy, his face had been set in a scowl or at least in a remotely grouchy expression. Upon tasting the sugary pastry, his face lit up and John swore he saw a tear bubbling up in the corner of those creepy eyes.
In an attempt to hide this and to protect his masculinity (or whatever, not like John cared), Karkat turned his head away and caught sight of the stack of movies. For some reason, it always embarrassed John when people browsed through his collection, because various times he was told that his taste in films was goddamn-awful, so he watched the scene enfold with mild apprehension.
Karkat was not making any comments as expected, but instead picked up Con-Air, John's all-time favorite movie. Maybe it was a good sign that this guy didn't reject it right-away? Maybe it was a sign that their friendship was meant to be? Well, not like John was concerned about good or bad signs and simply did what he deemed right.
"You wanna watch that movie with me?"
"...Well, if you ask me looking so fucking derpy and shit over it, I'd be more of a goddamn asshole than usual to say no." He then mumbled something along the lines of "Why do human movies always have so fucking short titles?", but John was sure that he was only hearing things.
And as they watched Con Air in John's closet because Karkat still refused to move out of it, while Karkat claimed this was the shittiest movie in human history and a waste of his precious time and that it might've damaged his fragile 'thinking pan', John felt distinctly like this was the start of a wonderful, wonderful friendship.
Afterwards, Karkat still seemed incredibly hostile, but he agreed to watch another, albeit more romantic movie and didn't even cuss at John.
And that's why John Egbert is no longer afraid of monsters hiding in his room and how he befriended the crabby guy in his closet.
Because Karkat was a little paranoid and because even John was a little worried about his friends' reactions, he never told them that there was someone living in his closet. It's not every day you simply strike up a friendship with someone who appeared in your closet out of thin air. Not that he was worried that one of them might think badly about him, no, he was afraid they might not believe him or worse, did not like Karkat. As it turned out, this would come back to bite him in the ass. Sort of.
One day Dave Strider, John's best bro ever (next to Karkat of course.), was staying at Egbert's household to join his bespectacled friend in a Nicolas Cage marathon, because that's what best bro's do. Those movies are bonding.
As John retrieved their popcorn, he called up to his bro "Dave, can you get a movie out already? Just pick one you like" and happily operated the microwave. Since they had so much to do for school nowadays and because Dave had a girlfriend now, they rarely had time to hang out andwhatthefuck,whathadhedone?
Horrified at the vision of what could happen, John rushed upstairs and into his room, almost running Jade over in the process. He practically fell into his room, breathing heavily and stared at what was occurring.
The closet was wide open, revealing Karkat in all his growling and glaring glory inside and Dave stood in front of this, rooted to the spot.
It was too late.
The blonde took a step back, carefully closed the closet and pushed his dark shades further up the bridge of his nose. Strider strolled towards John in a casual, cool way and John waited for whatever Dave had to say to this with bated breath. Undoubtedly, it would be a cool and calm answer.
John almost let a small shriek when suddenly, his best bro placed a hand on his shoulder, face unreadable as ever.
"I am going to assume that you learned the ways of being ironic, bro."
And with that, Dave was out of the room, out of the house and then far, far away, the house down the street.
"What the fuck is up with that douche? And are we gonna watch these shitty piece of crap you refer to as movies now or not, Egderp?"
Dave was a tough guy who wouldn't be overly disturbed by the recent events and even if he wasn't, he needed time to process the things he'd seen, John decided, and happily skipped over to his other best bro.
Why. Why did this take me so long to update? It appears I have some troubles finishing stuff and I really wanted to get this right. So please bear with me.
We have already reached the end of this story, so thank you very much for the lovely reviews and the favs . I really hope you enjoyed the second part of this!
Again, criticism and general feedback are highly appreciated ^^