{Karkat,John}

On days such as this, Karkat really hated his job. He didn't care about the hours, considering he had nothing better to do. The pay was actually pretty decent for a movie theater. The customers were most often no trouble to handle, just going in, buying tickets and snacks, watching the movie of their choice, and getting out. No. All of that stuff was fine.

The real problem came with the idiot he had to deal with three days a week.

His boss, an annoying old man that seemed to know everything, was a fan of the buddy system. He set all of the employees up into teams of two, teams that revolved daily. If a particular team worked very well together, they would likely become stuck with each other more and more often.

Karkat didn't like people, as a rule, but that imbecile John, the ass he had to spend so many work hours with, really took the cake.

"Hey, Karkat! I really want to see this ghost movie!" He pointed at a terribly designed poster. "Do you think I could sneak in, and you know, and act like an usher or something?"

"No, dickweed, I don't!" Karkat ground out, scrubbing the countertop harder than necessary. "You know Scratch would find out. If you don't want to get your ass fired, stick to your post."

"Well that's stupid!" John finished refilling the napkin dispenser, and looked over at him. "Do we get employee discounts?"

"You've been working here for three months and you still don't know?"

Karkat dropped the bag of popcorn kernels from where he'd been about to load the machine and glared at the idiot beside him. He was overflowing with incredulous hatred for this guy right now. John immediately began to defend himself.

"Well, I've been busy with school and stuff," He adjusted his glasses in a pointed manner. "Unlike some people I know!"

In a flash, Karkat had the other's shirt in his fisted grip. He was seething with rage. How dare he! How fucking DARE he!

"Drop out doesn't mean mentally impaired, asswipe!" He ground out furiously. "Just because I'm not going to get a fucking rolled up piece of paper and-"

"Karkat."
"DON'T FUCKING INTERRUPT ME, JACKASS!"
"Fine, but Karkat-"
"SHUT UP! OR ARE YOU UNABLE TO CLOSE THAT BEAVER TOOTHED-"
"Hey! Dude, you should really-"
"NO! I"M TIRED OF TAKING YOUR BULLSHIT ALL THE TIME!"
"Karkat! Look ou-mmph!"

Due to his outrage, Karkat had failed to notice that he had forgotten to close the door to the popcorn machine. It had stayed put for awhile, but it eventually began to swing a little bit. And then a little faster. And faster. And faster until it gained enough momentum to bang into Karkat's back.

This caused him to stumble, and, because he was still holding on to John's shirt, he instinctively pulled it down with him. That made both of them fall, in Karkat's case, with his mouth smashing right onto the other's.

He scrambled off of his coworker like he'd been burned, hand covering his mouth. His whole face turned an impressive shade of red. John sat up, slowly. He rubbed his mouth a little, wincing.

"I think you bent my teeth, dude."

For a minute, there was no response, before he averted his eyes, blushed even harder, and let out a muffled 'fuck you.'

"Well, that was a monumental fucking waste of time," Karkat stood up and facing away from John, dusted himself off. "Help me with this goddam popcorn."

"Sure."

Quietly, both settled back into their work. The incident was never brought up again, though Karkat swore his boss had snickered a little when he picked up his paycheck for the week.