He actually didn't mind it as much as he thought he would. Vriska had already spoiled a great deal of it for him previously, since she was the biggest Nic Cage fanatic he'd met, so he analyzed relationships instead, one of his favorite pastimes.
The showing went by fairly uneventfully. Things exploded violently, a bunny was placed back in its box, a father was reunited with his loving wife and daughter, barbeque was deemed "good" and an ex-con redeemed himself. Popcorn supplies became severely depleted and Rasinettes were finished during the previews. Both youths were giving this film their full concentration, a reverent focus known by all movie buffs. Their hands might have brushed past each other a couple of times. Maybe three. It wasn't like Karkat was keeping count.
Soon, the movie credits were rolling past to the tune of some mellow 90s music. Chatter rose up from the seats as patrons filed down the aisles and filtered out of the popcorn-scented atmosphere and back into the bright lights of the lobby, blinking like blinded raccoons.
Karkat contemplated the overall quality of the movie. Barely any decent bits, pretty shitty overall, so entirely life-wasting. He looked over at the bucktoothed wonder.
Beside him, it appeared that John was facing an epiphany by the metaphorical horns. His blue eyes were wide with a mixture of disbelief and revelation. Karkat snickered. Not a bad look for the moronic pansy.
"I…just realized something."
Karkat rolled his eyes. Here it comes. "Yes?"
"This movie fucking sucks!"
The movie worker raised an eyebrow in mock skepticism. "What? Really? Allow me to demonstrate how remarkably surprised I am by rolling my eyes with utter compassion and empathy."
"It's just…I used to think it was so great as a kid, but I don't know. Maybe I exaggerated the nostalgia as I got older." The boy's shoulders slumped, disheartened as they walked back into the semi-light hall.
"Fuck, you don't have to look so sad about it. Think about it this way: now you can stop your abhorrent fangasming all over it and go find something else to do with your life. Like watch a decent movie. Maybe something other than a low-budget action flick with sinfully bad screenplay."
John sighed wistfully. "I doubt I'll ever find anything that good. Though maybe one of those new Batman movies is going to be good."
The theater employee snorted. "Fuck no. Superheroes are about as original as fairytale monsters. In fact, I'd rather watch some movie about troll romance than some buff guy in Spandex."
The bucktoothed boy gave Karkat an inquisitive glance. "Then what do you recommend, Mr. Expert?"
Karkat frowned. "You'd never watch it anyway."
"C'mon man, maybe I would. Just say it."
The unkempt employee studied the pattern on the carpet in an attempt to hide his face. "…50 First Dates."
John guffawed, only adding to Karkat's irritation. "What? That mushy movie?"
"You are mocking my favorite movie of all time. Are you honestly unaware of how angry this is making me or is your natural talent pissing people off?"
"I thought you were going to say something like, y'know, Deep Impact. 'Cause that's way cooler, cause Morgan Freeman's genteel-"
Karkat balled a fist. "If you spew one more work out of that blasphemous pie-hole of yours, I will do the world the infinitely gracious favor of shutting you the fuck up."
"Well at least I don't like bad romcoms. I only like good movies, since I'm the best movie critic among my friends. Really!"
Karkat rolled his eyes. "That's not what you're making out with yourself to be."
John paused. "…What?"
Karkat's face turned red as he tried to correct his slip of tongue. "Shit! I meant making yourself out with yourself, no, you're, it's…never mind, it's a figure of speech."
Boisterous laughter met this comment and continued for several minutes until John could pull himself together. Karkat's face only grew redder.
"Oh man, that was the best weird erotic slip of tongue ever! Can you do that again?"
"Shut your mouth. The very point of that matter was that this linguistic mistake was accidental. I can't 'do it again' purposefully, you ignorant conformist." Karkat gave him a reproachful look as he opened the door to the theater, letting in a gust of bone-chillingly cruel cold air.
"Dammit, it's freezing out and my sister drove off with my jacket in her car. Fuck!" He shouted the expletive at no one in particular, though several kids stared and were quickly flipped off by Karkat's practiced middle finger. As he glared at the spot where his car had previously been parked, he noticed that the insane hacker he called a friend had ditched him as soon as his shift had ended. Fucking fantastic.
While Karkat was busy being mature, John had unzipped his hoodie and was sneaking up behind the distracted acquaintance in a pranksterly fashion. Of course, when Karkat felt the warm fabric his neck, he immediately whipped around with the full intention of disemboweling the perpetrator with his bare hands, since this was obviously a kidnapping.
Of course, John was taken aback by this gesture, literally taking a few steps back before Karkat realized that he wasn't about to be held hostage by an evil drug lord.
"What in the festering pits of the underworld are you doing, asswipe?" He growled, still wary.
"Well, you seemed cold, so I was trying to give you my jacket, idiot." John countered, still holding out the offending hoodie.
"I've got bigger problems at the moment. Like a mode of transportation to the grimy hovel I call my residence."
"Geez Karkat, if it's that big of a problem, you can ride with me. Jade, Rose, and Dave sort of took off in Dave's awesome car, so there's a few free seats."
The raggedy cashier rolled his eyes. "Yes, because I must look like I was born recently and therefore have no common sense, leading me to get into a car driven by someone I met two hours ago."
John pleaded, "C'mon, it's not like I'm some wacko serial killer! But I guess I'd say that even if I was, so I guess that doesn't really convince you, but, well, my point is, you need a lift, I've got my dad's pickup, so…"
Karkat sighed. "It seems that the diabolical deity that watches over my depressingly pitiful life has left me no other choice. Why the hell not, John. You have brought my miniscule ego to its bruised and battered knees through your incessant badgering."
"Does this mean you won't try to rip my jacket to shreds?"
"Possibly. Now give it here, it's colder than a frost giant's armpit tonight. Curse the Earth's axial tilt." Karkat begrudgingly pulled the jacket over his t-shirt, completely ignoring the fact that it smelled like laundry detergent and fresh book pages and was pretty dang warm.
"Heh, well then, the truck's right over here. We got it when we moved over here a few years ago." John pointed over at a blue Chevy pickup truck in the half-full parking lot.
The duo walked over to it. It wasn't much of a sight to behold, just another truck in a southern city. The bumper was a little dented and it had seen better days. Perhaps the tough country vehicle had endured the tactless goofball's driver's license.
John fumbled getting the keys out of his pocket, managing to unlock the doors in the clumsiest way possible. Karkat went around the other side to get into the passenger side of the bench, pulling open the door too quickly and narrowly missing the cute purple VW bug next to then. As soon as he jumped into the cabin, he was punched sharply on the shoulder.
"What the hell was that for, you disgusting worthless bile sack?" Karkat grumbled, fixing a cold glare on the slightly confused moron next to him.
"Well, it was a punch buggy! So I punched you! That's how these things work, Karkat." He smiled, as if explaining the classic game of punch buggy made him obviously superior to the being in the passenger seat.
"I know how the game goes, ass-licker. What hounds the deepest layers of my psyche is the unrelenting question of why the fuck should you care."
After deciphering the meaning of the cryptic rant, John pouted. "Aw, you're no fun. Now any last prayers before I start the engine? Dad always says I have to tell people that. I don't know what he means, my driving is fine."
Karkat visibly paled. "No, no last prayers to the darkest eldritch monsters that undoubtedly rule over my life, I should be perfectly fine in passing away this very night in a pool of self-deprecation."
"Calm down, dude. I know how to drive. Promise." John twisted the key in the ignition, shifted the gears to reverse, and then pulled out of the parking lot without much of a hitch. The disgruntled movie aficionado let out a sigh of relief.
"So where do you live?" Streetlights reflected off John's glasses, dots of unnatural color splayed across the lenses.
"Take a left on Main, turn right on Andrew, left on Crimson Lane. I can tell you which one it is then." Karkat said curtly.
"Cool. I don't live that far away from there actually; we're on Crockery, just past Forest."
Karkat realized he was still wearing the kid's jacket. He'd take that off when he got home. "Not far then."
"Hey, you're on Crimson, right?"
"Yes, and if you had an attention span longer than a superheated ice cube's, you might have noticed it mentioned in the directions I just gave you." Karkat huffed.
"Isn't that where the big Overthrow movement started? Like the really big one, a couple years back. It got on the news a lot." Since he was watching the road, John missed the profound effect those words had on the passenger. Karkat stiffened immediately, eyes darting around as if he expected a memory to jump out of the shadows. He pulled the blue jacket a little tighter around himself.
"Yeah, it's where it started." His voice was slightly strained.
"Just wondering. I had to a project on it senior year. It was pretty cool if you believe the news stories. Though Washington isn't good at keeping up with all the Texas news." A green sign with "Andrew" typed on in generic white font flashed in the headlights, causing John to make a right turn.
"Yeah. Washington?" Karkat asked, trying to change the subject.
"Oh, I moved here a couple of years ago for my dad's work. Nothing very exciting. But we ended up being neighbors to some kids I met through Pesterchum, so that was a plus."
Karkat sighed exasperatedly. "Pesterchum. Understandable, seeing as you're the type of person who would waste their time trying to get advice on shitty computer programming."
"You should totally pester me sometime, I'm ectoBiologist. I had to change it since some kids started trolling me when I was younger. No idea how they got a hold of my chumhandle."
"What makes the all-knowing John capable of predicting my possession of such a worthless account?"
"You said it yourself. People who 'waste their time trying to get advice on shitty computer programming'". John shot back, mimicking the harsh tones of his acquaintance's voice.
"Well, you happen to be correct on this single account, which will no doubt warrant some sort of celebration among your immediate family members when you return home"
John chuckled. "The longer I spend around you, the more I wonder how you ended up talking like that."
Karkat could feel his ire rising. "Attention idiot, in my ever-suffering patience I suppose I'm required to explain this to the bone-thick layer draped across the diminutive organ you dare call a brain-"
"There you go again! The weirdly erotic metaphors for stupid things. Heh, I'm not going to lie, it's kind of entertaining. What were you saying again?" The asphalt intersection of Andrew and Crimson lit up under the headlights, causing John to twist the wheel in a smooth turn.
"I guess my extreme irritation that is drawn from the deepest abysses of anger isn't sufficient. It seems that absolutely nothing will heal the disease you call idiocy."
The bespectacled driver rolled his eyes. "Idiocy isn't a disease, numb-nuts."
"And you continue to validate my sound point with every malformed word from your discombobulated larynx." Karkat said smugly, brown eyes flickering to the white mailbox with rusted numbers nailed to the pole. "Stop here, this is the one."
A/N: For those who don't know about the marvelous pranksterly game of punchbuggy, I apologize, it's pretty dang common around the small corner of America I call home. Basically, whenever you see a Volkswagen Beetle car, you punch the person next to you and say "Punch buggy!" or "-insert color- one!". I have no idea whether or not this is exclusively American/East Coast, but I'm pretty sure it happens in Texas X3
Karkat is like my inner accidentally-erotic-overly-verbose poet. Trying to realistically type like him is practically an unattainable goal though. I settle for keeping some of his rants on Notepad and pulling them up when I have to write. I doubt I'll ever get the opportunity to use "GARGANTUAN TEAT OF A LABORING, LEPROUS MUSCLEBEAST". And as we dip slightly into Karkat's highly complex backstory, the Overthrow movement! Name inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement, of course.
And in reply to some reviews, thank you, bluelanterns for the praise! Also Magzy, don't worry, I fully intend on writing this thing out. Writer's block, however, is a totally different question. So far avoiding it. Read and review :) Happy Turkey Day!