So, I had actually finished this a few days after the last post, but a storm came and it knocked out our Internet for a few days. -_-
But anyways, here it is! An update! Yay!
Thanks to everyone for giving really nice comments and asking for the next update! I'm really sorry I couldn't get this to y'all sooner. Though I will warn you, I had to edit this one quite a bit more than usual, so I may have possibly missed some ridiculous mistakes. If I did, I apologize.
John Egbert was not a nervous mess about his soon-to-arrive troll.
He wasn't. Anyone who told you different was definitely lying, because John was totally cool about the whole thing. There was nothing wrong here. Nothing. Just because he screamed a little when someone rang his doorbell did not mean he was scared.
"John? Are you okay?" A familiar voice called from the other side of the door, making him both laugh and sigh in relief.
"Oh, yeah! Sorry Jade!" He chuckled opening the door to find her staring at him in obvious concern. "I—the doorbell startled me a little is all. What's up? Usually you message me before coming over."
He stepped aside to allow her in and shut the door behind her, following Jade into his living room. She plopped down on one of the couches, hands clasped in her lap as she looked back up at him. "I was just coming over to check with you that everything is okay. It seems Dave and Rose were given their trolls early, so I wanted to make sure you were prepared in case the delivery guys dropped in on you."
Not mentally. "Of course! Who do you take me for, anyway? I already have all the stuff he or she will need!"
"And you did your research? Read the email Dirk sent out?"
Dirk emails? When did that become a thing? "Uh . . . well, I read some stuff online, but I didn't read any email from Dirk . . ."
"You should. It has really important information about our trolls!" She must have seen him digging through his pocket for his phone, because she waved at him to stop, "But you can do that later. You can't just ignore a guest like that, you know!"
"Whoops. Sorry, Jade," he sheepishly replied, sliding his phone back into his pocket.
She giggled, so he assumed she wasn't too offended, however she sobered up quickly. "Make sure you know what you're doing, John. I'm serious. Trolls are naturally very dangerous, especially this batch."
"I know, I know. Trust me, I've got this!" John was surprised at how confident he sounded, even as he internally yelled, Oh my gosh, what have you done? This is it. You're dead.
"Well, alright." She still sounded a bit worried, but he wasn't sure what to do to make her feel any better. Jade stood from her spot on the couch and stretched out her arms, pausing suddenly with a thoughtful expression. "So you know about the troll's cycles, right? Their eating and sleeping habits, the amount of space they need, etcetera etcetera?"
He had never heard about any "cycles" when he was browsing the Internet for information, but he decided he could always Google it again once she left. "Yes, Mom."
That earned him a punch in the arm and a chortle, but all he did was laugh in return.
"Hmph. Fine, since apparently you know what you're doing, I'm going. See you tomorrow," she said, lunging forward to hug him before pulling away and bouncing towards the door.
"Aw, leaving so soon?" John whined from behind her.
"I'll have you know that I have things to do, Mister! Rose wants me to come over so I can take a look at her trolls."
"What? Why? Is there something wrong with them?"
"I don't know, I haven't gone over to look at them yet. She told me Kanaya wasn't getting along so well with the new troll, but she doesn't seem to think it's anything to do with being territorial. I'm not really sure what that means, but if Rose is saying they don't get along, there has probably been an assassination attempt." Jade said, glancing back over at John over her slim shoulder.
"Probably," he agreed, and then grinned. "Well, bye then!"
"Bye!" And just like that, she was gone.
Jade didn't get to see John the next day, because John stayed home.
It was a Monday, so he really should have gone to school—Algebra III was a huge bitch to him, so he needed to be in class as much as he could—but he was worried he might miss the delivery people if he was gone for too long. Never mind that it still hadn't been a week since Jade communicated to whoever held the trolls that they'd take them in; after all, Rose and Dave had their trolls delivered early, so John might have similar luck.
So he stayed home, and he fretted over what he'd do with a troll. Then he began to clean to keep his mind off worrying, and didn't stop until the house was practically sparkling. Then he began to cook everything he had the ingredients for until his pantry was almost empty. Then he sat himself down and did all of his homework. He couldn't keep focused on his Xbox games, so he then began texting Dave, knowing the youngest Strider wouldn't care whether it was against the rules to text during school hours.
That is, until John figured out that Dave was actually at his work place, at which point he made Dave promise he'd go back to work and then promptly stopped texting the other.
With nothing left to do, John sat on the couch and continued to worry. What if the troll was so injured that it wouldn't want to be the bestest of pairs with him? What if it tried to actually physically harm him? He didn't like physical harming. Or any sort of harming, now that he thinks about it. What if it ruined the furniture and walls to the point where it wasn't safe to leave him or her alone at home? He couldn't just stop going to school or work to look after a pet! And oh, gosh, how was he supposed to give this thing shots? If Dave had to, he was positive he was going to have to, but the very idea of sticking a needle through any sort of skin made him feel queasy and shaky.
When an hour more of anxiously-tugging at his hair passed by without anyone coming to his door, John began to doubt that he'd have his troll delivered today. After everything he'd done up to that point, it was already three O'clock, meaning school would end in five minutes and he'd need to start towards his shop if he didn't want to be forced to eat plain peanut butter for the next week—again.
What was he thinking anyways, buying a troll? Thankfully, Dad had left him enough money to pay his bills for the next year (though the price of the recuperacoon had pushed it back to only three months), the house was mostly paid off, but because he was the only one working the store, he barely made enough money to pay the mortgage and for food. Not to mention his clientele had been decreasing at an alarming rate due to how infrequently he could open shop.
There was no way he'd be able to eat three meals everyday while trying to take care of a troll. It was impossible.
His phone alarm went off, signaling that he needed to start heading to his work place, and so with a mournful sigh he stood and grabbed his keys, vaguely remembering that he still hadn't paid this month's auto insurance before leaving the house.
Goodness, he should have just forced himself to go to school. At least he wouldn't have had nearly as much time to mope and worry about his own stupid decisions.
Okay, so that wasn't necessarily true, but it would be over completely different stupid decisions.
He internally winced when he found some customers milling about outside his closed store, and quickly went to amend it, settling into his happy, polite persona with a thoughtless ease he had acquired through many years of running registers. Luckily, tonight's business seemed to be a bit busier than normal, as if to counteract his negative mood from before, and he thanked his lucky stars for it.
By the time he was closing shop, night had well and truly descended, stars poking out from behind a thick expanse of velvety blackness, the street outside quieter and lonelier than it had been only hours before.
John was covered in a few layers of flour and icing, but his car wasn't exactly new and his seats were already stained to the point that he barely remembered to put down the towel he stored in his door before driving back home, exhausted. It probably wasn't the healthiest thing for a high school student to work so late into the night, but he needed to eat, so his grades would just have to deal with it. At least he had Rose to help explain the harder stuff to him after class.
When he pulled up into his driveway, he was surprised to find two burly men leaning against his porch railing with a covered cube-shape between them. The men looked tired and grumpy, so John could guess fairly easily that they had been waiting for him for a while now.
"Oh crap!" he cried, hopping out of his car and stumbling up to the front porch. "I'm so sorry; I didn't realize you would come so early! Here, just let me—" He cut himself off, making quick work of unlocking the door and holding it wide while the men carried the covered object into the house.
He was able to convince them to carry it up the stairs and into the guest room, where they practically dropped it before shoving a bag of shots into his chest. John only gave the contents a brief glance to confirm it was the same stuff they gave Dave before he looked back up at the men, who were grumbling. One of them immediately veered back towards the door and left, his footsteps loud against the stairs. The other, however, stayed just long enough to grunt at John to give the troll a shot twice a day, warning him that this particular little guy was easy to set off, and told him to up the dose as he thought necessary.
John could only stare at him with wide eyes, thinking, Wait, I might have to give him more than two shots? How the heck am I supposed to give him one? However, before he could attempt to ask, the delivery guy disappeared out the door, stormed down the stairs, and if the slam of a door was any indicator, left the house.
Well then.
He carefully set the back down by the wall, scrubbing a hand over his face and determining he could always ask Rose or Dave how they were able to convince the trolls to take their shots tomorrow.
Still, he was curious, and with no Dave to stop him, he crouched next to the covered cage, flicking the blanket covering it back just enough to peek through thin bars. Inside, a humanoid slept with its body slumped against one of the sides of the cage, its flesh a tough, pale gray, its hair messy and dark. Two horns the color of candy corn poked out of its mane, short but cute. Its—his? It looked like a male—hands twitched, bringing John's attention to the pale claws attached to each finger, long and sharp enough to rip into a human with ease.
Not to mention the fangs. Holy crap, those weren't the knock-off vamp canines you see at cosplay events, those were like tightly fit together shark teeth! Though he/it was sleeping, its upper teeth jutted out just enough over its/his bottom lip for John to have a good view, and woah, what a view.
It also wasn't wearing a shirt for whatever reason, though it had on black pants, so its torso and arms were completely exposed, muscles defined and nipples and belly button strangely absent. Holy freaking moly, this thing really was a predator. It had more muscles than John or Dave did! How in the world was he supposed to show dominance to something that came naturally equipped with more ways to fight than any human could?
Gulping, suddenly unsure once more about his choice of "pet" (if you could call something that looked like it could kill you if you so much as hugged it a pet), he sat back on his heels, letting the cover fall back into place again.
Maybe he could push this all back and worry about it more in the morning. Yeah, that sounded like a good plan.