Um. So, sorry about the wait. Again, busy. But I'm falling in love with Homestuck again. Thanks to Zexionienzo, YaoiOverload, dragonspirit1223331, BlOo KiSsEs, kia-likethecar, Izumi-no-Junko, and one guest for your reviews!
I will probably be updating this before anything else. I have big plans for this 'verse! (Also, the next update should be within a few days since I only have school right now.)
"Hey, Karkat!" John called cheerfully, sliding into the seat next to the shorter boy. "How was your weekend?"
John had the kind of bubbly personality that usually drove Karkat into a frothing rage, a kind of effervescent brightness typically reserved for the uninhibited optimist. It did infuriate Karkat, but it was more of an affectionate irritation than anything else. Karkat had the sense that John was always happy because of his outlook on life, not on some ill-conceived notions of how the world worked.
On John's other side, a blond boy slouched, pulling his headphones over his ears to drown out the last few moments of chatter before the class actually started. This, Karkat knew, was how unashamed cool-kid Dave Strider operated. He would often keep his headphones and dark sunglasses on all during class and somehow come away with detailed notes on the entire lecture. Karkat had a begrudging admiration to give absolutely zero fucks about school and still manage to ace his classes.
"Ever-fucking bullshit. I got a virus on my computer—" (he knew that was a lie, but he also wasn't convinced that Sollux hadn't pulled some bullshit tech-whiz sorcery to fix whatever was wrong with his laptop) "—and this was after I had to start on my pan-humping bio project."
John made an appropriately sympathetic face. "Sorry. Did you get it fixed?"
"Yeah, my friend Sollux fixed it."
"And your project?"
"Finished. Mostly thanks to Ampora, I guess."
John furrowed his brow and pushed his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose. His glasses appeared perpetually in danger of falling off his face and his dark hair was always untidy, as if he couldn't be bothered to run a comb through it. At least Karkat attempted to tame his hair—the fact that he didn't typically succeed didn't particularly bother him, however. "Ampora? Eridan Ampora? That hipster guy with the scarf and the glasses?"
Karkat thought it was a bit ironic of John to point out Eridan's glasses—his biology partner's glasses were only a few millimeters thicker than John's; he didn't have a whole lot of room to talk. Still, he nodded. "He's a genius at that kind of crap," he acknowledged.
"Huh. I always heard he was kind of a dick."
"Being a genius and being a dick aren't mutually exclusive," Dave drawled from John's other side. Strider didn't talk much, so when he did, people—John included—paid attention. "In fact," he went on in a lazy Austin drawl that had no business in southern California, "most geniuses are dicks."
"Yeah, just look at Strider over here," Karkat snarked. His ribbing was fairly good-natured, though. He typically reserved his most barbed comments for people he actively disliked.
"Aw, thanks, Vantas," Dave said. He flashed Karkat a quick, cheesy grin before facing forward again. "Nice to know other people appreciate my dope flow and sweet rhymes."
John cackled and a satisfied smirk tugged at the corner of Dave's mouth before his expression resolved into the neutral, cool one he always wore.
At that moment, an annoying chirping sound issued from somewhere around the vicinity of John's backpack, and he immediately dug around for his phone. He fished it out and checked it.
Karkat and Dave both happened to be looking at him and saw the way the laughter died almost immediately off John's face.
"Don't," Dave muttered. "Give me that."
"I—I have to... uh, I gotta get this," John stuttered.
"No." Dave reached over and plucked the phone out of John's hand. "Fuck her. We talked about this, remember? Just leave it."
"I... I can't. Dave. Give it back."
There was a few moments where John stared at Dave and Dave presumably stared back at John, but it was difficult to tell through his sunglasses. Karkat, meanwhile, watched the whole scene with a mix of concern and curiosity. He thought he knew John fairly well, but he couldn't figure out who the mystery caller could be. Who could affect eternally-chipper John Egbert so completely, wipe the prankster grin off his face so quickly and replace that smile with such an ashen expression?
"What—?" he started, but caught the way Dave shook his head, two quick jerks to one side and then the other, and he shut up.
"Please, Dave," John murmured. "Give me my phone back."
It was nearly impossible to see the look on Dave's face, but he finally relented and handed John's phone back to him. "You can't let her control you like this."
John didn't answer. He just snatched his phone and darted out the classroom door seconds before their professor walked in, shooting a puzzled look after him.
"Well, if Mr. Egbert won't be joining us... do we have any other absentees?"
WHAT WAS THAT ALL ABOUT? Karkat wrote out on a sheet of looseleaf. He folded it up and passed it to Dave as surreptitiously as possible.
Hasn't John ever mentioned Vriska to you?
Karkat thought hard. He thought the name sounded familiar, but he couldn't figure out how. HE MIGHT HAVE. WHO IS SHE?
Vriska Serket, also known as the most sickening person on the planet. She's been stringing John along for months now. Him and some other boy and a girl, believe it or not.
THREE PEOPLE? SOUNDS EXHAUSTING.
Yeah, well, apparently this other boy isn't really seeing her anymore. He has someone else, from what I understand. But John and this girl, she's been fucking them both over.
SOUNDS EVIL.
Probably. But I haven't met her and I'm withholding judgement until I actually do, as hard as that's going been. John really likes her, but she just uses people.
YOU'D THINK HE'D HAVE THE THINK SPAN TO REALIZE SHE'S NO GOOD.
He does, but he doesn't want to let her go yet. She's got him on a real tight leash and, like it or not, he's gonna have to be the one to cut it. I can't do it for him.
Karkat shoved the note into his back pocket and looked from the clock on the wall to the door. Through the glass, he could see John standing across the hall with the hood of his blue sweatshirt pulled up over his hair. His shoulders were hunched, and Karkat couldn't help feeling some small stirrings of pity that he quickly pushed away.
He couldn't be John Egbert's keeper. He could barely look after himself.
The clacking of keyboards was a soothing sound for Sollux, who easily lost himself in lines and lines of code. Programming made him remember just how much he hated people. People, after all, were illogical and irrational and prone to holding grudges. They changed unpredictably. They could wake up one morning and decide they didn't like you anymore. Code and programs could be manipulated to your heart's content and if something didn't work right the first time, you could go back and fix it, and the program wouldn't hold it against you. Each command did something specific, and if it didn't, you entered the command wrong and it was easy to remedy. They were predictable.
Computers didn't laugh at your lisp, either. That was a huge point in their favor. He liked computers a lot better than he liked people.
Most people, anyway. Terezi was a bit of an exception.
He was never able to figure out what she took that programming class for anyway since she was a pre-law student, but he wasn't unhappy to see her most days. It was just odd when she appeared over his shoulder and sniffed. "Hey, Sollux!" she said with a toothy, mischievous grin. "I thought something smelled familiar!"
Sollux rolled his eyes. "Can you not?"
"Don't be so sour," she said, sticking out her tongue. "You mainline honey—aren't you supposed to be sweet?"
Sollux chuckled in spite of himself. "That's an urban legend," he murmured, shaking his head. "You can't get sweet from eating sugary food."
Terezi scoffed. "Sure, whatever. Speaking of which, what are we doing for lunch?"
"We—" Suddenly, he remembered he'd made lunch plans with Karkat and his friends. He smacked his forehead against the table his keyboard was on, drawing a brief, chastising glance from one of his other classmates. "Crap. I told KK I'd go to lunch with him."
"Who?"
Sollux raised his eyebrows. "Karkat Vantas? I know I mentioned him. I fixed his computer on Saturday, remember?"
"Oh! That guy! Yeah, I remember you talking about him. Why does he want to have lunch with you? I thought you guys weren't that close."
"Yeah, well, he wanted to thank me for fixing his computer, so he decided to take me out to lunch. His lab partner and his girlfriend are coming along, too, I guess. The lab partner is giving us a ride."
"Sounds painful," Terezi said. Her smile didn't quite fit the statement, though.
"Yeah, well, the girlfriend seems pretty cool. Doesn't mean I want to hang out with all of them, though."
"Well, maybe you'll get some new friends out of the deal. God knows you can't hang out with just me and Aradia every day." She suddenly looked like she'd been hit by a bolt of inspiration. "Hey, why don't I go with you? I'd like to meet these elusive friends of yours anyway."
"They're not my friends. I mean, Karkat was, but he's not really anymore, and Eridan—"
"Gah, I'm just joking! But I still want to come along," she added, bouncing in her seat a bit. "So, can I?"
"Um. I guess if Eridan has room in his car, probably. I can't imagine that KK will mind too much."
Her toothy grin widened. "Excellent! Where ya going?"
"Rubio's. Hope you like fish tacos."
Terezi waggled her eyebrows. "Never really had a taste for them, but there's a first time for everything."
Sollux sighed. "Are you planning on doing some actual programming exercises today, or were you just going to talk my ear off?"
"You're no fun, Sollux." Still, she turned in her seat and fished her blind-friendly keyboard out of her backpack to hook it up to her computer. Less than a minute later, she was typing away next to him.
A few minutes later, though, he'd pushed his keyboard away from him and turned to look at her. Terezi wasn't the greatest at relationship advice—he couldn't remember the last time she had a boyfriend—but she was smart. "AA's friend Kanaya. You know her?"
"Hmm." Terezi continued typing, but her expression grew pensive. For a moment, the rhythm of her keystrokes faltered. "I might have heard the name. Why?"
"Apparently Kanaya's hung up on her ex, and AA's taken it upon herself to comfort her."
"Okay, and?"
"And... I don't know. I was just wondering."
"Maybe it's best for Kanaya that she dumped her, though. She's probably better off without her anyway."
"Um. Okay. That was pretty much what AA was saying. But Kanaya isn't so sure."
"If you had just gotten dumped by someone you loved, would you be so easily convinced?"
Sollux pondered that for a minute. "I'd imagine not. However, I don't have any actual experience to know."
Terezi's face split into another grin. "Aw, don't worry, Sol. Some day, your princess—or prince—will come," she joked. "In fact, they could be coming right now."
He blinked. "Did you just—"
"Yep. Deal with it."
He rolled his eyes, but they lapsed into another comfortable silence. Sollux pulled his keyboard back toward him and resumed his coding, pausing for a few moments to send a text message to Karkat. Hey KK my friiend TZ want2 two come wiith u2 two Rubiio'2 thiink ED wiill have enough room iin hii2 car? He slipped his phone back in his pocket and waited. Sure enough, a few moments later, he received a response.
THIS IS WHY I HATE TALKING TO YOU. I CAN BARELY READ YOU OVER YOUR STUPID TYPING QUIRK. WHO THE FLIPPING FUCK IS TZ.
TZ iis Terezii 2he'2 iin my codiing class.
CODING CLASS. WHY IN THE NAME OF FUCK DO YOU NEED A CODING CLASS.
Ea2y A can 2he come or not?
GREAT ANOTHER PAN HUMPING TECH WHIZ. SURE, FINE, WHY NOT. WE CAN MAKE IT AN ASSHOLE PARTY. BETWEEN YOU AND ERIDAN AND JOHN, I DON'T KNOW WHO'S GOING TO DRIVE ME TO MULTIPLE HOMICIDE FIRST.
Eridan leaned back in his seat and let his eyes drift across the classroom. He barely paid attention to his math teacher's lecture. After all, everything this guy could have possibly told him, he already knew. Not that his grades would show it, but he was a smart person.
Book-smart, anyway. It didn't usually do him a whole lot of good in real life. Like this thing with Feferi. And that Sollux guy—he'd caught the way he'd looked her over. He felt his hackles raise in anger. No one got to look at Fef like that, especially someone who didn't even know her.
He gritted his teeth and checked his phone. There was still a good thirty minutes left in class, and forty-five minutes before his biology class with Karkat. The sooner they got this lunch over with, the better. At least that way, he and Feferi could happily avoid ever having contact with Sollux Captor again.
And maybe soon he could finally work up the courage to tell Fef how he really felt about her.
I promise not to bounce around so much in the future...
