Chapter Text
The next few days after that, things seemed a bit off.
John was noticing Vriska was spending a lot of time away from the house at strange times of the day. She also seemed to be spending a lot of time with the Alchemiter, in particular making tons of hammers, nails, metal, and wood. Whenever John's curiosity got the best of him, all he could get out of her was a teasing "oh you'll seeeeeeee", usually followed by a grin that didn't quite make him comfortable.
About two days after this, she stopped using the Alchemiter, but she was still gone for long periods of time. John had stopped asking what was up but still couldn't help but wonder what was up. He needed someone to talk to about it, so he decided it was time to pay his paradox sister a visit. He hadn't visited her in a while, and with Vriska out of the house doing who knows what, now would be an excellent time to catch up.
John stepped outside of the house after leaving a note to Vriska telling her where he went. John looks at the different transportalizer pads that littered the outside of the house. Because the planet was so big and everyone felt like living a bit spaced out from one another, everyone had decided to use pads for quick and easy travel from place to place. Of course the downside was when you have about 12 pads for all the kid's and troll's various locations that look exactly the same, it is easy to get confused. After the time John meant to visit Dave but accidentally teleported to the location where they kept Gamzee locked up (for everyone's mutual safety), it was decided it that it was easier to keep track of what went to where by labeling them.
John looked for the one labeled "Jade", hopped on, and in a flash, he was sent in front of her house. It was almost an identical replica of the one she used to have on earth, before Sburb, and it was also on an island. She said she was used to living on one, and it made sense to her to set up shop there.
With a knock John gave a loud "Heeeeeeeeeeelllllo!", but to no anwser. John figured that she was most likely somewhere on the island playing around, so he started to wander around looking for her, which ended up being an amazingly stupid and time consuming thing to do. It wasn't until about two hours later of walking around until he found her walking along the beach with someone. But it wasn't just someone, it was his favorite cranky troll friend Karkat.
"Hey guys!" John bellowed as he ran towards the shoreline where they had been at.
"Hi John!", Jade chirps, dropping something to come over and give a friendly hug.
"JESUS EGBERT, DON'T YOU EVER FUCKING GIVE PEOPLE WARNINGS BEFORE YOU VISIT?", Karkat hollered at John after removing something from his neck, and walking closer, trying to hide the mystery item behind his back.
"Hehe sorry, I didn't expect to see you here too! What have you guys up to?", John inquired, trying to move around to see what is behind Karkat's back to no avail, Karkat shifting around to obstruct the view.
"Oh we were just going for a walk", Jade said.
"Ooooooooh is that so?", John said said slyly, "then what's Karkat hiding?"
"NONE OF YOUR FUCKING BUSINESS EGBERT", Karkat spouted defensively.
"Knock it off fuckass! John doesn't care that we-"
"SHSHSHSHSH DON'T SAY IT HARLEY!" Karkat protested, giving an instinctive wave of his hands in front of her, accidentally exposing what was in his hands as a collar and leash. Almost instantly, Karkat realizes his blunder and drops his hands down. Karkat looked away from John's face, blushing and Jade giggled a little bit, with a slight blush of embarrassment herself.
"Wait..Collar and leash? Does that mean..", John looked at the two of them with a pause that meant he was mentally trying to connect the dots of the situation. Karkat. Jade. Leash. What could these things mean?
Then, like a light, it came to John as he proudly stated "..that you got a new dog?!"
Karkat almost immediately palmed his face while Jade responded with "Yes! That's exactly it! We were looking around for him, isn't that right Karkat?", elbowing Karkat. "YEAH SURE. THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT WAS UP. WOOFBEAST LOOKING AND NOTHING ELSE."
"Oh I get it! So Karkat was wearing the leash so it wouldn't be cold for the lil' fella!", John said confident in his deduction.
"YES. THAT IS EXACTLY THE REASON IT WAS ON MY NECK. YOU'VE SOLVED THE GREAT MYSTERY OH GREAT DETECTIVE", Karkat said, dripping with sarcasm that went totally ignored by John.
"Aw man! You will totally have to show him to me!", John said excitedly.
"Umm, sure, later! But first how are you?", Jade asked evasively.
"Oh man, I almost forgot with all this dog talk why I came here in the first place. I kinda need to talk about Vriska, she's totally been acting weird lately."
"THEN YOUR IN LUCK A ROMANTIC GODDAMN EXPERT SUCH AS MYSELF IS HERE.", Karkat boasted, "SO LET'S HEAR IT."
The three took a seat in the sand along the coastline and John explained to them about Vriska's strange behaviors and how she kept dodging questions on what she was up to. Jade listened with a very sympathetic face and Karkat listened silently until he asked "HMM...HOW VERY FUCKING INTERESTING. LET ME ASK THIS EGBERT, WHAT WAS THE LAST 'NORMAL' DAY YOU GUYS HAD TOGETHER?"
John paused for a moment, "Well, it would be Tuesday movie night I guess."
"Oh cool! What movie did you guys see?", Jade asked curiously.
"We watched the Pirates of The Caribbean movies! Man, she was so totally into them! It was super fun!", John said with a smile.
Karkat suddenly had a bewildered look on his face, and tapping a little electronic button around the neck of his shirt that all the trolls used to translate what they heard and what the spoke to the humans. "I THINK MY FUCKING TRANSLATOR JUST GLITCHED BECAUSE THERE IS NO WAY YOU CAN BE THAT GODDAMN STUPID. DID YOU JUST SAY YOU SHOWED HER A GODDAMN PIRATE MOVIE?"
"Umm...yeah I did. why?" John was clearly puzzled as to why Karkat was getting increasingly upset and started shouting "FUCKING GRUBSHITTING JEGUS THERE IS NO WAY YOU CAN BE THAT DENSE!"
John still looked clueless as he asked "Why is that even a problem?"
"GEE I WONDER WHATEVER COULD BE THE FUCKING PROBLEM WITH SHOWING A MOVIE ABOUT PIRATES TO SOMEONE WHO NOT ONLY TENDS TO GO OVERBOARD WITH SHIT, BUT ALSO FLARPED AS HER GODDAMN SEA TERROR OF AN ANCESTOR, THUS RESULTING IN THE SPIDER FOOD MURDER OF HUNDREDS OF TROLLS. I WONDER WHATEVER COULD BE THE FUCKING PROBLEM THERE?", Karkat ranted, barely controlling his anger towards John, who now fully realized what exactly he has done.
"Oh. Well...when you put it that way I guess I've made a huge mistake!", John was now rubbing the back of his neck nervously.
It didn't take long after the end of that sentence for Karkat to grab onto John's, shirt shaking him while yelling at the top of his lungs "OF FUCKING COURSE YOU'VE MADE A HUGE MISTAKE!"