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Your name is KARKAT VANTAS, and sometimes, when the tides are just right and the planets align and you manage to drag the three neurons that live in your head up from their drunken stupor and smash them together into something that resembles a “brain” in the same way that shit on a stick might, you’re able to scrape up a whole, almost coherent thought. And sometimes, if you’re feeling real fucking wild, that thought isn’t just “there’s nothing in the fucking fridge” or “what the fuck was that noise-” sometimes, sometimes you manage to hit on something that’s not only relevant to your situation, but also- fucking gasp - sort of useful.
And then sometimes it’s just you complaining, as is your god-given right when everything is completely fucking terrible. And because everything right now is in fact completely fucking terrible, you’d like to use your government-allotted single thought of the day to say that your name is still KARKAT VANTAS, and you’re starting to think that the UNIVERSE might HATE YOUR FUCKING GUTS.
And fine, fine, fine, Kanaya would call that “Reductive” and “A Little Fucking Dramatic, Even For You,” and now that you think about it you can see where imaginary Kanaya is coming from because yeah, even you can hardly stand listening to yourself prattling on and on and on like one of those little yippy dogs, and shit you’re going to have to back this one up because that particular metaphor is one that’s followed you around like a cloud of shit-smelling shit ever since you shot up to a perfectly respectable height of 5’3” at around fifteen and then just sort of hovered there for the next six years. It’s pretty embarrassing as far as insults go- and boring as fuck too- so it’s one that you prefer to avoid when you’re not busy parading around with your head up your ass.
So yeah, Past Karkat is a certified, grade-A idiot, but Current Karkat is unavailable right now on account of getting his phD in being fucking stupid with a concentration in casual idiocy, so you’re just gonna give yourself a fucking pass on this one. One shitty overused metaphor, free of charge, leave your complaints in the box by the door and then take a complimentary sample of the bird, freshly flipped, catering brought to you by Karkat and his merry band of middle fingers. Let the door hit you on the way out.
“…”
Okay yeah, that wasn’t your best work. Sort of tripped over itself, fell face first in front of everyone in the fucking lecture hall and then couldn’t stop thinking about it for the next three weeks, three months, whatever. You’ll reword it later- for now, you’re busy because you’re pulling up in front of the grocery store, hauling your ass halfway across the damn GLOBE for some Tylenol because your stomach’s acting up and you feel like shit because of it . You’re on your bike, because you would literally sooner die than learn how to drive and public transportation around these parts is incompentent on its best days and nonexistent most others, and you will Not ask someone to drive you, you will not, you will not.
So you’re gonna do this yourself. Solo. Alone. Unaccompanied. Like a Real Adult, grizzled and world-weary and completely fucking disillusioned. And hey, maybe it won’t even be that bad- you kinda like buying over-the-counter pain medication anyways. Yes, you are the hottest and most mysterious bitch in this grocery store; yes, you are a tortured soul, a walking enigma, a mystery in gray sweatpants; yes, you suffer from mild stomach pains. Absolutely unparalleled.
What can you say? You’re a romantic.
So with your bike safely locked up and your wallet definitely in your pocket (you checked) (you checked twice), you walk into the store all punch-drunk happy on the semi-pathetic optimism of someone who has enough frequent flyer miles in deluding themselves to take an unpaid vacation to that house of cards they’ve been building down by the beach. Maybe this won’t be so bad, you think; maybe you and your three neurons and single fucking thought will get a fucking break for once. Maybe you can stop wallowing in your various neuroses for a second and instead take it upon yourself to embrace that semi-pathetic optimism like you just chased it down at the airport to confess your lifelong love before it could go to New York to take that journalism job it always dreamed of but never really wanted. Maybe you can lighten the fuck up.
But then again, you think as you walk in and the noise hits you and the lights hit you and a lady with a cart (and better fucking places to be apparently) hits you, maybe not.
So you’re on the floor, and your optimism has decided to try its hand at subversion and fucked off to live and independent life in the city instead, and all in all this is not ideal. To fix this, you try to pick yourself up by the few remaining threads of your self-respect, only to have them snap halfway through and send you careening right back down.
“FUCK,” you say as you hit the ground and it hits back, harder. You repeat yourself, just once like the classy bitch you are, and then clamber back up because you are strong and independent and capable and this will not get to you, this will not, this will not, this will NOT.
It Sounds Like It’s Getting To You, the Kanaya that lives (rent free, the fucking freeloader) in your head says. You mentally flip her off and then realize that that’s stupid, actually, and decide to ignore the Kanaya that lives in your head in favor of the Tylenol that lives nowhere, because it’s fucking Tylenol and as of half a sentence ago you are not the sort of person to attribute human characteristics to inanimate objects. The fruits that you have purchased solely because they looked “pathetic” are not a factor here.
Anyways. You are now off the floor and staunchly ignoring both the fake sympathy of the people who saw you fall and also any similarities this has to a situation involving a lecture hall and a rainy day that definitely did not occur to you or anyone you know recently. That would be fucking ridiculous, and you are not fucking ridiculous- you have some standards. It’s why you’re single.
Among other things. Definitely not among those though is the sheer fucking comptence that you exhibit as you manage to work your way over to the pharmacy with no other casualties, not even your (already pretty fucking beat-up) pride. If your ability to execute basic plans isn’t boyfriend material, then you don’t know what is.
See, when the universe isn’t trying it’s goddamn hardest to humiliate you, you’re actually not always terrible at doing shit, by which you mean that you actually manage to find the Tylenol within a reasonable amount of time and without anyone dying or even coming to non-grievous bodily harm, so this is already better than that trip to the CVS that you took last week. You make your way over to the checkout area next, carefully because you can feel the simmer of frustration sort of swimming around and it’s making you feel hazy but that might also just be the stomach pains. They’re getting worse. If only you had something that could fucking help with that.
Anyways, you get in line and you wait in line and even though it feels like it takes forever it doesn’t take forever, so eventually you get to one of those self-checkout machines, and alright, al- fucking -right, you’ve done this before and you’ll do it again, this is nothing, this is nothing, let’s fucking do this. Let’s make this happen .
Start scanning items, the automated voice says, and you- a literal fucking pioneer , look at you go - do, in fact, intend to start scanning items. You really fucking do. You’re as good on your word, and even then your word isn’t half as good as your intentions (which have a day job paving roads- you’re very proud), and if you could get to the fucking point already, this is all just a stupidly roundabout way of saying that what happens next is- emphatically- not your fucking fault.
So there you are. You’re matching the barcode up with the scanner and you are standing there like a fucking idiot and you are trying so fucking hard and despite it all you are met with not the sweet, sweet sounds of your money clinking gently into the (very deep, deeply immoral) pocket of corporate America but instead that voice, that same fucking voice, the one that you assume right then and there will be haunting your nightmares for the next several years because nothing’s ever fucking easy :
Unexpected item in bagging area.
Now, this would be fine if there was, in fact, an unexpected item in the bagging area, but you feel absolutely compelled that everyone within a mile radius know that there is absolutely nothing in there. Literally nothing. And you’d just go to another machine- you are perfectly reasonable- but none of the other ones are open, and well. You don’t think you could handle human interaction right now so you’re just gonna figure this shit out, you are, you are, you are.
Karkat, Kanaya in your head warns. Don’t Be Fucking Stupid.
Hm. Well that ship’s fucking sailed, so you figure that you’ll just hitch a ride until it wrecks horribly and you’re left clinging to the soggy planks that made up your dignity, aimlessly circling the sea until it spits your miserable ass up on that beach from earlier, leaving you to start a life of misery and hardship with nothing and no one for company except that house of cards. Fine, fine, fucking fine- you hear that sand foundations are in this year. You also hear that you’re about to make a number of extremely rational decisions, so take that.
Anyways.
Unexpected item in bagging area, machine lady says again, and you blink.
“There’s nothing there,” you say. She sort of beeps at you.
Unexpected item in bagging area, she repeats and you hiss through your teeth like (again) the perfectly reasonable adult that you are.
“Are you fucking stupid?” you ask, completely justified and also ignoring the bolt of guilt that shoots through you at top fucking speed. “Is that what it is?”
Unexpected item in bagging area, machine lady says, and you swear, you fucking swear that she’s mocking you.
“Who the fuck built you?” you half snarl, in a way that’s PERFECTLY REASONABLE. “And on a scale from one to ten, how fucking concussed were they?”
She chirps at you. You decide to put that at a solid seven.
“Look,” you say. “Let’s make a fucking deal. An offer you can't refuse or whatever, I’ve never seen the fucking movie, but here, listen, how about you let me buy this- ” you shake the box of Tylenol- “And I walk away and everything is just fucking fine and you never have to see me again and we can both be pieces of incompetent shit on our own time. Deal?”
A beat of silence. And then:
Unexpected item in bagging area.
You slam your head into your hands- narrowly missing the box of Tyelnol in the process- and then do it again for good measure. Maybe if you hit hard enough you’ll be able to dislodge the pathetic pebble of intelligent thought that you’ve still got left and send it pinging off your skull until it sparks a single ounce of fucking competence. Maybe that same intelligent thought will do you a favor and burn your sense of self away until there’s not enough of you left to shake a shit-covered stick at. And maybe, just maybe, the fucking GROUND will open up and swallow you and save everyone the fucking TROUBLE of having of having to deal with your BULLSHIT.
Or maybe someone will stand over your shoulder and say, completely flat, “Do you need some assistance?”
Your head whips up and you whirl around, coming face to face with an employee which you probably should've seen coming, honestly. You regret to inform the world at large that he is (indeed) hot and that you do (indeed) look like shit, and that the universe does (in-fucking-deed) still HATE YOU. Anyways, the guy’s wearing aviators- none of your business- so you can’t really get a read on his expression, but from what you can figure (and a little bit of sleuthing, some real fucking impressive use of context clues) you gather that he’s not thrilled with this turn of events.
Well, he can get in fucking line.
“Do you need some assistance?” he repeats.
“NO,” you say on instinct, and then in a tone that could pass for quieter if you went and shoved your head up your ass like the idiot that you are proving yourself to be: “No. No. I’ve got this. I am a person . That is a machine . That is a hunk of metal that’s got one hell of a god complex considering that it was made by some semi-sentient, shit-corroded corporate chucklefuck that decided he liked jerking off to his own incompetence so fucking much that he went and installed something as completely fucking shitty as himself in every store that he could get his money-grubbing, ego-fucking hands on. Fucking seriously. Do you feel less alone now, you piece of absolute shit ? Did your wife come back?”
You do not take a breath (you are perfectly reasonable) but you do take a moment to notice that the guy’s eyebrows are creeping up so high that you can pretty much see them over the top of his glasses. He’s still hot. This is still a personal affront. Let’s hear it for internal consistency!
“Wow, man,” still hot grocery store guy says. “Those are definitely some strong opinions that you’ve got there. About self-checkout machines, and also uh. Capitalism.”
“I multitask,” you snap, and then immediately wince because that was an asshole move and Past Karkat is a fucking idiot and you figure that you should at least explain yourself a bit before fucking off to wallow in the sweet, sweet embrace of masturbatory self-recrimination for the foreseeable future. Also, you wanna keep ranting because some of that was good and you need to mine this for future arguments when you need a witty retort and can’t fucking think of anything. You believe in recycling- spew shit responsibly, kids.
Anyways.
“It’s not even that they’re a bad idea,” you grumble. “Like, I hate talking to people as much as any other piece of shit who’s main source of interaction is their fucking roommate, but seriously the only thing that these fuckers”- point at the machine here, subtle as a ranting man in the middle of the grocery store- “are efficient at ruining my fucking day which was already a festering sore on the ass of my shitty fucking year which is a festering sore on the ass of my shitty fucking life which is a festering sore on the ass of this shitty fucking planet which is a festering sore on the ass of this miserable, godforasken, infection-riddled mistake of a fucking UNIVERSE.”
“Assception,” the guy- Dave you guess, his nametag says Dave- offers. You choose to ignore this in favor of losing your shit.
“I just wanted to decompose on my couch for a few hours but no, no, I’ve gotta run some piece of shit ‘ errand’ for my piece of shit ‘body’ because nothing’s ever fucking easy. It’s always a fucking production . I hope you sell those stupid fucking jester hats because this is a fucking production and the cast list was just stapled to the corner of fuck off and fuck you and guess what? I’m playing the fucking fool!”
Congratulations On The Self-Awareness, the Kanaya in your head says. Also, We’re Out Of Paper Towels.
Shit. Shit!
“Shit,” Dave says. He almost looks impressed, you think, but then again that could just be wishful thinking. That one was pretty damn good. “Okay man, look. I’m all for supporting local artists, but you can’t keep yelling about asses in the middle of the store. People are gonna get excited and you know what’s gonna happen when they come rollin’ up looking for the promised ass in question and there’s nary a derrière to be seen? They’re gonna fuckin’ riot. People can’t riot right now, dude. My shift ends in three hours. And look, I know you’re havin’ a bad day, like we all saw you fall when you came in-”
“No you didn’t,” you say on instinct. He ignores you.
“-But c’mon. Deep fucking breaths, dude. Inner peace and all. You’ve gotta speed run that character arc, skip all the drama and homoerotic fight scenes and just jump forwards fifteen years to the shitty sequel where you’re hetero-married with three kids but absolutely no fucking personality. Not a single thought in your head ‘cause the writing’s going downhill so fast that it could be classified as a deadly weapon, but by god if you aren’t rakin’ in the cash and really that’s the only thing that matters.”
You put your head back in your hands, because well. Yeah. You should probably chill a bit. His day’s probably been hard enough already, and you’re an asshole but you’re not an asshole and this is fine, this is fine. This is fine. You’re fine.
And You Ate My Fucking Chips. I Want My Fucking Chips, Kanaya doesn’t say, and you groan, pushing her aside in favor of waving at Dave with the best apologetic gesture you’ve got in your (pretty fucking impressive) arsenal of Dramatic Hand Movements.
“Shit, sorry, sorry,” you say. You sound miserable. You sound like you’ve just gone three rounds with the soul-sucking old lady down the lane, the one who once told you that your haircut made you look like renowned philosopher and mathematician Isaac Newton and definitely did not make you cry, not even once.
“Sorry,” you repeat, waving a hand at the checkout this time, “But it’s not fucking working and I have places to be dammit, I was busy, I was watching Notting Hill, and now I’m not watching Notting Hill and you wanna fucking know why? You wanna know why? Because right fucking now I’m just a guy, standing in front of a PIECE OF SHIT MACHINE, asking it to do the BARE! FUCKING! MINIMUM!”
Dave looks at you, impassive. You are breathing heavily and people have started giving you a wide berth, which. Yeah, okay, fair. You’d avoid you too, if you could.
“Dude,” he says. He sounds exactly the same as before. “You could just like. Go to one of the lines.”
You could also die.
“I could also die,” you answer. “Right here, right fucking now, just lie down and roll over and bite the fucking dust. God knows there’s enough of it, like holy shit I’m literally knee-fucking-deep, do any of you know how to sweep? Jesus, if I fell over you would never fucking be able to find me and then my roommate would sue this sorry ass franchise for every penny in its overtailored capitalist shitstain pocket while I’m off sinking into the sweet embrace of complete fucking oblivion and also a whole lot of dust. Rest in fucking peace.”
“Rest in fucking lint and dirt and all sorts of other weird shit,” Dave corrects. “You said it yourself man, this place is gross. And lemme tell you, complete fucking confidence from a secret source, secret source being me, the most reliable narrator to ever grace the checkout aisle: if you’re absolutely set on dying in a shitty chain store, go out in style. There’s a Dillards down the street. Better customer service, and also my sister works there and I think she’d have a field day with you. Like, bust out the little orange cones and those shitty dollar store medals because Lalonde and random guy here are about to run a relay and they’re out for fucking blood. Most psychologically-revealing race this side of the playground. The baton thing’s a metaphor, the track’s a metaphor, the metaphor’s a metaphor, nothing is safe, nothing is sacred. Watch the fuck out because the cafeteria’s gonna be a battleground on Monday.”
You blink at him.
“What are you talking about,” you say mournfully. It turns out the real enigma was hot grocery store guy all along. God, you wish you could understand him. “What does that fucking mean .”
He shrugs.
“Who knows,” he says. “But look. Listen, because I’m about to bestow some fucking knowledge on you, free of charge. This ”- sweeping gesture to the line of machines and the lines of people who are all studiously attempting to ignore you, and then a more pointed uhhh… point at you, fuck- “Isn’t gonna change no matter how much you yell. Like, it’s not gonna work and honestly no matter how much I bitch about it you probably won’t chill out either because I dunno what it is, but for some fucking reason these things bring out the worst in people. You’re not like, breaking new ground here. Sure, the unexpected item in the bagging area might be your raging fucking anger issues-“
You very narrowly avoid bursting a blood vessel. He is unfazed.
“-but literally everyone who hauls their sorry ass through here has some sort of baggage, and any poor schmuck with a nametag’s a fuckin’ porter when there’s a paycheck involved, yeah?”
He shakes his head, pats the machine.
“I dunno, Gertrude over here says ‘start scanning items’ and people hear ‘go absolutely fucking batshit,’ I guess, and they take that shit to heart . Like, you can see it in their fuckin’ eyes, it’s like a switch flips, like they tap into some sort of primal rage and the only thing standing between them and all that ass they were promised is that fucking self-checkout machine, you know? And I mean, not to judge or anything, but-”
“Do you ever stop talking,” you interrupt and he stops talking- oh fine, fucking be like that - and looks at you.
“Do you ?” he asks, and his tone’s still unchanged but you get the sense that he’s not exactly thrilled about you interrupting his monologue. You feel immediately cowed which unfortunately for everyone just means that you’re probably gonna start acting like even more of a complete fucking dick.
A Complete Fucking Dick Who Ate My Chips, Kanaya in your head says, but we don’t have time for that right now. She will have her moment, and she will make it hurt, but that moment is not right now. Everyone say sorry, Kanaya.
“Look,” Dave says, talking over our moment of silence because he’s oblivious to Kanaya’s plight like some sort of non-omniscient dickhead. “Here, look. Just- hand me that.”
He holds out a hand for your Tylenol, and frankly you’re getting pretty fucking sick of this and even sicker of yourself so you hand it over to him without really thinking about it. After all, it’s not like you fucking YOURS- this whole asslicking, shit gargling, bitch of a clusterfuck has made damn well sure of THAT.
Anyways, Dave has the box now. There’s really not much fucking else there.
“Now, random patron,” he says, moving to stand in front of the checkout. “Do you trust me?”
Shit man, sure. At this point you’d give him your fucking wallet if he wanted it. Your left arm. Your firstborn child. Does he like your watch? He can fucking have it! Your shirtsleeves? Hack the fuck away! Your haircut?
… really? Does he promise? It doesn’t… remind him of anyone? A renowned philosopher and mathematician, perhaps?
“Yeah, fine, sure,” you huff, instead of saying any of this which is probably a Good Fucking Call, actually. “But it’s not gonna fucking work. It doesn’t fucking work. Nothing fucking works. ”
“And no one understands you,” Dave says. “And it’s not a fucking phase, and we’re gonna get through this man. We’re gonna get through this together . You just gotta believe . Clap your hands and shit. Look into your heart, and tell me: what do you see?”
You look into your heart.
“My roommate’s chips,” you say, miserable and world-weary and so fucking tired, and he shakes the box.
“That’s the spirit. Let’s do this shit.”
And he reaches forwards, and you wait with bated fucking breath becuase you tried this, you fucking tried this and it didn’t work so obviously there’s no way that it’s gonna work for him, there’s none because life doesn’t fucking work like that, so you’re pretty sure that he’s about to make exactly as much of a fool of himself as you did you, and honestly you’re kinda looking forward to it. Misery, company, whatever.
Anyways. He scans the barcode. Everything and everything past that too hangs in the balance. It is so fucking tense. We’ve built so much fucking tension.
And then: an automated chirp. And then :
$5.47, the machine says, happy as can be.
And you put your head in your hands, and you scream.