Chapter Text
Your name is KARKAT VANTAS, and you don’t know what the fuck you are doing.
Your stomach curls in discomfort as you stare at the brick-like grey building, and you squeeze your hands into fists at your sides, feeling the prickle of the nails you forgot to cut.
Who, besides an unmistakable idiot, would decide to revisit the hellhole of his teenage years?
Because that is exactly what you are doing. The moment you got out of that cesspool of teenage sweat and disappointment, you had done everything in your power to get a teaching license so you could come right back. If you ever needed the final confirmation you are totally batshit crazy, this is it.
Students are already streaming into the double doors as you steel yourself and reluctantly join the flow of human traffic. You are jostled by sweaty, beefy arms, and your mind makes a three sixty turn to a very similar situation, years ago. You shake your head. Don’t be a fucking idiot Vantas. You aren’t sixteen anymore. A bunch of weedy teenagers can’t hurt you, no matter how lethal they pretend to be.
It takes much determination --and fine-- maybe a little bit of shoving, for you to find your way to the main office. It might have helped that despite your small stature, you look pretty intimidating, okay? No one wants to have a run in with a sleep deprived guy with anger management issues. You are, of course, thoroughly tired and more then a little pissed off by this point, but do your best to paste a sickly smile on your face anyway. It almost hurts, like the muscles used for smiling are a bit rusty.
A curly haired doughball of a woman practically leaps out of her seat (jostling the desk and scattering papers everywhere) at the sight of you.
“You must be Mr. Vantas, I’m Kathy Greenly” she gushes cheerfully. It must be a crime to be so fucking cheerful at this early in the morning. You nod, still smiling, and allow your hand to be forcibly flopped up and down. It’s as if she’s never seen a mildly attractive (in a I probably haven’t brushed my hair in weeks) 20 something guy before. Come to think of it, maybe she hasn’t.
“I’m so sorry for the short notice, but Clear Creek Highschool is so, so grateful to have you taking over for Mr. Peters here.”
“It’s no trouble,” you grind out between gritted teeth. If you could punch yourself right about now, you would. She smiles saccharinely.
“Coffee?” she offers, nodding towards a table in the corner. You catch a whiff of that heavenly caffeine and nod vigorously.
She hands you a cup, you take a sip, and--oh god this is awful. You may have gagged a little bit. Just a little.
The woman cocks her head and squints at you, and it occurs to you a second too late that gagging on proffered refreshments probably something people consider rude. Instead, her eyes light up.
“You’re awfully young, my goodness!” She proclaims, as if she just discovered one of the secrets of the universe. You snort a little at that, hastily disguising it in a coughing fit.
“I’m twenty three.” now shut the fuck up.
To your utmost horror, she reaches out a sweaty hand to pat you heavily on the shoulder, and winks conspiratorially at you.
“Be careful out there Karkat” -her fond use of your first name is not lost on you- ”those kids will eat you alive,”
Fuck, she sounds pitying. Your stomach hurts, and all you want to do is turn around now, drive back to the garbage heap you call home, and have a smoke.
And despite everything, you can’t help agree with her a little.
When you don’t reply, she looks annoyingly concerned and hurriedly adds:
“I’m sure you will do great. And Mr. Peters will be back in no time!”
You offer her one final, weak willed smile. Time to stop being a useless tool and get this done. You’re doing this man, you’re making this happen.
“I’ll be fine.”
====> Be Fine
It takes you all of five seconds to read every single kid in the room. There, at the back--three huge apes with hair as greasy as Chinese takeout and shit eating grins on their ugly mugs--you know right away from the way the other, smaller kids lean away from them that they are of the thuggish breed. Two girls sitting the front seem more interested in chatting to each other about who knows what inane topics then anything actually happening around them, and you figure they won’t exactly be following your lecture with bated breath. Next to them, a girl with hair so blond its practically blinding watches them with distain written clearly across her delicate features. You decide she looks like an uppity bitch.
You like the look of the kid sitting behind her even less. His features, though attractive, have a cold, almost reptilian intelligence to them, and he scans the classroom with a disturbingly predatory eye. You suppress a shudder before you can kick yourself, and look away.
Two boys sitting around the middle catch your eye, mostly because of the amusingly stark contrast they make to each other. One of them, white-blond like the girl in front, is slouched low in his seat, sporting a perfect poker face as if to emphasis just how above it all he is. The little fuck has the gall to be wearing the largest, stupidest pair of shades you have ever seen over his face, probably out of irony.
The boy next to him is very different. He too is slouched low in his seat, but not out of arrogance--it looks like he’s trying to be absorbed into the hard plastic. He has the messiest black hair you have ever seen, but you catch a pair of bright ocean blue eyes beneath the thick smudged lenses of his glasses. Occasionally he will say something to irony boy, but too quiet for you to hear. Not that you’d be listening, that would be creepy.
Hey, thats enough sightseeing, fuckface. You have a class to teach, so you clap your hands together like the peppy substitute teacher you are. To your surprise (not really) nothing happens. News flash, no one cares. You had expected a class of pimply assholes, but it was still slightly disappointing.
“Hey, you going to shut the hell up or do I need to go get a foghorn?” you say as loudly as you can manage, which for someone as well versed in yelling as you, is pretty loud.
One of the plastic girls in the front looks away from her friend long enough to giggle. Slowly, the weight of many pairs of eyes come to rest on your slight frame, and you feel a grim flash of pride, mixed with something akin to panic.
“Took you long enough. Welcome to Social studies you mush skulled punks.” you walk to the front of the class and write your name on the board, “I’m your substitute teacher, Mr. Vantas.”
The boy in the shades snickers not-so quietly and whispers something in the ear of the blue eyed boy, who smiles rather prettily. He’s in direr need of some orthodontia, giving him a decidedly dorky look, but its all rather lovable reall--lovable? No no no, that is definitely creepy.
Irony boy is now muttering another choice comment, looking at you snidely from the corner of his eye, and you feel a blood vessel bulge in your forehead. It’s only 9:30 and it has already been a long, long day.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU UN-IRONIC IGNORAMUS” the words slip out before you can wonder whether teachers usually curse in class.
“Did I give you permission to speak? I didn’t fucking think so, you shiny glasses wearing asshole.” You glare around the room at large. “Don’t any of you punks dare look at me like that either. Of course I’m at the end of my rope-- I’ve had a shitty day and the coffee here tastes like something took a crap in it and died.”
Your tirade is met with silence and dinner plate eyes.
Irony boy, for his part, merely looks faintly amused, and says nothing else. He nods at you slightly, almost in respect, and you are pretty sure that you have passed some sort of trial, just without the fire. His friend however, looks mortified, and maybe a little terrified, blue eyes going wide behind thick lenses. When he catches you looking at him, he flinches. Mollified, you began to lay out the lesson plan.
You do attempt not to shout as much, but of course it makes no fucking use and slips out anyway. You also, after consulting an ever so helpful list, discover that the blond asshole is named Dave Strider, and his quiet friend is John Egbert. You have a private snicker at that one. Egbert? The fuck kind of name is Egbert?
By the time the last student of your last class files out, you are pretty sure most of the kids so far are either afraid you’ll steal their lunch money, or just think you are a joke. All in all, it could have been worse. Exhausted, you drag a hand through your thick, tangled brown hair. God, you could really use a smoke.
Its lunchtime by now, and you decide to go to the teachers lounge for munchies, as your stomach is growling and whining like an angry hyena. You grab the pile of homework on your way out to look over during break, making your way into the fray.
The hallways are thick with students filing to the cafeteria, and you have to wend your way through the smallest gaps, balancing your ridiculously tall pile of homework. It would be so awful if someone ran into you right now, but that would be both improbable and impossible, of course, so no need to worry.
You find that you are hands shorter then many of the students, despite them being years your junior. The fact royally pisses you off. However, most seem to be giving you a wide berth, word of your short temper having already gotten around. Good.
Suddenly, in a twist of fate that lady fortune herself wouldn’t have expected, you knock straight into a tangle of black hair, glasses, and teenage boy. You think you hear a cry of dismay, see someone reaching belatedly for your windmilling arms, before you fall back to land painfully on your tailbone, papers flying everywhere. You thought people only had stupidly cliched falls like that in movies, and really badly written fiction.
“What the fuck!” you exclaim, scrambling to your feet, sliding ungracefully in the paper coating the ground, and wheel around for your assailant. And blink.
It’s the blue eyed boy--John Egbert-- and he’s staring at you like you are about preform first degree murder.
Let’s not rule that out.