Collegestuck - Johnkat

4. Diction Is Very Important

Through the hardened red eyes, past the jet black dyed hair, through the silver-white lashes that were tipped in the black by the dyes, the world seemed like a darkened place and one that was enclosed in a stuffy lecture hall. Karkat sighed, patting his chest pocket, red eyes widening as he felt down the side of his chest to his pocket in his pants. The rubies dotting his pallor face seemed to glean in the warm sunlight as he realized he left his phone at the coffee house. Surely his friend would have kept it in safe hands. 

"Shit," he hissed, biting his fingertips as he let his pencil race over the college ruled lines of his paper. "English, I swear." 



The cold of the fall was burning John's cheeks as he rushed into the hall, teeth chattering. His cheeks were flush with the heat of his lingering fever and many other insignificant things. The point was that it was his third time in the building and with a faint heat teasing over the sweating wrinkles in his brain, he had no room to think. 

"Thinking," John grumbled, rubbing his forehead as he felt a heavy throb consume his frontal lobe. The heat of that silly little fever was causing more trouble than it was worth and it was all because he stayed up for a few days. Stupid, he thought bitterly. He couldn't even take his best friend his cell phone without propping himself against the wall so that he didn't pass out. "Kar," he sighed, sinking down to the floor, knees pressing against his chest as he hid his face from the heavy light of the sun. "Why's it so bright?" 



"Atch!" Kar sneezed, rubbing his nose as he shivered a bit. "Ugh," the shivers produced that unpleasant groan as the class was dismissed. 

Instantly the Tarot happy R. LaLonde popped up with a giddy and almost slurring smirk stitched into her ever-lucid face. "Sneezing without a cold or specks of dust, must be something peculiar," she smirked, taking a swig from a pink and silver flask. Oh, forgot to mention she was an insatiable drinker. 

"Can it, LaLonde," he shook off the sneezing urge as he threw his shoulder bag's strap over his head and began to head out. Due to the high amounts of last minute papers being turned in and sparse student population because of the nearing holidays, there were only two classes a day and it was usually the ones that drilled the impossible into the steel of your mind. 

"Hey, I'm just saying. Mom always said someone's talking about you if you sneeze like that," she shrugged in a suggestive manner, primping her dark burgundy lip gloss in her compact as the two acquaintances walked to the door. 

The sunlight seemed to enveloped the two as they exited the stuffy hall that was dark and filled to the ceiling with stale air and traces of moth balls. Most likely from the ancient professor's dressing style, but it was nothing to worry about. What he was clearly concerned with was the whereabouts of his new phone. 

What if John had woken up and asked where he was? 

What if John's fever relapsed and he's really sick?

What if John--....? 

LaLonde tapped Kar's shoulder as her friend had stopped dead in the hall, staring straight at the ground. Everything sort of stood still as he thought about how all three of those thoughts had began, cheeks warming with more than just the raised temperatures in the building. His eyes closed softly as he covers his face with a hand. The blonde, frozen there in curiosity, only sighed and left what looked like a wrecked man. 

Karkat was deep in thought as he pushed through the rusty double doors that lead 
out to a flat courtyard of the college campus. It was a small place, a private university with trust-fund babies riding on daddy's coattails funding everything from the air conditioning in the summer time to the light bulb in the janitor's closet. Nothing was out-of-pocket from the school's end, yet the scene of it all seemed to come off as a public place. A place for thinking, relaxation, pondering, and even singing, as it was found to be an acoustic location. 

Even so, all Vantas needed was a bench. A bench to let him rest, to let him think, and to let him conclude upon those racing thoughts that spun inside his head, knocking against his front cortex with distracting fantasies and even more vivid play-outs of first kisses and heated touches. 

God, he shivered as he staggered over to a small wooden bench that faced the campus chapel's stained glass wall, collapsing on the seat and flopping over sideways so that he couldn't be seen. Eyes staring straight and limbs oddly stiff, he began to unwind with the usual: An aloud narrative of his surroundings. "Cerulean, azure, golden rod, ruby, emerald, peridot," he began listing the colors in the stained glass image of Christ that offered his open palms to the boy in need of saving, but not in such a manner. "Twenty feet, six feet," the height and width. "Over grown sweet grass and rosemary, tussling against the old brick-work. Grey faded mulch, lavender scented with the unruly herbs." 

Anyone walking within close distance could instantly tell that it was Karkat making these descriptions based solely on how he pronounced and enunciated each word. Like honey rolling down the curves of a woman's rosy lips, the words seemed to sweeten and lighten everything around him. "The surfaces are rough, almost crude, yet the scents give a welcome and almost maternal feel to the chapel's crisis center. Red eyes, demonic in temperament, chose the eyes of the crystal Christ to be pressing with. Demons and Angels never mix..." He trailed off, thinking of John. 

"Black hair like the night, sparkling azure gemstones floating on a milky crystal canvas, they watch the demon constantly, ever-present. Searching for a new confrontation of acceptance, the demon lingers. He prays, aloud, to say the least, for forgiveness and for love. Two things a damned man will never know," Kar whispers, his lungs being vacuum cleaned of his oxygen for a split second as he finished his last line of verbal prose. His mouth widens, throat widening as he takes in a deep breath. "And forever he lines up for the resurrection of his past, of his would-bes and should-bes. Forever wandering in the sake of all loss and all purpose without. For the sake of the damned in love." 

Claps echo around Kar's ears, his eyes widening in utter shock. His body's first reaction was to jolt then flush with all the blood in his body heading to his face. Sitting up, turning his head to the point of the reverberating applause, he tightens his jaw. John's smiling like a fool with his silly buck teeth and his silly clothes that seemed almost disheveled in the light of the early morning. 

Egbert whisks a few strands of the described black hair out of his eyes and smiles, 
oblivious to the fact of what Karkat was dreamily doting on. You idiot, Vantas wanted to slur, but pursed his lips and let his heart run the show for once. 

This would prove for bad conversations and bitter tastes in the mouth, but it was all that he'd ever know. When in doubt, ramble. When in trouble, run. When in love...? 

"J-John?" He blinked, blush falling a few shades as the blue eyed angel leaned over the bench and gave his best friend a smile. 

"That was beautiful," he grinned through his overbite. "A new novel?" 

This is when the pain started to throb inside Karkat's chest, his nervously shaking lips cease their futile trembling and draw in a straight line. A deep breath and composing sigh made him relax, but still, not enough. "No, I'm just bored." 

Bored with being friends.

His thoughts were running rampant. 

"Oh, well... It's still amazing." 

"Call it what you may, I'm still broke," he snickered with the utmost level of 
sarcasm doting in his voice. It was no longer airy and smooth, sweet and delightful. It was heavy and almost impersonal, but John hadn't ever noticed a difference. He'd always been wrapped up in watching Karkat's lips move poetically to his prose. It was a real shame that he hadn't seen the expression his best friend had on when he was letting such sugar-sweet words blossom around him. 

"Can't eat a dream," John smiled as he blinked for a moment then snapped his finger. 

"Huh?" 

"Jake asked me to bring this to you," John smiled as he handed Karkat his phone. 

That son of a bi--!

"Hey, Kar?" 

"Yeah?" Vantas looked up at his standing beloved. 

John seemed lost, thoughts amiss as he paused with his crystal blue eyes gazing 
deep into Vantas's. The colors blurred together, a purple hue reflecting back at them both as John bit his lip, almost stuttering his words when they finally met vocal chords. "A-ah, right. Jade wanted to know what you wanted to do." 

With a blink and a roll of his neck to look up at John once again, Karkat narrowed his eyes in confusion. "Do?" 

"Yeah, you know..." John trailed off as he rolled his hand on his wrist as if coercing the next line of conversation on Karkat's end. 

"'Yeah, you know' what?" 

"You're not serious, are you?" 

Karkat opened his mouth to speak but was silenced as a holler from across the way called out two names that called the young men's attention to the sound. It was Vriska, her long amber-blonde hair tied up in a pony tail that was tucked into the back of her skater-style hoodie as she walked up. Her eyes were painted with bright silver eye shadow that hinted on her navy blue eyes and matching lips. She smiled, waving a finger-less gloved hand at John and nearly ignore Karkat. "Oh, hey. Kay-kay," she smiled." 

"Vriska," he nodded thoughtfully as he stood. Kar could feel the party would be moving soon, with or without him. 

"Okay, the blind girl's licking the doorknobs, Sky-high and Legless are making sandcastles on the baseball diamond, and you two are still wasting time," her hands pressed on her hips. "Move it, Jade's starting dinner early so she needs a clean-up crew." 

"Wait, wait, wait!" Karkat silenced Vriska and the about-to-speak John. "What are you guys talking about?" 

Both froze, blinking and only Vriska had an accusing look in her fiery eyes. Almost in a threatening way she jumped up to approach him, folding her arms across her moderate sized chest. 

"You really are an idiot, aren't you?" 

"What?" 

"Kar," John laughed softly, hiding his buck teeth behind a small fist, "You forgot your own birthday?" 

In a split second everything down to the date, time, and season really dawned on Karkat. He couldn't respond honestly. The truth was that he'd completely thrown his own life out the window being enveloped in thoughts of John, but saying that aloud would lead to many, many things going wrong. However, he was usually never that distracted. It was an all time record to forget his date of birth. Rather, overlook it as if it was any other day. 

"Um..." 

"You did, didn't you?" Vriska groaned as she looked over and ran off to stop Gamzee and Tavros from drawing butterflies and happy faces in the damp sand of the diamond, leaving John and Karkat alone. 

A silence drew itself out, John sighing and looking over at his best friend. He smiled, lips closed to hide those teeth of his, and looked up at Kar. "Don't leave the house before I can say Happy Birthday, stupid," John laughed softly as he shoveled his hands in the pockets of his bright blue hoodie. 

Those eleven words made Karkat stiff, eyes wide as he watched John begin to head back to the house. No matter how many days had passed since his initial departure, no matter how many years he aged or grew more senile, those few words would never leave him. 

John... 


John, you're killing me.