But before Karkat could say anything to change Dave's course of thought, a slow band of white started to appear on the horizon.
Karkat sighed when he saw it, his time with Dave was up. He always hated the end of the so called dream sequence. It made his head pound and his brain scramble into fucking eggs. The dark haired boy glanced at Dave one last time.
"See you tomorrow?"
Then everything turned white again.
Karkat shot up out of his bed, like he usually did, everyday. He never really understood why he did that. But it's not like he ever remembered his dreams anyway. They obviously weren't important enough to do so, being a figment of his imagination and all. And yet, he always woke up with some empty feeling, like he was missing something important.
He just brushed the feeling off and got ready to go to work. Which mainly consisted of throwing on a sweater, because it's cold as balls, gray jeans and some generic knock off of Toms. Luckily for him, his work didn't have some ridiculous dress code.
Karkat walked out the door and started to head towards his work, it wasn't far away, so he just walked. Exercise never really hurt anyone, except when you do too much, because somehow people can actually reach that point of "enjoyment". The sun was still slowly rising, the sky was only a dim blue at this point. Karkat really enjoyed this time of the day, it was still peaceful and the sun didn't blaze out his eyeballs.
He eventually arrived at his destination, the building had plastered on a pink neon sign that said "Roxy's Proxy", because a cheesy name is apparently needed, and was painted a light beige. He worked for a woman named Roxy Lalonde, which you can partially tell from the sign, and was actually pretty respectable. All he really did was just keep the computer store clean and tried not to talk to people. Because when that happened all hell broke loose.
He wasn't exactly a people person, but he knew how to talk to people when it came down to it, and THAT was a curse. He really blamed his dad, his father taught him some public speaking when he was younger, his father wanted him and his brother to be his proteges, but it didn't turn out like he had initially wanted. His father was a public speaker for equality, and had been in the military. But Karkat wasn't up for speaking at all to people and resented the military because of the pain it had caused his mother. Let's just say his relationship with his father is complicated and damaged.
Enough of that though, he has a job and he can't have old memories be brought up this early, he didn't need a headache.
The dark-skinned boy went up to the front door and unlocked it. He always had to open shop. He never really seemed to mind though, he did like to have some time alone before his co-worker Sollux came in. He could be a pain in the ass, believe it or not, but was a decent "friend".
But he did mind today, because he wasn't expecting someone to already be in there.
It took him a while to realize it, but there was an abnormal tuft of blonde hair in one of the isles. At first he thought it was some sort of intruder, so, startled he crouched down out of sight. He started to move slowly to the front desk to grab the phone. But he was stopped abruptly before he could. The blonde went in front of him, only to be revealed as his manager Roxy.
"Jesus fucking Christ on a hot stick! Goddammit Roxy, you scared the shit out of me!"
Roxy laughed at Karkat's surprise,
"Aw fuck, sorry Karkat. I forgot to tell you I'd be coming in early. I had to fix some of the computers, they were really outdated and damn--"
"It's fine, I think I can recover from this near death experience."
"Haha, thank god, I was bout to just turn into my little brother there for a second. You'd actually probably like him, he's really into making "sick beats" and actually is starting to go into the filming industry. He's coming by later if you wan to meet him."
"I think I'll pass." he said begrudgingly.
She smiled mischievously and waved her tan hand.
"Well, I'll see you later then, right now, I have some shit to get done."
Karkat watched her disappear into the backroom, and rolled his eyes playfully. He clocked in, not knowing that this would be a long shift.
His day went by fairly quickly, not much really happened, there wasn't any annoying teenagers or kids fucking around with the equipment, so it was relaxing for once. Once his shift started to end, Sollux was getting off his shift too. Sollux spared Karkat a goodbye and was out the door. He said he had to do some shit with one of his girlfriends or something, Karkat wasn't really giving him any attention.
But just before Karkat could make it out the door, Roxy called him to the back of the store. Karkat groaned dramatically and walked over to her voice, standing in the doorway.
"Hey uh Karkat? Can you please show this guy around? I'm sorry, I know it's the end of your shift, but I really trust you and I'm SUPER busy."
Karkat heard a voice and immediately looked up to see some guy with ridiculously blonde hair, adorned with fucking aviators, a red hoodie. Most things he hated, douchebags, that's a terrible first impression for him.
"Wow, that's how you're going to refer to you brother as? 'Some guy'? Cold sister, cold."
When it finally stopped, Karkat already had a scowl deeper than the depths of hell on his face.
Roxy just rolled her eyes.
"Karkat, this is my baby brother Dave, I told you about him this morning, Dave, this is Karkat, my best employee. Now go, I have stuff to do."
Karkat started walking out before the guy, "Dave", could get another obnoxious word out.
"Sooo, Roxy told you about me? Please don't tell me she said some sickeningly cute story about me as a baby, she's done that one too many times I tell you. I mean, we were just standing in line at the grocery store one day and she blurted out to some old lady about how when I was four I ran around ass naked to impress one of my friends. The lady just looked at me like I was some kind of fresh ass, which I am, and I knew what that old lady was thinkin. She sure as fuck wanted some of this ass, which is normal for one, but actually creepy imagine the age gap dude--"
"Holy shit! How long is this going to last? And how is that story "cute", babies running around naked is a living nightmare."
"Hey, I was a toddler."
Karkat didn't respond any further, he just wanted to get the job done.
Suddenly Karkat saw Terezi and Vriska walk in to start their shift, but promptly ignored them, he wasn't in the mood to deal with anyone else's incompetence. Those two together is subjecting him to an hour of earsplitting screaming.
"Wow Karcrab, what's wrong with you, get reined back in before you could walk out?" Vriska said in a mocking tone.
"Vriska, promptly shut the fuck up before I decide to shove my foot up your disgusting mouth."
"Ouch" Terezi laughed..
Dave snorted at their remarks, and was finally noticed by the two girls.
Terezi perked up and sniffed the air.
"Oooh who's this? They "look" interesting. And like a total hottie. Terezi Pyrope, at your service."
She held out her had, despite Dave being more than five feet away. Dave strode up to her and introduced himself.
"Dave Strider, DJ extraordinaire, soon to be most famous shitposter."
Dave Strider? That's weird.
"Dave Strider?! You mean the author of SBAHJ, because if you are, I have many-a-tips for you on how to make it ten times juicier and shittier. It's nice to finally "see" you in the flesh."
"Terezi, you're blind" Karkat said blandly.
"That's the joke."
"Anyway," Karkat said, "I have to show this douche wad around, for some reason-- wait why do I have to show you around, you think you could've told me why the fuck you even came here in the first place, let alone not be an annoying dick swaddler for more than ten seconds?"
Dave gave Karkat a blank look, "Dunno, why don't you go ask your boss."
Great, Karkat pissed him off, good job, he really knows how to do that, all the time!
"Fuck you! I had to do this, so why don't you just spare me the time and just tell me what you want! May it be weird exploding computers, or a hard drive to hide porn on, I don't care!"
"Jesus Christ, you know I could just leave," He started to turn towards the door, "I'll just have to tell Dirk I'm not getting those computer parts" Dave said quieter.
"Wait, ugh, fine, sorry. Just, what are you looking for?"
Dave turned his head towards Karkat, "All I need is some parts to be able to run a computer, except, I don't know shit about computers."
The girls in the front started to clock in and begin their work, leaving the other two to look for the computer parts.
"Okay, they're over here." Karkat lead him to another isle.
The isle was filled with dozens of different computer parts, this store wasn't very organized, even if Karkat tried so hard. Customers just always left shit lying around like they own the building. This is one of the many reasons why he hates people.
"How the hell are we going to find anything in that giant ass mountain of parts. The only mountain of parts I want to be in is body parts, but not in a serial killer way, just in a way that I know I'll get laid. Actually--"
Karkat cut him off before his horrible, horrible, mouth would say anything else that would make his brain cells evaporate into thin air. Which seems to be a new trend lately.
"Oh my god, please do not continue that painful, moronic train of thought. I swear, the universe is out to get me, oh please universe, strike me down, strike me now to end this terrible hell."
Dave clapped his hands together and rubbed them, and started to rummage through spare parts.
"Do you even know what you're looking for?" Karkat said dryly.
"Nope, I'm just going to dig through these until I find something that vaguely resembles a picture my bro sent me."
He continued to dig in the giant heap of electronics.
"Can you show it to me, or am I going to have to take a wild fucking guess?"
"Yeah, uh, hold on a sec."
Karkat waited for Dave to pull out his phone and show it to him. It took a few minutes of him waiting impatiently, but when he did, the part didn't look like anything Karkat recognized.
"Huh, that's weird, what part is that? It just looks like someone decided to smash different parts together when they were bored."
Dave just shrugged, "Fuck if I know, I already said I don't know shit about computers."
"Who'd you say this was for again?"
"My brother Dirk. He's sick and can't get out of the house, so I had to grab it for him."
"I'll go check in the back, hold on."
Karkat hurried over to the back, there was no time to lose, he wanted to just lay down in his bed as soon as he got home.
He came back out disappointed, there wasn't anything even similar to the part he had showed him.
"There isn't anything like that in stock. I could go ask Roxy--" For once it was Karkat who got cut off.
"No way in hell you're doing that, unless you want a death wish. She can get brutal when she sucked up in her work. I'll just go check another store, thanks I guess."
He started to walk away before Terezi poked out her head from one of the isles.
"Hey! Cool Kid, I found the part you were looking for!"
"What?! How?" Karkat said, surprised.
"Why, a girl never reveals her secrets Mr. Cherry Pop."
"Whoa thanks, you really saved my ass."
Dave looked at Karkat, "Sorry, guess the blind chick is better at needle in the haystack than you are."
Karkat bristled at his remark. This was actually embarrassing him, this day just couldn't get any worse could it?
"What the fuck ever. I have better things to do anyway."
Karkat stomped out the door to leave behind a chatting duo, that he was not affected by.
By the time he had gotten home he was calmer than when he had left, and was greeted by his roommate Kanaya and a delicious aroma of stew.
"Karkat, what's wrong? You seem stressed."
"Ugh, it's just work, Roxy apparently has this douche bag brother, and I had to try and help him find some complicated part for a computer. We couldn't even find it, but of course Terezi did."
Kanaya sat down on the couch and patted a spot for him to sit down, he reluctantly joined her.
"Hmm. I see. I wouldn't blame Terezi for this. It's just complicated buffoonery from everyone."
"I don't blame HER, I blame Strider."
"I take it that's his name. Why do you blame him and not Terezi?"
"Yeah. And I don't know, he just annoys me. I have to put the blame on someone, and honestly, I don't feel like being my own target today."
Kanaya sighed and shook her head.
"Karkat you can't blame him for not being able to find it, it was just an unfortunate turn of events."
"Yeah, Yeah, okay fine. But if I see that guy again, I swear my brain will explode."
Kanaya, deciding she was satisfied got up from her spot on the couch, and went in the kitchen to continue cooking.
Karkat on the other hand decided to take a well deserved nap on the couch until dinner was ready.
He didn't know that he'd be going somewhere completely different than usual.