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One sunny afternoon, John Egbert returned home with an armful of groceries. The house was silent except for his cheerful whistling as he closed the door behind him with his foot before going about putting everything away. Moments later, a loud chirping sound echoed through the house. John paused, a box of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Wiggler! ® Spicy Grubloaf Mix halfway between the bag and the refrigerator. Crickets were supposed to be night time bugs, right? This was the third time this week they’d sang in broad daylight, and he couldn’t ever recall them having been so loud, either! Maybe part of SBURB’s fucked up world building included giant crickets? John shook his head to dispel the mental image of spiked mandibles and skittering legs that thought conjured and continued with his work.
He had just finished putting away the groceries when he noticed the mess on the floor. In the doorway was a trail of what looked like some type of red flower petals, carefully laid out in single file. He knelt down and rubbed one between his fingers, gave it a sniff. Yup, definitely rose petals! That was a puzzler. Neither he nor Karkat had ever managed to keep a houseplant alive for longer than a week, so they couldn’t be from inside the house. There were definitely no rose bushes in the sea of crabgrass and dandelions they called a yard, either, so where had this come from? Their ectobiological whoopsie wiggler from Hell dragged horrible things inside all the time, but he hadn’t shown any tendencies to go after people’s gardening. He certainly didn’t carefully space out his prizes in a neat little trail. Bringing either of his adoptive lusii a freshly run over squirrel and expecting them to eat it or pulling used tissues out of the trash to make confetti (or, on one memorable occasion, making squirrel confetti) was more his style. Curious, John stood up and followed the trail down the hall and into the living room.
Half the couch was taken up by a haphazard mound of cushions, some still bearing little tooth marks where they were bitten and dragged over. On his back in the middle of the pile was Nicolas, also known as OFFSPRING, Egbert-Vantas, fast asleep and waving his stubby grub legs in the air. Judging from the little trilling snores and the strand of pinkish drool making its way toward his hair, he’d been out for a while and could probably be ruled out as suspect number one. John paused to scratch his belly, eliciting a soft coo, before continuing his quest.
He followed the trail around the corner and up the stairs, more and more concerned about the ominous chirping. It was getting louder the further he went and the mental image of a bug the size of a Volkswagen with bitey parts to match was getting to be impossible to write off as hysteria. The trolls had told him enough about Alternia’s wildlife for him to seriously consider giant death bugs a thing that could be happening in any world that included the troll players. If there could be recooprathingies and dead baby food and other trolls, there could be horrific alien wildlife! Just to be safe, he quietly took Zillyhoo from his strife specibus. Only the best would do for waging war on the alien insect menace! John steeled himself for battle and crept up the stairs in the most exaggeratedly stealthy creep that universe had ever seen.
At the top of the stairs, he stopped in stunned horror. The end of the trail was in sight, and it was in his bedroom! It occurred to him that he hadn’t seen or heard Karkat at all since he got home. What if the bug had Karkat and was going to feed him to her verminous children? He had to be a man and go save his honestly not so fair and really cranky maiden! John took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and advanced toward the open bedroom door. He flattened his back against the wall beside the door and, gripping his hammer more tightly than was really necessary, carefully, silently, peered around the doorframe.
Whatever he’d been expecting to see in there, it certainly wasn’t the scene laid out before his eyes. The entire room was blanketed in petals, the effect only slightly ruined by the mass of thorny stems clearly visible in the trashcan. On every available surface, a mismatched legion of candles blazed merrily and perilously close to flammable items. Most of them didn’t even have a saucer under them. In among the unfortunately pine-scented Yankee Candle votives, John saw at least a few birthday candles, the emergency ones from under the sink, and, hat gloriously ablaze, the huge, creepy wizard candle Rose had given them as a housewarming gift. Zazzerpan the Great didn’t seem to be in any distress for being aflame, and continued to gaze placidly out the window from his place on the bedside table. In the center of it all, Karkat himself lay stretched out on his side across the bed, head propped on one hand in what he obviously thought was a seductive pose, naked save for the “artfully” arranged Ghostbusters sheets concealing his nethers. The source of the sounds was clear now, and it wasn’t a terror bug from beyond the stars except by a very liberal definition. Eyes locked on John’s and a rose clenched in his nubby teeth, Karkat was rubbing his legs against each other, producing a loud chirp with each pass.
John promptly spoiled what mood there was by commencing to literally roll on the floor laughing. He was so engrossed in appreciating Karkat’s “prank” that he completely missed seeing the rose drop from Karkat’s mouth in stunned disbelief. His first clue that anything was wrong about his interpretation of events was an angry shout of something that sounded like, “You absolute feculent asscactus,” quickly cut off by a loud crash and a panicked, “owohshitohshitohshit!” Laughter fading, John pushed himself up on his elbow to see what was wrong. In his haste to throttle his ungrateful matesprit, Karkat had apparently become tangled in the sheets and kicked over the bedside table. Zazzerpan had landed hat first in the trashcan and, with the other candles from the nightstand, had scattered burning rose stems and tissues across the carpet. Karkat, having quickly freed himself of the sheets, was now attempting to use them to smother the flames. Just then, the smoke alarm began to scream.
“Hang on, Karkat, I’ve got this!” John sprinted down the stairs, taking them two at a time, and made a break for the front hall closet. Nic had heard the commotion and was standing vigilantly on top of his cushion heap, hair a mass of drooly cowlicks, making sleepy but fierce growling sounds and looking around for an intruder to defeat. While John located the cleaning bucket and filled it in the sink, Nic had a terrible realization. Daddy was upstairs, and he sounded like he was in trouble! With a warlike skree, Nic launched himself off the cushion pile and skittered up the stairs determined to defeat the foe.
Thus it was that when John made it back upstairs a minute or so later, he found Karkat still having little success with his efforts at firefighting while Nic ran in circles around the blaze, hissing and attempting to threaten it by puffing himself up. Careful not to step on the wiggler, John emptied the bucket onto the fire, which reduced it enough to allow Karkat to successfully smother it with the bedsheets. The danger vanquished, John dropped the bucket on the floor and ducked into the hallway to rip the battery out of the smoke alarm before returning to the scene of the crime.
Awkward, burnt-carpet-and-pine-scented silence reigned, broken only by Nic’s worried cooing as he circled around John and Karkat’s feet looking for reassurance that the threat had been dealt with. John bent to scoop him up, which Nic took as an invitation to mountaineer up his arms, drape over his shoulder, and nuzzle his neck while making little rumbling coos. They stood that way for several moments, Karkat glaring balefully at the bucket and oh no, there was that weird full body vibration that meant he was really, really pissed off. John kept well back and scratched Nic’s head, thoroughly confused and with the sinking feeling that he’d just stuck his entire leg into the sucking quicksand of cultural miscommunications. Again. Karkat took a deep breath and John took several steps back.
“You win the fucking prize, Egbert,” he said, his voice surprisingly quiet at first but increasing in volume with every additional word, “every aspiring shit artisan in every bulge-blighted universe hopes to emulate your ability to effortlessly turn any situation into a hideous, diarrhea-splattered farce!” Aaaaand there went the eye twitch. On John’s shoulder, Nic had stopped rumbling and was calmly watching Karkat froth and rant, reassured that his lusus was back to normal.
“Karkat? Can you at least put on some clothes while you tell me all about why I’m a failure? Children are present!” John said, motioning to the wiggler on his shoulder, who truth be told lacked any real notion of what clothing was for.
The stream of abuse never faltered while Karkat stomped over to the corner and retrieved a pair of red boxer shorts, which he proceeded to put on while delivering an especially eloquent dissertation on all the ways John could go fuck himself. Nic was starting to squirm, so John released him onto the floor where he promptly went about investigating the smoldering remains of the carpet. John picked up poor Zazzerpan, who was now missing everything from the eyebrows up, from where he had rolled after going dumpster diving.
Karkat was on his way back now, intent on continuing his rant, “…and then shove the biggest, most ravenous nookworm ever squirted into being firmly up your-“
“Karkat?” That won him just enough of a pause to blurt out, “I know you’re in the middle of chewing me out for something but what does it have to do with all of this?” He waved Zazzerpan in a sweeping arc that took in the whole room and Karkat’s legs.
Karkat threw up his hands. “I try just this once to execute a romantic gesture for someone and what do I get? Irritatingly nasal laughter and hive damage. Why yes, I am so very clearly the one who reacted strangely and inappropriately in this situation!” he said.
John gave a nervous little laugh. “Wait… you mean you weren’t playing a joke? Karkat, you looked like you fell off the cover of a really shitty romance novel with forbidden in the title and a cheesy blurb about unleashing raging taboo xenopassions that can never be revealed! And you were making bug noises while you did it,” he said, putting Zazzerpan aside.
The sour, constipated expression on Karkat’s face and the way he crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders just a bit told John he’d been more right than he thought about the source of Karkat’s inspiration. “Why were you making bug noises, anyway?” John continued, “You scared the crap out of me! I thought I was gonna have to fight off some gargantuan vicious troll cricket that was probably getting ready to feed you to its young or something!”
Karkat scrubbed one hand over his eyes, pinched at the bridge of his nose, and said, “John, I’ve been trying to be understanding of the fact that one half of this relationship is pheromonally challenged, impossible as it is for me to grasp how you can remain oblivious when I’m giving off enough scent to inadvertently proposition every troll for five miles. I figured if I tried something that even your pitifully lacking senses could pick up on, you couldn’t fuck this up. Except, and I really shouldn’t be surprised, you still managed.”
Realization dawned, cold and shame-scented, as John recalled just how many times he’d heard crickets lately. He was the worst matesprit. It was him. “Wait,” he said, “you mean trolls really do attract mates like a cricket?” He glanced at Karkat’s legs, half expecting to see rug burns. “And I kind of like being pheronominally stupid or whatever you said because I really, really don’t need to know when my neighbors are getting busy! No matter how funny it is to remind Dave Equius knows when he has a boner and watch him freak.” He bent down to examine Karkat’s legs before any protest could be made and gave the hairs he found a fascinated poke.
“What the fuck did you think that noise was? GET OFF ME!” Karkat jerked his leg away, affronted. “I thought YOU were the one with weird leg hair!”
“I’ve got perfectly normal leg hair, thank you! Maybe a lot of it, but it’s just leg hair! It’s not supposed to sing or anything!” John sat back on the floor, hands safely in his lap, and gave Karkat a wounded look.
“Well what’s the point if it doesn’t keep you warm and isn’t for communication?! Your species has so many worthless adaptations that I’m surprised you don’t have a second waste chute just for the hell of it!” Karkat seethed quietly while John digested that piece of information. Enthusiastic skrees floated over from the other side of the room, where Nic was gleefully savaging a fallen alarm clock. John’s mouth opened, and Karkat braced himself for the certain stupidity that was sure to follow.
“So there aren’t any giant bugs from space attacking the neighborhood?”
Karkat heaved an exasperated sigh, “No, John, giant bugs from space are not attacking.”
“Oh, good. Now I’m gonna be creeped out when I hear crickets outside, though. Eughhhh,” he said, and gave a full body shudder at the thought.
The grin that spread across Karkat’s face was nothing short of pure, delighted malice. “Are they crickets though, John? How will you know?” He dropped his voice to a stage whisper, “I’ll tell you a secret, John. Trolls are deathly allergic to crickets. There are no crickets on this planet, John.” The look of exaggerated disgust he got in response was all he could have hoped for and more. It was his turn to laugh now, even if he had to do it while ducking the pine candle John winged past his head.
“You’re a filthy liar, Karkat!” John said, starting to laugh himself, “There are too crickets! You ate like ten of them off the porch in front of me the first week we were here, remember?”
“Your failure to recognize perfectly good food and eat it first is not my problem.”
The tension effectively broken, John stood up to take a good look at the state of his room and open a window. The carpet in that corner was done for and, now, so was his alarm clock. Nic had abandoned it when the laughter started, apparently having decided that laughter meant it was playtime and playtime meant run around snarling until someone threw stuff for you to chase and/or wrestled with you. Sadly, the damage had already been done. The bed still looked ok, though, even if it would need new sheets. Come to think of it…
“Hey Karkat.”
“What?”
“Wanna try for being able to successfully get laid best out of three?”
And so they shooed Nic out of the room to amuse himself, which they would later discover he had done an exemplary job of in their absence. It was absolutely worth having to buy Mr. Jones next door new trashcans.