Chapter Text
“John.”
Sun reflected off the pieces of dust that floated through the air at the end of the day, rustled by the premature movements made by the students around him to pack up. It was fall, and the sun was already in its first setting stages, bathing the room with a serene yellow. John stared out the window absentmindedly, yearning for class to be over like always.
“John, dude.”
Dave was sitting propped up on his elbow, trying to get John’s attention. Having drowned out the noise of the room for a good twenty minutes, his best friend’s voice seemed to penetrate his thoughts like an alarm clock would wake him from a dream—no matter how nonchalant and cool Dave’s voice was. He looked over, blinking, eyes half-lidded in a haze of boredom.
“Yeah?”
“You look like Gamzee, with your eyes like that. Snap out of it.” John blinked again, taking a quick glance at the aforementioned troll, who was busy staring intently at the back of the bull-horned Tavros’ head, as though he could see something there that no one else could. It wouldn’t be an inaccurate assessment. Dave began again. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about our plans.”
“No…” John searches his brain. Plans? He knew he could be a bit airheaded at times, and at this moment he was feeling as though he fit that description perfectly. “Yes. Yes, I forgot. Please refresh my memory.” Dave sighed loudly and pinched his brow.
“I’m not about to get all wordy up in here—”
“I think you already are.”
“—but I know it isn’t too much to ask for your dorky head to fucking remember the important things I had in store for us today.” Dave’s voice remained flat, the only reason John probably had to justify his own borderline careless treatment of someone he considered to be his best friend—Dave was simply too cool to care. Rose, who had been casually observing the pair ever since John had been snapped out of his reverie, leaned forward in her chair behind them and interrupted Dave once again.
“Don’t be indignant just because the only person who you put any stock into doesn’t worship the ground you tread, dear Strider.” She smiled, putting her head on both hands and staring pointedly at Dave, who flipped his pencil between his fingers. The bell rang, finally, and many students who had been ready to go for the past ten minutes disappeared without a moment’s notice. The three stayed, as usual, to wait for their missing piece Jade to find them.
“Anyway.” Dave continued, ever patient with Rose’s playful verbal jabs, “I found a wicked used movie store and I know you would cream your pants, Egbert, sifting through all of the crappy VHS you can get your lame-ass hands on.” John perked up at the thought, memories flooding back from last week. Immediately he broke through the distraction of Gamzee (who, as usual, lingered about confusedly after class) in the back, who let out an alright, motherfuckers with an insane sort of chuckle, to daydream briefly about completing his collection of horrible Nic Cage movies. “So are you in? I don’t even have to ask, I know you’re in.”
John laughed, stowing his books in his backpack as Jade appeared beside them, happily beginning an in depth chat with Rose about their Inter-Global Communications homework. Dave lost interest immediately and John rolled his eyes at their babbling nonsense, both of them getting up to leave as quickly as possible.
It didn’t take long to get to the video store, though John certainly understood why he had never been there or heard of it before. It was several blocks east of the school, in a neighborhood that could only be described as ‘ghetto’. This didn’t bother him, however, when he laid eyes on the expanse of shelves and tables stacked high with used VHS tapes. Dave’s comment on him creaming his pants indeed came closer to being a prediction when he told him that there were two stories.
His heart skipped a beat when, after nearly a half hour of browsing (Dave had gone off somewhere to find a Ben Stiller movie he had mentioned), he found Raising Arizona under a pile of forgotten comedies. The fact that it was marked at ninety-nine cents only made the find of yet another Nic Cage classic all the more sweet. Another half hour brought a slew of Matthew McConaughey discoveries, though he would have to look upstairs to find any more in the romantic comedy section, as an attendant informed him. He also found a set of every Howie Mandel TV movies ever made—though it was a bit too much Mandel for him, especially with the knowledge of what pranks Little Monsters had inspired in Dave.
Bluh.
He made his way upstairs, the musty smell of old carpeting and creaky boards beneath intoxicating him. This part of the store seemed to be relatively empty, though downstairs it wasn’t exactly a festival going on either. The sense of privacy only spurred John on, gawking at obscure titles with wild abandon. Rom-coms were in the back, a strange idea indeed—he supposed that there wouldn’t be enough room downstairs to house the pure awfulness and intrigue that came with the genre.
It was behind some tall shelves, and after passing them with his arms full of Cage and McConaughey, it became immediately apparent that he was not alone. A troll about his age—probably a senior in high school too, though he was a bit short—stood holding a title he couldn’t see. John gawked. It was rare to see a troll in a used movie store like this one, since the filing systems of human movies and troll movies differed so greatly that only mega-stores could handle both at once, and even so, only in little bits. In general he hadn’t found that trolls appreciated human cinema, especially after the night that Dave had invited their tentative friend Tavros over for a good ol’ fashioned Harry Potter marathon (orchestrated by none other than Jade), and had only succeeded in confusing him thoroughly. John considered it a lost cause, especially since very few romantic relationships were even included in the movies.
The troll, who had his back turned at first, noticed John’s presence within the first few squeaks of the floorboards beneath his feet. The movies were all a bit crammed in the tiny section circling a window, the troll directly in front of the dwindling light pouring through the glass from the remains of a sunset. He could only see his silhouette at first, the glare dazzling his eyes as the troll spun around, as if he were caught red-handed simply for browsing.
John felt compelled to say something, but nothing came to mind as he got used to the light and began to register his appearance. He had the sign of a cancer on his black, long sleeved shirt. His horns were unusual as well, being dull, short nubs. John had a brief vision of cupping his hands over them, only because with any other troll he would be cut by the sharp points. For as long as John studied him, the troll glared right back, his teeth covering his bottom lip in a similar way to John’s when he was to relaxed to mind them.
“What are you looking at, fuckass?” The troll grumbled, shoving the movie back on the shelf and shouldering his way past him. One of John’s movies dropped from the top of his stack, flying to the ground. The troll didn’t look back, John opening his mouth to reply, but nothing yet coming out. His first inclination was to be rude back, but the entire experience was so strange that he wasn’t sure what to think of it, raising an eyebrow in thought as he kneeled carefully to retrieve the rogue video.