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John didn’t think it was all that weird that he took this job. The local roller rink was, in fact, every teenager’s dream job.
“But you can’t roller skate,” Jade pointed out while John wiped down tables in the cafe area, wearing a flowy skirt and green inline skates that dazzled.
John, meanwhile, bore the crimson uniform and average sneakers. He shrugged. “So? I’m wiping down tables.”
“It still seems silly.”
“You’re silly.”
“I think you should learn,” she said, then pointed a thumb at the floor. “When they dim the lights, you should go out.”
The rink traded overhead fluorescent lights and pop music for spastic colors and good music after six. This is usually when the place is riddled with just about everyone from their high school. John cringed inwardly — and outwardly — at the thought of embarrassing himself in front of his peers. “No, thanks.”
Jade frowned for a bit before Rose hobbled over. She wore average skates, and while she couldn’t do it quite as effortless as Jade or some of the regulars, she was still pretty good. She said, “Jade?” like she was waiting for her.
“Sorry.” Jade smiled and reached for her hand to help her walk on the carpet. “John won’t skate.”
“How very surprising.” Rose gestured to the floor with her eyes. “I don’t know if you saw, but Karkat’s out again.”
Ah, Karkat. John quietly simmered as they all turned to watch him refasten his skates and get on the floor. The music was in its beginning verse of some Avril Lavigne song, and Karkat adjusted to the tempo effortlessly as he started doing rounds.
John did not hate Karkat. To be honest, John wasn’t sure he was capable of hating anyone. But you see, Karkat was a very good skater, and not only was he a good skater, he was also a good show off. John reluctantly admitted to himself that it took a good amount of guts to go that fast in front of so many people, fearless. What if he fell?
He asked this aloud, bitterly. Rose and Jade both answered him with a shrug. “He’s Karkat.”
Then they left together, Jade leading Rose out to the floor carefully until they matched their footwork and could go without really trying. Not everyone on the floor made it look effortless, but the people that did really did.
As John checked the fullness of the trash cans around the building, he spotted Dave (surely) giving great customer service to the people who decided to take a break to munch on a pizza or a hot dog or $2.99 bottled water. Dave nodded at him, and John smiled back. Then his eyes traveled over the floor and, of course, found Karkat.
Karkat was a small, grumpy-looking brown boy who nearly every employee silently or not so silently cooed over, which John guessed was understandable, because he wasn’t always as great as he was now. As he did some weird, foot-driven leg movements that really should’ve knocked him on his ass, John recalled what he used to be like.
John didn’t always work there but he’d always been there, because Dave had always worked there, so he knew everything there was to know about the place (which is another good reason for him to want to work there, thanks very much). He remembered being twelve when an even smaller, even grumpier Karkat was dragged through the door by his friends. He remembered Karkat reluctantly renting skates and wobbling onto the floor, slowly gaining confidence as the music gained a beat. He remembered Karkat actually falling on his ass, dozens of times, in his attempts to do the tricks he wanted to do, early in the morning when John, Dave and the admission booth girl were the only other humans in the building. John had really admired him, then. In fact he’s pretty sure there was a point in time where he could’ve been considered obsessed with him. That totally stopped being a thing, though.
He struggled to pinpoint the moment when it stopped being a thing as he watched Karkat do 360s while already going in a giant circle. He didn’t fall, because he never fell when people were around, like he was too good for failure or something. Everyday when he arrived, over the course of time, the furrow between his eyebrows smoothened out. And everyday, John found himself waiting for that. It happened now, as the song came to an end and the light was chased out by darkness. The music changed.
The opening chords to Countdown rang out, and for some reason John was so violently reminded of his middle school infatuation with this boy that he almost immediately walked over to the skates counter and asked for size tens.
As he traded his own shoes for the more wheeled variety and tied up the laces he tried to silence the inner freak out he was having. He had been an intrinsic part of this roller rink community for four years now, and had never even put on a pair. Why? Why now? He told himself that Beyonce was telling him to.
As he slowly and very, very carefully made his way to the floor in the dark he had the fleeting fear that he would get in trouble for skating on the job. But he was too familiar with the employers to actually get chewed out for wanting to learn to skate for his job at a skating rink.
John was very careful to not make eye contact with Jade or Rose as he looked for Karkat. He held on to the bar surrounding the edge of the floor for dear life. He couldn’t find Karkat in the crowded darkness; if he was still out, which surely he was, then he was just another body among bodies.
This was disappointing but John was reluctant to acknowledge the fact that he only put these skates on for him, so he made a sad, pathetic attempt to let go of the bar and move forward. Instead of forward he stumbled and barely managed to catch himself on the bar. He thanked it, inwardly, for saving his life.
“Don’t you work here now?” a voice said to him. It managed to sound bemused and annoyed at the same time.
John knew the voice, of course he knew the voice, but it still managed to do some weird jump-start thing to his heart that he didn’t appreciate. He looked at Karkat, who stood effortlessly in front of him, not having to hold some dumb bar or anything —
John smiled anyway. “Hi.” Then, “Um, yeah, I do.”
“And you can’t skate?”
John made a scowl at nothing in particular. Maybe his skates. “Well.”
“That’s fucking dumb.”
He huffed, righteous indignation filling his chest. “I can skate.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Karkat had started moving now, doing half-circles back and forth around John. They were just barely out of the traffic. “Show me, then.”
John stuck his tongue out at him, maturity in human form. Karkat did not give him much room to work with. Did he not trust him not to fall? He wouldn’t fall.
Biting his lip in concentration, John pushed off from the bar and immediately fell. “Fuck,” he said, trying to overcome the temptation to just lie on the floor in defeat.
Karkat didn’t treat him like he was just defeated. “Here,” he said, a reluctant — nervous? — smile on his face. He held a hand out towards him, which John took, because he wasn’t an asshole. Most of the time. Some of the time.
When Karkat kept his balance even when pulling up his weight, John felt like an infant not able to stand on his own two feet. How pathetic. Little kids could roller skate.
“Look,” Karkat said, still holding onto John. Their height difference was prominent now; Karkat reached just over John’s shoulders. “You should learn how to fucking skate.”
“Okay.”
An aggravated look passed over Karkat’s face. “Someone good at it should teach you.”
John nodded. “That’s true.”
“I want to teach you.”
“Oh,” John breathed. Then, dumbly, “How to skate?”
“No, how to salsa.” Karkat did a dramatic eye roll as he began moving again, restless or bored with standing still. John held the bar and watched his feet move. “Yes, how to skate. Moron.”
“How would that work?” John really didn’t know what Karkat wanted from him. He suddenly really, really didn’t want to have to skate in front of all these people or be seen by Rose or Jade. He ducked his head as Karkat talked.
“I was thinking this,” Karkat started, talking with his hands. “You could sneak a key, and we could come here after hours. You don’t want to learn with an audience, right?”
John considered. “Wouldn’t that be, you know, illegal?”
Karkat shrugged. “All the funnest things are.” John struggled not to point out that funnest wasn’t a word. Karkat blinked, then, like he remembered something. “I’m Karkat, by the way.”
John was annoyed by the notion that after all these years he wouldn’t know Karkat’s name. He introduced himself back. “I’m John.”
“I know.” Karkat flicked John’s nametag, which read 'J-O-H-N' in bold Verdana. “I can read. So are we on?”
John still can not really believe he said yes.
+
Taking the key should’ve been easy, but when you work with Dave Strider, nothing can ever be so simple.
“You up to no good?” Dave said when John was in their manager’s office, looking for the spare key before she finished using the bathroom. Dave held a cup in his hand. John jumped when he heard him, whirling on him.
“No,” he said. He was thankful he wasn’t really caught; he continued searching. “I have a thing with Karkat?” He said it like a question.
“Karkat?” Dave’s interest was piqued. “Like, the Karkat?”
“Yes.”
“You know,” Dave leaned against the open doorway, “if he was like a few inches taller, and had bigger hands, I would probably be all over that.”
John bristled, but he shouldn’t have. It’s not like they were ever actually going to date, and even if they did, John didn’t like Karkat like that anyway. He found the key at the bottom of a very messily-filled drawer with an Aha!
He turned to the exit, feeling victorious. He said to Dave, offhand, “I get it, you’re gay.”
Dave followed him. “I’m just saying — if he ever came on to me, I don’t think I’d say no.”
John snorted. “In another universe, maybe.”
Their manager passed them on her way back to the office. They smiled at her decorously. She emerged with her purse and a smile of her own as she walked them to the exit. “You boys ready to go?”
Dave only shook the cup that he held in his hand. John gave three guesses to anyone to guess what was inside of it. He said, “Got all I need, ma’am.”
The three of them exited and went separate ways. John and Dave pretended to both make their way to Dave’s truck. John patted the ugly, broken thing as he looked at Dave. “Now you leave.”
“What, I can’t stay for your date?”
It hadn’t occurred to John that this could be misconstrued as a date. His face burned. “It’s not a date!”
“Yeah, okay.” Dave pulled open his car door and got in. John spotted Karkat on the curb a parking lot away. As the manager’s car drove out of sight he stood and made his way over.
Once closer, he stuck his nose up at Dave. “Strider.”
“Vantas.” Dave nodded, and that was that, John guessed.
With Dave gone, John greeted Karkat. Karkat, in only a slightly friendlier tone than he had said Dave’s name, said, “Egbert. Anything go wrong?”
“Nope.” He pulled the key out of his pocket and wiggled it triumphantly. He unlocked the front doors and they walked in.
They both stood there. The large area was lit by a single light as opposed to all of them, casting an eerie glow that really was only eerie because they were the only two there.
Well, eerie or romantic. The windows showed that it was a clear night, so the stars were visible. John could turn on mood music, and they were going to roller skate together. What Dave said earlier came to mind, and John’s heart sped up. This was totally a date.
Just when he was about to make sure Karkat knew that this wasn’t going to be like that Karkat made his way to the skates counter. John silently watched him grab his size and tie the laces. John thought about how even years after he got good at it, he never bought his own skates. He always rented.
When Karkat was done, he looked at John. “You going to get your own, or what?”
“Oh,” John said, flustered. Why was he flustered? He berated himself for this as he put his own skates on, and almost fell upon standing. Karkat grabbed his arm, and his grip was surprisingly gentle. “Thanks.”
“So, were you born clumsy?” Karkat asked as he led him towards the floor. John got increasingly nervous with every inch closer they got. “Or is it a learned trait?”
“Heredity,” John answered sadly. “Were you born angry?”
Karkat raised an eyebrow at him and abandoned him, causing John to flail for the bar. His panicked noises seemed especially loud in the quiet of the building. Karkat was already doing a lap around, arms spread out in all the space he didn’t have to give up for other people. His voice easily carried. “John. Music?”
John was fairly certain that was not how sentences worked, but he pointed to the booth that the DJ usually sat in. He remembered being surprised to learn that Dave actually preferred the cafe to the DJ booth. Something about being able to mess with more people.
Karkat followed the direction of his finger and headed there, switching from hardwood to carpet without tripping up. He glided through the door and into the booth, examining the controls and collection. “How does this shit work, John?”
“It’s mostly digital,” John called to him, eyeing the night sky through the window on the wall opposite him, seemingly miles and miles away. “But there are CDs.”
“In this economy?” He heard. A song came on, then: Suga Suga, Baby Bash. John groaned as Karkat made his way back out of the booth. “Ready to start?”
“Start?”
“Come on.” Karkat grabbed for his hand and then his other one, which John made very obvious he didn't like, as now he had to trust Karkat not to let him fall.
They stood still like that: across from each other, holding hands. Karkat gazed at John’s feet, looking like he was trying to find words. John blurted, “You know this isn't a date, right?”
Karkat shot him a look that could've burned him but did nothing more than mutter Idiot under his breath. Not looking John in the eyes, he said, “This isn't going to work if you're so uptight about everything.”
John wasn't aware he'd said even one thing that could've made Karkat think he was uptight. Cheeks a little pink, he said, “You haven't given me a direction yet.”
“Loosen up.” He let go of John’s hands to smooth the tension in his shoulders, down his arms.
John shivered briskly. “You're one to talk.”
Karkat smirked. “Like that, that’s better. Now listen.” He moved backwards — skating backwards, who does that? — and kept eye contact with John as he did so. “Roller skating — any kind of skating is a lot like flying. It’s all about freedom. And….” he trailed off, “trust. Yeah.”
His voice had that same sound it did before, when he was asking John to do this with him. John asked, “Trust what?”
“Yourself. Your body.”
“You still haven't given me a direction.”
“It goes like this.” Karkat moved to stand beside him. John realized that he had been standing, just standing, all by himself. Karkat gestured back and forth to John’s skates and his own as he talked. “Feet about shoulder width apart, and you slowly move one outwards until it gets too outwards. Then you switch feet, rinse and repeat. You lean forward for momentum.”
“Too outwards,” John repeated. Not in a mean way, just trying to understand. He was looking at his own feet now too.
Karkat said, “I’m self taught, sorry if I don't know the fucking lingo.” He took John’s hand. “Are you ready to try?”
John stared at their joined hands. “Will you go slow?”
Karkat merely tugged lightly on his arm in response, and John inhaled. Shoulder width. Outwards, lean, switch. He moved forward, slowly.
“This is definitely slow,” Karkat commented.
John didn't look up from his concentration. “I'm a beginner!”
“Let yourself go.”
John felt like he still didn't know what that meant. “I’ll fall.”
“So be it,” Karkat said. John shoved him and he glided away, smiling a little. The sight made John happier, at least.
“Come on, Karkat.”
“I was being serious,” Karkat said. “Your body will learn to adjust. If you fall, get back up. You'll learn to stop falling.”
“That sounds like some really flimsy logic right there.”
“Try it.”
John sighed dramatically. He looked at his skates.
“And don't look at your skates.”
He looked up from his skates. Throwing caution to the wind he moved his feet with more speed and it worked, it worked, it worked.
“Wait,” he said. “Karkat, the wall is coming, how do I turn, how do I stop —” He tripped forward onto the raised carpet platform with an oof. Karkat was audibly laughing behind him, sound growing closer. In the background, the music changed, but John didn't recognize the song. He used his arms to switch from his stomach to his butt, glaring at a stifled Karkat. “I fell!”
“I remember telling you that would happen,” Karkat said. He pulled John up and held onto his forearms. “You went pretty fast, though. How'd it feel?”
John thought about it. He was too focused on the eyes that were watching him to enjoy the experience, but he wasn't going to say that. He said, “Weightless.”
“Wanna try it with me?” The tone Karkat used sounded completely alien on him, expectant and excited and glad to be where he was. John couldn't just say no to a tone like that.
So they agreed to wait until the chorus of the song began so they could match, which John had zero confidence in his ability to do, but Karkat insisted. They were off and Karkat held back on the lead he could've taken to attempt to match John’s pace.
“It’s all about leaning,” he told John when it was almost time. “Don't worry about the footwork. You want to go sideways, go sideways.”
They weren't quite in sync but John was feeling spectacular one step behind him. He didn't dare lift his arms, but he imagined he could, imagined he could face the crowd of bodies this floor was usually riddled with and be a skater among them. He laughed with the thrill of it, and saw Karkat turn back to smile at him. John got caught up in the brown, brown, brown of his eyes and tripped over his twenty thousand pound skates. He shrieked and his hands on instinct flew to Karkat’s shirt for help, dragging him down with him.
They both landed on the hardwood pretty hard, and because fate loved irony, John managed to find himself almost directly on top of Karkat, effectively crushing him. He looked at Karkat, who mostly just looked confused. How long had it been since he really, truly fell?
Karkat said, “Jesus, what happened?”
John couldn't answer. He was a little busy. He was busy dealing with an atrocious temptation that was slowly shutting down all functions of his body, by cutting off his brain. He looked into Karkat’s eyes and felt an emotion he wasn't sure he should be feeling. What was it called when you felt like this? When life suddenly became a rush?
Oh, yeah, he thought. Fear.
Karkat said, “Are you okay?”
John kissed him.
A million things were going through his head at this point in time. First, the fact of it: he was kissing Karkat Vantas, roller rink regular and acquaintance at best. Right? Second, the confusion of it: does this mean his middle school obsession was a crush? It couldn't have been, John wasn’t gay then. Was he gay now? Dave would've told him if he was, surely. Well, he did, but those were all just jokes. All bro friends make jokes like that at each other. Right?
Third, the sensation of it: Karkat’s lips melted into his own almost instantly after the shock of it passed, and his hands found purchase on John’s cheeks as John’s forearms froze on the cold floor. He pulled himself to his knees and in doing so made Karkat have to follow his mouth up to keep the contact, which deepened the kiss, which made John’s already burning skin burst into flames at the first trace of tongue. He shivered.
After a few more seconds, they pulled apart. John breathed, “Oh.”
Karkat gazed at his lips, then his eyes. “You’re an awful skater.”
John was feeling very Not John right now. He wanted to put a disclaimer on all the things he said from this moment forward. Not John, in his stupidity, blurted, “When we were twelve I would go to sleep thinking about you.”
Karkat tilted his head.
“I might've liked you, I think.”
“Gee, thanks.” Karkat snaked his arms around John’s waist. John abruptly realized he was straddling him and moved to stand up before remembering that he still had skates I and just fell backwards.
“Oof.”
“Well,” Karkat said, standing up flawlessly. He only did it to show off. He rephrased his statement to be a question. “Well?”
John was more careful in standing up this time. He did it successfully, just slowly. “Well?”
“You're incredibly dense.” Karkat got closer to him. They stood in a dark corner of the floor, with the quiet voice of Kelly Clarkson filling empty air. Karkat was so close.
John said, “Yeah?”
“I've been waiting for you to get out on this floor for years,” Karkat said. “It took you fucking forever.”
“What are you saying?”
“I skate for you,” Karkat said, then backtracked, “No, I don't. I skate for me. But I started skating for you. Vriska told me you hung out here a lot.” He said this last part offhandedly, eyes traveling.
John dated Vriska in eighth grade. He saw her downtown sometimes, and in school, but never in the rink. “Huh.”
“You can say something that means something now.”
John smiled bashfully. “That’s so romantic, Karkat. That’s like — we're like a movie.”
Karkat looked up at him admiringly. John was discovering a lot of new Karkat expressions tonight. He tangled his hands in John’s shirt and pulled him to him, and what do you know, their mouths fit perfectly.
+
The night hadn't ended there. After they got a lot more kissing out of the way Karkat made John do laps while he played with the music, switching genres after every song. He made it a challenge for John to match his leg movements to the tempo. John failed, then did it again, then a few more times. But he got it right, in the end.
John thought about what it felt to get it right as he served with Dave in the cafe the next day, amongst the other things he felt that night. Karkat interacted with the talented elementary school kids on the floor, racing them around and around. John spared blushing glances.
“Nice date?” Dave asked. He was preparing a bag of popcorn, which he handed to a waiting father.
John only said, “Yeah,” as his eyes followed Karkat.
“You can switch out with Tula if you want to get out on the floor, you know,” Dave told him. At least two employees were required to skate alongside the customers to do damage control, in case someone hurt themselves.
John brightened at the idea. “You’re okay alone?”
Dave was already tending to the next person in line. He gave John a nod, and John grinned and made his way to the skates counter. Putting them on, he checked his phone for the time. Nearly six.
He caught Karkat’s eye as he made his way to the floor and smiled big. When Karkat’s eyes softened and he made his way over, John’s smile grew bigger.
“Hi, loser,” he greeted. He had to tip his chin up to meet John’s eyes from this close.
“Hi, Karkat,” John replied. He held out his hand, and Karkat took it.
The lights dimmed.
“Loosen up.” Karkat shook his hand in John’s, wiggling his arm.
John laughed. “You’re one to talk.”
As they joined the crowd of bodies in the dark, John was aware of all the eyes of his friends on him. He shook them off, and focused on nothing, focused on the music, focused on the leaning, focused on the feeling of Karkat’s hand in his. Among the bodies on the floor, John felt like he knew what Karkat meant earlier when he described roller skating like flying.