Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Your name is Jade Harley and damn, you hate public transportation.

The system in your hometown sucks a lot; for the amount of people that use it, they have far too few buses. It’s really unfortunate that you take it every day to and from school.

That’s why today, you are going to try a different route to see if you won’t be packed in like sardines in a metal tube. The route you’re planning to take might take a bit longer than the other (seeing as it winds through downtown, but you love looking at the buildings there, so that’s A-Okay), but then again, it could be quicker without having to stop every two blocks. It also stops just a block away from your house, bonus.

After school you pack up your stuff and start walking to your new stop. You look around and see only a couple other kids gathered around, none of which you recognize. This doesn’t really surprise you. Your school is ridiculously close to another high school that specializes in fine arts. You always sort of admired the mysterious people who went there. You weren’t exactly the most gifted artist in the world (okay, you kind of sucked at drawing. You were more of a science person yourself, anyways! The best you could do was draw things that vaguely resemble squiddles for Pictionary, something Dave teases you relentlessly about.) and the people that attended that school always looked so…well, artsy.

As you board the bus, you are pleased with this decision. There are only about ten people on it and you get a seat close to the back. Excellent. As you plug in your ear buds and turn up your music, you notice an angry looking boy that looks vaguely familiar scribbling into what looks like a sketchbook sitting just on the seat across from yours.

The boy has messy hair that dangles into his eyes a bit in the cutest possible way, a scowl that looks as though it’s glued to his face and these little dimples- you need to stop this train of thought because that is not what you think about while on the bus. But then your stomach gives a little flip and a treacherous part of your mind says ‘but he’s adorable’ and you give in and admit he is pretty cute. But that’s all. Just a cute boy on the bus that looks a bit familiar. Cute boys ride the bus all the time, nothing to get worked up about.

And plus, you think, he might just be a one-time busser. You might not ever see him again. And with this, you thoroughly ignore the cute boy on the bus that may or may not be stealing glances at you almost as frequently as you are of him, until you both stand up to get off at the same stop. (You make a mental note that since this is his stop he probably has gone to a block party or something, and that’s why he looks familiar.)

As he begins to move towards you, you start to panic a little. Oh no. Oh no. Oh shit. Oh no. He’s going to talk to you. He’s going to talk to you, you are not ready- but he doesn’t. He calls a gruff thanks to the bus driver (you wonder if he yells everything with how scratchy his voice is) and slides past you and out the door. You silently follow and are relieved when he goes in the opposite direction of your house.

You definitely don’t look back to watch him go.

--

As it turns out, he takes the bus everyday as well. So you continue the ignoring-but-not-really-ignoring-him thing for the rest of the week. Somehow you think that when you aren’t looking at him, he’s looking at you. When you think about him looking at you, your stomach does a little flip and you get annoyed at your stupid teenage hormones. He is just a guy that uses the same stops as you and nothing more. He just happens to be a guy of the really cute variety. Crap. You need to stop thinking about him.

--

You go through the entire weekend not-thinking-of-but-totally-thinking-of that stupid boy who doesn’t take his nose out of his sketchbook (unless he’s looking at you, the treacherous part of you that holds onto hope of movies and books and fairy tales coming true, says) and wondering if he would actually like to talk to you, considering the assumed proximity of your houses. The boy that takes the bus with you; that you glance at when you're sure no one's looking; that may or may not glance at you when you look away again. Maybe.

So you decide to be adventurous (Grandpa would be proud, if, y’know, you talked about boys to him. which, let’s face it, would be really weird.) On Monday after school (because ha, you aren’t risking it in the morning, no thank you) you are going to talk to him. You are going to sit beside him and actually talk to him and get to know him and you will be bus buddies with this kid if it kills you.

But maybe he’s a jerk? Or doesn’t actually want to talk to you. Or he isn’t actually looking at you. And what if you make a total fool of yourself- oh no you are not getting nervous that’s not happening. Nope nope, okay, maybe. You need to calm down. You have the entire day to get ready. You can do this. He is just a boy. Okay you got this. You are Jade Harley and you are not afraid of a grumpy looking boy because that would be silly.

You dutifully ignore him completely by turning up you music and letting the sounds wash over you in waves and flows of tones perfectly in sync with each other. You aren't nervous because there is nothing to be nervous about and you can take on the day like normal.

Except you are nervous, and it shows as you answer a question incorrectly in physics and your friend Rose corners you during your lunch period, away from the rest of your friend group.

“What’s up, Rose?” you ask, as if you didn’t know.

She quirks an eyebrow at you “You seem distracted. Is something the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter!” you are a liar and it doesn’t even matter because Rose sees right through you.

She sighs, crosses her arms across her chest and adopts her you-aren’t-even-hiding-it-that-well-just-tell-me-now-and-save-us-all-time look. “Jade, you didn’t even use the correct formula for that problem, and you have been even more fidgety than you usually are. Spill it.”

You hunch your shoulders and sigh. “Well, I’m kinda nervous I guess? I mean, I’ve been taking a new bus for the past week and, uh, there’s this boy…”

She quirks an eyebrow and smiles, “A boy?”

You flop your arms around at your sides, huffing out, and “Well, yeah! I’m pretty sure he goes to that art school because he uses the same stops as me and he’s always drawing in his sketchbook, and I think maybe sometimes he looks at me, and also he has probably gone to one of those Fourth of July block parties maybe because he seems familiar..."

"I've never seen you get this worked up about a boy before, Jade. Have you talked to him?"

"Not yet! I'm going to today, probably. And I guess that's why I'm so distracted. What if he doesn't like me? Or is mean? Or-"

Rose holds up a hand, effectively stopping you. "Jade, I highly doubt that anyone could dislike you, and if he's cruel, then you probably wouldn't be so intent on talking to him. You're a good judge of character and reading people. I suggest you talk to him and see if you enjoy each other's company before taking any radical steps."

You grin at your friend; she just had a way of seeing things that needed to be said. "Thanks! I'm going to try making friends with him, and see how it goes!"

She smiles, "good luck, then. Shall we get back to our friends and our lunches?"

"Totally!" You visibly relax and take a deep breath before stepping back into the crowded cafeteria. The group of your friends all look up when you sit back down at the table.

"What was that about?" You cousin, John, asks around his food.

You flounder for an answer. "Uhhh" you are master of words. It is you. (Dave might be rubbing off in you a little bit. You should keep an eye on that.)

Rose takes the reins, bless her, because you don't really want to tell everyone at the table about a boy you've never spoken to and only might have a crush on, saying "Jade was only suffering from some school anxiety. I assured her though that she has nothing to worry about.”

John smiles reassuringly at you.  "Jade you've got all this school stuff in the bag! You're sure to get a tonne of scholarships to big universities dying to learn the ways of your physics genius!" He elbows your other best friend, Dave, who's sitting beside him. "Right, Dave?"

Dave nods in agreement, "Yeah, man. Shit, I'd be surprised if there wasn't some university scout battle-royal type deal over you."

You laugh before diving into your own lunch. The conversation devolves into John and Dave arguing over what famous showdown layouts would best describe what university representatives would face each other in to get you to come to theirs as Rose sighs and quirks an on-point eyebrow at you. You smile and shrug because jeez, you love your friends.

You pipe up and say that perhaps they'd have some sort of Mario smash battle with a final smash move and Dave jumps on that train of thought with one of his patented metaphors. Grinning, you sit back and eat your lunch; the boy on the bus can wait until after school for you to worry about.

Chapter Text

It is now after school and you are most definitely worrying about the boy on the bus. You walk quickly towards the stop, hit play on your iPod, and crank the volume up. As usual, he gets on the bus before you and takes a seat close to the back. You swallow as you walk towards him.

There! Now's your chance! Just sit right next to him instead of across the aisle! Do it do it do it! So you do. The boy jumps and closes his sketchbook, glaring at you. Oh, crap. Maybe he didn't want to talk to you, after all. But now you're just staring at each other and it's getting really awkward.

You sigh before blurting out "Hi! I think I've seen you somewhere before!"

He raises an eyebrow at you, "Well we take the same bus, so you've probably just seen me here." He says, and his voice is deeper than you thought it was but still hoarse, like he yells often. You could say why even if you tried, but you like it.

"No, silly! Not from the bus, maybe from around the neighbourhood?"

(And crap you need to get his name oh man you didn't introduce yourself this is all kinds of awkward, shit, shit he probably thinks you're weird you are so weird you are talking to a boy on the bus why would he want to talk to you goddammit fuck.) The boy squints at you, as if trying to see right through you, before sighing, "maybe a block party?" He shrugs, "my dad'll sometimes drag us to one of those things."

Grinning at his apparent lack of not wanting to talk to you, you nod and stick your hand to the side for him to take.  Better late than never, "That's what I thought too. My name is Jade Harley, by the way."

He rolls his eyes before taking your hand in a firm grip and shaking it. "Karkat Vantas." He says, and you almost giggle, because it's such an odd name, but stop yourself. No need for him to think you’re making fun of him.

“You go to the art school right? I just go to the public school down the street from you.”

He nods, but doesn’t say anything. Crap. Maybe that was creepy? No, it’s pretty obvious he goes to the art school; his sweater has splashes of colourful paint on it, his fingers are stained with grey (charcoal maybe?), and there is definitely some type of glitter in his hair now that you look.

Silence falls and it's on the verge of being awkward when he shifts to face you a little better and speaks. "So, uh,  Harley, have you watched any movies recently?" he looks a little bit nervous and you brighten, because at least it seems as though he actually wants to talk to you.

"Uhm, well, I guess I saw that rom com with the time travel in it? What was it called..."

“Specifics, Harley. Does he jump sporadically, or is there a sustained linear continuity of his time jumping. Machine or genetically? Details, details.”

Glancing at him you think for a moment. “He hid in closets and could only go backwards or forwards up until the point in time he left.”

He blinks and looks at you before suggesting "About Time?”  and you nod, that's what it was called. “Yeah, that's a good one. It could have gotten really weird but it didn't."

"Yeah! It was just really nice and happy! Nothing bad happened at all, thank goodness." And you can’t keep the laughter from your voice because you definitely didn't think he'd have seen it. (John chose it for your last movie marathon and Dave stated he’d watch it for ‘ironic purposes only’, and then teared up in it, what a nerd)

"What are you giggling at, Harley?" He scowls at you, which he seems to do even when you aren’t laughing at him, so you don’t take offense..

You lick your lips before saying "Well, you just don't seem to be the kind of guy who'd watch rom coms often! You kinda look like a grump who wouldn’t watch a lot of movies."

He huffs and crosses his arms "Who are you calling a grump, Miss Happy-Go-Lucky? I have depth in my interests, is there a problem with that?"

Raising an eyebrow sarcastically, you answer "No! No problem! I know people have...layers."

He seems to grasp what you're hinting at immediately and his mouth twitches in an almost-smile, “Yeah, I’m like an onion. You have to peel away at my layers to grasp the inner workings of my ogre heart."

Grinning from ear to ear you spit out a "Parfaits also have layers and I’ve never met anyone who says that they don’t like parfaits." Before dissolving into  a fit of giggles.

You hear him give a sound from the back of his throat that might be a chuckle before breathing out, "Well maybe I'm the onion and you're the parfait, here."

Your stomach does a flip because that’s really nice? In a “I like being around you” way? You don’t really know, but thinking about it makes you feel funny and your face heat up. As you duck your head so your hair can hide your blush (a very excellent use for your unruly long hair, if you do say so yourself) you dig through you knapsack for you iPod. “Hey, do you want to hear some music my friend Dave showed me? It’s actually really good!” you say as you offer an earbud and scroll through your music, trying to find the track within the jumble of genres and artists you have.

He places the bud in his ear and you hit play. A guitar starts to strum before the singer chimes in.

Karkat gives you an expectant look. You hold up a finger to indicate for him to wait. The chorus comes in and you see him bob his head a little bit with the beat. For the rest of the song he silently stares off into space with a thoughtful expression softening his features.

As the song ends, you turn to him, “So what’d you think? Pretty neat huh?”

He nods, “Not as shitty as I thought it would be, Harley.” he stops himself there, taking a breath before saying “It was catchy. What else do you blast into your eardrums on these bus rides, though? Can’t be just this guy.”

You scroll through your iPod looking through the songs, “Oh! Lots of different things.” but before you can show him more, him glances out the window and jumps a little.

“Shit, Harley, the next stop is ours.” He mutters, pulling the rope for the stop. You shove your stuff into your bag as he carefully slips his sketchbook, which he had been holding on his lap, into his knapsack. He glances up when you grab one of his hands away from zipping it up. “what the-?”

You quickly scribble your chumhandle onto the back of his hand with your pen and tell him to shut up. Stepping into the aisle just as the bus rolls to a stop, you slip you pack on and give him a smile, “See you tomorrow, Karkat!” and he blinks a few times before scrambling up after you through the back door.

“Yeah. See you tomorrow, Harley.” he mumbles behind you as you skip down the block towards home.

Mission accomplished! He wasn’t so bad, maybe a tad grumpy, but you were sort of expecting that from his face’s general scrunchy-ness. You’ll have to find songs he might like, to show him tomorrow, so that he can un-scrunch his face again. You don’t notice you’re grinning like a goof until you get home and realize your face is starting to get sore.

Chuckling to yourself, you wander into your room, flop onto your bed and flail your arms and legs in the air in a happy, adrenalin fueled, unco-ordinated victory dance of sorts. You can’t wait for tomorrow.