The atmosphere was tense as the six sat in the ice cream parlour.
The gang sat in rows of three opposite each other. Dave sat next to Karkat and Rose, directly opposite him was John, Kanaya in front of Rose and Jade with Karkat.
Dave was unusually silent, often avoiding eye contact with John. Karkat was the only one who seemed to pick up on this, but he figured now wasn't the best time to bring it up.
Kanaya and Rose chatted lightly amongst each other, while Jade, being the lovely social butterfly that she is, tried holding a conversation with everyone in the group.
Karkat's phone beeped. "Shit. Kankri just emailed me wondering where I am. I should get going, I don't want to piss off the traffic warden." He said, getting out of the booth.
"I'll go with you!" Dave shot up out of his seat and followed Karkat (while almost tripping over himself), "it's so late at night you'd want a little protection if something happened, wouldn't you?" Dave finished the sentence with a wink at Karkat.
"Dave, I'd get better protection from a stick, at least that doesn't almost give itself a concussion from watching a horror movie."
"THAT WAS ONE TIME! The fucking doll just fucking appeared out of no where! What was I suppose to do?"
Karkat was extremely done with this conversation, he said his goodbyes to everyone and dragged Dave, who was still defending himself, out of the parlour.
The night was cold, early November frost already setting in, Dave could see his own breath, and he was in a skin tight, full body leotard as the Human Torch. It was an amusing sight.
"Hey," Karkat broke the silence between the two, "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure dude, whatever you want."
"What's going on between you and John?"
Karkat may have been many things, but he was not subtle. Dave got flustered.
"What do you mean 'what's going on?', everything's fine and totally normal, one hundred percent. It's fine."
"You're a terrible liar, Dave."
Karkat had stopped walking at this point. He was staring right at Dave, the seriousness of a thousand parents about to give out to their children raged within him. It was strange.
"You two basically avoided all conversation at the ice cream place, and fucking hell the scene we walked in on at the haunted house looked suspicious too."
"Nothing actually happened at the house, I'm not even sure what was going on." Dave leaned back against the wall of a house. He half laughed at himself, thinking about how stupid he must have looked in a position like that, just gawking at the others.
"You know, one minute we were just talking and the next he was right in front of me. Am i stupid for not getting what was happening? Maybe" Dave smiled sadly.
Karkat on the other hand face palmed, hard. "Dave you fucking idiot he was going to kiss you!"
Dave was speechless. He should have just put on a yellow tartan plaid skirt right then and there because "clueless" really did some him up.
"He...what?"
"Listen, we can talk about it later, it's getting cold and you're in a leotard."
"Awww karkat, you care about my health?"
"I care about not seeing your bulge."
Dave immediately closed his coat and yelled after Karkat, who had already started walking away.
After Dave dropped Karkat home he went back to the parlour, but he wasn't met with the happy faces he left.
"Hey guys, what's going on?" He was about to ask more questions when Rose gave him her phone. It was a video clip from tonight's news.
"We're just getting news from Washington that the President is issuing a stronger bill on the super human's the public have called 'mutants'. The bill will involve stronger identification processes, which will allow us to find these super humans quicker and easier, and laws outlawing powers and other factors that could be harmful for the country. We're getting reports that the bill could come into law as early as next year-"
Rose quickly turned off her phone and looked at Dave, worried.
Dave felt sick.