Chapter Text
Not much later, John and his father were distributing human wear. Tavros's horns and robotic legs posed a bit of a problem. Equius nearly ripped his pair of pants just unfastening them. The others were handed sunglasses, towels, sweatshirts, and gloves. Of course a bunch of kids with turbans and an assortment of covering garments were quite an odd sight, but it was better than four kids and a bunch of aliens.
"Okay, research time!" John announced. "What store that carries cheap sweatshirts, opens earliest, and will have the fewest people?" He pulled up the internet browser on his PDA. Rose came up behind him.
"Try Walmart and Target," she suggested. John pulled up one, then the other. It appeared his local Walmart would open first.
"Hold on, check Sam's Club. I have a business membership," Dave said, coming on John's other shoulder. All three other kids gave him an odd look. "Long story. Just try." So John did. Sure enough, they were open an hour earlier.
"Guess we hit Sam's Club tomarrow morning!" John announced.
"That is the weirdest name ever!" Nepeta mewed.
"Nepeta! Respect their culture!" Equius commanded. "We are their guests."
"Oh, sorry..."
Realizing that changing the topic was a good idea, John yawned loudly. "Well, we should probably figure out where everyone is sleeping!" he told them.
"John, are you forgetting that we're nocturnal?" Aradia spoke up.
"Oh... Oh yeah. Well, then us humans need to figure out where to sleep."
"John, it's about midday on my island," Jade noted. Before he coil comment, Kanaya spoke up.
"I'll trade you places. I actually sleep at night."
"Okay! I get it! It's not simple!" he finally spoke up. "Guys who are sleeping, we'll go to my room! Girls get the guest room! If you're not sleeping you can stay out here! Done! I'm tired! I'm going to bed!" All was silent as he marched up stairs. Slowly, Dave, Rose, and Kanaya followed him.
Dave peaked in the rooms, and pointed the guest room to the girls before following John to his room.
As Dave walked in, he paused to observe the posters. Wow, his friend was a dork. As John climbed in bed, Dave caught a flash of light in the window. Who had a light on at 1:00 am local time? Peaking out the window, he was marginally surprised at what he saw. "Dude, you're not gonna sleep for a while," he said to his friend.
"What now?" John groaned.
"The Feds are here. And that flying saucer is looking might suspicious from their helicopters."
John jumped up and ran to the window. Seeing the helicopter, he closed the curtains immediately. "Shit!" he yelled, running out of the room. In the guest bedroom, he found one of his worst case scenarios. Kanaya was peering out the window, head unwrapped. Grabbing the troll girl, he pulled her back and closed the curtains. "Feds are here! You and Rose get downstairs!" he ordered. Why did they have to come so fast?! He was hoping for a day at least to hide the trolls better and disguise the ship. How could it have been so fast?!
"Dad! We've got problems!" he told his dad as he ran into the fatherly bedroom and closed the fatherly curtains. "The Feds are here! We need to get out!" His father got up and looked at his son.
"Why hide? We have a space ship in the back yard and a housefull of aliens! It won't do much good! What's the worst case scenario?" John stared at his father in near disbelief, but seeing the slightly dazed look in his eyes, he put his hands on the older man's shoulders.
"Worst case scenario: We surrender. They take Karkat and everyone, butcher them up, and send you, me, and everyone we know and love to the electric chair for hiding aliens and weapons of mass destruction!" That snapped his father out of it, and John smiled as he went into fatherly hero mode. Trusting his dad to get the windows upstairs, he rushed downstairs to his friends. Dave had closed all the windows, and the trolls were looking around worriedly.
"Guys! We've got to get out!" John said.
"How? What's your plan, John?" Rose said, looking up from her pacing back and forth. "You have two five seat vehicles. That's ten. If you haven't counted, there's seventeen of us!"
"Karkat! Can your guys' ship hold five more?" he asked. Karkat looked at Sollux, who shook his head.
"Not safely. We were already crunched for space. Maybe four? It'd be unsafe and uncomfortable, though." Just then, John's dad appeared and spoke up.
"I'll stay. Worst comes to worst I'll take the sports car and test out that overdrive." John looked extremely concerned for his father's safety, but he knew that he would have to trust him.
"Let's go! Fed's will surround us any minute with loaded guns!" Jade said, releasing Becquerel from a death hug. All sixteen ran out the door, straight for the ship, which wasn't far considering the crunch for space in the yard.
Climbing on board, the trolls took automatic positions at their seats. The kids did their best to squeeze in the remaining room between the smaller trolls. John found himself between Karkat and Vriska. If he wasn't so stressed he might have laughed, both at that, and the worried thought of missing his big test tomarrow.
"Launch ready!" Feferi called out.
"Fuel is low!" Nepeta announced less than a second later.
"We'll make do!" Karkat responding, pressing a few buttons. A giant, 360 view screen came up around them and above them. Around was the houses, slowly moving down as they rose up. Above was a few helicopters, spotlights aimed right for the space craft. John looked at Dave, sitting between Terezi and Sollux. Catching his eye, the cool kid smirked.
"We're doing this man. We're making this happen!" As he finished saying it, the ship took off full speed away from the house.
"Coodinates set! Destination: Jade's island!" Tavros announced. The helicopters had disappeared before the pilots knew what had happened.
And John pondered if he remembered to do his math homework.