nepetaleijon | (no subject)

(no subject)

Three hours, Future Karkat said in the memo.

That gives her enough time to build the fire up, and heat water for tea, and try rearranging the fur pile, and wish she had time to hunt and roast something so she could offer him food when he comes, and consider running down to the bar to get cookies or something, and change her mind, and change her mind again, and rearrange the fur pile again, and finally perch on the rock outcropping outside her cave to see if she can see him coming.

And dive back into the cave as soon as she's sure she does.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Karkat covers his face with his hand and groans. Slash roars.

"ISN'T THE POINT OF THIS KIND OF CONVERSATION TO TALK ABOUT HOW PEOPLE FEEL INSTEAD OF MOPING AND GUILT-TRIPPING AND JUMPING WILDLY TO CONCLUSIONS? TRY TO KEEP IN MIND THAT YOU HAVE HAD AN EXTRA WEEK OF TIME TO FIXATE ON ALL THIS AND I JUST WENT THROUGH SOME HEAVY SHIT IN ANOTHER QUADRANT, I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S SEEDFLAP OR FUCKING TEATIME RIGHT NOW."

Beat.

She looks up, frowning.

"But ... "

"BUT WHAT?"

Small: "But you don't. I mean ... do you?"

His fingers knot in his hair. "FUCK, WHAT DID I JUST SAY? I DON'T KNOW. YOU ARE NOT NEARLY AS TERRIBLE AS I HAVE THOUGHT, NEPETA."

"I THOUGHT I HAD SOME KIND OF... SOMETHING, WITH TEREZI, BUT NOW SHE SEEMS TO BE SICK OF MY SHIT AND IS CHASING AFTER THIS FUCKING DAVE HUMAN, AND MEANWHILE I HAVE BEEN HERE FOR WEEKS TALKING TO YOU ALL THE TIME AND SAW HER FOR LIKE THIRTY SECONDS IN THE LAST YEAR. LIVING MY LIFE IN TWENTY MINUTES SPURTS IN BETWEEN WEEKS AND MONTHS HERE IS DRIVING ME FUCKING INSANE, AND NOW I AM BOUND, TOO, FOR GOD KNOWS HOW LONG."

"I THOUGHT YOU WERE LIKE A DUMB LITTLE WRIGGLER WHO NEEDED TO REALIZE SHE WAS GROWING UP AND I THOUGHT THE ONLY REASON YOU LIKED ME WAS BECAUSE YOU HAD THIS BIG BUILT-UP IMAGE OF ME IN YOUR HEAD THAT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DOUCHEBAG I REALLY AM. BUT I WAS WRONG ABOUT THAT STUFF. I DON'T KNOW."

"Oh."

A long beat.

That's ... that's really a lot to think about. And only one part of it sounds like something definite.

"... you're Bound?"

"YEAH THE DOOR IS JUST FUCKING GONE."

And frankly he hopes it doesn't come back until the bar is ready to let him go through to the end of it, whether that's Jack's sword or whatever insane plan the humans are cooking up. He can't take any more fifteen minutes blips between weeks in the bar; the staggering effect of trying to maintain a mental continuity, or the way the time outside the universe seems to fold up and vanish. No matter how much sleep he gets here, he still feels the six hundred hours of sleepless Sgrub land on him like a giclops' foot every time he walks through the door, and he doesn't know how many more times he can stand to do it.

"And there's no purrzzle or anything like Kanaya had?"

"NO, JUST NOTHING. I DO HAVE A DOOR TO THE BAR FROM THE METEOR THAT I CAPTCHALOGGED, BUT IT COMES IN TO THE BAR, NOT OUT. LIKE A RETURN NODE."

"MAYBE I EVENTUALLY CAN FIGURE OUT SOME WAY TO FLIP IT TURNWISE EVENTUALLY AND GO SEE WHAT HAPPENS WITH JACK AND ALL. OR MAYBE IT WILL JUST LET ME GO WHEN IT IS GOOD AND READY, I DON'T KNOW."

"So in the meowntime ..."

She shifts again, half-sitting up in the fur pile and facing him again.

Karkat shrugs, or writhes. "I AM HERE. AND YOU ARE HERE. AND WE ARE... TALKING ABOUT THINGS."

"I REALIZE THIS IS PROBABLY WORSE THAN IF I JUST TOLD YOU TO GO SHOVE YOUR FLUSHED ASPIRATIONS DOWN THE LOAD GAPER, AND MAYBE THAT WOULD BE THE BEST THING. YOU HAVE KNOWN AND I HAVE KNOWN HOW YOU FEEL FOR A LONG-ASS TIME, AND MEANWHILE I AM COMPLETELY BEWILDERED AND DISGUSTED WITH MYSELF, SO GRUB KNOWS HOW YOU MUST BE FEELING ABOUT IT."

"AND... THERE ARE PLENTY OF OTHER PEOPLE HERE, EVEN IF THEY AREN'T TROLLS, AND THE FUTURE IS A COMPLETE MYSTERY FOR ALL OF US. I THINK... I THINK WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO WORK OUR NUBS OFF JUST FOR THERE TO BE A FUTURE AT ALL, FOR ANYONE. SO IT'S NOT LIKE I CAN HAND YOU ANYTHING BUT A FROND FULL OF SPIKY SHAPELESS INTERROGATION HOOKS."

She shrugs her tail. "It's not like I've got a future full of anything but interrogation hooks anyway. I mean I don't even know fur sure if I'm dead yet."

Beat.

"Which I know purrobably doesn't help."

"AND MAYBE IN THE END WE WILL ALL BE TOGETHER IN THE DREAM BUBBLES ANYWAY. MAYBE MAYBE MAYBE."

His hair is really getting out of control. He lays off it, stretching his arms out over his head. "BUT YOU KNOW WHAT, WE WERE ALWAYS GOING TO GROW UP AND GET CULLED OR SHIPPED OFF TO WHATEVER UNITS THE EMPIRE FELT LIKE JAMMING US INTO SO WE COULD GO DIE ON AN ALIEN PLANET. AT BEST WE COULD PLAN ON ANOTHER TWO OR THREE SWEEPS BEFORE EVERYTHING WAS COMPLETELY OUT OF OUR FUCKING CONTROL AND WE PROBABLY NEVER SAW ANY OF OUR FRIENDS AGAIN. SO WHAT'S REALLY CHANGED?"

"Maybe --"

She stares at nothing for a couple of seconds.

"I didn't think about it until now." Blankly. "There's no more culling drones. There's no more collector drones."

"THERE'S NO MORE ANYTHING," he says, a little blankly. "NO MORE DRONES. NO MORE EMPIRE. NO MORE ARISTOCRACY. NO MOTHER GRUB AND NO MATRIORB. IT'S REALLY HARD TO FIT INTO YOUR PAN, ISN'T IT? I DON'T THINK MOST OF THE OTHERS HAVE, EITHER. AND I THINK THE ONES WHO HAVE ARE MOSTLY THE ONES WHO WENT CRAZY."

"THERE'S JUST US. US AND WHATEVER WE DECIDE TO DO. AND NOBODY AND NOTHING HAS EVEN TRIED TO PREPARE US FOR THAT."

She wonders if he's recognized the particular aspect of all this that's just struck her.

No more Mother Grub and no more collector drones means that the primary pressure behind romance among young trolls, the literally vital need to find a partner in the two mating quadrants, is gone.

Karkat doesn't have to choose anybody at all unless he wants to. Not even for lack of any better option.

"Maybe ... maybe things could be better. If it's just us and whatefur we decide to do."

"I THINK IT WOULD HAVE TO BE. I DON'T--"

Even--he doesn't like thinking like this, but maybe even if they are dead and in the dreambubbles. Maybe there, if nowhere else, they can build the better world their universe was supposed to be. Maybe the end of Alternia could be the best thing that ever happened to them. He recognizes in the thought the same poison that bit Gamzee and Eridan--maybe it's time to stop fighting the inevitable. But he's not sure he can disagree with it.

But you have to fight, don't you, even if you are always going to lose, even if losing is the only way you can ever win. Because unless you fight...

If you don't...

Then..

Who are they, if they don't fight to survive? What else is a troll but a war against a world that would gladly kill them? And what kind of a world do quitters, suicides and murderers, deserve?

Karkat draws his hands down over his face and then clasps his own elbows in front of him; unconsciously he's beginning to curl around himself.

She looks at him, her brows tugging down over her eyes.

"What?"

He squeezes his sight globes closed, for a moment, hard enough to make dark red spots dance in front of them in the dark. "I DON'T KNOW. JUST... SHIT CATCHING UP TO ME, I GUESS. ANY TIME I TRY TO THINK ABOUT THINGS PAST THAT CRITICAL MOMENT ON THE TIMELINE I JUST FEEL LIKE..."

"....I HAVE JUST BEEN TRYING NOT TO THINK THAT FAR AHEAD. BUT IT GETS HARD AFTER A WHILE." Especially as they get closer. Less than two hours left now.

Very soft: "You f33l like what?"

"I JUST FEEL LIKE.... NOT THINKING ABOUT IT ANYMORE. WE REALLY DON'T HAVE ANY MORE OPTIONS AT THIS POINT. THE HUMANS ARE TRYING TO COOK SOMETHING UP AND MAYBE WE CAN GIVE THEM WHATEVER USELESS ADVICE WE HAVE TO HAND OUT, BUT I DON'T KNOW WHAT THERE IS LEFT FOR US. AND UNTIL WE GET THERE I DON'T KNOW HOW WE CAN MAKE ANY PLANS OR HAVE ANY HOPES FOR IT."

/:B

"YOU KNOW, IT SEEMS LIKE I HAVE BEEN DOING AN EMBARRASSINGLY DISPROPORTIONATE AMOUNT OF THE SHARING IN THIS PARTICULAR FEELINGS JAM," he adds, grousing.

"... purrhaps you're right." She looks at him sidelong. "What do you want to know?"

"WELL IT WOULD BE NICE TO GET YOUR OPINION ON ALL THE STUPID THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN COMING OUT OF MY TRAP. YOU HAVE TO HAVE SOME KIND OF AN OPINION ABOUT THIS. EVEN IF YOU JUST WANT TO CONFIRM THAT I'M A TOOL FOR LEAVING YOU AND YOUR FLUSHCRUSH DANGLING FROM A LONG ROPE MADE OF CONFUSION AND IDIOCY, THAT WOULD HELP CLARIFY WHERE WE ARE."

"No," she says, "I don't think you're a tool. I mean ... you're being honest. You don't know and you're telling me you don't know."

She twists a tuft of fur between her fingers, looking down at it as though it holds all the answers. "I mean I still kind of hope that maybe ... maybe someday when all this is over?"

Karkat shifts onto his side, mirroring her, and moving a little closer; they form a pair of invert commas on the heap of skins. "WELL... WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE WHEN ALL OF THIS IS OVER, THOUGH?" He says it slowly, very nearly grudgingly, as if he resents being forced into sincerity.

"I MEAN, LOOK, MAYBE I AM JUST OVERTHINKING THIS AS USUAL, I DON'T WANT TO BE UNFAIR TO YOU, BUT... OKAY, WE ARE FRIENDS AND YOU HAVE A CRUSH ON ME THAT WE HAVE BOTH DONE A VERY SUCCESSFUL EVASION TANGO AROUND FOR A LONG TIME. AND LATELY WE HAVE GOTTEN TO BE BETTER FRIENDS AND I AM LEARNING THAT YOU ARE NOT REALLY THE DUMB NOOKSNIFFER I TOOK YOU FOR AT FIRST AND THAT ACTUALLY YOU HAVE A LOT OF.. PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE QUALITIES AND MAYBE IT'S NOT SO TOTALLY INCONCEIVABLE THAT SOMETHING COULD HAPPEN IN THAT QUADRANT. AND THEN HOLY SHIT, YOU KISSED ME AND WE HAD TO DRAG ALL OF THESE PERFECTLY FINE EMOTIONS OUT SCREAMING INTO THE SUNLIGHT." This is a long speech, even for Karkat, and he takes a pause to drum his fingers on the furs.

"BUT I MEAN NO MATTER WHAT WE SAY TODAY WE ARE GOING TO GO ON BEING FRIENDS AND YOU ARE GOING TO GO ON BEING FLUSHED AND I AM GOING TO GO ON NOTICE THAT YOU ARE NOT THAT TERRIBLE AFTER ALL, SO CAN'T WE JUST SAY, OKAY, GREAT, WE ACKNOWLEDGE THAT ALL OF THIS SHIT IS GOING ON AND WE WILL KEEP ON BEING FRIENDS AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?"

"I MEAN, IS THAT OKAY, OR WOULD YOU RATHER THAT WE SLAM THE DOOR RATHER THAN LEAVING IT HALF-OPEN?"