Work Text:
>Dirk: Finish your Auto-Responder.
You’re pretty sure you’re almost done. It’s an exhilarating feeling, and complicated. Sure, most of it is pride at your impressive accomplishment (almost), but there’s a small, but significant undercurrent of knowing that you’ll no longer have to sit through those long nights of insomnia without someone to talk to.
You’re doing final checks when it happens. The image on screen shudders and blinks, and suddenly your precious code is disappearing in large chunks.
You yell and grab the monitor in horror, before gathering your wits enough to stop the processes and begin a virus scan in safe mode. Immediately following, you pull Pesterchum up on your glasses, intending to give Roxy a piece of your fucking mind.
But Roxy’s handle is grayed out.
And there’s a new name on your chumroll, one you’ve never seen before. You decide that the mystery person did it, and turn your fury on them instead.
timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG]
TT: What the hell did you do.
Turns out the asshole who fucked up your project didn’t even do it intentionally. Sure, they said they meant to do it, but one look at their coding and it was clear that someone competent made a basic text-deletion virus and then CG fucked it to hell and back and then just by accident rigged it to call up a random Pesterchum user and fuck up their shit. It’s astonishing really, the luck of fools.
However, after a brief exchange, they agree to let you teach them the ways of programming, because you are nothing if not a generous and kind senpai.
Nothing at all to do with the fact that CG is online when all your other friends are grayed out.
Nope. Nothing to do with that at all.
--
>Dirk: Fall in love.
That’s stupid. Sure, it turns out that CG is a dude named Karkat (you’d wonder what the hell kind of name is that, but you don’t actually care). And yeah, it turns out he’s kind of hilarious, especially because he’s a complete idiot about a lot things.
You are, however, starting suspect your new chum isn’t exactly human. Some of the little things are starting to stand out, lending credibility to your suspicions.
The fact that he answered “5” when you asked how old he was, plus the distinctly trollish terminology, block, ganderbulb, waste chute, etc., are pretty definitive, but you were holding out hope that maybe he was another human survivor, like you and Roxy.
Until one day he asks,
CG: ARE YOU A TROLL TOO?
And that puts the final nail in the coffin. He’s probably a result of one of the Batterwitch’s attempts to make Earth her new home planet (though you’re almost certain she never successfully made any trolls…)
You answer him.
TT: Nope.
CG: SO WHAT THEN.
CG: ARE YOU FROM ONE OF THE COLONIES?
Colonies? ...You don’t think your new friend is even on Earth at all. You try one more thing.
TT: Something like that.
TT: I'm what they call "human".
CG: NEVER HEARD OF YOU. MUST NOT BE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE EMPIRE.
TT: No, I guess not.
You don’t tell him that in the future, your little planet is the empire.
You talk a bit longer, but your thoughts are heavy. Eventually he logs off, and you’re left staring at his grayed-out handle, writing things to him you know you’ll never send.
There are no trolls alive in my time, except for Her. So I guess that means that you're probably dead by now and another friend that I'll never meet. It's okay, I'm getting quite the collection.
You close Pesterchum.
You look over at the shelf over your worktable. You keep mementos on it. Your Bro’s sunglasses. The bunny you stole for the next birthday of Jane’s. (You don’t know what exactly you want to do with it yet.) Print outs of terrible oekakis you and Roxy did when you were first becoming friends. A framed picture you Photoshopped to make it look like the four of you (you, Roxy, Jake, and Jane) had gone on some zoo trip or whatever. Jane was front and center, because her picture was the base, everyone else painstakingly pasted around her. You remember slaving over that image for days, fixing shadows and borders, making it as real as possible. Everyone got a hi-res copy of it as soon as you finished.
You wonder what you’ll put up there for Karkat.
--
>Dirk: Discover Karkat’s kinky side.
CG: I’M PRETTY SURE I’LL NEVER FIND ANYONE SO FUCKING PUNCHABLE AS PAST KARKAT. HE’S THE WORST KIND OF IDIOT AND YET HE’S STILL SOMEHOW *ME* AND IT’S THE MOST INFURIATING THING IN THE WORLD.
CG: AND IT SUCKS, BECAUSE I NEED TO FIND THAT WITH SOMEONE ELSE SO THAT IT’S AN ACTUAL VIABLE RELATIONSHIP, BUT HE’S RUINED THAT TOO, BY BEING THE MOST INSUFFERABLE PISSWAD IN ALL OF PARADOX SPACE.
TT: Well, I couldn’t fix the viable slurry thing, but I could definitely facilitate some hate makeouts.
TT: I just finished the plans for a sparring robot for my bro GT. I modeled it after myself, but hey, send me a picture of you and you can get in on that sweet robot-on-troll action.
CG: UGH, YOU REMIND ME OF THIS ASSHOLE I KNOW. HE’S GOT A *THING* FOR ROBOTS, AS WELL AS HOOFBEASTS, BECAUSE OF COURSE HE DOES.
CG: HE’S ALMOST AS BAD AS PAST KARKAT. AND IS MUCH SWEATIER.
TT: Sexy.
CG: NO. NO. NO. THAT FESTERING PUSS SACK AND THE WORD “SEXY” DO NOT BELONG TOGETHER IN ANY WAY EVER.
CG: IN FACT, EVEN PUTTING THAT REFERENCE ABOVE, WITH SEXY CAREFULLY SHIELDED BY ENCLOSURE TALONS, IS TOO MUCH. IT’S DESTROYED THE UNIVERSE.
CG: EVERYTHING IS DEAD AND/OR DYING AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT.
CG: I HOPE YOU’RE PROUD OF YOURSELF.
TT: I always am.
CG: UGH, THAT GUY.
CG: HE IS THE BIGGEST ASSHOLE I HAVE EVER HAD THE DISPLEASURE OF KNOWING.
CG: IF YOU HAVE EVER CONCEIVED OF SOMETHING THAT YOU WOULD DECLARE THE WORST HE WOULD SURPASS IT.
CG: HE CONTAMINATES EVERYTHING AROUND HIM WITH JUST HOW MUCH HE SUCKS.
CG: HE IS LIKE A VOID CONSTANTLY SUCKING EVERYTHING ELSE INTO HIS ENDURING MASS OF SUCKAGE.
CG: UNTIL EVEN YOU START TO SUCK JUST FOR KNOWING HIM.
CG: THAT IS THE TROLL YOUR REMIND ME OF.
Your heart pounds. You’ve seen enough troll movies to know where this is going… haven’t you?
Is… is he actually black flirting with you? I mean, it’s kind of upsetting to think about him hating you, but at the same time…
TT: Considering what I know of troll culture, this is actually very flattering.
TT: Are you perhaps harboring some black feelings for me, Karkat?
TT: Have I inspired obsidian emotions in the cold cockles of your fluttering blood pump?
He takes a minute to respond.
CG: NO, YOU ASSHOLE.
CG: I DON'T HAVE THOSE TYPES OF FEELINGS TOWARDS YOU.
CG: I AM FRANKLY DISTURBED THAT YOU SUGGESTED IT.
Oh. Well. ...at least he doesn’t hate you, you guess. You ignore the painful flop of your stomach as you type a response.
TT: Don't worry, dude, I'm only kidding around.
TT: I don't hate you too. <3
He logs off. Fuck everything.
That night, you finally go back to working on your Auto-Responder. You try not to realize that talking to Karkat had kind of kept you from needing it.
...You hope he’s back online tomorrow.
--
>Dirk: Carry a torch.
You can’t describe the relief you feel when you talk to him the next day like nothing happened.
You spend spring watching MLP:FiM and stupid troll rom-coms and snarking the hell out of them. You don’t think you’ve had this much fun in a long time.
--
tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timeausTestified [TT]
TG: hye drkk its been 2 long
TG: watchu been up to latly?
TG: youve been hella onlien bt not too talkytive
TT: Just been busy.
TG: with ur responder thingy?
TT: That, Jane’s birthday present, some upgrades to Sawtooth, started some work on the Brobot, etc., etc.
TT: I am a busy man.
TG: well keep me in wit teh loops
TG: im still your bestie 5evur rite?
TT: Wasn’t Jane your bestie?
TG: ur ALL my bffsies
TG: but moslty u <3
TT: Roxy…
TG: omg dat was a totes platantic lessthan3
TG: im not tyin to get in2 ur pants r nuthin
TG: …
TG: unless ur offrin ;D
TT: I’ll talk to you later.
TT: Drink some water, okay?
TG: yesssir got it
tipsyGnostalic [TG] is now an idle chum!
You’re not sure why you don’t want to tell her or the others about Karkat.
Maybe you just don’t want to share him.
--
>Dirk: Make plans.
TT: Hey, Karkat, I’ve been meaning to ask.
TT: When’s your wriggling day?
CG: IT’S THE 12TH BILUNAR PERIGEE OF THE 6TH DARK SEASON’S EQUINOX.
TT: And the relation of that to this time is?
CG: IT’S IN TWO WEEKS.
TT: Wow, way to give a guy time to make you a proper gift. You’ve just given me a crazy deadline.
CG: YOU DON’T HAVE TO GIVE ME A GIFT.
TT: Now I definitely have to give you a gift.
TT: Because that is just about the saddest thing I have ever heard.
CG: DO WHATEVER YOU WANT.
CG: BUT I GUESS A GIFT FROM YOU WOULDN’T BE TOO TERRIBLE. (:B
Oh God, he pulled out the little B-horned emote. You definitely have to give him something good now.
TT: So, any plans for your big day?
CG: YOU GREATLY OVERESTIMATE HOW MUCH I CARE ABOUT MY WRIGGLING DAY.
CG: BUT THIS YEAR I’LL BE PLAYING A GAME WITH SOME OF MY FRIENDS. I’M THE LEADER OF MY TEAM. BECAUSE THE REST OF THEM ARE INCOMPETENT.
CG: BUT IT DOESN’T MATTER. BECAUSE UNDER MY LEADERSHIP, VICTORY IS ALL BUT CERTAIN.
TT: So, what I’m hearing is that I should get you a megaphone.
CG: I DON’T NEED ANY AUDIO AUGMENTATION. MY VOICE IS A REFLECTION OF MY RAGE AND CONTEMPT FOR ALL THINGS. IT IS ALREADY TOO MUCH FOR THE FEEBLE EARS OF MY TEAMMATES, AND ESPECIALLY OUR ENEMIES.
CG: IT WILL BE AN ARMY OF THE VOICED LEADING THE DEAF.
TT: Sounds counterproductive.
CG: ...YEAH THAT KIND OF GOT AWAY FROM ME.
You have an idea for your present.
TT: Hey, send me a picture of yourself.
CG: WHY?
TT: It’s a surprise. Come on.
CG: NO.
TT: Fine then. Describe yourself for me.
CG: ):<B
CG: THERE YOU GO. AN ACCURATE DEPICTION OF ME.
TT: You are the least helpful troll in the world. Fine, but if this turns out terrible, I’m blaming you.
--
>Dirk: Draw like your life depends on it.
A full multi-page comic is pretty ambitious for less than two weeks to delivery, but you’ve done things in less time before. It’s the illustrated adventures of General Karkat, (you draw him as a little Napoleonic tyrant with upright B-shaped horns and a penchant for gray) ordering trolls around to outmaneuver the evil Batterwitch. You are his second-in-command who totally orders him around behind the scenes. The Cleopatra to his Antony.
By the end, it’s become a vehicle through which to make elaborate flushed overtures, and you are completely okay with this. You’re pretty sure he would at least entertain the idea.
The last panel is a half-page spread of the two of you kissing while fires burn in the background.
It’s one of your best pieces.
--
The day before his wriggling day, you scan all the originals, zipping them into a nice little encrypted file with a password you’re totally going to make him go through a whole song and dance for.
You’re so excited that you end up losing a random rap battle to Squarewave, and you don’t give a single fuck.
--
As the clock ticks into the new day, you send the first part of your message, complete with the first of your many planned explicit flushed advances.
TT: Hey, man.
TT: Happy birthday.
TT: <3
A little buffer wheel appears beside the text.
...The messages aren’t sending.
A pop-up box opens.
Error: user carcinoGeneticist does not exist.
Your stomach drops. You check and double-check his handle, typing it again and again into the “to” field.
Error: user carcinoGeneticist does not exist.
At a loss, you go to check your logs, see if he mentioned changing his handle for some reason.
…
They’re gone.
They’re all gone.
All the logs, the endless hours of your conversations.
Vanished like they never existed.
Everyone else’s are there, right up to Jake wondering about the progress with Brobot less than six hours ago.
In a panic, you run to your work table, finding the originals of the comic, relieved to find them still there. He was real.
...
...or maybe he was just a figment of your imagination. One of Foster’s fucking imaginary friends.
The gloved hands on the table in front of you begin to shake.
...how the hell would a troll on the troll homeworld even end up in contact with you anyway? By all accounts, it made no sense.
You remember once, when you were eight, you got sick. Really sick, and through the fever haze, you thought Sawtooth was your brother, alive somehow, that he’d come to take care of you. The delusion had lasted nearly 48 hours, until the fever broke and your sanity returned.
Were you so desperate, out here alone on an endless ocean that you made up a person to fall in love with? ...And you don’t even know if they loved you back.
You move to rip up the comic pages, but find that you just… can’t. You crouch down on the floor, and wait for the world to stop swaying.
--
>Dirk: Do something.
Like what?
Sitting here seems perfectly logical. But you’re crazy, so maybe you shouldn’t listen to yourself.
The comic is scattered around you. Days of work, and a gamut’s worth of emotions.
It isn’t right to just rip it up.
Even if Karkat was never real, your memories of him are real enough.
Something comes to you.
--
>Dirk: Make a momento.
Page by page, you fold the comic into a series of cranes. The repeated actions are soothing and familiar, centering you. A thousand cranes get you a wish, but the comic only has about 20 pages.
Still, when you finish, you have a nice little flock of them, sore fingers from repeated paper cuts, and stiff shoulders. You gather them up in your shirt, carrying them over to your shelf, where you arrange them around the other tokens of your friendships.
You nod to yourself. Even if he was never real, he’s worth remembering.
--
That night, you finish your Auto-Responder.
--
>Dirk: Be the sleeping Prince. And also in Jake’s head.
You’re not quite sure how you ended up in Jake’s head, but some splinter of your personality was there, and then, bam, there you were, all in your Derse jammies, wondering what the fuck, getting sniffed by a red-eyed troll with horns so sharp they could put an eye out.
Your bro in red pajamas is looking at you in shock. Fuck, fuck, you’re not ready. You’re about to abscond with sleeping Roxy, but...
There’s a troll next to him. A troll with nubby little horns and a frown so insistent that it literally looks like a permanent part of his expression.
He notices your gaze, and his frown deepens, in thought? confusion? You can’t tell.
The symbol on his shirt is gray. The same gray as…
...You’re on a mission right now to save your session from complete disaster.
But when you succeed, when you officially make contact with Dave and Roxy’s mom and the trolls that have apparently joined their team?
You are going to see if that troll with B-shaped horns is named Karkat.