Chapter Text
Damara approached Kankri first.
It wasn't a shock. She pitch solicited everyone, with varying levels of seriousness. Mostly, she was crass and off-putting just to keep people away from her. Which wasn't to say she didn't hate them, just not romantically - there was no grudging respect behind her barbs, no qualities in them she wished she could refine and emulate. She hated them all wholly and plainly. For their insolence, for their resignation, for turning a blind eye every time they were faced with the consequences of their actions. She hated them and she couldn't wait for them to meet their end standing on the wrong side of a cherub’s tantrum.
Kankri turned her down, of course. His vow of celibacy or whatever the fuck. She’d think he was just trying to feel better about no one but the outsider wanting to put up with his annoying mutant ass as long as it would take to pail and run if she hadn’t seen him turn down so many other passes from their group. Cronus, Kurloz, Meulin, and even Meenah, once. Whether they angled for something flush or pitch, they were all swiftly rejected and loudly chastised for even bringing it up when they knew his stance on the topic. She’d even seen him turn down a pale advance from Cronus. That had been funny, at least, for her. Even from across the dream bubble, under the shade of some building that never truly belonged in the memory of the beach they happened to have walked into, she could see the way the coldblood's expression crumbled in a genuine little display of hurt before smoothing back out. Kankri hadn't even noticed, already launching into a spiel on the emotional labor warmbloods were expected to perform for the cooler castes.
Or maybe he had noticed and simply chose to ignore it. Was he that cruel, or was he that stupid?
Eons spent in dreams had been hell for their personalities. All their little quirks had become exacerbated as their depths of character dried up. Edges of memories fell off into the empty void and details within the bubbles began to distort and blur. It was hard to say for sure who they had been before they were frozen in death, repeating the same lines ad infinitum.
All their drama had become cyclical and, worse, boring .
They were all stuck with each other until the inevitable end of the universe. It made her sick. It made her even sicker, that they all still frolicked around without a care, so sometimes she liked to follow them around, poke at their tempers until she could incite a fit that almost always ended with her walking away bored. Rarely did anyone take up her solicitations to fight and fuck. Rarely did she let them when they did, after a while. Hardly anything truly excited her anymore.
Waiting on the end of existence was just so boring. It could almost make a rustblood yearn for a natural lifespan, if they weren't so intent to see it all break.
It wasn’t until fairly recently that some new players had waltzed onto the stage, drenched in blood and bearing the scars of the new world Meenah had set in motion with The Scratch. They presented a new form of entertainment and even brought out some interesting sides of the others, for a while. But it was the living dreamers that really brought the fun; they stirred up the dead and heralded the end of it all. Seeing the soft skinned little freaks in their godtier pajamas brought a spark of excitement she hadn't felt in a long, long time.
Still, she didn't bother to approach the aliens. Her own living ancestor she circled curiously, once. The other girl had waved happily at her with a smile so wide it was hard to see it as anything other than a warning display of all her pitifully under-filed incisors, tugging along the other Captor like a pet barkbeast. Then she flew off, and that was that. Cute girl.
The younger Maryam sparked her interest, a bit. She was cute in a gangly, awkward and innocent way that made Damara want to hurt her, to see how fast she could learn her way around a pail, but the orange-drenched human hung around her peripheral like a fly. Not speaking, or even looking at them reproachfully; just curious, and quietly aware that Damara was aware of her presence.
She, too, was cute in a novel, grotesque way, maybe, but not enough to sway Damara to try for both of them at once. So she dropped it.
The other Vantas posed a unique experience. He stormed through the bubbles just as loudly, just as verbose, as his dancestor, but the content was all wrong. Slurs and expletives and microaggressions that Kankri never would have let someone hear him say out loud. His voice was just a bit scratchier, his hair a bit shorter and wilder, his body fat accompanied by the kind of muscle that builds up from genuine use. A rougher, fouler image of the repressed troll she'd played SGRUB with.
He found her before she could consider really putting in the effort to try and find him. He'd tripped over some SGRUB quest-land construct that had appeared in his path as their current dream bubble bumped into another, merging the landscapes. He windmilled his arms but still fell flat on his face, cursing with almost admirable creativity the whole way down. It was from his new position on the ground that he noticed Damara from her spot atop a chest under some large multicolored pinwheel. He scrambled to his feet, huffing in embarrassment.
She raised the hand not holding her blunt and waved her fingers daintily, out of sync and slow. Come over .
Surprisingly, he approached her, with a less surprising expression of wariness on his rough features.
He started speaking before she could. Typical, for a Vantas. She let him say his opening piece, not really paying attention, before interjecting with a greeting which mostly served to confuse him. He did seem to deflate a bit, though.
He probably thought she couldn't understand him. She let him for now. It gave her an advantage
She stuck her hand out to offer the blunt, which he made a face at–scrunched up and disgruntled like a wiggler forced to eat health pastes by its lusus. She snickered at him.
But before she could pull the offer back, he took it from her fingers, squaring his shoulders and taking a hit that would have been impressively large if he didn't start hacking immediately. Taking the blunt back, she laughed, and switched to Western Beforan.
"Stupid. You don't need breath. It's dream."
Standing up, he was only just a little bit shorter than her. It was novel, and almost cute. He was still coughing into his fist, eyes–not yet filled in with color–tearing up at the corners with an exciting shade of red-pink.
She reached out and curled her fingers on his broad shoulder, patting him mockingly, like a jadeblood. He didn't seem to pick up on that, because it seemed to actually help him find his breath again.
She left her hand on his shoulder. Then, she started to trace her palm from shoulder to the skin of his neck just above the collar of his sweater. The other Vantas didn't look entirely disinterested, if the way he kept snapping his eyes back up to her face was any indication.
She leaned in, tilting her head just slightly as she kept her pearlescent pupils trained on the muscles of his throat twitching.
Then a whistle blew so close to her ear that she pulled one of the curved pins out of her hair bun and swiped to her left on instinct. Kankri ducked in a way she didn't want to admit was graceful, still blowing on his infuriating little noise maker.
"A- hem . Damara. I'd thank you to keep your hands to yourself. Now, I would of course never accuse you of attempting such a heinous act knowingly, as perhaps you are truly unaware–and let me pause to add a few blanket trigger warnings here for discussion of (and references to) pedophilia, grooming, coercion, the importance of verbal consent and lack there of–"
She had tuned him out from there, releasing the hold she'd had on the smaller Vantas' sweater. His face couldn't seem to decide on an expression to settle on as her grip was almost immediately replaced with Kankri's hand, dropping heavily enough on his shoulder that he wobbled towards his dancestor. Revulsion, gratitude, annoyance. Kind of funny. She wanted to bite his fat little cheek.
" Fine. You want to fuck him instead, I understand ."
"Damara, I've informed you many times. It is impolite to continue to speak in a language not understood by everyone in the conversation, even moreso because I am well aware you know enough Western Beforan to engage with a simple mono–excuse me, dia logue, regarding your atrocious and overtly suggestive mannerisms that, frankly, contribute to a rather foul perception of your gender for which you, well, I would hesitate to suggest something so counterproductive as shame, but, nevertheless, should inspire some feeling of–"
Damara looked at Karkat, who was looking more annoyed by the second. She cooed at him in mock sympathy. " You want to shut him up, yeah? Have him lecture around your bulge. It will be more productive for you both."
"Stop speaking to him like that," Kankri interjected, trying to physically move between them once again.
She raised an eyebrow. In Western Beforan she said, "Like what. You understand me now?"
"I don't have to understand that language to understand the intent. And I believe you are intending to sexually harass both my ancestor and I. I have tried to talk to you on numerous occasions about your–"
"No, I'm bored again," she yawned, as theatrically as she could muster with only half her blood pusher in the action. "Call me when the clothes come off."
With that she fixed her hair, sliding her pins back in place, and left the Vantas' to each other's company.