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You've already found yourself a comfy spot on the couch, waiting impatiently for Karkat to grab the two of you popcorn. Karkat complains that the kernels get stuck in his gums but he still eats it, and loves it just as buttery and salty as you do. The little media set up is in part of your little corner of the meteor. The rooms on this thing are so large (and numerous dear Christ you could get lost in this place for days) that you can have one corner squirreled away for your bed and personables, one area full of giant test tubes of chess people (which is pretty sick) and another that fits a couch, sound system and either your or Karkat's computer.
You, admittedly, are ready to fall asleep by the time Karkat gets his ass back with the goods. You're going to become one with the couch, melted into it like chocolate forgotten by a hormone raging teenage girl. The woosh of the transportalizer jerks you awake. You sit up straighter on the couch and look back to see Karkat muttering under his breath, heading towards you with a huge bowl of popcorn clenched in his hands.
"What, did you get lost on your expedition? The kitchen isn't that hard to find," you say, enjoying the way his face screws up in annoyance.
"No, shitstain. I did not get lost. Terezi and Vriska were performing experiments in the irradiation device. I had to clean out the remains once they were done. So, here, take the popped kernels. Choke on them for all I care," Karkat says, handing you the bowl before he goes and dicks around with his computer. You quickly check out the popcorn, and it doesn't look like there's anything strange mixing around in there. You take a cautious bite and yup, heaven in a puff right there.
"Heaven in a puff, really? Weak," Karkat snickers, clicking one last thing on his keyboard.
"Thanks for the critique, bro, gotta work through my metaphors with you, make sure they're in tip top shape before they go out into the world," you say. You're not even embarrassed that you're muttering to yourself again. Karkat's used to it and doesn't mind too much, so fuck it.
The movie starts up, a human movie that neither of you have seen but the internet assures is beautifully terrible. You praise whatever Eldritch horrors are to thank for creating a genre of movie that you both enjoy. Karkat turns around and pauses, looking at you a bit funny, before grabbing his seat on the couch.
"Huh. I never thought I'd see the day where you didn't have a stick shoved firmly up your waste chute, but here you are, actually relaxed for once," he says, more observation than anything meant to burn.
"What are you talking about man?" You ask as he sits, snatching the bowl of popcorn away from your lap, "I am the master of chill, didn't you know? Time powers also come hand in hand to fucking chill the pants off of anyone I so choose, bring them down to subzero temperatures of chill. I've killed men with frostbite, Karkat, honestly it's a curse—"
"The bullshit. Halt it. You and I both know that you are second in the lineup of strung tight, nerve wrecked assholes on this meteor. And guess who's number one," he says, huffing in annoyance as you snatch the popcorn back. You’re going to have a fight over the popcorn if you keep this up.
"You're the one talking BS dude, I am completely relaxed, 200% of the time—"
"Seriously you nookwhiffing petulant puppetfucker, would you at least let me- wait right there! You just tensed up, where's your chill now?"
You play with the lip of the bowl, staring at the screen ahead of you, "I'm chill as a cucumber here, Vantas. Don't see why you have to bring up puppets though, take a lesson from your ancestor and tag that shit: warning, ‘puppetfuckery’."
Karkat sighs and stands up and you panic for a second.
"Wait dude, where are you going? Sorry for mentioning asshole Jesus troll, I know you hate that guy—"
"I'm not leaving, idiot, I'm pausing the movie."
You relax for a second, "Oh, ok. Wait why are you pausing it?"
"Because, Strider, I think we need to have this conversation. You don't think I can smell it when you have waves of stress coming off of you? I mean—"
"Can you actually smell it?" You ask, legitimately curious. Karkat shoots you a withering look. "Taking that as 'it was a figure of speech, asshat'. Go on, I'm not making it out of here until you get this off your chest."
Karkat slowly lets the air squeak out from between his lips before letting it all out in one rush. "Are we good? No more interruptions? Alright back on track," he pauses for a moment, awkwardly flexing his hands.
"Bro, sit back down. If I was nervous, it'd be even worse with you standing above me like that," you say, just to get him to do something. You can already feel the ease of the evening start to drain out of you, fuck Vantas and his need to talk out his ~feelings~.
Karkat seems relieved and plops back down next to you.
"Ok, so I'm telling you I can see the stress on you because I know exactly what it looks like, saw it staring back at me in the mirror every night. And yeah, I don't mean to make it sound like its 'time to air out Karkat's troubles, no one cares about your shit Dave'. But, that's how I have to give advice so, sorry. Self-insert time.”
He shifts on the couch, curling in on himself like he does when he gets defensive. “So, on Alternia most trolls lived in varying states of ‘mildly concerned about randomly dying tonight’ to ‘abject fear that I will be culled at any turn’. With my mutant blood I had to constantly keep in the back of my mind what I had to do to keep myself protected, to not let anyone know, to keep myself safe. I had to keep an eye out for drones looking for subjects to cull, from neighbors getting too close and even my friends finding out and spilling the beans. Stress is my middle fucking name; I grew up with it being a part of every second of my shit blistering nights. Imagine not being able to rest for a second, not being able to let your guard down just in case.”
Karkat's voice grows quiet. You notice that your hands are shaking from the force of your grip on the bowl. You try to take deep breaths, which only end up being fast and shallow. You stop trying. Karkat's waiting for a response; you realize he won't continue without one.
"Huh, I-I can't imagine," you say after a lengthy silence.
"It looks to me that you could imagine. I'm not going to ask what kind of hell hole you lived in on Earth, I had my viewport mostly set on John, so I don't remember your man-lusus too well. But whenever I looked it looked like he was beating the shit—"
"Not helping," You grit out. "If you're so good with body language and sniffing out fucking emotions from a five mile radius then you probably don't need the heads up but I’mma give it to you anyway. Shut the fuck up."
You're so tense that you ache. You usually don't try to think about Bro, because when you do it just leaves you in an angry confused mess that you don't particularly want to sort through. You can't remember the last time you've been wound this tight, you want to check your back, make sure no one’s going to drop any surprises on you, keep your eye out for—
Shit. Ohhh shit.
"Fuck," you whisper, as a bit of the fight drains out of you. How could you have forgotten? You were that hyper-vigilant nearly every day you lived in that heat drenched Texan apartment with your brother. Strung tight in case he'd come flying out of nowhere with his sword, or to drop a shit-ton of sexually charged puppets on your eight year old head or dodging the miscellaneous weaponry in the kitchen.
If you can relate your childhood to a troll’s childhood on murderplanet hellscape then you're royally fucked.
You come back to yourself, realizing that Karkat's just been sitting quietly next to you for the past five minutes as you had your little freak out.
"Uh," you croak. He looks just as uncomfortable as you feel.
"Yeah, I know the feeling. I at least always knew my living situation was fucked up, so I've had a while to think about it. It seemed like, uh, you hadn't had that opportunity so. I don't fucking know, I thought it might help to air it out or some bullshit."
You snort, surprising yourself, seeing Karkat uncomfortable with all this makes you feel slightly better about your shitty display of emotions. "Nah, I understand what you're saying. Get it all out in the open, spill my guts about shitty-ninja-puppet-porno-childhood as I weep softly into a lounge chair. You can write down all my internalized homophobia, the phallic representation of swords and of Literal-Fucking-Sex-Toys that I lived with and make a killing with sales of ‘Dave Strider: Puppet PTSD’ or some bullshit. Rose would buy it at least."
Karkat bristles at your suggestion, "I'm just trying to be understanding, you think I would tell that nosy shit screwing shrew something like that—"
"Nah nah, I'm messing with you Karkles. I just. Uh. Yeah still figuring shit out over here. Sorry. Don't think there's going to be any guts spilled on this couch. Not tonight at least."
He looks just as tense as you feel, as he gives you a sideways glance.
"Yeah well, I just wanted to let you know I understand where you're coming from, alright? Childhood sucks; we got the short end of the fucking stick, yadda yadda."
The shitty sword covered end of the stick, you think, as you try not to think about your brother. Thinking about home mostly makes you want to be sick. All of your memories feel oily and gross. Not that they were tarnished and became that way, but that it was always like that and you'd never realized.
And yeah, you’ve slowly been noticing other messed up shit. This helps explain why you kept expecting Karkat or Rose to surprise you with a sudden strife, or your confusion when Kanaya and Rose made dinner and offered it to everyone. Vriska asking you why you squirreled away food in your room and feeling uncomfortable whenever anyone praised you for the littlest thing. You didn't have time to recognize any of this when you were in the midst of your session, too busy trying to stay on the path of being the alpha Dave than contemplating your shitty upbringing. But yeah. You got some baggage that's blocking up the airports baggage claim, and you are totally not ready to unpack that shit.
So instead you turn to face Karkat. “I. Thanks dude. It means a lot, you talking about this stuff with me. But uh, I think I need me some shitty cinema and to not think about this for a million years, ok?” You shift your arm towards him, “Fist bump?”
Karkat looks down at your fist, then up at you. He does that little smile where just the corner of his mouth pinches up. “Yeah sure, asshole.” He fist bumps you back. For a moment, everything feels alright in the world.
“Start up the shitfest for us,” you say, leaning back into the couch.
“Fucking finally.”