Chapter Text
These movies were stupid. Stupid and repetitive. It was the same plot over and over and over again. Karkat sighed in frustration and slammed his husktop shut. None of his movies that he once loved interested him. None of them. The cancer troll leaned back on the makeshift pile he made for himself and let his eyes wander the room he was currently in.
It was a fairly large room, one that he carved out in a secluded corner of the meteor. Karkat was just poking around the meteor when boom. He, unintentionally, found this empty room. Karkat instantly filled it up. He covered the walls in posters of movies of war, documentaries, romcoms, or posters of the latest and greatest video games. On top of the posters were photographs. Photos of Equius and Nepeta, Tavros and Gamzee, Feferi with Sollux or Eridan, Sollux with Aradia, Kanaya with Karkat, Vriska and Terezi and many more combinations of trolls. Tacked on top of the photos were drawings. Drawings of Nepeta's ships or different FLARPing persona's, drawings of a new dress or new design for a robot.
The room itself was littered with a rainbow of objects. The floor was covered in different objects. FLARPing materials, books, jewelry, dice, wands, horns, ninja stars, pillows, a scalemate or two, movie cases, video game cases, robot parts, paint sets, balls of yarn, and teapots. The pile Karkat was resting in was an accumulation of clothing articles and cut up cloth. It held the shirts, skirts, dresses, coats, costumes, capes, hats and cut pieces of cloth that were once rejected clothing articles from Kanaya. The pile was gross, in all honesty. A smell of seawater, honey, dirt, sweat, fancy perfume, sugar, and a faint (almost undetectable) smell of blood.
The room was idiosyncratic. The different likes of his friends all came together perfectly to make one amazing style. The room was bright and colorful, inviting. Anyone who stepped in here would instantly feel welcomed. The odd mixture of the smells was kind of off-putting but Karkat didn't mind. The smell that might've been considered gross to others was calming. Like the pheromones that a lusus gave off, the familiar scent a grub grew up to know and love.
Though the room was bright and happy looking, it gave off a certain wave of sadness. This room was filled with the interests of Karkat's deceased friends or the interests of the three living friends that didn't find an interest in Karkat anymore. This room was sad, yet comforting. It made him feel as if he was there with his friends. He felt like nothing had changed, it was just them all together again. Sometimes Karkat would close his eyes and imagine his friends there. Gamzee next to him smelling strongly of slime with Tavros beside him and the two would rap quietly. Eridan would be on the other side of Karkat, complaining about various things. Sollux would be talking with Feferi whilst Aradia's robot stood nearby. Equius and Nepeta would be happily conversing with one another over various subjects. Kanaya would be sitting in the corner, sewing a patch into Terezi's FLARPing costume whilst Terezi argued with Vriska.
Karkat was alone. He felt empty and unloved. He spent nearly all his time in this room which was so secluded and detached from the rest of the meteor. For god's sake, this room didn't even have air vents. The halls outside the closed door of this room, Karkat's sacred space, were unfamiliar. The cancer troll was sure the only possible way to enter this secret little space of his was to take a string on transportalizers here, though Karkat had to put in a special password in order to reach his sacred area.
The red blooded troll grabbed a garment from the pile, Eridan's cape, and wrapped it around himself. The smell of blood and seawater mingled with one another creating a foul smell. Karkat didn't care, this reminded him of his sea dweller friend. Karkat shut his eyes and began reminiscing of those times he shared with Eridan. All those times he never got a chance to step onto LOWAA or all the times he declined Eridan's invitation to watch a war movie. He regretted all of that, all the times he never took advantage of hanging out with his friends, all the times he figured he'd have the rest of the game and hopefully their lives to watch movies or draw or play games. He knew he could still visit them in the dream bubbles but it just wasn't the same. Not to Karkat.
Karkat's stomach growled rather loudly. Time to hit the meteor's nutrition block. He pulled himself upward and stretched, his joints popping loudly in the quiet room. He walked out of the comfort of his sacred room and out into the loneliness of the outside meteor. Karkat took his string of transportalizer away from his space and into the computer lab. The lab was once a socializing area for him and all his friends, now it was abandoned. He considered it a sort of memorial to the good times he shared with his friends, the others considered it just another room.
Karkat walked down the hall, past all the respiteblocks once inhabited by the trolls. These respiteblocks were now stripped down, things taken from those rooms to the little area Karkat had created for himself. It was odd being outside his space. He left the room rarely. There was an ablutionblock down the hall from it so he went their for his hygienic needs and he took most of his things (movies, books, clothes etc.) over there. He only really left to grab some leftover grubloaf the others didn't eat or some human cusine.
His friends didn't really note the gaps between Karkat's disappearances. They just assumed Karkat was locking himself up in his respiteblock out of anger because another argument with Dave had gone without change. Karkat would argue with Dave about his matespritship with Terezi, but in reality, Karkat didn't care. He couldn't care less if Terezi was "human dating" Dave Strider. All he wanted was for them to know he was there and the only way he knew to do so was to pick a fight with someone. He knew this probably wasn't the best way to get some recognition but he tried asking the others to watch movies with him or read or play video games, anything really, but everyone just blantly stated they were far too busy.
Karkat walked past the small mixture of trolls and humans all in the common area and straight into the nutritionblock. He poked around the thermal hull but there wasn't much in there. Finally, the small troll settled on taking the rest of the protein bars and shakes Equius liked so much, a couple fruits, a slice of cold pizza, some cold grubloaf. He set this food in its rightful place in his sylladex and walked out the nutrition block.
Kanaya and Rose were huddled together at one of the desks, reading a book on troll romance. Terezi and Dave were huddled together at another desk drawing together. Surprisingly, Gamzee was there. He sat on the couch, a magazine in hand and a bored expression on his face. None of them looked up or even noticed Karkat walk in.
Karkat could feel his blood pusher squeeze. Was this really it? Were his friends just going to toss him aside like yesterday's edition of game grub? That hurt him and he could feel the tears start to well up. No. No he wasn't going to cry. That wouldn't do anything for himself except show that he's an overly emotional wriggler, though his friends already knew as much.
Karkat confidently began to walk over to the little jumble of his supposed "friends", mentally preparing another orchestra of curse words and insults when Dave looked up at him. This made Karkat stop, someone had finally noticed him. His blood pumper skipped a beat until he saw the Knight of Time sigh heavily and roll his eyes, returning his attention to the drawing before him.
This made Karkat's good feeling instantly vanish. His red tears began clouding his vision again but it wasn't out of sadness. No, he was angry. He didn't expect white hot anger to begin bubbling up deep inside him. He didn't expect that white hot anger to overflow and cause Karkat to start screaming at the others. He didn't expect to be unable to stop these screeches of anger, it was like it was word vomit. And he was stuck with word vomit flu.
"Well well well, what have we here? Looks like a giant cluster fuck of bullshit is going on here." This caught the attention of the five others in the common room. Terezi groaned softly and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Too fucking busy, huh? Too fucking busy doing absolutely nothing but being neglectful dickheads." This was new and caused a few eyebrows to raise. Karkat huffed and glanced over at Kanaya and Rose.
"Not a fucking surprise that Kanaya is super glued to the one and only Rose fucking Lalonde. By the way, I never got a chance to thank you for stealing a good friend of mine. Thank you so fucking much. Really, it means a lot that you keep her so busy with you "endearing" mysterious side and alcoholism. She's so busy with you that now she doesn't even remember me! I bet you she doesn't even know my name!" The anger and sadness was starting to mix now and the red tears were starting to stream down his cheeks. "She probably doesn't even remember all those fucking movie nights she's missed with me because she was so fucking busy helping you stumble into your repsiteblock!" The Knight of Blood turned his attention to a slightly surprised looking Dave and a shocked Terezi. A new wave of anger bubbled up and spilled over.
"And no, I didn't come here for my usual argument with you over your current relationship status with Terezi, Dave. You know, I couldn't care less if the two of you were red or pale or pitch or ashen or whatever kind of fucked up human romance there is! I don't even like her anymore! Fighting with you is the only way i can get her to at least talk to me nowadays, even if it is to tell me to stop. At least that's something." Terezi opened her mouth, about to say something but Karkat cut her off. "You won't even talk to me, Strider! At least before you would tell me something stupid and annoying, at least that was also something!" The cancer troll's voice was shaking and it was noticeable. His glare moved from the two of them to the capricorn sitting on the couch. Karkat felt the sadness overwhelm him as he begun his rant to Gamzee.
"And you." He began, the tears overflowing and streaming down his cheeks. "You...asshole. You stupid stupid...asshole. We were best fucking friends. God, I remember you would fucking pale flirt with me like there was no goddamn tomorrow. I remember before these asshole humans got here you would cling to my fucking side on this meteor. You would spend next to every waking second with me. Or what about when we were younger? You remember that shit? You remember how you were my only friend for an entire sweep? How i confessed to you my blood color? How we would talk every fucking day?!" Karkat screamed out as he desperately wiped the red tears away from his eyes.
"R-Remember how I fucking pacified you? Seems like such a long time ago...I remember thinking: 'If I can calm him down then we must really be destined for moirallegiance.' And we were, but you didn't put up your end of this whole relationship and...and...and now i'm...alone. I'm alone Gamzee. My goddamn best friend went murder mode and is now putting up this retarded "I'm a highblood. I'm superior" act. And you wanna know the worst part? I'm still sickeningly pale for him. I remember how i would pretend to hate it when you pale flirted with me. And pretend that you annoyed me but you didn't. You were and are still a messed up kid. And when I would go on my shitty little self loathing rants about how other people were the little pebbles in my shoes, the things that annoyed me to no extent, I would blame myself. And I would blame everybody else. But never you."
Karkat finished his rants and sniffled. The others were as still as stone. They certainly weren't expecting such an emotional outburst from Karkat. The cancer troll felt a fresh new wave of tears beginning to appear. Karkat didn't want to cry in front of the others anymore, so without another word he walked out the common room. He slammed the door that cut the common room off from the hallway. The tears began spilling out of his eyes and he heard a voice, Gamzee? Dave?, call out his name. Karkat wasn't going to deal with this.
The cancer troll broke out into a full fledged sprint. He sprinted back into the computer lab, hearing footsteps and his name behind him. He didn't stop. He just ran onto the transportalizer and appearified in the location of the next one. He continued running and appearifying until he reached the transportalizer that would take him back to his sacred spot. He wasted no time taking out the palmhusk Tavros had left behind and connected to the transportalizer. He heard the transportalizer go off and Dave's voice ringing in the hallway. Karkat quickly typed in his password and hopped onto the platform.
He appearifyed in the lone, empty hallway and stepped off the machine. The tears had died down and Karkat had this horrible feeling inside of himself. He stumbled into his room and plopped down face first onto the giant make-shift pile. The gross stench of the pile's mixed smells and comforted Karkat.
"What did I just do?" Karkat asked himself, sighing. He was regretting everything he just said. He regretted mocking the addiction Rose had. He regretted screaming at Kanaya for taking time to spend with her matesprit, it was her first real flush crush after all. He regretted screaming at Terezi and basically blaming her for his little quarrels with Dave. He regretted screaming at Gamzee about his bitter feelings over their dead moirallegiance.
It's no wonder they never wanted to spend time with Karkat. He was awful. He felt awful. He just wanted to go back and cry and beg for forgiveness but he couldn't. They probably hated him. Karkat sure hated himself at the moment, more so than usual.