Chapter Text
You find yourself to be one famously cantankerous troll with one of the worst kept secrets in all of secret-dom and an overwhelming crush on a girl that wanted no part of you in any of her quadrants.
You also haven’t seen her in the past week and a half; it wasn’t even your fault this time! You just saw her kind of slump away from Can Town with this look on her face, something like guilt and terror and anger all mixed up. Then she locked herself up in her respite block and hadn’t made a peep since.
Can Town was rather impressive; you’d never admit that out loud, but you had to hand it to her, the Dersite, and the nookfuck, they knew how to build a decent city.
There were a couple of raised eyebrows at your appearance, blinking like they’d seen an apparition; you’ve been avoiding Can Town like it was infested with the troll plague lest you actually lose what little sanity you have left. But you need help and this is the only place where an encounter with him was certain.
The Mayor scurried past in his frantic funny way, hands full of chalk.
“Mayor, put those back. Mayor. Dammit, get back here.” He rounded a skyscraper made out of grape juice, gave a weird sort of halt like he was expecting you to be the Mayor and –oh shit, you are so not, at least you weren’t, that last time you checked—before he sidestepped you and rushed past.
“Hey douche bag, I was looking for you!” You don’t know if you should feel insulted or just plain disgusted at his lack of worry; you decide on a gross combination of both.
“What in the holy fuck for?” He looked really stupid chasing the carapace all through kingdom come, barely missing capture every time that sash was within reach; you almost laugh, but then your eyes glance down to the spot where she was supposed to be, dying of a cackling fit on the floor and the smile that found its way to your lips died.
“What’s the password to her door?” You take secret pleasure in watching him fumble about; it was nice to know that being stuck on this hell hole of a meteor wasn’t just getting to you.
“Why would I tell you?”
“Because she’s not answering and it’s almost been two weeks since I’ve seen anyone go in or out.”
“So you’ve resorted to stalking now?”
“Fuck off, Strider. And by fuck off, I mean: give me the gog damned pass code.”
Mayor tried another turn and ran right smack into a Tab skyscraper; the only visible parts of him after the tower toppled were his hands, still holding onto the chalk for dear life.
“I don’t even know the code. She changed it a while back.” You almost felt something like concern for the little self-elected leader until you watched Dave wrench the chalk from his fingers and tiny arms begin to flail under empty cans. “And it hasn’t been two weeks. I saw her yesterday, when we were going through the dream bubble. She said she was sick with the troll flu or somethin’. She’s fine.”
Of course it was yesterday, the one day you decide to fall asleep on a stupid, uncomfortable pile of horns because you couldn’t stand wandering around these gog forsaken hallways alone anymore.
“I suggest you stay away from her, Karkat. Based on your spot in the hemospectrum, her simple illness may be something much worse for you.”
Holy shit. How long had Rose been in that chair in the corner?
“How in the name of the unholy matron do you know where I stand on the spectrum?”
She gave you this look that made you despise her a little more and feel like paradox space’s biggest moron all at the same time.
You shove your turtleneck up to your cheeks, partly in defeat, partly to hide the embarrassed blush creeping up and huff out of the room with a sour, “I know, I know,” under your breath.