Chapter Text
The day’s barely started and you’re tired as hell, dragging your feet across the school football field and kicking up clumps of frost-glazed leaves as you go. Vengeful gods on a one-wheeled cycling device, its cold out here. Your name is Karkat Vantas and you’re not a morning person in general, but last night in particular showcased your dad screaming into his phone until you could feel the reverberations of his voice through your recuperacoon slime. The next morning the bastard commanded you to get in his car so he could drive you to school on his way to meet up with the Crew, resulting in another shouting match when you'd refused to have him drop you off at the front of the building. You had to deal with enough crap without making a grand entrance in a car dented with the bullet holes your guardian was too stingy to have repaired. Rubbing your eyes on the tattered end of your scarf, you finally push through the back doors of the school. The heating system in this place is remarkably shitty, making you glad you pulled an extra few layers on before leaving the house today as you weave through the crowd of students to keep from being bowled over by someone taller than you. By the time you make it to your locker you know your face is fixed in an irritated scowl that only deepens when a familiar voice hits your chilled ears.
God damn it. You keep your gaze fixed resolutely on your locker’s contents, not wanting to deal with any insufferable pricks this early in the morning. You hear the jovial sounds of various jocks and members of the popular crowd being chummy with him and feel your right eye tick.
You’ve known Dave Strider for a while now, but in the past year he’s been particularly hard to avoid. Even though the two of you are leagues apart on the high school status board, he’s become a permanent fixture in your group of friends, forcing you to deal with him by association on a daily basis. While things between the two of you haven’t been hostile in a long time- not since he and Terezi stopped being so sickeningly flirtatious- he serves as a constant reminder of one of the most cringe-worthy times of your life, and that’s enough to make you wish that he’d finally just fuck off into some cold dark abys-
“Mornin’. Walk through a tundra to get here, broski? Your horn nubs look ready to pop off like cheap buttons.”
Son of a motherfucker.
“Use any of those words to refer to me again and I'll claw your word flapper out through your wind pipe, forever robbing you of the ability to pleasure yourself to the sound of your own voice and forcing you to come up with a new nightly activity to fill the time slot between your usual swilling of cleaning chemicals.” You say, still pretending to be preoccupied with your locker even through you’re basically just staring at the crumpled scraps of last week’s homework.
You know from extensive experience that engaging this douchebag is as pointless as a crotch-flavored lollipop and leaves just as awful a taste in your mouth, but he makes it damn hard to ignore what an ass he is.
“Rawr. Seriously man, it’s not like your given name’s much more dignified.” Strider says, leaning on the locker beside you as the light catches those ugly goddamn shades. “Karkat... Karcrab's too obvious. Are you in the market for a stripper name, because let me tell you-”
“I’ll thank you to stop butchering my name before I shove your hideous mug into my locker and smash the door on your scrawny neck.” You say, teeth grating against one another.
“Don’t be offended, man. I’d totally throw a few singles your way.” You of course can’t see his eyes, but now by the way his facial muscles twitch that he’s just winked at you.
You suddenly feel unclean.
“Speaking of layers, the frostbitten look works for you. Totes adorbs.”
The walking growth of bulgerot actually pokes your reddened nose, complete with a vocalized ‘boop’ sound effect before taking his wise and swift leave down the hall.
You stick your head in your locker and scream into it.
==> Be the insufferable prick
You are now Dave Strider, sitting in a class you really don't care about. Normally you're a fan of history, but all of your attention right now is focused elsewhere. You should be listening because the teacher's talking about joining into pairs to create some powerpoint over the weekend that'll be worth a decent chunk of your project grade, but instead you’re intently staring at the back of a certain troll’s head and scheming like a boss.
If it were anyone else, you'd just have to flash a smirk their way and they'd be tripping over themselves to get to you. With Karkat, it's a little more complicated as the foul mouthed twerp has been giving you the stinkeye ever since your earliest interactions with Terezi- not to mention the glares you got when things there petered out. Dude’s hard to please that way. It’s not like you hadn’t wanted it to work out with her, but once she’d started going at it with that stoner clown you truly realized that black romance was more than an excuse for violent girl-on-girl makeouts in bad movies. You may have been way too cool for all most lovey-dovey bullshit, but you had your own set of romantic ideals, okay? Not that you were one to take a dump on anyone’s culture, but it turned out monogamy had been so high up on your list that you didn’t even think it warranted mentioning. Things with Rez had ended before they really started, but at least on amicable terms.
You prop your chin up in your palm, eye drifting to the clock even though you knew there is still exactly half an hour of class left. Damn. Welp, back to looking at Karkat's horns. Little things were precious as fuck.
You’re not really sure when your attention shifted. After things with Rez ended, having Karkat in your face all the time had led to you noticing a few things- namely, how much fun you had messing with him. His attempts to offend you were downright laughable once you knew his game, and it was ridiculously easy to get him flustered. For someone like you, watching someone so transparent was downright novel. Karkat was easier to read than a book, which was made all the more amusing considering the guy was nothing but bravado. Even when he pretended not to care, you could see the wrinkle in his nose, the way he slouched and folded in on himself as he avoided eye contact, babbling obscenities like he didn’t know how to stop. It was fucking cute, not to mention refreshing. The troll was incapable of subtlety or deceit, and that was something you really liked the more you thought about it.
And hey, he was single. He’d started getting “pale” with Kanaya according to Rose, but to your knowledge the only person he’d ever been hate-horny for was John and wow, was that a hilarious joke all its own.
Speaking of, it looked like people were pairing up for that project now, and there was John grinning and jostling a typically cranky Karkat. A quick glance around the room told you that everyone else had already found their partners, leaving you with an absently doodling Jade. On most days, that would’ve been just fine by you, but today you were on a mission.
“Hey, Harley.” You nudge her with your pen and she looks up, colorfully-ringed fingers splayed across her drawings. “Why don’t you pair off with Egderp today.”
A bit on the nose, but trying to be sneaky with Jade was more likely to make her impatient with you than anything else, and that’s not what you had time for right now.
“Hm?” She blinks, eyebrows raising over her glasses. “How come?”
“Just do it.”
She turns and skeptically squints at the front row.
“But it looks like he’s paired with Karkat.”
You stare at each other for a moment, your gaze flat even behind your shades, and realization slowly spreads across her face.
“Ooooh.” A gleeful smile reveals her improved-but-still-noticeable overbite and she fidgets in her seat excitedly. “Ooooooh!”
She winks at you but thankfully doesn’t need to be further convinced, going to the front row of desks and playfully latching onto John. You can’t hear what’s being said, but from the affronted look on Karkat’s face and the bashful, apologetic one on John’s, you know you’ve won. No one can resist a Harley on a mission.
With John already being ghosted away you can see Karkat looking around the room for someone free, and his gaze lands on you. You smile (okay, smirk) and give a short wave, causing his expression to immediately go sour.
The bell rings and you can tell he’s tempted to try disappearing into the flood of students, but you both know that’s not going to happen. You meet him in the hall, slumping against the locker in bitter defeat. Gotcha.
“Let’s get one concept straight in your desecrated muffin tin of a thinkpan, Strider.” He says gruffly, arms crossed protectively over his chest. “I don’t care how cool you think you are, but you’d best get off your lazy, sore-riddled ass because I’m not doing all the work or failing because you’d rather sit with your opposable digits up your waste chute than rub your two competence cells together and contribute. Neither of us wants to, but because this festering shit hole of a class requires us to work together, we’ll just have to make the best of it.”
“Cool.” You say, successfully diffusing what was probably his hastily pre-conceived speech. “Just gimme your address and let’s tackle this beast.”
“What.”
“You know. You and me, on an epic hunting expedition. Gonna tag team the shit out of this project, hogtie it and-“
“No you blubbering fuckwit, I meant that there’s no way in the seven rings of hell that shat you into existence I’m letting you set foot in my place of residence. Just give me your address and I’ll show up at your sad excuse of a hivestem.”
“Yeah, don’t know what that means, but it’s not happening dude. My bro’s not big on visitors.”
That wasn’t exactly true- Bro was just fine with your friends coming over, but exposing your crush to him and his legion of plushrump smuppets was the last thing you wanted.
“And just what compels you to think you can invite yourself across my threshold like an absurd inverse vampire?“
“Answer’s not changing, man. So unless the library’s taken you off its ban list, you’d better polish up them hosting skills.”
One could only yell so many echoing obscenities across a public building, so something told you that Karkat hadn’t seen the inside of the local library for years now.
His face flushes a deep red that meets his partly filled-in eyes, his fists clenching like he’s about to break into a new rant before his shoulders go slack in surrender.
Success.
“Fine. But you don’t touch anything and when I say you leave, you fucking leave. Got that through your impenetrably thick skull, Strider?”
“Yup.” You say, popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously just to see him chomp on his lower lip in frustration. “I’ll pick you up after school?”
He grunts and stomps down the hall like an angry little hedgehog, head down and haunches up, and you take that as an affirmation with no small amount of smug.
Operation: 'Dat Ass' is a go.
The rest of the day passes in a blur of impatient foot-tapping and sly looks from Jade. You ignore for her now but know you’ll have to deal with her later; you just hope you’ll have something good to say when she interrogates you for details.
You’re leaning against the hood of your clunker of a truck and looking over the parking lot as students flood out of the building. Bro claimed it was for ironic purposes but you both know he was either too cheap or too much of an ass to get you anything better. So of course you’d pretended to love it, going on about how great it was whenever you could like that would somehow show him up. Some tool on the student council had put flyers for the upcoming Valentine’s day festival on all the car hoods, but instead of crumpling it and littering in the parking lot you decide to hold onto it. Ironically.
It’s chilly out here but your suffering is rewarded when Karkat finally manages to spot you, moving through the crowd like a guppy swimming upstream. He waves off Captor and the group he usually rides with and you can’t help but feel a little excited to see him coming towards you instead. It’s not a date, obviously, but it’s one-on-one time and that’s something.
You’re already starting the ignition by the time he drags his feet to the passenger’s side, bundled in what must be several large sweaters. He’s wearing that hat and scarf too, only showing his reddened nose and eyes.
A lesser man than you would give an undignified coo at the sight, but you manage to keep your cool.
“Let’s get this over with, Strider.” His arms are crossed like a pouty kid and the height difference between you has never been more apparent then whilst sitting side-by-side.
“Just tell me where to go, little man.” You say, pulling out of the parking lot.
Karkat stiffens when he sees a crowded school bus slowly trundle past, giving a decent portion of the junior class a pretty good look at him sitting in your distinctively crappy car. You hear the hiss of him cursing through his scarf and feel deviously amused by his obvious dread for the rumor mill.
“So is it left or right, Grumpy Bear?” You say, pretending not to notice.
That startles him back to reality, and he spends the next ten minutes aggressively giving you directions and insulting your driving. Any normal person would be annoyed by this point, but it’s pretty hard for you to take a talking bundle of baggy winter clothes seriously.
Eventually he leads you to a pretty decent part of town and commands you to pull over into one of the generic spots alongside the road.
Karkat wriggles out of the car seat, his movement slightly restricted by all those layers, and… walks straight past the home you stopped in front of.
“Um.”
“I’m not letting you park that piece of oxidized scrap in front of my lawn ring, asshole.”
“What, afraid I’ll make the property value go down?” You ask, catching up to him easily.
He snorts but doesn’t answer, and you think back to the whispers that flood the school whenever a notable heist or shootout happens in this city.
“Oh, I see. That’s pretty darn sweet of you Vantas, worrying about my safety.”
He splutters and you just know without looking that his face is going red for reasons unrelated to the cold.
“Kiss the palest part of my gray ass, Strider. I just don’t want my dad spiraling off the handle and spraying your blood all over the house like a pressurized hose of cherry fucking Faygo. I’m the one who has to clean that shit.”
You shrug and carry on. Going to school with mob kids didn’t bother you as much as it should have- after all, you and Terezi had gotten on just fine, even though before getting licenses she and Vriska had always been chauffeured to and from school by various glowering members of the Felt.
The two of you finally arrive at what you assume is actually his house this time. It’s a bit dilapidated and in need of some tlc, but its still infinitely nicer than your one-room apartment. Karkat unlocks the door and impatiently walks in first, leaving you to shut it behind yourself.
“Keep your grubby fleshpads to yourself and don’t touch anything.”
You peel off your jacket and hang it in the coat closet like you’d learned to after years of visiting the Egberts, watching as Karkat deftly moves through the mess of the living room. Newspapers and old dishes are stacked just about everywhere and what look suspiciously like stab marks decorate most of the flat surfaces, but you still find it preferable to playing host in the Land of Shitty Swords and Smuppets.
You find him upstairs, pulling off two of his sweaters along with his hat and scarf, leaving them in a pile on the floor. Speaking of piles, there’s what seems to be a massive one in the corner comprised of trashy romance novels, the likes of which you’d only ever seen mixed amongst old magazines in the local laundromat.
“It’s a good thing I already knew you were a massive dork, otherwise I might find that unsettling.” You say, leaning in the doorframe for lack of anywhere else to sit.
His room, book pile excluded, is cleaner than the rest of the house but has only one chair, plus one of those slimy cocoons in place of a bed.
He fixes you with one of the dirtiest looks in his arsenal and pointedly sits in the pile, keeping eye contact as he makes himself comfortable like he’s proving something. You raise your hands in assent and sit at his desk chair, which is unfortunately on the other side of the room from Karkat and his laptop.
You spend the next two hours throwing passive-aggressive snark across the room while putting together the powerpoint. It takes a while before the project is passable enough to leave alone for the day, and by then dusk is beginning to settle. To stall your inevitable expulsion from his home you search for new topics of conversation, and luckily it only takes a few comments about his posters before Karkat is storming over to his shelf of dvds. You’re both relieved and slightly horrified, but when he picks one with a ridiculously long title you know there’s no going back.
“Now open your perception orbs behind those plastic monstrosities you call eyewear Strider, because I’m actually going to be a benevolent host and help you learn something for once in your uncultured farce of a life.” He says, playing the movie and sitting in his pile with a huff.
“I’m not interested in watching any of your filthy porn, Karkat.” You say, sitting next to the pile anyway because you want to stay on his level but still aren’t willing to get a paperback book stuck in your ass (plus you're fairly sure that if you tried climbing into his sacred smut stack he'd slap you for somehow slutting up his quadrants).
“Your ignorance is so fucking astounding that half-wits everywhere are currently observing a moment of awed silence for it. Now quit yapping your putrid wind hole for second and enjoy the greatest genre ever conceived by sentient beings, you primitive cretin.”
That turns out to be a complete and total lie of course, because you hate romcoms enough without them including all of the quadrant and blood caste bullshit.
“Okay, so what’s happening now?” You ask for what feels like the fifteenth time and getting an exasperated snarl in response.
“If I didn’t know your stupidity was 100% natural, I’d think an impaired wriggler had wormed its way inside your thinkpan and died, having no doubt mistaken the empty space between your aural tubes for a grubfucker’s nook.” Karkat says, pointing fiercely at the screen. “The lowblooded suitor is clearly challenging his potential matesprit’s high blooded moirail to prove his worth, inadvertently sparking caliginous feelings in the process. Seeing this as the terrible idea it is, the observing midblood begins to wax ashen, no doubt triggering a hilarious series of shenanigans in his quest to prove that they need to be moderated.”
You only grasp half of that and roll your eyes. When were hateships ever not a bad idea.
“By the low-hanging scrotums of the outer gods, did your guardian drop you sniffnode-first into a tub of noxious paint? For your information, kismesistude is a vital cornerstone of troll culture that you apparently can’t even begin to differentiate from your own colorant-stained taint, much less comprehend.”
Oh hell, you actually said that last bit out loud. Welp.
“Look man, I get that trolls got their polyamorous shit and I’ve had it explained to me before, but it’s just not for me. Like putting them under different labels lets me ignore that I’m having sloppy make-outs with two people or that my mate-whatever is seeing someone else on the side? I can’t just distribute my feelings among people like that, or put them in neatly defined boxes. I've never thought emotions worked that way.” You’re talking with more passion in your voice than you usually allow, and you can tell it’s having a rather unsettling effect.
“Y-you’re talking about transcending quadrants.” Karkat says, looking rather alarmed. “That’s the most ridiculous phlegm-bracelet of words I’ve ever heard strung together in mockery of the noble art of sentence craftsmanship. Next time I want to be painfully assaulted by incoherent babble, I can refrain from shoving a Webster dictionary up my waste chute and vomiting the words in leu of chatting up Dave bulgelicking Strider. Why the ever loving fuck would I ever want to partake in that shit slurry of a mess you humans consider romance?”
“So what if it’s a mess? Think about it, man.” You say, rolling to face him and finding yourself right at his side. “Having one person who makes you feel in ways that can’t be labeled or put in a box. Committed to that one person who can be your everything. Your friend,”
You don’t realize how far you’re leaning over him until his eyes are consuming your field of vision; bright red bleeding into gold.
“your rival,”
Someone kicks the remote, turning off the tv and plunging the room into darkness. You swear you hear him squeak.
“your partner?” You’re way in his space now, but he hasn’t made any move to stop you despite the fact that he’s now breathing like a winded rabbit. “Doesn’t that seem romantic to you?”
You can just feel his breath brushing your chin when Karkat suddenly yelps and shoves you off, clambering out of the book pile. You’re about to apologize when you realize that the cause of his outburst wasn’t actually you.
From the window of his room you can both see the glow of headlights and hear the crunch of gravel in the driveway.
Karkat looks from the window to you, eyes wide and hands twitching in panic.
“Go out the window.”
You can’t help it. You crack the fuck up.
Karkat is unamused.
“Really man? You’re going to keelhaul me out the window to keep daddy from catching me in the process of stealing your precious maidenhood? What is this, one of your god-awful teen flicks?”
“You are a crusty nookstain on the jock strap of my life and I’d boot your pale ass up the chimney if I thought it’d remove you from my sight any quicker!” He says through (adorably blunt) bared fangs, forcefully shoving your backpack into your arms and herding you to the window.
“Whoa, look out for the nubby-horned imp, everyone. He’s 5'3" and on a mission to grope and defenestrate hapless coolkids into his yard.” You say even as you lazily sling one leg over the window sill.
Then you both hear a car door slam shut, and Karkat actually shoves you out the window. Classy. Fortunately living with Bro has prepared you for this scenario more than you’d like to admit, and you manage to pull your momentum into a youth roll across the lawn. You quickly right yourself and fix your shades before anyone can notice they've been knocked up to your forehead, but soon realize that the window’s now shut and you can't even see Karkat anymore.
You shrug and slip along the side of the house, catching sight of the Stabdad himself thumbing through the mail before disappearing inside and wow, adopted or not you can see a resemblance. Yeah, Spades Slick and Karkat are clearly from different species, but everything from their scowls to their stomp to the way they both barely come up to your shoulder is downright uncanny.
With a shake of your head you adjust your bag and put some distance between you and the gangster’s house. It’s not until you’re safely shut inside your lame truck that you let yourself replay the night’s events in your head. You think about the proximity between Karkat’s body and your own, the flush of red across his face and can’t help but wonder just what might’ve happened next if you hadn’t been cockblocked by his dad’s godawful timing.
Maybe its safer to move forward than you’d thought.
==> Be Karkat again
You heard the car door slam shut and just like that, you proceeded to freak the fuck out (in a manner that you would repeatedly and rightfully insist was 100% justified) before actually shoving him the rest of the way out the window. You felt your face burning and didn’t even bother to see how Strider stuck the landing- you’ve seen him show off enough in gym class and had no doubt that whatever flashy maneuver he pulled on the way down would only serve to infuriate you more.
You run a hand through your eternally rumpled hair and take a moment to collect yourself. This whole fucking day had gone tits-up from the moment you agreed to be Strider’s partner, with everything just degrading from there.
What the hell was he playing at? As if he didn't know that his presence was like rubbing your face in what a tool you'd been ever since he'd first made his pretentious way into Terezi’s affections. You internally groaned at the memory of how you’d seethed and sulked and waited for them to get together and inevitably fall apart like a stupid wriggler. You’d managed to get your head out of your nook and mend things with her, but after all the bitterness and rage you seemed to have exhausted your right to red feelings. You figured that Strider or no, you just didn’t deserve her and moved on. Things had since settled into a comfortable, if sometimes awkward friendship, but it was more than you deserved for how you acted.
You’d never been able to bring yourself to trust Strider though, not even after things between him and Terezi took on more platonic overtones, instead choosing to resent how he’d irrevocably wormed his way into your group of friends. It’s only because John Egbert, flakey wonder boy that he is, decided at the last minute to pair up with Jade for the project that you got stuck hosting that jerk in your home at all. Kanaya and Lalonde were joined at the hip these days, and when given the choice between you and Aradia, Sollux chose the partner more likely to enthusiastically do the whole thing themselves. The whole situation had left you with Dave “sunglasses-at-night, what-a-douchebag” Strider, and a deep mourning for your pathetic excuse for a social circle.
You jump violently when you hear your old man shouting for you from downstairs, and fuck does his voice carry. You try to walk as casually as possible when you head down to the kitchen to see him rutting around in the fridge with that creepy metal arm of his.
“What?” You ask, sounding even more irritable than usual on account of exhaustion.
“Don’t ‘what’ me, you little shit. Where’s the food?” He demands like he doesn’t know the two of you have lived on tv dinners since the beginning of fucking time.
“Frozen.”
“Well un-freeze it, already.” He grabs a beer and turns around, getting his first good look at you. “The hell happened to you?”
You take a moment to realize just how flushed and winded you probably look following your near heart attack and confusing interactions with Strider- the latter of which you were trying your damnedest not to think about right now. Asshole was just trying to get to you, and like hell you were going to let him succeed.
“Nothing. What happened to you?” You say back like the smooth communicator you are.
Slick scrutinizes you for a moment, eye narrowing before he huffs and continues on his way.
“Whatever. Just quit jerking it for ten minutes and do your fucking homework.”
“Ngfh- DAD!” But he’s already slamming the office door shut, leaving you to slump with a red face and pounding head onto the counter.
At least you’d actually gotten most of the fucking project done.
Your dad actually stays home for the entire weekend, something that hasn’t happened in recent memory. Hell, the drunken fool didn’t even leave for the bar with the Crew last night like he usually does on Saturday evenings. The two of you have been toeing around each other, not having anything to say but not really minding the other’s company either. It’s a delicate balance that allows two people of your dispositions to live together, you suppose.
It’s Sunday morning when the doorbell goes off, and you know it’s not the Crew because even they usually have the decency to call before just barging in using their keys.
You poke your head over the stairwell, knowing from experience that your dad answering the door never bodes well. Hell, he usually leaves it ringing until you get off your ass and do it. He must be feeling unusually proactive today- either that or he’s forgotten that the mail doesn’t come on Sunday and he really wants to get that restraining order.
Irritation is replaced with surprise when you see a group of college kids in audaciously colored clothes on the door step.
“The fuck are you?”
“We’re here on a delivery, mister!” One of the girls says, impressively unfazed by your dad’s glare. “Is there a… ‘Karkat’? At this address?”
You can just glimpse her holding up a large basket with a notecard in her hand, having by now slunk down the stairs.
“Yeah. What the hell is going on?” You ask, feet carrying you forward with some sort of sick curiosity.
“Candygram!” The girl grins and hands you the basket, which is full of expensive-looking chocolate and confetti.
“Oh. Uh. Thanks?” You say, ready to close the door and abscond.
“Wait! We still have to sing!”
Ooooh nooo.
“No, you really don-“
Oh god one of them has a boom box.
And it’s at that point that you feel a sense of mourning, a sense of complete and utter despair for the inevitable loss of your mind, your dignity, your faith in sentient life divine or otherwise, and a sizable chunk of your soul. It’s horrible. It's painful.
It’s evil.
It’s Candyman by Christina Aguilera.
By the time it’s over, you’re vaguely aware that you and your dad are frozen with near-identical expressions of shock and horror; albeit with you leaning towards the ‘revolted’ end of the scale whereas your dad is firmly planted at ‘enraged.’
You can’t help but instinctively lean out of the way when his face pulls into an ugly snarl.
“Get. OUT.”
The kids take their cheery leave, one of them even having the fucking gall to wave and wish you a good day. Mocking you and no doubt knowing that their bright saccharine faces will be haunting your nightmares from here to the Furthest fucking shit-Ring on your load gaper.
Slick slams the door shut and snatches the candy from you with his other hand.
“Hey! I fucking earned that, asshole!”
He responds with a stream of swears, stomps into his office and from the sound of it, barricades the door shut with his coffee table before blasting one of his jazz records in a futile attempt to wash out the memories.
You stand there in the foyer for a moment, internally catching up with the mindfuckery of an abomination that has just taken place here. With a hand on your throbbing temple, you spot a letter that must have fallen from the basket, stooping down and unfolding it.
It’s a pretty horrible poem written with a bunch of godawful candy puns, but the signature at the bottom leaves little doubt as to the culprit, if there was any at all.
Your eyes narrow, and the growl begins low in your throat as you raise your shaking fist to the sky.
"STRRIIIIIIIDDEEEERRRR!”
Your dad and you are now sitting on the sofa, dinners on your laps in front of the tv because you haven’t eaten in the dining room in years, and neither of you have mentioned the Candygram Incident since this morning. His scowl is much more prominent and he’s eating like he’s imagining the canned ravioli is the singers’ eyes or some shit, but you’d expected him to say something by now.
This must be what post-traumatic stress is like.
There’s probably a better way to break the silence, but tact has never been a strong suit of yours.
“So where’s my candy?” Is the best you’ve got.
He pauses, slowly grinding his teeth and looking like the food’s gone spontaneously sour in his mouth.
“Check the fireplace.”
“Fucking seriously?”
He grunts and goes back to eating, ignoring you in favor of looking at the news broadcast. The anchor lady is talking about some new gang running around the city, but considering your dad gets all the information he cares to know from Droog, that’s basically his equivalent of staring at a blank wall until you get the message.
“Fine.” You plonk your bowl on the table like you’re not the one who’ll be picking it up later because if it were up to your dad it’d fossilize before making its way to the sink, and loudly go up to your room like the huffy teen you are.
The first thing you do is go to your husktop, which you’ve been watching in wait all day now. You finally see his status marked as ‘online’ and feel a fresh pulse of rage surge through your veins.
-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG] --
CG: YOU ARE A REVOLTING CLUMP OF WOOFBEAST EXCREMENT PERSISTENTLY SMEARING ITSELF ACROSS THE SOLE OF MY SHOE THE MORE I TRY TO SCUFF IT OFF ONTO THE HOT PAVEMENT.
TG: oh hey you got my candygram
TG: did they do the dance
TG: they promised they would do the dance
TG: paid extra for that shit
CG: OH THEY DID THE DANCE.
CG: THERE WERE MULTICOLORED GYRATIONS ALL OVER THE LAWNRING.
CG: PERFECTLY IN TUNE WITH THEIR GODAWFUL KARAOKE MIX AND MY DESPERATE RETCHING IN THE BACKGROUND.
CG: I SUSPECT EVERYONE ON MY STREET WILL BE REQUIRING EXTENSIVE THERAPY THANKS TO THIS LITTLE EPISODE. BETTER CALL UP LALONDE AND SEE ABOUT A GROUP DISCOUNT.
CG: IT MADE ME PHYSICALLY ILL TO BEAR WITNESS. AND YET, LIKE A BLAZING INFERNO THAT SWALLOWS ALL YOU KNOW AND HOLD DEAR, I COULDN’T LOOK AWAY.
TG: only the best for you babe
CG: MOTHER OF ALL FUCKS
CG: MY FATHER WAS HOME, YOU WORTHLESS SMEAR OF GENETIC DISCHARGE. HOW DO I EXPLAIN THAT SHIT?
TG: i can see how might be awkward
TG: whatd he say
TG: …
TG: yo man you still there
CG: NOTHING. HE DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING. NO DOUBT SHOCKED INTO AN INTERNAL ARREST OF SOME KIND. I FULLY EXPECT HIM TO REGAIN CONTROL OF HIS FACULTIES AND BARGE IN HERE AT ANY MOMENT. HOLDING ME AT KNIFE POINT AND DEMANDING THAT THE ABOMINABLE MONSTER RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT DANCE OF TERRORS BE PRESENTED FOR IMMEDIATE AND PAINFUL STABBY JUSTICE.
TG: nice of you to be concerned for my safety
CG: FUCK YOU AND YOUR FACE.
CG: WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT CONVERTS CARBON DIOXIDE INTO OXYGEN WOULD YOU BLIGHT MY HOME WITH SUCH A HORRENDOUS DISPLAY? BECAUSE IF IT WAS TO EARN MY ETERNAL IRE AND RESENTMENT, MISSION FUCKING ACCOMPLISHED. SHITSUCKER.
TG: nah that wasnt what i was going for at all
TG: you see i thought about that talk we had on friday and ive been thinking
TG: i may have been a little too subtle
CG: SUBTLE. YOU? ALLOW ME TO SCOFF AT THE MIND NUMBING STUPIDITY OF THAT WORD WHEN APPLIED TO YOUR ATTENTION-WHORING SHAME GLOBES.
CG: WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO EVEN IMPLY A SHADOW OF SUBTLETY TOO?
TG: well duh
TG: you and me karkat
CG: YOU AND ME WHAT.
TG: …
TG: <3
CG: NO
CG: NO NO
TG: oh yeah
TG: you me man
TG: wanna stand with you on a mountain
TG: bathe with you in the sea
CG: I KNOW SONG LYRICS WHEN I HEAR THEM, ASSHOLE.
TG: youre right
TG: youre at least worth an original
TG: hold on i think i got something
CG: DONT YOU DARE START SPEWING THE RADIOACTIVE BILGE YOU DEIGN TO CALL SLAM POETRY AT ME, STRIDER!
CG: I’M MURDEROUS ENOUGH AS IT IS.
CG: FUCK YOU WITH MULTIPLE RUSTY IMPLEMENTS. I'M BEING FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW, AND YOU ARE NOT GOING TO DISTRACT ME WITH YOUR RIDICULOUS TANGENTS.
TG: no joke bro
TG: this is redder than egberts ass after i finish kicking it at mariokart.
TG: its your face levels of flushed up in here
CG: MY FACE IS NOT FLUSHED.
TG: shh its ok
TG: i was gonna take this a little easier
TG: build it up and get a slow burn going
TG: in your heart
TG: but a dude could die of old age before you got the picture because for someone so transparent youre remarkably dense you know
TG: i started getting jealous of goddamn captor of all people
TG: and then i realized how thick your head was and just how long this could take
TG: not that your ignorance isnt adorable in its own right
TG: but aint nobody got time for that
CG: MY GODS
CG: EVERY SYLLABLE YOU UTTER IS EVEN MORE OUTRAGEOUS THAN THE LAST. YOU’RE TOPPING YOUR OWN BULLSHIT RECORDS NOW, STRIDER. NO ONE’S EVER GOING TO BE ABLE TO CATCH UP. YOU ARE NOW UNDOUBTEDLY THE STOOL-SPEWING CHAMPION. IT’S YOU.
CG: I’M GOING TO HAVE TO HIKE UP MY PANTS AND WADE THROUGH THIS EXCREMENT LIKE AN INTREPID EXPLORER SCOURING THE DEEP TRENCHES OF YOUR WASTE IN AN ATTEMPT TO FIND SOME ANCIENT, CRAP-FOSSILIZED FRAGMENT OF TRUTH.
CG: ASSUMING I’VE DECIDED TO PLAY ALONG, FOR JUST HOW LONG WOULD THESE HYPOTHETICAL RED FEELINGS OF YOURS HAVE EXISTED?
TG: hm
TG: what day is it
CG: IT'S SUNDAY. I LITERALLY THREW YOU OUT MY RESPITEBLOCK TWO DAYS AGO!
TG: about a year
CG: AND ANOTHER LANDSLIDE OF BULLSHIT SLOSHES INTO THE RIVER OF FECES CONTINUOUSLY FLOWING FROM DAVE STRIDER’S FILTHY MOUTH.
CG: WHOOP THERE GOES MY FOOTING.
CG: GONNA NEED A BOAT IF I’M EVER TO RESURFACE FROM THIS WARM FROTHY CURRENT OF PUTRID LIES.
CG: I ABSOLUTELY REFUSE TO BELIEVE YOU COULD EVEN PRETEND TO BE THAT SHY, NOR THAT MENTALLY IMPAIRED WITHOUT CURRENTLY HAVING YOUR DROOL MOPPED UP AT THE NEAREST SANITARIUM.
TG: no man not shy
TG: subtle
CG: THIS IS OFFICIALLY THE DUMBEST CONVERSATION I’VE EVER HAD, AND THAT INCLUDES THE TIME AMPORA THOUGHT HEADLIGHT FLUID WAS A REAL FUCKING THING.
TG: come on karkat you know you cant resist
TG: i sent you a goddamn candygram were practically halfway married now
CG: AND THE MEMORY WILL BE FOREVER ENGRAVED IN ME AND MY FATHER’S THINKPANS FOR MANY FUTURE NIGHT TERRORS TO COME.
TG: you know me
TG: go big or go home
CG: THAT’S A GREAT IDEA.
CG: GO HOME AND FUCKING STAY THERE UNTIL YOU’RE READY TO APOLOGIZE FOR YOUR COMPLETE AND ABJECT DUMBASSERY.
CG: BECAUSE EVEN EGBERT’S SORRY ATTEMPTS AT “PRANKS” HAVE MORE MERIT THAN THE ABOMINATION THAT HAS TAKEN PLACE TODAY.
CG: GOOD FUCKING NIGHT, YOU INTOLERABLE AND MOLDY SPUNKSPONGE.
-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] blocked turntechGodhead [TG] --
TG: welp
TG: time for stage two