Clooosed

[hornery]

Date & Time: March 27, evening
Location: Room 207
Characters: Karkat Vantas and John Egbert
Summary: John and Karkat talk about important stuff
Warnings: Profanity, bug eating, Karkat writing secret fanfiction shhhh


About half an hour after dinner (subpar, but John won't let them eat bugs at communal meals without throwing a fit so nothing can be done about it), Karkat has settled in at the nutritionblock table with his netbook and a bowl of mealworms. He's typing a lot and seems pretty deeply involved in whatever it is, so it's not an ideal time to approach him. Like that means anything around here.

Comments

[mesovortice]

John approaches a bit hesitantly because holy fuck he's eating bugs again even after he told him not to do that. ... Whatever. There are some important things to discuss while Gamzee takes one of his infamously long showers. Things other than his weird alien eating habits.

"Hey, Karkat," he says as he drags a chair over to sit beside him. "You have a minute?"

[hornery]

Karkat jumps so hard he nearly topples out of his chair. It's only a fraction of a second before his netbook is slammed closed and he's looking John over in an attempt to gauge what he may have seen. His cardiolump is beating so fast it is painful, holy shit.

"Holy mother of shittits, John." He saw nothing. "Did you have to sneak up on me like that?" He saw nothing. "What do you want?" Please let him have seen nothing.

[mesovortice]

John gives Karkat a long, hard stare.

"Shit, were you looking at alien porn or something? While eating worms and-- sitting right in the kitchen? Dude, not cool. Go to your room to do that." And he pauses, looks from the closed laptop to his choice of snack, then back to Karkat again. "Uh, anyways. I kind of had a really awkward and completely unrelated question to ask you."

[hornery]

"What the fuck, no. Where would I even find that, moron?" Shit, cover your ass, Karkat. "You just startled me." Smooth.

"Uh. Anyway, what is it?" He eats a mealworm. Maybe it'll calm his nerves. So crunchy.

[mesovortice]

"Yeah, okay. Sure I did. Er, whatever. Well, Dave brought it up and kind of got me thinking but..." Oh god he just ate a worm caterpillar thing. At least it's dead but fuck that is nasty. John looks to the bathroom door instead of at Karkat, partially because he's worried he'll suddenly come out of the bathroom, and then also because he doesn't want to see that. "... Is Gamzee really safe? To be around, I mean."

[hornery]

He would make a point to eat more bugs just to gross John out, but he kind of forgets about it when John actually spits out what he's trying to say. Karkat knew this would come up eventually, because let's face it, it's not a secret. At least not a well-kept one.

"That's kind of a personal question. I know you still don't get it, but uh." Fuck it. "He's fine. He should be." Shit. "Look, as long as I'm around, it's fine, okay?"

[mesovortice]

"How is that a personal question?" He asks it without really thinking about it-- but nods. "But, um. Okay. I'll keep that in mind I guess? Though it makes me more worried than reassured. Because what if something happens while you're not around?"

[hornery]

"He should still be okay as long as no one antagonizes him... We're working on it." And they are, there's piles of half-finished knitting projects all over the place to accompany the horn piles, a yarn museum of Karkat's efforts to help Gamzee find an outlet. They've been having feelings jams multiple times a week, and Karkat is pretty sure Gamzee's settled down now. The few times he's gotten riled up have all passed without event, thanks to vigorous shooshing and maybe a headlock. But how the hell do you explain this to a human? "I'm going to give you a choice here. You can either take my word for it and let me get back to my mealworms or I can get into a lengthy explanation that will make both our peepglobes glaze over but should put your weary little thinkpan to rest."

[mesovortice]

"Okay," John says. "If you're really sure, I believe you. But that's not all I wanted to talk about! Like, uh. I wanted to know what your plan is with your group. There are a lot of you guys. ... I think me and Dave are just going to do what we can to help this place out and learn stuff too, stuff that might help us get home more quickly."

[hornery]

"Honestly, right now this place is the most appealing prospect as far as I'm concerned. Like, don't get me wrong, it doesn't sit right with me that we're not taking care of that shit. Because it's important. It's just, this is better than being stuck on an asteroid for a sweep and a half-- sorry," he rolls his eyes, "three years with death being highly likely at some point. And it's better than Alternia was for a lot of us." Karkat grumbles the last bit, because he's not looking to get into the whole bloodcaste system right now. He's not sure how much John knows about it, anyway. "Plus most of my friends are dead back there, John. I just wish Terezi and Kanaya would show up."

Karkat pauses for a few seconds to do his best impression of a kicked barkbeast before it becomes apparent that he's changed his mind about something. He allows John all of a second to say his piece (maybe a second is an exaggeration) before he sits up straight and begins running his mouth, "You know what, no. You're not getting off that easy, I'm explaining this to you. If you're going to live in the same hive as us, you're going to understand this if I have to open your mouth and shit it down your windtube against your will." A huff. "Okay, so for you to understand why Gamzee is harmless despite his brief foray into real life b-horror, you need to understand moirallegiance. I guess for a human, the nearest concept would be 'platonic life partners,' but it's nowhere near that simple. It's basically your job to take care of your moirail and make sure they keep it together. You function as a guardian, sort off. It's pity and fondness working together to form a socially necessary symbiotic relationship in which each of us has a specific role to fill. My 'guardianship' role is to keep an eye on Gamzee and make sure his ass is mellow, while his is to serve as a source of comfort and safety. Er, I'm supposed to make sure he's safe too, but it's pretty common for the troll occupying his role to be protective. Anyway, I've been putting a lot of effort into my end of things, so he's pretty fucking zen. It'd take a lot for him to become dangerous again, and I'd know what he was up to before he did anything." Karkat pauses again, because verbal rants can get tiring even for him, when something occurs to him. "If you're ever realize you're shitting yourself in terror for no reason though, let me know."

[mesovortice]

Oh, that's right, isn't it? ... a lot of Karkat's friends are dead. So John figures that this is a lot better than that, even though they have really important things to do. He thinks briefly of his dad and Rose's mom-- thinks of one of his own friends dying-- before pushing that away, and is about to offer condolences. But then Karkat rambles on.

That's one way to keep the conversation rolling. He grins at him, rolling his eyes.

"Uh, yeah. I will be sure to tell you if that happens again. Though all of that weird alien stuff, this part at least, isn't THAT hard for me to comprehend, you know! All you just said makes some sense even if I don't really get how you can be so sure. But I guess I will take your word for it."