thecapitol | lord have mercy

Entry tags:

lord have mercy

Who| Karkat and OPEN
What| After ~~nearly half a sweep~~ a year away, Karkat's back in the tribute tower. He's not happy about it.
Where| D1 suite, elsewhere in tribute tower, in the capitol itself
When| Week 6 and beyond
Warnings/Notes| I'll be putting up some prompts in the comments for the three locations, but otherwise feel free to make your own wildcard prompt! JSYK, Karkat has been revived a week or so after he died (roughly concurrent to when Kankri got resurrected from his) and looks roughly a year older than he was last time anybody saw him. As for warnings... there will be language, probably references to Karkat's death and a little bit of Homestuck spoilers.

Familiar overhead block surface.

Karkat blinks his occular orbs in dismay. He-- he fucking knows this place. Memories come flooding back. Panem. He's in fucking Panem. Held captive by the fucking Capitol humans. Here he was, half-a-sweep older, and now, now, he knew what a fucking travesty that really was.

"We made you," he mutters under his breath. "You should be worshipping us, not fucking turning us into reality television."

There's a paper container of mixed goods next to him on the resting platform. Karkat shakes it out onto the thermal retention fabric. A bottle of what proved to be some kind of artificial scent. A hat in the shape of a gelatinous sea creature. Rubber bouncing spheres in the shapes of his, Signless, and Kankri's heads. A pendant with an enameled picture of a hamburger on it. Gummy candies in the shape of hamburgers. A black shirt with the word DEAD written in his own blood color. A toy figure of himself whose head came off when you squeezed it.

Karkat stares down at the assorted goods. "What the fucking fuck?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Karkat bristles. "Of fucking course you would, everyone just loves that petulant shitprince. I think I actually heard his escort call him her 'woobie,' whatever the fuck that is, when she was talking to mine. And don't fucking talk to me about being brought back properly, they waited a fucking week to do me."

He crosses his arms in front of his torso. "If I'm 'more,' it's because I wasn't here for about half a sweep, don't ask me why or how the fuck it worked, and I had a moult."

Bert shakes his head. "I don't mean it like that. You are still my friend while he is... more an acquaintance. I just don't know how much I have in me to deal with your adolescent shit right now."

He does actually smile at Karkat having a moult. There's something weirdly adorable about both the phrasing an idea of it and it makes Bert feel less angry with him. "But mayhap I'm wrong, and my little grasshopper is growing up. Aye?"

"I'm not a grasshopper," Karkat grumbles, "and you don't have to be patronizing."

But after a moment his expression softens. "I can't believe you carried my fucking head around like that. That's the kind of shit I'd expect out of Gamzee for fuck's sake." And then he winces, because Gamzee isn't here and a good fucking thing too, he'd probably go right back into Murderclown mode and Karkat wasn't sure if he could deal with that here.

"Of course I do, 'tis in my nature." He thumps Karkat on the arm in a friendly way.

"I've no idea what a Gamzee is, but I don't remember you needing it at the time I took it. And I felt responsible, anyroad. I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on you. And instead you ended up in pieces. The least I could do was protect a piece of you."

He's pretty upset about that, still. Even having Karkat back, he hates the way he found him in the Arena. He doesn't even want to come across his best friend in pieces again.

"He's not a what, he's a who," Karkat says, thumping Cuthbert right back. "He was one of my best friends back in my world. Him and Sollux mostly--and I guess Kanaya too, kinda, given how much time we spent fucking around with the frogs together." And talking books, since they liked a lot of the same ones, even if she was way more into rainbow drinkers than him. "You know how I am to the Signless? That's what he and Sollux are to the Initiate and the Helmsman or whatever he's calling himself these days, only they're ways less douchey than those two."

"So let me get this straight. I remind you of a friend who is also like the Initiate, but I should take that as a compliment? And since I saw you last you've been fucking frogs? Karkat I'm afraid I've no idea how to take this."

He crosses his arms and gives Karkat a very pointed look, one that the troll hopefully could interpret as him kidding.

"He's not that much like the Initiate," Karkat says defensively. "They're just genetically similar, that's all. And I wasn't fucking frogs, we were doing weird science shit to them."

"For someone who complains so often about the differences between troll and human cultures you certainly forget often enough that I have trouble following what you're saying."

He gives Karkat a cheeky grin. "You also have trouble being teased, grasshopper. When am I ever serious with thee when our lives aren't at stake?"

Karkat rolls his eyes. "Fine, whatever. The point is, there was no frogsex going on."

"Worry not, Grasshopper, I'm certain there are other little, slimy animals that will find you very attractive and take you to bed." Bert teases. He knows what Karkat means but he hasn't seen him in a spitting rage in far too long.

"I don't pail amphibians!" Karkat snaps. "I don't even know if I want to pail mammals! Jegus fuck, Bert, is me pailing things the only thing you ever think of?"

There, that's more like it!

"Certainly not. I think of other trolls pailing things on occasion and I also think about you sitting alone in your room chirping to no one in particular. But that last one makes me just terribly sad, so I try not to think of it so much."

There are some situations in which words are not sufficient.

Karkat stomps on Bert's foot instead.

"Ow! You flirt!"

Bert is amused, but he would be even more amused if that didn't hurt so much. He doesn't retaliate, though, he doesn't want the peacekeepers to have to break them up.

"Yeah, well, it's your fault for fantasizing about me-- chirping alone." Karkat has a pretty good fucking clue what that's supposed to be a euphemism for.

"Is that not what all the sad little crickets do? Or have I once again stumbled onto some phrase that means more than I think."

He gives Karkat a sideways glace. He had just assumed that chirping alone was a good phrase for something trolls without friends do.

"It doesn't mean more than you think," Karkat replies huffily, "I just know the things you like to insinuate. And I'm not a fucking cricket, dipshit."

"Cry your pardon, grasshopper. I meant no disrespect by it."

Maybe Karkat really has grown up if he's not going to throw a hissing spitting fit over this.

"Or a grasshopper," Karkat adds irritably. It's more that his fit-throwing threshold has been raised, Bert. Give him time.

"Well you're no fucking butterfly! I've seen trolls with wings. And unless you're hiding them up your waste chute, you've no wings that I've ever seen."

Without his nicknames, Cuthbert is nothing. He will find one and make it stick.

"Why do you have to even compare me to a human insect at all?" Karkat protests. "Can't I just be a fucking troll?"

"Do you not understand the value of a nickname? For humans 'tis a gesture of familiarity and love."

Bert doesn't know how to make it any clearer. Except maybe: "And I certainly care for thee... beetle."

"Oh," Karkat says, suddenly studying his shoes. "I hadn't-- I thought it was just you being a dick again. I mean, we do have nicknames and fuck, we even use them that way. I just--"

He looks up at Bert. "I care for you too... monkey."

"Of all the openings I give you, that's the best you can do? I could think of a dozen better nicknames!"

But just so the moment isn't entirely ruined, he ruffles Karkat's hair and taps his finger against one stubby horn.

Karkat lets him. "Shut up, you're as much a naked pink monkey as I'm a beetle."

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