[OPEN]

[sleeplessinalternia]

Who| Karkat + YOU, later Karkat + Signless
What| Karkat isn't dead anymore. He's trying to find Signless to clear up a few things. (Unfortunately, Signless is busy learning about Rome.)
Where| inside the Training Center
When| after Karkat dies during Week Seven
Warnings/Notes| hells of swearing

Karkat... isn't dead anymore. Which was weird, because he quite vividly remembers dying and he doesn't remember anyone resurrection kissing him (not that he knows if that kind of shit would even work outside the Medium.)

The point was, however, that if he isn't dead then neither is the Signless probably and that meant that Karkat actually has the chance to clear up a few important things with the older troll--especially about that unintentional shoosh-pap, but about their shared mutation too.

Unfortunately, Signless evidently isn't part of the same "district" that Karkat had been assigned to, so in order to find him Karkat is going to have to venture out into the Training Center's common area.

Comments

[tis_allgood]

"That sounds less like pity and more like adoration. And I can stand behind that more so than the pity I think of."

Cuthbert's smile is softer now and more genuine. "We don't mate only with those we hate, 'tis more with those we're attracted to. A woman who stirs your heart and your prick."

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Pity, adoration, love, whatever." Karkat shrugs. "They're all kind of synonymous, really. At least for trolls--I don't know about humans." He tilts his head a little to the side. "Why a woman specifically? Are you just into women when it comes to mating? I've got a friend like that, actually--though I think she's okay with having guys in her other two quadrants."

[tis_allgood]

"I am certainly interested in mating with a woman." He gives an eyebrow waggle to that, trying to let Karkat in to a joke he probably didn't even know was being made.

And then it hits him.

"She is okay with having men where?" Karkat had mentioned quadrants before, but now all Cuthbert can imagine is the freakiest four way ever.

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat gives Cuthbert a withering look. "In her conciliatory quadrants. The ones that don't involve mating. Because she isn't interested in pailing them, just other girls."

[tis_allgood]

"Right, because you need two others to watch in order to successfully mate. How could I forget?"

This is a terrible topic, and yet Cuthbert can't bring himself to stop asking because it's just so strange.

god i hate trying to spell auspisticising

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat stares at Cuthbert like he's gone insane. "No. That's not how it goes with trolls, we don't do all of it at once. We don't pail our matesprits and our kismeses at the same time--and we certainly don't do it in a pile with our moirails between the two trolls we're auspisticising--but now I'm starting to wonder what the hell is up with human romance that you think we do."

[tis_allgood]

"A man and a woman, or more women if a man is truly lucky, take their clothes off and... fit together. What more can I say about it?"

That's an image Bert wants to get out of his head, but he really can't. And he's just picturing random trolls since he hasn't seen too many of you.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"It's like that with trolls," Karkat says, his grey cheeks tinged red as he studiously avoids looking at Cuthbert's face. "Only with a pail. And we don't need one of each sex--that's really weird, do having dominance glands make that much of a difference? But the point is, we don't do shit in our quadrants all at once! That's ridiculous."

[tis_allgood]

"I would hope you don't shit in them!" Says Bert, deliberately taking things seriously. But then, with the sobriety this sort of question demands.

"So you would rather be with other men?"

It's mostly curiosity in Bert's tone, but there's an old and hard to get rid of stigma riding right behind it.

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat blinks. "No. I like both pretty much equally. Most trolls like both to a greater or lesser--preferring one almost exclusively for certain quadrants is... weird's not the right word. Kinky, I guess. It's like only being attracted to trolls with a certain kind of horn or of a certain caste or having an obsession with their nubs. Their perambulation nubs," he specifies quickly, not needing anymore horn jokes.

[tis_allgood]

"What other nubs would you be talking about?" Again with the sarcasm.

"I would not judge you for drawing backhanded, 'tis simply not something one speaks of openly where I'm from."

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat blinks. "Drawing backhanded? I draw with my right frond." And not very well, he doesn't say. "What does drawing have to do with anything?"

[tis_allgood]

He shakes his head. "A man who draws backhanded can still fire his gun, but not so well as another man. 'Tis a phrase we use for a man who prefers to lie with other men."

[sleeplessinalternia]

"That's stupid," Karkat says, with a dismissive little snort. "Pailing with other men doesn't give any different a result than pailing with women." He bites his lip before adding in . "Or, anyway, that's what I've heard."

(He's six sweeps. Even in human years that's still only thirteen. It's perfectly legit that he's never pailed.)

[tis_allgood]

"Oh, so now the truth comes out. You don't actually know!"

Not that Cuthbert knows either, but he's willing to pretend he knows for the purposes of winning this non-argument.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Look, I'm only six," Karkat snarls. "Most trolls don't start pailing until they're at least seven."

[tis_allgood]

"Six? I would have thought you thirteen or fourteen mayhap. Or is this yet another of the things that simply don't translate between us?"

This is a fine distraction from the possibility of asking Cuthbert what he would know about it.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Probably," Karkat says, "because the only troll I've met that was that old was Signless. Your planet's solar sweeps much be a fuckload shorter than Alternia's if you think I'm thirteen."

[tis_allgood]

"Has it occurred to your shrunken, deficient mind-box-related area that in this, and many other worlds, you are the odd one and that my assumptions are not an insult on thee?" Bert is finally losing it a little with Karkat's tone and veiled insults.

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat can't help it. He shoves at Cuthbert. "Shut up," he growls.

(For those of you who are playing at home, this is Karkat-ese for 'I'm embarrassed over something stupid I said or did but I'm sure as fuck not going to admit it.')

[tis_allgood]

"Am I hurting your feeling receptors?" He pushes back, two can play at this very immature game.

"Or is six sweeps not old enough to teach thee manners?"

[sleeplessinalternia]

"What the fuck is a feeling receptor?" Karkat growls, shoving again. "And I'm not the thee who needs to be taught manners, Cuthbert son of Whoever."

[tis_allgood]

"Mind what you say, Karkat son of None That He Knows, you would not want to give me offense."

There's more than enough things to grab and hit with in the Training Center, this is probably a bad place to start a fight.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Oh yeah," says Karkat, "well, thee would not want to offend me."

Fuck, he's so annoying. Karkat wants to grab him by the collar, pull his stupid face down and--

Oh fuck no. No, no, no, no. He did not need this. Not with an alien who didn't get quadrants. Not with an alien who was his fucking ally. Fuck.

[tis_allgood]

"Or what? You don't look fit to take out a grub let alone a true man."

Bert is going to posture all over this.