Work Text:
You're sitting in the agricultural district of Can Town when you realize that you are alone.
Not, of course, literally. The Mayor is constructing a robotic police force not three feet away from you. He looks up and you give him an approving nod.
"I'm digging the gunarms of fiery death, very T-2," you say and he returns to his work, satisfied.
You look down at your tiny little sheep. They're made of toothpicks and cotton balls that you swiped from Rose's bathroom and there, that's what you realized before distracting yourself with the Mayor's robocop army: Rose hasn't talked to you in days.
Your list of friends is small to begin with, right; you aren't exactly the center of a blooming social life namely because the 'potential friends' pool consists of your sister and a mess of aliens.
This is why you are sitting in Can Town making your fifty-sixth scale replica of a sheep.
"I've been sitting here for four hours," you say mainly to yourself. The dotted sharpie eyes of your sheep herd seem to pity you.
So you're alone. The worst part is that it's not a clean break. It's not a total cutoff, it's not a termination of all communication (termination, communication, subjugation, imagination, something something something write it down nah thats crap) it's a cold war filled with awkward silences and weird eye contact, Kanaya's mournful looks at you from behind Rose's back.
The jurisdiction section of Can Town became more and more withdrawn from the community until it dissipated altogether leading to the formation of gangs. You created the gangs as a last-ditch effort to involve Terezi. You even vandalized the Town Hall with post-it notes that said things like anarchy yeah boi and look at all these riots up in here check out this complete lack of a system.
It didn't work. The gangs all died in a bus crash and you resigned yourself to the farm life, crafting dozens of tiny animals out of makeup products.
"Thinkin' bout opening up a slaughterhouse," you say, poking at a paper-mache pig. "Might jumpstart the economy, y'know, get some moolah rolling, some Benjamins in circulation and then we can 'make it rain.' Maybe even build a club for the express purpose of making it rain."
The Mayor gives you a weary look.
"Got it," you say, shooting him with a finger gun. There wouldn't be any fun in having a slaughterhouse without meatpacking regulations from the law, anyway.
Your head hurts.
.
Terezi is pretending to be offline. Your laptop is overheating on your stomach and you think about getting up, maybe looking for Rose.
What would you say if you found her, though, like: hey man. hey girl hey. hey rose why dont you like me anymore wow wow wow pathetic stupid lame. rose im kind of a big deal.
"Cut it out," Karkat says.
You tilt your head back to look at your doorway and lo and behold: the second coming of grumpy Christ. You think about making a viciously sarcastic medieval style announcement but that shit's no fun without Rose or Terezi.
"Cut what out," you say.
"You're mumbling to yourself," he says.
He's not even all the way into your room, like he was just passing by but you know that's bullshit because his room is nowhere near yours. The closest thing to your room is Can Town and the day Karkat Vantas sets foot in Can Town is the day you and Terezi mock him endlessly.
Or it would have been. Whatever.
"Maybe I've gone totally batshit," you say. You're looking at him upside-down. "I've got the space crazies and it's contagious as hell."
"Fuck that," he says, "we all got the space crazies sweeps ago." He looks tired and what else is new; you're all tired.
"I'm actually just in here writing my marriage proposal to you," you say. "It has, like, seven sonnets."
"Human marriage is disgusting and weird," he says with a certainty that means he doesnt remember what it is.
"So are you," you say. Your conversations were so much funnier when there was Rose and Kanaya and Terezi to try and impress. "Listen, Vantas, I'm trying to get shit done so why don't you pack up the attitude and roll on outta here."
"Getting shit done my ass," he says. "You're watching a video of a wiggler treebeast in pajamas."
"Yeah," you say. "It's cute."
You should look back at your laptop for good measure but your head is in a really comfortable position and the pillow is at optimal softness.
Karkat is still upside down and he looks sad.
"You okay man," you say.
"Of course I'm okay, you vacuous shitmuffin," he says. "You're the one talking to yourself."
You raise your eyebrows. For a moment he looks like hes going to say something else but then he turns around and leaves.
"Okay, cool," you say, unpausing the video.
.
You spot Terezi in a dark hallway and she looks resigned.
"Hi Dave," she says. She is wearing one of your shirts.
"Hey," you say.
"How is Can Town?" she says.
"Still a democracy," you say.
"Any more trouble with those anarchist gangsters?" she says.
"Nah," you say. "They all died in a bus crash."
She laughs and it surprises you and you feel stupid.
"Tell the mayor I said hi," she says, and then she's walking away.
You think about saying something halfhearted like tell him yourself or can i have my shirt back. Instead you just stuff your hands in your pockets and look at the floor.
.
Everyone's asleep except for you.
You're building a tiny movie theatre out of egg cartons because the only other source of entertainment in Can Town is jousting and according to the mayor its not jousting season yet.
"I'm starting to think you're unhealthily invested in this," Karkat says.
"Yeah," you say, not looking up. "In retrospect the cemetery was kind of a bad idea but I wanted to preserve the memory of the anarchist gangsters. Now that I say that out loud it sounds really contradictory, holy shit."
He sits down next to you.
"Dude, your foot is in the shopping center," you say.
"I don't care," he says, "because this is a fictitious community that you and Terezi crafted out of the repulsive grubfisting pondscum that is your collective thinkpans."
"It was the Mayor's idea, dumbass," you say.
"Oh," he says. "Nevermind I guess."
He rests his chin on his knees. You pick up a gluestick.
"So what brings you to the thriving urban sprawl of Can Town," you say.
"I couldn't sleep," he says, picking at the laces on his shoes. "I carefully considered my options besides Can Town, believe me. Among the top contenders were suicide and jettison self into space."
"Those are kind of the same thing," you say, smearing glue onto the egg carton.
"No, see, jettison self into space I could make look like an accident," he says, lifting his head up. "Suicide is kind of straightforward and then everyone would laugh. 'Karkat Vantas was such a weak ugly vomit-inducing fuckup that he offed himself on a space rock! Ha ha ha. Let's eat his corpse while singing merry songs of celebration.'"
He drops his head onto his knees. You pick up a red marker.
"I wouldn't let them eat your dead body, dude," you say.
"Really," he says.
"For real," you say, writing Can Town Cinema in blocky letters. "And I wouldn't let your murderclown boyfriend anywhere near it."
"Thanks," he says.
"No prob," you say, handing him a blue marker. "Color this sign for me."
.
Rose wants to paint your nails and it's impossible to say "no" when she's like this, laughing and silly and unsteady on her feet. Rose was always silly but it was just harder to understand, you think.
"Red is out of the question," she says, holding little bottles up to your face. "Not even in the general vicinity of the question, really. A completely different time zone."
"Why not red," you say. "Red is rad."
"You're bathed from head to toe in red, don't be ridiculous," she says, setting the bottle down on your cape. "It would just, ah." She makes a vague gesture. "Kanaya would probably frown at you."
"Got it," you say. She smiles at you.
"I've never done this before," she says, opening a bottle of blue polish. "Pardon if it's clumpy. It's definitely going to be clumpy."
"It's all good," you say, "no need to call the fashion police because snitches get stitches. Everything's under control."
She laughs and picks up your right hand.
"Stay very still, do you understand me," she says. "Still as a statue."
With great concentration she paints your index finger. Excess polish spills onto your cuticles. It looks cool.
You tell her so and she shushes you.
.
Karkat raises his eyebrows at your fingernails but doesn't say anything.
"Wanna play Xbox," you say. You're playing a broken racing game that you've beaten a thousand times before.
"Only if I get the good controller," he says.
"They're exactly the same, dude," you say, which is a baldfaced lie. The controller with the orange stain on the back does not work 30 percent of the time. It took Karkat three sessions of Burger King Minibike Racing to figure this out and ever since then he has held it over your head with vindictive glee.
"Eat my shit, you lying assmouth," he says, sitting down on the couch. "Give me the good controller or I'm going to delete your file on the candybeast game."
"You don't even know how to do that," you say, giving him the controller. He unpauses the game. "I thought you were hanging out with Rose and Kanaya."
"I was," he says, "past tense, until they started watching incomprehensible troll stand-up 'comedy'. I use the term in the loosest sense."
"Was it troll Dane Cook," you say, morbidly curious. "is there a troll Dane Cook."
"Troll Dane Cook was publicly executed," he says. "Good fucking riddance, too; he was a heinous crotchstain on the pants of troll civilization. Not that it was an exceptionally clean pair of pants to begin with."
"That was beautiful," you say. "Marry me."
"What the hell," he says, laughing, "I've found the secret to human courtship and it is the merciless bashing of unfunny comedians, please hail me as your lord and savior," and you sling an arm around his shoulders and he blinks at you like an owl.
"Human Dane Cook is even shittier," you say.
"Duh," he says. You are six inches away from his face and the pause screen music is playing in the background. He doesn't move.
"Can I kiss you," you say.
He considers you.
You did not actually go into this wanting to mack on Karkat Vantas but then he had to start dissing Dane Cook in a really great way even if it was a bizarre alien equivalent of Dane Cook. What matters is the principle of the thing and you figure a blow to one Dane Cook is a blow to all of them.
"No," he says.
"Okay," you say. "Can I breathe on your face like a nastyass humidifier until you get annoyed?"
"I'm way past annoyed," he says, but he doesn't look annoyed, not really. The concerned crease between his eyebrows is not there. He looks solemn in a quiet way. Solemn is a great word, you think. solemn column gollum.
"We should write a rap," you say, and he kind of grins at you, sharp.
"Good idea, shit-for-brains," he says.
.
You're both lying on the floor of your room with notebooks.
"Okay, see, the point is to build yourself up," you say, "which you already do, so this should be cake. None of that self-deprecating shit either."
"That makes absolutely no sense," he says, thumbing through your works in progress. "All your raps are about irrelevant hoofbeastshit."
"That's 'cause I'm a pro, bro," you say, "and if a pro wants to write a rap about dinosaurs fighting prehistoric sharks then they goddamn will."
"Carcharodon megalodon," he reads, unimpressed. "You really shoehorned this rhyme, Strider."
"Yeah, well," you say, handing him a pen.
"This one is about preserved animals in jars," he says.
"They're cool," you say, snatching the notebook out of his hands. "Write your own rap."
"I can't," he says.
"Dude, you haven't even tried," you say.
"Doesn't matter," he says, rolling onto his back. "I'll just get frustrated and quit like the globefondling douchejerk I am. Not attempting in the first place will save us a onesided screaming match and an empty threat to throw your raps into the garbage chute."
You feel cheated.
"Karkat, man," you say, propping yourself up on your elbows, "don't be a bitch, you should at least try."
He gives you the finger and you snort, slapping his hand away.
"Did Terezi write raps with you," he says.
"No," you say.
"Why not," he says.
"I didn't ask her to," you say. He looks startled.
"Okay," he says, quiet, "okay," and then he sits up and fixes you with a fierce look. You wonder if you said something wrong. He reaches for you and you make a noise like "oh" and he kisses you, soft, on the corner of your mouth.
Your knees knock together. He drops his head to your shoulder.
"Are we still friends," he says, muffled against the fabric of your pajamas.
"Yeah," you say.
.
Terezi is pretending to be offline. You're sitting in the jurisdiction district of Can Town building a law office. Crime has gone up 20 percent and the Mayor wants the perps in jail.
"We're out of chalk," Karkat says, sitting in the middle of a giant mural.
"The Mayor's alchemizing more, no worries," you say. "Wanna be my partner in this jankass law firm?"
"I have no idea what you just said," Karkat says, "but sure, why the hell not."