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[Fic] Dream Bubbles
Rating: Teen {swearing}
Pairing: Sufferer/Karkat {◊} {onsided}| Gamzee/Karkat {◊}
Prompt: One sided Sufferer ◊ Karkat.
Notes: 1143 words of attempted angst. Still getting back into the groove of writing. Unbeta’d. I'd love concrit or any kind of feedback, hah.
The troll before you is small, so, so small. The dream bubble tries to warp around him, to conform to his memories but you’re too afraid to see them to let the landscape of your memory go. His eyes are so tired and lost and resigned. They are still wiggler amber and gray and yet he curls into himself like he’s trying to hide. Like he’s old enough to have troubles to weigh him down.
He steps past a segment of your Alternia bleeding into Prospit and the golden tiles melt under his feet. He barely looks at the moon’s fading presence, just keeps walking through your memory. Occasionally shadows of his life will leak into your bubble. You see the inside of a respite block, recuperacoon and husktop and movies scattered across the floor. A glimpse of an ablution chamber or the nutrient block. Never outside.
Memories of SGRUB flicker around as well: obsidian and puddles of blood, fancy and colorful tents. These you force away quickly.
You can’t believe that, everything you did, everything you fought for changed nothing for him. Except give him a cursed sign he needs to wear in gray.
He crosses paths with his dead friends and their ancestors and even the pre-scratch kids who would have become you, in a different timeline. He looks downcast most often. Resigned and sorry when he speaks to doomed friends before they drift away from him.
He comes across Makara, the one that would have been the Grand Highblood in your timeline. It’s not what he was expecting, and, if you’re honest, not what you’d have thought either.
It’s too much for your descend-anscest-ant.
You follow his hasty retreat and find him on the beach of one of your memories of a dream of a memory. He’s sitting in the pebbles facing the ocean, knees drawn to his chest. He’s not crying. His shoulders are shaking and you can hear his voice hitch but no translucent red tears fall down his face.
“He used to sit out in front of his hive waiting for his lusus to show up, like the fucking thing would ever remember it had a grub to take care of when it even mattered. The idiot knew the sea dwellers didn’t like him hanging around and he still did it, and for a fucking joke of a custodian who couldn’t spare the time to warn its wriggler about sopor fucking slime.”
His voice is scratchy but young, and the emotion in it startles you.
“Like I’m any better.”
You say nothing even though you want to.
“He used to talk to me, before Trollian was even a thing that existed. He told me everything going on in his addled think pan. He’d talk about his slime pies a whole fucking lot, and his stupid quirk was mixed up enough for any school fed wiggler to identify as high as a fucking kite. He said ‘how even does any one get to knowing it’s poison?’ And you know what I said? You know what wisdom I imparted to his willing and open auditory canals?”
He rushes on before you can offer even a courteous ‘what’ to his rhetoric.
“‘I don’t know. You’re not supposed to eat it, it’s not like anyone tried it just to see if it’d rot their think pan for them.’ That’s what I said. I could’ve made some shit up, “Scienterrorists, Gamzee that’s who,” or “Imperial motherfucking Rule,” fuck I could’ve said, “Miracles” and he probably would have listened.
“Maybe he wouldn’t have fucking crashed so fucking hard if someone actually paid attention to him.”
“You…” you falter, flounder for words before you give into you aching vascular system, ”You were there for him though.”
He doesn’t speak so you press on, ”You were there when he needed someone to talk to. You warned him about sopor slime regardless of how. You visited his planet if his the ones with the tents like I think it is. I haven’t seen him in these bubbles so I think I can safely assume you’ve kept him alive throughout all these timelines. You’re a good leader.
“You’re a good friend.”
You dare reach your hand out and place it gently on his suddenly still, tensed shoulder.
He gives you exactly one second before yanking himself away and sneering at you.
“But we’re not just friends, we’re fucking moirails now. Have been a lot longer just not in name. You say I kept him alive? I sent one of my friends to kill him when he went stone-cold-sobor-murder-crazy, ensuring the death of that friend and his moirail. It took facing him covered in blood and smeared clown paint to realize I actually was pale for him and then he turns right around and fucks off for our three year trip through paradox space. Not that I can blame him, I’m obviously as shitty of a moirail as I am a friend, leader and troll calculated separately and combined.”
“Ssh, it’s okay, you’re—-“
He actually slaps his hand over your mouth, hard enough for his claws sting your cheeks.
“I don’t want to fucking hear that from you. You’re not my moirail. You’re basically past-future me to the nth degree who fucked everything up for everyone before I could even consider it. So keep your pale platitudes to your own fucking self because, even if I’m a shitty stain on the Universe’s human-grandma-pants at least I’m not shitty enough to cheat on the moirail I’m lucky enough to have.”
He snarls it at you and your blood pump stutters and twists, and ha. You were actually waxing pale for some version of yourself weren’t you? It hurts that he knows exactly where to dig his verbal hooks into to make you wince, it hurts to have your effort to help shoved aside. Captor did always say that your emotional core had a “super shitty firewall” and that “ψou might as well walk around with the password to ψour bloodpump written on ψour forehead”.
“Thanks for the shitty sign, by the way. I mean, it’s the heretical symbol of suffering and pain and might as well be a giant CULL ME FUCKING NOW target plastered across my abdomen, but hey. At least you tried, right. Let me get you a gold fucking sticker. Wordtalons “you gave Karkat Vantas a sign just slightly less treasonous than mutant red blood. Congratulations.” end wordtalons.”
Your descend-anscest-ant turns his back to you with a furious huff. The words sting you more than you want to let on. It’s all true though and you figure it’s been far too long since you pushed your claws into your thorax cavity and wrung whatever you found there. You sit next to him and he glares at you but refuses to speak.
It’s been millennia since you’ve felt the sting of rejected love.
Pairing: Sufferer/Karkat {◊} {onsided}| Gamzee/Karkat {◊}
Prompt: One sided Sufferer ◊ Karkat.
Notes: 1143 words of attempted angst. Still getting back into the groove of writing. Unbeta’d. I'd love concrit or any kind of feedback, hah.
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The troll before you is small, so, so small. The dream bubble tries to warp around him, to conform to his memories but you’re too afraid to see them to let the landscape of your memory go. His eyes are so tired and lost and resigned. They are still wiggler amber and gray and yet he curls into himself like he’s trying to hide. Like he’s old enough to have troubles to weigh him down.
He steps past a segment of your Alternia bleeding into Prospit and the golden tiles melt under his feet. He barely looks at the moon’s fading presence, just keeps walking through your memory. Occasionally shadows of his life will leak into your bubble. You see the inside of a respite block, recuperacoon and husktop and movies scattered across the floor. A glimpse of an ablution chamber or the nutrient block. Never outside.
Memories of SGRUB flicker around as well: obsidian and puddles of blood, fancy and colorful tents. These you force away quickly.
You can’t believe that, everything you did, everything you fought for changed nothing for him. Except give him a cursed sign he needs to wear in gray.
He crosses paths with his dead friends and their ancestors and even the pre-scratch kids who would have become you, in a different timeline. He looks downcast most often. Resigned and sorry when he speaks to doomed friends before they drift away from him.
He comes across Makara, the one that would have been the Grand Highblood in your timeline. It’s not what he was expecting, and, if you’re honest, not what you’d have thought either.
It’s too much for your descend-anscest-ant.
You follow his hasty retreat and find him on the beach of one of your memories of a dream of a memory. He’s sitting in the pebbles facing the ocean, knees drawn to his chest. He’s not crying. His shoulders are shaking and you can hear his voice hitch but no translucent red tears fall down his face.
“He used to sit out in front of his hive waiting for his lusus to show up, like the fucking thing would ever remember it had a grub to take care of when it even mattered. The idiot knew the sea dwellers didn’t like him hanging around and he still did it, and for a fucking joke of a custodian who couldn’t spare the time to warn its wriggler about sopor fucking slime.”
His voice is scratchy but young, and the emotion in it startles you.
“Like I’m any better.”
You say nothing even though you want to.
“He used to talk to me, before Trollian was even a thing that existed. He told me everything going on in his addled think pan. He’d talk about his slime pies a whole fucking lot, and his stupid quirk was mixed up enough for any school fed wiggler to identify as high as a fucking kite. He said ‘how even does any one get to knowing it’s poison?’ And you know what I said? You know what wisdom I imparted to his willing and open auditory canals?”
He rushes on before you can offer even a courteous ‘what’ to his rhetoric.
“‘I don’t know. You’re not supposed to eat it, it’s not like anyone tried it just to see if it’d rot their think pan for them.’ That’s what I said. I could’ve made some shit up, “Scienterrorists, Gamzee that’s who,” or “Imperial motherfucking Rule,” fuck I could’ve said, “Miracles” and he probably would have listened.
“Maybe he wouldn’t have fucking crashed so fucking hard if someone actually paid attention to him.”
“You…” you falter, flounder for words before you give into you aching vascular system, ”You were there for him though.”
He doesn’t speak so you press on, ”You were there when he needed someone to talk to. You warned him about sopor slime regardless of how. You visited his planet if his the ones with the tents like I think it is. I haven’t seen him in these bubbles so I think I can safely assume you’ve kept him alive throughout all these timelines. You’re a good leader.
“You’re a good friend.”
You dare reach your hand out and place it gently on his suddenly still, tensed shoulder.
He gives you exactly one second before yanking himself away and sneering at you.
“But we’re not just friends, we’re fucking moirails now. Have been a lot longer just not in name. You say I kept him alive? I sent one of my friends to kill him when he went stone-cold-sobor-murder-crazy, ensuring the death of that friend and his moirail. It took facing him covered in blood and smeared clown paint to realize I actually was pale for him and then he turns right around and fucks off for our three year trip through paradox space. Not that I can blame him, I’m obviously as shitty of a moirail as I am a friend, leader and troll calculated separately and combined.”
“Ssh, it’s okay, you’re—-“
He actually slaps his hand over your mouth, hard enough for his claws sting your cheeks.
“I don’t want to fucking hear that from you. You’re not my moirail. You’re basically past-future me to the nth degree who fucked everything up for everyone before I could even consider it. So keep your pale platitudes to your own fucking self because, even if I’m a shitty stain on the Universe’s human-grandma-pants at least I’m not shitty enough to cheat on the moirail I’m lucky enough to have.”
He snarls it at you and your blood pump stutters and twists, and ha. You were actually waxing pale for some version of yourself weren’t you? It hurts that he knows exactly where to dig his verbal hooks into to make you wince, it hurts to have your effort to help shoved aside. Captor did always say that your emotional core had a “super shitty firewall” and that “ψou might as well walk around with the password to ψour bloodpump written on ψour forehead”.
“Thanks for the shitty sign, by the way. I mean, it’s the heretical symbol of suffering and pain and might as well be a giant CULL ME FUCKING NOW target plastered across my abdomen, but hey. At least you tried, right. Let me get you a gold fucking sticker. Wordtalons “you gave Karkat Vantas a sign just slightly less treasonous than mutant red blood. Congratulations.” end wordtalons.”
Your descend-anscest-ant turns his back to you with a furious huff. The words sting you more than you want to let on. It’s all true though and you figure it’s been far too long since you pushed your claws into your thorax cavity and wrung whatever you found there. You sit next to him and he glares at you but refuses to speak.
It’s been millennia since you’ve felt the sting of rejected love.