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He should have met them at their apartment. He realizes it would have meant twenty minutes of backtracking, sore feet, probably a diamond of sweat between his shoulderblades from the heat of his winter layers. He'd take that over the utter abasement of standing here at the museum steps, burning under the gaze of every normal passerby. He finds if he looks haggard and angry enough it usually discourages them from acting on their flicker of recognition, and he's perpetually up to the task.
That's only half of it, though. Even if he wasn't a disappointing god he'd still be some weirdo loitering in a public space, with no idea what to do with his hands, steeling himself for the possibility he's been stood up. He's still waiting for Gamzee's good sense to catch up with her. Or his with him. Whichever.
He remembers waking up in their room, to several missed texts from Dave and a clown wrapped in one of his arms. He's not proud to admit it was a little sobering. Like maybe, (just maybe,) jumping into the embrace of someone after their divine skull-fucking (because they somehow still haven't learned better) made him a bit of an opportunist. Like they were a rebound for a lot more failures than the one; his entire relationship with existing feels to have put him on ice lately. Even that terror had cooled almost as soon as they'd said they were pale for him, which he finds A Little Fucking Convenient. He wouldn't put it above himself that it had been some sort of entrapment technique, subconsciously.
And he'd still planned out their next date. So what did that make him? A user who somehow believed he was going to break his streak of disappointing every single thing that ever counted on him? As if he could even boast the virtue of optimism- he was just getting away with this while he could. Until the universe caught up with him. As if she hasn't been through enough -
He shuts up his inner monologue the second he sees long, graceful horns rising over a cloud of dark hair. A swallow pulls the rest of his angst down his throat, where he determines to keep it.
Gamzee is somewhere between the versions he'd met on the first and second dates, in a long black dress and two outer layers shapeless enough to maintain androgyny. Eccentric, but just so. Subjugglators are never exactly subtle but this was a definite retreat from the color and sparkle of last weekend; something safer, even guarded. He tries not to let the pang show on his face.
"Hey," he opens. As useless as ever. Gamzee comes up close and hovers for a moment, their expression a little glazed over and distant.
"Hey." They float a little, then they reach their painted claws towards his arm and he figures out embarrassingly late they were looking for some sort of opening to touch in greeting- with all the grace of a rotting carcass he lumbers forward to peck them on their cheek, undeserving of the thrill he gets when they return the favor. This is normal. Touching is a thing they do now.
"Have you eaten? There's a cafe downstairs if you want. I'll buy-" As if you can pay your way into this being anywhere near equitable, you chafing fuck- "Don't worry about tickets either. I got a plus one with my membership." That I bought online in my desperate attempt to resemble a person that 'does things' and 'has left my apartment' and not some kind of beached eel.
She smiles. It seems genuine. "I could eat, yeah."
He swallows, again. Alright. That much he can do.
In a few minutes they're seated at a round little table out in the open of the ground floor. Gamzee picks at an egg salad sandwich, and stops at the top third of their bottled pink tea. He got a cheese and ham croissant he's managed not to eat too fast, fearing both nausea and the idea of sitting here watching her eat with nothing to do.
She unpockets a plastic pill organizer and pops open 'Sunday' onto her palm. He realizes he's been staring after she swallows, and meets his eyes.
"Should take these with food," she explains. "Didn't eat this morning."
But you got high, he doesn't say. Not just because it's one of the worst things to come to his mind all morning. Let me go ahead and judge you, the guy who's never done it and is too scared to try. More charitably to himself, that's not what this is about at all. He's just increasingly aware that she's nervous.
"I'll get it," he says when it's time to clean up. He's being a tryhard about it, he knows. But it's the first time he feels a rush of pale as he leans over them, takes something out of their hands. It's enough to dial back the morning's dread.
The transition into the museum proper is quick. It takes most of his mental acumen to project an aura of hostility, making sure none of the other goers get too close. He saves just enough presence of mind to constantly measure the distance Gamzee hovers at, so he can relish it without accidentally touching. Whatever is left of him tries, ineffectually, to look at the exhibits.
What exactly were you thinking with a museum, anyway? Trying to impress her, or intentionally picking the most sexless location you could think of. As if you can take back that kiss from last night. As if he wants to. A thought he buries immediately. I mean, have you ever looked at a painting before today in your whole life? Without immediately being snide, I mean. If you wanted not to talk or look at each other you could have taken her to a movie.
She doesn't like movies, he reminds himself. He feels another odd twinge. Like he's scrabbling for any new thing to put in the wound where their familiarity should be.
His limb twitches with the desire to hold their hand. He lets the urge pass.
She stops at one of the paintings. He notices just in time to not walk off. It's of a man in a rowboat, his back to the viewer. The angle swallows up the canvas down into the sea, the wake of the boat like a rip in the image.
"I'm liking this one," she says in a minute. "...let's sit down."
They do. People mill around, but it's slow for a Sunday, emphasizing the somber feeling he's always felt from these places. Not that he's had much experience, a fresh(ly welcome) entry to civilization as of a few years ago.
There's a gravity in museums and galleries like the ceiling is pressing down, like these are tombs. Something about stacking a bunch of objects under spotlights and ferrying people slowly, silently through them is a little grim even on the face of it. Or maybe this painting is just spooky in its own right.
"What do you like about it?" he asks. Smooth . Not at all sounding like an inquisition. Like someone who can't bear to sit with his own thoughts.
"It's hard to do that perspective," they gesture to the boat's curve. "Seems like it'd be easy. But if you don't get the angles right it doesn't feel good."
He Snrks. To his own horror.
"Sorry," he blanches. "I wasn't being dismissive." he doesn't explain what had been funny, either.
Instead he tries to actually study what they were talking about, the thick strokes of paint that bring the hull into the stern. But his eyes keep pulling into the water. It's a big painting, and you can lose your gaze in the empty parts of it without seeing any of the other details. It's an almost offensively perfect dark green that seems to surpass everything else. The rower might as well not be there. Everything might as well not be there.
As little as he feels the time there on that bench, he's relieved when Gamzee gets up to move. He follows without saying anything more.
Truly, he wishes the moment with the boat had awakened some sort of art critic in him. But his best chance at absorbing anything is still following Gamzee's lead, drifting from wall to wall. She seems attentive, though nothing else grabs their interest in the same way. He's corralled further into his own head. He tries not to pour over the memories of their last few dates, because he's already worn those to dust. He looks for signs, hints, about what she likes and what she doesn't. All while trying not to stare.
But frothing anxiety it's not. Gamzee hasn't run screaming from him yet, and he realizes a disturbing change in himself; at some point that alone was enough to balm him a little. He was letting his guard down.
Already preening yourself on their pity? You indulgent prick. When you practically twisted their arm back then. Showing up to their first reconciliation at his worst, wounds out and needy, to a person he'd once willingly thought of as too unstable to trust, to even defend -
There. That tightens the knot back up in his chest. Like a mechanic servicing an old car he curates his guilt back to factory conditions.
The rest of the exhibits float past. He's exhausted himself on his own bullshit and now aims merely to survive. Another typical outing for Karkat Vantas comes to a close.
"You like this one, or something?"
"Huh?" He snaps alert.
"You've been lookin' at it for a while."
They're right, he realizes. In front of him is a landscape, smaller than the last. It's old. Two children in white dresses sit in a field of white flowers with little red centers. The strokes are so messy that every shape is implied, that the figures rise like peaks under a sliver of blue sky. The details float in an airy soup grounded by spots of dark hair or distant shady trees. It's not overly precious or saccharine. Somehow. Usually this kind of thing would make him want to puke.
"I don't really know anything about art." He fumbles. "How it's supposed to work."
Gamzee shrugs. "Anything what can be known about it's easy. The rest you make up."
That sounds like nonsense. "I like the colors," he tries. Gamzee smirks, like they know something he didn't say.
Neither of them even make a pretense at browsing the gift shop. Either she doesn't like knick-knacks or she's mercifully letting him escape into the air, putting this mistake of a venture behind them.
"Sorry about that," he mumbles, as soon as he's back under the scrying sun. It's a bad idea to jump at her for forgiveness but he does it anyway. He realizes she's still smiling, which cuts off the rambling apology he's about to go on.
"I liked it. We still going to your place, after?"
Something rolls over in his bug-brain like a purrbeast showing its belly. No regret in the world could keep him from saying yes.
---
By the time he's unlocking the door to his apartment, he has a mental inventory of everything he'd cleaned that morning, the dough rising in the fridge, the embarrassing state of his and Dave's living conditions. He's almost- but not quite- too mentally busy to notice the relative silence that had followed them out of the museum.
How many words have we actually said to each other, he wonders, as he lets them inside. Not enough by any normal metric. She slips out of her boots and sheds one layer, keeping her lighter jacket. He gets a glimpse of her collar and shoulders and something in him vibrates like thunder, so strong he worries it'll jump out of his throat.
"I've got that," he mutters, taking it for them to put on the coat rack. By the time he gets his own off, they've stepped out to the edge of the kitchen where the living room can be seen.
He's been dreading this. It's a utilitarian bacheloresque nightmare that looks as if someone is trying very hard to seem like they aren't trying at all; any effort towards convention and away from the rock-steady economics of milk crates and cinderblocks, beanbags and card tables, was too conspicuous for Dave to bear. (Even the coat rack had been a negotiation, the last one he'd had any strength for.)
A sigh like a hiss of irritation leaves him when he sees the kitchen. He'd left it clean but Dave had managed to leave some takeout boxes on the counter and utensils in the sink in the four hours he'd been gone.
It's bad enough to drag her in here through the detritus of people she's been avoiding. He sets to tidying up and fixing the dishes. "Sorry, I'll get this cleaned up- dough's in the fridge, we can get started after."
"No hurry," she says simply. If he's not careful he's going to start counting words. As if there's a number that will make him feel like he's doing this right.
He's still so agitated it's almost dulled the moment. The phase of the relationship where every slip into privacy is a little exciting, a moment where they might touch, might not, might have their first proper jam or pile. He'd tried to talk down his expectations, but out of the corner of his eye he can see how the long fabric of their dress is falling on her hips, down her side, and he remembers every time they've touched.
Stop that. They need you to take this slowly with them.
Maybe it was just that this was his first relationship with another troll. Feelings finding their home again, in his body where everything always felt out of place. It was like quitting an instrument you knew you were no good at, and here she was asking him to play again. Here she was, looking at him like he could. It made his muscles itch; not in a bad way.
Stop. Slow down. Adults don't act like this, not even trolls.
The kitchen gets clean and they get started on the bread. He shows them how to spread the flour on the board, twist the loaves, but they seem to get it. That or they know. Doesn't feel like a sensitive question, to ask about their old baking habits.
"Was your week good?" She asks.
"Is it ever?" He grumbles. "...It was fine. Clearly I'm trying to learn baking. You know, until something resembling a life path festers out of my malaise. Yours?"
She shrugs. "Been alright. Sleep's been better." Their hands touch often or lift over each other to get pinches of flour, it makes the sensation dry and whispery in a nice way-
"That's good. You can score it with the knife here," he gestures. Not worried one bit. If she wanted to stab him by now, she's earned it.
"Kay," they say. He watches her put perfect little lines on each loaf while that dizzy, instinctual, Alternian feeling comes over him. She's standing
so
close to him. He can sense the warmth of the spot on their neck, under their hair, his right arm lifts like it could wrap around her and ask for the soothing his mind has needed all day (
all his life
.) Like he could believe for a second he deserves it.
Not yet not yet not yet-
"You've got a little..." Gamzee stops, lifts a claw up towards him. He almost flinches. Their thumbpad brushes flour off his chin and the tip of their claw grazes his lower lip. He holds perfectly still. They look at him, they lean just the slightest bit closer and...
He means to come forward slowly, gracefully follow her lead into something warm but restrained. He means to put his palm on her spine and bring her in softly. This is supposed to be an invitation. He can't show hunger or they'll try to sate him, this troll that's never been fed in her life-
She comes in too fast or he does. Her arms go around his neck and her mouth opens on his, and in shock he chases that warmth until he backs her into the counter. He doesn't have time to apologize, or take it back. They sit up onto the edge and pull him back in and he catches himself on them, his hands on their side, their hip (
their legs briefly
) and they're kissing again. Understatement. This is kissing like lightspeed warships are "kind of fast." He loses all presence of mind. A list of things Karkat Vantas does not think about in these long warm seconds;
- How this is Not acceptably pale.
- How he's gone from being incapable of quadrants to being incapable of going without them to being incapable of them all over, because Karkat Vantas can't win any more than he can quit.
- Where his hands are going. (Everywhere.)
- How attracted he is to Gamzee Makara. The utter joke that would be to other people. (He's never been taken seriously in his life, why start now?)
- The sounds he's making. (Small mercy.)
What he does know is the scent of another troll, unmistakable and heady. Their claws digging into him just a little. The thrum of her purr. A heat and pressure where they meet that he feels glued to.
A flicker of blessed conscience. He pulls back a little, breathless, and asks "
Is this okay
?"
It's kind of like (
is
) asking an addict if they'd like just one more. Putting it on Gamzee Makara to set boundaries with him has to be the cruelest thing he's done- okay second cruelest thing maybe-
Gamzee has just enough time to nod before they pull him back in.
Oh well,
he thinks. If this is how good it feels to be awful then crown him King Fucking Awful, First of His Name. Any cosmic punishment will go down easy with this memory, how he's like a shield pressed up to her warm middle
her thighs parted around him, her skirt hiking up past her knee
, the scandalous electricity of his mouth in hers,
fuck
, the little chirps in her throat-
Somebody coughs to his left.
He turns so fast he might have hurt himself. Dave is standing there holding a bag from the convenience store. And a blue Icee.
No one says anything for a moment. He still hasn't taken his hands off her (He doesn't want to.) Of all the things making him red in the face and mortified, the most present is the anger at being interrupted.
It fades. Guilt curdles back up into its home, there at the floor of his heart in a way that makes him suddenly sick. He finally lets go and steps back, between Dave and Gamzee like a big mutant wall. His ex/roommate/situation comes up to open the fridge and put away his beer. He almost wishes there was some kind of quip or cutting remark given before Dave leaves and escapes into the bedroom; no such mercy. Just a flat besunglass’d stare that sort of makes him want to die.
Poor Gamzee hovers there to his right, while he takes ages trying to lift his gaze from the floor. Reaching up to scratch the back of his hair is the most he can do to hide his red face. Quick, a distraction, any distraction-
"I should put it in the oven, now." There. An entire sentence. He turns around and gets the loaves into the darn thing and then leans his back against the sink, blinking away the threat of wetness in his eyes. What's he even crying about? He's too big to cry, now.
They come up to match him against the counter. Close enough to touch shoulders. He exhales, a long slow wince about it.
"He said he'd be out all evening." He mumbles. The umpteenth time Dave has gone back on some agreement they made. As if that's an excuse.
He folds his arms in front of his chest to put some needed pressure over the sick, anxious feeling in his belly. If he's lucky it'll look like he's just waiting for the bread, and not to explode or crumble.
He sees her hand lift somewhere to his right, then graze gently along his arm to soothe him. He shuts his eyes. He thinks about how little he's looked directly at her all day, braces himself, turns his head, opens them.
Gamzee's eyes have a depth that scared him, once. Maybe it still does. Unfathomable, bottomless pity and grace. Dark and magical. It makes him want to be awful, so awful, that when she invites him he puts his head down on their shoulder and lets their claws scratch into his hair.
He can't quite go under with Dave's aura of disdain blasting them from the other side of the bedroom wall. But it helps. He sinks into the darkness of their shoulder, while stroke by stroke they temper the humiliation into something survivable. He even reciprocates with a tepid palm placed back on their side. Touching is something we do now.
"Thanks," he tells them. If he says sorry one more time in his life he thinks she might throw him out the window.
"Don't mention it," she huffs. A little joke that actually twitches his mouth into a smile. Maybe his brain has finally cracked down the middle like a cartoon eggshell.
The bread is done in twenty minutes. They manage to spend most of it petting in silence. He's just too tired to feel what he's supposed to be feeling, maybe. Or his prospective moirail was having the intended tranquilizing effect.
Another stroke of claws near his hornbed. One note of purr in his throat. He steals the blessed mental stillness away until the oven beeps, and even pulls himself from them without much anguish.
He wraps up one of the loaves for her to take home, since there's no way to do the rest of the date here now. She touches his hand when she takes it, looks at him with the cool clarity of water.
"You want to come to my place, instead?"
God, he does. But for whatever fucking reason, he suddenly feels both the obligation and the ability to be a little responsible. "You're a saint for offering, and I'd take you up on it in a fucking second. But I’d better not." The time bomb of talking-to-dave is finally ticking loud enough for him to hear. He painfully fumbles with his next request. "Can we... can I see you again soon?"
"Yeah," they answer. He feels unearned relief loosen his shoulders.
"Great." He pauses, gets his own coat along with hers. "Let me at least walk you to the station." If he goes all the way there, he doesn't trust his newfound rationality to last. She doesn't argue.
They're out of earshot and a blast of held-in air escapes him as a cacophonous sigh.
"I'm
so
fucking sorry, Gamzee."
For what part?
"Shows me right for expecting him to keep to anything he tells me. Fool me once, I guess. Did he look at you weird?"
"Uh," they start, gesturing in front of their face. "Kinda hard to tell."
"Right." He looks forward, watching his breath puff out into the cold air. Fast little bursts like a locomotive engine of defensive bullshit.
"You in trouble?"
"Maybe," he admits. Shoving his hands into his pockets.
There's something you're not bringing up. You crossed a line. Why aren't they scolding you for it?
You know why, he answers himself, and feels properly cowed. Well, good. Practice for what's coming when he gets back home.
"Alright. Am I in trouble?"
" What? No. Please, Gamzee. Don't worry about him." Actually you might be we Both might be what if this gets out to our friends what if it gets out to everyone else what have I done- "I'll handle it." He fishes something else out from the pit in his belly. "I. Had a nice time. Regardless."
"Me too."
She gives him another kiss goodbye as they leave. This one's chaste, closer to what's allowed. "Pale for you," they mutter, twisting a little dial in his brain that multiplies his regret.
"Pale for you," he replies. And means it. They turn and disappear down the subway steps, and he waits there until they're gone. And a little longer. A streetlamp turns on.
His phone buzzes in his pocket. He checks it; a text from Dave.
TG: you staying at the clowns place again tonight or something
CG: NO.
CG: I JUST WALKED THEM TO THE STATION. ON MY WAY BACK
TG: cool
TG: is this bread up for grabs
He's going to kill him.
Getting back up the stairs to his front door is like walking to his execution. When he comes inside, Dave is waiting in the kitchen. A glance to the bread proves it's undisturbed. Good. It might've shattered whatever inexplicable fortitude is still buoying him up.
Karkat sheds his coat, takes a seat at their one bar stool, and starts taking off his shoes. Maybe if he’s lucky Dave will try to give him the silent treatment for the rest of the night. Maybe-
"So like. The
Juggalo
?"
"They're subjugglators," he hisses. "And it's not even an uncomplicated fact that Gamzee is one. Please tell me you're not calling them that to other people."
"Yeah I just talk about the clown you're fucking to everybody all the time. That's definitely something I'd do without immediately comitting suicide out of self-respect."
"We're
not
-" He sputters, looks up from his boots. Damnable red all the way to his ears. "Is
that
what you're mad about?"
Dave shrugs, blank as ever. "Nah but like what am I supposed to think. If you wanted another boyfriend or something I think you would've just told me. Instead you say you want to "get a moirail" because it's "different" and then you guys are playing tonsil hockey on our kitchen counter." He picks up his Icee from the counter, and mercifully doesn't drink it. "Just wondering if I should stay the night at Rose's next time so you guys can use the mattress."
"I'm not sleeping with them, Dave." he insists. It feels like a lie anyway. He can feel his spine bending like a wilting plant. "Moirails kiss. Sometimes. It's totally normal." And none of your business, anyway.
"Okay," he says. Agreeing in a way that makes him feel worse. "In front of me, though?"
"You said you weren't going to be here."
"I think you know that's kinda bullshit." Fifteen more psychic damage, to a total of [rounding error.] "Like if I said, 'hey Karkat can you get out of the apartment so I can make out with someone for a few hours'-"
"So you are mad." Can you just fucking say so instead of needling me where it hurts this isn't funny-
"Don't cut me off." Ouch. "Just saying. Feels like this wasn’t the deal."
Karkat condenses further, threatening to collapse. He's gained too much mass to be small ever again, he knows, but it doesn't stop him from trying. "We're on a break. We agreed I could see other people. I haven't done anything wrong." It sounds pathetic and he hates himself for it. He's trying to figure out exactly how much of a piece of shit he is for all of this, which one of them is moving the goalposts on the other.
"Is that what's happening?"
He wants to snap back like, You were okay with it until you realized I meant it. That it was working for me. You didn't want to talk about it so that you could pretend not to understand. So you can be cool and normal and I can be the screeching alien freak–
Instead he just says "Yes."
A quiet settles over their shitty little kitchen. Dave takes a long sip of his slurpee.
"Okay then," he answers. And makes for the bedroom. Karkat pretends the shades hide all hints of welling eyes at every angle. And then the door shuts and he's alone.
He manages a few sniffles, but there's just not really any feeling left in him but tired, after that. He gets a pillow and sleeping bag out from the laundry closet. No sense in making Dave have to say it out loud.
Lying there on the living room floor, he shouldn't. He really shouldn't. But he checks his phone.
Two new messages.
TC: made it home.
TC: you alright?
Two paths, western crab.
CG: NO. I THINK I FUCKED UP. I'M SO SORRY FOR EARLIER BY THE WAY. I DON'T KNOW WHAT CAME OVER ME. I'D UNDERSTAND IF YOU WERE UPSET-
Backspace backspace backspace.
CG: IT'S FINE. NOTHING THAT WASN'T GOING TO HAPPEN EVENTUALLY ANYWAY I THINK.
TC: that bad huh.
CG: I SAID IT'S FINE. SHUSH.
TC: bossy :o0
CG: YEAH. NEXT THING YOU'LL NOTICE IS I HAVE TWO EYES. WE'RE LEARNING ALL KINDS OF THINGS ABOUT EACH OTHER.
CG: PRESUMABLY THAT'S WHAT YOU LIKE ABOUT ME OR SOMETHING? HONESTLY HAVEN'T FIGURED THAT PART OUT YET.
TC: pretty good guess though.
CG: I WANT TO APOLOGIZE BUT I THINK YOU'RE SICK OF THOSE-
Backspace backspace backspace.
CG: WE SHOULD TALK ABOUT -
Backspace backspace backspace.
CG: I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME WHEN WE’RE TOGETHER. I THINK I'M BROKEN.
Backspace. Backspace. Backspace.
A relationship you can't figure out and can't hold yourself back from is the textbook prompt for finding an auspistice. A perversion of the pale quadrant is the trope of the lecherous villain in half his favorite books (and it doesn't matter what the neutered earth c quadrant system says about it because he remembers the real one-)
Worst of all. The thought of never kissing her like that again and the thought of leaving her diamond are both making him sick with grief.
TC: karkat.
He stops trying. He might as well be made of glass.
TC: everything's alright.
CG: HOW IS IT SO EASY FOR YOU.
CG: I KNOW THAT'S A SHITTY QUESTION. IT WON'T BE THE LAST.
TC: promise?
CG: HA HA *HA,* ASSHOLE.
TC: i figure you gotta call it quits at some point.
TC: if we ain't ever done much right in our lives before
TC: why start now?
It's simple. Too simple. He aches.
CG: THAT'S NOT FUNNY.
TC: not supposed to be.
CG: I
Backspace
CG: GAMZEE.
CG: I NEED YOU TO LOOK OUT FOR YOURSELF. INCLUDING AROUND ME.
CG: TELL ME IF I EVER DO ANYTHING YOU DON'T LIKE.
CG: DEAL?
TC: deal.
TC: pity you.
He gets dizzy looking at the words.
CG: I'M GOING TO SLEEP.
Fuck-
CG: AND I PITY YOU TOO.
TC: thanks for the bread :o)
TC: good night <>
CG: <>
There. He puts down the phone and braces his forehead to the back of his hand, like a fainting victorian highblood. His heart hammers. He's on a treadmill, he's trying to climb out of a hole with no edges, he's Eustace from that book Rose leant him but it's just dragon all the way down-
Why start now?
His heartbeat slows. His breathing levels out.
Why start now.
Karkat rolls over, his phone tucked to his chest. And falls asleep.