Chapter Text
John paused in typing out his reply to Dave, startled by a noise. Standing in the middle of an otherwise empty hallway near the area he’d staked out as his own, he cast about in search of the source of the weird cicada noise. It didn’t sound mechanical, so it probably wasn’t one of that big sweaty troll’s weird projects or the four-horned one’s computers; as far as he knew, there wasn’t anything on this asteroid except for humans and trolls and that one funny little chess piece guy, and he’d heard the trolls make some weird noises, but this was a new one by far.
There was a clatter and the noise cut off; the human turned around to find Tavros sprawled out in a doorway, having apparently tripped. His lance was out; what a weird place to train! John walked over to help him up with a concerned, “Are you all right, um…Tavros, right?” He’d only arrived a short while ago, and remembering all of these trolls’ names was hard work!
He was barely a foot away when Tavros tensed and frowned up at him, a low rumble coming from him, “D-Don’t, uh… Don’t come closer. I’m, um, I’m just fine.” He scrambled to his metal feet with all the grace he could muster; which wasn’t a lot, to be honest. John giggled a little behind his hand but kept his distance. Now standing upright, the troll drew himself to his full height – barely even an inch taller than John – and slung his lance over a shoulder. His face flickered with uncertainty a moment before he seemed to steel his resolve and muster up his courage, stepping closer to the observing human to stop a mere arm’s length away.
“Yes?” John asked, after a moment, growing uncomfortable as Tavros just… stared. Directly at him. Cracking a nervous smile he asked, “Is there something you wanted me for? Tavros?” The troll had been lurking around outside John’s room.
“You are… uh…” the troll swallowed, shifting from one foot to the other, but he didn’t look away even once, “You are an awful human and, um, your pranks… really make me angry, sometimes, because they are so, horrible. And also, I think, you are a coward, so that’s why you do all of your… terrible pranks.”
John was too unnerved to immediately process the insult, laughing nervously. “Oh man, I’m… I’m sorry? I haven’t even pranked you though, have I?”
Tavros’s upper lip twitched up, showing a flash of teeth, then stepped back just enough to bring his lance down between them, the tip pressed against John’s chest. John shut up quickly, hands coming up automatically. “I think, that maybe you should get out, uh… whatever stupid strifekind you have. Unless you’re scared, I mean.”
John was saved from responding to this out of the blue… threat, dare, request?... by a familiar bellowing, “What in the ever-hating taintchafing fuck is going on here?! Put that thing away before you break something, nookwipe! Can’t you bulgehumping shitsacks go five whole minutes without trying to cull each other?!”
Both John and Tavros turned to look at the rapidly approaching redblooded troll and the jadeblood that trailed along behind him. John stepped back, putting a bit more distance between himself and the lance, then turned completely away to greet the incoming storm cloud and his softly glowing accompaniment. “Karkat! Kanaya! We were just um… actually I’m not really sure what we were doing, haha!” He glanced back at Tavros, who had lowered his lance to the floor and was frowning at Karkat. “But he wasn’t going to hurt me, I swear!”
Tavros started up growling again, low and quiet, hand tensing on the handle of his lance. “Excuse me, but I really could hurt you, I mean, if I wanted to. Which I do.”
Kanaya remained quiet, glancing between the bronzeblooded troll and the human and looking uncertain if she should get involved or not. Karkat took up the initiative, inhaling sharply through his nose and scowling between them both. “Whoa. Whoa. I’m pretty fucking sure that I’ve made myself perfectly fucking clear when I said that there will be no interspecies sloppy makeouts. At no point in this or any timeline have I, your leader, rescinded this order.” He’d started snarling mid-rant, the noise soon rising to a pitch that drowned out Tavros’s continued growling. The taller male troll tilted his head down, brandishing his impressive set of horns threateningly in Karkat’s direction, but it was Karkat that stomped closer, head similarly bent. John watched on in confusion, wide-eyed. The trolls were nearly standing chest to chest, so close that a deep breath would have them pressed together, and yet they didn’t touch at all, glaring into each other’s eyes as they growled and snarled and bared teeth.
John slowly leaned closer to Kanaya and whispered loudly, “Is this that hate quadrant thing?”
Karkat whipped around so quickly that he clipped Tavros across the nose with a nubby horn, snapping, “No, shitstain, this is not ‘that hate quadrant thing’, what the fuck. I’m trying to make this dumb grubfisted rumpusfuck—fucking hell Nitram!”
The shorter troll was abruptly cut off as Tavros punched him square in the jaw, sending Karkat stumbling backward. The bronzeblood looked a little surprised, staring incredulously as Karkat cradled his injured jaw; the pause gave the shorter troll an opening to haul back his own fist and charge in, landing a punch to his face with a snarl. Unsteady on his robotic legs and caught off guard, Tavros toppled over onto his butt with a loud yelp. Karkat stood over him, sneering as he cracked his knuckles. “I said to back off, Nitram.”
“Karkat, what—wait—“ concerned, John started towards them, intending on breaking up the fight before it could escalate, but Kanaya stepped forward to block his way, shaking her head.
“Please refrain from interfering, John. It would not be helpful.”
“But he—they—what are they fighting for, I don’t get it!” He’d thought Kanaya was the one that always broke up the fights, why was she just standing here?
“Stay out of it, Egbert. I’m doing you a favor.” Karkat called over his shoulder without taking his eyes off his opponent. Tavros hesitantly reached out for his fallen lance and Karkat’s snarl rose higher in pitch, kicking the other troll’s hand away then bending to retrieve the weapon and toss it across the hall. “You started this with fists, bulgemunch. Don’t wimp out now.”
Tavros cradled his hand to his chest and rumbled up at him, but quieter now and not as threatening. Even quieter, he murmured sulkily, averting his eyes to the far wall, “I saw him first.”
Karkat scoffed, his own growling tapering off, but his stance over the other troll didn’t waver. “What are you, two sweeps old? Get the fuck out of here, Nitram, and find someone on your own level.” He kicked at one of the troll’s metal legs.
Tavros hunched in on himself, grumbling, and started to stand up, only to realize that Karkat was standing nearly on top of him, making it impossible. With a curl of his lip (met by the beginnings of a quiet warning growl), Tavros half-crawled, half-dragged himself far enough away that he could stand. Retrieving his lance and stashing it away, he sent one last parting growl at the redblood, “I didn’t think, that your rule against, um, interspecies make outs… applied to everyone except you, Leader.” The shorter troll took a step towards him and Tavros’s mouth clicked shut. He turned quickly and strode away from the group as casually as he was able to. Karkat watched him until he turned a corner and was out of sight.
Once the bronzeblood was gone, Kanaya stepped aside quickly, just as Karkat was turning back around to glare at the human. John squeaked and put his hands up in the universal ‘don’t hurt me’ gesture, which just made Karkat sneer at him. The male troll grumbled quietly and scrubbed his hand over his face, flinching just the tiniest bit when he came across where he’d been hit. “You don’t even fucking know what just happened, do you, bulgebiter?”
“N-No I…” John swallowed and went over the previous events, trying to piece it together. His hands lowered, eyebrows drawing together in anger at his realization. “Tavros wasn’t going to hurt me! He just wanted to spar! You didn’t have to go and pick a fight with him, Karkat, I can protect myself perfectly fine on my own!”
The troll froze, his hand still hovering over the lower half of his face as he stared, startled and suspicious and something John couldn’t name, at the annoyed boy. With a snort he shook himself out of his stupor quickly enough, hand dropping to a fist at his side. “No, fuck, Egbert, that was—damnit, why are humans so useless, he was so obviously hitting on you – Condense only knows why – how could you fucking miss that? Are you blind or just that stupid?”
Kanaya looked from one male to the other before murmuring a hasty, “I believe I was supposed to meet with Rose soon. Excuse me.” and heading off in the direction Tavros had gone with a secretive smile.
John looked startled at her sudden departure, but Karkat didn’t pay her any mind. He continued frowning at the human and finally sighed, crossing his arms and looking away. “You humans don’t do black romance for some moronic reason that I’ll never understand, and it’s obvious that all the time I’ve wasted trying to explain quadrants to what’s left of your nonsensical species just isn’t going to penetrate that thick skull of yours. So trying to explain what just happened here would be as pointless as asking Equius to stop fucking sweating.” Turning sharply on his heel and marching away, Karkat called as he went, “Just stick to sparring with the other humans, or fuck, I’ll go up against your ridiculously stupid hammerkind flailing myself if that’s what you want. But don’t even bother humoring that stupid shitstain.”
John watched the troll leave, confusion written all over his face. His glasses pinged, a message appearing in the corner.
TG: dude are you still there
EB: trolls are really weird, dave.
TG: uh yeah congratulations on stating the obvious bro