Actions

Work Header

The Highest Degree of Culture

Summary:

"Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture." - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

"You know", he says, slowly circling you, his once-blue eyes now a harsh, gleaming yellow, "I never really understood your - our - romance back when I was human.  Well the flushed quadrant, obviously, and the pale quadrant has some corollaries with the deeper of human friendships, and we even had ashen quadrant relationships of a kind - there will always be people trying to put out the flames of human emotion."

You never really paid much attention to him during those few scant hours on the meteor - if you contacted any of the humans, it was usual the one with the lewd poetry, but for the most part you hung out with Nepeta, especially after Aradia... ceased functioning.  But of the little you observed of him, and what you overheard from the constantly muttering Karkat (and only Karkat could make muttering sound like yelling), he was not like this.  He held himself differently, he talked with an easy grace that belied a wealth of knowledge that was not at all apparent as he was before.  He was almost... regal.  You shiver.

"But the flames of human emotion are mere flickers, pinpricks in the darkness, before the raging inferno of troll emotions.  Such depth, such breadth!  And yet how subtle the shades of pity, for example, differ from each other, each an equisite, unique taste."  With this he steps right behind, leans down, and breaths hot air in your ear.  Though you can't see it, you can sense its presence - the blue that once shown his eyes now runs in his veins - a noble, uncompromising hue, full of vitality.  You wriggle in you chair half-heartedly.  You were once so STRONG, and now a simple rope binds you here.  Though if you were being honest, it is more than rope that has entrapped you.

"But I never understood the caliginous quandrant - sure, I understood the definitions, I joked at Karkat about 'hate-sex', but I didn't truly understand what hatred, true, beautiful, horrifying hatred feels like." He sniffs you, and then LICKS you, one long, languid stroke up your neck, and you can't stop your involuntary shiver.  "You were like me once, were you not?  You could feel pride and strength run through your very veins, a fact as immutable as each next breath," - he smirks at that - "but now look at you - weak. Reduced. HUMAN." And with that he knocks your chair backwards, and the sensation of falling overtakes you as panic bubbles up, but he twirls behind you, impossibly fast, and catches your chair, and then sinks his teeth in - sharp, like yours once were - right below your ear.

You have the weirdest boner right now.

Notes:

One little headcanon-y note: I've always imagined Karkat to be the type to often mutter to himself, especially saying aloud what he's typing as he types it, but since he's Karkat, it's almost like he's yelling at the computer. But since it IS semi-subconscious muttering, it phases in and out, so suddenly he's just yelling a couple phrases at the computer, and then nothing. And then a few minutes later... and so on.

Also, while John admittedly doesn't really sound like John, that's also because he clearly isn't John anymore. Somehow everyone was species-swapped, and that's going to change a person, especially with a race as emotionally volatile as the trolls. Also, I think that some of the florid highblood language has become conditioned and a natural almost genetic part of being a highblood, hence John's more Rose-like language.

Also, I'm writing this at 2 am, so my caveats aside, this might actually just suck. Eh, ce la vie. I've got 64 of these fuckers to get through, I doubt ALL of them will be good.