Chapter Text
It's late in the morning when you are trolled by Tavros.
AT: oH, yOU'RE ONLINE,
AT: gOOD, I WAS HOPING YOU WOULD BE, eVEN THOUGH IT'S QUITE LATE,
AT: aLTHOUGH MAYBE YOU'VE SWITCHED, tO A MORE DIURNAL SCHEDULE, sINCE ARRIVING TO THIS PLANET,
AT: aS THAT IS A THING MANY TROLLS HAVE DONE,
CG: IF YOU'RE SO CONCERNED ABOUT MY SLEEP SCHEDULE, YOU SHOULD GET TO THE FUCKING POINT SO I CAN ACTUALLY GET AROUND TO USING MY RECUPERACOON SOMETIME THIS SOLAR REVOLUTION.
CG: DID YOU WANT SOMETHING IN PARTICULAR OR ARE YOU AIMING YOUR MUSINGS ABOUT THE LIFESTYLE CHOICES OF ALTERNIAN IMMIGRANTS TOWARDS THE NEAREST UNFORTUNATE SOUL?
AT: oH, tHERE YOU ARE,
AT: yES, i'VE CONTACTED YOU FOR A VERY GOOD REASON,
AT: aND I THINK THAT YOU SHOULD, gIVE MY PROPOSAL DUE CONSIDERATION, bEFORE DISMISSING IT OUT OF HAND,,,
AT: nOT THAT YOU WOULD NECESSARILY, dO THAT, aS YOU ARE GENERALLY SPEAKING A VERY, rELIABLE AND GENEROUS FRIEND,
CG: WOW, STARTING WITH FLATTERY, THAT'S SURE TO CONVINCE ME THAT YOU'RE NOT GOING TO ASK ME TO DO ANYTHING ONEROUS.
AT: iF YOU'RE BEING SARCASTIC, wHICH DOESN'T COME ACROSS VERY WELL OVER THE INTERNET, aND I SUSPECT YOU ARE, bECAUSE YOU EMPLOY SARCASM VERY OFTEN, gENERALLY SPEAKING, tHEN I SHOULD HASTEN TO ADD, tHAT THE THINGS I AM SAYING ABOUT YOUR CHARACTER, aRE TRUE, wHETHER OR NOT I REQUIRE ANY FAVORS, aND YOU SHOULD TAKE THEM AS SUCH, rEGARDLESS OF WHATEVER ELSE, wILL TRANSPIRE DURING THIS CONVERSATION,,,
CG: WOW, TERRIFIC. SO AFTER THIS GUT-SHUDDERINGLY PATHETIC ATTEMPT AT COMMUNICATION PASSES, I WILL BE LEFT WITH THE KNOWLEDGE THAT I'M THE SUCKER EVERYBODY KNOWS TO HIT UP FOR FAVORS.
AT: hAVE i, iN THE PAST, eVER ASKED FOR ANYTHING FROM YOU, wITHOUT OFFERING SOMETHING IN RETURN, aT A FUTURE DATE?
CG: …
CG: SHIT, I GUESS NOT.
CG: OKAY, WHATEVER. WHAT DO YOU NEED?
AT: aS YOU MIGHT, hAVE HEARD, mY MOIRAIL IS COMING, tO VISIT, }:)
CG: I THINK EVERYBODY FROM HERE TO THE FUCKING VOID BETWEEN GALAXIES KNOWS THAT, NUMBNUTS. YOU PRACTICALLY HAVE TINY CARTOON DIAMONDS FLOATING AROUND YOU.
AT: yES, wELL, I HAVEN'T SEEN HER, fOR A PRETTY LONG TIME,
AT: aND ALTHOUGH WE KEEP IN THOUCH, tHROUGH THE SPACENET, iT REALLY ISN'T THE SAME, aS ACTUALLY SPENDING TIME TOGETHER, pHYSICALLY SPEAKING,,,
AT: nOT TO DISCOUNT, lONG-DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS, bUT,,,
CG: YOU WANT SOME QUALITY PILE TIME TOGETHER.
CG: NO, I GET IT.
AT: sO IT IS UNDERSTANDABLE THAT I AM A BIT, eXCITED FOR THIS VISIT,
CG: SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
AT: sHE IS BRINGING ALONG, hER HUMAN BROTHER,
CG: IS A HUMAN BROTHER ONE OF THOSE WEIRD MAMMALIAN GENETIC RELATIONSHIPS?
AT: eXACTLY THAT, yES,
AT: tHEY WERE BORN, iN THE SAME LITTER,
AT: aLTHOUGH HUMANS ARE USUALLY BORN, oNE AT A TIME, sO LITTER MIGHT BE THE WRONG WORD FOR IT, bUT THEY WERE BOTH BORN AT THE SAME TIME, sO THEY'RE AN EXCEPTION TO THAT RULE,
CG: UGH, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY DETAILS ABOUT THEIR DISGUSTING REPRODUCTIVE PRACTICES. JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO TO THIS GUY.
AT: nOTHING, oR AT LEAST, nOTHING BAD,,,
AT: rOSE WANTS SOMEONE, tO KEEP HIM OUT OF TROUBLE, fOR THE DURATION OF THE VISIT, aND ALSO SO SHE AND i WILL HAVE SOME PRIVACY, aLSO FOR THE DURATION,
AT: aND I THOUGHT, tHAT YOU'RE A FAIRLY RESPONSIBLE, iNDIVIDUAL,
AT: aND ALSO MY FRIEND,
AT: aND SOMEONE WHO CAN BE TRUSTED, wITH THIS PERSON MY MOIRAIL, cARES ABOUT,
CG: ARE YOU IMPLYING THAT I'M TOO SOFT TO CULL SOME ANNOYING HUMAN I DON'T KNOW?
AT: i WAS IMPLYING, tHAT YOU WOULD NEVER DO ANYTHING, tHAT WOULD CAUSE CONFLICT, bETWEEN TWO MOIRAILS, sEEING AS YOU HAVE STRONG FEELINGS ABOUT QUADRANTS, aND SERENDIPITY, aS THEY PERTAIN TO EVERYONE AROUND YOU,
Your jaw clenches at these words. Your own quadrants are a barren wasteland. If you were any other troll, Tavros would worry that you would try something, out of envy, even if you're not directly angling for his pale quadrant. As things stand, though, he's right. You are soft, and you feel your bloodpusher clench every time you hear Tavros talk about his moirail with that faraway look on his face.
AT: aND ALSO, yOU NEVER KNOW, yOU MIGHT EVEN ENJOY dAVE'S COMPANY, };D
You scoff. Not likely.
But yeah, okay. How bad can this be?
*
Worse than you thought, actually.
Tavros becomes increasingly insufferable as the date of Rose's arrival approaches, and if you didn't find the way he managed to namedrop his moirail in every conversation a bit sweet, you'd have bashed in your own spongecase long ago, just to make the agony stop.
You're not jealous, Tavros is just obnoxious.
On the evening of her arrival, you are both at the spaceport at the first dimming of twilight, because Tavros is a mess of nerves and impatience. You're entirely too early, and you spend three hours eating bad spaceport junk food and talking about the achingly few things you have in common.
The two of you loiter by the gate when passengers start filing out. Tavros rises to his tiptoes to look over the crowd, despite the fact that he is taller than pretty much everyone in the spaceport. You feel a bit resentful towards him sometimes, because he grew up into such a behemoth of a troll. You don't often see lowbloods reach these dimensions, and you'd be lying to yourself if you didn't admit that you sometimes wish it was you instead.
The crowd has thinned considerably by the time Tavros spots Rose and starts waving his arm. He smiles so widely you expect the top of his head to split and slide off like a gory clown show in a horror B-movie.
You get your first look at Rose, who you know only by reputation, and you can't decide if you're surprised or disappointed. From Tavros's stories, you'd imagined someone more akin to an aloof highblood, a haughty and aristocratic creature, dispensing sarcastic remarks and making each sentence falling out of her mouth sound like an order. But she looks harmless, instead. No sharp corners. Hornless, clawless, human-soft. Not very tall even for a human, but heavyset. Bright yellow hair and brown skin. Highblood eyes, an incongruous shade of purple. She walks at an unhurried pace, she smiles without showing her teeth, and she acts untouchable in a way that makes alarms sound off dimly in your head.
You're not sure what to make of her, beyond the unsettling feelings she inspires, so you look to her side.
That's when you see Dave Strider for the first time, slinking after his sister. If Rose confuses you, then Dave is even more of a study in human peculiarity. He resembles his sister in only the broadest strokes; he has the same golden-brown complexion, the same odd air of carelessness about him, but he's taller and leaner than her, and he slouches down to meet Rose's height. If he were troll, it would be a gesture of submissiveness, but with humans, you don't know how to interpret it. You don't know how to interpret a lot of things, actually. Dave hides his eyes behind a pair of fugly shades, and not being able to see where he's looking is making your sickle hand itch.
“We were unfortunately delayed by customs,” Rose explains. Her Alternian is mushy-sounding, but better than most humans can manage. “Dave felt the need to declare a great number of things, none of them being his sword.”
Dave indeed has a sword strapped to his back. You can only see the hilt peeking over his shoulder, and you begrudgingly approve of his caution, but he loses points for having both arms full with luggage. Rose only has a weird black case in her hand.
Tavros picks Rose up in a hug—she looks even smaller compared to him—and Dave tenses. He watches them like a hawk until Tavros puts her back down. You give him a stern look, hoping to convey just how fucking not alright it is to act like that towards someone else's moirail (in public, no less!), but he's not even looking at you. Douche.
“And you must be Karkat,” Rose says, turning towards you.
She looks you up and down with an appraising gleam in her eye. The way she smiles at the end makes you feel like you should be relieved you passed the inspection, but that's absurd.
“It is such a relief,” she says, her tone deferential, “that you would sacrifice your time and energy to help keep Dave out of trouble.”
You mumble something in return.
She turns and says something to Dave in their own language, and you hear your name spoken. Dave looks perplexed at first, and then annoyed. He says something back, and they have a few more exchanges; Dave agitated, Rose smiling serenely.
“Uh, Rose,” Tavros says slowly, “you didn't mention he didn't speak Alternian.”
“He doesn't speak Alternian?” you repeat.
“Yes, that is, what I said, and why I said it,” Tavros says. “Rose...”
“It will be no trouble at all. Traverse is quite cosmopolitan, is it not?”
“Yes, but, uh... Karkat isn't?” Tavros replies, taken aback.
“Hm, yes, I see how that could pose a problem,” she says, in a way that suggests that she sees no problem at all. “I suppose they will have to be quick studies.”
“Great, and what am I supposed to do in the meantime?” you interject. “Point and grunt?”
“There, see? You're already figuring things out,” Rose says, delighted. “Now help Dave with the luggage. I'm sure he already knows how to say 'thank you' in Alternian.”
You grind your teeth, but she gives you that unflappable smile of hers and it makes you stop just short of protesting.
Dave, on the other hand, launches into a long and peeved rant that you suspect you agree with. Rose brushes him off with a condescending nod and a few words. Dave shuts his mouth, but fumes quietly. You feel a pang of camaraderie with the put-upon human, even though you don't really want to.
*
Rose and Tavros walk ahead, talking rapidly, lost in their own little world. You and Dave trail behind, carrying luggage that you suspect belongs mostly to Rose.
“They're not even talking about anything interesting,” you say to Dave. The bits that you overhear are all esoteric discussions about some popular fantasy novel they both read. “I only wish I couldn't understand that inane prattle.”
Dave looks at you—you can see the vague outline of his eyes through the shades—and gives a snort. He says something in his native language (English, you think. That's the one a lot of humans speak).
“I don't understand a damn thing you're saying,” you mutter, before you realize that that's probably what he was saying to you. “God dammit,” you add with feeling.
The rest of the way to the hotel, you take the train, and while Rose and Tavros manage to snag three seats all to themselves, you and Dave end up standing, holding onto the same pole. Dave takes out a communication device and fiddles with it. You stare at the screen full of unintelligible letters and wonder how the hell you got yourself into this mess.
*
After you leave the hotel where Rose and Dave are staying, Tavros pulls you to the side of the street with a grave look in his eyes.
“I'm sorry for the difficulty Rose has put you in,” he says, “and I'm sorry for, my role in it.”
“Yeah, no fucking kidding,” you mutter, even though you don't really blame him.
“She didn't mention, when we talked, that she was upset with her brother, but that has, shall we say, become obvious in retrospect,” Tavros says. “She indicated that she did not, exactly, want to take him along, but that he insisted. I think that this is her way of, punishing him, I suppose.”
You rub the bridge of your nose in annoyance.
“What, she couldn't just tell him to stay the fuck put?” you growl. “Get away while he was asleep? Handcuff him to a railing? She dragged him half across the galaxy just to make a point?”
“I think this is what the humans call, being passive aggressive,” Tavros remarks, “seeing as direct aggression, is somewhat frowned upon in their society.”
“Fucking aliens and their stupid cultural norms.”
“I will understand if you don't want to be involved anymore, knowing what you know now, about the situation...”
“So you're giving me an out,” you say dryly.
“Do you not want an out?”
You're not sure, truth be told. Dave really does seem like trouble to you, but more for Tavros and Rose than anyone else. Tavros, for all his faults, doesn't really deserve that.
“I don't even know yet,” you admit. “You could at least let me try douche-wrangling for a day before you automatically assume I'd fail at it and send me off with my tail between my legs.”
Tavros nods uncertainly.
“Okay, yes, what you're saying is fair,” he says. “If you really want to.”
“I'm not a quitter,” you say.
“I believe you.”
“I'm not just going to give up because something seems too hard.”
“Yes, I know you wouldn't do that.”
You're talking about Dave, of course. If Tavros gives you a platonically pitying look and thinks this is about how anything else, then he's completely off base.