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You’ve been exhausted lately. You had only planned on going to sleep, none of this silly running around in dreambubbles talking to people, just nice and normal sleeping. It sucks when you don’t get what you want. You wonder if you fall asleep here if you’ll go to sleep for real or if you just can’t sleep here…does that make sense? You don’t think so.
You can see things starting to form, weird shaped buildings with weird colored windows and off colored grass everywhere. Around the houses are shallow dirt circles a couple feet from the house, kind of like circular lawns. The sky turns dark and kind of purplish. Where the hell are you anyway? This is definitely NOT one of your memories.
It seems like you’re the only one around when you hear a weird chirping noise to your left. Despite your better judgment you go to check it out. It sounds kind of like a small animal. You remember your dad taking you to the zoo once and seeing baby cheetahs, the noise sounds kind of like that but still a little different, a harsher type of chirp. When you get closer you approach a building. Is it inside? You try the door but it’s locked. Figures. You step back from the door and realize the chirping is coming from the side of the building. When you turn the corner you see the weirdest little thing ever sitting on a rock.
It looks like some weird mutant thing. Like a bug with a strangely human baby head attached. Only the thing is grey with weird little yellow, orange and red horns. Its body looks like a caterpillar, all squishy and plump, it’s also a dusky red-rust color. It has six spiny legs, three on each side, that are clutching the rock. The thing looks up at you with it’s black beady eyes and chirps loudly, now that you’re really listening it sounds sad, almost distressed. You wonder if it can talk.
Before you can even say anything a completely white dog, at least you think it’s a dog, pads up and picks the little caterpillar thing up by the scruff of its neck and carries it away. The dog thing growls at you briefly before running off with the little red caterpillar.
“Well then…” you watch the dog go then turn around. Well what now?
Bright red catches your eye from the corner of your vision. You look to see red tent-like things stretched over some balcony sort of parts of the uh, building? You really don’t know. You’ve never seen houses like this. The windows glow a strange orange color and you decide that that probably means someone’s GOT to be in there! You approach the door and try it. It’s unlocked. You’re in a dream so that means you can just go inside, right? Is that an ok thing to do in a dream? You guess so. You can always just apologize later if the person living here has a problem with it. You’d just like someone to talk to.
You knock and say hello and peek inside. The place is quiet and pretty clean. You don’t know what you were expecting but something other than this you guess. The place doesn’t seem to have any wallpaper or paint on the walls, just plain grey stone like on the outside. It’s kind of cold in here too, you step inside and look around more. You can’t help but feel like you should be battle ready for an attack from whatever lives here. There are a few rooms and two staircases, one going up and one going down. You decide to search the ground floor first then venture down.
You wander into a room that reminds you vaguely of a kitchen. There’s a weird shaped purple fridge next to some stone counters and what you guess is a sink. There’s also a table with a chair next to the wall by the archway you came in through. You check the fridge and find foods in colors you’ve never seen back home, purple eggs, green meat, yellow milk. It all smells normal, no rank smells coming from it but the colors make your stomach clench and you shut the door deciding there’s no clues to who lives here in this room.
Next you find a sort of living room. There’s an old TV, what you guess is a game station, and a movie case. No couch. Ok. You don’t bother with the TV or the game station and move straight to the movie case. You can’t read any of the writing on them but you recognize some of the pictures. 50 First Dates, Date Night, Titanic, and a bunch of other romantic comedy/tragedy movies. You’ve seen a few of the movies in here and to be honest you didn’t like many of them. Whoever lives here has shitty cinema tastes. You look more towards the bottom of the case and find a few action movies, some horrors, suspense, and a couple you don’t recognize. The one thing strange about these movies is that the actors all look exactly like the ones from earth. Well, except for that they’re grey and have these weird horns like the little bug thing outside. You start to wonder if you know exactly where you are.
You stand up and rush out of the room towards the stairs, you don’t care about the ground floor anymore or the stairs going down. You take the steps two at a time and almost fall a few times but you manage to make it up in one piece. It’s quiet upstairs. You can’t help the grin on your face because you’re pretty sure you know who’s house this is! You go down the short hallway to the first door and open it. It looks like a bathroom. There’s a shower, a toilet with no lid and what looks like a sink and counter. You don’t care past that and close the door again. You move to the next one. It’s a pretty bare room save for a big purple container with goopy green stuff in it. It looks like ghost slime. You hesitantly dip your finger in it and it tingles a little. Turning in the room there’s an empty desk and chair then a dresser and nothing else. Not here. You spin around and go out.
There’s one more room and you know he’s in there if he’s home at all. Your stomach clenches and you suddenly feel really nervous and excited and your grin widens showing off more of your stupid buckteeth than you’d like. Your mind races with all the questions you’ve had since you two first became friends. You wonder how tall he is? Will he talk as loud as his text suggests? Does he look like those trolls, that’s what they are it all makes sense now, on the movie covers? Or like the little bug thing outside? You can’t help the excited squeak that comes out of your mouth as you slowly open the door. You can’t say you expected what happened next.
The next thing you see is a little blur of grey and then a swoosh! and the feel of cold metal pressing to your neck. The next noise you make is a squeak of terror. You hear a weird growling, it’s not natural like that white dog outside, but this sounds more like someone who hasn’t spoke in years. It’s all rough and scratchy and a little bit like a whine. You look down to see a poof of crazy black hair, small nubby orange red and yellow horns and bright piercing red eyes glaring at you with a snarl on his lips. You grin.
He seems to recognize you because his eyes widen slightly and oh god, his eyes. His eyes narrow again but he pulls away the mini hand-scythe but doesn’t say anything. He’s at least a few inches shorter than you but sheesh, he’s definitely more built. While you have that skinny type of muscle he’s got more of a chubby muscle that’s not really chubby at all. You look down and he’s covered in grey and black. His pants, the heavy sweater with a cancer symbol, of course his skin and his hair. The only splash of color is those strange red eyes that you can’t help but keep looking at. You’re surprised by the red tint your cheeks take on because you just realized that you’re staring and he looks like he’s expecting you to say something.
“Hi Karkat!” you manage to squeak out. You wait for a reply but get none so you do the only thing you can think of. You keep talking. “Wow! I finally get to meet you like, for real in person! You’re so short! I’m sorry I came into your house without knocking or asking or anything, I mean, shit, I was just really lost and confused! Your world looks pretty weird to be honest! Well I mean, compared to earth and stuff! But—“
You’re cut off by Karkat pulling out a little mobile PDA type thing and typing something quickly on it then shoving it in your face.
‘SHUT UP MORON.’
You blink at the screen then look at him, your face full of confusion. Why’d he type that out? You expected him to talk or yell or something.
“Uh, Karkat?”
‘HI JOHN EGBERT.’ he types out and shows you. ‘THANKS FOR JUST FUCKING WALKING IN YOU RUDE ASSHOLE.’ he looks up at you with those red eyes again and you feel your heart skip a beat. ‘YOUR JUST LIKE FUCKING STRIDER NO FUCKING PRIVACY. GUESS YOU IDIOTIC HUMANS DON’T HAVE THAT ON EARTH.’
You don’t know what to say. Why isn’t he talking? Can’t he talk? He’s waiting for you to talk. Say something. Your mouth opens but no sound comes out. He does this soundless sigh thing and looks down at his PDA and types.
‘I CAN’T TALK.’ He shoves the phone in your face and gives you a look like it should be obvious. You go to say something but he pulls the PDA back and starts typing again. ‘DON’T EVEN SAY SORRY IT’S NOT EVEN THAT BAD. I ALREADY GOT SHIT FROM YOUR FRIENDS.’ He pulls the phone back and looks away.
You’re overcome with the urge to hug him but at the same time you take in the teeth that barely show when he moves his mouth and his fingernails that look more like claws. Karkat wouldn’t bite or claw you right?
‘YOU COULD AT LEAST SAY SOMETHING, IDIOT.’ Karkat shoves the PDA back in your face and you feel yourself frown and move before you even realize it. You wrap your arms around his middle and pull him close, you smush your face in his shoulder and sigh.
“God I’m so sorry Karkat.” You say to him, you feel him tense up in your grip as if he’s not used to people touching him. It takes him a while but he starts to squirm so you let go. “Ha-ha well shit, sorry Karkat. I’m just...I didn’t expect this! I always thought you’d be yelling at me when we first met but wow, the silence is kind of weird!”
He looks away as if he’s embarrassed. If you look closely you can see a light tint of reddish-pink under the grey skin. You grin more. Wow, he’s really cute if you think about it, but in a weirdly alien sort of way. Not like Rose cute, or Jade cute but like, well, Karkat cute. He turns his bright eyes back on you and you can’t look away, you’re stuck, trapped under his gaze. He just stares at you for a moment before his eyes dart down to the PDA.
‘NO SERIOUSLY. SAVE ME THE PAIN OF LISTENING TO YOUR MORONIC BABBLING AND SHUT UP. JUST BECAUSE I CAN’T TALK DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD TALK MORE.’ He huffs and makes a weird growling noise again. You think it’s his way of talking.
You can’t help the bubble of laughter that comes up. You practically double over and rest your head on his shoulder. He stiffens up and you can feel his hair bristling. When you finally pull back and wipe the tears from your eyes he’s glaring at you. “Sorry, I just…that was kind of funny…” you smile at his glare.
‘SHUT UP WILL YOU?’
You just smile. You can’t help but smile. You can’t help but notice for the millionth time that his eyes are beautiful and bright red and absolutely amazing. You notice that Karkat’s amazing. That even without a voice he’s louder than you could ever be. You smile because even though you don’t know it you can feel yourself loving him. Not like a troll pity but a human love. For right now you feel warm and fuzzy and like you could kiss Karkat…’s nose. Or something. The thought make your cheeks burn bright red.
‘WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU EVEN THINKING ABOUT, EGBERT?’
Suddenly the words are right in your face and you’re forced to take a step back and all you can do is sputter out incoherent words before Karkat presses his hand to your mouth and does that gurgling-growl.
‘I DON’T EVEN WANT TO KNOW ANYMORE.’ He takes his hand away and steps back from you. He looks around his room like he doesn’t know what to do.
You try to take a moment to successfully calm yourself and you do. When you turn around you frown a little. “I really didn’t expect it to go like this…I kinda thought when I first met you Dave or Rose or Jade would be here too and then it’d be a lot less awkward but it’s not like this is really awkward! I mean it is a little because you not being able to talk is kind of weird—WAIT! I didn’t mean that! Like, it’s not weird just I wasn’t expecting it and I—“
Karkat’s glaring at you again. He doesn’t even have to say anything you just know. SHUT UP. Right. You go quiet and wait for him to type something, anything…but he doesn’t. You wait for what feels like forever staring into his red eyes. “You have gorgeous eyes.” You blurt out. What did you just…
Karkat’s reaction is instantaneous. His eyes go wide and he looks like you just laid an egg out of your mouth. You open your mouth to say something but he cuts you off with a look before he glances down at the PDA to type. ‘DON’T SAY ANYTHING. I DON’T WANT TO KNOW. JUST…SHIT SHUT UP.’
You look at the screen but you can hardly see it. You’re more focused on the greyish bright red showing on his grey cheeks. He can’t look at you, or at least he won’t. He’s pulling at the bottom of his sweater; it looked like he’s picking at it. The only thing you could think was how cute Karkat was being.
You don’t even realize you’re leaning forward until he shoves the PDA in your face again and glares at you over it. You blink in confusion and focus on the screen.
‘DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT ASSHOLE.’
You look down at him and smile just a bit because he’s still blushing and you still think he’s cute and you really don’t mind coming back to this dream bubble more often.