Chapter Text
Looking out over the sea of fire and the unnerving flying brains dotting the sparse and squishy landscape, Karkat reflects to himself that, despite the unending oceans of red he so despises, his land is perhaps not the worst sGrub has to offer. It surprises him a little that Sollux appears not to be bothered by the surroundings, sleeping on a cushioned mat set directly over the hot brain matter. His mouth is curved in a faint moue of displeasure, mind unprotected by sopor and likely haunted by voices, but he shows no sign of waking.
Bored already, Karkat glances back at the tremendous stone edifice of the temple behind him. It looms crookedly over the soft landscape, chipped and dusty yellow stone painted with flickering, ruddy light. The ominous aperture leading in, bedecked by a large arch shaped like a Roman numeral two, is lit by a series of torches illuminating a long hallway. For a minute Karkat sits down beside Sollux and gazes out upon the panorama of fire and dripping, floating brains. Despite his intent to let him rest a little longer, however, within five minutes he's impatiently prodding the psionic's shoulder with his index finger.
"Mmm...evening, FF," Sollux murmurs in surprisingly good humor, eyes flickering open. "You woke up way before..." He focuses on Karkat with a sudden frown. "KK? What are you doing here?"
"Oh, thanks for that glorious welcome," Karkat snaps, scowling. "Don't look so fucking elated to see me, your face might stick that way."
"Whatever," Sollux answers blearily, rubbing his bicolored eyes and groping blindly around for his glasses, his hand almost but not quite reaching far enough. Karkat watches this for a moment before finally lifting the shades from the gray, slightly gelatinous ground and placing them in his palm. "Ok, thanks," he says, wiping them off before settling them on his nose. His gaze flits up to rest on Karkat. "Where's FF?"
"Since she's one of the only ones around here with half a functioning thinkpan and not much propensity for going completely batshit crazy, I asked her to help Terezi with something."
"What?" Sollux asks, sitting up.
"Well, aren't we inquisitive today. For someone who never actually said hello to me, by the way, fuck you very much for that. Great to see you too, bro!" Sollux stares blankly at him, not rising to it. "Yeah anyway, it was some area where only girls can enter, like specifically to separate our team and test whether or not we've both leveled enough, because with its usual proclivity for mindfuckery this fucking game was aware I'd be there. And she's strong enough, actually she's strong...as strong as me, I guess. But you never know, I mean I didn't want her going in alone so I wanted to make sure she had another girl to go with-"
"So why aren't you helping her with this, again?" Sollux finally interrupts.
"Shut the fuck up!" Karkat snaps, ignoring the smirk his anger evokes. "So yeah, we're trading off until they're done with that and then we'll switch back. Basically I'm helping you with whatever inane fuckshitting quest you're on right now in revolting squishy brainland, which I guess involves this huge temple thing."
"Yeah." Sollux stands up, surveying the imposing edifice with disinterest. "Actually I think we're incredibly overleveled for this, we just need the drop from the final boss to enter another region. I probably don't need help, but I guess you can follow me around if you want."
"Wow, what an incredibly douchey way to invite me along." Karkat scowls, trying to retrieve something from his sylladex. The encrypted card lands on the brain matter, sinking in slightly with a horrific squelch. "Fuck, hold on a minute." He sits down to work on it as Sollux wanders to the edge of the brain. "Are you pissing in that fire?"
"Where else is there?" Sollux asks dryly. "It's not the land of brains and incredibly convenient load gapers, it's pretty much brains or fire. My ultimate quest is actually to put out this whole planet with the sheer force of my piss, check it out." Karkat ignores him, still working at the card, and when Sollux returns he begins to decrypt yet more feverishly. "Eheheh, you're seriously still working on that?"
"It's tough, hold on-"
"We'll be here all night. Let me do it," Sollux offers, kneeling beside him. A moment later, he cracks the card open to reveal a box of donuts.
"I almost had that cracked when you started," Karkat snaps defensively, reaching into the box.
"Was this even the card you wanted?" Sollux asks, regarding the pastries doubtfully.
"Obviously. I alchemized it before I came here," Karkat explains, eating the majority of an eclair in one bite. "You're weak enough without being malnourished."
"Eheheh, and this is really nourishing." Sollux settles down, selecting a blue-frosted pastry with red sprinkles. "Wait, did you..." he begins hesitantly, regarding the vivid colors.
"What, purposely make food with the two ugly colors you like?" Karkat asks blandly, wiping cream off his chin and starting in on the second eclair as he gazes out over the rolling hills of brain. "Because you have retarded hangups about colorful food and otherwise you'll just pick at it like a dipshit and hardly eat anything?" he continues, mouth full. Sollux stares at him, still holding the donut. "No," he concludes, swallowing. "Weird coincidence."
"Sounds about right." Sollux eyes him, chewing speculatively. "By the way, you suck at that encryption fetch modus," he adds informatively, retrieving a pitcher of water from his sylladex. "Exchange it with mine." Karkat looks back at him for a moment, surprised.
"Yeah," he finally says, clearing his throat and seizing the pitcher, drinking directly from it despite Sollux's disapproving glance.
"See, like I'm saying, this temple sucks. Check this shit out." Sollux throws a pink, goat-eyed imp into the heavily carved wall with a casual wave of his hand as he strides down the torch-lined hall. The creature squeals and explodes into grist immediately upon making contact with the stone. "Not even a challenge anymore," he continues lazily, impaling one six-legged, insectoid imp on the bull horns of another. Several other imps, witnessing this, scurry away with alacrity.
"What the fuck," Karkat mutters, helping harvest the grist as he walks alongside Sollux. The low, square hallway is barely large enough for two to walk abreast, and the flickering torches set sporadically in sconces along the walls barely illuminate the claustrophobic space. If the monsters were difficult, Karkat thinks, the area would be creepy, but the imps pose no challenge at all. "At least let me hit that spider one over there, you're not even letting me get close. This is boring."
"Fine," Sollux agrees with a sigh.
"Good, since-" Karkat cuts his sentence short as the final imp floats up from the floor in a psionic haze of light and hurtles toward his face in the semi-darkness, hissing through venom-dripping fangs. "Fuck!" he screams, slicing its head from its body. The venom bubbles on the floor at his feet as the monster melts into grist.
"Exciting enough for you now?" Sollux asks, grinning as Karkat rounds on him. "Eheheh, KK, you're shaking."
"With rage!" Karkat objects furiously, waving a sickle. "You stupid fucking nooklicker, what if I actually got poisoned-"
"Your reflexes are good," Sollux notes, still smiling. "I don't think it could have hurt you even if I would let it. Which," he adds, "I wouldn't."
"Of course my reflexes are good, dumbass, I've been-"
"So I think that's the end of this incredibly boring hallway," Sollux interrupts, pointing to a black space beyond the torches. Predictably, the circular chamber they enter features two doors: one marked with a glowing red arch, the other with a blue.
"Fine, asshole," Karkat says irritably. "Which way are we going."
"How should I know?" Sollux responds, looking at the dark passageways. "What's the point of this temple anyway, I wasn't paying attention."
"Hell if I know," Karkat says, gazing at the red-and-blue wall etchings. "I can't read that."
"It's code." Sollux peers at a section of it, illuminating it with the steady glow of his own eyes. "It repeats. If feeling red is true, then red, and..." He mumbles for a moment, closing one eye and then the other to read both text colors as Karkat impatiently taps one toe on the stone floor. "Looks like the way we choose is determined by how I feel. Which makes sense, since the gates are colored and this game has that retarded motif of self-discovery-"
"So what you're saying is we're going to get lost and starve to death," Karkat interjects, glaring darkly at the gates.
"I know how I feel, dipshit," Sollux snaps. "Red gate."
"Wait, why red?"
"Either manic or depressive," murmurs Sollux, heading for the gate. "I feel pretty neutral, but I can imagine how it would feel to be happy, so it's not depressive."
"Wait, can you just eliminate one emotion and make the other one-"
"Who gives a shit, KK?" Sollux pauses before the red gate, glancing around the chamber. "Anyone? Anyone? Because I don't."
"I mean it's going to punish us if you fuck up," Karkat retorts irritably, trying to look through the arch. Nothing meets his gaze. The passageway is not only unlit but absorbs the light cast into it, a perfect square of blackness. "And fucking up's what you're best at, so forgive me for being a little concerned."
"Whatever," Sollux sighs, waving a dismissive hand. "Let's say I'm wrong. We backtrack through maybe a fuckton of imps or a lesser boss or something and go through the other gate. Oh shit, how will we ever withstand this amazing challenge."
"That's exactly the sort of shit someone says right before something horrible happens. Way to incur the wrath of fate, that's stellar behavior from someone who's literally cursed to begin with-"
"Stop bitching, KK." Sollux vanishes into the passage, swallowed instantly by blackness.
"Wait! Oh goddamn, that's it, friendship revoked," Karkat snaps. "Friends don't fucking abandon friends in creepy brainland and yet that is exactly the base treachery I s...Sollux?" he asks suddenly, realizing that not even the psionic's glowing eyes are visible in the blackness. "Hey, come back for a minute, I can't see you." He hesitates for a moment, staring into the silent space with an increasing sense of misgiving. "You stupid bastard," he finally grates out, taking a deep breath and running into the dark.