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Nepeta hadn’t talked to him since their awkward conversation on the stairs in Kanaya’s hive. She had hardly spoken to anyone but Equius, hanging out by herself in the room she had claimed as her respiteblock. At first, it hadn’t bothered him. It wasn’t as though they had anything they needed to talk about. They had had a sweep to talk about things, and they had covered all the topics. All of them.
But now there were new topics to talk about, and Karkat found himself in need of a pair of hear ducts. At first he had been fine chatting with Kanaya and occasionally Aradia whenever she decided to come out for some company. He hadn’t thought anything of Nepeta’s absence. She probably just needed some time to think about things, he thought. He needed time to think about things, too.
But then days and days had passed, their ship had broken down and gotten side-swiped by a stray meteor, Vriska and Terezi had come to save them from becoming stranded in space, and they had had an emotionally charged reunion, but still she hadn’t spoken a word to him. He had only seen her once or twice, and she had slipped away quietly before he could even greet her. It had become glaringly obvious that she was avoiding him.
And it was pissing him the fuck off.
“What did that wall ever do to you?” Terezi asked, sitting next to him. “I remember you being kind of uptight, but this is just stupid.”
“It’s nothing,” he said, more forcefully than necessary.
“Oh, well, sorry I asked,” she said, grimacing.
“Wait, I mean, it’s not—“ he said, and he sighed. “I have a lot on my mind.”
“About what?”
“Oh, I don’t know...about how my moirail is apparently this awful person now and I can’t seem to get into contact with him, or maybe about the fact that I’m in space like I always wanted to be but now I have no idea what to do with myself,” he said, beginning a list while his tone oozed sarcasm. “Maybe it caught me a little off-guard to learn that Sollux is now basically royalty by association, and I guess Tavros being dead was a bit of a shock. And I really wasn’t expecting to hear that somehow you became a bloodthirsty pirate with Vriska of all people. Seriously, what the fuck is that about? I thought you were better than that.”
She frowned. “I already told you why I’m doing what I’m doing, and it's not my business if you don't get it.”
“Well, maybe I have things that I need to talk about that you won’t understand!” he snapped. “Maybe I’m mysterious and interesting, too! Maybe I have high, noble aspirations that are easy to misinterpret as villainous, and maybe you’re the one not getting me!”
“Karkat, what are you even talking about?”
“I don’t even fucking know anymore. I don’t know what I fucking wanted, but it sure as hell wasn’t this. Why the fuck aren’t we getting along?”
“Maybe because you’ve been nothing but a moody douche since you got here,” she replied. “You and Kanaya have both been so uptight! It’s like you’re in some sort of secret cult where you shove sticks up your nooks and renounce all social skills.”
“We—wait, Kanaya’s been uptight, too?”
“If you spent less time sulking, you would have noticed! I think she and Vriska got into a fight.”
“A fight? About what?”
“I don’t know. Vriska and I don’t really have heartfelt conversations about our feelings."
“Right, because you’re kismesisses,” Karkat sneered. “Everyone’s got a fucking kismesis nowadays, don’t they? It’s like they grow on fucking trees.”
“Who else do you know who has a kismesis?”
“What about—“ he started, and then he realized that he was thinking about Nepeta’s shipping wall and not reality. “Okay, maybe not kismesisses, but everyone and their fucking neighbor are engaged in some sort of concupiscent relationship. When the fuck did that happen?”
“What did you expect? You’ve been living in a cave for a sweep—“
“Troll fucking Messiah, I know I’ve been living in a cave! We all know I’ve squandered away one of the most important developmental sweeps of my life in a godforsaken fucking cave,” Karkat burst out, seething. Terezi frowned.
“You’ve gotten really hard to talk to, you know that?”
“I’m just freaking the fuck out, okay?” he said. “I never thought this far ahead, and now I’m here and I don’t know what the fuck to do. I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to be feeling, and I don’t know who the fuck to talk to. None of you idiots have any idea what I’m going through, and the only purrson who could pawsibly understand has been avoiding me for no goddamn reason. Or, I mean, I guess she probably does have a reason, but fuck do I really have to deal with that on top of everything else right now? Is it so hard to ask that everything be fucking simple for a change?”
“Why don’t you just go back to Alternia?” Terezi suggested with a biting note of sarcasm.
“No, that’s exactly what I don’t want to do! I think.” He made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat and tugged on his hair. “You’re not fucking helping, you know that?”
She snickered. “I know. I can't help it, you’re too adorable when you get like this.”
He let his hands fall into his lap and glared down at them. Before Conscription Day—hell, even half a sweep ago—his heart would have jumped when she said that. Now, it just thudded leadenly. What was wrong with him?
“Nothing’s how it’s supposed to be,” he said, and Terezi could sense his sudden change in demeanor. She grimaced and stood up.
“You’re no fun anymore!” she said, and the statement felt like a blow. “Seriously, you and Kanaya should have a tightass powwow and talk out all your feelings. Maybe then you guys can both stop being so pathetic!”
With that, she turned and left. Karkat didn’t attempt to stop her. He sat quietly for a few minutes, grinding his teeth, and, sighing, he stood. It took him a while to find Kanaya, but when he did, she seemed as down as he felt. Terezi hadn’t been kidding. When he plopped down next to her, even he could feel the gloom radiating from the both of them.
She glanced at him and he shifted, and, as nonchalantly as he could, he said, “Terezi told me you got into a fight with Vriska.”
She sighed and pressed her fingers against her temple in frustration. “I did not get into a fight with Vriska,” she said. “We simply had a misunderstanding about our emotions and things have gotten slightly awkward between us. That is all.”
“Oh,” he said, somehow feeling a little disappointed.
She looked at him. “What about you?” she asked.
“What about me what?”
“You want to talk about something.”
“What made you think that?”
“I sincerely doubt you sought me out to comfort me for my imaginary fight with Vriska. Does this have something to do with your fight with Nepeta?”
“What?” he squawked, heat rising in his face. “What fight?”
“The fight you had on the stairs.”
“That wasn’t a fight! That was a—fuck, that wasn’t even something I can define as any particular thing. A misunderstanding, if that’s what we’re calling things that aren’t fights but cause problems.”
“I see,” she said. “Is it about your...misunderstanding, then? I’ve noticed that she’s been avoiding you.”
“Yeah, no fucking kidding!” he said. “But that’s not why I came to talk to you.”
“It’s not?”
“No.”
“...Then why did you come to talk to me?”
“Because...Terezi.”
“Terezi?”
“Yes, damn it, Terezi.”
“What about her?”
“I don’t fucking know and that’s the whole goddamn problem!” he exclaimed. “I mean, what the fuck, I’ve been kicking myself since Conscription Day for not telling her how I feel, and now, here we are, hanging out like I never thought we’d get the chance to again, and everything’s fucking wrong. I should be enjoying this, but I’m just so fucking annoyed all the time. I feel like there’s nothing I can talk to her about! She’s had all these awesome adventures skipping around the galaxy terrorizing people in the name of this true justice cause I inspired her to take up, and what the fuck have I done? Nothing. A big shitload of fucking nothing. How the fuck am I supposed keep a conversation afloat when all I have to say is, ‘Hey, check this, me and Nepeta took down a musclebeast this one time, it was definitely a fucking accomplishment.’ She’d fucking laugh at me! Or call me cute or some other derogatory bullshit like that. I feel so degraded when I’m with her even when I don’t talk! It’s frustrating as hell! We’re supposed to be falling madly flushed for each other and forming a matespritship the likes of which the universe has never seen before, but anymore I feel so overshadowed I wonder if I’m not going more black than red!”
He finished by crossing his arms and slouching, all but pouting. Kanaya considered his outburst. “So, what you’re saying is, you’re upset because you expected to have redder feelings for Terezi than you do, and you’re beginning to resent her for it.”
He opened his mouth but faltered, furrowing his brow. “Maybe...yeah, maybe that’s it.”
Kanaya nodded. “I can imagine that would be frustrating. It’s difficult when you’ve spent so much time building up a situation, only to find it’s not at all how you imagined it would be.”
He grumbled something and fell silent, considering the possibility. It felt right. He didn’t like it, but it felt as though it described his situation. His heart clenched with a feeling similar to heartbreak, and he sighed. “Is that what happened with you?” he asked.
“What?”
“You and Vriska.”
“Oh,” she said, frowning. “No. Well, perhaps. I’m not sure.” She paused, and it seemed as though she wasn’t going to continue. She eventually said, “I overstepped my bounds. I tried to turn a pale relationship into a red one, and I think I may have jeopardized both.”
“Oh, really?” Karkat asked, surprised. He and Nepeta had speculated on the possibility of a red relationship between Kanaya and Vriska, but they had come to the conclusion that Vriska needed someone less motherly in her flushed quadrant. It seemed that they had been right. With guilt, he suppressed the pride he felt for their correct analysis and concentrated on comforting Kanaya. “So, shit, you guys broke up?”
The gloom intensified. “Not officially, but I think we may.”
“Well, fuck, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“No, it’s fine...it was my fault. She...had red feelings for another troll who recently died. Not too recently, but I guess it was recently enough. I should have known better.”
“Oh...” he said, unsure of how to reply. The information caught him off guard. It had always been hard for him to imagine Vriska in redrom romance with anyone, so picturing her in a tragedy involving the death of a dear flushed interest was completely foreign to him. And despite all the reasons he disliked her, he felt sympathetic towards her for it. He shook his head. “You know,” he said, “I used to bitch to Nepeta all the time about how we’d never get a chance at romance, but now that we’re here...god, it’s just a huge fucking mess, isn’t it?”
Kanaya nodded. “I agree,” she said, sighing. “You know what they say...the next quadrant over is always more charming. Perhaps we should have been satisfied with what we had. Well...other people don't actually say that, since I just now coined the phrase, but 'you know what they say' sounds more credible.”
Karkat grimaced. “It’s easy for you to say. I didn’t have anything. I fucked up my chance the first time, had nothing, got another shot, and fucked it up again. And now I have nothing again. Hell, I have worse than nothing, now that I know my moirallegiance is basically sunk and Nepeta’s giving me the most massive, undeserved cold shoulder recorded in recent history.”
She studied his face. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“What?”
“Is Nepeta in one of your quadrants?”
He bristled, making an angry noise at the back of his throat. “No! Fuck no. We’re just friends.”
“...I see,” she said, choosing to overlook his blush.
“Look, okay, things are complicated right now,” he explained. “I’m going to be honest, I’m sort of pissed she’s avoiding me. We were in this together. I mean, fuck, it’s just that when you live with a person for that long, you get comfortable, you know what I mean? It’s not like I need her to listen to me bitch about all my personal shit, but what with our shared experiences and all that, she’d probably get where I’m coming from better than anyone else. Like, she’s probably the only person on this damn ship who could sympathize with my moirail problem. And I can understand if she needs some space—I needed some space too—but goddamn do I have to give her the berth of the whole fucking universe so she can figure her shit out?”
“Do you know what she’s upset about?” Kanaya asked.
“Who says she’s upset?”
“Karkat,” Kanaya said, sighing, “it’s fairly obvious she’s upset about something.”
“Well, fuck if I know,” he said. “You know what I think it is?”
“What do you think it is?”
“I think that raging nook-slapping shitbulge she calls her moirail told her not to talk to me anymore. I fucking knew he would. I fucking knew this was going to happen. She was so insistent that she wouldn’t listen if he disapproved of our...friendship, but everyone knows that the sweaty doucheking’s word is law in Nepeta-land. What a fucking traitor.”
“You really think that’s what it is?” Kanaya asked, lifting a skeptical eyebrow.
“Fuck yeah I do. What else could it be?”
“Have you thought that perhaps it has something to do with her suspicions about your relationship with Terezi?”
He froze. “What?”
“What she said on the stairs, about—“
“You eavesdropper!” he said. “That was a private conversation!”
“You had to have known I heard part of it,” she responded. “You were talking on the stairs of my hive as I was coming down.”
“I don’t have to have known anything,” he snapped. “I don’t make a habit out of airing my dirty laundry where other people can get their noses all over it.”
“It isn't something you need to be ashamed about. Maybe you should be asking yourself why this issue is upsetting you so much instead of actively avoiding it. Whatever the problem is between you and Nepeta, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Equius. Perhaps you should be considering more closely the implications of your relationship.”
“Perhaps you should quit meddling in our business!” he said. She started, and her eyes narrowed.
“Well, I’m sorry for trying to help. I’ll stop my meddling.”
She stood, and before he could recover from the shock of her sudden change in attitude, she had left. She stomped towards her respiteblock, irritation and not a little sadness solidifying her intent to slam the door behind her and never come out again. But as she passed the hallway that led to Nepeta’s respiteblock, she stopped.
She conducted a brief mental and emotional battle with herself. On one hand, she had something to prove to herself and everyone she knew, Vriska at the top of that list. On the other hand...
She sighed and turned down the hallway, stopping before Nepeta’s door and knocking. She waited a few moments, beginning to wonder if Nepeta was in at all, but finally the door opened.
“Kanaya?” Nepeta asked, poking her head out the door.
“Nepeta,” Kanaya greeted her curtly, her irritation making her stiff. “I believe you should talk to Karkat. He’s a fool. That is all.”
Without another word, she turned and stomped back down the hall, leaving Nepeta standing alone in her doorway, confusion stamped across her face.