thoughtformed | UTTER GARBAGE.

Technicolour wasteland; a sky full of stars -- like looking through a kaleidoscope with blurry binoculars. The sand isn't like New Moore's beaches. It isn't only the murder of colours: it's the way it agitates itself into shapes like distorted mandalas. No wind. Large coils of sand twist like snakes with minds of their own. Rocks erupt from the surface, similar only in that they are also explosions of rainbow.

Two moons shine like bulbs: pink and green.

Where the hell is this?

Alternian desert.

Nothing but rocks and sand as far as one can see -- colours and swirls and the sinking sensation of sand moving beneath your feet like an undertow; as if you're held captive in a world-sized hourglass and it's happening so slowly you won't notice till you're sucked through the center and suffocated in a concentration of distinctly grainy not-earth. You'll die here, probably. Sorry. I'd get you out but I'm gonna be honest here: you're totally boned. Maybe things would be different if, you know, you weren't in here? Not invading someone else's space? This is a huge invasion of privacy and if you go and get yourself killed, it's not on me. You know what private means, right? It means this isn't for you. Not you. Not fucking you. How many "you"s do I have to project until you get the god damn point? I don't have for-fucking-ever. It doesn't take some timeless prime ass to tell you it's running out.

Whatever.

There's a messy scrap of black-and-gray-scale not very far away. It's lying down, but crumples up into a crouch. It makes a noise like pfffffpfppfppffbbbbt, which sounds an awful lot like someone spitting out sand. Then it covers its mouth, making no attempt to identify the intruder. It looks, face full of sour sullenness stolen from some ill-tempered child.

Karkat says, "I wasn't eating sand." Muffled.

Which seems a bit defensive for someone who wasn't eating sand.

Karkat may or may not have been eating sand, but Gamzee is definitely trying to eat it. His spine is hunched over a small pit he's digging with his bare hands, knobs like a row of blunt teeth beneath his shirt. Posture: defensive. Gaze: startled. Shit, man. He had no idea you were here.

He swallows, guiltily.

"Hahah," he says aloud, instead of laughing. Dusts his palms off on his bent knees. "Me, uh... me neither."

Oh. Just Gamzee. What's he doing in here? (This particular dream contains no gruesome clown murder -- at least before now. The future is unwritten.)

The sand tastes remarkably like sand, which is presumably what sand should taste like if it's sand. Which this is. Which Karkat was not eating for any reason. He glowers, eyes narrowing while he considers the denial.

Seems safe enough. He swats at his own mouth, but that's in no way to brush away any remnants of the sand he was definitely not consuming. "Dude. You were totally eating sand just now," he says, his voice soaring for the verbal eyeroll of someone who has the moral high ground. "Don't even lie to me."

(What an optimistic assessment. Attabro, Karkat.)

It did in fact turn out to be just sand, despite being colored like a mixed bag of jellygrubs and thus powerfully appetizing to a troll's gandering nodules. But in a way, finding that out by swallowing a couple fistfuls has brought Gamzee just that much closer to union with the mysteries of the cosmos. In another way, it was fucking stupid, but like, it's all about letting that shit wash over you, you know? Sometimes you just got to up and do what seems right according to whatever happens to occur to you at a time.

"Shit, bro," Gamzee snickers, making an impressive mess of his face by shifting the sand into different regions of the greasepaint with a grimy palm. "I guess you up and found me out."

Genius strikes. A topic change will halt this investigation. Smooth moves, Makara. You've got this one in the noose.

"But you were like. Also eating sand, brother," he points out. "What's that shit about?"

Or it's bringing him closer to the mysteries inside Karkat's mind -- which tend to slope toward being much more unfortunate, pathetic, and less straight-forward than the mysteries of the cosmos. At least the cosmos has real mysteries.

Karkat's mouth twitches. He finds a place to the right of Gamzee, focusing on a sandy wave of some purple-pink not so far in the distance. "What, no." Very convincing, but maybe move your eyes from the sand?

The pink-purple strip disappears, devoured by a darker cousin. Mixed in.

But in this case, isn't that the same as gone?

His eyes lower before lifting to settle on Gamzee's slightly-safer face, like he can't decide where to put them -- but seriously, that mess looks horrible. Why does he do things like this? Okay, don't get distracted. Back on the topic of personal innocence: "Why would I eat sand?" Good question! "There's no point to eating sand." Very true. "I've never eaten sand in my life." Technically true, unless you count dreams. "But if I was eating sand, which I wasn't, I sure as fuck bet it was better than whatever reason you had for it."

Solid.

Everyone from every other dream should start lining up to buy that excuse.

It's a shame that the rhetorical flourishes of this undisputed grandmaster fall on ears like Gamzee's. He can't pay attention to that many words, bro. What is this guy even saying? Something about "no". Gamzee can accept that vibe. He can dig that shit. What a cantankerous motherfucker, this nubby brother of his.

The sands may or may not ripple, behind him. It's tough to tell what a thing or place is doing behavior wise if you ain't watching that motherfucker close. Like magnets. Does any troll really know with surety what a magnet gets up to if you look away from that little miracle fucker for a moment? Nope. Blows your mind, doesn't it.

"Damn," he drawls, lurching to unsteady bare feet, toes sinking into the inedible ground. He's weaving back on forth, knees shaking. "What's a brother doing all the way out here, then?"

Here. All the way out in his brain. All the way out in the desert, but not to eat sand.

Magnets aren't miracles. They're science. Didn't Gamzee pay attention in the human schoolfeeding sessions? It's like no matter how many times you actually try to explain magnets to him, he just buckles down, belches faygo, and says something like damn, motherfuckin' mystical. No, you stupid son of shit. Nothing was mystical. It was-

A dark blue ring rolls in as if to enclose Gamzee's feet as he stands. Like a counter-attack, green co-mingles in the changing sands, entwining with the blue, but still distinct, pushing it back out as if Gamzee was a large weight dropped in the water and the ripples twirled and scattered to escape him.

In kind, Karkat also rises to fix his crumpled crouching posture.

At some length, he says, "I was trying to catch up to that guy, but I lost him the last time this place flipped." Very descriptive. "I have a lot to say to him, you know? But the fucker doesn't listen. It's like he can't even hear me. He never stops walking."

Gamzee barely acknowledges the rippling, watching the olive chase the cerulean away from him in mute disinterest. Scratches the small of his back. Blinks.

"Man, fuck that guy," he agrees. Cracks his knuckles a few times, like he has a particular relish for the sound. His eyes continue to dart over the sands, blown pupils rolling from side to side. Maybe the weaving is deliberate. Maybe not. "Why's he gotta be like that, bro?"

Licks his hips. Starts to hum.

"We could hunt a motherfucker down," he suggests, interrupting the tune, but only for a moment.

Karkat's face does something beneath its surface that muscle movement doesn't quite betray. Whatever the minuscule changes in the foundation of his emotional state, it leaves him looking quieter. "Just forget about it." He looks away. Where do eyes go? Anywhere but Gamzee. "We're not going to find him now. He's gone."

Even so, he turns and starts walking. What else was there to do? Sit there and observe? Have awkward conversations?

That seems like it'll happen anyway. Might as well do something else while doing it. "At this point I just start eating sand until I can't handle how fucking stupid it is and I wake up or the area changes."

Karkat, brother, you ought to know better than to look away from a motherfucker.

Gamzee lunges forward like fluid through the air, the motion spearheaded by a single outstretched hand. Hot knife slicing through butter. Almost a jump, legs propelling him at top speed; no plans to halt the momentum. Aiming to grab Karkat by the back of his head.

The dream is in a different compartment: paranoia doesn't save him.

"Hey." He turns a look over his shoulder as he walks -- not enough to see Gamzee where he would have been if he was walking like a reasonable creature who does reasonable things. "I th-"

Adrenaline: what takes seconds to say takes less to feel, each sentiment screaming something different. Block him! No time. Dodge him! Footing's wrong. Run! Too close. Fight! No weapon, no chance.

His head drops faster than it would have if a chasm opened beneath them. What follows is like watching a cat twist and spring sideways, escaping by the width of a whisker.

But now what?

Karkat's eyes are wide, teeth clenched behind the cover of a tight mouth filled with the taste of metal. His back isn't turned anymore. His hasty backstepping leaves sloppy red prints as he assesses the need to turn again and run. Misunderstanding? Murder? Misunderstanding? Murder? Misunderstanding? Murder? Misunder-

Owners who care won't grab their fleeing cats by their tails, but those intent on doing them harm will.

It's the same for Gamzee if he continues his breakneck pursuit, only instead of a tail there's an arm.

Edited (KARKAT'S WISHFUL THINKING ON ORIGINALLY WRITING "CHOOSES" INSTEAD OF "CONTINUES") 2014-03-02 22:19 (UTC)

His grip latches onto Karkat's forearm like the bolt of a lock clicking into place. How many pounds of applied pressure does it take to break a bone? A little more than this. But not much. The speed at which the jerking motion is made probably puts a lot of stress on the shoulder socket. Gamzee's not pulling anything off, though.

He's helping.

You tried to get away. Why would you try to get away, Karkat? Why don't you ever hold still.

"Is he, bro?" Licks his chops like a dog. Adrenaline tastes like singing. "Like... we ain't even looked for him yet."

Coaxing wheedle. Gamzee is smiling so broad and expansive and with so many teeth.

Edited (forgot some filler words to make good sentences :o() 2014-03-02 22:40 (UTC)

What a relief that is when it feels like Gamzee's two seconds away from dislocating it! Oh wait. That's not a relief at all.

Pain.

A hpf! pops from his throat, but the noise doesn't open his mouth. That's as good as sealed until he inhales, rattling a seethe through his teeth -- sharper than most humans, but not as sharp as Gamzee's.

He might as well have snapped a yo-yo for how quickly Karkat jerked back to him, but at least he doesn't slam into Gamzee's body. When he catches his balance and steels his posture -- as if being still might free him from the deadlock on his arm -- he finds himself glaring at Gamzee's neck. One eye is winced half-shut. There are flecks of transluscent red at the edges and a glossy film over his eyes.

Head like a heartbeat. Cotton-stuffed mind. The only things Karkat hears are Gamzee's voice, the pulsing of his blood, and the snarl of his own shaking voice when he says, "You fucking asshole-"

The fear hasn't vacated. If anything, it's establishing permanent residence. On occasion things can override it -- like complaining or grumbling, because what the fuck, man? That hurt. His gaze lifts, looking to Gamzee's face. Grains of colour have infiltrated his irises as if blown there by whorls of sand: red stars against a gray backdrop.

At his side, his free hand is a twitching fist.

Around them, patterns persist; indifferent.

It is with the utmost (disturbing) gentleness that Gamzee raps the knuckle of his index finger against Karkat's forehead and then presses his palm to it. As if he were checking the temperature. As if nothing were wrong at all.

"Found him. He's in here, man. It's all up here."

The way he looks at the colors running in Karkat's irises - fascination? Hunger? His own are slowly being eaten by pupil; they'll be pitch black soon. It is a motile darkness, something stirring under the surface. His teeth are parted. He's breathing through his mouth.

"Don't worry none," he croons. It is not a pleasant noise. It dies off into a rattling laugh. "I got this."

With high speed and typical excessive force, he hooks a foot behind Karkat's and then yanks on his arm - intending to topple him to the ground and pin him.

Should've hit him; would've had the same result for as hard as he flinches when the knuckle touches him the first time. His eyes screw shut in a wince, waiting for a pain that doesn't come -- at least not there. When the palm covers his forehead, he lifts his eyelashes to look again. (They're wet.) His face has none of the colour in the sand around them, but the emotions pulling at his face would have appeared all the same if they shared similar visibility -- but it's confusion that dominates his voice. "...what?"

What did that mean? He blinks the film away from his eyes, as if that's going to help him think clearly. There's something odious about it. Should know. Don't know. Can't figure it out: like some crucial portion of the thinking process ceased functioning during his internal conflict. Was this a misunderstanding?

Karkat isn't sure -- but he is sure he doesn't like how Gamzee's looking at him. His brows angle in, nose wrinkling in distaste as he leans back. That second set of words isn't helping the matter. Neither is that voice. "What are y-"

He goes down like a wounded prey animal.

Adrenaline again. Kill him! It shrieks. Don't let him kill you! And if you can't kill him, don't go without a fight. Go for the eyes. The throat. The anything.

He swings his free arm and yelps, "Gamzee!" The movement is quick, but clumsy and without violence: his hand only grasps for Gamzee's shirt -- an endeavour even more useless than blinking tears away to wipe fog from your mind. It won't save him from falling.

Elsewhere it might play out differently.

In here, Karkat never wins.

Poor, small, stupid motherfucker.

Knee settles on the arm he was holding to keep it pinned; Gamzee lets go of it with a reluctant twitch of the wrist. As though the contact were an intimacy he dislikes having to relinquish. Both hands settle on Karkat's temples, instead. Cradling his addled skull.

"The guy, bro. He's in here," Gamzee asserts. The statement is cheerful in its simplicity; punctuated by the press of his thumbs into the skin above each (furrowed, outraged) eyebrow. "It's all in your shitty little thoughtpan."

His thumbs press harder.

Terror and turmoil are interesting expressions on their own. Combining them in Karkat produces mixed results: they refuse to co-exist (should be easy but isn't) and aren't sure which should dominate. Their struggle is an even match, unlike the short-lived violent joke that landed him on his back, pinned beneath Gamzee. It's hard to breathe; like the capacity for it's been crushed from his chest.

"Wait-" A frantic, dizzy wisp of sound.

One arm may be restrained (somehow the knee hurts less) but the other's still free. (Why? Did he want to give some kind of illusion of freedom?)

Tentative, soft like submission, Karkat's palm curls over the back of one of Gamzee's (can't cover the whole thing; might never be able to) and squeezes; as if holding his hand more than resisting murder. "Wait," gentle, but clearer. "Gamzee, don't do this yet."

His eyelashes lower, like dimming lights.

If the request isn't honoured, that face isn't the last thing he wants to see before he dies.

"Yeah," Roxy grins. "But you're about to!"

The ground feels way too soft under her feet, so she has to time her steps perfectly, making sure to pace them with the very subtle undercurrent beneath her. It's more like walking through a shallow but swift river, only it isn't water and she's never really had that experience. But you know, when you read about something enough, it's almost like it totally happened to you. So that pursuit of in volume six that takes place through the river- the whole chapter was a little murky, but that's just to set the scene of the bog and subsequent polluted river Calmasis trekked through- that sorta feels like this. Well, you kinda had to be there. And having read a fictional book made more fictional by my own fabrication of a pursuit chapter.

At a close enough distance, Roxy scoops up a fistful of sand, packs it and hurls it towards Karkat. She's had a great deal of practice throwing snowballs with her new roommate, this is basically the same thing.

Except then the wind whips the multicolor sand back in her face.

"Ugh," she spits dust. "I imagined that going a lot differently."

A perfect circle of gray doors, like someone rewrote the face of a clock and gave it thirteen numerals. Each one has been engraved with a number; every number has a colour:

I. This door is thick and ancient. Heavy. Rusted in spots. A reminder of days when Every Kind There Is And Ever Was discovered they were all Is.
II. The colour on this engraving is faded.
III. A speck of colour here and there: what it used to be.
IV. Like IVs and blood transfusions. Somewhere, far away from the engraving and near the bottom, a splotch of unrelated colour.
V. This one is scratched.
VI. And this one, mottled.
VII. Like it's been licked clean.
VIII. Slop of paint: a messy numeral.
IX. An inexplicably exquisite exhibition. Shines.
X. Something's wrong with this colour.
XI. Sporadic, but present, faded in parts by the thin layer of dust.
XII. Bubbly characters. Like giggles.
XIII. No handle. The numeral travels acXIIIross the door each tiXIIIme you look. Where will iXIIIt go next?

There are no lines to separate a floor from walls; no shadows to indicate a ceiling -- like an optical illusion where all that exists is doors. These are the universe: all else is red. Except Karkat, on his back on a nonexistent floor, staring at a nonexistent ceiling. His irises are as red as the room.

If you can call it a room.

Open the doors if you want. This guy doesn't seem to care.

Edited (REDUNDANCY EDIT.) 2014-03-01 19:48 (UTC)

Oh, whatever the fuck this is, Eridan doesn't have the stomach for it. Looking between the doors and Karkat, taking his time now that he sees the other troll's still breathing. Glances up at the ceiling to see if he can spot what's so interesting, but the action only serves to disorient Eridan thanks to the lack of up, down or sides.

Little groan, sinks don to the nonexistent floor.

"Ugh, I'm gonna be sick."

"Huh?"

Karkat looks sidelong, but he doesn't see Eridan on either side. A glance downward toward his own body reveals nothing he doesn't already know. It takes tipping his chin up and looking back, upside-down. "Oh." The red eyes can't help the disorientation. "Hey." It's like looking right through him; like there's nothing behind them.

"Sorry. This place fucked but I'm not opening the doors anymore." Dead things sound more alive. "I think they all lead back here until you go through all of them? But there's just so much shit it's not worth the effort."

Edited (WRONG WORD I WANTED TO USE THIS ONE.) 2014-03-02 18:47 (UTC)

"Open the doors'?" Eridan echoes, voice a rasp between the waves of nausea. "Are you fuckin kiddin me? Why would I open the doors, pretty sure I don't want to see any of those people."

Rubs the temples of his forehead, chancing a glance down at Karkat and nope- still woozy.

"What the hell did you do with the-" Floor? Walls? Ceiling? "-everything?"

Edited 2014-03-03 22:06 (UTC)

Eridan's complaining makes the muscles in his face twitch. (How many times does his face in these dreams have furrowed brows and frowns? There are way more of those than doors.) He snaps, "What the fuck do you mean, 'what the hell did I do?'" and the life bleeds back into him.

His mouth curls into a sneer while he sits up, turning both head and body to get a better look at Eridan. "There are renovations, okay? It's not like all the doors are properly marked. And anyway how aren't you used to this already. Didn't you spend a lot of time in the ocean? Same fucking thing." Not exactly.

Let's be honest; if Eridan wasn't complaining it'd be a hell of a lot more unnerving. He raises his sour look to Karkat.

"Firstly, this isn't anythin like the ocean. Because there is a bottom to the ocean and you wouldn't even begin to understand its terror. This is downright grubplay compared to that." We are a few snappish remarks from someone who's been here less than five minutes trying to explain your own dream to you, fair warning.

"And second, what's whether or not they're marked correctly change the fact I don't wanna see any of them?" he sniffs, eyes darting only momentarily to Feferi's door. "So again- what'd you do? Why are the doors screwed up? The fuck does that represent-- oh, okay. Okay, I'm kinda getting grounded- maybe." Eridan chances a further look around the room, face still drawn up in discomfort and disgust. That might not be related to his vertigo though, that's kinda just his face.

"Oh please! I bet you anything if I could breathe water I could handle how so-called 'terrifying' the ocean is--but I can't, so what business do I have in it? Fucking zero. So zero it's practically sub-zero and the ocean's frozen, so you'll just have to take my word for it."

The shitty excuses are starting early. It's not even summer yet.

As if to prove there's no vertigo to be had for normal, entirely well-adjusted people in a heinous nightmare (a demographic to which one person here does not belong), Karkat stands on the absence of ground, mumbling incoherent complaints to himself while he swipes at a long sleeve of his shirt, slapping non-existent dust, glaring at Eridan.

Once that distraction's over, another snap: "I already said I didn't do anything! How am I supposed to know what the fuck is happening here? Dreams don't make sense. I just know I can't get in one door and I'm pretty sure Sollux's door has Nathan in it? I can't get away from him. It's fucking weird, man. He has corpse parties all by himself in there."

"You know, I kinda think I prefer my fucked-up subconscious acid trips to yours."

Dave wanders the circle with his hands in his pockets, studiously unconcerned. The alternative is to be concerned, and nah, fuck that. It's just Karkat. Dave's floated through enough dream bubbles with him to have at least a general idea of what to expect, though this is a little more Freudian than he's used to. Jungian? Man, who even knows. This place is Weird and he doesn't want to spend any more time here than he has to. It's disconcerting to see his color in Karkat's eyes--at least when he looks like that.

"So how do I wake you up? I've got sweet, sweet dreams of dying repeatedly in heinous and creative ways to get back to. That and dongs." He rolls his shoulders and tries not to look at the thirteenth door. At least he dreams with his shades on. Karkat can't see him wince. "Succulent, all organic kosher beef maces. Finger-lickin' good."

He stops in the center of the circle to look back at Karkat. "You can come with if you want," he offers blandly.

Better get used to it, Strider. One day it's going to be a permanent addition.

The eyes. Not the expression.

Maybe.

Karkat doesn't move, except the arm he drapes across his eyes. (Don't look. It's weird. Don't ask.) "Oh man. How'd you know you're exactly the person I wanted fucking around in my subconsciousness?" He sounds excited, if excitement is dead and never waking up again. "Fucking excellent choice, bro. Almost twice as good as getting murdered by Gamzee. Make that four times as good since I'm pretty sure that's happened to me twice already." He isn't sure. Details get fuzzy. "Mother fuckin' double value! Where the hell is Sollux. He'd appreciate this."

A moment later, he adds, "And can you stop talking about dongs." Too weirdly descriptive. He really doesn't need any new additions here.

As far as leaving goes: "But it's cool, thanks. I'm gonna stay here. It's kinda nice? Like... the way nothing's happening, I guess."

Karkat's not looking, but even if he were, Dave's unflappable unconcern remains utterly unflapped. The slight downturn at the corners of his mouth and the brief flicker between his brows are tricks of the non-light as he shifts his gaze away, nothing more.

"Suit yourself, dude."

He considers the first door for a moment, the one that feels as familiar and inevitable as the scabbing of his own blood, but it's too close to that disturbing thirteenth door. He turns completely around to keep those scrolling numbers out of sight. This is inevitable, too: the only other door that would draw him. Dave touches the seventh just below the Terezi-teal VII.

"Am I going to find douchebag shipping grids behind these doors? Because if I do, I'm going to find a way to kill myself until I wake up and then kick your ass back into consciousness."

Oh, he'll suit himself all right. He has so many suits. He'll put the suit on, suit the fuck up, choke from the tie, completely mess it up, then just take it off and go casual! Watch him. That's how he's going to suit himself. Fuck you. You don't even know. Kanaya isn't here to fix it.

He hasn't moved his arm, but he doesn't need to see Dave to know where he is. (Wouldn't need to be his dream for him to know.) There's no trick of light here: Karkat's mouth takes a turn down like a dull, barely-curved sickle. "She's fine." Pause. "I mean, Terezi's is fine since that's what you're asking." Not if. "Comparatively fine," he adds, because it may not be fine for Dave. "Pretty typical stuff. We get along until we don't or until something else happens. Or she just slams the door in my face and won't talk to me and I have to go somewhere else. She's probably dead though. Usually it's only a... well, if I had to put a figure on it I'd say sixty-two percent chance of that? But it's been a ninety-two kinda day."

Another pause.

"Hey, before you leave... you've seen other timelines, right?"

She's probably dead though. Dave doesn't quite snatch his hand back from the door like it's burned him (they wait for he who would drop it like it's hot), but even if he just lets it dangle by his side, it's too abrupt to be casual.

Whatever masochistic curiosity survived Karkat's summary of the door's contents gutters out completely. There are some things Dave doesn't hate himself enough to want to see, even on his worst days.

He really would rather be in his time-loop suicide nightmares right now. At least he's used to his own corpses, or has had a long time to get familiar with their existential horror. Karkat's dreams bite.

"Some." His answer is slightly delayed. He steps back to half-face Karkat again. "Why. This isn't one."

"I know. I don't know--rrrgh."

Silence: there's no ground for his foot to meet when he bends a knee and stomps. His hands move, gripping fistfuls of his own hair as he sits up, snarling, "Because that's a clear answer! I know, I don't know -- which one is it, you moron? Fuck!"

One can't say fits like this are uncommon or caused by excessive mental stress. One can, however, question the precise location of excessive mental stress on the Aggressively Advanced Psychological Issues echeladder.

"Okay," he adds when it passes, ruffling his head to return his hair to its natural shape of what a fucking mess, turning to face Dave. He's still sitting. Now he's staring. (At least he's moving?) "Okay." Again. "I know this isn't. I know we're not in the medium anymore. I know the whole 'it had to happen that way' excuse in all of that already and I'm not talking about that. I mean everything you've seen or what you know. Like... what kind of lives does everybody have? Jade and John. And Rose. It might not be great but they're not totally fucked, right? Something usually happens, I know, and it goes to shit and that usually happens at the end."

And if they die, they die quick.

"But..." Somewhere in here, he's stopped looking at him. "Before that it's mostly fine, right?"

Even if he's at least visibly alive, Dave is starting to feel really uncomfortable standing there and watching Karkat so--what does he even call this. Vulnerable? Unhappy? Tired. This is ridiculous. Karkat's fucking asleep, why should he be tired when he's actually unconscious.

Rather than think about it, Dave drifts over and takes a seat by his friend, on the opposite side of wherever he's looking. Now neither of them's looking at the other, and that's easier to bear. He leans forward and rests his arms on his knees.

"It's mostly the same," he says, fixing his gaze on the door splashed with Vriska's blue. "The timelines split off because one thing goes differently, you know? So not much of the background stuff changes. We sit around on our asses and avoid getting shit done as much as possible until it's over." He tries not to dwell on how he can't feel anything under his ass. He's sitting and there's nothing to sit on, and even if Dave's used to flying, this is wrong enough to induce a little vertigo. "So I guess it's fine." He shrugs. "If this is fine."

He resists glancing at Karkat to see if it isn't.

Edited 2014-03-04 20:39 (UTC)

The room did nothing. There it was, existing while looking like it shouldn't, casting no shadows; no expectations; nothing. It said: open these or don't. No ultimatums. Not one was ajar as if to call your attention. Sometimes some of them were locked. Despite colour preference, none appeared more attractive than the other. Sure, there was that weird thirteenth door that appeared some time ago that had no handle and was kind of hard to look at with all the red around here, but you can't get in that one anyway so what's the big deal? Who really needs to know what's in there? Now, granted, the way the number keeps moving around is a little creepy, but once you fail to die from it you learn to ignore it.

He notes Dave's movement without looking directly at him; details observed through the corner of an eye and by the sound of his voice.

Too bad the attentive silence isn't made to last.

Karkat puffs a pffff, rolling his eyes. "Well?" How much condescension can you fit in a voice before you become the Condesce? "What do you think."

He was asking about humans, after all.

Look, Dave's from the Egbertian school of If It's There, I'm Gonna Touch It. Vaguely ominous dream doors, shiny paradox slime generating buttons, potato, potahto. It's all the same when you get down to the tropological level. Even now, knowing that Karkat's buddies may or may not be 92% dead on the other side of those doors, Dave's still sure he's going to open one. He just doesn't have any desire to. Rose called it something hoity-toity, he remembers. His sense of something something to inevitable misfortune.

Dave just calls it being an enormous tool, but whatever. He's not going for a door yet, in any case. He huffs a breath through his nose.

"Some of them are better than others." He tilts his head a little in a shrug that's too lazy to be a shrug. "And I only really know about the ones that touch the alpha timeline in some way. If too much is different, or they don't come back to change something, I can only sort of get a feel for how they might've gone. But some of them..."

He trails off. One thumb taps the air at exactly sixty BPM.

"I'm glad I don't see more of them," he finally mumbles.

Yeah.

Sounds about right.

Karkat compacts: knees-to-chest; arms-over-knees; chin-to-arms. It's like soft things hiding in shells, ready to defend themselves.

But not quite. "I think I've told you before but you didn't know the Aradia before Aradia. I don't know if they were the same. They were kind of different. Not that it's surprising. Aradia's had the most fucked up personality changes out of all of us but the Aradia before Aradia? I think she knew everything. I didn't know that at the time, but... after she was gone things started to happen and stuff she said made sense. I fucked up. I mean obviously, but..."

It doesn't end there. "Like, I really fucked everything up. I'm not going into detail since I don't feel like it but I don't think she ever stopped fixing my mistakes. Even my not-mistakes? So the whole outcome of this thing is I had to completely fuck everything up in the worst ways possible? I'm still not buying it, but even this much time later I still can't think of anything that could have gone differently and even if I could I probably tried it already. And okay, don't say anything. I know I've definitely said all this before in various different contexts and it's completely stupid to just start thinking about for no reason but it just kinda happens."

His eyelashes lower; staring through red slits at an equally red ground. Red not-ground. Red whatever-this-is. "I mean, do you ever feel like no matter where you are, what timeline, what kind of cool new alternate iteration of life or reality or whatever-the-fuck-else we experience here that we don't know about, that your current spectacular fucking failure of an existence is the most positive outcome that exists anywhere? Like no matter what, your karmic make-up is specially tailored to get you totally, utterly fucked and the only reason it's not jacked here is because you happened to fall out of a previously-existing timeline. Everything here was never supposed to happen. It's just some kinda weird dead space. Even if we're alive? Not that I'm complaining. Don't think I am. Just..."

Well, that's awkward.

"Okay, forget I said all of that. I have no idea what that has to do with anything."

Dave listens without moving his gaze from Terezi's and Vriska's doors, and only when Karkat finishes does he snort quietly to prove he hasn't suddenly been replaced with a Dream Davebot.

"Bro, you make no sense when you're asleep. Just FYI."

And he does move, now, rearranging his feet to sit cross-legged and running one hand back through his hair. His eyebrows are drawn together behind his shades.

"Look, you can't overthink the timelines or you'll fuck yourself over. I can't think about the timelines without getting totally messed up, all right? The whole thing's dumb as hell." Dave rocks forward a bit, like he's about to get up but changes his mind at the last minute, and stills. He stares at his shoes like there's a complex math problem to work out there.

"I hate it," he says, but then he groans and tilts his face up towards the ceiling. Or where the ceiling would be if Karkat's dreamscape made any sense. "Christ. Forget I said that. This is a dream, you can do that, right? But seriously, that self-obligating back-from-the-future fate shit just--doesn't sit right with me. Which I guess is ironic, for a Time player. In an unironically lame way." He leans back onto his hands and looks off to the side, away from Karkat. "I only do it here because it doesn't matter. The time loops, I mean. They don't mean anything."

After a moment, he tucks his chin in lower with a 'ch' noise. "What I'm trying to get at is." God, what the fuck is he trying to get at. "Don't think about it and it won't eat at you as much. Okay, awesome, that sounded a lot less toolish in my head. Cool."

It's his turn to flop onto his back, hands pressed over his face. "Maybe you're overestimating how much of a fuck-up you are, though," he mutters into his palms. "Just a thought."

Dave isn't the only one who can listen. Karkat is silent, glowering over his arms until Dave's body flops soundlessly out of peripheral sight. He tilts his head to watch him, brows furrowing. Did he just... put his hands over his face while wearing his stupid, pointless, absolutely-in-no-way-necessary sunglasses? Won't that leave a bunch of smudges?

What a tool.

But not for the words. Nothing wrong with those. Perfectly acceptable, normal, would-be-comforting things to say to a friend in some fucked up nightmare room. He exhales a sigh through his nose, closing his eyes; face softening into an expression that could have been relaxed if it was one that let its worries go rather than simply gave up a frown. "Thanks."

Well, that was a shitty way to put it. He tries again: "Not in the 'thanks for nothing' kind of way." Christ. Why would anyone think that? "I mean in the 'yeah, thanks, I appreciate that thing you just said about me not being a colossal fuck-up even if it's not true' kinda way, but I don't wanna go into it any further than that."

Okay, that's probably better.

"And fuck, I'll submit what you said before for deletion. In fact, this whole conversation is submitted for deletion! God, at least we're not talking about this where anyone else can hear it, like outside my head."

A pause. His eyelashes twitch but don't lift.

"Uh, well, I guess that makes it weirder? But who cares, dammit. Consider this first in the selective amnesia queue."

UTTER GARBAGE.

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AND NOW IM SLEEPING.

and now i'm at work

THE FASTEST REPLY I WILL EVER MAKE AND IT WASN'T EVEN THAT FAST.

I THOUGHT I WAS SAFE

YOU WERE SAFE BUT NOW THERE'S THIS.

oops

GAMZEE IS THE FUCKING WORST.

:o)

I'M STILL CLEANING BUT WHY THE HELL WOULDN'T HE TRY TO GET AWAY YOU DICK. THIS ISN'T HELPING!!

this is a great idea and you should trust him

HAVE A DEADKAT FOR A LACK OF BETTER ICONS. I FOUGHT MANY DISTRACTIONS TO FINISH THIS.

may the lord bless you and keep you

COULDN'T SLEEP SO HERE WE ARE. IMAGINE GOING LIMP LIKE A NOODLE CAT. THAT'S WHAT JUST HAPPENED HERE.

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TIME FOR A SECOND, FINALLY.

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FEEL FREE TO DISREGARD IF YOU WANT BUT I'M FINALLY MAKING AN HONEST CRAB OUT OF MYSELF.

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I REALLY DO NOT WANT TO UPLOAD DOCUMENTS.

UPL9AD Y9UR D9CUMENTS ERIN 69SH

I HATE SCANNING DOCUMENTS.

I forgot to say I'll doc UR ment

GOD I'M TIRED AREN'T YOU LUCKY YOU GET THIS MESS BEFORE I GO NAP.

And Iiiii ammmmm the luckiest

HERE'S A REPLY SINCE YOURS IS THE EASIEST TO REPLY TO AT WORK BC A FUCKTON OF DIALOGUE.

Karkat why can't you ignore these problems like everyone else

THIS IS TERRIBLE BUT IT'S HERE. MIGHT AS WELL ABANDON ALL DIGNITY WITH THIS ICON TOO.