Child's Play
By the Idiosyncratic Wordsmith
"Jade! Jade, where the almighty flippant fuck are you?!" Karkat shouted out into the trees.
"The whole point is to find me, silly!" She called back, tauntingly.
For several weeks, he and Jade, despite their immense, insurmountable separation, he on his meteor and she on her ship, all alone, would use the dream bubbles to meet each other and go out on excursions like this, visiting the memories of the dreaming and dead. He remembered the first time they met here in the bubbles, when she was overwhelmed with grief and pain and loneliness from the death of her brother. It almost made him laugh, thinking how only so long ago this girl had slapped him to the ground in a fit of angst and rage, and now she was giggling and frollicking in unknown parts of a forest, trying to get him to play the human game of "hide and seek".
"Jade, this is your fucking memory, you've got a home field advantage over me!" Karkat shouted out again. "You probably know every single limb on every single tree on every single god-forsaken inch of land in this bubble!"
"That just makes it more fun for me and more a challenge for you!" He heard her call. It was irritating, how she did that - either she could throw her voice, or she was constantly moving, because for the past 5 minutes while he's been looking for her, he hasn't heard her voice in the same place twice.
"Maybe I don't fucking want it to be a challenge! Have you considered that, Harley?" He asked, crossing his arms, trying to ignore the heat of the jungle. He heard her giggle. He hated it when she giggled. (By which of course he means he loved it so damn much when he heard that pure innocent giggle it melted his heart he couldn't fucking stand it)
"What, the great and mighty Knight of Blood can't stand a challenge? I thought you wanted to prove how awesome you are!" She taunted. He groaned a bit.
"I thought you said I don't have to prove how awesome I am!" He shot back.
"I thought you said you wanted to anyway! So here's your big chance, Kit Kat!" She laughed. He hated that stupid pet name she gave him, it made him sound like some douchey human anime character. Maybe that was where she got it from, because whenever he asked she just giggled and said "It's a human thing". But, of course, she used it to annoy him and make him mad, just to giggle and calm him down and watch him be all angry and adorable. He didn't know if it was something he hated or loved. It made her happy, though, and that was all he cared for.
"Alright, fine! Allow me to show you the true talents of an Alternian raised by a fierce and mighty predator!" He shouted back, preparing to employ all the knowledge of hunting given to him by his lusus. Which of course amounted to absolutely none because his lusus didn't teach him to hunt. But he didn't need Jade to know that.
He scampered over to a nearby tree, and examined the dark brown bark. Squinting his eyes and putting a hand to his chin as he noted the texture and appearance, he eventually nodded, and squated down, his legs far apart, before taking out two of his sickles from his strife deck. He held them apart, bladed side out, and stretched his arms out, raising his forearms slightly, before slowly strafing around the tree, looking for the best place to hoist himself.
Or rather that's how he wanted to look. He actually had no idea what he was doing and just really wanted to look cool and predatory for his girlfriend.
Meanwhile, Jade was on top of a nearby tree's branches, looking down at her boyfriend doing his crab thing. She had one hand on a nearby vine holding her steady, the other over her mouth as she snickered rapturously, trying to contain her laughter so as not to give her position away. God, look at him! All squatted down and walking like a lil baby crab monster thing! How did she find a guy like this? Well obviously it was by way of convoluted cosmic mechanics including paradoxes, time travel, and other shenanigans, but still.
Finally, Karkat decided he had looked cool enough, and sunk a sickle into the tree. He sunk the other higher up and started climbing. He wasn't muscular, but he was a troll with some strength to him, and could lift his own weight fairly easily. Hurdling himself upward, he kept going, sinking and removing his sickles in a rhythmic pattern. The heat inside the jungle was only hardly bearable, and he was exerting himself greatly. Wearing a long-sleeved shirt did not help him, and he was sweating up a storm.
Suddenly, thanks to the esoteric and only vaguely defined mechanics of the dream bubbles, it seemed his mental image of himself shirtless physically removed his shirt from his body, exposing his sweaty grey skin. He didn't really mind, but Jade, on the other hand, suddenly became very interested in keenly watching her topless boyfriend climb up the wrong tree and working up a sweat moving those muscles of his. Of course he didn't have many muscles, but still, they were moving.
Karkat reached a branch he felt he could rest safely on, and moved his arm over to grab it. However, he found that the sickle in his other arm was stuck in the tree, refusing to move. Grunting in irritation, he pulled on it as hard as he could, but to no avail. Loudly groaning in flatout rage, he yanked at it repeatedly, swearing angrily, while Jade giggled and snickered quietly at his frustrations and antics.
When he did manage to yank it out though, it was with so much force that he threw that side of his body off the tree, losing his footing, and twisting himself around. He lost his loose grip on the branch, but managed to catch himself on the sickle in the hand formerly holding him up. Unfortunately, in the reflexive moment that saved him from a fall, he dropped his other sickle, which promptly fell down to the ground. Reaching up, he found that the distance between the branch and his sickle's hilt was just enough to make it impossible to reach with just his other hand. Sighing loudly, he realized that he was stuck.
"Need some help?" Jade called out. He could tell she was close.
"Of course not! I am completely trained and ready for this kind of situation! I only need a moment to analyze and assess the situation and then I'll be hot on your trail!" He shouted back. He was lying through his teeth, of course, but he didn't need to look like a dork in front of his girlfriend. He flailed around a little bit, trying to bring himself up, but the sweat on his hands made them slippery, so any movement risked losing grip on the sickle holding him up. He sighed and groaned and sat there for a moment, trying to problem-solve his way out in as badass and cool a way as possible.
"You know you're sliding down off that sickle, right?" He heard Jade point out.
"It's crucial to my plan."
"Which is?"
"You'll see." He hoped.
Jade sighed softly. He was such a stubborn little shit.
"You don't have a plan, do you?" She asked dryly, smiling.
"I totally have a plan!" He lied, halfway off the handle.
"You sure you don't want help?" She asked again.
"IF I WANTED YOUR HELP I'D FUCKING ASK HARLEY." He shouted back. Suddenly, he slid all the way down to the bottom of the hilt.
"OK please help." He called out quickly.
Some rustling, and a bit of shaking on the branch which made his heart skip a beat, and suddenly jade was there, no longer in her god tier dress but in shorts that came halfway down her thighs and a tanktop. She was sweaty, as well, the moisture glistening on her tanned skin. Her hair was wet, as well, and sparkled in the memory's sunlight. Most people would say she looked disgusting, like a wet dog, and she certainly didn't smell very good. But still...
Needing to have his matesprit rescue him was already a hit to his pride, did she have to look so… effortlessly beautiful in the process?
She leaned down and grabbed one of his hands, and he reached up with the other to meet her second hand. Pulling him up while squatting down to maintain her balance, Jade grunted and managed to get him up high enough to where he could get onto the branch himself. He scrambled on and sat there for a moment, shirtless, panting, collecting himself, before looking over at her. She looked back at him, a little smile on her face, her teeth peeking out from her lips. He cracked a victorious smile back.
"See how ingenious I am? I pretend to need help and draw out my emotionally vulnerable prey!" He gloated. "If I were a predator you would've been chow by now! Clearly I am the champion of this human competition! It was… what is it you humans call it… child's play!" He continued. Jade giggled. Good, he wanted her to giggle. Make her laugh at his jokes and not at him.
"You are such an absolute dork, Karkat." She laughed, scooting over towards him and putting an arm around his shoulders, placing a hand on the back of his head. He wrapped his own arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him.
"Who's the bigger dork, the dork, or the dork dating the dork?" He asked.
"Only the dorkiest of dorks would ask that." She answered.
"Well if I'm the dorkiest dork you're the nerdiest nerd." He retorted. She giggled, leaning her head up against his, craning with him.
"We'll be the greatest powerhouse couple of dorks and nerds ever. We'll rule over all of paradox space with our geekiness." She joked.
"I don't think I want that." Karkat almost whispered. He had made a fool of himself but he still knew a thing or two about romance. Jade's face became amusedly quizzical.
"And why's that?" She asked back.
"Why waste my time ruling over a bunch of losers… when I have the queen loser right here in my arms?" He responded, reaching his other hand around to cup her blushing cheeks.
"You really are the dorkiest dork…" She whispered, smiling as she leaned in only so much closer.
"And you love me for it." He finished for her. She nodded a tiny nod.
"And I love you for it." She repeated, leaning in and closing the last bit of space, placing her lips on his, feeling his shirtless, smooth skin for her own pleasure while he simply enjoyed the warmth and softness of her body pressed against his.
They sat there like that, kissing each other tenderly and lovingly, for some amount of time - for whatever that's worth in a region where time and space are very fluid concepts - basking in the heat of the jungle, of the moment, of each other, and enjoying the pay off of a little bit of child's play.