Karkat: Brood over your empty quadrants ==
Fuck that you are not brooding over the lack of romance in your life. Who the fuck even cares about that? You're the fucking leader. You have way more important irons in the fire, as Vriska would say, to be worrying about shit like quadrants.
Of course, if anyone on your team is having romance troubles you're going to help because that's what a good leader does. But guess what? That's not actually the point you were trying to make, bulge munch.
What you were trying to explain was that as the leader you have to be completely on top of your game. You can't just sit around fondling your horns and crying over Ter- No , you are completely over her, alright? Son over her, she made her choice and now she and Strider can go have their disgusting, depraved human/troll grub monkeys in Can Town like the awful nook-chafing fuckers they are.
...
Okay,so maybe you are brooding. But you know what? Hiding your emotions is for weak sissy wigglers. God, what was past Karkat even thinking when he tried that shit? Nothing smart, obviously. Past Karkat is clearly a pan dead asshole and we're just going to disregard everything he has to say.
Karkat: Quit sulking and greet the new humans ==
Oh, right. The meteor is supposed to be landing today. Maybe you should ask Lalonde how long until that's a thing that occurs. You could always troll future Karkat and ask but goddamn that guy is a such colossal asshole. You'd rather take your chances with the flighty broad, snarky horse-shit aside.
You roll off of the couch in your respiteblock where you were curled up with your husktop watching some movie Egbert recommended to you. It was complete shit, obviously, and you don't even know why you watch these dumb-ass movies that Egbert likes. "Come on, Gamzee," you say in the general direction of the horn pile set up next to your recuperacoon.
The aforementioned clown pops his head out of the pile, a sleepy grin on his painted face. "What's that, best friend?" He stands, sending horns clattering all around him, several of them letting out loud honks. "I said get your lazy ass up, we're going to go see when the meteor's supposed to land." You grab your wayward moirail's hand and drag him off down the meteor's dark hallways.
As you walk, Gamzee gets progressively closer until he's pressed against your side, close enough that you can smell him. He smells like a strange mixture of greasepaint and sugar, with just a hint of sea salt. You can smell sopor slime on him as well, but it's not as strong as it used to be, back before he got sober. Now he smells like a normal troll should, and you feel like you should be happy about that, but at what cost does normality come? This train of thought leads you to say something you'd been thinking for a while, but never had guts to ask.
"Gamzee?" you ask. He looks at you and you look down. "Are you actually pale for me?" He pulls away slightly and you flush and curse under your breath. "I just don't feel like you've been committing to this moiraillegiance as much I have."
Karkat: Berate yourself for putting your moiraillegiance in jeopardy
Gladly.
Karkat you stupid fuck! Why would you say something like that?! You should have just been content with the one quadrant you hadn't completely fucked up instead of questioning it. What do you even know about romance? Besides what you learned in your awful rom-coms? Nothing, that's what. Now he's going to break up with you just like Terezi did. He's going to do his stupid clown dance all over your blood-pusher. Serves you right. You might as well just ask the deal breaking question before your pride is completely destroyed.
You stop walking and look up at Gamzee. "Do you even want to be my moirail?"
Gamzee blinks at you and runs a hand through his shaggy hair. "Don't get me wrong Karbro, this motherfucker is as pale as the fuckin' moon for you, but a ninja ain't about filling no quadrants right now. You pickin' up what I'm throwin' down?"
You clench your fists and nod, eyes shut tight to prevent any tears from escaping. Gamzee pulls you into a hug. "Maybe when a couple a motherfuckers are older?" All you can do is nod again and press your hands against your eyes as pale red tears drip from them. "You alright, best friend?"
You rub your eyes and sniff, "Uh huh. I just need a moment. Go on ahead without me." Gamzee hugs you once more, enveloping you in his scent before transportalizing away for what feels like the last time.
You slide down to the floor, letting your tears flow until your face is stained a light pink on top of grey. You stay on that floor for hours, not even noticing when the whole laboratory jolts with what is sure to be the meteor crash landing onto whatever mysterious planet it was heading for. You know you look pathetic just sitting here, tearing your heart out over a stupid fucking murder clown but you just do not give a single fuck who sees you or if they even bother to say anything to you.
It turns out somebody does say something to you eventually. You don't really recognize the voice, but the distinctly human accent sounds slightly like Dave.
"Hey, are you alright?" You don't look but you can feel somebody in front of you, either sitting or crouching down from the volume of their voice. "Do I look like I'm alright, asshole? When you look at me is the first thing you think 'Hey, look at this dude. He is just so on top of his game and not having a complete mental breakdown in the middle of the fucking hallway'? No, I thought not." At this, you look up at him, your annoyance momentarily overshadowing your heartbreak. The new kid wears pointy shades, like the ones Dave's guardian wore. "Who the fuck are you anyway?" The stranger puts his hands up in the universal surrender signal. "Whoa, man. I just saw you curled up in the middle of the hallway and I was worried." He puts his hands in his pockets. "I'm Dirk. Dirk Strider."
You should have known he was a Strider. No one else could give off such heavy vibes of douche baggery and you tell him as much. He just smirks. "Guess your timeline's Dave isn't so different from mine then, if he's already made the Strider name infamous." Oh my God you hate this guy already. Fucking Striders.
"But seriously, what happened to you?" You glare up at him. "Well if you must know, my so called best friend broke up with me and left me here to go greet you all. I'm Karkat, by the way." Dirk nods knowingly. "Which one was that?" You mumble inaudibly in response. "What was that?" He says, leaning closer.
"The clown!" You shout "It was the fucking clown, alright?" You drop your head back down to your knees. "Absolutely pathetic isn't it?" You feel a hand on your shoulder. It's warm and heavy and you lean into it. When Dirk speaks again you can feel his breath, very very close to your face. "I know the feeling. My own boyfriend dumped me recently." He sighs "I can't blame anybody but myself for the way I acted, but still. I get what you're going through."
"But I don't even know what I did wrong." You moan. "We had a textbook moiraillegiance!" You know that you've started crying again but you don't care. " All he said was that he wasn't about filling quadrants right now but that he was still fucking pale for me. Like, what the fuck is that even supposed to mean? I know for a fact that he's in a quadrant with Terezi. I mean, fuck. Even I couldn't do that." You wipe your tears away, trying to stem the flow.
"But then again, who'd want some off spectrum freak like me? Especially now that my eyes are filling in with that awful color. I'm like walking treason!"
You look up at Dirk, showing off your bright red eyes. He doesn't seem shocked, but what would a human know about the hemospectrum? "I don't know if this is going to help," He takes off his shades, revealing bright orange eyes "But I'm a freak too."
Dirk: Freak the fuck out ==
Oh my god Dirk what are you doing? Showing some troll you don't even know your eyes. You know good and well that trolls have a history of culling anyone with abnormalities.
But, he's a freak too, right? From what you remember of it and what you're seeing in his eyes, he's not even on the spectrum. You should be safe, but you still tense up when Karkat doesn't react.
You reach up to slip your shades back on, cheeks flushing the slightest bit. He grabs your hand, stopping you. "Your eyes are nice..." he touches your face. "I like them." You don't smile, of course you don't, but you try to communicate with your newly revealed eyes how grateful you are that he didn't freak out.
"I like yours too." You say, leaning closer. "I guess we can be freaks together, huh?" By now you two are close enough that you're breathing the same air. If you leaned in just one more inch, your lips would be touching. "Yeah," his voice has dropped down to a whisper. "Together."
You don't know who leaned in first, but now you're kissing him and he's kissing back, and you're happier than the time you asked Jake out and he said yes, and oh my god you should not be doing this. You're taking advantage of a heartbroken troll and for all you know he could just be using you as a rebound, but you really don't care. All you care about is the smell of him wrapped around you and your lips on his and the feelings you're experiencing that you're sure you've never felt before.
When he tugs you up, and drags you off to your room you can't help the triumphant grin plastered across your face.