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Who: Karkat & Sollux
Where: Chez Trailblazers
When: Shortly after this
What: Various Issues
Warnings: Gross rude troll kids. Gross rude SAD troll kids

Karkat's been kind of quiet lately. He'd been holding off on telling any of the other Trailblazers about the guy who broke into their dorms just due to a bad feeling about all of it, but after finding out what happened to Starbreaker he's decided it might be best not to get them involved in it at all. He's told CONDOR, and security on the base has been increased, but apart from that he hasn't told anybody besides the Disciple, and Sollux, and Feferi. Alternian business, he figures.

He has to admit, he'd feel a bit less concerned about all of this if Feferi was still here. Partially because he's not sure how Sollux is going to deal with her being gone and the idea of the maybe-the-Sufferer on top of everything else, but also because he's fairly sure he could trust her to be able to fight this guy.

Gloomily, Karkat makes his way to Sollux's block, to knock on the door. He really hopes he's actually there. He tells himself it's because he's worried about Sollux but mostly he just doesn't want to be on his own right now, or to have to pretend that everything's okay.

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Karkat sighs in frustration. "No it's not, CONDOR are increasing the security on this whole building, it'll be way easier for them to take care of him if he's not inside the god damn hive murdering everyone else."

Sollux narrows his eyes, obviously dubious of CONDOR's effectiveness in that regard. He knows there are limits. He also doubts that the other people in this house are less secure than Karkat - he now has the leisure of a small amount of arrogance again. It feels great.

He groans. "Look, does this guy need to go down or what? Are we going to murder him or something?"

"I don't fucking know," Karkat mutters. "If he does try to murder me, then yeah, I guess we're gonna have to, right." He frowns. "He seemed kind of confused though. Maybe he won't. Who fucking knows."

Sollux tilts an ear in confusion.

"Confused like how? Like he wasn't sure if he was going to?" he asks.

"No, it was like ... like he kept forgetting what he was actually doing here." He looks away. "I mean whoever this guy is he's obviously completely beetleshit frondnubs, so for all I know he's just trying to freak me out or something." He doesn't sound very convincing. He keeps imagining what must have happened to Starbreaker.

"Okay...so, you clone guy is hiveshit. This much we know. That doesn't really make him sound less likely to fuck you up. The fuck did someone even want to clone a crazy dude and send him after you anyway?"

He pauses.

"...We're sure he's like a clone, right?"

"Yeah, he's got to be a clone – TRIDENT stole a bunch of my flesh and then this jackass shows up, it's obviously not a coincidence." Karkat folds his arms. "And it's not like with the Disciple where the scriptures are kind of vague about what ended up happening to her and then wow, surprise, she was cryogenically frozen this entire time – like, they very much did kill Signless."

He frowns. Him being a confused lab experiment doesn't really make killing him feel very karmic.

"So like...they brainwashed him into thinking he's this guy?" He pauses. "...Like I mean, there's obviously a bunch of stuff that only the actual Signless could know, if it was that long ago."

Karkat makes a contemplative but annoyed huffing sound. "I didn't exactly get the chance to hand him an interrogation checklist, what with all the relentless menacing and the bloody handprint and all that shit."

Sollux rolls his eyes. At least that's probably what he's doing. It isn't super clear.

"I mean, for the future, jackass! We have the fucking Disciple who was like his matesprit or some bullshit, if she can find him then she'll know for sure whether or not there's more to it than him just being a clone."

"Yeah." Karkat looks a little uneasy. "But he obviously is one, there's no way he's the actual Sufferer. He probably never killed fucking anybody."

"Yeah, I guess..." he says. "Not that I actually know shit all about the guy. This whole thing is fucked."

He sighs. "Yeah, well if you want you can read it, I have the whole god damn book in my block... It's pretty fucking boring though."

"Probably," he replies, without really questioning it. He falls silent for a few moments, hesitating. He can't really decide whether to bring up his conversation with the Disciple. "Aren't you like...into it, though. Or something."

"Well... yeah, I sort of have to be." Karkat's ears fold back slightly, and he scratches the back of his head. "And like obviously I'm like against rampant pointless homicide and slavery and all that crap, that's why we left..."

"Yeah. Duh," he says, uneasily, frowning at his friend. "But if you were just some asshole reading this book and there wasn't this whole deal where you share blood and horn size with Alternia's spiritual savior...would you like...want to be a Sufferist or what?"

Karkat hesitates over that one, mostly because reflecting on his experience of actually reading the book for the first time, it's hard to separate that from how it felt to read about someone who was actually like him for the first time in his entire life – and how it felt to know he was expected to follow in this guy's footsteps.

He shrugs uncomfortably.

"... I don't know," he says. "Like, if I had an actual blood caste? I'd probably just think I didn't need that shit or something." There's a certain grim almost-amusement to his tone there – an unspoken I'd be wrong, but...

Sollux nods a little. Like, he kind of gets it. Even if he isn't really disposed the same way to this kind of thing as Karkat. Karkat was just kind of a dumb motherfucker in some ways, and him being at all passionate about something like this still kind of astounds him.

"Which is probably most people, I guess." He pauses again. "...So do you...like this guy then, or whatever? Who the Sufferer is actually supposed to be, I mean. Like besides the clones and death threats, do you like being related to him?"

His ears twitch in irritation. "I don't know," he says again, more annoyed, "it's complicated and dumb – why?"

"I don't know," Sollux shoots back abruptly, "why are you being so pissed off about it?"

Karkat makes an annoyed clicking sound. "Because this is kind of weird and personal? Like sure he was probably great but it's not like I know him right, I mean, like – yeah, I like not being the only douchebag ever hatched with this stupid blood colour, I don't like all these guys thinking I'm going to lead all of trollkind into a new era of peace and happiness because that's probably impossible and I don't know how anybody's actually supposed to do that."

Sollux deflates at that, almost wincing when he thinks of the concept. His gaze falls down to his keyboard.

"Yeah," he says, more quietly. "I don't know how she's supposed to, either."

"... Yeah, well, she's actually supposed to be Empress. She's just got to defeat the Condesce and then she can do whatever the hell she wants." He knows it's not actually that simple and that there needs to be a fuckton of diplomacy involved, but he can't deny that the path Feferi has laid out for her seems a lot more straightforward and traditionally appealing than his own obligations. "Plus she's basically immortal, she can take all the time she wants to fix shit."

"But if she's doing that, doesn't it make your shit easier, too?" It sounds like he's genuinely trying to understand this whole situation. He's more new to it than either of them. "I mean you both want the same stuff."

"Yeah," says Karkat. "We were gonna, you know, try to do it together. Or something." He sighs. "We talked about it, anyway. But she wanted to play a pretty long game, right, obviously – and the Sufferists are sort of in a hurry. Like, in a hurry compared to a fucking seadweller." He scrubs a hand over his face. "I figure at least if we make a big noise with this stuff – I mean, if I make a big noise with this stuff – then it'll be easier for her to change shit up after she wins, like if we can make it seem as if me showing up at the same time as her means her rule is destined to be successful then her shit'll probably go more smoothly, but that's not exactly – you know, fulfilling the fucking prophecy..."