SUPER BARBECUE SUPER BARBECUE SUPER BARBECUE [open as heck]

[hugling]

Who: SUPER HEROES!!!!!
Where: Ernest E. Debs Regional Park!
When: Sunday!
What: SUPER BARBECUE
Warnings: Superheroes...



It's a pleasant evening at Ernest E. Debs Regional Park, just a couple miles from downtown LA, which can be seen through the haze. Late March means spring is just arriving in LA and the trees are just starting to bud. Unfortunately, the grass is still kind of dead and dry.

The barbecue and picnic area isn't too busy, though the park does have the usual assortment of joggers, dog walkers, and cyclists. There are some balloons tied to picnic tables, and strung between two trees is a very homemade "SUPER BBQ" banner, courtesy of Hulkling and Starbreaker. There's still glitter glue on Milly's apartment floor. There's another posterboard with the rules written on it in big bold sharpie letters nearby, just in case anyone forgets:

• Don't be a jerk!!!
• Keep your weapons holstered please.
• Do not trash the park!
• ABSOLUTELY NO FIGHTING
• Anyone caught fighting will be asked to leave!
• Really don't be a jerk!

[OKAY GUYS!!! mingle! have fun! maybe some THINGS WILL HAPPEN, whoooo knows!]

Comments

[nitrodamus]

"...No," he says, after a moment of hesitation. "Not really."

Sollux doesn't fully grasp the evil inherent in Megatron, but he knows enough to gather that they probably aren't "heroes" exactly.

"They're aliens. Like, they're not from here. They don't look like that right now though."

[10thingsihateaboutme]

Karkat leans back a little – obviously he's not going to be able to tell who they are if that's the case.

"Oh – like Skrulls or whatever?"

[nitrodamus]

Sollux takes a moment before he affirms that.

"Yeah, basically. They get some of this shit." He swallows uncomfortably. "TRIDENT had one of them, too."

[10thingsihateaboutme]

Karkat frowns. "What, like, in their labs?" His ears twitch back. "Did they get her out?"

[nitrodamus]

"I dunno how it happened we never really talk about it," Sollux says, shrugging rigidly. "Some shit just went down and he escaped I guess. Kind of...like what happened with me." He swallows. "I never really knew what actually...let me get out. I...I..."

He finds himself practically shivering just thinking about it in those terms, thinking about how he'd been kept and how he had to escape. And wow, suddenly, that's all he can think about.

It's been a little while since he felt like this so strongly, and it catches him by surprise. Some part of him was convinced, maybe, that he was okay again after having gotten his powers back. Like that had fixed things somehow. But it hits him hard, and leaves him staggering.

He suddenly really doesn't like the feeling of having that mask over face, but he can't just pull it off or everyone will see him. Karkat is standing right there, but-

"I-I need to go...do...uh..." The words never quite happen, but he starts trying to skitter away regardless.

[10thingsihateaboutme]

Nope too bad Karkat grabs him by the sleeve. "Dude," he exclaims, in surprise and concern – it sort of helps with both of those things that he can't see Sollux's face, even though it's pretty obvious what's freaking him out. "Chill out, man –"

[nitrodamus]

Unsurprisingly, having someone grab him doesn't help at all. He can barely even comprehend who's doing it before he starts shrieking:

"Let me fucking go!" He jerks himself away, and shoves back at Karkat telekinetically - it's not especially gentle. A flash of purple later, he's back to scrambling away, the threshold toward panic officially crossed.

[10thingsihateaboutme]

Karkat stumbles, but he's back on his feet quickly, growling in frustration – with himself more than anything else. He should have seen that coming.

He opens his mouth to yell after him, but cuts himself off, realising he doesn't want to draw attention to who it is running. He swears under his breath and then scrambles after his friend, yelling, "Hey, shitty fucking wizard!"

[nitrodamus]

Sollux has ducked under a picnic table as Karkat comes running after him, and is already ripping off his hat and mask. The relief of having the mask off his head and not coming his eyes or ears anymore isn't as great as he'd hoped, mostly because the feeling refuses to go away.

His arms and legs are folded against him as he tries desperately to calm down, his breath short and strained far more than it should have been from that brief sprint. God, this is the worst.

[10thingsihateaboutme]

It's a minute or so before Karkat finds him, lifting up the tablecloth to peer under.

"... Bro?" he says, kneeling by the picnic table. "Shit, man, sorry, I didn't think..."

[nitrodamus]

It's still kind of weird having Karkat be in costume when he's not, and so for a moment it catches him off guard. The panic is gradually beginning to pass, however, and he keeps himself from lashing out again.

Instead he just looks humiliated.

"You didn't even do anything, it's fucking stupid," he says. He hurls his mask at the ground, angrily.

[10thingsihateaboutme]

Karkat frowns. He isn't really surprised by that response; although it doesn't really cross his mind consciously, he probably wouldn't have apologised so readily prior to his year on Earth, where his human friends, he has found, generally expect him to be significantly nicer than trolls did, even when occupying the social space of 'the rude one'.

"Yeah, it kind of is, but it was still kind of my fault."

[nitrodamus]

He doesn't really feel like arguing about who's fault it was, even if he mostly feels like it must be a personal failure. When he didn't have his powers at least he had an excuse.

"Why does this still keep happening?" he mumbles miserably. "I thought it was going to stop but it didn't."

[10thingsihateaboutme]

Karkat hesitates for a moment, but then he sits down half-under the tablecloth, with the back of his cape trailing out of the side. Not very inconspicuous at all really but well there you go

"Dude –" He looks sympathetic, if somewhat awkward. "Since when have you not been like the crown prince of flipping the fuck out?"

[nitrodamus]

He folds back his ears, rubbing at his eyes, his wizard robe all a shambles. He's just wearing his regular t-shirt and jeans beneath though, so whatever. He looks over at Karkat, and something about that seems to calm him.

He snorts wetly. "Yeah, whatever."

Though it does sort of normalize this kind of thing a little, even if it's a little bit non flattering. It's nice, he remembers, to have someone who actually knows him. Has known him for so long. Someone he doesn't have to worry about maintaining rep with, like he does with the robots.

[10thingsihateaboutme]

Karkat rolls his eyes, not particularly unkindly. "I swear to god, if you freak out about the fact you freaked out we are going to ascend to completely new levels of recursive brainshit, and that would be really stupid."

[nitrodamus]

He snorts again, and it's sort of in agreement. It takes him a little time to actually think of what to say.

"I haven't really been able to freak out recently. The guys I'm hanging out with treat me like an adult, so..."

In the Alternian sense that is a lot of responsibility.

[10thingsihateaboutme]

Karkat tilts his head, ears pricking up a little. "What, the Skrulls?"

[nitrodamus]

He gets confused for a second, and then looks a little embarrassed. He isn't huge on lying about this.

"Well...Not Skrulls exactly." He hesitates for a long moment. "...Did you see any of those stories going around about ghost cars?"

[10thingsihateaboutme]

He frowns behind his mask. "... Yeah," he says, sitting forward a little. "What about them?"

[nitrodamus]

"That's who I've been hanging with," he says, shrugging his shoulders a little.

[10thingsihateaboutme]

There's a brief pause before that falls into place, and Karkat raises his eyebrows, and his ears. "Cybertronians? Shit, really?" It doesn't really occur to him to ask which faction – Alternian schoolfeeding is pretty sparing when it comes to the differences, focussing more on how hard they failed to infiltrate Empire space. Instead he asks, "So what are they doing here? Are they like us, or what?"

[nitrodamus]

"No man, it's like some official robot business. But it sounds like their leader is all about freedom and shit so there wouldn't really be any point to running away." He stares at his feet. "I met the one who TRIDENT got and then I helped get a couple of them away from those freakshit tower things, so I'm in with them pretty good. I'm pretty sure they are just trying to take the energon here and go."

[10thingsihateaboutme]

"Huh," says Karkat. "So they're not, like, invading or whatever? Basically every time some alien guys show up on this planet it's to invade it." But he doesn't sound doubtful, about that; he's willing to take Sollux at his word. He looks a little relieved, if anything; Sollux is probably getting along better with big space robots who treat him like an adult than he was at the Trailblazers', and even if that does make Karkat feel kind of weird and sad, it's good to think he's doing okay, and have a better idea of what he's doing. Helping out other aliens seems like a good start.

"... How many of them are there, though?"

[nitrodamus]

"Like five," Sollux says, after a moment. He's already said this much, and he doesn't actually want to hide it from Karkat. It's nice having someone to talk to stuff about with. "But don't spread it around, okay. They don't want any more shit from humans after what happened to BD."