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Who: Karkat & YOU
Where: An ASSORTMENT OF PLACES (see below)
When: Backdated a few in-game days, I think, but pretty much any time between then anddd let's say Valentine's Day
What: getchur Karkat here, assorted
Warnings: almost definitely imaginative swearing

It takes a couple of days after CONDOR agrees that housing Feferi alongside Sollux and Karkat in the West Coast Trailblazers' HQ was the best option – someone with her political value against the Alternian Empire's current regime is definitely best kept where they could see her – for Karkat has finally accept in his heart that yes, he can leave both of them unsupervised for long stretches of time. Feferi might be extremely weird and in need of some ... gentle guidance, when it comes to Earth customs, but she isn't about to go on any kind of weird amnesiac rampage or get horribly lost or accidentally hurt civilians or something, and with her around neither is Sollux.

It is a massive weight off his thorax: Sollux's recovery is no longer his responsibility. While he's not enough of an asshole to just totally leave all of this in Feferi's hands now that she's here to take it, he knows she's way more comfortable taking that kind of role with Sollux than he is. That's not the kind of friendship he and Karkat have – and it's certainly not the kind of friendship he wants them to have. And he hopes with Sollux's matesprit around it won't be so long before they can go back to comfortable bickering and shit flinging, like they used to.

For now, though – and the 'now' here spans a couple of weeks, at least – he is just appreciating the fact that he's more free to do whatever without worrying about whether his best friend is OK without him than he has been for the last couple of months.

He ends up going outside a lot more than he usually would, just because he can, so if you are a member of the public you may spot him slouching down the street, or maybe a park, with as much of a spring in his step as he ever has, as if it's never occurred to him before to explore – or in a shop, perhaps your shop if you work in one (u kno who u r), probably looking kind of disdainful or disapproving about whatever it's selling, as a default, in spite of his mostly good mood.

(He's always in civvies, of course, because he is not allowed to fight crime on his own. He's usually wearing sunglasses when he's outside, though, which isn't wholly uncommon for Alternians in the daytime – Earth's sun is a lot less dangerous than Alternia's, but his species is nocturnal by habit and somewhere as sunny as LA can be a bit much. Honestly Karkat would be pretty OK with it by now, he's had a lot of time to adjust, but the arrival of his old friends has reminded him that he needs to keep his identity secret for a reason, and the sunshine serves as a convenient excuse.)

He certainly isn't spending all of his time outside, but he is in general spending more time out of his room. Fellow Trailblazers may find him sat on the floor by the TV, re-categorising his small but steadily growing collection of Earth movies (almost exclusively romance, of course), practising with his sickles in the gym, or, if they are unlucky, cooking something that smells completely and utterly awful. He seems in a good mood, if perhaps sort of thoughtful. He may even smile at you.

(IF your character would not actually approach Karkat under any circumstances suggested here but you would like a thread, feel free to just throw in a tag of them going about whatever they're goin about, and as long as it takes place either where Karkat lives or somewhere public I will find some reason for him to get up in your business, deliberately or not.)

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Teddy doesn't really have a lot of free time between school, heroics, work, and trying to keep up with his mother's bills enough that the government doesn't catch on that she's a space alien in space, but the latest rent money crisis is kind of making his brain explode. He'd had to slip out the fire escape to avoid his landlord, but a nice walk in the park is making Teddy's brain feel way less fried. He could sort out the money later. Cut school a little more often, patrol a little less, pick up a couple extra shifts at work or maybe get a second job. It would all be fine.

The park is full of the usual assortment of joggers and dog walkers and trendy looking young parents, and Karkat sticks out like a sore thumb. Teddy's never met an Alternian before. He's never really met any aliens who weren't trying to kidnap him or take over LA, actually. He knows it's rude to stare, but he just can't help it as the distance between them closes. He should say something. It would be good to talk to aliens, right? They might have stuff in common. He should totally say something.

"Uhhh?"

Not that, though.

Karkat gives the apparently human boy an unimpressed look, his pointed ears folding back a little. "What," he says. "Do I look like invasion force to you." He spreads his hands out, sarcastically indicating he's unarmed. "Yeah, I'm just hiding the massed armadas of the Alternian Empire inside of my torso garment."

Edited 2014-02-21 19:05 (UTC)

"What?" It takes Teddy a second to parse 'torso garment,' and he quickly raises his own hands in a gesture of denial.

"No it's, I didn't think you were, or anything. You just don't see a whole ton of aliens out for a walk in the park, I guess." Right. If he wants to get alien friends, he has to tell them he's an alien too. Sort of an alien, anyway.

"I mean, that makes two of us, right? It's pretty unlikely, like statistically."

Karkat squints at him, looking him carefully up and down like he's trying to work this out.

"... You're a human," he points out, having tried and failed to spot anything to indicate otherwise.

With a little bit of an awkward laugh, Teddy self consciously ruffles the front of his hair.

"Actually, I'm sort of a Skrull? And half Kree, it's kind of complicated, but the important part is that I'm kind of an alien, basically. I mean, I didn't know I was an alien, but... like I said. Complicated."

One of the neat things about being half Skrull is that Teddy actually is capable of swallowing his own foot.

Karkat takes a moment to process that.

"That's the guys with the chins, right. The green ones." They're shapeshifters, he thinks, but that's based on a couple of movies he watched years ago where some body snatching alien scum managed to infiltrate an Alternian outpost and were summarily dealt with, and he's learned in the last sweep or so that Alternian cinematic propaganda isn't exactly reliable. Still, he dimly recollects that having been mentioned since he got to Earth, so that one might be true. "So what," he says, "you're undercover or some shit?"

"Yeah, that's them." It's still too weird to say 'us.'

"I mean, I'm not a Skrull sleeper agent, or anything. I just grew up here for like, political reasons." Political reasons Teddy doesn't fully understand, because it's actually remarkably difficult to find information on Skrull society via internet search. The illegitimate alien hybrid child of the Skrull Princess part is definitely easy enough to grasp (if not quite as easy to come to terms with), but it would be nice to have a little more background information. Honestly, all seemed a little Bloodlines of Conquest-y.

"But, you know, I kind of try to keep it quiet and stuff. People get weird about it."

Political reasons, huh. Karkat gives him another once-over, a little more curious now.

"Weird about it?" he repeats flatly. "You don't fucking say." He shoves his hands into his pockets. "Don't make me wrong, I don't want to look like humans, but trust me I know how weird about it they get."

"I mean, a lot of humans are pretty great. But like, the whole shapeshifters-stealing-your-identity paranoia thing doesn't really help the public image issues."

Not that the Skrulls actually deserved a better public image, but still.

"So, um. Are you with CONDOR, or what?"

"Kind of," says Karkat. He glances across the park, as if he is half expecting someone suspicious to be watching him. They are not. He shrugs, and adds, "Political reasons."

"You too, huh."

He wants to ask, but Teddy really doesn't want to have to explain the whole Skrull/Kree situation. And anyway, it seems rude.

"They're pretty like, decent, right? I mean, for the government, anyway. CONDOR, I mean, not aliens."

"... Yeah," says Karkat, frowning. His brow furrows and he looks Teddy up and down suspiciously. "Are you with CONDOR or something? Is this like some kind of fucked up undercover customer satisfaction thing."

"What? No! God, no." Teddy frowns too, and makes a hand gesture of denial. "No, I just, uh. I kind of avoided them after my big whole like, surprise alien coming out party-slash-battle, and I always kind of wondered if I maybe should have just asked them for help, or something. I mean, not like in the moment, I was kind of busy, but after maybe? Like it's probably too late now, but, you know." Shrug.

"Battle," Karkat repeats, brow furrowing, and then the light comes on and he goes, "Fuck, wait, was that you with that invasion shit last year?"

Oh, shit.

"I wouldn't really call it an invasion. More like really terrible uninvited guests."

Teddy looks pretty guilty about the whole thing, though.

Karkat shrugs. "I didn't understand most of it good because I was fucking terrible at English back then, but you had to notice all the fucking aliens right." He looks at Teddy curiously. "So what are you stranded on Earth from that?"

Teddy frowns. This is kind of more of this stuff than he really wanted to be getting into, no matter how badly Milly says he needs to make alien friends.

"Nah, I grew up here. That wasn't, I mean, that stuff didn't really have a whole lot to do with me."

It had to do with Prince Dorrek VIII, future uniter of Skrullkind/the Kree teenager who was destined to be yet another Kree soldier, probably, they hadn't actually explained that stuff super well in between all the shooting. Both of whom were decidedly not Teddy.

He tilts his head, eyes narrowing slightly. His ears swivel forward. "You just said that was your," finger quotes, "'coming out party' so obviously it was with you."

"Right, it was, but-- it's just really complicated."

Maybe it was kind of messed up to try and distance himself from the whole thing like that. People got hurt in that fight, Kree and Skrulls had died. Mostly Teddy tried not to think too hard about that, or about his alleged destiny to reunite the Skrull Empire. Sometimes it was nice to pretend it had all happened to someone else.

"How did you get here, anyway?" Fair's fair, after all. Backstory for backstory.

Karkat raises his eyebrows. "I left Alternia because I didn't want to be executed," he says – and then adds, "You know, like basically everybody from there."

Edited 2014-02-26 02:58 (UTC)

"Right. That's a pretty good reason."

At least the Skrulls aren't so much about the straight up mass execution of their own citizens. Mostly. Although all bets are off if you happen to be the illegitimate child of the Princess.

"Do you miss it? Sorry if that's a weird question."

By the look on Karkat's face he apparently does think it's a weird question.

"I – yeah. Why? What the hell do you actually want?"

"Um, just, you know."

Teddy can't really think of anything less lame than 'my roommate wanted me to meet other extraterrestrials,' so he just kind of gestures at the space between them helplessly.

"Space stuff?"

Edited 2014-03-06 00:48 (UTC)

Karkat frowns at him for a moment. Then some kind of understanding seems to dawn, and his expression softens a little. He nods, slowly.

"So what, you just like... wanted to talk to different aliens?" He sounds a little incredulous, but he also sounds like he gets it.

"Um."

Teddy actually looks pretty embarrassed, and he combs his fingers through his bangs a little uncomfortably.

"Yeah, something like that. I mean, that sounds crazy, right? But... I mean, you know."

And it seems like Karkat actually does know.