carcinoGeneticist [CG] opened a text channel [006]

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I SWEAR TO FUCK.
IF ANY ONE OF YOU START ANYTHING TODAY.
I AM GOING TO DO ONE OF TWO THINGS.
I AM GOING TO ABSOLUTELY WRECK SOMEONE'S SHIT.
OR I AM GOING TO PLAY A FRIENDLY GAME OF MAKE-BELIEVE.
AND GUESS WHAT?
I'M ALL OUT OF IMAGINATION.

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[His ice-fishing trip with Yenyoji had, to some extent, calmed him down a little. Yenyoji was surprisingly good at that. She was weirdly engaging to him in the same way John and Gamzee were: she infuriated him, but he would miss her company if she went. Not at he missed Egbert or that clown asshole remotely. If he saw them again, he'd beat the living hell out of them.

Which, he had to admit, he was looking forward to very much with Jr. The month without sleeping in sopor slime was doing bad things to the troll's subconscious. It was even beginning to creep into his conscious mind. Whenever he closed his eyes for longer than it took to blink, the flashes of blood and carnage which leapt across his vision were getting bigger and harder to ignore. He wanted to hurt something and hurt it badly.

He was carrying both the Regisickle and the trusty Clawsickle when he approached Jr. at the docks. No point dicking around with his sylladex during a fight, after all.

He gave the human a grin. It wasn't a particularly happy looking grin.Nice to

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SON OF A -

[But the soothing slime is pressing in against his skin. Karkat wipes his face with the back of his hand, slapping the stuff onto the ice beside him. He pushes himself to his feet, scooping up the clawsickle as he goes, and turns to face Jr.. He's swaying where he stands.]

F-fucking...

[His eyes are beginning to droop. Sopor slime doesn't usually have such a potent effect, but he hasn't slept in it in more than a month, and hasn't slept, period, in a similar amount of time. He can feel those days of lethargy crawling all over him, and that entire month of stress and anxiety slowly being eased. He sways again.]

N-no. I don't wan' sleep...

[gunsablazing]

[Pushing himself onto his hands and knees, Jr. stares at Puck blankly. Even though he has been in Demeleier for a few days, despite the conversations he has had with the residents here and the information he has read, he is not prepared for his first Fae sighting. He sits back on his heels and studies Puck, unsure of what to make of the human figure before them. It is not what he expected.

When the jug tips over, Jr. scrambles to his feet, sliding this way and that, but it isn’t molten lava or something equally dangerous that pours out of the container. It’s…slime? Wary, the redhead carefully approaches Karkat as Puck disappears, eyeing the slime.]

Whoa, whoa! You okay? What the hell is that stuff?

[Sleep!? This wasn’t anytime to sleep! Who knows what that slime could be doing to Karkat’s body!]

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[Karkat's eyelids begin to close and his head begins to droop.]

S'por slime. But 'm fine! Can still... fucking... figh'

[To prove this, he drags the arm holding the Clawsickle up. He is not going to let himself fall asleep.]

[gunsablazing]

...spore slime?

[Jr.'s expression contorts in confusion. By this point, he is convinced the slime is radioactive or something and that Karkat will burst into flames at any moment. He eyes Clawsickle and then slowly shakes his head.]

Karkat...easy man. I think we need to postpone this.

[Thinking quick, he opens up the Ether Drive and uses a Refresh spell on Karkat, in case the slime caused some kind of status effect like poison. The spell seems to have no effect.]

Dammit...we need to get that stuff off you.

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Yeah. We - we [He yawns.] do...

[The Clawsickle falls out of his increasingly lax fingers. God, he's just so tired. He knows the slime shouldn't have this effect, but it's just been so long...

He sways forwards.]

[gunsablazing]

[A rush of relief floods him as the weapon now drops harmlessly to the ice. Urged on by mounting concern for the boy’s welfare, Jr. slides over to Karkat and accidentally knocks into him. Steadying both of them, he pulls his jacket sleeve over his left hand to protect his skin and then begins to wipe the slime off Karkat’s face. He’s still half-expecting the slime to eat away at his clothes.]

Hey! Stay with me! You know this stuff? This spore slime or whatever? What the hell does it do?

[Karkat looks like he’s going to lose consciousness. Preventing him from falling forward with a hand, he blindly feels around his belt for his comm unit. He needs to call for help.]

Where…the hell…is that piece of…

[He can’t find it. Belatedly, he realizes it might have fallen off back in the snow and curses under his breath.]

Where’s your communicator?

[Like hell he’s going to search Karkat for it.]

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Iz'm recupermzn. Puzz trohhh... zzz

[His eyes close, and he begins taking deep, even breaths for a moment.

Then his eyes snap open again and he grabs Jr.]

Recuperacoon. It makes... fuck... sopor. Sopor slime.

[gunsablazing]

[He jerks in surprise when Karkat grabs him. Struggling to make sense of the foreign words, Jr. gives up his attempts to clean the troll of the slime. Recuperacoon? Recupera…wait a second, recuperate!? Recuperation?]

…aw, you’ve gotta be kidding me. Sopor slime makes you sleepy?

[He didn’t get an answer about the communicator. Sighing heavily, Jr. shields his eyes against the snow’s glare and looks to the village in the distance. They need to get back to safety. Jr. wouldn’t be able to defend them like this if the fae decided to attack. Maybe if they started moving, Karkat would wake up.]

Hey you. C’mon. Help me out here.

[He slings one of Karkat’s arms across his shoulders and bends down, picking up the discarded sickle.]

You can’t sleep out here. Let’s go.

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[He nods, forcing his eyes open. He doesn't like Jr. holding him up, but it's easier than trying to shrug him off and crawling home from sheer tiredness. If he focuses - and Karkat has a lot of experience in keeping himself awake - he can stop himself from nodding off. But the slime is so soothing, he just wants to curl up...

And get molested by the first fucking flagella that peers at you with about six eyeballs? Keep fucking going, grubfucker.

He makes himself move forwards.]

I'm not... fucking... going to sleep. I can't.

[gunsablazing]

[Traveling over the slippery ice like this is difficult, but their slow and steady pace makes it manageable. When they reach the shore, Jr. halts their progress in a last ditch effort to find his communicator. Instead, lying inconspicuously under a thin layer of fresh snow, is the troll's other sickle. Disappointed, Jr. reasons he'll have time before nightfall to come search for his communicator.

He reaches down to grab the second weapon but pain immediately lances up his other arm, which is supporting Karkat. Gritting his teeth, he glances at the shoulder Karkat nicked earlier. While the bleeding has stopped, Jr. knows he should have healed himself when he had the chance.]

Urgh, I'll get it later.

[Huffing, he glances at Karkat.]

Ha...yeah, not out here you can't. We'll get you back to the village and you can pass out there and do whatever, ha, it is trolls do.

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[Karkat stares blearily at the Regisickle. He'd alchemized that from a Regisword Jack had lying around. Guy sure had a lot of sharp, pointy weapons just about or on his person. It had meant a lot, he guessed. He still liked his Jack, asshole though he was. It wasn't like it was -

He grasped Junior's arm.]

My Clawsickle. Where the fuck is my Clawsickle?

[gunsablazing]

[Jr. groans and shakes Karkat off. Seriously kid? Priorities.

Awkwardly, he shuffles the two of them back a few steps and then carefully kicks the sickle into view. He jerks his head at it and then loosens his grip on the boy.]

There. You want it, you pick it up.

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[HE RIPPED HIS DAD'S CARAPACE APART TO MAKE THAT, YOU HEARTLESS YOUNG MAN.

Karkat grabs it and capachalogues it. Jr. Might see the numbers flashing green over the card before it gets the black lock over it. He sighs and puts it back in the L-space the capchalogue cards inhabit.]

Okay. Thanks.

[Oh God is that slime working its magic.]

[gunsablazing]

[THIS HEARTLESS YOUNG MAN IS HAULING KARKAT'S TROLLBUTT HALF A MILE TO SAFETY! Also Jr. would have said that that is probably not a good way to keep up good relations with your father, but what the hell would he know; he destroyed his own dad.

Grunting as Karkat moves to pick up the sickle, he watches intently. That is something he's never seen before and while he normally would ask about it, the combination of the cold, the fight, and Karkat's weight is sapping his energy fast.

He does, however, pause and give Karkat a look when the troll thanks him. That...was unexpected.]

Sure thing.

[And so they continue their sluggish march!]

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[Karkat and Jr. have something in common then! I'm sure one day this will come out and make a lot of sense to them.

Karkat focuses on putting one foot in front of the other and keeping his eyes open. He tries to convince himself he'll just see writhing tentacles trying to grab him if he closes his eyes, but the soothing slime makes that hard to focus on. He just wants to curl up in his recuperacoon and get dragged out of bed by his lusus.

But that's not going to happen. And it won't again. All that'll happen if he sleeps is a nightmare he's not sure he'll get up from again.

He tries to push himself off the other boy as much as he can without teetering, but it proves to be difficult. So he swallows his pride and keeps going, slowly eating up the distance between the loch and the village.]

If I get my hands on the asshole that did this...