sortinghat_logs | Who's sulking? Not me.

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Who's sulking? Not me.

WHO: Karkat & Dolores
TONE: Sulky, comfort, with later embarrassment.
RATING: PG for language.
WHEN: 21/03
WHERE: The Infirmary
WHAT: Karkat has been brooding on things and needs someone to sulk at who wont tease him. (Well, motherly teasing doesn't count, right?)
STATUS: Ongoing.

Since Valentine's Day, Karkat had been mulling over the simple facts:

None of this egg-love potion shit had happened to him
Not even in a one sided instance
there was no one in the school that he was remotely interested in even without potions.

All of this was really starting to get under his skin. Even without potions people seemed to be hormonal all over the place, hell he spends a lot of time trying to organise Gamzee's stupid love life all the time. Which makes his point right there. If Gamzee, one of the most useless and shifty looking pieces of shit can get someone...

...What's wrong with Karkat?

His thinking about it had started to reach breaking point, which lead Karkat to do what he normally does. Hold back from others and then when it get's too much head straight to Dolores in the infirmary.

So after being somewhat scarce over the last few weeks, Karkat shuffles his way into the large open, and now that he thought about it, drafty room. And flops face first onto a bed that's closest to where Dolores was standing.

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She never knew when Karkat was going to make an appearance, but when he turned up in the infirmary it was usually because of one of two things - either because he was hurt, or because he needed to talk (and was going to pretend that he didn't). The former usually came along with more vocal complaining, so when he walked in, she let him be, continuing to sort through one of the cabinets lining the walls.

When he dropped onto the bed, she looked down at him and smiled softly, fondly, before closing the cabinet and sitting down on the bed beside him, resting one hand on his hair and stroking her thumb in slow circles over his scalp.

"Hello to you too."

He tilts head into the stroking, which frees his mouth from the pillow slightly.

"My life is the biggest piece of shit."

As always, he downplayed his feelings on the situation at hand.

"Always so dramatic," she cooed gently, still stroking her fingers over his hair. She shook her head, settling herself more comfortably beside him. Ideally, she'd not try to pry into what was upsetting him out here, but until he wanted to move.. well, it was long past the time that she could simply pick him up and move him.

"What's wrong?"

"Who's being dramatic, this is called being realistic."

He rolls over onto his back and looks up at Dolores, frowning like usual.

She smoothed his hair off his forehead, looking down at him with that ever-patient expression of fondness. Karkat was always so sour, but she knew him better than to think this was all there was to him.

"You didn't answer my question, dear," she pointed out. "Do you want to come through to the back room? We can speak in private."

"Like I care about where we talk."

He says as he sits up and slips off the bed and starts to head to the back room. He wants to get this all off his chest, and he wants it off now because he's sick of worrying about it, and Dolores has always been the best remedy to things that bother him.

Of course he didn't care, but she knew he'd move anyway, even if it was just because he thought she would prefer to talk there. She shook her head and followed after him, closing the door behind them both and offering him a chair.

"Would you like something to drink? I have some juice, or.. tea, if you'd prefer."

Karkat flops in the chair and shrugs dismissively.

"Caramel tea? Or is that at home? Because we have juice every day he, and I'm getting fucking over it."

Since moving in with Dolores and all her tea, Karkat had started to slowly develop a taste for the brewable liquid himself. Though if asked he would only say it's because there's little else drink back home. But really, he just loved the fruit and sweet flavoured teas, because it made him want to snack less and just smelt really damn good.

"Yes, yes.." If she noticed his swearing, she glossed over it entirely. Far be it from her to tell anyone to censor themselves around her, and it wasn't as if he was swearing at her, anyway. That was an entirely different thing and she would deal with that if it ever happened.

The tea was prepared with a few well-practised flicks of her wand. Usually she let it brew naturally, but that would only drag out the time, and perhaps Karkat would lose the nerve to talk about what was troubling him. It didn't do much to alter the taste, anyway. When it was done she placed one cup in front of him, and sat down with her own.

She didn't tell him to talk, sure that he'd start when he was ready.

Karkat didn't bother to wait for the tea to cool, he knew that Dolores was a master of tea, and he was unsurprised to find out he was right. Then after a long few moments he takes a breath.

"Okay, so apart from obviously genetic defects. What is wrong with me?"

He stares at his cup, his knuckles white from holding it a little too hard.

"What-- Karkat, sweetheart.." She set her cup aside and moved over to him, cupping one side of his face gently with one cool-skinned hand. "There's nothing wrong with you, nothing at all."

Her thumb stroked lightly over his cheek as she looked at him intently, trying to catch his eye, unhappy to hear him talk like that but it wasn't the first time he'd done so.

"What happened to make you ask me something like that?"

He gives a heavy shoulder shrug, not looking at her.

"Other than the fact that my best friend is a maladjusted drug addict, and is the only person who actually regularly around. But hey, at least he's reliable like that."

He fidgets a little.

"No one was even..."

He groans loudly, then huffs. Wanting to say it but feeling so beyond stupid for it all.

She'd never questioned Karkat's choice in friends. Well, not to him, anyway. He could make his own choices, and Gamzee was harmless enough in his own way. As if she could make any comment on poor decisions, besides, when you considered the person she'd decided to date.

Not that she thought that was a bad decision in the slightest.

Her hands moved to clasp around his, and she spoke softly. "No one was even what..? You can tell me."

Karkat sags in the seat.

"Everyone was getting idiots and horn dogs all over them with that whole stupid snake egg project. Everyone, even Gamzee and Tavros, who can't even catch a cold without dropping it."

He chews his lips for a moment.

"So why is it me. Who is a master of romance, someone who people comes to for advice. Can't even manage to have someone fake fall in love with me? And let's not even start on someone actually liking me with their own feelings or anything."

He has a look on his face somewhere between confused and angry. Because he can't understand how it's fair. When not at school he watches RomCom's almost religiously, and yet everyone else without even a 16th of his collection are just falling over crushes and kisses.

Ah.. well, it was only a matter of time. She squeezes his hands lightly. "You of all people should know that you cannot rush these things, darling," she said fondly, lifting one hand to brush his hair away from his face.

"You are a very handsome young man, and you will find someone. It may not be while you are at school, but you will." Still so young and already worrying about this kind of thing. Children really did grow up too quickly these days.

Karkat makes an indelicate noise.

"Handsome. Sure. Okay. I'm not looking for the one or anything. But this is a boarding school, that's a whole lot of emotions that are spilling out everywhere. I'm missing all of it! Even in my movies people even get to make stupid mistakes before they find the right person. I don't even get that."

He deflates himself a little. Because even though he was venting to Dolores, he knew there was pretty much nothing she could do for him here.

As much as she'd like to be able to help him, he was sadly right. There wasn't anything she could do, except listen to him and comfort him when this kind of thing inevitably started to get on his nerves.

"Sometimes it takes a little longer for some people," she told him, then sighed lightly and shook her head. "And... Karkat, you do not always make it easy for people to become close to you."

"What are you talking about, I'm completely approachable to everyone. It's not my fault they're all so inconceivably stupid about who to approach things."

He huffs and tilts his nose up a little, even though he has enough insecurities to sink a small boat, he had weird moments of arrogance and snobbery.

"Karkat..." She pressed a kiss on his forehead, then sat back to enjoy her own tea. He was a difficult boy at the best of times, but she did love him like her own child, and she wanted him to be happy.

"Perhaps it would not be such a bad thing to.. not point out people's inadequacies so vocally."

He scrunches up his face at the suggestion.

"If I don't, nobody will. And sometimes people need to be told these things or they'll keep living in their deluded little fantasies for the rest of their lives because no one want's to hurt their precious snowflake feelings with the truth!"

"There are kinder ways to give the truth," she told him, not that she'd change him for all the world. She stood up, moving to get a tin of biscuits down from one of the cupboards and setting them on the table for Karkat to take one if he wanted to.

"I will not tell you to do things differently, that is up to you, but you may simply have to be prepared to wait a little longer to find the person for you."

Edited 2013-04-09 06:17 (UTC)

Karkat sits in silence, contemplating her words. Then takes a biscuit and nibbles it quietly.

"So, I'm just a jerk and that's why I have to wait longer for someone to actually be able to put up with my shit?"

"That is not what I said." Though, it was an interesting way of putting it. It would take a special person indeed to be able to appreciate Karkat's way of thinking, but she was sure he'd find someone.

"Only that you may need to wait until you are a little older, when perhaps people will not irritate you so much."

He sags back into the chair again, taking an awkward sip of his tea so as not to interrupt his dramatic sulking.

"So then, never. I could be 100 and still find everyone shit."

"You must not be so pessimistic," she chided gently, rubbing one hand over his knee before settling back into her own seat. It was so easy to be dramatic about these things when you were young, she knew. "You will find someone, one day, and it may be when you least expect it."

"You can't just stop expecting to find someone worth your time, that doesn't make you gag, and that you actually look forward to just being quiet with."

He drinks more of his tea.

"It's like that blue hippogryph thing."

"Blue hippogryff?" He had her a little stumped, there, but she sipped her drink and watched him over the rim of the cup. She did so enjoy these talks with Karkat, especially if she could make him feel better about something that was on his mind.

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Who's sulking? Not me.

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