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One morning - they're not sure what the times are anymore, but the Knight and Maid are at least keeping them to a regular schedule - Karkat enters his respite block and finds a girl sitting on his bed. She seems to have been waiting a while, since she has a book for sketching balanced on her knees. Her glasses have fallen down to the tip of her nose. When she hears him enter, she captchalogues the book and pencil, and pushes her glasses up. She stares at him evenly through them. It's not an expression he's used to seeing on her, and it unnerves him. Finally, she speaks.
"Karkat, teach me about trolls. Pleeeease?" her cool demeanor slips at the end. Karkat suspects she was trying to emulate Rose, and wonders why she'd bother. He also wonders what it is she wants to learn. So he asks. She shrugs, and explains to him that their similarities are confusing, and their differences even more so. She wants to learn, apparently, what makes trolls different to humans. Well, she always was the most bizarre of the humans, Karkat supposes, it's in her nature to appear somewhere she shouldn't be and ask completely fucking crazy questions out of nowhere.
Karkat sits on his bed - the humans gifted all the trolls beds, and while they're not culturally appropriate, even Karkat admits they're much comfier than recuperacoons - and leans against the pillows. Jade sits at the other end, crossing her legs and watching him expectantly through spectacled eyes. He clears his throat, and begins to launch into the now well-established explanation of quadrants. Jade cuts him off, shaking her head and pouting, "I know that stuff!" she says, sounding annoyed, "You told us all on our first day here," now she leans her chin on her hands, resting her elbows on her knees, "What about the rest of your life?"
Something about her steady, vivid green gaze seems inviting, and Karkat finds himself teaching the curious girl about lusii. He rubs his watering eyes furiously while talking about his own lusus, but if she notices, she doesn't comment. He tells her about the time his lusus was hurt by a musclebeast while getting food, and he had to nurse him back to health before he could eat again. He recalls the fights he had with his lusus to calm it down, and the almost apologetic manner it had after the shouting and violence calmed down. He is surprised to find he misses it. Not just his lusus, but the whole of Alternia. Even the stupid hemospectrum bullshit. It sucked, he thinks, but it was home. Jade nods sympathetically, and he realises he's been speaking aloud.
Karkat stops speaking. He's too embarassed. Letting his defences slip, in front of one of the humans no less! And he hates himself as the candy red blood rushes to his cheeks. It paints 'mutant' across his face. A bright red stamp declaring him culled. Everybody knows. He knows everybody knows. And yet it still humiliates him, makes him remember the stories he hasn't told Jade. The ones where other young trolls threw stones at his hive, shattering the window he was watching them through. The part of the tale where it was another troll who hurt his lusus on its search for food. The reason he always took the arguments and fighting, because he felt it was somehow his fault for being hatched. All these things he doesn't say.
Maybe it's to fill the silence, or maybe just because she wants to, but Jade shuffles closer to him, and starts telling stories about her own childhood. She smiles while she speaks, but her stories sound lonely. Just her and the demon dog, and a dead guardian, alone on an island. Karkat watches her speak. He wonders if she knows she talks with her hands. She tells him a story about Squiddles, complete with wiggling fingers and giggles, and checks him for a reaction. He realises she's trying to cheer him up. Something about the naive, hopeful expression on her face as she watches him sends a jolt of pain through his chest. A rasping sob escapes his throat, and he reflexively buries his face in his arms.
The balance of weight on the spring mattress shifts. Springs squeak quietly in protest. Karkat feels a pair of warm, gentle arms wrap themselves around his shoulders. Silence reigns as hot, pale red tears fall down his cheeks and soak the sleeves of his shirt. Jade begins murmuring comfortingly in his ear. He's not sure what she's saying and neither is she, but her tone is soft and calming, and Karkat is able to control himself again.imself again. She sits patiently while he wipes his face clean on his sleeve, her arms never moving from their protective grasp. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, and mentally declares himself no longer a pathetic emotional wreck. He raises his head, at last, to let Jade know he's okay now, and finds her closer than he expected.
They sit there, nose to nose, for what seems to be an eternity. Jade's surprisingly calm eyes meet Karkat's panicked ones. They draw the moment out for as long as they can manage, until Karkat doesn't know if he'll ever breathe normally again and Jade's heart has almost leapt out her mouth. His hand twitches as he tries to make a decision he wasn't prepared for. Then Jade smiles, and turns, and asks something innocuous about recuperacoons, and the moment is gone forever. But whenever their eyes meet, there is an agreement; one day, when they're both prepared, there will be a new moment.