♋ PCG 20

[crusthatecean]

[Action, 1338 Benny Road]

[Karkat wakes up unable to shake the memory of his dream. He has nightmares regularly, a combination of sleeping without a recuperacoon and everything he's been through since he began playing Sgrub. But something about this one felt more real and vivid and awful, and he remembers it more clearly.

But he wakes ordinarily, only to watch the news and hear his own name, among others, listed. He remembers. She told him she would erase his existence, and he said yes. That memory combined with the news spooks him; Mayfield is clearly doing something, and he doesn't know what to think. So when the television shuts off, he'll go looking for his housemates to try to calm his nerves.]

[Phone, later]

All right, this is Karkat. No, guess what, this is actually Karkat. I'm here. You can choose to believe me or not.

Is anyone else who supposedly disappeared still here? Let's discuss this latest Mayfield fuckstorm like the rational conversationalists I know we all aren't.

[Filtered to Feferi, Tavros, Eridan, and Sollux]

And I especially need to talk to all of you. Now. Don't give me any shit about whether or not I'm the real Karkat. If you are here, answer me now.

I can't believe a single one of you complete drooling panrotted fucking assholes.

[Filtered to Signless.]

You.

((OOC: Karkat has been erased, so he will seem like a fakey fake doppleganger!))

Comments

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

Karkat is an insecure trainwreck who couldn't be anything his way out of a globe sack. Do I sound convincingly like myself now?

[He sounds angry, but it's not at her. It's not her fault, but it's hard to watch the people he loves reject him and hate him so much, especially knowing that he's hurting them just by talking to them because they think he's gone. It was not supposed to be like this, this wasn't the bargain he made.

Briefly, though, he wonders if the bargain had been this, to have a chance to be a hero and make a pointless self-sacrifice even if it meant badly hurting Gamzee and Terezi and who knows who else, if he would still have been convinced. He'd like to think he'd never have done this to them if he'd known they'd know to miss him, if he'd known he was abandoning a matesprit who loved him and a moirail who needed him, but part of him knows that isn't true.

He was so easy to manipulate, so easy to convince to disappear, all because he wanted to be special, be the one to save them. Only now he feels like a wiggler who just got done playing hero only to realize he's much too old for these games.

He has to fix this. No matter what, he has to fix this.]

I know how I seem, but it's me. They've done something to your pan, and it's my fault it's happened, but you can be angry at me for that later. Please, please trust me.

[foretastes.livejournal.com]

[That's just wrong. Terezi bristles, and something in her chest constricts painfully. Karkat's gone and he's never coming back and all Mayfield has to offer them now is this... This poor imitation of (who?) him.

He sounds like Karkat and he's saying all the things she knows Karkat would say and in the way he would word them, but this isn't him.]

Don't ask me to trust you! [She flares up, and for once her anger has no mirth in it. This is one of the very few times Terezi can find zero reason to twist her anger and use it as a weapon.]

Fuck you! As if I'm going to trust a fake! How dare they? They think this is going to make anything better? That if it just sounds like you, we're supposed to be okay with that?

[It's not okay. It'll never be okay.]

You're nothing.

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

[And he really hasn't ever heard her like this; he knows her usually teasing, her anger partially or completely pretended for a show of bravado, he's known her sometimes annoyed or disappointed with him, and he's known her when she's in a serious mood, surprisingly thoughtful and kind.

But she really hates him right now. He knows it isn't really about him but about what Mayfield is forcing her to hear, but it still hurts. He's not going to change her mind by pleading with her, and trying to is only making her feel worse. He's still determined to fix this, but he has to abandon the whole 'no it's really me' angle for now, because he's done enough to her today.]

No, not really. This all sucks, and as I said, this is fully my fuck up.

I'm sorry.

[foretastes.livejournal.com]

Haaaa! I doubt it. Can you even feel anything? You're not even real, after all. Is that what you're doing? Apologizing for being a shitty copy made up by this place?

[The anger and hurt is pouring out of her like it's coming from a faucet and she can't shut it off. All of the awful things she's gone through lately feel like they've culminated in this. Karkat is gone, and now there's this mockery, this thing in his place.]

I don't even want to hear it. Leave me alone.

[A pause.]

And stay away from the others, too. Nobody wants you as their leader.

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

I'm apologizing for this entire mess and everything that is awful about it, so yes, I guess so.

But sure, I will stay away.

1/2

[foretastes.livejournal.com]

Good. Don't try to...

[Terezi suddenly trails off.]

[foretastes.livejournal.com]

[when she speaks again, she sounds confused and suspicious.]

Who am I talking to?

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

What?

You're still talking to fake worthless asshole Karkat.

[foretastes.livejournal.com]

Karkat?

[she sounds lost.] Who... who is that?

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

Terezi?

[He wonders first if she isn't doing this to shake him somehow, or to lash out at him. But that makes no sense, she doesn't even think he's real, and he promised to leave her alone.]

Come on, you remember who Karkat is. I accept defeat, I am not him. He is welcome to himself. But you know who he is.

1/2

[foretastes.livejournal.com]

[the confusion in her tone picks up.] No, I don't. Who's Karkat?

Who am I talking to?

[foretastes.livejournal.com]

...







[suddenly she's mumbling in an unfocused way, as if stirring from a dream, and she continues on as if the last few seconds hadn't happened at all.] Oh... right.

Anyway, leave us alone. You're not the real him.

[crusthatecean.livejournal.com]

[She really did, for a moment, forget him entirely. Even if she remembers again now, this is scaring him. Is this what was meant when the announcement said they wouldn't be missed for long?

He thought it was hard trapped here with friends who hate him, but he doesn't know what he'll do if they just forget him altogether.]

I'll leave you alone.

Bye, Terezi.

[foretastes.livejournal.com]

Bye.

[for once, there is no hesitation nor regret in slamming the phone down.

it's satisfying.]