I WANNA KNOW WHAT LOVE ISSSS [OPEN]

[angrynubs]

Who: Karkat and YOU.
Where: Right outside the Mess Hall
Summary: Romance troubles? Shhhhshoooshhshhshooosh Karkat is here.
Warnings: Language.

Karkat was bored.

After calming down from the reality of being kidnapped, he quickly found that being stuck on a giant, talking spaceship wasn't so different from being trapped in the veil--Stacy was just much, much bigger. There were things to occupy his time, of course. He and the other trolls still needed a hive, after all, and the City was certainly full of enough crap to salvage. Still, for being chosen, or whatever, there was surprisingly little action to be had since his arrival.

Obviously, that meant Karkat was going to make his own entertainment. As dumb as all these humans were, they at least gave him something to do. The best course of action would, naturally, solve many problems at once. Though it was entirely possible to build a sufficient Hive in the City out of all the junk left over from that SHODAN lady or whoever she was, lots of people on the ship meant lots of cool stuff that could potentially contribute to the Hive. Unfortunately, Karkat didn't have much to offer, but as much as he disliked hearing people whine about their problems, solving romantic issues was undoubtedly something he was good at. Perhaps offering that in exchange for cool stuff could not only benefit him, but act as a viable method to cure boredom.

So here he was, positioned outside the mess hall with a sign--one that said "ADVICE: ROMANTIC OR OTHERWISE" in big, bold letters. He was so totally serious about this.

This was a good plan.

Comments

[angrynubs]

"No," he quipped, folding his arms and leaning against the squishy spaceship wall, "I do this completely out of the unbridled kindness of my vascular pump."

Karkat paused for a moment, after that, unsure if the sarcasm was sinking in or not. "Of course I charge, asshole. I'm not an idiot and I don't work for free."

[first_of_steel]

"Thought maybe you were getting paid by someone on the command staff to act as a public advisor," said Roger, unfazed. "Like an advice columnist in the papers." (You know. When they had papers.)

"What kind of rates are we looking at here?"

[angrynubs]

Karkat seemed almost offended by the very notion of working for command, letting out a long, exaggerated "PFFFFFFTTTT" in response.

"Self-employed. Rates depend on what you have to offer."

[first_of_steel]

"Not a lot of currency at the moment," Roger admitted. "Not that there's much going around here from what I can see. I've got more energy cells than my laser pistol's likely to need any time soon, though."

He's not even sure he needs advice about anything, but hell, it's an interesting premise and he can come up with something to ask, right?

[angrynubs]

He shrugged. "As far as I can tell, currency doesn't mean a fucking thing around here. It's all about the cool shit."

Energy cells sounded like cool shit. Maybe not something he could do anything with, but Karkat was sure Tavros could make Lash do something with them. Yes. Yes this would be a good plan.

Still, he regarded Roger's offer with suspicion. Maybe energy cells were actually lame. "What do they do?"

[first_of_steel]

"One cell is good for about thirty shots from my laser pistol before I have to get the cell recharged," Roger said. "And three or four hits from the laser pistol will usually vaporize a man-sized target. My power armor runs on small energy cells, too, but it doesn't chew through the output the way the laser does. A little work and enough cells in one place and you can convert their contents to electron charge packs or MF cells, which'll fire higher damage energy weapons like my laser rifle. Rig enough of them together and you can match the output of a fission battery powerful enough to run an entire Protectron for years on end."

[angrynubs]

Karkat pretended to consider that for a moment, even though he'd already made up his mind. That sounded like some Cool Shit, and he was going to get his hands on it. He had no idea what he'd do with it, but that was for Tavros to bribe Lash into figuring out for them.

"Blah blah yeah, okay, I'll take one, and in exchange, I will dispense my invaluable advice."

[first_of_steel]

"All right," said Roger, and dug one of his extra energy cells out to hand over. "Can't say I've got anything going in the romantic department that would require advice, but since you said 'and otherwise'... I woke up on this ship in the most recent pod-pop. Two other people from my world were in the same batch. Members of a military organization I founded, as it happens. Problem is, they're from two hundred years after my time. Flattered as I am that I'm remembered after my death and that it's not for something horrific, they've both indicated that things'd gone pretty badly wrong for my people. Assuming I ever see home again, I'm wondering how I go about preventing the folks who call themselves my followers from turning into a bunch of idiots."

What the hell. Why not.

[angrynubs]

Wow. That sounded familiar.

"You're in luck," he began, treading carefully because he was sure Roger didn't need to hear about how his team went crazy and started killing each other, "I happen to be the leader of an incredibly elite squad, with many of the same problems."

The squad, of course, was much smaller than it had been, mostly because of that inter-team killing problem. But Roger wasn't going to know that.

"Step the fuck up and be a leader. Let them know that you're the one they have to listen to. Were your shitty ideas the reason everything went down the waste receptacle?"

[first_of_steel]

"Don't know yet. I plan to sit down with them as soon as I can round 'em both up and ask them to fill me in on what the hell happened," Roger said. "If it turns out it was my ideas, well... I'll have to get some new ones, won't I."