i fought the war

[gevurah]

WHO: KARKAT and KATE
WHERE: a convenience store
WHEN: early evening of 9/6
WARNINGS: a certain someone's mouth, most likely.
SUMMARY: Karkat steals to support himself and Kate catches him in the act and must deal with this without violence! Don't punch kids, Kate.
FORMAT: je m'en fiche u_u


Parking in not New York really was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Kate had circled a good four times before she managed to squeeze the bike into a spot a block down from the store. She didn't mind the distance— she wasn't going to be long.

Recently, she had grown uneasy being away from the apartment, from Nill, when she wasn't patrolling or working a case. Dent being locked behind bars these days only brought minimal comfort to her agitated thoughts. The buses, Nill being shot by someone who should have been dead and her being dragged into a dimension she had no power to find or enter herself, Max's recent... along with Vulcanus on the move again was enough to keep her mind preoccupied with dark, angry, but vaguely paranoid thoughts.

None of these thoughts were visible in her expression or the way she carried herself down the street. She was good at pretending otherwise.

With her helmet in hand, she walked toward the automatic glass doors of the store.

Comments

[crab]

It's one catastrophe after another. First, the hell dimension. Then... whatever that void fiasco entailed. Now, people are in space, lasers from space are blowing miscellaneous places up, and he'd been clocked in the face by Rose Lalonde only hours earlier. He's been abnormally angry and on edge all day-- which is saying something when applied to Karkat, whose state is near perpetually angry and on edge.

He's so fucking done with this.

One thing in particular he is done with-- among everything else --is putting up with the atrocities Gamzee passes off as "food". What he needs is ice cream. He needs chocolate. He doesn't even bother with subtlety when he strides into the convenience store and begins captchaloguing items with impunity. There is no reaction for approximately twenty seconds, at which point the employees catch on to what he's doing, and angry voices announce their displeasure at his audacity. He fails to give a shit. He picks up a bag of fun size Kit-kats with one hand and flips off the angry cashier striding towards him with the other, calling him a nook slurping fuckwheel before moving to attempt to run out the doors and book it.

The word attempt is key here, because he barrels directly into Kate in the process.

[gevurah]

It's rare for Kate to bump into someone, even when she's out in the ever busy City. It's rarer for her to nearly take a tumble. It stuns her for a good several seconds. Her helmet slips from her grasp and clangs heavily against the floor, but she barely registers the noise among the screaming and yelling of the employees. They aren't yelling at her, that's for certain.

She's quick to deduce the situation in here; employees screaming and approaching at an alarming fast rate at this time usually meant theft or someone being told to vacate the premises. With some wind knocked out of her, it's got to be the former.

What she isn't prepared for is the familiar grey skin and horns. Her initial surprise rapidly fades and Karkat will find himself being held firmly in place by Kate's hand.

Trolls.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asks sharply.

[crab]

Karkat stalls, reeling from the collision at first, before he's held in place. He glares up at the source of his impediment indignantly, attempting to extricate himself from her grasp. His right eye is wonderfully black and swollen almost shut. He holds up the bag of Kit-kats, shakes them a little and snaps at her;

"Not that it's any of your impertinent fucking business, I'm feeding myself, now get your hand off of me before I rip it off!" He is terribly threatening, all four feet and eleven inches of him puffed up in anger, brandishing a package of chocolates to emphasize his words.

The cashier catches up not a few moments later, clapping a hand down on Karkat's other shoulder, blustering something about Imports and the lack of respect among the youth these days.

"Don't touch me!"

[gevurah]

The voice registers, however Karkat's derisive and incredulously hostile behavior distracts her from asking if they've spoken before. She deals with petty thieves almost every night, so this is all a simple routine for her. Still, she's never taken well to threats and her eyes flash with wild anger, almost instinctively too. Kid or not, she's not going to let anyone treat her like a proverbial or literal doormat.

Now the cashier is rambling about imPorts. She can't contain it— she rolls her eyes, though she never lets go of Karkat's shoulder.

"The more you fight, the deeper the hole you're digging." She casts the cashier a pointed look, indicating she's able to hold Karkat while he does what he needs to. She shifts her gaze back to the kid. "And over a bag of chocolates? Not worth it."

[crab]

"Wow, how does this even concern you in any way whatsoever, please enlighten me!" Karkat snaps, the cashier already snatching the bag of chocolates out of his hands again. Fine. He had plenty of other things stashed in his sylladex neither of them --

-- Oh. The cashier was supposedly paying attention when the items of food Karkat picked up off the shelves started disappearing into thin air. Karkat glares between the two of them. He's obviously not going to get out of this. Today is just not his day.

He lets out a long suffering sigh and a string of curses, before dumping the rest of his hoard out of the game abstraction-like hammerspace and onto the sidewalk in front of the cashier. Quite a bit more than a bag of chocolates. His spoils include a box of cereal, a package of instant noodles, a bag of doritos, a loaf of bread-- basically, whatever was in reach and that looked edible enough.

"There! Happy now, random asshole who has nothing to do with this? Great. I'll go back to starving to death, then, or better yet, go home and die of food poisoning! Exactly the way I wanted to finish up what an incredibly marvelous fucking day this has been. Thank you so much."

[gevurah]

She's left slightly agape at all the junk food suddenly pouring out from— hang on a second, where did he stash that all? Most importantly, how and did he have anything else he was trying to sneak off with?

Kate observes the food, all rather typical for a kid his age, although her experience with the trolls is that they're anything but typical.

The scowl remains on her face. They've spoken all of once and this is not a wonderful first face-to-face impression.

"Kate, actually. Not random asshole," she says dryly. "Don't you have your tags?" She doesn't bother to keep it hidden from the cashier, though he immediately shoots her a wary look at her reveal. She ignores his conspicuous gaze.

[crab]

"Yes, I have them. Look, if you're done meddling, can I go already? I've had the shit beaten out of me once already today, my best friend is currently orbiting the planet in space, it's been raining lasers, and all I wanted was a decent fucking meal for once."

He does, in fact, have one thing held back in his sylladex. Another packet of chocolates. No one's going to miss it probably, and he wants something at least vaguely resembling comfort food after everything that's gone on today.

[gevurah]

She stares again, not exactly sure what she could or should say to that. February had left a bad taste in her mouth when it came to space and she unfortunately didn't have the means to travel up there. She reluctantly has to leave problems in space up to those who can deal with it.

"No," she answers coolly. "You just tried to steal and I'm not about to let that slide. Let's hope the employees aren't going to call the cops on you." It doesn't matter if the bill didn't even come past twenty measly dollars— some places called the cops without as much as a second thought on petty thievery.

She looks to the cashier. "Look, whatever he's done— I'm sorry. I'll pay for it and we'll go." No harm, no foul, she hopes.

[crab]

Karkat tenses up at the mention of the human authorities possibly getting involved, and looks over at the cashier, ready to make another break for it if it seemed as though they were going to call them.

They seem to deliberate for a few moments, eyeing the pair of them suspiciously, before acquiescing, though they also add that Karkat would be heretofore banned from the premises, and the authorities would be called if he were caught in or near the store a second time.

He shoots the cashier a few choice profanities, before looking at Kate a little quizzically. Now he's calmed down, at least enough to think clearly, her voice is distinctly familiar. He frowns. "Okay, number one, this still isn't any of your business, just in case I hadn't made that transparent enough yet. Number two, have we spoken before?"

[gevurah]

"Nill's friend, remember?" she asks, observing him to see if it's jogged his memory yet. She distances herself from the term "guardian" again, as well as anything strictly paternal sounding. She's not quite mother material, she thinks.

She gives the cashier a nod, but is quick to throw a look of warning at Karkat. If they can leave without getting into a verbal brawl it would be a blessing.

Fishing out her own wallet and card, she moves to the cash register ready to pay and then get out of there.

"I'm making it my business," she finally says.

[crab]

"Oh. Right," he says, a little awkwardly now. Luckily for Kate paternal isn't a concept Karkat consciously applies to anything that isn't a terrifying monster of some sort. She's safe from accusations of motherhood, at least from him.

He hangs back and holds his tongue when she pays the cashier. It hurts his pride to let her save his ass after meddling in his getaway, but it's better than having the authorities called and possibly being done in as that one guy who spends his days harboring a wanted serial killer. He's been chased by cops before, and there's bound to be some who would recognize him.

When she's done, though, he sees no reason not to go right back to mouthing off.

"I should have recognized you sooner, I guess. You're even more condescending in person."