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[centurybaby]

[ the view is obscured by an exhale of cigarette smoke, until jenny lifts a hand to wave it away. the gesture is unremarkable, except it's irritable somehow. the camera is sitting on her bedside table, angled a bit carelessly, because when she moves away from it, she doesn't seem to care if her face shows or not-- but she's visible from the middle down, pacing and smoking. ]

Hey.

Has anyone seen Julian Keller?

[ another exhale of smoke. then she moves to sit on the cot. ]

He sent me something. So I just wanna know if anyone's fucking seen him or not.

[ she lifts a hand to run through her hair. it's getting long now. but she's quiet. quiet for a while. then irritably, she flicks her cigarette to floor and grinds it out. hard. ]

Happy fucking holidays.

[ then she turns the feed off. ]

Comments

[crab]

Probably. [ there's a moderately long pause, and when karkat speaks again, the easy humor is gone -- there's a degree of hesitance to it. banter with jenny comes easily, but, as he'd put it earlier, emotional support? it's not really territory he's ever ventured into before. ]

I am sorry, you know. About Keller Porting out.

[centurybaby]

[ there's a responding pause on her end that stretches longer than she wants it to.

finally, subdued: ]

Me too. [ another, smaller pause. ] I think he was my best friend.

[crab]

I'm not-- going to give you the whole he might Port back in spiel. There's an equal chance that he never will.

[ there is very little that can be said by way of comfort in a situation like this. he exhales, unhappily. ]

But it's okay to be pissed, or upset. I know what it's like to lose people who are important to you.

[ he wishes you could encrypt stuff in prison. ]

[centurybaby]

[ truthfully? she appreciates it. the honesty. because she's already largely accepted that she'll never see julian keller ever again. ]

I am pissed. And upset. [ quieter: ] I just don't want anybody to fucking see it.

[ she wishes she could encrypt stuff too. ]

[crab]

Want me to come down there?

[centurybaby]

Maybe.

Probably won't be much fucking fun though.

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[crab]

I'll try not to be too disappointed.

[ it takes a while for him to get there, and get approved to visit her, so it's roughly an hour later that he steps through and takes his familiar seat across from her. ]

Hey.

[centurybaby]

[ she isn't sure if he's actually coming or not until she sees him there, sliding into the seat on the other side of the table-- same way he always does. she has his sweater on over her prison uniform. it clashes, but it keeps her warm.

she gives a half-wave hello. mildly: ]

Don't have anything better to do, huh?

[crab]

[ he really shouldn't be surprised to see her wearing the sweater. after all, he's still wearing her jacket. ]

It's your lucky day, Quantum. There was a gap in my otherwise endlessly busy schedule.

[ another pause. ]

So, you wanna talk?

[centurybaby]

[ she does. but it's never easy for a tough girl to open up. there's no immediate answer. instead, she folds her hands on top of the table and lays her head on them idly, watching him a moment or two before responding a bit unreadably: ]

I wanna rip the fucking fabric of time and space open, but I guess talking is okay too.

[crab]

Okay well not that being obliterated in the fallout of your cosmic rampage doesn't sound like fun, but my schedule isn't actually open to that, so I'm going to have to ask you to hold it in for now.

[ dryly. he rests his elbow on the table, and sits his chin in his palm. he doesn't want to push her, but he doesn't want to let this go without at least trying to reach out to her. ]

If you want to rage about it in a less literally apocalyptic way, though, I'm listening.

[centurybaby]

[ she huffs out an exhale that might've been amused under different circumstances. ]

You know, I didn't have friends before I came here. There didn't really seem to be any fucking point.

[ she tilts her head, burying her face against her arms for a moment before she goes on, muffled: ]

Now that I've got friends, it feels like all I fucking do is lose them.

[crab]

Nothing in this place is permanent. [ he says it with a certain measure of reluctance. as though he's never said it out loud, in this context before.

never accepted it before. ] Once you realize that, you have to decide whether or not to make the most of what you have while it's there, or waste it just because it's not going to last, and still lose it anyway.

[centurybaby]

Yeah.

[ she scoffs, lifting her head again to look at him. ]

Great fucking time for me to be in prison, huh. So much for making the most of it.

[crab]

Maybe next time you should think it over more carefully before you go subjugating entire countries and getting yourself killed.

[ he is still a little sore about her death, all this time later. ]

This isn't permanent, either, though. You'll be out eventually. Even if I have to break you out.

[centurybaby]

Right. What's the plan? You gonna swear at the guards until they let me out just to shut you up?

[ she's teasing. if it's got a mean edge, it must be her mood showing. ]

[crab]

Don't fucking put it past me. [ he can take a mean edge, especially from her. ] You don't know what I'm capable of.

[centurybaby]

[ that earns a vague upward quirk of her lips. ]

Yeah, yeah, you're really fucking wild. You sure you shouldn't be in here with me?

[crab]

They, uh. They've actually tried to arrest me before. For questioning.

[centurybaby]

[ another entertained exhale. ]

Tried to arrest you? What the fuck happened?

[crab]

Gamzee picked me up and psuedo-teleported us halfway across the City. I was this close to upchucking all over him, let me tell you. Anyway, they knew I was involved with him, so they wanted to bring me in to question me about his whereabouts. [ he shrugs. ] Doesn't seem to matter anymore, since he Ported out.

[centurybaby]

[ she pauses, watching him another beat before she responds: ]

He was your best friend, right?

[crab]

He was. [ he confirms. ]

[centurybaby]

Sorry. That sucks.

[ and it actually sounds sincere, for once. ]

You miss him?

[crab]

Yeah, I do, but-- [ he lifts his head off of his palm, presses the heel of it into his forehead, as though for a headache. ] It's complicated. You remember when I went back to my reality for a while?