You would say you saw this coming, but embarrassingly enough, you really didn't. Some part of you was still being stupidly hopeful, and now you're stuck. In a winter garment storage. With your former friend, who is now an amnesiac or something dumb like that.

You'd like to think he let you in because he recognized you. Or at least, that would be a start.

"What do you mean?" you snarl back. "I came to find my friend. You."

"M-hmm. Thhhhure you did." You flinch at the spray of spittle, and he glares at you again. More than before, at least. You return the favor. "Yes, dumbass! We're. Fucking. Friends."

"I don't remember ever fucking you," Sollux snarks. You growl at him, and he continues.

"I, for one, haven't the thlightetht fucking idea what you're talking about," he tells you. "But I do know one thing, and it'th that anyone who wearth a heretical thymbol in plain thight hath got to be either crathy, dumb, or have a very good reathon behind it." At those words, any hope of him remembering you is flung screaming from the metaphorical window, flailing and breaking its skull on the unforgiving walkway material below.

Sollux shoves you again, and holds you tight against the wall with a bright crackle of light. The dancing sparks illuminate his face with eerie shadows in the dark space, and he grins.

"Tho. Which one ith it?"

You groan. "The last one. It's my symbol. Which you don't remember."

"Wait, what?" He looks puzzled, then smirks. "Pleathe do not tell me you're going to thtart on thome random conthpirathy theory here. Not that they're all total musclebeast sthit, but I get enough of that from my neighborth."

"It's complicated." You mentally scramble for a way to explain in anything resembling a timely fashion. You thinkpan, as usual, is as ornery as you are and refuses to comply.

"I..." You try to say something, but it doesn't quite come out. "I... It's a long story. I was the guy who tried to contact you, by the way. Carcinogeneticist? Yeah, I probably should've lead with that. Past me is a dumbass, news at eleven."

"Well then?" He looks at you expectantly.

"You're actually going to hear me out?"

Your eyes have adjusted enough to the dim light to catch a shrug from him. "Not if you keep athking dumb quethtionth, but yeah. I kinda want to thee how far thith bullsthit thpiel ith gonna go."

Bullshit spiel? You'll show him whose spiel is bullshit! You force down a rising stream of complaints and insults, though, and eventually manage to speak without screaming. For now.

"Okay, okay," you rasp. "I... fine. Long story short, we played this big shitty game. And you kinda died a couple times -- well, we all did, but we came back because of bullshit game mechanics and stuff. We had this mess with a bunch of weird pan-damaged aliens and created a universe, and after whole bunch of annoying fuckups with the gall to call themselves adventures, I'm fairly sure we won. Except something went wrong -- again. And the prize -- well, if the game was shitty, then the prize was the even shittier little preserved arboreal fruit sitting all sacchharine and terrible-tasting on top."

You pause to gesture to the two of you. "This was the result. We reset to pre-game conditions, and aged up a bunch. Well, half a sweep. Technically two sweeps, but we already spent a sweep and a half in game, so..."

A snicker interrupts your explanation. You glance back at Sollux to see him hiding a hideously toothy grin. "Oh, don't you even start. I am not lowering myself to your degenerate sense of humor. This is not a fucking 'laughing matter', do you hear me?"

"You thure you're not a cultitht or thomething?"

Ugh.

"I told you, it's a long fucking story."

"Yeah, yeah."

======

You got kicked off the group transportation buggy after your husktop detonated in the aisle, startling several other passengers and, in the words of the driver, "Jusst causssing a great deal of unnesssesssary trouble."

Nobody present had any doubt the husktop was yours, mostly because you'd thrown it on the floor in with a loud screech of terror shortly before the explosion. It was only a short walk to Sollux's hive, but as you walked you pulled out your backup crabtop (it seemed even alt-Karkat appreciated Jade's wisdom about multiple devices) and began pestering Terezi.

======

"You've gone into a lot of detail for thuch a ridiculouth thtory," Sollux comments.

You've spent the past few minutes rambling, but you think he's gotten the gist of it by now. The game, knowing each other, shitty twist, yadda yadda yadda, someone-please-cull-me-before-I-make-even-more-of-a-fool-of-myself, blah blah blah. He seems skeptic at best, but that's just what you've seen. Maybe it's just your own pan-addling sentimentality talking, but there's a funny look to him, a little glint of recognition when you give names and details. The biggest moment was when you mentioned Aradia, and he paused for half a second in startled silence, eyes flickering. He didn't say anything, though.

"Alright, you know what?" you rasp. "I don't give that many shits right now. A couple, since you're my friend -- or were, I guess -- but we have stuff to do. You're coming with me, whether you remember or not."

"And what ekthactly do you plan to do to about it?" He looks amused more than anything.

"I plan to take you the fuck with me!"

"Wow, puthhy."

"Deal with it."

"How can I pooothhibly cope?" He almost smiles, then hastily restores his look of deadpan frustration. You feel a glimmer of unrequited hope nonetheless. You might be getting through to him after all.

Sollux starts to make a better comeback when the telltale ping of a trollian alert breaks up the conversation. He pulls a beetlephone from his pocket, fumbling in the dark and cursing under his breath. He hold the device in one hand, then sets it down in midair, letting it float in an aura of pulsing red-blue light. You can't read the screen from your side of the garment storage, but the text looks like a memo. The two primary colors, dark jade green and bright teal, flood the screen with illegible words.

Several minutes pass in silence. With little way to keep track of the time, you guess it takes around five minutes for him to remember you're still there.

He looks at you differently now.

"Well," he mutters. "Fuck."

======

======

Sollux unlocks the closet and stands in the hallway, looked you over in uncomfortable silence. After a moment, he groans and puts his face in his hands. "Right," he says, mostly to himself. "I know you. Or I'm supposed to." You aren't sure what to say in response, so you just nod.

He looks back to you. "Karkat, huh?" You nod again. It may have only been a few seconds, but you are growing incredibly fucking sick of uncomfortable silence and nods.

You glance over to the table. It looks like the meal is over, but there are still a few plates of warm leftovers. Sollux seems to catch on and gestures to the table.

"You hungry?" he asks.

You wonder when Past Karkat last ate. "Yeah," you answer. "Sure."

It's the best grubsauce-and-noodles you've had in a while -- and probably the first non-alchemized meal you've eaten in years. The sauce is creamy and meaty all at once, and the noodles are actually tender, as if someone has bothered to properly cook them for the full cook time on the box rather than the usual half-assed couple of minutes on full heat.

You eat close to two portions, but Sollux stops you from taking any more, sending a meaningful look to the few trolls hanging about. When you ask him why he even cares, he shrugs and mumbles something about disgruntled cooks. He doesn't really enforce it, though -- he's too busy keeping up with the memo while you eat.

You find yourself jolted from your delicious reverie when Sollux looks up from his beetlephone and curses loudly.

"What the hell is it?" you demand.

He mutters a few more choice words, then clarifies. "Some blueblood asshole."

You set down your eating implements and look over his shoulder. "Let me see."

"Get your own damn husktop."

"Fine."

======