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So, this is how tamed Karkat's pet crab is: tame enough to that it is safe enough to let him sit on the top of Karkat's head, but not tame enough to stop him from ascending to the highest point of the troll every chance he gets. Karkat is about ready to call it good enough, although he doesn't enjoy having an adorable crabhat.

Not at all.

His nubby horns are hard to see, between his tangled fluffy hair and their blending in with the candy-corn colored crab legs, but he is still noticeably grey and not human. He has his feet up on the couch in front of him, leafing through an enormous book and occasionally paying attention to the six-legged laptop on the floor beside him. He looks a lot like someone pissing away a perfectly good afternoon, really; but what you probably don't know is that he's nocturnal. The perpetual bags under his eyes are a little heavier than usual. Sleep has been slow to come and hard to hold on to, even with the sopor slime.

The ~ath text is way too difficult to hold his half-hearted and sleepy interest; yellow eyes flicker around the bar looking for any simpler amusement.

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it's not hard to find the community chess board under the coffee table and set it up, in Tyler's opinion. The hard part is finding someone else to play the game by the rules with, but that can be solved with a little patience.

Karkat is not the right person for that. He gives the chessboard a baleful look, snapping his head around fast enough to make Birgus raise his claws in a defensive crouch.

"HOLY SHIT, THAT BRINGS BACK SOME UNSAVORY MEMORIES FROM THE REEKPILE."

"...what do you..." Tyler starts to ask, thinks better of it and facepalms. "Blrgh, do I even wanna know? Did it involve mirrors?"

"WHAT AN EXCELLENT QUESTION, WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING FROM THE TRAGIC HISTORY OF RETARDATION THAT IS SGRUB. AND WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT MIRRORS?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"NAH, FUCK IT, LET'S SKIP EXCHANGING TRAGIC BACKSTORIES AND THROW THAT PIECE OF SHIT ON THE INCINERATION PILE INSTEAD."

"I'm bored though, just wanted to play something." With that having been said, Tyler's packing the game back into it's box and digging around under the coffee table for a different one. "Any games that don't annoy you?"

"GAMES ARE KIND OF A SORE SUBJECT WHERE I'M CONCERNED," Karkat says flatly. "SURPRISINGLY."

"...you got anything against Uno then?" Tyler asks, bringing out a brightly colored deck of numbered cards.

"I GUESS THAT IS MARGINALLY ACCEPTABLE," Karkat says. He scowls. "YOU NEED MORE THAN ONE OTHER PERSON FOR BULLSHIT, THOUGH." He tries to remember other troll card games.

"How do you play Bullshit? Just out of curiosity." Tyler looks up from shuffling the cards.

"YOU DEAL OUT ALL THE NUMBER CARDS TO EVERYONE PLAYING AND THEN YOU START WITH THE RED TWOS. AND YOU CAN PUT DOWN AS MANY TWOS AS YOU HAVE IN YOUR HAND. THEN THE NEXT PERSON GOES WITH AS MANY THREES AS HE HAS, AND SO ON. BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO SHOW THE CARDS SO YOU CAN LAY DOWN WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU WANT AND CLAIM THEY'RE THREES OR WHATEVER. AND IF SOMEONE THINKS YOU'RE LYING THEY PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE AND IF YOU ARE YOU HAVE TO PICK UP ALL THE CARDS. IF THEY'RE WRONG THEY HAVE TO."

"OBVIOUSLY THAT IS PRETTY SHITTY RETRIBUTION AND IT GENERALLY DEVOLVES INTO AN ALL-OUT BRAWL AND YOU END UP LOSING SOME OF THE CARDS, SO SOMETIMES WE JUST SAY BULLSHIT TO CALL THEM OUT INSTEAD."

"There's some kids who play something like that at school. They yell 'Cheater' instead of Bullshit though." Tyler smiles a little at that, so trolls have their own versions of human games.

"WOW MORE TALES OF THE MYSTERIOUS HUMAN SCHOOL, WHAT A REALM OF MYSTERY AND ADVENTURE IT MUST BE."

Sarcasm!

"School is yet another multiversal learning experience." Tyler starts dealing out seven cards each. They can play straight Uno, right?

"NOT REALLY," he says flatly. "IT SEEMS LIKE A PRETTY BIZARRE CONCEPT TO ME, FRANKLY."

"WAIT SO WHAT THE HELL ARE WE PLAYING?" He is looking at his hand but he doesn't know if it's any good or not.

"Uno, game ends when someone clears their hand. You have to play the stacks in order. Starts at zero, goes up to 13. Cards go face up, and you can have up to three stacks in between the players." Tyler explains. "Stacks get finished with the 13th card, player that finishes a stack keeps it for fifty points. Stacks have to be started with a zero. Wildcards can substitute for any number, and if you don't have a card you can play, you have to draw one."

"OKAY, YES, COUNTDOWN. YOU HAVE TO ANNOUNCE WHEN YOU HAVE ONE CARD LEFT AND ARE ABOUT TO WIN AS WELL, RIGHT?"

"Yeh, or just put the card on anyways and hold up your empty hands and see the looks on their faces."

"BUT IF YOU GET CAUGHT WITH ONE CARD IN YOUR HAND WITHOUT DECLARING IT YOU ARE FORCED TO DRAW A FULL HAND AGAIN," he says stubbornly.

Cultural relativism does not extend to card games.

"...Hrrm..alright. You wanna start?"

"I GUESS." He leans forward to play his first card, disturbing the crab, which scuttles down the side of his head onto his shoulder to investigate. It jams a foot in his ear on the way down.

"GAH! WATCH IT FUCKASS!" The crab raises its claws and clicks at him in return.

!!

Tyler starts a little, so kudos to the crab for blending into Karkat's messy mane of hair.

He's only going to give it a wary look for a moment before watching to see what cards Karkat lays down.

"...darnit." Time to draw from the pile.

Karkat is also not going to allow himself to be distracted by the crab.

Trolls have a tendency to be competitive, shockingly. His first play was desultory, but he is waking up now. He shuffles his hand around to orient himself and then begins a campaign, playing a Draw 2 and then a zero of the appropriate color.

Gee, Tyler would not have figured that out at all. Really.

He's making a face at the draw two card and then laying a 1, 2, 3 of red before playing the...wild draw 4.

"Green."

Karkat considers challenging it, but he played a lot of red cards there. It seems reasonable that he would be out. He draws, shaking Birgus loose to wander as he will.

He wills his way up to investigate the discard pile.

...For a moment, while Karkat gets his next move planned out, Tyler's just going to watch that crab. If need be, it'll be gently nudged with the eraser end of a pencil back towards Karkat, or at least out of the game zone.

Pap pap pap.

Birgus naks at the eraser with his claws. Karkat plays a couple of cards, then a Skip--"ONE."--and draws.

Oooh game blocked again, Tyler makes a face continuing to spar gently with the crab.

Birgus is a born sparrer, cantankerous and stubborn. But eventually the game passes back to Tyler, leaving Karkat with a hand still full of garbage.

Yeah tough nuggets that, when his turn comes around the eraser spar is halted in favor of Tyler drawing one card and examining his hand.

Two green cards go down before he nods to Karkat that it's his turn.

When Tyler lays down his weapon, the crab makes a move towards him, but Karkat says "BIRGUS!" in a sharp tone and he retreats back to the other side of the table.

Bluh bluh bluh GARBAGE. Karkat draws again and is finally able to change the color and offload some cards.

...fuuuuuudge, yellow cards. Just what he doesn't have a handful of. Tyler draws his card and then lays down a Reverse to draw again.

And grins.

Ah shit. "NEVER MIND, BIRGUS, GO PINCH THE FUCK OUT OF HIM."

"Wildcard, blue." Tyler grins, laying down two blue cards before holding out his single card left. "Uno- hey, hey!"

No fair siccing the crab! Do not cardblock the win Birgus!

"GOOD CRAB, BEST GOALIE."

He tosses down his cards, then reaches over and scoops up the crab, and offers the traditional Alternian "good game:" "FUCK YOU."

"Gå fuck et træ." Tyler responds in kind.

...Look, you spend time with the Marine who collects cusses, curses and profanity like comicbooks, you learn some weird shit.

"...you wanna deal another game?"

"NOT REALLY." he sprawls back into his recumbent position.

"I SHOULD BE ASLEEP."

"...nightmares?"

Because Karkat is obviously not going for an actual nap, since he's down here among all of these noisy people.

"WHAT KIND OF A CONCLUSION IS THAT TO JUMP TO. SLEEP IS FOR CHUMPS AND PEOPLE WITH NOTHING BETTER TO DO."

He sure looks busy, all right.

Tyler does not look convinced of this at all.

And he's not going to point out the obvious thing of 'something better to do' cause Karkat doesn't have that either.

He cracks open the ~ath text and reads it pointedly at Tyler.

Aaand Tyler's just going to ignore Karkat in favor of building a tower of cards with the Uno deck.

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