Archive of Our Own

Being a teenager is hard and there’s no one around to tell any of you what the hell you’re doing wrong. The closest thing any of you have to a parent is Karkat Motherfucking Vantas, and he’s probably the youngest out of all of you. He certainly looks the youngest. But he’s ineffectual as a parent because he feels as if half the shenanigans that take place aren’t any of his business any more and the other half are also not any of his business, which is bullshit. He’s the only one who even moderately has his shit together, besides yourself, and possibly the sanest person in the labs and dream bubbles put together. Rational; arguable, but certainly sane. You are consistently having a conflict with your emotions, but he always seems to have his figured out – he just doesn’t know what to do with them.

You like him a lot, despite yourself. You haven’t really met anyone who doesn’t like him.

He’s the only person you know on this meteor who can get everyone who’s willing to appear in public in the same room at the same time, for more than just a, “oh hey, dinner’s ready, thanks.” You’re pretty sure the missing party consisting of sociopath platonic soulmate isn’t far off either. Despite the fact that he says he was a shitty leader then and wouldn’t be much better now, you’re all still following him around like you’re ducklings and he’s Mama duck, trying to lead everyone safely across the highway. Except, it isn’t like that at all. You’re more like kids being herded by a sheep dog who’s just trying to do his job and you’re in the way and therefore being rounded up with the rest of the wooly bastards. He doesn’t even get it, he doesn’t even know. He’s the only one who can’t see it and sometimes you want to grab his shoulders and shake him violently and tell him to stop being so negative on himself all the time.

You all worry, you all gossip about him, you all ponder about his psychological state, or how his relationships are doing. It’s especially bad for you because you do that anyway and you no longer have anyone else to fill up your time. It’s gotten to the point where you have to keep track of the times you aren’t thinking about him.

It doesn’t help that your dick has suddenly realized that he’s actually a pretty sweet guy and kind of hot if you like tired irate boys with overbites and clothes that never fit right. And great thighs. And that voice. You never thought you had any kind of vocal kink but hot damn, that kid has a voice you could get off to with just an audio recording. You seriously consider it sometimes. The problem is that you don’t have a recording and he’s not going to provide. It’s a bit of a touchy subject with him.

(Yeah, you can imagine how that conversation would go. “Hey Kitkat, mind if I touch your horns while you read and record it for future reference? And by future reference I mean soft core porn. ”

“There are so many negative levels to my answer, we’ve drilled right through the core of the Green Sun and out the other side, flying recklessly in the opposite direction of where we should be going. I would rather pull my think pan out of my waste chute and stomp on it merrily while singing Troll Ke$ha songs. In other words, no.”)

But wouldn’t that be beautiful; if you can get him to let you touch him while he reads a smut scene out loud from one of Kanaya’s rainbow drinker books – god, that is your ultimate wet dream. You actually sort of wish you could dream just so you can experience that on some level. Not only touch his horns but do a reacharound and get a hand down his pants and listen to him slowly descend into an incoherent mess of just noises and needy keens, all with that low undertone that sounds like cicadas fused with cats and sprayed down with pheromones. Would he scream when he came or would it be that breathless gasp that you managed to draw out of him when you blew a raspberry in his stomach? Would he be into dirty talk or mindless repetitive chants? You don’t really know what you’re hoping for more. You hope he would be aggressive in bed at least – you don’t know how to handle him when he’s not growling at you in some way. God, and what would his kinks be? You think one might be that romantic pillow talk, the kind that is all flattery and compliments and confessions of unconditional love. You could do that. You could do that and even mean most of the stuff you say. Ironically.

Not that you think about it a lot or anything.

You are actively not thinking about it. You are very dedicated to not thinking about it, because there’s nothing worse than a guy who is controlled by his pants. Case and point, you are currently sauntering your way down to his room with the intention to hang with him, platonically, like any good bro would. You have no intentions of sneaking your hands up his stupid sweater or leaving any suspicious bruises on his neck or settling into the feeling of him wrapping his legs around your waist and his arms around your neck and him panting your name into your mouth. Wow, that escalated quickly.

Maybe this isn’t the best time to visit him. Boner time and Bro time aren’t meant to be together. In fact, their relationship is probably under the category of “star-crossed.” Romebro, oh Romebro. Where art thou Romebro? Romebro has exited the vicinity because shit just got uncomfortably gay. Juliet, you came on (hahaha) way too strong there, might want to back the fuck off and let Romebro sort things out with his platonic sociopath soulmate, Mirthful Messiah Mercutio. Romebro says, Yo, Triple M, my beautiful bromance with Juliet just bought two tickets to Boner City, what do? Triple M makes a thoughtful honking noise and takes out a club. Don’t worry bro, he says with a wicked smile. I’ll take care of it. And then Juliet was clubbed to death by the Insane Clown Posse Fandom Incarnate and the body disappeared forever, which everyone thought was really fucking creepy, and then Romebro cried. The end.

The point is that you are sixteen, you are healthy, you are certainly not asexual, and you’re stuck on a flying rock with your sister, a lesbian vampire, a sexless carapace, a sadistic clown, your ex girlfriend, and your ex girlfriend’s ex boyfriend. And a bunch of ghosts who visit every once in a while – most being either thirteen or intolerable beyond comprehension or both. You have needs. You also have really, really persuasive wants.

You really should just turn around and march back to your room until you are not firmly in the category of “mindless horny teenager.” Yup, just need to turn one hundred eighty degrees and – oh wait. You’re already in front of Karkat’s door. It’d be awfully silly to make that trip all the way here and back without at least saying hi. Looks like you’re just going to have to hang out with your fellow Knight. Dang, the things you sacrifice for the nubby horned little shit. You’re like Mother Theresa all up in here.

When you knock he doesn’t answer. When you knock again, he still doesn’t answer. His door is unlocked. You peek inside the dark room, seeing no immediate Karkat shaped figures. Or the usual mound of blankets on his bed, for that matter. When you turn on the light and no one starts shrieking in anger, it only furthers the conclusion you’ve made: Karkat is not in his room.

That… is a bit unusual nowadays.

Well, not entirely. You both are in each other’s rooms almost as much as your own, and you don’t know what he does when you disappear for a day or two. But still. The blankets missing is a new thing. You close the door and shrug, meandering further down the hallway to the tranportalizer there. You check the library, the public room, the roof, Can Town, your room, his room again, the room with the giant-ass horn pile, and then get a little desperate and yell into the ventilation shafts.

“Hey, did Karkat scoot his ass in there with you? Honk twice for yes and three times for no.”

Three honks later, you move on a fast as possible. If Gamzee is around, then Terezi is probably with him. If Terezi is with him then they are probably doing something you do not need to know about, at all, ever.

You try the next best thing.

TG: hey captain sparrow we got a problem
TG: that problem is that theres a clown in the system and theres no one here to hold me
TG: no one is here to gently kiss my hand and cup my face and whisper in my listening shells
TG: its okay bro its gonna be alright
TG: together well get through this you wont have to look at the scary body snatcher ever again
TG: shoosh dave lets go hang with the mayor and make a can town adult book store to cleanse your mind sounds like a plan
TG: and i would whisper back tenderly in a husky voice
TG: rubbing my thumb over your knuckles like troll nicholas sparks would spend three pages describing in his shitty book
TG: babe
TG: no homo

carcinoGeneticist is an idle chum!

This is tragic, he usually freaks out at the no homo thing because it really isn’t a thing by this point. Also, he doesn’t believe in homosexuality or something. You don’t actually care, but he has buttons and you will press them if needed. The button is currently out of order, and the maintenance guy is passed out in a dumpster behind the gym. Oh no, what will our hero do next?

You switch tactics. Time to call in reinforcements.

TG: rose
TG: rose rose rosie rose
TG: i got a question and you see useful shit when youre not blasted

TT: Hlelo there, dAve. :)

TG: goddammit youre drunk again never mind bye

TT: Just buzze d rghit now, actually.
TT: Wut can I od for yo u?

TG: if youre not drunk then why are there so many typos

TT: I just hppaen to be massaging yo one-handeded.

TG: i
TG: youre not
TG: wow was that my own stomach bile i just tasted i think it was
TG: could you not answer me when you have your hand down your panties or at least not tell me when it happens there are just some images your biobrother does not need placed in his brain dish
TG: hint that was one of those images i did not need
TG: fuck brb going to take a good long soak in a vat of crystal meth to kill off a few brain cells
TG: and by few i mean all

TT: Woudl you happen to bee lookng for our mutual nubby friend in perpemutual rage?

TG: duh
TG: its not like anyone else hangs out with me anymore like lets say any seers or maybe a sylph or any other title starting with a s
TG: hint hint that was a guilt trip are you drowning in your tears yet

TT: Nope.

TG: yeah didnt think so not like i was being serious or anything jokes on you haha
TG: its actually awesome that i dont have to deal with all your psycho dream bullshit shenanigans and vague riddles about the future
TG: dave you need to change the type of underwear youre wearing youll doom us all
TG: strider you must draw thirteen more pictures of dicks in this book or the universe will end and it will be all your fault no pressure
TG: dave go jerk off that ancestor horse clone guy our futures are depending on you
TG: why cant you give me cool orders like hey dave go stomp on karkats ancestors stupid whistle aw yeah no more social justice police high fives everyone
TG: good riddance i didnt want to talk to you these past few months anyway

TT: Liar.

TG: its called sarcasm lalonde come on catch up with the rest of the class already

TT: It’s interesting how you work yourslef ups o much when your’e worried abot your friends.
TT: Its also interesting how all of those things you just said hvae to do with your sexual orgsns in some way.
TT: Except fo the whistle thing, that apperas to be an outlier.
TT: I assume you’ve looked alll around teh meteor for mr. vAntas.

TG: im gonna assume that you know where karkat is since youre implying exactly that
TG: oh my god hes not with you right now is he

TT: He most certainly iz.
TT: And he’s currently occupied. ;)

TG: what the fuck that is wrong on so many levels
TG: no no and just to make this perfectly clear like the smoothest and cleanest piece of glass well say no again
TG: abort abort mayday mayday
TG: someone evacuate this moment im having a case of the feels and those feels happen to be gag me with a spoon and then pour bleach down my esophagus
TG: like literally im shitting a brick right now im so horrified
TG: is he HELPING you???
TG: wait dont answer that i really just dont want to know
TG: what the hell does kanaya think about all of this

Welp, there goes boner time. Problem solved! It takes her a bit to answer and the longer it takes, the more you don’t actually want her to answer.

What if she’s taking a picture?

You realize that you will be disappointed if she doesn’t send one.

This is probably the second most awkward conversation you’ve had since you landed on this fucking rock. This is incredibly awkward and you and Rose flirted a lot when you were thirteen and the fact that you two are related just made everything horrible and being stuck on a rock with her during the worst part of your adolescent years does nothing to make you feel better.

If Rose actually still paid attention to your psychological state, you would be so fucked.

Your glasses chime again. Spoiler alert: it isn’t a picture. You are a little disappointed. And confused for all about two seconds.

TT: WILL YOU JUST GET OVER YOURSELF AND STOP ASSUMING THE WORST OF PEOPLE? SINCE WHEN HAVE I HAD ANY INTEREST WHATSOEVER IN ROSE AND WHY THE FUCK WOULD I INVADE KANAYA’S QUADRANT LIKE THAT?
TT: WAIT, LET ME ANSWER THAT FOR YOU: NEVER AND I WOULDN’T.
TT: SHE WAS TYPING ONE HANDED BECAUSE I REFUSED TO RELEASE HER OTHER APPENDAGE UNTIL I WAS DONE APPLYING THE PROTECTIVE COATING, CRETINOUS FUMING DUMBFUCK. YOU CAN’T JUST STOP IN THE MIDDLE OF THESE THINGS BECAUSE SOME NEEDY IMBECILIC WASTE OF TIME DECIDED THAT HE WOULD DEIGN EVERYONE WITH HIS TEXTUAL PRESENCE AND DEMAND TRIBUTES OF THE POPULACE’S ATTENTION. IT WOULD MESS UP THE COATING AND I WOULD HAVE TO START OVER.
TT: SHE’S ALREADY PANDAMAGED TO THE POINT THAT SHE CAN’T SIT HER ASS DOWN FOR MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES UNLESS SHE’S PASSED OUT, AND DO YOU KNOW HOW AWKWARD IT IS FONDLING SOMEONE’S PHALANGES WHEN THEY’RE UNRESPONSIVE?
TT: REALLY. FUCKING. AWKWARD.
TT: OH, AND IN CASE YOU DIDN’T GUESS, THIS IS THE NUBBY HORNED FRIEND IN *PERPEMUTUAL* RAGE. CONGRATS TO YOU SHAMEFUL WRITHING RAZZMATAZZ, YOU FOUND TROLL WALDO.

TG: whoops looks like the mystery was solved go home everyone
TG: you would have gotten away with it too if it wasnt for that pesky barkbeast
TG: but wait not all loose ends have been tied up
TG: like why are you and rose hanging
TG: what protective coating
TG: why are you touching my sisters hands kitkat thats really fucking awkward for me you have no idea
TG: it really doesnt help that two minutes ago i thought those same hands were busy touching her nono zones and that you were maybe helping her out with that
TG: how will i be able to look her in the eyes from now on did you even think about me
TG: i thought we really had something there the real deal a match made in troll heaven
TG: and how do you know that touching peoples hands when theyre asleep is awkward that is a suspicious crime you admitted to there

TT: W1LL YOU JUST SHUT UP 4ND G3T YOUR GLUT3S OV3R TO K4N4Y4’S ROOM
TT: W3’LL F1LL YOU 1N WH3N YOU G3T H3R3
TT: >:]
TT: > :]
TT: >:]
TT: > ;]

TG: wow that statement wasnt sexually charged at all
TG: is it like pass around roses phone to fuck with dave time or what
TG: why is everybody else invited to the vivacious bisexual makeout mani session and not me

TT: I Am Hosting An Event Rose Calls A Sleepover
TT: We Did The Making Out Part A Hour Ago And You Missed It
TT: We Are Not Sorry

TG: wait what
TG: was that sarcasm i think that was sarcasm right

TT: Yes That Was A Joke I Apologize If That Wasnt Clear
TT: I Cant Seem To Get A Full Grasp Of Human Humor No Matter How Hard I Try

TG: its ok miss not a vampire we believe in you
TG: one day youll have us all rolling around on the floor laughing like braybeasts until our asses literally fall off our bodies
TG: thats a thing that happens sometimes its a bitch to get them reattached

TT: I Read That Message Out Loud To Everyone And Karkat Wants Me To Tell You That You Are Full Of Shit
TT: Im Sorry But I Have To Agree

TG: wow break my heart there maryam crack it right down the middle

TT: I Have Needle And Thread In My Possession If You Need It Stitched Back Up

TG: see youre already getting better at this whole joke thing

TT: Thank You
TT: I Believe This Would Be The Time To Add An Emoticon Of Some Sort To Express My Smug Victory But This Keyboard Does Not Have A Symbol That Correctly Represents My Horns
TT: Therefore Youll Have To Settle With This One
TT: :y
TT: Is That Correct

TG: you are a beautiful person maryam and dont let anyone tell you otherwise

TT: :y

Kanaya’s room is filled with what seems to be every pillow and blanket on the entire meteor, piled into high lumps and packed down to be vaguely furniture-shaped with the weight of bodies alone. The place looks like a fabric company warehouse. Someone lit a scented candle, and it smells like pine trees. Kanaya and Terezi have taken up residence on a larger pile in the back of the room. Karkat and Rose are settled on a pillow each, a small low table between then with a tiny bowl on it and a bunch of bottles on the floor next to them. One bottle, an outliner from the rest, looks like Rose’s alcohol of the day. The others look suspiciously like nail polish. Karkat is hunched over Rose’s left hand, armed with a file and a plastic pick of some sort sticking out of his mouth. He’s glaring intensely at her fingers, tilting her hand every once in a while as if it is a Rubik’s Cube and holds the secret to eternal happiness and romantic fulfillment. Manicures are serious business, apparently.

“Hello, Dave,” Rose says, her smile not entirely sober, but it isn’t the lopsided grin of drunk either. It doesn’t make you any less annoyed with her. It just means she’s not going to be entirely a pain in the ass to deal with. Karkat grunts out an acknowledgement. Terezi and Kanaya pause their conversation to greet you with varying degrees of enthusiasm before going back to ignoring you. You feel like you have just walked into a high school girl’s slumber party that you aren’t supposed to be at because Mary’s daddy doesn’t like boys in the house. The weirdest part is that Karkat fits right in with the setting, while you feel awkward and out of place. Even the Mayor, who you notice off to the side with a few cans around him, looks more comfortable than you do.

Everyone is wearing the ultimate lazy-day sleeping clothes; sweat pants, t-shirts, cotton shorts, yoga pants, tank tops, hoodies, uselessly poofy socks. Even Karkat has foregone his sweater and jeans for a red t-shirt that says “Baby Daddy” on the front in bold black letters and a pair of light gray sweatpants. Unlike the absent sweater, the shirt actually fits him and you can see the outline of his spine – not a creepy bony thing, but just hills on a plain; graceful, purposeful - and where the fabric ends and his body begins. He is fit in a “Fight Club” way, all lithe muscles and understated definition. His socks have little palm trees on them.

The only reason you’re staring is because it’s such a startling difference from his usual getup. Yeah. Also, you’re pretty sure that’s your shirt. Oh, what the hell, he looks good in red. He looks good in your clothes. You are kind of a clingy possessive fuckface.

He is painting Rose’s nails a deep purple with intense concentration, like nothing else but him and her hand exist at the moment. No one could say that Karkat didn’t believe in what he did. (In many ways, he believes far too much. But he wouldn’t be Karkat otherwise.)

(Random introspective thoughts are randomly introspective.)

Terezi must have somehow sensed your discomfort with her psychic nose power or something, because she jumps up and skips over to you, grinning widely and smelling of artificial cherry flavoring. She licks your ear in greeting. “Sup, Rez,” you say.

“Sup yourself Coolkid. Get in here and change out of that ridiculous god tier outfit! The rules of a sleepover are that you must wear the most atrocious and comfiest clothes you have, and I am enforcing this rule with an iron claw.” She shakes her hand at you for emphasis. She’s wearing shorts and a tank top underneath her dragon cape, complete with knee high rainbow socks. She’s a clusterfuck of color and she stands like she’s leading the entire population of paradox space into a battle she’s sure they’ll win. She is pointy and gorgeous. You miss her.

You exaggerate a sigh and grudgingly push yourself from the doorframe, pretending that you’re only doing so for irony’s sake. Oh no, actually hanging out with people. What a burden.

“Karkles, where the hell did you get that shirt,” you ask, as you wardrobifier switches your caped glory into laziness personified. “’Cause last I heard, babies weren’t exactly a normal occurrence on planet Trolltopia.”

“It’s Alternia, shitsponge,” he says, not looking up. “And this is the shirt you threw at me when you spit Tab all over me two weeks ago.” Not your most graceful moment. You both were watching one of his shitty romcoms in your room when you had asked the question, “All I want to know is what is love?” And he had looked at you straight in the eyes, with a completely serious face and said in his most professional voice, “Baby, don’t hurt me no more.” And it wasn’t really all that funny but it took you completely by surprise, so you spit Tab all over him and coughed/laughed as he yelled at you for covering him in soda and your saliva. Most of it ended up on his shirt so you let him borrow one of yours. You remember him spending the rest of the movie as far away from you on the couch as possible, pouting.

You throw a smirk his way, even if he doesn’t actually see it. “Taking your time giving it back.”

“I’ll give it back as soon as you give me back my shirt you spilled your acidic carbonated spittle on.” If you had an evil plan to hook up with him, step one would be complete. Insert triumphant villainous laugh here. Soon you won’t know whose pants are whose and then (!!!) he will unable to resist… the D.

Shut up brain.

You plop down on the floor by Karkat’s little table and examine his work on your sister’s fingers. She gracefully offers you her right hand with a giggle. He’s… actually really good at this. You aren’t an expert on hands or nails or whatever the fuck goes along with being an expert at this sort of thing, but dang. If you all survive the fight with Lord English, he has a promising career in the salon business, specifically manicures. And you aren’t even being condescending.

Karkat Vantas; the cranky little guy who watches romcoms, gossips about who’s dating who, goes to girls’ sleepover parties, and pretties up everyone’s nails. And he cannot tell the difference between the color black and the color charcoal, nor does he own a comb.

You give Rose back her hand and tell him, “We seriously need to get you a shirt that says ‘Fabulous’ because if you were a trope, it’d be ‘sassy gay friend.’”

“You read my mind,” Rose says.

“I’m not gay,” Karkat retorts, gesturing to you with the tiny nail polish brush. “And if I’m understanding that trope correctly – which I can only compare to three different movies because your culture has an issue with guys pailing other guys, which, by the way, is a fucking stupid concern to have and anyone who has a problem with true love just because of gender can launch themselves to the core of a red giant naked and shrivel into a burnt raisin or unappetizing tree bark for all I care - then I can’t qualify because my fashion sense, according to you anyway, is nonexistent.”

Rose raises her eyebrows at him. “Ah yes, but the most successful tropes are the ones that break tradition. A sassy gay friend who’s more clueless about clothes than the main character would certainly be an interesting twist for the intended audience.” You are honestly surprised she followed all that, buzzed.

“If we’re talking anime, he’s solidly tsundre yaoi uke,” you point out.

“And how long have you been thinking about this, Dave.” She waggles her eyebrows at you and you wiggle yours back, making her laugh. “That is actually rather perfect.” She cocks her head at the subject of the conversation in front of her. “Either that or one of those reverse harem shows – the tsundre potential love interest that usually ends up knocking sense into the main character every other episode.”

“Eh, that’s legit, but tsundre yaoi uke is a way better fit, just saying.”

“Naturally.”

Karkat starts fanning Rose’s nails and glowers at you both. “If you two are going to talk about me like I’m not here, the least you could is talk about it in a language I understand. What the fuck is ‘sun-drey’ and why do you keep calling me that?”

You put a hand on your cheek and turn away from him, a mock miffed complete with pouty lips. “I-it’s not like I like you or anything, b-baka.” He stares at you, unimpressed with your explanation. “Basically it’s the character who’s terrifyingly cranky but secretly has a gooey chocolate center and has all these hidden feelings they’ll never admit to.”

“Also usually the second biggest if not the biggest romantic of the cast,” Rose adds. As an afterthought, “Also usually one of the main comedy relief characters.”

“Wow,” Terezi says from the pile.

Kanaya tries to hide her laugh behind her hand and ultimately fails.

Glaring at them, then at Rose, then at you, Karkat yells, “I do not have a gooey chocolate center. I am a fearsome and terrifying soldier, conditioned to be the most destructive force in at least three different sects of the Alternian military, designed to make wrigglers shit themselves into sickness and disease just in the presence of my name alone. Replace the word ‘gooey’ with ‘fabulous’ and I will accept your bullshit categorization.”

“Karkat secretly has a fabulous chocolate center,” you say, and then snort out a laugh, which makes Rose laugh, which makes Kanaya and Terezi burst out laughing, and soon all of you are hunched over and just mindlessly laughing at the idea of Karkat being “secretly” fabulous. Oh god, now the shirt has to be pink with sparkles. It is just too perfect. And he would wear it too if it was comfy, holy shit. Karkat has his chin raised and is cleaning off his tools with what looks to be the upmost seriousness, which only makes it funnier for some reason. You’re pretty sure he’s trying to school himself into not laughing on purpose. You go gurl, hide those torrential feelings you’re always projecting.

“What about that other trope,” he asks when you’ve all managed to get yourselves under control. “The sun-drey okay yowza thing?”

“Tsundre yaoi uke,” you correct. “Yaoi is gay anime porn.” You watch his face get darker and his eyes widen a bit. “And uke means that you’re playing catcher.” A blank look. “Pillow biting.” Still nothing. You decide to continue on with the slang because it’ll be funny when he finally gets the idea behind the imagery. “Little spoon. The sub. A cowgirl, creek passive, get punched in the starfish-“

“Dave,” Rose says.

You lean forward and stage whisper, “It means you’re a total bottom boy. You will literally get fucked up the butt.” You’re delighted when his face turns rosy with the implication and then even rosier when he puts all the slang terms in perspective.

He shrieks, “What?!” You give yourself a mental pat on the back, even when he punches your arm. The girls all start laughing again. “I am not a – I am not – What the actual fuck Dave!”

You hold up your hands in a “what can you do” gesture. “Just saying, man, it fits the trope.”

“Fuck you, Strider!”

You look over your shades and wink at him. “Time and place, babe.” And laugh when he shoots you the middle finger with both hands.

Rose examines her nails while you and Karkat snark at each other. She says, hazily, “This is quite possibly the best manicure I have ever received. And Mother took me to professionals at least once a month.”

“Oh, I know,” Kanaya says, and you see she has her nails/claws painted too. Actually, so does Terezi. You are seriously late to this manicure makeout event. You glance at the Mayor and he shows you his hands, which do not have nails, but they are shinier anyway. You are so done. “I have often tried accomplish a job like this with my own kitbox that were supposed to be professional but it never quite turned out this good. I gave up and just started using clear polish.”

“That’s because you made the mistake of buying a stupid fucking kitbox,” Karkat says prissily. “Here’s a pro tip: don’t buy the fucking kitboxes, they’re bullshit and made for adults. Surprise! A troll that still lives with its lusus on Alternia isn’t an adult, goddammit, and the company is only sending it to you because it makes them money.”

“Wait,” you say. “Aren’t manicure kits like basically sandpaper glued to a foam thing, a nail clipper, and polish?”

Karkat snorts. “Maybe in your primitive culture. Tickle me surprised, you’re all still a load of shitheads!”

Kanaya’s sylladex pops and she shows you a little rounded box looking thing with a whole in it. “This is what one of our kitboxes looks like.”

Karkat’s face twists into something like disbelief and disgust. “Is that a Gl’Nailorb?  You actually wasted money on a Gl’Nailorb? Kanaya, you actually had money to spend, why did you throw your boonbucks at a Gl’Nailorb like a cheap stripper on a lamppost? That’s literally the worst kitbox you could have gotten, no wonder you’re so bad at this. I never have to wonder again why you can’t file a claw for the life of you. Jesus, fuck.”

“I did research,” Kanaya defends prissily. “This model and make by far had the best reviews.”

“You do know that the company paid people to say that so that dumbasses like you would buy their shitty product, right?”

Kanaya stares at him in disbelief for a moment and then looks at her kitbox like it just betrayed all her most compromising secrets to Bubblr. Karkat facepalms. Cackling maniacally, Terezi pats Kanaya on the back and says, “Well, now you have a talented gutter squeakbeast to fuss over your claws for you, Miss Spearmint.”

Karkat says, flatly, “Thanks. I’m so relieved that you consider me the primitive lowblood of the group who grew up in Alternia’s slums like some sort of diseased rodent.”

“Did you even go to highblood forums?” She waves her rainbow painted hands at him. “People complained about the kitboxes all the time, and the number one suggestion was to get a lowblood in your red quadrants, or at least ashen, because they know what the hell they’re doing because they can’t afford bullshit luxuries like nail kitboxes!”

“Oh yes,” Kanaya mused. “I do remember reading that quite often, but it never occurred to me that they were anything other than trolls. Metaphorically.”

“Are you serious,” Karkat groans. “You can’t tell blatant advertising when you see it but when someone makes a legitimate suggestion you count it as fake?”

“It does seem silly in hindsight.” She slouches. “It’s no wonder my lusus put custodian locks on my browser.”

Terezi bursts out laughing and you exchange a look with Rose. Troll culture. You all haven’t had a conversation about troll culture in over a year. It’s about manicures of all things. “Is nail painting some kind of big deal or something,” you ask. “Because I can tell you that we don’t have those kit things and I don’t know anyone who gossiped about kids from the ‘hood being better at being pretty than the rich snobs.”

“Nail care is essential in troll culture,” Terezi informs you. “Our claws are basically a second form of defense if we lose our weapon, so you have to take care of them.”

Karkat continues, “And the only painting us lowlife peons did was a nail strengthening solution.” He holds up what you presume to be the nail strengthening stuff. It’s clear and looks exactly like all the other bottles. “Changing claw color was an elitist highblood thing. Who even wastes money on paint? Oh, that would be batshit insane blueblood and seadwellers. Who’da thunk! Sure not fucking gutter squeakbeats, that’s for certain.”

“Oh, get over it,” Terezi tells him. “I was being ironic.”

“Stop. You suck at it worse than Strider.”

“Hey now,” you say.

“Dave,” Rose says, effectively derailing any continuation of the discussion. “Since our troll friends find manicures to be a uni-gendered grooming necessity, would you like to try your hand at a cultural exchange?”

“Try my hand,” you say. “By god, you’re hilarious.”

“I do try.”

“Let me guess,” Karkat mutters, “I get to be the one to enforce this cultural exchange. Thanks for volunteering me, you are so generous with my time.” Rose just smiles at him and he sighs. “Fine. Scoot your glutes over here, Strider, your hands are a disaster zone and sometimes I wonder why I even let them anywhere near me or my hot body. I should start charging.”

You smirk at him and he just flicks you off again with his, now that you’re noticing, really healthy looking claws.

“You could get them painted fluorescent pink,” Rose points out to you. “Or yellow. Or with tiny American flags on them.”

“Hahahahaha,” Karkat says, with a horrifically fake smile that is horrifying, you are horrified, it somehow makes him resemble Terezi. “That’s funny because it’ll never fucking happen, unless you’re doing it yourself! By god, you are hilarious!” He drops the expression as abruptly as he adopted it. “How about we concentrate on getting Strider’s nails presentable enough for me to actually reward them with a blanket of polish to hide behind.”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“Dave,” growls at you, “I have been tolerating your negligence for the entire duration of this adventure, accepting that, as not even a friend of yours, I had no right to even suggest that you might want to take better care of the hard casing that graces the tops of your fucking fingertips. But now we are officially ‘bros’,” he legit uses finger quotes, “and I am going to do something about the state of your nails because frankly they disgust me to the point of needing to cleanse myself every time I come in contact with your torso-attached appendages. You and your phalanges will sit your plush rump at this station in five seconds or less or so help me I will shit on everything you hold dear and make you lavish in the resulting mess like a defecation fetish whore. I will take pictures and show them to everyone I meet until my bloodpusher ruptures messily inside my own chest cavity, thus triggering a pre-establish trap that I laid just for the occasion. That trap is explosives rising out of my putrid corpse and blasting a message in the stars: Dave Strider can go fuck himself with his own dirty hands and die of horribly embarrassing and avoidable diseases.”

“That seems like a long message to hold in your body with explosives,” you say, admittedly impressed with that particular tangent. Hehe, he’s been paying attention to your hands since you first stepped foot on the meteor. Pose for the camera with a V for Victory sign, Karkat has admitted that he worried about you before he actually worried about you. What a gentleman, John’s dad would have shed a tear of fatherly approval for this asswipe.

“Fuck you and do as I say.”

“Yes sir,” you say. “Should I fuck myself before or after I hand my fingers over to your great and terrible claws?”

He hisses, “After. And leave the fucking room when you do it; no one wants to see how you knock it with your bloated human nethers.”

You scoot your plush rump over to the pillow Rose previously occupied and present your dirty hands to Karkat. “Be gentle with me, Nyan-chan.”

He shoves your fingers into the little bowl in the middle of the table. “Shut up, and if you start making cat sounds again I will flip right off my handle and land on yours, simply to shove you off and watch you fall to your inevitable doom.”

“Be still my beating heart.”

“Yeah, death tends to do that.”

You come to the elating and miserable conclusion that you really like this cankerous little shithead. You like him a lot.

He sets up his tools meticulously. They are a bit intimidating. The file doesn’t look like one you’ve seen before; it actually looks really smooth. There’s also the pick thing he had in his mouth before except there are two more besides it, scissors (why), nail clippers (two different sizes, why), two tweezers, a pair of pliers (oh god why), and a box thing with different colored felt looking stuff on all sides. Your nervousness must show on your face because he gives you a malicious smirk and says, “Hopefully I won’t have to use all of these.”

“You are an evil man, Vantas.”

“I thrive off the blood and crusty nail plaque of my enemies,” he retorts. “Quiver in terror of my expertise in restoring claw erosion. We’ll make a fucking troll out of you yet.”

You silently curse and thank the girls for being in the room because you want to lean across the table and kiss him. He would probably push you away and lecture you while doing his manicure thing.

The first thing he does is dig the pads of his fingers into your bones and tendons, rolling the muscles under your skin. He works slowly, patiently, eyes lidded in bored concentration and mouth set with familiarity. He’s giving you a hand massage, you realize. He does it for both hands, while the girls chatter behind you about who knows what. You don’t care, you’re just watching Karkat make his way from your wrist to your fingers and pick up your other hand to do the same thing. Then he picks up the first one again and chooses a pick. He uses it to dig the dirt out from underneath your nails. You are impressed and slightly disgusted. You had no idea that much dirt could burrow its way down there.

He digs, pushes, grinds, cuts, files and buffs your nails to be “presentable” before applying two coats of the clear stuff that’s supposed to make your nails stronger. It turns out the file looked so smooth is because it is made of glass. He quietly explains the tools to you and what they’re used for, purposefully leaving out the pliers because he’s all for vindictive revenge as long as it’s not actually harming anyone in any way. You stay quiet for his tirade. It’s weird, sitting with him in silence; you both are normally shooting the shit and poking fun at each other for hours on end, even if it’s a lazy, absent sort of teasing.

He holds up one of the finished products and looks supremely smug with himself. “There. Now you aren’t completely disgusting in every way.”

“They’re so shiny,” you say.

He sneers at you. “Yes, that was my intention from the start, to make them shiny. I’m glad the two cells that make up your think pan produced enough friction rubbing against each other to come up with that observation. No, don’t try to say any more, if you think too much you’ll wear those cells down to absolutely fuckall and no one wants to see you any stupider than you already are.”

“I’m really glad I have such a caring and understanding bro to worry about the state of my intelligence. You are the sweetest motherfucker to have ever invaded my life, and you have Egbert and Harley to compete with. Pat yourself on the back there, Broseph, you just won the platinum friendship award, only given to the most tender of souls and dulcet of personalities. Better whip up an acceptance speech pronto, because we’re having Oscar Award amounts of celebration for this shit. We’re not talking like, ‘I’d like to thank the academy and the little people,’ nope, this needs to be as original as your usual works of art. Let’s see what you can improv, let loose that harmonious tongue of yours and let’er rip.”

“Shut up,” he says.

“That was beautiful, I’m crying.”

He waves a fist at you. “I’ll give you something to milk your tear glands about.”

“Are you coming on to me?”

“No!”

“It’s okay to admit it, Karkles. If I were you I wouldn’t be able to resist my Greek god of a body either. Here, I’ll give you free reign to touch my abs.”

He sputters and turns a shade darker. You’re winning. “I don’t want to touch your hideous body flab. In fact, I don’t even want to think about what execrable deformities you have blistering your skin and internal organs. Stop, don’t touch me. I banish you to the other side of the block where I won’t have to waste mental capacity by observing your odious face.”

“Me think the lady doth protest too much.”

“Do I look like a female to you, shithead,” he yells.

Rose pointedly clears her throat behind you before you can answer. Everyone settles down and looks at her, albeit you can feel Karkat sending you seething looks behind your back. She smiles sweetly at you both.

“Since we seem to have completed the manicure activity, I think it’s time to move on to other stereotypical activities one does when trapped in a house with four or more agreeable persons of the same age.” You snort. Yeah, like any of you have actually been to a legit sleepover. Trolls were paranoid, antisocial fuckers and you and Rose weren’t exactly the most popular kids in your schools.

“What,” you say, “we’re gonna give each other makeovers now? Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t think Miss Manicure Matriarch over here even knows what mascara is.” You jerk your thumb back at Karkat.

He says, “Mass-scare-ah?”

“Case and point. Court adjourned, the prosecution is wildly unsuccessful. Whoo-hoo.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a game,” Rose muses.

You mentally groan and resign yourself to being caught up in games that take place frat parties. No pillow fights in underwear tonight, folks. We’re staying classy in this club. You scoot off the manicure victim pillow and back to your previous place by the Mayor. He beams at you and you give him a fist bump.

“This sleepover would not be complete without a humiliating and immature party game,” Rose says, “and I’ve never had to opportunity to play one. What about you?” She smiles at you like she already knows the answer and just wants you to admit it, which is probably all exactly true.

“Nah,” you say, leaning back. “Way too mature for those things. Ain’t got no time for a Rainbow Party, didn’t want herpes anyway.”

Rose laughs. “I was thinking something a bit more wholesome than a Rainbow Party.”

“What’s a Rainbow Party,” Terezi whispers to Kanaya.

“I don’t know,” Kanaya whispers back, looking a little lost.

Terezi grins and says, “Whatever it is, it sounds delicious.”

You involuntarily let out a snort of laughter because holy fuck, was that ever perfect.

“Holy shit,” Karkat says while the Mayor pats your back, “What is wrong with you?”

Rose ignores you and makes a big show of considering her options. She finally suggests, “Truth or Dare would probably be the most appropriate for this setting.”

“Nope,” you say. “Nope, not playing that, your inquiry has been vetoed and sent back to the House of Representatives, please insert coins and try again.”

“Fine,” she says, eyeing you evilly, like the insane creepy witch that she is. “Seven Minutes in Heaven.”

“Wow, that game sure is more wholesome than a Rainbow Party. And totally not awkward at all. What if, like, you have to get shoved in the closet with the Mayor, huh? You willing to tap that ass?”

The Mayor squeaks and looks between you and Rose, like he isn’t sure if he should bolt or not.

The trolls are looking on with an interested sort of confusion, like they are watching some sport they don’t understand but the players all have really tight uniforms and they can’t look away.

“Spin the Bottle.”

“No.”

“White Elephant.”

“That takes preparation; do you even know what that is?”

“Hot Potato.”

“Yeah, because we all have the attention spans of five year olds, obviously.”

“You,” Rose says harshly, “are a Debbie Downer.”

“You,” you retort, “are drunk.”

“What was that first one again,” Terezi asks quickly, shifting herself from the pile to the floor and settling herself between Kanaya and the Mayor. “Truth or Dare?”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Kanaya nods. Rose shoots you a smug look and you glare at her, even if she can’t see it.

She picks up her now empty bottle and sets it in the middle of the make-shift circle you all have formed. She gestures for Karkat to join you, and he puts down his tools and cautiously maneuvers himself between Rose and you.

“Truth or Dare is a game where we all take turns spinning the bottle. Whomever the top of the bottle points to,” she taps the lip of the ceramic container, “is given the option of answering a question truthfully, or accepting a dare. The player who spun the bottle on that turn is the one to come up with these. We go around in a circle until-“ she trails off. “Until we get sick of playing, I suppose.”

You raise a hand to get everyone’s attention. “Aight, but let me be the actual responsible one and lay down some rules before we all make each other cry and get vindictive on each other’s hinnies. One, no dares meant to humiliate anyone more than the ‘holy shit this is dumb’ kind of thing. Two, you can choose to not answer a truth, but then you have to do a dare, or vice versa. Three, no making anyone wander around the meteor by themselves. And four, no daring Karkat or me to make out with Terezi.” Everyone startles at that last one, and Karkat whips around to give you this blank look. Not upset, just surprised.

“Agreed,” Terezi yells, slapping the floor. “No truths or dares that are deliberately harmful to anyone in any way, physically or emotionally.”

“Agreed,” Karkat says with a surprising amount force. You glance at him subtly, and he looks… relieved. For some reason, you feel smug about it.

 “Those sound reasonable,” Kanaya nods, and slaps the floor herself. The Mayor just slaps the floor enthusiastically, which you all take to thinking that he agrees too.

“Very well,” Rose nods. “Who wants to start?”

“You or Dave probably should,” Kanaya says, “because you two seem to be the only ones who have any experience playing this sort of thing.

“Rose starts,” you say. “Counter clockwise. Dive, dive, dive. Let’s get this show on the road, jump right in, the water is boiling hot and will probably cook us all alive.”

Rose gives you a thin smile and spins reaches into the middle to spin the bottle. It lands on you, and she outright grins. You groan internally.

“Well Dave,” Rose purrs at you, “You will be the perfect example for the rest of our party. Pick your poison: Truth or Dare?”

“I hate you so much,” you say.

“That’s not one of the options.”

“Fine. Dare.”

“Excellent. I dare you to speak in a southern accent for the rest of the game.”

Fuck your life.

“Well dern there lil’ girly,” you drawl to Kanaya. “I’d have t’say th’worse pick-em-up line I ever used was ‘R’you from Tennessee? ‘Cause yer th’only ten I see.’”

“You didn’t,” she says, and then snorts out a surprise laugh, which she immediately tries to cover with her hand, which just makes her laugh harder.

You grin. “You c’n bet yer sweet ass on it, darlin’.”

Terezi is grinning so widely that you can practically see all her teeth. It’s both terrifying and charming. She asks, “Who did you use it on?”

“Sheet, girl, y’know y’can only ask one question per spin. It ain’t even yer turn.”

“Well it is now!”

“Someone please dare him to stop talking like that,” Karkat says, and almost falls on you when Rose tries to poke him in the ribs. He’s trying to stop smiling; you can tell because he manages in intervals of two to three seconds before someone makes him laugh again. You made him admit that he was ticklish and you are happy to see that everyone is using it effectively against him. Mostly because when he nearly falls over laughing, it’s normally on you.

Terezi spins the bottle around and it lands on the Mayor. His questions are a bit trickier since he doesn’t talk, so they all have to be yes or no. Terezi gave him some chalk to write “TRUTH” and “DARE” on the floor so he just points to one of the other. He points at “TRUTH.”

“Before Serenity disappeared, she told me that you have a lovely lady in your sights. Is that true?” Terezi gives him a saucy wink and he puts his head in his hands in embarrassment and nods, like a little kid who just confessed his crush. She grins and kisses the top of his head. “Good for you! I’m sure you’ll meet back up with both of them in the new session.”

You are overcome with a case of the “d’awwww’s” and mess up his hood a bit like you would ruffle his hair if he had any. He leans forward and spins the bottle next; it lands on Rose. She immediately quips, “Dare” and is overwhelmed by a case of the giggles.

The Mayor picks up his chalk board that Karkat was carrying around with him (why, you will never know) and writes, “PLEASE SING THE TEAPOT SONG WITH ACTIONS”. The cool thing about the Mayor is that he doesn’t have a cruel bone in his body. And he’s super polite to everyone.

Rose stands up and sings “I’m A Little Teapot” with the actions (or at least the ones she knows) and you all give her applause. She takes a deep bow and stumbles back to the ground, still giggling. The Mayor gives her a thumbs up and she gives one back, looking entirely pleased with herself.

Truth be told, you’re starting to get a little bored, so when you spin the bottle and it lands on Rose again, you smirk at her when she repeats, “Dare.” Oh, ho, ho!

“I dare you,” you say and ignore the chorus of “accent” from everyone when you forget to drawl, “ta make a mini game.”

Rose stares at you for a bit before saying, “What.”

“We’re gon switch it up fer a bit, here. I want you t’come up with a mini game fer this turn. Somethin’ dumb and simple.” You pause and add maturely, “Like you.”

 Terezi yells, “Ah, snap!” and snaps her fingers enthusiastically. Kanaya joins her.

“Very well,” Rose nods and fiddles with her sylladex. A deck of cards pops out and she digs through them, taking out the hearts and spades of aces, jacks, and queens. She puts the rest of the deck aside and starts shuffling her six cards, grinning at you like you just enabled her to torment you in new and interesting ways. You probably did. Fuck you and your boredom.

Rose puts the deck in the middle next to the bottle and says, “We’re going to play a kissing game.” Of fucking course. What else would you play? Rose lives to make everyone needlessly uncomfortable. “Everyone draws a card and they have to kiss the person with their matching card. Aces is a platonic kiss, jacks is a romantic kiss, and queens is a dramatic kiss.”

Terezi frowns. “What about the rules? I’m banned from sucking face with two out of five people here.”

 Rose shrugs. “Then you’ll show your card first, and if it matches either of the boys’, they’ll just switch someone.”

“This sounds like a great game for making things awkward for every miserable couple present in a twenty foot radius of this room,” Karkat huffs, and bravely draws a card. Before he even looks at it, he scrunches his nose at Rose. “What do you mean by a ‘dramatic kiss’?”

She smiles. “Exactly what it sounds like.” Yup, that sure explained everything in a completely not vague and confusing way. Rose draws a card and everyone else follows, you taking one last.

Queen of spades. Great. The only dramatic kiss you can think of is drop-kissing someone. You think of drop kissing the Mayor. Wow. Uh, no.

Terezi shows you all her card. It’s the ace of hearts and Karkat immediately stiffens and goes, “Um.”

Rose snatches the card out of his hand and replaces it with hers before scooting her butt over to Terezi and kissing her on the cheek. Terezi grins and kisses Rose back, before Rose moves back to her spot.

“Since I know which card Karkat has, how about he presents his next,” she says, smiling at him in such a way that everyone knows that he is fucked.

He growls at her and puts his card face up on the floor. Queen of hearts. You choke and stop breathing. Oh fuck. Holy fucking shit. That was way too close. You totally lucked out on this one.

You throw your card down next to his, staring up and the ceiling and yelling, “Oh, thank fuck. The horrorterrors take me now, there are miracles left in this universe.” You shake your fist in the vague direction of up. “You bastards almost got me this time but never again will you be presented with such a goddamn convenient opportunity to force me to commit a sin against our dead god. Fuck you, unseen forces ruling our fucking lives. Fuck you and goodnight.”

Everyone is staring at you blankly. Okay, no; Terezi, Kanaya, and the Mayor are staring at you blankly. Rose looks like she’s trying really hard not to laugh and Karkat looks somewhere between flabbergasted and horrified. His cheeks are turning pink. What a cutie.

He demands, “What the ever loving shit are you yelling about?”

“If I had to make out with my sister,” you say, “I would have just stabbed myself through the chest and crawled off while bleeding to death.” You punch his arm playfully and hop to your feet. “Come on, let’s do this. I’m feeling high on adrenaline. My life just flashed before my eyes and we got a soap opera to perform before the endorphins wear off and I pass out from shock.”

Rose smiles. “Nervous that you’d enjoy it too much, Dave?” You boggle at how she is even a little okay with the thought of swapping spit with her biological brother. You blame alcohol. Yeah. That.

“Nope, afraid that you would and we can’t have you dumping your bright and shining vamp to dry hump family, that ain’t kosher.” She coughs. “And sorry sis, but my heart belongs to another as of right now.”

“Oh?”

“Hell ye, Vantas is my new literal knight in metaphorical shining armor.” Karkat makes this weird strangled noise. “Love of my life, savior of my virtue, shield to my sister’s incestuous libido.” You ruffle said knight’s hair. “I will kiss you so dramatically that the new universe will write an entire masterpiece theater segment on it, we’ll be classics.”

He blinks at you and you kick his foot. “Come on, bro. Hup, hup, git yer feet on th’ground, we’re gon’ dun goof.”

“What,” he says, and you grab his arm to pull him up.

“Dramatic sloppy make-outs, dude. It’s the rules. Get to standing so that I can romance you off your feet.” It occurs to you that two of the girls are staring at you and Karkat quite intensely as you drag him to a standing position. Rose is probably going to write fanfiction about this later, but you’re a little surprised that Terezi is so focused on- No wait, you aren’t. Her two hot ex-boyfriends getting their mack on with each other. She’ll probably be asking to read Rose’s fanfiction later.

When you let go of him, he stands there all stiff and awkward and slouched and you kind of wish you got the romantic kiss card instead. Wait, no, because you two can laugh this one off as being ridiculous and you can pretend that you were totally just being a swag douchebag instead of actually being really into him. Yup, good reasoning there, Strider.

You announce, “Alright, since you’re not going to make the first move, I’ll be the pants of this relationship.” He bristles and bares his teeth at you. You remember the feeling of those teeth dragging down your neck. Hng. Nope, nope, not thinking about this! Keep it in your pants Strider, you are in public. The kind of public that writes erotic wizard anecdotes. She probably has, like, three characters based off you alone. Okay, good, that killed any potential boner you have or could have had in the next ten years. Sweet, miserable victory is yours. “Put your hands around my neck,” you tell Karkat.

“Why?”

“Because when I say I’m going to sweep you off your feet, I mean it in a vaguely literal sense, and God forbid you get a concussion in the process. Wrong quadrant, you get me?”

He gives you a wary look and manages to place his hands around your neck while trying to not come into contact with your with any other part of his body. If you were a less secure man, you would be insulted. As it is, you just find it stupidly endearing. Tsundre, indeed.

You put your hands on his waist, deceivingly loose and not at all like you’re going to grab him and perform acrobatics with his center of balance. Despite it all, you are trying to hone your nonexistent psychic abilities to get him to snog with you, because that would throw the girls for a loop. You can just see them all staring at you opened mouthed like ‘shit, what?’ It’s a hilarious sight. “Kay,” you say. “You ready?”

“No,” he says. “I will never be ready for the amount of hatassery you are about to inflict upon my person. This is entirely unnecessary, just like your existence. Also, just like the existence of this game Lalonde has created and you allowed into creation! Good job, feculent puspuppet, I hope you feel sufficiently smug over the fact that you have just made everyone’s lives that much more chokingly miserable and I hope that you strangle yourself to death in your sleep  with your own blankets so that I don’t have to look at your stupid greasy face ever agaaAAAAUNMmmm-“

You proceed to grab him and perform acrobatics with his center of balance, effectively spinning him around and tipping him while kissing him because you are the smoothest motherfucker in paradox space. You even deftly avoid the accidental knee to the groin that he almost inflicts upon you. His claws scrape down your neck to your shoulders and dig in to your shirt; he clings to you because his feet don’t have purchase on the ground and you are the only thing keeping him from falling on his ass. It’s hilarious. It stays hilarious for the full five seconds you keep him in that position, before practically throwing him back up to standing. The best part is that he doesn’t let go, he continues to clasp onto you with wide eyes. He didn’t kiss you back though, tragedy. Oh well.

“Ta-da,” you say.

“As soon as I’m sure I won’t collapse to the ground while shitting myself out of sheer terrified alarm,” he says, “I’m going to slice your body into small chunks and make a stew out of you.”

“Hate to be the party pooper, but I’m not really into vore.” You kick the back of one of his knees lightly and he is now literally hanging on you squeaking with alarm. You pry his hands out of your shirt and keep a hold of his wrists, lowering him at a slower pace. “That’s definitely one way to get inside you though. Insert a wink and a suggestive nudge here.” When he’s close enough to the ground, you let him go, bow to the ladies (and carapace) staring at you with shocked and piqued expressions, and plop yourself back on the ground.

“I reckon Maryam and t’Mayor ‘r up next, let’s see what you got.”

Terezi is the one to recover first, and a raspy chuckle bubbles up from deep inside her chest until it bursts loudly from her mouth and she promptly falls over laughing, clutching her sides.

“The look,” she gasps, “on Karcrabby’s face!” You sneak a peek at Karkat and he looks like he can’t decide if he’s infuriated, mortified, or indifferent. Kanaya and Rose’s shoulders start shaking quietly until they both are leaning on each other laughing. Karkat has decided on a mix of mortified and infuriated. The Mayor stares at you both with bright shining eyes and a huge grin, and he hands you both a can of Tab each. Your kiss is Mayor Approved, there’s no greater accomplishment in life.

You throw an arm around Karkat’s shoulders to keep him from either exploding or bursting into tears. You drag him close to yourself and lean your head on his so that his horn is poking into your cheek and say, very quietly, “I wish I knew how to quit you.” He’s stiff and tense with offense and he only gets more wound up when he growls at you.

“I’m going to eviscerate you,” he grumbles. “And don’t start quoting movies at me.”

“I’m very discreet but… I will haunt your dreams.”

“So does every other asshole who had the audacity to exist in every timeline ever. Your argument is invalid, please fuck off and leave me alone.”

“No, I don’t think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.”

“You didn’t even watch Gone With The Wind!” He jabs a claw into your ribs and you twitch and grit your teeth (fucking ow) but don’t back off. “And you already kissed me, so that quote is inappropriate for the occasion and let go of me so that I can cut off your face and wear it as a mask for a wriggler’s haunted hive.” He shoves your face away, though you still have an arm on his shoulder so it hardly matters. He continues to jab you in the side.

“Baby love,” you say louder, so that the girls can hear you. “I need ya, oh how I need ya. But all you do is treat me bad, break my heart and leave me sad-“

“Stop hitting on me,” Karkat tells you, and actually kicks you. You back off.

“Tell me what did I do wrong,” you continue, “to make you stay away so long?”

“Existed!”

“Oh my god,” Kanaya gasps, “I should get my turn over with so we can continue.” She giggles and shuffles herself over to the Mayor, who suddenly looks very nervous. Rose and Terezi are still slumped and bright with giggles, and Rose is giving you the suggestive eyebrow wiggle. You give one back to her and she grins.

Kanaya takes the Mayor’s face in her hands and kisses him where his nose would be if he hand one. It leaves a lipstick stain. She smiles sweetly at him and he pulls his hood over his face and wiggles with shy embarrassment. She laughs pleasantly and returns to her previous spot.

“I believe it’s your turn, Karkat,” she says, and giggles. Karkat still looks a bit red in the face. But he mumbles grouchily under his breath and spins the bottle while everyone else tries to stop giggling like elementary school kids. The bottle lands on himself twice before it finally stops short and lands on you.

 “Well, dang,” you say. “I reckon I’ll go with truth this time.”

He sneers at you. “Most embarrassing moment.”

What a little shit. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.” You wink at him.

“That’s not how this game works!”

Ugh. “One time when I was eight, I almost drowned in the kiddie pool at the local YMCA because I didn’t think to stand up. Bro just stood there staring at me and slowly shaking his head.”

He snorts. Rose rolls her eyes. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”

“What’s a kiddie pool,” Terezi asks.

“It’s a really shallow pool for kids that’s designed to be virtually impossible to drown in.”

She cackles. “Definitely you!”

“Tch,” you say and wave your hand at them all. “Next.”

The rest of the game is practically uneventful until you and Karkat get into another contest of “who can be the most long-winded asshole in the room” and you stop short halfway through a rap about Will Ferrell because you suddenly notice that Rose and Kanaya have their tongues halfway down each other’s throats. Karkat narrows his eyes at you in confusion until he glances behind him and whips back around to you with wide eyes. Every Terezi manages to look slightly uncomfortable. The Mayor is staring very determinedly at an industrial size container of creamed corn.

“Oh wow,” Terezi says, too loudly. “Mayor, is that a new can there? We should go examine it right now in Downtown Can Town.” She jumps up and scoops up the Mayor, bouncing out of the room with surprising speed. “Bye everyone!”

You are not so tactful. “Let’s go do a thing,” you say to Karkat.

“Yes,” he says, climbing to his feet so fast he almost falls over again. “A thing. Sounds like a plan! I sure do like doing things!”

“Yup, doing things sure is neat,” you say and quickly vacate the vicinity, your grumpy companion close behind. You two are halfway down the hall before you slow down and he huffs in annoyance as soon as you both are out of earshot of Kanaya’s room.

You have to admit that you are slightly irritated, because this was the first time you and the whole gang have hung out in God knows how long on the meteor. Karkat apparently agrees.

“Why is it,” Karkat mutters, shoving his hands in his pockets and slouching, “that every time we all start getting along and actually somewhat achieve being a semi-cohesive unit on this shithole that everyone in a concupiscent quadrant has to go and make things unintelligible amounts of awkward for the rest of us?”

You shrug. What’s done is done, might as well make the most of it. You start walking and he keeps in step with you easily. “When we had to do that kiss dare, I was trying to silently communicate to you that we should totally suck face and see how everyone reacts.”

He sputters. “Why the hell would I want to do exactly what pisses me off to everyone else?”

“Revenge, obviously.”

“Oh.”

You try not to notice that he isn’t opposed to the idea of snogging you, just opposed to the idea of snogging you in front of other people.

Okay, now your pants need to shut up, seriously.

“Like,” you gesture vaguely, “you know how sometimes you’re just bored as fuck and wandering around the labs and you walk into a room, right. It’s a room people go into fairly often, like the fucking library. And in this library is a table, and on this table is-“

“Rose and Kanaya making out,” Karkat finishes for you, grimacing in sympathy. “And you freeze the fuck up because what the hell are you supposed to do now, just leave and pretend you never saw anything? Or say whoops and abscond the fuck away. But then Rose sees you and gives you this saucy little smile and says-“

“See anything you like,” you say. He nods. You blurt out unintentionally, putting your face in your hands, “Oh my fuck, and the worst part is that you do.”

He doesn’t even pause. “Oh my god, I know, right?”

“And it’s just stuck in your mind like a goddamn tumor, it’s terminal, sorry, the only way to get rid of it is to take out your whole brain. And you’re like, but doctor I just want this disturbingly incestuous picture out of my head, I’ll even do shock therapy, forget my hometown. This is what’s causing all of my mental trauma doctor; my hot sister and her lesbian reverse vampire. Please lobotomize me or let me die.”

“Sometimes I think they do it on purpose. Can’t you just imagine them tittering behind their painted lips and saying to one another, ‘Hey, you know what would really mess with everyone else? Seeing us make out in our undergarments. Let’s give everyone think pan trauma and then psychoanalyze the fuck out of them. Maybe even charge them for sessions!’ And then they just sit in the most public fucking room in the meteor and quietly wait for their next victim, like sexy vixen seadwellers that suck out your organs through your nostrils and make you watch as they fry them up and feed them to all the cuttlefish.” He puts his face in his hands. “And it works. Every. Fucking. Time.”

"Wait,” you say, “you mean like sirens? Or mermaids?”

“The fuck is a mermaid?”

You stuff your hands in your pockets and shrug. “It’s like a half-person, half fish, all demon manipulative scary cannibal creature that lures in sailors with singing and boobs before it drowns them and-or eats them alive.”

He blinks at you. “So… like seadwellers?”

He’s trying really hard not to smile, but you let yourself grin and laugh because his race is so fucked up, and you’re glad he knows it. But he’s also proud of his race, patriotic in a weird sort of “well the system would probably fuck me backwards with a jagged ship mast but I would totally like it if I could be an actual part of society” way. Which is probably why he can crack so many jokes about it, and Terezi would just gleefully correct you without pausing in whatever she was doing.

“Fuck girls,” you say, suddenly.

“Fuck quadrants,” he says, not even missing a beat.

“Fuck ventilation systems.”

“Fuck useless face-painted jokers with ridiculous get-ups.”

“Fuck being stuck in the same place with the same five people for three years.”

“There are some days,” he tells you wistfully, “that I just want to get off.”

That statement hangs in the air for a moment before he belatedly adds, “the meteor. Get off the meteor. Not. Fuck. Never mind.”

You muss up his hair because his Freudian Slips are adorable and he hasn’t even said anything about your terrible incest confession. Well, considering that trolls basically all come from the same slurry, that makes sense. If there’s anyone who would not make incest out to be a big deal, it would be a troll, and it would especially be Karkat.

“So,” you say oh-so causally because you don’t want to make this awkward. “My place or yours?”

“Yours,” he answers, probably not getting the joke. “But first I want to grab my husktop.”

“Why? Gonna be having a threesome cyber with the girls?”

 He punches your arm again. “No! I just.” He stops, like he just realized that you’re hot. Oh, no! “Just. Uh.”

You just kind of peer at him.

“I was wondering if you would.” He runs both his hands through his hair and growls in frustration. “For the love of grubfucking titter squawks!” He starts to stomp off, while you stand there like a gopher and try to figure out what a titter squawk is. “Never mind. I’m going to curl up on my cushioned sleeping platform and-“ He stops again and swings around to look at you with a comically distressed expression. “They have my blankets.”

You guffaw. “Looks like it’ll have to be my place anyway. Go get your creepy organic bug computer bro, I’ll wait by the transportalizer.”

He shakes his head and looks so frustrated and embarrassed. “This is so idiotic, why did I think to ask you in the first place, I am such a fucking moron.”

With a deep sigh and a roll of your eyes, you say, “For fuck’s sake, Karkles, what?”

“No, it’s stupid. Pan numbingly stupid. So shit-tastically moronic that your skull would soften simply by even considering entertaining such an unintelligent thought. It’ll probably lower your mental capacity.”

“If you had something in mind that would kill a few hours, I would love to hear it. Otherwise we’ll just be sitting in my room awkwardly like a middle school couple at a family dinner.” And you’d probably try to touch his horns again. And then you two might end up doing something really stupid. “Look, as long as it isn’t something like summoning a horrorterror or making a giant slingshot and harpooning ourselves into space, there’s not a lot I’m going to be opposed to doing.” Especially if it involved tongues.

Shut up brain.

He bites his lip and you want to smoosh his cheeks together and make him do a fish face so he would stop looking so sorry for himself. Finally, he takes a deep breath and faces you. He blurts out, “Do you want to watch pale pornography with me?”

Silence falls on you both, and you have to run that through your head a few times. You still don’t think you heard him right. “…Do I want to watch what?”

He curls in on himself, hands behind his back and looking shy and ducking his head while peeking up at you through his bangs. Was he even aware of his body language? You feel like he just asked you to kiss him behind the cafeteria. Senpai noticed me today, kyaaa~. (Oh god, don’t imagine him in a school girl uniform, don’t imagine him in a school girl uniform, don’t imagine him in a school girl uniform, don’t-) He mutters, “Pale pornography.”

“Pale pornography,” you repeat, and your mind stutters on the “porn” part. Holy shit, you were going to be spending the night in the bathroom with your own hand and sobbing with desperation and regret. This boy would kill you dead with exaggerated, hormone induced feels.

He says, “yes.”

“As in, P-A-I-L or P-A-L-E?”

“P-A-L-E.” He scrunches up his nose like he’s a little upset that you aren’t fully comprehending the fact that he wants to masturbate in the same room with you, what the actual.

“Pornography.”

“Yes!” Now he looks openly frustrated.

”Are you serious? Is that seriously a thing?”

“Of course that’s seriously a thing! It’s a quadrant, it’s romance!”

You think that one or both of you are missing something here. “But it’s pale.”

“Yes!” He waves his arms at you. “Why is this such a hard concept?”

“See,” you say, trying to gesture vaguely with your hands to explain without you actually having to explain and failing, “we only have one quadrant and pornography is really only associated with that one quadrant, which is the, uh, one that involves a lot of not safe for work material. So. When you say pornography, all I hear is, ‘hey, want to watch a bunch of people have unrealistic sex and possibly touch ourselves?’ It’s kind of a throw off.” You are starting to think that maybe this isn’t going to be as sexy as you originally thought. Oh good, maybe it will just be hilarious, like terrible anime hentai.

He actually puts his head in his hands. It’s a facepalm, you realize. He’s facepalming at you. “It’s not about sex! You don’t have sex with your moirail, what’s wrong with you?”

“So is it like… horn touching or something?” Actually, if there was horn touching involved, then you’d still probably end up in the bathroom and miserable.

“You know what, forget it. Never mind.” He waves at you and turns around. You jump toward him and grab his arm. Oh fuck no, bro.

“No, dude,” you say all casual, because you are totally all casual right now, yup. “Now you got me curious. Can’t drop that little bomb on me and expect me to just let you get off.”

He stares at you, raises an eyebrow. It’s like he’s saying ‘et tu, Strider?’ with his face.

“Get off hands free,” you amend. Fuck. “Fuck off by yourself.” Holy shit, what the hell. “Fondle your shame globes by yourself while leaving me all hot and bothered and forever wondering how bromance can have porn.”

The straight face turns into pursed lips and he’s trying to hide a laugh, that’s a good sign.

You give up on trying to explain yourself. “Fuck it, what’s it like?”

“It’s like…” he bites his lip again. You are a bit jealous, which is stupid, and you are stupid. “It’s like your human internet meowbeast videos, but with trolls.”

What. “Seriously.” No, seriously, what the fuck. That is not the answer you were expecting at all.

“Yes! Seriously!”

“I don’t believe you.”

His gets a mischievous smile, like he’s really looking forward to what’s coming next. “Well, I guess I have some convincing to do.”

He was not kidding about the meowbeast video thing.

“You were not kidding about the meowbeast video thing,” you tell him. “I’m going to get a sugar rush just from watching this. I can feel my insulin overloading right now. Help, I’m becoming hyperglycemic. I have contracted the diabetus.”

“Shh,” he hisses, sounding far too cheerful for his own good. “This is where it starts to get really good.”

Watching pale pornography is like watching the Lifetime channel without the misery. It’s like if Disney hired Nora Roberts to write a screen play directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Neil Patrick Harris, you would have what the sugary, sing-song, soaking wet coffee grounds that this monstrosity is. Sixty percent sweetness, five percent badass, and thirty-five percent gay in the most heterosexual way possible. You are watching the campiest romantic movie B-plot bromance that Hollywood always wanted to achieve. You are getting giddy warm fuzzies from it, which is ludicrous. You have the overwhelming urge to touch Karkat’s face and let your thumb linger on his cheekbone.

You can’t think of anything on Earth that could have compared to this, really. The funniest part is that it’s just as unrealistic, hilariously exaggerated, and entirely unlikely as concupiscent pornography, it just has a lot more feelings involved.

There are even close-up shots of people’s hands, like someone would have a shot for some guy’s dick or vag, jesus fuck.

“Karkat,” you say, “please tell me that there are plot tropes, like the wife’s hot best friend seducing her husband or something, or ‘let me pay for that pizza a different way.’ Please tell me.”

“The best one,” Karkat tells you, “is the street fight situation. A lowblood is being beaten up by a higher caste and the highblood sees this and instantly pities the lowblood a ridiculous amount for no reason whatsofuckingever, and then beats the shit out of the midbloods. And then the happy couple goes back to the highblood’s place and nurses each other’s wounds.”

He has his hands in your hair, and you’re lying on the couch perpendicular to him with your head in his lap. In hindsight, this probably wasn’t the best position to start in. You don’t care. His newly manicured claws feel really nice against your scalp and he’s feverishly warm. You can feel him laugh. His shirt absorbed the pine tree scent from Kanaya’s room.

He continues, speaking in a low even voice, like he would if he were reading out loud. “Another one is the two trolls being stationed on a ship together, and one is in a higher and stressful position, ordering a bunch of people around like an asshole, and one of the cadets stays behind and tries to get him relaxed.” He pauses, and you can hear the grin in his voice. “Oddly enough, that’s also a common plot for the concupiscent quadrants.”

Rolling over so you can look up at him, you ask, “Is there, like, rails with pails porn?”

He snorts. “Of fucking course, duh. It’s kinky as shit though. It just emphasizes how some of the actions in the pale and flushed quadrants are eerily similar. Like – here. Right there,” he points at the screen, and you glance at it too. “That position right there. Take off their pants and you have a flushed porno. Bam. Horn touching is open game too. It can go either way.”

You smirk up at him and wiggle your fingers under his face. He leans back. “Oh, fuck no. There is a line, Dave, and we are not edging that close to it.”

“So,” you tell him. “We just jump straight over that line, don’t even have to cheat on Houdini The Invisible Ventilation Laughssacre. Sloppy makeouts for everyone, and we could touch each other’s horns.”

He rolls his eyes. “You don’t have horns, you delusional shitgobbler.”

“Not yet, I don’t.” You wink at him.

“What the fuck does that even mean?”

“Oh, wouldn’t you like to find out.” He paps your face, like a “shut up you” slap that’s meant to serve more as an acknowledgement than pain.

You two settle back down to watch this sludge out, making the odd snarky comment, or him answering any questions you bring up with that same subdued, lazy voice. His posture gets slouched and he looks so… satisfied. You wonder if this is what he does when he’s alone in his room for days at a time; live an ideal romantic life through shitty movies and platonic pornography. It’s a funny idea in the most depressing way possible, kills your giddy mood with memory of walking by the room with the horn pile every hour to see if he’d moved yet and wondering if he stayed there for days at a time, waiting for Gamzee to come talk to him. It pissed you off back then, like seriously, who the fuck cared if the juggalo was missing. Now that you don’t have a lot of other options for company yourself, you can understand his desperation. You feel sort of like an asshole. You two should have been hanging out, like, a year and a half ago. You should have sat in the horn pile with him and rapped at him for hours on end.

The movies aren’t that long, and by the fourth one, you start seeing a pattern.

“Is this stuff always highblood-lowblood, or is that just a popular kink people have? Like, is there ultra psycho-romantic seadwellers stroking gills or something?”

His smile falters a bit. If you hadn’t been looking at him, you probably wouldn’t have noticed. He says in an even voice, “Yeah, it’s a really popular kink, mostly with lowbloods. Having a highblood for a moirail essentially means a higher quality of life, and less chance of getting culled by drones.”

You nod and pat his cheek until he glares at you. “Okay, next question. Is there always a particular blood-type kink, because these all seem to have Gamzee’s caste, and three of these things have been rust and the last one was… lime? Is that like a weird troll th-“

He goes tense. Wrong question, and you know the answer before you even finish the sentence. Wow, think, dumbshit! You feel like a bigger asshole.

He wouldn’t have had to have gotten these before his planet was decimated via meteors, but porn was personal, people tended to seek out the stuff that applied to them in some way. He was a mutant blood type, something Terezi told you he had been ultra paranoid about, and there was a high chance that he looked at even the lowest blood caste with envy, because at least they had a chance, where he did not. Plus, he’s literally a hopeless romantic, living on over-sized chunk of alloy with five other people and a bunch of ghosts, without any consistent company, and his best platonic friend ditching him for his ex.

Wow, put that way, his life is ten times more depressing than a Lifetime special. His life is a lifetime special.

Before you stop to think, you say, “Oh Karkat,” and watch him stiffen defensively. “Oh, Kitkat, babe, no. I’m sorry.”

He pushes your hand away and growls, “Shut up, taintchafing shitstain. Just. Watch the fucking movie.”

He stares back at the screen determinedly, while you continue to stare up at him. He scowls. “The interior of my snout isn’t the screen, asshole. Turn your head.”

You take a deep breath and decide that while talking about feelings is basically the most horrifying activity possible, this would be as good a time as ever, when you’ve both had a pretty good night and you have fluffy troll cuddles playing in the background. You ask, “How long?”

His brows furrow and he glares at you, “For duration of this cinematic nightmare, genius.”

“No, I mean… I mean, how long did you have a crush on him?”

“No,” he says. “We’re not talking about this. You aren’t my moirail and this is dumb and you are a dumbdumb.”

You shrug. “Humans blur all the quadrants together like a red and black orgy of feelings and literal fuckery. I’m not vying to replace your terrible cuddle bro, dude. I probably won’t even listen, just get it out of your system and calm your shit.”

This is a lie, you’re totally going to listen.

He thinks about it for a while, and you think he’s just going to keep his mouth closed. But then he has a hand back in your hair and he gets this sad expression on his face, and you die a little.

“Trolls don’t exactly have social hubs,” he starts, “so everyone basically meets people with common interests on forums and games, and then we introduce those friends to our other friends, so everyone is part of this giant social circle of constant handle exchanges a clusterfuck of who’s be introduced to who. I was friends with Sollux because we were on the same War of Trollcraft server-“ you snort, “and his moirail was Aradia.” He pauses, like he’s going to stop there, leave you stewing in the mystery of it all for a while, and then he sighs. “We have a holiday called Twelfth Perigee’s Eve, which I guess is kind of like your human Christ-mass-“

"Christmas,” you correct, automatically.

“Shut up. Christmas, then. Basically everyone’s lusus goes and does something super fucking special for their troll or some shit. It’s a really custodial-centric holiday, and it sucks bonebulge for orphans. Anyway, when I was four, my lusus locked me in my respite block until he was done preparing, so I was just fucking around on the web. Sollux messages me and asks what the hell I’m doing, and it better be nothing because he’s freaking the fuck out about something.”

The movie ends and Karkat pauses in his story to lean over you (stomach to the face, ngh, he smells like pine and pumpkin pie, why the pumpkin) to start the next one. He leans back, looking so very tired. He doesn’t sleep very well, you know.

“He’s always freaking out about something,” he tells you. “That’s all he ever does. And I know for a fact that Aradia came to spend the day with him because he wouldn’t shut up about it. But he says that Aradia is being distracted by one of her FLARP teammates because he’s freaking out because his lusus is a useless piece of shit and can’t do the preparations itself, while at the same time, he’s trying to sooth this asshole friend of his who’s not getting the hint or something. I say, why the fuck not, and he gives me Aradia’s handle, who gives me Tavros’s handle, who tells me that I need to go easy on this guy because he’s kind of sensitive and they apparently met on a slam poetry forum and I know right then and there that this was a mistake.”

You kind of smile at that.

“So Tavros gives me Gamzee’s handle and-“ He stops and swallows. “The first thing Gamzee says to me is that I’m obviously a miracle sent to him for knowing his handle and contacting him on this particular day, blah blah, usual religious bullshit. I flipped my shit because no one warned me that he was a highblood, they get super fucking condescending about the hemospectrum, so I thought he was going to start harping on me for my hemoanonymity. He didn’t even ask why my text was gray, he just went on and on about god knows what and I just sat there like a tool completely gob smacked by how vomit-spewingly stupid and useless this fucking highblood was.”

“Oh my god,” you say. “It was love at first sight.”

He whacks your head irritably and growls at you. “No it wasn’t! I was just… overwhelmed. And I had nothing better to do so I fucking talked to him for the rest of the day. I thought it would be a one-time thing, but he just kept fucking messaging me after that and-“ A low thrum hums from his huskstop’s speakers and you both sort of startle at the same time and stare at it. The two trolls on screen are curled around each other, the lowblood stroking the face of the highblood and it looks like a reenactment from a cheesy bodice-ripper.

“Oh Mister Facepaint,” you say in a high voice, more than happy to end this particular feelings jam, “let me just touch your face all enticingly like I’d be stroking your thighs if this was a flushed porno instead.”

Karkat chokes.

“Aw yeah baby,” you continue, dropping your voice down two octaves and pretending to puff out your chest like an ego-inflated rich brat. “Right there, on the cheekbone. You can stroke my cheeks all night, wink wink. Maybe later you could touch my feet.”

Karkat lets out and unexpected snort of a laugh and says, “How about no.”

You pout at him. “Ah, come on. We could turn down the volume to do voice-overs, make this a true masterpiece, examine the complicated underlying relationship that has only just begun and will probably end once the honeymoon stage is over. Shit, we could choreograph a huge pale wedding for them, make plans, buy flowers, leave one of them standing at the alter in tears, cry rivers upon oceans of tears for these complicated and obviously well thought out characters.”

“Trolls don’t have weddings. I don’t even know what a wedding actually is.”

“Well fuck, then why don’t we go all xenophile on them and turn Lowy into a dog through shenanigans that are never fully explained. Get our bestiality on, make this a fetish thing.”

“I will push you off this couch,” he says, pulling your bangs out of your face, “and take your sheets, and you will have to brave the no doubt post-coital bitchfest Kanaya and Rose preform after a good round of PDA to get any sort of fluffy comfort for the night.”

“But Mister Vantas,” you say, all mock offended in the high lowblood voice again, “I thought you said we would cuddle after I groped your toes.”

He flicks your forehead. “If you touch my feet, I will kick you in the face and laugh when you lose teeth.”

“Do you give pedicures too?”

 “What the fuck is a pedicure?”

“It’s like your nail thing, but with your feet. More specifically, the nails on your toes.” You point at your own feet and wiggle your toes in your socks for effect. You have motherfucking beautiful feet, hell yeah.

He gives you this look like you are the stupidest creature in paradox space, and he has only just realized it. “Why would I waste time filing and coating my toes? What would I even use them for?”

“To Spiderman up a wall, obviously,” you say. “Seriously, you guys will buff your nails to impress each other but you don’t think about climbing walls? You are such a fuck up of a species.”

“Fuck you,” he says, “you don’t even have pale pornography, what the hell do you even do when you’re overwhelmed by everything?”

You shrug, “Wallow in my own misery, sobbing bright shining tragic anime tears born of the deaths of a thousand flaccid dick jokes and the knowledge that no one will ever be as awesome as I am.” You sigh dramatically. “It’s hard being this cool, Karkles. Everyone wants a piece of this and I only have so much to give.”

He rolls his eyes again, but he looks amused anyway. “Sure, that’s why you’re spending your night watching pus-oozing, rancid feel-good homegrown videos with the most pathetic loser this universe decided to fester into life, even though everyone else is demanding your time.”

“What? Oh hell no, I’m not crawling up in the vents with the Juggalo, fuck that guy, I’m totes hanging with you. It would be a huge dick move to take your computer with me to boot, what kind of asshole do you think I am?”

It’s stupid and lame as hell, so corny, corn covered in cheese made at a Boy Scout camp covered in mushy sustenance, but the blank look he gives you turns into a visible struggle not to grin. Fuck yes, point for you. You lift up a fist for a bump and he obliges. Nope, no self-induced attack of the sads tonight. Sorry, but the tickets were sold out a week ago.  Don’t buy extras from those douches in front of the stadium either, they overcharge like a bitch.

“That’s not what I fucking meant,” he says, belatedly,

“I’m not taking back the fist bump. You can’t make me do it. You’ll have to live with that fist bump the rest of your life. Burn, damn you, burn.” You shake a fist at him absently before poking him in the nose. “Nobody likes the dude who fishes for compliments. Time to turn in your pole, sailor, we can get this shit at the farmer’s market down the street on Tuesdays, along with, like, homemade churros. You suck at it anyway, so just leave fishing to the experts and the tools.”

He scrunches his nose a bit at the poke, but otherwise doesn’t react. He looks so fondly exasperated. It’s stupidly endearing. “Experts. Who the hell are the experts?”

“I don’t know, that fish creep who looked like he starred in Grease? Uh, Cratos, Cosmos, Crusty, Cornucopia, fuck if I remember his name. He seems like an expert in fishing.” He snorts. “I know you can’t see it but I’m totally winking suggestively. Insert eyebrow wiggle here, all the fish puns to ever exist ever.  We are having a beach grilling party, kabobing these slimy assholes onto pointy sticks and cooking them over a fire with the marshmallows and pineapple. Next we’ll scour the beach looking for hermit crabs and starfish and sand dollars. Insert Spongebob Squarepants theme there, yarr.”

“Are you done?”

“Wait, I gotta sing the pirate song from that Disney ride with all the terrifying drunk mannequins. Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for mmmph-“

Suddenly, he’s kissing you. It’s gotta be hell of an uncomfortable angle for him and the angle is pretty awkward for you. Your faces don’t sync up right. So you just lay there like a half-drowned fat guy on the beach getting CPR from the burly lifeguard who dragged you back to shore. You are the smoothest motherfucker ever. Swag.

It doesn’t last long, and it’s chaste. When he releases you he says, “thank you” barely brushing your mouth, so quiet that you probably wouldn’t have heard it if not for the lull in the movie playing.

He sits back up and just kind of stares at you, like he isn’t sure what he did was okay. Like you’d kick him out of your room and stop talking to him.

You try to jumpstart your brain into saying something that won’t be taken for rejection, hurry hurry, go go go-

“Mister Darcy,” you say, putting the back of a hand to your forehead. “Stealing a lady’s first kiss, you scoundrel.  I should have you arrested for theft, forcing yourself on a pure maiden like me and taking advantage of my virtue.”

“That was not your first kiss,” he says.

“Better not be my last one either,” you tell him, pulling down your glasses a bit. You two lock eyes, you stop breathing. You sit up quickly, turn around to face him, and he’s on you, fingers locked behind your neck and you pulling him close with an arm around the small of his back. You push him back on the couch and he pulls you down with him, adjusting his legs out from under him, not even breaking the kiss. He’s not a great kisser; hasn’t really had a lot of practice and probably not wanting to force that step on anyone. Your teeth scrape together and he makes a muffled noise of frustration, but you tip his head back a bit and run your tongue over his bottom lip and he backs off some of the aggression and desperation. You release one hand to push your shades up into your hair and get down to business.

Operation: Fuck Yeah Making Out With Karkat is a go. Spontaneity at its finest.

He lets you take the lead, which is both a relief (hurray for being senpai again) and a disappointment (the underdog vying for control is both endearing and sexy as fuck) but you are overall more than willing to top. You cock your head to the side and work on teasing his mouth open with your tongue, pressing down on him and adjusting your body to get a leg between his. His mouth is hotter than his skin is, wet and foreign and with a dizzying cool taste of mint. He moans into your mouth, licks the roof of it and okay, yeah. This is going to be awesome.

“Fast learner,” you murmur against him.

He breathes, “I read that in a book,” and you kiss him harder because he would. Wow, that should not be arousing at all, but it is.

You pray to the eldritch gods that he won’t beg you to pull away this time, but then he arches his back and gasps while dragging nails down your spine and you know he’s all for this.

Getting a hand into his hair seems only logical at this point. He growls when you finger the base of his horns, right before the growl fades into that low clicking, and you worm your other hand up his shirt to get at the leg scars. He keens and stops kissing you in favor of gasping into your mouth. You kiss your way along his jawline and to his ear, down to his neck and to the collar of his shirt where you bite him. Hard.

He groans, “Mother of fuck.” He rolls his head back and fists your hair, right before he tugs you back up to his lips and kisses you, hot and sloppy and open-mouthed. You can feel the vibration of his clicking on your tongue, and it only intensifies when you grind your leg between his. You feel up one of his scars and press. He moans and pants into your mouth.

“Looks like I found another kink,” you murmur into his lips.

“Holy shit, shut up,” he breathes. “You’re ruining this for me.”

“I’m going to ruin you for all future lovers. Oh wait, those would all be me.”

“What the fuck did I just say?” He tugs your head back so he can get at your throat. You are one hundred percent okay with this. Then he presses his own knee against your dick and you are possibly five hundred percent okay with everything. You might be moaning. “Your voice is stupid and so are you.”

“Your – fuck, ngh – your face is stupid.”

“I’m overwhelmed by, by your eloquence.” He nips your neck and licks the stinging spots. You drag your nails over his scars and he makes a “hngh shit shit shit” sound and bites you.

You abruptly discover that Karkat biting you is hot as fuck. After dropping your head and putting your mouth over his horn, you also discover that digging your teeth into the base is a great way to get him incomprehensible and whimpering.

You go back to kissing his mouth and muttering gibberish against his lips, while he growls and clicks at you with responses that that you don’t pay a lick of attention to. He arches his back under you and moans against you. You have to pull back to adjust yourself so that his leg pressing into your crotch won’t make you a premature lame-o dickwad.

The couch is a lot narrower than you are anticipating and your hand slips down the side, completely throwing you off balance. You flail your arms and yelp and then you’re staring up at the ceiling and your back aches.

Karkat props himself up on an elbow and raises his eyebrows at you over the edge of the cushions. “You are such a smooth motherfucker. I think I just came in my pants, holy shit.”

“Ngh,” you say. Your dignity runs screaming out of the room like it just found a tarantula in its underwear drawer.

“Are you going to live, or should I start being legitimately concerned?”

“Widdle Davey got a boo-boo,” you say. “Kiss it and make it better.”

“I am not literally or metaphorically kissing your ass just because you were inept enough to throw yourself off the couch.” He sits up and slides off the couch anyway, straddling your hips. He totally has the troll equivalent of a boner. Yes! He also is staring at you like he’s about to slice open your throat and drink out your blood. Uh.

“Oh no,” you say. “You’re not topping.”

“Clearly you can’t be trusted to handle such a responsibility.” He reaches above you and plucks your shades off you head. He slides them on, flicks you off, and says, “Deal with it.”

Jesus fuck. You are sitting up and grabbing his face before you actually know what you’re doing. You kiss him open mouthed and hard and hiss, “That was a fluke.”

“Mmm,” he hums back, pushing you back to the ground. You don’t know why you go so easily. The only reason you haven’t flipped him over yet is because you are between the couch and a coffee table with his computer on it. Also, underdog topping. While you are not a sub by any means, watching him act like he knows what he’s doing is a bigger turn-on than you anticipated. And holy shit, are you turned-on right now. Despite the fact that you’re wearing sweatpants, they still feel way too tight.

He manages to drag himself away from your mouth and kiss his way down your neck, scooting his whole body down with him. You briefly get pressure against you dick and you roll your hips up into it. He bites you again. You are biting your own lips to keep from moaning like a porn star. Your hands slide back up to his horns and rub. He hisses into your collarbone and slides a hand down to your groin, oh fuck. You swallow and gasp.

He freezes.

“Dave,” he says breathlessly. “Is this… Are you okay with…”

Holy fuck monkey on a shit wagon, this cannot be happening. You prop yourself up on your elbows and grit out, “In case I was being too subtle, let me just point out to you that I’ve been verbally throwing myself at you for the past three hours. Christ, what do you want me to say? Take me now, you majestic fuckwitted douche, and make it snappy lest I succumb to swooning ineffectually on the floor, panting out a chant of pornographic catcalls for you to put your gigantic man sausage into my quivering chocolate starfish. Should I just flip over and stick my ass in the air or would that be troll code for, no thanks honey I just want to cuddle tonight. I swear to god if you don’t continue what you’re doing right this fucking instant I’m going to beat the living shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit-“ He grinds his hand down on your dick and your back hits the floor again as you roll your hips into his palm. You don’t even register the pain.

“Seriously,” he says. “Shut the fuck up.” His breath hitches and he adds, “And sit up again.”

You don’t even ask why, you just do it, and when he nudges you to turn, you find your back against the couch and he straddles your lap again.

“Is this…?”

“Yeah, good, this is good.”

He kisses you again and drapes his arms around your shoulders, and you hold him close so when he moves, you can feel every inch of the friction it produces. He’s as hot as cement in the height of summer on a sunny day back in Huston. He’s hot enough to burn, and it’s amazing. You press your foreheads together and he just rocks; you rock with him, trying to get into a rhythm. The low rumble of cicadas has dropped down his throat all the way to his chest and every whine he makes is a dual tone with an octave difference. Your shades are slipping down his nose and he’s panting and he’s a mess of sweat and hormones and you don’t think you’ve ever been more attracted to anyone in your life.

Despite the fact that you’re overheated and you two don’t fit right and he’s a douchebag and you’re probably babbling like a homeless farmhand, claiming to have been abducted by aliens, when you feel yourself getting close you shove your face into his neck and trail tiny pecks of kisses there. He tangles a hand in your hair and moves it against the grain, breathes out your name with that purring undertone, and rocks particularly hard and you bit his shoulder when you come, trying to keep yourself from being a noisy motherfucker. You white out and are blinking back stars when you regain your ability to actually pay some fucking attention.

You do some deep breathing into his shoulder, and he’s panting and slouched. He pushes you back, gently, and blinks at you owlishly, like he can’t comprehend what just happened. Then he looks down between you with the expression of someone who realized they have a new super power. Congrats, your crotch has gained the ability to make Dave Motherfucking Strider come in his pants like a tool in five minutes or less. Good job!

He’s still purring. “Holy shit,” he rumbles. It’s hard to understand in a post-coital haze and when he’s creating his own echo. “That. Did you just. Are you aware that you are actually physically incapable of keeping your noise laceration from flapping?”

“Nnghf,” you say, before pulling him into another kiss. You intended to keep it sweet, but he turns it into a full openmouthed tongue fucking session. He whines, and you realize that you may have climaxed, but he is still sitting at the summit just below the peak, probably screaming, “A little fucking help, please?” It’s a wonder why he isn’t trying to bite your face off.

You arch your back and hum into his mouth, and he eats it up greedily. Your hands go to his hips, under his shirt. You trace the hem of his pants with one hand until you get to where he belly button would be if he had one, hook a finger into the elastic of his pants. You tug down slightly.

He makes a noise that definitely isn’t pleasure and rears back so fast that he falls backwards and almost knocks his laptop off the table behind him. You two stare at each other for a few seconds.

"Uh,” you say, intelligently, slowly holding up your hands in a universal ‘I surrender’ gesture. “Okay, no hands. Sorry.”

He makes a squeaking noise and stumbles to his feet. He blurts out, “I’llberightback,” and vaults over the table and a pile of laundry to the bathroom, where he shuts the door.

Before you have any time to start panicking, the sound of the tub being turned on drifts out and you are just confused.

 The fuck just happened?

Okay, he isn’t vomiting or sobbing, good sign. If he had been doing either, you probably would have just walked up to the roof and jumped into oblivion. Didn’t lock the door, also good sign. Freaked out when you renewed your attempts to get him off, even if he seemed to be all for it before. Kind of weird, but he was fine until the hand-in-pants thing? Your brain feels fuzzy. Damn endorphins. Your body feels heavy. You let yourself slowly keel over and you lie on the floor for a bit, still wondering if you should be upset with yourself. The hard floor hurts your hip, so you adjust accordingly to lie on your back and stare at the ceiling. Your pants are wet and uncomfortable.

Not even two minutes later, the tub shuts off. It takes another minute for Karkat to appear again. His shirt is half tucked into his pants, like he had just pulled them up really quickly and didn’t bother rearranging his top. He’s panting a little bit. You’re seeing him upside down on account of being too lazy to roll over. He doesn’t say anything, just stumbles back over to the couch, tipping over the arm and landing face first on the cushions. He just stays there.

Your brain does a little ping! and you ask, “Did you just finish yourself off?”

He nods into the couch and makes a muffled noise, which you assume is affirmation.

“You do realize I could have helped you with that, right?” You try not to sound hurt.

He lifts his head just enough not to be munching on cushion while he’s talking. “Hnnf. I didn’t want to,” he stops and swallows. “Didn’t want to make a mess. Of your clothes. More than they already are. Were. Have. Fuck. Nnng, words.” And then he lets his head drop again.

“Oh,” you say. “Guess the bucket thing isn’t an exaggeration.” He flicks you off without moving otherwise. You kick his arm, lightly. “Could of invited me to the official releasing of the dam, I still could’ve helped.”

He says something into the couch. “I can’t understand you through the stuffing filter dude, gonna have to actually direct your words at me and not a cushion.”

He lifts his head again. “First of all, fuck you. Second of all, fuck you. Third of all, let me enjoy my afterglow in peace, bulgemunch, I just had to suffer through an entire frottage session with you babbling into my auditory shells nearly nonstop, the least you could do is close your gaping flap for five fucking minutes.” Face to cushion again.

“Oh yeah, suffering. Absolutely a thing you were doing, I could actually feel your wet torment rocking against my hard-on for a while there. Next time maybe I’ll make a pass at your writhing torture while I shove my tongue into your agony. Gets some chains and whips, a ball gag to set the mood. Tie you to a rack and make you beg.”

His ears go pink, and he actually turns to face you with an expression that reads, “are you for real?” In reality, he says, “Are you actually into that sort of thing, or are you just being a creepy asshole?”

“Nah,” you say. “I like it when they can struggle.” He chokes. “What about you? Should I be preparing for round two? Are you aroused? Should I go grab a first aid kit for my ass?”

“How about no, no, and hell fucking no, what the shit is wrong with you?” He flicks your shades back down to his nose while he scowls at you. “And just in case that wasn’t clear enough for you, don’t you ever come anywhere near me with a ball gag, fucktard. I mean it.”

“Noted,” you say.  When he doesn’t add anything you continue, “Hey, do you want to just stay here tonight?”

He stiffens and puts an impressive poker face in place. You decide that you like him in your shades. “Why,” he asks, wary.

You roll your eyes. It’s not like you two haven’t fallen asleep in each other’s rooms before, or on top of each other. You remember one morning in particular you woke up with half his body draped across your chest and he was drooling on the opposite shoulder the rest of his person was on. There was another time that he managed to make a make-shift fort consisting of you, three pillows, and two blankets in his sleep. He has some really fucking weird sleeping habits.

“You want to try to burrow in air or get a word in with the resident PDA Olympic gold medal winners? Or do just want to unbury my emergency supply of blanket fort building materials and forget about it until tomorrow, when we are coherent enough to distract the ladies long enough to extract your shit from their clutches.”

“Why?”

It’s like he doesn’t trust you at all. What a paranoid fucker. “Oh, just going to make some hot, steamy REM cycles with you and have you snoring my name all night long. Maybe a good spooning session if we’re feeling feisty. Rawr.” You sit up and make a clawing motion at him before punching him in the leg. “Then I’m going to hand you over to Lord English in your sleep. Oh shit, master plan out of the bag. Forget I said that last part.”

The corners of his mouth twitch up and he quickly looks away in favor of taking off the glasses and examining them. “Sure,” he says. “I guess it wouldn’t be that grueling to endure.”

“You like me, admit it.”

“You are slightly less vomit-inducing than other people I could be stuck dealing with on a regular basis.”

“Holy shit, that was the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me. Hold me before I collapse from the weight of your love.”

He kicks you in the shoulder and sits up. “I’ll stay here on one condition.” He looks you in the eyes as if this was really serious business and you had to pay the fuck attention. “I want my shirt back.”

You snort so loudly and suddenly that it actually gives you physical pain. “Haha, oh wow. Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.” He gives you this look of death. “The thing was old and stained, I got rid of it ages ago.”

“You what?”

“Into the incinerator. Poof! No more shitty rodent shirt.”

"That was my shirt that you destroyed, idiot! I liked that shirt!”

You roll your eyes at him. “Dude, you literally have like ten more of the exact same shirt, stop freaking out.”

“I don’t care, that was my fucking shirt that you- what the fuck am I supposed to do now?”

You gesture to what he’s wearing. “Oh hey, looks like you now are the proud owner of a ‘baby daddy’ t-shirt. Congrats. Doesn’t fit me anyway, I’m happy to donate to the Shirtless Vantas Fund, keep you warm and covered at night.”

“I don’t want this one,” he growls at you. “It’s too small. The only reason I wore it was because Terezi nagged at me until I put on something different.”

You give him the most incredulous look you can manage. “Too small? Bro, all your tops are made for someone twice your size. That thing actually fits you.”

“It’s uncomfortable.”

“It’s a fucking t-shirt.”

“You better find a way to get my shit back,” he snaps.

“Fine!” you yell, jumping up and flipping through your wardrobifier. “How about I just give you a different one? Or all the goddamn shirts that don’t fit me, huh?”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

“Fi-oof!”

You throw the first t-shirt you find at his face. The shirt is green and says, “QUIT HOGGIN’ ALL THE UGLY”.

“Merry fucking Christmas, you spoiled brat,” you say. “Now pick your ass up and veer it to the direction of my bed because I’m tired and you’re a dick.”

After a short stuggle with his new used shirt, he throws it to the ground with a glare directed at you. He yells, “Change your fucking pants, you’re an embarrassment to your species.”

“You don’t know me. You don’t know my life.”

“Dave, I’ve been stuck on a flying rock with you for the past sweep. What part of your life am I missing here?”

You change you pants. Then you dig your extra shitload of blankets out from your closet and dump them on your bed. Then, while he’s still yelling at you, you throw Karkat over your shoulder and stride your way back to the bed, dumping him on it. He glares at you.

“This is the way bad pornos start,” you say.

“This is the way shut the fuck up,” he snaps back. He starts to build his blanket nest, or whatever the fuck it is that he does. He only pauses to put your glasses on the nightstand. “This is the way if you’re so tired, maybe you should actually navigate your sorry self onto this cushioned sleeping platform and maybe, oh I don’t know, sleep!” He digs his way into his newly arranged blanket pile. You hear a muffled, “This is the way fuck you.”

“This is the way the world ends,” you say.  A gray arm finds its way out of the pile and grabs a pillow to throw at you. It’s about five feet off.

“Nice,” you say, going to retrieve the pillow. He flicks you off. You throw the pillow at him and go to brush your teeth and mark the damage he’s caused you. You have three hickeys.

When you climb into bed, he’s oddly quiet. You poke the lump that you assume is him and say, “Hey, you still awake?”

“Wow,” he replies. “If I wasn’t before I sure am now.”

You move some blankets to the side and get a peek on his blanket pile fort. He’s glaring at you. He shoves your hand away and readjusts the pile from the inside out.

“You’re lucky this isn’t a twin sized bed,” you tell him. “We’d totes be cuddling right now.”

“Praise be to your lord and savior, AKA me,” he says, still muffled. You pat his lump affectionately and close your eyes, listening to the sound of him breathing. It’s stupidly relaxing. It reminds you of the times that you fell asleep watching shitty movies with Bro on his futon, when he would fall asleep first and you would just stay there, pretending you were the one who passed out before him, just so you had an excuse to stay there. But then, you always woke up alone back then. But always with a blanket you hadn’t been using the night before.

The next morning, he is half buried in blankets and half burrowed under you, with his face pressed in your neck, a horn invading your cheek space, and hand loosely curled over your sternum. He’s awake; you can tell because he obviously doesn’t know how he breathes when he’s sleeping.

“G’morning sweetheart,” you say.

“Afffgl,” he returns. He slowly and lazily props his head on a hand, squinting at you.

“Sleep well?”

“Bluh,” he says. “You snore.”

“You kick.”

“You smell.”

“I smell fantastic,” you say.

He shakes his head and kind of looks up, like he’s too tired to roll his eyes at you.

“Once we get your shit back from the girls,” you say, “wanna make a blanket fort?”

He considers you hazily, cocking his head to the side. His bedhead is fantastic looking. He says, “Yeah, okay. I don’t actually know what that is, but why the fuck not.”

“Dude,” you say, “you have so much to catch up on.” Operation: Relive Childhood now commences. You hold up a fist for a bump, and he is so out of it that he kind of smiles at you fondly and high fives your fist. It’s a wonder how anyone can blow him off.