Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

John and Jade have been holding hands on and off all day. He keeps reaching up to prod at her ears, as if to make sure they’re real, and every time he does the two of them dissolve into giggles, like a couple of little kids instead of superhero demigods.

When he saw Rose, he went bouncing over to peer under her hood and check she wasn’t grimdark any more. Rose pranked him by garbling out something with too many consonants and John fell for it until she laughed and told him he was an idiot. Then they hugged.

When he saw you, he said, “Haha, Dave, you look like the Blue Beetle.” Then he went and poked Jade’s ears again.

There is no cool way to say this. You are feeling kinda left out.

The truth is that you’ve imagined this meeting way more often than you’d admit, and in your head, you and John were always, well, pretty much the main event. Long-distance best bros hug-bumping for the first time and... whatever, really, it was just supposed to be a bit more heartwarming than this, is the point.

John has, in fact, spent more time talking to Karkat than you. You wish you could say you’re not keeping track, but your awareness of time has grown into a brand new sense, almost physical, and trying not to notice it would be like trying not to notice that the rain on Rose’s miserable soggy planet is currently seeping down through every layer of your clothes.

You are trying to remember the last time you actually spoke to John. LOHACSE? That seems like years ago. You guess everyone just got caught up in getting shit done for a while, but back when you started out this endless day, telling John that you found some apple juice in your closet seemed genuinely important. Because you told John about everything.

You’ve had a lot on your mind, sure, but in between all that time-hopping and frog-breeding and dying and so on, you probably should have made more of an effort to keep him in the loop. You wouldn’t blame him for being a little mad at you about that.

Wait, no, that’s bullshit, it’s not like he went out of his way to pester you either. He was busy getting bossed around by Karkat and Vriska. Fuck, everyone’s been busy. John’s way too reasonable a guy to hold that against you. Just like you’re way too chill a guy to be overthinking things to this degree.

But even Karkat got a hug when John first met him. It looked sort of like John was trying to hug a stormcloud, a stormcloud with glaring yellow eyes and sharp teeth and stiff, angry limbs, a stormcloud that was yelling at John to get off, get off me now, John Egbert, remove your spongy flesh-draped boneframe from contact with my person right the fuck now.

Yeah, the stormcloud simile didn’t really hold up, but what the fuck, you never claimed to be Shakespeare.

This is dumb. You’re being dumb. It’s John, for fuck’s sake. He probably doesn’t even register that this is the first time you’ve met in real life. In his sentimental little nerd brain, that isn’t even a thing, because you’ve been best friends for years and why should a little physical proximity make a difference. If he’s not talking to you, that’s because you’re sulking silently in the background. Just say something to him, god damnit.

That’s when you realize something is terribly wrong.

You can’t think of a single thing to say. You are brainfrozen, throatlocked, gawpmouthed, wordstumped. You are, in short, tongue-tied.

You realize something else. Every time John half-turns in your direction, every time you catch the sideswipe of his toothy grin, every time you hear him laugh, your stomach does this way uncool thing that feels like falling. You’re pretty sure you know what Rose would make of that. And you’re pretty sure she’d be right.

Well. Shit.

***

You’re playing out timelines in your head. They spin through your mind the way vinyl did beneath your hands, only now you’re not just the DJ but the needle as well, reading what’s coded in the grooves, understanding it. You’re following the post-Scratch universe along its delicate path through time, trying to figure out where the divergences are, so that you’ll have some idea what to expect when you get there.

You’re supposed to be doing this with Aradia, but her style was different enough to make your head hurt, and you decided to work separately for now and compare notes later.

There’s a little whoof of air around you, eddying the rain into ghostly shapes for a moment, and then John is hovering in front of you, upside-down and grinning. Your stomach drops. You have got to figure out how to make it stop doing that.

“What the hell are you doing, Peter Pan, get down from there.”

“No way!” He does this stupid little twirl in the air and his ridiculous fucking hood gets wrapped around your head. By the time you’ve fought loose your shades are askew and he’s laughing his ass off at you. Smooth. So smooth.

“Kinda busy right now,” you tell him.

“Hey, you owe me money! You promised you would give me my boonbucks back. Where are my boonbucks, Dave?”

“You’re not serious.”

“No, not really. I just wanted to see how you’re doing mapping the new universe!”

“I’m working on it, but I can’t make much headway, because this hurricane-force farting asshole keeps distracting me.”

“Gross, dude!” he says cheerfully, flipping rightway up to sit beside you. It’s so effortless, the way he flies; you and Rose and even Jade fly with purpose, but he flies like it’s a game, a really easy and fun game. You would really like to not be noticing that, but you can’t help it.

“I’m just thinking about what it’ll be like to meet alternate versions of ourselves,” he says. “I mean, what if we are totally different? What if in the Scratch universe you are actually cool?”

“That’s so funny. I’m laughing on the inside. Really.”

You think maybe you are compensating for your undignified squishy feelings by being a bit too standoffish and cranky, because he gives you a sort of confused look, like he thinks he made you mad. You try to pull yourself together.

“I just thought you would be the one to talk to about it,” he says, “since you actually did meet yourself from different timelines. What’s it like?”

“Fuck, man, I dunno. It’s just, like, me. Only two of me. Or sometimes ten of me. But still me. These guys in the new universe, if there even are versions of us there, they’re different people. They just have our DNA is all. If we ever meet them I wouldn’t read too much into things, you know?”

“I guess.”

He’s playing with the breeze as he talks to you, the way someone might fiddle with their cuffs or pick at their nails, and little skirls of air keep darting around you, chilling your skin until you feel like shivering, and messing up your hair (you waited a suitable interval after the Blue Beetle comment and then turned your hood down, rain or no rain). You wonder if he even knows he’s doing it. His hood keeps trying to curl around you like a cat’s tail.

You look up to tell him to quit that irritating bullshit, and find him already looking at you with this pensive expression on his face. Your stomach does that downward lurch again. Whatever you were going to say goes out of your head. This is pretty much the worst thing ever, why the fuck do people write songs about this.

“Rose says that the other us... usses... might not even know each other,” he says.

“Yeah, well, Rose probably just wants an excuse to write really depressing fanfiction, because Rose is a sick fuck. Look, it’s not like they’ll even remember that things were ever different, kinda the nature of a reset. And we know each other now, so who cares?”

“It just makes me sad to think about, is all. You guys are my best friends.” He reaches over to squeeze your arm or something, and you don’t even think about it, you pull away before he can touch you, like he’s got high-voltage warning signs all over, and leave him with his hand hanging in the air.

He stares at you. You stare back. The wind goes quiet, and suddenly there’s a whole lot of silence out here.

“Anyway,” he says, “I guess you are probably wanting to get back to your timeline thing, so I’ll go. Good luck!”

He gives you a grin that looks a bit sideways and strained, and then he’s off, cutting up into the pastel sky before you can tell him to wait.

That was a weird moment, wasn’t it. Yeah, you think that counts as a weird moment. Fuck.

You have no idea how you’re supposed to concentrate on timelines now.

***

Rose’s house is the only one that still has any food in it, so everybody gathers there to sit down and eat together, like some kind of really big fucked-up family. John and Jade, by their powers combined, manage to create something edible, although the trolls don’t seem to share your opinion on that; Karkat spends the meal absently swinging one wretched spaghetti noodle back and forth in front of his face, Terezi attempts to separate the tomato sauce from the minced beef, Aradia picks at a head of raw broccoli she found in the fridge, and Gamzee watches Karkat’s noodle like it’s a Fourth of July fireworks display. Kanaya just sits in the living room, reading one of Rose’s books. You assume she will eat later, and you are comfortable not knowing the details.

Afterwards you reconvene with Aradia to discuss your timeline findings. You’re not surprised to find she got further than you, but once you’ve figured out a way to talk about specifics that makes sense to both of you, you learn that your impressions match hers. Neither of you can pinpoint why the fuck Betty Crocker, of all things, seems to have become such a big deal in the new universe, but at least it won’t blindside you when you arrive there.

You think about mentioning to John that his silly arch-nemesis might have become his scary arch-nemesis. But that would involve talking to John. Which you are not doing so much right now.

This really, really sucks.

You all agree to get some sleep. Even Karkat agrees, and he is easily the most high-strung fucker you’ve ever met. Rose’s house has plenty of rooms, and you wonder what they used all the space for, given that it was just her and her Mom. You speculate that wars of passive-aggression require lots of breathing-room, unlike wars of freaking your little bro out with puppets, which work better in a more claustrophobic setting. If you were Rose, you would now come up with a theory of living spaces and the dysfunctional relationships they spawn, apply it to Sburb and make a fortune. But you’re not Rose, and it just seems depressing to you.

John and Jade have claimed a room together – they’re being kind of embarrassingly clingy with each other at the moment – and you pause outside in your search for a place to crash. There’s light coming from under the door, and you can hear them talking.

“And oh man,” John is saying, “this one parent-teacher evening – that is where the parent goes into school to talk to the teacher about how the kid’s doing – he got all my teachers with, like, this, I don’t even know what it was, it was kind of this powder that only showed up on dark clothes? So all night he had this stuff on his hands, and he was shaking hands with the teachers, and by the end all of them had white streaks on their suits and they had no idea why. Some of them, he shook their hands five or six times, they just thought he was really polite, I guess! And the whole time Dad was just completely poker-faced. It was the best ever.”

“Bec used to play pranks too! Or not pranks exactly, but sort of these games with me. When he wanted me to hurry up sometimes he’d transport everything in my room outside, or to different parts of the house. I used to think it was him disappearing my pumpkins, but it wasn’t. Ohhh, and when we had hurricanes, I always used to want to go out and watch, and I probably would have died! So he wouldn’t let me, but sometimes he’d make a sort of window, and I could watch what was happening even when I was in the basement, because he knew I wanted to be outside, even though he couldn’t talk.”

“It sounds like he was such a good dog, I wish I could have met him! Dad never really talked much either – I mean, not that he was a dog, but you know – so he used to leave me notes everywhere. I have still got the note from the time when he...”

You walk on silently, leaving them to it. You could go in and get your reminiscence on, if you wanted, but somehow you don’t think it would fit the tone of the conversation to tell them about the time you and Bro spent the whole of summer vacation in a battle to see who could fuck up the other’s computer in the most ironic way (it ended when he somehow managed to get yours to run nothing but DOS, and you had to buy a new one; you still have no fucking idea how he did that), or the six months when he got a little obsessed with setting up elaborate, dangerous parkour scavenger hunts for you across the rooftops of Houston. It’s too bad. You think those are actually pretty sweet stories. Rose would understand.

You’re almost at the end of the corridor when you hear the door snick open and Jade calls after you.

“Dave! I thought I heard you. You should come in here! We can’t just all be spread around the house!”

Of course. Dog ears.

“Come on, think of my reputation. If I spend the night with you everyone will know I’m a woman of loose virtue.”

“Nooo, it’s okay! John’s in here too!”

Oh, she’s just so fucking adorable and you are so fucking screwed. She’s getting closer, or the corridor is getting shorter, or something. Jesus, it’s like she and John are virgins at a strip club and unnatural powers are dollar bills they’re just throwing around all over the damn place. She’s reeling you in, and you can either go quietly or flop around and gasp on the floor and still get netted. You follow her inside.

John looks like a bent paperclip, all scrunched-up limbs on a beanbag in one corner. You take the wicker chair in the opposite corner, real casual. Jade flops on her stomach on the floor and rests her chin on her arms. Before very long, she’s got you telling the story about the parkour scavenger hunts anyway, and then Rose arrives with blankets, and you bundle up and mumble a few more stories and end up falling asleep halfway through whatever you were saying.

***

There’s no morning here, no sun, only Skaia in front of you, the Green Sun behind. Still, you know when it’s time to wake.

None of the others seem to share your opinion. They’re still fast asleep when you open your eyes. Rose is using John’s beanbag as a pillow, and he has one arm around her. Jade is curled up with her head on his lap. You’d think it would make you jealous, but it doesn’t, except for how you kind of feel like a giant loser sitting here in your chair on your own while they’re all cuddling.

You’re still feeling pretty dopy and out of it, and you end up just staring at John for a while. How his hair sticks up in a way that makes your fingers itch to comb it down; how his teeth jut out just a little bit when he’s relaxed, resting against his lower lip, making you think things about lips and teeth and biting that should be left under cover of narrative ambiguity; how he and Jade both have these insanely long, thick eyelashes, only on him it’s different because he’s not a girl; how his eyes are the exact same blue as his pesterchum text, and how oh, by the way, he’s looking right at you.

Fortunately he’s not very awake yet. Not awake enough to notice that his best friend was just totally creeping on him. He just smiles his goofy half-asleep smile and says, “Hey,” very quietly. Apparently now your insides are capable of turning into mush – mush with tentacles, judging by the way they seem to be writhing. There’s not one single thing about this that’s cool.

“So I guess we really are in an alternate universe,” you say. “Where John Egbert is the one who’s covered in ladies, even though there’s a perfectly good Dave Strider right here.”

He blinks at you stupidly for a minute, then looks down at Rose and Jade. “Oh yeah,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “I do not remember this happening.”

You start to get up, and grimace as all your joints protest in harmony. “Fuck. Next time I get the beanbag and someone else can take the muscle-petrification chair.” You put up a hand to rub your eyes and discover that someone took your shades during the night. You’ve been without fucking shades this whole time and you didn’t even notice.

“Take it easy!” John says, chuckling at the look on your face. “Jade stole them while you were all tuckered out. She wanted to see if you had eyebrows. Rose thought you’d wake up, even if Jade only teleported them, but you were so asleep, dude, you didn’t even move. It was adorable.”

“Ironically adorable.”

“No, the regular kind.”

You just look at him. After a moment, he seems to realize that weirdness is happening again, because he looks down and pats Jade’s shoulder gently. Pretty soon everyone’s awake, your sunglasses are back where they belong, Rose has mentioned coffee, and things are back to normal again. Except for the twelve-year-old girl in your mind, who’s climbed up on a parade float to scream, He said I was adorable! at the masses while the remainder of your sanity watches in disgust and wants to fucking die.

As you go downstairs – you make sure to go first, so that you won’t have to catch yourself watching the back of John’s head – you decide there’s really only one thing that can make you feel better.

Today, you are going to bully the shit out of Karkat Vantas.

Chapter Text

The trolls have taken up residence in the ruins of the laboratory, and that place is huge. You suppose the weird technology and grungey industrial decor feel like home to them, after all their time in the game and those last few hours in the Veil. Later you figure you’ll scuff your clothes up, arm yourself with a length of rusty pipe and go searching for aliens in the abandoned science lab, but not right away. They might still be asleep.

You sit in the kitchen with the others to wait, drinking Rose’s battery-acid coffee, and that’s the first time she asks if you’re all right, though you know for a fact it won’t be the last. She covers it in sugary fake concern and offers of an impartial ear (Rose-speak for “let me get my pointy little Seer-witch fingers into your brain and just root around for a bit, see if I can find some loose change down the back or something”) but you figure if you tell anyone, it’s going to be her. Eventually. When you’re ready.

It’s not that you think she’ll make a big deal of it. In fact, you know she won’t. She’ll say that of everything that’s notable (quotes quotes quotes) about your mental state, the fact that you have a big old crush on your best friend doesn’t even make it onto the list. She’ll say there’s nothing wrong with it. She’ll say it’s perfectly normal and understandable. She might even get you into the kind of mood where you think about confessing just to clear the air, because to Rose that would be prime entertainment.

Nope. You’ve got it all planned out. A medley of wishing you could go back to being in denial, served on a bed of crisp self-loathing, chased down with a pleasant few hours of projecting your own issues onto the hapless Vantas so you can rip him a new one. You’ve got a goddamn three-point strategy here that even Rose couldn’t find fault with.

“I’m good,” you tell her. “Chill as fuck.”

The look she gives you could make a prophet doubt his faith. On you, it has no effect. You down the rest of your terrible, terrible coffee, wait a moment to see if it will burn a hole through your oesophagus, and then get up from your chair.

“All right, lot of shit to do today, so.”

“Strider,” Rose says. “You know where to find me if you need to talk.”

“Yeah, though I can’t think why I’d want to. Later.”

Okay. Where to find a troll?

You wander through the wrecked lab, wondering vaguely whether they, like, nest in the walls or hang from the ceiling or something. They’re supposed to be sort of insecty, right? You’re pretty sure Jade mentioned that.

It’s Terezi you find first. She’s busy at one of the computers, and the screen looks more than a little sticky.

“Hey,” you say. You try to think of a good reason you’d be looking for Karkat, and can’t come up with one, so you don’t ask where he is. “You on your own?”

“The others are around,” she says. “I’ve been attempting to restore these computers to some sort of functionality, but quite frankly my patience is waning.”

You remember her mentioning that they originally had a fucking amazing programmer as part of their group, but you guess he went the way of the others. Like Vriska. You’re not exactly sure how to feel about that. It’s not like you cared about spider-bitch, and you’re not mad at Terezi for getting an alternate timeline Dave killed to prove a point – mostly not mad, anyway – but that and the fact that their numbers have been sliced in half for apparently no reason has kind of brought home to you how different trolls are. Terezi’s not just your fun leetspeaking blind buddy who draws awful pictures and calls you coolkid unironically. Karkat wasn’t talking complete bullshit when he warned you that she and Vriska were dangerous; in fact, if you’re getting this right, Karkat is like the only remaining troll who hasn’t killed anyone yet. Maybe John is okay with that, but you’re not John. It’s going to take a little time to get used to, is all.

“Yeah, it’s the technology I want to look at,” you say. “Jade thinks she might be able to do something with it.” Jade has been talking about that, so it’s not completely a lie. Even if Terezi can smell deceit, you think you’re covered.

“Be my guest,” she says. “Just watch out for Gamzee.”

“Oh, good point.” You forgot about Gamzee. You don’t know how you forgot about him, given that when you met him for the first time, he stalked across to loom over you, stinking of sweat and blood and greasepaint, smiling to show all his teeth, and said, Hey, motherfucker in a way that still makes you nervous to think about, even after growing up with Bro’s sick mind-games. You were actually pretty relieved when Karkat came over and got between the two of you.

Also, Gamzee somehow has Lil Cal. Just another reason to avoid, avoid, oh my god, avoid.

You and give Terezi a bump on the shoulder as you pass to let her know things are cool between you; even if they aren’t, you figure they will be in time, and there’s no reason to burn bridges.

The lab is quiet, spooky-quiet, the sort of quiet you don’t remember ever hearing in your life before. Even on LOFAF there was the sound of the wind. Here there’s a dead empty space where sound should be, and it makes you edgy.

You find Karkat in one of the smaller storage rooms, maybe a janitor’s closet or something. He’s hunched over his husktop, and he captchalogues it as soon as he hears you, but not before you catch a glimpse of a Trollian window and blue text on the screen. You smile inwardly. Now you won’t even have to think too hard about your opening sally.

“Why the fuck are you talking to John online when he’s less than a hundred feet away?”

Karkat jumps to his feet and glares at you, already on the defensive. Good. “Strider, I am not remotely in the mood for your unbearable sallow face. And what a coincidence, it just so happens I am in the mood to punch something. But I’m pretty tired, too, so how about you save us both some trouble and fuck off.”

“No, dude, listen. I’ve decided. I want to be friends. Like a cultural exchange, only cranked up to intimate. You’re my bosom companion now. I’m sticking to you like a fresh coat of paint. It’s you and me, bro, bffsies forever.”

He takes several steps closer, puffing himself up, his arms stiff and emphatic at his sides. “How about this, nubgrubbler, if you don’t get out right the fuck now I am going to take those sunglasses and feed them to you. Through your nostrils. Is that even possible? I don’t know! It’s going to be a fascinating lesson in human physiology.”

You notice there hasn’t been a chime from his husktop in the time you’ve been talking, and it’s not like John to just wait around twiddling his fingers when someone he’s chatting to disappears without warning. Maybe Trollian doesn’t have a sound to alert you to new messages. Or maybe...

“Or maybe you weren’t talking to John. Maybe you’re just sitting here in this closet reading old chatlogs, is that it? Since we’re doing this cultural exchange thing, I should tell you, pining is never attractive, dude.”

“That’s really hilarious coming from you, after you spent the whole night looking like someone shredded your favourite wigglerhood distractannihalator every time Egbert opened his mouth.” He doesn’t miss a beat, but his face flushes a dull, dusky pink, and you know you’ve hit on the truth. Unfortunately, so has he.

“Yeah, well, at least John’s the same fucking species as me, which is more than I can say for you.” Shit, that wasn’t what you meant to say. You need to steer this conversation away from John, or it’s going to crash head-on into a big rocky shitpile of feelings.

“You just sound kind of bitter,” Karkat says, throwing your old words back at you with a sharp-edged cynical grin. He keeps getting closer, backing you out into a more open space, and something about the way he’s moving makes you want to reach for your sword; it’s a slowed-down version of the way Bro used to move right before he slammed a righteous ass-kicking on you. This might be the diversion you need.

“Bitter about what?” you say, half your mind on how fast you can get the sword from your strife specibus, the other half sizing him up as an opponent. He’s not as quick as you, and slightly smaller, but trolls are tough and don’t seem afraid of pain the way humans are. You think you can take him in a fair fight, but you’re not sure.

You kinda want to find out.

“Did I say bitter?” he says. “I meant jealous.”

“Of you?” The weird thing is, until that moment, it hadn’t even occurred to you to feel jealous. It’s not like either of you has a chance with John, realistically speaking. But now he’s said it and you look at him, really look at his scrawny figure and his tangled hair and hooded yellow eyes, and you think of his concrete-drab capslock screaming impotent walls of profanity at you and John from another universe, and how you now know that all that time he was just a scared, helpless, furious kid hiding in the Veil, and how you basically had to save his ungrateful ass for him because he had run out of options and his joke of a team were too busy killing each other.

All that, and he’s still trying to act like he’s in any way better than you? He’s so obscenely full of shit. You can’t help it; you start to laugh.

It’s a mistake. His expression goes from grim humour to rage, and he’s coming at you with his sickles upraised almost before you can react.

Only almost. He’s pretty fast, but compared to Bro he’s like a lumbering freight train going up a hill. You duck to one side and equip your sword in an eyeblink, bringing it up to block his strike even as you dodge it. And just like that, you’re fighting.

He’s more of a challenge than you’ve had since that last strife with Bro, and it feels great to burn off some of this restless energy you’ve been carrying around. You manage to get one of his sickles out of his hand almost immediately, and spin it across the room, but he strikes you in the chest with one elbow and sends you reeling. You get half a second to recover and then he’s coming at you again.

You engage for a few seconds, just to lull him, then flashstep around the back and land a shove between his shoulder blades. You’re using the sword like a defensive weapon and Bro would smack you down for it, but you don’t actually want to damage Karkat and you’re pretty sure he doesn’t want to damage you. And if he does, you’ll deal with that when you have to.

While he’s still off-balance, you grab him by the sleeve, swing him round and slam him into the wall, grinding the bones of his wrist against the steel panelling, trying to make him drop his sickle. For just a second he looks you right in the eyes and you think you need to punch him in the face, because he’d look so much better with a little blood, like maybe staining his lips or running down his neck and...

Wait, what?

Before you can think about it he growls and lunges forward, headbutting you in the chest, and you’re very glad his horns aren’t sharp, because even as they are, short and blunt, that fucking hurts.

You stagger back and find his foot somehow in the way, hooked around the back of your ankle. You go down hard. He’s on you in a second, straddling your hips, the point of his remaining sickle digging into your throat.

“Are we done here, you worthless globesack?” he snarls, biting each word out into your face as if you’ll be able to taste how much he hates you in every one.

“Not even close, and also, fuck you.” Your sword is still within reach, not to mention the fact that you can stop time, and both of you know he couldn’t have won if you hadn’t let him. He’s shrewd behind his mask of anger, trying to figure you out. You reach up, not sure if you mean to choke him or punch him or gouge his eyes out; instead, you grab the collar of his shirt and tug him down.

There’s a moment when his expression goes slack, his eyes go hazy. You watch it happen, slow-motion, slipping between seconds. Then he’s kissing you and you’re doing the exact opposite of stopping him. You think if he tries to stop now you will actually kill him.

There’s a clatter beside your ear as he drops his sickle, braces his hands on other side of your head and stretches out full-length on top of you. He’s unexpectedly light and burning with heat like a living furnace, burning and moving and kissing you like he’s expecting it to hurt any minute now.

You realize you’ve been waiting for him to bite down – he could easily take your lips off with those teeth if he wanted to – but he doesn’t, so maybe you don’t understand this hate-love business as well as you thought. It doesn’t feel like he hates you, exactly, not in the human sense; it feels like he wants to drag something out of you, like he’s issuing a challenge, like he’s making you fight for this even though you both want it.

Fine, you’ll fight. You move your hands from his collar to his hair, which is coarse as wire and has a strange, gritty, oily feel that isn’t necessarily bad. The hairs bunch and spring like steel wool under your fingers, good to clench your fists in and pull.

Now there’s sound instead of silence, the rush of his breath setting a tempo you can follow, a rhythm you can twist and stretch to breaking-point and then resolve again. Fuck, he’s so...

He pulls away for a moment, but only to yank your shades off and toss them aside (and if there’s so much as a single scratch when you get them back you are going to make him pay) and then he’s kissing you again, running his fingertips over your face. It’s not an overtly violent thing to do, but somehow intense and possessive and threatening all at once. You feel like he’s exploring the shape of the bones under your skin, maybe testing them for weakness, and it doesn’t even freak you out. He can do what he wants as long as he’s got his mouth on yours. He doesn’t taste like anything human, but like something bitter, organic, addictive.

You open your mouth to taste more of him and he rocks against you, the pressure of his hips making you dizzy. Every time he grinds down you let out the most embarrassing little shivery, crooning noise and jerk upwards in response. As for Karkat, he’s completely silent except for his breathing, but every now and then he shudders like he’s holding something in, and it pisses you off. The rest of the time he doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut, but now you actually want to hear him, he goes silent? Fuck that. He’s doing it just to annoy you.

You tighten your grip on his hair and bite at his mouth, discovering as you do that you have barely even started to browse through your mental folder of interesting ways to try and get sound from him. (That’s apparently a thing you have now.) You are going to try them all, one by one, but probably you won’t get a chance this time.

He shudders again, hard, the involuntary clench of his thighs driving him down against you, and for a moment you lose track of everything except that and just hold onto him, with your elbows and knees as much as your hands.

Abruptly he lets out a string of unintelligible words, knocks your arms away, scrambles up off you and half-runs, half-staggers into the adjacent room. A moment later you hear the hollow clang of something hitting the floor, and then the unmistakable sound of liquid hitting metal.

You’re so hard it hurts, and you’re yanking your pants down before you even consciously decide to do it. It takes exactly thirteen seconds before you’re coming all over your hand, and you’re pretty sure Karkat still isn’t even done.

So that’s the deal with buckets. Huh.

You clean up as best you can, which isn’t great, considering all you have to use is a bunch of your old suits. You’re going to have to alchemize some Kleenex or something. Damn, the little things no one ever thinks about.

You take your time straightening your clothes, finger-combing your hair into place, retrieving your shades and checking them for damage. Karkat doesn’t come back, and eventually you pretty much have to go out there to look for him. You’re not a total asshole. The Asshole party has a mandate and a majority, but the Act Like A Human Being For Fuck’s Sake party is fighting for this one, and they gotta win sometimes, or people will think this is some kind of dictatorship.

He’s sitting on the floor with his knees drawn against his chest and his fists bunched up into angry little knots. The bucket is shoved haphazardly halfway behind a computer terminal, like he doesn’t even really care that anyone who walked in would see it. You recognize the signs: he’s having a condensed, interior, locked-down freakout of the kind you’re fairly familiar with. Since it’s kind of your fault, and since you’re surprisingly okay with all this, you figure you might as well try and snap him out of it.

“What’s your problem?” you ask him.

“My problem? You’re asking about my problem? You are so unconscionably ignorant I can’t even begin to – ”

“Okay, whatever, don’t care.” You half-turn as if you’re going to leave, because you just know that’s what’ll get him round to the point. Turns out you’re right.

“My problem, you unimaginable festering fuckheap, is that even though you were there, you have no idea what just happened and no amount of patient explanation on my part would render you any more informed because you are actually not capable of comprehending it.”

You lean against the wall, deliberately aiming for aggravating. If you understand this right, it’s kind of your job to annoy him now. “You could really try not being such a patronizing ass, dude. I’m not stupid. I can guess it’s a troll romance thing. What just happened, that would make me your kismesis, right?”

“That’s not how you fucking pronounce it.”

“Yeah, that’s totally the issue here. How do you always manage to cut right to the heart of the matter.” You hope he can hear all the punctuation you’re not using.

“Okay,” he says, breathing in deeply. “Okay, fine, I will try to explain it in terms you can understand, thus completely stripping this dialogue of the potential for any kind of useful nuance. That’s your cue to be grateful, not that you’ll take it. First of all, I’m well aware your species has no concept of caliginous romance – that’s the fancy name for the relationship you have with a kismesis, are you taking notes? – and you’re probably not even wired that way, so that’s problem number one. You only have one quadrant, that’s problem number two. That means only one partner, and as we’ve established, you’re not interested in that being me. We can call that problem two-point-five. Related to that – ”

“You are way oversimplifying human romance-related shenanigans. I mean, shit, haven’t you heard of Mormons?”

“What the fuck is a mormons.”

“And you call me ignorant. Look, all I’m saying is, just because we have one kind of romantic ideal or whatever, doesn’t mean we can’t conceive of different approaches. Even the old dudes in the Bible had like nine wives each. Also, hateshipping is nothing new, that’s every purple fanfiction Rose has ever written.”

Karkat is staring at you. “Did a single word of that make sense in any universe?”

“I dunno, maybe you’re just not wired to understand it.”

“This is all beside the fucking point.” He points an exclamatory finger at you. “You have flushed feelings for John.”

“I have what now?”

“Romantic feelings, if we’re reaching for human levels of imprecision here, and I can’t imagine why we would be, since you’ve indicated a desire to not be unutterably stupid. You like him. Romantically.”

Fuck, you don’t want to be talking about that. Especially not to him. It’s weird, but you’ve hardly thought about John at all since you and Karkat really started getting into it – the fighting, you mean, but the rest as well. You guess that means it worked as a distraction, but really it’s more like all of this is taking place in an entirely new area of your mind, and whatever’s going on with John is waiting safe and unchanged on the other side. “Yeah, well, maybe I do. So?”

“So that means your single scanty human quadrant is accounted for, go have fun, and while you’re at it, shove your obscure cultural references up – ”

“What I’m saying,” you interrupt, “is that maybe I’d like to give this caliginous deal a try.”

“You can’t,” he says flatly.

“Who fucking says I can’t?”

“You only have one quadrant, idiot.”

“Okay, you keep saying that like these quadrants of yours are something totally well-defined and, you know, objective or whatever, but you guys don’t even have a word for being gay, and I hate to break it to you, but I’m fairly sure Kanaya – ”

“Strider, in spite of all these words you keep disgorging I still don’t know what the shitscrabbling fuck you’re even trying to articulate, so – ”

“Just because we don’t have a name for something doesn’t mean it isn’t a thing that exists. Maybe we do have caliginous romance, we just don’t know what to call it. And maybe I’d like to find out for myself, not believe whatever unremitting bullshit comes out of your mouth just because you claim to be the expert.” You pause to think about it, and add, “You colossal prick.”

“Well,” he says, very slowly and grudgingly, dredging the words up like rotting corpses of thoughts he’d hoped never to see again, “even if you could manage to sustain enough black feelings to simulate a satisfying caliginous relationship, and even overlooking how incredibly fucked up it would be to get involved that way with an alien, there’s still a problem.”

“Which is?”

“I... fuck. Okay. Okay, the truth is... fucking hell, the truth is, before we all got together, I ordered my team not to have any kind of romance with humans, all right?”

“Huh.” You stop slouching against the wall, fold your arms, peer over the top of your shades and give him the most penetrating stare you’ve got. “Yeah, so this would pretty much demolish your credibility as their leader, right? If they found out, I mean. Like, if somebody told them.”

There’s a very long silence. At least by Strider/Vantas standards.

“I hope you know,” says Karkat, “if you weren’t God Tier I would fucking kill you.”

But before you can leave he shoves you against the wall so hard you see grey and kisses you until you temporarily forget how to stand up, so you figure he doesn’t mind as much as he pretends.

Chapter Text

“So I’m looking at this, and all I can think is, how are you not the Witch? I mean, was there some kind of technical fuck-up when they were making this game that took the witchy girl and made her the Seer and took the girl who saw the future and made her the Witch?”

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Rose says coolly, smiling from underneath her hood. She’s holding a sphere of light in one hand, like the crystal ball she used to have, only this has no substance and dissolves when she flexes her fingers.

“And why is the Hero of Light the most super-villainous member of the group?” A really horrible thought occurs to you. “You weren’t... have you been watching me in that thing?”

“I looked away when it seemed appropriate.”

“Oh my fucking god, Rose.”

She laughs. “Calm down. I’ve been checking on everybody, and if I had been spying, it wouldn’t have been on you. You’re not that interesting.”

“Yeah, bullshit. Watching me get it on with a grey dude I can’t stand was probably the high point of your whole life.”

“Are you here to discuss or just rant? If the latter, I’ll excuse myself, because my presence is unnecessary.”

“I sure didn’t come to listen to you spout poetry about your voyeurism kink.” You throw yourself down on the couch beside her and put your feet up on the table. “So I guess we’ll discuss.”

“Since you won’t be able to resist telling it in your own words, let’s pretend I don’t already know everything.”

“Okay, well, as long as we’re doing that, we should also skip the part where I’m adorably shy and you have to drag the truth out of me with tweezers like some big infected splinter.”

“Agreed.”

“Good. So here’s what happened today.”

“I’m on tenterhooks.”

“Shut up. Okay, so, all right, I’m in love with John, and I just made out with Karkat, and possibly just signed up to be his hate-quadrant boyfriend. Or blackmailed him into being mine, to be accurate. There you go. Analyse away.”

“There really isn’t much to analyse, except that I’m surprised you admitted upfront to being in love with John. I was expecting you to downplay it more.”

“I didn’t – ” Shit. You totally did. “Oh, goddamn it. Look, just have some basic decency and disregard half the shit I say right now, will you? I’m a little, um.”

“Discombobulated?”

“Sure, if you want to use words that shouldn’t be words.”

“I insist on using those words.”

“Yeah, I know you do. Well?”

“Well what?”

“Any advice or insights or whatever? Want to offer to pass notes between me and John?”

“Strider, is it possible that at some point you’ve developed the misconception that counselling and matchmaking are the same thing? I have absolutely no interest in becoming courier to your attempts at expressing your stunted affection. If you want to know how John feels about you, I am bound to suggest you ask him, but I would caution you that any answer you get might be unreliable. The Egbert psyche is a mystery even to itself.”

“I guess I knew you’d say that. What about this troll romance shit? What’s up with that?”

“Please don’t take it amiss if I say I’ve had more important things on my mind than decyphering coy allusions to romantic practices in which I will never partake.”

You glance at her sideways – sounding a little bitter there yourself, Miss Impartiality – but decide to let it go for now, at least until you know what it’s about.

“In any case,” she continues, “if you seek information about troll courtship, wouldn’t your patron troll be the natural recourse?”

“Oh. Uh. Yeah, me and Terezi... it’s complicated. My life is a fucking Facebook status. Shit sucks.” You tell her about the coin-flip trick and the dead Dave, and aren’t at all surprised when she looks impressed rather than shocked. “Also, I’m pretty sure Terezi and Karkat used to be a thing, so... it’d be a bit awkward going to her about this.”

“I can see that. Well, I haven’t had a great deal of conversation with Vantas – none, in fact, unless you count his early attempts at trolling us, and I don’t. But I get the impression he doesn’t mind explaining things at length and berating people for their mistakes, so you can probably get a good grounding in what’s expected just by listening to him, if your eardrums can stand it.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to get educated solely by means of screwing up in front of him. At some point it might be nice to give the impression of not being a complete noob.”

“You just said noob.”

“I did fucking just say that, your point?”

“Nothing. I just thought I ought to highlight the moment, so that in future when you look back in shame, you will recall that I didn’t let it pass unremarked.”

“So for those at home keeping score, you still haven’t contributed anything of value to this conversation. I’m just as screwed as I was when I came up here like a chump and presented myself at your feet for a good verbal needling.”

“You feel better for it, though, don’t you?”

“Whatever, I guess. Why do I do this to myself?”

“I have pages and pages of notes in which I attempt to answer that very question.”

“Fuck you, Lalonde.”

“I love you too, Strider.”

Point to Rose. The only way to respond to that is with the coolest fist-bump in the history of paradox space, which you proceed to do.

“Hey, what are you guys fist-bumping over?”

You look over the back of the couch at John, and feel pretty good when there’s only a bit of a stomach-jolt at the sight of him. Maybe you’re becoming immune. “We just got hit with a sudden all-encompassing awareness of how completely fucking rad we both are.”

“It’s a mental state that could be compared to nirvana,” Rose agrees serenely.

“Haha, you two are so lame. Aradia’s looking for you, Dave, where the fuck have you been all day?”

“Oh, you know, around. No moss gathering on these rock-hard buttocks, I can tell you that. What does she want me for? Aside from the obvious.”

“Time stuff, what do you think? Man, when are you guys going to fill us in on all that? I’m getting antsy not knowing.”

“We’ll fill you in when we’re good and goddamn ready. Where is she?”

“Out the back somewhere, you’ll see her.”

“Helpful. Thanks.”

“Any time, dude!” He grins at you as you pass, and oh god, the thought about immunity was stupid, because you could just watch that smile all day. You are very tempted to see whether you can stop time and do just that, but knowing Rose is there would probably spoil it.

You go outside instead and join Aradia where she’s hovering up above the clouds; apparently rain and fairy wings don’t mix well.

“Hey, sup.”

“Hello, Dave! I thought I should check how you’re getting on with your timelines.”

“Uh, yeah, about that, I’ve been a little distracted, so...”

She frowns at you. “I can’t think what you’re finding to distract you here, but you’re very behind! I really do require your help with this.”

You can’t believe you’re getting scolded by a horned fairy who used to be a ghost in a robot, but she has a point. There are much more important things to be focusing on than romance. Time to put that aside and get down to business.

“Hey, could you give me the lowdown on kismesissitude?” you ask.

She looks at you blankly. “What?”

“You know. Black romance. I need to get schoolfed the basics. I don’t get it.”

“Why would you want to know about that?” Her expression changes to one of alarm. “Oh, no, have you been talking with Gamzee? One of us probably should have warned you, but I really thought he’d listen to Karkat’s instructions. If he is harassing you, go and tell Karkat right now. He’ll put a stop to it.”

“Wait, what? What does this have to do with Gamzee?”

“You’re not talking about him?”

“Let’s talk about what you’re talking about first.”

“Okay. Before we all met, Gamzee was interested in you, Karkat says. Interested in you as a kismesis, I mean. And it was mostly for your protection that Karkat got us all together and told us no troll/human romance, because our cultures are too different and neither side can understand where the other is coming from. Personally I agree! I think it’s a good thing he nipped it in the nub before it could cause trouble.”

Now you think about it, that explains the weird vibe you got from Gamzee when you first met him. “Man. So Karkat just tells you guys no and you go along with it?”

“He’s our leader, so yes. Not always, but usually. Isn’t that how it works for you?”

“I guess if John actually up and gave us an order sometime we’d probably do what he said. But he doesn’t do that, because he’s our friend.”

“With trolls I suppose it’s more important to have an established hierarchy,” she says. “Would that preclude friendship among humans?”

“Not preclude, just make things weird sometimes, I think. And Gamzee just accepted that?”

“He would in particular, because Karkat is his moirail.”

“His... huh?”

In the end, you return to the ground and she draws you a diagram. It explains a lot. She also tells you where Karkat keeps his stash of troll romcoms and how they can be sneakily obtained, in case you want to do more research or find out what it feels like to have honest-to-god suicidal impulses.

“If you want all this explained properly, Karkat really would be the best person to go to,” she says. “He’s made something of a study of it.”

“Let’s assume I don’t want to spend twenty minutes getting lectured on how I’ll never understand what he’s saying because my cranium is too spongy or whatever. In fact, let’s assume I want to spend as little time as possible talking to that cantankerous dipshit, okay?”

Aradia giggles. “He’s not so bad once you get to know him, but I understand. It’s not as if you’ll ever need to know about this in that kind of depth! I do think it’s sweet that you’re interested in our culture, though.”

“That’s me. Cultural sensitivity, forget about it, I’m the fucking interspecies ambassador, it’s going on my resume. If I ever have to get a job.”

“Dave, as interesting as this is, can we please concentrate on interpreting this timeline now? If you can reach the same point as me I think you’ll be very interested in what I’ve found.”

“Oh, yeah, all right. I’m interpreting all up and down this bitch, you got it.” You settle yourself in, feel for the right mental space, try not to get distracted by her way of doing things as she gets to work as well, plinking like a music box in your head. Now you’re familiar with it, you can mostly tune her out and do your own thing. It takes most of the day, but eventually you catch up to her and see what she wanted you to see.

You skid out of the groove and back into reality.

“See what I mean?” she says.

“Yeah,” you say. “Weird.”

***

You decide to explain to the others over dinner. This time nobody’s bothered cooking for the trolls; they have been permitted to forage and/or use the appearifier as they please, which would have worked out better for everyone, except you’re all gathered in the same room for the meeting, and now you get to look at the things trolls eat that aren’t orange creamsicles or cotton candy.

You hear John whisper to Jade that there are sights no one should ever have to see. You decide that Karkat had better brush his teeth like fifteen times before he even thinks about kissing you again. Everyone looks around and simultaneously decides they are no longer hungry.

“So those extra babies I made,” John says, “they’re us now? Or not us, but in our position? And what about actual us?”

“As far as we can tell, it’s a simple one-for-one switch with your ectobiological ancestors,” Aradia says. “Other things in the timeline are different, of course, but situationally there’s very little change as far as you’re concerned. Dave tells me your ancestors all appear to live in the same places as you did, for instance.”

“Also it looks like the family relationships are the same, just flipped,” you add. “It’s hard to get details and stuff, but...”

“Wait!” John says, sitting up straight suddenly. “If we’ve just swapped places with the babies, then does that mean the alternate me and alternate Jade would be dead? Like my Nanna and Jade’s Grandpa were in our universe?”

You jump in before Aradia can answer, because she’s going to sound way too excited about it. “Yeah,” you say. “We’re pretty sure that’s what happened.”

“Oh man. That’s just... oh man, I don’t even know what to say about that.”

He looks so discouraged that if you weren’t on the other side of the table you would definitely be giving him an awkward shoulder-pat right about now. Okay, no, that’s a lie, you wouldn’t, but the thought is there.

And then you freeze, because Karkat is giving John an awkward shoulder-pat. John looks startled and then half-smiles and shapes his face into something more like normal.

What the hell. What the actual hell. That was supposed to be your inept gesture of consolation, what the fuck does Karkat think he’s doing?

“I kind of knew something like this might happen,” Jade is saying, because some people in this room are still thinking about stuff other than romance, weird. “I didn’t exactly understand everything, but I’ve had this penpal ever since I was little. He said he was my grandson, but he really just reminded me of my Grandpa, I think that’s why we got on so well.”

“The guy who made Liv Tyler?” John says.

“Yes. His name is Jake! He’s always said we’ll be able to meet sometime, I just could never work out how! He’s really looking forward to meeting you, John.”

Karkat is now giving you an undeniably smug look, as if he actually accomplished something by batting his grubby paw against the outmost edge of John’s shoulder for like three seconds. As soon as this meeting is over you’re going to have words with him. There’s basically no other choice.

“Isn’t there some way we could see them?” John asks. “Like, Rose, couldn’t you do something Seer-y?”

“My powers don’t work between sessions, but when we arrive I’ll be happy to.” Rose’s mouth has this weird tension about it, and she flicks her eyes at you for just a moment. You get the feeling someone might be coming to cry on your shoulder about mommy issues tonight. You hope she just has the courtesy to be patient while you figure out how to deal with your brazen shithead of a kismesis.

John passes round the birthday letter he got from Jake; Jade laughs fondly and rolls her eyes over it. The dude sounds kind of hyper and eccentric, so you figure he’ll probably fit in just fine.

“There’s something else,” you say, once the letter has made its way back to John, “but it’s kinda weird and we don’t exactly know what to make of it.”

Everyone is looking at you, but you happen to glance at Karkat, and he’s making this... face... or possibly it’s just an eyebrow thing... and you don’t even know what he’s trying to communicate, maybe his opinion that you suck at public speaking, or maybe something about how when he was handing the letter back to John he made sure to touch his hand, which you didn’t fail to notice because he was completely shameless about it, like, god damn, if fingertip makeouts could be a thing that was totally what he was going for, whether John realized it or not.

Or you guess it could just be that he’s waiting expectantly to hear what you’ve discovered like everyone else. Eyebrows leave a lot of room for interpretation. Whatever it is, it’s really, really annoying.

“Dave?” Rose prompts.

Also distracting. “Just gathering my thoughts or whatever. So, I guess the trolls won’t know, but there’s this human thing called Betty Crocker.”

Yeah, now you’ve got John’s attention.

***

You decide to wait an hour after the meeting before going to look for Karkat. After ten minutes, you figure it’s been long enough and go anyway.

You find him in that same closet, and damn, if he expects to keep having any kind of interaction with you in here, he’s going to have to put up some posters or something, you simply cannot function in a place so boring. You’ll be sure to mention it later.

“Oh, look who it is now! I can just see how this is going to make my whole fucking day that much better. The fact that you seem to think you’re welcome to just show up in my private vicinity at any time you like shows that you continue to be a blistering moron and we still have an awful lot to work on. Thank god we have all this unexpected downtime that is not remotely driving me out of my mind so that we can devote as long as it takes to improving your fucking manners. That sounds like absolutely the most fun I’ve ever had.”

You’re not sure about the accepted way to get things started, but you figure you can’t go wrong backing him up against the wall and taking a handful of his shirt, not hard, just holding it almost nonchalantly so he knows he’s not going anywhere.

“I’m getting a hunch,” you say, “that you have like this biological drive that makes you spend every waking moment being a complete fucking embarrassment, is that about right? I mean, please tell me that wasn’t what it looked like just now.”

“Do you have a minimum wordcount for the day, Dave? Is that why you feel forced to expel so much meaningless bilgewaste? I count myself fortunate that on this occasion I am not even close to understanding you.”

“Don’t even act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, dude. Are you seriously putting the moves on John? Seriously?”

“Guess what, you ponderous fuckneck, you’re the one who drew back the curtain on this fecund landscape of tender interspecies bulge-bumping, so if you’re having problems with it, you know who to fucking blame, don’t you.”

He’s got that look again. The eyebrow look that makes you boil. You inch forward so that you’re right up against him, your leg fitting neatly between his thighs, and yank on his shirt so that it draws tight around his throat. You enjoy that he has to crane his neck to look up at you.

“So, this is like a competition to you. We have to see who can harass John most before he notices and decides he’s never talking to either of us again. You think that’s a good thing to fight over.”

He runs his hands up over your chest and digs his nails in just under your collarbone, where no one will see any marks he leaves. There’s this weird deliberation to the way he increases the pressure a little at a time; it’s like a charge building slowly, getting ready to become a spark. He’s not shouting, not even glaring, really, but there’s this vibration in his body that says he’s getting ready to, and he never once looks away from your eyes. “That’s kismesissitude, fucknuts. Everything is a good thing to fight over.”

Okay, that actually sounds pretty awesome. “No, dude, no, just stop now, you don’t want to get into this with me. Bro was teaching me the way of one-upmanship when I was a little pink monkey in the world’s coolest shades, and I will fucking own you. I’ll own you so hard you’ll be like some broken piece of shit I dumped in the back of my closet, like this dusty thing I don’t remember how it ended up there and I can’t get rid of it, the Salvation Army don’t want that motherfucker, they can’t tell what it even used to be before I owned it.”

“If I’m interpreting your asinine gibberish correctly, that’s a yes.”

“Hell yes, it’s on. Welcome to the fucking party, you incompetent tool, hope you like the feel of your own ass because it’s about to get handed to you ten different ways.”

“I am so glad we’ve sorted that out. Now maybe you could shut the fuck up for once in your miserable life.”

You feel the sudden tension in him right before he shoves you and tries that trick with his foot again. This time you’re ready for it and manage not to fall over. You keep your grip on his shirt so that he’s jerked forward as you move back, and use the momentum to swing him off-balance so that he lands in an ungainly sprawl against you. You would so have something to say about that, but before you even can he morphs into a cluster of hard blunt angles and jabs you with them until he’s upright.

He hooks one finger under your shades and makes to toss them aside, but you snatch them back and captchalogue them before they can suffer any further mistreatment.

“What the hell is your problem with my shades? That’s the second fucking time you’ve tried to break them.”

“My problem with your shades is my problem with you, you grubfisted slimebent fucksmear.” Then he lunges again, catching you round the middle and slamming you into the wall.

For all that he snarls every time you try to get your hands on him and pin him down, he never actually pulls back or tries to put any space between you, either. It’s not even fighting, really, just a lot of aggravated high-contact shoving. It’s like he’s determined to touch you with all the most uncomfortable bits of his body: his elbows against your ribs, the back of his hand up under your jaw, his hipbones on your thighs, the crown of his head against your shoulder, his cheekbone against your chin.

You try to turn his head and kiss him but all he does is wedge his upper lip against your lower and push with his whole weight; you don’t know if that even counts as a kiss, but if it does, it’s definitely the weirdest kiss ever. You can’t figure out what he’s trying to do, but it feels different from what you did this morning, like there’s some vital sharpness missing somewhere.

You reach out to get hold of his hair and he knocks your hands away with an irritated sound. You try to get him settled against you and he resists. You manage to get your hands up under his shirt and scratch down his back, and that’s better; he stops feeling like an awkwardly-shaped piece of furniture with too many edges that happened to roll on top of you, and the kiss starts to feel more normal.

You get a hand into his hair, working your nails against his scalp and around the bases of his horns; you don’t know if they’re sensitive at all, but you’re kind of fascinated by them, and he most definitely isn’t complaining. You figure he might be silent when things feel good, but you’ll probably find out about it – at length – if you do something wrong.

He breathes out something that’s almost a moan when you pull his head back and go for his neck, and you feel like history’s suavest motherfucker when he slides to a sitting position propped against the wall and lets you straddle him, your spine curved so you can reach to suck at the softer skin under his jaw. When you tug his collar to one side so you can bite bruises into the flesh of his shoulder, he drives his hands up against your chest and hisses, and that is good, that is fucking awesome, you feel like you’ve won something.

He breaks the kiss to pull his shirt off, then yours, making you very glad you at least had the foresight to leave your cape behind. He seems fascinated by your bruises, especially the ones he made, like the two dark-brown ones on your ribcage left by his horns when he headbutted you earlier. He digs his fingers into them, reminding you of the way he touched your face, like he was probing for something.

“Does that hurt?”

“Sure.”

“That?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That?”

“It’s kind of a pretty consistent thing.”

“Do you mind?”

“It look like I mind?”

The bite-marks you left on his shoulder are already going from red to ashen pink; pretty soon there’ll hardly be anything to see at all. Annoying. You’re going to have to try harder. You still want to see what he looks like bleeding.

He’s getting that hazy look in his eyes that you recognize from before, and when you kiss him this time, sliding your tongue out over his lips until he opens his mouth, he responds exactly as you’d want. You feel the thin sting of his teeth, taste iron, and he rakes his claws down your back.

The pace is driving you crazy, and the position is only adding to your frustration; you can feel him twitching his hips underneath you, but the way you’re sitting you can’t get any kind of relief, even just the sort of friction that ends up making things worse. You decide that’s it, you’re going for it, he can jab at your bruises all day if he lets you do this.

You unbutton his pants, hardly fumbling at all, and slip your hand inside, palm resting against the warm, vulnerable skin of his belly for a moment – and then something that is moving under its own power reaches up and twines around your hand.

It takes every ounce of self-control you have not to squeal. In fact you manage to limit yourself to only the barest pause in proceedings. You need a medal. You need a goddamn medal. And extensive therapy.

Okay, no, okay, it’s cool, you knew he probably wasn’t going to have anything analogous to human junk, and what the hell, it seems to like you, that’s a good sign, right? You’re not even slightly freaking out. You’re rolling with it like a fucking pro.

The – thing, whatever it is, bulge? – feels slick, hot and muscular, curling around your fingers and flexing like a

(don’t say tentacle don’t say tentacle do not fucking say tentacle)

like a really long tongue, okay, and that’s still pretty gross, but you can work with it, especially if you try to concentrate on what it would feel like to have it wound around your dick the way it’s wound around your hand. Oh. Yeah, that’s a good thought, stick with that.

You try experimentally stroking your hand up and down it, the way you would with your own cock, but Karkat’s swift intake of breath doesn’t sound like an enjoying noise, so you stop that. The bulge seems to be contracting in a sort of rhythm, so you try squeezing gently in counterpoint, rolling your fingers without moving them too much, and Karkat starts to shudder the way he was this morning, when it was feeling really good.

His hands rest on your thighs tentatively, and then he seems to come to a decision and moves them to the front of your pants, pressing down with his palm and just about driving you out of your mind.

“Come on,” you whisper, barely even aware you’re speaking, “fuck, come on, come on, yes.”

With that helpful and sensitive encouragement, he gains the confidence to overcome the waistband and wrap his hand around you, and at that point any damage he might have done to your lip becomes irrelevant, because you’re pretty sure you just bit through it yourself. He pumps cautiously down and then up again, and maybe he’s being a little too delicate when you would really like more pressure, but whatever, it feels good enough and you’re not complaining. You feel him moving his fingers, twisting his hand, trying to –

“Oh god, it doesn’t bend, stop that!”

“Well, excuse the fuck out of me for expecting something remotely resembling normal anatomy, I guess I must have missed the cultivar when they were schoolfeeding us on how to handle freakish alien fucktools, I am so fucking sorry.”

You kiss him again to shut him up, because now he’s no longer trying to make your dick go unnatural ways, what he’s doing feels great; he’s still not gripping as hard as you would yourself, but that’s actually okay. It’s like this tension growing at the base of your spine, and you can’t help thrusting up into his hand, trying to get more even as you’re enjoying the way it builds up slow, slow, slow, until you feel ready to explode.

It’s getting hard to concentrate on Karkat, but you do your best, squeezing his bulge in that undulating way to the tempo of his breath, and he’s trembling, not even bothering to kiss you any more, just panting hot and damp against your mouth, his free hand clutching your hipbone painfully hard, as if to make up for the fact that he doesn’t dare tighten his grip on your cock.

You can’t exactly miss it when he goes over; his whole body arches and you finally, finally, fucking finally get that cry out of him, strangled and desperate, half-muffled in your mouth, descending to one long, ragged sigh as he sinks limply back to the floor. You follow a few seconds later, dropping your head to his shoulder and riding it out, wave after wave of it, you didn’t even know it could feel like this.

As you come back out of the orgasm haze, you try to prepare yourself to find your God Tier pyjamas completely ruined, to the point where you’ll never be able to wear them again, but the flood you were expecting from him doesn’t seem to have manifested. There’s some slickness between your fingers, but nowhere near as much as you thought there would be, not even close.

Is that it? You look at him and see him frowning at his own sticky hand, like he’s wondering the same thing.

“What, no bucket this time?” you say.

He actually cringes when you say bucket. “Oh my god, don’t just say it like that, nobody just says it like that. I was just joking about teaching you some manners, I don’t want to literally have to do that, so show a little fucking consideration, will you?”

“All right, seems like a pretty dumb thing to get squeamish about but whatever, it’s a serious question. How come you didn’t use it this time?”

“That’s a completely different thing! Seriously, twice in one day? What the fuck is wrong with you?” He looks at you and you think it’s maybe a slightly anxious look. “I mean, is that normal for humans?”

Oh jeez. At some point, and you sense that point is fast approaching, just rolling with it will not enough; you are going to have to have a conversation about anatomy and it’s going to be awkward as fuck. Not like you can just casually ask Aradia about this.

“Hey, you know what, let’s not do this right now. You’re a weird alien, I’m a weird alien, we’ll still be weird tomorrow.”

“Yeah, good plan.” He sounds disgruntled, like he thinks it should have been his plan. “By the way, have I mentioned in the last five minutes that you have the most punchable face I’ve ever seen?”

Sometimes people just back you into a corner, and it’s really sad for them when it happens. He’s left you with only one possible response. You kiss him on the tip of his nose and leave him raging.

Chapter Text

You are standing in Rose’s kitchen looking into the sink. If anyone comes in, you figure you can say you’re doing the washing up ironically by not doing it at all.

What you’re really doing is having second thoughts.

It was very easy to say sure, Karkat, I’m absolutely down for some competitive flirting with John if that’s what it takes to keep this hatespouseship alive. It was easy in the way that accepting stupid challenges always seems easy, sort of the way you always, always ended up ass-deep in Bro’s mind-games even though he was fucked up in ways you couldn’t begin to approximate and therefore could never hope to beat, even though you knew from the outset that you were going to end the day buried in foam rumps and looking like a douche. Easy like climbing up a radio mast to steal an eggy-looking-thing from a gigantic maternal beak-sprite that was obviously just waiting to peck right through your stupid head. Easy like looking at a crowd of impossibly stupid red nakodiles and thinking, Yeah, I can just breeze through, they won’t even notice me.

As you have begun to learn, these things that seem easy at the time almost always end up with you gently marinating in a fucking reptilian sacrificial stewpot while Terezi laughs at you. Or something similar.

You are starting to think that it’s possible you might have a problem with hubris, and the universe likes to smack you the hell down. You think the universe could stand to fuck off occasionally and smack Rose down instead, because she’s twice as smug as you on your best day, but nope, you’re the poor unfortunate son of a bitch the nonexistent gods like to shit on and you’ll just have to deal with that. Which is why it probably wasn’t a good idea to take Karkat’s dare.

The facts as you see them are as follows.

Fact: you have never paid attention to a single romantic movie, except the minimal consideration it took to make fun of the ones John liked and get him all worked up. That didn’t happen much, because John really isn’t a romcom kind of guy.

Fact: what little you know about dating and relationships outside of porn was explained to you by Bro, and Bro chose to illustrate his lesson with two smuppets he particularly favoured at the time. That’s all you recall. The rest was so distressingly ironic your mind could not contain it. You remember a pair of blank eyes, a thousand-yard smile, a fondly quivering scarlet proboscis, and then the tender abyssal embrace of the ensuing mental breakdown.

Fact: you could try to express your feelings to John through the plush medium, but you pretty much already did that with the Con Air bunny, and it didn’t work. Bro would probably say you weren’t explicit enough, but while the dude was unquestionably a porn genius, he never had a date round to the apartment once in your whole life, so you think it’s okay not to take his advice sometimes. Maybe most of the time.

Fact: you have no idea what else to try.

“You know what I’d do?” John says, right beside you.

You do the most incredibly embarrassing little girly cringe. “The fuck, dude, don’t do that to me, Jesus fucking Christ, you want to know what palpitations feel like, here, take my pulse, shit is off the fucking charts, I mean, god damn, Egbert.”

“Jeeeeez, sorry!” he says, not sounding or looking even a little bit sorry. “I thought you were some kind of ninja and would totally know I was there!”

“Yeah, well, I was just doing timeline stuff, in my head and all.” You recover slightly, take a step away from him, remember you’re supposed to be doing the flirtation thing, think about reclaiming that step, realize you’ll look like a jittery douchebag, and stay where you are. “Anyway, what, what would you do?”

“I was just thinking, time-travel means you never have to do chores, because you can just travel in time to when they’re already done! That would be a pretty sweet power to have! When I saw you meditating over the dirty dishes I figured that was what you were doing.”

“I can’t travel to the future, I thought you knew that.”

“Oh. In that case we should probably just do the washing up, huh? Rose is getting pretty passive-aggressive about it.”

“Okay, look, what you need to do is get out all her psychology books and leave them open on pages about dysfunctional families, especially overbearing mothers. That’s the kind of gesture she’ll understand.”

John shakes his head and holds out a washcloth in one hand and a towel in the other. “No more fucking around, Dave, we are doing this. Choose your weapon.”

You don’t... exactly know how this works, but you take the towel, and John fills up the sink with hot water and suds, and starts washing the plates and handing them to you to dry. Not too complicated. You probably could’ve figured it out for yourself. You’ve seen people do it on TV a bunch of times.

“I don’t get why I’m doing this when you’re basically a human blow-dryer.”

“Because it is a thing that regular people do. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it! You’ve got me to instruct you. ”

You push a plate back at him. “Yeah, check it out, sensei, you missed a spot.”

“Oh, gross, it’s that disgusting stuff Karkat was eating, it’s gone all hard.” He dunks the plate in the water again and scrubs so vigorously that water slops out of the sink and onto the counter.

“If I’m meant to be your student you’re not setting a great example here, you know. Look at this, it’s like a soap tsunami, fucking watery apocalypse for a million bacteria, hope you’re pleased with yourself.”

“Does water kill bacteria?”

“Obviously, or people wouldn’t use it to clean with.”

“I’m fairly sure that water doesn’t kill bacteria, Dave.”

“Who the fuck are you, Louis Pasteur? And are you seriously not even done with that plate yet? Hand it over, come on.” He shrugs and switches places, and you scrub like a motherfucker for a full five seconds. “Man, you weren’t kidding, this shit’s like fused with the paint or something.”

“Told you.”

“Maybe we can just tell Rose it looked like that to begin with.”

“Okay, but she’s the Seer, remember?”

“Yeah, she’s probably watching us right now.”

“Uh, that’s not what I meant. I don’t think she’d do that. That would be a little creepy if she was just watching us all the time!”

“Oh, John. So naive. Soooo naive.” You finally manage to scrape off the nasty-ass bluish residue with the point of a knife. You don’t even have to break the knife in half before you can use it. You’re just achieving all the milestones today. “Hey, you wanna hear something weird?”

“What?”

“Aradia says Karkat had to basically order all the trolls not to be hitting on us.”

“Haha, really?”

“Yeah, it’s like, even trolls think trolls are a bunch of raging douchebags, they’d rather be with humans. Not that I blame them.”

“Wow, Karkat is such a hypocrite!”

You look at him sharply. “Hypocrite, why?”

“Okay, well, he’d probably kill me for telling you about this, so don’t give him a hard time about it, all right?”

“I wouldn’t ever give him a hard time about anything. I don’t know why you’d even say that.”

“Seriously, don’t, though, it’d be way awkward if you did. In fact, maybe I shouldn’t tell you, it feels a bit mean.”

“Dude, stop being a reticent dipshit and fucking spill it.”

“Bluh, all right, fine. The last time Karkat trolled me before the Scratch, which was the first time he talked to me, he said he thought I was destined to be his kisme-thingy.”

“Kismesis?” This is weird, it’s like feeling jealousy from both sides. You force a laugh. “Wow. I called it, he was so obviously into you.”

“Nooo, I don’t think he really was. From his point of view it was a while ago! And he didn’t know me very well when he said it. Anyway, he made me promise not to mention it again... which I guess I am breaking that promise now... but we ended up as buddies, so it’s not like it’s a big deal! It just sort of weirded me out a little and I can’t exactly talk to him about it.”

“You’re fucking killing me here. I have to torment him about this, I just have to.”

“No, Dave, you can’t! I said some pretty stupid shit in that conversation as well, to be honest. Anyway, I feel like Karkat has a tendency to not really think things through and make more problems for himself.”

Ahaha, yeah. You wonder what it’d be like to have that kind of personality flaw.

“I just don’t get how you can hate someone romantically,” John goes on. “I don’t know how that’s even a thing. At first I thought it was just, like, really bickery sort of love? Like how Karkat and Terezi were always messing with each other. But it turns out that is the good quadrant! Terezi is the one he actually likes! So what would the hate one be like? Just, ugh, I don’t know.”

Well, this conversation went to a bad place fast. “It’s more like – I mean, I get the impression that trolls are more competitive than us, so for them it would make sense. You know, like how Batman and pro-wrestlers always have an arch rival or whatever, only with a kismesis they don’t have to self-flagellate every night in musclebound mucusy shame cause they wanna hit that.”

He grins. “I guess I can see what you mean, and I get that it’s their culture and all, but I still think you would have to be pretty twisted to enjoy something like that.”

“Oh,” you say.

“A little competition is fun! But if you, you know, like someone, I don’t see why you’d want to be that way with them all the time. It sounds like it would be tiring.”

“Yeah, well, trolls are fucked up, that’s news to nobody.” The dish you’re washing is now the cleanest dish that has ever existed, but you give it another wipe just to be sure.

“Yeah, they are! Anyway, I just kind of had to tell someone about that, it was going to be Rose or Jade, but I guess today you’re the counsellor! You’re learning all kinds of new skills.”

Without warning he gets in close, reaches his arm around your chest... and leans across you to pull the plug and drain the sink. Durrr, Dave, durrrrr.

“Once the dishes are done, you run the water out,” he explains, ever the soul of consideration. “That is the final step! Except I guess we should probably wipe up the counters as well, I made kind of a mess. But that concludes our lesson in the household arts, please use your newfound powers only for good.”

“Nah, I’m gonna go find the headquarters of some diabolical asshole and wash his dishes for him so he’s got more time for scheming and making out with his slaves, it’s the only possible course of action.”

“I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t let you do that.”

“Oh hell no, don’t reference that movie to me. Bro already did that shit, like, for weeks, with actual computers that had actual glowing red cameras. You’ll never beat him.”

“We are kind of on a space odyssey right now.”

“How do you even be this original in your insights? I really want to know, is it natural genius or like some kind of disease?”

“Haha, shut up, dickbag!”

“So, are we doing the slumber party thing again tonight or what?”

“I think Jade has something planned.”

“Yeah, what’s up with Jade, I feel like I’ve hardly seen her all day.”

“She’s been with Kanaya and Terezi. Kanaya for space stuff, and Terezi sort of accidentally ended up overseeing all the stuff with the lab technology that Jade’s trying to fix.”

“Right, Terezi mentioned that.”

“Oh? When did you speak to her? I thought you guys had a fight or something.”

“What? No, me and Terezi are tight. Why would you think that?”

He shrugs. “It’s just a feeling I got.”

As you make your way up the stairs, you can hear Jade and Rose talking and moving around the room you’ve all ended up sharing. Sounds suspiciously purposeful.

“When you said Jade had something planned...” you say.

You push open the door and discover that the girls have cleared the floor all along one wall and are diligently constructing a mountain of blankets, scarves, miscellaneous cozies, and a bunch of other unidentifiable knitted items.

“What’s going on?” John asks, trying to see over your shoulder and eventually poking you in the back to make you go all the way inside. “What is that?”

“It appears to be a really big pile of woolly shit,” you say, and look at Rose. “So this is on purpose, right? This isn’t just what built up down the back of your bookcase.”

“We’re trying out a bit of troll culture!” Jade explains, tossing three or four pillows onto the heap. “Kanaya mentioned this is a thing they do.”

“Right, because our highest priority needs to be borrowing weird social customs from those turbulent assholes.”

“This isn’t a violent custom, though! This is actually one of the things that keeps them from acting on violent impulses all the time. It’s sort of this group therapy thing...”

“It is not group therapy,” Rose interrupts. “Group therapy is a carefully-controlled experience supervised and guided by a trained professional. This is a feelings jam, and if the images that phrase conjures up are of things that are sticky, sloppy and messy, I would not say that’s inaccurate. However, I do think it might help, since we’re not exactly overwhelmed with options here.”

“I am still kind of confused,” John says. “What are we doing exactly?”

“Basically, we all get comfy in the pile and talk about our feelings and stuff!”

“Oh, fuck that,” you say, rolling your eyes.

“Shhh, Dave. It’s supposed to be really nice! It builds relationships and makes everything run smoother. Kanaya says it’s something the red quadrants do with each other.”

“Oh god, now you’re talking about quadrants too? Come on, Jade!”

“Shoosh, John, shoosh! Kanaya says it’s a very positive thing! And Rose can’t be all of our therapist, that wouldn’t be much fun for her.”

“What is there even to talk about?” you ask. “Or I guess jam about, if you must.”

You hear John snort and feel reassured, but Jade turns up her bossy to eleven.

“Well, how about the fact that we’re going to a place where half of us are dead, fuckass? And also you are going to get to meet your brother when he was young and goofy, and that might be a little upsetting!”

“Are you kidding me with this? Come on, seriously.” Maybe she has a point, because the idea of your Bro ever being young and goofy, never mind you actually having to see him be that way, is making you kind of hugely uncomfortable. But that’s why the last thing you want to do with that idea is circulate it round the group like a shitty homemade bong so everyone can take a huff and fug the air up with awkward emotions.

“Yeah, I mean, I am all for talking, but this just sounds forced and kind of lame,” John says. “And why does it have to be in a pile? No offence, Rose, but we were all talking fine last night without help from a pile of stuff.”

“Exactly, see, John’s talking sense. This is just a dumb waste of time, and I don’t trust the source.”

“To say the least.” John holds out his fist; you bump it.

Jade looks peeved. “You can’t do your bro conspiracy fist-bump thing, that isn’t fair.”

“Oh, what, we agree with each other and it’s a conspiracy? What about you two planning all this with the vampire chick, building your goddamn little fluffy pile – ”

“Yeah, if anyone’s in cahoots it’s you guys!” John chimes in.

“What are you afraid of, Dave?” Rose enquires, with a lilt of amusement in her voice.

“Fuck, don’t do that, that acting like I’m scared. It’s bullshit. I will talk about my feelings all goddamn day, but that don’t mean I’m letting you rub my back and put me down for naptime in this milky preschool activity-blanket connivance you’ve got worked out.”

“Yeah,” John says, nodding vigorously, “that, what he said.”

“For fuck’s sake, John, just lie down in the pile and stop being a baby!”

“Talking like Karkat is not going to make me listen to you, Jade!”

You are about to back up John, but the mention of Karkat shuts you right the hell up. Karkat would say this thing was stupid too, you have no doubt. But he’d also probably say that anyone who turns down the opportunity to lie around in a big cottony heap talking about feelings with the guy he wants to date is a heinous fucking idiot.

You wonder if this flirtstrife counts if Karkat isn’t around to see you do it. Then you realize that’s the stupidest damn thing you’ve thought in a while. This is hardly even about Karkat.

“Ugh, fine!!!” Jade says. “If you don’t want to talk you don’t have to talk, but you can at least stay and listen, and maybe you’ll decide to join in.”

“I guess it’ll probably be better than sleeping on a beanbag,” you say, because you are duplicitous as fuck.

John looks at you like you’ve betrayed him.

It takes a good five minutes for Rose and Jade to complete the pile to their satisfaction, and then another two for everyone to get settled. Rose confiscates your shades, because every motherfucker seems to have a problem with your goddamn shades today.

You make sure to lie next to John. It’s against all your instincts, but the thought of what Karkat would say if he found out you’d gone chickenshit gets you over that nicely.

“Okay!” Jade says. “I guess I should start us off, then. Um. Hmm. Rose, do they have to be bad feelings or can we talk about things we’re happy about too?”

“I assume anything is fine.”

“Okay, well, I am really excited to meet Jake finally!” She talks about that for a while, and about her Grandpa, and about her worries that Jake and her Grandpa will be too similar, or that they’ll be too different, or that she might not get on as well with him as she’d thought, or that he might be disappointed she’s not as cool as he hoped. She and Rose talk a little bit about being nervous to learn about their Scratch-universe selves. Pretty soon John gives in and says he hopes he’ll get to see his Dad again somehow. One way or another you end up admitting that your Bro’s puppets always freaked you out and you hope the new version of him has less creepy interests, and Rose psychoanalyses everyone’s doll/puppet/clown phobias, and then Rose and Jade start riffing on quantum inevitability and nature vs nurture and a whole bunch of incomprehensible horseshit. They get heated, then philosophical, then sentimental, and before very long they’re cuddled up at their end of the pile, talking in whispers and gazing into each other’s eyes, which you never, ever, ever thought you would see happen with those two, so there must be something to this feelings jam thing. You and John lie on your end, halfway between eavesdropping and dozing, and you still haven’t managed to fit in any flirtation. Karkat would write a fucking novella about how incompetent you are.

Hell no, you’re not going to lie around moping while an imaginary Karkat lambasts you for it. Nope, you’re – wait, mindset adjustment in progress.

Nop, your doig this.

your causing this to tranpspire.

8^y

You turn to John. “Hey, here’s something funny.”

Your voice is low, confidential, and he automatically leans in closer to hear. You’re now kind of glad Rose has your shades, because otherwise they’d be bumping John’s glasses and you wouldn’t be able to see his eyes so well. Your foreheads are practically touching. Karkat would be losing his mind with rage, but fuck that, fuck him, it’s not about Karkat.

“What?” he whispers back.

“You know what we’re doing right now, don’t you.”

“What, this feelings jam thing?”

“Yeah, remember how Jade said it’s a thing red quadrants do?”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, so?”

“Okay, dude, rack your brain now. Turn that motherfucker upside down and give it a good shake. What do we know about quadrants?”

“Bluh, aside from the fact that they’re dumb and confusing? They’re, like, a troll romance thing.”

“Exactly.”

“Huh?” He stares at you for a second, then he gets it. “Oh my god, Dave.”

“Yeah,” you say. “From a troll point of view this is totally romantic. This is like animal crackers.”

“Oh my god, Dave.”

“So I figure we’re basically married now.”

“Uh oh!”

“Good thing you got me all educated in the washing-up deal, that could’ve been awkward, but now I have a real chore I know how to do I guess we’re all set. Where do you wanna live? For you I’ll tolerate the burbs, but my price is offensively clashing curtains and upholstery, and I’m talking loud, I accept no fucking magnolia.”

“Hahaha, oh my god,” he says again. “No swords on the walls of our house, okay? I draw the line at shitty fake movie swords.”

“You better hold my hand in public. Be prepared to superglue our goddamn fingers together, because I intend to be clingy.”

“Okay, as long as we can also do the thing where we talk to each other on Pesterchum from five feet away. Oh, wait, we already do that, hehe. Can I call you hummingbird?”

“Shit, I’ll be offended if you don’t.”

“Man, this is so funny. Do you think Rose and Jade know? Rose has to know, right?”

“Could be Kanaya’s idea of a prank, girl has one hell of a weird sense of humour.”

He laughs again, and the vibration shivers all through you. “Oh, dude, wait till I tell Karkat you’re my bride, he is gonna flip the fuck out! Maybe I’ll pretend to be serious. It would make the film festival way more interesting.”

“Uh... film festival?”

“Oh, right, you were out with Aradia while he was over. Yeah, he invited me to go and watch movies with him tomorrow. What he actually said was more like, Bluh bluh bluh I am so fucking bored of doing nothing it’s making me want to fucking chew off my own fucking arm and I’m getting on everyone’s nerves by being stupidly fucking angry at fucking everything like fucking always so why don’t you fucking distract me with some fucking movies, John, you bucktoothed fuckass, and don’t take this as an indication that I fucking like you, baka.”

“Damn, that’s uncanny.”

“Yeah, hehehe. Like he’s one to talk about my teeth. But it sounded pretty neat anyway, I have been wanting to see some troll movies! Like, they have a troll Will Smith and a troll Adam Sandler and all the worst human actors but as trolls.”

“Weird.”

Half your mind is on the conversation, half on the fact that Karkat gets to work fast. You’re actually kind of impressed. Impressed but also provoked – you’re sure Karkat would know the feeling. He must have basically gone straight from making out with you to the flirtstrife stratagem. You’re playing catch-up here, and you hate that. You’ll just have to wreck his shit even more than usual. Whatever he thinks is going to happen during this film marathon with John, you’re going to make sure it doesn’t. Somehow. You’ll figure out a way.

The murmur of talk from Jade and Rose’s end of the pile has gone into silence, so you guess they’re probably asleep. You feel pretty sleepy yourself. Your thoughts are starting to melt and warp into weird stories – regular dreams, for once, not Derse dreams or dream bubbles or cosmic horrors – when John’s voice brings you back up.

“Hey, Dave?”

“Mm?”

“I just realized, I never hugged you.”

“Huh. I didn’t notice.”

“So I am going to rectify that now, okay?”

“Cool, have fun. I’ll just be sleeping.”

But you’re not sleeping, not even close, as he scoots over and puts his arm around you and squeezes. His head rests on your shoulder. His hand touches one of the bruises Karkat left.

Somewhere in your mind, a dialogue box is blinking: error, error, conflict, error.

Chapter Text

You had a plan and it was a good plan. Or would have been. As you lay awake last night (John fell asleep mid-hug and ended up spending the night cuddled up to you, which was pretty fucking awesome, but didn’t exactly act as a soporific), you remembered Aradia telling you about Karkat’s cache of movies. You figured if you could steal them, that might throw a stick in the jaws of this beast of a movie date that Karkat seems to think he’s going to get to have with John.

Unfortunately, either Aradia was wrong, or Karkat has already taken the DVDs, because the room where Aradia told you to look is empty.

You still have alternatives. You could go back in time and snag the DVDs in the past, which would be a hell of a lot of trouble to go to, but it’s always an option, and in fact it’s possible a future you has done that, which would also explain why the DVDs aren’t here. (You don’t care what the others say, time travel is simple, and anyone who can’t grasp it intuitively is a moron.)

Or you could just find out where the sad little wannabe date is taking place and gatecrash it. You like that plan better.

You’re taking a few minutes to think, trying to decide who would be the best person to ask, when a slight stir of air cools the back of your neck. You turn, expecting to see someone, but the room is still empty. Okay. Weird. You could have sworn you saw someone move.

As you’re leaving the room, something green catches your eye. You look up at the highest shelf.

Oh hell no.

“Hey, brother,” a voice says behind you. “I got to all thinking we could have this little motherfuckin reunion of us and him and me, being as how we’re like old motherfucking friends.”

As you turn, Gamzee blurs, and by the time you’re facing him, Lil Cal has moved from the top shelf down to his shoulder.

“Welp, that sounds totally cool and all, but look at that, I have to go. Later.”

“Aww, fuck. I was thinking at him that since you’re being the Knight of Time you’d have all kinds of time saving up to chill with us. Honk.”

“Yeah, not quite how that works, but good try.” You wait for him to stop blocking the door. He doesn’t move. Of course he doesn’t.

The truth is, you’re not as freaked out as you thought you’d be. Lil Cal is probably going to make you uneasy for the rest of your life, but frankly, the whole using puppets to mess with Dave thing is pretty fucking overplayed. As for Gamzee, okay, he’s quite significantly taller than you, and apparently he’s mastered the art of flashstepping, but at the end of the day he’s still a joke of a clown who goes off the deep end over ICP videos. You’re mostly just trying to figure out how to get out of this with your dignity intact. And no, actually strifing with this buffoon does not meet the minimum criteria.

You’re just wondering whether it’s okay to threaten to report him to Karkat, when the end of a red and white cane taps Gamzee on the shoulder.

Thank fucking god. Getting rescued by a really short chick is still a step up from basically any of your other options.

“Gamzee, leave this to me. I will deal with the intruder.” You swear you can almost hear the l33t when she talks, like she pronounces the vowels with extra gravitas.

Wait, intruder?

Gamzee slopes off, and while you are a little unsettled to note that Lil Cal’s head rotates to watch you all the way down the corridor, you are more disturbed to see that Terezi isn’t smiling. She looks more intimidating when she doesn’t smile, which is pretty special when you consider the number of teeth involved when she does. If you’ve just traded Violent J for fucking Pennywise, you’re not going to be impressed.

“Hey,” you say. “You pretty much saved my ass, so thanks.”

“He wouldn’t have done anything to you,” she says. “I think he is only curious. What are you doing in Karkat’s room, Dave?”

“This is Karkat’s room? Not, like, a storage space he was using? God damn. Dude really likes his chrome in mono, doesn’t he?”

“I observe you did not answer the question.”

“Okay, busted. I was here to steal his movies. Only they’re not here, so I’m just gonna gatecrash his crappy little film festival instead. I dunno where it is, though, so help me out, huh?”

“I have in fact been specifically asked not to tell you where the event is taking place.”

“By who?”

“Karkat, dummy.”

“Oh.” Yeah, that makes sense. “All right, well, I won’t tell him it was you told me.”

“But I’m not going to tell you. Why would I?”

This is making you a little edgy. Wherever this thing is happening, Karkat and John will probably be there by now. Karkat could be instigating some elaborate nineteen-point Egbert seduction strategy while you’re here quibbling with Terezi, who for some unfathomable reason is being a total hindrance instead of a help.

“So, uh, look, did I do something or say something or... make you mad somehow?”

“No, but I am disappointed. This seems like a very petty and childish endeavour for you to be undertaking, Dave.”

“What endeavour is that?”

“Trying to come between Karkat and John because you dislike Karkat. You must know there is no danger of you losing your friend, so I can only assume you’re doing it out of spite.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait, what? No, look, you’ve been way misled here, you’re like ten miles off the road and heading into the woods. Turn back now, all right? Man. Really? That is so not what I’m doing. Fuck.”

She props her hands on her staff in front of her and stands straight, feet apart, square-shouldered and symmetrical. “It appears the defendant denies the charge.”

“What? Oh no, come on, I’m not roleplaying...”

“Does the defendant have any counter-evidence to present that will contradict the charges against him?”

Karkat’s obviously been weaving a web of lies about you behind your back, or maybe he just dropped hints and let her fill in the blanks and go all protective dragon-lawyer over him, it doesn’t matter. You could stand here and tell Terezi all about how you and Karkat both have feelings for John and also how you’ve got this incredibly stupid contest going on, and you could even tell her that Karkat is your kismesis and that if she interferes she’ll be pushing herself into that grey quadrant that no one cares about...

But you so don’t have time for that. Karkat and John might be snuggling up on a couch somewhere right now. Sure, they’re probably not, but that doesn’t mean you have time to waste. You need to convince her, and since the only kind of speech you can manage will probably start rhyming after about three lines, you try something else.

“Here’s your counter-evidence,” you say, and take off your shades.

Terezi’s frown deepens. “The prosecution will not acknowledge such a barefaced attempt at bribery, no matter how enticing.”

“This is not bribery, this is honest to god supplication. Do your freaky mind-reading shit, or your smellovision lie-detector, whatever, just know that I’m not doing this to fuck with Karkat. Or not only to fuck with Karkat,” you amend. “Not like out of malice or anything.”

She opens her mouth and inhales. Her face is aimed downward, so there’s not even the illusion that she’s looking at you, but you feel her perceiving you all the same. You’re not just a pattern of light that happens to strike her eyes, but something she draws into herself consciously and deliberately, every shade and particle of you resolved in her mind.

It’s still scary. It will probably always be scary. But you guess you’re actually pretty okay with it.

Her face relaxes into a grin. “This is very interesting,” she says. “Okay, coolkid, in light of this new evidence, the prosecution dismisses the case against you. They are on LOHAC.”

“Oh shit, he didn’t, my own goddamn planet?”

“I suggest you hurry and find Jade.”

“Yeah, you’re fucking right I will.”

“Good luck, then.”

“I’m pretty sure I heard somewhere that luck doesn’t matter.”

She grins more widely. “I’ll be kind, Dave. I won’t tell Rose you said that.”

“Yeah, thanks.” You go to give her a fist-bump, then change your mind and hug her instead. Hugs aren’t really something you do, but you figure you’ve left her hanging long enough.

***

Jade is by far the most obliging person you’ve talked to today. You tell her you’re invading the film festival, she tells you to have fun and teleports you straight down to your apartment on LOHAC. Nice girl. Best friend.

Most of the mess the imps left has been cleared up, leaving the place not much worse than it was when you and Bro lived here, except for the fucking avalanche of snackfoods scattered all over the floor. John has his feet up on the couch, and while they’re not actually resting across Karkat’s knees, there is definite contact happening. You made it just in time.

“Looks like someone went overboard with the alchemiter.”

“Oh, hey Dave!” John says, waving a licorice whip in greeting. “Yeah, I couldn’t decide what we’d want so I just made everything.”

Karkat actually stands up, as if his rage cannot be contained in a sitting position. “Who the everloving fuck invited you?”

“My house, bro. Don’t need an invite.”

“I told Karkat your apartment had the best TV,” John explains. “I didn’t think you would mind.”

“Nah, I don’t. But me and Aradia are done with timelines now, so I figure, what could be more fun than watching a bunch of godawful movies with you two losers? It’s either that or hang out with Rose all day, and you can never get the smell of wordy inferiority complex out of your clothes.”

Karkat is now giving John a look that says, You were not supposed to tell him. You were not supposed to tell anyone. But you were especially not supposed to tell him. John doesn’t notice. He’s too busy relocating to the middle of the couch so you can sit on his left. “Okay. It’s cool that you’re here! But just so you know, we’re not allowed to mock the movies.”

“Oh, come on.”

“See, when I saw Karkat’s DVDs I kind of laughed at them. Then when he saw my DVDs he said they all looked really bad. So we agreed to the no mocking rule or this thing would never have gotten off the ground.”

“Kind of like Bruce Willis’s mountainous face would never have gotten off the ground.”

“Dave, this film festival has one rule, and if you break it, you’re banned. You can mock later.”

“Fine, but you better reach minimum safe distance when I do, it’s gonna be like, high-pressure acid scorn venting, it’s dangerous letting that shit build up.”

“Eat jelly beans. They work like antacids but for pretentious hipster disdain. Even you can’t eat jelly beans ironically, it cannot be done.”

“Yeah, watch and fucking learn, dude. Pass the Faygo, I’m not going into this sober.”

Karkat is still standing up, like he’s forgotten that’s not what he’s supposed to be doing. John reaches up and pulls him down by the back of his shirt.

They’re halfway through Con Air, which doesn’t surprise you. Watching Con Air is to friendship with John like shaking hands is to meeting presidents of aggressive foreign nations; it’s like a formality you have to get out of the way before you can achieve anything, but no one enjoys it and everyone ends up feeling dirty.

“Did I tell you I had that actual bunny?” John says to Karkat. “Dave got it for me for my birthday, and then it time-travelled a bunch of times and ended up saving my life. Kind of like Dave, I guess!”

Now you feel bad for your uncharitable thoughts. When John says shit like that, and then gives you that particular smile, you feel like this could be okay, in spite of bad movies and bad soda, this whole thing could be okay.

Karkat looks like he wishes his face was a meat-grinder and you were close enough to bite.

You sit through Con Air, studiously pretending you don’t know most of the lines off by heart, and then Karkat puts on one of his movies. The human end of the couch promptly becomes a writhing tangle of confusion, mostly from John.

“Wait,” he says, halfway through, “why are they kissing now? I thought she was with that other girl.”

“Different quadrant,” you say, at the same moment as Karkat says,

“That’s her kismesis. It’s incredibly fucking obvious, John, how can you not tell the difference between that kiss and a red kiss?”

“Yeah, I mean, come on,” you add.

“Jeez, okay, sorry.” He gives you a funny look. “Dave, how would you know?”

You contrive to have your mouth full of gummi worms, and Karkat tells John to pipe down and watch, so you’re saved from having to answer.

Four hours and two movies later, you’re full of sugar and the sluggish misanthropy that comes of watching really bad movies all the way through without being allowed to mock them. Karkat is seething with frustration, and is taking it out on one of your Bro’s remaining smuppets, twisting and twisting until its seams are ready to pop. You don’t think you’re going to be able to take much more of this.

It falls to John to replenish your waning popcorn supplies; in truth nobody really feels like eating more popcorn, but it’s just one of those things that has to be. While the microwave is humming, Karkat takes the opportunity to lean over and say in a low voice, “You really are a gangrenous shitbag, did you know that?”

“So like, I’m still getting used to this, but if you’re saying you want to make out with me now, I’m so not okay with that. John’s here, dude, show a little decorum.”

“It will never be accurate to say I want to make out with you. Making out with you is like making out with the scumcrust I scrape off my load-gaper after a night’s heavy vomiting. I could devote the rest of my life to groping a mannequin sculpted of my own shit and still feel less revulsion and self-hatred than I do right now.”

“Hot.”

“Fuck you.”

“Be patient.”

“What are you guys talking about over there?” John calls over.

“What we’re doing later,” you call back.

“I will fucking kill you,” Karkat growls. “I will strangle you with your own intestines and leave you in a public place.”

“You better not be fighting! I’ll shoosh you both, not even kidding.”

“Oh, god,” Karkat mutters, slumping back on the futon. “I wish to fuck I’d never told him about the conciliatory quadrants. Now he thinks moirallegiance is the answer to everything.”

“Yeah, but you regret everything you ever do, don’t you? Your existence is like this endless conveyor belt of stupid shit you can’t stop doing.”

“Yes, you’ve hit on it, that’s absolutely fucking spot-on. Everything I’ve ever done has been a deplorable mistake and I can only look back in horror and wonder what the hell I was thinking. In this room alone there are at least eight things I regret and I’m looking at the biggest one right now.”

“Oh shit, man, I think you just burned me. I’m gonna pull my pants down right now and see your lame-ass little 69 symbol stamped on my butt, right under where it says Made in the Veil, Product of Derse.”

“Are you guys listening to me?” John says. “No fighting!” The popcorn is done, leaving you without cover noise, so you can turn your attention to him.

“Hey, you aren’t the auspistice of me, I fight who I want.”

He comes back around the futon and flops down between the two of you, balancing the fresh bowl of popcorn on his knees. “Dave, how do you know about autopasties?”

“Auspistices!” Karkat growls.

John ignores him. “Did Terezi explain it to you, because if so she sounds way more helpful than Vriska was with me!”

“No. I just pay attention, dude, it’s not that complicated.”

“That is such bullshit! Last time I talked to you about it you said it had something to do with getting four buckets and throwing a grub at them to see which quadrant it lands in!”

Karkat facepalms spectacularly.

“Yeah, well, I’ve updated my theories.”

“Based on what?”

“Can we watch this movie or do I have to sit here listening to you two appalling ignoramuses speculate wildly about something that’s none of your business?”

John grimaces. “Fine, but I am eating all this popcorn, all of it, you don’t get any.”

“Whatever, like we want your nasty stale-tasting alchemized popcorn.” You take a handful anyway, and he can’t fight you too hard while keeping the bowl upright. Karkat hits play, and you idly pick up the DVD case to read the title.

A young blue-blood finding himself unexpectedly at leisure agrees to a contest with his kismesis to seduce a cynical rust-blood and then publicly jilt her; his sentiments for her begin to grow more sincerely flushed but her burgeoning red feelings are rocked when she learns of the wager and begins to despise him; fearing she will be the cause of black infidelity he makes a series of increasingly extravagant gestures to demonstrate the authenticity of his pity, culminating in a slam-poetry proposition in the presence of his superiors. Includes nine on-screen decapitations, one episode of inadvertent horn-touching, seven references to filial pails, one recreational use of sopor slime, twenty-five lines that could be construed as humorous, two heartfelt feelings jams between the rust-blood and her sassy psionic moirail who is eventually culled for his disrespectful attitude, three instances of humiliating public rejection...

You hope Karkat isn’t trying to make some kind of subtle point with this. You spin the box across the couch to hit him in the chest.

“Good choice,” you say. “Sounds like one we can all learn from.”

“I really fucking doubt that.”

You try to concentrate on the movie. It’s tough, because you’re still high on sugar and it’s the most vapid movie ever to feature nine on-screen decapitations. It’s like this event horizon of inanity, where your mind kind of freezes on the outer edge of attention and remains there in limbo forever, unable to either break free or fully descend into the oblivion of being actually interested in this shit.

Karkat, in a truly romantic gesture that only the most untrained eye could mistake for the merely friendly, gives John the last coconut finger-cake. You’re going to have to escalate matters. You catch Karkat’s eye, and with your smuggest poker-face in position, reach over and drape your arm around John.

John jumps. “Uh, hi.”

“Hey.”

“Hey. Um. What are you doing?”

“We’re married, right?”

“Oh!” He laughs a little. “I forgot to tell you! Karkat says feelings jams aren’t romantic by definition, it’s just that most trolls don’t really have friends, so they only do it with their moirail or their matesprite.”

“Matesprit!”

“No one cares, Karkat! So anyway, I guess we’re not married after all, sorry Dave.”

“You say that, but you’re not showing me any divorce papers.”

“It’s probably good, though, or we would technically be married to Jade and Rose as well, and that could be awkward.”

“That’s like the whole point of quadrants, four people to a marriage,” you say, mostly just to provoke Karkat. It works. Of course.

“Oh my god, this is actually giving me pain. Right here in my abdominal cavity, this stabbing pain, every time you extravagant idiots try to talk about romance. Or quadrants. Or really anything. Can you just shut up? Please? I mean, can you? I’m asking seriously here, are you even capable of it?”

“You first, bro. I’m pretty sure you’d forget to breathe if you weren’t talking.”

“All right, I can acknowledge that this is like the spider-lusus saying the wiggler has too many legs, but for the sake of my sanity, and that of anyone else who happens to be listening – ”

“Hey, I just remembered you’re an alien.”

“What the fuck.”

“I forgot for a minute there, but then you started in about wigglers again and it’s like, oh yeah, you’re an alien.”

“Strider, do you have a point?”

“No, dude, I’m just saying, if you weren’t constantly coming out with quaint alien shit, I’d basically never notice that you’re this horned psychopathic grey thing, and then I might start taking you seriously. So it’s a good thing you never fucking stop doing that. I mean, damn, we were almost in trouble there.”

“For fuck’s sake,” John says. “How about both of you shut up? Against all odds I am trying to watch the damn movie!”

The three of you sit in silence for a while. You’ve still got your arm around John, and usually that would be more than enough, but since Karkat is here you feel like you have to up your game a bit. Not rush things, exactly, maybe just nudge them along a little faster.

You spend a good long time thinking how to do that, and while you’re busy drawing a blank, Karkat gives John the last licorice whip.

“Okay, stop.” John wriggles out from under your arm, puts the popcorn bowl on the floor, and pauses the movie. Now you know shit got serious. “Okay,” he says again, “why do I feel like I’m missing something here?”

“Already?” Karkat says. “It’s barely even started, what’s not to get? The main character is on military leave because a Subjugglator – ”

“Not the movie, dumbass! You guys! You are being really weird!”

“I don’t know what you expect if you force me to share space with this insufferable prick.”

“Oh man, it is not even about your bickering, I don’t care about that. It just feels like, I don’t know, like you two have been talking over my head this whole time. Also – ”

“John, we’re not – ”

“Also,” he says stubbornly, “I thought I was imagining it, but now I am pretty sure you’re both hitting on me.”

Oh, fuck.

You look at Karkat and can see him thinking pretty much the same thing, because he has no poker face. Then he opens his mouth. He is so infuriatingly predictable.

“John, listen, here’s the thing – ”

“Oh, god, dude, no, shut up – ”

“ – you’re much less oblivious a guy than I thought at first, okay – ”

“Gosh, Karkat, thanks a whole lot! That is so nice to hear!”

“ – and this was really a horrible idea from the start, which isn’t surprising, since it was my idea – ”

“Please let this not be happening.”

“ – and stop flapping your lips at me, Dave, I’m telling him, that’s my decision – ”

“Yeah, I thought we just agreed that everything you decide to do is fucking stupid, so what makes you think this is any different, you egregious bumbling dumbfuck shithead?”

“Yes, for once you’re right, it’s a well-known fact that I make poor fucking decisions when left to my own devices, but that doesn’t explain why you took part in this fiasco – ”

“Like I was going to say no when you were all, ‘everything’s a good thing to fight over, now come here and let me bite your impudent lips that I’m so fucking obsessed with’ – ”

You realize what you’re saying about half a second too late.

“What?!” John actually brings his hands up to his face, like some Americana housewife who’s spotted a mouse in the kitchen. It’d be comical if you hadn’t caused it by basically fucking everything up.

You can see Karkat getting ready to launch into his explanation again, but you don’t have to be a Seer to know that there is no possible way to explain this that isn’t going to make you sound like a pair of unforgivable assholes, not to mention shitty friends. You can think of only one thing to do, and on the scale of one to terrible it rates about a thousand, but see, you have this tendency to not really think things through and end up making more problems for yourself.

You turn John’s face towards you and kiss him.

John tenses; before you can even get into it, his hands fly up to your shoulders and he pushes you back to arm’s length. “Dave, what the hell?”

Damn it. There goes... well, everything. Not that there was ever really anything. This whole thing you’ve built in your head over two days was basically just a house of cards, a well-defined absence with flimsy little slivers of almost-something delicately balanced between the empty spaces. Doesn’t matter how nice it looked, how tall you built it, there was still nothing there.

You should have seen this coming – you did see it coming, and you kissed him anyway, because like all stupid things, it seemed easy.

He’s still watching you, waiting for an answer, and you can’t meet his eyes. You try and you can’t do it. This is gross, utterly revolting, you’re making yourself physically nauseous. This must be how it feels to be Karkat; it would actually be pretty cathartic to beat the shit out of Karkat right now, and get some back, but oh god, you can’t be thinking that when John is still looking at you and you just...

“Yeah. Okay. I fucked up. So. Sorry I guess.”

“Did I say that? People have to stop springing stuff on me, come on, it is really not fair.”

He’s still holding onto your shirt with one hand. Before you can quite begin to think what that might mean, he tugs on it and pulls you closer, and this time when you kiss him he kisses back. Your thoughts are no longer thoughts. Your thoughts are a mass of something wobbly and unrecognizable and deep vivid red.

Karkat makes a sound like someone stepped on him.

At last John pulls back and looks at you in that unguarded, fearless way of his, that look that used to be naivety and grew up into courage. He doesn’t say anything, but he smiles at you, and this is pretty much the best thing ever, you could get the sweetest rhymes going on this right now. But wait, John thinks rapping is lame, so maybe you can somehow think it round to being like movies instead, like every dumb sappy scene in every dumb sappy movie Karkat likes.

Karkat. Damn it, you almost forgot about Karkat. He’s still exactly where he was when you last looked, but now he has this look on his face you’ve never seen before, this crumpled, broken-edged sort of anger that can’t even raise itself up to sarcasm. He looks like somebody flattened him and then plumped him back up and propped him in a sitting position, and he’s mad about it, but the volume got squashed out of him and all he can do is stare. It makes you want to go over and hit him till he retaliates.

“Oh, man,” John says, almost groans. “I am by far the smartest person out of any of us.”

He leans over, hesitates briefly, and then kisses Karkat, too. Your heart stutters. When he pulls away, Karkat looks confused as hell and starting to get really pissed off, and for once you’re right there with him.

“One of you is gonna have to explain the backstory here,” John says, “and by the way, I’m still not talking about the movie! But I am going to assume it all has something to do with quadrants, and also, I kind of don’t really care, because I have been sitting here all this time thinking I’m going to have to choose, and it would be really awesome if I didn’t. So... I mean, are you guys okay with this?”

Maybe things aren’t going as badly as you thought? John isn’t angry or freaked out, and he still has a handful of your shirt and a handful of Karkat’s, and he’s looking back and forth between you like a kid with two lollipops trying to decide which one to eat first. This is not bad at all. This is actually pretty good. Not what you expected, but good.

Karkat is not realizing this. Dude never rolled with anything in his life.

“Okay,” he says, “what the fuck is going on? What kind of warped human idea of a prank is this, John? First you go on and on for hours about how you’re ‘not a homosexual’, and I am still not entirely clear on what the fuck that means, by the way, but now you’ve apparently changed your mind, and what, you’re so completely fucking incapable of being consistent or in any way decisive that you’re trying to fill one quadrant with two people? Is that what you’re doing?”

“Uh, Karkat, you are kind of missing the – ”

“That is so fucking depraved I don’t even know what to say, and yet somehow I’m not surprised! I don’t know what else I expected from a species with such an inexcusably deficient conception of romance, and even if most humans have the fucking propriety to restrain themselves, I should have known that you two reprobates would have no such qualms. You probably don’t even realize how perverse this would be, so I’ll just have take all the proper shame and self-loathing you should be feeling right now and feel it myself. Thank god that by an utterly dismal confluence of events I’ve spent my life preparing to feel this magnitude of contempt. It’s obviously the reason I was hatched! It makes really depressing sense! The purpose of my whole existence has been to reach this point and inform you how reprehensible you are, and I guess that’s done, so unless either of you idiots can come up with a more surpassingly humiliating way to go, I’m just going to submerge my face in a shallow bowl of Faygo and touch myself until I drown, destiny accomplished, thank you both so very fucking much.”

“Hahaha, oh jeez, Karkat, seriously – ”

“No, don’t you fucking talk, there’s nothing you can say that’s going to make this into any less of a disaster, all you can do is add further insult to this cheery fucking dismemberment you’ve inflicted on me. That’s it. I am finished. Basically, John Egbert, fuck you for implying I’d ever want to be involved in this outrageousness, and fuck me for being here right now to have it implied to me, and especially, fuck that dark-spectacled shitstain over there, not for any particular reason, just because he fucking deserves it.”

The worst thing is, no matter what he says, you can tell from the cadence and volume that he’s not even close to done yet. Someone is going to have to shut him up, and John looks as if he just thinks this is funny, so it’s going to have to be you. Fortunately, when Karkat’s this worked up, you don’t think it’ll take much to just snap him right over all his internal roadblocks.

“All right,” you say, “listen the fuck up, you histrionic piece of shit. At this point I am so done listening to you foam at the mouth. You’re like a smoke detector that never shuts up, like all you know is how to sound the alarm at every innocuous molecule that floats your way, and it is so fucking obnoxious, I can’t even convey how much I need to not be hearing your voice right now. Consider yourself kicked out. Go and humiliate yourself to death in whatever way seems fucking best to you. Me and John have this covered.”

To demonstrate, you lean in to kiss John again, taking it slow enough to enjoy this time round, appreciating the sticky sweetness on his lips, and the way he smiles against your mouth, that’s just such a great thing. You wait until the right moment, and then, with your eyes still closed, you give Karkat the finger.

It takes about half a second before you feel his hands grabbing you, pulling you and John apart; and you’re not at all surprised when he goes for you first, tearing into you with his mouth, sprawled across John’s legs and holding your wrists so tight you know you’ll have new bruises in a couple hours.

“Okay, yeah, I can tell the difference between that kind of kiss and the regular kind,” John says helpfully. “Do you actually enjoy it, though? Are you even supposed to enjoy it? I guess I still don’t really understand how this works. Dave, you look like a dork, take your shades off.”

It’s so weird to feel like laughing while Karkat’s still pinning you down, his teeth scraping along your jaw, but there’s really nothing about this that isn’t weird. You feel John stroking his fingers through your hair, brushing it back from your forehead, and then he manoeuvres your shades off and captchalogues them. You don’t mind so much when he does that. At least he doesn’t try to throw them anywhere.

You manage to twist one hand out of Karkat’s grip and rake your nails through the shorter hair at the nape of his neck, tugging down at the collar of his shirt. When he comes up to kiss you, you bite hard on his lower lip, putting pressure on the back of his head to make sure he can’t pull away, determined to see blood this time.

“You guys really need to take those shirts off before you tear them,” John remarks. “Oh, Dave, do that thing with his horns again, he liked that.”

You break the kiss, breathless, and look up at John. “You wanna drive, dude?”

He just smiles at you, and in that unguarded moment you almost smile back, but then Karkat is making you pay for the distraction, the heel of his hand jammed up against your mouth, mashing your lips back against your teeth. “Excuse me, could I be doing more to hold your attention, you frivolous douchebag? I know you’re not used to having to actually concentrate on any one thing for more than six seconds at a stretch, so seriously, I’m open to suggestions.”

You have to question his sincerity about that, since he doesn’t take the trouble remove his hand from your mouth. You have to settle for raising one eyebrow, because you know he can’t do that and it’ll annoy him even more.

“Sorry, I’m not fluent in smug prick facial expressions, could you try and make it a little fucking clearer?”

“I think he is saying maybe you should try, uh, kissing me again?” John interjects. “I think that might be a good idea. I mean, it seems like it would be, if you want to.”

“Oh my fucking god,” you say, but Karkat’s hand is still in the way and it comes out sounding like “mm mm ffckmm gomm”. John apparently decides to take that as you agreeing, because he puts his hand on Karkat’s shoulder and leans in. You feel Karkat’s hand tremble just a little against your mouth when John kisses him, and his grip on your wrist loosens, like he’s temporarily forgotten how to do anything forceful.

For a moment you don’t even take advantage, because you can’t take your eyes off them. You’d think with those two any kiss would be all teeth all the time, but they’re actually doing okay, and watching it is making your heartrate pick up; the little prickle of jealousy you feel only makes it more exciting. Karkat’s lower lip is bleeding from when you bit it, leaving thin streaks of darker red across John’s mouth, and John slides his other hand up under Karkat’s shirt almost shyly, exposing the flat of his belly.

It’s really tempting just to lie back and enjoy the show, except you’ve never been the kind of guy who does that; you see something good going on, you want to be in the middle of it. That phrase being particularly applicable in this case.

You knock Karkat’s hand away from your face, lift yourself up on your elbow (which is the most you can do since Karkat is still sitting on you) and hook your arm around his waist, hiking his shirt up further and scratching your fingernails across his abdomen, right across where his navel ought to be. He hisses in his throat and tries to elbow you off him.

“Ow, hey!” John says, jerking his head back and putting a hand to his mouth. “Careful with your teeth, Karkat!”

“Shit,” Karkat mutters, visibly shrinking, his arm dropping to his side. “Sorry, I just... shit. Did I hurt you?”

“No, it’s fine.” John glances at you and half-smiles, like you’re exchanging a private joke. Troll teeth, right? Haha, yeah. “Uh, actually, though, as long as we’re not... you know... this is a little uncomfortable, I mean I am kind of stuck under the two of you and my legs are going to sleep, so...”

Karkat shifts back awkwardly, almost falling off the futon, and you think how differently he moved when you were fighting him. All of that ease of measured aggression is gone now; he looks like he has too many joints and doesn’t know what to do with them all, and he’s tugging the hem of his shirt back down like he’s got some kind of modesty to protect, and that’s it, that is the end of your patience reached, and you’re not putting up with this from him. Talk about fucking high-maintenance, you’d think this would be his wet dream or whatever the troll equivalent is, but nope, he’s gotta freak out about every damn thing. What you really want to be doing right now is kissing John some more and learning the rhythm he moves to and finding out what you can do to him that will turn his breath into sound on the exhale, but instead you’ve got to fucking deal with Karkat and make him hate something other than himself before he just ruins this good thing for everyone.

You lean over and press your lips against John’s neck just below his ear, and say, “Hang on, I’m coming back for you,” then you clamber over him (you hear him laughing, and you guess that was pretty corny what you just said, but whatever) and sit Karkat back on the couch, hard, straddling his legs and holding his head as if you want to pull it off with your hands.

“Are you gonna pull yourself to-fucking-gether or am I gonna have to bring the pity? Because I’m about ready to spin this fucking concupiscent compass all the way round to just feeling goddamn sorry for you, you’re that pathetic right now.”

“Oh, fuck you, Strider, don’t pretend you have the slightest idea what the hell you’re talking about!”

You yank on his hair hard enough to feel a few strands break. “You even think about getting into another rant I will bite your tongue off.”

“Uh, guys...”

“John, it’s cool, I got this.” You feel Karkat trying to turn his head but you keep your grip steady, holding his gaze so all he can see is your freakish red, so he knows that as long as you’re here his focus is on you, and he’d better bring the fucking game if he wants the favour returned. And it’s starting to work, you can feel his awkward uncertainty smoothing out, the zigzag of his heartbeat settling into something stronger and slower.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?”

“The hell kinda question is that?” you return, because you really have no idea, you’re just doing what feels right, the way you always have.

“You are so fucking human it makes me sick.” He brings his hands up your body, clawing lines you can feel from the bottom of your ribs up to your shoulders, his fingernails biting into the muscle of your upper arm. God, he’s so hatefully good at this.

“Hey, Dave, do the thing with his horns again.”

For an instant your concentration falters and you look up at John. “Fuck, man, seriously. Seriously.”

“What? I just think you should – ”

Then Karkat has seized your face and he’s kissing you, a growl thrumming somewhere deep inside him, so low you can only feel it, not hear it. Your mouth cramps around the pleasurably bitter taste of his blood, and you bite down harder, wanting more of it.

You feel the cushions shift as John moves closer, and then he’s working his hand through Karkat’s hair as well, his fingers brushing yours as he does, and you can feel the moment when he finds one of Karkat’s horns and strokes his thumb over and around it, because Karkat vibrates and gasps, his mouth coming open.

John crowds in even closer, slipping his arm around you for balance, and then he’s planting small soft kisses all the way up and down your neck, every bit he can reach, and how are you supposed to reconcile that with the good-painful things Karkat’s doing? This is like, overload, circuits frying, sparks chasing along every nerve in your body, and you haven’t even fucking done anything yet.

When John slips his hand underneath yours and slowly disentangles your fingers from Karkat’s hair, you decide you’re going to let him. His other arm is still around your waist, and he’s managed to slide his hand up under your shirt, stroking his forefinger along the sensitive skin just above the waistband of your pants. You feel like you shouldn’t even be noticing such a small thing when Karkat’s busy nibbling at the sore places on your mouth, but it’s John doing it, so it’s not only noticeable, but more of a turn-on than you would have thought possible.

After a minute John decides now is a good time to start pulling your shirt off, and you’re not going to argue with that. You only have to stop kissing Karkat for a few seconds, but during that time he puts his hands on your hips, right on the bruises he made there yesterday, and surges up against you like a force of nature, raw and tidal and ferocious. John is skimming his hands lightly over your bare back and chest, and the difference between the two of them is so perfect, so fucking – but after a moment you realize John is pausing at every little mark and cut and bruise, and when you look at him he’s not smiling any more. Shit, what does that mean?

“What?” you say.

“How did you get all these...” He looks down at the way Karkat’s fingers are cutting into you, and his eyebrows go up. “Oh.”

You know what he’s seeing; you checked in the shower this morning, and yeah, there are some good ones. The bruises from Karkat’s horns look almost as dark as inkstains, spreading into oversaturated yellow and purple, like, all those bruises need is some jpeg artefacts and shitty copy-paste residuals and you’d have yourself a new comic background. You’ve always bruised easily, and they look worse than they are, but John doesn’t know that. He’s looking like he wants to ask for an explanation, maybe talk about healthy relationships or what the fuck ever stupid bullshit John thinks would be a good thing to talk about right now, and you don’t know how to tell him it’s okay, so you just kiss him again before he can ask, sucking his lower lip into your mouth and running your tongue over it, closing your eyes to taste the lingering sugar-sweet and feel the slight chapped roughness.

You can still feel him being all concerned, though, so you stop, even though stopping is the last thing you want to do.

“Okay, look,” you say, “thing is, I know this looks like some kind of s&m shit, or maybe something worse, I guess. But we’re trying this kismesis deal out, and that’s what it’s supposed to be like. I mean, as far as I’m concerned, it’s cool. But if you really feel like you need to call intermission or whatever...”

You’re pretty sure Karkat has no fucking idea what either of you are talking about, but at least he doesn’t interrupt. John hesitates, then shakes his head. “No, if you say it’s okay, then I guess it is okay. It’s just not what I expected.”

“Yeah, I feel you.” All of you are kind of missing bits of vital information here. It probably would’ve been easier to talk everything through first, and you’re actually kind of surprised how good John’s doing at going with the flow. What with all the time-travel you spent a lot of the game knowing more about everything than he did, and you sort of got used to thinking of him as being perpetually several steps behind you, but now you’re both just about on the same level, and he’s keeping up fine.

As if to prove the point, John shrugs and pulls his own shirt off, dropping his glasses on top of it, and everyone is committed to muddling through this as best they can and saving the chitchat for later. His hand slides back into Karkat’s hair, one thumb circling the left horn in a lazy spiral. There’s something pretty suggestive about that when you actually see it happening, and the way Karkat reacts is more than suggestive; he sinks his teeth into his still-bloody lip and furrows his forehead as if feeling good is a really complicated question he has to answer.

John kisses you again, his arm tightening around your waist, and probes at your mouth with his tongue. Karkat is watching it all, his eyes practically burning holes in the two of you. His hands slide down from your hips to the backs of your thighs, and when he scratches you there, even through the fabric, it sends thrills racing all through your body.

He’s getting hotter now, like something humming and electric underneath you, and you’re pushing the knuckles of your fist down against his warm chest, working over his bony ribs and wondering why the hell he’s still got his shirt on. You break away from John to fix that, and he helps you, bending down to kiss Karkat the way he was just kissing you, and exploring Karkat’s bared chest much more gently than you just were. You catch yourself wondering what Karkat prefers. Fuck, this is messed up in the best possible way.

You slip your hand down to palm his bulge smoothly; you can feel it squirming, trying to find something to envelop it. This is probably really frustrating for him. Oh well.

You roll your hand down in shallow strokes and listen for the way his panting gets this harsh edge to it, like he’s close to crying out. One of his hands comes up blindly, striking you on the bridge of the nose hard enough to make your eyes water, then he grabs your hair, pulling and twisting until it feels like he’s trying to pull your scalp off. You turn your head just enough to nip at the inside of his wrist.

“Ow, careful,” John murmurs, still stroking lightly along Karkat’s stomach. Karkat immediately pulls back. “No, it’s okay, just – ”

“Fuck, John, that’s the second time he’s tried to chew your mouth off, I don’t think he’s ready for you yet. Want me to take over till he’s fit for human society?”

Karkat’s eyes fly open and he starts to tell you to fuck off (it’s like a goddamn reflex for him), but the words don’t come out right, they sort of trip over and break down and go quiet, and then he just stares at you. You realize your nose is bleeding a little; the warm metal taste of it pools on your upper lip, and it’s that he’s looking at. Holy shit. You don’t think anyone’s ever looked at you in quite that way before, like he just wants to crush you until you’ll fit in between the palms of his hands all red and beaten and his.

You’re kissing him before you even know you mean to, sliding down so you can rub up against his hip, because you seriously cannot take another second without being touched. It breaks his hold on silence, finally, and he makes this noise against your mouth like, ah, ah, ah, like you’re hurting him, but his hand in your hair is so gripping tight you couldn’t move away if you wanted to. Neither of you closes your eyes.

He shifts beneath you, pushing you back onto the floor, and you knock over the bowl of popcorn but nobody cares at this point. Karkat is wiggling you out of your remaining clothes, and John is watching it all, wide-eyed, his mouth slightly open, and you want to kiss him so much it hurts. You reach out and tug at the hem of his pants, the only bit of him you can reach. He slithers down to kneel beside you willingly enough, but before you can pull him in, Karkat steals your attention again, one hand encircling your dick while he works the other between his own legs, which might be one of the hottest things you’ve ever seen. Your dick is pulsing already, just from that and from knowing that John is watching it all, but you fight it, channelling the urge to surrender into aggression. You bite at Karkat’s neck as hard as you can, sucking up the salt-bitter warmth that bursts onto your tongue and savouring every smothered sound that comes from him.

Something touches your hand, softer than anything in the world should be at that moment; John has taken your hand and is uncurling your clenched fingers one by one, running his thumb gently and methodically across your knuckles to relax your grip. You meet his eyes and you’re gone, jerking up helplessly into Karkat’s hand.

Shit. That wasn’t meant to happen. You try to sit up, even though you feel like collapsing, but Karkat shoves you back down, not showing any special concern for how hard your head hits the floor. “Stay where the fuck you are, chute-stuffer,” he breathes in your ear, and when he says it like that it almost sounds like an endearment. You stay where you are. A few seconds later his hand, still slick with your come, clutches convulsively at your wrist, and you feel the way his whole body tenses and shivers on top of you. He doesn’t make a sound. You’ll get him for that next time.

You give Karkat a moment, then kick him off you. John is still sitting there all unattended and lust-dazed and still wearing half his clothes, which is like a fucking crime. When you kiss him he wraps his arms around you in the tightest hug you’ve ever received, even counting the one when Jade decided she had to hug you, John and Rose at the same time and you were stuck in the middle. It’s not so bad having the breath squashed out of you. John’s enthusiasm makes up for a lot of things, and if it didn’t, the feeling of him hard against your leg definitely would.

You pull back for half a second. “Still all right?” you ask. You don’t think he’s going to back out, but things are moving pretty fast and you want to give him the chance.

You’re very glad when he laughs, breathless and giddy. “Uh, yeah! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Awesome.”

“Yeah!”

If there’s one thing you like about John, it’s the fact that you never have to work very hard to get a response from him. When you reach down and rub his erection through his clothes, he moans and buries his face in your neck, still hugging you so tight you can hardly move. After a minute, you feel Karkat move up behind you and wrap his arms around you both – it’s kind of a strange feeling, even though you know he’s only hugging you to get at John, and by the way, how do you keep getting stuck in the middle of these things? Whatever. You can feel the movement of John’s head as they kiss, and you can’t even find it in you to be jealous of that right now.

The angle is awkward even when you pull down his zipper, and you don’t have the room to make this anything other than sloppy and clumsy, but John is basically everything you could have wanted; he whimpers and thrusts up into your hand and doesn’t loosen his arms around you even a little bit, so you don’t think he minds that it’s not perfect. You’re still going to show him you can do better in future, though. Good thing the future is one thing you’re not fucking short of.

Afterwards you take it in turns to clean up. Karkat puts his clothes back on, returns to the futon, hoards the remote control and curls up on his side wrapped in a blanket. You’re grudgingly impressed: you didn’t think there was such a thing as a blanket in your apartment. Bro must’ve had a secret supply of them somewhere.

“Okay,” you say, while John is in the bathroom, “mission accomplished, dude, do we have to watch the rest of your shitty movies?”

“This one is good, though.”

“Hahaha, oh my god.”

“And actually, you smug pustule on the seedflap of the universe, I did think it might be educational for you, it showcases the difference between kismesissitude and matespritship – ”

“Wow, look, patronizing asshole’s back to take us all to school, I missed him so much.”

“Do not start with me right now, Strider, you may think your flippant horseshit is cute but I promise you it is anything but.”

“You’re the one who keeps making out with me, I am getting hella mixed signals here. Just tell me what I need to do to make myself less attractive to you, I’ll do it. And for the love of fuck don’t start talking about your cargo yawner again.”

“Load gaper.”

“Don’t care.”

“Why does it please you to behave as though you’re a moron who can’t remember simple phrases? Why do you enjoy giving that impression, if you’re as smart as you say you are?”

“Guys,” John says from behind you, “can I not leave you alone for five minutes?”

“What?”

“You’re fighting again, don’t pretend you’re not.”

“I’d hardly say that counts as a fight,” Karkat says, extending one hand from under the blanket to grope for a packet of fruit gushers.

“Yeah,” you say, making room for John to sit next to you. “But fighting is the point, dude, you know? Kinda comes with the territory. Do you have a problem with it?”

“I... huh. Not really, I guess. But I wasn’t sure how serious you were about that.”

He hands you back your shades as he sits down, then slips his hand through yours, but that doesn’t quite silence the warning bells in your mind.

“It’s just,” he goes on, “I kind of would have expected one of you to say something about it to me if it was serious, seeing as how you are both my friends and all.” There’s nothing actively accusing in his voice, but a lesser coolkid would be squirming by now anyway.

“We would’ve told you. I mean, come on, it’s not like we’re on our golden wedding anniversary.”

“Whatever that is,” Karkat interjects.

“Okay, fair enough,” says John. “How long?”

“Since, uh. Yesterday.”

“Ha, no way!”

You shrug.

John is running his fingers around your wrist, where the bruises are just starting to show. His touch is light, but it’s the casual way he does it that really makes you shivery inside. You could get used to that.

“Maybe I could be you guys’s autopstis,” he says.

Karkat covers his face with his hands. “John, no.”

“What? It’s romantic, isn’t it?”

“See, this is the problem, this is exactly the problem. Saying something is romantic without specifying whether it’s concupiscent or conciliatory is like, fuck, I don’t know, saying there’s weather. What does that mean? It’s nothing. It’s worse than if you didn’t say anything at all.”

“Okay, but Karkat, we’re not trolls, in fact you are outnumbered right now, so couldn’t we try doing, like, troll things but in a human way?”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“No, it’s multicultural! Like what Jade and Rose were saying.”

“Is it multicultural when you steal someone’s culture, twist it into something unrecognizable and generally try to be as disrespectful and ignorant as you can?”

“Maybe the three of us were destined to revolutionize troll romance. Like, our aspistasy was written in the stars or something.” He pokes Karkat slyly. “You know, the ones you fucking made for me.”

“Oh god.” Karkat rolls over and pulls the blanket over his head.

“I thought that was actually pretty romantic! Hehehe, I mean aside from the fact that you were saying how much you hated me.”

“Shut the fuck up. You weren’t going to mention that ever again.”

“I don’t think that is really applicable anymore.”

You guess this must be a reference to the notorious awkward advances conversation the existence of which you predicted lo these many years ago. You are gonna have to get John to show you the log or something, because it sounds epically embarrassing and you just need that in your arsenal.

It’s becoming pretty clear to you that giving Karkat a hard time about shit is not something you’re ever going to get bored of.

You put a hand on John’s arm. It’s cool that you can do that now. “Dude, chill. We don’t need an auspistice.”

“Are you sure?”

“Fuckin sure.”

“Okay. Do you think anyone else needs one?”

You look at him.

“What? It sounds like fun!”

“Only you could think that sounds like fun, Egbert, jesus fuck. I guess if you really wanna you could get between me and Gamzee.”

“The clown? Oh, man, I didn’t think of the clown, I don’t think I want to talk to him.”

“No,” Karkat says, sitting up again, his face pinkish and dented from the cushions, “no, no, fucking no, you don’t get it, you can’t auspisticize for your own matesprit, John! That’s not how it works!”

“I don’t see why not! Anyway, Dave isn’t my matesprit, he’s my boyfriend.”

You turn your head maybe a little too fast. “I am?”

“Uh, yeah? I mean, are you?” For a moment he actually looks worried. That’s so adorable you can’t even come up with a metaphor to describe it.

“Oh, well yeah, sure, that’s cool,” you say. “I mean, kinda dorky but whatever, if that’s what you want to call it.”

“I could go back to calling you my bride if you want.”

“Ha, yeah, okay.”

“But not ironically.”

“What? How would that even be possible?”

“Well, I’m not being your boyfriend.” Karkat pronounces the word as if it’s foreign and possibly rude. “Why would you even invent a word like that, what’s the point? How does that particular compound signify a romantic relationship? It doesn’t, it’s completely generic, it could mean anything. More human fucking ambiguity on the subject of romance, I am thoroughly unsurprised.”

You give him your best eyebrows. “That is enough out of you, dude. Who’s been hitting on humans right left and fucking centre ever since you found out we existed? That’s right, you. It’s obvious you can’t get enough of this tender mammalian pork loin.”

“Pork loin,” John repeats. Nice deadpan. Kid is learning.

“Filet mignon of pasty hairless primate.”

“Dude, shut up.”

“Succulent pink cutlets of – ”

He elbows you in the ribs. You shut up.

Chapter Text

The three of you attempt to sit through the rest of Karkat’s movie, but you decide that the rule against mocking has been tacitly repealed, Karkat disagrees, and eventually John gets bored of the snarking and starts to clean up all the candy wrappers. You might have to tone it down a little while he’s around, but you can autotune the off notes later.

Karkat is halfway through a rant about colour-symbolism and quadrant flipping when someone knocks at the apartment door. John looks at you, like it’s a normal afternoon in the Strider residence and he thinks you’re expecting guests or something. “Who’s that?”

“How the fuck should I know? It’s your party.”

Karkat makes a grumbling noise and goes to open the door while the two of you are still looking at each other.

“Oh, hi Karkat! Hi John, hi Dave!” Jade comes in, trailing exclamation points. “Sorry to interrupt the film festival!”

You wave a hand carelessly. “Man, it was over anyway. Late and unlamented, get that fucker in a Chicago overcoat before someone tries to kiss it. What’s up?”

“Well, I was going to teleport you back,” she says, stepping gingerly over the spilled popcorn that none of you have bothered to sweep up yet, “but Rose said I should probably give you some warning first?”

“Uh,” John says.

“Yeah, good call,” you say, before John can get thinking too hard about what would have happened if Jade had teleported the three of you back to Rose’s planet, say, fifty-four minutes ago.

“You see,” she says, “while you have all been watching stupid movies all day – ”

“Hey!” John and Karkat say together.

“ – we have actually been getting shit done!” she finishes with an impish grin. “Me and Rose and Aradia and Terezi have all been talking and we have come up with a way to preview the new session before we arrive!”

“Does it involve more piles of yarn?”

“Hehehe, no, it involves superpowers and girls who are clever.” She pokes her tongue out at you, and you have to smile. You pretty much can never help smiling at Jade.

“Well, fuck, throw in a sick bassline and some crappy clipart and that’s basically all the stuff I like. What are we waiting for?”

She teleports you all back to the ruined lab. Everyone else is there already. Rose raises an enquiring eyebrow at you, and Terezi hikes her grin up to manic, but you will not lower yourself to respond to any kind of facial innuendo.

The girls all huddle together, like they’re doing some kind of seance around the computer terminal they’ve fixed up. Rose does something involving tendrils of light that twine around Terezi and Aradia like wires connecting them to the screen, and you can feel Aradia’s internal gears shifting through timelines, little bits of history chiming and catching like teeth somewhere in your mind, and then one of the terminal screens blinks on.

The picture is blurry and takes up maybe a quarter of the screen. Everyone crowds in closer.

“Okay,” Jade says hesitantly, “that could be... oh! Rose, look! I think that’s my island!” She points at a cluster of grey interference that could be some sort of building, or possibly a kitty scratching-post, it’s kind of hard to tell.

“Could we maybe enhance the picture a little?” John asks. “Like, adjust the brightness or something?”

Rose gives him a long-suffering look. “Yes, John, perhaps you’d be kind enough to tweak the aerial and see if that will improve the images that are being carried from another universe by Aradia, interpreted by Terezi, and translated by nothing but the power of my mind into a signal recognisable to this broken computer terminal. I’m sure fiddling with dials will help.”

“Okay, you could have just said – oh, whoa. Whoa. Is that my house? That is totally my house. My house exists in another universe! That’s so cool!”

“We’re recording this, right?” you say. “I mean, is there a way?”

“It’s recording,” Jade assures you.

You think that in between bars of static you can just about make out a grainy high-rise rooftop and someone standing there, but before you can decide whether the figure is you or Bro or someone else entirely, the screen washes with red, something like a circle or a lollipop or a spoon or...

“What?” Karkat says beside you, much too loudly. “Is that the – ”

Then there are moving figures, three of them, and even in the low-contrast wavering picture there’s something definitely not right about them. They look armoured and regimented and bulky, like demon quarterbacks with their heads lowered to knock the other players into a scrum or whatever quarterbacks do, and when they appear it’s like someone broadcasts a sound at a frequency only trolls can hear. Karkat stiffens, Terezi’s smile vanishes, Gamzee stands up straight, Kanaya falls back a step from the screen, and even Aradia looks less than cheerful all of a sudden.

“Imperial – ”

“What are they doing on – ”

“Is this a joke?” Karkat says. “Is this a fucking joke? Please tell me that one of you mentally inadequate vertebrate nooksniffers considers this some kind of twisted humour, because – ”

“It isn’t a joke,” Aradia says, “but I don’t know what it means or what they’re doing there.”

You catch a glimpse of something else on the screen, flickering blue, and then the image dies.

Jade looks around doubtfully at the trolls. “How could you even tell what those things were?”

“Believe me,” Karkat says grimly, “if you’d grown up on Alternia you’d recognize them too.”

“They are Imperial Drones,” Kanaya says.

“Okay,” you say. “And what the hell is one of those?”

Karkat engages lecture mode. For once even you don’t feel like telling him to shut up more than a couple of times, and those times aren’t really his fault. You discover that you never want to hear the word “cull” again, ever.

By the time it’s all explained, nobody has very much to say. You all decide to split up for the evening and come back to review the images tomorrow. No Addams Family dinner tonight.

You’re the last to leave; Rose looks over her shoulder at you, but you gesture her on and she steers John and Jade out. Karkat corners you in the empty corridor, which was sort of the idea.

“How do you feel about cultural exchanges now?” he says. He doesn’t even call you names, so you know shit got serious, for real this time.

“Depends what’s being exchanged, I guess.”

“For fuck’s sake, if there were ever a time for you to drop this ironic apathy front...”

“Jesus Christ.” You rub your forehead. “Apathy, really, okay.”

“Is that not what it is?”

“Dude, I’m pretty sure that, like, armageddon is still happening in the scratched session, so it’s not like we’re looking to set up house there.” You remember joking with John about a house in the burbs, but that was just messing around, you knew that when you were saying it. You wouldn’t want that anyway, it’s not your style. “This is your malfunction, not mine.”

“Malfunction?”

“Oh, what, now my vernacular isn’t hip enough for you? I’ll go full-out nineties on your ass, watch me.”

“Is that another human language?” You can’t even tell if he’s being sarcastic.

“Yeah, native language of the intrinsically awesome, can’t be taught, you gotta be born with it. Intrinsically ironically awesome, I mean, but that should go without saying.” You lean against the wall, watching him from behind your shades. He’s not rising to the bait. “I get it, all right? I figure there’s a bunch of stuff you thought you’d left behind for good and suddenly here it is again! But it’s your problem, not mine. Go have a feelings jam with your moirail or whatever and then suck it up. I’ll still be here. If you can handle that.”

For once he doesn’t say anything. You wonder if you went too far.

“You’re gonna tell your friends about this now, right?”

“They’re going to say that now is a bad time to be filling quadrants with humans.”

“Why, because of some blurry picture of something that might not even matter by the time we get to the new session?”

“It’s just something that gets stamped into us, even when we’re wigglers. We see the Imperial Drones, we stop really thinking clearly about... anything.”

“You’re their leader. Tell them it’s your call. Isn’t that how it works with trolls?”

“I could puke what you understand and still have a digestive tract full of curdled nonsense all the way up to my teeth.”

“Nice.”

“Shut the fuck up for once, will you? Honestly, it’s not even that I think you’re wrong. It’s just going to make things difficult for a while, that’s all.”

You have to roll your eyes at that. “Yeah, life’s hard, bro, come on. What do you want me to do?”

“Make sure John understands, for one thing. Try to get him to stop talking about auspisticizing. Quadrants aren’t a joke to us at the moment.”

“I know it doesn’t come natural to you, but give us some fucking credit, all right, I know John acts dumb sometimes but he isn’t. Also, if you’re asking your kismesis to deal with your matesprit or whatever, I think something’s fucked up there anyway.”

“Dave, what the hell makes you think I need you to tell me that? Fuck. This is so wrong. Why did I let you two talk me into this?”

You don’t say anything. You figure the question’s rhetorical. If it’s not, you still can’t help him with it.

“Anyway,” he says, folding his arms, “believe it or not, this is actually me trying to look out for you, even though that isn’t how this is supposed to work, so you’re welcome.”

“Okay, asshole, well maybe I don’t need that from you, did you think of that?” You turn to go. His finger introduces itself to your kidney in a boisterous and unmannerly fashion.

“Just so there’s no fucking doubt,” he says, “I’m not offering you an easy way out. That is not what’s happening here.”

He’s lying, but you’re going to pretend you don’t know that. It would make him way too likable. “Yeah, whatever, douche. See you tomorrow.”

You walk away feeling, overall, pretty good about things.

Back at Rose’s place, you’re not at all surprised to find the feelings-pile getting a workout. After all, it’s not every day you scratch a whole universe, only to discover you’ve replaced it with one that’s an order of magnitude more screwed up, and not only that, the people you care about are stranded there. Even if you had no choice, it’s hard not to feel responsible.

“Really, we’re doing this again? Is there even anything left to talk about?” you say, because you have to say something. Then you lie down anyway next to John, and he takes your hand and you sigh, like you’ve been holding your breath for hours and waiting for someone to tell you it’s okay to stop.

“The thing is,” John says, presumably continuing whatever he was saying before you arrived, “we are all gods now, kinda. So it’s like scaling in video games, you know, how the enemies get tougher as you level up. It would be way too simple if we got there and everything was just the same as it was when we were starting out.”

“Are you suggesting these problems are artificially manufactured by the game to present us with more of a challenge?”

“Maybe! You never know. Also, it is going to be pretty cool when we show up in our awesome God Tier outfits right in the nick of time and save them!”

“John, there is absolutely no limit to your optimism, is there?” Rose says, and for once she sounds fond instead of condescending.

“Nope, it goes all the way down, like that turtle joke.”

“Lame,” you say. “Man, I don’t care about how we’re gonna save the day all grubby heart-of-gold like in one of your ridiculous movies, I just wanna get started. So first, when are we gonna get there, and second, can it be sooner?”

“Do you honestly believe you’re the only one whose inclinations are running to the impetuous at the moment? We are all eager to begin. You’ll just have to contain yourself. In the meantime, we have plenty to keep us busy. We could start by learning more about troll culture, since it appears that it might in fact be relevant now. And since we’re on that topic, Dave, is there anything you’d like to tell us?”

Tricky fucking broad.

“Well, since you mention it, I have this recurring dream where I’m stuck in a quilted box or something with a bunch of total idiots for eternity, and there’s this one sneaky shrink witch who keeps trying to suffocate me in like this knitted gimp-suit and I’m trying to tell her, no, listen, I’m not supposed to be here, I don’t need a fucking cosy, goddamn it I am not a teapot I’m a human being – ”

“Fascinating,” Rose interrupts. “Echoes of Sartre. But I was referring to something rather less surreal, rather more firmly situated in the waking world, and rather more having to do with trolls and their romantic practices, and why you might be able to offer a particular insight into that subject.”

You’re thinking of trying to wait her out, but Jade gives the game away by giggling.

“Jeez, Dave, Rose already told me about you and Karkat, so you can stop trying to be secretive!”

“That’s your idea of doctor-patient confidentiality, Lalonde? I’m gonna hire Terezi and sue the shit out of you.”

“That would be interesting.”

“Is that the snarky precocious chick way of saying ‘come at me, bro’?”

“This is great and all,” John says offhandedly, “but doesn’t anyone want to know about me and Karkat?”

You think even Rose is caught off-guard by that one. Never underestimate a boy with a prankster’s gambit to appease.

Later, when John has been sufficiently interrogated, and Aradia’s quadrants diagram has been dug out and passed around, and you’re all drymouthed from talking, Jade gets out her computer and sets to work enhancing the images she recorded. She sends you a cleaned-up still of the Imperial Drones, and you deface it as a present for Terezi. Karkat might say this isn’t a joke, but that’s Karkat’s thing, worrying and fretting and fussing and basically being a nervous wreck at everyone as loudly as possible. Being irreverent about stuff he considers serious is half the fun.

As for you, John’s optimism must be contagious, because when you think about it, you discover you’re pretty sure everything’s going to work out fine.

How weird is that?