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Title: A Matter of Trust
Series: Homestuck
Pairing: John/Karkat
Rating: R
Warnings: m/m relationship, violence
Length: 10,789
When you open yourself up completely to someone else, you also make yourself completely vulnerable.
The crunching sound of Karkat's forehead meeting his keyboard echoed in the main room of the lab. "This is stupid," he announced to the room at large. "You have all the comprehensive ability of a wriggler - a freshly culled wriggler! I've explained it a hundred times already, clearly time one hundred and one is not going to make a difference. I don't know why I even bother trying to defend the glorious artistry that is troll cinema to an alien whose think pan is so rotted it's grey!"
"I don't know why you bother, either," Terezi put in from the other side of the room, snickering at him. "Your movies are pretty much shit, Karkat, and I don't mean the shit."
Just for good measure, Karkat banged his head against the keyboard a few more times. The crunch and clatter would have been much more satisfying if it had been the sound of bones breaking under his hands. Preferably the bones of one John Egbert, but he'd settle for Terezi's at the moment.
"Aw, you know you don't mean it, Karkat," John said, and he had the nerve to laugh. "If you were really serious, you'd have stopped coming to movie night a long time ago."
Attempting to drum the beauties of troll cinema into the moron's thick skull was actually pretty far down the list of reasons why Karkat continued to participate in their so-called 'cultural exchange'. But since the number one reason was 'because it lets me spend time with you' there was no way he was going to admit that, especially in front of everyone else.
"If I give up now, then all the time I've spent so far will be wasted," Karkat growled. "I refuse to have thrown away that much of my life."
"Don't worry, I'm sure I'll see the light. Probably around the same time you admit that Nic Cage is way better than any troll actor could ever be." Still chuckling, John leaned over and ruffled Karkat's hair, fingers sliding dangerously close to the base of Karkat's horns.
The scathing retort he'd intended to make died an abrupt and premature death in his throat, and Karkat froze. He'd seen John make a similar gesture with his human friends plenty of times before, but this was the first time he'd done it to a troll.
"Don't..." he croaked out, and then that warning died as well when John quite deliberately tweaked Karkat's horns.
Millennia of evolutionarily ingrained instincts kicked in, and Karkat shuddered once before his whole body went limp in mute surrender to what it perceived as a deadly threat. He fought to throw it off, trying to push himself upright and get out of range, but his body responded sluggishly to his demands.
"Huh? Oh, hey, do you like that?" John asked, sounding surprised and delighted. Before Karkat could recover enough to dodge or protest, he'd wrapped his whole hand around the stubby horn, fingertips digging into the base where it met his skull. And kneading, the little bastard.
Karkat sprawled helplessly over the desk, fingers twitching spastically as he struggled and failed to form a fist, to throw John off, to do anything. He tried to call out to the others, hoping one of them would take pity and pry John off him, but the only sound he could manage to produce was a faint whine.
The weirdest part was that he couldn't panic, couldn't even rage about the situation he'd been caught in. He couldn't move, couldn't think, through the rush of endorphins meant to keep him subdued and submissive despite the inherently aggressive nature of trolls. His body felt hazy and warm, and it took all his energy just to keep from drifting off into an oblivious trance. A distant part of his brain was aware that he was going to be very, very pissed off once John stopped touching him, but at the moment he couldn't bring himself to care.
Predictably, Terezi noticed his situation first. Also predictably, instead of helping him or telling John to stop, she just started cackling madly. Thankfully that at least drew everyone else's attention, and he heard Kanaya's shocked gasp through the ringing in his ears.
"Oh, dear, John, you really should not be doing that," Kanaya exclaimed. "It is not very appropriate and rather dangerous and also just a little bit disturbing. Dangerous for you, disturbing for the rest of us. Please cease this instant."
John's fingers stilled but didn't withdraw, and Karkat barely managed to stop himself from making a pleading noise. He was still a boneless pile of unmoving muscles, but without the extra kneading the pleasant haze was gradually fading.
"Huh? I'm just scratching his head, what's wrong with that?" John asked, full of innocence. "He even likes it, look!"
"Oh my gog, is Egbert doing what I think he's doing?" Sollux asked, and despite his new 'chill with everything' demeanour he sounded faintly horrified.
"Yep," Terezi replied, a little too gleefully in Karkat's slowly returning opinion. "Hehehehe wow, he smells like an unmoving pile of grey, who knew he could even hold that still?"
"Never seen anybody do such a good impression of a puddle," Dave drawled, just as amused. "Egbert I think you might want to listen to the lady. While I'm normally all for trolling the trolls, I don't think you want to be having the effect it looks like you're having on him."
"You guys aren't making any sense," John complained, but he finally removed his hand from Karkat's head. Belatedly Karkat remembered the importance of breathing, and all the trapped air left his lungs at once. "Hey Karkat, you don't mind, right? You looked like you were enjoying it, I've never seen you that relaxed."
"Hnnnngrhk," was the closest Karkat could come to forming actual words. He'd never experienced the submission reflex before, so he didn't know how long it would take to wear off, but he had a sinking feeling it might be quite some time.
"Oh man... kk is seriously going to kill you the second he can move again," Sollux commented, now torn between horror and laughter. "You might want to leave. I'd look for a nice, dark corner where he won't be able to find you to hole up in, if I were you."
"That would seem to be the most advisable course of action, yes," Kanaya agreed. "And actually I think it might be polite for all of us to find things to do in another location for a little while, so he can recover without feeling entirely vulnerable."
Mentally Karkat blessed her, fervently promising himself he would do something for her later to thank her. He managed to roll his head enough to be able to see half the room, and somehow worked up the energy to glare furiously at John.
"Oh, come on, you guys are just trolling me," John said, looking back and forth between them uncertainly. He glanced back over his shoulder as if to ask Karkat to agree with him, and turned pale. Probably because of the way Karkat was snarling silently at him, which at least gave Karkat some tiny measure of satisfaction.
"Start running, Hero," Terezi advised him with another cackle. John gulped, threw one last look at Karkat, and started running.
Karkat promised himself that no matter what it took, he was going to make John pay.
Luckily for John, he managed to stay out of Karkat's sight long enough for the worst of the humiliation to wear off. When they did inevitably meet up in the food repository the next day, Karkat hissed at him and the human miraculously had the sense to stay far away from him. Probably thanks to Jade and Kanaya both tugging at his arms to pull him away.
Though he'd been starting to come to terms with his decidedly mixed feelings towards John, Karkat found he now had an entirely new reason not to be able to look the human in the eyes. Shame. The memory of how it had felt to completely submit himself to John haunted him, flaring up in his mind's eye every time he so much as caught a glimpse of the other boy. So Karkat avoided the issue by avoiding John whenever possible, and staying as far away from him as he could the rest of the time.
He skipped two of their scheduled movie nights, and by then Karkat was starting to grudgingly miss the annoying little grubfucker. John's presence had been pretty much a constant thorn in his side since the moment the humans had arrived in the Veil, and for some reason it felt like his absence hurt worse. Especially since it was accompanied by the soulful looks John kept giving him every time they couldn't avoid it other, longing gazes full of hurt and apology.
Finally Karkat gave in to what felt like the inevitable, and presented himself at the door to John's respite block at the appropriate time for their next movie night. For a long moment after he knocked there was no answer, long enough that he started to wonder if John had forgotten, or if he'd read the human wrong and John didn't want to see him.
But then the door was thrown open so hard it slammed into the wall, and there stood John, wide-eyed and breathless and looking like it was his very first Twelfth Perigee's Eve. "Karkat! You came!" he blurted out, practically dancing from foot to foot as if he couldn't contain his excitement.
"Jegus, calm down Egbert," Karkat muttered, pleased by the enthusiastic greeting despite himself. "It's just a fucking movie, not a candelight hate date or something."
"Yeah, I know, but you didn't come for so long, and you haven't said anything to me - well, except for growling at me, but I don't think that counts - and you've been avoiding me, and from the way the others were talking about it I thought you really were going to hate me, like, hate-hate me, not weird troll like-hating me, and..." the human finally ran out of breath, just as a corner of Karkat's brain was becoming impressed with his lung capacity. "I thought I wouldn't get a chance to apologize," he finished after gasping briefly.
"You don't," Karkat told him bluntly, pushing past him into the room. "There's nothing to apologize for because it never. Fucking. Happened. Got it?"
"Uh... yeah, sure, whatever you say Karkat," John agreed, closing the door behind him. The room was set up as usual for their movie nights, so clearly he'd been hoping Karkat would show despite believing that he wouldn't.
And he'd not only not flinched when Karkat mentioned a hate date, he'd brought the topic up himself and not slipped in a single protest about not being homosexual. Karkat struggled to suppress the blush that wanted to spring to his cheeks, and he scowled so he wouldn't do something stupid like smile by accident. Maybe the whole humiliating thing would be worth it, if it led to John getting over his ridiculous hang-ups a bit.
Not that he was still hankering for a kismesis with the idiot. Prolonged face-to-face contact had led Karkat to conclude that blackrom with John would be about as satisfying as blackrom with Tavros - neither of them was capable of the kind of emotion necessary for a good, deep kismesis relationship. Which was probably just as well, as Karkat's black feelings towards John had slowly faded over the time he'd spent trolling the boy.
That still left... other possibilities, however. If he could ever get the grubtard to see past this ridiculous 'homosexual' issue that was somehow a thing. John certainly acted like he was flushed for Karkat, as witnessed by his excitement at Karkat forgiving him, but he continued to insist that it was 'only friendship' despite the fact that the way he treated Karkat was entirely different from the way he treated his other friends.
John settled in on one side of the padded table the humans called 'beds' as Karkat went to pop the movie in. It was his turn to provide something for them to watch, and he'd grabbed a case at random as he'd left his room. Once it was in he flipped the lights off and plopped himself down on the other side of the bed and got as comfortable as he could. It was better than most of the stupid piles, at least.
As always John couldn't keep his mouth shut for more than five minutes at a time. "What are they doing?" "Wait, why did she say that to him?" "Whoaaa, hang on, I thought those two guys were aiming to be moirails?"
Karkat had actually forgotten that this movie involved two men ending up as matesprits, and the corner of his mouth tilted up in a smirk. Maybe that was one way to go about ridding John of his stupid notion that gender mattered somehow? It would have been too obvious if he'd thrown male pairings at the human from the start, but they'd already seen a couple of troll movies that had happened to be male/female.
He watched John more than he watched the movie, and despite the way the human squirmed and flushed in embarrassment every time the lead actors shared a moment of passion, he also didn't look away from the screen. If anything, he asked even more questions than usual, and there was definitely nothing in his demeanour that said that he was repulsed.
Unfortunately Karkat had also forgotten one other aspect of this movie, a rather important one considering recent events. It wasn't until John blurted out, "Hey, why is that guy grabbing the other one's horns, everyone said that was a huge no-no and you were going to kill me for it," that Karkat remembered why this film was considered a little perverted even by troll standards.
"Oh fucking shit," he swore under his breath, and scrambled for the remote. It took him a couple of stabs to hit the pause button, and first he managed to turn up the remote just in time for the heartfelt moan the submitting troll made as he went limp.
Karkat had always kind of wondered if the actors had actually gone through with it or were just faking, but a vague corner of his mind noted that now he knew for sure; there was no way anyone would be able to moan that coherently while submitting.
Finally he managed to get it stopped, and quickly flipped it to the menu so the image wouldn't be hanging there on the screen. Too late to stop his own shame and embarrassment from swamping him, though. The memories were still as fresh as if it had happened five minutes ago, or at least it felt that way now.
John was looking back at him, wide-eyed and uncertain, the glow from the DVD screen the only light in the room. It was more than enough for Karkat to be able to see clearly, but he kind of hoped the stupid human's diurnal vision wouldn't be able to make him out well enough to see the raging blush on his cheeks.
"Um," John ventured after a long, unbearably awkward moment. "I take it you didn't pick this one on purpose?"
"No, fuck no," Karkat nearly exploded, tossing the remote away from him as if that could somehow emphasize his denial. "I didn't even look when I grabbed it, and I completely forgot that scene was in it. Fuck."
"Can I... you know, talk to you about it?" John sounded hesitant, like he was fully expecting the question to blow up in his face, but needed to ask anyway. "I mean, I know that thing I totally didn't do obviously never happened, we covered that. But I'm still not quite sure on why it didn't happen, especially now. Is it..." His eyes went very large, and the blush that sprang to his cheeks rivalled Karkat's. "Oh god, it's sexual, isn't it? Like, horns are like, nipples or something, I was... oh fuck, I was totally jerking you off, wasn't I?"
"What? No, gog, stop, just stop before you embarrass everyone on the entire asteroid," Karkat said, scowling. "They're horns, stupid, they're just keratin and bone, there's no nerves in them. We evolved them for fighting, it'd be pretty useless if they were sensitive to touch, wouldn't it?"
"But..." John looked completely confused. "In the movie, it seemed... I mean, even I could tell that was supposed to be a pretty hot and heavy moment..."
"Oh, fuck me and turn me into grubfeed, am I actually going to have to explain this to you?" Karkat grumbled, rubbing at his prickling cheeks. "I thought you said the others told you already?"
"Well, they weren't exactly clear on what it was that I'd done wrong," John explained sheepishly. "Just that it had been a really stupid thing to do and I'd be very lucky if you didn't gut me for it and that we all should never, ever even think about doing that to any of them. They sort of left out the 'why', and I was too embarrassed to ask."
Sighing heavily, Karkat resigned himself to the fact that yes, they were apparently going to have this conversation. "Okay, listen up and for once in your fucking life pay attention, because unlike the quadrant thing I am not explaining this ever again. Trolls are aggressive, right? We spend most of our lives trying to kill each other."
"Wait, wait, let me find a notebook or something," John said, patting around him on the bed as if he expected paper and pen to magically appear.
"Fuck no, you are not taking notes," Karkat snapped. "Just shut up and listen. Getting your hands around your opponent's horns is something it's pretty much only possible to do after you've already beaten them. It used to be, way back before we ever had star travel or even much of a civilization, that people would rip the horns off their still-living enemies and keep them as trophies. It was a pretty good way to kill their enemy, too, since there's a fuckload of blood vessels - and yes, nerves - in the flesh at the base of them.
"So we developed this reflex, like a last ditch attempt at survival I guess," Karkat continued doggedly, fixing his gaze on the movie menu so he wouldn't have to see the rapt way John was staring at him. "You go all limp and helpless, fucking submitting to your enemy, making yourself as gog-damned pitiful as you can in the hopes that he might spare you. And if he doesn't, at least it doesn't hurt quite as much when he tears your fucking horns off."
"Did it usually work?" John asked, clearly fascinated.
"Fuck, no," Karkat snorted. "Pity is something you only feel for people in your red quadrants, remember? But I don't know, I guess it worked often enough that the instinct got into the gene pool as a successful survival trait. Probably the victors would keep the submitting troll as a slave or something. Point is, we can't stop the reflex, it just fucking happens and there's not a damned thing we can do about it."
"And it's humiliating," John said softly. Karkat grunted, as close to actually agreeing as he could force himself to come, and John seemed to understand. "Gosh. I'm so sorry... I know it didn't happen, but I'm sorry anyway, I really never meant to do something like that to you!"
"I know that, idiot," Karkat snapped at him, rolling his eyes. "That's why you're still walking around with your guts inside your body. Now stop fucking talking about it already."
"And I guess it must have seemed like, I don't know, I was trying to be your kismesis after all or something," John continued, as if he hadn't heard Karkat tell him to stop. "At least, it seems like the sort of thing a kismesis would do..."
"Oh, hell no," Karkat exclaimed. "Anybody that tried that move on their kismesis would be short one quadrant about three seconds after their partner recovered. Fuck, have you not heard anything I've said about this or the quadrants? A kismesis relationship, a healthy one anyway, has to be between equals or near-equals. It has to be give-and-take, one person can't always win. If one of them forced the other to submit like that, it could only end two ways - either the partner overpowers them out of sheer rage and kills them, or the partner slinks off afterwards in utter shame and can never face their kismesis again. It's too much, too unbalanced."
"Huh." John appeared to be thinking about it pretty hard, at least. Karkat would give him credit for trying to understand. "That still doesn't explain why those two matesprits were doing it in the movie, then. They were matesprits, weren't they? Was I reading that wrong?"
"Fuck." Karkat had been kind of hoping that John would have forgotten about the scene in the movie, or at least would have been distracted enough to forget to ask about it. "Yes, they were matesprits. It's... it's considered really fucking kinky, but some trolls get off on the idea of letting their matesprit do that to them, okay? It's like, a trust thing. Being matesprits already means that you trust and pity each other enough to be willing to be vulnerable in each other's presence, but that's... it's the ultimate vulnerability. Most of us are not fucking certifiable, and so we aren't willing to put our lives that much in another troll's hands, not even a matesprit."
"Then it is a sexual thing," John said, and looked distressed all over again. "Oh my god, I did something sexual to you, I did something sexual to a guy, I didn't mean it!"
Executing a double facepalm combo didn't make Karkat feel any better, but it did at least let him hide his burning face. "No, fucking no, it was not sexual because you are not my fucking matesprit and I am not that fucked in the head! I do not get off on the idea of being completely unable to defend myself!"
The words skirted uncomfortably close to a lie, or so the tight knot in his chest informed him. If John had been receptive to the idea, Karkat would have been more than willing to consider being his matesprit. And, at least in the moments when John had actually had his hands on Karkat's horns, it had felt really, really fucking good. Good enough that there was a tiny part of him that wouldn't mind feeling it again.
But there was no fucking way he would ever admit that, especially since John was slowly relaxing again at these reassurances. "Are you sure?" the human asked him, a little anxiously. "Really sure? Well, I guess it's okay, then. I'm still sorry for humiliating you, or whatever, but at least I wasn't groping you on top of that!"
"Can we stop fucking talking about it now, please?" Karkat demanded. "Let's just finish the damn movie and forget this conversation ever happened." He retrieved the remote and went into the scene selection menu, scrolling through the numbers until he reached the one after the submission scene. They wouldn't miss any significant plot development by skipping it, and Karkat figured neither of them really needed to see that right now.
John was remarkably silent through the rest of the movie. Karkat would have liked to believe that meant the idiot was finally starting to understand the complexities of troll relationships without needing to ask a million and one questions, but he knew it was probably just that John was thinking about the conversation instead of paying attention.
Sure enough, the moment the credits started to roll, John turned to him with a hesitant look on his face that suggested he expected to be skewered momentarily. "Karkat? Um... you might kill me for asking this, and I might actually deserve it, but I feel like I need to ask anyway."
"Oh, for gog's sake." Karkat sighed and banged his head against his knees a few times, then looked at John expectantly. "Just get it the fuck over with, Egbert. With my luck, if I don't let you ask whatever it is now, you'll blurt it out in front of everyone tomorrow when you can't hold back any longer."
"Uh-uh, no way," John shook his head, the flush returning to his cheeks. "You'd definitely kill me for that. Um... please don't take this the wrong way, but... would you like me to touch you that way again?"
Completely floored, Karkat gaped at him, pretty sure his eyes were literally bulging out of their sockets. He opened his mouth to give an appropriately scathing answer, but no sound escaped him. He tried a few more times, then finally closed it again as he realized that the power of speech had actually deserted him in the face of this much sheer stupidity and he was only making himself look like a beached cuttlefish.
"See, it's just because, when I did it before you looked so... happy," John babbled, clearly trying to justify his absurd question and only digging himself ever deeper. "Relaxed and not angry at all and really just... happy, I'm sorry, I don't have any other word for it. I'm not your matesprit or even your moirail or anything but I am your friend, and I think you know how much that means to me and I would never, ever hurt you."
This time Karkat took a deep breath and carefully considered each word he wanted to say, and was able to make his throat work. "You realize I really should kill you just for suggesting that," he said, for once not yelling. This was way too important for mere yelling. John gulped, and nodded. "Anyone else would kill you for it. This is me, taking p... having mercy on your fucked-up alien lack of anything resembling common decency. Or common sense." He sweated a little at the near slip, but John didn't seem to have caught it.
"I know, I know, but I just..." John wrung his hands, an action that Karkat had never actually seen anyone do before. "In that moment when I thought I had finally found something that made you that happy, it really made me feel good."
It was completely insane that he was even still sitting here having this conversation, Karkat reflected. He should have gotten up and walked out the door the moment the idiot broached the subject. And yet, here he was, still sitting there, listening to John ramble on about why he should do it.
Gog help him, he was actually considering it, wasn't he?
The realization nearly choked him, and he had to take another couple of careful, deep breaths. "If you tell anyone about this, if you even tell them I considered it, I will push you out the nearest airlock," he said, his voice low. "I will stand there and watch as you explosively decompress, as your brain bleeds out through your ears and nose and mouth, and your eyes liquefy and all your internal organs swell up until you are so bloated you wouldn't even fit back through the door. And I will laugh while I watch."
John shook his head, eyes wide and mouth, for once, blessedly shut.
Pride wouldn't let him actually say the words, so in the end Karkat just tucked his chin against his chest and leaned in a bit, making it easier for John to get at his horns. That meant he couldn't see what the human was doing, and the moment stretched on with no contact for long enough that he wondered if John had changed his mind.
If this was all some kind of super elaborate prank, he really was going to kill the little grubfucker.
Then John's hand slid into his hair, trembling slightly, and his fingers found one of Karkat's horns, tracing it to the base. Everything else immediately became a non-consideration.
Belatedly Karkat realized that he probably ought to have propped himself up somehow, as his face received an abrupt introduction to John's leg. It should have hurt, but he couldn't feel anything except the pounding waves of endorphins racing through his system, loosening every muscle until he couldn't so much as twitch. He made a faint whining noise, protesting when John pulled away for a moment, but it turned out the human was only rearranging them to a more comfortable position.
Then he got both hands involved, fingers digging into the base of each of Karkat's horns, kneading and prodding and generally driving him out of his mind. Dizziness swept over Karkat, and he let himself fall into it, a sensation very much like bliss rushing up to meet him as he embraced it.
He was vaguely aware that he was draped half over the bed and half over John's lap, cheek pillowed on the other boy's thigh. Under other circumstances he might have been embarrassed. Under other circumstances, he might have been ecstatic. As it was, he could only drift along and enjoy the overwhelming experience, completely helpless to do anything else. It took all his concentration just to remember to breath; deep, slow inhalations followed by equally deep, slow exhalations, a rhythmic cycle that complemented the motions of John's fingers against his scalp.
After some time - it was impossible to keep track, and he didn't care enough to even try - Karkat became aware that not all of his body was limp. When he'd protested that this was not a sexual thing for him he'd believed his own words, but apparently he'd been deluding himself. Or maybe he'd just underestimated the powerful effect of continued contact. Suddenly he had no trouble at all understanding why someone might want their matesprit to do this for them. For them, not to them. Having an enemy do it would be terrifying, but when it was someone you trusted not to hurt you, it was amazing.
Part of his mind was also aware that he should be worried about the way he was reacting, but he couldn't remember why. He'd have squirmed if he could have, rutted his hips against the too-soft mattress, but since his muscles refused to respond to commands all he could do was lie there and enjoy the aching throb in his lower body. It was surprisingly arousing that he couldn't do anything to relieve the pressure.
Noise rang in his ears, increasing slowly in volume, and after a moment Karkat remembered the concept of words. John was talking to him, the idiot, as if Karkat would be able to understand him, let alone respond in any way. But he supposed if it was important enough for the moron to talk to him about it, he probably ought to make some effort to listen.
"...think that's maybe enough, Karkat, really it's not like I can do this all night, um, fuck, you're not even listening, are you, shit, I think we, uh, really need to stop now, bluh, please stop making those noises, Karkat!"
Abruptly Karkat found himself jolted out of the state of bliss, hands vanishing from his horns as his body was shoved roughly away from John's. He flailed, or tried to, but his muscles were still lax and he couldn't seem to make his brain function properly either. His head hit the wall hard enough that he was aware it would probably hurt later, but he couldn't even make himself react to that.
"Oh shit, sorry, didn't mean to push you that hard, are you okay?" John babbled, leaning over him and tugging at his arm. "C'mon, Karkat, it's late and you should probably go, you don't want anyone to wonder why you're spending so much more time here tonight that usual, right? Oh damn it, please get up."
"Nnnnghr?" Karkat managed, not even a rough approximation of Alternian speech, let alone English. John didn't seem to notice or care, tugging until he got Karkat's legs swung over the side of the bed and the troll mostly sitting up.
Automatically he tried to take control of his own movements, and when John pulled him up to his feet he managed to stay there more or less on his own. He still couldn't make sense of what was happening, but there was enough of the reflexive submissive feeling running through him that he obediently let John herd him towards the door.
"Oh good, you seem to be a little more awake now, that's great, so um, have a good night?" John said. "Or good morning, whatever you guys call it, not like it matters since there's no sun so there's no day and night here anyway. Never mind, that's not important, the point is, I'm glad I was able to help again, and I promise I won't tell anyone, so I'll see you tomorrow!"
Somehow Karkat found himself out in the hall with John's door closed firmly behind him, without any real idea of what had just happened. He was still operating mostly on autopilot, and since John hadn't given him any indication of what he wanted beyond 'go out in the hall', Karkat was at a bit of a loss for what to do next.
After a brief, stumbling attempt to walk that nearly ended with him braining himself to death on the wall, he finally decided to use said wall as a support instead, and slowly sank down until he was sitting on the floor with his back to it. Higher brain functions were creeping back in, enough that he was aware that he was going to be royally fucking pissed off the moment he was able to feel anything but hazy.
He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, fighting to steady his breathing and think. Had John seriously just turned him into a useless puddle of sopor slime, and then kicked him out and left him vulnerable in the hallway?
Karkat clenched his hands into fists, grateful when they responded to the command. He was going to kill John. He was going to kill him slowly, and painfully, and he was going to make absolutely certain that the death was far too gruesome to be either just or heroic, so that he could do it all again the moment the idiot came back to life. And again, and again, and again, until he'd vented every last bit of the rage that was building up inside him. At that rate, and judging by the amount of rage he could already feel, Karkat estimated it would take a year or so.
Absorbed in his fantasy revenge, Karkat didn't register the significance of the sound of shuffling footsteps until a foot met with his ankle, rather painfully. "What the fuck, who left something out in the damned hall?" a familiar voice demanded.
"Ow," Karkat commented, and opened his eyes to see Sollux standing over him. Wonderful, just what he needed, one of the other trolls to find him while he was still mostly helpless and limp.
"Kk?" Sollux said, astonished. "Why are you sitting on the floor? It's hard enough to navigate on my own without you creating an obstacle course, you know."
"I'm sitting on the floor because I feel like it, obviously," Karkat replied. He couldn't quite work up enough energy for his usual rancour just yet, and he knew that was going to give him away faster than anything, but there was nothing he could do about it. At least Sollux couldn't see the pathetic state he was in.
"Isn't this just outside John's respite block?" Sollux asked, and Karkat cursed half-heartedly under his breath. "Did you guys have a fight or something?"
"Or something," Karkat muttered. "Look, just... help me up, will you?" He was fairly certain he could stay upright and even manage something as coordinated as walking, this time. He just didn't think he could get himself up on his own, just yet.
Clearly puzzled, Sollux stretched out a hand and helped to pull him to his feet, and even steadied Karkat when he stumbled. To Karkat's eternal chagrin, the puzzled look slowly changed to one of dawning realization. "Don't tell me he was actually stupid enough to do it again?" Sollux said, disbelieving. "I thought we'd convinced him that it wasn't the sort of thing you do as a prank! Is he suicidal?"
"I'm starting to wonder," Karkat growled. The urge to turn around and slam open the door so he could gut the little bucktoothed wonder was almost overwhelming. Only the certain knowledge that he wasn't strong enough to manage it yet held him back.
"Well, fuck." Sollux sighed, and a little to Karkat's surprise he slung the other troll's arm over his shoulder and put his arm around Karkat's waist, helping support him. "Here, you steer, and I'll keep us upright and moving," he offered. "Damn, the other humans are gonna be pissed at us."
"What? Why the hell would they even get involved?" Karkat asked, frowning as they set off down the hall.
"You don't think they're going to be a little upset that you killed John?" Sollux asked him, wearily amused. "Pretty sure they're not going to just take it in stride, kk, even if he was begging for it."
"Oh. No, he's still alive," Karkat mumbled. "For now, anyway."
"You didn't kill him? Well, I guess you wouldn't have been able to, would you," Sollux realized, and shrugged. "Want me to go take care of it for you? My psionics still work well enough for me to blast him to pieces before he can get close enough to try that on me. Pretty sure that would be 'just' enough to make it stick."
Moments like this were what made Karkat sometimes wonder if he and Sollux were in an undeclared moiraillegiance. Sollux sounded so matter of fact, offering to go take care of Karkat's enemy for him because Karkat wasn't strong enough to do it himself at the moment. Surely that was pity.
"No fucking way. If he dies, it's going to be by my hands," Karkat growled. "And I won't let him off easy enough to die for good the first time, either."
Sollux laughed, squeezing his arm slightly around Karkat's waist. "That's the spirit. But I'll keep his hands occupied, if you need me to. Since he kinda knows our weak spot, and all."
"Maybe," Karkat acknowledged. "We'll see how it goes."
They walked in silence for a long moment, and Karkat let himself be soothed by Sollux's presence and support. Yes, moirails, surely. Should he say anything? Or would that ruin the moment?
Then Sollux went and ruined it in another way entirely, simultaneously reminding Karkat why he was pretty sure they weren't moirails, because Sollux was far too much of a dick to him. "So, what's it feel like, anyway?"
Karkat just growled in response, and Sollux laughed at him the whole way back to their respite blocks.
If Karkat had thought he was angry with John after the first time, it was nothing to the incandescent rage he felt now. In fact, the very emotion he'd once believed was anger, which he'd felt throughout so much of his life, was now shown to be nothing more than minor irritation in comparison. He was beyond furious. He was livid.
The first time had been an innocent accident, he'd been aware of that and it had tempered his rage. This time John had known exactly what he was doing, exactly how much trust Karkat was placing in him, and he'd betrayed that. He'd left Karkat alone and vulnerable, completely helpless, without anything more than a hurried 'good night' as an explanation.
When he saw the human at the next meal, he snarled loud enough to fill the room and lunged for his throat. John squeaked when he saw Karkat coming, and barely managed to summon the Breeze fast enough to defend himself.
"Karkat, what the hell?" he had the nerve to exclaim as Karkat picked himself up off the floor where he'd landed. Karkat equipped his sickles grimly, and John's eyes widened. "Are you trying to kill me?"
"No, I'm trying to maim you," Karkat hissed at him, barely managing to get the English words out. "Painfully. As painfully as possible, until your screams are loud enough to lead fucking Noir right to us. Then I'm going to kill you. And then I'm going to stand over your body and hack at it, laughing, until you come back to life so I can do it all again!"
He ran forward, trying to dodge and weave so John wouldn't be able to hit him with his Windy Thing, only to find himself tossed back on his ass once more.
"Dude, the fuck," Dave said, frowning and stepping forward, equipping his sword.
"YOU STAY THE FUCK OUT OF THIS, STRIDER," Karkat howled, pointing at him with one sickle. "THIS IS NONE OF YOUR GOG-DAMNED BUSINESS."
Red and blue energy crackled through the air, shoving Dave aside and pinning him against the far wall along with Rose and Jade. "Like he said, you guys don't get to be involved," Sollux said, coming up to stand just behind Karkat, his blind gaze fixed just to one side of where the humans were trapped.
"And you stay out of it too, Captor," Karkat snarled. "After some consideration, I've decided this is going to be a lot more satisfying when he can struggle."
"He's all yours, kk," Sollux said with a smirk. The three humans were struggling and shouting, and Terezi and Kanaya looked more than a little confused, but now Karkat was assured that the fight would be entirely between him and John. Even if for some unlikely reason Terezi and Kanaya tried to interfere, Sollux would stop them.
John was just standing there, staring at him like he was the one who'd been betrayed. He hadn't made any move to attack while Karkat was distracted by Dave, hadn't even equipped his weapon yet, the wriggler. "Karkat, I don't understand," he said plaintively. "Is this, like, some kind of weird step up in black flirting that I don't know about?"
The mere idea that John thought he was flirting was enough to make Karkat completely flip his shit. "I wouldn't fill a pail with you if you were the last sentient being in any universe and the imperial drone was three seconds from my door," he snarled. "I would sooner RIP MY OWN INTESTINES OUT THROUGH MY BULGE than fill a pail with you!"
He darted forward again, and this time he had a little more success dodging the wind, coming close enough to seriously threaten the human with his sickles before John blew him back against the wall again. Immediately Karkat was back on his feet and charging, shouting an incoherent battle cry of sheer rage.
"Why are you doing this?" John demanded, frantically throwing burst after burst of wind. "I don't get it, everything was fine last night, you even trusted me that much... uh..." As if belatedly aware that he might be being indiscreet, he glanced around the room at their observers.
Fortunately Karkat was far beyond caring about his reputation. "Everything was fine until you dumped me in the hallway, completely vulnerable," he shouted, panting with exertion and anger. "I trusted you until you fucking betrayed me, you faithless excuse for a so-called fucking 'friend'. If we were on Alternia I'd be fucking dead now, because the first troll who found me like that would have put me out of my fucking misery!"
"Uhh..." John looked stunned, as if he couldn't process the words. "Wait, wait, backup. I did what?"
"You. Ditched. Me. While. I. Was. Helpless," Karkat hissed, punctuating each word with a swipe of his sickles. He'd actually succeeded in distracting John enough that the first one connected, opening a shallow scratch across John's cheek, but that woke the human up and he dodged the rest. "You deliberately tricked me into letting you do that, and then kicked me out! Well, congratu-fucking-lations, your prankster's gambit will be at an all-time fucking high when you die."
"Hang on, you let him do that to you?" Sollux exclaimed. Karkat knew that later he would regret letting that bit of information slip in public, but right now the only thing he could feel was the rage.
"Shut the fuck up, Captor, I told you to stay out of it," he said, turning to aim a wild swing in his friend's direction. He was too far away for it to connect, and Sollux probably didn't even realize he'd done it, but it was the principle of the thing.
"Karkat... Karkat, wait!" John pleaded, dodging again and again, and finally blasting him with another gust of wind. This time instead of staying at a distance while Karkat recovered, he threw himself after the troll, ending up pinning him against the wall.
"I didn't mean to, that's not what I was doing, it wasn't a prank," he insisted, eyes wide and horrified. "I thought you were recovering, I wouldn't have done that to you on purpose, I swear!"
"Fuck you, I don't even care whether it was on purpose or not," Karkat informed him, struggling with the wind and the body holding him down. "You still did it, and I fucking told you what would normally happen if someone pulled that shit on a quadrant, and now you're damned well going to face the fucking consequences! Because I am not fucking running off and hiding my face forever in shame, I'm going to tear my pride back out of your stinking corpse!"
"No, no, no, Karkat, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," John babbled, clinging to him like he thought a fucking hug could make everything better. Hell, he probably did. "That's not, I wasn't, it's just, oh god, you were making these noises and... and I kind of freaked out, because I'm not a homosexual, or at least I didn't think I was, but it was... it was really kind of hot, and I couldn't stop reacting, and I was afraid you were going to see and you'd said that it wasn't sexual for you, so I thought you'd be disgusted and think I was totally perverted and... and not want to ever let me do that again."
"Well you got the last part right," Karkat snapped, but his brain was spinning in circles. John had thought the noises he'd been making were hot? That was why he'd thrown Karkat out of his room so abruptly?
Rage was still his foremost emotion, but bubbling up beneath it were now a combination of despair and a desire to laugh hysterically. After all his hoping and struggling and trying, John had finally realized he felt something flushed for Karkat, only for that to cause a rift that could surely never be repaired. Karkat was just fucking doomed never to be able to fulfil a quadrant, that was what it was - he was his owned damned kismesis, and now he wanted to kill his matesprit. And not in a red-to-black flipping kind of way, either.
John was still hugging him, leaning in to whisper in his ear, probably in an attempt to keep the conversation from their audience. "Look, Karkat, I could be doing that right now, you know I could, and then I'd win and you'd have to do anything I wanted, right? But I'm not, I'm not, because I'm not your enemy and I don't want to be! I don't want that to be tainted by hatred and anger, I want it to be about trust and... and the sort of thing m-matesprits do, not enemies!"
"What the ever-loving fuck makes you think I would ever trust you again?" Karkat growled. "Give me one good reason why I fucking should?"
The way John's face fell at his words made the despair win out over laughter, and threaten to take over rage as well. "There aren't any good reasons, I guess," the human conceded miserably. "If I really hurt you that badly, betrayed you that badly, then you probably shouldn't trust me again. But please, do it anyway? Give me one more chance, please. And..."
He faltered, then shook his head and took a step back. The wind died away as well, and Karkat flexed his hand around the grip of his sickle, suspecting a trick. "If you can't, if I've really ruined everything, then... then do it," John finished, opening his arms wide. "Go ahead, Karkat, kill me, I won't stop you. If that's what it takes to make you feel better, to let you have your pride back... do it."
"What." The word came out flat, as Karkat stared at him in utter disbelief. The room was completely silent, as if their observers were afraid the slightest noise would tip the scales to disaster. "You're... you're fucking full of it, this is a trick," Karkat said, but his voice was more uncertain than he'd meant it to be.
"No tricks, Karkat. I promise," John insisted. "Sollux, go ahead and hold me down. I mean it. If this is all I can do, then I'll do it. Whatever it takes. I have to make it up to you."
"It would be a just death, you know," Karkat said slowly, lifting one sickle and pressing the point against the place where John's heart beat beneath his rib cage. He heard a protesting sound from the humans' side of the room, quickly stifled, but he didn't look over. He couldn't take his eyes off of John's, their gazes locked in the universe's most deadly game of chicken. "You deserve it after what you did to me, so you'd be dead forever."
"I know," John replied, and there was a weight in his eyes that said he truly did understand what he was offering.
Karkat tensed his arm, preparing to drive the sickle through the grubfucker's heart. He meant to do it, he really did... but he couldn't go through with it. Not while he was staring right into John's stunningly blue eyes, seeing the heartfelt grief and regret there. He could have looked away, of course, but it felt inherently wrong to kill the boy who was fated to be his matesprit without even looking him in the eyes.
In the end he dropped his sickles and left them where they fell, turning his back on John and walking away, pretending as hard as he could that there was nothing wet and warm dripping down his cheeks.
"Kk."
"No."
"As much as it pains me to say this, maybe you should actually talk to him."
"Fuck off."
"I mean, I get why you wouldn't want to. Personally I'd have killed him, but whatever. You didn't, and now this is killing you both."
"What part of 'fuck off' was not clear enough for you, Captor?"
"Maybe you could try shifting it to a blackrom kind of hate instead of a 'rip your throat out' kind of hate?"
Finally Karkat lifted his head from his arms, glaring wordlessly at his so-called best friend. Sollux couldn't see the expression, but the quality of the silence from Karkat must have conveyed the sentiment, because the blind troll rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Yeah, okay, that was a stupid suggestion. I'm grasping at straws, here."
"You want a suggestion? How about you leave me the fuck alone?" Karkat snapped. "I'm not gonna fucking cull myself, if that's what you're worried about. I have enough pride left for that." How he could possibly have any pride left at all, he wasn't sure. Maybe it was just sheer stubborn idiocy.
"Well that makes me feel a little better, but only a little," Sollux confessed. "Seriously, kk, this is eating you both alive and it's not doing much for the rest of us, either. We're pretty much humans versus trolls, now, totally at each other's throats all the time. If we all want to have any hope of surviving this mess, we need to be able to work together."
The guilt trip almost worked, because Karkat did still feel responsible for everyone as the leader and he knew that destroying the alliance between the trolls and the humans spelled disaster for all of them. "What the hell do you want me to do, Captor? Crawl out there on my knees and apologize to them? 'Oh, I'm so sorry I tried to rip your fucking friendleader a new one after he BETRAYED ME IN THE WORST POSSIBLE WAY'?"
"Obviously not, kk. Could you stop being melodramatic for one second?" Sollux sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Nobody's asking you to apologize. Well, some of the humans are mad that you attacked him like that, but they can go fuck themselves."
"Then what the fuck do you want from me?" Karkat demanded, feeling both furious and sick.
"I want you to let him apologize to you, kk. You don't even have to accept it, just let him make it so maybe one of you has at least a chance of functioning like a rational being again."
"You really think a fucking apology is going to cut it? Make any difference at all?" Karkat snorted, and threw himself back down on his pile, burying his face in his arms again. "Fuck it. Whatever. If he wants to risk me tearing his throat out by showing himself in my presence again, fine. Save me the effort of hunting him down."
Not that he would, and they both knew it. If Karkat was going to actually go through with it and kill John, it would have happened in that first fight. He hadn't taken the chance then, and now all the rage had drained out of him, leaving him only with despair for company. He felt empty and hollow, almost fragile like an empty cocoon. About as useful as the cocoon was after the pupa left it, too.
He heard the sound of the door opening, and assumed Sollux was running off to go find John and try to pry the human out of his room. So he was utterly shocked when the next voice he heard was John's.
"Karkat... oh god, please, I'm so sorry, you don't even know... there aren't even words for how sorry I am."
Karkat went stiff, trembling with the way he was suddenly caught between two equally strong urges. One to jump up and rip John's face off after all, and the other to bury himself so deep in his pile that they would never find him again. He couldn't make himself look up, couldn't bear to face the person who'd not only broken his heart, but broken his pride.
By fucking accident, which actually made the whole thing feel worse than if it had been on purpose.
"I miss you so much, it's a million times worse than when you were avoiding me before." John's voice hitched, and there was a snuffling sound. Fuck, was he crying? "Sollux said you haven't come out of your room even to eat. Please, Karkat, please don't do this to yourself, don't let me hurt you this much, I'm not worth it!"
"Damn right you're not," Karkat rasped, still not able to lift his head. "You're not worth anything at all, you revolting sack of excrement. If I took Tavros' hacked up body and scattered the pieces throughout the veil and let it rot for a thousand years, it would still be worth more than you are."
Yes, that was definitely a choked-back sob. Karkat hated John even more for feeling sorry enough for himself that Karkat's words hurt him further, as if he had any right not to already be at rock bottom. The way Karkat was.
And he hated himself for the way the sound tugged at his heart, made him actually want to feel bad for hurting the nooksucker. Made him want to pity him, for crying out loud.
"Please," John whispered, and his voice cracked in the middle of the word. "Please, Karkat, if there's anything I can do to make it up to you, to make it better... anything..."
Finally Karkat found the strength to push himself up, to lift his head and look his despised should-be-matesprit in the eyes. Briefly he was grateful that Sollux had apparently slipped out and left the two of them alone, but then he focused completely on John.
"Make it up to me?" he repeated, his voice a low rumble that was a short step above a growl. John's eyes widened, and he shivered, as if he was afraid of whatever he saw in Karkat's eyes. Good. "Make it up to me? What, exactly, do you think could possibly ever make up for completely betraying me when I showed you the ultimate trust, for ripping my pride into tiny little pieces and stomping all over the mess, for TEARING MY FUCKING HEART OUT AND FEEDING IT BACK TO ME?"
"N-nothing," John stammered. "Nothing can, I know that, but I have to try anyway. I'd... I'd let you do it to me, if I could. I'd let you do it right in the middle of the main room, just leave me there in front of everybody, ten times a day, I wouldn't care! But I can't, we don't have that reflex, I'm sorry."
That... actually gave Karkat a moment's pause. He stared at John, incredulous. The human could not possibly, truly understand what he was saying - no troll even fractionally in possession of his senses would offer something like that. Even if their situations had somehow been reversed and it was Karkat who had to repent for such a colossal fuck-up, he wouldn't have offered that. But knowing that John couldn't fully comprehend what he was saying didn't lessen the impact the words had on Karkat.
Briefly he contemplated just tying John up and leaving him helpless in public that way, but even if he stripped him naked first it wouldn't really have quite the same effect. Although the image of the other boy tied down and vulnerable in front of him was appealing in other ways, ways that he honestly couldn't believe he was still even thinking about. He shoved it aside.
"I've missed you so much," John repeated, rubbing at his eyes in a way that did nothing to clear away the existing tears and only caused new ones to spill over. Karkat felt something tug inside his chest, and tried his best to ignore it, but the boy was just so fucking pitiful. "And I'm still kind of freaking out about how much, and why this all happened, but... but I don't even care if this means I am a homosexual. It sort of just makes me happy, in this weird, screwed-up way, because if I am that means I can be even closer to you. Which," he laughed through a sob, "is probably a pretty good indication that I am, I guess. Wow, I'm so stupid. And if I'd just realized this earlier, I wouldn't have ruined everything."
"Shut up," Karkat mumbled, almost begged, because if John continued he was seriously going to break Karkat completely. The only conclusion to come to was that Karkat was completely fucked in the head, because he actually was thinking about maybe possibly forgiving the bulge-licking piece of shit, if only to make him stop crying like that. "Just fucking shut up already. Shut. The fuck. UP."
Miraculously, John actually obeyed him, closing his mouth and just kneeling there in front of him silently. He didn't stop crying, fresh tears running in a constant, bizarrely colourless flow over his face, but at least he wasn't talking any more.
Taking a deep breath, Karkat got to his knees as well, so they were both kneeling on the floor eye-to-eye and close enough to reach out and touch. Which is exactly what Karkat did, grabbing John by the back of his neck and digging his claws in hard enough to draw blood. John whimpered and squirmed a bit, then went still when Karkat shook him.
"What..." This time it was Karkat whose voice cracked, and he had to stop and gather himself before he could try again. "What. Exactly. Do you want from me? Because I can already tell you, we are not doing your sick screwed-up human 'friendship' thing anymore." All or nothing, that was the only way Karkat could handle this, because he could not face going back to their previous nonsensical 'relationship'. He either needed to let himself pity John, secure in knowing that the feelings were returned and John would never hurt him like that again, or he needed to turn his back on this once and for all.
"I want..." John paused and licked his lips, and looked like he was thinking about his answer hard. When he spoke again, the words came slow and almost painfully, like he was dragging them straight out of his soul. "I want you. I want to be with you as much as I can, I want to be close to you and make you smile and know that I can make you happy. I think... maybe I love you. I mean, I already loved you as a friend, but I mean really love you. Even though it scares me half to death."
"Do you pity me?" Karkat demanded mercilessly.
"Yes?" John didn't sound entirely certain of his answer, which wasn't doing anything for Karkat's confidence in him. "I know that I never, ever want to feel as bad as I did when I realized how much I'd hurt you, ever again. Hurting you is like, the worst thing I've ever experienced, and I'd do anything not to feel it again. That's kind of like pity, isn't it?"
"Close enough," Karkat muttered, and had to bite his lip to stop himself from saying anything else. He was pretty sure anything that came out of his mouth after that would be thoroughly embarrassing to him when future him came back to his senses. He still couldn't believe he was actually doing this, actually thinking about opening himself up again after what John had done to him.
The problem was, he literally couldn't imagine how he could live with himself if he didn't, if he threw this away and crushed John's ridiculous emotions. Fuck, he had it bad.
John was blinking, like he couldn't quite understand what Karkat had meant by that. Karkat hauled him in by the grip on his neck, still not letting up the pressure of his claws, but he was careful of his teeth when he sealed his mouth over John's. The human squeaked and flailed a little, but then grabbed at his shirt and was kissing him back. It was awkward and tentative and just a little bit heartbreaking, in the way that sometimes you have to break something before you can start to put it back together properly.
"Um," John said when they separated, both breathing hard and having trouble looking each other in the eyes. "I'm totally never going to be allowed to do that horn thing to you again, am I?"
"Maybe," Karkat said grudgingly, to the astonishment of both of them. He cleared his throat and stared hard at the wall over John's shoulder, trying to convince himself he wasn't blushing. "Some day. But I swear to gog, if you try it one second before I ask for it, I will eviscerate you and eat the offal for dinner."
"Fair enough," John said, with a wavering laugh. "Just knowing that you trust me enough for this makes me so happy I feel like I could burst. I can't really ask for anything more than that."
"Idiot," Karkat said, and leaned in to kiss him again. The other trolls were probably never going to understand why he would allow John close to him like this again - they'd think it was a sign of weakness, or maybe insanity. And the other humans might never forgive him for nearly killing John, and would probably be watching him forever to make sure he didn't snap again.
None of that mattered when his matesprit's lips met his.
Series: Homestuck
Pairing: John/Karkat
Rating: R
Warnings: m/m relationship, violence
Length: 10,789
When you open yourself up completely to someone else, you also make yourself completely vulnerable.
The crunching sound of Karkat's forehead meeting his keyboard echoed in the main room of the lab. "This is stupid," he announced to the room at large. "You have all the comprehensive ability of a wriggler - a freshly culled wriggler! I've explained it a hundred times already, clearly time one hundred and one is not going to make a difference. I don't know why I even bother trying to defend the glorious artistry that is troll cinema to an alien whose think pan is so rotted it's grey!"
"I don't know why you bother, either," Terezi put in from the other side of the room, snickering at him. "Your movies are pretty much shit, Karkat, and I don't mean the shit."
Just for good measure, Karkat banged his head against the keyboard a few more times. The crunch and clatter would have been much more satisfying if it had been the sound of bones breaking under his hands. Preferably the bones of one John Egbert, but he'd settle for Terezi's at the moment.
"Aw, you know you don't mean it, Karkat," John said, and he had the nerve to laugh. "If you were really serious, you'd have stopped coming to movie night a long time ago."
Attempting to drum the beauties of troll cinema into the moron's thick skull was actually pretty far down the list of reasons why Karkat continued to participate in their so-called 'cultural exchange'. But since the number one reason was 'because it lets me spend time with you' there was no way he was going to admit that, especially in front of everyone else.
"If I give up now, then all the time I've spent so far will be wasted," Karkat growled. "I refuse to have thrown away that much of my life."
"Don't worry, I'm sure I'll see the light. Probably around the same time you admit that Nic Cage is way better than any troll actor could ever be." Still chuckling, John leaned over and ruffled Karkat's hair, fingers sliding dangerously close to the base of Karkat's horns.
The scathing retort he'd intended to make died an abrupt and premature death in his throat, and Karkat froze. He'd seen John make a similar gesture with his human friends plenty of times before, but this was the first time he'd done it to a troll.
"Don't..." he croaked out, and then that warning died as well when John quite deliberately tweaked Karkat's horns.
Millennia of evolutionarily ingrained instincts kicked in, and Karkat shuddered once before his whole body went limp in mute surrender to what it perceived as a deadly threat. He fought to throw it off, trying to push himself upright and get out of range, but his body responded sluggishly to his demands.
"Huh? Oh, hey, do you like that?" John asked, sounding surprised and delighted. Before Karkat could recover enough to dodge or protest, he'd wrapped his whole hand around the stubby horn, fingertips digging into the base where it met his skull. And kneading, the little bastard.
Karkat sprawled helplessly over the desk, fingers twitching spastically as he struggled and failed to form a fist, to throw John off, to do anything. He tried to call out to the others, hoping one of them would take pity and pry John off him, but the only sound he could manage to produce was a faint whine.
The weirdest part was that he couldn't panic, couldn't even rage about the situation he'd been caught in. He couldn't move, couldn't think, through the rush of endorphins meant to keep him subdued and submissive despite the inherently aggressive nature of trolls. His body felt hazy and warm, and it took all his energy just to keep from drifting off into an oblivious trance. A distant part of his brain was aware that he was going to be very, very pissed off once John stopped touching him, but at the moment he couldn't bring himself to care.
Predictably, Terezi noticed his situation first. Also predictably, instead of helping him or telling John to stop, she just started cackling madly. Thankfully that at least drew everyone else's attention, and he heard Kanaya's shocked gasp through the ringing in his ears.
"Oh, dear, John, you really should not be doing that," Kanaya exclaimed. "It is not very appropriate and rather dangerous and also just a little bit disturbing. Dangerous for you, disturbing for the rest of us. Please cease this instant."
John's fingers stilled but didn't withdraw, and Karkat barely managed to stop himself from making a pleading noise. He was still a boneless pile of unmoving muscles, but without the extra kneading the pleasant haze was gradually fading.
"Huh? I'm just scratching his head, what's wrong with that?" John asked, full of innocence. "He even likes it, look!"
"Oh my gog, is Egbert doing what I think he's doing?" Sollux asked, and despite his new 'chill with everything' demeanour he sounded faintly horrified.
"Yep," Terezi replied, a little too gleefully in Karkat's slowly returning opinion. "Hehehehe wow, he smells like an unmoving pile of grey, who knew he could even hold that still?"
"Never seen anybody do such a good impression of a puddle," Dave drawled, just as amused. "Egbert I think you might want to listen to the lady. While I'm normally all for trolling the trolls, I don't think you want to be having the effect it looks like you're having on him."
"You guys aren't making any sense," John complained, but he finally removed his hand from Karkat's head. Belatedly Karkat remembered the importance of breathing, and all the trapped air left his lungs at once. "Hey Karkat, you don't mind, right? You looked like you were enjoying it, I've never seen you that relaxed."
"Hnnnngrhk," was the closest Karkat could come to forming actual words. He'd never experienced the submission reflex before, so he didn't know how long it would take to wear off, but he had a sinking feeling it might be quite some time.
"Oh man... kk is seriously going to kill you the second he can move again," Sollux commented, now torn between horror and laughter. "You might want to leave. I'd look for a nice, dark corner where he won't be able to find you to hole up in, if I were you."
"That would seem to be the most advisable course of action, yes," Kanaya agreed. "And actually I think it might be polite for all of us to find things to do in another location for a little while, so he can recover without feeling entirely vulnerable."
Mentally Karkat blessed her, fervently promising himself he would do something for her later to thank her. He managed to roll his head enough to be able to see half the room, and somehow worked up the energy to glare furiously at John.
"Oh, come on, you guys are just trolling me," John said, looking back and forth between them uncertainly. He glanced back over his shoulder as if to ask Karkat to agree with him, and turned pale. Probably because of the way Karkat was snarling silently at him, which at least gave Karkat some tiny measure of satisfaction.
"Start running, Hero," Terezi advised him with another cackle. John gulped, threw one last look at Karkat, and started running.
Karkat promised himself that no matter what it took, he was going to make John pay.
Luckily for John, he managed to stay out of Karkat's sight long enough for the worst of the humiliation to wear off. When they did inevitably meet up in the food repository the next day, Karkat hissed at him and the human miraculously had the sense to stay far away from him. Probably thanks to Jade and Kanaya both tugging at his arms to pull him away.
Though he'd been starting to come to terms with his decidedly mixed feelings towards John, Karkat found he now had an entirely new reason not to be able to look the human in the eyes. Shame. The memory of how it had felt to completely submit himself to John haunted him, flaring up in his mind's eye every time he so much as caught a glimpse of the other boy. So Karkat avoided the issue by avoiding John whenever possible, and staying as far away from him as he could the rest of the time.
He skipped two of their scheduled movie nights, and by then Karkat was starting to grudgingly miss the annoying little grubfucker. John's presence had been pretty much a constant thorn in his side since the moment the humans had arrived in the Veil, and for some reason it felt like his absence hurt worse. Especially since it was accompanied by the soulful looks John kept giving him every time they couldn't avoid it other, longing gazes full of hurt and apology.
Finally Karkat gave in to what felt like the inevitable, and presented himself at the door to John's respite block at the appropriate time for their next movie night. For a long moment after he knocked there was no answer, long enough that he started to wonder if John had forgotten, or if he'd read the human wrong and John didn't want to see him.
But then the door was thrown open so hard it slammed into the wall, and there stood John, wide-eyed and breathless and looking like it was his very first Twelfth Perigee's Eve. "Karkat! You came!" he blurted out, practically dancing from foot to foot as if he couldn't contain his excitement.
"Jegus, calm down Egbert," Karkat muttered, pleased by the enthusiastic greeting despite himself. "It's just a fucking movie, not a candelight hate date or something."
"Yeah, I know, but you didn't come for so long, and you haven't said anything to me - well, except for growling at me, but I don't think that counts - and you've been avoiding me, and from the way the others were talking about it I thought you really were going to hate me, like, hate-hate me, not weird troll like-hating me, and..." the human finally ran out of breath, just as a corner of Karkat's brain was becoming impressed with his lung capacity. "I thought I wouldn't get a chance to apologize," he finished after gasping briefly.
"You don't," Karkat told him bluntly, pushing past him into the room. "There's nothing to apologize for because it never. Fucking. Happened. Got it?"
"Uh... yeah, sure, whatever you say Karkat," John agreed, closing the door behind him. The room was set up as usual for their movie nights, so clearly he'd been hoping Karkat would show despite believing that he wouldn't.
And he'd not only not flinched when Karkat mentioned a hate date, he'd brought the topic up himself and not slipped in a single protest about not being homosexual. Karkat struggled to suppress the blush that wanted to spring to his cheeks, and he scowled so he wouldn't do something stupid like smile by accident. Maybe the whole humiliating thing would be worth it, if it led to John getting over his ridiculous hang-ups a bit.
Not that he was still hankering for a kismesis with the idiot. Prolonged face-to-face contact had led Karkat to conclude that blackrom with John would be about as satisfying as blackrom with Tavros - neither of them was capable of the kind of emotion necessary for a good, deep kismesis relationship. Which was probably just as well, as Karkat's black feelings towards John had slowly faded over the time he'd spent trolling the boy.
That still left... other possibilities, however. If he could ever get the grubtard to see past this ridiculous 'homosexual' issue that was somehow a thing. John certainly acted like he was flushed for Karkat, as witnessed by his excitement at Karkat forgiving him, but he continued to insist that it was 'only friendship' despite the fact that the way he treated Karkat was entirely different from the way he treated his other friends.
John settled in on one side of the padded table the humans called 'beds' as Karkat went to pop the movie in. It was his turn to provide something for them to watch, and he'd grabbed a case at random as he'd left his room. Once it was in he flipped the lights off and plopped himself down on the other side of the bed and got as comfortable as he could. It was better than most of the stupid piles, at least.
As always John couldn't keep his mouth shut for more than five minutes at a time. "What are they doing?" "Wait, why did she say that to him?" "Whoaaa, hang on, I thought those two guys were aiming to be moirails?"
Karkat had actually forgotten that this movie involved two men ending up as matesprits, and the corner of his mouth tilted up in a smirk. Maybe that was one way to go about ridding John of his stupid notion that gender mattered somehow? It would have been too obvious if he'd thrown male pairings at the human from the start, but they'd already seen a couple of troll movies that had happened to be male/female.
He watched John more than he watched the movie, and despite the way the human squirmed and flushed in embarrassment every time the lead actors shared a moment of passion, he also didn't look away from the screen. If anything, he asked even more questions than usual, and there was definitely nothing in his demeanour that said that he was repulsed.
Unfortunately Karkat had also forgotten one other aspect of this movie, a rather important one considering recent events. It wasn't until John blurted out, "Hey, why is that guy grabbing the other one's horns, everyone said that was a huge no-no and you were going to kill me for it," that Karkat remembered why this film was considered a little perverted even by troll standards.
"Oh fucking shit," he swore under his breath, and scrambled for the remote. It took him a couple of stabs to hit the pause button, and first he managed to turn up the remote just in time for the heartfelt moan the submitting troll made as he went limp.
Karkat had always kind of wondered if the actors had actually gone through with it or were just faking, but a vague corner of his mind noted that now he knew for sure; there was no way anyone would be able to moan that coherently while submitting.
Finally he managed to get it stopped, and quickly flipped it to the menu so the image wouldn't be hanging there on the screen. Too late to stop his own shame and embarrassment from swamping him, though. The memories were still as fresh as if it had happened five minutes ago, or at least it felt that way now.
John was looking back at him, wide-eyed and uncertain, the glow from the DVD screen the only light in the room. It was more than enough for Karkat to be able to see clearly, but he kind of hoped the stupid human's diurnal vision wouldn't be able to make him out well enough to see the raging blush on his cheeks.
"Um," John ventured after a long, unbearably awkward moment. "I take it you didn't pick this one on purpose?"
"No, fuck no," Karkat nearly exploded, tossing the remote away from him as if that could somehow emphasize his denial. "I didn't even look when I grabbed it, and I completely forgot that scene was in it. Fuck."
"Can I... you know, talk to you about it?" John sounded hesitant, like he was fully expecting the question to blow up in his face, but needed to ask anyway. "I mean, I know that thing I totally didn't do obviously never happened, we covered that. But I'm still not quite sure on why it didn't happen, especially now. Is it..." His eyes went very large, and the blush that sprang to his cheeks rivalled Karkat's. "Oh god, it's sexual, isn't it? Like, horns are like, nipples or something, I was... oh fuck, I was totally jerking you off, wasn't I?"
"What? No, gog, stop, just stop before you embarrass everyone on the entire asteroid," Karkat said, scowling. "They're horns, stupid, they're just keratin and bone, there's no nerves in them. We evolved them for fighting, it'd be pretty useless if they were sensitive to touch, wouldn't it?"
"But..." John looked completely confused. "In the movie, it seemed... I mean, even I could tell that was supposed to be a pretty hot and heavy moment..."
"Oh, fuck me and turn me into grubfeed, am I actually going to have to explain this to you?" Karkat grumbled, rubbing at his prickling cheeks. "I thought you said the others told you already?"
"Well, they weren't exactly clear on what it was that I'd done wrong," John explained sheepishly. "Just that it had been a really stupid thing to do and I'd be very lucky if you didn't gut me for it and that we all should never, ever even think about doing that to any of them. They sort of left out the 'why', and I was too embarrassed to ask."
Sighing heavily, Karkat resigned himself to the fact that yes, they were apparently going to have this conversation. "Okay, listen up and for once in your fucking life pay attention, because unlike the quadrant thing I am not explaining this ever again. Trolls are aggressive, right? We spend most of our lives trying to kill each other."
"Wait, wait, let me find a notebook or something," John said, patting around him on the bed as if he expected paper and pen to magically appear.
"Fuck no, you are not taking notes," Karkat snapped. "Just shut up and listen. Getting your hands around your opponent's horns is something it's pretty much only possible to do after you've already beaten them. It used to be, way back before we ever had star travel or even much of a civilization, that people would rip the horns off their still-living enemies and keep them as trophies. It was a pretty good way to kill their enemy, too, since there's a fuckload of blood vessels - and yes, nerves - in the flesh at the base of them.
"So we developed this reflex, like a last ditch attempt at survival I guess," Karkat continued doggedly, fixing his gaze on the movie menu so he wouldn't have to see the rapt way John was staring at him. "You go all limp and helpless, fucking submitting to your enemy, making yourself as gog-damned pitiful as you can in the hopes that he might spare you. And if he doesn't, at least it doesn't hurt quite as much when he tears your fucking horns off."
"Did it usually work?" John asked, clearly fascinated.
"Fuck, no," Karkat snorted. "Pity is something you only feel for people in your red quadrants, remember? But I don't know, I guess it worked often enough that the instinct got into the gene pool as a successful survival trait. Probably the victors would keep the submitting troll as a slave or something. Point is, we can't stop the reflex, it just fucking happens and there's not a damned thing we can do about it."
"And it's humiliating," John said softly. Karkat grunted, as close to actually agreeing as he could force himself to come, and John seemed to understand. "Gosh. I'm so sorry... I know it didn't happen, but I'm sorry anyway, I really never meant to do something like that to you!"
"I know that, idiot," Karkat snapped at him, rolling his eyes. "That's why you're still walking around with your guts inside your body. Now stop fucking talking about it already."
"And I guess it must have seemed like, I don't know, I was trying to be your kismesis after all or something," John continued, as if he hadn't heard Karkat tell him to stop. "At least, it seems like the sort of thing a kismesis would do..."
"Oh, hell no," Karkat exclaimed. "Anybody that tried that move on their kismesis would be short one quadrant about three seconds after their partner recovered. Fuck, have you not heard anything I've said about this or the quadrants? A kismesis relationship, a healthy one anyway, has to be between equals or near-equals. It has to be give-and-take, one person can't always win. If one of them forced the other to submit like that, it could only end two ways - either the partner overpowers them out of sheer rage and kills them, or the partner slinks off afterwards in utter shame and can never face their kismesis again. It's too much, too unbalanced."
"Huh." John appeared to be thinking about it pretty hard, at least. Karkat would give him credit for trying to understand. "That still doesn't explain why those two matesprits were doing it in the movie, then. They were matesprits, weren't they? Was I reading that wrong?"
"Fuck." Karkat had been kind of hoping that John would have forgotten about the scene in the movie, or at least would have been distracted enough to forget to ask about it. "Yes, they were matesprits. It's... it's considered really fucking kinky, but some trolls get off on the idea of letting their matesprit do that to them, okay? It's like, a trust thing. Being matesprits already means that you trust and pity each other enough to be willing to be vulnerable in each other's presence, but that's... it's the ultimate vulnerability. Most of us are not fucking certifiable, and so we aren't willing to put our lives that much in another troll's hands, not even a matesprit."
"Then it is a sexual thing," John said, and looked distressed all over again. "Oh my god, I did something sexual to you, I did something sexual to a guy, I didn't mean it!"
Executing a double facepalm combo didn't make Karkat feel any better, but it did at least let him hide his burning face. "No, fucking no, it was not sexual because you are not my fucking matesprit and I am not that fucked in the head! I do not get off on the idea of being completely unable to defend myself!"
The words skirted uncomfortably close to a lie, or so the tight knot in his chest informed him. If John had been receptive to the idea, Karkat would have been more than willing to consider being his matesprit. And, at least in the moments when John had actually had his hands on Karkat's horns, it had felt really, really fucking good. Good enough that there was a tiny part of him that wouldn't mind feeling it again.
But there was no fucking way he would ever admit that, especially since John was slowly relaxing again at these reassurances. "Are you sure?" the human asked him, a little anxiously. "Really sure? Well, I guess it's okay, then. I'm still sorry for humiliating you, or whatever, but at least I wasn't groping you on top of that!"
"Can we stop fucking talking about it now, please?" Karkat demanded. "Let's just finish the damn movie and forget this conversation ever happened." He retrieved the remote and went into the scene selection menu, scrolling through the numbers until he reached the one after the submission scene. They wouldn't miss any significant plot development by skipping it, and Karkat figured neither of them really needed to see that right now.
John was remarkably silent through the rest of the movie. Karkat would have liked to believe that meant the idiot was finally starting to understand the complexities of troll relationships without needing to ask a million and one questions, but he knew it was probably just that John was thinking about the conversation instead of paying attention.
Sure enough, the moment the credits started to roll, John turned to him with a hesitant look on his face that suggested he expected to be skewered momentarily. "Karkat? Um... you might kill me for asking this, and I might actually deserve it, but I feel like I need to ask anyway."
"Oh, for gog's sake." Karkat sighed and banged his head against his knees a few times, then looked at John expectantly. "Just get it the fuck over with, Egbert. With my luck, if I don't let you ask whatever it is now, you'll blurt it out in front of everyone tomorrow when you can't hold back any longer."
"Uh-uh, no way," John shook his head, the flush returning to his cheeks. "You'd definitely kill me for that. Um... please don't take this the wrong way, but... would you like me to touch you that way again?"
Completely floored, Karkat gaped at him, pretty sure his eyes were literally bulging out of their sockets. He opened his mouth to give an appropriately scathing answer, but no sound escaped him. He tried a few more times, then finally closed it again as he realized that the power of speech had actually deserted him in the face of this much sheer stupidity and he was only making himself look like a beached cuttlefish.
"See, it's just because, when I did it before you looked so... happy," John babbled, clearly trying to justify his absurd question and only digging himself ever deeper. "Relaxed and not angry at all and really just... happy, I'm sorry, I don't have any other word for it. I'm not your matesprit or even your moirail or anything but I am your friend, and I think you know how much that means to me and I would never, ever hurt you."
This time Karkat took a deep breath and carefully considered each word he wanted to say, and was able to make his throat work. "You realize I really should kill you just for suggesting that," he said, for once not yelling. This was way too important for mere yelling. John gulped, and nodded. "Anyone else would kill you for it. This is me, taking p... having mercy on your fucked-up alien lack of anything resembling common decency. Or common sense." He sweated a little at the near slip, but John didn't seem to have caught it.
"I know, I know, but I just..." John wrung his hands, an action that Karkat had never actually seen anyone do before. "In that moment when I thought I had finally found something that made you that happy, it really made me feel good."
It was completely insane that he was even still sitting here having this conversation, Karkat reflected. He should have gotten up and walked out the door the moment the idiot broached the subject. And yet, here he was, still sitting there, listening to John ramble on about why he should do it.
Gog help him, he was actually considering it, wasn't he?
The realization nearly choked him, and he had to take another couple of careful, deep breaths. "If you tell anyone about this, if you even tell them I considered it, I will push you out the nearest airlock," he said, his voice low. "I will stand there and watch as you explosively decompress, as your brain bleeds out through your ears and nose and mouth, and your eyes liquefy and all your internal organs swell up until you are so bloated you wouldn't even fit back through the door. And I will laugh while I watch."
John shook his head, eyes wide and mouth, for once, blessedly shut.
Pride wouldn't let him actually say the words, so in the end Karkat just tucked his chin against his chest and leaned in a bit, making it easier for John to get at his horns. That meant he couldn't see what the human was doing, and the moment stretched on with no contact for long enough that he wondered if John had changed his mind.
If this was all some kind of super elaborate prank, he really was going to kill the little grubfucker.
Then John's hand slid into his hair, trembling slightly, and his fingers found one of Karkat's horns, tracing it to the base. Everything else immediately became a non-consideration.
Belatedly Karkat realized that he probably ought to have propped himself up somehow, as his face received an abrupt introduction to John's leg. It should have hurt, but he couldn't feel anything except the pounding waves of endorphins racing through his system, loosening every muscle until he couldn't so much as twitch. He made a faint whining noise, protesting when John pulled away for a moment, but it turned out the human was only rearranging them to a more comfortable position.
Then he got both hands involved, fingers digging into the base of each of Karkat's horns, kneading and prodding and generally driving him out of his mind. Dizziness swept over Karkat, and he let himself fall into it, a sensation very much like bliss rushing up to meet him as he embraced it.
He was vaguely aware that he was draped half over the bed and half over John's lap, cheek pillowed on the other boy's thigh. Under other circumstances he might have been embarrassed. Under other circumstances, he might have been ecstatic. As it was, he could only drift along and enjoy the overwhelming experience, completely helpless to do anything else. It took all his concentration just to remember to breath; deep, slow inhalations followed by equally deep, slow exhalations, a rhythmic cycle that complemented the motions of John's fingers against his scalp.
After some time - it was impossible to keep track, and he didn't care enough to even try - Karkat became aware that not all of his body was limp. When he'd protested that this was not a sexual thing for him he'd believed his own words, but apparently he'd been deluding himself. Or maybe he'd just underestimated the powerful effect of continued contact. Suddenly he had no trouble at all understanding why someone might want their matesprit to do this for them. For them, not to them. Having an enemy do it would be terrifying, but when it was someone you trusted not to hurt you, it was amazing.
Part of his mind was also aware that he should be worried about the way he was reacting, but he couldn't remember why. He'd have squirmed if he could have, rutted his hips against the too-soft mattress, but since his muscles refused to respond to commands all he could do was lie there and enjoy the aching throb in his lower body. It was surprisingly arousing that he couldn't do anything to relieve the pressure.
Noise rang in his ears, increasing slowly in volume, and after a moment Karkat remembered the concept of words. John was talking to him, the idiot, as if Karkat would be able to understand him, let alone respond in any way. But he supposed if it was important enough for the moron to talk to him about it, he probably ought to make some effort to listen.
"...think that's maybe enough, Karkat, really it's not like I can do this all night, um, fuck, you're not even listening, are you, shit, I think we, uh, really need to stop now, bluh, please stop making those noises, Karkat!"
Abruptly Karkat found himself jolted out of the state of bliss, hands vanishing from his horns as his body was shoved roughly away from John's. He flailed, or tried to, but his muscles were still lax and he couldn't seem to make his brain function properly either. His head hit the wall hard enough that he was aware it would probably hurt later, but he couldn't even make himself react to that.
"Oh shit, sorry, didn't mean to push you that hard, are you okay?" John babbled, leaning over him and tugging at his arm. "C'mon, Karkat, it's late and you should probably go, you don't want anyone to wonder why you're spending so much more time here tonight that usual, right? Oh damn it, please get up."
"Nnnnghr?" Karkat managed, not even a rough approximation of Alternian speech, let alone English. John didn't seem to notice or care, tugging until he got Karkat's legs swung over the side of the bed and the troll mostly sitting up.
Automatically he tried to take control of his own movements, and when John pulled him up to his feet he managed to stay there more or less on his own. He still couldn't make sense of what was happening, but there was enough of the reflexive submissive feeling running through him that he obediently let John herd him towards the door.
"Oh good, you seem to be a little more awake now, that's great, so um, have a good night?" John said. "Or good morning, whatever you guys call it, not like it matters since there's no sun so there's no day and night here anyway. Never mind, that's not important, the point is, I'm glad I was able to help again, and I promise I won't tell anyone, so I'll see you tomorrow!"
Somehow Karkat found himself out in the hall with John's door closed firmly behind him, without any real idea of what had just happened. He was still operating mostly on autopilot, and since John hadn't given him any indication of what he wanted beyond 'go out in the hall', Karkat was at a bit of a loss for what to do next.
After a brief, stumbling attempt to walk that nearly ended with him braining himself to death on the wall, he finally decided to use said wall as a support instead, and slowly sank down until he was sitting on the floor with his back to it. Higher brain functions were creeping back in, enough that he was aware that he was going to be royally fucking pissed off the moment he was able to feel anything but hazy.
He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, fighting to steady his breathing and think. Had John seriously just turned him into a useless puddle of sopor slime, and then kicked him out and left him vulnerable in the hallway?
Karkat clenched his hands into fists, grateful when they responded to the command. He was going to kill John. He was going to kill him slowly, and painfully, and he was going to make absolutely certain that the death was far too gruesome to be either just or heroic, so that he could do it all again the moment the idiot came back to life. And again, and again, and again, until he'd vented every last bit of the rage that was building up inside him. At that rate, and judging by the amount of rage he could already feel, Karkat estimated it would take a year or so.
Absorbed in his fantasy revenge, Karkat didn't register the significance of the sound of shuffling footsteps until a foot met with his ankle, rather painfully. "What the fuck, who left something out in the damned hall?" a familiar voice demanded.
"Ow," Karkat commented, and opened his eyes to see Sollux standing over him. Wonderful, just what he needed, one of the other trolls to find him while he was still mostly helpless and limp.
"Kk?" Sollux said, astonished. "Why are you sitting on the floor? It's hard enough to navigate on my own without you creating an obstacle course, you know."
"I'm sitting on the floor because I feel like it, obviously," Karkat replied. He couldn't quite work up enough energy for his usual rancour just yet, and he knew that was going to give him away faster than anything, but there was nothing he could do about it. At least Sollux couldn't see the pathetic state he was in.
"Isn't this just outside John's respite block?" Sollux asked, and Karkat cursed half-heartedly under his breath. "Did you guys have a fight or something?"
"Or something," Karkat muttered. "Look, just... help me up, will you?" He was fairly certain he could stay upright and even manage something as coordinated as walking, this time. He just didn't think he could get himself up on his own, just yet.
Clearly puzzled, Sollux stretched out a hand and helped to pull him to his feet, and even steadied Karkat when he stumbled. To Karkat's eternal chagrin, the puzzled look slowly changed to one of dawning realization. "Don't tell me he was actually stupid enough to do it again?" Sollux said, disbelieving. "I thought we'd convinced him that it wasn't the sort of thing you do as a prank! Is he suicidal?"
"I'm starting to wonder," Karkat growled. The urge to turn around and slam open the door so he could gut the little bucktoothed wonder was almost overwhelming. Only the certain knowledge that he wasn't strong enough to manage it yet held him back.
"Well, fuck." Sollux sighed, and a little to Karkat's surprise he slung the other troll's arm over his shoulder and put his arm around Karkat's waist, helping support him. "Here, you steer, and I'll keep us upright and moving," he offered. "Damn, the other humans are gonna be pissed at us."
"What? Why the hell would they even get involved?" Karkat asked, frowning as they set off down the hall.
"You don't think they're going to be a little upset that you killed John?" Sollux asked him, wearily amused. "Pretty sure they're not going to just take it in stride, kk, even if he was begging for it."
"Oh. No, he's still alive," Karkat mumbled. "For now, anyway."
"You didn't kill him? Well, I guess you wouldn't have been able to, would you," Sollux realized, and shrugged. "Want me to go take care of it for you? My psionics still work well enough for me to blast him to pieces before he can get close enough to try that on me. Pretty sure that would be 'just' enough to make it stick."
Moments like this were what made Karkat sometimes wonder if he and Sollux were in an undeclared moiraillegiance. Sollux sounded so matter of fact, offering to go take care of Karkat's enemy for him because Karkat wasn't strong enough to do it himself at the moment. Surely that was pity.
"No fucking way. If he dies, it's going to be by my hands," Karkat growled. "And I won't let him off easy enough to die for good the first time, either."
Sollux laughed, squeezing his arm slightly around Karkat's waist. "That's the spirit. But I'll keep his hands occupied, if you need me to. Since he kinda knows our weak spot, and all."
"Maybe," Karkat acknowledged. "We'll see how it goes."
They walked in silence for a long moment, and Karkat let himself be soothed by Sollux's presence and support. Yes, moirails, surely. Should he say anything? Or would that ruin the moment?
Then Sollux went and ruined it in another way entirely, simultaneously reminding Karkat why he was pretty sure they weren't moirails, because Sollux was far too much of a dick to him. "So, what's it feel like, anyway?"
Karkat just growled in response, and Sollux laughed at him the whole way back to their respite blocks.
If Karkat had thought he was angry with John after the first time, it was nothing to the incandescent rage he felt now. In fact, the very emotion he'd once believed was anger, which he'd felt throughout so much of his life, was now shown to be nothing more than minor irritation in comparison. He was beyond furious. He was livid.
The first time had been an innocent accident, he'd been aware of that and it had tempered his rage. This time John had known exactly what he was doing, exactly how much trust Karkat was placing in him, and he'd betrayed that. He'd left Karkat alone and vulnerable, completely helpless, without anything more than a hurried 'good night' as an explanation.
When he saw the human at the next meal, he snarled loud enough to fill the room and lunged for his throat. John squeaked when he saw Karkat coming, and barely managed to summon the Breeze fast enough to defend himself.
"Karkat, what the hell?" he had the nerve to exclaim as Karkat picked himself up off the floor where he'd landed. Karkat equipped his sickles grimly, and John's eyes widened. "Are you trying to kill me?"
"No, I'm trying to maim you," Karkat hissed at him, barely managing to get the English words out. "Painfully. As painfully as possible, until your screams are loud enough to lead fucking Noir right to us. Then I'm going to kill you. And then I'm going to stand over your body and hack at it, laughing, until you come back to life so I can do it all again!"
He ran forward, trying to dodge and weave so John wouldn't be able to hit him with his Windy Thing, only to find himself tossed back on his ass once more.
"Dude, the fuck," Dave said, frowning and stepping forward, equipping his sword.
"YOU STAY THE FUCK OUT OF THIS, STRIDER," Karkat howled, pointing at him with one sickle. "THIS IS NONE OF YOUR GOG-DAMNED BUSINESS."
Red and blue energy crackled through the air, shoving Dave aside and pinning him against the far wall along with Rose and Jade. "Like he said, you guys don't get to be involved," Sollux said, coming up to stand just behind Karkat, his blind gaze fixed just to one side of where the humans were trapped.
"And you stay out of it too, Captor," Karkat snarled. "After some consideration, I've decided this is going to be a lot more satisfying when he can struggle."
"He's all yours, kk," Sollux said with a smirk. The three humans were struggling and shouting, and Terezi and Kanaya looked more than a little confused, but now Karkat was assured that the fight would be entirely between him and John. Even if for some unlikely reason Terezi and Kanaya tried to interfere, Sollux would stop them.
John was just standing there, staring at him like he was the one who'd been betrayed. He hadn't made any move to attack while Karkat was distracted by Dave, hadn't even equipped his weapon yet, the wriggler. "Karkat, I don't understand," he said plaintively. "Is this, like, some kind of weird step up in black flirting that I don't know about?"
The mere idea that John thought he was flirting was enough to make Karkat completely flip his shit. "I wouldn't fill a pail with you if you were the last sentient being in any universe and the imperial drone was three seconds from my door," he snarled. "I would sooner RIP MY OWN INTESTINES OUT THROUGH MY BULGE than fill a pail with you!"
He darted forward again, and this time he had a little more success dodging the wind, coming close enough to seriously threaten the human with his sickles before John blew him back against the wall again. Immediately Karkat was back on his feet and charging, shouting an incoherent battle cry of sheer rage.
"Why are you doing this?" John demanded, frantically throwing burst after burst of wind. "I don't get it, everything was fine last night, you even trusted me that much... uh..." As if belatedly aware that he might be being indiscreet, he glanced around the room at their observers.
Fortunately Karkat was far beyond caring about his reputation. "Everything was fine until you dumped me in the hallway, completely vulnerable," he shouted, panting with exertion and anger. "I trusted you until you fucking betrayed me, you faithless excuse for a so-called fucking 'friend'. If we were on Alternia I'd be fucking dead now, because the first troll who found me like that would have put me out of my fucking misery!"
"Uhh..." John looked stunned, as if he couldn't process the words. "Wait, wait, backup. I did what?"
"You. Ditched. Me. While. I. Was. Helpless," Karkat hissed, punctuating each word with a swipe of his sickles. He'd actually succeeded in distracting John enough that the first one connected, opening a shallow scratch across John's cheek, but that woke the human up and he dodged the rest. "You deliberately tricked me into letting you do that, and then kicked me out! Well, congratu-fucking-lations, your prankster's gambit will be at an all-time fucking high when you die."
"Hang on, you let him do that to you?" Sollux exclaimed. Karkat knew that later he would regret letting that bit of information slip in public, but right now the only thing he could feel was the rage.
"Shut the fuck up, Captor, I told you to stay out of it," he said, turning to aim a wild swing in his friend's direction. He was too far away for it to connect, and Sollux probably didn't even realize he'd done it, but it was the principle of the thing.
"Karkat... Karkat, wait!" John pleaded, dodging again and again, and finally blasting him with another gust of wind. This time instead of staying at a distance while Karkat recovered, he threw himself after the troll, ending up pinning him against the wall.
"I didn't mean to, that's not what I was doing, it wasn't a prank," he insisted, eyes wide and horrified. "I thought you were recovering, I wouldn't have done that to you on purpose, I swear!"
"Fuck you, I don't even care whether it was on purpose or not," Karkat informed him, struggling with the wind and the body holding him down. "You still did it, and I fucking told you what would normally happen if someone pulled that shit on a quadrant, and now you're damned well going to face the fucking consequences! Because I am not fucking running off and hiding my face forever in shame, I'm going to tear my pride back out of your stinking corpse!"
"No, no, no, Karkat, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," John babbled, clinging to him like he thought a fucking hug could make everything better. Hell, he probably did. "That's not, I wasn't, it's just, oh god, you were making these noises and... and I kind of freaked out, because I'm not a homosexual, or at least I didn't think I was, but it was... it was really kind of hot, and I couldn't stop reacting, and I was afraid you were going to see and you'd said that it wasn't sexual for you, so I thought you'd be disgusted and think I was totally perverted and... and not want to ever let me do that again."
"Well you got the last part right," Karkat snapped, but his brain was spinning in circles. John had thought the noises he'd been making were hot? That was why he'd thrown Karkat out of his room so abruptly?
Rage was still his foremost emotion, but bubbling up beneath it were now a combination of despair and a desire to laugh hysterically. After all his hoping and struggling and trying, John had finally realized he felt something flushed for Karkat, only for that to cause a rift that could surely never be repaired. Karkat was just fucking doomed never to be able to fulfil a quadrant, that was what it was - he was his owned damned kismesis, and now he wanted to kill his matesprit. And not in a red-to-black flipping kind of way, either.
John was still hugging him, leaning in to whisper in his ear, probably in an attempt to keep the conversation from their audience. "Look, Karkat, I could be doing that right now, you know I could, and then I'd win and you'd have to do anything I wanted, right? But I'm not, I'm not, because I'm not your enemy and I don't want to be! I don't want that to be tainted by hatred and anger, I want it to be about trust and... and the sort of thing m-matesprits do, not enemies!"
"What the ever-loving fuck makes you think I would ever trust you again?" Karkat growled. "Give me one good reason why I fucking should?"
The way John's face fell at his words made the despair win out over laughter, and threaten to take over rage as well. "There aren't any good reasons, I guess," the human conceded miserably. "If I really hurt you that badly, betrayed you that badly, then you probably shouldn't trust me again. But please, do it anyway? Give me one more chance, please. And..."
He faltered, then shook his head and took a step back. The wind died away as well, and Karkat flexed his hand around the grip of his sickle, suspecting a trick. "If you can't, if I've really ruined everything, then... then do it," John finished, opening his arms wide. "Go ahead, Karkat, kill me, I won't stop you. If that's what it takes to make you feel better, to let you have your pride back... do it."
"What." The word came out flat, as Karkat stared at him in utter disbelief. The room was completely silent, as if their observers were afraid the slightest noise would tip the scales to disaster. "You're... you're fucking full of it, this is a trick," Karkat said, but his voice was more uncertain than he'd meant it to be.
"No tricks, Karkat. I promise," John insisted. "Sollux, go ahead and hold me down. I mean it. If this is all I can do, then I'll do it. Whatever it takes. I have to make it up to you."
"It would be a just death, you know," Karkat said slowly, lifting one sickle and pressing the point against the place where John's heart beat beneath his rib cage. He heard a protesting sound from the humans' side of the room, quickly stifled, but he didn't look over. He couldn't take his eyes off of John's, their gazes locked in the universe's most deadly game of chicken. "You deserve it after what you did to me, so you'd be dead forever."
"I know," John replied, and there was a weight in his eyes that said he truly did understand what he was offering.
Karkat tensed his arm, preparing to drive the sickle through the grubfucker's heart. He meant to do it, he really did... but he couldn't go through with it. Not while he was staring right into John's stunningly blue eyes, seeing the heartfelt grief and regret there. He could have looked away, of course, but it felt inherently wrong to kill the boy who was fated to be his matesprit without even looking him in the eyes.
In the end he dropped his sickles and left them where they fell, turning his back on John and walking away, pretending as hard as he could that there was nothing wet and warm dripping down his cheeks.
"Kk."
"No."
"As much as it pains me to say this, maybe you should actually talk to him."
"Fuck off."
"I mean, I get why you wouldn't want to. Personally I'd have killed him, but whatever. You didn't, and now this is killing you both."
"What part of 'fuck off' was not clear enough for you, Captor?"
"Maybe you could try shifting it to a blackrom kind of hate instead of a 'rip your throat out' kind of hate?"
Finally Karkat lifted his head from his arms, glaring wordlessly at his so-called best friend. Sollux couldn't see the expression, but the quality of the silence from Karkat must have conveyed the sentiment, because the blind troll rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Yeah, okay, that was a stupid suggestion. I'm grasping at straws, here."
"You want a suggestion? How about you leave me the fuck alone?" Karkat snapped. "I'm not gonna fucking cull myself, if that's what you're worried about. I have enough pride left for that." How he could possibly have any pride left at all, he wasn't sure. Maybe it was just sheer stubborn idiocy.
"Well that makes me feel a little better, but only a little," Sollux confessed. "Seriously, kk, this is eating you both alive and it's not doing much for the rest of us, either. We're pretty much humans versus trolls, now, totally at each other's throats all the time. If we all want to have any hope of surviving this mess, we need to be able to work together."
The guilt trip almost worked, because Karkat did still feel responsible for everyone as the leader and he knew that destroying the alliance between the trolls and the humans spelled disaster for all of them. "What the hell do you want me to do, Captor? Crawl out there on my knees and apologize to them? 'Oh, I'm so sorry I tried to rip your fucking friendleader a new one after he BETRAYED ME IN THE WORST POSSIBLE WAY'?"
"Obviously not, kk. Could you stop being melodramatic for one second?" Sollux sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Nobody's asking you to apologize. Well, some of the humans are mad that you attacked him like that, but they can go fuck themselves."
"Then what the fuck do you want from me?" Karkat demanded, feeling both furious and sick.
"I want you to let him apologize to you, kk. You don't even have to accept it, just let him make it so maybe one of you has at least a chance of functioning like a rational being again."
"You really think a fucking apology is going to cut it? Make any difference at all?" Karkat snorted, and threw himself back down on his pile, burying his face in his arms again. "Fuck it. Whatever. If he wants to risk me tearing his throat out by showing himself in my presence again, fine. Save me the effort of hunting him down."
Not that he would, and they both knew it. If Karkat was going to actually go through with it and kill John, it would have happened in that first fight. He hadn't taken the chance then, and now all the rage had drained out of him, leaving him only with despair for company. He felt empty and hollow, almost fragile like an empty cocoon. About as useful as the cocoon was after the pupa left it, too.
He heard the sound of the door opening, and assumed Sollux was running off to go find John and try to pry the human out of his room. So he was utterly shocked when the next voice he heard was John's.
"Karkat... oh god, please, I'm so sorry, you don't even know... there aren't even words for how sorry I am."
Karkat went stiff, trembling with the way he was suddenly caught between two equally strong urges. One to jump up and rip John's face off after all, and the other to bury himself so deep in his pile that they would never find him again. He couldn't make himself look up, couldn't bear to face the person who'd not only broken his heart, but broken his pride.
By fucking accident, which actually made the whole thing feel worse than if it had been on purpose.
"I miss you so much, it's a million times worse than when you were avoiding me before." John's voice hitched, and there was a snuffling sound. Fuck, was he crying? "Sollux said you haven't come out of your room even to eat. Please, Karkat, please don't do this to yourself, don't let me hurt you this much, I'm not worth it!"
"Damn right you're not," Karkat rasped, still not able to lift his head. "You're not worth anything at all, you revolting sack of excrement. If I took Tavros' hacked up body and scattered the pieces throughout the veil and let it rot for a thousand years, it would still be worth more than you are."
Yes, that was definitely a choked-back sob. Karkat hated John even more for feeling sorry enough for himself that Karkat's words hurt him further, as if he had any right not to already be at rock bottom. The way Karkat was.
And he hated himself for the way the sound tugged at his heart, made him actually want to feel bad for hurting the nooksucker. Made him want to pity him, for crying out loud.
"Please," John whispered, and his voice cracked in the middle of the word. "Please, Karkat, if there's anything I can do to make it up to you, to make it better... anything..."
Finally Karkat found the strength to push himself up, to lift his head and look his despised should-be-matesprit in the eyes. Briefly he was grateful that Sollux had apparently slipped out and left the two of them alone, but then he focused completely on John.
"Make it up to me?" he repeated, his voice a low rumble that was a short step above a growl. John's eyes widened, and he shivered, as if he was afraid of whatever he saw in Karkat's eyes. Good. "Make it up to me? What, exactly, do you think could possibly ever make up for completely betraying me when I showed you the ultimate trust, for ripping my pride into tiny little pieces and stomping all over the mess, for TEARING MY FUCKING HEART OUT AND FEEDING IT BACK TO ME?"
"N-nothing," John stammered. "Nothing can, I know that, but I have to try anyway. I'd... I'd let you do it to me, if I could. I'd let you do it right in the middle of the main room, just leave me there in front of everybody, ten times a day, I wouldn't care! But I can't, we don't have that reflex, I'm sorry."
That... actually gave Karkat a moment's pause. He stared at John, incredulous. The human could not possibly, truly understand what he was saying - no troll even fractionally in possession of his senses would offer something like that. Even if their situations had somehow been reversed and it was Karkat who had to repent for such a colossal fuck-up, he wouldn't have offered that. But knowing that John couldn't fully comprehend what he was saying didn't lessen the impact the words had on Karkat.
Briefly he contemplated just tying John up and leaving him helpless in public that way, but even if he stripped him naked first it wouldn't really have quite the same effect. Although the image of the other boy tied down and vulnerable in front of him was appealing in other ways, ways that he honestly couldn't believe he was still even thinking about. He shoved it aside.
"I've missed you so much," John repeated, rubbing at his eyes in a way that did nothing to clear away the existing tears and only caused new ones to spill over. Karkat felt something tug inside his chest, and tried his best to ignore it, but the boy was just so fucking pitiful. "And I'm still kind of freaking out about how much, and why this all happened, but... but I don't even care if this means I am a homosexual. It sort of just makes me happy, in this weird, screwed-up way, because if I am that means I can be even closer to you. Which," he laughed through a sob, "is probably a pretty good indication that I am, I guess. Wow, I'm so stupid. And if I'd just realized this earlier, I wouldn't have ruined everything."
"Shut up," Karkat mumbled, almost begged, because if John continued he was seriously going to break Karkat completely. The only conclusion to come to was that Karkat was completely fucked in the head, because he actually was thinking about maybe possibly forgiving the bulge-licking piece of shit, if only to make him stop crying like that. "Just fucking shut up already. Shut. The fuck. UP."
Miraculously, John actually obeyed him, closing his mouth and just kneeling there in front of him silently. He didn't stop crying, fresh tears running in a constant, bizarrely colourless flow over his face, but at least he wasn't talking any more.
Taking a deep breath, Karkat got to his knees as well, so they were both kneeling on the floor eye-to-eye and close enough to reach out and touch. Which is exactly what Karkat did, grabbing John by the back of his neck and digging his claws in hard enough to draw blood. John whimpered and squirmed a bit, then went still when Karkat shook him.
"What..." This time it was Karkat whose voice cracked, and he had to stop and gather himself before he could try again. "What. Exactly. Do you want from me? Because I can already tell you, we are not doing your sick screwed-up human 'friendship' thing anymore." All or nothing, that was the only way Karkat could handle this, because he could not face going back to their previous nonsensical 'relationship'. He either needed to let himself pity John, secure in knowing that the feelings were returned and John would never hurt him like that again, or he needed to turn his back on this once and for all.
"I want..." John paused and licked his lips, and looked like he was thinking about his answer hard. When he spoke again, the words came slow and almost painfully, like he was dragging them straight out of his soul. "I want you. I want to be with you as much as I can, I want to be close to you and make you smile and know that I can make you happy. I think... maybe I love you. I mean, I already loved you as a friend, but I mean really love you. Even though it scares me half to death."
"Do you pity me?" Karkat demanded mercilessly.
"Yes?" John didn't sound entirely certain of his answer, which wasn't doing anything for Karkat's confidence in him. "I know that I never, ever want to feel as bad as I did when I realized how much I'd hurt you, ever again. Hurting you is like, the worst thing I've ever experienced, and I'd do anything not to feel it again. That's kind of like pity, isn't it?"
"Close enough," Karkat muttered, and had to bite his lip to stop himself from saying anything else. He was pretty sure anything that came out of his mouth after that would be thoroughly embarrassing to him when future him came back to his senses. He still couldn't believe he was actually doing this, actually thinking about opening himself up again after what John had done to him.
The problem was, he literally couldn't imagine how he could live with himself if he didn't, if he threw this away and crushed John's ridiculous emotions. Fuck, he had it bad.
John was blinking, like he couldn't quite understand what Karkat had meant by that. Karkat hauled him in by the grip on his neck, still not letting up the pressure of his claws, but he was careful of his teeth when he sealed his mouth over John's. The human squeaked and flailed a little, but then grabbed at his shirt and was kissing him back. It was awkward and tentative and just a little bit heartbreaking, in the way that sometimes you have to break something before you can start to put it back together properly.
"Um," John said when they separated, both breathing hard and having trouble looking each other in the eyes. "I'm totally never going to be allowed to do that horn thing to you again, am I?"
"Maybe," Karkat said grudgingly, to the astonishment of both of them. He cleared his throat and stared hard at the wall over John's shoulder, trying to convince himself he wasn't blushing. "Some day. But I swear to gog, if you try it one second before I ask for it, I will eviscerate you and eat the offal for dinner."
"Fair enough," John said, with a wavering laugh. "Just knowing that you trust me enough for this makes me so happy I feel like I could burst. I can't really ask for anything more than that."
"Idiot," Karkat said, and leaned in to kiss him again. The other trolls were probably never going to understand why he would allow John close to him like this again - they'd think it was a sign of weakness, or maybe insanity. And the other humans might never forgive him for nearly killing John, and would probably be watching him forever to make sure he didn't snap again.
None of that mattered when his matesprit's lips met his.