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It was supposed to be pitch.
You were trying so hard, too. Whatever weird, messy, fucked up relationship you and Karkat shared, it had become increasingly clear as the two of you stumbled your respective ways toward adulthood that what you wanted—what he needed—was the push of an unrelenting kismesis. Fangs at his throat, forcing him out of his own head. Claws at your back, shoving you back into yours. Always pushing, always stronger.
You really thought you had it figured out.
“You’re more pathetic than usual lately,” you say after eviscerating him at the seventh fighting game of the night.
“Or maybe I’m not a loser who wastes all my time on bullshit wriggler video games. Maybe I have better shit to do with my life. Have you considered that, bulgebrains?”
“Oh no, you’re exactly as pathetic as usual at games.” Static flickers down his arms until his stubby grabstalks drop the controller into his lap.
“Then what, pray tell, is your fucking issue,” he snarls, jostling you with his flesh hands like some sort of non-psionic scrub.
“Why are you all in a tizzy? I’m the one who’s had to listen to your bellyaching all night! ‘Waa, I’m responsible for fixing everyone’s shit but nobody listens to me and I’m not good enough to do anything right!’ Do you have any idea how exhausting you are to be around when you’re like this?” You shove your face aggressively close to his, horns tilted forward. “Which is pretty much all the time, I should mention.”
“Then why do you subject yourself to my company, huh? You’re the one who keeps agreeing to hang out.”
Karkat mirrors your posture, as if he could do anything with those mutant nubs even if he wanted to. This close, you can see the fiery flecks of red beginning to bloom in his irises. Hideous. Awful. Miserable. He could be so much more. You want him to be more. Fuck, you want him.
“Maybe I’m a pan-damaged sicko who needs to know there’s someone more fucked up than me,” you snarl, deep and low and run through with an electric undercurrent that crackles and burns the air between you. “Or maybe I just know that if anyone has to bear witness to your histrionics, it might as well be me.”
A dark clicking starts up in his chest. “Is that what I am to you? Some roundabout form of self-harm?” His horns bump against yours, which spark unbidden at the contact. “And you call me pathetic,” he mumbles before finally, finally crushing his lips to yours, clumsy and desperate with days or weeks or sweeps worth of hate, frustration, insecurity.
“Took you fucking long enough.”
You shove at his chest, but he resists. Overpowering him would be easy enough with a well-placed zap, but you want to feel what he’s capable of. Surprisingly, he’s not too much of a softie to pin you to the couch by the shoulder, or wrap a fist around your horns and yank your head to the side, or scrape his teeth against your throat.
“Does that make you feel strong?” you manage between gasps and chirps. “Pushing around a guy half your size?”
“Tell me,” he growls, nipping at your ear. “Who do you hate most?”
“You, dipshit.” You knee him in the gut and smoosh a hand over his face. He bites it without a second thought. “It’s always been you.”
“Are you sure?” He gets ahold of both your wrists in one hand and holds them above your head. Maybe you’re making this too easy for him. Maybe.
“Of course I’m sure. Out of all the insufferable assholes I have the great displeasure of knowing, you are by far the worst.”
“That’s not what I asked,” he says, stern but not quite nasty. Now he’s alternating rough, toothy kisses to your mouth and neck, hard enough to bruise. Fuck, you’ve wanted this for way too long.
“Isn’t it?” You kick at him, deigning to put a little psionic oomph behind it. Not enough to turn the tables, not just yet. He still hasn’t scratched that itch thrumming beneath your skin.
“Let me rephrase, since you insist on being deliberately obtuse as always.” He pulls back to lock eyes. The fire in them looks wrong, a controlled burn where you want a raging inferno, and it makes the itch worse. “Between the two of us, who do you hate more?”
The obvious answer sits on the back of your tongue, thick and sticky like honey, but it doesn’t come out.
“Bugwinged fuck, Sollux,” he groans with an exaggerated eye roll. “You’re better than that.” His nose crinkles in distaste. “So much fucking better,” he mutters, and shoves his tongue into your mouth.
His hands press at the sides of your face, blunt claws dragging lines down your cheeks. Your take the opportunity to twist your now-free hands into his hair. Exploratory sparks skitter over his tongue, behind his teeth. Someone moans, and you’re gonna go ahead and blame that one on Karkat.
And then his thumbs are smoothing the furrow of your brow, mouth migrating to your cheek, your jaw, the hollow beneath your ear and it’s just on the edge of feeling nice except for the way your skin crackles as if too small for your insides and it’s wrong, something is very very wrong—
You shove him away with a slightly hysterical “What the fuck, KK?”
“You’re asking me what the fuck? You’re the one who—you wanted—wh—” He wheezes, and then he’s spiraling quicker than a grub tumbling ass over nubs down a helical zigzag incline.
“You can’t just start planting flush kisses on a guy in the middle of—fuck! What is wrong with you?”
“Don’t you dare act like I’m the only freak in this room!” He’s got his arms around his middle, claws digging into his sides—but his his lips curl away from his teeth in a conflicted posture of fear and fury. It would be hot if you weren’t currently pissed at him in a decidedly non-sexy way. “How many times, Sollux?” A dark rumble lances through his words. “How many fucking times did you have me talk you down from a midday freakout? How many times did I have to drag my ass over here to force-feed you so you wouldn’t starve to death? You’re saying it was just me? I was making it all up?”
“I didn’t make you do any of that,” you hiss, shutting your eyes against the accusatory words; they set your fangs on edge, burn the space behind your eyes with buzzing electricity.
“All those times we shared the recuperacoon? Don’t think I didn’t see the way you looked at me. You’re just as guilty as I am, you fucking—”
“That was wriggler shit, we can’t do that anymore!”
He makes a sound like you just slit his throat.
“Is that what it was to you? You’re telling me it didn’t fucking mean anything?”
“How long before our ordeals, KK? Half a sweep? If we’re lucky? Don’t you get it, we can’t be like this! Th—”
“I’m not reaching my ordeals!”
It’s a shrill, hysterical thing that leaves the block ringing with echoed silence.
“I thought—” Karkat chokes, and now he’s full-on crying, smothering his stupid leaky face in his sleeve. “I thought we both knew we were never gonna be what they wanted. I thought you were like me.” A snotty laugh heaves out of him. “Fuck me I guess, that was pretty stupid!”
“Yes! That’s extremely stupid!” He flinches at your volume. “All these sweeps spent fighting to survive, to be stronger, and you just give up? What the fuck have I been pushing you for, then? What the hell was it all for? Was it just a waste of time to you?”
Were you just a waste of time to him? It doesn’t make sense. That’s not the obstinate nookstain you’ve spent so many sleepless days arguing with! That’s not Karkat. Your head fills with screeching static, violent currents racing around broken circuits—
“You’re the one who doesn’t get it,” he snarls, a growl rumbling in his chest. “It’s so god damn easy for you to sit there and lecture me! I spent so long convincing myself if I just worked hard enough, made myself useful enough, they would…” He crumples in on himself before twisting back into something aggressive, hard finger jabbing you in the sternum. “But you always had it figured out! You barely had to try! You’re really gonna let them turn you into a fucking battery!”
You plant your hands on his chest and shove him to the floor, no psionics required.
“Don’t you dare,” you spit, “don’t you fucking dare act like you know what you’re talking about.”
The static crackles and builds into a solid wall of pressure inside your skull. You might be shaking.
“Sol…” His voice cracks, and you pointedly ignore the thick red globs spilling down his cheeks.
“Stop. You don’t get to sit there and make yourself look pitiful.” You claw at your eyes, try to ease the pressure. “What was the point, then? All those sweeps fighting to make it, and you’re just gonna throw it all away?”
“You know there’s nothing for me out there.” His words are hoarse, barely a whisper, and… tired. So tired.
Abruptly, yet slower than you thought possible, your legs crumple beneath you and you’re on the floor. The wall presses ever forward.
“So that’s it? It was all for nothing?” He shoots you a confused look, face stained red with flush and tears. You shut your eyes. “I… was all for nothing?”
What was the point, then, of those insomniac days spent griefing each other in MMOs; the times you brought him groceries because he was too rattled by the latest neighborhood culling to go to the store; those rare evenings waking up to the sight of his sleeping form across from you, face slack like it could never be in waking hours; messing up his hair with sopor before he could wake up, and getting your ass handed to you when he decided a wrestling match was the only appropriate retribution…
What was the fucking point?
“Sorry.” He sniffs, buries his face in his hands. “I know. I know I’m being selfish, I just.” A shuddering breath. “I don’t want them to take you.”
A glowing crack in the wall, and then.
And then.
You’re grabbing his hands, pulling them away from his face and wiping his tears and snot with your sleeve.
“Guess we get culled together, huh?” You try your best to sound indifferent, just another mutually deprecating comment for the pile. But maybe you don’t do such a good job, because Karkat just starts crying harder.
“Please stop,” you grumble as he shoves his face into your shoulder. “You’re an ugly crier.” He just scoops you into his lap at that, arms wrapped tight around your middle, like he never intends to let go.
I don’t want them to take you. I don’t want them to take you.
The wall is shattering, crumbling, tumbling down and down and down, and you feel like the biggest idiot in the universe for thinking a shot at survival was worth more than this. More than him.
“Fuck,” you laugh flatly. “I’m a real piece of shit, huh?”
“Only most of the time,” he mumbles.
“I’m…” You swallow hard, focus on the solidity of his body. “I shouldn’t have said that shit. Or pushed you. So, you know. Sorry.”
Eventually, Karkat does let go of your torso, but only so he can hold your face between warm hands; the tips of his fingers reach your horns, and in the instant they make contact, the static just… stops.
It is truly, brutally fucked how after all these sweeps, nothing grounds you like him.
“We… we’ll figure it out, okay?”
It takes you a couple moments to realize what he means.
“Wait, are you trying to comfort me?”
He laughs a wet, soggy laugh, and hauls you up onto the couch. You end up twisted together, making sure to jab him with all your pointiest bits.
“Ouch, fucker!” He elbows you in the chest. “I guess I deserve this for calling you a battery, huh?”
“Nah, I think I’m the bigger asshole this time.” You wriggle around until you’re comfortably curled up on top of him, one of his arms draped over your waist.
“Yeah.” He starts playing with your hair, fucking sap. “Still sorry I said it, though.”
“I’m not.”
The image flashes in your mind, not for the first time: tethered and wired and alight with power, mind occupying the entire processing power of a ship, no longer bound to this shitty body that betrays you at every turn…
But still very much bound. And alone.
“But what other option is there, really.” You don’t realize you’ve said it aloud until Karkat responds.
“Hey, look at me.” You do, despite hating eye contact. (Seems like you’re always making exceptions for him.) His expression is soft, entreating, but certain. “We don’t have to go. You don’t have to go.”
“They’ll come for us, you know that.”
“We’ll hide. I made it this long, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, and you’re always going on about how nothing lasts, how you’re… cursed.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think it’s bullshit. I think you’re the most capable troll I know and it pisses me off that you make excuses about nothing going right for you when, fuck, Karkat, look at you!” You pat at his broad chest, his thick arms. “You’re strong, you really don’t see it?”
“I know you have no way of verifying this, but muscles don’t fix everything. Or most things, even.”
“I’m not talking about the muscles, idiot.” Although they are pretty hot, you keep to yourself. “I’m talking about how hard you worked to get here. Even when it seemed like it wasn’t worth it. Even when you were scared.” You trace the lines of his torso through his shirt, letting your touch linger. “You’re better than every motherfucker on this planet. That’s why… I can’t fucking stand the idea of you giving up.”
“…Oh,” he says, sounding unbearably fond. His arm tightens around your waist.
“So I… I guess if we’re actually gonna do this, you’re the troll I’d want by my side.”
“Oh,” he says again, suddenly purring very, very loudly.
“Hey, no, don’t make it weird, dude.” He looks like he’s about to get offended, but you cut him off with a smooch to his neck. Fuck it, you can be sentimental, too.
Gray dawn creeps its way over the windowsill. Soon, you’ll have to get up and close the shades. Now, though, you stay like this. Karkat, whispering half-formed plans while he presses at the spaces between your horns, his chest rumbling softly. You, pointing out exactly where the scheme falls apart, graphically describing your many inevitable deaths between play-bites.
Suddenly, he fixes you with a somber expression.
“Hey, Sol…”
You hum acknowledgment, stroking symmetrical patterns down the front of his sweater.
“So, like, are we…?”
“Yes, fuckface. We’re still friends.”
He rolls his eyes, frowning slightly, and envelops your hands in his.
“Do you think we could be… something else, this time?”
You hate how his words make you flush. You hate how his furrowed brow and puffy eyelids leave your throat dry. You hate how fast your blood pusher beats when you lean forward and kiss the corner of his mouth.
“Fine,” you grumble. “But only ‘cause I feel sorry for you.”
“Oh, go fuck yourself,” he says, and kisses back.