Archive of Our Own ^beta

You’re playing the shitty alchemized version of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 when you first notice the scratch in your throat.

You don’t think much of it. It’s probably because of a mix of you being on your third shitty coffee and the never ending stream of consciousness rambling you’ve been laying down on Karkat; who’s sitting next to you, staring blankly at the screen.

He’s probably not even listening to your sick insights into the universe of this shitty copy of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2.

"Dude, are you still with me? You gotta know. This shit’s wisdom beyond belief. You’re not gonna get this from anyone else. I have the fucking monopoly on that low poly knowledge. I’m dominating the market. Driving up the prices, nobody but me can afford that wisdom. You should appreciate that I’m sharing that shit with you," you say.

Karkat slowly moves his head to look at you. Expression unimpressed and grouchy as ever.

"You can stuff your shitty wisdom down your goddamn idiocy chute. I don’t give a shit how many different ways you can break this dumb game. Why the fuck do you even like this. The 'Tony Hawk' is barely recognizable as a person, and none of the movements looks realistic."

"Aw so you were listening," you say. You lean over to him to further emphasize how deeply touched you are by his investment in your shitty video games, but the movement jostles something, and suddenly you have something lodged in your throat, painfully.

You cough to try to fix it, but that only makes it worse. What was a minor scratch seconds earlier suddenly feels like something is stuck, cutting off your airways. You’re coughing harder, some kind of instinct telling you to fucking get it out! You curl forward, inward, like it might help with not choking. Panic floods you as you try to expel whatever’s stopping you from breathing.

Through your hacking you can barely hear Karkat talk next to you. He sounds mildly concerned at first then actually alarmed as it goes on.

Karkat’s panic doesn’t help the situation in any capacity. It fuels only what anxiety is already screaming at you through your nerves. You have to do something. You have to get this out!

Still coughing, half bend over, you stumble to your feet, stagger, barely able to keep yourself upright, but keep moving, away from the couch, toward the kitchen and to the sink.

Your plan here is vague, something about chugging some water maybe. Or something else. You’ve never choked before. And you don’t even know what the fuck you’re choking on.

What are you even supposed to do when you’re choking. Isn’t there a thing people in movies do. The hug thing, where the person presses on your stomach or something. What's that called? Maybe Karkat would do that for you. Do trolls even have that?

Whatever is lodged in your throat starts to move, you can feel it slowly slide from in your airway out into the back of your throat. Scraping and dragging along your airways you get it the fuck out of you with a last few coughs and hacks. You spit a clump of something into the sink.

Karkat’s ramblings are slowly fading back into hearing range as you catch your breath,

"Dave? What the fuck? Are you fucking dying? Please don’t be dying?"

"Shit," you say, voice hoarse from all the coughing.

"What the fuck? Is this a thing humans do? Cough up their fucking breathing sponges? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

That is an excellent question you have no answer to. Because what the fuck was that? You have no fucking idea, and if the whole thing wasn’t scary enough, that lack of knowledge is definitely not making it any easier on you.

"No man. I don’t know. Shit’s fucked up. No idea what the fuck that was. It’s not like I’ve fucking hacked up an asparagus before." You’ve never even eaten one of those. Only reason you know what the fuck that is, is because you once saw a veggie tales episode with one.

"Are you good now? Or are you gonna start violently ejecting any more greenery from your breathing tubes? That freaked me the fuck out! Don’t fucking do that again."

You lift the slimy green choking hazard up to have a look at it. You really don’t fucking know what this is.

Well, the thing itself might be an asparagus, not that your botany expertise is to be trusted. It’s more the how the fuck it got there that is the mystery.

"I sure hope not man. That shit was uncomfy as hell."

You drop the greenery into a nearby trashcan and try not to think too hard about what the fuck that was.

You’re jostled awake. The screen in front of the couch is too bright in the dark room. Your shades have become dislodged on your face and are thus failing to protect you from the harsh end credit lights.

You sit up from where you must have fallen asleep at some point during the movie. You haven’t missed much. You know that, because you and Karkat have watched this movie more than a dozen times already.

Karkat shuffles around next to you, putting down the now empty bowl of grubcorn. Him moving must have startled you awake. Because you’d been sleeping on his shoulder.

That he even let you get away with it for so long is surprising to you. You’ve apparently reached new levels of brodom while you weren’t paying attention.

You consider conducting an ironic soliloquy about you growing closer as bros, but a yawn stops you before you can start.

"How the fuck are you tired? You just slept through the goddamn movie. You have no fucking right to still be tired," Karkat says. His voice loud over the melodic end credit music.

"It was like half the movie," you disagree. "And I’m a growing boy, Karkat. A growing boy needs his sleep. You wouldn’t want to deny me that? Do you want me to be underdeveloped when we reach the new session. Half a man and less of a fighter, because you denied me my sleep?"

The scratching in your throat is back. Well back isn’t really right. It’s been persisting since you hacked up that vegetable the other day. but the ever-present itching has just been updated to a full scratch.

You reach for your bottle of juice. It’s not quite AJ, neither your nor Rose’s efforts have carried fruit in your quest for the real deal. But it’s an ok placeholder.

"Shut the fuck up. Sleep doesn’t help you grow. The saying is that a young troll needs their grub, not sleep. And you don’t need to do any more growing. You’re unreasonably large already as is."

You’re really not that tall. Karkat is just short. He’s the shortest on the meteor, excluding the mayor. Which pisses him off, Karkat not the Mayor. The Mayor’s cool with himself.

You might still grow, you’re only like halfway through your teens. But that’s beside the point. The point being that regardless of how much you grow, as long as Karkat stays short like he is, he’s going to insist you’re too tall.

"Well I’m not a troll, so grubs not gonna do me shit. I’m telling you the human saying is all about sleep. And I’ve got a lot of growing to do still. What with bro being as tall as he was. I’ve got a long way to go."

You’re not sure if the juice did anything. Talking definitely didn’t help. You should probably go to sleep. This is maybe just an issue because you were awoken from your slumber while your body was dealing with it in the unconscious way it does with illnesses and such. And because you disrupted that intricate process it’s all acting up now.

"Don’t you fucking dare. You’d look fucking stupid if you took after your human lusus. Your limbs are already too long for your torso as is, you don’t need to get more fucking length to that."

"My limbs aren’t the only thing that’s too long," you say, wiggling your eyebrows at him. You barely suppress a cough and clear your throat instead. You can feel there’s something moving around in there again.

He shoves you "Ugh, you’re disgusting. I don’t want to hear about your human bulge. Get the fuck out of my face."

You laugh at him, but the laughing turns into coughing, fucking the whole flow of the conversation up.

You manage to stop yourself from another coughing fit. But the moods ruined. You get up. His eyes follow you, frown on his face. Something like concern, maybe suspicion leveled at you.

"Well, I’m off to get some more zs, so that all of my limbs can grow even longer. And, of course, my dick."

Karkat groans. "Shut the fuck up. You’re insufferable. I have no idea why I even put up with you. Your company is so unimaginably shitty, it’s surprising that my thinksponge hasn’t shriveled up out of protest."

With a Karkat asking you questions crisis averted, you make to get the fuck out of there.

"You say such sweet things," you say and the words almost lodge in your throat. You can feel it moving upward, whatever vegetable is in there this time.

You don’t abscond. You make a cool exit that is not a retreat. You were gonna go either way.

You make it past the transportalizer to your wing of the meteor. You step off it and start coughing up a fucking storm. Leaned over, one hand on the wall you hack until you feel whatever is in there dislodge.

You spit it out onto the floor beneath you.

The fluorescent hallway lights show what you’re pretty sure is a flower. It’s got a stem and white petals and everything.

You don’t know dick about flowers, but you’re pretty fucking sure they don’t belong in your airways.

What the fuck. How did it fucking get there?

It better not be the fucking juggalo, cramming flowers down your throat while you sleep. You’ll never be able to rest peacefully if so.

Shit. With that thought you really don’t think you’ll get much sleep tonight.

"Hey Rose, is there an illness that could make you cough up flowers?"

Rose doesn’t look up from her book, but her eyebrows rise enough that she’s probably intrigued.

"What a fascinating question, Dave. Are you asking metaphorically or medically," she says. "I would say metaphorically that could be considered a good base to work with. Something growing inside you, festering, slowly consuming you." She looks up at you. "Dave, do you want to tell me something? Are you pregnant?"

"Shit, you got me, Rose. I got fucking m-preged by Terezi. She refuses to take responsibility for it, though, and now I don’t know if I should keep it. Can I care for a child all by myself? I’m not ready to be a father, let alone a mother. Should I m-abort it?"

"I believe even if you bore the child yourself, your unchanging gender identity would still make you its father. Unless you have more revelations in store? I suppose flowers growing inside you is as good a metaphor for transgender identity as any."

"Nah, my masculinity is untouched. As smooth and solid as ever. You could break a diamond on that thing. Definitely no cracks or fissures in there whatsoever. When the fucking masculinity inspector comes by, he’s gonna be fucking blown away by the absolute stability of that thing. It’ll blow his tits right off. That shit’s not going anywhere. Nope. He’s gonna be so impressed that he’s gonna give me a fucking medal for it. Be all proud and shit. Get this tough dude to cry manly tears of joy at my absolute robust masculinity."

"Fascinating. Do tell me more about your fantasy of being praised by a tough man who is proud enough of you to show emotions, vulnerability even."

"Nope, no, not happening. I’m derailing this conversation back onto its tracks. Metaphor over. Can you cough up flowers in the other way. Medically?"

"...Hm. I would assume not. Why do you ask, Dave?"

"I’m pretty sure I coughed up a flower at least once, probably twice."

Rose suddenly looks much less amused by the whole ordeal.

"Are you sure? Did you keep them? What kind of flower?"

"I don’t know Rose. It was a fucking flower. And I didn’t keep it. It’s probably still in the hallway I spit it out in. I sure as hell didn’t fucking clean it up."

Rose closes her book and puts it aside. She stands up and says with a blank look that would impress any Strider, "Well, let’s have a look."

Kanaya and Rose are talking about flowers and you’re asking yourself when your medical crisis became a lesbian date.

You shouldn’t be surprised. This is what’s been happening for months now. They’re still not calling it by its name, but they’re both putting the lesbian moves on pretty hard.

Right now, they’re talking about symbolism in flowers. You’re not really sure what that’s got to do with the greenery in your fucking lungs but maybe it’s part of their process or something.

"I believe it stands for hate, the kismesis type. Deep passionate feelings; Devotion to destruction," Kanaya says.

Rose looks at her like she’s the most interesting person she’s ever met. With that smug little smile that probably makes her look like an asshole to anyone who doesn’t know her well enough to distinguish between her weird convoluted expressions. You wonder if Kanaya knows her well enough yet.

"How fascinating. In human culture it seems to stand for innocence and purity. A juvenile love perhaps. The intensity of a fist love. Childlike in its novelty and ignorance," Rose says. She’s straight up reading it from a book she just picked up. You watched her take it off a shelf. There’s no way she knows what the fuck she’s talking about; regardless of how intellectually she puts it or how much she sounds like an ass when she says it.

All three of you are in the study, though you’re starting to think Rose and Kanaya have forgotten that you’re here.

Rose alchemized herself a pair of rubber gloves and actually peeled off the flower from the hallway floor. It’s now sitting on a plate in front of them on the table, along with their books on flowers and medicine and lesbian courtship probably. Like it’s some kind of sign of their slowly blooming romance, and not a thing you spat out last night after coughing up your lungs.

"The reflected gentleness of your species always surprises me. What I have seen of you seems much sturdier than what your mythology would make one think," Kanaya says.

"I would assume, like your  ̶  so much proclaimed, it must be performative to some degree  ̶  insistence on your own violence, our emphasis on our own sweetness is more of a hope for manifestation than it is an observation. We can take more than we’re willing to say, and you’re more open to giving than you like to admit," Rose says.

You’re wondering if this counts as foreplay. If this was a written conversation this might pass as sexting. Not that you want to imagine your sister sexting, but you probably wouldn’t be surprised if it looked something like this. Maybe you should leave. It’s not like it’s likely they’ll come to some miraculous conclusion any time soon.

"Would it then follow to presume that the devotion of troll hate and the intensity of human love would match each other quite well? As the flowers opposite but at the same time mirroring meanings match each other across our cultures?" Kanaya says.

"I would indeed say so. After all, one of the prevailing human mythos of creations is that we were made in our gods image; It would only be natural for us to be an answer to a question posed by you. As you are our creators," Rose says.

Oh god, you feel like if this is gonna go any further, they’ll start making out for sure.

To your luck and salvation, the transportalizer wooshes and drops Karkat into the room with you.

"Oh, this is where you all are. Is this some kind of super secret, don’t fucking tell Karkat about it meeting, because we hate him and want him to fucking rot away alone in a corner of the meteor? Or some kind of shitty ploy to get me to hang out with the scourge sisters? Because fuck that, I want as little to do with Vriska as possible. And I also don’t want to be forced to make awkward amends with Terezi. We’ll get to it when we get to it."

"Oh thank god, Karkat," you say when he takes a breath, probably really only to continue his shitfit, but you gotta grab the bulls by its horns, his very small candy corn horns; By which you mean, get a word in while you can. "You’re fucking saving my ass here, man. I swear any later and Lalonde and Maryam would have started making out right in front of my eyes. Like no scruples at all, go full softcore and all, I could feel that shit in the air. No consideration for my innocence at all. Shit would have gone out the window and into the abyss where some dead Dave coulda done who knows what with it."

"This innocence you talk of Dave, is it connected to or entirely independent of you imagining your sister in a pornographic scene that involves her making out with her conversation partner?" Rose says with a different smug expression. This one just means she’s being a smug asshole.

"Nah. I wasn’t imagining shit. My innocence is untouched by your lesbian indulgences. That shit was straight up a premonition. It wasn’t even on me. Thats on the universe."

"What the ever loving fuck are you two talking about?" Karkat interrupts, once again mercifully getting you out of a situation that could have become dicey. "And what the fuck are you all holed up in here for?"

"We have been holed up, as you’ve put it, to figure out an ailment troubling Dave at the moment," Kanaya says.

"Karkat, you don’t happen to know of an illness that lets flowers grow in someone’s throat?" Rose says.

Karkat makes a face like he thinks that’s a trap, and you can’t blame him. Rose’s tone always suggests at least some kind of digging of holes for her verbal opponents to fall into. It’s her natural state. But Karkat’s face also tells you he’s going to say what he was going to, regardless of any potential pitfalls set out by Rose. Well, his face and the fact that it’s Karkat and he does that regardless of the situation.

"Like the romance trope?" he says, which isn’t entirely surprising, given that it’s Karkat, but for once that had not been what you expected. "Like when a highblood is too caught up in his bullshit blood casteism and can’t get his head out of his ass for long enough to realize that he’s deeply flushed for a lowblood, so much so that the unexpressed pity manifests as a festering growth inside him. Or when a lowblood yearns after a highblood far out of her reach so deeply that it makes her sick and she coughs up flowers in the color of her desire’s blood caste? Like that?"

"Well, it certainly not unlike that," Rose says, and you’re pretty sure the smile growing on her face is on you and your ego. You like neither whatever Karkat was rambling about neither Rose’s response of sadistic delight.

"I really don’t think it’s like that," you say. "I don’t know why everyone wants to make this into a goddamn metaphor. I’m not choking on my innocence and I’m not actually secretly into routinely gagging on some fucking stamen. And I’m not longing myself into asphyxiation. That’s dumb."

Rose looks like she is enjoying this more and more and you wonder if you said some dumb shit there. Luckily Karkat interjects before she can lay into you. He’s really on a roll with busting your ass out of situations.

"Fuck you. What do you know about yearning in romance. You uneducated fucknut. You wouldn’t know romantic tension if someone crammed it down your throat. It’s a beautiful trope that has a lot of potential for tragedy and dramatics. It’s a wonderful literary device and you don’t understand shit because your thinksponge is too full of idiocy fluid to make space for essential things like taste or understanding for the literary prowess of the romance genre. So shut your ignorance chute before I cram one of these fucking tomes into it."

"You say the most beautiful shit, man," you say, once Karkat is done with his shitfit. It’s another masterpiece of eloquence and wordsmithery on his part. You could listen to him for hours. And you do, because you spent most of your time with him. You’re never getting sick of him and his word avalanches.

"Fuck you, Strider. Fuck you and your objectively incorrect opinions on genre fiction."

You laugh lightly, as much as a Strider should allow himself to. A short one but a good one.

The small little laugh, mostly a huff of air out your nose, gets away from you. Like your lungs are using the escaping air as a gateway to clear themselves of something.

Dread fills you as you can feel it rising again. It starts as a scratch and turns to an itch and your small laugh turns into a cough.

You try to hold it in. Let whatever is dislodging itself in your throat lie for a bit longer. But your body doesn’t give a shit what you want, and when you try to breath in again you feel your throat close up. You’re too late. It’s lose and you have to get it out or suffocate on it.

Your half cough, barely suppressed, turns into a full cough that is followed by more and more. Your throat burns your eyes sting. You can feel it slide up inside you, jostle around and up bit by bit with every cough that escapes you. Your head hurts, your entire body hurts. You just want it out.

Passively you hear Rose say something. Maybe she sounds concerned, or it might be annoyed. It’s hard to tell with her sometimes.

You’re not getting any new air. you just cough and cough and you’re not sure if you still have the air required for that in your body.

Karkat says your name, loud as ever, but muffled by the blood rushing in your ears, and the coughs shaking your body. You can still hear that he sounds panicked.

You feel like a spoiled bastard that you have people who care about you, and all you can do about it is hack up a bunch of flowers. God, you should pull yourself together.

You feel the flower in your throat unfold as it reaches further up. The more space you give it by pushing it upwards, the more it takes. When you feel it spreading itself out at the back of your throat, you reach in, gagging on your fingers and the flower, and you pull it out. It resists you slightly, some of the leaves scratching your throat further but you get it out.

You drop it and yourself onto the floor, your hands and knees barely holding you up as you just breathe. Through some further coughs and desperate gulps of air you catch your breath.

Fuck. That flower was way bigger than the last two.

It takes you a moment to register that everyone else has yet to calm the fuck down. Not that you’re a 100% sure you’d call yourself calm, more like knocked out.

Rose is frantically asking you if you’re alright. This one is concern, you’re fairly certain. You vaguely croak that yeah, you’re fine. She looks unconvinced.

Karkat has his hand settled on your back. You have no idea when it got there. He’s frowning deeply, and looks a little angry. Maybe he is. Would he be angry with you if you’d genuinely suffocated on this thing.

"Dave what the fuck?" he says.

"Sorry, man. I’m just not as experienced with not gagging on shit as I always claim I am. Could probably use some more experience in the department." You’re about to say some really stupid shit about study buddies and him spotting you as real gym bros do, but Kanaya is generous enough to interrupt you by holding out a glass of water to you.

You shut up, sit up, and drink the water.

Karkat’s hand on your back doesn’t leave. It feels warm and reassuring in a way that in your weakened and delirious state makes you kind of feel like crying. It’s probably the oxygen deprivation.

"God, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Karkat asks and you don’t really want to blame your delusional state for how fond you think he sounds.

Rose stands up from where she was crouched next to you. She’s holding the flower, looking like she can’t really believe it herself. She and Kanaya share a look, something either nerdy or lesbiany if you’d have to guess. You’ve kind of lost the energy to be irked by their romantic bonding over your bullshit.

"I think we have some research to do," Rose says.

Rose looks at you with impatience. Like you should hurry up and get on with believing her bullshit theories.

"You think I have some kind of troll bird flu that makes me grow flowers in my chest because I’m in love?" you ask. "Great theory, only problem I’m not in fucking love."

Rose rolls her eyes. "Oh please. Spare me. I know you like being aloof about your emotional state, but not even you can be obtuse about it to this degree."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Who, pray tell, would I even be in love with on this meteor with population of 7? Are you suggesting I’m still hung up on that barely there thing with Terezi? She’s so busy being lesbian besties with Vriska that I haven’t even seen her enough to have a full conversation with her in like a month. Or do you think I have some kind of masochistic streak that would make me pine for Vriska? The mean girl who’s currently friend dating my not even really ex? Trust me I’m good on that front. No urge to get into her web anytime soon. Or are you insinuating I’m pining after the vent clown? Because I can assure you just knowing he’s here is enough juggalo bullshit to last me my entire life. I don’t need to get on his ass in addition to that. Or do you think I’m gonna compete with you for your vampire girlfriend. Sorry, sis, you’re the one with the goth fetish. She’s all yours. And I swear to god if this is some Freud ploy."

"I see that you have conveniently left Karkat out of that line up of possible paramours. It strikes me, if not as laughably pathetic, at least as interesting," Rose says.

"Nah, man. Leave my bro out of this. He doesn’t deserve to get dragged into your psychology ramble. He’s done nothing wrong," you say.

"Don’t you think it’s interesting how you started coughing only after Karkat showed up? You were fine before that. And he told me that he witnessed such an incident before."

Wow your buddy ratting you out to your sister. Can’t trust anyone these days.

"Your stats have a fatal flaw, Rose. I always hang out with Karkat. It’s statistically less likely for me to get a hacking fit when he’s not all in my business," you counter.

"And can you not see how that might prove my point. You’re practically joined at the hip. Can you blame me for my conclusion to your infatuation based condition?"

"This is bullshit," you say. "You just don’t understand the nuances of a platonic bromance."

"As much as I appreciate your stubborn insistence on that platonic bro love of yours, I highly doubt that a bromance would be quite enough to cause a physiological condition to manifest," Rose says.

"I can’t believe you would slander the sacred bromance like that. And to my face no less. That shit is holy and you’re kicking it with your feet."

"Ah so you admit that your apparent bro love to Karkat, is what is causing your ailment?" Rose says

"What the fuck is with me?" Shit, fuck, when the fuck did Karkat get here? You didn’t fucking hear him? He’s usually impossible to not hear.

"Nothing," you say too quickly, almost losing your monotone cool guy voice there. "I mean, Rose and I were just talking about bromance, and it’s religious implications."

"Yes, Dave was just about to start talking about human Jesus and his bros and their sacred bonds," Rose says, with a winning grin. At least she went along with it. Whatever she thinks she won at can be a problem for a later time.

"I don’t give a shit what your human religious charlatans have to say. Bromance is fucking important and beautiful. Nobody should ever underestimate it!" Karkat says.

"A dude after my tastes. You’re taking the words right out of my mouth man. Getting all in there and pulling them out like a fisher with the daily catch. You’re like one of those birds that roots around in the mud with their beaks for little insects or something. You’re the bird and my mouth is the mud dude."

"I assume all the mouth and pulling things out of it metaphors are part of the sacred bro connection?" Rose asks.

Okay so maybe that got away from you a bit there.

"Yeah. Sacred shit. All ritualistic and stuff."

"Shut the fuck up, Dave. You’re making a laughing stock off all the bros in the universe. The bond between friends, platonic love and kinship, is one of the strongest connections that exist. Neither of you take this shit seriously, and your ignorance and slander are making me sick!"

"Man, you know I take that shit serious," you say. "My connection to the bromance runs fucking deep dude. That shit is genetics. Runs through my veins. I was bottle fed the bro juices when I was just a babe and I’ve been shitting nothing but bro code. You underestimate my brodication!"

You don’t really get any further. You’d have way more to say, or at lest you’d be capable of saying more. But your throat closes up around your sick portmanteau of bro and dedication.

You didn’t even really get to take a breath before this shit started. You were mid ramble. You don’t have time to take deep gulps of air while talking. You gotta get the thoughts out before your brain moves on and jumps too far ahead. Your shit is elite, not everyone can keep up with your bespoke thought initiations. But you don’t wanna leave everyone behind. Gotta leave some crumbs there for people to follow your genius. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for breathing.

You’re hacking more than you’re coughing.

No air in your lungs to help propel that shit outward. You’re bend over, and you don’t remember having gotten in this position.

Your head is nestled between your knees and you hear your shades clatter as they hit the floor.

Shit, you’re kinda losing it. There’re tears in your eyes and your throat burns. Your back hurts and so do your chest and your head and your stomach.

A strong hand claps you on the back. It actually dislodges something and for a second air manages its way into you. You’re breathing in too greedily and you’re coughing again before you’ve managed to take a full breath.

It’s what you get for wanting too much, really. That’s what this is about, right? Rose is right. You don’t want to admit it. But as you sit there, choking on some fucked up troll flu flowers, it hits you that this has got to be your problem.

You want too much. You fuck yourself up with it. Air, friends, Karkat. Fuck man. You want too much of that dorky troll and its quite literally killing you.

The hand is back on your back, hitting you with what feels like vigor, but may just be panic. It’s helping more than your own pathetic coughing.

And at last, you can feel your shitty self grown gag in the back of your throat.

You pull it out like last time, reaching in to give yourself some reprieve, gagging around the leaves and petals and your own fucking fingers. But once its out you don’t feel better, you can still feel more of them in there. So you keep hacking, pathetically, with barely the strength, nor the air to force them upwards. The hand on your back helps. And like the shittiest stage magician in the history of paradox space, you pull another flower and then another from your throat.

With the third out you at last feel your abused throat give to let air in. You collapse into yourself, trying to take big lung-fulls of air. Your chest isn’t super on board with that, and neither is your throat. Coughs still rock your body every few breaths. But you get air into yourself.

Fuck, man. This shit sucks. Your body hurts like a bitch. Your chest and stomach hurt from the coughing. Worse now than they have been perpetually between the attacks; From what you can only assume are these fucking flowers growing inside your chest. And your throat feels like you just took an industrial sander to it. Like Karkat ran his long sharp claws right the fuck through your neck, into your breathing tube or however he’d call it.

You think you’d much prefer getting fucking mauled by Karkat to this shit. At least he’d be funny about it. And he’d probably be cute too.

God damn it. Rose really had a point. You can feel the ache, familiar at this point, building in your chest. Maybe you could ask Karkat to just rip your lungs out. He could probably do it, with all that pent up anger. Well maybe not pent up, if he’s pent up, you don’t want to know what he’s like when he lets himself be openly honest with his feelings.

Okay, in all honesty, you’d actually like to know what Karkat on no self restraint is like. He’s already so fucking good with all his repression and deflection. You’re not entirely sure you could handle it honestly. Maybe witnessing that would insta kill you. And it’d be fucking Just. Because there’s no way the universe would offer that death to you, and not make it stick. No fucking better ending for Dave Strider than that. The universe should know that.

Fuck you’d prefer that ending to whatever bullshit this is.

The hand, now not slapping you anymore, is still there, heavy and reassuring and you recognize it. How could you not. You feel the claws through your hoodie, where they rest on the fabric, not piercing, not scratching, just sitting, harmlessly, like you didn't imagine them in your chest, your throat, just moments ago.

The pressure builds a bit more. You have to stop thinking about Karkat. You’ve just got done with one of these fuck bouquets. Shit at least you’ll be able to supply your own funeral flower arrangements. 

"That was worse than last time," Karkat says. He sounds angry, but in a concerned way. Shit why does this have to keep happening around him.

"Dave," Rose says. And she also sounds concerned. Actually, worse. She sounds scared.

You look up at her, and she looks stoic. That Strider poker face must be genetic. Bro would be proud.

But you know her. And there’s a curve to her frown and her eyes look a little too watery. She’s covering that shit well. But she’s scared. You just made her witness that for a second time.

You’ve made this shit her problem. Like she’s not got her own shit to deal with.

There you go again, asking for too much. You’re kind of a dick for making her figure this shit out for you.

"Sorry," you say. You lean backwards against the sofa and Karkat pulls his hand away.

You regret that too.

Rose hands you your shades. You’re pretty fucked up if you didn’t even notice they’d still been off. God you’re fucked.

"I’ll figure out what to do about it," she says.

You know it’s bad because she doesn’t even gloat about being right. You must really be dying.

Rose is striding up and down the main street in Can Town, swinging some big ass tome around, engulfed in it, but clearly unhappy about what it’s telling her.

The Mayor, sitting to your right, perched on the edge of the roof of the super market he’s been working on, like some kind of unhappy bird, watches her wearily.

You really fucking get that. Because every time she finishes one lines of pacing, turning abruptly and walking back down the road, her heel turn comes a little too close to your judicial building of justice. That shit’s important social infrastructure and her Godzilla like strides threaten to tear can towns entire justice system down. One wrong move and there goes law and order in this peaceful town.

You’d have to get Terezi back to swear in the new building. And the girl’s busy, god damn it.

And her spidery secretary (at least that’s her role when it comes to legal matters) is ruthless and unbothered by your small-town crisis.

You’re sprawled out by the town square, painting the inside of the new water fixture you’ve fashioned out of a strangely shaped yogurt container and some empty spools of yarn you scored from Kanaya’s stash. The Mayor was approving in his quietly enthusiastic way when you first unveiled it. Maybe you could figure out how to make it actually be a water fixture instead of just painted blue. You’d bet he’d think that’d be even cooler.

With the main street running through the city center (duh, this town planning is immaculate) Rose brushes by you on her way from another near miss of the justice house.

"Lalonde," you say, when she waltzes by you. "You gotta look where you’re going. There’s infrastructure you could be damaging with that gait of yours."

She stops in her tracks and gives you a glance that can only be described as dismissive. "I don’t think your art installation is more important than my research into your physical wellbeing, Dave. And I will remind you, that we could have easily done this in any other room, but your priorities are skewed to say the least."

"Man, don’t put your force of nature level near destruction on me. I didn’t ask for you to do your research here. You just waltzed in, smelling like dubious booze and started terrorizing the residents of can town. Not their fault that your reading habits are weird as shit," you say.

Rose scoffs and lets the book fall shut and down to her side. On its way down it comes uncomfortably close to the elaborate plastic ornamentation on your fountain. You do a kind of aborted movement to protect it, but she manages not to land any critical hits.

"Don’t lecture me on my coping mechanisms in moments of crisis. So what, if I indulge in a liquid numbing agent. My brother’s fucking dying and I haven’t found fuck all that could cure him. I’m sorry my concern is disrupting your much better strategy of sitting on the floor, doing arts and crafts. I’m sure the power of creativity will cure you spontaneously."

She’s only slurring a few of the words, which means she’s not actually drunk. But she’s still tipsy enough to say more than she would probably allow herself in a sober state. You’re honestly not a fan.

"Shit’s therapeutic, Rose. So yeah, maybe it will. Might as well," you mumble.

She levels you with a blank stare that you don’t quite know how to decipher. it might be barely contained rage, or misery. Or just the booze hitting her harder just in that moment making her zone out. Hard to tell.

"So, no cure?" you give in after a moment.

Rose sighs. She sits down crisscross applesauce (you really miss apple flavored shit, man) exactly where she’s standing, across the fountain facing you. The book makes a thunk noise when it hits the floor.

Her books always seem to be unreasonably heavy.

"None of the Alternian medical texts I’ve consulted have mentioned a cure. Only symptoms and estimations on how long until it becomes terminal," she says. She frowns and leans back, her hands smearing the chalk lines on the street. You’ll have to fix that later. "The only clues I got were those romance books Karkat mentioned. In those the illness is resolved with the romance blossoming properly. Excuse my pun there."

You keep your face carefully blank when you say, "So you’re saying I gotta get it on with my object of blooming passion?"

Rose crinkles her nose. She doesn’t have to abide by the restrictions on Strider face etiquette. Though technically she’s also kind of a Strider. Maybe your own Lalondeness would give you a pass to make a face at your current predicament. Food for thought definitely.

"I have no way to know what part of that would actually make it better. If I had any kind of information on resolutions that aren’t based on romance tropes, I could hazard a guess. But the Alternian medical system seemed quite unconcerned with recording cures of illnesses, or maybe curing them at all. So we're kind of on our own here." She sounds tired. She looks tired, too. Like she’s been reading instead of sleeping. Like she’s been stressed about this. The alcohol in her system doesn’t do her any favors either.

Her eyes are rimmed dark purple and red. The whites bloodshot and her skin somewhere between gaunt and flushed. Her hair is more of a mess than you’re used to.

It’s kinda shitty thinking you’re the reason for this. She’d been doing better about the booze. It had been hard at the start, when she’d gotten the idea and then the practical execution of said idea through means of alchemizing bottles of the stuff. But with some not so gentle bullying from Vriska and much more gentle offering of distractions and destruction of the offending objects of temptation, she’d actually gotten her shit together mostly.

And you’ve kinda fucked that up with not dealing with your shit and also being stupid enough to catch troll syphilis. (Completely unfair by the way, at least the human version of that would mean you’d’ve gotten laid. But you’re just pent up and longing like the shitty teen you are. Fucking unfair.)

"Well shit," you say. About what she’d said. But also the situation at large.

In response to that Rose takes a bottle from her sylladex and takes a swig from it.

You reach across the fountain and take it from her. She makes a displeased sound but doesn't really try to stop you. Instead, she flops back, her head landing in the alleyway between the bank and an apartment building.

You consider if maybe following your Lalondian traits and getting drunk about it is a good idea, but then you get a sniff of the stuff and it smells way too much like the preservatives you used for those dead things on your shelf back in Huston, with maybe a hint of photo developing liquid mixed in there, and you would rather not put that in your body.

You captchaloge the bottle instead. You’ll get rid of it later.

First you have to try to fix the root instead of just getting rid of the symptoms.

You take a deep breath. "Fine. I’ll try... talking to him about it."

You hate the idea so much. Not talking to Karkat. You love that shit. But about your feelings? You suck at that.

The thought alone makes your chest feel tighter. And an all too familiar scratching makes itself known in your throat.

Rose looks up, surprise painted hilariously on her face.

"Huh, I wouldn’t have expected you to be that far."

"You practically spelled it out for me yesterday. Don’t know why I shouldn’t be 'that far'."

She squints at you, still sprawled on the floor, only having her head raised as far as is necessary to look at you. She still manages to look condescending.

"I wouldn’t doubt your ability to compartmentalize your problems like that. It’s your greatest skill."

"Nah, my greatest skill is rapping. And irony."

“However you define irony, I’m still positive you’re terrible at executing it. You should focus on other skills.”

“Like compartmentalizing?”

Rose pulls a face and flips you off.

You wake up and your time power tell you it’s ass o'clock and you should be asleep.

You’ve just been ripped out of a dream bubble dream. You were talking to Karkat. Not your Karkat, some other doomed dead Karkat. And by talking to, you obviously mean he was yelling at you and you were riling him up. Because even when it’s not your Karkat, he’s cute as fuck when he’s angry.

All sharp teeth and snarly mouth and his eyes get all squinty. Sometimes he starts pacing, when he’s worked up enough, most times he just gestures a lot. He gets really creative with those. Not as creative as with his words, but it adds to it.

Usually, the dream bubble Karkats don’t quite go all out for you. they tell you to fuck off more often than they get into a proper shitfit rant. The kind that can go on for a really long time. That shit has entertainment enough to feed a family for months at a time.

Those you almost exclusively get from your Karkat. He’s got all the good shit. And he gets bonus points because he actually likes you. So he’s your favorite. Plus, he’s your Karkat, but thinking that almost feels a little too presumptuous, so you tend to just stick with the other reasons.

You could probably get those other Karkats to like you too, if the dream bubbles didn’t constantly cockblock you by ripping you out of them at random. Not that you’re trying to get at them like that. Bad phrasing there. Definitely no cocks to be blocked. Just some good old normal bro time. With a bunch of dead versions of your best friend.

Yup, normal shit.

It’s not like you could handle getting macked on by one of those Karkats. Or your own alive Karkat. You’d probably totally flip your shit and embarrass yourself so bad you wouldn’t be able to face any Karkats for weeks.

You’re even blowing it without Karkat doing anything.

He just exists and you’re such a fucked up disaster you’ve developed a new illness because you just can’t handle all he’s got going on. Fuck how are you meant to survive this goddamn meteor ride.

All the Karkat thoughts got your chest all tight. And not in the cute way that those bodice ripper books always describe. When Karkat reads that shit to you it makes it sound nice and sweet, the feeling of metaphorical butterflies, not literal flowers using your lungs as soil.

You wish you could just deal with this shit normally. Wake up with a hard-on, not with greenery in your airway. What fucked up teen passes up the opportunity to crank one out for choking on your body’s own flora.

You’re not even getting that right.

Rose at some point said some shit about developmental stagnation due to prolonged trauma during impressionable phases. Or something along those lines. But you really don’t think you can put this shit on your unconventional upbringing. Your bro would have wanted you to beat it to your hot alien guy friend. He’d be all for that. Bake you a cake for it. Or buy you a cake and make a retail worker write some vile shit on it. For irony purposes.

Okay maybe Rose has at least a little bit of a point with that one.

Point is your lungs hurt and you thinking about jorkin it really hasn’t helped.

You turn onto your side to see if that’ll alleviate some of the pressure. It doesn't. Shit just shifts your insides around and makes you feel kind of breathless. When they say that a person takes your breath away, you really don’t think this is what they had in mind. Karkat’s not even here. And also, you could think of significantly better ways for him to steal your breath. Or for him to cause you to choke for that matter.

Damn, this shit is really not helping.

There’s a knock at the door. You were about to see if the other side is better for laying on; you freeze midway there.

You could pretend not to recognize Karkat’s knuckles on the door and wonder who it could be. But man, Karkat’s the only one who knocks that loudly. And he’s also the only one who’d knock on your door in the middle of the night.

Maybe he also had a dream bubble Dave encounter and now needs some kind of reassurance that you’re not as much of a douche as whatever version of you he met in there. He will of course be disappointed. All Daves are equally as shitty and he will have to admit to himself that he likes your shittiness actually.

Or maybe he met a version of himself and had a huge fight with himself. And now he needs your help to get out of a self hating spiral. Actually, nah. As much as you would love to help him with that, you know him; He wouldn’t come to you. He’d carry that shit out to the end and then be in a bad mood for the rest of the day.

It’s probably pretty hypocritical of you, hoping he’d ask for your help with any of that, when you won’t even ask for his help with this stupid shit he’s at least in partially involved in.

God you just don’t want to start that shit this way. What a conversation starter. And you just know you’d say it bad and then he’d feel like shit and you’d have fucked up your chances.

Shit’s delicate. You gotta be more careful than coughing up a bouquet into his lap. You don’t even know if trolls do flowers like that. Maybe they think those are horrible because this shit’s a troll disease. Or just because everything on troll planet is fucked up and awful.

The knock comes again and you sit up, or you try to. The movement loosens up whatever’s been festering in your lungs and instead of replying to Karkat, getting up, or doing fucking anything, the only thing you manage, is getting into a coughing fit.

You hear Karkat say your name behind the door, and all you can do is cough.

You hear the door open, and you can’t even turn to look at him. Your body is on autopilot and that fucking thing is telling you to do nothing but squirm and hack. Shit, you could really use a pilot that can do some other shit. Aren’t pilots usually all for having steamy airborne affairs? You could argue the meteor counts as airborne and Karkat could be your stewardess. He’d look great in one of those skirts and those hats. You don’t actually know if flight staff wear that shit in real life or if big music made that up for their sexy videos. Karkat would rock that shit though.

Instead of a storyline fitting of one of Karkat’s romance novels, you just get coughs shaking your body.

You only just manage to hear Karkat’s stompy footsteps over the blood rushing in your ears and your lungs trying to eject themselves out of your body, as he crosses the room toward you. He comes into view, having to crouch down to your mattress level. You can barely make him out through the tears in your eyes.

The coughing is doing fuck all. You’re not sure if you’re too tired or too oxygen deprived to feel panicked about it.

You hurt all over and your coughs are barely coughs anymore. Just kind of convulsions, as if it was gonna help get shit moving for your body to be doing the worst break dance imaginable.

Karkat is definitely panicking. He’s all in his element. All the oxygen he needs, and awake enough too. He can panic for both of you.

He tries hitting your chest, and shaking you, as if that’d do something. Maybe if you were in a glass coffin that shit would work. But you’ve never been fated for one of those princes on a white horse. No one’s ever come to save you, so you should probably resign yourself that not even Karkat can.

Fucking paradox space doesn’t want you rescued by anyone but your own ass self. Or your douchebag Bro. Fuck, he never did that shit for you though. And it fucked him in the end too.

You don’t want your shit to fuck up Karkat. He doesn’t deserve that. You love him too much for that. And wow what a time to have that realization. You wish you weren’t so slow on the uptake. You wish you weren’t choking. You wish Karkat wasn’t crying. You’re pretty sure he is. And it’s been almost two minutes since you took a breath. You don’t know the statistics, but shit doesn’t look good for you.

You feel lightheaded and man it sucks that this is how your night is going. It sucks that this is how your life is going.

Paradox space can’t even afford you a normal bro romance. You’re not allowed a normy teen drama, where you romance your bro and turn that bromance into a gay ass slow dance. You woulda asked him out to prom if that was a thing trolls did. All sign in hand on his front porch, or his lawn ring or whatever. Boombox behind you, spewing sick rhymes you wrote for him.

Fuck why can’t any of this shit ever be easy.

You’re not breathing, and your body’s kinda given up on the coughing. Even the choking spasms have mostly let up now.

Shit’s about to be over for you. And man, that sucks. Is this what all those dead Daves felt like? You don’t remember the explosion being this shit.

But then when you and Rose blew up, you didn’t have Karkat crying and yelling at you, asking you not to die.

God you’re an asshole for this.

You let your eyes drift shut, because then you don’t have to see him anymore. And that’s selfish of you, and probably makes you even worse of a person.

You’re probably hurling yourself at that Just shit so hard with what you’re doing to Karkat here.

It takes another twenty seconds of you listening to him, howling, yelling, screaming, hitting your chest and clawing at you as if he could keep you here by sheer force of will, for you to lose consciousness. Every second of that is agony. Worse than the pain, worse than the dizziness and the fear. Worse than choking on your self grown loneliness.

Unconsciousness takes pity on you and whisks all that shit away.

You won’t know how long it takes for you to die. Your internal clock only works when you’re alive.

But you die

The magic timepiece ticks

It chooses

Your death is

STUPID

You feel the magic of your god tier powers flow through you. This is the first thing you feel again. It feels different than it did last time, when you were in that sun; Colder, less chaotic.

You feel yourself heal, the shifting metamorphic transformation from death back to life. A surge of that universe energy that you could see in that frog you and Jade made, and that shimmers in those dream bubbles, and that made you a god.

Your body lifts, not like it does when you float, when you’re in control. You’re not controlling this. The power that gives you the option to not die here with flowers down your throat, the power that put you here in the first place probably, is in control.

You kinda hate it.

Your body, limp from death still sticking to your limbs, lifts off the mattress, and you feel the first thing that’s not overwhelming god tier shit; Karkat clutching onto you. His claws digging into your arm, holding you like you might be floating away for good. Ascending to the heaviside layer or some shit.

Its good. It hurts a little, he’s got kind of a death grip on you. No pun intended. But it’s not those powers you neither want nor asked for. It’s not a puppeteer pulling your strings. It’s Karkat holding you down, tethering you to the meteor.

The resuscitation carries on, even with Karkat’s hindering it. And you drop back down once it’s done.

You take a breath in.

Fuck the stale ass air in your meteor room has never tasted so good.

That god tier universe magic, that brought you back to life, also took the flowers out of your airways. Which, you think, is pretty fucking considerate of it. Maybe it cured you of that shit altogether. That’d be great.

When you’ve filled your lungs with air and let yourself be glad you’re alive for a second  ̶  you really thought that could have been it, you could have doomed the timeline with this  ̶  you sit up.

Karkat’s hands, still clinging to your arms, curl in a little more, like you might leave. Or like the universe might float you away after all. Not entirely unfounded fears all things considered.

Beside his hands clutching you, he is entirely curled inwards, crumpled into himself, shaking and probably still crying. You touch his back.

"Karkat?" your voice sounds sore, but you don’t think that’s still from the flowers.

"Fuck you," he yells. Or maybe it’s more of a sob than a yell. "I thought you were dead."

You were. You don’t tell him that. You remember meeting him for the first time. The meteor littered with the corpses of his friends. Now that you know him, you might be able to tell how he was feeling. Then you were barely alive again, a new god and a long distance from anything you’d ever known. So you weren’t really paying attention.

Now you’re also newly not dead. But you know Karkat now. And seeing him this terrified, this hurt and grieving breaks you a little.

You did this to him and you don’t know how to fix that.

He won’t even look at you. And even though you don’t know how to do this, you wrap your free arm around him. It’s probably a shit hug, because you suck at those, and you suck at this. But it gets Karkat to uncurl from his cowered state.

He is great at hugging, so when he hugs you back; surges forward to hold onto more of you than just your arm; it actually saves the whole production. Leave it to Karkat to unfuck your fuckups.

He curls his claws into your pajamas and buries his head into your chest. You just try to hold on to him in a reassuring way. A way that tells him you won't just go and die on him again. A way that shows him you’re alive and okay. A way that says you’re not gonna be another corpse on this meteor.

You feel his tears seep into your shirt. You hold him a little tighter.

"I’m sorry man," you say.

You don’t think that’ll be enough, but you don’t know if anything ever will be.

Too soon, he shoves you, and himself away from you. His eyes are rimmed red and you’re terribly aware of your shades that are somewhere beside your bed and not on your face. He glares at you.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" he shouts.

You’re not sure what exactly he’s asking about. You hope he doesn’t want a full itemized list. That shit would take all night and then some probably.

Looking at him, eyes wild and scared, grief practically radiating out of him with how intense the emotion is written on his face, you’re pretty sure he’s not actually asking anything. He’s hurt and angry and confused, and you did that to him. He is like this because you died in his arms like the most insensitive asshole in the world.

You answer his question anyway, if only to distract yourself from the immense guilt of it all.

"Rose said the whole," you gesture aimlessly. None of the flowers made it out this time, so you don’t have anything to point to. You try to convey it anyway, vaguely and not very effectively, "you know, is some kind of troll disease. Makes you sick with longing." Shit that sounds so cheesy. You’re never living this down. And this probably isn’t even new information to him. You’re doing this terribly; this can only get worse.

"So all the fucking avoiding me, and the meddling with Rose and Kanaya, and the fucking choking, and you dying?! All that is what? A manifestation of your emotional repression? Fucking congratulations asshole, we’re all fucking repressed. We’re all missing our friends, and our planets, and fucking dead lusi, or whatever you had. Why the fuck do you get to spout flowers over it while the rest of us have to stew in our misery, like fucked up pupas that refuse to hatch into something less gross and useless?!"

Well, Karkat tends to have a talent of bringing things to a point. Well maybe he missed a bit with the reason. But fuck he hit it on the head with all the shit about how you’re making way too big a deal out of this.

"Fuck man. I don’t know. It’s not like I want to be turning myself into fertilizer prematurely."

"Well dying sure gets you significantly further into that direction," Karkat says.

"Yeah, no. Obviously. Lucky shit didn’t stick. I guess pining after your best friend isn’t really all that heroic, huh?" you say and try not to panic over having told him. "Coulda counted as Just for making you see that. Fuck I’m sorry."

Karkat is doing that face where he scrunches up his nose and frowns with as many parts of himself as he can. It’s cute as hell and to your fucking dismay you feel a familiar ache in your chest.

"You’re actually going the romantic tragedy route with the fucking disease? Are you for real? And I thought I was the depraved romance fan. But here you are, living the fucking plot of one of my favorite books. Dying over a boy you’ve not even seen in a sweep. Leave it to Strider to be that much of a dramatic asshole. And you won’t even share the goddamn novel worthy tragedy with me, your friend and romance connoisseur, because of your fucked up gender-based romance hangups. Jegus, you’re the worst!"

Is he... saying you’re in love with John?

"I’m not in love with John."

Right? No, you’re not.

"Right? No, fuck off! This isn’t about John. Fuck. Shut up."

Now he’s got you off on this fucking tangent. Shit, you don’t have energy for any fucking emotional revelations about yourself. You’re barely cool with the gay thing yet. You’re not ready to add pining over your best bro for years to that. Well, add it a second time you suppose. Fuck are you actually that predictable?

"You’ve not referred to Jade as your best friend before. Though, I can see how she would qualify. And you had that thing with her during the frog cloning," Karkat says, apparently thinking out loud now. Speculating on pretty intimate moments between you and your very good friend.

"I’m not in love with Jade. And her and my frog adventures are honestly private. I can’t believe you’d spy on that shit."

"I was also helping her, in case you forgot. She only knew what to do so well, because I was, as you’ve so tastelessly put it, spying on her. I was guiding her through an impossible task, and without me there, you would have never gotten the universe frog ready, shithead. So, I’m so sorry for intruding on your precious romance time with your best friend. I was trying to even out the odds that you’d so thoroughly beat into the ground, by doing everything wrong and being fucking useless and awful!"

"Karkat, can you shut the fuck up? This isn’t about Jade."

Your frustration over the second tangent he’s successfully pulled you into blooms in your chest, and you suppress a cough.

"Then who could you possibly be talking about. You can’t mean Rose. You have that weird hangup about being human related to her. And also you’re practically always talking to each other. What pining could there possibly be space for with all your yapping?"

For someone who can be so clever, Karkat can sure be annoyingly dense.

"It’s you, asshole! You’re my best friend, obviously! I’m in love with you." Frustration wins out and loosens your tongue, coloring your words.

Honestly, this is what you were afraid of. Fucking it up, by saying it badly.

You don’t really want to admit, but you’d secretly imagined you’d be better at this. You’d sweep him off his feet, metaphorically. Or literally, if the moment called for it. He’d swoon; Karkat seems like he’d swoon, if prompted correctly. You wanted to prompt him so fucking correctly.

And now you’ve just yelled it at him in the least romantic way possible. Fuck you, and your shitty disease, and your incapability to fucking talk to him before it all goes to shit.

Then an ice-cold thought runs through you: What if he’s being obtuse on purpose. What if he knows and was stalling for time. What if he knows how this ends and just wants to spare you the pain. You’ll have to ask Rose if there’s something you can do about it after all, medically. Something that’s not romance based. You’ll have to ask her to keep looking, keep fucking herself over because you were wrong, and you can’t handle it. Fear lets the blossom in your chest lodge free and you cough.

It feels awful. Worse than any of the ones before. Bitter and unwanted and tired. You’re tired of it, and of coughing. You wish you’d slept through the night.

Karkat sits in front of you. Unmoving. Brows drawn together. Mouth sloping downwards just a little, one of his pointy teeth peeking out just a little, digging itself a little into his lower lip.

You love him and you’d wish he’d just let you down already. Get it over with.

You wonder if it would kill you, if it’d stick, like you’d imagine him killing you would. You feel terrible for wanting that to come sooner, just because you’ve seen what it does to him. And you wouldn’t wish for that.

At last, he looks up, locks eyes with you.

"Why wouldn’t you tell me?" It’s surprisingly calm for how angry he looks. Still in his regular loud volume. But not yelling, not yet. You can tell he’s mad, though. "You’ve been suffering like this for god knows how long. You died. And you didn’t tell me. You’d rather die than tell me you like me?"

"What? No. That’s not- It isn’t like that."

"How is it not like that? Fucking enlighten me nookwiffer. You’ve known this for how long? Since you’ve started coughing shit up? Or only since you confided in your human sister? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you didn’t tell me. You probably wouldn’t have told me at all if I hadn’t stumbled into it. Isn’t that just like me. Stumbling into the shitty situations that most affect me. But nobody ever feels like letting Karkat in on any of it. He’s just stupid little Karkat, useless and weak, no need to ask him for help. But worse even. You’d have to admit something positive about me. Who’d voluntarily do that. I would fucking die before I’d ever admit to liking me too. So, you’re in good company." 

"Stop!" you slap a hand over his mouth. You can’t take that. You’d normally love a good hate rant from Karkat. Even if it was aimed at you. Even if he’s complaining about another version of himself. But not like this. Not about this. He can’t believe that. But he does and you know. You know him better than to deny him that honesty.

"I was scared, okay. Fuck man. I’m sorry." It feels like pulling teeth, getting this out of you. Your chest feels like it’s filled with needles and with every breath you feel the threat of dislodging what’s been growing again. "I didn’t know, didn’t want to admit it. I don’t do that shit. I’m not good at it. So I was scared. I talk a big game and shit. But man, I’ve never done this. And then it’s like this? Fuck it’s bad enough going through it. I didn’t wanna put it on you as well."

Karkat bites you and you pull your hand back, managing not to make some kind of freaky noise about it. Not the right time.

"You’re full of shit if you thought making me watch you suffocate over and over again was even remotely better than asking me out. Fuck, is that idea genuinely so repulsive?"

"No! Stop saying that shit! You’re not repulsive. Fuck. I like you, obviously I don’t think you’re repulsive. I was afraid you’d shoot me down. And then the fucking pressure of the disease would be like me bargaining my way through your emotional walls, Trojan horse style. And that’d be fucked up. I don’t wanna burgle my way into dating you. Or you’d be like saying yes to date me out of pity. Like human pity, not troll pity, shut up, I know. And you’d be all nice about it because it’s you and that’d be awful. I don’t want you to pity date me; human style."

"Fuck you. Use a different word. It’s confusing. Also, I’m not nice!"

"Yeah, you are. You’re a big fucking softie. You’re all kind and caring. Don’t fucking lie to me."

"Shut up. I’m not gonna human pity date you. That’d be stupid. You don’t even have a quadrant for that. And I wouldn’t need to, dipshit. In case it wasn’t fucking obvious, I’ve been troll pitying you for an embarrassingly long time. Like don’t fucking ask I’m not gonna tell you, that shit’s mortifying. Do those shades, you insist on wearing constantly, fuck up your vision so bad that you’ve managed not to notice my big fat crush on you. I’ve been practically throwing myself at you palewise for like half a sweep. You’re the biggest idiot on this goddamn meteor if you’ve genuinely not noticed. You can’t even claim ignorance, fuckwad. What the fuck have I been indoctrination you into the ways of troll romcoms for, if none of it fucking stuck.

“I’ve not even been subtle about it. I’ve been flaunting my big pathetic crush on you like its troll carnival and I’m a juggalo with a fucking codpiece the size of the green moon. You really have to be fucking brain dead to miss those signs. And let’s not pretend I haven’t made it disgustingly apparent that I’ve been violently vacillating from quadrant to quadrant for you. It’s unnerving and I’m blaming you entirely for it! You just manage to keep pushing me from one quadrant to the next like you’re working through the most immodest to do list imaginable. Checking off all my quadrants in a singular conversation. God, you’d make me sick if it wasn’t so fucking attractive."

"So, you’re saying?"

"Yes, shit for brains. I pity you, troll style, and I hate you, also the troll way, obviously. And hell, maybe I even human love you. Fuck if I know what that’s like."

"You like me too?!" the flower that had been trying its best to choke you again loosens in your throat. Leaves you with more room to breathe than you really know what to do with.

"Don’t make me repeat my honestly very beautiful confession, asshole. Yes. I do. Not that I could be any more pathetically obvious about it. But it seems you desperately need me to pour my pail of romantic intention at your feet repeatedly before you’re willing to believe me, you shameglobe fondler."

It feels like the flower in your lung dissolves into butterflies and fireworks. It leaves you giddy and light headed.

"I wouldn’t be opposed to that."

"To what?"

You lean into him. "Fondling your shame globes."

He pushes your shoulder, but not very hard. "You’re disgusting."

You’re grinning like a crazy person.

He pulls a face that scrunches up his nose and pulls his upper lip up, revealing a row of sharp little teeth. You want to squash your face to his. You want to feel up his cute nose and that crease in his brow and also mash mouths with him.

"Can I kiss you?" you ask impulsively. You wait just long enough for Karkat to process what you’ve said. Then you add, "since you won’t let me at your globes."

He scrunches up his face even more, beautifully in your expert opinion. Then he pushes you again. Harder this time. You let him, falling back onto your elbows, he follows.

"You’re the fucking worst," he says, his face so close you can feel his breath on yours.

"Is that a no?"

"To what?"

"To kissing you?"

He’s so close, you feel his warmth, you can see every detail of his strange yellow and black eyes. You refuse to close your own eyes yet. You want to see as much of this as possible.

"Yes. I mean no. Yes to kissing. No to not kissing. I would like that a lot. If you did. The kissing part. Not the not kissing. Fuck can you get the fuck on with it already?" He’s rambling, stalling now that you have his go ahead. But he’s blushing and he’s cute. And kissing him would mean you wouldn’t get to look at the pink spreading across his cheeks and his glare as he realizes what you’re doing. "I can’t believe you’re this much of a fucking asshole. Fuck, are you gonna do it or are you all talk, shithead?"

You lean up, just a little. "You’re cute when you’re angry. Couldn’t let that go to waste," you say, lips almost touching his.

"I’m always angry. So you better find me cute all the time."

"Yeah. Pretty much," you say and then you kiss him.

His lips are rough and his teeth underneath them are sharp and it feels perfect. He gasps a little into the kiss and his breath on your face is warm. You bring your hands up to his face. His skin feels flushed, and his hair, when you bury your hand in it, is soft.

It’s perfect and he’s perfect, and you honestly don’t want to ever do anything else.

You think that your breath must be horrendous what with the dying and the having been asleep before that, and the flowers probably also don’t help. Or maybe they do. Maybe they’re like internal perfume and your breath smells like a fucking flower shop.

Regardless Karkat doesn’t seem to mind. He pushes himself into you, over you, until you’re on your back, holding him to you, letting him weigh you down so you don’t fucking float off.

He’s straddling you and you’re really trying not to think about that.

Instead, you focus on his claws that scrape along your scalp, your face, your shoulders. And his nose bumping yours. And his teeth biting your lips just a bit every now and then. Not enough to break skin, because he doesn't want to hurt you.

He doesn’t want to hurt you. That thought feels too big. Too much. Too good. Like you can’t hold how much that makes you feel in your chest.

It’s suddenly all a little too much for you. You don’t really get shit like this. Not in this capacity, this quantity.

You pull your hands from Karkat’s hair and wrap your arms around his back instead. You have to break the kiss to be able to crush him to you as you want, but nothing comes for free and all that.

You hold him to you, bury your face in his hair. Just try to figure out how to handle this shit.

"Dave?" Karkat says, kind of loudly right next to your ear.

"Sorry. I just gotta." you hold him a little closer. "Sorry. I’ll get my shit together in a bit. I just gotta. Sorry."

"Shut the fuck up. Stop apologizing," Karkat says, a little quieter.

He settles onto you, his weight on you reassuring and grounding. His hands settle in your hair, cradling your head, pulling you impossibly closer to him.

You think you might be close to tears and that feels stupid. You should be happy. Not cry. You’re not a baby. You shouldn’t cry at all. Ever. Striders don’t do that.

Or maybe the knot in your throat is actually still the flowers and you’re gonna die again after all, and it’ll hurt Karkat even worse.

You really don’t want that.

You don’t even want to think about it. You bury your face deeper into Karkat’s hair, try to only focus on him. Holding you down. Giving you something to hold on to.

You feel his breath, his heart beat, his hands in your hair just sitting there holding you.

"I’m sorry I died. I’m sorry I made you see that," you say, because you don’t think you’ve said that. And because he deserves to hear that. And because you are.

"Shoosh. I told you to stop apologizing. Now shoosh." he papps your head slightly. and you’re pretty sure that’s a troll thing. Like a romance thing.

It’s a little odd. But in a nice way. Pretty much just how he is. Odd in a nice way. Put that on his name tag and let people assume he’s not going to absolutely eviscerate them with his choice vocab. Okay maybe that title only applies to him when you’re you and deeply enamored with everything that he does and is.

But you’re pretty sure the gesture does what it’s supposed to. Besides getting you to shut up, kind of. It calms you, though that’s probably mostly him. But you’re willing to give his troll nonsense some credit.

Honestly, if he knew how little you still know about this aforementioned troll nonsense, he’d probably be kinda mad. Or maybe not. You do have the suspicion he is aware of how much of what he says you’re mostly zoned out for. Or trying to fashion his creative vocab into some kind of sick rhyme.

But you do listen sometimes and some of it has actually stuck. Probably not as much as Karkat would want, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Talking of which. If anyone’s the beggar here, it should be you. After all, you’ve managed to troll pity your way into this choice ass of his. Well not literally. Not yet. But the point stands. You’re on your knees for this guy. Not like that. Not yet. In the begging kinda way. You’d fucking grovel at his feet just to make it up to him, it being how much you get on his nerve probably. (You’re very well aware of how much of your choice raps and rambles he completely tunes out.)

So you should probably fucking think about quadrants. Because Karkat cares about them. And because shit’s really fucking applicable to you all of a sudden. You’ve rapidly ascended the career leader of romcom character straight to the top. You’re the hot guy the lead is thirsting for, against his own better judgement, probably. Or the judgement of the audience. You’re the grumpy lumberjack with a heart of gold and the true meaning of Christmas in your back pocket. You’re about to grow this grinches heart several sizes and for that you should probably do some quadrant related thinking, because your grinch is a fucking troll.

He did say something about you pushing him around ‘em or something. Which honestly implies way more intentionality than could have possibly been pinned on you. You’re innocent, your honor. You plead stupidity on all accounts. You know jack shit about trollmance and the shifting pitfalls of it, or whatever you’re accused of.

But now might be the time to prove that you do pay attention, because you do, mostly because he’s great, and you like his creative word flow. His vulgar poetry. His lewd lyricism if you will. He’s simply captivating like that.

"’S this one of your quadrants?" you mumble into his hair.

He shooshes you again and rubs at your scalp. That feels really fucking nice. You kinda wanna melt into him and just stop thinking. You got some sleep to catch up on and one hell of a heat- and weighted-blanket in the shape of your favorite guy on top of you. You are after all a growing boy, gotta get all the zs you can for maximum growing and all that. Gotta show Karkat how it’s done.

"Don’t worry about that," Karkat says a little too loudly for being all up in your business. "We can just do the human thing. It’s fine."

Yeah, that shit sounds suspiciously like something he’d say to not have to confront his own shit.

And you may be a bitch on a lot of accounts. And you also don’t know what the fuck any of the romancing troll style is about. But you’re not gonna let him paint you both into some shit he doesn’t actually want because he thinks you don’t care about his stupid shit.

Because you do. It’s his shit. Of course you care about it. No matter how stupid it may be.

"Dude. I know that stuff’s not my circus or anything. But if I’ve not massively misread the situation. And I better not have or this shit will be embarrassing in the morning. What with the cuddling and kissing and stuff. Then I’ve just really fucking signed you up to be one of my monkeys! Or I guess it wouldn't be monkeys for you. With the alien bug anatomy or whatever. What are circus bugs? Crickets? Nah those are in the audience. Flees, I think. Man, you’re better than flees though. Maybe you can be crickets anyway. You make funny noises like that sometimes. But I guess they do that with their feet. Can you make chirping noises with your feet?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Karkat asks into the little pause you left for him to answer your super reasonable question.

"Guess I got kinda sidetracked there. I was saying that since you’re my monkey now - my cricket I guess – I’ll be all in that circus business of yours anyway. And I’m happy to do that. Any circus you're making scathing audience reviews of, live from the benches or wherever, with your crickety legs, or with your sick phrasing, dealers choice there, I’ll be more than happy to also be involved in."

"Your convoluted metaphors make it really fucking difficult for me to follow what the fuck you’re trying to convey. Could you maybe debase yourself once in your fucking life to string a sentence together that doesn’t make my thinksponge want to climb out of my shouting orifice and strangle you to death?" He has such a way with words.

"I’m saying I’ll do your quadrants with you or whatever. You’re gonna have to tell me what the fuck any of they do again. But like. Shit’s important to you. So, like bring ‘em on. I’m not scared of some rectangles with playing card symbols in ‘em."

He’s quiet for a long moment after that (thirty-four seconds, and you can feel every single one) and you’re starting to get nervous. You don’t think you’ve stuck your foot in it there. But man, you don’t know. You never expect to go drooling all over your fresh kicks when you get your conversations started, and yet you end there more often than should be statistically plausible. Then he sits up and you think you’ve officially fucked up.

Instead of absconding or cussing you out (well there’s still some cussing happening, but just the normal amount), he says,

"Are you suggesting we settle in a single quadrant? Have you not been listening to a single thing I’ve been saying you selectively braindead bulgemuncher? I don’t know if you’ve managed to not comprehend to a singular word I’ve said to you in our entire friendship, or if you’re seriously that dumb that you’ve not put together that my mutation has made it fucking impossible for me to do that shit. If you want to doom our relationship so bad you can just fucking say so. Or ghost me like a normal decent person instead of setting me up to fail at the one good thing I have in my miserable life right now!" Karkat says.

Some of it kind of goes over your head. His language is high quality but deciphering it is an artform that needs some old master’s kind of skill to perfect. You do your best. If you play this right, you’ll have a long time to get really good at it.

"Man. You assume, incorrectly I might add, that I know way more about quadrants than I do. You said I was giving you the quad feels. And that shit is like 80% of what you talk about. So like. Let me get into your card suits, man. I don’t care that you’re shit at it. It’s not like I have anything to compare it to. Just let me at ‘em!"

"You are a disgusting, perverted bastard. Propositioning me across quadrants. I can’t believe you." He’s grinning like he’s just won the lottery and you’re his big ass cash prize.

You grin back. "I’m just getting started, baby. I’m gonna get so kinky with your quadrants you’ll cream your pants just thinking about shades of red and black."

You wiggle your eyebrows at him and he pulls a face, and then takes your face in his hands, and pulls you up to him to plant a big fat smooch on your lips. It’s unreasonably dorky and adorable and it has you honest to god giggling.

"Fine, ill smear quadrants with you, you filthy bulgesniffer. You really can’t let me do anything the normal way. I can’t believe I want to swap spit with you. My masochistic romance preferences should be categorized as a fucking illness,” Karkat says with what you can only describe as overwhelming fondness.

“Love illness jokes are definitely off the table, dude. Too soon.”

“I highly doubt that. No joke has ever been off the table for you. You’re as horrific about jokes as you are about quadrants apparently.”

“No, man. Totally off the table. But I can think of a couple of ways you could make it up to me,” you say, your smug grin turned as much to him as possible.

“You’re incorrigible. Come here.” He pulls you to him, kissing you silly; wrapping you in his arms, warm and secure, and now yours to fucking peruse as much as he’ll put up with you. You hope to fuck he never gets sick of you.

Rose sits on the couch, reading, when you come slouching in the next day. It’s way past noon, not that it matters on the meteor. You had some sleeping to make up. And also some other stuff, keeping you from sleeping.

She looks up when you try to get the coffee machine to release its valuable goods to you, without making too much of a ruckus, and alerting your sister to your presence. You fail at not making a ruckus.

Her all-knowing eyes wander over to you, in your rumpled state. She smiles, a little less self-satisfactory than you’d have expected. There’s some real relief in there, a rigidity leaving her shoulders. But, because it’s Rose, it’s still there, the smug knowing. A teasing glint makes its way into her eyes.

“I take it the problem has been resolved?”

There is no way you’re ever living this down.