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I'm sick of the things I do when I'm nervous,
Like cleaning the oven or checking my tires.
Or counting the number of tiles in the ceiling...
Head for the hills, the kitchen's on fire!
*
“So where’d you get that from?” Sollux asks.
“What?” you ask.
“Your seeping arm wound. Have you been rolling in those corpses your dad brings home or what?”
“Hey, at least my dad leaves the hive now and then,” you protest. You rub at your arm a little. “It’s just... I dunno, some kind of infection. I’ve been giving it air, you’re supposed to do that with infections.”
“Karkat, there is actual stuff growing out of that infection.”
You shrug. “Yeah, I guess.” You don’t really want to admit to cutting yourself during sickle practice. “No big deal, man, it’ll clear up.”
Sollux just stares at you, the circuitboard between his hands entirely forgotten. You pick up your tools and go back to poking aimlessly at your own circuitboard, but he doesn’t even make fun of you when you snap a corner off accidentally, kind of clumsy in your wounded arm. He just sucks in a sharp breath, and is quiet.
“Hey, you... are you okay, man?” he finally asks.
“I’m fine,” you say. You snap off another corner of the board, and stare at the shards. “Yeah, I’m good.”
Your tutorial trails off disjointedly after that and you go off to lie on one of your landing slats. You haven’t made any real progress on getting together your own apiary, but that’s okay. The thing is, you are good. You feel good. After you practically diced yourself up like a new bright season’s roast last sickle-practice you’ve been going a little easier on yourself, waiting for the gash to heal. Eating more. Sleeping a lot. It just makes sense to kick back for a while when you’re recuperating.
The profusion of small pale lobes of whatever the fuck’s coming out of your wound were kind of a concern, at first, but soap didn’t really clear them out and pulling at them hurts like fuck. And you know it’s weird, but you kind of like them. It’s not like they hurt if you don’t screw around with them. You honestly just think they’re kind of pretty, like a bunch of living pearls, like some kind of living jewelry. You find yourself stroking them sometimes, the tender, nubbly beads, and it makes you shiver with something nameless and sweet.
You can feel the first rays of dawn slanting heavy and warm across your porch, painting everything gold and crimson. The heat’s wonderful. You have a big bottle of water and make sure to keep your good arm across your eyes, you’re not stupid, but fuck, why don’t more trolls sleep like this? You feel so fucking good, feel like the sunlight is hands, on you, soothing and gentle and so, so warm, till you thrum all over.
*
When you wake up after another day of the best fucking sleep you’ve ever had, it’s night again, and Sollux is panting in the doorway.
“KK?” he asks, sounding scared.
You blink at him, confused, still sleepy. This is the first time you’ve ever seen him face to face—you’ve only just barely started trusting him enough for videocalls—and you hadn’t thought he was so tall. He’s kind of handsome.
“Sollux,” you say, and smile a little.
“Oh, fuck,” he says softly, and takes a few steps towards you. “Oh my god, Karkat.”
He takes up your hand and you can smell him, sharply, see the sweat standing out on his face. When he touches the taut skin of your arm, near the protrusions—and they’re larger now, after what a good sleep you had, they’re more pearly and beautiful than ever, ranked in lovely shining tiers from your elbow to wrist—you shiver with a sudden, shocking sense of rightness. You churr in your throat, encouraging, but he whips back like you burned him.
You reach after him, confused, still clumsy, but he scrambles out of range. Your throat is thick and dry and you fumble your water bottle over, pull the nozzle with your teeth. Your arm hangs heavy down by your side, and the water feels great. You shake the last drops over the protrusions then stumble up to your feet. You’re ravenous. Maybe you haven’t been taking it easy enough? You’re never going to get back into fighting shape, at this rate.
Sollux backs off as you come towards him, lit up and uneasy.
“Hey, man, it’s okay,” you say, and pat his shoulder. “‘S’nice to see you, to, for you to come by, it’s nice.” He flinches, hard and you bring your hand up to his sweaty cheek, concerned for him. “You alright?”
He pushes you back, almost violently, and you stagger hard against the doorway. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he hisses.
You stare. “Nothing,” you say, confused. “No, I’m, fine it’s... you’re not okay.”
“You’re growing mushrooms!” he screams.
You scratch your head, then look down at your wounded arm. “Oh, yeah. I guess so,” you agree. “Man, I’m hungry.”
He doesn’t say anything else, just stands there and flickers with light, twisting his long fingers together. So you turn and go down stairs instead of trying to talk to him anymore. You really are hungry. Crabdad’s been bringing in more prey lately, now that you’ve added raw meat to your recuperation diet, and there’s still a good half of a hoofbeast left on the nutrition mesa. You fall heavily into one of the chairs and rip off a leg, sinking your teeth into the wet meat before your head even stops swimming.
You’re vaguely aware that Sollux has drifted after you, is now taking pictures of you with his phone. Weird.
“Do you... you want any, man?” you offer, and try to pull a leg off for him. “There’s plenty.”
He just shakes his head, fussing with his phone. He comes closer, carefully, like he thinks you’d ever hurt him, and takes your hand again, stretching your arm out. You coo, startled at the pleasure of the attention, and twist your hand around to hold his. You can feel his breath on your arm, on the growths. The bridge of his nose has gone gorgeously ochre. He’s really handsome.
“Hey,” you say lowly. “Hey, Sollux.”
“Shut up,” he snaps. “Shut the fuck up.”
You’re happy enough to comply, especially when he brushes those pretty fingers of his through the stalks, taking more pictures. You let your head rest back against the chair and just purr.
Then he tries to pull a stalk out of you and you punch him square in the nose and bolt.
*
He finds you again, even though you’ve come up to your topmost landingslat and barred the door, your skin crawling with horror. You snarl at him, weak and scared, as he floats towards you. You feel violated. You feel fucking violated, he wasn’t supposed to touch you like that.
Weird prickles of light catch you up and your stomach lurches as you’re lifted off your feet. You kick and whine, half-blinded by the pulsing red and blue light, and it’s not like sunlight. It’s not good. When it squeezes at your growing arm, when it starts to sever the tender, precious lobes there you scream, terrified and hurt, flooded with fear and sick wrongness. He can’t, he shouldn’t, he can’t hurt you there, it’s so wrong. You sob like a grub and beg him to stop, beg for mercy, you howl for your dad.
The pressure eases up and you curl around your arm instantly, whimpering, though you’re still suspended in the air and that deadly light still limns every bit of you. You thought you were friends. How could he hurt you like this?
“Okay,” he says. “Okay, fuck you, I’m sorry, just stop crying.” He sniffs hard, and you note with satisfaction that at least his snout’s bleeding. You’d punch him again if you could. You’d grind him into paste. You hiss at him, through your tears, but weakly.
“Let me down,” you plead. “I want my dad. I’m going to fucking kill you. Don’t hurt me anymore.”
“Shit,” is all he says, and rises off the landing slat. He takes you with him, even though you scream, and the ground falls sickeningly away. You scream until the light around your arm crushes down again, warningly, and then you try to be quiet.
*
Kanaya’s hive is strange and beautiful, surrounded by the wide, windswept desert: a little dab of green and blue in the wide purple-gray sands that spreads as you draw closer. The early morning light has calmed you down, again, and you’ve managed to arrange yourself in the air, so that your arm’s growths are facing the sun but your face is still tucked away, and it helps, knowing that you’re getting them what they need and doing your best to make up for the damage Sollux has done.
When you get close enough, you can see bodies moving through the sand, more plant than troll and beautiful with it. You kick and chirr in the air, excited, and Sollux clamps down hard on your arm till you scream again. He’s being an asshole. You know those guys, they’re friends. They have so much growing on them, so many different blossoms and leaves and lobes and fronds all coming out of them. You want to roll around with them all, sink yourself into warm sand in the sun, lick and nuzzle and admire. Sollux won’t listen to you. He’s such an asshole.
When he touches down with you in front of the tall, pretty white tower, your knees buckle, the sun and the smell of growing things has you so entranced. He doesn’t even let you lie on the grass though, or go sprawl in that enticing oasis, or say hi to any of your buddies over around the edges of the garden, he just clamps his hand around your clear arm and braces himself when you pull at him.
“Sollux,” you say, coaxingly. You kiss his wrist. He smacks you. When a big insectile lusus scurries up and peers down at you both Sollux crackles a little, baring his fangs, and it flaps its filmy green wings back and forth, then goes back to shoving the blooming people around, scattering them back into the sands.
The door opens and a girl stands there, tall like Sollux but even more pretty.
“Oh my goodness,” she says, looking at the two of you.
“Hey, KN,” Sollux says, and pulls on your wrist again.
“Kanaya?” you ask focusing, then laugh. Kanaya! How great! “I... hi, Kanaya, hey! Hello!”
“Holy fuck,” she says, taking a step back, and a chainsaw flickers into her hands. You stop pulling at Sollux and stare at it, flooded with sick, wary caution. You don’t want that chainsaw. It’s not a good thing.
“Kanaya,” you say, reproachfully.
“So?” Sollux says.
“Well, he’s still talking,” Kanaya says. “That’s a good sign.”
“I like you,” you say helpfully. “Both of you. So much. We’re all friends, right? We’re friends. Sollux is an asshole. Can we go say hi to my friends over there?”
“That’s a bad sign,” Kanaya says.
“Shiiiiit,” Sollux sighs through his teeth, then pulls you into the doorway.
“What. No,” you protest, tugging at him ineffectively. “No. Hey. Sollux. No. Sunlight.”
“Sunlight bad, you braindead spastic,” Sollux says. “Kanaya, is there any fucking chance we can get him through this?”
“Quite a good one,” Kanaya says. “He’s still alive, isn’t he?”
Sollux stops so abruptly that you get free of his grasp, and scramble off to the doorway. You can’t work the knob, you don’t know this door. You scratch at the wood, press your face to the glass panes set into it. Sunlight.. You need it.
“Oh my god,” Sollux is saying, somewhere, distantly. “I hadn’t really checked, I mean, fuck, I don’t know, how do you tell? He’s breathing, I just assumed—”
“Sunlight,” you tell them. “Hey. Sunlight. Let’s go outside. Let’s lie in the sun.”
Kanaya comes over and puts her hand on your throat and you purr, delighted, and hug her close with your good arm.
“Fuck—” she hisses, and you nuzzle up against her chest, nipping at her shirt.
“You’re the best,” you tell her. “Did I ever say? So pretty. You’re my best friend.”
She tries to pull away but you’ve got her collarbone between your lips, you think if you just—you want to lick and bite, you want to hold her close.
Sollux peels you off her.
“What the fuck is your problem!” you moan, finally fed the fuck up with his shitty attitude. “I hate you, footfucking shitpile bastard spawn of a– why are you so mean, hate, I, please, please, Sollux, we’re friends, please stop, please let me, I want, Sollux, oh, please, you’re my friend why are you—I, I, fuck, fuck you. Let me go.”
“He’s alive,” Kanaya says shakily. “And remarkably feisty.”
“No shit,” Sollux says. “I mean. Okay, good, great. What do we do now?”
“We cut his arm off.”
Whoah, that’s a chainsaw. Bad. Bad chainsaw. You try to back away, but Sollux just keeps you under his arm.
“My arm?” you ask, torn between anger and fear. “My. Fuck. My arm. But I like it. My arm. No.”
“Hang on, hang on,” Sollux says. “Can we maybe start off with reasonable options like just trimming the growths out, instead of skipping merrily off to wholesale slaughter island?”
“Taking his arm off is the best chance. It’ll remove the source of the contagion instantly, and he’ll only have to recover from an amputation, rather than fight off a fairly advanced spore invasion—”
“Kanaya, he’s a mutant.”
There’s a pause. You look warily from one friend to the other, but Sollux doesn’t push you away and Kanaya even lowers her chainsaw.
“What kind of mutant?” she asks.
“Look at the skin around the infection. His blood’s a weird-ass color, Kanaya, that’s got to be why he’s always typed in grey. I’ve never even seen anyone with blood like that, I think he’s been dodging the cull. If we go lopping his fucking limbs off how much worse are things going to be for him? If he’s not a cripple he’s at least got a fighting chance to prove himself or something, like—like me. The poor fucker doesn’t even have any psionics.”
Kanaya comes and has a look at you. You squirm and chirp, overwhelmed by their proximity, by the attention, and butt your head under Sollux’s jaw until he hugs you, petting the side of your hip a little. You stroke Kanaya’s face. You want to be close with them always.
Kanaya’s crying.
“This is really going to suck,” she says. “Oh, Karkat. You pathetic disaster.”
“Kanaya,” you purr. “Kanaya, Kanaya, my friend. Touch me.”
“Can we gag him, though,” Sollux says.
“Hell yes,” she says.
*
By the time they drag you to a couch, it’s night again and you are full of a desperate agony. Your arm is afire with pain, burning with antiseptic and strangling in thick gauze, and you can’t remember being this upset since ever, you can’t stop crying even long enough to bite them. Your wrists are crossed and tied behind your back. You can’t stop crying even long enough to try and bite at your bandages, where they mutilated you, held you down and pulled out the best thing you ever did, the most intimate, precious, important parts you had. They settle in on either side of you, relentless, invasive hands that don’t care how wrong they’re being, how much they ought to leave you alone.
“Hate,” you keen. “Hate, hate, fucking hate you, oh, fuck, you fuckers, you–fuck, fuck. My arm. My fucking arm.”
You don’t want them to leave, not really, and they don’t.
“You’ll have to stay,” Kanaya says tiredly to Sollux. “We need to dose you with the same medication.”
“No shit, KN. Next you’re gonna tell me the world’s round, and two plus two isn’t actually seventeen.” Sollux shifts a little, cups your head to his chest. “Hey, you toxic loser. You’re stuck with me for a while.” He smells of blood: yours, and his own. You’d bit him a few times, at least. Serves him right. You love him so much, you want to bite every inch.
You nip under his throat, and he shivers.
“Why’s he still so fucking clingy?” he wants to know. “I mean we just basically ripped half his arm out of his arm. I’d be about ready to blow someone’s head off.”
“Most fungal contagions use their hosts as a vector. While some varieties are topical irritants, and some induce a propensity for reckless behavior to further the demise of the host body and propel it forth from its hive, quite a number of them simply provoke native hormone reactions. He’s, ah... simply feeling excessively conciliatory, at the moment. I suspect he’ll regain his usually vitriolic temperament if... if we are successful in this endeavor. We may yet lose him.”
“So I’ve got a lapful of freakblood gagging for my tender caresses because he has mushrooms yanking on his brainstem, and if we win he’s going to basically never forgive us for this humiliation and if we lose he’s just going to turn into a member of the walking hedge. Shit, do I know how to pick my buddies or what?” But he doesn’t let go of you. Instead one hand comes up around the back of your neck and rests there, protectively. Kanaya eases closer, and lay a hand on your knee.
“You pap him,” Sollux says roughly. “I—yeah. No.”
“Yeah,” Kanaya says, just as roughly, and her hands are cool and soft and you love her so much. So, so, so much. You kiss her wrists, her fingers, her palms all over with melting reverence, and you cry some more, because you’re still so scared and hurt, but you cry really loudly, because fuck them.
*
They don’t let you go outside. You’re not even tired. They’re tired, and you’re not even asking them to come with you, much, not if they don’t want to. But they won’t let you out. You are dragged off to Kanaya’s respite block, a beautifully bright and spacious area flooded with moonlight, and whine with dismay as Sollux floats the recuperacoon over to the farthest, darkest corner, and Kanaya tacks swaths of thick black fabric over all the windows.
“Shut the fuck up,” Sollux says, scooping you up and dumping you into the slime.
You hiss, sulkily, and kick sopor at him.
Kanaya goes off somewhere, while Sollux squeezes in after you and dunks you ruthlessly. By the time she comes back with two mugs you’re limp with drowsiness and starting to see double.
“Get this in him,” Kanaya says. “And choke down what you can, yourself.”
The concoction is vile, and you’re not too dazed to pitch a fuss. They mostly just dunk you under the slime and then try to pour liquid hell down your gullet when you’re too strapped for breath to protest. You chomp Sollux’s arm really good and Kanaya’s hand pretty decently by the time it’s over, and you’re viciously satisfied at the taste of blood in your mouth, cutting through the thick toxic fug of sopor and poison.
“Holy fuck, what’s in this shit?” Sollux slurs. “I... whoah.”
“There’s some amount of sedative in the mixture, I’m afraid. Karkat needs rest, and it wouldn’t hurt you either.”
“You gonnn’h...going to pap’me too?” Sollux leers, and wallows heavily into the slime with you. “Ooh, Miss’ryam, ooh.”
You roll over and bite Sollux’s throat, but gently. He giggles.
Kanaya leans over the both of you, and strokes your face. You purr. After a long moment, she gives Sollux a wet little smack to the snout, and scurries out of the room.
“I like her,” you say.
“Yeah,” Sollux says, “I... yeah,” and bundles you close against him in the warm, narrow space.
*
You wake up to a delicious, moving pressure between your legs, and moan appreciatively. Sollux makes a sleepy nose and nuzzles at your hair, which you also appreciate. You drift in and out of wakefulness, feeling warm and pleased and flushed with pleasure, until suddenly there’s a whole hell of a lot of noise, and Sollux is pressed as far away from you as he can get in the tall, narrow pod-shape of the coccoon.
“Hey,” you complain.
“Oh fuck,” he’s saying, cupping at his crotch and trying to stuff his bulge back into his sopping pants. “Shhhit, KK, I’m sorry—I din’—didn’t—my head, augh.”
You flounder up after him, confused and kind of angry, and press your hips back together as best as you can with your hands still tied. You’d liked it, you are a big fucking fan of it, and he moans when you find just the right angle to push up at, everything wonderfully slick with slime.
“Karkat,” he says softly, and rests his head back against the recuperacoon’s aperture. His eyes are weirdly dim, inky rust and indigo, and hardly flicker. His mouth is a strange loose shape, and when you throw a leg over his skinny hips he puts his hand up against your chest.
“Hang on,” he says, then moans “oh, oh, shit,” rocking his hips in counterpoint to yours. You can feel the coil and press of his bone-bulge through his pants, the tantalizing little flickers of grasping heat where it’s starting to work its way out against yours. He wants you.
“I want you,” you croon, and you do. “Sollux.”
“You’re high as globes,” he says.
“Nuh,” you say, and kiss him. You want him, every inch of him, you think maybe you have for a while, you want to rub and roll and be close, like this, skin to skin, warm and sweet. His hands settle around your waist, and he kisses you back, gasping wonderfully into your mouth.
You feel a sharp, startling pain on the back of your head, and look up to see Kanaya leaning through the opening, slit-pupiled with rage and kind of magnificent. Sollux squeaks.
“Heyyyy,” you chirr invitingly.
She smacks you again. You go ducking back into the slime and she smacks Sollux.
“Not in my recuperacoon, you—you assholes!” she hisses, and then gets him by a horn and pulls him out bodily. You cringe back against the far wall, but she just grabs a chunk of your hair and tugs at you too. You hit the ground in time to see Sollux bolting for the ablution chamber.
“If you two ruined my slime—oh. Oh, you did. Well then.” She looks down at you. “Karkat, I’m very fond of you and I am aware you are in a significantly altered state of consciousness, but get your inappropriately frisky anatomy into the shower before I tear it off you.”
“I love you too?” you venture.
She lunges. You squeal like a wiggler and dash into the trap so fast you smack your face on the far wall. Sollux laughs, long and giddy, and falls over in a pile of excitingly bare arms and legs.
Kanaya slams the door after the both of you.
“I’m not taking that medicinal shitwater again,” Sollux says. “I don’t think my head’s stayed entirely attached. You okay, man?”
You roll over and kiss him again, getting water up your nose and not even caring.
“Hey,” he says, pulling back. “Hey, no, we can’t. This isn’t right, you’re—you’re...”
“I want you,” you keen with frustration, grinding your hips together. “Sollux, touch me, please.”
He swallows hard, flushed and shaky and pretty with the water coming down all around you, and his hands drift to pluck nervously at the sodden denim of your jeans.
“Well, I... we’d have to... clean you up anyway, right?” he says. “Your hands have to stay tied.”
“Yeah, yes,” you pant, shaking, “sure, yes, come on, just touch me, please just touch me, please.”
He peels your jeans off and you moan with relief, and then again, lower and more heartfelt, when he gently strokes around the sore, taut skin of your bone bulge.
“Fuck yes,” you say, “fuck, that’s good,” and try to kiss him more, but he hovers up just out of reach. You subside down against the trap’s wall and close your eyes, just letting him work, hazy and pleased. You’d love to touch him right now but you’re still tied up and it’s nice, honestly, just being able to lie back and have someone pay attention. You can hear him panting just over the shower spray.
“This is so fucked up,” he says, all breathy and weird sounding.
“This’s so great,” you correct him. “My bulge is so great. You are so great.”
“Do you ever shut up?” he asks.
“Why should I?” you want to know. “I shouldn’t. I have to tell you stuff. And, and things, like, how great you are, because fuck, oh, fuck, Sollux, this is just, ngh, this is great. This is so fucking nice. You’re the best. You’re my best friend.”
He laughs at that, high and still weird, and scrubs at his face with the hand he’s not touching you with. You seize your chance and sit up fast to kiss him again, and this time he lets you, melting in wonderful increments down towards you, letting you bite at his lips and run your tongue alongside his.
“I wanna touch you,” you growl. “This is the best thing ever, I wanna touch you back, never stop touching you.”
“Nnnh,” he whimpers, shivering, and squeezes your length in an exceptionally nice way and that’s it, that’s what you really needed, you break off kissing him to gasp for breath as you come. When you stop trembling and chirping, he ruffles your hair.
“You good, man?” he asks softly.
“Yeah,” you say, dopey and grateful. “Thanks.”
He hovers over you for a long moment, his fingers still dug into your hair, and loosely around your tender, resheathing bulge, and you have no idea what’s going on with his face. Then he leans farther back and the spray beats down on you, rinsing off the sopor slime and sweat and genetic material, and you purr. He helps get you rinsed and clean, then shuts the water off and towels you down, and you’re increasingly confused. He even helps you back into a pair of jeans, his bulge still coiling bright and restless against his lean thighs.
“Hey, but,” you say vaguely, when he starts pushing you at the door. “Wait, what about you, your stuff, I wanna fucking touch you... hey. Come on. No.”
“My hands aren’t tied, dipshit,” he says, “I’ll be fine. Sit outside and try not to die for a few minutes, okay?”
“No,” you protest, digging in your heels. He shoves you outside anyway, and closes the door again before you can turn around. You growl and headbutt the door a few times, but you can hear him start the shower up again, and anyway it just hurts your head.
After checking that Kanaya’s asleep in a pile of pillows, you go poking around Kanaya’s respite block and find an old chainsaw to saw the bindings on your wrists. With your hands free it’s easy to tear your wet, chafing bandages off and it feels so much better. You have to keep your arm clear, it’s really important. You can see new beads of growth poking up from the gruesome, tattered devastation of the wound, beautiful wide pearls, and it’s just a huge relief. You like these things so much. If Kanaya and Sollux try to rip them out of you again you’ll... you don’t know. Bite them more. You don’t know. You like them so much, you wish they’d just leave your growths alone. They’re yours. You know best, here.
The room is stuffy and too dark, but you manage to work the pins out of enough of the curtains over the windows to tear one down. You’re exhausted from the effort, though, and your arm is throbbing, urgent and heavy, in counterpoint to the fuzzy throbbing in your head. But the sunlight feels like a benediction, and Kanaya even rolls over on her pillow pile and sighs. You shamble over to her and cuddle up close, and stroke her gently when she startles. She smells like that toxic crap you and Sollux got forcefed, and purrs thickly at your touch, turning into your arms. That’s good, then. Maybe the stuff isn’t that bad, just... stuff to take it easy, with. It’s good to take things easy, here in the sunlight.
You kiss her palm, and admire the vicious green arcs of toothmarks you left on the side of her hand, back and front. She doesn’t have any growths of her own, not even in the darkest parts of the bites, but wouldn’t it be nice if she did? She’s already so pretty, she’d look wonderful with pearls. You think maybe if you took some of your own and pressed them where they should go...
“Get the fuck away from her,” Sollux barks out, and you startle.
“But—”
He’s across the room in an instant, dragging you by your horns. It hurts, and when you cry out he just shakes you, tumbling you up against the wall.
“Sit,” he hisses, and skitters back to the bathroom, comes out again with soap and a towel, spends a long time rubbing at Kanaya’s hands with both while you try and collect yourself. You feel nauseous, rattled, deeply fucking upset.
“Now you,” he says, coming back to you, and grabs you up again. You bare your teeth, but he snaps “Don’t you dare, I’ll bite you back, see if I don’t!” and hauls you along after him all the way downstairs. You catch on too late to what he’s doing, what he intends, and then you really howl, and you kick and snap besides.
He doesn’t bite you back. He just takes you to the block with the tools and the smell of blood and the heavy scratched-up table in it and he lashes you down, wrist and ankles, and takes down the long thin knife from the wall and—
It’s awful.
*
“We can’t keep doing this,” Sollux says, finally, holding you close and stroking your hair as you weep, your wrists tied again and your arm blazing under the bandage everywhere it has to touch against anything. “I—I can’t keep doing this, oh, KK. There’s got to be some better treatment for you. Right?”
You don’t have anything to say, you’re beyond words. You’re just pain and resentment at this point, and desperate clinging need. You’ll never get better like this, cut into over and over, all the best parts stripped away. You’ll never be beautiful, or happy.
Sollux gets to his feet, and you protest, just a little. He looks down and sighs.
“Come on if you’re coming,” he says. “I don’t think you should be alone, anyway.”
At least you can agree on that.
He wanders around through the bright, airy hive and you wander after him, whining when he pulls you away from the windows and getting growled at back. Then—
“Jackpot,” he croons, and darts into a dark little closet of a room crammed full of broken electronics.
“She must have just bought new shit when I wouldn’t fix her old stuff,” he says, “there’s sweeps of top-of-the-line stuff here just going to seed, I could throttle her!” He goes dropping to his knees in front of a low table and pulling his own husktop out of his sylladex. After that he stops paying any attention to you at all, except for to slam the door and heat the latch up sizzling hot when you try to get out to go look for another window.
“Sunlight,” you protest, bonking your horns illustratively off the obnoxiously solid door.
“That’s exactly what you don’t need any more of,” he says. When you go to bonk your horns off him he just shoves you away, absently, one hand and all his psionics working to strip and recombine the machines in the room, plugging them one after the other into each other in arcane constellations.
You’re tired and you feel awful, but this is worse: this is boring. You’re restless, you want to move, to find sun, to find some comfort, something. Anything. You creep back over to him and he tenses up, but he lets you curl around him from behind. When you nibble his ear you’re shoved away again, with a meaner hiss.
“I’m working,” he says tersely. “On getting at a better cure for you, too, you’re welcome.”
“Fuck work,” you say. “Fuck me.”
He pauses at that, his pretty fingers stuttering over the delicate organs of an eviscerated husktop, and his cheeks darken.
“KK, holy shit,” he says, pained. “Would you cut it the fuck out already?”
You lay your head on his thigh, and look up at him pleadingly. You can smell him, warm and enticing, you know he’s hot for you. He’s smelled hot for you since this morning, the shower didn’t do anything to wash it off, and in any case touching and being touched feels so incredibly nice.
“It’s not right,” he says, and strokes your hair.“This isn’t you, KK, I couldn’t. We’re not like that.”
“Okay,” you say, and he relaxes. “But I want us to be.”
He tenses right back up again, and you go to nuzzle between his legs, the best you can do with your wrists tied. You think, dimly, in another life maybe you’d seen this done in special movies but it feels so natural now. It smells good, here, and when you lick at the denim of his jeans you can feel the tang of him, just faintly, and the thin wavering moan he makes is good too. He grabs up a fistful of your hair but hardly pulls, so you keep on: licking and nuzzling, hungry for him.
“KK, Karkat, oh, fuck,” he gulps, “I can’t, you’re not, this isn’t,” needy helpless little words, meaningless. He sounds like the same kind of hungry you are.
“Don’t bite,” he finally says. “Please don’t.”
“Won’t,” you promise, nipping at the hem of his jeans. “Want you.”
“Okay,” he says, and unbuttons his jeans with shaky fingers. “Fuck, I—shouldn’t, I shouldn’t, you’ll hate me for this later I just—ah. Oh god. Oh, fuck, Karkat!”
You can get at his bulge, from here, he doesn’t have underwear and the close space between his jeans and his nook is humid and heavy with his scent, intoxicating. His hands wrap around your horns, guiding you and making everything else muffled and irrelevant. His bulge is already coming out, sliding against your cheek in a sweet warm caress, and when you lick forwards you feel the slick underside of it, the fluttering pulse of his nook.
You don’t know how to do this exactly but you don’t care, it’s easy, it makes sense: he grinds forward, keening, and you get your mouth on as much of it as you can. His bulge rubs across the bridge of your nose, your cheekbones, your jawline, slick and ticklish but still so nice a pressure, so soothing, and the muscles of his nook twitch and pull at your tongue when you lick your way inside him and this is what you’d like to have forever, just someone to cuddle up to and taste.
When he comes it’s a surprise, an almost painful convulsion against your face and then startling wash of fluid, and he pulls you back and out of him with a gasping cry. You set your spine and stay close up against him as he shakes, kissing at his hips, his stomach, until he gathers himself and pushes you farther away.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” he says thickly, and wipes his hand against your face, too roughly for comfort, and looks at the color on his palm. “Oh, KK. Are you even going to remember this?”
You shrug. You still want to hold him and love on him, but he’s fussing around with his sylladex, getting out cleaning wipes and new pants, and after he scrubs your face clean he shoves you farther away each time you try to get closer. Eventually you just curl up in the corner where he’s pushed you, and drift into an increasingly miserable series of naps.
You’re still hungry and desperately, dreadfully lonely without being able to touch Sollux, but you can’t manage to get your shit together long enough to explain, or work your way past his psionics. If only he’d let you out, let you have some sunlight or food, but he’s busy with his computer parts and won’t even look at you, and each attempt to get his attention just sends you staggering back to your corner to take deep breaths and claw your way in and out of sleep.
Fuck, you can smell him. The hunger cuts through you like knives, every breath in of how sweet he smells, how soft and wanting. You can’t even stay properly unconscious, not with this need like a hook in your guts, not with him so close.
Then the door bangs open, startling you both out of your reveries.
“Sollux Captor,” Kanaya says furiously. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
You whine, piteously, shaking with the hard pounding adrenaline of someone else so close, someone else so sweet and so fucking godawful close if she would just come over you can remember her blood all you can think about is the rich green taste of her flesh parting beneath your fangs and Sollux looks at you, actually looks at you, and he looks horrified.
“Oh my god,” he says, and scrambles to his feet. He wrings his pretty fingers, looking between you and her. “Oh fuck, I was just—I couldn’t just use your husktop, KN, I thought if I could fake my way into the fleetside infonets I could find something better than—we need better antifungals for him, we need a real cure—”
“So while you were employing your admittedly prodigious mental talents searching for a miracle cure, not feeding a zombie for an entire day became a negligible concern.”
“He’s not a fucking zombie!”
“If he’s not after this mistreatment it will be an absolute miracle,” Kanaya bites out.
“I think I found a cure, though,” Sollux says miserably. “Like they authorize for the Cavalreapancy, an actual cure. I was. I was trying to save him. God, I’m an idiot. I—oh, god. I’m such a fucking idiot.” He turns blindly away, rubbing at his face, and Kanaya softens enough to touch his shoulder.
“It might not be too late,” she says. “We’ll just have to take better care of him.”
“Yeah,” he says shakily. “Yeah. Yeah. You’re the boss.”
It takes you a few tries to get to your feet, once you realize that Sollux doesn’t have you penned up anymore and Kanaya’s actually approaching you. You whine and strain towards her, one clumsy step and then another, and she stops short, then backs up hastily.
“Karkat,” she says gently, and that’s you. You know that, that she’s calling you, she wants you, and you lunge after her. Your head is spinning and you’re so fucking tired and weak that when you feel the awful tingle of psionics on you again, pushing you backwards, you just go with it, sinking back to the ground and panting harshly for air.
“Sollux,” she says. “Let him up.”
“He’ll try and eat you—”
“Worse have tried,” Kanaya says. “Let’s get him to the nutrition block.”
“I can just carry him.”
“Look at yourself. You need a good meal, too.”
Sollux growls, snuffs, wipes a bright smear of blood from his nose. “I couldn’t impose on you like that,” he mutters.
“It’s been at least two full nights since you’ve had anything besides antifungal compound to ingest, I dare say,” Kanaya retorts. “If you don’t impose I’ll have two corpses to juggle, and I don’t know how to juggle. You will eat my food while you’re in my hive and you will like it.”
Sollux looks down, looks up, looks at the wall, kicks at the floor. His face is vividly saturated. “Okay,” he says quietly.
*
Getting to the nutritionblock is an ordeal, lunging along bit by bit after friends always just tantalisingly out of reach, but worth it once Kanaya pulls open the door of her thermal hull and you can smell fresh butchered meat even through the chill.
“Can you unfasten his wrists?” she asks. Sollux does a thing, and then your arms are free. Before you can grab at either of them, a thick slab of blue-green flesh is put into your claws, and all your priorities refocus on getting it inside your stomach as fast as possible.
“That is the grossest thing I have ever seen,” Sollux says.
“So you’d like yours cooked, then,” Kanaya says.
You growl imperiously, and receive more. Kanaya is your new best friend. Your best best friend.
“What even is this?” Sollux asks, peering into the hull. “Holy fuck. Is this all chunks of the same beast?”
“Sandworm,” Kanaya says. “It’s a bit like grubloaf, only it originates in an eight ton venomous land eel.”
“So not at all like grubloaf.”
“Not even remotely like grubloaf, yes.”
“Good. I hate grubloaf.”
Kanaya laughs at that, warm and tired, and tosses you another steak. She leaves the door to the thermal hull open while she moves over with a piece of meat to the cookalizer, and does things with heat and vegetables and Sollux while you wobble over and hang on the open door for balance, grabbing chunks of anything that looks good—and it all looks good—and bolting it down as fast as you can, desperate to ease the ravenous pull inside you.
“He’s going to explode,” Sollux mutters. “Are you really okay with sharing all this...?”
“Shut up and compliment my cooking.”
A long pause, and the scrape of utensils and eating slabs. “This is good,” Sollux says, shocked. “This is really good.”
“Thank you,” Kanaya says, pleased.
You’re starting to have serious difficulties fitting more food in, and you finally have to break off to pant, heavily, sinking down to the floor. Though your stomach’s aching badly there’s still a lot more food in the fridge, wet meat, fresh and inviting, and it makes you feel sick and desperate.
Kanaya comes and kneels by you. “Shh,” she says, and strokes your hair. “That’s enough, isn’t it? You’re done?”
You shake your head, dazed and unhappy, but she just pulls you gently away. She steers you up into a chair at the dinner table and then goes off to the sink. You eye Sollux’s food and he eyes you.
“Hey, KK,” he says. “Any better, now?”
You put your head on the table and whine. You hurt all over.
“I’m sorry, man,” he says, and he touches the back of your hand. You catch on to his fingers and he jerks back a little, but then lets you keep hold of him.
“We’d better check out his infection,” Kanaya says, coming back.
“While I’m eating?” Sollux objects.
“Eat faster, then,” she says, and starts undoing your bandages, which you approve of. You’re fuzzily certain that this didn’t work out well the last few times but then she touches you right where she’s supposed to and you melt a little, relaxing.
“Oh, this is not good,” Kanaya says. “We shouldn’t be looking at this much regrowth.”
“No shit,” Sollux says, shoving his plate aside and leaning forward. “Fuck, look at it all, it’s like it grows back faster each time. And he gets so fucking creepy when you touch it.”
You purr.
“Yes, sporelord, we get it, you want us to infect ourselves,” Sollux says sourly, and flicks your ear. “Let’s all have a cuddle rumpus in the mushroom pile because you’re just that fucking cute.”
“He is pretty cute,” Kanaya murmurs, tenderly brushing her fingers over your growths.
“Which of us are you even coming on to, anyway,” Sollux snaps. Then, “Oh, shit, I’m sorry, don’t answer that. I’m being an ass.”
“And I’m being—potentially inappropriate,” Kanaya says carefully. “My apologies if I’ve made you uncomfortable at any point during your stay here; I don’t get many visitors. I was merely attempting to be an adequate host.”
“No, you’ve been great, you’re fine,” Sollux says miserably. “I’m an asshole, I fuck everything up for everyone, I’m impressed you’ve put up with me for this long.”
Kanaya growls a little. “If you would stop being so vexingly negative about yourself for two minutes in a row—”
You nudge your face into Kanaya’s side, and work your tongue against your teeth. You’re not sure if you remember how to do anything but eat with your mouth.
“Nnn,” you grind out, “nnno fighting. No fighting.”
Sollux laughs, which is startling, and then keeps laughing, higher and wilder until he’s crying, stumbling up out of his chair and covering his face with his hands.
Kanaya gets out of her own chair cautiously, approaching Sollux with careful, gliding steps, and she touches his elbow with just her fingertips.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he chokes out, “I don’t mean to be—asking for it—I’m just fucking throwing myself at you here, aren’t I, I’m so sorry–”
“If you were, maybe I wouldn’t mind,” Kanaya says, and strokes his arm, elbow to bite marks, so he shivers.
“What about you and KK,” he chokes out, and you peer at him from the table, confused.
“Karkat is very much in need of help right now, and I can’t say I’m not pleased with the opportunity to provide that help, as he’s been my very dear friend for sweeps now and I owe him quite a lot. That doesn’t mean that you yourself aren’t owed...that is to say, if you would consider it from certain sources, and even if you wouldn’t, I would understand that, certainly, if you wouldn’t want me to be the, be your care provider, but– shit. This is coming out all wrong.”
“You are coming on to me,” Sollux says sadly. “Fuck, Kanaya.”
“I am making an admittedly clumsy overture,” Kanaya says, every word precise, “though I am entirely prepared to understand if you don’t appreciate it, as I suppose with my obviously significant lack of experience I don’t have much to recommend me.”
“Holy shit, no,” Sollux blurts out, “KN, you’re great and anyone would be lucky to have you. But you don’t want me, come the fuck on.”
“On the contrary–”
“No, seriously. Seriously!”
“–You need someone, Sollux, you deserve for someone to take care of you–”
“I killed AA!” Sollux screams, too loud, too anguished, and you cower back in your seat. Kanaya just takes him by both shoulders, firm and intent.
“No, you didn’t,” she breathes. “Oh, Sollux, is that what’s been eating you alive all this time? You didn’t, that wasn’t you–”
“How wasn’t it?” he demands. “She’s dead because of me, she’s dead. She’s fucking dead, my moirail’s dead, I killed my moirail, she’s dead!”
“And Karkat has a chance, because of you.”
“It doesn’t balance out!” Sollux shouts. “You can’t just save people and think that makes up for anything, like you’re playing god, like you can just—reset a game score. I killed my moirail, Kanaya–”
“And one of these nights you’re going to have to stop punishing yourself for outliving her,”
Sollux just makes an awful, jagged sob, and lets Kanaya pull him into her arms. They’re of a height, the both of them tall and gracefully proportioned, and his face fits gorgeously into the crook of her shoulder.
“I can’t,” he says. “I can’t, KN, I can’t.”
“Maybe not now,” she says. “But eventually.”
“Nn.”
“Eventually.”
He breathes in, out, shuddery, and then tentatively brings her arms up around her waist. A certain steel-spined tension eases out of her, bit by bit, as they hold each other. Finally, when he’s gone quiet, she leads him back to his seat, and gets out bottles and bandages.
“I can do that myself,” Sollux mutters.
“If you could have, you would have yesterday,” she says. “So shush.” She clears the crust and ooze that’s built up around his bites with sharp-smelling wipes, then covers each bright, pretty crescent of your fang marks with the white bandages that you’ve come to hate on sight. But Sollux doesn’t struggle, just stares fixedly at the wall until she sits back.
“Can I– I could do yours,” Sollux says quietly. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?” she asks.
“If you want.”
“Maybe,” she smiles, and holds her hand out. He examines the bite on her hand closely as he cleans it, glancing between it and you until you bare your teeth again and hide your arm behind your back.
“I think you’re still clear,” he murmurs. “He was trying to infect you earlier, like on purpose. I almost threw him out the fucking window, I was so scared.”
“I’ve got a bit of an immunity to parasites,” Kanaya says. “It seems to be a quirk of my hemotype. I’ll be okay.”
Sollux smiles, shaky and brief, and tamps the bandage down with infinite care. He smoothes each corner out and then lingers, and Kanaya puts her free hand over his.
“Nnnow kisss,” you command.
“Shut it, KK,” Sollux mutters. His face is bright gold, and he doesn’t seem to know which of you to avoid looking at more. “God, only you would still care about who’s fondling who when you’re two thirds fungus.”
You process this for a while, then drag the rest of his lunch over and eat it. It’s delicious, even if it makes your stomach twist and cramp, and you’re purring by the time you lick the plate clean. Sollux is warm and Kanaya is close and the scent of the both of them, is just what you want.
“Kiss,” you remind him, and illustrate, leaning over and pressing your mouth to his, licking his teeth as he sputters.
“Ugh–fuck, KK, no, you taste like dead ass–stop, Kanaya, save me– eep!”
Kanaya has pressed a kiss of her own to his cheek, her breath cool against your face, and then pulls you off him while you’re purring approvingly.
“Now me,” you demand, twisting around, grabbing up a fistful of her shirt, and Kanaya and Sollux share a long look.
“Yeah,” Sollux finally says, hoarsely. “Now him.”
“Uh,” Kanya says, and you’re transfixed by her delicate green blush, her long delicate eyelashes, her dark full lips. When you lean in she does too, and you cover her face in kisses, giddy with adoration for your friend, your best friend, your dearest sweet friend. She pulls back, breathing a little hard, and squeaks when you press your face between her rumble spheres. Sollux makes a rough amused noise, and you grin at him back over your shoulder. He’s smiling, just a bit, though he still looks inappropriate amounts of sad.
“I shouldn’t like him so much like this,” he says.
“Yeah,” Kanaya murmurs, “me either,” and she strokes the back of your head, right where it’s tender enough to make you thrum. “Let’s have a look at that cure you found. I have a laboratorerrarium block for my cultivars, I should be able to put the compound together if you can show me the formula.”
She holds your hand to lead you along to wherever it is you’re going, and Sollux follows right after.
*
Kanaya and Sollux talk and stir things and mess around with computers, while you roll around unimpeded in a big tray of dirt and seedlings. It’s great. You love dirt, it’s the best, the best thing, nearly as good as sand, you think, warm sand would be better, but this is just fine. You wriggle around until you’re mostly buried, licking and chewing at the wonderful green shoots you’re getting all mixed up with, savoring the crunch and taste of sap, and purr blissfully up at Sollux and Kanaya when they approach.
“That’s fucking gruesome,” Sollux says. “I’m not washing him.”
“There’s a hose in the corner,” Kanaya says. “And he’s pacified, now, this is the most compliant we’re going to get him.”
“Urgh.”
They kneel down by you, and you perk up.
“Hello, Karkat,” Kanaya says.
“Knnn,” you purr.
“We made you something. Can you drink it for us?”
“No,” you say decisively. You can smell it already, in the beaker she’s holding: toxic and wrong, it makes you shy away on pure instinct. You wallow a little further down into your dirt.
“For us,” she coaxes.
You hiss.
“I’ll– I’ll touch you again,” Sollux says. “Come on. Half the cup, man, that’s all.”
You hesitate, and he leans down and scrubs at your mouth with the hem of his shirt and then he kisses you, and, yeah, this is nice. Why don’t you spend all your time kissing people? You press eagerly against him, licking at his teeth, following him up inch by inch as he nips at you, till you’re sitting upright, breathing hard and squirming with excitement.
Then he pushes the beaker at you.
“Come on,” he says roughly, and his fingers comb enticingly through your hair. “Come on, KK, you can do it.”
It’s nicer than getting it forced right down your feedchute, but still awful, bitter and burning and viscerally wrong. You gag and whimper but he keeps petting you, rubbing at your horns when you break off to try and protest.
“A little more,” he keeps saying, so you try, bit by bit, till there’s no more and you feel wrecked, shaky and weak, dazed with revulsion and sickness. Your bonebulge has locked tight and you’re not even sure you want him there again, even with how fucking nice it was last time, you just want him to hold you.
“‘Sssuh,” you manage, and clutch at him with numb fingers, “Sollks.”
“Good,” he says, kissing your forehead. “Fuck, I hate this. You did good, KK, you’ll be all better, soon.”
He pulls you onto his lap and holds you tight, and Kanaya sits close, and you close your eyes and try to hold on to the warm steady beat of his bloodpusher, you let the noise carry you away.
*
Everything comes in bits, disjointed little flashes of color and noise that you can’t manage to piece together. There’s pain and heat and endless nausea, there’s hands brushing your hair back from your face as you convulse, as you thrash and vomit and cry out in fear. There’s something wrong with you, utterly wrong–
“Get it out,” you beg, “get it out, get it out of me, get it out oh god–”
–but you can’t hold on to the thought for long enough to figure out what to do, and you lapse over and over again into mindless panting darkness.
“You’ll pull through.”
“Shh, shh, don’t be scared, we’re here.”
A cool hand on your forehead, arms that hold you close. You don’t know how long you spend like this, like a mewling beast, biting at yourself when you can and your friends when you can’t. Too long. Ages.
You wake up and you’re wrapped around Sollux, his hand between your legs, purring “Please,” and “oh, more,” and then you realize this is wrong and moan, “no, no, fuck–” and he jerks back and stares down in horror.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “I–I’m so sorry, KK, I thought–” and his fingers are red to the knuckle.
“F-fuck,” you stammer, and try to squirm off his lap but your arm’s on fire, your arm is useless, and your bulge is still heavy and eager and red red RED against your thighs, fuck, he knows. A wave of revulsion hits you, fear and sick self-loathing, and when he reaches that stained hand out towards you you slap it away.
“Easy, there,” he says, “easy, KK, it’s okay, we don’t care about your blood.”
“My blood–”
“We don’t care, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay, I swear–”
You scoot backwards, clumsy and pained, breathing fast and faint with nausea, and you curl up in the corner of the room and then you’re gone again, blind and lost.
You wake up in the desert, wobbling along a sand dune.
“Karkat!” Kanaya calls, behind you. You stop and turn, confused, and you become aware of how much you hurt, how much every part of you hurts. You’re carrying one of Kanaya’s chainsaws with your good arm, and your friend approaches you like you’re going to use it. The two of you just stare at each other, and then you drop the heavy weapon to the sand.
“What am I doing?” you ask.
“Proving remarkably hard to contain,” she says, wryly. “Are you alright, now?”
You stare at your bad arm, at the hideous crust of red scabbing all along your forearm, the gruesome pink tissue of new flesh.
“I was going home,” you say, slowly, figuring it out as you go. “I was... I was safe there. I need to go home. I’m safe if I don’t go outside, don’t let anyone at me, but I, but, I’m outside. Kanaya?”
“You’re safe with us,” she says, like it’s that simple. You shake your head wildly.
“Sollux knows about my– he knows! He knows about me, I let him know, I was fucking–oh god.” You sit down hard in the sand, and run your claws through your hair. “Oh god I’ve been fucking him, like a– like, like some desperate– what the fuck’s been wrong with me?”
“You’ve been very sick,” Kanaya says, settling carefully down by your side. “But I think you’re better, now.”
You’re shaking all over. “I can’t, I mean, I don’t, I’m not, we were, I was all over him, he just fucking put up with it, how the hell am I ever going to look him in the face again, we can’t possibly be friends after I smeared my festering disease-riddled excuse of a nook across every available surface of your hive–”
“He’s in love with you.”
“He put up with me eating him out–”
She growls and flicks your horn.
“Ow! What?”
“Either he hates you because you forced yourself on him or he loves you only for your sexual services, which is it? If we must go through the Karkat Vantas paranoiac song and dance self-hate routine again, I’d prefer this one to be logically consistent. You love him back, don’t you? The two of you are flushed as two very ruddy objects.”
You think about his fingers, and his laugh, and his pride, and his shyness, and how small and ugly and tired you are, and how much this all hurts and how humiliating it is to remember more about the texture of your best friend’s nook than the contents of your last conversation. “It’s complicated,” you say miserably.
Kanaya’s quiet for a while. You can see the light coming up on the horizon, bleaching the sky from purple to silver, and she stares right into it.
“Being lonely is simple,” she says finally. “Being alone is very simple. But I’ve found I prefer the alternative.”
She takes her chainsaw back from you, stands up, and dusts her skirt clean. “Are you coming back with me, or has all of this been for nothing?”
You let her pull you to your feet. In the distance you can see the oasis, and Sollux, running towards you both across the sands.
*
“Are we still friends?” you ask, dry mouthed, weak kneed, scared as hell and so sorry, so endlessly miserably sorry.
“Yeah,” he says, “yeah, always, KK, of course,” and he touches your tense shoulders like you're something precious. Someone worth saving.
You kiss him back.
*
I used to rely on self-medication,
I guess I still do that from time to time.
But I'm getting better at fighting the future,
"Someday you'll be fine.."
Yes, I'll be just fine.
–Motion City Soundtrack, Everything Is Alright