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You're still Dave Strider, and you're pretty sure a certain troll is burning up your lifetime supply of chill.
Bro had warned you how obsessive your thoughts might get once (if) you started thinking about sex, and had snickered at your blatant disbelief. Hell, even though you started jerking off a couple of years ago to every possible combination of people you were even slightly attracted to, you never imagined you'd have it this bad for anyone.
The more you get, the worse you have it. Every scowl, every snarl, every glance Karkat throws in your direction has you aching to get your hands on him again. It's hard enough to keep your face blank and body still when he goes off on a rant, but it takes everything you have to keep your cool when he goes after you personally.
It's only because you both have so much other shit to do that you don't fuck him every day, and the days you can't you have to jerk off to the thought of him before you can hope to go to sleep. You'd fuck him twice a day if you could. Sometimes you catch yourself wishing you could drag him to your room and stay in bed for a week.
You can't keep your eyes off of him when he's around, you think about him every spare moment when he's not. Your breath stops when he looks at you from under those impossible eyelashes. You steal kisses and gropes whenever nobody else is around. You can't help yourself around him and it's burning you up.
But, as Karkat shoves his tongue into your mouth for the third time that day, you have the solace of knowing he feels the same way about you.
Fourteen and a half seconds is all it takes of him fucking your mouth with his tongue for you to get hard because the ache from the other two makeouts never went away. He shoves his hands up the back of your shirt and rakes his nails down. You groan and grope his ass, pull him against you and rut, and he gasps the neediest fucking whimper you've heard from him yet.
You echo it, because it's been four endless days of crisis after petty crisis and these all too brief stolen moments are all you've had with him.
Just as you're about to drag him away -- there's a bathroom nearby, you can lock yourselves in and who cares who hears -- fast footsteps echo in the cross hallway. Karkat jumps away from you, looking as wild-eyed and guilty as you feel, and you both hurry to straighten your clothes before those footsteps round the corner.
"Hey guys!" John says, a smile breaking across his face. "I was hoping I'd run into you."
Karkat groans. "Oh god, what's on fire now?"
John snorts and his smile widens to a grin, but as he nears it seems a little forced. "Nothing, ye of little faith, but Gamzee's looking for you. He sounded kinda lonely!"
The troll cringes with guilt. "Fuck. I'll go find him." Karkat takes off in the direction John came from, not sparing either of you a second glance. You shove down a twinge you don't want to examine.
You have to shove down another twinge when you look over at John, who's staring after Karkat with a funny look on his face. "You need something, bro?" you ask, and fuck your voice is not entirely steady.
John turns to you, his expression shifting into a look that's tension and worry trying to hide behind a smile and it just about breaks your heart. "Well, yeah, because I was hoping I'd find you, too. Walk with me?"
You nod as you shove your hands into your pockets. John's silent as you fall into step beside him and stays that way for a while, his footsteps falling too heavy. "I'm wondering -- just wondering, by the way! -- why you haven't been hanging out with me lately."
Guilt crashes into you like a freight train and knocks all your breath out. It's all you can do to keep walking. John continues, his voice going tight, "I mean, it's okay, I know we all get pretty busy with being culturally sensitive and rebuilding and stuff, but I just..." His voice trails down quieter with each word. "I feel like I never see you or Karkat anymore."
John's tone isn't accusatory, but you wish it was because you fucking deserve it, and you deserve it more with every quiet word he says. "It's exciting to have new friends, so I understand wanting to spend a lot of time with them at first. And I'm glad you two maybe like each other a lot more than I thought you did! I'm really glad we all get along. Well, mostly. I just-- I guess I just miss you--"
"Egbert," you say, your voice coming out rough. John's mouth shuts and his uneasy smile falters. "It's not like that, okay? You're still my best bro. Seriously." You hesitate, then throw your shreds of cool aside and pull him into a hug.
John blurts a laugh and throws his arms around you. "So I haven't done anything wrong?"
God, you could just kick yourself right now. "Oh fuck, dude, no. You never do anything wrong."
He pulls back and gives you a wry smile. "That's not what you said when I set the kitchen on fire yesterday!"
"I mean to me personally, dunkass." You ruffle his hair and he ducks away, laughing. "Look, I'm sorry I've been neglecting my palhoncho duties. I'll make extra sure to pen them into my schedule from now on, alright?"
"Pfft, you goober," John says, giving you a prod in the ribs that makes you yelp and dance away. His burst of giggles is such a relief you can't even feign annoyance. "What do you guys even do all the time, anyway?"
Your relief evaporates. What the fuck do you even say. Oh just a little naked full contact wrestling that ends with us covered in jizz. "Uh. You know. Stuff."
John rolls his eyes and huffs. "I didn't even know you guys had that much in common!"
After the last time you and Karkat fucked, you were so dosed up on afterglow it took you like five minutes to realize he was staring into your face. When you asked him if you'd grown a third eye or something, he'd made a face but his voice came out soft. "My eyes are going to be the same color as yours in a sweep or two."
Here and now, you shrug. "We've got a lot more in common than I'd thought at first."
"Yeah? Like what?" John asks, all bright curiosity.
Mutual lust and not a damned thing else. You hitch a shoulder. "Y'know, games, getting on each other's nerves, inventing ways to get Terezi to stop licking us."
John bursts into giggles. "I guess you do have a lot in common!" He nudges you with his elbow. "But man, it's not fair you've been playing games together and not inviting me! You have to let me in on those."
That freight train is back, but this time it derails and now you're having thoughts dirtier than any you ever admit to when you have more company than just your hand. You tell yourself fiercely that you do not feel that way about your best bro in the least little bit and he's Not A Homosexual so just. Stop. Visualizing. You snort and say, "Sure, if you can take all the screaming," and instantly regret it because you visualize even worse.
"Hehe, I'm used to Karkat's yelling now! It's hilarious," John says breezily. "Buuut... maybe we should get in some play time while he's busy." Your years of practice in deadpanning fail you all at once and you stare openly at John, but he just continues, "I haven't kicked your ass at Crash Bandicoot in ages!"
"Oh my god," you exhale.
"Hehehe! Okay, maybe not, you're almost as much of a sore loser as Karkat is. Okay, how about Soul Calibur?"
Soul Calibur you can handle, especially since you and John both have penchant for choosing female characters. Leggy pixel chicks with bouncy tits kicking the crap out of each other are only a temporary antidote to your hot alien boy addiction, but they're enough for now. After couple hours of Totally Heterosexual Bro Bonding time, complete with red-faced giggles from John whenever he grinds Sophitia's crotch into your character's face, you're feeling a lot less guilt and a lot more chill.
However, not even the bounciest of tits can curb the other teenaged drive to inhale all available food at regular intervals, so after John crotchgrinds you into submission one last time you both head for the kitchen. You want to make nachos but John wants to actually cook something. You veto him with an impromptu rap about his ineptitude in the face of heat and voice your doubts about whether or not he should actually, in that case, be in the kitchen. John counters by laughing about how incredibly nerdy your rapping is.
It's just like it used to be, so long as you ignore the smoldering weight low in your belly. It's a relief to be that kid again, even though it feels like wearing a coat that's a size too small.
You're still that kid over nachos and the subsequent food fight that happens with the remains. You're still that kid as you and John mock-bully one another into cleaning up. You're that kid right up until Jade bounces in and nearly knocks you off your feet with a hug.
"Dave! I never see you anymore!" she exclaims and squeezes you until you gasp a strangled sound.
You slump and pant exaggeratedly when Jade lets you go, and her and John both blurt a laugh. You quirk and adjust your shades as you straighten. "That's 'cause you're always vanishing off somewhere with one of the girls."
Jade bites her lower lip. John grins and says, "Yeah, when you're not vanishing off somewhere with Karkat!"
You arch a brow at John, but he's still wearing that derpy, oblivious grin. Jade, however, is giving you a calculating look that makes you want to squirm. "I thought you guys didn't really get along?"
"I guess they have a lot in common!" John chirps.
"Hmmm." You're pinned by the green intensity of Jade's stare. "Heheh, I guess I can see it." She flashes you a grin that is so knowing your insides lurch. All you can do is stare back as she continues, "I'm not breaking up a moment if I abscond with John, am I?"
"No, you're just relieving me of cleanup duties." John's derpgrin goes even wider as he grabs Jade's arm and hauls her out of the kitchen.
"Hey--" you protest, but you breathe a laugh and let them scamper away because as much as you hate cleaning up, you need to be alone with your thoughts.
It doesn't help. Jade's knowing look left you unsettled, and you only get more unsettled the more you think about it. How much did she know, and how much had she guessed? Hell, how much had John guessed? You know perfectly well his derpface can cover as much as your deadpan can.
Why does the thought that they might know you're fucking Karkat's brains out bother you so much?
Once you have the kitchen reasonably clean, you go to the atrium to clear your head. It's as close to 'outdoors' as you can get on this rock, a big dome with sunlamps that nurture the dizzying variety of plants coaxed into existence by Jade and Kanaya. It's big enough that a few circuits around perimeter gives your legs a good stretch, and big enough that there are lots of places to relax when you want to be alone.
Or, as you remember when you happen upon Karkat and Gamzee, when you want to be a different sort of alone. Not that they're hiding; sitting with their backs to the biggest tree, they're clearly visible from the path. Their arms are around one another, and Karkat is murmuring into the other troll's ear.
A bolt of white-hot jealousy lances through you. For a moment it burns as hot as your lust ever has until reason throttles it for long enough for you to flash step away to the other side of the atrium.
A hidden niche of soft grass and shade between flowering bushes is where you sink down and press your face against your knees. What the fuck. What the fuck. There was no goddamned reason for you to feel that. Why the hell would you be jealous of their weird troll platonic life partner bullshit? You don't give a shit about how soft Karkat's expression was as he murmured, how he brushed his fingers against Gamzee's scarred face like the other boy was as fragile as a soap bubble, or how that fucking loony looked at him with complete adoration.
It's not like that stops you and Karkat from fucking, and that's all you want from him anyway. It's completely physical. It has nothing to do how he moans your name like a prayer when you're alone with him. It has nothing to do with how he gazes at you with half-lidded eyes and parted lips. It has nothing to do with how he nestles against you afterward.
If it has anything to do with any emotions, it's the control, how you can turn him from raging douchebag to needy little bitch in five minutes. That's all.
That's all.
You don't run into Karkat again for the rest of the day, but it's not like you were looking for him, really. All the same, when you finally lie down in your bed there's a twist in your gut you can't ignore. You try to fall asleep despite it, but the only thing you get is thoughts of him -- his smell (alien but all boy), his hair (coarse and wavy and so thick your fingers vanish into it), his hands (rough and firm), his lips (so, so soft), how his back arches when he's coming under you.
Sleep doesn't find you until after you've spilled yourself out onto your belly, whimpering his name the entire time.
*
You keep yourself busy the next day, and it just so happens you don't go anywhere he usually does. You tell yourself you aren't avoiding him, exactly, you just aren't making yourself available. You need a break from each other, a chance to cool down. Well, you need to cool down, because chill is your thing; you're pretty sure that nothing in paradox space could make Karkat Vantas any less hot.
... Hot tempered. That's what you meant.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder, whispers a part of your mind. You deem it traitor for unironically spitting out sentimental greeting card messages. At least, not your sort of ironic. Like this has anything to do with your heart, anyway.
By the time you go to scrounge up lunch you've convinced yourself that the twinges from yesterday were just guilt that you've been distancing yourself from your friends while you banged an obnoxious troll. Yesterday brought it home to you how fucking lust-addled you've been. Bros before hos, even if the ho in question is, technically, a bro, and some of your bros... actually, never mind. Point is, your friends need to come first, and he? Is not one of them.
The jolt in the atrium was also guilt, guilt that you've been distracting Karkat from his bugfuck insane soulmate. Not jealousy. Guilt. It's misplaced, because the loony is Karkat's baggage, it's just easy to take some on yourself because you have guilt about Gamzee already. Even though you know your part in his mind cracking was technically inevitable, it still wouldn't have happened how it did if you weren't the sort of person you'd chosen to be.
What kind of person have you chosen to be now? asks that traitor part of your mind. You ignore it.
When you enter the kitchen, Rose looks up from where she sits at the table and smiles as she raises her mug in greeting. "The prodigal son returns!"
Your guts clamp shut. You resist the urge to stare, to scowl, to turn and walk out. "I resent the implication," you say cooly as you go to the refrigerator, "that if I found debauchery on this shitty planetoid I'd ever voluntarily stop."
Rose chuckles. "Nonetheless, it's good to see you." She's silent as you rummage and pull out a bottle of apple juice and the necessary components for a cheese sandwich. "I hear you've been spending a lot of time with our fiery friend Mr. Vantas?"
You almost drop the fucking butter knife, but your voice comes out smooth anyway. "You friends with him now, Lalonde? I thought you snarky broads preferred subtlety." You look over your shoulder at her and arch a brow, shifting your stance the touch necessary to call attention to your ass.
"As always, your deflections are utterly transparent," Rose lilts, smirking at you over the rim of her mug. "As well as a prime example of shutting the barn door after the horses have already escaped, seeing as John and Jade both independently told me where you said you've been."
You hiss a sigh. Welp. "Yeah, you heard right, but that doesn't answer why you call him a friend." You slap mayo onto a slice of bread. "Thought a shouty fucker like that would drive you up the wall."
"Karkat's ranting can be a bit hard on the eardrums," Rose muses, "but someone with a talent for invective who also wears his heart on his sleeve is a pleasant novelty, all the same." There's the sound of her sipping. "Your turn."
"My turn what?" you ask as you apply cheese to bread with more force than necessary.
"To tell me why Karkat is your friend. I know he drives you up the wall."
Against the wall, your mutinous mind corrects, and you have to tense every muscle below the waist against a squirm. "Who said he's my friend?"
"Generally, we use the term 'friend' for people whom we spend our spare time with by choice. Unless some other term of endearment is appropriate, of course?"
You snort, but your skin is prickling with discomfort. "I guess."
"You guess some other term of endearment is appropriate?"
"Fuck, Lalonde, could you turn off the horseshit faucet for five seconds?" There's a heavy silence that's worse than Rose's guesses, and you hurry to fill it with the clatter of putting things away. "I guess he's my friend. I dunno, shit's complicated. Like you said, he drives me up the wall, but the feeling is mutual so I guess we've got some sort of rivalry or whatever."
"Hmm. Is it one of those caliginous relationships trolls so value?"
The mayo jar goes slipping through your fingers. "Fuck no!" There's no way to hide how you have to scramble to keep it from crashing to the floor. "Just, jegus. No. None of that hate bullshit."
"Kanaya has lead me to understand that 'hate' may be a too-broad interpretation of the sort of romantic rivalry that caliginous relationships involve."
Oh god, there go your guts again, all clamped up so tight you're not going to be able to get any food down them for the rest of the day. You eye your sandwich sadly. It was going to be soggy by tomorrow, all because Rose just had to fucking say the word 'romantic'. "Rose. No. Look." You turn and spread your hands. "This has nothing to do with that chitinous--"
"Caliginous."
"--troll bullshit. It's just a thing, alright? So keep your gossip hole shut about it. I don't want people making it out to be something it isn't." You level a look at her over the rims of your shades.
Rose just smiles serenely. "Don't worry, Dave, I would never do any such thing."
"Yeah, whatever." You grab your sandwich and juice because even though you love this snarky bitch you can't take one more second of having your fuckbuddy non-relationship picked apart. You'll go and not-eat somewhere else. "See you later, Lalonde."
"Don't be a stranger, Dave," she calls after you.
Caliginous romance, jesus christ. You scowl at the thought as you slip off to your room. Even if you were tempted to deem this stupid lust-crazed bullshit thing you have with Vantas a 'relationship', caliginous would not be it. Fuck Lalonde for wanting to analyze everything to death. For that matter, fuck everybody, because god, everyone was wanting to analyze this thing, like you and Karkat were two bugs in a jar.
You drop your lunch onto your desk before you fling yourself onto your bed and glare at the ceiling. All those smirks and smiles and gee, aren't you two seeing a lot of each other, what the hell do they know, anyway? You're starting to think you need to march down the halls yelling 'YES, I AM SCREWING KARKAT VANTAS' so people will stop smirking like it's some huge deal. Sure, they'd say things to try to make you squirm, but it'd be better than this pointed examination of what you feel. You're not even sure how you feel so it sure as hell isn't their fucking business.
That thought hangs in your mind like an accusation. You groan and slid your hands under your shades to press your palms against your eyes. Sure you know how you feel. Vantas is hot, fucking him into the mattress is your current favorite hobby, end of story. It isn't friendship except for under the widest definition and it sure as fuck isn't anything else. That you can't stop thinking about him (how afterglow makes him too loopy to scowl, the curve of his hip when he lies beside you, the soft rasp of his breath when he dozes off) has abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do with anything but your dick.
... Which is threatening to harden at this line of thinking. You give your crotch a glare before you heave yourself upright and move to your desk. Somebody has to have pestered you by now.
There are two messages: one from John and one from Terezi. Karkat is offline, last seen twelve hours and six minutes ago. You don't want to examine why that makes your stomach drop, so you look at John's message.
ectoBiologist began pestering turntechGodhead
EB: hey dave!
EB: can you 'pen me in' (hehehe) for some palhoncho time today?
EB: games again!
EB: don't worry, i won't force you to watch any of my movies, haha.
turntechGodhead is an idle chum!
EB: oh man, i hope you answer sometime today.
Haha, John. You roll your eyes as you pick at your sandwich and you tap out an answer with one hand.
turntechGodhead is no longer idle!
TG: some of us have to eat occassionally
TG: and get psychoanalyzed by lalonde
TG: anyways yes to palhoncho time
TG: i just had to use that term again
TG: you would have forgotten it forever if i hadnt
ectoBiologist is an idle chum!
Welp. You sigh and eye Terezi's window with trepidation. You're incredibly paranoid at this point, and if there's anyone who knows how to make a to-the-bone analysis of your thoughts and motivations, it's her. You grit your teeth and open it anyway.
gallowsCalibrator began pestering turntechGodhead
GC sent TG R3M1NDYOUOF4NYON3.jpg
gallowsCalibrator ceased pestering turntechGodhead
It is, of course, a comic -- with the adoring population of Earth vaporized in another universe, she's now your main audience, and you hers. You frown at the filename, but open it anyway.
You don't realize you were holding your breath until it explodes out in a laugh. God, that girl could always make you smile. What a shame that after everything went sour (standing over your own sleeping body, your heart thudding with dull horror at a choice you couldn't take), everything changed, and the later apologies and forgiveness couldn't make it go back. You wish it had, because maybe then you could have fallen for her.
Oh, what the fuck? You press your palms to your eyes again to make that thought fade.
Pesterchum dings and your heart leaps, but it's just John (just your best bro, no big deal, what the hell is wrong with you).
EB: :P
EB: palhoncho is a perfectly good term!
EB: but nevermind. when are you free?
TG: i dunno
TG: i had to flee the kitchen with my lunch so i still need to eat
TG: and some time to do this and that
TG: so call it two hours
EB: hm... i think i'm going to be in the middle of a movie in two hours!
EB: yeah, amélie is only going to be about half over by then.
EB: hey, you should join us! it's a really good movie, and i mean even by standards that aren't mine, haha.
TG: us
EB: three guesses, first two don't count!
TG: oh right
You feel a twist of what you felt in the atrium. Heartburn. It's got to be heartburn, that's what you get for eating this sandwich so fast.
TG: sounds like a romcom then
TG: gag
EB: oh come oooon, it is really good, and silly! and sometimes sad but it has a happy ending! and has a super cute french girl!
TG: hmm tempting
TG: does she get naked at any point
EB: dave!
TG: well
EB: um, not exactly. there are some suggestive parts and, uh, noises, but she pretty much stays clothed.
EB: but that isn't the point!
TG: not my thing then
TG: sorry
TG: whenll it be over ill come by then
You kind of hate yourself for writing that but like hell are you going to sit there for two hours mooning at that fucking troll while you pretend to watch some sappy French piece of shit.
EB: um, by about 16.30, that ok?
TG: sure
TG: by the way
TG: no fucking crash bandicoot
EB: SIIIIIIIIGN. you always say that!
TG: you seem to like grinding sophitias crotch against my face so much i dont see why thats a big deal
EB: i do not! she's just, um, built that way!
TG: hahaha you just keep telling yourself that
TG: see you in a few hours
turntechGodhead ceased pestering ectoBiologist
You draw a comic and send it to Terezi. You poke at a remix. You check Pesterchum every time it makes the ding that means someone has come online and it's never Karkat.
When it's time, plus about five minutes, you go to the common room to play games with John. Your insides go hollow when you see he's alone and stay that when even when you tell yourself good, this way you won't be distracted from kicking his ass. You play Soul Calibur and Left 4 Dead and goad John as much as he goads you but no matter how hard you try, you can't fall into being that kid again.
Afterward, you make a pizza and scurry with it to your room. Karkat is offline, last seen ten minutes and twenty-five seconds ago. God damn it. You set Pesterchum to play a special tone when he comes online and set yourself to idle, but the tone never sounds, even though you stay up late enough you're about to faceplant your mixer.
You still have to jerk off, imagining its his hands stroking you slow and sweet, before you can hope to sleep.
*
It's been seven days since you've felt his body naked against yours. It's two since you've felt his lips or heard him whisper your name into your ear. Pesterchum shows Karkat hasn't been online since you just missed him last night, fourteen hours and three minutes ago.
Not that you care. Not that you have a creeping feeling that he's been avoiding you just as much as you've been avoiding him. Not that you've noticed that aside from that glimpse in the atrium you haven't so much as crossed his path.
God.
You go to run a few laps around the atrium, but you're the only one there. When you leave to take a shower you pass Kanaya in the hall and she gives you one of those smiles as she murmurs a good morning. You're just barely able to say a civil one back, because who is she to give you that look? Besides one of Karkat's dearest friends. You swear to god, if he's been telling them anything like... like...
You can't finish that thought.
In the shower, the water sliding down your body makes you think of Karkat. The water is like his warm wet kisses down your neck, like his fingers trailing down your chest. The water makes it easy to imagine what it would be like to have his lips moving down your belly, his tongue teasing your navel, his mouth around your dick.
Fuck, you're hard, so hard, and it makes you sick you can't help yourself. You can't stop yourself imagining him kneeling in front of you as he never has, can't keep from cupping your balls with one hand while stroking yourself furiously with the other. You want him, you want him, you want him in the few ways you've had him and all of those you haven't, you want to know him inside and out. Avoiding him hasn't made that wanting cool down, it's just made it a thousand times worse.
The cry you don't quite strangle as you come echoes in the little room. As you come down, you decide that it had to be the echoes that made it sound as desperate as it did.
You step out of the shower feeling more hollow than before. You haven't had breakfast yet, though, that's got to be it. Hell, you haven't been eating much for the past couple of days anyway, no fucking wonder you feel hollow. You usually go through quantities of food that make you wonder if the grist is going to last long enough for you all to survive adolescence even if Jade's food crops do get going, but lately this bullshit with Karkat has killed your appetite.
You lower the comb you were dragging through your hair and scowl at your reflection. When the hell did you turn into the protagonist of some shitty after school teen dramady? First you start moping, then you stop eating, next you'll be alchemizing a pen that will teleport the ink directly from your veins so you can write horrible poetry in your own blood. You might as well go fling yourself on Kanaya's mercy now so she can outfit you in black lipstick and frilly poet shirts, the proper costume for a pining douchebag.
Your reflection's eyes widen. "I am not fucking pining," you snarl at it, and shove your shades onto your face hard enough to bang the bridge of your nose.
The kitchen is your destination, and that poor, defenseless room takes the brunt of your irritation as you slam down utensils, kick drawers closed, and generally make an unholy racket in your quest for making breakfast. You're out to show paradox space that you are not pining, and you're going to do it by eating as much as you possibly can, even if it means someone has to roll you back to your room.
Your plan is a little hampered by the fact that your cooking skills don't extend beyond the microwave, but who gives a fuck. You've been making sandwiches since you were tall enough to reach the counter by standing on a chair, and with those eight years of experience you have become a sandwich master. No filling is too messy, no combination too weird. A long obsession with the Midnight Crew means you can cut sandwiches into card suit shapes in your sleep. Hell, your Sburb title should have been Prince of Sandwiches, that's how awesome you are at them.
Even though you usually roll your eyes at the tastes of the health nuts you share this rock with, now you're pleased for the choices they give you. You've got white, whole wheat, sourdough, and dark rye breads, ham, pepperoni, corned beef, and egg salad fillings, cucumber, lettuce, tomato, swiss and cheddar cheeses for garnishes, and peanut butter, raspberry jam, cream cheese, and mayo for spreads. It's a fucking feast up in here.
You're cutting the last few slices of bread into shape when a pap-pap-click, pap-pap-click enters the room. "Hey Dave! Where's the party?"
A grin flashes across your face. Today is looking up. "In my stomach in about five minutes," you answer as you cut a pair of white bread slices into a diamond. "'Sup, TZ?"
Terezi leans against a counter and smirks. "I was looking for you! It's been too long since I've seen my favorite coolkid in person."
You ignore the little lurch your stomach makes and snort. "Easy to be your favorite when I'm the only coolkid in the universe."
You glance back at Terezi and her little smirk broadens. "A minor detail! Even if coolkids were as numerous as grains of sand, you would still be my favorite."
You smirk in return and turn away to cut another pair of slices -- this sourdough -- into hearts. "Flattery will get you everywhere."
Quite suddenly, Terezi's shark grin is way too close to your ear as she leans close and sniffs over your shoulder. "Will it get me a sandwich?"
"I suppose I can spare a member of my gastronomic orgy." You lay out the heart-shaped slices and start spreading them with raspberry jam. "Someone's gonna have to double up on partners, though."
"Not if you give me more than one!" Terezi sniffs inquisitively. "Are you really planning on eating all of those yourself?"
You lay ham on half of the slices, then swiss cheese on top of the ham. "What part of 'gastronomic orgy' did you not understand?"
"The part where you were the only participant!" Terezi pokes you in the ribs. "How is that any fun?"
You hiss a breath and prod her with your elbow. "TZ, you're missing the point. This is a metaphorical orgy with sandwiches as the participants, and my stomach as the location." You add the top pieces of bread.
"Sounds like a good way to make yourself sick. It's a lot more enjoyable when you share."
"Calm your tits. I'm already giving you two sandwiches. "
"That's not what I meant, coolkid, and you know it." Terezi pulls back to give you a long look. It doesn't matter that she's blind; she can pin you with her blank red gaze better than anyone sighted can.
You just shrug and switch the finished sandwiches out for the diamond slices. "It takes a massive quantity of fuel to power the refrigeration needed for this level of chill." Cream cheese and cucumber go on these, because you're classy like that. "I gotta convert it myself, you know how many calories that takes? Fuck, it'd be easier to just lounge in a tub of dry ice but that'd bring my temperature up too high."
"Hmm. You're throwing out a lot of gas, regardless."
This time you manage to avoid the finger Terezi aims for your ribs. You smack a slice of bread onto the last diamond and give her a glare. "Do you have a point?"
"Lots of them!" Terezi waggles her narrow little fingers at you and laughs. "But I know when you're being obstinate--"
You huff through your nose and slap down the dark rye spades. "I'm not."
"--and I have to just say it, so: What's going on with you and Karkat?"
"Nothing." You attack those slices of bread with mayo.
"You are not clever, Dave!" Terezi raises her cane. "Stop being evasive or I'll give you a drubbing."
"Threatening me after I offer you food? Nice." Terezi shakes her cane threateningly and you scowl. "It's true. There's nothing going on." Your throat tightens. You apply the pepperoni and tomato with exaggerated care as you find your voice again. "We hung out a lot for a while, that's all." You top the sandwiches off and set them aside.
"Past tense?"
You shrug as you lay out the whole wheat slices that you cut into clubs. Kind of blobby clubs, but clubs all the same. "It's not like we're friends, TZ."
"And why not?"
"We have fuck-all in common?" You roll your eyes and make a face as you slather egg salad on the bread. "He makes fun of my music and my comics, I make fun of his shitty movies -- oh, I see, I guess we're supposed to have some sort of beautiful adversarial relationship based on mutual distaste for our respective favorite forms of entertainment."
"You and John make fun of each other all of the time!" Terezi snags a spade sandwich from the plate. "I understand that's practically a requirement for friendship between males of your species." She grins at your stare, then takes a large, jagged bite out of the sandwich. "Beshidesh-- mph." She swallows and gestures with the sandwich. "Besides, you have a lot more in common than you like to admit."
"Says you," you mutter as you drop lettuce onto the mounds of egg salad.
"Says me, indeed! And not for the first time. Remember, Dave?"
You groan. "Oh god. Don't even start. I see it even less now than I did then." You slap the top slices onto the sandwiches. "I'm fucking absolute zero next to that bitchy, overemotional hothead. Dude couldn't hide his emotions if he wanted to, he's too busy getting passionate intensity all over everything." That was not a good choice of words but you hurtle on, regardless. "Being around him makes me heat up--" also not a good choice of words-- "which is saying something considering I'm the Patron Saint of Chill."
Terezi swallows the last of her sandwich and grins. "Oh yes, you're totally different," she says, her tone dripping wry sarcasm.
"Too different to be friends. Total fucking opposites."
"Like two sides of a coin."
The last sandwich drops from your fingers onto the plate as you slowly turn your head to look at her. Terezi isn't grinning anymore, but the serious, searching look she's pinned you with makes you glare more than if she was gloating.But then she smiles small, sad smile that's so gentle and tender it hurts, and you're knocked breathless from it.
"You both still hide so much behind your walls of words." Terezi reaches out and you go totally still, but she's only plucking a diamond sandwich from your pile. She turns it over in her hands as she continues, "You hide what he flings out into the open, but you do it for the same reasons: you both hope for so much, but you're both desperately afraid of getting hurt."
"Oh, fuck that," you protest, your shoulders going tight. "I'm not afraid of getting hurt, I'm the Patron Saint of Chill. Nothing can hurt--" Terezi raises her blank red eyes from her sandwich to your face. Your throat closes around yours words as her brow furrows upward in silent apology.
Then she blurts a laugh. "No wonder you two fight all the time! You're both similar in all of the ways neither of you wants to admit." She takes a bite of the sandwich and smirks at your stare. "But since you have been spending a lot of time together--"
"That doesn't mean--"
"Maybe you do admit your vulnerabilities, just not to your own selves."
You stare at Terezi while she finishes off her diamond sandwich in the most self-satisfied way you have ever seen. "Jegus fuck," you breathe. "You're worse than Lalonde. I'd almost feel sorry for Vantas, having had to put up with you for an entire game, but the last thing I want to feel toward that dumbass is pity."
Terezi snickers as she licks her fingers clean. "The knight doth protest too much!"
Okay, now you're about to fly off the handle. It's only because Terezi is your dear friend -- totally and unironically dear, almost as much as Jade, John, or Rose -- that when you snarl at her it isn't to tell her to take an acrobatic pirouette right off of this fucking rock, it's just, "I'm gonna ask just this once that you step the fuck off, TZ."
"You don't get it, do you, Dave?" She gives you a wincing smile and takes a heart sandwich.
"I get that you're a sadist who gets off on picking people to shreds with words--"
"No!" Terezi steps closer. "I do this..." She steps closer still. "Becauuuse..." She pauses for long enough (one whole second) that you want to scream at her to spit it out, but then she's stepped right into your personal space to whisper into your ear, "I adore you both."
You gape as she steps back and sinks her teeth into that sandwich. You want to say something, anything, but your vocal cords refuse to work and your brain is full of static. Terezi just stands there eating that heart until you croak, "You. What."
She grins past the bite she just took, chews, swallows, giggles. "You sound just like Karkles."
"Did you--" You feel a little sick imagining her orchestrating this. "Did you give him this talk too? Are you seriously trying to shove us together?"
Terezi snorts. "I will neither confirm or deny the accusations!"
Your handles curl into frustrated fists. "Fuck you, TZ, we're not dolls you can bang together--"
"No, you're just stupid! Stupid stupid dumb. You bang your head against good sense like a little bird flying into a window -- just like someone else I know." She pops the rest of the sandwich into her mouth and shakes her head. "Why are stupid candy red boys the most adorable?"
"Hey," you protest, but that's as far as you can manage. "Hey," you protest again as she snags a club and turns away.
"Hey yourself, coolkid. I'll let you stuff your face in peace now!" She waves over her shoulder with the sandwich. "But I still think you should share the rest of those -- you're just going to be miserable if you eat them all by yourself."
Pap-pap-click, pap-pap-click, and Terezi's gone. You stare after her a moment before you look at the scattered pile of sandwiches. "Too late," you mutter.
*
You wrap the sandwiches in waxed paper and take them with you to your room, where you sit them on your desk and stare at them. They aren't that big, those eight little sandwiches, but you still can't eat. You don't know if you can share. You don't know how to share.
You've never gone looking for Karkat, and he's never gone looking for you. You've always just happened upon one another and things went from there. It would have been too much if you'd intentionally gone looking for one another like that.
But here you are, clutching at the edge of your mattress in a desperate attempt to anchor yourself, to keep yourself from blurting things on Pesterchum or worse, rushing to his room and praying that he's there the entire way.
Fuck. Fuck.
You can just... check Pesterchum. It won't hurt. You wake up your computer and bring up the window and your heart stops cold because his handle isn't grayed out. carcinoGeneticist signed in ten minutes ago and oh god oh god oh god.
You spend another five with your mouse pointer over his handle before you can click it to bring up a chat window.
turntechGodhead began pestering carcinoGeneticist
TG: we need to talk asshole
carcinoGeneticist is an idle chum!
FUCK.
You almost lose your nerve but goddamn it you already said something. Bro always said don't start anything you can't finish and you don't want to admit that maybe that's just what you did.
TG: theres some things that
TG:
TG: look
TG: i cant do this here
TG: ill be in the atrium under the big tree
TG: having an im a disaster party
TG: youre invited
TG: so you know what to do
TG: when you get back
TG: or whatever
turntechGodhead ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist
The atrium is as empty as you left it. You make your way to the big tree and sit with your back against the trunk, angled away so that you're almost hidden from the pathway. It's a petty little bit of defiance against the emotions you don't want to admit, but you do it anyway. If he comes here and really wants to talk, if he really cares, he'll look for you.
You hate yourself for thinking that almost as much as you hate the knot of hope in your chest.
You set out your little picnic: the sandwiches, a bottle of apple juice, half a packet of chocolate sandwich cookies. You tell yourself to start eating, make it look like you don't care, but it's a reflex that hasn't caught up with the reality of what you typed.
One minute slides into another and soon you're fidgeting, half-afraid he's never going to come, half-hoping he won't. It's been an eternity already, hasn't it? Surely you've waited long enough.
You check the time and it's only been six minutes. Fuck.
When you do hear footsteps, you freeze. You've gone solid ice from your throat to your asshole, and that's way too chill even for you. You can't move a muscle until he sits with his back to the tree, a forty-five degree arc away from you, and says, "So."
Karkat's voice is rougher than usual, in a way that makes you hurt. So. So what. So why did you ask him to come here, what did you want to tell him? You're not even really sure. All you're sure of is that he isn't your friend, he's...
He's...
The first time you put on music after you'd fucked, he'd made all sorts of snotty comments about it being weird human noise, but after you told him he could leave if he didn't like it he huffed and settled down. A few minutes later you caught him listening so intently he'd forgotten to scowl. Without that emotional armor he'd looked like the romantic he is, his brows furrowed upward slightly and his eyes dreamy, and you'd wanted to bottle that moment and keep it forever.
He'd caught you looking, then, and a blush flashed across his cheeks.
You don't know what Karkat is to you, but to be perfectly, painfully honest with yourself, you can't stand having him away.
"Want a sandwich?" you ask.
Karkat shifts. Out of the corner of your eye you can tell he's staring at you. "You are fucking kidding me."
"Nope." You gesture at the sandwiches on their waxed paper.
He stares for a moment later before dropping his gaze. "I guess."
You look over the sandwiches as if there's any question of which you'll give him. Finally, you take one of the hearts and hand it over without looking at him. There's a moment of incredulous hesitation before he takes it and mutters thanks.
Silence stretches out again, and you wonder if he's angry or if he just don't know what to say any more than you do. You wrack your brain for words that won't come, until the silence has stretched so much you're about to snap. You blurt, "Missed you."
Two and a half heartbeats later, Karkat grates, "Missed me, or missed my body?"
Ouch. But it was a fair question, wasn't it? Fortunately, the answer is easy. "Both."
Another heartbeat and a half and he murmurs, "Same."
You let out a breath you hadn't realized you'd been holding. "So..."
"Strider, fuck if I know. You think I'm a raging douche--"
"--and the feeling's mutual, right, even though we can't keep our hands off of each other."
Karkat laughs shakily. "Right. But it's not a kismesissitude."
Oh thank god. "Fuck no."
"So..."
"So I guess you're my kind of raging douche." You shrug.
There's a pause that carries a suggestion of a caught breath before Karkat bats that back at you in a mocking singsong,"Aw, Strider, I knew you had the heart of a romantic."
You smirk. "Yeah, yours."
Karkat makes a sound like a clogged garbage disposal. "God, you're infuriating, you know that?"
You look sideways at him as your smirk turns to a grin. "Yeah, and you love it."
"Uuuugh. Yes I do, you asshole." Karkat scowls back at you. "There's something deeply and irrevocably wrong with me that I find you and all of your doucheiness irresistible. I have been fucking beside myself lately because oh no, Dave hasn't made a snide remark about me for three whole days!" Karkat puts the hand holding the sandwich to his forehead and mock-swoons.
You start to shake with silent laughter as Karkat continues, gesturing widely. "I tried to convince myself that I was glad you'd fucked off somewhere by listing off all of the stupid things you do, and what happens? I miss how incredibly annoying you are." He moves, sitting to face you so he can glare at you properly. "I missed your ability to break into those horrible shitty raps at the worst possible times. I missed trying to relax to that weird thumpy electronic shit you call music. I missed your condescending smirk -- yeah, exactly that stupid expression you have plastered across your face right now." He sighs and rolls his eyes. "It just figures I'd end up the kind of masochist who's romantically inclined towards insufferable pricks." He spreads his arms and rolls his eyes upward, as if praying for guidance.
Your laughter isn't silent so much as strangled, now, and Karkat drops his arms levels a thunderous glare at you. "What the fuck is so funny."
"You, dipshit." Karkat's eyes narrow -- then widen as you tug him close. "You're adorable when you get going on a rant."
He bares his teeth and tries -- not too hard -- to bat you away. "That's ADORABLOODTHIRSTY."
"Hahaha, whatever, bro." You get your arm around Karkat's waist and pull him closer. "Eat your sandwich."
"Fine. Fuckass." Karkat grumbles and shifts before settling against you. He sinks his teeth into that heart like he has a personal vendetta, which is appropriate, you guess. While he chews, he honest-to-fucking god nestles against you, and you guess that's appropriate, too.
You snag a heart of your own and take a bite -- it's salty, spicy, sour, and just a little sweet. Just what you needed, really. You sure do know how to pick them.