Work Text:
carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling twinArmageddons [TA]
CG: DON'T SOIL YOURSELF IN EXCITEMENT, BUT THERE'S A SALE ON CHEESEBURGERS AT THE MCDICK'S FOUR BLOCKS FROM YOUR HIVESTEM.
TA: bull2hiit what kiind of fa2t food place ha2 a 2ale on burger2 that iis the dumbe2t thiing ii've ever heard.
CG: I DON'T KNOW NOR DO I CARE ABOUT THE INTRICATE MARKETING TACTICS OF FAST FOOD EXECUTIVES.
CG: AND YOU WOULD DO WELL TO TREAT YOUR WISE INFORMER WITH SOME RESPECT, SHITHEAD.
CG: WITHOUT ME, YOU WOULD BE THAT ASSHOLE MEANDERING AROUND THE CROWD SURROUNDING TROLL MCDONALDS WONDERING 'GEE, WHY ARE SO MANY PEOPLE PARTICULARLY EAGER TO CLOG THEIR ARTERIES TODAY?' WHILE EVERYONE ELSE LAUGHS AT WHAT A SAD LOSER YOU ARE.
CG: NOW YOU'LL JUST BE AN ASSHOLE.
TA: okay fuck ii get iit there'2 a 2ale on burger2, why are you telliing me thii2, do you want two go out two eat or what?
CG: WELL, I WAS GOING TO GRACIOUSLY INVITE YOU TO INDULGE IN THE DEAD CARCASS OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED ANIMALS, BUT I'M NOT SO SURE NOW.
CG: I'M NOT SURE I CAN TAKE YOUR NEGATIVITY, SOLLUX.
CG: MAYBE I NEED TO BE AROUND SOMEBODY WITH A BETTER ATTITUDE TOWARDS CASUAL DINING.
TA: whatever ii'm bu2y anyway, al2o ca2ual diiniing that'2 a fuckiing joke, god know2 what that 2hiit ii2 made of.
CG: YOUR LOSS. I GUESS I'LL JUST TAKE NEPETA TO CHEAP MEAT HEAVEN.
CG: OH GOD, DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE TELL EQUIUS I SAID THAT. THAT WAS *NOT* WHAT I MEANT.
TA: eheheheheheheheheh.
CG: I DIDN'T FUCKING MEAN IT AND YOU KNOW IT.
CG: BUT OKAY, LET'S BE SERIOUS BECAUSE MY STOMACH IS ABOUT TO GAIN SENTIENCE AND CRAWL OUT OF MY ASS. ARE YOU GOING TO DOUSE YOUR UNSCRUPULOUS PALLETE IN THE DELECTABLE MINGLING FLAVOURS OF DEAD CATTLE AND AMBIGUOUSLY HAZARDOUS SPICES WITH ME OR NOT?
TA: how cheap are we talkiing here cau2e iim a biit tiight thii2 periigree.
TA: ii have two frozen waffle2 and a bag of pea2 that ii'm planniing on ratiioniing for the re2t of the week.
TA: ii know what you're goiing two say 'but 2ollux what about your triim waii2tliine? what about your preciious thiigh gap?'
TA: ii agree ii mean FUCK ii am ju2t 2uch a fata22 liike pea2? a whole bag of pea2 iin one week?
CG: YOU BOUGHT A GRUBSTATION 4 TWO WEEKS AGO YOU SHIT KNOCKING SOCK SNIFFER.
TA: hence why ii'm a biit tiight thii2 periigree. and 2weep for that matter.
CG: WHAT THE DOUCHING FUCK SOLLUX.
CG: I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT YOU WOULD FORGO THE VERY FUCKING BASICS OF SURVIVAL FOR A FUCKING GAMING PLATFORM.
CG: I AM RIGHT ON THE EDGE OF VOMITING UP PILES AND PILES OF TINY PROFFESSOR TROLLS TO PLANT IN YOUR FUCKING THINKPAN AND TEACH YOU SOME SENSE.
TA: awww you're 2o cute when you're dotiing.
CG: REALLY?
CG: FUCK I MEAN NO. NO I AM NOT CUTE. I AM SLOWLY SLIPPING INTO INSANITY FROM YOUR MORONIC CHARMS.
TA: charm2?
CG: MY FINGERS GOT MOMENTARILY POSSESSED BY THE MALICIOUSLY CHILDISH YET ENDEARING SPIRIT OF TROLL ADAM SANDLER OKAY? I MEANT YOUR MORONIC INFLUENCE.
TA: ehehehe
CG: NO SHUT YOUR WORD CHUTE THIS INSTANT. YOU WILL GET OFF YOUR BONY ASS AND ACCOMPANY ME TO MCDICK'S WHERE WE WILL INDULGE IN A BURGER TO CELEBRATE OUR CLOSE PLATONIC COMRADERY.
CG: A BROGER.
TA: a broger.
carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling twinArmageddons [TA]
twinArmageddons [TA] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]
TA: god KK don't throw a hii22y fiit.
TA: you liiterally have NO eviidence that ii wa2 2a22iing you what2oever.
TA: for all you know ii could have been repeatiing broger wiith enthu2iia2m and awe.
TA: KK?
TA: FIINE you wiin ii would liike to get broger2 wiith you.
TA: KK ii know you're there you are NOT fooliing anybody.
TA: well maybe you're fooliing me iinto thiinkiing that you are two 2weep2 old.
CG: OH, WHAT A SICK BURN! LET'S ALL MEET THE SUPREME EMPEROR OF THE ILLEST FIRES.
CG: HE CAN OFTEN BE FOUND WRITING UTTERLY SCATHING COMMENTS ON TROLLTUBE VIDEOS OF 4 SWEEP OLDS FAILING AT STUNTS.
CG: HERE'S A SAMPLE OF THIS BEST WORK: elelel 2222hiiithead ii2 poopoo chiild! xD
CG: TRULY A FORCE TO BE RECKONED WITH ON THE WEB.
TA: can we ju2t 2hut the fuck up and get burger2.
CG: YEAH.
CG: I'M GETTING PHYSICALLY ILL FROM GLANCING UPSCREEN.
CG: ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?
TA: oh my fuckiing god not thii2 agaiin.
CG: FUCK YOU, YOU KNOW I'M IN A CONSTANT STATE OF WONDERING WHY ANYBODY PUTS UP WITH SOMEONE AS AWFUL AS ME.
CG: NOW STROKE MY EGO.
TA: ugh FIINE.
TA: ye2 KK we are 2tiill friiend2 and ii put up wiith you becau2e talkiing two you ii2 le22 2hiitty than talkiing two mo2t other a22hole2.
CG: GOOD. THAT IS SUFFICIENT. MY EGO IS NOW AT FULL CAPACITY.
CG: NOW TRY NOT TO WET YOUR PANTS IN ANTICIPATION, BUT I'LL BE THERE IN LIKE TEN MINUTES.
CG: WAIT NEVERMIND GIVE ME YOUR ADDRESS.
TA: KK you were over a week ago.
TA: 2248 2 ave nw buzzer 202.
CG: RIGHT, HOW COULD I POSSIBLY FORGET SOMETHING SO GROTESQUELY PREDICTABLE.
TA: whatever ii don't have to defend my liike for the number 2 two you.
CG: I AM NOT GETTING INTO THIS AGAIN. YOU HAVE TEN MINUTES TO MAKE YOURSELF PRESENTABLE, WHICH IS GOING TO BE CHALLENGE ENOUGH FOR YOU.
TA: waiit before you go.
TA: ju2t two clariify 2o ii can choose between my faded and 2liightly le22 faded t2hiirt2.
TA: ii2 thii2 a date.
CG: I DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW.
CG: I GUESS.
CG: I MEAN IF YOU WANT.
CG: AND IF YOU DON'T THAT'S FINE TWO WE CAN JUST BE TWO BROS GETTING BURGERS.
CG: *TOO.
CG: FUCK.
TA: yeah iit'2 a date i'll 2ee you iin a few.
twinArmageddons [TA] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]
It takes no less than five roe cubes to distract Crabdad from clacking out tender skrees that Karkat can roughly translate as “My little grub, finally going on a date!” and “Who’s the lucky troll? I hope it’s not skin water kid.”
After a few reassurances that no, he was not going out to dine with Equius, a brief overview of what sweat is, and a small mountain of cubes, Karkat finally manages to shake his lusus and slide out the back door.
The short bus ride to the city is filled with freaks, one of whom decides to flop his greasy napkin of a hairdo on Karkat’s shoulder for a quick nap, despite having horns like toothpicks that nearly puncture his skin before Karkat eases him off, then relocates to a seat at the back of the bus, leaving the creep to experience a rude awakening as his head punctures the seat. Fucking hobos. Hopefully his head will stay lodged in the cushion until the sun comes up.
As Karkat remembers from his trip to Sollux’s hivestem the week prior, it’s only about a minute from the bus stop. The crisp night air would be a welcome break from the repugnant odour of old piss and runaway eye crusties of the bus, but it’s a weekend, and instead of inhaling the scent of a freshly trimmed lawnring, what Karkat steps into is an eye watering cloud of weed smoke. It smells like thousands of silent farts, but he inhales deeply anyway. Maybe he’ll get a second hand high and not act too much like a three sweep old getting schoolfed a lecture on troll puberty.
When Karkat punches ‘202’ into the buzzer dial, what comes out is the pre-recorded voice of Sollux saying “Fuck off,” something that he programmed the box to do long ago as one of his insufferable hacking projects. He uses it to cut back on the amount of casual acquaintances coming to his door hassling him to fix their viruses, most of which he sent in the first place.
Karkat punches ‘202’ in a second time, and this time the ring of the phone comes out, followed by the tinny and distorted voice of his friend.
“KK?”
“Yeah.”
“Be right out.”
Despite saying that he would wear his less faded shirt, the Gemini t-shirt hanging over Sollux’s body is practically the colour of his skin, with the beginnings of holes from wear on the bottom where the hem is already unfurling. His jeans fare no better, faded on the knees and frayed at the cuffs.
Though he’d like to make some flippant remark about the quality of Sollux’s clothes, Karkat’s sweater isn’t looking that great, though he did douse it in Febreeze to keep it smelling fresh until he amasses enough spare coins to make a trip to the Laundromat. The result is that he smells like the sexual juices of two pine trees making love in an enchanted forest- it’s not an analogy; the can was literally labelled “The Sexual Juices of Two Pine Trees Making Love In An Enchanted Forest Scent.”
Alternia is not a capitalist society and has no need for spiffy advertising.
A closer look at Sollux reveals that his hair is looking a little more flippy and a little less messy than usual. Sollux probably doesn’t even own a comb, or if he does, he probably made one out of a pizza box, but it makes Karkat smile a little bit thinking of Sollux in front of the mirror, wetting his hair and patting down strands.
“So,” Sollux says, rubbing his palms. “Cheeseburgers.”
It’s always strange and nervous seeing each other in the flesh, without the safety blanket of a computer screen padding their interaction. “There might be a line. Hell, there might be a mob at the irresistible prices they’re selling them at.”
Sollux shakes his head and starts walking. “You know, you never answered my question when I asked how cheap they were, you just started freaking out at me with your money management lectures.”
“They’re like a buck. And if you are that much of an ignoramus, which you undoubtedly are, I will so generously supply one Alternian dollar to buy you a cheeseburger.”
“Wow KK, how do the ladies resist chivalry like that?”
Karkat smirks, partly at Sollux’s adorable smile that he isn’t sure he’s ever actually seen. Karkat’s seen his two sets of fangs before- tiny, nubby little things only a hair sharper than his own, but when he smiles, it’s like every scrap of fat in his scrawny body migrates up to his cheekbones to make his eyes go squinty and bright behind his glasses.
They start walking, Karkat having to stop every two seconds to wait for Sollux’s slow pace to catch up to his. “Would you hurry the fuck up? I’m on the cusp of shrivelling into the famished shell of a troll here.”
Sollux slows down until he’s almost not moving at all and grabs at his chest with an overdrawn wheeze. “Get my walker, KK. I’m not gonna make it.” He grins and peers up at his friend, still shuffling his feet.
“God, you wrinkled grease nugget. I will carry you the whole damn way if I have to.”
The shit-eating grin on Sollux’s face widens. “Oh no. God no, I was not serious.”
“Come on,” Sollux laughs, lifting each foot and stomping it back down to the ground as a show of how firmly rooted he is. “Help out this feeble husk.”
Karkat mutters a few amused ‘fuck you’s before squatting down in front of Sollux. “If I collapse from the strain of holding up your massive ego, consider this friendship terminated.”
After a few seconds of squatting with his arms extended behind him and no troll latching on like a moron unable to perform the latest fad of street-style dance move, Karkat unsquats and spins around to see Sollux shaking his head. “Nope. Too feeble.”
Somebody from a few paces away dragging a cart full of whatever the hell people fill carts with these days starts to shout at them to move off of the middle of the street (hey gutterbloods, move your hindquarters!), and Sollux cocks an eyebrow and smirks.
Karkat presses his lips together, narrows his eyes, and bends down to get one arm around the back of Sollux’s knees and one around his shoulders. His kneecaps almost bust clean off when he stands up, from the strain but also from all the rage swelling into every cell of his body.
Okay, maybe it’s not rage swelling into every part of him. Maybe there is a slight possibility that it’s a redder kind of pity. One that almost makes him smile.
Of course, he doesn’t smile, because that’s what Sollux is still doing, and hell if Karkat is going to admit that carrying him bridal style is one of his greatest rom com fantasies. Sollux’s body is exuding heat like crazy, like he’s got a fever of a hundred and three, but Karkat figures that’s normal for a hot blooded troll.
“Should I not have had those peas?” Sollux laughs, and it resonates all the way through Karkat’s body.
“Yes, douchefuck, your avid consumption of frozen vegetables has increased your girth significantly. In fact…” Karkat drops his arms a few inches and Sollux yelps at the fake drop, wrapping his hands around Karkat’s neck tightly. “Fuck, I can hardly hold on to your fat ass!”
“Don’t fucking drop me, KK, I swear to God!”
Karkat does it again, stealing the shit eating grin for himself and getting called a prick a few times over. Sollux starts to squirm.
“Okay, okay, just put me down,” he mutters, but Karkat’s arms aren’t even tired and the golden arches are in sight.
“Oh, now you want to be put down?” Karkat says, biting his lip to stop himself from chuckling. A small laugh comes out, but it comes out sounding conveniently garbled and malicious. “Sorry, Sollux. I can’t leave my feeble friend in the dust, now can I?”
Karkat can just see the beginnings of a smile start to creep up Sollux’s face before he buries his head against Karkat’s collarbone, and fuck, he really hopes that Sollux can’t hear the sound of his blood pusher going a million beats a minute. After a bout of silence too short to be awkward but long enough to make Sollux drop his guard, Karkat drops his arms again, and this time, Sollux actually screams, shrill and loud.
“Fuck you, asshole, put me down!” he says frantically. He keeps squirming, and then reaches two fingers in a V formation to shove right up Karkat’s nose.
Shocked, Karkat instantly drops Sollux, who doubles over laughing at the way Karkat starts sputtering and clutching at his nose.
“God, your face, your fucking face right now!” He almost slams straight into the glass door of the fast food place, he’s laughing so hard.
“Shut your wind chu-“ Karkat starts, but is rudely interrupted by his face deciding to assume one of shock once he sees the inside of the restaurant.
Sollux’s face mimics Karkat’s exactly, eyebrows furrowed in both surprise and disbelief. “You were actually right,” he says. His voice almost gets lost in the noise of the mob of customers inside.
It takes almost a quarter hour of standing in line to get up to the register. When she asks for their order, Sollux slides the contents of his pocket, forty five cents and a mass of lint, over to Karkat, who adds it to the mass of coins in his palm.
“Just give us a bag,” Karkat says with a dead serious face. “Just fill a fucking bag and lay it on me.”
The cashier’s eyes widen like he’s insulted her lusus. “A… a bag?” she squeaks.
“A bag of cheeseburgers, yes.”
“How many do you want?”
Karkat sighs deeply and shakes his head. “Just one. Bag, that is.”
"Yes, but how many do you want in the bag?"
"A bagful."
She slinks away, defeated, to count out pre-wrapped burgers into a takeout bag. Sollux raises an eyebrow at Karkat.
“You seriously just asked for a bag?”
Karkat waves his hand in the air. “Shut up and feast your eyes on this witchcraft you are about to witness.”
The girl returns with a bag and starts to punch a few buttons on the register. “Okay, so that’s fourteen burgers, so fourteen dollars, please.”
Karkat’s jaw drops, his eyes bug out, and he starts shaking his head violently. “No. No. I get the bag discount. Are you new?”
“Sir, I don’t think we have a bag disco-“
“Sounds like a steaming pile of neglectful training got shat on your face, Arrvie,” he says, reading her nametag slowly. “The bag is ten bucks. Bag discount.”
The cashier presses her lips together and flicks her eyes up to the huge crowd waiting to place their orders. She types in ten dollars and hands them the bag.
As they leave the place, Sollux buries his face in his hands and snatches the bag. “I cannot believe you just did that. This is seriously the worst date of my life.”
Karkat’s heart momentarily swells at the reminder that they’re on a date before shriveling despite knowing Sollux’s sincerity is about as real as the meat they’re about to consume.
“I’m so ashamed we’re going to take the back way,” Sollux mutters, snatching Karkat’s hand and dragging them to the desolate alley between two buildings.
Karkat’s hand damn near catches on fire once it becomes clear that Sollux’s hand is not leaving his anytime soon. Obviously Sollux is teasing and being an asshole as expected, because the only thing that the back way is good for is not being filled with wandering douchebag trolls and instead being filled with their interchangeable counterparts: bags of trash.
“So what’s the plan?” Sollux asks as they progress down the alleyway, hand in hand. “I figure we go back to my place, eat, watch one of your shitty movies, and then eat more because for some reason you got us fourteen fucking burgers.”
Karkat gives a thumbs up with his free hand. God, it’s like they’re actually on a date, going to eat and watch a movie and hold hands and hopefully cuddle. God, he loves cuddling. Karkat is going to the grave with that- nobody has ever, nor will ever, know that above his rom com fantasy of carrying somebody bridal style (check!), cuddling under a blanket on the couch ranks number one. It’s just too humiliating.
“Luckily for you, I brought just the shitty movie.”
Sollux smirks. “Yeah, I figured,” he says, and detaches his hand from Karkat’s. He feels a bit rejected for a moment, until the hand finds its way back, snaking around his waist as they trudge over cracked pavement and loose garbage.
“What’s that smell?” Sollux asks a second later. The alley smells mainly like rotten mulch and stale Chinese food, but there are a million other offensive odours permeating the air.
Karkat tells him that, but Sollux sniffs the air and shakes his head. “No… it’s kind of like… trees,”
Oh shit. He put too much Febreeze on his sweater, didn’t he? Shit shit, what the hell does he say? ‘I wanted to smell like an evergreen sex romp’? ‘Perhaps it’s the foliage’?
Unfortunately, his thoughts mash together, and what comes out of Karkat’s mouth is, “Foliage fornication.”
Sollux blinks once, twice, until he clues in. “You doused yourself in Febreeze, didn’t you? The tree sex one?”
Karkat’s mind eases when he puts his own arm around Sollux and feels his rapid pulse. Thank fuck, he was beginning to think that he was the only party about to hyperventilate from nerves. He really shouldn’t be nervous; it’s Sollux, his best friend since age negative two.
“I figured you wouldn’t want to inhale the romantic scent of my sweat and grime.”
Sollux laughs, easing up his arm to loop a thumb through one of Karkat’s belt loops. Karkat would do the same, but Sollux’s pants could fall down at any moment, and he really doesn’t want to aggravate them.
“Why don’t you just shower with your clothes on?”
“Why the fuck would I shower with my clothes on?”
Sollux rolls his eyes and stumbles over a rogue dildo that escaped a trash bag. “So you don’t have to douse yourself in air freshener before a date,” he grins. “But FYI, my favorite is ‘Daffodils Pissing Golden Streams Into Cloudy Skies Scent’.”
“Dully noted. I’m partial to ‘Lemondrops High On Narcotics Smiling At Young Ones Scent’.”
A moment of peaceful silence later, Sollux starts to say, “Would you lose your shit if I-“ but he catches himself and furrows his brow.
Karkat looks up with his mouth pressed in a hard line. “What? If you what? Because I can assure you that wherever you hide my shit, I can relocate it. I don’t think you’re aware, but I have a highly functioning shit GPS.”
Sollux gives his little half snort thing- the smug, amused one that’s mainly just him exhaling more air through his nose, and tilts his head down to press a long kiss to his friend’s lips.
Or at least, that’s what he intended to do, and would have been successful had Karkat not been in the process of turning his head to glance over at a skinny hissing cat kicking up a fuss on the chain-link fence to the right. Instead, what Sollux’s lips land on is the side of Karkat’s nose, and what his tongue enters is his left nostril.
Sollux immediately jerks back about a foot, refusing to so much as let Karkat enter his field of vision, eyes cast to the side and face yellow in the wake of his romantic failure. He starts to frantically wipe his tongue, muttering, “Oh fuck, yuck, god, ew,” over and over like it’s his national anthem.
“What, do you need to borrow my shit GPS?” Karkat says. He’s sure his nostril tastes fine. “Or do you just like fucking with my nose today?”
“Fuck off,” Sollux mutters. His free hand goes up to massage the bridge of his nose.
“Okay, okay, time to locate the shit. That was theoretically romantic, and you get one sloppy gold star for trying.” When Sollux keeps looking away, Karkat realizes that it’s on him, and tenses up his arm to retrieve Sollux and pull him back to his side so that they’re walking like a pair of conjoined twins. A pair of hot conjoined twins, Karkat assures himself to start fattening up his ego for the bold and unexpected romantic overture he’s about to engage. Sollux doesn’t object. With every step, the bag of cheeseburgers rustles in the empty silence, and every crinkle of the plastic begins to fire up Karkat’s drive.
He stops. Sollux, in turn, stumbles from where his arm is wrapped around the frozen mass of troll, but is quickly stabilized by Karkat’s other arm wrapping around his shoulder to drag their bodies closer together so he can deliver a successful kiss to the proper target.
It doesn’t last long, and it’s a very chaste, closed mouth kiss because Karkat isn’t actually sure how to morph it into a slobbery drool fest, but it makes Karkat’s bloodpusher grow at least twelve sizes and enter overdrive, like Sollux is that weird borderline Satanic Whoville chant, and Karkat is the Grinch.
“My fractured ego is now healed,” Sollux says through a grin as he pulls back and starts walking again. “Shit located.”
Karkat tries to smother the dorkiest of grins that is plastered across his face, but ends up sticking his lips out like a psychopathic bird whose lips are attempting to wrestle each other. Fuck.
“Can you get my keys from my pocket?” Sollux asks as they near the door, and oh god, is he asking Karkat to fondle his ass? “Your hand is closer.”
Karkat slides his hand down to pat at the left rear pocket where a barely-there lump of keys is visible through the denim. “Don’t think I can’t see through your little ploy,” he shoots right back. “This has all been a set up to get my hands on your ass, hasn’t it?”
Sollux extends his palm to catch the key ring as Karkat drops it into his hand. “I’ve been meticulously planning this for months, just waiting for you to grope me. My ass is so cold without your hands, KK.”
As Sollux opens the door to his hivestem’s stairwell, Karkat gives his ass a squeeze, making him shriek and jump onto the first stair in record speed. Karkat is right behind him, this time grabbing at his ribs to draw out the same reaction.
“That’s for making me carry you, shitwipe!” Karkat snickers, continuing to chase his friend up all twenty flights to stairs with pinches and squeezes. When they get up to the door, Sollux puts his hands up in surrender, panting from yelping and laughing and his pathetic attempts at running.
“Mercy, KK, have some mercy.”
Karkat nods with a smug smile, letting Sollux open the door. He had planned on immediately resuming the attack upon entering, but once he catches sight of the inside of the hive, his brain goes blank.
He had expected it to smell faintly of honey; it does, but Karkat’s nose can hardly detect the sweet smell over the overpowering stench of sweat and feet. It’s absolutely disgusting, like a hundred gym socks stuffed inside a bag of sour cream and onion chips. It looks like it too- there’s clothes all over the floor, paper plates with grease stains and hardened blobs of sauce from god knows how long ago, miles of wires tangled up across the floor, and to top it all off, the buzzing of hundreds of bees.
“Do you always take trolls home to this shitfilled stench catacomb after a date?”
Sollux tosses the bag of cheeseburgers onto the coffee table in front of the TV and shrugs a bit defensively. “Like I care what you think about my hive.” He clears off a space in front of the coffee table, shoving old pizza boxes and electronics cases with instruction manuals hanging from them off into an even bigger pile. It’s like they’re in an episode of Extreme Hoarders, except smellier and with fourteen more cheeseburgers.
Karkat starts to scoff at the pitiful setup of two spaces on the floor and a grimy coffee table and shake his head. “This is a date, dumbass. Get your husktop.”
Sollux gives a quizzical look but complies, starting his husktop up and setting it on the edge of the table. Karkat gives a nod of approval and starts hammering at the keys, pulling up a looped trollTube clip of a flickering candle, then shutting the lights off and sliding the DVD into the player before sitting on the floor adjacent to Sollux.
“Clearly, you have no idea how dates work, because if you did, you would have multiple candles at the ready.”
“I have forty-three cents, I don’t think I would. Or at least, I had forty-three cents before you pulled your bullshit with your bag of cheeseburgers, you’re such a weirdo.”
Karkat slams a burger straight into Sollux’s mouth. “A weirdo that got you fourteen fucking burgers for the price of ten and is making up for your romantic failures with a husktop and trollTube.”
Sollux tries to take a bite, but Karkat pulls the burger away just far enough that his teeth clamp down on more teeth. “Right?”
“Right,” Sollux says back. “Now give me my food.”
Karkat pushes the burger Sollux-ward, chomping down on his own. “Good. Foo fave ffrned ff frnt to a ffrffr,” he says with an incredibly unattractive full mouth, and pulls Sollux’s burger back to let him chew and swallow.
“I have no idea what you just said, but I can hold my own food, you know.”
Karkat tips his head back, lets out a gargantuan laugh, and swallows at least seven pounds of food in one go. “Oh, my sad, deluded friend. You really have no idea of the intense romance packed into the action of holding another’s burger, do you?” The video of the candle fades and pans to a brand new candle, this time a bit brighter and from an avant garde high angle shot. With the lights off, it’s the only source of light in the whole place, casting long shadows of old receipts and discarded troll John Mayer merchandise received for free from previous McDonald’s meals.
Sollux stretches his neck to take another bite. “It’s really inconvenient and makes zero sense.” He tips his foot over to rest against Karkat’s.
“Too bad,” Karkat mutters, but his voice is almost lost by a long, loud moan coming from one floor up, followed by ten more.
“Fuck, not again,” Sollux says, burying his face in his palms. “Gimme a sec, I’ll go get the Boney M.”
“The Boney M?” Karkat repeats in avid disbelief as Sollux trods off into another room. He listens to techno garbage, or wubstep or whatever the hell it’s called.
The moans are drowned out instantly as soon as the thrumming electronic beats pump themselves out of the speakers, interspacing themselves perfectly to create a perverse remix of Rasputin.
“Why the fuck do you own this CD?” is all Karkat can say when Sollux sits back down.
“Some asshole I know from online sent it to everybody he knows. He was apparently ‘trying out a new style’ and wanted to get a start in the music industry.” The way Sollux snickers at that is a good enough indicator of Sollux’s opinion on the album, and Karkat starts to snicker too, imagining some poor sap alone in his basement, working the turntables to the sweet melodies of Boney M. “But it’s somehow timed perfectly to cover up the sounds of the douchebags upstairs.”
Karkat polishes off two burgers by the time Rivers of Babylon finished it's third bass drop. Before Karkat can grab his third burger, Sollux snatches it from in front of his palm and waves it in front of his friend’s face to take a massive bite.
“Now start eating the other side,” Karkat demands, shoving the half-chewed food into his cheek so he can speak.
They can feel each other’s breath tickling their faces as they snicker like morons over how sharing a burger is really difficult because once they get to the center, two hamburger triangles are going to fall to the floor, and instead of their lips meeting in a kiss like they would if they were sharing a pasta noodle, Karkat chomps down on Sollux’s mouth, mistaking it for another inch of burger.
Sollux curses and jumps back, a small trickle of blood oozing from the space above his lip. The triangles of burger fall to the ground, separating into the very basics of each ingredient. The sight is haunting and tragic.
“Oh, fuck, fuck, I am so sorry,” Karkat says, pressing his thumb to the bite wound to stop the bleeding.
“It’s fine, I wasn’t really keen on swapping chewed up beef with you anyway. Can we just…” Sollux starts, motioning to the remote and Karkat nods, shutting off the blasphemous Boney M dubstep and starting the movie.
It’s one of Karkat’s favorites, chosen specifically because of the excellent depictions of palebros turning flushed. The olive blood is a huge bitch hiding a soft side, and the bronze love interest is her best friend, a workaholic that doesn’t want to fall in flush. They in no way remind Karkat of Sollux and himself, and any similarities are purely coincidental, according to the disclaimer in the credits.
The beginning starts off with a quiet scene that tricks the viewer into thinking that they’re going to be pale, and it’s a damn good thing that the upstairs pailers got their bucket filled and have shut up.
Beside Karkat’s spot on the floor, he sees a shiver go through Sollux, and he becomes aware that it is actually quite chilly inside. It had been cooling down as they walked back from McDonald’s, but walking side by side, it was hard to notice.
“Be right back,” Sollux says, getting up to open the linen closet and pull out a heavy blanket. Karkat busts into a grin. They are so going to cuddle.
Karkat slides up on the couch, tossing aside what could either be a mitten or a dead cat, and Sollux sits down with the blanket around his shoulders. “Cold?” he asks. Karkat nods, despite not actually being that cold. It’s cuddling protocol. The blanket, plus Sollux’s hand, falls onto his shoulder, followed by Sollux’s head flopping onto his other shoulder.
As he leans back into the crusty couch cushions (what the fuck is that orange smear? Marmalade?), Karkat wraps his arm around Sollux’s waist to pull his furnace of a body closer. Sollux shimmies to get his head at the perfect angle so that his ears are uncovered and he isn’t perforating Karkat’s neck with his horns.
“Dude, how much are you wearing?” he whispers, sniffing loudly so Karkat can figure out that he’s still stuck on insulting the air freshener idea.
Karkat gives his own loud sniff, letting the apartment smells permeate the deep caverns of his nostrils. It’s possibly the worst decision he’s ever made, and he almost drops dead. “Not enough.”
Karkat rears up for another insult, but strangely, Sollux rubs his face in Karkat’s sweater sleeve and sniffs again. “Fuck, you smell so good,” he mutters, nuzzling a bit more. Karkat wants to tell him to stop, not because it’s weird- he thinks it’s the absolute most adorable thing, but because Karkat can’t even imagine the horrific spores from his sweater relocating to Sollux’s face. He doesn’t say anything; it feels too nice having his friend nuzzle at his shoulder like that.
They sit in comfortable silence, squeezing the other closer every so often, watching the two trolls go through their lives on screen, occasionally chuckling because the movie is one of the few in Karkat’s collection that’s actually funny, and halfway through, Karkat gets the guts to push Sollux down against the armrest of the couch and flop on top of him.
The other troll is startled for a moment, but he quickly breaks into a smile and reaches one arm to wrap around Karkat’s torso, and the other to start ruffling through his hair.
Eventually, they get warm enough lying together that Karkat kicks the blanket off all but their feet, and as the movie ends, he starts to feel pleasantly sleepy. With every rise and fall of Sollux’s chest, Karkat can feel his ribcage indenting into his face, but he’s so warm and his shirt is unbelievably soft from being washed thirteen million times, apparently in the shower.
Sollux smells a lot better than his hive does, not particularly good, but he smells clean at least, slightly a generic soap smell and generic fleshy smell. And cheeseburgers.
By the time the credits finish, he’s almost asleep, and he can feel Sollux’s head lolling forward onto his own shoulder so that their bodies are fitted together perfectly.
“Are you sleeping over?” he hears Sollux ask through the groggy haze covering his thinkpan.
Karkat shifts to press himself deeper into the rift between Sollux’s skeleton of a body and the cushy walls of couch cushions. “Yeah, sure,” he slurs, eyelids drooping.
“Kay, I’m going to bestow the wisdom of laundry upon you.”
Karkat’s eyes fly open when the nice warm body he had been lying on gets up off of the couch.
“Come on, ablution trap’s this way.” Sollux grabs his hand and drags him off the couch, fully expecting Karkat to stand up, but the other troll instead crashes to the ground, fall softened by the padding of six empty Pepsi Max cans.
The horror of Sollux’s hygieneblock wakes Karkat up in record speed. He prays that the green slime wedged in every crevice is sopor, but he isn’t holding his breath.
“I’m surprised it’s this disgusting considering you never use this block.”
“I’m not the one that douses himself in air freshener. Take off your underwear.”
Again with the air freshener? Karkat presses his lips together. “You love my vegetative aroma and you know it.” He then stops and realizes the second half of what his friend said. “You are not serious.”
Sollux nods slowly like he’s talking to a wiggler. “I’m serious.” He drops his pants.
Surprisingly nobody, his boxers are half red and half blue, but what is surprising is that his black and white socks are pulled up to his knees, a fact made apparent one his pants come off. Karkat makes a note to tease him about it in the future, possibly at a time where Sollux is not stripping his unmentionables off of his even more unmentionables.
There’s not much to see with his bulge (bulges?) sheathed, just an uneventful patch of skin, but Karkat feels his eyes being sucked to the spot as if his crotch is a black hole, or cleavage, something that is impossible for his sight to escape.
Luckily, Sollux pulls his pants, sans socks and underwear, back up. As he lets go, they flop down to where they’re hanging off of his hips.
“Come on, I’ll turn around if you’re that uptight.”
Uptight. That’s a laugh. Karkat snorts and shoves his pants down violently to show Sollux just how utterly relaxed and carefree he is.
Once he’s stripped off his underwear, belt, and socks, Sollux snatches them up and tosses them to the bottom of the ablution trap.
“We have two minutes of hot water,” Sollux says, sliding back the glass door and motioning for Karkat to get in. There’s one bottle in the whole rack, one of those giant year-supply kind of bottles, full of liquid soap. Sollux squirts a bit on the clothes at the bottom, then all over his own clothes.
“This is the dumbest shit you’ve ever convinced me to do,” Karkat mutters, watching his friend rub soap down his arms and chest. If he were shirtless, he would look exactly like a male stripper rubbing oil on his washboard abs, but instead, he looks like a scrawny nerd pouring soap on his shirt, probably because he is a scrawny nerd pouring soap on his shirt. Without water, the soap makes a sticky white paste across his arms. “Seriously, why did I even agree t-“
Karkat is cut off by the shock of being pressed against the glass door and an shaky kiss from Sollux’s snickering mouth. Hands find their way between the two, trying to smear a bit of soap on Karkat’s chest. Well, chest of his sweater, but he is not used to having hands running up and down there, so he figures it feels pretty much the same.
It feels fantastic, the heavy pressure of Sollux’s hands and the soft push of the inside of his sweater moving from his chest to his sides to his back, coupled with their tongues starting to move into each other’s mouths, tangling together and licking around inside. Karkat finally gets it in him to rub some of the lather off of Sollux’s shirt and slide his hands underneath, spreading the cool sticky soap onto his hot skin.
Sollux makes an approving noise, halfway between a moan and a purr, and does the same, yeidling to the sudden pressure of Karkat leaning forward to shove Sollux against the other side of the ablution trap without breaking apart their lips.
“Ready?” Sollux breathes between kisses. Karkat pulls his lips back slightly, tipping his head back to deny him when Sollux comes forward to catch his bottom lip between his own.
“What, do you time yourself? Do you visit the sad loser forums and compare shower laundry records?”
“I told you, I have two minutes of hot water.” Sollux jerks the taps on, sending a heavy stream of warm water down on them and immediately starts vigorously scrubbing himself down. “If you’re still covered in suds, don’t blame me.”
Karkat sneers and starts to do the same, but his sweater is like a goddamn sponge, soaking up all the water and foaming out soap like a rabid sweater beast.
By the time Karkat manages to get one cuff clear of soap, Sollux is already bubble-free, and strips his shirt off. It falls to the bottom with a loud slap. “Oh, come on,” he mutters.
Karkat flicks water into his eyes. “Some of us actually want to be clean, jackass, not Olympic laundry moron paraders.”
Sollux presses their chests together, seriously inhibiting Karkat’s range of motion, not that he cares given the trade-off, and starts picking up where they had left off before the water turned on, kissing and groping over and under his sweater. Karkat is apprehensive at first to start pawing at Sollux’s completely bare chest and back, but he does anyway, his fingers tracing the notches in Sollux’s spine up to nestle in his wet hair.
When his own shirt gets stripped off and hits the basin with an even louder slap and their bodies mash together almost as tight as their lips, Karkat finds himself caring less and less about trying to get himself clean, and caring more and more about finding some way of genetically engineering giant freak hands so he can feel more of Sollux’s soft skin at one time. Sollux’s touch is careless and frantic, somehow managing to get from Karkat’s wrists to his neck down to the small of his back in what feels like a single moment. His nails are chewed down to the skin; they tickle rather than claw when they catch Karkat’s skin during their sweeps.
A rush of cold slaps Karkat right in the face when Sollux pulls back and draws his hands back to his side; he isn’t sure if it’s from the loss of touch or the water rapidly turning icy cold. They both stifle a gasp when the last of the hot water peters out, leaving them benumbed standing in what feels like gallons of Frost Giant piss. Sollux twists the taps only seconds before they contract hypothermia and drop dead.
There are streams of cold suds dripping down Karkat’s face. Fantastic. Sollux, on the other hand, is completely soap free, except for some spots on his sides where Karkat had been touching.
“Give me three good reasons why I shouldn’t get up and leave right now,” Karkat says through chattering teeth.
“Because you’ll have to walk home naked.”
Oh shit, he’s right. Why had he not thought of that before? Sollux removes his soaked pants with only a couple awkward glances in Karkat’s direction, before wrapping a towel around his waist and starting to wring out the clothes accumulated around the drain and hang them over the curtain rod. He tosses a towel in Karkat’s direction. It plants right on the other troll’s head and hangs over his soapy face until Karkat pulls it down around his waist to shimmy his pants off.
A blast of air straight from the North Pole assaults the two as the door to the hygiene block opens, dumping out all the semi-warm steam and leaving them wet and shivering.
“When I’m chewing my solid arm off from frostbite, it will be one hundred percent your fault,” Karkat snips, and adds, “You moronic chumpstain.” He starts for the recuperacoon, but a clammy hand around his wrist stops him. When he sees Sollux's face, flushed yellow from the cold and dripping wet, dressed only in a towel, he can't hold it in anymore, and busts out laughing. He's never felt like such a dweeb before in his entire life, and yet, he's smiling and laughing in a way he hasn't done in ages.
Sollux shakes his head and starts up his snickering in turn. Karkat's heart swells when he sees that doofy grin pass over Sollux's face. “You do not want to get in the ‘coon when it’s this cold,” he says, words interspaced with laughs. Karkat swears that he can see their breath as they stand amongst the various piles of trash of the hallway.
Sollux starts to trek across the floor, clutching his towel to keep it from falling off and hopping over the armrest of the couch to dive under the blanket left from their movie snuggle session.
As Karkat stumbles his way over to follow him, Sollux lifts up the blanket, making an opening for him to slide in. The remains of their heat still cling to the blanket from before, so Karkat yanks it up over their heads, engulfing them in a dark scratchy cave where they cuddle close together, face to face, still chuckling, hair dripping and smelling of soap, until the warmth of each other’s breath puts them on the edge of sleep.
Sollux’s fingers tangle through Karkat’s wet hair, and he shifts to press a kiss to his temple, and Karkat’s eyes crack open to see a relaxed and easy smile on Sollux’s face, so contagious that it spreads to his own. He takes his hands up to cradle Sollux’s cheeks and pulls their heads together for another kiss, then another and another, and falls asleep tracing little hearts all over Sollux’s back.