Chapter Text
The main problem for Karkat seemed to be that he wasn't a goth. Like, at all. If it weren't for Kanaya accompanying him, Karkat wouldn't have been able to get into a third of the places that she used as her hunting grounds. He was a fucking EIC of a high-minded low-budgeted Alternian American news site, he didn't own any black eyeliner, and when he went to get his hair cut, he told the stylist "just chop off enough I can fucking see again, I don't care, it'll just grow back."
But when Kanaya had her midlife crisis of sorts and panicked about how she was potentially going to dramatically outlive Karkat, she'd been the one to propose turning him. So at the end of the day, it was her fault for not picking a moirail more suited to luring in people to eat.
He reminded Kanaya of this as he stood in her hive, situated in an obnoxiously cozy suburb of Austin, Texas.
"In my defense," she said as she set out a pitcher of orange juice and a tray of snacks, "I was not considering your prowess as a future rainbow drinker. My fixation was the more selfish concern of not having you in my life, and I acted on the basis of romantic impulse rather than logic or tactics."
Draped across Kanaya's puffy chaise lounge, Rose let out a sigh. "Matters of the heart are inexplicably bound up in the mythos of the vampire, and thus I would imagine the rainbow drinker as well."
"Oh, yes," Kanaya agreed. "A working pump biscuit is paramount to understanding our dubious plight. Are you quite comfortable?"
Kanaya was extremely good at grooming her thralls and getting regular meals on her proverbial nutrition plateau. She had a thermal hull filled with snacks and refreshments for her guests, and the optimal furniture for entertaining them. Her manners were seductive and played into exactly what humans looked for when they were approached by one of their vampires.
Also, he could not overstate enough: goth clubs. People who went to them were a lock on wanting to be bitten.
"Shoes off?" Kanaya asked.
"Oh, yes," Rose said, and fell across the chaise heavily. Her human bosom heaved with a breath. "Though perhaps your fledging would like to go first?" She cast a far too knowing smile Karkat's way. "It would leave the evening open for us."
Kanaya gave him a look, leaving it up to him. Rose was a frequent visitor, and was used to Karkat's presence enough he wasn't fearful of throwing off their game.
But also, "Yeah, sure. I have more articles to read through and funding to get sent out to the fucking freelancers. Getting anything out of payroll is a nightmare."
Rose turned her arm to him with a flourished twirl of her wrist. "You sound like you'll need your strength. Please, avail yourself."
He didn't love how she was so beyond being afraid of them. But he also didn't like when people were afraid of them. So he sighed and went over, sitting on the round puffy footstool by Rose.
She smiled at him. He gave her a much more sardonic, mean grin back. She was entirely unmoved, until he took hold of her wrist and sank his fangs into her arm.
With a dreamy sigh, her head lolled back.
Kanaya sat on the arm of the sofa and leaned over to drag her claws through Rose's hair. "Thank you, my dear."
"Happy to be of assistance," Rose said.
Karkat rolled his eyes, but got to work. He didn't want to hang around if they were going to be like this all evening.
Red, rich human blood filled his mouth, and Karkat swallowed.
Karkat went home to his respiteblock on the seventh floor of a moderately nice gated apartment complex that was situated just far enough away from the local university to not be filled from corner to ceiling with fucking students.
He got the impression that everyone here was the same as him: a goddamn workaholic who didn't know when the fuck to take a breather. The walls were thin, but the building was mostly quiet. People didn't try to hang out together or become friends. Karkat only knew three other people who lived there, and he had no intention of expanding that number. There were no parties on the roof, no invitations posted in the mailroom, and through mutual unanimous agreement, when everyone used the downstairs gym, they resorted to headphones to avoid conversation.
His respiteblock was long, sectioned off with screens Kanaya had brought him when he first moved in, and had its own washer and dryer. And there was fiber internet, though Karkat refused to pay out his chute for the full speed.
There was also, critically, a balcony opon he could keep a few plants, a purgatory where greenery went to slowly decay and die. The view was nice, not overlooking anything particularly scenic, but still nice.
It was, to Karkat, absolutely fucking perfect. He loved it. Since hatching on Earth, it was his favorite place he'd ever lived.
Arriving home, he plucked up his work laptop and settled onto his preferred chair to check his emails and read through pitches. He approved a few ideas that would be good to bring in the proverbial clicks, then two that he thought were actually interesting that absolutely would not build traffic. Fuck metrics and fuck human internet.
Around an hour into his work, the other reason Karkat enjoyed his apartment so much started up.
He tended to sit in the chair closest to the left wall. It gave him the best opportunity to listen as the music began.
Karkat had gotten a new neighbor about three months ago. He'd moved into the apartment on the corner. They'd only met briefly, as the human had said, "Shit, sorry, maneuvering all this shit is a face full of ass and not the fun kind," as he awkwardly shoved some kind of equipment into the apartment on the day he moved in. He'd blocked Karkat off in the hallway for a solid three minutes as he got his things inside, and gave an apologetic wave after.
That was the only time they'd spoken. But Karkat knew his neighbor by now. The guy was probably named Dave or DSL, if the packages that came to his door were to be believed.
And he was a musician. Not a shitty live band that rended Karkat's aural sponges to shreds with their noise, but a good one. Or so Karkat assumed; he didn't know much about music, only what he liked. And he liked Dave's music.
Through the afternoon and deep into the night, Karkat was able to overhear the way Dave put instruments together. He could hear through the walls as melodies were tapped out on keyboard, different samples lining up. Often, there'd be synths and then guitar and drums and strings and brass and other shit Karkat didn't have the name for, and he'd get to listen as Dave built a song from the ground up.
Something about it soothed Karkat, bringing his thinkpan from a boil down to a simmer as he worked.
Tonight, Karkat listened as his neighbor seemed to be messing with the presets on his keyboard, playing the same three songs over and over, taking time to modify stuff in between. It was methodical and repetitive in a pleasant way.
Karkat had the songs memorized before long, humming along as Dave played, listening for what he'd tweaked this time.
"I think the last version was better," Karkat murmured as Dave played. This preset was too high, pitchy to the ear.
Halfway through the song, it stopped, and his neighbor was silent for a while. Then, he played again, and the sound had been adjusted to something broader, fuller, and way less ear-mangling.
Karkat nodded along as he and his neighbor worked though the night.
"Maybe if you tried any kind of dress sense at all, you could lure in some poor bite-happy bastard who'd overlook everything else," Dirk said as he tapped out a cigarette from the mirrored little cigarette case he carried. He flicked his lighter.
"You will not light that in my workspace," Kanaya flung out, her voice drenched in compulsion.
Dirk stilled all at once, then sighed and put his lighter away, holding the cigarette between his fingers as he gestured. "Anyway, you have a decent build, dude. We could work with this."
If Karkat were to rank Kanaya's thralls, Dirk would be somewhere in the middle. He was not nearly as annoying as Rose, but he couldn't keep his opinions to himself, as if he were some expert on being a rainbow drinker.
Which, he definitely wasn't, though he was Kanaya's oldest thrall. They'd met in design school and had taken one look at each other and elected to become allies against all who would oppose them. Dirk was a recurring satellite orbiting their lives now.
"If I don't let Kanaya dress me, why do you think I'll let you do it?" Karkat asked him incredulously.
"Dunno. I bet with both of us workin' in tandem, we could hold you down and take some garment scissors to that fucking sweater you like so much."
Kanaya smiled from where she was fixing something on her sewing machine. "The thought had crossed my mind," she said quietly.
"I'll compel you to go shove your head up your own ass," Karkat threatened.
Shoving his little addictive cancer stick in his mouth, Dirk crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. "Believe it or not I'm not trying to fuck with you right now. I'm still happy to keep my donations going to the Keep Karkat From Starving Club, but it's not a longterm solution, is it?"
"And changing how I dress is?"
"Yes," Kanaya and Dirk said in unison.
"Perhaps how you speak to people around you too," Kanaya offered helpfully.
"Also, it's mighty unfair that I'm here, dressed to impress the local vampires, and you are covered up like a grandma weathering the refrigerated section of the HEB," Dirk added.
"You literally came here to get bitten, it's your fetish," Karkat told him.
Kanaya shot him a displeased look over the meticulous tinkering she was doing with something in the metal compartment of the sewing machine. Which meant he was being a nookmunch and needed to tone it down.
Holding up a finger, Dirk said, "One, we've been over this. Being useful is my fetish, don't get it twisted." He held up another. "Two, if you think you can make me feel all sullen and ashamed, try harder, Vantas. I'm the one making an effort here." He lifted his chin. "So, you gonna bite me or what?"
Karkat mindlessly read over some corporate emails about site traffic and which articles were good (see: popular and easy to google) and which were terrible (see: well-written interesting pieces that Karkat snuck onto the site by manning the CRM himself when no one was looking) as his neighbor worked on scoring something.
It was hard to keep up his ire. This was part of why Karkat tended to visit Kanaya's house rather than invite her over. That and her being his sire and the way she hated Midtown traffic. But if Kanaya knew that so much of his habitual surly bullshit just melted away when he was at home, he didn't know what would happen. Something catastrophic, surely.
The wall between his apartment and Dave's was so bad at blocking noise, Karkat assumed it was made of two inches of papier-mâchéd special stardust and fiber cereal. All evening, Karkat listened to a very strange score being built.
He wasn't sure what kind of project it was. Back when Dave had first moved in and shown himself to be musical, Karkat had looked him up, mostly to see if he was part of a band that would be coming by and ruining the peace Karkat so dearly enjoyed.
In looking, Karkat had only found a professional site for DSL ("you want em i got em" whatever that meant), showcasing his portfolio, listing his rates, and professional inquiry information. Dave apparently worked on everything from scoring podcasts to making OSTs for video games to the occasional small film. He seemed like the model of a working artist.
Whatever he was doing now was a lot of fucking synths. Karkat listened as Dave laid down various sounds, all a little eerie and just barely beyond recognition as physical instruments. More than once, Karkat tipped his head back and frowned, muttering, "I don't think I get this one."
It was eleven in the evening when Karkat was watering his planets, hoping a few would come back to life, when he heard it: piano. Just a normal, seemingly acoustic piano.
Walking back inside his block, Karkat drifting to the wall and listened as the piano played over the track. Suddenly, everything Dave had been working on, the eerie centerpiece of the music, it all became the elaborate undercurrent to the stark, quick dance of the keys. All his fucking around abruptly made sense, going from an unsettling atmospheric piece that could have been for a spooky project to something complex and beautiful, turning the horror into just a haunting.
Karkat was smiling. He could feel the unnatural set of it on his face.
It was so quiet, and Karkat stood so still as he listened, he vaguely heard a distant, "And that's how we fuckin' do it," through the wall as the piece ended.
Karkat resisted the urge to clap. That'd be really fucking weird.
"You could always bite me," Jake offered, not for the first time, as Karkat took a break from his work and leaned on the railing of his balcony.
Karkat's other neighbor was Jake, who was a UT student, though Karkat tried not to hold it against him. He wasn't a partier or a heavy drinker or anything. As Karkat understood it, Jake was supposed to inherit some important company or something, with the stipulation that it would wait until he finished a graduate degree. So Jake had been finishing a graduate degree for many, many years, essentially lighting money on fire in the attempt to get out of his pre-planned life.
It'd be pathetic if not for the genuine fear Jake carried every time the looming spectre of his future was mentioned. Karkat mostly felt bad for him.
He was also In The Proverbial Know about rainbow drinkers thanks for his fiance, Dirk. And he was very eager to be of assistance.
However:
"Did your doctor clear you on the horrendous debilitating anemia thing?" Karkat asked.
Jake's face fell. "I don't know what else I could shove in my gob to fend off that nasty affliction. I've tried the reddest meats I can stand and all the green veg. The iron pills upset my constitution something fierce."
"Well, then no one's biting you again, idiot," Karkat told him kindly. "You threw up and passed out last time."
"That was six months ago! Can't we give it the ol' college try again?"
Karkat was determined not to sink his teeth into Jake, no matter how much he asked and made big pleading eyes and suggestively unbuttoned his shirt. The guy was so fucking anemic, it was a wonder he didn't pass out when he stood up too fast.
Of course the one interested human who wasn't into all-black ensembles also had a blood condition preventing Karkat from thralling him. Life was terminally fucking unfair.
"Not happening, Jake," Karkat said.
"Fucking phooey," Jake muttered, leaning his head on his arms as he rested on the railing of his balcony, not ten feet away from Karkat. "You're a frighteningly clever fellow, Karkat. I'm sure you'll lure someone into your parlor. Maybe you should loiter around the coffee shops, if Kanaya's clubs aren't your jelly and jam."
"I don't want a college student who's going to move away the second they get their degree," Karkat muttered. "Someone stable to Austin would be nice."
"Well, I know you can make that happen," Jake said encouragingly. "You've just got to eject the stick from your ass and finally ask somebody! Before your illustrious sire grows weary of your ornery heel-dragging."
Kanaya wouldn't, was the thing. She wanted Karkat to figure out a solution, sure, but she was also pathologically driven to take care of people, especially him. She'd let him feed off her thralls forever.
It was Karkat who didn't want that to be a permanent solution. There were limits to how much he'd siphon her pity humors, and that right there was one of the big ones.
"You just got to— to march up to someone next chance you get! Next time you see a person that catches your ganderbulb, you walk right up to them and you say something charming! This is Austin! Oh, such a weird town with such weird people in it! Lay it all out on the table and see what they think of the inventory on offer!"
Karkat narrowed his eyes at Jake. "When was the last time you talked to someone you weren't already acquainted with? Someone outside our group?"
"I fail to see how that's relevant!" Jake said, but grinned at him. "But really, if you ever want a backup, I'm here."
"Your blood is literally deficient, it'd taste terrible," Karkat reminded him. Then, "But thanks. I appreciate it."
Because this was the other problem:
Humans tasted good. Really good. Good enough Karkat regretted feeding on them because the idea of going back to troll blood seemed torturous. He probably could and he might even have better luck with it all since trolls were more prepared to believe in rainbow drinkers than humans were prepared to believe in vampires.
Hell, he had a lot of contact information for the Alternian community. He could probably find some trolls thralls really easily.
But then he'd have to explain things about his blood, and about his complicated relationship with the quadrant system, and no fucking thanks. Just navigating it with Kanaya and her limitless patience had already been a lot.
So, he held out hope that he'd find his niche. His hunting ground. Anyone willing to tolerate his neurotic bullshit enough to get his fangs in them metaphorically and literally.
The stress was starting to get to him. Which made him even more surly and not-seductive, which didn't help matters.
Goddammit, maybe he would have to cave and go bite some overtired and edgy students. Go find the graduate students and offer to take their mind off things. It'd probably work.
The second Karkat stopped having standards, his life was going to be so much simpler.
None of this was made easier by the fact that Dave hadn't been playing any music for the past few days, nearly a week.
It took two days for Karkat to notice, to realize he was in a worsening mood and then to realize what the cause was. But Dave didn't make anything, didn't even fuck around with his presets. It was quiet enough that Karkat—
Okay. Karkat had genuinely worried that something had happened. Like, Dave had one of those human heart attacks and was lying on the floor dying, or something. So Karkat had gotten an empty glass from his cabinet and pressed it to the wall, pressing his ear in turn to the end.
And there was the sound of someone walking around, of running water, of the little noises of habitation.
So Karkat stopped being a creep, but didn't stop worrying.
What could he do? Knock on Dave's door and go, hey, sorry to bother you, but I've spent most nights for the past few months listening to you like a voyeur, and you stopped making music so what's up with that, huh? Absolutely fucking not.
His biggest fear was that Dave had just… changed to working with headphones on. Just a whim that would alter the routine of Karkat's life intractably.
But no. Dave was going through something. Karkat could tell because he took to going out on his own balcony, slouching against the railing, and sighing a lot.
Karkat itched to ask if there was anything he could do. But that would place him solidly back in creepy territory, and Karkat drank blood to survive but he was trying not to be a prick about it.
So he complained instead.
"I'm a little confused," Rose said over her glass of wine. "Are you perturbed by this noisy neighbor or do you passionately miss his racket? Your lips are saying one thing but the look on your face is raising objections in the court of subjective reality."
"How can you see anything on my face in this light?" Karkat said, waving the the dark, gloomy corner of the club they were sitting in.
"You literally glow, Karkat," Rose reminded him.
Oh, right, he always forgot that shit. "While I appreciate being the recipient of one of those human breaks from my neighbor's constant cacophonous bullshit," he said, "it's also creeping me out. He keeps going out on the balcony and looking like the simpering premoult love interest in a play where the hero fucking slept through curtain call. It's depressing."
"So, allow me to draft the facts as I understand them: We have a situation where you have some familiarity with a human who lives very close to you. Someone who you could make a fair assumption is relatively unattached, or at least adverse to socializing every night. Who you feel a connection to despite not having met them but once." She smiled and tilted her head in a way that made Karkat feel like she found him adorable. "You see where I am going with this, surely?"
"You want me to thrall him?"
"I think you should at least say hello," Rose said. "Also, I have been running the gambit of hypotheticals in my head, and if I were a musician who had been working consistently for months, I don't think I would be threatened by my neighbor perhaps mentioning overhearing my work." She waved a finger at him. "I would perhaps soften the reality of the situation, maybe say something about… how you couldn't help but notice that he's taking a break, and how is that going for him. Neutral, but a safe opening volley to any rational person."
"And then you want me to thrall him."
"I think you want me to tell you that you want to thrall him because you are still young enough a rainbow drinker that your autonomy as a vampiric operator makes you nervous," Rose said, and took a sip of her wine like a punctuation mark.
Goddammit.
"Maybe consider toning down the glowing when you make this overture," she added. "Try not to fuck it up too much."
Karkat was working up the nerve to say something. He had plenty of opportunities; Dave frequently went out onto the balcony, sometimes twice a night, and Karkat could see him from where Karkat was sitting, reading. He was hyperaware that the only thing separating him from a conversation with his neighbor and potential thrall(?) was a sliding glass door and his own fucking hangups.
But Dave looked so fucking dejected as he stood out there, backlit by the light pollution of the city. As he spent more time just idly observing Dave from afar, Karkat thought he looked really… nice.
God, Karkat was the fucking prime rib of moirail material, he was so fucking pitiful. He was a grown-ass adult, he should've been able to go and have a conversation with a human.
It took him a few days to work up the courage. But he was going to do it. He finally shored up all the determination fluid from his perseverance gland, and he was ready. Next time Dave wandered out to simper and sigh over the railing like his guitar had broken up with him, Karkat was going to casually wander out there and say something. He even spent the day getting his glow under control, subsuming it as much as possible.
Then, as he was waiting for it to happen, he heard a weird noise through the wall. It began as a plucking of strings, so sharp it sounded artificial at first, a rising and pulsing wave. It repeated over and over for almost a minute as Karkat squinted at the wall in confusion.
Then, another, different plucking wave of sound laid in counterpoint to the first. It was like rain against an electric roof. He didn't really know what to make of it.
More notes added in, but it was the same pattern repeating over and over.
Then, then, then: the violin slid like a beautiful knife right through the plucked notes, the tonality so beautiful and vivid, Karkat's untrained ear knew immediately it was a real fucking instrument. The way it sighed and shivered and almost trembled along was alive.
The foundation continued to repeat endlessly, insistently, and Dave played against it in different ways. Sometimes long sustained silver drags of sound, sometimes faster and playful, then settling into a meandering hum.
Karkat realized he probably was playing with one of those loop pedals. Just building something to toy with.
He hadn't known Dave could play violin. Piano, guitar, some woody wind thing he couldn't name, yeah. But the violin was new.
Karkat stood there gawking at the blank wall listening for the entirety of Dave's performance, all the way until it ended with the abruptness of the loop being kicked off and a final held note of the violin. Then, silence again.
The spell broke, and Karkat rubbed his eyes. It felt like he'd forgotten to even blink.
Outside his balcony, he could see Dave. He was leaning against the railing, looking at the bottle in his hands, idly peeling the label off with his fingernails.
Karkat grabbed his watering can and let himself out onto his own balcony.
Across the gap, Dave looked up at the sound, and immediately froze Karkat in place with a glance. His face was perfectly calm, but his eyes were a little wide. Surprised. Which, Karkat was his only direct neighbor and this was the first time they were out at the same time, so yeah, that tracked.
"So, uh," Karkat said, super fucking casual. His voice sounded like he'd never heard it before, completely off to his own ears. "Back into the swing of things?"
Dave continued to stare at him, his lips parting slightly. "Uh. Sorry?"
"I just mean," Karkat said, anxiety flooding his veins. It was so fucking weird, he spoke 'to' Dave all the time while he was experimenting through a track, but actually saying anything to the person? "You're sounding better finally?"
"What do you mean," he said back, placid and flat.
Karkat wasn't sure which part hadn't been clear. Maybe he'd misunderstood the whole thing. "Wasn't that you with the looping and the— I assume it's a violin, but I don't really know much about music."
"You heard that?" He was still staring very hard at Karkat.
"Obviously or I wouldn't be asking. You went almost a week and a half without making a racket, I almost assumed you had one of your human cardiac attacks since normally you never shut up, but—"
With his nocturnal eyes, Karkat could see the way a flush slammed full force over Dave's face, all his blood suddenly there across his cheeks. His eyes popped even wider before he quickly, without another word, retreated back into his apartment and out of sight.
Karkat gawked after him, before rewinding what he'd said and reviewing the mental tape.
Oh, for fuck's sake.
He hurried back inside his own apartment. Godfuckingdammit, how had he screwed that up so badly? Just when things were getting back to normal with Dave. Just when he'd finally started playing music again.
Not longer after, Karkat got a string of DMs on his computer.
TT: Karkat, is your noisy neighbor by any chance Dave Strider? Is the neighbor you have been complaining about perhaps Dave Strider, my fucking brother?
TT: I only ask because my brother just regurgitated a wall of text at me concerning his troll neighbor telling him off for having been playing his music too loud and never "shutting up" and I cannot help but consider the similarities, Karkat.
TT: Please understand that I love my brother dearly before I say this: your taste in potential thralls is atrocious.
TT: Do you have any idea how much shit Dave has given me for my "elaborate longrunning lesbian vampire LARPventures" in the past year?
TT: For fuck's sake, he's been struggling with a creative ennui since he completed his last project, and you break your months of silence to tell him he never shuts up?
TT: Incredible. You've singled out the truest of non-believers in our family.
TT: He's not even goth, Karkat.
For the next week, Karkat didn't hear anything from Dave's apartment.
He wasn't prepared for how crushing the change was.
Notes:
me: it's the holidays, i should take a little break from the breakneck writing pace of the assassin AU
also me: writes 5k in two days
me: ah much betterthis one is just gonna be a short story, like three chapters. there's no B plot, it's just rainbow drinker karkat and working musician dave and all their friends and family being amusing.
i wrote most of this listening to Emancipator and 2Mello, the latter of whom is definitely my model for Dave in this.
this one is going to have sexy mind control and biting and a bit of bloodplay, so know what you're getting into
Chapter Text
TG: i cant believe you know this fucking guy
TG: how is that possible
TG: why is the world so fuckin small
TG: or is it that my nosy sister just has to fucking know everyone
TG: this is why you wanted me to stay in seattle longer isnt it
TG: i assumed you were just trying to kill me all subjectin me to the lack of sun until i shriveled up and went all desiccated and dead
TG: my petals all comin off like gently fallin snow drifting to the ground over a graveyard
TG: camera pans slowly up and its my name so the audience knows i didnt make it
TG: i didn't survive the pnw
TG: could say i got pwned by pnw but its not 2008 is it
TG: but in reality what you wanted was to make sure you got every person in your rolodex before i arrived
TG: wait a rolodex is what jake would use
TG: you have a little black book but its also your book of shadows
TG: anyway why do you know this guy
TT: Apologies, I went to make a sandwich.
TG: what kind
TT: Cucumber.
TG: seriously
TT: They're very fresh and bright for an afternoon snack.
TT: Anyway, back on topic.
TT: I know him because he is the moirail to my girlfriend. He's a frequent member of our social circle down here, and a friend.
TT: He's also gainfully employed in the journalism industry, which is no small feat. He runs one of the Alternian-voice news and pop culture sites. One of the good ones. He also edits Alternian romance novels for publishing with human presses.
TG: oh my fuckin god is this going to be like
TG: you tellin me to get over it and make nice because your troll friend is important to the unit cohesion of your book club
TG: is he your hot source for arcs that you just cannot afford to loose
TG: sorry rose i should have thought about your need for more troll smut and lust books what was i thinking
TT: No, you misunderstand.
TT: If anything, Karkat fucking up this badly has been a great boon for our unit cohesion. Believe me when I say he will not hear the end of this soon.
TT: And I wouldn't dream of trying to encourage you to befriend someone who made you uncomfortable.
TG: lmao
TT: What I am advocating is: when he does try to extend the olive branch, I would advise considering it seriously.
TT: He has a tendency towards shoving his entire leg down his mouth, but he's genuinely a decent person and feels terrible for having fucked up so resoundingly with you.
TT: Of this I am quite certain.
TG: oh
TG: eh maybe
TG: i dont think hes gonna care now that ive shut the fuck up
TG: doubt hes gonna pursue this further now that the noisy fucking human next door has shut his shout hole and stilled his music flanges or whatever
TT: I wouldn't be so certain.
CG: LALONDE.
TT: Oh, I do love when I am demoted to a surname basis.
TT: Or is it a promotion? Is it a sign of respect, or is it a dubious attempt on your part to enforce the vampire-thrall distance you are so verbally devoted to?
CG: I WILL CALL YOU WHATEVER WILL MELT THE STALE ICE AROUND YOUR "GOFFIC" BLACK HEART, JUST GIVE ME AN OPPORTUNITY TO GET A PEN AND PAPER SO I CAN WRITE DOWN THE DOUBTLESSLY OVERWROUGHT APPELLATION YOU DREAM ABOUT LAYING IN YOUR BLACK SATIN RESPITE PLATFORM.
TT: You may need more than one sheet of paper. I intend to get my mileage.
CG: AWESOME. WHY DON'T YOU TYPE IT UP AND SEND IT TO MY BUSINESS EMAIL SO I CAN AFFORD IT THE TIME AND EFFORT IT DESERVES.
TT: You don't fool anyone. A single blip goes up from your Outlook and you are there like white on rice. Like grease upon swine. Like regional aphorisms on the tongues of southern gentlepersons.
CG: WELL, YEAH. IT MIGHT BE SOMEONE I ACTUALLY GIVE A SHIT ABOUT. BUT IT NEVER IS. ITS ALWAYS MY "SUPERIORS" WITH THEIR "IDEAS" FOR THE SITE.
CG: NOT ALL OF US CAN SURVIVE ON FLEECING TOURISTS LIKE YOU.
TT: Karkat, I believe I'm having a premonition.
TT: Oh, it's quite vivid.
TT: The veil is lifting, the fog is thinning.
CG: UH HUH. DO YOU NEED ONE OF YOUR DEVICES TO TUNE IN? GOT YOUR CRYSTAL BALL READY?
TT: Bold of you to assume I don't carry it with me constantly at all times. I have acquired a Prada bowling ball shoulder bag for just this purpose.
TT: The spirits are trying to reach me to deliver a vision.
TT: It is of an event of our near future, and it involves you.
CG: OH THESE ARE MY FAVORITE. LET ME PREPARE A HUMAN BEER THAT I CANNOT ACTUALLY CONSUME AND SETTLE IN FOR THIS WITH MY HUMAN SNUGGIE.
CG: PLEASE REVEAL YOUR SECRETS, AUSTIN MEDIUM ROSALIND LALONDE, MY STRUTPOLES ARE AQUIVER.
TT: The spirits say you're going to get to the fucking point, Karkat.
CG: OH RIGHT.
CG: OKAY.
CG: IT'S NOT MY FAULT YOU LIKE TO GO OFF ON ME LIKE THIS.
TT: I hardly shadowdance with myself.
CG: FINE.
CG: SO THE POINT.
CG: HOW…
CG: DO I APOLOGIZE TO YOUR BROTHER?
CG: ROSE?
TT: Apologies, that was actually extremely amusing, but in such a way that required the context of an entirely different DM log, so I had Kanaya read both.
TT: Anyway. Karkat.
TT: How much do you know about music?
CG: NEXT TO NOTHING.
TT: Perfect. That'll work famously.
Karkat was not the kind of person that listened to music without headphones. The idea made him want to curl up like a grub, mortified. There was one time he was on public transportation and didn't realize the audiobook he was listening to was on speaker instead of his headphones until someone very kindly pointed it out, and he'd immediately gotten off at the next stop and walked the rest of the way home, he was so fucking embarrassed.
This didn't stop when he was in his own respiteblock. He was fully aware of how ironic this was, especially given the entire conceit of this whole conflict was Dave Strider not giving a shit about headphones when he worked.
But now, Dave had obviously started using them, and the quiet was so suffocating, Karkat worried if he broke it, he'd be hit by a bout of thoracic panic that would lay him the fuck out in a hospital.
This was, Rose said, the only way. She'd been quite certain of it, in that way she had that made Karkat wonder how much of her charlatanism was really an act.
Whatever. Karkat's best speakers were attached to his TV, so he loaded up an app on his smart TV and started playing music from there. Rose's guidance had been for him to play what he'd normally listen to with no attempts to make himself look good.
How would he even make himself look good? He didn't know what constituted good taste in music. There was only music that helped him work and everything else.
So he played the soundtrack to a movie he liked. It was an Alternian film that was the first to have a human composer attached to it. It'd won a human Oscar for best score, he was pretty sure. So logically, it was good enough for that.
Karkat had no idea how this was going to work as an apology until he saw a light come on by the balcony and his neighbor wandered out. His hands were in his pockets, his shoulders hunched, his eyes on some of Karkat's plants.
Putting his laptop aside, Karkat wandered outside. He thought about bringing his watering can, but the idea of pretending he was just going out for the fucking plants was ridiculous.
He slid the glass door aside, and looked over at Dave as he reached out and plucked a fully yellowed leaf off the hanging caladium.
"Just wonderin'," Dave said, not bothering with the veneer of conversational warm-up. "Why are you playing hack music. Just, like, super curious what possessed you."
Karkat didn't know what to say for a moment. "Uh, it… I tend to need music to work to, and it's been really quiet lately, which— listen, I think I gave you the impression—"
"Okay, but McGuin is a fucking hack, do you know that?" Dave said, worked up. "Dude was given a huge budget by the localization studio for that troll flick, and he was supposed to go and hire out an entire orchestra to get some live music in there, which is not cheap, okay, but instead he fucking pocketed the cash for himself and did it all digital, which I am not knocking, I'm literally a digital guy almost 80 per cent of the time, right, it's a branch of the art form for sure and I'm no Shore or Morricone but I could trounce Zimmer. But the point is a lot of good musicians got stiffed and then that guy won a fucking gold statue just for being the first human to score a troll film, and you should listen to, like, anything else."
Wow, holy shit. Karkat looked at the slight flush to Dave's cheeks and the way he leaned against his railing but also kept glancing away nervously, and maybe Rose was onto something.
"I didn't mean to offend your delicate sensibilities," Karkat said, and very casually leaned on his side of the railing. Across the gap, Dave took a step back though not very far, drumming his fingers against the metal. "I wasn't trying to make a statement on the worth of artistic labor or whatever the fuck, I just need the sound to focus."
"Yeah, but, come on," Dave said. He plucked another yellowed leaf off a plant. "Man, your crew here ain't doin' great… Rose said you're like an editor or whatever, are you saying you don't get all hot and bothered when you see someone reading shit from an author you know is a prick?"
"Okay, obviously, yes," Karkat said, because he totally did. He was part of the casual discussion slack channels for his work and he was known to occasionally go on a tangent. He was fairly sure his coworkers shared their reading lists just to ignite his wrath to see him go. He'd always found the habit really degrading and annoying. He wasn't a show pony of rage.
But watching Dave was… interesting. "So, have you scored any movies?"
Dave shrugged. "A couple. All low budget indie shit. I don't even think you can buy the OSTs, not that kinda deal. Why?"
"I don't know, I assumed if you had such aggressive opinions about the sanctity of music scores, maybe you'd worked in the field yourself. Are you so willing to drag a peer through a field of mud and razor wire when your own work is on display?"
"Yeah, because I'm good at my fuckin' job. McGuin's score doesn't even have any brass, how do you have a romance drama without horns in it? Fuck, hang on, there's a joke in there about trolls and horns, sec."
"Oh my god, you really are Dirk's brother," Karkat muttered. "Save me from the Striderian tangents." Dave looked away, back toward his door, and Karkat kicked himself upside the pan. He was fucking up again! Fuck! "If any of your stuff is available, I'd like to see it. Or, hear it, I mean."
Dave squinted at him in pure suspicion. "Why?"
"Because…" Karkat sighed deeply. "When I said you were being noisy, I didn't mean it as a bad thing. I… really like listening to your music. It was basically the strange background radiation of my life until I ran my mouth off a fucking cliff and you stopped."
"Yeah, you sounded pretty pissed about it," Dave muttered.
"That is unfortunately just my voice. It does that. It's a whole thing." He curled his claws around the railing, resisting the urge to tap them nervously. "You didn't have to stop playing, though obviously if you never meant anyone to overhear and now you want to, that's fine, I understand."
"No, I didn't know you could fucking hear it! I assume this place was, like, decently soundproofed since I hadn't been getting complaints."
"Well, I… didn't have any complaints."
Dave stopped looking at the door and back to Karkat, his expression cool in that same way his entire goddamn family apparently had. It made Karkat want to retreat, chalk this up as a failure and go hide. But if he hadn't been such a coward this whole time, maybe he wouldn't be trying to repair shit now.
"So you… like the music," Dave asked.
"Yeah. I miss hearing it."
"Oh." He rocked from foot to foot. "Dunno how I feel about you liking my shit and also hack music. Which… did you like?" There was a hopeful note to his voice, and he glanced up at Karkat with the same bashfulness that every fucking reasonable person had when they dared to ask another person that question about their art. Karkat knew it well enough.
"I don't think I disliked anything? Sometimes you fuck around with weird sounds, but even that's interesting at least. I, uh, liked the violin a lot. Any time you play something live is incredible."
"Incredible," Dave echoed, and a flash of grin appeared on his face, there and gone, shoved back down off his lips. "Cool. That's cool."
"I'm not a music person, I don't have the language to describe the things I like. Which might be part of why this all happened with me fucking up."
"No, that was you just being kind of a tool," Dave said, crossing his arms. "But I'm only human and thus am susceptible to compliments."
"One of humanity's many weaknesses," Karkat said.
"Fuck off?" Another grin popped on his face, this one lingering. "Okay."
"What's okay mean?"
"Okay means maybe you're not just a massive tool." He stepped back. "I gotta get back to work, so… Karkat, right?"
"Yeah. Dave, right?"
Dave nodded. "Yep. Cool. Anyway." He lifted his hand in a wave, and hurried back into his block.
Karkat let out a huge sigh and did the same, scrubbing a hand over his face. Amazing. He definitely made an ass of himself again, but it seemed like it worked for some reason? He didn't totally understand, but he'd take it.
He was just sitting back down at his laptop when he heard it:
Music, playing through the wall.
The wave of relief was so intense, Karkat said, "Oh thank fuck," out loud, putting his face in his hands.
For about 18 hours, Karkat thought life was going to return to normal. He had his job (terrible), his moirail/sire (pretty good), all of her thralls (irritating but nothing he couldn't handle), and the music again (excellent).
He was sending notes back on a feature piece one of his columnists was writing when the music Dave was messing with faded out. Which was not in of itself weird, Dave did take breaks.
But then Karkat heard something tap against his balcony door. Jerking, he looked up and saw the light was on out there.
When he wandered out, he saw Dave leaning back with a broom, settling back on his heels on his side. Today, he had on a pair of hornrim glasses. They were like a shot of fire right to Karkat's pump biscuit, just a flood of warmth that tingled his fingers.
Fuck, this is why they called it a 'crush.' There was nothing soft or gentle about it.
Karkat shoved his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat. "Did you just hit my door with a broom?" he asked.
"Well, I needed to reach." He swung the broom over his shoulder and swayed from foot to foot. "So. How was that?"
"Jumping out of my fucking skin because you scared me?"
"No, the music, numbnuts." He put two fingers to the bridge of his glasses and pushed them up, and he was so fucking cute that Karkat felt almost giddy. "You, uh, heard it, right?"
"Oh, yeah, I did." He wanted Karkat's opinion. "I… liked it? That sounds shallow though. I wish I had the right jargon to…" He grimaced. "I also wish I knew what the fuck you were playing."
Dave lifted his eyebrows slightly. "Oh. Do you want to come… wait, what the fuck am I saying, you're like some hotshot editor, you're busy."
Karkat was definitely busy. "I'm not that busy."
"Cool. Awesome. Want to come see what you're being subjected to night after night? Where the racket happens?"
It took every ounce of Karkat's willpower to be calm. He nodded and accepted the invitation, said he'd be over in a moment. Once he was back inside, he bolted to the bathroom to examine his reflection. He looked disappointingly like himself. He needed a haircut, like he always fucking did, and trying to tame it back didn't do anything. At least the circles under his eyes weren't at their worst; he'd fed off Dirk two days ago and was feeling pretty good still.
He brushed his teeth quickly, because it was the one thing he could do, then hurried out into the hall and— should he lock his door behind himself? Was that presumptuous? But if he didn't and this ended up taking a while, Karkat would absolutely get anxious about leaving it unlocked— wait, wait, fuck, this was Dave's respiteblock. If someone broke in while he was gone, they'd both hear it crystal clear through the wall.
Karkat knocked on Dave's door, and it immediately swung open.
"I didn't know you wore glasses," Karkat said, faced with the alluring monster of his neighbor standing there in a white tee and red jeans and those vaguely hipster frames.
"Oh, fuck." Dave took them off and hooked them into the collar of his shirt. "Tch, yeah, they're blue light glasses, since I'm looking at fucking monitors nearly every waking moment of my fucking life."
"They look nice," Karkat said.
"Thanks," Dave said, quietly, and touched them briefly before stepping back. "Anyway, this is mine, come on."
Predictably, Dave's place looked like a mirror of Karkat's. It was long, had the same kitchen, had the same balcony. Dave had done a lot more to section it off, though, with padded floor-to-ceiling panels. The way to the bedroom and the balcony seemed to be only accessible by pushing the panels along on their wheels.
Within the cloister of the panels, the floors were covered in rugs and wires. Microphones were fucking everywhere, all leading back to the triple-monitor computer with a huge mixer and keyboard.
On the other side of the padded music area was a standing piano, a trumpet, two guitars, and what Karkat could only think of as The Violin. It was stained a rich, dark red.
"I guess these don't fuckin' work, huh," Dave said, waved to the panels he'd attached to the wall, presumably the deaden the noise.
"Not even a little bit. If you drop something heavy, I hear it." Karkat couldn't settle on staring at Dave or examining his equipment. It was like seeing the inside of a computer tower; rather than explaining anything, it simply made everything the computer did seem more mysterious and weird.
Dave slid his glasses back on and dragged a hand through his hair. "So you… This is it, basically! When I was shippin' myself down here, I had a truck entirely of all my gear and like two boxes of everything else."
"I remember you getting the mixer inside and blocking the damn hallway for an hour."
"I blocked the hallway for like ten minutes!" Dave ducked his head and flicked a few switches. "Yeah, it's an unwieldy beast, but needed for, like, everything." His finger touched against one of the little sliders, not moving it but holding it.
"So what's the current project?" Karkat asked.
"Oh, I'm mixing an album for a friend. He's a pianist back in Seattle and wants to put something online. So, I'm fixing all his shitty recordings and taking breaks to, like, play against him for fun." He sat in his rolling chair and clicked around on his computer.
The air filled with piano music. The sound was… stilted, or off somehow. But Dave kept clicking and Karkat heard the way it smoothed out, some layer of extraneous static vanishing. The sound was clearer, but now too sharp, and Dave winced, continuing to toy with it until it finally sounded nice. "That is the power of a bad mic. I've been going over twenty second sections all night, then just… fucking around when I get annoyed."
Karkat drifted over. "I think I heard the fucking around."
Dave nodded and peeked up at him from over his frames, then sharply looking down at his keyboard. "Right, 'cause I can't leave anything alone and piano without strings is blasphemous."
"Like your violin?" Karkat asked.
"Uh, no, that's—" Dave laughed softly. "I don't really use it a lot. Violin can sound… too 'live' against digital music and makes shit sound all uncanny valley. I was just laying some background noise against Egbert's key flailing." He lifted his head. "Oh, uh, do you want a drink or something?"
What a loaded question. Karkat shook his head. "No, I'm fine."
"Sure? I'm… maybe not the best host ever, I'm just, like, I don't know why I'm immediately fucking with the music again instead of being all… hostly."
"You said I could see where the racket happens," Karkat said. The idea that he didn't want to see Dave play was unfuckingreal.
"Right. Sure." Nodding, Dave rewound the track and let it play again, his fingers resting lightly on his keyboard. After letting the intro play out, he pressed on his keys. It was a little strange to see it and then hear a totally different instrument, but Karkat watched as Dave danced over the keyboard, laying out an accompanying layer of strings to the piano.
Dave glanced up and his eyes widened. "Oh."
Karkat realized he was smiling and put a stop to it, coughing against his fist. "That's, it's pretty."
"Thanks," Dave said. There was a blood-flush of pink to his cheeks.
Determined not to make a fool of himself again, Karkat kept his hands in his damn pockets, and did his best not to stare at Dave. But fuck, it was not easy.
Eventually, Dave apologized for playing while Karkat stood there, and Karkat said he'd take a chair.
He got a chair, and had a better view of Dave gnawing at his lower lip as he worked. He clicked through files for a moment before brightening. "Forgot he did this, mostly because I fuckin' wrote out the music for him and demanded he do something interesting. And covers are good for hits." He queued up another track, and did a quick clean up on it ("I'll do a good job later, I don't think you'll notice a difference") before playing it.
It was nice.
Dave stared at him. "Nothing? No White Stripes on Alternia?"
"I'm Earth-hatched," Karkat told him.
"Well, you have even less of an excuse!" With an extravagant sigh, he changed a few settings on his mixer and bounced up from his seat, padding over to the instrument wall and taking down a guitar.
Karkat did not stare at his feet, because that would be weird. There was just something homey about the socks. They had those little no-slip things on them in the shape of paw prints.
Dave shouldered the guitar. "Hey, see the red circle button on the screen? Hold the control key and hit that shit for me."
Karkat did as he was told. Another waveform appeared under the first.
Dave nodded along to the beat or the measure or whatever, then starting playing, his fingers moving with perfect confidence and practice. "Egbert's playing the lead, so this is the second guitar. I'd have to fuck around to get the crunch right but… You'll get the idea."
Oh, he did. Eyes fully off the monitor, Karkat watched Dave play along. His body was constant movement, like he physically couldn't be still. Everything sounded like melted silver, notes sliding together, turning the curiosity of the piano into a song.
His claws tapped against the desk, and Dave grinned as he noticed. He was mouthing along, presumably to the lyrics of the song. But it was only towards the end, his eyes mostly shut, he sang faintly, "Well, any man with a microphone can tell you what he wants the most…" before he seemed to catch himself and stopped.
When he finished, Karkat clapped, enjoying the way Dave fully turned away in embarrassment, hurrying to hang the guitar back up. "Uh, anyway! That's the song."
"It's a good song," Karkat said, and Dave glanced back at him, smiling.
GA: @carcinoGeneticist Rose Had Relayed To Me Your Success At Not Being A Total Blight On The Name Of Good Manners
CG: OH? THIS IS NEWS TO ME.
TT: Also to me. We went to the movies last weekend and he was still a fuckin honey badger.
GT: To be totally fair to him though it was VERY funny to watch!
GT: Lets not beat around any bushes pretending that isnt half the reason to drag him out of his pile of digital deadlines and by-lines.
TT: Nice.
GA: This All Likely Remains True And Accurate And I Will Always Defer To The Expertise Of The Group For A Barometer Of Karkats Current Irascibility
CG: ALL OF YOU HAVE JOBS.
CG: WAIT, CORRECTION: ALL OF YOU BUT JAKE HAVE JOBS.
GT: Being a student is a job according to my taxes so fuck all the way off karkat!
GT: Dont make me come over there!
CG: YOU'RE PART-TIME, IDIOT.
CG: POINT IS, WHY DON'T ALL OF YOU HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO THAN BE ENTIRELY UP MY NOOK AT ALL TIMES?
CG: DO THE VARIOUS PEOPLE YOU WORK FOR NOT USE KEYLOGGERS?
TT: Yeah, I wrote a script to randomly send it inputs so it thinks I'm always a diligent worker.
GA: My Employer Trusts Me And Doesn't Employ Such Measures
TT: No, Kanaya, they don't and they do. I just installed it on yours too. You're fine.
GA: Oh
CG: DID YOU INSTALL IT ON MINE?
TT: I don't fuckin need to, you are an honest-to-god dyed-in-the-wool workaholic.
TT: I feel we're getting off topic. Kanaya was going to say something nice.
GT: Ugh i tried karkat's door and it was locked.
CG: GO BACK TO YOUR ROOM, JAKE.
CG: KANAYA, WHAT WERE YOU SAYING? SOMETHING ABOUT HOW CHARMING AND AFFABLE I AM AND ALWAYS HAVE BEEN?
GA: What I Was Going To Say Before The Predictable Tangents Occurred
GA: Is That Rose Has Been In Contact With Dave And Claims You Have Been Having An Excellent Comeback From Your Previous Instance Of Completely Fucking Up With Him
GA: You Dont Often Make The Effort And I Am Proud Of You
CG: THIS IS INCREDIBLY CONDESCENDING.
TT: But earned and accurate and amusing.
TT: I can confirm too. Dave and I don't talk about our feelings or anything, but he'd been in a better mood lately. And making music again, which is great.
CG: WELL THAT'S TRUE.
GA: I Have Given This A Lot Of Thought
GA: And I Am So Impressed With Your Progress
TT: I believe the kids would say: lmao
GA: Dirk Be Quiet
GA: I Am So Impressed With You That I Believe It Is Time To Give You The Loving Shove Over The Edge Of The Featherbeast House
GA: You Don't Need To Use My Thralls When You Have One Of Your Own At Last
GT: Ugh this is the worst. Damn my stupid useless blood!
CG: I'M SORRY FUCKING WHAT?!
CG: I DON'T HAVE A FUCKING THRALL, KANAYA!
GA: Well That Sounds Like An Easily Remedied Problem For You
GA: This Is An Important Step In Your Maturation As A Rainbow Drinker
GA: Go And Bite That Boy
CG: JEGUS FUCK KANAYA IT'S NOT LIKE THAT!
CG: I DON'T
CG: KNOW IF I WANT IT TO BE LIKE THAT
GA: Like What
GA: What Is The Problem
GA: He Is Literally Next Door To You
GA: You Have Repaired Your Social Blunder With Him Admirably
GA: And He Is Of The Same Familial Line As Rose And Dirk So I Daresay He Will Be Appetizing
TT: Thanks, Kanaya. Always glad to have good reviews of the family vintage.
GA: Go And Bite Him And Begin Building Your Own Collection Of Thralls
CG: I DON'T WANT IT TO BE LIKE THAT.
CG: I DON'T WANT TO USE HIM UP LIKE A CAPRISUN.
CG: I THINK I MIGHT LIKE THE ANNOYING LITTLE MERCURIAL BASTARD AND WANT TO BE HIS FRIEND.
TT: Jake. Don't say shit.
TT: Let this one play.
GT: *pops up some extra buttery popped corn*
GA: Karkat
GA: Are You Somehow
GA: Implying
GA: That I Am Not Friends With My Thralls?!
GA: Karkat Vantas Are You Completely Out Of Your Pan
GA: Have You Lost All Semblance Of Connection To Reality
GA: I Hope This Is A Woeful Psychiatric Episode Of Yours And Not What It Sounds Like
GA: Which Is The Idea That I Do Not Care For My Dear Friends And My Girlfriend
GA: And Furthermore That You Don't Care About Them
GA: Which Is The Most Laughable Thing I Have Heard
GA: I Would Be Having A Very Haughty And Mean Laugh About It Right Now
GA: If I Were Not So Angry With You
CG: OKAY.
CG: I THINK I HAVE
CG: FUCKED THIS ONE UP
TT: You are going to have to make some overtures of vampire friendship to my darling baby bro now because there is a negative 100 percent chance you're getting your fangs in me now.
TT: Damn, Karkat.
CG: I'M SORRY!
CG: OKAY WAIT.
CG: I AM GENUINELY REALLY SORRY ABOUT THAT. I AM DEALING WITH SOME STUFF REGARDING DAVE, AND INSTEAD OF SAYING ANY OF IT I TOOK THE SHITTIEST WAY OUT POSSIBLE.
CG: OBVIOUSLY I CARE ABOUT YOU, AND ROSE, AND EVEN JAKE.
GA: Karkat
CG: I'M FUCKING KIDDING, I LIKE JAKE MORE THAN ALL OF YOU, OBVIOUSLY.
GT: !!!
GT: :)
CG: ALL THAT WAS SHITTY VAMPIRE BRAVADO AND I'M SORRY FOR SAYING IT IN A SERIOUS DISCUSSION.
TT: Hm.
CG: DIRK. I'M SORRY.
TT: Cool.
TT: That one worked on me.
TT: However: You're still not getting to bite me.
CG: OH WHAT?!
TT: I'm with Kanaya on this. Like again, cannot overstate how okay I am with keeping you alive as needed. You are my friend and I do enjoy being bitten.
TT: However, she's right. You need to learn how to thrall.
TT: Go forth and thrall Dave.
TT: Rose'll love it. She's been trying to convince him that vampires and rainbow drinkers are real for ages now.
GA: Jake Do You Forgive Karkat As Well
GT: Oh yes i suppose.
GT: I didnt actually think he meant it from the start and im not one to judge anyone for foot in mouth disease am i?
GT: Also i literally heard the sound of ultimate dismay he let out when he realized what hed said so im dealing with extra information on the state of mister vantas!
GT: And he said im his favorite.
TT: You're my favorite too.
GT: I damn well better be buttercup!
GA: Then I Will Also Forgive You Karkat
GA: But Dirk Is Correct
GA: Go Forth And Thrall
"You sure you don't want a drink," Dave asked.
"No, I don't want a drink, why would I want a drink?" Karkat said. Which only made Dave look up from his fridge with a quietly baffled expression.
"Uh. You good? Because that sure was a weird thing to say."
Karkat was very far from good, because he was in Dave's block again, and all he could think about is the fact that everyone in his life was sending him thumbs up and teeth emojis periodically through the day, a little pictographic reminder that he was supposed to bite Dave.
It wasn't like Karkat didn't want to bite Dave, alright? Especially as the days since his last top up grew more plentiful, he was becoming more and more aware of how really full of blood Dave was. And that was a whole thing Karkat didn't want to be dealing with but had no choice because his senses were starting to sharpen, to shift into a keener hunting mode, and he could breathe the air around Dave in and nearly taste him.
Fuck, he'd taste really good, and Karkat was not dealing with it particularly well. He wasn't certain how he was supposed to do this. Kanaya made it seem so simple. She was beautiful and charming and talented, while Karkat was Karkat. It was still all her fault for choosing him and making him a rainbow drinker. This was a disaster.
He was still staring off at nothing when Dave's face appeared directly in front of his face, entirely too close, and Karkat yelped and fell out of his fucking chair.
"Dude, are you alright?!" Dave asked, his socked feet springing across Karkat's body to bend down next to him. The concern was writ into the furrow of his brows. "Holy fuck, Karkat, what the hell was that, are you even alive?"
Slapping a hand against the chair, Karkat hauled himself up with a stagger. Dave touched his arm and Karkat flapped him off, taking a few quick steps away.
Which made Dave lower his hands to his sides. "Sorry."
"Okay, look," Karkat said, and apparently he was doing this. He crossed the room until he could lean back against the sofa. "I am slightly keyed up. It is nothing you did. I just… have been putting something off, specifically telling you something, and I am reaching the end of the fucking wick here."
"Like, candle wick or TNT wick?" Dave took a step closer, then seemed to think better of it and stopped. "How worried should I be here?"
"That's kind of up to you," Karkat muttered, rubbing his face. "Alright. Okay. So. I'm going to rip this off and if I bleed out, that's fine." He took a bracing breath. "I'm a rainbow drinker. Or, what you humans call a vampire for some fucking reason. And it's been suggested to me by multiple people in our mutual acquaintance that I should… feed off you. Which I'm not entirely on board with because I don't know what you feel about that?"
Dave's mouth opened in a stunned expression before he laughed. "Oh, my god, what the fuck. I didn't peg you as part of Rose's weird goth roleplay thing, but you're friends with Kanaya, so I guess that… kind of makes sense." He looked Karkat over. "You don't really seem the type."
"It's not roleplay, look at my teeth!" Karkat flashed them helpfully.
"Dunno, man, you're a troll and trolls just kind of have teeth like that?" He shrugged. "Karkat. I'm not into the roleplay thing really? And this is…" He blinked and made a little confused face, his lips curving down. "Wow, this isn't the way I thought this would go."
The implications of that made Karkat sort of want to die. That Dave had given any thought at all to, what, to them? And now Karkat was fucking it up. How close had he been to…? "I swear to fuck this is not a roleplay thing! I hate that shit. This is about…" He sighed. "I can prove it."
"Can you turn into a bat? Do you have a coffin for a bed? Oh, wait, can you not cross running water, I think that was a thing. I guess you must be really good at sponge baths."
"None of those are a thing! That's all human vampire shit, I'm a rainbow drinker!" God, this was embarrassing. "Dave. Come over here and sit down."
He wasn't actually used to hearing his own voice with compulsion. It sounded like him, but… better. Deeper and broader, like after Dave cleaned up a waveform, his own voice unfiltered and perfected.
Dave took a deep breath, like he was breathing it in, and it reached his eyes first; his pupils blew wide, and he went glassy as he shuffled over to the sofa and sat down next to Karkat. "Huh. That was weird. You got all bass-y."
"That's compulsion," Karkat explained, turning in towards Dave. "Because I'm a rainbow drinker."
"Pfft. Sure."
"Do you— you seriously don't still think I'm fucking with you?"
Dave shrugged once. "When we were kids, Rose tried to convince me she was a witch. She had just gotten a bunch of dry ice and a chemistry set, but she put on a good show until I started crying 'cuz the shitty Baptist kids were right and my sister was going to hell. Then she stopped and had to show me how she did each trick so I'd quit bawlin'."
"Wow, as much as things change," Karkat muttered. "Just because she does magic she's screwed?"
"Nah, I mean, we're goin' to the school up on high, but that's not the point. Point is… I'm not really sure. But you don't seem really vampire-y, dude."
"Rainbow drinker," Karkat corrected. "Okay. Fine. I'll prove it. Wait here," he ordered, and got up, heading into Dave's kitchen. He didn't know it particularly well, but it didn't take long for him to locate a bottle of juice and one of those bags of chocolate chip cookies. Satisfied, he took them back to the sofa and set them on the table. "Are you anemic or anything?"
Dave stared at the juice and snack with enormous hesitation. "Uh… no. Why?"
"Because I'm going to drink your blood, idiot," Karkat said, sitting back down next to him. "I don't want you throwing up or passing out."
His eyes were very wide as he looked at Karkat. One hand rose to curl around his neck nervously. "You… are really doin' all you can to sell this joke, huh."
"If that's what you want to tell yourself right now," Karkat said. "Listen. I'm not going to hurt you. I have done this a lot so unless you have some wasting blood disease like Jake, you're going to be fine."
"Jake? Dirk's Jake? Jake is into this shit?" A baffled laugh escaped Dave's mouth.
"Holy shit, he'd love to be, but he's the anemic one, so we can't bite him. He complains about it all the time." At least now Dave was smiling a little, though the nervousness was still clear in his posture, how he leaned a little away from Karkat. "Right. If you want me to leave, now is the time to kick me out."
"No. No, I am in the process of calling this bluff. There's nothing more irresistible than commitment to the bit, and you are rockin' that like new cologne, I cannot even lie."
"Okay. Try to relax." Karkat rearranged some of the throw pillows on the sofa and put a hand on Dave's chest, easing him very carefully back against them. As he reclined there, one hand still loosely cupping his neck, Karkat considered how to go about this. He was not going to bite this stubborn fucking human on the shoulder for the first time, he didn't have Kanaya's flair for the dramatic like that.
Instead, he took Dave's other hand and sealed his claws around his wrist, pulling. "Lean back and relax. It's really not going to hurt."
Dave was watching him unblinkingly as he slid the sleeve up. At the first flash of Karkat's fangs, fully out and ready, he inhaled sharply. But the compulsion held, and he lay back against the sofa as Karkat bit him.
With a solid year of practice behind him, Karkat nicked Dave's arm with his teeth, keeping the cuts shallow. Red beaded at each one, and Karkat bent to cover them with his mouth, giving some light suction to coax the blood out.
And fuck him, this was exactly what he was afraid of. Humans tasted so fucking good. Dave tasted good, like pressing his tongue into a lush, ripe fruit that burst copper over his tongue, coating his mouth in hot metallic blood. He could not, even with all his restraint, avoid letting out a soft groan at the taste.
Feeding tended to have an effect on the thrall, and Dave's big, wide eyes fluttered as he shifted, body moving restlessly. One hand caught in a pillow as he breathed heavy and deep, head lolling back. "Oh fffuck," he said, dragging the fricative out. His fingers curled under Karkat's grip.
He wanted to tell Dave it was alright and he was okay, but surfacing now when his mouth was filling with blood just wasn't an option. Karkat took it slow, just soft suction until he was ready to swallow the hot blood down, feeling it all the way down his throat, suffusing heat out into his entire thorax. Fueling him. Giving him life right from Dave's body.
Drinking too much was a bad idea; there was no way to know how Dave would take to it, or if he'd had lunch earlier and could afford the blood loss. So, Karkat only swallowed a few mouthfuls before easing back, licking the lingering red from his teeth.
Dave was still laid back and out of it, his lips parted as he stared at the ceiling. He was breathing slow and deep, as if he were asleep, his body flooded with drowsy enthrallment, clinging heavy to his muscles.
Karkat got up carefully. "Don't move. Just stay like that. You're doing really well," Karkat compelled him.
Dave shivered, his toes curling in his socks.
Moving quickly, Karkat found Dave's ablution block and pawed around until he found the first aid kit. Removing what he needed, he hurried back to Dave.
Pressing a square of gauze over the bite marks, Karkat taped it down against Dave's arm. "Okay. Dave. You can move. Take it slowly, sit up for me."
Blinking rapidly, Dave surfaced from the hazy, gossamer place thralls went to when they were bitten. His head lifted slowly, as if it were very heavy, and he looked around. "Wow."
Karkat opened the bottle of juice and curled Dave's hand around it. "Drink this."
Obligingly, Dave took a sip. Then, seeming to realize he was thirsty, he gulped down the rest, letting Karkat take the empty bottle from him. "Okay. Fuck. You're a vampire."
"I told you," Karkat said, opening the package of cookies and holding one out to Dave.
"You know what? Fair. That one's on me." He took the cookie and ate it, chewing slowly. As he ate, he looked at his bandaged arm with something like wonder. "I can't believe Rose was right. She's going to be such a pain in the ass now. Can I keep this from her?"
"You… can try, but I doubt it'll work." Standing there, Karkat suddenly felt bereft. His body was humming with life, Dave's blood like an electrical charge in him. It felt intense, and for the first time, Karkat understood how Kanaya slept with her thralls.
"So don't do anything stupid," Karkat said. "Don't take a hot shower or try to exercise. Drink more juice, and make sure you eat an actual dinner. I didn't take much blood, but it's better to be safe than passing out and braining yourself on a table tragically and idiotically."
"That wasn't much blood?" Dave asked.
"No, of course not. Like, three half-mouthfuls. I wouldn't— I'm gonna head out. Or, not out, but back to my place." He shuffled back a step. "If you start to feel whoozy, just shout and I'll probably hear it."
"Sure," Dave said, looking up at Karkat, his fingers still rubbing against the bandage. "I'll see you later."
God, Karkat fucking hoped so. With a curt nod, Karkat fled back to his apartment.
What he hoped against all hope was that he hadn't just fucked things up with Dave.
It had been why he didn't want to do this in the first place, the risk of losing the tentative thing they had. It was so surprising given how they had finally met, but Karkat felt like he was lighting up whenever Dave wanted to show him something, play him something, every time there was an annoying clatter against his balcony window.
He'd totally fucked up explaining things to Kanaya, and got rightly verbally kicked in the globes for it. But that was the problem. It wasn't that Kanaya wasn't friends with her thralls.
The problem was: what if Dave didn't want to be friends anymore.
Karkat paced his apartment, pressing his fangs into his hand as he walked back and forth. How many days should he wait before assuming things were over between them? Two? Or maybe the weekend at least? Maybe Dave would take time and then decide it was okay that Karkat was a vampire. Or maybe he'd be moving out in a month because Karkat was a fucking vampire.
He was still pacing when the music started.
Dave was playing the violin.
Sinking back into his armchair, Karkat tipped his head back, and listened.
Notes:
I'm gonna hit 'post' on this and then not post the tumblr announcement until the weekend so then no one will know i posted even more fucking fic before the end of the year. but no for real I'm going to try not to type any fic over the long weekend.
I will however edit the second assassin au intermission. which is not actually writingaaaaaanyway. finally some sexy biting. more will come.
also i love writing adult versions of these characters. adult karkat is still karkat he just goes on fewer rant tangents and knows how to do an apology.
ALSO IN CASE IT ISN'T CLEAR I made up mcguin, i would not drag an IRL person like that. .... well i would but the story i'm basing that off, i cannot fucking recall the originator and i don't think it was recent anyway? whatever.
Chapter 3
Notes:
sorry for the delay on this one. shout out to interropunct for leaving me a comment this morning, thus reminding me i had this sitting half-completed in my docs.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Karkat got home late. It was the weekend so for once he was allowed, even though the prospect of not looking at his phone, at letting his emails pile up, was a rock lodged in his nook the entire night. Every time he'd taken out his phone to have a glance, to make sure everyone's long-read articles were going up at the right time in accordance to the Metric Goal Gods, Kanaya had glared at him from across the table.
It had been dinner. Which meant Kanaya and Karkat watched a bunch of humans eat and talk about how things were going, and Jake had just a tiny little breakdown about how close he was to finishing his degree. Karkat had shooshed his ass down the best he could while Rose suggested perhaps Jake could change his name and drop off the grid.
After a good hour of everyone googling the logistics of disappearing someone and (mostly) jokingly talking about strategies, Jake had drunkenly told everyone that all he wanted was to be a nice housewife, was that too much to ask, to not have to run a stupid company.
Aaaand that was the herald that it was time to wrap up dinner and send everyone home. Dirk brought Jake back to his place so he could have company while being mopey and drunk. It was on the way to Karkat's place, so they split the Uber.
Once Dirk and Jake had departed, Karkat finally took out his phone. Seven emails, but only two that were important according to his Capture filter.
("What is Capture?" Karkat had asked back when it had been installed into his client.
"It's a specialized heuristically cognitive filtering system that learns what you give a shit about and flags everything appropriately. I'm in talks with Oracle for the source code, so you're fucking welcome," Sollux had said.
"It sounds like a camera app."
"It's a play off my fucking name," Sollux then insisted. "Captor, Capture. It's great."
"Do you want me to get the contact info of someone in marketing for you?" Karkat had offered because Sollux couldn't name anything if he life depended on it.
"Screw you, Vantas, this shit is going to sell for millions.")
After he read the important emails, he saw there were two text messages for him. The first was from an unknown contact.
for real where the hell are you its been like all day
He didn't recognize the number. Frowning, he swiped it off his screen without replying. His more computer-savvy friends had warned him incessantly about phishing and he wasn't about to prove any of them right about his relative gullibility.
The other was from Rose, and was simply: I apologize ahead of time. Which was strange since Rose had barely even hassled Karkat this time. Perhaps she realized that by the end of the meet-up and was apologizing because now Karkat was owed extra-hassling next time? Who even fucking knew.
Finally dropped off at his building, Karkat made his way upstairs, trudging down the hallway on heavy, tired feet. He was really flagging lately. He'd have to do something about that soon. Sighing, he shook out his keys as he reached his apartment.
He'd only just gotten the key to fit in the locked when the next door down swung open. Dave leaned out, one hand on the doorjam catching him from falling. "Holy shit, finally. I thought vampires couldn't go out in the daylight, what the hell."
Karkat blinked at him. "Rainbow drinker. I don't know how many times I have to say it. I'm a rainbow drinker, not one of your absurd human vampires."
"Right, whatever, hey, I finished this track, do you wanna hear?" He nodded his head towards his apartment.
What Karkat wanted was to find a place to sit down for a few hours, where he could doze off for a bit. He was aware that Dave had a pretty good sofa, but that seems like… an idea of some kind. Bad or good, Karkat wasn't sure yet. "Oh. I… can I put my bag down first?"
"Nah, bring it," Dave said, and reached out, swinging closer on the hinge of his wrist. He caught the strap of Karkat's bag and pulled.
The key slipped out of the lock as Karkat was dragged along, inside, Dave keeping a firm grip on his bag as he drew Karkat inside. Today, he was in blue jeans with a white button-down, which seemed almost too dressy for him?
Glancing down, Karkat saw he was once again in his socks, so the universe was still in order.
As Dave got him inside, he hipchecked the door shut and put the chain on. Karkat opened his mouth to ask what was up with that, but when he took a breath, he smelled… something powdery and almost gingery, something clean like good soap. "Uh."
"Want a drink? Come on in." Dave stepped quickly away, pushing up his hornrimmed glasses as he glanced back at Karkat.
"Uh, I— wait, we've been over this," Karkat said.
"Oh yeah, guess I forgot. Don't wanna be a bad host." There was fleet, quick smile on his face that made Karkat real fucking sure he was missing something.
He put his bag down in the kitchen and toed off his shoes before following Dave into the heart of his apartment, walking onto the soft cushion of all those overlapping rugs. When Dave settled into a chair, Karkat lowered himself into the spare with a sigh.
"Ooh, big sigh," Dave said, his cheek propped up on his fist. "Which, heh, sounds like when you see a kitty-cat stretch and you just gotta say 'ooh, big stretch,' know what I mean? Long day?"
"Putting in time with my moirail and her friends. My friends." Karkat grimaced. "I'm obligated to get the fuck out of the apartment every once in a while, but I always feel like I'm slacking off." And not to mention he was starting to feel hungry. He pressed his tongue to the tips of his fangs for a moment. "Anyway, you, uh, wanted to show me something?"
"Is it a bad time?" Dave twisted in his chair to lean over the arm, hands dangling in the space between them. "You wanna crash on the sofa for a bit, I'll drop some lo-fi remixes on you like DJ Sandman until to get to countin' some Zs."
Karkat cleared his throat to settle the interested chirr in his chest right the fuck back down. The prospect of getting to lay down and rest and listen to Dave work was ripped right out of his insomnia fantasies, and he was not going to indulge it. "I'm fine. I'm awake. What was the thing, new music?"
The way Dave tipped his head just a bit to the side, a slight movement and nothing more, but it felt like a hook in Karkat's gut catching and pulling. "Okay, if you're sure. Anyway, yeah, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. So I just finished a commission in like four days. I did twelve songs in four days!" He waved to his monitors. "I haven't worked that fast since this fuckin' game jam I got roped into. I feel like I could fistfight Emancipator in a Waffle House parking lot, I'm the speed king, I gotta actually sit on the commiss for a few more days so the client doesn't think I half-assed it, which I didn't! Just…" His teeth pressed into his lower lip.
"That sounds good. Is that good?" Karkat asked. "Are you okay?"
"Dude, yes, I'm fine," Dave said, smiling a little ruefully. "Just dealin' with this thing that happened where I discovered my neighbor is a troll vampire."
"Yeah, I hear that can be a rough one." Which made Dave laugh, ducking his head, and fuck, he was so fucking cute in those glasses. Karkat's hands curled tight against his thighs.
"That's what I mean though, I like… slept for what felts like the first time in my life and my muse was rattling a tin cup against the bars and bam, I made a shitton of music. It was good. So." He glanced up over the rim of his glasses at Karkat. "Are you gonna do it again?"
Karkat felt warmth lash through him, up his posture pole to suffuse out through his thorax. The low hum he let out was too strong to swallow back down, like someone had struck his bones with a mallet. "I'm not doing anything you don't want to," Karkat said.
"Oh my god, could you try harder to misconstrue what I'm sayin'?" Rolling his eyes, Dave pulled one foot up onto his chair, arms around his leg as he rocked the chair from side to side with his other foot. "'Less you're sayin' that if I do want then we could…" He trailed off, but his eyes were saying fucking plenty.
The warm flush was threatening to singe Karkat's body. "God. Fucking. Okay. Fuck." He blew out a breath. "Sorry, I'm just surprised. Maybe Kanaya was right, humans are just into this…"
"Hey, hey!" Dave jabbed a finger a him. "Excuse you, but what am I s'posed to do? You come over and you like my music and you do that thing with your voice and are all nice and shit! I'm not into the vampire thing like my sis, okay, I'm just needy and like positive feedback, I'm an artist, Karkat."
Oh god. Karkat wanted to slide off the chair and fall away through the floor somehow. He tore his eyes away from Dave, because the gleaming whites around his irises were just too much. Karkat didn't have the fortitude for this shit, he edited articles and did Zoom meetings most of his day. No one was supposed to aim that kind of soft-edged entreating look at him. He'd grown out of his stupid romantic fantasies long ago.
Fuck, he really needed to avoid thinking about fantasies when in close proximity to Dave.
When he foolishly looked back at Dave, everything was even worse. Dave had his eyes on his mixer, touching the sliders with his fingertips, his chin on his knee, looking so fucking dejected and sulky, it was an arrow right through the throat. Given only one of them had a preternatural power of compulsion, it was incredibly dangerous, how Karkat just wanted to fold right there and give Dave what he wanted. He wasn't supposed to be easy like this.
Though his exes had sometimes mentioned that he was on occasion exceptionally fucking easy.
Bracing himself, Karkat said, "Okay. Lets say I believe you, that you're not just into the vampire thing like your human sister." Dave didn't turn away from his equipment, but his eyes were on Karkat, peeking out through the peripheral.
Karkat dragged his tongue over his fangs. He shouldn't be having this conversation while he was hungry. It was such a bad idea.
"Can I ask you somethin'," Dave said. His pushiness seemed banked down to a level Karkat could better handle, thank fuck. "Why the arm? Like, there's loads of vampire media and it ain't usually the arm? It's kind of drivin' me nuts. Do rainbow drinkers not do the neck?"
"No one does the neck," Karkat answered quickly. "Trying to get the angle right for the neck would be a pain in the ass for one, and the chance of the thrall bleeding out would be higher, it's stupid and more difficult. The shoulder is what you're thinking of."
Dave lifted his eyebrows. "Well, shit, I'll jot that down in my vampire notebook, thanks. Follow up question: why didn't you bite my shoulder?"
The desire to vanish returned with a vengeance. "I… uh. It seemed…" He was mumbling. "Presumptuous, and I was just trying to prove a point. I thought it'd be less obtrusive."
"So you're not adverse to the shoulder bite. Cool. 'Cause I need my hands for my payin' job, see, so shoulder would actually be better."
They were talking details now. "So we're… doing it again?" Karkat asked.
"I mean, you need to eat, right?" He turned the chair back to Karkat and put his leg down. "What do you normally do? Was Voltaire right, is there a vampire club?"
"My, uh, sire sometimes helps me find other people."
"Other people?" Dave asked.
Karkat was not going to say Rose and Dirk, because that felt weird. Even as a troll, Karkat knew that might be weird. And besides, he was newly on a no-Dirk-or-Rose diet, so. "Yeah."
"Right. Okay, well. I don't wanna tell you how to rainbow drink or anything, I'm just a Z-list musician, but that seems like a whole lotta work when I'm just next door, right?"
Karkat swallowed and nodded. "That almost makes sense."
A slow smile spread over Dave's face and he climbed out of his chair, which did terrible things to Karkat's pulse, cranking up to speed. "Doesn't it just? So." One of his hands reached out and pressed some things on his computer. After a moment, the speakers started putting out music, low and bassy. Karkat wasn't sure what the song was, but it was familiar in a distant way, like he'd heard in on the radio a few years ago. A remix of something. "How often do rainbow drinkers need to eat?"
Fuuuuuck, Karkat was nervous. How did Kanaya do this? She was so calm and collected and good at directing everything when she had a thrall. He didn't feel like he was doing the thralling here. "It depends. If you have a big meal, how long until you have to eat? It's all relative to a shitton of other factors."
Dave pushed some dials and the higher tones of the music faded out on a static hum, leaving something deep that he felt in his bones. "Fair enough. Then when was the last time you ate?"
"You," Karkat admitted.
"Well, damn. That was barely anything, right? Just a snack." He finally stopped fucking with his mixer and just popped an extra button of his shirt open, revealing more skin, and the edge of his collarbone.
"Stop," Karkat said, smoke in his mouth as he stood up. Dave's eyes widened, and his hand stopped. "Have you eaten today?"
"Yep. Breakfast and lunch and some dinner. I'm also on some stuff that, cool side effect, increased red blood cell production. I am almost hilariously good to roll, Karkat."
This all felt terribly premeditated. Did… Dave think about this as much as Karkat? That wasn't a safe thing to ask, so Karkat shook his head. "Go get something easy to eat and drink from the kitchen."
A flush was rising up Dave's neck to cast over his cheeks. Just another taunt of how very full of life he was. He gave a quick salute. "Aye-aye."
As he went to do that, Karkat let himself have one moment of internal screaming, dragging his hands over his face and into his hair. Gripping his horns, he gave himself one good shake. Okay. Okay. He was going to bite Dave again. Dave wanted him to bite him again.
He went to go sit on the sofa again and tried to keep fucking cool. He bit people all the time, he didn't need to make this into an issue. And a lot of what Dave said was true; he was supposed to get his own thrall, and there wasn't anyone more convenient than the guy next door.
And it might be… nice. If Dave was Karkat's thrall, then he was expected to look after Dave, to make sure he stayed happy and healthy. It was another crack in the wall between them, started with all that fucking music.
He just needed to keep himself from getting too attached. He didn't want to take advantage.
Dave set down a bottle of juice and some snacks on the table. The glance he gave Karkat was ridiculously hopeful.
Right. Karkat could handle this. "Unbutton your shirt more, then come over here and sit, get comfortable," Karkat said, smoke in his mouth and throat, soaking into his words.
Nodding, Dave popped the rest of the buttons and walked around the table, right up to Karkat. Before Karkat knew what the fuck was happening, Dave had a hand on his shoulder and was settling onto his lap, straddling Karkat without an ounce of hesitation.
Karkat grasped his hips and held him steady. "What the fuck?"
Dave blinked at him. "You said to sit." He fucking wiggled his hips. "Get comfortable." Karkat's claws curled against Dave's hips as Dave went on. "This seemed like the comfiest spot to be in for gettin' some fang action going, right? Don't wanna lean and risk gettin' a crick in your neck or pulling a muscle, that'd put a flatline in this whole thing pretty quick. Though you could do the sweet voice thing to get me to rub that out for you, right?" He was smiling, his face flushed.
He wanted to argue. But also Dave was sliding his shirt open, showing an open expanse of skin. His shoulder was cute too, scattered with human pigmentation spots. It was right there.
Karkat took an open-mouthed breath, his fangs flashing, and felt the way Dave gasped at the sight.
"I'm not going to hurt you," Karkat promised.
"I know. But you wanna get to the not-hurtin' me part already, or?"
This ridiculous shithive weird human that was fiendishly alluring, goddammit. Karkat reached up, took Dave's glasses off to set them aside. Then, curling a hand around Dave's neck, another around his arm, Karkat pulled him even closer.
Dave's eyes were wide, right in front of Karkat's face. He still smelled like really nice soap. It'd be easy to kiss him.
But that was way too intimate, too much of a trespass. So instead, Karkat held Dave firmly and bit him, pressing his fangs into Dave's shoulder.
He jerked once at the initial puncture, the bloom of pain before it fizzled out. He sighed out hard enough it stirred Karkat's hair, another reminder of how close they were, pulled tight together. Dave's hands clenched in the shoulders of Karkat's shirt as he let out another deep breath, his head rolling back.
It felt so good to feel someone's body just come unpinned in Karkat's arms, good in a way that felt wrong or bad, a thread of guilt in Karkat's gut. He rarely did this; he couldn't imagine holding Rose or Dirk as he bit them, never drag his arm down their back to wrap around their waist and anchor them against Karkat's mouth. It'd be too much.
Maybe it was still too much, but now that Karkat was allowed he realized he was so fucking hungry. He spent too much time with the memory of how Dave tasted, that bright copper flood like metallic stone fruit in his mouth. Pulling his fangs out, Karkat ran his tongue across them and groaned.
Dave's hands tightened and his lolled his head the other way, resting against Karkat's, his mouth open as he breathed. For a moment, he thought about stopping, asking if Dave was okay.
But it was fucking pedantic bullshit. He could feel how okay Dave was, and Karkat couldn't keep a grip on the thrill that rose in him, the guilt and greed mixing like arsenic and open flame in his thorax.
He breathed smoke out and shut his eyes, letting his weight rest on Dave's shoulder. With his fangs out, Dave bled slow and steady. It slowly filled Karkat's mouth, and he swallowed before letting it fill again. One mouthful, two, and a third before the flow started to stem itself, easing up.
He wasn't done, and pressed his fangs in again, feeling the gasp in Dave like a ripcord. Soothing his tongue over the renewed bite, Karkat stroked Dave's back slowly as he put on the barest suction, coating his mouth.
"Uh, fffuck," Dave said, shifting on Karkat's lap, one hand holding onto the seat behind him. "Ssssorry," he hissed softly, but kept anxiously moving around.
Karkat didn't want to accidentally hurt him and tightened his arm around Dave's waist to keep him still. One more. When the bleed started the slow again, Karkat sunk his fangs in one more time.
There was this sound, a gasp immediately giving way to a moan, right into Karkat's hair, and… right. Alright. Karkat, uh, understood. It was impossible not to, with Dave's voice setting off a five alarm fire in Karkat, the mix of warm blood and arousal igniting through him. This had never happened before, and Karkat was a fucking pan-addled idiot drunk on hot copper and the fresh soap scent of the guy he'd been crushing on like a fucking building collapse.
Unhooking his fangs again, Karkat fitted his lips in a seal around the bite and drank deeply, squeezing Dave closer.
Inhibitions blasted out of his skull by drowsy thrall, Dave gripped Karkat tighter and rocked his hips firmly. The space between them was gone, and Karkat could feel the stuttering pressure Dave was seeking out. No erect human bulge, just grinding in sharp needy circles. A pained, tight noise escaped Dave as he tore one hand off Karkat's shoulder and reached down instead.
Every thought in Karkat's head was drowned in hot water. He didn't think through any of it, just got his own hand in there, folding around Dave's to give him something to frot against.
Grabbing Karkat's hand, Dave directed him, fingers curling into his grip as he pressed Karkat's thumb firmly in place. The task locked into Karkat's mind, and he moved fasted to undo Dave's jeans; they were the kind with four buttons in a row instead of a zip, and Karkat got three open before shoving his hand in, pressing his thumb against Dave's nook as he swallowed more of his blood.
Dave came on a wordless cry, his body shaking, it all hitting him fast. It came on quicker than Karkat would have expected, but— god, getting bitten did it to him. All of his restless squirming had just been getting turned on from being fed on.
Thrall and orgasm seemed to hit Dave upside the head with a hammer. Once the shudders subsided, he draped around Karkat, breathing steady and deep against his ear.
Inevitably, the punctures started to close up. This time, Karkat let them, having had his fill. Easing back, he watched the red trickle sleepily out of the marks. Before they got too far, Karkat leaned in and dragged his tongue against Dave's skin to catch them.
"Oooh," Dave moaned, twitching all over once. "Mmh."
Tongue cleaning his teeth, Karkat stroked Dave's back for a moment. He didn't know if it was his own stupid wishful thinking or not, but he thought those last swallows tasted… brighter.
Turning his head, he watched Dave rest against him, still breathing through parted lips, his eyes shut, lashes barely moving.
He watched for a while, wallowing in the faint pleasant sated buzz in his pan, not wanting to do anything that would bring in the Thoughts. The Worries. The Oh Fuck What Was That.
Moving carefully, Karkat eased Dave down across the sofa, laying him on his back. He went heavily, head lolling, humming faintly.
Sitting at his side, Karkat tentatively reached out and dragged his claws along Dave's mussed hair, coaxing it behind his ear. "Hey," he managed.
"M'good," Dave mumbled. "I'm good, jus' gimme a sec." His hand patted blindly at Karkat until it landed on Karkat's thigh and settled there.
Next day, later afternoon, the music from next door stopped, and twenty seconds later there was a knock at Karkat's door.
He tried really hard not to be nervous as he got up and opened it.
"Sup," Dave said. "Do you take lunch?"
"Take lunch where," Karkat said, frowning.
Dave grinned. "Oh man, what a lay up. How about take lunch out for a walk because it's not ninety fucking degrees for once?" There was a pair of aviators in his hair; he reached up and flicked them down to fall into place on his nose. It was so fucking charming, it had a hand around Karkat's throat.
"We, I think, we should talk," Karkat said.
"Yep. Hence the walk. I'm moderately less likely to do something stupid if we're in semi-public, so I figure that's the best bet." He nodded his head towards the stairwell. "C'mon, I don't bite."
A laugh startled out of Karkat. "Fuck, fine, I'll… put on my shoes and go on Do Not Disturb, or else some idiot is going to have a crisis and need me to do something."
Outside was nice. There were enough clouds to bank the unbearable heat of the Texas sun, and a breeze was cutting down the street. Perfect tee-shirt weather. Though Dave was sleeveless in a band shirt Karkat didn't recognize. He didn't even remember the name, though he knew he'd looked at least once.
It was so hard not to stare into the approximation of Dave's eyes behind his shades. Around the edges of the glasses, Dave's skin was pink, from the heat or from a flush.
Karkat wished he could be fucking normal about this human for twenty seconds, that'd be great.
"You're lookin' a lil wild around the eyes," Dave said, because of course he was noticing Karkat staring at him, goddammit.
"I'm sorry," Karkat blurted out. "I, you're my first, uh, thrall and I just let that whole thing get out of hand. This is what I was worried about, my sire has been up my chute about getting a thrall for a while and everyone was like, oh why not the musician you have an insipid stupid crush on, he's right next door, isn't that fucking convenient, but this is exactly why I said it was a bad idea, you make me into an idiot. I'm not an idiot, I'm the idiot wrangler, so it's more than a little unsettling to look in the mirror right now." Karkat took a breath.
Dave had stopped walking and was just listening with rapt attention. It took Karkat out at the verbal knees. Funny how that worked, the moment he knew someone was actually listening to his fucking tirade, it dried up.
"Are you done? The mic is open, man, if you got more fire to spit," Dave said.
"No, I'm good," Karkat mumbled. "Maybe later."
"Sweet. Guess it's my turn." He pressed his glasses further up his nose with two fingers. "Not to blow your mind, Karkat, but I did get the impression."
"Impression," he echoed.
"That you liked me." Dave smiled and glanced away. "You got like the worst case of wanderin' eyes I ever did see, least on the receivin' end of. Hey, chill." He reached out and pulled Karkat's hand away from where he was trying to hide behind it. "It's, like, nice. Doesn't happen often, you know, not from nice guys."
"Nice." Karkat wanted to die. "I can take a hint, you don't have to—"
"I don't think you can, dude, I mean you are a surly, grumpy dude on every Zoom call— hate to blow your mind but it's easy to hear through our shared wall, dunno if you were aware." Karkat was going to die if Dave didn't keep a steadying hold of his hand. "But you come over and let me talk about all my bullshit that you don't even understand, and I see you puttin' in the effort to be just… nice." His mouth twisted once, briefly. "I dunno, I'm sorta used to people humorin' me until they tune me out and you… don't. It's nice."
"I like listening to you talk," Karkat said. "Even if I don't understand the minutiae, I can kind of get it when you explain it. People who are passionate about things are— it's good."
"Good," Dave repeated, going from pink to red. "So, that settles that, right?"
"Settles what?" Karkat asked. "What are we settling?"
"Man," Dave said, pained. "Are you gonna make me spell it out?"
"Since I don't know what you're saying, I guess so."
Tipping his head forward, Dave looked at Karkat over the edge of his shades, and then very pointedly looked down.
His fingers were still curled around Karkat's, vivid contrast. As soon as he set eyes on it, Karkat's thumb stroked along Dave's skin, completely involuntary. It was softer than his own, thinner.
"Got a question for you," Dave said. "If I wasn't full of tasty blood, would you still like me?"
"Yes," Karkat said helplessly.
"Tasty blood is just a bonus, right?" With his free hand, Karkat covered his eyes. "Cool. Likewise. And vampires or rainbow drinkers, do they date their thralls sometimes? I mean, I kind of know that already, my sister's been dating a rainbow drinker for—" Dave stopped, then blinked, then jerked his head up to meet Karkat's eyes. "Wait. Oh, holy shit, wait, you fucking mentioned Kanaya, oh my god."
There it was. Karkat winced. "She's my sire, yeah."
"Why is the entire fuckin' world the size of a postage stamp? Rose said you were Kanaya's palefriend, but— oh my god you fed off Rose and Dirk, right?" When Karkat nodded, Dave pulled a face. "Ugh, wait, was it… did you ever… like, with them?"
Karkat didn't follow for about two seconds, then realized what Dave was metaphorically gesticulating at with such trepidation. Karkat's face flinched into a grimace.
"Okay, perfect, we're in agreement there," Dave said with a relieved sigh. "Yeah, don't bite them anymore, that's weird. Bite me."
"Biting isn't inherently a romantic or sexual thing, but alright." This conversation was so fucking weird. Most conversations with Dave seemed to be. He was never boring, that was for sure.
"Speak for yourself." He leaned in slightly. "So now we're set, right?"
It was coming on slowly, the realization that Dave was no better at this than Karkat was. He was just better at being bad at it than Karkat, hurtling down verbal side-alleys to avoid being direct and hoping Karkat would just get tired and give him an out. As soon as he figured that out, Karkat grinned, his fangs out, and saw the way Dave reacted, his flush deepening, his fingers tightening for a half-second.
"Set with what? I'm okay with biting you again if that's what you're asking for," Karkat said.
"Oh fuck you," Dave said. "The other thing."
"Which one?"
"You are real cavalier 'bout the fact I can ruin your life with whatever music I can crash together at any hour of the day or night." Sighing, he deflated. "Dating. You and me. Yes or no."
"No, if that's your attitude about it."
"Come on!" Dave's lips pursed together in annoyance. "I… fuck. I, Dave Strider, hereby ask the target party, hereafter known by Karkat 'Asshole' Vantas, out for a date in the near prospective future to, like, the Drafthouse or somethin', whatever. Maybe next time you need a meal, so it can be dinner and a show. Is that good enough for you?"
"Maybe you could put it to song," Karkat started, then laughed at the annoyance on Dave's face. "I love the Drafthouse. Even if I can't eat the food."
"I got you covered, you can eat me." Dave fully tipped his glasses down to wink, then broke into a laugh. "Uh, anyway."
"I gotta get back," Karkat said regrettably.
"Idiot wranglin', yeah I heard." He stepped away, slowly at first until Karkat started to follow. He tucked his hands into his pockets and led Karkat back to their apartments.
Inside, upstairs, Karkat lingered at the door. "Hey."
"Yup." Pushing his shades back up into his hair, Dave looked at him, guileless and expectant.
Leaning in, Karkat kissed him, mouth closed and soft. He stayed pressed there for a long moment, feeling Dave's stillness, the way he breathed.
"Cool," Dave said quietly as Karkat straightened. "Awesome. 'kay, I'm gonna. Go work on music."
It was another long, leisurely moment spent in the hallway before they each retreated into their apartments.
Karkat sat down in front of his laptop to get to work.
In ten minutes, he started to hear the faint vibrating hum of a violin, and buried his face in his hands as giddiness flooded him.
Notes:
content includes: more sexy thrall and more biting and dave gettin' real jolly from being properly bitten so karkat helps him get off
this one was fun! i could write more sexy times with them and more friend shenanigans but this feels like a nice, cute dismount.
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