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He'd been curled up with himself when you checked back in on him, and it took you a few seconds of staring blankly to understand the how of it. You feel that spark jump off in your chest just like it did the first time he took and put his hand on your face, papping you soothingly. If they were both asleep, that would mean Karkat was on the verge of making a return to the world of the waking. You have to split pretty soon but you'd be more than happy to take the extra time to say goodbye proper before you dart off into the vents.
"Heeeey, brother," you breathe as you sink to your knees beside the pile of horns the troll you are the palest for is stretched out across. You can see his dream copy, who you might have called miraculous earlier in your short life curled around him and fading from sight. You touch the more solid Karkat’s face with all that tender ache in your guts, a little worried when he doesn't immediately come to. It passes when he jolts awake and bats your hand away. You half-grin.
“You miserable wet spot,” he sputters angrily, and your grin doesn’t falter. “Where the fuck have you been? Do you not have the sense in that slime emptied head of yours to check in once in a while so I, the shitstain on this massive life sucking rock who’s responsible for you, might have some hint as to whether or not you’re lying face down in a container of the heinous slop you pile on your face or not?”
Even as he goes on, he holds his arms out expectantly to you. Karkat calls you all manner of ugly names all the time, babbles bullshit at you nonstop, but you let that noise soak in one auricular sponge clot and drip out the other. You know he doesn't mean a single word of it because when you wrap your arms around him in a hug, horns shifting and honking under the pair of you, he squeezes you to him like he thinks you're the one who's going to fade from existence. “Other than rolling around in the layers of dust permeating the vents like a fleabitten meowbeast and doing your damnedest to keep clear of Kanaya, what have you been up to? Have you been eating? You have to do that more than once a day, if you recall the last time I sat you down and tried to impart some of my frankly not so common sense upon you.”
"I'm fine as I've motherfucking been," you assure him. It doesn't take that hurt, nerve-wracked look out of his eyes, so you take it upon yourself to kiss his lips as chaste and lovingly as you ever have. He presses his lips together when you pull away and shoves you a little, mumbling something you can't quite hear. You just kiss him again, all over his face, and when you go to flop half on him in the pile, he shoves you a second time.
“C’mon, motherfucker, there’s space for two trolls in this pile,” you murmur.
“Maybe I was comfortable, Gamzee,” he hisses. He doesn’t mean that, either. He’d rather be eaten alive than alone. The pair of you lay there, him pushing at you half-heartedly every now and then in a comfortable sort of silence. You’re beginning to get bored when he speaks again, abruptly.
“Everything is fucking awful here. I might have formally relinquished leadership of the group on this stupid rock, but somehow I just can’t let that make me feel like every single solitary bulgepunting failure is inherently my fault.”
He’s given up on trying to push you off of him, and you study the way his mouth moves more than the things that are coming out of it, watch the way his hands lift toward the ceiling as if he’s begging it to fall on the two of you. “Even menial things like when these other assholes don’t take care of themselves-- how the fuck are we supposed to do anything if we don’t take care of ourselves?-- it’s like none of them learned how, like they’re all still a bunch of grubs wheeling around blind and alone in the brooding caverns who need lusii to step in and save them from themselves and each other.
"Literally blind, in Terezi's case," he adds, and the mention of her name wipes the absent smile off of your face. He’s already talking like he’s got diamonds to spare for every motherfucker alive, but her? You don't want to hear him talk about her. You change the subject.
“How does one get to be napping so thoroughly and still wake up all prickly and having them dark pouches under his seespheres? You look tired as fuck.”
“Thank you, human captain Obvious,” Karkat answers, and you have no idea who that is. “I didn’t notice that despite the hours of sleep I’d just gotten I was still just as tired as when I made the poor decision to lay down on this pile of garbage you keep around.”
“Settle down,” you tell that nubby little fucker with a shrug before tugging him into a hug again. He lets you, and you take that as the go ahead to make the pair of you comfortable. You roll off of him and fall into the pile of horns proper with a series of little honks. After more shifting and honking, he's settled as comfortably as you please with his back to your chest.
You keep your arms curled loosely around him and let yourself do what Karkat still thinks is zoning out-- in reality, you're doing a little bit of critical thinking. Deep shit nobody in the room but you needs to know right now. There are things you still need to see put in order, items that need collecting so certain plans might flow unhindered. As you lose yourself in thought, Karkat tilts his head up and back to look at you. Your eyes shift from where they’ve been staring blankly at the wall down to his face. His weary eyes shift away, and he starts picking at his claws while the barest hint of his color touches his cheeks.
You find yourself amused by the way his horns hadn’t even graze your face, and by that even if they had it wouldn't have hurt in the least. Such a pitiful little brother. Doubly pitiful in that he obviously and desperately needed to let off some steam and was always squeakbeast timid to ask his moirail for help with that.
The mirthful smile you give him makes him glower at you when his eyes are on your face again, and the expression doesn’t match up at all to the softness of his voice when he asks, “Do you think we could...?”
You would have suggested it yourself if he hadn't, considering how wound tight he felt in your arms, but now you don't have to. Instead of answering, you just hook your thumb into and lower the waistband of his pants with practiced ease. He pushes his hips up to help them come partway off, and then your long fingered hand is cupping and covering his nethers, coaxing and encouraging Karkat’s bulge out into the air with light rubbing and pressure.
You chitter against his shoulder, where you've rested your chin, squawkblister warmed up and ready to go. Karkat chirrs back, glancing up at you for a beat, and when he gives that sheepish and grateful half smile your belly gets to fluttering too. By now you know his body like you know your own, and even better when it's getting extra hot and aching for stress relief.
"C'mon, little brother," you murmur, trailing a finger playfully around that wicked red tinged pleasure worm wiggling its way out into the open air.
"Don't fucking talk to it!" he tries to hiss at you, but the sound lacks venom; there’s too much music in his voice. You shoosh him and let the emerging bulge curl around your fingertips, squeezing it lightly. Karkat clicks appreciatively, and you nuzzle his ear.
"Thanks," he eventually says. "Even if you've gotta make a fucking game out of it, this really helps."
"Don't I know it, my most palest of motherfuckers," you reply as your fingers grow damp and sticky with his fluids. Expertly, you dip a finger under his curling bulge and smooth the tip over his nook as he hitches his hips. Even from your perch behind him, you can imagine the laughingly adorable way his pitiably dull teeth worry at his lower lip.
"Why are you teasing me? Just stick your god damned fingers in," he grates, and then you do laugh. He snaps those teeth at you, which ain't any kind of pale, but you know it's just the way this motherfucker works. He shows his pity with his teeth and his claws and all them loud harsh yells. "And if you don't watch your nails, so help me God I will rip your horns off and beat you to death with them while you honk like the jackass you are."
"Shut the fuck up," you reply casually, even as you follow his instructions. Your fingers slip inside him, and you're less gentle than you would have been, out of irritation. It makes him turn his face to you sharply and give a tiny growl. You consider the very real possibility that Karkat might bite your face, and it’s funny as hell if you’re honest with yourself, but you soothe the roughness away with gentle, languid strokes all the same. Eventually, begrudgingly, he relaxes a little father into your arms, lifting his hips with a quiet sigh. You know it feels good. You know what you're doing.
His chest starts to rumble as you stroke inside him, and you grip his not quite fully unsheathed bulge with your free hand. The change in him is abrupt-- he tenses and gives a short, strangled cry. Trying to keep the noise down.
"Let that shit out, best bro," you advise him. It feels better when you let your body do the driving, let it make moves and sounds it wants to. Your advice is sound, and you know this, too. As usual, he ignores you, covering his mouth with both his hands instead. It’s not like you wanted to hear the plaintive notes Karkat is capable of anyway. All sour grapes, you rumble, "What the fuck ever."
You'd stretch out the time it took to make this little miracle happen, but he's shaking already, so you offer the twisty appendage you’ve been pressing ever so gently between your digits a single finger and let it curl around, tugging it out into the open. Karkat grunts, but doesn't comment. You know he thinks it's a perverse thing to do, but you also know that he likes having his bulge tugged that way. Likes the pressure at the base, and the feel of it sliding from his sheath so quickly. The fat base is out in the open with little work, and you curl your long fingers around it, squeezing gently as Karkat continues to make wanton noises that stay muffled under his hands.
Your fingers stroke him inside gently, and when he carefully begins to rock his hips in time, you give a breathy laugh. It's cute as fuck, but you'd never tell him that. He'd up and get all kinds of shouty, radiating big noise like that shit makes him more threatening when it just gets you all pale as paint.
You can tell he's close when his hands drop to his sides, hands clutching at your pants. He's going to dig those stubby claws into you if you keep it up much longer, so you mumble some bucket shit at him to help him over the edge.
"Get it out, man," you encourage, and he stiffens for a beat before his hips pick up speed and work out a rhythm at double time. “Let it spill.”
The almost-silence he’s imposed on both of you is garbage, but you can live with it knowing that this end stretch invariably makes him sing the sweetest song you ever did hear. His voice comes out in little pants at first, but as he gets closer and closer the panting becomes desperate little clicks and chitters. You still your hands for him when he begins to chittering gives way to trills, burying your face in his hair and the smell of him. Taking care of this angry little motherfucker just gets you feeling all kinds of pleased and pale. Knowing that just as he’s capable of draining the too-thick rage that can sometimes clog your pan, you can unwind and evaporate the stress that addles his is a beautiful thing.
The roll of his hips stutters, and his bulge writhes over and between your fingers as his nook pulses and eventually tightens like a warm, wet vice around the digits you got pressed up inside him.
"Te-- Ter...," he whimpers, as you stroke the last moments of his orgasm out of him, "Fuck--"
And, there went the moment.
Anger, white and hot lances through you. You go dead still again as Karkat’s movements slow to a stop, and you listen to him while he falls silent and gets his breathing back under control. He really almost said her fucking name. He'd really brought her into this perfect pale moment. A familiar loathing bubbles up inside you, and you can't help but sneer. Karkat cranes his head up to look at you, and you smooth out your features as best you can. He looks worried, and he fucking should. He knows what he said.
"Thanks," he croaks sheepishly, and any of that anger that might have misguidedly be headed for him gets its course changed faster than a flash step. All headed for her. You find yourself heatedly imagining her up against a wall with your teeth in her throat, and don't come back to yourself or Karkat until he kisses your chin.
"It ain't even a motherfucking thing," you assure him, wiping what little genetic fluid that's gotten your fingers sticky subtly on his inner thighs as you pull your hands away. He growls at you about it, and you almost have to force yourself not to echo the hostile sound. Instead, you make yourself to laugh and kiss the back of his head as he wiggles back into his pants. He turns to give you a suspicious look, and you don’t look back while you disentangle yourself from him, sliding out of the pile as he snatches at you to try to keep you near.
"Don’t you fucking rub and run on me!" he yells when he misses the fabric of your shirt by the breadth of a hair.
You ignore him and roll out of the way, honking along with the horns in the pile strictly to comfort Karkat. He makes a lot of noise about not liking the sound, but you know he does. "Nah, I got some shit what needs attending to real soon like. Such as to getting your stress slime off my grabsticks."
He continues to protest, but you disappear into the vents anyway. Maybe you're punishing him a little for what he said. Or not. You'll be back eventually, anyway, and maybe you’ll have decided by then.
Besides, it's not a lie. Not really. Washing your hands is an actual thing on your to do list. But before that, you're going to find her. Find her and tell her what a piece of shit she is. Maybe you’ll grab her by her stupid fucking face with the hand connected to the fingers that had been knuckle deep in your Vantas and start a fight. Leave her bloody on a lab floor or something.
Then, maybe make out a little.