Work Text:
It starts like this.
Vague irritation. A crease between the eyebrows when he looks at him. Assigning motivations to words and actions that just aren't there. (He knows this, intellectually, but logic has nothing to do with it.) Bared teeth. Interpreting innocuous comments as intentional challenges and overreacting accordingly. Sneering and snarling and hopping up and down, gesturing wildly, inexplicably, as though he can find some way to mime out the jagged feelings behind his rancorous words.
It's just hormones.
And Dave handles it pretty well, for a human. Karkat isn't sure if he quite realizes the way some of his purposeful non-reactions just stoke the fucking fire, so to speak -- it is so god damn irritating to have to contend with all these swirling and unfairly confusing adolescent urges, only to look over and see the alien target of them staring, calm, collected, quirking a single eyebrow. Underscoring how apparently far less tumultuous human puberty must be, because holy shit.
He can't concentrate. He's restless, jumpy. Itching for a fight. His feelings for Dave aren't always easy to quantify, but when he gets like this there is absolutely no question: he is black as fucking midnight for a soft idiot alien who has expressed revulsion for the very concept not once but multiple times, exhaustively. Fantastic. He wants to argue about it. Open his mouth and fling out a challenge like so, idiot, tell me again what you have so much trouble wrapping your pathetic mammal meat brain around in regards to perfectly normal expressions of romantic intent. Because if he would just come around on the idea, it could be so good. He'd be a perfect kismesis. Smug and irritating and infuriatingly better than him at so many things. Someone who could teach him so much and be taught so much else. Someone to strive to match in so many ways and prime for molding to match him in others. Someone safe to hate so fucking much -- someone who, when the tension reached its climax and one of them gave in, would push and tease and drive him crazy, but never truly hurt him, never go too far, never cross that grey threshold between passionate kismessitude and genuine intent to harm.
He realizes he's holding his breath. Lets it out with effort. Dave is stealing little glances at him, puzzling over his behavior.
He'll never come around on this, which, of course, only makes him more perfect. It's such a fucking elegant, cosmic fuck you to Karkat, specifically, that he almost forgets to be furious about it in favor of admiring its brutal efficiency.
Then his think pan wails pathetically about how unfair it is, and fuck yeah, it is, it is super fucking unfair, okay, and he grimaces and shoots to his feet and his eyes go a little crazy for a second, shooting from Dave to the exit and back. Dave cranes his neck, looking up at him.
"What the fuck, bro," he says. His voice is mild, all emotion carefully strained from it, and Karkat's shoulders hunch and he exhales explosively.
"Fuck being six sweeps old," he snaps. "Fuck that and fuck you, too."
He has enough time to see Dave's expression darken -- obvious even with his ridiculous douche shades -- but fighting about this will only make it worse, so in a deific act of supreme willpower, Karkat forces his strut pods to stomp him out of the storage bay and carry him to the safer lonely oblivion of his established meteor block.
The feelings will pass, eventually.
No -- not just pass. They'll change. Soften. Slip across quadrant boundaries like shitty little criminals, and it's impossible to decide which extreme is worse, because the answer is always whichever damn one he is feeling right fucking now.
It's just hormones, he reminds himself, patiently, for the thousandth time.
*
It progresses with time, but their relationship does, too.
Karkat thinks Dave probably knows what it means when he starts spoiling for fights, when he calls out faults in innocuous words and actions. Karkat thinks he probably thinks it's funny, and for awhile, that works just fine. They trade insults, Karkat is fire and Dave is ice, and it becomes less unbearable and more just an unpleasant thing that he locks away deep inside where it can just be a dull unacknowledged ache behind his bloodpusher. He stops storming out of rooms (mostly). They establish a rhythm. For awhile, the flushed feelings become worse to deal with, because they don't have agreed upon banter protocols set up for that. As far as Karkat can tell, flushed flirting is one hundred percent off the table one thousand percent of the time. Which pisses him off. Which leads to caliginous flirting. Which Dave handles just fine.
Or seems to handle, at least.
"You know what this is, right?" Karkat finally asks, one day. He's worked up good, teeth bared, honest to god anger sweating, and Dave is just looking at him. Dave's eyebrows are up, he's floating a few feet in the air just because he can, just because he likes making Karkat have to look up to talk to him, likes making Karkat acknowledge that Dave is a god tier and Karkat is nothing. Smug fucking douche. He doesn't even remember what this fight is about.
"You having absolutely zero chill in every possible situation?" Dave suggests, lounging in mid-air, like he's reclining on the world's most comfortable floating couch. His cape flutters toward the floor. Karkat honestly considers grabbing it, yanking it and Dave down with it, teaching him a thing or two about hubris. But every time their fighting gets physical Dave bests him with humiliating ease and he doesn't feel like losing again, right now. He scoffs.
"No, asshole, I mean this, this constant bickering, this inability to just be cool, this need to escalate every fucking interaction we have into this bullshit verbal warfare --"
"Sounds like more evidence for your stunning lack of chill to me, bro," Dave interrupts him, folding his arms over his chest. "I mean, if we're talking things like inability to be cool, I think you've got the market locked right up for that, Karkat, you are the kingpin, the final word, the gate through which all expressions of rank uncoolness must pass --"
"This is what I'm talking about!" Karkat shakes a finger at him. "Why would you be goading me like this, if some part of you didn't want me to react like --" he makes a frustrated noise, fingers hooking into claws. "If you weren't enjoying this, you wouldn't be doing it! So do you know what that tells me, Dave? That tells me that all your bullshit pearl clutching and overdone theatrics over how baffling and wrong and totally inscrutable caliginous feelings are just that -- bullshit theatrics! You know exactly what you're doing. You always have! And frankly, I'm tired of being jerked around like this just because you think your humanness absolves you of the ability to lead someone on!"
"Jesus shit," Dave says, and he sounds like he's barely holding back a laugh. Karkat's cheeks go from warm to hot, shame uncurling unwelcome in his gut. Fucking hell. He is a disaster. "You think this is like, what, spades flirting, dude? I'm not flirting with you. How fucking gay do you think I am, man? This is just... banter. Do trolls not have banter, Karkat? Does every god damn emotion under the fucking sun have to be slotted into some kind of romance box?" He floats a little closer as he speaks, and now he's the one gesturing wildly, and when he's done he just kind of twists his hands up in his cape and floats there, fidgeting.
Karkat's eyes narrow. There's something vulnerable in that body language that bolsters his courage. "You are constantly intentionally antagonizing me," he says. "You can't tell me there's nothing to this, Dave, that you aren't getting something out of it."
"Three years of easy fucking amusement, maybe," Dave shoots back. "Me laughing at your neurotic expense doesn't make me gay."
"I am so fucking tired of that word," Karkat says, and suddenly he really is just that -- tired. Humans are exhausting. If Dave was a troll, they'd have been bypassing these horrific conversations about obvious feelings ages ago, maybe progressed to venting their frustration on each other in more interesting and productive ways. It pisses him off how his heart lurches and his body reacts so fucking positively to the thought of yanking Dave out of the air by his idiotic cape and kissing him until understanding dawns within his useless human think pan.
"What -- gay? Really? Because the amount you've been harping on extremely gay concepts and ideas lately makes me think that you actually kind of love that word, Karkat! Not just the word, honestly, the word and all it stands for, so maybe a little self reflection is in order, here, before --"
"What exactly do you think I am?" Karkat waves him quiet, then plants his hands squarely on his hips. "I realize that human guys have kind of a complex with the idea, by now, but trolls don't, and I am perfectly fucking fine with everyone knowing that yes, I actually can in fact find other guys incredibly appealing, romantically, in every quadrant, thank you, at least when they aren't busy being avoidant little shitheads about their own feelings!"
Dave says nothing to this, for awhile. Just stares at him. The silence stretches, and it takes pretty much every iota of self control in Karkat's body to keep the rising tide of panic down while he stares back, carefully cultivating the dispassionate expression he hopes he is wearing. "Okay," Dave says, finally. "So. You're saying..." he trails off, expectantly.
"God damn it," Karkat snaps back, practically shouts. "You know what I'm saying!"
"But I actually don't, though," Dave says, and Karkat can see him swallow, see the little spasm his throat muscles make while he struggles for the words he wants to use -- and fuck, it is absurdly distracting. He barely avoids growling with nebulous frustration. "Is this a confession? And if it is, what kind? Do you like me? Do you hate me? Or, like, is this just a joke, because it's not very funny, dude, if Terezi put you up to this, tell her I'm delivering back an extremely heartfelt fuck you--"
"God, please do not fucking drag Terezi into this," Karkat groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Just stop. Stop. You're right. It's nothing. Forget it."
This is a deflection, because Dave is asking very good questions that Karkat has realized too late he has no idea how to answer. Does he like him? Yes. Does he hate him? Also yes. Is this a confession? Jesus fuck. Is it? Is it? What fucking kind is it?
"Wait," Dave says. Karkat ignores this, turning on his heel, cheeks blazing. The kernel of self loathing that lives permanently inside him is blooming to fine, full form, today, and he would really rather choke on it alone.
*
Of course, some words you can never take back.
They're both too pathetic to say any of them to each other's faces, not after the fucking hallway debacle, so they circle around each other's fake statuses, instead. Busy, idle, it's all bullshit. Baiting each other with their own inaction to be the first to act.
Karkat is gearing himself up to be the one to give in first, because of course he is, when his husktop chimes.
TG: god this is the worst fucking shit imaginable i hope youre proud of this one vantas
TG: ive barely fucking slept for like three nights and i know not sleeping is kinda your thing but for some of us that shit is debilitating
TG: im actually angry about this and im harnessing this anger into energy to force my fingers to type words at you
TG: i swear to god youd better answer because anger energy is notoriously unreliable
TG: and then ill just go back to being tired
TG: stalking around the meteor with rose all lurking after me waiting to pounce at the first sign of weakness
TG: notebook in hand
TG: wielding that shit like a weapon
TG: waiting for me to admit that im feeling emotions so she can write sadness and loneliness and shit down in a list and compare them to her psychoanalytical bible one by one and then just look at me with her eyebrows furiously waggling and say well dave ive solved your problem you see its just like i always thought: gay
TG: youve got a mad fucking incurable case of the gay
TG: which im not admitting to right now mind you but can we just like
TG: talk
And only then, while the cursor blinks and seconds stretch dangerously out after this, does Karkat shake himself out of his shocked fucking stupor.
CG: WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE TO BE ANGRY ABOUT, ASSHOLE?
Fuck. He stares at this, and then down at his traitorous fingers. Dave is already typing again.
TG: uh wow i dont know karkat maybe like
TG: you taking our pretty overall rad blossoming friendship and twisting it up into something its not
TG: and then hurling that something at me out of nowhere in a way that seems intentionally calculated to do the maximum amount of damage to both the aforementioned friendship and also me
TG: maybe that
And the worst thing is, maybe he's right. Karkat nods to himself, fingers stilling over the keys, self loathing rearing up and squeezing his chest so viciously it's a little hard to breathe. Of course that's what this is.
CG: WELL.
CG: I, UH
CG: I APPRECIATE THE HONESTY?
CG: SORRY.
He isn't sure what else to say. He swallows. Nevermind. Avoiding each other was better than this fucking crushing finality.
TG: what honesty
CG: ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS. I UNDERSTAND. I WON'T BOTHER YOU ABOUT THAT SHIT ANYMORE. IT WAS RUDE OF ME TO DO IT TO BEGIN WITH, AND I FUCKING KNEW IT WAS EVEN WHILE I WAS DOING IT, AND I DID IT ANYWAY BECAUSE I'M A PATHETIC PIECE OF SHIT WITH NO SENSE OF DECENCY OR DECORUM. AND, IF YOU WOULD RATHER NOT PUT UP WITH THAT ANYMORE, THAT'S TOTALLY REASONABLE. I CAN RESPECT THAT.
TG: dude what the fuck
CG: WHAT?
CG: I AM TRYING MY LEVEL FUCKING BEST TO HANDLE THIS REJECTION GRACEFULLY, DAVE.
CG: I DON'T KNOW IF YOU'VE EVER BEEN REJECTED BEFORE, BUT NEWSFLASH: IT FUCKING SUCKS! YOU WOULD THINK I WOULD BE USED TO IT BY NOW, BUT I'M NOT SURE IF THIS FEELING IS ONE THAT REALLY LENDS ITSELF TO EASY FAMILIARITY. I GUESS IF ANYONE COULD FIND OUT, THOUGH, IT'LL BE ME! SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO.
TG: will you shut your fucking panic blaster off for like one second
TG: jesus christ
TG: "rejection" what rejection we havent even established what exactly im rejecting
TG: how am i supposed to make an informed decision without the facts karkat
TG: also i thought you were going to just fucking come at me fists swinging all unpredictably about what with the initial response you gave me there
TG: so this sudden abrupt about face into embarrassing self flagellation took me way by fucking surprise hold on i need to get my fucking bearings again now
TG: cant tell if im on the defense or offense god youre confusing to be around
TG: haha
TG: understatement of the year
CG: ...
TG: dont ... me you douche
CG: HOW IS YOUR USE OF THE PHRASE "TWISTING IT UP INTO SOMETHING IT'S NOT" IN REGARDS TO OUR "FRIENDSHIP" NOT PERFECTLY FUCKING CLEAR AND POINTED REJECTION? EXPLAIN THIS TO ME.
TG: "friendship"
CG: YES?
TG: like why the scare quotes man
TG: i guess if we were never friends from your perspective that makes sense
CG: WHAT THE FUCK
CG: WHAT ARE YOU GOING ON ABOUT NOW! OF COURSE WE WERE FRIENDS! MY INABILITY TO FUCKING NAVIGATE THE TREACHEROUS TOOTHBEAST INFESTED WATERS OF SAID FRIENDSHIP MIGHT VERY WELL END IT, BUT IT DOESN'T ERASE THE FACT THAT IT EVER EXISTED?
TG: christ
TG: i am really fucking this up arent i
TG: like this is at least eighteen times worse than i imagined it would go and i was setting my hopes really low tbh
TG: incredible
CG: I'M GLAD YOU'RE ABLE TO FIND THE HUMOUR IN THIS. WHAT AM I SAYING, OF COURSE YOU ARE. THIS IS HILARIOUS FOR YOU, NO DOUBT. WELL GOOD. NO SENSE IN BOTH OF US BEING MISERABLE. WOULDN'T WANT TO BRING DOWN THE OVERALL MOOD OF THE SPACE ROCK, OH NO.
TG: cool
TG: thats enough of that
TG: stop for a sec and breathe you god damn panicky wiggler
TG: and listen because im about to explain some shit as requested
TG: strap in asshole
TG: when i said you were twisting shit up into something its not i was fishing for you to explain to me how exactly i was wrong about what it was in the first place because if theres one thing ive learned about karkat fucking vantas its that he loves explaining to me how im wrong about every single thing ive ever been wrong about in my life
TG: and i regret taking that somewhat underhanded approach now because instead of preachy know it all karkat on the line ive apparently got spastic assume the worst about literally every word said to him karkat instead
TG: so im just gonna be real clear and actually honest this time because honestly i just want this conversation to be over one way or the other so i can figure out what the other side of it fucking looks like
TG: do you like... like me
CG: NO!
TG: oh
CG: I MEAN
TG: ok youre right that actually really does not feel great
TG: haha wow that sucks a whole lot in fact
TG: ouch
CG: GOD
CG: I LIKE YOU.
TG: which is it really though
CG: I LIKE YOU! BUT IT'S NOT THAT SIMPLE!
TG: god youre about to talk about quadrants arent you
CG: YES
TG: no
CG: YES
TG: no
CG: YES! LISTEN.
CG: HALF THE TIME I WANT TO DRAG YOU SOMEWHERE AND YELL AT YOU UNTIL ALL OF MY OBVIOUSLY CALIGINOUS INTENT *FINALLY* SINKS IN AND YOU ADMIT THAT WHAT WE'VE BEEN DOING THIS WHOLE TIME IS HONESTLY REALLY OBVIOUS AND EGREGIOUS FLIRTING! AND I FANTASIZE ABOUT THIS PERFECT SCENARIO WHERE YOU JUST SMIRK AT ME IN THAT STUPID INFURIATING WAY YOU HAVE AND DRAWL SOMETHING IRREVERENT OUT ABOUT HOW IT TOOK ME LONG ENOUGH TO MAKE A STAND ABOUT IT AND YOU ADMIT YOU WERE LEADING ME ON PURPOSELY TO MAKE THE MOMENT EVEN MORE SATISFYING!
TG: uh
TG: whoa
CG: AND OTHER TIMES I WANT TO JUST SIT WITH YOU FOREVER DOING WHATEVER STUPID INANE INCONSEQUENTIAL SHIT WE'RE DOING AT THE TIME, BECAUSE EVERYTHING YOU DO SOMEHOW TWISTS ITSELF AROUND AND BECOMES HIDEOUSLY AND EMBARRASSINGLY ENDEARING BECAUSE IT'S *YOU*! I CATCH MYSELF PRODDING YOU INTO TALKING ABOUT THINGS JUST TO HEAR YOUR VOICE, AND I GET DISTRACTED FOR FUCKING HOURS JUST LOOKING AT YOU OUT OF THE CORNERS OF MY DISGUSTING WANDERING GANDERBULBS AND CONSIDERING WHAT YOU WOULD DO IF I SCOOTED CLOSER, OR MENTIONED HOW FASCINATING YOUR HABIT OF STICKING YOUR TONGUE OUT WHEN YOU'RE CONCENTRATED ON SOMETHING AND YOU DON'T THINK ANYONE IS LOOKING IS, OR JUST TROLLED UP AND GRABBED YOUR HAND.
TG: jesus
CG: OBVIOUSLY, ALL OF *THAT* IS TEXTBOOK FLUSHED CRUSH BULLSHIT, SO IT MAKES THE FIRST PARTS REALLY FUCKING CONFUSING, OKAY? I APPARENTLY FEEL ALL SORTS OF HEAVILY EMBARRASSING AND COMPLETELY CONTRADICTORY THINGS!
CG: AND NOW YOU KNOW!
CG: SO PLEASE, BY ALL MEANS, FINISH THIS AGONIZING REJECTION RITUAL NOW THAT YOU'RE FULLY INFORMED AND HAVE ALL THE FACTS, ARE YOU HAPPY, NOW?
CG: CAN YOU PLEASE JUST GET THIS OVER WITH?
TG: karkat
CG: WHAT?!!
TG: that is the absolute gayest shit i have ever heard
CG: OH MY FUCKING GOD
CG: YOU ARE THE FUCKING *WORST*
TG: an honest to god rainbow unicorn prancing out of a fairy forest with multiple well oiled scantily clad dudes riding sidesaddle on its back would only be like maybe half as gay as all that shit you just said
CG: FUCK YOU!
CG: I AM POURING MY FUCKING HEART OUT, AND YOU'RE JUST LAUGHING IT UP, AREN'T YOU? JOKING ABOUT SOME HUMAN SOCIOLOGICAL BULLSHIT I BARELY UNDERSTAND WHILE YOU GET A GOOD FUCKING CHUCKLE AT MY EXPENSE, FUCK YOU!!
TG: no look
TG: i cant like
TG: look at those words too hard without...
TG: god karkat
TG: you read too many fucking romance novels jesus christ
TG: why cant you just say
TG: so dave i kind of want to date you despite what a shithead you can be is that cool
TG: and then i can be like
TG: why mr vantas this is all so sudden why i never mayhap ill just fucking swoon on the spot or whatever the fuck
TG: real casual
CG: SO FUCKING CASUAL.
TG: yeah
TG: the truth is i dont know how to respond to all that
TG: i dont even know how to process all of that let alone respond to it are you fucking kidding me
TG: i read "drag you somewhere" and my brain shuts the fuck off
TG: and considering you OPENED with that
TG: this is hard ok
TG: but they arent... bad feelings exactly
TG: just confusing
CG: IT'S CONFUSING FOR ME TOO.
TG: but like
TG: ill tell you this right now i dont care about red or black or any other fucking color
TG: or quadrant
TG: or any of that nonsense
TG: all those feelings you talked about exhaustively arent exclusive to trolls
TG: i assure you humans can and do feel exactly those emotions strongly and very simultaneously
TG: so you can climb down off your fucking high hoofbeast and stop acting all martyred like youre the only one in the world who ever wanted to kiss someone and kill them at the same time
TG: like half of human media is focused around that exact dynamic so fuck you
CG: EXCEPT ONLY BETWEEN MALES AND FEMALES.
TG: but that doesnt mean it doesnt happen
TG: i dont think im gay
TG: and thats the truth
CG: THEN WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ALL THIS?!
TG: shoosh
TG: i wasnt done
TG: i dont think im normal either
TG: and that just makes it sound like i want to use you like an experiment or something to figure it out and you know just for the sake of honesty maybe thats partly what it is
CG: WOW.
TG: but all that shit you said up there that i cant look at too close or repeat because its like staring at the fucking sun is like a really close approximation to some of the shit ive been feeling sometimes about you
TG: so if you want to date me
TG: you should know i guess that im still uh
TG: working stuff out
TG: and yeah
TG: and when you said you didn't like me earlier it actually felt kind of like i got punched square in the sternum and trust me i know exactly what that feels like and it sucks pretty bad
TG: so that probably means something compromising about me
TG: something rose would love to know
CG: SO...
TG: so
CG: SO, DAVE
TG: yeah
CG: I KIND OF WANT TO DATE YOU. DESPITE WHAT A SHITHEAD YOU CAN BE.
TG: oh shit
CG: IS THAT COOL.
TG: lmao
TG: god
TG: yeah
TG: i mean
TG: sounds like it could be pretty sweet
CG: SO VERY CASUAL.
TG: shut the fuck up
CG: (:B
TG: no
CG: (:B
TG: stop
CG: (:B (:B (:B
TG: you know what fuck you
TG: bye
CG: DO YOU WANT TO HANG OUT LATER.
TG: obviously
CG: (:B
TG: BYE
*
And it gets better, for awhile.
Caliginous flirtation is allowed to be exactly what it is, and the way Dave grins at him when he realizes Karkat is needling him back into black territory on purpose is honestly fucking -- exhilarating. It's fantastic. They fight and they make up and they call each other every inventive insult they can think of. They sit too close together on the couch. Karkat talks shit about his music. Dave talks shit about his books. Karkat complains passionately about Dave's developing taste for leaving shitty and oftentimes obscene doodles all over Karkat's every god damn possession, and Dave whines endlessly about Karkat's propensity for overanalyzing every piece of media they share, because, in his own idiotic words, sometimes a shitpost is just a fucking shitpost, Karkat, jesus.
And it feels amazing, this push and pull, this mutual understanding. This one person willing to be his closest confidante, a sponge for all of his most embarrassing emotions, a sounding board to bounce ideas and frustrations and hopes and wants off of, a person to care for who so obviously cares in return, even if he squirms uncomfortably whenever those things are acknowledged directly.
For awhile, it's perfect.
And then it gets worse.
Karkat thinks he can pinpoint it all back -- of course -- to the kissing. It had started innocently enough. A natural progression of things. One day they are sitting on the couch, legs pressed together, pretending not to notice that fact, and the next Karkat is nudging Dave with an elbow and Dave is turning with a question on his face and Karkat is carefully bundling away all his wild terror at what he's about to do and leaning in so fucking close ... and Dave had kissed back! Lightning fast, barely any contact at all, really, but their lips had touched, god damn it, it counted. And they'd laughed, nervously, linked their hands together, sweat mingling against their respective palms, and just before they'd gone their separate ways to bed that night Dave had leaned in and kissed him again, initiating it himself. Karkat was almost glad he wasn't a god tier, in that moment, because he might have accidentally floated away on an unfamiliar cloud of hormonal bliss and never returned.
It had been so good, this new uncharted kissing territory, that it took Karkat far, far too fucking long to figure out the parts that had gotten weird.
It's not like kismeses never kiss. Quite the opposite. And -- sure, Dave isn't his kismesis, not exactly, but sometimes he is, sort of, in a way. It felt a little bit fucking unfair that he could be so increasingly okay with full on flushed make outs, but the second Karkat wanted something similar from this other angle, he pulled away.
Unfair and fucking frustrating.
"So, what," Karkat snaps, one day, finally, after weeks of unwisely bottling this in because frank and open conversation within the context of a still relatively new and fragile feeling relationship is fucking hard, fucking sue him. "You're fine with talking the talk, but the second I discover an actual foolproof way to shut your blithering word hole up, you just can't stand knowing I've got the advantage? Is that it?" They are in his block, ten minutes out from an annoying argument about whether or not there were romantic undertones in a human movie between two supporting male characters -- Dave still finds this idea absolutely repugnant, which is hurtful for so many reasons -- and Karkat has him pressed up against the metal wall, trapped between that and his body.
After all, when Dave starts getting cagey about romance between dudes, there's always this easy way to remind him that such things are not only real but also sometimes pretty fucking good.
Except when Karkat tries to kiss him, good and hard and authoritatively, Dave turns his face and pushes him away. The correct caliginous thing to do would be to take a stand, assert some dominance, maybe grab Dave's chin between his fingers and force his face up and kiss him anyway, but Karkat isn't always a total fucking idiot. His bulge hasn't completely overtaken his executive functioning. He can tell when Dave is uncomfortable, and right now -- like always, when things come to this, this way -- Dave is obviously extremely fucking uncomfortable.
So Karkat lets him go, crosses his arms, and sulks.
"Because I mean, it just seems a little hypocritical, to have you insisting up and down that humans have the same general urges trolls do in regards to caliginous romance, and then when I actually try to initiate anything any blacker than your average verbal beration, you're suddenly so cold on all this you might as well be carved of fucking ice!"
Which is maybe a little harsh, but god damn, he wants Dave so fucking bad, right now, and not in the nice, soft, hold each other gently on the couch kind of way -- he wants to push and grab, to be pushed and grabbed back, to yell their feelings at each other until they're red-faced, bruised and breathless, to feel the sort of passion you just don't get nervously fondling one another, second guessing every move and marinating in one's own virginal ineptitude. Is that so fucking wrong?
"Fuck off," Dave mumbles, and a brilliant red blush creeps up his neck and over his face. His fingers run nervously through his hair. He pushes his shades up his nose. Karkat continues to glare, impassive. "It's not that I don't -- what the fuck is this, are you actually -- you know the physical stuff is, like," he swallows. Karkat narrows his eyes.
"Don't pull this shit on me right now, Dave, this oh, the gay stuff is just so hard on my fragile human psyche. I think we have well and truly established that you actually really like specific types of things that from what I understand any human would immediately identify as definitely, even flagrantly gay. I think that if any single member of your species could hear the sounds you make when I --"
"Jesus, stop," Dave cuts him off with a strangled sort of gasp, and then he has a fist full of Karkat's sweater and is yanking him closer -- yes, good -- and slapping a hand over Karkat's mouth -- better and better -- and glaring at him with eyes that are -- are --
Karkat's anger immediately and almost violently gutters out. That isn't glinting frustration, promising simmering rage, there is nothing romantic from any angle in the way Dave looks right now. He just looks... scared. Sick. Like he might puke any second.
Dave shoves him away hard enough that Karkat actually loses his footing. His teeth clack together painfully as he lands ass-first on the hard metal floor, and he narrowly avoids biting off his own damn tongue. He stares up, eyes wide. Dave wraps his arms around his middle and hunches over, blowing out a loud, messy lungful of air, sucking in a noisy breath, repeat.
"I don't think you really get it," he says, between breaths. "And some of that is my fault because I don't want to fucking talk about it. I just don't, it's bad and it fucking sucks and I hate thinking about it let alone talking about it!" Noisy breaths. Karkat wonders if he's actually going to throw up. Can't figure out why, though he can tell at least that whatever is wrong, it is all his fault, because he is an asshole. A pushy piece of shit. "But when you act like I'm fucking stupid for having this gut reaction at all and I'm just some kind of fucking close minded idiot for not noticing things that I know, Karkat, I know for a fact weren't intended because I'm a fucking human and I know what humans were like, okay? I know what humans were like and you don't! I know what earth was like, and you don't! And when I'm trying to explain to you why I know that dudes aren't written to be into each other and maybe talk a little bit about why it was so hard for me to understand that I was into you, and you're just talking over me--" He stops to breathe, again. Karkat folds up on the floor and literally wishes he could die. "And then to you it's just, oh good, all these messy bad awful feelings are just like a fucking stage for some super scintillating hot sexy make outs, or whatever the fuck?"
"Jesus, Dave," Karkat says, desperate to stop this, whatever this is, pulling his knees against his chest and feeling like the worst kind of garbage. "I didn't realize. I'm sorry, okay? I'm really sorry. You know you can talk about fucking anything with me, okay? Anything. I thought it was just ..."
"I know," Dave says, and he sucks in one more noisy breath and straightens, holding it, then letting it out in a rush. He looks down at him. "I know. You always are. You don't get it. I know." And then he wipes his mouth like he's trying to erase the memory of the countless kisses they've shared before this moment, shakes his head, and walks out.
*
They talk about it.
All of it, for real, this time, frankly and honestly, no cagey non-answers, no vague allusions to what life on earth was like, just cold, hard, horribly depressing revelations, one after the other. Karkat does his best to not say shit while Dave is explaining everything, first because he isn't sure what to fucking say, and second because he is pretty sure if anyone interrupts him Dave will close his mouth and never broach the subject ever again. It's obviously hard for him. It hurts to watch. And what hurts even more is that there is still something he isn't talking about. Something important that underscores all of this, something that drove the lesson home for him in a way that's too personal for him to admit, something that Karkat knows if he just knew would bring this whole puzzle together in stark, startling clarity and make him want to kill something or someone for the way they made Dave think so god damn little of himself his whole achingly pitiable life.
He remembers the glimpses he got of that life over Trollian's viewport, an eternity ago, peeking over Terezi's shoulder, his think pan drunk on and marinating in rank jealousy chemicals. So fucking cool. Yeah right.
When he's done, Karkat asks cautious permission to hug him, which to his great fucking relief is granted, and this hug extends itself long past the time when such things should normally progress to "excruciatingly awkward," but instead of doing so it just feels... nice.
Karkat is more careful, after that. He stops initiating so much stuff. Asks beforehand. For months, he wonders if this new, honest, open, weirdly vulnerable figuring-himself-out-in-earnest Dave has managed to kill the caliginous side of his feelings for him for good. He's impossible to hate when he's so obviously struggling so much with hating himself. All Karkat can really think to do is to combat those instincts with, well, the opposite, but he isn't ready to think love, yet, so he doesn't.
But he does hold him. Kisses him. Shares stories about his own horribly pitiable life on Alternia. They laugh together, drawing parallels, bonding over shared otherness, over feeling alone and unappreciated, over insecurities and over being mutually certain they wouldn't survive to meaningful adulthood. Confiding in each other over how in a lot of ways this fucking game that had killed so many billions of humans and trolls had in an awful way represented, to them, their only means of escaping a worse fate at home. Struggling with the question -- if they had the chance to go back and never play, would they take it?
No. Hell no.
Bonding over the guilt and the thrill of knowing they weren't alone in answering that way.
And it's good, for awhile. It's easy. They're comfortable. Karkat moves his shit into Dave's block, and their friends all whisper and cajole and ask prodding questions and waggle their eyebrows, but this shit is none of their business and they hoard the details like gossip dragons, together.
*
The session draws nearer. Ghost-filled bubbles fill the empty space around their streaking path toward the final battle, and Dave seems more at peace with his own thoughts and feelings and emotions and less at peace with what he thinks they're going to find on the other side of this space journey every damn day. Karkat wakes up often with his body tangled around his, face pressed against Dave's chest, and finds him awake, dark circles under his eyes, a reversal of the situation they were in at the start of this journey so complete that it would be comical if he weren't so worried.
"Hey," he says, one day, into the comfortable silence.
"Sup," Dave whispers back. His fingers move in Karkat's hair. Karkat's bloodpusher has a fucking joy spasm in his chest like the pathetic excessively emotional organ it is, and for a second it's hard to breathe.
It passes. He squirms closer, wrapping his arms around him, pressing his nose obnoxiously into the soft skin between his neck and shoulder. Dave laughs -- softly, but his whole body vibrates with it. Karkat sighs. Dave swallows; Karkat can feel very excruciating twitch of his pharyngeal muscles. "Sleep much?" he asks, knowing the answer already.
"Not really," Dave says. "You know how it is."
"Too fucking well," Karkat agrees.
He waits, comfortably, while Dave decides whether or not he's going to talk about it. Karkat can tell he's thinking about it, because Dave's pulse is audible this close to his throat and it is hammering. Karkat keeps his breath even and body relaxed, like he isn't anticipating anything, judging anything, expecting or even really desiring any specific outcome.
"My brother," Dave says, finally. Clears his throat. "Bro."
"Mmhm," Karkat says.
"He's gonna be there, you know."
"That's what Rose says."
"You know she's right. She's always right about this kinda shit."
"Ah, yes. I know. That's why through following her divine instructions, you managed to blow up the Green Sun in a shining moment of rebellious triumph, ending Skaia's eternal stranglehold on reality and foiling the machinations of an evil omniscient puppet alien full stop."
"Man, fuck you." He shifts, shoving him gently with his shoulder. "You know what I mean. That shit was all before she got all these crazy Seer powers, anyway. She's right about this one, it just feels right, okay? It feels obvious. He's going to be there, this teen kid version of my bro, and I--"
He stops. Karkat nudges him with his chin.
"I'm kinda just really not looking forward to that," he says, softly.
It's more than he usually says. Karkat isn't even sure he needs to hear the full story to understand it, at least on a fundamental, basic level, so he just nods.
"Maybe you won't have to see him," he offers.
Dave laughs, but this time it sounds bitter.
"In some ways," he says, and there's this angry undercurrent to his words, "That would almost be fuckin' worse. Knowing he's out there, this big fuckin' I don't know, question mark, and if I never see him, I guess knowing he never bothered to look for me, either, but you know, why would he, really?"
"Hmm."
"And Rose and John and Jade will probably get all these happy reunions, you know, assuming we all survive that long, and they're just gonna all be there hugging and probably crying and just getting their sap all over everyone and it'll just be all emotional as fuck, and meanwhile I, just... thinkin about how fucked up it all is, getting away from it and understanding it and then resenting that distance and then gettin' this chance and not even knowing what to say, because what do you say, especially when everyone else is conducting happy, tearful reunions? Fuck that. Man, fuck that," he says, again, louder, fidgeting with agitation. Karkat lifts his head, lifts himself onto one shoulder, and looks down at him.
Dave goes quiet and still beneath him, and Karkat just thinks, fuck it.
"Do you want a distraction," he says. His face is suddenly on fire. This feels right. It's also fucking terrifying, as intentions crystallize in his mind's distressingly hormonal eye.
Dave exhales, loudly. Studies him. He isn't wearing his shades, and Karkat is still not sure what exactly his eyes are saying -- but he likes being able to see them.
"Yeah," Dave says, finally. A shy little flicker of a smile twitches his lips upward. Karkat leans down and kisses them, because they are irresistible. He is irresistible. "Distract me," Dave demands, when Karkat breaks off the kiss.
He's worried at first that he's taking advantage -- that he's leveraging emotional vulnerability for physical satisfaction -- but Dave encourages him, verbally, physically. When Karkat hesitates, Dave initiates, instead. It's both of them, both of them wanting, both of them taking, and both of them giving, and when it's done and they're laying there together, clinging, breathing, replaying the events of the morning over and over in their addled think pans, Karkat realizes with equal parts wonder and trepidation that the memory of this morning is going to be with him forever -- however long that is, for him. He sure as fuck doesn't know.
More importantly, in the aftermath of it, Dave holds him close and gets some god damn sleep.
*
It picks up again, after that. Like they've reached the highest possible peak of flushed bullshit between them and so obviously there's nowhere to go afterward than down the rocky slope back into caliginous hell.
The session is weeks away, and Dave is muttering to himself, words that are too muted to parse out but too audible to ignore, an irritating buzzing in the background that drives Karkat absolutely batshit, until finally, he shoots up off the couch and rounds on him.
"Will you please stop talking under your god damn breath, Dave, I cannot hear that, and you know I can't, and if you have something to say just fucking say it! Out loud! In a normal, conversational tone! Like this!"
"Firstly," Dave says, eternally (infuriatingly!) patient, "That is not a normal or conversational tone, Karkat."
"You know what I mean!"
"Also, I didn't realize I was doing it, so fuck you, I don't bitch you out about your little foibles."
"Except you do do that, literally all the time!"
"Name one time."
"Just this fucking morning, asswipe, when you made fun of me for like three fucking hours for folding the fucking towels in the ablution block like a normal functioning sentient creature."
"Dude, you didn't just fold the towels. You like, arranged them all by size and color and softness, Karkat, that is extremely god damn neurotic behavior, especially when I am just going to take them all and dry my ass off with them and walk all over them and leave them in a massive unpleasantly damp and wrinkled pile in the middle of the floor again in less than twenty hours."
"You had better god damn not, what is wrong with you? I realize to some extent that you were never taught the basics of existing as a functioning individual, Dave, but picking shit up after you're done with it is stuff that we teach wigglers, okay? Stuff that literal freshly cracked honest to god grubs with zero cognitive cohesion can still grasp!"
"I'm gonna like, take them all under my arm like this," Dave punctuates this statement by grabbing Karkat around the waist, bending him easily over under his arm, like a sack of fucking barkbeast kibble, "and then I'm gonna take them all into the bedroom, like this," Dave goes on, blithely, half-carrying and half-dragging Karkat in that general direction. Sputtering, Karkat kicks his feet, protesting in a voice that is at least twice as shrill as he would strictly like.
"Put me fucking down, you fucking tool, god damn it, Dave --"
"And then I'm gonna drop them all on the bed, like this," Dave says, grunting with effort as he lifts Karkat's struggling weight by the waist and heaves him up onto the concupiscent platform. Karkat immediately tries to scramble away, but Dave catches him by the ankle, laughing. "And then I'm gonna make a fucking pile out of them all, Karkat, every single last towel, an honest to god bonafide genuine troll pile." He climbs over him on the bed, and Karkat grabs his shoulders and shoves, intending to send him flying off the bed, but of course Dave can actually fly so he just kind of floats up and laughs some more instead. Karkat growls.
"Fuck you!" he says, hotly. Eloquently.
"And then I'm gonna climb inside them and make sure they're good and messed up, along with the bed, because I know you just fucking love that, too."
"If I'm the towel pile in this metaphor, I hope you realize that your chances of getting inside me right now are roughly zero, you slovenly sack of shit!"
Dave just laughs at this, laughs and flops his entire body weight up against him. This is admittedly distracting, and then to add insult to injury, Dave's fingers creep up his sides under his sweater and start tickling him, which is just, fucking, humiliating. Karkat squirms and laughs -- angrily, he laughs as angrily as possible -- but Dave is stronger than he is and there is no hope of escape. He relents only when Karkat insists in breathless ferocity that he is literally going to piss his fucking pants, and the very moment he stops Karkat bucks his entire body enough to slide free and off the side of the bed, onto the floor.
Dave sits up, breathing hard. Karkat looks up at him, peeking over the side of the bed. His entire thorax is a sore plane of exhausted agony. He glares.
"Well, what do you know! After that, I think I need a shower," Dave says, grinning like the fucking jackass he is.
Karkat jumps to his feet and tackles him hard enough to knock them both off the bed.
The thing is, things have changed so much from the beginning, that even the slide into caliginous hell is starting to feel pretty fucking good. Karkat marvels at this while he holds his boyfriend down against a metal grate with his knees.
"What, are you going to tickle me?" Dave bats his eyes at him. Karkat slides his hands under his shirt. Dave squirms under him, grinning. "Go ahead, do your worst, I guarantee you I am nowhere near as sensitive to that shit as you."
Karkat finds one of his nipples, which are fantastic features of the human anatomy, both because they are shockingly fun to experiment with and because they serve as an incredibly potent weak point in caliginous altercations. He pinches, hard.
"Jesus Christ!" Dave shouts, his smug tone evaporated instantaneously. He bucks beneath him.
"I don't know, Dave, aren't you ticklish at all?" Karkat finds the other one, administering a similar treatment, and Dave's arms shoot up and hit his chest with enough force to knock the wind out of him, but the look on his face is worth it, is it all so very fucking worth it.
"You absolute fucker," Dave gasps, crossing his arms over his chest. "I am never letting you touch me again, that's it."
"Your loss," Karkat chokes out, when he has his breath back.
"I'm going to get you for that," Dave vows, and Karkat raises his eyebrows, leaning back on his knees.
"Promises, promises," he says, and Dave just covers his eyes with a derisive but, Karkat thinks, at least half genuinely amused snort.
*
Things spin out of control, for awhile.
The new session swallows their trajectory, and for the first time in nearly two sweeps, they have serious shit to do. Battles to fight. Reunions to participate in. Universes to create. Worlds to regrow. The all encompassing press of stuff is so overwhelming for awhile that their relationship feels secondary for the first time since its inception. Somehow suddenly it is not the most interesting or intriguing aspect of their lives, though they never feel any less close. Just ... different. Like they have lives again, apart from each other, which, Karkat patiently reminds himself daily, is by no means a bad thing.
But it's terrifying. The downward slope cuts off and back up into desperate flushed and clingy territory, first in the rush of relief that he and Dave survived at all, and next on the heels of persistent worry that now that Dave has all his friends and family and a world larger than a tiny space rock to exist on, he'll grow past Karkat. He won't need him anymore. He'll think he's a burden, probably.
They keep their relationship quiet throughout this adjustment period, and though they've talked about it, exhaustively, threads of unease still catch Karkat in weak moments, whispers that wonder if Dave is holding off telling everyone because he doesn't think they'll last long enough for it to be relevant. It's nonsense, but if there is one thing Karkat learns to accept about himself in the early days of new earth, it's that he can be a heinously irrational, horribly jealous piece of shit.
The thing is, Dave can be, too.
And, hilariously, that mutual possessiveness makes it easier. They talk. They plan. They communicate with others and each other and try their best not to let the worst parts of themselves take over -- in public, at least. And in private, they usually find ways to work it out. Interesting ways. Compelling ways. They have a can house to themselves and make generous use of it, transient though the solution is.
Eventually they do their duty as gods to the new universe and the genetic seeds to an entire recycled planet's worth of sentient life, and Karkat tries not to dwell too long on the wigglers that look like Dave and nothing like him -- and tries even harder not to dwell on the ones that resemble them both. What that means from their conflicting perspectives.
They leave the fledgling world and the Mayor's shining beacon of democracy behind to explore their own creation, and finally, finally, the spinning slows. It doesn't stop -- Karkat thinks it will probably never stop -- but they have time to think, again. The weight of the amount of time they have ahead of them begins to settle around them, the frenzy of togetherness that finding everyone again sparked off fading into something more sustainable. And they're here, together again in their own space, their own tiny little corner carved out of existence. Their friends leave their mark and a sustained sense of presence, the isolation of the meteor absent, but the close intimacy of it re-emerging in full force.
They can't get away with living together without telling everyone what they are to one another, so they do so, only to find that everyone has already figured it out.
And normal reestablishes itself.
And it's perfect. The sort of perfect where the imperfections only make the final result even better in the end. He says that to Dave, one time, sleepy contentment dangerously weakening his mouth filter, and Dave responds with this nervous giggle and tugs Karkat's hair playfully and calls him a gross fucking sap.
Karkat is still cautious with the world love, not because he doubts it by this point, but because it's a strong word to throw around and he and Dave squirm like wigglers in the naked sunlight when either of them says it too much.
"I love you," he says here, deploying it tactically, and Dave sighs.
"I love you, too," he says. "You gross fucking sap."
*
It's occurred to Karkat before that maybe what he's doing with Dave isn't vacillation at all. He used to lay awake sometimes, running it through his think pan, mulling over the implications exhaustively, but he's come to realize that it doesn't especially matter, not anymore, and maybe it never did.
Their world is different from Alternia and Old Earth both, and the fusion they've created doesn't mandate the ways in which people are allowed to connect to one another. And Karkat has seen it for himself -- Trolls that stick to quadrants, trolls that disavow it completely. Humans that dabble in it, swear it off and swear by it, they all exist. Hybrids that fall on either extreme and everywhere between. He and Dave aren't really an anomaly, anymore. No one on this planet even blinks at their arrangement. The new normal includes them all, and occasionally someone tries to outline the rules, really put that shit on paper, and it never fucking works because everyone has their own definition of moirail and kismesis and matesprit, anymore.
It's chaotic, far from the brutally enforced order that allowed the Alternian Empire to span galaxies. Sometimes, it drives Karkat fucking crazy.
And other times, he looks around him and at the trolls and humans and hybrids all in their little kingdom, living their lives the way they want, with people they chose, unafraid to be different, free and unresigned to a bleak, predetermined future, and he thinks his heart might just give out.
"You look like you're having some thoughts worth sharing, right now," Dave says, finding him on the upper deck of their shared hive, looking out over their little city, bustling under the light of a neon moon.
"How long do you think I'll live?" Karkat asks, abruptly, giving voice to a worry that's been plaguing him since they walked through the damn door. And Dave startles beside him, blinking down with wide eyes. He crouches down, slumps against him on the floor, stick his legs through the railings and hooks one ankle with his.
"What kind of question is that? For fucking ever, obviously," Dave says, brows pulled down. "You're a fucking god, dumbass."
Karkat nods, chewing his lip.
"Just because you can't fly doesn't mean you aren't immortal," Dave insists. "Ultimate Reward, remember? You're stuck here forever. Sorry."
Karkat laughs. "Sorry?"
"Yeah, sorry." Dave bumps him with his shoulder. "You gotta share eternity with me. Rough deal."
"Fuck off," Karkat sighs, sliding an arm around him, yanking him close. A flutter of irritation shivers through him, and he smiles.
"Oh, yeah? Is that an order, your Majesty?"
Karkat kicks him. Dave bites his ear. Karkat grabs a fist full of his stupid soft human hair and yanks him backward, bends over him, and pinches the sensitive skin right under his jaw between his teeth. Dave makes a sound that's half protest, half encouragement, and Karkat thinks, eternity sounds really, really fucking nice.
*
It starts like this.
Flying, arm in arm. Fingers laced together. Bodies pressed close. Passing through a glittering abyss toward a single specific pinprick of light.
They have discovered through the eons that just because they have an infinite supply of time, it hardly means they should waste any of it. They're gods, not shitty slackers pissing away all their potential languishing away in the midst of civilizations that have moved on. The sun takes shape, the solar system, the new potential planets, spinning contentedly, dormant and unaware of their approach. For now.
This is their universe, after all, and there are stars and stars and stars.