Those fucking humans. You remember. They won. They won everything. They even won you. Won all of you back from your dead-end fucking universe and took you with them into their reality-spraining victory. Cheating nookstains didn’t even fight; they won by ‘shenanigans’, that peculiarly human trick of winning-by-not-playing. And in that inside-out, backwards way of theirs, they never even considered keeping all the spoils for themselves.

Everything is more fun when there's something at stake, right? Swinging ought to be the same.

Being an adult is hard, it is hard and no one understands. Particularly when your only child starts polyamorously dating aliens.

Sollux Captor is 22 years old, a successful freelance web designer, and an avid player of the wildly successful MMORPG, Grubquest. Karkat Vantas is 19 years old, a cranky CS-major freshman, and an avid player of the wildly successful MMORPG, Grubquest. Sollux and Karkat are the worst best friends and one of the top player-pairs in the game. In a month, they're meeting for the first time and it's exciting... and terrifying.

Sollux would be willing to wait forever for Karkat to feel ready, but the drones aren't so patient.

Sollux has found a new favourite flavour.

Karkat's a big stupid romantic, and romance is a language: sloppier than anything Sollux has ever programmed, but it still has its own grammar and its own important commands. This scar-trading ritual thing means, believe that I'm sticking around.

Sollux has two wriggling gifts for Karkat. The first is a traditional Wriggling Day present, complete with wrapping and bow. The second one wriggles in an entirely different manner.

You're a late bloomer at nine sweeps, and you don't yet have a concupiscent quadrant filled. This leaves you alone and self-pailing for the duration of your mating cycle—at least, that was the idea. When Karkat bursts in on you, it sort of throws off your plans for the week.

No SGRUB AU, post successful coup, following Eridan Ampora's attempts to make up for being "The Greatest Douchecanoe In The Galaxy" as he finds himself stuck with a bunch of midbloods and fighting to survive such odds as "Oh Shit, It's Drone Season And I Ain't Got Neither A Matesprit Nor A Kismesis". Featuring Karkat "Fix Your Fucking Shit Before I Fix It For You" Vantas reprising his role of the scariest motherfucker this side of the galaxy. Also gills, piercings, and piercings in gills. Also, also sex.

"I got you this." He sets a tiny box on the table between you and nudges it in your direction with psionics. You stare at it. It's the right size to hold a human-style commitment-designation ring, which you sometimes think would be a cool thing to have but as far as you know he's never been interested in. "For those times when I'm being a jackass and you need to snap me out of it." A little smile, a hint of the smug asslord creeping back in around the edges of the apologetic matesprit. "Or when you just want a shortcut to getting my attention."

"Vantas, you lucky bastard," Straterrorist Reikar says, shaking her head. "Going to see that pilot of yours?" You grin. "Only chance I'm going to have for the next sweep, so we better get our duty to the Mother done while we can."

Chapter 6: Sollux/Karkat, nook worship

Karkat can match him at either end of his scale, balancing both highs and lows with this kind of frothing, incoherent fury that's...kind of attractive, in the right light. All that energy. All that drive.

Karkat has more secrets than just his freakish blood, but he can't hide forever.

"But he had seen the eggs Sollux chose, plain white and faux-chitinous. They were only objects. He had seen no elaborate pulsing, vibrating tubes concealed around the hive, no geometric anomalies or live creatures in the egg jar, and with growing disbelief Karkat began to wonder if Sollux was inexplicably on the vanilla side of what was turning out to be an entire subculture of oviposition." Sollux picks up some jelly and a dozen eggs.

Care and fucking of your lispy bipolar nerd.

Karkat accidentally stumbles across Sollux's nookworm, and...well, he's always wanted to try one, so why the fuck not? A drabble based on two wonderful pieces of art by Syblatortue!