When you ask if you can tie Karkat up tonight, he’s basically not surprised at all. It’s not an all-the-time-always thing, but it’s pretty standard! So he’s not surprised, no, but he still goes bright red and shrugs with one shoulder and says sure, he guesses he doesn’t have a problem with it (like you can’t totally see just how hard he’s blushing). It’s pretty dang adorable.
He pushes off the bed in one smooth motion, and your bloodpusher skips a beat as he takes a step towards you. “Really.” “If, if you’re trying to imply anything lewd—” “Lewd? Seriously? You sound like Zahhak.” Another step. Your voice is too shrill when you ask, “But are you?” He braces one hand against the wall over your shoulder, tilts his head to the side, and smirks in that infuriating, awful way. “What do you think?”
AC: :33 < *ac wanders over to her furrends hive and carefully places a purresent of a freshly killed cluckbeast on the ground* AC: :33 < *she scratches tentatively at his door and asks if dave is home* AC: :33 < *she thinks that if he isnt she can find other ways to spend her evening but that it would be much more fun to spend it together* TG: *dave types sup on his keyboard* AC: :33 < booo thats cheating!!! TG: *dave types how is this cheating on his keyboard* TG: oh wait TG: *akwete purrmusk types how is this cheating on his keyboard*
Prolly if the two of you had handled this on your own, it woulda turned bloody real fast. You're guessin' neither of you woulda been willin' to let it go without the other one dead, and who the fuck knows what that coulda done to your two groups of friends. Now, you ain't gonna fuck shit up for everyone else if you can help it, but like fuck are you just gonna let Feferi Peixes have her own way. Not over your dead body, necessarily. But... maybe over hers. Lucky for the two of you, lil' Vantas McNubs is way too nosy for his own good. An' way too persistent. An' way too fuckin' precious to ever, ever hurt. It was gettin' real coddamn ugly the first time he jumped in between you. Feferi was just about ready to go for you, an' like shell were you lettin' her get away with that bullshit, an' both of you were there with your tridents out an' all, an' there's Karkat, just jumpin' in the middle like it ain't no thing.
You are suffering. There is a brand new circle of troll hell, and you're the lucky asshole who gets to experience it firsthand. You might have been making your peace with your eventual doom since you pupated, but nothing could have prepared you for this. Kankri is lecturing you. Ok, no, that's not even a fair description of what's happening here. Kankri is lecturing you. Kankri has been lecturing you. Kankri has been lecturing you for two fucking hours what the fuck. You have given him... let's count it up now... yeah, exactly zero reasons to do this to you. You don't even have a single goddamn clue about what has him so spun up. He happened to come back to the hive while you were making the thirty second trip between your husktop and the food preparation block, and you said hi. This is what happens when you try to be polite. All you wanted was an energy drink.
Your first mistake is when you spot the shirt with 'daddy' written on it in sparkling pink letters... and somehow fail to leave. You're thinking about it, you're definitely thinking about it, it would be so easy to just toss a twenty on the table and make a run for it-- But then he spots you and waves. Trapped. He tucks his hands into his pockets, ah yes, accidentally pulling his leather jacket wider open, just in case you managed to miss his shirt before. As he weaves his way through the tables, he gives you a nod that seems far too studied to actually be casual, and looks you up and down in a way that makes you grimace.
The two of you pretend to ignore them for a moment longer, until you just can’t hold in the laughter anymore and both lose it. While you’re catching your breath (and maybe still nibbling on Latula’s throat), she says, “So, dudes. You want in on this pants party or what?” They both say, “Yes,” at the same time, and they’re too distracted to do more than try to elbow each other in the ribs without taking their eyes off you, and it’s pretty much the cutest thing ever.
The problem is that you’re at the mercy of a useless, outmoded, ass-backwards mess of a biological process. The drones are gone. They’re never coming again. But your body sure thinks they are. It was— You wouldn’t say it was fine, but it was at least tolerable for a while. Realistically speaking, there was always a reasonable (ninety-nine percent) chance that you’d be culled the first time you tried to supply the drones with a pail, and you’ve been bracing yourself to deal with this since you pupated, for fuck’s sake. It feels like a kick to the shame gloves when your body betrays you and decides, whoops, no, it’s time to be all about filling pails for the glory of the empire.
