Homestuck

low-fantasy AU ftw!

By The Letter (of the law)

"No, but answer me this, do you want to invalidate this whole farce of a legal and religious joining of blah-di-fucking-blah? Because I have looked at your laws and if we don't consummate the union it's not valid!"

Karkat loomed over his brand-new 'husband', teeth bared -- which might have been more intimidating if he hadn't been fighting ineffectually with the fiddly wedding shirt's too-precious-to-destroy buttons for the last five minutes. (It wasn't that his hands were shaking and he needed to keep them busy, of course not.)

"And I have it from an actual lawyer that this means we do, actually, 'have to fuck it out', because the law doesn't care about irrelevant asides and special cases like reproductive incompatibility!"

Karkat's 'husband' gave a slow blink from the bed, where he lay stretched out on his side, still fully dressed and with his boots on. The coverlet was dusty now but who gave a fuck, Karkat sure as hell didn't, he was pretty sure he wanted to slap his feet off there for pretty much the same reason he wanted to slap him across the face, and the boots were just a convenient excuse he was ready to own up for. At least to himself. Privately.

"Dude."

To Dave Strider-Vantas himself, Karkat would not even admit a polar night felt slightly chilly. The -- just, the nerve of him, the sheer "meh, who the hell even cares" exuding from his every pore--

"I don't know about you but for months I've been buried in wedding preparation shit--"

"Oh wow, no, I have no idea what that's like!"

"--shit massive enough to have come out of a hundred bulls, like, mammoth sized bulls. I've slept like five--" He lifted his hand, fingers open wide like Karkat needed the high number illustrated, "hours this whole last week. We have a whole and entire night where by tradition no one's gonna bother us until it's time to shower us in croissants and bacon and then leave us alone the rest of the next morning." He dropped his head on the pillow pointedly, hands tucked behind his neck. "I don't care what you do, but I'm sleeping."

Karkat hissed under his breath, and yanked his undershirt open. Buttons plinked off under the concupiscent platform. He turned to face his husband, letting the shirt fall open, daring him to -- to say anything, say the wrong thing, make the wrong face, not make any face --

Dave's mouth flattened in a line Karkat couldn't interpret. "Congrats on the most sensual strip-tease I was ever on the receiving end of," he drawled.

Karkat bristled, hesitated on the verge of tackling him -- he knew it wasn't how it was supposed to go between them, wasn't how they'd negotiated it through ambassadors and go-betweens, but kismeses were concupiscent enough for human wedding vows to fit and better than nothing, were they? (Better than empty contractual sex.) Better than no actual binding sex. But then his 'husband' sat up and sighed, shoulders sagging with unfeigned tiredness.

"You're as into me as a snipped cat is into a cactus, dude."

Karkat flinched, glanced away.

"Which granted is weird as fuck but leave the Strider magic some time to operate, yeah? People will only know that we took, like, two days or, or even a week to frick if we tell them."

Fuck shame; Karkat made himself look at him again, rolled his eyes pointedly. "Or they sniff it off us, and they happen to be law-obsessed! You've met my best woman, haven't you?"

"... Well then we'll say we did it under the shower. Tadah, all incriminating evidence went down the drain, it's like magic."

He raked a hand through his smooth, flat hair, pushing it backward. Karkat fisted his hands, wanting to tangle it worse, tangle it so bad it'd stop falling back to those perfect, fake-looking locks.

"There is absolutely no way this can go wrong," he retorted, cynical, though he wanted -- Terezi wouldn't examine their bathroom and he knew it; hell, even if she figured it out, he knew she wouldn't tell, he knew she would sit on her principles and cover for him. It was just an excuse, because if he let himself accept an out his fucking hubbie offered so graciously then he'd never --

"No yeah actually there is no way, because the worst that could happen is they're suspicious but can't prove jack shit. But point is I am so tired a whole brothel's worth of pros couldn't suck my dick hard right now, I mean not saying that you're not cute -- I mean, you've got a nice ass and all and all I just -- this is meant to illustrate how freakily exhausted I am, okay, it's not a judgment on your hotness meter or like, my usual level of performance, I can perform fine, hell, great, I just."

His weird pale skin had gone wine-dark, his impassible face awkward with tension. Oh.

"Like. Not today."

The tangle of Karkat's rage and nerves unwound all at once.

"You're a virgin, aren't you."

Dave pretended to look straight at him, but Karkat's eyes were better than his in candlelight and it was easy to see them skidding away. "Wow, what's with those aspersions, no, seriously, fuck you."

"Tomorrow," Karkat promised around a crooked smile, and made himself sit on the mattress beside his husband to pull off his boots and kick off his pants.