One minute Karkat was shuffling random odds and ends out of a cupboard in the meteor's lab-kitchen looking for that mythical last package of Instant Grubcorns, the next he was standing like a dumbass on space-black brittle rock, a bottle of Magnetic Wodka in hand and lakes of blood all around.
Pulse and Haze. Joy.
He scanned his surroundings for other people -- the meteor crew, memories of people, dead Karkats -- but there was no one in sight. Just a lot of red all around, and the next island of brittle, sharp-edged rock just a little bit too far away.
Yep, sounded like his life.
He considered. The bubble looked pretty huge -- he couldn't see a spot where it merged with any other memory, or a spot where it ended. He could be here a good long while, stuck on a rock five steps wide and just jagged enough to thoroughly tenderize his rear flesh cushions.
Or he could drink a mouthful of liquid courage -- urgh, why the fuck did the humans call it that -- and ... a second mouthful for the road, and then take three running steps and jump for it.
Predictably his foot slipped a bit and he ended up heel deep in the lake. The meaty, warm scent of fresh blood rose, making him gag.
A third mouthful couldn't hurt, and it could make the smell go away. Or at least kill his sense of smell long enough to pretend it had.
When he saw them his first thought was oh fuck no because they were the last left who he'd never seen with white empty eyes and he'd have appreciated if he never had to, and his second thought was I am never telling Dave how much of a lightweight I apparently am, because their eyes were moon-green and sea-blue and of course if one person in the whole universe could get drunk to the point of hallucination in three swallows it was probably required by law to be him.
His third thought was ow jegusfuck. "Ow, jegusfuck! Did you have to fucking tackle me?!"
There was a girl in a black dress with her arms around his neck and the rest of her on his lap. (and his chest, and his everything.) She weighed approximately the same as a little boulder. There was a beanpole of a guy doing the loadgaper dance behind her, all in blue with a stupid-long hood tail that inexplicably refused to be stepped upon.
"Karkat Karkat Karkat!! Hiiii!!!! It's you!!"
"It's me," he replied, mouth on automatic, still blinking dumbly. Girl, boy, girl. Boy. Humans. Definitely humans. "A fact which I bemoan daily."
Definitely alive.
"You're alive."
John -- because of course it was John, who else could this even be -- leaned down over Jade's -- Jade's! -- shoulder, grinning. His teeth didn't look quite as huge now his face had broadened to match, but still pretty sizeable. "Yup! Taking a nice long nap, as the doctor ordered. You're awake?"
"Considering you are not currently chatting up my six sweeps old double as he tries to fillet you for being the weirdassiest, freakiest Consorts he's ever seen, I'd say that's a fair bet," Karkat replied, acerbic. Jade snickered. (Or maybe even chortled, actually, it had a nasal snorting sound to it that was anything but elegant. It felt so real anyway, so unexpectedly amusing, he caught himself curling his lips upwards a bit.)
She was still in his lap. Uh.
"We saw him earlier, actually! You were so cute as a kid. A complete douchewaffle, mind, but a cute douchewaffle at least."
"... Point for enthusiasm on the backhand there. If not for style." He tried not to fluster. Of course she didn't mean the cute thing, no one ever did and he was the only one to take that sort of thoughtless comment to heart.
Blinding grin. He couldn't even take her whole face in at once. He just stared at her mouth -- her teeth. The way her eyes crinkled at the corners, that would have been too much.
"To be fair, the only people I have to practice on are Davesprite, who is perpetually thirteen, and John."
John protested, tugging on a furry white ear. It was where a horn should have been and that was weird, but almost half normal, not the gaping absence that he'd eventually gotten used to but which still registered as a lack. It looked soft, too. Gogdamn, he could not be drunk already.
"Harley. I'm not sure how you're not skewering yourself on my ossified thigh struts here, but more power to you. Just... are you going to stay on my lap long? Because I don't know if it's just Rose and Dave being Rose and Dave but they don't really..."
She was close. And warm. ... She even smelled nice.
John's hand was on his shoulder and it was warm too, a little heavy and wider than his and strong, they were real and alive and they were touching him.
Someone was touching him. Two someones.
He blinked quickly and took a fourth swallow of Rose's Wodka.
"Yeah, it's not fair, you're totally monopolizing the Karkat lap throne."
Jade pointed her tongue out. Gnh. Karkat bounced his knees, kind of harsh, because if this lasted he was going to start getting ideas. Stupid adolescent body. Stupid not being able to deal with how he fucking pined for someone's touch. Anyone's. His moirail's especially but. Anyone's.
Fuck.
Jade dismounted with a pout and ruffled his hair. Karkat grumbled and pretended he minded. John held out his hand and he switched the bottle to his other hand to take it, let himself be yanked up -- shit, he'd known from years of observation that Egberts in general had some mangrit to throw around but the brat had grown even stronger somehow. "Yeah, thanks, Egbeack!"
Because of course the second he was standing on his own two feet it meant John had to yank him into the kind of hug the horrorterrors held as the Platonic Ideal of all true and worthwhile hugs in Creation. Tight, and one arm high around his back so he couldn't lean back and one around his waist so he couldn't step back, therefore full body contact, and a nose in his neck oh troll jegus maybe he was dead after all and they'd found nothing else to shock him into remembering.
Nope, still feeling alive over there. Shit. Maybe a little too much.
"Hold on!" John yelled dick-happy in his ear, and -- leaned back? lifted Karkat so his feet would be off the ground? Yeah, that's what it had to be, that's what it -- oh fuck, oh fuck the horizon was shifting, the angle of view, the --
"John Egbert you put me back down on the ground right this instant!"
"No can do!" the ginormous nook-for-brains replied gaily, and rose fast enough to make Karkat's black shirt ripple in the wind. Jade was rising behind them, grinning the exact same grin. Karkat's claws were trying to dig themselves sheaths in John's back, but he'd asked for it.
"Why the hell not you egregious rot-sponged cum-guzzling--gnah!"
Oh fuck John, fuck John platonically for pretending to let go.
"Because Little Memory You was heading your way and we don't want to waste time with him, we could wake up any time! Let's go to a place he won't go, okay?"
He growled, dug an elbow in John's shoulder shuffling his weight to see Jade better. His knees were clamped like a vice on the human's narrow hips. (He was totally not giving any thought to how that parted the edges of his nook just enough to remind him it was there.) "Like what, my hive? That's still where I spent half the time when I was on my planet, we have a pretty hefty chance of running into him on the way back."
John and Jade exchanged a look. It was the kind of look Rose exchanged with Kanaya or Dave. (Dave with Terezi.) I know you so well, what do we need words for. It ached.
"Actually," Jade asked with too much brightness. "Did you ever find your quest bed?"
"Cocoon, and thanks for rubbing it in," he grumbled, and tried to turn away only he'd forgotten John's face was there and they had a cheekbone accident. Hrrmph. "Stop laughing, bulgeknot."
"It's just that if you never saw it then it wouldn't be in this bubble."
"... Noooo kidding."
"And then you couldn't show it to us!"
The ground kept rushing underneath, patches of red and black, black and red, sometimes for variety's sake there would be a crumbled, unusable building or half an arch, fallen in. His planet was so fascinating! Nowhere to get the fuck away from all the offensively, eye-searingly bright blood. "That I can is not in question, Harley, but you're presuming rather a lot if you think I would want to."
They exchanged another look. Karkat glowered. He tried to take a fifth sip, but Jade snatched the bottle from his hand, sniffed it, and captchalogued it without missing a beat. Karkat was torn between asking her how she could even do that if she was asleep instead of bodily present and throwing a tantrum. He might have fumbled onto the bottle by accident but getting drunk still seemed the best idea he'd ever had in about, oh, two sweeps. Seemed fitting that it was an idea he'd had when he wasn't thinking.
"Okay! Let's not go to your quest bed. Let's go to that random tower in the middle of nowhere being all dark and mysterious and creepy--"
"--hey!"
"--and just about ten times as high as everything else around, we'll have an awesome view, haha--"
Karkat only tried to elbow John in the head a little, he didn't get why the utter, horrible black-bloodpushered monster took that as an excuse to peel Karkat off him and lob him to Jade.
For the record he didn't scream at all.
When he found his face was hidden between Jade's chesticular fatsacks he was just fine leaving it there, thanks. His arms were around her waist and they were never going to budge again. And that way he couldn't see what was coming.
She smelled good. Alien-weird and all that jazz but nice anyway, and. Oh.
Uh.
His legs were wrapped around hers. Her knee was in his crotch. Pressing up all nice and insistent against his boneshield. He couldn't tell if she even noticed...
... Nope, still not letting go. Fuck that noise. He was too high up from the ground and he didn't care if John would use his wind to catch him before he landed (unless letting him land in that disgusting liquid seemed funnier at the time, who the fuck even knew) it was still nerve-wracking and he hadn't touched anyone in so long.
Uh.
... Yeah. Especially that.
When they rose up he could guess they were following the twisted spur of his tower. He didn't look. (Jade's skirt beat against his legs like featherbeast wings desperate for escape.)
When she stopped, hovered, he didn't look either, or when John's hands landed on his back, slipped under his armpits, and tried to pry him off.
"Fuck you, go away!" he yelled, muffled in mammal bits. He could hear John laughing, he could feel Jade laughing.
"I can't land, dumbass! We're there, you could even touch the floor easy, stop being such a big baby!"
... Mrgh. Damn it. Flying was scary as fuck but he, maybe, it would have been okay if they'd taken him around a while longer.
Just as Karkat was maybe sort of starting to loosen his hold, John pulled again. The results were predictable.
Bam. Sprawled all over John. Who was sprawled on... some kind of raised -- oh fuck, the Quest Mortuary Slab, of fucking course. Their legs dangled over the edge from the knee down. When he opened his eyes he could see an almost perfect circle of purpling sky and the winding spiral-walls of the cocoon, cracked and crumbled on one side.
Jade pinched her lips to keep from laughing, but her eyes were dancing when she sat beside them. She tugged Karkat off John by the shirt -- ow, his tailbone, when he smacked into hard rock -- but when he started trying to push himself into a seated position she just flopped on her back.
It was apparently sky-gazing time. Okay. Why the fuck not.
"What the fuck," he said, after several too-long minutes where he could think of nothing but their shoulders pressed against his and the way they didn't breathe in sync and how amazing that was. "We should be exchanging intel. Battle plans. Planning for a rendezvous. Why are we doing none of that, again?"
"Oh, I did that with Rose two days ago," John replied blithely, and Karkat flipped on his side so he could stare down at him and get his hand ready for imminent choking.
"What. The fuck. Do you mean by that."
"She didn't tell you? It's not my fault!" John frowned up at him, lips pursed a bit. (Ngh mouth. Ngh being taken a little seriously, not dismissed with a blithe laugh.) "I was dreaming of -- some battle and stuff, and then bam she was here. She didn't even stay long, just left me a note, and then I woke up. Lots of cryptic bullcrap like be sure to be asleep at this hour, do practice that left-handed trick, switch toothpaste... Bluh."
Karkat simmered down a bit. When he was back on the meteor, he'd give Rose an earful, ut it wasn't John's fault.
In the meantime it was ... pretty nice, that he got to see them. Again. For the first time. Talk with them. Not even talk, actually, he felt so inarticulate, why did they have to figure out how to cross over to him today of all days. Not even talk, just... be warm against him. Be alive.
Jade tugged him back down. He flopped obediently. He didn't want to look at the stupid round slab anyway and his stupid game symbol in the middle and how he'd never ever worn it and never would and it was too fucking late to make anything useful out of himself, dead weight to the end and beyond.
"Wow, you look so cheery, Karkat, the life of the party, it is you."
"Spoiler: that party is a lynch mob. You're cordially invited. Neckties provided. We are excellent hosts."
"Pff." John and Jade elbowed him in the ribs in unison somehow. Karkat groaned in half-hearted protest.
They were warm and it was nice and soon they were going to wake up and be gone. He wanted to hold their hands. Jade's hand, at least, he thought for humans it was less potentially offensive to hold hands with girls than between boys, which seemed utterly ridiculous to him and also she hadn't rejected him concupiscent before, ashen was not much of a handholding quadrant and...
He just. Maybe. Wanted to dream a bit. Just a bit. Just this one thing before they left and things went back to the status quo of Life Sucks Deal With It And/Or Die.
Just to touch skin and maybe imagine their hands elsewhere -- John's or Jade's, or -- he wasn't greedy, but fuck that noise, he'd never have either of them anyway and it was his fucking daydream and. Maybe both, yeah, as long as he was imagining impossible things. Okay, they'd just turn to him and there'd be burning hands underneath his sweater and damp lips at his neck and maybe hands too between his -- alright, inappropriate boners while sandwiched by friends was a good way to have them be creeped out and not want to be friends much anymore. He'd just soak it up, memorize it for later. Yeah, sorry, shut up, groin party, they'd make time for a nice long fantasy later on.
"We miss you guys," John said, melancholy. Karkat sighed.
"We might perhaps experience something akin to wishing you were here as well. Some days. Not too often, but, you know."
Jade flicked his forehead, then turned on her side to flick John's, coincidentally providing Karkat with some more nice squishes with her milk sacks. "If you guys get emo-depressive I am turning this bubble around and going home. Also, hey, we don't have any alcohol on the ship, mind if we share?"
Oh. The boobs were talking to him. Uh. He looked up. "Sure. It's Rose's anyway."
John snickered, and was the first to snatch at the bottle when Jade decaptchalogued it. His first mouthfuls had him wincing and turning an alarming red, but when he was done he still preened like that was nothing. Karkat scoffed.
"Oh ew, that is disgusting," Jade said when it was her turn, but she drank with less grimaces than John did.
Karkat took a sip next, but it was too much of a bother to sit for it, when he could watch them pass the bottle back and forth over his chest.
"You know, we have a ton of carapaces and consorts and stuff so it's perhaps not as bad as you guys, but it's still so good to see someone new who isn't one of the same idiots I'm always saddled with," Jade said eventually. "Even if you're mister Sulky Grumpypants. You're not even ranting much!"
"Mnrgh," Karkat replied intelligently. "... Can't be bothered."
"Are you getting sick or something?" John asked, leaning over him to peer at his face, staring into one eye and then the next.
No, I'm just busy enjoying the moment, fuckhead, Karkat cautiously didn't say. Why did John have such gorgeous eyes, fuck that bastard.
To be fair he'd been depressed for a while, felt fucking useless and drifting and even though he knew that it wasn't true, that they all did care about him... he wasn't anyone's priority.
Not even Gamzee's.
It was just... coming to a head recently. He didn't wish he'd met Meenah instead of the two of them in this bubble, but she would have been a strong second choice.
And he could have left with her. He wasn't going to be able to leave with John and Jade.
"Just tired. Lots of shit to do on the meteor. Hand me the bottle."
Jade pursed her lips at him, but allowed him to end the conversation there. They lay back, passing the bottle, staring at the ugly sky. Why was he wasting that time, acting like they'd be here hours and hours, he didn't know, he couldn't make himself think about how soon it would end, it ached too much, it was just too...
"Pff."
"... What the hell, Harley."
She was walking her fingers up his arm. He frowned. That felt weird.
"Okay, yes, we need to experiment. Take off your sweater!"
Karkat didn't have the bottle, so he couldn't choke and spray them all in an explosive and expressive display, but John could and did do it for him.
"Jade! You can't be that drunk--"
Jade exploded in snickers and guffaws, and twisted so her knees would be on the floor off the slab, and draped her upper body across Karkat's hips, oh dear horrorterrors and their sweet embrace, and then she ghosted her fingers up his stomach under his clothes.
Okay, he was officially asleep. Or dead. Also he was suddenly drenched down there, tight and hot inside, heavy, bulge stirring.
"Juh. Jade. What. ... What."
She chortled again. "You're going all red! Haha. No, look, don't you feel it?"
What, the electric zing racing right up his spine, three times around his brain, down his spine, and going to ground itself in his crotch? Sure did. He gaped, groping for his trusted words and not finding them.
"What the heck are you -- Jade?" John protested as Jade grabbed for his wrist and plopped his hand on Karkat's cheek what the fuck. "What -- oh. Oh! Hehehe, that's awesome."
"Okay what the sweat-soaked dumb fuck is awesome about -- Jade!"
A bright white grin. "Yup, I'm awesome! Also you're magnetic."
He was staring at her, confused, dazed, not quite yet daring to hope, when it came to him that she meant it literally.
Magnetic Wodka. Of fucking course.
"Hehe, wow, it feels weird, look." When John took his hand off Karkat's skin it felt like his face was trying to follow, a bit. It didn't hurt at all, but it did feel distinctly strange, a little tug. It did tingle, though.
When John tried touching Jade, they both went ehhn and shifted back before actual contact was even established.
"Okay! Looks like you're plus and we're both minuses. Or you're minus and we're pluses. I wonder how we could find out which is which."
John grimaced. "Jade, no. No no no no no no no no. No experiments. Science is boring, okay. So boring. The boringest."
Jade scowled, took Karkat's wrist, and used it to slap John on the stomach.
Karkat's hand being currently a magnet, when he tried to pull off John, at first his hand only kind of. Glided. Down his abs. A bit.
Ffffuck his life.
Jade was still belly down on his crotch. Things were going to start squelching down there if she didn't get off him soon. Fuck. His. Life.
"I wonder if the degree of attraction is stronger depending on blood flow. So where would the concentration be strongest... Hmmm..."
Her hands weren't groping him anymore, just resting casually at his waist, cupping his sides. Karkat flopped back down and closed his eyes and threw an arm over his eyes. "Just a suggestion."
"Hm?"
"Do not under any circumstances move up me. I do not want to figure out if we'd get glued together at the digestion sac until we're done metabolizing."
John laughed. Jade laughed. They had the same, vaguely braying, snorting laugh. Why did he find it horribly adorable. Jade set her hands on the slab on both sides of him (his skin tugged, tingled when she let go.) "Now we have to try it, Karkat! For science!"
But when she tried to lift up, Karkat's hips rose off the slab to follow her. He choked on a cry, toes curling, heels banging hard against the side of the slab. Jade wasn't prepared to handle his weight and landed back on top of him, higher, chest sacks pressing on the lower part his ribcage.
Which meant her nose was almost brushing his chin. Which meant when John pulled Karkat's arm off his face, going "Uh, did she hurt you," she had a front row seat to the way his pupils had gone huge and unfocused and his teeth were gnawing at his lip and...
They stared at each other. He saw her expression change as understanding came. (Gorgeous. Terrifying.) He waited for her to yelp and yank herself off him, to say he was gross, to...
She did none of that, just gazed back at him, eyes wide, lips parting slowly, and he couldn't even look at John anymore to see if he'd figured anything out or what. He waited breathless for what he thought he read on her face to... stop making sense, or start making sense, or. Something.
She wriggled. He groaned. John stopped breathing. Karkat's eyes had closed somehow and he couldn't see his face at all. He could feel Jade, though, her fingers drawing his lower ribs, all curious and cautious and tingly. She left his skin alive behind her, and he really didn't think it was merely the Wodka.
"Oh," said John quietly off to the side. "Oh." Karkat was too busy rolling his head back on the stone slab, trying to find purchase to brace his heels. He was acting so fucking shamelessly, thighs spread around Jade's hips, pretty much begging for her to pail him and John was still watching, this was crass and disgusting and not a thing a good friend did and fuck, John was also still sitting at his side with his knee against Karkat's hip so fuck that noise, fuck it very noisily, fuck it so noisily he -- ah, ah, shit.
"... You make the weirdest noises," John said, voice shaking a bit. Karkat noticed over his own chirring, but barely.
"Pff, Dave cooed," said Jade. "I'm a pro at weird noises, I -- ohh, I like this one, what does it mean?" She rolled her hips again, experimentally, pressing her groin against his drenched slit, rolling just right so it pushed against the base of his bulge, so he felt a ripple of tension going up his inner walls, grasping at something that wasn't there.
"It means why are you not pailing me already you heinous nookteasing bitch!"
John's eyes went very wide. Jade's just... sharpened, somehow, heated up, alarmingly predatory. The sight made another wave of heat roll through his insides.
"Uh, wait, wait, pailing means fu-uh-sex, right? You want her to -- um -- you?"
Karkat managed to tear his eyes off Jade to glare at John, and considered biting. No, no, he'd been rejected over much milder caliginous advances before, he wasn't subjecting himself to that again. "Is there a problem with that, John human." Fuck, he was breathing fast already, a miracle he was intelligible at all, and he still couldn't help whirring and clicking and making all sorts of embarrassing noises. He didn't make any noises when he touched himself, what was that fuckery?
"But she can't, uh, she can't do you, I mean she, uh--"
"John, shoosh," Jade said, huffing, as she pushed herself up on her hands to look down at Karkat, his knees over her hips, it made his breath even shorter. "He wants me to put my thingy in his thingamajig, is that dumb enough for you?"
Karkat would have laughed -- not very nicely -- if he wasn't too busy letting out little whimpery yes, yes.
"But you don't have a--"
"Uhhh. I don't think you want the answer to this question!"
"Oh my gog. Oh my gog, Dave was not joking, I thought he was yanking my chain about how Bec was a male dog--"
"That's not what I mean, dumbass!" Jade shrieked, and tried to hit John, but her hand skidded off him and she had to catch herself awkwardly on the slab, twisting to the side. The movement made Karkat whimper. He kicked his heels at her, at John.
"Gog please, stop bickering, just -- just stop it and touch my blighted junk already if you please, your nookteasing Majesty."
"I'm not sure I want to see that," John said in a disturbed voice, while making just about zero effort to leave or gog forbid look away.
Jade narrowed her eyes at him, pursed her lips, and then she went "Okay!" and pulled away from Karkat's crotch, which was the most terrible thing that had happened to him since Kankri. (But if they didn't count Kankri, then definitely since Sollux decided to wander right the fuck off the meteor and then there were corpses missing and shit.)
And then Jade tugged her long, fluffy skirts free, threw them up, and then she was settling herself back between Karkat's thighs, sitting on her heels, with the magnetic tugging inside them to make them groan until they fit back into place. He had an excuse for why he was distracted from understanding why John was going "Aw!" in a really annoying whiny voice until he could manage to lift his head and look down and see exactly nothing, apart from a lot of folds of black cloth all over his hips and belly.
Jade grinned at him, cheeks flushed, and then he felt a hand on the back of his thigh. "You are the best boy," she assured him, choked up and breathy, "it is you." Karkat's lips quirked back of their own accord.
"... Hah, you planned it all wrong, I mean not to break the mood or anything but Karkat's gonna have to move off and sit up to take off his jeans, so there."
Karkat groaned quietly, rolled his hips back against the palm delicately cupping between his thighs, and captchalogued his clothes from the waist down off.
John choked a little. Jade gasped, and then made a little pleased trill, and her fingers glided over the edges of his folds, right where the sensation was both too light and too intense, borderline pain.
She kept exploring him, tracing what lay between his legs almost all the way down to his chute and then making her way back up, spreading wetness; a thumb rubbed at the root of his bulge, which squirmed in the folds of her skirts hard enough to make the cloth tent. John made another weird little noise. Karkat was chirring, once again. He didn't even fucking care that he couldn't see what was going on, he could sure feel it.
"Ffuck yes -- ah -- deeper, shit, your nails -- you trim your -- okay good, go, yes."
Jade licked her lips in concentration, absently staring at the cloth gathered in their laps. "Are you sure you want anything inside? I mean, it's all really tight down there."
"It'll stretch, I don't even fucking care, please--" He rocked back on her fingers. Her middle finger was pressing against his entrance, but not breaching him, not quite. It ached beyond that, inner muscles clenching and releasing, clenching and releasing, and it was only enough to keep him aroused, not to climb him any closer to an orgasm.
John kept shifting his weight at his side. It was distracting. Karkat wanted to hit him. At the same time he wanted to apologize abjectly for even doing that in front of him when they'd all been cuddling in assumed platonic broharmony, it was so bad and mean to John who didn't want Karkat and that was fine, it was his right, forcing him to witness it was just gross--
"Okay uh Karkat?"
"--ngh?" Oh, oh. Finger inside. Just to the first knuckle, and she had such small hands. It was good. It was fine. She was saying things about how warm he was inside and it made him purr, embarrassed and stupidly proud that she liked it, that she liked him.
"I am going to ask for a huge favor and as your copalhoncho you just can't refuse me," John was babbling and who the hell wanted to listen. "So. Like. Can I make out with you."
Karkat stared dumbfounded for a few seconds, almost forgetting the finger inside him. Jade forgot to move, too, in favor of staring at the other human.
"Are you f -- I thought you didn't --"
"And I thought," John retorted right over him, "that I've been on that boat for two years with carapace people and lizard people and my best completely platonic brofriend and my sister and my grandma. I need to make out with someone! And uhh, since Jade is going to keep on touching your junk maybe it's okay if I don't touch your junk? And just. Like. Kiss you?"
Karkat kept staring. Even Jade was staring.
John threw his hands in the air and snarled, cheeks a vivid pink. "And maybe touch my own junk, would that be okay or do I have to exile myself and my sad boner to the other end of the Land of Goth and Blood?"
"Pulse and Haze, asshole," Karkat shot back without thought, and then "Sure. Uh, if Jade doesn't mind?"
"Gog no! If you kiss him, he might shut up! Please kiss him. Now can I go back to putting my bits all up in your bits please?"
Karkat nodded in fervent relief. "Oh gog yes, I'll shank you if you don't."
John whine-growled again. Karkat flailed a hand in the general direction of his face, papped him across the nose, and yanked him down by the hood. It was a bit hard to be more coordinated when he could feel every millimeter of Jade's tortuously slow voyage into his inner recesses oh gog please deeper already.
His first kiss with John was sloppy and distracted; he wasn't really able to correct John's gross lack of experience and the awkward angle and the awkward everything, but then Jade crooked her fingers and he moaned in John's mouth and the awkward seemed to stop mattering.
She was pressing against his walls, nudging him this or that way, teasing his inner folds and feelers, giggling to herself as they twitched, wriggled around her, trying to draw her further in. His bulge was rubbing back and forth against the velvet of her skirt, leaving long drying trails everywhere.
"You have baby tentacles in there, oh my gosh that's so cute!"
John made a weird gnerping noise in Karkat's mouth and broke away, spluttering. Karkat turned blindly to bite his hand, which had the misfortune of being in reach. "He -- ow! He has what? What the heck, Jade, you're crazy, what if his bits, like, start schlurping you in and then your hand gets stuck--"
"Don't be even more of a pancracked dumbass -- ngh, oh -- yeah, yeah -- can't, they're not, can't hold shit with them -- it's -- do you even need to know, oh fuck, oh fuck--"
Jade leaned over him and grinned, kissed the tip of his nose, and then she slipped her index finger in, too. Karkat choked. "Noo, I want my xenobiology lesson! Keep talking."
"It's, they're, oh fuck you Harley this is so not dirty talk, they're here to, for the genetic material, guide it in, to -- to -- seedflap oh yes yes yes that more --"
She was curling her fingers, not even together, one after the other like she was, he didn't know, walking them, trying to tickle him, who the fuck even cared, the stimulation was unceasing and a hideous tease.
"And what happens in the seedflap?" she asked, almost clinical but for the way her hips had started rolling, rocking him around, pressing against his ass. "Do you want me to get my fingers there?"
The noise he made next might possibly have been called a whimper, and Karkat might have let hypothetical people call it that to his face, because he was too busy clenching down hard on her to care.
"You couldn't -- get there -- too deep."
"But would it hurt at all?"
He managed a laugh, somehow. "In cold? Yeah. Right now -- fuck no." Now she made him think of it, he thought he could feel it, squeezing and opening deep inside him, desperate to find and trap the end of someone's bulge, milk it, make sure they didn't waste a drop of genetic material in his nook or even splattered outside.
John gave a frustrated groan and leaned in to kiss Karkat, only it landed on the bridge of his nose, on his closed eyelid. He turned his head blindly. Oh hey lips of John. Hey. Still slobbery and not that fascinat--ow!
Fucker had just bit him.
"Ha! You're purring," John exclaimed with a grin about two inches from his nose. Jade laughed.
"Um, no, I think that's a growl--"
Karkat was already biting back by then, and John said ow in turn and bit him again, and okay, yes, that was actually pretty nice, and Jade was still slowly mapping the inside of his nook and his feelers were still trying to glue themselves to her fingers, to mold themselves to her shape. Which was not actually feasible but that didn't seem to stop them from trying.
"Heh, you guys are so silly. But cute, so I guess that's okay."
"We're not cute!" John protested, glowering at her. His cheeks were flushed dark. Pretty good look on him. So were Jade's actually. Karkat didn't even want to know what he looked like right now, loose and sloppy and pail-begging and all.
"You are so cute."
"So not."
"Yeeeees."
"Nooo!"
Karkat let out a short frustrated yell and snarled. "Hello, planet Karkat's boneguzzling hole to Witch of Space Cadets and Heir of Wasted Breath!"
Laughter burst out of the two of them and they looked back down at him, and he -- shit, his irritation just melted, because the way they looked at him was so warm and so -- so fond and -- oh. Hey there, stupidest, most indiscriminate flushcrush, what do you mean it's time to molt into flushpining form --
"I kind of want to see if I could get there anyway -- uh, you know, with my space powers -- but I'm a bit not sure about warping space when I've got bits inside you, it's a really small place and what if I pinch fleshy parts and things..." Jade pinched her lips, thoughtful.
"Shit, if we're doing wishlists how about making them feel thicker, I -- not that it's not nice but -- I --" Shit, his face was burning. "Could take more, I could. I. Want to." He licked dry lips. "Please?"
Oh. Whaddya know. The Derp Twins even groaned the same way.
"Fffff," John went, eyes scrunching closed, and leaned back down to nuzzle his hair blindly, ruffle it into even more of a royal mess. "Why is that hot, why are you hot, the world doesn't make sense anymore--"
Karkat groped blindly for his hand and slapped it over his horn. "Base. Rub the base. Shut up. If you want to pail me, you -- you gotta wait your turn, Jade wasn't a dithering assbutt about it, she gets to go first, all the firsts, anything she wants--"
When she whined it sounded nothing like a noise any human Karkat knew had ever made, pitiful and wretched. He blinked up at her, dazed.
"Okay sorry, vetoing the Space thing! I am not going to be able to keep my concentration up and that is a very bad plan for all concerned but especially for Karkat's poor cuddly bits!"
She said, the wench, breaking his bloodpusher (or something a fair bit lower if he wanted to be honest) and then restoring it by ways of adding her third finger in.
She worked them open, moving in and out, stretching not so much his insides but the flesh at the entrance, sometimes remembering to thumb roughly at the base of his bulge. He groped blindly through her skirts on his belly, cupped himself to keep his bulge from getting in her way -- such a bad time to interrupt oh dear jegusfuck horrorterrors wept it was so good, so good, just like the thicker parts of a bulge slowly stretching him to fit. Missed the deeper part, though, the thrashing, coiling length, the questing tip, and half his nook was a frenzy of unsatisfied need.
"So how, shit, I know human females don't have a, but there's got to be a way, Kanaya never looked dissatisfied, so, but, shit, please I need--"
John shooshed him with kisses, teeth and tongue, hungry and awkward and maybe feeling a little neglected, and Karkat would be sorry later (especially since John did come with a bulge attached, damn it, he was a bit sorry Jade got to go first) but right now he couldn't, really couldn't. John's fingers were rough and warm against the thin skin at the base of his horn, ticklish, and Karkat had been right, the Wodka magnetism did some truly fascinating things to his horn-sense. If John touched him like that when Karkat was standing he might just swoon right in the idiot's arms. Lying down now, though, and things were happening southward were more intense and a lot more immediate, so that was moot.
"I do have a thing," Jade admitted, very red. "Uh. John? You promise you won't look. Just -- keep making out with Karkat, okay, maybe feel up his chest or something."
There was no way Karkat could allow John to block his field of vision, because that something was going inside him and he was damn well going to see what it was. And John of course was a nosy motherfucker, so they just stared at each other nose to nose through a curtain of messy black hair and then sneaked a glance back.
Jade had just decaptchalogued, uh... it looked like lower half undergarments made entirely out of venom-sack-holster straps, and attached to it was a ... bright red... thing.
A really weirdly shaped thing. All straight, not wavy, but after Dave's sketches he expected that. He didn't expect the weird ovoid lump at the tip, fatter than the shaft, shit, in what kind of world did it make sense to put the thicker parts first. And there were strange little lengthwise furrows, not very deep and padded besides but --
Beside him John choked. "Did you alchemize that with the eggbeater."
Face pretty well crimson, Jade glowered back at him, and went "Yes!" defiantly. "Also that horrible yiffy pic Dave made me for my birthday, the assbutt, so congrats, this is part blue anthro-hedgehog penis, as drawn by someone who never saw any."
Karkat had to admit suddenly he wasn't too sure he wanted to try it. Because, uh. It was kind of big, to start with. And also kind of really fucking gogdamned weird. What the fuck even was a hedgehog. And--
Vrrrrrrrrrrr.
It vibrated.
"Okay sign me up."
John strangled himself laughing and whimpering at the same time.
Karkat thwapped him, nipped at his chin, and glared. "You. Fingers. Horns. Now. I need to not be able to think about that horror show or else I might have an attack of good sense and then where will we be? Not in the Land of Getting Laid, for sure."
John laughed right in his face, but obediently shifted closer so he could cup both horns, enclose them entirely in his palms. A shower of sparks descended along Karkat's spine. The world was whirling, nothing felt solid anymore, it was dizzying and a little scary and an act of trust he didn't think John would ever truly grasp.
Also it meant when Jade pulled her fingers out of him he only whimpered a little.
"Wow, uh, are they like sexy zones or what?"
It took him two tries to figure out how to make words. He couldn't make himself open his eyes. "No, stupid, have you no shame, we'd cover them if they were fucking erogenous zones. It's the magnet fingers, fuck, I'm flying. It's -- it feels like free fall, I--"
"... Ohh," John said softly, and started trailing his fingers up and down the inner curves of his horns. "I love that feeling. It's so, wow."
"Only when you're sure you won't crash," Karkat managed to grunt out. John's thumbs were going out of sync, it felt like the world was spiraling.
Safe, though. Even without stone at his back he'd have felt safe. John would fall with him, catch him before he hit the ground, it was nerve-wracking but ultimately safe and so exhilarating -- not necessarily in a sexual way, but it left his body so alive.
"Trolls can feel magnetic fields!" Jade fucking squeed. "This is awesome. Wish I did."
John huffed, his breath making Karkat's bangs fly. "You already hear ultrasounds, Jade, don't be greedy."
"Pff. I want all of the senses. All of them. Can you imagine how much of the world we don't even experience? It's terrible."
She finished rummaging under her skirts, shuffled closer, and then there was something rubbery and oddly air-temperature pressing up against his tightening entrance. Oh. He clenched without thought, more out of anticipation than fright.
"Shh, no, hey, you have to let me in, Karkat."
He worked on relaxing, allowing Jade's slow but unrelenting pressure to open him back up. His feelers had settled some without stimulation and with the distraction of his horns but the increasing pressure started them back up. They started exploring the texture, the strange raised lines, slicking the rubber with their fluids, and meanwhile Jade kept steadily pressing more inside him, wider and wider.
Once the wider part of the tip was past, his own clenching muscles did the job of pushing it farther in, a sudden sliding thrust that left him gasping. Jade leaned in to kiss his chin; it made the shaft press hard against his inner wall, rubber-covered but unbending inside, rigid in a way he wasn't really made for. It was alien and uncomfortable in a way that said Jade is doing this to me and only made him moan louder.
She shifted back a little, tugging at his entrance, and then slid farther in. The rest of the shaft was a lot less trouble, but his feelers were going crazy trying to provoke a return of pressure in something that was not going to coil no matter what. Such a tease, such a horrible, marvelous tease.
"Tell me when we're getting to your seedflap," she said. "For references purposes. I'm not going to try to put that in."
Karkat groaned his assent. That'd be pretty unsexy. Even right now it wasn't particularly sexy, the thing wasn't warm like Jade and had no heartbeat to feel and no fluids to mix with his; it was what it was, an awkward toy used in lieu of something better. He wasn't even sure she felt any return of sensations from it, he didn't know how it fit itself to her own parts.
John shuffled his weight, pressed his hips down on the slab, uncomfortable, but when Karkat patted down his side he stopped him, caught his hand and brought it back up for a kiss and that was a pretty clear no thanks. Karkat didn't know how to feel about it.
"Not like I'm going to claw you up," he managed, grumpy.
"I bet you would," Jade countered smugly, and slipped her hand underneath her skirts. Suddenly his whole nook was vibrating, hard and deep, overwhelming. He thought he arched from the slab, he thought John pressed back down on him with a yelp -- good plan, changing the angle that fast would bruise him up -- but he barely noticed. Oh shit, shit, there was no lower setting to ease him in, straight away it was, oh, hell. He could feel his whole belly vibrating with it, his nook and his seedflap and his digestion sac even, everywhere sensitive shook with it. His bulge flailed fruitlessly, desperate to be encased, squeezed in turn. He fumbled for it, missed, but then another hand covered it through the cloth and pinned it to his stomach and it was perfect, so fucking perfect. He lifted his legs and hooked his heels at the small of Jade's back and it opened him up for another inch or two of penetration.
They knew when the egg-tip of the toy touched his seedflap, because he started yelling fit to burst the dreambubble. Just a little more and he might come, he could feel it looming like an imminent landslide--
Jade nudged hard inside him, and he yelped. Bad pain. "Ow! Don't -- fuck, ow."
"Ack, okay, sorry! I'm taking note, bottom reached, no more fault to this sea."
She started moving back, and then in again and back and in and it was weird, the timing a little off, and it thoroughly oversensitized his nook without letting the pleasure rise to a shatterpoint, always moving away just before. It felt amazing, but he wanted to come, he was suddenly terrified that they'd wake up before he was done, before the three of them were done, and he'd be alone again and empty with that need and it would be horrible, just fucking horrible.
He wrapped his hand around the wrist of that hand palming his bulge, blinked hazily when it led away from Jade. Oh. He'd thought John wouldn't have wanted to touch any of his bits that might resemble human male bits. He blinked, trying to get the haze to clear up. "Don't -- I'll jizz everywhere -- ruin her fucking dress, we don't even have a bucket..."
Kissed John's face, his nose, forehead, everywhere he could reach, desperate, whimpering. Karkat tried to go for John's bulge and this time he allowed him to grope through his soft God Tier pants, but the angle was awkward, Karkat's wrist didn't rotate that far. He rubbed the back of his hand against John's crotch, feeling the magnetic tingles, fancying he could feel them rushing in John's blood. It would be amazing. (Feeling them with his nook would also be amazing, dear jegusfuck. But then no more vibrations? Argh. Couldn't brain. Decide. Couldn't. Maybe later oh please yes he wanted a later.)
"I. Uh. Might have. Changed my mind a bit?" John said, strangled, to Jade.
Jade was busy making little chirpy noises to herself and rocking slowly, like a small boat on a calm sea. She took a little while to answer, Karkat almost forgot the question.
"About what?"
"About. Uh."
When Karkat cracked an eye open John was chewing on his lip. He turned to kiss him, distract him. He could bite John's lips if he wanted but John couldn't, okay.
"About looking at it! About, about touching his, your bits, Karkat, can I look and, I don't know if I'll touch but can I try, please?"
Oh.
...Oh.
"My thingamajig?" he replied with a smile that was much too soft to be allowed out, but he felt good and fuzzy and so fucking flushed it was a wonder he wasn't glowing carmine yet.
"I... yeah. I. Please?"
He didn't even try to answer with words, just felt for Jade's skirts and tried to shove them off. They kept falling back on his belly, though, so only his thrashing bulge was visible, and he wasn't sure how John would react to that.
Jade caressed the inside of his thigh, all tenderness, and gave him a soft, soft smile that made him stop breathing, and lifted her layers of skirts herself, unveiling the root of his bulge and his slit, spread wide open, his nook wrapped around that shaft that he could have sworn didn't feel that thick, but certainly looked it. Shit, it was amazing she'd managed to fit it in at all, but then again after the tip... It was all glistening with his juices, and he could see the straps of her apparatus and a bit of incongruous black fur over the top of it.
She caught his knees, lifted them higher, spread him, and John leaned in to stare all fucking transfixed and Karkat couldn't breathe, couldn't move, could do nothing but throw his head back and plead with his whole body.
Tentative fingers traced his inner thighs, the outside of his nook. He choked, and then choked again when they nudged along the toy shaft, pressing the tip in.
"Does it hurt?"
"Nnnh. Nh. No. Oh. You're going to stretch me out, I'll be all gross and loose, no one'll ever -- ever want to pail me again, shit, shit, yes--"
He was so wet, and John's finger could crook back into him, press back against his feelers. John yelped when they started pushing against him, tickling his skin, but he curled his finger again. Karkat saw stars.
"If we make sure you're full enough," Jade breathed, shaky and intense, "It won't matter, you can be as loose as you want, you look so good like this, I need a bigger strap-on, I want to keep you all full all the time--"
For a second Karkat thought he had come merely from her words, from the images she put into his head, but no, it was John wriggling his finger around and dear fucking god Karkat was going to go crazy before they allowed him to come at this rate, he would die, they were going to kill him--"
"S'okay, s'all fine, you're on your quest bed," said the asshole in blue with a wide, astonished, half-wild grin, "you can die any time you want, hehehe. Oh and just hold on, I had the best idea--"
They were floating. He didn't think it was his horns being messed with again, they really were floating. He grunted when he and Jade were turned around and gravity pushed him to take another inch or so of fake bulge, pressing the tip all tight against his seedflap; Jade groaned, wrapping her arms around his neck. They ended up with her sitting at the edge of the slab, Karkat straddling her lap. He wrapped his arms around her right back and she kissed him, just as sloppily as John but more experienced somehow, he didn't want to think who with. He melted, purring. So full and being held and her tongue in his mouth, one of her hands exploring his horns, and that unremitting vibration...
"What's your idea, John, get on with it," he managed to pant, a little wary despite everything.
John's hand rested in the middle of his back, pushing him into Jade, pushing Jade down, and his knees were spread on both sides of her hips, and when he glanced back John was crouching there, flushed and embarrassed and eyes gleaming as he got an eyeful of Karkat's full nook from behind.
"... Pervert. Ngh." The pleasure seemed to have stabilized at this hellish, marvelous stage just before an orgasm, and Karkat's bulge was trapped between his and Jade's bellies, and hadn't been touched enough to trigger anything besides. The prospect of staying that way for another ten minutes, a hour, was as daunting as it was fascinating. He'd be begging before long.
John's fingers traced the back of his nook, the smooth area before his waste chute, went back to his nook. Pushed in, again. It was easier from that side, no pubic bone to refuse stretching past a certain point. One finger and then two, crooking and rubbing back and forth inside him, loosening him, and then he, oh.
John planted a hand on the small of his back, leaned over him, and grinned at Jade, hair flying every which way and voice glee-crazy. "Hey Jade. It's not gay if our balls don't touch!"
And something nudged Karkat that was not a finger, there was no smooth nail bit, it was so much bigger, the tip was wet.
Something his feelers immediately identified as not-our-genes-yes-want.
He arched his back, cried out, tried to push back on John's bulge but Jade's kept him anchored, there was no deeper to be had with her, and she moaned. The vibration had to be traveling to her, and maybe she did like those odd back and forth movements. He tried to do it again, awkwardly. John's and Jade's hands were on his hips, overlapping, tangling, and they guided him. He moved with them, eyes closed, forehead pressed on the slab over Jade's shoulder.
A short push, and John's tip was inside him, not even long as his thumb and annoyingly blunt and living-warm and drip by drip giving up tiny crumbs of genetic material. John let out a long, shaky whimper as he pressed against the vibrating toy, as Karkat's feelers did their best to draw more genetic material out of him.
"Okay uh. Nice hard thrusts are not happening. There is no space leeeeftohgod, no space left in there, I'd tear you and that would suck in the not good way, you feel so good. I. Uh. Lemme move us again."
This time Karkat could feel them all wobbling in the air as John's grip on the wind wavered, but he managed to shift them all on their sides without having to pull his bulge out at all.
"I'll. Uh. If I come before you I promise I'll finish you off. Uh, Karkat I mean, Jade, you're on your own, sorry."
"Eurgh," Jade mumbled against Karkat's neck, and bit him. He chirruped. Her hands were all over him, down his spine and back up with a delicious edge of nails, swirling around his horns to fuzz him out again, she even let him touch her dog ears, so soft and so right even though they flicked in his palm (it compensated for how other human parts that should have moved didn't, he supposed.) She trusted him to handle them like he trusted her to brush the soft pad of a finger along his closed eyelids.
John was... moving his bulge around? Kind of? Karkat rolled his head back on the rocky slab, looked down. John's forehead was pressed against his spine, between his shoulderblades. He pushed himself up a bit to look.
John was jerking himself off, pulling on his weird human bulge fast and tight, desperate to finish, just the tip of himself wedged inside Karkat so he could come in there, coat his feelers in human spunk.
As Karkat stared, breathless, heart thudding in his bonecage, Jade's teeth found the perfect spot under his ear and bit and she rocked her hips right up into him, mashing the vibrator against his seedflap.
Sandwiched between them, he came like an avalanche, body wracked with shudder, claws digging in rock, in Jade's back. He shattered with pleasure, lost himself. He was floating, falling, the world was white and staticky and fuzzy-soft and his mind was blank to match.
Bliss.
Oblivion.
He came back to himself a century or three of drifting afterwards. They were still wrapped around him. Jade was grinning at him, flushed and eyes gleaming with pleasure and affection and... something else, something more. John was laughing and laughing, breathless, much too smug, and Karkat made a note to kick him later but for now he was finding it adorable. He blamed the hormonal bomb they'd just set off in his system.
He didn't want them to wake up. He felt for John's arm, dragged it tighter around his stomach, burrowed under Jade's chin. They were so warm and alive and there, he couldn't get over it.
Huh. Something felt a bit weird. Hm. It was like he'd forgotten something.
"Uh -- Jade? Did you -- did you come?"
"Pffhehehe. Two times. I'm just not as dramatic as you!"
She kissed his nose. He didn't pout long.
"I am not dramatic."
"You are a full production of Rent and all the plays Shakespeare ever made, dude," John said, and nuzzled the back of his head.
Which also felt weird. Dulled. Was it the Wodka wearing off?
"... Wonder how long it'll take him to notice," Jade mused over his head. Karkat blinked. He mostly saw a lot of collarbone and tender throat hollow from there. He nipped it, as punishment.
Jade giggled. Hm. Inefficient as punishment. But he liked the way she laughed, so he did it again.
John was rubbing his...back? Yeah, definitely his back. Uh.
"Congratulations, Derp Twins, you have managed to fuck up my brain. All my synapses are firing staticky hoofbeastshit all over the place. The place is covered in nnnnnngh."
Okay. Not his back. His back, but not his back.
Also he'd captchalogued his pants off. Why was he suddenly dressed?
He was, right? He pulled himself away from their warmsafenice arms, sitting up. Ouch, his nook felt like a slab of meat that someone had let Gamzee and his clubs at for the purpose of making it melt under the teeth later on. Tenderized barely started to cover it.
The pants were dark, maroon red with a stripe in his own color down the outside of the leg. He was definitely wearing it.
Also stupid gray slipper shoes.
When he lifted it to touch his head, his hand trembled. He swallowed.
There was a hood, flattening his hair, slits sewn shut except from where his horns emerged. There was a weird toothy tabard.
There was most definitely a douchecape. It was dark red, but not as brownish as the pants, and it was horridly, hatefully soft and thick and cuddlable.
John was beaming at him with all his teeth, a hand on the outside curve of his (!!) upper left wing. Jade was unsuccessfully battling an attack of the giggles. Karkat's bloodpusher did a weird little flop where half of it wanted to soar and the other half was going 'oh, so that was why. Of course.'
"... Huh."
He rested a hand on the Blood symbol in the middle of his chest. It hurt.
It pulsed. Himself, and John and Jade like echoes of each other, (so alive, so alive) and the land all around, slow and steady and deep like a war drum beneath the ruins.
"Did Rose tell you this would happen?"
Because of course it was Rose. Rose telling John to go find him here, Rose knowing he'd cross into his own land today and the chance was too good to pass up...
Jade blinked at him, and then bonked him between the horns.
"Rose told us to go to sleep and hang out on your quest bed and do what felt right! That's all she told us, in exactly those words! Do you think we'd have slept with you if we didn't even want to?"
"If it'd doom the timeline--"
John's hands pressed over his mouth from behind, silencing him. He pushed to press against Karkat's back between his wings, spreading them (so translucent a red, so delicate.)
"You are being stupid stupid dumb. I sentence you to kissing."
Oh gog did he want to believe them. They weren't much for manipulation; Rose or Dave he might have believed it of, "taking one for the team," as it were. Jade and John... He hadn't seen them in a sweep, maybe they'd (radically) changed...
Maybe...
... maybe she did mean it, that fond, pained tenderness, maybe he meant that rough, possessive hug around Karkat's neck, maybe they meant those kisses. The deed was done now, what need was there still of pretending?
Their blood sang to him, slow and steady and warm and red just like his own, calm and maybe sad and maybe still full of afterglow and lightning sparks. He licked his lips, nervous, unsure.
"... How can it even happen, anyway? You're supposed to die. I..."
"If you get killed in a dream bubble, wouldn't you just wake up, though?" John said, chin on Karkat's shoulder.
"Well, we would, but I think Karkat might just die. Since he's actually physically here. And the land isn't. It's only metaphorically here, so..." A blink, a shrug, oh well, whatever. "I guess you needed a metaphorical death!"
"This is such bullshit," Karkat concluded with all due thoughtfulness, and flexed his wings.
Yeah. Okay. He seemed to have acquired them. He wasn't giving them back.
The wings either.
+
When the humans threw him over the edge of the quest cocoon and he fell up into the wind he revised his priorities.
Wings first. Humans second.
He could wait a year for them. He would. He'd be right here on the meteor for them to find. (Sorry Meenah, fuck you Rose for no doubt having planned for exactly this.) He'd had Gamzee one day and waited for him a sweep, he could wait half of one for the two of them.
In the meantime he had so much flying to catch up on.