Karkat liked the god village relatively fine, for all that the amenities had been built by people who thought a hole in the ground with a plank across it was fancy for a loadgaper.
Okay, he was being unfair.
Fuck being unfair.
Today he liked the village for one thing only. Not the defensibleness or the gorgeous view or the lack of monsters or the pleasant, not charbroiling sunlight.
His hive's backdoor was only thirty steps away from Dave's, and he could even do most of the trip behind some bushes, in case of nosy neighbors. At an angry stomp he crossed them decently fast.
BANG BANG BANG. "Strider! Drag yourself off your depraved concupiscent platform and ooze your way to the sadly nonfucking, celibate door now before I take it off its hinges! It'll be a poor virgin door for life, Strider, and your house will have a hole in it for the dust and the birds to fly in and I will laugh, Strider! I will fucking laugh! I'll laugh so hard I might break a vocal vibratory string and will have to continue pouring wisdom and orders in thine ears at point blank fucking range, are you looking forward to that because I sure am, Strider!"
"'sup," said a slice of Strider, appearing in the barely cracked-open door from eye down to a hint of hip. "It wasn't locked, you tool."
"Some of us are afflicted with this sickness called politeness that means we don't just waltz into other people's hives," Karkat replied, because of course he hadn't thought to check the handle. Dave rolled red eyes at him.
Oh hey no shades today. Huh. ... Huh.
No, wait, he was pissed off. "Don't you distract me with your entirely beside the point hoofbeastcrap. I've got a score to settle --"
"Yeah, what the hell did I do again that you wake me up on a nonSunday morning, you trolls have no fucking concept of the sacredness of weekly lay-ins and also maybe I was busy, so goodbye."
The door slammed closed. Karkat sputtered.
And then because he wasn't stupid he shouldered the door open before Dave could throw the lock.
"Now wait a fucking minute!"
Dave gave an unexpected full-body jerk and flinched around when Karkat burst in, and refused to turn back to face him. It had him hissing mad in about one hot second, but one thing he did not feel up to right now was physical confrontation.
Physical anything, actually.
"Okay, one minute, starting now. Hurry up and then get out, I've got this mad iron on the fire and it's bound to start melting all over the place whoops look at that forty-five seconds left. What'd I do?"
"You--"
Okay, there was a major problem with his plan of accusing Dave to his face of the heinous misdeed that had Karkat in a hair-tearing rage. The major problem was that now he had to explain it.
He wasn't too sure where to even start.
"You're a human, and you're the tooliest of all, and you're the one who makes the most stupid jokes about all that hoofbeastshit, I'm blaming you, it's totally fair, fuck you and shut up and accept it. You fucked it up for all of us and I hate your stupid guts."
Uh. Maybe a bit too honest there. Plus all the things he wasn't explaining, and it was no surprise when he felt himself blush. He hated blushing too, god did he ever. The feeling alone was weird enough, but knowing it was some blindingly obvious signal to others that you were in the grip of mortification... Who the hell had designed humans, this was preposterous.
It was really angering to talk to the back of Dave's head.
When he craned his neck to look over his shoulder it was even more annoying, though, because Karkat had been wondering if maybe Dave didn't want to show his eyes too much but no, that apparently wasn't it.
"Yeah okay whatever you say, one minute, bye."
Karkat marched up to him, grabbed his arm, and yanked him around.
Dave went "OW MOTHERFUCK."
Karkat stared.
Look at that, an elbow. And then he stared a little farther down. Oh hey, a wrist.
And then a waistband.
"... Is your hand down your pants why are you talking to me with your hand down your pants take it out right the fuck now you lord of creeps what's wrong with you."
The one good thing about this was that Dave's face was just as blood-filled as his, and it was good in a very relative way and only because Karkat would have killed himself via repeated head-walling while diddling his own horns if he were the only one utterly mortified by this shit.
"Whoa, like you can even talk, is that a cannon in your pants, Vantas, what the fuck are you doing charging in and accusing me of giving you oh dear baby jegus on a motorcycle do not tell me trolls don't have wet dreams and my dreamself popped that particular cherry of yours, do not tell me that."
Wow, look at that, Karkat had almost managed to forget that thing was even there. Okay, not really. He eyed the tent in his pajama pants -- had it gone down at all? nope, didn't look it -- and snarled back up, cheeks a nice fetching crimson, because the other option was to concede and beat a hasty retreat and no, never.
"What the shit-flinging acrobatic monkey fuck is a wet dream and no I did not dream of you, do you want to make me retch right here in your home, it doesn't need the added decorative touch but if you fucking insist!"
"Well sorry, you barge in with a fucking boner oh holy shit it just moved."
Karkat's hands flew over the tent in his pants. Looked like the circus trunkbeasts under there were staging a breakout. Welp. Not his fault Dave's flushed cheeks and bright, embarrassed red eyes were so... uh.
Dave whimpered quietly.
"Why is your hand even still down there, you taintdiddling pervert."
"Because," Dave bit out, teeth gritted. "my brand spanking new alien dick is feeling cuddly and will not release it. For which I blame, oh, let's see... you, you, and also you."
Oh. Huh. Karkat couldn't have kept from ogling the mysterious gap where Dave's wrist disappeared if blindness had been the end result. The end result was a glimpse of white curls and, alas, nothing else, and the elephants were getting rowdy so he yanked his wandering eyes back up to Dave's face, who was staring at him in incensed irritation. It was the most expression he'd ever pulled out of him, and Karkat was surprised to see Dave's face wasn't cracking yet, or that his mouth even curled down at the corners that far.
"I blame you more. It's the third day in a row I wake up with my bulge greeting the world and it never used to do that." Also uh yes maybe he'd been having suspiciously nice dreams about two ex-humans of his acquaintance. Maybe a little bit. "It's distracting and irritating and it ruins the hell out of my pile." He sighed, bit his lip as he threw Dave's pants problem a quick flustered glance. "Uh, I don't think it's going to let go until you... you know."
"What. Do you think. I was doing." Dave speared him with an angry look full of resentment. Karkat's nook tightened with a sudden clench he almost felt should have been audible. Maybe as a TWANG or a SNAP. "Actually you know, maybe you should do the same, I hope it works better for you than for me and do you even know how to because I can't help feeling like you'd be way more tolerable if you actually tentacled the schoolgirl once in a while."
Wow, Karkat had not noticed the smooth change of topic there in the middle. No, sir. Absolutely not. The thing was, did he want to bring it back up when Dave seemed to want it buried and it was so fucking embarrassing for the both of them?
The thing was, did he experience a strange, guilty desire to hear a little more about the unknown territories of Dave Strider's crotch?
Fuck yes. "... What do you mean you hope it works better, is it, uh, not working for you? Because if that's the case there's a problem."
Dave raked his free hand through sweat-matted white locks, rolled his head back, oh, throat. "Gnh. No fucking kidding there's a problem, I'm this close to bringing my problem to Jane or Feferi is how much of a problem I know it is. It's just not fucking working and I'm -- I'm at the end of my fucking rope here and then you barge in and it's starting to hurt, okay. I'm sure you're finding that very funny or what the fuck ever but now if you could leave me alone with the suckiest crotch party a man was ever thrown, fuck you very much."
Oh, hey, foul, no fair jerking Karkat into feeling sorry for him. Because, wow, yes, Dave's eyes were getting a little wet. Frustration or fear?
Karkat breathed in, out, tried to forget what he was actually talking about and just let the words out. "Even when you, urh, okay, when you put your fingers in, palm to your bone shield, yeah, you see? when you crook them back to your front there should be a--"
"Oh Lord no, shut up about the alien cooch, I do not have an alien cooch, I refuse to accept that thing exists."
Karkat stared at him in stark disbelief for a couple of seconds.
And then he marched into his space and slapped his closest horn, nice and solid, and thank fuck they were such huge, hard to miss things. His hand smarted afterwards but that was totally worth it.
"You've been masturbating with only your bulge? You dimwitted chucklefuck, of course it was going to stop working, you've got to be backed the hell up in there! Were you trying for the most embarrassing death ever or what? How far do you think your genetic material bladder would go before bursting?"
Dave stared at him, mouth parted open in dumb surprise.
"Wait, wait. I could die from...?"
"Probably not," Karkat admitted grudgingly, "but you'd be in pain for a while until your nook started spasming enough to let it out, and that wouldn't be fun at all, see also: glorious understatements. What the fuck is even your problem? Did you not notice it was starting to hurt in there or what?"
Dave muttered something about a possible manperiod, Karkat didn't even know what that was about but who the fuck even cared. He breathed out, loud and long, trying to calm himself down, as he paced back and forth before the stairs.
"I'm not going to ask why you apparently can't touch yourself in there, even though it's just about the best fucking part. Can't you find something to stick in? I don't know, a brush handle or whatever." Dear lord what was he saying, the words were just tumbling out now and only once they were out there were the images hitting him in turn, Dave Strider on his knees, back hunched, as he -- ngh ngh ngh. "Because I'm not kidding, you can get by a while with only one type of release but sooner or later you have to release the other one, too."
He almost asked how it had been before, that he didn't know that, (prurient curiosity, yeah, okay, whatever) but reminding Dave about the mating parts he used to have and would never have again would not be kind right now.
Shoulders hunched, Dave was chewing on his lip. Karkat's bloodpusher did a funny little flip. His forgotten pants party did a bigger one.
"Do you. Uh. Would you."
"... Spit it out, Vantas, can't make it worse."
Haha, showed what he knew. "Would it, uh. Be easier if... If it was someone else?"
He forced the rest of the words out, for full clarity, even though from the way Dave was staring at him he'd understood already.
"Touching you. In there."
"Are you suggesting you do it with your dick, Vantas," Dave said with oddly calm, light-hearted rage.
"No!" Karkat spluttered. "No, fuck, I wasn't even thinking of that! I was thinking -- like -- with m -- with something, I don't know, some object, or. My f-fingers, maybe? Not my -- not -- we're ashen, we're not supposed to fuck, how many hundreds of times do I have to remind you, this is just trying to help you out of your bullshit boneheaded case of stupid so I'm not out a quadrantmate, okay? I'm not trying to get off at your expense!"
Not that he wouldn't get off later to the memory. Oh gog. He so would.
His pants were probably stained to hell and back now. Oh well.
He chanced a quick little glance at Dave's face, who was staring blankly at him. When their eyes met Dave turned his face away in a quick, flustered jerk, and okay, no, Karkat was not going to find the son of a bitch cute, just no, that shit was repulsive.
"Why am I even considering," Dave gritted out, and then "Okay. Sure. Go ahead, Sensei, show me the way to mastery of my troll vajayjay."
Oh. Funny how even knowing it was objectively the best solution -- and wishing for it with all his being, let's be honest there -- Karkat hadn't believed it was going to happen. He blinked back, a little lightheaded. "Okay."
"Okay."
They stared at each other another handful of seconds.
"Uh. Upstairs? Might as well use that platform of yours for the purpose it was intended."
"What, sleep?" Dave bit back, but he obligingly turned around and led the way up the wooden stairs, almost clocking Karkat in the nose with the tip of his ridiculous curved horns on the way, which Karkat was sure he'd meant to do.
He couldn't really mind when he had that ass to follow.
"Okay, so. Where do you put your pails."
Standing in the middle of his respiteblock, Dave stared at him.
"Oh, fuck you, not buckets. We don't jizz that much now."
"Yeah, when we do it regularly. You're going to need one. Where?"
Dave let himself fall back on his concupiscent platform, head lolling from the opposite end so his horns could hang, and threw his free arm across his face. So vulnerable, gnh. "Fuck you. Kitchen, downstairs, under the sink."
Karkat trudged back down the stairs, and then back up, with the heavy wooden pail in hand and wow was he glad all the blinds were closed because that would not be compromising at all. He came back in to Dave draped on his back across the corner of the low bed, so his feet could be on the floor and his hips by the edge, without his horns getting in the way.
His knees were spread. His hand moved under the cloth of his sleeping pants, but from the way he hissed it wasn't doing him much good.
Karkat went to set the pail between his feet (his bulge writhed) and hesitated. Should he crouch there, or sit on the bed beside him? Either position seemed awkward, at his side would have Karkat's wrist twisted at an uncomfortable angle, but being on the floor at his feet pinged him all wrong, either in the peasant servicing his lord way or the pervert at the window of a peep show way.
"So? Waiting to be schooled, sensei, all rests on you now."
Dave's voice was tense, growly -- which was nice -- but defeated too, which wasn't. Licking his lip nervously, Karkat nudged his knee with his.
"Sit up, stupid, I've got to sit behind you. Won't find the right angle otherwise."
"... You're going to do me the way you do yourself? Jegus, that's at least third date material, Vantas, are we that advanced?"
Karkat's face still burned at the same degree of heat Dave's did. He kept bantering anyway. "It'd be the way I do myself if you could hold on that long, but you'll be swooning much too fast to get that far."
Dave sat up with a sigh. Karkat shuffled behind him, and then closer to his back, nudging him so he'd move closer to the edge of the bed. It was hard to avoid brushing against him but he couldn't make himself just casually breach that last distance.
"Challenging me to a contest of endurance now? Are you sure you want to do that?"
Karkat flicked Dave's closest horn tip, and then fitted himself against his back; a couple of inches between his crotch and Dave's back, but his knees bracketing his thighs. His chest pressed against his shoulder blades, where creepily feathered wings would emerge; it was strange to cuddle up to Dave of all people but his shoulder needed to be as close as possible or he'd hurt something trying to get between Dave's legs.
He was hurting his brain right now, but never mind that.
Dave inhaled sharply. Karkat pretended he didn't notice, and didn't want to press his heated face against his shoulder to hide the effect it had on him.
"Pants off."
Only a grunt, no smartass answer, as Dave wriggled out of his pants way too close to Karkat's amorous crotch trunkbeasts, fff.
"Pants off, sensei. Now -- now what?"
Karkat licked his dry lips absently. Okay, might as well just do it. It wasn't foreplay Dave was lacking right now.
"Keep touching yourself if you can stand it, but in any case don't let it latch onto me, I --" might come in my pants -- "I might claw you up a bit on accident."
Dave tensed up a little. "Aw, shit, yeah, claws, isn't that--"
"It'll be fine. Shoosh."
And before he compounded the vacillating weirdness with a pap, he wrapped his arm around Dave's waist and fitted his palm straight over his crotch.
Sssshit he was wet.
Karkat stared blindly at the ceiling as he felt around Dave's folds -- oh, here was the root of his bulge, okay, yeah, middle slit, now going down...
"Breathe, asshole, it's not going to hurt."
"Huh, no -- no cherry to pop? I'm disappointed, think of all the jokesngh."
"I don't even know what the fuck you're blathering on about, bulgeknot. Shoosh." He sank another knuckle in.
Dave was burning hot inside, engorged feelers feverishly pressing all around his finger. Karkat pressed his palm down flat so he could push his middle finger all the way in, curled and uncurled it inside, pressing against painfully swollen flesh. Dave shivered all over.
"Hurts?" Karkat said, shocking himself at how rough, how low his voice came out.
"No, 'm cool," Dave said through gritted teeth, "keep going."
Karkat wasn't sure if he believed him yet. At this point the relief might well be so intense it would be undistinguishable from pain.
He pulled his middle finger out slowly, and pushed it back in along with his index. Dave's thighs clamped closed on his hand.
"Fuck, fuck. My bad. Keep going."
Karkat's brow furrowed. "Just tell me if it hurts, you moron, it's not--"
"It doesn't, keep your fingers right where they are or I'm cutting your hand off at the wrist and riding it without the rest of you to flap your mouth, okay?"
Karkat huffed out a laugh against his shoulder. It kind of sucked that Dave was taller and Karkat couldn't look over his shoulder and see much more than his spread knees.
He could feel, though, he could feel him dripping around his fingers and out onto the bedsheets, he could feel him clenching and releasing in long ripples. Karkat pressed a little farther in, not that there was a lot of slack left, spread and curled his fingers some, holding them wide, for a second entertaining the thought that this was the width of his bulge, this was how much he'd open Dave up if he -- but no, ashen, he couldn't cheat on Jade like that. He breathed out, went back to his quest. He didn't ask Dave to tell him when he found it, it'd be instantly obvious.
It was, more than he'd even thought. The second he felt the oddly still, tight little pucker of his seedflap Dave's whole body arched back. Karkat wasn't braced; they toppled back on the mattress, Dave pining him under his weight and his fingers slipping almost all the way out.
"Shit!" Karkat said when he could breathe again. "Did I claw you up?"
"Oh -- no, you didn't, what the hell was that, you -- Karkat? Put your -- get your -- Karkat, I--"
Oh dear horrorterrors. Dave was positively undone. Karkat thought he wouldn't need much before he was, too. He inhaled and exhaled and gathered his strength and ignored the almost painful way the small of Dave's back pressed against his bone bulge. He managed to shove them back up into a somewhat sitting position, his abdominal muscles clenched tight, his free hand pressed on the mattress behind them to brace. Dave was all loose and shivery, leaning on his chest and heavy. It was a strain; Karkat didn't even care anymore. He pressed his forehead to Dave's skull, behind his ear, sank his fingers back in.
He was pretty sure right now Dave wouldn't notice even if he had clawed him up, but the way he rocked onto Karkat's hand, back against him, the way his head rolled back on Karkat's shoulder, pale throat exposed, white hair everywhere, (the way he kept chanting his name, oh, oh)... no, he wasn't going to mind, he wasn't going to mind anything for a short while longer.
Karkat put a third finger in, and ruthlessly crooked them against his spasming seedflap to force it to relax.
Dave's first cry kept ringing in his head long after warm wetness was done splattering his hand and the wooden pail underneath.
He waited until Dave was done shaking, until his breath started evening out again, until he was quiet once again, before he pulled out, cautious and slow and drawing a last shudder out of his ashen mate nevertheless.
He looked at his hand. The fluid on it was an odd pink-tinged, cloudy white.
Dave rocked forward, took his own weight off Karkat, and thank fuck because his shoulder had started to hurt pretty bad and he hadn't really been paying attention. He didn't know what to do with his genetic material-slicked hand, though.
"... Welp."
Dave got up, and Karkat felt cold everywhere they'd been touching, and oddly embarrassed, like all the awkward that had lifted during the act was now slamming back down, only Dave was now done and Karkat still had a crotch full of rowdy wild beasts.
"Uh. I guess the bucket's not that full," Dave said, overshooting nonchalant by a mile, as he tried to pull his pants back up without either mooning Karkat or facing him even a little. "You could always, you know."
Oh. His genetic material and Dave's. Mingled together.
Without them actually, truly pailing.
Not because they were being kinky; because that wasn't their quadrant, because they couldn't. (Because Dave didn't even really want to, want him, because Karkat had just been helping out with a technical problem, not because he...)
"Nah, I'll be fine, thanks."
It was pretty disorienting to want to cry and need to come both.
He got up; his legs were wobbly. He couldn't look at Dave, but he was pretty sure Dave wouldn't notice, because he couldn't look at Karkat either. "I'll just. Wash my hands and go home. Yeah. Later, Strider."
He wobbled his way toward the door.
"Wait."
He couldn't turn around. "What, Dave. You're done, your bulge will retract on its own in a minute at worst, you're fine. Can I go now before I spontaneously combust into a ball of flaming shame and putrefying shit."
"You've got a target painted on your crotch, are you going to walk out like that? What if John's out in his garden? You'll never hear the end of it and I wouldn't care except neither will I."
Karkat growled, fists clenched. (The jizz on his hands squelched between his fingers. Gross. Not sexy anymore, just gross. He wanted to be home and get himself clean and forget about it already.) "I'll just run. Any other criticism?"
Silence.
He took a step over the threshold.
"Yeah, a major one. Do you realize you got your hand bits all up in my crotch bits and didn't even kiss me, you horrendous scoundrel."
Dave's voice was so weirdly soft it shocked him into turning around, into staring. Dave's face was still flushed, but more lightly now, and his pants were closed just fine with nothing untoward tenting them. He still looked unfairly gorgeous and irritatingly controlled, but then again he always did.
"You... want to kiss?"
Dave shrugged, scratched at the base of his neck with a falsely nonchalant claw. "Feels a little cheap otherwise."
Karkat hesitated. "But we're not..."
"Dude, if that wasn't quadrant blurring then what the fuck was it, is what I'd like to know."
Yeah, there was that. "But..."
Dave wandered closer, bare feet on dark planks, a hand trailing through his hair, to the root of his heavy horn; Karkat couldn't look away. He stopped, so close he could have leaned in and pressed right against Karkat's shoulder.
"It's not gonna be black anyway, not right now," he admitted, and Karkat's bloodpusher squeezed its agreement, "so it's not even like we're cheating on Jade, right? And we're not breaking up with her either because as soon as we're done I'm kicking you the fuck out and we'll never mention it again except I'll still be making you pay for it into next year. Sounds fair?"
Karkat couldn't keep a startled bark of a laugh between his teeth. "You're such a one-man quadrant clusterfuck, I can't even fathom how you do it."
"With unparalleled grace and inimitable style, of course. The Strider credo--"
Karkat leaned in and kissed him quiet, because they'd be here in a hour otherwise.
He couldn't help smiling against his mouth. Dave's lips reluctantly flipped upwards as well; he watched white eyelashes flutter closed over crimson eyes, his shade or almost.
Dave was right, it wasn't black at all.
(It was kind of awkward making out while holding his hand out and his hips back, but he endured it somehow.)