Adult-FanFiction.org : Comics

~ATH We Part	By : grimreaperchibi Category: Web Comics > Homestuck Views: 2607 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Homestuck, nor the places, people, or objects within. I make no money writing this.

Chapter List
- 4
- 5
- 6
The sun had just touched the horizon when Karkat woke up. Disorientation lasted only as long as it took for him to get his eyes focused. Then it gave way to the egregious ache that was the rest of him. He groaned as he pulled himself upright; he remembered the platform being more comfortable than this. He’d fallen over strangely in his sleep and the resulting kinks complained with obnoxious insistence. Everything creaked or popped in protest, turning the simple process of sitting up into an unexpected hassle. Even his knuckles snapped as he massaged away the knots, trying to get his think-pan to focus on something more than how badly he hurt. Like what was he going to do with himself for the next three nights?
Usually, he stepped out of the sleeping pod with a list of chores already in mind. First he checked over the ship, updating himself on location, transit time, condition, and anything else that might have happened while he’d been asleep. If there was nothing worth busting someone over immediately, he went through his calisthenic routine, washed up, and went out for first meal. Often, there wasn’t time to sit and enjoy the food, so he’d wolf if down on his way to the bridge and the start of another cycle.
There was no ship update to scroll through, however, and the break in routine made him slightly anxious. Nothing weird outside of his younger self should be happening (if his experience was truth, and that as a big fucking IF). But it had been quiet for a while now, which usually meant the universe was setting up some other fantastical way to screw him over in the near future. The inability to prepare for wherever was coming scraped at him. He hated waiting and that was about all he could do at the moment.
Well, no, not all that he could do. Per typical of Sollux, his living space was a disaster zone. Turning it into something less than a garbage heap would not only be a good use of his nervous attention, but also a form a payment for tearing apart the awful coding that caused all the problems in the first place. Karkat needed to work out the stiffness in his body, now more than ever, and manual labour did that as well as anything else. And if he made food, he could make sure Sollux ate, too. If nothing else, his clothes would need to be washed along with the rest of him at some point. He had plenty to do, if he so chose.
Karkat did choose, starting with a trip to the load gapper and a second look at that vile cubicle of an ablution chamber. He noted the lights were back up in the respite block on his way there. Sollux had probably been up for hours already; hard to rest when everything felt like it had to be done right now. Bypassing his original destination, Karkat paused outside the door to listen. The drone of the apiary frames remained strong under the rhythmic click of keys. Not the clamour of information being pounded out, but the even tic-tic-tic of scrolling, moving just fast enough to keep the information being read at eye level. The occasional hissing grumble was the only other counterpoint to the otherwise focused noise.
He hesitated for a moment, then stepped back. Funneling all that manic energy into one task didn’t seem any healthier than letting it run sixteen separate places at once. He still needed a better reason to interrupt. It would be a fight to pull Sollux from his task now that he was set to it. Might as well make that fight worth something. Besides, he could hardly haul himself around at the moment--not the preferred condition to be in before tussling with a psionic. That was a mistake made only once and Karkat had made it sweeps ago.
Backtracking to the ablution block, he revised his immediate options. The trap looked no less awful than it had the night before, though between the still tacky sopor on his skin and the sweat that would come from working, it wouldn’t take long to be more disgusting than it. If he washed his clothes first, he’d have something clean to wear afterward as well. That would take up an hour, if not two, making it full night by the time he’d haul Sollux away for food. That should be enough time to quell any riot about not being given enough time to work.
Plan of attack set, Karkat returned to the recreation block. He pushed the platform to one side to free up some space, corralling the miscellaneous junk to the sidelines so that he didn’t trip or break anything. He didn’t need a lot of space, which meant clearing it didn’t take long. The dimensions were counted off twice before he was satisfied he’d recreated his normal living space. Then he stripped off his shirt, casting it out of the way before finding his mark in the middle of the allotted room. A deep breath, a carefully counted exhale, and then he was lost to the calm thoughtlessness of routine.
Stretching came first, from head to toe and back again, warming muscles to the idea of movement. Nearly everything hurt somehow and refused to cooperate in the beginning. Karkat worked carefully and diligently to loosen up; nothing would suck more than injuring himself and becoming even more useless than he already was. As the protesting faded, his activity changed, flowing smoothly from passive to active. His blood pusher picked up its pace and his movement fell into sync with it. Push, pull, up, down. Base moves that provided the foundations for more complicated action rolled out one after another in practiced perfection. He went through them several times to guarantee that perfection before building on them. Engage, break, dodge, return. Despite having limited formal training and stealing moves from otherwise incompatible sources, he’d beaten everything he knew about fighting into a seamless flow. Threshecutioner Close Combat Form #8 melted into a Vallhand Hook and Twist, which set up the Dargon in Mists and lead straight into an Archon Hammer before becoming either Long Distance Combat Form #12 or an Ills'an Viper Strike.
At some point, closing his eyes had become part of the routine. The visual data wasn’t nearly as important as making sure his body followed each action through correctly, so he didn’t waste time with it. He knew where the walls were, how to drop to the floor without kicking his desk, how to swing his hands so that his sickle didn’t catch on anything. In the absence of sight, his mind created opponents. There were certainly enough in memory to pick from. His pace picked up again as he engaged with the monsters in his head, tearing through one after another until he came to the only one he hadn’t defeated before. The one that had nearly ended his inglorious command before it truly started. The fear and desperation, rage and will of that fight came back in sharp detail, pushing him even harder. He hadn’t been ready then, had known so little about anything other than the Empire’s propaganda and still getting used to the changes of final maturation. Now, though. Now he was stronger, faster, more skilled, and even if that wasn’t enough to win, he could--
“--oh shit!”
The mental space shattered. Karkat came back to reality, poised in a half-crouch, ready to lunge forward and eviscerate the enemy that had sneaked up on him. Sollux stared back at him with a mixture of wariness and too much wonder. The acknowledgment of a friend clashed with the intensity of his mostly imaginary fight. Karkat swallowed the war scream that clawed at his throat. His eyes focused exclusively on Sollux’s, using the other as his focal point to back away from the violence still singing in time to his thundering pulse. The emotional backlash tore at him, making it almost painful to stand back up despite knowing the person in front of him was a trusted ally. He grit his teeth and bore it; it was still far too easy to be the violent weapon his kind had been bred and raised for. Spill blood only for the sake of life, for defense, and be merciful when drawing the wound... He forced himself to relax as the mantra repeated.
He looked away before he was truly ready and reached for his shirt. Between the sweat and sopor, putting it on now meant gluing it to his skin for all intents and purposes. It still gave him purpose and distance from the tense standoff he’d just had his friend blunder into. And maybe if he got it on fast enough, he could avoid questions about some of the scars he’d unintentionally put on display.
“How did you get those?”
The query didn’t need to be more specific. He had plenty of scars, but none were more eye-catching. Despite himself, Karkat looked down at the three red starburst scars that stacked up vertically though his torso. He could still see the afterimage of gold tines poking through his skin, taste the blood in the back of his throat, feel the explosion of wind on his face, the memory was so close to the surface of his thoughts. It had taken so long to not simply break down at the mention of them, let alone stop seeing what had caused the damage. Funny that he could remember so much about the particular moment he’d received them, but not when it had stopped freaking him out.
“Culling fork,” Karkat answered, proud that the blunt words remained neutral sounding. He blinked the illusion away, pulling his shirt down to push it further out of his mind. “What do you want?”
It took a second more for Sollux to stop staring and respond. “The code is atrocious.”
Karkat snorted as he pulled the tie from his hair and set to binding it back again. “It came from my younger self. Of course it is.”
“I mean it’s bad, even for you. I’ve gone over it twice already and I still don’t have a clue about half of what I’m looking at.”
“And this precludes you how?”
“It doesn’t, but it’s going to take more work than I thought it would.” His weight shifted uncertainly, like Sollux was second guessing himself. Karkat let him fidget. “We should talk about compensation before I throw the next three night of my life away for this.”
“Compensation,” Karkat repeated, letting the word sit heavy, like he hadn’t already thought about it and come up with a lacking solution. “Making sure you don’t kill yourself by the end of those three nights isn’t enough?”
“You don’t get rewarded for being a pain in the ass, KK. Though the type of pain could be negotiated, I guess.”
A bark of laughter erupted from him before Karkat could control the impulse. “You would be that kind of kinky, wouldn’t you?” Sollux glared at him and he got his chuckling under control. “Seriously, Captor, what do you expect me to give? All I have personally is the clothes I’m wearing and I’m not writing you a promissory note on behalf of past-me. And trust me, you don’t want these clothes.”
“There’s worse things in this world than seeing you naked again,” Sollux said, almost too casually.
Whatever Karkat meant to say next tripped over itself. He frowned, struggling for a second to find words. “As much as I’m sure you’d love to see me in nothing more than my boots, the point remains; I have nothing to give you.”
“You could always work it off. And your boots would look great no matter where we left them.”
“My boots stay on my feet,” Karkat responded flatly, confused and not entirely sure about what. What he did know was that this conversation needed to end before it got any more screwed up. “If you want me to do something specific with your hive, I suggest you write it down. I’ll get to it after I take a shower.” He then made a calculated retreat to the ablution block.
The door clicked shut and he leaned against it, ignoring the fact that he didn’t feel any safer for being alone. What the hell had just happened? He didn’t want to know. He was probably over-thinking it anyway. There had always been a sexualized edge to their teasing because they were stupid that way, but it never went further than that. Always a give and let go comment, then moving one to whatever else was going on. Sollux’s insistence was disorienting. And probably not even real. His head was messed up from memory. The protective desire that being in the past had stirred up was adding significance where there was none. He was projecting his own fucked-up desires on to his friend and he needed to stop thinking about it before he did something truly stupid.
Resisting the desire to knock his head against the door, Karkat sighed and started peeling off his clothes. His skin was still warm enough that his shirt didn’t stick that badly, though it needed a soak to make sure the sopor came out. He started the water in the trap, knob cranked as hot as it could go, then dumped his boots into the water. The only real problem with living in combat boots was that they reeked by the time they came off. Even his socks could stand up by themselves if left for more than a day. They went into the sink with his shirt. After a minute of debate, his pants and underthings joined as well. There was no way any of it would be dry before he was done showering, but putting on wet clothes was preferable to redonning soiled ones. A short, vigorous scrub with something that smelled like soap of some kind later, everything was spread out to dry as best it could and Karkat stepped into the trap himself.
He’d just finished washing out one boot with the same vague detergent-like substance as the rest of his clothes when a knock sounded on the door. It opened before he acknowledged it. The small squawk of surprise as the moist air rushed out belonged to Sollux. For the second time that night, Karkat found himself forcing muscles to relax.
“Holy fuck, KK, you turn into a tropical seadweller or something?”
“Maybe if you used a little more water every once in a while, scalding my skin off wouldn’t be required to be clean.” He considered poking his head out around the curtain to glare at the other. He couldn’t decide how he felt facing his friend with nothing else between them. Instead, he waited until Sollux did his self-conscious shuffle again.
“I brought you extra drying planes,” he said in a rush, obviously trying to justify his lingering presence. “And I found more soap if you need it.” Another fidgeting hesitation. “Anything I can help with?”
Karkat chewed on his lip for a moment. More innuendo, or sincere question? He shook his head to clear the extremely unhelpful image of Sollux wet and soapy in the trap with him. “Can you throw my clothes in the garment sanitizer?”
One beat of silence. Two. Karkat stretched his hearing past the falling water and heard the other’s resigned little sigh. “Yeah, I can do that, but don’t ask for too many more favours. You already own me as it is.” After a bit of rustling to gather said clothes, the door clicked closed again. When further intrusion failed to be forth coming, Karkat turned back to washing his other boot. There was too much to think about, too much emotional entanglement to sort, and the world wouldn’t stop until it went away or was figured out. He might as well deal with what he could control now and hope action brought clarity.
Washing the second boot took twice as long as it should have. Washing himself proved to be just as problematic. He gave up multiple times to stare at the trap curtain, lost in thought, only to force himself forward again when he remembered that just because the hot water was limitless did not mean he could hide in the ablution block all night. The mental chastisement did nothing to hurry him along. When he finally turned the water off, the silence felt oppressive, suffocating in the humid air. Karkat dried himself off on automatic, grateful for the extra drying planes since his hair decided to take up two before it stopped dripping down his back.
He knew he was stalling, but at the same time, Karkat couldn’t convince himself to stop. He had heard Sollux sigh, heard the resignation in words that never said as such. That wasn’t projection, or wishful thinking, or anything other than what it was--another complication on top of so many. That Sollux was angling for something more, something Karkat wasn’t sure he could provide, seemed a good assumption to make. What that something actually was, well. If he wanted to know that, he’d have to ask and risk fucking something up.
And no matter his curiosity, no matter how uncomfortable not knowing made him, that was a risk he could not take.
So that was his answer. He would ignore and pretend and move on. Karkat picked up the used drying planes, jammed his feet into the still wet boots, and vacated the block with a thin veneer of confidence. He hadn’t considered that asking Sollux to wash his clothes meant walking out of the block without anything on. It wouldn’t have been a problem normally, either. The two of them had been in various states of undressed around the other for almost as long as they’d been friends. Now it seemed like an invitation that Karkat didn’t want to extend.
Sollux wasn’t in the hallway or the nutrition block where the garment sanitizer and drying machines had their own enclosed niche. The dryer portion was already going, its display saying there were fifteen more minutes until it was done. He stared at it, trying to figure out why there was time left at all. It didn’t add up in his head. He’d spent more than enough time dragging himself through his washing ritual that his clothes should have been dry already. Unless... He popped the door and grabbed the first thing that came to his hand. A quick sniff confirmed his thoughts. It didn’t smell like sopor, or sweat, or even the soap he’d used in his attempt to wash them enough to be wearable again. They were, however, most definitely clean. He never would have guessed Sollux actually knew how to do a proper load of laundry.
Despite what the timer said, his clothes felt dry, so Karkat pulled them out and redressed. He debated with himself for a minute, then threw his boots in instead. Fifteen minutes wouldn’t dry them completely, but they’d be dry enough he wouldn’t have to worry about blisters and pad rot when he put them back on. He loaded the used drying planes into the sanitizer portion and set it to run before contemplating the nutrition block itself. It had been a while since he’d last flexed his culinary muscles. Considering he didn’t expect to find much beyond instant noodles and precooked, reheatable meals, he could always blame the ingredients if anything turned out awful. Ignoring the itch crawling up his legs from his unprotected feet, Karkat started the food adventure portion of his night.
***
To be continued.
- 4
- 5
- 6
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

~ATH We Part