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~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
- 6
- 7
Karkat looked over his hard work and wondered again if it was enough. The two previous times he’d asked himself that, the answer had been no. Psions burned through calories like fire burned through fake milk creamer. More if they were being active. When Sollux remembered to ingest something with more nutritional weight than a twelve pack of energy grubs, he could clear a nutrient block of all edibles in less than an hour. And since Karkat very much doubted even the energy grubs had been consumed at this point, there needed to be enough to make sure Sollux could replace at least some of what he’d lost to mania. Then there was his own metabolism to worry about...
...He was stalling more than anything and he knew it. The eating platform was covered in food, so much so that even if he had the ingredients to make more, there wouldn’t be room for it. And he didn’t have anything left to cook. He’d gone through everything salvageable in the block itself as well as the entry block, which had added an extra task and an hour to his timetable. If he screwed around any longer, neither of them would eat until sunrise, which was unacceptable. So Karkat tightened the bindings on his boots, took a breath against the flutter of adrenaline, and stalked down the hallway to collect his wayward friend.
It seemed Sollux had taken his previous scare seriously. No sooner had Karkat started to open the door than he yanked it closed again to deflect the barrage of projectiles launched at his head. He braced, holding it shut against the force trying to pry it from his grasp. He got lucky; his grip gave out just as the thudding stopped. The door snapped open and Karkat hit the floor on instinct alone as several more objects came flying at him with haphazard accuracy. He watched the empty energy grubs finish bouncing down the hallway as he picked himself back up, amused rather than annoyed by the attempted counterstrike.
“The throwing stars would have worked better,” he said conversationally as he stepped over the pile that had formed by the door.
“As fun as punching holes in you would be, it would only make you more annoying.”
The younger troll sat on the floor, surrounded by pieces of dismantled husktop, fidgeting with something inside the case Karkat couldn’t see. With a sharp tug and an audible pop, Sollux withdrew one of the processor plates. He twirled it in his hands, looking it over before setting it aside with the other pieces. Then he reached in to remove something else. “Are you hovering just to piss me off, or do you actually want something?”
Apparently they were back to being surly with each other. Karkat relaxed a bit; he liked surly. He could handle surly. “I want a lot of things, but I’ll settle for an explanation. What the fuck are you doing?”
“Wondering if the reason the code crashed is because your shitty husktop couldn’t compile it correctly.” Another plate popped out. Sollux scanned it, then set it aside. “If that’s true, then all I have to do is boost the problem area, let the mess compile, and run a standard debug rather than trying to pick through line by line. I was starting to go cross-eyed trying to read through it.” He frowned as he pulled the last plate out, inspecting it slowly.
Karkat bit his tongue. The husktop's ability to perform had never been the problem. The program had compiled just fine, after all; it just hadn't reacted the way it was supposed to, because nothing in Karkat's life ever did. However, telling Sollux that would be an exercise in futility. Unless he built it himself, and usually not even then, the base assumption was that the machine was shit and needed to be upgraded. It would take less time for Sollux to discover that it wasn't the husktop that was the problem on his own than try to argue about it and have him dismantle the damn thing anyway just to prove a point.
And speaking of points, there was a more important one waiting to be made. One worth the argument it was going to create. "Since you’re at a stopping point, come eat something,” Karkat prompted.
Sollux didn't even look up. His only reaction was to frown harder at the processor plate still in his hands. “Just bring it here.”
“Where you can set it aside and forget about it until it gains sentience?" Karkat settled on his heels. "No. Come eat in the nutrition block like a normal troll.”
“I’m busy--”
“With nothing that’s going anywhere.”
“You were the one who told me to do it!”
“I also told you I wasn’t going to let you kill yourself in the meantime. There’s still plenty of time to figure this shit out without starving yourself trying to get it done faster.”
“Easy for you to say. I’m the one doing all the work!”
“All the more reason to put it aside for ten minutes to stuff your face gash with something more than sugar and caffeine. This isn’t an opt-in venture, Captor, “ Karkat snarled when Sollux went to argue again. “Eating and sleeping are not miscellaneous tasks you can put off until you have time for them. If you had the option, you'd never do either. So I’m not giving you the option. You will eat. Now, you can walk in there and eat of your own volition or get dragged there and be force-fed. Pick one."
Sollux glared, teeth bared in open, but silent, defiance. Karkat fought the urge to return the challenge. He'd already delivered his ultimatum; there was no need for further escalation or coercion. He just needed be a polite brick wall until the other saw sense.
The drone of the apiary frames filled the space between them for several long seconds. “Your choices suck, KK,” Sollux finally relented.
Karkat took a breath and forced the muscles he'd been unconsciously tensing to relax. “Only because you refuse to see the value in either.”
Even without any discernible eye structure, he could tell when Sollux rolled them in exasperation. With a sigh of dramatic suffering, the younger troll stood, using his psionics to buoy himself up and over the ring of husktop parts before he was even fully upright. For the most part, it looked effortless. But Karkat had seen effortless control before and knew better. Too much upward lift, too little forward thrust, a tiny stumble as Sollux disengaged a second too late. Minor things that proved the other troll was still trying to show off no matter how put upon he sounded. Karkat kept any and all comments to himself as he followed the other back to the nutrition block, unwilling to spoil the cooperation by gloating. Sollux still got the final word in by making one of the empty energy grubs ricocheted off the back of Karkat’s head not even four steps down the hall. Karkat then collected the remaining failed projectiles to the familiar, if not still mildly irritating, sound of dry snickering.
“Did I know I had this much food in my hive?” Sollux asked, staring at the spread before him rather than sitting down.
“You had twice this much, but the rest had to feed the incinerators before it started campaigning for equal rights. You should have been charging it rent.” Karkat tossed his armload of garbage into the appropriate bin. Then he gently steered his still gaping friend into a seat. “You’ll need to order more foodstuffs some time tonight,” he added, taking his own seat opposite Sollux.
That earned him an incredulous look. “Why? So you can cook it all again in one go? Or so that I can start a housing racket for pocket change?” Karkat simply grinned back, refusing to comment further.
They lapsed into a comfortable silence as Sollux picked over the offerings, trying small bits of multiple things before putting any of it on his food plateau. Even then, it wasn’t much, smeared around to look like more was there than there really was. Karkat kept his attention on his own plateau and the controlled portions he was putting there. Once he stopped being contrary about it, or rather once he realized exactly how hungry he was, Sollux would eat with more enthusiasm and greater vigor. All Karkat had to do was keep quiet long enough to let the other get that far alone. So he forced his focus onto the food in front of him instead of giving into the urge to nag the other along.
That was harder to accomplish than Karkat expected. He purposefully didn’t give much consideration to what he ate anymore. Being a troll meant he was still a carnivore, no matter how blunt his teeth might appear. However, much of the foodstuffs cultivated by the Coalition came from planets and cultures that had very flexible ideas about what that word meant and how to provide it. They put into safe ports often enough that a large supply of food was both unnecessary and impractical to carry around, but that also meant they had to work with whatever that port was donating to the cause. His ship had its own hydroponics bay that supplemented those rations so at least some food items remained consistently recognizable from meal to meal. It was safer, though, to ingested what he was provided without thought because he could only afford to skip so many meals before hunger won out anyway.
Despite the black hole rumbling in his gut and the recently acquired habit of inhaling nutritional objects, Karkat tried to take his time eating. Switching from a pseudo-protein to a hard-protein diet, even for three nights, probably meant unhappy things for his digestive track. And sure enough, he’d only cleared half his food plateau before hunger and nausea began to intermix. He continued to eat with methodical fastidiousness for a while longer because he needed to eat as much as Sollux did, until one more bite meant certain illness. He carefully set the rest of his meal aside and focused on the troll across from him while he waited for system to settle.
Sollux had already moved past the point of portion control and was simply devouring what he wished from the serving vessels themselves. Karkat watched his friend eat, both relieved and unsettled at the sheer voracity being displayed. Future Sollux could still put away four times his own body weight in food, but he no longer ate with a sense of desperation like the Sollux in front of him. And while it could be argued that was because future Sollux ate more regularly, Karkat knew that to be only part of the reason. The rest laid in the bowels of his ship, in the converter engines that drained and stored enough psionic power that his friend was no longer an overflowing font of it. He still hated the fact those engines were on his ship at all, but he could no longer deny how beneficial their existence had become to Sollux. Not with the contrary evidence literally right in front of him.
Those not-pale-not-flushed feelings surged back to the forefront, adding a shot of guilt to the already greasy nausea turning in Karkat's stomach. He needed to stop thinking again. Good thing he had a bunch of work waiting in the nutrition block to start. Sollux gave him a curious look when he stood up, but Karkat waved it off. He returned his uneaten food to their respective vessels before heading to the cooking section of the block to start cleaning. Between the effort it would take to keep his meal down and the focus required to work effectively, there would be no room for the inane wanderings of his thinkpan. It was slow going at first, but by the time Sollux came in, surrounded by a cloud of mostly cleaned out serving vessels, Karkat was just starting to run out of things to clean.
“You’re going to do this to my whole hive, aren’t you?” Sollux asked, resigned and a bit irritated.
Karkat shrugged and didn't look up from the counter he was wiping down for the third time. There was no way he was going to admit he’d already wiped down the cabinets and thermal hull as well. “You didn’t leave me a list.”
“Is this all we are in the future?” Sollux demanded as the empty dishes dropped with an impatient clatter.
Karkat jerked to attention, instantly on alert for a threat even as he reminded himself again that there was no threat. Granted, a pissed off psion of any age could prove fatally dangerous to be around, and Sollux was no exception, but a flare of temper also wasn't a battle cry. It took a minute to rein in the fight instinct and then another minute to try and process the question. The words refused to make sense, however. “What?”
“Usually when you bully me into something for my own good, then shut me out, it’s because I pissed you off," Sollux huffed. "And yeah, I’ve probably done sixteen things tonight alone to irritate this timeline’s KK, but you... Half the time you react like he would and then the other half you don't. And all I can figure out is that either I did something stupid in the future you haven’t forgiven me for yet, in which case I’m preemptively sorry for it now, or you're trying to make up for something else. Because if it’s the latter, you can stop with all this.” He gestured around the block. “I don’t want some false gratuity you feel like you owe me and I certainly as fuck don’t need the reminder that I’ll end up as a glorified--”
“Don't say it,” Karkat growled, hands clenching as anger rolled through him, still as bright and hot as the last time they'd had this argument, sweeps in the future. It might have been better to let Sollux assume, timeline continuity and all that shit, but the consequences be damned in this case. He wasn’t going to let that idea fester. “You’re not some..." Karkat choked on a snarl; he almost couldn't get the words out without wanting to scream. "Some...piece of wetware...strung up in the bowels of a warship. You chose how you want to serve, how you want to live, all on your goddamn own. Didn't matter how much of a pain in the globes it was to everyone else, you just fucking did it anyway like the blistered shit sponge you are. And while shit certainly sucked during a lot of the in between phases, if I thought for a even a moment you were being forced in any way to do what you do, I would tear the whole insipid taintchaffing clusterfuck apart with my own hands!”
Sollux stared at him long enough that Karkat began to wonder if anything he'd said had been understandable words or just a lot of aggravated screeching on his end. Then, so quietly Karkat had to strain to hear it, Sollux asked, “So why do you keep shutting me out?”
Karkat drew in a sharp breath. Well, he’d already gone this far. Might as well finish ruining his past self's upcoming life. “I have a moirail.”
The admission was met with dead silence.
“No offense, KK, but what does that have to with this conversation? Last time I checked, nothing like this counted as a moirallegenic overture. We agreed that you bitching at me to eat and sleep isn't pale, just like how me telling you it's okay when someone in one of your dumb books or movies is a jerk isn't pale." Sollux paused before adding under his breath, "And I can think of a lot of other things I’d rather do with you than get shooshed, to be honest.”
Now it was Karkat's turn to stare, dumbfounded. “But I... But you--” Even as he said the words, he realized his mistake. Six sweeps ago, on the other side of this time-fuck, he’d been confronted with an end he hadn’t been ready for. The Sollux then had offered protection, glimpses of understanding, assurance when it was needed most. Everything Karkat had used to define himself had been ripped away, so of course he’d needed stability, and anchor to keep the pieces together until he could rebuild himself. But for all the pale intentions behind the actions, they were still not the acts of a moirail. Had never been the acts of a moirail. His own desperation had made him see something that had never been there. Or rather, made him see only a part of what was there.
His knees suddenly felt weak, light headed from the sudden revelation. Karkat clamped his hands to the counter top in an effort to remain standing. For all the shame-filled times he’d compared Gamzee to Sollux, he should have figured it out sooner. For all the preaching and encounters and deprogramming that came with the concept of love beyond quadrants, he should have figured it out sooner...
“KK...?”
Karkat looked at his friend and didn’t know whether to laugh, to curse, or to cry. “Answer me truthfully; what do you feel for me?” Sollux physically balked, stiffening and trying to back away from the conversation now that it had taken such a bizarre turn. “If you want an answer to your question, answer mine,” Karkat insisted. “What do you feel?”
After much self-conscious shifting, Sollux finally let out an explosive sigh towards the ceiling that sounded a lot like “I like you.” There was a painful silence of maybe two seconds before more words started slowly falling. “I’ve kinda always had a thing for you. I’m just such an incorrigible fuck-up that I can’t settle on one quadrant. I like you fired up and frothing as much as I like you quiet and content. I want to push you and protect you and fuck with you and get fucked by you and I can’t tell you any of this because I can’t pick one and stay with it. I can’t give you the almighty quadrant you deserve. And even if I could, I’d just fuck it up anyway, so what’s the point of even telling you?”
Sollux had wrapped his thin arms around himself, like that would protect him from a shattering blow yet to come. Feeling too much already, Karkat didn’t deny the impulse that left him lunging across the block. There was a squeak of surprised protest as he wrapped the other in a tight hug.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed. Sollux stiffened even more, but that only made Karkat hold tighter. “I’m sorry I’m such a fucking moron.”
Sollux relaxed slightly, returning the hug awkwardly after a moment. “Not that you’ll hear me disagreeing, but why are you the moron here?”
“Because I had it so stuck in my pan that things were supposed to be one way that I couldn’t see anything. And I made us both miserable because of it.” Karkat forced himself to step back, looking his friend over one more time because he didn't want to screw this up again.
Sollux stared at him with wide eyes.“So...the moirail thing...”
“It’s been killing me for sweeps," Karkat admitted. The constant weight of guilt finally eased from his chest, leaving a feeling of exhaustion and elation and disorientation behind. "I thought that was supposed to be us, but I found it in another and I could never figure out why and I thought...” He took a breath, trying to stem the flood of emotion still trying to come out. "I didn't think. That was the problem."
"So we're not pale in the future. Good to know." Sollux stared at their feet for a long moment. Then, with a little too much forced nonchalance, he asked, "What are we then?"
“Whatever the fuck we want to be," Karkat said with a completely delirious grin. "Darkest shade of pale to the blackest of flushes and everything in between.”
If possible, Sollux's eyes went wider than before. “Okay, who the fuck are you and what did you do with the real KK?”
He couldn't help it. Karkat laughed, heedless of the tears that also streaked down his cheeks as he grabbed his friend and swung him up and through the air, reciting the apologue of the First Ship with more enthusiasm than he’d ever had previous.
***
- 6
- 7
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~ATH We Part