Full Summary: Gamzee/Karkat centric piece, but other pairings will be added as we roll along. Trolls and Humans coexist on a small planet ('Gaia'). Details about the history of the species' coexistence will be thrown in bit by bit; I couldn't be arsed to bang out a prologue to explain it all.
All the Trolls and Kids are 18-19 at this point, and have, for the most part, settled into their lives in this new world. Full list of genres/themes this fic will touch on; mainly situational humour, drama, quadrant flipping, xenobiology, a dash of angst, romance, friendship, internal conflict on more than one count…and more I cant think of at the moment. We're going to take the road to the eventual GamKar quadrant flip nice and slow, so there won't be any bedroom antics for quite awhile. Chapters will have warnings where they apply, so no like/no read.
A/N: For Shannon; clickmaverick on tumblr.
Okay guys….this is my first published fic ever, so I encourage CC/R&R, but go easy on me, yeah? XDD Man, I am so nervous right now.
Updates will be hopefully as often as once a week, but while I'm not tying myself down to an actual schedule, I'm determined to not let myself fall behind on this. My writing style leaves a lot to be desired on some points-I use a lot of line breaks, so this fic is likely to be best viewed in ¾ or ½. The first three chapters are relatively short, but beyond that I'll try to pick up a bit more length for each one.
I will, in the near future, be adding a tag on my Homestuck Fanart blog for this fic, which will be home to character concepts, doodles of their houses, some of the situations…stuff like that. So if that kind of thing is something you'd enjoy, feel free to follow me there on tumblr; stuckdraws (link is on my profile here as well)-StuckDraws is NSFW.
Obvious disclaimer; I do not own Homestuck or the Characters, Hussie does.
Chapter 1 - Eye-pods and Egberts
Walking down the same street every day for the past few sweeps, one came to expect certain things. The same smells from the bakery wafting onto the sidewalk, teasing the senses and tempting you inside. The same rhythmic beat of your feet, and below that, the hum of the underground transport system making its first trip of the day.
Even some of the faces passed were the same as you walked by-not that you ever bothered to look up from the ground as you made your way home.
Karkat sighed as he made his way back from work, retracing the exact steps he had taken earlier that morning at 1am. Hands stuffed into his jacket, the left one gripping his … what had John called it again? An 'eye-pod'? Stupid fucking name for the music device if you asked Karkat; the tiny thing had no eye of any description on it. He snorted, remembering the conversation upon being presented the music player.
"What the nookchafing fuck is this thing?"
"It's an iPod, Karkat! You can put music and stuff on it!"
"Fucking wonderful, Egbert. Just what I needed. Another data storage unit." Karkat had wildly gestured to the pile of external hard drives that Sollux had given him.
"No, no, nooo. You put these headphones in here, see? And press this button to play something!" John had all but rammed the small squishy things into Karkat's ears, earning the human a lovely string of curses.
"GOGDAMNIT EGBERT YOU DENSE FUCK. YOU DON'T JUST STUFF THINGS INTO OTHER PEOPLE'S AUDITORY SPONGES LIKE THAT."
"Sorry! But its pretty cool! I even got red to match your eyes!" John had apologized, but with that ever-present gleeful grin on his face. Sometimes Karkat just wanted to slap that smile right of his peachy fa-
"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?" Karkat had all but screamed the words. "TO MATCH MY FUCKING- HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN EVERYTHING THAT FUCKING FAST, YOU MORON?"
John obviously realized his mistake, if the look on his face had anything to reveal.
"Oh… Oh Karkat, I'm so sorry! Here let me take it back and get you another co-"
"NO. NO, ITS FINE I'LL FUCKING DEAL WITH IT MYSELF."
Karkat face palmed as he walked, running the situation over in his mind. He gripped the 'eye-pod' tighter, recalling how he had marched himself to Sollux's room and without a word to his dual-horned friend, snatched a roll of silver duct tape and plastered strips of it all over the music player, until not a trace of the offending red color underneath could be seen. Imperial-driven culling may not still be in effect, but the Hemospectrum was still a very prominent part of the trolls' existence, and many trolls still felt the need to retain order amongst the spectrum-it may not be culling by Imperial order, but fuck. Culling was culling. There were even organized Blueblood and Highblood gangs creeping in the shadows. Karkat be damned, he would never let anyone besides his friends know about his mutant blood. Kanaya had even found him a pair of dark grey contacts to wear. Upon his stubborn, loud, and rather violent insistence of course.
He pushed the whole subject out of his mind and plodded along, meeting eye of neither troll nor human as he walked, glancing up only to read the street signs he passed.
Second, Third…
Deaf to the sounds of the waking city, music running into the gray earbuds, Karkat hooked a sharp right turn at the curb, now facing the crosswalk. He narrowed his eyes at the offending red "Do Not Walk" light, blinking at him for what seemed like the millionth time. How did he always manage to get to the corner of Fourth Street at the exact moment traffic resumed its flow? Fuck.
Karkat freed a hand from his jacket and impatiently hammered the crosswalk button with a single finger. He tapped his foot, scowling at the traffic lights. Come the fuck on, turn red already…
'Buy it, use it, break it, fix it, trash it, change it, mail-upgrade it'
If it weren't for the fact that his cell phone vibrated while blaring out Sollux's ringtone, he probably would have missed the call. Karkat tugged one of his earbuds out, fumbling around in his pockets to locate his phone, which was still playing the ringtone at a ridiculously loud volume.
'Lock it, fill it, call it, find it, view it, code it, jam-unlock it'
Karkat nearly flailed as he ripped the phone out of his pocket and flipped it open, shouting 'WHAT' into the innocent device. A few people turned to give him odd looks, but he barely noticed.
"No need to thout, KK," Sollux said, "Chritht, I think I heard you all the way from here."
Karkat glowered at nothing in particular and busied himself with prodding the crosswalk button again. "Har dee har har, Captor. What the fuck did you call me for, I'm almost home."
He could hear Sollux clacking away at his keyboard as the other troll responded, "I thought it only fair that I let you know your 'don't ever go in my gogdamned room unleth you want me to thkin you alive' rule hath been breached."
Karkat's eyes shot wide open, then narrowed violently as he growled into the phone, "Who."
"John." Karkat nearly threw his phone into the moving traffic before him. How fucking thickheaded could that human possibly be? Karkat didn't know. All he knew was that ever since Egbert had moved in with them, he was revealing himself to be a damn sight stupider than the nubby-horned troll had given him credit for in the past.
"He thtarted cleaning the hallwayth with Fef, and the thuggested they work on the roomth ath well," Karkat grated his needle-sharp teeth together as he listened to Sollux, "They took theperate halls, I think. But John ith definitely in your room right now with that loud dutht-collecting thuction devithe."
The lights changed, the 'Do Not Walk" replaced by white lettering; 'Walk.'
Karkat didn't walk so much as tear across the crosswalk, nearly barreling over some human children on the way.
"GOGDAMNIT, I TOLD THAT NOOKSNIFFING GOODY-GOODY THAT MY ROOM WAS OFF LIMITS. GET HIM THE FUCK OUT OF THERE SOLLUX." He was very definitely turning heads now, flying down the street with earbuds whipping behind him, hollering into his phone like Sollux was hard of hearing instead of being partially blind.
"KK-"
Karkat narrowly avoided getting run down by a troll in an SUV at the next set of lights, careening to the side and running around the back of the vehicle towards Sixth Street Northeast. "NO YOU KNOW WHAT NEVERMIND. I'M THREE BLOCKS AWAY, I'LL HANDLE IT MY GOGDAMNED SELF."
Sollux raised his eyebrows as Karkat hung up. He sighed, a small smirk worming its way across his face as he alerted the troll he was speaking to on Pesterchum that he would return shortly. He pushed his chair away from the desk, removing his earpiece. The smile on his face was full-blown as he stretched, cracking his back and standing to make his way to the door. He opened it, poking his head out and addressing the open door across the hallway.
"Hey John…"
This was going to be good.