Hi all JohnKat fans. This is my first attempt at a lime..thing. Yeah.

ENJOY.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

The giddiness foams right into Johns' brainstem straight from his heart. He is silly with it as he jogs up the basement stairs, his head swimming and palms damp and tingling with an excitement he can barely contain, but he does, because his hard-boy façade has to stay in tact even without an audience.

Or, at the very least, until he's secure within the privacy of his bedroom.

He honestly didn't expect Karkat to agree to the whole 'date' thing – He even felt pretty hokey suggesting it. But when Karkat accepted the notion with little to no hesitation, and certainly no judgment, taking his hands and squeezing, and all he did was stare right into his eyes … man, that really got him, you know?

John was glad it was dark. His face was stained red.

When he hits the landing, he tries his best to shut the basement door without a creak, though the house is ever selectively helpful, and it betrays him with a broken, rusty cry. He winces and freezes, thinking he hears shuffling above him. But the house quiets into a numbing hum, and he slips his shoes off and carries them between his fingers as he slinks around the staircase railing.

"What are you doing?"

His spine goes cold, and John whips around to find Jade exiting the kitchen. She's got an expectant look on her face and John's been familiar with this situation, with that expression - raised eyebrows, shrunken mouth with sucked in cheeks, head tilted in a question all sisters already have the answer to.

"Uhm … just, y'know. Hanging out."

"In the basement."

John clears his throat and resists the urge to glance backward. "Uh, yeah."

"It's after one, John. You needed to be in bed over two hours ago…Father will be worried. What have you been doing?"

John rolls his eyes and slackens his stance to lean up against the banister, immediately put off, his delightful mood thoroughly spoiled at the promise of a lecture. "I wasn't sneaking back in, if that's what you're thinking. I swear I've been in the house the whole time. What's the fucking issue?"

"We're not doing this again," Jade rounds on her brother with a brandished forefinger, and John rankles at the implied threat. "I'm not doing this waiting up for you at all hours thing, then covering for your ass." even though his mouth moves to open, his sister's swift and severe tones cut through any hope of defiance, "And that was fun for a little while, but after the things we've been through with the trolls? No. Absolutely not."

John wants to stamp his foot, but he registers the move as childish. He settles on curling his toes in and sucks in a breath between his teeth, closing his eyes, counting to five. "Jade. I'm telling you: I was just – in- the – basement."

"And what could you possibly be doing down there after midnight?" Jade steps closer and John shrinks defensively, because he knows her suspicions. "Please, tell me. I'm sure it's very exciting."

He roots around through his many acquired excuses and white lies, the typical teenage protocol, things he's used before, ideas he has in back stock, but nothing seems fitting or believable – certainly not in his place. Eventually, he has no option but to shrug, and he levels his sister with a cool glare. "Karkat came to see me."

His sister appears nonplussed, unsure of how to address or respond in kind, and it obviously was the expected answer. It makes John feel a little bit like he won, and he rubs his shoulder blade hard into the banister edge when Jade finally finds her voice. "John," she starts out soft, and he already knows where this is going. "Are you being serious? You know you can't be having him over here like that-"

"Why not? It's not like we were doing anything. Besides, I thought you were cool with him after what happened between you two." He leans in, reminding his with cheek, "Remember, when he saved our lives?"

"That's not the point. It's inappropriate," John rolls his eyes and Jade sighs. "And do you know what Terezi would do if she found out?"

She's a little daring tonight, and John frowns - lifts a shoulder limply, as though affecting nonchalance. "And what if Rose found out about the way you were eye-fucking Dave today?" Jade's fallen mouth and consequent glower indicates John has not only crossed but has leapt clean over a fine, fine line. But it gives him an out, and he hastily takes it with only the slightest pang of remorse. "Whatever. I'm going to bed now, so you don't have to 'worry' anymore."

"John," Jade calls after his retreating form, but when he pauses halfway up the staircase, he can't really meet his sister's gaze. "It's just- I just want you to be careful. You know how I feel about Karkat, and after everything that's happened lately … yeah, I do worry."

John nods, but only half-listens, more preoccupied with a different set of consequences. "So, are you going to tell her?" He finally looks back down to his face, whose frown softens just slightly.

"…No. No, I won't tell her. "

There's a traded stare of mutual understanding, and Jade turns away first, into the kitchen again, and John starts back for his bedroom, all too eager to be apart from this confrontation.

His door clicks behind him, and the sound is immensely gratifying. It's like the world shuts down, and it's such a relief. He doesn't bother with his lights, chucking his shoes by the door as he blindly strips out of his pants and yanks his shirt over his head. The articles are tossed away and in a quick motion, his hair is jumbled into a haphazard mess, and he's clambering into bed. His sheets sigh as he sinks into them, and it's a soothing flood through his body at the sense of being enveloped into cool darkness.

He rocks his head back against his pillows; they sigh too, and draw a good one out of his chest that is accented with a wet cough. One of these days, he reflects dazedly, he should probably drop that nasty habit of his, but then his mouth burns, and he kind of wants another quick smoke before bed. But he abstains, and lets his lashes flutter and his hand drift from habit over his stomach and down his pelvis as his mind begins nighttime wanderings toward slumber.

Right down to his toes, his whole body feels heavy from the weight of the day, and in large part from just the sheer exhaustion of being around John. He thinks of him, Dark brown hair, darker roots, coal eyes, shiny teeth. John has to study him real close to find out where his pupils begin and irises end, they're so very dark. But he's so intense, his zeal is oftentimes a bit overwhelming, but John never notices until Karkat's away and he's alone again and it all catches up with him.

There's something about the way Karkat just kind of feeds off his energy, but he doesn't really mind – he likes the way it looks on his face, that rapture and his stare, like Karkat's enthralled by everything John does. It takes a lot out of a guy, but he doesn't mind sharing that with him. He likes sharing things with him. There's a lot He wants to share.

A charming heat starts lacing its way through his slowly, and he groans in exasperation into the side of his pillow, not really having the energy, but he kind of wants to, anyway. Sluggishly, his fingers begin a familiar dance under his comforter, and he exhales upon flickering, intermittent thoughts of him, of them, of what could be tomorrow. He thinks idly of where they might go; He picks a movie theatre, or no, just someplace vague and dark. Karkat's hand slinks up his thigh and he lets him, even though they're in public and anyone can see.

Scenarios change because he doesn't really find that one plausible or all that appealing, as he squeezes a little harder and arches his back, his wrist beginning to tense. Instead, John thinks of Karkat on top of him in his own bed, like before, huffing in her ear and asking if he's ever done this before, and that one works better. John rips at the flaking of his lower lip as his restless hips try to find a complimentary pattern to the rolling pads of his fingertips and the advent of his other hand, and he fidgets against the dark of his room and his itinerant mind.

Moonlight filters through his heavy curtains. John wants to be outside with him.

His shoulders would scrape into the brick, he thinks of the smell of wet dirt and fresh pine and him, and his hips cant to the side when he hits a good spot and every sense collides appropriately. He only remembers what his breathless hums in John's ear and sighs against his mouth sound like, so he thinks about those noises instead of trying to create something new that might ruin it. But he knows what he'd sound like and he gasps with a tremble and a reserved little moan, thinking of how his hands would pull and push his as his own begin to lose their steady pacing in the present. He presses hard with both, so maybe it'll bruise tomorrow, and he whines out loud because whatever, this fucking house is huge, no one could hear him, and even if they could, he's been feeling braver the longer he has known Karkat.

He sucks in a tight breath and holds as the liquid heat begins to uncoil inside his and his brain burns out wildly into a whole different image he could never admit to, or even pretend to remember, of being under him, sleek latex, splintered wood prickling unkindly against his back, and Karkats hot mouth and body pressing so deeply into his own that he shivers right down to his core.

"Cum for me fuckass."

He finally, finally breaks over it with a short, sharp catch in his throat, expelling air promptly, chest heaving, and he sinks into the mattress with a whimper. Agitated puffing and stars behind his eyelids and ten-ton weights settling in his overwrought joints, he curls his legs up and flattens his thighs together as he rolls over on his side. His hands slip up to tug a pillow down and into his chest, and he pants into the soft cotton as his body cools and pulses warmly, lovingly. Before too long, he's off and away, the only memory in his head one of Karkat staring, hypnotizing, and John smiles, happy to think of tomorrow.

And of course he doesn't know it, because he never knows it, Karkat is there in the shadows beyond the stretch of his bed's outline, absolutely engrossed in all that is him. Karkat is proud of himself; he wouldn't let himself be privy to the whole show, just the part that really counted, when he heard John's breath hitching in that divinely nuanced way he trembles at and recognizes now as John coming, that's when he slipped in under cover of night and watched, enraptured and amazed by John's every little thing. He couldn't resist; after all, he's only a troll.

He wants to pet Johns' hair back when he curls over, wants to slide in and hold him, feel between his limbs to see what he's done, wants to claim Johns' bitten, swollen, stung mouth that parts now in even, shallow breathing.

But what he wants and what John wants are two entirely different things in this regard, and in many others, Karkat just going to have to be patient like he has been being. He's proud of himself, yeah, he's been doing really good lately, because there's things that riot inside him and dare him forward, but he's better than that, than all of them, and it's only because of John.

Though, he does think Terezi would be proud too, and he smirks.

Karkat takes his time finding his usual seat, the box full of the hobbies John has, angled under a window in Johns' room, moving through the edges of his room until he does settle. His gaze steadfast on Johns' resting figure. It makes him immeasurably glad, to be Johns' audience of one, even if he doesn't always know it. For a second, he debates with himself which is better – John asleep, or John awake (this is a game he always plays by himself during these hours, different debates on which part of him is better, but his opinion always shifts, because he can't pin it down, there's too much of him to just choose.) He supposes it's the latter, because while he is awake, everything beautiful and precious in the nighttime, something innocent and pure and something he wants to cradle, it is Johns' fire and light that sustain him overall, and he doesn't burn when John sleeps.

He doesn't bother trying to flatter himself with ideas of what lies behind his closed eyes, whether dreaming or working himself over like before, but he's pretty sure it's him, and that bolts right through him with pleasure and pride. If he thought John would tell him, he'd ask him what he sees, what makes him squirm, and he'd share in kind with him. Boldly, hand resting on the seam of his jeans, he thinks of maybe tomorrow night, and those creeping crawlers under his skin put in their two cents and he willfully ignores them with only the slightest fisting of his hand.

Because what they tell him he needs is not at all what John needs, and he's satisfied enough in simply contemplating upon them rather than acting out these days, so long as John stays near to make him remember why this way is better.

So, he just waits with John until dawn when he finally rises from woozy dreaming, his head throbbing, and his knees banging into things as he stumbles out of bed. His string of belligerent curses down the hall makes him smile, and he lets his eyes close upon the sounds of him.

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