Sollux was silenced, his shock pronounced by his mouth agape. For a while, both of them were very silent, not a sound until Sollux decided to break it.

"I-I don't know what to thay-say." Sollux shook his head and bit his tongue. He had to go through a lot of therapy to get rid of his lisp, but he was so shocked it subconsciously wormed its way back into his speech for a second. He cleared his throat and continued. "You know what this means right?"

"I know, it'll have a fucked up birth instead of a normal hatching I'll have to raise the thing myself instead of having it live a normal life with a lusus and it'll have to live with me until the imperials find time to deal with it and fix everything since they won't have it in the genetic register and it will be a different age from anybody else…"

"Not only that, your wriggler will be able to be traced back to you because of its upbringing and you will also be shamed as well! I mean, I thought you were a hardworking, responsible kid, up with your grades, honest, and with a lot of common sense… What-"

"I never ask for this!" Karkat roared, standing up to slam his palms into the desk, but then he clutched his stomach and hunched over in pain. "Fuck!"

Sollux immediately got up, knocking his chair backwards in the process.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Karkat insisted, waving his outstretched hand away. "Just- just let me finish okay? There's more to the story than my idiocy."

Looking skeptical, Sollux watched Karkat slowly sit back in his chair before sitting down himself.

"You're sure you're fine? I'm sorry…"

"I'm fucking fine. Happy?" Karkat snapped. "Don't rile me up like that. Feisty little fucker likes to bite."

Sollux considered the pain the other was going through. Their bodies were actually meant to carry young in this manner, but that was thousands and thousands of sweeps ago, before the first mother grub had hatched. The pain must have been nearly unbearable. But this kind of situation wasn't unheard of. A few troll couples were so flushed, they couldn't bare to relieve their young and decided to birth without the mother grub. Other cases happened to be of blackened infidelity, the wrigglers a common accident of drunken rush. Missing the bucket.

But Karkat wasn't one to get mixed up in those circumstances. He had his whole future planned out, and now it was ruined…

"Calm down. Stress isn't good for the wriggler," he said quietly.

"I know, fuck. Well, this started a while ago I guess, or not so long ago, depending on how you look at it. Sit back, it's a long story, nonetheless."

Sollux nodded for him to begin at any time. He was there to help, not to judge, and it seemed Karkat would need all the help he could get. Karkat took a deep breath, and he set off with his story.

"About half a sweep ago, we got a new neighbor who moved in across the street, typical shit that I didn't care about and was definitely good with ignoring for the rest of my life, but the new troll's lusus happened to be a friend of my fucking crustacean of a custodian. He invited them over and it was okay at first. When they came over, my lusus and his hung out downstairs and they sent us both up to my room to 'play.' We sat around and talked, he was a nice guy, if not a total fuckface and sopored up idiot. When they left, crabdad lusus asked how was it, I said it was fine. Biggest fucking mistake I've ever made my entire life. He started inviting them over almost every fucking day."

"Every day?"

"Fuck, okay. Every weekend day. This was fine and fucking dandy until the third time he came over. He seemed totally different. He had this creepy fucking smile on his face, but fucking hey, he's always creepy in some way. So I… we went up to my room like we usually did. I asked him what he wanted to do and… and…"

"And?" Sollux prompted. He saw Karkat's pupils constrict, his hands shake as they clenched tightly, doing their best to keep their owner holding onto the present. He worried when Karkat's breathing quickened.

"God fuck… No!" he growled, releasing one of his fists to place over one of his eyes.

"Karkat," Sollux interjected, "calm down."

He reached over to place a hand on his shoulder, but Karkat flinched and shook it off.

"I'm fine!"

Sollux shifted the shades sitting on his face, effectively preventing them from sliding off. They hid his overwhelming concern.

"What's the name of this troll?" he asked.

"Gamzee. Gamzee Makara," replied Karkat. "But you won't find anything about this on his record. He doesn't go here, he goes to Alternia Academy. We can't do anything about him."

"We'll have to see about that, but you have to tell me what happened or I won't be able to follow."

"He was a completely different person. I was getting creeped the fuck out and he…" Karkat shuddered violently and grit his teeth, having a hard time forcing the words to come out of his mouth, "thrashed… me."


Karkat opened the door to his respite block and let Gamzee in before shutting the door behind himself.

"So what the fuck do you want to do today?" he asked. "There's not a lot to do, as usual, unless you want to play the fucktard games on my crappy husktop. I guess that could entertain your rotted think pan for the next couple hours at least."

"Talk to me with more respect," Gamzee whispered.

Karkat turned to face him with a questioning eyebrow raised; Gamzee glared at him from a few paces away.

"What was that?" he asked. "I can't hear you. Speak up."

"RESPECT MOTHERFUCKER!" Gamzee yelled, backhanding him across the face. There was so much force in the blow that Karkat was knocked down to the floor.

Karkat lifted a hand to touch the raw skin as well as cover its color, which stung by itself and burned at his touch, and he winced. He glared right back at Gamzee, who towered over him with a dark shadow over all but his eyes.

"What the fuck was that for?" he demanded.

"You were doing so well…" was the mumbled reply.

"W-what are you talking about?"

"DON'T SPEAK UNLESS YOU'RE MOTHERFUCKING SPOKEN TO!" Gamzee roared.

He kicked Karkat in the side, causing him to cry out in pain and roll over reflexively, gasping for breath.

"G-Gamzee what the fuck!"

"I guess I'll have to teach you a lesson…" He moved to pin Karkat down, a knee on his abdomen, a firm grip on his shoulder, and a fist pulled back and clenched tight. "LEARN-" He let the fist fly, "SOME MOTHER-" again, "FUCKING-" and again, "MANNERS!"

The last hit smashed into Karkat's cartilage nub with a sickening crunch beneath Gamzee's fingers and Karkat groaned as he felt the blood spill. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his fist pull back again, and he shut his eyes and lifted an arm to attempt to protect himself. But Gamzee's blow didn't come. He was frozen in place for a few moments, but curiosity got the better of him and he slowly opened his eyes.

"You're a red blood! MOTHERFUCKING HILARIOUS!" Gamzee laughed. "But it's motherfucking bright red… DAMN, YOU MOTHERFUCKING FREAK! Definitely no consequences in beating your ass… gonna have some motherfucking fun up in here…"

Karkat's eyes widened in fear at what was to come, causing Gamzee to grin in response.

"SCREAM MOTHERFUCKER!"


Several hours later, when Gamzee's lusus finally called him to go home, he stood up with the same smile he had come with, though there was one difference.

Karkat's blood was splattered on his face.

He called back to his lusus, asking for a few moments to clean up. And he did. He washed off all the blood, came out of the hygiene block spotless, and he gave Karkat a grin as he passed by.

Karkat lay on the floor, a bloody and broken mess on the floor, unable to do anything as the perpetrator left without a trace.


Here, the lusus serve as parental figures and have authority over their trolls. Prepare to enter predictability.