Her hand darted forward to grasp his bleeding wrist. As she stepped toward him, the rustling of her tabard filled his ears.
Without hesitation, she drew his hand to her mouth and licked the cut. Her manic grin returned in full force, and Karkat squirmed when her tongue scraped the softer skin of his palm.
"Gah, stop it! Why the fuck are you doing that!"
Without a word, and without releasing her grip, the legislacerator reached up to remove her hood, revealing wide, sightless eyes the same bright red as Karkat's mutant blood.
She was about to explain, but Karkat cut her off, suddenly remembering. "So," he said, his voice filled with a calmness he certainly didn't feel, "did your lusus ever hatch…Terezi?"
She gasped, and her shit-eating grin faded instantly. She, too, was remembering, but not with the frantic clarity of mortal terror. "I thought your name sounded familiar…" she said.
Terezi let go of Karkat's wrist but still eyed him warily.
When they were been six sweeps old, they had been good friends, talking to each other frequently on Trollian. Karkat knew about Terezi's blindness and how it had been inflicted by a former FLARP buddy of hers as an act of revenge. He had even been considering confiding in her about his true blood color, but never ended up telling her. When they came of age, they lost track of each other, mostly because Karkat had been forced to hide on Alternia after he became an adult so he wouldn't be culled for his mutant blood.
"When I got the report about an adult of unknown blood color living suspiciously close to a juvenile lawnring on-planet, I never in a million sweeps would have guessed it would be you…" Terezi said, leaning on her cane.
Tentatively, Karkat began to reach towards his fallen sickles, as slowly and surreptitiously as he could.
"Uh-uh-uh. Oh, Karkles, what makes you think I'd let you do that?" she chuckled slightly and returned her cane to its former position, pointing straight at his neck.
Karkat smiled in spite of himself, not something he did often. He'd always hated that nickname, but now it brought him back to better days. Not for the first time, he took a moment to wonder who the fuck had been so absolutely fucking shithive maggots that they thought a society based entirely on the hemospectrum was a good idea. He'd like to go back in time and snap that bulgelicker's neck.
Come to think of it, Terezi hadn't reacted to the revelation of Karkat's blood color at all like he'd expected someone would. Had she already known somehow…? No, that wasn't possible, was it?
His train of thought was interrupted by a not unpleasant cackling laugh. So that was what the "H3H3H3" she'd so often typed sounded like…
This was starting to look like an as-yet-undeclared stalemate, although Karkat knew Terezi would have the upper hand if it came to blows again.
"Let's cut the crap, Terezi," he said, hiding fear behind frustration, "What's going to happen to me?"
