Hey, hey, hey! Look, I'm still not dead! Goodness, it's been far too long.

I really need to write more of this fic. Shoot, I need to write more johnkat in general. I just . . . I miss these guys so much. :'( All I ever do these days is tumblr them, but it simply is not enough!

Thank you to all who stuck around despite my long-gone-edness. I apologize for the absence, and thank the newcomers for liking this story! Let's hope I can actually stick around long enough to send this series somewhere and finish it. He.


-carcinoGenticist [CG] began trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA]-

CG: KANAYA

CG: I HAVE A SITUATION.

GA: Hello To You Too, Karkat.

CG: HI.

CG: NOW HELP ME. I KNOW YOU LOVE TO MEDDLE, WE ALL DO, SO THERE'S NO POINT IN PRETENDING YOU AREN'T DYING TO HEAR EVERY LITTLE SHAMING DETAIL OF MY MISERABLY TROLL-HORMONE-STREWN DAY.

GA: It Sounds Like You Have Quite The Situation.

CG: THAT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE ADVICE.

GA: It Wasn't Meant To. Excuse My Rudeness.

GA: So I Am To Take This To Mean You Are Having Romantic Troubles, Correct?

CG: CORRECT.

GA: Hm. Might I Inquire Who These Romantic Troubles Are With?

CG: **** NO.

CG: KANAYA, TELLING YOU THE NAME OF THE UNFORTUNATLY HATEFUL MORON I AM CURRENTLY WAXING BLACK FOR WOULD BE TO COMPROMISE THE RELATIONSHIP ITSELF FROM EVER HAPPENING.

CG: NOT ONLY WOULD YOU TRY TO DRAG US INTO AN AUSPICE, BUT JUST SAYING HIS STUPID AS HELL NAME WITHIN A SENTENCE CLAIMING THAT I, KARKAT VANTAS, AM BLACK FOR HIM COULD RESULT IN THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT LAUGHING AT MY EXPENSE AND SHITTING ON ALL OF MY PLANS TO WOO HE WHO SHOULD NOT BE NAMED.

GA: My, That Is A Problem.

GA: Then Might I Ask What Exactly You Want Me To Tell You? Did You Not Already State That You Have Made Plans To Woo This "Unfortunately Hateful" Individual?

CG: MY PLAN IS A BUNCH OF BULLSHIT.

CG: I NEED SOME MORE PLANS I CAN USE TO WORK UP TO MY GRAND SCHEME. MY ULTIMATE PLAN. A PLOT SO DEVIOUS THAT EVEN THE TROLLS WITH THE BLACKEST FEELINGS WOULD GASP AT THE HATE REQUIRED FOR SUCH A DEED.

GA: I See. So You Wish To Consult Me For Ideas In Order To Blacken Your Destined Partner's Feelings Then?

CG: YES. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANT.

CG: A START.

GA: Goodness. Have You Ever Thought About Talking To John Egbert? I Know You Like To Antagonize Him And Think Him To Be Human Scum, But He Could Probably Suggest A Few Human Pranks That Would Make Even The Friendliest Person Hate You For The Rest Of Eternity.

CG: NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT. THIS ADVICE CAN'T COME FROM THE DREADED EGBERT OR ANYONE OF THAT DISASTER-PRONE HUMAN GROUP.

CG: BUT PRANKS

CG: I COULD DO PRANKS. KANYA MARYAM, YOU ARE A GENIUS. YOU GO TELL CAPTOR TO BEND OVER AND TONGUE YOUR CLASSY NOOK AS SOON AS HE APPEARS ONCE MORE FROM THE VOID OF WHO-THE-HELL-KNOWS.

GA: Tempting, But I Better Not. He Might Challenge Me To A Computer Game.

CG: GOOD POINT. BUT YOU CAN ALWAYS SAW HIS MONITOR IN HALF.

CG: ANYWAY, I HAVE TO GO TO TROLL GOOGLE TO FIND PRANKS FOR TOMORROW. GOODBYE, KANAYA.

GA: Goodbye, Karkat. Happy Pranking.

-carcinoGenticist [CG] ceased trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA]-


Sollux Captor somehow was able to tie the fabric Feferi gave him around his head, though it felt slightly crooked and a little loose, but tying the damn thing was quite a bit of trouble and so he refused to attempt it again if he didn't have to.

There was that moment of panic when his fingers skated along the edge of said fabric, little tufts of threads brushing against his clawed digits, and felt warm, wet spots on the fabric, as if they'd been used before given to him. But no—he delicately lifted the cloth; only just enough to slide his finger around the sensitive skin of his eye, and felt a sticky, clumping liquid that came away when he pulled back his finger. He still couldn't see, but as a troll with violent friends and quite a bit of bad luck, he was well aware of what blood felt like.

Oh gog. That fish asshole seriously hurt him, didn't he?

His blood-pusher stuttered in his chest at the thought, hands shaking slightly. Gog, what if he was permanently blind? What if—but no—could that hipster douchebag have ripped out his eyes?

He . . . he didn't want to check. Honestly, he wasn't sure what he'd do if it ended up being dead-on (really, Sollux? Was that supposed to be a pun at a time like this? He wasn't sure he'd ever met a troll or human more pathetic); after all, he was stuck in the underwater home to the prick who caused his blindness in the first place with no one knowing where he'd gone. In fact, he was pretty sure by the absence of bulge in his pocket that he didn't have his phone either, not that it would have survived the swim required to get to the seadweller's cave.

Sollux still half-wondered where it could have possibly ended up. Phones didn't just crawl out of young troll's pockets and sneak away.

. . . Okay, enough with this shit. Captor, you may be a pathetic nookstain, but you are no pussy. Hurry up and poke those damn ocular orbs to make sure they're still there. He really, really didn't want to. Do it. However, he figured it was best to check before he tried to escape the cave and ended up infecting what might be holes straight to his thinkpan, so with a deep breath, he tentatively reached one finger up and carefully brushed where his orb should have been. To his surprise, they hadn't been burned or painfully torn from his sockets, which he was incredibly grateful for.

Why couldn't he see anything then? Had that numbskull poser burned out his retinas with that strange light? It wasn't impossible, especially given how sensitive a troll's pupils tended to be towards light. Or, he supposed, the fish dick might have done something to him while he was unconscious.

He swore to gog he was going to slaughter that kid as soon as he came back. Sollux held no doubts that the girl—Fef, or whatever her name was—had probably aided Eridan in the slaughter of everyone at the aquarium, nor did he have to wonder if she helped the douchelord drag Sollux into his nest (why they'd do this was definitely still up for debate, but he had more important things to think over at the moment), but he was almost certain she hadn't blinded him like that stupid prick, and for the time being, that was his major issue. Screw everything else; his sight was an instant add on to the "I Am Going to **** You Over" list.

However, since he couldn't very well escape the cave on his own, seeing how he couldn't swim (oh, look, a blind pun! He was on a roll today, wasn't he?), the only thing left to do as he waited was look around for weapons and anything else deemed helpful. With luck, he might just find something heavy enough to brain the sea-troll once the unlucky bastard came back.


Within the span of four and a half hours, Eridan Ampora had successfully re-lost his lusus.

He supposed it didn't matter too terribly much, so long as those disgusting landwellers kept their filthy hands to themselves, so he only looked around once, shrugged, and began swimming back home. Seahorsedad tended to act like a dick anyway, so at least this way, Eridan could travel back home in peace.

Who needed their lusus anyway? Not this troll, that's for sure.

He was perfectly content just knowing that his lusus was no longer locked up on the land anymore with those filthy kidnappers.

It wasn't until Eridan was at the mouth of his hive that he remembered Feferi had taken one of the landwellers to his home. Great. Hopefully the lowblood was still sleeping so he wouldn't have to deal with whatever whines or screams the thing made.

Curling his fingers around the edge of the entrance, he heaved himself up and out of the water, dripping the essence of the sea from, fins twitching at the sudden change from water to air. His gills flexed, eating up the gratuitous amounts of oxygen, and he sighed, starting to rub his neck—only to be conked upside the head by something heavy, hard, and loud. He didn't have time to wonder what it was or who had hit him before he blacked out, the echo from the object making contact with his skull ringing in his soundflaps.

When he came to again, he was cold, shivering, and lying back against what he could only guess was the hard surface of his own floors. His head felt sticky and heavy, not right, his body not quite obeying his commands.

"**** yeah," An unfamiliar voice said above him, sounding irritatingly smug.

Eridan's thinkpan throbbed, a groan rolling out of his mouth. Everything felt painful and wrong and cold like this. Who had dared to do this to Eridan Ampora, Prince of the seas and crown of the purple-blooded Ampora family line? What peasant had decided to forfeit their life today?

Peeling his ocular orbs open had never been so hard, but he did it, blinking away the double images and dark dots dancing in front of his pupils. He waited until his vision had righted itself before he looked up into the face of his attacker, and saw . . . oh. Right. The guy Feferi had kept him from killing back at the on-land sea prison. Cod, he knew he should have slit the kid's throat as soon as Fef stopped looking. But no, he had to save this twat because his flush crush asked him too. He was such a pitysick idiot.

"How-w dare you!" Eridan snarled up at the lowblood, whacking back his own degrading thoughts.

The lowblood had the nerve to raise an eyebrow at him and sneer. Sneer! "Are you kidding me? 'How dare I?' I'm not the one who killed a bunch of innothent civilianth out of nowhere!"

Oh cod. That lisp. Eridan had never heard such a terrible sound in his entire life. "I don't know-w w-what you're talking about." And in all honesty, he didn't. He wasn't well versed in the language of the inferior, so he wasn't all too sure what "civilians" were, but he knew there were no "innocents" to speak of at that terrible sea prison. Every disgusting person in there knew exactly what they were doing to the poor aquatic creatures caged and trapped inside.

The lowblood's face twisted into something even uglier, something that made Eridan want to close his eyes and look away. Ugh, he hated ugly things. This guy needed a mask or something to cover his flawed features.

"Gog, you are thuch a prick. I'm actually going to enjoy killing you."

Ha! Like this dirty landweller could possibly lay a finger on Eridan Ampora of all people.

The lowblood raised his hand, revealing one of Feferi's cooking pans (Eridan would have to scold her later. He told her it wasn't a good idea to leave her stuff lying around where anyone could take it). So that was what had knocked him out. Eridan wouldn't let that mistake happen twice.

The peasantblood brought the pan down, obviously with every intention of hitting Eridan with it once more, but he craned his head out of the way just in time, his thinkpan sending a bright flare of pain through his head and the cooking pan ringing out against the rock next to his soundflap. Ow.

He swallowed a wince and realized the lowblood was standing over him, legs outside of Eridan's to keep them trapped there. Right. Like that would work.

Eridan kicked out as hard as he could at the lowblood's calves, heard the kid swear as he went down and quickly scrambled to stand up, smirking in victory even as his 'pan screamed in pain. It didn't really matter though, he was positive that killing this brat wouldn't take very much time now that he was back on his own two feet.

He kicked the kneeling lowblood again in the ribs, so hard the kid coughed and fell to his side. Perfect. The peasant was now curled at Eridan's feet, right where he belonged.

His harpoon gun was lying on the floor by the mouth of his hive where he must have dropped it after being hit, so he walked over and grabbed it, pointing its sharp end at the gasping inferior hugging himself on Eridan's floor. What a sight the kid made! A true representation of whatever blood cast the brat most likely fell in. From the dried blood on the boy's cheeks, Eridan guessed he must have been one of the mustardbloods. Talk about being low on the scale, indeed.

"I w-would say this w-would be a good lesson for you to learn your place," Eridan commented, walking closer once more, gun held tightly in his hands. "But I hav-ve no plans to let you liv-ve that long." Kind of cheesy, but whatever. It got his point across.

"Thcrew you!" The yellowblood spat. Literally.

Ew. Eridan would have to clean that up later. "Sea you in the next dream bubble, pissblood."

He went to squeeze the trigger, but he froze when he heard something break the surface of the water at the mouth of his hive. The landweller paused too, looking confused and alarmed, but Eridan paid no real attention to him. Instead, his focus was solely on Feferi, who was staring at the two of them with her mouth hanging open, goggles resting on top of her head. Shit.