Hiveswap who? Release date what?

Chapter 13: Sollux: Fuck it Up

By the time Dave dragged himself to his feet, the strange figure had Karkat by the throat in a death grip, and his eyes were just starting to roll back in his head.

"Karkat!" he gasped out, and the next moment he was flash stepping up behind the figure and stabbing at him viciously with his sword. But the figure was gone in a heartbeat, most likely having sensed the weapon coming up behind him, and Dave bristled with alarm when the blade of his weapon stuck into the side of the house about three inches from Karkat's head. The troll didn't seem to mind, though—he was too busy sliding down the wall and crashing to the ground, choking for breath. He was alive, at least, even if his throat was already bruising a sharp, reddish purple.

"Karkat," he prompted, kneeling beside him and clasping a hand to his shoulder. "Fuck, dude, are you okay?"

The troll flailed a hand at him, clearly lacking the ability to speak. And at the same time, not far behind him, John let out a cry. "Dave, help!"

He swung around to see the strange, hazy figure battering John with swipes of red and blue power. His hammer was out, clutched between shaking fingers as he struggled to fend off blasts of energy that he could barely even see.

Fuck! He darted up into the air and flew towards John at top speed. He thought he heard Karkat make some kind of sound as he flew off, maybe trying to tell him something, but he didn't have time to stop and listen to him try to force out a complete sentence. John was struggling, crouching low to the ground as furious swipes of energy passed overhead. He yelped as one of them caught him in the chest and sent him flying.

"Hang on, dude!" Dave darted up behind the person and swung at him again, but once again he was met with the same result. He flickered and then practically vanished, moving impossibly fast and reappearing several feet away. Tendrils of electric power closed around his ankle and yanked, and all the breath was knocked out of him as his back struck the ground with considerable force. What was this guy? Karkat had said he was a troll, but he was so obscured by the haze that he couldn't make out any distinguishing features. He thought he maybe recognized the whole red and blue powers thing, but he couldn't quite remember which troll had used them.

A blast of wind let him know that John was back on his feet. "Dave, I'll distract him! You knock him out while he's confused!"

He didn't think that was going to work, but he still called back an affirmative and crouched low as John flew in. Wind roared around him like a hurricane wherever he moved, sweeping in circles and twisting with unrestrained playfulness across the tall grass. The force of the gale actually managed to dissipate some of the power hanging around the mysterious troll, and for just a moment Dave thought he caught a single flickering eye staring blankly out at him.

John didn't let up. The force of the wind only intensified, sweeping more and more of the haze away, and the figure actually appeared to be feeling it. He recoiled, blurry hands lashing out blindly as he swayed in the midst of the storm John was creating.

"Come on," John hissed, "go down!" He jerked his hands downwards, the wind snapping to obey his command, and the figure let out a roar as he was suddenly dragged towards the earth. "Dave, now!"

He obeyed with a sharp lunge forward as John bore down on the troll with all his power. He cringed the instant he entered the gale, nearly flattened along with the troll—but then John let up on him just slightly, and he moved forward with a cry. His sword gouged along the earth, grass and dirt flying up and disappearing into the wind. I've got you now!

Except he didn't, and the figure let him know that he didn't with a snap of his wrist that both deprived him of his sword and flung him up to become caught in the hurricane swirling beneath John's fingertips.

"Oh no!" John gasped. He released the gale immediately, which would have been great except for the fact that being flung around by John's windy powers had already made him so fucking dizzy that he crashed straight into the ground before he could figure out how to fly again. As the icing on the cake, the troll was free again, and his power was bearing down upon them stronger than ever.

"This isn't working," Dave gasped, breath knocked out of him for the umpteenth time. "John, we need a plan!"

John darted to his side and hauled him up, agreeing, "Yeah, but what are we supposed to do? We don't know anything about this guy's weaknesses! We have to—!"

"John, Dave! Get down!"

Both humans looked up in surprise as a blur of gray streaked by, sickles flashing as they swiped desperately at the figure. The two ducked down just in time to avoid the blast of power that Karkat had no doubt seen coming.

"Dude!" Dave snapped, lurching back to his feet and making a dash for Karkat, who was going toe to toe with the other troll. "Get away from there! Your throat—!"

"I'm fine," the troll snarled. "And besides, I'm not letting this asshat tear you idiots limb from limb!"

"You know him?" John asked, rising back up into the air. "Wait, that was stupid, of course you know him! Which troll is he, again?"

Karkat hissed as he dodged another tendril of power, throwing one of his sickles up at the other troll like a boomerang. It actually managed to hit him, too, grazing his cheek and falling to the grass just in time for Karkat to scoop it back up. "His name is Sollux Captor," he spat out, "and he's a real fucking pain in the ass!"

"Forget who he is, how do we take him down?"

Karkat laughed bitterly. "You think I know? The guy only ever lost a few fights, and all of those were to crazed highbloods with either magic wands or psychic powers! If he has any other weaknesses, I don't know them!" He slashed at Sollux's ankles, roaring, "Hey, Captor! What the fuck crawled up your nook and died? We're on your side, fuckass!"

"Speak for yourself," Dave snarked.

"You don't know how to beat him?" John repeated, completely ignoring Dave. "What are we supposed to do, then? He's so powerful!"

"You think he's powerful now?" Karkat snapped. "He's not even trying, you idiots! If he really wanted to, he could have ripped us all apart with a look!"

"He's toying with us?" John yelped. "Seriously?"

Karkat leapt back as a tendril of power gouged the earth at his feet. Sollux appeared to have forgotten that John and Dave were even there—he seemed completely fixated on Karkat, hovering after him wherever he went and taking random swipes at him. "He's not in his right mind," the troll explained. "I'm not sure what's fried his think pan, but this is not normal!" Then he yelped as Sollux blasted him in the chest, flattening him momentarily to the ground.

"Karkat, hang on!" John darted forward to help, but Sollux batted him away with a snarl. Dave moved to do the same, hoping to get in under the other troll's defenses and jab his sword up through his gut, but received the same treatment.

Karkat snorted even as he was forced to dive to one side to avoid being flattened again. "Oh yeah, he's not trying at all. You'd be fucking dead if he'd put his whole think pan into that attack."

"Trying or not, we need him gone," Dave said. "Karkat, tell us what we're supposed to do! You know the guy, you must know how to take him down!"

The troll shook his head. "I know you think I'm the best fucking tactician on the planet, but I'm really not that great!"

Sollux growled, and then both Dave and John were recoiling under the force of a powerful wave of energy.

"Those fucking psionics," Karkat hissed. "Such a pain in the ass; I fucking hate this guy! Drives me up the wall, always has!" Then he yelped as Sollux zapped him, no doubt in response to his irritated comments. "Okay, that's it!" He heaved himself up with all his strength and hooked a sickle into the other troll's foot.

The reaction was instantaneous. Tendrils of red and blue curled around Karkat's body and tried to fling him away, but every tug only pulled the sickle further into Sollux's foot. A roar sounded as a blast of psionics wrecked the land around them, flattening grass and cracking tree trunks.

"Get down here, you moron!" Karkat braced his feet against the grass and tugged, managing to wrap his fingers around Sollux's ankle and using it to haul him to the ground. Psionics crackled around them both, but it was obvious to all onlookers that Sollux wasn't really trying to hurt him. Whatever haze Sollux had been left in by that gaping hole in the sky, it seemed to already be fading—he was beginning to look more confused than malicious, and the spare lashes of power were fading more and more with every moment. "That's it, you complete and utter wreck, snap the fuck out of it!"

Tactful, Dave thought with amusement, watching Karkat wrestle Sollux to the ground and slap him in the face repeatedly, all previous weakness forgotten in the face of danger. Real tactful, Karkles.

It worked, though. The seeming insanity that had gripped Sollux mere minutes before seemed to be dissipating with every moment, and the crackle of psionics in the air around them sputtered with every infuriated slap.

"Woah, woah!" John gasped, flying towards them. "Karkat, he's not fighting you anymore! Stop punching him!"

He did—but it was just to look back at John and snap, "He fucking deserves it! Have you seen my neck?"

Dave winced as he spotted the vicious red ring that really was bruising, turning a nasty purple as he perched atop Sollux.

"Well…" John tried, "you don't have to beat him up any more! It looks like he's done trying to attack us!"

Karkat snorted. "Yeah, okay, I'll stop. Just let me…" He wound up and decked Sollux straight in the temple, and the psionic's body went completely limp. "There," he said, satisfied. "Now I can stop beating him up. Happy?"

John stared. Dave bit back a laugh. It seemed that after weeks of Karkat acting deflated and moody, all it had taken was a good fight to get him going again.

"Now," Karkat bit out, climbing off Sollux and getting to his feet. "The wiggler's probably already returned to his normal state of mind, if the end of that fight has anything to say about it, but we should still get him to the lab and lock him up. Who knows what's going on in that twisted think pan of his?"

Dave couldn't hide his laugh this time, despite the dull throb starting to overtake his battered form. "Yeah, sounds good to me, dude. Want me to carry him?"

"If you want to drop him a few times I'm sure he wouldn't notice," the troll suggested.

"I'll take that as a yes." Dave flew up to the unconscious troll and knelt at his side. Now that he wasn't surrounded by that dull haze of power, he could really take a good look at the guy. He was small, actually—scrawnier than Karkat, but just a bit taller. He recognized him a little, remembered that he'd been the one that helped the red fairy troll send the meteor on its way, but he was still completely foreign. They hadn't even had one conversation. Now, looking at him, he could see that bruises littered his face and arms, showing signs that his life hadn't exactly been a cake walk before he showed up through whatever that lime green portal had been. He looked like he'd been through hell. And speaking of the portal…

Dave looked up at the sky. The odd colors had faded, though, not a flicker of green left in the sky. Strange…what was that thing?

"Dave," Karkat prompted roughly. "Before he wakes up would be nice. If he decides he actually wants to hurt us next time, we'll all be fucking dead."

He shuddered. "Yeah, okay. Sure." He scooped the troll up. "Hope Rose is in the lab, because I have no clue where she keeps the chains."

Karkat rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, just go!" Then he turned his gaze on John. "Um…I guess we'll continue our discussion later."

John blushed. "Okay, I…I'd like that."

Dave looked between them with a frown. What discussion could have made John blush like that? Had something happened between the two of them? Was John trying to make a move?

No, no, no—you can't think like that right now, there are more important things at hand.

"Dave," Karkat groaned, "are you just going to stand there all night?"

He jolted. "No, no, I'm coming." He flew forward, John and Karkat not far behind, trying not to feel as though John was stepping on what he had with the troll.

It wasn't working.

†††

The instant they walked into the lab, chaos exploded around them.

"Oh my goodness!" Kanaya gasped. "Karkat, is that Sollux?"

He nodded as Dave passed the unconscious troll over to Kanaya, who immediately carried him to one of the lab tables and laid him down. "The idiot just showed up out of nowhere, falling out of some green portal thing in the sky."

"Really?" she asked, cocking her head. Then she turned, calling, "Rose! Rose, we need you here!"

Rose appeared almost immediately. "Kanaya, what's—?" She paused. "Oh! Who's this?"

"Sollux," Karkat supplied, pushing past Dave and John to stand at the forefront of the conversation. "He fucking attacked us when he came through a magical green portal in the sky, so I punched him until he passed out."

Kanaya shook her head. "Again, Karkat? You two have always bickered so terribly!"

"Not as much as him and Eridan," the troll grumbled. "Those two were insufferable."

"Yes, in a different way."

"Kanaya," Rose said, "will you please fetch the medical supplies from the cabinet? I'm going to start removing his clothing so I can treat his wounds better."

"Of course." Kanaya pulled two bags out of a cabinet and tossed one to Rose. "Karkat, come over here. I'm going take care of your injuries."

"John and Dave are worse, treat them first."

Kanaya sighed, chastising, "You all look like you've been through a blender, which isn't surprising seeing as it was a psionic you were going up against. But still, your neck concerns me. Come here so I can help, and then I'll tend to your friends."

He grumbled in irritation, but took only a few moments to stalk across the room and hop up onto the table Kanaya indicated.

"You went up against Sollux," Kanaya said again. "A psionic. If he was truly attempting to kill you, how are you not more severely injured?

"How did Eridan not come away more severely injured every time he went up against the wiggler?" Karkat muttered.

"Eridan was a seadweller, and one of the toughest fighters I've ever seen. You certainly aren't weak, Karkat, but you're considerably easier to topple than Eridan—and the humans are too squishy to hold their own against a full-force psionic attack."

He winced as Kanaya took to his throat with sterilizing liquid. "He wasn't really trying to kill us, I think."

"Really? Why not?"

Karkat shrugged. "Whatever got his think pan twisted enough to attack us, it didn't seem to damage him enough to make him really want to kill us. He was just lashing out blindly—and beside that, his disorientation seemed to fade fast. By the end, he wasn't even trying to hit me anymore."

"Right," Dave huffed from where he was standing at Sollux's side. "The guy nearly choked you out and you think he wasn't trying to kill you."

"That was child's play!" he snapped in return. "I told you, if he wanted to kill us we'd be fucking dead!"

"Kanaya," Rose interrupted, "pass me the antiseptic."

She did. Then she turned back to Karkat, asking, "Should he be restrained? If he awakens with the intent to attack us again, it would be beneficial to have him immobile."

"That sounds real fucking great," Karkat confirmed. "Though I have a feeling he won't be doing much attacking once he wakes up. He seemed pretty docile right before I knocked him out."

Rose hummed. "What interests me is how he got here in the first place. You say a portal appeared in the sky?"

"That's what it looked like," John chimed in. "When we went outside, there was this lime-green swirl up in midair. It looked like he fell right out of it."

"Lime green…" Rose tapped her fingers against the table thoughtfully. "Dave, did it look like—?"

"The green sun," he confirmed. "Yeah, it did."

"The green sun?" Karkat echoed abrasively. "I thought that thing was blown the fuck up!"

"Sucked into a black hole," Rose corrected. "A black hole that then took on the color of the sun it destroyed. At least, that's what Terezi's reports suggest."

Kanaya's head tilted just slightly to one side. "That's quite strange. What could have caused a portal sharing qualities with the black hole to appear in the sky? And how did Sollux survive being sucked through it, if that is indeed what happened?"

"We'll just have to wait for him to wake up," Rose said. She'd already stripped Sollux down to his boxers, and was going around dabbing at his cuts and bruises with antiseptic.

"I suppose you're right," was Kanaya's soft response. "Karkat, hold still!"

"It hurts!" he complained, wincing as Kanaya's cool fingers rubbed some kind of ointment onto his throat.

"Hold still!" she repeated in a hiss. When she finally removed her fingers, she asked, "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"Just bruises and minor scratches," he muttered. "So go help John and Dave!"

Kanaya sighed. "Very well. John, Dave, do you require medical attention?"

They exchanged looks. "Maybe just for the cuts?" John suggested, rubbing at a place on his cheek where something had sliced into his skin.

"Yeah," Dave agreed. "If you don't mind."

Kanaya beckoned them close as Karkat stepped back, going for Sollux. The troll was still unconscious, looking far more peaceful in sleep than he ever had while awake.

"Karkat," Rose addressed him as he neared, "there's a drawer over there under the place where Kanaya retrieved the medical supplies. It should contain a set of ropes that we can use to bind Sollux to the table until we know he won't attack us. Would you please bring them here and help me tie him down?"

"You're not going to put his clothes back on?" he asked, even as he grabbed the rope and tossed a coil of the stuff at her.

Rose sighed. Then she was moving, and a moment later Sollux was back in his usual clothing. "Is that better?"

He didn't answer. He just snatched up part of the rope and started winding it around the psionic's ankles, looping it beneath the table so that he wouldn't be able to wrench free. Meanwhile, Rose hooked the rope around his wrists before repeating the process around his chest. It was a bit of a joke, really—if he wanted to, Sollux could burst the ropes with his psionics the instant he woke up. But they had to try something, and this was the best they could do under the circumstances.

"There," Rose announced. "He's not going anywhere. Now, do you have any idea of when he may awaken?"

"I don't fucking know," Karkat snapped. "I punched him as hard as I could, so maybe a few hours? A day?"

Rose's eye twitched. "You seem no better than the last time we spoke. Did you do as I asked?"

"Be quiet!" he hissed, throwing a glance over his shoulder. Both John and Dave were preoccupied, though, both of them whining as Kanaya dabbed stinging liquid onto their cuts. "No," he admitted to Rose, reassured that the boys weren't listening. "Not yet."

"Karkat…"

"I was about to! I was about to bare my fucking soul to the guy, but then this fuckass showed up outside my hive and ruined everything!"

"I see. And will you be repeating your attempt to talk to John sometime in the near future?"

Karkat fidgeted uncomfortably. "Yeah, as soon as Dave leaves us alone for a few minutes."

She gave an approving nod. "Good."

"Fucking ow!" Dave hissed loudly, voice slicing the still air.

"Hold still!" Kanaya countered. "Your squirming is making you bleed more!"

Karkat bit back an amused snort. What an idiot.

"Do you think you'll be returning home tonight?" Rose asked. "Or will you be staying here in case your friend awakens?"

Karkat briefly considered going home. No fucking way I can wait around in that place knowing that Sollux is over here. The idiot could wake up at any time, and I should be here to beat the shit out of him if he does. "I'm staying here," he decided. "John and Dave can do what they want."

Rose nodded. "In that case, I'm going to send them home. They could use the rest, and I get the feeling that you and Kanaya should speak with Sollux alone."

He gave a begrudging nod. "Thank you, but good luck convincing them to go home."

Her eyes narrowed. "I know a few tricks."

†††

Sollux awoke approximately five hours later, right when the suns were starting to rise above the horizon.

"Kanaya!" Karkat called the instant he saw the warning signs. "He's up!"

Kanaya appeared in a heartbeat. "Sollux?"

The battered troll just groaned, trying to roll onto his side despite the ropes holding him down. He hissed, feeling the rough material binding him to the table, and groaned out, "What the fuck ith going on?"

Karkat had to bite back a growl the instant he heard his voice. "You fucking attacked me and my friends, you idiot! Don't tell me you don't remember!"

Kanaya shot him a glance. "Now Karkat, you yourself said that he wasn't in his right mind. Let's give him a chance to explain himself."

He agreed with a vicious hiss. "Fine. What do you have to say for yourself, Thollukth?"

The troll sneered, but it was obvious that he was still in the realm between not quite asleep and not quite awake. "Fuck you, KK." Then he paused. "Wait…KK?"

"Yes, you insufferable bulgelicker!"

Sollux frowned. His face was a mess of confusion, single good eye flicking about in an attempt to put together just where he'd been laid out. "I made it?" he asked finally. "I made it to the new world?"

Karkat snarled, but Kanaya cut him off with a gentle, "Yes, Sollux, you're safe. We're all a bit baffled, though—how did you get here?"

"Oh, that'th eathy…" But then he trailed off in confusion. "Wait…how did I get here? I can't…"

"Oh, that's just fucking great," Karkat snapped. "Don't tell me that weird black hole in the sky scrambled your think pan beyond recovery!"

"Black hole…" he whispered. "There wath a black hole, and…a methage I was thuppothed to give you?" He groaned, turning his head from side to side miserably. "Fuck, I can't remember!"

"That's okay," Kanaya soothed. "It may take time to piece together your memories. For now, can you remember anything at all about what you've been doing for the past few months? Namely, why you haven't contacted us despite having been alive?"

He shook his head. "I'm thorry, KN, I don't…" He hesitated. "Actually, I think there wath thomeone elthe with me…and…they didn't want me to contact you yet…? But…then they changed their mind, I think…"

"Terezi?" Kanaya guessed with a frown. "But why would she not want you to contact us?"

Sollux shook his head again. "I don't know. It could have been TZ, I gueth, but I jutht can't remember! It'th like…the patht few weekth have just been erathed"

"Calm down," Kanaya urged. "Is there anything else you recall?"

He paused, singular eye staring into nothing. Then, "I think we were looking for thomeone…and I remember that whatever I was thuppothed to be doing, it was really important. Like, there are going to be theriouth fucking conthequentheth if I can't remember."

Karkat snorted. "Oh gog, say that again—consequences. You sound fucking ridiculous."

"Fuck off, KK!"

"Boys!" Kanaya snapped, pushing Karkat away from the table. "Stop that!"

Karkat shrank away. "Sorry."

"Thorry," Sollux echoed.

Kanaya just shook her head, pinching at the bridge of her nose with two fingers. "It seems obvious to me that continuing to push you while you're weak isn't going to wield any information. I think for now you'll be better off resting for a while longer, preferably somewhere a little less stressful than here. Hopefully you'll remember more in a little while. With that being said, then, I suppose we should move on to what comes next."

"What comes next?" Karkat repeated. "Why, is something wrong?"

"Well, Sollux can't just live in the lab. Where are we going to put him while he recovers?"

"I can make my own hive," Sollux reminded them. "I'm weak right now, but I'll be fine after a little retht."

"Yes, but before you get that rest we'll have to have somewhere for you to stay."

"I can't jutht thtay here or thome shit?"

"You can, but I strongly advise that you don't."

"Why not?"

"You don't want to stay here, dude," Karkat broke in. "Trust me, it's no fun being the third wheel around an interspecies couple."

Sollux blinked. "Oh." Then he looked to the doorway, where Rose had vanished the instant he'd started to wake up. "Oh. Really?"

"Really."

He blushed a deep mustard yellow. "Tho what are my other optionth?"

Kanaya came to the rescue. "If you'd like, you can stay in the hive that I built with Rose. We don't live there at the moment, seeing as we're spending all of our time working here in the lab, so you're welcome to stay there until you have the chance to build your own hive. After you've stayed there for a few days, we can meet again and talk about what you remember in more detail. I'm sure Rose will be very interested in what you have to say. That is, as sure as you're sure you're not going to attack anyone!"

Sollux gave a dazed shake of the head. "No, no…whatever it wath that had me when I got here, it'th gone now. I feel completely normal. So if you'll jutht tell me where your hive is…"

"Right next to my place," Karkat informed him with a smirk. "Hope you're ready to see a whole fucking lot more of me, Captor."

He sneered, but there was a familiar flicker of anticipation behind his supposed anger. "Jutht like old timeth?"

"With a healthy dose of crazy."

He answered with a smirk. "So jutht like old times. Tell me, KK, are you thtill obthethed with those shitty movieth? Thtill drooling over actorth without being able to get any yourthelf?"

He growled low in his throat, biting out, "I have a fucking moirail, you bifurcated freakshow! And a potential matesprit!" Or was Dave actually his matesprit at this point? He just couldn't tell.

"Potential, eh? What'th wrong, KK, too nervouth to make a move?"

"Like you've done any better," he hissed, bristling from head to toe. "You had Feferi, sure, but the only other person even remotely interested in you was a homicidal fish troll with a superiority complex!"

"That wathn't even proper blackrom," Sollux snorted. "The shithead jutht flat out hated me, nothing romantic about it."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah, it fucking ith!"

Then they just stared at each other, both sporting expressions of relief. After so long apart, both were relieved to see that absolutely nothing had changed. Their endless bickering remained a comforting constant, even after all this time.

Kanaya cleared her throat politely. "If you two are quite done…"

The two broke eye contact with equal measures of embarrassment.

"Right," Kanaya sighed. "Karkat, I want you to go find Rose. She should be in the next room over. You should wait with her while I explain a few things to Sollux."

"Ehehe…" Sollux let out one of his infuriating little laughs. "How'th it feel being thent out of the room like a wiggler, KK?"

Karkat opened his mouth to snarl a response, but Kanaya beat him to it. "Sollux. If you want to pursue this later, then you're free to do so. But for now, there are a few things about the previous months that we need to discuss." She turned her gaze on Karkat. "Please leave us."

He didn't protest. Knowing Kanaya, she was just going to tell Sollux that his former best friend was completely insane and couldn't be left alone for a moment; just generally fill him in on how fucking crazy he was. He didn't need to be there for that.

"Call me when you're done," he grumbled, shuffling his way out of the room. Sollux only looked a little hurt, he thought.

†††

"So…"

Karkat didn't even spare the other troll a glance. "So."

Sollux said nothing else for a long moment. They just walked side by side, dead leaves and dried grass crunching underfoot as they made their way towards Sollux's temporary hive. They were already close, having made their way through the center of town some time ago.

"You really flipped right the fuck off the handle, didn't you?" Sollux said finally.

Karkat bared his teeth, but the gesture came off more as weary than angry. "What if I did?"

"Come on, KK…you have a moirail for thingth like thith. Why the fuck haven't you been talking to him?"

"None of your fucking business," he snapped.

"You should really—"

"What are you, my lusus?"

Sollux went quiet. Then, "No, I gueth not. But fuck, KK, you thound more fucked up than me right now. Sure you're gonna be okay?"

"I'll be fine. I was actually trying to talk to my moirail about all this shit when your lame ass blasted a hole in the sky and fell right into our fucking front yard."

"Fuck you, that wathn't my fault!"

"Like hell it wasn't, you bulegsniffing bee-fucker!"

"Better than being a candy-blooded mutant!"

"Still better than being a duality-obsessed freakshow!"

"Eheheh…fair enough." Sollux smirked at him with those ridiculous fangs. "Tho I gueth we'll be theeing a lot more of each other now, huh?"

"Your fucking absurd lisp will have the chance to annoy me twice as often as it used to," he agreed with a sneer.

"Then I'll have to drag you out of the armth of your potential matethprit enough to make it three timeth," the psionic countered.

Karkat glared. "You're so fucking annoying, I swear."

"Yeah," Sollux agreed. "I mithed you too, KK."

Fuck him. Fuck him and his stupid ability to decode his furious ranting. "Shut the fuck up!"

He cackled, sounding far too much like Terezi. "You know you hate me."

"The day I stop hating you is the day I prostrate myself before the nonexistent drones and beg to be culled."

Sollux's smirk widened, and the rest of their journey passed in silence.

†††

Later that evening, Dave cornered Karkat in the kitchen long enough to ask him about the events that had transpired in the lab. The troll had been exhausted when he'd come back, crashing on the couch without telling either him or John what had happened or how Sollux had been dealt with. Both Dave and John had waited around for him to wake up, but John had dozed off before it happened. That meant that Dave was on his own, looming over Karkat as he tried to make himself something to eat.

"So," he said coolly.

Karkat eyed him. His hands were at work preparing what appeared to be a sandwich with oddly colored meat. "Is something wrong?"

"Not in particular." He leaned against the counter, getting as close as he could. "So, what happened with Sollux?"

He could see the way Karkat tensed, shoulders hitching just slightly higher. "Nothing much. He woke up and Kanaya sent him to live in her hive for the time being."

"So he's living there now?" Dave questioned, hair standing on end as he thought of the person that had attacked them and nearly choked Karkat to death living next door. "As in, he's in the house right next to ours."

"Yep. Real fucking exciting, isn't it?"

"That's one word for it." He watched as Karkat took a knife to the completed sandwich and sliced it in two. "You're not worried at all that he'll attack us again?"

"No," was the immediate response. "Trust me on this, Dave—Sollux isn't going to do anything to hurt you or John."

"And what about you?"

He paused. "He won't hurt me any more than is usual for these kinds of things."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

Karkat was fidgeting with the knife now, running his thumb up and down the flat of the blade. He looked nervous. "Dave, trolls don't work the same way humans do."

"I know that."

"We have quadrants."

He shuddered. The quadrant system had always confused him, and he hated it completely. "Mhmm, I know about that too. A real disturbing way to do things, if you ask me."

Karkat's eyes flashed with hurt. "It's just how we are! We can't fucking change it!"

"Yeah, I understand that, but that doesn't mean you couldn't just refuse to fill your other quadrants out of courtesy to your matesprit." To me.

"You'd want me to be unhappy?"

That made him pause. "Well, no…but you don't need anyone else if you have me, right? I can do all that stuff for you."

Karkat stared. "Am I your best friend?"

"Um…what?"

"Am I your best friend?" he repeated, voice deathly calm.

Was this a trick question? "No, dude, John is my best friend."

"Exactly. I couldn't be your best friend because I'm your—" And here he paused, looking uncertain. "I'm your whatever the fuck I am, and that's not the same thing as a best friend. You telling me not to take a moirail or a kismesis is like me telling you that you have to ditch all of your friends and never take new ones."

"That's not the same thing at all!" he protested. "I don't sleep with my best friends!"

Karkat cocked his head, asking, "So it's just the concupiscent quadrants you have a problem with? You don't want me to have a kismesis?"

"Well, no—every quadrant requires love, right? That means that if you have more than one quadrant filled, you're in love with more than one person. That's kinda messed up in human terms."

"Not really," Karkat snapped back, becoming visibly agitated. "There's a difference between the love you feel for your human parents and the love you feel for your human significant other."

"Woah, using the human terms and everything?" Dave teased.

Karkat bristled. "That's not the point!"

Dave threw up his hands in exasperation. "The point is, the quadrant system just makes me uncomfortable!"

"Well it has to not make you uncomfortable, because trolls aren't happy unless they fill as many quadrants as they can!"

"Creeps me out," Dave muttered. "I swear, dude, you're—"

Karkat dropped the knife onto the counter with a clatter, and Dave nearly jumped out of his skin. "Okay, we are working this out right the fuck now. Because if you're going to be a wiggler about this, then—"

Dave jerked up his hands again, this time in horror. "No way, dude! Talk to me about your weird quadrants later, because I am not going to deal with this right now."

Karkat just stared, mouth opening and closing with silent splutters. "But—!"

"No buts, Karks. I didn't come in here to get a lecture about your creepy polyamorous bullshit. I've got shit to do, so I'm out!"

The troll was still staring, mouth hanging open, but Dave didn't give the expression a second thought. The guy would get over it, he thought. He'd realize that having more than one quadrant filled at a time was kind of a deal breaker for humans.

Karkat would choose him over having other quadrants, he was sure. It was only a matter of time.