A/N Warning: This chapter contains descriptions of invasive medical procedures and body mutilation.


CG: LOOK, I'D LOVE TO HAVE YOU OVER, BUT I DON'T THINK THAT'S A GOOD IDEA FOR FUCKTONS OF REASONS, OKAY? I'D LOVE TO SEE YOUR HIDEOUS FUCKING FACE IN PERSON, BUT I'M SERIOUSLY SURE THAT IT'S NOT A GOOD IDEA FOR YOU TO COME OVER.

TA: oh come on

TA: plea2e?

TA: iim not gonna get another chance here KK

TA: iim LEAVIING iin two day2

TA: forever

TA: iim goiing to leave to get all fuckiing hooked up to 2ome dumba22 2hiip for the re2t of my liife

TA: ju2t let me come over ju2t thi2 once

CG: I DON'T KNOW, SOLLUX. I'M NOT SURE ABOUT THIS. I DON'T GENERALLY HAVE *ANYONE* OVER TO MY HIVE. I JUST- LOOK, IT'S NOT BECAUSE I DON'T WANT YOU TO COME OVER EXACTLY, IT'S A SAFETY THING.

TA: kk ii am fuckiing beggiing you here

TA: ii promii2e nothiing bad wiill happen, okay?

CG: KNOW WHAT? FINE. DRAG YOUR ASS OVER TO MY FUCKING HIVE. WHO GIVES A SHIT? CLEARLY NOT ME. YOU CAN JUST WALTZ YOUR ASS RIGHT INTO MY PERSONAL SPACE THAT HAS KNOWN NO LIFE EXCEPT MINE AND FUCKING CRABDAD'S. DO YOU HAVE MY ADDRESS?

TA: yeah ii may have ju2t found iit iin ca2e ii wa2 ever iin trouble or 2omethiing

CG: OH MY GOD. WHY DO I EVER EXPECT ANYTHING DIFFERENT FROM YOU? OKAY SO I'LL SEE YOU IN A WHILE.

TA: 2ound2 good

TA: later lo2er

-twinArmageddons [TA] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] at 13:24-

Karkat sighed and glanced around his hive briefly, examining the block. Okay it looked decent enough to have a guest. He stood up and closed his husktop as he wandered around the block, fiddling nervously with his hands, slowly growing more and more panicked. Sollux was coming over. He was having Sollux over. Fuck what if he slips up and blushes or cuts himself on something or something dumb like that? Fuck, were his eyes starting to fill in yet? He hoped not. He paced around his hive before hearing someone knock on the door and he took a deep breath before heading up to open it, glancing up at Sollux in the doorway.

"Holy shit, you're even shorter than I thought you were." Sollux snickered a little as he walked in, slipping his shoes off as he glanced around the hive, "Also a neat freak apparently."

Karkat rolled his eyes and closed and locked the door behind Sollux, "I'm not short. I'm vertically challenged. And no I'm not a neat freak. I'm just not a fucking slob is all. So yeah whatever, just make yourself at home or whatever the fuck."

Sollux glanced around and shoved his hands in his pockets, "Sure you are, KK. Sure you are." He headed back into the recreational block and glanced around, "I like your hive. It's way bigger than my little hivestem compartment."

Karkat shrugged a little as he followed Sollux inside, "Whatever. It's nice."

"You're a lot quieter in person than online."

Karkat shrugged again, "Yeah well, I don't usually have actual people to talk to in person so it's a little really fucking weird, it's taking some getting used to, but rest assured that I'll be back to my long-winded dirty-windholed self in a few minutes."

Sollux snickered, "Okay that was much better." He paused for a while, just sighing and glancing around the hive quietly for a minute, "So today's one of my last days on-planet."

Karkat nodded and sat down on the couch, crossing his legs as he leaned back on the couch, "Yeah... How's that going for you? Heading off to pilot some dumbass ship?"

Sollux sighed and flopped down on his stomach on the couch, "Less pilot and more just be a fucking battery for the thing. I've been looking into the procedures for hooking me up to the damned thing. Permanent muscular damage, permanent nerve damage. Wanna hear how they hook you up?"

Karkat raised his eyebrows a little bit, "I'm almost scared to ask, but if it makes you feel better or whatever the hell, go for it. I'll pretend to be listening."

Sollux snickered again and nodded a little, "Thanks for caring, KK. I really appreciate your pretending to be listening."

He sighed and rested his face in Karkat's lap for a minute, "So what they do is they puncture the skin in key nerve locations and brace the skin and muscle open with little metal sockets so that they can get the biowires hooked into the nerves where they'll basically fuse semi-permanently with the nerve there so they can sap the psionic power from the nerves with the highest connection rate to my thinkpan. The only way the wires come out is if they die or if the electrical connection is severed so the energy coming out of the sockets fry the biowires. So because of the metal bracings and sockets even if I were ever freed or managed to escape I'd never be able to walk properly again and the psionic power would never really return in full since it'd still be depleted through the sockets."

Karkat's eyes slowly widened in horror as Sollux described the process and he frowned, reaching a hand down to stroke lightly through his hair, "Wow. That's... really really horrible..."

Sollux nodded a little, "I'm sort of coming to terms with the whole thing and debating whether I think I'd be able to fend off a bunch of drones long enough to get away, but I'm guessing my chances of actually escaping this procedure are dangling right around zero."

Karkat nodded a little and sighed, "Believe it or not I've got a relatively similar situation here. I mean sure I'm not gonna be perforated like a fucking sponge or anything, but I'm gonna have to try to get off planet in a really discrete way or my ass is getting culled the minute I step in sight of any drones."

Sollux raised an eyebrow at him and sat up in vague interest, "Oh? What's your fun defect that's getting you in trouble?"

Karkat glanced away and pulled his knees up to his chest, "Well... I don't know. You wouldn't tell anyone, right? I mean I'm basically dead anyways."

"Yeah, sure I won't tell anyone. I'm not gonna really be able to tell anyone soon enough anyways. Nothing like becoming a literal object, huh?"

Karkat sighed and leaned his head back on the couch, "Yeah... I may or may not have a... uh... blood defect."

"What do you mean by a "Blood defect"? You mean something's wrong with it? Is it a medical thing or...?"

Karkat flinched a little bit and ran a hand through his hair with a sigh and sat up a little, "It's... kind of the wrong color."

"Wrong color?"

Karkat grumbled and rolled over on the couch to shove his face between the cushions, "I don't wanna talk about it."

"No no man, I mean... I'm just honestly curious as to what you mean here. Like... is it not matching up with your genes or something?"

Karkat groaned and pulled a blanket off the back of the couch over his face, "It's not- I'm... Okay so this is going to sound crazy and dumb and awful, but I'm not even on the spectrum."

There was a pause as Sollux blinked at him before opening his mouth, "Oh... I see."

Karkat peeked up from under the blanket at him, "Are you... freaked out?"

Sollux shrugged, "Not really. Oh my god what color is it? Is it like. Fucking silver or something? Wait. Wait is it actually gray? That'd be pretty impressive."

Karkat relaxed a little bit, letting out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, "No. It's just red is all and it's like. really fucking bright red."

Sollux looked up at him and nodded, "You could have a way worse color."

Karkat shrugged, "Yeah but it'll still get me culled."

Sollux sat up and sighed, "Yeah... looks like this is probably gonna be the last time we really talk a lot. I'm spending tomorrow making sure my lusus gets out of my hivestem okay."

Karkat nodded a little, "Yeah..."

They sat in silence for a moment before Sollux glanced up at him again, "Hey, you wanna do something dumb? Like just... do stupid things like explode grub-sausages in the microwave? Or throw pillows at each other or something like that?"

Karkat stared at him incredulously for a moment, "Oh hell yes."

Sollux grinned a big toothy smile and sat up and grabbed at Karkat's sweater, pulling him to his feet, "Come on, let's do dumb shit."

Karkat snickered a little and followed him off to go and "do dumb shit."

He sighed and watched as Sollux left through the front door, a sense of finality settling over him as he watched Sollux's Technicolor form flying off into the distance and he closed the door with a sigh, turning around and running a hand through his hair, heading back to his desk tiredly. That'd been fun... but he had a few papers to fill out for his off-planet vessel of choice. No ship allowed hemoanonymous boarding except some of the illegal ones and he didn't want to use one of those considering the off-planet horror stories he'd heard about some of those.


So he's going to find the most corrupt vessel he can, and hope they'll take a bribe.

And he's going to hope for the best.