Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/4016758. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Underage Category: M/M Fandom: Homestuck Relationship: Dave_Strider/Karkat_Vantas Character: Dave_Strider, Karkat_Vantas Additional Tags: Quadrant_Vacillation, Confessions, First_Time, Making_Out, Xeno, Oral Sex, Nook_Penetration, Cuddling, Flushed_Romance_|_Matesprits, Canon Compliant, Shower_Sex Stats: Published: 2015-05-26 Words: 8698 ****** We'll Try And Make It Ours ****** by Zee Summary Dave didn’t fall asleep on you this time, but he did let you put your arm around his shoulders for almost the entire length of the movie. Same as always, neither of you mentioned what was going on, you just- -went with it. Then the movie ended and you went your separate ways and you’re torn between feeling giddy from the closeness and wanting to cry from frustration. Notes Thanks to ouroboros for the beta. The title is from "Our Way To Fall" by Yo La Tengo. See the end of the work for more notes You play it completely cool. You are chiller than the sadly empty hunger trunk on this meteor. Dave Strider is falling asleep on your shoulder and you have never been so relaxed in your god damn life. In troll society, this would be seen as an act of ultimate trust, leaving yourself especially vulnerable in front of someone else. You have no idea what it signifies to humans, but you haven’t witnessed Dave falling asleep on anyone else, so you suspect it means something. In fact, you’ve seen this happen in multiple romantic comedies. Surely Dave has too. Surely Dave wouldn’t be doing this, no matter how sleepy he is, if he weren’t aware of the context. “Your shoulder is bony as shit,” Dave says, and despite being 100% chill your whole body goes rigid. You hold your breath, but Dave shifts away only to give himself room to scoot further down the couch, and then he’s leaning down again and--oh fuck oh fuck, he is putting his head in your lap now. Be fucking cool, dammit. Dave is making himself comfortable, his ear resting on your thigh, and this is textbook fucking pale but at the same time, you kind of want to kiss him. And do… other things. You continue to hold your breath and will yourself not to get turned on. You curse yourself for being so terrible at quadrants. This is well within the range of the pale shit you’ve already been doing, the moirallegiance that you’ve been afraid to call out as such because you haven’t wanted to scare Dave away. You shouldn’t be getting off on this. You haven’t been aiming for Dave as a matesprit, right? No, instead you’ve been projecting your desire for a moirail all over his possibly-normal-by-human-standards friendship advances, which is maybe just as bad. You sicken yourself. But nonetheless, Dave’s head is still in your fucking lap, and it’s--really nice, actually, now that you’ve had a couple minutes to get used to it. You’re not tired at all, but you’re pretty sure that Dave is genuinely falling asleep on you. You relax a fraction. You don’t want to do anything to jeopardize this moment. Dave’s head gets heavier and his breaths slow down and you have not been paying any attention to this movie for at least the past fifteen minutes. You’re pretty sure that he’s dead-ass asleep now. You listen to his breathing and watch the way his chest rises and falls. You feel hopelessly fucking endeared. You’re pretty sure that what you’re feeling is red, but you try to push those thoughts from your think-pan. His hair is so pale, so unbearably alien, and it looks soft. You only hesitate a little before touching it lightly. Dave doesn’t stir, and you pet your hand through his hair a couple of times. Humans still look strange to you, even after all the time you’ve spent with Dave and Rose and all the human movies you’ve watched. You let your hand linger on where Dave’s horn would be, if he had horns. He looks fragile, even though you know he’s not, he’s god tier and could probably take you any day of the week. But seeing him like this makes you feel strangely protective of this supposedly-ironic rapping tool. He’d only be fit for a culling on your home world, that’s certain, same as you. This line of thinking makes your blood pusher speed up uncomfortably, an echo of the old death sentence you used to live under, as distant and extinct now as Dane Cook. You watch the rest of the movie with your hand in Dave’s hair and--you can’t help it--a smile on your face. *** “Mmmrfl,” Dave says when he wakes up, lifting his head and wiping at his chin like he’s afraid he was drooling on you. “Aw, damn. Did I miss the thrilling conclusion?” “Just more cutting social commentary from one of the best comedic minds of his generation,” you say, and you’re rewarded with Dave’s full-body shudder. Other than that, though, he doesn’t rise to the bait. Instead he pushes himself up on his wrist and gives you a lopsided smile, and you’re familiar enough with Dave’s smiles by now to know that this is as close as he gets to grinning outright. “You make a pretty decent pillow, for a species that’s supposed to be all about conquering and pillaging shit.” “Fuck you,” you say easily. Shit, you’re smiling back. You try to scowl and just end up with pursed lips and a knitted brow. You almost definitely look fucking stupid. Dave is just looking at you, and the silence draws out long enough that you start to feel awkward. You busy yourself with shutting your husktop and tucking it under your arm. “Not all of us got to refresh ourselves with a nice nap in someone else’s lap. I’m fucking beat.” “Yeah, yeah. I’ll catch you later.” Dave gives you a funny little wave, which you return as you stand up. “Later,” you say, and the word feels tight in your chest. *** Dave shows up at your respite block bright and early, and it’s not completely out of nowhere but it’s still a surprise. He says he has some new beats that he wants you to listen to, and you bite your tongue against asking why it couldn’t wait until you’d come out to the common area, because it’s not like you’re not happy to see him. You invite him in, and he sits down on the floor over by your recuperacoon, holding out one earbud. You’ve started touching each other more. You noticed this before he fell asleep on your lap, but it’s been especially obvious since then. You’re never certain how much is okay for you to initiate. You sit beside him now, with your knee touching his, and that seems to be fine. You take the earbud he’s handing you and listen. You like Dave’s music. It took you a year to admit this, but you do. The rhymes he comes up with really aren’t bad, and you like his beats. You even admitted to finding them ‘fresh,’ once. You get that he mostly makes it to be ironic (or that’s his cover story, at any rate), but it’s still enjoyable. The two of you sit like that for a while, just listening. Sometimes Dave will make comments, like “aw man, pay attention to this part, this is just sicknasty” or “this shit was tricky, I’m still not sure I like the bridge.” You can tell when he gets really nervous about a song because he won’t stop talking, trying to explain his process or some shit, and you have to tell him to shut the fuck up and let you listen. Halfway through one of his songs, you put your hand on his knee. It’s a bold move and your blood pusher is in your fucking meal tunnel the whole time, but you’ve just been sitting here wishing for more contact and nothing’s been happening and Dave apparently feels comfortable putting his damn head in your lap and passing out, so: hand on the knee. Shouldn’t be that big a deal, or so you tell yourself. He reacts by putting a hand on your knee, which, fuck. Now you’re sitting here with hands on each other’s knees like a couple of douches and you’re starting to feel really fucking stupid but at the same time it’s pretty awesome. Dave taps his middle finger to the beat, you think unconsciously. The song ends, and he’s the first one to pluck his earbud out. “So yeah, there you have it, my latest masterpiece. Your hearing fronds must be flat-out vibing off the hook from how good that shit was.” “They’re just called ‘ears,’ dickhead,” you say. “And it was all right, I guess.” “Just ‘all right’?” Dave takes the hand that’s not (still!) on your knee and places it on his chest in mock outrage. “You wound me. You slay me. I bust my ass putting this shit together, I raise these beats from when they were infant beats who couldn’t even take care of themselves, I nurture and foster them until they’re the illest business you’ve just heard, and all you can say is ‘all right’?” “Fine!” You forget yourself and throw both hands in the air, and now you’re flustered because you’ve accidentally broken the spell of having your hands on each other’s knees. “It bowled me over. It shattered my ‘hearing fronds’ and liquified my guts and left my shame globes aquiver. That what you want to hear?” Shit, why did you have to mention your shame globes? You’re a fucking moron, but Dave rolls with it. “My goal is to leave a trail of quaking shame globes across paradox space, just like, a whole universe of dudes with shaking ballsacks. So thanks.” You want to tell him off for being gross, but technically you’re the one who brought shame globes into the equation. You roll your eyes and wonder if it would be weird for you to put your hand back on his knee. Probably. As you’re debating this, Dave removes his hand from your knee and stretches his arms out, yawning. His left arm invades your personal space and you scowl, annoyed. Shit though, is he tired? Your mind races to thoughts of inviting him to take a nap with you. Except that fuck, you don’t have a pile. You could make one, maybe? You think you have some stuffed animals or something around here somewhere-- But it’s too late, Dave is already standing up. “I’m fucking starving, gotta get me some of the awful horse shit we like to call food around here.” He turns and extends a hand to you, and you take it, hoisting yourself up. You can’t tell if his hand lingers in yours for a few seconds after, or if you’re imagining things. “Wanna come with?” Your mouth tries to break out into a smile without you giving it permission first, and you quickly duck your head and turn it into a scowl. It’s fucking stupid to be so pleased at such a casual invitation. It’s just--you know from the movies you’ve been watching that sharing a meal with a human has a romantic context sometimes, doesn’t it? “Sure, why not,” you say. You leave your respite block together and head to the common room. You’ve got the echoes of Dave’s song running through your head. *** You don’t really know what to do. You’re in your respite block, having just returned from watching another Dane Cook movie (you need to do a better job of rationing those out, it’s not like he’s made that many films and you still have a year left on this rock) with Dave. He didn’t fall asleep on you this time, but he did let you put your arm around his shoulders for almost the entire length of the movie. Same as always, neither of you mentioned what was going on, you just--went with it. Then the movie ended and you went your separate ways and you’re torn between feeling giddy from the closeness and wanting to cry from frustration. You strip off your clothes and climb into your recuperacoon, staring up at the ceiling as you let it envelop you. You’re not an idiot. You know there’s something there between you and Dave. You’ve never had a friendship like this before, where there was this kind of physical closeness. It’s more than just a normal friendship, you’re sure of it. But you don’t know what it is if it isn’t friendship. You didn’t think that humans did moirallegiance, but Dave is acting like your moirail. You also didn’t think that Dave did the “homosexuality” thing, but maybe that was just John’s particular weirdness. You’re not even sure you want to call out what’s been going on as particularly pale, because then Dave might want to stop. But it feels wrong, to be getting all these pale benefits from your relationship with him when he likely doesn’t even have any idea what he’s doing to you. It reminds you of something Eridan might do, projecting romance all over someone without their consent. And then there are the flushed feelings that you’ve been trying so hard to stuff away into the darkest recesses of your thinkpan. You should just get used to ignoring those forever because there is no fucking way that Dave reciprocates. You don’t want to complicate things by vacillating on him. Best to keep things in the pale zone, where they pretty much already are. You groan and sink further down into the sopor slime of your recuperacoon. So you've got a moirallegiance that you're afraid to call a moirallegiance, and a weirdass human moirail who seems to enjoy flirting with you in other quadrants just to fuck with you. You should probably tell him that that’s what’s going on, and you can only hope that it won’t result in him keeping his distance forever. *** You go to Dave’s respite block the next day. You feel like your whole skeleton is jangling with nerves, and your mouth feels sticky and dry. You’re terrified of rejection and you’re not sure you want anything to change, but the thought of getting through this whole interminable meteor trip with Dave thinking that you’re just good bros makes you want to throw something. You get to his door and knock, resisting the urge to shuffle your feet or rub at your neck. He answers and immediately grins when he sees it’s you, and that makes something happy and good uncurl in your stomach. “Hey there, look what the lusus dragged in,” he says, and you pull a face at him. This is a new thing he’s been doing, using troll words randomly and incorrectly just to bother you. In this case he’s actually right, though. “Shut up,” you say, and refrain from calling him any names because you’re here to be serious. “I need to talk to you.” “Mi casa es su casa,” he says, and when you just stare at him he says, “That means come in,” and opens the door wider to let you in. “It’s not fair to bust out other human languages on me, I have a hard enough time understanding you as it is,” you say, sniping at him half-heartedly as you enter his block. It’s messier than yours, which is saying something. “I gotta represent the whole human race, not just ’murrica.” he says. More references that are lost on you. “Don’t want all our languages to just be lost, you know? Gotta make sure the Tower of Babel wasn’t built for nothing.” “Whatever,” you mutter, because if you made Dave stop and explain every whacked-out human reference he dropped on you, you two would never talk about anything else. Dave turns and sits down on the raised platform he sleeps on, gesturing for you to come sit next to him. “So you wanna talk? Let’s talk. Hash shit out, man to man. Or man to troll, I guess.” You’re too tense to keep up with Dave’s neverending flow of word vomit. You just nod and go to sit down, scooting back until your shoulders are against the wall. “Man, for someone who came here to talk, you sure are quiet. What’s the matter? Have you finally figured out that Dane Cook sucks and it’s breaking your brain? Did you finally ask Vriska to be your kismepal and she turned you down?” “Oh my fucking god.” You didn’t come in here with the intent of yelling at him, but Dave is too fucking much. “Don’t be an asshole, you know I’m not into her that way and you know that’s not what it’s called.” “I’m not gonna admit I know troll quadrants until you admit how much you like all the T Swift songs I’ve been playing you,” Dave says. The corner of his mouth lifts up in a smirk. “For fuck’s sake, asswipe, did I or did I not say that I was here to talk? I’m trying to be serious.” “Fine, fine. I’m listening.” Dave crosses his arms over his chest and leans back against the wall next to you, until your arms are touching. He’s sitting much closer than he has to be, it’s a big bed, and that gives you hope. “Right. So.” Shit, you really should have practiced this speech; you have no idea what to say. “As you’ve probably noticed, things between us have been… different lately.” “Different how.” “Different as in--” You swallow, fighting against the dryness in your mouth. You’re swiftly reaching the point of no turning back in this conversation. “-- we’ve been touching more. Like you falling asleep on me the other night.” “Oh. That. You didn’t like it? Shit, I didn’t drool on you, did I?” If Dave is at all perturbed by the way this talk is going, he isn’t showing it. You know by now that Dave isn’t nearly as good at keeping his cool as he likes to present, but he’s still less flappable than you are, and it still makes you jealous sometimes. Like now. “No, no it was fine. I, um. I liked it, actually.” Fuck, your cheeks are burning. This is the most awkward conversation of your life and you think if a threshecutioner were to suddenly materialize to cull you in this second, you’d welcome it. “That’s kind of what I’m trying to say. I like it and I like you. And all this fucking cuddling and shit we’ve been doing, it… that means something, for me.” “Yeah? What does it mean?” Dave’s voice is quiet, now. You can feel him looking at you, but you’re staring fixedly at the opposite wall. You don’t think you could continue if you had to stare at your reflection in his stupid shades. You take a deep breath. This is the fucking moment of truth and you’re not ready, you’re braced for him to laugh in your face and throw you out. “It means that you’re my. My moirail. If you want to be.” Shockingly, Dave is actually quiet for several moments, processing it. You swallow and sneak a glance at him, and he’s no longer smirking or smiling. He’s just regarding you, looking as serious as you feel. “Moy-rails,” he says finally, slowly. “That’s the bro quadrant, right?” Fucking shit, you have explained this to him a thousand god damn times. “For fuck’s--” He raises a hand to stop your rant. “No I know, I know it’s not really about being bros, but. Kind of, right? It’s not one of the quadrants where you bump uglies.” You breathe out through your nose, calming yourself down. You’re not sure where this is going. “Right.” Dave goes quiet again, and right when you’re feeling ready to strangle him just for something to happen, he speaks up. “Okay. So you’ve interpreted this whole thing through your troll culture. Let me give you the human spin on things.” Despite your best intentions to be serious and earnest and god damn romantic, you find yourself rolling your eyes. “Please, enlighten me.” “In Earth terms, when one person cuddles up on another person and holds their hand and puts their arm around them while watching a movie, all that shit? That shit that we’ve been doing? Generally speaking, that means that the peeps in question are heading into decidedly non-bro territory.” Dave is looking at you like he’s just declared something definitive and important, and you’re having a hard time catching up to him. It’s definitely clear to you, though, that he’s not interested in moirallegiance. You shrink back away from him. “So what--what are you trying to say?” A little line is starting to form between Dave’s eyebrows, a tiny indication that maybe he’s getting as anxious as you are. “I’m trying to say--you know, fuck it,” and then he’s leaning over and reaching up to cup your jaw and kissing you. It’s brief. You’re too surprised to kiss back, and Dave doesn’t really give you the chance to before he pulls away. That line between his eyes has gotten deeper, he looks kind of genuinely upset, and you’re fucking shocked that you even have the capacity to make him look that way. “Not to be totally obvious about it or anything, but what I’m trying to say here is that I want to be your fucking boyfriend, not your best cuddle friend,” he says, his voice actually rising a little bit. You suck in a breath. This revelation has you dizzy and you need some time to process it but you recognize the mood Dave’s in, his hands clenched in his lap and his shoulders a hard line: he’s ready to bail on this if you don’t do something, fast. You grab his wrist and pull him in, and it’s less of a kiss and more you mashing your mouth against his, but it works; he stays, his muscles softening as he leans into you. You kiss for longer this time. His mouth moves against yours and it’s good, the pressure is good and the feel is good. It’s kind of awkward with the two of you sitting right next to each other though. Your neck is strained and you’re worried there’s a cramp forming in your back. After you’ve been kissing for a while, you curl one knee under yourself and swing your other leg over Dave’s lap, shifting your weight until you’re straddling him. “Whoa,” Dave says, but he obligingly puts his hands on your hips. “Shut up,” you tell him, but there’s no heat in your voice. You bend down to kiss him again, your hands on his face and his shoulder. You try opening your mouth a little bit this time, and he does too, and his breath is hot and humid against your lips. He tastes a little bit like the cereal he must have eaten for breakfast, but mostly he just tastes like nothing, like skin. His tongue in your mouth is good. He’s very proactive with it, licking at your teeth and your lips and brushing the tip of your tongue with his. You don’t really have to do much, you’re just kind of sitting there while Dave takes his time exploring your mouth. His hands are settled on your hips, his fingers digging into your sweater. It feels like everything in paradox space has been compressed to the points of contact between you, and your fingertips are tingling where they’re touching his hair. You spent so long thinking that Dave Strider annoyed the shit out of you, and then longer thinking that he was one of your best bros, and now he’s this and it’s almost too much for your poor addled think-pan to handle. Even when you were talking yourself into asking Dave to be your moirail, a part of you was still surprised that he tolerated your presence, let alone seemed to like you, and now he’s biting at your bottom lip and dragging his mouth across your cheek. You’re having a hard time processing it, and you hope it doesn’t show in anything you’re actually doing. Dave kisses a line down your jaw and fuck, he seems so damn smooth and sure of himself, has he done this before? You kind of want to ask if he’s done this before, but you don’t want to interrupt him so you keep your fucking mouth shut. He’s sucking on your neck now and that’s definitely going to leave a mark, but you find that you don’t mind--you kind of like the idea of everyone knowing that you’re his matesprit, although you don’t know if Dave would also like that. He’s kind of weirdly private. You suppose you can be, too, but only about your blood color. You shift, and holy shit, is that his bulge that you’re feeling through his pants? It’s not moving, which is weird, but it’s hard where the rest of him is soft. If you can feel his, that means he can probably feel yours, too. You shift again, and he makes a little grunt against your neck. His hips press up into yours and yep, that is definitely his bulge. It’s a little uncomfortable and a lot exciting to grind against him like this; you’re not sure how far you want to take it. He draws back up to kiss your lips again, softer this time, like maybe he’s running out of steam. It hasn’t escaped your attention that neither of you have moved your hands. His are still set chastely on your hips and you haven’t touched him anywhere below the shoulders. Maybe you’re both just too nervous. It’s kind of a lot, to go from best bros to matesprits like this, and you would never admit this out loud to Dave, but you kind of want your first time to be special. Maybe he feels the same way, because after giving you a few more sweet kisses he pulls back, resting his forehead against yours. He’s panting a little bit, and so are you. Both of your hips have stopped moving. “Damn,” he says. “That sure was, um. A lot, right?” “Yeah,” you say, and wow, is that really your voice? It sounds breathy and high and completely unlike yourself. You swallow and try to speak normally. “When you said you wanted to be my human boyfriend, I guess you weren’t kidding.” Dave laughs, and rakes his hands up your back. You can barely feel his stubby human nails through the fabric of your shirt. “I really wasn’t. I wouldn’t kid around with something like that, man.” He kisses you again, just a soft peck, and you smile. “Good. I’d have to do something unspeakable to your bulge if you had been.” Shit, maybe you shouldn’t have mentioned his bulge. You shift your hips back so that you’re situated more on his thighs than directly in his lap. Dave laughs. “I mean, I want you to do unspeakable things to my bulge,” he says, and fuck everything but you blush at that, you hate yourself. “Although I don’t have one of those, by the way. If you’re going to be getting all friendly with human anatomy, you should know what it’s called.” You snort and roll your eyes, trying to save face. “Why don’t you illuminate me then, fuckhead?” “Don’t call me names after we’ve just made out, that’s rude,” Dave says, and actually reaches up to tap your nose, like he’s chastising a woofbeast or something. You rear back snarling and open your mouth to let him have it, but he’s already talking over you. “Human male junk is called a dick or a cock or a boner, or a penis if you want to get all technical about it. ‘Penis’ is sort of an inherently hilarious word though, so I tend to stick with the other words.” You vaguely remember hearing him mention dicks and cocks before, usually in the context of when he’s drawing them. You want to ask for more details, mainly like what it looks like, but that’s going back into territory that you’re not sure you want to explore right now. “Why do you need so many words for it?” Dave waves a hand. “That’s a linguistic question for the ages. There aren’t as many words for female anatomy, at least not ones that are as fun to say. I think it’s probably because humanity has been phallus-obsessed for like, thousands of years.” “Your species is so weird.” “What can I say, that’s humans for you.” You lapse into silence. His hands are idly rubbing at your back, like he might not even realize he’s doing it. It feels nice, though. Your hands are still on his shoulders and you run your hands over his cape, smoothing over the wrinkles caused by you clutching at it. “Wanna watch a movie or something?” he says, breaking the silence. “Sure,” you say, and then because you’re feeling magnanimous you add, “You can choose, if you want.” “Fuck yeah, I’m so sick of Dane Cook’s scrambled-eggs face,” he says, and you don’t even have enough fight in you to defend Dane Cook. You just smile and slide off of Dave’s legs, settling in next to him on the bed as he grabs his computer. *** Being matesprits with Dave is not so different from being his best friend. You still do a lot of the same things you did before, watching movies together and listening to his raps and reading troll romance novels aloud. But there’s a lot more cuddling now, a lot more hand-holding, and it feels more natural now than it did before. You feel weird about all the cuddling at first, because it seems like something more appropriate for moirallegiance than matespritship, but who the hell are you going to ask about that--definitely not Terezi or Vriska or Gamzee, and Kanaya has her hands full with Rose. The impression you’re getting from Dave is that his concept of human ‘boyfriends’ includes elements of both the pale and red quadrants. It’s pretty strange, but you like it too much not to just roll with it. And you’ve been making out all the time, of course. You think you could continue to do this for a million sweeps and still never get tired of kissing Dave. You start kissing him pretty much any time the two of you are alone, and it always gets to a point where the two of you are panting and grinding up against each other and then you stop. It’s the best kind of torture. Your bulge is almost always at least partway out whenever he’s around, and you’ve been going to sleep turned on and frustrated but exhilarated. You’re certain he’s been going through the same thing. He’s gotten into the habit of taking his shades off while you make out, and he’s a lot more expressive when you can actually see his eyes. The first time he took his shades off was the second time you made out. It was in the common room and the public nature of everything sent an illicit thrill through you, although no one was around since it was the middle of the night. You were underneath Dave on the couch, feeling giddy at the way his whole body pressed up against yours. One minute he was kissing you, then the next he was pushing himself up on one arm and reaching up to yank off his shades with his other hand, placing them carefully on the coffee table within reach. He looked at you and your breath left your lungs. You had known that he had red eyes, but it was one thing to know and another thing to see. He was just so pretty. His eyes made him seem a little less like a human and a little more like a troll, and you were into it. Before you could think to stop yourself, you were reaching up to trace the faint indentations under his eyes left by his shades. He started like he was surprised, but made no move to stop you. When he smiled at you, you could see it in his eyes, and he went with it when you pulled him back down for a kiss. That incident was probably as heavy as things had gotten between you, with Dave on top of you and grinding down, but it was interrupted by the Mayor walking in. Neither of you have made a move since to take things beyond kissing. You’re not entirely sure why; you just know that when you’re in the heat of things and he’s kissing you, as exciting as things are it scares you to take things any further. You think it’s your lack of experience that’s tripping you up. After all, despite all your reading it’s not as if you have any practical experience with doing things with another troll, let alone someone of an entirely different species. You’ve been thinking about this a lot, probably too much. Considering that you’re not even getting any, sex has been on your mind almost constantly. You try to imagine what Dave looks like naked when you touch your bulge at night, but you can only conjure up the haziest images. But you can imagine the look that would be on his face when he’s fucking you with his bulge--with his dick, and that’s usually enough to get you off. So it strikes you as funny that when the time actually comes, you don’t think at all before you’re making a move. You’re making out in his respite block as usual (you always end up in his, since he has the convenient soft raised platform and you just have your recuperacoon and the floor), with him on your lap for a change, and it occurs to you that you’re overly warm roughly a second before you’re stripping off your sweater. “Oh hey, wow,” Dave says. This is the first time either of you have removed clothes during a makeout session, and his eyes go a little bit wide at the sight of your naked chest. It makes you self-conscious. “I was just hot,” you mutter, and go back to kissing him. Dave seems to enjoy that he has more of your skin to touch, because he runs his hands up and down your back and lets his fingers linger on your sides, brushing at the grub scars over your ribs. It almost tickles, but you swallow back any giggles that threaten to escape. It’s not long before Dave leans back away from you and says, “Well fuck it, guess I’ll follow suit.” He tugs his cape and hood off, and then he’s stripping off his top. His chest is smooth and pink and there are these two little nubs on his chest. You don’t want to kill the mood by asking what the hell they are, but you’re intensely curious. You touch one with your thumb and it makes Dave suck in a sharp breath between his teeth. “Those are, um, sensitive,” he says. He rubs his thumbs over your scars again, and it feels good but also weird. No one has ever touched you there before. “Those too,” you say. You pull him into you and kiss at his ear, at his jawline, all the way down to his collarbone. There’s all this skin that’s now open to you. “Oh man,” Dave mutters when you swipe your tongue along his neck. His hands travel lower on your back until they’re--holy shit--sneaking under the waistband of your pants, feeling along the top of your ass. Then he moves one of his hands around to the front, so that it’s palming the crease of your hip and your thigh. If he moved it just so, he’d be touching your bulge. You feel a little bit like you could explode at any second. Not one to be outdone, you slide a hand inside his god tier pajama pants and squeeze his ass. He jumps a little bit, but pushes back against your hand. You’re touching his skin below the waist and it feels like you’ve hit a point of no turning back. You can feel part of your think-pan panicking, trying to overthink this the way you do everything else, but you furiously squash that part of yourself because you’ve got Dave’s ass in your hand and his bare skin under your mouth and you just want to go with this. “Do you want to--?” you ask, too flustered to finish the sentence, but thankfully Dave is on your level. “Yeah, yeah,” he pants out, and then he’s rising up on his knees. You let go of his ass and lean back, and he’s fumbling to pull his pants down, his face flushed and his lips parted, and you’re trying very very hard to not just faint on the spot because this is it, you’re getting to see him naked. His dick doesn’t look much like a bulge at all. It’s thinner and hard and rounded at the tip, and his shame globes are hanging underneath it where his nook should be. You know you’re staring, but you can’t really help it. It looks--nice, really good in fact, plenty arousing to you even though it’s also so clearly alien. Dave is breathing hard and you know that this must be a big deal to him. You wrap a hand tentatively around his dick and he stiffens, but doesn’t stop you. He puts his hands on your shoulders and bends his head, staring down at what you’re doing. You’re not really sure what you’re doing; you tentatively move your hand up and down and he makes a soft, closed-mouth sound. “Does that feel good?” you ask, because you need a little guidance, here. “Fuck yeah it does,” Dave says, and you’ve never heard his voice sound like this before, strained and shaky. It’s kind of a huge ego boost, knowing that you can make him lose his cool like this. You grin and move your hand again, getting something of a rhythm going, and Dave flat-out fucking moans. He pushes his hips into your hand and there’s a little bit of wetness coming out of the tip of his dick, which is a comfort because it means that at least you have this much in common with him, even if the wetness is clear and not red. You slick up your palm with it and it makes it easier to move your hand. Your own pants situation is getting pretty uncomfortable. Your own bulge is completely out and moving, writhing against your boxers. After a minute you take your hand off Dave’s dick, ignoring his small noise of protest, and put your hands on his hips instead, pushing him off of you. “Here, I need to take these off.” It’s awkward. He has to move completely off of you to give you room to remove your pants, and unlike his which just had an elastic to be pushed down, you have to undo a belt and a button and a zipper. You have to scoot down on the bed and lift your hips up to take them off, and by the time you’ve finally kicked them off your ankles Dave is blatantly staring. “Oh wow,” he says, which is annoying because you’ve been able to restrain yourself from commenting on his alien biology so the least he could do is return the favor. But he only gives you a second to feel self-conscious about your nakedness before he’s reaching for you, his fingers wrapping around your bulge and his thumb rubbing up the underside of it. It sends a sharp spark of pleasure up your spine and you groan, letting your head fall back. He’s holding it so gently, like he’s afraid to get too rough. “You’re so wet,” he says. “And--prehensile.” The annoyance returns. “No fucking shit,” you snipe. “That’s how it should be, bulgelicker.” A slow grin spreads across Dave’s face. “Bulgelicker, huh?” he says, and when will your mouth stop getting you into such trouble? “I was being--” facetious, you start to say, but swallow your words because holy fucking shit, Dave is leaning down and running his tongue over the tip of your bulge. “What--what are you doing?” you manage to croak out, even though it’s kind of obvious. Dave has the tip in his mouth now, sucking lightly. You can feel yourself curling against his tongue. He looks up at you. “I just wanted to see how it tastes,” he says, and he’s teasing you, but there’s also a heat in his eyes that makes your blood pound. He licks a long stripe down your bulge, from the tip down to the base, and this is so not normal, you have only ever heard of trolls doing this in the kinkiest blackrom pornography, but maybe it’s different for humans? They don’t have fangs, after all. But with Dave doing it to you now, you can’t imagine why it’s not more common among trolls, because it feels amazing. His lips are warm and slippery and when he takes you in his mouth it’s pretty much the best thing you’ve ever felt. He slides his mouth down your bulge until he’s swallowing most of you, and when you look down you can see his lips open around you. He lets your bulge slip out of his mouth, staring at you curiously. “Oh hey, you’ve got, uh. Another thing.” Leave it to Dave to almost ruin the moment with tactless observations. “That’s my nook, moron.” “Huh,” Dave says. He brings up his hand and hesitates a little bit, looking at you. You’re not entirely sure what he’s asking permission for but you nod anyway, and he slips a finger up inside your nook. “Oh, fuck,” you say, because you can’t help it, it feels so great in a way that’s opposite from how it felt to be inside his mouth. He adds another finger, stretching you out, and that’s even better. You reach down and paw at his hair, his shoulders, letting your head fall back as he moves his fingers in and out of you. “Jesus, Karkat,” Dave says. He’s moving back up your body now, removing his fingers from you and reaching up to cup your cheek instead. His fingers are dripping with red liquid from you, and you don’t even mind that he’s getting it in your hair. “I really want to, um. Be inside you,” Dave says, and you don’t have the heart to mock him for his romance novel phrasing because he’s bright red and it’s the most earnest you’ve ever seen him look. There’s not a god damn thing that’s ironic about him right now, and you love it. “Fuck yes,” you say, your legs spreading beneath him. He settles in between your legs and you lift up your thighs, wrapping them around his hips. His dick fits inside your nook like it was always meant to be there. It doesn’t feel alien at all, it feels right and deep and perfect. He starts moving, just shallow thrusts at first, but you feel it vibrate through you all the way down to your toes. He pushes himself up on his wrists above you and starts fucking you in earnest and it’s unreal, a rhythm that drives its way inside of you and liquefies your think-pan. You tilt up your hips and move in time with him and he lets out a broken noise that you wish you could captchalogue and keep forever. With the angle you two are at, you can make eye contact while he fucks you. It’s good, it’s so good, this is exactly what you always wanted your first flushed time to be. He’s staring down at you helplessly, his hips moving into you and your hips moving into his, and you can feel his dick reaching sensitive spots inside you, spots that you’ve never been able to reach with just your own fingers. Your bulge is flexing and curling on your stomach and with the hand that’s not holding onto Dave’s back, you reach down to squeeze yourself. Between Dave’s dick reaching deep inside you and your hand on your bulge, you’re going to come soon, and there’s no bucket anywhere. The thought thrills you for some reason. What you’re doing is illicit and alien and doesn’t have anything to do with drone season, it’s just you and Dave, breaking taboos and doing what you want regardless of what your home society would think of it. “Dave, ahh, I’m going to come,” you manage to gasp out shortly before it happens, your genetic fluid spilling out of your nook and drenching both of your hips. You convulse through it, waves of pleasure rolling up your body and shorting out your thoughts. It’s good, it’s so good, somehow Dave’s presence makes it so much better than the orgasms you’ve had on your own. “Oh my god,” Dave says, pausing in his thrusts. “Dude, are you okay?” You are collapsed back against Dave’s pillows, every muscle in your body lax. “What? Yes, I’m fine,” you manage to pant out. “Okay, it’s just that you’re all--jesus, is this really normal?” Dave says, looking down at the liquid that’s now soaking into his sheets. You glare at him. You can feel the warm afterglow of your orgasm seeping away. “You’re ruining the fucking moment.” “No wonder you guys have the bucket thing,” Dave says. “Sorry, I’ll stop, it’s just--a lot.” Dave wraps an arm around your thigh and lifts it up, pressing a kiss to your knee. You feel a spike of affection run through you, making up for his annoying interjection. “Back to the program.” He starts fucking you again and somehow it feels even nicer now: your body is so loose and relaxed and he’s just going for it. It’s beginning to cause a pleasant ache inside you. You lie back on the platform and touch his forearm, stroking lightly up and down his arm while he works up to his own climax. It’s not long before Dave gasps and shudders, his thrusts getting erratic. You guess that he’s coming, and you must be right because he goes entirely rigid, his fingers digging into your leg, before slumping down on top of you, his breaths coming in deep gasps. You wrap your arms around him, stroking his back as he breathes against your chest. You can feel him slip out of you, leaving an emptiness behind. There’s a thin layer of sweat on his back. You feel utterly spent. Eventually he rolls off of you, but grabs your hand to maintain contact. “Shit, I’m gonna have to wash these sheets. Actually I may have to burn them, they may be beyond saving.” You curl your fingers into his. “Oh shut up, the mess isn’t that bad. Besides, you contributed.” You glance down at yourself for the first time. “--oh my god, your genetic fluid is white?” “Do not even try to tell me that that’s weirder than yours being red. Jizz should not be the same color as blood, man, forensic scientists shouldn’t be coming in here and going, did someone just get some or were they brutally murdered? There should be a very distinct delineation between those two scenarios.” “Shut the fuck up,” you say, but there’s no heat behind it. You roll onto your side and press a kiss to Dave’s shoulder. You’re not really sure what to say, here. Maybe you don’t need to say anything. Dave seems to feel the same way, because he stays quiet. His hand comes up to stroke over your shoulder, soft easy touches that make you feel warm and safe. You lose track of the time, but after a while the mess of genetic fluid on both of you has dried, and it’s pretty gross. Dave seems to be thinking the same thing, because he sits up and stretches, asking, “Want to hit the shower?” You blink up at him. “What, together?” It would never have occurred to you to go to the standing ablution trap with someone else, but Dave gives you a look like you’re slow and nods. “Yeah man, getting all squeaky clean together after you’ve boned is like, a classic romance trope. Do trolls not do that? Weird.” He stands up and offers you a hand, which you take, letting him pull you to your feet. He’s still naked and you’re still naked and it thrills you, that you can be this comfortable around each other. It’s a physical easiness that you’ve never experienced with anyone else, because you’ve never had sex with anyone else, and you love knowing that you’ve crossed that bridge with him. He distracts you from your sappy thoughts by leading you to his ablution trap, hand still in yours. You wait for him to get the hot water running and then step in gingerly after him, shuddering when the spray hits you. Dave turns to you with soap in his hands, and before you can ask him what he’s doing he’s putting his hands are on you, soaping up your chest and belly. He pays particular attention to your scars, rubbing soap bubbles into your skin in circular motions. Then he reaches lower, soaping up the slit that your bulge comes out of and reaching lower, brushing your nook. You hiss a little bit. “So your junk doesn’t always come out to play, huh?” Dave asks, curiously. You shake your head. “It only extends when I’m aroused, the rest of the time it stays retracted,” you say, trying to sound matter-of-fact even though what Dave’s hand is doing is, in fact, making your bulge pay attention. “Oh hey, look at that,” Dave says when he notices the tip of your bulge sliding out. You give him a glare and lean away when he slides his thumb over it. “You’re making fun of me, stop it,” you say, and he looks abashed for a second before his hands are back, running down your shoulders to your elbows. “Nah man, I was just trying to go for round two. Not doing a very good job, I guess.” He kisses you and you kiss back, mollified. You reach down to his dick, touching him experimentally, and you can feel him starting to get hard again in your hand. Round two doesn’t sound so bad. Dave leans down to kiss at your neck, his arms wrapping around you. You love this fixation that he seems to have with kissing you there. He uses his teeth, too, biting carefully at your skin and then harder when you moan. You are so flushed for him that it’s ridiculous. You don’t know how you got so lucky. You give up on touching his dick and just wrap your arms around him, hugging him close. The water streams over both of you, washing the remnants of the first time you had sex down the drain. “I really like you,” Dave says, mumbling into your shoulder. You pull back to look at him and he looks embarrassed, his cheeks pink, but he holds your gaze when you meet his eyes. You put your hands on his cheeks, holding his face. “I really like you, too,” you say, and you kiss him. He pulls you in close to him, his hand fisted in your hair. Then he turns you around and crowds you up against the wall of the trap, and things are slippery and a little dangerous but you like it like that. He gets his hands under your ass and lifts and you’re a little nervous about this maneuver but you lift up your feet and wrap your legs around his hips, and he takes your weight. You’re not sure you’ve ever been happier. You’ve got Dave in your arms and he’s yours, he’s your matesprit but he’s still your bro, too, and maybe even a little bit your moirail? All the delineations that used to seem so crucial to you pale in importance to the way he feels in your arms. The thought that you can have him any time you want makes the whole meteor seem less like something put in your life to punish you and more like a place you actually want to be. It makes such a huge fucking difference, and you want to tell him that, you want to tell him how important he is to you but his hips are moving against yours and your bulge is slipping out and you think that words can come later. Right now you just need the steam in your lungs and his skin wet and hot against yours. Everything else can wait. End Notes We'll try and try even if it lasts an hour With all our might we'll try and make it ours 'Cause we're on our way We're on our way to fall in love   --"Our Way To Fall," Yo La Tengo Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!