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When he found the bundled up mess outside his hive, Equius had thought he would have Aurthour or the robots dispose of it. Some troll with bad luck and lack of skill, thinking he or she could just wander through highblood hiverings without consequence. Then, considering, he thought that if it was dead, he could give it to his cerulean neighbor in exchange for her purchasing a quieter doomsday device, next time.
Aurthuor brought the body up to him. It wasn't dead. It was covered in a freakish shade of red blood that hopefully, for its sake, came from some monster and not from itself. He did not particularly want to have to cull it himself, so he pulled back its hood from its head.
He recognized the face. And the blood, trickling down, came from a painful looking gash on his scalp.
CT: D --> Nepeta
CT: D --> Answer me
CT: D --> Nepeta
CT: D --> Cease whatever f001ish activity you are currently wasting your time on
CT: D --> Nepeta
AC: :33 < jeez equius!
AC: :33 < i was outside waiting for someone
AC: :33 < they were supposed to be here an hour ago!
CT: D --> Nepeta
CT: D --> I hope your visitor was not
CT: D --> Karkat Vantas
AC: :33 < we're just friends equius!
AC: :33 < he was bringing over some movies and we were having a tea purrty! :33 </p>
AC: :33 < but he hasn't shown up and i'm worried CT: D --> You should not watch movies with someone like him CT: D --> Or spend any time with him CT: D --> He CT: D --> Fussbudget CT: D --> This is difficult to say CT: D --> Did you give him my hive as a landmark AC: :33 < of course! AC: :33 < it's way easier to find than my tiny cave! AC: :33 < all huge and scary and towering over efurrything AC: :33 < just like the troll who lives there :33 CT: D --> I see AC: :33 < is he with you? CT: D --> Yes CT: D --> Well CT: D --> He is not CT: D --> Doing well CT: D --> I am not positive he will make it AC: :OO < !!!!! CT: D --> I am sorry Nepeta CT: D --> I am not sure he should make it AC: :33 < what do you meown?? AC: :33 < is it really bad? CT: D --> In a sense AC: XOO < what is that supposed to mean? AC: XOO < i'm coming over! CT: D --> No CT: D --> That is an order CT: D --> You should not see this AC: :33 < it's really bad huh AC: :33 < oh no AC: :33 < i shouldn't have invited him AC: :33 < oh no karkitty AC: :33 < this is all my fault!! CT: D --> ... CT: D --> Nepeta CT: D --> He will CT: D --> He will probably be fine CT: D --> The hand is gone and there was too much bleeding CT: D --> And bleeding from a head wound CT: D --> And other places CT: D --> The bones of his vascular pump cage are broken CT: D --> It appears that something large hit him CT: D --> And then took a single bite and left AC: :33 < karkitty must taste bad! CT: D --> There was so much bleeding I was sure that he would not make it CT: D --> But now I think he will AC: :33 < did you find the hand? AC: :33 < if it was that gross maybe the monster spit it out! CT: D --> No CT: D --> Aurthour did not bring it to me CT: D --> I will build him a new one CT: D --> And then he will leave CT: D --> And watch his movie with you CT: D --> And return to his hive CT: D --> And we will never speak of this again CT: D --> If you are asked who gave him his hand CT: D --> Do not tell them it was me CT: D --> I recommended someone without seeing him CT: D --> Is that understood AC: :33 < thank you so much equius! AC: :33 < thank you fur saving my friend! CT: D --> Only for your sake, Nepeta CT: D --> Promise me CT: D --> You will not enter into a quadrant with him CT: D --> No matter what AC: :33 < well that isn't your business AC: :33 < but he said he doesn't feel that way about me AC: :33 < and i'm not a kitten anymore so i got ofur it CT: D --> Yes CT: D --> Continue staying over it CT: D --> He is CT: D --> Dangerous Nepeta did not believe him, when he said that, and he could not explain his reasoning. He did not blame her for not believing him, when he went back to his work block and looked at the mess on his engineering platform. He had stripped off most of Karkat's outer clothes, leaving only a dirty gray pair of undergarments for modesty's sake, and there was not a part of the mutant freak that wasn't bruised or bloodied. Aurthour was bustling around. He had already bandaged the hand stump and was now working on the gash on Karkat's head. Once he was done, Equius had him hold up the mutilated arm so he could take measurements. He did not like this. He should not be doing this. But when this mutant was culled, as he would have to be sometime, Equius needed for it to not be Nepeta's fault. His digestion sac roiled as some of the unruly blood dripped off the workbench and got onto his pants. He would burn these clothes, and take a flamethrower to this block. He glanced back at Karkat, and stepped back reflexively when he saw that his eyes were open. He was staring right at Equius, but he did not seem to be seeing anything. "You," Equius said. "Stay still." Karkat's lips moved, like he was saying something, but Equius could not hear anything. He leaned in, closer. This might be important. "WHAT THE BULGE BLISTERING FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" Karkat yelled, in his auricular sponge clot. "What?" Equius grasped his head, protecting it from the noise. What an ungrateful little ...something or other, Nepeta's friend was. "WHERE ARE MY PANTS, WHERE THE FUCK IS MY HAND, WHERE THE SHIT SQUALL AM I, AND--" Karkat broke off for a brief second of mercy, "--and why am I not dead? If you're going to cull me, you prim highblooded greasy musclebeast of a shitstaining asshowler, you should at least have been less of a douchemunch and finished me off before I woke up." "I did not expect you to wake up yet," Equius said. "There was a lot of blood." Karkat closed his eyes. "At least give me a weapon and let me stand up so I can defend myself, for two seconds before I'm splattered paste on your wall. I mean, you want to do this shit right, don't you?" Equius did not see how it was more or less right to splatter the useless wasted genetic dreck of their species on his wall instead of on his workbench. "I have no plans to cull you," Equius said. He frowned and wiped some of the blood out of his eyes, like being better able to see would make him better understand what Equius was saying. "What?" "You are Nepeta's friend," Equius admitted. "I will replace your hand, and then you will leave and pretend you were never here. I will give you a name, and you will say it if someone asks who manufactured your hand." There was a particular seadwelling machinist who Equius did not at all like. Karkat was staring at him. He had been wearing the shattered remains of goggles when Equius found him, but now that they were gone, Equius could see that his ocular lenses had completely changed to their adult color. The red was bright, startlingly so. He felt uneasy. "I never met you," Karkat said. "I was never here. The closest I've ever gotten to being near you is catching a whiff of your sweaty carcass when the wind goes the wrong direction." "Do not insult me," Equius said. "I do not think you understand the...enormousness of this favor." Karkat shook his head. "I understand it better than you do, you pandead musclebeast." "Do not insult me," Equius said. "Fine! I'll snap my glabbergash shut and keep my thoughts locked in my thinkpan where they can fester and rot and leave me a diseased shell of a troll." "Good. Do that." "Then the next time I open my mouth, instead of words, it will just be crawlbugs and parasites spewing out in a vomitous ragefountain of my internalized loathing." "It is easier to deal with your constant...nonsensical chatter when I can leave the block and deal with more important matters." Unfortunately, Karkat was his more important matter. "You used to leave when I was talking to you?" Karkat squawked. "Yes," Equius said. He walked over to his supply chest and pulled out some pre-built robot digits. No, these were all different sizes. He would have to start from scratch. It did not really matter who or what he was building robotic parts for. It was essential that he do his very best work, every single time. He would not allow himself to do less. Karkat continued to talk, and at one point even attempted to move off the work bench. That, unsurprisingly, made him pass out on the floor, and Equius had to order Aurthour to move him back up again. He woke up one of his attempts at a medically proficient robot, and set it to stitch up Karkat's head and other wounds while he was blessedly unconscious. Aurthour was a very skilled butler, and could have easily done that for him, but Equius told him to go back to his standard butling duties. He would find him later pouring a deadly concoction of chemicals on the drops of blood Karkat had left on the pathway from the entrance portal to Equius' work block. Karkat woke up again, occasionally, while Equius was installing his new hand. At one point he was at the exact mid point of the process and Karkat started to scream and would not stop screaming until the medbot dosed him with a soporific. Equius decided that Karkat's blood color must be mutated off of one of the lower blood colors, if he reacted like that. He felt a little bit more at ease around Karkat, then, now that he had mentally placed him somewhere on the hemospectrum. He did not want to leave Karkat alone in his hive. This was just his standard troll instincts kicking in, telling him he was not safe and could not trust anyone. He clung to those feelings, in their normalcy. When Karkat woke up from his drug induced stupor, he immediately lifted his new hand up and stared at it. "Okay," he mumbled, to himself. "That's pretty badass and at least it isn't a musclebeast hoof." "Thank you," Equius said, and Karkat started. He turned his head and looked at Equius. His eyes were dilated. He was obviously still under the effects of the drug. "Thanks. You're maybe only half the shitwall I said you were before." Yes, that was the drugs talking. "Watch your language." "I need to get the hell out of here," Karkat said, conversationally. He seemed to be trying to get his legs off the bench. "You are not allowed to get yourself killed before you visit Nepeta," Equius said. "I need to--" Karkat fell onto the floor, with a loud thump. It sounded like wet meat smacking onto stone. Equius sighed and walked over. He gently picked up Karkat by his invulnerable metal hand and set him back on the table. Equius had improved his ability to control his enormous STRONGness
over the last sweep, but Karkat was brittle to start with.
"Put me down," Karkat said, after Equius had already let him go.
"I will dose you with sopor," Equius said, "And then you will sleep some more. When you wake up that time, you may leave."
"Fuck, no, don't give me any more of that crap," Karkat groaned. "I won't leave and get myself killed before I visit Nepeta. I promise. Just keep that thinkpan rusting garbage away from me."
"...fine." He went back over to his chair and sat down again. He started typing a message to Nepeta, telling her that Karkat had woken up.
"Do I have to stay right here, though?" Karkat asked. "It's worse than trying to rest on a pile of jagged glass."
Equius considered. "You could rest in the audio visual block." If he was watching movies, he might be distracted from constantly talking.
"I need to see a highblood TV block," Karkat said. "Right fucking now. I've never needed anything else in my miserable life as much as I need this." He started trying to get off the platform again.
Equius sighed and walked over. Karkat successfully landed with his feet on the floor, and immediately tipped over. Equius reached out to catch him, and Karkat grabbed onto his arm like a lifeline tossed into an ocean of teethfish. He hung there, for a minute, actually embarrassed into silence.
And then the embarrassment turned into a flood of words that no number of "stop it"s or "be quiet"s or "shut your mouth or so help me"s could put an end to. Equius walked to the audio visual block, dragging Karkat with him. He set him on the couch, or "ass cushion" as Karkat's low blooded background named it, and sat down on the other end. He still was unable to leave him alone.
Karkat gaped at the actually fairly modest television screen and then set up a 4,000 episode television drama after he found out that Equius had never seen it. Apparently, this was the curse that had sent Karkat out of the comparative safety of his hive on a several hundred mile walk across vicious, inhospitable terrain. Nepeta had told him that she had not seen a certain movie, and she had no intention really of watching it. He had told her that he was going to march his ass over there and glue her face to a screen until she had seen it and transformed herself from an uncultured sack of used kitty litter into a beautiful paragon of virtue who had finally experienced true art and undiluted acting skill.
Equius had actually watched the movie he had found hidden in Karkat's cloak, before. It was about a troll who had been blessed (or cursed) to have any number of partners he desired. After he was with them, they would always go on to find their true quadrantmate in whatever quadrant he had enjoyed with them. He was desperately in pale love with one of his hatefriends, but did not want to consummate anything, for fear that she would leave him immediately.
"You've seen it?" Karkat said. "So that's why you're so handsome and intelligent."
"It was not very good." He was a little embarrassed by the compliment.
"I take it back," Karkat said.
"I am sure Nepeta will enjoy it."
Karkat nodded. "She'll spend the rest of her life trying to figure out how to thank me for introducing her to the masterworks of Troll Dane Cook." Then he turned and looked at Equius, his uncomfortably bright eyes glaring a hole into Equius' distressed thinkpan. "Just like you will, after you watch this." He made a flourishing gesture towards the screen, and then had to huddle, gasping and in agony, bright pink tears streaking down his face.
"Most of your ribs are broken," Equius said.
"I knew that," Karkat said, through his clenched fangs. "Look at how much pain I'm in, and get it into your thick skull that you will enjoy this show in an equivalent amount to my agony."
"You are in a lot of pain," Equius said. "So you are saying it will be very enjoyable."
"There are hoofbeasts in episode five," Karkat said.
"...I might as well see what it is like before I make any sort of judgment." He would have to watch whatever Karkat put on, anyway, since he could not leave him alone. He could insist on his own shows, of course, but then Karkat might become fussy and want to go into another block. It was easier if he just stayed put.
There was an entire herd of hoofbeasts in episode five.
"That shitlord actually becomes a hoofbeast ranchaggregator, so you see them again in episode twelve, I think," Karkat said. The drugs had worn off, leaving him more alert, but in a great deal more pain.
"What magnificent specimens. The way their almost obscene musculature ripples as they run. All in concert. Their hooves hitting the ground like...like a thunderstorm about to crack open the ground. Their testicles waving like--"
"I get it! But do you see how all of that is a metaphor for how he feels about--"
"The kind hearted olive blood. Yes. Of course I see."
After episode twelve, Equius had Aurthour escort Karkat to the bathroom. He felt antsy the entire time he was gone. When Karkat came back and dropped back on the couch, gasping from the pain, Equius turned on the next episode.
Around episode twenty, Equius noticed Karkat nodding off and trying not to nod off. His head kept dropping to his chest and snapping back up, and then he would wince from the pain and swear. It was difficult not to notice, actually.
"I will have Aurthour set up the guest recuperacoon," he said. He did not have to say this directly to Aurthour. He knew that when he took Karkat to the recuperacoon, it would be ready and filled with warm, comforting sopor. Aurthour was simply the best at what he did.
"I need to get out of here," Karkat said, as Equius carried him over his shoulder into the guest respite block.
"You are still too brittle to leave," Equius said. He dropped Karkat into the sopor. He screamed and then settled down, almost immediately.
He went to his own block, exhausted. He set an alarm for a few hours, not wanting Karkat to wake up before he did.
When the alarm went off, screeching into his auricular sponge clots in a way not dissimilar from the way Karkat did, he pounded it into a fine powder and went to check on his guest. He was still fast asleep in the sopor. His breathing was shallow and he muttered in his sleep, unable to keep his mouth shut even while unconscious.
He sent Aurthour to make them both a large breakfast. Eggs, toasted and protein infused fabricated vegetarian grubloaf, and large glasses of frothy and frosted milk. He then went himself to fetch Karkat.
He had dumped Karkat into the sopor still in his undergarments, so he brought some clothes along with him. Karkat yelled at him until he left the room while he was getting changed, and limped into the hall under his own power. He weaved a little, halfway to the nutrition block, so Equius picked him up. There were no bruises where he had touched him up the previous night, so he decided that, so long as he was careful, it was safe to move him around.
Karkat grumbled about it, tucked under Equius' arm.
"Aurthour would let you ride him, until you are steady," Equius said.
"I don't want to ride your creepy lusus," Karkat snapped. "If I'm riding around on anyone, it's going to be some sweat stinking blueblood who thinks he gets to tell every piece of shit that floats through the sewer what to do."
"You want to...ride on my shoulders?" Equius asked. He turned bright blue. "Or...no. No, that is too lewd. I will not hear of it."
"Did you just shoot off your bulge thinking about me riding around on your back whacking you with a riding crop? Tell me you did not just shoot off you bulge thinking about this, before my mutated vascular pump crawls out my mouth and shoves itself up your rock hard backside in a suicidal and sacrificial attempt to get you to think about literally anything else."
He was imagining his back clenched tightly between Karkat's thighs, while he was ordered to--
"Of course I am not imagining that," Equius said. "I would never think of...anything so...lascivious and...repulsive..."
Karkat groaned, "You're imagining that right this second." His face was tinged pink, but Equius could not tell from this angle.
"What else am I supposed to imagine, if you keep mentioning it!" Equius said. He clenched his teeth together and one of them cracked, to stop himself from squeezing Karkat and his frail, pitiful body tucked under his arm.
The last few steps to the nutrition block were more like bounds. He plopped Karkat down into his seat. "Eat very well, and then you can leave."
He sat down across from Karkat and sipped his milk, looking up at the ceiling.
Karkat poked at his food, his face still red. He tried a piece of the grub loaf, and made a face. He ate it anyway, and the eggs. He left the milk alone, because he had suspicions about it.
After breakfast, Karkat threw up on the floor and the effort of it made him pass out in pain in a puddle of his own vomit. Equius had Aurthour clean him off and put him in the guest recuperacoon again. He sat in the respite block waiting for him to wake up.
When he did, and he saw Equius was there, watching him, he covered his face. "I am an embarrassment to the species."
"Yes."
"You didn't see that pathetic display."
"I plan on erasing every part of your visit from my memory, the second you leave."
"It never happened."
"No."
"...you changed my clothes," Karkat said, when he sat up. He pulled himself out of the recuperacoon and sat on the edge. "You perverted hoofbeast fetishizing fuckstain."
"I--I did not! I had Aurthour--I understand that you do not want me to see you," he said. "I am not anything like what you are saying. I do not...think about...anything so lewd and filthy and pathetic."
Karkat rubbed his head. He still had sopor on his hands, and he obliviously smeared more of it on his face. "I don't care. You can think whatever you want. Just stop flipping your shit over it because it makes it really obvious and I'm in too much pain to pretend I don't notice your huge glaring crush on me."
"My. My--my what?"
"It's just what happens in these kinds of idiotic scenarios, that I've gotten myself into. And you're too over both moons pale with Nepeta to flip that way with anyone else, really, so obviously you want to get your giant meaty claws all over my brittle and broken carcass."
"I. Do not--"
"I don't care! I don't care about whatever excuse or denial you're about to pull half formed and screaming in agony from your rectum. You spent every episode that didn't involve hoofbeast testicles flapping in the breeze staring at me instead of the screen."
"I was not--"
"I don't care! If you have a crush on me, it doesn't matter."
It hadn't even occurred to Equius that he might have a crush on Karkat until this exact conversation, but it actually hurt a little to be preemptively shot down like this. "You have already decided this is true, regardless of what I say."
"And it doesn't matter how I feel," Karkat continued, "and if maybe I think it might be not be terrible and might not be pump churningly humiliating to, I don't know, boss you around while you run naked around the hive doing everything I say, just to throw out a scenario that I have never and would never seriously consider." He was turning even redder as he said this. "Because these feelings are all being manufactured by the situation we are in. It's classic romcom or even romantic drama, considering the class differences and how I am literally the adhesive garbage that gets scraped off the bottom of the Condesce's spiked foot cradle. When I get home, we are both going to laugh about how we both now feel literally nothing of what we felt when I was in your hive and you were taking care of me even though every bone and strangled instinct in your body must be screaming at you to cull me."
Equius paused for a minute, trying to actually absorb and understand the words that were coming out of Karkat's mouth in and endless filthy stream. "I have no desire to kill you," he said, finally, incapable of addressing the rest of what Karkat said. "When Nepeta was so upset, when I said you would probably die--when I decided I would let you live and I decided it would be for her sake--I was relieved. We have never been as close as you are with Nepeta, but I have always considered you a friend."
"Of course we're friends," Karkat said. He seemed to be relaxing.
"I never wanted to cull you. Even though I should have."
Karkat was staring at him. He fought against an intense urge to look away, and met his gaze. Karkat started to turn red again.
"We should watch more of that terrible drama you were showing me," Equius said.
Karkat closed his eyes and nodded. He started to stand up. He did not immediately fall down again, but Equius did not think he would be able to keep it up.
"Take my arm," Equius said.
Karkat nodded again, and grabbed onto Equius' elbow. "You're going to want to sew your mouth shut for saying this show is terrible once we get to episode thirty."
"Are there hoofbeasts in that episode?"
Karkat leaned against him as they walked to the audio visual block. "There are so many goddamn hoofbeasts you are going to explode."
When they sat down on the couch, Karkat sat with him, and continued to lean against him. Equius stayed very still. If he moved and was not careful, he might hurt him. And he never, never wanted to do that.