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“Your room is fucking disgusting,” Karkat announces as he walks through the automatic door and into your humble abode without so much as a knock.
You look up from your laptop, only just hearing him past the beats thumping in your headphones, and take a curious look around your room. You guess maybe it’s not in the greatest shape - you have a habit of just leaving random shit on the floor and immediately forgetting about it - but you can hardly blame yourself for the mess. Your bro wasn’t exactly the cleanest guy in the world and you had to parse out a few important nuggets of information on your own, like how refrigerators aren’t meant to store swords and how food that you leave under your bed (because the fridge is full of swords) will eventually turn into radioactive, biohazardous sludge.
“Come on, man, you can’t just walk into a dude’s room and insult his digs like that,” you complain, removing your headphones. “This is my safe space, my man cave, if you’re gonna come in here you have to respect the environment like everyone else, alright? You don’t see me waltzing into your room and pissing on your furniture and insulting your decor choices like some kinda wild animal, have some class, man.”
“You make it a point to poke fun at my DVD collection every single time I allow you into my respiteblock.” Karkat grimaces as he gingerly steps over what you’re pretty sure is a week old pair of boxers gently caressing the corpse of a sandwich you ate several days ago. “Nevermind how often you make lewd, disrespectful comments about my Troll Will Smith posters.”
“Yeah, but you deserve that,” you point out. You push your laptop to the side and gaze at Karkat through the lens of your sunglasses. “So what brings you to la casa de Strider today? Besides brutally ripping into my shit for no reason.”
“I found some old cans in the pantry that are going to help us make massive improvements to Can Town,” he explains. He’s still pussyfooting around your room, desperately trying not to step on anything as he makes his way to your bed, and you find it irritatingly cute, twinkle toes and all. “They’re a size we don’t have yet and I’m fairly certain the Mayor is going to piss himself in delight when he sees them, which will ultimately put me in his favor more than you.”
“It’s not a competition, dude.” Karkat gets dangerously close to a wet spot on your carpet that may or may not be orange or grape or cherry soda. “The Mayor’s love isn’t a finite resource you know, it’s not a pie or some shit, it’s a self-sufficient factory that’s constantly producing an ever-increasing amount of love and affection that he shares with everyone equally.”
“Except for me,” Karkat declares confidently. He continues his disjointed dance across your room and you squint as a shimmering piece of Something on your floor catches your eye. “He’s going to love me way more than you once his beady little carapacian eyes get a load of the heart-stuttering dimensions of these new cans. He’ll cast you aside like the unwanted step-child you are and reward me with his affections for the rest of this godforsaken trip, I’ll have my own special district in Can Town and everything. He’ll keep a picture of me in his wallet.”
“Don’t think he has a wallet,” you say.
“I’ll alchemize him a wallet - ow, FUCK!”
You wince at the sudden change in volume as Karkat grabs one of his feet and hops around on one leg in a miserable attempt to make it to your mattress before he falls over. A pearl-clutching slew of filth tumbles out of his mouth like a little kid rolling down a grassy hill, gaining speed and malice with each new, colorful word combination. Familiar with the maze of shit on your floor, you’re able to guide Karkat to your bed without any more incidents, and when you take a look at his foot you find a red thumbtack sticking out of it.
“Damn, dude, you gotta be more careful,” you chastise.
Karkat looks at you with wide eyes. “Well maybe if you didn’t leave sharp, dangerous objects scattered around your room like a fucking minefield then I wouldn’t have to risk my life every time I come in here,” he points out. “Is this some kind of deranged human strategy to keep people from touching your shit? Because wow, it’s affective Dave, but if you wanted me out of your room you could’ve just said so instead of strategically placing booby traps around the place to incapacitate me!”
“It’s not a booby trap, dude, it’s just a fucking thumbtack.”
“Why in god’s name do you just have a random thumbtack protruding from your carpet?”
“I was trying to put some posters up,” you explain. You take Karkat’s ankle to get a good look at the damage. It’s not too bad, but it still doesn’t look comfortable. “But you know these walls are made of like eight inch thick cinderblocks so a thumbtack really wasn’t gonna go in there, had to use tape instead.”
“So you brilliantly decided to toss the useless thumbtack over your shoulder like some kind of unaffected cool kid and didn’t once think that it might have consequences?”
“Yeah, pretty much.” Karkat opens his mouth to say something else but the tug you give on the thumbtack shuts him up with a light squeal. “Listen dude, I think you’re gonna lose your foot, it looks pretty bad down here. Lemme go ahead and message Kanaya, I’m sure she can be down here in a couple minutes to take care of it.”
Karkat noticeably pales. “Don’t do that,” he demands, half laying on your bed while you pull at his ankle. “Just take it out, okay, it’s the least you can do for wounding me so significantly.”
“Sure thing.” You pull the thumbtack out without any warning, pressing the pad of your finger to the exit wound when a tiny bit of blood beads up. Karkat looks on in mild horror and you give him the most reassuring thumbs up you can muster. “The operation was a success, dude, wasn’t even any blood.”
“Yeah, well, my epidermis is a little thicker than the papery husk you humans pawn off as skin.” Karkat seems relieved to hear that his cherry red blood didn’t dare stain the blanket on your bed and lets out a little sigh, the color in his face becoming less ashen. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson about leaving miniature human weapons around your room.”
“Yeah, man, totally.” You’re still gently holding Karkat around the ankle, surprised to see that he hasn’t pulled away from you yet. You feel yourself start to grin. “No more haphazardly disposing of thumbtacks or any other sharp thing that you could potentially hurt yourself on. I’m gonna Karkat-proof this whole room so you never have to worry about possibly sustaining a mild injury ever again, gonna cover the walls with foam and pad every corner I can find.”
Karkat squints at you and winds up to counteract your suggestion, but you take the chance to dance your nails over the bottom of his foot in a juvenile attempt to tickle him and he ends up kicking you square in the chest. You let out a groan as all the air comes out of your lungs, the force of Karkat’s honestly impressive donkey kick sending you backwards until you’re standing some feet away from him. He looks at you with wide eyes while you catch your breath, and a blotchy flush has settled over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. You look at each other.
“Karkat,” you say. You can feel your face splitting into a shit-eating grin at the extremely important information you just gathered. “Are you ticklish?”
“No,” he lies, looking like a cornered animal.
You take half a step towards him.
“Dave,” he warns with a hand up. “Don’t.”
“Oh, dude,” you say with unbridled delight. “You just opened up the biggest can of worms this side of paradox space.”
“Dave.”
“Now you gotta lie in it.”
You lunge at him in the same way you might rile up a playful dog, and he lets out an unholy shriek as he runs for the hills. The grossed out hesitance he had when trying to traverse your room earlier is gone and replaced with more speed and agility than you’ve ever seen him exhibit, darting quickly over dirty clothes and Doritos wrappers to get away from you. He’s fast, but you have a feeling you’ll be faster.
“Don’t run from your destiny, Karkat!” you call as you chase him down the hallway. “God made you ticklish for the sole purpose of letting me tickle you until you piss yourself, just embrace it!”
“Fuck you!” he calls back, turning a sharp corner to try and get you off his tail. “You’ll never make me piss!”
“I’m gonna make you piss!”
The route Karkat takes brings you into the main living room, where your chase interrupts Rose and Kanaya’s Lesbian Reading Time. You shout at him about piss and worms and destiny, and he overturns a vase and a wooden stool to throw you off. You’re able to easily vault over the obstacles he places in front of you and nearly manage to catch him, until he drops to his knees and crawls under the table to scurry away from you.
“That’s slimy, dude, no fair,” you complain as you recalculate your route.
“Not my fault you can’t keep up!” he calls from the other side of the room.
“Boys,” comes Rose’s calm voice. “Would you mind taking this rendezvous elsewhere?”
You both pause, breathing heavily. Karkat eyes you warily on the other side of the table. You take your thumb and draw a line across your neck. Karkat shows you his favorite finger and darts onto the nearest transportalizer, disappearing in an instant.
You’re just fast enough to transportalize after him and see the tail end of his sweater turn the corner. You’re in some random hallway in the meteor and Karkat seems to be taking lefts and rights without any thought to where they might be going, skidding and stumbling to make the sudden sharp turns. After one particular ninety degree shift in velocity you hear Karkat let out a groan of disgust, and as you come up behind him you find a similar noise manifesting in your throat.
Vriska and Terezi are pressed up against a wall in the dim hallway, kissing with more tongue than you ever thought possible. Their clothing is mussed enough that you have a feeling you and Karkat could’ve walked in on something much worse if your chase had been delayed by even a few minutes, and you feel your mouth twist into a grimace.
“Other people live here,” Karkat calls to them as he runs by, tone irritated. “Get a fucking room!”
“Terezi, get some taste!” you add on your way past them. You think you might see Vriska lunge at you, only to be held back by Terezi, but you hardly care. You’re on a mission.
Karkat is a remarkably quick little dude and you’re starting to have trouble keeping up with his tiny, darting form. You realize with a laugh that you’re still using your legs like some kind of fucking chump and take to the air with a taunting call of Karkat’s name.
He picks up the pace despite how much you’re gaining on him, and soon you’ve backed him into a corner in one of the many dead ends that exist on the meteor. His cheeks are a rosy pink and his breath is quickened, eyes narrowed as he considers you with calculating malice.
“Give up, dude,” you say confidently. You’ve barely broken a sweat. “Either you let me tickle you now, or you live in fear for the rest of your life. I’ll get you when you least expect it, you’ll always be on edge waiting for me to come out of the shadows and poke my fingers into your sides, you won’t be able to eat, sleep. Just let it happen, man.”
“Never!” Karkat insists, and when he tries to scurry past you you’re able to grab him easily.
He starts to wrestle you instantly, kicking and thrashing to get out of your grip, but he’s a small guy and you’ve dealt with your fair share of wild crows and feral raccoons so you have no trouble keeping him in your arms. You fly the two of you back to your room, passing by Terezi and Vriska who have resumed their face eating, and Rose and Kanaya who watch you with little more than mild interest. By the time you deposit Karkat back on your bed he’s scratched a series of red lines down your arm and torn the edge of your cape with his teeth. He’s telling you something about how he’s going to eject you out of the meteor’s trash chute and make you hurdle through the endless expanse of space for the rest of time, but it warps into a shrill, trailing giggle when the tips of your fingers press onto the sensitive nerves around his grub scars.
You find quickly that there is not a single part of Karkat’s body that isn’t ticklish. You poke at his hips and thighs and armpits and delight in the boyish, squawky laughter that tumbles out of him from deep in his chest. His hands come up to bat lightly at you but there’s no bite in it, and soon you find yourself laughing with him, pressing tickles into his skin that make his whole face flush with laughter and exertion.
Eventually he gets the idea to try and tickle you back, but you were graced with nerves of steel and thus are immune to tickles. Except-
“No dice, dude,” you tell him smugly, still continuing your tickly assault. “Tickles don’t work on someone with my constitution, alright, my meat’s too huge and my ass is too fat to be taken down by tickles-”
Karkat drags his nails over the junction of your neck and shoulder, and the yelp that creaks out of your throat is unlike any sound you’ve ever made. You let go of him and back up to the opposite wall, where Karkat regards you with a new spark in his eyes.
“Dave,” he says, and it sounds like a threat.
“Woah, hey, I was just kidding about making you piss yourself,” you try with your hands up. “Let’s call a truce, yeah? Let’s put this whole thing behind us and just go back to dicking around, I promise I’ll stop dragging your DVD choices and everything.”
Karkat stands from the bed and adjusts his clothes where you disrupted them. His face is wonderfully flushed. “I had to lie in my can of worms,” he says, using your mixed metaphor from earlier. “Now it’s your turn.”
You start to smile despite yourself. “Can I get like a three second head start at least?” you suggest.
Karkat’s own smile is more playful than it is dangerous. A dimple appears in his right cheek. “One,” he says, and your heart races, and you start to run.