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You can’t help the excited flutter in your stomach whenever you discover that he’s ended up in your bubble. It’s the eager tightening that it’s been trained to feel in a manner more pavlovian than instinctual- nothing else earns quite the same reaction. You’ve spent a long, long time dead. You know how to manipulate the afterlife to fit your needs and desires. Eternity is a long time to practice.
He knows you by now. He’s used to your routine, used to the dizzying spiral downwards as you think him down into something small, something soft and delicate and bite-sized. He no longer struggles or flails when you scoop him up into your hands, doesn’t put up much of a fight as you coo and pet and shimmy him out of his diminutive clothing. Karkat had been very easy to train. It took a few sessions, a few awkward encounters and instance when you nearly choked on him, but he came to realize that you meant it when you murmured how much you cherish him, how you could never ever hurt him. You’re oh-so gentle with him as you slide him down onto your waiting tongue. You let him adjust before you gently roll him over your tongue, soaking him. His little bloodpusher is pounding hard, he’s tense, but he’s quiet- he trusts you, despite his instincts that scream get me out of here- down that slide is death.
But there’s no death for him, of course. You tilt your head back slightly and ease him back, and when he starts to slip into your gullet you swallow. Once, twice, three times is all it takes to push him down down down into the waiting warmth of your stomach.
And then he curls up tight and you lay a hand over where you know he’s resting, and you coo to him until he wakes, leaving you empty and alone again.
Sometimes you do not want to be gentle.
Sometimes you won’t be satisfied with soft touches and careful swallows. You want clicking teeth and fight. You want resistance. That is when you take matters into your own hands instead of waiting around for paradox space to drop a treat for you like you’re some obedient little barkbeast. You could preach for days, for eons about being a troll of initiative, of having integrity and drive to get the things you want. You are not satisfied with idling about and waiting- especially not in a mood like this.
There are plenty of doomed ones. nobody notices when a few of them go missing- they are just splinters and mess-ups, not important enough to bother being forgotten. But they know that when they die here, it’s over, and they fight. You have seen your dancestor in more ways than you care to remember- winged, armor-clad, maimed, twitching and technicolor and too bright to look at straight on. You like him best when he is freshly dead and inexperienced- and fortunately, that is not too hard. He is fiery and strong-willed, teeth bared and lip snarled up like something feral. His face says I am smaller than you, but I will hurt you in any way that I can. You are a threat to me. And he’s right about that. But you are bigger than him and he is powerless against you.
You do not reassure him of anything, because that would be lying and lying is wrong. Instead you lift him up into your waiting mouth, cramming him between your jaws. When he struggles and kicks you close your teeth around him, and his screaming crescendos up into something incomparable, something that has your nerves singing in tune. You twitch with excitement as you release him, feeling your teeth stick into him slightly before sliding free. He curls up twitching atop your tongue, and you toy with him just a little longer before you force him down. There is no salvation for him past that point. Ghosts do not breathe, so he will not have the privilege of passing out. He’s trapped in the unbearable, acrid heat of you, and there’s nothing he can do but scream, pitiful and pointless as you begin to digest.
You rest a hand over your belly and grin to yourself, enjoying the churning in your gut, the heat that pools and seems to spread throughout your whole core. You appreciate the sacrifice he’s made for you, despite the fact that he wasn’t very noteworthy on his own. He’ll be serving a much better purpose, you think, by being a part of you. And even as you break him down, you cherish the individual pieces of him.