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Karkat has exactly two methods of dealing with jerks, but the fact that there’s witchthread in these ropes nixes both of them. Behind door number one, his wand is able to ignore him like the crusty ass-barnacle it is. Behind door number two? While Karkat’s Shape of Fear is still projected outward, fuck him if it’s actually doing anything. Karkat looks like a brick wall that sprouted a face—horns to the ceiling, jaw that could grind flour, enough teeth to start his own menacing ivory supply line—but his true form has the upper body strength of a handful of damp tissue paper. So that’s not really helpful.
And oh yeah: he’s weaponless and tied up on his parlor room floor.
Karkat glares at his wand some more. It spits a few sparks his way, and he is pretty sure it’s laughing at him, the little fucker.
“Huh,” one of the jerks finally says. “Okay. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say we goofed on this one—that can’t be the Batterwitch. It doesn’t even have a hat.” His partner sighs.
“No, really?” She’s also a jerk, but not as blue-eyed and broad-shouldered as Lord Chin Cleft over there, so Karkat feels proportionately less resentment. They have to be brother and sister. That is the only way the universe could have correctly quantified such obscene levels of terrible houseguest. “We have no more leads, the worst witch in, hmm, the history of ever continues to freely roam Skaia, and you still think pointy hats are why witches are evil. Today went really well, no, I’m way impressed.”
Maybe they’ll shoot each other, Karkat thinks.
“Yes, but riddle me this: have you ever seen wickedness not in a pointy hat?” With that wisdom delivered, Chiseled Jawbone Lad changes strategies. “Jade, I don’t think I can kill this one.” The sister is giving him a look like he’s about to do something interesting, perhaps say something that will require getting punched. “I mean—look. It had the chance to kill us and given the lack of garlic sauce—“
“Creative incompetence,” says the sister with a twitch of her eyebrow, “Does not pardon execution. Also, it locked me in a shed.”
Oh, bring that up a few more times, huh? You know, Karkat goes through an industrial fuckbasket of shit to keep the Hunter’s Guild off his ass. This is a pocket dimension he’s hiding in—no one is going to wander their way into his insidious clutches, not without hunter tech or a really good idea of where its doorway is. Chances of him eating people are pretty low.
But fuck nooooo, along comes this creative use of brain matter, sneaking up behind him with her cannons and her air of peril. It’s not like Karkat had planned on discovering intruders via frying pan. He’d learned she had a partner in the middle of making himself tea!
Oh, and since we’re being so astonishingly nice to Karkat, let’s go ahead and deal the death blow to what scarce provisioning of dignity he was still allowed. Karkat had lasted about five seconds against the Great Artful Smirking Tousle over there, and his stupidly oversized war hammer. Exactly how much tight black uniform could you even expect an impressionable young witch to process in one go? All Karkat knows is that a hundred years ago, witch hunters from the Hansel and Gretel Academy of Excessive Assfuckery did not dress like sexy pirates.
Also, Karkat needs to stop having unwholesome thoughts about people who are talking about how they’re going to kill him from two feet away. It seems self-defeating.
“Just look at it, Jade,” the male witch hunter gestures with one of his powerful hands (skin like caramel taffy, thinks Karkat with the deep regret of someone who is going to die before the important matter of dessert #3). “The shed? That’s as far from the oven as possible. And its nefarious plan was to trick me into getting lost in the woods. Seriously, that’s not evil, that’s just being a garden variety douchebag.”
There was going to be EXEMPLARY douchebagginess, Karkat thinks, his scowl flattening into an outright grimace.
“Anyway,” he says a little smugly, “You’re just mad that it knocked you out.” The Lord of Well-Tailored Trousers is completely right.
“Ha,” Karkat says, which backfires.
Now they’re both looking at him and Karkat liked it better when this wasn’t a thing. He really isn’t good under this kind of pressure, and they both have guns bigger than his oven.
“What was that?” asks the female hunter in a deadly tone.
“Ha,” goes Karkat’s mouth, completely ruining his efforts to not get dead. “Uh, ha? Ha. H…hhhhhHOPE you delicious human nuggets have said your prayers!” He spreads his lips into a gaping smile. The Shape of Fear makes his face into a nightmare, instead of merely sallow and awkward. “For I shall mightily smite you pimply assbites mere moments from now! And then devour you!”
Okay, Karkat has to hand it to himself. That was some Grade A menacing right there. Someone fetch him a sticker.
Sexy Stubble Pirate just snorts. “Have you ever even eaten a human?”
“Oh, tons,” Karkat snaps, indignant. “Come here. I’ll prove it.” He snaps his teeth. The sister growls, cannon abruptly back in hand.
“No, wait.” The Diabolic Six Pack waves a hand and crouches down to Karkat’s eye level. Karkat musters a roar. The Shape of Fear twists that into a scream stolen from one of the twelve Netherrealms, but that’s before the human tugs off Karkat’s pendant. The snarling becomes a reedy little shout that cuts itself off. He’s back in his own skin again.
Karkat resorts to appalled squeaking.
“Hey!” He snaps, yanking on his ropes even as they shrink to size. “Give that back! It’s mine!”
The sister is gaping, presumably because it this is a disappointing experience for her. Karkat is eternally short, his horns are not remotely demonic, and without the Shape of Fear he’s no brick wall. He’s not even the brick wall’s cousin, the revolving glass door. He’s like a moldy dishcloth with eyes.
As for the male hunter, his thick, luscious black eyebrows are up to his hairline.
“Goddammit!” Karkat yowls. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you! Thief! You’re a rotten little thief, and that is not yours, you are infecting it with your stupidity contagion, put it right the hell back around my neck you dumbshit—“ when the hunter doesn’t so much as twitch, Karkat bellows onward, outraged enough to just start listing off the crimes. “You’re a trespasser and thief and who the hell even told you to eat from my house because I didn’t do it and you kicked over my flowers—“
“They were dead,” the man points out in a tone of very unreasonable calm.
“I was going to fix that!” Karkat shoots back, while thinking, Wait, they died? “And I was going to build myself a flying buttress, I always wanted one of those, you architecture-ruining pustule and I’ll be baking for days to fix my wall and you—“ he rounds on the female human. “—you tried to shoot me! You broke my shed! YOU OWE ME A GODDAMN SHED!”
“I’m pretty sure,” begins the man, but Karkat is on a roll now and will not be stopped.
“Shut up!” He shouts. “Shut up, shut up, shut your stupid, vomitous mouth nodule you worthless human and PUT! MY! PENDANT! BACK!”
He thrusts his head out towards the human, growling in the back of his throat. Unreasonably Statuesque Hip-to-Shoulder Ratio’s eyes have gotten very wide. Slowly, he reaches out and settles the pendant’s iron chain around Karkat’s glare. With a little shaking of Karkat’s head, it’s back around his neck where it belongs.
…Of course he can’t activate the Shape of Fear again without a little bit of magic (see above: fuck witchthread with all known rusty medical instruments), but it’s the thought that counts.
“You’re supposed to say thank you,” says the man. Karkat responds by spitting on the floor.
He regrets this immediately. His poor floor. These humans have tracked mud all over the place with their dumb boots and now Karkat is acting like a ruffian too.
A corner of the human’s mouth juts up to a challenge—he grabs like he’ll snap the pendant right off Karkat’s neck. Karkat yelps. “Oh thank you, fuckface! Okay? Happy now? I thanked you for being dumb. You’re dumb. You’re both dumb.” This he aims at the sister, who is giving Karkat the kind of look he usually receives for existing. It is full of profound disappointment.
Fuck both of these witch hunters. Karkat is so done with their bullshit.
“You’re welcome,” says the boy cheerfully, apparently unbothered. “Now that we’re being civil, I’m John, and this is Jade. What’s your name?” His sister hisses admonishments at him, which he ignores. The fact that they are pissing each other off as well is gratifying to Karkat, who wrinkles his nose and feels his ears lowering a few degrees.
“Karkat,” he mutters.
“Hi, Karkat,” John says.
“Hi, fuckface,” Karkat answers obstinately. The man’s mouth twitches. He looks like he wants to laugh. This is the other reaction Karkat usually gets.
John—formerly Manly Chest Flex—looks at his partner and says, “Seriously, Jade, come on. How can we execute this? It would be wrong.” As she puffs up, he adds, “He’s hilarious. And pocket-sized.”
After eyeing the top of Karkat’s head in the most condescending fashion possible, the sister comes up with, “It is hard to believe that such a sad specimen is dangerous.” She shifts a fraction back onto her heels and suddenly they both look a lot less threatening and a lot more like oversized children. Children that Karkat would still fail to lure into his glassware (stupid sexy pirate costumes), but it’s a nice thought. As Karkat splutters, she asks John, “But he’s still a witch. How do we handle this, if not with bullets?”
“He has a point,” John says, standing back up. “We did break in and assault him. I guess we just leave him here? Fair’s fair.”
“How in the egregiously small locale that is your brain, does that equate to fair?” Karkat wants to know. John looks over at him in deceptively chiseled innocence.
“Well, we could shoot you?”
“Go away,” Karkat decides. “Go far, far away from my home and never return. Foul filth. Pondscum. Icing lickers.”
“Everyone licks the icing though,” John says, offhandedly as he gathers up his weapons. There are at least six scattered around Karkat’s living space like rejected socks. “You can’t not.”
“Those ropes will disintegrate in an hour or so,” Jade tells Karkat with a smirk. “Until then, you’re powerless, so try not to cause too much trouble. Hate for someone to finish the job before I do.”
Karkat sticks his tongue out at her. He will not be intimidated.
And then they are gone, which is a relief. Good riddance. Karkat’s heart eventually stops pounding out of his chest with fear, the ropes really do disintegrate, and then he has a really good tantrum. He scares the shit out of his wand so much that it plays dead for three days later. Karkat spends those three days of alternating between building gingerbread foundations and having himself a lot of angry crying fits.
0000
And then the John human comes back.
0000
“What,” Karkat hisses from the top of the chimney, letting his power crackle off of him. “Do you want?” He’s in the Shape of Fear right now, so that will actually be threatening. John stops and looks up. He notices Karkat then and waves.
“Hi, Karkat!”
“Die under a falling bridge,” Karkat growls back before he remembers his manners and grudgingly emits a “hi.”
“I felt bad about tearing your place up before and leaving,” John explains in a rush, “Which Jade says is stupid but after a while if it keeps distracting you, you’ve just gotta go do something about it! And I don’t want to die on a hunt feeling like a bad person for picking on you, so I decided I should come by and offer my young lad hero services.” He smiles. It is blinding. He is eating part of Karkat’s staircase. “Free of charge.”
“Away with you, vile shitfiend,” Karkat orders, and points. John watches him point with the air of a man well-entertained, and continues to eat Karkat’s staircase.
“Why are you sitting in a chimney?”
“Because I was building a chimney,” Karkat snaps. “Because I don’t have a chimney anymore, and I need one. And it’s all the fault of certain people who had to show up and cause trouble and piss me off. You know what? You suck!” John takes another bite of staircase. “STOP EATING MY FLOORPLAN!”
“I’m pretty sure we didn’t destroy your house,” John says, shrugging a shoulder. “Or make a hurricane. Your house is leveled, dude. Did you guys have a storm?” Karkat glares silently and waits for his commands to sink into the human’s pea-sized brain, but all John does is go, “Seriously, though, why are you sitting in your chimney?”
Karkat is sitting in his chimney because it’s comfortable and he likes it up here and isn’t remotely afraid of heights.
John surveys him in his hunter regalia, all lethal silver weapons and strappy black leather, prepared in case of convenient murder. There’s a puppyish tilt to his head. He bursts out laughing and finishes off his portion of the staircase. “Oh my god,” he says. “You’re stuck aren’t you.”
“No,” Karkat retorts and when this makes John laugh harder, he repeats it, with emphasis. “NO!”
“Okay, okay,” John says, snorting around whatever hideous attempt he is making at a straight face (this is a lie; his face is not hideous). “I’m coming up to get you, so don’t wiggle around.”
“Don’t you dare,” hisses Karkat.
John is prettier up close and Karkat loathes him for it. “Here,” he says, looking perfectly at ease, like he has not climbed several feet into the air, oh dear hells. Can he even fly? Karkat can’t fly. He doesn’t want to look. This can only end in splattery death, and there will be no saving his floorplan then.
“Lift your arms,” John says. Karkat wails slightly when John starts pulling him towards the endless abyss of death that is the drop from his chimney. He attaches himself to John with his claws. This cushioning will break his fall.
“Ow,” John says pointedly. Karkat snaps his teeth, and then hiccups on a yelp of dismay when John pulls on him again. He dwarfs the human rather spectacularly. John splutters on a mouthful of witchy robes.
“Nonononono I changed my mind nonononono I want to stay up here ohmyfuckingbubblingblackcauldron, John, STOP—“ Abruptly, Karkat shifts loose, and it is significantly worse than being securely stranded. Now he has the freedom to die horribly.
The witch hunter is muscular and warm and feels like steel beneath Karkat’s arms. Karkat hides his face in John’s neck, whimpers, and refuses to let go. He has contorted as much of the Shape of Fear around the human as he possibly can and feels entirely justified in this decision.
“Oh boy.” John sighs. “Look, I’m not about to drop you or anything, so would you stop that with the—?”
Karkat wraps his other leg around him in defiance.
John observes this, and then comes up with. “You’re not moving are you?”
Nope.
The hunter pats Karkat’s back. “Fine. I’ll get us down. Just don’t let go.”
Karkat continues to not let go even when he is aware they are back on the ground. He is traumatized—highly traumatized—and John smells good. He’s so much bigger than Karkat remembers humans being. John probably would not even dent if he fell from a chimney. He appears to be eating some of the chocolate scaffold. Karkat doesn’t care.
When Karkat does let him go, John gives him a smile. “Feeling any better?” He follows this up with a snort, and adds, “My god, you look weird like this.”
“This my true form is malevolence itself,” Karkat tells him smugly.
“Sure,” John agrees with a laugh. “So, you want any help?”
Karkat insists that he does not and John helps him anyway. They get two candy walls erected and by the end of it even John is puffing and sweating. Karkat has just draped himself over the nearest reasonably not-pointy stone and is willing the elements to kill him. He sits up when he hears a strange sound. It repeats itself. It is the human’s stomach. Karkat narrows his eyes at it.
“What sort of war cry is that?” He demands.
“Sorry,” answers John, “I didn’t have anything to eat before I came here. I didn’t think I’d—“ He snorts and then laughs again. “—Oh my god, I really did just spend all day helping a witch rebuild a sweet trap.”
“It’s not a sweet trap!” Karkat says, indignantly. “It’s my stately and magnificent palace, fuck you very much. You put your grubby mitts all over it. I’ll be washing for days.” He scowls fearsomely. “Besides, I built it here specifically to avoid humans. Ergo, not a trap.”
John points out, “Your palace lacks a roof. I’m sure that’s in vogue. Oh wait.” He slaps a hand up to his cheek in mock surprise and Karkat seethes. When he gets to his feet, he takes a moment to kick John in the leg.
“Rise, worthless human. You will be provisioned.” While John blinks at him, Karkat snarls, “Don’t think I haven’t seen the way you’re eying my floorboards.” Karkat’s floorboards are a gorgeous molasses-rich gingerbread and humans don’t get any. John appears fully delighted as he gets up and allows Karkat to frog-march him into what remains of the kitchen. Karkat goes digging through the drawers, ignoring the way the human is inspecting his oven. Fuck him. Karkat is allowed to have an oven, and that doesn’t make this a sweet trap.
But when he straightens back up, John’s smile has gone cool and remote and his hands have fallen casually near his gun holsters. John’s face falls entirely when he sees what Karkat is clutching to his chest.
“You have wonderbread?”
“Fucker,” Karkat snaps at him, “I have peanut butter and jelly.” Because John’s sudden smile is annoying him (making his ears heat up and his fingers drum on the table, what a bastard), Karkat snaps, “I’m only putting peanut butter on yours, ha!”
“Cool,” counters the human brightly, “Peanut butter is the best part.”
Oh, please, like Karkat buys that for a second. Everybody knows the jelly is better, but John can’t reverse psychology him into wasting jelly on a human’s sandwich. Hell no. Karkat is far too intelligent for this. He makes John two barren peanut butter sandwiches and then pretends to make his own while he just spoons jelly into his mouth and hums with delicious grapy happiness.
John uses human mind control to convince Karkat to make him another sandwich.
He continues using human mind control. In the end he somehow eats six sandwiches and Karkat is staring at his gorgeously toned physique in unabashed horror because that’s not even remotely decent. Karkat has to watch his figure to keep from getting a paunch from, like, salad, and he’s pretty sure the witch hunter is warping the laws of physics to suit him. And he’s sexy.
Karkat frantically consoles himself with more jelly.
“Well, this has actually been fun,” John says, getting up and stretching. Karkat follows, clutching his jelly jar. When the witch hunter smiles at him, Karkat growls around his spoon. “Can I come by again sometime?”
“You’re leaving?” Karkat says, and then clears his throat. “I mean, good. Go away. I hate you.”
“I’ll come back and visit later,” John tells him as he collects his hunter gear off the ribbon candy lawn. “See what kind of progress your house is making when I’m not eating it!” John has a hat.
Karkat makes eyes at John’s hat when his back is turned.
What can he say? It’s a sexy hat and Karkat always gets a little morally ambiguous after too much jelly. “You will never foist your presence off upon me again,” he tells the hat absently.
“Uh-huh,” John says, and for some reason feels the need to throw a wink Karkat’s way.
Karkat sneers at him. “Go away.” As John opens his portal, Karkat dares to skitter near and give John a kick through it. The gasp of surprise is well worth it and Karkat does a little dance of glee right there on his half-finished porch with the mostly empty jelly jar. He then makes himself a new jelly jar, followed by a hat. Hats are distinguished. His is pointier than the idiot’s. And then Karkat goes about baking himself fudge cement for the patio, whistling all the while.
0000
John comes back.
“Why are you here?” Karkat says with just the right helping of disgust. He then has to spit out some flour.
He was, you see, mixing ingredients before assface materialized. Specifically, he was pouring in flour. Then a portal dropped open over the kitchen counter, expelled something with firearms, and Karkat has claws. There was no stopping destiny.
Karkat had menaced the intruder with his mixing spoon and discovered John Egbert on the floor—and then the other bags of flour exploded sequentially. The entire kitchen is covered in white and the flour has decided to dance a snappy jig in midair in time with Karkat’s sprinting heartbeat. It’s tickling Karkat’s horns.
“Because I don’t have any missions right now and I’m bored,” John says. “Would you believe Jade and I still haven’t found the witch we’re looking for?” Karkat lets loose a venomous snarl. It turns into plaintive coughing. Flour up his nose. This is very unfair. His Shape of Fear cannot look even remotely vexing right now. “So hey, what are you making?”
“Cookies,” Karkat grumbles after a moment. He finds himself dragging out another bag of flour. “Big ones. I need them for the doors.”
“Round doors?”
“I like them!” Karkat protests defensively. He pauses. “Well, sometimes. I’m going for a rustic woodsman thing this time.”
John’s eyebrows go up. “This time? Karkat, exactly how often do your houses come down?”
“Exactly how often do you hemorrhage with your own stupidity?” Karkat snipes, and manages to stir the flour in even with shaking hands. John watches him, openmouthed.
“Wait. Dude. Dude, no. You’re cooking in front of me?”
“You’re the one who interrupted me!” Karkat exclaims, because this makes all the difference. It only counts if it’s not John’s fault.
“I thought witches never cooked in front of anybody! Not even,” John gestures wildly. “I don’t know! Other witches!” His eyes round further. “Whoa. And that is a huge mixing bowl.”
Oh yeah?! Well Karkat thought that humans were never annoying and… and…
Karkat orders a cloud of flour motes to fling themselves into John’s face. He has to whip his mixing bowl to safety because the human doubles over sneezing, but it’s still worth it for the way John scowls at him afterward. Then his eyes trace up Karkat’s form and he looks impressed.
Karkat sets the massive bowl back down and hops on top of his stepladder to reach for the stirring spoon. The Shape of Fear is no weakling.
“Well, with my baking, it’s not like you’ll even comprehend what is taking place before you.” John climbs up to watch Karkat stir (Karkat does so with possibly more flexing than strictly necessary). “It will drive you blind, or mad, or simply make you forever my mindless foodslave.” He adds, pointedly, “Don’t you fucking steal any of my recipes.”
“Cross my heart,” John agrees. He’s grinning again.
“Good,” Karkat sniffs. “Now. Go fetch me eggs, slave. Third cabinet on the right.” John clambers down and Karkat bellows after him, “And don’t eat any of the toffee handles!”
“Spoilsport.” John hands over the eggs.
When the baking is done, Karkat allows John have one of the messed up cookies. There’s one to every batch (especially when you kind of smash it into the side of the pan a few times while the human isn’t looking). It’s crumbly, leaving buttery-sticky golden chunks clinging to their fingers (about two coats of a butterscotch icing will get the door solid). After one bite, John’s eyes roll back in his head.
“Damn,” he sighs. “It is a seriously good thing you don’t build sweet traps, Karkat. These are amazing.” Karkat tears off a piece of molten gooey goodness, ignoring the human’s grunt of protest. He hums and nods to himself. Yep. Up to standard. Thoroughly delicious.
“Bet I could lure you,” Karkat leers to John. “Bet I could lure you into any trap I built.”
“Hell no,” John snorts, as though he is not stuffing his face with cookie at the most rapid rate possible.
“You’d take one taste of my goddamn windowpanes and lose all control of your senses.”
“Yeah, maybe cause they’d taste like butt,” John retorts. Karkat bares his teeth.
“You take that back, you odious pile of flatulent carrion leavings.”
“Okay,” John says after another bite and a sigh. “Yeah. I can’t really leave that one there. Karkat, you are a baking champion.” He takes another bite and observes with a crease between his eyes, “I may actually cry.”
“I could bake for you sometimes,” Karkat says nonchalantly. “SOMETIMES. Not all the time. You offend me. I hate you.” John actually sets down the cookie (maybe Karkat’s skills really aren’t up to standard anymore??) to put an arm around Karkat’s shoulders and squeeze him for a moment.
Then it’s back to the cookie while Karkat swears a blue streak, toes all curled up in his pointy shoes.
0000
It’s several visits later when Karkat finally allows John look at his pendant. Not take it off, mind you, just examine. It satisfies John’s need to grab and ooze fingersauce all over Karkat’s possessions. John turns it so the reddish stone catches the light from Karkat’s lava cake lamps. The resulting glow winds up in John’s eyes and paints them with sunset.
Karkat is only sweating because they are baking muffins and it is hot, okay? Everybody shut up.
“So this is where you keep your monster illusion,” John remarks.
“Shape of Fear,” Karkat corrects absently. “Every witch wears one.” John’s fingers are calloused and broad, but they handle his pendant with utter care. It's crippling to watch.
“Right, right. And witchcraft gets stronger the more we fear the caster, right?” He glances at Karkat. His face is very close. “…If I remember my lessons correctly.”
The sudden difficulty Karkat is having in rendering compound syllables suggests it’s maybe time to stop looking into John’s eyes. “Um,” he hedges.
“So is that why your magic is kind of lame? Because Karkat, I just do not find you intimidating. Sorry.”
John cleaned Karkat’s oven last week. Went inside it with a bucket of suds and everything and scrubbed while Karkat stared at his back in a combination of bemusement and troubled lust.
Fairly sure that he is being insulted, Karkat decides to go with, “John, shut up.”
John gives the chain a gentle tug that has Karkat closer by another half inch. “I mean. Do you need it, need it? Or is it more of a misguided preference thing?” He’s easing the chain up. It promptly gets caught on Karkat’s ears and Karkat growls until John leans over to untangle him.
“I know you are not trying to bargain away my one functional enchanted item, you bastard.”
“I’m gonna take it off,” John decides.
“Don’t you even think about it,” Karkat snarls, and John untangles his ears.
With the pendant off, the Shape of Fear sighs away and Karkat is left what he was born as—looking like ass. He scowls at John. One hand flicks Karkat’s hair back out of his eyes, the other holds his pendant hostage, and John’s eyes crinkle. Karkat blinks at the newly clear view of John’s face, then whines in the back of his throat.
It is easier not to be debilitated by attraction with scraggly bangs in the way. “Give it back,” Karkat protests.
“I’ll trade you for it,” John says.
The last time John wanted cake slices, he bribed Karkat a sentient pumpkin, and everything it says is sarcastic. A SARCASTIC PUMPKIN. Seriously. How could Karkat hold out? He holds a hand out pointedly—he wants his shit now, thank you, especially if John is holding onto his pendant—and John deposits his own hand in Karkat’s.
He leaves it there.
It dwarfs his like this, doesn’t it? Bronze fingertips peeking out of the scuffed black glove, protective sigils etched painstakingly into the leather, heavy. Warm. John’s fingernails could be cleaner.
“But you’re already my helpless mortal thrall for all eternity,” Karkat mumbles, ears flushing. The last time John grinned like this was when Karkat had admitted to baking John another tray of chocolate coffee mugs. But he has won nothing but an immensely horrible face, which Karkat is currently making, which is sure to eventually cause the human’s pretty eyes to recede into his skull and burst into flames and oh no, oh no, he’s leaning closer—
John squeezes Karkat’s fingers when they kiss, and he tastes like—like—like a mislabeled spice. Karkat catches the back of his head with claws before John can get away, exploring, trying to find out what he’s tasting—can’t quite get it, one more—until John pulls away with a laugh shaking his shoulders. He’s blushed bright and their fingers are all tangled. Karkat has also knocked him onto the floor and crawled halfway on top of him kissing. He has stolen John’s glasses.
Karkat fails to see anything wrong with any of this situation. He growls at the laugh ringing through his house and reclaims his human thrall’s lips. It makes everything in his chest go creamy, fresh-out-the-oven warm. John’s hand sneaks up his shirt. Karkat slaps it back out, but it’s persistent and Karkat doesn’t dare pull away from the human’s mouth long enough to pitch a fit. John rolls them over. He attacks Karkat’s mouth like it’s the sweetest thing in this house, biting and licking and vigorously debauching until Karkat is dazed and possibly a little bit willing to share his grape jelly.
Oh, this jelly-jeopardizing bastard. Karkat hopes the ants take him. He hopes time never moves.
John only gets up when Karkat’s lips will, without a doubt, never recover from the assault. Karkat cannot stop licking them. Karkat wants to taste that kiss again. Wants to taste it all the time, and have it melting in his mouth.
“Glasses,” John says, and holds out his hand. But when Karkat hands them over, John just whisks the pendant away with a wicked grin and a flushed cheeks. “Nope,” he says. Karkat growls at him and John laughs, pecking his lips. “Be good,” he orders Karkat. “I’ll bring it back when I’m done with it.”
“You will kiss me again immediately,” Karkat orders, indignant. You do not steal people’s magic pendants, smooch them senseless, and then sound like you’re thinking about waltzing the fuck off. His human victim must be reduced to an incoherent daze, during which Karkat can convince him to do embarrassing things for later blackmail purposes, like kiss Karkat some more. And then kiss him some more after that, and then probably kiss him some more, and they should probably do some more of the kissing thing, just in case.
This fiendish plan must show in Karkat’s tone, because John appeases the terrifying witch’s murderrage by pushing Karkat into a wall and doing things until Karkat is trembling all over and keeps making wordless noises of blind indignation. They happen to sound like breathy little moans. John smothers his mouth in kiss after kiss.
“Sorry.” He’s squeezing the chain tight, along with Karkat’s fingers. “I didn’t really mean to—but you’re just so—just don’t worry, okay?”
Literally the only worry Karkat has right now is how much kissing can be done before human lips erode.
“Oh, and when I come back?” Him palm burns warm against Karkat’s cheek. John is blushing. He guides their lips together again. Karkat’s heart vibrates, too confused to beat. “To tell you. I should. There’s something. Um.”
Then there is a portal open and Karkat is too sordidly overkissed to get a clue until John vanishes into it with a giddy little cackle.
0000
Within the next twenty-four hours, Karkat decides he is going to spackle John to the wall with nougat, upside down, and just leave him there. Forever. That is totally the kind of torture witches inflict upon hunters. He’ll feed John well, get him totally fat and gross, ha ha ha, and kiss him as much as Karkat feels like. Which is a lot.
Bastard.
Karkat vengefully bakes himself a series of candycane spikes and arranges them at selective intervals across his property, wherever he imagines John is liable to manifest next time.
0000
But John doesn’t return.
0000
Eventually, after sitting around with his thumb up his ass, making a new pendant, and nominating the sarcastic pumpkin to be mayor of a rock candy garden out back, it sinks in that John isn’t coming. He was only ever mortal, after all.
He’s.
Or well, he’d better be dead, because if he isn’t, then he tricked Karkat. Karkat, who ran away from people and their trespassing and tricking and lies and his whole house smells like John, down to the little sugar decorations on the banisters that John helped him hang. Karkat wants to tear down and start from scratch, but he doesn’t have the energy for anything but crying into his pillow. His emotional state is set firmly to ‘wallow.’
When eventually he runs out of mucus, though, and Karkat rebounds straight into cold fury. When he gets to his feet, his wand emits a squeak of terror in his fist. He wants a new pendant? He makes one, dammit, lobbing bolts of magic at nothing more than coins on string until one touch turns him into an abomination. The witch dons his very distinguished hat, seated carefully around the Shape of Fear’s intimidating horns. Karkat Vantas glares forward with bloodshot eyes and vows his revenge.
And then Karkat opens a portal for the first time in a century.
He did swear he’d never leave, but someone has broken his heart. They’re not about to just get away with it.
John’s name tumbles off his lips with a crackle of power and the portal lurches to follow. It’ll be John’s bones he finds, or he’ll turn John into bones—that’s what Karkat’s thinking. Instead, his iron will rebounds like a spring as soon as it locates an obstacle, slingshotting at Karkat to explode against his chest in writhing static. Karkat’s nostrils flare.
Someone is shielding John Egbert’s whereabouts.
Given that John’s opinions on witchcraft are generally limited to how many bullets he will need to solve the problem, Karkat is going to assume that his human is in trouble.
In trouble means he’s still alive. In trouble means someone dared to take Karkat’s human away.
Good luck then, honestly. Good fucking luck to this human-stealing tripesucker. Yeah, maybe Karkat is shitty at witchcraft, but who in the hell has a snowball’s chance of shielding Karkat’s own craft from him? And John—oh, John damn well better have it with him. Karkat will work out the details of his retribution later, but he’s thinking dishes for a month, and Karkat is going to make a huge mess on purpose so that John can never leave again.
Karkat reaches through the portal and finds the right thread. There. His pendant calls to him. Karkat swings a leg over his broom with focused determination. It has been a while since he’s attempted flying.
Karkat accordingly spends most of this trip upside down, clinging with his knees to the broomstick, and waving his arms in an effort to get back up. The very picture of vengeance. But his magic’s thread is tangled in his fingers by now and when the broom decides to be a dick about it, Karkat gives up on proper witchcraft and just tows himself along by hand, with a helpful backfiring of sparks that set the bristles of his broom on fire. The thread shows him the remains of a portal—one of the automated, mechanized rift-makers the Academy favors and his chest clenches with another burst of numb anger.
John is alive. He has to be alive. Karkat will swear to the stars how alive John is before he ever admits that maybe—
And Karkat pushes through without lighting the rest of himself on fire. This new dimension smells, Karkat discovers, like ass. As the world materializes around him, it is gray, stony, and full of bones. He’s materialized in a dungeon, okay, and crossing between coherent realities is ferociously unpleasant. All his valor is required for not vomiting on his shoes.
It takes him a moment to realize the stony walls are made or marshmallows. Ancient, petrified marshmallows. This place must be old.
And there, in the middle of it, is John.
His sister is slumped next to him. There are, Karkat reflects, chains around them. Neither of them move. Karkat’s knees quiver.
And then John bolts up, eyes wide. “…Karkat?” His voice is incredulous and it does not dim Karkat’s fury, not by a longshot. John’s sister reaches out a hand and pushes John back, eyes fixed on the witch. Karkat feels his eyes fill with flames.
“John,” he snarls, voice twisted and deep with the thrum of witchcraft. “I have waited for you.”
“Yeah, about that,” John says, blinking. “Been kind of stuck down here.”
“You should have returned to me,” Karkat argues, pissed. “I owe you a kick in the goddamn teeth.”
“He couldn’t go anywhere!” Jade snaps. “We’ve both been prisoners for weeks—god, get over yourself, you freaking—“
“I am going to kick you in your goddamn teeth,” Karkat decides, snarling as he advances. John’s expression is tired, sad, and just a little bit turning into a smile around the edges.
“Karkat,” John says. “Don’t cry, okay? I’m alright.”
So Karkat kicks him in the teeth. With his mouth. Tenderly.
John is dirty and he smells exactly as horrible as someone imprisoned in a dungeon for days ought. He has Karkat’s pendant around his neck under his shirt—the magic there pulses like a heartbeat. John’s wrists are raw from chains. The manacles are more thorn than metal—what a nasty spell—and Karkat whispers in vain trying to make them open. John keeps trying to pass him over to his sister. “Come on, Karkat, I’m fine; Jade has been a pain in my butt since we got here”—but Karkat grips his wrists firmly. These are coming off the minute he figures out how to break the curse.
The enchantment on them is powerful and well-woven, but Karkat sweet-talks it until the mechanism finally springs open. Karkat holds the pieces for a moment, frowning. This is less than ideal. There’s so much magic in these that it makes his fingers numb.
Once they're free, the first thing John does is hug his sister. Karkat watches (not jealously, that is slander) and then finds his hand warm in John’s.
Fine, if they must hold hands, so be it; he will allow this. Karkat shuffles his feet and pretends to not notice that his ears are red.
“Why did you light your broom on fire?” Jade wants to know, but Karkat is too busy not having red ears to answer her.
“Doesn’t matter. We have left over rift bombs, and I know where they put our gear,” John winks, swinging their hands. “I saw it when they were bringing us in here.”
Jade’s brow wrinkles. “John, they knocked us out.”
“Nope.” There is a wince and then John is moving. “Just hit us very, very hard. I was awake for part of it. There’s a service entrance—“ He stops and tugs Karkat’s hand again. “…Karkat?”
“No,” Karkat says grimly. “I haven’t gotten to kick anyone’s ass yet.”
“Much as we appreciate the heroism of that deeply delusional statement,” Jade puts in, “There’s a coven upstairs. And one of them is Old.” Karkat prickles at the news. Old Ones are never a good thing. Magic back then was an entirely different thing, feral and horrible, and there’s no spell that can stand up to ancient witchcraft without curling away in horror.
Jade decides to make it worse. “And the Old One? She’s the Batterwitch.”
Karkat’s jaw drops. His voice erupts squeakily. “She’s…?”
“The Batterwitch,” John repeats gently, giving his shoulder a pat. “That’s a thing. We’ve been searching for her since forever—“
“Rumors of her death,” Jade says, “Have been greatly exaggerated.”
“—and we found her, you know, before I came to tell you goodbye and—“
Karkat feels the need to put his hand over John’s mouth. “Goodbye?” He repeats in terribly blank confusion. “But. That makes it sound like you tried to hunt her.” Beneath his hand, he feels John give a winning smile, which his sister is matching. “Which would be REALLY FUCKING STUPID.”
“Funny thing about that.” John brightens. “But you gave me your pendant! And, oh wow, that was really touching, Karkat, so I knew I had to l—mphhh.”
“By the bat-laden belfry,” Karkat breathes. “Why? No, stop, don’t you dare answer that.” There is pouting beneath his hand. Karkat struggles not attempt to apply logic to this incredibly suicidal action. “John. John, they have sent armies of hunters against the Batterwitch. I thought the official strategy of your fucking Hunter’s Guild was to hope she had a finite lifespan and died of old age because there is no conceivable way to win against her!”
“We’re optimists!” John chirps, having successfully shaken off Karkat’s hand by licking it.
“She killed our parents,” Jade says, much less chirpily. John’s smile goes wooden.
“And she would have killed us too, if you hadn’t come along and rescued us, Karkat! And I’m sure there’s a fascinating story as to how you got here, but we can chat later, come on. Service entrance ho—“
Dammit, dammit, dammit. Karkat gnashes his teeth, cannot believe this, yanking a hand through his hair as once more, he plants his feet against John’s tugging. When he looks up, he’s all but snarling.
“She stole John. You don’t understand. You’re mine.”
John makes a face like this is exceptionally dear to him. Jade makes a face that is just a face, and Karkat mostly doesn’t notice because of the powerful urge to resume kicking John in the teeth. Instead, he extends a hand towards John’s sister.
They’re certainly not witches and would object mightily if they knew Karkat was using them to complete circles, but it does in a pinch. Jade eyes his hand warily.
“You’re hunters,” Karkat takes a moment to remind them. Jade gingerly accepts touching him. “You have one single, uninventive, mostly useless talent.”
Here he pauses for dramatic effect. And also so that he can sneak a little flare of magic through their fingers and seal the circle. They both make identical noises of confusion.
“Tracking down malevolent demigods wherever they flee to?” Jade supposes.
“Eating your house?”
Karkat explains, “Blowing up massive quantities of shit.” John cracks a pale smile. He’s been a prisoner for sugar knows how long—but it still could swallow the sun. Karkat smiles back, knowing that this is entirely stupid, but apparently there’s nothing at all he won’t do for the sake of protecting that human’s fierce cheer. “If you two think you can handle the coven…” The Shape of Fear’s teeth are put on display. “…You can leave the thief to me.”
“You’re kidding, right?” John’s eyes are full of wicked glee that makes Karkat sort of relieved they are not doing this thing in any candy house he built. “We take on covens once a week, geez, at least try to make it a challenge!”
“Karkat,” Jade frowns up, narrow-eyed. “Not that I’m not all for the plan of kicking the Batterwitch’s murderous, soul-sucking butt. But what can you honestly do to stand up to her?”
“Simple,” Karkat murmurs. “I can be louder.”
To reiterate, Karkat is still a terrible witch.
But with the circle to draw energy from, it’s easier, and he too has a talent for kicking over other people’s things—when he has been stolen from, when he has had his heart stitched back up. He throws back his head and bellows.
The humans yell and try to duck as the walls collapse, but the rubble won’t touch them; it glances off of their skin with the force of raindrops and sinks around them as Karkat tears down the witch coven’s palace. Down with these brittle, sour walls. It’s barely even real candy anymore. It’s soggy and smells stale. It has no architectural flare. Karkat wouldn’t eat it if he were starving.
There’s a lot of satisfaction to be had, you know, because it’s hideous.
Jade sucks in a breath and John squeezes Karkat’s hand a little. They’re both staring at him now, because apparently they don’t usually get an up close view of witches when they rip apart huge castles by yelling really loudly at them. Karkat keeps his eyes forward. That should get their attention—and here comes the welcoming committee now.
The coven bursts through the floor slinging spells.
Karkat’s teeth grit together and power surges down his spine, but the flimsy shield he’s shaping holds. Thankfully, the two witch hunters observe all the blood draining out of Karkat’s face, and take that as their cue. It’s popularized that fairy blades can be enchanted into their very skin as the last ditch recourse for disarmed graduates of the sexy pirate academy. It’s also true.
Right now, the silver surfaces are threaded with bright magma and Karkat’s own gray sigils. Jade throws him a severe look, which Karkat ignores. Why the hell Jade thinks he has the finesse to keep his power from doing whatever the fuck it wants to is beyond him. Ow.
Shit, these witches are tearing chunks out of his shield like it’s the extra batter at the bottom of the bowl. How strong are these two?
Karkat’s shield chooses that moment to explode spectacularly.
He can’t remotely tell if one of them is the Batterwitch. They are that extensively beyond Karkat’s pay grade.
He scrambles for another shield, but too late now—fire magic yawns up like a starved thing and shadow creatures are bubbling out of the rubble, knife limbs squirming at the humans fast. Karkat’s attempt at a counterattack is a gentle fizzling of sparks. “Oh fuck,” he squeaks, and survival suggests he become proficient in ducking.
John gets there first.
The oversized hammer sweeps through the air only once and sends shadows tumbling down in shards. “You okay, Karkat?” John calls, and takes out another like it’s effortless to him. The fire is getting drawn to the left—Jade’s cannon, braced against her shoulder as she grins, is draining the fire magic into it, clearing a space for them to stand, for all that it’s filling with smoke. She aims over Karkat’s gaping head and shoots with a sound that sucks inward to silence. The resulting explosion bowls Karkat off his feet—John catches him by the arm, laughing.
“Come on, Karkat, we don’t want to get pinned down!” He tows Karkat while Jade takes rapid shots at the witches trying to circle around them. The shadows are fencing them in and John cuts a path directly through.
That’s sort of forgetting the actual coven, though, and Karkat’s eyes round as he shouts, “Jade, look out—!”
With a giggle, Jade swings her cannon at the fire-user’s face like a baseball bat.
Karkat suspects this decision might involve a grudge.
The witch yelps, goes down. John throws his hammer at a shadow rising up at his sister’s back. It crashes through the shadow monsters—and Jade catches John’s weapon, hurls it back with a shout of thanks, steady as clockwork.
Exactly how good are these two? Twenty more shadows rise up out of the cracks in the floor, and John’s smile remains all serene confidence. Jade falls back to his side, wild hair hanging down her face, and without looking, slaps her brother a high five. There’s a column of white heat where her witch just was, it appears to be growing arms, and this does not strike Karkat as the sort of thing to hive five over, but he does not have time to fathom the minds of the terminally insane. He’s still panting from his shield spell, but he tries to summon up enough power to do something, maybe a mid-level disruption hex. He’s pulled those off before.
And it was a reasonable assumption, wasn’t it?—that one of these witches might be Old and the other might be getting there—until the air itself flees and a nightmare comes up the stairwell. Karkat’s skin tries to crawl off.
Karkat’s bones recognize it. That is ancient, ancient evil.
The Old One draws near. When he looks, there she is.
She doesn’t step—the world rearranges itself around her at will. The Batterwitch looks at them with sightless white eyes. He knows right away that unlike the others, she is not wearing a Shape of Fear. She no longer needs to. Her mouth opens in a smile that leads to incredible darkness. Karkat’s hands shake and his wand is vibrating with terror too, which is not a great combination for keeping his grip.
Karkat slashes at the air with his wand before the curse hits and rips him off his feet.
But Karkat rolls with the impact, he’s fine; it didn’t do more than knock him over with raw power. The Batterwitch is looking at John when he lifts his head—John with his hammer and mortality, looking for all the world like he thinks he has a shot at the fight. Karkat wastes his spell coiling it around John’s ankle and knocking him over before black magic tears him in half. “I’ve got this!” He shouts at the human, and throws what amounts to fireworks at the Old One, making her look at him, not the human staring at Karkat with fear behind his eyes. “Go help Jade!”
The Batterwitch laughs. Karkat can’t understand the words—and he’s pretty sure the insides of his ears just crawled out in an attempt to not hear them ever again—but she’s paying him attention. And he kept his grip on the wand when he fell. “Hey lady,” Karkat snarls. She arches an eyebrow, still looking at John. “You looking for who trashed your place? Right here.”
Her head swivels towards him. Karkat flinches. He doesn’t run.
Karkat drives power into his voice again—makes it work for once, the wand all but on fire as it tries to anchor him—screams out a storm of needles. She actually takes a step back and Karkat’s stomach goes electric with victory—tendrils of her hair lash out like serpents. They snag around his neck, coiling like steel. Karkat claws reflexively, squeezing magic from the air around him as his vision begins to shiver. The Shape of Fear keeps her from breaking his neck before he manages the disruption hex.
She wasn’t expecting him to get loose—was already turned towards John again—and it is plain anger that has him thinking that rushing her is a good plan. The Old One’s withered lips pull back into a fanged grin. Karkat knows he did something wrong right away. His mouth gasps regret.
Then his legs give out. The physical pain is so intense it comes as a huge surprise. It’s—he feels his blood welling out and looks down to see the black blade parting through the front of his robes, through his chest, wow, that is going to make a big hole. Karkat’s voice tears out of him ragged, full of blood, and he can’t breathe.
Can’t draw the air in, is just gasping and bleeding from his mouth with a blade through him and one of the top ten worst recognized evils of the multiverse smiling down at him almost fondly now that he’s… he’s dying.
Oh fuck. That’s going to be a problem.
“Karkat!”
Karkat gasps, ruined lungs still trying to draw in air they can’t hold, looks over his shoulder— past the lance as it drives deeper—to the humans.
Over his shoulder, John and Jade are in battle. The shadows have mobbed them, but the shadow user is on her knees. The fire witch looks like he’s trying to crawl away. Color Karkat impressed. He couldn’t have taken either of those witches but he can tell John and Jade have it covered. They are good hunters. As he struggles for air he can’t get, head spinning lighter and lighter, he can see that they are outnumbered and cornered and they have every chance of fighting their way free, if they keep it up. But if they keep looking at Karkat, they’ll lose.
John is screaming his name. Karkat coughs, mouthing at the air. The Batterwitch walks past his line of sight, heels clicking against chalky peppermint tiles, towards the two people Karkat wanted to protect.
John and Jade are the kind of hunters you use in recipes that make you powerful and immortal.
Karkat groans and sinks to his knees, blood pooling around the hands he uses to hold himself up. He has his death curse. The Batterwitch pauses in her stride, knowing it, waiting.
She will let him see her devour it, and if he lasts long enough, he will see her eating the humans too.
Karkat lets his wand fall. There’s no point. The Batterwitch glances over her shoulder at him in a wreath of smoke-hair, smirking with amusement.
Never any point at all, angry one. You are so very insignificant.
His lungs and throat can’t make a sound without air, but his magic, his soul, all of him—screams. Bellows rage and anguish upwards as loud as he can cry. The Batterwitch’s smile falls slowly as the blood runs between Karkat’s lips, but he just keeps going. She glances upward.
Her hollowed eyes widen and her hands fly up to silence him.
You see, just because Karkat is terrible at witchcraft, that shouldn’t be taken as a lack of raw power. Controlling it, shaping it—he’s only ever managed that once.
He doesn’t even try tonight. The Batterwitch’s attack knocks him over, cuts a dozen new holes through him, but she’s too damn late.
A spear of crimson red rips itself from blackened clouds as John screams Karkat’s name one last time. Pure witchcraft is barely able to be real in this world—wouldn’t be real at all in Karkat’s pocket dimension—and as soon as it appears, it is gone. It makes a mockery of time. It is not one blow, but hundreds and thousands. When it is gone, the Batterwitch is nothing but dust. The lance skewered through Karkat’s chest melts around his knees.
The battlefield is silent. But Karkat can feel his pendant’s heartbeat, knows his last spell did not touch the humans. He hears John swear softly, then call his name again, and almost smiles. But there’s no rest.
Karkat crawls to the Old One’s corpse, bleeding in heavy splatters, dragging the lance with him. He glances back just once, sees Jade frozen and staring at him in shock.
The witches and their monsters are gone. The hunters must have destroyed them, or Karkat’s spell reached back that far with its backlash. John is rushing to him, face so ashen it looks gray, gaping at the red dripping from Karkat’s chest. Karkat gives a short shake of his head and then lowers himself.
The dust of the Old One tastes foul, sour and poisonous, the aftereffect of every stolen sweet and every stomachache and every little misery that never felt like it could kill you. Karkat stuffs it down his throat, licks it from the earth, from his hands. He sucks it off his fingers with groans of resentment and pleasure. He craves it, the way all witches do.
The taste of flesh, the vitality of life. It is the worst flavor imaginable, and no amount of sweets will ever truly wipe it away once you’ve had it—but that’s same old, same old. Everyone knows the story of how witches are born. Anyway, the Batterwitch had enough power in her years and lives to heal Karkat. He would have lived after one mouthful, truly. He knows it. But he cannot stop. Does not, licks the mud and growls at it when there’s nothing left. He turns to the corpse of another witch, ravening, and John is suddenly in front of him. Karkat stares at the human, mad with hunger.
Humans taste so much better than the bitter flesh of witches. Almost sweet. And children are the best. They almost make you forget.
He growls between John’s fingers, groans, parts his lips and grazes skin with his teeth, does considerably more with his tongue. John is speaking, but words are beyond Karkat now. John stays on his knees with Karkat kneeling before him, growling and shaking with sobs until John has Karkat convinced that the hunger is under control—he will not try to eat John—and he curls up in John’s arms, sick as a dog and crying from the misery of it.
Stomachaches are the worst and Karkat would rather die, but he doesn’t.
0000
Karkat wakes up in his little pocket dimension later, during nighttime. He’s in his bed, cotton candy sheets tucked around him, a warm dough pillow under his head—and John is there.
Karkat almost thinks it was a dream before he is aware of exactly how much power is crawling under his skin. It makes him cringe back under the covers. It will be a long, long time before he is used to it enough to ignore the hell out of it. Power is a pain in the ass.
Karkat supposes he’s not in hiding anymore, though. John smiles at him and reaches a hand into Karkat’s hair, sinking his way gently down Karkat’s cheek. His hand is big enough for Karkat to determine that he lost control of his Shape of Fear at some point. He’s only himself.
John has put his old pendant back around his neck too. John’s throat is bare.
“Feeling better?” John asks in a whisper, for which Karkat is grateful, because someone took a cheese grater to the inside of his skull. Karkat whimpers a little bit and huddles into John’s hand. John’s mouth quirks and he pats Karkat’s cheek until Karkat is willing to let him move away without spluttering curses. “You scared the shit out of me,” he informs Karkat.
“Yeah. Well, I am a witch,” Karkat says shortly. “No shit. It’s not all going to be fucking wonderbread…” Momentum lost, Karkat smashes his lips together so they can’t do anything stupid, like tremble. If he’s going to cry, he wants to be alone. “Go away,” he says. Smaller, “I hate you.”
John regards him for a moment, unreadable, and then pushes close to stick the softest smile Karkat has ever seen right in Karkat’s face. “I meant the part where I thought you were going to die. That was scary.” While Karkat blinks at that, John adds, “And, fine, the part where you started whipping out Massives. Seriously, what the fuck? Since when are you not a dork? How can top-level magic even subsist in your dumb butt?” He pokes Karkat between the eyes. “I bet you even called down the hurricane that tore up your house in the first place. And you’re still not intimidating!”
Karkat’s eyes promptly well with tears like the traitorbuckets they are.
He wails some rendition of John’s name like a dying elephant, and tackles John against the wall to nestle against him. He defiantly resists all attempts to pry him off. He’s pretty sure John attempts to use a crowbar at some point, and that still doesn’t work.
Karkat is never moving. John is going to remain in his arms for all eternity, even if Karkat has to nougat spackle himself to the human. Done struggling, John sifts fingers through his hair and when Karkat looks up to fumble his way through explanations of things that will be mostly lies because to be honest, Karkat has lied to himself about it so much he doesn’t even remember how he became a witch in the first place, John covers his mouth with a kiss. Karkat melts.
He then remembers he just spent a good deal of time eating a witch in the past twenty-four hours and jolts back. He has entirely forgotten the way words work, and John is smirking at him.
Those are some very blue eyes to be faced with after near death experiences, alright.
Tell me what you said you’d tell me before. The spell springs from Karkat’s fingers like a determined cricket, to Karkat’s complete horror. John’s eyebrows wrinkle and Karkat slaps a hand over John’s mouth.
“Fuck fuck fuck! That wasn’t intentional. Fuckdamn. There’s too much power, and it’s looking for ways to parade itself around like the unmentionables in the back drawer. Fuckshit. Don’t say anything, you’re under a truth compulsion.” He adds, hopefully, “I can fix it.”
He can fix jack. Karkat’s subtle workings only work if he’s, you know, wrenching his house off of its foundations and leveling the surrounding area. He is the shittiest witch, it is him.
“You’d better,” John says, sounding peeved as he shrugs off Karkat’s hand. “What was that for, anyway?”
Karkat glares. John glares back. “I happen to have reached my quota for stupid today.”
John rolls his eyes. “Karkat, I was going to tell you that I love you.”
“I’m sure you were,” Karkat says, with just the right touch of snide to wind up with John’s palm over his mouth this time. He growls into it and does not quite lick it because he still remembers the last things he was licking and no.
“Karkat,” John says, and this time doesn’t go for a loophole, “I’m really, really in love with you.”
Karkat has exactly two methods of dealing with jerks—jerks who tell him this shit after he has managed to flagrantly display every mistake he’s ever made.
Karkat stares.
John adds, “You’re a dork and you’re really frustrating and I’m always going to want to eat your furniture, but yep, definitely in love with you. If this is some dumb spell, tell me now.” Karkat chokes for approximately three minutes—and John slowly leans down and—and this is soused cherries all over again. This is Karkat flopped on the floor of his kitchen with a bottle of brandy and no understanding of a coherent universe. He must be eating; it feels like hope, why is it a kiss? Karkat tries not to yelp. He opens his eyes, knowing his new power is doing something awful again.
Shimmering handfuls of starlight have crowned themselves over as much of John’s body as possible. John looks him in the eye. “Really?” He snorts.
But for once magic makes sense. It’s like a set of instructions—no more glamorous than reading a shopping list—and it’s easy. Karkat leans up and kisses the truth curse away, folding fingers through John’s and shivering as the touch magnifies itself. He is possibly sobbing again by the time he pulls away, shaking as John’s lips follow his, pushing him into a heaven he cannot deserve but wants too desperately to care.
When it’s over, when Karkat can stop and John doesn’t just push him back into it with a whisper of his name, John is lying on his side, grinning at Karkat around the pillow. “Just you wait,” John murmurs, “When we’re not recovering from respective imprisonment and almost-dying, I am going to have that sexy growling thing you did to tear down the prison? Yeah, but screaming my name.”
“Fat fucking chance,” Karkat snarls, and turns the color of an embarrassed gumdrop.
0000
“Karkat,” John says carefully during one visit, “Is there anything you want to share with me?”
“You’re an idiot,” Karkat shares, helpfully. “That knife wasn’t even sharp.”
“And yet it still cut me.”
“I don’t see a cut,” Karkat says, and fusses somewhat frantically over his dough. “There is no such injury.”
“Karkat, that’s my point.” When this fails to make Karkat do anything but gingerly prod at floury surfaces, John kicks him in the foot. With love. “Karkat, I seem to be incapable of sustaining wounds.”
“Just like you are incapable of sustaining brain cells.”
“Ever since Saturday? You remember, with the whipped cream and—“
“You are not allowed to bring that up when you’re not naked.” Karkat feels his ears turning red even as he says it. John is every bit as gorgeous under the hunter’s uniform as Karkat had ever dreamed and Karkat maybe had intentionally spilled caramel sauce on him to see him without his shirt off, but boy did John run with it. Which makes any protection magic Karkat may or may not have sealed into his skin with a hundred fiery kisses totally not Karkat’s fault. He was under emotional duress. And stuff.
Karkat is pretty sure his ears have started to physically glow and emit sparks. That is a thing they do now. Damned human.
He sets aside his flour to observe the look John is sending his way. Diplomatically, he points out, “You could be more naked.”
This makes John’s cheeks turn a nice color.
“Karkat. Karkat, we are going to discuss this.”
Yes, but later, Karkat thinks as he prowls around the kitchen table. In the meantime, Karkat would like to devote some attention to making sure there is a still a naked John under all that clothing.
Hey, you name him one better use of witchcraft.