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Entry tags:
- char: hs: dad egbert,
- char: hs: dirk strider,
- char: hs: equius zahhak,
- char: hs: eridan ampora,
- char: hs: jane crocker,
- char: hs: john egbert,
- char: hs: karkat vantas,
- char: hs: nepeta leijon,
- char: hs: the condesce,
- char: hs: the psiioniic,
- char: hs: the summoner,
- fandom: homestuck,
- fandom: homestuck: sunlightverse,
- meme: writing,
- pairing: dirk/equius,
- pairing: eridan/nepeta,
- pairing: genre: m/f,
- pairing: genre: m/m
Sunlightverse - Kiss Meme results
>__>; So yeah I have a kiss meme going on. If you guys want to give me more prompts go ahead right here in the comments, you know the drill, give me two or three characters, one or two words of prompt (settings and moods work best, poetic and metaphysical least), and i make no promises there'll be an end result but we never know. I wrote 8000 words yesterday in under seven hours, shit was bananas.
For reference, this is the (incomplete but) Sunlightverse shipping grid, but you don't have to only prompt pairings that are already on that, I'm also fine with one night stands, cursed mistletoes and oops i slipped and fell on your mouth.
Some of those ficlets are considered canon, some of them not, and some I will have to decide later. Dirk/Equius, Nepeta/Eridan and Psii/Condie are canon for sure.
Anonymous asked you:
Dadbert and the children. kissing booboos (or dad/GH lol how would that make any sense GH does not scrape his knees)
(alas the GH one would have been hilarious. Couldn't figure it out though.)
--
"Did I... ever do that?" his/not-his father asks, voice gentle and oddly rough, and leans in over his scraped elbow.
The kiss is light and self-conscious, John and his not-father exchanging laughing-at-myself looks that end up in rueful smiles.
(Beside them Jane watches, hands on her hips and harrumphing to make sure none of them notice how misty-eyed she is. John's sure Dad (... Jane's dad?) does, too.)
"Huh," she chokes out, "You smile the same way."
John laughs an oddly burbly laugh and grins wider.
And then Karkat starts wailing, "Jegusfuck what the hell he's your lusus why are you guys kissing!!!" and his grin turns into a wild flood of a laugh, and so does his Dad's.
It doesn't help when Jane goes to pap Karkat in the face, because his stunned-speechless face is even funnier.
azzandra asked you:
Dirk/Equius, 100d public kissyface.
--
They are redesigning a water pump.
(Water pump is a simplistic and rather reducing word for that inspired piece of machinery. Equius can feel his own touch all over it, for all that he's never seen it before. At the same time it's the touch of him aged five sweeps -- clumsy and with no grasp of faster, smarter, more elegant shortcuts, more advanced mathematics.)
They are redesigning a water pump, in the heart of Alpha Strider's domain, the capital built to his name. There is art of hoofbeasts and musclebeasts everywhere, statues and fountains and weather vanes and bas-reliefs, realistic or stylized so much that their elegant lines are left at nothing but cryptic curves on the walls. Bowed-round necks, the line of a strong hindquarters, a tail proudly lifted into a flowing banner. It's very pleasing to the eye.
There is a hill at the center of the city and there is a building over it that oversees everything, that wraps around this tunnel digging into the hill and into the water table underneath and brings it forth. It is both castle and water tower for the city entire, a marvel of archaic engineering.
Also it's the only city they've seen so far that has enough water pressure for actual showers. The technology is most intriguing and needs to be applied to their home post-haste, if possible at all, because Equius for one is rather tired of having to detour by his Land to take a bath in his old hive every single time he gets dirty, or sweaty, or wants a shower at all. So while it is gratifying that the locals are falling over themselves to bring refreshments and tools and towels and whatever other offerings they think their gods will need or want, Equius has to admit he would have come anyway.
The company doesn't hurt either. The Dirk human -- no, that's ... either too forward or too hurtful and probably both -- Strider is sharp-minded and comes at things from interesting, original angles and takes criticism with equanimity. They work well together.
"My lord Blacksmith, may I trouble you for --"
Equius is gratified by their respect, though the muddle of colors the locals come in does not enable him to place them in any kind of due order. This one comes robed in his colors, though, the blue of his blood and the darker blues and blacks of his Aspect, and there is something sharp and appealing to the thirst for knowledge in her old eyes that pushes her to dare when the mayor himself would not. He bids her come closer, observe around his shoulder as he annotates Dirk's plans. Dirk smiles, faint and sharp, ember eyes on him.
His hands twist and shape metal into forms that would permit Dirk's designs to exist. There is a synergy there taking shape, there are people gathering, robed in Void and Space and Mind, and their attention is a whisper of rightness, a prayer, the feverish notes they take incense, it is gorgeous and perfect.
Dirk's fire-shaded wings cast more solid shadows than his own diaphanous cobalt.
"We're done," he says. The tightly leashed pride, the sheer satisfaction pull Equius' eyes up. Dirk has his shades up, over his hair; their eyes meet straight on through Equius' broken ones. He catches himself smiling back, with the same sense of well-deserved triumph, the same pride. Of course they could do this, but it doesn't mean it was not a great accomplishment.
"I rather think you're right," he replies, hand light, cautious as he caresses the copper tubes and gears of the new machinery.
He'd straighten up at this point, only there's a hand curving over the back of his head, slipping under the ponytail he tied his mane back into. Pulling him in, despite his superior strength and size and weight, like of course he'll follow its demand, like of course it can make him. He is shocked silent.
After that there are lips on his, firm and demanding, and he's opening his mouth to a demanding tongue before he can even think twice. His heart kicks in his chest; he sways, goes tense, afraid for a second to fall and crush their creation, but Dirk holds him steady, chuckling in his mouth.
"There, there."
He lets Equius go, rolls back onto his heels, and he's uncurling from his crouch in a smooth, seamless second. Around them people have gone silent, save from a single giggle whose owner Equius will not smite only because it comes wrapped in Nepeta (and Dirk's) pink and burgungy.
"You get to pick the second date," Dirk tells him, and amidst an explosion of whispers he strides off to confer with his high priest, leaving him to sort metallic odds and ends and his feelings.
He did not even notice he was being courted.
It was a highly efficient date nevertheless. Intense, tailored to both their interests, deepening their understanding of each other and their synergy tremendously.
Arousing, too, embarrassingly so.
He does not have the faintest idea how he'll top that.
First things first, strategy meeting with Nepeta. He can already tell Dirk will soon have a fist in his hair, not a hand, but he is not surrendering without a fight.
vehrec asked you:
Psi/Condy, awkward black romance failure.
"I don't belong to you," he says, "not anymore, I won't, ever." Psychic power sparks, scoring her skintight suit, her face; she doesn't flinch. He wants to hurt her. He wants to hurt her even more for the way she isn't even lifting her claws at him, pulling out a trident, nothing.
"Of course you won't," she purrs, "Helmsman."
She leans into his space. His skin crawls. He hisses, eyes flaring, he refuses to be cowed, he won't. (Signless. Disciple. Dolorosa. Sollux. He won't.) He leans in, too, challenging, and she grins like he's so amusing, and he grits his teeth with the need to bite.
She gives him a chance when she closes the last inches, takes his mouth into a fast, savage kiss, the way she never did in all their sweeps together, the way he knew she wanted to.
He should bite back, he should snarl his contempt and his rage in her mouth, he should ...
Instead he starts crying, yellow tears mingling with yellow blood on ashy lips.
The shocked contempt on her face as she draws back hurts like the whip of a lash, but it's a clean, severing pain. He can't, now, he knows, he never could have, and when Summoner comes tearing in to shove them apart he is so intensely relieved he'll never have the chance to be goaded into trying again.
Adi:
eridan<3<nepeta: hunter or the hunted?
There's white sugar and black-kittied tea kettles everyfuckingwhere in this blighted place. Eridan lands, scowling already, and sure enough he gets sugar in his shoes in the very next second. It dusts itself down his leg and slithers down under his foot and crunches, it's horrible.
"Well?" he calls out. "I'm here now, come out an' tell me what the heck you wanted me ta come over for!"
It stinks like over-sweetened, boiled grass and cat litter. Eridan pulls his scarf up over his nose and clambers down the pyramid he landed on. The edge of a step crumbles under his foot and he has to jump down. Of course he lands knee-deep in a powder-sugar drift. Gogdamnit.
"Nep? Nep!"
No answer, only the wind.
"Come on, I know you can hear me, s' your land, now what in blazes do you even want? Tell me so I can get the hell away from the worst fuckin' land I ever set eyes on!"
Frgh. He doesn't even know why he bothered to come, apart from boredom and faint curiosity. There was just the invite from Nepeta's chumhandle, but so terse. Hell, maybe Nepeta isn't even the one who sent it, maybe it's a trap, because let's be honest now, when has he ever given the autistic purrbeast saccharine idiot the time of the day? And if she has need of his services, well, ain't like his skillset is unique, and she doesn't like him enough to request him when she could ask someone else. They have no reason to visit.
Yeah, this is starting to stink of a trap. He decaptchalogues a rifle. (He misses Ahab's Crosshairs something awful nowadays, but ain't no way his ancestor would hand it over to him. Least Rox didn't mind unloading some of her inventory on him. He could kiss her for that, only she ain't --surprise! -- interested.)
Now should he climb up for a better view, or would that make him too easy to snipe? His clothes are dark, so unless he finds himself a tea purrbeast to lean on he's about as obvious as a pustule on Her Condescension's gorgeous face. No, better to stay in the valleys between sugar cube mounds, so he has something at his back.
Sugar crunches silently behind him.
He whirls around, shoots. The stink of caramel wafts back to him, a scorched brown track is left on the ground. Nothing more. He takes off running for the corner of the pyramid, throws himself down into a crouch and executes a perfect corner-turn-and-aim.
Nothing, but he can see footprints here and there. Stupid of 'em not to climb up onto harder, glazed steps. He's got them. He follows at a trot, scanning the area with a sharp eye. His blood is pumping, his senses straining in a way he's been missing; action, danger, the chance to kill some uppity lowblood in the face.
He hears a liquid gurgle and slows down, suspicious; at the next turn is the sinuous green ribbon of a tea river, faintly steaming. The tracks end there on the edge. Hissing softly between his teeth, he sneaks closer, eyes what he can see of the other bank. No tracks to be seen start back there, but maybe the intruder let themselves flow downstream and will resurface on the same bank; it's hard to see far with how much the river curves and winds around.
Upriver would be too hard to navigate, so... Eridan starts to follow downstream.
No crunch of sugar this time. Something impacts his back like a small cannonball. He and his gun fly off the bank, straight into hot tea.
It's not enough to scald but it hurts anyway. He resurfaces with a furious snarl, whirls around, struggling against the current to get back to the bank. He's got tea in his fucking gills and his gun is lost in murky green grass soup, he is going to kill the --
A small girl in a huge overcoat crouches there, perfectly dry, watching him wordlessly.
He spends maybe a half-second being startled that it was Nepeta after all, and then his purple lock slops wetly across his eye and she smirks and he charges.
She's strong and he didn't expect it, and perhaps he should have. She doesn't use her hunting claws, just her own, but he's quickly smeared in purple anyway. They roll on the sandy sugar beach and throw it into each other's eyes and she mule-kicks him in the thigh trying to get at his bulge and he still doesn't get what the fuckin' hell is even going on until she catches his face between all of her claws that he even starts to get it.
And then she kisses him and he doesn't even have time wondering if perhaps he's imagining things again, because the way she's trying to chew his lips off? No he ain't.
Someone hates him, someone sees him and hates him, and he almost doesn't care that it's the chick he's barely looked twice at ever, because by gog he is finally going to get some action.
He wraps longer arms around her back to haul her in, bites back, tastes green blood, just as disgustingly cloying as it should be; he laps it off her chin, growls when she digs claws in his sides, thank fuck for his clothes because shredded gills is kinda heavy for a first date. He tries to roll now he's got her pinned and she proves he didn't have her that pinned when she managed to get enough distance' to plant her heels on his bone bulge and heave.
Ow, fuck. He rolls on the sand, lands at the edge of the tea, sits up. She's standing there with purple and green streaks all over her front, her hands. She looks wild, hair mussed into wild flying curls, fangs bared.
"Erridan Ampurra, you are the most horrible purrson I've ever met. You are selfish and you use people and you never really cared about anyone but you efur and I can't even imagine how you can live like that but it's disgusting!"
He sits up, blinks slowly. He takes the time to slick his bangs back, school his face into haughty indifference. His crotch aches. It's marvelous.
"So... does that mean you wanna hit that, blackrom style? 'cause I kinda gathered, on account a not bein' a brain-deficient feral twit."
She tackles him into the river again. He rolls with it, literally. He drags her under and mashes his mouth to hers and rolls to the bottom, presses his lithe swimmer's body to her surprising amount of compact muscles. Now they're gonna see who can breathe tea longer.
And then maybe pail some, if he's very lucky.
theunvanquishedzims asked you:
Summoner<>Tavros<3<Dave, slam battle.
"I'm, uh, perhaps in the process of, you know, rethinking this," Tavros admitted quietly. His ancestor (descendant?) wound an arm around his shoulders and hugged him to his side, and Tavros thought faintly it was a good thing he was so much taller, or they'd clang horns even more than they'd just done. Also he had to turn his head a little away in order not to hit Rufioh in the chest, which might have been somewhat painful, but now that meant he couldn't lean into his chest and shake.
Which was good because he should be brave! He had a date. He had a hate-date. He had a hate-date and he was going to woo the pants off his dark intended.
Yes.
Hopefully.
"Aw, buddy, no, no rethinking, all your brain's doing is tripping you up. There, just turn it off, you know?"
"Haha, yeah. I'll try," Tavros promised, without much hope.
He could do it despite his brain, he was sure. Yes. He could.
Rufioh stepped back from him, and around his horns -- Tavros almost clocked him in the collarbone turning his head to track him -- and stepped up face to face. He cupped Tavros' jaws in his rough hands and leaned in, big and strong and sheltering -- to press warm lips to his forehead. Tavros sighed out in quiet happiness, tilted his head up into it so Rufioh's lips slipped to the bridge of his nose, dropped a little shy kiss of his own on the side of his chin.
Whatever happened, he'd have Rufioh still. Not even his brain could make him believe he wouldn't.
He smiled up at his moirail-ancestor, gave a -- he hoped, he'd practiced -- firm nod, and went, shoulders squared bravely.
--
"Jade Jade oh gog please help we were slamming and then Nitram Minor kisses me right on the mouth, well okay a little off-center dear jegus that was lame, and then Nitram Major gives him a thumbs up oh my god why Jade you need to kiss me to wipe the horror from my mind kiss me now come on mark your territory maybe not doggy-style but it's the same instincts right I beg you please awgh awgh awgh. Nrgh."
"... Sure, no problem, but after that we need to go after Karkat. I don't know if it's another ashy thing to stop him trying to bite off people trying to blackflirt with you but I'm kinda scared he might actually end up hate-making out with Tavros instead."
"... Okay yeah, we're going now. Kiss me later, I'm holding you to it. Damn it, Vantas, cockblocking me even when you're not there, see if I don't cockblock you right back."
"Pfff."
Anonymous asked you:
For the kiss meme - maybe Condesce kisses Karkat to sort out her red feels? It beats listening to Kurloz whine again about not getting any. (Karkat: oh god empress is kissing, why is everyone kissing me, halp)
"Come here, buoy."
Nothing she can do to him would be Just, and she's not, he thinks, doing anything he needs to be heroic over -- thank fuck because he tends to drop the ball on that kind of stuff, and besides she looks pensive more than hostile or schadenfreuding. He pads closer, wings fanning out crimson behind him; her lips quirk some.
She's so tall compared to him, even now he's older, towering, and the horns...
"Scared, little guppy? Got no reason to be."
"Excuse the fuck out of me if I'm not entirely convinced, Your Condescension."
"So respectful!" she laughs, but he knows she knows he means it somewhat defensively.
It's weird but she seems vaguely hurt about it. He must be hallucinating.
"Still hoping to be my chief Treshie, or has that ship sailed?"
Karkat stares up at her, those terrifying magenta eyes, that shark smile, those spear horns, taller than he is.
"... Meenah?"
He can't help whispering. She snorts. "You sound like you don't expect me to be her. Or her to be me." She shrugs, twitches her head to remove a long black lock from her face. "Surprise! I had a wiggler name, too. I was even a wiggler once."
"No, but you -- you remember?"
Another shrug, a faint snort. "Shrimp, you got any idea at all how glubbing old I am? A miracle I even remember the face of my own coddamn lusus, and then again s' probably because I still had to feed her for a coupla centuries afore I found a coupla suckerfishes to foist it off on. The game stuff ain't slotted in all proeper, for me to remember it at all."
But she does. Oh. Karkat leans in, eyes widening a little, trying not to hope and failing. "But you're -- I mean, shit, I don't even know what I mean. Have you even changed that much? Because I -- we got along, back then, didn't we? That was... that was pretty cool." He's being so presumptuous, but she doesn't silence him, she just listens, head tilted a little.
And then she smiles, and it's so terrifying his endoskeleton turns to jelly, of fucking course. "Shore did, Karcrab. But you never did ditch those losers to come fight with me. I'm disappointed."
Karkat shivers. What the fuck is going on, there's something here but he can't figure it out. He's torn between hurrying off in terror before his empress as a fucking mutant, standing his ground as the friendleader of the goddamn party, and be glad he's seeing one person he could have been good friends with once again, when he never thought he would. It's nerve-wracking.
... Also she's looming closer. He thought it was just an optic illusion, how her hair seemed to grow and creep along the edges of his field of vision, but it's merely that she's leaning over him. Holy shit. "Yeah, uh, my bad, shit happened. I would have if I could," he assures her, and he even means it. He's trying to think of her like she's Gamzee, a terrifying murderfiend who's inexplicably fond of him and it'd be insulting not to be fond back and terror is counterproductive to survival so stuff it. He's having moderate success so far.
"I believe you," she replies around a laugh -- more sophisticated but the same underneath -- "now don't you move," and then she leans in the rest of the way.
Oh wow empress mouth.
Like. On his mouth.
It's not black, it's too light for it, but not pale either or her lips wouldn't part against his, guiding them to part in turn. They breathe the same air for a second, and he stops breathing with a gasp because isn't that disrespectful or something and she chuckles against his lips. Her tongue is oddly cold, she tastes salty, her lipstick smears on his lip a bit.
He lets her explore him for a few seconds, completely fucking stunned out of his thinkpan, and then he places a light, cautious hand on her forearm and leans back and says with perfect poise and calm, "Okay what the fuck."
She studies him for another second and then she laughs and leans back and flicks her hand, royal to her taloned fingertips, eyes coolly distant once again. He feels for an instant like he broke something fragile he's never getting back.
She turns to leave, hair swaying, horns jutting proud, and he's never going to get an explanation either and how dare he even think to ask one of her. "Meenah!" he calls despite himself. She pauses.
"Li'l me used ta like the cut of your jibe," she drawls over her shoulder, "and the fit of your pants. But you're too much of a guppy now, little school leader. Oh well, so many more fish in the sea."
Karkat stands there a long time after she's gone.
For reference, this is the (incomplete but) Sunlightverse shipping grid, but you don't have to only prompt pairings that are already on that, I'm also fine with one night stands, cursed mistletoes and oops i slipped and fell on your mouth.
Some of those ficlets are considered canon, some of them not, and some I will have to decide later. Dirk/Equius, Nepeta/Eridan and Psii/Condie are canon for sure.
Anonymous asked you:
Dadbert and the children. kissing booboos (or dad/GH lol how would that make any sense GH does not scrape his knees)
(alas the GH one would have been hilarious. Couldn't figure it out though.)
--
"Did I... ever do that?" his/not-his father asks, voice gentle and oddly rough, and leans in over his scraped elbow.
The kiss is light and self-conscious, John and his not-father exchanging laughing-at-myself looks that end up in rueful smiles.
(Beside them Jane watches, hands on her hips and harrumphing to make sure none of them notice how misty-eyed she is. John's sure Dad (... Jane's dad?) does, too.)
"Huh," she chokes out, "You smile the same way."
John laughs an oddly burbly laugh and grins wider.
And then Karkat starts wailing, "Jegusfuck what the hell he's your lusus why are you guys kissing!!!" and his grin turns into a wild flood of a laugh, and so does his Dad's.
It doesn't help when Jane goes to pap Karkat in the face, because his stunned-speechless face is even funnier.
azzandra asked you:
Dirk/Equius, 100d public kissyface.
--
They are redesigning a water pump.
(Water pump is a simplistic and rather reducing word for that inspired piece of machinery. Equius can feel his own touch all over it, for all that he's never seen it before. At the same time it's the touch of him aged five sweeps -- clumsy and with no grasp of faster, smarter, more elegant shortcuts, more advanced mathematics.)
They are redesigning a water pump, in the heart of Alpha Strider's domain, the capital built to his name. There is art of hoofbeasts and musclebeasts everywhere, statues and fountains and weather vanes and bas-reliefs, realistic or stylized so much that their elegant lines are left at nothing but cryptic curves on the walls. Bowed-round necks, the line of a strong hindquarters, a tail proudly lifted into a flowing banner. It's very pleasing to the eye.
There is a hill at the center of the city and there is a building over it that oversees everything, that wraps around this tunnel digging into the hill and into the water table underneath and brings it forth. It is both castle and water tower for the city entire, a marvel of archaic engineering.
Also it's the only city they've seen so far that has enough water pressure for actual showers. The technology is most intriguing and needs to be applied to their home post-haste, if possible at all, because Equius for one is rather tired of having to detour by his Land to take a bath in his old hive every single time he gets dirty, or sweaty, or wants a shower at all. So while it is gratifying that the locals are falling over themselves to bring refreshments and tools and towels and whatever other offerings they think their gods will need or want, Equius has to admit he would have come anyway.
The company doesn't hurt either. The Dirk human -- no, that's ... either too forward or too hurtful and probably both -- Strider is sharp-minded and comes at things from interesting, original angles and takes criticism with equanimity. They work well together.
"My lord Blacksmith, may I trouble you for --"
Equius is gratified by their respect, though the muddle of colors the locals come in does not enable him to place them in any kind of due order. This one comes robed in his colors, though, the blue of his blood and the darker blues and blacks of his Aspect, and there is something sharp and appealing to the thirst for knowledge in her old eyes that pushes her to dare when the mayor himself would not. He bids her come closer, observe around his shoulder as he annotates Dirk's plans. Dirk smiles, faint and sharp, ember eyes on him.
His hands twist and shape metal into forms that would permit Dirk's designs to exist. There is a synergy there taking shape, there are people gathering, robed in Void and Space and Mind, and their attention is a whisper of rightness, a prayer, the feverish notes they take incense, it is gorgeous and perfect.
Dirk's fire-shaded wings cast more solid shadows than his own diaphanous cobalt.
"We're done," he says. The tightly leashed pride, the sheer satisfaction pull Equius' eyes up. Dirk has his shades up, over his hair; their eyes meet straight on through Equius' broken ones. He catches himself smiling back, with the same sense of well-deserved triumph, the same pride. Of course they could do this, but it doesn't mean it was not a great accomplishment.
"I rather think you're right," he replies, hand light, cautious as he caresses the copper tubes and gears of the new machinery.
He'd straighten up at this point, only there's a hand curving over the back of his head, slipping under the ponytail he tied his mane back into. Pulling him in, despite his superior strength and size and weight, like of course he'll follow its demand, like of course it can make him. He is shocked silent.
After that there are lips on his, firm and demanding, and he's opening his mouth to a demanding tongue before he can even think twice. His heart kicks in his chest; he sways, goes tense, afraid for a second to fall and crush their creation, but Dirk holds him steady, chuckling in his mouth.
"There, there."
He lets Equius go, rolls back onto his heels, and he's uncurling from his crouch in a smooth, seamless second. Around them people have gone silent, save from a single giggle whose owner Equius will not smite only because it comes wrapped in Nepeta (and Dirk's) pink and burgungy.
"You get to pick the second date," Dirk tells him, and amidst an explosion of whispers he strides off to confer with his high priest, leaving him to sort metallic odds and ends and his feelings.
He did not even notice he was being courted.
It was a highly efficient date nevertheless. Intense, tailored to both their interests, deepening their understanding of each other and their synergy tremendously.
Arousing, too, embarrassingly so.
He does not have the faintest idea how he'll top that.
First things first, strategy meeting with Nepeta. He can already tell Dirk will soon have a fist in his hair, not a hand, but he is not surrendering without a fight.
vehrec asked you:
Psi/Condy, awkward black romance failure.
"I don't belong to you," he says, "not anymore, I won't, ever." Psychic power sparks, scoring her skintight suit, her face; she doesn't flinch. He wants to hurt her. He wants to hurt her even more for the way she isn't even lifting her claws at him, pulling out a trident, nothing.
"Of course you won't," she purrs, "Helmsman."
She leans into his space. His skin crawls. He hisses, eyes flaring, he refuses to be cowed, he won't. (Signless. Disciple. Dolorosa. Sollux. He won't.) He leans in, too, challenging, and she grins like he's so amusing, and he grits his teeth with the need to bite.
She gives him a chance when she closes the last inches, takes his mouth into a fast, savage kiss, the way she never did in all their sweeps together, the way he knew she wanted to.
He should bite back, he should snarl his contempt and his rage in her mouth, he should ...
Instead he starts crying, yellow tears mingling with yellow blood on ashy lips.
The shocked contempt on her face as she draws back hurts like the whip of a lash, but it's a clean, severing pain. He can't, now, he knows, he never could have, and when Summoner comes tearing in to shove them apart he is so intensely relieved he'll never have the chance to be goaded into trying again.
Adi:
eridan<3<nepeta: hunter or the hunted?
There's white sugar and black-kittied tea kettles everyfuckingwhere in this blighted place. Eridan lands, scowling already, and sure enough he gets sugar in his shoes in the very next second. It dusts itself down his leg and slithers down under his foot and crunches, it's horrible.
"Well?" he calls out. "I'm here now, come out an' tell me what the heck you wanted me ta come over for!"
It stinks like over-sweetened, boiled grass and cat litter. Eridan pulls his scarf up over his nose and clambers down the pyramid he landed on. The edge of a step crumbles under his foot and he has to jump down. Of course he lands knee-deep in a powder-sugar drift. Gogdamnit.
"Nep? Nep!"
No answer, only the wind.
"Come on, I know you can hear me, s' your land, now what in blazes do you even want? Tell me so I can get the hell away from the worst fuckin' land I ever set eyes on!"
Frgh. He doesn't even know why he bothered to come, apart from boredom and faint curiosity. There was just the invite from Nepeta's chumhandle, but so terse. Hell, maybe Nepeta isn't even the one who sent it, maybe it's a trap, because let's be honest now, when has he ever given the autistic purrbeast saccharine idiot the time of the day? And if she has need of his services, well, ain't like his skillset is unique, and she doesn't like him enough to request him when she could ask someone else. They have no reason to visit.
Yeah, this is starting to stink of a trap. He decaptchalogues a rifle. (He misses Ahab's Crosshairs something awful nowadays, but ain't no way his ancestor would hand it over to him. Least Rox didn't mind unloading some of her inventory on him. He could kiss her for that, only she ain't --surprise! -- interested.)
Now should he climb up for a better view, or would that make him too easy to snipe? His clothes are dark, so unless he finds himself a tea purrbeast to lean on he's about as obvious as a pustule on Her Condescension's gorgeous face. No, better to stay in the valleys between sugar cube mounds, so he has something at his back.
Sugar crunches silently behind him.
He whirls around, shoots. The stink of caramel wafts back to him, a scorched brown track is left on the ground. Nothing more. He takes off running for the corner of the pyramid, throws himself down into a crouch and executes a perfect corner-turn-and-aim.
Nothing, but he can see footprints here and there. Stupid of 'em not to climb up onto harder, glazed steps. He's got them. He follows at a trot, scanning the area with a sharp eye. His blood is pumping, his senses straining in a way he's been missing; action, danger, the chance to kill some uppity lowblood in the face.
He hears a liquid gurgle and slows down, suspicious; at the next turn is the sinuous green ribbon of a tea river, faintly steaming. The tracks end there on the edge. Hissing softly between his teeth, he sneaks closer, eyes what he can see of the other bank. No tracks to be seen start back there, but maybe the intruder let themselves flow downstream and will resurface on the same bank; it's hard to see far with how much the river curves and winds around.
Upriver would be too hard to navigate, so... Eridan starts to follow downstream.
No crunch of sugar this time. Something impacts his back like a small cannonball. He and his gun fly off the bank, straight into hot tea.
It's not enough to scald but it hurts anyway. He resurfaces with a furious snarl, whirls around, struggling against the current to get back to the bank. He's got tea in his fucking gills and his gun is lost in murky green grass soup, he is going to kill the --
A small girl in a huge overcoat crouches there, perfectly dry, watching him wordlessly.
He spends maybe a half-second being startled that it was Nepeta after all, and then his purple lock slops wetly across his eye and she smirks and he charges.
She's strong and he didn't expect it, and perhaps he should have. She doesn't use her hunting claws, just her own, but he's quickly smeared in purple anyway. They roll on the sandy sugar beach and throw it into each other's eyes and she mule-kicks him in the thigh trying to get at his bulge and he still doesn't get what the fuckin' hell is even going on until she catches his face between all of her claws that he even starts to get it.
And then she kisses him and he doesn't even have time wondering if perhaps he's imagining things again, because the way she's trying to chew his lips off? No he ain't.
Someone hates him, someone sees him and hates him, and he almost doesn't care that it's the chick he's barely looked twice at ever, because by gog he is finally going to get some action.
He wraps longer arms around her back to haul her in, bites back, tastes green blood, just as disgustingly cloying as it should be; he laps it off her chin, growls when she digs claws in his sides, thank fuck for his clothes because shredded gills is kinda heavy for a first date. He tries to roll now he's got her pinned and she proves he didn't have her that pinned when she managed to get enough distance' to plant her heels on his bone bulge and heave.
Ow, fuck. He rolls on the sand, lands at the edge of the tea, sits up. She's standing there with purple and green streaks all over her front, her hands. She looks wild, hair mussed into wild flying curls, fangs bared.
"Erridan Ampurra, you are the most horrible purrson I've ever met. You are selfish and you use people and you never really cared about anyone but you efur and I can't even imagine how you can live like that but it's disgusting!"
He sits up, blinks slowly. He takes the time to slick his bangs back, school his face into haughty indifference. His crotch aches. It's marvelous.
"So... does that mean you wanna hit that, blackrom style? 'cause I kinda gathered, on account a not bein' a brain-deficient feral twit."
She tackles him into the river again. He rolls with it, literally. He drags her under and mashes his mouth to hers and rolls to the bottom, presses his lithe swimmer's body to her surprising amount of compact muscles. Now they're gonna see who can breathe tea longer.
And then maybe pail some, if he's very lucky.
theunvanquishedzims asked you:
Summoner<>Tavros<3<Dave, slam battle.
"I'm, uh, perhaps in the process of, you know, rethinking this," Tavros admitted quietly. His ancestor (descendant?) wound an arm around his shoulders and hugged him to his side, and Tavros thought faintly it was a good thing he was so much taller, or they'd clang horns even more than they'd just done. Also he had to turn his head a little away in order not to hit Rufioh in the chest, which might have been somewhat painful, but now that meant he couldn't lean into his chest and shake.
Which was good because he should be brave! He had a date. He had a hate-date. He had a hate-date and he was going to woo the pants off his dark intended.
Yes.
Hopefully.
"Aw, buddy, no, no rethinking, all your brain's doing is tripping you up. There, just turn it off, you know?"
"Haha, yeah. I'll try," Tavros promised, without much hope.
He could do it despite his brain, he was sure. Yes. He could.
Rufioh stepped back from him, and around his horns -- Tavros almost clocked him in the collarbone turning his head to track him -- and stepped up face to face. He cupped Tavros' jaws in his rough hands and leaned in, big and strong and sheltering -- to press warm lips to his forehead. Tavros sighed out in quiet happiness, tilted his head up into it so Rufioh's lips slipped to the bridge of his nose, dropped a little shy kiss of his own on the side of his chin.
Whatever happened, he'd have Rufioh still. Not even his brain could make him believe he wouldn't.
He smiled up at his moirail-ancestor, gave a -- he hoped, he'd practiced -- firm nod, and went, shoulders squared bravely.
--
"Jade Jade oh gog please help we were slamming and then Nitram Minor kisses me right on the mouth, well okay a little off-center dear jegus that was lame, and then Nitram Major gives him a thumbs up oh my god why Jade you need to kiss me to wipe the horror from my mind kiss me now come on mark your territory maybe not doggy-style but it's the same instincts right I beg you please awgh awgh awgh. Nrgh."
"... Sure, no problem, but after that we need to go after Karkat. I don't know if it's another ashy thing to stop him trying to bite off people trying to blackflirt with you but I'm kinda scared he might actually end up hate-making out with Tavros instead."
"... Okay yeah, we're going now. Kiss me later, I'm holding you to it. Damn it, Vantas, cockblocking me even when you're not there, see if I don't cockblock you right back."
"Pfff."
Anonymous asked you:
For the kiss meme - maybe Condesce kisses Karkat to sort out her red feels? It beats listening to Kurloz whine again about not getting any. (Karkat: oh god empress is kissing, why is everyone kissing me, halp)
"Come here, buoy."
Nothing she can do to him would be Just, and she's not, he thinks, doing anything he needs to be heroic over -- thank fuck because he tends to drop the ball on that kind of stuff, and besides she looks pensive more than hostile or schadenfreuding. He pads closer, wings fanning out crimson behind him; her lips quirk some.
She's so tall compared to him, even now he's older, towering, and the horns...
"Scared, little guppy? Got no reason to be."
"Excuse the fuck out of me if I'm not entirely convinced, Your Condescension."
"So respectful!" she laughs, but he knows she knows he means it somewhat defensively.
It's weird but she seems vaguely hurt about it. He must be hallucinating.
"Still hoping to be my chief Treshie, or has that ship sailed?"
Karkat stares up at her, those terrifying magenta eyes, that shark smile, those spear horns, taller than he is.
"... Meenah?"
He can't help whispering. She snorts. "You sound like you don't expect me to be her. Or her to be me." She shrugs, twitches her head to remove a long black lock from her face. "Surprise! I had a wiggler name, too. I was even a wiggler once."
"No, but you -- you remember?"
Another shrug, a faint snort. "Shrimp, you got any idea at all how glubbing old I am? A miracle I even remember the face of my own coddamn lusus, and then again s' probably because I still had to feed her for a coupla centuries afore I found a coupla suckerfishes to foist it off on. The game stuff ain't slotted in all proeper, for me to remember it at all."
But she does. Oh. Karkat leans in, eyes widening a little, trying not to hope and failing. "But you're -- I mean, shit, I don't even know what I mean. Have you even changed that much? Because I -- we got along, back then, didn't we? That was... that was pretty cool." He's being so presumptuous, but she doesn't silence him, she just listens, head tilted a little.
And then she smiles, and it's so terrifying his endoskeleton turns to jelly, of fucking course. "Shore did, Karcrab. But you never did ditch those losers to come fight with me. I'm disappointed."
Karkat shivers. What the fuck is going on, there's something here but he can't figure it out. He's torn between hurrying off in terror before his empress as a fucking mutant, standing his ground as the friendleader of the goddamn party, and be glad he's seeing one person he could have been good friends with once again, when he never thought he would. It's nerve-wracking.
... Also she's looming closer. He thought it was just an optic illusion, how her hair seemed to grow and creep along the edges of his field of vision, but it's merely that she's leaning over him. Holy shit. "Yeah, uh, my bad, shit happened. I would have if I could," he assures her, and he even means it. He's trying to think of her like she's Gamzee, a terrifying murderfiend who's inexplicably fond of him and it'd be insulting not to be fond back and terror is counterproductive to survival so stuff it. He's having moderate success so far.
"I believe you," she replies around a laugh -- more sophisticated but the same underneath -- "now don't you move," and then she leans in the rest of the way.
Oh wow empress mouth.
Like. On his mouth.
It's not black, it's too light for it, but not pale either or her lips wouldn't part against his, guiding them to part in turn. They breathe the same air for a second, and he stops breathing with a gasp because isn't that disrespectful or something and she chuckles against his lips. Her tongue is oddly cold, she tastes salty, her lipstick smears on his lip a bit.
He lets her explore him for a few seconds, completely fucking stunned out of his thinkpan, and then he places a light, cautious hand on her forearm and leans back and says with perfect poise and calm, "Okay what the fuck."
She studies him for another second and then she laughs and leans back and flicks her hand, royal to her taloned fingertips, eyes coolly distant once again. He feels for an instant like he broke something fragile he's never getting back.
She turns to leave, hair swaying, horns jutting proud, and he's never going to get an explanation either and how dare he even think to ask one of her. "Meenah!" he calls despite himself. She pauses.
"Li'l me used ta like the cut of your jibe," she drawls over her shoulder, "and the fit of your pants. But you're too much of a guppy now, little school leader. Oh well, so many more fish in the sea."
Karkat stands there a long time after she's gone.