Life and Times of Teh Asuka

Two sequels to By The Letter (of the law)

Anonymous said: Dorky Knights, a couple (two??) months later, trying to make out during some free time but their mounts won't leave them alone. Bad Crow.

The good thing about being a knight lawfully wedded to another knight is that he’s always got a partner. Especially because of the political angle to being a Dersite and a Prospitian, or a troll and a human — they get lots of peacekeeping assignments, not to the level of leading war parties but sort of pre-diplomacy. Diplomacy with teeth. Flattening the ground for the real diplomacy parties — and sometimes it turns out the problem can be resolved with a good talking-to, no need to bring in his hell-sister and turn everyone inside out.

Metaphorically speaking. Most of the time. But anyway.

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Anonymous said: By the Letter (of the law), five years later

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They don't really bother with court much. Karkat didn't enjoy Prospit's court already; Derse's makes him twice as happy that he's got disputes to slap down, speeches of friendship and country-wide news to deliver, and town-to-town enmities to mediate and scratch his ashen itch on. Even if he hated his current life he would hate it less than Derse's court.

The Empresses requested their presence, though, and he's good at hating things he's got to deal with anyways.

Case in point. "Dave I swear to all that is holy if you molest my gloves again I will slap you in the face with them."

"Huh."

"In a really not sexy way."

"Aw."

Karkat clears his throat and looks away from Dave's pouting lips. "You made us late enough with the boots, let's go already." He can still feel Dave's warm hands 'helping you tuck your pants in those stupid boots properly' all over his thighs.

He tucks Dave's arm in his and hauls him out of the door.

"Do you even like that kind of pain?" he grumbles -- quietly so the servants won't catch that they're discussing their sex life in public corridors once again.

"Face-slapping? Eh." Dave purses his lips. Karkat tears his eyes away. "I'd totally tolerate it if it made your clothes fall back off. They're so pretty, they'd probably make you look twice as good naked."

Karkat rolls his eyes, and vows to work twice as hard not to let on that the stupidly fancy court clothes Dave's brother sent them to wear are stiff and scratchy and ridiculously attention-grabbing, and make him miss his traveling leathers already. The lengths one will go to in order to please their matesprit, seriously.( Read more... )

Ashen wedding! Eridan and Rose set up their extravagant ashen commitment ceremony to Karkat. Without Karkat. This is not the smoothest process in the world.

(link is not a real link. idk why sites always try to make it a real link. it is fakey mc fake.)
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-- caligulasAquarium [CA] started trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] --

CA: tellin ya noww the links you sent me all suck an i refuse to spend a dime on any a them
CA: puttin that on the table wwhere wwe can both see it
TT: It sits on the table and stares back stonily, and then hops off and disappears where the overdone metaphors go off to die.
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"Casualties?"

Dave shuffles his weight from knees to feet, straightens up. He tries not to move too fast; he's a bit dizzy. Blood loss, impacts with various hard surfaces, a severe case of emotional whiplash. His sister is at his back, a few feet away -- it's crazy how irrationally safe he feels -- so he keeps watching the rookies.

They're still dazed, but Grier doesn't need prompting to pull up a second wind barrier, just in case the demon on the other side of the street stops feeling like allowing them to chew the fat.

"Burnett's out, so is Crowbar. The rookies are mindfucked. Grier?"

"No injuries." Dave is pretty sure the man has a series of very nice, deep bruises, but he's not gonna feel them properly until later anyway, so they don't count. Dave agrees with this philosophy. Yep.

"And Karkat's got a -- at least adislocated wing and a probable concussion."

"Fuck you, my head's fine," Karkat mutters, which doesn't help; he sounds listless.

"You forgot someone, Dave," Rose says pointedly.

"... And lacerations on my arm." Which he needs to bandage the second he gets a minute, come to think of it, because it's not clotting fast enough and he's gonna get dizzy soon.

Anyway it was dislocated; it's not anymore. He'll whine about the swelling later. (What is it with his shoulders getting popped out all the friggin' time anyway, this is the second time since he summoned Karkat, it had better not become a thing.)

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For this kink meme prompt:
So, seadweller!Bro sees lowblood!Dave and it's pity at first sight. Maybe he's using weird seadweller rituals or maybe he's just being his strange self to court Dave. Unfortunately, Dave has no idea why this finface is constantly in his business. Show me how they become moirails, please. ♦

Contains: trollstuck human characters, pale ephebophilia/age difference issues, Bro being juuuust a little creepy.

Also background Dave/Terezi/Karkat shenanigans. Because I could. >__>

( ghastlyTrickster [GT] started trolling turntechGodhead [TG] )

950 words.

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Meulin told her Light and Seer, when Rose always thought herself Mind or perhaps Doom. (Seer, she has less of a strong opinion about. Not active at all, but the thirst for knowledge fits near perfectly.) Meulin said with Dirk's voice, and laughed too high and too loud, and does Rose trust her?

Not very much. Enough to risk this.

They're used to seeing her coming and going, the neighbors, and none of them remember that today, at this hour, none of her family will be here. (Especially not Dave. Especially not him.) None of the neighbors really care in this neighborhood, anyway.

She doesn't even step inside the Striders' apartment anyway. Cal is on the steps leading up to the roof; she arches a querying eyebrow at him and picks him up, carries him on her shoulder to the roof.

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This chapter contains sex. Also some ponderings about dub/noncon.

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At least Karkat has gone back to resting his chin on Dave's knee, in the week between their blow-up and Kankri's summoning. At least there's that.

There's a strange cautiousness to it now, though. Karkat will come sprawl on the couch against him, and nap on the futon, but there's -- he keeps watching Dave.

Dave tries not to notice. He often fails.

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Kankri's summoning is a lot less dramatic than Karkat's. Makes sense: Kankri is right here, and Karkat was ensconced somewhere in the farthest reaches of the demon realm. Kankri's summoning benefits from his own advice on the phase of the moon (waning, thanks ever so much for making everyone get up at three fucking AM, a time Dave had never seen from that end of the night) and other such ceremonial fiddly details; Karkat's was done pretty much blind.

Kankri wants to come; Karkat didn't.

They scream just as loud as each other.

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POLICE DETECTIVE CONSORTING WITH DEMONS IN THE FLESH!


"Jade wasn't kidding about the headline, wow," Dave says as he drops the newspaper on the passenger's seat. "PR is going to bitch forever about it."

"I don't see why," grunts the lump under the bed sheet in the passenger's side foot well. "The only thing wrong about it is that they imply I'd ever share you."

Dave snorts. That'd almost sound romantic, if you amputated the whole 'life support/food source' context first. The light turns green; he starts the car again, and Karkat makes a displeased clicking noise; after a few seconds, the newspaper disappears under the sheet. Paper rustles.

"Believe me, they're still going to shit bricks. What's the article say? Read it to me, bud."

Dave knows Karkat is annoyed about it, because he says "Yes, Master," snidely before he does. "If I had told the readership a week ago that the police of this city would summon and bind a corporeal demon, I doubt any of you would have believed me. Yet, here I am, claiming that the Detective-Summoner David L. Strider has done just that. You weren't even alone and the Seer and the Witch did most of the job, what the fuck."

"Wow, how about you switch your voice a little when you read and when you editorialize, so I can tell 'em apart. It's weird as hell otherwise."

"Denied. You told me to read it to you, you didn't tell me not to add shit in."

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Captain Egbert and Arne Revere, the City Attorney, are already here, and so is Rose; Dave leans in to shake hands and drags a chair out for himself, and then John bursts in last.

"Very good," Captain Egbert says. "Close the door, Detective."

It always amuses Dave that half the time Egbert Senior's detectives are "son" but his actual son never, lest someone accuse him of favoritism. Then again it's already pretty iffy that he has his son under his direct command, it's only because John's a summoner and they only have one division for them that it's even allowed.

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PREPARE TO BE SPAMMED. i suck and didn't update the fic here, but i've kept on writing it and it's going pretty fast so far, so now i have about six parts to post. .____.

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Inside the precinct there's a lot of sudden silence and staring when Dave comes down the stairs with Karkat in tow. The demon likes moving better on all fours, back legs folding and twitch-unfolding like a grasshopper's, and its claws clink loud on floor tiles.

"It's bound, seriously, guys, relax," he throws out there, and makes his way between partitioned desks, hands in his pockets. Karkat lets out a vibrating, crickety crackle-growl that manages both to be quiet and to carry to the ends of the room in a particularly hair-raising way.

"Maybe you could tell it not to freak out the officers," Jane whispers in his ear.

She's kidding, right? It's hilarious. "Nah, they need to steel their nerves." Out there there's loose Class Ones and Twos, bunches of criminals and lowlifes using the distraction of a demon apocalypse in progress to do their criminal thing, and criminals just plain going "hey why not" and using demons as anti-personnel weapons. There's a Don who reportedly has a Class Three at his beck and call, and it only charges a weekly street kid dinner to stay on retainer. "They'll thank us tomorrow."

Jane sighs. "I guess. At least Karkat is a vertebrate and doesn't make you feel like your eyes are about to pop like balloons trying to figure out its geometry."

Dave nods his commiseration. "Fucking six-dimensional demons, huh."

"Fucking human black hole brains," Karkat growls from down there. Dave snorts and holds the door to Captain Egbert's office open for it. It makes sure to walk close enough to rake its shoulder and wing spines nice and deep along the wood. Little brat.
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