Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

===> Eridan: Be surprised.

Whatever instinct you have is enough to propel you to return to the bowels of your ship nearly everyday.  It doesn’t matter that you know the eggs you hid there won’t hatch, just like last time and the time before that.  You have to check on them anyway.  There’s a cruel, vain hope in the back of your pan that tells you maybe this time it will different, maybe they’ll live and-  god you want to crush it under something heavy and final, but you can’t resist what it seduces you with.  So you venture down at the start of each night and gently nudge them, turning each to incubate evenly despite how heavy it makes you feel.

Nothing will come of it.  Whatever fluke of biology made you capable of conceiving your own offspring without the use of drones, or buckets, or mothergrubs had the foresight to make sure none of the little blighters got to see the light of day.  It’s an inconvenience at best.  At worst it’s... this.  A slow, agonizing descent into misery because your body and brain are hard wired to care for the stupid, useless things.  You endure it, and wonder when you’ll eventually go mad.

That’s why it comes as such a shock weeks later.  You go down one evening to find a sight that almost kills you.  One of the eggs has a tear right down the middle, opening outward like something was trying to get free.  That fucking useless hope bursts and blooms in your chest, choking off your air supply.  As you stare in disbelief, there’s movement, a subtle little wiggle and muffled chirp from within it.  It’s alive- your grub is alive, and trying to hatch, and-

Another plaintive chirp spurs you into action, and you dash across the sand to drop to your knees and gather the egg into your arms.

“Shoosh, shhh shhh baby, I’ve got you,” you soothe gently, settling your little ball of wonder into your lap.  It gives a mighty little heave at the sound of your voice, opening the crack just hair wider.  Still not enough to free itself.  It makes an awful, desperate noise and you find yourself cooing in answer, something much deeper.  You realize the grub needs your help, but you don’t want to open the egg before it’s ready.  The struggle for freedom will strengthen it, and it needs to be strong.  It needs to live this time, you can’t bear-

With bloodpusher pounding in your throat, you gently work a claw under one edge and tug at the corner of the crack.  It gives easily to you, widening the opening a good inch.  That’s enough to let the two halves move more easily, but the grub will still have to do most of the work to wiggle free.  You settle in to watch and wait, giving it encouragement in both thoughts and words.

Even with helping things along, it makes agonizingly slow progress.  You keep having to remind yourself that you can’t rush it, the grub will do things on it’s own time when it’s ready.  Between bouts of pushing and wiggling for freedom, it goes still to rest, and the cycle does things to your blood pressure that leave you breathless and dizzy.  It makes all sort of little chirps and cries though, as if to reassure you that yes, it’s still here, still alive, and very much intending to stay that way.  You answer every time: yes, I know, I’m waiting.  I’m here too.

Finally, after what feels like hours, it forces the crack wide enough for you to peek in and see it.  All at once your heart drops out of your chest and shatters.  It's strong, and healthy, and alive, and also colored so brightly red it might as well be a signal flare for culling drones.  You take a long, shuddering breath, trying not to cry, and feel the tears start tracing down your cheek anyway.  The first grub you’ve had survive and it’s an off-spectrum mutant, just like its sire.  The other two eggs have done nothing while you’ve camped in this spot waiting for this grub to be born.  That damnable little voice in the back of your head whispers, tells you they may yet have a chance.  If this one lived, then maybe...

You know better, of course.  You know exactly what you’ll find if you open those eggs, the same thing as all the other ones before; half-formed and lifeless little bodies that simply stopped at some point in development.  Your living grub squeaks, pushes it’s head against the crack then withdraws blinking, unused to the light and air outside of its cozy home.  You still purr encouragement, urge it to make the last efforts for the world beyond its shell.  

“Come on, little one, come out an’ see me.  I’m right here.”  It seems to listen, though probably just responding to your tone, not the words.  It tries again, pushing with all its might until the shell around it fractures and tears.  

You start to carefully pluck pieces away from its face and hair as it kicks and writhes free from the other half of shell.  It’s sticky and sodden, tiny enough to cradle in your hands, and extremely vocal.  It won’t stop chattering and squeaking, either announcing it’s triumph or complaining about its new environment, you can’t tell.  Certainly another thing it has in common with it’s sire.  Your windchute constricts.  Now you really can’t stop the tears, so you just snuffle, and cough, and coo at the little creature while you clean it.  

Like an idiot, you never fetched a towel or anything for it, so instead you take off your cape and start wiping your protesting grub down with that.  Egg-goo matted hair fluffs up once it’s more dry and the image is complete save for the horns.  Those the lucky little bastard managed to grow out a bit more.  Kar’s gonna be jealous.

You haven’t even told him.  Everything has been so awkward between you since that night.  You used to chat nearly every day, but now you’ve hardly spoken more than a few sentences between  you both for more than a perigee.  You never bothered telling him about the eggs because you didn’t think they would hatch.  None of the ones before did, so why would they now?  Except apparently he’s got whatever key you’re missing, and with it you created an actual life.  Part of you wonders if you should break that silence now.  Maybe it would be easier on everyone if you culled the grub yourself now, quick and painless so it wouldn’t have to feel the pain or fear of being an outcast, and Karkat would never have to know.

Your head and your heart both hurt too much to think about this right now.  Your grub has started restlessly chewing at your fingers and the cloth of your cape in what you assume are hunger signals, so you gather it to your chest and start to make the slow ascent to the main part of your hive.  Whatever decision you need to make can wait.  For now you just want to wallow in your bittersweet success.

Chapter Text

Your little red grub tore through three packets of frozen roe cubes before it was satiated enough to plop over and curl up into a sleepy ball.  You’re mesmerized simply by watching it breathe, still too stunned from it's unexpected arrival to believe it’s real.  Fear that the illusion will shatter if you move wrong or look away keeps your attention transfixed until you remember the other eggs that need something done with.  It’s not a task you’re looking forward to.

The grub seems to be totally out of it, so you should be safe to let it rest while you take care of the unpleasantness.  You don’t want to leave it sitting on the kitchen counter, though, that’s asking for disaster in one form or another.  It’s gonna need a permanent place to sleep anyway, and you’re pretty sure they don’t use sopor this young.  That’s okay, you’ve got plenty of things for a nice cozy pile, no problem.  You start going to rooms and closets, picking up anything that looks useful.

Part way through arranging a gathering of blankets, towels, old capes, and a pillow into a disused laundry basket in a corner beside your recuperacoon, the realization hits you that you’ve already made the decision to keep the mutant creature without any conscious thought.  It’s yours.  Of course you’re going to keep it, so what if it isn’t perfect?  Culling it might be better in the long run, but fuck that.  If that shouty, nubby asshole could keep himself alive all this time, your grub has gotta have a chance with your help, right?  Either way it’s yours, and the drones can have it when they pry it away from your cold corpse.

Once the bedding is arranged to your satisfaction, you go and fetch your grub.  It’s still sound asleep; doesn’t even stir when you scoop it into the crook of your arm, carry it back to your respiteblock, or deposit it into its new nest.  This isn’t going to be nearly as hard as you thought if all it’s going to do is sleep and eat.

What you have to do next is going to be draining.  The dud eggs can’t be left in your basement, they’ll rot and attract all sorts of nastiness from the water around the hive.  You have to dispose of them far enough out that it doesn’t call up anything to your shores.  It helps to think of them as inert, only objects and nothing more.  The lie only carries so far, but it helps.

You make your way back down to the lowest level of your home where the ship’s belly lies wrecked and buried fast in sand that’s accumulated for centuries.  Every step feels heavier and harder than the last.  It’s damp down here, almost always warm from the way the sand absorbs the daytime heat and releases it slowly back into the air at night.  That’s probably why the instinct to lay drives you back here whenever you have a new clutch ready.  The environment isn’t quite the same as the brooding caverns, but it’s close enough to the real thing to give the eggs what they need.  That is, if they were ever going to hatch in the first place.

Still exactly where you left them, the other two eggs sit with no change at all.  Even though you weren’t expecting anything, that still disappoints some part of you.  It stings to have all the pain and time and hard work invested into them come to nothing.  But it’s wasn’t quite nothing this time, you remind yourself.  You have a grub, these are just leftovers.

You hold the image of it- small and fragile, but so very much alive- in your mind, wrap this around yourself like armor against the dark corners where ugly, fearful thoughts lay, and move to the slug eggs.  Despite your mental preparations, something bitter still crawls up your throat, makes your vision go blurry around the edges with unshed tears.  Objectively, you can tell yourself that this is just how things go.  In the brooding caverns lots of eggs and grubs don’t make it.  They have to run the gauntlet of the trials before they’re even considered by a lusus.  That fact doesn’t ease anything as much as you had hoped.

Any expectancy left disappears in a quiet puff when you pick the first one up.  Handling them like this it’s almost easy to tell there’s no prospect of hatching.  They’re lighter than the one that held the live hatchling, with no solidness to them.  You’re not- you can’t bring yourself to look in it.  The first and only time you ever opened an egg was a mistake.  You’ll never erase the picture, or the smell for that matter from your memory.  You don’t want to know if one of these might have been your color, don’t want to see them curled and unmoving while they rot.

Instead you hug them to your chest, carefully so as not to accidentally break open the shells, and make your way out of your hive and to the dock further down the beach.  The swim from there isn’t long, just far enough out past the coral surrounding your island to reach a murky drop off.  Sitting on the edge of the dock, you strip your shoes and shirt before gathering the eggs back to you and slipping into the water.  Once you’re over the the darker water, you simply let them go.  They slowly sink out of sight and it feels anticlimactic, but that’s all there is to be done.

You haul yourself back onto the dock a few minutes later to dry and redress, feeling like you’ve been hollowed out.  Lighter, but also emptier.  Your hands are shaking.  It makes getting your shoes laced up a chore and eventually you give up all together.  You need to get back to your surviving offspring, to hold it and feel it’s warmth and vitality.  If there is a remedy for the way your pan feels like something sharp came loose and bounced around for the last few minutes, it will be that.

Chapter Text

All the tiredness in your body evaporates when you stumble back into your respiteblock.  It’s washed away by a spike of panic because your grub is gone.  It’s gone!  It’sgoneit’sgoneit’sgone- It was right there sleeping, and now it isn’t, and where the hell could it have gotten to, you had the door shut, it couldn’t-

Stop!

You take a slow breath in, let it out between clenched teeth.  Then another, then a third.  Your bloodpusher is pounding in your head, behind your eyes, and it won’t respond to any control you try to exert over it, but you do manage to stem the tide of a total break down.  Rational, you need to be rational right now.  Your grub abandoned its nest, but there are only so many places it could go being confined to this room and the adjacent ablutionblock.  

You get down on your hands and knees, trying for a better angle on the hunt.  You wish there was some way you could call it out.  Fuck, you haven’t even given it a name yet.  Are you supposed to?  Or is that a thing you’re supposed to wait until it pupates for?  God, if it even makes it to that point at this rate.  So far this has not been a stellar track record.

It can’t have squeezed under the door; beneath your desk seems barren as well.  You try to lure it out a different way when most of the hidey-holes you can find in your respiteblock have been exhausted, mimicking the little chirp-clicks that it responded to before.  You really shouldn’t be surprised when that gets an almost instant response: from the ablutionblock of all places.  Its replies are muffled, but enthusiastic.

You climb back to your feet and walk over, pushing the door wider cautiously so you don’t accidentally scare or hit it.  The smell is almost a physical smack to the face when you step in.  On the other side is a disaster area that you sure as shit did not leave after your last shower.  Some of your more expensive bottles have been knocked from their perches, and unsurprisingly, the glass ones have broken and spilled their contents over the floor, the tub, the counter and sink.  The chaos is enough to make your temples throb.  Your missing culprit isn’t in immediate view either, so you chirp again.  The answering call comes from your dirty laundry hamper.

It’s- hell fucking son of a clown- it made a new nest out of your old clothes, a process which apparently involved shredding them.  The grub chirrs happily at the sight of you, blinking up with all the guile and innocence it could possibly contain in its fat, squishy body.  Which is apparently quite a lot, because you suddenly can’t muster the energy to be mad.  It’s still safe and happy, and you’re tired beyond belief, so you do nothing more than coo and scoop the grub up from the tangle it made.  It starts attacking your fingers right away, nibbling insistently.

“You can’t possibly be hungry again,” you groan.  “It ain’t even been two hours yet, where the fuck do you plan on puttin’ it?”

Its answer is to defecate on the shirt you’re currently wearing.

You’re starting to really understand why grubs are kept securely tucked away in the brooding caverns.  They aren’t made for the surface world and it sure as fuck ain’t made for them.  Your offspring is tiny enough to get into everything, insatiably curious, but also endlessly needy, wanting constant physical contact.  The result is it often wanders off a few feet out of sight to explore a cupboard, or new room, or behind the entertainment system, before it realizes that you haven’t followed it, at which point it breaks down into loud screeching that it won’t let up until you’re summoned.  Not that you would let it too far out of sight, because it’s main method of investigation involves testing everything with its teeth.  It's fifty-fifty odds on whether that means it will destroy something valuable, or ingest something inedible.

This carries on for somewhere close to forty minutes while you either herd the little creature away from more dangerous things with a foot, or pick it up and carry it some place entirely new.  Why do you have so much utterly useless, yet unambiguously lethal stuff lying around anyway?  You’re pretty sure that power pack was drained of all its charges sweeps ago, now it's just sitting around waiting for some fool to puncture the core so it can leak radiation over everything.  And that  pile of broken wands is nothing but splinters, it's a wonder you haven't stepped on it during a mid-day water run.  You don’t even like stuff to do with magic any more, haven’t since you were four!

Everywhere you look it seems like you’re noticing a new and inventive way for your grub to kill itself that you didn’t even think of.  The next time you go to cut off its scurrying advance toward a tangle of cables that no longer go to anything (you’re pretty sure the equipment got traded to Captor in exchange for some computer work last dark season so he could cannibalize them for parts) it spins a half circle and savages you shoe in retaliation, then stops mid chomp to let out a squeaky yawn, and plops its head right down to take a nap on your foot. Your bloodpusher melts right out of your chest.

It growls a sleepy protest but otherwise doesn’t stir when you scoop it back up and go to deposit it in the nest again.  This time you fish some former clothing out of the hamper and tuck the grub in with an old pajama shirt.  You figure it was the smell that lured it in the first place.  When it woke up to find you missing, it followed it’s nose to the closest thing.  Maybe it will stay put this time.  Next you retrieve a broom, dust pan, and some towels, and start in on the bathroom.  It’s amazing how long it takes to undo a mess that was made in only a few minutes.  You’re starting to think you hatched a miniature typhoon.  

An inquisitive, squishy typhoon.  Better start grub proofing the place while you’re cleaning.

By the time you’re stowing your cleaning supplies back where you found them, you are tired, sweaty, and ready for your own nap.  Hell, it’s late enough you might as well call it a night and tuck into your ‘coon for the morning. 

The grub has other ideas, because it pokes it’s head up, bright as the dawn, when you walk into your respiteblock.  Weariness drags your fins and your feet down, but when it chirp-clicks excitedly at you, and you can’t fight picking it back up to tuck under your chin and cuddle.  Its chirs jump in volume and pitch, happy as anything to be in your arms.  

Something sharp and hot and soft around all your ragged edges settles in your bones, makes you heavy and light at the same time.  Even though the capricious little worm starts nipping at your chin and fins, and sopor is calling like a forbidden treasure, you shoulder all the tiredness and turn back toward your kitchen.

Chapter Text

Grubs seem to operate on a very rushed time schedule, or at least yours does.  It wants food constantly, and passes out the end result almost as often.  Not always in the predictable direction either.  You’ve had two more shirt changes since the first one, and the last time you went the smart route and found an old t-shirt.  Turns out not always throwing away useless shit can be helpful too.  You’re ready for anymore accidents with paper towels and grim determination.

When it isn’t eating it’s napping, and between both are bouts of brief, but intense activity.  The purpose of most things it does are completely incomprehensible to you.  Fair guess that it’s just following basic instinct, but in your hive most of those are obsolete.  There’s no prey to hunt, and no predators to hide from.  That doesn’t stop the grub from following through it’s natural patterns though.  Shifting furniture around has blocked off most of the holes and gaps it tried to squeeze into before, but it seems to have figured out the game has been altered against its favor.  It’s sitting in the middle of the open room and shrieking up a storm.

 “You get that from your sire,” you inform it.  The grub replies with an affronted squeal and head butts the couch blockade.  “No, hey, come on, you’ll hurt yourself doing that!”

You quickly grab it off the floor and get a hand full of needle teeth for your efforts.  Ungrateful little brat, you’re trying to stop it from concussing itself!  Apparently “Attack on Eridan’s Hand” is the hot, new entertainment; when you try to pry it’s mouth away it growls playfully, and switches to curling around your wrist, and kicking with its grippy little claws instead.  Fucking OW.

“That’s enough a that!” you snap.  It squeaks out a startled chirp at your tone and lets go, thank god... only for the peace to last no more than a few seconds as its tiny face crumples up in complete misery, and it produces a headache inducing wail.  

 “No, oh no no no, shoooosh!  Shh shh, I didn’t mean to scare you, shh!”  You bundle it up against you shoulder, attempt to assuage it with more shushing, and rocking, and gentle back pats, but it would seem the offense was just too much this time for quick soothing.   The grub clings to you, and smooshes its face into the collar of your shirt, muffling its squall, but not actually diminishing the intensity.  Your blood pusher goes squash with guilt, right into your stomach, like you kicked it across the room rather than just raised your voice a little.

There has to be something in this rotted old boat to distract it.  You were never much the kind of troll for throwing things away, and your lusus liked to pack rat too.  The hive was big enough for it; if the clutter ever got too much, you used to just shovel it all into a spare room somewhere, and forget about it.  Maybe there’s something from your wigglerhood that you could still squeeze some use out of.

There are halls, and doors, and cubbies, and spaces that have gone ignored for sweeps.  As you pace down the corridors and make consoling sounds at your grub, you dig into your memories, and try to locate the most likely place your old things would have been kept.  Eventually, you find it in a tiny room; one that you never used yourself, but was a retreat for your lusus.  

Fuck you miss the dumb horse.  The quietly stinging pit that gets uncovered every time you think about him too long is something you’re used to at this point.  Of course, there’s an extra twinge when you briefly bump into the idea of how nice it would be to have his help with your new bundle right about now.  Down that way lies anger, regret, and a whole slew of other nastiness you’ve long since shoved into the box of Nope, Don’t Care, so back in it goes.

There’s a trunk in one corner of the room, sturdy enough to be secure, but light enough for the old skyhorse to have easily used it.  It’s not locked; you squeeze the latch release and flip the lid open.  It’s honestly a mess inside.  All sorts of “first” things are stuffed into it with no organization until it looks like it would overflow: cape, dumb, pointy hat, fake beard, another stupid wand...  Oh, hey, there’s something that looks like it might be useful!  Shifting aside a tiny shirt (wow, did you ever fit into that?) you find a brightly patterned ball that gives a merry jingle when you nudge it.  At the sound, your hiccuping grub snuffles and chirps inquisitively.  Score.  You keep digging, no need to stop at one thing if there’s more in here.  

 A small pile of useless junk later (seriously, why did dad keep that chipped crystal ball, or that wood rocking seahorse that you broke the tail off of?) you’ve obtained a handful of toys you think might be suitable for a young troll.  The grub is happily savaging a fish shaped teether, and you have the ball and a weird little wind up wad of fluff that may have actually been shaped like and animal at one point tucked under the other arm.  As an afterthought, you grab the wizard hat too, and some old scraps of fabric that you have no idea what they might have once been.  You figure he might like to hide or nest in them.

Somehow, the direct journey back to your recreationblock seems longer than the initial search around the hive.  You can’t be bothered to rearrange the furniture wall, so you clamber over the back of the couch, precariously balancing grub and found objects.  On the other side, you plop heavily onto the floor, and arrange them all around you in a scattered ring so the grub can move from one item to the next like some sort of half-assed scavenger hunt.  It leaves off chewing the fishy to launch itself at the ball as soon as it hears it, earlier affront and following temper tantrum seemingly completely forgotten.  Its enthusiasm for play is almost contagious.  If only you didn’t feel so much like closing your eyes right now.

It shows no signs of tiring though, so you help amuse it by inventing games, poking the ball away when it tries to pounce, or hiding it behind your back to produce it on the other side of you.  The grub chirps, and clicks, and squeals joyfully every time, like you performed some trick of magic.  Silly, darling thing doesn’t even have object permanence yet.  

You lay sprawled out on your belly, and become part of the game, some exciting new terrain to climb and conquer, and the grub takes great satisfaction in perching between your horns, and snuffling into the tousled mess your usually styled mane has become.

Then you blink and... time goes funny.  Kind of sideways.  You must have dozed off; the pattern of the wood grain is pressed into the side of your face and- urgh, your chin is slimy with drool.  The grub woke you up, chewing thoughtfully on your nose in the way that says it’s hungry again.  The room won’t solidify into definite shapes beyond a certain point, no matter how much you squint at it.  Shit, where did your glasses go?  You don’t remember taking them off...

Your little bit squeaks, and chomps a tad harder to get its point across.  

“Ow, fuck.  Fine.  Forget the glasses,” you grouse.  It chirps in agreement.  You pull yourself creakily to your feet, scoop up the grub, and start shuffling toward the culinaryblock, kicking toys out of the way.  Something  clatters across the floor when your foot connects, slips under the scant space under the couch.   Welp, you have a sneaking suspicion to where your eyewear is now.  Screw it, the thermal hull ain’t that far.

Feels like your brief nap only tripled your exhaustion.  You don’t even realize that you’re also ravenously hungry until you’re shoving a plate at the grub.  Fancy preparations are beyond you at this point, so you pull out the little sack of muscles you scrapped off your dock pylons the other day, and sit listlessly shucking them with your teeth, and slurping out the insides while your offspring makes fast work of its own meal.  The sense of relief that washes over you when it can’t even finish the last portion before it starts making adorable, squeaky yawns is pure bliss.  Shit, you are tired.

The respiteblock and it's recuperacoon full of tantalizing sopor might as well be miles away.  The couch, however, is right there.  You carry your grub over, flop backward onto the cushions, and let its tiny purr of contentment lull you both back to sleep.

Chapter Text

The jingle ball’s happy rattling startles you out of bizarre, formless dreams.  The grub is back to being a constant blur of activity, having wiggled off your chest and down to the floor at some point while you slept.  You are... not rested, not by a long shot, but you think you can face a little more of the night now.  Or day.  What time is it even?  Squinting around for a clock doesn’t help, your vision is even more crap when you’ve just woken up.  Where did-  oh.  Right.

You don’t even bother standing, just sort of shuffle your butt from the cushions onto the floor, and sprawl out on your side.  The gap between the bottom of the furniture and the floor is hardly enough to allow for your hand up to your wrist, but luck is taking pity on you right now.  The glasses are in easy reach of your fingers.  You pull them out, spend a moment or two fumbling them onto your face, then peer at the nearest timekeeping device in your vicinity

The numbers don’t want to line up in your head at all.  That time can’t be right; either you’ve gone backwards, or it’s been a full day-night cycle and then some since your new guest arrived, and you’ve gotten a combined total of just over two hours worth of sleep.  A heavy sigh escapes you as you drop your head to the floor.  A moment later something is softly clicking in your ear, and bumping inquisitively against your cheek.  The grub chirps for attention, keen to interact since you’re on its level.  You pick it up around its middle, and dangle it overhead while its wee legs flail at the air.

“What am I gonna do with you?” you ask it.  The grubs only reply is to burble happily, and continue waving its claws.  “Yeah, that’s your answer to everythin’.” 

Quite satisfied to have been of help, the grub wiggles to be put down so it can continue playing.  You watch it for sometime, hazy ideas drifting in and out of focus, examined for potential solutions and discarded.  This is the longest, hardest battle you’ve ever fought, and it’s only just started.  You are weary down you your marrow without enough rest, and there’s still more trials to come that you can’t put off.

There is another mouth you have to feed, and she will not bide for long.  Your organs twist up in slick knots at the thought of losing what’s precious to you because you couldn’t balance your love with your duty.  You’ve done it before, you know it would be too easy.

Fact one: you are determined to keep your grub alive and safe, even if you have to beat the whole damn world back from your doorstep to do it.

Fact two: this is impossible to do by yourself.

Fact three: you have no saintly idea who you can trust with such a precious secret.  Hope (vain, smug hope, you want to stab it in the ear) whispers tantalizing yarns of clade and safety.  Something electric warm, and entirely yours.  Practicality says that’s a stretch, but you haven’t got many options left here, do you?  Fuck them both, you’ll be the one to say what options you have and haven’t got.  But even as you think that, you know what you have to do.

God, this whole mess screwed everything up between you, and the person you once counted as your best friend.  All the shit you’ve pulled in the past, and he still put up with all of it, until the desperate heat possessing your body betrayed you both one day.  It was awkward and terrible aftward. He didn’t seem mad, but he wasn’t happy either, and neither of you have said one damn thing about it since the half-stuttered apologies, and sort of strained joking that let you both retreat with your metaphorical tails between your legs.

Fuck, he probably hates you.  You hate you, not like it’s that much of a stretch.  Fine, better get this over with.  Just like ripping off a sanitary adhesive strip, right?  One that’s been stuck in place for months, and is probably festering undernea- fuck, stop thinking and just do it already!

You heave yourself to your feet, and the grub chirps inquisitively after you while you navigate the furniture wall to go fetch your husktop.  You can’t get more than two feet before it pitches into distressed trilling, so you pluck it up and take it with you.  This is going to a be A Thing, you can tell.  

It’s been a day and some hours since you’ve even had time to check Trollian.  When you flip your computing device open, you’re half hoping his name will be grayed out (always gray anyway, everything wrapped in a solid wall of neutral nothing, and you’ve become one of the few, if not only, privy to why), but if there’ a troll with worse sleeping habits on a normal day than what you’ve been forced to endure over the last few hours, it’s Karkat Vantas.  

You stare at it, clicker thing hovering, but finger refusing to click.  The black bar in the chat box blinks impatiently at you, and the grub nibbles thoughtfully at your sleeve while you try to figure out what you’re going to say, work up the courage to say it.  In the end, the easiest words are ones you’ve typed countless times before.

There’s a drawn pause, and your pusher rate ratchets up a notch or five without any of your say-so.  You find yourself absently petting the spiky fuzz between your grubs horns.  Its happy little purr soothes over the sparking edges.

You grin in spite of your nerves.  Karkat is still indomitably Karkat.

The letters are moving under your fingers while you try to type a reply.  Takes a second to realize it’s because your hands are shaking, and another to steady them.

You get half way through typing, ‘kar i wwould nevver-’ before you hit backspace.  He doesn’t know that.  You didn’t tell him anything about your weird bullshit, because you hadn’t thought it was going to affect him.  Then it did, and you still didn’t tell him shit.  You are pretty much the worst friend ever.

That is the hardest thing you have ever typed.  You don’t really know what you’re going to do, or who you’ll be able to turn to if he drops your sorry glutes like he should have done.  You won’t be mad, but fuck you can’t stop being terrified.  He takes his time to reply, and you feel the resolve you dredged up to get through this conversation crumbling with every second.  You curl around your grub like it will somehow ward off what’s coming.

You feel like you just dodged a literal bullet. Or maybe even won the lottery?  Kar still wants to be your friend!  This doesn’t fix things, not by a long shot, but it’s a step in the right direction.  The sigh of relief you breathe comes out half a sob.  Your grub starts making concerned clicking noises as you hug it, and stiff back tears.

“It’s okay baby, it’s going to be okay,” you croon to it.  It’s going to be okay.  It is.  It has to be.

There’s an awkward moment after your good byes where you want to... do something?  It feels like you’ve left your tenuous reconciliation dangling over a cliff.  Whatever it is, you’re sure the impulse will get you in trouble, so you’re thankful his screen name blips over to offline status before you can go through with whatever terrible idea your thinkpan was trying to come up with.

The grub has started chewing on your shirt collar, offering a distraction.

“Let’s go stuff our faces,” you tell it cheerfully.  It chirrs a happy reply the whole way to the kitchen.

Chapter Text

===> Eridan: Be Karkat.

===> Karkat: Freak out.

No.  Fuck you, you are doing no such thing.  You are calm.  You are chill as an arctic lake in the dark season.  You are an unshakeable rock of stability, and no floundering fin face is going to flap the unflappable.  So what if you’ve been pacing your hive and glancing at the clock since you got up?  A little vigorous exercise is good for the metabolism.  And maybe you got up a little extra early, but that’s good, okay, everyone likes an early riser.  It’s not because you couldn’t sleep, fuck you for thinking that.

You lusus’ joints creak with age as he clacks and shuffles into the foodprepblock where you’re glaring at the breakfast sandwich that refuses to heat evenly.  He stoops to lean up against you, butting his head into your arm and clicks.  He knows you’re wound up.  You can hide it from everyone else, but not him.  Sighing, you loop your arm around his neck, close your eyes and breathe.

Eridan had contacted you last morning.  Said it was important.  Said it was urgent.  Said ‘how soon can you come over to my hive where you will be alone in the middle of the ocean, kar?’  Okay he didn’t say that specifically, but that sure as shit is the reality of the situation.  You shouldn’t have agreed.  You should go back to your husktop and call this off, you’re not ready for it yet.  You aren’t ready to face him again after- after-

You swallow and your lusus clicks reassuringly.  He doesn’t have much time left, you can tell.  Weeks or perigees, you aren’t sure, but it doesn’t matter.  You know he’d give everything to keep you safe, the dumb, overly sentimental crab.  You’re going to need to count on that tonight.  Just in case.

It’s not that you don’t trust Eridan, but it’s... yeah, okay you don’t trust Eridan.  You want to believe him.  God, do you ever.  It hurts.  This thing where you and your best friend kind of accidentally pailed, and he found out the color of your gross, red sludge, then didn’t speak to you for fucking perigees...  

Yeah, you didn’t really do anything on your end to fix that either, but you were scared, okay?  Eridan was never very open minded on things like the hemocaste and blood inheritance.  What were you supposed to think when he stopped talking to you?  You knew he’d killed trolls before.  You were perfectly aware of just how dangerous a guy like Eridan Ampora could be, and you took it as some kind of sentimentality on his part that he never turned you in to be culled, and counted your blessings (exactly one).  Now he messages you out of the blue, saying how much he wants to be friends still.  Fuck.  You want to believe that.  You weren’t lying when you said you missed his insufferable, smug ass, you want to believe you can go back to being friends and pretend like this mistake never happened.

(You wish you could say it wasn’t a mistake.  You wish you could explain how much you actually liked that day, and the feel of him, and the way he-)

Swallow again, blink hard and sniff.  Your lusus has taken up crackling a sound like purring.  You pat his head (the shell is dull and chipped, and you don’t remember it getting to this point), take your stupid, soggy breakfast sandwich out of the heating unit knowing it’s still going to be frozen in the middle despite the melted cheese having hardened into rubber around the edges, and go to prepare.

You haven’t taken your lusus with you out of the hive since you were a small wiggler, and now you feel kind of bad about that.  He’s obviously enjoying the wind whistling over his carapace.  He snaps his claws and screes like he hasn’t been rattling around your hive for the last sweep or so.  You regret a little that this might be the last time he gets to experience that.

With nothing around but miles of ocean, you see Eridan’s hive long before the shuttle reaches it.  Gives enough time for the anticipation to build up in your gut and turn sour. By the time you’re stepping down onto the wooden planking of the landing deck, you can’t tell if your queeziness is from motion sickness or nerves.  You have to help your lusus down after you; he might be feeling a bit more frisky, but he’s still creaking around the edges.  Once he’s down the shuttles lifts off and departs, leaving you isolated on the deck with your lusus and the wind.

Eridan doesn’t come out to greet you, which is odd.  He must have heard the shuttle arrive.  Stuffing down your anxiousness, you approach the door and knock.  Then knock again, louder.  On the third try, you finally catch the muffled sound of someone swearing, then shouting. “Hang on, I’m coming!”

The knob rattles and you flex your fingers over your strifespecibus on instinct.  Then Eridan opens the door, and all the possibilities and contingencies you’d been running through in your head the last several hours come crashing down in  pile of burnt wreckage.

“Holy shit dude, you look awful!”

“Gee, thanks,” he dead pans, and shit, shit you didn’t mean it like that, but fuck!  Fuck!  He’s a mess; his hair isn’t styled, his shirt is stained and hole filled, and he’s got bags under his eyes to rival yours on your worst nights.  He isn’t even wearing his rings, or scarf, or anything!  You have never seen Eridan look less put together in your life, and you’ve seen him fresh out of the ‘coon, pupa naked, and still sticky with slime.

All at once your worry soaked pan starts conjuring up new narratives.  Is he sick?  Oh god, is he dying?  Is that why he wanted to see you now, because he wants one last chance to make amends with you?

No. You aren’t going to let that happen, that’s not even a little bit fair.  Fuck him and fuck the universe, you will drag his ass backward out of hell if you need to, but he’s not going to die as long as you’re here.

“Eridan, I mean it, get your ass into your ‘coon and get some rest.”  You start pushing him backwards, shoving your way through his door.  He digs in his feet, and you stop dead cold.  Well whatever it is, it’s not affecting his highblood strength any.  He sighs, and looks at you with longing- not the sexy kind, but the way someone walking through a desert might look at an oasis still out of reach.

“I’m gonna.  I mean, I want to, and I will, but-”  He sighs again (even sounds exhausted), drops his gaze to the side then freezes.  “You brought your lusus?”

“Uh...” oh right.  How did you forget about that?  You glance over your shoulder to see he’s comfortably settled himself in a coil of rope and looks like he has no intention of moving anytime soon.  “Yeah, he uh... he really needed the exercise.”

“Oh,” Eridan says, “is it alright if you leave him out here for a bit?”

The nagging voice of suspicion screams at you not to, don’t trust him, don’t go in alone but-

But clearly he’s been through some shit, and you don’t think he called you over to fuck with you.

“Yeah, that’s fine.”  You walk over to your lusus, pat him on his head and tell him to stay.  He snorts, the beginning of a snore.  Well, so much for him being back up if things had gone south.  Hell, maybe he’s already sensed out Eridan’s motives way before you.  Lusii are weird like that.  Eridan is standing a ways inside when you come back, allowing you through the door, but not much farther.  You close it behind you so he can see you’re being sincere.

He doesn’t relax much.  In fact he looks cagier than ever.  “Kar, uh... fuck.  There’s somethin’ I gotta tell you about.” His eyes keep flicking between you, the door, and back behind him.  He takes a breath, lets it out slow and shaking like it was supposed to carry words, drags in another and just swears with that one.  

You can’t stand him like this, like something sharp and painful has gotten lodged somewhere and he can’t get words or feelings around it.  He wasn’t this bad even after the whole Feferi fiasco, and that was crap storm of epic proportions.  On some stupid impulse you reach for his hand.

“Hey, take it easy.  I’m here, I’ll help, just tell me what’s going on.”

He looks at your twining fingers dumbstruck for a moment.  Then the smallest, most fragile, and hopeful smile you’ve ever seen him wear blooms across his face.  He squeezes.

“Right.  Maybe I should just show you.”

He leads you back into his main livingblock and that’s-  wow it’s even more of a mess than he is.  He’s got all of the furniture in this block shoved together in a ring in one corner.  There’s a mop and cleaning shit in disorganized clusters everywhere.  He lets go of your hand to walk over to his furniture ring, and you feel briefly stricken without it.  He doesn’t climb over it, just leans down and picks something up.

It squeaks.  He chirps a noise at it that you’ve never heard a troll make before, yet you’re strangely, instinctively drawn to it.  You draw closer, try to peek over his shoulder before he turns around and presents you with-

“What.  The fuck.  Is that.”  You already know, but that part of your pan has shut down.  No Karkat here today, thank you, try again later!  You want to believe it’s some sort of new game grub except game grubs don’t have grey chubby faces, or sturdy orange horns, and they aren’t bright fucking red, nothing is bright fucking red but you, what-

Eridan pulls back, hugs the thing that’s started chirping inquisitively at you to his chest, and hunches around it.

“It... it’s ours.”

“ ‘Kay,” you hear yourself say distantly.  Then you have to stop thinking for a while.

Chapter Text

You don’t pass out.  Not quite.  Not all the way anyway.  But your ass does hit the solid wooden floor of Ampora’s hive a bit harder than it would have if you were actually in full command of your limbs, and had instructed them to recline you onto your posterior properly.  Ow.  

The shock radiating up your spine clears your head a little at least.  Wakes it right up out of the fuzzy pre-panic defense your brain had thrown over reality.  Your claws dig into the wood grain as your whole body tenses over in flight-or-flight.  For a brief, rare moment you open and close your talk flaps, and absolutely fuck all will come out, but when it does, it comes out half shrill and makes Eridan flinch back further.

“Why the empress fondling fuck have you got a grub in your hive, Eridan!?  Do you want to get culled?”  

“Because it’s mine!  It- cod damn it, Kar, I just told you!”

You can not believe how much of an idiot that your... that he’s being.  Maybe you shouldn’t be surprised considering some of his past stunts, but fuck, he’d learned better by now!  Or at least you thought he had.  Eridan had seemed to mellow out a bit over the last couple of sweeps.  After the whole flushing his moirail fiasco, and then your first adult molts he’d stopped some of his more erratic and over the top shenanigans.  You figured the looming prospect of Ascension had helped him pull his head out of his ass, but no.  No!  Apparently he was just digging himself an entirely new hole!  And now he’s pulling you down into it with him.

The thought, and the hot, watery feeling of betrayal that crawls down your throat from it, that this is a desperate grab at you for a quadrant, makes you want to throw up.  You smoosh your hands against your face, run them up and into the tangle of your hair to grab, and tug while sighing through clenched teeth.

“Alright.  Okay.  This is... I can fix this.  We’ll call Kanaya and she can-”

“NO!”  His shriek makes you jump, landing hard on your already bruised butt.  Double fucking ow, you need that thing to sit.  “No, you can’t tell anyone else!  Look, if you don’t want to help, then leave, I won’t even try to stop you, but please, Kar.  Don’t tell anyone.”

Eridan’s eye’s are impractically big behind his slightly scuffed glasses.  The grub has turned its face into his shirt and started rapidly clicking in a way that rends your already anxious bloodpusher into pieces, while Eridan’s hunched so tight around it he’s practically turned into a ball.  Your anger wilts.

“Eridan.  We have to put it back.”

“There is no back,” he says, and then, then he starts to giggle in a way that isn’t funny at all.  “You actually don’t get it.  You think I stole this grub or somethin’, don’t you.  Sure, I just waltzed into a cave, an’ picked up the first little mutant squirmer I saw!”

He suddenly advances on you.  You have to fight every instinct you have to hold your ground, and not scramble backwards on your hands and butt.  Then he bends down and plops the wriggling, squealing grub right into your lap, and you almost scream because oh god, you touched it, and it’s weird, and squishy, and LOUD now that Eridan’s not holding it, and it tries to twist away from you.

“Fuckin’ look at it, Kar!”

You do, or you try to.  It’s trying to squirm out of your grasp, and you have no idea how to hold it.  You don’t want to hurt it, it feels so soft, like doughy velvet, but you don’t want to drop it either.  Eridan settles into a crouch beside you, reaches out to stroke the dark fluff on top of its head and, and coos.  You’ve never heard him make such a soft trilling noise before.  You’ve never heard that out of any troll, but it visibly soothes the fussing creature in your arms, and it scratches some of that fretting itch in the back of your pan too.

The grub is still panting.  You can feel its heaving breath moving its whole body, as well as tiny trembles ghosting through your palms.  It’s a curled up tube of squish.  Bright red like you probably were, imperial red, a color that you’ve been conditioned to avoid.  Big bug eyes dominate a pudgy, disturbingly trollish face that’s flanked by tightly curled in fins, and there’s feathery slits behind its first set of legs that you know will become gills if it lives to pupate.  Maybe it will get more use out of those than you did yours, assuming it gets to use them at all.  It’s hair is all wild and poofy, like yours was when you wore it longer, and the horns poking out are blunt.

But those aren’t exactly like yours.  The horns are longer, and they don’t just point up like rounded off turrets, but instead they suddenly bend back at a sharp angle kind of like-

A lot like...

“Oh.  Fuck."  The realization punches a clear, bright hole through your chest that burns.  There’s no way, that’s not possible, that can’t... even if Eridan kept a bucket, you wouldn’t be starting at the result of your combined slurry in only a few perigees, it makes no sense!  Still hurting for breath, you croak, “How?

His bitter laugh breaks over your soul.  “Turns out, I’m some kind a mutant freak too.  Crazy right?”  And on his next exhale the laugh is a sob, and it destroys you.

“Oh god, Eridan, I’m sorry.  I’m so fucking sorry, shit, shit!”  You did this.  You put him in this situation, it’s your fault.  How can he even stand talking to you?  He should hate your guts, but instead he’s collapsing against your shoulder, and tangling his claws in the fabric of your shirt while trying to smother each tear choked sound.  

The grub resumes its alarmed chittering at the distress of its... its parent.  You don’t know what to do.  Apologies are useless, but they keep rolling out of your mouth; you can’t stop or stifle the flow of nonsense noise.

“I’m the worst friend, god.  I’m such shit, I screwed up so bad this time. I- I’m sorry-”

“Stop,” he coughs out, sniffs and blinks, “Just stop.”

“Sorry,” you say again, then stuff your knuckles into your mouth to keep any more bullshit from spewing out all over him.

“You didn’t know,” he sighs it against the place where your shoulder and neck meet.  The shiver it causes isn’t pleasure or fear alone, but a mix of the two.

“You did?”

“Not exactly.  I didn’t know this,” he gestures at the quietly fussing grub, “was gonna be a thing.  Never was before.”

Your nape prickles.  “Before?”

“Forget it,”  he sounds so weary, you drop it, but that doesn’t make the crawling in your guts go away.  For several long minutes after that, neither of you says anything.  You’re still processing the last half hour or so of your life, and it’s ability to take yet another strange twist that will likely end up with your head neatly decorating a trident.  The grub doesn’t stop making tiny, unhappy noises until you carefully pass it back to the security of Eridan’s arms.

“What do you want me to do?” you ask as he tickles its belly.  It growls and curls up to bite him, but he doesn’t seem bothered by the sharp teeth, or prickly claws.  

“I don’t know.  I don’t even know what I’m doin’, but I can’t do it by myself anymore.”

Gears spin then click into place.  You glance toward the door then back to Eridan and the grub.  “Maybe my lusus could help.”

“Kar!” Eridan gapes at you, and  draws back, protectively hugging the grub again.  You didn’t even notice how nice it felt to be so close, enough to touch again until the distance reappeared, and you feel stupidly bereaved over it.  “Lot’s a lusii kill an’ eat strange grubs an’ wigglers.  Reduces the competition.”

“Lots of them don’t.  And the grub isn’t exactly strange.  I mean it looks enough like me, and the old guy’s been really clingy and sentimental.  We could try, and if he rejects the grub I’ll be here to hold him off.”

He still looks dubious, but he’s considering it.  A moment passes and his shoulders sag.  “Yeah, okay.  Go get him.  But I’m getting a gun.”

It takes you a stupidly long time to convince your dumb old crab to get up and follow you.  He was pretty comfy on his rope coil bed.  Once he’s up, he spends even more time whuffling at your hair and carefully grooming your face with his mandibles.  When you were a teen you used to hate his overbearing affection, but lately you’ve been indulgent.  It’s not like you’ve got a lot more time left together.  You hope with the desperation of a thirsty man in a desert that this works.

You finally get him to follow you into the hive and down the hall, only to find, to your dismay, Eridan has made good on the threat to get a gun.  He’s not being threatening with it though, just keeping it close.  The grub is settled into the crook of his other arm and blissfully unaware of the tension while it teeths at a rubber squeak toy.

“Okay,” you signal, “Bring it over.”

Eridan does, moving carefully and slow so he doesn’t startle either grub or crab.  You tug on one of your lusus’ horns, guide it’s face into range, and wait without letting go.  You think both of you are holding your breaths while it gives the grub a good sniffing.  It only takes a moment for your lusus to make up its mind about the mini mutant, and then he chitters excitedly like you haven’t heard in a long time.  Eridan goes to pull back, but you smile and pats the crab’s chipped up shell with affection.

“He’s okay, I think.  You don’t have to hover.”

“I kinda do,” Eridan bites back still tense, but he disappearifies the gun back into his strife deck.  The grub has lost interest in its toy and started waving its spiky claws at your lusus who obliges the gesture with the same grooming you got earlier.  It’s kind of pusher warming to see him getting all worked up over over the little creature. They seem agreeable enough that you let go of his horn and move to be less in the way.

Eridan, to your surprise, places a hand against the crab’s broad skull and strokes his palm down from crown to snout.  He looks... oh.  Yeah.  You remember that.  You remember getting the news, and watching him deflect consolation and sympathy until you got a Trollian message in the middle of one afternoon that read “im not okay”.  You stayed up with him over video chat while he cried, bitter at the situation, and angry with himself for being so wrecked over it.  Thinking about it now makes a lump climb up your throat.

As you watch, Eridan’s tension slowly drains away.  He goes lax, and then more than that, posture slumping with the exhaustion he’d been hiding.  You reach an unsure hand out, still not certain on the boundaries of touch (you never knew, and you still don’t know, and the not knowing eats you alive).

He bends to your touch, and is lead placidly to his relocated reclining platform, and your lusus slowly shuffles after, still enraptured by the new grub.

“Eridan, you need to get some sleep.”

“I will, I just have to... uh.”  He falters.  You gently nudge him and his head snaps up.

“Feed it!  You gotta feed it.  Every couple a hours.”

“Uh huh,” you nod.

“And it naps after that-”

“Right.”

“And you gotta clean up after it.  Shit, I should make something for you to feed it-”

“Eridan,”  you snort, “I know where you keep your food.”

“Yeah, a course.”  He looks to you, biting his lip in a frown, then back to his- your- grub, then, much more carefully than the first time, he places it into your arms.  Almost immediately its cries turn agitated.  

“I think it hates me.”  Fuck, what if you really can’t do this?

“It just doesn’t know you yet, Kar.  Hang on, I got an idea.”  Eridan hops back over the furniture ring and disappears out of your field of vision while you’re focused on the grub.  You almost jump when he drapes a loop of cloth over your neck from behind you.  From the color you recognize it instantly, it’s one of his pretentious scarves.

“What the f-”

“It smells like me.  Here, hold it like this.”  He leans over you from behind, and circles his arms around yours.  Heat sparks in you belly when his cheek brushes against the outer shell of your ear, but it’s washed out by the warm, tight fluttering that blooms in your chest as he pulls the squirming grub up to be cradled close against you.

“Tell it that it’s gonna be okay.”

“Um, you’re okay,” you say to the fussing creature.  Eridan snorts hard enough to blow a tuft of your hair out of place.

“Not like that.”

“Eridan, I don’t know how,” you grumble.

“You probably do.  Try it.”

Your first try all you can muster is an embarrassed cough, but you try again to mimic that sound he made earlier.  It comes out lower than his, all rough and grating, like someone forgot to oil the gate to their lawn ring the season before dark, and now it sticks halfway open.  You think it’s a gross sound, and you can’t imagine anything being comforted by the distorted noise you’re vomiting up until the grub starts chirping the smallest off key harmony.  Butterflies explode.  You’re immolated, destroyed, completely undone by one fresh-hatched worm’s approval.  

“Oh.” The word is more breath than voice, your lips forming around the it when the grub bumps its head against your chin affectionately.

“Nothin’ to it,” Eridan’s voice has softened too as he props his elbows up on the back of the reclining platform, “you got this.”

“I got this,” you repeat after him, then you turn and gently headbutt his cheek.  “Go to ‘coon.”

“Okay,” he agrees, but hesitates after, looking at you like he’s trying to pry you apart with his mind.  There’s a handful of heartbeats that are too loud in your ears, and you want to will him closer, beg, and say please, for what, you don’t even know.  But the moment passes, and then he’s pulling away again.  You swallow around a tongue that feels too large and dry for your mouth.

“Come get me if you need me,” he tells  you.

“I will,” you promise.  And then he’s gone.

Chapter Text

===> Eridan: Sleep.

Just getting undressed is a struggle, and you end up giving up on the pants because complex things like buttons and zippers are too much for you right now.  You barely remember to put your glasses someplace safe this time before pouring yourself into the recuperacoon.  Sopor embraces you in a warm oblivion. 

Then you surface.  Confused worry nibbles on your thinksponge until you paw the time keeping device you have by your coonside into closer view, then it morphs into just plain annoyance.  It’s been less than an hour.  You’re still exhausted, and there’s nothing immediately amiss.  You can hear the muffled sounds of Karkat’s lusus making contented noises from you living block, so nothing to be worried about there.  If they need anything, Karkat knows where to find you.  You growl, roll over, and let yourself drop under again. 

It happens again a couple hours later; you’re suddenly awake, and sitting up in your slime, straining to listen for the sounds of your grub before remembering that it’s not in the room with you.  The third time this happens you abandon hope for a restful sleep completely.  You don’t feel quite so much like warmed over shit, anymore at least.  More like somewhat animated sludge.  It’s an improvement anyway.   

Since normal sleep has told you to go fuck yourself, you opt for a shower instead.  Which is a marvelous idea.  Except the part where you start dozing off under the spray and almost slip and crack your horns against the tile.  Yeah, better stay away from hard surfaces.  Or maybe avoid being vertically upright altogether for the time being.  Putting on fresh clothes and fixing your hair in place helps make you feel a bit more whole anyway.  Maybe enough to face whatever is waiting for you in your livingblock.

Nope.  No.  Nevermind, you weren’t ready for this.  Nothing could have prepared you for this.  

They’re all on the floor. Karkat, still wearing your scarf, is flat on his stomach with his chin propped on the back of his hands, his lusus is sound asleep, and your grub sits between the two, curled up in a tight little ball with his tail fins over his face.  As you watch, it uncurls enough to peek over it’s tail at Kar. 

Kar goes, “Boo!” and it squeal-clicks in pure delight while ducking back into hide mode.  Your pusher erupts into flutters, you have to slap your hand other your mouth to keep from mimicking the grub’s squeal because god damn it that’s cute.  That same bright electric thing that’s been hiding in your chest flares to life again because Karkat is smiling, and they’re playing, it’s too much- 

That little traitor voice in your head has to ruin the moment of course.  It whispers this is yours, tells you to claim it and protect it.  And you would.  You know what you would sacrifice for this fragile piece of existence to be more than a moment.  The way your scarf is wrapped around Karkat’s shoulders like he’s wearing your banner makes the lie so tantalizing, and that’s what scares you.  That’s all it takes for bubbling happiness to turn into stabbing guilt.  You made that mistake, you aren’t doing it again.  This isn’t yours. 

You have to keep running that litany through your pan when you step into the furniture ring and Karkat turns his smile up at you.   

“The fuck are you doing up, go back to sleep, assnugget.” 

“Tried.”  As soon as your butt touches the floor your grub is all over you, clicking so fast it’s nearly buzzing.  You pick it up and hug it gently, let it bump its nose against your chin and nuzzle.  “Gave up after attempt number three.” 

The floor isn’t sopor by any means, but it does feel nice to not be standing.  You let your shoulders fall back and.  Yeah.  Okay, reclining is good, you can deal with being awake but lying down.  Your grub purrs while you rub behind its horns, and your eyes drift shut all on their own.  Beside you Karkat repositions himself, and his lusus keeps letting out those raspy snores. 

“So, uh,”  you can hear Karkat fidgeting.  “We’re going to have to actually, you know, talk about this at some point.” 

Your guts seize up for a second until you force a breath out.  “Yeah.” 

Neither of you break the next stretch of silence for a couple minutes after that, and it’s like watching a storm gather over the ocean, everything crackling with tension, and warning of disaster.  The problem is you don’t know what to say.  Your pan is thick in a fog, filled up with too many things at once, and none of them are the right things for here, or now, or for him.  The only one that manages to float to the surface and break the tension is, “sorry.” 

Karkat’s elbow nudges your hip.  “What the hell do you have to be sorry about?  I’m the one that... I crossed a line.  You put it down, and I ignored it, so this mess is kind of my fault.  A lot my fault.  Fuck, I-”  He inhales.  You feel the heavy exhale on your thigh.  You want to look at him, but you’re too sacred of what you might see there.

“You were tryin’ to help,” you tell the the old, heavy beams far over your head.  You had told him you were sick.  Just a cold, Kar.  No it’s fine, just gonna cancel our powwow for a couple a days.  Don’t worry about it, I’ll make it up to you.  Then he showed up at your hive anyway, all concern and fussing, because seadwellers don’t get colds, they get infections, parasites.  The price of being next near immune to regular old landdweller sniffles is that what does bring you down brings you down low.  He knew that.  You should have remembered that he knew that, you were the one that bragged about it to him.   

The second thing you should have done was turn him away, but it was Karkat, and you like Karkat.  More than like, if you’re gonna be showing your whole fucking hand here, but you intended to keep him out of the sinkhole known as your quadrants.  Until he was at your door, all distress, and sweet tenderness, and you wanted that part of him so fucking bad.  Every part of him, actually.  It didn’t help that he looked, and smelled so good, that your hindbrain was piloting while fucked up on mating instincts. 

“Yeah.  Great help.  Pail your best friend, then flee in fear and shame to leave him with a, a fucking grub!  Bet that was sure a great consolation prize.” 

Your fins snap forward on reflex when you snarl, “It ain’t a consolation prize, Kar, what the fuck !”  Karkat flinches back.  He still doesn’t get it.  The grub chitters sleepily, and you force your body to relax.  Your tongue and throat start working before you have a chance to consider how monumentally stupid what you’re saying is.  “All that fuckin’ work, and hurt, and bullshit, and I finally got somethin’ outa it, so no.  It ain’t some kinda second rate silver medal.” 

“That’s not what I meant.”  Karkat’s gone quiet, but he’s tense as a bowstring beside you.  His voice comes out soft, silk smooth, and still rubs you raw like a sand storm.  “Eridan, what happened.” 

“After my last molt I... this thing happened, an’-”  Bitterness sticks in your throat and stabs.  You swallow around it, try again, but you don’t want to think about any of it. Pulling words like urchin quills, you settle for the simplest part.  “Eight eggs.  Two, an’ three, an’ three, an’ I only got the one grub to show for it.” 

You don’t feel him flinch this time, but you’re almost certain it’s because he was bracing for it.  He does suck in a breath like he’s been stabbed, though.  You lick you teeth. 

“It’s not bad,” you hasten to say.  “I mean, the stuff that came before it, that was bad.  But this grub, this thing we made together, it’s amazin’, Kar.  It’s a boatload a hard work, but I wouldn’t give it up for anythin’, understand?” 

He doesn’t say anything.  A restless wheel keeps turning over in your mind, prods you to fill the silence up with babble, hoping to ward off whatever’s coming.  You don’t know what, though, you don’t fucking know!  You keep trying to explain whatever this thing is, but you don’t even understand most of it, and probably all you’ve managed to do is scare Karkat off for good this time.  You count the seconds out between each sleepy purr, your grub rattling away in blissful ignorance.  Kar doesn’t say anything at all, not until you hear him smother something like a hiccup.

“Kar?”   You sit up, careful to hold your grub to your chest so as not to disturb it’s nap.  Karkat has the heels of his palms pressed to his eyes.  “Oh.  Oh shit, you’re cryin’, I made you cry, cod damn it-” 

“No,” he protests, then ruins it with the kind of loud, shaky gasp someone only makes when they’re trying hard to prove they ain’t crying like wigglers.  You’re eyes prickle and sting in response. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.” 

“Shut up,” Karkat squawks.  “You didn’t make me cry.  I made myself cry because I’m a pan damaged reject spawned from leftover slurry someone probably mopped up from the floor.” 

You nearly choke, torn between a sob and a laugh. 

“It isn’t funny.  I passed that on to your kid.”  He rubs furiously at his eyes, trying to stem the tears.  “You worked so fucking hard for it, and I ruined it.” 

“Kar-”  This probably is the worst time for heartfelt flushed confessions, but you want- need - to say something.  He’s not ruined, he needs to know that.  You should have told him that.  Should have said it perigees or sweeps sooner. 

He cuts off your effort.  “We got less than a sweep before the drones arrive.  I never even figured out how I was going to get myself through it, how are we gonna do that for a helpless grub?” 

“I don’t know.  I’ll think of something.” 

Karkat snorts.  “That’s it?” 

“Look, I haven’t had much sleep, or time to think about it, alright?  I’ll figure it out.  I don’t care if it comes down to just me and the Crosshair’s against the whole Imperial fleet.” 

“You’re serious, aren’t you.”  He sits up too, hunched small and miserable.  You’re a fucking asshole for liking it, because he seems to have lost awareness of his boundaries and he huddles closer to you. 

“Yeah.”  He doesn’t push you away when you lean close enough to touch your forehead against his.  You hate yourself for that victory.   

This isn’t yours.  But you know what you would sacrifice to protect it.

Chapter Text

===> Eridan: Attend your other responsibilities.

“Are you sure about this? You’re kinda still...”

“Not rowin’ with both oars?” You sigh as you start lacing up your second boot. You grabbed a little more sleep over the last day. Not nearly enough, but it will have to do.

“Yeah, that.” Kar’s frown deepens. “It’s not like there’s been Orphaners on Alternia for the last who the fuck knows how long. Why can’t Glub-guh-ly... uh, Feferi’s lusus hunt her own food?”

“When there ain’t an heiress, she does. Goes down way deep, farther than even Fef can dive, an’ she eats, an’ sleeps, an’ dreams.”

“So, why’s it your job?”

“Because I made it my job.” Angels, he’s not quite scowling yet, but it’s almost there. You tie the lace off, and straighten up to look him in the eye. Your grub is propped on his shoulder so it can fuss with his hair; neither of you are sure why it wanted to do that, but interrupting it gets you screamed at, so grub stylist it is. “Usually the heiress spends her whole miserably short life feeding the royal pain in the fins an’ not doin’ much else. I took on huntin’ an’ killing for Gl'bgolyb instead. First I wanted to help, an’ then I wanted to impress Fef, an’ then I wanted to make it so she relied on me...”

Kar interrupts you with a not-undeserved scoff. “I was there for that, I know. I told you how stupid it was.”

“Yeah, it was really stupid. An’ cruel, an’ all kinds a fucked up.” You were young. You can’t say you didn’t know any better, because Kar, and Kan, and you think maybe Ter all told you so, but you wanted to believe it was different for you. That the quest for true love made it nobler. Justified it somehow. “But Fef dumped me on my fins anyway.”

“Yup, I remember that too.”

“I hope so, you probably gave yourself a prong cramp from the wall of text you clobbered me with.” Kar crosses his arms (carefully) over his chest. The corner of his mouth twitches up smugly. He really did let you have it, but it was couched in the typical Karkat mannerisms that somehow managed to penetrate your fortress of self pity, and not for the first time are you suddenly, fiercely glad that he still stuck by you. You don’t think you could have pulled yourself out of that particular vortex very easily otherwise. You would have done something even more stupid, either to yourself, or Fef, or any number of unassuming assholes caught in the backlash of your implosion. You stumble over the urge to punch your own face for not being more forthright with him sooner about the eggs, and your grub.

“I was in a really bad headspace for a long time after that. Not just ‘cause a the thing with Fef. That was a big part of it, yeah, but when that hurt started scabbin’ over, I didn’t know what to do with myself.” It’s not a natural thing for you, trying to be open about this kind of wash, but he’s owed something of it at this point you think. Your throat twinges as it tries to close up over the words. Rather than look directly at Kar, you pick up your gloves and pull them on one at a time, checking that the fit is still perfect, even though you know it will be. “FLARPin’, huntin’, plannin’ it all out- I had let it take over so much of my life. Stoppin’ it cold gobblebeast like that was like cuttin’ off all my limbs.”

“So you kept going. And Feferi was cool with that?”

“I didn’t, uh. I never really asked.” Your eyes continue to slide around him, and you start fussing with the clasp of your cape instead. “We didn’t talk much after that. Aaaactually we. Haven’t talked at all.”

Kar doesn’t sigh, or hide his face in his hands, but you know it’s because the grub is still balanced on his shoulder. “You are an emotionally stunted sea cucumber.”

“What was I supposed to say?” you growl. “Anything probably would a been takin’ as me givin’ an excuse to try an’ win her back.”

“Well, were you?” Kar’s words home true, cut right to your quick, and you flinch. Oh well, it’s fucking honesty hour now, right?

“Maybe. I think at first I entertained that. Hoped maybe she could not hate me at least. Neither of us brought it up though, so.” You trail off and shrug. “Doesn’t matter now. S’long as Gl'bgolyb gets fed by someone else, Fef’s free from feedin’ duty, an’ she can plot for ascension.”

“So where does that leave your plotting?”

“Heh, in the drink where it belongs.” He’s seen where you plotting leads, you have been discussing it the last few minutes. He doesn’t take your self-jabbing as well as you intended though. The scowl comes back almost immediately as he reaches up to scritch the grub’s back. He doesn’t understand, and you don’t know how to make him. You sigh, feeling the lingering exhaustion sucking down at your resolve to keep giving candid conversation a go. Or any conversation at all, really. “I gotta go, Kar. We can talk about it more later.”

You reach out and ruffle your grub’s fuzz. It chirps, and bumps you playfully with its horns, and you can’t help but smile. Karkat’s rumpled expression has turned more worried than anything.

“Hey.” You brace when he pauses. Ghosts of his thoughts flicker in his eyes too fast for you to read before he huffs. “Get back safe, and without more holes in your pan than you left with, okay?”

Your smile wobbles. “Promise I’ll keep at least three out a four limbs.”

The salt spray is refreshing. Clean wind whips your hair back and takes your thoughts with it, scatters them out over the ocean where they vanish out of sight. For a short while, you lose your worries and fears in the familiar act of sailing your runabout. It’s a safe routine, ritual and cleansing. Your main ship, the PASV Vodnar, is kept moored at a private dock, but not at your own hive; she’s only a slim schooner, but she’s still big enough to need a crew, and you’ve always been tetchy about inviting others into your space. That’s only gotten worse with. This whole. Thing.

Even even though you’ve grown somewhat fond of your crew, you still can’t trust other trolls getting close to your personal affairs. That means keeping her at a different port where they can come and go, tending her as needed without being about in your business, and sailing the SV Gutter out to meet her when there’s work to be done. Then you’ll trade off with your rambunctious first mate so she can go scout ahead for targets. You had been thinking lately, even before one of the eggs turned out fertile, that you’ll have to make plans for your eventual death or departure from Alternia’s cradle. Now that those will have to include your new scion, it seems more urgent, but it would feel wrong selling the ship, especially after you poured your heart into making her yours. She’s an echo of your hatchrite, name and form shaped from the husk of the original Vodnar left on your coral island by your ancestor long ago.

You catch sight of the tips of your darling’s two masts long before anything else; your colors snap in the wind as if waving an excited greeting. She’s going a casual pace, moving only under sail power with no prey yet to pursue. The lookout spots you long before you make it close enough to pick out the distinct shapes of your crew mates, and they heave to, allowing you to catch up and slide in alongside easily.

Your first mate doesn’t wait for the ladder to board. She never does. Nep is barely taller than Kar, comes up to your armpit if she cheats, but she lands on the deck with a solid thump that sets the boat rocking. You were expecting it, and shift your balance with the bobbing motion accordingly, but that doesn’t stop you from leveling a sulky glare at her. “You ding my ships, I’m tattlin’ to your moirail.”

“No you won’t,” she grins, smug as her lusus, and squints at you with lazy humor. “If you did, Equihiss wouldn’t let me come hunt anymeowr.” You don’t know how Equius “let’s” her do anything; in your experience, Nep does what she pleases, when, and the only way you’ve made that work for you is giving her a reason to want the same things you do.

Convincing Nep to come hunt lusii as a full time job wasn’t hard, you almost didn’t even have to bring up the pay. Getting her to do it out in the open water was trickier, but antagonism can go a long way where bribery and flattery fails, and you needed someone able bodied and sharp minded after you cut your FLARPing ties. Turned out she made a fine sailor once she made peace with getting wet every once in awhile. If things were different, you might still be entertaining ideas of darkening your working relationship to something blacker, and getting a little more personal. But it’s not... you can’t. Not now. Not with...

You grunt to clear your throat, and turn sharply away, affecting annoyance to hide distress. You’ve got a job to do. “Don’t fuck up my runabout, Leijon.” Her smile curls up, predatory, gladly taking the point you just let her score against you. You’re too tired to fight back or care.

As you haul yourself up to the Vodnar’s deck, Nep eases out the Gutter’s sail like you taught her, and she starts to slide away as the breeze fills it. She calls back at you, “Just make sure you keep up if you don’t want your boat eaten. Claws I’m gonna pounce a big one tonight!” And then the little runabout grabs the wind, and kicks up spray behind her as she darts back out into the blue.

“Captain on deck!” Your naviscerator, barks out while you give your kit a cursory brush and straighten. Your helmsman, Peachy, snaps to attention, and salutes- sloppily, but it’s the thought, right?- which set’s Harper giggling. The two of them plus Agness are all lounging at the helm while the rest of you crew are more or less loitering at their posts waiting for the night's excitement to start. The lounging is almost literal in Ag’s case; you swear she has a chronic case of noodle fronds. You’re not even sure you’ve got a job title for her, she just sort of came as a matched set with Har when you were seeking out a crew with a taste for adrenaline. Har fit that description. Ag, not so much, but what she lacks in enthusiasm, she makes up for in efficiency.

She sighs, and pushes Pea’s hand down. “You do that every time. Peach, this is a private vessel, you don’t actually have to salute.”

“Sure,” you drawl, “go on an’ disrespect the troll in charge a your payrolls. I’m sure that will end well.”

Har cackles, “Mutiny!” and Pea and Ag share a look of mutual exasperation behind her back.

“Think I’ll pass. Mutiny’s a lot of work, and then you have to run the ship, which is more work.”

“Yeah, sucking up does fine for me,” Pea agrees with Ag, and Har pouts.

“Spoil sports. You are absolutely no fun at all.”

“See, that’s why I keep you around. You’re sensible,” you tell Ag. She only snorts.

“I want a raise.”

“Hey, uh,” your spotter’s voice pipes in from somewhere overhead. You have to crane your neck something fierce to find Chauxe up in the rigging. “Nepeta’s getting pretty far out, we should probably get underway.”

“Batty catty,” you snarl under your breath, then stride to your place on the bridge. “Right, let’s not let our mad meowbeast have all the fun. Hands to your stations! Exequy, report.”

“Tailwind’s perfect tonight, Captain. Let Peach save his power for the payload.”

“Pea, you heard Har. You have the wheel, bring her about. Follow Leijon’s lead, and let’s bag us a beasty.”

The echoed chorus of, “aye, Captain,” is sweet in your ears, even if some of the voices are sarcastic. In spite of yourself, and your fantastic ability to fuck things up spectacularly, you’ve somehow found camaraderie here. The fact that this may be the last time you stand on your beloved ship’s deck goes a little sour down your gullet. When it’s over, you’re going to miss this. Them. All of it.

Here’s the thing: you make a damn fine Orphaner, but you’re kind of a shit traditional sea captain. You’re supposed to be barking orders from the bridge, behind the helm, letting your crew do the grunt and lift work. But the Vodnar is your boat, your pet project for the last two sweeps give or take, and you pace her length, bow to stern and back again, feeling every inch of wood grain, and rope coils, and every drop water spray in your soul. You throw your back in right along side them, heaving and hauling. Tonight, the busy work helps keep your mind from turning too far towards home before your duty’s finished, but when Chau calls out mark sighted, your place is always at the bowsprit.

You’ve got your feet braced against the narrow beam, with an iron grip around the jib sail’s rigging, and the Crosshairs hum dangerously through your bones as you bring it up and brace against your shoulder. Three triangular fins cleave the water, angling toward you. The biggest is nearly matched to your fore sail, the others half as small and set slightly farther back. It’s a sharcodile, a big, old one. Nep’s pissed it off plenty good, but instead of aggressing, it’s trying to retreat. Your spotter calls the position. Your naviscerator calls the speed and angle of approach into the wind. Your helmsman corrects the course, and suddenly you're cutting across the creature's path as it hurls its immense bulk through the water.

The Crosshairs sucks power through the air, sends feedback building along your ampullae, and tingles itching across the bridge of your nose and outer most fin tines. It isn't a delicate weapon, Ahabs Crosshairs. It's not subtle, and it's not precise, so you have to count off the seconds, and calculate the distance based on estimates of speed in your head. Wait too long, and the lusus will be too close to your ship to shoot it safely, too soon and the beam will be all but completely impossible to aim. At your speeds, the sweet spot is too easy to miss, you can’t afford to let your attention waver. All of your focus is centered on those wave slicing fins, and you don't see Nepeta at the bow of the Gutter trying to flag you down until you've squeezed the trigger.

Blue-white lightening jerks in zig-zags across your field of vision. It punches through the water, through the hide beneath it's surface, and dissipates into a bloom of electric fractals, and olive stained foam. The lusus’ death roar is swallowed down by the ocean, and as it jerks to one side, and lashes it's tail in agony against the waves, something else plunges through the air to be pulled down into the bottomless depths. Dark. Limbs, hands, a wide-eyed face, and then nothing in the churning froth.

"Eridan-"

"I saw it!" You cut Chau's warning short, fling the Crosshairs to hang on its shoulder strap behind you, and leap.

The thick taste of iron hits the back of your throat instantly as you suck a mouth full of water into your gills. Panic slaps you in the face half a second later. Can’t see, can’t smell, everything is blood and bubbles, a spreading slick of death that envelops all of your senses. It was too small. Just a kid, a fresh pupa, dropping like a stone for half a second to vanish in a wave trough. You won’t be able to find it before it drowns, you can’t save it. You can’t save your wiggler, you can’t save Kar, you can’t-

Something brushes a sense outside your usual set. You’re so unused to swimming blind, don’t spend nearly enough time in the deeper waters where light is a forgotten dream; that’s the realm of the Imperial Lusus and her charge, a place you’ve banished yourself from for sweeps. In the water, your ampullae wake up, and start to do the job they evolved for. The picture of the world underwater that you can piece together through them is incomplete. No lines, no solid borders, or tangible beginnings or endings to things, only a heaving, flowing web of energy, woven together out of life. You detect cells, neurons, muscles, all twitching and firing out of and into sync, and one... one burning beacon of frantic movement that doesn’t follow the pattern.

You dive. They’ve sunk lower than you would have thought, their terrified thrashing must be killing their buoyancy. It’s slowed by the time you reach them as their survival instinct kicks in and screams to stop burning up the precious little oxygen trapped in their lungs. You get your claws into a bunch of fabric; can’t tell what you’ve grabbed them by, but it matters exactly fuck diddly, because you have them, and they’re not sinking anymore. You kick furiously and rush up to the surface with the tiny troll in tow.

Turns out it’s a sleeve. They cough, then gag on accidentally swallowed seawater once you breach the surface. The next noise out of them is the most dreadful, mourning sound as they catch sight of their dying lusus. They struggle against you, kicking furiously, ineffectual as they wail, and their little claws leave deeper scratches next the the ones your grub gave you this evening.

“Don’t look.” You trap them in a hug and turn away. They’re far too small; even if they were the same caste as you, they could never hope to fight back against the strength of a nearly grown troll. Instead they screech, a sound so like your grub you chirp loudly back purely in reflex. At that, they give up and collapse against your shoulder, less crying than hiccuping these wretched gasping sounds that make the tiny body shake. You bob there, keeping them facing away from the carnage, and so you watch as the lusus struggles, and gurgles through it final breath, while chirping a lullaby to drown it out. There’s nothing you can do to stop your mind from playing memories of purple blood and pained whinnies over the the scene. You’re so focused on the lusus, and its charge, you don’t detect your runabout gliding up behind you until Nep has you under the arms, and is hauling you backwards onto the deck.

“Eridan, are you okay? C’mon say something Ampurra, you’re fureaking meowt!” Her face hovers way too close to yours, have to shut your eyes to block her out. You can’t shut out the taste of blood in the air, or the screams of hungry seabirds assaulting your hearducts. You can’t ignore the trembling thing you clutch in your arms. A moment later something soft and heavy is draped over you. The world falls away, muffled. Bless Nep, she and her moirail deal enough with overload she knows exactly what to do. You find yourself slowly leveling off, remembering how to breath air again as you glub and gasp. Even the pupa settles after a while, slipping into exhausted sleep.

When you can finally bare to sit up, your covering, one of the suncloaks you keep stashed on the Gutter, slips off. Nep is keeping a respectful distance, crouched near the wheel. She’s pulled the Gutter up alongside the Vodnar and tethered it while you were otherwise preoccupied. The rest of your crew work smoothly with Ag having taken over the direction, getting the lusus secured. Peach’s psi outlines the creature, glimmering faintly under the moon’s green light. Nep waits for you to say something, but your attention is entirely taken up by the now slack troll you’re cradling like it's your grub. They’ve got three swept back horns, mimicking their newly deceased lusus, and a face still round with grub fat. It hits you all at once.

“Fuck. What the fuck! Nep, sharcodiles don’t have their charges out at sea, they go inland to swamps an’ mangrove stands. How the hell’d this happen?”

“He must have been crossing the strip after picking it up from the brooding caverns,” she says quietly. “Poor cub. It’s just pupated.”

“It’ll die without a lusus.” Your throat clenches as you swallow. You can’t help thinking about your helpless offspring. What would it do without you or Karkat, no lusus, no hive, no sign or registry. It’s not even on the hemospectrum. You’re fighting a battle you can’t win.

Nep scrunches her nose and tips her head to one side. “It happens. You said that when we started, remember? When you used to FLARP, you got the lusii and Vriskers got the trolls. It’s the sac-purrfice for the greater good, right?”

“That’s different! They knew. They knew they could die when they agreed to play. They made that choice.” It’s such a nice little lie, you’ve told it yourself so many thousands of times by now. You don’t know how many trolls ended up in a spider’s web, but you know none of them agreed to that bit. Before you lost your own lusus it was easy to justify, but it got harder every time after that. Kar was right, you’re an emotionally stunted sea cucumber.

Nepeta shrugs. “You never cared this much befur, what happened?”

“Nothin’ happened!” Another fat fib just rolls off your tongue. What happened is sitting back at your hive, waiting for you to come back and hopefully not giving it’s sire too much grief in the interim. “Look, Nep, it’s a pupa. It ain’t even had a chance yet, we gotta do somethin’.”

“Hmm,” she hums thoughtfully, then sidles up next to you and gives the kid a sniff. “It’s almost my shade, I could bring it home to Pounce.”

“You think that’d work?” Kar’s lusus accepted your grub, but it was his direct descendant. What would Pounce do to an almost-right pupa?

“She knows I’ll be gone soon. She’s been acting real restless, and doing a lot of nesting, so I think she’s already planning for a new cub. I’ll save her the trouble of going all the way out to the brooding caverns to get one!”

“That... might actually work.” Nep holds her arms out, so you can pass her the kid, but still you hesitate. It’s hard to let them go, sending them off to an uncertain fate. Eventually you do get your overactive nurturing instinct to cooperate, and the pupa only sighs, and wiggles into a more comfortable position when you hand it over. Nep surprises you when she croons to it, almost the same way you did earlier.

“Seriously though, are you okay?”

“Ugh, I’m fine! Why can’t everybody stop fuckin’ askin’!”

“Eridan,” Nep says it soft, like she’s trying not to startle you. “You’re crying.”

“Fuck!” You grab the suncloak, and scrub your face with it, sniffle and blow your nose. “I’m okay, I’m... just tired.” Tired doesn’t even begin to touch it. Nep side-eyes you as she shifts the wiggler to sit better, and stands.

“We can handle things if you wanna cat nap.” That should be funny, but she’s says it with such god damned sincerity. You’re suddenly struggling not to start bawling like a pupa yourself.

“That’s... I think maybe-” Your palmhusk buzzes, and scatters your thoughts before you can organize a response. You grab it, smudging the screen with damp fingers, and realize that you managed to lose your glasses again. Probably when you jumped off the boat. The text is all gray caps. Control slips away again, slides right through your grasp, and sinks down into darkness. You squint, swallow back the sick sensation trying to worm its way up your throat as the words come into focus. “Nep, I have to go.”

“What’s wrong? Is that Karkitty?”

“I need to go, you need to leave.” You stumble up, and push her aside as you go, walk to the mooring, and start undoing the tether. “You said you can handle it, so handle it.”

“Eridan-” you don’t know what she was going to say next, but she’s smart enough to realize you aren’t stopping, so she drops whatever it was, and makes her way over to the ladder with the pupa tucked up snuggly over her shoulder so she can climb. “I’ll talk to you when we get to harbor, okay?”

You don’t bother responding with more than a nod. The words of the message keep repeating in your mind, alternating gray and red, drowning out everything else with their urgency. They flash warning through your pan while you free the Gutter, shake out the sail, and take the wheel.

Chapter Text

===> Karkat: Grubsit.

You’ve never been alone in someone else’s hive before.  Much less someone you felt sure never wanted to see your idiot face again less than a week ago.  Even though you’ve found some kind of tenuous balance with Eridan, and you’ve never been a stranger here exactly, it’s still unnerving as fuck.  The grub chitters uncertainly at you, echoing your thoughts.

“Thanks for the supreme vote of confidence, I was starting to think I might have actually gained a degree of competency in something.  Good to know I’m being judged by my offspring before it’s even pupated yet. Wouldn’t want to set the bar too high for you when you’re grown I guess.”

All that gets you is more anxious vocalizations.  It’s starting to edge into that clicking that makes your auricular clots itch. 

“Yeah, I know,” you sigh, “I’m worried too.”  You shouldn’t be worried. Eridan has been feeding the Imperial Lusus since he was old enough to equip his riflekind, and he’s got a fucking god weapon to boot.  There can’t be much on land, air, or sea he wouldn’t be able to turn into extra fancy barbeque, even if he’s mostly running on broken sleep and stimulant liquid.

Still.  “He’ll be fine. We just gotta keep you busy until he gets back. You won’t even miss him.”

The grub’s clicks slow, but it doesn’t seem convinced either.   

“Look, we can’t do anything about it, so we’re just going to have to deal with it, okay?” You pause.  “...Why am I even explaining this to you, it’s not like you can understand me.” 

It doesn’t answer, but it does tug on Eridan’s scarf with its teeth until it’s got a little place it can stick its head under, then sighs a sad little huff. 

“Okay, maybe you can, I don’t fucking know.  Crash courses on grub-wrangling aren’t standard schoolfeed content.”  Pretty much the exact opposite. Your very cute, very mutant grub is also very illegal to keep outside of the brooding caverns, not even taking the off spectrum status into consideration.  It’s a culling offense; something about theft of imperial property blah blah, whatever. Nevermind that it didn’t actually come from a mothergrub, you’re pretty sure drones don’t make that kind of distinction.  Though it's not like you’d be less culled once someone figured out where the kid got it’s ruby red paint job from.  Forget the forks, your neck is destined for a good long hang on a flogging jut.  

God okay, you need to stop thinking about death, dying and everything going to pieces for five minutes.  Just five minutes, is that too much to ask from your deranged thinksponge?

The grub snuffles, then pulls on the scarf again, and this time it starts to very thoughtfully chew at it.  Okay maybe food? That might be a good distraction, good idea, grub. You stop hovering around the front door like an anxious lusus, and head back to the main culinaryblock.

Eridan made sure to order new groceries when he got up this evening, but that still leaves you with a mostly ravaged pantry and freezer.  He’d only had his hive stocked for himself before, and between you and the grub, you’re making short work of his food supply. You can’t be blamed for being a little hyped for the good shit though, right?  But the drop still won’t arrive until late evening, and you’re down to... actually what you’re used to at home. Frozen noodle and vegetable rations, and a bit of protein. On your budget it was usually canned grubmeal, so you still feel a little spoiled when you pull out a bag of frozen shrimp.

Your passenger trills and shuffles on its perch; apparently it agrees with the menu selection.  It keeps right on doing excited little wiggle dances, spinning turns and chirping into your ear the whole way through the cooking process.  You keep up your stream of verbal leakage and pick little tidbits out of the pan to feed it: a shrimp here, a bit of carrot there. That’s works well enough to keep both of your attentions off potential demise.  Of course, light pre-lunch snacking doesn't sate the grub enough to keep it from launching down your arm at the plate before you’ve even finished spooning out its share.

“Whoa, hey!  Holy shit, little guy, slow down.”  It doesn’t slow down at all, starts to inhale the meager pasta concoction in big, gulping bites instead, slopping a good bit of sauce and noodle bits everywhere in the process as you try to transfer grub and plate to the counter.  This somehow manages to be charming in a silly kind of way, even though you know full well you’re going to be cleaning the mess once it’s done.

Most of the things it does manage to be charming, really.  Which is stupid. It’s a fat little squishball of utter chaos, full of more destructive potential than a sack full of angry, wet purrbeasts, yet you’ve been warped around its entire existence.  A couple nights ago you didn’t even know it was alive, and now it occupies a good chunk of your daily thought process. It’s frightening, honestly. Grubs live and die by the hundreds every day. The ones that can’t cut it are food or fertilizer, and that’s never given you any pause before.  Having your own to mind suddenly makes things very viscerally personal.

Your grub has its plate licked clean before you get three bites into yours, the mess around it slurped up in two more, and then it spins a circle while lapping stray smears of sauce and noodle from its maw.  And then it spots your plate and halts mid spin with its tongue poking out between its mandibles. Your plate that still has food.

“Uh-uh, no!”  Your protest falls on deaf fins, because the grub bolts right across the counter in a beeline for your meal.  Picking up the plate and holding it over your head does nothing but slow it down. It trills pathetically and clings to the front of your sweater, trying to scale you like a B movie monster climbing the tallest city hivestack on the skyline.  “You had your lunch, runt, this is mine!”

The trill gets louder.  It coughs on a hiccup and it’s little face pinches in, eyes squinting.  Oh no, you know that look. Briefly you debate being firm on this; if you give in now it’s going to learn it can get anything by giving you the wibble-pout-sniffle combo, but it hitches again and smushes its face against your shirt.  This is a fight you can’t win either way, and you are doomed.

“Oh my god, fine!  Here, take it.” You set the plate down and peel the grub off your front to deposit it in front of your surrendered peace offering.  Its squeal turns delighted for a second, then it’s too busy stuffing its face for anymore vocalizations. You sigh. Maybe you can find a snack the next time it naps.  That should be soon, right? You watch for any signs of sleepiness, but it only has a single-minded focus for savaging your meal down to nothing. Once the second plate is a lost cause, it turns a couple more circles to make sure it didn’t miss anything, then squeaks at you.

“That’s all there was.  You ate both our lunches, there’s no more.”  The grub tilts its head, tiny fins flicking up then down, and then it goes back to sniffing around the countertop.  When you try to clear the plates away, it lifts its head and chirrups hopefully. “You ate everything, what more could you possibly want?  Do... you need to use the loadgaper or something?”

So far trying to get it to do anything on command while holding it over the actual loadgaper hasn’t been a successful undertaking, but Eridan had assembled a makeshift litter pan in the blocked off play area.  You still call it the loadgaper in hope that the grub will learn by association. It doesn’t react to the word this time, just tilts its head the other way and makes a lower, sadder sound.

“There is no more.  It’s all gone and the delivery isn’t for another couple of hours.  C’mon, let’s go play, I bet you’ll be so distracted you won’t even notice the time.”

It lets you scoop it into your arms, but it grunts and squirms, trying to wiggle free once it realizes you’re carrying it away from the culinaryblock.  This was apparently not in its plans.  Too bad, kiddo, plans have changed. Unless the little worm wants to eat the dust hopbeasts in the back of the pantry, there’s nothing left for it to scavenge.  

Scratch that, almost nothing.  Blood seems to be a perfectly acceptable substitute to traditional nutrients, because it just sunk its tiny needle teeth through your sweater and into the flesh of your arm!  You clench your jaw and choke down on the urge to scream; screaming could startle it, or possibly encourage it. Either way, you won’t give the rebellious little turd ball the satisfaction of seeing you react.  Nope, instead you carry on to the play area as it snarls, whines and fusses to be set down.

“This is the gratitude I get,” you grumble as It finally succeeds in slipping free only after you’ve reached the safety of the furniture ring.  “I gave you my lunch.”

It doesn’t seem all that moved by your appeal.  In fact, It hisses and scuttles backward a couple steps, but it’s quickly distracted by the toys and comfort items littering the floor, and forgets it ever had a complaint with you to begin with.  Pouncing and savaging one of Eridan’s destroyed t-shirts is apparently far more engrossing. You try to shake the sting out of your wrist as you settle on the reclining platform and watch it drag the defeated shirt to a far corner.

“Whatever vindictive, karmic entity I pissed off to deserve this, I’m sorry.” From the other end of the reclining platform your lusus raises his head and  grumbles. You reach over to pat his head, and he stretches, resettles in a new position and begins to snore again. For some reason, your hyper-sympathetic pan picks that moment to spit out a long forgotten memory, something so seemingly random and inconsequential up until this point you wonder why your neurons bothered to hang on to it at all.  You’re smaller, much smaller, sat astride your lusus’ shoulders, screeching joyously and kicking your feet while pulling on his spikes.  The weird part is you can’t recall the context for the life of you. You think maybe it was some kind of festival? You’re almost certain you were outside, and there were other small trolls with their lusii, but those bits are fuzzy around the edges.  The really clear bit is the presence of your lusus, and the feeling of complete security as only tiny wigglers who don’t understand that the world is larger and far harsher than anything their guardians could ever protect them from can experience.

As you give his snout a good rub, you can feel some of the brittle layers of his chiton starting to flake and crumble under your fingers.  You swallow around the lump in your throat that wasn’t there a minute ago. You could have been kinder, spent more time with him, yelled less, and listened more.  Now you can see the wear marks from his burden. Painfully sweet to have this sudden clarity of mind, to know and understand his love for you in a new way. The same way you favor your own spawn.  You can’t take back the years you had with him, but you can make sure his last days are good, and maybe try to pay it forward.

The sound of the delivery drone touching down on Eridan’s deck is a welcome distraction from wallowing in the existential contemplation of your own mortality, thank fuck.  You managed a whole thirty minutes without thinking about death or dying, good job thinksponge! The grub has dragged more soft things into its corner and is attempting to burrow in, little red finned butt wiggling as it kicks the pile around and growls. In only a few moments all you can see is the pile  twitching. As long as it’s distracted you should be able to run out to retrieve the groceries and maybe even get them put away. Then maybe you’ll surprise everyone with a snack. Extra roe cubes for your lusus.

You give the old crab a last pat before you climb out of the circle and amble leisurely up to the deck.

When you get back your lusus is still snoozing, and the grub pile still wiggles every now and again, though less energetically so.  Maybe you’re lucky and it’s settling in for a much needed nap. That would certainly explain the tantrum earlier. With no imminent crisis to deal with, you’re free to haul the groceries to the culinaryblock to unpack and put away.  Eridan’s organization could use a lot of improvements, and you make a few as you work. Like things with like, moving boxes so the taller items are behind the shorter ones. You don’t go so far as alphabetizing labels, but you are sorely tempted. 

Still no fuss has kicked up from the loungeblock by the time you’re done, so you take your time making an actually decent snack for once: cluckbeast ova over boiled semi-aquatic grain, topped with shaved fish flakes.  The flakes kind of writhe as if still alive when exposed to any sort of moisture, which you think the grub will get a kick out of. One bowl you top off with a couple roe cubes for your lusus, and then you gather them all up and head back to the rumpusring.

“Heeeey, got a treat for you, old man.”  You hold the roe bowl under his snout and wait.  He snores serenely, but you aren’t fooled for a second.  Before you can count off five seconds, he snuffs once, opens his maw, and most of the bowl’s contents vanish with a disturbing shlurk noise.  He chitters happily while you laugh.  Yeah, that’s what you thought.

Leaving him the bowl to lick clean at his own pace, you go and sit next the the grub pile.  The only thing that gives away the grub hiding inside it is the slight, rhythmic up-down motion caused from its breathing.  You coo and give the pile a poke.

“You too, snugglebug, I brought you a snack.”

You sit there cross-legged a moment, then another, but the pile doesn’t stir.  Another poke yields the same result, and now you’re starting to get a little impatient.  It’s not like the little maggot did much tonight besides eat all your food and be a grumpy little shit, it can’t be that tired, honestly!  

“Come on,” you coax, and start shifting bits of the pile out of the way, “quit sulking and come eat you stubborn little-”

Ohgod.  Oh fuck no! 

You drop the last scrap of fabric you just tried to lift and it falls back into place, hiding the far too pale tiny body from sight again.  You are very suddenly not even a little hungry and actually kind of thankful you haven’t eaten the last couple hours because you feel like you might be sick any moment.

There is something very, very wrong with your grub.