Work Text:
Karkat lets the nutritional plates float above his palm, the free floating atmosphere of his respiteblock an idle pastime after…
Fuck, how many solar sweeps has it been? Five? Six? The lunar cycles are lost on him. But he's at the end, only one planet left to survey in Star Cluster 413, and then he's out of this cramped space pod for the delicious freedom of planet side respite.
There's no viewport in his block, but he knows what he'd see, a bright green sun, a statistical anomaly, center to a vast solar system he and his team have spent the last period of his all too short life cataloging for the cultivating and terraforming teams. Despite its unusual glow, it's warm like Earth's sun. A welcome feel oh so different from his home cluster.
Alternia was all blistering suns and hot, muggy nights barely habitable to the populous lowbloods, and a welcome embrace to the internally cold highbloods. But to him, a mutant, a step outside his hive meant death, from the inhabitants and the nearly scalding temperature that still scorched the land despite the cooling Alternian moons. No, he doesn’t miss his home cluster, there was never anything for him there except the foolish dreams of a wriggler trying too desperately to fit into a society that didn’t want him.
On Earth, he was granted a new chance. Still foreign, an alien to many of the humans, but with an air of curiosity instead of fear. A whole new realm of possibility opened up to him, still with restrictions, but different without the threat of imminent death. It felt… freer somehow. The warm comforting sun of Earth, a backwater planet, is his true home in everything but birthright.
He yearns for it in the way you only can after having been gone for sweeps, the sharp memories grow dull, and the simple memories. The safe ones? Grow warm, wrapping him in a cocoon of comfort and security.
Even still, there’s something to be said about the majesty of space. Limitless possibility stretching out to unknowable reaches. Boundless room for growth, even encased in the equivalency of a heavily fortified bomb shelter that can turn into the most expensive depressurized coffin with one wrong turn through an asteroid belt.
The inherent wonder of the unknown, an under current to the peace in the small moments. He'll miss this, the quiet times to himself, free floating in the endless frontier of space, the hum of the life support system comforting in its consistency. Foraging on unknown planets, some of the first alien life to explore their hidden secrets, paving the way for future generations to settle these-
A familiar pale freckled hand darts in front of his face snatching the nutritional plates before he can even react, loudly scarfing them down. "Snooze you lose K-cat."
Of fucking course, not a minute of peace for Karkat, alone in his corner of this hunk of floating junk having a poignant moment mulling over the fruits of his labour. Fuck that shit, we're not about to get sincere up in this bitch, that's for assholes with a shred of decency in their bones. His mistake, he forgot the most important fact, they're all fucking rodeo clowns slinging yeehaws and being rugged manly men out here in space, none of that sentimental bullshit here, good sir.
Dave laughs, holding himself in place by the bar above Karkat's head for stability, casually leaning into his space.
Shit, he said that out loud didn't he.
Dave nods, shit eating grin playing across his lips. "And don't you forget it bub. I don't commit myself to this fine Texas drawl for you to be actin' all mushy n' shit. We're finishin' this thing like two manly bros five feet apart 'cause they ain't gay. Except that one of the two bros is, in fact, hella gay and the other bro is an alien with no concept of sexuality beyond the impressions of shitty archaic romcoms circa the early two thousands for some fucking reason. Not that modern romcoms are any better, but goddamn could you have worst taste?"
Karkat scoffs, pushing Dave's face away from his own and lightly kicking off the side of his pod to the nutritional distribution container and grabbing a liquid refreshment pouch instead. "Fuck you, Strider! The earthen holovids on Alternia were out dated at best, and I didn't exactly grow up with easy access to the latest skims unlike some chuckle fuck with douchey shades who likes to brag about every primo scan they can get their grubby little mitts on. Oh, I'm so sorry I don't have high clearance access to let me twiddle my shame globes to illegal skims all day, I actually do something called, I don't know, work? You know, the thing we're all stuck here to do?" Dave drifts closer, uncomfortably close as he's prone to do. At this point, Karkat's desensitized to the personal space invasion. Considering the other humans he's stationed with, it's par for the course with all of them.
Dave taps a finger to his chin, pale stubble dotting his face. "Hm, work . Sounds familiar, I think I heard about it. Wasn't it a popular trend last solar cycle or something? I swear, I remember saving one shitty cartographer from some raging local fauna despite being warned, numerous times, to stay away from the Sebastions on steroids."
Karkat bristles, squeezing his nutritional pouch, harshly choking it down with a cough. "That is not my fault! Harley said they were cleared!! They didn't attack her, and she'd been up close cataloging them all morning!! How was I supposed to know the cantankerous assholes would suddenly turn on me if I picked up its spawn!"
Dave's momentary silence and raised brow is answer enough.
"Fuck you taintchaife." Karkat flips him off, electing to ignore him as he opens the pressure sealed waste collector to deposit his now empty liquid refreshment pouch. Taking his own criticism of Dave to heart, he propels himself down the tube to his pod's exit, heading to the central hub. He just knows he’ll get shit for being behind schedule despite the fact that Dave was in charge of pre-landing systems check today and he knows the asshole shrugged it off just to have him do it instead so he could take the easier job of locking cargo and bay doors for atmospheric entry.
Dave keeps pace just behind him, electing to keep harassing him as is the norm at this point. He’d be more annoyed if his presence didn’t calm his vibrating nerves. Still alight with anxiety despite how many landings they’ve successfully completed at this point.
He continues, needling Karkat about his love for dangerous, cantankerous crustaceans. "...Bro, common fucking sense. You've been with us for how long and what's the one rule of every single planet we've explored? Don't touch the bear cubs. Doesn't matter how docile the creature, you touch its kids? It'll bite your fuckin' hand off."
Karkat turns, huffing angrily, rising to the bait even though he knows Dave is doing it just to get a rise out of him. "EGBERT TOUCHED THE SPAWNS! LITERALLY!! TWO PARSECS BEFORE I DID!!! How the fuck was he able to get away with it then, Hm? Explain it to me like I'm a wriggler and have had the equivalent of a four wheeled mechanical device accident enfeeble my greater intellectual acuity."
Dave, to his considerable vexation, only looks more interested at Karkat’s anger. Like riling him up is just some fun game, which in all honesty, it probably is.
He clicks his tongue, slinging an arm over Karkat’s shoulders, and pushing off the side of the capsule to keep their forward momentum. “Man, John's like, a really adorable puppy. So cute you can't hate that little shit even as he manages to fill your limited juice refreshment pouches with piss. Multiple times.”
He makes a face and Karkat doesn’t even try to dwell on the fact that he fell for the same bullshit even once let alone as many times as he seems to imply.
Dave continues, keeping Karkat from getting a word in edgewise regardless. “You just look at his innocent face and go 'Aww man, got me again dawg. Shit, that was funny, Howie Mandel would be proud. Real gut bustin' you adorable, harmless puppy that's actually a stacked grown ass man. Hahaha, yeah, got me real good. You know. For the fifth time. Real clever.' And then he gives you that little snort laugh, you know, the one with the dimples and everything? And you're all 'Fuck, okay, I ain't even mad. I mean, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times and I'm kinda wondering who in this relationship has the piss fetish."
Bzzt, the intercom fizzes to life right near their heads, Jade's exasperated voice coming through with a slight crackle. " It's you Dave !"
"...shit."
"Really? Piss is one thing, but I didn't take you for a scat man! There's probably some in the waste recycler still. I mean, I wouldn't, but if you have to, it is chemically treated!"
Karkat makes a grimace. He takes it back, fuck the quiet moments, nothing is worth a another minute with these people. "Disgusting. Awful, I hate both of you and my breakfast has been ruined. Thanks Harley, if I starve, I’ll make sure to leave a vid accusing you."
" Hahahaha, you'll live Karkat! Anyway, If you're both done flirting, get your asses to your landing zones! We'll be making our decent at 0800 hours and I'm not responsible if either of you get stuck on itemizing duty with Eridan from an injury. Oh wait, I am, hehe! "
Karkat groans, knowing the threat isn’t an idle one. She’s a good Captain and the greatest astrophysicist to grace the universe with her intellect, but man she can hold a grudge worse than him.
He grumbles an agreement begrudgingly, but follows her orders without fail. "Copy that, fuckface."
Dave gives a sloppy salute, "Aye aye, Captain Harley!"
The intercom blitzes out, Harley leaving them to it.
Dave brushes past him, lingering for only a moment, something he’s been doing the closer they get to the completion of their sweeps long mission. If Dave were a more sentimental man, he’d say the lingering touches were an effort to commit this inexplicable bond between them to memory. Stalling just to drag out every second between them.
But he knows better than to think it’s anything more than the human disease called friendship.
Shaking off the lingering warmth, Karkat does exactly what he’s trained to do, for the last time.
He gets to work.
—--------
In hindsight, Karkat should have known this was how everything would go. Every peaceful moment he tries to carve out for himself is a method in the futility of man. A pointless endeavor he tries over and over just to have the universe come knocking at his door, dragging him from the warmth of his self-imposed isolation and throwing him to the heat of the iron fire like the sacrificial pawn he’s always been.
“Karkat, that’s a bit melodramatic, don’t ‘cha think?”
Karkat swerves to Dave, nostrils flaring in anger, wishing he had even the most minor of psiionic abilities in his fucked up think pan, if only to send Dave the mental equivalent of a kick in the ass off the nearest goddamn cliff. Oh wait! They did that already!!
“Melodramatic? Melodramatic ? Oh, I’m sorry if getting lost on an alien fucking planet with no way to navigate back to our base is melodramatic to you!”
Dave sucks in a breath between his teeth, having at least the minor gull to look partially ashamed while still clinging to the vestiges of his cool guy act despite the ever present nervous twitch of his fingers and endless diatribe of nonsense that’s been spewing from his maw since they first got separated from their group.
In truth, Karkat can’t even blame Dave fully, he was the one that landed on their only navigational pad when the raven-ogre-beast thing charged them, dragging the both of them down the steep ravine and into the dense technicolor nightmare jungle they’re now wading through. Of course, he wasn’t the one to do exactly what Dave teased him about not even a few time cycles ago.
You don’t touch the goddamn bear cubs !!
“Look, we can sit her moanin’ about who has worse impulse control when it comes to cute fluffy birds, but you really think that’ll help our situation any?”
Karkat mirrors the flat look Dave gave him earlier, with an added flipped bird just to send the point home.
“Alright, yeah, we’re lost, but hey! Look on the bright side! Neither of us is dead, and dependin’ on how long it takes them to gather supplies for a rescue party, we got us a free vacation in the illustrious jungles of, uh,” He waves a hand flippantly through the air, gesturing around them, “wherever the fuck we are.”
Karkat stops walking toward the vague direction of their landing zone and turns to Dave with a snarl. “This is nothing close to a ‘vacation’ Dave. If you hadn’t noticed, the electromagnetic field of this planet is ionized .” He holds up his wrist, pushing the comm link attached to his plug suit in the other’s face so he gets the picture.
Dave pushes it back down, holding up his own blank screen. “I dunno whatever that shit means, but yes, I see our shit is down.”
Karkat growls, shoving his wrist more firmly in the other’s face just because he’s pissing him the fuck off . “It’s not just our shit that’s down Dave, it’s everyone’s shit that’s down ! All the shit has just been amassed into one big ball, rolling down hill splattering everything in its mighty crap-filled wake!”
Dave at least looks mildly concerned, brows raising. “Uh, no, we landed just fine, there was only a brief glitch when we broke the outer atmospheric layer, but Sollux himself tested the system when we landed. The ship was fine.”
Karkat makes a sputtering noise in between a screech and a growl, grabbing Dave’s face between his palms. The human’s face brightens up like a red holiday lighting ornament, nearly drowning the freckles on his face, but Karkat doesn’t relent because he cannot be this dense .
“That's because the mechanical engineering of the ship and its core systems don’t function because of shitty human non-polarized electrical grids; it runs based on Alternian bio-engineering. In the case of a complete systems failure, this was deemed the safest most reliable method during a catastrophic systems failure during interstellar travel.”
Dave blinks at him like he’s speaking an alien language. “Good for you, you read the pamphlet too. You want a gold star or somethin’?”
Karkat likes to think he remains calm, all things considered when he’s currently trapped with the stupidest human that he could have possibly been trapped with. God, even Egbert has a basic understanding of Alternian biology to get what the fuck he’s saying.
“Our ship is biological, and other than the potential for cancerous growth in the mainframe, its electromagnetic field won’t be polarized by entering a field of higher ionic energy. But our comms, our suits, our survey tools are human based technology . We just landed ourselves into the equivalent of a planet wide EMP and all our shit is useless. ”
Dave sucks in a breath, tension drawing in the lines of his chin and the set of his jaw. “But, no, no, no, no, no, it was working. It was working back at the ship!”
Karkat pinches the bridge of his nose, leaning back on some pastel pink and blue flora that he thinks might be a tree? He doesn’t let himself worry about it now.
“Because we hadn’t left it’s shell yet you complete ass fingering fuckweasel. The only thing we had that wasn’t human tech was my navigational pad. You know, the broken one?”
Dave nods, silent for a moment, right hand covered in scars closing in mid air like he’s hoping to grasp an invisible weapon. Karkat knows the feeling, mourning the loss of his own sickles keenly, but tumbling into the unknown wilderness doesn’t exactly leave you armored and supplied.
He lets out a noise, like a depressurized balloon, crouching low and taking in a few quick breaths of non-recycled oxygen.
Karkat thinks he’s having a panic attack, and just when he reaches a hand down, hoping to count his breaths like he’s seen Crocker do a few times when the older Strider got this haunted look on his face and his breathing came in short hiccupping gasps, Dave springs up walking quickly in the direction they both hope they remember the landing zone is.
“Hey-fuck! Strider! Strider !” Karkat struggles to keep up, the thick brush thwacking him in the face a few times as Dave pushes through it all as if it didn't exist in the first place.
“Stop, goddamnit, why the fuck is this jungle so dense ?! Hey!”
Dave stops so suddenly Karkat runs right into his back, feeling face first the musculature of his form, not that the skin tight plug suits leave much to the imagination.
“What the fuck, Dave?! Look, it sucks, I’m having the realization that I might die and the only thing I’ll have to show for it is a plaque in some Aeronautics administration building that grows duller with every sweep too. But, we can’t get separated! If I’m dying, you’re going right there with me, I will not be left-”
Dave steps aside and the words die in Karkat's throat, as the field of red glowing flowers, with motes of light drifting off them like tiny beads of pollen punches the words from his sternum. A meadow of them, waving gently in an open clearing, a sweet scent permeating the air and drawing the words from his mind. It’s beautiful, in a way words fail to describe and that an artist, however skilled, could only dream of capturing.
“Holy shit…”
“Yeah, this is…fuck man.”
Both of them bask in the view, drawn in by the tantalizing aroma of the foreign flowers, dusting up the motes of light as they wade through the pasture.
Belatedly, the words drilled into his mind of dangerous flora and unknown species drift in the back of his mind, but for some reason, he thinks… no, he knows the peaceful glade is safe. He feels a heat build at the base of his spin, creeping up as Dave and him step further into the field, stirring up more of the drifting motes of light.
They tickle his skin where they brush his cheek, inexplicably warm and soft with each gentle caress. Dave trails his hand through a particularly concentrated ball, scattering them like dandelions in the wind. His face is flushed, and suddenly Karkat doesn’t know why he was so mad, or panicked in the first place. A sense of peace and calm so similar to his moment alone just that morning eases the tension in his shoulders.
“Dave, this is…” He struggles to speak, words bunching like cotton on his tongue.
Dave looks back at him, the flush on his cheeks trailing down his neck, he feels like a live wire. His plug suit is too tight, too restricting now. He squirms, panting slightly as his groin gives a dull throb when he shifts.
And suddenly Dave is close, hands lighting a trail of pure molten fire up his sides, nearly causing him to combust when the calloused palms cup the nap of his neck gently. Dave’s panting heavily now, he can feel each breath fog over his face as he tenuously hangs on to the last threads of his…he doesn’t even know. He can’t put this feeling to words, too lost in Dave’s orbit to articulate even in the privacy of his own mind.
Dave gets closer, their faces less than a hair’s breadth apart, breathing each other in as the light swirls around them, cocooning them in their brilliant glow. The warm light reflects off the dark of Dave’s shades, revealing the tint of his red eyes gazing at him with such barely restrained affection it leaves Karkat weak to his core.
“Karkat, I can’t…I don’t…” He starts and stops, clearly as enraptured with him as he is with Dave. But somehow, he knows, by the gentle caress of his hands, burning though they are upon his skin, and by the yearning in his gaze.
They step closer, just one more inch…
And like water over his back Karkat’s mind screams at him, the panic bubbling just beneath the surface breaking free like a solar flare and he pushes Dave away, ignoring the physical ache as he does. “Dave, Dave holy shit what the fuck are we doing?”
His mind is sluggish and that is decidedly not fucking normal, what the fuck is happening?! (And why doesn't he want it to stop?!)
Dave blinks, still looking a little too lost as Karkat puts distance between them, however small it truly is just being arm's length. “We, uh, shit.” He blinks a few more times, senses clearing just enough to realize as shame bubbles to the surface. “Fuck, fuck, Karkat I’m sorry man I don’t know what the fuck came over me I just. Fuck!”
Karkat feels the stirring of panic, clearing his mind just enough before…god he doesn’t even know. (He does, he knows, and he feels it, it’s burning him up- stop stop stop stop)
“Dave we have to leave, I don’t know what the fuck this is, but we can’t stay here.”
“Yeah, yeah fuck this place.” Both of them pointedly don’t look down, the plug suits leaving no illusions of what they were both about to do. What they still want to do. What Karkat’s instincts are telling him, his nook leaking causing an uncomfortable friction in his crotch as they push through the glade.
The field is no longer beautiful, but ominous, its ethereal glow a trap drowning his otherwise paranoid senses. Fuck, fuck , they are both so fucking stupid, the fucking lights!
Karkat covers his nose and mouth, barely holding himself together as another wind blows, the red flowers creating a thick bloom of soft deceptive glows that seem to coalesce around them. Dave realizes it too, struggling to hold his breath, wet tracks slipping from his eyes from the strain. Karkat's lungs burn, but it’s nothing compared to the continuous ache inside him that twitches violently with each unsteady gait, but they are almost there, almost clear!
A screeching caw sounds from above, and they both have seconds to duck beneath the cover of the flowers as a large shadow falls over them. That fucking bird !!
Dave tries to remain still on top of him, silently thankful for his red suit blending into the color of the field from a distance.
They can hear it, circling just above, both of them desperately trying not to breathe. Dave’s panic is palpable, and his mortification equal to Karkat’s when he can’t stop himself from grinding into him in little movements. It's not enough, painfully not enough as every nerve ending spasms, his body nearly vibrating with the effort to not even move a single atom of his very being.
He doesn’t know who breaks first, maybe it’s Karkat, his bulge wildly straining against the compression of his plug suit, forced to tease the folds of his own nook in a mortifyingly lewd act that he will refuse to admit at any point in time sends a thrill of depraved electricity through his think pan.
Maybe it’s Dave, stiff human bulge twitching even as compressed as it is, face nearly scarlet as he crashes into Karkat, licking at the sensitive vestigial gills around his neck his mutant blood body regrettably gifted him.
Maybe it’s both of them, waves crashing into each other as air rushes into their lungs and that sickly sweet aroma clouds any sense left, casting it into the shadows of his thinkpan. All he can process, all he knows, is the plug suit is too tight and the skin pressed against his isn’t enough. He needs more, more, grabbing the hair at the back of Dave’s skull and yanking him upward. Their lips meet, clashing in a wet sloppy embrace, a moan slipping from his throat as he grinds down into him.
Karkat responds with a chitter, a deep rumbling sound from the base of his thoracic gas exchange pouch. “Dave, god fucking, Dave.” He doesn’t even know what he’s saying, or if it’s even in English anymore. The stands of his thoughts are fleeting other than a mantra of skin, skin, skin. His body aching, restricted by the slick surface of their plugs suits from truly finding purchase on Dave’s body. He wants him, wants to feel every scared grove centimeter by centimeter, cataloging each long healed wound and callous with his goddamn tongue .
Karkat finds the latch of Dave’s plug suit, yanking it down with as much force as possible, savoring the rough pale skin revealed for his hands with each pull of the zipper. But it’s not enough, not nearly enough, he needs, he needs -
Dave scrambles to find his latch, lips never leaving his body, even as he misses his lips and trails a line of spit on his cheek fumbling to help and get them both out of the skin tight material. God, who the fuck made these?!
Karkat growls, impatient, rolling the both of them over and quickly finding the latch himself, pulling it down as he grinds his bulge into Dave’s. The sparks traveling from his crotch along every nerve in his body brighter than any of the motes of light disturbed by their movements.
Any thought of danger is the farthest thing from his grey matter, lost in the infuriatingly attractive human splayed out beneath him.
Dave grasps his hips, letting out a strangled moan as he insistently tugs Karkat into a back and forth rhythm on top of him. “The fuck are you made of man, god, how is your ass still this fuckin’ unf in these compression suits?!” He grabs at his ass cheek, using that as leverage and arching up into him.
Karkat goes with the motion, eyes tracing the outline of Dave’s bruised and puffy lips. He shrugs off the top of his plug suit, biting his own chapped lips to suppress a warbling chitter as Dave fingers find purchase on his grub scars, palming the sensitive nubs. “God, shut the fuck up already and get the fuck out of that suit you ass blistering taintsniffer. “
Dave pants out a laugh as Karkat pointedly does a slow grind onto his bulge, the friction between both too much and not enough all at once. He arches his back with a moan, glasses slipping from his face to reveal his pupils blown wide, drunk on every meter of Karkat pressing into him.
His lips twitch up into a smirk, “Why don’t you stuff up my mouth and make me then?”
Karkat doesn’t even try to suppress the rolling rumble any troll would recognize as an enthusiastic yes as his bulge writhes eagerly at the thought. He may not be a troll, but Dave seems to get it when Karkat shucks off the remainder of the tight suit in one swift tug, his bulge twisting freely as genmat leeks from the tapered end and his nook drips red translucent fluid down his thighs.
Dave swallows, mumbling what may be a ‘hell fucking yes, we’re doing it, we’re making this happen’ under his breath. And in another scenario, Karkat might call him out on it, might tease him and draw this out, but he can’t even pretend on the illusion of self-restraint as he settles over Dave’s face, balling his fist into his hair to hold him still.
Without hesitation, his bulge twists, sliding over Dave’s cheek in search of the warm wet cavern of his mouth. Dave palms himself through his wetsuit, eyes fixated on Karkat’s. His mouth open, willing, and wanting.
“Tap me if you can’t breathe.” It’s the most he can give him, mind lost long ago, and his body running hotter than he can handle, begging for relief.
“Karkat, Karkat.” Dave calls his name, expression serious despite the fact that the tip of Karkat’s bulge teases the side of his lips, yearning for a warmth to sink into. “Let me fuckin’ choke.”
He doesn’t even try to stop it as his bulge sinks into Dave’s mouth, twisting with his slick tongue and thrashing wildly along the rough texture of his much duller teeth. His eyes roll back into his skull as he uses his leverage holding Dave’s hair to yank him where he wants and fuck his face into the ground. He’s not gentle, he can’t be, desperation and tension, and wanting, so much fucking wanting rips at his insides as the waves of pleasure crash into him over and over.
Dave is loud, squishing wet moans spilling even as stuffed full as he is. Sloppy, shlucking, gurgles escaping in loud breaks as Dave chokes on his mutant dick. His throat vibrating pleasantly around his bulge, hallowing his cheeks as he sucks him for all he’s worth. It’s good, too good, he’s close, he can feel it, the rising build climbing from the base of his groin in a heated bubble. The pressure is too much, impossibly so, as his genetic material presses uncomfortably tight to his seedflap. “Please, please, please, Dave, God, please.”
He begs, he can’t articulate, every last word driven from his skull lost to the wet warm heat of Dave’s mouth. Nothing else matters, he doesn’t even know what he wants - Until he feels Dave’s fingers tease the edges of his nook and he lets out a chitter so loud they could hear it back on Alternia.
“Yes, there, yes!” He’s pretty sure he’s all clicks and snarls now, but Dave, by some miracle, understands and sinks his fingers into the tight squeeze of Karkat’s nook dragging against the rough sides. Just a bit more, a bit more ..!
There!
He nearly spills right then as Dave’s fingers find the incredibly reactive ridges of his seed flap, a rush of wet genetic material slipping through with the build up as much as it is. He’s not saying anything other than Dave’s name, repeating it like a prayer, like a psalm of worship to this stupid, idiotic beautiful human that takes him apart with only his hands and mouth. Red eyes reflecting his own mutant gaze, rolling on the waves of pleasure.
His fleetmate, his partner, his friend, so much they’ve been through in the past couple of sweeps, so many moments, lingering and full of unspoken tenderness he tries to ignore. Tries to bury for fear it won’t be enough when they go back. Whispered treacherous thoughts that he isn’t good enough, not in general, but of Dave. Because he deserves more than some loud mouthed mutant fuck up. He deserves-
“You.”
Karkat stares down at Dave, bulge pulled back. It stretches out to sink back into the wet warmth it was so cruelly pulled from. Dave’s fingers are knuckle deep in his nook, translucent red fluid dripping from his lips and chin, forming a small puddle on the ground. It’s absolutely salacious. Not even his most debauched holovids could even come close to this stimulating sight.
It’s almost enough.
But it’s the sincerity, the open affection that he looks up at him with in this small moment that tips him over the edge. The clearly barely constrained blindingly red flushed feelings that shine brighter than the field of red glowing flowers around them. Karkat feels his seed flap and bulge contract, and that’s all the warning either of them get as his orgasm crests over him. Red tinted genetic material coats Dave’s face, gushing out from his nook in a slick rush. Dave is covered, but he still tongues at his bulge, even if he can’t swallow even half of the genetic material that has already coated his face and hair. He helps Karkat ride out the crash, fingers and mouth in tandem to bring him all the way out.
Dave groans, his hand moving out of view, dry humping his hand to completion in shuttering twitches of his hips.
Karkat was wrong. The field wasn’t the most beautiful sight. It was Dave, panting, covered in his own genetic material, and looking at him just as he is right now.
He adjusts, moving down, crashing his lips to Dave’s headless of the taste of himself on the other man's lips.
Karkat must black out for a few moments, because the next thing he knows both of them are in a different area of the forest, no red flowers spitting out motes of light he now assumes to be pollen in sight, tucked into Dave’s arms as the latter snores lightly.
His hair is slicked up in parts from the now dry genetic material, and both of them are only partly in their plug suits. If any of their teammates finds them like this, they’ll never hear the end of it.
And yet, as Dave’s eyes flutter open, his gaze sleepy and apprehensive. Karkat can’t find it in him to give a single fuck about anyone else but the two of them, on an alien planet, limitless possibilities awaiting just beyond the stars.
Together.