Archive of Our Own ^beta

Karkat woke up lying face-down on... the sofa? Yeah, he was pretty sure this was the sofa. Fuck. He'd crashed watching romcoms again and slept out of sopor. That must be why his head hurt.

His face hurt too, actually. And his arms. Everything hurt. His ribs ached. His jaw ached. The bridge of his nose hurt like someone had driven a spike into it. Was he ill?

Someone was moving around the room.

“Dad?” he asked, and turned his head, squinting. The lights were off, and sunset glowed red through the curtains. He must have been asleep on the sofa all day. “Dad, my head-”

Quick footsteps approached him, and then someone grabbed him – he yelped as their claws dug into his skin – and flipped him over. He landed on his arms and pain shot through his shoulders. He tried to scrabble away but couldn't. His wrists were tied behind his back. His wrists were tied, and looming over him was a gangly five-sweeps-old indigo-blooded juggalo grinning razorblade teeth from ear to ear.

“Your lusus AIN'T MOTHERFUCKING HERE, bro,” the indigo said. “Just MOTHERFUCKING ME.”

Oh fuck. Now he remembered. He'd been kidnapped, and he was going to die.

* * *

Unsurprisingly, this was all Karkat's own fault. In a fit of independence and pique and stupidity, he'd decided that five sweeps was old enough to leave his hive and go to get groceries without his shambling crabmonster of a lusus trailing after him. His lusus had disagreed. He'd snuck out anyway. It was a stupid idea, based on the clearly completely unfounded assumption that he could leave his hive alone without immediately hemorrhaging all over the universe.

To be honest, he'd regretted it before he was more than two miles from his hive, but if he'd gone back at that point then the crab would have won.

It was six miles from his hive to the depot where he and his lusus picked up his food every week. It usually took a couple of hours to walk, each way. Alone, it took more than twice that time. He had to keep cutting off the road to avoid older bigger trolls, and he would have walked straight into a gang of seven-sweep-olds if they hadn't been chattering and laughing so loudly. He'd had to dive into a ditch to avoid them, and he'd huddled there in the mud for half an hour before he could gather up the courage to crawl out. In some cruel cosmic joke, however, he'd made it safely to the depot, collected his rations and been on his way home when the gods had woken up and said “Oh fuck, is that Karkat Vantas succeeding at something? Can't have that!”

Early morning, with the sun lighting the horizon enough that the road was all but deserted, and Karkat found himself face to face with a psychotic baby subjugglator.

“Hey, motherfucker,” the indigo greeted him, bright and brittle. He was only half a sweep older than Karkat, if that, but still a few inches taller. His face was painted white and dark grey in a jagged pattern that looked like a snarling mouth stretched open too wide, almost ear-to-ear, like a slit throat. Karkat really didn't want to fight this guy.

The indigo was looking at his bag of groceries, so Karkat immediately swung it off his shoulder, dropped it in the road and backed away. It was hard to tell under the paint, but the corners of the indigo's mouth seemed to turn down. His gaze flicked from the groceries to Karkat's face to the grey symbol on his sweatshirt. He cocked his head on one side.

Karkat's bloodpusher turned over. Ice water trickled down his spine.

“Never met a motherfucking greyblood before,” the indigo said. “You bleed grey, bro? You fucking HIDING SOMETHING?” The sudden shout made Karkat flinch. The indigo drew a juggling club from his strife specibus and moved forward. “You gonna let a motherfucker TAKE A MOTHERFUCKING LOOK?”

Oh fuck.

His only chance was to injure the juggalo enough that he could run. Karkat drew his sickle and lashed out as fast as he could. The clown yelped in surprise and spun aside so the swipe that would have spilled out his guts only grazed across his abdomen and hip.

The clown let out a startled laugh – like he thought this was a game – and whipped his club at Karkat's chin. Karkat ducked under the blow and heard the club whistle over his head. But the indigo had put too much strength behind the attack, and he staggered to the side, leaving himself open. Karkat swept his sickle at the indigo's face. The clown managed to parry it with a barehanded blow to the inside of Karkat's forearm, but the tip of the sickle still sliced a neat line down his cheekbone. Cold blood sheeted down the clown's face, over the paint. He stopped laughing. His face twisted.

Karkat faltered, taking a step back. The indigo tossed his club up high into the air and, like a stupid fucking idiot who deserved everything he got, Karkat followed it with his gaze just long enough for the indigo to draw another club and slam it into his elbow. Pain shot up Karkat's arm and his sickle flew out of his hand as the indigo tackled him into the dirt.

Karkat screamed at the impact, and then again when he saw the clown's face, distorted with rage and streaked with blood. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to cover his head with his good arm, but it didn't help. The indigo hit him, hit him again and again and again until Karkat was gasping and sobbing like a wiggler, and it was worse when he stopped because then Karkat knew he was bleeding. Fuck, this was how he was going to die, huddled in the road pinned under the weight of a deranged juggalo, blubbering hysterically, feeling his disgusting mutant blood run down his face and more scared than he ever thought he could be in his life.

Several seconds passed. Karkat couldn't stop himself. He opened his eyes.

The clown was staring down at him, staring at his blood, and Karkat wanted to scream stop looking at it, stop looking at me! He was disgusting. He was the shittiest most worthless most unspeakable thing in existence and everyone was going to see it, everyone was going to know.

The clown touched his fingers to the blood and traced swirls of it across Karkat's face, and when he dragged his fingers across Karkat's mouth Karkat bit him. The clown cried out in pain and slammed Karkat's head into the ground.

Then everything had gone black.

* * *

Karkat was dragged abruptly out of the mire of self-loathing when the indigo poked him in the forehead. “You enjoy your motherfucking nap, bro?”

Wait, what? What sort of stupid insane question was that?

The sort you should expect from a stupid insane clown, obviously.

Karkat just stared up at him, too terrified to even swear. The assclown was staring at him, and it had just dawned on Karkat that maybe it hadn't been a rhetorical question when the assclown said “Shit, bro, you don't talk much, do you?”

He turned around and lolloped back across the room. Most likely, he was getting his clubs, or whatever else he was planning to use to end Karkat Vantas's sorry excuse for a life. The universe had to be sick of this farce by now, it was time he followed his dipshit ancestor's example and died a horrific, humiliating and completely self-inflicted death.

The juggalo returned, holding something in his hands. Karkat didn't want to look, he really didn't want to look, but he couldn't stop himself. It was a packet of biscuits. Karkat tried not to imagine the horrible things the clown could do to him with a biscuit, but then stopped when he realised that there weren't any. The clown tore the packet open, pulled one out and held it out.

“Open up, motherfucker. ...And don't bite me this time,” he added petulantly.

Karkat wasn't that stupid. He opened his mouth. The juggalo shoved the biscuit into it. Karkat nearly choked.

“WELL? Say motherfucking THANK YOU,” the juggalo barked.

“F-Faff ffa,” Karkat managed, spraying biscuit crumbs. It seemed to satisfy the clown, who put the biscuits down on the floor and wandered off to look at his paintings.

The biscuits had probably come straight out of Karkat's own groceries anyway. Thank you, assclown, for giving me my own food. Karkat swallowed and licked his lips. His mouth was crusted with his own blood. His right eye was swollen almost shut. He regretted waking up, and leaving his hive without his lusus, and being a filthy fucking mutant, and for that matter being hatched at all. Grub Karkat was a complete shithead and deserved everything he got.

Karkat took a look around the hive, just in case there was a big door somewhere helpfully labelled EXIT, and immediately regretted that too. Almost all the walls were covered in carnival paintings, mostly synthetic whites and blacks and greys but with flashes of colour too vibrant to have come from anywhere but someone's veins. Black silhouette figures with snarling painted faces leered at him from every direction. Even ignoring the insane décor, the place was total chaos. It was an open-plan hive – that or the juggalo had battered the walls to death – so Karkat could see right into the food preparation block and the clown's respiteblock. His recuperacoon was dirty yellow and kind of looked like an ablution trap, and a gaping tear down one side was leaking stale faded green sopor onto the floor. In the food prep block, every cupboard door was missing, broken or hanging off its hinges. The pile of sofa cushions he was lying on were torn open and the stuffing was coming out. The curtains had been ripped apart and hurriedly put back together with duct tape. The floor was littered with squeeze-bulb horns. Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust. There were spiderwebs in every corner. What was the clown's lusus, Roachdad?

The indigo laughed suddenly. Karkat looked at him as he turned away from the paintings and returned to Karkat's side.

“Motherfuck, bro, we got shit to be getting on with, right?” he asked, almost friendly, as he shoved Karkat face-down in the pile of cushions and untied the rope around his wrists. Oh fuck, this is it, Karkat thought. He barely had a second to appreciate his unbound arms before the juggalo flipped him over and grinned down at him. His eyes were glowing with anticipation. Karkat flinched back from him reflexively, but the clown just grabbed him by the collar, hauled him to his feet and dragged him across the room. He threw Karkat against the wall, fisted a hand in Karkat's t-shirt and drew a knife.

Panic clutched tight at Karkat's bloodpusher. “No, please, don't-” He raised one hand defensively, and the clown sliced a neat gash across Karkat's forearm.

Karkat gasped. The clown stowed the knife back in his sylladex – which was a relief, though the flash of bright lights hurt Karkat's eyes - and cupped his hand under the wound. Karkat's blood pooled in his palm. Karkat watched, nauseated by the amount flowing out of him but unable to look away. As soon as the clown was satisfied and let go of his shirt, Karkat slid down the wall into a heap. He cradled his injured arm against his chest and pressed the hem of his shirt against the wound. The blood seeped through the fabric in seconds.

What was happening? Karkat couldn't understand this at all. He turned his head to look at his captor.

The indigo was painting. “Shit, bro, you got the most motherfucking miraculous colour I ever saw,” he said dreamily, as he daubed brilliant crimson fireworks into the carnival sky. The red glowed from the walls. “Where'd you all up and get this from?” He didn't seem to be expecting an answer that time, which was lucky because Karkat didn't have one to give. He just sat and stared.

Fuck, he should have worked this out before, but... no, there was no way he could have figured this out. It was incomprehensible. He hadn't been kidnapped to be tortured or murdered or even to feed someone's horrorterror of a lusus. He'd been kidnapped for art supplies.

* * *

Afterwards, the clown led Karkat into the ablution block and stood him in front of the sink. The mirror had been smashed, but there were enough shards hanging on around the edges of the frame for Karkat to stare, horrified, at his reflection. He'd known he would be bloody, and that one eye was swollen shut. He'd known, intellectually, that he wouldn't look good. Actually seeing it was different. His lips had been cut to ribbons on his own fangs and there was a gash across the bridge of his nose. Blood had streamed from his nostrils, covering his mouth and chin and dripping down his t-shirt. The clown had smeared half of it over the rest of his face, too, and all the skin that showed under the crust of blood was bruised black. There was dried sopor concentrate spread across his temples – well, at least he hadn't slept dry after all. His right eye had swelled up, and the sliver of the yellows that showed between the lids had gone bright red.

The clown looked around, located a frayed and faded flannel and said “Let me see your arm, bro.” Karkat extended it to him, unable to look away from his battered face. The clown cleaned the wound out, almost gently. His face was scrunched up in concentration and his tongue stuck out the corner of his mouth.

“Thank you,” Karkat said, too exhausted to even hate himself for saying it. The flash of fangs in the mirror showed that two of his front teeth were broken. The indigo had thoroughly beaten the crap out of him.

The indigo finished cleaning the wound and started to bandage it. The bandage had come out of a new packet, so at least it was clean. The indigo tied the bandage off into a neat knot, inspected it and said “Shit, looks okay to me.”

“Thank you,” Karkat said. He was still too numb to care. That was good. It meant he was less likely to run his mouth off and say something that would get him killed.

“Sorry, I ain't got no antiseptic or shit,” the indigo said, rubbing the back of his neck. “It motherfucking up and broke or something.” Karkat didn't say anything. “Let me see your face, bro,” the indigo said, and reached for his chin. Karkat flinched away, and then forced himself to hold still as the clown scrubbed at his face. He tried not to think about the hand gripping his chin and how easy it would be for the clown to strangle him and instead found himself looking at the indigo's cheek. For a moment he couldn't see any trace of the cut he'd inflicted and decided that the indigo probably had a super healing power just to fuck with him, but then he realised that the clown had just put on a plaster and painted over it.
The clown saw where Karkat was looking, and his hand closed around Karkat's throat.

Karkat tried to jerk away just on reflex, but the clown only tightened his grip and dragged him closer. “That wasn't MOTHERFUCKING OKAY, man," the clown snarled directly into Karkat's face and oh God the sudden screaming was even worse close up. Karkat shrank in on himself instinctively, raising his shoulders and ducking his head. The clown yanked his head back up so he could look Karkat in the eyes. “You DO NOT FUCK WITH a clown's PAINT, bro. That ain't cool. NEVER MOTHERFUCKING DO IT AGAIN, you hear me?”

“I'm sorry!” Karkat gasped out. The clown's grip on his throat had forced him onto his tiptoes. “I didn't know!” The clown stared into his face for what seemed like forever, searching for traces of insincerity. Karkat struggled to breathe, struggled not to scream and claw at the hand around his neck. He was getting light-headed and dark spots were swimming in the corners of his vision. Was that lack of air or just terror? Oh God, he was going to black out and then the clown would -

“Well, since you're MOTHERFUCKING SORRY I guess I'll let it go THIS TIME,” the clown said, and relaxed his grip on Karkat's throat. Karkat wheezed and almost fell down, but the clown took hold of his shoulder and pulled his chin up again. “Keep looking at me, bro, I'm not finished.” He got back to cleaning Karkat's face as though nothing had happened. Karkat wrapped his arms around himself and clenched his fists tight, but he still couldn't stop shaking.

“Thank you,” Karkat said, when the clown was done.

“Motherfuck, bro, it's good you're getting your proper fucking respect on but you don't need to say it every time,” the indigo said, dropping the bloody flannel into the sink. “Hey, what do you like to eat?”

“What?” Karkat said.

“What the fuck do you like to eat, bro, come on.”

“Uh,” Karkat said, this not being something he'd expected to come up. “Just... stuff? Sandwiches? Anything spicy?” His lusus didn't think hot sauce sandwiches counted as food, but that was complete hoofbeast shit because they were the most delicious things ever.

The clown scrunched his face up. “Motherfuck, okay. Spicy shit.” He didn't sound convinced. Was that not good enough? Karkat tensed, but the clown just said "I'm going out now. You gonna be cool till I get back?" Karkat nodded. The clown wasn't likely to take his word for it, though. What was he going to do to make sure Karkat stayed where he was put?

As it turned out, the clown was going to tie him up again. He shepherded Karkat over to the pile of sofa cushions and pushed him down. Karkat held his hands out in front of him. Not that he wanted to be helpful, but if the clown tied his wrists in front of him it would be easier to get out.

"TURN AROUND, motherfucker."

Fuck. The clown knew that too.

Karkat turned around. The clown tied his wrists tightly behind his back and knotted the rope to a water pipe. Karkat tugged at the bonds. They wouldn't yield at all.

"I'll be back soon," the clown called, crossing the hive. "Don't go anywhere!" The front door closed behind him, and the lock clicked.

As though Karkat was about to jump up and start digging a tunnel to freedom. Why did the clown have to be such an idiot? Why couldn't he have been kidnapped by someone with a functional thinkpan? Karkat wriggled backwards and tried to get at the knot around the water pipe, but he couldn't even start to figure out that tangled mess. The only way he was getting out of here was if the clown came back and untied him. Karkat hoped the clown didn't get himself killed while he was out. He didn't want to die slowly of dehydration while tied to a water pipe. He probably deserved to, though. He felt like shit. What was his lusus doing? How long would it have taken for the crab to realise where he had gone? How long would it take for the crab to decide he was dead? It was barely a week before 12th Perigee's Eve, the single holiday dedicated to the lusus/troll bond, the most important day in the year, and Karkat had got himself kidnapped. That would have been shitty even if Karkat's lusus had been normal and not convinced he was the messiah. Karkat was the single worst, shittiest, most useless thing in existence. Someday in the distant future there would be museums solely dedicated to showcasing the sheer unbelievable incompetent tragedy that was his life, and all the future lusi would take their future kids along to impress on them the importance of not being Karkat Vantas.

The Museum of the Worthless Shitblood would be right next to the Art Gallery of the Assclown's Fingerpaintings. That was all Karkat needed.

What would his friends do? Sollux lived in a big city and had his rations dropped off at his hivestem, so he would never have got into this mess in the first place, not that he couldn't have just psychiced himself out of it. Terezi would be breaking out the scalemates and putting the clown on trial. Kanaya would have talked herself out of trouble, or, if that didn't work, chainsawed herself out of it. Karkat was sure they would all have been dealing with this better than he was. He couldn't do anything.

He was too tired to even loathe himself properly. He put his head down on the sofa cushions and waited for the indigo to return.

* * *

"Hey, bro!" the indigo called out as he came in. He sounded unacceptably cheerful. "I got you a present!" His footsteps crossed the room to Karkat's pile. Karkat opened one eye. The clown was smiling broadly and holding out a bottle of hot sauce.

Karkat bit back the first response of 'Who did you kill to get that?' and instead said "Thanks." He couldn't see any obvious blood splatters, at least.

"Got some of that antiseptic stuff, too," the indigo added, plunking a bottle down on the counter in the food prep block.

"Thanks," Karkat said again.

"Well shit, we don't want your arms rotting off, do we?" He came back and untied Karkat. "You want something to eat?"

Now he thought of it, Karkat hadn't eaten anything since lunch the night before. Being kidnapped and bled hadn't been good for his appetite. Still, it would be stupid to starve himself.

"Yes, please."

"Bitchtits," the indigo said. "I'll fix something."

'Fixing something' meant retrieving two tins of stew and a bottle of soda from the floor in the food prep block, opening them, and sticking a pair of spoons in the stew tins. The clown handed one of the resultant abominations to Karkat. Karkat stared at him to see if he was serious. The clown sat on the floor, back against the counter, legs splayed out, and happily ate cold stew out of a can. Karkat changed his mind. He was okay with starving himself.

Fuck. He dolloped as much hot sauce as possible into the can and stared grimly at the walls as he ate.

Something had been bothering him about the paintings - other than the obvious overwhelming mental problems needed to think that plastering your hive in shitty clown scribbles was a good idea - and he finally realised what it was. There weren't any lusi in them. Crowds of silhouetted clowntrolls with gangly childish figures and no lusi. There was no lusus in the hive and no sign of one ever having been around. The only logical conclusion was that the clown didn't have a guardian. He was an orphan.

Karkat wasn't sure how the clown had escaped culling for that - maybe he'd just slipped under the radar? maybe highbloods were given a second chance? - but at least that would explain why he needed to steal food from other trolls. There was no point feeding something if it would probably end up too feral to use. Karkat knew he wouldn't have lasted a single perigree without his lusus, anyway. It almost made him pity the clown. Almost.

At least he didn't have to worry about Roachdad showing up and eating him for getting in his territory.

"Shit, I should've asked before," the clown said suddenly as he uncapped his bottle of soda. "You want a Faygo?"

A Faygo was a circus cult drink, wasn't it? Yeah, Karkat was just dying to pour chemical-laced fizzy sugar clown water down his protein chute.

"Thanks, but I'm okay," Karkat said.

"If you say so, bro, more for me," the clown said. He held the bottle up to the light and stared at the bubbles as if carbonation held the secret of immortality, or as if he was a brain-damaged wiggler.

"Can I ask you a question?" Karkat asked.

"Fuck, bro, think you just did," the clown said, and laughed. "Ask away."

Karkat didn't know the inoffensive way to say it. He wasn't sure there was one. Inoffensive was not his area of expertise. He was fairly sure that being inoffensive would bring him out in a rash. "Do you have any quadrants filled?"

The clown stopped with the Faygo bottle raised halfway to his mouth. His smile vanished. "Why the FUCK do you want to know that?"

"I want to know if someone's going to show up and get about the m - the - my - the mutant fucking blood all over the walls," Karkat said, spitting out the words between his teeth.

The clown groaned. "Shit, is that it? No, I don't have any motherfucking quadrants."

Karkat didn't suggest that this was because the clown had killed and eaten them. It was a good thing, really, while also being pretty damn godawful because the clown blatantly needed a moirail. Or a whole army of moirails and a straitjacket. Outside every silver lining was a huge fucking stormcloud.

"What about you?" the clown demanded. "You got any motherfuckers up in your quadrants?" He drained the Faygo and tossed the bottle aside.

"...no," Karkat admitted.

"Shit, bro, neither of us got any quadrant miracles," the clown said, and then grinned again. "Ain't that the best, though? Ain't no-one coming to look for you." Or, alternatively, inside every stormcloud was a crazy fucking clown.

Karkat bristled. Karkat knew his lusus would look for him, and his lusus had beaten way scarier things than a five-sweeps-old juggalo. He just wasn't sure that his lusus would find him. "What about your normal friends? Are they going to show up or did you already kill them all?"

It was a mistake to say it. It was a mistake even to say it like he did, throwing it at the clown like an accusation. Karkat couldn't believe he'd said it as soon as it came out of his mouth. Past Karkat was such a grubsucking imbecile.

"You say something, bro?" the indigo said so quietly Karkat could barely hear him, but before Karkat even had the chance to deny it or apologise, the indigo put the can aside and got up. “Shit, let's get to fucking coon!”

“What?” Karkat said. Had the indigo seriously not heard him? Was this some sort of fucked-up game?

“Yeah, I'm tired, gonna get my sleep on,” the indigo said. “You wanna get all up in your wicked nap zone too, bro.”

That last sentence made no sense whatsoever, but translated from batshit clown language, Karkat thought the clown meant that even though it was barely morning, he was going to bed. And, therefore, so was Karkat.

The clown was advancing on Karkat now with grim purpose and an open carton of sopor concentrate. Karkat scrambled to his feet and backed away until, with a startled squawk, he tripped over the pile of sofa cushions. The clown seized the opportunity to throw the whole carton of concentrate into Karkat's face.

Most of the thick green goo splattered on the wall behind Karkat, but enough landed on his skin that the concentrated sopor hit instantly. Karkat fell back onto the cushions. The clown tossed the empty carton away and inspected Karkat to be sure he wasn't faking. Karkat fought to keep his eyes open. His limbs weighed a ton. His head was rapidly filling up with cotton candy. Even the fear of what the clown might do while he was helpless couldn't keep him focused. The clown picked up one of Karkat's feet and dropped it onto the pile. It went 'thump'.

“Sleep well, bro," the clown said and ruffled his hair. Patronising douchebag. Karkat would have bitten him again for that if he had the energy to be really angry, or if he could move, or if feeling the clown's fingers in his hair didn't paralyse him with dread.

Karkat's eyes closed and stayed closed.

* * *

HONK

Karkat clawed awake, screaming. The indigo screamed back at him. Karkat screamed louder, tried to flail, failed because his hands were tied behind his back and fell off the pile of cushions. The indigo stopped screaming to say “Shit, miracle bro, you okay?”

“What the fuck?” Karkat gasped, scrabbling to sit up and staring at the clown with panicked eyes. “What the fuck? What the fuck was that?”

“... motherfuck, I think I stepped on a horn,” the assclown said.

They both looked at the squeeze-bulb horn under his left foot.

“Oh fuck,” Karkat said. “Oh fuck, why the fuck would you even leave that there, you -” He stopped there, with considerable effort.

The clown took his foot off the horn, finally, and looked down at it. The corners of his mouth turned up in a sheepish grin. “Yeah... I scare the shit out of myself like that all the time, bro, you don't motherfucking know.” He stepped over the horn and wandered towards the food preparation block.

“Are you going to pick that up?” Karkat asked.

“Pick what up?” said the clown, who apparently had the short-term memory and attention span of a yellow finbeast. Fuck, he'd probably been yelling because he'd forgotten Karkat was there.

Karkat tugged at the bindings on his wrists and hesitated. The clown was getting one of his shitty Faygos, but after a few seconds he glanced back at Karkat and saw him looking. “Problem, motherfucker?”

“No,” Karkat said instantly. “Uh... can you untie me?”

“I guess I could, yeah,” the clown said. “Why?”

“So I can clear the place up? I don't want to get PTSD from waking up in the evening,” Karkat snapped. Fuck, that was a mistake.

The clown took a swig of his Faygo, thought about it and said “Say please, motherfucker.”

“...please,” Karkat said, and hated himself and the universe and most of all the fucking clown, but at least the clown did untie him. “Thank you,” Karkat said. At least if he didn't wait for the clown to demand it he could pretend he was being polite voluntarily, even though that was not a thing he ever did. He rubbed some life back into his wrists and got slowly to his feet. “Do you have a broom?”

“A broom?” the clown repeated blankly. Karkat took that as a no.

"Never mind," Karkat said, and just went around picking up horns and tossing them into a corner. Fuck, while he was at it he might as well pick up the scattered empty cans, Faygo bottles and the discarded sopor carton too.

The indigo leant against the counter, drank his Faygo and watched. Karkat didn't want to turn his back on him, as irrational as that was because it wasn't as though it would matter if he saw the clown coming. Every time he had to turn away Karkat expected the indigo to suddenly grab him from behind. He was hyperaware of every movement the clown made, even when he just shifted his weight or drank his shitty soda.

"Have you got a bin?" Karkat asked. He was prepared to explain what a bin was, but the clown looked around vaguely and then pointed at a metal one upside down under a cupboard. It looked as if it was being used as a step, and also as if it had been battered with something not unlike a juggling club. When Karkat tried to put it upright it wobbled and fell over. Karkat propped it up against the cupboard, dumped the trash in and stood back.

"Good job, bro!" the clown said, and clapped. Karkat closed his eyes, took a deep breath and counted to ten. It was something Kanaya had suggested - 'Karkat I Am Merely Concerned For Your Blood Pressure' - and Karkat had never actually tried it before.

It didn't work. Karkat spent those ten seconds thinking about how much he wanted to scream at the clown until the lining of his throat peeled off, or, failing that, just scream and scream and scream. He had to find something else to do before he lost it. If he could clean up, there had to be more he could do. Changing the stale sopor in the clown's recuperacoon, for one. If the indigo got a stronger dose of sopor he was less likely to do an acrobatic flying flip off the handle and murder Karkat to bits.

"I can change the sopor in your recuperacoon, if you want," he said. "It looks like it's stale."

"Motherfuck, bro, I know when my slime's gone funny," the clown said. Karkat tensed. "But shit, that'd be a motherfucking miracle." Great.

Karkat stomped - that was a mistake, he made himself walk more sedately - into the clown's respite block, and he was just looking for the light switch when glass crunched under his foot. He looked up and saw that the light fixture had been smashed. Fucking bulgemunching clown.

The clown had followed him into the respite block and was spectating with interest. Fucking shitpanned murderhappy clowntard.

Karkat leant over the recuperacoon and inspected the slime. There was too much of it, for one thing, so the clown had probably just been dumping in more slime without taking out any of the old. The colour looked funny, but it didn't smell weird so it was probably just discoloured from the clown's facepaint.

Karkat needed something to get the old sopor out with. "Do you have, like... a basin or something?"

The clown scratched the back of his neck. "Don't think so, bro."

Okay. Maybe he could empty the bin out and use it as a scoop.

The clown wandered over, leant his elbows on the sides of the recuperacoon, blinked at the slime and then captchalogued it.

"...good idea," Karkat said, momentarily impressed. The clown stared raptly at the flashing colours of his sylladex. Karkat was less impressed.

"Have you got another carton of concentrate? I know there were two in my stuff."

"Uh, there's a few around," the clown said, and got Karkat one. Karkat tipped the contents into the bottom of the recuperacoon. It lay on the bottom, slowly oozing out of its rectangular shape.

"Okay, now I need the bin," Karkat said, and went to get it. The clown followed him, of course. Karkat tipped the bin out and tried to fill it in the food prep block's sink before he saw that the tap was bent almost double.

"That one don't work, bro," the clown said helpfully.

"Thank you," Karkat said between gritted teeth. That was all he said. His lusus would have wanted to know what had happened to the real Karkat Vantas. Karkat went to the sink in the ablution block instead.

Maybe Karkat could put some sopor in the ablution trap? It'd be better than passing out on the pile covered in concentrate. Unfortunately, when Karkat took a look in the trap he saw there was a big crack up one side and a hole in the bottom. Fucking clown. Karkat filled the bin, took it back to the recuperacoon and tipped it in. The clown trailed after him, astonished by this notion of making an effort and awestruck by Karkat's ability to do basic housekeeping that any wiggler could manage.

It took far, far too many trips to get the recuperacoon full. At home, he and his lusus would have used the hose. At home, his recuperacoon would never have got into this state to start with

"There," Karkat said finally, and dropped the bin. He checked the consistency - a bit stronger than he took it. Good. "That's done." His shoulders ached.

"Awesome, bro, fucking bitchtits!" the clown said. He smiled broadly, head tipped back, eyes closed, dimples appearing in both cheeks. On anyone other than the murderclown it would have been infectious, but since it was on the murderclown, it just creeped Karkat out. The murderclown stretched. "Hey, bro, I'm going to go chill all up on the beach for a while. You gonna stay put while I'm gone?"

"We're near the ocean?" That meant Karkat was at least three miles from his hive. Probably more.

"Yeah, bro, big motherfucking salty fucker over there," the indigo said, waving a hand in the vague direction of half the universe. "Got to dump the slime up at somewhere, right?"

"You'll piss off the seadwellers," Karkat said.

"Shit, you think so? They don't complain so much as they used to," the indigo said, and brightened up. "Hey! You should come with me!" He didn't even wait for a reply before he grabbed Karkat's wrist and hauled him out the door.

Karkat ducked reflexively, his free arm over his head. He knew his face hadn't healed yet, and the scabs across his mouth and the bridge of his nose were still too bright a red for anyone to think he was an ordinary rustblood. His imagination showed him a busy lawnring, crowds of staring highbloods.

A cold sea wind whipped through him. He looked up.

They weren't near the beach. They were on the beach. Karkat looked around, shivering and wrapping both arms around himself as the clown let go of him. As far as he could see there was just sand and ocean.

"Stay where I can see you, motherfucker," the clown called, and waded into the sea. Karkat bit back the observation that considering the direction the clown was facing, that would require a fucking boat. The indigo clasped his hands in prayer and then reached over to nowhere in particular. The stale sopor burst out of his sylladex and showered down around him. The clown laughed, spinning round to grin at Karkat. "Did you see that?"

"It was the best thing ever," Karkat said tonelessly.

"Get your enthusiasm on, bro."

"It was the most amazing thing I ever saw," Karkat said. "It's possible that the entire universe was created just so that you could chuck that coonful of slime into the sea. Major religions should be founded based on that precept. You should go get all the sopor I just dumped in your recuperacoon and throw it all into the sea as well."

"I motherfucking would but you only just got it all up and nice," the clown said, and smiled at him. "Get over here."

Karkat hesitated.

"I said GET OVER HERE, motherfucker."

Karkat got over there. The clown didn't drown him, which was nice. Instead they just sat side by side on the shore, looking out over the sea. The clown didn't seem interested in conversation. He was probably more paranoid about seadwellers than he let on. Maybe that was what had happened to his lusus. Karkat would be paranoid too, if something like that happened to his dad.

Fuck, that was almost pity. Karkat culled the thought like a injured grub and looked around for an escape route instead.

There wasn't one. The landscape was too flat and barren, beach fading into scrubby hills. The indigo would be able to see him for miles if he ran, and there wouldn't be any second chances. Besides, he was watching too closely. His gaze lingered on Karkat as often as it did on the sea. Short of a seadweller actually attacking, Karkat wouldn't get an opportunity to run. He shivered and rubbed his arms.

"Shit, bro, I can take you back in if you're cold," the indigo said.

* * *

Completely against Karkat's wishes, over the next few days they fell into a routine. Karkat took a look at the nutrition heater - the indigo said he thought it had broken sometime- and explained that no, it was just that that wire there down the back was meant to be plugged in.

"Motherfucking miracles," the clown said, gazing in awe at the resurrection of the cooker.

"No, that's electricity," Karkat corrected him, carefully editing out a 'fuckass'. The clown shrugged as if he didn't quite understand the difference.

The door to the heating locker had been kicked in. Karkat glanced at the clown's combat boots - the clown was perched on the counter, feet swinging back and forth - and shuddered. Still, the heating plates on the top still worked, so the clown could at least boil water for instant noodles and heat up canned stuff. Karkat would have done it himself, but for obvious reasons the clown wasn't going to let him play with saucepans of boiling water. The clown was happy, but not grateful, and Karkat didn't think it was even a factor that the clown was keeping him prisoner. The indigoblood expected that the mutant would fall all over himself to be useful.

More than once a day, the indigo went to sit on the beach and stare at the ocean, and usually he dragged Karkat with him. This was so boring Karkat wanted to bludgeon himself to death with a saucepan, but it was at least better than the times the clown randomly grabbed Karkat, stabbed him and fingerpainted on the walls with his blood.

The clown stayed in a good mood, with only intermittent flashes of rage. The fresh slime probably helped. But he never let Karkat be alone for a second. Karkat could just about use the load gaper unsupervised, but that was it. The clown even watched him when he fixed up his wounds, and sat outside the ablution block while he showered. That morning Karkat had woken up with the clown crouched over him, painted face barely six inches from his own. "Finally, bro, I was all waiting for you to get all up and awake!" Karkat had screamed and fallen off the pile, and only knowing that he would die for it kept him from verbally tearing the clown a new evacuation chute right there.

Maybe the clown was lonely.

Wait, fuck, that was pity. Karkat crushed the thought. It was more likely that the clown was a hugely possessive fuckass who needed to be put out of everyone else's misery.

Karkat wasn't going to give up, though. He was going to survive this and get back to his lusus. He just had to wait for the clown to get complacent and slip up. The clown wouldn't hurt him that much just so long as Karkat didn't completely flip his shit.

Two hours later, Karkat completely flipped his shit.

The indigo had dragged him out to the beach again, and now he was flopped down on the shore, humming off-key. Karkat had curled up on the sand facing away from the clown and was digging his claws into the balls of his palms to keep from exploding or screaming or trying to run away or doing anything else that would be stupid and get him killed.

Then the clown let out a startled "Motherfuck!" and leapt to his feet.

“What is it?” Karkat asked, scrambling to his feet. “Is it a seadweller?” Was it finally the opportunity he had been waiting for since he first woke up in the clown's hive? Could he seriously be so lucky?

The indigo was standing stock-still, staring out over the sea, but as Karkat watched he splashed into the water with a shout of “Dad!”

Wait. What?

A massive seagoat burst out of the water in a spray of water droplets. The clown let out a cry of delight. Karkat fell on his ass and scrabbled backwards.

The seagoat - the clown's lusus - hauled itself into the shallows. The clown waded knee-deep into the water and raised his arms for a hug. The seagoat roared, showing far too many sharp teeth. Its eyes were fixed on Karkat. He shrank back against the sand.

The clown turned and blinked at Karkat as if he'd completely forgotten he was there. "Oh, him? No, that's cool, he's mine," he said carelessly, and switched all his attention back to his lusus. The seagoat bowed its head and permitted the clown to hug it. It was still looking at Karkat as though it thought he would be a delicious snack. Of course, it was looking at the clown as though it thought he would be a delicious snack as well.

"I fucking missed you," the clown said, and his voice cracked. He buried his face in the seagoat's fur and spoke to it softly but quickly. Karkat couldn't hear what he was telling the seagoat, but he guessed it was something like 'this is my new pet mutant, he's so much fun to play with.'

After a few minutes - it was definitely no more than a few minutes - the seagoat shook the indigo off. The indigo stumbled and nearly fell down The seagoat kicked and splashed and dragged its massive bulk down into the deeper water. The indigo retreated back towards the beach, though he looked after the seagoat until it vanished completely from sight.

"Bye, dad! See you again soon," the indigo finally called after him, after even the ripples had faded. Still, when he turned away from the sea his eyes were half-closed and his face split in a dreamy smile. He drifted across the beach to his hive.

Karkat climbed slowly to his feet. His bloodpusher was pounding in his auricular sponge clots. His hands shook. A red film had settled over his vision.

The indigo turned in the doorway and looked back at him, still wearing that blissed-out smile. How dare he be happy because he'd seen his lusus, when Karkat's lusus thought he was dead?

“Something up with you, brother? Come on.”

Karkat said “Gffdtfasgdfsgfudhgaffdgsfgcfxg fuck sdgfddgf,” because that was the noise you made when you tried to say “What is fucking wrong with you?”, “I hate you and your shitty fucking lusus” and “I hope you fucking die” all at once.

"Breathe, bro, you've gone all red," the clown said. A faint crease appeared between his eyebrows. "GET THE FUCK INSIDE, motherfucker."

Karkat snapped.

"You fucking bulgemunching piece of shit."

Oh, you idiot, you were doing so well, a quiet voice lamented at the back of Karkat's mind. He could barely hear it through the rage.

"... what did you say?" the clown said, sounding genuinely confused.

"I thought you were an orphan," Karkat said.

“What?” the clown said, taken aback. “Motherfuck, no! The old goat just ain't around much.”

"You never painted him! Why didn't you paint him?"

"Fuck, bro, after my last hive burnt down," the clown said, broke off and laughed nervously. "Cool down, bro, nothing's wrong."

"Everything's wrong!" Karkat snarled. "What's wrong with you? No, wait, what's not wrong with you? That'd be a shorter list!"

"Motherfuck, bro, calm your tits down," the clown said. He'd taken a few steps backwards, hands raised placatingly.

"Did you fall on your head when you were a grub? Is that it?" Karkat demanded. He stormed into the hive after the clown and shoved his face right up into his. "No, that wouldn't fucking cover it! Were you used as a tennis ball as a grub? A pair of jadebloods wanted a match but Oh Goodness Gracious, Miriam, I Do Believe We've Misplaced The Ball when suddenly this indigo grub crawls by honking like a goddamn imbecile and oh look, that'll do nicely!"

"Motherfuck, bro, CALM. YOUR TITS. DOWN," the clown said. Karkat was too angry to be afraid or have self-preservation instincts.

"Fuck you, shitclown," Karkat spat. "You kidnapped me and I don't even know your name! But then why the fuck would you tell me that, do you formally introduce yourself to your other paint cans? You don't need to steal food from other people, you're just a spoilt indigo asshole! You weren't even deliberately stalking people early in the morning when you jumped me, were you? You were just running late because you spent the rest of the night FINGERPAINTING WITH YOUR THUMBS UP YOUR FUCKING EVACUATION CHUTE!"

"What? How would I even-" the clown started. Karkat cut him off.

"The worst thing is that I was starting to fucking pity you, you worthless demented asshole!"

The clown blinked at him with wide astonished eyes.

Karkat stared at the indigo, teeth bared, panting for breath. He was going to die. There was no way out of this. Probably there had never been any way out of this, but before he went the clown was going to know exactly what Karkat thought of him.

“Um," the clown said. "Gamzee Makara?"

“Who the fuck is Gamzee Makara?” Karkat demanded.

“...I am?” the murderclown said.

“Oh! Fantastic!” Karkat barked. “Well done, assclown, that was absolutely the most relevant part of my statement!”

The clown scowled. "What the fuck are you even so pissed about? I ain't done SHIT to you!"

"What? You attacked me! You kidnapped me!"

"Well... yeah, but I AIN'T DONE SHIT TO YOU since then!"

"You're still kidnapping me! That's not a thing that stopped happening!" Karkat yelled. "You stabbed me! You stabbed me repeatedly and then painted creepy carnivals in my blood! You made me eat cold stew out of the fucking can!" He was dimly aware that he had lost his mind, gone straight past anger into pure insane rage. He couldn't stop if he tried.

"You're PRETTY FUCKING MOUTHY for a MOTHERFUCKING SHITBLOOD," the clown said. His voice was very cold and dangerous. "Like you've GOT SHIT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT."

"It's unbelievable how dense you are. You are a black hole of idiocy and bad grammar," Karkat snapped. "You are the idiot singularity. You make me want to puke up everything I ever shoved down my protein chute and then all my fucking digestive sacs as well, just pull them out of my chute one by fucking one like a magician's scarves at a wiggling day party. You were going to kill me! You are going to kill me! You'd have done it already except I have shiny blood and you have the intellectual capacity of a fucking chirpbeast!"

The clown backhanded him across the face. Karkat staggered, lights bursting behind his eyes, but before he could fall the indigo grabbed him by the arms, slammed him against the counter and screamed directly into his face. "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Karkat flinched, but the indigo didn't hit him again. "Like you got ANY FUCKING RIGHT to complain? I've been FUCKING GOOD TO YOU! And it was YOUR OWN FUCKING FAULT for going out COMPLETELY FUCKING ALONE!"

"Oh my dead gods, you're so right," Karkat snarled. "It's my fault for not being able to do a basic fucking thing like not get kidnapped! It's my fault for going out without my lusus! This is what happens when you go out alone assuming you're not a STUPID FUCKING JUGGALO that no-one would want to be around long enough to murder! It's my fault because I couldn't defend myself! I'm a stupid fucking freak and my lusus thinks I'm dead, not that you would have ANY IDEA what that feels like!" Karkat's voice rose to a scream. "I'M THE DUMBEST MOST WORTHLESS THING IN EXISTENCE, IS THAT WHAT YOU FUCKING WANT TO HEAR?" Karkat spun away from the clown because he couldn't stand to see his face any more and slammed the balls of both palms against the counter.

"WHAT THE FUCK do you think you're doing?" the clown barked. "STOP FUCKING UP MY FUCKING HIVE!" Karkat didn't listen. He slammed the balls of his palms against the counter again. The impact jarred up to his shoulders but after a moment the pain faded, so he did it again, and again, and again, and -

"...Mirth, oh Mirth, oh what the fuck," the clown gasped, suddenly sounding very young and very scared. Karkat didn't care. He raised his fists again. The clown grabbed him from behind, pinned his arms to his sides and held him tight.

“Get off me!” Karkat screamed, flooded with sudden terror, and stamped on the juggalo's boots. The juggalo didn't even seem to notice, just held him tighter and breathed “Shoosh, motherfucker, shoosh,” desperately into his ear. Karkat threw his full weight against the clown, but he just stumbled backwards into the wall and slid down it to sit on the floor with Karkat sprawled across his lap. Karkat fought to get up and away, but the murderclown was hanging on to him like a limpet. Karkat screamed until he ran out of air and went limp in the clown's arms, panting for breath.

“It's okay, it's okay,” Gamzee said into Karkat's hair, and Karkat froze when he finally, belatedly realised what the fuck was happening. He was being shooshed.

And it was almost nice, being held and soothed like this, but what the fuck? Karkat was being shooshed by the insane murderclown who'd attacked and kidnapped him. All Karkat's anger and self-loathing drained away. It was replaced by cold horror. The murderclown's arms were around him. He was pressed close against the clown's chest, so close he could feel the clown's bloodpusher pounding and the clown's breath on his ear, and it made him want to claw off his own skin.

“It's okay, bro, I'm not pissed, just don't you up and do an injury on your motherfucking self, that ain't right, NEVER FUCKING DO THAT AGAIN," Gamzee babbled, and even the shout was less of a shout and more a particularly hoarse and vehement whisper. "You're not worthless, bro, you're fine, you're special, my special miracle bro-"

The hot sauce. The antiseptic. The constant hovering. “You enjoy your motherfucking nap, bro?” “Problem, motherfucker?” “Something up with you, brother?” He should have seen this coming. How the fuck had he not seen this coming? How panshatteringly stupid did he have to be not to have seen this coming?

"...fuck, if you gotta beat up on something that's cool, I've done that, but not yourself, bro, not your motherfucking self," Gamzee said. His voice cracked. "I swear I ain't mad, brother, ain't gonna hurt you, ain't gonna let anyone hurt you, gonna keep you safe, gonna keep you forever-" Karkat could hear the pity and the possessive affection in his voice. He closed his eyes and shook.

“Shoosh, shooosh,” Gamzee murmured softly, and unwound one arm from Karkat to gently stroke his hair.

* * *

Your name is GAMZEE MAKARA, and you know one of your bad times is coming on. The times when you just want to hit everything you can see, like the time you smashed your husktop, like the time you burned your hive, like the time you beat Equius (and that filthblooded motherfucker just fucking took it and apologised like it was his own motherfucking fault, and you swore you were sorry, that you were MOTHERFUCKING SORRY, and you promised you would never do it again and never lay a finger on Equibro's little kittysister but neither of you believed that you could keep that promise.) You're dangerous, and ain't that just the motherfucking best because nobody fucks with you.

Another thing you are, though, is hungry, and there ain't any food in. You thought there were a couple cans in the cupboard but shit, you guess you up and ate those some time when you weren't all paying attention because they sure as fuck ain't there, and it's getting on to dawn now so if you want to get anything today you better get to it.

And then on the road you run into this little nubby-horned motherfucker with his bag of all that delicious shit and he don't look like the sort to put up a fight (you hope he's the sort to put up a fight. Your hands are itching for your clubs.)

“Hey, motherfucker,” you say and his eyes go huge, and he backs away and drops his groceries all in the road as soon as he sees what you're after. It's a motherfucking disappointment.

“Never met a motherfucking greyblood before,” you say, trying to get a spark out of the little troll. His eyes narrow and ain't that sweet, don't that taste like victory. “You bleed grey, bro? You fucking HIDING SOMETHING?” You produce one of your clubs and start forward. Fuck, mostly you wanted to rile the little fucker up some, but after seeing how he's all touchy about it you really want to see what kind of colour he's got. “You gonna let a motherfucker take a MOTHERFUCKING LOOK?” you ask, and suddenly the little nubby-horned troll is a blur. You jolt to one side and his sickle only scratches you up instead of puddling your guts all over. It still hurts but you just laugh and laugh because shit, he's good and this might be fun.

You lash out for his chin and he ducks under it but, oops, you got all your enthusiasm on for that one and now you're stumbling. He goes for your head while your balance is all up all over the place. You hit his forearm as he lunges so he don't quite get to carve your skull up like he was wanting to but the tip of his sickle lays open your cheek. Your blood wells up and washes over your paint.

The fucking greyblood sees your expression and stumbles back. He cut your face. He cut your motherfucking face. He's good, he's really good, but he's not good enough and he CUT YOUR MOTHERFUCKING FACE.

You throw your club up high in the air and he follows it with his eyes for just a moment too long. You draw one of your other clubs and nail him right on the elbow, right on the funny bone, haha, and the sickle drops from his nerveless fingers as you tackle him to the ground. You pin him down in the road and fling your club away because you want to feel his bones crack under your fists and you hit him until he's sobbing and bleeding, and then you stop because this is the best and brightest red you ever saw. Red as candy, red as sunset, red as fireworks, redder than Death's own Handmaid.

“Motherfucking miracles,” you breathe. The little troll is still trapped under you, gasping for breath between sobs that shake his whole body, but all you can see is the blood oozing from his nose and torn mouth. You touch your fingers to his blood and trace swirls across his face, across his forehead, under his huge panicked eyes, down along the line of his jaw. He bites you.

You let out an undignified shriek and slam his head against the ground until he stops – stops biting, or moving, or doing much of anything at all. You stick your bitten fingers in your mouth and watch him warily. He just lies there, all vulnerable and shit, head lolling back, still covered in his miracle-scarlet blood and all the veins in his throat bared.

Your first instinct is to cut all those veins open, all up and drain the miracles right out of him, but motherfuck, you can't do that in the middle of the road! And besides...

… you got a feeling about this. That slow, awed feeling like when you first heard about the Mirthful Messiahs, like suddenly everything makes perfect motherfucking sense, and when you look at the little grey troll's impossibly bright blood your bad mood just up and blows away. This is a miracle. It's your miracle, a special gift from the Messiahs just for you, and when the Messiahs give you a miracle you don't all up and cull it in the dirt. You are going to keep your miracle safe. You are going to cherish this bitey little motherfucker.

You are kind of sorry now for bouncing your miracle's head off the road like that. You could even forgive him for cutting up your motherfucking face.

* * *

When Karkat woke up, Gamzee was leaning over the recuperacoon and staring down at him. Karkat flinched automatically.

"Get the fuck up, motherfucker."

The clown's voice was low and controlled but more frightening than the enraged screaming had been. Karkat didn't wait for him to say it again. He scrambled out of the recuperacoon - yeah, he remembered now, the clown had dumped him fully-dressed into his own recuperacoon for the day - and stood shivering and dripping sopor.

"Get in the ablution block, leave your clothes in the sink, and get in the fucking shower before you drip all over my fucking floor."

Karkat obeyed. As he went into the ablution block he wanted to lock the door behind him and hide in a corner, but the clown would only break it down to get at him. He peeled off his clothes, though reluctantly.

"I ain't hearing the fucking shower," the clown called. Karkat turned the shower on and curled up on the floor under the spray. The water was cold. He was only shaking because the water was cold. Sopor-tinted water cascaded off him. When it ran clear, he got out and shivered.

"There's a shirt on the tub," the clown called. It sounded like he was leaning against the door.

Karkat's jeans and t-shirt and shoes were soaked through, but his boxers were... gross as hell, because he'd been wearing the same clothes for nearly a week now, but Karkat was not exactly overwhelmed with options.

Yeah, he'd been kidnapped for nearly a week now. It was 12th Perigee's Eve the night after next. That didn't seem real.

Karkat pulled his boxers back on and picked up the t-shirt. It was one of the clown's, with his sign on the front - actually, it was the one he had been wearing when he'd attacked Karkat, because there was the cut Karkat had made across the bottom. It was still stained with indigo and flecks of Karkat's own red. Karkat pulled it on anyway, because the clown was waiting.

The clown sat Karkat in front of the heating locker. It was on, and heat radiated through the smashed door. Karkat pulled his knees up to his chest and looked up. The clown drew one of his clubs and rested it casually against one shoulder, the other hand in his pocket. He stared down at Karkat.

Karkat was suddenly hyperaware that he was only wearing his boxers and one of the clown's shirts, that he was unarmed, and that the clown was bigger than him anyway. He didn't have a chance of fighting back. His bloodpusher started to pound in his ears. The clown had promised not to hurt him the night before. Unfortunately, Karkat trusted the clown's word about as much as he trusted Vriska Serket's.

The clown made a sudden movement. Karkat flinched automatically, ducking his head and raising his shoulders, but the clown only shoved the base of the club under his chin and forced his head up.

"I ought to CULL YOU for that SHIT YOU PULLED last night."

Karkat swallowed. He was too tired, and all the fury had drained out of him. There was nothing left but fear.

"Thing is, you don't understand YOUR MOTHERFUCKING SITUATION HERE. I have been FUCKING GOOD TO YOU, lowblood," the clown seethed. "I ain't beaten you or fucked you or starved you. Things could be SO MUCH MOTHERFUCKING WORSE for you than they are, you get that?"

Karkat nodded as best he could with the club pressed against his throat.

"I don't think you FUCKING APPRECIATE THAT," the clown half-said, half-screamed into Karkat's face. "But you are one crazy motherfucker, bro. NOT RIGHT IN THE MOTHERFUCKING THINKPAN."

Wait. Karkat was... Karkat wasn't .... Karkat opened his mouth to disagree and the clown jerked his club upwards. Karkat's teeth clacked together.

"So I will be FUCKING MERCIFUL," the clown said. "We both pretend like you didn't SHOOT YOUR MOTHERFUCKING MOUTH OFF or DISRESPECT ME or HURT YOURSELF and you NEVER FUCKING DO IT AGAIN, or I'll - I'll-" He stuttered, and Karkat realised that the hand gripping the club was shaking. Oh God, the clown was furious. "I will be MOTHERFUCKING PISSED," the clown promised him. "Ain't that a good fucking deal, lowblood?"

He relaxed the club against Karkat's throat a little so Karkat could nod. Karkat obediently nodded.

"Motherfucking right it is," the clown said. "So don't you EVER FUCKING TELL ME I ain't been good to you again." He waited a moment, club still resting against Karkat's throat. "Well? Say FUCKING THANK YOU."

It was only a word, only a meaningless fucking empty platitude, he didn't have to mean it. He was lucky that was all the clown wanted. He'd never get a chance to escape if he didn't cooperate now. "Thank you," Karkat said. It still tasted like defeat.

"See? That ain't so hard, is it," Gamzee said. He took his club away from Karkat's throat. "You want some breakfast, bro?"

"Yes, please," Karkat said meekly.

"Bitchtits," Gamzee said, and started looking for something to cook. "Stay down there, it's warmer."

Karkat stayed on the floor and looked up at Gamzee as he warmed something up on the heating plate.

The clown didn't pity him. Karkat was certain of that. He conceded that the clown might think he pitied him, but pity involved fewer threats, less hitting and significantly less kidnapping.

"There you go, bro," Gamzee said, passing Karkat down a mug of tinned macaroni and coagulated milk product - all the bowls were mysteriously broken - and a fork.

Karkat poked at the macaroni, which went glop, and then said "My name's Karkat. Karkat Vantas."

"Motherfuck, bro, you think I don't fucking know that?" Gamzee said. Karkat stared at him, mouth open. "It was all up on a label in your sweater. You forget what your name is a lot or something?"

It hadn't even occurred to Karkat to wonder where his sweater had gone. Of course, if he had he would probably have just assumed that the clown had used it to murder somebody in between attacking Karkat and getting him back to the hive. Where was his sweater, anyway? Did the clown think it would be too much trouble to strip Karkat every time he wanted to bleed him?

"Lots of people put their names on stuff in case they lose it," Karkat said. "Sane people."

The clown just shoved a forkful of macaroni into his maw and said "Eat up, bro, breakfast is serious shit or something."

Karkat would agree that it was seriously shit. He ate it anyway. It was like chewing an eraser.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Depends on what the motherfucking question is," the clown growled through a mouthful of macaroni.

"What did you mean when you said your hive burnt down?" It might be a stupid question. It probably was a stupid question, but it was like the way his tongue automatically probed at his two broken fangs. Karkat wanted to know exactly what sort of crazy he was dealing with.

"Shit," Gamzee said, and thought about it. "I had a bunch of pictures of the old goat on the walls, and..." He broke off, hesitated and started again. "And it up and burnt down one night, so I didn't put any more on this one."

Oh yeah, the well-known phenomenon of spontaneous combustion in lusus paintings. The clown had torched his own hive.

"Where did this hive come from, then?"

"I found it," Gamzee said.

"And..." Karkat hesitated, then took the plunge again. "Who was living in it when you found it?"

"Only some mustardblood," the clown said, and grinned. "Sister didn't get her smarts on. She figured anything coming to get her would be coming out of the sea." Obviously it had never been the indigo's own hive. It only had four rooms. Karkat should have realised that from the beginning,

Only some mustardblood. Like Sollux. Less gifted, obviously, less capable of defending herself. Karkat looked around for a moment, trying to imagine the hive as somebody's home, a place somebody loved. He couldn't.

Gamzee put his empty mug down and went to flop on the pile of cushions. He picked up the packet of biscuits still by the pile and took a look inside.

"Those have been there a week, they're stale," Karkat said. The clown took one out and bit into it anyway. He chewed thoughtfully.

"Yeah, you're right," he said eventually, swallowed and put the packet down. He drew a club - Karkat tensed even though the clown was on the other side of the room - and then two more, and started to juggle with them. Karkat looked away, but even hearing the clubs thudding into the clown's hands made him wince. He stared at the carnival paintings again and saw something new. Two figures were painted on the walls, over and over, always together, always holding hands - a big blueblooded troll with one broken horn, and a much smaller olive-green troll in makeup that resembled a cat's face.

Karkat pointed to the figures and turned to the clown.

"Who are they?"

Instead of answering, Gamzee tried to juggle the packet of biscuits. Biscuits showered down around him. "Shit!" he yelped, ducking and covering his head with his arms. "Motherfuck!"

"Oh God," Karkat said, and performed a 2x facepalm combo. Gamzee shook crumbs out of his tangles, or tried to.

"Let me-" Karkat started, moving foward.

"STOP FUCKING FIXING SHIT!" the clown roared. Karkat stumbled back. Gamzee got to his feet and stared at the crumbs as though he had no idea how to deal with them.

There was a long awkward silence. Gamzee stomped away, leant against the counter and glared at the mess like it had personally offended him by not motherfucking stopping existing when he wanted it to. Karkat sat down on the pile of cushions and pulled his knees up to his chest. He wanted to be home so much it hurt.

If Karkat was at home, his lusus would be out looking for a behemoth to kill, and Karkat would be putting up decorations - early, yeah, but it had to be ready when his lusus came back with the half-eviscerated body. Karkat would string lights up through its ribcage, and they would eat junk food and watch Karkat's favourite romcoms and then the crab would make him think serious and respectful thoughts about his ancestor's troll-lusus, which sucked but at least it didn't take very long.

He looked at Gamzee. "What do you do for 12th Perigee's Eve?"

Gamzee shrugged. "Wait for the goat?"

Oh, that was going to be fun.

Gamzee straightened up and brushed his hands purposefully off on his stupid dotty clown pants.

"Get over here, bro. I wanna get my art on."

Life with the clown really was nothing but fun and good times.

* * *

The sun had barely set on 12th Perigee's Eve when Gamzee dragged Karkat off his pile of cushions, untied his wrists and hauled him out to the beach. Gamzee sat at the edge of the water, legs stretched out, the sea lapping at the trailing laces of his boots. Karkat curled up on the sand, closed his eyes and tried not to think about his dad. He was going to spend 12th Perigee's Eve sitting on a beach with an insane assclown waiting for the assclown's worthless piece of shit lusus to show, and his own lusus was going to spend 12th Perigee's Eve alone and thinking Karkat was dead.

Neither of them were in the mood for conversation. Gamzee sat and stared fixedly at the water. Karkat curled up in a self-loathing heap at his side. Hopefully the seagoat would show soon so that they could get back inside. A fingerpainting session would be more enjoyable than this.

It didn't occur to Karkat until several interminable hours later, well past midnight, that Gamzee's lusus might not come.

“Hey,” he said, cracking one eye open. “Does your lusus always turn up on 12th Perigee's?”

"Yeah," Gamzee said. He had pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.

"There's a fucking relief," Karkat said, and closed his eyes again. Time dripped away. Karkat got bored, got to his feet and wandered up and down the shore.

"Stay where I can see you, motherfucker," Gamzee said, but he didn't move.

Karkat skimmed pebbles over the waves, or tried to. It turned out that was actually really tricky. He tried, fucked it up, got angry at himself for fucking it up, got snapped at by the assclown, sat down hard on the beach next to him and sulked. It killed about an hour.

The moon was getting a bit low on the horizon now, and Karkat had that faint horrible creeping sensation again, the goat isn't going to come. He glanced sideways at Gamzee. How long would he sit there for? This couldn't be safe. Anything could show up. Every sea monster for miles around must know Gamzee was there. Maybe that was it? Maybe Gamzee was just a lure for the seagoat, something edible that could sit out on the beach for hours every night and draw all the smaller sea monsters into the goat's maw. He'd shown a few days ago. How often did you need to check that your bait was still alive and wriggling? If you checked it too often it wouldn't attract anything, would it?

"You're sure he didn't think a couple of days ago was 12th Perigee's?" Karkat asked.

"If he thought that was 12th Perigee's Eve he'd have brought something," Gamzee said.

"Oh yeah," Karkat said. "Uh, does he definitely know it's 12th Perigee's Eve today?"

"He knows what fucking day of the sweep it is. He's gonna show,” Gamzee said, without looking at him.

“Yeah, but, does he? I mean, fuck, he's underwater, he's not got a calendar down there,” Karkat said.

“HE'LL MOTHERFUCKING SHOW,” Gamzee ground out. Karkat shut up. He paced, built sand fortifications, destroyed the fortifications, played noughts and crosses with himself in the sand and lost every game. Gamzee stared at the sea.

Time passed. The stars wheeled overhead. Karkat shuffled up the beach to avoid the incoming tide and, by dint of considerable bitching and cajoling, got Gamzee to do the same. Karkat bit his claws, fidgeted and threw hunted glances at the sea. If the seagoat didn't show... Karkat didn't even want to think about that. Gamzee sat and waited. He might have been a statue. Time bled away so slowly and silently that it was a shock when Karkat glanced at the horizon and saw the glow of dawn.

"The sun's coming up," he said, sitting bolt upright. "Gamzee?" Gamzee didn't move. Karkat crawled over to him and reached out to touch his shoulder. "Gamzee, can you hear me? The sun's-"

Gamzee shoved Karkat away.

"Listen to me!" Karkat said. "The sun's coming up, you'll-"

"Shut up," Gamzee said, without looking at him. "SHUT THE FUCK UP." He had shrunk in on himself. His shoulders were hunched and his eyelids drooped.

The goat wasn't coming. Karkat was certain of it now. And Gamzee was going to flip his shit. "Oh, God," Karkat said. Gamzee must have realised the goat wasn't coming. He must know. So why wouldn't he move?

Worthless fucking waste of skin goat monster couldn't even turn up on the one day of the sweep that mattered.

The sun rose over the horizon. Light poured over the beach, turned the seafoam to fire, kindled the sky into gold and pink, threw their shadows stark and black across the sand. Karkat yelped, ducked and spun away. Was it his imagination, or was his skin burning already? Was the clown seriously going to sit out here until he roasted to a crisp? He had to get Gamzee inside. He ought to be tactful, break it to him gently. Assclown, I hate to have to tell you this but your lusus got out onto the roof and...

“He's not coming!” Karkat shouted directly into Gamzee's stupid painted assclown face. “If he was going to come then he would have been here by now!"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP," Gamzee said, and turned his face away.

"Gamzee, you will fucking burn!" Karkat yelled. "Or go blind or some bullshit like that!" The clown stared at him, eyes wide with surprise. What, had his piece of shit lusus not covered 'avoid sunlight'? "Just get the hell inside before you get seriously hurt, you stupid fucking fuckass!” He grabbed Gamzee by the t-shirt and dragged him towards the hive.

Gamzee moaned in protest, but he let Karkat haul him to his feet and across the beach. Karkat hustled Gamzee inside and slammed the door. Gamzee stumbled away from him and collapsed into a little heap against the wall, arms wrapped around himself. Karkat made sure that all the curtains were drawn before going to check on him. The clown's eyes were closed, and he was whispering to himself. “It's okay, it's okay, shoosh, shit, shoosh, it ain't on purpose-”

Fear and pity twisted in the pit of Karkat's digestion sacs. He knelt gingerly down at Gamzee's side. “Gamzee?” He was hugging himself so tightly his knuckles were white in the fabric of his shirt. “Gamzee?”

“-he's all underwater and shit,” Gamzee crooned, “so how's he gonna MOTHERFUCK!”

Karkat yelped and scrabbled backwards away from him. Gamzee unfolded and leapt to his feet in a blur.

“Like motherfucking seadwellers don't celebrate 12TH MOTHERFUCKING PERIGEE'S EVE? All their MOTHERFUCKING LUSI bringing home their monster corpses for their motherfucking kids to HANG LIGHTS ON?”

“He's probably avoiding seadweller settlements,” Karkat tried to say – not that he wanted to make excuses for Gamzee's shitty fucking lusus – but his voice was drowned out in Gamzee's agonized shout. “HE MOTHERFUCKING KNEW!”

The windows rattled. Gamzee drew one of his clubs and battered the counter in the food prep block until it broke with a crack and a cloud of dust. He ripped a hanging door right off its cupboard and flung it across the hive. Karkat cowered against the wall, both hands over his ears. Fuck, oh fuck, how much could there even be in this shithole of a hive that wasn't already destroyed?

Not much at all, except for Karkat himself.

Fuck that the juggalo had promised not to hurt him. Karkat didn't trust him to remember that, or care if he did. Gamzee would probably feel really fucking bad after he'd beaten Karkat to death but that wouldn't make Karkat any less of a corpse. He should have let the clown burn. He should never have left his own hive. Oh God, what was he going to do? He couldn't run out of the clown's hive into the daylight and if he tried to just lock himself in the ablution block it would only get the clown's attention. If he did anything it would only get the clown's attention. If he just cringed in the corner like a grub the clown would still turn on him eventually.

Oh, God, there was only one thing he could do.

Karkat climbed to his feet as the clown snatched up the antiseptic bottle and threw it against the wall. It shattered in a shower of glass shards. If Karkat stopped to think he'd never be able to do it. He walked across the room, rested one hand on the clown's shoulder and grasped the clown's wrist lightly with the other as he raised his club again.

"Shoosh. Shoooosh."

Gamzee shuddered and went impossibly still under his hands.

"It's okay," Karkat said quietly, hoping his fear didn't show in his voice. "Gamzee, it's okay. Put the club down."

"No," Gamzee said. His voice was choked with sobs. "Get off me, GET OFF-" He raised the club.

"Shoosh," Karkat said again, and covered the hand on the club with his own. "Gamzee, listen. I'm worried about you, I want to help. Let go of the club."

"No," Gamzee said again, but he let go of the club. Karkat rubbed his thumb against Gamzee's palm and put his other hand on the side of Gamzee's head. He had no idea what he was doing. It always worked in romcoms, when a character completely lost their shit and their fated true moirail showed up and shooshpapped and then everyone lived happily ever after having feelings jams on the pile of corpses of whoever'd been in the way when the murderclown lost his shit. Karkat didn't particularly think he was the clown's fated true moirail. He was pretty sure he was in the pile of corpses.

Gamzee turned his face into Karkat's hand. His breath rasped against Karkat's palm. Karkat shuddered, let go of the clown's wrist and wrapped an arm around him instead. His head rested against Gamzee's shoulder. Gamzee clutched at him like a drowning troll and mumbled "It's not okay, this isn't okay, you can't," into Karkat's hair.

"Shoosh, it'll be fine," Karkat soothed. He drew Gamzee back across the room - broken glass crunched under the clown's boots - and they both tumbled onto the pile of sofa cushions, legs tangled. “It's all right, it's okay,” Karkat whispered, papping Gamzee gently on the mouth. He didn't know what else to say, but it seemed to be working. Gamzee clung to him, sobbed and hiccuped and screamed and smeared facepaint all over Karkat's shirt. Karkat stroked his tangled hair and shooshed him softly.

Gamzee was trying to say something. Karkat leant closer and listened until Gamzee could force it out between gasps. “Why didn't he come?”

“Because he's a stupid worthless fuck who doesn't deserve you,” Karkat said, and for a moment he even meant it.

* * *

Karkat woke up, and after a moment he realised this was because Gamzee had yawned and snuggled closer against him. Karkat went stiff. Gamzee opened one eye and squinted at him muzzily.

There was a moment of deeply uncomfortable silence, and then they both leapt off the pile and away from each other like they'd been stung.

"Uh," Karkat said.

"Motherfuck," Gamzee said, though Karkat was pretty sure that was the clown equivalent of 'uh', and then in quite a different tone "Oh motherfuck, my face!" His paint had rubbed off, exposing swathes of bare skin. He covered his face with both hands and rushed to the ablution block.

Karkat scowled down at the grey and white smeared across his shirt. Or the clown's spare shirt, actually. His own should be dry by now.

Gamzee was applying his facepaint hurriedly and haphazardly, peering into the shards of mirror that were left. When Karkat came in behind him he jumped and smeared white across his forehead into his hair. "Fuck!"

He didn't look about to slaughter everyone in a five-mile radius, though, so Karkat ignored his distress and just changed his shirt. Gamzee watched him for a moment, and Karkat hoped he wasn't about to decide that Karkat looked better wearing his sign. As soon as Gamzee realised that Karkat could see him, he ducked his head, stared into the mirror and pretended to be engrossed in his makeup. The patches of skin he'd missed went indigo.

Karkat backed slowly out of the ablution block. The clown hurriedly slapped on the rest of his paint and followed him. They watched each other warily across the room.

"Gamzee," Karkat said cautiously, "are you all right?"

"Don't MOTHERFUCKING ASK ME THAT."

Karkat retreated, hands raised placatingly.

This could be awkward. They'd slept together, technically - fuck, on a goddamn pile even - even if it was completely unintentional on Karkat's part. Gamzee had just dozed off after a few hours, still hanging onto Karkat like a koala, and if Karkat had tried to move he would have woken up.

Gamzee was almost cute when he was asleep. His face smoothed out and his mouth hung open. It was a pity he ever woke up at all.

This probably would be awkward.

"Shit," Gamzee said. He was looking at the wreckage of the food prep counter. He nudged it with his boot, decided it wasn't good for sitting on and then just stood there and fidgeted.

Karkat was about to ask if he was okay again, but then remembered that would be dumb. He joined Gamzee in the uncomfortable silence.

"Motherfuck," Gamzee said eventually. He looked down. His face twisted. He swallowed and wrapped both arms around himself. "I think... shit. I think I've gone a bit pale for you, bro."

"...You're buh?" Karkat said intelligently.

"I said I'm PALE FOR YOU, motherfucker," Gamzee barked.

This was definitely going to be awkward.

"That's... you... but.." Karkat said, and then just stared at him, mouth hanging open. The clown could not be seriously proposing moirallegiance.

"Well?" Gamzee prompted impatiently. The clown was seriously proposing moirallegiance.

Karkat's brain was working very fast. Unfortunately, it was working very fast in circles. The clown didn't pity him. You didn't kidnap or bleed or threaten the people you pitied. The clown had just convinced himself he pitied Karkat because his lusus never hugged him enough and now he was fundamentally broken in the pan.

Karkat had cooperated. He'd made himself useful and he hadn't resisted when the clown wanted to tie him up or bleed him. He'd said please and thank you and bitten his tongue most times he wanted to argue. But not this. He couldn't pretend to pity the clown just to keep his hide in one piece.

"No," Karkat said.

Dad, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm not coming back.

Gamzee let out a shuddering breath and looked around the hive, or maybe just away from Karkat. "Why not?" He sounded very calm.

"Um," Karkat said. "You kidnapped me?"

"Shut the fuck up about that already," Gamzee said. His voice was still absolutely controlled. Karkat didn't think it could last very long. "I told you, I've been FUCKING GOOD to you." And there it went.

Karkat gritted his teeth and said "No. No, you fucking haven't."

The corners of the clown's mouth turned sharply downwards. His eyes narrowed. "Thought we agreed you weren't going to SHOOT YOUR MOTHERFUCKING MOUTH off, motherfucker."

"You fucking kidnapped me," Karkat snapped. "You attacked me! You dragged me back to your shitcave hive! You stabbed me! You tied me up! How am I supposed to trust you? How the fuck would a moirallegiance where one partner isn't allowed to disagree even work? Not very fucking well!"

"UNGRATEFUL LITTLE SHIT," the clown said. "You're MOTHERFUCKING LUCKY it was me found you, not some nasty motherfucker who ain't gonna get their appreciation on, up and spilling all your miracles UP ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE."

"You kidnapped me," Karkat reiterated. "That doesn't change just because you're not actually chopping off bits of me and eating them! It's not like there are less crappy species of kidnappings! I don't even want you to be pale for me!"

"I ain't exactly mirthful about it myself, motherfucker," the clown snarled.

"Oh, fantastic! I'm so glad we agree that this is a shitty fucking plan for both of us!"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP," the clown said. "You ain't exactly MOTHERFUCKING SMART YOURSELF, lowblood! You LOST YOUR FUCKING SHIT AT ME and HURT YOURSELF and you went out COMPLETELY FUCKING ALONE when you GOT A MOTHERFUCKING LUSUS! I figured you were all up and orphaned before you went all 'DAD, MY MOTHERFUCKING HEAD HURTS!'" The clown's voice was icy with rage. "You ain't got any idea how to NOT GET MOTHERFUCKING DEAD! You ought to be MOTHERFUCKING FLATTERED I got the time for you!"

"Are you trying to insult me into a moirallegiance?" Karkat demanded. "How are you this dumb? How did you not get culled for thinkpan damage this extreme? It makes zero sense, it... you're... the... buh..." He sputtered, flapped his hands and said "I am literally speechless with incomprehension. I can't make noise out of my squawkblister because of your acute pan damage. Not that it actually matters because there are no words that can describe you. If there was a word to express exactly how fucking stupid you are it would be like the Vast Glub except eighty million times worse and the universe would literally kill itself after hearing it."

"That sure was A LOT OF FUCKING WORDS about how you DON'T HAVE ANY FUCKING WORDS, bro," the clown growled. His hands were clenching and unclenching at his sides, like he was itching for his clubs. "You ain't even on the motherfucking hemospectrum. You should have been culled when you were hatched. WHERE THE FUCK do you get off thinking you can TALK TO ME LIKE THAT?" The skin that showed through his messily-applied paint was flushed bright indigo, and his voice rose to a scream. "LIKE YOU GOT ANY MOTHERFUCKING RIGHT TO SAY NO TO ME?"

"And look, I'm doing it anyway!" Karkat said. He was going to die and there was a sort of exhilaration in it. He could say anything he wanted. "Does everyone else you know just back right the fuck down when you start throwing your blood around? And that's figurative language, assclown, not that I would be surprised," he added. "You don't even think there's anything wrong with you, do you? You don't want a moirail, you want a servant to clean up after you when you flip and throw your shit around like a epileptic primate trying to juggle! Just hire a maid! Why would you want to be pale with me?"

"Because I fucking PITY YOU, shitblood!" The clown's voice cracked.

"No, you don't!" Karkat shouted. "If you pity me why are you threatening to kill me? I can't be your moirail, Gamzee! You can't threaten me into pitying you! You don't pity me and you don't even think you're crazy!"

Gamzee opened his mouth to yell something and then stopped. He shut his mouth. He looked around the room, took a deep shuddering breath and said "I'm crazy."

"Holy shit, you're what? I had no idea," Karkat said. "That's sarcasm, by the way, I doubt you can tell."

"Stop it," Gamzee said. His voice had gone very thin and he was speaking too fast. "I - I know there's something wrong with me. I know normal trolls aren't like this, even the other highbloods. They don't flip out like this, they don't-" He drew in a shuddering breath and said "I burnt my hive. It was me."

Yeah, Karkat hadn't actually been fooled by the clown's clever pretence that things just spontaneously burst into flame when he was around.

This was all wrong. It was like the clown was stripping naked in front of him, except that, okay, Karkat would be more freaked out if that happened. He felt gross just for being there and watching it.

"I, I hurt my best bro Equius-" Gamzee choked up and forced himself to keep talking. "-and he ain't wanting me around now 'cause he figures I'll up and subjugglate his kitty palesister-" That would probably be the blueblood and the greenblood in cat clownpaint on the walls, then. Was it Gamzee who had broken the blueblood's horn? Gamzee was still talking, quickly and unevenly, like he had to make an effort not to scream. "...and my lusus don't wanna show, I don't know why I'm not, not good enough, Eq and the kittysister's lususes were, they always, they. I don't know how to deal with shit, I fuck everything up, I'm crazy, I don't know how to not be, but you - it's easier, when you're here."

Wait wait wait. For the last week he had been dealing with Relatively Sane Gamzee?

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

"I know you can help me," Gamzee said, and swallowed. "It's fucked up, right? You're crazy too and the shoutiest little motherfucker and you don't know how to look after yourself and you're a fucking mutant but I pity you, I want you." He looked down at the floor. "Please?" It was barely audible.

"You wouldn't let me go," Karkat said.

"I can't," Gamzee said. His face twisted. "I can't. You wouldn't stay."

"And I don't pity you," Karkat said, as gently as he could. "Gamzee, I can't pity you." Gamzee jerked as though Karkat had actually stabbed him.

It wasn't even that Gamzee wasn't pitiable, because sometimes - involuntarily - Karkat thought he might be the most pathetic thing in existence. It was that Karkat couldn't trust him.

"Fuck," Gamzee said quietly, and covered his face with his hands. Between his fingers and the sloppily-applied paint, he was going indigo again with humiliation.

"Gamzee, listen," Karkat began, as soothingly as he could - and what was he even going to say? - but the clown cut him off.

"Don't MOTHERFUCKING DO THAT."

Karkat took a step back. The clown lowered his hands.

"What the fuck's wrong with you?"

"...What?" Karkat said. "For not falling all over myself to pale up with you? Gamzee-"

"WHAT THE FUCK did you think you were DOING?" the clown said. "You cleaned up. You fixed the stove. YOU CHANGED MY MOTHERFUCKING SLIME. You - you - What the fuck DID YOU DO THAT FOR?"

"That wasn't because I'm pale for you!" Karkat said. "I just didn't want you to kill me."

"Did you FUCKING PLAN THIS?" Gamzee demanded.

What? Oh, perfect, the winds had changed again and the murderclown weathervane had swung right back round, due north by shitpanned lunacy. "Yes, Gamzee, I planned all of this. This is exactly what I wanted," Karkat snapped. "You have been merely a pawn in my ridiculously fucking circuitous plan to commit suicide by clown." Sometimes it was really hard to pity Gamzee. Like every time he opened his chute and noise came out.

"Do you think this is MOTHERFUCKING FUNNY?" the clown screamed.

"So funny I want to puke up all my disgusting candy blood and die!" Karkat yelled back at him. "I'm being sarcastic, you nooklicking retard, do you need some help to get that into the rancid slop that you pretend is a functional cerebral sponge? Should I hold up a sign? Why would I be deliberately trying to goad you into killing me like you can't do that perfectly fine by yourself, you absolute godawful halfwit?"

"SHUT the FUCK up," Gamzee barked. "Like you got any motherfucking right to tell anyone else they're crazy when you up and try to do an injury on YOUR OWN MOTHERFUCKING SELF-"

"You're right, that is crazier than kidnapping, stabbing and pale-harassing people," Karkat said. Gamzee ignored him.

" - like you got any motherfucking right to tell me I'm crazy when YOU DON'T GIVE A SHIT! Why the fuck would you act like you cared WHEN YOU FUCKING DON'T?"

"I told you already, I just didn't want you to kill me!" Karkat snapped. The clown ignored that too.

"Why the fuck would you do that unless you were trying to MOTHERFUCKING TRICK ME?"

"What, trick you into baring your nonexistent slaughterclown soul?" Karkat demanded. "So you're an utter frothing lunatic, crushed beneath the weight of your colossal mental problems, squirting your insides out from both ends like a tube of toothpaste someone parked their comedically oversized clown boot on. Now tell me something that wasn't already scrawled across my thinkpan in huge crayon clown handwriting resembling something a spongedead wiggler barfed out on their schoolhive floor!"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" the clown screamed, and snatched the saucepan off the heating plate. Karkat ducked automatically, but the clown only hurled the pan across the hive. It hit a window, which smashed even through the curtain, and then hit the floor with a crash and the rattle of falling glass.

"Shit, Gamzee, shoosh, it's okay," Karkat started reflexively, because Karkat's reflexes were trying to kill him.

"STOP IT!" Gamzee screamed at him. "I'll kill you! I'LL MOTHERFUCKING KILL YOU!"

Karkat blanched, and he very nearly told the clown to calm down again before he realised that would be incredibly stupid and instead went with "FUCK YOU THEN! FUCK YOU, YOU STUPID FUCKING CLOWNTARD!"

"What the FUCK is WRONG WITH YOU?" the clown yelled. "YOU SHOOSHED ME, MOTHERFUCKER, why'd you motherfucking do that if you don't-"

"Because I was scared you were going to kill me!" Karkat shouted. "Like you tried to kill your friend Equius, remember? You're a scary fucking murderclown, okay, can you wrap your thinkpan around the concept of fear or is anything except murder and fingerpainting a huge fucking mystery to you?"

They were just yelling over each other at this point. Karkat wasn't sure Gamzee could even hear him.

"IT DIDN'T MEAN SHIT!" the clown yelled. He sounded as though he was on the verge of tears, but Karkat couldn't possibly have cared less even with expert tuition and a copy of 'Not Giving A Shit For Assholes'.

"Why the fuck should it have meant shit? You don't even pity me! If you did you wouldn't constantly threaten to kill me, fuckass!"

"What are you even doing?" Gamzee yelled at him. "Make some MOTHERFUCKING SENSE! You're SHOOTING YOUR MOUTH OFF and ACTING LIKE A LITTLE BITCH because you DON'T WANT ME TO KILL YOU? You act like you pity me and you don't, you shooshed me but YOU DON'T WANT ME, what the fuck is it you MOTHERFUCKING WANT?” Gamzee's voice broke on the last word, but Karkat was so, so far past caring about the murderous bulgemunching assclown's emotional distress.

“I WANT TO GO HOME!” Karkat screamed, loud enough that it tore at the lining of his throat. “I WANT TO SEE MY LUSUS! I WANT TO NOT BE KEPT PRISONER BY AN INSANE MURDERCLOWN! I WANT TO NEVER. SEE. YOU. AGAIN!”

Gamzee grabbed Karkat by the throat and slammed him against the wall. His grip was just tight enough to make breathing difficult. Karkat yanked futilely at the clown's hand and kicked him in the shin, but it didn't get through his boots.

"I should fucking CULL YOU," Gamzee snarled. His club was raised. His hand was shaking. The club wavered in the air. Tears ran down his cheeks and cut tracks through his facepaint.

“Then what are you waiting for? Cull me already,” Karkat gasped. “Fucking do it, it's the only thing you're good for, you worthless sack of shit, but don't ever fucking pretend you know what pity is again-”

Gamzee's club slammed into the wall next to Karkat's head. Karkat thought did he miss, how did he miss at this range? and then Gamzee was dragging him through the hive to the door.

Gamzee threw Karkat down the steps and screamed “GET AWAY FROM ME!” He flung Karkat's sickle into the sand beside him. “JUST GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!”

Karkat got the fuck away from him so fast he almost forgot to retrieve his sickle. He stumbled away from Gamzee as quickly as he could, and then stopped. The two moons shone down on him and the fresh wind off the sea ruffled his hair. He could leave. He could really leave. He was free, and he was armed. The handle of his sickle was familiar and perfect in his hand. He looked back.

Gamzee had collapsed on the front step, hugging himself, huddled in on himself, fallen in a heap like an abandoned puppet. He was far too much of a mess to follow him. Karkat could just run. He could go home and never see another shithive maggots juggalo ever again. He could go back and kill the clown.

Karkat turned. He went back. He went right back to the hive and stood over Gamzee, who raised his head to look back at him.

“Hey, assclown,” Karkat said, and stuck his sickle back into his strife specibus.

“Go away," Gamzee rasped. "What the fuck did you do to me? GO THE FUCK AWAY!" His eyes were bloodshot, his facepaint was smeared and streaked with tears, his hair was inexplicable and now – now, when he could just run home to his lusus and never see Gamzee again – Karkat pitied him so much it fucking hurt.

“You can't own me,” Karkat said, and Gamzee let out a harsh hysterical jagged-edged laugh.

“Yeah, bro, I think I MOTHERFUCKING GOT THAT-”

"Well, thank all your stupid fucking clown gods for that, because otherwise this is never going to work," Karkat interrupted. Gamzee stopped dead midsentence. "We have to be even. If I'm your moirail then I'm your fucking moirail, not your pet miracle and definitely not your pet paint can, and you don't pull any shit about where we are - or aren't - on the haemospectrum." Karkat watched Gamzee carefully for his reaction. Gamzee stared at him, all incomprehension and dazed hope.

"I'll be your moirail, Gamzee," Karkat said, because apparently at some point in the last ten minutes he had been seriously injured in the head. "But only if you'll respect me like I'm your fucking moirail."

“Yeah,” Gamzee said. “Anything, whatever you want, just, bro, Karkat, please?”

"Shit, then I guess we're moirails now," Karkat said, and offered Gamzee a hand up. Gamzee grabbed his hand and yanked him down into a hug instead. Karkat wrapped his arms around Gamzee's neck and rested his chin between Gamzee's horns. Gamzee buried his face in Karkat's shoulder and clung to him like he would never, ever let go.

"...You know you have to let go of me eventually, right?" Karkat asked, just to be sure.

"In a minute?" Gamzee said, muffled by Karkat's shirt.

Karkat guessed he could give Gamzee a minute.

* * *

"Dad?" Karkat called uncertainly as he let himself into his hive. A few of his neighbours had stopped to stare at him as he'd crossed the lawnring. They'd probably assumed he was dead. They also might have been staring because Karkat was holding hands with a wreck of a mini-subjugglator.

Karkat towed Gamzee into his hive and shut the door behind them. Gamzee looked around with a sort of frozen terror, as though everything would break if he touched it or moved suddenly.

"It's okay, come on," Karkat said, leading him into the food preparation block. He'd never had anyone visit his hive before - his lusus could get insanely overprotective - and suddenly he was scared that Gamzee wouldn't like it. This was stupid, because compared to Gamzee's pile of crap his hive was the Condesce's personal space cruiser.

The dirty plates that Karkat had dumped in the sink before he'd left were still there. The fridge door hung open. The block smelled of spoiled food. Okay, maybe it was the Condesce's personal space cruiser on an off day.

"Dad?" Karkat called. There was no answer. Karkat padded upstairs and stuck his head cautiously into his lusus's respite block. It was empty and a mess. His lusus slept in a sort of cave system made from big cardboard boxes and piles of sand and dirt, and usually Karkat tried to keep it neat - as neat as a heap of dirt and cardboard boxes could be - but now all the boxes were overturned and the sand piles had been scattered across the floor.

"Oh, God," Karkat said, and closed the door firmly behind him. "I don't think he's in," he said to Gamzee.

"Right," Gamzee said. He was still looking around as though he expected an ambush at any moment, and his grip on Karkat's hand was almost hard enough to bruise.

"He'll probably come back for the day," Karkat said. "Don't worry. He won't flip out on you, because we're pale." He tried to sound more confident than he felt. He went into his own respite block, suddenly felt very embarrassed about the number of romcom posters, and booted up his husktop.

"Anyone you want to troll?"

For a moment Gamzee looked as if there was, but then he just shook his head and wrapped his free arm around himself.

"Okay, later," Karkat said, and checked his messages. There were a lot of them. The first was Kanaya, who had managed about half a night before sticking her snout in.

GA: Karkat This Silence Is Unprecedented
GA: Are You Unwell
GA: You Are Beginning To Concern Me
GA: Please Respond

The second was Aradia.

AA: hell0 karkat
AA: are y0u all right
AA: s0llux has been w0rried th0ugh 0f c0urse he w0nt tr0ll y0u
AA: will y0u please tr0ll 0ne 0f us when y0u get this

Karkat scanned quickly through the rest. Terezi had wanted to know if she would have to 1NV3ST1G4T3 H1S MURD3R. Tavros had expressed a hope tHAT HE WAS OKAY,, aND, nOT DEAD. Serket had trolled him to say that had 8etter get 8ack to Pyrope and Maryam soon, 8ecause she was going 8 of her mind trying to convince them that she hadn't murdered him!!!!!!!! L8ke she would feed him to h8r mom! She would puuuuuuuuke!!!!!!!! Kanaya and Aradia had trolled him with increasing frequency and desperation, culminating in a elaborately unconcerned message from Sollux about how Karkat had broken hii2 hu2ktop, hadn't he? and he gue22ed he could do 2omethiing about that iif kk would ju2t troll hiim back.

The last message was a five-page screed from Ampora which seemed to be about his blackrom with Serket, though somehow he'd managed to fit in three red solicitations, two black, nauseating amounts of self-pity and a threat to just die because nobody wwould evven care. Karkat groaned.

"Who's the jadesister?" Gamzee asked. He was leaning over the back of Karkat's chair. He sounded casual. Nobody made that much of an effort to sound casual if they felt anything resembling casual.

"Just a friend," Karkat said. "A meddlefriend. We've been moirails for less than a full night, clown, don't think you can get jealous on me now. And AA is securely in pale with one of the other assholes queuing up to get their crotchblisteringly irritating faces in my way, not that I would be interested in her obnoxiously chipper self if she wasn't."

He typed a quick message -

CG: HEY ASSHOLES, I'M FINE AND SO IS MY MOIRAIL. OH YEAH, BY THE WAY, I HAVE ONE OF THOSE NOW. DON'T RUSH TO CONGRATULATE ME ON MY PALE CHARISMA ALL AT ONCE.
CG: THANKS FOR THE TOTALLY UNNECESSARY CONCERN, I GUESS.

- and sent it to everyone on his contact list before spinning the chair back to face Gamzee. "I wouldn't have paled up with you if I wanted some other idiot, anyway. You trust me, right?" He offered Gamzee his hand again.

"I trust you, palebro," Gamzee said, took Karkat's hand and smiled. His eyes crinkled closed. It was infectious. Karkat smiled back.

It was a nice moment, so naturally it was interrupted. Downstairs, the door slammed shut.

Karkat went still. It was probably his lusus. It could easily be his lusus. But shit, if everyone thought he was dead and knew that his lusus would be away, anybody could be trying to move in or loot the place.

Gamzee let go of Karkat's hand and produced a bow. He padded silently across the block to the door and eased it open. Heavy footsteps moved down the hall to the food prep block. Karkat got to his feet. The chair creaked. The footsteps stopped. Gamzee stared at Karkat like he seriously couldn't believe what Karkat had just done.

"Shit," Karkat whispered.

Gamzee slipped out onto the landing. He nocked an arrow to his bow and peered over the banister.

"Wait," Karkat hissed. "It might be my dad." He leant over the railing and looked down.

His lusus emerged from the food prep block and froze, staring up at them.

"Dad!" Karkat shouted. He shot past Gamzee and clattered down the stairs, Gamzee on his heels. He had put his bow away, which was good, and replaced it with his clubs, which was less good. Karkat's lusus was still frozen in the doorway. His black eyes darted from Karkat to Gamzee.

"This is Gamzee, he's okay, don't flip," Karkat said hurriedly. Gamzee didn't have the presence of mind to put his clubs away. Karkat tried to mime for him to do so.

"Bro, I don't know what the fuck you're doing," Gamzee said.

They both looked at Karkat's lusus.

"Oh shit, I think he's pissed," Karkat said.

His lusus took a step forward and lowered his head. He spread his arms and clacked his pincers.

"Oh shit, he's really pissed," Karkat said.

His lusus let out a "SKREEEE!" and charged.

"Oh, shit!" Karkat said eloquently. Gamzee got between Karkat and the charging crabmonster, and thus took the brunt of the hug. Gamzee tumbled backwards into Karkat with a startled cry, and his clubs flew out of his hands. Karkat landed on the floor. Gamzee landed on Karkat. Karkat's lusus landed on Gamzee. Gamzee's clubs landed on Karkat's lusus.

"Ow! Oh, God, ow!" Karkat said. Gamzee let out a cry of panic and lashed out. Unarmed five-sweep-old juggalo didn't do much to carapace, though, and Karkat's lusus just ignored it. Karkat's lusus was still trying to hug through Gamzee to get to Karkat.

"This isn't working!" Karkat yelled. "Everyone get the hell up!"

Somehow they all got untangled and clawed themselves vertical. Karkat's lusus grabbed him, hugged him with one arm and thumped him with the other. Gamzee retrieved his clubs.

"Stop it! Both of you! Dad, this is Gamzee. Gamzee, my lusus," Karkat said, slightly muffled on account of having his hands over his face. "We paled up. I mean, he kidnapped me, but now we're-"

The arm around Karkat tightened, and Karkat's lusus dragged him back away from Gamzee.

"Dad! Listen to me!" Karkat barked, completely exasperated at this point. He drew his sickle and battered at the crab. Bladed weaponry didn't do much to carapace either.

Gamzee looked at Karkat and his lusus and asked, just for clarification, "This is all right?"

"Can you seriously not recognise a healthy relationship between a troll and their guardian?" Karkat demanded. "Is that just a completely foreign concept to you? Oh God, you completely pathe-" His lusus wrapped one arm around his neck and dragged him into the food prep block.

"Dad, fuck, I'm glad to be back but you have to listen to me," Karkat said. "I know he kidnapped me, I yelled about it a lot." He consciously kept his voice down so Gamzee wouldn't hear. "But I think we sorted it out? Pity everywhere, like we were having a pity fight in a trap full of pity. I yelled, he agreed that he's crazy and I decided I would help him out with that."

There was a long thoughtful silence. Karkat assumed that his lusus was about to literally explode and shower everyone with crab bisque. Then the crab pushed Karkat back, tapped his pincer on Karkat's symbol and looked immensely proud.

"Oh God, dad, no, do not pull the messianic shit on me," Karkat said. "You're still not going to leave me alone with him, are you?"

His lusus shook his head firmly and skreed. Karkat was pretty sure that was the skree that meant "how the fuck did I raise this idiot? There is no way in hell I will ever take my eyes off the abductoclown." Sometimes skreeing could be very expressive.

"You'll have to get over that," Karkat said. "Because I think it'd be best if he moved in."

That was the point where his lusus exploded.

* * *

terminallyCapricious [TC] began trolling centaursTesticle [CT]

TC: hey, bro
CT: Highb100d
CT: D --> I mean
CT: D --> Highb100d
TC: honk HONK
TC: are we cool?
CT: D --> If I may be permitted to ask
TC: shit ASK AWAY bro
CT: D --> Is it really you
TC: who else is it gonna be?
CT: D --> I was afraid that you had done something
CT: D --> F001ish
CT: D --> Your hive was burned
CT: D --> I saw it myself
TC: yeah
TC: oOpS
CT: D --> I beg your pardon
CT: D --> Do you mean ti saydehf djqio
TC: :o?
CT: :33 < *suddenly ac smells a familiar scent*
CT: :33 < *her keen nose twitches*
TC: fuck yeah
TC: the clown pets the kitty
CT: :33 < gamz33! i havent found you yet!
TC: WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?
TC: IS THIS ROLEPLAYING?
TC: EVERYONE STOP ROLEPLAYING RIGHT NOW
CT: D --> Highb100d
CT: D --> Who is this
CT: D --> E%tremely shouty person
TC: haha :o)
TC: this is my MOTHERFUCKING PALEBRO
CT: D --> I see
CT: D --> When did this occur
CT: D --> And if I may ask
CT: D --> What is he
TC: NO YOU FUCKING MAY NOT
TC: THAT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS
CT: D --> E%cuse me
CT: D --> I was addressing the highb100d
TC: chill, bro, it's cool
TC: don't motherfucking PUSH IT
CT: :33 < what is he?
TC: the CRANKIEST LITTLE CRAB, sister
CT: :33 < h33 h33!
CT: :33 < *ac gr33ts the grumpy crab meowrail with a playful pounce*
TC: NO, SHE DOESN'T!
TC: THIS IS STUPID
CT: :33 < we missed you so much gamz33!
CT: :33 < we went to so many carnivals but it wasnt the same without you!
CT: D --> Yes
CT: D --> We have attended carnivals
CT: D --> So many carnivals
TC: OH GOD
TC: I'M SURROUNDED BY CLOWNS.
CT: :33 < im an acrobat, silly!
TC: WHATEVER.
TC: 'CENTAURSTESTICLE', SERIOUSLY?
TC: YOU COULD HAVE NAMED YOURSELF ANYTHING AND YOU WENT WITH HOOFBEAST JUNK?
CT: D --> Hoofbeasts are noble animals
CT: D --> Your disgust only indicates your own poor moral character
TC: WORSE THAN THE GUY NAMING HIMSELF AFTER HOOFBEAST JUNK?
TC: hey bro, DON'T WORRY, name yourself after whatever junk you're all feeling up in your heart
TC: MAKARA, DID YOU THINK ABOUT THAT SENTENCE AT ALL BEFORE YOU TYPED IT?
CT: D --> I
CT: D --> I think I need a towel
CT: :33 < yuck!
TC: I AGREE WITH THE CAT GIRL
TC: AND FUCK YOU FOR MAKING ME DO THAT
CT: D --> This is all highly improper
CT: D --> Nevertheless
CT: D --> I am glad to hear from you again, Highb100d
TC: :oD
CT: D --> And very glad that you have found a moirail
TC: motherfuck, BEST FRIEND
TC: me too