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crabbygreymalkinTitle: When Lilacs Dream In The Ashes
Ships: Karkat<3Eridan, Karkat<>Gamzee, other pairings
Summary: When Karkat sneaks into Prince Eridan's party, he's sure he only means it to be a reckless prank. He doesn't expect to fall flushed.
Notes: Next part for the Fairytale Challenge. Swapping in Cinderella for Thumbelina (because I really, really hate Thumbelina, it's even less of a story than the Tin Soldier one), and the other part of the prompt was purple. (Changed the title, I like this one a bit better.)
Notes 2: If I believed in warnings, there would be one for some stuff here.
The ash on your fingers smells like peas, and the peas you try to eat taste like ash. Terezi would find that funny if she were here, the fusion of green and grey, but Team Scourge are busy doing their Social Highblood Duties and you don't care to save your observation up to tell her. Not anymore.
It's not that you're jealous. Who could give a shit about the fact that your hivemate's run off to some stupid royal dance party with her girlfriend and someone forgot to invite all the lowbloods? Certainly not you.
Except for the part where Terezi commented on how you smell like limes as Vriska dragged her out the door. Except for the part where you occasionally miss not being alone on the cold autumn days.
You'd light a fire, but you're so goddamn sick of cinders.
"It's all your fucking fault," you mutter, crumpling a faded purple leaf in your hand and tossing it back into the pile of dead ones. You goddamn hate the second autumn, when the rotting leaves all turn dry and pale and stink up the path. "You and your dumb sacrificial idiocy. I didn't need you to goddamn die for me."
You're aware that you're running out of words. It's been worrying you lately, that there's too little of you left, too much of you spent chasing after a Faygo-swilling ghost, and you don't even have any to pour out for him. You slump against the rough bark, wishing it didn't make you feel like he was listening. Like anything you tell him matters a damn anymore.
But here you are, praying to a tree you even goddamn planted, just because you planted it on his grave.
You never knew superstition was contagious, but it fucking figures.
The still pond by the back door tells you you have a leaf in your hair. You raise your hand to pull it out, but you don't, because he's whispering in your pan again and you want him to stop. Ghosts aren't fucking real, he needs to shut up and let you stop believing in them. Little lilac motherfucker got its stow on all the way back with you, bro, he insists on telling you regardless. Ain't it earned itself a motherfuckin' dance?
You stare at your reflection, at the tiny purple spot, out of place in your ash-streaked hair. Without ghosts on your mind, you wouldn't even have noticed it.
And it suddenly occurs to you that no highblood in this province who isn't Terezi or Vriska knows what you look like.
"This is stupid," you say, and he laughs. But wouldn't it be the most mirthful of all motherfucking jokes?
You glance up at the sky, and find the pink moons barely rising. You've got time, if you run.
You haven't been near the old Lord's crypt in sweeps, but the smell of its stale air is unmistakable, the bitter odour of burning time raising tears from your ganderbulbs and stabbing hard at your twitcher and your scent rakers, and it's almost enough to give you second thoughts.
Or it would be if the clown in your pan would just. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Lowest of the low all at showing those fuckers up at their own motherfuckin party, he's saying now, and last time you tried to ignore him when he was this set on something, you didn't sleep for three days. Besides, you've fought your way this far in already, dead time scratching at your skin like burning thorns, boiling your blood at the same time as it turns sluggish in your veins, and you're not going back emptyhanded.
When you finally manage to shove the door open and stumble inside, you do nothing for some time but lay yourself against the wall and breathe, forcing your blood to flow, adjusting to the lack of pressure on your skin from air that, stale as it is, will at least move when you do, and as you stagger unsteadily to your feet and fumble for the orange gourds in your sylladex, you glare at the smug stack of eldritch machinery in the corner.
"You had better goddamn make this worth it."
"So what is this new weaselfuckery anyway?" you'd asked, when Vriska first barged into your nutrition block doing her trademarked "Karkat's getting left out of another thing for being a mutant" dance. "The prince break his leg on a half-grown barkfiend and decree everyone who's not dying of syphilis has to run to the castle to 'comfort' him?"
"Oh, like you wouldn't jump at that chance!" she crowed, and you yelped as your hand slipped on the knife, slicing a neat patch of outer dermal layer off your finger, and no way in hell were you about to admit you knew it was her. "But alas!" she sighed dramatically, "our poor dear Karkat is but a lowly mutant, living off the kind charity of -"
She was in midtwirl, hand to her thorax, when a thrown spatula (the second-best one, you don't waste good tools on her if you can help it) hit her in the face. "On second thought, I don't give a fuck. Go to your dumb party and chat up your dumb kismesis about, I dunno, hemlines or something retarded like that, who the fuck cares."
That was when Terezi stepped in, drawn as usual by the liquorice-scent of a brewing fight, and no more was said. You knew you couldn't go. Terezi knew she couldn't smuggle you in, not unless she wanted to end up like the last highblood who tried to look out for you. And Vriska really didn't care.
In retrospect, you think as you step into the soft candlelight of the ballroom, you should have pressed for details after all, or at least spent some time planning this out, maybe even drawing a few diagrams or a flowchart, and in the absence of any such things, you find yourself spending several seconds standing blankly at the bottom of the stairs and really, really hoping that the crowd of highbloods twirling before you in intricate, unfamiliar dances don't notice you before you can make up your mind to run for the door.
Too late, you see a troll making his way towards you, a man with fins and lightning-shaped horns and piercing violet eyes andohfuckit'sPrinceEridanohgodhe'sfoundyououtalready and as you stand rooted to the spot in terror, he offers you a deep bow.
"May I havve this dance?" He holds out his hand, and like the idiot you are, you take it. It should be safe enough if you only let him touch your hands, right?
You end up letting him have all the dances. It's not like you don't have a big, echoey, drafty blank space of a dance card, or like you know anyone here besides one blueblood harpy you'd rather avoid and another you don't want to get into trouble. Besides, you can't help feeling a certain vicious satisfaction at drawing his attention away from all the trolls he's supposed to be dancing with, the ones that are actually worthy to fill his quadrants by virtue of not being scumsucking mutants. So you dance, and you talk, and mostly you let him talk, which isn't hard because it turns out he makes Troll Narcissus look like the most humble fuckass who ever lived, and before you know it, it's midday, and you really should get going before you get tired enough to let something slip. Besides, the shit you make on that machine is always kind of unstable (you think the pumpkins have something to do with that - the alchemy is supposed to run on some mysterious blue shit you don't have and can't get, but pumpkins seem to work, at least temporarily), and having your fancy clothes dissolve into gross orange slime in front of the entire court is pretty much the most embarrassing reason to be culled you can imagine.
You can't just run, though - as terrible a teacher as you had in these matters, you're pretty sure that's not proper aristocratic behaviour - so instead you leave him with a kiss on the hand, soft and tender like you've seen in the films, before you draw your hood up over your head and flee.
You don't know that the prince watches you go forlornly, already missing the burning warmth of your lips, hotter than your hands through your gloves, hotter than either a rustblood's skin or a human's. You don't know that he doesn't take his eyes off you as you run for the door, boots thumping lightly on the wood.
Nor do you see a blonde human girl put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "What's with that guy? He have some other party to go to?" If you could hear the sympathetic annoyance in her voice, maybe you'd feel guilty.
Then again, neither of them know your life is stake. So maybe you wouldn't.
You barrel through the door of your hive and slam it shut behind you just as the first of your protective layers begins to melt into gross orange mush, and you strip off your remaining clothes hastily, reaching for the ragged shirt in your sylladex instead.
You never noticed before how it scratches you.
You try to ignore the feeling, and go to scrape up the rotting pumpkin slime instead, before heading to your dry cocoon. You figure you can still get a few hours of sleep before dusk.
You can tell from Terezi's delighted cackle as she opens the door that Vriska's grumpy as fuck, and you try not to smirk because, oh, you wonder why that could be.
"Hehehe, I think someone's jealous!"
"I think someone's nose needs a good punch to get it back into alignment!"
"You were staring at him all day, Serket, stop trying to deny it!"
"I was cuuuuuuuurious, that's all!"
"Yeah, right. Come back when your eyes stop smelling like..." she pauses for a long, loud sniff, and you almost want to giggle, "mm, fresh grass!"
You light a match, drop it on the fire, watch the kindling go up with an ever-satisfying fwoosh. You wish you could ignite more than a pile of goddamn wood, but it's enough to draw Terezi's attention.
"Hey, Karkles! Wanna hear about this new guy the prince is totally red for?"
"Like it's such a big fucking deal!" Vriska snarls. "Like you wouldn't have been falling over herself to get a whiff of this guy's blood yourself if Eridan had just stopped hogging him for a second!" Her tone is starting to fray, turning defensive and sullen, and you think they won't be pale much longer. (It seems to be the season for that, and you think of the fallen leaves again with a pang.)
"So who is this douchebag?"
That's their cue to flood you with annoying exposition, and they jump on it eagerly, spinning you long, confusing descriptions of the prince's mysterious, beautiful guest: how he covered himself in a grey hood to obscure his horns; how the prince hogged all the dances, all of them, gazing into the stranger's eyes (now you think about it, there was kind of a lot of mutual gazing and you're happier than ever that your eyes are still grey as ash); how he seemed to have an endless supply of pomegranates in his sylladex and wasn't the least shy about handing them out (mostly because giving people food gets them paying attention to the food and not you, and you have to do something with unexpected alchemical side-effects). You listen, pretending boredom, irritation, reluctant interest, and complete disdain by turns. When they finally leave, Terezi still giggling and licking Vriska's neck in a way that is definitely not pale, your head is spinning. You didn't think you'd pulled it off so well.
Hey, palebro, says the voice in your sponge, and you squeeze your eyes shut in a stupid, useless attempt to block him out, because you know what's coming, and it's stupid, stupid, stupid, and he says, Wouldn't it be even more motherfuckin' hilarious if you could up and get your fool all on at them twice?
The next day you finish your chores early, and once Vriska's come to collect Terezi and gone again, you head straight for the pumpkin patch. This time you need to alchemise a better outfit.
Walking back into the sharks' den is the stupidest thing you've ever done, but you're so sick of hiding, and besides, the look on the prince's face when he looks up and sees you is worth getting sent to the gallows.
He grabs your hand eagerly and drags you down into the crowd, where the band is starting up another dance you don't know. With a mix of horror and delight you realise it's a slow one, and you hold your breath as he pulls you against him, wrapping his arms around you as if he already knows you're going to run away again.
It's only after the third song that he lets you go, leading you to the couch by the main tables, where you rest with him and watch the other dancers, trying to pick out the few people you know. Vriska goes by, in the arms of a tall greenblood wearing a bright red skirt, and Terezi a few minutes later, invading the space of a human with blond hair and a sharp smile. Eridan sees you watching them, starts to ask, and you put a finger to his lips, terrified by your own boldness, and pull him back onto the dancefloor.
You meant to leave at midday again, but somehow you miss it, and in the middle of an argument about bureaucratic procedure, you glance up at the clock and it's three in the afternoon. Time to get the fuck out.
He grabs your hand as you try to pull it away, and his voice is dangerous. "Somewwhere you'd rather be than here, landgrubber?"
"Hell no," you tell him, and the regret in your voice is enough to make him loosen his grip, even if you find your hand oddly reluctant to leave his. "But I don't have a goddamn choice."
"Hey, Karkles, you missed a spot!" is how Terezi announces her return, without her sister this time. She picks at a bit of slime from your horn as you force your eyes open, and you try not to panic. You're sure she doesn't know about the alchemiter. She just thinks you've been in the patch, which you have, and if you're careful, what she doesn't know about your reasons won't hurt either of you.
You listen to her new stories about the stranger - the court's growing infatuation, Vriska's likewise growing frustration at not being able to get into his head, and it's funny how when you're acting on one of your moirail's plots like this, she never can - and try not to see concern in her sidelong glances.
The third night is a dream, and you lose yourself in the prince's cold arms and soft kisses and violet eyes, until the call of a nightbird outside rouses you to panicked wakefulness - it's dark already, you'll be caught, and Eridan scents your fear like a barkfiend and tightens his arms around you.
"Don't you evven fuckin' think about wwalkin' out that door."
"I have to," you tell him, your voice rough with misery. "If you love me, you'll let me go."
His eyes are ice, but he opens his arms and steps back, and you should be running already but you're frozen, fear beating in your sponge. When you do move, it's in the wrong direction, pressing your lips against his.
Your escape is a mess, starting with the moment your foot slips on the stairs outside the palace, and ending with the moment when, too late to go back for it, you realise you're missing a boot. You mostly don't want to talk about what happened in between, except to ask who the fuck pours tar on the stairs at a dance, and why didn't anyone warn you?
You don't see the prince's despairing expression as he turns a small, tar-covered boot over and over in his hands. "Howw's this supposed to help? It's just a fuckin shoe. He's nevver comin' back for it, he's probably got a shitload of 'em back at his hivve."
You don't see the wicked light in his moirail's bright pink eyes as she plucks it out of his hands and shows him the rapidly drying red streak from when you tripped (and why didn't anyone warn you?). "Dumbass," she says fondly. "How many trolls do you know with blood this bright?"
You don't even get a chance to mourn your impending culling before you're woken by a pounding on the door. Fuck. You'd hoped at least for a chance to go back to Gamzee's tree and let him know you were on your way. (Well, fuck it. If it turns out there really is a Dark Carnival, you'll just have to bang on the gates till they get up and let you the fuck in, and it's not like he didn't know how shittily his plan was going to turn out for you anyway. Goddammit, you hate ghosts.)
Somehow you're still unprepared to come face-to-face with Prince Eridan, coral-eyed and bright and arrogant as a god. "So," he drawls, "I wwas dancin' wwith this guy. Nubby horns, really stupid buckfangs and the most wwicked tongue I evver fuckin heard on a lowwblood, and I thought I'd found my matesprit, only then he took off on me like a scared hopbeast, and I figured he shouldn't be allowwed to get awway wwith shit like that."
It's only when he pauses to let you reply that you realise you're staring. You'd stop doing that, and just answer him, only your tongue seems to be stuck to the roof of your mouth.
"And we also thought," adds the human girl beside him, "even if this handsome mystery guy had such awful taste to not want my smokin' hot moirail in his pants, you might at least want your boot back." She tosses it to you, still stained with slime and sweat and blood, and you hear Terezi say 3W behind you, but you snatch it out of the air anyway. "And, y'know, another chance to not be such a douche to his true love, cos trust me, that shit gets old after awhile."
"They'll kill you," you manage to say, your hands worrying at the boot without your say-so. "If you try to be with me."
Eridan grins. "Funny, Vvantas," and it should chill you to hear your name on his lips, but all you feel is warm. "You seemed to knoww your local politics better 'n that yesterday."
"He's right, Karkat!" Terezi says. "If he can get enough of the local officials to agree, then he can get you protected status! And everyone kind of fell a little bit flushed for you at the party, so it won't really be hard now."
"You could have told me it was that fucking easy," you say, trying to glare at her, but oddly, your face won't cooperate.
"Until yesterday, it wasn't!" she protests, shoving you hard without warning, and Eridan catches you when you stumble, pulling you into his arms so smoothly you'd swear the two of them choreographed it beforehand.
"Any more objections, landdwweller?" He smirks at you, and actually yes, you have a fuckload of objections about your matesprit and your hivemate teaming up to run your life for you, but with his triumphant violet gaze overpowering you, all you can do is shake your head. "Good. Cos I promise I am nevver, evver letting you out a my sight again."
When he leans down to kiss you, Terezi cackles in something that might be delight, and the human lets out a gleeful giggle. For your own part, Gamzee's quiet in your pan, and all your own internal monologue can muster is the ridiculous thought that Eridan's lips taste like pomegranates.
"Lovve you," he whispers when he draws away, and you make a noise that might be "love you too, arsehole", and nestle into him. He's probably got a musclebeast waiting somewhere, something stupid like a white charger, to take you back to the castle, but that can wait. Right now all you need is your prince's embrace, and for the first time since summer, you're smiling.
Ships: Karkat<3Eridan, Karkat<>Gamzee, other pairings
Summary: When Karkat sneaks into Prince Eridan's party, he's sure he only means it to be a reckless prank. He doesn't expect to fall flushed.
Notes: Next part for the Fairytale Challenge. Swapping in Cinderella for Thumbelina (because I really, really hate Thumbelina, it's even less of a story than the Tin Soldier one), and the other part of the prompt was purple. (Changed the title, I like this one a bit better.)
Notes 2: If I believed in warnings, there would be one for some stuff here.
The ash on your fingers smells like peas, and the peas you try to eat taste like ash. Terezi would find that funny if she were here, the fusion of green and grey, but Team Scourge are busy doing their Social Highblood Duties and you don't care to save your observation up to tell her. Not anymore.
It's not that you're jealous. Who could give a shit about the fact that your hivemate's run off to some stupid royal dance party with her girlfriend and someone forgot to invite all the lowbloods? Certainly not you.
Except for the part where Terezi commented on how you smell like limes as Vriska dragged her out the door. Except for the part where you occasionally miss not being alone on the cold autumn days.
You'd light a fire, but you're so goddamn sick of cinders.
"It's all your fucking fault," you mutter, crumpling a faded purple leaf in your hand and tossing it back into the pile of dead ones. You goddamn hate the second autumn, when the rotting leaves all turn dry and pale and stink up the path. "You and your dumb sacrificial idiocy. I didn't need you to goddamn die for me."
You're aware that you're running out of words. It's been worrying you lately, that there's too little of you left, too much of you spent chasing after a Faygo-swilling ghost, and you don't even have any to pour out for him. You slump against the rough bark, wishing it didn't make you feel like he was listening. Like anything you tell him matters a damn anymore.
But here you are, praying to a tree you even goddamn planted, just because you planted it on his grave.
You never knew superstition was contagious, but it fucking figures.
The still pond by the back door tells you you have a leaf in your hair. You raise your hand to pull it out, but you don't, because he's whispering in your pan again and you want him to stop. Ghosts aren't fucking real, he needs to shut up and let you stop believing in them. Little lilac motherfucker got its stow on all the way back with you, bro, he insists on telling you regardless. Ain't it earned itself a motherfuckin' dance?
You stare at your reflection, at the tiny purple spot, out of place in your ash-streaked hair. Without ghosts on your mind, you wouldn't even have noticed it.
And it suddenly occurs to you that no highblood in this province who isn't Terezi or Vriska knows what you look like.
"This is stupid," you say, and he laughs. But wouldn't it be the most mirthful of all motherfucking jokes?
You glance up at the sky, and find the pink moons barely rising. You've got time, if you run.
You haven't been near the old Lord's crypt in sweeps, but the smell of its stale air is unmistakable, the bitter odour of burning time raising tears from your ganderbulbs and stabbing hard at your twitcher and your scent rakers, and it's almost enough to give you second thoughts.
Or it would be if the clown in your pan would just. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Lowest of the low all at showing those fuckers up at their own motherfuckin party, he's saying now, and last time you tried to ignore him when he was this set on something, you didn't sleep for three days. Besides, you've fought your way this far in already, dead time scratching at your skin like burning thorns, boiling your blood at the same time as it turns sluggish in your veins, and you're not going back emptyhanded.
When you finally manage to shove the door open and stumble inside, you do nothing for some time but lay yourself against the wall and breathe, forcing your blood to flow, adjusting to the lack of pressure on your skin from air that, stale as it is, will at least move when you do, and as you stagger unsteadily to your feet and fumble for the orange gourds in your sylladex, you glare at the smug stack of eldritch machinery in the corner.
"You had better goddamn make this worth it."
"So what is this new weaselfuckery anyway?" you'd asked, when Vriska first barged into your nutrition block doing her trademarked "Karkat's getting left out of another thing for being a mutant" dance. "The prince break his leg on a half-grown barkfiend and decree everyone who's not dying of syphilis has to run to the castle to 'comfort' him?"
"Oh, like you wouldn't jump at that chance!" she crowed, and you yelped as your hand slipped on the knife, slicing a neat patch of outer dermal layer off your finger, and no way in hell were you about to admit you knew it was her. "But alas!" she sighed dramatically, "our poor dear Karkat is but a lowly mutant, living off the kind charity of -"
She was in midtwirl, hand to her thorax, when a thrown spatula (the second-best one, you don't waste good tools on her if you can help it) hit her in the face. "On second thought, I don't give a fuck. Go to your dumb party and chat up your dumb kismesis about, I dunno, hemlines or something retarded like that, who the fuck cares."
That was when Terezi stepped in, drawn as usual by the liquorice-scent of a brewing fight, and no more was said. You knew you couldn't go. Terezi knew she couldn't smuggle you in, not unless she wanted to end up like the last highblood who tried to look out for you. And Vriska really didn't care.
In retrospect, you think as you step into the soft candlelight of the ballroom, you should have pressed for details after all, or at least spent some time planning this out, maybe even drawing a few diagrams or a flowchart, and in the absence of any such things, you find yourself spending several seconds standing blankly at the bottom of the stairs and really, really hoping that the crowd of highbloods twirling before you in intricate, unfamiliar dances don't notice you before you can make up your mind to run for the door.
Too late, you see a troll making his way towards you, a man with fins and lightning-shaped horns and piercing violet eyes andohfuckit'sPrinceEridanohgodhe'sfoundyououtalready and as you stand rooted to the spot in terror, he offers you a deep bow.
"May I havve this dance?" He holds out his hand, and like the idiot you are, you take it. It should be safe enough if you only let him touch your hands, right?
You end up letting him have all the dances. It's not like you don't have a big, echoey, drafty blank space of a dance card, or like you know anyone here besides one blueblood harpy you'd rather avoid and another you don't want to get into trouble. Besides, you can't help feeling a certain vicious satisfaction at drawing his attention away from all the trolls he's supposed to be dancing with, the ones that are actually worthy to fill his quadrants by virtue of not being scumsucking mutants. So you dance, and you talk, and mostly you let him talk, which isn't hard because it turns out he makes Troll Narcissus look like the most humble fuckass who ever lived, and before you know it, it's midday, and you really should get going before you get tired enough to let something slip. Besides, the shit you make on that machine is always kind of unstable (you think the pumpkins have something to do with that - the alchemy is supposed to run on some mysterious blue shit you don't have and can't get, but pumpkins seem to work, at least temporarily), and having your fancy clothes dissolve into gross orange slime in front of the entire court is pretty much the most embarrassing reason to be culled you can imagine.
You can't just run, though - as terrible a teacher as you had in these matters, you're pretty sure that's not proper aristocratic behaviour - so instead you leave him with a kiss on the hand, soft and tender like you've seen in the films, before you draw your hood up over your head and flee.
You don't know that the prince watches you go forlornly, already missing the burning warmth of your lips, hotter than your hands through your gloves, hotter than either a rustblood's skin or a human's. You don't know that he doesn't take his eyes off you as you run for the door, boots thumping lightly on the wood.
Nor do you see a blonde human girl put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "What's with that guy? He have some other party to go to?" If you could hear the sympathetic annoyance in her voice, maybe you'd feel guilty.
Then again, neither of them know your life is stake. So maybe you wouldn't.
You barrel through the door of your hive and slam it shut behind you just as the first of your protective layers begins to melt into gross orange mush, and you strip off your remaining clothes hastily, reaching for the ragged shirt in your sylladex instead.
You never noticed before how it scratches you.
You try to ignore the feeling, and go to scrape up the rotting pumpkin slime instead, before heading to your dry cocoon. You figure you can still get a few hours of sleep before dusk.
You can tell from Terezi's delighted cackle as she opens the door that Vriska's grumpy as fuck, and you try not to smirk because, oh, you wonder why that could be.
"Hehehe, I think someone's jealous!"
"I think someone's nose needs a good punch to get it back into alignment!"
"You were staring at him all day, Serket, stop trying to deny it!"
"I was cuuuuuuuurious, that's all!"
"Yeah, right. Come back when your eyes stop smelling like..." she pauses for a long, loud sniff, and you almost want to giggle, "mm, fresh grass!"
You light a match, drop it on the fire, watch the kindling go up with an ever-satisfying fwoosh. You wish you could ignite more than a pile of goddamn wood, but it's enough to draw Terezi's attention.
"Hey, Karkles! Wanna hear about this new guy the prince is totally red for?"
"Like it's such a big fucking deal!" Vriska snarls. "Like you wouldn't have been falling over herself to get a whiff of this guy's blood yourself if Eridan had just stopped hogging him for a second!" Her tone is starting to fray, turning defensive and sullen, and you think they won't be pale much longer. (It seems to be the season for that, and you think of the fallen leaves again with a pang.)
"So who is this douchebag?"
That's their cue to flood you with annoying exposition, and they jump on it eagerly, spinning you long, confusing descriptions of the prince's mysterious, beautiful guest: how he covered himself in a grey hood to obscure his horns; how the prince hogged all the dances, all of them, gazing into the stranger's eyes (now you think about it, there was kind of a lot of mutual gazing and you're happier than ever that your eyes are still grey as ash); how he seemed to have an endless supply of pomegranates in his sylladex and wasn't the least shy about handing them out (mostly because giving people food gets them paying attention to the food and not you, and you have to do something with unexpected alchemical side-effects). You listen, pretending boredom, irritation, reluctant interest, and complete disdain by turns. When they finally leave, Terezi still giggling and licking Vriska's neck in a way that is definitely not pale, your head is spinning. You didn't think you'd pulled it off so well.
Hey, palebro, says the voice in your sponge, and you squeeze your eyes shut in a stupid, useless attempt to block him out, because you know what's coming, and it's stupid, stupid, stupid, and he says, Wouldn't it be even more motherfuckin' hilarious if you could up and get your fool all on at them twice?
The next day you finish your chores early, and once Vriska's come to collect Terezi and gone again, you head straight for the pumpkin patch. This time you need to alchemise a better outfit.
Walking back into the sharks' den is the stupidest thing you've ever done, but you're so sick of hiding, and besides, the look on the prince's face when he looks up and sees you is worth getting sent to the gallows.
He grabs your hand eagerly and drags you down into the crowd, where the band is starting up another dance you don't know. With a mix of horror and delight you realise it's a slow one, and you hold your breath as he pulls you against him, wrapping his arms around you as if he already knows you're going to run away again.
It's only after the third song that he lets you go, leading you to the couch by the main tables, where you rest with him and watch the other dancers, trying to pick out the few people you know. Vriska goes by, in the arms of a tall greenblood wearing a bright red skirt, and Terezi a few minutes later, invading the space of a human with blond hair and a sharp smile. Eridan sees you watching them, starts to ask, and you put a finger to his lips, terrified by your own boldness, and pull him back onto the dancefloor.
You meant to leave at midday again, but somehow you miss it, and in the middle of an argument about bureaucratic procedure, you glance up at the clock and it's three in the afternoon. Time to get the fuck out.
He grabs your hand as you try to pull it away, and his voice is dangerous. "Somewwhere you'd rather be than here, landgrubber?"
"Hell no," you tell him, and the regret in your voice is enough to make him loosen his grip, even if you find your hand oddly reluctant to leave his. "But I don't have a goddamn choice."
"Hey, Karkles, you missed a spot!" is how Terezi announces her return, without her sister this time. She picks at a bit of slime from your horn as you force your eyes open, and you try not to panic. You're sure she doesn't know about the alchemiter. She just thinks you've been in the patch, which you have, and if you're careful, what she doesn't know about your reasons won't hurt either of you.
You listen to her new stories about the stranger - the court's growing infatuation, Vriska's likewise growing frustration at not being able to get into his head, and it's funny how when you're acting on one of your moirail's plots like this, she never can - and try not to see concern in her sidelong glances.
The third night is a dream, and you lose yourself in the prince's cold arms and soft kisses and violet eyes, until the call of a nightbird outside rouses you to panicked wakefulness - it's dark already, you'll be caught, and Eridan scents your fear like a barkfiend and tightens his arms around you.
"Don't you evven fuckin' think about wwalkin' out that door."
"I have to," you tell him, your voice rough with misery. "If you love me, you'll let me go."
His eyes are ice, but he opens his arms and steps back, and you should be running already but you're frozen, fear beating in your sponge. When you do move, it's in the wrong direction, pressing your lips against his.
Your escape is a mess, starting with the moment your foot slips on the stairs outside the palace, and ending with the moment when, too late to go back for it, you realise you're missing a boot. You mostly don't want to talk about what happened in between, except to ask who the fuck pours tar on the stairs at a dance, and why didn't anyone warn you?
You don't see the prince's despairing expression as he turns a small, tar-covered boot over and over in his hands. "Howw's this supposed to help? It's just a fuckin shoe. He's nevver comin' back for it, he's probably got a shitload of 'em back at his hivve."
You don't see the wicked light in his moirail's bright pink eyes as she plucks it out of his hands and shows him the rapidly drying red streak from when you tripped (and why didn't anyone warn you?). "Dumbass," she says fondly. "How many trolls do you know with blood this bright?"
You don't even get a chance to mourn your impending culling before you're woken by a pounding on the door. Fuck. You'd hoped at least for a chance to go back to Gamzee's tree and let him know you were on your way. (Well, fuck it. If it turns out there really is a Dark Carnival, you'll just have to bang on the gates till they get up and let you the fuck in, and it's not like he didn't know how shittily his plan was going to turn out for you anyway. Goddammit, you hate ghosts.)
Somehow you're still unprepared to come face-to-face with Prince Eridan, coral-eyed and bright and arrogant as a god. "So," he drawls, "I wwas dancin' wwith this guy. Nubby horns, really stupid buckfangs and the most wwicked tongue I evver fuckin heard on a lowwblood, and I thought I'd found my matesprit, only then he took off on me like a scared hopbeast, and I figured he shouldn't be allowwed to get awway wwith shit like that."
It's only when he pauses to let you reply that you realise you're staring. You'd stop doing that, and just answer him, only your tongue seems to be stuck to the roof of your mouth.
"And we also thought," adds the human girl beside him, "even if this handsome mystery guy had such awful taste to not want my smokin' hot moirail in his pants, you might at least want your boot back." She tosses it to you, still stained with slime and sweat and blood, and you hear Terezi say 3W behind you, but you snatch it out of the air anyway. "And, y'know, another chance to not be such a douche to his true love, cos trust me, that shit gets old after awhile."
"They'll kill you," you manage to say, your hands worrying at the boot without your say-so. "If you try to be with me."
Eridan grins. "Funny, Vvantas," and it should chill you to hear your name on his lips, but all you feel is warm. "You seemed to knoww your local politics better 'n that yesterday."
"He's right, Karkat!" Terezi says. "If he can get enough of the local officials to agree, then he can get you protected status! And everyone kind of fell a little bit flushed for you at the party, so it won't really be hard now."
"You could have told me it was that fucking easy," you say, trying to glare at her, but oddly, your face won't cooperate.
"Until yesterday, it wasn't!" she protests, shoving you hard without warning, and Eridan catches you when you stumble, pulling you into his arms so smoothly you'd swear the two of them choreographed it beforehand.
"Any more objections, landdwweller?" He smirks at you, and actually yes, you have a fuckload of objections about your matesprit and your hivemate teaming up to run your life for you, but with his triumphant violet gaze overpowering you, all you can do is shake your head. "Good. Cos I promise I am nevver, evver letting you out a my sight again."
When he leans down to kiss you, Terezi cackles in something that might be delight, and the human lets out a gleeful giggle. For your own part, Gamzee's quiet in your pan, and all your own internal monologue can muster is the ridiculous thought that Eridan's lips taste like pomegranates.
"Lovve you," he whispers when he draws away, and you make a noise that might be "love you too, arsehole", and nestle into him. He's probably got a musclebeast waiting somewhere, something stupid like a white charger, to take you back to the castle, but that can wait. Right now all you need is your prince's embrace, and for the first time since summer, you're smiling.