
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/216905.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Homestuck
  Relationship:
      John_Egbert/Karkat_Vantas
  Character:
      John_Egbert, Karkat_Vantas
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Everyone_Lives/Nobody_Dies, Awkward_First_Times,
      Horn_Stimulation, Homestuck_Kink_Meme, Meteorstuck, Accidental
      Stimulation, Xeno, Alien_Biology
  Stats:
      Published: 2011-06-29 Words: 4328
****** It's a Classic of the Genre ******
by Etnoe
Summary
     (The genre is troll erotica.) (The classic element is gratuitous
     horntouching.)
     A film helps Karkat to teach John some important things about troll
     culture!
Notes
     Written for a kink meme request for Karkat/John with accidental horn
     stimulation, which is the actual classic I'm referring to. Where
     would this fandom be without 'oops a hornjob'?
     =====================================================================
"There are layers of meaning, there is potential depth so goddamn heartfelt and
a lot of directors think they can tap it with a quick reference to the horn-
issue, but it's not that easy at—"
John's glasses glinted into Karkat's eyes as John looked away from the movie to
stare at him in fascination. "Movie-horns are a bigger deal to you than real
life horns!"
"Don't cram your common sense up your nook, John! It's not a good place to keep
it!"
"Sit down, you're spilling the popcorn!"
Karkat deigned to acknowledge that it wouldn't hurt his dignity to sit, and
then to wipe the popcorn off the seat and his trousers, and to sit again.
"I'm explaining," he said, "Pay attention. It's a big deal because it's a
deeply culturally-rooted issue! Okay, try to organise the sadly deficient
neural accidents that stew inside your think pan into a line of thought and
imagine: You're in the brooding caverns. You've got to feed and get past
everybody else and find a lusus to impress, and it's pitch fucking dark and
whatever you can see doesn't make much sense since you're ignorant to literally
everything about life. That's where horns come in. They help you feel their way
around."
"So they're sensitive?"
"I'm pretty sure that's how Tavros survived - he had a wider sensory range than
most grubs. Those knockers probably beat up half the people he was trying to
avoid, too. Not being able to fit through most doors nowadays is a small price
to pay, I guess."
"Then these are weird antennae!" John climbed over his half of the couch to
peer at Karkat's horns. "I thought you guys fight with them, like, head
butting. But if Tavros was hitting people with them, wouldn't it have really
hurt?"
"That's where the metaphor starts coming in!" Karkat waved him back so that
there was space to gesture. "Horns can't stay sensitive all the time.
Especially after we lose our grub legs and can get up and use our hands for
wielding weapons."
"Lose LEGS?"
"Shut up! Horns!"
"Okay, okay, tell me." John subsided, smiling, his eyes doing a sparkling
thing. That happened a lot, he was too fucking enthusiastic about lots of
stuff, like joining in those godawful dance parties with Terezi and Dave,
Nepeta teaching him how to kill things with his teeth, and alchemising board
games with Jade. It was better to look at something else. Karkat sat back
against the couch and focused on the movie playing on the woefully inadequate
computer screen, the sound from the speakers tinny and echoing in the lab room
they'd annexed as the movie lounge. He missed the set-up he'd had at home.
"By the time you're on your juvenile legs, you've fought with your horns as
much as you've found your way with them, and they've been targeted by others as
an easy weak spot. Calluses build up really fast on your horns for protection,
but they tend to build up on the spots that get the hardest hits. It's still
important to have parts that stay sensitive, or it would be difficult to get
around."
"Aw, how did you make it out of the caves with your horns?" said John, reaching
out to pat one. "So nubby."
"They were pretty big. Relatively speaking. I mean, when I was a grub they were
almost the same size as now so - take the popcorn!"
John obliged. Karkat breathed out.
"Well? Aren't you going to keep explaining? I still don't get the metaphor
thing," John said, eating a few kernels. "This movie continues to be confusing
as heck."
"Sensitivity and," said Karkat, still short of breath. If he didn't keep
talking John would get more suspicious. "Protection. It has to happen at the
same time. So it's like getting to trust somebody."
"Sheesh, trusting somebody's not that complicated. Can I see?"
Well sure, seeing, that would be inappropriate, you didn't go and stare, but a
bout of yelling at John and things would be basically fine. However the
definition of seeing had apparently been updated to include touching. Firmly,
because among his many faults John could not be accused of a lack of dedication
to his tasks. Among his positive qualities were hot fingers, salty-buttered
from the popcorn so that they were prickling and smooth at the same time, and
palpably inquisitive: and these were truly fucking sterling qualities.
He didn't have the first clue hesitantly waving hello from the distant horizon
of an idea of what he was doing.
"Oh, okay," said John. "The colour bands make it difficult to see the tough
spots if you're not looking, but there is a pretty big difference. Some bits
are so smooth."
"Can't make it easy to identify weaknesses. Even if you, if it's like the
movie, and it's someone you're okay with, or whatever ... it'd be fucking
dangerous, are you done yet, John."
"Hmm," said John, "fine," (and he didn't move) (why would he say that and not
MOVE or at least grow a fucking sense of propriety) "I guess this does make
things complicated. It's like there's a really big secret right on your face
when you're just getting to know somebody..." Wondering and sympathetic, even
above the fascination, he was no doubt getting that dissatisfied expression he
got pretty often when talking about troll culture. "I'm not going to do
anything weird, okay?"
You have hopped on the Imperial Mass-Carriage Transport Ship and let it take
you into the infinite reaches of space, John Egbert, where shit has gone down
in thoroughly researched histories as categorically and irretrievably weird.
Weird is the place where we are.
"That's not the point! There's the point!" Karkat flailed at the movie and felt
John look that way - infinitesimal shifts in the heat, air, and interest above
Karkat's bowed head - and felt those fingers stilling, but staying right where
they were. "She decided to show that she feels redrom even though the other
woman might be leaning towards blackrom. She has to show she means no harm, but
also has to keep building alliances that could be turned against the other one
in case of danger. So the shots with the horns - sometimes it signifies hurt,
and sometimes it means they're getting over shit or getting stronger, sometimes
it means that they both know there's ... there's weakness, but it's, just, it's
so obvious, look. Now would you get the fuck over it?"
"This is really interesting," John said in protest, and Karkat curled up a
little. From the careful pressure of his fingers and down the length of his
body John was close in a perfect way, and the rhythm of his exhaled breaths
stayed even and unexcited. He didn't fucking know. "As an ectobiologist - I
didn't pick that chum handle for no reason, you know - I am interested in all
kinds of biological fields, and xenobiology is also neat! You can have a turn
on me afterwards, if you want, so it's fair."
Where? Karkat curled up more, bent over his legs pulled close to his chest, but
it only put his horns at an easier angle for John to inspect. Where on you?
Every humming nerve threw what he'd picked up about humans' colourful dangly
soft bodies at him. It should rightly have got him vomiting over the arm of the
couch except that the thoughts were wrapped up in the particular colours of
John's eyes and skin, the irrepressible energy, his grin with those blunt
fangs.
"Ha! That sounded weird. You know what I mean. Whoa ... these look like teeth
marks." A pause, and the taste of tension in the atmosphere got thicker. Was
John going to finally fucking get it? Was he going to freak out or something
when he did? He still didn't let go. "Hey ... Karkat?"
"Even if it's not a target anymore it still used to be and everyone knows it.
It's a fucking big deal because you might not remember every gaping maw that
came flying at you as a grub it but you remember remembering the memory of the
memory." Breathing, that never stopped being a thing you had to do or anything.
"Any time somebody gets close enough to touch and they're trying to be careful
about it, that's what they need to get you to forget." It wasn't even an issue
right now, with somebody as deeply fucking nice as John.
"Hey, it's pretty soft in-between the calluses!" John's fingertips had fallen
to carefully mapping the paths around calluses where the sensory nodes were
thickest, almost more like suffocation than stimulation, and Karkat's curled-up
body slid out of its tenseness. "That must have really sucked, getting attacked
there ... back then..."
The unease in John's voice came into itself. A good time for another 'back the
fuck up, take the hint, stop that', but Karkat was busy.
He was lying flat on his back and couldn't close his mouth. This little noise
rasped out the bottom of his throat.
Subtlety was no longer working.
"Really?" John said too loudly, as if trying to drown him out. Then he
whispered. "You really ... um, you um, like, feel this?"
"Very really. John, so really."
"Karkat, I'm sorry."
The reflexive snap of absence from his fingers left the pressure of cold air on
Karkat's senses. It was a little much, a little bit too little but that was
okay, he couldn't fucking help kind of making another noise about it but
obviously it would have been okay. The entire accidental molestation incident
would have been a footnote to Dear Diary, to be obliterated on a makeshift pyre
for the shreds of his dignity in due time, all fine. Then John put his hands
back on Karkat's horns, grab-squeezing desperately. "Sorry!" he yelped in a
whisper, eyes wide and panicked and so close, as Karkat flew up in his seat,
that he could see a reflection of himself wearing the same expression.
"Now what in the fuck are you doing?" he said, and felt his teeth bite into his
lip the instant he stopped speaking. John watched it, both of them in sensory
time-lapse with every motion magnified.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! It was interesting and now I get that you were
hinting but this is so weird that I didn't think of it as a possibility!" John
also remembered that breathing had never stopped being a thing. "But, but I
started this."
"So you have to finish it?" Karkat hissed, interrupting him, and slammed his
fists into the couch when John actually nodded.
"Pretty much, I guess, it's only fair? I'm really sorry." Not obliviously
confident anymore, he only ran light fingertips across the shallow ridges of
Karkat's horns. He meant it this time. "Um, it's okay, right? I mean if you
don't..."
"Stop talking forever," Karkat said, and went back to having his teeth dig into
his bottom lip.
"Wow, you're going red."
"Like you aren't blushing!"
John laughed, sounding more like himself. "Yeah, I guess. But it's weird on
you, you never blush."
Typically trolls only blush enough for their blood colour to be easily detected
during highly emotionally or sexually charged situations, but I'm not telling
you, dipshit, because impromptu sociobiology lectures are probably officially
some kind of twisted sexual hot button for you. You're watching me squirm.
Avidly. The way John's eyes ran over Karkat - the reactions of heels and hands
digging into the cushions, the eyes falling half-shut - was almost like the
wholehearted interest in horns of a moment ago. Karkat tensed up and sagged
back against the arm of the couch and John shuffled up to straddle him as his
fingers kept working, and if he'd only grind down... "Is it almost, um, bucket
time?"
That wasn't even embarrassing right now. Karkat nodded, moaned, and tried to
rub his horns harder against John's hands.
"I have one in my sylladex..."
"What? You! Why?"
"Prankster's gambit. It is a long but totally not indecent story!"
Karkat considered the fact that, in spite of that answer, his next words were
struggling to be 'KISS ME YOU FOOL'. Maybe he should lay off romantic cinema a
bit. Maybe one day life would shoot him in the back of the head and be done
with it.
The bucket clattered on the floor. Impromptu movie marathons tended to scare
the others away, so there probably wasn't anyone around to hear or care. Karkat
grasped for the handle, stopped when John let go of his horns, and then went on
reaching and pretended he hadn't noticed anything.
"Do you mind if I go while you...?"
"Yeah, get the fuck out." Karkat was struggling not to just grind against the
bucket. He sat up as John scrambled off the couch and out the room, then slid
to the floor and bent over the bucket. One hand stroked his bulge and the other
played around his seed flap - then dipped in.
"Tell me when you're done!"
Karkat knocked the bucket over, and so got to live out his most deep-seated
fear for his first sexual encounter. At least it was empty. "John, what the
fuck!" he hissed towards the closed door, leaping after the bucket.
"Tell me when you've finished!"
"Why! Why?"
"Just do it! I'll ... I'll be over here."
Listening?
Possibly not listening. Possibly just hanging around like the triple-distilled
essence of an awkward fuckup who had no idea where boundaries ought to be
drawn. Nonetheless the idea cut down Karkat's questions and had his imagination
latch onto an image of John pressing a hot cheek and ear to the cool metal of
the door. It was probably the most stupid possible image to ever make someone
bite the rim of a bucket in sheer sensation overdose and who even did something
like that.
At some point he'd have to track his descent into disturbing and pathetic
perversion in order to know the exact degree to which to loathe himself more.
He could possibly work up a shred of self-respect for the fact that he wasn't
actually making a noise, not much of one, even as his hands worked furiously
and he thought of John, listening—
—and when he did groan, he couldn't be blamed for it by even his own standards,
tensing and relaxing with the waves of release.
Karkat had a distinct idea his face was going to feature a permanent blush. He
had probably popped every blood vessel that could ever potentially be. It felt
like he ought to be exhausted, but over and above that every jellied limb was
filled with energy. He wobbled upright, captchalogued the bucket, and put his
clothes back in order. Then he listened.
Shuffling feet. Wow. John actually had stayed out there.
Wow.
"Okay," Karkat said to himself, and was surprised by how loud his voice was,
even though that was the normal volume. He'd meant to take a breather, but now
John was turning the doorknob.
He didn't open the door all the way, speaking through a crack. "Can I come in?
Ehehe ... are you decent?"
Never again. Maybe. Sort of. "Sure."
Karkat turned on his heel and deposited himself on the couch, and then
concentrated furiously on the undeservedly neglected cinematic masterpiece.
John shuffled over, walked around the back of the couch, and slid into his seat
on the other end.
A few minutes later, when the movie dialogue seemed to be turning back into
actual words that made actual sense, he took Karkat's hand.
"You are an asshole," Karkat said. At times it was best to be succinct, to-the-
point.
"I'm trying not to be," John said, blatantly lying. There was no way his voice
needed to be that soft. "It's, um, not gentlemanly not to cuddle. Afterwards.
I'm pretty sure."
"You. Cannot. Be serious."
"It would be mean - or rude or something, to just leave..."
The thing was, though there was hesitancy in the way he spoke his grip was
unwavering. The other thing was, he was still flushed, his face shiny-ruddy,
and Karkat knew it didn't have the same intensity of meaning for humans but it
felt like...
"You were definitely listening." Accusation, statement of hope, mockery. "So
curious about this whole thing, huh?"
"Hm," said John, not quite willing to fall for it. "Mhmm. Karkat, come on..."
"You were." He returned John's grip - maybe too lightly, it should have been an
equally firm hold. Didn't matter too much, though, and it was freeing how he
was making so little time to hate himself in the past few minutes.
John was looking at his horns. "It all really happened just from that?"
"Yeah. Well. Not like you had any stimulus at all."
"Oh, jeez." John puffed out his cheeks with a sigh and darted his gaze to the
wall and to the movie as if looking for a way out, but he didn't look at the
door for more than a split second. "Oh, jeez."
He shifted closer. Karkat lowered his head, horns proffered. John let go of his
hand. Karkat shifted closer - then lower, sliding in a sort of preparation move
to lie down, and it already felt good when it made John lean in at the same
degree even though they weren't touching. Yet.
The process was so much fucking better with the grinding down.
John lay stretched out on top of him, a solid weight but still oddly comforting
- human, fairly safe. He was hard too, as much as a bone bulge, but it seemed
like with a lot more sensitivity. Karkat tilted the leg he had between John's
to change up the angle of pressure, and totally understood the way John liked
to watch for responses.
"You can lay off the horns now," he rasped, placing a hand on John's back, kind
of grinning when that got no protest. "Starting to get sore."
"Whuh!" John started up, and then screwed an eye shut at the unintended
friction.
"Relax, okay, relax, it's the salt. From the popcorn. It's stinging."
"I can clean it off! Sorry," John said. He was wide-eyed and shaky with semi-
uncertain excitement. "Didn't mean to be kismesis-y, or anything, don't worry."
Karkat wasn't worrying. He was vaguely berating himself for finding new blood
vessels to blush through at the thought of John cleaning his horns, torso on
display as he used his shirt for wiping, no doubt tenderly (possibly with a
crescendo in the background music). "Don't worry," John insisted, because he
had no idea that 'don't scream' would be a better instruction when taking a
horn in his mouth.
Like breathing water. Karkat hollered against John's collarbone, wrenching his
head to the side and then turning back to nudge the horn against John's breath
and teeth, his lips, oh, his tongue. He rolled his knuckles into John's back
and sides, remembered about nipples and put the information to good use. Oh
shit, fangs, that would be - no, he'd done it lightly enough, and John breathed
out in a high whine and made wet heat turn into a slice of chill.
"Bucket!" Karkat said, cursing his lack of foresight.
"Nnn-not yet. Gimme a - a bit more, I guess!" John laughed, the words not
settling easily. He knuckled at Karkat's shoulder experimentally, looked like
he felt silly, and dipped to mouth and suck the other horn clean. Despite this
Karkat managed to get out the bucket, and he set it firmly on the floor as a
matter of imminent necessity. A good leader under all circumstances, fuck yes!
He bit at John in triumph - only grazing his chin, not letting his instincts
really run away with him, and this time John laughed properly.
"That's not how," John said, chortling, "It's okay, you can—" He didn't kiss
properly. But Karkat leaned forwards after their mouths parted, John licked his
own lips thoughtfully, and then he gave the next try his very best shot. Karkat
made it under John's shirt, worked the other hand into his hair, and the
movements of John's hips got erratic.
"Bucket," Karkat said, and wriggled them both off the couch. He'd actually
successfully got someone all the way to a bucket, the drones to eventually be
released by the eventually to be pupated mother grub could go fuck themselves,
ha!
"I don't need it! It's not - a thing that humans ... Karkat, you know," John
said, tugging away from Karkat's grip. "You've seen our internet!"
"Be fucking decent for once today, John! Wouldn't human Jesus or something want
that?"
Typically it was undesirable for a romantic partner to burst into wild laughter
during the tryst; but what else would you expect from John Egbert? "You don't
even know what you're talking about!"
"DECENCY!"
"Oh Jesus," John said after all, grabbing his shoulders as Karkat tugged
questioningly at one of his belt loops. He gripped harder as he let Karkat undo
the trouser button and zip. There weren't going to be bruises, but it was nice
to pretend.
"Can't make it point down," Karkat observed, doing his best not to sound
judgmental as fuck. It wasn't really that bad, even up close.
"Uh-uh. Nope, not like that, best not to, I can, ha, handle it." John's voice
was deeper, although it was supposed to have finished deepening a while ago,
according to him. Karkat gave him a half-suspicious look but John was focused
on the contents of the bucket. "That's really all yours?"
"Yeah." Karkat shrugged a shoulder. "Um, pretty standard, I guess."
"Whoa. Don't judge me."
By rights, he should. John said, "So weeeeiiiird," and then came a few seconds
later in silence, chin snapping back like he'd taken a punch. It made a mess,
mostly right in Karkat's hand, and they had to tilt the bucket a downright
dangerous amount to get any genetic material at all. Not that it technically
needed to go in. But decency!
It left John looking bleary, and oh, shit, so bewildered-weak - but that
cleared as he watched Karkat working at himself again, thighs shaking and so
close to blowing he nearly couldn't move right to get there. John's fingers
twitched but fuck he didn't make it to reaching out, but he kept watching. And
then quick kisses, one to each horn, licking the tip of one. Finished, done,
fucking yes, oh— Karkat grabbed him to stay steady and John leaned weight on
him, too.
They cleaned up in silence. Of all things, it was the movie that Karkat felt
most embarrassed about, with the voices onscreen in no way changed by
everything that had happened. That was stupid. It was an absolute classic.
"Are we going to rewind this?" he said, grabbing John by the arm again. "Or are
we going to mark it on the chart for later and switch to another movie?"
John fell back against the couch where Karkat gently shoved him. "So weird!" He
flung an arm over his eyes. "Karkat. It's so weird!"
Karkat sat down gingerly. "Hey, you, um." He waited a second for the words to
come through. "You wanted to?"
A whisper: "So weird."
This would be the most stupid thing he'd ever said, including all conversations
with Sollux, every kind of mess he'd made with Terezi, and those comments that
involved more than one Jade at a time. "Quit whining and do your duty. It's
time for fucking cuddles afterwards."
He didn't give John time to laugh, or himself time to get a sickle from his
strife specibus and perform a mercy self-culling. He elbowed John into the
corner of the couch and wedged himself into the opened space, flinging an arm
around John's neck. "There. Human social requirements fulfilled. Feel better."
What a desperately shitty way to act. Karkat nearly thanked John for relaxing,
except that he was too surprised.
"I kind of do." John leaned his head on Karkat's shoulder. He heaved a sigh and
his body relaxed further. "Oh, wow. That sure was something."
Karkat nodded cautiously. After a little while he relaxed too - surely it was
okay under the circumstances? Even required. Right.
"Hey, Karkat? This movie..." Relaxation was definitely the thing to be doing.
John sounded much calmer. Warm. "The characters were really staring at each
others' horns, and there was just some really dramatic touching. Did you
secretly make me watch a kind of troll porn?"
"What? No!" Karkat sputtered. "It's widely regarded as a high point in
Alternian cinema. Erotica at best. Tasteful erotica!"
"That just means classy porn!" John gave a snort. Then he said, "You could've
said exactly what I was doing. I would've stopped if you were straightforward,
I'm not, like, Chester the Molester."
"Is ... is that an actual human job title?"
"Ew. Of course not, duh."
"It's not my fault you redefine stupidity with all the dedication you possess."
"Karkat." John brought the softness of his voice and his lips to Karkat's ear
and gently said, "Fuck you."
A simple but effective strategy. Karkat jerked and drew in a breath, and then
realised that his retort had been pre-empted and used against him in one
smooth, brain-overheating shot.
He growled, and John shoved his face into Karkat's shoulder to smother giggles
or to share the way they shook him, knocking his glasses askew. Karkat
considered punching him, and then considered punching himself, and squeezed
John hard like that was a remotely decent retaliation and swore he'd seriously
fucking punch anyone who knocked right now.
There was probably another hour of the movie left. There were more important
cultural subtleties raised by the horn issue, and they could learn valuable
stuff at this weird juncture in interspecies relations. John's hair tickled his
neck, and Karkat was worrying too much about his own ending to pay attention to
much else aside from that and John in general, no matter how good the movie.
Still. His arms stayed around John, and ... he couldn't bring himself to be too
worried.
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