
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/6249103.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      Other, Multi
  Fandom:
      Homestuck
  Relationship:
      John_Egbert/Karkat_Vantas, Nepeta_Leijon/Karkat_Vantas, Gamzee_Makara/
      Karkat_Vantas, Nepeta_Leijon/Gamzee_Makara, John_Egbert/Gamzee_Makara,
      John_Egbert/Nepeta_Leijon, John_Egbert_&_Nepeta_Leijon_&_Karkat_Vantas,
      Ambiguous_or_Implied_Relationship(s), Past_Relationship(s)_-
      Relationship, Nepeta_Leijon/John_Egbert/Karkat_Vantas
  Character:
      John_Egbert, Karkat_Vantas, Nepeta_Leijon, Gamzee_Makara, Minor
      Characters, Tavros_Nitram, Jane_Crocker_(mentioned), Equius_Zahhak_
      (mentioned), Original_Child_Character(s), Vriska_Serket_(Mentioned)
  Additional Tags:
      Dark, Dubious_Consent, Kidnapping, Stockholm_Syndrome, Adult!Gamzee, Age
      Difference, Omega_John, Omega_Verse, Kinda_sorta_you_will_understand_in
      the_fic, Xenophilia, POV_Multiple, Alternate_Universe_-_No_Sburb/Sgrub
      Sessions, Minor_Character_Death, Past_Character_Death, Mpreg, Pregnancy,
      Past_Relationship(s), Troll_Biology, I_guess?_I_know_very_little_about
      troll_biology, Fluff, Small_bits_of_fluff_between_the_darkness, Smut,
      Time_Skips, Human/Troll_Hybrids, Bad_Ending
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-03-14 Completed: 2016-06-30 Chapters: 13/13 Words: 17311
****** Such A Delicate Thing ******
by Canadiantardis
Summary
     At the age of ten, John knew aliens existed.
     At the age of thirteen, John is kidnapped by said aliens.
     Now, at the age of sixteen, John wonders if he's in love with said
     aliens.
Notes
     In this fic, humans follow the Omegaverse, and John is an Omega, but
     within my fic, Omegas aren't seen in a positive light, and I mention
     it briefly, but since this fic doesn't take largely place on Earth,
     you don't really need to worry about that.
     Trolls, however, have their own biology, with nooks and bulges and
     I'll try to explain that as best I can but I'm not a very graphic
     descriptor, so...
See the end of the work for more notes
***** Prologue *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
John knew aliens existed, had for a few years now. He was currently bound to a
couple while a large shadow stands in front of the light, giving a dark purple
outline.
John remembered trying to get his friends to understand what he was talking
about when he said there were aliens that kidnapped his half-sister when she
was fourteen. A thing that looked almost human except the sickly gray skin,
pitch black hair, yellow eyes and most bizarre of all, horns that looked like a
weird spear and two pronged fork.
But no one believed him, saying he was just a runt of a kid, not even ten. They
never believed the words of an Omega, anyway. They didn’t care about them,
letting the dying breed go about their days, hoping there would be an end of
the ‘Omega pests.’
So no one believed him, three years later, when the same alien he had seen
kidnap Jane came and took him, John yelling in fear for someone, anyone to save
him, but no one even so much as looked in the general direction John was being
dragged towards.
He wasn’t certain how much time passed since he had been taken for as soon as
they reached the woods close in the middle of the park near his home, he felt
immense pressure on his mind and he passed out, waking up with his hands bound
behind his back, and two other bodies that he had first thought were other
humans until he saw the dark gray skin tied up with him.
From the corner of his eyes, John could make out a bit about the other two
aliens. They looked young, like they would be about his age if they had the
same passage of time. One also looked like they didn’t have any horns like the
one that had taken him, but the other had shorter ones, so John guessed horns
were unique like fingerprints.
The two aliens never moved, the only way John knew they were still alive was
the pulse he felt from their wrists.
Then the large purple outline appeared, with curling horns like two spirals
atop wild hair. John saw dark purple irises glow and stare at him in the dark,
making the young Omega tremble in fear. He had never known fear like this, not
even when his sister had been taken practically in front of him or when his
father and he had to board up their house because protestors wanted ‘all Omega
rats killed’ just a couple months ago.
Thinking about his dad made John freeze. His dad most likely had no idea where
he was, he might think he was killed.
“Please, let me go.” John heard himself plead softly, and he was almost
surprised by the wobble his voice made.
The purple eyes narrowed and the figure took a step forward, blocking any sort
of light for John to see until all he saw were the glowing eyes coming steadily
closer to him.
A hand wrapped around John’s neck before reaching up to his cheek, surprising
the Omega and all words seemed to fizzle in confusion.
“You do not understand. That’s motherfucking fine. You’re safe here.” The voice
was deep mixed with random inflections of a higher pitch. “I won’t hurt you.
You’re safe. That planet is doomed, motherfucker.”
John stiffened. Did he just say planet? As in not where we are?
“Shh, sleep.” The hand cupping his cheek slid over his mouth as John opened it
to speak, and the pressure returned and John was embraced by the land of his
mind.
When he woke up again, John was in a different room, much brighter to the room
he had woken up in before, but he was still bound with the two other aliens.
He jumped in surprise when one of the aliens moved, their neck twisting around
to catch a glimpse of John.
“Oh! It’s awake!” The alien cried, twisting around to their other side to talk
to the other alien tied up. “Kitty, it’s awake!”
“Really? Is it gunna save us now that it’s awake?” The other voice was
scratchy, as if used to yelling for hours without end, and lower in pitch
compared to the other alien, and John could practically feel the sarcasm
dripping from the alien’s lips.
“Well, maybe. Aliens are weird creatures, maybe they’re purr-etty strong.” The
first alien said and John narrowed his eyes at the strange way it said
‘pretty.’
John blinked a couple times, looking around the room they were in. It was very
bare, with a barred and impossibly dark window high above them on one wall, and
a steel door opposite it. The walls seemed to be made of metal, as well as the
floor, and bright light was overhead. He groaned at the brightness of the
lights.
“Ugh, where are we?” He asked.
“Oh! It can talk!” The seemingly excitable alien cried again, reminding John of
a kitten or a very hyper dog. “We don’t actually know. I think it’s a ship.”
“A ship? Why’s it metal?” John asked, thinking of a large boat that explorers
used a really long time ago.
“Beclaws if it wasn’t, we’d die?” From the corner of his eye, John saw the
alien tilt their head slightly while the other seemed to give an annoyed groan.
“All we know is that the Highblood took us and we’re all fucking dead.” The
other said.
John frowned, understanding all the words but not understanding the sentence.
“What? Highblood?”
“Oh my god, yes, the Highblood. Don’t you know him? Big scary juggalo troll
that takes kids and then their found years later fucking dead.” The same alien
answered, sounding angry, and again, John thought he understood what the words
meant, but the sentence stumped him.
“I don’t… I don’t understand.” He said, shaking his head.
“Karkitty, you’re confusing the alien. It doesn’t know our way of life.” The
first alien sounded like they were scolding the other, and John wondered if
they knew each other before this happened.
“Before we get to that, could you tell me who you are? Like, species and name?”
John asked. “I’m John Egbert, and I’m human.”
“What’s a John?” The first alien asked. “What a strange name.”
“It’s fucking stupid, that’s what it is.” The second said.
“Not as weird as Kitty!” John defended.
“That’s not my fucking name! It’s fucking Karkat, not Kitty or Karkitty!” The
second, Karkat, yelled, which seemed to cause the first alien to giggle. “Shut
up, crazy cat girl.”
“Hey, don’t be mean, Kitty.” The first sounded like they were pouting. “It’s a
nice nickname.”
“Okay, so, Karkat? And what kind of thing are you?” John interrupted.
“Troll, duh.” Karkat’s voice again dripped with exasperation.
“Don’t mind him, he’s always a grump.” The first said. “And I’m Nepeta. Now
that introductions are done, what should we do meow?”
“I just want to know where we’re going? Or where we are.” John muttered, not
able to see much else besides the room they were in.
“Well, maybe you should try untying us with those claws you’re so fucking proud
of, idiot.” Karkat suggested with heavy sarcasm, but the other, Nepeta, seemed
to brighten.
“Oh yeah! John, be careful, I don’t want to scratch you on accident.” The
alien, troll, whatever, warned before John felt sharp nails lightly reach out
by his hands, and he pulled his hands closer to his back as the three young
creatures heard the sound of rope being cut at slowly.
It took a long time, and a few breaks in between as Nepeta slowly chipped away
at the rope binding them until they heard the distinct snap and the bonds went
loose.
“Fucking finally!” Karkat groaned, rubbing his wrists and John turned around to
face the other two fully.
Karkat seemed to have a permanent scowl on his face, weird yellow eyes narrowed
and suspicious, but wild, almost fluffy hair sticking up at angles with orange
colours sticking out where he guessed his horns were. He wore bland, dark gray
clothes with a grey symbol John remembered always seeing on the newspapers
horoscopes, but he couldn’t remember which sign that was.
Nepeta looked quite the opposite, with a face that would make an anime cat girl
jealous. She had a small mouth and her eyes were wide, looking at John just as
curious as the boy felt himself in the aliens in front of him. Her hair looked
messy, like whenever John took off his winter hat and it just looked static-y,
and her horns even looked like cat ears, which just continued the weird cat
girl trend Nepeta had going. She was also wearing a sign on her shirt, but it
was a sober kind of green, like the forest in the middle of summer by John’s
home, and a bright blue overcoat that looked slightly too big for her.
“You look really weird. Do all humans look like you?” Nepeta asked, poking
John’s arm in many places and that was when he noticed her nails, which didn’t
look much like human nails, but like a feline used to hunting.
“Uh, kinda? I mean, we have different skin colours and hair colours and eye
colours but most of the people I’ve met look really similar to me I guess.”
John shrugged. “Do all of you look the same?”
“Hmm, well, not all of us. Depends on our blood.” Nepeta replied and John
frowned in confusion. “Greenbloods normally look alike, but no one looks alike
when their of a higher blood, or seadweller.”
Greenblood? “Seadweller?” John asked.
“What? Don’t you know what a seadweller is? They’re the most powerful trolls in
the entire galaxy.” Her voice lowered as she continued. “Some of them are just
pawful, though. They are really strong and don’t care about anyone but
themselves.”
“They especially fucking hate any grub with a mutation.” Karkat piped in with a
glower. “They cull anyone who isn’t meeting the standards of their bloodcaste.
Fucking bullshit.”
“But you survived, Kitty.” Nepeta put in and John frowned again.
“What are you talking about?” He asked, looking between the two troll aliens.
“Well, Karkitty here is a mutantblood, and with such rare blood too. No one’s
seen a redblood that candy coloured since…” Nepeta trailed off, looking
uncertain.
“Since?”
“Since the Sufferer. He’s a forbidden topic, but he became a martyr for
lowbloods everywhere. He’s been whispered about for eons.” Nepeta said in a low
voice, as if afraid someone would hear them.
“What are lowbloods? What does blood even have to do with anything?” John
asked.
“Blood is ev-furrything!” Nepeta said in a surprised tone. “It determines how
long you live, the jobs you can take, and how likely you’ll be culled.”
“But it’s just blood.” John said, not understanding.
“Do you not have bloodcastes?” Nepeta asked and John shook his head. “Really?
That’s so weird! How do you humans even choose who rules over you, then?”
“Elections I think.” John replied. “Anybody can take over the government as
long as majority of the people vote for them, no matter what they are.”
“That’s fucking stupid.” Karkat muttered, but until this point, the other two
had ignored him.
“Well, not as stupid as choosing what happens to you based on how you were
born.” John defended.
“Do all humans have the same blood then?” Nepeta asked suddenly, cocking her
head to the side the way a curious pet would look at something.
“Yeah, as far as I know, we all bleed red.” John said.
The two trolls were quiet for a few moments before Karkat broke the silence.
“Humans are fucking weird.”
Chapter End Notes
     I hope everything I've written so far makes sense. This is my first
     omegaverse fic(although its not really an omegaverse fic since its
     like mentioned only now and rarely again), and first time writing
     something as dark as I plan this to be.
***** I *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
John, Karkat and Nepeta spent about half a year on a spaceship in just that one
room, not seeing anyone else, even when they were given food. John found Nepeta
to be really funny and sweet, while Karkat seemed to open up a bit more and
John could start to pick up on the other’s mannerisms.
When they finally left the room, it was when the troll that had kidnapped them
appeared with another troll, who seemed to be bound to a wheelchair and had
really large, wide horns like a bull’s. They brought the three of them out of
the room and off the large ship onto a land that was nothing like earth. This,
on the one hand fascinated John, who couldn’t stop looking around curiously at
the sky, or at the weird looking purple trees, but it also frightened him
because he wasn’t on earth, he wasn’t anywhere close to his father, to his
home, to anything familiar.
They were brought into another building with bizarre architecture, as if a
child had designed it. It was large and built with some dark gray material,
with weird five-point windows and just looked like each room was just dropped
on one another, like a child would put blocks together haphazardly.
The inside was just as strange to John, as it was barely furnished besides
random piles of things. John saw the largest pile was of horns, the kind that
would be seen on bikes or that a clown would use, but he also saw piles of
sharp looking weapons, pinballs, and even several piles of clothing, all
stained with what looked like dried paint of many different colours.
John and the other two trolls were moved along until they reached a room that
must have been at least four stories up, where the strangest looking bath thing
sat in the corner, another pile of clothing that looked cleaner than the ones
downstairs, and a simple bed. They were pushed in by their kidnapper and he
quickly left with a creepy spacey smile while the wheelchair troll stayed, a
kind smile on his face.
“You three are really lucky to have been saved by him, you know.” He said, a
stutter appearing ever so slightly on some words.
“Saved us? He kidnapped us!” Karkat shouted, a look of fury that seemed to hide
his nervousness for the moment. “We were doing just fine before the spiderbitch
took us.”
“Vriska is not a bitch.” The other troll sounded like he was trying to scold
the young troll as he wheeled right up to the doorframe, blocking the three
young ones from leaving. “She was saving you from being culled. Gamzee knew who
was going to be culled and saved as many as he could.”
“What are you talking about?” Nepeta seemed to whine. “I was purrfectly safe
with my lusus. You took me from her.”
“Cullbots would have come and taken you, and you know it.” The troll seemed
adamant about what he was saying.
“What are cullbots? What?” John interrupted, not understanding what was being
said.
“You don’t know what cullbots are?” All three trolls looked at him in surprise,
with Karkat even looking slightly envious. “They cull anybody who doesn’t fit
what the Empress deems as good enough for her species.”
“Okay, but what does that have to do with me? I’m not a troll. I’m a human, not
even the same anything as you.” John countered.
“The Empress has already invaded your home. Gamzee saved you before anything
could happen.” The troll said.
John couldn’t understand what was being said to him, couldn’t believe what the
older troll was telling him. It wasn’t that he was in denial, no, it was more
to do with the fact that the troll believed his own words even though from the
looks on Nepeta and Karkat’s faces, all three knew it wasn’t the truth. But the
troll was adamant about the kidnapper, Gamzee apparently, saving them instead
of kidnapping the three of them, and it made John feel uneasy.
They quit arguing when the three realized they wouldn’t get anywhere with the
wheelchair bound troll, and he left them in the room, locking the door behind
him with a cheerful ‘I’ll come back with food in a few hours!’ And the three
young creatures were left alone once again.
Soon, life in the house almost seemed like normal for the three kidnapped
creatures. Tavros, the wheelchair bound troll they later learned, would wheel
up and give them their meals, always with a sympathetic smile when they tried
to argue about being let go, to help them escape, to just tell them why they
were taken. Nepeta soon became the first to give up the conversations
altogether after about two months, John joining her a few months after her, but
Karkat was stubborn. During the times he got really riled up, Tavros would call
for Gamzee, who would take the young hotheaded troll and take him… somewhere,
for hours, sometimes days before bringing him back quiet and sullen.
He only stopped the arguing when he turned another ‘sweep older’ when they had
been taken for over a year then.
After that, it was simply them getting meals, walking around the house heavily
supervised by Tavros, or ever the kidnapper himself, and if any of them caused
trouble, which was normally Karkat, they would be taken away from the others
for solitary confinement for who knew how long. It worried John every time he
saw Karkat, or the rare times Nepeta, be taken from the others, kicking and
crying out and just looking both furious and scared and John knowing he
couldn’t do anything.
It was just after Karkat had been taken for making a swipe at Gamzee when
Tavros startled him.
“I know that look. Jane had it a lot of the time.” He said with that same
sympathetic smile and John froze.
Narrowing his eyes, John turned to Tavros and spoke slowly, as if he was afraid
of being misheard. “Who did you say?”
“Jane. She was another human Gamzee saved.” Tavros said, now looking
thoughtful. “Now that I think about it… Yeah, yeah, she said she had this weird
thing called a sibling. Said looked like her, but more ‘guyish’ whatever that
meant, and darker eyes.”
“Jane’s here? You know her?” John asked.
“Yeah, I knew her.” Now the smile faltered. “She was a good friend, but…”
Knew? Was? “What…?” John started, and just like that, there was a sad, sad
smile on Tavros’s face and no that’s not true. She’s not, she can’t be, she’s
too young.
“Just before Gamzee went off to save you three, my group, Jane and another
troll, Equius, all got sick with a bad disease. It rendered me in this
wheelchair, but the others… They didn’t pull through. Might’ve been because of
blood, but the medicine didn’t work for Equius, and Jane was, well she wasn’t a
troll.”
He trailed off but John understood. Jane had died of an alien illness, so far
away from home and anyone who knew her and loved her. God, their dad would be
heartbroken to know that.
“John?” He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and snapped back to seeing Nepeta
look at him worriedly with her big, big eyes. “Are you okay?”
He tried to say something, a yes, a no, something, but it sounded like a
mangled hum, even after clearing his throat, and Nepeta just rubbed her hand
comfortingly over his arm, a sad purr-like noise coming from her. John welcomed
it, and he leant heavily onto the other troll as he tried to figure out if he
would cry or not.
Chapter End Notes
     I think I changed the beginning about three times because I was
     unsatisfied with how the flow seemed or how it didn't seem to mesh
     with what I have written for later chapters.
     Also, sorry there was no chapter last week! I got sick(either because
     of the weather or stress from school or something else) and had
     school work to do on top of it. Having said that, school is really
     heating up for me, so I don't know if I'll be able to write/post
     chapters during this entire month. '~' I hope you don't mind waiting
     a month.
***** II *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
John had only just turned fifteen when the three noticed Tavros’s health
decline even more. It wasn’t a surprise that the illness that took his group
wasn’t going to go away that quickly, but it started out like someone with
cancer; slow at first than before anyone could react, there was no cure. John,
Karkat and Nepeta could only watch as the ever smiling troll became weaker and
weaker, and soon was even unable to push himself on his wheelchair.
Their kidnapper became distant as Tavros got sicker, ignoring the pleading
notes Tavros made for getting into the strange sleeping pools the trolls called
Recuperacoons, until there came a day when no one heard or saw Tavros for the
entire day, and the three, fearing the worst, sent Karkat to look in Tavros’s
room, only for the loud mouthed troll to return looking pale, even with grey
skin.
“Everything’s gone.” He said in a weirdly soft voice.
“What? What’s gone?” John and Nepeta asked.
“Everything. Even the wheelchair. There’s nothing of Tav’s that’s left.” Karkat
said.
“No…!” The other two gasped and demanded to see for themselves, and sure
enough, there was nothing in Tavros’s room that had belonged to him. It was
like he never existed.
It was then that Gamzee seemed to change around them. He was more observant
over the others, more strict on punishments, and he even changed the rooms. He
made most of the rooms inaccessible for the kidnapped teens and making the
places they were able to be in sparse in terms of furniture and other things
that make the weird building a home of sorts.
It was about two months after Karkat had told them about Tavros that the change
in their kidnapper came to a terrifying head. And he started with Nepeta.
                                    Nepeta
Nepeta wasn’t sure what happened, but within seconds she felt something in the
back of her mind, forcing her to stand stockstill as if something was hunting
her, like when she had lived with her lusus. She saw their kidnapper grab the
human and Karkat by their hair and force them away from her, and there was a
tone in his voice that shook the girl to her core.
But despite her fear, none of them could do anything. They all knew this by
now. There was no fighting against the adult troll and whoever stayed around
them to keep them in control.
Soon she saw Gamzee return alone, already grabbing for Nepeta and the pressure
left her as soon as the large claw-like hand was securely fisted in her hair.
The girl cried out, her claws already desperately clawing at his wrist, but
that only made him get a better grip on her and lifted her up until she was
barely touching the ground.
“Please!” She cried, not knowing what was going on or what caused this. “Let
go!”
The highblood didn’t listen, just dragged her to one of the rooms that had
always been banned from entering and between her attempts to free herself she
saw it was just one single large room with nothing but a human bed.
She was thrown onto the bed and she scrambled back onto her feet before she
froze at the predator look Gamzee gave her, like she was a little wiggler to be
eaten or something and she felt paralysed. Distantly she wondered if this was
how her prey felt when they saw her, but all thoughts were thrown out of her
head as the troll advanced on her.
Despite her best struggles, Nepeta found herself trapped under the highblood,
his predator look only growing as one hand trapped her wrists high above her
head and he straddled her, the other hand gripping and pulling and stretching
and tearing her already messy and stressed clothes.
“Please!” She cried again, uselessly as she tried to shake him off, voice
raising in fear as he wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t leave her hips or her skin under
her shirt. “Please, please, stop!”
Gamzee just growled and lowered himself on her, grabbing her chin harshly. “I
can do whatever the fuck I want.” He said in a low voice before smashing their
lips together, his fangs already shredding her lips to keep her quiet.
It was disgusting, he tasted disgusting, like old lowblood grubsauce mixed with
something like… Supor slime and she wanted so badly to gag but now there was
something foreign forcing its way into her mouth and she whined in the back of
her throat.
While her mouth was busy, the hand returned to her hips with bruising force,
claws piercing small crescents into her flesh. She whined again before the hand
reached up to her throat and god if this was what having a kismesis was like,
she never wanted to find someone she hated like this, and she knew this
couldn’t be love. It couldn’t be, it was too rough, too against her will, there
was no trust and oh god where is that hand going?
Said hand was in fact sliding down her legs, leaving marks and cuts, showing
her green blood to the world, as well as removing her clothes. This made Nepeta
struggle harder until she cried out when the hand clawed around her inner
thighs, ripping the tender flesh into ribbons with the promise for more pain if
she didn’t go limp. She quickly complied, for a total of one minute before she
realized what he wanted from her.
Gamzee pushed himself somewhat off her, enough so he could pull his own pants
off, and she only quickly saw a slick bulge before she felt sick with dread.
He never gave her any warning, just one single look of a predator before her
insides screamed as if something was tearing her open from the inside out.
Her hands no longer restrained, Nepeta made no move to go against the
kidnapper, but she cried loudly for it to stop, to get out, to stop she was
going to tear in two. But he didn’t listen. He just laughed as he sheathed his
entire bulge deep in her, and she could feel it searching for the best places
and her head began to fog over.
It hurt, she hurt, he was hurting her and he laughed and laughed and laughed,
the dull slapping noises similar to being slapped in the face several hundred
times. Nepeta writhed under Gamzee and distantly realized he was speaking to
her, his voice soft with loud grunts and growls and she realized he was
claiming her. Claiming her as his property, as an investment, but she didn’t
really listen, her mind in the clouds, far away from the pain.
It felt like several sweeps past before she felt one final thrust deep inside
her nook and they both cried out, for different reasons, before Gamzee grabbed
her chin again, looking down at her like she was food to eat.
He left her there, legs spread and hands still gripping the sides of the bed
from when she thought that it would lessen the pain she felt (it didn’t), her
head barely strong enough to move from where it had flopped when Gamzee had
released her chin. He left her there, feeling gross and confused and scared, oh
so scared.
Nepeta hadn’t realized she was crying until the sob heaved her chest visibly.
She couldn’t understand what just happened, but everything hurt and she hurt so
badly that when she tried to curl up, she screamed in pain, barely recognizing
the purple fluid mixing heavily with the green blood that had once been in her
body like it was supposed to be.
She hurt so bad, and no one was around to help her.
Chapter End Notes
     I uh... I got nothing. Sorry this was a little later than normal.
     This was kinda the first time I've written something similar to smut
     for a fic... I hope it was okay(not good, I mean, it wasn't good
     consensual smut)?
***** III *****
Chapter Notes
     I'm honestly so sorry for not updating for over two weeks!!
See the end of the chapter for more notes
John was sure Karkat and he had screamed themselves hoarse from their places in
the wall, desperate to save Nepeta as she screamed in pain. Both were shaking
as they knew neither could do a thing to free themselves or save the girl who
sounded like she was being hurt.
“Nepeta…” Karkat croaked, his voice practically gone from all the shouting to
be let out, to save Nepeta, and John could not even comfort him from his place
shackled to the small space.
The two boys were forced to stay in between the wall, shackled to prevent
escape, for what John could only guess was about three days by how hungry he
felt when they heard footsteps approach the solitary confinement room. Neither
looked up, too exhausted from constantly shouting for their friend, demanding
to know what was happening to her that caused those awful noises to come from
her.
They didn’t even want to look up even if they could. Gamzee exuded pleasure at
how defeated the two looked, arms practically useless after three days hanging
above their heads.
Karkat’s shackles were removed first, and he didn’t react besides crashing
down, his entire body much heavier than he remembered. When he had been brought
in and shackled, only the tips of his feet briefly made contact with the floor,
while John, who was much taller than the troll, could stand okay, but even he
crashed down when the shackles finally released his deadweight arms. The sudden
return of proper blood circulation caused both boys to whimper in pain. It was
much, much worse than simply sleeping on an arm and getting that numb feeling,
the pins-and-needles feeling more like sharp jagged knives stabbing every
single one of their nerve endings from their shoulder to the tips of their
fingers.
Too weak to do anything, they felt themselves being lifted by the back of their
shirts, stretching the already worn cloth even more, but luckily not choking
them or ripping the shirts. John was barely noticing where they were going,
until he recognized a soft noise coming from the room they were being brought
into like kittens.
They were dropped as soon as they reached the room with the soft sad noises,
and John finally looked up. They were in a room John had never been in before,
with a single large, probably queen sized bed, a small bedside table, and
nothing else in the room. The bed was messy and it was only then that he saw
something shift, the same noises coming from it.
The door closed behind him, but John didn’t worry about it. With a lot of
effort and pushing down the pain in his arms, he shakily got to his feet and
even more shakily made the few steps to the edge of the bed, freezing when a
pained, scared whine came from under the thick blanket and whatever was under
the blanket seemed to curl on themselves.
But the whine sounded familiar and in a careful whisper, as his voice hadn’t
come back, he dared to speak. “Nepeta?”
The movement froze before John saw one side of the blanket being pulled away
from what he guessed was her face.
John’s heart broke at the wide, scared eyes staring up at him, the blanket
covering everything under her nose. He saw the overly messed up and knotted
hair, the dried light green tear stains.
That was all he could see before Nepeta launched at him, the blanket falling
off of her and the two fell over, John not expecting Nepeta to do that and
still weak otherwise. Nepeta curled up on him and he could feel the hard shakes
that practically vibrated him and he automatically wrapped his arms around her,
one hand going for her hair and combing through the knots.
The two heard more shuffling as Karkat seemed to come back to reality and
joined the two by the edge of the bed. No one said a thing as Karkat joined the
cuddle with John on the bottom. Nepeta made whines a few times when she shifted
but that was the loudest noise for several minutes.
John was the first to speak, a little muffled through Nepeta’s hair. “I just
got feeling in my arms and you might just make me lose it again.” He tried to
keep his tone light and if they looked over at him, they would have seen the
smallest forced smile to keep them calm.
Nepeta slid off, quickly into Karkat’s lap and leaning on the other troll
heavily. John heard Karkat shush her, and tapped the side of her head in a
deliberate fashion. He had learned about troll ways during his two years
trapped with them, and watching the two, he wondered if this would be
considered their pale romance. But they worked differently, it was supposed to
be between two trolls, but for the past two years, all three teens had done it
to one another on bad nights.
Finally, after another long period of silence, Nepeta sniffled and rubbed a
knuckle over her eyes, and it was only then that either boy had realized she
had been crying, fresh green tears leaving stains on her and Karkat’s clothes
and down her cheeks.
“I thought I’d never see you again.” John barely missed the whisper.
John approached the two trolls, not speaking as he wiped the wayward tears. “We
didn’t know what was going on. Are you okay?”
It was a stupid question, as all of them knew the answer but Nepeta gave a
weak, weak smile and nuzzled John’s hand. “Now I am.”
John looked over the girl troll to Karkat and saw him just as upset over Nepeta
as John felt. They were both at a loss, wanting to know what happened, but at
the same time, they couldn’t let Nepeta possibly freak out again by telling
them what happened to her.
It took a lot of time before they saw Nepeta slowly return to something they
thought was normal. Her smile was more catlike again and she wiped the rest of
her face as she slipped off Karkat’s lap.
“I’m better meow. Sorry.” Her eyes flickered around the room, as if taking it
in now.
They both jumped when a squeak came from Karkat, his voice having gone utterly
and completely during the three days and even trying to clear his throat didn’t
work. John and Nepeta snorted quietly as the loud troll looked angry with
himself before whispering.
“I’m fucking starving.” At that moment, John’s stomach grumbled in agreement
and the three slowly got up, John reaching to open the door.
They all froze when the door swung before John had touched the doorknob and the
three teens found themselves in front of Gamzee. Nepeta made the same scared
whine as before and the two boys winced as they felt her nails dig painfully
into their arms as she held them. Gamzee gave them a light smile, but it didn’t
reach his eyes. His eyes looked… hungry, from what John could tell, but he had
never been good at reading people.
Gamzee didn’t say a thing, but his eyes glossed over the three of them before
he just sauntered away and the way he left sent chills down John’s spine, and
he could tell he wasn’t the only one to have had that feeling. He saw Nepeta
look like she was trying to hide behind Karkat, but because she was taller than
the other troll, it wasn’t very effective. Karkat just looked very confused,
like he couldn’t tell what just happened.
John wrapped his arm around Nepeta. “Let’s get some food, yeah? Altogether.”
The girl troll seemed to hesitate before she nodded.
Chapter done!
Chapter End Notes
     Writers block and studying for exams are my excuses, and when I
     didn't have either, I was writing for other fics... :C
     Hopefully I'll have a chapter ready for next Friday, since by then
     I'll be in summer mode.
***** IV *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
                               Six Months Later
Being locked in the wall became a usual thing for John and Karkat after that,
whenever Gamzee wanted time alone with Nepeta. Karkat still hated it, but John
was slowly accepting it. They couldn’t do anything about it, so why lose his
voice knowing no one was going to listen to him?
Nepeta also seemed to accept it, no longer hiding under things for hours after
each time. She limped more often as it was obvious Gamzee was constantly rough
with her, not caring if he hurt her or not.
John tried sleeping, defeated when he couldn’t find a comfortable way to fall
asleep in with his arms hanging above him, and Karkat again demanding to get
out of this ‘hellhole of a place, nooksniffer!’
If the other troll had been quiet, the two boys would have realized it was very
quiet above them, no sounds of a bed creaking, or moans or cries coming from
Nepeta. But Karkat never knew when to shut up, until light assaulted the two of
them as Gamzee appeared in front of them, stark naked.
John jumped eyes wide at the alien genitalia that greeted him. Along the sides,
where John would assume would be the ribs, were small raised brilliant purple
lines, three on each side, and a very flat stomach, not even a belly button
there. But John couldn’t focus on the troll’s sides and stomach for long, as
lower something kept moving, like it had a mind of its own.
It looked more like a short tentacle, like from a squid or octopus, just minus
the suckers on the one side, and the thing tapered similar to a human penis,
but the colour was the same colour as the raised lines, a brilliant bright
purple, and around the crotch just faded from the purple to a dark troll gray
skin tone and John just couldn’t look away, both fascinated and slightly
horrified.
He snapped to attention when Gamzee approached the two shackled up, and John
felt his heart stop for a few seconds before he realized the adult troll was
going over to Karkat, who seemed to have struck dumb, quiet and wide eyes.
The two had known what Gamzee was doing to Nepeta, but to see Gamzee now, fully
nude and too close for comfort, it wiped both John and Karkat’s minds of
logical thoughts, until it was much too late.
Gamzee took hold of Karkat’s wrists, and with a lewd glance over at John, he
pulled the short troll along, and soon John was left alone, shackled to the
wall in the dark as his mind played catch up with the rest of him.
He finally understood what was going on when he heard the shouts, pain mixed
with anger and fear driving the volume of Karkat’s yells and John winced. His
blood seemed to slow in his veins as he finally seemed to understand the
situation he and the other two had found themselves trapped in.
He should have probably realized that when he had noticed Nepeta’s stomach get
strangely larger, much like a pregnant cat, but he hadn’t realized until just
then.
                                    Karkat
Karkat wasn’t one to go easy against anything. It was in his blood, he knew he
was always going to fight, but it didn’t mean he was ready when he saw Nepeta
laying in a horn pile off to one side of the bedroom he was being carried off
into. She was also barely dressed, her clothes mostly just piled onto her,
revealing the grub scars and the budding breasts that all female trolls
developed as they reached closer to full adulthood, only covering her nook,
really.
But Karkat soon couldn’t dwell on his friend laying just a few feet from him,
sleeping off the alone time she had been enduring for the last hour, as their
kidnapper raised his arms above his head, pulling him up until Karkat was
staring eye-to-eye with the highblood.
“You’re so motherfucking cute.” Gamzee said, a rough clawed hand rubbing the
side of Karkat’s face, some sort of smile on his face as Karkat twist and
cursed, his arms already hurting again as his blood left him.
Suddenly Gamzee’s face darkened, as if Karkat had done something he didn’t
approve of, and his claws dug into the side of his face, barely breaking the
skin and Karkat winced, a pained growl coming from the back of his throat.
Gamzee tossed Karkat like he weighed nothing, and the air escaped the
mutantblood as he fell onto the bed, eyes wide as the naked highblood stalked
after him, and finally Karkat’s mouth caught up to him.
“Get the fuck away from me!” He shouted, desperately getting up, but his arms
were more or less dead weight to him, and he was too slow anyway.
Gamzee forced himself on him with anger similar to a blackrom movie. His teeth
practically ripped apart Karkat’s lips, making him cry out and push uselessly,
his cries muffled by the highblood’s lips and teeth. The claws returned, now
trickling around his arms and hips, feeling the raised scars and although
Karkat tried his best with renewed strength, he was pitifully weak against the
adult troll.
When the hand went down, past his pants, Karkat’s breath hitched, eyes wide and
he gripped the highblood’s wrist, his own short claws not strong enough to
pierce through the skin, but it made the hand pause. But all it did was get his
hands snatched again, a possessive growl emanating from Gamzee’s throat as his
free hand tugged viciously Karkat’s pants down.
Gamzee looked interested in the colour of Karkat’s bulge, revealing his blood
colour with no room for discussion before a lopsided smile appeared.
“I always thought you were going to be special.” He commented, his hand
wrapping around Karkat’s bulge, the grin staying as Karkat paled and bucked
away.
Karkat fought hard, much harder than Nepeta had, but the most he was able to
achieve was pain for himself, as Gamzee would simply squeeze so painfully on
his bulge his entire body would spasm from a pain he had never felt before. He
couldn’t pierce the tough troll skin, or push the highblood away. He couldn’t
really do much, and when the other’s bulge slithered around his own, he was
losing energy to buck away.
Gamzee had his way with Karkat, the young troll quickly losing his voice from
the previous shouting as well as the crying out in pain as the older troll’s
bulge quickly constricted. Gamzee told him to sheath, and when the pain of
ignoring became too great, he quickly hid his bulge. But he wasn’t done yet.
With his arms high above his head, and his legs unable to knock together,
Gamzee pressed himself close and Karkat’s insides twisted at the foreign
feeling of a bulge exploring his nook.
Chapter done!
Chapter End Notes
     School's done, so I should be now able to have time to write for this
     fic. Wish me luck!
     Now, I also wanna ask, there will be children, so i was wondering if
     ya'll would want to help me name some of them. I already have a few
     names, but I want to keep up the four letter and six letter names. If
     you have names, comment and I will most likely use them.
     (And just an aside, there are a lot of kids that will be mentioned in
     passing. To give you an example of how many kids there are, Jane had
     5, Tav had 12, and Equius had 9. Not yet gunna tell ya how many John,
     Nep or Kar get. You'll read about them later)
***** X *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
                                Two weeks later
“Karkat. Come here.”
Karkat stood, trembling from both the fear of approaching the only bed, and
from the chill of him leaving the sleeping heat furnaces that were Nepeta and
John at the order of their kidnapper.
Gamzee’s eyes were half-lidded, as if he was very close to falling asleep
already, but he had an arm raised as if inviting Karkat onto the bed, which he
did as gingerly as he could, laying down at the very edge of the bed.
He heard the kidnapper give a heavy sigh before suddenly he snapped his eyes
wide as a hand wrapped around Karkat’s chest and pulled him closer to the
kidnapper until he was flush against him and the highblood gave a happy sigh.
“You’re so pretty. Such a delicate thing.” Gamzee murmured and Karkat’s skin
crawled as his breath skittered along his neck. “Don’t tell the others, but you
were always going to be my favourite.”
Favourite? Karkat thought, bewildered. Favourite what?
Karkat tried to sleep, but the large hands and claws and the uncomfortably
close breath of the highblood made it hard for the young troll to get
comfortable enough to sleep. He wondered how Tavros had been able to do it for
so long, sleeping pressed up against the troll almost every night.
Thinking about Tavros made Karkat frown. He missed the brownblood, despite how
annoying he was and how he never saw the highblood for what he really was.
Tavros had acted like a buffer for the younger kidnapped victims, and maybe had
been the only reason it had taken Gamzee almost two years before he went after
them.
Great. Now I’ll never get any damn sleep. He thought bitterly. He couldn’t even
toss or turn to find a comfortable position.
But somehow Karkat fell into a long doze, easily awoken by the noises around
him, but it was enough for him, for now. He felt, well not well rested, but he
didn’t feel like he stayed up the entire night. It still felt weird to wake up
with the sun, that the sun wasn’t about to burn them to high hell if they
stepped outside (which they weren’t allowed to do anyway, but that was beside
the point).
Morning came not soon enough. Karkat felt like he could finally breathe when
Gamzee woke up and released him, though he had nipped the back of his neck none
too gently before he did so. Karkat practically bolted from the human bed back
to John and Nepeta as they seemed to be waking up as well.
John stretched, a silent wide yawn escaping him and even from a couple steps
away, Karkat heard the bones crack. He guessed humans were not good with
sleeping on no piles, like trolls.
Or like most trolls, as Nepeta just stretched like a cat with a sleepy smile.
Karkat guessed it was because of how Nepeta lived before being taken. She had
been living in some big forest back on Alternia, in some big ass cave with her
lusus, far from most other trolls. Unless they were stupid enough to walk
through the forest for some fucking dumb reason.
Nepeta seemed to be more happy now, constantly smiling, no matter how soft it
was. Gamzee had switched his attentions to Karkat since Nepeta’s stomach
started to grow, and at first Karkat was angry with that fact, he couldn’t help
his anger for that, he didn’t know why she was getting fat. It wasn’t until
there was a day’s lull and the three were allowed to rest that Karkat was told
what was happening.
“She’s pregnant.” John had told him, eying the troll girl’s stomach so
cautiously, it was like how a highblood troll would look upon a lowblood with
some form of weapon in their hand while working. “That’s the only explanation.”
“The fuck is a pregnant?” Karkat and Nepeta had asked, though Nepeta was a
little more curious and less vulgar in phrasing.
“It’s when… Uhm, it’s I think when, you know…” He gestured at her stomach
unhelpfully. “There’s babies in there!”
“Babies?” Nepeta asked. “What are those?”
“Ugh!” John groaned, grabbing at his hair almost in defeat. “Small versions of
adults. Children, you know, what we used to look like when we were like, born?”
“Oh, you mean wigglers!” Nepeta clarified before she fully understood, along
with Karkat, what was happening to her.
There weren’t many troll pregnancies, what with the cullbots and the Mother
Grub back on Alternia, but it wasn’t like they never happened before. Most
trolls, when the wigglers are growing in their own body, have them grow for
about four months before they can leave the mother body. It was also said that
depending on the blood colour, that would also depend how fertile a troll would
be, with the average wiggler amount being about 3 or 4 a troll pregnancy,
sometimes more sometimes less. A small part of Karkat wondered how many
wigglers were growing in Nepeta, before the rest of him felt disturbed by the
thought.
Nepeta stretched again, a squeak of a yawn coming out as she did so before her
hand went to her stomach.
“How far are you now?” John asked, looking down at her stomach as well.
“Soon. Any day I think.” Nepeta answered and John looked surprised.
“But it hasn’t even been five months yet!” He said and the two trolls looked at
him, confused.
“Yeah, the little wigglers don’t stay for too long, no more than… 20 weeks I
guess? Why, how long are humans carrying their little wigglers?”
“About 9 months on average.” John answered and Karkat felt his eyes widen.
“9 months? That’s fucking ridiculous. What happens when the things pupate?” He
demanded and John did a double take.
“Pupate? What are you, butterflies?” Both trolls gave blank looks.
“No, we’re trolls. We’ve told you already.” Nepeta answered, a little slowly as
if John had taken a tumble and lost his goddamn mind.
“The fuck is a butterfly?” Karkat demanded.
“What’s a…” John looked speechless, shaking his head. “It’s this little pretty
bug, and they all have cool different wings and fly, but they’re really tiny,
barely the length of your middle finger.”
Karkat narrowed his eyes. The description sounded familiar, but neither he or
Nepeta seemed to be able to remember what it would have been like on Alternia.
“Can we eat please? With these little things in me, I feel like I haven’t had
something to eat in days.” Nepeta brought up, patting her stomach as they all
heard the quiet grumble. John smiled and stood up, helping Nepeta up, Karkat
soon after.
It isn’t often the three get to spend the say together with no highblood in
sight, but Karkat inwardly revelled in being alone with John and Nepeta. For
the past few months, since Tavros’s death basically, it’s been rare for all
three to be together, and he hadn’t realized how much he cared about the other
two until they left his sight for, sometimes, days without end.
He slid a hand into Nepeta’s, almost without thinking, but if it bothered her,
she didn’t comment, a warm look on her face that was most likely because of the
little creatures growing inside her.
When he slid his other hand into John’s on the other hand, he wasn’t sure what
caused the warm look from the human. Karkat pretended to ignore it, acting like
he was doing that to drag them out of the room, not because he liked how their
hands felt in his, no way.
And there was no way his face was burning with a blush as he walked ahead of
them, pulling on their hands slightly. Absolutely not.
Chapter done!
Chapter End Notes
     The beginning of this chapter has been written since I started this
     fic. This is where I even came up with the name of it. Back when I
     was just forming it, it was originally gunna just be an omegaverse
     fic, with all the trolls as humans before figuring it would possibly
     be easier to do trolls as trolls with earth having an omegaverse
     society (jokes on me, both are confusing in my own head since I've
     never done either troll society or omegaverse hah ^^' )
     Anyway, this is more of a filler chapter, or respite for the
     characters (and myself) before going right back in.
***** VI *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
John was a little tied up when Nepeta gave birth to what trolls called
wigglers.
He wasn’t sure why Gamzee felt the need to shackle him to the wall when he
wanted Karkat. It wasn’t like he was going to do anything, in fact, he was the
most compliant among the three of them. But no, he was still strung up, losing
all feeling in his arms with every passing minute.
He was given the rundown afterwards, the shouts and what John could only
describe as chaos above him making sense as Karkat told him when Gamzee freed
him several hours later. But during those hours, John had worried, worried
about what could cause those specific shouts. They weren’t the ones he had
gotten used to when Gamzee went at it with either Karkat or Nepeta before she
got visibly pregnant, or anything Nepeta would normally sound like. It had been
a high pitch keen, shouts of pain, before little shrieks that sounded nothing
like anything John had ever heard before, in voices that were in no way
familiar.
Karkat had told him that, though he didn’t know when it started, Nepeta wasn’t
able to stand, her legs unable to stop shaking as whatever the wigglers were
began their journey out of the troll’s uterus (if they had the same names for
their biology as with humans, in any case) to be birthed, which started the
shouts of pain. She had been desperate for some respite over the harsh
contractions she had been getting, writhing and using many of Karkat’s own
colourful vocabulary words as the troll babies seemed to demand to get out.
He said that he tried his best to help her, holding her hand (“She has a
fucking grip, nearly broke my wrist.” He said, rubbing the hand) and tried to
keep her mind off the pain, but his efforts weren’t much help.
But after a while, several hours for John trapped down in the wall one storey
below, Nepeta had finished, with three new babies off in one of the rooms that
had once been open then closed to the three of them. Karkat had seemed to get a
little disgusted by the wigglers, not giving John enough information on the
troll babies even when he was prompted several times.
Taking it upon himself, he went to the door where Nepeta and her troll babies
were holed up and opened the door quickly, slipping in and knowing Karkat was
right behind him.
Nepeta was lying on a pile, not wearing anything but a very thin blanket that
only covered her stomach and lower. John was slightly fascinated by the lack of
nipples on the troll, even though she looked like she had breasts like a human
girl or most Omegas when they were with a litter. But his eyes quickly changed
to the little raised slashes at her sides, the same as Gamzee, but they were
forest green, the same colour as her blood and the shade her eyes were turning.
It had actually startled him when he found out trolls’ eyes changed into their
blood colour as they got older, having gotten used to the grey and yellow.
A movement at the edge of the pile drew John’s eyes away from Nepeta and he
just… stared at the three small brightly coloured things that squirmed at the
bottom of the pile, within reach of Nepeta’s feet.
They were bug like, like little brightly coloured grubs that reminded John of
the Lion King scene with Timon and Pumba. They had big buggy eyes and segmented
bodies, two coloured a brighter green, almost blueish colour, while the other
had the same colour as its mother, and even had little buggy stubs as legs.
John counted and blinked in surprise; 6 stubs, two on either side of the grubs’
bodies, like an insect back on Earth. Even their eyes, when he looked back at
them and noticed they were looking curiously at him and Karkat, were a bit
darker than the colour of their body. Among the wild poof of pitch black hair
that all trolls seemed to have were tiny, not yet identifiable as what they’d
look like when they got older, candy corn coloured horns.
“Hi.” John visibly jumped when Nepeta spoke up softly, her voice still sounding
hoarse from the shouting and possible exertion of childbirth, and she looked
shy but calm.
John came back to himself, walking further into the room to reach Nepeta. “You
okay?” He asked, kneeling besides her in the pile, careful of the new grubs.
“Tired, but I’m good.” Nepeta answered with a smile, all sharp teeth that
trolls seemed to have. She shifted and pulled a face. “Better than I was a bit
ago, anyway.”
“So these are…?” John gestured to the bug like things he couldn’t understand
were baby trolls.
“These are my little wigglers.” Nepeta hummed. “All girls.”
“How can you tell that?” John blurted before he could stop himself.
Nepeta chuckled. “Easy. Their eyes and the horns. A grub’s eyes are smaller if
they’re a boy, and a girl’s horns are less defined when they’re just born.”
John looked back at the three grubs. It was true, all three had impossibly big
eyes, reminding John of anime girls he had seen when he had been a kid, before
Jane had been taken. It felt like a long time ago.
“Oh, okay.” He said.
“At least they aren’t highbloods like him.” Karkat muttered, jerking his head
to the door, where somewhere else in the house was Gamzee, doing who knew what
when he left the three of them alone. “Less likely to have them getting too
bloodthirsty.”
“Mmhmm.” Nepeta hummed with a soft look at her three wigglers. “They’re really
cute, aren’t they?”
“Uh…” John looked uncertain. The little things certainly didn’t look ugly, but
he wasn’t sure if they looked cute. “Can I use my alien excuse and not answer?”
“They look fucking adorable, but what are you going to do now?” Karkat put in,
sitting at the other side of Nepeta and leant his head on her shoulder and it
was only then that John felt his own weariness press down on him. “They need,
like, a fuckton of attention until they pupate, and that takes almost two full
sweeps.”
“Uhm…” Nepeta continued to hum, a slight frown on her face as she looked
between herself and her three girls. “I can’t just leave them.”
“Yeah, but what about the Highblood?” Karkat pressed. “I don’t think he’ll be
waiting for them to get older. He doesn’t seem to be a troll with much fucking
patience.”
There was a long pause as the three teens looked at the baby trolls before John
spoke up.
“What are you gunna name them?” He asked, making the trolls jump in surprise
before Nepeta looked thoughtful.
“Hmm, well, she’s Tizali.” She pointed to the wiggler with the same blood
colour as her, before pointing to one of the others that had as wild hair as
Gamzee. “She looks like a Haecca, don’t you think? But I don’t know about her.”
She pointed to the smallest of the three.
“How about Caliba?” Karkat suggested after a long thoughtful pause and Nepeta’s
face brightened at the name, looking thoughtfully at the smallest wiggler
before nodding.
“Caliba sounds fantastic! Thank you, Karkitty!” Nepeta said with a bright
smile, cooing to her new children until they were within reach.
She brought them close to her still exposed breasts, holding them almost
protectively, cooing softly at them until the three started to close their eyes
and fall asleep.
“Caliba, Tizali, and Haecca. I like those names.” She murmured.
Chapter done!
Chapter End Notes
     Troll pregnancies are a foreign thing to me and I dug myself a hole
     by making troll pregnancies a thing in this fic... I'm trying. I
     don't think I'll ever write the actual birthgiving for any of the
     kids, I don't yet trust my skill at writing something like that, and
     also for the simple fact I am not comfortable writing that yet.
     I also spent a lot of time just staring at baby grubs on google to
     help me with how to write how they would look. Little wigglers are
     hard, I've realized.
     Anyway, say hello to Haecca, Tizali and Caliba. They will be around
     for a while, but mostly in the background.
***** VII *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Nepeta spent about a month in the room with her three wigglers, barely leaving
the room besides getting food or going to the bathroom. John and Karkat visited
when they could, John more to watch the troll babies curiously as they grew to
almost the size of a small loaf of bread, much faster than a human baby would
at only a month. He also saw that the three were growing their own unique
horns, though they were similar to their parents in some ways.
Tizali, while being the same blood as Nepeta, had more wavy points to her
horns, looking more like the swirls of Gamzee’s horns. Haecca, the largest
troll baby of the three, had her horns look like floppy cat ears in a way, like
they were always bent forward instead of straight up like Nepeta’s. Caliba, the
smallest and apparently the youngest of the triplets, on the other hand, John
couldn’t tell what her horns were going to look like. They were both different,
the horn on her right side looking like Nepeta’s, while the other looked like
Gamzee’s.
Karkat said that could happen sometimes, where the troll horns would look
completely different, or sometimes like a combination of the two (or more, John
learnt) trolls, which reminded John of eye colours for humans, before
remembering the troll that had kidnapped him back on earth, the one that looked
like they had a fork and knife as their horns.
When it had been a month since the baby trolls were born, Gamzee had appeared
in the room and John and Karkat were barred from the room again.
To occupy the two boys, they’ve taken to cleaning the house, or even just
talking. John would often find himself curled up with Karkat, normally with the
smaller troll wrapped in his hold as they would talk about anything and
everything they could think of.
It was during one of these cuddle sessions when John felt something was wrong.
He had been feeling warm for most of the past couple hours, steadily getting
worse as time went on.
John knew about heats, how could he not when his father had given horror
stories to him since it was found out John was an Omega? But he never knew how
they started, until then. His body felt itchy, steadily becoming agonizing with
the touches and the extra warmth of Karkat against his chest, and the thin
clothes he wore and the threadbare blanket that covered the two in the cool
room. John tried to shift around without bothering Karkat, but when he had
pulled the other closer to his chest and Karkat froze, John knew he was doing a
poor job.
“Hey, what the fuck is wrong, John?” The short troll asked, twisting his head
around to see John, his eyes widening as he did so. “Woah, you’re fucking red.”
“I am?” John could even tell his voice was strained. God it was warm, he could
barely stand it. Were heats supposed to feel so intense? He didn’t want to tell
Karkat, not ready to try to explain what an Omega was or even a heat.
“Yeah.” Karkat twisted the rest of his body until they were facing each other
with so little space between them and wow the grey in his eyes were almost
melting into blood red how could John have not noticed that yet? “You okay,
man?”
“Y-yeah, course. Just feeling a bit warm, is all.” John muttered, his body and
his mind in practically two different places and he couldn’t understand what
was happening, except that Karkat was really close and his instincts were
yelling at him but he couldn’t understand a word of what they were yelling at
him to do.
“Then take off the fucking blanket, asshole.” Karkat pulled the thin thing
closer to him until Karkat was under the blanket only, but it didn’t do much to
help John.
It was also then that John started to feel overly uncomfortable, the pile they
had been lying on feeling similar to that story of the princess and the pea.
John couldn’t tell what was making it not comfortable, but it was beginning to
get annoying. He shifted again, pushing and pulling on the clothes that made
the pile, eyes darting around the room they were in for extra comfort, but
found none.
John hadn’t realized he had made a noise of annoyance until Karkat put a hand
on his shoulder.
“John, what the hell? This isn’t like you.”
“I’m fine, I swear. Just…” John searched for words while his mind was splitting
in confusing directions until it seemed his Omega instincts took control. He
wasn’t sure how the switch happened, but he found himself leaning forward
quickly, pressing his lips to Karkat.
Karkat stilled, but didn’t pull away as John wrapped a hand around him,
tangling his fingers in the wild fluff that was the troll’s hair. He took
control while the shorter teen slowly unfroze, tilting their heads and
deepening the kiss, still as soft as before.
Karkat was the one to pull away, looking at John in confusion. “What the fuck?”
He didn’t sound angry, just confused, which if John had been in his right mind
and not First Heat, would have found that to be kinda funny.
John had to say something, he knew he had to, but he wasn’t sure how to say it.
“I… In heat. Everything’s so warm, and god I need something.” John found
himself saying, and even he couldn’t blame the bewildered look Karkat gave him.
John just groaned, desperate for anything to stop the warmth from getting
worse. “Please, Kar. Help.”
“Help with fucking what?”
If John wasn’t already warm everywhere, he was sure he would have blushed at
what he wanted Karkat to help him with.
“Mate with me.” There. He said it, and while Karkat froze, John squirmed,
pulling at his clothes and shifting uncomfortably, trying to find some sort of
reprieve. But he knew, from his father’s stories, the only short reprieve was
during mating. He knew mating would make things better, at least for a short
little while, and with how warm he felt and how uncomfortable he was, he would
have accepting anything to feel better for a couple hours.
“What?” Karkat said, and with a huff, John pushed himself on top of Karkat,
straddling his hips, the cool air doing nothing to cool him down.
“Please, Kar. Mate with me, please.” John could hear the whine in his voice as
he leant over Karkat. “Please, it’s unbearable.”
Before Karkat could answer, John pressed his lips back on his, an almost
pleading sounding moan escaping his throat, and Karkat seemed to cave, his body
relaxing under John.
John went about it quickly, deepening the kiss before pushing it forward, hands
hovering over Karkat’s sweatshirt, always hovering. While the heat was making
him push, John still wanted to take some time, to not push too far.
Karkat quickly took the lead, pushing up John’s shirt and over his head, his
eyes looking curiously at John’s skin, hands and claws lightly tracing his
sides as if looking for the raised coloured things that John had so far seen on
Nepeta and Gamzee, before making John temporarily lose track of his thoughts
when Karkat curiously pinched his nipple.
John gave a quick intake of breath, every touch and trace feeling like white
hot flames on his body, spreading warmth from the point of contact. John was
starting to wonder if he hated heats at the moment or not.
John helped Karkat out of his sweatshirt, knowing what he was going to see but
still surprised by the blood red raised sides, as well as small lighter gray
scars littering between the raised sides. John distantly guessed it was
Gamzee’s work, but the thought fled as soon as he thought it because Karkat had
brought his sharp, sharp troll teeth to John’s neck, lightly grazing it and wow
John thought he had been ticklish but that was practically magical. It still
gave him chills similar to being ticklish, but instead of wanting to evade,
John wanted more.
Getting the pants off took a bit more time than they had first thought, but
John, still straddling Karkat, got his off first and if he hadn’t been blushing
before, he must have been now. Karkat stared, almost in wonder, at John’s lower
region, hands moving and exploring everything between John’s thighs. When he
saw some touches got John to make certain sounds, John saw how Karkat’s face
lit up in curiosity.
When he found John’s entrance, already slick with the help of his heat, John
swore he saw Karkat truly understand what John want of him. His claws were more
careful, having known from the past few years that John’s skin was much weaker
than troll skin, and he pushed a finger in slowly. John quite nearly lost it,
lips pressed on the crook connecting Karkat’s jaw from his neck, humming
against the grey skin, his own hands on the hem of Karkar’s pants. The troll
took the hint and lifted his hips up, allowing John to take his pants and
everything off.
John had seen an idea of what troll genitalia would look like, but even so,
seeing Karkat’s tentacle-like thing, blood red and already looking slimy was
still something to see. His hands went to it, a surprised noise as the tentacle
sought his hand and wrapped around it, causing both teens to gasp.
But it wasn’t long before John’s heat came back to mind and he panted into
Karkat’s ear. “Mate with me, please.”
Karkat looked at him closely, as if asking for more permission and John just
went back to kissing him, a small whine emanating from his throat. Karkat
didn’t need to be told again. He removed his finger from John’s entrance just
as gently as he had entered before the two guided his tentacle. It all but
actually slithered in and John felt weird. It was smooth and slimy, almost as
slimy as the slick that practically dripped on John’s thighs. The tentacle
thing was small and thin, but moved around a lot, searching John’s insides as
if it was curious. Then the thing had brushed against something that made John
see stars, and his hips knocked against Karkat’s. Karkat gave a hiss in
surprise, and while John was still seeing stars, he felt them flip, until John
was under Karkat.
Karkat was soft and gentle, completely different from his normal attitude, and
very quiet, besides the grunts and soft moans. For someone who shouted almost
every day, he sure knew how to keep quiet.
John felt himself reach closer and closer to an edge, before he felt himself
fall, vision filling with white as he came, his entrance clenching around the
tentacle and Karkat swore, before he most likely came in John as well. It was
uncomfortable, feeling the liquid that wasn’t slick inside him, but at the same
time, it seemed to soothe the heat inside him.
The two panted, Karkat removing his tentacle from inside John and flopping to
John’s side. For the moment, John felt content, breathing heavily and the heat
dulled enough to be bearable for the next little while. Karkat nuzzled into
John’s neck, sounding and feeling just as relaxed as John was.
Chapter done!
Chapter End Notes
     My first actual, like, smut with actual consent(though from what I
     can tell, when it comes to Heats and consent, that's a little iffy as
     a whole depending on the author). I don't know if it's any good...
     Hope it is. I'm honestly clueless when it comes to writing sex,
     consent or non-con.
     I'm not entirely sure how long this fic will be. I'm thinking there
     will be a few big time skips, and I plan to end it when the three are
     in their late 20s, so it means a lot can happen.
***** VIII *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
At the same time, in a different part of the building, Nepeta held Tizali
closely in barely contained worry. At the door stood Gamzee, looking more like
a purple silhouette with vibrant purple eyes peering at her and their grubs.
Haecca and Caliba were by Nepeta’s feet, sensing the worry emanating from their
mother, but the cat girl was more worried about her own blood coloured
daughter, for some bizarre reason. She had the notion Gamzee would just kill
her Tizali and that thought, as irrational as it was, was blaring alarms to
protect the small grub.
But Gamzee just sat very far from where Nepeta and their grubs were, as if
keeping a respectable distance from the female trolls. It was like the
silhouette gained clarity, and Nepeta saw a soft expression on Gamzee’s face as
he looked at the three little wigglers with what looked like a mix of pride and
affection.
There was silence surrounding them, had been for several minutes, and
continued, going from tense to awkward by the time Gamzee cleared his throat.
“Do they, ah, do they have names?” He asked, surprising Nepeta and she relaxed
her grip on Tizali as she nodded.
Gamzee looked curious, and his expression openly asked what the grubs’ names
were.
She nodded and lifted her hold on Tizali as she started to speak. “Tizali.” She
nudged the smallest with her leg. “Caliba, and.” She nudged the oldest with her
other leg. “Haecca.”
“Motherfucking wonderful names.” Gamzee seemed to praise, and the words made
Nepeta blush. “May I?”
Nepeta looked apprehensive as Gamzee approached, his hand going towards Caliba
to pick her up, but he didn’t touch her until Nepeta answered. She nodded
minutely, and the highblood gently picked up the smallest grub, holding her
with practiced ease, as if he had held many grubs tenderly before.
She watched as Gamzee ran a finger over the squish that made up a grub’s body,
noting how Caliba squeaked happily and saw her lean into the hand. Tizali and
Haecca looked over at the squeak with what could only be questioning squeaks of
their own before Tizali bumped her head against Nepeta’s arm, as if demanding
the same treatment, with Haecca bumping her leg.
Despite herself, Nepeta laughed at her daughters, reaching down to run her
fingers lightly over both of their squish. She actually jumped when Gamzee gave
a similar laugh as he watched, a calm mirth overcoming his face that Nepeta had
never seen on him before, in the entire sweep and a half she and the boys had
been taken. She had always seen him distant, or scary and painful, and to see
him with a genuine smile, a happy, not sadistic, smile, to say Nepeta was
surprised would be a gross understatement.
“She is so fucking small.” Gamzee remarked, looking back at their child in his
hands, resting part of her in his lap as he sat cross-legged.
“Well, she was the last. But I think she’ll grow as big as Haecca.” Nepeta
guessed with a warm smile to Caliba.
“Oh, she will. She will look so beautiful when she pupates.” Gamzee remarked, a
smile that Nepeta couldn’t read directed at her. “Just like her mother.”
Nepeta blushed a bright green and ducked her head, as if fascinated by Haecca’s
puff of hair while she tried to make sense of the obvious compliment.
Gamzee chuckled but then the two trolls were left in more silence, only broken
by their children’s squeaks and cries of demands, but the silence was a content
one, not tense, not uncomfortable in any way, and Nepeta found herself relaxing
and finding the presence of the highblood calming, although there was a small
nagging in the back of her mind that she ignored completely in favour of
enjoying the feeling of peace she had not truly felt in sweeps.
                                     John
After the first day finding out he was starting his first heat, John quickly
hid himself away, using the lull in his body from the sex he had had with
Karkat to think coherently enough to know he had to find a good place to hide
for however long heats lasted. He knew they were pretty short, from his
memories of when his dad would lock himself in his Heat Room back when his
father still got heats.
Turns out, the best place was the room next to the confined room John had found
himself spending a lot of time in when Gamzee didn’t want him around. The room
was dark but cozy, overly padded, with a little dip for a nest and if John had
not been in the throes of his heat, he would have found it weird how similar it
was to the Heat Room back home, but with warmer tones in lighting, or a
familiar scent that tickled John’s memories distantly.
But he wasn’t exactly in his right mind. John just saw fluffy, fluffy pillows
and what looked like heaven’s own blankets strewn about, and saw the dip
looking oh so comfortable. He had shut the door quietly, sighing in relief at
the locking mechanism that looked sturdy enough to keep the trolls out when he
wanted to be alone. He distantly wondered how he had never found this room
before, but the thought flapped away as he felt his skin itch like before and
knew the feeling of sex was leaving his system.
John locked the door quickly before sprinting to the nesting dip, grabbing at
all the blankets he could as he did to make the best, most comfortable nest he
could think of.
It took several hours, around the time he was edging towards the end of his
first heat, when John noted how familiar, and nostalgic, the scent that
lingered all around the room actually was to John. Each person – troll and
human – that John had met in his life had distinct scents, especially Omegas
back on Earth. His father, he remembered, smelt like chocolate and shaving
cream, the smell heightened during his few heats that John could remember, and
the scent in the room, mixing with his own, was as nostalgic as that. There was
a scent of chocolate and cotton candy, mixed with something John couldn’t
exactly put a finger on, but his mind flashed to a pretty blue bow in short,
wavy black hair from a time when John watched a play of Alice in Wonderland his
sister was in.
The realization hit just as powerful as the heat had been as he placed the
scent, and he forgot how to breathe for a couple seconds, tears pricking his
eyes unbidden as he realized what he should have realized the day he had found
the room. Of course Jane would have been allowed a room for when she went on
her heats; it wasn’t like John was the first Omega Gamzee took. The room had
been filled with her scent, slowly mixing with his own, but it still clung to
every surface, deep inside the fabrics and padding and John just wanted to bury
his face deep in the blankets, in the last shred of comfort his older sister
had unknowingly left him.
Chapter done!
Chapter End Notes
     Ya know, when I started this fic, I thought I wouldn't have to know
     much about Omegaverse lore (specifically puberty with Omegas and the
     such). Future me laughs at past me's naivety.
     Though I am basing some parts of Omegaverse from a specific fic and
     my own tweaks here and there, I'm also using this fanguide someone
     had written that is fucking fantastic on the entire subject of A/B/
     O universe and tbh, I'm so thankful I found that thing. If you're
     curious about it, just check my bookmarks, should be on the first
     page.
***** IX *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
                                 1 year later
Karkat fought with himself as he walked towards Gamzee. He hadn’t been as
helpful around the house like John and Nepeta, still yet to get pregnant as
John would say, so he knew he had to do this.
Gamzee saw him and must have seen the look Karkat gave him because he quickly
wrapped his arms around the mutantblood and brought him to the bedroom, leaving
the door slightly ajar to let the others know what they were doing.
Karkat wrapped his arms around the older troll and stood on his toes to kiss
him right under the jaw, sucking lightly until the purple hickey was prominent
under the dark grey skin and smiled grimly internally as the highblood groaned,
his hands roving the younger’s back, quickly sliding under the sweatshirt.
Karkat’s breath hitched as the cold hands froze the small of his back, but he
continued to kiss Gamzee along the neck, too short to reach any higher than his
chin, even on his toes.
His mind took this time to yell at him, telling him he shouldn’t be doing this
so willingly, but he ignored those thoughts with a growl, and he pushed Gamzee
onto the bed none-too-gently and quickly stripped his sweatshirt and pants
before following the highblood, his hands making themselves busy by exploring
Gamzee’s chest under his loose shirt. He straddled the older troll and went
about catching his lips, allowing Gamzee to nip painfully at his lips and
tasting another tongue invading his mouth.
Karkat’s breath hitched again when Gamzee rolled his hips under him and he felt
the highblood’s bulge press heavily into his own crotch, covered only by
Gamzee’s pants and Karkat’s boxers. Knowing Gamzee was always impatient when it
came to sex, one of Karkat’s hands went down to Gamzee’s waistband and quickly
pulled them down, revealing the highblood’s bulge, slick and erect and already
hungry for Karkat. He quickly removed his last piece of clothing, throwing the
clothes into a pile by the bed.
Hands roamed his body possessively, claws moving lightly around his back, not
yet digging in but he knew they would soon enough.
Without much warning, Karkat felt Gamzee’s bulge push into him and he pushed
back tears as it hurt, painfully so whenever Gamzee had sex with him. Karkat
wondered if it was always supposed to hurt like this, and he was reminded just
how much it hurt, it fucking hurt having sex, nothing like how the romcoms he
used to watch made it out to be, or when he and John, or even Nepeta had sex.
But he wanted it, okay? He wanted Gamzee to do whatever he wanted with him, to
hurt him, to fuck him until he couldn’t breathe. He would get over the pain; he
always did, so why would today be any different? Why did it always feel like he
was slowly losing himself with every violent thrust Gamzee made?
He hadn’t realized he was crying until Gamzee swiped them away, his claws
barely missing his eyes, the highblood’s own eyes shining angrily and Karkat
quickly returned to pleasuring him, blinking furiously to stop the rest of his
tears from falling.
Karkat rolled his hips in the way that somehow made the pain manageable as
Gamzee’s bulge hit his perfect spot. Both gave loud moans before Karkat made it
his mission to make sure Gamzee’s bulge hit that spot over and over again,
taking away the pain for the moment.
Gamzee, in the middle of his heat, then began roaming his hands over Karkat’s
now marred back, raking new lines over scarring lines and Karkat arched his
back in both pleasure and to futilely get away from his hands, but like every
other time he tried, the claws seemed to be attached to his back, possessively
so.
Soon Karkat felt pressure building at the pit of his stomach and he knew he was
close, but he knew from past experience that Gamzee had to come first before he
could release.
He didn’t have long to wait. Apparently Gamzee was nearing his limit as well,
as he viciously flipped them so Karkat was being pushed hard into the old
mattress and Gamzee’s thrusts came harder and faster, each thrust feeling like
a knife stabbing his insides as he began to see everything in flashes of pink
and white until he heard Gamzee shout and felt him shoot everything he had deep
inside him, hands scrambling for purchase as Karkat quickly came as well, a cry
escaping him.
Gamzee soon collapsed on him with a content little sigh, his claws still
puncturing Karkat’s sides and his bulge still deep inside him. Both panted
heavily together for a couple moments before Gamzee withdrew, getting up and
simply leaving Karkat lying exhausted on the bed, lightheaded and in pain and
feeling more alone than before, until the shy Nepeta came in and cuddled the
mutantblood, who couldn’t tell when he started to cry again as the greenblood
papped him over and over again.
                                     John
John was in charge of watching the kids for the next week. He saw Nepeta’s
oldest three crawl around curiously, often stopping by their newer siblings, or
John’s twin boys.
When John had gotten pregnant, during his second heat, he had again found
Karkat first, trusting the mutant alien to make him feel better, at least for a
while. During the heat, he had also been visited by Gamzee, and despite the
larger, older troll having hurt Karkat and Nepeta numerous times, when he had
laid with John, it was everything for John’s heat-induced hazed filled mind to
clear as pleasure overrode his thoughts. It had reminded him of the stories he
had read, back home, about the strong Alphas taking whatever and whoever they
wanted, and the idea that Gamzee was like an Alpha from those stories actually
helped in a bizarre way.
So when he found out he was pregnant, he wasn’t exactly sure which troll had
done it. He then had spent his first trimester worried about what the litter
would look like, how many he would have – god he was too young to be a mother!
Screw natural biology – and if they would crawl out of the womb like Nepeta’s
children.
He didn’t have to worry so much about the delivery, and was met with his twins,
Joel and Jaye. They looked mostly human, though with a more ashen skin colour
so they seemed to look perfectly in the middle between John’s pale skin and the
trolls’ grey skin, but the one thing that stood out, was the twins’ genitalia.
John thought they looked mostly like a Beta male’s, although they seemed to
taper more like the bulges.
Another difference was their eyes. Like trolls, the twins’ eyes were grey
coloured in the irises and John wondered if they would change colour.
The one thing he didn’t know was if they had human blood or troll blood or some
mutation of the two, but wasn’t about to hurt his babies to find out, thinking
he would wait for one of them to hurt themselves to find out.
Tizali scuttled closer to Jaye, both babies looking at one another with huge
eyes, though it was hard to say if Tizali was looking any different because her
eyes had always been huge. Haecca and Caliba were with their siblings, the
second litter as John was fond of thinking, two boys and two girls from
Nepeta’s repeated explanation as he still couldn’t see a difference between the
genders for troll babies.
John watched the four youngest carefully. Nepeta and Gamzee had picked out the
names this time, even though the second litter seemed to have been more Nepeta
with Karkat based on the bodies of the grubs. The girls’, named Leopat and
Fefeta, blood was similar looking to dark cherries, a dark red that looked
black at night, while the boys, Antony and Mutius, were closer to their mother
in terms of blood colour, though still looking yellowish-green.
The nine babies were by far the most interesting things that never failed to
bring some new thing to the table among the three teens, particularly John’s
cross-species twins. At only a couple weeks, they were smaller than Nepeta’s
new litter, even though the four were born just under a week ago. John went
over to pick up Jaye, ruffling the long hair of Tizali who gave him an
affronted look at her playmate being removed from her vicinity.
“Sorry, but they are half human. They need their mother’s milk.” John said in a
sing-song way as he wandered over to Joel to feed the twins.
Chapter done!
Chapter End Notes
     The first half of this chapter is kinda what spawned this story in
     the first place, and it took me a while to decide when to put it in.
     I'm now starting the big jumps, because not much happens, besides the
     noticing in attitudes towards Gamzee.
     I think I'm ending this soon. There should be an epilogue, but don't
     know when that will be.
***** X *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
The three had created a system, a schedule that had worked so far since Nepeta
had thought it up, to take care of the small group of growing children among
them. John would watch them most of the time, having to feed his twins himself
(Hey, humans are mammals, we need our parent’s milk), then Nepeta would watch
and play with them after John’s twins were fed and Karkat would watch the
little grubs during the night while the others slept.
Gamzee occasionally joined John or Nepeta when they were with the babies,
playing with the little ones or simply watching how the other two looked after
the babies. So far, Karkat had only been in the same room with him and the
others’ kids twice, finding him sitting in the corner like a shadow the took
Karkat hours each time to not be spooked over whenever he turned to see a
hulking figure sitting silently. The babies didn’t find him scary at all,
normally crawling over with happy squeaks or cries (depended on the species,
god human wigglers are loud) as Gamzee moved them gently away, not playing with
them as he kept showing up when it was bedtime for the babies.
Karkat was holding one of John’s boys when Gamzee appeared in the doorway,
watching with an unreadable expression before scooping to pick up Tizali and
Fefeta, the girls squealing and squeaking excitedly. The highblood approached
Karkat before speaking, a few steps away from him.
“Do you need help?” He asked, holding the two almost lovingly as they cooed and
chirped amongst each other.
Karkat was about to say no when he paused, mouth open to refuse before
wordlessly nodding. No matter how long he had been on night duty with these
wigglers, it took forever to get most of them to sleep. John’s twins were
simple, they slept a lot it seemed and the sight of approaching the large
mattress made them even sleepier. It was Nepeta’s brood that was the challenge.
They needed to be held and Karkat could only safely hold three and while he
held three, the other four were playing and squeaking and squealing and often
waking the others up before Karkat could get to them. The biggest troublemakers
were definitely the eldest of both groups, Haecca and Antony, who both had the
loudest noises and sharpest teeth, often biting their siblings or Karkat in
fun.
So he accepted the help, hoping with the highblood’s help, all of them would
finally go to bed around the same time.
Gamzee approached the mattress, still holding Tizali and Fefeta and put them on
the bed. It was simple getting all of them on the mattress, and soon the
highblood and Karkat were on either side of it, within reach of all the babies
on the bed. Joel and Jaye were already making their baby yawns, their movements
slowing, so Karkat didn’t worry about them falling asleep, turning his
attention to the three closest to him, Haecca, Leopat and Caliba. Picking up
one at a time, he had Leopat in his lap as he held the other two in his arms,
rocking slowly and steadily as he watched Gamzee surprisingly does the same
with the other four. Begrudgingly Karkat had to admit to himself Gamzee was
good at calming and getting the wigglers to sleep and for the first time in
months there were only the sounds of nine babies sleeping and two trolls
breathing as they watched the brood.
Karkat kept glancing over at Gamzee, a confused look on his face before he
couldn’t help but ask. “How’d you know how to get them to sleep so fucking
easily?”
Gamzee shrugged, an amused smile on his face. “Motherfucking miracles, my good
bro.”
Karkat rolled his eyes but didn’t speak, turning his attention back to the
babies. Nepeta’s eldest three were just over half a sweep old by now, nearing
their first sweep in a couple months. By their second sweep they would pupate
into trolls and Karkat wondered if they would be like their mother or their
father and he honestly hoped they would have their mother’s kindness, and if
they got anything from the highblood, it would be the intense height or his
quiet side. Anything but that scary Highblood shit he occasionally returned to
when one of the three teens did something to somehow anger him.
John’s twins went by weird ages, John saying they were closing in on their
first birthday, causing an argument between him and the other two trolls on
dates and years and shit like that that confused the fuck out of Karkat until
he retreated under the banner “Fuck it I don’t care” and Nepeta agreeing with
him, the human years so much shorter than the two had thought before.
The second group of Nepeta’s children were younger than John’s twins, but only
by a few weeks, and god Karkat had not been a fan of both Nepeta and John being
pregnant at the same time. It made him feel left out, and why he had been
desperate to bear his own spawn from any of them. He wondered why Nepeta became
a chill, super happy and calm girl, even when something that would normally get
her annoyed or at least worried when she wasn’t with children. He also wondered
why it took so long for human babies to be born, even after the many lessons
John tried to explain to him and Nepeta, though those constantly ended with too
many questions on what the fuck were alphas and other brain-breaking questions
that left all three of them tired and leaving it.
Gamzee shifted, startling Karkat back into the present as he turned to give the
highblood a scowl for scaring him. Gamzee laughed quietly, shrugging in
apology.
It slowly turned into a weekly thing for Gamzee to visit the children and help
Karkat get them to sleep, actually allowing Karkat to sleep during the night as
well, leaving him more energized in the day times and not as dead on his feet
as most of the rest of the week leaves him. At least, until the eldest three
turned a full sweep and they acted how John’s twins acted when they saw the
bed, leaving Karkat with the youngest four to get them to sleep, which was now
much easier than trying to juggle seven to get to sleep at once without waking
the others.
In the daytime Karkat would normally do some of the chores, like cleaning a
portion of the rooms or sit and talk with whoever was not taking care of the
children, which was more or less of the time John.  They would talk about
anything, from how the kids are growing, to something one of them missed about
their worlds (it was mostly John who brought this up, Karkat was honest when he
said there were very few things he cared about his home planet) or talk about
how Karkat still hadn’t gotten pregnant.
He honestly wanted to have his own kids in the mix, to see how they would look,
to see what having them inside him as they grew into little grubs. He didn’t
like how the only mix that were his were Nepeta’s four youngest. He wanted to
have his own, his own to grow inside of him, not from inside one of the others.
But until he had his own kids, Karkat was happy to take care of the nine
already in the house.
Chapter done!
Chapter End Notes
     Even after 4, close to 5 years living together, you'd think the
     trolls and John would understand the other's world, but nope, Karkat
     and the trolls are stubborn and, well, not exactly narrow minded, but
     couldn't understand things so utterly alien. At least John
     understands a bit more about trolls than the trolls understand about
     humans.
***** XI *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
John hadn’t meant to be snooping, he really hadn’t.
But when he found the house empty of Gamzee and he himself wasn’t busy (Karkat
was resting after a long night of wrestling with the youngest litter and Nepeta
was on baby duty) so when he heard noises coming from a room that held neither,
John’s curiosity was piqued.
It was one of the rooms in the basement, where John normally only went down to
when he felt his heat coming. It was a large room with many doors that the
three weren’t allowed in, and behind one of them, John heard something. He
quietly walked over to it, testing the knob to find it unlocked, and curious,
he opened the door.
It was a brightly lit room not so different from the baby room upstairs, and
John was surprised to see children, about fifteen in total from the ages of
eight to four. One of the oldest, a girl that looked mostly human besides the
similar ashen skin tone that his own children had, and brilliant ice blue eyes
with yellow rings, looked over with wide eyes as she gasped.
“Mama?” She asked, and silence filled the room as they all noticed John at the
entrance.
“Who?” John asked, looking around himself. He wasn’t the girl’s mother, he was
sure of that. She seemed to have been older than he had been saved from Earth,
but he couldn’t deny she looked very similar to her own children and even
looked very human. She had no horns, paler skin, and most of her eyes were
white, not yellow or black like a troll’s eyes.
“You look like Mama.” The girl’s figure slumped and John was surprised when
another similar looking girl, most likely her twin or something, wrapped an arm
around her. “Sorry, mister.”
“I look like your mother? Do you know her name? Maybe I can help?” John asked,
something about this confused John, like he wasn’t actually in Gamzee’s home
but in some sort of apartment building and stumbled into the wrong room.
“She was called Janey by Daddy.” A younger troll, sounding like a boy with what
looked like wavy arrows as his horns, answered for the girls and John did a
double take.
“Jane? Jane had kids?” John asked aloud and the two twins nodded, looking at
him with open curiosity.
“Why do you look like Mama?” The first girl asked and John couldn’t figure out
how to speak for several seconds. He had now just met Jane’s children. Jane who
died before he arrived from an alien disease. Jane who he hadn’t seen since he
had been just a little older than the oldest in the room.
“I uh…” He stammered a few times before finding his words. “I’m John, I was her
brother.”
“Brother?” The second girl looked curious before brightening. “Uncle! You’re
our uncle!”
John nodded mutely, still stunned by his find.
“Why haven’t you visited us?” A younger mostly human looking girl demanded with
a large exaggerated pout and honestly John had no answer for that.
“Oh, hush, Ella.” The second girl scolded. “Uncle has been busy. Daddy even
said so.”
“Daddy?” John asked.
“Yeah, Daddy!” Another older troll answered, a girl with wide horns that looked
familiar and it took a couple seconds to connect them to Tavros. “He visits us
every day and plays with us before he goes upstairs. We aren’t allowed up there
until he says we can.”
“And when we do, apparently we’re old enough to go someplace much cooler than
here.” The younger human girl, Ella, John mentally reminded himself, said in a
chipper tone. “But apparently Joan and Jean aren’t old enough because we’re
half human.”
John was lost, confused by what the children were talking about but couldn’t
figure out how to speak. And became even more lost as the children continued to
speak, leaving him in the dust, so he just looked around at the children.
There were about five girls that looked like Jane, and even a couple girl
trolls that had white eyes instead of yellow and paler skin with wavy horns of
varying lengths. Then there were about six trolls of varying ages that looked
like they were the children of Tavros and Gamzee, with wavy mixed with wide
horns. The last two were amongst the oldest and had the strange horns that
looked like arrows pointing in different directions, giving John an idea of at
least what the third had looked like, for their horns at the very least, even
though he no longer remembered the name of the third that had been with Tavros
and Jane when they had been alive.
Not sure how much time had passed, John found himself sitting in the room,
surrounded by Jane and Tavros and the third’s children, though apparently not
all of them.
“Some of our older brothers already left.” Ella had told him, but none knew
where the older ones, who were apparently within a couple months older than
Jean and Joan.
He learned Jane’s kids names first. Jean was the first girl John talked to,
Joan her twin sister. Then was another pair of twins around six years old, Ella
and Emma, with the last girl at only five years old named Cara.
When it came to Tavros and the third’s children, they all blended together. He
heard Elliot, Horrus, Arquis, Lasder, and Gendna before they all piled up and
John wasn’t even sure who was who.
Then he was given questions of his own, his nieces all exceptionally curious
about him, and then about their cousins just upstairs.
“Yes, they have skin like yours.”
“No, neither of them have horns.”
“Well, I dunno yet, they’re not yet a year old.”
Joan crossed her arms with a pout. “I wanna see them!” And with that, chaos
ensued in the room as they all gave a chorus of yeses and demands to see the
new babies but John wasn’t sure how the others would react to suddenly there
being fifteen new kids in the room, more than half of them trolls.
John was trying to calm the kids down when one of the boys looked over John’s
shoulder with bright eyes and called in a louder voice. “Daddy! Can we see
them?”
The Omega twirled around in surprise, eyes wide and guilty for being found by
Gamzee. The highblood had an unreadable expression in his eyes, though he
smiled at the kids.
“Only if the mothers say yes.” Gamzee answered, and the kids cheered before
Jane’s girls practically barrelled John over in their attempt to get him to say
yes.
John quickly folded under the combined pouts and puppy looks his sister’s
children gave, as well as the younger trolls in the room.
“Then in the morning. It’s late, don’t you think?” Gamzee suggested as a couple
of the youngest in the room yawned widely and softly.
The kids smiled at the prospect of meeting younger grubs and hybrids and the
feeling of excitement was infectious, as both John and Gamzee had warm smiles
as they looked among the kids before the elders went about preparing the others
for sleep, and the two others left.
“I was hoping for more motherfucking time before letting you know about them.”
Gamzee muttered with a somewhat sad sigh as he and John walked up the stairs to
the main floor.
“Why were we not told about them? And where are the older ones, Joan and them
said the much older ones, who are Joan and Jean’s age?” John asked slowly,
curious but stepping carefully in case it was a taboo question.
“You motherfuckers weren’t in the right mind at first. I was protecting my
grubs.” Gamzee replied, turning to face John fully as they reached the landing.
“It’s a troll custom, to leave at a certain age. It was also getting crowded
for them.”
John had more questions to ask, but at the look Gamzee had on his face, he
could tell he wasn’t going to get anything, so he sighed inaudibly, nodding as
he headed to find Nepeta, who must still be in the kids’ room to wait for him
to feed Jaye and Joel. He had a lot to tell her, and later Karkat.
He wondered how they were going to react.
Chapter done!
Chapter End Notes
     All the babies.
     All of them.
     Too many and I am drowning in trying to remember ages and blood
     colours and horns. Even names are getting hard to remember for me. I
     named all of Jane's kids before any of the others,though, it was fun
     to think up their names.
***** Epilogue *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Years past. John kept his children while the others, the ones that could pass
or were fully troll, left to explore the world or whatever it was that trolls
did. It was always a tearful event, watching them go. Watching Tizali and her
sisters leave the house for the last time, never to return, then Leopat’s
litter, then Karkat’s first grub, Kenaya – named after a childhood friend that
stuck in the troll’s head even after all these years
But eventually even John’s kids had to leave, as well as his nieces. When the
twins were fourteen they were finally allowed to leave after an even more
tearful farewell from the house and well-wishing and good luck.
Nepeta had many kids in her life with Gamzee and the others, although John had
stopped counting after her 20th grub, Lavina. John had quite a few of his own,
with traits spanning from Gamzee’s scary calmness to Nepeta’s cuteness to
Karkat’s mutations. He loved them all, from Joel and Jaye to June and Lexy.
Karkat, on the other hand, only bore ten grubs off his own and John knew their
names all by heart, from Kenaya to Strzie to Nestra to his youngest Kitkat and
Karina.
Life doesn’t always answer every question asked. It never explains itself why
events led the way it did, nor do most people expect life to actually answer.
John watched as another sickness overcame his family, and knew no one would
survive this one. It started with the kids, with the youngest, Kayzen. She got
sick and would not get better.
It spread to the others soon after, eventually grabbing hold of Karkat, who had
always been weak in terms of an immune system. None knew what to do, but they
tried everything they could. John kept the ill company, keeping them as healthy
as they could get until he fell as well.
Life wouldn’t answer them as they begged to know what caused the illness, why
it wouldn’t stop, where it came from, how they could stop it before any more
died, before any more caught it.
Life never answers, why would it start?
John remembered the pain of the illness. It started with unbearable coughs, as
if he was trying to cough out a lung, and sometimes blood would come up, the
pain of coughing scratching his throat so badly until it soon felt normal to
cough up blood.
Then came what John could only think of as organ failure. His body wouldn’t
listen to him, wouldn’t sit up, would turn when he wanted it to, and there were
times his lungs forgot to work.
He hoped the others didn’t feel this as the illness took over, but who was he
kidding? He caught it from them, of course they would be feeling this god awful
pain.
The room smelled sweet after a few days, sickeningly sweet when the organ
failure began again, and just one second he was staring at the ceiling, the
next he just… couldn’t see. His eyelids too heavy, his breath coming in slower
and slower as his heart thumped with each breath.
John remembered his last thought being of his nieces, and hoping they would
live long and happy lives.
He slipped into a sleep, his breath stopping long after his heart had.
Story done!
Chapter End Notes
     I'm not happy with how this fic ended, I'll be the first to admit it.
     But... I have nothing else to write. I'm sorry. Really.
     If you possibly want to learn more about the universe I made for this
     fic, you can always ask in the comments or send an ask/message on
     tumblr, I'm canadiantardis there as well.
End Notes
     If you have any questions about this universe or anything, don't be
     afraid to ask. I feed off of comments.
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