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He was annoying as hell. Introducing himself with walls of fiery gray text, insulting everyone and himself, never shutting up. He was the perfect target for your casual teasing, and his overreactions made it all the more sweeter.
For the first year or so, your interactions with Vantas are obnoxious at best, near-violent at worst. He was just so easy to wind up, so easy to infuriate until he’s spouting obscenities, blushing bright pink behind gray skin. You find yourself gravitating to him without even thinking about it, just so that you could have someone to talk to, a source of entertainment.
Half your friends are on a Prospit ship, flying to the new session. You can’t communicate with them, and you worry sometimes that they won’t care about you when you all finally reunite.
Half his friends are dead.
The guilt weighs on him, almost invisibly to the casual onlooker. He was the leader of their session but it wasn’t his fault it all turned into goddamn murdercrazy hell. Fuck, you’re damn glad that the murderclown has absconded out into the vents, never to be seen or heard from again side from an occasional spooky honk that you deliberately ignore, drowning out with the sound of your raps. You’ve seen a lot of people die, a lot of your alternates die, but that was always doomed timelines, and you almost got used to it. It wears you down after a while but you become numb, retreating behind your usual mask of irony.
Karkat doesn’t have the same ability. He hides, his whole life is made up of hiding. And yet, he’s the shittiest hider you’ve ever seen. That expression hides nothing, and when you stumble in on him in one of the abandoned ectobiology labs while you’re pacing around, muttering to yourself, he jumps and glances up at you before looking away quickly.
"Go away Strider. I’m not in the fucking mood."
His voice cracks and hell no, you are not letting shouty here cry while cursing at you. You walk right over and sit down beside him.
"Sup, Vantas."
"I said I’m not in the mood." His usual anger is gone from his voice, replaced by weary exhaustion. You almost frown.
"You see, it doesn’t matter whether or not you’re in the mood, because I am. I want to see my bro, is that too much to ask?"
"I’m not your ‘bro’."
"Nah, of course you are, as of right now." You throw an arm around his shoulder for good measure. He flinches but doesn’t pull away. Actually… he leans against you. Oh my god. Okay, now you’ve got a crying troll dampening your cape. It’s a damn good thing this thing is so thick and absorbent. You try to come up with the right words to say without letting your facade drop, but you come up with nothing.
Knights, that’s the problem. You’re both knights; you’ve both hidden behind your armor for too long and now it’s cracked and rusted out and you don’t know how to deal with being exposed like this. But, at least you both understand, right? In a weird sort of way.
"Look, Vantas. I know you’ve seen a lot of shit. Hell, we all have. But that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to give up. Don’t give me that look, I know what you were thinking. We’re both knights, remember? We both have the same damn problems in the end. You didn’t fail to protect them, and besides. You still have the others to protect. Terezi and Kanaya, right? And John and Jade, and everyone else. Shit, you’ve got the whole damn multiverse to protect in the end. So, let’s skip past the part of this where I say a bunch of embarrassing shit we’re both going to want to forget and get to the part where we engage in tender bro embraces and agree to never speak of this again."
Karkat doesn’t look up at you for the entire time you’re talking, but when you finish, his eyes flick up at you and then he slowly lifts his head and.
Oh.
Okay. Okay, cool. You can do this. You can so do this. Kissing. It’s just kissing, right? You’re cool you’re fine you’re oh god you’re blushing.
You peek an eye open and Karkat is blushing too so that’s something at least. Your shades are digging into your nose a little and Karkat tilts his head to kiss you more deeply, trying to avoid the awkwardness of kissing with glasses. You decide to go for the full mushy kiss scene and wind your arms around back of his neck, tangling your fingers in with his hair. Eventually you lean back and meet his eyes from behind your shades and smile at him, a little half-smile.
He smiles back and the warmth that fills your chest tells you that you’re in this for the long run.