Archive of Our Own

Your moirail is something of a shambling disaster -- his hair is a tangled, frizzy mess, his clothes are tattered at the hems and grimy, and he could stand a wash or five himself. But it isn't, you've realized, that Gamzee doesn't want to care for himself, it's more that he doesn't know how to take care of himself well. You're not sure why, since he had access to the same schoolfeeding as everyone else, but maybe it was because he was alone too much for so long. Maybe it's hard to care, or know to care, when there's no one to fuss over you.

 

It makes your bloodpump hurt when you think too much about it.

 

Fortunately, you pick up on this fast. Unfortunately, you're still not smart enough to keep yourself from snapping at Gamzee about his hygiene in front of the others and noticing too late how he freezes and his ears flush violet. You open your mouth to apologize, but the moment is over; he smiles sheepishly and mumbles, "I'll try harder next time, best friend." You try to speak but he's already turned, his shoulders hunching defensively as he slinks away.

 

The not-quite-stifled snickers around you nearly make you flush with shame, and for once you do something right (if you can call humiliating your moirail before your stupid ass catches on 'doing something right') and run right after him.

 

Gamzee is most of the way to his block when you catch up to him. "Wait," you call, but his shoulders just hunch more and his steps quicken. "Wait, god damn it!" you shout, your voice cracking. That halts him, leaves him standing there with his head hanging and limbs loose like a puppet with its strings gone slack.

 

You dart down the hall and hug him from behind so hard he gasps and stumbles forward. "I'm sorry--"

 

"No, bro, no," he protests, trying to shift free of your arms. "I'm the stupid motherfucker who embarrassed you."

 

"Shoosh," you say, and he goes still. " I'm the stupid motherfucker who's a terrible moirail and snapped at you in front of everybody."

 

Gamzee tries to look at you from over his shoulder. "Hey, you don't get to put yourself down none around me, you got that? You're the best moirail--"

 

"Shoosh," you say, hugging him tighter as your bloodpusher threatens to break all over again. He's so thin, his shirt is so worn, and he smells more like stale sweat and fear than he does like himself. You're a shitty moirail for denying him for so long and you haven't even begun to make up for it. "Just-- I'll help you, okay." He makes a funny strangled noise, but you lock your arms and burrow against his back. "I want to."

 

The admission makes you feel hot all over and, judging from how still Gamzee goes, he feels much the same. Eventually he manages, "O-okay, Karbro," in a choked whisper.

 

You give him a squeeze before you let go of his waist to capture his hand. "Let's go alchemize some stuff."

 

This place is short on supplies, but you, as meticulous as you've learned to be, long ago recorded the captcha codes for a wide variety of self-care supplies. Gamzee watches with brow-furrowed curiosity as you make fresh clothes, soap, skin cream, hair cream, a wide-toothed comb, fang paste and brushes, washcloths, and towels.

 

"I know what this is all up and being," he says, gesturing to the soap, fang care items, and towels, "but I'm not catching what these things do. What's the point of cream for your hide and your hair when you've got soap? And what's up with these tiny little towels? They're not enough to dry more than your square little hands."

 

"They aren't little, you're just enormous," you huff to hide your dismay. It hurts, how ignorant he is. "And they're not for drying, they're for ablutions." You just barely manage to stop yourself from appending a deprecation.

 

Gamzee gives you a genuinely puzzled look. "Why? I got hands, don't I?"

 

You sigh and shake your head. "You'll see."

 

You lock yourselves in the first full ablution chamber you find. As you set out your supplies on the counter, you see Gamzee's reflection fidget with the hem of his shirt. "Uh, Karbro?"

 

"Yeah?"

 

"You're all... going to be staying here with me? And, uh..." His reflection bites his lip. "Helping me, uh. Wash?"

 

Your digestive sac backflips. "I said I would, so I will." You swallow hard and drop your gaze to the counter, unable to look at him even through a reflection. "If-- if you want me to."

 

Gamzee is silent a long time, long enough you have to start holding your breath to keep in your feelings. "I want you to, Karkat," he says in a shaky whisper. You turn and find him standing with his head bowed and his shoulders hunched like a frightened wiggler.

 

You're close and stroking his face before you before your thinkpan registers you moved. "Shh. I'll take care of you." You surprise yourself with how much you mean it. He surprises you with sniffle.

 

You lead him to sit on the lid of the closed load gaper and he gives you this look that's so timid and trusting you want to scream. You're not worthy of that kind of trust but you have to be, you have to try. You choke back your emotions and pat his shoulder. "First, we'll get your makeup off."

 

Gamzee curls up smaller than you thought possible for someone his size, much less on the lid of a load gaper, and peers up at you through a tangle of curls. "Do we gotta?"

 

"Washing properly means your face, too," you say, and immediately kick yourself because he hunches up more.

 

"I know, it's just all... It's my face, bro. I never all up and been that naked before around another motherfucker, you dig?"

 

It's absolutely absurd -- the kid is going to be more bare than anyone besides his lusus has ever seen, but his damned facepaint is where he draws the line. You clench your jaw against a sigh. "I can't even pretend to understand, so can you just--"

 

Gamzee presses his fingers against your lips. You frown at him, but he won't draw back until you've closed your mouth. He smiles and says, "It's like that scowl you're always wearin'." His fingers drift up and trace your eyebrows. "Don't feel safe when I don't got my face on."

 

Your squawkblister closes and your bloodpusher goes all funny. Your face is hot -- quite possibly hot enough you're actually blushing -- and for a moment you're not sure whether to yell or cry or both. His brows furrow upward as he cups your face; you're trembling as you turn your head and kiss his palm. "I've got you," you murmur.

 

He stares a while before he nods, once, and with some effort uncurls himself. Still, he watches with no small amount of nervousness as you wet the washcloth and uncap the skin cream, but when you tilt his face up he at least looks more confused than scared. You ask, "Do you take this sh-- stuff completely off very often?"

 

"I wipe it off before I get my sleep on for the day, but I don't scrub it off real often." Gamzee averts his eyes and tenses as you rub the cream over his face. "Shit's harder than hell to get gone completely."

 

"With soap?"

 

"Yeah, brother, I ain't that stupid."

 

"Didn't think you were." Well, at one point you did, but not anymore. Still, he doesn't look like he believes you until you continue, "But I did some research because fuck if I know how makeup works, and it turns out it's easier to get off with hide softener than it is with soap." You gesture at the tube of skin cream before snagging the wet washcloth. "Now hold still."

 

Gamzee holds as still as he's able as you wipe the cream from his face a bit at a time. You clean the planes of his face first before you move to the creases around his lips and nose, and you're as careful as you know how to be as you wipe the delicate skin around his eyes. He lets you, face tilted up trustingly into your touch, even when his breathing goes shallow and fast with fear.

 

"There," you breathe when you've wiped the last of the paint away. As you suspected, Gamzee's skin is something of a mess under the makeup, blemishes and faint rough patches tinted violet. What you didn't suspect is how different he looks without the paint, how vulnerable and sweet he is as he opens his eyes and worries at his bottom lip with a fang. You look long enough you see the question form in his eyes, see the flush of shame creep up in his cheeks. It's not what you wanted to happen at all, so before you can censor yourself you lean in and place a kiss on his forehead.

 

"Brother," he whispers. He cups your cheek again as you draw back, and the adoration in his eyes hurts, a sharp stab of feelings right into your gut.

 

You slip your hand over his and press it while you squeeze your eyes shut a moment, unable to face that expression any longer. "You okay to get into the trap, now?"

 

"Yeah."

 

Getting Gamzee out of his clothes is a trial for you both. For all he's the guy who had his shitty pile of horns in the middle of the lab, he's painfully shy about his own body. But then again, so are you; you've kept yourself covered from neck to wrist to footnubs for as long as you can remember, and even pulling off your socks in front of someone else sends your heart racing. As for Gamzee, you can only sneak glances at him because it's too painful to actually look; without the shield of his oversized shirt and pants it's obvious he's had too many sopor pies take the place of real food.

 

You speak to his feet as you say, "First we use the water spray and wash ourselves, and then we fill the trap and work on your hair."

 

He rasps a startled laugh. "Two baths, brother? You're all thinkin' I'm that dirty?"

 

"I'm thinking I don't want to sit and stew in our combined filth, and neither do you." You lean into the trap to fiddle with the water temperature. "How hot do you want it?"

 

"Hot as you can stand, 'cause I'm cold all the time."

 

You wince. With blood like his Gamzee's shouldn't feel it, but he's more bones than flesh, how could he not? So you twist the temperature knob to as hot as you can manage without flinching and guide him in before you. He climbs in awkwardly and stands under the needle spray all hunched in on himself, still trying to shield himself from your eyes, but it's only as long as it takes you to climb in after him for the heat to work its magic and his shoulders to visibly untense.

 

Unfortunately for you, you're nearly freezing within seconds. There's enough water reaching you for you to get wet, but not anywhere near enough to keep yourself warm. But he needs the warmth worse than you, and you'll be close soon enough. The thought of that sends your insides all squidgy, so you distract yourself by wetting and soaping a washcloth.

 

That done, you touch Gamzee's shoulder to get his attention and motion with the washcloth. "Bend a little so I can reach your face."

 

He bites his lip briefly before doing so, his body becoming a series of sharp angles as he lowers himself enough you can reach him. His eyes squeeze tightly shut as you rub the cloth over his skin and wipe the lingering skin cream and greasepaint away. He relaxes as your touch remains gentle, his eyes only softly closed once you've wiped the skin around them free from soap.

 

You move on to his ears, his neck, scrubbing as thoroughly as you can without being rough. You nudge him when he's soap from the clavicle up. "Rinse while I get the rest of you."

 

Gamzee's face takes on a violet tint but he nods and does as you say. He's both stone-still and limp as a doll as you scrub his shoulders, his arms and under them, his back, taking inventory of every square inch of skin and every protruding knob of bone. He has so many -- thin as Sollux but almost twice as broad, you swear, how did he even get so big when he's so malnourished?

 

Unlike Sollux, he still has an ass to speak of. Not that you'd speak of it. Fuck. You're faintly ashamed you even noticed, even if it was only a passing thought.

 

You turn him around and pause with the washcloth over his bloodpusher. "Okay?" you ask, looking up at him from behind your own dripping hair.

 

"Y-yeah." He manages a wan smile and pushes your hair out of your face, slicks it back against your head. You turn to jelly, all wobbly liquidy feelings inside, and it must show on your face because his smile turns into a grin. "Better'n I have in a long time, best friend. Go on."

 

You scowl and that only makes him laugh, so you scowl harder as you apply the cloth to his chest (too thin, too thin, how is he even as strong as he is when there's nothing but bone under his skin). Your expression does nothing to stop his giggles or hold back your feelings -- in fact, it turns to an awkward sort of smile before you're entirely aware you've stopped scowling.

 

Your respective smiles fade as you reach Gamzee's hips. He fidgets as his shoulders pull in on themselves, so you delay by kneeling and work your way up his broad, bony feet, his legs, his knobbly knees, but you freeze solid at his mid-thigh. "Uh."

 

"Um." Gamzee shifts from foot to foot. "I'm all bein' okay with that. Uh, if you are, bro." Then, more quietly. "I trust you."

 

You bow your head. This is already so romantic you're queasy from it, but you think you can stand to go a little further. It isn't like you're feeding each other peeled grapes in public or anything. The mental image nearly makes you burst out laughing, but you manage to swallow it down while you re-soap the cloth and get to work. It's just a matter of following steps, you tell yourself -- around the bulge, over the outside of the nook, back between the glutes--

 

Gamzee gasps and squirms and tries to pretend he's not doing either, which makes him squirm even worse. He squeaks as you get the cloth between his legs and gasps, "B-bro--"

 

You grimace and draw away, only just holding back a litany of oh shit oh shit oh shit. "Yeah?" you say and look up at him.

 

He's the very picture of mortification. "D-does it gotta tickle so motherfucking much?"

 

An oh shit escapes you after all and you only just manage to stop yourself from facepalming a soapy hand right against your eyes. "No wonder you were dancing around like you had sand up your nook."

 

"Nah, it weren't that bad, sand hurts and that felt--"

 

"Oh my god, Gamzee, I do not want to know," you groan, letting your head fall forward against his leg. "Can we get this over with?"

 

He's laughing at you again and petting your head. "Sure thing, Karbro."

 

You soap the rest of him with minimal fuss and get him rinsed. The next bit is considerably more delicate, however, and he goes all frozen still again when you tell him it might be a little uncomfortable. Indeed, he hisses a gasp when you pull back the sheath of his bulge just enough to clean under it with careful fingers, and the strangled honk he blurts when you do the same for his nook is outright comical.

 

When you finally draw back, you feel far hotter than the water accounts for and Gamzee is flushed an alarming shade of violet. "Well. There. All clean." You pull yourself shakily to your feet and find your own washcloth. "I'll just scrub myself and then we can move on."

 

You're stopped by Gamzee's fingers around your wrist. "Let me."

 

"What?" You blink up at him stupidly.

 

Gamzee is still distinctly flushed but he doesn't look embarrassed, just... gentle. "This goes both ways, don't it?" He plucks the cloth from your fingers and smiles. "Why bother gettin' my wash on with my best bro if I'm not gonna return the favor?"

 

There your guts go again, all squirmy and tight like someone got their fronds around them and squeezed. You want to pull away and protest, refuse, you don't want to be touched. It'd be a lie, you want to be taken care of very badly... but that's not for you. You take care of other people, that's the way it works.

 

But Gamzee won't let you go, and he's looking at you like he can see every thought that's racing through your thinkpan. His brows furrow upward and he shakes his head. "You gotta stop thinkin' so much, Karbro," he says as he leans in to kiss your forehead.

 

"Oh, what a wonderful piece of advice," you grumble to his clavicle. "I'll just stare into space like some pan-rotted vegetable, that'll be grmph." You glare at the hand over your mouth, then at him, but he just chuckles.

 

"I didn't say stop thinkin' altogether, I said so much. Your mind is always all up and racin' ahead of you and you don't spend enough time just bein'." Gamzee takes his hand away from your mouth and slicks your hair back again. "Just be for a little while, Karkat. I got you."

 

Your eyes sting and your face threatens to crumple, but you manage a nod. He cups your face a moment and that almost undoes you, but after a moment you're able to kiss his hand to know you're ready. He smiles and shuffles you around until you're the one backed into the spray. You try to relax into the heat when he tilts your face up, but you're just as tense as he was as he puts the soapy cloth to your skin.

 

Gamzee is gentle, even more gentle than you were with him, as if you're a soap bubble yourself, and he looks at you with so much pity you can hardly stand it. Face, neck, ears -- he goes in exactly the same order you did, down to the direction of the cloth strokes, and that chokes you up for reasons you can't entirely explain to yourself.

 

"Okay, bro?"

 

"Y-yeah."

 

"Get your rinse on, then, and I'll get the rest of you. Won't take no time at all, you're so little."

 

All your maudlin thoughts are chased away in a burst of indignant anger. You squinch up you face as tight as you can in lieu of a glare. "Oh, fuck you, I am not that short!"

 

Gamzee laughs and paps your cheek before you can shout again. "Nope, but it's motherfucking funny to get you all ruffled up about it."

 

"You enormous bastard--"

 

"Shoosh," he says firmly, and turns you toward the water. You scowl into the spray as he applies the washcloth to your back and continues, "Someone's got to be helpin' you not to take yourself so seriously all the time."

 

You huff. "Fuck you again. I am a serious person with serious emotions." You're starting to pout and you kind of hate yourself for it.

 

Gamzee chuckles. "Maybe so, bro, but you're all being tangled up in it so bad you stop bein' able to tell what's smart to worry about and what's just noise," he says as he scrubs your shoulders methodically. "It all ends up eatin' at you the same and makes you so damn sad I'm hardly standin' it."

 

"I'm not sad, I'm angry. There's a difference," you grumble half-heartedly. You've just learned that it's hard to work up a good protest when your moirail is scrubbing your back.

 

"You been hidin' a lot under that anger, brother," he says mildly as he raises one of your arms and scrubs underneath it. "Sometimes I been thinkin' that half of why you're angry is you can't stop from bein' sad."

 

You prickle and try not to squirm. "I thought we were bathing, not having psychoanalysis hour with a captive audience."

 

"Hey, I'm just gettin' my moirail on, like you've all done with me, makin' me wash good and everythin'." Gamzee turns you around again and starts in on your front.

 

"Yeah, well--"

 

"You need takin' care of, too," he says matter-of-factly as he kneels to scrub your legs.

 

That, finally, stuns you into silence. Even if you weren't so busy trying to swallow the lump in your squawkblister, for once you can't think of a single way to protest without looking like an ungrateful asshole, and you're realizing that before you say anything. It just might be some sort of miracle.

 

You grimace and facepalm. Oh great, now he's got you doing it, too.

 

"Hey, you okay up there, Karbro?"

 

"Other than that I caught myself thinking about miracles, I'm fine," you grumble.

 

Your tone does nothing to deter Gamzee from grinning brightly up at you. "Wicked! You gotta tell me about 'em while I wash your bits."

 

"While you wash my what--" You cut off with a squeak as he starts in on your groin with all of the careful vigor he washed the rest of you with. "Ohfuckthatfeelsweird--"

 

"Heheh, I told you. Widen up a little, I can't get my hand between."

 

You squeak again and somehow manage to widen your stance, despite your legs trying to lock together of their own accord. If Gamzee notices your mortification, he's carefully not paying it any attention as he touches you in places no other troll has touched before. You can't even begin to speak, much less about miracles, but you sure are thinking about them -- like how it's a miracle neither of you has died of embarrassment yet.

 

Gamzee is as careful as can be, though, and as fast as possible under the circumstances, so you make it through alive, if blushing furiously. He's hardly blushing at all, damn him. "There, bro, that weren't so bad," he says as he stands and hands you your washcloth.

 

"Maybe not for you," you grumble as you wring it out.

 

"Aww, Karkat." His brows furrow upward as he pushes your hair out of your face yet again. "I was just all thinkin' that we're so pale for each other there's no point in bein' shy no more."

 

You stare at him in bafflement. "You can't just turn it off like that!"

 

"Why not?"

 

"I-- well-- You just can't. I just can't, okay?" You huff as you hang the cloth up out of the way.

 

He gives you a puzzled frown and looks like he's about to say something, but a moment later his face clears and he smooths your hair back again. "Okay, bro." He frowns again, his head tilting to one side a little; it makes him look like a perplexed barkbeast, which is stupidly cute even on a gangly asshole like him. "But, uh, do we gotta take a bath? I'm all feelin' motherfucking waterlogged to hell."

 

You stare blankly at him for a moment -- you were contemplating how it was even possible for Gamzee to be cute at all and it takes your mind a moment to catch up -- before you give him a puzzled frown of your own. "Says the guy who lived at the edge of the fucking ocean."

 

"Well yeah, but I didn't live in it."

 

"Point, I guess." You reach up and try to run your fingers through his curls, but you only get an inch before he winces. "Sorry man, but it's either a bath or sitting here dry and freezing our respective asses off while I comb the squeakbeast snarls out of that mess you call hair."

 

Gamzee slumps, suddenly miserable. "Awwww, bro--"

 

"It won't hurt, I promise." He gives you wary look, so you take his hands and squeeze them. "I promise. It'll just take time."

 

"Okay," he says, his tone still miserable but his expression so trusting you hurt, because you're sure you don't deserve it.

 

You give his hands another squeeze and turn away quickly. "Once this starts filling I can start on your hair." The trap basin is thoroughly rinsed by now, you decide, so you switch off the spray and flip the drain switch closed. "We'll be cold for a while but it'll be faster." You turn on the faucet as hard as it will go and as hot as you can stand. "

 

Gamzee makes a fussy noise, and when you turn back he's still got that worried barkbeast face. You sigh and turn him around by his shoulders. "Sit and slide down so I can get to your hair -- and for god's sake mind your horns, I don't want to be impaled by one of those things."

 

"Okay." God, he sounds like a scared wiggler, but you guess you can't really blame him -- his hair is terrible, the result of years of washing curls with too-harsh soap, then picking his way through the resultant tangles. You wonder why he didn't just twist up into locks or something. Maybe he didn't realize he could.

 

He hunches himself down into the trap basin with you, his arms locked around his knees and his head drawn shellcreature-like down against himself. You're almost against the hammering flow out of the faucet, but for once you can't find it in you to complain. "Hand me over the hair cream."

 

Gamzee reaches out one impossibly long arm and snags the bottle. "I thought only fancy motherfuckers used this stuff," he says as he passes it back to you. "Like to be makin' their hair all shiny and fluffy and shit."

 

You squirt some of the stuff into your hand, eye his hair, then squirt in a bunch more. "I guess, but when you have hair as ridiculous as mine -- or yours, which is like fifty times more ridiculous -- it's the only way to keep it from becoming a death trap to small animals and random insects." You dump the palmful of cream onto his hair and start rubbing it in.

 

He fidgets. "Yeah, but how are you all gettin' it clean after?"

 

"It does the job." You frown at his mess of tangles, which shows no signs of having had cream put in it at all. With a sigh, you start squirting the stuff directly onto his hair as you rub it in.

 

He makes a disgusted sound as some drips down his neck. "Whoafuck that's motherfucking gross--" He almost tries to look over his shoulder at you, then freezes at your alarmed yelp at the too-close proximity of his horn to your eye."Even with it all slimy?"

 

You huff an exasperated noise. "How do you stand your own recupracoon."

 

"Man, sopor don't feel like what comes out after I--"

 

"No, Gamzee," you snap, once again aflame from the neck up. "Just-- no. No. I have limits, you goofy asshole."

 

"But you don't all know what I was up and meanin'," Gamzee begins, his tone very, very innocent.

 

"NO." It doesn't come out a bellow so much as a shriek.

 

"Hahaha aww, it's so goddamn cute when you go all prissy like that." He pats your foot under the water.

 

"I am not prissy, you just don't have any fucking personal filters!"

 

"If you're all sayin' so. Hey, bro?"

 

"What."

 

"Could you be turnin' the water off? I don't think you're all meanin' to drown me, even if I do tease you."

 

"Oh, fuck. Right." You fumble the bottle, just miss squirting yourself right in the face with it, and manage to catch it by the lid before you can crane yourself around and turn the water off. "All right. Time to show these tangles who's boss."

 

You think his whimper as you rub the cream more thoroughly into Gamzee's hair is mostly theatrical, or at least you hope so. All the same, you're even more careful working out the biggest of the tangles than you were with cleaning his genitals. You go through one small section at a time, holding each section behind the knot to keep from pulling while you ease the tangle out with careful plucks and tugs, undoing as gently as possible until you reach his scalp.

 

Gamzee hisses a gasp here and there, and once makes a yelp that has you blurting apologies until he shooshes you, but for the most part it goes as smoothly as you promised. By the time you need a comb, he resembles a shellcreature much less than he did before -- until you ask him to hand the thing to you.

 

"Do I gotta?"

 

"Gamzee." He draws in on himself even more and you sigh. "I'm sorry. Look, I've already done the worst of it, and you lived through that. Right?"

 

"Yeeeeah..." However, his shoulders rise up even higher. You wonder if his neck will ever recover.

 

"This won't be as bad." You smooth your hands awkwardly across the hunched lines of his shoulders.

 

"Will it take so long? 'Cause brother, I'm more prune than troll anymore." He regards his sadly wrinkled and violetish fingertips with a mournful sound. "You're gonna have to keep the others from usin' me like breakfast grub garnish."

 

You laugh despite yourself, a short bark you cut off hastily lest he think you're laughing at him, but he's chuckling and you're highly embarrassed, again, because you still can't tell when the clown is screwing with you. "It'll take a lot less longer if you stop being an enormous douche," you grumble, and give his horntip a tap with the comb.

 

"Soooorry," he says, hunching again, but he can't hide how his shoulders quiver with silent giggles.

 

"Sit still," you grump.

 

Indeed, it doesn't take long, even with a few knots that for a while you're afraid you'll have to cut out. Gamzee isn't fussing yet, so you set the comb aside and sink your fingers deep into the slick, sodden mass of his hair. He makes a questioning noise as you stroke your fingertips across his scalp, but any intent he might have had at actually speaking dissolves in a breathy sigh as you do it again and again.

 

This rubbing is ostensibly to clean the grime from his skin, but you have a hunch it also feels damn good when someone else is doing it to you. You're thorough, moving your fingers in slow, firm circles over every little bit of his scalp, even around his horns, even though that earns you a noise that you probably should be embarrassed to hear.

 

Gamzee slumps like melting ice cream and starts to rumble deep in his throat, a happy sound like you've never heard from him. By the time you're done he's purring soft and deep and you have your arms full of blissed-out troll. Your face is also full of his sodden, slippery curls, but you find yourself wrapping your arms around him and holding him anyway.

 

After a while, Gamzee rouses with a contented sigh. "That was so good, brother."

 

You smile a little. "Worth turning into a prune for?"

 

"Yeeeeah. It's a miracle, is what it was, because I never thought anyone would be all touching me like that." He sighs again, so content, so happy, and your eyes sting. "Mm, you think this trap is big enough for me to rinse this shit out?"

 

"Huh? Oh, no, we're going to have to use the spray again once I've cleaned my hair too."

 

"More water." His sigh this time is deeply disappointed. "Uuugh. Well, if I gotta. But that's all right, I can get you first, huh?"

 

"I'll be faster if I--"

 

"None of that noise." He pats your hands before he sits up and starts scooting around and back. "You just turn your fine ass right around and let me take care of you."

 

You deadpan. "My what."

 

"Objectively speaking, bro." He smiles lazily and tugs at your shoulders. "C'mon."

 

You grumble and turn, keeping your butt firmly under the water, thanks. He pulls you close, too close to get at your hair right, and buries his face against your hair as he wraps his slides around you. You stiffen. "This is not washing my hair."

 

"Chill, Karbro. Sometimes a motherfucker just needs a hug, and we got a backlog goin' back sweeps, you dig?" Guilt creeps up your gut, until he tightens his arms and murmurs into your hair, "I got a lot of catchin' up to do."

 

"Oh," you say, and try to relax back into him. He gives you a long squeeze before he lets you go.

 

"Gimme that bottle, huh? There we go. Now, how does this motherfucker open? Haha, no, don't turn around, I was just messin' with you. Oh fuck this shit is gross--"

 

You sit hunched and grumpy as he tries to apply the hair cream without actually touching it, which fails spectacularly and leaves it dripping down the top layer of your hair and almost into your eyes. " Gamzee ," you start, your tone a warning.

 

"I know bro, I know, it's just... uuuugh ," he says as he plunges his hands into your hair.

 

You cringe as he starts to work the cream in, but despite another grumble of disgust he's as gentle with you as you were with him. He has it easier than you did -- your hair, for all it's thick enough to lose a comb in and wavy enough to tangle together in some really spectacular knots, has never come even close to resembling a blackberry thicket, unlike his. Even so, he doesn't rush, his long fingers moving with care until you don't have even a hint of a tangle, and you're halfway to blissed-out already.

 

"You know, this shit ain't so bad once it gets warmed up," he muses as he slips his hands deeper into your hair to get at your scalp. "All slippery-like. I bet it'd feel real good on--"

 

You go all stiff with embarrassment. "No."

 

Gamzee huffs and strokes your scalp with slow circles. "Bro, you don't even know what I was gonna say."

 

"I don't need to," you say as you start to slump, your embarrassment losing against Gamzee's fingers.

 

"I coulda been sayin' anything, just like last time." He gets his thumbs in on the action, rubbing them up the back of your neck again and again, which apparently connects directly to the transform-Karkat's-bones-to-jelly nerve. "You're the one takin' it all lewd-like."

 

"You meant it all-- nnh-- lewd-like th' last time," you mumble. You breathe a sigh and let your eyes drift shut. Teasing or not, this feels so amazing you're having a hard time giving him more than token disagreement.

 

"Now you don't know what I was meanin' last time," Gamzee says, his tone mock-scolding. "I coulda meant squeezing slugs. Or snot."

 

"Snot doesn't feel anything like hair cream an'-- mmmh, god-- I don't think slugs do either."

 

"I'm thinkin' you went and guessed from experience ?"

 

A huff is all the annoyance you can manage. "Shu' up."

 

"Heheh." His fingers firm as he rubs them around your ears, then up beside your temples before they start circling your horns. You tense -- you don't know how this is going to feel -- but then his thumbs give the bases a slow rub and you groan.

 

"That's it, brother," Gamzee murmurs, still stroking, scooting forward against you as you slump back.

 

It's like he pulled the plug of what you thought was a bottomless well of tension. You're wrapped in a blissful pale haze from your horns to your toes and you're too relaxed to do anything like try to be upright of your own volition. A thought drifts in your mind that like this, you could sink under the water and drown before you even noticed you'd stopped breathing air; with content apathy you let that thought pass through as you loll back against Gamzee's chest.

 

Of course, you're no more in danger of drowning in Gamzee's arms than he was in yours ( of course, murmurs a small, relieved part of your mind). He keeps you tucked safely against him as he turns you to a limp, troll-shaped noodle, and once he slides his hands from your hair he holds you close while you recover.

 

"Today is just full of miracles. Was always wonderin' when I'd get to hear you purr." He chuckles, a little laugh of pure delight. "You're like an outboard motor, all rumblin' loud enough to echo."

 

You burrow back against him. You'd turn and hide your face, but you're still too limp. "Was not."

 

"Yeah you were! Did you think that was the pipes or somethin'?" He laughs again at your mutter and kisses the tip of your ear. "Don't worry, I won't be makin' you do it none in public. It's my own special miracle."

 

"You an' your damn miracles," you sigh as you lean into him still more.

 

"You're one of 'em," he agrees, and squeezes you even tighter.

 

"Ghk--" You squirm. "Gamzee, for fuck's sake, I am not a comfort plush."

 

"Aww," he pouts. This time you're sure he's messing with you, especially as he lets you go readily enough. Indeed, he's grinning at you when you turn. It's a silly, soppy grin that lights up his eyes and makes him look about three sweeps old.

 

You gape at him, struck all over again with how much you want to put your arms around him and protect him from everything and make him smile like that forever. You blurt, "I am so pale for you it just about makes me sick."

 

Your exclamation is on the other side of the universe from romantic, but it turns his grin soft and even soppier. "Pity you too, Karkat, with my whole motherfucking vascular system." He takes your hands and squeezes them. "I pity you so much I'm not even goin' to complain about how I don't think I'll ever feel dry again."

 

You grimace and squeeze your eyes shut. "Way to ruin the moment, asshole."

 

"Heheheh." He kisses the back of your hand. When you open your eyes, he's still smiling at you. "For serious, can we get our rinse on?"

 

"If it'll stop you from teasing me more," you grump as you flip the drain switch with your foot.

 

"Aww, do I gotta?"

 

"Yes."

 

Gamzee laughs at your scowl, but he helps you to your feet and wraps his arms around you despite your continued protests that you aren't a comfort plush. It isn't teasing, though, and you can't say you actually don't like it, so you cling to him in return while the water swirls away around your feet.

 

You get him crouching in front of you so you can help him rinse his hair. The sigh of relief he breathes as the first of the cream washes away is almost palpable. The next sighs he makes are him going rubbery with bliss again as you work your fingers over his scalp. Sure, it needs to be done, but you also can't help yourself from lingering. Seeing him blissed out and happy on your touch is so good, so right, you want to make it happen as much as you can. You want to continue to marvel at how long his hair is when it's wet and combed out, at how the water beads on his skin, at the sounds he breathes...

 

"Hey, bro?"

 

"Yeah?"

 

"Do you like the color violet

over your breakfast grubs

because I'm goin' wrinkled and small

no matter how much you rub--"

 

You cringe away. "Oh fuck no--"

 

"It's a motherfucking deluge

of all your pale love--"

 

"Stop it, just stop--"

 

"But all the pale in the world--"

 

You slap your hand over his mouth before he can get another line out. "I get the point, you can stop the emotional terrorism!" He gives you sad barkbeast eyes, but you scowl and shake your head until he slumps with defeat.

 

"That's harsh, bro," he says with a pout as you help him up. It's ridiculous on him, and ridiculously cute, but you remain unmoved.

 

"I may have the patience of a saint -- don't you dare fucking laugh -- but even I have my limits-- hey, I said don't laugh-- hey!" He laughs even harder at your spluttering as he pushes you under the spray.

 

You have to help each other out of the trap; you feel like you gained ten pounds in there, all of it in water at the end of your fronds. "You're gonna have to wring me out, bro," Gamzee says mournfully as he examines his hands.

 

"You and me both," you say as you hand him a towel. "So come here." He gives you a worried look as you brandish your towel at him. You snort. "Not literally, you goofy asshole."

 

"Now who's teasin'?"

 

"Serves you right. Come here."

 

Somehow you get each other dry, even as awkward as it is for two people to dry one another at the same time. Halfway through you try to insist it would be faster to just dry yourselves, but Gamzee is having none of it. You grumble, but you're glad for his protesting. Once you leave this ablution chamber, things are going to be awkward again. Less so than before, much less so, but you know yourself. You're going to work yourself into knots about the looks and questions you both might get from others and how you're going to deal with them. Poise and subtlety aren't exactly on a list of your virtues, after all, and once you get flustered it's going to take you a shamefully long time to come back from it--

 

"Karkat." You start at Gamzee squeezing your shoulders from behind you. "You're tanglin' yourself all up in a motherfucking thornbush of bad thoughts, I can tell."

 

"No, I was--"

 

"Shh." Gamzee's arms wrap around you and he kisses the tip of your ear. "I told you we don't gotta be shy anymore. Much as I want to, I can't be all the not-shy for both of us. You gotta help me out and not get into thorns I can't dig you out of, you follow?"

 

You sigh and dip your head. "Your metaphors leave something to be desired, but yeah, I follow. I'll... I'll try, okay?"

 

"Okay." He squeezes you and lets you go. "Now we get our threads on and I'll put my face on and we can march out there like the finest pair of moirails that ever was."

 

You reach for your shirt, but you hesitate. "Can I ask you something?"

 

Gamzee stops and stares with his clean shirt halfway on. "Hah! When was you ever asking to ask me a damned thing?"

 

"Well, it's." You bite your lip. "Do you have to put the paint on just yet?"

 

His face falls. "I thought I explained that shit, brother. I can't go out without my face on."

 

"No, no, it's just-- even if we go straight to my block? I..." You feel stupid; you're hardly making an forward pale solicitation here, he's already your moirail and if everything you've just done hasn't well established that you're disgustingly pale for each other, you don't know what will. Still, it takes all you have to get the words out. "I alchemized a fuckton of pillows a while ago and I've been meaning to--" You wave your hands. "You know--"

 

A slow grin spreads across Gamzee's face. "You got a pile, bro?"

 

"Yes! Oh, fuck you for laughing, of course I have a pile, just because I don't have it out in the open like the rest of you exhibitionists--"

 

"Shoosh," he says, putting a finger to your lips. "Don't get all tangled, now."

 

You take a deep breath through your nose, kiss that finger and push it away. "So... I don't want paint on my pillows," you begin.

 

He quirks, drops his gaze. "You wanna keep lookin' at this face while we jam?"

 

"Oh, I've only been mooning idiotically at that same face for -- how long have we been in here? Yes, I want to keep looking at your stupid adorable face." He shuffles his feet and hunches, and you just can't stand it -- you pull him into a hug. "Please."

 

Gamzee breathes a shaky laugh and clings. "For you, bro? Anything. Let's go get our pile on."