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It starts like it does every time: you hate yourself. You loathe yourself. And you’d do anything to feel otherwise, even something twisted like this. Like you.
You slide down against the wall with your hand in your pants, and realize you don’t deserve to feel better. You stop. You inhale. You remember that you’ve always been uncannily good at getting things you don’t deserve.
Your bulges twitch in your sheath—and you continue, like the sick fuck you are.
You begin with the nook, shoving three fingers inside without regard for the slight tearing that accompanies unlubricated penetration by your sharp, bony digits. When your bulges begin to slide out, you grab them by the tips and force them to unsheathe entirely, hissing at the ache as they slide out prematurely. Your fingers wrap around them, evoking images of Aradia when she used to do this for you.
Aradia. The jewel you never deserved, tarnished by association with you and ultimately cracked and thrown aside into the dirt because you were too fucking weak to resist Vriska’s influence. You squeeze harder as tears begin to leak from the pinched-together corners of your eyes, and you feel yourself headed for your peak already. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, you are fucked up, this isn’t even the first time you’ve done this. Tears drip onto your arm as you realize that no, this isn’t a sexual peak you’re reaching, it’s the result of hours spent useless and unmoving, even when you felt the pang of your bladder urging you to get up, move, you useless lump, what the hell is your problem?
There’s no use fighting it; you’ve been here before too, and you’ll be here again. All it does is get in the way of that fleeting bit of pleasure. So you let go. You piss yourself shamelessly and keep working your bulge over as urine spreads around you in a warm, stinking puddle and drips over your fingers, soaking into your pushed-down pants.
If nothing else, it’s good lube, and after all, this is all you deserve.
It’s a mere moment more before you come, hot and near-painful, spilling into your lap as you hold on to that mantra of worthlessness. Yeah, this is what you deserve. Pleasure with an edge of pain, to remind you that you shouldn’t be allowed anything without paying for it adequately. Never again. You’ll never take anything for granted again, not even a single moment of release.
You pull your fingers from your nook and wipe them on your pants, staring blankly into the distance as the puddle you’re in slowly cools. Maybe you’ll sleep. Maybe you’ll do it again. You’re not sure yet.
“Again, Sollux? You unbelievable piece of shit.” It’s KK. Of course it would be KK.
“Careful, a guy could get ideas from blackflirting that obvious.”
“Blackflirting? No, I’m calling you a piece of shit because you are. It is undeniable fact. Once again, here you are, covered in snot and piss and tears, but not only that, you’re covered in material. You get off on self-hatred. You’re your own goddamn kismesis, you don’t need me to blackflirt with you. Fuck.”
You muster a smirk as you pull your pants up. “Damn straight. Keep calling me names and I’ll get all hot and bothered again. Care to leave?”
He steps closer and crosses his arms, scowling in disdain. “No, no, and no. This is the second fucking time I’ve walked in on you covered in piss, Sollux. And it’s you, so two needs to be where it stops.”
You hold your tongue. He doesn’t need to know about all the times he hasn’t walked in on. No, two is long gone for you where this is concerned.
He takes your silence for agreement or something, you guess, because he keeps going. “Get in the ablution trap.”
“Meh.”
He stalks closer, but stops just shy of the reeking puddle. Success; an anti-KK force field.
“Get up.”
“No.”
“Get. Up.”
“No.”
“That’s it, you sack of ass.” He steps into the puddle, and before you can really process what’s happening his arms are under yours and he’s hauling you up bodily. You panic and flail, and he slips, letting go of you in shock. You stick a foot out to right yourself, but it lands in the puddle of urine, and you go flying head-first into one of your servers. There’s a crack, and oh fuck, fuck, fuck, sudden migraine, your head is splitting into two—or four—or ten—or a million—and you land on your hands and knees in a pool of mind honey, staring at a fragment of your fucking horn as still more tears leak from your eyes and you sob uncontrollably like a wriggler. Blood drips from your nose into the honey, and you just want to curl up and die already, to be dead and gone and done with this shit forever.
“Sollux!”
You stare dumbly up at KK. He’s almost hyperventilating.
“Fuck, fuck, what do we do, what was the schoolfeed on horn damage, what did they say to—fuck, shit, okay, get up, get up, here, take my hand, lean on my shoulder, fuck.”
The world spins as he helps you lean on him, and you almost throw up on the way to the ablution block. The sharp pain is quickly replaced with a throbbing that’s worse than most of your migraines, and the light hurts to look at. You lurch away from KK to turn down the ablution block lights while he frantically rummages through your medical cabinet, then sit down heavily on the load gaper with your head in your hands and try to stop crying, but it hurts. And your pants squelch, and your nose drips, and fuck, you just smeared honey on your face too. Fuck your life.
Karkat shoves a hand towel at you, and you take it numbly. “Just—hold that over your nose. Lean forward. And brace yourself, because this is probably gonna hurt like a fucking helmsconversion.” You do as he instructs, wiping the honey aside subtly before pinching the clean side over your nose. You were already leaning forward, after all, and this way blood won’t get all over the floor tiles. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice Karkat take a deep breath, and then he reaches for you with something in his hand that you can’t quite see, and—
There’s a blinding sear of light as he touches the exposed bit of horn interior, and you scream, biting your tongue and dropping the towel.
“FUCK, WHAT IS YOUR PAN DAMAGE, KK?”
He cringes. “I’m sorry, I had to disinfect it! You can’t just put the gauze on! I don’t want it to rot the fuck off, oh god, oh god, fuck, I’m gonna be sick—”
“Where the hell did you even learn horn care, you undereducated asshole? Your nubby little shitknobs wouldn’t ever break like this anyways!”
He yanks your head down by your good horns and starts dressing the wound as he berates you. “Unlike some of us, I paid attention in schoolfeeding, in—in case I ever got a moirail or something and needed to do this, and it looks like I’ve found a perfect fucking candidate.”
You glare at him.
“I’m not going to be your moirail, KK.”
He blushes a deep pink. “No! I—I didn’t mean that, I just meant—see, I need it, because you’re such a pathetic fucking dumbass that—oh, fuck, fuck, no, not pale, fuck, it wasn’t supposed to be this way.” He groans.
“You can’t fucking fix me anyways,” you mutter. And it’s not like you deserve it, either.
He finishes wrapping the bandage around your horn, securing it with a little too much force. Your stomach test-heaves again, and you squelch the nausea hurriedly. Hurling on him would just make you more pathetic and pappable.
“I can fucking try.” It’s fierce, a confidence you rarely see out of KK. You sigh, and get up to inspect the bandaging job. Your reflection in the mirror seems tilted, and you crane your head before realizing that your head was perfectly even to begin with.
“It’s wrong,” you whisper.
“What?”
They’re asymmetrical. They’ll be like this forever. For fucking ever.
“No. No, no, no, NO!” You’re screaming, grasping at your horn beds and pulling, trying futilely to even out your reflection. You’re flawed enough as it is; you can’t stand to be like this, broken on the outside as much as on the inside.
“What the fuck, Sollux?” KK grabs at your hands and stills them—well, sort of; you're shaking, from toes to imperfect horns—and you make up your mind. A test, then; can he truly handle you at your worst?
“Break the other one,” you say calmly, looking him in the eye. He’s close enough that you can feel his breath, coming in quick, hysterical waves.
“What?”
“You heard me. They’re wrong. I’ll go shithive and kill myself if I have to look at this every fucking day for the rest of my life, and you know it. If you really want to be my diamond, you’ll do this. You’ll understand that this has to happen.”
His mouth draws together in a tight line, and you resign yourself to a (brief, abhorrent) life of imbalance, and an ugly corpse. But then he takes a deep breath, and raises his hands above you. They curl around smooth hornflesh, and you close your eyes.
You’re braced for it this time, but it still bites into your nerves like a kick to the bulge. You cry out, and open your eyes as the bit of horn clatters to the floor. Karkat’s face is tinged with pink tears as he repairs the new damage, and when he’s done he draws you into a tight hug.
“Don’t you ever imply I don’t pity you again,you asshole.”
You tuck your throbbing head into his neck and sob until you’re empty, then laugh at the absurdity of the situation.
“Well, then. I guess you’ve got yourself a diamond.”