Work Text:
Gamzee goes out before the rain starts to fall, but even after the thunderstorm moves in and starts pounding at the roof of your little hive, he doesn’t come back in.
He does this sometimes—anything can set him off. A bad dream, the cold, a word. Anything. And he’ll be off into the dark to sit alone and look out over the ocean. You got your house here by the sea because you knew he liked it here; seeing the waves, walking on the sand, it calms him. But it comes with all the other memories too, the ones you don’t want him to ever have to think of again.
(Brother?)
(Gamzee go to sleep.)
(Dad's not coming back, is he?)
You lost your lusus a few years ago (he was never going to live long, fuck, you knew that, and it still hurt but at least you had him). Gamzee liked him a lot—the loss seemed to hit him twice over, once for your dad, all the chittery, uncomfortable cuddles full of hot carapace and angry chirring, and once for the dad who he hadn’t seen for sweeps.
So now he sits outside, and looks out over the ocean as the sky pours down rain that feels more like sleet. You know better than to go out and get him. You let him sit.
By the time he comes back in he’s completely soaked. His facepaint is almost entirely washed away; without it to hide behind, he can’t look you in the eye. His nose is mottled purple, his eyes are puffy. His bare feet look painfully cold, and all his knobbly joints have flushed purple with the chill.
He stands in the doorway, almost tall enough to scrape the ceiling with his horns, even more skeletal in his drenched, too-big clothing, dripping all over your nice, clean floor…and sniffles quietly.
Goddammit. So much for getting work done tonight.
You come forward with a long, weary sigh, and pull the door shut behind him. The light inside is warm, and with the door shut the howling of the wind becomes much less of a menacing shriek and more of a distant hum. The rain batters on the roof of the hive, but it can’t get in. Gamzee…is shivering all over, goddammit.
Well, there’s nobody in the hive but you two. And the sight of his miserable face, his drenched clothes, his dripping hair and the sound of his muffled, sad sounds…it just makes you feel…
"Come here," you tell him, more gently than you mean to, and his skin feels like ice when you take his hand and lead him further inside. "Let’s get those wet clothes off, come on. Come on you idiot, you’re gonna make yourself sick and then I’ll have to spend all day hanging around taking care of you instead of doing all the important shit I have to get done instead."
For a second, even though his misery and the paint and tears smeared on his face, you can see him looking vaguely hopeful. You flick one of his ears—but pretty gently, he still looks terrible.
"That’s not a good thing," you say firmly. "I have to work to pay for stuff like, oh, y’know, fucking food. Now, get undressed. You need cleaned up.”
In the end he dawdles so much you end up helping him out of them impatiently, and the way he shivers pathetically and presses into everywhere you make contact with him, drinking in your body heat, makes you think that was the goal all along. He’s pitiful as fuck and you basically almost can’t fucking stand it.
He almost manages to distract you entirely when you’re almost to the ablutions block, purring and half-kneeling in the hallway to hold on to you (fucking COLD) and shivering until it takes all your self-control not to wrap your arms around him and cup his icy fingers in yours to warm them up. But you are the mental adult in this relationship, even if he is at least a foot taller than you, and you sternly shake him off after a few seconds of indulgent cuddling and hustle him into the ablutions block.
Getting him into the ablutions block (shower?) is harder. For all he was just out in a downpour that makes the spray in there look like a pointless drizzle, and that water was basically frozen and coming down so hard it stung, he is awfully unwilling to get in. It’s like trying to deal with an enormous meowbeast that’s strong enough to resist every attempt you could possibly make to move it, and in the end you just close the door behind him, and walk away.
You stand there by the ablutions trap and frown at him and let him realize, over the space of a minute or two, that A) you aren’t coming back over towards him, B) he is naked and soaked with icy water, C) the room is pretty damn chilly, and D) he would have to cross the equally chilly house, naked, to get more clothes. He whines at you. You cross your arms and wait.
He does come eventually, of course. Edges closer and closer to you, a few steps at a time, faster and faster as his shivering intensifies and icy water starts to pool on the floor around his feet. And then, as soon as he edges close enough to reach, it’s a simple matter of reaching out and grabbing him firmly by both horns. He stiffens up at the shock of it, but the sensation is all the more intense for the temperature difference (you would fucking know okay, shut up) and you rub your thumbs at the bases of his horns until he crumples to his knees, placid and content to move wherever you push him to go, and lets you chivvy him under the water.
Of course, after all the shit he put you through, once he’s in he immediately melts into a happy puddle at the bottom of the trap. You sit back, consider his limp, shivering form under the warm spray, and try to ignore the uncomfortable reality that part of the reason that you don’t try to force him to stop going out and sitting on the cliffs in terrible weather is that you’re a terrible pervert with a drenching kink and seeing your moirail soaked to the skin and shivering makes you feel all tingly and concerned inside. You are the worst piece of shit, it’s you.
You let him sit under the water until he stops shivering, get a rag and…and he grabs your sleeve and pulls you forward to nuzzle his nose against yours, thoroughly soaking you in the process. Fuck. You weren’t going to get in with him, you were being so good about this…
…oh well. What the fuck, if you’re going to be taking care of him, might as well get cleaned up at the same time, right.
There’s not much for him to do for you in return once you get stripped down and clamber into the tub with him, but he purrs and runs his fingers through your hair and smiles dreamily. He doesn’t say a word the entire time—hasn’t said a word, you realize, since he came in—but when you’re done scrubbing his face clean he slumps forward and leans his head on your shoulder with a defeated-sounding sigh.
Getting dried and dressed is a little bit hazy, after that. One of the things you did when you saw him duck out to sit alone was to run down and put the clothes through the moisture-removal trap, and they’re warm and fluffy and dry when you get them out and pull them on and he purrs so loud you can hear it all the way across the room. You get them on properly for him—keep him from snagging on his horns, make sure everything is the right way around and not inside-out—and the very second you’re done, he reaches down and picks you up, laundry basket and all, and meanders off up the stairs to your respiteblock to cuddle down into the pile next to your ‘coon.
"…Karkat," he says, for the first time since he walked out, and his voice is hoarse and ragged, like he’s weary to the bone. That’s all he says. "…Karkat." and then he just cuddles up around you and sighs again, long and low and gentle.
"You too, you big ugly disaster," you tell him, and dare to lean forward and nuzzle up into his neck, into the soft curls of hair behind one ear, just to listen to him purr as the rain pours down outside.