This was written for a kink meme prompt about fantasising in the pale quadrant. I chose Karkat and Kanaya for the pairing.

In Need Of A Good Papping

Karkat needed to get the hell away from the others and calm the fuck down, before he does something embarrassing like break down in a sobbing mess over the way their session had ended. He had been so close, so damn close to getting their reward.

It had been snatched away at the last second by a demon dog. None of them knew where the hell that monstrosity had come from. He sure didn't know. All he knew was that they were now stuck on the meteor where he had made their grub selves and they were now looking around for a private place to stay, before joining up again in a few hours' time to not be alone as the countdown to who knew what they had discovered reached zero.

He had found himself a set of corridors much the same as all the other corridors on this hunk of shit space rock. Shrugging and finding himself completely alone, he went back to the room they had assigned for their personal transportalizers and keyed his one in with the intent to lock it on the other side to bar people from entering when he was in there.

He wanted to be alone for a bit.

Okay, that was a lie. He wanted to be in a nice private pile made of romance books and be papped into a sense of calm. Oh yeah, he definitely wanted that. Too bad he didn't have a moirail.

What he did have was a mega shit load of romance novels all nicely stacked in boxes in his sylladex, an active imagination and a pale crush on the only stable troll they had on this team. A pale crush he would never state out loud to said troll. Kanaya was already in a moirallegiance with Vriska. Or at least they were before the game started. Kanaya had been too busy breeding frogs to do much else and Vriska needed constant attention.

He found himself a nice solid room to call his new respiteblock and, frowning with irritation, dumped the contents of his sylladex on the ground. He blushed at the clang of metal hitting the ground, but quickly got the offending item back in his sylladex. This was not the time to pail. He was so not in the mood anyway.

He got on his knees and unpacked his books from their boxes. He quickly and quietly went over the cover of each, looking for the rainbow drinker ones he had. They weren't his favourites, he preferred plain romance, with a leaning towards the sappy and/or comedic over the supernatural romances Kanaya preferred, but hey, he had a few anyway and they reminded him of her.

With all of them, the pile he was making for himself wasn't big enough so he went and collected his favourites out of his collection. He could be swimming in romance, though he did keep his choices down to a minimum pile range, or he'd just end up using them all.

He stared down at the pile he had made, went back to the transportalizer to make sure that it was locked, before he went back to the book pile, climbed onto it, and settled himself down into a position he found comfortable.

Closing his eyes, he sighed and let his mind wander.

He was only still a moment when he heard the transportalizer and footsteps coming towards him. After only a few minutes of waiting, he felt the wanted invader lying down behind him.

"Karkat are you feeling alright? You seemed a little bit more aggressive than normal for even you when you ran off to find yourself a personal space."

Sighing, he kept his eyes closed and shook his head against his books. "I am so stressed out, Kanaya. We shouldn't be here. We should be in our new world. Why did this happen? Am I just that bad a leader that anything I try has to fail, even if I have won everything else?"

A hand wrapped itself over his side and began rubbing small circles over his abdomen. He hummed his appreciation at the move. He had begun cramping there from the stress. He shifted so the hand had better access to his skin, the jumper he was wearing riding up to expose flesh.

"You aren't a failure Karkat. What happened at the end was not your fault. We were all surprised by this sudden appearance of the demon dog."

He whined, not able to believe it. Everything was his fault anyway. If he hadn't started playing the game, Alternia never would have gone through the meteor shower that had upset everything and Feferi would have been there to keep Glb'golyb calm and quiet.

"It's all my fault! All of it! I wish Sollux had never made this game. I should have listened to him when he said we shouldn't play, but it was too late! Terezi had already set off my timer and put my lusus in the kernel seed."

A hand was felt on his face. Long, slim fingers attached to a dainty small palm. The touch was gentle, non-threatening and helped ground him. He heard her low, quiet voice send him a calming 'Shhhhhhhh' that made his breath hitch.

He honestly couldn't stop himself no matter how hard he tried. He was always so bad at controlling his emotional reactions, especially if it was something that was going to have this reaction. He started quietly crying.

Kanaya was there the entire time, making sure he didn't go batshit up the fucking belfry like he had first felt he was going to. Instead it just felt good to let it out. To get out the god awful feeling of having everything his fault. To have his worries papped away with added loving shooshes.

The tears were brushed away from his face once they had stopped coming and Kanaya kissed him gently under each eye, on the black circles that seemed to permanently be there from lack of any decent sleep.

"Will you get some sleep now?" she asked him, her voice carrying her worry to him. He knew she worried over his sleeping patterns. It was good to know really, that someone cared about his health. She was probably the only one.

"Ugh, not yet. I will sleep once everyone is together again and then I can finally rest. God, I am so fucking tired, Kanaya. I got no sleep during the game..."

"I know. Just a little longer and then sleep for me."

He grinned slightly. "Sure. But not now. Can you go back to papping me? I need to just...finish this. Just crying isn't enough for me, even if it might be for most trolls. I'm too much of a basket case that cries at the drop of a fucking hat for it to do me any good."

He needed to reach catharsis or this would have been useless. For a second the hand on his abdomen disappeared, but it reappeared when he scrunched up his eyes and directed his thoughts back to where they had been. Yes. God, he needed this.

"I am quite sure I will be able to do this for you, Karkat. I would not volunteer my time to being your moirail if I did not."

He let out a moan at that one. How he longed to have her as his moirail. Then her hands, both of them, were on his face and papping him a little harder than before, rubbing one cheek and stroking the other in turns between the papping movements.

Oh god yes.

His feet kicked out in reaction to his muscles spasming with the building excitement within him. Some of his books tumbled off the pile and onto the floor but he was too far gone in the fantasy to care.

"Don't stop, don't stop. Please, for the love of everything that's left that is good in any world, don't stop."

He was there, right there, but he couldn't finish. He had never been able to finish. He began sobbing in complete frustration, and then Kanaya was there again, whispering into his ear. "Calm down a little, your mind is too tense."

"I don't know how! Help me!"

"Stop the papping and go back to the stroking. You will calm down with less stimulation."

"If I calm down like that, I'll lose it completely!"

"No you won't. You are right there. All you need to do is flip the switch and you can relax. To reach emotional catharsis you first need to calm your mind. You are stressing yourself from not being able to do this. You can do it, you just need to let go and allow nature to take its course. Stop trying to control everything you do."

"Okay, I'll try!" he groaned out loud, and stopped the papping in favour of gently stroking his face and oh wow, okay, yes he was calming down, and it still felt good and he was still right there, he only needed to flip that damn emotional switch in his mind.

Let nature take its course she said. Stop trying to control. Just go with it Vantas.

He let go.

There!

He flipped the switch and his body shook with the sudden change before he turned to jelly and sank back into the pile of books. He opened his eyes lazily and blinked up at the ceiling. He grinned, before a giggle escaped his lips.

Everything was shiny, new and good. He knew this afterglow wouldn't last long as someone was bound to message him or come snooping, but holy fuck he had done it. He had always had trouble with reaching this emotional release. All he had needed all along was someone gui...

Oh holy fuck!

He was never going to be able to look Kanaya in the eyes again after this. Thinking about her sharing a pile with him was embarrassing enough but...having imaginary her at the end talk him through papping himself to catharsis was depraved.

A ping from his crabtop made him turn to his computer. It was a message from Terezi, great. One of two people he really didn't want to speak to now.

Still, it was possible he was needed elsewhere. He was still leader after all.

gallowsCalibrator [GC] started trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]

GC: H3Y K4RK4T! GU3SS WH4T 1 FOUND?
GC: PUZZL3S 1N MY N3W CORR1DORS. PUZZL3S.
CG: THAT'S IT?! THAT'S WHAT YOU MESSAGED TO TELL ME?
CG: UGH. THANKS TEREZI, IT WAS EXACTLY THE KIND OF IMPORTANT INFORMATION I NEEDED.
CG: ON A ROCK MADE BY PEOPLE WHO HAVE LIVED IN A MEDIUM FILLED WITH PUZZLES, THEY PLACED PUZZLES IN THEIR SPAWNING LAB.
CG: WHOEVER WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT WAS POSSIBLE!
GC: WOW!
GC: SOM3ON3'S 1N 4 GOOD MOOD :]
GC: OOOH 4ND WH4T'S TH1S 1 SM3LL?
GC: C4TH4RS1S, K4RK4T?
GC: WHO'S TH3 LUCKY TROLL?
CG: YOUR NOSE IS DEFECTIVE.
GC: H33H33H33H33H33!
GC: H4H4H4H4H4H!
GC: YOU'R3 4LON3!
CG: OH MY FUCKING GOD!
CG: TEREZI
CG: NO. JUST... NO.
GC: H33H33H33! Y3S K4RK4T.
GC: YOU W3NT SN34K1NG OFF JUST TO P4P ON3 OUT.
CG: NO I DIDN'T! I DIDN'T SNEAK OFF ANY MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE DID.
CG: AND I DIDN'T SNEAK OFF TO PAP ONE OUT AS YOU SO DELICATELY PUT IT.
CG: I JUST...I WAS UNDER SO MUCH STRESS TEREZI. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN WEEKS I WAS ABLE TO HAVE TIME TO MYSELF FOR ME.
CG: I JUST WANTED TO FIND A PLACE TO LIE DOWN AND FUCKING CRY LIKE THE GODDAMN GRUB I AM.
GC: 4H4, L14R!
CG: RIGHT, I'M LYING. I DIDN'T CRY AT ALL! IN FACT, WHILE I WAS AT IT I PAILED MYSELF. ALL THIS RED AND YOU'RE MISSING IT TEREZI. WHAT A FUCKING SHAME.
CG: IT'S ABSOLUTELY EVERYWHERE, TEREZI.
CG: I DECIDED TO PAIL WITHOUT THE FUCKING PAIL.
GC: :/ 4LR1GHT 1 G3T TH3 H1NT.
GC: 1'LL DROP 1T G33Z3.
CG: THANK YOU. GOD DAMN IT!
GC: BUT YOU SO D1D P4P ON3 OUT ;]

carcinoGeneticist [CG] stopped trolling gallowsCalibrator [GC]