For meme: jade/karkat/john, kanaya/jade/rose, terezi/vriska/kanaya, and the beta otp jade/rose/john/dave
…okay BUT a 3-pair is actually an emotional system of FOUR pairings (A/B,B/C,C/A,A/B/C) and a 4-pair contains ELEVEN within its multitudes so be advised i am not going to show my work on all 21 (-2 for the repeats)
jade/karkat/john
1. I really enjoy this one! A lot! And I think it works well and is adorable, either as a closed triangle or John and Jade sharing their favourite things, buuut. In the long term, it has the slight problem that John/Karkat is more fundamentally stable than Jade/Karkat, and over enough time that sort of dynamic will decay a 3-pair into an 2-pair. (sometimes quite messily! ho boy. Although less so with these people, I think)
2. @asukaskerian once put up an.. idea? ficlet? that solved the problem by tightly binding the *Jade/John* leg, so it became a pairing of (Jade-John)/Karkat, and that is an interesting approach.
…I suppose if it was my OTP I would not see this as an issue. In that case, we’ve reduced the problem to one already solved.
kanaya/jade/rose
1. I understand Rose/Kanaya, and I understand Jade/Rose, and I understand Jade/Kanaya, but for some reason I have never been able to fully get my head around kanaya/jade/rose. Eg. add Jade to r/k –> Rose/Kanaya *could* flip black, and if Kanaya is flush for Jade it probably does for *Kanaya*, but Rose is not actually as emotionally set up for blackrom as she would like you to think, and now Jade has to be the Stupid police for them and that’s not what she wants.
2. There is a threeway pining between them. Jade doesn’t see what the problem is, they should just go for it. They do. It works. It is that easy.
Or make the Jade/Kanaya blackrom, which has the potential for more depth than Jade/Kanaya redrom as it is. (*Jade* can be trusted to navigate an alien blackrom relationship under her own terms, without hurting herself, if she decides she wants to.)
terezi/vriska/kanaya
1. Kanaya auspisticizes Terezi and Vriska’s moirallegiance by getting fed up and eating Vriska. “Shes A Very Awful Moirail. Just Really Bad.” “TRU3! BUT YOU D1D TH4T MURD3R V3RY S3X1LY 4ND NOW 1 4M 4WKW4RDLY 4ROUS3D >:T” Then they do it on top of Vriska’s body and I end up tagging on ao3 with “non traditional lube” and “organs don’t go there. ew???”
2. Um. Or! A *directed* love triangle where Vriska is flushed for Kanaya, Kanaya is black for Terezi, and Terezi is still mooning after Vriska. 3somes is the only way to solve this mess.
Although. I keep forgetting to accept as a premise that I believe in the pairing, don’t I? So Vriska is flush for Kanaya, and Kanaya has not gotten over being flush for Vriska. And the Terezi/Vriska rivalry is a *problem* that Kanaya feels it is her duty to put herself in the middle of… IN BED. Eventually things settle into an ashy red all around, but not until after a series of fic where all the emotional development happens in a kink bingo blackout run.
the beta otp jade/rose/john/dave
1. Pictures of them all cuddling make me happy, it’s great.
I think as a poly sexual thing the dynamics would be more complicated than “we are all cheerfully and unjealously in love and have sex all the time with whoever is around!” which is mostly what I feel I’ve seen? (Also the closed loop feels weirdly incestuous in a way that is unrelated to the *incest*. It’s just very ingroup/outgroup, y'know?)
2. If we are doing plot parallels Jade is the one who brought them together as internet friends, but I’m tired of dumping work on Jade so. Dave is on a mission to set up Rose with John and/or Jade because Rose let slip she was into one or both of them, and Dave also is (except he is having trouble coming to terms with his sexuality) and since he is into Rose (as I SAID) it is kind of like he is dating them too? I mean. Haha, nah, it’s just that he’s up for Rose’s happiness..…wait.
Rose/John/Jade immediately becomes a happening, but - because it is more funny - they pretend otherwise, and also to be oblivious to Dave’s increasingly frustrated machinations. Until eventually they throw him a surprise Welcome To Sex party.
For the longest time you sit upright in your shitty motel bed, scratchy sheets pooled in your lap. Your eyes burn with exhaustion and the pit of your stomach feels hollowed out.
A whole night of John time, and you didn’t figure anything out at all. Just laid awake staring at the ceiling wishing it hadn’t happened, that the morning would bring Jade wide’s smile and Karkat’s rough greeting, simple. Everything flits through your mind like light on water, painfully bright and then gone again, leaving you unable to arrange your thoughts until something finally makes sense again. AUGH. Too complicated. Stupid Karkat. Stupid Jade. Stupid John. Bluh.
A shower later you’re still tired, but at least your body took the hint and is mostly functional as you stumble outside, duffel bag heavy over your shoulder. There, outside in the early light of dawn, is Karkat, leaning back against the car, legs crossed at the ankle and hands deep in the pockets of jeans. A twizzler is sticking out of his mouth, bobbing as he chews.
He looks exactly like you feel: awful.
As though he can sense your gaze his eyes catch yours. It feels like a little jolt, sharp and disorienting, before he looks away, throat working. Yanks the piece of candy out of his mouth, apparently seized with an acute need to break the eye contact to aimlessly rummage through his bag for an indeterminable amount of time -probably until you leave.
“He looks like he needs a hug,” someone whispers into your ear.
You jump about a freaking mile. “Jade!” you yelp, gripping the front of your hoodie where your heart is pounding in alarm like a victorian damsel with a fit of the vapours. “Don’t sneak up on me!” you tell her, whacking her shoulder.
“Well, it’s your fault for being all broody and gloomy, you know!” Jade counters, wagging her index in your face. There shall be no brooding on Jade Harley’s watch, no siree (then why the hell is she dating Karkat, you wonder).
You go cross-eyed trying to focus on it, then just wrap your hand around her finger and pull it down. “Well, excuuuuuuuuse me for being a little confused with this whole… whole… three person… thing! Three person I don’t even know what thing that apparently totally is a thing I didn’t get the memo about!”
Jade snatches her finger back and purses her lips. “Why does it bother you so much?”
“Because-! Jade, come on, you know why.”
She crosses her arms. Taps her foot. Urgh. “Actually, I don’t. Enlighten me.”
Is she really doing this? Oh gosh, she totally is. She’s going to make you say it out loud and you pretty much feel like the lowest scum already. Well, fine! “Because it’s you,” you tell her, quite miserably. Shaky exhale. “Because it’s you.”
Everybody always refers to you both as JadeandJohn, like that, in one breath. They’re right.
Jade is pretty much your whole world. The person who knows absolutely everything about you, all of it. All the bad, shitty stuff you did, some of it horrible enough the old, stale memories curdle your stomach with shame even now, years later. Your worst humiliations and brightest accomplishments: Jade was there for all of them. And she still loves you. Despite of them, because of them, both. She’s your safe place. Around her you never have to worry or be afraid of who and what you are.
Until now.
You tried. You tried really really really hard imagining it. Sex… stuff with Jade. And you just can’t imagine it at all. Not because Jade isn’t totally gorgeous! Not at all, she is, she really is. You like her so much and you enjoy being close to her, like the way she smells and her barking laugh and how she sniffs her food before putting it in her mouth, cute quirky stuff like that. But like. Actual sex…?
Do you have to stay away from Karkat and have half-conversations with him until you figure it out? What if you can never do sex stuff with her? What if you can? What if it ruins everything?
“Oh, John,” she breathes out, and then she’s hugging you close.
Jade gives the best hugs. She’s vertically gifted, about a handspan taller than you, all long legs and lean muscle, busty enough you’re always worried about hugging back too hard in case you squish ‘em (you accidentally elbowed her in the boob once. She cried. You cried. It was awful).
“Relationships are dumb,” you grumble against her shoulder. “Nothing makes sense.”
“You’re dumb,” Jade retaliates.
“No you.”
“You!”
“No, you times infinite.”
“Pfft.”
“And you know why?” she says, drawing back a little to peer at your face.
You squint up at her. “Because you’re a big cheater?” you offer.
“No, this is why!” and then she leans down and kisses you, simple as breathing.
It’s close mouthed, a burst of warm contact that spills warmth into you. Stays there, Jade does, smiling a little, and then you’re smiling, too, until both of you are grinning hard enough your lips don’t match in a kiss at all anymore. The bridges of your noses notch together and Jade’s hands are running along your back in broad swathes.
When she pulls away, the world is still spinning.
Jade kisses your nose, and you go cross-eyed for the second time. “I love you,” she says, ”but you’re such a dummy.”
“I did a dumb thing,” you tell her in a sudden rush -you don’t want to, want to keep it tucked out of sight where nobody can see the awfulness of it, which is exactly why you need to say it now or you won’t ever and it’ll just sit there, rotting. “A bad thing. Jade, I— I didn’t know, okay? About this stuff when I kissed Karkat back, that’s like super terrible of me, but I did it anyway.”
It doesn’t matter how in love or starved you were for him, you still kissed Jade’s boyfriend and it eats at you. Worse that it was Jade. Had it been some faceless person you never met before is godawful all by itself, but you love Jade more than anything in the world and it didn’t stop you.
She paps your face, nearly sticking fingers into your mouth. “Stop it!”
“But-!”
“Nope, lalala, I can’t hear it, John! Your mouth is moving but there is no sound!”
“Jade.”
“John.”
“Urgh.”
“Haha, I win!” Jade takes you by the shoulders and nudges you back a little. “As penalty you need to go and play nice with Karkat or so help me I will take the pick-up, I have the keys, and I will leave you both and drive into the sunset.”
“Uhm,” you answer intelligently.
Nah, she wouldn’t… shit, okay she totally would.
“GIT!” she snaps, clapping her hands and startling you into blinking.
She… she can’t be serious, it’s going to be awkward. Karkat is angry and might eat you and you totally need her to hold your hand when you sort of maybe try to talk about feelings. Karkat might laugh (he wouldn’t). Karkat might decide you’re not worth the trouble (he might).
When you just gape at her, incredulous because Jade no, Jade smacks your ass. Hard. You meep, clap both hands protectively over you butt, scramble out of range. Get glared at so fiercely that you decide to take your chances with Karkat after all.
Even if he breaks your heart or whatever.
You find Karkat still crouching, elbow deep in his huge rucksack and unmoving, staring sightlessly into the distance. He looks far away. Too far, and you fear you might not be able to reach him again. The possibility hurts, that you came this far and he might be lost to you regardless.
You’re going to try, though. Karkat is your friend first and foremost.
“Hi,” you say.
Slowly, stiffly, Karkat rises to his feet. You’re a little bit taller than him, but instead of raising his chin he always frowns at you from under his heavy brows, crest of his head tipped forward. Kinda reminds you of a little goat, because if he still’d have horns he’d have been brandishing the nubby fuckers at you.
“Hi,” he spits after a strained moment.
And then, both of you at the same time: “Karkat.” “John.”
You laugh, nervously. Karkat doesn’t.
Licks his lips instead. “John, I’m sorry. I should never—“
no
no don’t, please don’t
“—have kissed you.”
ah
“Shut up,” you snap at him, hands tightening into fists.
And there, for a single split-second, is that look. You never knew what heartbroken looked like, until you met Karkat. It’s always gone before you know it, and it’s only ever in his eyes, and he always makes so sure to cover it up nicely with that ground-shaking anger of his. But Karkat can look absolutely shattered and yet still keep his head high.
It’s not a look you can handle and you never ever ever wanted to be the one to have brought it to his face.
And there it is: the fury, the low boiling energy living in Karkat’s blood and muscles and flesh rising to the surface and peeling his lips away from his teeth as he pulls away from you emotionally. Which is exactly the last thing you want.
“Don’t be sorry you kissed me,” you tell him, rushing your words fast enough they tangle together. “Don’t you be fucking sorry for that. I liked it. Sorry for pushing you off the log. I was confused.”
There.
There, see? You totally laid out a feelings jam there. Nicely summarised and ready for consummation.
Karkat’s eyes sweep over your face like a scythe. That brittle look is still there and you watch the flickering of muscles along his jaw and temples. So angry, you have no doubt he is, but there’s something frail about it.
“I’m going to hug you now,” you say nice and slow, pronouncing every single word carefully so there can’t be any misunderstandings. You waggle fingers in his direction, sway closer warningly: and-a-one… and-a-two…
Karkat’s brows shift from ‘I am about to shit a sentient brick that will barf fire’ to ‘you are so weird and I am worried about you’.
Still, he stays, and lets you put your arms around him. Karkat always seems larger than life, seems like he might burn you down in a last, glorious and all-consuming blaze, leaving you nothing but ashes. But he’s just lovely warmth, and a little shorter than you. He smells sharp and a little wild, like sparks on metal, and painfully human underneath that when you press your face into his thick hair.
There’s a strangled intake of air against your collarbone. You feel a little like crying, you don’t know why, and you don’t know if you can do more than this (caress, kiss, hold his hand a little) if—if you’re not going to do sex things with Jade, whether it means everything else is off-limits, whether Karkat is.
Arms wind around your neck and constrict, dragging you in. Something inside of your chest goes hot and savage. Lips on your cheek, the corner of your eye. Stay there to murmur. “You scared the shit out of me, you obnoxious windbag.”
How he manages to say that with such tenderness you have no idea, but you snicker a little. “Sorry, dude. I totally didn’t expect it. Catches a guy off guard, you know?”
Karkat snorts. “Like it wasn’t totally obvious I wanted to fuck you ever since I saw you drunk off your idiot ass and five seconds away from hurling half-digested junk food into some complete stranger’s backyard.”
UH.
Okay.
Your head pounds with the amount of blood throbbing between your ears. Wow, it sure is warm outside. Phew. Your cheeks might be on fire. Mayday, mayday.
Karkat isn’t done, he’s still talking, his rough voice scratching at the crest of your cheekbone. “Not something I am expecting from you, by the way, but just so you know. For someone so catastrophically horrible you’re… rather doing a pretty good job not being completely horrible.”
“I feel very romanced now,” you inform him and you kind of wish you were joking.
That’s when he pulls back until your noses touch. “You better,” he growls and then his lips are on yours.
He’s searing although he’s just laying out close-mouthed pecks against your lips. They come fast, one after the other, with just enough cling of your flesh on his you get plucks of shivery-electric sensation straight down to the pit of your belly. The arms around your neck are heavy, curled so he can get fingers into your hair to keep your face cradled to his liking. And then he licks. A wet-hot lap at the soft seam of your lips, oh fuck, you nip back, almost warningly, catching the edge of his lower lip and keeping it trapped for a moment. It gets a soft little hitch out of him, full-bodied, as well as a catch in his throat. When you slowly let it purse out from between your teeth he shivers, clutches you tighter and curls his tongue into your mouth.
Oh no. Oh, fuck.
He tastes wonderful.
You shove him up against the pick-up, fully intending to drown yourself in him.
The heat of his groin is fascinating where you’ve wedged your thigh between his -you put pressure against him, and he chokes, head going back. Your mouth drops down to his bare throat, and his pulse and blood and breath roars under your teeth.
You want to make him scream.
“I knew you two would look great together!” Jade cuddles up against your back, effectively sandwiching you. “I want tickets to this show,” she adds.
Even though yeah, you’re startled, you also find that, well. You like her there. Nice and warm and familiar and lovely compared to Karkat’s novel turbulence. You lean your head back, bumping gently into her cheek. “We’ll save you front row seats,” you promise her, smiling up at the sky from between your lashes.
“And backstage passes,” Karkat adds, transferring one hand from your hair to hers.
Both you and Jade go SNRK as one, before exploding into sniggers. You smother yours helplessly against the bare expanse of his neck.
“What?” Karkat wants to know. “What did I say? What?”
“Backstage…” you snicker.
“…pass!” Jade says, and both your hands reach around to get a good handful of his ass.
Karkat jumps a little, and you know he’s going ruddy in the face.
Of course, Jade just has to go on: “I’m in,” she whispers, low and knowing.
Now his face is definitely burning up, and he’s grumbling something about fucking yay infantile giggling, now in stereo —but not complaining, you note. Not complaining at all. You can work with that. You and Jade both.
There’s lips against the nape of your neck, fond and loving, before sliding away so she can kiss Karkat over your shoulder.
Yeah. You can work with this.
And it’s still working, three days later. Another dingy motel room: you fall asleep with Karkat’s head on you chest and the flat of his hand palming your hip, wake up with your face comfortably wedged into Jade’s cleavage and her arms around you. There’s a hard dick against the back of your thigh.
Happiness suffuses your being, and the only thing that could make your life even more awesome right now is if you were to find someone else.
