some cute girl asked for a domesticity au so prepare for sickeningly sweet fluff
Living together will be a major adjustment for your relationship. It will test your abilities to compromise, to tolerate each other’s idiosyncrasies, to find your yin and yang as a couple and, ultimately, it will be the arbiter of whether your relationship can survive the stress of shacking up.
"You left the seat up again."
Karkat’s sitting at Kankri’s desk in nothing but a pair of crab-print boxers, his attention drawn to figure looming in the entry to their repsiteblock.
"It’s a load gaper, Kankri. What’s the fucking point in closing it unless you’re sitting on it?"
"Well sometimes I clip my nails while sitting on it and I—"
"And you don’t look before you plant your ass?!"
Kankri bristles in offense and advances on his partner to give him a piece of his pan when he trips over a pile of clothes wadded up in the middle of the room.
"Karkat Vantas, what have I told you about poorly placed piles?!"
Biting back a smug smile, Karkat watches Kankri’s face shift and warp, struggling against the Patented Vantas Temper threatening to overtake his otherwise placid countenance.
"That’s not a pile. That’s just my clothes."
Kankri’s brow twitches and it takes all of Karkat’s willpower not to laugh out loud at how absolutely hysterical Kankri is when he’s angry.
This situation is about compromise and tolerance though, not provoking and needling, so Karkat climbs out of his chair, kicks the heap of garments aside and wraps his arms around Kankri’s narrow shoulders.
Hugs always defuse the tension.
Kankri is immune to hugs, but only from Karkat. They both are privy to this knowledge as indicated by Kankri’s scoff and Karkat’s winning grin.
"You’re incorrigible," the elder troll huffs as Karkat melts against him, his bare feet eclipsing Kankri’s boots as he uses the extra leverage to elevate himself to his mouth and cover it in kisses.
Kankri rolls his white eyes and pries his conniving mate off him (but not without accepting a few of those kisses, only a few).
"I have to go out and buy groceries. Will you be joining me?"
"Hell yes I will. You never get the right brand of cereal."
They exchange squinting looks, daring each other to back down.
Inevitably Kankri tires of the ineffectual staring contest and leaves his dancestor to gloat alone in their respiteblock.
Despite their knack for squabbling over every conscionable thing, when they enter a public setting they are holding hands like new lovers. Karkat seizes every opportunity to be close, nuzzling up to the taller troll as Kankri pushes their cart through the aisles.
He also gropes him with all the gusto of a new lover, brushing his hand over his ass on his way to fetch the milk or kissing him a little too long and too hard just out of the store’s camera scope.
Kankri’s scandalized squeaking is nothing but encouraging, and before they’ve filled their cart they’re wrestling each other, Karkat pawing and Kankri parrying.
Karkat is banished to the inside of the cart under the (false) guise of him captaining Team Vantas through the rest of their grocery run. This seems to satisfy his amorous partner and his busy hands which Kankri stocks full of food.
Kankri’s decided on spaghetti and meatballs—with extra meatballs for his carnivorous dancestor.
They have an unspoken agreement that Kankri do the cooking, but he doesn’t mind being saddled with this task. He finds it meditative and enjoys bustling around the nutritionblock to the sound of Karkat’s video games (he really wishes he wouldn’t play such violent games).
Ever since Karkat moved in with Kankri and they found their groove, they seem to have settled into a domestic lull. Kankri serves dinner on matching plates with complementing flatware and watches the young troll slurp down his meal with all the ferocity of a starved animal. He issues a belated thanks on a full belly and remains seated, demonstrating his grasp for patience as Kankri finishes his dinner because he knows how much Kankri appreciates manners.
Afterward they burrow into layers of blankets, tucked in tightly by Karkat who insists they if they nest they will do it properly for fucks sake.
"Like crabs," he adds with a stern scowl that dares Kankri to contest.
Instead Kankri answers him with a chirp not unlike that of a hermit crab, reveling in how Karkat puffs up in pure delight before coming alive in their blanket cave and covering his face in affectionate nips.
Domesticity has its perks.