"The trannies should be able to piss in whatever toilet they want and change their bodies however they want. Why is it my business if some chick has a dick or a guy has a pie? I'm not a trannie or a fag so I don't care, just give 'em the medicine they need."
"This is an LGBT safe space. Of COURSE I fully support individuals who identify as transgender and their right to self-determination! I just think that transitioning is a very serious choice and should be heavily regulated. And there could be a lot of harm in exposing cis children to such topics, so we should be really careful about when it is appropriate to mention trans issues or have too much trans visibility."
One of the above statements is Problematic and the other is slightly annoying. If we disagree on which is which then working together for a better future is going to get really fucking difficult.
Someone who says they don't care if dudes wear dresses and makeup is a better ally than someone who says they're a safe space for women and non-binary people. I am not joking.
yeah I went to a gay bar recently with my husband tumblr user beemovieerotica, and a VERY confused capital S Southerner straight man in cargo shorts and a trucker hat showed up
apparently he (who through my drunken memory I remember only as Earl) liked some woman, and she told him that he wasn't cultured enough and needed to attend his first drag show (she also flaked on him)
Now I'm reasonably androgynous and was wearing makeup, a short leather skirt, and black heeled boots, but still when this guy came up to me when I was standing off alone and asked "So. Do you come here often?" with a very earnest expression, I thought. Surely not. This guy doesn't think I'm a straight woman does he????
Anyway I start talking with this guy and he has no idea what the fuck is going on but he is just a very kind and earnest dude and asked a lot of questions (while asking if it was alright if he asked those questions). I track down my husband and friends and I'm like y'all. We need to make sure that Earl has a Good Fucking Time tonight.
Man was completely out of his depth. At one point they put on a puppy auction to raise money for Pride, that started with a 6 ft drag queen in all her glory leading a leather pup out on a leash to the tune of that damned RSPCA "in the arms of the angels" song
We look at Earl. Nervous. He squints, laughs, and then goes "I was wondering why people were dressed like that!" He turned to me and asked "So they're like dogs?" And I said yeah pretty much. And he just chuckled and went "Yeah I thought so with the tails! Never seen this before!"
When the first drag king came out, Earl looked at me wide eyed and went "There's a dude version too?!" And I said yeah they're called drag kings. And he said, low, "Drag kings."
During one of the queens performances, he frowned, shook his head and told me, "Your legs are better than hers." in a tone that implied he thought there was some travesty taking place and I should also be getting paid
When he found out I was there with my husband (and that I am not a woman) he profusely apologized and said "I'm so sorry, it's dark in here and I thought you were a hot chick! I wouldn't have said nothing if I knew you had a husband, I'm so sorry about that."
When beemovie invited me to the dance floor with him later and I still had a drink in my hand, Earl said "Oh don't worry about that I can hold your drink, you get on out there and shake your ass with your husband!" Then before we left, Earl bought me drinks for "Putting up with me all night and answering everything. Y'all helped me have a great time tonight."
like. You gotta recognize there's going to people who have never had interacted outside of their of their own community. This includes you. And just because your community is familiar with all the right vocabulary and how to correctly say something, it doesn't mean they're actually going to support you. If someone like Earl shows up, confused and out of their depth but kind and curious and earnest, you gotta have patience and truck through the small things, so when he goes back to his friends and his coworkers and they snicker asking how the drag show was, he can genuinely talk about how included we tried to make him feel and that he had a great time
Sanitized language is a tool of oppression, always has been and always will be.
And yes, I get being pissed off by slurs. I do. But in the times we are living in right now, we really need to all pivot our priorities to safety.
"Earl" will talk to all his Busch drinking, tractor-pulling, gun toting, conservative voting friends about the nice and friendly and harmless trannies he met, and they will understand him.
They do not know what gender non-conforming, trans-femme/masc, demiboy, agender genderqueer bisexual lesbians are, and quite frankly, they do not need to.
What we need from Earl and his friends is for them to feel neutrally enough about us to not become violent with us, and to spread the idea that violence against us is not necessary or warranted. They are simply not going to do that in a language that is not their own.
You know, I really liked your marvelstuck series until it just turned into a mix of fluff and forced angst centered around Bro. It started out so good with all those deep topics like what happens when you lose an abusive guardian, but now it just feels like all you care about is getting sympathy for a character who should no longer be plot relevant and suddenly healing a character’s trauma in favor of happy family shit. You can do better than this shit.
see this is where “don’t like don’t read” comes in, my friend. writing fic is, for me at least, majorly self-indulgent, and for the recent past I’ve been enjoying writing about Ambrose. you’re free to just sort of. ignore those until I get around to writing something else?
or you can message me off anon with a fic idea and a monetary offer and i’ll write whatever the hell you want lmao. don’t complain about free shit unless you want to start paying for it.
EDIT: dude did you. did you not notice this blog hadn’t been touched for a literal year at least. like this is nowhere near my main tumblr, this isn’t even the one that’s listed on my ao3 profile holy shit. did you just get So Mad that you searched my ao3 username and left an angry voicemail with the closest blog you could find. this blog doesn’t even have any marvelstuck on it bro.
A phone's ringing, and someone's nudging your shoulder.
Those two events might be connected.
You're going to keep your eyes shut and ignore them both.
Like fuck you are. Quit trying to play dead, motherfucker; it's not like I can answer your phone.
Okay, so apparently you're not allowed to ignore them. You open your eyes, see Kurloz leaning over you, and immediately close them again. "Jesus Christ, dude."
Don't act like you weren't expecting me.
"Look, you're not exactly the best fucking thing for a guy to see right when he wakes up. Can you fuckin' blame me?"
Yes.
"...fuck off."
He pushes something into your hand. Your phone, you're pretty sure. Deal with your kin.
"My—shit. D." Now, that gets you to sit up and fumble with the phone for a second, glancing at Kurloz as you hit the Accept Call button. "Where the fuck is this place, anyway?"
Pocket dimension. Scratch claimed it and started building his mansion here sometime before humans figured out how to get a handle on fire.
"Well, fuck. Wonder if I'm gonna get charged for a long-distance call."
Kurloz just shrugs and sits back on his heels, one hand coming up to feel at where Karkat ripped his stitches out as D starts talking in your ear. Or at least as the call connects and you hear what he's saying.
"—fucking pick up, fuck, Dave—fuckin' say something, kiddo, if you're there and not fucking dead you need to—"
"Yo, D."
"Oh thank god." He lets out a relieved breath, and you hear something thump on his end. Sounds like he just slammed his hand against the hood of the truck. "What was with that last call, man? Are you okay? Is Karkat still with you? What the hell's going on? Is—"
"Dude, stop for a second—I just woke up, I can't keep track of this shit." Fuck. Karkat. You almost panic before you glance the right way and see him sprawled on the floor a couple feet from you, apparently unconscious. He's breathing, anyway, and you can feel his presence in your mind, so you're going to assume he's okay. Hopefully.
"The fuck do you mean, you just woke up—"
"D."
"Yeah?"
"Either calm the fuck down or hand Dirk the goddamn phone."
"Dirk's running diagnostics on Hal right now; you're stuck with me. And I'm not calming down until you answer my fucking questions!"
Okay, that's fair. What were his questions again?
"Uh. Okay, Karkat's here but he's still out—I woke up before him for once, maybe 'cause Kurloz decided I was the one who needed to take this fucking call—"
He was asking for you, not Vantas. Seemed to be under the impression he was talking to you when I tried to answer that motherfucker.
"If you were on the phone with him, why the fuck did you wake me up?"
Kurloz just gives you an exasperated look and motions at his stitched mouth.
"...oh."
"Dave, what the fuck's going on?"
"You seem to think I have a fuckin' answer to that—"
You and Vantas killed a demigod.
"Uh, Kurloz says we killed a demigod."
There's a good thirty seconds of silence.
Then, "What the fuck?"
"Yeah."
"Are you okay?"
"As far as I can tell? I'm fine. Karkat's unconscious." You scoot over closer to the demon, putting one hand on his chest and letting your mind half-merge with his. He doesn't feel like he's been hurt. "I'm...pretty sure he'll be okay. I have no fucking clue where my sword went..."
Mortal weapons weren't meant to kill something like Scratch. It's motherfucking gone, kiddo.
"Damn. I liked that sword."
"I know some bladesmiths; we can go get you a new sword to make up for this shitty-ass birthday...where are you, anyway?"
What did Kurloz say? Oh, yeah. "Pocket dimension."
"...and you get cell service there."
"Again, do you really think I know what's going on—"
Karkat groans, his eyes half-opening.
"Whoops, hang on, D—consider yourself on hold for a minute."
"Hey, wait—"
Before he can finish protesting, you hand the phone off to Kurloz (ignoring the look he gives you) and lean over Karkat, offering him a smile as his eyes focus on you. "Hey, man."
"...hey." The smile you get back is more confused than anything, but you can feel the demon's rising worry drain away as you pull him up to lean on you. "Two questions."
"Hit me with 'em."
Karkat purrs as you wrap an arm around his shoulders. "Mmm. Are you okay?"
"Definitely. Need a new set of clothes. My sword's gone."
"The one you killed that basilisk with?"
"Yep."
"Well, fuck." He growls softly, shaking his head. "That's going to be fun to replace."
"Eh. It was worth it, I think."
"Oh?" He looks over at you, eyebrows raising a little. "Anyway. Question number two. What the fuck did we just do, Dave?"
"Kurloz says we killed a demigod."
"That bastard Scratch is a demigod?"
"I mean, he was, but yeah. You don't remember killing him?"
Karkat hesitates for a second, then shakes his head. "No. You flipped us, tangled us up until I couldn't tell myself from you. That's all I remember."
"Huh. Weird."
Not really. Demons were never meant to stand against that motherfucker; you rode him, used him as a tool, and only you keep the memory. Safer for him that way. Kurloz holds out the phone again. Take this thing.
Karkat eyes him for a moment. "Why the fuck are you still here again?"
I'm your ride home. The travel orbs won't bond with the new owner for a couple days at least. Take the phone.
"Wait, new owner?" you ask.
The Speaker huffs out a breath through his nose, eyes flaring brighter with irritation. Passage of ownership.
You can feel Karkat's understanding and surprise as he processes that. "Alright, one of y'all explain what that means."
"It's a magic thing," Karkat says slowly. "You know how some powers pass down through family lines? Yeah, well, this is another setup for that shit—it's more for items owned, property, than it is for powers themselves. Almost nobody uses this setup anymore, because ownership only passes to whoever kills the last fucking owner. Gives everybody an excuse to try to kill whoever holds the current title."
"So...we own this fucking mansion?"
Precisely. And you're pretty fucking safe from any other motherfuckers who want to own it, mostly because nobody still knows it exists. Kurloz's mouth twists into a tiny smile. Well. Other than me.
"You planning on killing us, going after ownership of this place?" you ask him.
He shakes his head. Not unless you don't take your motherfucking phone back.
Karkat laughs as you roll your eyes and take the phone out of the Speaker's hand.
It takes ten minutes before you can calm D down enough for him to let you hang up so Kurloz can take you back. You go with one of the white cueball things in your pocket; the Speaker says you need to keep it on or near you for the next week or so.
Lightning and fire obscures your vision just like last time, but this time it's white where it was green. Before it even fades away, D more-or-less tackles you, wrapping his arms around you and lifting you off your feet.
"Holy fucking shit, Dave—"
"D, you're gonna get blood on you—"
"Ask me if I care—"
Okay, fair enough. You quit worrying about that, for the moment at least, instead hugging him back and letting yourself grin. Opening your mind to Karkat so he can feel his fucking relieved you are to come back to your family—how happy you are right now—is almost automatic.
"You're going to smother him, D," Dirk points out. As soon as D lets you go, though, Dirk's grabbing you and pulling you into a hug of his own, just a little more gentle than D's. "You leave me outside again when shit's going down," he whispers in your ear, "I'm going to kill you, you know that?"
"I know, man, I know." And you do—you can feel Dirk's stress finally draining, as he pulls away. Even if he didn't have to see you die, he still had to handle not knowing what was happening, and he's sensitive enough to know when magic as major as raising the dead and teleportation's happening near him. "Is Hal okay?"
"Right here." The shikigami taps your shoulder, grinning at you when you pull back from Dirk. There's a bruise across his left temple, but he looks fine otherwise. "You're going to have to give me a play-by-play of what I missed, you know."
"Definitely."
As you step back and slip an arm around Karkat's waist, D asks, "Y'all ready to go home?"
Dirk and Hal nod, and you and Karkat answer in unison.
Whatever this method of traveling is, you fucking hate it. For a second after Kurloz lets go of your hand, you can't see a thing but green and purple fire, the Speaker's magic fighting whatever that green shit is.
Even before your vision clears you're grabbing for your backup blades. Yeah, Karkat's probably still got your sword, but you're not taking the time to take it from him; he can use it as well as you can, if he needs to.
And he probably will.
You blink again, and everything comes into focus. Fuckin' finally.
Kurloz has already taken a few steps back, arms folding in front of himself. Maybe he's a threat, but you don't think so. Karkat agrees with you, obviously; the demon doesn't even glance at Kurloz, just moves to put his back against yours, scanning the room for threats.
...as far as you can see, there aren't any.
This is maybe the fanciest fucking place you've ever been in, though. Like, it looks like a setup in a magazine, designed for the express purpose of showing the ideal for whatever the fuck kind of room this is supposed to be. You don't even have a definite name for what this place's fucking function is. Probably overwhelming idiots who get dropped in here—
"Dave, focus," Karkat murmurs.
"I am—there's just fuck-all to focus on, c'mon." Other than that whatever asshole owns this place has a fuckin' fetish for green. And this place is annoying enough that I feel like seeing how much blood I can get on his nice neat wallpaper.
"Don't put it like that."
"Don't worry, babe, I'm not gonna bleed any more than I already have..."
"You certainly won't."
The new voice is smooth, cool, and faintly annoyed. Both you and Karkat spin to the left, weapons coming up to defend or attack, whichever you need to do first—
And Karkat makes a strangled noise and falls to his knees, confusion and fury rolling off him in waves. For an instant you're torn between asking him what the fuck's going on. Then your training kicks in, and you step in front of him, acting as a shield as you focus on the enemy.
The enemy is...a guy. Just a guy, an old-ish seems-to-be-human. He doesn't have the familiar aura of a demon, and as far as you can tell there's nothing overtly threatening about him. Well, the fact that there doesn't seem to be any color in him, not in his skin or his short hair or even his fucking eyes creeps you out, but other than that there's nothing.
The stupid green suit doesn't help either. Whoever told him that dressing to match his interior decorating theme oughta be shot.
One white eyebrow goes up. "For someone destined to rule the world, you certainly are quite easily distracted by minutiae."
"I'm not gonna rule the fucking world, dude." Karkat?
The demon whines behind you, and you catch a flare of almost-panic from him. He doesn't send any coherent thoughts, though, and neither does he move.
"Well. I suppose we can work with the path of destruction." The guy shrugs, nodding at Kurloz. "Although I must say that if that's your choice, Speaker to the Dead is slipping. He swore that the First would be the one with the violent tendencies. Pity."
"What, you sorry I won the fight, Snowball?" You can sense magic between him and both the demons, like spider's silk or puppeteer's threads. More like the latter, really; Karkat wouldn't be kneeling if he had a choice, and when you spare a glance over your shoulder you see that Kurloz is in the exact same position, on his knees with resigned fury in his purple eyes. "Don't tell me you backed the wrong horse in this shitshow."
"Hardly." He shakes his head, walking towards and past you, never coming within five feet of your blades as he steps over to a bookshelf and examines its contents. "If this is a race, it's my race. I own all the horses, you might say."
"You don't own me—"
"Oh, David. I orchestrated almost every aspect of your life; of course I own you. You're my creature, created specifically to fulfil that fool's prophecy—" a dismissive wave of his hand at Kurloz — "and you've done so amazingly. You're the first of the candidates to willingly sacrifice yourself and have the Speaker bring you to me. You should be honored."
"Somehow, I'm not. And if you call me David again, I'm gonna see if your blood's as white as the rest of you."
"I don't doubt your determination. Your ability, however?" The man turns to face you, giving you an oddly stiff smile. Like he only has the faintest idea of what the expression's supposed to look like. "The Messiah can't harm me, David."
Okay, enough of this shit. He's fucking daring you to hurt him now, and who are you to turn down a good dare?
You lunge for him, leading with your right hand and the shorter knife there. He'll dodge and you know that, if nothing else he'll try to step back out of range, but you're ready to correct for any way he can move. Not like he can go far when he's put himself in a fucking corner—
He doesn't even try to move.
But you somehow miss him.
What the fuck?
It's like space warps around this asshole. You're perfectly on target—your knife oughta take him right in the throat, but instead it slips to one side, avoids him like the weapon and his body carry matching magnetic charges.
What the fucking hell?
He's right.
You can't touch him.
When you come to that conclusion, you force yourself to stop attacking, to fall back next to Karkat again. "What the hell are you?"
One corner of his mouth twitches upwards in a motion that would come across as natural on anyone else and seems fake as hell on him. "The operative question is 'who,' not 'what,' David."
"The operative question is whatever the hell I wanna ask, fucker, and what seems to be pretty fucking important since there's no fucking way you're human—"
"My dear boy, whereever did you get the idea that I was human?" Another calculated smile. "Humans don't generally have this level of dominion over demons." And a gesture towards Karkat and Kurloz.
Shit. "Answer my fucking question and let him go."
"The latter would be quite unwise for me, now wouldn't it? I don't have the same level of invulnerablity from the children of elements as I do from you, after all." He shrugs and reaches for a book, sliding it out from its place and opening it rather than look at you. "You've asked several questions, none of which are coherent or specific enough to deserve an answer. However, I suppose a working relationship does require that you know some iteration of my name."
"We don't have a working relationship, asshole."
Dave, careful... Karkat thinks at you.
"Oh, but we most certainly do." There's no warmth behind the smile he gives you. It might as well be painted on. "The term messiah implies a god behind it, and while I don't quite qualify for that title yet, I'm sure you and I can change that."
You're in so far over your head here. "Pretty fucking bold assumption. That I'm gonna work with you."
"For me, David. You work for me." He sets the book back in place on the shelf, stepping towards you.
You can't retreat, not unless you plan on abandoning Karkat, so you stand your ground and move your blades up to defend.
"You're quite stubborn." Again, he seems to repulse your weapons; you can't stop him from reaching past them, grabbing your chin and forcing you to look into those damned colorless eyes. "A shame, really. On anyone else it might be an asset, but in you it's simply an annoyance."
His grip's strong, but nowhere near as bruisingly tight as Bro's would be; you don't have any problem twisting out of it. "Hey, if you thought I was gonna be a nice sweet pet, you got another think coming."
"More of a tool than a pet." He shrugs again, tilting his head slightly. "Again, I must say that you're easily distracted from the matter at hand."
"Fuck you."
"I don't believe I deserve that, David."
"Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, asshole."
That just earns you a neutral stare, a couple seconds of silence, and Karkat mentally scolding you for being a fucking combative idiot.
"My name," the guy says finally, "is Scratch. Well. It really isn't, but your guardian seemed to think it fit me quite well, and for the sake of this discussion, Doctor Scratch is a perfectly reasonable way to address me."
"We're not having any kind of discussion until you take your freaky mind shit off Karkat."
"As I said before, releasing the demons is inadvisable. I don't intend to allow myself to be killed this close to my own endgame." Scratch smiles again. "And the blood demon provides a very valuable bargaining chip, doesn't he? I must say that I never expected you to be the one to provide the very leverage I required to control you."
"What—" No. You don't need to ask him what he means; you know.
You'd do anything to protect Karkat. Even though he's almost shouting in your head, trying to tell you not to go along with whatever Scratch wants, you know that if the alternative is letting him be hurt, there really isn't any alternative at all.
Fuck.
And Scratch must see your thinking in your face, because he nods and laughs. "There we are. You're much more intelligent than your guardian ever gave you credit for, David—we both know there's only one way this can go. Perhaps you attempt to injure me a few more times—you're human, after all; persistence is one of your more amusing traits—perhaps you force me to cause your lover enough pain for you to give up and cooperate, perhaps you put aside this ridiculous stubbornness. But in the end, you'll ally yourself with me. You don't have a choice."
"I'll—"
"Yes, yes. You'll kill me, I quite understand. Except you can't."
The Messiah's gotta make his own motherfucking choice, Scratch. Nothing you can gain by pressing the issue.
"Quiet, Kurloz," Scratch says sharply, and the Speaker makes maybe the third noise you've heard out of him—a soft, muffled sound of pain.
You instinctively turn to look at him.
Kurloz hasn't moved at all; he's still there on his knees. All that's changed is that there's now a trickle of blood from his nose in addition to the bleeding from his ripped stitches, and his eyes are pure violet now, nothing but bright purple voids in his face.
You know you shouldn't look into those eyes.
You can't fucking help it.
Took you long enough, motherfucker, Kurloz thinks at you as soon as you meet his eyes, and then he rips your mind from your body with a sensation that you've felt maybe hundreds of times before. After all, this is something you've done yourself, isn't it?
Kurloz is the one who forces you into it, but you're still the one who flips places with Karkat. And as soon as you open your eyes (the demon's eyes) you know the answer to this fucking riddle.
You can attack Scratch, but you can't hurt him. Karkat could hurt him, but can't attack him.
The two of you together? The two of you, wound into one mind in two bodies?
That changes the fucking game entirely.
Everything moves very, very fast.
You hit the floor and Karkat rolls up to his feet, sword coming up and ready—except from your point of view you're the one who rises, you're the one who lunges past the demon who's in your body while you're in his. The blade passes over his head as he ducks, with maybe two inches to spare—too close for comfort, any other time, but right now it might as well be five fucking feet.
Right now, it's as likely that you'd hurt him as it is that you'd slip and cut off one of your own limbs. He is you, you're him, and there's no way to know which of you is the force behind the swing of the sword that cleanly decapitates Scratch.
And "clean" is the accurate word.
There's no blood.
Reality seems to slip sideways, and instead of a severed head falling to the floor, it's an orb exactly like the ones that lit the building you just left, like the one Kurloz used to bring you here, but for the size. It's smooth and white, completely without markings, maybe a foot in diameter.
Time fucking stops as it falls.
The orb doesn't shatter when it hits the black-and-white checkered floor.
It explodes.
You think you flip back with Karkat, back into your own body. Unconsciousness comes too fucking fast for you to tell for sure.
You know what's coming heartbeats before Bro's sword slides in past your guard and between your ribs. That doesn't stop it from hurting so fucking much, more than anything that's ever happened to you.
Jesus fucking Christ—
Karkat freezes as the feeling hits him. Fuck, no, he's going to get killed—Speaker, if you hurt him you'll die slow—
Says the motherfucker with a hole in his heart. But Kurloz leaves Karkat, seizing Hal instead and flinging him brutally against the wall. The shikigami's going to need serious maintenance after this shit's over, unless Kurloz is being a hell of a lot more—
Bro jerks the sword out, and you lose the thought and your breath in one red wash of pain. When it recedes—or you adjust to it, although you don't know how the hell you can adjust to something of this magnitude—you're on the floor, half-curled around the pain in your chest, wet heat soaking into your shirt even as your ability to feel it fades.
Karkat's snarling, his desperation bleeding into your mind as you bleed out, and you try to make yourself heard by the Speaker again.
...keep him off me. Another minute.
Of course.
Fuck.
This hurts. This hurts.
Bro's leaning over you, you realize hazily. Face unreadable, shades gone missing, sword in hand but lowered—why would he need the sword? You're good as dead, just haven't stopped thinking yet.
Your hearing's cut out, but you can read his lips. Useless brat, he says, and maybe he says something else but you either close your eyes or lose that sense as well as sensation and sound.
Love you, 'kat, you think. You hope he hears.
Dying hurts.
Death is painless.
You hear him. Your Bro. You can't answer, but he's not really talking to you.
What the FUCK are you doing, you little shit!?
Now, I know the motherfucking boss told you the rules, First. Not our fault you couldn't be bothered to get your listen on.
What the hell—
STOP IT!
I'll fucking kill you, you fuckin'—fucking DEMON—
That supposed to be an insult?
It hurts, it fucking hurts, it HURTS—
Hey.
Second can't seem to tell you this shit, so I'll say it for him.
Dying always hurts. Especially when somebody deserves it as much as you do, motherfucker.
Make it stop you FUCKER—
Not for you I won't.
He starts screaming, the sound and the echoes of his pain ripping through you, and you wonder if you can lose your mind when you're dead. Before you really have time to start worrying about it, purple light washes everything away.
Come on back to the motherfucking living, Messiah.
You gasp in a breath.
That hurts almost as much as dying did, and also starts you coughing so hard you can't get another one. Karkat and Kurloz are still fighting, you can hear the snarls, but somebody's cradling you.
And making a variety of ungodly startled sounds.
You force your eyes open and figure out that it's D. The look on his face—grief and amazement and confusion all rolled up into a new flavor of pain—makes you want to close them again. You never meant to hurt him like this.
Instead, you clutch at his shirt and try to get yourself upright enough that you have a chance at breathing. He gets what you're doing after only a second, hauling you up and supporting you as you try not to choke on the blood you're coughing up.
Fuck, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die again, I'm going to fucking—Karkat, I need you, please, I need—
He's not hearing you.
Shit. No.
Calm down.
Kurloz twists towards Karkat's next lunge instead of away, his dreadlocks shifting, losing the sharp edges but not the prehensile nature as they lengthen and trap your demon like a fly in a spiderweb. Even as Karkat howls Kurloz slams him to the ground, dropping on top of him, pinning him there for a moment that's too fucking long.
The blood that drips from the Speaker's ripped stitches seems purple in the light from his eyes.
For a second, Karkat struggles. Then his eyes fill with liquid violet, his form shifts to human, and he goes limp.
And then he turns his head to look at you, the purple drains out of his eyes like blood down a drain, and his pure fucking presence fills your mind completely.
Dave! Dave! Dave—
You force yourself to get one fucking breath in, just so you can use it on him. "Kar—Karkat—"
Then you're coughing again, blood dripping out of your mouth and down your chin, but it doesn't fucking matter because he throws off Kurloz; before the Speaker to the Dead hits the floor and rolls easily to his feet again, he's got you. Karkat has you, arms wrapped around you, gripping tight enough to hurt even as his blood magic curls around your chest, easing the leftover pain and helping the blood left from your previously-punctured lung make its way out without choking you. He's got you.
He's got you.
He's also bleeding where Kurloz's dreadlock-blades slashed him, more than one spot. As soon as your coughing eases enough that you can steady your hands, you reach out to very carefully touch what seems like one of the worst ones, a long cut across his upper arm.
"What fuckin' part'a 'don't hurt him' do you not get, Kurloz?" Your voice is rough; talking hurts more than a little, and the Speaker doesn't have grace enough to do more than shrug, palms upraised in a what do you want from me? stance. "Fucker."
"I don't understand," Karkat whispers, wiping gently at your face. "Holy fucking shit, I don't understand, I don't fucking understand—you fucking died, Dave, I thought you died, you left me, I thought he fucking killed—"
"He did fuckin' die," D breaks in shakily. "No question about it, I checked his goddamn pulse, there wasn't—"
You wince as D's voice breaks on the last word, and reach over to grab at his shirt, pull him in close enough that you can get an arm around him and Karkat at the same time. Speaking of shirts, you want a clean one—the one you're wearing is soaking wet, with a hole right above the nice new scar over your heart.
"I—" You get one word out, cough again, and switch to thinking at Karkat instead. I did, I did die—it hurt, man, I know it hurt you, I'm sorry—
He laughs at that despite the tears streaming down his face, still trying to get you clean. "It hurt me? What the fuck, Dave?"
I had to.
"Why?"
I— Shit. You're already forgetting; the knowledge Kurloz gave you has a fucking expiration date, apparently. He doesn't want you knowing everything about his damned cult for any longer than you need to. Kurloz. Speaker.
Two Messiahs there are, one stolen from death and one from danger,Kurloz sends as soon as you ask him for help. Karkat snarls softly, shifting to put himself between you and the Speaker, and D goes stiff at the voice in his head. Lost to each other and found by others, brought together by fate and design; one may continue and only one, to rule the world or end it. The lot of the victor shall be the fate of the vanquished, and death shall claim the one who little expects it.
"If you want the fu-fu-fucking cohe—coherent version—" holy fuck you still can't breathe right— "if I stabbed him—" you nod at the unmoving corpse on the other side of D, careful not to look at it or even think about it too long, "he woulda gone down, and a couple mi-minutes later he wou—woulda got up, and I—"
"Don't say it." Any other time, there'd be a bite to Karkat's words; now there's just pleading. "Don't fucking say it, I'm not thinking about that, I can't fucking—"
"Shh." You've still got one arm slung over Karkat's neck; you use that to pull him in, pressing your lips against his. That leaves his almost cherry-red when you pull back, but he doesn't seem to care. I'm alive. Lil' worse for wear, but I'm alive. I'm alive, and he's not.
"You're alive," Karkat repeats, leaning his forehead against yours.
"Thank fuckin' god," D mutters, shifting to wrap his arms around you and the demon both. "He gonna be okay, Karkat?"
You've closed your eyes, but you can feel the way Karkat bites gently at his lower lip, patterns like red clouds rolling across his eyes as he feels for your injuries. Not that you have any injuries—just aftermath from them.
"Blood in places it doesn't belong," he says finally. "Wait."
For you, I'd wait as long as you needed me to, you tell him, and get a wave of affection in response, along with the warm sensation of him sending magic down into your body to clean up the mess. "D."
"Yeah."
"Get Hal."
"What—" Then D's eyes go to where the shikigami is, lying crumpled against the wall, motionless but for the small rhythm of his breathing, and he hisses in a startled gasp. "Shit—"
"He's not dead, just—" You have to stop and cough, and Karkat sends you a wordless admonition to stay still, dammit. Which you ignore for another second. "Check on him. Text Dirk for his reboot codes if you can't wake him up—"
"Dave, stop talking," Karkat grumbles, shifting to pull you closer to him.
"Listen to the healer, man. I got Hal." D nods and gets to his feet, ruffling your hair and letting his hand stay in contact with you for an extra second before he heads over to kneel next to the shikigami.
There. I'll keep my mouth shut for you, 'kat, shut up for once in my goddamn life, alright? Not like I've ever managed it before—
"This doesn't count as you shutting up," he points out , shaking his head. Not that I fucking care. If you want to talk until you pass out, I'll listen—you scared me so badly, do you know that?
Yeah. Felt it, before—well. Before.
Kurloz wouldn't let me get to you—
"Told him not to," you mumble, leaning your head against Karkat's shoulder. "He..." ...wasn't supposed to fuckin' hurt you, either. Asshole.
Karkat snorts at that assessment, wiping at your face again. You don't think he's going to be able to remove any significant amount of the blood there, but no way are you going to tell him that. If he's touching you, you're happy. "So you knew."
"What was gonna happen to me?" Yeah. I did. I've...gotten stronger, man, faster with a sword than before. I coulda killed him.
And you didn't.
"No. He expected me to slip up...so I did." Let him take me down. You can't help but shiver at the too-raw memory of his katana sliding into your body. The fucking surprised/gleeful look on his face as he realized he'd won.
Karkat shudders too, and you realize that your mind's wrapped around his enough that he's picking up images almost perfectly. "I hope dying hurt that fucker."
"It did," you tell him. You're very careful to keep the memory of Bro's psychic screams shielded from the demon. He'll know about that when it inevitably shows up in your nightmares, but right now you're not dropping it on top of his experience of feeling you die in front of him. Later. He can know, later.
"Good." Karkat leans in to kiss you again, and you feel his magic withdraw even if his mind stays tangled up with yours around the edges.
You kiss him back, pulling back after a moment. "...love you."
"Good," he says again, with a grin, and thinks back, Love you too.
"You see my sword anywhere? I wanna get outta this shithole."
Karkat's face goes blank for a second as he scans the floor. Then he spots the weapon, leaning over to grab it even as you reluctantly scoot away from him.
Leaving would definitely be a smart move, Kurloz thinks at you, wiping blood away from his damaged mouth with one hand and offering the other to you. Motherfucking Messiah's got places to go and people to see, right?
"You're not wrong," you agree, and reach up to take his hand.
You realize that that is, again, a mistake as he holds his free hand out and one of those fucking white orbs drops neatly into it. There's barely time for you to reach over and twist your hand into Karkat's shirt before white-green lightning crackles out from the orb, snaking around all three of you and taking the bloody room around you away.
You didn't think you'd ever come back to this shithole. Honestly, you never fucking wanted to come back here—this place smells of old blood spilt, trauma ground into the bones of the building to the point where you can taste it with every breath. The memories don't help either—the last time you were here with Dave, the first time you met him, you could have so easily just fucking killed him, been killed by him—
Yeah. That's not what happened.
You still wish you weren't here.
But Dave's been fucking driven to get you here, or at least to get here himself. Even if he doesn't say it, you're pretty sure he would've liked you to stay away.
He wants to protect you. That's not his fucking job.
So you helped him explain to D where you needed to go and why. (And you didn't mention the fact that Dave was projecting grim unthinking determination at you the entire time, maybe without even knowing that he was doing it.) You were the one who talked Roxy and Rose, Jake and John, into staying at the safehouse, convinced them that somebody ought to stay here just in case Kurloz gave him bad information. (And didn't say that Dave was completely and utterly convinced that the knowledge he had was trustworthy.)
There was no way Dirk and Hal could be talked out of coming, of course, and neither you nor Dave even made an attempt to keep D at the safehouse. This is Strider business; they're all going to be in on it at the end.
Dave said he wanted to sleep on the plane, and that's exactly what he did. The moment that the plane cleared the runway, he unclipped his belt and climbed into your lap, leaning against you and going still. You don't think he ever really relaxed, but he definitely slept the whole time.
You'd have been relieved about that if you hadn't been able to see the sliver of bright purple light under Dave's mostly-closed eyelids.
You're going to fucking kill Kurloz the next time you see him.
The airfield's actually a couple miles past your destination. You'd planned to wake Dave just before the plane was going to land, but when you glanced out the window and realized that you were over that damn building, he went stiff in your lap, eyes opening. Not focusing, for the first minute—you don't think he couldfocus. Probably he couldn't even see, not with his eyes that full of light, of Kurloz's power.
You almost asked him what the fuck was going on.
Even though he'd shut you out of his mind almost completely, you knew that he wasn't going to tell you.
"Hey," he murmured, wrapping his arms around your neck and leaning his forehead against yours. Now that he was looking at you, the purple was gone. Thank fuck.
"Hey, yourself."
"Shit's gonna go down, man."
"I know. We still have time to back the fuck out of this, Dave." Just fucking run. Let someone else kill that bastard—D would do it. Fuck, I could call ten people who'd kill him in any way you could think of—
Dave was shaking his head, very slowly. "Not how it works."
"Like fuck it's not!" Shit. You had to take a deep breath in, restrain yourself from digging your claws into his skin. "You yourself said this messiah shit wasn't fucking legit—"
"And you said that the Speaker lived through it." Something sparked in his eyes and faded again. Something bright and purple. "I can't back out."
Fuck. "I love you," you whispered to him, giving up on holding back the tears that wanted to blur your vision. "Please let me in."
This time, it was more than a spark. Dave's eyes flared, the red in his irises brightening up purple. For the second until he blinked, they stayed that way, as if you were looking into the other demon's eyes.
Then he blinked, and he shook his head. "I love you," he said, very quietly and painfully calmly, "and I can't."
The light telling you to fasten your seatbelt came on a minute or two later. Instead of doing that, you wrapped your arms around him and held him, praying that this wasn't the last time you'd be able to do this.
Hal lays a circle around the building, just as that bastard drew one when he trapped you in here years ago. His is different, though; it's a long piece of yarn that Rose imbued with power. You still won't be able to cross it, once he closes the circle.
Dave's leaning against the wall, eyes closed, hands obsessively tapping the places where he's stowed blades. There's a lot of them; he's not taking a chance on being disarmed and not having a backup. You're glad of that.
"Dave." You're afraid.
"Going up against the scariest fucker I know, 'kat. 'course I'm afraid." He opens his eyes halfway, watching you. There's no hint of purple in them now. "...c'mere?"
Of course.
As soon as you step close enough, he straightens up and wraps his arms around you, leaning in for a kiss. Part of you says you should turn your head, step away, don't let him have it. It's too much like bad luck.
But you love him.
You love him so fucking much.
And you growl and tighten your grip on him, and kiss him back.
The inside of the building is still deserted, but it's not dark. Every twenty feet or so there's a featureless white orb about the size of a grapefruit, suspended halfway between floor and ceiling. The light the things give off is cold and white and feels like magic, but it's more than enough to see by.
D reaches curiously for the first one, and Hal (who won the coin flip between him and Dirk, for who'd get to come into the building instead of staying out to guard) grabs his hand even before Dave says, "Don't touch that."
"You know what it is?" D asks, waiting for Hal to release him. There's already a long knife in his other hand.
"Kind of." Purple sparks in Dave's eyes, until he shakes his head impatiently. "Doesn't fuckin' matter, just...trust me. Those're for us to follow, not for you to touch. Touching them would be bad."
Hal frowns, shifting a little. Checking his own weapons. "Has it occurred to you that this is an excellent setup for an ambush?"
Dave just shrugs. "Only an ambush if we don't expect it."
"Fair point," the shikigami murmurs, and his hand flickers down and comes up with his katana.
D's got both his blades out now too, even if Dave's still empty-handed as he heads towards the next white orb. You shift a little closer to your true form, and follow him.
It's the same fucking room as the first time. You know that as soon as Dave opens the door, even before you scent the old blood that stains the floor. Of course it's the same room—there's nowhere else it could be.
The motherfucker standing over the bloodstain should look different. Death should mark someone.
It hasn't marked him.
Dave stops in the doorway, blocking you from lunging forward and killing his bro. Dave, move—
"Hey, Bro," he says, ignoring you completely. "How was hell?"
That fucker grins. "Boring, but I told the devil to keep a place open for you and your pet demon."
"Damn." Dave still hasn't drawn his sword, but now his hand dips down to rest on the hilt. "You still think I'm gonna let you kill him."
"Who says you gotta let me do anything?"
Dave, fucking move, let me take him—
He moves even as you think that at him—right at that motherfucker, with his sword leading the way.
That is not what you fucking meant!
You lunge after Dave anyway, intending to take the first opportunity you have to disembowel his Bro—and as soon as you clear the doorway someone tackles you, and D lets out one strangled cry as purple-flavored magic erupts all around you. Kurloz slams you up against a wall, hands closing down around your throat and bearing down for the second before you fall fully into your true form and throw him halfway across the room.
Or at least try to throw him. What really happens is that you break his grip on you, he skids back maybe four feet and manifests, long black horns flickering into existence and white dreadlocks lengthening, the very nature of their being changing until they're bone-tipped, sharp, deadly weapons.
The stitches holding his lips shut flex slightly as he smiles at you.
"Fucker!" Hal screams.
Kurloz spins to deflect the shikigami's attack, spins back to defend against you and try to find an opening, and suddenly you are fighting for your fucking life.
You don't dare look at Dave. If you don't concentrate on the Speaker to the Dead, you're going to lose this fight.
Time stops existing. There's nothing but attacking and blocking, dodging or accepting smaller wounds in exchange for scoring a hit on Kurloz. There's blood that isn't two years old screaming for your attention now, yours and the other demon's and Hal's and Dave's, you can feel Dave bleeding from small glancing blows. That fucker's teasing him, tormenting him, making him bleed—
Pain rips through your chest, and you freeze.
Kurloz's dreadlocks catch Hal's wrist, jerking him hard enough to make him drop his sword and then flinging him into the wall. The impact's loud, and the shikigami doesn't get up.
You can't even look over to see if he's okay.
All you can look at is Dave. Dave, who's gone just as still as you have. Dave, who's sending you sick waves of pain even though his mind's still guarded.
Dave, who you love more than you've ever loved anyone.
Dave, who's standing there with his sword hanging at his side, staring down at the katana piercing his chest.
No. No, no, no—
You need to heal him. You need to do it now.
That bastard yanks his sword free of Dave's chest, and Dave just collapses.
And Kurloz lunges at you again.
No.
You can't reach him.
As you snarl at the Speaker, as you desperately try to get past him, you can feelDave slipping away from you. And there is nothing you can do.
No.
You feel the moment he dies.
"No!" You scream out the denial even though you know there's no use in it, throwing your head back to howl your pain at the heavens. In this moment you're defenseless, if Kurloz presses his advantage you're dead and happy to be dead. "DAVE!"
There's no answer. He's gone.
And you scream again and throw yourself at Kurloz, because that's all you can do.
The Speaker's hand clamps down on yours and pulls you into the circle with one hard yank, and you know that you've fucked up. Karkat yowls in alarm behind you, but he can't cross the circle to drag you back—it's made to block demons from passing, and it'll keep him out just as effectively as it keeps Kurloz in.
D or any of the other humans could pass, theoretically. Right now, though, Kurloz is...doing something. Controlling them, maybe—even though the protection runes they wear should block at least some of that shit, and he's in a circle which should definitely prevent him from extending his influence outside of it, you can feelsomething go out and twine itself around your family even as his eyes lock with yours.
Calm the fuck down, Second. Take what I'm giving you.
Which is what you want. You want the knowledge, this is what you asked for—except even his calm delivery of that thought brings a memory to mind, a growled take it, brat! that expected as little resistance as this demon does.
It's that memory that makes you struggle against the iron grip on your wrists, makes you choke out, "No fuckin' way—"
Too late for that.
Kurloz dives into your mind, slipping into the cracks you didn't know your defenses had and filling everything with his cool purple radiance. After only a second you can't even think of resisting—he's so fucking strong, how can any one being hold this much power?
There's nothing but his eyes. Nothing in the world but purple light. There's nothing in your mind but the Speaker for the Dead, coiling and settling and crushing your will down until you're barely even there.
He's going to kill me, you think, and it's not even a surprising thought. Bro won't even get a chance to have me, because even if my body's still breathing after this, I'm going to be gone.
That would be a motherfucking waste. The twin messiahs become nothing if such a simple servant as I were the one to waste one of them.Kurloz's amusement is just as crushing as his presence, but as he sends you those thoughts he withdraws a little. There's still nothing in your world but him, but now his presence isn't so painful. One of you will have to die, yes, but not by my hands.
Karkat's gonna break the circle and tear your heart out in another minute, you warn him. Talk fast.
Talk isn't what I'm here for. I'm a motherfucking prophet sent to give you the knowledge meant only for the Two Messiahs. More amusement, a weight that's almost painful. Maybe it is painful, but he doesn't let you feel the pain. We've got all the time in the world, Second. I could speak to you for a lifetime like this, and release you before Vantas finished drawing a single breath.
Shit. Shit. The thought of having Kurloz wound around your mind, inside your mind, for any longer than he has to be? That drives spikes of cold panic down into your gut.
And of course, he smooths the panic away. You're his puppet now; there's no need for you to be alarmed.
Stop it!
Hey, there's no way you can get this knowledge if your mind isn't calm. Stop the motherfucking fighting, Second—
(stop fuckin' fighting, Davey, Bro drawls in your memories)
Enough of that shit.
Annoyance hurts more than amusement. If you had control of any part of your body you'd sob, but Kurloz owns you completely. All you can do is stand still as he darts through your mind, striking down anything that isn't what he wants to see until all that's left of you is a tight knot of consciousness at the core of your soul.
The Speaker could destroy that, too. You know he could. If he does, you hope D has the mercy to put a sword through your heart.
You're not mine to kill. The moment your self perishes, you cease to be the Second of Two, and that is motherfucking unacceptable.
And he doesn't touch your core.
Instead, he starts pouring that damned purple light into you. Everything that he's cleared out, made blank and empty, he fills with knowledge, planning and images and shit that you absolutely cannot even try to sort out right now. Kurloz fills you, and it hurts like nothing else.
Through this process, you don't move. He holds you steady with an ease that horrifies you.
He's so fucking strong, you think. How the fuck did Karkat catch him, how did he being him here?
Simple.
I let him.
As you process that simple statement, Kurloz pulls out of your mind. The loss of him hurts almost as badly as his presence did, but he holds control of you, keeping you from showing any pain. Without your volition your mouth shapes syllables, the spell for either banishing or releasing.
Then you're the only one in the circle, and the Speaker's puppet-strings that have been holding you snap. Suddenly, you can't hold yourself upright.
Because Karkat is shouting both out loud and in your mind, you make the effort to roll to one side, break the circle with your body again. That's rewarded with the feeling of his hands on you, gentle and roughly urgent at the same time.
You're okay with that.
Your mind goes away for a while. You can't say that things go dark, though.
If anything, they go purple.
"Dave."
Dave.
"Dave."
There's maybe half a minute between each repetition of your name, and it alternates between aural and mental. The former's quiet, rough around the edges like he's fighting tears. The latter's filled with too much emotion for you to process.
From the fear and concern that you're getting from him, Karkat's been trying to call you back for a while.
Dave.
"Dave."
"Karkat," you try to say back to him, and get out what feels like an unintelligible mumble.
He must get the meaning of it, though, because he gasps, jerking you up from however you were lying (partially on his lap, you think, but your perception of your own body is fucked up right now so you can't be sure) and hugs you to his chest, one arm holding you close while his free hand comes up to cradle the back of your head.
Fuck. Karkat's shaking.
How the fuck do arms work.
That puzzle takes you a minute to work out. Then you get your arms up around the demon, leaning into him and closing your eyes to try and work out what the hell the Speaker left in your head.
A lot. He left a lot.
Okay, leave that for now. " 'kat."
"I thought he fucking broke you, Dave." Karkat's got his forehead pressed against yours, and the hand on the back of your head is shifting uneasily between having claws and not.
"Naah. Where's the others?"
"Jake has John, Hal has Dirk, Roxy has Rose. D's probably throwing up again."
"He fucked with them. Kurloz."
"I should've hurt him." Karkat tenses up as he says that, only relaxing when you give him a careful mental push. "You were a fucking idiot for letting him get in your head, Dave—"
"Had to get the info, man."
"We don't know what else he put in there..." He hesitates, then cautiously tries to dip into your mind—and recoils as you gently push him out again. Dave?
's okay, babe, just... "He did plant shit, but its...not gonna hurt me. You, maybe, if you try and go through it—he said it was 'meant only for the Two Messiahs—'"
Karkat goes completely still, pulling back to stare at you in what seems to be fucking horror. "He didn't say that."
"I mean, technically he didn't say anything."
"This isn't something you can fucking joke about, Dave—"
"Do you think I don't know that?" You shift to free up one hand so you can rub at your eyes, leaning against the demon. Apparently if you just try to ignore the tangle of knowledge he left you, you're going to have to try and handle the headache while the info seeps into your consciousness anyway. "I don't get why Kurloz picked me and Bro, how he even fucking knew about us—and you know it had to be him, as far as he knows he's the last member of that goddamn cult... what does he do, fucking constantly scry for some poor asshole who fits his damn prophecy?"
Instead of answering, Karkat growls softly, looking into your eyes before pulling you up closed again. "You don't believe in this shit, do you."
"No."
"That's a mistake, Dave. Kurloz does believe, because he's lived through three cycles of the Two Messiahs."
"He's got a pretty good track record, if they all ended up being the ones who ruled the world 'stead of the ones that ended it."
"The end of the world is a relative term." Karkat huffs and shakes his head. "According to everything I know about his cult, it's evenly split. The first time around, the one who survived ruled. The third, she destroyed."
"The second?" You know the answer. Kurloz left it in your head. You ask Karkat anyway, because he needs to not know just how much you know.
"Twins." He shifts, and you can feel his worry. "One killed the other, yeah, but then he killed himself."
"Yeah." The purple-tinged knowledge in your mind says that that was the most successful cycle, because it simply let the status quo continue.
Kurloz doesn't want change, you realize, because with every new messiah to rise, there's the chance he'll be replaced with a new prophet. Maybe he has little power now, as the leader of a cult of one, but as long as he's the Speaker to the Dead, as long as he's needed to call the First Messiah back to the living, he's more-or-less immortal.
"I can't tell what you're thinking, Dave," Karkat murmurs against your neck.
"Sorry...'m trying to sort the shit he gave me out." That's true, or true enough that he won't be able to sense a lie. "I know where Bro's gonna be."
"Good. I'm going to fucking tear him apart."
"I know you are, babe," you tell him, even though what you actually know is that he won't. Can't. "Once D gets over the mind-control aftereffects, I gotta go see if he can arrange us a fuckin' plane ride. I wanna sleep on the way there; can't do that in the truck."
Karkat nods, the red-on-red patterns in his eyes finally shifting away from the darker tones that've been dominating them. "Where to?"
The answer is fucking ironic. Enough so that instead of answering out loud, you just laugh and shake your head and push the image of the building you met him in at him.
You're grabbing frantically at the handle to your truck's door when somebody grabs you from behind, hands clamping down on your shoulders and spinning you around.
No! Your mind is a weapon, your mind is a fucking sword, Bro can take you but you're sure as fuck going to hurt him as much as you can before he does, make him kill you instead of—
"Shit, Dave, stop!"
D. It's D, you realize that as he hisses instead of trying to say anything else to you, his face screwing up in a pained grimace. He doesn't let go of you, though. Doesn't bear down harder to try to inflict enough pain to get you to stop either.
He's bleeding too, from a cut almost hidden in his hairline at his temple. You remember the scar there; when you were a kid you were unreasonably fascinated with it, always wanted to touch it, give him little-kid kisses there because even if Bro never did that shit you knew that you kissed things to make them better. You never knew how he got it, but now you have an idea.
"Hey—" D starts.
"No." You try to jerk back, out of his grip, and nearly just go into a spiraling vaporlock of panic as your shoulders hit the truck. You can't retreat, he's got you cornered, you can't—stop. Stop. Stop. "Fuckin' let me go, D, let me go, this is my fault, I can't—"
"It's not your fault, kiddo, and you're not going anywhere but back inside." He's got his voice back down to comforting, reassuring, calm despite the fact he's bleeding—and not just from the little cut on his head; you can see a darker red stain working its way through his red shirt. "C'mon, we need to figure this shit out, it's—"
You lose the rest of his sentence, because he pulls you forward a little and tries to wrap his arm around your shoulders, brushes against that fucking tattoo, and your mind goes pure white with panic. The next thing you know you're on your knees on the lawn, doubled over and hugging yourself, and your left hand hurts like hell.
Your ears are ringing. You can't fucking breathe.
"Dave."
Hal. That's Hal.
He's kneeling next to you, and you force yourself to straighten up enough to look at him. You can't read a single fucking thing off his face, which most likely means he's scared out of his mind, and there's a bloodstain on his shirt, about at the bottom of his ribcage. About where Dirk was injured, you think. Fuck.
"I need to go," you tell him, wishing you could force your voice to be louder. "I need—"
"—to come back inside and let us handle this logically," he finishes before you can.
"No!"
"Yes. What are you going to accomplish this way, Dave?" For a second, somethingflashes across the shikigami's face, there and gone too quick for you to read anything but pain in it. "Are you planning to sacrifice yourself in hopes that he'll abandon his designs on the rest of us?"
"Fuck yes I am!" Let him fucking kill me. Let him take me and have me for whatever the hell he wants, as long as he leaves all of you out of it, you think, and immediately get a flash of denial from Karkat.
It hurts, but you slam the door between his mind and yours shut. Cut him off as completely as you can. You can't let him follow you.
"I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Dave," Hal says in that eerie-calm voice that he uses instead of showing any kind of emotion when he's upset. It takes you a second to remember what he's responding to.
"You can't tell me I can't—"
"Bullshit I can't. You're my fucking brother, you know that." Hal crosses his arms and frowns at you, the expression only lasting a moment before his face goes blank again. "I'll die before I let that bastard touch you again."
He'd die for me. "Don't you dare—"
"It's not going to come to that if you don't make us protect you from a distance! You're a thousand times safer here, with us, where we can fight with you instead of just trying to protect you." The shikigami's calm mask slips again, and you get a look at his frustration for a second before he groans and closes his eyes. "Please."
"Running ain't exactly gonna help," D adds from behind you. Even as you twist to face him he's moving, stepping over to sit on the ground next to Hal.
Shit. There's more blood on his face now, his lip bruised and split.
You fucking punched him.
That realization almost makes you curl up onto yourself again. "D, fuck—I didn't—I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry—"
D just looks baffled for a moment, then shakes his head and impatiently wipes at the trickle of blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. "My fucking fault."
"My line." You don't even know if he's going to understand what you mean by that. I'm supposed to say that. I'm the one that gets hit and deserves it, not you. I'm the only one who oughta be bleeding.
"It was a fuckin' lie when he made you say it, man; this is different."
"Hit you. I hit you."
"Yeah, 'cause I grabbed where I got no fuckin' right grabbing." He sighs and shifts, one hand going to the dark spot on his shoulder for a moment. "Dave—"
"You're bleeding."
"We all are." Hal shakes his head and jerks his shirt up, displaying a long, shallow cut running along his left side, almost parallel to his ribs. "Dirk has one on the other side, along an old scar from a sparring match with Bro. Rose's nose started bleeding; he slapped her for calling him out on something when she was eleven—"
"I remember." You grabbed his hand before he could do it a second time; he ended up apologizing, blaming it on being a little drunk, and then broke two of your fingers once she was gone.
"—your neck's bleeding and from what I can see of your shirt, you're a mess everywhere else as well, worse off than any of us." Hal folds his arms, uncrosses and recrosses them, eyes going blank for a moment as he considers. "It's only injuries that he inflicted that reopened—other than mine; I never met him in person, but this effect could be a carryover from Dirk being my base programming—and only on those of us related to him by blood. Otherwise Jake and Roxy would have the wounds too. Shit...I hate reflective necromancy."
"I have no fucking clue what that is," D says.
"It's stupid. Stupid is what it is. Dave, you need to come inside before the neighbors call the cops on us."
No. "I'm leaving."
"Like fuck you are—"
"Like fuck I'm not, D!"
"Take a fucking second to think, Dave." D grimaces and yanks at the buttons to his shirt, getting it open and gesturing at the newly reopened cuts there. There's not all that many—one thin line along his collarbone, the larger cut on his shoulder that's bleeding through his shirt, a gash just above his navel that was probably awful when it was new and is still messy now—but they're noticeable as hell. "It's not just you he's after."
"He wants me more—"
"Yeah, maybe, but what's running gonna do? I'll tell you what it'll do: split us up. Give him less of a problem. Only thing it does is hurt all of us, man, come on."
You've closed yourself off so you can't feel D's pleading, but you can sure as hell see it, hear it in his voice. He's the only one out of all the Striders who doesn't hide shit, keep emotions behind a mask, so you know that his need to get you back inside and safe isn't just a ploy. He's sincere about wanting you to stay.
But.
"I'm gonna get all of you killed."
D and Hal glance at each other. It's the shikigami who answers.
"No," he says, and he says it firmly and irrefutably, "you're not."
Damn.
When Hal gets to his feet and offers you a hand up, you take it.
Roxy, Rose, Dirk, and John aren't in the kitchen. Jake and Karkat are, though; the former's standing over a map spread out on the counter rather than the table, the pendulum in his hand making unnaturally wide arcs over it.
The demon's standing just behind him, one hand on Jake's shoulder, concentrating just as fiercely on the pendulum as Jake is. When you cautiously drop some of your mental barriers, you can feel the divining magic rolling off both of them, generated by Jake and directed by Karkat.
Fuck, are they looking for Bro?
"I wouldn't know how to fucking start." Karkat's voice is low, not quite a growl, and he doesn't take his eyes off the pendulum. "I met him once, that's not enough to scry for him. This is for someone else, a guy I've tangled with before..."
He pushes an image at you, one that's got the quality of a memory almost forgotten. It's blurred and warped to the point where you can just pick up the impression of someone probably taller than D, a silhouette that becomes a skeleton when the lights shifts, a smile that isn't a smile.
And purple. The whole memory is eerily purple, a color that's a quality of light.
"Dave, wait—" Karkat starts as you try to drag more detail out of the image. That's as far as he gets, though, because the whole damn memory goes bright purple, and you both wince.
There's the small tap of the pendulum hitting the table.
"Got him," Jake announces, letting the pendulum's chain slip through his fingers. The little crystal weight stays right where it is, though, balanced point-down on the map as if he's still holding it steady.
"Great." The demon shakes his head as if to clear it, leaning over to get a better look at the map, then nodding and turning away. "I'll—"
"Karkat—" You grab his arm before he can take one fucking step toward the door, bracing yourself for an angry snarl. "Don't you fuckin' leave me."
He doesn't growl at you. In fact, as soon as you touch him he stops, immediately turning to you and shaking you off his arm just so he can take your hands in his, meeting your eyes. "I'll be right back—"
"Fuck that!" Shit. You're too fucking close to tears, to just breaking down right here in front of D and Hal and Jake, begging him not to go. "I'm coming with you."
"I'm going after another demon."
"So? We've hunted together—"
"This fucker's the kind of demon you leave alone because you can't kill him, Dave."
"And you can?" He's leaving you. Even if he says he's coming back, even if he believes it (and he does, you can feel that he believes he'll be back more-or-less unharmed), Karkat's about to walk out the door and you don't fucking believe he'll come back. Please. I can't, man, I can't handle this shit if you're gone—
"Dave, shh." I won't be gone, he thinks at you, and wraps his arms around you to pull you in close, kissing first your forehead and then your lips, giving you reassurance and love and a promise that for today at least everything will be okay. "Listen to me."
"...I am." You're also holding onto him, probably too tight. No fucking way are you letting go.
"I can take him, alright? I swear—"
"You don't know that—"
"Listen, Dave. I can beat this asshole in a fight. And if I'm wrong about that, if for some reason I can't? He's not one to give anybody a nice, clean death." Karkat pulls away the slightest bit, waiting for you to look him in the eyes. Give me three hours. Hal knows the spells to summon a demon back; even if I fuck this up, I'll still be alive in three hours.
Fuck.
If shit goes wrong, he'll be tortured. You know that without having to ask. You don't fucking want that to happen, you don't even want to think about that happening.
But...
" 'kat."
"Dave."
"Promise me." You'll come back.
He doesn't even hesitate. "I swear." And you can't read any doubt in his eyes.
Karkat kisses you again, very carefully. When he goes to pull away from you, you let him.
As soon as the door shuts, Hal sighs and shakes his head. "Dave?"
" ...yeah." Fuck, you're scared.
"You need to get cleaned up."
"Yeah."
When you still don't move, the shikigami sighs again and puts one hand on your shoulder, steering you out of the kitchen. "Right. Come on."
Fuck, I don't have to be functional until Karkat comes back, you think, and almost just start crying from the relief of the thought as you let Hal lead you into the bathroom.
It's about an hour and a half before you can feel Karkat at all.
In that time, Hal gets your wounds cleaned off and bandaged up. Even though most of them were pretty fucking bad when they were fresh the first time, they're just shallow cuts this time, just deep enough to sting and bleed. Same for everyone else's; the only worrisome one was Rose's nosebleed, and that was only a problem because like you, she has a history of not being able to get that kind of thing to stop.
D coaxes you into eating some of that damn cake, and even if you're mostly just trying not to visibly panic, you're pretty glad that you do that. Somehow sugary shit does make things a little better.
The fact that you end up on the couch, leaning on Dirk on one side and with Rose pressed up against you on the other, and with one of D's stupidest movies playing, also helps. There's a thread of guilt in your mind, that you feel almost okay when Karkat's out handling the dangerous shit, but you can try to think around that.
And you do a pretty good job of it, for about an hour and a half. Then you feelKarkat in your head, a jumble of victory and irritation and anger, and Dirk looks over at you because you just went almost limp with relief next to him for a second. Before he can do more than open his mouth to ask if you're okay, you're off the couch and on your feet, heading for the door to the backyard.
D, John, Dirk, and Roxy are right behind you; the others stay in the house. You're sure there's some tactical reasoning behind that, but you have no idea what it is right now, and you're not planning on asking.
Karkat's standing on the edge of the concrete slab in the backyard, scowling at the permanent binding circle John and Hal set up. He's closed the circle, drawn in the two symbols deliberately left blank when they laid the design down in colored concrete, but the demon inside isn't even testing his boundaries, just standing there calmly with his hands by his sides.
For a second you think that the demon in the circle is manifesting his true form. Then you step up next to Karkat, right at the edge of the circle, and realize that no, he's in his humanish form, but every visible inch of skin's been tattooed, white bones on a black background as if he's under an x-ray.
He tilts his head, brushing back bone-white dreadlocks as he regards you with eyes that'd actually look human if not for their luminescent purple irises, and you bite back a wince as you realize that his lips have been sewn shut.
Greetings, Second of the Two.
This demon's mental voice is far louder than Karkat's ever was—this is a true telepath, not the weirdly abled empath you are. Powerful. Scary.
"Second of two what?" John asks in confusion.
The demon just shrugs, eyes never leaving you. The First seeks you. Or he will.
"We don't want your fucking games, Kurloz," Karkat growls.
My title is Speaker to the Dead.
"I don't give a fuck what you want to be called. I know you're mixed up in this shit; I saw your fucking mind shit in Dave's eyes." For a second, Karkat's form flickers to his demon form, fully manifested. It's a threat. "Where the fuck is the bastard you raised?"
I've raised nothing, Vantas. My talents have been...utilized.
"Same fucking difference. Talk."
Kurloz makes a soft noise, muffled by the stitches. Laughter.
"You know what I fucking mean!"
I do. He nods, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, they're pure glowing violet, fixed on you, holding you in place so there's no way you can look away. And this may surprise you, but I'm amenable to an exchange of information.
And he holds out his hand.
And before Karkat can stop you, you reach through the circle, break the circle, and take it.
Being low on sleep means you drink coffee until Hal, who's been monitoring your caffeine intake, quietly but firmly takes the cup out of your hands and unplugs the pot. Which is fine, by the time the shikigami cuts you off you're probably not all that far from whatever the dangerous dosage is for coffee; him making you stop isn't what makes it shitty.
The fact that you're so wired on caffeine that your head's buzzing with it, drowning out Karkat's presence more than a little bit, that's shitty. But on another level, you're thankful that he's being blocked out, because that means he can't tell how fucked you are, that he's free to concentrate on whatever solution he might find for this situation.
There's a solution. He'll find something. I'll find something, Dirk or Roxy or D will find something...
You keep telling yourself that, but you can't focus on researching revenants and poltergeists, specters and unquiet spirits and ghosts. You spend pretty much the whole day reading through shit about everything that Bro could be now, and learn...well, nothing.
It could also be said that you spend the day avoiding Karkat, though, and surprisingly, that works well up until the day's almost over. Then you get a hint of intention from him, that he'll be in the kitchen in another few minutes, and instead of getting up and relocating you just stare at the computer screen in front of you and shove your shades up to rub at your eyes.
You feel like you're breaking. Does he know?
I can't do this.
"Can't do what?" The demon's tone's too gentle, as his hands come down on your shoulders. That's as far as he goes, this time, even if on any other occasion he'd wrap his arms around you, lean his chin on your shoulder as he scanned the laptop's screen. Right now, though, he knows that you can't handle that much contact. "Dave—"
"I fucking can't." You cut him off halfway through the word, willing your voice not to break. It doesn't, not on that sentence, but the words come out shaky and too quiet. "I can't do this, man, you don't—it's not just me, he doesn't just want to hurt me, if he can he'll—you know what he can do, you've been in my dreams, before he fucking pretended that he was normal, 'cept to me, if he—he's not going to—"
"Dave."
"I'm gonna—" There. Your voice fails there, finally, you choke on a rising sob and smother it and finish the sentence in your head. Get you killed. I'm gonna get all of you killed.
"Dave," Karkat says, one more time, and even though he doesn't move he's suddenly closer, winding himself around your mind and finding where he fits against you. No one's going to get killed.
"That's—" —worse.
The demon growls deep in his throat at the images he reads from your mind, hands tightening on your shoulders. "He won't lay a hand on you. On any of us." I swear that on my fucking life.
"You can't fucking promise that!" Most of the sentence comes out in a pained wail, and you bite your lip to keep yourself from saying anything else, bowing your head and closing your eyes. You don't— "—know what he's going to be. If he's lich—" —he'll kill you. Worse. Strip your soul from your body, cut you off from your true form and trap you in whatever fucked-up torments he can think of—
"Dave, stop."
And Karkat does something he almost never does: he pushes against your mind, pushes hard, sending streamers of his magic and sparks of pain floating down through your consciousness like drops of blood in water. It hurts, for a second, but the bits of himself that he leaves in you seek out the places filled with the staticky void of anxiety, binding themselves to it and, slowly, filling you with calm that you know won't last.
Even knowing that, you welcome it. It lets you relax against him, even if it doesn't take away the fear.
Karkat slips his arms around your shoulders, leaning in to bury his face in your hair and taking a deep breath. "Better?" he asks after a moment.
"...different." This isn't going to stop him, 'kat.
I know it won't. "If he breaks your mind, he fucking wins." I won't let him win. It's my job to make sure you get through this.
"Scared." That's as much as you can admit, and the parts of your mind that aren't dampened by Karkat's magic are screaming that showing weakness even with a single word will get you killed, that you can't—
The demon growls and wraps himself around your mind again, surrounding you with the promise of protection, the promise of safety, until your breathing slows from panic to calm again. "I know you are. It'd going to be okay, though, I promise...you need to eat, and you need to sleep, though. Everything else, we'll work out later."
Karkat, I can't sleep, if I sleep he'll—
He shushes you before you can get any further, gently working your fingers loose from where you've instinctively latched onto his arm and wrapping his hands around yours. "I'll be with you. If that fucker doesn't leave you alone, I'll wake you up and you can take one of Dirk's pills, okay?"
...okay. "Okay."
"Okay." And he nods, and lets go of you so he can get you something to eat.
Karkat shakes you awake and you taste blood in your mouth from biting down on your lip in an effort not to scream.
"Dave—"
"Shower." The word comes out harsh and rough, like you're forcing it out. You are. "Shower, I need—need to get him off me, out of me, he—let go of me, 'kat, I—"
His hands are gone as soon as you say that, and even though you almost collapse as soon as you push yourself off the bed he doesn't touch you again. Doesn't stop him from hovering, and that's okay, you want him near you, need him near you, if he wasn't here you'd freeze and fall and let yourself die before Bro ever got a chance to do in person what he's just done in spirit—
Karkat tries to work his way into your head and hisses in dismay as you shove him out again. God, you hope he knows this isn't a rejection of him, you'd never reject him—but you're fucking awful right now. Disgusting. Marked.
Guess you're still good for this, Davey, Bro croons in your head, laughter and pleasure filling the memory of his soft voice. It's not the voice that makes you shudder, though; no, the memory of his hands guiding your hips with enough force to bruise does that. Pretty lil' fucker; guess there's a reason that demon stays around, huh?
"Dave, I can't tell what you're thinking, but I know it's bad—"
"Shower. Can't fucking talk now, 'kat, please—"
"Gotcha. C'mon."
You manage not to sob when he pulls your arm over his shoulders, half-carrying you to the bathroom. That level of control lasts until he has to help you get your shirt off because your hands are shaking too badly to handle the buttons; by the time he picks you up and steps into the shower with you, you're just clinging to him, unable to stand or speak or fucking think.
Not thinking is better. Means you can retreat from memories and sensations and knowing shit.
You'd stay gone longer, except Karkat dips into your mind and coaxes you out long enough to swallow the pill he gives you. Once you're out of that frozen blank state, you can't exactly just slip back into it.
Instead, you curl up on top of him, bury your face in his shirt, and let the meds you just took drag you back into unconsciousness.
Bro's still here with you, but you're deeper than him. He can't touch you.
It's making him furious, but for now you're safe.
The constant feeling of panic isn't present the next day. You feel weird, yeah; whatever's in the pill Karkat gave you leaves you a little looped, a little dazed for most of the day, but it's exponentially better than how you spent yesterday on the edge of a panic attack.
The next night, you take one before you try to sleep at all, and the only thing you feel from Bro's ghost is helpless rage. The night after that, you can't sense him at all.
After that, you don't take the pills, and neither do you dream of him.
Apparently, it was option B after all.
Your first birthday surprise is Karkat kissing you awake, purring proudly when you laugh at him and kiss him back. He shakes his head when you try to pull him down next to you, though, drawing away and giving you a sharp-toothed smile.
"D and Rose are going to skin me alive if I keep you here all day," the demon murmurs, leaning in for one more kiss before he slides out of bed. "As much as we'd both like to stay like this, I think it'd be safer to get the fuck up."
The phrase skin me alive almost makes you shiver, but you push that down and get up, just so you can wrap your arms around Karkat and distract him from getting dressed for the day for another few minutes. Even though you don't strictly need the comfort of it, you ask for and receive permission to flip his mind and yours for a moment.
If you could, you'd stay like this for hours. Just stand here and breathe with him, lose yourself in his love for you and yours for him. But D and the others are waiting, so when Karkat gives you a gentle push towards your own body, you go without any kind of an argument.
He dresses you and you dress him, and you steal another kiss before you leave the room.
Hal's in his favored spot on top of the fridge in the kitchen, almost hidden by the fuckton of balloons that're...well, everywhere. You have to stop and stare at this shit; Karkat starts laughing as soon as your bolt of bewildered amazement hits him.
Rose spares you a quick glance and a smile. "Happy birthday, Dave."
"Thanks...who picked out the, uh." Maybe reaching over and snagging one of the balloons—a pink one—isn't the best way to finish your question, but that's what you do anyway, raising your eyebrows at her. "The this?"
"That'd be D," Hal answers helpfully. "He's out with Jake, picking up the cake."
"The what?" Wait, they're getting you a cake?
"And you're supposed to be with Roxy and Dirk," Rose tells the shikigami, frowning up at him.
"Nope."
"Want me to get him down?" Karkat offers.
"Hmm...best not. That might make a mess; we'll let Dirk argue with him." Rose shrugs and starts gathering the balloons into small bunches, tying their strings to the backs of the kitchen chairs. "Or I suppose I could get his override codes from Roxy—"
"Don't you dare!"
"Well, if you won't cooperate." She huffs and crosses her arms, almost immediately uncrossing them again to grab for a balloon. "Damn it!"
"Guys, are we seriously doing cake here?"
The answer is, unsurprisingly, yes. You're seriously doing cake here. A fucking huge cake, in fact, the kind you've seen on the baking shows that John likes to watch for the sole purpose of complaining about.
Your moment of pure holy shit when you see the damn thing has Karkat laughing so hard he ends up clutching at your shoulder to stay upright. D's grinning too, and as soon as he has that fucking cake safely situated on the table he steps over to face you, holding out his arms.
Stepping in to let yourself be embraced is easy. "Holy fuck, D."
"Hey, I missed out on a bunch of your birthdays; 'm sure as hell gonna make this one memorable." He pulls back and wraps an arm around your shoulders, nodding at the cake, at Dirk and Roxy trying to argue Hal down from the fridge, at John adjusting something on the side of the cake and Rose and Jake trying to arrange balloons better. "How'm I doing so far?"
"Dude, it's not even noon and you fuckin' win. You got all my other birthdays beat by a mile and you know it."
"Trust me, he's got more shit planned for later." Dirk glances over at you, grinning as he adjusts his ponytail. "Just wait until—mmph!"
Hal's down off the fridge and wrapped around Dirk before he can finish his sentence, muzzling the other with one hand firmly over his mouth. "Nope, no hints," the shikigami says cheerfully, grimacing as Dirk struggles and licks at his hand. "Dude, ew. What are you, six?"
Predictably, all he gets in response are muffled irritated grunts. And a snort from D.
"Damn, Dave and I are the only adults here, huh? Hal, let go of your brother; Dirk, quit tryin' to fuck up my party. Dave's party. Whatever." As Hal pushes Dirk back onto Roxy and dodges the punch that the former throws at him, D nods decisively. "There we go. Yo, Jake, time check?"
" Ten-twenty."
"Hell yes. Thirteen minutes."
You have to ask. "Until?"
"Until I can legally light the candles on this fucker and force everyone to sing to you." D grins at you, crossing his arms. "Hope you're ready."
D has, apparently, figured out exactly when he needs to get everybody started singing to have it finish at 10:33, right when you actually turn eighteen. Amazingly, everything goes exactly how he's planned it, other than the fact that you're grinning wide enough that it's hard to blow all the candles out.
But you get them all anyway. You don't make a wish, because right up until the moment the flames puff out you don't think you need to. In this moment, there's nothing else you want.
The instant that there's nothing but rising smoke, when the clock on the wall ticks over to 10:33, things go to shit.
Rose and Dirk yelp almost in unison, and Hal makes a staticky noise that you've only heard when he's experiencing technical difficulties. When you look over, you see blood on Rose's face and Dirk clutching at his side with a baffled look, staring at the blood on his fingers.
You don't even know what's happening and your mind is already full of a desperate chant of no, no, please no, no.
Karkat snarls in alarm, even before you feel the sting of teeth sinking into the skin over the old tattoo at the back of your neck. That's not the only flare of pain—there's half a dozen others, old scars ripping themselves open all over your body—but Bro's old lovebite is the one that horrifies you the worst.
"Dave!" the demon yells, and you just shake your head and stumble back from the table, slamming against him and then jerking away. "What the fuck's—"
No! you scream silently at him, and he recoils like you just struck him with a weapon. Maybe you did—your mind's a weapon, you know that, one you never thought you'd hurt him with.
But you need out.
Karkat freezes, Rose and Dirk and D are distracted by their own sudden injuries, Roxy's reciting keycodes to try and get Hal to respond, Jake and John are at Dirk's side. They're not looking at you when you bolt for the back door.
There's no coherent thoughts in your mind, but you know it'll all be safer if you get as far away from the people you care about as possible.
You don't know how you can be this certain, but you know that your Bro is back.
Getting Dirk and John up and moderately awake takes half an hour, significantly longer than it takes to get ahold of the rest of your family. Hal's the one who deals with those two; Karkat stays at the table with you, in the chair next to you, seemingly focused on the laptop in front of him. He's more-or-less constantly checking on you, though; every few second he dips into your mind, asking wordless questions or offering reassurances that you can't quite bring yourself to totally believe.
Eventually Karkat looks up, frowning a little at how you flinch at having been caught staring at him. "If that bastard comes back, I'm killing him slow this time," the demon tells you quietly.
"He's not coming back. Can't." There wasn't a body. There wasn't a fuckin' body, 'kat, not when you were done—
"Exactly. There's no fucking way he could come back." You can see the unspoken but if he does in Karkat's face for a moment; then he nods, shifting the laptop to let you see that he's got a chat open. "D says he's coming as soon as he can."
Part of you wants to protest that this isn't worth that kind of trouble, that you'renot worth it.
Under that, there's the knowledge that Bro hammered into you over and over again when he was alive, that he summed up really fucking well—no, your dreamsummed up—with the words I own your ass. Even if you know that's not true, you believe it anyway, deep down, and that part of you believes that if Bro wants to take you back, D won't stop him.
"Dave?" Karkat asks, and you know he knows what you're thinking. If you give him any opening to, he'll refute it, and do it well.
"Yeah, man. He's coming, that's...good."
"Want me to fuck around and see if I can't get Hal's videoconferencing thing up?"
You kind of do want that, but... "Nah. We wait 'til we got everybody in here; no fuckin' way can I go over those damn dreams more'n once."
Hal and Dirk drag the chairs into a rough half-circle, which turns into a full circle when you factor in the three laptops, each with an active video connection to Rose, D, and Roxy. The chairs started out evenly spaced, but you almost immediately pulled Karkat's closer to yours.
Everyone else knows better than to say anything about that. Not that they would. There's nothing wrong with it, they know how it is with you and him, there's no reason to feel fucking guilty, this is okay, this is right, this—
"Dave?" D asks. He sighs when you jump and focus on him at the sound of your name, and rakes both hands through his already fucked-up hair. Wherever he is, it's at least a couple hours ahead of you; you can see morning sunlight through the window behind him. "Shit. It's bad, isn't it?"
"No." You refuse to believe that anything's going to happen. It's a fucking bad dream, some kind of magic maybe, somebody with a grudge decided to—
If I could come back, Bro drawls out in your head, and even though this time it's only the fucking memory of a dream, you still shudder. It's a small enough movement that D might not be able to catch it through the webcam, but Hal sure as hell sees it. You can see how the shikigami's posture stiffens, just the smallest bit.
"Very bad," Hal corrects you.
"...yeah." He's right. You know he is.
"What sort of 'very bad' are we discussing here, exactly?" Rose asks. It's obviously still night for her; both she and Kanaya are in the field of the camera on their end, somewhat less scruffy than D is but just as obviously only recently out of bed. You don't think you've ever seen Kanaya at night before; she looks more vampire than you're used to, very still and focused on what you're guessing is the telltale light for the webcam, eyes very wide and dark against her luminous skin. "I mean...I do have some idea, there isn't much that makes Dave react like this, but I'd still like the more comprehensive explanation if possible. Especially if that explanation proves my assumption wrong."
"That 'if possible' needs more emphasis, Rosie," Roxy adds. She's the only one who seems fully awake and dressed, which is maybe a little weird since you're pretty sure she's in the same timezone as you are. Then again, from the small room she's in, she could be on some kind of job. "Like, we can roll without the details if going over 'em's gonna fuck shit up worse."
It probably is, you think. Then, because Karkat's going to react to that thought and flatly refuse to let you try to talk about it in another second, you start talking. "I dreamed about Bro. Except—it wasn't a fucking dream. More like he was there, like I spoke to him—it was closer to using the empath shit to talk to Karkat than anything else—except that I've ever done that asleep—and I can't talk to him, Bro, never could, even if he was alive I can't speak without the bond and I'd—fuck, I'd never—I couldn't—"
"Time out," Karkat says sharply, reaching over to grab your hand and get you to stop twisting at the hem of your shirt, lacing his fingers through yours. He's dead. Breathe.
"He's dead," you repeat, and take a breath. "I know. But he still fucking talked to me. Twice."
"You're sure it wasn't you dreaming about him talking to you?" D asks. "Not that I don't believe you, just..."
"No." Dirk and Hal both say it at the same time. They glance at each other, and it's Dirk who continues. "Dave, turn your head a little, scoot up to the cam. D, look at his face."
You do what Dirk says, putting the marks from where Bro hit you in the dream on display. After a second you hear D's sharp intake of breath, more a dismayed hiss than a gasp.
"Dreams don't leave bruises," Hal points out, in that calm tone that means he's really fucking upset. "Unless he did it himself—"
"Trust me. He didn't." That's Karkat.
"Fuck," D whispers, soft and dismayed and almost horrified. You wonder what exactly he's thinking right now—is he afraid that Bro's going to somehow make good on his threat and come back? Is he as confused as you are as to how he'd do that?
Fuck. Is he wondering if he can get his brother back, like I never had Karkat kill him?I
"Stop," Karkat murmurs, shaking his head when you look at him. Ask him.
Can't.
Fine. I will. And before you can tell him to not fucking do that, the demon leans towards D's video pickup, scowling at it. "What are you planning on doing if that asshole shows up again, somehow?"
D shrugs slightly, and his posture changes just a little, shoulders relaxing and face going blank for a second as he switches gears. You're still not used to how he does that, the shift in body language when he goes from just talking to planning; the change is noticeable enough that people who've only met him in one state sometimes don't recognize him the first time they see him in the other.
"If he comes back, we're dealing with bad shit," D says slowly. "It'd mean he's corporeal without his actual body—means he's either strong enough to manifest his own, in which case we're dead, everyone he wants dead is fuckin' wasted, period, exclamation point—or someone made him a body; which means he's got a fuckin' patron. Like, one who's got a damn good necromancer, to raise a guy after two years and in a body not his own." He stops and nods at John, who's got one hand up like he's in school. "Don't do that. You got a point, Egbert?"
John does not have the social grace to look even a little ashamed of himself as he lowers his hand. "We could also go with the assumption that Dave's bro is a vengeful enough spirit to fuck with dreams and possibly inhabit any usable body. Possession isn't totally unknown with ghosts—"
"The timeframe's weird," Hal points out. "What's the reasoning behind waiting until now? Unless he has the ability to store energy beyond known limits for this type of specter, he should have been at full strength after no more than two weeks to a month of death. Considering that his death was violent, I'd put the beginning of the plateau closer to the former. There'd be very little reason for him to wait this long to harass Dave."
"So we assume there's a reason he waited," Dirk agrees. "Which would be...?"
Damn. Now everybody's looking at you. "How the hell would I know?" Okay, you probably didn't need to sound that defensive. Goddamnit.
"Well, you are the one who's best versed on your own life, Dave," Rose points out. Then, as Karkat shifts his chair a few inches in your direction so he's close enough to wrap his arm around your shoulders, she amends that statement. "Well, other than possibly Karkat. Has something changed noticeably for you? Mentally, in everyday life, anything?"
You and Karkat shake your heads at the exact same time.
There's an unfortunately awkward silence as everybody considers. It's Roxy that breaks it.
"He's turning eighteen in what, a week? Lil' less? Dunno if that counts as something changing, but it's def a date of power."
Well, shit. You're suddenly and unreasonably angry, enough that Karkat jerks in his chair and looks over at you in surprise. "So he wants to fuck up my birthday? Are you fucking kidding me?"
"I mean, it's more likely he's using the ethereal and karmic energy generated by events and dates that're perceived significant to gain enough power to fuck you over, but." John shrugs and tips his chair back. "Yep, it kind of boils down to him fucking up your birthday."
"What the fuck is ethereal energy?" D asks. "You mean ectoplasmic? 'cause I know a lil' more about that shit—"
"Why would social rituals generate ghosty stuff? That doesn't even make sense—"
"Well, ethereal means angels, so that doesn't make sense—"
"It doesn't just mean angelic energy, come on—"
Hal beeps. Loudly. It sounds like a car unlocking and gets John and D to stop talking and focus on him. "Off topic."
"Current topic is 'Dave Is Being Tormented By Bro And We Need To Remedy That,'" Rose points out helpfully. "Kanaya, are you planning on attacking the webcam?"
The vampire blinks, for the first time since the video feed came up, and glances at your sister. "...um. Probably not?"
"Oh, good. Perhaps it'd be safer if you go lie back down, though." When Kanaya nods in agreement and rises to leave, Rose asks, "So. Perhaps we can address the current topic, then?"
"The only thing I can do to address that shit is not fucking sleep, Rose," you point out, trying to ignore the memories that are already rising. Yeah, you can stay awake for a pretty long time—three or four days and still be combat-ready, five or six if you're willing to put yourself through paranoia and hallucinations, dose yourself up with caffeine and hope you don't have a fucking heart attack—
"Dave," Karkat says sharply.
Shit. You're slipping back into how you thought when he was alive, aren't you? That more-or-less constant state of expectation, of fear without ever showing or admitting you're afraid, of knowing that shit's going to happen and you have no power over it...you thought you were out of that. You thought you were done with it. You've worked to be done with it, worked hard as hell to move past his shit.
But all it takes is a couple dreams, and you're right back where you started.
"Sorry," you mutter, folding your arms across your chest and hoping the movement doesn't look as defensive as it is.
"You're not the one who needs to be saying sorry here," D points out, shaking his head. "That'd be my fuckin' scumbag brother...but yeah, no, you staying awake isn't a solution and we all know it—"
"I'm not going back to sleep after tonight's shit, D—"
"And I get that, man, but hear me out, okay? For all we know this was a goddamn isolated incident, that he's got a limited window for being able to fuck with you."
You glance at John for confirmation on that, and he nods. "It could totally be a one-off. A lot of ghosts can't muster up enough power to manifest in any way; of the ones that can, some can only manage it once or twice."
"Thanks for the backup, ghosty boy. And if the bastard's just got until your birthday to fuck with you, then Dirk gives you the sleeping meds I know he still has from that time with the dreamwalker, and you sleep deep enough that Bro can't touch you."
Fuck. Yeah, that'd help. Karkat purrs as he catches some amount of your surge of stupid, pitiful relief that there's a way to avoid speaking to Bro in your dreams. The purr turns into an unhappy growl as your mind immediately moves in another direction. "And if it's not just 'til my birthday?"
"C'mon, Dave, don't buy trouble—"
"It's not exactly buying trouble, Rox," Hal says before she can tell you not to worry about what you're already stressing over. "If he wants to state the possibilities, we will. A, this is already over—"
"It's not."
"Dave, let me finish my list. A, this is a one-time thing, and it's over. B, there's a limited window of time this can happen, and we can wait it out. C, this is...well, more permanent, in which case we figure out a way to get rid of the fucking ghost. Exorcisms suck but they're still a viable option."
"Or option D." You don't want to say it. It needs to be said, needs to be put on the table. "He does come back."
"See, that one's the easiest to handle," D says. " 'Cause that one just means I do what I shoulda done five years ago: I fucking kill him."
There's nothing in his voice but cold sincerity. You want to fucking cry. "D, if he—you don't—" Yeah, shit, can't keep your voice steady. Not at all. Karkat's in your head, trying to surround you with reassurance that you don't have to talk, Dirk and Hal and John are looking at you and you're guessing Roxy and Rose probably are too, and you can't take it right now.
You shake your head and cover your face with both hands. "...shit."
Karkat squeezes your shoulder. Are you going to be okay?
I have no fuckin' clue. You open your mind to the demon for a second, let him see the mess of emotions and thoughts you've got going on right now in the hope he can untangle it a little better than you can, or at least understand it. You sure as hell don't understand.
But Karkat gets some of it. "Of course D's going to fucking choose you, Dave."
"Over Bro? You bet your fucking life I would." D sighs, and even though you can't look right now you can hear the stressed frustration in the sound. "Look. I think we covered everything we can right now; I'm gonna go start seeing about getting my ass back to y'all, okay?"
"Good plan," Dirk agrees. "Rox, Rose?"
"I'm stuck here for three more days at least," Roxy says ruefully. "Kind of committed to this job; I didn't think I'd need to get back to Dirk's before Dave's birthday."
"Kanaya and I will be on the plane down there the day after tomorrow," Rose says. "I don't believe even I can expedite beyond that."
"So in a couple days we'll all be there," D finishes. "It'll be okay, Dave."
"Yeah." You believe him. Maybe that part of your mind that still belongs to Bro doesn't believe, but everything else knows that D and the others will do everything they can to make sure shit goes okay. "Talk to you guys later."
And Karkat pulls you to your feet and towards the couch as Hal starts unhooking the laptops and camera. You don't have to ask to know that the demon's going to find a movie and curl up with you, make sure you don't sleep again tonight. Keep you safe.
It'll be okay, you tell yourself, and you keep repeating it until you believe it a little more.
You go home. And it's home, D and Hal and Dirk are your brothers more than Bro ever was or could be and Karkat is...well. He's here, he's yours, you're his, period, end of story.
(Not really. What you have with Karkat is both too complicated to explain and so simple you can sum it up with the simple four-letter-word of love.)
But you have time to work that out with him, and work everything else out too. Slowly. You really can't process the ways your life changed in any way but slowly.
You get used to it, though, all of it. The fact that you can read other people's emotions. That pretty much everybody is immediately willing to just kind of...accept that? Bro would have killed you if you'd shown signs of this kind of talent when he was alive, but your family (another word you have to get used to in relation to yourself) just...works around it, like they work around the shitty mental fallout Bro left you with. And if (when) other hunters work out that your ability to pick up on moods and shit is as much a function of magic as it is of your training, they mostly just shrug and try to work out if it's something that can be useful.
(It can. You're a hella good lie detector, and under the right circumstances you can be an okay tracker. There's uses to this empath thing, beyond fucking you up in crowds and letting you be close to Karkat.)
That takes getting used to.
D gets you into therapy, which is...weird. Probably helps that he knows people who're okay with there being a demon sitting in on sessions and don't freak out when you end up bringing weapons in. Which kind of happens a lot. It helps, though, and the way that the others fucking care enough to watch for those times when shit's bad for you anyway, that they learn to recognise that there's days when you're fine and days when you can't handle anyone but Karkat touching you, the fact that D doesn't carry cigarettes anymore even though Roxy told you that was his main go-to when he's really badly stressed, how Hal tries to find correlate between your bad days and Jake tries to predict them with his readings?
All that helps even more.
You get used to the idea that yeah, you can have normal. Or more normal. That shit can be okay, that it is okay now, that there's absolutely no reason for you to have to take the jobs that mean killing demons and supernatural beings who don't deserve it.
That you don't have to kill at all.
You get used to Karkat being next to you when you wake up, whether it's in the morning or at fuck o'clock at night from a bad dream. He's there when you need him, and yeah, you need him a lot, but the nightmares slowly become further apart.
Things get better.
You get better, even if you're still not at what you would consider to be normal by everybody else's standards. You're always gonna be fucked up, but you can still get to a point where you can handle things.
So it's almost two years, and you don't think about the guy who raised you quite as much as you did at first.
...and then your eighteenth birthday starts getting close.
And then the dreams start.
Hey, lil' man.
"Shut up. You're dead."
Yeah, how about that? Betrayed by my own fuckin' blood. Always thought I raised you better'n that; guess there's only so much I can do with shitty material. Goddamn.
"You're dead."
Fuck, you're still an idiot, huh? Did I say I wasn't dead?
"Fuck off."
Nah. I don't think you understand, Davey—
"Don't you fucking call me that!"
Pain. Like a sharp blow, backhanded across the face in a way that leaves your skin stinging but might not leave marks. He can do that when nobody's looking, carry on like nothing happened.
Don't backtalk me, bitch. Fuckin' demon teach you that? Huh? I just bet he did, made you think I don't own your ass.
"Leave him out of this."
He's the one who started it, lil' man. Set the fuckin' wheels in motion, wasted me and took you off to my idiot brother and his crew. You think I haven't been watching? I know what you've been doing.
"You are dead. My Bro is dead. My Bro is—"
Yeah, yeah, you're a stupid whelp who'll bury his head in the sand and get his ass kicked. We get it. You fuckin' deserve what happens to you, Davey.
"Fuck you."
Awww. What's that? You miss me fucking you? I know you and the demon fuck; being dead makes me the best fuckin' voyeur ever. You ever slip up on whose name you moan, Davey, or is that just in your head?
Hey.
Lil' man.
Talk to me, bitch!
Pain, again. More like a punch this time; feels like blood on your face.
"Leave me alone!"
You don't want that. I'm your Bro, your big bro; everyone knows you wish the demon hadn't killed me. You want me back.
"No—"
Think about it, Davey. If I could come back, fuck that demon of yours, tear him right up, play with him awhile and see how long it takes to make him beg to die.
He heals fast, right?
Could keep him alive for days. Weeks. String you up across from him, keep you awake so you can watch him bleed, watch him beg you to make it stop. Would you get on your knees to me for him, Davey? I bet you would. Wouldn't even take that much—just chain that bastard up, strip him down and start cutting. Startbiting.
Bet I can get most of his skin off in one piece, Davey. Bet I can keep him alive through it—
"No! Don't you touch him, you won't fucking touch him, I'll kill you, don't you dare—"
You jerk awake and away, and your perception of time goes screwy as you realize that you can taste blood, your face is wet, there's nothing underneath you, and you're almost screaming the same three words over and over again. That last thing only stops for a second when you hit the floor, forehead slamming against it because you're too fucked up to even try to catch yourself; then you're almost sobbing the words out and scrambling to find a wall, put your back against it, get away—
"Dave—holy shit, Dave—" Karkat's voice is sleep-rough, but he's moving quicker than most people at full awareness. The light flicks on, and a second later the demon's kneeling in front of you, hands held out in an offer of support even if he doesn't touch you yet and eyes fixed on yours. "I'm right here, love, okay? Right here. No one's going to touch me, no one's going to take me away."
That's not what this is, you want to tell him, but you can't bear to open your mind enough to get the thought through. Your control's improved, since the empath talents manifested; you stay mostly closed when you sleep now. It's safer. But it means you can't let him see that this isn't just an anxiety dream of him being taken from you, this is...
No. It's not.
It is.
It can't be—
"Dave, can I touch you? Can you let me touch you?" You
You still haven't managed to stop your chant of don't touch him, but there's barely real words in it at this point, and somehow you manage to nod at Karkat's question. As soon as you do, he's got you wrapped up in his arms, settling so you're pressed against his chest, close enough to feel his heartbeat as he runs his fingers through your hair.
You really taste blood. Your face hurts.
Because he hit me, you think, and shudder at the thought.
Karkat's arms tighten around you, just a little. A year ago that would've sent you into a panic; now it's reassuring, a promise of protection and safety. "Who hit you?"
" 's a dream," you rasp out. God, how loudly were you screaming? Too loud for the lowkey soundproofing on the walls? Is everyone else going to know? "N-nobody...he's dead, fuckin' dead, gotta be dead, I s—I saw it, I saw—"
"Shhh, Dave, shush. You're going to make your nosebleed worse." Karkat's trying to soothe you down, but he's agitated too, either because your emotions are bleeding through the bond even with your mind closed, or because—
Because he knows Bro's—
"Shh. I'm freaked out because I'm afraid you're going to fucking hyperventilate, babe, and maybe because you're freaked out but mostly the other one—breathe with me, okay? Count those fuckers out, I know you know how to do this because you had to teach me..."
It's hard to fit the measured breaths around your sobbing, but you guess that's the point: you're supposed to only do one at a time, and your body responds to the five-seven-eight inhale-hold-release pattern just like it's supposed to. Although you have to count by Karkat's heartbeat, because yours is racing so fast you're dizzy.
Or maybe that's the nosebleed.
But he calms you down, and he cleans you up, gets you changed into a shirt that's not bloody and sat on the bed (well, on his lap, but he's on the bed so that counts) before he asks anything else. Even then, the question's carefully gentle.
"What happened?"
About six answers fight to get out of your mouth. You lean into Karkat and say the shortest one.
"Dream."
"The ones that make you scream are called nightmares, Dave."
"No. Dream." You don't know why you insist on this, but it wasn't a nightmare. Maybe it wasn't a dream—no. You won't go down that road.
"...okay. Dream. Can you tell me?"
"I—" Fear curls around your gut, so icy it burns, as soon as you even try to think about it. It tightens up your chest, too; steals your air and your voice, makes you need to switch to other lines of communication. Bro. Bro, 'kat, he—
Karkat growls, quiet and absolutely furious, ready to tear something (or someone) apart. "I killed him. He's dead. I promise you."
He's dead, you agree, but your hands are clenched in Karkat's shirt, straining the fabric in your desperation to hold him safely against you. He's dead. But. God, Karkat...
"Shh." He strokes your hair, pulls you closer and almost cradles you against him, murmuring wordlessly and winding himself around your mind, tangling the two of you up so much you don't know how he'll ever get away. You don't want him to get away. You want him here, safe, with you. You need him...
You have me. You'll always have me.
"I...know."
But Bro, your mind whispers, too soft for him to hear. You smash that whisper down and curl closer to the demon.
"Can you sleep?" he asks quietly.
You haven't had two nightmares in a row in what seems like a long fucking time, so you nod and cooperate with Karkat as he shifts you to lie down, let him go just long enough to let him get down next to you before wrapping yourself around him.
He's dead, you remind yourself. He's dead, and it's just a fucking dream.
Bro tells you how he's going to gut Karkat alive and feed him his own liver, and how you're going to help. This time you wake up because Karkat's pinned your arms on the bed to keep you from clawing at your head to get the softly furious southern drawl out.
Your throat hurts from screaming.
Instead of trying to get you to sleep the second time, he takes you into the kitchen, makes you coffee, and tells Hal to start setting up a conference with the rest of your family, present and absent. You just hunch over in the blanket you've acquired at some point, and try not to think about what's going to happen.
You've never been good at not thinking about shit.
Eventually, you tune back into things that're happening around you. Karkat can tell exactly when you do that, too; he stops in the middle of a sentence, wrapping his mind around yours and checking you pretty fucking thoroughly for mental injuries.
I'm fine, man, c'mon, you tell him, and immediately undermine that statement by flinching at the sound of a lighter being flicked. It's just D, you ascertain by the simple method of looking up at him, but holy shit the combination of that noise and the faint scent of tobacco catching...
Karkat growls, deep and rough, and pushes a wave of calming safety into your mind. "Put it out," he says sharply. "Now."
"What—" D gives him a purely confused look, then seems to remember the existence of the cigarette he just lit. "This?"
"No, fuck-for-brains, the dim fucking bulb you call your intellect—of course that!" The demon huffs and pulls you closer, glaring up at D. "My brother would be giving you a lecture on triggers and shit right now, but I'm fucking not him, so all I've got to say is that you're going to get rid of that, right fucking now, because if Dave has another panic attack I'll be taking it out of your hide—"
I don't have panic attacks, he's not trying to hurt me, and you need to chill, you think at Karkat in an attempt to get him to quit antagonizing the other hunter. It's okay, babe, I'm okay, you know I'm okay—
"Oh, shit," D mutters as he actually processes what Karkat's telling him, tossing the cig down and grinding his heel on it. You can almost feel the dismay pouring out of him as he fishes the pack out of his pocket and tosses it down to you. "Fuck, Dave, I didn't even think about that—he's the one who gave me the fucking habit in the first place, of course you'd have issues with it—"
"God, you need to chill too, you didn't do anything wrong..." You shake your head, fumbling with the half-full pack of cigarettes for a moment. I really don't want these...
I got 'em. Karkat nods, taking the pack and stuffing it in his pocket. "You're destined to never have anybody be chill around you, and you know it. Not me, not him, not anybody. It's your job to call us out on it now, right?"
"Oh, I can definitely do that." You grin back at him, pulling away so you can get to your feet—and taking the hand D offers, when he sees what you're doing. Karkat himself just rolls up with that insanely enviable grace he seems to show every so often, stepping close enough to wrap an arm around your waist. You
...huh. You kind of really like the implications of that gesture. This is probably called overthinking. Or maybe reading too much into things.
Jesus Christ on a motorcycle, you do know that you're right when you assume I'm being possessive on purpose, right? Karkat points out. Then, directed at D, "Are you going back in there?"
D makes a face, but nods. "Yeah, dude, probably have to; even if I blow off the rest of this, go 'hey I showed my face, cool, I'm done,' I still need to go tell Rose at least that I'm out, maybe say hi to Dirk and his crew—"
"Rose is here?" You have to cut him off and get confirmation on that, and when he nods again you can't stop a stupid grin from spreading across your whole damn face. Holy shit—you get to see your sister. She's probably no more than a hundred feet away from you. Holy shit. "Hell yes."
"You," Karkat states, very firmly, "are not going back in. D's telling Dirk where you went, and we're going home."
Home. Shit. Home, to Dirk and Jake and John's house, except now it's kind of your house, as least as far as you live there.
"Give me ten minutes and I'll drive you," D offers while you're still getting over the whole shock value of having an actual fucking semipermanent residence again.
"We're fine with waiting." Karkat shrugs and leans back against the wall, glancing at you again. We are okay with waiting, right?
"Yes, Karkat, I can handle hanging around out here. I'm not fucking dying, asshole; do you see brains leaking out my ears? Huh? Do you? Does it look like I'm—holy shit!"
Even as your hands come up to clutch at your head in instinctive response to the shock of the fucking huge surge of magic you just felt, you see several things happen at once. Karkat goes stiff and changes, eyes burning brighter and horns flickering into existence again; D drops into a combat stance, his attention obvious flickering between you and everything else, looking for a threat as two knives seem to just appear from nowhere in his hands; and a really fucking big, pure white dog skids around the corner of the building and almost crashes into you, swerving just in time and giving you barely a glance before it comes to a stop and starts barking at D.
"What the fuck—" Karkat starts, but D just waves a hand at him, slipping one knife back up into his sleeve and securing it in the forearm holster before bending down to hold his hand in front of the dog's mouth.
As soon as he does, it drops a very-wet but amazingly unchewed piece of paper in it.
That's weird as fuck, you think, forcing yourself to unwind your hands from your hair. "D, what—"
"Goddamnit, not again," he groans before you can finish your question, shoving the paper down in his pocket and leaning down to look the dog in its bright green eyes. "Do me a favor and stay with these two, Jade? Demons ain't exactly your shit anyway, not in these circumstances."
"Wait, Jade?" Okay, what the actual fuck. You look down at the dog as D heads for the door, and she looks back up at you.
Damn. The eyes are the right color. And you don't know much about dogs, but you're pretty sure that they're not supposed to look this much like they're smiling.
Jade barks again and jumps up on her hind feet, her front paws propped up on your shoulders so she can lick at your face. There is absolutely no way you can avoid this affection. Even though it's getting you hella slimy, you're not sure you want to. She's so fucking happy, holy shit?
Karkat is trying to get your attention. He's backed down from the full combat readiness he was at a second ago, but he's still agitated as fuck, so you reluctantly push Jade off you and turn to him.
"Stay here," the demon says, before you can even ask him what's wrong.
"No fucking chance, if you're going in there." And he's planning on it; he's already moving in the same direction D went, taking long quick strides that have you almost running to keep up with him, and Jade trotting beside you both. "Why exactly are you about to walk into a building full of hunters, again? Like, I'm with you every step of the way, but maybe—"
"Dave, I love you, but stop talking." He puts a soft growl in the last two words, and slips through the door.
You follow, and get really fucking overwhelmed as soon as you're in the room, to the point where you have to close your eyes and let your mind adjust. Shit, you thought it was bad when everybody was feeling approximately the same set of emotions? This is ridiculous—you can catch anger, confusion, a couple spikes of absolute delight, fear, rage—
Okay, okay, I can feel shit; how the hell do I stop feeling it?
That's the question, and Karkat is apparently too distracted to answer it. Okay. That's okay. You can handle this. As long as you don't panic, you can totally handle this.
You're fine.
You try thinking of everyone else's emotions the same way you'd think of your own, in any situation where Bro was watching you: they're there, and there's nothing you can do about that, but if you hold yourself in and don't think about them, don't let your attention get caught up, you can make them not exist for a minute at least. And it kinda works. Makes the dizzying press of emotion recede a little, enough for you to take a deep breath and open your eyes.
And then you have to take another minute to process what the hell you're seeing. Everyone's drawn back from the center of the room, other than Rose (Rose! Holy shit she got really fucking pretty and also really fucking scary) and a pale girl you don't know, at least until she hisses at the other two individuals in the middle of the room and you see her sharp fangs. That's gotta be the vampire, Rose's girlfriend, Kanaya.
The two in the middle really give you pause, though. They're demons. Like, really demons, at least the one in the shimmering warding circle is; the other one you're not totally sure about. The latter, a short and mostly-humanish lady (your mind insists she's a Lady, even if she looks like she picked her clothes out of a dumpster full of rejected neon-grunge fashion and gave herself a haircut with a not-too-sharp knife) seems mostly focused on either the summoning circle or the pissed-off demon inside.
D is over by Rose, asking her questions too quietly for you to hear and receiving mostly head-shake yes's and no's. After a second of hesitation, you head across the room to join them, with Jade right by your side.
"Stop," Rose hisses without taking her eyes off the demon, as you step up next to D. "You're going to make me drop the barrier—"
"Why the fucking christ would you summon a demon? Why here?" D doesn't even sound worried. Just really fucking exasperated, like this is something that's happened before. Your sister is absolutely terrifying. "This is a fucking funeral, Rose—"
"This is a memorial, not a funeral, and I summoned a Balancekeeper, the demon just—sort of came along, I don't know!" She shakes her head, short hair flying everywhere, and spares you a quick glance. "Hello, Dave."
"Hey, Rose." That's literally the only thing you can come up with. To buy time, you glance back at the demons in the middle of the room, and instantly regret it because the one inside the circle seems to be shapeshifting into a really bigspider. Jesus. "Are you gonna, uh...maybe send it back?"
"I didn't summon her in the first place!" This time Rose's voice briefly rises above the hissing whisper she's been keeping it at, to a level that can almost carry a tone of panic, before she gets herself under control again. "I can't exactly banish what I didn't call—fuck, now there's two—"
Even though you don't want to see the damn spider again, you turn around anyway. Rose is right; there's definitely two demons there now, plus the neon grunge whatever-she-is—but one is Karkat, who's approached the warding circle and is standing there with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. Thankfully, the other demon's gone back to mostly-human form, not that you can see her that clearly through the shimmering barrier—just an impression of a lot of denim and long messy dark hair. Better than the spider.
As you watch, Karkat meets your eyes for just a second, sending you a burst of reassurance that immediately makes you suspicious as hell as to what he's about to do that makes him think you need that.
And you're right to be suspicious—he takes a step back from the barrier, then lets out a low growl that you can still hear across the room and changes, going from human to full demon in half a heartbeat and spreading his inky-red wings wide.
Rose yelps, Kanaya hisses again, and you're guessing that weapons come out, but you're not gonna scan the room to check. No, you're more interested in getting to Karkat as fast as possible, get behind him and guard his back from the attack you know will come because even if you can't keep him safe you can damn well make sure you go down fighting for him—
In the couple seconds it takes you to reach Karkat and fall into a defensive stance behind him, he's humanish again and the barrier holding the demon in is gone. Rose apparently lost her concentration when Karkat shifted. So now you have to fucking decide, what's the bigger threat: hunters or spider demon?
Karkat seems to have the latter handled, although that might be because she hasn't actually done anything beyond huffing irritably and flipping her hair back. The other one, Miss Fashion Disaster, makes a satisfied sound and steps up next to her.
"Karkat," the spider demon says, drawing his name out in a way that trips both your Instinctive Jealousy and Fearful Irritation switches at once. "What's a tough guy like you doing in a place like this?"
"I was fucking invited." Okay, why does he sound this calm. Annoyed yes, but calm. "Unlike you, Vriska."
"I was invited!" Fashion Disaster points out cheerfully. Now that you actually look at her up close, you realize that there's something fucked up about her eyes; they're red, almost the same color as Karkat's but devoid of pupil or iris, with scars marking the skin around them. Makes sense; she definitely dresses like she's blind. "Well, summoned, but who gives a fuck? Nothing says I can't bring a plus-one."
"Oh my fucking god." Karkat sighs and rubs his forehead. "You can't bring a fucking plus-one to a funeral."
Rose says, quietly but firmly, "Memorial."
The blind neon fashion disaster laughs at that. Really loudly. Vriska the weird spider demon just snickers.
You're really confused right now and kind of wish that this whole clusterfuck was a thing that wasn't happening.
"Can all y'all please leave?" D says. He sounds like this was the last thing he wanted to deal with today, and you sympathize with that sentiment. "You ladies gotta know everyone here is armed and ready to handle threats, but we'd all rather keep the bloodshed to a minimum. No need to get set for another memorial when we're not done with the one we got now, right?"
Vriska grins at him, a smile full of too many sharp teeth. "I mean, I bet we could make a deal for us to leave..."
"Oh fuck no—" Karkat grabs her arm as she takes a step towards D, hauling her backwards and growling back as she snarls at him. "No fucking deals! This isn't a crossroad—"
"It's a metaphorical one!"
"I don't give a flying fuck! I'm not handling the aftermath of your stupid shit today—"
Fashion Disaster laughs again, a gleeful cackle that has everybody looking at her again. (Well, everyone besides the two demons, who're more focused on each other.) When you look at her, she seems to be interested in you.
Shit.
"So you're the one on trial here, huh?" Yeah, fuck, there's no one else she could be talking to. Fuck. Fuck. "Kinda weird, that your blood kin is the one to summon me when she pretty obviously thinks you're innocent."
"Leave him be, Balancekeeper," Rose warns, stepping up next to you. "You haven't heard the issue to be judged—"
"Do I need to, when I can taste how much guilt he's carrying and how many people want to jump up and accuse him?" Goddamnit, why the fuck does she have to grin like that?
...and there's people here who want to accuse me of something? No, not of an undefined "something." You know what you did. They know too, huh? They all know I had Bro killed, fuck—
Yeah. Here comes the panic again. You can feel Karkat trying to curl around your thoughts and get you to listen to him even as he argues with the spider demon, but since you've got your mind mostly closed to keep out everything else, it's not working all that well.
"Hey," the Balancekeeper says. When you don't immediately focus on her, she reaches up and grabs your chin, blunt nails digging in slightly as she pulls you down to look in her eyes. They're red, and they're blank, and holy shit they're so fucking bright it's like looking in the sun. "Let's get this over with."
"Get the fuck off me!"
She does let you twist free of her grip pretty easily, but when you stagger away from her you realize that you're not where you were before. There's no one here, for one thing, and instead of the room you were in, this place is just...featureless. White walls, white floor, white ceiling some unmeasurable distance away from you. What the fuck?
"Karkat?" Karkat! You shout the demon's name and call for him in your mind, and get no response either way. No. Fuck. Please no.
"Calm down, cool dude," the Balancekeeper says. When you turn back to her she's seated on a white platform that's too featureless to be called a chair—which wasn't there a second ago—watching you with a thoughtful look. "You only stay in the courtroom until the judge—that's me—reaches a decision."
"Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure you didn't go through due process, bitch, so—"
"Shush." She shakes her head and crosses her arms, nodding to the second platform just behind you that also wasn't there a second ago. "Sit down, shades off, if you call me a bitch without providing due reason I'll find you in contempt of court."
"The due reason of you being a bitch is that you dragged me here without asking me." You do what she says, though, carefully folding your shades and turning them over and over in your hands as you glare at her. "Or fucking telling me what you're accusing me of." Not that you don't know.
And she knows you know, because she gives you another disturbingly wide grin. "See, we have two courses of action here—one, you tell me what you've been accused of, or two, I scry your past and see for myself."
"Like you could see anything."
"Right, make fun of the blind girl, very mature. If you weren't about ready to have a meltdown I'd find you in contempt of court—"
"Would that get me out of this shit?"
"No. But since you're obviously having issues today, I'll let it slide." She shrugs, sitting up a little straighter. "State your name for the record."
"What record?"
"My record, wiseguy, and also because I'd like something to call you other than 'cool dude' or 'Mr. Black Licorice Guilt.'"
"Mister what now?"
"You taste like you're just waiting for somebody to jump on you and call you out on something; I bet even humans can see it." She shrugs, resettling herself on the white chair, and frowns thoughtfully. "You're also stubborn and that tastes disgusting. Stop it."
"Make me." Why the actual fuck am I antagonizing a demon, exactly? "You know what? You tell me yours, I'll tell you mine."
That earns you another cackle, and she nods without even hesitating. "Cool andsmart! You can have this point, Mr. Licorice—presiding over today's trial is Terezi Pyrope, summoned to arbitrate a dispute. Hopefully this one, because that's what I'm doing." Terezi pauses, raising her eyebrows in your general direction. "And the accused is..."
Shit. You guess you agreed to this information, if nothing else. "Dave Strider."
"Do you know what you stand accused of?" When you don't answer, Terezi huffs irritably. "C'mon, now, we both know you do. Do I really need to slap a geas on you to get you to talk?"
"Go ahead and try." You resist the urge to reach up and touch the scarred tattoo at the back of your neck. "I'm a fucking hunter. We ward against that."
"Point one: I'm a Balancekeeper, and this is a courtroom—wards against truthtelling spells aren't going to work here. Point two: your warding mark's broken to the point of uselessness." Terezi's mouth twists in distaste, the tip of her tongue poking out for just a second. "That fact is entered into the evidence as Exhibit A."
"You can't have evidence when you haven't fucking accused me of anything!"
"It's evidence in your favor, idiot, and it's not my fault you won't state what you're accused of." She shakes her head, and even though her eyes are just blank scarlet you're pretty sure she's rolling them at you. "So let's try this again. Do you know what you're on trial for, Mister Dave Strider? And if you don't answer, I willmake you answer."
Goddamnit. You don't want her working magic on you, especially now that you're certain that the way Bro scarred your neck rendered the protection rune there useless. Did he know that? Did he fucking care?
"Dave?"
"Yeah."
"Hm. I guess I set myself up for that, huh? State what you're here to defend yourself for."
Damn. That tactic didn't buy you much time to think about what you're going to say. At least she seems amused instead of annoyed, although if you don't do what she wants that's probably going to change.
So say it. Quit being a fucking coward and say it.
"I had a hunter killed. My Bro." Shit. You shouldn't be admitting it. This could get you killed, you and Karkat both, and while you can handle the former you don't want to even think about the latter—
"True!" Terezi snaps her fingers to get your attention, her wide grin replaced by a surprisingly serious expression. "The accused does not deny that he had a hand in the deceased's death—of course he doesn't! Mr. Strider knows better than to lie to a Balancekeeper!"
"You do know we're the only ones here, right? Like, I realize you're blind—"
"The defendant is ordered to shut up. The issue at hand is not whether or not the deceased is deceased, or how said death happened, or who did it. The only thing I'm interested in is justice!"
There's no way Terezi can see you flinch at that, but she still stops talking and frowns at you. "Does the defendant need a minute to stop freaking out?"
"...no." You just want her to get this over with. Whatever "this" is.
"Oh, good. The purpose of this trial is to determine whether the motives behind the death of the deceased were righteous or flawed. In other words, we can boil this all down to a nice yes-or-no question: did he deserve to die?"
You answer without thinking, give her the response your gut goes to every time you ask yourself that question. "No."
Terezi shakes her head and waves a hand, and the wall behind her shimmers and changes, images appearing on it. The first is a picture of the scarred and broken protection rune on the back of your neck. The second is just the word "REMORSE," written in blue-green capital letters. "Exhibits A and B: defendant has been obviously harmed by the deceased, and defendant nonetheless regrets the deceased's death. He's also scared out of his mind; it tastes awful."
"Shut up." She's right, but that doesn't mean you want to hear it.
"Nope. The judge will ignore that remark because of aforementioned reasons. Hmmm...does the defendant have any more evidence to put on display?"
"I—"
You stop almost immediately, because her blind eyes are fixed on you again, and you can feel something sifting carefully through your mind. Before you can tell her to fucking quit it, Karkat's voice speaks out of the air between you and the Balancekeeper.
"He'll kill you. Or he'll keep you like some kind of fucking beast, just so he can keep getting off on having you hurt and scared."
And it's your voice that answers, so raw and hurt that you cringe down in your seat and close your eyes. "So I fucking hope for the former and expect the latter."
"Defendant," Terezi says quietly, "believed he had cause to fear for his life."
"Get the fuck out of my head—"
She's still digging, but she stops and tilts her head thoughtfully, snapping her fingers again. The wall behind her shimmers again, this time displaying a long list of names. You recognize very few of them—the ones that you do know seem to jump out at you, the teal that they're printed in darkening to almost black. Most of them are names of hunters that you only met one or two times, or of people who were known to have information on demons.
"The deceased had killed before, both with reason—" she snaps her fingers again, and maybe a third of the two hundred or so names go bright, accusing red— "and without." The rest darken to black, with just a few wavering uneasily between the two colors.
Wait. That's what that list is? People Bro killed? "That...can't be right."
"Don't doubt a Balancekeeper, Dave."
"But—" It couldn't be that many. Yeah, there were a lot of jobs, a lot of demons, but that many? And there are hunters' names there—he wouldn't kill hunters, why—
You know why.
He told you he'd kill you if you ever crossed him. You've heard him threaten people who disagreed with his tactics—hell, that was a normal thing, to the point that you fielded texts from other hunters as often as you could, anything to avoid a confrontation that'd end with Bro angry and you left to try and dodge the fallout.
With someone like him, there isn't much space between threatening and acting.
"Fuck." You hear the word come out of your mouth, and hope that Terezi isn't going to threaten you with contempt of court again. You're not even sure what that is or what kind of punishment it'd carry.
"The judge would like to go on record as agreeing with that sentiment." Another wave of her hand, and the list of names shrinks to leave room for her first three pieces of evidence. "I'm not really sure if we're using the old laws or the ones humans have set down and use now, but if we accept any judiciary code which allows the death penalty, the deceased would have earned it twenty times over." She gives you a stern frown, and adds, "Which doesn't mean you have the right to pass judgement, just so you know."
"That's not what—"
"The judge is very aware that the main motive for the deceased's death was self-defense on the part of the defendant, even if the defendant was technically not in danger of being killed at that exact point in time. Exhibits A and E—"
"Uh, there isn't an Exhibit E."
"Damn." Terezi snaps her fingers again, and more images appear below the ones already present: pictures of scars on pale skin. You can place every one of them to where they're traded on your skin. "Sorry, Dave—you're Exhibit E; I forgot to add you into evidence."
" ...can we maybe not look at those right now. Please."
She just nods, and the images darken into obscurity. "Exhibits A and E show undeniable proof of long-term abuse perpetrated by the deceased—"
"He didn't—"
"The judge is going to remember that the defendant does to some extent believe that what he's trying to say is true, which means he's not really lying to a Balancekeeper, because the consequences of that would be really bad."
"Sorry."
"Don't worry, I already struck it from the record. Karkat would kill me if I jacked you up just because I could." Terezi shrugs, standing up; you instinctively do the same. "In conclusion: judge rules that the death of Derrick Strider was justified, self-defense on the part of Dave Strider, who was not able to access any other means of helping himself due to machinations of aforementioned Derrick Strider. Dave Strider is not to be held accountable for Derrick's death, or punished for it, now or at any time in the future. C'mere."
"Wait, what—" But she's already grabbed the collar of your shirt, pulling you down enough that she's able to...lick you.
Eugh.
Terezi's more slobbery than Jade was, and Jade's currently a dog. You pull out of her grip as soon as you can, taking a step back and wiping your sleeve across your face to clear the spot out of your eyes.
"Dave!" Karkat yelps.
Okay, well, you're back in the room where you started. Nobody seems to really notice your and the Balancekeeper's disappearance and reappearance, other than Karkat, who's currently inside a new binding circle with Vriska. Going by the fact that he's got her right arm twisted behind her and his other arm hooked around her neck, you're going to guess that they're not getting along too well.
"Here you go," Terezi says cheerfully, stepping over to Rose and shoving a folder into her hands. (The barrier holding Karkat and Vriska dissolves as Rose gets distracted, but the two demons are still occupied with trying to beat the shit out of each other.) "The ruling and full transcripts of the trial, with known laws that were referenced cited."
"But—" Rose starts. Terezi cuts her off with another cackle.
"You guys are really obsessed with asses here, huh? Vris, c'mon, playtime's over!" The Balancekeeper brushes past you, grabbing the spider demon's shirt as she tries to lunge at Karkat again. "Seriously, give it a rest."
"Fuck you!" But Vriska doesn't fight for more than a second, calming almost immediately and slinging an arm around Terezi's shoulders. "Ugh. Fine. Later, losers."
Rose has her mouth open to protest, but the two of them are already gone.
For a second, nobody in the room moves except D, who's shifting his weight from foot to foot, scanning the room for any new threats. Amazingly, you're the one who actually acts first.
"Holy shit, 'kat." You step over to the demon, trying to ignore everybody else looking at you, and reach up to push his red hair back from the new scratches on his forehead. "She clawed you up, huh? You okay?"
He winces and nods at the same time, catching your hands and wrapping an arm around your shoulder to steer you towards the door. "Isn't that what I should be asking you? Terezi has problems with personal space when she's fulfilling her duty..."
"Well, that is what Balancekeepers are meant to do," Hal points out, falling into step next to you. "Although the question still stands."
"I'm okay." For now at least. Later, you're going to have to get that folder from Rose, go over the list of names—
"There's absolutely no way you're doing that," Karkat growls. "Hal, are you going back to the house?"
The shikigami nods. "We all are, once Dirk and Jake get John to quit trying to fight some idiot. Rose and the others might actually get there before we do, at this rate—you should ride with them."
"Uh..." Damn, now I have to make decisions.
No, Dave, you really don't, don't worry. Karkat shakes his head and reaches over to grab D's arm, pulling him along towards the exit. "You're the driver, right?"
"Yep." D shakes the demon off after a second, offering you a quick smile. "Sorry. That might've been more than ten minutes."
"I mean, I was the one who held shit up, so..." You shrug. "We're going home now. It's all good."
And despite the fact that you have no real reason to, you feel just a little less shitty about having your Bro killed. Maybe it's because the Balancekeeper promised that you won't be punished for it, now or ever.
Hunters don't have funerals. You don't bury the body of someone who's spent any measurable fraction of their life killing demons and beings of that ilk; that's dangerous, that's fucking stupid. Dead hunters are cremated, their bodies destroyed and spirits freed to do whatever the hell the spirits of the dead do.
(You kind of really hope that yours just stops, whenever you die. Or stays with Karkat. One of those two options.)
Anyway, Ethan doesn't get a funeral, but there is a memorial, after his body's been reduced to a container full of ashes and when Jake and Hal have had time to inform all hunters in the area that it's necessary to honor one who's fallen. Dirk repeatedly told you that you didn't have to go, nobody's going to blame you for not attending the damn memorial, but fuck. You needed to do this.
So here you are, in a room with too fucking many armed hunters, without Karkat. This shit isn't fucking safe for him; even if he passes for human, he's still a demon, and even if you have Dirk's promise of his safety, you're still afraid he'd be hurt. You're not even totally sure where he is right now—somewhere close, you guess, since you can feel him in your mind if you strain.
Not that you're going to do that. If he realizes just how nervous you are right now, he'd be right here at your side in a second.
You kind of want him to do exactly that.
Stop it, you fucking idiot. Everything's fine, why do you need him to come bail you out right now?
Hm. Maybe because people keep recognizing you? Maybe because five separate people have asked you about your goddamn Bro. So far, there's been somebody near you to dodge the question so you don't have to stammer and try not to fucking freeze up—Dirk twice, Hal, John, and Roxy once each—but eventually somebody's gonna ask, and you'll be standing there alone, and you're going to fuck up answering.
There is no way you can answer that doesn't count as fucking up.
Need to calm down.
Yeah. You do. No. You can't.
There's a lot of people here, feeling a lot of shit. They didn't all know Ethan, but even the ones that didn't have a deep, visceral reaction to knowing that a fellow hunter died.
(And what would they think of me if they knew I got one killed? Not just Ethan, maybe they could justify that, but. But Bro.)
Stop. Fucking stop.
Almost nobody knows about that. The ones that do, they don't hate you for it. You can't feel one ounce of hatred or blame directed at you, by anyone here.
Shit, when did I start being able to feel shit this clearly from anyone other'n Karkat?
Probably when you made the dumbass decision to walk into a building full of emotional people, you guess. You keep getting flashes of what everyone here is feeling—it's so fucking overwhelming.
"Are you alright?" Jake asks when you take a step back to put your back against the wall. As you press your hands against your eyes—too hard; it hurts and you're seeing stars instead of the desired darkness—you get a flash from him: a mix of concern and the knowledge that he's currently the one who needs to keep everybody else from harassing you.
Wait, they're doing that on purpose? Intercepting the questions about Bro? Damn, why?
"Davey, you look like you're about to lose your lunch," Jake points out.
Well, he's not wrong. Davey. You want to throw up at that name. Usually, you've only heard it in very specific circumstances.
"I'll be outside if you need me," you tell him, and then you're headed for the exit, slipping through gaps in the crowd that Jake might not even see and (thankfully) managing to not brush against anyone. These are hunters; if you make too much contact you're going to get grabbed, stopped, maybe asked what's going on, and that's not the kind of thing you can handle right now.
Holy fucking shit, listening to this many people's emotions at once feels like fucking dying, you realize. You're not dying, though. You can't think, but you're not dying.
Dave? Karkat asks as you push the door open and slip outside. You need me?
You do. You do fucking need him. Instead of telling him that, you let out a shaky sigh and start walking along the side of the building.
"No, man, you stay clear of here, alright? Too many hunters." You mumble the words, keeping your mind open to Karkat to be sure he can hear you. "I'm fine, it's cool, it's all good—"
Liar, liar.
"Okay, so I'm rattled. Doesn't mean anything, you know that that's just about my constant state of being right now—"
Yeah, sure, but it's my fucking job to get you out of that state, and you know it—
"How is that your goddamn job, asshole?" He'll know you don't really mean the insult. Can't help knowing, with how wound up in your thoughts he is right now. "I'm not—"
My responsibility? You are, actually, and there's nothing you can do about that, so—Dave? Dave, what the hell's wrong?
You shake your head and do your fucking best to shut your mind to him, taking a step toward the wall and leaning against it. You're okay, you're fucking fine, the fact that you can smell cigarette smoke shouldn't do this to you, shove you into a state that isn't fight and isn't flight, a third evolutionary imperative that could just be called submit.
A scent shouldn't just slam down memories on you like this. This isn't normal.
He smokes when he's drunk. Only when he's drunk, not fighting-drunk, not passed-out drunk, only when he's a little drunk and doesn't plan on taking it any further. If he's got his shades on, you're okay, maybe you're okay, there's less of a chance that he'll stub his cigarette out and give you a slow, friendly grin.
You're terrified of that smile.
It's the kind of smile he could pick up a girl in a bar with, or a guy if he wanted that—the word that comes to mind is charming, and damn but he can be charming, but beyond that smile he never bothers to turn it on you. He drinks, he smokes, he stubs out his fucking cigarette in the ashtray that he carries because hotels don't keep them in the rooms anymore. He smiles at you, your fucking Bro smiles at you, he shifts on the bed and jerks his head to say that now you're expected to come sit by him, and when you do?
Well.
Either he'll do it or he'll lean back and nod at you to do it yourself, but either way your clothes come off, slowly enough that by the time you're naked for him you just want him to fucking do it, you want this to be over when he's barely even started, before he really even touches you—
Somebody actually does touch you, in the here and now instead of just in the too-vivid memories your brain's throwing out, and you flinch back hard enough that the back of your head slams against the wall you're leaning on. Damn, you didn't even realize you were staring down at the ground, or that you were zoned out badly enough to not hear somebody come up on you.
Shit.
Okay, focus. Don't think about Bro. Or hotel rooms. Or cigarette smoke. Nope, none of those. Just focus on who the hell has one hand on your shoulder—
"Dude, holy fuck, are you okay?" the guy asks, and you look up into eyes that're the same red as yours and immediately close your own eyes. "Wait—Dave?"
"Fuck. D." You get that much out, realize that the rhythm of your breath could easily be called a panicked panting, and have to stop to get that under control.
"Yeah, dude, didn't Dirk tell you I was coming? Fuck, are you going to be alright?"
" 'm fine—just rattled, I guess, it's all good..." The fact that D's got his hands on your shoulders is actually helping, despite the fact that he's standing in front of you when you've got your back against the wall so he's effectively blocking any chance you have of fleeing. Okay, don't think about that either. "It's cool. I'm okay."
Nope, I'm not even close to okay. Karkat's going to be pissed that you cut him out, but you drop your mental barriers and reach for him anyway. Hey. Karkat?
Right here. There isn't any hint of annoyance that you can feel in his thoughts. Reassurance, concern, a promise of safety now and as long as he's there, affection, but nothing like the anger you kind of expected from him. Say the fucking word and I'll come beat the shit out of whatever's fucking you up, I swear to any god you want to name, I don't care how many hunters there are—
"You don't gotta do that, 'kat, I'm okay." D raises one eyebrow at that, and you bite your lip and switch to speaking without speaking. Well, close enough to okay. Need you for a second, is all.
I'm coming.
"Don't you dare—" Dammit. D's looking weirdly curious. Of course he is; you keep talking to somebody who isn't here. This is good enough, man.
"Dirk wasn't kidding when he said you were an empath, huh?" D says thoughtfully, offering you a small smile when you actually focus on him again. That smile evaporates after a second, though, leaving a concerned frown. "Wait, fuck. Did he seriously make you come to the memorial?"
"Nobody made me—"
"I'm gonna kill both of 'em—Dirk, Hal, all of 'em." D shakes his head, running one hand through his pale blonde hair and ruining the fair semblance of order he'd managed before, and taking a step back from you. (You hope you're not projecting your sense of relief enough for him to feel it. Karkat's projecting exasperation at you for feeling the need to cover up your relief at all.) "They told me this shit's new for you; why the ever-loving fuck would they make you handle this kind of shit right off the bat?"
"Dude, fucking chill, okay?" Shit, you haven't talked to D for what, eight years? And the first thing you're gonna do is get in a fight with him.
This isn't exactly a fight, Dave.
"Shut up, Karkat—D, c'mon, you really think they'd make me do anything?"
He huffs and crosses his arms. "Yeah, actually, I think my lil' bros can be as manipulative as hell when they think they gotta be. Especially Hal. I mean, Dirk tries to trick people into doing shit, but he's fuckin' awful at it. No offense—it's actually kinda a good thing. Means I don't gotta watch my step quite so much around the kid, right? He's—"
Do you think he'll stop on his own? Karkat inquires curiously.
"I'm like eighty percent sure he won't, no." D's always been prone to getting off on tangents. It was cool as hell when you were a kid; hanging out with him always lasted way longer than expected, and Bro didn't give you shit for it; maybe he was too scared to. You know that D's one of the best hunters alive; even if the main traits of his that stick in your mind are his patience with kids, his ability to get sidetracked, and his tendency to turn up with weird and interesting objects, you still know that he's fucking deadly.
He's also still rambling about Dirk and Hal. "Yo, D. Earth to D?"
"Yep." He blinks, grins, and runs a hand through his hair again, messing it up even worse. "Whoops."
"Nah, man, you're good. Just—" Damn, what the hell can you even say to him? Just say something. "Thought you were out of the country?"
D winces and nods quickly. "Yeah, but the key word there is 'was.' When somebody I helped train gets killed, the least I can do is show at the memorial."
Dammit. "Ethan was one of yours?"
"Yeah." Another nod, and a sigh from him. "I mean, I was on my way back anyway, since Hal 'n Dirk said you turned up again, but this shit made it urgent. Fucking sucks."
Dave, Karkat says reasonably in your head, you don't have to fucking say what I know you're about to say—
"Did they tell you what happened to him?" you ask, trying to keep your voice steady. D doesn't know I killed him, he wouldn't be talking to me if he knew, he—
Goddamnit, Dave, Karkat thinks at you wearily at the same moment as D nods and says, "Yeah, man, Hal gave me the play-by-play. He also told me you'd be fucked up over it—"
Oh, yeah, that's a really fucking true statement. "Sorry," you mumble, to both Karkat and D, and close your eyes, leaning against the wall again and opening your mind to the demon as much as you can without flipping places with him.
Dave, what the hell? I'm coming.
"You're gonna get hurt."
Shut the fuck up. That doesn't come across as aggressive as it probably would out loud. Nobody there is going to hurt me, calm down. It'll be okay.
Let me get somewhere away from people— Yeah, right. No way are you walking anywhere; D's already guiding you down to sit on the ground and lean against the building, which is good since you were pretty fucking close to falling for a second there.
People? What people?
Hunters.
It's you and your whoever-he-is, Dave; I can tell he's related to you and Dirk and I really fucking doubt he'd hurt me.
" 'kat, please, he's a hunter, he can kill you—" You hear the pleading note in your voice, realize that last bit was out loud, and wince, opening your eyes to look up at D.
He stares back solemnly, the sight of his red eyes reminding you that you shouldn't've worn your goddamn shades to the memorial; who the fuck does that? One more way you're a fucking disgrace—
"Dave, hey." You flinch even though he keeps his tone gentle, because gentle is the last thing you expected. "You think I'd hurt your demon?"
"Dunno." Yes you do. You do think he'd hurt your demon. Hurt Karkat. "Bro—he would've."
"So?"
"Same people trained y'all." Close your eyes. Don't look at him. "You—he—it's hunter shit, okay, you kill demons, this isn't right, I'm not fucking right—"
"Holy shit, kid," D says quietly, and the ghost of Bro that lives in your head starts snarling at you for presuming to fucking cry in front of everyone, and you just want the earth to just fucking swallow you whole.
That lasts a minute. Maybe more. You have no idea.
Then Karkat's next to you, pulling you into his arms and giving D short, distracted answers to the questions he asks about if you're gonna be okay.
They don't fight. You expected them to fight, you really fucking did.
God, you're so relieved you don't want to do anything but press against Karkat and not think for a second. Since the demon and D are talking and not expecting you to join in, that's precisely what you do.
After an hour of being hooked up to three laptops, Hal's okay. Which is definitely a fucking relief—you got one person killed; letting Hal get hurt too would be worse than you even want to think about.
But no.
Roxy just spends about an hour focused on tweaking the shitton of code displayed on the computers that're connected to the cable that's (somehow) connected to Hal's wrist, glancing over at him every couple minutes to see if he's doing anything other than sitting there and slowly blinking like he's an inch from falling asleep. Then she saves all the changes, unplugs him, and ruffles his hair before she starts packing up the electronics.
Hal shakes his head slightly, rubbing at his wrist where the cable went it, and finally focuses. On you, actually. "Hey."
"Yeah, hey." You can't really tell what he's thinking, and that's more than a little worrying despite the fact that Dirk, Roxy, Karkat, and even Hal himself have already reassured you that you're not up to be punished here. "So she fixed you?"
"Mhm." He nods, holding his hand out and experimentally wiggling his fingers. Now that you're actually looking, you can see the mark like a tattoo or a dark scar in the shape of a USB port just below his palm. "Defragging base routines sucks, but at least the corruption didn't have time to reach anything irreplaceable."
You cut him off before he can do more than open his mouth for the next sentence. "Don't you fuckin' dare say I did the right thing, man."
"I was actually going to thank you—"
" Don't do that—"
"—and apologize."
What the hell? "I don't get why you would need to do that." Wait. Fuck. You shake your head, just a bit, hopefully not enough for the shikigami to notice, and close your eyes. Wrong fucking emphasis.
"Well."
When he leans over to touch your hand, you open your eyes again. The look on his face is still unreadable for a moment, until he blinks and very obviously makes an effort to let you see something other than his normal calm mask.
Okay, yeah, that makes it worse—why the hell would he be that guilty?
"I was the one that summoned the de—the banshee." Even though he catches himself, doesn't actually call the thing you killed a demon, you still see him wince. "As in, if I had had a fucking modicum of sense, none of this would have happened."
"That's not—"
"Unless you have an argument beyond blaming yourself?" Hal shakes his head and crosses his arms, glaring at you for a second before he wipes most of the worry and pain off his face. "Shut up."
Fuck. "And let you try and take the fucking blame?"
"The difference between you and me is that I've come to the conclusion that bad shit happens sometimes, Dave." Hal shrugs and gets to his feet, wobbling for a second before steadying himself with a small frown. "Dammit—but it's not about blame; it just happens. Talk to Jake about levels of predestination, sometime."
"About what now?" Except Hal's already heading out of the room and you just get a shrug in answer.
...okay.
He's right, though, you think, and immediately wonder about whether you actually have a right to think that. Hey, actually? Fuck that. I can think what I want to think, can't I?
Well, you don't exactly want to think that this clusterfuck wasn't your fault.
Then again—
"It wasn't," Karkat murmurs from right behind you. You feel a quick flash of surprise from him when you jump. "It wasn't your fault."
"Not yours either," you point out as he leans against the back of your chair and rests his chin on top of your head.
"...alright." So, he asks in your head, the tone less a question than a gentle prompt, whose fault would it be?
You know what he wants you to say.
You kind of have to admit that he's right, too.
"...nobody's fault." He hums softly when you lean back against him, wrapping his arms around your shoulders. "Or the fucking banshee's, I guess."
"Yeah. Exactly." Karkat makes that deep growling sound that you've tentatively identified as a purr, and lets you go. "Come on. We both should eat; John and Dirk made food."
You kind of don't want to eat, but you don't have to dip into the demon's mind to know that he isn't going to just let you brush him off. Plus, if you do what he wants you to do—what you probably do actually need to do—he'll be willing to come back into your room and curl up on the bed with you sooner, let you calm down with him there.
"I mean, you're right, but I'd do that anyway." Karkat rolls his eyes and pulls you to your feet, steering you towards the kitchen. "Now come on."
"Yeah, man. I'm coming."
Later, when you do end up curled on top of the demon, it takes you fucking forever to actually sleep. You don't know why, and thinking about why probably is part of the reason it's so damn hard.
It's not because you don't feel safe. You do. Karkat makes you feel safe, everything about him reminds you that most of the shit you fear won't happen again, can't happen again.
You don't think it's because you're fucked up over Ethan. (Well, maybe it is. But you...you'd expect yourself to just try and sleep and not have to fucking consciously face the fact you killed someone. That's been your basic reaction when you've been fucked up over kills before, of demons and shit.)
(...okay, you absolutely hate that you have such a thing as a basic reaction for deaths you cause. Objectively, that sucks.)
"Dave, stop fucking thinking," Karkat mumbles sleepily, shifting under you and nudging at your mind a little.
"No can do, 'kat." Do you want him in your head? You don't know. " 'm just a lowly human; not like I can turn off my brain on command like some kinda—"
He growls, in what you think is amused irritation, and pushes against your mind. As soon as you instinctively open up, stop trying to keep shit hidden from him, though, he lets the pressure dissolve and just waits, letting you feel him.
Calm. He's calm, relaxed, tired out and unable to sleep because he can feel me—
"Man, if I'm keeping you awake, I'll go—"
"Shush, Dave. Shush." He pets through your hair, eyes still closed, and pushes at you to listen to his mind again.
—can't sleep yet, but it doesn't matter because he's patient, willing to lie here and wait for me as long as he has to. There's nowhere he'd rather be, and there's no danger that'd mean he needed to move.
...okay. Okay.
He's right. Everything he's thinking is true; there isn't danger, there isn't anything happening right now. Karkat's relaxed, and you need to relax too. He's relaxed, so you're allowed to relax.
"Damn right you're allowed to fucking relax," Karkat mutters, pulling you up a little so you're in a better position for him to be able to keep running his fingers through your hair. Damn, he already knows what calms you down. "It's okay, Dave. It's okay."
"Yeah, I know..." Okay. Now you're falling asleep.
And he knows it, because he's fucking purring again.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck...
You're holding him, and he's too limp. You're holding him, and your hands are wet. You're holding him, and everything is black and white and shades of grey but for the fucking blood.
That's red. It's so red, all over you, all over him, hot and red and not spurting anymore, not even flowing, it'd be better that way because you'd know he was still alive. If blood's forcing its way out of his body, he's alive.
But it's not.
There's a bare trickle from his gaping wounds—and is that really surprising, when you think about how much he's bled out onto you already? Even if he wasn't dead, he can't have much blood left in him, maybe not any, and if you hadn't let him bleed this much—
If you hadn't fucked up—
If you hadn't let Dave die—
Wait, what? No. That's not right.
You know you're not dead.
That confusion is enough to disconnect you from the dream—from Karkat's dream—let you pull away and shake yourself awake. You can feel him figure out that he's dreaming and jerk away from it too.
Damn, but he feels relieved, even before he's all the way awake.
"Hey—" Okay, your voice doesn't really want to work right, so you shake your head and push yourself up off him a little, trying to see his face despite the dark. Hey, man. You okay?
"Don't be a fucking idiot." There's a roughness in his voice that isn't a growl. After a second, you realize that you can, actually, see his eyes. Nothing else, though, because the only reason you see that much is that they're glowing slightly. "It's a dream."
"Nightmare."
Karkat shivers, just slightly, and shifts to reach up and lay both hands against the sides of your face. He blinks a couple times, eyes flaring a little brighter each time they open, then sighs, long and slow. "Nightmare," he agrees. "Not the worst one...you stopped the fucker before it got really bad."
Now it's your turn to shiver. "They get worse than that?" You don't know what would count as worse than the despairing horror that dream was soaked in.
"Sometimes. Not often." Karkat sighs again, taking his hands away from your face in favor of wrapping his arms around you, pulling you down again. For him, you're more than willing to go. "It's—this isn't a regular thing, I swear, I—I just fucked up, bad. Right now I'm fucking terrified I'll do it again, I guess." You'd be the worst thing I could lose, he adds silently.
"Not gonna lose me." Don't wanna lose you either. You don't know how to explain to him that you first mistook that dream for reality—the worst fucking feeling you've ever had—and then for your dream. " 's'okay, 'kat."
"I know it is. Just a dream." But he shivers again, the small motion pretty damn apparent when you're pressed against him like this, and tightens his grip on you the smallest bit. "Just a fucking dream."
"Mhm." You don't know how to project feelings at him like he did at you earlier. You still try, though, doing your best to think calm and reassurance at him, and after a moment, he does relax. "Sleep?"
"Sleep," he agrees, and settles against you.
After awhile, you can feel that he did fall asleep again, and you let yourself do the same.
