Title: The Calm Is Terrifying When The Storm Is All You Know [Homestuck]
Chapter 33: Declarations
Summary: There were two kinds of trolls who went to Earth: rich shitheads with too much money and free time, and desperate assholes who couldn’t survive on Alternia, even with the best efforts of the young Condesce. Karkat hated the planet almost immediately, but with his home planet too dangerous for mutants, he really didn’t have any choice but to hide out on this weird little diurnal planet. At least he’d be safe. Or so he thought, right before blundering his way into an accidental friendship with the son of an anti-troll terrorist.
Rating: M
Chapter Warnings: Implied/Mentioned abuse, mentions of terrorism, death mention, injury mention, depiction of an emotional breakdown, trauma aftermath; Illustrated; Pesterlog
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— carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling tipsyGnostalgic [TG] —
CG: WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?
— tipsyGnostalgic [TG] is an idle chum! —
CG: FUCK YOU, I CAN SEE THAT FOR MYSELF, YOU PIECE OF SHIT PROGRAM. I’M GONNA FUCKING YELL ANYWAY.
CG: I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO PICK ME UP AT NOON. IT’S LIKE, 1:30 AND YOU STILL AREN’T HERE, WHAT GIVES?
CG: IF YOU GOT KIDNAPPED, TOO, I SWEAR TO FUCK I’M PERSONALLY PUTTING THIS ENTIRE GODDAMN FAMILY UNDER PERMANENT WATCH.
CG: I’M NOT ABOVE SITTING ON YOU ASSHOLES IF THATS WHAT IT TAKES.
TG: okay first off i know youre like a literal alien but heres a protip for ya:
TG: general human earth etiquette is to not text people who you know are probably driving?
TG: its like a whole thing
CG: WHY
TG: idk probs because texting while driving’s a great way to fucking crash lol
TG: anyway!!
TG: yeah im real sorry about that mom fucking rang me up like
TG: hi im at the airport come get me!
TG: out of fucking nowhere because everything has to be a fucking hassle with this woman
TG: so i had to go get her
CG: WHY THE FUCK WAS SHE AT THE AIRPORT?
TG: because fuck me is why
TG: and THEN shes like
TG: ooooh i gotta do some mysterious whatthefuckever errand at some mall out in the middle of nowhere
TG: so now im sitting in the parking lot waiting for her to get back which might be a while because her bad leg’s been acting up lately
TG: and thats why im not there yet >:(
CG: WAIT. WAIT, HOLD ON, I’M CONFUSED.
CG: BY “MOM” ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT RACHEL? I DIDN’T EVEN THINK SHE HAD A BAD LEG.
TG: nonono
TG: ray is like. dirk and dave and rose’s mom
TG: i dont call her mom i just call her aunt ray cuz shes not my mom yknow
TG: my mom is aunt ray’s sister
TG: aunt ramona? they talk about her?
CG: OOOOOOH. YEAH.
CG: THE WOMAN WHO WRITES THOSE SHITTY SUPERNATURAL ROMANCE BOOKS KANAYA LOVES.
TG: hahaha yeah her trashy shit is great
CG: SHE’S HERE?
TG: apparently!!!!!!!!
CG: I’M SENSING SOME BITTERNESS.
TG: ugh its fine she just always does shit like this
TG: womans always gotta make a fuckin entrance even if that means not telling anyone shes coming
TG: and its goddamn annoying as shit!!
TG: but its fine i get it shes here to help out and we are kinda all hands on deck
TG: speaking of tho i heard something about kanaya not coming along after all?
CG: NOT YET, NO.
CG: SHE’S BEEN TALKING TO ROSE, AND APPARENTLY DAVE’S BEEN PRETTY UNEASY WITH THE NUMBER OF NEW FACES AT THE HIVE.
CG: HOUSE. WHATEVER.
CG: TEREZI’S PROTECTION DETAIL HAS HIM KIND OF ON EDGE, I GUESS?
CG: SHE’S GONNA COME AROUND LATER PROBABLY. AND MIGHT END UP STAYING WITH PORRIM AND KEEP IT TO VISITS, AT LEAST UNTIL THINGS SETTLE DOWN A BIT.
CG: SO IT’S JUST ME FOR NOW.
TG: ooooh yeah geez i bet
TG: poor dave :( :( :(
TG: i gotta tell you and mom some uh. serious shit about him when i pick you both up
TG: id pass it on here but its probs better if i just tell you face to face?
CG: OH, WONDERFUL!
CG: MORE NO DOUBT HORRIFIC NEWS REGARDING DAVE.
CG: I CAN’T WAIT. THIS PANIC ATTACK’S GONNA BE ONE FOR THE RECORD BOOKS, I CAN JUST FEEL IT!!!
TG: :(
TG: tl;dr hes not in great shape but hes getting better but theres some stuff we gotta go over
TG: jfc mom what the fuck are you doing its been ages
CG: SO WAIT. SHE JUST HAD YOU DRIVE HER OUT SOMEWHERE AND WALKED OFF ALONE?
TG: yeah
TG: woman can take care of herself just fine so like im not worried??
TG: but still, like. cmon woman!!! whatever it is hurry up a little
TG: it cant be that important we got places to be
In terms of location, it was almost an outlet mall; somewhat detached from the nearest city and surrounded by forest. It was mostly all one building, positioned in a dip in the ground next to a clear stream, and these features had helped make it a serviceable fortress during the invasion, although Derek had regularly complained that he’d have preferred a site that held the high ground. Still, they’d made do; the roof was high enough that one could see for quite some distance, the stream offered fresh water, the trees provided decent enough cover during skirmishes, and the walls were thick enough to turn away most weather and weapons. It hadn’t been much, but it had served well enough as home for six years for around threescore ragtag survivors-turned-fighters.
Out in the surrounding forest, those who hadn’t survived that conflict still lay buried in pitiful graves marked only with a stone or a chunk of wood. There hadn’t been time to properly put anyone to rest; it had been risky enough for two or three people to slip out during a stretch of quiet with a shovel and a body. They simply hadn’t been able to afford to have any sort of formal burial, not with the threat of an attack constantly looming.
Even so, even so…
Derek had picked a spot he would remember.
In life, the oak tree would have been the kind people would have thought of as a monarch, with branches spread wide and gnarled wood ancient and strong, holding children in its branches as easily as if they were made of nothing; but the tree had already been dead by the time the invasion started, a great, ancient, dried-out husk. Even so, decades later, it still stood, its branches reaching toward the sky, the other trees forming a circle around it as though too respectful to come too close. Mushrooms and trails of greenery crept about a quarter of the way up the ancient trunk.
At its roots, a rotting wooden spar stuck up out of the ground. This, too, had been reclaimed by flowers, grasses and mushrooms, decorating the splintered and decayed timber with dark summer greens and pale white-and-lavender blooms.
Derek Strider, down on one knee with his sheathed sword held in his right hand, sighed. Of course, the trouble with having to bury the dead so hastily meant that there’d been no one to look over the graves, so it was to be expected that it be in such disrepair, but even so, seeing this one choked out by the invading flora was…
It wasn’t right.
Overhead, the ancient branches rustled slightly, and the raucous calling of a bird broke the silence. Derek narrowed his eyes and ignored it, tried to write the disrespectful noise out of the scene.
The crow seemed to have other ideas. The bird lighted down on the wooden grave marker, red eyes fixed on Derek’s face. It flapped its wings a few times, cawing incessantly. Derek scowled, unsheathed his sword, and struck —
The blade passed through the bird with no resistance whatsoever. The creature’s body split in two, bloodlessly, as though Derek had cut through smoke — it even looked like smoke, like a cloud cut in two by a passing jet. As Derek looked on, uncomprehending and with a growing sense of dread, the bird’s body seemed to pull itself back together, a video played in reverse, and the bird’s accusatory squawks started up again as though nothing had happened.
Derek was on his feet in an instance, stepping away from the beast, and as he did, he happened to look up…
Perched on nearly every branch of the old tree were ravens. Unlike the crow, they were all silent, and aside from the occasional shifting of a foot or tilting of a head, motionless. Scores of staring animal eyes bored into him.
Derek had never been a superstitious man, but nor was he the sort of fool to ignore the truth his own eyes showed him. He’d spent six years fighting alongside a witch, and seen enough to learn that some things really couldn’t be explained away as coincidence.
Had it been anyone else, he would have responded to the sound of footsteps approaching this site with a furious attack; even Ben knew better than to disturb him here. But when he whirled to face the intruder, he froze.
She’d aged more since he’d last seen her than he would have expected. Hints of silver streaked her hair, and she leaned heavily on her gnarled black cane. A faint breeze stirred the black fabric of her dress, playing with the light shawl laying across her shoulders. The crow had fallen silent.
“Put that thing away before you take someone’s eye out,” said Ramona, nodding nonchalantly at Derek’s sword.
Derek narrowed his eyes, and did not respond aloud, instead choosing to slowly and deliberately slide the sword back into its sheathe. Only after his left hand had returned to his side did Ramona nod and continue.
“That’s better,” she said. “Now we can talk things over like reasonable adults. Mind you, I ought to do the world a favor and wipe you out right now,” and Derek took a slow, deep breath at that, as she continued, “But I’d prefer not to desecrate your brother’s grave by staining it with your blood. I respect him far too much for that. You, however, have somehow managed to exceed all of my worst expectations to a nearly unfathomable degree, as of late. I’ve held off on this confrontation out of respect for the past, but I can see now that this was a mistake.”
Derek shifted. “Everything I’ve done has been to protect our damn planet, Ramona,” he started, but was cut off.
“Really?” she said, “Well, then. I’m not about to attempt to ask you to cease killing trolls, as we both know that would be pointless, but I would very much like to know how exactly burning your own son alive plays into your grand battle strategy?”
“He…he turned on us,” Derek said, through gritted teeth, “He forced my hand, left me no choice!”
“He is a child!” Ramona snapped. “And you, of all people, should know better! If you really must follow this path of self-destruction to its end, fine, but he should never have been involved!”
“I—”
“And in any case, you had a perfectly good sword on hand, I’m sure. If young Dave really did need to die, you could have executed him with minimal pain, but no, you wanted him to hurt, to know he was dying and to fear you and suffer as he passed. How do you justify that, Derek? How does anyone, especially a child, deserve anything of the sort?”
The eyes of the ravens and that damned crow still drilled into him. He could feel the stares on his back, but kept his eyes locked on Ramona’s, refusing to back down.
He wasn’t going to take back what he’d done. There’d be no guilt, he’d done nothing wrong except overreact a bit. It was justified. That…that boy wasn’t Dave. Ramona was using the name like a blade, but she’d not win that way. He didn’t deserve the fucking name, didn’t deserve to have anything to do with Dave, he never would have let Rachel name the kid that if he’d known he was going to grow up to be such a pathetic, useless little coward.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he said.
“No, I suppose you don’t,” said Ramona, folding her hands over the top of her cane. “I’ve a fairly good idea, in any case.” She sighed. “The war is over, Derek. The time to put aside this violence and misery is long since behind us. Our children do not deserve to grow up as we did.”
“The trolls are still here,” Derek spat.
There was a long silence. Ramona sighed again.
“Fine, then,” she said, “So be it. Do as you will. Chase violence as long as you like. But if you come near my family again, I will consider it an act of war.”
She turned, and he was tempted to take the bait, to try attacking her while her back was turned, but he held still. It was infuriating, knowing what a pointed insult turning her back on him was, knowing that she knew he would not risk attacking her—but she was right. She was much too dangerous.
“Come along, little one,” she said, abruptly. The crow rose off the grave and flew to land on top of Ramona’s cane. If Derek had cared to pay any attention, he might have noticed the crow look back at him with something like regret in its eyes, but Derek was already far too lost in his own thoughts.
As one bird, the ravens took wing, dispersing in all directions, leaving him alone again.
The trouble with trying to go from Alternian to English was a multifaceted one, to be sure, but so far the most obnoxious piece of it that Karkat could see was the tendency of guides on how to speak English to simply use the closest Alternian equivalent as an English word’s translation. More and more, the two languages were notably extremely different, and while he could speak English well enough that he’d never had any serious problems, there were any number of words that he kept tripping over as a result of a translation being extremely unclear and culturally misleading.
Witches, for instance, were clearly something very different on Earth. The Alternian word that was translated to English as “witch” was, like most Alternian words, a series of noises in the ‘click and growl’ family that most humans lacked the anatomy to create, and generally refered to certain lowblood prophets and healers in Alternian folklore. They were those who lived away from society and who, through some lucky genetics and convenient psychic powers, were able to fend of drones and effectively disappear from the world at large’s knowledge. They kept to themselves, sought to harm no one who didn’t attack them first, offered shelter to the weak and the hunted, and as such were always portrayed as utterly despicable beings in fiction, as no writer with any sense of self-preservation had dared to portray such reckless treachery under the rule of the last Condesce. There might have been some changes to the lore under the new one’s rule, but things like that changed slow.
In any case, they certainly weren’t anything like the old woman in a shawl who was sitting next to Roxy in the front of her car.
She was dressed all in black, for one thing. Alternian witches didn’t tend to wear much black. Some Alternian witches didn’t tend to wear all that much clothing at all, really. Most seemed to belong to ancient religions that weren’t particularly fond of shirts.
Ramona was definitely magic as shit, though, Rachel’d been right about that much. Was that all a witch was on Earth, just someone with magic? Fuck, if that were the case, then probably like at least a third of all trolls were witches by Earth’s standards. Then again, maybe magic was another poorly translated word? English didn’t seem to have a word to separate “things that we (read: trolls) know exist, like psychic powers and psiionics and ghosts and chucklevoodoos,” and “things that are super fake and don’t actually happen ever and make no sense.”
Whatever. In any case, Ramona didn’t look at all like Karkat had expected, and when he climbed into the back of the car, she didn’t react to his presence with anything stronger than an amiable nod. She seemed to have her mind on other things, and was largely silent at first.
Roxy wasn’t; she immediately piped up happily as Karkat swung open the door with a “Hey, man! Sorry about taking so long! Can you, uh, do me a favor and check on Jaspers? He’s in the carrier behind Mom, Rose asked me to pick him up while she and Aunt Ray were gone. He’s been missing them a lot, all staring out the window and kneading his blanket and shit, and he’s not a huge fan of car rides.”
“He’s asleep,” Karkat said after glancing into the little crate.
“Awesome. Alright, buckle up and we’ll get this damn show on the road.”
“On the road again, just can’t wait to get on—”
Karkat tilted his head as the car’s radio abruptly changed from quietly playing some human pop song over to something much louder and completely different. Ramona stifled a snort as Roxy stabbed a button, switching the radio back to the previous channel.
“No, thank you,” she said, glaring. “Christ, the fuck is with this thing today, I swear to god.”
“I suppose it may simply be getting into the spirit of things,” said Ramona with a smile. As the car pulled away from the curb, she turned back a bit to face Karkat. “It’s Karkat, isn’t it? Rachel’s been sending me any number of emails with updates, and from the sound of things, you’ve been rather instrumental in bringing young Dave back into the fold, so to speak.”
“…Into the what?”
“It’s a figure of speech, meaning in this case that you’ve helped us return him home as well as helping him to adjust to being there,” she said. “For which you have all of our heartfelt thanks. Ours is perhaps not the most functional of families, but it is ours, and as I’m sure you’ve seen firsthand, ripping away a piece of it the way Derek did has had some very painful consequences for all involved. We owe you a great deal.”
“Yeah, man!” Roxy said. “And from what Rose has been telling me, you were kind of a big part of why he finally spilled what he knows. Which, he did bee-tee-dubs, which means he’s off house arrest finally, so that’s good—”
“—And a partridge in a pear tree,” the radio crackled.
“What the fuck? It’s August,” Roxy scowled. She turned the radio off altogether as Ramona glanced hurriedly out the window.
“Speaking of Dave,” Karkat said, hopefully before anyone got distracted again, “Roxy, you mentioned that there was something that you needed to say face to face?”
“Right, shoot, yeah,” said Roxy. The car turned onto the long road that led eventually to the Lalonde hive. “Okay, so, like. There’s definitely some shit you should know before we get there, but I wanna preface it all real clearly by saying that Dave’s okay, y’know? He’s got a lot of healing to do, but the doctors said that as long as he’s looked after and we change bandages and shit and he gets plenty of rest, he’s definitely not in any danger anymore. He’s…weak, but he’s not like gonna keel over at any moment, okay?”
“Not actually making me feel any better, Roxy!” said Karkat. Oh, boy, with a preface like that…
“Well, fuck, I tried, I guess. Uh. So, Dave did get hurt…pretty bad, and there were some other complications—oh, for fuck’s sake!!”
“Watch me, watch me, hey, watch me, watch me!” The radio was louder than ever. Ramona’s hand flew up, poorly hiding a grin.
Karkat leaned around Roxy’s seat to glare at her.
“What the fuck, Roxy,” said Karkat.
“I’m not doing this!” Roxy said, waving her hand wildly. “I swear to fuck, I wouldn’t! I really do need to pass on some shit about poor Dave, and the radio’s never done this before? It’s been acting up since a little before we picked you up, keeps changing on its own and shit, augh!”
She fought with the controls, but the song stopped only for a moment before getting even louder.
“Why the fuck do you humans even have this obnoxious song?! Who listens to this?? It’s literally just some squawking wiggler screeching for its lusus’s attention!”
“I mean, I kinda love it for that honestly, it’s terrible and stupid and wonderful, but like, come the fuck on??? What’s with this thing?! Now is not the time!”
“Ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass—“
“GOD, that’s even worse!!” Roxy yelled, slamming her fist down on the dashboard. “Fucking stop!!”
“That’s enough for now,” Ramona said, almost murmuring it.
The radio turned off. Karkat and Roxy both turned a suspicious eye on Ramona, and with equal simultaneity, decided to drop it for now.
“Anyway,” Roxy said slowly, “What I was trying to say is, um…Karkat, do you know what it means for someone to ‘flatline?’ Because, um. Dave kinda did, for like, a minute and a half.”
Karkat shook his head, realized Roxy probably couldn’t see him with her eyes on the road, and said, “Uh, I have no idea what that word means, no.”
“Well, um…”
“It refers to a heart monitor indicating that the heart has ceased beating,” Ramona said. “The machine indicates activity with a line which shows peaks and valleys, and it goes flat when that activity has stopped, thus, ‘flatline’. The organ we call a heart serves an equivalent function to what trolls call a ‘blood pusher’ or a ‘pump biscuit.’”
Karkat felt for a moment like his own pump biscuit had stopped.
“Shit, Mom, when did you get so good at translating to trolls?” Roxy murmured.
Ramona shrugged. “I’ve made efforts to reach out,” she said. “The war ended, after all, and since we’re allies now, it doesn’t hurt to learn about each others’ cultures.”
“His fucking—What?!” Karkat screeched, unable to keep the harsh buzzing whine out of his voice. God, that was such a moirail noise, and any other time he’d have yelled at himself for not keeping it under control, but not now, not when… “His fucking blood pusher stopped and I’m supposed to be calm!?!”
“They got it moving again!” Roxy said. “He’s okay now, the doctors said it was going strong! It was, um, mostly just exhaustion, they think? Like, the burn wounds could’ve killed him on their own, sure, but they got on those quick enough that if he’d been healthy to begin with he probably wouldn’t have been so bad off? But between ten years of, you know…and just, apparently he hasn’t been eating enough even while he’s been back with us? And Ray’s gonna get on his ass about that, but, just—look, the thing is, Dirk doesn’t know about this yet, and Aunt Ray’s asked that we try to keep it that way, and I don’t really get why but I think she has her reasons?”
Karkat was definitely hyperventilating, oh fuck, oh fuck—Ramona’s hand reached back to touch his own, snapping him out of it.
“It’s fine to be worried,” she said, gentle. “I promise you, though, it is as Roxy says: he’ll be fine given time to recover and the safety with which to do so. He’ll be alive when we get there.” She sat back in her chair, turning towards the road again. “As for Dirk, I suspect Rachel is waiting for things to settle down before breaking it to him gently. He is, for better or worse, very like his father, and Derek handled his brother’s death poorly, in large part because at the time we could not afford to mourn. Rachel probably wants to make sure that Dirk does not feel he has to force himself to be strong when she tells him.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” Roxy muttered. “Anyway, the main thing about that is that he’s not got a lot of energy right now, so don’t…take it personally if he just falls asleep on you sometimes? Especially with the painkillers he’s on, apparently that’s a side effect, too. He can walk short distances, but he gets wobbly quick and needs help sometimes, so there’s that too.”
“Fuck,” said Karkat, softly.
The next ten minutes of the ride were carried out in tense silence. This was broken by the radio once again bursting back on and blasting the ass song again, at which point Roxy threatened to pull over and smash the fucking thing to smithereens.
By the time they actually got to the fucking house, Karkat felt like his soul was going to vibrate right out of his fucking body with impatience. They had yet another delay in the form of Terezi’s protection detail—Terezi herself wasn’t there, but some officers were, and they insisted on knowing about any weapons the three of them had as well as names, and went in to check with the family while making them all wait outside by the car. Karkat already had his fucking bag in hand, he was ready to go, but no, they had to go through this tedious procedure! Sure, it was probably a smart move, and when he was feeling a little more sensible he’d be more okay with it as it was the sort of thing that probably would make them all feel a bit safer (especially poor fucking Dave), but right now the were a pain in the ass and he was going to fucking explode!!! If they didn’t!!! Let him get in the fucking hive!!!!!
Rose stepped out as they were still talking to the police, and for the first time in his life Karkat was unspeakably happy to see her. She quickly confirmed to the police that all three of them were in fact expected and trusted by this household, and then gently let Jaspers out of his carrier. The cat immediately yowled and threw himself into her arms, kneading at her shoulders and rubbing his face against hers, and it all would have been super cute if Karkat didn’t have his mind on other fucking things.
“Come on in,” Rose said, nodding towards the door. “Dirk’s on the couch and Dave’s in Mom’s room, as neither of them can handle stairs right now and Dave needs his bandages changed at least twice a day. Karkat, do you—”
She was talking to air. He was already in the fucking door.
And then had to face the fact that he’d never actually been to Rachel’s room. Fuck. Rachel was coming up the hall, though, and a slightly bewildered young human (wait, fuck, that was Dirk, what happened to his hair? It looked so weird hanging down like that instead of spiked up) was sitting on the couch with an Earth husktop on his lap. Roxy pushed in the door with Ramona right behind her, dropped a heavy wheeled bag right next to the door, and immediately launched herself at Dirk, who gave a startled yelp as she did so.
Rachel rested a hand on Karkat’s shoulder as she passed him, rushing up toward Ramona throwing her arms around her shoulders. The two shared a long hug, and Rachel kissed Ramona’s cheek.
“God, I’m so glad you’re here,” Karkat heard Rachel murmur, before Rose tapped his shoulder.
“I was asking if you knew where Mom’s room is,” Rose said.
“Uh.”
“It’s down the hall to the observatory, but you take a left before you get to it. Make sure to make plenty of noise on the way over, Dave gets really jumpy when he’s the only person in that room. He can’t block the door since we need to be able to come in and out, and it’s got him a bit on edge.”
Karkat nodded, unable to get any words out past the lump in his throat. He more or less just dropped his bag on the ground and pushed past, zooming around toward the room indicated. Dave looked half-asleep when Karkat pushed the door open, and waved as he sat up with some effort.
God, the photo Rose had taken didn’t do justice to how fucking bad he looked. There were bruises across his face and neck turned a weird greenish-gray but still dark against his skin, and bandages everywhere, his hair was a mess (although that might have just been from sleeping). He was in some oversized shirt with an Earth hoofbeast on the front that was probably Dirk’s judging by the size, and Karkat had no idea why Dave had it on but right now he didn’t care.
“Hey, man, uh. Shit’s been crazy, huh?” Dave said with an awkward grin. He didn’t have his shades on either, which made sense if he’d been sleeping, except they weren’t on the bedside table (which did instead contain a nearly empty glass of water, several bottles of pills and salves, and a first aid kit from which clean cloth bandages overflowed).
Two weeks of emotion boiled over all at once. Wordless, Karkat stomped across the room and grabbed Dave’s stupid fucking shirt in both hands and tugged him close.
“It was three days, Dave,” Karkat hissed.
“Wha—?”
“Three days! And you got yourself fucking kidnapped by a terrorist on day goddamn two!! What the fuck, Dave?!” His voice was threatening to abandon him, but Karkat forced it right back into place by sheer willpower. This tangent would not be fucking stopped, hell no. “I take my eyes off of you for two days, and you get yourself into shit again! What the fuck!!! Do you have any idea how-how fucking agonizing it’s been waiting for news?! And you’re just sitting there like ‘Oh, hey! What’s up?’ What’s up is my foot up your waste chute, you hopeless fucking—!” Okay, nope, his voice was leaving after all, actually. He felt tears roll down his face, and he should’ve been more worried about that, but Dave already knew about his blood color and he was the only troll in the house right now, so, fuck it, fuck it all! Helpless, he tugged Dave closer again, letting his face press against that stupid shirt, claws still twisted into the fabric as he sobbed.
“Holy shit,” Dave muttered.
“I was so fucking scared,” Karkat gasped. This was pathetic, they weren’t remotely a couple, Karkat had no right to be this worked up and he knew it, but…Dave wasn’t exactly pushing him away, either, was he?
“I’m sorry, man, I didn’t even…It wasn’t planned this time, it just sorta happened, and Dirk got hurt, and I…”
“I’m not actually angry at you, despite having so much right to be that legislacerators everywhere have preemptively declared me innocent. I’m just fucking screaming for the sake of it, dumbass.”
“Oh.”
The awkward pause that followed was filled with only the sound of Karkat’s weeping, which, fuck, he was probably too fucking embarrassed to tell him off. Except…Dave’s hand lifted up to rest gently against Karkat’s back, so, maybe he didn’t mind that much? Was that wishful thinking?
“Sorry for this,” he said, just in case, as he pulled away a bit. “It’s really fucking embarrassing, I know, I just…”
“It’s cool, man,” said Dave. Then, with a wink, he said, “I know you got your massive Strider homocrush, it’s only natural—”
“Dave, I swear to fuck, injured or not, I will pummel you into dust with a fucking pillow, don’t test me!” Karkat snapped.
Dave snorted. “Hey, man, it’s fine, everyone’s allowed to be a lil gay sometimes with their friends, it’s only natural.”
“I’ll ‘natural’ you!! Motherfucker, I spent the two weeks worrying about your wellbeing and you come at me with more of this bullshit!!”
Dave cackled with laughter. Karkat rolled his eyes and sniffled. He feigned annoyance as best he could, but, God, it was such a relief to hear Dave laugh. Rubbing a sweater sleeve furiously across his eyes, Karkat pulled back, sitting awkwardly on the edge of the bed. “Okay, but seriously, what’s with the shirt?” he asked, gesturing at the floating head of the hoofbeast. It wasn’t even a joke or a drawing. It was just…a straight photo of a hoofbeast’s face, with no text or explanation of any sort. What the fuck??
Dave glanced down, and snickered. “Oh, shit. Uh, yeah, we needed something that’s easy to get me in and out of, since the bandages on this fuckin’ burn need to be changed like, a lot, not to mention the gross-ass cream they have us slathering all over it on the regular. We tried a button down, but the buttons were kinda chafing, and like…who the fuck wants to ruin a fancy shirt with gross burn juices, right? And Dirk’s shit is more comfortable, and this one’s big enough that it’s real easy to take off even if I’m high on the damn painkillers.”
Karkat winced slightly, but decided not to comment. The scream from the video echoed somewhere in his think pan. “Where’re your shades?”
“Bro fuckin’ stepped on them or something, man, I dunno. They fell off at some point, and they were already cracked before all that, and Terezi just found pieces. Which fucking sucks, I mean God dammit, those were a gift from John. Shit sucks.”
“John?” Karkat tipped his head.
“Yeah, he’s like, an old friend of mine. Have I not mentioned him to you? Whatever, he, uh.” Dave scratched at the side of his head. “He was an online friend from before Bro started doing the, uh, raid shit, and I kept talking to him and another friend, Jade, for a while afterwards even though I wasn’t supposed to?”
“Jade’s name I remember,” Karkat said.
“Haha, yeah, yeah cuz I told you about…anyway.” He cleared his throat. “I guess since Dirk’s college is starting up again soon, not that he’s going for the first couple weeks with his leg and a fucking concussion, but, it’s starting up, and John’s sister goes there too, and he’s gonna come with so we’ll be able to hang out for a bit? Which is fuckin’ rad, I haven’t even talked to the guy in three years and we’re finally meeting in person.”
“You want him to be here? While you’re this badly injured?” Karkat yelped.
Dave blinked at him like he’d just grown a secondary head.
“I mean, yeah?” Dave said. “Like, yeah, I’m not in great shape and I guess it’ll be a lil weird for him to see me like this, but I’ve missed him.” Before Karkat could press the question further, though, Dave yawned. “Ugh, fuck, I wanna keep talking, but I’m…halfway to falling asleep, shit.”
“Oh,” said Karkat. He got up, ready to leave. He wanted to stay, wanted to curl himself around Dave’s obnoxiously lanky frame as best he could and protect this fragile idiot human from the entire universe, but…it wasn’t his place, was it? No.
“You leaving?” said Dave, rubbing at his unbruised eye.
“You said you wanna sleep,” Karkat said.
“Right. Uh. Could you, like…fill this back up for me, then, I guess?” Dave said.
“…Sure,” said Karkat.
He was…still confused, but Dave was tired, so he didn’t press. But he couldn’t wrap his head around wanting a friend around while he was so injured—well, he’d wanted Karkat around, hadn’t he? He’d seemed happy to see him, aside from the, uh, yelling. Still, it didn’t make sense! Every troll knew as a small child that the only people you could trust when you were injured were your lusus, your moirail, and maybe your matesprit! Anyone else might take advantage of the weakness and kill you, that was just basic logic! But Dave didn’t even seem to be thinking about it.
And…and yet, come to think of it, Roxy’d been awfully forthright about how bad Dave’s condition was. Hell, she’d heard it from Rose, who seemed like the one most likely to know not to spread that weakness, but the humans were all sharing it and passing it around. It wasn’t just that they didn’t seem to care who knew that Dave and Dirk were injured, it was like they wanted people to know.
And as he filled up the glass of water in the kitchen, he watched as Roxy and Dirk talked on the couch, as Dirk told her that he’d passed on the news of their condition to Jane already, that Rose had told her and Dave’s friends, and it just kept going. Everyone had to be up to date on the fact that both brothers were injured and vulnerable, and yet…
“I hope the flight wasn’t too long,” Rachel was saying to Ramona.
“Nothing would be too long right now,” she said in turn, blowing gently on a cup of tea that Rachel had just poured her. “Times like these, we all need to do our part. I know I might not be able to do much, mind you. My leg’s been acting up something fierce, as of late, but I’ll do whatever I can.”
Something clicked. All at once, the curtains pulled back and Karkat saw the whole picture—saw maybe not what it always was, and certainly not what the Lalondes achieved on any sort of regular basis, but what it was supposed to be, how it was meant to work.
On Alternia, everyone lived in constant competition. Trolls had to be strong as close to all the time as they possibly could, or at the very least find a moirail who could, because otherwise their society wouldn’t particularly care much if they died. That just meant they didn’t deserve to be a part of the gene pool or to contribute to society. If they were injured badly and left vulnerable, it was seen as normal for others to take advantage of that weakness and exert power or outright kill a rival. It was how they survived so long, or so the cultural narrative had so long stated: by this competition, the strongest survive. Nevermind that this survival was built on the corpses of uncountable trolls who didn’t make the cut, it Worked.
As a result, trolls had been bewildered just as Karkat had by how humans as a species managed to be so frail and yet so reckless and to still survive, especially when they didn’t exactly have the kind of numbers that trolls did. Humans lacked the numbers to be expendable, lacked the strength and toughness that kept Trolls alive, and yet they looked Death in the eye and pointed and laughed, and pushed themselves to extremes for no purpose other than to have some warped idea of fun. It was a question that had lingered around his consciousness for ages; how the fuck do humans even work as a species? How had such a seemingly doomed race not died off yet?
The answer that hit him now, as he watched Roxy help Dirk stand up and balance himself on a pair of crutches, was that humans didn’t have to be strong all the time, and that was the magic of their little social units, their families—they took care of each other. No one person had to be good at everything, or so good at one thing that it could keep them safe in any situation. It didn’t matter that their skin was thin or that they weren’t particularly strong or fast, they always, always had others around who would pick up the slack, others who would come even across oceans to offer what aid they could in times of strife; they weaved together all their strengths and weaknesses into a fabric able to withstand just about anything. Fuck, no wonder they’d wanted Dave back so badly. The Lalondes may have been less a tapestry and more a patchwork quilt, but it was still their quilt, and Dave was a part of it….
He felt a near-agonizing pang of envy that he didn’t have a quilt of his own. Humans might have been stupid about a lot of things, but this…this they’d gotten right.
“Fucking water? Is that really the best you could think of? Fucking dumbass,” Dave muttered to himself. God. This was stupid. This was all really fucking stupid. He couldn’t even deal with being alone while he was asleep, for Chrissakes! Too scared of nightmares of a big mean dog, like some fuckin’ little kid.
Yeah, he was tired, but he really, really didn’t wanna be alone right now, was the thing. Not with that fucking troll-drug-induced nightmare lingering around the edges, waiting to chase him down again at its first chance. But. Like. Karkat was kind of right? Bros don’t watch each other sleep, that’s fuckin’ creepy. Like. Okay, so maybe they’d done a bit of that way back when Karkat had been kidnapped, but they didn’t have a choice back then, and anyways they mostly slept at the same time during that experience, which was super different from just asking his best alien friend to fuckin’ hold his hand so the bad dreams wouldn’t get him. Fuck.
So he’d asked Karkat to refill his glass, even though he wasn’t thirsty right now, because it was an excuse to make Karkat come back, at least for a few more minutes, and they could talk for a bit, and maybe Dave’d stop being tired, wouldn’t that be rad.
Karkat came back in looking really thoughtful. He handed the glass over, and Dave took a sip to try and look like he hadn’t been 100% bullshitting there, and mumbled a thanks as he set it down. Then, just as a thought, he jerked his head toward the rest of the bed—it was a big king-sized one, probably left over from before the divorce and Mom had just never downsized or whatever, so there was a lot of space to Dave’s right—and told Karkat he could sit down if he wanted, Dave wasn’t gonna, like, pass out right this minute or anything, haha.
Karkat stayed quiet, which was fuckin’ weird, but he did sit down. He stared at the sheets for a minute, and then spoke up suddenly, saying, “I think I get it.”
“Get what?” said Dave.
“Why they wanted you back so bad,” said Karkat. “I mean, way back when you were first arrested. I kind of fought with Dirk over it at one point, because my only experience with the word Dirk used for why you should be with him was fucking Strider. And also I think I get why this shit all works, for humans in general. I mean, I’m probably just saying obvious shit, but it’s not how trolls work, we don’t take care of each other, not like this.”
Dave tipped his head.
“I mean with the whole fucking family thing,” Karkat said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve been trying to get it this whole time, but this shit’s used to justify so much bullshit with you humans, and I think I get it now, and why it’s so fucking important to you as a species.”
Dave snorted. “Dude, it’s not that big a thing—”
“It is, though! It just seems normal to humans because it’s how you always work, but, Dave, I’m serious, back on Alternia it’s every troll for themself. Maybe you have one person who has your back if you’ve got a moirail, maybe some are lucky like me and have friends who are actually consistently on your side and won’t take the first chance they get to kill you or fuck you up some other way, but we definitely don’t have a whole cluster of others we can just fall back on any time we’re met with something we can’t handle alone.”
“Makes sense, I guess,” Dave started, but Karkat just kept going. Apparently he’d had some sort of fuckin’ epiphany in the past two minutes.
“It took me so fucking long to get this, but I get it now! You know what I don’t get, though, is why the fuck you ever tried to convince me that Strider is part of your fucking family.”
Something in Dave dropped like a stone.
He’d…had a similar thought, really. Repeatedly. Multiple times, over the past week or so. He’d been kind of trying to avoid it, because every time it popped up, he got really stressed out.
“And don’t give me any of the bullshit about being ‘related’ or what the fuck ever, I don’t wanna hear it,” Karkat kept right on going. “I still don’t get why you humans care so much about that. The whole point of this family thing is that you all take care of each other, not that you’re related or whatever! Your aunt’s here, did you know that? She flew across an entire fucking ocean just to make sure she could help out you and Dirk! What the fuck did Strider ever do for you?”
It was a good question. And the answer, of course, was: aside from trying to kill him, do you mean? Hahaha.
Karkat was still talking, but Dave wasn’t really hearing him. Fuck, this had been a mistake, he should’ve taken his chances with the fucking nightmare dog. That was better than this old song and dance with his own thoughts.
The facts were pretty simple. He’d operated under pretty clear logic when he went up against Bro: We’re family, so he loves me, so therefore if I ask him to let me leave and explain that I really can’t deal with this, he’ll let me go. Except, Bro had tried to kill him, which meant that…
That was as far as Dave ever got. He couldn’t think any farther than that.
He felt like…like the next thought should be obvious, but he couldn’t make himself think it. It was too big—not so much a square peg in a round hole as it was trying to cram a grain silo into a pinhole, and the thought threatened to overwhelm and destroy him, so instead of thinking it, his brain kept rejecting it, the effect being like a broken record skip-skip-skipping, over and over, repeating the last thought he could get to before the Big One, because he couldn’t not think the Big One, either…
It was so fucking stupid, it was just a thought, why couldn’t he…
“Hah, yeah, now that you mention it, I guess I was always kinda wrong about this shit, wasn’t I?” Dave said, unable to stop the sardonic laughter bubbling up in his throat. “I mean, fuck, no wonder it took you so long to get, I probably gave you the wrong idea. My dumb ass was convinced he’d never try to kill me, cuz we’re family, and, well, here we fuckin’ are!”
Skip, skip, skip—
Karkat was still talking in stuttered phrases in the gaps of Dave’s own flood of words, looking almost scared, but Dave didn’t comprehned any of them, and anyway, the ranting had started, there was no stopping this shit now. “Like, what the fuck was I even thinking, right? I really thought that was gonna work, that somehow he’d just let me go if I asked, like a fucking idiot! Haha, what a fuckin’ dipshit, right?! And here I was thinking he—” Frantic laughter bubbled up, overtaking the words, not that more would’ve come, that next thought was just too big. Was he crying? Fuck, Karkat didn’t need to see any of this shit, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t think
Skip, skip, skip, skip, skipskipskipskipskipskip—
It wasn’t Karkat’s fault. It really wasn’t. He might’ve set it off, but the storm had been building up for days, now, and it broke hard, sweeping Dave up in a torrent of just wordless mental screaming. He couldn’t think the next thought. He couldn’t. But the thing was damming him up, and he couldn’t ignore it anymore, and he was stuck in the middle and left to just completely melt down and dissipate into the flood.
A sound like a cicada crossed with the creakiest horror movie door ever to creak ripped through the tides, and suddenly Dave found himself tugged into a full body hug, wrapped up in four limbs with his face pressed into a thick sweater. The touch dragged him out of the flood and onto dry land, brought him back into now before he even knew what was happening. Karkat’s whole chest was vibrating with some intense cricket-cat hybrid purr, and this should’ve been so embarrassing but he was so tired and so lost and it was fucking comforting, so who the fuck cared. Who cared anymore. It was all bullshit. He could be embarrassed later.
Too soon, Karkat seemed to have the same thought, and tried to pull away. “Shit, sorry, I shouldn’t—fuck, I’m so sorry, this is really presumptive and I know you aren’t even into boys,” he babbled.
Dave groaned, wrapping his arms around Karkat’s chest and pulling him close. “Dude, if you try to make this about alien romance right now, I swear to fuck,” he gasped out between harsh sobs. Christ, he was going harder than Karkat did like twenty minutes earlier, what the fuck.
Karkat paused. Good. It meant his warm arms were still there. “Dave, I…I mean, this is troll romance, this is textbook moiraillegience, and I shouldn’t just be throwing myself at you because you had a moment of weakness, no matter how bad I, uh.”
Dave sniffled, wracked his brain for a moment…Karkat had explained this stuff about a million times, which one was…”That’s like…the bros quadrant, right?”
“The what.”
“The one that’s, like, platonic and shit.”
“…Yeah?” The cricket-purr started up again, cautiously.
“We fuckin’ kinda do most of that shit already, don’t we?” Like. Yeah. He wasn’t gay. That was still a thing. But Karkat was warm and solid and real and Dave was fucking exhausted and didn’t want to be alone, especially not when he felt right now like he was wrapped in safety. “Please, Karkat,” he added, because why not beg. He was already at maximum pathetic, there was no digging this hole lower, fuck it. “I really don’t wanna be alone right now, just, please don’t go.”
Karkat was quiet for a long moment, but finally, the cricket-purr went back to full volume and Karkat’s arms tightened around him.
“Okay,” Karkat said quietly. Dave let out a breath he’d barely known he’d been holding and went back to crying.
“We’re going to have to talk about this later,” Karkat murmured, which put him at about normal volume for anyone else.
“Later, then,” said Dave, and let himself finally fall the fuck asleep.