fic: two for mirth 49/?
Coming back up is slow. Everything is a blur, soft focus. The walls of a hospital room appearify, white-beige, and no window. He can hear footsteps, voices outside the room but it feels like he’s under water. There’s an entertainment screen that’s showing some wiggler progam that he has just enough wit to feel vaguely indignant about. There’s a chair by his bed, and curled up in it in a way that can’t be comfortable, there’s…
“Dave,” Karkat says. His voice rasps and he can’t seem to do more than a creaky little whisper.
Dave stirs, seems a little confused himself, then almost falls out of the chair as he scrambles upright. “Karkat,” he says, voice too loud, and also painfully relieved. “Hey, you’re awake,” Dave says in a more even tone, obviously trying to cover for almost falling over. He moves in closer, caresses Karkat’s cheek. “You’ll do anything to avoid meeting the family, huh?” Dave smiles a slight, shaky little smile that makes Karkat’s bloodpusher stutter with entirely flushed pity.
“That’s exactly what happened,” Karkat says, smiling in return. “Water?”
“Why settle for water, when you can have AJ?” Dave says, and comes up with a sealed bottle of apple juice. He raises the bed a bit, opens the bottle. With some fumbling and some assistance from Dave, he’s able to take a sip.
“Is Jade all right?” Karkat asks after taking another sip.
“You took most of the bullets,” Dave says. “One went right through you, and got her in the gut, but she’s otherwise okay. Apparently has a subjugglator girlfriend now, but fine.”
Karkat makes a confused noise, not quite able to wrap his mind around it, or form words to question it.
“Yeah, I don’t know either,” Dave says. “I literally don’t know anything at all, except for what’s on the news, since I’m not actually next of kin or a quadrant and the only reason they let me stay in here was because they thought I was going to fly off the handle otherwise. Want me to call the doctorturer?”
Karkat hums at that, then gathers together enough of his scattered brain cells to reach up, and pap Dave on the cheek. “No flying off handles,” he says, and frowns.
Dave’s laugh has a decidedly watery sound to it. He presses Karkat’s hand to his cheek, then kisses Karkat’s palm. “Okay, sure. I can do that.”
“News, then doctortur,” Karkat says.
“You sure you’re going to be able to be awake for it?” Dave asks.
Karkat hums and frowns at Dave. He glances meaningfully at the screen, and Dave laughs and comes up with the remote. It takes some searching before they find a news segment handling the assassination attempt. The news reports that the snipers had been caught, and that his moirail was on his way. He tries to tell Dave to get a hold of Eridan, but he’s asleep before he can put the words together.
He’s a little more clearheaded when he wakes up. He learns from the nurse and the doctor that he’d been shot several times in the in the back and the gut. His aeration sponge had been hit; two had gone through his digestion tubes, and one lodged itself in his hip. He’d lost a lot of blood, and there had apparently been some problem finding him a donor. (Absolutely no surprise there.) A subjugglator named Leonis Myrmic apprehended one of the shooters; police caught the second five days later. Karkat had been out of it for more than a week. It seems that Jade had been targeted by a racist group with an intense hatred for the repatriated. Aside from informing the police, Jade hadn’t done anything about it.
Awake, things become extremely busy. He has to talk to the police investigators, and then Ampora. Eridan is shaky, angry and swearing to cull the (human) security detail, who had missed the shooters. “I’m pretty sure culling is illegal here,” Karkat says.
“I’ll have ‘em extradited,” Eridan says immediately. “That is, if Makara doesn’t go after ‘em first.”
“Gamzee isn’t going to cause a diplomatic incident,” Karkat says.
“He flippin’ is a diplomatic incident!” Eridan shouts.
Eridan’s moirail, expression serene, reaches up and quite brazenly paps him. Eridan’s fins flutter win embarrassment, but he settles. “I’m sure the Emissary knows his moirail’s mind better than you, love,” Gernuk says affectionately.
“What mind,” Eridan and Karkat accidentally chorus.
“Seriously, Eridan,” Karkat says, half a beat after that. “He’s grown up a lot.”
“To be the whimsical head of a cult of murderpranking loonies,” Eridan mutters. “All right, it’d be a bad idea to keep him away, anyway.” He glares. “But if he culls me because of this outrageous fuckery, I’m haunting your ass, is that understood?”
“He won’t cull you,” Karkat says, a little exasperated.
Later he hears from Jade, and strangely enough, Leonis Myrmic. They come to visit from across the hall, Jade in a four wheeled device being navigated by Leonis It’s a little strange seeing a Subjugglator pushing a four wheeled device, let alone seeing one with diamonds in their eyes for a human academic-activist. “So, make up dinner, to make up for being my meat shield?” Jade asks after talking around the situation.
“Well, for not telling me you’ve been getting threats,” Karkat says. “Or might be in danger of getting shot by crazy human ‘racists’.”
Jade waves her hands in an exasperated gesture. “Crazy racists are a thing that happens!” she says. “I can’t cave and let them take over my life!”
“You woulda lost yours, sugargrub, if the Emissary hadn’t played ‘meatshield,’” Leonis says.
“You were there too, Lee!” Jade says. She tries to twist around to look at Leonis, and then freezes with a distressed sound, arms cradling her abdomen. “Owww.”
Leonis immediately squats down at the side of the chair. “So I was. You need me to get a doctorturer?” She asks.
“No, just sore,” Jade says. “Stop fussing at me, you’re worse than Dad!”
“Knew there was a reason I liked that damn dog,” Leonis says. She rises to her feet, and smiles, at Jade, and then oddly at Karkat. “With all the arguing we do, I never expected to come up pale as bone for Jade. I guess he was let to see a punchline when the Mirthful said, ‘Bitch, someday you’re gonna fall in some quadrant with a heretic and Imma gonna have the biggest damn laugh about it.’”
“I’m just glad you didn’t get shot yourself, though honestly, who wears bioarmor to an academic conference!” Jade says, patting Leonis on the arm with a fond little grin. The affection definitely appeared to go both ways.
“Ninjettes who are ready to throw down for the faith,” Leonis says immediately. “And a good thing too.”
Leonis gives a thankfully unrhymed account of directing someone to call 911, then hunting one of the shooters down. (“One motherfucker was already out of range, but I set loose a most holy terror and got the other.”)
The conversation wanders for a bit, and then Jade says. “Okay Lee, you actually have to tell him. ‘Cause he definitely doesn’t remember you!”
“Well damn,” the Subjugglator says.
“Tell me what?” Karkat asks with a frown.
Leonis sighs. “So, a long time ago, I was all being schoolfed on the old Highblood’s flagship. And I was pissed off that the Highblood surrendered to some heretic who was in a moirallegiance with a jokeblood mutant. And I caused shit with the little motherfucker and he near put me through a wall and I gotta strip tore off me afterward, not for losing, but for fucking around like that at all on account quadrants are motherfucking sacred serendipity, even if it’s a fucking joke, especially if it’s a fucking joke. Then I got sent on a most mirthful and holy quest to learn shit and talk about what I learned and made friends with another jokeblood heretic who followed the Signless Cult. And I meet you again and I think, aight, Imma make up for being a nasty little bitch, and I’m sure you’ll know me on sight and fucking hate me but my sister goes, ‘I bet you it’s all in the past for him and he doesn’t remember,’ and now I owe her dinner and a movie, my treat.”
“Oh, you can afford it!” Jade says.
Karkat laughs a little. “Well, I remember a lot of fights, but not necessarily with who.” He tries to remember the face, and the makeup but can’t quite. The clue is the little gap between her front teeth and the arched nose. And yeah, he remembers her now. He isn’t angry, and he doesn’t hate her. He remembers putting up with her bullshit and the fight and someone coming in to mediate. “You changed your face a bit,” Karkat says, meaning her ‘holy face’ or the paint she was wearing. “You thickened the eyebrows and added opposing crescents under your eyes.”
“The face I was using when I was a kid was pretty basic,” Leonis says. “I changed it up while I was wandering around like the do-gooder mendicant from an adventure serial except all scholarly.”
“Well, I’m not sorry you got in trouble, but I don’t hate you,” Karkat says. “And even though I was pretty pissed at you then, it was a pretty long time ago. I’m glad you were on hand to provide back up and help, so we’re even, I guess.”
“Good, now shake and let bygones be bygones!” Jade says.
She is very insistent that they shake on it, so they do.
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