SOY: First chapter of a long project of mine :3 please enjoy and if you want, add a review!
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Rating: Mature for themes and later content.
Warnings: Karkat and Dave's speech. Mentions of past death.
Disclaimer: I don't own HomeStuck.
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Phantom Limb
Chapter 01
Karkat Vantas, 10 sweeps old, hated Mondays.
He hated the fact that the bus stop was always filled with bleary workers with bags under their eyes and kids of all ages dragging themselves to their school of choice, a cacophony of sounds that managed to overcome the music coming from his earphones, grating to his nerves.
He hated the smog, and the never-ending line of cars blocking every orifice and crevice of the roads, making it almost impossible to get to class on time, let alone breathe; the toxic fumes filled his nostrils, making his stomach churn in disgust, clenching around his lungs and suffocating him slowly with every step he took.
Thankfully he didn't eat anything before leaving his communal hive, because otherwise his food would have a very intimate encounter with the ground somewhere between 3rd Avenue and 7th High Railway Road.
Karkat never ate breakfast, because he also hated walking to class with food lodged between his teeth, crumbs all over his clothes and fingers sticky, but he conceded himself a cup of coffee, bitter like his mood, to start each and every day of the week.
He hated coffee, too, but it was the only way to keep him standing long enough to get to his morning class.
Karkat abhorred people speeding on the sidewalk and brushing past him, heads staring at the ground, looking like emotionless puppets moving with only the virtue of strings tied to their legs, but that had left the heads free to slouch forwards.
He disliked the taller trolls with wide, ample horns that didn't care whether they hit others with them or not, and he disliked people slamming against him in their haste to hurry up towards whatever pointless excuse of a job they had.
He hated having to walk across the street, too, because the traffic lights turned green but the cars –damned contraptions– speeding the other way never seemed to want to slow down until it was too late… and even then, walkers had to rush to the other side of the street, or else end up having an intense, first-hand meeting with a fender.
Despite that, he had to make his way through the crowd without fail if he wanted to follow his courses at the local college, no matter his personal recriminations against people at large. Karkat needed to study if he wanted to make the ends meet later in life, and that was it.
Simple.
As such, Karkat took in stride the masses of people surrounding him, all in the same situation as he was, and walked with his head hung low, ignoring them as they ignored him.
Though not all of them did so.
Behind him was another figure, a female troll a few inches shorter than him, smiling and happily showing a row of dangerous teeth to the world, even though the world was merrily ignoring her presence, and the fact that her feet were so light on the asphalt that they never even touched it.
In fact, her whole body had a weird feeling to it, and it was probably the fact that it was see-through, thin and opaque, of such a texture that if any of the people around could see her, their eyes would find it hard to focus on her figure, the contours blurring into the air.
The only thing that wasn't evanescent of her were her shades, crimson lens that looked to the eye almost tangible and more real than the rest of her presence, and behind them, open wide but glossy and dead –deader than her, at any rate– a pair of dull, red eyes.
Karkat himself was also unaware of her presence, though the troll was clearly following him, trailing behind him step by step, not caring whenever a person stepped right through her, as unfeeling as she was to the things of the living world, more focused on the troll stomping down the street to care about others to begin with.
His thoughts were still fixed on the same, familiar pattern of sleepy dislike, unhinged by the unseen presence.
Every day was mostly the same –or at least, every day he had class early in the morning– but Mondays were worse because he'd spend the weekend resting and relaxing at his hive, drinking sugary beverages and eating unhealthy, junk confectionaries, and having to return to the outside world after that was always hard.
Karkat Vantas really hated Mondays.
Musing blasting in his auricular sponge clots, trying and failing to overwhelm the vexing noises of a group of younger scholars at his side, waiting with him for the traffic lights to turn green, Karkat tried to muster up the energy to care about the three-hours period he was going to, but it was hard.
Mornings were hard.
Life was hard.
Hard as fuck.
The troops on both sides of the crosswalk converged in the middle of the road, hastily making their way to the other end, bumping against each other, troll with human and human with troll, grey and brown and pink and olive and reddish mixing into a blur of colours, then dividing, individuals turning into a crowd then back to being individuals, never even glancing at each other.
Karkat's even pace slowed only for a moment when he found himself in front of the door of a patisserie, the delicious, thick scent of croissants wafting towards him in a misty vapour, enticing his senses enough that he halted, glancing through the window to catch sight of the rows of sweets inside.
He didn't really have time to enter the shop and purchase something, but the smells were addicting, and they lifted some of his bad mood as he peered inside, eyes travelling from one mouth-watering pastry to the next.
"Excuse me," the voice was low and monotone, coming from behind him, and Karkat was shaken out of his enthralled trance, realising he'd been standing in front of the door for quite a while.
He hastily moved to the side, taking a few steps back, but the stranger didn't move.
He was tall, though Karkat was taller by a few inches, and was wearing a pair of dark, large shades that completely hid his eyes from the world. Even with them on, Karkat was able to infer that he was probably around his age.
The human had both hands secured into the pockets of his coat, an ugly, maroon thing that even Karkat, lacking any sort of fashion sense, would have never tried on himself, and a bag loosely held under his arm; his head was tilted towards him, in such a way that Karkat was sure he was looking right at him.
The staring continued for enough time that Karkat started feeling extremely uneasy under the scrutiny, unable to see the guy's eyes to confirm the thought but pretty sure the guy was actually glaring at him; he felt his good mood evaporate due to the silent examination, annoyance quickly overtaking his awkwardness.
Baring his teeth instinctively, his frown deepening, Karkat returned the glare with one of his own.
"What are you looking at?" defensive tone, shoulders hunched slightly, as if expecting the human to physically retaliate, even though he knew it wouldn't happen, Karkat tilted his chin up, showing he was unafraid and ready to engage in a verbal fight, if things came down to it.
"This street here's free territory, I'm allowed to look at whatever I want to," the stranger drawled on, shrugging as he finally spoke up. "Wasn't looking at you specifically, though, so take a chill pill alright?" his lips twitched upwards in a smirk.
Incensed at the guy's attitude, but not willing to put up with his irritating presence, Karkat grunted a half-hearted "fuck you," and left the delicious smells of the pastry shop to stomp his way down the street, resuming his walk towards his campus.
It wouldn't do to let such a discomforting encounter ruin his mood further, after all.
Karkat turned a corner and side-stepped as an elderly lady shakily made her way in the opposite direction, muttering under her breath words he didn't hear.
The fluttering, incorporeal troll still following him didn't need to avoid the woman, passing right through her, her attention leaving Karkat for only a moment, glassy eyes flicking back to the figure of the human, who had shaken himself out of his staring and was entering the pastry shop.
Looking forwards again, the ghostly figure continued trailing after Karkat, familiar and at ease with the pace and already knowing where he was going.
The university campus appeared in front of him as soon as Karkat turned another corner, the suffocating sea of people trickling down to a more tolerable stream, mostly composed by students like him with a few adults here and there; Karkat hurried up some more, checking the watch on his wrist, surprised to see that for once, he might actually make it with only ten minutes of delay.
His fast pace turned into a mild jog, grunting at the few people waving at him as he passed by, and reached the lecture hall in record time, breath coming out in shallow gasps as he pushed the door open.
It didn't bulge.
Blinking in surprise, his frown deepening when a stronger push didn't have any result, Karkat stepped backwards, looking around with a lost, confused expression.
"You here for Mathias Lodge's lesson on Troll Hemotriarchy?"
Karkat turned around, staring at the short human with ruffled hair standing behind him, a pile of books in both hands, and grunted an affirmative.
"Professor's sick," the guy stated, shrugging with a sheepish smile. "He left a note over at the Information Point, all classes have been cancelled until unknown date".
"Holy mother of all that is fuck," words tumbled out of Karkat's lips before he could think better of it. "And instead of being a sensible living being, which is apparently far too much to ask of a person whose sadistic tendencies only come out in the amount of additional work he commissions to us poor, masochistic souls following his course, and sending everybody a fucking mail, he drops. A fucking. Note," he tilted his head to the building on the other side of the campus, where the Information Point was, "Over there. What a rotting–"
The human in front of him snickered, interrupting the litany of expletives, and Karkat's lips snapped shut, feeling slightly silly for his loud outburst.
"Since you don't know about his cyclical sickness it means you just started the course this semester, right?" the guy snorted, pointing his thumb over at the closed classroom. "It's not uncommon if one knows where to check. Also, he fills up the blanks by leaving homework on his webpage".
"Oh, of course," with a defeated groan, Karkat slumped slightly and turned fully around. "Thank you," he stated, shaking his head slightly. "You also following his lessons?"
The lesson on 'History of Hemospectrum and its importance in the ascend and descend of Troll Empire before and after the Third Major Troll War' (shortened into 'History of Troll Hemotriarchy' by most non-troll students) was actually a pretty interesting course, and it was hard to find an empty seat, so it wouldn't be surprising they'd been following the same course without knowing.
The human shook his head slightly.
"I tried taking it last semester but it was impossible, it clashed with my other classes so I dropped out just a few weeks ago, haha," he scratched the back of his neck, then pushed his glasses up his nose. "Well I'm off to my class, see you around!"
With a happy wave, the nameless guy skipped merrily away, leaving Karkat in front of his class door, unsure whether to feel annoyed at the guy's cheerful disposal on a Monday morning, or actually grateful he'd taken the time to stop and tell him about his missing class.
He decided to stay largely on the grateful side, if only because it would be a waste of precious energy to get annoyed at someone who was already gone, and simply turned on his heels and marched out of the campus.
Suddenly free of his daily class, left free to roam the wide, spacious world of the city in a morning he would have more than happily spent in his recuperacoon sleeping, Karkat felt all the loathing inside his thoracic cavity melt into a grey, thick sludge that slumped on the bottom of his stomach.
He felt tired all of sudden, and in dire need of another coffee, if only to make sure he didn't fall asleep on the metro.
The female troll, as yet still unnamed, continued following him, twirling a few inches from the ground, apparently amused with his attitude and grinning at the colourful words he'd used.
The trip to the closest Starbucks didn't take much, and Karkat left the shop with a cup of brown liquid, mixed with enough sugar and cream to completely nullify the already watered down caffeine of the beverage.
With nowhere else to go, Karkat retraced his own footsteps home, sipping the coffee every few steps, until he found himself standing once again in front of the pastry shop from before, and there, surrounded and mellowed once more by the fragrant scents of confectionaries, he halted again.
As he didn't really need to rush this time, nothing waiting at his hive but his own solitude, a computer and his romcom DVDs, he lingered there for a second of two, deliberating whether to enter or not, and then nodded to himself, opening the door with a determined push.
The bells attached on top of the door chimed at his entrance, the door sliding shut behind his shoulders, a whiff of warm air surrounding him as he breathed in the delicious scents, even more penetrant now that he was inside; the troll ghost, not at all impeded by barriers such as walls and closed doors, passed right through the window pane, smiling at the scents that she could also taste by breathing them deeply into her senses, and returned to Karkat's side like an unmoving, dutiful guard.
Busy as he was perusing the various sweets he had in front of him on the front counter, Karkat only lifted his head when he heard the clerk shuffle towards him.
"Good morning," he started, clearing his throat, one finger already pointed towards his sweet of choice. "I'd like one of–"
His words trailed off when he came face to face with a familiar visage, a pair of big, black shades covering half of it and surrounded by pale blond hair.
"You," he hissed, unable to stop the low, soft rumbling of his throat at the sight.
It was the guy he'd met earlier, who'd stared unashamedly at him, hiding his eyes behind those stupid as fuck shades.
"Good morning," the guy, now lacking his unfashionable coat and donning a red and white t-shirt, but still wearing the shades (who the fuck wore shades inside a building anyway?) looked at him without expression, his lips set in a thin line. "Welcome to Crocker's Pastries, what can I get you?"
Cheeks turning a darker grey, annoyed by the guy's nonchalant attitude, felt his anger spike. He sneered despite himself. "Maybe an apology would be a good way to sweeten my day," he stated.
The human rapped his fingers on the counter, shrugging. "I already said I wasn't ogling you, though, man, so why don't you drop it and just order what you want?"
As it was, Karkat truly wasn't a people person. His socialization skills amounted to a handful of trusted friends, and as such he was easily flustered when he had to confront people in public places.
This person was sort of infuriating, and Karkat, despite having had coffee, was still annoyed at having had to leave his hive in the first place, and he really disliked being stared at, especially by strangers.
He didn't look like much, he knew it, with stubby horns and messy hair, but he was still self-conscious, disliking when attention was shifted to him all of sudden; that was a strong reminder of his earlier childhood, stemming from his prominent fear of being culled by the system for having a mutated gene in his blood.
Karkat had been born, much to his dislike (as it was bound to be a complication when your own existence was fought against), with blood of a colour that only humans (and a single other troll in the history of ever) shared –a bright red.
Troll culture wasn't nice on genetic mishaps, and Karkat had survived to his tenth sweep only thanks to having a highblooded moirail, and to his own skills at keeping a very low appearance all the time.
As such, when Karkat felt the eyes of the other clients around him on his back he cringed, disliking their curiosity, instinctively feeling the need to lash out.
"Maybe I don't quite want to order from a place that hires someone who so freely gawks at complete strangers on the street for more time than it is sensible to do," he grunted. "I thought that would be quite fucking rude".
There, the edge of the human's mouth twisted in a displeased frown, and Karkat felt somewhat vindicated.
"Then I have to ask you to get out of here," tense, thick, the human's tone was altered, but still calm as he pointed him to the door. "I told you once, man, I wasn't looking at you, and now you're here making a mess while I'm working, the uncouth one isn't being me".
Karkat felt the flush on his cheeks turn darker, customers around him whispering and pointing, and didn't have to be told twice; with a flourish he spun around, pushing the mix of anger and shame down into his guts, and stomped out of the pastry shop, briskly walking down the street.
He waited until he'd put a corner between himself and the shop before sagging against the wall, cheeks still darkened in shame.
Instantly, regret hit his stomach like lead, and Karkat slapped his hand to his face, groaning at his own sheer, astounding stupidity.
He'd made a fool out of himself, and with fresh air hitting his face, cooling his anger down again, the remains of his coffee growing cold in his hand, the previous bout of rage felt useless, and unwanted.
'Fuck,' he thought, overwhelmed with a complex mix of guilt and shame, 'I'm really an asshole, huh'.
Even if the guy with the shades looked like an absurd tool, that didn't mean he could just attack him for things he couldn't prove –and in truth, Karkat had to admit it, the guy had been adamantly negating his accusations, so maybe…
Still, with such an exaggerated reaction, Karkat had proved to be the unreasonable one.
Was his belief that the guy had been watching him enough to justify being chased out of a shop in the first place?
Karkat Vantas, 10 sweeps old, was feeling like a complete asshole, and unfortunately for him, he also felt guilty enough that if he went home now, he would still feel like shit for the rest of the day.
He hesitated, back pressed against the cold wall, and carefully weighted his actions and their consequences, nails tapping mindlessly against the bricks, eyes trailing upwards to watch the greyish sky.
There weren't many options that he could safely pick, not when he'd just offended a random stranger with his own idiosyncrasies, and the idea of going back inside the pastry shop wasn't appealing in the least.
Even if he hadn't been busy cursing at himself as he was, he would have still being unable to notice that the ghost troll was snorting at him; she fluttered close, circling him and snickering, the sound barely a soft huff in the air, lost in the wall between her reality and that of Karkat. Her feet touched the ground and she hummed, slouching forwards until she could almost touch him.
"Still the same," she murmured, her voice echoing strangely in the air, and full of warmth. "But you have been unfair, Karkat," she continued, her mellowed features sharpening again in a dangerous smirk. "What to do, hmmm?"
Karkat abruptly looked up, and the other troll pulled back slightly, dull eyes growing wide, even though she was sure he couldn't hear, nor see, her. In fact, Karkat had just reached a decision regarding his poor attitude, and when looking up all he could see were the waves of people walking the streets and the cars honking whenever the ones preceding them seemed to slow down too much.
There was, for all he could see, no troll standing close to him, observing him carefully.
Straightening his back, Karkat swiftly moved down the street, a troll on a mission, chin held high and flush quickly disappearing behind the usual pale grey of his skin. Soon enough he'd grabbed another coffee cup from the Starbucks, the fanciest thing he could find, and holding it close to his chest, he stomped back towards the pastry shop, only to pause and shuffle awkwardly in front of it, teetering close to the window pane just out of sight, so that he could peer inside, but have nobody inside see him in exchange.
Karkat glanced down at the cold treat he was holding in his hand, feeling more like an embarrassed, pathetic grub rather than an adult troll; then again, he had to admit that there weren't many times he felt he could call himself an adult and do it righteously.
Unable to enter the shop again, plagued by embarrassment as he was, but also not wanting to waste the Starbucks cup now that he'd spent money on it, Karkat spent the following few minutes cursing at himself, colourful words only half-muttered in righteous anger, making passers-by turn to look at him, only to hasten up their pace.
Karkat was shaken out of his mumbling fit when, after the door was pushed open and the bells chimed softly, a figure stopped closer to him, suddenly invading his personal space.
Looking up, Karkat paled slightly at the sight of the human wearing shades standing inches from him, hands again nested in the depths of his ugly coat, and Karkat noticed a single eyebrow rising above the line of his shades, as pale as his hair.
"You accuse me of staring at you, and then you stick around the shop after throwing a prima donna show in there," the guy's tone, although containing a light shade of annoyance, was mostly amused. "Did you maybe fall in love with me at first sight, or something?"
Cheeks shifting abruptly from pale to flushed, Karkat straightened his back, the guy's words striking a chord inside. "Of fucking course not, that's just an enormous pile of bullshit rolling from your mouth! If you ignoramus want to keep on deluding your horrid self about that, then–" he suddenly stopped, mouth hanging open for a second as he realised he'd been about to let his own mouth run along again.
Clamping his mouth shut with a small click, swallowing in shame, Karkat shifted away from the human, wanting to keep some distance; his hands tightened instinctively around the Starbucks coffee and he was reminded of what he was doing there, and how it had by no means anything to do with getting angry again. Quite the opposite.
"Here," he grunted out.
He shoved the coffee into the human's chest, surprising him, and watched him look down, clearly wondering what this was about.
"Wait," pushing his shades up his nose with one hand, the guy tilted his head towards Karkat's face. "You remained standing outside the shop for over an hour just to give me this?"
"I accused you wrongly and I am a sorry excuse of a troll," Karkat hissed, cheeks still flushed a dark grey. "And I humbly apologize to you".
There was a long silence, in which the human simply stared at him, and Karkat wondered, idly, if this would make the guy think he was crazy. And yet, Karkat believed that he was in the wrong, and as such he needed to offer a proper apology, as he was doing.
Came what might, Karkat would feel much better now.
What happened was, much to Karkat's utter shame, that the human snorted softly, his lips pointing upwards in a smile before he covered it with his hand, a soft breathy laughter quickly suffocated by his fingers.
"You're something else, really," having calmed down, laughter gone just as quickly as it had appeared, the human held out his hand and slid the Starbucks cup out of Karkat's fingers. "Ok, apology accepted, we're tight as bros now, all is forgotten, but let me just comment on your bad choice of coffee, like…" he shook the cup slightly, listening to the sound of liquid sloshing inside the plastic, "this here is no drink. No wonder you're so touchy, holy fuck, ain't no way to start a day, this shit is nasty as fuck".
Karkat, flush long since forgotten, openly gaped at the human, who'd just moved from accepting his apology gift to downright insulting his choice in coffee.
A part of him wanted to feel annoyance, to muster up the energy to tell the fucker off and stomp back home, feeling at least content with knowing he'd managed to settle the dispute and apologize to him, but…
He snorted softly, unable to stop himself.
"You…" he opened his mouth, then once again paused.
He didn't even know the guy's name, and that abruptly made him stop smiling; although his idiocy was honestly embarrassing enough on its own, and he was fairly sure the guy was just letting his mouth run for the sake of dispelling the cloud of awkwardness around them, this was still a random stranger he'd insulted gratuitously.
A sort of annoying, weird tool with oversized shades and an ugly coat.
Why was this amusing, again?
"Dave," apparently unperturbed by Karkat's sudden silence, the human offered the troll a fist, and Karkat stared at it before looking up at his face, confusion depicted all over his visage. "Dave Strider," the human continued.
Karkat's confusion cleared slightly, but there was still the matter of the offered fist.
"Uuh…"
"You're supposed to bump it man," the human called Dave snorted. "Are you sure you live in this century?"
"Excuse me?!"
"C'mon, don't let me hangin' there, man, that's unfair!" Dave pushed his fist forwards, and Karkat watched it with wide eyes, wondering if he'd made a mistake in waiting out of the pastry shop for a guy such as this one.
He didn't look crazy, and he was sure no shop would hire someone crazy, and yet…
With some hesitation clearly shown on his face, Karkat extended his hand, forming a fist, and Dave bumped his own fist against it, just a bare contact before retreating.
"There, all done," he smirked, looking like he'd just done a good deed, and Karkat couldn't help but snort again.
"You are weird," he found himself declaring.
His words, though that hadn't been his intention, seemed to actually please the quirky human called Dave, because his smirk grew slightly bigger in reply.
"Ok, that done, let's trash this shit," without mercy, Dave turned to the side, located the nearby trash bin, covered in graffiti and ad stickers, and promptly threw the Starbucks coffee into it.
"What the fuck?!" Karkat surged forwards, rushing to the trash bin, unable to touch it –fear of infection through litter would be a very obtuse, miserable way to die– and then spun around, glaring at the human. "I bought that for you! As an apology!"
"I'll just ignore the fact that 'as an apology' you wanted to poison me with bad coffee, but I will be magnanimous and forgive you anyway, because you didn't know better," the human seemed on a roll, completely ignoring how he'd just sort of insulted Karkat. "So… uh," he paused, tilting his head and managing to look expectant even though the troll couldn't see his eyes. "You have yet to give me your name".
"Karkat. Karkat Vantas," the troll grunted out.
This human was really something else.
"Well then, Karkat! Let me show you what a real coffee tastes like!"
That said, with a swift, fluid move, Dave turned around and moved down the street, only pausing a split second to look above his shoulder at the still motionless troll.
"You coming or not, Vantas?"
Frozen in place near the window pane of the pastry shop, completely taken aback and glancing back and forth from the weird human to the trash bin that now contained his peace offer, Karkat allowed himself a split moment to think.
This here, was something he wasn't prepared of. Every part of him, like a single entity, was chorusing in confusion, unsure whether to take a step towards the human, or let go, turn around, and return to his normal life.
He wasn't sure, in all honesty, what this guy, this Dave Strider, wanted from him, weird and quirky and so easily forgiving.
"What the hell," he huffed out, throat clicking to echo his distress.
"You wouldn't ignore me, would you," with a mocking expression of sadness, only visible around those shades, Dave pursed his lips. "You already caused me so much distress, taking out your anger on me in the shop…"
"I can't believe you're using that against me!" Karkat's emotions were having a hard time keeping up with the human, too, moving from anger to amusement, and once again back to anger, like a pendulum swing.
Dave shrugged instantly, not even missing a beat, "nah man, I'm kidding. But you seriously need to find yourself a better dealer, 'cause Starbucks can be all shiny and nifty but it got nothing on a good cup of strong coffee, d'ya get me?"
With a soft, defeated groan, Karkat abandoned all at once his previous prospects of a nice, calm morning at home, buried in his pile with junk food and maybe a good romcom, to follow a stranger down the street.
He was probably teetering towards insanity, or maybe he'd already fallen head first into it, welcoming the craziness into his open arms, mindless and stubborn, but as it was…
Karkat didn't have quite much to lose, wasn't that right?
Fluttering in the air, light steps bringing her to follow them, the unnamed troll ghost grinned, crossing her fingers behind her back, and emitted a soft, contented sound from her throat.
"I like you," she breathed in the air to the human, floating down until she was at Dave's side, keeping his pace in front of Karkat and turning around, delicate and transparent, to look at the troll who was following them.
His head tilted towards Karkat, who was approaching him quickly, stormy expression of uneasiness taking up all the space on his face, Dave conceded himself a small, amused smirk.