"The fuck are you doing here?" Karkat was surprised and angry; seeing Eridan before him was jarring.
"W-well, I w-was just kind of floating. I don't ev-ven know-w w-what I'm doing here. Also, rude." His stutter was just as pronounced as ever, despite his semi-hollow appearance. His eyes lacked pupils which made Karkat nervous. "W-what are you doin' Kar?"
"It's none of your fucking business you shit-fucking douchefin!" The Cancer wasn't sure which Eridan he was even talking to; he didn't know if it mattered.
The Aquarius didn't rage like the mutant had expected. "W-whatev-ver. Though, if you're gonna try and fool me, you should probably make sure to cover my w-whole body next time."
For a moment Karkat couldn't breath before he noticed that one manicured hand was left uncovered, violet blood crusted under the nails. He wasn't as thorough as he thought he was. Defeated but still frustrated, he pulled back the sheet and showed his uninvited guest.
"Sew-win' me back together huh? Pretty noble for a guy w-who's friends I killed in cold blood." His voice was steady, but his mouth pulled down at the corners.
Karkat didn't know whether to curse and scream at him until his throat bled or apologize for the shitty job he was doing. In the end, he did neither. "Yeah, well, no one else was gonna do it asshole." He started sewing again, his hands shaking slightly. He stabbed at Eridan's body ungracefully, almost daring the sea dweller to object. He didn't.
"Nobody should either." The Aquarius's voice was quiet as he watched Karkat work. "After I killed Fef, I w-was pretty much a dead troll w-walking. I let Kan catch me."
Karkat's hand froze mid thread, staring blankly at the slightly gaping gash over Eridan's hip. "What."
"I let her catch me. W-what use w-was there for me to liv-ve? I'd already killed the girl I supposedly pitied the most. W-wasn't anythin' left for me. If not Kan, someone else w-would hav-ve put me outta their misery, and I figured Kan deserv-ved it." He watched Karkat as he once again began sewing, starting a second loop around his midsection. "It took a w-while for me to die, I remember that. I laid in my ow-wn blood and shit, thinkin' about how-w the angels must hav-ve felt w-when I shot them dow-wn. I w-wondered w-who'd be the lucky soul to toss me ov-verboard. I w-wondered if I'd ev-ver run into anyone again, and had hope for the first time in a long time that I w-wouldn't."
Pinpricks of bright red stuck in Karkat's eyes, threatening to escape. "You're a dumb shit."
"I know-w. You'v-ve told me at least a thousand times here, and ten thousand more times ev-very time I ran into you in a bubble. One time it w-wasn't ev-ven the you I knew-w. You made God-tier and died tryin' to kill the black king. Clock counted it as Heroic, so you stayed down." He paused for a moment before continuing. "You nev-ver told me you were a mutant. Guess it doesn't matter now-w though. You still did better than any v-version of me I'v-ve ran into."
"How long have you been dead?"
"Judgin' by my body there, probably a few-w hours to you. Feels like sweeps to me though. I ran into Fef a few-w times and couldn't ev-ven face her. I couldn't ev-ven face Sol, and I fuckin' hated him. He seemed happy enough to leav-ve me be for the most part, but he cut out one of my eyes once. It didn't stick, obv-viously." He looked at the stack of fresh clothes sitting on a chair not far from him. "So, sew-win' me back together like a doll. W-what are you gonna do w-with me w-when you're done?"
"I don't know. I hadn't thought that far yet. I figured you didn't deserve to rot where you died though, so here I am, sewing back together a murderer that I thought was my friend." He finally finished, Eridan's body haphazardly sewn back together. He grabbed the clothing and started dressing the body as best as he could.
"Pretty pity w-worthy Kar. I bet if you tell anyone, they'll hav-ve your horns as a w-wall mount."
"Don't fuck with me jackass. You nev-ver hit on me before, don't start now when you're dead."
Eridan snorted. "I nev-ver flirted with you before because I genuinely liked you. I w-wasn't ev-ver desperate Kar, just lonely. I felt pretty unw-wanted, you know-w?" Karkat did know. "But, I alw-ways liked you. W-wouln't hav-ve ev-ver told you though, because look how-w that w-worked out for me the last time I tried it. I w-wasn't going to lose you too. Then you told me w-we w-were through, and I kind of lost it. I didn't ev-ven know-w w-what I had done, and lo and behold, I had killed three people. It w-was a self-fulfilling paradox. I found out recently that it's referred to as an ouroboros. A snake that eats it's ow-wn tail. Seems fittin' enough to me."
The Cancer's breath hitched silently in his throat, and his face dropped enough so that Eridan wouldn't see his stupid mutant tears. He had killed Eridan, intentionally or not, and the seed of self-loathing within him was blooming because of it. It threatened to mash all of his organs and make him vomit.
"Don't sw-weat it Kar. I deserv-ved to die anyw-way. W-wasn't like I ev-ver helped anyone; I just made them nerv-vous and angry. Being dead opens you up to a lot of shit you w-weren't priv-vy to aliv-ve." He waved his hand dismissively as he spoke, and the action hitched his shirt up just a notch. If Karkat would have looked, he would see a more transparent band of shiny jagged flesh where the chainsaw had torn him apart. "W-who'd w-wanna hang out with a violent sea dw-weller w-whose main hobby w-was killing angels anyw-ways?"
"I was going to." Karkat's voice wasn't as loud as normal. "I was going to hang out with you. I thought maybe I could talk some fucking sense into you, make you forget about Feferi and Sollux and everything that filled you to the flap gasket with venom. I... I pitied you. I wanted to make it better for you."
Eridan paused, then snorted again. His voice cracked as he stutter-slurred his words. "Of course you did. W-why not? I'm a raging bag of w-waste, w-what's not to pity? Guess it doesn't matter now-w though." The air started to shimmer around him as he spoke, and he moved to his knees onto his dead body, squeezing a little more blood from the newly sewn break. He put a hand to Karkat's face, his transparent skin almost freezing to the warmer Cancer. "Maybe I'll see you again on the other side."
Karkat looked up just as Eridan leaned down and felt a feather-light touch of lips on his nose; the chill was like an errant snowflake landing in winter before melting away into nothing. He was filled with rage and bitter despair, his insides gnarling into a twisted ball. It pushed the tears out of him in a new wave and stained his cheeks and the almost-gone of Eridan's fingers.
"Goodbye, Kar."
Before he could respond, Eridan was gone. The bubble had passed.
Karkat sat as still as a statue for a moment before screaming into the void and collapsing onto the lifeless body before him. He tangled his fingers into the soft fabric of Eridan's shirt and openly wept, knowing that there was no one to judge him.
Eventually, he made his way back to the others, a shell waiting to be filled up; oddly empty and lacking rage. A few days later, Eridan's body disappeared from his room and when he discovered it missing he stood in abject rage before it's empty place. A big nosed smile shone in its wake, purple blood staring back at him like an exclamation mark.
He felt as he imagined Eridan had at the end, and the feeling filled him to the brim before escaping through his mouth, grub loaf spilling across the floor in a disgusting mess. In that moment, staring at the colourful chunks of hardly digested food and what he imagined was his own blood, he decided that sometimes, giving up is the only thing left that makes sense. They were all doomed anyways; they ran into another bubble with a Feferi who had seen those in the alpha timeline and healed some small carapace. They didn't even have a carapace. The alpha Sollux was still (mostly) alive. There was no reason to hang around more than necessary. He laughed at the thought; well, it's not like he would be around to let himself down so he figured he would, indeed, hang around more than necessary.
The last thought that went through his mind before the lack of oxygen made thinking impossible was a wish that he would meet Eridan again on the other side. Hope had failed Eridan, but maybe it would shine brighter on him.
Swinging idly above a ":o)" and his vomit, Karkat died.
