Title: Blood Ties

Fandom: Homestuck

Genre: Family, Adventure

Characters: (Main) Karkat Vantas, Kankri Vantas, The Signless/The Sufferer.

Rating: HIGH T.

Pairings: This story will not focus on romance, but rather will focus on the journey of Karkat and Kankri forming a sort of family with the Signless, a place of belonging full of familial emotions and blood ties. But if any particular pairing could be stated as being a part of this, it would be Kankri/OC

Disclaimer: Homestuck is the intellectual property of Andrew "the Huss" Hussie. I am neither male nor can I animate anything, not even the simplest of gifs. The only thing I can claim is any distinctly original character and the plot of this fic.

AN: I had intended to post this yesterday, but real life intruded when my puppy dog started having really bad seizures. We had to take her to the vet to get it checked out. She's home again, and seems okay now, but the emotional strain yesterday kept me from wanting to do much of anything productive. Forgive me; couldn't be helped.

Chapter 2

The dream bubbles were buzzing with excitement the next time that Karkat passed through them. It was the middle of their day-night cycle on the meteor, so it seemed like everyone was asleep and exploring the dream bubbles. Dave and Rose waved to him as he passed them, half waves of acknowledgement more than of appreciation, and Rose pointed off in a particular direction with an amused smile. He (reluctantly) started off in that direction, because it wasn't like he had anything better to do.

When he entered the next bubble over and saw the crowd of pre-scratch trolls, five or six iterations of each, all sitting in a wide circle surrounding something, even his curiosity was piqued. Kankri was standing just outside the circle, leaning against a gold pillar, eyes focused to the center. Karkat turned his gaze to what the other was watching.

It was like clockwork in Aradia's music boxes, two forms constantly in motion at point and counterpoint to one another, playing off of each other's movements while adding in their own. He recognized the nubby horns on both competitors. The dark gray shirts on both meant that these two were the strange new iterations of himself and Kankri, the ones who wore no sign, no color.

He watched them for a moment, constantly moving around each other, blades in hands. The offshoot of him had both original sickles, those that hadn't been affected by the game, cold impersonal steel with worn down handles that Karkat could already see were fitted to rest perfectly balanced in the offshoot's hands. The right hand was curled around it's sickle with an awkward grip, two of the fingers not seeming fully closed around the handle, but he didn't seem bothered by it.

The third blade in the equation made his eyebrows raise. It was a large bladed, long staved scythe that the offshoot Kankri was using with ease, twirling and blocking blows without even a second of hesitation. The surprise came at the sheer size of it, though. It was as long as the older troll ghost was tall, and the blade was half that length, and at least as thick as the offshoot's waist. Considering the size of the blade (steel as well, he could tell already) it had to weigh somewhere close to thirty pounds. His own sickles both weighed about ten pounds in total, five pounds each.

The two were moving with a practiced precision, feet stepping lightly forward and back as they attacked and parried and blocked. If he hadn't seen it he wouldn't have believed it. The other Kankri was laughing and taunting the other him, who was grinning back, all teeth bared in a half-feral way.

"You lost your touch these past few days, Karkat!"

"You wish!" A strike forward, blocked by the scythe blade. "If anything you lost your nerve! You've been blocking and parrying more than attacking!"

The ring of trolls around the two were calling out jeers and cheering on the side they were supporting, a few of them making and taking bets on the outcome of the spar. Karkat walked over to Kankri, leaning on the pillar beside him and watching in silence.

"...they're quite good." Kankri said slowly, for once keeping short and to the point. Karkat cast a glance over at him, arching an eyebrow - that was new.

"I didn't know you had scythekind."

"I haven't used it much since our game. Being a Seer and all, more suited to conducting from the background." The other's eyes hadn't left the spiral of movement in the center of the circle, arms crossed over his chest. "The other me used it a lot over his last sweep, though. All throughout their divergence from the alpha timeline." He leaned his head back against the pillar, closing his eyes for a second, "Apparently they sparred with each other once a day for the last good few perigees in their timeline."

"That would explain their ease of movement." Karkat frowned, "You're acting different. You're actually capable of shutting up. It's weird."

"I'm..." Kankri made a face, letting out a breath, "trying to rein myself in, I suppose you could say." he opened his eyes again, blank white slates, and turned his head slightly to look at Karkat.

"Well." Karkat curled his lip slightly, still confused but shrugging it off. "I guess it's an okay change." he turned to watch the two sparring ghosts again, having to appraise the technique they were both using. The only flaw he could see was the grip of his other self's right hand. Something about it just seemed... wrong.

The offshoot Kankri swung low, causing offshoot Karkat to jump over the massive steel blade. While it was mid-swing, and while he was mid-jump, the older Karkat swung out with both of his sickles, using their momentum to twist his body around in a circle and give them more momentum. Offshoot Kankri bent backwards at the waist, avoiding the swings and swinging his scythe around again so that the blunt end caught around the Karkat's ankles, bringing him to the ground with a grunt.

The sharp end of the scythe's blade was pressed to the offshoot Karkat's throat, signifying the end of the match.

"You were saying about me and my nerve?" the older Kankri said dryly, not removing his blade until the Karkat had put his sickles back into his strife specibus. After the first two blades were gone, the third disappeared as well and the older Kankri leaned down to help the other Karkat up. When the older Karkat swung his right hand up to grab onto the other's hand, he also kicked his leg out to sweep the older Kankri off his feet.

The older Kankri, for this offense, made sure to land right on top of the older Karkat. They burst into laughter about it while trolls around the circle handed over boondollars and chattered among themselves. Meenah walked to the center of the ring, tugging both of them up and holding up their arms with a big sharktoothed grin on her face. The crowd of pre-scratch troll iterations clapped and cheered before starting to disperse.

Meenah turned to the offshoot Karkat, putting a hand on her hip and still grinning. They started chatting idly while the offshoot Kankri brushed himself off. Alpha Kankri pushed off of the pillar, leaving Karkat behind to go speak with his older form.

Karkat, after a moment of debate, decided against going forward as well. One Kankri was more than enough for him, thanks.

Kankri stood about two feet away from his offshoot, watching for a few seconds before the other looked up to grin at him. It still unsettled him sometimes, that grin; it was affectionate and exasperated and so many other conflicting emotions all at once. It was the same grin that his offshoot would send at the offshoot Karkat.

"It's been a while since I've seen that scythe outside of my strife specibus." he said dryly, having mastered the other's arid tone himself.

"S'been awhile since anybouy has seen that fuckin' scythe, Kankrab." Meenah had paused her conversation with the offshoot Karkat to look over her shoulder and make a face at him. It was practically enough to make him believe in the 'miracles' that Kurloz and his dancestor were always touting. Meenah speaking to him in an almost civilized manner. Incredible.

His offshoot seemed to think so as well, as his eyebrows had seemingly disappeared into his hairline. The two shared a glance, his mouth quirking upward, before the Alpha shook his head a minute amount and turned to answer Meenah, "As I recall, the last time you saw it..."

"...it was blocking your double trident." his offshoot matched his tone almost perfectly, acerbic sarcasm on the tip of his tongue but a sly grin on his face.

Meenah made an eye rolling gesture with her head, "You never were any fun." she stuck out her tongue, and after another shared glance the two Kankri's returned the gesture with four raised middle fingers and two stuck out tongues.

"Hey, no fair!" Meenah pouted, "You shouldn't be allowed to outnumber me," she punched the offshoot Karkat in the arm, "Hey, older shouty, back me up here."

The offshoot Karkat chuckled, "Sorry, Meenah." he leaned over to kiss her cheek before walking to stand beside his timeline companion. "I've got previous loyalties."

Meenah went the funniest shade of purple-pink, half in fury and embarrassment and half in 'oh my cod he kissed my cheek'. The three mutantbloods who were standing near her let out chuckles, though alpha Kankri was less enthusiastic about the whole thing.

The offshoot Karkat raised a hand in farewell as he turned to leave the circle, but before he could the offshoot Kankri grabbed his wrist. The Karkat looked around to meet the other's eye before giving a small smile and a nod. The offshoot Kankri smiled thankfully back and let go of his wrist, waving back slightly before letting the other leave.

"...what was that aboat?" Meenah, in her typical blunt style, directed the question at the older Kankri after taking a second to share a look of mutual confusion with alpha Kankri. The offshoot continued giving that tiny, grateful smile for a few seconds, watching his timeline partner walk away, before shaking his head.

"Nothing that need concern you, Meenah." His voice had that same dry amused tone to it, but it was strong enough that it held the obvious 'step off' in it. He turned around and started walking away, hands pushed into pockets and a heaviness to his steps that any trained observer would notice.

Meenah had had more than enough time to get good at noticing things. While Alpha Kankri was still a clueless little nub when it came to seeing what was going on around him, she could immediately pick out certain aspects of the offshoot's behavior. The defensive tone, the reliance on older-shouty... She turned on Alpha Kankri and crossed her arms over her chest, "Alright what the shell have you been talkin' aboat with him? Cuz whatever it is, he ain't tellin' nobouy else."

"...then it's on a need to know basis." Kankri said slowly, turning to look at her warily, "If he's not telling anyone but myself, then I'm not going to betray his confidence."

"He's you, Insufferable!" she scowled toward him, "If anybouy has the right to tell his sea-crets, it's you." Leaning toward him, her frown deepened, "Plus you're the Sea-r of Blood, you're the one who's s'posed to fuckin' understand emotional carp or someshit."

Kankri chuckled, an acerbic smile forming on his face as he bowed slightly toward her, "I'm sorry, Princess, but he isn't me. Not anymore... and I'm not him. Yet. He's something..." his expression softened, to a kind of bitterness, "...something I could be, but probably won't ever be."

"What?" she leaned toward him again, tone demanding. Kankri looked back up to meet her gaze before he straightened and turned to leave. His voice was as bitter as his expression had become.

"He's strong."

He found the other him in that same dream bubble they had been in before, sitting at the edge and staring out toward the emptiness. A general quietness seemed to surround him, one that kept him quiet as he sat down in the spot he had taken up before. Next to the other, watching him for a few moments. His other self was seemingly lost in thought, in a trance looking out toward the open blackness.

He took the time that the other was drifting pensively to consider this other him again - to look him over once more. The definition his face had gone through in a sweep and a half of further growing, still smooth and clean cut with angular bones, but having lost the puffiness around the cheeks that seemed to still plague the alpha. The way his eyes were ever-so-slightly sunken in, with thin lines of forever-shadows that would probably never leave under them. The thinner eyelashes than the alpha had, as though most of them had been pulled out or something of that nature. Tiny scars all over his cheeks, down his chin, one scar cutting one of his eyebrows in half vertically. Lines over his lip, scars where it had undoubtedly been split open multiple times. There was a chip in one of his horns, a tiny little splotch of white where the darkened outer bone had been broken away.

His eyes drifted down to the marring of letters and numbers on the other's neck, just visible behind the tendrils of hair now that he knew it was there. It was small enough to be hidden easily, but large enough to pick it out from about five feet if you were looking for it. There was a bump along the other's collar bone, suggesting it had been broken and had healed awkwardly. The edge of the other's shirt made his eyes stop, and look back up at the face again.

His eyes met the blank white of the other's, making him jump slightly. The other had turned his head perfectly in time with his return to the offshoot's face.

"Would you like to continue?" his older self asked, softly, looking at him with an intensity that made him want to shift unsurely. He was offering a way out, Kankri could tell, but he made himself sit straight and nod. He had promised to hear the entire story. He wanted to know the entire story.

"Yes."

The older's mouth quirked slightly, a little less than it had the day before, and he waved his hand to form the memory bubbles again. He waved through them to sort them before bringing one forward and popping it. "Believe it or not, this is after a few days of much of the same." his elder self said softly, "Those first few days were... stressful, to say the least. This is about a week after we first arrived."

A soft glow was cast onto the stone walls of the cave, the fire having been stoked and a bit of lusus meat suspended on a spit that Karkat had made over it. The crackling sound of blood popping and the smell of it hitting the flames permeated their surroundings. Karkat was turning the spit with a focused expression on his face, shadows dancing across his cheekbones and making him look a lot more tired than he already had been.

They had had a few run-ins with other lusii over the course of the last few days, and every time, Karkat had been the one to either scare them away or kill them. Kankri had made the mistake at one point to ask if all lusii were feral and had gotten a very informative string of Alternian curses and a short, explosive explanation of the purpose of a lusus' life. (Karkat was quite creative when he cursed, it was apparent.)

As it was, the cave was quiet and the two of them were both pensive. Kankri had his hands pointed toward the fire, eyes closed and just enjoying the heat. They had divided up jobs the first day - Kankri gathered firewood, tried to find some food to augment Karkat's stores so they could save use of the tiny alchemiter - he only had so much grist in his cache. Karkat made the fires, cooked the food, and chased away threats.

For the first time ever, Kankri had had a chance to watch Karkat train with his sickles, watch him use them. The other was all condensed, flexible muscle, fluid movements and deadly focus, accuracy and agility. He had the chance to consider the other's strengths and weaknesses, the way his movements stretched his ability.

For the first time in nearly two billion sweeps, his fingers itched for the coarse, splintered wood of a weapon he hadn't used in nearly that long or longer. He still had his specibus set to scythekind, but it had been forever and a half since he had been in any kind of combat. His scythe was still in his specibus, but... he didn't know if he could even use it anymore.

The fire popped and crackled a little bit, with Karkat pulling the spit off of the flames. He pulled the meat off of the spit and pulled the meat apart with his fingertips, handing one half over to Kankri and starting to eat the other half himself. Kankri took the hot meat carefully, trying not to burn himself, and took a small bite of it.

It never ceased to amaze him that Karkat could stand tearing apart the meat with his fingertips, when by his standards it could easily cause burns. But he supposed that was part of what made Karkat so different from him - his society was one where pain was not necessarily something to shy away from.

"The first day was the hardest." the offshoot said slowly, softly, "We had no sopor, and we were already edged more toward panic due to our interaction with the horrorterrors in the void. Our cave was the only thing that was a blessing for us those first few days, between the fear of sleeping demons and the fear of waking ones; it was the one thing protecting us from the harsh sun and giving us a place to defend from outside forces. But... that first day... I doubt either of us slept much."

The alpha blinked as he looked to the fire himself, barely able to smell the scent of the meat and the blood popping in the flames, sending sensory blips gone haywire to the nasal section of his thinkpan. It had been two billion sweeps since he last smelled something, and after a while in the dream bubbles everyone forgot things that they had remembered, particularly the smells of the worlds before. Sounds and sights were more prominent in everyone's memory. They would be able to recognize smells, but they couldn't call them up whenever they wanted to.

"I can... imagine." He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to pull the other's memory of the warmth of the flames onto his own face. As much as he was trying to listen to the story and focus on what the other was telling him, there was a nostalgic pull towards the sensations of a living thing. It had been so long since he had felt the pull, the caring of what happened. Being in the dream bubbles, you kind of lost the sense of the importance of the things that happened to living things.

"It was strangely comforting, though." the offshoot noted softly, "We didn't sleep much, and when we did we did it at the same time no matter how much we might have worried about being found. After what we had gone through, neither of us wanted to chance facing the horrorterrors alone. We were bound by a common fear, a common goal."

The alpha nodded, not quite catching the significance of the statement. The offshoot gave a tired smile, "...you don't understand. That first night... that was the first time I think I've honestly done what my title in the game said I should be able to do."

The alpha blinked, confusion highlighting every feature of his face, "What do you mean?"

The offshoot's tired smile widened ever so slightly. "For the first time, I understood - as a Seer - the bond that ties us together - Blood."

"...blood... ties... us together..." the alpha repeated softly, tilting his chin down as he considered the thought. The feeling of the fire inched his eyes toward closed, but the idea kept them open. The things that tied souls together, bonds, uniting for a common goal... things that he had failed to do, in their failed session.

"Being alive again," the offshoot eventually spoke, breaking his thought process and redirecting it back toward the memory, "gave me a chance to start understanding, and doing what I should have tried to do a hundred thousand times before."

Karkat dampened the fire down to glowing embers, putting away things they hadn't used into his sylladex again. The small pile of berries Kankri had gathered would serve as a sort of 'dessert' for the two of them.

They had been through so much in the last few days alone, and both of them were avoiding the thought that hovered treacherously in the air between them, poisoning the silence with terrifying thoughts. They weren't time players but they both knew it was still possible. Kankri's thoughts drifted to Damara and her caustic actions, the way she had conspired to ensure their game was sure to fail. The way that whenever they started making progress, she would...

She would doom the timeline.

He had met plenty of iterations of himself in the dream bubbles who would talk about how close they had managed to get before she jumped back and doomed them all. They would talk about working with Porrim, collecting frogs for weeks, sometimes even chasing after them when they got away from them (they always mentioned that chasing the frogs was at times more enjoyable than their squabbles with their Porrims). They would talk about sitting with Meulin during the session and starting to learn some sign language from her (he never did learn a lot, but over time in the dream bubbles meeting several of these doomed selves, he did eventually gather enough to get by in a normal conversation with her. If a conversation about relationships and her trying to meddle on his behalf was to be considered 'normal'). They would talk about sitting with Aranea, trying to glean as much information they could about the game (every time, they would say that listening to Aranea's explanations would make her so happy, and that eventually they did it just to see her smile because the farther along in the game they got, the less everyone smiled, and by sweep three he had known what they meant). One even talked about all of them gathering together and pulling off killing the Black King- only to see Damara give a downright evil grin and open her music boxes to disappear.

Each of them talked about the sinking feeling they would get once they knew the timeline was a doomed offshoot, about wondering how much of what they had done had been rendered pointless. About the struggles they went through, to pull together, only to find out that it was all for naught and to drift apart again.

He spent a lot of time talking to himself in the bubbles, and had noticed that after a while he stopped seeing those offshoots... they drifted off too.

"Karkat...?"

The other looked up, mouth full of berries and one eyebrow arched toward him. His expression was mildly annoyed, but Kankri had sort of come to expect that over the last few days.

"I-I think we're in a doo-"

"Don't." Karkat's eyes had narrowed, "Don't you even fucking dare."

"It's not the end of the wo-"

"I said don't!" Karkat swallowed heavily, emptying his mouth of food and putting down the handful of berries he still held in his hand. Kankri quieted, biting his lip uneasily. It had been forever and a half since he had been alive, and even longer since he had even cared what would happen if he happened to be in a doomed timeline. It just sort of became a thing that you accepted.

"Why are you so afraid of facing it?

The words fell from his mouth before he even thought about what they meant. He saw Karkat's face slowly darken as the words sunk in, and for a brief moment Kankri considered backing down - but no, he couldn't back down now.

"We're in a doomed timeline." He said it simply, with no inflection to his voice other than the slight emphasis on the last two words. "There's nothing we can do to change it if we are, and nothing to indicate we aren't." He instinctively dodged Karkat's fist, sending both of them grappling in the dirt. Karkat continued trying to punch him, letting out a hissing screech of outrage at each dodged punch, every time that Kankri shoved him off.

"Karkat-"

"Let me punch you!"

"Karkat, no."

"I'm gonna cut off your face and shove it up your ass!"

Quite suddenly, two glints of metal were in play as Karkat pulled out his sickles, snarling and with his face crumpled in on itself, eyes gleaming with anger and perhaps a tiny bit of insanity. He lunged again, aiming the sickles at Kankri.

Kankri brought a hand up, blocking the first blow by redirecting Karkat at the wrist. The second blow glanced across his cheek, making a cut about two inches long along it. He winced slightly before shoving Karkat away again.

The second lunge was met, metal against metal, with a scythe. The massive weapon had appeared in an instant, right where he needed it to be, with his hands wrapped around the handle. The clangs of parried blows rang sharply for a few moments, until finally Karkat slowed.

"Stop." Kankri snapped, whacking the sickles out of Karkat's hands with the staff of his scythe. Immediately, the sickles disappeared into Karkat's strife specibus and reappeared in his hands, the other moving to attack again.

"Stop!" He repeated, whacking the sickles again. "Karkat, this is ridiculous, and pointless, and- hrrk!" the butt of one of the sickles was driven into his gut, driving him to the ground coughing.

Karkat raised one sickle high above his head, shaking, ready to bring it down, but hesitated when Kankri started babbling again, between coughs

"Please, no, I don't- I don't want to die again, I don't want to, it stinks being dead and I missed being alive and you don't want to die either, believe me, you don't... J-Just because we're going to die eventually is no reason to stop fighting to live as long as possible, Karkat, please, I don't want to-"

"Shut up."

The voice was in such a defeated tone that Kankri immediately fell silent, and looked up to see Karkat putting his sickles away and curling up in a corner, wrapping his arms around his knees. Despite his initial instinct to go over to the other, Kankri stayed still, instead wiping his cheek with the hem of his sweater and pressing the fabric against the bleeding slice.

The memory faded, the offshoot giving a fond smile as the golden ledge they had been sitting on reformed around them. "Our first spar..." he murmured, raising a leg to rest his foot on the very edge and wrapping his arms around the knee.

"Didn't look like a spar to me, looked more like he was trying to kill you." the alpha cracked a smile himself, gaining a chuckle from the offshoot.

"He was." the two words were laced with amusement, "But it doesn't change the fact that it was our first time fighting each other with our weapons. You must understand the nostalgia I'm feeling right now, right?"

"I've got an idea of it." The alpha blinked and watched the other push away from the edge, starting to stand, "Only one memory this time?"

"'fraid so." the offshoot ran a hand through his hair, scratching at the base of one of the nubby horns, before leaning backward until a pop resounded from the base of his spine. "We'll continue later, I have-"

"Things to do," the alpha nodded, "Yeah. I figured."

The offshoot looked mildly apologetic, a sad look behind his eyes. "I'll explain... soon. I promise." He smiled a little bit, sheepishly, "You trust me to keep my word?"

"As much as I can trust myself." Kankri put his chin in one hand, frowning slightly at the other before waving him off, "Go on, I'll find you later."

The offshoot nodded with a faint, sad smile, before turning and leaving. Kankri had a feeling that he would always end up leaving these meetings with his stomach tied in confused knots.