Chapter 21: Karkat: Awaken

Karkat opened his eyes with a soft sigh, staring up at the familiar gray of the lab ceiling. I'm back, he realized, and he'd never felt better.

"Oww…" someone groaned from the floor. "Damn it, Karkat, that was the worst."

"Not my fault you decided to go in after me," he countered, poking his head over the side of the cot and seeing Terezi where she'd apparently fallen flat on her face.

She just groaned in response, rolling onto her back and staring sightlessly at the ceiling. "Do you remember everything, at least?"

He nodded. His pan was still pounding a bit, and his entire body was sluggish and weak from the sopor and from the days he'd spent unconscious, but he remembered as much as was possible for him to remember. "Yeah, I do." Then he followed it up with a begrudging, "Thanks for the save."

"You'll have plenty of time to thank me thoroughly later," she quipped. "For now, do you think you're feeling well enough for me to bring in your quadr—"

"Yes," he hissed immediately, pushing himself as upright as he could and leaning against the wiry headboard. "Jegus, yes—I have to see them."

Terezi snorted. "Don't blame me when they start annoying the shit out of you." She got to her feet and half-staggered towards the door, visibly weakened by the exertion of diving into someone else's think pan without even really knowing what she was doing. He didn't hear what she said to the people outside, but he definitely heard someone squealing in excitement before the door was suddenly being bashed open and there was a very excited John Egbert barreling into the room.

"Karkat!" he gasped, looking the happiest he'd ever seen him. "Oh my god, you're totally awake!" He was at the troll's side in a heartbeat, tackling him down in a fierce hug.

"John, I can't breathe!" he choked, secretly relishing the feeling of his moirail pressed so tightly against him.

The door creaked. "Go easy on the guy, Egderp," a familiar voice sounded, and another chimed in a moment later.

"Yeah, don't want to squeeze his blood pusher right out of his chest."

He felt a tugging sensation around his torso , and then John was being lifted off him and plunked into one of the chairs at his bedside. In his place was Dave, leaning down and—oh my gog, Dave was kissing him.

They'd never kissed before. They'd lived together for months, danced around each other when it was obvious they both wanted the same thing, even confessed their love (or in Karkat's case, pity) to each other, and never once had their lips met until Dave barged into the room, tore John off of him, and mashed them together.

Dave pulled back after only a split-second, though, swallowing hard to mask his uncertainty and embarrassment. "I'm, um…"

Karkat scrambled to gather his wits. "Please," he scoffed, rolling his eyes. "That was without a doubt the most pathetic kiss I've ever experienced in my entire life. Is that how you greet your poor, decrepit matesprit after he awakens from a coma?"

Dave's face lit up. "Is that so? Then I guess I'll just have to—"

Sollux elbowed him out of the way before he had the chance to lean in again. "Fuck off, Strider, none of us want to see you lock lips with your matesprit in the middle of the lab."

Dave sneered. "And we want to see the two of you go for each other's throats instead?"

"Okay!" John yelped, stepping in between the two of them. "We're not here to fight, we're here to say hi to Karkat! So stop fighting and focus on what matters!"

Karkat blinked. When had this happened? Granted, it wasn't uncommon for a troll's moirail to act as an auspice between their matesprit and their kismesis, but he was surprised to see two humans engaging in such behavior. And unknowingly, too.

Sollux knocked him upside the head with a blow far gentler than it could have been. "Glad you're awake, KK."

"Glad to be awake," he said. "But what the fuck happened to your eye?"

Sollux turned his face away with a grumble. "Eridan."

He paused. "Wait. What?"

"Yeah…" John came up to sit beside him, leaning into his shoulder. "After you went down, we figured out that you weren't hallucinating. Apparently the game spat the spirits of all the dead trolls right back out into our world, and they're becoming more and more solid as time passes. We're going to have to fight them soon!"

Oh, okay, that made perfect—no it didn't what the fuck?

"It's a long story," Dave said, seeing Karkat's incredulity. "Don't worry about it now, you should just try to recover."

"I'm already feeling better," he pointed out. "If you think you're keeping me in this fucking cot for more than another day, you're dead. I can't stand lying down for another minute." He shuffled against John, pressing his feet to the ground and then groaning as his think pan suddenly rushed with dizziness.

"Easy," Sollux said, "you're a fucking wreck right now, you idiot. You need to get some water in you, and then something to eat that's easy on the stomach. You haven't had anything other than what we could manage to shove down your throat while you were unconscious." He padded towards the door. "I'll grab you something. Hang on."

"Think you can navigate now that you're blind?" Karkat called after him, purely for the sake of making him growl.

"Fuck you, KK!"

Karkat snickered as Sollux vanished to go grab him something to drink, John nuzzling into his side the instant the other troll was gone. "I can't believe you're back," he murmured. "We were afraid you weren't coming home."

Karkat looked up to Dave. The human was staring at the ground, shades masking his eyes—but anyone could tell that he was hiding just how shaken this whole mess had made him.

"You should thank Terezi," he decided to say, eyes still locked on Dave. "If she hadn't come to get me, I don't think I would have woken up."

Dave flinched. Something was eating at him.

"Hey, John?" Karkat murmured, nudging at his moirail's shoulder. "Do you think you could to help Sollux with alchemizing something to eat?"

"Huh? You want me to help Sollux with computers?"

He nodded. "Yeah. But I guess if it's too much trouble, then…"

"No, no!" he yelped, shooting to his feet. "I'll be right back, okay?"

Then he was gone, and Karkat and Dave were left alone.

After that, the room was cast into an uncomfortable silence as the two both tried to sneak glances at each other without letting the other know that they were doing it.

Karkat was the first to crack. "So—"

"I'm sorry!"

He blinked. "Okay. That's one way to start a conversation."

Dave winced. "Crap…I totally just blurted that out, didn't I?"

"Yep."

Wordlessly Dave moved to his side and lowered himself down onto the cot, taking up John's position. "Look," he started, looking the most uncomfortable Karkat had ever seen him. "We just had our loving reunion and all that shit, and I'm thrilled that you're back in the land of the living, but that doesn't change the fact that we parted on poor terms. At the very least, I need to apologize and tell you a few things I've learned since you keeled over."

Oh, right. He'd been so elated to see Dave again that their disastrous relationship had momentarily slipped his mind. "Okay then, shoot."

He did. "In short, I was a complete asshole."

"Glad you realized that," Karkat snorted. "Because you're right—you were a real fucking idiot."

"Yeah…" Dave rubbed at the back of his head, embarrassed. "Look, Karkat, there are a few things that I think I need to say to you before things get any worse." He held up a hand, shushing Karkat before he could start to protest. "No. I need to say that I was an idiot, and that while I'm not entirely thrilled with the concept of you running around being involved with your other quadrants, I think I understand now that you need them in order to function. You need John, and apparently Sollux is a part of this whole clusterfuck so you need him too. But I think the part of this that I've been overlooking this whole time is that you need me just as much as you need them, and that makes it a little better."

Karkat's eyes went wider and wider the longer he spoke. "Dave…"

He wasn't done. "So I guess what I'm saying is that if you need your other quadrants, I'm not really okay with it, but I'm also not not okay with it. You need them, so you should have them—but as your matesprit I retain the right to set stipulations! This whole thing is still really weird for me, so I'd appreciate it if you could not go around kissing John in front of me, or Sollux if that's what your relationship is going to lead to. Just keep it separate from me and we'll be all good." Then he paused, expression sobering. "Or…keep it separate from me as long as you still want something with me. I know I've been a real asshole, but I think we can make this whole thing work if you're willing to try."

Oh gog, he sounded like something out of a bad romcom. Well, if that's how he wanted to play things, Karkat would gladly oblige. "Say it."

"What?"

"I want to hear you say it."

Dave blushed. Actually fucking blushed, gogdamnit, and it was the most pitiful thing he'd ever seen. "I…I love you, Karkat. I love you and I want to be your matesprit."

Karkat forced down his smirk and stared, just to make him squirm. The idiot deserved it for what he'd put him through.

Dave fidgeted, no doubt unnerved at his lack of response. "Um, if you don't—"

"Move in with me."

He balked. "What?"

"Move in with me," Karkat repeated. "A lot of your stuff is still over at the place you built with John, so stop being a complete and utter fuckass about it and move in with me for real. And stay there, gogdamn you, even after this whole mess is finally over."

Something akin to hope glimmered in Dave's eyes. "So does that mean…?"

He narrowed his eyes. "Yes, you moron, I pity you. I pity you more than anything else in this fucking disaster of a world, and I want you to stay with me for as long as you're willing." The words tasted sickly sweet on his tongue. He thought that he didn't mind the flavor. Wanted to taste it more often, actually. And so he said it again. "Dave Strider, I pity you. I pity y—mph!"

Now that was a flushed kiss. All fears of rejection aside, Dave went for him with fervor, pulling him close and mashing their lips together with a force that was equal parts firm passion and gentle adoration. Karkat couldn't help a hum of approval as he reached for his matesprit and twisted his fingers in his hair, tugging him down and tilting his head for a better angle even as Dave wound an arm around his waist and splayed the other across his chest, gentle murmurs of appreciation escaping in between light brushes of skin on skin.

This is heaven. It was the same thing he'd thought upon first locking lips with John, but this was a heaven of an entirely different nature. Dave…if only you could truly understand how trolls differentiate between their romantic partners. If you could, then I know you wouldn't doubt me at all when I told you that I pitied you like no other.

Dave drew back with an expression that was almost awed, as if he'd never imagined that he would get this far.

"Don't look so surprised, fuckass," Karkat murmured, leaning forward to press a light kiss to his matesprit's nose, then his cheeks, before returning to his lips for a brief, fleeting moment.

"I just never thought…"

Karkat cut him off with a kiss. "Then stop thinking. I'm not in the mood for thinking."

"I…" Dave trailed off. Then he grinned, a hint of his normal swagger returning as he reached down to ruffle the troll's hair. "You know what? Neither am I." He twisted slightly, readjusting his position, and then he was leaning back against the headboard with Karkat pulled close, an arm thrown sloppily around his waist. "How about we just sit here and wait for John and Sollux to get back?"

"Sounds great," Karkat sighed, pressing as hard as he could into Dave's chest, slotting his head up under his chin. He was still tired, still feeling the effects of the slime making its way out of his system, and all he really wanted to do was sleep. But his mouth was dry and his stomach was empty, and if he got to curl up with his matesprit while he waited for his moirail and his kismesis to bring him something to eat, he thought he could handle it.

"No going to sleep yet!" Dave teased, poking him in the nose. "Keep your eyes open, Karkles. I don't want you going back under before you get something in you."

He hummed.

"Karkat, I'm serious!"

"Right, right…don't worry, I'm not going anywhere."

There was a moment of silence. Then Dave was pressing a kiss to the top of his head, murmuring, "No, you're not. Because when that final battle hits, anyone that wants to get to you will have to go through your quadrants first."

†††

Karkat stared in disbelief as Rose finished explaining everything, finally shutting her mouth after a solid thirty minutes of talking. It was hard to believe that so much had happened in the week he'd been unconscious.

He realized suddenly that everyone was staring at him, waiting for a reaction. He'd been brought to the main room of the lab, where he'd been pushed down into a chair to preserve his strength as the people whisked in and out, working on their respective tasks, and now all of those people were just watching. "Uh," he started, still feeling overwhelmed. "No offense, but I'm pretty sure you're all whacked out of your fucking pans."

"You yourself observed that your experiences could not possibly have been caused by hallucinations," Rose reminded him. "Is this really so unbelievable?"

He stopped. Thought about it. "Yes."

From across the lab, Dirk called out, "Rose, send him over here to the main monitor. I'll convince him in about three seconds."

Rose looked to him. "It's not a bad idea, if you're willing to listen."

He shrugged. "Go over to the person who tried to slice off my hands? Yeah, why not?" He tried to get to his feet, only staggering slightly. Rose was there to support him in a heartbeat, taking the place of his quadrants, who were all off doing something. He wasn't sure what. He half-staggered his way across the lab to where Dirk was standing in front of a huge monitor. "These are those thermal scanner things?" he asked. "Looks like a whole lot of hoofbeastshit if you ask me."

Dirk rolled his eyes. "Just look at the screen, dude."

He did. There were tons of white dots all over the place, which he assumed were the villagers and the salamanders and other living things on their part of the planet. Aside from the white dots, though, there were twenty-one that were colored and labeled. As he shoved his face closer to the monitor, he was only slightly surprised to see that several of them were labeled with his deceased friends' names and blood colors, along with his own. "This is supposed to convince me?" he asked, curling his lip. "It's just a bunch of dots!"

Rose narrowed her eyes, wrist flicking in order to snatch something out of her sylladex. The next moment she was plunking a bunch of violet rocks on the table, biting out, "How would you explain this, then?"

He picked one up gingerly, pressing his fingers to the flaking surface of the thing. It's blood, he realized.

"Karkat, where could that blood have come from if not from Eridan?"

"A lusus creature?" he guessed, but his gut twisted as he realized that Rose was right. This was Eridan's blood.

"Who else could have taken Sollux's powers from him in that manner, then? Kanaya has informed me that the only weapon that has ever been able to effectively deal with Sollux's psionics is Ahab's Crosshairs—and Eridan is the only one that can wield that weapon effectively."

He shook his head. He knew it was true, but he desperately didn't want to believe it. Having to fight his friends again, even if they'd gone out of their pans and were trying to kill them…it made his stomach churn. He didn't want to think about it.

Rose's expression softened as she saw the conflicted look on his face. "It's okay to feel torn," she told him. "But if you're fit to fight by the time the souls are fully revived, we would appreciate your help."

"Who would you send me to fight?" he asked.

"Dave and John wanted you to go with them, originally," Rose said. "But seeing as they're going to fight Gamzee, I don't think it's a good idea."

He barely bit back a growl at the thought of meeting Gamzee in battle. He wanted nothing more than to rip the troll's horns off and shove them up his waste chute, wanted to hook his sickles into his eyes and yank. But he knew better than anyone else that Gamzee could and would put him on the ground with a single growl. He would be a liability.

"No," he agreed, realizing that Rose was waiting for his input. "Leave that one to John and Dave."

She gave a relieved nod, as if she'd been expecting him to insist on attacking Gamzee. "Good. In that case, I'd like to assign you to Tavros."

"Tavros." The weakest target there was.

"Yes. With Jake."

He almost rolled his eyes. Almost. "So I'm stuck with Jake on the easiest target again, am I?"

Rose raised a brow. "Do you think you could handle going up against one of the higher bloods? Equius, or even Eridan?"

He shrank back, bitterness festering in his core. "No…I'll take Tavros down."

"And this is assuming that you're battle ready by then," Rose reminded him. "If you're still too weak to put up a good fight, we'll leave you here with Callie and Sollux."

That's right… He'd almost forgotten that Sollux's eyes being gone meant that his psionics were nonfunctional too. That's horrible.

"Karkat?" Rose pressed. "Is that acceptable?"

He nodded. "Yeah, that's fine."

"Excellent. In that case, have fun convincing Dave, John, and Sollux that you're fit to fight."

Ooh…that wasn't a conversation he was looking forward to.

Rose smiled at the expression on his face. "Don't worry, Karkat—I'm sure that if you're ready to fight, they'll know it."

He wasn't so sure.

†††

"No. Absolutely not."

"Why not?" Karkat snapped, locking Dave down with a harsh glare. "I can handle Tavros!"

"Because I'm your matesprit and I said so."

"You're my matesprit, not my fucking lusus!" he snarled. "Egbert, Captor, back me up on this one!"

John raised his hands defensively. "Don't look at me! Karkat, you just woke up, so you really shouldn't be straining yourself!"

"I'm perfectly fine! I've eaten and had time to rest, and I'll be ready to tear Tavros's head right the fuck off the instant I get the chance!"

"You just barely woke up!" John protested.

Karkat grumbled, turning his head away and glaring at the ground. "I can fucking handle it."

Dave just stared. Then he paced forward, taking one step, two steps, three, and gave Karkat a light shove on the shoulder that made him shake like a leaf.

"Hey!" he yelped, steadying himself against the nearest wall.

"Right," Dave snorted, "you're solid as a rock, dude. Sollux, back me up on this one."

There was a sharp bark of a laugh from his other side. "Sorry, KK, but your matesprit's right about this one. Stay away from the fighting and hang back here with me."

"This is fucking unbelievable! I can handle this, just give me some time to rest a little more!"

"You're resting more no matter what," Dave told him. "But unless you're good as new by the time the battle hits, none of us want you out there."

He growled, baring his teeth, only for Sollux to snap, "Don't growl at your matesprit, KK, that's fucking rude!"

He snapped his teeth down on his tongue with furious helplessness

"I swear, you've lost all grasp on etiquette since you started filling your quadrants with humans," Sollux snarled. "KK, when your moirail and your matesprit and your kismesis tell you not to do something, you don't fucking do it."

He recoiled, because gogdamnit, Sollux was right. Going against the wishes of all of his quadrants would make him the biggest asshole on the planet. "Sorry," he muttered. "But if I'm ready to fight by the time the battle hits, you have to promise me that you won't protest when I decide to fight."

Dave shrugged. "Sounds good to me, dude."

"Yeah," John agreed, "that doesn't sound unreasonable."

Sollux hummed his agreement.

"Perfect, then." Karkat turned, only swaying slightly, and took off in the direction of the meal block in the lab.

"Wait, where are you going?" John called after him.

"To get something to eat," was the sharp response. "I have to get my strength back, don't I?"

John looked after him worriedly, but Dave just shrugged in agreement. "Guess that's one way to go about it." He padded after him, his other two quadrants following a moment later.

I have no clue how much time I have before this final battle hits, Karkat thought. It could happen tomorrow or it could happen a week from now—and I have to make sure that when the time comes, I'm ready to help Jake take Tavros down.

He desperately hoped he was up to the task.