(Not So) Grim

by xLion'sRoarx

A ruined matespritship. A budding moirallegiance. A new planet full of dead trolls. What could go wrong? As it turns out, everything. (Also on AO3 if you want to read with pretty colors.)

26. John and Dave: Cope

Chapter 26: Dave and John: Cope

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Dave screamed as Karkat went over the edge of the cliff, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. He was too heavily injured to move, and John was only just starting to wake up.

"K-Karkat…!" he choked out, stretching one hand desperately towards the place where his matesprit had vanished. He knew what was at the end of that drop. He knew about the rocks, jagged and piercing, slicing up through the waves as a violent welcome to anyone unfortunate enough to fall.

Karkat…Karkat, please be okay! Please, please…you can't be gone! I did all of this to save you, and now…

John groaned beside him, slowly coming back to his senses.

"J-John," Dave choked, "fucking w-wake up!" Then he groaned weakly, blood loss beginning to really take its toll. He couldn't fucking move.

John sighed softly, rolling onto his side. And fuck, this was exactly how things had gone the last time Gamzee had put the two of them down, with Dave struggling to get John on his feet, barely able to move himself. This time, though, a lot more was at stake than a lab full of equipment.

This time it was Karkat.

"John!" he tried again, but his voice barely managed to find open air. "John, please!"

Another groan. "Dave…?"

"Yes, John, it's me—now get the fuck up, now!"

John just let out a soft noise of protest, rolling onto his other side, and for a moment Dave thought he was well and truly fucked, unable to scramble the cliffside and see for himself what had happened to his matesprit. But then a familiar voice sounded from behind him, and he'd never felt more relieved in his entire life.

"Dave, John!"

Jane.

And she wasn't alone. As she drifted into view, expression one of horror, Dave saw the others not far behind her. Everyonewas here. Everyone.

"Hang on," Jane called, "I've got you." She extended her hands, and then Dave felt his entire body thrumming with healing magic. His wounds sealed slowly, painfully, and then he was free.

"Karkat!" he burst out the second he could talk. "Karkat, oh god—!"

He heard the people around him firing off questions, but he didn't respond. All he could see was Karkat's terrified face as he plunged off the edge of the cliff, and he flew as fast as he could to the edge and angled his body straight down to skim above the waves.

He was looking for anything. A body, a splatter of blood, the slightest tinge of indigo or scarlet. But there was nothing, no sign that anyone had ever been there. Karkat and Gamzee had been washed away entirely.

"Dave?" Rose called from the top of the cliff. "Is something wrong?"

He couldn't speak. All he could do was stare, eyes wide behind his shades, heart twisting in his chest, at the dark waves that had swallowed his matesprit whole. Even if he dove beneath the surface, even if he scoured the ocean floor, there would be no use. Even if Karkat had just been knocked unconscious by the waves, there was no way he could have survived being underwater this long, and at this point even his body would have been dragged away by the current. It had been at least five minutes, probably more, in between the time he'd vanished and the time Dave got to the water. And that could only mean one thing.

"Dave!" Rose called again. "Dave, come back up here and tell us what happened!"

He couldn't move. He was frozen.

"Dave…"

This voice was different. He managed to turn his head upon feeling someone grasping at his arm, and his heart lurched at what he saw.

"Dave," John repeated, features twisted into an expression of pure and utter agony.

He can feel it too. He knows what's happened. He knows that Karkat is…

"Come on," John prompted, voice cracking painfully as he spoke. "Let's get back up there."

Dave moved, but only when John tugged him toward where the others were waiting. When he was back on solid ground he looked up, and he wasn't sure if it made him feel better or worse that Karkat was the only one of their group that had been lost.

"Dave!" Rose exclaimed. "Are you okay? What happened here?"

Dave bit into his bottom lip. He couldn't say it. He couldn't say that Karkat had died for him, because he wasn't strong enough to defend himself alone against Gamzee.

"Dave?" Rose repeated, and her voice was beginning to shake as she no doubt pieced together that something was terribly wrong. "Dave, what…?"

He looked up, and his eyes found Sollux's. The troll was watching him with a dark, pained look.

You can feel it, same as me. Same as John.

Sollux flew forward just slightly and pushed Rose aside. He looked up at Dave, single eye brimming with something unreadable. "KK ith dead?"

He bowed his head. It was as good as a spoken agreement.

The entire group bristled with varying degrees of shock and horror.

"What?" Kanaya demanded. "He's dead? How did this happen?"

"Where's the body?" Dirk questioned, and though his words were harsh and callous, his features twitched with something akin to regret.

Nepeta hissed. "Hey, don't be rude!"

Dave took a step back, overwhelmed. He didn't think he could handle all these questions, didn't think he could—

"No," Eridan murmured, "that's a valid question. Where is the body?"

Dave flinched. Then, "Gone," he rasped. "He…he was fighting Gamzee, and then he just…" He made a helpless motion with his hands, voice caught in his throat.

"He went over the edge," Sollux finished in a knowing whisper. "And he took Gamzee with him."

Dave nodded. "That's right."

Eridan raised a brow. "Where's the body?" he repeated

Something snapped within him. "I don't fucking know where his body is! He went over the edge of that goddamn cliff; he was washed away with Gamzee!"

"So you never saw him die?" Rose questioned.

"Fuck, no, I didn't see him die—but there's nothing but jagged rocks at the end of that fall, and he was obviously dragged underwater even if he did survive! He's fucking dead, so don't give me false hope!"

"You didn't see him die," Rose repeated. She turned to Kanaya. "Do you think…?"

The troll stepped to the edge of the cliff and peered over. She frowned. "Hmm…that's such a long fall, and even if he was knocked unconscious instead of killed, he would have spent far too many minutes beneath the water, breathing it in…"

"It's possible that he floated to the surface, face sticking out of the water," Dirk pointed out. "Then he may have been washed away by the current. He could have been pulled miles out by now."

"Unlikely," Rose murmured. "But possible."

Don't say these things to me. Karkat is dead.

"You think that's true?" John whispered, and Dave wanted to punch him for how genuinely hopeful he sounded. "He could be alive somewhere, like…floating around in the ocean?"

Eridan snorted. "Hardly. He'll be washed to shore before long, so if we're lookin' then we'll find him on the beach somewhere."

"Okay," John said, "so how do we find him? If he's alive, then—"

"He's not fucking alive!" Dave roared, festering anger bursting forth in a single, terrible blow. "He's dead, you moron, he went over the edge of that fucking cliff and he's never coming back! I don't know how you can sit here and keep saying that there's the possibility that he's alive; you didn't see him go over the edge of that—!"

Slap!

Dave reeled backwards, fingertips brushing at the damaged flesh. "J-John…?"

The Heir just stood there, fists clenched at his sides, face turned towards the ground, droplets of liquid rolling down his face and splashing to the ground. "Don't say that," he whispered, and his voice was broken with small, hitching breaths. "Don't tell me that there's no way he's alive!"

Dave staggered back.

"He wasn't just your matesprit, you know! He was Sollux's kismesis, and my moirail, and you don't get to sit there acting like you're the only one affected by this! We all loved Karkat—and if even the people outside of his quadrants are ready to believe that he's alive out there, then you shouldn't just shut us down like you're the only person in the world who loved him!"

He blinked, stunned. John was…

Sollux drifted forward and landed beside John. One of the Gemini's arms wrapped around the human's shoulders, and he shot Dave a harsh look. "Are you really going to give up on your matethprit that eathily?"

"What?"

Sollux glared. "You pity KK, don't you?"

"Of course I do!"

"Then don't fucking give up on him, athhole!"

Water was closing in over his head, he thought. He wasn't the one that had fallen, but he was the one that was drowning.

"KK could thtill be alive! He could thtill be out there thomewhere, dragged out to thea or puthhed athhore on thome random beach! He could be waiting, unconsciouth, badly hurt, in need of help, and completely dependent on uth finding him! He can't fly, shithead, have you forgotten that? If he'th thtranded, we're the oneth that have to thave him!"

"H-he can't be alive," Dave insisted. "He can't be. He inhaled water, sank to the bottom of the ocean, was swept away…"

Sollux sneered, expression contorting furiously—and then he was moving forward, arm slipping from around John's shoulders as he prowled forward with a haze of psionics crackling between his horns. Before Dave could think to defend himself, shackles of red and blue clamping down on his wrists, his ankles, and forcefully slamming him onto his stomach.

"Dude, what the fuck?" he gasped, struggling against the power holding him to the ground. He looked up to the others imploringly, but they did nothing. They were watching, cool and resolute, waiting for all the quadrant drama to work itself out.

A low growl met his ears. "I'm not letting you up until you agree to thtop thniveling and help uth look for KK!"

Tears were prickling at the corners of his eyes. Oh, fuck, I'm not going to let myself cry in front of this asshole. Striders don't cry in front of anyone!

"What'th it going to be, Thtrider?"

"He's dead," Dave choked out in a whisper, and fuck, his voice was wavering and giving him away. Moisture was clinging to his lashes, though no one could tell through his shades.

"Yeah, I know you think he'th fucking dead! But if there'th even a chanthe that he'th out there, don't you owe him the dethenthy of looking? What would he think if you jutht gave up on him?"

Something inside him cracked.

"If there'th even the thmalletht chanthe that KK is thtill alive out there, then I'm willing to thearch until I die! But if you're too cluckbeatht to rithk your life for your own matethprit, it'th obviouth that you never really pitied him at all!"

That something cracked further, hairline fissures turning into canyons.

"You're pathetic," Sollux sneered, tightening his psionic grip until it was near painful. "And not in a red way."

It split in two. Oh, had that been his heart?

"Fucking pathetic!"

"Sollux, that's enough!"

Dave jolted as Sollux's psionic hold was forcefully removed from around his wrists, John darting in with a gust of air to separate the two of them.

"John!" Sollux protested. "This athhole is ready to fucking abandon KK, and you're jutht going to let him—?"

John shifted, and then Dave was staring up at his back as he shielded him from view. "You guys," the Heir said, "maybe you should leave."

"We can't leave yet!" Rose protested. "We're going to look for Karkat!"

Dave lifted his head. They're really going to search for a dead troll?

"I know you are," John soothed, "but I think the search effort should be coordinated elsewhere."

"But the longer we wait, the further his body will be washed away!"

John shook his head. "The damage has been done. Please, Rose…take the others back to the lab. Some of you guys are still injured, and even more are probably exhausted."

Rose looked back to her surrounding ensemble. True to word, half of them looked about to drop dead. "Very well," she relented. "We'll begin coordinating the search back at the lab. Will you be joining us there soon?"

Dave caught John's worried eyes flickering back to meet his own. "Yeah, I think so." He swung his head to Sollux. "Sol, go with them."

"What?" He bristled, furious.

"You heard me. Get out of here and help set up a search party."

Sollux sneered, practically foaming at the mouth. But he listened to his auspice, as he was obligated to do, and allowed Aradia to flutter down and lead him away by the arm as the others slowly began to head back for the lab.

In a matter of moments, Dave was left alone with his best friend.

"So," John murmured.

Dave curled in on himself. His eyes were still burning with unshed tears, and he didn't want to look weak. All he wanted to do was go to sleep and never wake up, because Karkat had to be gone.

John shifted, then kneeled at his side. "Oh, Dave…"

He winced as John's hand settled on his shoulder, heavy and warm. He didn't want to face anyone right now.

"Dave, come on…look at me."

He shook his head. Even his shades weren't enough to hide just what was churning beneath the surface right now, and he hated it.

John's fingertips brushed lightly down his arm, back up to his shoulder, over to his cheek. Then he gasped, breathing, "Are you crying?"

Dave swatted his hand away. "No! I'm not fucking crying!"

John fell silent. Then, "It's okay to feel things, you know."

He didn't answer. He couldn't.

"Oh, geez…look, I know you're Mr. Stoic and all, but I think this situation is a little different than usual."

God, John was miserable at comforting people. How could Karkat stand him as a moirail?

"It's just…you're always hiding your emotions and expelling them in unhealthy ways, like you're directing your anger and grief at other people and picking fights just to keep yourself from realizing that you're actually feeling something. I think that's probably why you pushed Karkat away in the beginning, because you were afraid of your own emotions and afraid that feeling something would make you weak, because that's how you were raised."

Dave tensed. "John."

"And this time is no different! You really love Karkat, more than anything else, and now that there's a chance that he's dead you're just lashing out because you think you're not allowed to grieve, and you think that him being alive and out there somewhere injured and afraid is worse than him being dead and at rest, so you're trying so hard to make yourself believe that he's not suffering."

"John."

"But it's okay, Dave, it really is. It's okay to feel things. It's okay to feel afraid for Karkat, it's okay to feel hope that he might still be alive, and it's okay to feel grief when you think about the fact that he might be dead."

"John."

"If you need to grieve, then you should do it! But you should also look for him, because you love him and you have a responsibility to your matesprit, to make sure he's never in pain! If there's even the slightest chance he's still alive, you need to look for him. You need to look, and you need to handle your grief without lashing out at everyone around you, and you need to learn that it's okay to feel things!"

"John!"

He froze, mouth hanging open, eyes wide. And Dave…

Dave just stared blankly at the ground, shades misting around the edges, heart tearing itself into pieces, because John was right. And maybe that was how Karkat could stand him as a moirail, because while he wasn't the best for comfort's sake, he was the best at looking you dead in the eyes and telling you exactly what going on inside your heart.

"Dave?" John whispered.

He opened his mouth to say something in response, but all that came out was a desperate whine that was so soft, so choked, so weak—and that was okay. It was all okay.

"J-John," he breathed out, still curled up on his side where Sollux had left him, and it was too much. It was too much, and so when John reached for him he met him halfway, arms outstretched to grab onto his best friend like a particularly clingy koala and pull him close. But that wasn't right, that wasn't good; his shades were pressing painfully into his face as John's shoulder mashed them upwards, and so he reached off and removed them with a second thought, placed them on the ground beside them.

John sucked in a shaky breath. "That's it…it's okay, Dave. It's okay to grieve."

And it was. It really, truly was—and so when Dave stabbed his fingernails into the backs of John's shoulder blades, clawed as close as he could, and shoved his face into the soft juncture between neck and shoulder, he couldn't quite bring himself to feel as ashamed as he should have.

When he started to cry, John didn't say a thing.

†††

After that, the search effort began.

Rose was a brilliant coordinator, and she spent most of her time for the days that followed organizing the sweep of the surrounding area. Everyone was assigned to a different area, and with the help of Jane's system of teleporters (which was quickly expanding to ridiculous proportions) the search was moving nicely.

First and foremost, Eridan and Feferi were dispatched to the sea. The two of them were perfect for the task of searching over the ocean floor for any sign of Karkat or Gamzee, their gills and fins allowing them to travel great distances without having to come up for air. In a matter of days the two of them had scanned for miles around the mainland, following the tides in every conceivable direction in an attempt to locate even a trace of the missing trolls.

While the seadwellers worked their magic, Terezi attempted to access her powers yet again, but this time in an effort to see if she could manage to sense Karkat anywhere in the area. She hadn't gotten it down yet, but she was working as hard as she could. If she could locate even a flicker of Karkat's consciousness, it would all be worth it.

Meanwhile, Tavros used his powers to communicate with all the lusus creatures in the miles around the village, hoping that one of them would see something pertaining to Karkat's location. When none of the creatures around the village knew anything, he began traveling around with his weird rocket legs and talking with the lusus creatures that lived further out, then further out still.

As Tavros flew around talking to animals, Dirk, Equius, and Sollux banded together and put their minds together in expanding the system of thermal scanners. They knew Karkat's heat signature, so if they could just expand their system far enough, there was a chance they could spot him on the radar. So far…nothing.

Vriska, for her part, spent her days flying around and throwing her dice every which way, hoping for something to help her find Karkat. She tended to stick near Nepeta and Jade, who banded together to crash through far-off forests in case Karkat had managed to drag himself out of the water and up to the trees.

While they searched the forest, Aradia scanned the coastline to the east. Roxy and Jake joined up to comb through the west, and when she wasn't back at the lab helping Kanaya coordinate search parties, Rose soared curved around the southern coastline just in case Karkat had somehow been washed fully around the village. Wherever she went—wherever anyone went—Jane wasn't far behind with her portals, Callie coming along to help.

Everyone was working. Everyone was trying so hard to find Karkat—and that included Dave.

It still hurt. It hurt every day he went out to search, John at his side, and came back with no sign of his matesprit. It hurt terribly, twisting his insides and knotting them into miserable tangles that he couldn't ever manage to undo. John helped, he thought. He helped more than he ever thought possible, and the two of them ended up clinging to each other most nights in an attempt to cope with the fact that Karkat was gone.

They'd worked out a system over the past few days. No…actually, that wasn't right. It had been a week. Over a week, and they'd managed to set up the most miserable schedule Dave could imagine.

In the morning, Dave would drag John up from wherever they'd crashed that night, getting the two of them on their feet and pulling something out of their sylladex to eat. Normally they'd try to pick somewhere relatively sheltered, but they were still out in the wilderness. They'd chosen to go off of Jane's system of portals, just flying around and searching of their own accord, hoping their hearts would be enough to lead them right to their vanished quadrant.

After awakening, the two of them would soar off in the chosen direction for that day, calling out and searching around and flitting out over the water in hopes that Karkat would be there. They'd break for lunch sometimes, sometimes not, then keep going until the moon was high in the sky and they were nearly dead from exhaustion. They'd search out a good place to rest for the night, eat something, then huddle together in silence as the moon started to sink and the suns started to rise and they didn't sleep a wink. It had become a habit to sit there, muscles stiff from the cold, and just think about everything they'd done, and everything that had been done to them.

"Do you really think he's out there?" Dave asked one night, voice raspy from the yelling he'd been engaging in for the past few days.

And John just sighed, expression a medley of desperation and dying hope, and said, "He has to be."

But as the days passed, and no one found a thing, that became harder and harder to believe.

†††

When Rose appeared before them one night, Dave wasn't surprised. Rather, his heart sank so far into his stomach that he thought it might just burst out through his feet and go careening into the planet's crust. Because he knew that expression, knew what he was about to be told, and he hated it.

"John," Rose whispered. "Dave."

They didn't even ask how she'd found them. They just stared, the two of them heartsick and exhausted and weathered by weeks of nothing, and waited.

Rose's gaze softened. "The others have been talking. It's been a month since we started looking, and we haven't found even a trace of Karkat or Gamzee."

Dave felt John's fingers threading through his.

"We think that maybe…"

It's time to give up.

She didn't say it, but they all knew what she meant.

John's fingers squeezed around his, nails biting painfully into the flesh. Dave didn't say a thing, though. He didn't want to break.

"You can keep searching for as long as you want, of course," Rose went on, softly. "None of us are going to stop you, and we'll always have an eye on the horizon for him. But the others are moving on, and…I think it's time, too."

Dave heard a sniffle from behind him. John was crying.

"Do you want me to show you back to the village?" Rose asked. "I have a portal, if—"

"No," Dave said immediately, and he knew he spoke for both himself and John when he told her, "I think we need to be alone."

"How will you get back?"

Dave looked to John. He had his head bowed, tears dripping steadily down the bridge of his nose and plopping to the sandy earth. They never strayed too far from the shore, so it was always sandy now.

Will we ever go back?

Rose waited. But then, seeing that she wasn't going to receive an answer, her expression twisted painfully. "I see," she whispered. "In that case, I wish the two of you luck. No matter what happens, you're family. Just…keep in touch."

Dave jerked his head away. "Yeah…see you around, Rose."

She gave them a brief nod, then was gone.

He turned back to John. "Well?"

John sniffed again. "What?"

"What are we going to do?"

John shrugged miserably. "What do you want to do?"

A moment of hesitation. He knew, but…what if John disagreed?

John seemed to sense his uncertainty. "Dave," he murmured, "you don't have to worry about me. Just tell me what we're going to do, and I'll be with you."

A wave of relief washed over him, and it was so strong that he was surprised it didn't wash him clean off his feet. "I want to keep looking. Not forever, but…for as long as it takes."

John wiped at his eyes. "Then we're on the same page."

And they were.

For the next two months, they would search endlessly.

Until one day, they would return home with empty hearts.

†††

When Dave returned to town, John at his side, it looked like a different place entirely.

All the damaged buildings had been repaired and expanded, and the village was twice the size it had been when they left. It was thriving, dersites and prospitarians fluttering every which way with happy smiles and excited chattering. In addition, several new homes had sprung up all around the settlement.

As they made their way further into the village, they saw that Equius and Nepeta had made their homes right next to each other in the center of town. Vriska had constructed hers out next to John's place. Tavros had gone out to the fields in the west not far from Dirk and Jake, and Sollux and Aradia had moved into the area around Karkat's house. Eridan had taken the cliffs behind Karkat's house as his own, and Feferi was presumably based out in the ocean somewhere, though she seemed happy to hang out around town while she wasn't swimming.

When the two humans returned to town for the first time, everyone went quiet. The villagers all turned and looked, as if sensing what they'd been through, and the trolls that saw them arrive immediately skittered off. They knew why in a few minutes, when Rose appeared out of nowhere to greet them.

"John," she said, just like she had two months prior, the last time they'd spoken. "Dave. You're back."

Neither of them cried this time. John just nodded resolutely, and Dave bowed his head in acknowledgement.

Rose just watched them, then, expression pained. And then she was hugging them, one arm around each of their necks, and she was whispering in their ear, "I'm so sorry."

Dave muttered something about it not being her fault, patting her back. And it wasn't her fault, really. They'd all done as much as could be expected, and Karkat…

He's just not coming home.

"Things have changed here," Rose explained once she'd released them. "So much is different…I know you're going to love it." But her tone was resigned, as if she knew that she was fighting a losing battle. John and Dave would recover on their own time, not before. "Do you…want to rest? See the others?"

Dave glanced to John. Then, "Rest," he decided. "We're going home."

There wasn't really any question as to where home was. Rose dipped her head, telling them, "It hasn't been touched."

Dave murmured his thanks. Then he was grabbing John and flying off to the southern area of the village, and even though there were two new homes standing tall there, Karkat's little lawn ring hadn't changed in the least. His home was the same as it had always been—and when John and Dave landed on the stoop and pushed open the door, it even smelled the same, stuffed full of a scent that was musky and thick and so achingly Karkat that it brought tears to their eyes.

"Come on," Dave managed to choke out. "Let's rest."

The two of them crashed in the master bedroom, a mess of tangled limbs and muddled emotions. And that was how they awoke the next morning, then the next, and the next after that as they struggled to adjust.

Every day weighed on them more and more. Sometimes John would open his mouth, that strange look in his eye, and Dave knew that he was about to try to say something that was really meant for Karkat, meant for the pale romance the two of them had been so proud of. But the he would wince, realize who he was talking to, and look away. And Dave…well…he thought he was beginning to understand the idea of moirallegiance.

So when there was a knock at the door one day, and he opened it to find Kanaya of all people standing there, he thought he knew exactly what she meant when she said, "Would you like me to help you and John with dinner tonight?"

I understand, she said. I was close to Karkat, so close that I considered going pale for him at one point. And now he's gone, and you two were just figuring things out, and…I'm so sorry. Please, talk to me. It hurts to see you this way.

It was sudden. So sudden, and Dave had no clue why it happened. But it did, and he had someone other than John to flap his gums at, and so he did.

John went to Terezi. He always tried to make excuses, hide that he was doing it, but it never worked. He'd come back with bite marks on his lips and purpled eyes, and Dave would know.

We're moving on, he realized once, and his heart was being ripped out of his chest as he thought it. Building quadrants we never expected to have as humans. And it hurt, it really did—but he knew that Karkat would be happy to know they had people to fawn over other than him.

Life moved on for them. The two of them, still living in the same house, still fighting the same battles, pulled themselves forward one day at a time and started to climb. One month passed. Then two. And then, suddenly, it had been five months since Karkat had vanished over the edge of that cliff. Five months, and they were living just like they should. Going out, talking to their friends, pretending that their hearts weren't missing a colossal, Karkat-sized chunk.

Pretending that everything was okay when it wasn't.

But after a while, whereas every day had used to add just a bit of weight to their shoulders, each passing sunrise began to take just a sliver of it away.

"We're never going to be okay," John had said in the beginning. But now, five months later, he looked to Dave and said, "I think I was wrong." And he was.

Slowly, they settled into their normal lives once again. They weren't happy, not yet—but they were working their way there. Five months later, they were working their way there. Six months later, they were working their way there.

This is us now. This is us, without Karkat.

†††

Sharp thuds of claws on wood thudded through the house, jerking Dave out of a fitful sleep all at once.

"Ouch!" John yelped from beside him, and Dave realized that he'd pulled his hair on accident. This was one habit they still hadn't broken; sleeping in the same bed. Neither of them spoke of it, but it was a constant in an otherwise unstable world. It comforted them.

"Sorry," Dave murmured, listening for the telltale shriek of claws against their front door. And sure enough, there it was again—this time accompanied by a voice that could have pierced through lead.

"Hey, you miserable chumsuckers! Get the fuck down here, I've got somefin you need to see!"

John groaned. "Eridan?"

"Sounds like," Dave agreed, rolling his eyes. He reached to the bedside table and grabbed his shades, shoving them onto his face. He'd started taking them off more often lately, first around John and then around Kanaya. "Come on, I guess we should see what good ol' fishface wants on this fine morning."

"Morning?" John complained. "It's like, three o'clock!"

Dave shrugged. "Trolls are nocturnal, dude."

John promptly beat him over the head with a pillow.

"Woah, okay, point taken!" Dave flew out of bed. He was still in his god tier pajamas, which he'd put on the day before to go fly around with Rose and hadn't bothered to change out of. He grabbed John by the arm and hauled him up, and it was so much like those mornings in the wilderness when they were searching for Karkat that it made his chest ache. "Let's go, man."

"Fine, fine…" John (also in his god tier pajamas, since he never really took them off) drifted towards the doorway with Dave only a few feet ahead.

Eridan's pounding on the door grew louder as they reached the living room. "Cod, you two are useless! Open this fuckin' door!"

"We're coming, we're coming!" Dave let go of John to reach for the door and push it open, and—

"Fuckin' finally!" Eridan roared, eyes wide, expression a mess of excitement and terror. "I've been out here for hours!"

"It's been five minutes," Dave scoffed. "Now what do you want?"

Wordlessly, Eridan held up a dark scrap of something.

Dave eyed it distastefully. "What the fuck is that?"

"Just take it!" he snapped.

Dave curled up his nose, ready to turn away, but John stopped him by reaching out and relieving Eridan of the strange thing in his hand.

"It's cloth," John said, surprised. "What…?" He unfolded it, wincing as it dripped water all over the doorway. He started working the fabric in an attempt to unfold the creases and sooth away the wrinkles with his fingertips. "What's it supposed to be?"

"Turn it over, you fuckin' dirtblood!"

"Oh!" John grinned goofily and grasped the cloth by the edges, turning it over. And then his smile drained away in a single heartbeat, a snap of a moment, and he was staring in shock at the sopping wet scrap of fabric.

"John?" Dave asked, chest twinging with concern. Then he huffed, seeing that John had no intention of moving, and decided to take matters into his own hands. He reached out, snatched the thing from his friend's fingertips, and—

And he recognized it. Fingers shaking, heart beating frantically in his chest, he ran his fingers across the symbol stitched into the center of the patch of fabric. It wasn't a full symbol, having been torn off around the edges, but it was more than enough for him to recognize the familiar stitching, nails raking across the gray threads with a feather-light touch.

He would never forget the look of Karkat's symbol.

Dave stared, uncomprehending. "What the fuck is this?"

"What do you think it is?" Eridan sneered.

"I think it's a joke," Dave said, voice wavering. "A fucking cruel joke, and you can get the fuck out of here!"

"Do you really think that's somefin I would do? Am I really that awful a troll through your eyes?"

"How the fuck am I supposed to know? We've spoken all of three times; you're never even in town!"

"And why, exactly, do you think I haven't been in town? Because I've been searchin', you grub-fisted fuckloaf!"

"Searching for what?" Dave snarled. "For Karkat?" And oh god, even saying the name made his heart twist itself into knots.

"For any sign that he wasn't krilled by that fall, or by the sea!" Eridan snatched the cloth back, fins flaring out in an obvious display of anger. "I've charted every single current flowin' around on this miserable chunk of rock we call a planet, hopin' to find some sort of pattern! I've worked my ass off for you dirtbloods, and when I finally come up with somefin solid you decide to push me away!"

"What do you mean, come up with something solid?"

"Are you a fuckin' idiot?" Eridan waved the cloth, eyes flashing with anger. "I don't know if you've noticed, but this is a piece of Kar's shirt! I found it driftin' along on a current a couple hundred miles out!"

"So what? He fell into the ocean. It makes sense that a part of his fucking shirt would show up!"

"No, you don't understand!" Eridan spat. He stretched the cloth back out and ran the pad of his finger over the gray threads. "Look at the threads. Notice anyfin strange?"

Dave and John both leaned close, eyeing the silvery design.

"Cod," Eridan groaned, "you two don't know a thing. Look, these threads are fuckin' delicate! If this scrap of cloth had been floatin' around in the ocean for six months, they'd be dissolved to nothin'! It'd just be a bit of black fabric buried at the bottom of the ocean."

For just a moment, his heart lurched with a hope he hadn't felt in months. But he was swift to clamp down on that hope, because he wasn't going to let himself go through the pain of losing Karkat all over again. He didn't think his heart could take it.

"What are you saying?" John whispered, and Dave could tell that he was feeling the same.

Eridan looked between them both, and his eyes—just barley starting to turn violet—shimmered with something akin to terrified excitement. "I'm sayin' that this scrap of cloth couldn't have been in the ocean for more than a week. And if that's true, then someone would have had to throw it into the water."

"It could have been some random lusus creature," Dave offered, even as his heart flickered with nervousness. "Maybe it found Karkat's body and tore his shirt, then…threw the patch into the water?" It sounded weak, even to his own ears.

Eridan snorted. "Right. Even if that was the case—and it's not, just so you know—then at the very least, we know that his body is out there somewhere."

"Six months decayed," Dave reminded him.

"You can't be sure of that."

This was bringing up far too many memories. "Look, Ampora. I know you mean well and all that jazz, but we're done searching. Karkat has to be dead."

"And I'm tellin' you that I can help you find his body, even if that's the case!"

"How is a scrap of cloth supposed to lead us to Karkat?"

Eridan smirked, a wide expression full of fangs. "It's not the cloth that's important, it's where it was." He gestured outside excitedly. "It was hangin' around in a very defined current, runnin' right out deep in the center of the ocean."

"So what?"

"So, that current had to have carried that scrap from somewhere! And if I trace the flow of water back to its source, I think I might be able to figure out just where Kar ended up."

Hope. Sharp and blinding, it pierced through him.

"Like I said, there's no concrete evidence that he wasn't krilled by the fall, or by the water. But even if it's just his body we're after, I think we should go for it."

Dave glanced to John, chest tight. After searching for so long, then living for even longer with the knowledge that they would never find Karkat…did they really want to rip open healing wounds? Could they take another disappointment?

"Well?" Eridan asked impatiently. "I've already traced the path of the current, do you want to come or not?"

Still, Dave waited for John. I'll go, he thought, and the ease with which he made the decision to throw himself back into heartbreak was enough to give him whiplash. I'll go, because even if it just ends in me finding my matesprit's body—or what remains of it—at least that will mean closure. At least it will mean that the sleepless nights will eventually fade. But first…John, what will you do?

John's eyes were glazed as he stared at the ground. He was living out the past, no doubt, seeing just how devastated he'd been when he finally forced himself to admit that Karkat was gone. But even with all his pain, all his misery, his decision was obvious to all who knew him. "I'll go," he offered, looking to Dave for confirmation. "Even if it just makes it hurt more, I'll go."

Dave dipped his head in agreement. "My thoughts exactly."

Eridan rolled his eyes. "You're heroic as fuck. Now do you want to leave now, or sleep the rest of the night away?"

Again, John spoke for them both. "We'll go now."

They went.

†††

They didn't tell anyone where they were going. They figured that if Eridan's lead turned out to mean nothing, it was better not to get anyone's hopes up. Sollux in particular wouldn't take it well, and he was just starting to become secure enough in his moirallegiance with Aradia and his matespritship with Feferi to start to let go of his lost kismesissitude. John even kept their journey from Terezi, who he'd developed an odd sort of black romance with, and Dave kept it from Kanaya in return. His poor friend had dealt with enough of his shit in the past six months, and he didn't want to trouble her.

Dave squawked suddenly as water was splashed up onto his face. "What the fuck, dude?"

But Eridan was already back below the surface of the water, swimming just fast enough to lead John and Dave along the current that had carried the scrap of Karkat's shirt. Apparently Eridan had never followed the current this far before, so he didn't know if there was an island or something out here, but he seemed confident that there had to be some kind of landmass somewhere.

"Focus, Dave!" John called, speeding up. His phone was out, opened to a thermal camera that he was aiming around at the empty waves. None of Dirk's scanners were out here, so the best they could do was fling their shitty cameras around at random, hoping to catch a glimpse of something.

Dave snorted. "Right. Focus. Focus on the empty water."

Eridan poked his head above water just long enough to roll his eyes, then dove back down with a huff. Really getting tired of your shit, that expression screamed. And that made two of them, because Dave was really fucking tired of following the arrogant sea troll around the entire ocean. They'd been flying for hours. At top speed they could cover miles in no time at all, but that didn't mean it was easy. Especially not while tensions were running so high.

John drew up at his side. "How are you doing?" he asked softly.

"You mean with the whole 'finding my matesprit's body' thing? Just peachy, man. How are you?"

John smiled at him with an amused tilt of the head. "I'm…relieved."

"Relieved?" he echoed.

"Yeah," John said. "Relieved. It'll be over soon, you know."

"How do you figure?"

"Well, we're going to find Karkat." He reached down and skimmed his fingers through the dark water, sending up a spray that misted across Dave's shades annoyingly. "If Eridan is right, then at the end of this current we'll find closure. Karkat will either be dead, and we'll know it's time to move on, or he'll be alive, and we'll be able to take him home."

"But he'll probably be dead," Dave said, mostly for himself. "I mean, if he's still alive, then why wouldn't he find some way off wherever he's stranded? He should have enough build grist to make a boat or some shit, or at the very least he should have a computer on him to troll us with! I can't believe that he's just out there, waiting to be found."

John shrugged. "Anything is possible."

Dave looked away with a huff. "Right."

Something splashed up tremendously. "Hey!"

They drew to a halt as Eridan popped out of the water, portable computer in his hand. How the thing wasn't destroyed by the water was a mystery, but Dave supposed that sea trolls probably had their ways.

"What is it?" John asked, concerned.

Eridan just brandished his phone in response. "There's land up ahead."

"What?" Dave looked up, but could spot nothing on the horizon. "How do you know?"

"The fuckin' radar, genius! It's bouncin' right off a small landmass not far from here. Keep your thermals trained on it, would you?"

Land? Right in the path of the current that took that scrap of Karkat's t-shirt towards us?

Eridan dove beneath the water, Dave just staring after him, and only a sharp word from John got him moving again. It has to be a coincidence or something. There's no way…

"Land!" John whooped in excitement, looping in midair as trees finally poked up from above the horizon. There was actual fucking land out there, land that was illuminated by the by the beautiful sear of the suns dipping beneath the horizon, one just slightly below the other. And they were getting close.

Dave sped up without thinking as they neared the island. Karkat couldn't be alive, but he was filled with anticipation at the thought of knowing. After six months of guessing, he may be about to figure everything out for himself.

"Dave!" John called. "Slow down!"

He didn't even hear him. He sped up, overtaking even Eridan, and tore towards the beach. He was straining muscles he hadn't even known he had, flying beyond top speed. And then he was there, placing his feet upon the sandy beach and staring around with a wild sort of hope, and John and Eridan were drawing up beside him.

"So," John said awkwardly, "this is it?" He looked up, taking in the sprawling trees and bright white sand. It was almost tropical.

"This is it," Eridan agreed. He squinted up with eyes that were primed for darkness. "The current runs straight around this island, so it's the perfect place for someone to drop somefin into it and have it carried right on across the ocean."

"Well, I'm not seeing anything," Dave muttered. Sure enough, there was nothing on the beach but sand.

"It's a large island, dipshit," Eridan growled. "Come on, let's split up and search."

That was exactly what they did. Making sure to set up a conference call using the same earpieces they'd donned during the battle, the three split and went their separate ways. John crashed into the forest, Eridan decided to swim the area to the west, and Dave took the east.

Come on, Karkat, he thought, soaring just over the beach and scanning from side to side. Please be here…please be here, even if it's just your body I'm finding.

He searched for what felt like hours, the others reporting the same as him—nothing. He searched until he thought his limbs were about to fall off and his brain was about to liquefy and fall out his ears from the heat. He searched forever and then some more.

And so when he finally caught a flicker of something, he thought it was his imagination at first.

What the fuck is that? Dave flew over to the dark shape smeared out across the beach, a mixture of horror and anticipation churning in his gut. If that was Karkat, lying dead…

But no—the closer he got, the more he realized that the figure was far too large to be Karkat. He was a beast, even deflated as he was, and Dave caught flickers of indigo as he drew closer, first from a torn symbol on his chest and then from remnants of blood that had been shed months prior.

Gamzee Makara.

Dave landed beside his body, gagging at the stench. The hot weather wasn't good for preservation, and it had obviously been a long time since the troll had died. Hell, maybe he'd been dead when he originally washed up here six or so months ago. Whatever the case, he'd had a long time to break down, and it smelled hideous.

He fought the urge to throw up as he phoned Eridan and John, saying, "Hey, guys? I found Gamzee."

"Really?" John asked, stunned. "Is he alive?"

"Nope. Dead as a doornail. A very mushy, smelly doornail."

"Fuckin' gross!" Eridan snapped.

Dave shrugged. Then, realizing they couldn't see it, he said, "Well, at least we know that this is probably where Karkat ended up. The two were latched onto each other pretty hard when they hit the water, so it's not impossible they hung onto each other for the whole ride, especially if one of them was still alive."

"Oh, geez…" John sucked in a shuddering breath. "I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse."

"Definitely worse," Eridan grumbled. "But it's not like we can give up now."

"No," Dave agreed, "but we should probably call it a night, huh?" He looked up at the sky. Already the moon was high in the sky, and the island had cooled considerably. "Not like we can do much when we can't see well."

"Yeah," John agreed. "Meet up where we first stepped onto the island? We can set up camp on the beach."

"Sounds good to me."

"Yeah, why the fuck not?"

"Great! Then I'll see you both there."

The earpiece buzzed, and the messages stopped. John and Eridan would be heading back to where they'd agreed to camp, and Dave would follow.

The human sighed, running a hand through his hair. His eyes raked the treeline, and his heart ached as he realized that finding Karkat like this—dead, decaying, nearly turned to mush in the sand—was a very real possibility.

Maybe…it was better not knowing.

He tried to take a few steps forward, then groaned as he stumbled over thin air. Fuck…I need a torch or some shit. He pulled his phone out and fiddled with it for a moment. Then he yelped as he nearly blinded himself with the flashlight feature, fumbling the device and accidentally raking the beam across the trees. It was fucking bright.

Cursing, he managed to aim the beam back at the ground. Later, he thought, they would have to have a conversation about Jane potentially trying to bring Gamzee back to life. But for now, he was content to use the light to make his way forward, feet sinking into the sand with every step, the stench of death still in the air.

Something rustled in the trees. He paused. Did I hear just something?

Dave turned his face towards the dark lines of the forest, but all he could see was a blur of nothingness. He shrugged, then kept moving when the sound didn't repeat itself. Must have imagined it.

There was another rustle, and okay, that one he'd definitely heard. He aimed his beam of light towards the trees, but nothing was there.

Hmm…time to investigate.

Dave made sure the flashlight was turned up as high as it would go, then started crunching up the beach towards the place where sand gave way to trees. He was tense, every hair on end as he waited for some lusus creature to launch out of the trees and attack him.

He readied his sword when he heard the rustle again. Slowly, carefully, he stepped into the trees and aimed the beam around.

A rustle. A growl. And then red eyes shining in the darkness, making Dave jump back with a startled yelp.

I was right—a lusus creature! Then he paused. Wait…since when do lusus creatures have red eyes?

The growl deepened. The eyes flashed with something—confusion, maybe? Alarm? But Dave didn't have time to think about it, because suddenly there was movement, suddenly the thing was moving forward, and suddenly—suddenly—

Suddenly it was launching itself out of the trees and straight onto Dave, heedless of the sword pointed right at its abdomen, plastering itself flat to his body and nearly knocking him straight to the ground and shuddering as if its insides were being wrenched out through its pores.

And then the thing choked out a single word, and Dave realized that it wasn't an it, it was a him.

"Dave."

And that him just so happened to be Karkat Vantas.

His body caught up before his mind did. Dave reached out without really realizing what he was doing and drew his matesprit close to him as if he'd just seen him yesterday, loose and relaxed and just content to be near someone he trusted. His mind was sprinting about a thousand miles behind, confused and reeling and wondering how the fuck this was happening right now.

"Dave," Karkat whined again. "Dave."

And then his mind really did catch up, hurling him at about a hundred leagues forward into the current situation, and he gasped in a mixture of shock and relief, then broke down.

Without giving it a second thought Dave clawed at his matesprit, pulling him to him until he thought he would crack, and took the two of them to their knees with a heavy thud. He thought that kissing Karkat sounded really fucking good, a way to bat down the tidal wave of emotions that was just too much for him to feel all at once, but he couldn't bring himself to draw away long enough to do so. And so he just sat there, Karkat clinging to him as if to let go would be to die, and tried to figure out how he was supposed to feel everything. He wanted to say something, wanted to put voice to the war within him, but all that managed to escape was a small squeak.

"D-Dave," Karkat said again, and Dave thought that maybe it was the only thing he remembered how to say. "O-oh gog, I thought—!" He cut himself off in a dry, choking sob that took about one second to turn sloppy-wet.

Dave felt tears soaking into his shoulder, felt the fabric of Karkat's shoulder growing damp, and he realized that he was crying, too. "Yeah," he managed, even as his throat closed in on itself. "Yeah, I thought, too…"

Karkat sniffed messily. His shirt was going to be saturated with the troll's weird pink snot.

"How?" Dave rasped when he finally gained the breath to speak again. Karkat was squeezing the life out of him, but he didn't care. "How are you alive?"

There was the slightest tensing in the muscles pressed firm to his stomach. Then Karkat pressed his forehead down into his chest, and he whispered, "Gills."

"Um…what?"

Karkat blushed furiously, and even though Dave couldn't see it, he could feel it. He could feel the heat against his skin. "Gills," he repeated in a low, scandalized whisper. "I have gills."

"The question stands. What?"

His blush deepened. Then he was leaning back, drawing a needy whine from his matesprit, and reaching for his shirt. Dave watched as he yanked it up with a nervous bite at his lower lip, and suddenly there they were.

"Holy fuck," Dave whispered, leaning forward and letting his fingertips hover just over the long slits that ran for a solid four inches over his sides, curling just barely onto his stomach and his back. "You weren't fucking kidding." He looked up at Karkat, realization cracking across his mind, and he said, "This is why you would never let me get your shirt off?"

Karkat nodded guiltily. "I missed all the rocks when I fell, but the impact still knocked me out…I sank to the bottom and got hauled away from the mainland, but I kept breathing underwater."

Dave sat back with a huff. His head was spinning. "And Gamzee?"

"He doesn't have gills. Fuck, I'm not supposed to have them! It's just another result of my fucked up mutations, just like Sollux's horns and his eyes and his tongue and those voices, yet another amazing thing I've had to deal with my entire life!"

"Karkat, why didn't you tell me?"

The troll let his shirt fall back down—a shirt, Dave realized, that was missing a Cancer symbol. There wasn't an empty hole or anything, it was just a shirt without any kind of marking. Plain and black. "I couldn't tell anyone."

"But why couldn't you tell anyone?" Dave demanded, fingers digging into the soft earth. "Fuck, Karkat, I thought you were dead! I thought you were dead, and if I'd known that you had gills then maybe I wouldn't have killed myself over thinking that you were gone!"

Karkat flinched, curling in on himself so that his gills were held protectively behind his bent legs. "I'm fucking sorry! But if I'd told you about it, there was the chance that you would think I was disgusting—I have eight, you know, not the usual six, and two of them don't even fucking work—and I couldn't fucking take it if we got over all that shit we went through and then you ditched me because of one of my mutations!"

Oh god, he's not serious.

The troll looked away, expression a mixture of guilt and pain. "I would have told you if I could, but—hey!"

Karkat shut up, then—but he only shut up because Dave had lurched forward and pinned him to the ground, yanking up his shirt and exposing the eight slits, four on each side, that had caused him so much pain. Karkat opened his mouth as if in preparation to say something, but Dave just glared at him, and he shut up immediately. This wasn't a moment for talking, this was a moment for acting—and that's exactly what Dave did, reaching down and keeping his eyes locked onto Karkat's as he brushed against the gill slits with gentle adoration. They felt strange—flesh-like, but cool and slippery at the same time—but he didn't let it bother him as he stroked along them in an attempt to reassure his matesprit that it was okay. He was okay.

"D-Dave?" Karkat breathed, eyes wide.

Dave bowed his head and placed a kiss along each slit. He could feel the way Karkat's entire body shuddered at the brush of lips to skin, though, and he knew that this was neither the time nor place to do this. "Karkat?"

"Hmm?" the troll hummed, looking dazed. His fingertips were grasping at nothing, curling and uncurling rhythmically, and his eyes were staring up at something that wasn't there. He looked shocked, as if he'd never imagined that Dave would have a positive reaction to his most hidden mutation.

"Hey, dude, you still with me?" Dave shook him gently by the shoulder. His fingers were still brushing lightly around the eight slits, trying to reassure him even now that he was willing to accept all of him, not just the convenient bits. "You're kinda freaking me out, Karkles—don't tell me you're going to keel over!"

"I'm already lying down," the troll pointed out blearily. "You…you're really not going to just ditch me?"

"Oh my god, you're not this fucking stupid."

Karkat winced. "Sorry! I just…I'm sorry."

For a moment, he wanted to be upset. He wanted to be upset, because if he'd known that Karkat could fucking breathe underwater, he wouldn't have worried as much.

Actually…would that really have been the case? Or would he just have worried more, knowing that he was probably alive out there, but they just couldn't seem to find him?

"Dave?" Karkat muttered uncertainly. "You're not upset, are you?"

He hesitated. Looked down at Karkat, sprawled out on his back, shirt pushed to his armpits, watching him with an expression caught between hope and madness. And…Dave thought that there were more important things than what had or hadn't been said in the past. There really, really were.

"No," he decided, and Karkat's entire body melted into a puddle of relief. "I'm not mad. I mean, hey—now there's a whole other part of you I get to explore, right?"

The troll blushed furiously. "Hey, that's not—!"

Dave just laughed, and this time there was nothing stopping him from leaning down and capturing his matesprit's lips in a kiss that was originally intended to be searing, but came off more tear-damp and heartsick-sweet instead.

"I missed you," Dave murmured, barely pulling back enough to admit it before he was pressing in again, brushing his lips lightly to Karkat's nose, his cheeks, his forehead.

Karkat laughed raspingly in response. "Careful there, Strider, you're spilling pale all over the place."

"As if," he snorted, only doubling his efforts to kiss every visible inch of his matesprit. But the mention of pale made him remember that he wasn't the only one missing Karkat. John would be waiting back at camp, and Sollux was still on the mainland. He hadn't even been told about this excursion.

Karkat seemed to pick up on his sudden shift in demeanor. "What's wrong?"

"Well…" He snuggled closer to the troll, mushing his face into his shoulder and finally allowing his shirt to slip back down to cover his gills. "As much as I'd love to hold you here for another few hours, there's someone else who I think will be happy to see you."

His eyes lit up, and he pushed Dave back to stare him in the face. "John? John is here?"

For just a heartbeat, Dave felt that familiar flicker of jealousy. But then he remembered that there was nothing to be jealous of, and his expression lessened in severity as he said, "Yeah, he is. So is Eridan."

"Eridan?" Karkat echoed. "What's fishface doing here?"

"He's the one that figured out where you were. Apparently some scrap of fabric with your symbol on it was just floating down one of the deep ocean currents, and he found it and traced the current all the way back to this island with us in tow."

"Fabric?" the troll repeated. One hand darted to his chest, where his symbol would have been had he been wearing one of his usual t-shirts. "Like from one of my shirts?"

"Yeah," Dave confirmed. "It was so strange, too—Eridan said that it couldn't have been in the water for more than a week or so. Do you know how it could have gotten there?"

That earned him another blush, dark and furious, one hand slipping up to cover his eyes. "Oh, gog…well, this is awkward."

"Awkward, Karkles?"

The blush darkened. "I, ah…gave up."

"Gave up."

"Yeah. Gave right the fuck up, was about to do an acrobatic pirouette right the fuck off the edge of the nearest cliff because I thought I was never going to see any of my friends again. A little over a week ago I was just standing around, thinking about the fact that my quadrants were probably moving on and forgetting all about me, and I just…snapped. I started freaking out. I tore my shirt up, shredded the symbol right out of the front and hurled it into the ocean. I was just so fucking sick of being me, being weak and helpless and alone on an island with no way of getting off or finding my quadrants, and I was ready to flip my shit. Most of the things in my sylladex got lost at the bottom of the ocean somehow, but I did have a few spare shirts—most of them with that fucking symbol, but some without—and so I shredded the ones with markings and started wearing the others. I was done. But…I guess my act of rebellion just ended up launching my symbol right into Eridan's hands."

"Sick of being you?" Dave whispered. "Oh, Karkat…"

Karkat looked away, no doubt trying to disguise the way his eyes were burning. "Yeah, well…I don't know if you've noticed this, but being me is a bit of a fucking disaster right now."

Dave leaned back and looked, really looked at his matesprit for the first time in six months. Sure enough, disaster didn't even begin to cover it. The guy was fucking skinny, practically skin and bones, and all his visible flesh was covered in scrapes and bruises. He seemed well rested, at least, but there were still shadows under his eyes that spoke of countless nights spent working on something. Just what had he been up to these past few months?

Karkat sighed, taking the opportunity to sit up and get his feet under him. "Look, I haven't exactly been living the high life out here. Like I said, most of my shit got washed away in the ocean so when I got here all I could do was set up an alchemiter and do what I could to make sure I didn't just keel over from exhaustion or starvation or a combination of both. I didn't have any food on me, and it's not like I'd memorized the codes for anything edible, so I've had to keep alchemizing a fuckton of barely edible shit that grows on the island. Setting up camp took forever, the stench of rotting flesh was taking up the entire western half of the island, I could barely manage to eat enough of those bitter plant things to survive…it fucking sucked. And then I had to deal with slowly losing hope that you were ever going to find me, and that sucked even worse."

"You have gills, so why didn't you just swim for it?"

"Where would I have gone?" Karkat snorted. "Just picked a direction and swam for the hills? What if I was wrong, and I was just swimming out into the open ocean with no hope of ever being found? Everyone knows that rule number one when you're lost is to stay the fuck put and wait to be rescued, and so that was what I did. Never mind that every day tore just a few more chunks right out of my blood pusher and ground them into the dust."

He was right. He was right, and Dave couldn't even imagine what he'd been through. At least where he'd been he'd had John and Kanaya and everyone else to console him and keep him distracted from the fact that he'd lost his matesprit. But Karkat hadn't had any of that. He'd had nothing but Gamzee's rotting corpse and his own thoughts, and he hadn't just lost one quadrant, he'd lost three.

"Oh, god," Dave breathed, the reality of the situation sinking in. He wanted to comfort the troll further, but there was just so much wrong, and Karkat had been in so much pain for so long, maybe even way before he ever stepped off that cliff, and he didn't know how to handle it. He didn't know how to comfort him, and looking at the way the troll was staring at nothing, eyes focused on something at least five miles off the physical plane, he knew that he wasn't going to be able to do this. At least, not alone.

"Come on," he soothed, reaching out and gently easing Karkat to his feet, getting one arm around his waist and using the other to drape one of the troll's arms around his own shoulders. "I think we should get you to John."

Karkat's eyes sparked with life. He said nothing, just pressed into Dave's side with all the strength he had, but he was obviously thrilled at the thought of seeing his moirail again.

The two of them started walking, and Karkat only stumbled a little.

†††

It didn't take long to get back to where John and Eridan had set up camp. The two of them were parked halfway up the beach, fire flickering between them, both staring silently into the flames.

That wasn't going to last long.

Dave felt Karkat shudder the instant he caught sight of the two figures. The troll was still slightly shaky on his feet from the emotional trauma, still trembling with every step, but when he realized that his moirail was close he started trying to walk faster, which almost ended up with him getting a mouthful of sand as he took Dave down with him.

"Easy," Dave soothed, but obliged him in moving just a little faster. "Almost there, Karkles."

Karkat tugged at his hold. "John," he breathed out.

Dave's heart twinged with understanding. He raised his head and called out, "John! Dude, over here!"

The figures blinked in tandem and looked up. Their faces were still blurred by the firelight at such a distance, but they weren't so far away that they couldn't be told apart. John's god tier pajamas caught the light as he took a few steps forward, then lifted off the ground. "Dave?" he yelled over the sound of the crashing waves.

Dave couldn't hide the smirk that tore itself suddenly across his face as he realized that this was it. He'd been just as miserable as John for these past six months, and now they could finally rest easy.

"John!" Dave called again, "Just get out here!" Karkat was trying to say something too, but his eyes were pricking with reddish tears, and his throat seemed to have closed right up. Emotional dork, he thought, conveniently forgetting that he'd started crying when he'd seen Karkat again, too.

"Dude, what's…?" John flew closer, confused. But then he apparently caught wind of the fact that Dave wasn't alone, that he was supporting another person, and his eyes went wide as he picked up speed. "K-Karkat…?"

Karkat tugged just once more, rasping out something low and indistinguishable in the back of his throat, and Dave let him go with a chuckle. He pushed the troll forward just a few steps, just enough to be out of the way when John got there and inevitably tackled him to the ground.

Sure enough, that was exactly what happened.

"Karkat!" John wailed as he finally drew close enough to really see, and suddenly he was tearing down the beach in a blur, and then Karkat and John were on the ground in a medley of limbs.

"Take it easy," Dave teased, but neither of them heard. They were too wrapped up in each other, clawing close and tangling together until it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.

John sank the fingers of one hand into Karkat's hair and pulled lightly, keeping his head pressed up under his chin. "Oh my god," he choked out, tears dripping unhindered down his cheeks, "Karkat."

Karkat shook visibly as he returned the embrace. "Fuck," he breathed, and it was obvious he was trying to keep from crying again. "Fuck, I thought I'd never see you again."

John let out a weak, choking laugh. "Tell me about it."

Dave smiled, watching the two reunite. They were really fucking cute together, which was a thought he immediately decided to burn and never recognize again. He was not going to sit there and watch John wrap around his moirail, Dave's matesprit, and hold him as if nothing else mattered. It was just plain rude to watch such a personal moment, and—

Oh my god, they were kissing.

It was only a light, pale press of lips—and immediately Dave understood everything Karkat had ever tried to tell him about moirallegiance, everything that even Kanaya hadn't been able to make him understand. Oh…it's so different…

John drew back only to return a moment later, pressing his lips again and again to Karkat's, hands cupping his cheeks. It was a good minute before he finally stopped long enough to press his forehead to his moirail's and whisper, "Are you okay?"

Karkat smiled even as his whole body shook. "Not really, no. But…I think I will be."

This time John's laugh was stronger, happier. "Good…that's good!" He reached down and twined their fingers together. "Oh my god, Karkat, I thought you were dead."

Karkat tried to shrug nonchalantly, but it didn't really work when he was still visibly fighting back tears. "And I thought I'd never see you again, but look where we are now. Pretty fucking incredible."

John giggled. Leaned forward. Pressed his lips to Karkat's again. "Really incredible."

There was an indignant snort to their right. "Cod, could you be any more sappy?"

Dave glared over at Eridan, who was standing with his arms crossed not too far off the surf. The tide was rising. "Dude, fuck off."

"Yes," Karkat agreed, "fuck off."

Eridan rolled his eyes. Then he was reaching for something in his sylladex, and one of Jane's window portal things was suddenly in his hand. "If you insist. When you're ready, feel free to use the portal. Everyone will be waitin' for you." He flicked his wrist, then a portal was gaping up out of the ground, presumably connected to one back in the village. Eridan moved towards it, one foot dangling close to the light. But then he paused, throwing a glance over his shoulder at Karkat with an unreadable expression plastered across his face.

Karkat raised a brow. "Ampora?"

Eridan cleared his throat awkwardly. "Kar. Whatever debt you feel you had to me, it's been filled. Same goes for the others. We never blamed you for any of this, anyway."

Huh? Dave looked from Eridan to Karkat, and was puzzled to see an expression of guilt flash momentarily across his matesprit's face.

"Thanks," Karkat ground out, tightening his grip on John. "That, uh…means a lot."

Eridan shrugged. "Just wanted you to know." Then he was stepping forward and vanishing, carried back to the village in a flash of light.

Dave turned back to his matesprit just in time to see him let go of John and lean back. They were alone now, and Karkat was going to be okay—so now what?

John seemed to feel the same weight that was settling across Dave's shoulders. "We're okay," he said as if in a dream. "We're actually okay. No one died."

Karkat snorted. "Well, Makara's looking pretty dead. But I'm sure Jane can get him back on his feet, even six months decomposed."

John wrinkled his nose. "You want him back? Didn't he, like, torment you?"

"So did all the others," the troll pointed out. "They lashed out because their pans were scrambled, and it didn't help that Gamzee was off sopor. Jane can bring him back, and then he should be fine."

"And if he's not? He tried to mutilate you!"

"There are twenty of us," Karkat said. "Ten god tier. If Gamzee came back to life on this deserted island, what's the worse he could do?"

John and Dave exchanged hesitant looks.

"You really sure about that?" Dave questioned. And he really shouldn't have asked that, because it made Karkat look away with that pained expression that just made him want to hold him close until he didn't hurt anymore.

"Yeah," the troll rasped. "I am. I've always blamed myself for what went down with Gamzee, and while Eridan claims the others have forgiven me, there's still one sorry sack of shit that I haven't gotten to apologize to yet."

Dave cocked his head, ready to ask just what had gone down with Gamzee, but John beat him to it. "Okay," he said, and the look on his face let Dave know that it was serious. This wasn't something he should argue against. "Jane should be able to bring him back. We can take you back to town and get some real food in you, give you a few days of rest, and then we can deal with this disaster area. Sound good?"

Karkat hummed appreciatively, and all the tension drained out of him. "Sounds great. But…"

"What?" Dave asked gently.

The troll flushed. "Can we, um…?" He glanced towards the portal nervously.

"You want to stay here for a bit?" John guessed.

Karkat nodded appreciatively. "Yeah. Yeah, that's just about right."

Dave raised a brow. "On the beach? Sleeping in the sand?"

"If that's okay with you. I…I don't think I'm ready to face everyone."

In all honestly, he didn't like the idea of waking up with sand all up in his unmentionables. But Karkat was looking at him with soft, sweet eyes, and he was just so goddamn happy to have his matesprit here, breathing, talking, existing at his side, and how could he say no?

"Sure," he said, and John echoed his agreement with all the enthusiasm of a child breaking open a piñata. "We can stay here for as long as you like."

Karkat's expression melted into one of relief. "Good…good."

"Should we settle down here?" John suggested.

"Oh, no." Karkat waved a hand towards the forest. "We can head back to where I've been staying. It's a lot more sheltered than hanging around on the beach with Gamzee's rotting corpse less than a mile away."

Well, there was no arguing with that.

Karkat closed the fingers of one hand around Dave's wrist, then reached out to take John's the other. "Come on. I'm too tired to stand around in the middle of a bunch of fucking sand."

There's my Karkat. Dave didn't resist in the least as both him and John were tugged along towards the forest. He didn't blame him for wanting to get away. This had to be a lot, rediscovering two of his three lost quadrants after months of grappling with the impending realization that he was never going to see them again. Holing up with those quadrants for a while was probably the only thing that would let him process what had just happened.

John seemed to sense it too. But he did nothing, just let Karkat tug him along towards whatever camp he'd managed to set up for himself, only wincing slightly as the troll's grip became vice-like in his determination to keep his quadrants close.

They moved deeper and deeper into the forest. Just when Dave was about to speak up about how deep they were moving, though, Karkat pulled them through a line of trees and into a clearing.

Dave blinked. "Woah."

Shrugging, Karkat said, "I had a lot of time to set it up."

And he must have, because Dave was looking at an honest to god log cabin. A little flimsier than the ones he'd seen professionally built in magazines and movies, but still, it was a home. How many days had Karkat spent on this? He would have been able to alchemize all the necessary supplies, but he would have had to put it together himself.

"Let's go in," Karkat pressed. "I couldn't manage much of an interior, but there's a pretty sizable pile that the three of us can share."

Right now, even that sounded amazing. Hell, Dave though that he would have given Kanaya's pile of wands and designer outfits a go if it meant he could have Karkat there with him. Karkat and John, who was shooting him a meaningful look.

Karkat popped the door to the cabin open. There was no lock, which almost surprised him for a moment before he remembered that there was no one on this island to be suspicious of. He could do whatever he wanted.

"Here we go," Karkat announced, ushering John and Dave into the house. There wasn't much inside, most likely due to the fact that Karkat didn't have the technical smarts to figure out the captchalogue codes for furniture. He had managed the basics, though, and Dave's eyes snagged on a stone fireplace resting beside a massive pile of plain black t-shirts and blankets. A table sat to one side with a sloppily constructed stool propped up underneath it, and a chest with ragged edges was placed against the far wall. That was about the extent of it, though—it was obvious that Karkat hadn't had much to work with when it came to the interior.

Karkat finally released his quadrants and plodded towards the pile. "I'd offer you something to eat, but I don't think you'd enjoy the delightful food I've managed to scrounge up from this miserable place." He reached the pile and started rearranging it, spreading the shirts and blankets around until it was more of a plateau, the fabric distributed evenly with enough room for all three of them to spread out comfortably. Then he looked up and said, "Well…um…"

Dave couldn't hold back a smile. He was so cute. How could any one person be this small and feisty and adorable? He was his favorite thing right now, and it was obvious that he had no idea what to do next.

John was shooting him that glance again, that glance that flickered with a hopeful question. Help me help him?

Dave just nodded. You got it, bro.

Then the two of them were moving as one, Dave grasping Karkat's left arm, John his right, and shifting him around to the front of the pile.

"Wait," Karkat yelped, "what are you doing?"

Neither of them responded. John clung to Karkat's side like a koala, humming a little sound of contentment as he started to tug him insistently toward the heap of t-shirts and blankets while Dave repeated the action on his matesprit's other side with only a touch more intensity. Karkat was shaking and uncertain at the first hint of contact, overwhelmed with emotion and blinking back the beginnings relieved tears that appeared suddenly and with good reason.

"Shoosh," John soothed, palms running up and down Karkat's arms as the two humans finally got their mutual quadrant down to his knees, then onto his back. "You're okay, Karkat, we're here."

"Yeah," Dave murmured, "You're safe now, with us." The whole pale thing wasn't really Dave's job, but he thought he could make an exception. He tried to copy John's movements. Then, deciding it wasn't working, he leaned in to kiss Karkat gently on those soft, black lips. And that was familiar territory—the way Karkat hummed against him, fingers clutching at the front of his shirt and trying to pull him even closer, even though the only way to press nearer would be to physically melt into his body.

Karkat drew in a deep, shuddering breath. "Fuck," he whispered. "Fuck, Dave, John, I…"

Dave drew away from his matesprit's lips and ducked down to his legs, stripping of him of his socks and shoes, then his jeans. Luckily, the troll was wearing boxers, so things didn't get too weird. He decided to leave it at that, knowing that Karkat would probably feel uncomfortable exposing his gills for the whole world to see (or at least, for his moirail to see, who didn't yet know) and instead moved to shuck off his own shoes, then his cape. He'd leave the pajamas. Didn't want to weird John out, now, did he?

"J-John…"

He looked up. Blushed furiously as he realized that John was quite literally kissing Karkat's tears away. "You're okay," he was whispering over and over, like mantra, like a prayer. "You're okay, Karkat, nothing is going to hurt you here. We've got you. Dave and I have you now."

That snapped him out of his surprise. We have you. He reached forward with aching fingers to grab onto his matesprit and help sooth him, calm him down and reassure him that everything was okay. He surged forward as John pulled back to take off his shoes and hood, taking his place in cupping Karkat's face and whispering reassurances into his ear, nuzzling close and letting him know that they were here.

Karkat plastered Dave tight to his right side, melding their forms together until nothing could possibly have hoped to pry them apart. The troll's other arm flailed in the open air for a moirail that was still fighting with his hood, even as he pressed his head up under Dave's chin with a tiny, helpless whine. Dave shushed him the best he could as John finished taking his hood off, and without thinking he raised a hand and rasped his nails lightly across the troll's hornbeds.

It had been the right thing to do. Every bit of tension melted out of the troll in a single heartbeat, and a rusty purr started up in the back of his throat that wasn't quite up to full speed. He nuzzled up into the touch, really starting to purr heavily when Dave started rubbing at the base of his right horn more thoroughly.

There was a rustle from Karkat's other side, and Dave knew the instant John slotted into place because Karkat's purring intensified tenfold, and then Dave's fingers brushed against John's as he went for his moirail's other horn and Karkat trilled out a high-pitched, happy sound.

"That's it," John whispered, and Karkat shifted as he did something, but Dave's eyes had drifted closed so he couldn't see it. Then he felt fingers at the bridge of his nose, grabbing onto his shades, and he realized that John was going for him, sliding his sunglasses right off his face and propping them somewhere off to the side. Dave didn't even consider fighting it for a moment. This was real. This was personal. And if he couldn't be like this around his matesprit and around John, then he couldn't be like this around anyone.

Karkat reached up, eyes half closed and bleary, and pressed his warm fingertips to the flesh beneath Dave's eyes. "I like your eyes," he murmured. "They're pretty." He sounded drunk. Probably a mixture of relief, exhaustion, and shock at being back in the arms of his quadrants.

John shushed the troll from his other side. His fingertips were still wrapped lightly around Karkat's horn, spurring on the rusty purring, and his lips pressed to his moirail's neck with the gentlest of pressure. "Just rest for a while, Karkat," he soothed. "We have all the time in the world to talk later, so just rest your eyes."

Karkat opened his mouth, tension pouring back into his body as the rumbling in his chest started to die off. But Dave wasn't going to have any of that; Karkat was supposed to be calm right now, calm and relaxed and purring for his quadrants—and so he reached out and rubbed the base of the troll's horn with firm, even pressure, and that did the trick. Karkat went limp against him, that rasping rumble starting up again, a soft sigh escaping his lips.

John shot Dave a thankful glance. "There we go, Karkat. We're okay."

Karkat's eyes were already slipping closed again. He was clearly exhausted from the tidal wave of emotions overcoming him, exhausted from the realization that everything would be okay.

"Hey," Dave muttered, brushing his fingertips across his matesprit's cheek. "No nightmares tonight, okay?"

Karkat rumbled out a laugh. "No," he agreed sleepily, pressing his head up under Dave's chin. He half turned to the human, the claws of one hand digging into the front of his shirt, and nuzzled in close. His other arm was still free, though, and he groped blindly for John with a low whine.

John chuckled. Then Karkat was being jostled just slightly as John pressed up behind him and threw an arm over his waist, and Karkat's free arm slung back over John at an angle that was no doubt awkward, but he didn't seem to care so long as he could get close to his moirail.

Dave jumped in surprise as he felt blunt fingernails rasping across the fabric over his thigh. But then he glanced over his shoulder and saw John watching him with a grateful look, and he understood. We've been through so much together…and even though Karkat is here now, even though we have him back, our bond isn't going to break. We're in this for the long haul now.

Without giving it a second thought, Dave reached out and met John's fingertips. John just smiled in response, head lowering to press into the space in between Karkat's shoulder blades, and, mirroring the slow dissipation of Karkat's purring, drifted off to sleep.

Dave was swift to follow.