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One of these days, the universe is going to finally stop fucking you over and making your life into a sick joke. That day will probably be the day you finally gasp out your last pitiful, wheezing breath, and die in some ridiculously stupid way to wring the last bit of macabre comedy out of your existence. Actually, it will probably be a couple days after that, since knowing your luck, something predictably horrible will happen to the hideous corpse you’ll leave behind.
Regardless, that day seems to be arriving a lot sooner than you’d expected.
God, you are so fucking stupid. Did you take an extra shot of dumb idiot juice this morning? Have you spent so much time talking to Gamzee that you’ve lost pan cells through association? Hell, maybe your mutation affected your thinkpan, and you have some kind of switch locked in an especially rank corner of your subconscious that flips exactly when you have to make a decision that could lead to you getting put on the cull list! At this point, you wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest. Everything about you is already stacked up to make you as killable as possible, why not this too?
You can’t believe you trusted them. Just because they shared your bullshit blood… You should know by now that you can’t trust anybody, not with this. Of course you showed someone other than your lusus your blood color, and you were imperially fucked within the hour. That’s just how it goes for you.
You pull your blanket tighter around yourself and keep to the treeline. You’re not sure where you’re going except just as far away from the drones as possible . If you can get further from civilization, you can… You don’t know. Regroup, you guess? Plan your next move? You have no idea what your next move would be other than “curl up like a wiggler and cry until the Empress puts you out of your perpetual misery herself.”
You’ve been walking a while now. Long enough that the clumps of hives have dwindled out to a sparse hive here and there, the next one appearing just as the last one dips out of sight. You’ve never gone this far in this direction. You… really should have planned ahead a little better. But hey, what’s getting lost on top of the steaming pile of shit the rest of your day has been? It’s not like it could get any worse.
A familiar whirring picks up. Oh god. You should’ve known it could get worse.
A drone enters your vision, and you freeze. Maybe- Maybe you can just make yourself look smaller- Nope, it’s definitely seen you. Oh fuck. You back up, weighing your chances if you just book it in the opposite direction. Drones are big, cumbersome fucks, they’d have trouble navigating close quarters, right? So you could just run further into the woods and hedge your bets against the plethora of feral monsters that could eat you -- and that’s if the drone doesn’t decide to just blast its way through the trees like any sensible, heavily armed hellbeast with half a thinkpan would.
You’re halfway into the motion to step back and sprint into the forest, and the drone is halfway into raising one of its weapons when it promptly explodes.
“You’re such a fucking moron, you realize that, right?”
You tense and look up. A familiar troll is floating towards you, fuming. “Sollux?” You ask, bewildered. How the fuck-
“First, you somehow manage to end up on the cull list! I really don’t know how you managed to survive six whole sweeps before landing yourself in the deepest shit imaginable. Like, wow, I knew you were the densest idiot ever shat out of the Mother Grub, but I thought you might have the tiniest scrap of self preservation instinct.” He’s not listening to you in the slightest, just griping as he lands in front of you. Tiny red and blue sparks are still bouncing around the rims of his glasses. “And second, instead of letting me help you figure out how to maybe, oh, I don’t know, not die , you break your fucking palmhusk! Leaving me hanging to wonder ‘oh shit, I wonder if KK has been blasted to smithereens yet! I guess I’ll never know! Time to go about my day completely normally and never think about my douchebag friend and his possible violent death ever again!’”
You bristle more out of instinct than anything else. “Fuck you! I wasn’t going to let you get culled because of me, dirtbag! How the fuck did you even find me?!”
Sollux lands in front of you and jerks his head towards the smouldering remains of the drone behind him. “They put out a hit on you, dude. A serious one. I didn’t even have to dig that deep to find any mention of you and put a notification on it.”
Your eye twitches. “You-” You let out a strangled noise. “You’re hacking drone communications?!”
“Not like you gave me much of a choice, KK!” He throws his arms in the air. “You could’ve just come upstairs, but no, you had to go be a fucking martyr about it!”
“Are you fucking cavebeastshit?” You shriek. “If they catch you-”
“If this is the thing they cull me for, then I’ll laugh in the Empress’s face herself.” He rolls his eyes and bares his teeth a little. “You know, that’s real fucking rich from someone who was asking me to hack into caste records for some random not-a-cerulean alien in his hive. Asking me to risk my life for some stranger you just met is totally fine, but me willingly trying to help you is taking it too far? What kind of logic is that?”
“Fuck you, it’s perfect logic for anyone who isn’t a panfried idiot! I have more common sense in my left frondnub than you have in your whole body, and you know it.” You bluster. Sollux raises an eyebrow, clearly not buying it.
“Right, so I’m the panfried one here.” He rolls his eyes again. Or at least, you think he does. It’s a little hard to tell when they’re a solid color like that. You’re suddenly struck with the realization that this is the first time you’ve ever talked to him in person. “Do you even have a plan?”
“A plan?”
“Yes, a plan, dimwit. You know, where you think things through?”
“I have a plan!”
“Really.”
“Yes!” You puff yourself up and put on an air of confidence. “So I don’t need you picking up after me like some hovervehicle lusus! You can just fuck off back to your hive stem because that plan doesn’t involve you!”
“KK, you clearly don’t have a plan.” He says and sighs like talking to you took an exhausting amount of effort. You and your blanket are bundled into the lightly buzzing cradle of his psionics before you can say anything back. “Seriously, I don’t know how the fuck you survived this long.”
“Let me go, idiot! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” You yell, trying to kick at him. He zaps your foot just hard enough to be annoying and lifts himself into the air.
“Flying us to safety, what the fuck else do you think I’d be doing? Unlike you, I actually have a goddamn gameplan.” He says, flying the two of you further into the woods.
“And what, praytell, does this oh so clever gameplan entail, mister powerful brain wizard?” You ask, resigning yourself to not being able to fight out of his psionics any time soon. Your snark earns you another light zap, and you squawk indignantly.
“We’re going to Nepeta’s hive.”
“Nepeta?!”
“Shut the fuck up, oh my god, why do you only have one volume setting? You’re going to attract every drone and feral lusus in two hundred miles, I swear to god.”
“Oh, like your idea is so much safer! Why Nepeta of all people?”
“Because her hive is in the direction you were already heading in, and it’s far away enough from society that there won’t be drones crawling all over it. And before you ask,” He adds, as if predicting your next question, “I already told her not to tell Equius. I said your life depended on her keeping this a secret, and she’s not stupid.”
You grumble but don’t argue that point. Nepeta is many things, but you don’t think she’d risk you getting killed if she could help it. Sollux is probably right, but dammit if that doesn’t just piss you off even more.
“This is such bullshit.” You mutter.
“A lot of this is bullshit. You’re gonna have to be more specific.”
“Eat shit. You know what’s bullshit? You! You are bullshit!”
“Me? What the fuck?”
“Yes, you!” You’re not even sure why you’re throwing this specific fit. Maybe it’s just easier to deal with a crisis when in the comfort of something familiar like a tantrum. Maybe it’s because Sollux just seems to inspire angry outbursts in you. Speaking of… “You’re out here, flying me through the wilderness and bossing me around like some shitty protagonist in a low budget action film who’s doomed to die just so the highbloods watching can get their globes off! And to top it off, you have the gall to pull this shit after you confessed your hate at the worst possible moment! I mean, seriously? Where’s your sense of timing? A real casa-fucking-nova out here, sweeping up kismeses left and right. They’re going to write epic poems about you, recounting your incredible romantic prowess with enough detail to make every person reading it vomit and sob into their own waste.”
“Oh my god. Are we doing this right now? Seriously, KK?” He shoots you an irritated look and you scowl back at him. “For fucks sake. What, did you want me to scatter rose petals and drizzle my body in grubsauce? Were we supposed to duel or something until I let you disarm me and put a blade to my neck and then we start making out? Seriously, enlighten me, since you seem to think you’re some kind of glorious romance expert. I’m all ears.”
“No, you know what? I know you’re just goading me into giving you an actual lecture on romance, and even though you clearly need it, I’m not going to give you the satisfaction.” You huff and cross your arms. He snorts.
“You’re such a wiggler sometimes.” He’s quiet for a moment, “...I said it because I thought I wouldn’t have another chance. Okay? I mean yeah, some of it was a ploy to get you to cooperate and come upstairs so I could try to clean up your mess. But, you know. I didn’t want you to get culled without me ever growing the fuck up and saying something. Heh, then I guess I’d have two dead quadmates. Fuck. That’s on brand in the worst possible way.”
Something in you softens. You look over at him and find he looks surprisingly vulnerable. The genuine emotion on his face is hard to hide without the barrier of a chat client between them. He glances over at you and you manage to force yourself to hold his gaze. You swallow and open your mouth to speak. “Sol-” You feel a sharp zap on your tongue and yelp sharply. The tender look on his face shatters as he dissolves into snickers.
“Oh my god, you should’ve seen the look on your face.”
“Fuck you! We get within sneezing distance of emotional vulnerability, and this is how you behave?” You lunge for him again, fighting against his psionics. He doesn’t stop laughing at you, still zapping you intermittently.
“Du-” Whatever he is about to say is cut off by an all too familiar whirring. You both fall dead silent. The trees around you are sparse in this section of forest, and any space between them is rapidly being filled with drones. Oh god, you don’t think you’ve ever seen so many drones.
Sollux has gone tense and quiet beside you. He drops the two of you on the forest floor and seems to get in a defensive stance. You grab his arm hard enough to make him growl.
“Get out of here!” You hiss.
“Fat fucking chance.” He bares his teeth and yanks his arm out of your hold.
“You dense piece of shit, they’ll cull us both!” You insist.
“I’m not leaving, KK.” He gives you a sharp look and turns his gaze on the oncoming drones. You let out a string of swears. They are way too close for him to have a chance of flying off without being recognized by now. You turn and press your back up against Sollux, facing down the drones coming from the other side. You doubt your piddly little sickle will do much against them, but fuck it if you’re not going to die with a weapon in hand. It’s hard to get much range with your blanket still wrapped around you, but you’re not letting go of the last piece of your home any time soon. You brace yourself as they get within range, weapons trained on you.
You feel the blast of energy more than anything else, except it’s not coming from the direction you expected it to.
You had known Sollux was a pretty powerful psionic. He’d never made any attempt to hide that fact from you, going so far as to brag about it when in the right mood. But you hadn’t known exactly what that entailed. As you watch him obliterate the closest several dozen drones, you begin to get a better picture.
You watch, mouth agape, as drone after drone is struck down by beams of red and blue. And you watch, unable to help, as Sollux goes from looking like he was in control of the situation to shaking with exertion. You think he might’ve popped a blood vessel because you see gold dripping from the corners of his eyes, much thicker than tears. But he doesn’t stop, floating a few feet above the ground for a better vantage point because god, there were still so many of them. You want to grab him and tell him to stop when you spot blood running from his nose too, but you can’t.
The silence that falls when the last drone is struck down is deafening. Sollux’s psionics go out like a light, and you feel bile rise in your throat when he drifts to the ground like a deflating balloon.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck-” You grab him just before he hits the hard forest floor, sickle thrown back in your sylladex and blanket loose around your shoulders. “Sollux?”
He’s limp in your arms, and god, he’s completely covered in blood. You shake his shoulder, blinking back tears.
“Sollux, come on! We- We have to go-” A sob threatens to burst out of your throat. He remains unresponsive, completely still except for the slow descent of the blood sliding out of the side of his mouth. “Sollux…”
You bury your face in his shirt, clutching at him. “No no no no-” You can’t believe you let this happen. You should’ve just ignored him when you were outside his hive stem, you should’ve turned him away when he killed that drone for you earlier, you should’ve convinced him to run or fly off when the drones swarmed, and now he’s dead because of you. You lost your best friend, and it’s all your fault.
“Nnngh…” The presumed corpse whose shirt you were staining pink with tears groans softly underneath you. You sit up immediately, wide-eyed. Sollux looks paler than death and the blood around his nose is beginning to cake in a particularly gross way, but he’s breathing, face contorting in a grimace. All your breath leaves you in shock, and then it comes rushing back like a punch to the acid tract as another sob escapes you.
“God, Sollux…” You mumble as you clutch him closer. He wheezes in complaint but doesn’t move. He must still be unconscious, you realize.
Okay. You can do this. It’s your turn to be the chivalrous doomed lowblood protagonist. You take a deep breath, steadying your heart rate down from its panicked state, and you slide your arms underneath him. It takes less effort than you expect to lift him and hold him to your chest. You make a note to yourself to make fun of him for being made of twigs when you’re no longer in immediate danger. It takes some adjustment to make sure your blanket doesn’t fall off of you, but once you’re situated, you begin walking in the direction he’d been flying you both in earlier.
It takes less time than you expected for the forest to morph into a rockier setting. You begin to worry you won’t be able to identify Nepeta’s cave - she does live in a cave, right? That’s not some inside joke about her being a recluse that you’re just now figuring out? - but the large cave entrance with a trail of semi-fresh blood seems like the safest bet. You swallow another wave of panic at the sight of blood - it’s not olive, it surely isn’t Nepeta’s, but who knows at this point - and call out nervously.
“Nepeta?” Your hoarse voice echoes ominously off the rock walls, and for a moment, there’s no response. The silence stretches on long enough to almost make you give up, but you hear the soft padding of footsteps as someone runs out of the depths of the cave. A young troll with a bright blue hood appears, face familiar from the scant few selfies she’d sent you.
“Karkat?” Nepeta’s expression lights up at the sight of you, then immediately falls when she sees who you’re carrying. “Oh no! Sollux!”
“We need to get him inside.” You say, trying not to wince at how pleading you sound. You don’t even have it in you to greet her properly or bemoan your situation; you’re running on autopilot, and that autopilot is driving you to safety. Lucky for you, Nepeta seems to understand your urgency. She nods and waves you further into the cave.
“Furlow me!” She’s much more nimble on her feet than you are, made evident in the way she scampers ahead of you while you stumble as Sollux’s weight starts actually getting burdensome. It’s a relief when the dark passageway in the cave opens up to a large, clearly lived-in cavern. Evidence of Nepeta is all over the place, most notably in the drawings that litter the walls. Part of you wants to investigate them, but Nepeta clears her throat before you can. “Set him down over here!” She says, tugging one of her rugs up against the wall so you could set him down on it. You grimace a little -- is that something’s pelt? That explains the trail of blood you found -- but you set him down anyway.
Sollux doesn’t react to being set on the ground, but he is still breathing, albeit with some difficulty. A lump forms in your throat all the same. You glance over at Nepeta to find her giving you an annoyingly knowing look, but she wipes it from her face as soon as you look at her.
“I’ll get something to clean him up.” She says, disappearing into one of the side caverns. Well. Guess you don’t have another option other than just waiting for her. You sit down next to Sollux and survey the cave. A little bit of light filters in through the windows carved out of the cave walls, but most of the room is lit by torches. A massive meowbeast lusus sits curled in the opposite corner of the cave, and you’re a little nervous about the way it’s watching you, but it just blinks slowly at you, seemingly deeming your presence acceptable. You wave awkwardly at it, then cringe at yourself and turn your attention back to Sollux. You brush back some of his hair that was sticking to his face and ignore the twinge in your blood-pusher. Wow, flipping pale mere hours after your shared pitch nonsense? You really are a fucking mess.
You definitely don’t jump with surprise when Nepeta reappears at her side -- fuck, she can be quiet when she wants -- and she hands you a damp washcloth. The two of you set to cleaning him up as best you can, wiping the blood from his face and hair. If you ignore the disgraceful state his t-shirt is in, he almost looks like he’s just sleeping after you’ve cleaned him up.
“Karkat…” Nepeta murmurs, taking the stained washcloth out of your hands. You hadn’t even realized you’ve been wringing it anxiously. “What happened?” She asks, voice soft and full of genuine concern.
You debate not telling her. You debate lying. You debate coming up with some elaborate story about deciding to go on a walk through the wild forest and getting lost and Sollux having to save both your asses. But, when you look at her big worried eyes, you can’t help but believe the miniscule part of your brain that belongs to an optimistic fool when it tells you that you can trust her.
You turn your hand over and rub your thumb over the cut you’d sliced into your palm earlier. You wince a little when you reopen it, and Nepeta gasps beside you.
“I’m a mutant.” You say, even though she absolutely gathered that much. “And this fucking asshole-” You snap, gesturing at Sollux’s unconscious form, “Decided it was smart to blow his fucking brains out defending me from the drone strike that got called on my ass instead of just letting them end my useless existence like a sensible troll would have.”
“Oh...” She makes a sympathetic noise in her throat and wraps her hands around your own. She only looks a little disappointed when you reflexively flinch away. “That sounds very brave of him!”
“Sure, if brave was synonymous with supremely stupid. And if that wasn’t idiotic enough, he dragged you into it too.” You grumble sourly. She’s still giving you a look like she’s reading you like a book.
“No, you came to the right place! I think you are safe fur now. I doubt the drones even know this place exists!” She smiles, clearly trying to lift your spirits. “And…” Her eyes drop not so subtly down to the blood on your palm. You close your hand into a fist to hide it, “I won’t tell anyone you’re here.” There was an unspoken promise there: I won’t tell my hemospectrum-obsessed moirail that I’m harboring a mutant.
“...Thanks.” You say, grateful despite yourself. “I don’t know what the fuck to do with him, though. I don’t even know if I should’ve moved him when he passed out. Is it like concussions? Fuck, what if I made his pan into scrambled cluckbeast embryos...”
“I’m not sure…” She chews her lip contemplatively. “I don’t know much about psionics.”
“I don’t either.” You admit. “At least not much more than what you see in movies, which I doubt is very accurate. They definitely don’t include a comprehensive how-to guide on what to do when a psionic overexerts himself like this.”
“I think the best we can do now is just let him rest.” She says, and you sigh. She’s right. You can’t do much just hovering over him like this. “Pounce de Leon and I had just gotten back from a hunt when you arrived! Do you want to help us skin the beasts we brought in?” She offers like it’s the perfect distraction. You make a face.
“Absolutely the fuck not. Why the fuck would I want to get covered in even more blood?”
“It’s not that bad! Pounce and I are very neat.”
“Hard pass.”
She pouts a little, then brightens. “Oh! Do you want to see my shipping wall?”
“Your what?”
She promptly drags you up and over to the wall covered in drawings you’d spotted earlier. It quickly becomes obvious they’re not just any drawings; they’re drawings of your mutual friends in various quadrants. You gape. It’s clear she’s put a lot of thought into this. You’re almost impressed. You begin investigating the ships, and you think you spy a drawing of yourself somewhere over there, but Nepeta “accidentally” smudges it beyond recognition before you can ask her about it. Which is just as well because you just laid eyes on the most bizarre pairing you could’ve imagined.
“Kanaya and Tavros?” You yell, bewildered.
“Yeah!” She looks a little defensive when she notices the look on your face. “I think they could have an interesting dynyamic!”
“In what universe? Is it just because she’s nice to him? I mean, I guess he probably has a pretty low bar for what a positive interaction with another troll looks like, but come on, that’s clearly not the FLARPer in that debacle that Kanaya has her sights set on.”
“It’s just a theory!” Nepeta huffs. You open your mouth to keep shouting, but a groan from behind you distracts you both.
You whirl around to find Sollux stirring, eyes cracking open then squeezing shut with a grimace. All the frustration and fury that you’d been squashing in favor of making sure the two of you didn’t die comes rushing back.
“You fucking asshole!” You roar, stomping over to him. “You complete, entire motherfucker! Do you enjoy terrifying the adrenaline-curdled shit from my body? Is that it? Was that your goal?! Because if so-”
“Sorry, KK.” He croaks. You snap your mouth shut and something in your traitorous blood-pusher crumbles. You sit down heavily beside him and take his hand.
“No, don’t-” You let out a frustrated huff. “You don’t need to apologize, man. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
A tiny smile pulls at the side of his mouth, and you can’t help but return it. And then, because he’s him, he opens his mouth and ruins the moment. “I mean, I feel like a hot flaming trash pile, so define okay.”
“You’re always a trash pile.” You quip back immediately.
“Wow, I’m so glad I saved your life.” He monotones, rolling his eyes. The movement makes him wince, and pity momentarily seizes you again. He’s awake and alive and talking, which is all well and good, but he definitely does look like he feels like a trash pile. The normally bright glow of his eyes is dulled, and he looks exhausted.
“Do you… need anything?” You ask and have to force yourself not to visibly wince at your awkwardness. “I don’t know if you’re capable of not being a trash pile, but now’s as good a time as any to start.”
“Well, my mouth is drier than the Empress’s nook, so some water might be nice.”
“I’ll get some!” Nepeta speaks up, reminding you of her presence. Ah shit, she saw you get all quadrant-y with him, didn’t she. The repercussions of that will have to be a problem for future you to deal with. Sollux seems to just now notice her, sitting up a little.
“Oh, shit. Hey, NP.” He says, surprised. She waves at him, then scampers off into one of the side caverns again, returning with water for the three of you. You help Sollux sit fully upright so he doesn’t drown himself like a clumsy wiggler trying to drink laying down. Some energy seems to return to Sollux’s eyes and he focuses on Nepeta more fully. “Sorry to have left you alone with this asshole. Hopefully your eardrums have a chance of recovering from his constant bullshit deluge.” He says, jerking his head at you. You scowl and he snickers.
“It’s okay!” She giggles. “Karkat has been the purrfect guest!”
“Yes, thank you!” You cross your arms and sit up straighter. “Despite what some people may think, I can be polite when I want to be!”
“God, you’re so sensitive.” Sollux mutters, though you think his irritation is more for show than anything else.
It’s strange, how relaxed you feel in this moment. All things considered, you should be a ball of anxiety -- or at least more than you are typically -- but for just a moment, you feel at ease with the two of them, comfortable in your banter with Sollux in Nepeta’s homey cave. If you knew more history, beyond what you had been schoolfed, you might’ve picked up on something special about your group, some kind of importance assigned to a trio made up of a burnt-out psionic, a semi-feral oliveblood, and a loudmouth mutant.
You don’t know your history, but you can’t shake the feeling that you’re right where you need to be. The feeling that you’re on the precipice of something incredible. You ignore that feeling in favor of pouring a droplet of water on Sollux’s sock, making him kick at you.
“So,” Nepeta says, exuding faux-innocence, “How long have you been pitch?”
The two of you promptly choke on your waters.