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You hate this part of your job – at least you get to work in the shadow of the palace – but guarding the prisons and checking up on all the prisoners is hardly your idea of a good use of your time.
Either way, you do your duty unfailingly and without complaint because you know what will happen to you if you don’t. You’re not the top of the hemospectrum - the Condesce is - and she rules the empire with a tight and often cruel fist. That’s a fact you learn the moment you are old enough to leave Alternia. Being a sea dweller means you get the chance to settle down in the capital city of the moon, a war port to the rest of the empire and new home of the Imperial Palace. The palace is where you are invited, during your first sweep aboard, to be given new duties. It’s also where you go to work in the Imperial Prison, when you are not needed as a guard in the palace.
You’ve seen terrible things take place the palace when the Empress’ ship is docked… she struck down an indigo in front of you, you’re not even quite sure what he did, and then culled his matesprit as well. You try your best not to breathe wrong when you’re in the palace because you want to live to see another day. Yes, you’re a sea dweller, but you also know your place. You intend to live a very long time, and that is achieved by keeping your head down and doing nothing to call attention to yourself until you’ve gained some sort of fucking credit.
It is why your choice of kismesis is not particularly in your favor. You were hurting, were hurt, Feferi had been killed in a duel with the Condesce, her body left to rot somewhere on the ocean floor.
Your tryst with Sollux is strange in retrospect, you hadn’t really talked to each other in sweeps before that, but stranger things have happened to you. He’s working in the city as well so you both just… stay together. You keep him a secret as well. It’s easy. Head down. Execute prisoners when you need to. Don’t tell your kismesis because he gets pissy about stuff like that.
Clean up the mess, and wash the purple blood off the floor. Blue. Green. Brown. Rust. Later, red.
Bright, condemningly red.
.
You have dreams of one day piloting a ship and being a commander but you’re young, very young for a sea dweller, and you have to glean satisfaction from the fact that you are a high ranking guard. Likewise the prisoners you watch are not just ordinary trolls… these trolls are here because of heinous crimes, like treason. It’s why it doesn’t bother you as much when you see multiple injuries on the half starved trolls you keep watch over… they’ve rebelled against the empire. Any troll stupid enough to try to rebel against the empire or speak out against the Condecse deserves the fate given to them. You ignore the screams of pain, they’re more irritating than anything. They’ll be dead soon enough, and you know that a trial will never be available for most of them.
It’s your work that affords you a comfortable place to live and many other luxuries trolls lower on the hemocast are never given. You move in together with Sol and your joint place is better than he could ever get on his own. You think, at least. He’s got some sort computer programming, hacking gig that keeps him busy and cranky most of the time. The sex is amazing, often painful, and black as pitch. You’re needlessly happy for a short while, despite losing Fef.
And then it all comes crashing down on you.
.
Your first thought, after stopping cold and staring with incredulous disbelief, is that your kismesis is going to kill you.
You haven’t seen this particular troll since you were six sweeps old, a little after the game ended and you all found yourselves back on Alternia. You parted ways with everyone then, (except for Feferi, who you’re pretty sure kept in contact with you because she felt sorry for you,) so this comes as a complete shock. Sol has mentioned him from time to time, you know they’re still close...
And now he’s HERE.
The bright red pupils of his adult eyes give him away. He’s a freak of nature, a mutant, that color isn’t ANYWHERE on the spectrum. You hiss… that’s a culling sentence right there. What is he doing here? Whoever put him here, they must have been really angry at him, to make him suffer through his final days in this place. A fork through the chest for mutant blood, that’s the usual procedure. How did he even survive this long, with eyes like that?
“Karkat Vantas,” the guard in front of you announces and you compose yourself and nod dumbly, trying your best to look bored suddenly. You don’t know this troll, you absolutely don’t know him, you were just reacting to how horribly cullable he is. You hope against hope he’s not going to do anything to point out the fact that you know each other or you’re going to lose your job or get transferred or…
“Yeah, well, you might wanna wait a while before you try him out, they tore him up pretty badly,” the blue blooded guard shrugs and shuffles from the room.
Your blood pusher simultaneously sinks and takes off rapidly at what you see, as you reluctantly step forward. He’s in bad shape already, covered in bites and scratches, all of them welling up with bright red. Your thinkpan momentarily stumbles to a stop as your stare between his legs. They already… they…
Horror makes you unable to move for several long seconds. You’ve seen this, you remind yourself desperately. This is nothing new. You’ve cleaned up this before, you can handle this bastardization of everything you know is right. He doesn’t deserve this, of that you are sure, but life isn’t fair and sometimes these things happen. It’s his fault for getting caught anyway.
You’ve seen horrors that outstrip even this, you’re just having trouble thinking of what they might be right now.
You blink. It filters through that you’re staring at him dumbly and he’s staring back. You should really put him out of his misery. You could probably get away with it. Explain that you were so appalled at his freakishness that you…
He notices how your hand twitches to the weapon at your side and his lip curls up. “Do it,” he hisses and it’s him, it’s definitely him. That’s his voice. You have stand perfectly still to calm yourself down so you don’t completely freak out.
“I can’t,” you rasp back at him, your throat painfully dry. You don’t know how important he is, and you’re all about the self-preservation. You swallow and it’s painful. “They’ll… I’ll… I can’t kill you.”
His eyes narrow. “Then let me go,” he says.
“No!” It comes out too fast, you surprise even yourself.
You catch the quick look of hurt on his face, before the anger returns. “Complacent asshole,” he spits, actually spits, eyes narrowed to slits. “Tell me why,” he demands to know.
“Because...” you trail off. You feel a flash of anger that he’s even asking you this, which is quickly replaced with pity for him, and fear for yourself. You shouldn’t even be talking to him. Every word you speak potentially condemns you. “I just can’t,” you say quietly. “I can’t risk it,” it’s true. A dead prisoner would be better than a missing one. You wouldn’t even be risking demotion if he went missing, you’d probably be killed. “I’m sorry, Kar,” just saying his name feels like a betrayal.
He closes his eyes and turns his head to glare angrily at the far wall and all you feel is relief that he’s no longer looking at you.
.
You tell your kismesis who they have down in the prisons that night. There is relief on his face, terrible and brilliant relief and you realize he knows Kar disappeared. He must have logged offline suddenly and probably hasn’t been around for days or even weeks. He’d be worried about his friend, of course he would be.
There is strained silence between you. Your fins flatten and you go to find something to eat.
“So,” he says as he follows you.
“So,” you reply. “Nothin’ much else to say, is there.”
You can feel the crackle of energy around him, you don’t even need to turn around to know he’s angry.
Sure enough… “Can’t you do anything, you worthless shit,” he lisps, and yeah, he’s furious.
You shake your head. “If I let him go I’ll lose my position at the palace, Sol! Or worse!” you exclaim. “And then where would I be?”
He slams you up against the wall with his power, and that just makes you angry. “I can’t do ANYTHIN’!” you shout. “He shouldn’t even be alive, did you know he was a fuckin’ mutant?”
“Of course I knew!” he returns, and the air is crackling with electricity now. “Everyone knew!”
“Except me,” you reply bitterly.
He slams a fist into your stomach. You snarl and fight back and it rapidly turns into an all-out brawl. He’s powerful, but you’re stronger, physically. He fights dirty this time, pinning you down and tearing your clothes from you. By the time he’s done you’re hurting in places you really shouldn’t hurt in.
After that he doesn’t speak to you for three nights.
.
The next day your prisoner is in worse shape than the first, and new bruises and scrapes decorate his skin. They’re torturing him, that much is obvious. You settle down next to him, bucket in your hand and start wiping down his wounds so they don’t get infected.
His bright red eyes study you all over, and when you get close enough he reaches for your face. You pull back rapidly, he could still strangle you single handedly, even with the other hand chained to the floor. You wonder briefly, and morbidly, if he’s considered trying to chew his hand off in an attempt to gain freedom. Some of them do that.
He pauses, then points to the side of your face instead of reaching for it. “Sollux?” he asks.
Ah, he’s pointing to a bruise from where Sol hit you. You don’t reply. There isn’t anything to say. Your kismesis is his friend, talking about it isn’t going to solve anything. You concentrate on cleaning him silently. The blue genetic material from the day before is difficult to clean. You scrub at it as best you can, trying to ignore the way it makes your bilesack churn. To use another troll like this… you used to be able to rationalize it away but you can’t really any longer.
You can only endure.
He stops trying to talk to you after the first couple nights. Instead he just watches you. You sit with him after your rounds, nothing much else to do, you’re working the morning shift, everyone else is asleep. The expression on his face isn’t judgmental, but rather just boned tired. Sometimes he sleeps, dozing on the floor, occasionally twitching with dayterrors.
You don’t tell him anything, because there is no point, and he’d probably take Sol’s side anyway. The worse the tension gets with your kismesis, though, the more you want to ask for his advice. He used to be so good at this. Used to be, before he came here.
You need to start thinking of him as something other than alive and here and now, because now he’s just a shivering wreck, a shell of what he was even when he first arrived. Some nights you don’t even know if he recognizes you, his eyes are feverish and full of pain.
They’re starving him too, and something in you just breaks at that.
You start sneaking food in your pockets. That, at least you can do, and you can pretend the food is your own for snacking later. You try to ignore the flash of gratefulness on his face as you feed him a bit of grubloaf. You go find water when he coughs part of it back up… he’s dehydrated as well. You don’t know if they’re feeding him anything but genetic fluid and that makes you feel sick all over again. You support his head carefully as he drinks and he downs it like he hasn’t seen water in a week. He probably hasn’t.
After he’s done you keep his head in your lap, just for a little while longer, and fail to resist the urge to card your fingers through his gross unwashed hair. He shuts his eyes, a soft thrum welling up in the back of his throat. It’s a sound one would expect from a flushed or pale partner and it makes your insides feel like they’re knotting up. He’s probably not even aware that he’s doing it, he’s so far gone already.
You pity him, of course you do, flushed to the gills. No matter how hard it is, you shove those feelings violently away. It’s wrong to harbor feelings like that for someone who is dying slowly. You might have to kill him yourself, you know that, the orders could come down any day.
Every day you wish they would, so you can feel relief you so desperately crave. Instead you continue to see his slow degeneration. He’s dying and it’s taking far too long for him to go. It makes you second guess yourself. You killed friends before. Not until you’d been driven to that point out of fear and anger, but you’ve done it. This isn’t even like that, he’s too weak to move, they’ve even removed the hand cuff chain. His arm isn’t working very well. He looks like he’s one step away from starving to death. It would be merciful.
Sollux demands to know the same of you. Why keep him alive? He lashes out, as he nearly kills you, the day after you sneak him into the prison to see your dying charge.
The next day Kar shows you pity, gut wrenching in the fact that he can’t move, he can barely breathe and you’re done. You can’t do it any longer. You can’t, you can’t, you…
You’re dead. So is your kismesis, who doesn’t deserve death no matter how much of an asshole he is. Kar, who shouldn’t even be here, who you pity so hard it hurts, is dead as well.
You’ve condemned them both, and yourself, in one quick move.
.
You don’t regret it, in the end, as you hold him to yourself, swimming together under the twilight sky of Alternia. His breathing is slow and measured, his repairing body warm against your much cooler one. Occasionally he shifts in the water and nuzzles closer. His teeth graze your neck before he places his head against your shoulder. You run a hand over his back, the sound of water dripping off of your finger tips is infinitely calming.
You made the right choice in the end. You lost your kismesis (you don’t think Sol will forgive you any time soon) but gained a matesprit. Somehow…
You have so many regrets. You nose his hair and study the moon, far above. It scares you to know she’s up there somewhere, the Condesce. Your life belongs to her, and if she discovers what your matesprit is planning she’d wipe you all out in seconds flat. Or torture you slowly, though you don’t think anything could be worse than watching a friend slowly die a terrible death.
You shake your head to clear it. She’s not here right now, she’s not even close. For now, you’re free, and you’ll take what little freedom you have, selfish as it might be.
.