Chapter Text
And I never learned a lesson looking at my own reflection
But sometimes it seems useful
So I loosen my heart strings in high hopes of starting to find something truthful ×
× × ×
There are no stars in the Furthest Ring. The sky is mostly black, an endless expanse only broken up by distant clusters of dream bubbles. Dave hardly ever saw stars back on Earth, either. Maybe five or six on a particularly clear night, but for the most part they were continuously blotted out by the brownish reddish smear of escaped city light.
"This sucks, I...huh. It's not like I had a lot of plans back on Earth, but I sort of did? It was more like, I had completely unlimited future plans. I at least thought I was going to see the damn stars. Someday. Well. I dunno. I didn't actually think that much about stars."
"Mmhm." Karkat is half asleep against his shoulder despite the mug of coffee between his hands. Dave can't blame him. It's technically Dave's turn to be on watch. Karkat is just keeping him company.
"It's not like. A huge deal. It just seems kind of...cosmically sad. There was a lot of shit on my planet I never got to see. And maybe I wouldn't have ever...I mean, I still don't know if I even like, y'know. Traveling."
"My planet was a shithole and I'm glad I never left my house."
Dave laughs, and lets his head drop back against the wall they're sitting against. "Sorry, I didn't mean to like, wake you up." Karkat straightens up a little, wiping at the corner of his mouth.
"I wasn't asleep."
"Yeah, OK."
The meteor is hurtling full speed towards a gigantic cluster of dream bubbles. Dave can see it on the horizon, glowing blue and pearlescent. It's been months since they physically passed through any bubbles, more by chance than anything else. Rose says it's going to take them over half a year to just get through that one cluster up ahead. The middle of it is almost solid bubbles, all connected, which means months and months of constantly changing terrain and god knows how many of their dead friends.
"Hey." Karkat is looking up at him, a crease between his brows.
"Sorry, just. That." Dave points at the cluster on the horizon, and Karkat nods.
"I'm trying really fucking hard to not worry about that."
"Yeah, and it's not working."
Karkat lets out a frustrated breath and leans back against Dave's shoulder. "Vriska says she got some sort of 'top secret information' that the ghosts of our ancestors are in there."
It's the first Dave has heard about this. "What do you mean, like..."
"The ones that played the game first. The ones that scratched their session."
"Aren't you all just like, clones of each other? Is there going to be a Karkat-clone ghost in there?"
Karkat groans and drags a hand over his face. "I hate this. I hate that all that bullshit Terezi and Vriska and Eridan used to go on and on about is true and not some dumbfuck highblood fantasy." He takes an angry swig of coffee and sets his mug off to the side with a sharp tap. "And maybe my ancestor isn't even in there. But. Maybe he is."
Dave stares into the dream bubbles for a moment, Karkat tense against his shoulder. "Would that be like. Bad?"
"Obviously."
"What? No. What's obvious about it?" Dave doesn't like where this is going, not at all, and Karkat's silence is only contributing to his general sense of dread. "Dude."
"This fucking sucks." Karkat sounds so small, suddenly, and Dave sets down his coffee so he can pull Karkat's head to his chest.
"Yeah."
"It's just. There's no fucking chance that this is going to end in any way that doesn't make me want to explode into a million putrid chunks of concentrated humiliation." Karkat's voice is muffled, and Dave squeezes his shoulders. "I just can't stop comparing myself to some 'Karkat-clone ghost' that I don't even know for sure actually exists. I mean he's basically me so he has to be at least a little bit awful..."
"Hey," Dave tries to interject, but Karkat talks right over him.
"But what if he's not. What if he's actually competent and not a complete waste of space..."
"Karkat...jesus..."
"Just let me say this," Karkat says, burying his face completely in Dave's chest. "If he's redeemable it means it's possible for me to not suck. I'm just failing at it. If he's not, there's probably something fundamentally flawed in our basic genetic structure. Which I'm also responsible for, by the way, so it's my fault no matter what direction you're coming from..."
"Dude. You don't suck. I'm fucking serious."
Karkat falls into an awful silence.
"What, do you think I'm just trying to make you feel better?"
"No," Karkat shoots back.
"But?"
Karkat hesitates. "You just don't know. Yet."
The complete certainty in his voice is like a kick to the chest. Dave doesn't know what to do, or what to say, to make Karkat stop saying bad things about himself. And now he's starting to realize that even if he makes him stop saying them, what use is that really, when he's clearly still thinking them? Hoarding them inside like a horrible, infectious mass? The image makes Dave feel sick. "What if I'm not wrong, though? Or what if I actually like things about you that you don't like about yourself? Shit like this ain't so black and white."
"I guess."
Dave sighs. "I seriously doubt that. Jesus. I wouldn't even be capable of not liking you. That's seriously impossible."
Karkat lets out a tiny little snort of a laugh. "I guess."
"And that guess is correct as fuck."
"Mmn." Karkat buries his face in the crook of Dave's neck, snaking an arm around his waist under the blanket. Dave rubs a palm over his back in soothing circles, and the tension leaves Karkat's shoulders, little by little. I don't deserve this, Dave can practically hear him thinking.
"I like you a whole fucking lot." Dave drops a kiss on his hair, near the base of one horn. "And I'm just gonna keep saying that, dude. Don't worry."
But worry is all Dave can think about as Karkat nods off again against his chest. He knows he shouldn't be worrying, because what happens up ahead is going to be so far beyond anyone's control that the idea is almost ludicrous. What use is fucking worry against laws of nature and motherfucking Paradox Space?
And what's going to happen when they all meet back up with the others, assuming everything in this absurdly complex clusterfuck has gone to plan? Is he even going to know them anymore? And more importantly, perhaps, are they even going to know him? Insecurity begins to creep, hand over foot, up through Dave's mind. He used to be such a different person. The Dave they used to be friends with barely even exists anymore. What did they actually like about him? What if they only liked him for the front he's tried so hard to find himself behind?
And what about Karkat? That familiar paranoid feeling swims back up inside him. It seems impossible that John will understand, and that thought is lonely, unbearably lonely. Will Jade? She would understand, he thinks. But what if she's waiting for him?
What is he going to do?
Karkat twitches a little in his sleep, and Dave almost involuntarily squeezes his shoulders. It's going to be OK. He can talk to Karkat about it, when he wakes up. Maybe they can come up with something. He doesn't need to do anything alone. Not anymore.
Maybe...that's? What love is?
Dave's familiar with all the axioms. Hearts being connected. A union of souls. Becoming one instead of two. It all seems so cliche and cringeworthy but the more time he spends with Karkat the more he thinks he might understand the feeling. He's not even embarrassed about it, not exactly. Dave realizes with an almost helpless sort of joy that, yeah. This is exactly what he wants. He wants to do everything with Karkat. Face everything with Karkat. To spend so much time together that they finish each other's sentences, know each other's thoughts so intimately that Dave won't even be able to remember what it was like to be alone. Is that weird?
Well. If it is, they'll be able to deal with it together, Dave thinks, his nose in Karkat's hair.
"No way, man, that is so not fair, you got like, so much sleep! On me, by the way." Dave pretends to collapse against the wall of the landing, beating it dramatically with his fist. His shift as a lookout is over and they're heading downstairs. "How...is everything...so unfair..."
Karkat laughs and grabs a handful of his cape, tugging him forward. "I'm starving, which obviously overrides sleeping as a basic need. When was the last time anyone died from not sleeping? You die if you don't eat, Dave."
"You're not going to die, oh my god," Dave laughs. "And people die all the time from not sleeping! You know, from shit like, uh. Operating heavy machinery?"
"Uh huh. Heavy machinery? What heavy machinery?"
Dave pauses in his tracks to give Karkat a look over the top of his shades, then flicks his eyes down his own body and back up, waggling his eyebrows.
"Oh, no." Karkat's mouth twists, tries to repress a smile. "God fucking dammit. Do you want to survive the night or not?"
"Hey, emergency services, uh, yeah, can you, uh, send out an ambulance like, stat? I told Karkat one too many dick jokes and now my head's no longer attached to my body."
Karkat laughs loudly, slapping a hand over his eyes. "Dave..."
"I know, I know. You would never unattach my head from my body. Right?" He hooks an arm around Karkat's shoulders, squeezing him tight, dropping a kiss to his cheek, his jaw, behind his ear.
Karkat hums and leans into him. "That remains to be seen."
"Oh my god, Karkat, I can't believe you would...just..." Dave forgets where he's going with that sentence entirely as Karkat turns, looping his arms around Dave's neck, pulling him down into an openmouthed kiss.
"Sorry. Lately I've just been, hmm. Worrying about shit," Karkat says into his ear while they catch their breath.
"Me too." Dave's palms smooth over the curves of Karkat's back, his waist, his hips. "We could talk about it and make out at the same time."
Karkat's laugh is half nervous, half delighted. Dave sometimes wonders if he crosses the line sometimes with this quadrant-mixing shit, but it's so hilariously easy to fluster Karkat with it that it's pretty much impossible to stop. And fuck is it hot when Karkat gets caught off guard like this. Dave can practically see the IQ points evaporating out of his head in real time. "Talk about 'unfair'," Karkat finally manages, face red. "But yes. We...could. Do that." He clears his throat.
"Fuck yes." Dave scoops him up into an enormous hug. Karkat quivers with barely-repressed laughter, the toes of his shoes barely touching the floor.
Later they lie together in bed, limbs arranged in a practiced sprawl, hands exploring, lips locked. Karkat is lying half on top of him, chest vibrating with that low, satisfied clicking which Dave is pretty sure Karkat only does when he's feeling hella pale but what does he know? Either way there's nothing urgent about any of this, sleepy as both of them are. They break the kiss, breathing heavy, eyes locked.
"I just haven't decided what I wanna tell John and Jade about us, you know?" Dave says, voice a little hoarse. "I mean like. I don't want you to think that I wanna hide this shit? That's not, it, mm..."
Karkat kisses his lips, his chin, the underside of his jaw.
"There's just so much shit I'm scared they're gonna...start...assuming, you know? About me? Especially John, he's not really...I dunno. A lot can change in three years though I guess."
"Dave." Karkat is giving him that condescending look that would be annoying under different circumstances but right now is adorable as fuck. "You still have almost half a fucking sweep before you even have to deal with it. I think you'll figure something out."
"I could say the same thing about you and," Dave gestures broadly over Karkat's back. "Your shit. Just chill and you'll figure it out?"
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." They smile at each other. Karkat looks so happy, eyes half-lidded, hair mussed. Sleepiness begins to sink over Dave like a blanket, and he hugs Karkat to him, letting his head fall to the side on the pillow.
Karkat holds him as he drifts deeper into sleep, still making that contented sound, perfect and peaceful and relaxed. Dave can feel the shape of his smile against his chest.
It's so warm.