bloodyvirgo | (no subject)

(no subject)

Milliways is in shambles.

There's furniture broken, the bodies scattered around belong to both staff and patron, and what surfaces do remain intact, look like something out of The Grand Highblood's chambers. In fact, it looks like a host of them have wandered through for a lark. Varying colours are splattered and smeared over everything, though a good amount of it is a distinctive candy red.

The bar is empty of all living people, but the back door is open, creaking ominously in the breeze as bloody footprints lead outside.

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Karkat comes downstairs, wide-eyed, like someone poking their head out of a root cellar following a tornado. Only upside down.

Oh god oh man oh god. There is so much blood. There are so many dead people.

None of this is grub sauce.

Maybe some of them aren't dead. Maybe most of them aren't dead. Hell, maybe none of them dead.

No, some of them are definitely dead. Eridan is dead for sure. And Vriska, fairy wings curled up sadly. Shephard is still alive, pale and barely breathing, but not dead. Tyler Marlocke is dead. Alyx Vance and her family--

are not here his mind insists, and when he looks again, it's true. Of course it's true. Nepeta isn't, either.

He follows the footprints outside, gnashing his teeth and muttering under his breath.

Edited 2013-08-30 00:11 (UTC)

The carnage continues outside, large swathes of the grass dyed from the blood. Tavros and Terezi lay in a broken and very dead heap at the bottom of the stairs, the tealblood's swordcane sticking out of her back like a grotesque warning beacon.

Beyond them, are others, their faces both familiar and not, most notably a bundle of black and purple and white blonde. It all leads to the greenhouse, bloody handprints smearing the glass and doorknob.

LJDKDJSFKDS;L

This is

Maybe this is more than he can handle.

He's caught between throwing up and sobbing as his hand slips on the doorknob; finally he has to open it with the corner of his shirt.

"JESUS CHRIST KANAYA WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU CAN'T HIDE IN HERE," he yells into the flora.

"EVEN IF YOU WEREN'T PAINTING A HUGE SIGN WITH AN ARROW SAYING INSERT STAKE HERE, YOU ARE IN A GLASS BUILDING. YOU GLOW IN THE DARK YOU MORON."

"JUST... COME OUT AND WE'LL..." He trails off, because he has no idea where he was going with that. They'll what? There's no fixing this. "JUST COME OUT. PLEASE."

Deep within the flora, in the direction that the remnants of carnage goes, something shifts, and a choked noise echoes through the building, quickly followed by another.

"k-...karkat?"

Something is rustling in the bushes.

Only a complete lunatic would walk towards it.

Karkat walks towards it. "KANAYA. IT'S ME." Maybe she will murder him. It seems pretty likely. Maybe he would deserve it.

"COME ON."

There's another rustle, then a faint glow as the troll in question steps around the corner. Her shoulders are bowed, and the usually immaculate looking troll looks anything but.

It's fairly easy to see she's the cause of all of this, the blood smeared on her hands, mouth, and torn clothing giving much away.

Kanaya doesn't attack, though, looking at Karkat like she expects him to recoil or put her down.

"i...i didn't mean to..."

"OH, WELL, IF YOU DIDN'T MEAN TO," he says, helplessly.

"OHH, YOU GODDAMN DISASTER."

"WE ARE IN A LOT OF TROUBLE HERE, GLOWWORM," he says. "I DON'T... THIS ISN'T.... OH FUCK." He moves to put his arms around her; the future is an absolute void of all possibilities.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE GOING TO DO NOW.

Edited 2013-08-30 01:50 (UTC)

Kanaya clings back the moment Karkat's arms are around her, stooping as she presses her face to his shoulder. She's crying in earnest now, shaking and holding onto Karkat in a way that is so very, blatantly Pale.

"SHHHH. SHHH. IT'S OK. IT'S OK. IT'S OK."

It's really, really not. Everything is fucked. He has to take care of her, and he can't, there's nothing left, there's...

"IT'S OK, THIS ISN'T YOU. I KNOW THIS ISN'T WHO YOU REALLY ARE, IT JUST HAPPENED, THIS ISN'T YOU," he saying it soothingly, repeating it rote. "IT ISN'T--"

For a long while, Kanaya is silent in his arms, shoulders shaking while she falls apart and pulls herself together. Eventually, though, Karkat's words permeate her fear and grief, and Kanaya clings all the harder, shaking her head in frantic denial.

"but it is," she insists in a harsh whisper. "ive attacked people i've cared about before, what wasn't to say i wouldn't do it again."

Like now.

"i shouldn't be allowed around anyone."

"YOU WOULD NOT EVER, NOT LIKE THIS. YOU MIGHT HAVE... URGES, BUT YOU ARE NOT A MONSTER. YOU WOULD NEVER ALLOW IT TO GO THIS FAR."It's only intended as comforting, at first, but gradually it's dawning...

"THIS IS JUST A NIGHTMARE. JUST A HORRIBLE FANTASY."

"OH THANK FUCK." He exhales, shuddering, clinging to his dream of Kanaya.

A choked, watery noise bubbles up from where Kanaya's resting her head against him, and its not clear if it's laughter, or more tears.

"fuck"

Her face burrows into his shoulder for another long moment, smearing yet more mess onto him, and when she raises her head, she kisses his cheek softly.

"I'm Sorry You Had To See This Stupid Dream, Even If You Aren't Actually Here..."

Edited 2013-08-30 03:24 (UTC)

Karkat sags against her, in turn; they are each holding each other up now. His relief at the realization that no one is dead rapidly bottoms out, and he shakes his head.

"GOD. THIS IS JUST... PATHETIC. LIKE SOME FIVE SWEEP OLDS' GORY PALE DREAM. I MEAN. FUCK."

"YOU WOULD NEVER. THIS ISN'T WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE. IT ISN'T WHAT I WANT. THIS ISN'T WHAT I WOULD EVER WANT, ANOTHER NIGHTMARE LIKE... HIM." Even in a dream, it feels tactless to invoke Gamzee.

Haltingly: "I JUST WISH I COULD... I WISH I COULD TAKE CARE OF YOU, I WISH I COULD LET YOU, TAKE CARE OF ME. I'M A MESS, KANAYA. WE BOTH ARE. AND I THINK WE COULD BE GOOD FOR EACH OTHER."

Edited 2013-08-30 03:42 (UTC)

She rubs his back, then cards her fingers through his hair, just like always, and it's her turn now, to make soft, shooshy noises.

"I Know," she assures him. "I Know And I'm So Sorry I'm So Fucked Up When It Comes To Diamonds. There Are Times When I Just...I Just Want To Gather You Up And Protect You From Everything, Then I Can't Help But Remember..Last Time..."

Karkat winces, and hangs his head.

Steels himself. "IT DOESN'T MATTER." His throat clenches when he says that, but he clears it and goes on.

"IT DOESN'T MATTER, BECAUSE THIS IS ALL A DREAM. IT'S NOT THE WAY IT IS."

"THE WAY IT IS, IS, YOU HAVE TO GO BACK TO THE OTHER ME, AND PROBABLY GET KILLED BY JACK NOIR. OR MAYBE SOMEHOW SAVE OUR SPECIES. SOMEHOW."

"AND I HAVE TO STAY IN THE BAR AND... NOT MATTER. BE A GHOST, OR A SPLINTER, OR WHATEVER. PART OF THE DREAMING DEAD. THAT'S WHAT'S REAL." He's talking and talking about how this can't happen, but he's not letting go of her; he's curling tighter against her.

"Fuck It," she croaks, all but gathering Karkat into her lap and bumping her forehead against his. "Fuck Everyone But Us, And Ours. I'm Terrified Karkat, I Don't Know What I'll Find When I'm Able To Go Through My Door Again."

She's kneading at the balls of stressed muscles on his back now, alternating between that and squeezing him tight. "And I Certainly Have No Idea What To Do About Saving Our Species."

Edited 2013-08-30 04:47 (UTC)

Karkat shakes his head. "I KNOW. BUT I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT. I BELIEVE IN YOU. AND NO MATTER HOW WE FEEL, WE HAVE TO DO THE RIGHT THING FOR OUR SPECIES. FOR US, AND OURS, AND THE FUTURE. EVERY DAY THAT GOES BY HERE WE TREAD WATER AND PRETEND THE FUTURE ISN'T COMING, BECAUSE FOR ME AND NEPETA THERE AREN'T ANY MORE FUTURES. BUT YOU HAVE ONE, AND I CAN'T TAKE IT AWAY, NO MATTER HOW SHORT IT IS. NO MATTER HOW MUCH I WANT--"

Bitterly: "AND IF I HAD ANY FUCKING GLOBES AT ALL I'D TELL HER ALL THIS FOR REAL INSTEAD PUKING MY GUTS OUT FOR IMAGINARY DREAM KANAYA."

There are more soothing words on her lips...until he Karkat finishes speaking. Where she had been relaxed before, if clinging to him, she tenses up all at once at his words, seizing him by the shoulders and bringing him to arms length.

She eyes him skeptically.

"

You're

The One Who Is The Dream Version...Aren't You?"

Karkat shakes his head slowly, horror dawning progressively on his face.

"IS THIS A FUCKING DREAMBUBBLE?"

That same, wide-eyed look of horror is now creeping onto Kanaya's face. There's not much space between them now, but Karkat's shoulder does in a pinch to bang her head softly against.

"Jegus Mother Of Screaming Fuck, Kanaya. Way to Go You Worthless Sack Of-"

Anything more is cut off as the jadeblood forces herself awake, disappearing from under Karkat with a soft pop.

"WAKE UP. WAKE UP, YOU ASSHOLE. COME ON."

He cannot do it. He cannot force himself to wake up. He even tries slapping himself a little, and diving into the lake; he considers getting kicked by a horse, but he's never really paid much attention to horses, and the creatures inhabiting the stable in his dream are blocky and oddly-shaped and he doesn't want to get too close to them.

What finally works, sends him crashing back into conscious and stabbing his head up out of the cocoon and running into the hallway barefoot and dripping with sopor slime, is going out the front door of the bar. It looks exactly like it does when he's awake--like a massive slab of stone with the symbol for Blood, like his quest bed--and beyond it is darkness, and when he plunges into the comforting void he finds himself awake.

Too late.

Edited 2013-08-30 17:56 (UTC)

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