Fic: The Last One Standing - 2/?
A bit of a name dump in this chapter for those who don't know Homestuck, but I will be introducing those characters sooner or later. Mainly through colourful chats and god awful writing quirks, but hey, they'll be there.
Title: The Last One Standing
Chapter: Two
Author: malicehaughton
Rating: T for Karkat (language)
Fandoms: Doctor Who and Homestuck
Pairings: Karkat <> Gamzee, Doctor/River, Karkat <> River, mentions of Doctor <3< Master
Summary: This chapter. In which Karkat finds out some important info on the Doctor, finds out who River is and finds himself a nice hole to make himself a hidden pile in. Also, his emotions are going to be the death of him. Why does everything have to be so hard?
Chapter Two
Karkat heard the door close behind him and he peeked around the book he had picked up to see that the Doctor had indeed left and wasn’t hanging around his new respite block like an overly devoted lusus. He kind of liked it, the room that is. But it was so not like any self respecting troll would have.
Not that he was exactly the best troll there was, he had spent most of his life before the game had been started hiding in his hive, terrified someone would find out his blood colour. An instant culling that certain piece of information would have earned him.
Thankfully, he had made friends that didn’t really care about the hemocaste and followed his lead, regardless of blood colour. Sure Equius had been a bit stiff about it, but that guy was just plain creepy when it came to his obsession with the caste system, and Eridan could be a bloody shit stain when it came to thinking anyone one under his colour was utterly ripe for the culling forks.
But there had been Gamzee, the highest of the land dwelling castes who didn’t give a crap about who was higher or lower. He was basically friends with anyone who was there, except when he was going batshit insane and killing everyone. And Feferi, the highest caste there was had been a total sweetheart. Her idea of culling someone was giving them a hug and chatting to them.
All dead now.
Shaking his head to get rid of that last thought, he took the book, a human romance novel, to the bed. Slowly, as he wasn’t sure what to expect, he sat on the piece of furniture and was surprised and somewhat relieved when the bed started moving in slow wavy motions. Waterbed, right, a thick hide filled with water by the look of it. He shouldn’t puncture it with his claws. He laid down on it with the book, the only light on in the room a small bedside lamp.
He tried to concentrate on the book, he really did. He had read a few human romance novels since he had found out about the species and though they were plain and simple with only one quadrant for the most part, he enjoyed the simplicity. His concentration though was nothing, and the gentle rocking of the bed, mixed with his calming mind after the hellish few days he had been through was enough to put him to sleep.
It wasn’t until he woke up hours later that he noticed he had forgotten to lock the door behind him. The lamp had been switched off and a blanket had been thrown over him. The book he had started to read was neatly on the bedside table. He definitely hadn’t fallen asleep like that, so that meant the Doctor had been in here and did it while he slept.
He was very uncomfortable with that thought. He liked his privacy. And he didn’t like unexpected visitors. He especially didn’t like the thought of people around him when he was so vulnerable. Anything could happen. It was a miracle he had woken up at all!
Terror at what could have happened to him gave way to anger and he threw the blanket off, stalked out into the corridor and set off in the same direction he had been sent yesterday when he had gotten on the ship. Soon he was back in the main room, with all its stairs and the weird column in the middle that was busy now moving up and down.
He thought it looked like some sort of depraved sex toy. He’d read about them in one of his more erotic books. Once he had moved his eyes away from the glass like beads inside the column, he turned his sights on the newest bane of his existence and anger turned to rage.
“What the fuck part of wanting privacy don’t you understand, you fucking nook sniffing bulge licker.”
The Doctor looked surprised to see him there. “Well, hello to you too. Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”
“I’m amazed I woke up at all, considering someone decided it would be nice to go into my room while I fucking slept and do god knows what to me. What the fuck did you do? Why did you do it? And never, ever dare do it again, or I will gut you with my sickles!”
He saw understanding light up in the Doctor’s eyes. Before they closed and the man sighed. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I keep forgetting that you’re not just a child but one that has not only been through a lot the past few days, but who lived on a very dangerous world. I don’t know much about your species, and what I do know is all second hand. You have every right to be angry with me.”
“Yes, I do! Just...leave my respite block alone. It’s mine. I don’t like people snooping about my things. Even if they are made by your crazy fucking ship out of thin air.”
“She doesn’t make anything out of thin air, except the rooms themselves. She has endless space in here. She takes real copies. People then tend to think they’ve lost their copy wherever she had taken them from. She’s a bit of a kleptomaniac, my old girl.”
For some reason this actually makes him less angry and perks his interest. “They’re all real books?”
“Every single one of them. Have a whole lot more too. Got a universe full of books in the Library. Those were the ones she thought you would have an immediate interest in reading.”
He barked out a laugh and coughed afterwards. Lately his voice had been breaking. Fucking embarrassing. At least it wasn’t as bad as some of the other boys. Gamzee had loved every second of it. His moirail had been one hell of a weird guy though, so that was pretty much normal. Good news about that was soon he’d have a growth spurt. About fucking time! That may be a bit problematic without a supply of sopor slime though...
“How long has that been going on?”
“Has what been going on?”
“Your voice breaking. I can give you something to ease your throat if it is irritating you to coughing, though it shouldn’t.”
“It’s fucking fine. And not long. A few days. Not that it’s any of your business. Mainly it’s just kind of embarrassing you know?”
He got a chuckle out of that one. Bastard, was he laughing at him? “Most boys in existence feel that way, and I was definitely one of them. I was early. It was hell.”
“I was the youngest in my group of twelve. Six boys, six girls. Not necessarily the slowest to reach this point but...fuck, why am I even telling you this? Shut up, I’m fine, it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t feel like anything, it’s a damn noise. That’s it, the end.”
The Doctor sighed and came around the console towards him. “I’m trying to figure out a time frame. You may be suffering from mood swings, and given your past...that’s going to be not very helpful at all. So, are you normally angry, or is this new?”
“It’s pretty much my default setting since you need to know so much. This is me toning it down. I just...I needed something, you know? To protect me and I naturally am easily frustrated and kind of...annoyed and grouchy. Everything was just so fucking unfair. I could barely leave my hive, because I was so fucking scared out of my mind someone would immediately just know my blood colour and cull me on the spot. You have no idea, none at all what my life has been like!”
Hands were up in the air and patting before his face. A sure sign the Doctor was retreating. “I know that. You don’t have to worry about me not knowing that. Believe me, while I may not understand, I do know the kind of world you have lived on and have seen what that does to people.”
He nodded before he took a deep breath and another before running his hands through his hair and growling. “Ugh, I need to go somewhere quiet and calm down...”
“There are gardens in the TARDIS. A gym, your room, a library, the rec room. Feel free to just wander around anywhere really. It’s all up for grabs.”
He blinked at that one. “You mean absolutely anywhere I can go, no off limits?”
“Sure! Just, no playing with the console here, unless you want to blow us all up, and even then the TARDIS will more than likely stop that from happening if you did decide you wanted to do that. Please don’t. I like being alive.”
He shook his head at that, and took off down a corridor before another word could be said. If this was to be his new home, then he wanted to explore it. Maybe he could find somewhere to make his own secret place. He liked the thought of having some place to go when he wanted to hide away. It beat the hell out of going off to sulk on the horn pile. And it could be made a whole lot more comfortable too.
Thinking of those stupid horns just made him think of Gamzee and that was bad territory to be in. He had just spent what felt like half of the day before in hysterical tears, he refused to cry again now. He’d wait for when he was alone in his room with the door safely locked behind him for that.
Better still if he found himself a secret place, maybe there he could use it as an escape away from the Doctor and a quiet place to grieve his losses in private. It was kind of obvious the Doctor had no idea what privacy was. It was highly unsettling to him to say the least. He had very high standards when it came to his privacy.
He found the library and almost stayed in there just to see what kinds of books he could find just lying around, but instead he wandered back out, content in knowing that there was a place he could go to read if he wanted to. He liked his romance novels for sure, and he liked code books, especially if they were for computers, not that he was any good at it, not like Sollux had been. God, Sollux, the stupid fuck had killed himself for absolutely no reason...
Dave and Rose had failed to destroy the sun. They had seen an explosion and thought they had succeeded and Sollux had died getting them there using his crazy as fuck psionic powers. They had been met up by Aradia telling them that something went wrong and that they were in a doomed timeline and she was going back to fix it.
For everyone else it had been a doomed timeline. He had been saved from some kind of fucked up death by the Doctor. Probably Jack would have found him and killed him. Again. Fucking brilliant. As if the first time hadn’t been the biggest betrayal in his life to date.
He had been through so much lately that he either spent his spare time crying or screaming at others. And now he was alone because the Doctor was god knows where and he was getting himself lost. Not that he believed the ship would let him stay lost, and he really felt like he should turn back around and go to his room now. He was getting a bit too overemotional and needed to lie down to stop the blinding headache he could feel coming on in his think pan.
It was at that time that a door caught his eye. It wasn’t his door with his name and the quadrants on the front. No, it was just a simple wooden number. Slowly, he opened it and found one of the gardens the Doctor had told him was in the TARDIS. The plants were all dead, but the soil was still there and looked ready for more things to be planted, not that he in any way was a gardener. That had been Jade’s thing. And he really didn’t want to think of her right now...
It was a small round room, and the trellises in the centre were rotting away with dead vines choking them. He frowned. He really felt the need to clean that shit up. He ignored it to continue his short look around the room. It was then that he spotted it. It wasn’t much really, just a slight indent in one of the rocks in the wall, but when he got it out of the way, he found a cubby hole that was filled with blankets.
Maybe an animal slept in here at one stage. Well, it was gone now. Long abandoned by the looks of it. Slowly, he pulled out the blankets and shook off the dust, coughing a bit, before putting them back in the hole. Taking a peek towards the door, he slowly lowered himself to his hands and knees, crawled into the cubby and curled himself up on the somewhat cleaner blankets.
It was comfortable and dark. It was hidden away if the TARDIS didn’t show the Doctor where it was and it was therefore private. It would do for a getaway place. A little hidey hole to come when things got too much for him to stand and he couldn’t put up with the Doctor.
He would go get himself some fresh blankets though, these ones were god awful and still caked in dirt. A nice, comfortable pile of clean blankets sounded quite nice right then.
“You better not tell the Doctor where this is, or I will hit that self destruct button on purpose...” he stated out loud, not even knowing if the ship could understand him.
A comforting thrum in his mind let him know that she got the message. Having a telepathic guardian, like all Lusi were, he was used to that kind of gentle mind contact. And at least he knew that the TARDIS was going to keep his secret place a secret. She was definitely friendly in his head.
The Doctor may annoy the hell out of him, but at least his ship was cool.
He crawled back out, his mind already more in a better place, now he had found himself a getaway place to come to. Thankfully he wasn’t angry anymore. Taking that as a good sign that he wouldn’t just explode in the Doctor’s face again if he was to face him, Karkat exited the small garden room and made his way back to his respite block.
He would get that book read today. It was his set goal. For now at least. Later, he’d probably try and see if Trollian worked on this laptop, since he left his husktop on the damned meteor. If not...well, he could crawl under the blankets on his new bed and fucking cry.
God, he was just...so depressed when he stopped and thought about shit like that... he was 6 sweeps old, he should not be suffering like this. He should be off trying to fill his Quadrants like any other 6 sweeps old new teen.
Fuck, now he remembered why he tended to stay angry. Angry was easy, this sadness was like a weight that would drag him down, hold him under the water and choke him to death.
He did what he always did in these situations. He began hyperventilating. He was so stupid when it came to things like this. His own emotions always got to him. If he didn’t freeze, he completely went into meltdown mode or ran like a coward.
So stupid.
He stopped walking and slid down the nearest wall to hug his knees and keep his head down. He really needed to catch his breath. If he didn’t he was going to be in full panic mode in roughly a minute and he hated panic attacks.
And as was always his luck in such situations, someone had to catch him in the act. He felt the Doctor’s arm around his shoulders and he flipped out. “No! Go away! Don’t touch me! Don’t...fuck, please, don’t. Don’t.”
“Hey, shh, it’s okay, you’re having a panic attack. It will pass, do you want me to let go of you, or do you want me to stop doing something else?”
“Yes! Fuck...yes, just...let me go. I need to breathe. Can’t breathe...”
The arms wrapped around him disappeared and it didn’t lower his panic levels like he thought it would. He whimpered and buried his head further between his knees. He was such a stupid idiotic coward. No wonder everyone was dead, with him as their leader.
Now, of course, he was fucking crying again. Always with the fucking tears! He really, really hated himself sometimes.
To top it off he felt someone else join them in the hallway, sitting down beside him, not touching, and just...kind of being there in the background. He didn’t bother raising his head until he could breathe again, though he hadn’t yet quite stopped the tears. It was a woman. He instantly liked her hair. It reminded him of a mix between Gamzee and Aradia. All wild and thick.
“River, Karkat. Karkat, this is River, my wife.”
She smiled at him and he scowled back. He was calmed down further when she didn’t take offence and laughed instead. “Oh, this one has heart. I like him already, sweetie.”
“River is an archaeologist. She studied mythology quite extensively too, and other odd beliefs. Your people crop up in Earth history at one point, but not for very long. It’s the only reason I recognised you. I...sort of basically slept through most of my classes on your species, whenever they popped up, because, well, I was more interested in the humans to be honest. Sorry about that.”
He just stared at the Doctor, before turning his head back to River. “What do you know?”
She shook her head. “Not much. I know that you have a much more complicated romance system than humans, with your four quadrants, and I know a bit about them all, though my info could be wrong. I also know of your hemocaste system and the order. I know that it was a tough world to have lived on. I also know of your lusus guardians. And about the mother grub. But that’s it.”
“That’s...basically it really. I mean, considering the world we lived on, the only really fucked up people in my group were Vriska and Eridan.”
“What about the one you killed?”
He shook his head. “Gamzee...he was usually so docile. He hated hurting people, and liked being friends with everyone, which is fucked up in itself, considering his blood was purple. I mean the killing spree he went on after we got stuck on that fucking meteor was actually normal for his caste. But no, he killed us because someone decided to break his religious beliefs and he had a break down in the form of a psychotic break. It’s kind of fucked up that we were moirails, since he should have wanted nothing more than to kill me on sight if things were all normal with his think pan.”
“You were forced into killing your moirail?”
He nodded. It was all the response he felt ready to give right then. He wasn’t about to explain why he had done it. That would break him.
“Right, anyone care to tell me exactly what a moirail is, because I am kind of getting lost here...” The Doctor stated, and the confusion was definitely there in his voice. Too bad he wasn’t in the right mindset to actually talk about that certain quadrant right now, otherwise he may have been able to calm down fully.
“It’s sort of like a platonic soul mate. Moirails make sure the other one is in good health, usually. Mentally and physically. They are there to discuss and help the other through any problems they may have. They keep each other in check. They have a special knack of calming each other down. Kid, you really are in quite the jam aren’t you?”
He was not in any kind of jam, this place as far as he knew was jam free. “I want my moirail. I need my moirail. I need him here with me. Gamzee...fuck, why?!”
This time when arms wrapped around him, he welcomed the embrace given, because he needed it right then, and because it also wasn’t coming from the Doctor who he’d never choose in any quadrant.
They were both adults, which was weird, but hey, he’d take what he could get where he could get it, since his options weren’t exactly the best right now. His mind latched on to the one thing it could, and clung to the woman holding him.
It took him a half hour to calm himself down after that. He had difficulty in stopping himself from crying right now, and screw them if they bought it up with him.
“Alright now?” River asked, and he nodded when it was appropriate. His throat was raw and sore.
“Can you please get your claws out of my sides then? That hurts. I only have soft squishy human skin, you know.”
“Oh, fuck, sorry.” He removed his hands from around her, and was instantly feeling guilty when he saw blood on his fingers. “I didn’t mean to do that, I swear. I didn’t want to do that!”
She reached up her own hands and started moving them through his hair, and it was enough to get him to relax a bit. She wasn’t angry at him. That was good. “I understand that. Sometimes we do stupid things when we’re not thinking. But hey, we do stupid things when thinking too, and those are usually much worse. So forget about it. It was not something you had any control over at that moment.”
He nodded. Fuck. Things were happening way too fast here. He needed time alone to sort out his feelings. Gamzee had not been dead for a full day and he was already replacing him? Yet again, given how much he was in desperate need of a moirail right now, it figured his mind would immediately latch on to the first available target who seemed to be good in the role.
“I need to go lie down. I have a headache. And I kind of feel sick...”
Kind of was an understatement. He felt like he was going to vomit. Shit, fuck. Nope, he was going to vomit. “I’m going to be sick...”
He crawled as far as he could away from them before what was left of his lousy little meal from the day before showed itself again. Most of the time he spent dry heaving, and his poor nutrition sack couldn’t take that for long without cramping on him and causing even more discomfort.
Hands were on his back and he let them rub him into a pile of goo that could be considered contentment if he didn’t feel like the world was collapsing around him. Again.
“I’m sorry. Does the ship care that I just made a mess of her insides?”
“She doesn’t mind. She likes you.”
He closed his eyes, cocked his head to the side and listened. Taking the cue, he heard the TARDIS again sing softly in his head, not angry at him. He relaxed further. “Fine. I want to go back to my block now and lie down. My head is fucking killing me...”
“Alright. I’ll walk you to your room. With any luck it should be close by.”
He grunted. “Better right in front of me, but I do need to move. I’m cramping...” Of all the stupid luck in Paradox Space, his voice cracked harshly on the cramping. Ow, damn it. He closed his eyes and sighed. “I hate my life right now. I just...hate everything.”
“I’ll go get you some water,” the Doctor replied before disappearing off in the opposite direction he and River had begun waking in. She kept one hand on his shoulder, keeping him from stumbling and on his feet. Not that he needed the help, really. He just needed the contact so he knew right then he wasn’t alone. At least this River was keeping him grounded. That more than anything made him begin to come out of the panic and relax slightly more than he had been since his thoughts had taken their decidedly bad turn.
He was going to make it to his block, he was going to lie down and rest his head for a while, and then he was going to finish his book like he planned. Maybe if he was up to it, he’d take some blankets to his new hidden pile.
He was going to make it through this. He’d do it for Gamzee and the others.
He had to make it through this for them.
It was just so fucking hard...
He kept repeating silently to himself the walk to his respite block that it would get easier. All he needed was time. Too bad he wasn’t a Time player. His aspect was Blood. He still had no idea what that meant.
Maybe he was destined to be the last Troll to survive.
It didn’t get much more ironic than that.
Title: The Last One Standing
Chapter: Two
Author: malicehaughton
Rating: T for Karkat (language)
Fandoms: Doctor Who and Homestuck
Pairings: Karkat <> Gamzee, Doctor/River, Karkat <> River, mentions of Doctor <3< Master
Summary: This chapter. In which Karkat finds out some important info on the Doctor, finds out who River is and finds himself a nice hole to make himself a hidden pile in. Also, his emotions are going to be the death of him. Why does everything have to be so hard?
Chapter Two
Karkat heard the door close behind him and he peeked around the book he had picked up to see that the Doctor had indeed left and wasn’t hanging around his new respite block like an overly devoted lusus. He kind of liked it, the room that is. But it was so not like any self respecting troll would have.
Not that he was exactly the best troll there was, he had spent most of his life before the game had been started hiding in his hive, terrified someone would find out his blood colour. An instant culling that certain piece of information would have earned him.
Thankfully, he had made friends that didn’t really care about the hemocaste and followed his lead, regardless of blood colour. Sure Equius had been a bit stiff about it, but that guy was just plain creepy when it came to his obsession with the caste system, and Eridan could be a bloody shit stain when it came to thinking anyone one under his colour was utterly ripe for the culling forks.
But there had been Gamzee, the highest of the land dwelling castes who didn’t give a crap about who was higher or lower. He was basically friends with anyone who was there, except when he was going batshit insane and killing everyone. And Feferi, the highest caste there was had been a total sweetheart. Her idea of culling someone was giving them a hug and chatting to them.
All dead now.
Shaking his head to get rid of that last thought, he took the book, a human romance novel, to the bed. Slowly, as he wasn’t sure what to expect, he sat on the piece of furniture and was surprised and somewhat relieved when the bed started moving in slow wavy motions. Waterbed, right, a thick hide filled with water by the look of it. He shouldn’t puncture it with his claws. He laid down on it with the book, the only light on in the room a small bedside lamp.
He tried to concentrate on the book, he really did. He had read a few human romance novels since he had found out about the species and though they were plain and simple with only one quadrant for the most part, he enjoyed the simplicity. His concentration though was nothing, and the gentle rocking of the bed, mixed with his calming mind after the hellish few days he had been through was enough to put him to sleep.
It wasn’t until he woke up hours later that he noticed he had forgotten to lock the door behind him. The lamp had been switched off and a blanket had been thrown over him. The book he had started to read was neatly on the bedside table. He definitely hadn’t fallen asleep like that, so that meant the Doctor had been in here and did it while he slept.
He was very uncomfortable with that thought. He liked his privacy. And he didn’t like unexpected visitors. He especially didn’t like the thought of people around him when he was so vulnerable. Anything could happen. It was a miracle he had woken up at all!
Terror at what could have happened to him gave way to anger and he threw the blanket off, stalked out into the corridor and set off in the same direction he had been sent yesterday when he had gotten on the ship. Soon he was back in the main room, with all its stairs and the weird column in the middle that was busy now moving up and down.
He thought it looked like some sort of depraved sex toy. He’d read about them in one of his more erotic books. Once he had moved his eyes away from the glass like beads inside the column, he turned his sights on the newest bane of his existence and anger turned to rage.
“What the fuck part of wanting privacy don’t you understand, you fucking nook sniffing bulge licker.”
The Doctor looked surprised to see him there. “Well, hello to you too. Wake up on the wrong side of the bed?”
“I’m amazed I woke up at all, considering someone decided it would be nice to go into my room while I fucking slept and do god knows what to me. What the fuck did you do? Why did you do it? And never, ever dare do it again, or I will gut you with my sickles!”
He saw understanding light up in the Doctor’s eyes. Before they closed and the man sighed. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. I keep forgetting that you’re not just a child but one that has not only been through a lot the past few days, but who lived on a very dangerous world. I don’t know much about your species, and what I do know is all second hand. You have every right to be angry with me.”
“Yes, I do! Just...leave my respite block alone. It’s mine. I don’t like people snooping about my things. Even if they are made by your crazy fucking ship out of thin air.”
“She doesn’t make anything out of thin air, except the rooms themselves. She has endless space in here. She takes real copies. People then tend to think they’ve lost their copy wherever she had taken them from. She’s a bit of a kleptomaniac, my old girl.”
For some reason this actually makes him less angry and perks his interest. “They’re all real books?”
“Every single one of them. Have a whole lot more too. Got a universe full of books in the Library. Those were the ones she thought you would have an immediate interest in reading.”
He barked out a laugh and coughed afterwards. Lately his voice had been breaking. Fucking embarrassing. At least it wasn’t as bad as some of the other boys. Gamzee had loved every second of it. His moirail had been one hell of a weird guy though, so that was pretty much normal. Good news about that was soon he’d have a growth spurt. About fucking time! That may be a bit problematic without a supply of sopor slime though...
“How long has that been going on?”
“Has what been going on?”
“Your voice breaking. I can give you something to ease your throat if it is irritating you to coughing, though it shouldn’t.”
“It’s fucking fine. And not long. A few days. Not that it’s any of your business. Mainly it’s just kind of embarrassing you know?”
He got a chuckle out of that one. Bastard, was he laughing at him? “Most boys in existence feel that way, and I was definitely one of them. I was early. It was hell.”
“I was the youngest in my group of twelve. Six boys, six girls. Not necessarily the slowest to reach this point but...fuck, why am I even telling you this? Shut up, I’m fine, it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t feel like anything, it’s a damn noise. That’s it, the end.”
The Doctor sighed and came around the console towards him. “I’m trying to figure out a time frame. You may be suffering from mood swings, and given your past...that’s going to be not very helpful at all. So, are you normally angry, or is this new?”
“It’s pretty much my default setting since you need to know so much. This is me toning it down. I just...I needed something, you know? To protect me and I naturally am easily frustrated and kind of...annoyed and grouchy. Everything was just so fucking unfair. I could barely leave my hive, because I was so fucking scared out of my mind someone would immediately just know my blood colour and cull me on the spot. You have no idea, none at all what my life has been like!”
Hands were up in the air and patting before his face. A sure sign the Doctor was retreating. “I know that. You don’t have to worry about me not knowing that. Believe me, while I may not understand, I do know the kind of world you have lived on and have seen what that does to people.”
He nodded before he took a deep breath and another before running his hands through his hair and growling. “Ugh, I need to go somewhere quiet and calm down...”
“There are gardens in the TARDIS. A gym, your room, a library, the rec room. Feel free to just wander around anywhere really. It’s all up for grabs.”
He blinked at that one. “You mean absolutely anywhere I can go, no off limits?”
“Sure! Just, no playing with the console here, unless you want to blow us all up, and even then the TARDIS will more than likely stop that from happening if you did decide you wanted to do that. Please don’t. I like being alive.”
He shook his head at that, and took off down a corridor before another word could be said. If this was to be his new home, then he wanted to explore it. Maybe he could find somewhere to make his own secret place. He liked the thought of having some place to go when he wanted to hide away. It beat the hell out of going off to sulk on the horn pile. And it could be made a whole lot more comfortable too.
Thinking of those stupid horns just made him think of Gamzee and that was bad territory to be in. He had just spent what felt like half of the day before in hysterical tears, he refused to cry again now. He’d wait for when he was alone in his room with the door safely locked behind him for that.
Better still if he found himself a secret place, maybe there he could use it as an escape away from the Doctor and a quiet place to grieve his losses in private. It was kind of obvious the Doctor had no idea what privacy was. It was highly unsettling to him to say the least. He had very high standards when it came to his privacy.
He found the library and almost stayed in there just to see what kinds of books he could find just lying around, but instead he wandered back out, content in knowing that there was a place he could go to read if he wanted to. He liked his romance novels for sure, and he liked code books, especially if they were for computers, not that he was any good at it, not like Sollux had been. God, Sollux, the stupid fuck had killed himself for absolutely no reason...
Dave and Rose had failed to destroy the sun. They had seen an explosion and thought they had succeeded and Sollux had died getting them there using his crazy as fuck psionic powers. They had been met up by Aradia telling them that something went wrong and that they were in a doomed timeline and she was going back to fix it.
For everyone else it had been a doomed timeline. He had been saved from some kind of fucked up death by the Doctor. Probably Jack would have found him and killed him. Again. Fucking brilliant. As if the first time hadn’t been the biggest betrayal in his life to date.
He had been through so much lately that he either spent his spare time crying or screaming at others. And now he was alone because the Doctor was god knows where and he was getting himself lost. Not that he believed the ship would let him stay lost, and he really felt like he should turn back around and go to his room now. He was getting a bit too overemotional and needed to lie down to stop the blinding headache he could feel coming on in his think pan.
It was at that time that a door caught his eye. It wasn’t his door with his name and the quadrants on the front. No, it was just a simple wooden number. Slowly, he opened it and found one of the gardens the Doctor had told him was in the TARDIS. The plants were all dead, but the soil was still there and looked ready for more things to be planted, not that he in any way was a gardener. That had been Jade’s thing. And he really didn’t want to think of her right now...
It was a small round room, and the trellises in the centre were rotting away with dead vines choking them. He frowned. He really felt the need to clean that shit up. He ignored it to continue his short look around the room. It was then that he spotted it. It wasn’t much really, just a slight indent in one of the rocks in the wall, but when he got it out of the way, he found a cubby hole that was filled with blankets.
Maybe an animal slept in here at one stage. Well, it was gone now. Long abandoned by the looks of it. Slowly, he pulled out the blankets and shook off the dust, coughing a bit, before putting them back in the hole. Taking a peek towards the door, he slowly lowered himself to his hands and knees, crawled into the cubby and curled himself up on the somewhat cleaner blankets.
It was comfortable and dark. It was hidden away if the TARDIS didn’t show the Doctor where it was and it was therefore private. It would do for a getaway place. A little hidey hole to come when things got too much for him to stand and he couldn’t put up with the Doctor.
He would go get himself some fresh blankets though, these ones were god awful and still caked in dirt. A nice, comfortable pile of clean blankets sounded quite nice right then.
“You better not tell the Doctor where this is, or I will hit that self destruct button on purpose...” he stated out loud, not even knowing if the ship could understand him.
A comforting thrum in his mind let him know that she got the message. Having a telepathic guardian, like all Lusi were, he was used to that kind of gentle mind contact. And at least he knew that the TARDIS was going to keep his secret place a secret. She was definitely friendly in his head.
The Doctor may annoy the hell out of him, but at least his ship was cool.
He crawled back out, his mind already more in a better place, now he had found himself a getaway place to come to. Thankfully he wasn’t angry anymore. Taking that as a good sign that he wouldn’t just explode in the Doctor’s face again if he was to face him, Karkat exited the small garden room and made his way back to his respite block.
He would get that book read today. It was his set goal. For now at least. Later, he’d probably try and see if Trollian worked on this laptop, since he left his husktop on the damned meteor. If not...well, he could crawl under the blankets on his new bed and fucking cry.
God, he was just...so depressed when he stopped and thought about shit like that... he was 6 sweeps old, he should not be suffering like this. He should be off trying to fill his Quadrants like any other 6 sweeps old new teen.
Fuck, now he remembered why he tended to stay angry. Angry was easy, this sadness was like a weight that would drag him down, hold him under the water and choke him to death.
He did what he always did in these situations. He began hyperventilating. He was so stupid when it came to things like this. His own emotions always got to him. If he didn’t freeze, he completely went into meltdown mode or ran like a coward.
So stupid.
He stopped walking and slid down the nearest wall to hug his knees and keep his head down. He really needed to catch his breath. If he didn’t he was going to be in full panic mode in roughly a minute and he hated panic attacks.
And as was always his luck in such situations, someone had to catch him in the act. He felt the Doctor’s arm around his shoulders and he flipped out. “No! Go away! Don’t touch me! Don’t...fuck, please, don’t. Don’t.”
“Hey, shh, it’s okay, you’re having a panic attack. It will pass, do you want me to let go of you, or do you want me to stop doing something else?”
“Yes! Fuck...yes, just...let me go. I need to breathe. Can’t breathe...”
The arms wrapped around him disappeared and it didn’t lower his panic levels like he thought it would. He whimpered and buried his head further between his knees. He was such a stupid idiotic coward. No wonder everyone was dead, with him as their leader.
Now, of course, he was fucking crying again. Always with the fucking tears! He really, really hated himself sometimes.
To top it off he felt someone else join them in the hallway, sitting down beside him, not touching, and just...kind of being there in the background. He didn’t bother raising his head until he could breathe again, though he hadn’t yet quite stopped the tears. It was a woman. He instantly liked her hair. It reminded him of a mix between Gamzee and Aradia. All wild and thick.
“River, Karkat. Karkat, this is River, my wife.”
She smiled at him and he scowled back. He was calmed down further when she didn’t take offence and laughed instead. “Oh, this one has heart. I like him already, sweetie.”
“River is an archaeologist. She studied mythology quite extensively too, and other odd beliefs. Your people crop up in Earth history at one point, but not for very long. It’s the only reason I recognised you. I...sort of basically slept through most of my classes on your species, whenever they popped up, because, well, I was more interested in the humans to be honest. Sorry about that.”
He just stared at the Doctor, before turning his head back to River. “What do you know?”
She shook her head. “Not much. I know that you have a much more complicated romance system than humans, with your four quadrants, and I know a bit about them all, though my info could be wrong. I also know of your hemocaste system and the order. I know that it was a tough world to have lived on. I also know of your lusus guardians. And about the mother grub. But that’s it.”
“That’s...basically it really. I mean, considering the world we lived on, the only really fucked up people in my group were Vriska and Eridan.”
“What about the one you killed?”
He shook his head. “Gamzee...he was usually so docile. He hated hurting people, and liked being friends with everyone, which is fucked up in itself, considering his blood was purple. I mean the killing spree he went on after we got stuck on that fucking meteor was actually normal for his caste. But no, he killed us because someone decided to break his religious beliefs and he had a break down in the form of a psychotic break. It’s kind of fucked up that we were moirails, since he should have wanted nothing more than to kill me on sight if things were all normal with his think pan.”
“You were forced into killing your moirail?”
He nodded. It was all the response he felt ready to give right then. He wasn’t about to explain why he had done it. That would break him.
“Right, anyone care to tell me exactly what a moirail is, because I am kind of getting lost here...” The Doctor stated, and the confusion was definitely there in his voice. Too bad he wasn’t in the right mindset to actually talk about that certain quadrant right now, otherwise he may have been able to calm down fully.
“It’s sort of like a platonic soul mate. Moirails make sure the other one is in good health, usually. Mentally and physically. They are there to discuss and help the other through any problems they may have. They keep each other in check. They have a special knack of calming each other down. Kid, you really are in quite the jam aren’t you?”
He was not in any kind of jam, this place as far as he knew was jam free. “I want my moirail. I need my moirail. I need him here with me. Gamzee...fuck, why?!”
This time when arms wrapped around him, he welcomed the embrace given, because he needed it right then, and because it also wasn’t coming from the Doctor who he’d never choose in any quadrant.
They were both adults, which was weird, but hey, he’d take what he could get where he could get it, since his options weren’t exactly the best right now. His mind latched on to the one thing it could, and clung to the woman holding him.
It took him a half hour to calm himself down after that. He had difficulty in stopping himself from crying right now, and screw them if they bought it up with him.
“Alright now?” River asked, and he nodded when it was appropriate. His throat was raw and sore.
“Can you please get your claws out of my sides then? That hurts. I only have soft squishy human skin, you know.”
“Oh, fuck, sorry.” He removed his hands from around her, and was instantly feeling guilty when he saw blood on his fingers. “I didn’t mean to do that, I swear. I didn’t want to do that!”
She reached up her own hands and started moving them through his hair, and it was enough to get him to relax a bit. She wasn’t angry at him. That was good. “I understand that. Sometimes we do stupid things when we’re not thinking. But hey, we do stupid things when thinking too, and those are usually much worse. So forget about it. It was not something you had any control over at that moment.”
He nodded. Fuck. Things were happening way too fast here. He needed time alone to sort out his feelings. Gamzee had not been dead for a full day and he was already replacing him? Yet again, given how much he was in desperate need of a moirail right now, it figured his mind would immediately latch on to the first available target who seemed to be good in the role.
“I need to go lie down. I have a headache. And I kind of feel sick...”
Kind of was an understatement. He felt like he was going to vomit. Shit, fuck. Nope, he was going to vomit. “I’m going to be sick...”
He crawled as far as he could away from them before what was left of his lousy little meal from the day before showed itself again. Most of the time he spent dry heaving, and his poor nutrition sack couldn’t take that for long without cramping on him and causing even more discomfort.
Hands were on his back and he let them rub him into a pile of goo that could be considered contentment if he didn’t feel like the world was collapsing around him. Again.
“I’m sorry. Does the ship care that I just made a mess of her insides?”
“She doesn’t mind. She likes you.”
He closed his eyes, cocked his head to the side and listened. Taking the cue, he heard the TARDIS again sing softly in his head, not angry at him. He relaxed further. “Fine. I want to go back to my block now and lie down. My head is fucking killing me...”
“Alright. I’ll walk you to your room. With any luck it should be close by.”
He grunted. “Better right in front of me, but I do need to move. I’m cramping...” Of all the stupid luck in Paradox Space, his voice cracked harshly on the cramping. Ow, damn it. He closed his eyes and sighed. “I hate my life right now. I just...hate everything.”
“I’ll go get you some water,” the Doctor replied before disappearing off in the opposite direction he and River had begun waking in. She kept one hand on his shoulder, keeping him from stumbling and on his feet. Not that he needed the help, really. He just needed the contact so he knew right then he wasn’t alone. At least this River was keeping him grounded. That more than anything made him begin to come out of the panic and relax slightly more than he had been since his thoughts had taken their decidedly bad turn.
He was going to make it to his block, he was going to lie down and rest his head for a while, and then he was going to finish his book like he planned. Maybe if he was up to it, he’d take some blankets to his new hidden pile.
He was going to make it through this. He’d do it for Gamzee and the others.
He had to make it through this for them.
It was just so fucking hard...
He kept repeating silently to himself the walk to his respite block that it would get easier. All he needed was time. Too bad he wasn’t a Time player. His aspect was Blood. He still had no idea what that meant.
Maybe he was destined to be the last Troll to survive.
It didn’t get much more ironic than that.