Fic: The Last One Standing - Chapter Seven (7/??)
Title: The Last One Standing
Chapter: Seven
Author: malicehaughton
Rating: T for Karkat (language)
Fandoms: Doctor Who and Homestuck
Pairings: Doctor/River. Past Karkat<>Gamzee, Karkat<>River, Karkat<>Rose.
Summary: This chapter, Karkat goes through some major moodswings and they stop off on a planet so he can get some much needed fresh air.
Chapter Seven
Karkat had been asleep for a solid 6 hours before he woke up shaking and disoriented.
He couldn’t remember being in a dream bubble, which meant he was probably stuck in a stupid nightmare that, now he was awake, he couldn’t even remember. Which meant he slept like he normally did, except for longer.
It took him a minute to figure out where he was and why. Then he remembered the TARDIS was keeping him from dreaming, which meant he had startled himself awake for some reason other than nightmares.
God, please have it not be the Doctor snooping around again, he thought wildly to himself.
Looking around, he found himself exactly as he had been when he went to sleep, shirtless, only the sheet covering him, and with his new boxers on. There was absolutely nothing to indicate someone had been in his block while he slept. The door was still locked even. He must have either been nudged awake by the TARDIS or naturally woke up with a start.
Slowly relaxing, he rubbed sleep out of his eyes, got up and grabbed the clothes he had found yesterday. He’d need to find more. There was no use only having one set of clothing to wear. He made his way to the ablution block and got himself ready for the night. Or was it day?
Fuck, he’d lost all sense of time during his little stay on that meteor and being stuck on a ship in space didn’t help. He had no way of knowing what the time was. It could be anything. His brain was telling him it was early evening though, so he’d go with that.
After he was cleaned and dressed, he stepped out of his room and went in search of the kitchen. He was getting hungry and decided a few slices of toast would be good enough for breakfast. He doubted there was grubloaf available, as this was the wrong universe for it, but he would eat bread too.
Great! Figures. Now he was craving foods he knew wouldn’t exist in this universe. Damn it, that had been one of his favourite foods too. Now he would have to get used to so much new stuff. Find himself some different favourites. And he’d be doing it alone, no lusus, no other trolls.
He was fucked...
Stopping in front of a door the TARDIS had nudged him towards, he peeked into the room and saw it was a kitchen. For such a huge ship, it was small, cosy even. The Doctor was leaning against a counter, sipping at a mug. River was at the table, eating a slice of toast. He was about to turn around and come back when the area was clear of other people, but was spotted almost instantly.
“Karkat! Did you get some sleep?”
He grimaced but nodded in answer. Knowing he was definitely caught out on his being there, he moved fully into the room and headed towards the thermal hull to see what he could scrounge up for a decent meal. After spotting the bread on the counter, he turned his attention to things to put on it. There was no way he was eating dry toast. He only did that if he was sick.
He found an orange condiment he decided to try called marmalade. It had breakfast written on the label so hey, it seemed right anyway. He wasn’t the greatest fan of orange flavoured stuff, but fuck it.
It was then he ran into a problem. It wasn’t a big problem, hell it shouldn’t have really been seen as a problem at all, but his think pan was a little fried right then because of all the shit that had been happening in his life the past few weeks that it was a little bit too much.
The bread heating device was different. Instead of organic like he was used to with most of his appliances, it was purely electrical. He knew he needed to put the bread into the slits at the top and it would toast but...how would it toast? What if it toasted wrong? His back on his hive would automatically make toast the way he liked it, he had his well trained like any troll worth his food would.
He hadn’t even thought of things like this the day before. He hadn’t needed to, as his needs had been met for him. He was used to seeing and knew how to operate the human version of a computer because he had watched them in action and was comfortable with them. That had been no problem, but he hadn’t really been interested in every single tiny thing in a human household.
He should know how this worked, but he couldn’t...he couldn’t think.
A loud ringing in his ears he’d only ever heard once invaded his head and he said something out loud, and he hoped he was stating he was about to drop, because he couldn’t hear or understand his own words right then.
The last time he had felt like this everything had been drenched in brown and a pair of useless limbs was being held away from their original body. The ringing then had been so proficient in blocking out all other sounds he couldn’t hear when Kanaya had stopped the revving of her chainsaw and no longer heard the screeches of the once sleeping Tavros.
Quickly putting the jar on the counter, he found he couldn’t catch his breath, he was suddenly covered in a cold sweat and he needed to sit before he fainted. He turned around too fast and was out.
He came to with someone papping his cheek and a cool cloth on his forehead. Also his legs seemed to be floating...no, not floating, he was now getting feeling back in them, they were elevated on someone’s knees. He groaned in embarrassment. “I fainted didn’t I?”
“Yes, but don’t worry, I didn’t let you hit the ground. Wait a minute before you sit back up. Give your body time to come back around or you’ll make yourself dizzy or sick,” the Doctor replied from the direction of his feet. Ah, River must be the one with the cloth and hands on his cheeks then, good.
“Yeah yeah, fine. Not moving. Got it.” He didn’t really feel dizzy right then, but he did have a headache banging around in his skull.
After a minute had passed and his head sorted itself out a bit more, thankfully the headache vanished and he slowly raised himself to his elbows. When he didn’t get dizzy or throw up, he allowed himself a hum of relief and sat himself up, pulling his legs off the Doctor as he did so.
“What set that off?” he was asked, as River began rubbing comforting circles on his back.
“The bread hea...no, fuck it, you guys use Highblood vernacular and right now the less words I say the better. The toaster is different. Might be only a small fucking difference, but when everything is going to be different it just...”
“Overwhelmed you. Do you want to stay here today? We can always go somewhere later tomorrow.”
“Oh my god! Shut the fuck up, I fainted, I’m not injured or sick. I’m fine. I just want something to eat and to get off the ship for a few hours.” Right then all he wanted was to know a real time. Get his rhythm back in some kind of order, because he had been doing way too much sleeping lately and not enough of anything else.
“Anywhere in particular you want to go?”
He frowned. “The only planet in this entire miserable universe I fucked up with is Earth. The four kids I know from that planet wouldn’t be in this alternate timeline to theirs, as they only would be in two different timelines of the universe. Fuck if I know anything or anyone else though.”
“Ooh, Earth is my favourite,” the Doctor stated, and River laughed loudly before stopping her rubbing.
“You can always watch me make the toast, and experiment with the toaster for your own preferences later. It will save time if nothing else.”
Deciding to take River up on her help, Karkat nodded, before he frowned. “I wanted to try that orange condiment, the breakfast one. I’ve never had it before. Never even heard of it. Fuck, I’m hungry...” He was definitely headed for his moult if he could be hungry after fainting. Last time that had happened he had felt sick.
“Marmalade, not everyone likes it.”
They were having a boring conversation that was civil about breakfast foods. Holy fuck, his life was beginning to unravel. Fuck, no, he was not going to start crying now. Taking a deep breath, he let it out slowly and managed to not burst into an embarrassing display of hysterical screaming to go with the fainting he did earlier.
Fuck his past self to the furthest reaches of paradox space. Fuck that guy so fucking hard...
He got up and made his way back over to the counter, this time paying attention. As much attention as he could anyway without thinking that everything was just so...metallic and dead in this universe. At least the ship had a consciousness and was able to communicate, that was at least on par with the helmsmen of the Alternian Fleet and at least familiar to him.
As he knew, the bread went into the slots at the top, a lever on the side was pushed down and that turned the heating on inside and lowered the bread. Okay, that was easy enough to understand, this was simple. He had freaked out over absolutely nothing.
“Not everyone likes their bread toasted the same way, so there is this dial on the side to twist around until you find one you prefer. But for now, please eat this.” River got a plate and set it down beside the toaster. The toast was mainly still white, with a bit of a golden edge to it. He liked his to be all golden brown and toasted, but fuck he’d take it.
“Yeah, thanks, I’ll find a setting I like later.”
This was so fucking embarrassing...
He was shown the drawer with the eating utensils and grabbed a knife and the marmalade, spreading a thin layer onto his breakfast, just in case he didn’t like it.
He found he didn’t actually mind the taste. It wasn’t too sweet or bitter as he had feared. The texture was more like jam than anything else. Orange jam for breakfast. Huh, humans were weird. Why had they called this marmalade?
A hand waved in front of his face, and he turned to see the Doctor looking worriedly at him from across the table. “Are you alright? Where were you just then?”
Confused, Karkat shrugged a shoulder and told the truth. “I was right here. Where else would I be. I just got lost in thought. Why the fuck do they call orange jam, marmalade? Why not just call it what it is? It makes no sense...”
River laughed, before sitting beside him with a mug of what smelled like chamomile tea. “As a rule, humans can be a weird species, Karkat. As one, I am very fond of our trait of not making sense.”
Rolling his eyes, he scowled, before shoving the rest of the piece of toast in his hand into his mouth. He was therefore too busy chewing to answer the inevitable question on if he was ready to go or not, so he just nodded instead. Getting up, he followed the two adults as they made their way to the console room. He had finished with the toast by the time they got there.
“First off, there’s something you need to know. I know you have this thing going on with River right now, but she doesn’t actually live on board the ship. She has a job as an archaeologist out there in the universe and I am dropping her off first. If you want to say bye, you may want to do it now.”
Karkat found, to his further embarrassment, that the rest had done his tear ducts some good if nothing else, because hearing that the only adult he felt wouldn’t try anything suspicious was leaving him with the one that already had, got the sudden reaction of crying. He buried his face in his hands and tried to control himself to no effect.
Stupid fucking mood swings. He had gone most of his life putting up a front of anger to stop himself from crying and as soon as personal deaths started entering his life (not with his lusus though, Terezi had been watching at the time and she hadn’t known his blood colour then) he turned into a ball of negative feelings and started crying all over the place.
Gamzee was the first to see him cry. Was the first to know his blood colour. Was the first to not fuck up everything with the evidence that he was a mutant. He was pretty sure Gamzee saw his freaky blood colour as a miracle. Was it any wonder he ended up with Gamzee as his moirail?
Without thinking, he quickly ran into the nearest hallway and hit the walls with both hands. He needed to stop fucking crying!
Thankfully neither of the two adults followed him and he got himself under some semblance of control before he managed to injure his hands. The ache in them helped dull the emotional pain somewhat and he sighed with the stupidity of his own actions. He would need to deal with this and he knew it, but right now he needed to have some time out, get off the ship and try to have some fun.
What he really wanted was to curl up in a pile somewhere with his moirail. And even that was confusing right now, as he hadn’t exactly told River that he had found someone to replace her. And Rose was stuck on the other ship right now, as she couldn’t get to this ship because Jade couldn’t find it until it landed...
Gamzee was dead.
He had killed him with his regiscythe.
He...he didn’t feel too good.
Taking a few deep breaths, he got himself to the point where he didn’t think moving would make him vomit up his breakfast and stood up straighter. If he was going to do anything this day, it may as well be now. Turning back to the entrance of the console room, he slowly made his way back.
He had been close enough to hear the silence from the two adults. So he knew they hadn’t been talking about him behind his back. He wasn’t expecting them to be in different parts of the Console room though. River was visible as soon as he re-entered the room, her eyes closed as she listened to what he assumed to be invisible music.
He only spotted the Doctor when he looked down at the floor and found the see through material helpful. He was playing around with some wires while sitting on a swinging seat.
The Doctor looked up and spotted him, giving him a wide smile. “I’ll be just a moment. The TARDIS is being unreasonable at the moment. One of her wires frayed. Almost done down here.”
Sighing, Karkat turned to River. “Umm, I have something I need to tell you. And I would have already if I wasn’t such a bulge chafing idiot with enough emotional problems to fit into every battleship the Imperial Fleet had to offer. I talked to my friend Rose yesterday and she asked me to be her Moirail. She has...problems when it comes to her own grief and she thinks it might be beneficial to her to try it out. I accepted, because I need a moirail right now like a mother grub needs the slurry once a sweep. She’s easy to talk to though and has all this kind of psychological bullshit going on. But it does seem mutual right now and...Yeah.”
River grinned at him after that, before nodding. “I didn’t believe I was going to be a permanent moirail for you, Karkat. I’m an adult and you aren’t. I know enough to know that wouldn’t work. I am glad that someone asked you though.”
Nodding, feeling better now that that bit of awkwardness was out the way. He frowned and went over to the edge of the platform the console was on and looked down. “Is it ready yet? I want to see sky again.”
The Doctor wasn’t looking at him, instead he was frowning at a wire he was holding, now unattached to the TARDIS. “Hmm? Oh! Yes. Just wondering where to put the leftovers. Hopefully that feels better for the old girl. Still, a bit of old wiring could be useful if fixed up a bit...throw or keep?”
Growling, Karkat threw his hands in the air, before crossing them over his chest. “I don’t fucking care, do I? All I care about is getting off the ship and having some fresh air to breathe for the first time in, oh, four fucking weeks!?”
He basically squeaked out the last three words, but he didn’t rightly care right then. This was his day to be humiliated, why not? He’d be glad when his voice decided to stay at the nice lower tone it was turning into. It made him feel less childish. Not like he wasn’t acting like a wiggler right then. He was impatient and cranky and generally liked to hurry through everything.
Yet again, that was basically his default setting. His mood did seem to careen around the emotional spectrum though. Speed of light emotional tantrum, that was him. How thrilling. Hopefully he would feel better once he could join up with Rose and have a proper feelings jam. Jade did say she’d be able to find him once the TARDIS stopped after all.
God, he hoped she had been right. He really needed someone to talk to. Damn it, when he got back inside from this little trip, he was going to construct his damn pile. He was getting to the point where he was willing to start papping himself.
Karkat watched as the Doctor, done with his work, stowed the small piece of wire in one of his pockets, rubbed his hands against his shirt, before he bounced to his feet and ran up the stairs. “Alright, Karkat, River, let’s go! First stop, River’s office.”
The loud sound of the engines making a sound like very high pitched wheezing startled Karkat enough to jump. He had forgotten or perhaps had been too busy feeling sorry for himself to notice that sound before. And the weird thing was the ship had been in flight the entire time yet had only just started making that sound. What the fuck was up with that?
Damn, he was jumping out of his skin over a stupid noise now, one that wasn’t even hostile in nature. He grabbed hold of the railing that was in front of him and took some steadying deep breaths. A few seconds later, the sound stopped.
“See you same time next week, Sweetie?” River asked, staring at the Doctor with a look that told him he should not be in the same room with them right now. He closed his eyes and turned around. He hoped that they had the decency to not start mating in front of him. Did humans do that? He didn’t know, the only ones he knew were his age and had the decency to keep any mating behaviour to themselves and in the privacy of their bathrooms and/or beds. Not that he had watched them at it or anything. Nope, that shit was weird. He did not want to know what human junk looked like.
Oh god, River and the Doctor were kissing, he could hear them at it. Thankfully it didn’t last that long, and before he knew it, he could once again hear the engines and River was gone. He hadn’t heard the Doctor reply to River’s comment.
“Anywhere in particular you’d like to go? Any time of day, or particular type of world?”
Turning to face the Doctor, Karkat frowned and chewed on his bottom lip for a second. Shrugging he replied, “I don’t know. It would be interesting to see what insect species here are like, I guess. See what kind of competition my people would have had. I would like them to be nice though. I don’t think I’d be able to handle much of a fight right now. Not that I can’t fight! I can! I just...I need a break from it right now.”
The Doctor grinned at him. “Well, most insectoid species I know tend to aggression, much like yours, but there is one I know which is nice. When I was there only one was left, but she was very polite and nice. It was also quite dark, but...it was the end of the universe at the time...I will just go there a bit earlier!”
Nodding, not really caring right then of anything other than seeing stars in the sky, he leaned against the railing and tried to relax. It wasn’t easy. Since waking up, he had been jumpy for no reason, and now it was worse. Was it because he was now left alone with no one but the Doctor, who he was wary around, or was it because of other reasons? He didn’t want to think about what those other reasons were right then, but he knew they were a definite factor into his behaviour.
When the sound of the engines stopped again, he was afraid to go to the door and poke his head out of it to see what was on the other side. He was so, so fed up with being scared. Growling loudly, he marched himself to the door and almost pulled it off its hinges to get it open.
Outside was a view of a hivelike city. And he was suddenly hit with a wave of homesickness so strong he was left leaning against the door. It looked nothing like the hives each individual troll built his or her self, and it wasn’t a city with tall hive stems with individual and small hives attached to them, like what Sollux had lived in. No, it was mostly hives built into the walls of huge cliffs, nice and dark, with naturally made bridges spanning from one side to the next for easy access to the entire area.
They obviously lived in harmony with each other, and with no weaponry in view, no ships on patrol and no lusii barging out to protect their charges, it made him feel so utterly stupid for feeling anything even remotely like being homesick.
He slowly slid down the door, barely feeling the floor when he hit it. Then the Doctor was leaning over him all worried and he was being mothered again.
“Are you alright?”
Nodding, he felt himself swallowing heavily, because he seemed to have something stuck down his wind pipe. At least he wasn’t crying again.
“Karkat? Please say something.”
He turned to look at the Doctor, quickly looked away and before he could think of something smart to say, the words in his head came out. “I want to go home.”
There was silence for what was probably a minute at the most, though it felt twice as long. The Doctor sighed beside him, before sitting down and placing a hand lightly on his knee. “Do you want to go down there, see it up close?”
Shaking his head, Karkat sighed and turned his gaze to the sky. “No. I thought I would, but I don’t. Can I just stay here for a while? I need to breathe real air. The stars here are so different...everything is so different.”
“That’s fine. Do you want me to get you anything? A glass of water?”
Frowning for a second as he thought if he was thirsty enough to want water, he nodded slightly. “Okay. Water sounds good. And my blanket. I want my blanket.”
Five minutes later he sat against the door with his blanket tightly wrapped around him, staring up at unfamiliar stars in an unfamiliar universe and felt lonelier than he ever had in his life.
The Doctor didn’t leave his side.
Chapter: Seven
Author: malicehaughton
Rating: T for Karkat (language)
Fandoms: Doctor Who and Homestuck
Pairings: Doctor/River. Past Karkat<>Gamzee, Karkat<>River, Karkat<>Rose.
Summary: This chapter, Karkat goes through some major moodswings and they stop off on a planet so he can get some much needed fresh air.
Chapter Seven
Karkat had been asleep for a solid 6 hours before he woke up shaking and disoriented.
He couldn’t remember being in a dream bubble, which meant he was probably stuck in a stupid nightmare that, now he was awake, he couldn’t even remember. Which meant he slept like he normally did, except for longer.
It took him a minute to figure out where he was and why. Then he remembered the TARDIS was keeping him from dreaming, which meant he had startled himself awake for some reason other than nightmares.
God, please have it not be the Doctor snooping around again, he thought wildly to himself.
Looking around, he found himself exactly as he had been when he went to sleep, shirtless, only the sheet covering him, and with his new boxers on. There was absolutely nothing to indicate someone had been in his block while he slept. The door was still locked even. He must have either been nudged awake by the TARDIS or naturally woke up with a start.
Slowly relaxing, he rubbed sleep out of his eyes, got up and grabbed the clothes he had found yesterday. He’d need to find more. There was no use only having one set of clothing to wear. He made his way to the ablution block and got himself ready for the night. Or was it day?
Fuck, he’d lost all sense of time during his little stay on that meteor and being stuck on a ship in space didn’t help. He had no way of knowing what the time was. It could be anything. His brain was telling him it was early evening though, so he’d go with that.
After he was cleaned and dressed, he stepped out of his room and went in search of the kitchen. He was getting hungry and decided a few slices of toast would be good enough for breakfast. He doubted there was grubloaf available, as this was the wrong universe for it, but he would eat bread too.
Great! Figures. Now he was craving foods he knew wouldn’t exist in this universe. Damn it, that had been one of his favourite foods too. Now he would have to get used to so much new stuff. Find himself some different favourites. And he’d be doing it alone, no lusus, no other trolls.
He was fucked...
Stopping in front of a door the TARDIS had nudged him towards, he peeked into the room and saw it was a kitchen. For such a huge ship, it was small, cosy even. The Doctor was leaning against a counter, sipping at a mug. River was at the table, eating a slice of toast. He was about to turn around and come back when the area was clear of other people, but was spotted almost instantly.
“Karkat! Did you get some sleep?”
He grimaced but nodded in answer. Knowing he was definitely caught out on his being there, he moved fully into the room and headed towards the thermal hull to see what he could scrounge up for a decent meal. After spotting the bread on the counter, he turned his attention to things to put on it. There was no way he was eating dry toast. He only did that if he was sick.
He found an orange condiment he decided to try called marmalade. It had breakfast written on the label so hey, it seemed right anyway. He wasn’t the greatest fan of orange flavoured stuff, but fuck it.
It was then he ran into a problem. It wasn’t a big problem, hell it shouldn’t have really been seen as a problem at all, but his think pan was a little fried right then because of all the shit that had been happening in his life the past few weeks that it was a little bit too much.
The bread heating device was different. Instead of organic like he was used to with most of his appliances, it was purely electrical. He knew he needed to put the bread into the slits at the top and it would toast but...how would it toast? What if it toasted wrong? His back on his hive would automatically make toast the way he liked it, he had his well trained like any troll worth his food would.
He hadn’t even thought of things like this the day before. He hadn’t needed to, as his needs had been met for him. He was used to seeing and knew how to operate the human version of a computer because he had watched them in action and was comfortable with them. That had been no problem, but he hadn’t really been interested in every single tiny thing in a human household.
He should know how this worked, but he couldn’t...he couldn’t think.
A loud ringing in his ears he’d only ever heard once invaded his head and he said something out loud, and he hoped he was stating he was about to drop, because he couldn’t hear or understand his own words right then.
The last time he had felt like this everything had been drenched in brown and a pair of useless limbs was being held away from their original body. The ringing then had been so proficient in blocking out all other sounds he couldn’t hear when Kanaya had stopped the revving of her chainsaw and no longer heard the screeches of the once sleeping Tavros.
Quickly putting the jar on the counter, he found he couldn’t catch his breath, he was suddenly covered in a cold sweat and he needed to sit before he fainted. He turned around too fast and was out.
He came to with someone papping his cheek and a cool cloth on his forehead. Also his legs seemed to be floating...no, not floating, he was now getting feeling back in them, they were elevated on someone’s knees. He groaned in embarrassment. “I fainted didn’t I?”
“Yes, but don’t worry, I didn’t let you hit the ground. Wait a minute before you sit back up. Give your body time to come back around or you’ll make yourself dizzy or sick,” the Doctor replied from the direction of his feet. Ah, River must be the one with the cloth and hands on his cheeks then, good.
“Yeah yeah, fine. Not moving. Got it.” He didn’t really feel dizzy right then, but he did have a headache banging around in his skull.
After a minute had passed and his head sorted itself out a bit more, thankfully the headache vanished and he slowly raised himself to his elbows. When he didn’t get dizzy or throw up, he allowed himself a hum of relief and sat himself up, pulling his legs off the Doctor as he did so.
“What set that off?” he was asked, as River began rubbing comforting circles on his back.
“The bread hea...no, fuck it, you guys use Highblood vernacular and right now the less words I say the better. The toaster is different. Might be only a small fucking difference, but when everything is going to be different it just...”
“Overwhelmed you. Do you want to stay here today? We can always go somewhere later tomorrow.”
“Oh my god! Shut the fuck up, I fainted, I’m not injured or sick. I’m fine. I just want something to eat and to get off the ship for a few hours.” Right then all he wanted was to know a real time. Get his rhythm back in some kind of order, because he had been doing way too much sleeping lately and not enough of anything else.
“Anywhere in particular you want to go?”
He frowned. “The only planet in this entire miserable universe I fucked up with is Earth. The four kids I know from that planet wouldn’t be in this alternate timeline to theirs, as they only would be in two different timelines of the universe. Fuck if I know anything or anyone else though.”
“Ooh, Earth is my favourite,” the Doctor stated, and River laughed loudly before stopping her rubbing.
“You can always watch me make the toast, and experiment with the toaster for your own preferences later. It will save time if nothing else.”
Deciding to take River up on her help, Karkat nodded, before he frowned. “I wanted to try that orange condiment, the breakfast one. I’ve never had it before. Never even heard of it. Fuck, I’m hungry...” He was definitely headed for his moult if he could be hungry after fainting. Last time that had happened he had felt sick.
“Marmalade, not everyone likes it.”
They were having a boring conversation that was civil about breakfast foods. Holy fuck, his life was beginning to unravel. Fuck, no, he was not going to start crying now. Taking a deep breath, he let it out slowly and managed to not burst into an embarrassing display of hysterical screaming to go with the fainting he did earlier.
Fuck his past self to the furthest reaches of paradox space. Fuck that guy so fucking hard...
He got up and made his way back over to the counter, this time paying attention. As much attention as he could anyway without thinking that everything was just so...metallic and dead in this universe. At least the ship had a consciousness and was able to communicate, that was at least on par with the helmsmen of the Alternian Fleet and at least familiar to him.
As he knew, the bread went into the slots at the top, a lever on the side was pushed down and that turned the heating on inside and lowered the bread. Okay, that was easy enough to understand, this was simple. He had freaked out over absolutely nothing.
“Not everyone likes their bread toasted the same way, so there is this dial on the side to twist around until you find one you prefer. But for now, please eat this.” River got a plate and set it down beside the toaster. The toast was mainly still white, with a bit of a golden edge to it. He liked his to be all golden brown and toasted, but fuck he’d take it.
“Yeah, thanks, I’ll find a setting I like later.”
This was so fucking embarrassing...
He was shown the drawer with the eating utensils and grabbed a knife and the marmalade, spreading a thin layer onto his breakfast, just in case he didn’t like it.
He found he didn’t actually mind the taste. It wasn’t too sweet or bitter as he had feared. The texture was more like jam than anything else. Orange jam for breakfast. Huh, humans were weird. Why had they called this marmalade?
A hand waved in front of his face, and he turned to see the Doctor looking worriedly at him from across the table. “Are you alright? Where were you just then?”
Confused, Karkat shrugged a shoulder and told the truth. “I was right here. Where else would I be. I just got lost in thought. Why the fuck do they call orange jam, marmalade? Why not just call it what it is? It makes no sense...”
River laughed, before sitting beside him with a mug of what smelled like chamomile tea. “As a rule, humans can be a weird species, Karkat. As one, I am very fond of our trait of not making sense.”
Rolling his eyes, he scowled, before shoving the rest of the piece of toast in his hand into his mouth. He was therefore too busy chewing to answer the inevitable question on if he was ready to go or not, so he just nodded instead. Getting up, he followed the two adults as they made their way to the console room. He had finished with the toast by the time they got there.
“First off, there’s something you need to know. I know you have this thing going on with River right now, but she doesn’t actually live on board the ship. She has a job as an archaeologist out there in the universe and I am dropping her off first. If you want to say bye, you may want to do it now.”
Karkat found, to his further embarrassment, that the rest had done his tear ducts some good if nothing else, because hearing that the only adult he felt wouldn’t try anything suspicious was leaving him with the one that already had, got the sudden reaction of crying. He buried his face in his hands and tried to control himself to no effect.
Stupid fucking mood swings. He had gone most of his life putting up a front of anger to stop himself from crying and as soon as personal deaths started entering his life (not with his lusus though, Terezi had been watching at the time and she hadn’t known his blood colour then) he turned into a ball of negative feelings and started crying all over the place.
Gamzee was the first to see him cry. Was the first to know his blood colour. Was the first to not fuck up everything with the evidence that he was a mutant. He was pretty sure Gamzee saw his freaky blood colour as a miracle. Was it any wonder he ended up with Gamzee as his moirail?
Without thinking, he quickly ran into the nearest hallway and hit the walls with both hands. He needed to stop fucking crying!
Thankfully neither of the two adults followed him and he got himself under some semblance of control before he managed to injure his hands. The ache in them helped dull the emotional pain somewhat and he sighed with the stupidity of his own actions. He would need to deal with this and he knew it, but right now he needed to have some time out, get off the ship and try to have some fun.
What he really wanted was to curl up in a pile somewhere with his moirail. And even that was confusing right now, as he hadn’t exactly told River that he had found someone to replace her. And Rose was stuck on the other ship right now, as she couldn’t get to this ship because Jade couldn’t find it until it landed...
Gamzee was dead.
He had killed him with his regiscythe.
He...he didn’t feel too good.
Taking a few deep breaths, he got himself to the point where he didn’t think moving would make him vomit up his breakfast and stood up straighter. If he was going to do anything this day, it may as well be now. Turning back to the entrance of the console room, he slowly made his way back.
He had been close enough to hear the silence from the two adults. So he knew they hadn’t been talking about him behind his back. He wasn’t expecting them to be in different parts of the Console room though. River was visible as soon as he re-entered the room, her eyes closed as she listened to what he assumed to be invisible music.
He only spotted the Doctor when he looked down at the floor and found the see through material helpful. He was playing around with some wires while sitting on a swinging seat.
The Doctor looked up and spotted him, giving him a wide smile. “I’ll be just a moment. The TARDIS is being unreasonable at the moment. One of her wires frayed. Almost done down here.”
Sighing, Karkat turned to River. “Umm, I have something I need to tell you. And I would have already if I wasn’t such a bulge chafing idiot with enough emotional problems to fit into every battleship the Imperial Fleet had to offer. I talked to my friend Rose yesterday and she asked me to be her Moirail. She has...problems when it comes to her own grief and she thinks it might be beneficial to her to try it out. I accepted, because I need a moirail right now like a mother grub needs the slurry once a sweep. She’s easy to talk to though and has all this kind of psychological bullshit going on. But it does seem mutual right now and...Yeah.”
River grinned at him after that, before nodding. “I didn’t believe I was going to be a permanent moirail for you, Karkat. I’m an adult and you aren’t. I know enough to know that wouldn’t work. I am glad that someone asked you though.”
Nodding, feeling better now that that bit of awkwardness was out the way. He frowned and went over to the edge of the platform the console was on and looked down. “Is it ready yet? I want to see sky again.”
The Doctor wasn’t looking at him, instead he was frowning at a wire he was holding, now unattached to the TARDIS. “Hmm? Oh! Yes. Just wondering where to put the leftovers. Hopefully that feels better for the old girl. Still, a bit of old wiring could be useful if fixed up a bit...throw or keep?”
Growling, Karkat threw his hands in the air, before crossing them over his chest. “I don’t fucking care, do I? All I care about is getting off the ship and having some fresh air to breathe for the first time in, oh, four fucking weeks!?”
He basically squeaked out the last three words, but he didn’t rightly care right then. This was his day to be humiliated, why not? He’d be glad when his voice decided to stay at the nice lower tone it was turning into. It made him feel less childish. Not like he wasn’t acting like a wiggler right then. He was impatient and cranky and generally liked to hurry through everything.
Yet again, that was basically his default setting. His mood did seem to careen around the emotional spectrum though. Speed of light emotional tantrum, that was him. How thrilling. Hopefully he would feel better once he could join up with Rose and have a proper feelings jam. Jade did say she’d be able to find him once the TARDIS stopped after all.
God, he hoped she had been right. He really needed someone to talk to. Damn it, when he got back inside from this little trip, he was going to construct his damn pile. He was getting to the point where he was willing to start papping himself.
Karkat watched as the Doctor, done with his work, stowed the small piece of wire in one of his pockets, rubbed his hands against his shirt, before he bounced to his feet and ran up the stairs. “Alright, Karkat, River, let’s go! First stop, River’s office.”
The loud sound of the engines making a sound like very high pitched wheezing startled Karkat enough to jump. He had forgotten or perhaps had been too busy feeling sorry for himself to notice that sound before. And the weird thing was the ship had been in flight the entire time yet had only just started making that sound. What the fuck was up with that?
Damn, he was jumping out of his skin over a stupid noise now, one that wasn’t even hostile in nature. He grabbed hold of the railing that was in front of him and took some steadying deep breaths. A few seconds later, the sound stopped.
“See you same time next week, Sweetie?” River asked, staring at the Doctor with a look that told him he should not be in the same room with them right now. He closed his eyes and turned around. He hoped that they had the decency to not start mating in front of him. Did humans do that? He didn’t know, the only ones he knew were his age and had the decency to keep any mating behaviour to themselves and in the privacy of their bathrooms and/or beds. Not that he had watched them at it or anything. Nope, that shit was weird. He did not want to know what human junk looked like.
Oh god, River and the Doctor were kissing, he could hear them at it. Thankfully it didn’t last that long, and before he knew it, he could once again hear the engines and River was gone. He hadn’t heard the Doctor reply to River’s comment.
“Anywhere in particular you’d like to go? Any time of day, or particular type of world?”
Turning to face the Doctor, Karkat frowned and chewed on his bottom lip for a second. Shrugging he replied, “I don’t know. It would be interesting to see what insect species here are like, I guess. See what kind of competition my people would have had. I would like them to be nice though. I don’t think I’d be able to handle much of a fight right now. Not that I can’t fight! I can! I just...I need a break from it right now.”
The Doctor grinned at him. “Well, most insectoid species I know tend to aggression, much like yours, but there is one I know which is nice. When I was there only one was left, but she was very polite and nice. It was also quite dark, but...it was the end of the universe at the time...I will just go there a bit earlier!”
Nodding, not really caring right then of anything other than seeing stars in the sky, he leaned against the railing and tried to relax. It wasn’t easy. Since waking up, he had been jumpy for no reason, and now it was worse. Was it because he was now left alone with no one but the Doctor, who he was wary around, or was it because of other reasons? He didn’t want to think about what those other reasons were right then, but he knew they were a definite factor into his behaviour.
When the sound of the engines stopped again, he was afraid to go to the door and poke his head out of it to see what was on the other side. He was so, so fed up with being scared. Growling loudly, he marched himself to the door and almost pulled it off its hinges to get it open.
Outside was a view of a hivelike city. And he was suddenly hit with a wave of homesickness so strong he was left leaning against the door. It looked nothing like the hives each individual troll built his or her self, and it wasn’t a city with tall hive stems with individual and small hives attached to them, like what Sollux had lived in. No, it was mostly hives built into the walls of huge cliffs, nice and dark, with naturally made bridges spanning from one side to the next for easy access to the entire area.
They obviously lived in harmony with each other, and with no weaponry in view, no ships on patrol and no lusii barging out to protect their charges, it made him feel so utterly stupid for feeling anything even remotely like being homesick.
He slowly slid down the door, barely feeling the floor when he hit it. Then the Doctor was leaning over him all worried and he was being mothered again.
“Are you alright?”
Nodding, he felt himself swallowing heavily, because he seemed to have something stuck down his wind pipe. At least he wasn’t crying again.
“Karkat? Please say something.”
He turned to look at the Doctor, quickly looked away and before he could think of something smart to say, the words in his head came out. “I want to go home.”
There was silence for what was probably a minute at the most, though it felt twice as long. The Doctor sighed beside him, before sitting down and placing a hand lightly on his knee. “Do you want to go down there, see it up close?”
Shaking his head, Karkat sighed and turned his gaze to the sky. “No. I thought I would, but I don’t. Can I just stay here for a while? I need to breathe real air. The stars here are so different...everything is so different.”
“That’s fine. Do you want me to get you anything? A glass of water?”
Frowning for a second as he thought if he was thirsty enough to want water, he nodded slightly. “Okay. Water sounds good. And my blanket. I want my blanket.”
Five minutes later he sat against the door with his blanket tightly wrapped around him, staring up at unfamiliar stars in an unfamiliar universe and felt lonelier than he ever had in his life.
The Doctor didn’t leave his side.