Work Text:
You have no idea how he pulled it off.
You definitely remember dying, the heat mercifully flash-frying your thinkpan before the lava could boil away muscle and fat and bone, but you also definitely remember a glowing white hand grabbing yours as you stumbled off the cliff edge, and the blade sliding out of your chest and into the molten rock below as it pulled you to safety. The conflicting memories make your skull buzz. Judging from the confused looks of the others, they couldn’t have fared any better, and are as utterly baffled as you are as to how you escaped your collective fates.
Kanaya questions the existence of the back of her hand before being practically tackled from behind by an openly weeping Rose. Jade stares into the space her hive used to occupy, and the pantsless human runs his fingers over a hole in his outfit. You turn around to see John standing with his back turned to the rest of you, doubled over and breathing heavily, the elder Strider’s hand on his shoulder.
"You gonna make it, man? That shit was intense, no lie."
"Yeah, just…" John manages between wheezes. "Gimme a second. Holy shit. Fuck." The word hangs in his throat and John spits on the ground.
"That asshole in the codpiece got away and I don’t know how much time I bought us before the troll queen gets here," he continues once he manages to catch his breath. "But other than that, yeah, I think I did okay here."
"So is that what you ended up doing with my sword?" Your eyes shoot open as you remember the sight of her being choked out by Gamzee and caked with her own blood.
"Jammed it into some engine part when the zaps took me to her ship."
"Nice. I mean, I’ll probably never see that thing again, but at least you put it to good use."
You’re walking toward them and about to ask if whatever stunt John pulled happened to leave Terezi with a few less broken bones and missing teeth when you catch sight of a figure overlooking the volcano’s rim. She sits cross-legged, stains of blue-green and purple streak her shirt, hair, and the red cloth tied around her head, and the remaining blade of the dragon cane stands next to her stabbed into the ground.
You tell yourself you have to see if she’s okay, but considering what she’s been through, “okay” is an extremely fucking relative term right now.
Slowly, you make your way over to her, leaving the others to talk amongst themselves about the heroic hoops John had to jump through to make sure you all didn’t bite the big one. Her ears perk up when you’re sure she detects your footsteps, but she doesn’t turn around or even stand up for most of an entire minute.
“I used to like red, you know.” Her voice quavers like she’s unsure of herself. You decide not to interrupt her. “A sweep or two ago, I would have never left this place if I’d found anything like it. I could have gotten drunk on all this sweet cherry red, the high would never leave me and I could have died happy here.”
Slowly, she stands, her legs buckling slightly as she rises to her feet. “But now?” she continues as she unties the blindfold. “Now it stinks. It all reeks of smoke and ash and sulphur and blood and fucking death and there’s nothing worse, FUCKING HELL!” She screams the last two words as she wads the blindfold up into a ball and flings it as hard as she can, away from her and into the lava below.
“It stinks, and your red is the worst there is by a longshot. I hate it oozing out of those holes in your chest, and I hate it staining my own goddamned weapon that was stolen from me, and most of all I hate it pulling you down and swallowing you up and taking you away from me forever.”
She turns around, takes a step toward you, and another, and now her arms circle around you, hands clasping together at your lower back. Teal sticks to and seeps through your shirt, making a gross mess. You don’t even care. You return the hug, holding her as tightly as you can without hurting her any further.
She sniffles into your shirt. “Don’t you dare let me go, Karkat Vantas. Don’t you fucking dare.”
“I won’t, I won’t,” is all you can think to say as she rests her head on your shoulder.