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No matter how many times he’d been kidnapped, Karkat still found himself freaking out, blind behind the leather bag they’d shoved over his head. His hands were bound tightly behind his back, so tightly that he knew he would probably break his wrists if he tried to force his way out of the bindings like he usually would. Not that they left him alone long enough for him to even try, these people were serious, probably more serious than all of the others had been.
Although the blood-caste system had been abolished by the Gods hundreds of years before Karkat had even hatched, there were still a lot of people who clung to the dumbass old ways. It wasn’t that rare for an unlucky lowblood to go missing off of the streets every couple of months. Karkat wasn’t even on the spectrum and was pretty surprised he’d made it this far in life; sure, Fef called him nihilistic when he talked like that, but he preferred to see it as realistic. This way, he wouldn’t be too disappointed when others around him turned out to be real shitheads the moment they found out about his blood. He’d been taken twice before, by people not as well coordinated as these, and thankfully Sollux and Nepeta had noticed quickly when he failed to check in with them, but he couldn’t count on that this time. Tomorrow was a day off, and Sollux was sure to spend the night and the entire next day napping away like a fucking grub, and Nepeta had gone on a trip to Beforus a couple of states south with her moirail.
Dave might notice, but then again time worked very differently for the Gods, even the Knight of Time himself. Oh Gods, Dave, he thought, suddenly feeling a lot more panicked than he had before. He was going to freak out when he found out, he’d told him to stick close to home for the next couple of months, he’s warned him that there was a group moving into town that he needed to deal with & that he wouldn’t be able to stop by for a while! And fuck, Karkat absolutely hated being told what to do, but he’d seemed so worried that he’d agreed. And then he’d gone fucking stir crazy and decided to do something absolutely shitballs insane like stay out a couple of hours past dark!
Okay, Karkat needed to calm down before he worked himself up into a panic, that was the last thing he needed. Ok… what could he distract himself with…
“Do you feculent shitsucks want my hands to fall off from lack of fucking circulation?” he snapped into the empty air in front of him. Sure, he couldn’t exactly see anything right now, but he hadn’t heard the trolls that had dragged him into this cold stone room leave, so they must still be around, right? “Hello?”
There was no response, but someone shuffled around further in the room. He wasn’t alone.
“Fucking answer me, assholes!”
Someone snorted. “Do you really think you’re in the right place to be making demands right now?”
“Maybe if you’d let me go and stop being a dickhead, I would be! Or maybe we can just sit here and yell at each other like nookscratching dumbfucks! Does that sound any better to you?” Karkat growled low in his throat.
Footsteps, and then there was another voice chirping threateningly at him from the other side of the room, high and reedy, and Karkat snarled back in their direction.
“We’d only let you go in your dreams, shit-blood,” the voice that had chirped at him said, before apparently turning to whoever else was in the room. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yes, are you ready for us to bring the Mutant?”
“Yeah, just grab them and follow me.”
Someone grabbed Karkat tightly by his arm and wrenched him to his feet, dragging him along beside them as he tried and failed (repeatedly) to keep his footing.
“Where- the fuck are you- taking me?” he forced out between each blind step.
The guards stopped in their steps, and before Karkat knew what was happening, the leather sack was being pulled from his head. The torchlight was dim in the hallway they were stood in, but it was still brighter than Katkat was expecting after hours of darkness, and he flinched at the sudden light. A blueblood stood in front of him with the sharpest horns he’d ever seen, smirking widely, flanked by a tealblood with horns that curved elegantly away from their face, and a dark-haired human, who must have been the guards.
“Should you really be doing tha-” The human started before the blueblood shushed them.
“I just wanna see their face when they find out they’re not leaving this place alive,” the blueblood’s sharp-toothed grin widened in a way that was definitely more threatening than mirthful. “You wanna know what we’re gonna do with you, Mutant?”
Karkat stubbornly held her gaze, keeping his chin up and defiant, but he didn’t answer.
“We’re gonna use that candy-red blood of yours to summon the Knight of Time and bind him to our service, that’s what. A life for a life, you know?” she said cheerfully. “You should be honoured, really, not that you deserve it! You’re about to turn the tides of life as we know it, the Gods will be serving us for a change!”
Karkat couldn’t stop the shiver that ran down his spine, ignoring the way her eyes lit up at his alarm. “He’s not going to like that.”
“Who cares, silly!”
“No,” Karkat said, blood running ice-cold, “Dave’s going to kill you if you do that! You can’t fucking do that to him, he hates hurting people-”
Karkat looked back to the blueblood and his voice petered out. She looked so angry it was terrifying. “Who are you to speak the Knight’s Name?”
“Uhh…” Fuck, why did he have to run his fucking mouth all the time?
“Who are you to know how the Knight will react?”
Karkat gritted his teeth. His partner. “His friend.”
The blueblood was silent for a moment, and Karkat thought she was going to pull her knife on him, but then she started laughing. “ His friend? You’re funny, it’s too bad you’ll be dying soon! I’ve heard a lot of pleas for life in my time but nobody has ever claimed to be one of the Gods friends!”
Karkat wanted to scream. He wanted to dig into her with the claws that were tied behind his back, wanted to push her into one of the torches that lined the halls and watch her burn. Because he didn’t care if he died; he’d been expecting this day to come all his life, being hunted felt fucking normal at this point. But fucking with Dave? Fuck that, he didn’t have the escape of death, he had to live for eternity with the stuff that fucked him up, and Karkat didn’t want to be just another thing on that long, long list.
Was his life worth fighting over, though? He could try and take them, maybe if he knocked out the blueblood he would have a chance at getting away. But she knew him now. Even if he did manage to take her out, she could control him as soon as she woke up and make him come all the way back.
Delaying them didn’t matter either; it wouldn’t be for long enough for Sollux or Nepeta to clue into his situation, and Dave definitely wouldn’t be back for a good while at least. He was alone. Nobody knew where he was. There wasn’t any getting out of this.
Better to just get this over with as soon as possible. Maybe if he was lucky, the ritual wouldn’t work, and Dave wouldn’t find out until it was too late for him to do anything rash.
“Let’s go, Corinn,” the tealblood said, “we’re going to be late.”
The blueblood, Corinn, looked at Karkat and smiled when he stared angrily back. “Alright then, let’s get going!”
The human didn’t shove the sack back on his head, it didn’t matter, apparently, if he knew the layout of the cave system they were in if he was going to be dead soon. He took every twist and turn carefully anyway, watching for landmarks; a wall that was textured slightly differently from the rest, a heavy iron door, a slender staircase. It was surprisingly simple to remember, not that Karkat thought it would help at all. It was a lot easier to walk as well, now that he could see where he was going. The tealblood struggled less with yanking him along, and he spent more time on his feet.
It was kind of ironic that, of all the gods these fuckstains were trying to summon, they chose the Knight of Time; the one God that Karkat happened to know, especially when most people could live their entire lives without experiencing direct contact with one of them. It was kind of funny, actually, the one time that Dave would be faced with true irony, which Karkat had been trying to get him to acknowledge ever since he’d met him years ago, and it would be from his partner’s death.
… Wow… the last time he saw Dave really was going to be the last time he saw him. They’d argued over something stupid that Karkat couldn’t even remember too, he’d stormed off and hadn’t gotten the chance to apologize. That really fucking sucked. He couldn’t help but send a silent prayer to the Gods, to the Witch of Space who might be able to help him escape. The Page of Hope who might be able to will him his freedom. To Dave... He knew it wouldn’t work, talking to the Gods didn’t work like that for anyone other than the Theif of Void, and Dave was a Knight. Knights definitely didn’t have that kind of power.
Wait… what?
Karkat was pulled from his thoughts by the human pulling open one of the heavy doors lining the hall, one that looked exactly like the rest of them, and Karkat felt a point at his back; the blueblood, smiling wide and forcing him into the room. He rolled his eyes and went willingly, walking into a dark cave, people in shady cloaks milling around the edges of the room. Karkat didn’t pay them much mind. In the center of the room sat a large, stone, slab of an altar, candles and lines of chalk assembled in a gear-like formation around it. The alter was covered in a thin piece of fabric that resembled a tablecloth, bright and candy red. The same colour as his blood. The same colour as Dave’s blood (not that anyone but the other Gods and Karkat knew that).
He was pushed towards the alter, and the blueblood shoved him down, fastening his restraints to hooks at the top and bottom. He almost rolled his eyes at her excessive force again, it’s not like he was fighting her, but it seemed like a stupid idea when she had a knife a hairs’ length from his face. He watched as she nodded to someone, another troll, and carefully handed over the knife. Corinn gave Karkat one last smirk before ducking into the crowd of shadows.
The knife hovered over him, held by the tall, cloaked troll, and despite the fact that he thought he’d accepted his fate, Karkat could feel the panic start up again, his heart beating wildly in his chest. He could see large, jade eyes peering at him from under the shadows of that hood, and it didn’t help that his mind filled in the darkness there with Kanaya’s face. Fuck, just another person that he was never going to see again. He wondered if she would find a new moirail after his body was found.
He wondered if they chose the jadeblood purposefully for this job, just to fuck with him. He wouldn’t be surprised.
The jadeblood spoke up, voice deep and gruff and nothing like Kanaya’s. “Do you have any last words?”
Karkat slowly pushed himself up, letting the cool metal of the blade kiss his throat. “Fuck yeah, I do,” he said, voice clearer and much more confident than he felt. “You have no idea what you’re messing with, he’ll kill you all even if this doesn’t work. Fuck you, and fuck your stupid, idiotic, asscactus of an ideology!”
He spat in the jadeblood’s face, which might have been extremely moronic, but fuck it, he was about to die and there was panic-fueled adrenaline rushing through his veins
The jadeblood didn’t respond at all except to slash the knife across his throat, and the world went dark.
It was a fuchsiablood that read out the spell, the Ancient Language flowing off of their tongue like water. The cavern was silent other than the sound of her voice echoing off of the walls, and an underwater spring somewhere deep in the tunnels gurgling softly. They finished, voice bold and clear, and for a moment, nothing happened.
Then, one-by-one, the flames in the candles started to go out, the room darkening until it was pitch black. Everything was dark, other than the red eyes that glowed in the dark, just in front of the alter.
Dave Strider, still as a statue, said one word and one word only, his voice thick with anger-distress-pain.
“Run.”
And then he moved.
Altogether, the candles burst to life again, their flames bright red and illuminating the room in a shaky, panicked light as trolls and humans alike started to freeze in place, their lives passing by in seconds, as their skin shrivelled and their teeth fell out before their eyes. One human dropped to their knees in front of the Knight and grabbed at the hem of his cape, a wordless plea for mercy in their face, but the Knight kicked them aside and they exploded into dust. In minutes, all that was left of the crowd that had once occupied the room was a fine powdering of ash along the stone floor.
The Knight stood there for a moment, motionless, before turning towards the alter. The bindings on the troll, burned away as he touched them, and he pulled the body down to the floor with him.
He was covered in blood… so much blood, and red was Dave’s favourite colour but not like this, never like this. SBURB had been so unfair to them all, but to the trolls especially. Every time they died, every time they fell they were reincarnated, every time with zero memories of their past lives, and god, Dave didn’t think there was anyone of his friends left other than himself who still tried to keep in contact with them. Even Rose had backed away from Kanaya after the roughly five thousand years of watching her grow old and die only to have to start their relationship all over again in her next life.
Dave had found Karkat in every single life. He’d loved Karkat in every single life. And all that pain had been about to be worth it; Rose had been working out a way to fix everything with Jane and Jake’s powers, she’d already found half of the quest beds for fuck’s sake. But Karkat’s death meant that he would have to get to know him all over again. And he knew he’d done it before and that there was nothing that could stop him from doing it again, but it just seemed so much further away now. It was heartbreaking.
He pulled Karkat’s body into his lap, clung to his hand like a lifeline, and pressed his forehead against his, eyes welling up behind his shades with tears that he wiped away quickly. He pressed a small kiss to the corner of Karkat’s mouth and ducked his head into his chest. Tears dripped onto the troll’s bloody shirt, and Dave just felt tired.
Then the hand he was gripping twitched slightly, and slowly squeezed back.
He’s… he’s alive?? What the fuck did those dipshits do, is he a fuckin’ zombie now? Are we gonna get all World War Z up in this bitch?
Karkat’s hand twitched again and suddenly Dave was yelling at the top of his lungs, so loudly that his words echoed back at him from deeper in the cavern, “Jane! Jake! Rose! Get your asses down here and help me! ”
He could already feel them nearing as he gently lied Karkat down on the cold, stone floor. “You’ve got this babe, you’re fine like fuckin’ apple juice, man, fuck why is that what came to mind. I’m thirsty, Karkat! You see this! I’m probably in fuckin’ shock and all I can think of is apple juice, what the fuck is wrong with me? Okay Dave, shut your mouth, thanks. Anyway, you’re gonna be okay, help’s on the way, stay with me, Karkles…”
God, Karkat hated that nickname. He could almost hear him yelling at him to shut up, so he leaned down and left a kiss on Karkat’s forehead, hiding his relieved smile in his skin.
He’s gonna be okay.