Chapter Text
February 14th, Year 1 of Sweep 2
You are Karkat Vantas, and you are trying to figure out where you are. Well, not exactly-- you know that you’re in a dream bubble. You aren’t stupid. You know what’s going on when you find yourself on an island.
But whose island? It is full of ruins, and verdant tropical plants. And it is very bright. The brightness, of course, makes you think of Kanaya, but perhaps Aradia was involved as well. Or it belongs to one of the hum--
You see the fake Rose come out from a large mass of shrubbery. “Hello,” she says cheerily. Too cheerily for a Rose, you think, but maybe she has something up her sleeve.
You glance around. “Who else is here? Is this your memory?”
“No, not mine. I don’t know for sure who it belongs to, either, although I can make a couple of guesses. Or maybe four. Did you read Bloodchild yet?”
“Yeah I did. It was like some kind of ungodly fiduspawn erotic fanf--”
You shut up. There’s someone else. It takes a moment, but the sound eventually resolves into words. “I will be fine! This is a perfectly deadly gun and it shoots lots of incredibly deadly bullets! Oh, will you just stop it. I am going now! Goodbye!”
“Ooh. Guns,” says the fake Rose, but you ignore her. That… That sounded like Jade . You’re in Jade’s dream bubble. And she’s coming this way.
Before you can decide what to do, Jade comes into the clearing and, a second later, you find yourself at the business end of a rifle. “Who are you? What are you doing with Rose? And, uh, why do you have horns?”
Rose slips her hands into the pockets of her jacket. “This may come as a shock to you but you are, how should I put it, living-impaired. And so am I. But my friend,” she says, now pointing at you, “is not. He is just visiting.”
“No, I’m not dead,” you feel the need to confirm. “God, you’re a pain. Jade, it’s me. It’s Karkat.”
Jade seems to shiver. She blinks, and turns to you. “Wait. This isn’t how this happened before… I… Oh, Karkat? This is what you look like?” She smiles.
“You do know each other,” Rose says. “Spectacular. Unless you hated each other. But it does not appear as though that is the case.” She looks thoughtful. “I wonder what my house looks like…” she says to herself.
“Yeah, he’s been trolling me on and off for a while now… um… depending on when exactly now is.”
“Sometime after you died,” Rose says. “That’s when it is.”
“You must have split off from the main timeline. I’m pretty sure Alpha Jade isn’t dead,” you say. “I hope not.”
“We’ll never know for sure, will we?” Rose says, and you turn to stare at her.
“How do you know that?” You demand.
“Look at that, you have a wonderful reunion here, isn’t that true? Let’s concentrate on that,” she says, but you aren’t having any of it.
“Fuck, it was Rose, wasn’t it?” You demand. “I mean, the other Rose. my Ro-”
“What about Rose?”
“Does she tell you everything?”
“Karkat, what are you talking about?” Jade asks. “Rose is right there, of course she tells herself everything.”
The fake Rose holds her hands up. “Jade, this may come as another surprise to you, but I am not the Rose that you are familiar with. In fact, the Jade with whom I made my acquaintance was surnamed Lalonde.”
“And both Roses are tactless--” you interject.
“You must have a lot of catching up to do,” she says, pulling out a pack of what the other Ampora had said were called ‘cigarettes.’ “Since one of you is dead. I wonder how that happened. It must be a really interesting story.”
“I… I… don’t remember?” Jade looks a little disoriented by all of this.
“Should have remembered to bring a lighter,” Rose mutters to herself.
“Oh, allow me,” Jade says as she takes out a small welding torch.
“Oh, fantastic!” The end of the cigarette starts to glow and release smoke. “I never had the habit before, but cigarettes cannot kill you if you are already dead. Want one? Either of you?”
Jade declines, but you don’t have enough presence of mind to do anything but stare at Rose for a moment. “Wait, so you light it on fire and put it… in your mouth?”
“Exactly.”
“Humans are insane.”
“Gee, thanks Karkat,” Jade says. “Anyway, I would like to go see if my dog is where I found him earlier. You’re welcome to tag along.”
“Sure,” Rose says, and like that you find yourself having to abide the company of the fake Rose for a little while longer. “What brings you to the underworld tonight, Karkat? Did you bring your obolus for Boatman Charon? You did say that you are not dead, right?”
You ignore her.
“Speaking of not-dead people, did the rest of my friends make it through the game okay?”
“Yes,” Rose says. “They probably died lots of times, like they did in my timeline, but that’s fine. Dying is just a thing that happens. It’s when you don’t come back that there is a problem. In fact, you are probably okay too. The main you, I mean. But we won’t know until that you dies. I wonder how quantum immortality works with this, actually…”
“Well, I think that waveform cancellation through the time loops is involved in reinforcing the alpha timeline over the doomed ones,” Jade responds. “But it’s been awhile since I brushed up on that stuff.”
All you can do is stare.
“And one’s personal stream of consciousness would still be maintained through dream bubbles,” Rose continues.
“Dream bubbles? Don’t recall hearing about those.”
“That is what we are in. Duat. Shadowland. Underworld. Mictlan. Dead People Land. Normal people need not apply, however. You have to have played Sburb.”
“Oh. Huh. They do a really poor job telling you about the afterlife.”
“They do,” Rose agrees.
“Well, I was supposed to have played today. And I had everything set up, but…” Jade suddenly stops, and her clear green eyes go white. “But… John wasn’t there, and I didn’t have a server player to let me into the Medium.”
“Goddammit, Terezi,” you mutter.
“Oh gosh. John’s okay, isn’t he!?”
“John’s with you. I don’t know. We got separated and I don’t think we’ll ever really meet each other outside of these bubbles.”
Jade looks relieved.
“It’s okay,” you say. “You two are probably better off than we are.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Karkat,” Rose says. “That is to say, you are not stuck here yet, are you? Which is not to say that this is not a wonderful place. Because it is. But it would also be nice to have freedom of movement.”
“That’s not what I meant,” you clarify with some annoyance. “I meant that Jade and John might actually get where they’re going.”
“The other versions of you will, won’t they? And meanwhile you can be invested in your own pursuits. Or did you want to fight a horrible battle against… whoever it was?”
“Goddammit, I don’t have an ‘own pursuits’”, you insist.
“What do you do when you are not saving the universe? I seem to recall that you liked romances.”
“‘Liking romance’ is a goddamn hobby, not a life. What, am I gonna be a romantic novelist? On the meteor? Shit! Failed as a leader. Failed as a God. Failed as a fucking-- could never have been a fucking soldier!”
“Well Karkat, it sounds like you need some new hobbies!” Jade offers. “Have you considered gardening?”
“No, I have not been gardening on the meteor. I really don’t think that would work.”
“Hydroponics, maybe?” Rose says.
“Well, you’d need artificial sunlight,” Jade replies.
“I’m sure that they can appearify that. Or alchemize it. Make it somehow.”
“Ngh. Dream sunlight is bad enough,” you say, squinting.
Rose laughs.
“Not as bad as Alternia, but still.”
“Fungi don’t need light,” Rose notes. “He could be a fungus farmer. Like a dwarf.”
“Ooh! Yes. Karkat, you could do that!”
“Oh my God. This is--Just forget it. This is stupid. I don’t have a ‘thing’ and you know what? No-one does. You know what Terezi does all day? She tries to annoy Dave. You know what Dave does all day? He tries to annoy me. Kanaya sews. Rose drinks. Who the fuck knows what Gamzee does but it’s probably no better. No one has a thing. There’s no fucking point to doing things.”
“Well fuck,” Rose says. “I need to find a copy of Man’s Search for Meaning . Give you a helping of Viktor Frankl and Albert Camus. Is there a Troll Viktor Frankl, by any chance? He would probably have been a lowblood.”
“Well, that’s actually a name,” you admit. “So congratulations, but I don’t know.”
“I hope that there is,” Rose continues. “Troll Viktor Frankl would be fantastic to read.”
“Whatever,” you say. “I’m done here. I don’t have your book in my sylladex right now. I’ll get it to you next time.”
“Hey. Stop it,” Rose says. “You are not going anywhere until we find out who to use to teach you, I don’t know what you call it, Troll Existentialism perhaps. You probably have a name for it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you snap back.
“Basically, it is your own damn fault if you are miserable right now.”
“Yeah, Mr. Grumpy Pants,” Jade chimes in. “You’re not leaving until we’ve fixed that attitude.”
“Look at it like this,” Rose says. “You have been freed from the tyranny of superimposed purpose. You have been locked into a stable time loop your entire life. Choices? You had no choices. But now you do . Because according to what I have heard, you have found yourself delivered into an offshoot timeline. If there are stable time loops left to fill for your main self, well, that doesn’t matter. You, sir, have free will. You are so depressed that you don’t realize how lucky you are. You can’t even say, ‘Oh, but I have to go save the universe by going to this other Earth, so on and so forth’ because you won’t ever reach it. Paradox Space has just giving you a magic cardboard box and told you that you can make it into whatever it is that you want it to be.”
“Okay sure, here’s what I’m going to do with my life. I’m going to shove it so far up your nook that you’ll--”
“Oh heyy, guys! I musst have dozed offf there…”
Oh god. You did not need this. It’s your Rose. Well probably your Rose. Well some drunk Rose in any case. Goddammit.
“Oh my. I always imagined myself being more sober. What happened to you?” the fake Rose says.
“Rose!” Jade runs over and gives her a hug.
Rose, the real one, stumbles at her embrace. “Welll, I wass you seee. Until the alchomohol came.”
“Wait, you never actually met her?” You ask the fake Rose.
“No, we just chatted. On keyboards.”
“I thought you two were deep in cahoots.”
“When you are dealing with a lot of technical medical information,” she says, “it is better to have it where you eyes can see it. Besides, we process information better by reading it.” She holds out a hand for the drunken Rose.
“Nize to finaly meet youu.” Rose awkwardly manages to get a hand out as she disengages from Jade.
“Great,” you say. “Perfect. Shit.”
“Wassa matter this time Karkat?”
“Nothing at all,” you growl.
And then you, who are not sick , and do not need technical medical information shared about you, stomp off. You sure hope nobody tries to follow you.
===> JADE: Follow Karkat
You are Jade Harley, and you have just recently found out that you are dead. And you have two Roses to talk to, even if one of them is drunk and the other one has your last name.
Apparently they’ve known of each other for some time.
“I guess that you haven’t helped him to figure things out?” You-Rose, that is the one that is sorta you, the one that grew up with your grandpa, says. Or her version of your grandpa. Argh this is confusing. Anyway, you-Rose said that thing.
“I thhink I need to siit that t-roll down on a couch sommetime. Probablly. Llusus isssues,” says Rose-Rose. You know, the one that is actually Rose. You mean like your Rose. So you’ll call her Ro- OK, yes, it is pretty dumb, but you are sticking with it, so there.
“I’ll have to remind you about it when you’re sober, but just so you know: it isn’t looking good. Also: cigarette?” You-Rose holds one out for Rose-Rose. “Jade has a welding torch.”
Rose-Rose hiccups. “I thhink I’m good in the slowly killingg mythelf department, thankss.”
“Oh, that’s right. You aren’t dead.” You-Rose laughs, then looks out after Karkat. “We should follow him,” she says, and then she does just that. You and Rose go after her, one of you staggering drunkenly and the other supporting the former.
“The paranoia is definitely a thing. And perhaps he was not hugged often enough as a wiggler. Do animal monster surrogate parents hug their children? Maybe that was why their empire was so messed up. And to think, all those wars and all that bloodshed and hatred would have been averted, if only their monster parents had hugged them.”
“I thin thad a cross-culshural survey is called for.”
As you continue walking, the lush green tropical foliage blends into the well-trampled lawns of… somewhere else. Alternia, Rose-Rose tells you. The bright day fades to cool night, and two moons hang up above. The night air is filled with distant chirping and screeching.
“Well, that can’t be good. Unless it is. Is screeching good?” You-Rose asks.
“That tree is an odd color,” you remark.
“It is,” You-Rose agrees.
“I wonder if that means that their sun outputs in a different spectrum than ours,” you muse.
“I have heard that it is very bright. One of the trolls was blinded, looking at it.”
“Screeee!” something says, very far away. None of you are interested in finding out what it was.
You are standing in front of the house that you thought you saw Karkat disappear into, when some sort of giant arthropod suddenly skitters out from behind a bush and screeches , raising its claws against you and clacking them. You jump back and half-ready your gun.
“Whoa! Hey! What!” exclaims You-Rose.
“Oh, hii there crab thiing.” Rose-Rose walks slightly toward it, making pincer movements with her hands. “How are yyou doin?”
The giant Crab Thing screeches again. It starts to lunge at Rose-Rose when Karkat reappears. “STOP! God you stupid lusus, stop it!” He steps between the… lusus, and Rose-Rose, and the monster stops its charge. “No. These are Friends. Friends .”
“Aww,” You-Rose says. “I knew you cared.”
“SCREE!”
“Look. Yes I know that ‘friend’ and ‘enemy’ are the same word. That’s not what I mean.”
“GREEEECH!”
“Kar--Karkat. Wass your daddy always so reluctant about you havving friensh over?”
“Tell him that Rose is your moirail!” You-Rose suggests, and you wonder what that is.
“Fuck you!” Karkat yells. And then, to the lusus: “You have to learn to tell the difference between a trespasser and a guest, okay?”
“REEEEEEEETCH!”
“Yesh. Verry interesting. Lemme jusht take some notes here.”
“No, I don’t have to tell you beforehand when friends are coming over.” Karkat yells. “I’m eight fucking sweeps. I can--”
“SCREE!”
“Fine! Okay. Fine, just let it go. God!”
As you lower your weapon, You-Rose sidles up beside Karkat. “Mr. Crab Monster Vantas, I was wondering. Did you hug Karkat enough, in your opinion, or do you regret the lack of hugging in your relationship? Be honest now.”
“Heyyy! Whosse the psychotherapisht here! You trying to edge in on my turfs?”
You-Rose turns to Rose-Rose. “I’m your, I don’t know, your psycho-nurse. Doctors have nurses. Head doctors have head nurses. So a psychotherapist, being a doctor, should have a psycho-nurse.”
“Pfst. Fine. Why donsha go take down tha pasheint’s family hishtory or somefing?”
“You’ll notice that that was what I was doing. The crab hadn’t answered yet, though.”
“Wah kinna nurse cand speak crab?”
“I can speak crab!” You-Rose protests. “I was just doing it. But the crab isn’t talking back.”
“Oh. Carry on then,” Rose-Rose says. She leans over to you and whispers, “Besh nurse ever.”
“Oh my God,” Karkat exclaims. “You are stupid. Communicating with a lusus isn’t just a matter of talking . You need the right tone and the right posture and inflection, which is different for every kind of lusus!”
“Soooo, Karkar. How did your over protectiv daaad make you feeeeel?”
“Karkar.” You-Rose snorts. “I can’t tell if that’s the drunkenness or a pet name.”
“Why can’t it be bodth?”
“Oh my god ,” Karkat moans.
“Is that why you reacted so badly?” You-Rose asks. “DId I put her in the wrong quadrant? I apologize.”
“Oh my God,” Karkat yells. “No. Fuck!”
“Kismesis?”
“I am not in a quadrant with Rose,” Karkat insists. “Oh my God!”
“Yesh. It would be mosh unprofeshional of me.”
“SCREEE?” interrupts the lusus.
“Fucking no! No! I’m not in a relationship with an alien! I’m not-”
“What? What do aliens have to do with it?” You-Rose demands. “That sounds speciesist.”
The crab-monster tilts its head at Karkat.
“NO I--”
“REEETCH?”
“Hmmm… Doesh your dad dishaprove of interspecies romanticisms?”
“WRRRRAAAAAAACTK? EEEERK!”
“I broke up with him okay?” Karkat mutters to the crab monster.
Rose-Rose gasps. “Waaaa? Wish Dave?”
You-Rose turns to Rose-Rose. “He was in a quadrant with Dave? Kismesis or moirail? Or was Terezi not Dave’s matesprit at the time?”
“I’m not talking to you!” Karkat hollers. “I’m trying to have a fucking conversation with my lusus here!” Karkat turns to the giant crab. “Gamzee just wasn’t reciprocating and I don’t blame him. Look, I don’t care if you thought we were a cute couple--”
“EEEEEERRRRRK!”
“If Karkat’s lusus is here,” You-Rose says softly to you, “then who wants to bet that there is another Karkat here too? Want to find him? Then you can have a dead Karkat to be friends with as well, since this not-dead Karkat won’t be as reliable if you want to hang out.”
The lusus walks up to Karkat and leans in, nibbling at his hair.
“No! God. Not in front of my friends! I don’t want to talk about this here.”
“EEERK EERK.”
As Karkat and his lusus squabble, You-Rose slowly directs you and Rose-Rose in the direction of Karkat’s house.
“No, I don’t need you to ‘set me up with a nice lowblood’. Oh God, that would be horrible.”
“REEEEACH?”
“Not because of the blood! It’s embarrassing to have your lusus set you up..”
The hive, as you are told it is called, is tall and blocky, decorated with dark grey and a bit of red. Only one light is on, near the top of the hive.
You-Rose and Rose-Rose debate the likelihood of triggering a bomb if you just walk up to the door and knock on the door. Having decided that there shouldn’t be a problem, You-Rose walks up to do the honors.
“Oh. It’s already a bit open. Well, come along, you two.”