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~ATH We Part	By : grimreaperchibi Category: Web Comics > Homestuck Views: 2607 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Homestuck, nor the places, people, or objects within. I make no money writing this.

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The question hung in the air for a whole second before Sollux smiled in that way that meant he was about to say something infuriating. "Well, the long version starts with you miraculously surviving the brooding caverns." Karkat glowered at him. A forked tongue poked out as the grin widened. "The short version is your program worked; just not like you intended. Somehow, you managed to mash your code and my virus together into a functioning time-loop. So now you are six sweeps in the future. And the KK that should be here is six sweeps in the past. That's why this conversation can't be on record. It...complicates a lot of things if anyone else knows you're here. There's no need to worry, though. It'll only take past-me three nights to stumble across the error and fix it. I could have found it sooner if future-you hadn't bothered me so much about stupid shit, so try to remember that later, okay?"
Six sweeps? Of all the half-information he'd just been given, that statement left the deepest impression. Some of Karkat's exhaustion melted away as implications starting piling up. If there was a version of him six sweeps in the future, that meant he had survived to adulthood. More amazing than that, he'd made it off-world. And so had Sollux, even though that still included... The rest of that thought was glossed over before panic could twist him into more knots. Sollux was here, in front of him, tangible under hands that had yet to release their grip. Karkat focused on getting his fingers to relax as he started considering the rest of his friend's "explanation."
First came wonderment. His program had worked! Sure, it hadn't come anywhere near it's original intended purpose. He also hadn't blown another husktop to scrap, either. A little bit of his triumph melted away since Sollux still knew how screwed up the program was. A little more died because once again, it would be also be Sollux who fixed his coding mistakes. The notion that he’d be stuck hiding for three days struck another blow to his lifting spirits, though even that was acceptable considering what he’d managed to accomplish. Then his eyes narrowed as one particular statement sank in. "So why the ever-loving fuck did I have to come to you? If no one's supposed to know, why parade me though the halls with the goddamn light show announcing my presence?"
A chagrined look crossed Sollux's face. "Because I'm a fucking moron. You were freaking out, all the data logs had to be scrubbed, I thought that I could get everything done before you got here, and..." He trailed off with a sigh. "And I thought it'd be funny to spook you with the whole Helmsman thing. I've been waiting a long time to pay you back for scaring the shit out me. I honestly didn't expect you to shut down like that or I would have made you wait.” He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced away. “It was a dick move, I admit that. But I wanted you to see something other than the hole you decided to live in. I figured after that everything, the least you deserved was to see what space actually looks like."
Karkat twisted around to look back at the view-screen, this time focusing what was there. Lights of all colours filled the screen, sparkling like tiny gems meticulously placed on velvet. The school feedings always included a certain number of images, but they lacked the vibrancy he saw now. He could pick out several binary and tertiary stars, the many colours of closer nebulae clouds, and even the tails of a slowly swirling galaxy far beyond so many of the other star lights.
He'd never admit it (though maybe future-him already had?), but he had never imagined he'd get to see such a sight. Though he's shed the small-minded paranoia at a young age, the specter of a culling drone had always shadowed his thoughts of the future. There were so many way to end up dead without being a genetic anomaly on top of all. And the odds of making it off-world had never been in his favour, either, even if he had survived that long. But he got to see them now. He'd get to see them again. And that realization erased the remaining haze from his thoughts.
"Where are we?" he asked, only somewhat aware that he'd spoken aloud.
Sollux spouted off a coordinate set that probably meant something to a computer and little to anyone else. Karkat glanced back at his friend to see if he was being obtuse on purpose again. The guileless look on the other’s face became another queasy reminder that Sollux was part of a computer now. Such responses might be considered normal behaviour rather than him succeeding at being an ass. Karkat contemplated snarking back, just to ease the emotional edge. That took more energy than he felt like spending. So he skipped right over to rephrasing the question. “I meant the ship.”
“Designation ARC-1001; registered FSC Harbinger.”
The acronym FSC sounded familiar, but Karkat couldn’t place it. He didn't spend much time trying to remember, either. Instead, he grimaced at the name. Harbinger smacked of manifest-destiny indentation that seemed out of place with what he'd seen of the ship. It lacked imagination, soul--that elusive, uplifting quality that a well-named ship seemed to posses. He’d probably over-romanticized the process, but the name set the tone for all that it would do, how it served, and how the crew aboard behaved. He couldn’t imagine himself working well on such a humdrum vessel, regardless of his duty type. His aversion must have shown because a few beats later, Sollux added, “Those of us who serve call her the Esperance.”
Esperance. The word rolled around Karkat’s mouth even though his jaw never moved. It made something inside him warm and relax a little bit more with each pass. It definitely fit better than Harbinger ever would, despite the fact he wasn’t sure what it meant.
After a little prodding, Sollux continued on, going over some of the aspects of the ship. It was battleship built on a raider endoskeleton, relying mostly on speed to keep ahead of a fight, but able hit hard when it mattered. At the bare minimum, it required a crew of two, a Helmsman and someone who handled the combat system, though a full compliment of nearly fifty others could be safely housed. Karkat could only follow along so far before getting lost in the terminology. It felt like he should have understood more. He’d been through those schoolfeedings recently, so it wasn’t like he’d had a chance to forget anything yet. It all sounded rote as well, like a technical manual being recited. There was no mention of current crew, missions, or status interwoven in, nor any other sort of emotional inflection to what was being said. Maybe it was an effect of the Helmsman conditioning? He abruptly stopped thinking about it, leaning into the much larger body to once more affirm his friend’s realness. Then he focused on what he did understand; the ship was the first and so far only of its kind, and he played a major role on it.
The excitement in that revelation lasted only as long as it took to ask what his rank was. Sollux snapped his mouth shut with an audible click in lieu of answering. At first, the shut down concerned Karkat; was this another weird side effect? He got ready to ask if everything was okay when he noticed those yellow irises were staring at him with sadness and maybe even a little pity. A sinking feeling developed in his still sore stomach, cold and spikey as things began clicking together. The ship wasn’t made of the right materials. He didn’t understand how anything worked. Karkat felt his friend’s grip tighten. Then he remembered what FSC stood for.
He swayed on his feet again as the world shifted once more under him. It had always been a pipe dream, a vanity he’d flirted with because he was supposed to die before it got that far. Why not aim for the unobtainable? Maybe if he'd been skilled enough, dedicated enough, worthy enough...maybe he wouldn’t be strung up in the irons of his own sign for simply existing. Karkat understood, and even vaguely appreciated, that his friend hadn’t outright lied in response to the question. It’d be sweeps, after all, before a lie would be caught. Still, Sollux had chosen the lesser of two evils by not saying anything. With nothing to confirm or deny, the illusion of a dream come true held, even if it was now cracked and faltering.
Karkat knew he should let it go. He already had so much. He got to grow up, get off-world, live on a gorgeous ship, travelling through space...all more than he’d ever dared to hope for. It shouldn’t have mattered if the one driving dream behind it all hadn’t come to pass.
But it did. He had to know.
He trembled with the effort to keep himself steady. His hands ached from how tightly they were now clenched. His breath and determination stuttered when he matched gazes with Sollux. “I don’t have a rank,” he stated before he could second-guess himself again.
Sollux didn’t look away, but he dry swallowed before replying, “You don’t have a rank.”
The illusion cracked further and a reverberating shudder ran through Karkat. He sucked in another breath through his teeth. “Because this isn’t an Imperial ship.”
A look of pain crossed Sollux’s face and a part of Karkat felt bad for forcing his friend to do this. There wasn't much of an alternative, though, and they both knew it. “This isn’t an Imperial ship."
There was a sickening lurch as something inside Karkat splintered. He remained only distantly aware of it, focused solely upon breaking his life-long dream. He had to shatter it completely. It could never be salvaged, never again be something whole and shining and true. It would drive him crazy if even the slightest possibility remained. It had to be torn down, even if it left a sucking wound behind. “I serve the Followers of the Signless.”
For a moment, it seemed as though the other would return to his noncommittal silence. The pity in those yellow eyes said enough that words were almost unnecessary. Then, with the utmost reluctance, Sollux said, “You serve the Coalition.”
Reality broke in absolute silence. Karkat stared at the shattered remains of his threshecutioner ambition and tried to feel something, anything. All that was left anymore was exhaustion. He wanted the pain of it, but before he could try to drive the shards any deeper, Sollux pressed a hand to his face. Karkat reached up to pull it away, only to then notice his friend's hand was wet, the palm streaked with translucent red.
“Enough, KK,” Sollux said before he could figure out why the other would have red on him. “I’ll tell you more later, that’s enough for one night.”
Whatever he couldn’t feel seemed to be pouring out of Sollux instead, a weirdness compounded by the fact Karkat could see all of it in eyes he’d never been able to scrutinize before. It was too much to take--he turned away until his gaze hit the view screen again. It took a while, but the wonder there eventually came back. He let it overwhelm his awareness of everything else, including the arms that once more wrapped around him, the head that came to rest on his shoulder, and the apology the remained unspoken between them.
Once the oppressive silence had eased to something more companionable, Sollux asked, “Can you walk?”
The thought alone made Karkat’s knees feel like jelly, which in turn made his stomach roll. He still stumbled to his feet. The purring earlier had been bad enough. Like hell he would let himself get carried anywhere. Sollux made no comment. The feeling of pressure bracing and stabilizing his legs turned out to be comment enough. Karkat scowled half-heartedly. Sollux returned it with a grin that proved he still had too many teeth stuffed in his face gash before gesturing for him to lead the way. Karkat stomped unsteadily towards the door he’d entered from, the other trailing behind him.
Despite “leading,” Karkat knew the only reason he got back to the room he’d started in was because Sollux was there. He just wasn’t sure how. Neither of them had said anything along the way. The force helping hold him upright hadn’t been guiding his movements as far as he could tell, and Sollux seemed to just be following along. The lift still took them to the appropriate floor without instruction and the respite block door opened before they even reached it. He gave the other a suspicious look, but he was ignored. Instead, Sollux moved with certainty through the room. His hand brushed a panel in a back corner and a section of the wall slid open, spilling something like an oversized chrysalis into the room. Suspended on thick, telescoping barbs and coloured a matte gray, Karkat watching in dull fascination as it continued to expand. Fully extended and fluffed in less than ten seconds, the oddly shaped contraption took up about a third of the available floor space.
“The material is sopor-infused down to the molecular level,” Sollux babbled as he opened the chrysalis up, revealing an interiour that was both iridescent and fuzzy looking, as if a bunch of heat-retaining planes had been stuffed into the flexible outer casing. “The more skin that comes in contact with it, the better it works, but everyone has their own preferences. It’s not a recuprecoon, but it’s comfortable and way easier to get in and out of in a hurry. Less messy, too.” He crossed the room again in two long strides, sliding into the desk chair and clicking away at the terminal there. “There’s probably something in the ablution block if you don’t want to sleep in your clothes.”
With no will to argue, Karkat wobbled into the tiny side chamber, grateful when the door slid closed behind him. He stared at nothing for long time, trying to sift through the broken feeling in his chest. Nothing more profound came of it, so he abandoned the pieces and tried to focus on getting ready to sleep. A glance in the mirror told him he looked about as good as he felt. He scrubbed the pink streaks from his face, then downed several cups of water in large gulps. His insides ached at the sudden introduction of fluid even as his body cried for more. Both conditions were ignored. He peeled out of his clothes, down to his underwear since he didn't have anything else to wear, and left it all in a semi-neat pile on the floor, unable to care further about taking proper care of anything.
Sollux still waited in the respite portion when he exited. Having finished whatever he’d done at the terminal, he too had stripped out of most of his clothes. Bare now save for a loose pair of pants, Karkat could confirm his best friend was still pushing unhealthily skinny, but at least he was no longer all gristle and uncomfortable angles. His skin flashed briefly as he turned from where he’d been studying the sickle display. Karkat dismissed it as a trick of his over-tired pan. Instead, he looked back at the odd contraption he was supposed to sleep in, trying to figure out how it worked. It didn't seem like it could hold water, let alone the weight of a body.
The problem was solved for him; Sollux stepped into it first. Contrary to looks, the whole thing barely moved as he settled and extended a hand to Karkat. He took it without a second thought.
The cocoon-thing turned out to be pretty comfortable. While indeed as fuzzy as it appeared, the interior also had a cool-wet feel to it. Karkat’s skin tingled pleasantly wherever the material brushed against it, lending to the illusion of being suspended in actual slime. There was enough room for the both of them to move even though the limited space still had them curling into one another. The thought that it might be a little weird for him to sleep so close to an adult was lost under the nostalgia and familiarity of having his best friend near. After everything else that had just happened, sleeping alone would have been difficult regardless of how tired he felt. But with the steady thump of a blood pusher against his cheek and the smell of ozone drifting around him, Karkat allowed himself to drift into exhausted slumber, knowing that at least in this moment, everything was fine.
***
To be continued.
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- 5
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~ATH We Part