Re: Across Any Universe

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KG: I'M GLAD I FOUND YOU TOO

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It was a little over a week later when Dirk approached Dave. "Hey, have you heard from Karkat? I know the two of you were talking like every night, I had been talking to him pretty frequently too, taking him out to do stuff a few times when he was able to get out and shit, but I haven't heard from him in a few days. Like, complete radio silence"

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Dave's heart skipped a beat and for a millisecond he froze. It wasn't that he hadn't been expecting Dirk to bring up Karkat's silence, but he was unprepared to talk about it and more than a little nervous about the same issue. Try as he had to hide it, he knew his little slip had been caught. "Dunno. He suddenly went quite on me too man. Hasn't given me specifics on where exactly he's at or I'd be out there looking for him."

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Dirk leaned against the door frame and crossed his arms. "Last I heard from him Kankri didn't want him going out because there was an issue having to do with starting the new school year that needed to be taken care of immediately. And that was, what, three days ago I think?" He shrugged, rolling his shoulders a bit. "I was just wondering if you knew anything else on the matter. School starts back up again tomorrow, He'll probably message one or both of us then."

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"Maybe," Dave responded absently. But it was true for him too. Karkat had mentioned something about school the last time Dave had talked to him. He'd been vague about it, not answering Dave's questions and inquiries as to what the hold up was in the first place. "Let me know if you hear anything from him. Maybe something happened and he'll message you while I'm at school tomorrow."

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Dirk nodded. "Do you want a ride in or anything? I can at least do that in the morning, I'll be busy around the time you get off. Bro should be home though, if you miss the bus."

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"Sure, see you then." Dave waved as he headed into his room for the night. He remained awake talking to John for longer than he probably should have, every now and then glancing to the grayed entry of Karkat's handle. It did not light up, much as it hadn't these past few days. The nerves he felt at the sight of it were a vicious undercurrent that made him jittery and unpleasantly grumpy. When he went to bed his sleep was restless, and the morning had him in a foul mood, responding to his siblings with grunts and monosyllables until he had his second cup of coffee in him.

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It was a very, very bad day. Karkat didn't know whether he should be grateful or devastated that the human school he was now enrolled in was only slightly better than the troll School. Although it really wasn't fair to call it a human school since they were both trolls and humans enrolled. It was only the lunch period now, halfway through school day and he had already had the shit kicked out of him not once, but twice. The first time had been a group of humans, mostly males. The usual show of dominance. Another troll had come to his Aid, an orange Blood by the look of her symbol and the males immediately backed off as if they didn't want to mess with her. Honestly Karkat didn't blame them with some of the things she was spouting an alternian. It generally goes with one's better judgement to not challenge the troll talking that way about your genetic ancestors; trolls like that are generally batshit. The second time had been a group of trolls, none of them wearing their symbols, but a lot of high blood colors. Karkat gathered the gist of why he was being beat up from what they were saying, wearing his symbol in Anonymous grey, not wearing his blood color, a lot of talk about him being low blood scum. A teacher intervened for that one, the three other trolls sent to the principal's office with himself being sent to the nurse's. Now he was stuck with a definite colored eye, slightly swelled, sitting alone in the back corner of the lunchroom with the lunch Kankri made with loving care, trying to stomach it and keep it down, not because it was bad but because he had already suffered so many hits the stomach he didn't feel like he could keep much of anything down. The entire time he kept his head down, eyes on his food and hunched in on himself trying to look as small as possible and not threatening to just try and make it through the school day without any more damage.

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Morning came and neither Dave nor Dirk had heard anything from Karkat. The car ride to school was short, quiet, and uneventful; Dave couldn't keep the ever-growing feeling of unease each day without word from his troll brought. School was the same as usual despite the new year; some familiar faces in the class and at front of it, and already a gaggle of girls swooning every time they happened to see him. Lunch was a welcome break from what was already turning into another mundane school year. Dave hurried into the huge cafeteria as soon as the bell scheduling the break rang, eager to find a spot where he could sit alone and not be bothered. Several students had already taken a few spots, leaving the unoccupied seats a bit more scarce than he would have liked. Beneath his shades he scanned the room, settling on an entirely empty table save for one lonely troll smack in the middle of it. Not ideal, but still better than nothing. Dave began to head on over with just a bit of a sigh. Halfway there he finally recognized the troll, freezing immediately in his tracks, name on his lips.

"Karkat?"

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Karkat didn't respond. He thought he heard his name, but he was sure no one here actually knew his name. He chewed quietly before putting his head down on the table, too nauseous to continue eating. He wasn't sure this was worth it, transferring schools, but the head of the trolls only school he had been going to until this year said there had already been several threats against his life.

Trolls were horrible the higher up on the spectrum they were, and if they were in groups.

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Karkat was doing the very opposite of what Dave would have expected, and with a flush he realized he was too far away for the troll to have heard him, even with the increased hearing the other species possessed. A pang of familiar worry swept through him as the troll laid his head on the table, back slumped and looking completely miserable. His step quickened and he hurried to the table the troll sat at, calling his name again when he got close.

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Karkat tilted his head to look as he heard someone approaching saying his name. When his half-lidded eye focused on Dave, he sat bolt-straight up, fast enough to make his stomach roll as he looked at Dave in complete shock. There was no way his luck was that good. This was just a trick of his mind because he was sick.

It wasn't real, was it?

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"Karkat," Dave repeated when he'd reached the table, a bit out of breath and unsure of what to say next. The troll looked... better than Dave could remember having seen him, given that the only memories he had of him were distant and faded. Then he noticed the black eye, and his face set into a frown.

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"Dave?" Karkat asked in a small voice, hesitantly reaching out before pulling his hand quickly back to his own chest. "Oh fuck its happened. They actually fucking killed me and this is a sick twisted fantasy my mind created to play out in the final moments while the rest of my body shuts down" he rambled to himself, looking down at the table, at his lunch specifically. "I wish my last thought of meal was better than whatever this fucking shit is"

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Despite himself, Dave burst out into nervous laughter. Karkat had stolen the words right from his head. This was too good to be a dream, so it could only be a nightmare. Any moment now he was sure he'd wake from a more twisted dream than the ones regularly featured during the night.

"It's real dude. As real as you and I are here right now in this shitty school. Sup?" Dave asked, taking a seat across from the troll, a welcome relief from the way his legs had begun to wobble.

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"As you can see" Karkat replied, gesturing half-assedly around them "I have started at a new school. Sorry for not talking to you much in the last week or so. After fixing my schedule for a predominantly night school, then having to rapidly change it for a day school in less than a week, I was indisposed or incoherent a good majority of the overlap time that we normally use to communicate."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "So, I wasn't ignoring you, I promise" He gave a queasy smile.

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"S'all good man, I never thought you were." That was a lie. In his darker moment Dave had thought just that. Perhaps his questions had bothered Karkat, perhaps the troll didn't want anything to do with him at all now that they had talked and gotten to know each other past the half-remembered glimpses of a past they'd once shared. Hearing the opposite now lightened the load Dave had only vaguely been aware he'd been carrying considerably; his posture became a notch more relaxed and his tight smile a bit more natural without his notice.

"Sounds like a pain the shame globes though. Any particular reason you left your old school, or were you just hungering for some different shades of skin?"

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"I, um, didn't really have a choice." Karkat admitted. "I may or may not have gotten a few death threats sent to the school."

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"Fuck! Stuff like that actually happens? And no one did anything about it, instead they forced you to change schools I mean I'm glad if it means I get to see you but fuck, that's not supposed to happen in this universe! And it doesn't look like anything's gotten better," Dave said, gesturing to the black eye Karkat was sporting.

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"The hemospectrum isn't something that changed in the alpha or beta sessions either." Karkat replied. "What changed was how troll society was run. But there's a reason Trolls are hatched in birthing caverns and not in hives. So trolls that are weak, or have something wrong with them are picked off before they have a chance to suffer."

"As much as it would kill Kankri to admit it, he and I weren't supposed to make it out of the birthing caverns. Hell, if I remember correctly, Kankri wasn't even born in the caverns, he was one of the last clutches laid on Alternia and rescued with the Mother Grubs to be brought to earth, so he was actually born on a ship with a bunch of Jade Bloods. They're very maternal so the wouldn't have let him be culled." Karkat sighed, rubbing his face.

"Pretty much the second I hatched, a Jade Blood handed me over to him. Mutant bloods are rare, even rarer than Jade Bloods, and for some reason the Jades think we deserve a chance. But obviously no one else on the spectrum agrees."

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"That's..." Dave started, trailing off. He'd received a mandatory semester-long class on troll culture and practices just like every other human he knew of (and vice-versa for the trolls themselves, like some weird gender segregated class lesson), and though he'd tried to pay attention, even with his interest in trolls due to his faded memories of the past, hearing it straight from a troll not paid to sweeten anything or hide the bad parts of the culture was much different.

"Shit, I guess I should be grateful to any jade bloods I meet for saving your ass. And his. I thought you may not have ever existed in this world, didn’t consider the possibility that you had and then..." he trailed off again, the thought too harsh to put to words.

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Karkat shrugged. "Kankri was hatched with a Jade Blood. She's practically a sister to us at this point, because they were fostered around the same groups. Inseparable until she knew he could take care of himself and all that. I didn't come around until he was 2 sweeps, so I got to be pretty close to her too. If we ever get to hang out after school at my house, you'll probably meet her. She makes a point to come by at least once a week to make sure Kankri and I haven't killed each other yet." He sighed. "At least that's what excuse she uses."

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"Sounds like a blast," Dave responded, a bit intrigued. Jade bloods were probably the same as other trolls, but there were none at school with him and the one he knew he spent time with on the ship in his other life... he felt bad for it, but his memories of her were too faded to even recall her name. "So you and... Kankri right? The two of you don't get along too well huh?"

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"We have our moments, but mostly no, we do not." Karkat replied "Mostly because we have completely contrasting interests, and because he doesn't know when to mind his own business." Karkat absently picked at his food to have something to do with his hands. "It doesn't make him a bad caregiver though. It only makes our relationship strained at times."

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"I get it," Dave said simply, not wanting to press what might be an uncomfortable issue. "I have troubles with my bros too. Family's a real bitch." In his nightmares, Dave could remember what it felt like to be alone, to have neither family nor friend to be there for him. He would never not be grateful for their existence in his life now, but Dirk and Bro still knew how to make life difficult for him.

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"...Dirk's your brother too isn't he? He seems pretty easy-going, I mean, he does whenever he talks with me and stuff. Do you not get along well with him?" Karkat asked, looking up from his food.

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