Re: Across Any Universe

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"Raised by bears?" Karkat asked with a raised brow. "Do you mean a wood-beast?" He opened the bottle of apple juice, sipping from it as he put his elbows on the table and leaned on the hand not holding the bottle. "Those large creatures that spout nonsense about not starting forest fires?"

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"How the fuck do you know those commercials but not that the human word is bear? Trolls, man," Dave said, mostly to himself. He followed Karkat's lead, poking his straw through the box of shitty crabapple and taking a sip. Better than grape, but even the sweetness of a could not mask the tart cranberry. At least Karkat seemed to be enjoying his drink.

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Karkat let out an amused snicker. "I may be a troll, but I don't live under a rock." he replied.

~~~~~~

Karkat reviewed the contents of his locker one last time before deciding to remove a book from his backpack and place it back in the locker while removing a different book to put in his backpack. A few of his school books looked too similar for his taste, but there were enough differences in the covers and spines that if he paid attention for the year, he shouldn't have an issue. Satisfied that he had everything he needed, he closed his backpack, then his locker (making sure to replace his lock. He made that mistake one too many times at his previous school) and turned to go meet Dave at the front of the school. He barely got turned around before he was shoved back against the lockers.

He was surrounded by a semi circle of trolls, different from earlier, though mostly highblood colors. The difference this time around was all of his captors had large horns. Internally Karkat sighed, this was going to go one of two ways, and he didn't care much for either. On the bright side, his locker was between the lunchroom and where Dave and he had agreed to meet, so at the very least Dave might be able to get a teacher involved.

The troll with the biggest horns sneered at him. " Where are your horns, wriggler? Did you cut them off to look more like a baby human?"

[Ripe]

Every moment Karkat wasn't directly in Dave's line of sight, he had a hard time accepting that they troll really, truly did exist and he wasn't just going crazy. Despite years of searching, though he had never really known where to start, here they both were, attending the same school no less. Dave had a feeling it would be quite some time before he ever truly got used to it.

He'd left his last class of they a few minutes early, claiming a trip to the bathroom really could not wait. He had needed to take a piss but had yet to relieve himself, eager to see Karkat first. Only now the troll was late, nd the pressure in his bladder was building. Missing him because he needed a trip to the toilet was as uncool as it got, so Dave resisted the urge to dance from one foot to the next and stood nonchalantly still at the front gate, now and then checking his phone for the time. Karkat was a bit late, but the troll was also kind of a nerd, so he was probably talking to a teacher or something. No reason to bunch his panties over it. Yet a few minutes later Karkat still didn't show, and the urge to pee was growing larger still. After one last glance at the screen, he figured he'd give Karkat ten more minutes before he went looking.

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Karkat sighed, causing the larger troll in front of him to scowl. "I'm talking to you, nubby" he growled.

"Can't you, I don't know, come up with something original?" Karkat finally managed, looking around at each troll with an unimpressed look. "I mean, obviously you're not my first bullies. I'm much too undergrown with too small horns for that to be true unless I was home school-fed. Which I'm obviously not since I have had no trouble navigating the building or its crowds."

The troll in front of him growled as he grabbed the front of Karkat's sweater and lifted him bodily from the ground to slam him into the lockers and hold him there for his feet to dangle.

"Well then why don't we try something new? Let's unwrap this fuckin' grey and see what lame ass color you're hiding behind it"

"I bet he's a fuckin' rustblood" One of trolls with the higher blooded colors snickered.

"Nah, I bet he's a limeblood, I heard all'a them are runts because there's so few left."

"Lotta the indigos killed em up back on alternia." An indigo smirked with cracked fangs.

Karkat gasped slightly for breath, his feet kicking, trying to find purchase. He didn't think it would escalate quite this quickly. He was hoping that he would have a chance to make a break for it.

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After only five minutes Dave left his post in search of the restroom, bye to hold it no more. At this point he thought he'd have to go search for Karkat anyways and remind him to stop listening gobsmacked to whatever his teacher had to say and remind him that they had a thing.

Soon relieved of his bladder issues, Dave headed first to Karkat's last class. The classroom was, surprisingly enough, empty and so he was forced to wander elsewhere. It had occurred to him in the bathroom that they would probably just miss each other but he'd figured nothing he could do about it now. So while this probably was the case, he headed to Karkat's locker first to be thorough. He wasn't expecting to see him, so when he came across Karkat being held bodily against his locker with six other, much larger trolls surrounding him and way to close to comfort, Dave did the only reasonable thing he could.

"Hey! Let him go!" he shouted, and strolled right up to the largest one.

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The big troll holding Karkat to the lockers growled low in his throat. "Get lost Strider, this don't concern you. This is troll business, not some human girl for you to skirt chase." he sneered.

Karkat clawed at the troll's wrist, his dulled claws not doing too much damage. He hissed at the bigger troll, wheezing slightly when his air ran out.

The indigo blood stepped forward between Dave and the troll pinning Karkat to the locker. "You heard him, this isn't any of your business, so you should run along. You humans know how... Unstable" he grinned widely at Dave "Us indigos can be. Wouldn't want to be around if I were to, i dunno, loose my fragile grip on reality, or go on a blood frenzied rampage."

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"You should know I don't buy any of that shit. If you were unstable enough to snap any time a human gives you a wrong look or a troll smaller than you says something you don't like you'd have been locked up with the other crazies. Now move outta the way, it's your boss I've got words with."

Still too angry to really think about what he was doing, Dave pushed the indigo blood aside and marched up to the biggest of the trolls, poking him in the chest. "I don't care what kind of troll business you've got going on there, I've got business with him too and I'm not about to let some petty bullying fuck it up, so drop him."

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The indigo snarled and another troll had to hold him back from lunging at Dave.

The ringleader sort of tossed Karkat to another troll, ignoring the louder hiss and the small scuffle of him trying escape that ended with the other troll holding him in a full Nelson with his feet dangling at least a foot above the floor. "Oh yeah? What kind of business? Are you a xenophile Strider? Gonna drag him home and fuck his little nook?" He moved so he was sort of looming over him. "Or are you a little bulge slut?"

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"Kind of business that's none of your goddamn own, so if you're done with the intimidation thing, want to let him go or am I gonna have to make you?"

Adrenaline was still rushing through his veins and the anger he felt at the words he only somewhat understood the meaning of was true, but near the back of his mind Dave was beginning to grasp the full implications of his situation here. Even if he were to count Karkat as help--and a quick glance showed that the shortest troll and still firmly incapacitated--there were only two of them, and only one could go toe-to-toe even slightly with the other trolls natural weapons. There was a good chance he was not going to leave this situation favorably.

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"Oh yeah?" The taller troll smirked, "Why don't you make me?"

There was a yelp that drew the trolls' attention as the troll holding Karkat went down hard. Once Karkat had his feet on the ground, he flipped the troll off him, over his shoulder, knocking down the indigo blood and the troll holding him back out of sheer luck. The other three trolls looked completely caught by surprise.

"Dave you idiot, get a teacher or run!" Karkat snarled, quickly moving to try and pull Dave away from the taller troll.

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Dave offered the much taller troll in front of him a small smile of his own before winding his hand back and throwing it with all his might at the other's face. His punched was timed almost perfectly with Karkat's escape, and with all of the commotion going on behind him, the ringleader was too distracted to dodge the blow. A satisfying smack echoed in Dave's ears before he yanked his hand back, shaking it to alleviate some of the pain radiating from his fingers on outward. Even those higher on the blood spectrum had tougher skin than humans, it seemed. He didn't have time for another punch, as suddenly he was yanked away from the trolls and running down the hallway, Karkat holding tightly onto his hand.

"This way," he said, taking over and heading down a deserted hallway. The trolls behind them had yet to organize it seemed, but he was sure that in only a few seconds there would be a storm of feet chasing after the two of them. Luckily, Dave knew where he was going by heart.

As he threw open the classroom door, the teacher on duty today whipped his head up, as did the other seven or eight students in the room. The stern look on his face did not disappear as he recognized who it was that had interrupted.

"Mr. Strider. I was not informed that you had detention today."

"Yeah well, I figure I've missed out on a few of them and I'm trying to turn a new leaf, make up for all the wrong I've done in the past and all that. Mind if I sit for a few?" He led Karkat with him to two empty seats in the back of the classroom, far from the door and out of sight if someone were to just look in through the window.

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Karkat followed Dave, too out of breath to question his choice in hiding in detention. He collapsed into the seat he was lead to bonelessly, already regretting bolting through the hallway like he did. He was built for combat, not speed.

A few minutes passed before the trolls could be heard in the hallway, looking for them angrily.
"The fuck did they go??"
"I'm sure they turned this way!"
"Fuck, you don't think he went to the detention teacher do you?"
"Fucker is a hard ass, he'd write all of us up for fighting if that was the case"
"Dammit, I'll rip em both a new one, that little shit Fucked up Ramses's knee"

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Again several heads turned in the direction of the door, and having decided he'd had too many interruptions already, the teacher stood from his seat at the desk and left the room, closing the door firmly behind him. Dave strained his ears to hear what was happening out there, but the trolls had gone quiet and he couldn't make out a single word.

Several minutes later, the teacher re-entered the room and locked eyes with Dave. "Strider, a word," he called, beckoning him with a finger. Dave sighed but stood up and joined him at the front of the rom.

"Your hand," the teacher gestured. It was bleeding, Dave noticed, the wound only beginning to hurt now that he had noticed its existence. It wasn't bleeding much, but it was a nasty looking gash. He must have cut it on the troll fucker's teeth. "Is there anything we need to talk about regarding those students and your sudden entrance?"

"Nah, it shouldn't be an issue."

"If you say so. Now how about you go to the nurses office and get that looked at? She should still be here for a few minutes longer, and I've sent those boys on their way."

Dave nodded and with a look back at Karkat left the classroom.

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Karkat sort of shrunk back in his seat when Dave was called to the teacher's side, and slid further down when Dave left the room. It was his goal to make himself as small as possible. But what if Dave was going to get in trouble for him? What is the teacher was sending him out so he could punish Karkat? But would he do that in front of other students still? He was still a new student to this school, a new student to a bispecies school in general, and he didn't know what behavior was normal, and what wasn't.

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The entire trip to the nurse's didn't take longer than twenty minutes, but for the entire duration of it Dave was antsy as hell. Even though he knew Karkat would be fine now, thinking of what had just happened made him unable to rest easy until the troll was once again in his sights. The nurse asked him a few questions about what had happened, to which Dave lied easily about an unfortunate accident with a pair of scissors and ill-lighting. She didn't buy it for a second from the look on her face, but understood she wouldn't be getting a real answer anytime soon.

With hand cleaned and bandaged, Dave returned to the classroom without issue, breathing a sigh of relief as he sat back down next to Karkat. He wanted to talk to him now, but there was still a god fifteen minutes left of detention before he would have a chance.

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Karkat let out a soft warble when Dave sat down, and he leaned over to gingerly touch the bandage on Dave's hand. His face flushed when he realized that now everyone was looking at him, and he practically flung himself back into his seat, huddling down once more. School was over, so he was unsure why this group of students was still here, and why they were still sitting with them. And on top of all that, why was everyone so quiet? It was sort of unnerving.

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Dave's cheeks grew red as well at the tentative touch, but luckily enough the sheer size of his glasses obscured most of the unsightly color. Karkat's touch was a bit warmer than a regular human's, but surely there was no other reason that the warmth of his hand should linger as long as it did. Dave concentrated on it for the remainder of detention, and then longer still as he waited for the students to filer out of the room when their sentence was finally over.

The teacher asked again if he was sure that everything was fine as they left, and Dave answered the same as he had before. With that, they both left the school for good and entered to into the warm sunny weather.

"Sorry 'bout that, kind of a spur of the moment thing."

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Karkat shrugged. "It kept me from getting my ass kicked. And yours for that matter." He looked up at Dave from the corner of his eye. "What were you even thinking anyway? They probably would have just shoved me in a locker and moved on." he lied.

"You on the other hand, your string bean ass wouldn't have survived a strife with a troll. Judging by how you acted, you don't even know how to fight a troll."

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"Maybe you haven't noticed this about me yet, but I'm the kind of guy who's already moving before I stop to think about it. If you want someone who's gonna analyze every little detail before acting, you'd want Dirk." The two walked slowly in the direction of Dave's shared apartment, in no hurry to arrive quickly. Being home late due to detention was no surprise in the Strider household. Guests on the other hand... Dave was in no hurry for Bro to meet Karkat.

"They really that different from humans? 'sides the pointy bits?"

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Karkat held out his hands to tick off points on his fingers as he listed them. "Thicker skin, horns, light sensitive eyes, claws, sharp teeth, taller, better sense of smell, don't even get me started on the reproductive differences. Humans only have one or the other normally, right?"

Karkat shook his head. "Nevermind, not important. How much further is it?"

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Dave shrugged, filing that little tidbit about reproductive differences away for later. "Not much further if we walk faster. But why not enjoy the fresh air? Or are you that eager to see Dirk again, the two of you get along, right?"

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"Running like that earlier really took it out of me" Karkat admitted "My legs are still tired, even after sitting in the classroom for as long as we did"

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"Damn," Dave said, raising a brow. "We'very got to work on your endurance. No way you'reach gonna be state championship like that, pal." Or be able to easily escape bullies, for that matter. "Not a problem though, we Striders can get you fixed up in no time. Some of the shit my Bro put Dirk and I through to toughen us up is prolly illegal, now that I think about it, but just look at the two of us now."

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Karkat scoffed. "I'm not built for endurance running. I'm much too dense for that." Karkat yawned and shrugged his shoulders. "I was built more to take a punch than anything else. I'm compact and dense, Good battle fodder."

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