The Peacekeeper

==> Karkat: Reenter

In the game's final moments, after what was possibly the most tiring fight of anyone's life, the group was rejoicing and celebrating their victory. There were reunions between distantly related family, between old friends, new friends, and potential lovers. The gods (really the universe frog, or was it the game itself? Who cares.) even smiled upon them. In several flashes of light dead troll bodies appearified on the ground near the group before they flashed again and poof, respawned. It was a generously gross miracle that the group wasn't going to comment or question.

The small celebration lasted only a moment before it was cut short. The genesis frog was fully prepared and in the blink of an eye the door to the new universe appeared. John and Karkat walked up together, both hands on the door knob, and opened the door, transporting everyone to Earth.

Almost everyone.

Like some kind of cruel joke Karkat never made it. Nothing he did, in fact nothing anyone did, caused this. Some larger, more omnipotent being simply spun the wheel of terrible fortune and Karkat got the short end of the stick. A long three sweeps-- six human years --passed and by now everyone had accepted the fact that their beloved mutant friend was gone, was dead.

Dave took a longer time to accept the fact that his boyfriend was gone. Sure there had been other people in the six long years since Karkat. Guys, girls, trolls, and humans, but they never were Karkat. And because of this Dave refused to believe that Karkat was gone. He couldn't be. For days, months, on end Dave stayed confident that the troll was out there. He always set a place for Karkat at the dinner table. He bought two tickets at the movies. He bought enough food for two. He rented an apartment big enough for two. After a long and financially irresponsible while he finally came to terms with the fact that his boyfriend was gone.

Knowing this only made it even more unbelievable when he got a call from Aradia, a troll friend of Karkat's whom Dave had gotten close to over the years, saying that Karkat just...came back. She said she'd explain more once he got there but Dave was already stumbling over clothes on the floor and sprinting out of his small apartment, out to his motorcycle before racing down to street.

Karkat was back. He was back and hopefully in one piece. Karkat was back and alive. Karkat was back. Dave couldn't believe it. After being convinced that the nubby horned troll was gone, dead, erased from this existence, hearing that he was back made him ecstatic. Though being stuck in traffic made him far less than ecstatic. He wanted to be with Karkat at that moment. He wanted to see how he changed, what he looked like. Did he grow? Was he taller? Muscular? Did he look the same? Was he growing slight facial hair? Did his nubby horns finally sharpen out? All these questions, random ones really, popped into Dave's head as he cursed at the traffic that kept him from the love of his life. Sure, he could fly. In fact he wanted to fly. He could pop his bike into his sylladex and just fly as fast as he could. But he couldn't. His heart begged for him to fly but his mind knew better. Even though the heartbroken time lord was jumping out of his skin to see his past lover, he clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white on the handlebars of his bike.

He was scared, worried, nervous, any and every word synonymous with those. Six years. Six fucking years of hoping and wishing and wondering and just full on self-loathing had finally come to an end. The question was: will this be a good end?

Finally after an agonizing hour stuck on the road Dave made it to the large apartment building that housed Aradia. Cars were already parked on the street and Dave knew exactly who was there. He was tempted to just fly up to the window and crash in but that wouldn't be very model-guest of him. So he went in the right way, going up the stairs two at a time and (accidentally) pounded on her door. His hands were shaking. Fuck he was nervous. What if Karkat hates him for not doing something? What if Karkat never wanted to speak to him again?

No.

Dave took a shaky breath as the door opened. Rose stood there with a solemn face. Uh oh. This wasn't a good sign.

"Where is he?" It came out more like a demand rather than a question. Was it from fear? Excitement? Nervousness? He didn't know. Rose pressed a finger against her lips and shushed him before stepping aside and instructing him to go in slowly and quietly. He did so.

Karkat was there. Laid out on the maroon couch surrounded by trolls and humans. Dave nearly started crying at the sight of him though it wasn't from joy. Yes he was happy to see Karkat but not like this. Not like how he was now. Karkat was laying there, jaw clenched and his hands in fists so tight it looked like the skin around his knuckles were about to tear.

His grey skin was darker and now visibly littered with cuts and scratches, a definite change from how absolute and untouched a much younger Karkat liked to- had to- keep the one thing hiding his taboo shade of red. He wore armor though it looked like someone shoved it through an industrial shredder. Underneath it bright red blood glistened and pooled onto the surface holding the troll. His signature black sweater poked out from under the metal, also very much shredded and sponging up blood, and Dave's heart stung. Okay. Okay yeah, this was Karkat. A Karkat. His Karkat, this Karkat. Whatever. It was him and not a random battered and beaten troll that just so happened to look like him and magically appeared in one of his friends apartment.

Dave's eyes rapidly looked the troll over and suddenly a new layer appeared on him. Where did all this blood come from? Not just Karkat's, but others. Green, brown, blue, purple, every color under the sun. Dave glanced at the others, checking to see if they were as shocked as he was at the sudden appearance of this new blood. No one was surprised, their faces were as sad and confused as before. His mind tricked him, he was so caught up in the sour euphoria of seeing Karkat again he just didn't see that a leprechaun vomited all over him.

"He just...appeared here." Aradia whispered to Dave. He jumped in surprise, she had a tendancy to just sneak up on people. Dave glanced at her, she was holding an ice pack to the side of her head. Dave nodded at its direction. "When he woke up he hit me square in the head and was reaching for his sickle when I froze him. Time powers to the rescue." Dave blinked and looked around before he spotted them. The two big sickles were thrown in the corner, both the weapons covered in a rainbow of blood as well. The freshest looking one was the rich purple that belonged to Gamzee. "He's been refusing to let anyone except Equius and Sollux near him. When I froze him I called everyone and tried literally everyone. When Gamzee tried to even step towards him, him he tried to snap his neck!" This wasn't right. "We're kind of hoping him seeing you would calm him down. You're kind of our last hope." Okay, cool. No pressure whatsoever.

Dave stumbled foreword and knelt before Karkat. He wanted to reach out and grab the troll's hand. To run his thumb across it and kiss it and cry. But he couldn't. Not now. Equius stood in front of Dave, blocking his view of Karkat and Sollux, and waited a moment. Dave realized Equius was waiting for some sort of okay from him so he nodded stiffly. Equius grunted and reached a hand down, softly touching Karkat's head. A second later the troll woke up. Was he even asleep? Was he just laying there in angry and rigid silence? Equius waited a moment or two before he slowly moved out of Dave's way and revealed the human to the troll.

For a second, everything was fine. They were just staring at each other and no one was getting hurt, unless you count the emotional pain Dave was feeling. The next second it was like Karkat was a feral beast. The troll let out a deep and threatening growl before lunging at him. Equius, with all his marvelous strength grabbed the troll in midair, just before he could reach Dave. Equius' grip on Karkat was strong as steel, and he knew that but that didn't stop the still scared troll from glaring acid tipped daggers at Dave. Like a flick of a switch, however, Karkat calmed down just enough to where Equius could let him go.

This wasn't supposed to be happening.