well jesus christ i'm not scared of dying

[crab]

WHO: dumb (dragony) and dumber (crab)
WHERE: their assigned place of residence.
WHEN: late evening january 15th, after all the new arrival shenanigans.
WHAT: karkat died, their universe died, and rua didn't make the universe cross. it's been a rough week.
WARNINGS: heavy profanity, probable discussion of death.

[ After everything he's gone through over the past few days, from his perspective, the only word to describe Karkat's sentiments when he's dropped off at his new place is exhaustion. By the time he pushes his way through the front door and steps over the threshold of the unfamiliar hive, he's pretty sure that he is capable of sleeping for at least a week, daymares be fucked.

He's so tired that any emotional feedback from someone who might have been dropped off before him is nothing more than indistinct background noise, for the moment. The door slams behind him, the sound offensively sharp. ]

Comments

[dragony]

[ She's too worn out for crying, and too exhausted to sleep.

Ruka arrived at this empty house some time ago—how long, she isn't sure, but it feels that she's stared at this unblemished ceiling and this too-clean light fixture for years now—and has spent all time in the interim doing nothing besides lie here in an exhausted heap of miserable weariness. If she had a tennis ball, she might bounce it against the ceiling to test her reflexes, to give her hands something to do, but she hadn't thought to acquire one on the way here.

Everything is gone. It isn't that hard to wrap her mind around, the idea of everything, but the enormity of it, the scope of it, leads her to a grief she isn't entirely sure how to handle. Like a house burning in a fire, sure, her possessions are gone: clothing, paperwork, furniture, keepsakes and mementos, gifts she cherished, and ones she merely kept out of obligation. But it isn't merely that. It isn't her things that leaves so keen an absence, but that every physical trace left behind... is gone. The people who came before, long since departed—the world upon which they left their mark no longer exists. Any monuments they built, any legacy they created, any life they changed... none of it matters, anymore, because none of those things exist now.

Nothing but the memories she and the others brought into this world, but how long will those last? Nobody sticks around. Nobody continues on forever. All her predecessors are gone, she's sure, and most of those who came after. There's so few of them now... how long will it be, until everyone leaves? Until everyone forgets?

How long, before she loses this last remaining connection?

It's on melancholic thoughts like this that she hears the front door open and slam downstairs. The first housemate. She brings an arm over her face, nose into the crook of her elbow, shielding her wet cheeks and hurting eye from view. She isn't crying, even if there are tears on her face. She's just tired.

The house itself is unfamiliar, but she knows the length of that stride, and the weight of that step, making noise downstairs. It's strange, how well humans can recognize other beings by the shape of a shoulder at fifty yards, or the scent of cleaned clothing, or by how much force they exert to close a door. Ruka recognizes those footsteps, but no positive feeling springs to life in her chest.

She's mistaken, after all. She knows Karkat is dead. ]

[crab]

[ Ruka's emotional feedback is familiar to him, after so much time spent in her presence. Coming home to it is equally familiar, and tired as he is, he doesn't immediately question it. The sound of his footsteps can be heard making their way to the kitchen, at first, along with that of running water. Soon after, those footsteps begin to ascend the stairs, heavy with weariness, and as he draws nearer to that miasma upstairs, the recognition intensifies.

Ruka.

The sound of his footsteps draws to a halt just outside her door. He doesn't barge his way in, though, as he might under normal circumstances. Instead, he hesitates, struggling with the beginnings of shame and guilt, and the desire to simply keep walking, pick out his own room, go to sleep and avoid this confrontation for as long as he can conceivably manage. Seconds stretch out into minutes. At one point, those footsteps start off down the hall, only to turn around and come back a second later.

Finally, there's the sound of a knock. ]

[dragony]

It's open.

[ Her throat is dry, and her words don't emerge as loud as she expects. It's been hours since she's spoken, and between not-crying and not-sleeping, it feels like her body has shriveled up, grown tight for exhaustion. Whoever it is, she's sure she won't want to talk to them—she doesn't like making friends on her good days, anymore—but if she looks too much like she's grieving something, the more pity and attention she'll garner, and that's the last thing she wants.

She doesn't sit up, but she drags her arm across her face, long sleeve mopping up what dampness remains of unintended tears. ]

[crab]

[ Even so, it's another few seconds before he takes a deep, steadying breath, turns the handle, and steps over the threshold. ]

Hey.

[ Is the pathetic excuse for a greeting he has to offer her, distinctly chagrined in both his voice and the way he talks to the carpet. ]

[dragony]

[ Her arm freezes mid-swipe.

She recognizes that voice, but she shouldn't. It belongs to the person whose footsteps she identified downstairs, but it shouldn't. Because he died, in a world that no longer exists, and what are the odds that Lachesis would bring him back (the odds that he would seek her out, the odds he'd remember her at all)? Too low for hope.

It's with caution that her arm resumes its path, and with an anxious trepidation that she turns her head to can see who stands at the door.

Ruka feels nauseous from the vertigo of sitting up too quickly before she realizes she's moved, a surprised-relieved-anxious-uncertain-fearful-grateful-loneliness slamming her heart so quickly she can feel the shock of it in the backs of her eye sockets.

She stares at him like humans stare at ghosts. ]

Karkat?

[crab]

[ The shock of her emotional response makes him flinch, too mixed up and full of unfamiliar elements that were previously beyond his ability to detect for him to fully process, but he gets the basic gist of it. It gets him to look at her properly, at least. ]

No, it's human Santa Claus. Hi, Ruka.

[dragony]

[ Irritation and fondness, a cocktail of "I'm glad you're here" and "you fucking dick" are unsaid as Ruka rises from the bed—but pressure on her still-damaged foot has her falling backwards to sit on the edge of the mattress.

Her single eye is red in the sclera, bloodshot, and the bags beneath it are deep, without her usual masking of makeup. She's scratched up, blood still staining cuts on her cheeks, her hands, but she's too exhausted to care about any of that. ]

You're about three weeks late for a title like that.

[ It's hard to keep her voice steady, and harder still to look at him on the threshold. She hadn't expected to see him again.

And it's going to hurt, so much worse, to lose him next time. ]

[crab]

[ To save her the trouble of a second attempt to stand, Karkat crosses the remaining distance between himself and the bed, to sit beside her. At least he's within range now, if she wants to slap him, as he expects her to. ]

So before we both start vigorously beating around the bush, I guess I should acknowledge I owe you an apology. [ You know, for promising to try not to die and then sacrificing himself only days later. ]

[dragony]

Yeah. [ In a way, he'll be disappointed: no physical violence is forthcoming. Even joking punches, and halfhearted slaps, are left unswung. She simply doesn't have the strength for anger anymore. Her hands remain where they lay.

The look she gives him is weighted, weary. ] You do.

[crab]

I am sorry for breaking my promise. [ He measures his words carefully, as he gives them. ] I didn't set out to get blown up, you know, but I couldn't just stand there and watch it happen to him.

[dragony]

[ She gives a slow nod in response; her heart, which had been thrown into disarray at recognizing him before, is settling back in her chest. ]

He told me what happened.

[crab]

I've watched enough of my friends die, without being able to lift a finger to help them.

[dragony]

[ She regrets that she wasn't there to protect them both. The thought crosses her heart, but Ruka doesn't give life to it by speaking. A dozen different rejoinders cross the back of her tongue, but she doesn't open her mouth for any of them. She wants to comfort him, and chastise him, and thank him, and apologize to him, all at once. To tell him he did the right thing—to forbid him from ever doing it again.

There's so many things she could say, but she doesn't know where to start—or even if she should. ]

[crab]

[ It's confusing, to be aware of impulses and subtleties rooted in positive sentiment he would have been blinkered to before -- it's not unpleasant, as his power had originally been in its early stages, but it isn't easy to process, either. ]

You can say-- whatever it is, you're thinking.

[dragony]

I suppose... [ The words come after a delay, but even then, it takes her a moment to sort through what's worth saying.

Her gaze drifts to the ceiling, still as spotless as before. ]

... Instead of saying, you're forgiven... for breaking your promise. I'll say thank you.

[crab]

Thank you? [ He echoes, bewildered. Of all the responses he expected from her -- anger, sadness, disappointment, deflection -- a thank you ranked fairly low on the list. ]

[dragony]

You saved his life. When you could have saved your own, instead.

[ She still isn't looking at him, eye to eye, and maybe it's easier to say when she's not watching his expression shift from one surprise to another. ]

He would have switched places with you, you know. If you'd given him the chance. So...

[ Her arms move, crossing, hands across her forearms. Her voice is quiet. ]

I would say you were brave, to do it, but you might call it something else. [ selfish, maybe, for not wanting to carry a survivor's guilt. cowardice, possible, not wanting to explain how it came to be karkat there, and rua gone. ] I'm grateful that you protected him.

[crab]

[ It is in Karkat's nature to deflect and deny praise when it's given in any genuine capacity, but this time... ]

I didn't regret it. [ And for Karkat Vantas, that is an enormous thing to admit. ] I mean, it was fucked up that he had to see, I felt bad about that, and I wasn't thrilled about dying either, but I was glad I saved him. It was worth it.

[dragony]

[ She hesitates, then. Obviously, she has to tell him what happened to Rua, but... it was only a few hours ago, and she's hesitant to confirm what she felt. Ruka would much, much rather be wrong about this. ]

... In a way, you saved me, too.

[crab]

[ Arguably kinder in the short term to let him believe he succeeded in helping someone for once. ]

Care to elaborate?

[dragony]

We're... connected, Rua and I. It's hard to explain... [ Her mouth pulls at the corners, her focus dropping to the new, pristine carpeting. There's no wear of footsteps, or haphazard personal belongings, or even the flecks of ink and paint and eraser shavings more common to Ruka's real bedroom, in the City. ] ... that is, I don't fully understand it, myself. I don't think it's only because we're twins, but it isn't only because we're Signers, either.

Anyway...

[ A shrug to her shoulders; the reasons why were never that important. ] ... In... In New Vesuvius, when he died, it... echoed, in my heart. I felt him die.

... Mmm.

[ She doesn't elaborate further, but it's more of the story than she's told Karkat before; her suicide in New Vesuvius has been a point of argument and contention from the moment he discovered it wasn't the system itself that killed her, like it had so many others. She's told him that their deaths—Rua's and Karkat's—drove her to that conclusion, but she's kept the details close to heart.

It's a piece Karkat was missing before, but he already knows how that story ended. ]

[crab]

[ Ah.

Karkat doesn't immediately respond, instead taking a careful, measured inhale. This is a sore subject, one he's only ever navigated poorly in the past. ]

You couldn't live without him? [ He prompts, with some hesitation. ]

[dragony]

I've had to. We didn't arrive together, after all.

[ But it's not quite the question he asked, either, and it gives her pause. ]

... You know what it feels like. To feel the death of someone you love, repeated inside you. Don't you?

[crab]

[ Vriska Serket.

Of every death Karkat has witnessed, in his time in the City, it's Vriska's he has the hardest time forgetting. Love might be a strong word for what he'd admit to feeling for her, but... every fear, every pain she'd felt as she'd died had been echoed in Karkat's heart, intimately enough that at the moment of her death, it was as if he'd died, too. When her emotional output had been ripped away, when she was gone, he'd been left empty. Hollow.

The flinch he gives is almost imperceptible. His mouth is dry, and he swallows before speaking. ]

Yeah. Yeah, I know what it's like. It's part of why-- why I couldn't watch him die like that.

[dragony]

[ It might be strong, but it's one he's used—maybe not this Karkat, all in one piece, but part of him would admit such a deep depth of feeling.

She doesn't bring it up to hurt him, though the reminder must ache, and she knows such a pain is inevitable. But they spend so much time fighting, so long on opposite sides of a canyon where they cannot understand one another. The truth hurts, and the reminder hurts, she knows, but after everything... this is better than deflection and the hurt from fighting so much, isn't it?

It's not a question she can answer on her own. ]

Yeah. ... [ I understand. ] ... With how it was, I wouldn't have lived through that.

Even though you didn't know it, you saved me, too.