Chapter Text
Karkat paced across the room.
Roxy and Aranea had went to check on Jade, which left Dirk and Rose sitting awkwardly together on Karkat’s couch, while Dave stood leaning against the wall next to it, arms tight across his chest. Karkat thought his leaning wasn’t just to turn away from the couch – he and Rose still looked exhausted from the clusterfuck that was dinner. Still, it was odd to see Rose this uncomfortable, especially at the prospect of explaining things. It set Karkat even more on edge.
“Karkat, dear, perhaps you’d feel better if you sat down?” Rose suggested, gesturing to the bed.
Karkat stopped, a scathing retort on the tip of his tongue, but he sighed, and sat down. “ Now will you explain all this shit to me?”
Rose chewed her lower lip. “You must understand that it’s difficult to figure out where to start. Perhaps if you asked a specific question?”
Karkat narrowed his eyes. “That sounds like an easy way to use ‘well you didn’t ask!’ as a good excuse the next time I find out you’re hiding shit from me.”
Rose looked pained. “I didn’t mean it like that, I just… Where do you start divulging over a decade’s worth of family secrets? At our births? What moments are important for an explanation, and what are just important as my own life experiences? Perhaps I could start with –”
“I’m Dirk’s brother,” Dave interrupted.
Rose sighed, while Dirk had the resigned face of a man scheduled for execution.
Karkat’s jaw dropped as he looked between Dirk and Dave.
It made sense.
Well, it was the only thing that made sense after Rose called him “cousin” before they realized Karkat wasn’t caught by Dave stopping time – which was another thing Karkat can’t believe he wasn’t told, but definitely lower on his priority list than “his best friend for a decade is the heretofore unknown lost prince of Skaia”.
Said reveal also explained Dave’s weirdness around Dirk, making Karkat promise to stop looking into him. How similar he looked to Roxy. How quickly he was brought into the fold when first deciding to deal with the Thieves. Why the blank parts of that book didn’t fill in. Maybe even why he was so upset at John being named heir apparent?
And what about what Dirk had told him happened to his brother?
“Then why aren’t you…? We were just kids when we met at the Sanctuary, and you had already been there for years. Dirk made it sound like –”
Dave raised his eyebrows. “Dirk made it sound like what ? What exactly did he tell you?”
Dirk was shrinking in on himself, his hands gripping his knees.
Karkat swallowed. He wasn’t sure how Dave would take this. He wasn’t sure he should even say it. Even though Dave was involved, it was still something private between him and Dirk. “He – He said he messed up. That there was an accident, and you – Well, he never said you died , but I assumed –”
“There was an ‘accident’ because Dirk ‘messed up,’” Dave repeated bitterly. “A good enough story when you can’t tell the whole truth. But we can now, so why don’t you, Dirk?”
Dirk flinched like he’d been hit.
Karkat’s stomach twisted seeing him like this. “I don’t have to know the details; it’s not my business.”
“No, Dave’s right,” Dirk said. “I told you that when I was eleven, there was an accident that was my fault, and I lost my little brother.”
Karkat nodded.
“You also now know Dave can use the time aspect.”
Karkat looked at Dave, who just shrugged dismissively.
“Well,” Dirk continued, “I can use an aspect, too. Heart. Ironic, I know,” he chuckled hollowly. “I was still getting used to it, excited to have it at all, really. I couldn’t do much, but what I could do was concentrate and visually see the bonds people shared. How their ‘hearts’ connected, I guess.”
There was a thump as Dave lolled his head back against the wall and stared blankly at the ceiling.
Dirk glanced at him, then back down at the floor and continued, “We were playing on the castle grounds. Well, Dave was playing, and I was supposed to watch him. Instead, I was playing around with my abilities. I could see a guard and a maid had a bond between them, and the one between the gardener and his son. And for the first time, I realized I could see my own. And I could see Dave’s.” Dirk took a steadying breath. “I was looking at Dave’s – seeing two threads go up to where I knew our parents were, over to the library that Rose frequented, and out farther in the woods to Roxy. And one back to me. I was studying them, fascinated, when out the corner of my eye I saw Dave trip. If I had been paying attention, I would have known the fall wouldn’t hurt, at most he’d come away with a skinned knee. But I panicked, and I reached out and the motion…” Dirk was trembling.
Rose gently pulled one of his hands from his knee and into hers, which he gripped just as tight, like it was the only thing holding him up. “He severed Dave’s bonds. All of them. Suddenly my little cousin went from treasured family to an acquaintance. One I liked to be around; like a servant’s well behaved child. But I could still feel the lack of something that was supposed to be there. It was.. disorienting. And it was the same for Dave. A seven year old with no friends, no familial connection, just a handful of older kids and adults he knew he could trust on some level, but never felt truly comfortable around.”
Dave’s face was tight with pain or anger – Karkat couldn’t tell.
“But not for Dirk,” Rose continued. “While the heart aspect isn’t widely studied, it seems such breaks can’t affect the user. Dirk was the only one remaining who kept all his feelings for Dave as a loved one. As a little brother.”
Karkat was glad he was sitting down. This was so much to take in. His chest felt tight as he looked at Dirk, who now more resembled a lost boy than the prince of a kingdom. He didn’t know what to say. What could you say after hearing that?
Then Karkat turned to Dave, who was looking between him and Dirk, his expression growing sour. “Right. Give all your sympathy to Dirk who has to deal with the pain of loving me while I lost everything !” he scoffed. “I thought you would be different, Kat. The rest of these assholes are magically incapable of caring about me more than Dirk, but what’s your excuse?”
“Dave, that’s not –!” Karkat began.
“No, you know what? Fuck this. I’m going for a walk while you and Rose coddle the fucking prince ,” he spat, slamming the door behind him as he left.
Karkat was torn.
He looked back at Dirk, who looked like he was about to throw up. Rose pulled him down closer to her to stroke his hair, though her eyes remained fixed worriedly on the door. Karkat desperately wanted to take her place, be the one to comfort Dirk, but that was not the role for a guard, and Karkat needed to be there for his friend. “Dirk, I –”
“Go. Please,” Dirk said, his words muffled against Rose’s shoulder.
Karkat didn’t need to be told twice. He swung open the door and bolted down the hallway after Dave.
Dirk felt pathetic. Was pathetic. But it had been over a decade since he had explained what happened in detail, and even that he had to rely on Rose to finish. He couldn’t own up to it, even now.
“Whatever you’re thinking about yourself is bullshit, cousin,” Rose murmured as she continued to stroke his hair.
Dirk pulled himself free. “It’s not. Dave’s right. I don’t deserve to be coddled like this when I ripped everything from him. His family. His future.”
“You were a child, Dirk.”
“Was I a child when I stole his best friend as well? All so I could have some connection by proxy, as though getting to know him through Karkat could fix what I had done,” he said bitterly.
“Roxy and I have also tried connecting with him again. You’re not alone in that,” Rose assured. “Sometimes I think Roxy has tricked herself into believing she’s done it, but you saw her at the cabin, when Dave got tired of our meetings and left. We can still feel that unsettling hollowness when we’re around him. But we don’t have your same desperation. I can’t fathom looking at you, loving you, while you were ‘magically incapable’ of feeling the same for me.” Her voice broke. She was staring at the floor, her hair veiling her face, but not enough to prevent Dirk seeing her try to blink away the tears that fell freely down her face.
He wrapped her in a tight hug, which she returned gratefully. “I’m sorry. It always seemed so easy for the two of you. You both left, and – I should have known. I was so wrapped up in my own head.”
Rose sniffled. “None of us handled it well. Especially so soon after our moms died, and then your parents left, and –” She took a shaky breath. “I thought I could fix everything.” She pulled out of Dirk’s arms and looked him in the eyes, guilt etched on her face. “I never told you. I didn’t want to get your hopes up and come home empty handed, but I shouldn’t have just left as I did.” Rose wiped away some tears with the heel of her palm. “I was trying to find a way to heal the bonds. But there was nothing in the libraries. Nothing from the scholars, though I could only ask in vague terms to not encourage any rumors. The fae were my last hope and…” She looked away and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Dirk. I keep hoping that it just hasn’t happened enough to be properly studied, and there’s no ethical way to experiment to find a solution, but the fae have ancient knowledge, and even they don’t know of a way to fix this.”
Dirk didn’t realize it was possible to be so filled with gratitude and love for his cousin, and simultaneously so absolutely crushed. For years, Rose had put up with his friendly jabs about her scheming, while all this time she was working to fix his mistake. While he just, what? Sat around and moped? Stole Dave’s best friend out from under him in a selfish flight of fancy?
“You’re doing it again,” Rose said with a wobbly smile. “You’re beating yourself up. Any mistakes that you have made won’t be fixed by your self-flagellation. Roxy and I still care for you, Dirk. And so does Karkat. Quite deeply, if what I unintentionally interrupted earlier tonight is any indication,” she teased.
Dirk flushed. “That’s not – It wasn’t – It’s not appropriate.”
“And when have you cared about what’s appropriate for your station? You do your duty, but you bend and twist the rules.”
Dirk frowned. “This is different. What if – I could be misreading things. I could be pressuring him. Muse above, Karkat was right. We have too many things to worry about especially with how dinner went, for me to be trying to find a loophole in this power imbalance even if…” Dirk sighed.
Rose patted his cheek. “You can’t put your feelings on hold forever, dear cousin, even if you think you can. Neither can you deny Karkat of his agency.”
Dirk shrugged noncommittedly.
“I’ll leave you to gather your thoughts before he returns. I’ve left Roxy alone with an angry Jade and a filterless Aranea for long enough as it is.” She kissed his forehead, made one last futile effort to wipe away signs of her tears, and left him alone.
Karkat found Dave on a window seat in an alcove a little way down the hall, his forehead pressed against the glass. He didn’t acknowledge Karkat as he approached and leaned against the wall next to him.
“I’m sorry,” Karkat said.
“For what , exactly?” Dave snapped.
“For not…” Karkat struggled with how to phrase it. “Being there for you. In there. Or really much at all since the tournament.”
“That’s not your fault.”
“It kind of is. I could have made more of an effort to see you. Ate more meals in the mess hall. Something . And then I just dropped the shit about Dirk and John on you without even considering –”
“You couldn’t have known, Kat,” Dave said wearily. “It’s just… so like him !” He tried to subtly wipe his eyes, and Karkat pretended not to notice. “I don’t even know why I joined the royal guard in the first place,” he mumbled.
Karkat’s heart sank. He had been so excited to join the second he could. He just assumed… “Was it because of m–”
Dave cracked a smile. “No, you self-absorbed asshole. I just… I dunno. Maybe I thought seeing him again would… Trigger something? It had been so long that maybe…” He bonked his head against the glass. “Stupid. Instead I had this… this stranger look at me like I was broken. Or a ghost. Maybe that’s what I am.”
“Dave, you’re not –”
“You know they held a funeral for me?” Dave asked as though Karkat hadn’t spoken. “The king and queen. My ‘parents.’ No one out of the castle grounds knew I existed, but they still gathered everyone who did know together and wept over a funeral pyre. It wasn’t long after that they sent me away.” He closed his eyes and Karkat saw a few more tears drip down his face. “I think they hated me,” he murmured. “I don’t know if they can. I can’t hate them – any of them. I’ve tried , but… I think that counts as a connection or ‘bond’ or whatever, too. I just don’t know why my parents would have rather pretended I was dead if they didn’t.”
“That’s fucked,” was all Karkat could say.
Dave hummed his agreement, then after a moment, “I did get close once, though. Hating them, well, hating Dirk ,” he admitted.
“Yeah?” Karkat prompted, though he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to know.
“Not when I found out he was stalking me.”
Wait, what?
“Not when he got fixated on you and enabled your stubborn ass to risk your life in the tournament,” Dave continued. “Not even when I couldn’t see you after you were attacked by the imps because he didn’t fucking consider anyone but him was important enough to get to see you after you almost got yourself killed again . It pissed me off, sure. Like he was trying to cut me off from the one person who always made me feel tethered. Like I wasn’t destined to drift through life unable to connect to anyone.”
“Dave…”
Dave didn’t budge, his forehead still pressed to the window. “It was when you told me what he did to John. Because he knows. There’s no way he doesn’t know about me and John – he’s the closest thing Dirk has to a friend, and look what he…” He took a shuddering breath. “Rose and Roxy managed to escape being in line for the throne, and Dirk’s attempts will eventually get him killed. And then it will be John. And then I’ll have to choose if I want to stay with him more than I want to escape what I thought I had already been set free of – the one good thing that came out of what Dirk did to me. But even then, I thought, ‘At least I’d still have Karkat.’ After I cooled off, at least.”
Karkat remembered how Dave’s attitude seemed to change in an instant and how he almost tripped over things strewn about that weren’t a second before.
“But back there? With Rose and Dirk? You–” Dave’s voice broke. “The way you looked at him …” He cleared his throat. “I don’t wanna lose you, too, Kat.”
“Dave, that’s not –” Karkat grabbed Dave by the shoulders and turned him enough to look at him. “I’m not going anywhere. When we get back, I’ll prove it – I’ll do better, I’ll –” Resign? Would he?
Dave was more important. Than anything. Including Dirk. Dave meant everything to him – had been with him through thick and thin for years. It felt like they had always known each other, and finding out this big secret didn’t change that.
And Dirk…
Dirk meant…
Fuck.
Karkat gripped at his pounding head.
The first thing Karkat saw when he stood up and opened his eyes was a look of fear on his majesty’s face. Fear for him.
Dave, smiling. “Hey, moral support is important, and I am here to support all your testy, testy morals.”
The solid thunk of his knees hitting the stone floor.
Dave’s worried voice, distant. Muted.
Karkat’s hand going to his boot, then his dagger flying, striking the thief so dangerously close to his prince.
Karkat holding Dave close on his last night in the barracks, relaxing more with the presence next to him. This was just another sense he wanted to cling onto as long as he could. With Dave’s heartbeat next to his, his breath in his ear, he was finally able to drift to sleep.
A hand on his shoulder, shaking him. His ears ringing.
Focus. He had to focus.
He opened eyes he didn’t realize were closed and tried blinking blurry shapes into solid forms.
Prince Diederik, the window of his office haloing him in the rising morning sun. Karkat’s heart skipped a beat when he noticed a thin red scar still on his cheek where Karkat’s dagger had sliced him.
Dave hugged him tight. Like he had been worried he’d never get the chance to again. “You’re one lucky motherfucker, to come out with just a couple scratches.”
They started to come into focus but there was something wrong with how it all looked. No. How Dave looked.
A bright red outline, all jagged edges, only softening as it led toward the hands on his shoulders.
Dave looking more serious than Karkat had seen him, “This is a friend favor I’m calling in. Drop this. Drop whatever your obsession with the prince is.”
Karkat looked into Dave’s eyes, deep red to bright.
“I’ll drop it,” he said. “Promise.”
Breathe. Focus.
Karkat squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them again, the outline was gone.
A distant clack of a door opening and closing. Twice.
Then all the senses returned at once.
“... back to your room. Then I’ll go find a physician. They’ve got to have one here, right?”
Karkat stood up, leaning on the wall for support. “‘M fine.”
Dave stared at him, mouth agape. “The fuck you are! You collapsed! Your nose is bleeding again ! And your eyes – What’s going on, Karkat?”
Karkat dug the handkerchief back out of his pocket and dabbed at his nose. It came away almost soaked, but his sleeve took care of what was left. He stood up straighter and let go of the wall. He wobbled for a second, but was soon able to maintain his balance. “Dunno.”
“What do you mean you don’t –”
“I mean I don’t know!” Karkat snapped.
Dave glared at him.
“Sorry,” Karkat said, wearily. “It’s just been happening lately. Not usually this bad. I think Rose knows something about it, but we have bigger shit to worry about right now, so I haven’t asked.”
Dave kept glaring. “All these bullshit secrets stop now. I can’t have you hiding that you’re collapsing with blood gushing out of your nose until you’re suddenly bedridden because you’re too fucking stubborn to go to a physician.”
Karkat waved him off. “Fine. I’ll give you my entire medical history in the morning.” His head felt like it was in a vise grip. “But I guess going back to my room to lay down would be good,” he admitted.
Back to his room with Dirk. Did he tell the truth and avoid any awkward conversations for the night, or did he fail to mention he blacked out for a second to keep Dirk from worrying?
“I’m still going to go look for a physician.” Dave was looking him up and down as though to spot any other health issues Karkat had been hiding. “Can you make it back on your own?”
Karkat took a few steps. No wobbling. “Yeah, I got it.”
Dave frowned, but the steps seemed to pass his scrutiny. “Fine. But I’ll be back to check on you even if I can’t find anyone who can look you over.”
“Fine,” Karkat echoed, then turned and headed back to his room.
Dirk stood and stretched. He went to the washbasin and splashed some cool water on his face, trying to focus on the sensation rather than his racing thoughts.
Rose was right. When Karkat came back – No, in the morning, after they both had a good night’s rest. Time to clear their heads. Then he would insist on talking to him. If he needed more time, Dirk would give it. If it was a flat rejection, he would take it, and offer to release him from his service once again. But he wouldn’t let himself dwell on this until his brain spiraled it out of control.
This resolution only increased his nerves, and he began pacing, but he only managed a few steps when he heard a creaking from the rafters. Before he could turn to look, something fell heavy on his back, and he was pinned to the floor.
“Fuckin’ finally!” said a familiar voice. “I wouldn’t’a guessed the Skaian royalty was a bunch of crybabies. I thought you’d never stop jerkin’ it over your own sob stories.”
“Who–?” Dirk stopped as the cold steel of a blade pressed against his throat.
“Stupid, too,” the voice laughed. “I’m the motherfuckin’ Thief of Life and it’s time I fulfill our contract.”