Chapter Text
Thick green tendrils swirled out of the darkness and wrapped themselves around Dirk’s throat.
Gasping.
Clawing.
Nails digging into his own flesh and coming away bloody.
No relief.
No air.
He reached out into the viscous liquid until it congealed around his hand.
Slowly slowly slowly he couldn’t breathe but slowly it shaped into a perfect, pulsing sphere.
Fist and tendril squeezed and Dirk wasn’t sure if the CRACK! was his neck or the orb until
His lungs filled to bursting – precious, precious air!
Another crack of thunder as the path of the lightning burned evidence of its presence into the delicate core.
Dirk stared at it.
Beautiful.
He wanted to see inside.
He didn’t even have to squeeze his hand he just thought and another break in the glass and a scream and
Karkat.
Dirk’s hands were on his expressionless face – fissures spreading from where Dirk had gripped too hard.
Blood flowed from them freely.
His lungs filled to bursting – precious, precious blood.
And then Dave was there, as he always was, holding the frayed ends of his bonds.
“What the fuck were you doing?” A thousand voices warped into one.
He didn’t mean to!
But he couldn’t speak – blood belching from his mouth and he stared into the pools that formed and into the face reflected back
Except the face in the blood wasn’t his, it was –
“Dirk!”
Dirk’s head almost collided into Karkat’s as he bolted up in bed, then hissed as his muscles pulled at his wounds.
Karkat was sitting on the bed next to him, now fully clothed. He swept aside the bangs sticking to Dirk’s sweat-soaked forehead. “Are you okay?” Karkat asked, his eyes roaming over Dirk’s face as though he could see into him and find what’s wrong just as the healer could.
Dirk nodded, taking a few deep breaths to calm his breathing and heart rate. “Nightmare.”
Karkat continued to stroke his face, his fingers cool and gentle against Dirk’s skin. Dirk couldn’t help but lean into it. “Do you want to talk about it?” Karkat asked.
Dirk shook his head. “I’m not sure I could even if I did. I can hardly remember anything.” Just the fracture of glass, and, selfish as though it may be, Dirk wasn’t inclined to remind Karkat of that particular incident right now.
“Probably for the best,” Karkat said with a small, worried smile. He leaned in and kissed Dirk’s brow. “I’m kinda glad you’re awake, though,” he admitted, leaning over the side of the bed to pull on his boots. “Neither of us have eaten yet today, so I was going to get some food to bring back. I was trying to figure out if I would be more of a jackass to wake you up or leave without saying anything.”
“I could go with you,” Dirk said, beginning to move to the side of the bed as well, but Karkat froze him in place with a sharp look.
“One, you look like shit, especially after that night terror.”
“Gee, thanks,” Dirk deadpanned.
Karkat ignored him. “Two, I don’t know about you, but I am not particularly ready for the inevitable Lalonde ambush. Your cousins can smell the blood in the water, but I think it’ll be easier if it’s just me out there, grabbing some food so you can rest and not have to dodge number three, Prince Felix.”
Dirk sighed. “You make a compelling case,” he admitted. “Still, I think I should at least be presentable in case my cousins, as you so eloquently put it, smell blood in the water and decide ambushing me alone is acceptable enough.”
Karkat smirked and stood to the side, keeping a waiting hand out as Dirk stood, but, despite being a little light headed, he was able to stand on his own two feet just fine. He started for his clothes, but Karkat grabbed his wrist, and, when Dirk turned, confused, Karkat wrapped his hand around the back of his neck and tugged him down into a deep, but unfortunately quick, kiss, leaving Dirk feeling much dizzier than before. He must have looked it, too, based on the smug expression on Karkat’s face.
“I won’t take long,” he said, then was out the door before Dirk could regain his composure.
Dirk stared at the door, then focused, and stared at the thick, dark pink thread flowing from him and through it, moving slightly as Karkat walked through the castle halls.
To think he had almost…
Was it still selfish that he didn’t?
Dirk carefully washed himself and changed as he contemplated.
Karkat seemed… Fine. Unless he had had some sort of incident while Dirk was asleep and didn’t feel the need to mention it, which, while possible, didn’t immediately seem to be the case. Maybe he had been wrong – maybe it was a coincidence that Karkat had those bloody noses and fainting spells after being around him. As troubling as the thought was, maybe there were more that he wasn’t aware of, but Karkat was so tight lipped Dirk had only ever seen what happened when he was around.
Or maybe there was a delay. The first few bloody noses didn’t seem to happen immediately, though Dirk had no way to tell about the migraines or anything else. It had only been recently that the symptoms occurred directly after the apparent trigger. What if the delay made it worse? What if –
Dirk sighed, dropping back onto the bed. He hated being so unsure, but obsessing over worst-case scenarios wasn’t going to help anything. He couldn’t undo what he had done. He didn’t want to. And if Karkat suffered for his selfishness, well, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.
Karkat made it a few halls down before he had to steady himself against a wall. He was relieved he managed to make it this far. It’s not that he was hiding it from Dirk, necessarily, he was just woozy from needing to eat. This was nothing like the migraines or the bloody noses or anything else – he was just disoriented. He was dealing with those auras again, but they’d only show up every few minutes and he’d blink them away, and they didn’t look nearly as terrible as they did around Dirk right before Karkat shook him awake.
But he was fine. He just needed to grab food and head back to Dirk to eat before anyone could delay him.
Karkat’s luck held up for another few hallways, but the second he stepped out into the great hall, he stopped short. Prince Felix and their servant or whatever, Gamzee, seemed to be just coming back from the kitchens themselves. Karkat tried to dart back into the hallway, but it was too late; the prince saw him and flagged him down.
“Lovely to see you, Sir Knight. Is my lo – er, Prince Diederik not around?” They asked, peering behind Karkat as though he was somehow hiding Dirk behind his back.
“No, majesty,” Karkat said, trying to keep his tone even. “He’s resting right now. I’m getting us some…” He hesitated. What time was it? “Lunch.”
“Ah, yes, of course! I was so concerned when I found out the healer let him out of his care so early, but of course my prince has his loyal guard to care for him.” Prince Felix smiled kindly and placed a hand on Karkat’s shoulder. “How foolish of me to think the two of you would be separated.”
Karkat was confused. “Majesty?”
“When you first arrived, Sir Knight! It has been a busy few days, so perhaps my misstep slipped your mind. No matter – the rooming situation figured itself out, in the end. But I have kept you from your duty too long.” The prince patted his shoulder lightly, then turned to Gamzee. “Do help the young man gather whatever he needs from the kitchen, will you? Prince Diederik must want for naught. In fact!” They perked up. “I shall go attend to him myself while he awaits you.”
“Majesty, I don’t think that’s –”
“Don’t worry, dear knight, I will not trouble him long! But there might be things he requires that you may not so easily fetch, and his comfort is of the highest import,” Prince Felix assured with a wide smile.
Karkat repressed a frown. He didn’t like it, but Dirk was a big boy and could tell the brown-noser to fuck off if he needed to. Karkat bowed slightly. “Of course, majesty.”
The prince smiled again, and then was off, leaving Karkat with the unsettling servant, who bowed in turn and gestured toward the kitchen, leaving Karkat no choice but to follow behind.
The other three were in the kitchen when Karkat and Gamzee entered. Gamzee bowed again and stepped to the side, but Karkat was focused on Rose and Roxy, a smirk and a grin, each as dangerous as the other. Dave looked uncomfortable, avoiding eye contact.
After a bit of a silent standoff, Karkat finally broke. “Are you just going to stand there smiling like idiots all day, or are you going to let me get some food?”
“Don’t you wanna eat with us?” Roxy asked.
“You truly do look famished, Karkat. Have you not eaten yet today?” Rose added.
“I haven’t, and neither has Dirk, you know, prince with a bunch of stab wounds? So I’m grabbing some for him.”
Rose and Roxy looked at each other then back at Karkat, smiles still intact. “Yes, we had noticed both of you failed to show up for breakfast,” Rose said.
“Prince Felix was pouting the whole time.”
“He was tired!” Karkat snapped.
“And you, I suppose, were also tired?” Rose asked innocently.
“Yes!”
“After all your whining about us not waking you up early yesterday?” Roxy asked.
“I –” Karkat had no rebuttal.
The Lalondes’ grins widened.
“Man, leave him alone and let him get some grub, okay?” Dave said, waving his hands to shoo the pair away from the table of food behind them. “No one should have to face either of you on an empty stomach, much less both of you. If Dirk and Karkat needed some extra shut eye, let ‘em be! And if they both want to hole up in their room together instead of come out and socialize with the rest of us…” Dave faltered and Karkat was struck with a pang of guilt. Dave scratched the back of his head. “It’s not our business. I think they’re allowed some privacy to argue about who gets to die for who.”
Roxy rolled her eyes. “You’re no fun, Dave.”
“Quite the spoil sport,” Rose agreed. “Though I suppose you’re right. However Karkat and our cousin were spending the morning, the fact remains neither have eaten.” Rose tutted. “And here I thought the pair would make sure the other was properly cared for rather than enabling each other’s bad habits.”
Karkat rolled his eyes as Rose and Roxy stepped gracefully to the side, letting him forward to grab a tray and pile some food onto it, grumbling to himself about nosy pests. He turned toward the door with his tray, and was trying to figure out a polite way to grump at Gamzee to move out of the way, when he was overcome with another wave of lightheadedness and stumbled.
Gamzee quickly reached out and steadied him and the tray. “Maybe you should take a motherfucking break and eat some food yourself first, brother,” he suggested, the first words Karkat heard from the man without Prince Felix around.
“Perhaps he’s right,” Rose said. “Sit, Karkat. We promise to behave while you eat.”
Karkat glared at Rose for that last line, but sat on the stool she gestured to, resolving to eat as quickly as possible and get these meddlers out of his hair. He was sure Dirk was having a similar problem with Prince Felix.
There was a knock on Dirk’s door.
He sighed. He was really hoping Karkat would have made it back before either of them were accosted, but perhaps they were naive to think it was possible. Dirk double checked his reflection to make sure he didn’t still look like the mess he had when he woke up, and, finding no other reason to delay, opened the door.
It was Prince Felix, smiling in that aggravatingly subservient way they always greeted Dirk with. Dirk wasn’t sure if he was relieved it wasn’t his cousins or annoyed he had to deal with more of the prince’s fawning. Both, probably.
“Prince Felix. Is something amiss?” Dirk asked, doing his best to keep his tone light and face neutral.
The prince bowed, thankfully not as low as usual. “I suppose it depends on your perspective,” they said. “May I come in?”
Felix was many things, but they were not one for such a vague response. Intrigued, Dirk stepped aside and let them enter, closing the door behind them.
Dirk waited while Felix wandered around the room, inspecting it as though it was not one in their own castle. Finally, Felix sat with a sigh at the end of Dirk’s bed with much more familiarity than Dirk was accustomed to. They tilted their head at Dirk appraisingly, a smile still glued on their face. “You continue to defy expectations, don’t you, Dirk?
Dirk stared. “Excuse me?”
“I thought I had you figured out,” they said with a self-depreciating laugh. “Not quite cold and calculating as you like to think you are – that I figured out quickly. But not as emotionally driven as I hoped you’d be. Until … You are!” Their cold eyes didn’t match their smile.
Maybe Karkat had been right. Not eating was getting to him. That had to be why none of this was making sense. “Felix, what’s going on? You’re acting… different.”
Their face relaxed into an expression of casual boredom. “Yes, well, the whole simpering idiot thing was getting tiring, especially since it’s just the two of us. What’s a little unmasking between friends?”
“What’s going on?” Dirk repeated sternly, edging back toward the door.
“You should sit, dear prince, and we can discuss,” Felix said, gesturing to the couch.
“Then let me get the others and we can discuss it together.” Dirk backed up another step.
“I know what you’re doing to your precious guard.”
Dirk froze. “I’m not doing anything to him.”
“I suppose that’s true, in a sense” Felix conceded. “Would a river say they’re doing anything to the rocks they erode year after year? So let’s call it what you have failed to do.” They rolled their eyes at Dirk’s confused expression. “ Free him .”
“From what?” Dirk asked, knowing the answer deep in his gut.
Felix’s condescending pity was back. “From you, of course. From the pain you’re causing him.” They sighed. “You were so close!” A glimpse of frustration, the first genuine emotion Dirk thinks he might have ever seen on the prince, then back to pity. “But I underestimated your selfishness. All your talk of sacrifice and hard decisions and you couldn’t even free the man you love.”
It was hard for Dirk to keep his face blank. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He took another cautious step back toward the door.
Felix stayed where they were, their smile confident, if not smug. “I know what you did to your brother. The same thing that, if you truly loved that little knight, you would do to him as well.”
Dirk’s heart skipped a beat. He tried to say something, but nothing would come out.
“ Now will you take a seat?” Felix asked, gesturing again to the couch.
Dirk hesitated a moment, then obliged. “Who are you?” he asked, willing his voice not to shake.
Felix’s expression turned wide-eyed and innocent, almost a mockery of the expressions Dirk was more used to from them. “Why, I’m the same person you met when you put together your first, much more successful, summit of our nations. When you were finally beginning to accept mummy and daddy had truly abandoned you,” they said with an exaggerated pout.
Dirk barely remembered what happened during that summit. He remembered Felix even less. He had been trying so hard to keep it together. The current princes of the Confederation were attending as heirs of two distinct kingdoms, their parents’ hostility simmering just below the surface. Even they were older than Dirk, and a few years’ gap in age felt like decades when he was 14. He thought he remembered Felix being kind to him. A soft, nervous presence that grounded him, just a little. He had still cried after. The last time he had let himself cry over his parents.
Something must have shown on Dirk’s face because Felix considered him, an amused smile just barely playing on their lips. “You know you deserve it, don’t you?” A statement, not a question. “Them leaving. You made them, everyone , abandon your brother, so they abandoned you. Then so did Roxy. And Rose.”
Dirk’s heart was racing and bile rose in the back of his throat. “They didn’t –”
“Then your guard, next, of course,” Felix interrupted as though Dirk hadn’t spoken.
Dirk’s heart skipped a beat. “No,” he said, though his voice lacked conviction.
“No?” Felix asked mockingly. “Even when he realizes you’re the reason he’s suffering? He lost almost as much blood as you did the other night without needing a scratch on him.”
Dirk flinched. “It’s not me. I was wrong about – It’s not me ,” he said as though to reassure himself more than the prince, who shouldn’t even know what he’s talking about anyway.
“Ah, right,” Felix said, straightening up. “You can’t see it like I do. You’ve neglected your aspect – so certain the only thing you could do with it was destroy. And,” Felix added, tapping their chin consideringly, “maybe it’s all you can. Not me, though. Look .”
They waved their hand in front of themselves, purplish pink hearts alight in their eyes. A million questions formed in Dirk’s mind, but he managed to rip his gaze away from the prince to look down where they were gesturing.
It was Dirk’s bonds, flowing out of him like he had watched Karkat’s do just a little while ago. Except there was more detail. Instead of just thick pulsing threads, they were more like rope, individual threads wrapped around one another. The strongest led to Rose, the strands practically sheening, tied around each other with a certain amount of grace. Roxy’s was rougher, not exactly weak, but there were loose threads poking out and a few small tangles in the mix. There were some going back away from the castle, like the thinner but buoyant one he knew to be John’s.
And then there were the two he dreaded to look at. One hanging limp from his middle, pulsing a painful red, the ends torn unevenly, with some rough stitching as though there had been an attempt to lengthen the strands by an unskilled hand. Dirk closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then turned his attention to the final one. Karkat’s. It had looked so normal earlier. But now he could see the threads were littered with dark reddish-brown stains where the rope was coarser, like it had scraped against something rough and bled.
Dirk swallowed hard, and unfocused his eyes.
“Do you see it now? Do you see what you’ve done to him?”
Dirk clenched his eyes shut. “I didn’t know,” he said weakly.
“Didn’t know?” Felix repeated, amusement and exasperation mixing in their voice. “You knew, my prince. After you pushed him and broke him and the fae had to fix him, you knew. After he started having nosebleeds, after Rose asked about his headaches, you knew. After he fainted dead off his horse in front of you, you knew.”
Each word pushed Dirk off balance. How did Felix know about any of this?
“ And yet ,” Felix continued, “you kept pushing him anyway. Just like a spoiled child desperate to get their way. He was just a pawn to you – a toy that you made your kingdom turn on a dime to deliver to you. And do you know what spoiled children do with their toys, Dirk? They wear them out. They break them. They toss them away when they have no more use for them. And then they beg for more.”
“That’s – That’s not –” Dirk couldn’t even form a defense. Of course that’s what he did. He knew that’s what he did.
“You break all your toys, Dirk,” Felix said matter-of-factly. “You broke your brother and your family along with him and did nothing to fix them, nothing to help them. Even Rose. How many times, do you think, she wished you would ask her to stay? Or wished for you to reach out as she traveled?” Dirk swallowed heavily. “Then there was that Prospitian page–”
“That was different!”
Felix eyed him. “You believe that, don’t you? That you can claim even one relationship that you were the victim in. As though you weren’t dishonest with what you wanted from him and threw him away the second you realized he didn’t feel the same.”
“I had to leave!” Dirk couldn’t think. Jake was… No, he wasn’t a victim of him, but it wasn’t Dirk’s fault!
“And then never speak to him again until he had to hunt you down at the tournament? He wasn’t what you wanted, so there was no more use for him,” Felix said simply. “It’s what you do, Dirk. You discard your toys when you’ve grown out of them. Or you play with them carelessly until they break. And now you’re willingly watching your beloved guard shatter beneath your fingers.”
Dirk stilled, flashes of his half remembered dream – holding Karkat’s face in his hands, bloody fissures, screams, fractured glass, and accusations. “Shut up,” Dirk hissed, his heart clenching.
“You can stop it,” Felix said earnestly. “You can save him! You can save them all before you inevitably break them, too.”
“Shut up !” Dirk stood up abruptly and paced to the far side of the room, refusing to look at Felix. “Why did you show me that? What do you want from me?” He failed to keep the waver out of his voice.
“All I wanted was to give you a chance to understand what you need to do and why,” Felix said simply.
Dirk’s heart stilled, the thoughts whirling in his head finally clicking into place. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He tried again. “You want me to break my bonds with them.”
“It’s drastic, I know,” Felix said with a sigh. “But what’s the alternative? Watch your guard rot away before you? Send Rose to spend another few years trying to make up for your mistakes instead of staying with the women she loves? Roxy has already had one friend abandon her because she got caught up in your game of chess. And the other is still healing, right? Somewhere safe, I hope. I hear there are underlings about.”
Dirk whipped around. “Are you threaten– ”
“I’m just stating the facts, Dirk,” Felix said sharply. “Since you refuse to see them as they are.”
Dirk’s head was spinning. He needed to sit back down, but he didn’t want to show any more weakness than he already had. “Why are you asking this of me?”
“I already told you, Dirk, to save them!” Dirk glared at Felix, who laughed, a light sheepishness on their face as though they were a child caught with their hand in a cookie jar. “You’re right, we’re all too selfish to have such pure motivations. The truth, I suppose, is I want you to break, Dirk. You’re frustratingly hard to break.”
It was said so casually, Dirk thought for a moment he misheard the prince. It didn’t make sense, or maybe he was too out of it from healing and not eating that he just couldn’t keep up. Felix wanted him to break? Dirk didn’t know why that tripped him up more than the rest of what they had been saying. “Not to keep asking the same question, but why ?”
Felix grinned. “Yes, I suppose now would be the appropriate time to exposit at length about my master plan. Perhaps you’d even be able to keep me talking long enough for your guard to cut his quality time short with your brother and come back to you, like he always does. Like he always will.”
A muscle in Dirk’s cheek twitched.
“But he’s going to try to talk you out of this, and I don’t think you want that. I think you want to make a deal with me. If freeing your loved ones from the inevitable damage you’ll cause them isn’t enough, I’ll sweeten the pot,” Felix said, giving Dirk a sly look. “I’ll heal the damage you’ve already caused.”
Dirk’s mouth dropped open, just a little. “You mean you… You can…” He couldn’t finish the thought.
“I can. You see, I’ve been at this longer than you have, Dirk. A lot longer.” They laughed to themselves as though there was some inside joke Dirk didn’t understand. “That mistake you made all those years ago that you and the seer have spent so long trying to fix? I can do it.” They leaned forward, locking eyes with Dirk, grinning like the cat that caught the canary. “I can fix Dave’s bonds.”