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Language:
English
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Published:
2011-09-07
Words:
589
Chapters:
1/1
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31
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585
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Breath & Blood

Summary:

You’re both wearing your colours on the outside, and neither one of you looks good in red. [IMAGE HEAVY]

Notes:

Screenshots from a doomed timeline.

Art by geromy.

(See the end of the work for more notes and other works inspired by this one.)

Work Text:



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The battle had taken its toll.

The remaining players were dropped onto the battlefield without warning, strifekind in hand, lingering lost and confused in a realm without time or dimensional borders. You’d been thrown into limbo with your towering common enemy. Numbered dice tossed onto an uneven board. Ants marching forth to conquer a giant.

It was nothing like you expected your first encounter to be.


Your vision is swimming. Your heartbeat drums within your head, pounding and echoing at the inside of your skull to the rhythm of a madman thrashing against padded walls. You’re laying face-down in the dirt, half-drowning in a pool of your own worthlessness, pouring red from open wounds which have forgotten the sensation of pain.

And then you see it.


Blinding blue on a backdrop of grey and black and red.

Bright red.

Your red.


The energy you borrow to bring yourself to him debits you down to negatives.

You drag yourself over bearing traces of strength that shouldn’t have existed. Gravel crunches beneath legs barely supporting your weight. You clutch a fist to the soaking black fabric of your shirt, to the dull, aching throbs within your chest belonging to a once-steady heart, and the way you feel the motion push blood from the exit wound behind you makes bile rise in your throat.

But he becomes clearer with every inch you advance, so you move forward.

You can make out the yellow of his shoes. The paleness of his skin. The seeping wound that mirrors your own.

You’re both wearing your colours on the outside, and neither one of you looks good in red.

HI AGAIN, IDIOT.

He doesn’t respond. You notice he’s trembling.

A few desperate pushes of effort bring you next to him as you lay on your side. His eyes are open, and he’s breathing, barely. His correctional optics sit between the both you, lenses cracked, frames bent.

Fingers shaking, you reach over and slide his glasses back onto his face.

One of his hands rests on yours to guide you, and tears slip down his cheeks as recognition returns to his eyes.

hi, karkat.

The way his voice cracks is so pitiful it makes you feel sick.

Liquid splashes thickly around you when you finally collapse by his side. Your blood ebbs with his and the connection of colours is seamless.

It’s his life that flashes before your eyes when you start to drift.

You’ve watched him since he was young. You’ve seen him dance through the new beginning that was meant for you, and now both your endings are intertwined, wrapped and coiled and tangled within one another like aimless vines searching for an anchor.

And now, you’re met with the doofy face and the stupid smirk and the repugnantly bright eyes you tried so hard to hate, but deep down, had always been pretty okay with.

Exhaustion had worn down the usual optimism in his expression. His smile was weak, the blue of his eyes was glazed over with tears, and it wasn’t until you met his gaze when you truly realized this was over.

Droplets slide down your cheek to pool against the bridge of your nose, and you’re not sure if they’re tears or blood.


There were a countless number of different ways and a vast plethora of different circumstances which could have killed you, but fate had decided to deal you this hand.


Your fingers move up to brush against his, and you’re no longer afraid to play.

Notes:

"Homestuck" and all canon characters and characteristics remain the property and rights of Andrew Hussie.

Works inspired by this one: