Chapter Text
“I will not kneel,” you insist to the highblood, pulling the arrow straight out of your knee with a hiss loud enough that you’re sure it can be heard up to the respiteblocks.
“You will all up and do as I motherfuckin say,” Makara insists, makeup contorting into a visage that would terrify any lesser troll as he snaps his bow in two. You’re not sure as to what end he plans to use this for, exactly, but the action alone is certainly more than a bit ludicrous. What use could he have of a broken bow? He certainly can’t shoot with it, the idiot. Then he spits out another word you didn’t expect. “Peasantblood.”
That is what finally pushes you past the breaking point, the thing that shatters your usually impeccable self-restraint. You cannot hold yourself back, cannot refrain. Your precious moirail is on the floor as a pool of her own green blood coagulates around her. Your leader demanded you confront the highblood (who is now using your kinks against you, much to your udder disdain) so confront him you will, if nothing else but to avenge your beloved Nepeta.
“NO!” you practically roar, fist connecting with pulpy flesh and you hear a crack that tells you his jaw is most likely broken. “I WILL NOT!”
The highblood - no, Gamzee, you think to yourself, forcing yourself to face the reality of his actual name - literally flies into the wall and you are rewarded with the sound of a sickening crunch. You don’t give him time to recover, however. You have an advantage he doesn’t - your STRONG muscles you have honed through years of practice. Gamzee’s, in comparison, have only atrophied due to inactivity and malnourishment despite his higher caste which would normally have given him the advantage. Not to mention the element of surprise is overwhelmingly yours to exploit, seeing as the juggalo didn’t consider you’d disobey a direct order from higher up the hemospectrum.
You’re astonished with yourself, if you’re perfectly honest, but you push it to the back of your head to confront later. No doubt you’ll dissect every painful second in great detail to further torment yourself since that is your tendency after all. Dust particles and chunks of wall begin flying about as you scream the foulest obscenities at the top of your lungs, much out of character for you even when taking into consideration your ridiculous amounts of rage. Your eyes are blinded with blue tears as you literally use the other troll as your personal punching bag.
You don’t know how much time passes, but indeed it does, and you’re left slamming a lifeless corpse into the walls again and again and again, with your bare hands much like a grotesque version of his clubs he just used. It’s not a corpse anymore so much as a bunch of meaty flesh connected to sinew and bone. And even that is very quickly disintegrating between your fingers. Soon enough, they’ll be empty.
You are screaming, howling, and blind. You haven’t yet realized Gamzee was good and dead with the first punch into the wall. You shattered his spine with the impact - or his bones, at the very least - and even if that hadn’t done it, your fist broke his nose, shoving it straight into his brain and smashing his skull well against whatever it was you hit. Certainly not metal considering the dust particles. Your unrestrained strength is rather a thing to behold. After all, it was you who broke Nepeta’s spine with a simple hug but you also replaced it with her current tail. You were more cautious after that incident. Well, until now of course.
Eventually, though it takes a rather extensive length of time that many would consider ludicrous, or at least obscene, you do exhaust your energy almost entirely and curl into a ball of over muscled misery. You’ve forgotten the highblood momentarily as you crawl your way over to Nepeta, exhausting what little energy you managed to retain. There’s purple staining your hands and fingers, blood all over your body but you couldn’t give a single darn about any of it. You hope against hope that she isn’t as bad as she looks, though you do fear the worst.
Please, please don’t let her be gone. Please be alive. Would it be too much to ask for just another shattered spine?
You don’t move her tiny body, of course. You can’t bring yourself to even lie a finger against her skin. It would be very bad if you caused more injury, though you highly suspect something you would rather not consider. You can’t bring yourself to until you actually confirm, or the thoughts alone will be your undoing. The top of her head is covered in olive green, the same color that stained Gamzee’s clubs, and her eyes are shut with a pained expression twisting her features. You eye the rest of her and find that one of her wrists is bent at an odd angle. Her chest doesn’t move.
You let out a shuddering breath. No.
The metallic tang of blood lies heavy in the air. It coats your tongue, crawling down the back of your throat in an attempt to strangle you from the inside out. More blue leaks from the corners of your eyes and you yank your stupid, useless glasses off to see her better. They don’t even help worth a darn, being all cracked like they are. Nepeta had always insisted that you needed something better. You should have listened but rarely did. Stupid you. Her face, once so pretty, is now broken and lifeless.
You hear the tiniest of coughs. Your bloodpusher squeezes.
Your eyes widen and hers flutter open just a touch, though glazed. “Eq...uius...?”
“Nepeta. I am here,” you answer fervently as she coughs again, olive staining her mouth. Her fate is abundantly clear to you, and your greatest desire is to beat yourself with your fists for it, but she needs you now, not some angry monster. So you focus. For her.
The fingers of her good hand move feebly to form a V shape above her chest and, trembling, you form one with your own hand to complete the diamond. Please no. Anything but this. A broken spine, shattered limbs, even a crushed skull are all things you could fix. But not this. You can’t fix this. Her mouth settles into a peaceful smile and she chokes out something barely audible. Had you not been listening intently, you would have missed it.
“I. Love you.”
Her eyes flutter closed and she lets out one last, raspy breath, wrist going limp. All you can hear are screams of her name filling your ears, and you know without a doubt that she is now dead as you first presumed her to be. You take her in your arms, resting her small head in your lap and just keen endlessly, the cry of a broken troll.
If only you had been here sooner! Seen that she was alive sooner! You could have helped her and then taken care of the highblood. She should have been first priority and you failed her. You’ll never forgive yourself for this egregious sin and you don’t even dare let your blue tears stain her pallid cheeks. You will never be worthy, never were if you allowed her this fate. You want to keep her looking just like this, gentle and sweet. And you really can’t bear to see your color taint her soft skin, now can you?
Eventually, you wipe the green gently off of her with the end of your shirt and take a look around. The sight is, in a word, grotesque. It seems as if you ripped Gamzee Makara to shreds for touching your moirail. But you know better. You literally picked him up and swung him around the room like so many robot parts. There’s not even enough left of him to be properly recognizable, save perhaps the color, and you sigh a “fiddlesticks” under your breath wearily. This will be a mess to clean.
“Equius?” a harsh, almost guttural, voice greets your ears and you glance up, vision blurry. How long had the small troll been standing there? And just how much violence had he witnessed at your hand?
“Vantas?”
He strolls over cautiously, as if he’s stepping over cluckbeast shells, almost like a ballerina ready to spring away at the slightest hint of danger. Maybe he’s scared you’ll lose yourself again and hurt him. No. You won’t. You’re too tired for it, really. And you’re all out of steam to do damage to anyone, least of all yourself.
Besides, he hadn’t done anything to deserve violence. Unlike the complete nook sucking juggalo who no longer existed.
He kneels and takes one purple stained hand in his, gently rubbing the color away with his surprisingly gentle fingers. You’re surprised to find the pads calloused. “Are you ok now?”
“No.”
Which is true. You’ll never be ok again.
He just nods, eyebrows furrowed. “Would you like to carry her, or should I?”
“May I do it?” your voice is tired, weary as if you’ve not slept in sweeps.
It feels true, at least, even as it’s not. You were on your pile of broken tools just a relatively short time ago with this same girl curled against your chest. You’d felt her breathe against you, sighing in her sleep. Nepeta had smiled about something as she nuzzled closer to your skin, purring. Something she’ll never get to do again, something you’ll never hear from her throat. You know you don’t deserve the honor of carrying her, and yet you can’t bring yourself to release your gentle moirail.
He extends a hand and you look at it puzzled before realizing his intentions. You’ll have to put Nepeta down. Your internal dilemma lasts about five minutes but Karkat doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to, understanding your internal dilemma. He just holds out his hand until you take it. Which is a process, considering. You put your hand very gently on his and use it as balance instead of using it for actual help so as not to crush the fragile bones of his fingers. You stand slowly, as if ancient, to your feet before he picks up your precious moirail and places her gingerly in your outstretched arms.
Neither of you mention his rather gruesomely departed quadrantmate painting the walls around you in chunks and smears. You’re careful to step over the smatters on the floor, hoping he understands. But at this point, there’s not a whole lot of feeling left so it’s more of a vague twinge in the back of your mind. It’s much like when you sit down at your bench for long periods of time and one of your legs starts feeling odd. That’s you now. Tingly in the worst way.
And it just. Won’t. Stop.
Karkat leads you up and away from the carnage. What’s the body count now? Gamzee, Nepeta, Sollux, Eridan, Vriska, Feferi, Tavros. About seven or so bodies. You can’t think about it, the horror inflicted over the past however long. Aradia also blew up but she was a robot and didn’t have a body to add to said count. Gods help you, you’ll need to figure out how to keep robots from doing that eventually since clearly that was a malfunction in the manufacturing. Your fault. Everything’s your fault. But there’s too much to think about right now though.
Gently, your leader convinces you to leave Nepeta with him on top of the meteor. It involves an obscene amount of papping and gentle, coaxing words you previously had no consciousness of his ability to utter. But somehow, you’re collecting all the bodies you can find and taking them to the top to determine something to do with later. Probably toss them into the sun since it’s somehow managed to come close enough to all of you to be seriously potentially dangers. It makes you nervous.
Though you do entertain thoughts of flinging yourself into its depths for disappointing Nepeta. Perhaps it would be the best course of action.
By the time all the bodies are lined up, heads included, there are two humans standing about. One is dressed in red, the other in a florescent orange and appear rather similar in stature and build. You’re not particularly interested in them, however. They don’t appear murderous in the least though you’re confused as to the apparition of a bucket and Karkat foaming at the mouth. It appears that everything has gone even further to hell in your absence. Perfect.
“Who’s the big guy with all the muscles?” the individual you suppose is male asks. The voice sounds male at least.
“That is Equius,” Kanaya replies. “Do not mind him. He just lost a dear friend today and most likely will not feel like conversation for the foreseeable future.”
You tune out, moving over to Nepeta to hold her close again. It’s awkward for everyone involved to see you so emotional, tears leaking from the corners of your eyes as your shoulders shudder. There’s no noise but it’s enough of a display to quiet those around you. Aradia moves to put her hand on your shoulder. You know it’s her by the red sleeve peeking from the corner of your vision. There’s no one else it could be.
“Equius,” she kneels down to ensure you can look in her face. “We’re going to throw the corpses into the sun. Will you be fine with that?”
You let out a shuddering sigh, wiping at the tears on your face. “I… I believe so. She wouldn’t have wanted me to keep her around. Could you do it quickly please? I don’t think… I don’t… I’m not strong enough –”
She nods and too soon, Nepeta is gone in a burst of green. The others follow but your brain doesn’t register it really. More bursts of green. But Nepeta… Nepeta is gone. Forever. You’ll never get her back no matter what. She’s left you with a burst of green just like that as if she hadn’t ever existed in the first place. But she had. Or you wouldn’t have that smell stuck in your nose.
So you sit, looking at the sun. You wonder if it really would be the best decision to run headlong into it. You’d never before considered suicide but you’d also never hated yourself this much. Would anyone stop you?
Just as you think this, Aradia is in front of you again, whispering gentle words. “You still have things to do, Equius. Come now, it wouldn’t do anybody any amount of good if you died right now. Nepeta wouldn’t want it anyways. Come on, let’s get you out of here.”
Nodding absentmindedly, you let her take your hand and guide you away, steps fumbling in your numbness.
You don’t care that it’s incredibly rude to all parties involved, you leave without dismissing yourself, led carefully by Aradia. She leaves you outside Nepeta’s respiteblock before returning to the others.
Somehow, she knew there are things you need to do before anybody else comes tromping down here like so many hoofbeasts. Like hide her shipping wall from prying eyes. That was hers, something personal and private. You can’t even look at it without sobbing once more. It makes moving crates and barrels to cover the chalk drawings nearly impossible but you don’t stop until the area is entirely inaccessible to any but you. Only a troll with your STRENGTH could move such heavy obstacles.
And with all your exhausted faculties, you can barely manage to do so yourself.
You block off the door too. You’re not ready to go through her belongings just yet. The pain is too fresh but you wouldn’t be able to stand it if someone were to get the idea to snoop around. You’ll look at them later when your bloodpusher isn’t so raw with emotion.
You only have enough energy to find the nearest pile. Which would be behind her door had you put any length of thought into your actions. But you’re not about to move the crates you just put there. So you drag yourself up to your own quarters through some feat of something inside you previously unknown to yourself. You’d call it super strength but you already have that. It’s something else that drives you forward. Perhaps self-loathing. You’ll dwell on it later. Most likely when there aren’t so many stairs in your way.
Finding your pile of broken wrenches, you allow yourself to stop standing long enough to get one in your eye on the way down. Ow. Oh well. You’ll live at least. That’s going to be a serious headache when you wake up, however. While you’re not looking forward to it necessarily, it’ll give you some sort of feeling outside the tingles buzzing just beneath your skin.
Sniffling, you find you have no words left for yourself. No thoughts either. You’re filled with nothing. No energy, no emotions, no tears. You barely manage to keep breathing. All that’s present is that gosh darned sensation that refuses to leave your entire body. It’s cold and pressingly painful, restricting movement from all axis. It’s become rather annoying if you’re being honest with yourself.
Something inside you tells you to remove your glasses before settling completely for sleep while the rest of you battles to care enough about the situation to do so. But before anything can completely register in your broken thinkpan, you’re out.
All you see is black.