Chapter Text
The helmsblock creeps him out, you know because he said so the first time they came down here before he really knew you existed.
The young Empress and her little entourage were ushered in and you couldn’t tell if you were being presented as a dirty imperial secret or a fancy coronation prize, but you could tell your crew regretted being involved as soon as she squealed and clamped her delicate little hands to her mouth. For a few agonizing moments you thought she was going to cry and you debated the plausibility of blowing a hole in your own hull big enough to drag you out into the uncaring void of space. She’d recovered almost immediately though, and started talking about you to the techs and to the uncannily familiar yellow blood who hovered at her elbow. They hadn’t thought you could hear them, probably, and so they’d talked freely just for a minute before one of the techs whispered something to them and they all shut up hilariously fast.
“This place gives me the creeps.” Was the only thing he’d said, almost quiet enough that you didn’t catch it.
Well good, you thought, because he gives you the fucking creeps too. Their faces are so fucking similar that you can’t tell if there’s an actual difference or if you just filled in the holes in your memory wrong. It’s starting to warp your mental image of him and you hate it. Today it’s even worse, because the little Vantas is not dressed up in the tacky little army uniform you first saw him in he’s stood there dressed plain in black and red and grey, and your blood pusher twists. You have to remind yourself that it’s not him. It will never be him.
“Er, hi.” He says. “Are you there?”
You roll your eyes and blink at him. “No.”
He actually hesitates, heh.
“This is the Battleship Condescension voicemail service, please leave a message after the beep.” You say.
“Oh ha ha, very fu-”
“Beep.”
“Fuck you.”
“How did you ever survive to pupation?”
“Being a fucking badass and the help of a genetically modified lusus. Which was… Thanks to you, actually, partially. I guess. So I should probably be less of an asshole, fuck.” He runs his hands over his face and he looks so fucking tired.
Oops, now you feel bad. And here you were telling yourself that you weren’t going to care about this idiot wriggler. You huff all your breath out of your nose and something clicks and re-inflates your lungs. Gods, you don’t know how much longer you can do this.
“Sorry.” You say, “What did you want?”
He gives you this look and it’s weird because he’s annoyed, but it’s not for the sass. It’s almost like he’s actually annoyed that you apologised to him or, perhaps, he’s annoyed that you’ve lost your backbone and either way you almost wish he would just get mad at you for not knowing your place like everyone else. Why the hell would he care? You’re nothing to him, you’re not even a real troll, you’re just another wrinkly old ball he has to juggle.
“Her Imperial Incandescence would like to present an offer,” he starts and sweet holy fuck, you’re already bored. “She says that in exchange for your co-operation the crew will be ordered to do anything you say-”
“Kill me.”
“...Except that.” He sighs, holds up his palms at his sides and shrugs. “I’m sorry okay? I don’t know what else to do I just- Fuck, ugh. Would you just listen? She’s offering your free will back, no more compliance programming, no more pilot override, full command over your maintenance crew. She even wants to give you an informal vote on the council, considering your experience and how-” he hesitates.
Precious child, he doesn’t want to offend you, doesn’t want to mention, explicitly, your access to the systems that you shouldn’t have and your relationship with Meenah and the intimate knowledge of the Empire that gave you. You know that is what the vote is, what they really want from you. They are not gifting you a voice to help lift up your people but finding a diplomatic way to go about mining the infinite resources of your mind as well as your body. In a distant sort of way you are impressed. It’s a shrewd move, one you didn’t expect from the little fish, and you’re curious to see how she sold it to her best little soldier. This should be good.
“Considering your unique perspective on and involvement in imperial affairs,” he continues. You snort. “She thinks that your insight would be useful. To all of us.”
There’s a long pause where you say nothing and he deflates like a sad balloon.
“That’s it. That’s all she wrote.”
It was clever, sending him after you. You know that if she’d given you that little speech you’d have denied it on the spot, and you know that she knows that too. For someone who presents such a bubbly public image she’s definitely not stupid.
“What does my ‘co-operation’ involve?” You ask, dryly. “You’ll have to imagine the finger quotes.”
He laughs, a short humourless bark of a thing and you decide that’s where the similarities end.
“Don’t kill us?” He says. “Fuck, you know what it means. Stay in lane and keep letting us pump your brain juice into our generators for another couple of however the fuck long you live and all the technicians will have to wear silly hats and address you as you mad-jesty on your whim. If you’re feeling particularly ornery you can have them feed you grapes and give you a sponge bath, I don’t give a fuck. That’s the offer, take it or leave it.”
The abrupt change of tone almost shocks a smile onto your face.
“And if I leave it?”
He cringes. Ah.
“Colour me not even remotely surprised.” You drawl. “I wonder, does your little heiress realise that it boils down to do as I say, or I will make you? It’s funny. Meen- The Condesce used to make deals just like that.”
“I’m sorry.” He says, and okay wow, does he look like he means it. His eyes are actually watering “I want. Oh god. Oh god, I’m sorry. Fuck fuck fuck.”
You watch curiously and not nearly as dispassionately as you’d like as his hands clench into fists at his sides and he practically bounces with contained energy. It looks like he just stops the waterworks by sheer force of will and maybe he did. You wonder how often he’s had to hide his tears like that. His face is rust red under the grey, but his eyes are just as bright as you remember them and the determined set of his jaw is exactly the same. (No, it's not. You're remembering a different troll. A dead troll. This wriggler doesn't even know you.) He steps in front of you, closer than any of them have dared go before, and looks you directly in the eyes.
“I want to make you an offer. Just me, no Imperial bullshit. Me, personally, as a troll.” He says.
You raise an eyebrow at him and you guess he takes that as he cue to stamp the shake out of his voice and continue.
“Anything you want.” He says. “No strings attached. I, Karkat Vantas, will do whatever I can to give you whatever the fuck you want myself.”
The “kill me” is already on your tongue before he’s stopped talking and it’s obvious that he hears it because his face scrunches up, and his mouth twists down at the corners. There’s a heavy silence, or as close to silence as you can get above the methodical beeps and ever present drone of the humming machinery that surrounds you. You wish you could take it back but before you try he speaks again. All the energy has gone out of his voice and his shoulders droop, but he still looks you in the eye.
“Do you really want me to kill you?”
You don't know. You are both absolutely, terrifyingly unsure and the most insistent about this as you have ever been about anything at the same time.
“I’ll do it, if that. If that’s what you really want, I’ll do it. No conditions. Just tell me what I need to do, but fuck.” He scrubs at his eyes with one hand. “I don’t want to. I don’t fucking want to, Captor, but I will because if any one of us has earnt the right to choose it’s you. If someone has to try. Has to push this goddamn clown car of an Empire in the right direction it might as well be me. And you. You’ve had so much shit I just- Jesus fuck, I didn’t fight this thing to watch someone get forced to suffer I don’t give a shit how much of an ‘asset’ you are. Oh god.”
He’s crying. He’s not even trying to hide it anymore, he’s actually crying for you with his hands shoved stubbornly in his armpits as he hiccups wetly around his tears. It’s so profoundly bizarre. No one cares about you, no one has even looked at you for this long in centuries. No one except Meenah, who’s dead and wouldn’t be caught crying if someone came along and personally popped the heads off of all her favourite toys which, ironically, is exactly what this blubbering wriggler is offering to do. Even more absurdly all your fucked up think pan dredges up as comment is ‘He called you Captor’.
“You’d have to increase the dose on my painkillers to something lethal.” You say.
The fear in his eyes hurts more than the drugs would. He chokes, covers his face for exactly six seconds, then lowers his hands and looks at you with achingly familiar determination, gritting his teeth even as the tears roll down his ruddy cheeks.
“How?” He says.
“I can give you the codes to access my toxicity levels and you can manually override the dosages.” You frown at him, just a little. “You might not even need the codes.”
You’d want him to take them though. It’s like signing your own death warrant you suppose. Maybe if he takes the codes from you it’ll feel like you really do have some control over this whole thing. Maybe the illusion of choice would help numb the poisonous fear that’s gathering in your guts and burning you from the inside out. It’s stupid of course, your life is in his hands completely, but you think if you told him he’d understand. He glances at the control panel to your left and then back to you.
“What are they?” He says.
“What happens to you, if you kill me?”
He pulls this face which is so endearingly open that you almost laugh out loud. It’s a good thing you don’t, though, because it would have been incredibly inappropriate. He shoves his hands in his pockets and tries to act like he isn’t wearing his heart on his sleeve, shrugging a shoulder with calculated dismissiveness.
“Nothing good.” You say.
“They won't kill me,” he says, “at least. I mean it’s seriously unlikely considering the fucking circumstances. Plus I still have the cult behind me, whether I like it or not, and if she pisses them off she pisses off all the trolls who followed Tavros into this under that fucking hideous red banner so-” He shrugs again. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t care. She can do whatever she wants to me but you don’t… You’ve earnt something better than this.”
He gestures to the column and the room at large, the room that has been your home for sweeps upon sweeps. Your physical home, or at least a home to part of you. You are so much more than what he can see from here in ways that no one else, no one who is living, will ever understand. You know every corner of this ship like it was your own body. In many ways it is your body, more so than the disgusting, tortured, emaciated troll suit he sees you as. You are fast, you are powerful and you are feared, and yet this child stands in front of you and gestures to everything that you’ve become and says that you deserve more. Part of you rears up in anger but you shut it down with a tweak of your code because he means well. That’s the weirdest thing. He’s tired and he’s angry for you, and he probably genuinely does believe that you deserve better than this. It’s a weird thought to wrap your head around.
You examine the part of you that is flushing warm and affectionate with more than a little frustration. Fuck damnit, you told yourself that you wouldn’t get attached.
You sigh.
You are a deeply selfish old man.
"5246 1241 3723." You say, and look away so you don't have to see the broken look on his face.
It takes him five long minutes to steel himself before he does it, and he asks you three times if you are sure and every time you answer yes. Yes, god, yes. You need this more than anything you’ve ever wanted. He does it. You don't watch and you don't comment. He doesn't say anything else and he doesn’t ask why you don't do it yourself, for which you are eternally grateful because you know the answer but you daren't think about it or else you might try to stop him, and you don't think you could handle that final indignity. The ship protests your absence but by the time the engineers are alerted to the problem it's too late for anything to be done and your head is light and your body much too heavy. Karkat cries, you can hear him even as your vision blurs. You think, maybe, that you do too but it is not from grief.
You feel his hand, warm and rough on your cheek before you close your eyes and when you open them there is a different different pair of red eyes staring at you.
You have never been so happy in your life.