#crabsnacks

“No, that was just goodbye,” you grin as you slide your claws knuckle deep into Jade’s chest. “This is supposed to wake you up!”

Her surprised expression blinks away in front of your very eyes, the resistance you had felt against the blades that had momentarily been imbedded in her body disappearing with it. You contemplate wiping the curved metal on your skirt, but you know that actually there isn’t anything left to indicate you just shoved them fuck deep into Jade like she was a particularly tasty looking mouse you wanted to brutally murder.

Or something. You’re still getting a hang of your newfound love of cat metaphors.

The bright glare of the green sun bathes your now lone form. It is oddly soothing, despite some distant memory you have in the Dave portion of your sprite-brain of it blowing you up death-style.

Satisfied that you’ve managed to reunite with not only one but two friends (does it count as three?) and complete a long-laboured reference, you nod to yourself decisively. You know that there’s only one thing left to do.

You were joking when you told Jade that you could sniff out the ghosts, but finding the army isn’t hard in the slightest. Being a sprite has a lot of perks knowledge-wise. You wouldn’t call yourself ‘all-knowing’ (and sadly ‘a-lot-knowing’ doesn’t have quite the same ring), but having spritey powers seems to give you the lowdown on a lot of shit. For one you’ve been gifted with pretty good sense of direction despite the dream bubbles being an ungodly fuck of a mess to transverse, which is why it doesn’t take you too long to locate the massive gathering.

The front of the crowd’s even easier to spot, as the throng spreads out more as it goes along, presumably so that they can all get a look at the leaders.

It’s obvious the second you see them who the aforenoted leaders are; there’s Vriska, who is holding a chest under her arm and talking to a troll girl you vaguely recognise with braids. You don’t feel particularly compelled to talk to either of them. Then slightly off to the side is Tavros, who seems to be dancing for whatever reason. You’re considering swooping down to ask what the dance party is all about and maybe contributing some fresh kittybird moves yourself when you see the fourth person stood a little ways away from the crowd.

"Hey, Karcat!" You call out, mind made instantly, flying down towards him as he snaps out of his daze. "Long time no see."

"Uh," says Karkat, clearly bemused. "Dave? Or - fuck, wait, Nepeta?"

"Jackpot! On both those things, I mean. I'm Dave and Nepeta!!'

"I mean this in the least offensive way possible, but, what the fuck?"

You land daintily on your feet, sticking out a hand towards the confused troll. "None taken! I don't really know what the fresh hell is happening either. It’s a mess, but I furr-ink it's the fun kind of mess everyone enjoys. I'm Davepeta." You wiggle your fingers to prompt Karkat to take your hand and give it a shake. He seems a little preoccupied with staring at you, so you have to wrangle your hand free again. "It's nice to see mew again, even if this is the furst time we've met like this!"

"It's nice to meet you too, Davepeta," Karkat replies, seeming to finally get over the initial shock. "How did you even..." He flaps his hands towards your body demonstratively.

"Hmmmm," you hum, rocking back and forth from the heels to the balls of your feet (God you love having feet again). "I was a sad Davesprite and a sad Nepetasprite and then I shook hands with myself and now I'm a happy Franken-sprite?"

"Frankenstein was the scientist not the monster," Karkat chimes in. "You're a happy Frankenstein's monster."

You giggle and shake your head. "Oh man, I've really missed mew! Nepeta never got to say goodbye and she was claw-fully upset about it for the longest time. Even though I’m not her anymore I am really glad to see mew again.”

Karkat looks a little surprised for a moment, but then he looks plaintive; he frowns, brows furrowed, creases appearing in his face that look like they’ve been used more often than they should. He doesn’t speak at first, just looks anywhere but you.

“I’m sorry, that was my fault. I was a terrible fucking leader and it’s my fault everything went to utter hoofbeast shit. It’s my fault Nepeta died.”

“Oh no,” you say.

“I should’ve realised what was happening, I should of done something. I really am so sorry. You shouldn’t miss me-”

“Karcat-“

“You should’nt be happy to see me, I honestly don’t fucking deserve that. As if I could. I’m the least important sack of shit around, I don’t deserve to be alive while Nepeta and everyone else died-”

“KARKAT STOP!”

He falls silent, but he’s still not looking at you. You realise, to your great dismay, he seems to think you are about to confirm the very things he has just been saying. You pad a little closer and rest a hand on his forearm, which tenses. His eyes stay trained on the ground.

“You’re wrong,” you enunciate slowly to try and get the message across, “None of that was your fault. You did everything you could. You were scared too, and that’s okay. Nepeta got over that a long time ago, she furgave you. It’s fur-ine. Anyway, I’m not Nepeta anymore. It’s all in the past, and it seems so long ago and far away for me now. You don’t have to blame yourself, Karkat. No one else does.” You give his bicep a gentle squeeze, and he looks up to your eyes, which he seems to have a lessened issue with locating behind your shades. There are tears brimming on his waterline, a faded and translucent pinky-red.

“I know you have a hard time with yourself and your doubles, Karcat,” you continue in the calmer tone you’ve adopted. “But all Karkats are mew. Mew are one! You’re like lots of little bits of yarn that all tangle together to make one big piece of string that’s super fun to bat around with!! And together, you’ve all done so much incred-purr-ble stuff separate from and relating to shaping the alpha timeline. Everyone has. You’re so much more impurrtant than you could ever know.

“I paw-derstand how you feel. Davesprite was a cheap knock-off who felt unwanted and unneeded and unimpurrtant; Nepeta felt useless and like she was everyone’s second choice. But now, now I can see that’s untrue! They were both so incred-purr-bly vital to everything we’ve all achieved so far, and I feel my existence is the culmination of their worth and pawsibilities and impurrtance. Even if mew don’t think mew are, Karkat, mew are individual and unique and impurrtant, you have done much paw than you’ll efur be able to understand. You have nothing you need to prove to gain that impurrtance. You already have it!”

A single tear rolls over the side of Karkat’s lower lash-line, and you lift your free hand to swipe it over his cheek with your thumb. He smiles weakly, and takes a shaky breath.

“Thanks,” he says.

“It’s no purroblem,” you reply honestly. “Mew want a hug? I’ve already had a purr-etty unbeatably sweet ass hug locked down, but I bet you can at least get a solid 8/10 for emotional steepness.”

His smile gets more genuine and he huffs out a breath. “Fine, but I want the record to show that this hug is completely for your benefit, not mine.”

“Of paw-se,” you grin, and then practically attack him with the force of your half-not-tackle-pouce-hug. Karkat lets out a surprised ‘oof’ at the strength your arms wrap around his waist, and you giggle into his shoulder.

He’s warm and soft and exactly what you’d have expected him to feel like if you had thought about what it’d be like to hug him. Which, actually, you kind of have; and there it is, the thought you had been pushing down, trying to ignore. You didn’t need to bring it up, not really, you’d made it this far without ever mentioning it to him. But, fuck, your filter just isn’t the same now you’re part Davebird, and oh God, it’s bubbling up your throat –

“Karkat, Nepeta had a really big flushcrush on you,” your mouth rushes out of it’s own accord before you can stop it.

There’s a beat of silence. Fuck, it’s awkward, it’s totally awkward, abort mission. Time to get the fuck out of dodge.

You pull back abruptly and start to hover away backwards. “So anyway, I have an appointment with Lord English to kick his ass to the nth dimension, so I’ll see you around after the game, bye!”

However, your smooth getaway is stopped when you realise Karkat’s hand has darted out to wrap about your wrist. He looks a little embarrassed. “Wait,” he says.

“Um, okay,” you reply.

Another beat of silence, a second that seems the stretch on forever. You consider just flying away quickly before he can say anything, but before you could even try such a thing he begins to speak.

“I kind of already knew,” Karkat hedges, “That, uh. Nepeta liked me. It was a little obvious.”

“Oh,” you say, and wait for the crushing embarrassment to fall down upon you.

Except it doesn’t.

“Actually, now that I look back on it, that makes sense,” you agree. “I don’t think she hid it very well.”

“Not really, no,” Karkat says, and you catch his eyes and start to laugh. “What? Why are you laughing?”

“I’m not quite sure!!” you chortle, “I just find this surprisingly amewsing, and I think also it’s just super good to get that off my chest? Nepeta was purr-tty hung up on you, and it’s nice to get it off my chest, even if it was super fucking embarrassing for a few seconds there, beclaws I don’t purrticularly feel like those felines are completely in the past fur me!”

Karkat blinks in surprise at like, the second confession or something that you just made in the space of 20 fucking seconds. Calm down Sonic, leave some Olympic gold medals for some other chump.

You realise you are, finally, at peace with yourself. You’re still a mess of a being, and you aren’t sure you understand yourself completely yet, but that’s okay. You’ll figure it out with time, because now, you have some big swole green monster ass to kick with your hella cute kitty claws.

Grinning full-beam, you hover down for a second to plant a loud kiss on Karkat’s cheek, and then pull back with a salute, “Good luck, Karcat! I know mew’ll be great. See you after the fight!”