Seasons Don't Fear The Reaper

by Brohei

Summary:

A really angsty one-shot based on a speculative alpha timeline headcanon of mine in which Gamzee defected to join Lord English, Roxy couldn't remember Calliope's name fast enough and Karkat wound up sacrificing himself to buy everybody some more time.

Neither do the wind, the sun, or the rain.

And you're pretty fucking sure by now that there is no grim reaper, no drones in the valley, no River Styx. For you, there is searing pain. It starts white-hot against your cheeks and clear-cuts through you to find the cracks in your heart of stone and weather you through to the bone. When the checkerboard ground rears up to swallow you whole, it finally hits you. Those are just tears. You can hear the sound of a deafening shriek, but by the time you realize it's John and Gamzee calling out to you, it's become naught more than a whisper and the sky's already slipped out from under your feet. Now, you fall endlessly through colors.

Rust red numbs your toes, nips at your heels where it becomes bronze and holds your legs still. You don't struggle when you're immobilized by mustard yellow, the carbonite tomb in which Harrison Ford was once encased. Olive green embraces you like a soft bed of lush grass, but you're still falling into jade green seas. You drown as teal becomes cobalt, then indigo, purple, violet and finally, a hot volcanic tyrian burns your eyes to blinding, but the world around you is still very visible, real and tangible. You feel as though something inside your skull is attempting to claw its way out of your scalp as tears wash away whatever's left of the burning sensation. The red-hot coals of your eyes have faded into ghostly white and you scream soundlessly for a moment that spans eternity.

When the pain subsides, you're on your hands and knees panting and sobbing on that same cold, steel floor you know all too well... except there are no disorderly splotches of rainbow colors on the floors or the stairs or the hand rails. There is one computer terminal and the cold blue light stares back at you as numbly as you feel.

You gather what's left of your senses, your hands immediately flying to the three round wounds that should be in your chest, side by side, as though you have been skewered on an enormous fork. Of course, they've mysteriously vanished, this is clearly a dream bubble, and obviously, this means you are dead. You remember someone explaining this to you once, but you've already begun to forget names.

The wraith in your mind's eye is a pretty, bespectacled girl who wore your symbol around her neck, a modest blue dress with indigo spiderweb trim and bright red shoes with silver buckles on them. Her smile was fanged and sinister, yet she was also a very warm and comforting person to be near. Her eyes, you can recall, were blank like yours are now.

She once told you that the appearance of one's dream bubble is determined by whatever regrets you might have carried with you when you passed through to the other side. When bubbles merge, sometimes they take on other aspects from each other, but yours is fairly new. What you see here is a blank and empty laboratory look-alike with too many key components missing. It doesn't sit well in your stomach, but there's nothing you can do about it now.

There's no horn pile, for starters. No brightly colored cosplay capes, no piles of scalemates littering half of your desk. There was an over-compensating computer terminal here once, and the pretty robot girl who always stood across the room staring longingly in its direction never exploded. Otherwise, the telltale scorch marks would have been on the floors and the walls. The transportalizer in the center of the room is lifeless and gray. You doubt it will ever be reactivated, though you know you won't have to go downstairs to discover that there are no colorful murals, no 'legendary shipping wall', no language of love that only the two of you could ever decipher. Not that you'd ever admit it...

Her death was the one that hurt the most. You've come to terms with it now, though the aching of your heart still remains. You met a Dream Karkat once who had saved her and was subsequently obligated to a life of servitude, idle chatter and dress-up, and annual tea parties. He was happy, you recall, and you never understood why a dead version of yourself would be able to smile and even laugh at all the usual obnoxious fanbabble.

At least, not until now.

He, too, seemed to have no regrets, and yet he was bound to a plane of existence somewhere in the universe because clearly, he wished for it.

And as for your regrets?

Well, you only have one. And no matter who you meet in the void beyond your dream bubble's translucent walls, no matter what conversations you hold or what friendships you patch up or destroy further or even start fresh, you will never ever tell.

You just want to be left alone.