Title: Blood Ties

Fandom: Homestuck

Genre: Family, Adventure

Characters: (Main) Karkat Vantas, Kankri Vantas, The Signless/The Sufferer.

Rating: HIGH T.

Content Warnings: Later in the story there will be: graphic depictions of violence, slavery, trauma, original characters (I know this is a big turn away for a lot of people, so you are duly warned), doomed timeline shenanigans.

Summary: Belonging; n. security in relationship; affinity. The state of being accepted as a natural member or part. That's what Blood deals with, right? Unity? Alliances? Pacts? Affinities? How strange it is then, that two rather well known Blood players have problems with it. In a deviation from canon focusing on two decidedly doomed versions of the particular alpha timeline trolls, they tell their story to the alphas and share what they learned about not only their shared aspect, but their classes and what it really means to belong.

A Knight will fight, a Seer will understand, and an Outcast will give them the strength they need the most.

Pairings: This story will not focus on romance, but rather will focus on the journey of Karkat and Kankri forming a sort of family with the Signless, a place of belonging full of familial emotions and -snrk- blood ties. But if any particular pairing could be stated as being a part of this, it would be Kankri/OC

Before you run away, please be assured that this particular OC has gone through many revisions and tweakings and is by no means a Mary Sue. I know this makes it sound like I'm trying to defend her despite her actually being a sue, but you'll have to take my word for it that she's not.

(I didn't even want her paired with Kankri I swear it just kind of happened.)

Note: The prologue is told in second person with the reader in the role of Alpha!Kankri. The rest of the chapters will not be, and will instead be in third person with the focus on either Karkat or Kankri.

Disclaimer: Homestuck is the intellectual property of Andrew "the Huss" Hussie. I am neither male nor can I animate anything, not even the simplest of gifs. The only thing I can claim is any distinctly original character and the plot of this fic.

Prologue

The dream bubbles are an amalgam of light and colors and darkness and void, all at once.

There are high precipices over black nothingness, and bright light filtering down from nowhere over ethereal ground that you have walked a hundred thousand times before. Everything is familiar and always the same, and has been the same for over two billion sweeps that you've spent in death, from the birth of this new universe to today. In all that time, there are a few things that are consistent and never going to change.

One, your name is Kankri Vantas, and you are the alpha timeline version of yourself. You're a social justice aficionado and you have a very high perception of yourself. You're celibate, but that kind of never bothered you since you're dead and therefore you don't really have to worry about the urges of the body anymore. This works in your favor since you'd really rather focus your attention on forging and perfecting your opinions, speeches, and the way you interact with others. Not that you interact with them much, since they all seem to avoid you like the plague when they can, but it's really their loss. You have a lot of important stuff to say and they're the ones who aren't listening.

Two, there are a few versions of you from doomed timelines that have been in the dream bubbles for as long and longer than you have been here. You like to argue with them sometimes, they prove very good debate partners with subtly differing opinions from your own. There aren't very many of them, and none of them come from timelines that occurred after your team Scratched your session and Meenah killed you all. This is, again, expected, since the only doomed versions that can appear in the dream bubbles are those that died, so only those that came before the scratch show up. It's unheard of for a dead troll's doomed timelines to show up in the dream bubbles again, because that would require them to die again. Double death is a thing, and it's very much more permanent than the first one.

So you never see any versions of you that are actually from recently doomed timelines. You've been 9 Beforan solar sweeps for as long as you can remember, and all the other iterations of you are either right around that age, very slightly older (but never reaching to ten solar sweeps), or younger. It's something that has been that way for two million sweeps, and you kind of figure it will remain that way for two million more.

The funny thing about doomed selves, however, is the way that they simply appear. They seem to flicker into existence in the dream bubbles, the age at which they died, at the precise moment when their timeline first veered off. But considering that you've not had any new doomed timeline selves showing up, you've never actually seen this happen with you or any of your compatriots. You've seen some others, in the recent times; doomed selves of those who had taken yours and your compatriots' places after the Scratch. You've met a few of them, talked to them a couple of times, but they never seem to want to continue talking to you after the first conversation.

(In response to this, you've taken to trying to fit as much conversation into one conversation as you can. If they're never going to talk to you again, best to make the most of it.)

Even more recently, those trolls that were still alive in your post-Scratch game's world have been drifting through the void, through the dream bubbles you inhabit. During this time, you met Karkat.

Your dancestor.

He seems receptive enough while you talk to him (at him) to him. You've actually managed to have a second, and even a third conversation with him, though as time goes on it seems like he's less and less thrilled with the things you could teach him. You kind of have this sinking feeling in your stomach that it's not going to last though.

You're in the middle of your fourth conversation with him when that feeling strikes, hard. It's actually enough to make you take a breath, to pause what you were saying. The air has shifted, something has changed.

Karkat's eyes focus behind you, and he goes the strangest pasty shade you think you've ever seen on him. Out of pure academic curiosity, you turn around yourself.

If your heart had been beating, it would have stopped. Standing there behind you are two forms that most certainly were not there before, one of which your mind is frantically telling you it shouldn't be possible that it's standing there.

Behind you, the sight that Karkat saw, are two trolls from a doomed timeline. Their eyes are just as white as your own are, they're both taller than you. One of them is Karkat, and one of them, you can already tell, is you.

And that shouldn't be possible.

But impossibility hasn't stopped what is truly there. Standing there, looking down at themselves and taking in their new status, are undoubtedly you and Karkat from a doomed timeline. They're both much older than you and he are at the moment, suggesting that whatever timeline veered off at this point in time lasted for a while.

Your other self looks to be somewhere over ten and a half sweeps old, but not quite eleven sweeps, the oldest you've ever seen an iteration of yourself, and there are scars littering his skin that you've never had before. He's not wearing your signature red sweater, but instead seems content with a less flashy dark gray shirt and pants that actually rest around his hips. It's not quite a skin tight ensemble but it certainly shows off musculature that both shocks and perplexes you. No matter how you consider it, he has far too many muscles, more than you think you could ever acquire in just a sweep and a half. And pairing that with the scarring gives you a very uneasy feeling that this you, this impossible version of you that has found some unbelievable way to exist, has gone through far more than you would like to think you could survive. (Well, obviously he's not survived it, of course, but the fact remains.)

The other Karkat is older as well, looking to be about eight and a half sweeps or maybe even nine, the same age as you are right now. You think that if he were still alive his eyes would be showing the bright, brilliant carmine that runs through your veins by that age. His skin is littered with scars as well, far more numerous than your counterpart who already has scars far too numerous for you to wish to have an actual count. This version of Karkat seems almost made of scar tissue, tougher and leaner and, yes, there are those same muscles on his form that bespeak trials you don't want to imagine. Both of them have longer, shaggy hair that curls around at the bases of their skulls, a few tendrils even swirling over their necks.

The Karkat behind you, the Alpha Karkat, does the smart thing in this situation.

He absconds.

You're kind of still stuck staring at the impossibility before you, speechless for once. They finish their self-examinations and turn toward each other, sharing a chuckle at some inside joke. You kind of doubt that you and Karkat could get close enough for inside jokes unless you were under the most dubious of circumstances.

"Well, we both knew this would happen eventually." The Karkat in front of you says dryly, in a tone that you don't think you've ever heard your Karkat use before. This Karkat, this older version of the troll you just recently met, has a tiredness that permeates his voice even behind the arid tone, one that gives his words a bitter undertone.

"Such is the circumstance of a doomed timeline." Your other self nods, using the same tired, bitter tone. It seems so incredibly wrong to you, the shortness of his comment, the hundreds of thousands of things left unsaid, the lack of clarity of it all. But the thing that bothers you the most is his voice and how different it's become from yours.

You're still staring when they notice you. The older version of Karkat (only slightly younger than you are now, it pains you to realize) gives a movement of his head that you think accompanies the rolling of one's eyes, with only the lack of irises and pupils detracting from it.

"Hey look, it's old, Insufferable you."

Even as the recognition of what his words mean reaches your disbelief addled thinkpan and makes you start to bristle, your other self speaks up, sentence far too clipped.

"Alpha me, you mean." You really want to punch him, punch this version of you that has no right to exist by the laws of paradox space that you've come to expect. This doppelganger that dares to wear your face and yet be so different. You're already confused about his existing, did he have to go and be so… so… not you?

"Yeah, whatever." Older Karkat moves his head in that eye rolling movement again. As one, they both seem to come to the conclusion that you're not worth dealing with and they turn, and start to walk away, already talking about other things as they go to explore the dream bubbles properly.

Throughout the entire encounter, you had sat there staring like a fish out of water. Now, you're alone and confused and you're starting to question everything you've been taking for granted for two million sweeps.

It's not a pleasant feeling.

As more time passes, you're distressed to find out that this new older version of you has gained a bit of infamy among your friends and compatriots, but not the bad kind of infamy that you seem to have. He has your talking problem in complete reverse – while everyone seems to think you talk too much, this new version of you seems to talk too little. More than one of your friends has asked him how he came to be in the dream bubbles, asking about the double-death-and-yet-not-gone bit. It's an indirect way to ask about his timeline, and what happened in it.

But all he ever says in response is 'Shenanigans', with a sad sort of smile.

You surreptitiously watch him from afar, him and the doomed Karkat with whom he appeared. The more you watch, the more confused you feel.

The two of them are close, oftentimes just sitting off alone together. There are times when you watch them from a bit away, and note that they don't seem to need to speak to each other for comfort to be understood.

It leaves a strange feeling in your gut that you know, know that they're comforting each other, the Karkat comforting him more than your other self comforting the Karkat. It only reinforces the feeling that they've gone through something you don't ever wish to go through.

But even though you're sure that they've gone through something that dramatic, they don't seem at all bitter about what they went through. On the contrary, sometimes you find them staring back at you, and you get the strangest feeling that they wish their timeline could have been the alpha timeline instead. But not for the fact that they died.

Being a Seer of Blood is very confusing to you at times, this innate understanding of the bonds between trolls, of the emotions that tie people and trolls together. You've been avoiding talking to them for a week now, sticking to observing from a safe distance, but that doesn't stop you from just inherently knowing things you don't want to know about this strange version of you.

The thing that you find the most off putting is the fact that this other version of you has become so sought out so quickly. Your friends talk about him more and more with the more time that goes by.

How do you think he managed to get around double death?

He doesn't talk about much at all. He's so different from the Kankri we're used to.

I wonder what happened to him.

And it isn't that you're jealous or annoyed. Honestly. You just wish you could understand yourself why this other version of you is so different, why he's so unsettling to you.

The first time you and your new other self meet without anyone around, you can swear that you can feel the tension like a knife at the back of your neck. For a long moment after you bump into each other in a dream bubble to yourselves, he simply seems to be staring at you. You return the favor.

"Was I ever that young?" he asks, more to himself than anything, you think. It's not a very funny joke, considering, yes, he had been this young, had been for over two million sweeps. But something in his intonation strikes you as odd.

He's not just talking about your physical age. Up close you can see the shadows of his eyes, the way that the stark white seems darker than it should be. That overlying sadness that seems to be in everything he does and says; it sends a shiver down your spine and you know that this version of you… in comparison to him, you're shockingly immature.

"You must have been." Your voice automatically takes on a derisive note, and in the nanosecond that follows the words falling from your mouth, you immediately feel the desire to smash your head against something hard. That could be taken in such a triggering way…! But your other self only chuckles.

"I suppose that's a shitty way to start a conversation."

You're appalled. Such casual language—!

The doomed version of you gives an exasperated smile, one you're fairly sure has never been on your face before at all, ever, and shakes his head. "You're so… unaware." His voice, so like yours and yet so different, is incredulous, soft, about as far from your usual proud nitpicky tone as it can get. But the thing that scares you the most is the look hovering behind the blank whiteness of his eyes. It's… it's like he found something worth dying for and then lost it again.

It scares you to know that this could have been you – that this was you in a different timeline – this older, tired… veteran.

The word veteran fits him.

"I'm sorry if this is strange." He's talking slowly, like he's taking time to pick his words carefully. "This probably seems like it shouldn't be possible to you. I know it would seem that way to me, if I were in your shoes." He looks around, once, as if avoiding meeting your eyes, but the second you think he might be doing that he's staring straight at you again and tying your stomach in uneasy knots. "But I can personally assure you that it's possible, and… just…" he looks away again, worrying at his lip with his teeth as he thinks.

"What happened…? I apologize if I'm being too forward, I-" the words are falling from your lips before you can stop them, and that tired, sad smile is on his face again.

"A lot of pain." He cuts you off, voice soft but still holding a strange kind of power that makes you snap your mouth shut. "A lot of pain and a lot of struggle. Something you probably wouldn't want to go through. I didn't want to go through it while it was happening but…" he sighs, "looking back; I don't wish to forget any of it. I don't wish that any part of it didn't happen."

You shift on your feet, standing a good three inches shorter than this new version of you, this you that is so much stronger than you, physically, mentally. You think that's why you're so uneasy around him. Not out of fear of him hurting you, though that's entirely a possibility, but out of uncomprehending respect. You… You want to know what this you has gone through, to become that strong, but at the same time you're terrified that when you know, you'll never be able to look at yourself the same way again.

He seems to know what you're feeling. After doing a strange walk around motion with his hands tangled in his hair, he lets out another heaving breath and drops into a sitting position, legs dangling over an edge out into the nothingness. You hesitantly sit down beside him when he gestures to the spot next to him, and wait.

"…you want to know what happened?" he asks rhetorically. You nod anyway. "You'll need to promise to hear and see the whole story." You nod again. He gives a lopsided grin that, again, seems so out of place on your own facial features, and then brushes aside a bit of the longer hair away from his neck.

You have to fight down the sick feeling when you see the numbers and letters, tattooed over his jugular, a code that will mar his skin forever, even in death. FF00001. You recognize the first six letters and numbers as the hex code for the color you type with.

"My Karkat has this same code, same place, but it ends with 2." The casual way he just claims the Karkat from the timeline he was in as his own sends another jolt of strange emotion through your gut. You note that his eyes are watching your reaction, and you try not to show how sickened you are by the tattoo, how confused you are by him in general and the things he does. "It's the mark of the slave trade on Alternia."

"But… how…?" You're quite close to utterly speechless. "How can you even be here?"

He looks away from you again, out into the nothingness of the void that seems so close. He kicks his legs a couple of times, putting his chin in his hands. "To be honest," he finally starts, "I don't know. I don't know how it all played together to start everything. I don't know why things happened the way they did in the beginning."

This strikes you as the most wrong thing you've ever heard, the straw that broke the humpbeast's back. This can't be you. This can't be any kind of iteration of you because you've been proud in your knowledge of many subjects for so long that it seems impossible for you to ever even consider admitting that you don't know something.

"And I know what you're probably thinking, that I'm not you. And I guess in a way I'm not. But the more concise way of saying it would probably be that you aren't me. Yet. I was you once upon a time, I'm… I'm something you could be, but you're probably not ever going to be." He frowns, and in the simple quirk downwards of his lips you can sense an infuriatingly familiar ideal of disappointment. You feel the urge to punch him again.

"Why tell me? Why now, after everyone's been asking you?" Your voice is quieter, to match his quiet tone in a way of mocking it.

Another exasperated grin, and your urge to punch him rises. "Because, the one I was waiting to ask me hadn't asked yet." It takes you a second to realize that he was waiting for you to ask. He didn't want to just tell the story when someone asked where you might hear it. He wanted you to want to know.

He wanted you to be willing to hear it all. And knowing that made you realize that there would undoubtedly be times you would want to back out. And you had already promised to hear the entire story.

You feel very stupid for just a moment. Very stupid, and very afraid.

"But that doesn't matter." He shakes his head again, and his feet kick out a bit more, "You want to know what happened, right?"

And you want to punch him and you want to run away, but you want to know so much more.

"Yes."

"Then be warned." He gives that exasperated grin again, waving a hand and forming some thirty bubbles of memories in front of them, "It's a really long story."