He was on the floor, his nails made some very noticeable scratches on the floor. And, well, like most overused scenarios, Karkat had woke up in a cold sweat. He blinked a couple of times, trying to figure out what had just happened.

Dave. Dave was chained up. He was crying. Karkat was crying too. Why was Dave chained up? Fuck, he couldn't remember. Okay. Okay. Dave was crying, Karkat was crying. It was cold. Dave was chained up. His cheek was red and bleeding a bit. There was someone yelling...yelling something. Yelling at Karkat. God, what were they saying? Wait. Dave was saying something too. Yes yes yes. Dave was saying something too. God what was it?

It's not your fault.

It wasn't his fault? It wasn't his fault. What wasn't his fault?

Karkat groaned and sat up. Dave was still asleep in bed, looking as peaceful and angelic as someone with the grossest sleeping face could. The troll stood up, his legs shaky for some odd reason. As he laid down in bed besides his matesprit he felt weirdly relieved. As if something had happened, something weirdly life changing. Karkat just couldn't put his finger on it though. He shrugged and stretched out on the bed.

It's not your fault.

God it was bugging him. What wasn't his fault?

It's.

Not.

Your.

Fault.

It hit him like a truck.

It was a dream. He didn't go. He didn't go back to Beforus. Dave didn't go. Dave didn't get imprisoned. Dave didn't get hurt. Dave wasn't dead. Dave wasn't dead.

For some reason Karkat sighed in relief. He had no real reason to be relieved. It didn't happen. Nothing happened. No one fucked up. It was all a-okay. Well, maybe that was reason enough itself but he didn't have time to dwell on that.

"Congratulations. You did something completely reasonable for once in your unbearably painful life. I hope you're proud of yourself." He looked up at the source of the voice and found himself sitting there. The exact same troll that had appeared in his dream a while back and tried to argue with the armor-clad troll and convince Karkat to stay home.

"Am I still asleep?" The younger version of Karkat nodded.

"Yes you are. Kudos to you for figuring that one out so quickly." Karkat smiled slightly and sat up on the bed, pulling his knees up to his chest. "I know what you were thinking, obviously since I'm a part of your thinkpan but that is besides the point. You were looking for something to convince yourself to stay or go. And we gave you a little taste of what we think would happen."

"Yes, well," The Peacekeeper emerged from who knows where and stood proudly besides the younger troll, "the whole statue in Her Imperial Radiance's underwater palace was entirely his idea. I simply added in the extra decorations in our memory." Karkat chuckled. "But, I say I must admit that I myself would not exactly care to go back to our old home if that were to happen. It would be...it would not be the same to say at the least. Much more stressful."

"Yeah. I mean, sure Dave wouldn't immediately go to fucking enemy territory with no real game plan. He's a lot smarter than that. He'd probably bring along a couple of people...Rose, Vriska, John, Sollux, Dirk...everyone really. Then...it'd be worse." The Peacekeeper nodded in agreement.

"Yes, it would have been much much worse. I fear if The Warlorde had seen any of them he would order immediate execution. He is a cruel cruel troll. He would not have any remorse for killing aliens and he would not have any remorse for killing someone that looks exactly like the enemy or a troll he was certain you had already beheaded. Even if they were your friends. Although I believe if you claimed them all to be your friends you would have gotten yourself killed as well..."

"All in all it would be a shit party for you. You would have more blood on your hands, more deaths of people you care about on you. We already know how killing two people close to you made you, imagine how screwed up in the head you woulda been if you killed all your friends? You wouldn't of been able to move from the dingy little prison area."

"So instead of letting me run out like a twelve year old and do something incredibly stupid and probably end up getting a bunch of good people killed you did this and...kind of foreshadowed shit for me." The two other cancer trolls nodded in unison. "Thank you. Really, thank you." The two nodded once more, small smiles on their usually either emotionless or bitter faces.

"I believe that that was all we needed to let you know. The decision is entirely up to you at this point. We shall no longer butt our own personal opinions into your thinkpan and clog it up. You decide to go to Beforus or not. We have done all we could to sway you on one side or the other." Present-Karkat nodded. He believed that by now the decision was pretty damn obvious.

"Goodbye asshole," The youngest troll nodded to him stiffly, "I hope you don't completely destroy the lives of many." Present-Karkat laughed, completely oblivious to The Peacekeeper who then hit him on the side of the head with the butt of his sickle.

And everything went black once more.

~

He woke up with a groan. This time he was in bed, breathing normally, and not sweaty. Unlike in his weirdly vivid dream the floor was safe from Karkat's claw-like nails. The troll looked over and was greeted with Dave's disgusting sleeping face. He smiled.

It was 6:45 in the morning. Dave's alarm would go off in about fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes until the Knight of Time, one of the creators of the universe, and God of this world would wake up with dried saliva on the corner of his mouth, gross eye boogers, morning breath that would kill any plant, and greasy hair. The troll scooted closer to his matesprit and pressed a kiss to his nose before he slowly slid out of bed. He had some business to take care of before Dave woke up.

Karkat tip toed to the kitchen, his cell phone in hand. He had already dialed Equius' number so now all he had to do was wait. It rang and rang and rang until the answering machine finally kicked in. "This is Equius Zahhak, leave your business with me after the beep and I will reply to you as soon as possible." He waited a second, the beep sounding off. Karkat took in a deep breath and spoke.

"Equius, it's me, Karkat. Duh. Uh, anyway..." Confidence. Come on, confidence. "That machine you built is no longer needed. You can destroy it- no, just...save it. Put it away somewhere. In a storage unit or whatever. Hell, even bury it. But if you do end up doing that just make sure you but the actual machine in some sort of giant container. Just put it away somewhere. And do not press anything. Do not turn the actual machine on. And thank you for doing this. It means a lot to me. Goodbye." He hung up the phone, a weird feeling in his gut. He did it. He had gotten a way back home and now...he's shoving that aside. He had a home now he supposed.

It was 6:58 now. Weird. Time seemed to have sped up. Nonetheless Karkat walked back to his room and set the phone down. He turned around to face Dave's gross sleeping face. It was actually kind of adorable. And what made it more adorable was the fact that he was the only to be so close to Dave's face that he could already see the clumps of eye boogers.

The alarm went off, some generic pre-set tone playing. The human groaned loudly and flopped over, grabbing his phone off the ground and turning off the alarm. He groaned again, more annoyed this time, and turned to face Karkat.

"Morning." He yawned. "Sleep well?"

"Nope. It was...pretty stressful actually."

"Stressful?" Dave laughed and propped himself up on his elbow. "I did not think sleeping could be stressful but I guess it is now." Karkat nodded. "Is something wrong? I know I say that a lot but y'know...just making sure."

"No," The trolled smiled and leaned up, pressing a sweet kiss to his matesprits lips, "nothing's wrong. I just...I really like you. I really like waking up next to you in the mornings. And...yeah." Dave smiled widely. Karkat's stressful sleep made him wake up happier.

"Wow, thanks. I like waking up next to you too. Your face is adorable when you sleep. It's like you're angry in your sleep." They shared a laugh and stayed there for a moment, just enjoying their nice silence. Dave was the one to break the enjoyable silence. He kissed his boyfriend once more before standing up and stretching. "Come on, aren't you going to get up and start the day?"

"Yeah," Karkat nodded and stood up as well, "I will." Dave walked out, heading into the shower.

Something told Karkat that today would be a good day.