Rule #2 (7/7) - Sequel to Fifth Iteration. Mature.

[universe_c]

Rule #2

Caliborn didn't ask for this shit.

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Warning! This is a much darker fic than 5I! Contains graphic violence, graphic character death, graphic xeno, mind control/psychic fuckery, Time Shit, and a whole lot of general Caliborn fit-pitching.

This chapter also contains dubcon.




~7~
~Undoing~

You take Dirk's advice and go find Kurloz to apologize for ditching him in that terrible place.

Or, you guess, apologize in advance. To warn him. To make sure he brings that bag full of rations and supplies he had. Whatever, something like that.

You find him in your clearing, where his house will someday stand.

All the stuff you'd been trying to think how to say flies out the window because he looks fucking awful. His face is flushed and his eyes are glazed. He's glistening with sweat, his big, blunt fingers trembling.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you ask.

In reply, your skull fills with an unfocused surge of sexual desire, strong enough that it makes you ache between your legs. You gasp, staring at him as the feeling ebbs away. And fuck, even though he's not projecting it at you anymore, your body is still thrumming with arousal, like he flipped on some kind of switch.

He reaches out to you, and, frozen with confusion, you fail to move away in time. He takes your wrist, arranges himself kneeling at your feet, brings his face to your knuckles in supplication.

MY LORD.

His booming, shiver-inducing mental voice is like a whimper. If creepy whispering could somehow convey desperate horniness, it would sound just like that. Fuck, it's terrifying.

ALLOW ME TO BE YOUR VESSEL

I

PLEASE.

He's fucking begging. Holding your hand, his dry lips soft on your knuckles and begging you to use his body. Your mind is suddenly awash in visions of depravity.

“You have to do what I say,” you growl.

He nods, looking up at you with half-lidded indigo eyes. He projects complete surrender at you, complete submission to your will.

Fuck, it is turning you on.

“Stand the fuck up,” you say, tugging his hand. “We're going for a little walk. And you. Are going to hold my hand like the depraved slut you are.”

He tenses for just a moment, then stands, his shoulders shaking very slightly. He is careful to shield his thoughts from you as you walk together, probably shocked at your utter perversion. Little does he know, you think, the levels of perversion you've already sunk to with future-him. The longer you are near him, the longer you smell the subtle, delicious smell he has, the more aroused your traitorous fleshsack body starts to get. Your hands are kind of starting to sweat, but his are sweating way worse.

“Hug me,” you demand, pulling him up short.

He gives you a carefully blank look and folds himself around you. You feel like a lesser sun, the light of your will the only thing powering his movements.

You tilt your head back and his face is there immediately, his lips finding yours so gently. Oh, this is so deliciously wrong you're surprised at yourself for even thinking it, much less actually doing it. You shudder all over with each tender, closed-mouth kiss he presses to your lips, your jaw, your cheeks and eyelids. When he gets back around to your mouth, his lips open a little, and they are wet and soft and that is somehow even better.

While you weren't paying attention, his hands have migrated down to your hips. He pulls you tighter up against him, and you can feel something thick and moving beneath his clothes. It presses against your groin and suddenly wet and squirmy things are happening in your shorts.

You break away from his mouth with a gasp. He locks his horns with yours, so you're unable to turn your face away, resting your foreheads together then diving back in with more unrelenting, devouring, chaste kisses. They are tender in an entirely different way than the pale touches you've shared with Dirk, or even the touches you've shared with him before. It is a tenderness that edges on violence.

You make a sound. You'd meant it to mean 'oh my god, what the fuck.' It sounds more like you're enjoying this, like that knife-edge of his restrained strength is arousing in ways you never imagined. He seems to take it as encouragement.

Fuck him, you know he can feel you start to panic when he opens your pants. And, as if he's sensed that thought – he must have – he unleashes a storm of his own desire into your brain as he lays you gently down onto the ground.

“Stop,” you manage to choke and all at once he freezes, fingers going rigid on your shoulders, eyes abruptly snapping open and focused.

He rolls off you, all his skin and all the surfaces of his mind pulled away at once. He curls around himself in the grass, arms crossed tight on his chest like they're all that's holding him together.

You sit up, willing your racing heart to slow. Your bulge slithers red and dripping in the open fly of your pants. You stare at it dumbly.

MY LORD. RUN.

His voice carries a complicated snarl of feelings: reverence and regret, horror and crippling, barely-leashed desire. His need of you is at once viscerally, immediately physical and so abstract it makes no fucking sense. Most of all, he is utterly appalled to have lost control of himself, appalled to be so weak before you.

His mind slams shut again as soon as the words reach you, leaving you alone in your skull.

You think of the way he fed you jerky, and yourself too weak to do anything but sit there hating him and hating yourself for enjoying it. Goddamn it, he's not even looking at you.

Fuck, okay. Okay. You are going to have to do something, here. If you don't do something he'll just keep shivering over there feeling indescribably shitty, and you'll be stuck with this knot of need in your groin forever. All you have to go on are your vague memories of your sister's stupid fanfictions, which may or may not be at all accurate and which you still refuse to admit enjoying, even a little. That and your instincts. Good thing you are an instinctual kind of guy.

You palm your bulge, mostly to stop it from thrashing around like that. It feels shockingly, shockingly good to touch it. You make a completely embarrassing high-pitched noise. Kurloz curls around himself tighter.

“Kurloz,” you say. It's a terrible effort to get the words free. “I... like it when you're. Gentle. With me.”

He unfurls abruptly, eyes shooting open. You are blushing, your face and ears burning, your hips kind of grinding your bulge into your own palm without your conscious direction. He stares at you. You refuse to look away.

I KNOW.

The words come with a wash of desire that makes you whine in your throat. He wants to touch you, needs to touch you so much it's hurting him, but he still doesn't reach for you. He smells really goddamn good. You can smell him from here.

Your clothes are constricting you so you can hardly breathe. You work the clasps of your shirt open with your free hand. His eyes crawl all over you like looking won't possibly be enough. Huh. Is this what it's like to feel sexy? It's weird. He is quivering with tension, leaves in his hair, his simple black clothes rumpled and askew. His bulge moves in his pants and oh fuck, it's like, huge.

Part of you is really strongly in favor of that fact, and it is a part you don't know and wouldn't have suspected was lurking in you anywhere. The tighter your bulge works itself around your fingers, the less you feel like panicking, and the more you feel like you're frantically searching for something, without quite knowing what it is.

Okay. Yeah. You are going to let him - no, make him - touch you and it's going to be epically goddamn tender and he's going to do what you tell him and fuck, he's going to be so gentle with you. He's always so gentle with you.

“Come here,” you tell him. “I don't know. How. Just. Get the fucking fuck over here and help me.”

He is on you so fast your Timesense can barely parse it. He skims your shorts down, stripping your soft shoes and socks with them. He takes your free hand and presses it down beneath your bulge, sliding your fingertips and his through the wet folds there. Fuck. You keen, your hips jerking against the knee he has firmly planted between your legs.

There is a small, bright and desperate eternity in which you can feel nothing but his fingers guiding yours around your nook, helping you learn where to touch, where to press and stroke and how hard. Your bulge fights your grasp on it, trying to take hold of his wrist. You curse him over and over until your words fall apart into meaninglessness.

You are already a mess the first time he brushes that spot inside you, the one that makes you shriek and thrash. You don't know what you're saying. You don't know how you're going to survive much more of this. You don't know how you're going to survive if he stops.

Why the fuck were you ever afraid of this? Fuck, it's awesome. He mouths tenderly at the inside of your knee, and even that is awesome. You had no idea someone touching your fucking knee could feel like that.

He tries to get out of his pants one-handed while you're holding his other hand knuckle-deep inside you, and it's fucking ridiculous. You let go of him, take a deep breath and find yourself laughing. He smiles at you, and you don't know how you must look, flushed and spread open in the grass, giggling into hands streaked with your own reddish fluids, your shirt rucked up around your armpits uncomfortably.

You sit up, strip off your shirt, yanking his off his shoulders. You kiss him, sinking your fingers into his hair. It's more wiry than it looks – no wonder it sticks out everywhere like that. That well of tender feelings is as raw and open inside you as the shivery openness of your nook. It's overwhelming and strange, but good. Really good. You trace your nails at the bed of his horn, willing him to touch you with his mind like he's running his hands all over your body.

“Give me everything,” you tell him. “That's a fucking order.”

His mind unfurls around you and it's like being tumbled by a wave. You are swept up and disoriented, and you don't know which way is up or whether you'll ever breathe again until you suddenly hit something.

It is the warm plane of his chest. He gathers you close to himself, scissoring your legs together, his bulge coiling around yours and squeezing. You open your legs without really thinking, just wanting him closer, your hips settled more comfortably together. He rubs his cheek over your shoulder and neck as if he's scenting you. Tenderness doesn't cut when you can feel it returned with such urgency. Your nook feels wet and it should be gross, but his is so much wetter, so hungry and painfully empty. You can feel this because he shows you. You feel how warm and solid you are against him, feel how badly he wants to care for you and fuck you and be cared for and be fucked absolutely raw in return. You want to kiss him. He obliges.

“Everything,” you mutter into his mouth.

He hitches his hips tighter against you until you can feel the soft wetness of his nook against yours, against the base of your bulge. Your bulge goes where you both need it without you even having to think, diving inside him with a sinuous flex.

He is so deeply relieved to be filled by you it drowns out all other sensation for a moment. He makes a breathy little groan as your bulge starts to work against his walls. You have never heard him make a sound before. His nook grasps and works around you, so much fucking better than your clumsy, stupid hands or his skilled ones.

EVERYTHING

You're not even sure it was just him thinking that. He shifts, wrapping your leg around his hip. And then his bulge is sliding through your folds and in, going right for that place that makes white explosions in your skull. You shriek, digging your fingers into his shoulders.

Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck, he's big. It should hurt, but he is too keenly aware of your mind to allow it. The stretch edges just along hurting without ever quite getting there. He is gentle and huge inside you, his mind pressing cool and hot and urgent all against the walls of yourself. His bulge ripples down its length, crashing into your nook like waves pounding the shore. Each ripple slides over that spot and then further, sinking deeper slow and inexorable as the tide. You are practically sobbing for breath. You are leaking everywhere, his arms around you the only thing holding you both upright.

A vast bubble of pressure is building and building in your nook, your bulge, your nerves and muscles and the places his mind lies tectonic against yours. You are disintegrating, shattered and held together inside and out by all his strength of mind and body. Your throat is raw from screaming, his tiny whines and gasps guttural in your ear.

He tries to say something to you, and the way his mind voice is smashed incoherent by the pleasure you give him is what sends you crashing into release.

Things after that are a hazy jumble of hunger and satiation, exhaustion and urgency, dream and awareness. You are losing Time. Your Timesense informs you how many hours it has been (fuck, how many?) and even, vaguely, what you were doing (mostly fucking). You recall tearing through your satchel for your woefully inadequate packet of smoked fish, walking naked in the heat of the high summer, shade striping his skin. You recall the agonizing cold of a spring contrasted with the heat of his flesh, thirst slaked and skin pebbling. The jarring sensation of his bulge dipping a little inside your seedflap, spiraling around the sharper tip of your own and drawing it out, and looking up to find his face still smooth and heartbreaking in sleep.

You are shocked back to yourself when you press your fingers inside his mouth and realize he has no tongue.

“Fuck,” you say, bolting up as much as you can. You prise his jaw open, looking at the ragged stub that's all that's left. It looks like someone fucking chewed through it.

He has one ridiculously long, thin leg hiked high around your hip. Your fingers were just busy in his nook, fingering him as filthy tender as you can, and his bulge has your hand trapped. He makes one of his small half-noises, his hips working against your sudden stillness.

“How did this happen?” you snarl. You don't know why the fuck it matters, but right in this moment it makes you rage.

He blinks at you, eyes hazy and distant as if he's been drugged. His hand clamps around the back of your skull and he draws you down into a kiss, sloppily sucking your bottom lip and the finger still tucked into the corner of his mouth. Desire rises around you like fog, and you're both so far gone you can barely tell if it's him projecting, or your own body's weakness or just that gutwrenching smell he has. He grabs your hips and rolls you on top of him, and then his nook is sucking you in in time with his mouth. Oh, fuck, you are so close to forgetting everything about what's wrong and who the fuck would bite out his tongue oh god, what would his mouth feel like on your bulge, fuck.

He wraps his legs around you, his bulge spreading you wide and finding that swollen, full place inside you. You cling to that spark of anger, trailing it after you by a thread, hoping you can pull yourself back out of this well of incoherence long enough to. Do. Uh. Something.

When coherence returns, you are still stupidly horny and he still has no tongue and he's starting to swell up like Dirk was when you saw him pregnant. Also, holy fucking shit, you are so hungry. For food, not more of his fucking juicy bulge, yet. You tell yourself to go fuck yourself for that thought and goddamn it, this is ridiculous.

“Stop touching me,” you order.

He clings to your wrist, stubborn, preventing you from getting your shirt all the way on. He is lucid, too, thank fuck. And he is, in his creepy, expressionless way, freaking the fuck out. The distress he's projecting at you is in the top five most terrible things you've ever felt. It makes you kind of want to just gut yourself and bleed out in his creepy clown arms.

“Stop feeling like that at me,” you snarl. “I'm coming back! Oh my god. Fuck. Fine!”

You haul him in by his grip on your wrist. Surprised, he falls half in your lap. You can feel the weight of his massive horns when you cradle his face in your hands.

“Shhh,” you tell him.

MY LORD, ARE YOU SHOOSHING ME?

Great, now he's horny, scared shitless, embarrassed and laughing at you.

“Shut the fuck up,” you order. “I know I suck at this. So. Fuck you, just listen to me and stop fucking feeling so fucking terrible. It's not like you haven't seen me panicking and messed up and passed the fuck out. Or. You will. Also, we're going to fucking starve and die if I don't go find us some food, so just. Fuck, I can come back to the exact moment I fucking leave! I'm the Lord of Fucking Time!”

YES, MY LORD.

He pulls away from you, his mind closing and dimming back to an echo of that overwhelming desperation.

You yank him back in. “I don't just throw away things that are mine, you big dumb clown,” you whisper fiercely. “I'm kind of a selfish asshole like that.”

He looks at you, nods and sits back just far enough that he's not touching you anywhere. You want to kiss him goodbye, but it's dangerous.

Fuck it. You're a dangerous kind of guy.

~

“DIIIIRK!”

Your shout echoes back from the edge of the trees. You barely paid attention to what time you landed in, beyond knowing it's one where he's around the village. You'd even fucking walked all the way down here to the crazy treehouse complex he shares with Jake and their brood of wigglers. It looks kind of small to fit very many fucking kids in right now. You hope that means you'll get young, reassuring Dirk, not creepily-old Dirk or creepily-pale-soliciting-you Dirk.

“DIRK YOU SACK OF OFFAL. GET THE FUCK OVER HERE AND PALE ME.”

You think better of that as soon as you say it.

“I MEANT PALE AS IN YOUR PERVERSE DIAMOND STYLE CARETAKING SHENANIGANS. FUCK YOU. BUT NOT LITERALLY.”

“Oh my god, dude, what?” Dirk calls out one of the windows. He's rumpled and bleary-eyed. You woke him up. “You having a she-mergency down there or something?”

“YES!” you roar. You do not give a single fuck what that might mean, as long as he gets his ass in gear.

Oh, god fuck shit. He's pregnant, you realize as he makes his way down to you. It's always so awkward when he's pregnant.

“I just. Need. Uh,” you ramble. Fuck, why did you come to him? It would have been child's play to steal some food from the kitchens.

He gets up close to you, his shades off, his grotesque swollen body wrapped in a brightly patterned robe. You feel clearer, more lucid around him. You mentally review your statements in the past couple minutes and blush. What the fuck.

“You are not,” he says. “You smell like you're in goddamn rut, so if anything you're having a he-mergency.”

“Very funny. Ha ha. Hee hee. Now are you going to take me to get some food, or are you going to just let me fucking starve to death on your path?”

He takes you to get some food. Your ex-guide, Gamzee, is working in the kitchen with Vantas and Faye's dad, uh, Tavros, right. The three of them are in quadrants somehow or something, you remember vaguely. Three children are seated at the table, making an enormous mess out of some kind of dough.

Faye and Kharon launch themselves at you squealing like the uncivilized little animals they are. The third is a child you don't recognize, gold-skinned and magenta-haired, with two mismatched sets of horns, one pink eye and one blue. She peers at you skeptically as Kharon hugs you around your waist and Faye twirls herself around and around under your hand.

“Yo,” Dirk says, “Sorry to barge in, but we're having a he-mergency.”

“Oh my fucking god,” Vantas says, “How many times do I have to threaten your life to make you stop using that term. No one else thinks it's funny.” He's talking to Dirk but he's staring right at you. The looks he and the clown are giving you are weird as fuck. Tavros is smiling at you a little, like he's trying to be polite and not soil himself or something.

You could not give less of a fuck what any of these douchebags think of you.

Kharon's face is still tucked against your stomach, his arms latched around you like you might need some kind of jujubreaker to get them off. Without your noticing, your hand has landed in his hair. It's soft. He mutters something into your shirt, but you can't make it out.

“Come make cookies with us, Uncle Cal!” Faye says, trying to haul you over to the table.

“Oh, hell fucking yes, Uncle Cal! Let's cut us out some cookies!” Dirk enthuses. He gently pries your son off you and herds you all over to the table.

“Why would I? And what are these even supposed to be shaped like?” The baking trays are littered with quadrant symbols, a few crude silhouettes of birds or fish or something, and a whole bunch of unrecognizable blobs.

Dirk chuckles. “Let's see what you got, then, Cal. I am fully prepared to be blown away by your cookie-cutting prowess.”

“That one's me!” Faye says, pointing, “See my horns? And this one's you, Uncle Dirk! And this one's Dad, and this one's Mom, and this one's Drifter, and this one's Notchy, and-” Faye starts pointing to a row of the weird sleek blobs and rattling off names that apparently go with them.

“She's still sad that all the whales left for the summer,” Kharon whispers to you, as if that clears anything up at all. “She likes to talk to them.”

“You're a bad person,” the little yellow and pink girl says suddenly, pointing at you. “You have a half-shadow in the past, and a half-shadow in the future. You're going to hurt her. A knot in Time takes needle and knife to unravel. You have to undo it.” By the end of this speech the girl's eyes are rolled back in her head and her accusing finger has settled a heavy weight in the pit of your stomach.

“How could she know-” you ask, stunned. You shut that comment off too late.

Vantas lets out a string of swears that puts your best efforts at profanity to absolute shame. He plucks the little girl up out of her seat, cuddling her in to his chest, shooshing her.

Some moments of chaos ensue, which end with Dirk forcibly sitting you down out on the deep stone porch, Kharon still attached to you like he's afraid you'll disappear. Which you might, the second he lets the fuck go.

“Mind explaining to me what the fuck that was all about?” Dirk asks, lowering his pregnant bulk beside you and latching on to your other arm.

“Fuck you. I just need some food so I can go back to getting epically laid. Be a goddamn bro like you always fucking claim to be and help me out here?”

You actually are feeling a little bit faint and your stomach is possibly about to stage a hostile takeover of your spinal column or something. You haven't been so hungry since those few days after you first arrived.

“You are in such a good mood it's weirding me out,” Dirk says. “Sorry to ruin that shit but our little Witch of Doom just put a fucking geas on you, dude. So, unless you want to suffer whatever form of Doom a 4-sweep old thinks is appropriate for a bad person, you're going to have to fix whatever it was you did. And unless I want my 'rail to suffer said ignominious fate, I'm gonna have to help.”

“I'll help too!” Kharon says. “Oh, and don't worry too much about the Doom. She Doomed me once by accident and I just ended up falling on the cliff path and skinning my knee.”

“Are you seriously telling me you have a child who can lay fucking curses on people just running around loose?” you ask.

“Yup. Her brother's even worse, if you can believe that. Wrecked our second-best boat because of him.”

“His name's Loki,” Kharon tells you, as if this information is indescribably important. “It was an accident. We were playing wizards.”

“He's been training really intensely to get that shit under control. I'd say self-discipline is a Prince fundamental, but look at Ampora. So, anyway, quit distracting me and tell me what you did. Now.” Dirk punctuates this speech by lacing his fingers with yours and giving your hand a squeeze.

The fight drains out of you in a lurching rush. Nothing feels quite real, still. You wonder for a second if you're dreaming, if you're about to start loosing your teeth or bleeding from the creases of your palms again.

“I killed her,” you say. “The Timewitch, Damara. I killed her. Will kill her.”

“When was this?” Dirk asks, tensing. “Relative to now.”

It takes you a long minute to go back through your own jumbled timeline for the answer.

“Future. Just over a sweep from now,” you conclude. Holy fucking shit, it's a relief to tell him that. You feel so light. You're not sure if it's the double-threat of your diamond and your Rage-stealing offspring, or if sex just does that to you. Fuck, maybe Kurloz sucked all your Rage into his nook and destroyed it.

You would be fucking pissed about how good it feels, but, really, what would be the point? You're not sure anymore.

“Hey,” a deep voice says. “Someone order some motherfucking sandwiches out here?”

They are goddamn delicious. Your usual objections to the weird, dense bread and crunch of greens in them barely even register. Gamzee Makara sits his ass down on the edge of the porch like an immovable object. Faye flops herself into his lap. They watch you with an eerily similar expression of detached interest, looking so much like Kurloz it kind of hurts a little. Dirk waits for you to finish, flicking the crumbs you spray him with off onto the floor.

“So, past-you killed Damara a sweep from now. And why exactly did past-you do that?” he asks, quietly.

Rather than restoring you to your usual emotional balance, food has made you even more sleepy and content. Unless that's the influence of yet another anger-vampire-clown. Fuck it.

“You were all trying to kill me, and then something happened and I ended up here. Flew off the handle. Wanted to kill someone. She made herself a convenient target.”

“When you put it like that, you make it sound like you've ever been on the handle. So, it was really-past you. Like, fresh-off-the-boat-from-the-last-universe-you. Alright. So, how sure are you that she dies?”

You shrug, your memory writhing with the red ropes of her entrails. “I got the fuck out of there. It was. Grisly. And there were witnesses.”

“So for all you know, future you might show up right after past you absconds and save Damara's life with your awesome Time Lord shit. Because that's what's going to fucking happen if I have to march you all the way there myself, mister.”

“Miracles,” Gamzee murmurs.

“That's what does happen,” Kharon says. “Future-you told me so. He told me I could break Rule Two when you get Doomed and tell you. Oh, he also told me to tell you that you'll need to draw some pictures.”

You are struck with a sudden and inexplicable urge to hug your son.

You do not do any such thing. Besides, he and Dirk have both your arms in a death grip.

Dirk facepalms. “Dave. He and Terezi are pretty much the only contenders in the 'easily-bribed-with-shitty-art' category. He must be the knife. I guess the needle might be me. Or it could be Porrim, Kanaya, Rose or Damara herself, unless it's something more cryptic. Hope that girl never gets better at obfuscating her crazy riddle shit. How many gears, Kharon?”

“Just one,” Kharon says.

“Well, that's good. We'll go right now, talk to Dave and Aradia. See if we can make a plan.”

~

Dave is also terribly pregnant, though you recognize him as the sword-guy you saw there on the beach. He is with the teal-colored Seer, Terezi. He is like a blunted, rounded copy of Dirk, down to his round sunglasses. She is sharp and compact, with a smile like an unsheathed blade. Dave and Terezi both love the picture you draw of Dirk traipsing around with a sword like the big pregnant cockblocking bully he is. Terezi laughs until she cries. Dave's chuckles escape him like they're making a break from maximum security. Dirk counters with a brutal critique of your anatomy and line work.

Both of them come with you, Dave with a “Yeah, okay,” and Terezi with a rambling speech about seeing justice served.

Your suddenly crowded party makes its way up the cliffs to the radio-tower building, where the door is answered by a visibly upset magenta-colored woman with waist-length wet hair. She has a red-yellow-magenta egg in one arm, and sullen red-yellow-magenta child clinging to the other. It's not the girl who cursed you, but he looks similar enough that he's probably the brother, the little Prince of Doom.

“What exactly are you all doing here?” the woman asks, glaring squarely at you.

“We're getting Dad un-Doomed and saving Aunty Damara,” Kharon pipes up. He hasn't let go of your hand once. “Hi Loki!”

The child frowns at Kharon and edges a little further behind the purple woman. Kharon holds your hand tighter. Some corner of you wants to shout at the little asshole for being rude to your kid. Kharon's such a cheerful little shit, he couldn't have possibly done anything to deserve that kind of a look.

“We need to talk to Aradia, Fef,” Dirk says. “She in?”

“I'll tell her you're here,” Fef says, and closes the door in your face.

Aradia is also pregnant when she appears a few minutes later, her gravid form elegant in a deep red dress.

“Is there anyone in this goddamn village who isn't swollen as fuck right now?” you ask.

“Yeah, a lot more people decided to give the whole pregnancy thing a go this time around,” Dirk says, one hand sliding absently across his own belly. "I think a lot of them were surprised by how much they like being around kids.”

“Trolls did not naturally rear their own children,” Aradia says, her voice low and musical. “So, yes, it took some adjusting for many of us. What exactly is your errand, if you don't mind me asking?”

They make you explain.

“Ah,” she says. “I've wondered what that particular knot of Time Player activity was. Can you show me the exact location, please?”

Down on the sand, the lot of you stand in a huddle. Dave and Aradia frown thunderously at the cliff-face, and you can feel the subtle pulse of their Time shit rising off them. Terezi makes you go through the story again. She drags the details out of you one by one, down to your dreams and the way you can hardly stand to look at Damara without feeling like you might hurl. Dirk and Kharon absorb every word, their eyes solemn, their hands anchoring you.

“This will take some finesse,” Aradia says. “The struggle between your Time manipulation and hers has left causality thick with scar tissue. We will have to work in concert to undo it. And, I imagine, we will need Feferi and Jane standing by in case we are only partially successful. I will take the time between then and now to study the problem and do what I can from the past.”

“Thanks, Aradia,” Dirk tells her.

“We may need Damara's help as well,” Aradia tells you. “Caliborn, I hope you're prepared to tell her what you've done and bring her to the correct time if necessary.”

“That would be only just,” Terezi says, grin stretching wider.

You think of the way the Timewitch smiled at Dirk and Kurloz, and shiver.

“Alright, then,” Dirk says. “Are we going or what? Kharon, I think you should stay here, buddy. Don't worry, we'll be back before you know it.”

“What the fuck – why would you want to come?” you ask.

“Told you I would march you there myself, didn't I?” Dirk says. “I'm trusting you with a lot here, since I have a little one on board. Don't let me down, man.”

You eye his belly. You think again of the crowd that was there on the beach, their appalled faces turned on you, and the way Damara looked at you right before she gave up. You wonder how she'll look at you if you pull this miracle out of your ass and somehow unmurder her. Fuck, she is going to hate you forever.

You kind of feel like you might need a hug or something.

Kharon drops your hand and squeezes you around the waist tightly. You touch his hair, remembering his baby-self. You wonder if you really will make it back here, or back to that suspended moment where Kurloz is waiting for you. What will they do if you fail?

“Let's fucking go,” you say, nudging your son off of you.

“Better take me with, too,” Dave says. “Two of me are always better than one.”

~

You're not sure if it's so hard to move through Time because you're dragging two very pregnant people along with you, or because of your looming dread of your destination.

Her blood looks very dark, soaked into the sand like that. Her hair is an even darker spill on top, her severed torso small and pale. The worst of it is hidden beneath the heavy blade of stone. You feel hollowed out and numb.

Aradia and another Dave walk up, hand in hand already. Aradia gives you a reassuring nod.

Damara and another you appear. The you has an ugly facial scar and a raised-red, still-healing tattoo, the single gear ringing his wrist bone. Damara is all business, striding up and taking your hand as Dirk scrambles out of her way.

“We go,” she says.

Both Daves take your shoulders. Time unfurls before you.

You have never actually seen Time before, you realize. It sprawls and stretches everywhere, future branches coiling from the present in all directions. The past hangs rooted beneath, a profusion of minor loops whirling like ribbons from yourself and one from Dave to Dave. The eldritch braid of the big loop, the one that makes up your entire life and the Universe's, arcs away above and below you, disappearing out of the range of your perception. It is a world of singing vibration, every surface trembling with the rhythm of its possibility. You had no fucking clue Time was so complicated.

The steady throb of Dave's double presence grounds you all as Aradia starts to unfold the stubborn, buzzing petals of the moment you are trying to repair. They fight her, angrily. You can feel the tug of it outside and inside yourself. It is your power she is trying to redirect, chained to you through the snarled links of your past.

She is only able to hold so much of its weight open at once. Dave and Damara reach in after her, Dave with a series of surgical cuts, Damara tearing chunks free and discarding them carelessly. It doesn't hurt, exactly. But it is violating, an invasion of some part of yourself so fundamentally yours that you barely knew it existed. You could never have imagined someone else touching it, changing it.

Stubbornly, almost involuntarily, you resist.

That piece Time curls tighter. The four of them together are no match for your strength. You can feel the moment when the realize this.

Distantly, you are aware of them drawing in closer to you, their hands on you. Both Daves grip your shoulders, bracing you. Damara's sharp nails dig into your arm.

You have to allow this to be fixed. You have to help them. They will fail without you. You will fail.

Aradia nudges you, showing you which thread to follow. Suddenly, what you're seeing makes sense. You strike before you can think too hard and fuck this all up. You hurl your strength onto the clotted, scarred strands of your past like a meteor.

The knot bursts loose into a snarl of buzzing parallel possibilities. Aradia plucks at one. Dave immediately takes it in his double grip, shoring up its pulse with the strength of his own rhythm. Damara grabs hold of it and yanks with a strength that tears you open inside.

Time changes.

You open your eyes. The rock hovers above, blue and red crackling around it. Crocker and the two magenta girls are hauling Damara's body out of its shadow.

“She's out! Set it down so it won't fall, guys!”

A slicing stream of wind helps the mass of rock settle firmly in the sand, its impact too gentle to even hear over the slosh of the waves.

The Time Player huddle breaks up with Aradia going down the line and hugging everyone in turn. You allow it, unsure what else to do.

“Great! Really great job everyone! I'm going to go talk to the kids about it, now. This will be an important learning experience for them all,” she says, smiling her brilliant smile.

“You. You guys. Deliberately let them see this?” you ask. You feel kind of lightheaded.

“Of course. Such a complex example of Players working in concert is a difficult thing to engineer,” she says. “It was especially important for our little Time players to observe.”

“You honestly think a bunch of trolls and Sburb players are going to try and shelter their kids?” one of the Daves asks you.

“Besides,” says the other, “You told us this was going to happen. We had a whole sweep to decide what to do about it.”

“You have no idea how many goddamn meetings we had to sit through,” one of the yellow dudes standing nearby tells you. “Thanks for nothing, asshole.”

“Hey,” Dirk says, taking your hand. “Want me to come with you to see if she's okay?”

“Fuck,” you tell him, and also, “Yes.”

The other Damara and the other you have slipped away in the confusion. You're kind of glad; they were freaking you out. Present Damara is getting to her feet, shakily, supported by Crocker and the magenta girl she's not busy growling at.

“Uh. Hi,” you tell her. You take a deep breath. “I'm sorry.”

She smiles at you and it hurts you inside.

She takes two steps forward, shrugging off her supporters. Her needle scores a line of fire across your cheek and jaw, barely missing your eye.

Then, she's pressed up against you. She is whole and uninjured, even down to her clothing. The only blood you smell is your own.

Her hands grip your face, her thumb twisting cruelly into the fresh wound. You clench your teeth around your sound of pain.

“You think I not know this coming?” she hisses. “You think because I am girl, because I talk weird, I am weak and stupid, yes? I am Witch of Time! I choose this. I choose this for teach you a lesson.”

She does something Timey to your jaw, and oh, it hurts. It burns.

She licks your blood off one thumb, still stroking your face with the other. Her eyes bore into yours.

“Now we even,” she says. Then she leans down and kisses you. With tongue.

You gape at her as she drops you. You touch your wound tentatively, and find she's fast-forwarded it into a smooth scar.

“I no want see you for a while,” she announces. “No find me. I find you when it time.”

She turns and strides off down the beach, hips working in her short skirt. Holy fucking shit, you think. Dirk was right. She is utterly, completely psychotic. No wonder future you looked so insufferably fucking smug.

~

Terezi leans close and sniffs your face. “Someone has a new candy-red decoration. A little memento of your trial?”

“Courtesy of the Witch of Time,” Dirk says. “You're lucky she didn't do you worse.”

“Shut the fuck up, Dirk,” you tell him. You would have deserved anything she dished out. You are shaky with relief and adrenaline, leaning into his side.

He pats your shoulder.

“Thanks again for your help, man,” he tells Dave.

They bump fists. “All in a day's work for the Knight of Time, yo.” Dave says. “Cal, you totally owe me a favor, though. A big one. No, two big ones. Get used to the barter system dude, that's how shit works around here.”

Terezi cackles. “I have some excellent suggestions for you, Coolkid,” she says.

“Ooh, baby. I promise to listen to every sweet syllable of your lust for the old ultraviolence while you give me a footrub. I'm in a delicate state, here, and guess whose fault it is?”

“Mine!” she crows, sounding completely delighted. They move off toward the dune trail, their banter receding.

“Are you okay, Dad?” Kharon asks.

You let out a long breath.

“I think I need to sit down,” you say.

You end up braced against Dirk's shoulder, Kharon holding your other hand, pressed against your side.

Dirk shooshes you a little, until you stop shaking.

“So. I don't know if she fucking hates me now or what.” She should, if she weren't fucking crazy.

“Nobody knows what goes on in that woman's mind,” Dirk says. “I don't know if I'd want to, honestly.”

“It's okay, Daddy,” Kharon tells you. “Maybe if you wait for her, you can fix things later. I told Loki I was pale for him, and then he ran away but he felt really sad about it, and Uncle Eridan said he's been having trouble with his powers and I should wait because sometimes feelings take time. So, I'm waiting for him like I wait for you.”

Fuck. You don't know if you can take hanging out with your kid if it makes your chest hurt like this.

“Yeah,” you tell him. “Maybe.”

“We can only help people who let themselves be helped, kiddo.” Dirk says. “Don't give up, but don't beat yourself up too much, either.”

“I'm learning how to give him hugs from far away,” Kharon tells you. “But I don't know if he can feel it.”

“Did you ask him?” you ask.

“He won't talk to me.” Hearing pain in his little voice kind of makes you want to go find this Loki kid and smack him one.

“Try it on me,” you tell him. “And I'll tell you if I can feel it.”

“Oh. Really?”

You nod. He pulls away from you, face scrunched comically in concentration. The feeling is subtle, like being papped by a ghost. You can see how it might be easy to miss if you weren't paying attention.

“I can definitely feel something,” you tell him.

He smiles heartbreakingly. “Does it feel nice?”

“It's very... tender.”

“I really want to hug him for real. He acts kind of mean sometimes, but he's really really lonely inside.”

“Well, look,” you say, scrubbing at your hair. “You really should ask him if it's okay to give him, uh. Mind hugs.”

“Mommy does it to you without asking.”

“I asked him to a long time ago. To help me. And you know. Sometimes your... mom does things he shouldn't. He can be an overbearing jerk. And so can I, and so can Uncle Dirk. We're not perfect, you know.”

Kharon looks up at you with wide, solemn eyes. “Oh,” he says, as if that's somehow news to him.

You sit in silence, side-by-side. He appears to be thinking very hard. Finally, you can't take the pressure of all the little gears grinding in his head. You wrap an arm around him. He lists sideways, arms winding around you until he's practically in your lap. He is small and sturdy and he hugs hard. You think of his baby-self, breathing softly in your arms. Your heart squeezes.

You sit there until the waves are washing high enough to endanger your shoes and voices are calling Kharon from somewhere behind the dunes.

“Sounds like it's time for you to run off to lessons,” Dirk says. Sometime in the past however long, he has ended up lying with his head propped on your thigh.

Kharon hugs you tighter for a second, then stands.

“Promise you'll stay for dinner?” he says.

His eyes are really big and sad and orange.

“Okay,” you say, helplessly.

He takes your hand, hooking his smallest finger through yours. “This is called a pinky promise and it means you have to no matter what,” he says. “Aunty Roxy taught me.”

“The pinky swear is an ancient and solemn oath,” Dirk says. “We'll see you at dinner. Don't forget to check your fish-traps.”

“I know,” he says. He scampers off.

“Did I just give my kid relationship advice?” you ask, your fingers finding their way into Dirk's hair. “Pale relationship advice?”

“It was pretty damn good advice, too,” Dirk confirms. “Kudos, dude.”

“I have no fucking clue what the fuck I'm doing,” you tell him.

“None of us really do. Just roll with it.”

“I promised Kurloz I'd be back,” you remember. “I need to bring him something to eat.”

“We'll go up to the kitchens and pack you up some supplies. You'll need a couple days worth at least.”

“A couple of days? Seriously?” You're really not sure how to feel about that. Certain portions of your anatomy seem to be in favor, though those portions also kind of ache right now. You're not sure how the fuck that works.

“Maybe I should have Crocker give you the birds and bees talk before I send you back there. Should be plenty of time before dinner. She has diagrams. They're very informative.”

“Oh my fucking god, no. No, no, fuck no, and no.” You are blushing just thinking about it.

Dirk chuckles and paps your knee like the enormous asshole he is.

“I've been meaning to ask you,” Dirk says, “If you're interested in getting some sweet ink. I finally got the bits together to build a gun, so it won't even take that long or anything.”

“You can do tattoos?” Why are you not surprised.

“Hell yes I can. Gave myself my first one when I was like 13.” He pats his shoulder.

“If you tattoo me with anything as ugly as that, I will fucking flay you.”

“Don't sweat it. I've got a bunch of ideas I've been drawing for you. Think I already know which one you'll like best.”

So do you. But what the fuck ever. Rule number two was always kind of a fucking joke anyway.

Comments

[askerian]

aaahhh loved it
i'm half asleep so i can't detail more, i'm sorry, but what stands out the more is the undoing of the Time shit, working in a team, wow, that was gorgeous.

also the oc kids aahh socute. XD

also the porn yes that was nice porn proceed.

anything else planned for this 'verse? (she says not greedily at all)

[universe_c]

Thank you!!

I'm in the planning stages of what I want to do next. Probably will poke at some side stories in the mean time.

[tea_time_t]

I saw this series on the meme and nearly passed over it. So glad I didn't! The worldbuilding is so very cool. I love your imagery of how the powers and such work; it's really easy to imagine.

The plot in this one was fantastic. You actually got me to like Caliborn. How. How is this possible.

Can't wait to see what else you write!