Lost In Time (Dave/Karkat)

It has been said that there is a time and a place for everything.

Well, Dave Strider knew a thing or two about time.

He'd spent what seemed like days, maybe even weeks, hopping through the time-space continuum; it had probably only been seconds by his friends' standards. He'd done his best to focus on only previewing events that would give him some insight into what the team needed to do next, but he'd found that there were some places and some time periods that the Timetables just wouldn't let him go to. He assumed that these were probably important events that he wasn't meant to see and that it was a good thing the Timetables kept him away, but he couldn't help but be a little frustrated about the whole situation.

All the work and searching and never finding quite what he was looking for started to build up within him, until he felt he was fit to burst. It was then that he decided he could waste a few precious seconds of normal Earth-time on indulging a whim or two. Hell, he might even find out something useful.

He decided that he was going to jump many years into the future and find out just what the fate of their race was going to be. What he found absolutely floored him. He was on a planet much like Earth, though it wasn't actually their home planet, and it was covered in cities and towns and farmland; most importantly it was inhabited. There were hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people on that planet.

He was so excited and shocked by that revelation that he almost missed the oddity that was staring him in the face: all the people seemed to be some sort of strange human/troll hybrid. As soon as the though occurred to him, Dave knew who to credit. It had to have been Karkat, with his ectobiology.

Dave wasn't complaining, exactly, that human and troll genes had gotten all mixed up in the new universe's primordial soup (as a matter of fact, Karkat was probably considerably more upset by it), he was just very surprised. He took a while to stroll around one of the cities, looking closely at the humantrolls all around him; they all seemed to have been gene-spliced differently. Some of them had Troll horns, some didn't. Some had pointed ears or sharp teeth, others didn't. Most of them had black hair, but there were plenty who did not. A few even had the Trolls' gray skin, though most of them seemed pretty human in that aspect. It was during these observations that Dave came to the one really shocking conclusion: all of these people were made from some combination of just the twelve trolls and the four human kids' DNA. As soon as he realized it, he was able to pick out individual traits and match them to their origin.

He sat down on a bench, watching the humantrolls pass by wordlessly, rather floored. It was only a few moments later that Dave's face was plastered with a look of pure, open shock. He watched a young man walk past him, then quickly got to his feet to follow him. The guy was tall and thin, but well built. He was wearing dark shades, but Dave could make out the familiar shade of bright red eyes hiding behind them. It was like staring at himself, save for one major difference: that bright fucking red hair. There was only one person who that ridiculous shade of red could have originated from.

He had to follow him. He had to. It was necessary.
So follow he did.

- - - - -

Dave had followed the guy to a club and watched him perform and, gogdamn, the man could sing. Dave had been floored. He had to congratulate Karkat for this marvel of genetic engineering.

- - - - -
When he reappeared in his own time period, he was a little thrown off but, once he got his land legs back (so to speak), he headed straight for Karkat's room and knocked on the door.

"Yo, Karkat! Lemme in a sec, I want to talk to you."

Karkat grumbled lowly from his place at his husktop. He had absolutely zero desire to talk to strider, or to let him in his room. "You and I both know that it will be longer than a fucking second" he growled to himself.

When he ignored him and failed to hear him walk away, he finally dragged himself out of his chair and away from his husktop, hissing when he stubbed his toe on the sleeping pallet the humans called a bed (he was the last of the trolls waiting for a recoperacoon, the more violent of their group were priority) before finally making it to his door. He flung it open with his usual amount of unnecessary force, looking pissed as per usual. "The fuck do you want, you annoying grubfucker?" he snarled "Here to annoy the piss out of me like your dim-witted 'Friend'?" He was obviously trying to use the word as an insult.

"Naw, bro, no way. For once I'm here for an act of complete goodwill, dude. I wanted to congratulate you on a job well done, which you haven't actually done yet. Future you is pretty fucking cool, man." He leaned in the doorway with a little smirk on his face, which was really almost a smile for once.

"Though I am glad that your grubfucking brain has finally accepted that fact," Karkat snarled, "you'll have to fucking forgive me for asking who the fuck you are and what you've done with that annoying nookwiffer known as Dave MotherFucking Strider." He made no move to invite Dave in, or move out of the doorway.

"Clearly you do not understand the fucking magnanimity of what you've accomplished, fuckass," he replied, using Karkat's own word to tease him. "I'm pretty sure it's fucking just cause for being out of character. You outta see, man. As a mater of fact... You want me to show you, man?"

"I'm not going anywhere with you until you tell me what the fuck you're going on about." Karkat glared. "You're almost as bad as Egbert going on about his shitty human actor Nic Cage." He crossed his arms for good measure, though it did little good considering how much taller Strider was to him.

"Dude, if I told you it would completely ruin the surprise. Just trust me for once, would you? I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to show you, anyway, in order for it to happen in the first place. ...Actually that makes a lot of sense, since I can't see you volunteering to do more ectobiology without a damn good reason for it."

At the term 'Ectobiology' Karkat recoiled visibly with a hiss. "I swear to fucking gog if this has anything to do with grubs or babies I will murder you Strider. I HATE ectobiology!" He put his hand on the door as if to slam it in Dave's face.

Dave held up his hand in case he had to stop the door being slammed in his face. "It doesn't, it doesn't! I know you hate it. But just trust me, alright? C'mon, Karkat." He reached out to grab the troll's wrist. "Just come see, I don't expect anything more than that from you."

Karkat growled, but let go of the door. "Fine. But I swear to gog that wasn't an empty threat." He stepped out into the hall. "Where are we going?"

He pulled Karkat so that the troll's back was against his chest and the Timetables appeared within easy reach. "The future," Dave replied casually, grabbing Karkat's hands while he was still caught off-guard and placing them on the discs. "Hold still or you could accidentally send us someplace random and potentially dangerous. Just let me move your hands for you."

Karkat stiffened greatly. He didn't like the idea of being sent somewhere that he didn't know, but being sent somewhere that Dave didn't know was downright terrifying. After a moment, he tried to make himself go lax so Dave could move his hands easier.