Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

John Egbert woke with a cough.

“Gosh,” he rasped out, groping in the dark for the glass of water he left on his bedside table as habit every night. A couple of messy sips and the cough had stopped, but still he shook because he had just woken from another sex dream about a troll, a troll he’d never even met but had only seen in the illustrations of cautionary tales, because good upstanding people didn’t visit the outskirts of Darkhaven, and they certainly didn’t have business with the trolls living behind the razor-wired fence.

Breathe.

Foul grey-skinned creatures of the night, depraved and hedonistic – that was what the books said. The subhuman status of the trolls was the backbone of the Lamplighter code of practice; in fact, it was in his own handwriting, faithfully copied and pinned above his bed. John Egbert was a good employee, the type who puts his head down without asking questions – but every other month or so he’d have this kind of strange experience, waking to his own surprised coughs because he’d caught his breath because, because, because…

Count to ten. Don’t shake. Get a grip.

They were never bad dreams, though. They were the kind where you wake up and want to fall back asleep again so desperately that you’re mashing your face into your pillow because of some stupid fuzzy feeling – because the love of your life is trapped somewhere between your temples, and you can never meet them, and real life is such a downer, isn’t it?

Begrudgingly, John pushed himself to his feet, made his bed (after all, making your bed is the first step to a productive day!) and glanced briefly to his bedside clock. It was four-thirty or so in the morning; it was a Friday; everybody loves 5AM shifts.

John padded across his room, and tugged open the curtains. Slats of incandescent amber lamplight spilled through the gap, pouring over him and catching dust floating in the space between him and the glass. His apartment was on the uppermost floor of a grim tower block, a huge decaying molar in Darkhaven’s gaping maw. He lived so high up that he could even see the city ceiling, a massive arc of rock peppered with stalactites and their inlaid crystals glowing dimly in the lowlight.

The city, a living animal, sprawled out generously beneath him: a jumble of neighbourhoods, some slicked with a coat of industrial grease, others glowing just a little brighter with that honey-warm light, some accented with floating gardens and baroque marble façades… further out, where the Lamplighters rarely ventured, was the Lower City. Troll territory. And beyond that, blackness, so that the city seemed like a covert curtained stage. That way was suicide, a clear path to never being heard from again. People disappeared – the dark can do strange things.

That was what the Lamplighters were for, of course, the only standing bastion against the dark. For a subterranean civilisation, Darkhaven loathed the darkness, so much so that an entire faction existed to keep the wicks burning. John was one of them, a junior – he’d been in the position for two months, which meant he usually got handed the hated graveyard shifts. He’d always thought there was something romantic about it, being the guardian of a civilisation, a light-bringer, but somehow he found that his life wasn’t so beautiful as he’d imagined it would be as a kid.

Today was John’s twentieth birthday – not that it really mattered – so he felt particularly introspective. Time seemed to move so slowly, but every year came the faithful jarring reminder that he hadn’t amounted to much. Despite being, to all appearances, completely in control of everything, John was quite sure he was being suffocated. Even now he was annoying himself, spending ten minutes standing at his bedroom window mulling over pointless exposition. His life was boring.

He knew his life was boring because he had his three closest friends, who he’d known since they were all children, to compare himself to. They certainly didn’t find themselves awake this early in the morning smoothing the lapels on their military jackets and tying their bootlaces in standard conformation, as he did. If any of them were awake, it was probably Rose, having stayed up all night with a book – one of her teenage habits. John had long since forgotten the point of reading.

With an enormous, chest-rocking sigh, John eyed himself in the mirror on his closet door. His looks didn’t matter that much to him – he’d given up on romance as a practical possibility, for one thing – but he liked to look respectable for his job. And it wasn’t like he was bad looking, with his dark olive tan and just-about-tameable crop of floppy black spikes. He met his own eyes through his glasses frames; bright blue, unapologetically unusual, and always expressing something, but never the right thing. His poker face was well-practiced by now.

The Lamplighters’ strict diet and exercise regime kept him trim and muscular enough, but he never really had his heart in it, so even though he was broad-shouldered and his arms swollen with strength, there was no washboard stomach under his uniform. He always felt like he should’ve been trying harder.

Laced and buttoned, with the grogginess booted out of him by a cup of strong coffee and the sleep rubbed from his eyes, John made for his apartment door, only to spot a letter lying on his doormat.

yo

happy birthday, bro.

meet me outside city hall nine oclock tonight. bring me your bullshit excuses in person. and if you think youre gonna blow me off like you did last year then check yourself. you wont like me when im angry.

hug bumps
dave

ps. were all coming down just for you so dont make me look like an asshole this year yeah?

John had a strong suspicion that Dave pitied him – and that was probably fair. Dave was the coolest guy John had ever met, hands-down. He could get away with wearing sunglasses ironically in a city that’s dim-lit at best. (In fact, hardly anyone even knew or remembered the sun). He was kind of a Bohemian, a “rap artist” – rap was some ancient human thing, although from what John had heard it was still very much alive in the Lower City. And Dave spent a lot of his time in the Lower City. A lot. John was a city official, Dave was an outcast, they weren’t really supposed to be “bros”. Actually, it kind of put his job on the line. He’d already had one too many memos from his boss about the suspicious man in the red velvet jacket, but John couldn’t turn him down tonight, for the second year in a row that Dave had made plans just for him.

He’d just have to be careful. Thankfully for John Egbert, careful was a way of life.

Even on the streets, a little further from the city ceiling, John felt stifled somehow. It wasn’t that the city was a bad place to be – no, it was beautiful. On either side of him, elegant buildings were packed in tight like pastries in a gift box, designed to replicate now anachronistic Victorian architecture, all heavy brick and intricate detail, with belts of cast iron and steel to mirror the industrial character of the city. This early, few people were around; he could hear only what sounded like a stray cat rummaging through some trash, and the steady hum and flicker of the ethereal alchemical lamps that burned overhead. There was a lamp at the end of the street that had gone out, allowing a circle of darkening haze to creep over the street corner. Sinister shadows danced over the surface of the nearest building. The dark always put his teeth on edge, even here where he knew he was safe.

Just as he drew up to the lamp there was a sudden clang behind him and his heart jumped into his throat – he told himself to calm down, that it was just a trashcan lid falling – and then he looked over his shoulder to see somebody dart across the road. His eyes widened as white-hot fear took his belly, and he pushed his back up against the wall of a building, keeping his gaze fixed on the alley that the person had disappeared into. He tried to pull himself together. He was an official.

“Hello?” he called out. “Do you need help?”

This was met with a hoarse bark of laughter.

“I’m friendly,” he offered.

Again, the bitter laugh. Angry, even. John’s hand flicked instinctively to the revolver holstered at his hip.

“If you’re friendly then you won’t need to use that gun, assbucket,” crackled back a voice.

Assbucket?

He squinted. Now he could just see that someone had poked their head out of the alley, to peer at him. From this distance their facial expression was inscrutable, but it couldn’t have been very kind. After all they’d just called him an assbucket. Whatever that was. He let his hand drop back to his side and stepped away from the wall, keeping his eyes fixed on the stranger.

He looked awfully ill, even under the warm, merry light. In fact he was practically grey… he was grey.

“What are you doing here?” John spat out, flabbergasted, pushing his glasses up his nose. He was tempted to exaggeratedly clean them, just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

“Just a little exploration, not that it’s any of your business. You humans are all so self-important.” the troll snickered back, a vicious grin spreading over his face.

“Excuse me, but I am a Lamplighter, and you’re being… very rude,” John said, and he felt the heat rushing to his cheeks before the troll could even retort.

“A Lamplighter? Well, you should have said sooner. How dare I even rummage through the garbage in front of you, a God amongst men,” the troll drawled. “Pity me, sir. I’m just a stupid troll who doesn’t know any better.”

He’d never met a troll before. Trolls as a rule did not venture out of the Lower City. They weren’t welcome. Technically John should have been hounding this one out of the neighbourhood, or to the Bastille for interrogation and further punishment, but he hadn’t been expecting quite so much… sass. Or intellect, for that matter. His understanding was that trolls were some subhuman race, and John had always viewed Dave’s fondness for them as a strange little quirk, something that he would never get.

But this one was incendiary.

“I think you do know better,” John said, as he started at a slow pace down the road, towards the alley. The troll wasn’t moving, just watching him, like a rabbit frozen in fear in front of an approaching fox. Or maybe the roles were reversed. John could feel nervous heat creeping up his neck. He was no predator.

“Oh, I do. You fuckheads nearly killed my friend. Poor bastard. I had to sew his insides back in, you know. But you don’t scare me, John.”

“How do you know my name?” John said back, ignoring the fact that his voice had become oddly high-pitched.

The troll laughed, incredulous but not sarcastic, and it was impish and oddly cute. “It’s on your jacket, moron.”

“You can read that from there?”

The troll just grinned back at him. John could barely make out any details of his face, and there he was reading his ID label from 20 yards.

“Listen, I’m not going to hurt you, but you really shouldn’t be here,” John said, and then bit his lip. This was so dangerous, for the both of them. John didn’t need to be known as a troll sympathiser. He’d be run out of town – and then what? He was too soft to make it as an outcast.

“Why don’t you just turn around, go and light your lamp, and fuck off out of here? Oh, wait, I get it,” the troll said, and then took a sharp breath so that he could continue his tirade. “You’ve never seen a troll before, have you? Well, John, I’ve seen plenty of humans. You’re all as ugly as the next and I sure as hell don’t need to see another one up close.”

“What’s your name?” John said, ignoring this.

The troll snorted. John was close enough now to note that he had a tiny, nubby pair of horns sticking out from his mess of poufy black hair. He was certainly not as threatening as he acted.

“What’s it to you?”

“You know mine.”

“Yeah, and you’re holding a fucking gun, so I’d say you already have enough power over me, thanks.”

John glanced briefly at his gun again. The troll had a point.

“Okay, I get that you think I’m the enemy and everything, but I’m really not going to shoot you,” he said, but the troll just shook his head. His lip curled like another angry outburst was coming, but John had a sudden idea. “Do you know Dave?”

The big yellowy eyes that were staring back at him suddenly glittered with what John could only describe as conspiracy.

“Human Dave with the ridiculous glasses? Of course. And if you’re John who knows human Dave, then you must be human Dave’s John. Is it true that you threw away what could have been an exciting life to become a shit-eating Lamplighter who doesn’t read, drink, or masturbate?”

“Uh, um, well –”

“Wow, I really am stupid. I should have figured that out sooner,” the troll said, and his expression seemed to soften just a tiny bit, so that he was just mocking rather than openly aggressive. “You’re probably the only one of your kind who wouldn’t blast my kneecaps to splinters for being in the wrong neighbourhood. Alright, fuckass, I guess you can have my name.”

By now, John was level with the alleyway, and he and the troll were face-to-face. It was weird, seeing one in person. They looked human enough, save for the grey skin that had an almost amphibian sheen to it – not enough to be wet to the touch, he thought, but just to glisten a little. This one’s eyes were round and yellow, like something terrifying blinking out of the darkness, with bright red irises. But he was, categorically, not scary. He couldn’t have been taller than five foot five, although he was stocky enough as well as bristly and mean-looking, with his fanged scowl and furrowed brow. John was fascinated.

“Karkat.”

“Nice to meet you, Karkat.”

“Spare me the pleasantries you smug dickweed. Don’t start thinking you’re a good guy or that we’re friends. Here’s some news for you, John –”

“We’re not friends and you don’t like me?”

“Precisely! Looks like you have brains, unlike most humans. What a thrilling development.”

“That’s sad ‘cause you seem pretty funny,” John said, earnest to a fault.

“Ugh, stop, you’re going to make me throw up. Is this your new way of getting me to piss off? Being nice? Because all you’re doing is making me sick.”

“Don’t trolls say nice things to each other?” John wondered, and then felt embarrassed that there was this whole secret culture he had dismissed.

“Of course, but we don’t go around acting like the sun shines out of our neighbour’s asshole –”

Someone fired a gun into the air. The shot rang out, painfully, blisteringly loud in the silence, making John wince and Karkat jump, eyes bugging.

“Oh fuck, gotta run, nice talking to you, fuckass,” Karkat said, and then disappeared into the relative darkness of the alley. John started after him but was distracted by the footsteps that were pounding closer – he turned and was confronted by the sight of his cousin, Jane. She was basically a paler version of himself – paler now, with shock.

“Did – he – hurt – you?” Jane panted, one hand on her knee, the other shaking and clutching her gun. “I was gonna – aim for – his head but – you were too close together –”

“Yeah – yeah, I’m fine, thank you, wow,” John said, still dazed by the whole thing and the slight ringing in his ear. He held Jane up by her shoulders and got a grateful smile in return as she holstered her gun.

“Gosh-darned trolls – they know they don’t – belong here,” she said, chest still heaving. She was shaking with adrenaline, which scared John a little. “I mean, I hate to hurt them, but...”

“Yeah… they don’t know what’s good for them,” John said, and they laughed it off. “Listen, uhh, the lamp at the end of the street… I should move on to the next neighbourhood, see if I can follow his trail, he can’t have gone far yet.”

“Sure, I’ll get the lamp. Maybe I’ll catch up with you later.”

John nodded.

“Thanks again, Jane,” he said, trying to sound as sincere as possible.

“It was nothing,” Jane said back, but John knew that was a lie. She nodded to him, and he watched her walk to the end of the street – she turned, they waved to each other, and then John turned on his heel and walked away. Jane had a more moderate attitude to the trolls than most, but she was ruthlessly efficient at her job. John only knew a little about her, but he did know that she had served for the Lamplighters since she was sixteen years old, around when her other friends had disappeared from the radar entirely to pursue a life of crime – at least, those were the rumours. In that way, she reminded John a lot of himself. She was always sweet to him, but there was something about her that John had never been able to pin down. And what of rude, mean Karkat? John had never been so spellbound in his life.

“Rough day?”

“I guess you could say that,” John replied as he stepped under the amber halo of the streetlight Dave leaned against, hands in his pockets, skinny elbows jutting. Dave was so effortlessly casual and handsome, it had used to drive John mad with jealousy.

“I heard you met Karkat,” Dave said, straightening up and adjusting his bowtie with an idle hand. His face was totally impassive like usual, but John could just tell somehow that he was laughing inside.

“He… well, I don’t know what to say. What’s an assbucket, anyway?”

Dave shrugged, which made John laugh – he hadn’t really had a chance to laugh about the whole encounter all day, between lighting lamps and jumping at noises behind him that might’ve been trolls. It was just so hilariously unlikely, like fate had played a hand.

“That’s just his sparkling personality,” Dave said, pushing his hand through his crest of honey-blond hair. “You’re dressed like a tool.”

“Yeah, I know, I didn’t have time to do anything about it –”

“You don’t look ready to party,” Dave said, and if he ever betrayed any emotion, maybe he would’ve sounded sad.

“I’m sorry –”

“Woah,” Dave said, staring at John’s holster and throwing up his hands in mock astonishment. “You’re packing heat. They’re gonna love that.”

“Oh, where are we going, anyway?”

Dave stared at him for a long moment. John was getting increasingly uncomfortable.

“The Living Room, troll place. It’s classy, John. Only the finest shit for my best bro’s birthday.”

“Dave, you know I can’t – not in uniform and everything –”

“Nobody’s gonna know,” Dave drawled. “Listen, I planned a whole sweet sixteen type deal for you, and you’re not standing me up this year.”

John prayed internally for strength. Evenings with Dave were usually strange enough, but this was going to be one to remember... or repress.