Archive of Our Own ^beta

They say that back on Old Earth, long before Karkat Vantas’s great-great-great-something grandparents left for the sprawling impossible here, for space station-labyrinths and frozen pockmarked-hurtling asteroids and so many other worlds with their own wildness, their own gods, there was a beast called a “crocodile.” They’re all dead now.

Crocodiles, according to the ancient history holo-lessons Karkat’s taken, were lounging scaled things, eyes glassed-over and sleepy and slit-pupiled, flecked with moss-greens and secret golds. Crocodiles had long dragging tails and ragged claws and crooked teeth hanging out of their mouths. They pulled themselves through the mud on their bellies. They existed for thousands of years until Old Earth fell.

Karkat’s boyfriend is called Gamzee Makara, nowadays. When he first learned that name, “Makara,” he knew he’d heard it somewhere else before. Here’s where he heard it: it’s Sanskrit, and one of its meanings is “crocodile,” based on what Karkat’s read. Back on Old Earth, crocodiles floated in murky rivers and sat in the sun. “Makara” could mean “sea monster,” too, could mean a Zodiac symbol called “Capricorn,” stars shaped into a sea-goat, supposedly, though of course those stars can’t form the same shapes seen from humanity’s new angles. “Makara” could also mean a crocodile-like creature, carrying Hindu gods on his back the way planets carry kingdoms, the way the faithful carry prayers.

When Karkat told Gamzee about that, Gamzee said, “Huh. Hilarious fucking coincidence. I carry my god too, don’t I? When he calls me. When I sleep.” And he does. He does, though not the same god a Makara might carry, not any kind of god from Old Earth at all. Some people still follow those gods, of course, carrying them like language, like skin, like their own names. But not Gamzee.

Gamzee is a priest of Time, of the Abyss. The Abyss-God found humanity as they wandered the dark, and some people think it’s an honor to hear his scratching, starving whispers in your head. Others think it’s a curse, or a trick, or some alien species playing games with human bones, swinging them around like puppets.

Honestly, Karkat thinks his lover resembles a crocodile, somewhat, when he’s dragged out of bed, led away to his deep-space-station cathedral in the middle of the night. His head lolls; his feet drag; his arms sway with an ancient knowing, a primal confidence he just doesn’t reach when he’s awake. Gamzee doesn’t remember what sacrifices he makes for the Abyss-God, when he comes back to himself. Karkat’s heard about ritual dances, sticky with sweet syrup; Karkat’s heard about blasphemous traitors getting thrown out of station airlocks, and alien eggs raised up to become saviors or monsters or both, and… of course… poetry written and read and struck out, offered to the Book of Oblivion.

It's said the Abyss-God leads humanity through the depths of space, guiding them true, keeping them from being swallowed alive. It’s said the Abyss-God is the only thing that can see folks all the way to the end of the story. Gamzee believes that – he has to believe that. When he sleeps, the Abyss-God takes him away. But what gods might he have carried, back on Old Earth? Who could he have been, if the God of Time and the Abyss didn’t want him sleeping, always sleeping?

Karkat doesn’t fool himself: someone like Gamzee would always want things beyond the bones to believe in. You can see it in the tender way he speaks, the thoughtful, reverent way he holds even mundanity in his skinny, too-long hands. If he didn’t follow the Abyss-God, perhaps he would follow someone else, someone who doesn’t ask for the same enormous things from him. Gamzee doesn’t remember where he got most of his scars – he got them when he was asleep. Gamzee doesn’t know why Karkat thinks that’s frustrating and sad, why Karkat tries to scrape him open, sometimes, coaxing him to remember what’s supposed to be gone.

They fall asleep together, Gamzee’s bony-brittle arm thrown over Karkat protectively, his face squished into Karkat’s neck, his tangled black curls scattered in Karkat’s face. But then, sometimes, he’s pried up and drifts away. Someone dresses him in a priest’s loose star-scattered robes, painting sigils on his face, secrets up his arms, over his jutting collarbone. Someone listens to him speak, though it isn’t Gamzee speaking, anymore. What does his voice sound like, channeling the god that rides around in his head?

What would it have been like, to see a real, living Old Earth crocodile? What would it be like to live outside the drifting vacuum of space?

By morning, Gamzee is back in Karkat’s bed. Perhaps he has new wounds; perhaps he is hungry; perhaps he wakes up laughing, tears on his cheeks. It’s alright, he says. Aw, love, don’t look so fucking worried! It’s alright. They eat breakfast together before Karkat goes to work – he’s one of the maintenance crew, keeping this space station together physically, the way Gamzee thinks he’s keeping it together spiritually. Karkat kisses Gamzee at the door to their quarters, maybe brushing a little leftover ceremonial paint off his cheek. Karkat stalks away, tools strapped to his belt, dirty work boots crunching along the winding steel-and-plastic roads that are reality, that are humanity’s carved-out corner of this void.

Somewhere far, far, far behind them, galaxies away, by now, maybe something in what used to be Old Earth remembers crocodiles, too.