Title: Species
Fandom: Homestuck
Rating: Probably safe enough to read if you’re on tumblr
Summary: The surviving players end up on Earth. However, trolls don’t exist in that universe. Standard species-swap bullshit.

As everything around you simply ceases to exist, which is a nearly Eldritch-level state of existence in and of itself, you find that what you assume to be your last thoughts are of the grey-skinned alien boy next to you, with big red trails of tears streaming down his face.

After that, it all goes dark.

When he comes to, the first thing you feels is surprise along with happiness. However, it soon fades to an apprehensive confusion.

This whole process happens in the span of a second, and then you think to actually open your eyes.

There’s been an impact of some sort, centered on you, but you’re surprisingly unaffected, save for having apparently passed out. You sit up, and only then do you take a really close look.

And promptly discover that there are eight kids - all perfectly normal, human kids, surrounding yourself. Rose, Jade, and Dave you recognize, of course. They’re all starting to wake up.

You suspect he know the other four, if only because they’re still wearing their own clothing. But it’s all wrong. They’re not waking up, either, at least not as fast. Rose is the next one to really take in what has happened, and her gaze falls squarely on the extra in Kanaya’s clothing, before she turns to look at you.

You can only return the look, and then glance back to the wild-haired redhead with the gray symbol on his shirt.

Later, after you’ve all moved away (dragging along the trolls, except you need to stop thinking in those terms,) in order to avoid discovery, Jade finds that she is able to still use her powers.

She also finds out that your rag-tag group is only a few miles out of the furthest outskirts of Houston, Texas.

“This is perfect,” Dave remarks, “we can shack up in my old apartment. Nobody will even notice my Bro is gone.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence after that, which only Rose is able to shatter. “We shouldn’t assume that things progressed here as they did. After all, if that was the case, we wouldn’t be here.”

“If that’s the case, then we’re all doomed in an offshoot timeline,” Dave responds, and the silence is back. He then starts to look just the tiniest bit uncomfortable, and sheepishly drags out an old cell phone from his sylladex.

It’s old, and possibly not from this reality, but it works, and Dave dials in his Bro’s number. You all gather around to listen to it ring.

Except it never rings. The number isn’t allocated, Dave’s phone service announces. He closes it before it even finishes going through the message once, though.

“We’ll be fine,” Jade says, and she sits back down on the ground, in between Aradia and Kanaya. “We’ll wait for them to wake up, and we’ll figure out what to do from there.”

You can only agree with Jade, and sit back down yourself. Rose and Dave soon give in and follow suit.

Aradia is the first to awake. You’re all kind of glad, actually, because she just looks down at her hands, runs one through her thick brown hair, and then smiles. Her eyes are surprisingly expressive, a deep brown with just the barest hint of dried blood red.

“I’m okay with this,” she says, and the first thing you notice is that her voice is very soft and pleasant, even more so than as a troll. “At least I’m alive.”

When Karkat starts to stir, though, you all hold your collective breaths. He shoots straight up, snarls in displeasure, and then runs a hand through his hair shakily.

And then he freezes, and his eyes snap open. He should have felt a horn right there, you realize. He stares at all of you, his eyes wide.

And then he realizes what the unfamiliar girl is wearing. “What the…” he starts, so quietly, but you’ve been around him face-to-face enough to know whispers are actually the precursor to a serious freakout.

Sure enough, he grips his hair where the horn should be in one hand, and brings his other up to really look at it. Then he starts shrieking.

“What the fuck!? Are you kidding me? After all of this complete and utter nooksucking musclebeastshit we’ve done it’s really going to, to…” you’ve also been around him enough to know that he actually falters quite a bit more than he does online, at least when he’s really worked up.

But you’ve never seen him hyperventilate, which he’s just started doing. “Shit,” Dave interjects eloquently.

“Fuck you!” Karkat screams at him, and starts breathing twice as hard, only now his breath is even more labored with sharply-inhaled sobs. You quickly scoot closer and grab his shoulders.

“Karkat, it’s not that bad, please calm down, because you’re going to-” Karkat hits you, actually slugs you, and you end up reeling to the side.

You hear somebody start to get up, before Rose says somewhere in the back of you, “Let them do this.”

“You don’t understand! You’ve been a worthless human all your life! Being a stupid troll is all I ever had, and now I…” he falters again, and he’s got his face all twisted up in the kind of hopeless rage that absolutely pains you to see, because it’s still so Karkat. To boot, there’s now a certain human sympathy to it that, against all your attempts at cultural sensitively, you were never able to fully pick up on before.

You suddenly feel a certain sense of self-loathing at subconsciously denying Karkat’s real role as one of your best friends just for being an alien. Before even you realize what you’re doing yourself, you lean back in, too fast for him to retaliate, and pull him to your chest in a crushing hug.

“Don’t touch me,” he tries to yell, but it just comes out as a particularly loud whine. You press your face into his shoulder and shake your head against it.

His breath slowly starts to even out, even as he continues cursing at you. You’re aware of talking behind you, and in lieu of listening to Karkat hiss what a dirty creature you, and by extension he, is, you try to listen to the others.

Karkat’s screaming has woken up Terezi and Kanaya. Terezi is similarly panicking over the loss of her synesthesia, (“I can’t taste anything,” is the first thing she says upon waking up,) though in a much more low-key and ironic way that Dave is helping her through.