Chapter Text
It was eleven o’clock the following morning. And Karkat was staring at a hole in the ground.
At the Mayor’s private memorial, he wasn’t the only one. The crowd of black-clad mourners had formed a tight circle around said hole, and Karkat shared a glance with many familiar faces across the casket that was being lowered into the ground. Kanaya and Rose stood arm in arm—next to Jade, who was next to Feferi—who Karkat had successfully convinced to attend.
He’d caught Feferi’s eye at some point—to which she had given him a shy smile from afar. Karkat had returned it warmly.
The only one who Karkat couldn’t see though, was John. However, Karkat could feel him breathing down his neck. Tacitly, the two of them agreed that it’d be best to stand together during the service so that the people who knew about their moirallegiance would not be inclined to ask questions. It would hopefully make up for the fact that they came in separate cars, even if they didn’t say a word to one another.
Which, they didn’t.
Terezi had clearly noticed their behavior too. Perhaps she still believed that he and John were in the middle of an argument so intense that they couldn’t even come to a funeral together. Or maybe she had figured them out after all—and had just chosen to say nothing.
The whole ceremony, in general, was rife with human tradition that Karkat didn’t understand. It was nothing like the corpse party he expected to attend. However—even though he didn’t quite understand whose idea it was to toss flowers onto the casket while it was in the ground or to hire a stranger in a white collar to say prayers for him—it still felt good to be there. He spoke about all this to Jade. After the formal part of the memorial was over, the attending party was allowed time to talk freely with one another while standing on the wet, dewy grass of the sunlit cemetery.
“So—how are you holding up, anyways,” Karkat asked. In the bright cold, his breath became a fog surrounding his mouth as he spoke. Jade had been in close contact with PM and the family in these past few days. She’d been the one to help make plans for the entire service. He couldn’t imagine how tired she was.
He could tell just how much she wanted to hide her exhaustion with a smile. Today, she just couldn’t muster up much of one. She shrugged her shoulders slightly. “Not bad,” she replied simply. “Better than Wednesday, at least. PM—she’s a lot more affected than she’d expected to be, I think. To be honest, I think the doctors telling her about the likelihood of his passing beforehand, didn’t totally prepare her for, y’know, the real thing,” she admitted. “I thought I’d be more prepared too. It’s just—a lot for me to take in, I guess,” she grumbled.
“A lot to take in, in what, three, four days?” Karkat said.
“Yeah.” She breathed out heavily. “Since the game ended—I guess I’ve become a bit out of practice, with the whole ordeal.” She laughed darkly.
“With—watching people die, you mean?” Karkat asked. His eyebrows cinched just a little bit.
She only sighed. He could tell her eyes were heavily lidded, even though the sun cast a yellowish reflection onto her glasses, preventing him from seeing much in the way of her eyes anyway. Her bottom lip was drawn into a tight frown, and she absently looked someplace past him across the grass.
Before he could think too much about holding back, he pulled Jade into a hug. “Jade. If living on Alternia taught me anything,” he murmured firmly into her ear, “it’s that nobody ever gets used to watching people die. Not even us. Not even those in the hospital.”
Her body was ridiculously tense in his arms. After a moment of consideration, her shoulders relaxed—Karkat took that as a sign of acceptance. Karkat let her sway laxly in his embrace, as he softly petted her hair and fluffy dog ears.
“Karkat?” she said suddenly.
“Yeah?”
“Why has my brother said more words to his co-worker than you in the entire time you two have been here?”
Abruptly, he pulled out of the hug. Now that she’d moved slightly out of the reflection on the sun, it was clear that her forest green eyes were dead serious. Alarmed, Karkat replied, “What do you mean…?”
Jade rolled her eyeballs—then jerked them abruptly in the direction of Karkat’s nine-o’clock.
Karkat discreetly turned to look. Sure enough—John was a couple headstones away, deep in a conversation with Tavros from the office.
So Jade had clearly noticed their behavior, and had become suspicious. Guiltily, he turned back to her. She met him with an accusatory glare.
“What the hell is going on between you two? How come I had to pick you up from your house—meanwhile John drove himself from his old apartment? What's he doing still living there?”
Karkat effectively choked on his answer. “I—we’re in the middle of a fight right now,” he said weakly.
Jade blinked. This let Karkat know that this wasn’t a good enough answer for her. Her eyebrows drew into an angry pinch. “Over what could you two possibly be fighting over?”
Karkat was quick to get on the defensive. “What, did you think John would automatically be prancing in the daisies and roses at the thought of dropping everything to move into a new house?”
“What does he have against the house,” Jade growled.
“He doesn’t want to live in it,” Karkat replied simply. “No—scratch that. He doesn’t want to live with me,” he amended, deciding to come out with the whole truth of the matter.
“Oh, God, you two,” she said exasperatedly. “How long have you not been talking? Be honest,” she barked under her breath.
“Since Wednesday, since the day he died,” Karkat said.
“Okay—” she exhaled, relaxing a bit. “I thought it would be for longer,” she answered. She turned her full attention to him again. “He doesn’t want to live with you? That’s ridiculous. He talks about how much he loves you all the goddamn time,” she insisted.
Karkat wanted to believe that was true. Instead: he laughed darkly. “He does? Not now, he doesn’t,” he retorted.
“Well—nowadays I wouldn’t know,” Jade replied, deadpan. “He keeps forgetting to call me.” She put air quotes around the word “forgetting.”
Before Karkat could say anything in response, Jade leaned in very close to him. He could almost feel her foggy breath on his face as she spoke to him in an intensely aggressive tone.
“I don’t care what kind of petty argument you two are having right now,” she said to him bitingly. “You two are moirails. You’re gonna live together, so you’re going to have to just figure it out.”
“It’s not that simple,” Karkat asserted. “I already told you—he doesn’t want to live with me. And if he doesn’t want to be my moirail, then I can’t force him.”
“It is that simple. You can’t force him—but you have to talk to him,” Jade said. In an even lower voice, she said, “You have to. I’ve already tried telling him that he can’t pay rent on his apartment forever.”
Karkat processed that—the fact that Jade also, was worried for John’s finances. He looked over to the opposite side of the cemetery to find John. His heart sank—John had just finished waving goodbye to Tavros and was heading towards his car, which was parked on the street.
Jade glared at him with an even sharper intensity. His heart sank, because he knew that her mind was already made up with what she wanted him to do. “I know, I know,” he said, deferring her. “I have to return my key to him later today—I’m going to talk to him then.”
“Return your key? He asked you to return your key!?” When Karkat nodded hesitantly, she clapped her hand to her mouth and knit her brow so tightly he was surprised it didn’t curl up on itself. “Goddammit John, what the hell are you doing…”
Karkat was hit in the face by a wave of her distress. Desperate to console her— “I’ll talk to him,” he immediately pacified.
“You have to talk to him,” she said. Her voice was strained. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He won’t ever talk to me. You have to figure out why he’s being so fucking distant.”
“Okay,” he answered mutely. He instantly felt the weighty responsibility crush his shoulders. He looked in the direction of John’s car—but only found an empty parking spot by the sidewalk.
A fresh voice tore him away from his thoughts. “Hi, everyone.” Both turned around, to find PM smiling behind them. Karkat and Jade each took turns each giving her a gentle hug.
“Are you two doing okay?” PM asked with a softer expression.
Jade and Karkat both nodded respectfully. Karkat decided to speak up. “What you managed to put together for him in just three days is amazing,” he said.
PM gave a modest smile. “Well, I can’t take all the credit for myself, now can I,” she replied, lending a look of attribution to Jade. Jade, in turn, smiled shyly. Then, PM’s voice quickly fell flat. “However, I can’t say that I had only three days to be making plans, either.”
Jade was quick to share her countenance of solemnity. She and PM shared a brief embrace. Karkat remembered how the two of them must have watched the Mayor’s health deteriorate over the course of many months. Karkat had reunited with his old friend just before the end. He had to admit that he couldn’t be totally cognizant of how Jade felt. Let alone PM—who stuck with him from the beginning till the very end.
After peeling away from Jade, PM alternated her glance between the two of them. She said, “I hate to ask for either of you to be here longer than you must—but would you two be able to stay and help me clean up the chairs?”
Before Karkat could even open his mouth, Jade cut him off. “—I can stay,” she replied quickly. “Karkat has to get home though. He still has to help my brother move in. Isn’t that what you said?”
Jade turned to him expectantly for an answer. Her face was immobile and subtle—but when it left PM’s line of sight, her green eyes glared with a scary intensity.
Karkat couldn’t scowl. But he hoped that his pursed lips aimed at Jade clearly spelled his discontent. “I still have some things of mine to organize,” he admitted reluctantly to PM.
“Oh, I understand. I can’t wait till you both have gotten yourselves situated,” PM chuckled warmly. “Don’t worry Karkat. I’ll find somebody else to borrow,” she said. “Good luck to you—I hope the move in isn’t too stressful.”
She and Jade headed off towards the main body of people, leaving Karkat alone on the periphery. He took one last look around the cemetery. The crowd had thinned out to about a third of its original volume, and was dispersed widely in the fresh green field. There was nothing left for Karkat to do but call a cab and head home by himself.
Six hours had passed. Karkat had left the memorial at eleven forty-five, and it was now six-thirty. Yet, he was still at his house, sitting on the sofa in the living room.
Every time he thought of hailing a taxi over to John’s—it made him jittery and dry-mouthed. Whenever he tried to rehearse the conversation they might have, it would go awry in his head. He pictured the two of them verbally pummeling each other in a screaming match that would end all worlds.
So every time those thoughts arose—he routinely squashed the possibility against the back of his skull.
He’d spent those six hours switching off between reading, pacing, and watching TV. As the clock ticked to six-forty five—it was roundabout time for Karkat to transition from biting his nails while pacing to biting his nails while watching TV.
He flipped through the channels nervously—starting from the one he’d left off on—a channel showing a rerun marathon of the show Friends. He clicked through them one by one—slightly considering skipping to the biting-his-nails-while-reading a-book phase—
Until he stumbled upon the Game Show Network.
He’d been abruptly skipping over that dreadful channel anytime he turned the TV on. It reminded him too much of his pathetic blunder the first day he moved in. By avoiding it, he’d successfully managed to convince himself that life without John might not be so bad after all.
He paused the television to an unbecoming capture of Steve Harvey’s face. His jaw quivered. He felt the emotional tidal wave that usually brought on dry crying—only this time, he had tears to spare.
He shut off the TV—making sure to change the channel so he wouldn’t have to look at it when he got back. John’s key was still in the bowl, detached from his own. He brought both sets of keys with him as he grabbed his coat off the hook, and shut off all the lights. He texted John that he was coming, set the alarm and bounded out the door—all before he could convince himself otherwise.
Karkat started to feel his hands grow sweaty again on the elevator ride to Floor 4. When he reached John’s door, his hands were significantly clammy, and he had to force himself to break the habit he’d been forming over the last six hours—by not standing outside John’s doorstep, pacing.
He knocked patiently on the door, only to receive no answer. He would have liked to believe John wasn’t answering because he wasn’t home—but Karkat knew all well that his light blue car was in the lot when the cab dropped him off.
Why John wasn’t answering him, he didn’t know. He checked his phone—the text message he sent telling him he was coming over didn’t even have a “read” symbol next to it. That’s when Karkat really started to worry. Sure—it was possible that when he keyed himself in, John would only be sitting on the couch, watching television while his phone was in the bedroom. There was only one way to find out for certain.
Karkat knocked one more time. Not a sound. He dug his key out of his back jeans pocket and spun it in the door lock.
When Karkat creaked through the open door—the couch was empty, and the television was not on. However—someone was clearly sitting at a barstool at the kitchen island. With his back facing the front door, using his arms as a pillow, his rapidly shaking right leg was oscillating as fast as a fully revved boat motor. And that person was very clearly John.
“John?” Calling out his name, Karkat entered the apartment and rounded to his side. He leapt onto one of the free barstools—balancing precariously on his knees, and steadying himself with a free elbow.
John paid absolutely no attention to the invader in his house.
The entire kitchen, although especially the island countertop, was an overwhelming tornado zone. Karkat’s eyes darted from detail to detail of the scene. An array of opened and unopened envelopes that littered John’s counter like a tablecloth. Bowls left unwashed in the sink. John laying his elbows and head down on the counter, hiding his face—his now evidently unwashed hair looking like an egg sitting in a nest of white paper. His checkbook lying open on on the counter.
Once Karkat’s hearing arose over the alarm bells going off in his brain—he picked up on the most gut-wrenching, unsettling detail of all. John’s rapid, erratic breathing could be heard in distinct discord against the backdrop of the rhythmic humming of the rest of the building.
Karkat could feel the red flags, boiling his blood and racing up towards his head, inflaming it with a distinct warmth. “Oh my God,” he said, immediately tumbling off the barstool, and heading off towards the bedroom. “Oh my fucking God—”
John’s dark bedroom looked as usual, with a tad more mess than he was used to keeping it. But Karkat didn’t notice much of that, because he went straight for the drawers of John’s nightstand. He was damn near about to rip the wooden box off its hinges, had he not found John’s inhaler after a few seconds of frantic rooting.
In a heartbeat, he was back in the kitchen, seated on the countertop this time. In his haphazard climb, he’d knocked some letter or billing statement onto the floor—which quickly prompted John to raise his head, now alert and aware.
Karkat took it as his opportunity. Shaking the inhaler madly in his fist, he put a hand on John’s shoulder and tried to coax it to his mouth. “C’mon, John—I don’t know how the hell long this has been going on for, but we can still put a stop to it now, if you just take this,” he said.
John was still hyperventilating, but he would have none of it. He instantly snapped to his own defense, trying futilly to swat Karkat’s hands away. Karkat got hold of either John’s arm or his wrist. One must have lost his balance on the stool—but both ended up on the floor.
“Karkat, get offa me!”
It was a unusually strong bellow, especially coming from someone who was supposed to be out of breath, but oddly enough—wasn’t. Either way, it made Karkat afraid. Knocked to his ass—he backed away, scuttled backwards as far away from the now snarling John as he could get.
A blunt bump assaulted the back of Karkat’s head and neck, and a loud crash blared like a stereo behind each of his ears. Suddenly, pins and needles pricked the back of his head. He whirled around, and saw that John’s oven door was suddenly in need of a new window, and that the tile floor was glinting with glass shards.
He whipped his head back to John, who was peering at him from under the counter. John’s face froze with a look of absolute horror. His hyperventilating pitched again—only this time accelerating until it peaked and descended into a series of sobs.
It didn’t take very long for Karkat to piece together what was the matter with John. He had lost John’s inhaler in the fall—but soon realized that it didn’t matter. Right now, he needed to help John get ahold of himself.
Karkat slowly stood up—collecting some stray shards and tossing them into the oven with the rest. He made his way carefully toward John, who was still crouched beneath the countertop, sobbing. “John, whatever it is, we can just sit on the couch and talk it out, okay?” he said loudly, trying to compete for volume with John’s wailing. “You have to calm down though, take a few deep breaths—”
John didn’t budge. It was like he didn’t even hear Karkat at all. “I’m going to die,” he gasped, his head descending to his hands. “What have I fucking done…”
“—You’re having a panic attack, you’re not going to die.” Karkat had to shout over his crying. John was inconsolable. The non-idiotic part of Karkat’s brain knew, that if he didn’t get John to stop hyperventilating, it wouldn’t be long before he passed out onto a floor full of glass. But of course, telling this to John would only hasten the process. “John,” Karkat begged, “just take a couple deep breaths for me, please.”
Maybe it was Karkat’s pleading tone, but slowly but surely, John began forcing his breaths to even out. When the entire house was quieter, Karkat knew for sure there was no wheezing or hissing coming from John’s lungs—proof that there was no asthma attack. Not that an overwhelming panic was much better—but at least it might spare them a trip to the hospital.
After John had nearly managed to get himself under control, Karkat dared to speak to him. “I really need you to tell me what’s wrong so I can help you,” he said, as calmly as he could muster. He held onto the stringlike hope that if he could keep himself calm, he’d be able to fix this. “Please. Talk to me. What’s going on here, why is your damn kitchen a mess?”
Karkat had already got ahold of one of the official-looking envelopes that had fallen to the floor. When John looked up—he saw it in Karkat’s hands, and his lips quivered. He drew in a sharp breath to speak. “I’m totally fucked,” he answered meekly.
“How are you fucked?” Karkat’s voice was softer now, as John’s sobbing had subsided and the room fell very quiet. “Whatever is going on, I can help you through it, but—”
“You can’t help me,” he said, in a voice that was heavily strained. “Those are bills, Karkat. Ones that my budget won’t let me pay. Vriska, goddamn her, was supposed to fork over some money she owes me—but she says she won’t come through,” he said. “I fucked myself over because I put myself in debt. The owner of this building is gonna be here any day now to kick me the hell out—”
An agonizing groan came from John’s curled up figure. Karkat tried to speak over it. “Look, if you need someplace to stay until you can pay off what you owe and find a cheaper place to live, I have an extra bedroom.”
Karkat knew it would set him off. “I can’t,” John said right away. “You know I can’t…”
“Oh my God. I can’t fucking believe you,” Karkat retorted. He knew he was starting to lose his cool, but he couldn’t help himself. This prodded John into looking up at Karkat with angry, tearstained eyes. “You can say I’m not your moirail anymore all you fucking want, but you can’t expect me to magically stop caring about what happens to you, okay?”
John’s eyes narrowed in grim agitation. “Well, have you ever thought that maybe, I can take care of my own damn self?” John shot back.
“I never said that you couldn’t take care of yourself,” Karkat hashed. “I’m not even asking you to be my roommate, I’m just trying to help you. And you shoot me down right away, only because you have some problem with living with me,” he argued. “Pff. Unbelievable.”
“Just because I don’t think we should live together, doesn’t mean I have a problem with you,” John said. “Have you ever thought that maybe, I’m just trying not to emotionally manipulate people?”
Karkat couldn’t help but let out an audible snort, which quickly dissolved into a cackling, dark laughter.
John looked about absolutely furious. “What? What the hell? Why are you laughing?”
Karkat snickered with contempt. “Do you really wanna talk about emotional manipulation?” Karkat asked, deadpan. He wasn’t really waiting on an answer. It was a rhetorical question, after all. “Look at Vriska. All she ever does is trick people into giving her money, or sex,” he said. “And you really wanna equate yourself to that? And then imply, that I, your poor moirail, was dumb enough to fall for your savage tricks? Really, John,” Karkat glared at him. “I mean if that’s the way you saw us, it’s pretty fucking insulting.”
Karkat watched John’s spiteful composure crack, just a little. “I’m not equating myself to Vriska,” he replied miserably. “I just think, like—” He shook his head. He started over. “Do you ever even think that—maybe you only stayed, because you were afraid to be all by yourself?”
Karkat stared into the glimmering glass bits surrounding him. “I mean, obviously, since you brought it up, I’ve thought about it,” he said, sighing exasperatedly. “But come on, John. Everybody’s afraid to be alone, at least a little bit. And anyone who says they aren’t—has to be fucking lying to themselves.”
John’s countenance cracked a tiny bit more. “But you shouldn’t stay just because you don’t want to be alone,” he said plaintively.
“Of course—nobody should do that. It’s stupid,” Karkat said categorically. He slumped his back against the oven. “But still. If you think about it the other way, then would anybody go through the trouble being with anyone if their life was just as good without them? Like—” he sighed tremendously. “Like, you already know I’m happier with you than without you. And I thought that because of that, what we had was good. But clearly you didn’t see it the same way, if you fucking think I only wanted you there because because I was homeless and roommate-less,” he complained. “To be honest, it really bothers me that you think that—because I really want to believe that you actually cared about being moirails, in the time that I was here. I want to believe that it mattered enough to you that I’m not the only one that gets hurt when it’s over.”
John was biting his lip now—creating yet another series of microscopic fractures in his brave face. “I did appreciate our relationship,” he said immediately. “When you lived with me, I felt like there was something more than going to work every day, having a few mundane conversations with people I barely knew, and coming home to an empty house, or a person who could barely stand me,” he snapped. “So don’t think that you’re the only one hurting right now, because you’re not. I was happy when things were like before, too.”
Karkat blinked sadly at him. He asked softly, “Then why did you kick me out if you were happy?”
It took a while, but John shook his head, staring at the underside of the counter. “It’s more complicated than that,” he said.
“It’s not that complicated,” Karkat blurted. “How is it more complicated—”
“—I loved you and I didn’t want to trap you,” he said all at once. “Okay? Is it so bad, that I thought you deserved a chance to find matespritship, and get the most out of life?”
“I was not trapped, and I was getting the most out of life,” Karkat said. He rested his chin on his knee. “And it’s not like I haven’t had matesprits before—do I really want to live with someone like Terezi again, where all we ever did was go in circles, tearing each other to pieces? Or God forbid—someone like Vriska or Eridan? No, of course I don’t want to live like that. Only an insane person would.” Karkat made a fake retching noise. “The very image of spending my life with either of them makes me want to vomit.”
John rolled his eyes at Karkat’s antics. John stared at him, head cocked to the side intently. “Is it so bad that I just want you to be happy. Actually happy, not living in some fantasy with me?”
Karkat threw his head back, accidentally hitting his skull against the oven yet again. It sent more sharp pains through him, and it hurt like a bitch—but he was so frustrated that he didn’t care. “I really just can’t get through to you, can I?” he said. “I was happy. And so were you. I think this is less about me, and more about you,” he insisted. He knew he was letting himself get out of control—he knew arguing with John again was the last thing he wanted, but he just couldn’t help it. His voice got away from him.
“I feel like I have to pretend around you, play into your fucking fantasy, make believe like everything’s fine,” Karkat spat. “One where you sit in your little pity party, and I wait to die in a house that I know I’m not supposed to own by myself. Both of us fully knowing, that we could have been happy, if only you’d just decide to live in the real world. If it weren’t for that, you and I wouldn’t fucking be here right now. No, we’d be home, letting ourselves be happy. I’m ready to go home,” Karkat said brashly. “But no. We can’t. Because you’re stubborn, and you’re not gonna let yourself be happy.” Karkat took a moment to catch his breath. He straightened his neck back up to look John in the eye. He demanded, “Why won’t you just let yourself be happy?”
John looked just about absolutely terrified. His mouth was hanging open, and he looked just about ready to throw up. Part of Karkat wondered if he had gone too far this time. “Karkat…” was the faint gasp that escaped his mouth.
But—a larger part of Karkat wanted an answer out of him. “No, answer me. Why won’t you let yourself be happy?”
“Karkat, stop, your head, you’re bleeding,” John said right away.
That sure as hell stopped Karkat in his tracks. His rueful countenance dropped, and he tentatively probed the nape of his neck. Sure enough, his fingers were rubbed slick with blood, and now that the adrenaline was starting to crash on him, he was beginning to notice the throbbing pain plaguing his skull.
Karkat turned so John could get a clear view of the back of his head. “How bad is it?” he asked hesitantly.
“Not good,” John replied with fresh worry. “Jesus Christ, you’ve got glass shards stuck inside your skin…”
Karkat’s heart dropped. He was staring right through the oven’s empty window, his assassin. He must have driven the glass in when he first broke it and then again when slammed his head out of frustration.
“Well, let’s see if we can pick it out,” Karkat said, rising to his feet. As soon as he did, nausea hit him like a tidal wave, and he felt his knees threaten to buckle like a baby foal’s. He leaned on the countertop for support, as black dots danced upon the outskirts of his vision.
John was upright and beside him in an instant. “Are you okay? Go and sit back down if you think you’re gonna pass out,” he said.
Karkat shook his head. “I’m not going to,” he said, and the black dots were quick to escape to where they came. “I just gotta make it to the bathroom. See how bad it is myself.” He pushed himself off from the counter, toddling the couple paces it took to get to the bathroom, with John by his side to make sure he didn’t collapse.
Looking in the mirror, Karkat could tell that second head bang must have really did a number on him. He couldn’t stop staring at himself in the mirror—the back of his head was matted with dried, red blood. Fresh blood was still oozing down his neck. He knew the glass was in there somewhere, but it must have been so deep in his skin, it was hidden in the forest of his black hair. After a couple minutes of standing, the woozy feeling unfortunately returned, and he had to lower himself back onto the toilet.
John was looking at him disconcertingly from the bathroom doorway. “I think we should take you to the ER,” he said, biting his lip again.
Blindly, Karkat probed the back of his head with his clumsy fingers. He tried to pull out the glass pieces, but they must have been lodged in there really good, because he couldn't seem to even loosen his skin’s grip on them. “Lemme just see if I can pull them out myself first.”
“I don't think that's a great idea,” he said apprehensively. “Karkat, c’mon, you can’t even see—get your stuff and I can drive you to the hospital.”
Karkat knew that realistically, he was stupid to believe he could perform first aid on his own head. So reluctantly, he nodded. He grabbed a towel for the fresh blood seeping through his hair, and followed John out of the bathroom with it wrapped around his shoulders.
Karkat huffed a sigh of exasperation as he was now confined to one of the tiny, teal-curtained cubicles of his own emergency department. The cot-like mattress was lined with a pristine white linen, to match the rest of the whiteness of the room. Karkat sat criss crossed at the head of the bed, playing with a loose string on the fringe of his hospital gown—his clothes lay in a limp pile on the chair. John sat at the foot of the bed, his long legs dangling over the side, his attention on his phone.
After about thirty minutes of waiting, the teal curtain sprang open, revealing Rose Lalonde, who was peering curiously at the scene inside.
“Hi, Rose,” John greeted awkwardly. Karkat said nothing.
“Hi John.” Although Rose sported a peculiar smile, the first thing she did was stride over to assess the back of Karkat’s head. Poking around in his hair with gloved hands, she asked him, “I’m very eager to know how you got so much glass stuck in your scalp, Mr. Vantas.”
“My head had an unfortunate collision with John’s—oven window,” Karkat admitted gruffly.
“Unfortunate collision indeed—you’ve got yourself some pretty nasty puncture wounds.” Karkat watched out of the corner of his eye as Rose picked up a tweezer-like utensil off of the metal surgical tray set up beside her. “A head in the oven, if I understand correctly?” She chuckled and asked with a smirk, “Trying to imitate Ms. Sylvia Plath, are we?”
John and Karkat each exchanged blank looks. Karkat couldn’t see her face since she was standing directly behind him, but he could only imagine the annoyance written on it when nobody understood her joke.
John cleared his throat, which broke the cricket-noise silence. “You can get the shards out though, right? Is he gonna need stitches?”
Rose cocked her head as she further examined Karkat’s scalp. “I should be able to get all the glass out. Stitches will be necessary, but probably only a few,” she answered him. She directed her next question at Karkat. “Are you still feeling dizzy, or nauseous?”
Karkat was about to shake his head no—but thought better of it. “Not really much anymore,” he answered.
“I’ll have someone start you on some IV fluids, just to be safe,” she said. She quickly murmured the order into her pager.
“Alright,” Karkat muttered. He wasn’t too fond of the idea of the IV—not because it was painful, but because he knew it meant he’d have to stay in the ER longer. Which meant that he’d have to sit in a tiny cubicle with John close in tow, in awkward silence, for longer than he wanted to.
Rose was quick to begin work on his scalp. Swiftly, she went from nape to widow’s peak with her tweezer-like metal tool. One by one, blood-tinted glass chunks dropped into a metal bowl on her tray like raw rubies. Every once in a while she’d get out the needle and thread and tie a couple knots into the especially sensitive spots on his skull.
Karkat was sitting horizontal on the bed, with Rose hovering above him. John sat on the foot end of the bed, facing the two of them. He didn't speak a word, and neither did Karkat or Rose throughout the entire process. They sat there, in the cricket-sound silence, until Karkat’s scalp was glass free.
Karkat heard the clink of the last raw ruby chip in the bowl. “Well, it looks like you’re all done,” Rose said, giving his black hair a final once over. Karkat and John shortly awoke from their silent stupor. Rose said to them, “A nurse should be in to sign your discharge papers after your IV drip is finished, Karkat.”
“Thank you so much, Rose,” John spoke up.
Rose smiled modestly. “Don’t mention it. Thank you for bringing him in,” Rose said to him. “God knows if you hadn’t, Karkat would still be trying to pick them out himself, right?”
The quiet murmur of collective laughter filled the room at that last. “I strongly advise that you call someone to cover your shift tomorrow, Karkat. Stay home, and rest well. I hope to see you both soon—hopefully next time, in more casual circumstances,” she said.
They bade her goodnight, and she left the room, pulling the teal curtains closed behind her. The silence after her heeled footsteps faded away quickly ate up all the oxygen in the little cubicle. It was so suffocating, that Karkat felt in his throat the need to say something, but somehow couldn’t find the breath to do so. So for a good while, he just sat on one end of the bed, scratching the skin around his IV. Watching out of the corner of his eye as John sat on the other end of the bed—routinely clasping and unclasping his fingers.
With the silence so thick and the air so thin, it took a meager cough to make a dent in the awkwardness. The first one came from John.
He cleared his throat tentatively. “If the only thing left to do is get your needle taken out, you might as well change back into your regular clothes, right?”
Karkat nodded in assent. John got up off the cot to fetch the pile of sweater and jeans from the chair and gently toss it to him. John left the room to give him his privacy. When Karkat was decent again, he called him back—John resumed his spot on the edge of the cot, and the silence returned for a bit, although much thinner than it was before.
Karkat spoke up again. “I don't know about you, but I'm just about ready to bust a nut if I'm not back in my own bed within the hour," he said grumpily.
This elicited a small snort from John, which helped to loosen the tension seemingly wrapped around Karkat’s neck. John replied, “Me too. And you can bet I'll be enjoying sleeping in my own bed while it lasts.”
As soon as it had begun to fade, the awkwardness got about a thousand times thicker again in just one second—as if someone blasted a high power fog machine to the cubicle with the curtains closed. The situation before the whole bleeding fiasco happened trickled back to Karkat's mind. By the look on John’s face, Karkat could tell it was coming back to him too.
Karkat asked hesitantly, "Do you know how long it takes for them to figure out you haven't paid?"
John shrugged with indifference. “Not long,” he answered. Karkat looked over at him from the very corner of his eye, and he was twiddling his thumbs uneasily.
Before the oxygen was sucked out of the room again, leaving him speechless—he said hesitantly, “I know you think I’m gonna judge you if you come and stay at my place. But I’m not.”
John snapped his head towards where Karkat was sitting. He then eased his countenance back into his lap. “That’s not—I wasn’t thinking that.”
Karkat waited for him to say something else, but John’s attention was back at his thumbs. Karkat’s armpits began to tingle, and he almost knew that John could feel him staring. He turned his face away. “Alright,” he said, his fists holding onto the edge of his gown again. “I just don’t want you to think that, when we were together, that I didn’t already have everything that I could’ve wanted.”
John slowly turned his head towards him. His eyes held more fatigue than Karkat was comfortable with. “Karkat. I already know you were happy. You already told me that,” he said tiredly.
“Well, I mean—I was happy, yeah. But I was satisfied too, and that was what I meant to say.”
Karkat held his breath as he waited for John to answer. John didn’t even look up from his lap this time. “Is there a difference,” he asked numbly.
“Well yeah, there is, actually,” Karkat babbled. His words were getting away from him, and he could feel it. But as long as the air in the room was somewhat clear—God knows he’d continue talking. “Being happy is just feeling good, but being satisfied is when you’re finally ready to say enough’s enough, y’know,” he said. “Like, I’m almost twenty-two, and the game has already worn me the hell out—”
The mention of the game was what seemed to get John’s attention. When Karkat said that, John seemed to squirm in his seat.
Karkat was startled by his attention. Before that, it almost seemed like he’d been talking to a brick wall. It tripped him up mid sentence, but he quickly picked back up and kept going. “—I’m worn out, and all I really want to do at this point is just live in the world that we worked so hard to win over. And be able to let my guard down for once,” he said. He felt like he was surely rambling.
Nervously, Karkat let his eyeballs drift towards the corners, until John came into view. It could have just been the unreliability of his peripheral vision, but he was almost sure he saw John open his mouth, and take a breath in preparation to speak. There was no way for him to actually know for sure, though—because at the exact same time, their privacy was torn away from them with the sound of someone ripping open their teal curtains.
Karkat’s neck snapped up and his eyes fixed upon a carapacian nurse standing in the doorway. She quickly hustled over to his bedside, carefully tugging the IV out of his arm. She briskly handed him a packet of bright green discharge papers, signed and stamped into officiality by the hospital.
“Thank you,” Karkat said to her in carapacian. She gave him that classic, slightly-startled, how-come-you-can-speak-my-language look, before turning it into a smile, and exiting the room. Karkat and John slowly set into motion—gathering car keys and house keys off of tables until they were ready to ditch the hospital for the night.
Neither John nor Karkat spoke at all in the car.
Karkat began to feel the familiar heat of worry as he replayed the things he said to John in the hospital on repeat in his head. He hoped that John’s lack of response could be chalked up to him concentrating on the road—John’s vision was pretty bad at night anyways, maybe he was just keeping his lips tightly zipped because he was trying to get them both home safe.
Maybe.
Karkat was so lost in a swarm of his own thoughts and anxieties, that he barely heard it when John did finally say two words to him.
Five words, actually. The car was in park on a dark sidestreet when John asked lowly, “This is your house, right?”
The outline of John’s face was faintly illuminated by the lamps on the streetside. Karkat looked out the window past him, and he was indeed back in the driveway of the new house.
He had to wait for the fog in his brain to clear before properly answering. “Uh—yeah,” he replied. This was it. He wanted to say something more, but then John was going to ask why he wasn’t unbuckling his seatbelt. He fished around in his pocket and took out his house key. However, looking down at it, even in the darkness of the car, he knew it wasn’t his.
He held it out to John. “This, I—came over to bring it back to you,” he said, giving John back his apartment key. “But then I guess we got derailed.” When John didn’t laugh, he added, “Thanks for taking me to the hospital, by the way.”
John stared down at the key, but made no comment on it. “It was problem,” he answered. “Make sure you call someone to take care of your shift tomorrow, like Rose said,” he added. “Get some rest, Karkat.”
Karkat nodded at his concern. “I will—don't worry,” he replied. “Have a good night.”
Karkat finally decided it was time to get out of John’s car. The way up the long driveway to the fluorescent-lit porch was a long one. It was a loser’s walk. The spring cicadas that were just beginning to come out of hibernation seemed to be jeering in his ears, and Karkat quickly hated them. He wondered what Jade would say to him next time they saw each other. He’d failed to get through to John.
Suddenly, an abrupt noise interrupted the rhythmic humming of the cicadas. It was unmistakably, the slamming of a car door.
Karkat slowly turned around. John stood awkwardly beside his idling car, its headlights illuminating the swirls of air dust around his figure.
John took a couple hesitant steps forward. “Thank you,” he said, just loud enough to be audible above the insects. He said with an almost-chuckle, “Not everyone is good enough to me to help me through a nervous breakdown.”
Karkat blinked. He didn’t know if John had gotten out of the car to only say that. “It was no problem,” he replied flatly. John was putting him in a bit of an awkward position there. Was he supposed to go back inside now? Stay out here talking to him?
John answered Karkat’s question in the moment after. Even in the low lamp light, Karkat could clearly see that John’s brow was cinched. He spoke out in a tone that could even be considered accusatory. “I just, I actually can’t believe you talk about how happy and satisfied you were when we were together, as if I wasn’t,” he said. “Because I was, alright? I was only stubborn because I had to be. Because I just I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I wasn’t and it meant that someone else got hurt.”
Karkat held his breath. It was such an outpour of words all at once, that Karkat, once again, wasn’t quite sure if John was done or not. John sighed, and put his head in his hands. Karkat watched mournfully. “Your happiness isn’t worth any less than anybody else’s,” he responded lowly.
“Yeah. I know that now,” John said, almost rolling his eyes at himself. “I sure wish I knew that before I went and put you through a whole load of bullshit.”
Karkat could now fully believe Terezi when she said that seeing John get angry for the first time had surprised her. Even though this wasn’t Karkat’s first exposure, he’d never realized the extent of that anger before now. He could now truly believe that John’s worst punching bag was himself.
“We’ve both put each other through a lot of shit,” Karkat responded plaintively.
“Yeah,” he said. Maybe that was the one thing the two of them could safely agree on. “Even still, I know I didn’t have to tear down everything we’d built together in my apartment. And don’t try to counter me and say that I didn’t try to tear us down, because we both know that I did,” he said firmly, before Karkat could even open his mouth.
Karkat had indeed drawn in a breath, ready to tell John that he wasn’t in the wrong. He let it go. John seemed happier, or at least a little less agitated—that Karkat was letting him talk.
“For Christ’s sake, you lost the Mayor this week. One of your closest friends from the meteor,” John asserted. “And was I there for you? No, I wasn’t. I was too wrapped up in my own shit that I stopped being a decent moirail to you.” He sighed. “I know I made mistakes. You know I made mistakes,” he said. “I just want the chance to, y’know, do things differently this time. Maybe actually be a moirail to you, instead of running away.”
Karkat couldn’t help but stare at John for a moment. He had wished that John would’ve been there to mourn the Mayor with him. He then sighed, knowing also that John had spent the last month refusing any help from anyone, let alone his own moirail. He couldn't deny that it hurt. “There are a lot of us who are willing to help you, if you decide not to run away,” Karkat said, getting rather quiet.
“You’ve talked to Jade already, I guess,” John supposed flatly.
Karkat nodded. “She just wants to be a good ecto-sister to you, y’know,” he admitted. “And I can’t say I don’t feel her—she wants to help you through whatever crap you have. Cares about you a damn lot,” he said.
“I know she does,” John said, lowering his eyes. He mumbled, “I know I hurt her. By not returning her calls, and shit.”
“Go call her,” Karkat said to him.
John looked a little astonished for a moment, as if he assumed Karkat meant for him to do it right here, in his driveway. He then sighed greatly. Karkat could tell it wasn’t something that would be easy for him, but was something that he knew had to be done. He started nodding, first slightly, and then more definitely. “Okay,” he said finally. “I can do that.”
Karkat couldn’t help but give him a welcoming smile. “Take this week to pack up your stuff, and next weekend, when we’re both off, we can—”
With a couple brisk steps in Karkat’s direction, John managed to cut him off by pulling him into a bold, wordless hug.
“—we can move you in,” Karkat finished, his breath diminished by the gangly arms squeezing his lungs. Startled a bit, Karkat hesitated a moment before relaxing and resigning himself to wrapping his arms around John’s torso too.
“Thank you,” John murmured into his shoulder. Then he chuckled mildly, saying, “This is our goddamn universe—we deserve our chance to live in it.”