It was dark out at last and Karkat Vantas sat silently, watching the rain hit the glass and the far off flashes of lightning from the window of his hive constantly growing closer. No… house. They called it a house here. He had to start remembering that, but it was so difficult. Well…. It didn't really matter anymore now did it? He had been looking forward to this storm for a long while, it was rather fitting that of all nights it would come on this one. And Karkat was having a hard time wondering whether it was to be a good night or a horrible one. It was as if the very planet he now stood upon rejected this one night for the pain it must indeed inflict upon the short troll. Karkat smiled slightly into the reflective pane of glass and turned away reflecting that perhaps it didn't have to be good. The little red light that blinked from the machine on the hallway table told him that he had messages and he absent mindedly clicked the button before he walked on going to the little cabinet in his living room he never touched. The machine beeped and the first message started playing.
"HeY bRo, HoW yOu DoIn'? YoU oKaY? C'mOn MaN pIcK uP tHe SpEaKiNg DeViCe."
Beep.
Karkat took out his old sweater with the grey cancer symbol on it and breathed in the warm dry scent of it. And that slight lingering scent of someone else. He blinked dry-eyed and stared at it findly as he felt the numbness take over like it always did.
"kk? kk its thollux come on I havent heard from you in a week now. I know that today ithn't the betht day but I am alwayth here to talk. Kk pick up PLEATHE."
Beep.
Karkat stripped off his current shirt and pulled the sweater on memories swarming him as he felt its material take warmth from his pale grey skin. He didn't even register his best friends message, it was all background noise that registered dimly and then disappeared once again into oblivion.
"Karkat? )(ow are you doing? S)(ell I come over to your )(ive today? I know you said to leave you alone but you're my frond! )(ey answer me, please?"
Beep.
The messages went on but he only half heard them or simply ignored them as he went about the room closing the curtains, and lighting a couple candles to see by. The candles would burn out on their own eventually. And the storm could shut out the power anytime. Finally he turned his red eyes to a table with fresh flowers blooming in a vase. He approached it and gently picked up the picture frame that was placed next to the flowers, a plain frame that enclosed a fragile substance. With gentle fingers he caressed the smiling face of the teal-blood within the glass and like he always found, his heart was aching through the numbness that had overtaken him.
Off in the background the voice mail had ended and was quiet. Only Karkat stood there, alone in the room with just the quiet and the steadily increasing volume of rain hitting the glass. Some voice in the back of his head worried a little about what they were going to think about him, what was going to happen to them all but it was quieted by another more calming, and soothing voice, comfortingly telling that voice that it didn't matter anymore, that it was going to be okay.
"Hey…. Terezi." He began softly his normally loud, shouting like voice a ghost of what it should have been. He looked down at the beautiful face grinning up at him from the picture frame. "It's been a while… how are you? Are you happy?" He asked the picture and it was almost like she was there with him smiling and giggling in that cute way she always did that made him fall that much harder. He chuckled softly alongside her imagined ghost as if it was his folly. "I guess you must be. It's been 3 of those human years… a lot has happened you know." He told her and the Terezi in the picture seemed to smile wider and encourage him to go on, to tell her all that had occurred to fill in the blanks that she could hardly have known on her own.
Karkat swallowed and carried on his voice wavering slightly. "The humans have been helping us adjust…. But it's not the same." He had to compose himself a little and he rubbed at his eyes as he tried to say what he wanted to, and not blubber like he was doing so. This was not the same as all those other times. He wanted to talk to her, seriously, and explain things. "It's just not the same since you died." The lump in his throat wouldn't leave him no matter what so he gave up preventing it from existing there in a crude obstacle, though it made speaking difficult.
The image in the picture seemed to morph in his eyes as if she were worried about him and wanted to ease him somehow. But Karkat knew better than that. "I've been telling myself I'd get over you someday, that the pain would go away? But it hasn't." Diluted pink tears started to run down his cheeks. At one point he would have panicked that he'd be found out but not anymore. Funny. She'd been the first one to find out he had candy red blood and even then she'd loved him just the same. He put the picture back onto the table and half turned away.
"I miss you." He choked out.
He remembered her laughing as they ran together on prospit sure that they'd beat this game and that everyone would be reunited together. They had cared so little then.
"I miss you!" He said a little louder as the tears drew sobs from his chest.
Now he remembered her body bleeding uncontrollably and no matter how much he pressed he couldn't stop the thick teal liquid from pouring out as Jack cackled menacingly glorying in the matching blood that covered his sword. The same sword that was causing his love's life to leave her eyes; as she touched his face and smiled at him from the ground.
'Don't cry Karkles…. Love you.'
"I MISS YOU!" He shouted at the top of his lungs to an empty house, a house with no one to hear his misery and pain. He hugged his sweater close to him embracing the scent that belonged to her, the one that still lingered, even if her blood had been washed from it. "Every day here… in this new place, it hurts because you aren't here and I am." He managed to get some calm back into his voice even though the tears weren't stopping. He'd be calm, for her, for Terezi he'd do this proper. He pulled a chair from the corner of the room and set it below the coil of rope that swung lightly from the rafters above. He'd spent a week staring at it, knowing it for what it was and waiting for the day he and the rope would say goodbye to each other. He looked over at the picture and could imagine Terezi shouting at him telling him that he was making a mistake; that he had so much to live for and that he needed to move on. Without her.
But life was nothing without her. There was nothing to move on TO. "Don't worry okay?" He told the picture as he stepped onto the chair and slowly fit the noose around his head, his smile shaky. "Things will be fine. I'm going to be with you soon." He told her with confidence that he could finally feel through the numb, sniffing some of the tears away. "Wait for me Terezi. Wait for me a little while longer." He smiled and thought about that smiling face from before she died. "I love you." Karkat kicked the back of the chair away from him and fell.
The doorbell rang silently and resounded through the lifeless house and Sollux Captor frowned. Was karkat not home? He had went to the others about his missing friend and when they had all said Karkat had not answered any of their calls that day he had made the decision to go over to his best friend's house. He tried the door and when it turned but didn't quite unlock he threw his bony body at it and the door burst open. "Kk?" He called as he walked in, turning into the living room already dreading and yet knowing. He'd taken down the Cancer's body with a heavy heart and with the anguish of knowing there was nothing he could have done. He'd known. He'd known that Karkat would not last long. How could he? He'd loved her with everything he'd had and here they had all thought he'd get better with time. But three years was enough time, plenty and he had only gotten more and more withdrawn. Now he would be with her, properly and happily. They had ALL missed Terezi when she died but Karkat had just never recovered. The wound to his heart too much. Sollux cradled his best friend's body to his chest and slowly took him from the dark house into the pale morning light of a sun they could all withstand at last. He let it wash the pale grey of Karkat's face and could only think of how peaceful and relaxed the cancer looked. At least… somewhere…. Karkat and Terezi would be together at last.