When you're five sweeps old, you wonder why Karkat won't tell you what colour his blood is.
It's not like you can be blamed for wanting to know. You care about Karkat's welfare, even if he doesn't think it. What if he's not looking after himself in the way his caste requires? What if he's lowblooded and hasn't made sure the temperature of his hive isn't rapidly changing? What if he's highblooded and isn't watching his emotional levels properly? You think about Karkat being indigo, and laugh yourself into the void. You have a perfect mental image of subjuggalator Karkat, dressed in purple and baring his fangs behind menacing face paint, literally everyone else towering above him because yeah no he's too short to be indigo. Anyway, you've yet to meet an indigo who isn't floating in a river of faygo singing about miracles on a perpetual sopor high, Gamzee Makara being Case Study No. 1.
Maybe he's rust like Aradia, but then again, rust bloods tended to be calm and composed. You're pretty sure Karkat is the furthest thing in the known universe from being calm and composed, and he isn't going to improve. Ever. You ponder the possibility of other blood colours, but nothing really pops out. He's too confident for brown blood. Too savage for blue blood. Too… Karkat for jade blood. It doesn't make sense. Nothingmatches. You decide to forget it, leave it behind you. It doesn't matter anyway.
(But it does.)
When you're six sweeps old, you wonder if Karkat is actually okay.
He's so strong, so powerful, that the idea of Karkat Vantas being a nervous wreck completely flew past your head. But apparently it got stuck in the wall behind you because one day, as you log off Trollian, you realize that Karkat might be ashamed of his blood colour, and it might actually be hurting him.
He hides behind that grey caps lock after all. You don't see any other reason for hiding his blood than being embarrassed, but that isn't right. No troll should be embarrassed of their blood colour. Even Tavros is proud of the bronze liquid rushing through his veins, and Aradia wouldn't swap her colour for the world. You're pretty happy with your colour too. It makes you who you are, defines you. And Karkat doesn't have that security.
You start to pay regular visits to your hive, and you realize your fears are the truth. Karkat's nearing full on self-destructive. He's skinny as fuck, never sleeps, sleeps even less in his 'coon. He falls asleep on a pile watching romcoms for God's sake. That can't be the sign of a healthy mind. Upon voicing these concerns, Karkat punches you weakly in the shoulder and tells you you're an uncultured prick. You take the chance to shove another spoon of the squished up remains of Gam's last attempt at Faygo cupcakes into his mouth, and he swallows it angrily. Life goes on like this for a while.
You go over just before the sun rises and make sure he hasn't fallen asleep on his favourite pile. If he has, which is the majority of the time, you drag him into his 'coon and get him settled, sometimes sleeping with him if he seems particularly depressed. You share the violent nightmares he has even with the lull of sopor slime all around him, the telepathic connection amplified through the slime.
You make sure that he knows it's okay to not be okay.
When you're seven sweeps old, you wonder if Karkat came to your hive because he felt safest there.
It was quick and it was terrifying and you still have horrible nightmares (Even in sopor.) of the night. You were coding, just some tweaky bullshit to make the memo system on R41NBOW RUMPUS P4RTYTOWN easier to navigate, when you heard a single, weak knock, followed by the sound of a body sliding against the door. Your heart sank in your chest, and to be perfectly honest, you were expecting Tavros. There'd been trouble with Vriska lately, and you were pretty shocked to find Karkat at your hive, breathing raggedly and moaning. You helped him inside, settled him on the couch, ignoring the rust blood covering your hands as you rushed into the nutrition block for a first aid kit. On your way there, you stopped, and took a closer look at the liquid coating your hands.
That wasn't rust.
That wasn't fucking rust.
Your blood ran cold. That wasn't rust blood, it was lighter. Almost closer to fucking fuchsia. It messed with your head and you stood there for a second trying to comprehend it. Karkat didn't hide his colour because he was in an unfortunate place on the hemospectrum, he hid his colour because he wasn't on the goddamn spectrum at all. Where was he then? You couldn't place him, and it fucked with all your instincts. He was good and bad and pink and rust and just wrong.
You'd fetched the first aid kit, and slowly stood at the door.
"It's not rust."
Karkat, who was pushing down on his injury to quell the blasphemous blood flow, froze almost instantly.
"I'm sorry."
You blinked, scrunching your eyes up. "Wait, what?! Don't apologize. Fuck's sake KK, I'm worried about you."
"What?" he choked, turning around and grimacing in pain as he forgot about the massive gash in his side. Your stoney expression spread into a sympathetic smirk.
"You pitiful fuck."
When you're eight sweeps old, you wonder if Karkat pities you as much as you do him.
He says of fucking course he does, and then proceeds to call you a mustard blooded asshole poser from hell.
You wonder why everything always seems to work out in the end, and you decide it's because life is a beautiful thing.