The day that Terezi got her acceptance letter to the college of her dreams, her older sister Latula decided that a party was needed to celebrate the crowning achievement of the younger Pyrope's life up to that point. Seeing as she and some of her friends were in the process of moving into a house of their own, it made perfect sense for this party to be held there. There was just one thing about the party that wasn't shared before Terezi and her friends arrived at it: Latula's friends were also going to be there. Although there was an age gap between Terezi (who was eighteen and a high school senior) and Latula (who was twenty-two), the clashing of their friend groups wasn't difficult to overcome.
This was mostly due to the presence of alcohol and no wise adults around to tell the teenagers not to drink. In fact, everyone was completely drunk by the end of the party, and no one was more drunk than Terezi's darling boyfriend Karkat. He was a year older than Terezi, a lot less smart, and didn't care even a little bit that him being drunk equaled his preacher of a father getting extremely pissed off in the morning. He spent most of the party right at Terezi's side, taking shots with her whenever someone asked them to, but when she was taken home by her mother at two in the morning, when the party was really getting started, he had to find something else to do.
First he tried going home, but there was a "no parent, no leaving" policy that he couldn't work around, even if he said that he lived just a few blocks away. Then he tried to lock himself in one of the unused bedrooms, but they weren't as unused as he thought they were, and seeing two people he had known from when he was in school in the middle of intercourse was not anything that interested him.
What he ended up doing was mingle with all of the older people that were around and learn a few things about them. There was obviously Latula, who he had gotten to know fairly well in the year he had been dating her younger sister. Then there was Aranea, a very talkative woman who volunteered at the local library that he only knew because she had graduated with his older brother years before. There were two guys, Horuss and Rufioh, who seemed to be stuck like glue to each other, Horuss scaring Karkat with his weird goggles and Rufioh creeping him out with the wings he had attached to his back. The entire time he talked to them, he was drinking more and more, to the point that he began thinking in a fog, with nothing making much sense after he spoke to those boys for the third or fourth time.
There were certainly other people there too, but none of them were important enough to him that he remembered them after he got a good night's sleep and woke up with a hangover and very shady memories. There was one that he wished he could remember though, because she had exchanged numbers with him and had texted him about how great their night together was.
"What does that girl mean, your 'night' together?" Karkat's nosy younger sister Nepeta asked him, creeping up behind him to read the message. "You slept here last night. Did you and her do something bad at that party? Should I tell our dad, or should I tell the readers of my blog?"
"You're not going to tell anyone. Nothing happened between me and this, uh, Meenah girl, and so there's nothing for you to tell anyone." Meenah. That name sounded familiar to him, but he couldn't place a face to it, just a phone number. "She's just someone I met at that party. But if you have to tell anyone, tell your blog. The last thing I need right now is to be preached at about how underage drinking is a sin or whatever."
She clasped her hands together and squealed. "Yes! Thank you! Just let me get a picture of you for my 'what my brother does' tag and I'll be on my way. Equius will be so interested in what happened to you that I may have to tell him the update on your life today instead of Monday during class!"
"Let him know I met his older brother, will you?"
"You met Horuss?" Nepeta's eyes widened, and she took a seat on Karkat's bed next to him. "Oh, you've got to tell me more about this party!"
Story time with his sister lasted far longer than he would have liked it to, but she was innocent and only going to be a freshman the next school year; she needed the entertainment in her life. But when he went to see Terezi like he did every Saturday afternoon, he wasn't in the mood for storytelling, instead getting straight to the point, asking her if she knew who this Meenah person who was at the party was, leaving out the part that he had her number until he knew more about her.
"Meenah? She's Latula's best friend. Super tall and skinny, pale as snow, long dark hair she keeps in braids. She was at that party last night. Don't you remember her? I said hi to her and she asked me if I planned on going fishing while I'm away at college." Nothing in that description rang a bell for Karkat, and she gave him a confused look. "So you know her name, but not who she is? How did that happen?"
He shrugged, before pulling out his phone and showing her the text that he had gotten. "I don't know, but this is what I got from her."
"You exchanged numbers with another girl? Karkat! We are dating, we don't go off and flirt with people at parties!"
"As I'm sure you don't remember, since you were pretty drunk yourself, I was completely out of it. I probably shared a couple drinks with this Meenah chick, and that's it. We may have bonded over something we mutually like, I don't know. But I know better, drunk or not, to flirt with another girl. You're the one that I want, Terezi. Not her." He meekly smiled at her, hoping she'd buy this excuse he was making, since he had no clue what kinds of events had transpired the night before.
She bought the excuse, if only because she did slightly remember how drunk they were. "I'm sure that's it, really," she said, hugging him tightly, "but you're not allowed to go partying while I'm at school, okay? I don't want to come home to you having a new girlfriend without telling me."
"I don't want a new girlfriend when I have a smart and beautiful one already." He planted a kiss on her lips, and she smiled as she returned his show of affection. They would have most likely kissed the rest of the day away, had it not been for Terezi's mom calling for them, to talk to them about party behaviors and how they really shouldn't have taken part in the more illegal activities at the party.
"Yeah, mom, we know, no more drinking until we're old enough. Got it." Terezi mimed saluting her mother once the long speech about what they had done was over, and that allowed her and Karkat to get away from the strict woman. "So, Karkat, you really think I'm smart and beautiful?"
"Yes, and you really are the only girl for me. Even if you're leaving me for the next few years as you chase your dreams and go to law school and all that stuff. But once it's all over, you'll be a kickass lawyer and I'll be your number one supporter." He hugged her tightly, never wanting to let go, while trying to push away the slowly-appearing memories of the previous night.
The longer that went by, the clearer the events that transpired at the party became, from the moment that Terezi's mom had come to get her. More of the conversations with Aranea, Horuss, and Rufioh were easily remembered, and he could actually visualize Meenah and think about how she got his number and he hers. And, a fact he didn't want to ever admit, he could remember how she convinced him to go to her newly-furnished bedroom with her, how she got him to take his clothes off and climb into bed with him, how they cuddled and fucked.
And that was something he didn't want to ever share with Terezi, even though he really needed to let her know it happened. He had made a mistake, and it was eating away at him. But the school year was wrapping up, summer was starting, and she was becoming more and more excited for her departure to the big city and college and everything she had ever worked for, and he just needed to be excited for her too. He spent every moment that he wasn't sleeping or working with her, just so that he wouldn't miss her too badly while she was gone. That, and so he wouldn't continue dwelling on the issue that he had drunkenly cheated on her with a girl he'd only met once.
What he wanted was to forever be dating Terezi and have her be his one and only—that was what she expected, and that was what he wanted to give her. But life had other plans for Karkat, and those plans were named Meenah Peixes. Or, more specifically, Meenah and her friends who all lived in the house a few blocks away from his that also was home to Terezi's sister Latula.
It all started the day Terezi left for school, boarding the plane to take her to her new life. Standing at the entrance to the security section, Karkat and Latula both waved goodbye to her, and the second she was gone, the older Pyrope turned to him and shook her head. "You didn't ever tell her, did you? Well, obviously you didn't. You're still with her. It's not rad, Karkat."
"Not rad? What did I do this time?"
"It's not so much what you did as it is who you did. I didn't tell Terezi because I thought you'd be man enough to do it!" Still unsure about what Latula was babbling on about, he asked her what he did for the second time. "You slept with Meenah, you idiot!"
His first reaction was to slowly blink, then he groaned, playing the "I don't have a clue what you're talking about" card, even though he knew fully well that he had indeed slept with the woman. "You're kidding me. I could have sworn I've only seen her that one time, and I don't even remember who she is! Terezi said she's white with braids and she's like a beanpole, is that right?"
"You slept with her and you don't even remember who she is. Guess we know who not to invite to any drinking parties." They were beginning to walk out of the airport then, Latula still talking as they did, but with the way she was speaking, she had eaten Karkat's lie up as if it was some delicious dessert. "But yeah, she's got these wicked long braids that she sometimes sits on if she's not careful. And she's super pale and can't tan worth a damn. Oh, and the tall thing, that's right too. But she's not so much of a beanpole anymore."
"Let me guess, living in that house with you and your other friends has made her lose whatever eating habits were keeping her skinny? That's the reason I live with my parents and not my friends, honestly." Karkat looked at Latula, who shook her head with a grim expression plastered on her face. "What, that's not it?"
"You're the one who graduated like a year ago, I'd expect you to have some memories of those sick diagrams in health class." Latula stopped dead in her tracks, turned towards Karkat, and put her hands on his shoulders. "When a dude and a chick get their sex on, babies get made. You really should know that."
This time, the blinking and clueless reaction was completely legitimate. "You're telling me that she's pregnant? And from the way this conversation has gone, I'm assuming it's mine?"
"Right."
"Well fuck." He pulled her hands off of him, before running his fingers through his dark hair. "We can't let your sister know. This remains secret. No one finds out that I not only cheated on Terezi, but I knocked up the girl I cheated on her with."
"No one except everyone she lives with, you mean, since Meenah has told all of us a million times. She's like, 'fronds, it was that Karkat bro that did it' and we're all like 'okay Meenah, we get it, it was him' and then she tells us again." Latula sighed, looking up at the ceiling as if she was trying to see the sky. "I'm scared for when my sis learns about this. She'll flip."
Karkat violently shook his head. "She won't learn about it! I'll do whatever I can to keep her from knowing what I've done, and if she finds out, I'll stress that I was drunk. I was fucking drunker than anything and this happened because of it. She'll understand. She knows I love her and only her."
"You love her and only her, but you're going to have a kid with someone else. Yeah, she'll buy that one. I know my sister better than anyone, and she's going to be pissed when she learns you're nothing more than a big cheater." That was followed by a string of other insults aimed at Karkat, which he put an end to by storming out of the airport and to his car, where he sat and screamed for what felt like a good hour or two.
When he got home, the last people he wanted to face (aside from Meenah or Terezi) were his parents, and yet there they both were, sitting at the table discussing religion and things that he had no interest in. "Oh, hello there, Karkat," he heard his dad say. "Care to join us? We're just getting into my favorite of the Ten Commandments."
He didn't even need to ask which one it was, because he had heard it so many times in his life: thou shalt not commit adultery. And that was the exact opposite of anything he wanted to hear at that point, because, although him and Terezi weren't married, it sure felt like they were sometimes, and yet he had cheated on her. "No thanks, I'm just going to go upstairs and see if Nepeta wants to go to the park or something."
"What a decent brother, caring for his sister rather than locking himself away playing wretched video games. Go ask her, I'm sure she'll be up for it. Religious studies can wait for later." That was the one okay thing about his dad, that although he was a preacher, he wasn't one for shoving religion down someone's throat when they had good intentions. "Be safe while you're out there. Don't let my little girl get hurt."
"Sure thing, dad. Talk to you later." He was headed towards the stairs, just to run up them and barge into Nepeta's room, where, on her computer screen, was a message from her best friend Equius, which she was reading intently. "Hey, Nep, wanna go to the park? I'll take you if you'd like..."
"Go away, Karkat, I'm reading what Equius has to say about this story his brother told him about how one of the girls he lives with is having a baby. It's really cute, except the baby daddy is a total jerk who hasn't talked to her at all." It took only a minute or two of him just awkwardly standing there, knowing the "baby daddy" in the message was actually him, for Nepeta to turn around in her chair and glare at him. "Why are you still here? Didn't I say go away?"
"Sorry, I got a bit curious about the tragic tale in that message."
She closed her laptop and laughed at what he said. "Oh, big brother, you're so silly. It's not so much tragic as it is really terrible! If you and Terezi ever get married and have babies, I hope you're actually there for her. That guy in that message needs to learn to be nice to women."
"Ha, yeah, he sure does." There was no way Karkat was going to tell his little sister, of all people, the truth about the situation. "So, how about the park? You want to go?"
Like he expected, she did, and so they went. She wasn't allowed to go without someone accompanying her, for the reasons that the neighborhood kids weren't always the nicest and that their parents were quite scared to let their freshman daughter go to the park herself, but it wasn't Nepeta who ended up getting in trouble with other people at the park. It was Karkat, and only because of who was there when they arrived.
"Hey, aren't you Karkat?" a woman short in stature with shoulder-length blonde hair asked, pointing at him as he pushed Nepeta away. "Do you remember me?"
He nodded, choking back a string of curses as he noticed the tall lady standing somewhat near her. "Yeah, you're Aranea. Met you at the party Latula threw for Terezi way back when. How are things going with you?"
"They're going well, but let's try to avoid the smalltalk here. I'm sure you're aware of what you did at that party, and how your actions had potential consequences that have come to fruition." She whistled, and he looked away to focus on where his sister was rather than to watch the other person come closer. "Karkat, turn your head this way. You need to be properly acquainted with the woman who is currently carrying your child in her womb."
Taking a deep breath, he did as she ordered, and his eyes met with two shining green ones. "Nice to finally get to meet you," he mumbled, trying to not let his eyes move anywhere but hers. "So I guess what happened at that party ended badly for you, huh?"
Her fist met his cheek not long after that.
His first reaction was to recoil in pain, making sure not to scream out for fear of his sister hearing and coming to see what was going on. "What the fuck was that for?" he hissed, not breaking eye contact with her. "I swear I didn't know about this until earlier today!"
"Water you talkin' about, Karkat? Think I'm punchin' you because of that? No, this is because it's been how many months without so much as a call?" She raised her arm to strike him again, but Aranea grabbed it and stopped her. "Ugh, why am I even here? This buoy don't know a damn thing about anyfin."
"I can't believe I knocked up a bitch who uses fucking fish puns. Now I'm going to have to deal with these for the next eighteen years." Karkat stood back up to his full height, which put him at about eye level with Meenah. "Okay, so you're mad about me not calling, correct?"
She nodded, attempting to swing at him once more but having the restraint of the smaller Aranea hold her back. "That's right. I should krill you for that."
The sound of yet another terrible pun coming from her mouth made Karkat want to just kick her in the stomach and call all their problems solved, but he knew that would just end with him beat to a pulp on the ground. "Don't use the puns, please. I'd really rather not hear those. And, okay, you have the right to be mad, but I didn't know you were pregnant until just today, and I didn't exactly ask for your number, so I didn't exactly ever want to talk to you again. So you shouldn't be getting all pissy at me for not calling you when I didn't know I had a reason to call you."
"See, Meenah, he wasn't planning on just ditching you and your baby. He just didn't know what was going on. This is why communication is key!" Aranea let go of her friend's arm for just a second, and in that second, Meenah took another swing and connected with just above Karkat's right eye, sending him to the ground.
"Asshoal here should have realized somethin' was gonna come from what we did, since we won't pracfishing anyfin safe." She smirked at Karkat, who was too busy staring up at her and her noticeable but not too big stomach bump to even realize she had still used fish puns. "Aw, look, the glubbin' jerk is finally admirin' his work."
"Shut up," he muttered, before picking himself up off the ground, making sure to stand just outside of where she'd be able to reach. "I don't want to deal with this. Not right now. I seriously just lost my girlfriend today to school and now I'm learning that I've got a kid on the way with some chick I have only met one fucking time and my life really sucks right now."
"Wow, you probs feel reely speshell right now, but lemme tell you, you're not."
He found himself looking back into her eyes, which were so inviting even if her personality wasn't. "Why are you keeping the kid, anyway? We don't love each other. Fuck, we don't even know each other. I'm in a committed relationship with Terezi, and you've probably got some other guy that isn't me, so why don't you just pay and lose the kid?" Having been raised in an extremely religious household, even implying that this woman should have an abortion and kill their child felt weird to him, but it was the best idea he had. "Then we'll never have to speak of this again, and you can go back to being an easy whore, and I can go back to being with Terezi and only Terezi, and everything will be perfect."
"Things don't work like that, sorry." She placed both hands on her stomach and rubbed it for a few seconds. "This li'l swimmer here is gonna keep swimmin' for a long time, and there's nothin' you can do to make me change my mind on that."
"You're serious, aren't you?"
"Shore am. But, since Latuna has told me many tines that you want to keep this a seacret from her sis, I've decided I'll play along. No one finds out me and you's havin' a kid until it's impossible to hide it. Keepin' Terezi must be finportant to you or somefin, I dunno." She tapped her side a couple times, just looking at Karkat and the scowl on his face. "What, you got somefin you wanna say to me?"
Without even thinking, he said he did. "Since this is my problem just as much as it is yours, I guess it's the responsible thing for me to actually help you out with this. We just can't let my family or Terezi find out, and as long as they don't know, I'll be by your side."
Her face lit up and she stepped forward, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him into a hug. "Oh, Karkat, that's such a titanic thin' to tell me! I'm gonna hold you to it!" He attempted to protest, but her happy squealing drowned out what he said, so he instead took the time to become a bit acquainted with the stomach bump that housed his future child. If she wasn't going to do the smart thing and get rid of it, he was going to have to get used to it. Just touching it quickly with his hand made him feel a bit weird, half because he was touching someone else's body that wasn't Terezi, but half because it really was his child in there, and this was his first interaction with it.
He swore he felt it kick at him right before he pulled his hand away and pushed Meenah off of him. "Okay, enough with the hugging," he said, much to her dismay. "I'm going to go catch up with my sister and hang out with her. I'll talk to you later I guess, Meenah. Work on not using so many damn puns the next time we talk, okay?"
"Shore thing, Karkat!" She winked at him, before putting an arm around Aranea's shoulders. "Us gills gotta get home and eat now, yanno?"
"I'm going to make sure she's eating healthy, with regards to the well-being of the growing baby. I don't want there being any unnecessary complications."
"Means no fish, which is gonna be a bitch t'deal with." After exchanging farewells, the two ladies started off on their way, and Karkat sighed, before beginning to head toward the playground at the park—just to have his sister tackle him from behind.
"Karkat!" the younger girl exclaimed, pinning her brother to the ground. "Who were those girls you were talking to? Wasn't one of them the library lady?"
It took him a second to get the breath back to answer her. "Yeah, one of them was definitely the library lady. The other one...that's one of her friends." He had just gone over how he didn't want his family knowing that Meenah was having his baby; he was going to try his damnedest to keep Nepeta from learning it right then. "She's having some problems in her life right now, so Aranea, the library lady, came and asked me for some help. I guess I'm going to be assisting her friend for a bit, which is no big deal."
But Nepeta, through all her years of knowing her older brother's mannerisms, knew that he wasn't someone that people came to advice for, and she called his bluff: "She looked pregnant. Karkat, you're not just helping her because you're nice! You're helping her because she's having a baby!"
"Yeah, that's right." So maybe she hadn't figured out the entire story, but she was going to at some point before he was ready to tell everyone, and he needed to keep her from telling their parents. "Keep that fact on the down-low, okay? I don't want dad asking questions about it. It would just be awkward, and the last time he knew I was hanging around someone who was having a kid out of wedlock, he made me switch schools. I'm scared for what he'll do when he learns it's someone in the neighborhood this time."
"Got it, captain!" Being the nice sister that she was, Nepeta got off of her brother and helped him back to his feet. "I won't even make a single post on my blog about this. Your secret is safe with me!"
"That's what I want to hear. Thanks, Nepeta. You're the best little sister a guy like me could ask for, and I mean that. Now let's go swing or something, before it gets dark and we get in trouble for being here." He grabbed her hand and started running towards the playground, dragging her along until she was running at the same speed he was. Things, at least for that moment, were simple, and that's how he wished they would always be.
He was not going to get that wish, not even in the slightest.
A/N: Originally written and posted in spring 2013, this story used to hold the title of "longest single-chaptered" fic that I had written until earlier this year. But rather than posting all ~25,000 words at once, I'm going to split it into five parts, much like I did the original Tumblr version of the story.
So, er, see ya next week for the next part!