She did her best to please him.
Drank the Faygo, painted her face, blurred her Seeing Eyes. When she cried for everyone they'd lost she went to him, and he kissed her hard enough to bruise. He told her that it wasn't her fault, and it wasn't. He told her that it was his fault, but it wasn't. Karkat had made mistakes and so had Vriska and they had died in a mess of viscera and rainbow blood spatters. They had all died, except for the two of them.
He told her that she didn't have to be strong anymore, that he would keep her safe. That she was the only thing he had and thus the most important thing to him. That he didn't mind if she was sad. And she was selfish, and she let him do it. She let him be strong, and allowed herself to be weak. And every day she hated herself for not being able to comfort him like he was comforting her. And she hated him for not seeing what he was doing to himself, but everytime she tried to say something he'd hush her and take her into his arms and dance with her under the trees of her hive.
They slept in her recuperacoon, which was not really big enough for the two of them but she didn't want to sleep alone and she didn't think he did either. Sometimes he would cry when they went to coon, and she would pretend that she couldn't hear the sobs in her ear. They would get high off sopor slime sometimes, even though she hated the taste, and sometimes the world would seem okay for a little while. They would stare up at the sky and she would reach out to touch the stars and sometimes - sometimes - she thought she could touch them. And sometimes she saw shapes up there and she named them Cancer, Virgo, Aquarius, Leo. She named them and she would cry not out of grief but out of sheer, immense loneliness. And then Gamzee would turn to her and touch her shoulder and pull her close and kiss her, kiss her tears away and taste them.
He would ease her back and take her under the stars where she thought she could see their dead friends and she would dig her fingers into his back and sigh into his mouth and think of a time when they could have done this, felt this, and not been so alone.
