p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"Karkat seems to have fallen asleep, so I no longer even pretend to watch the movie, Men In Black, that plays on her bulky old television in front of us. I sit slouched on the ragged black couch in the living room of her hive, slumped against the left arm of the couch, with Karkat sitting on my lap, her legs pulled to her chest, hugging my neck with her left arm. She rests her head on my chest, and I barely notice she's there since she's so light. My left arm is bent and resting loosely on the arm of the couch, and I smile down at Karkat, playing with her hair with my right hand, tracing my fingers lightly through her thick hair, which was cropped short to her head, gently working the small tangles out of the messy black mass. I could sit like this, with Karkat on my lap, sleeping soundly and contently like a little wriggler, forever; it's so peaceful, quiet, cozy, and, quite frankly, I don't think she gets enough sleep-I worry for her sometimes. But, too soon, the alarm of her oven buzzes loudly, and she awakes with a start. To calm her, I wrap my left arm around her in a hug, bringing us even closer than we already were, and lower my head, resting my chin between her horns./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;""Muffins are ready," I murmur into her hair, referring to the blueberry muffins we had set in the oven about twenty minutes ago. She sat up and glances up at me groggily, obviously still exhausted, and obviously not in the mood to wake up. Karkat probably doesn't give a damn about the muffins now-she seemed to have only wanted to make the muffins in the first place to spend time with me and make sure that I stayed out of trouble./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"She yawns, closing her eyes again, not paying my remark any mind, and lays her head on my chest again, already drifting back off to sleep. "Those mother fuckers are gonna burn," I warn, not too urgently; I'm growing more reluctant to stand and disturb my adorable matesprit just to retrieve the muffins-which she probably won't take too fondly to, considering the fact that I slipped some blueberry Faygo into the batter; she despises that stuff./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"After a moment I decide I probably should go take the muffins out of the oven before they burn or catch fire, even. I slowly stand, careful not to disturb the sleeping Karkat in my lap, and readjust the small sleeping girl, very short and light for seven sweeps, onto my right hip. She must have gained some consciousness, though, because she wraps her legs around my waist and hugs both arms about my neck, intertwining them in my nappy black hair, which reaches down to my hips. She rests her head in the crook of my neck and simply holds on to me, like a monkey on a tree, as I make my way around the couch, maneuvering my way through the dark living room and to the kitchen, the only room in the hive with a light on, like the back of my hand. Karkat mumbles something into my neck, something like a delayed "Who gives a shit about the muffins," but it's rather halfhearted and undecipherable with sleep. I chuckle a bit at her, but try to hurry with the muffin business./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"Pulling them out of the oven with an oven-gloved left hand, I see that a golden brown tint has been burnt into the tops of the blueberry muffins in the four-by-six tin, but they still look edible-not that bad, actually./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"I make my way to the kitchen doorway, bending to click off the light switch to the right of the threshold with one of my horns since my hands are both full, engulfing the only lit room in the house in darkness, as I head for the couch again. The muffins smell pretty great in my opinion-Karkat even seems to have aroused from her slumber to get a whiff of the muffins-and I settle down on the couch in the same seat I'd sat in moments ago, setting the hot muffin tin on the fingerprint-smudged coffee table in front of the couch and repositioning my matesprit onto my lap./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;""What the fuck is that smell?" she asks without opening her eyes, sounding much less tired now. "Smells like..." Karkat opens her eyes and glances at the muffins. "They're blue," she points out agitatedly after a quick examination of the pastries, straitening her oversized black turtleneck. She's right; the pale golden hue the muffins were supposed to obtain once cooked is instead a pale electric blue./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;""Well," I begin hopefully, "they emar/ememe/em blueberry." I try my best to convince her that there are no unnecessary ingredients I had added to the muffin mix-say, sugary, artificially blueberry flavored ingredients from a plastic two-liter soda bottle that sat on the edge of the coffee table./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"She gives me an irritated glance that says it all; emI'm not an idiot, Gamzee/em. She lifts one of the muffins from the tin-they seem to have cooled enough for her to handle-and lifts it to her nose, which she wrinkles in disgust once she inhales a breath of the Faygo-muffin. "What the fu-"/p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"I take the muffin from her and confess in defeat. "I only slipped a little wicked elixir all the fuck up into the muffin batter," I say casually, though I know that now that she knows they're contaminated, she won't touch another single one. She doesn't respond, but appears more irritated. I place the muffin on the coffee table with a sigh and straighten out my loose, short-sleeved light gray T-shirt, the one I most often wear, with the indigo Capricorn sign printed across the chest; Karkat's turtleneck, like my shirt, portrays her zodiac sign as well-a Cancer sign-but printed in gray since she never wished to wear her blood color on her sleeve./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;""Gamzee," she begins, sounding somewhat annoyed, but somewhat amused, almost-emalmost/em-smiling, "you're such an idiot." She pokes one of the ivory polka dots on my baggy black sweatpants playfully, obnoxiously. "I love you." She leans over and plants a brief kiss on my lips, my white makeup rubbing off onto her black lips-she doesn't seem to mind though./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"I chuckle, thinking that she must have been spending too much time with the humans to be using terms like love-but I know what she means. "I love you, too, mother fucker." I plant a gentle kiss on top of her head, between the comical nubs of her horns, and settle her in my lap again, reaching for one of the blue muffins./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;" /p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;""Muffins are ready," I murmur into her hair, referring to the blueberry muffins we had set in the oven about twenty minutes ago. She sat up and glances up at me groggily, obviously still exhausted, and obviously not in the mood to wake up. Karkat probably doesn't give a damn about the muffins now-she seemed to have only wanted to make the muffins in the first place to spend time with me and make sure that I stayed out of trouble./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"She yawns, closing her eyes again, not paying my remark any mind, and lays her head on my chest again, already drifting back off to sleep. "Those mother fuckers are gonna burn," I warn, not too urgently; I'm growing more reluctant to stand and disturb my adorable matesprit just to retrieve the muffins-which she probably won't take too fondly to, considering the fact that I slipped some blueberry Faygo into the batter; she despises that stuff./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"After a moment I decide I probably should go take the muffins out of the oven before they burn or catch fire, even. I slowly stand, careful not to disturb the sleeping Karkat in my lap, and readjust the small sleeping girl, very short and light for seven sweeps, onto my right hip. She must have gained some consciousness, though, because she wraps her legs around my waist and hugs both arms about my neck, intertwining them in my nappy black hair, which reaches down to my hips. She rests her head in the crook of my neck and simply holds on to me, like a monkey on a tree, as I make my way around the couch, maneuvering my way through the dark living room and to the kitchen, the only room in the hive with a light on, like the back of my hand. Karkat mumbles something into my neck, something like a delayed "Who gives a shit about the muffins," but it's rather halfhearted and undecipherable with sleep. I chuckle a bit at her, but try to hurry with the muffin business./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"Pulling them out of the oven with an oven-gloved left hand, I see that a golden brown tint has been burnt into the tops of the blueberry muffins in the four-by-six tin, but they still look edible-not that bad, actually./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"I make my way to the kitchen doorway, bending to click off the light switch to the right of the threshold with one of my horns since my hands are both full, engulfing the only lit room in the house in darkness, as I head for the couch again. The muffins smell pretty great in my opinion-Karkat even seems to have aroused from her slumber to get a whiff of the muffins-and I settle down on the couch in the same seat I'd sat in moments ago, setting the hot muffin tin on the fingerprint-smudged coffee table in front of the couch and repositioning my matesprit onto my lap./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;""What the fuck is that smell?" she asks without opening her eyes, sounding much less tired now. "Smells like..." Karkat opens her eyes and glances at the muffins. "They're blue," she points out agitatedly after a quick examination of the pastries, straitening her oversized black turtleneck. She's right; the pale golden hue the muffins were supposed to obtain once cooked is instead a pale electric blue./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;""Well," I begin hopefully, "they emar/ememe/em blueberry." I try my best to convince her that there are no unnecessary ingredients I had added to the muffin mix-say, sugary, artificially blueberry flavored ingredients from a plastic two-liter soda bottle that sat on the edge of the coffee table./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"She gives me an irritated glance that says it all; emI'm not an idiot, Gamzee/em. She lifts one of the muffins from the tin-they seem to have cooled enough for her to handle-and lifts it to her nose, which she wrinkles in disgust once she inhales a breath of the Faygo-muffin. "What the fu-"/p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"I take the muffin from her and confess in defeat. "I only slipped a little wicked elixir all the fuck up into the muffin batter," I say casually, though I know that now that she knows they're contaminated, she won't touch another single one. She doesn't respond, but appears more irritated. I place the muffin on the coffee table with a sigh and straighten out my loose, short-sleeved light gray T-shirt, the one I most often wear, with the indigo Capricorn sign printed across the chest; Karkat's turtleneck, like my shirt, portrays her zodiac sign as well-a Cancer sign-but printed in gray since she never wished to wear her blood color on her sleeve./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;""Gamzee," she begins, sounding somewhat annoyed, but somewhat amused, almost-emalmost/em-smiling, "you're such an idiot." She pokes one of the ivory polka dots on my baggy black sweatpants playfully, obnoxiously. "I love you." She leans over and plants a brief kiss on my lips, my white makeup rubbing off onto her black lips-she doesn't seem to mind though./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"I chuckle, thinking that she must have been spending too much time with the humans to be using terms like love-but I know what she means. "I love you, too, mother fucker." I plant a gentle kiss on top of her head, between the comical nubs of her horns, and settle her in my lap again, reaching for one of the blue muffins./p
p style="margin: 20px 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;" /p