Continue Being the Cool Kid==

I sat, watching the blood slip and slide down my pale skin. I let my mind wander as I waited for most of the bleeding to stop, occasionally mopping up the blood with some toilet paper. I smiled bitterly to myself, my arms and legs were painted a beautiful red, painted the color that reminds me of everything wrong with me.

Almost every mark had pretty much ceased bleeding while I was pondering random thoughts, and I was almost disappointed when I realized this. I sighed when I looked up at the bathroom clock for a second time tonight. It was almost a quarter after 2 in the morning. I hadn't realized it was so late/early. Even though tomorrow's Saturday, and I'm not meeting Dork 1 and Dork 2 until mid-afternoon, I couldn't help but think I should probably try to sleep. I'm just so damn tired all the time. I applied a few bandaids for the few that were still threatening to bleed, before jumping when my phone started to ring. I checked the caller ID and immediately answered.

"Hello?" I knew it was Karkat, or at least his number, but I had stopped calling him 'babe' before making sure it was him after I almost called his extremely homophobic dad 'babe', thinking it was Karkat.

"D-dave..."

SHIT.

"Baby, another one?"

Not the stuttering.

"Y-y-yeah..."

Fuck, so soon?

"I'm on my way hun, is John there?"

Goddammit. Tonight of all nights.

"N-no, y-your n-n-name c-came up f-first."

"I'm gonna call him. Just a sec." I had just finished hurriedly cleaning myself up, and after putting my shoes on and snagged my keys (without getting off the phone with Karkat) I headed out the door, not bothering with trying to be quiet. I locked the door behind me and added John to our call as I headed down the stairs of the apartment building I reside in.

Even though there's only three floors in the building, the elevator always takes forever and I didn't have the luxory time. John picked up right after I hit the second floor.

"Dave?" He sounded sleepy. I kinda wish I could've let him sleep, but this is too important for him to sleep through.

"D-Dave h-hurry," I heard Karkat whimper through his end, and I heard a list of profanities I didn't know John knew as I assume he must have immediately gotten out of bed at those words.

"Karkat, we're on our way," John said calmly, in his surprisingly soothing voice. He's still a dork, but after puberty hit him with a 38 ton semi at 90 miles an hour, his voice dropped and became smooth as fuck.

"Yeah, I'll be there in five baby. We're gonna stay on the phone though, okay?" I added, hoping I was at least mildly comforting. For all my smooth talking, I'm horrible at this stuff.

"O-Okay," I wanted to cry myself. He's usually so strong and pissy, it always hurts when he's like this. His panic attacks have been getting worse and worse lately, along with his anxiety, but it's mostly because of his dad. He hasn't told his dad he's gay, which would probably make things even worse, but his dad is always coming home drunk and yells at him, all the time.

The bullying doesn't help either. His crankiness usually drives people away, but lately it's been attracting all the wrong people. They've been calling him short, fat, a faggot, a whore, and a list of other things that have caused me to want to put some guys in the hospital. I know he tries to ignore them, but he's like me in that his facade can only take him so far. I've just been lucky, his weaknesses have helped to hide mine when I slip up. Which is a horrible thing, but still.

I pushed passed the drunks near the door of the building without question, as there was a common pattern of their appearances on weekends, and headed to my car, calming Kit Kat in the only way I know how, with smooth rhymes. I know both of them are used to it, and they've both told me on different occasions that they actually find it soothing for some reason.

Whenever I pause to do something, John steps in and cracks some jokes, using a voice that he reserves specifically for us. The way he talks is hard to explain, but he lets himself go in a way. His words flow smoothly, he stops thinking about what he's saying as, even though his words seem to have a lot of thought put into them, they don't. He's just got an amazing way of soothing us, both of us, without knowing it.

His kind nature is what I believe allows this. His deep affections and shit unconsciously spit out their own sick rhymes on a fire of teary emotions. And while I hear him using this type of voice with all those he cares about, with us, it's different. Softer, calmer, and with more... love?

After backing out of the parking lot I drove in the direction of Karkat's house. The drive was so familiar, it would have been peaceful under different circumstances. I pulled into his driveway and noticed his dad wasn't home. Not that I expected him to be, he always left on Friday afternoons for work trips, getting home late on Sunday nights just like Bro, but still. In a way, that was a relief. We didn't have to deal with his bullshit while worrying over Karkles.

I turned off the engine and slipped out, telling John I had arrived before we both ended the call. I walked right in and found Karkat in his bedroom, huddled against the headboard with his head in a pillow, shaking. He hadn't said much after those few weak sentences, which told me it was bad, as he couldn't trust his voice to be even a fraction of his usual self, but my face still softened at the obvious pain he was in.

I slipped in on his left side and held him to me as he sobbed into my right shoulder, his heartache scraping against my insides with a friction that made my heart break just watching him. When John walked in, he had a similar reaction, before slipping in on Karkat's right side and sandwiching him between us in a fucking crunchy peanut butter and jelly sandwich picnic with sides of pain juice and sufferfruit.

I shifted him onto John before slowly releasing him. John just gave me a questioning look over Karkat's shoulder, but Karkles flipped shit. The look on his face drove a knife through my chest; he looked so pale, so afraid, so... weak. Nothing like the Karkat we know and love. I leaned down to whisper soothing words into his ear, peppering him with light kisses as I resettled him onto the other raven haired boy in the room, before slipping out of his bed to turn on the tv on his dresser.

I looked at his movie selection and grimaced, but put in his favorite movie anyways. It was the best way to calm him, and I could suffer through one movie. For Karkles. Besides, he almost always fell asleep less than 45 minutes into it. His face lit up a bit when the opening theme started up, but it was fleeting, leaving him looking pasty and fragile as he started to calm.

After a few minutes, the panic left his eyes, and not fifteen minutes later he started to laugh weakly at the cheesy jokes of the rom-com. John and I gave each other similar looks of relief as we settled in and chuckled with him. It took almost an hour, but I finally had my two dorks snuggled up under the covers next to me, Karkat in the middle, fast asleep.

I carefully reached over to the bedside table, careful not to disturb them, and placed my aviators on the stand before turning the tv off. I snuggled into them, reminding myself that it's just for warmth and not because I'm snuggly (because that's uncool), nevermind that it's over 80 degrees Fahrenheit in Kit Kat's stuffy bedroom. After a little bit, I finally drifted off into a light, fitful sleep.