Although he had intended to be serious with his threats, Kankri didn't tell their parents a word about the situation Karkat was in, just saying that he had wanted to check up on his younger brother when he was asked about why he was back in town. That meant that someone else was going to be the one the spill the news to them, and it wasn't going to be Karkat. At least, not intentionally.
"So what did you do today? I know this was your day off this week," his dad said to him while they were sitting at the dinner table, enjoying a home-cooked meal. "You weren't home at all, and I know Terezi isn't around. Where were you?"
"Oh, just hanging around at a friend's house, that's all." Karkat had grown very used to lying to his parents, especially when confronted with the possibility of having to tell them about Meenah. He hadn't stepped foot in anyone else's house for more than a few minutes that day, and that was only when he was helping carry bags inside from the shopping trip him, Meenah, and Aranea had gone on. "Not much happened today."
His mom beamed at him, proud that he actually had other friends that weren't his faraway girlfriend to hang out with. "I'm happy to hear that, Karkat," she told him with a genuine smile on her face. "Have your father and I met this friend?"
"Probably not. New friend."
"You should let us meet them then, son. A friend of yours is a friend of ours." His dad smiled at him, and he felt his face losing all of its color. The last thing he needed was for his parents to meet any of the people he was now involved with, especially Meenah—they'd definitely subject her to rounds upon rounds of questioning, and he wasn't sure she'd be able to keep their secret hidden if she was directly asked about it.
"She's kind of shy, so I doubt she'll want to meet you. Sorry." No, he knew Meenah would just love to meet his parents; he knew she'd want to argue with them about religion and raising someone in a religious household and, most importantly, about how stupid organized religion really was. But there was no way she could meet them while she was pregnant, unless they wanted the rude awakening that their son was going to be a dad in just a matter of months.
Instead of getting any sort of reply to his denial, Karkat instead got ordered to clear the table and put all the leftover food away, even though he was still in the middle of eating. "We're having a bit of a marriage counseling session in here shortly," his dad explained, standing up from his chair, "and while it is cutting into the meal your mother so lovingly made, it is rather important that this meeting happens." He caught Nepeta trying to escape the table without being seen, and told her to help her brother out. "This place needs to be perfect when they arrive, so that means both of you get to cleaning."
Fifteen minutes later, there were four adults downstairs discussing the trials of marriage, while Karkat was sent upstairs to, for a few minutes, hang out with some rather strange guests. "Isn't it odd? I move out on my own, but whenever my parents go to counseling, I get dragged along," Aranea said, lounging on Karkat's bed. "Must be because my childhood was repressed by their relationship problems, and I need the power of religion to fix things."
"Well, your parents showing up to talk to mine has kind of saved my ass," he replied from his spot on the floor, back against the wall. "They were getting dangerously close to learning things about me and Meenah that they don't need to know."
"They still don't know about that?" Sitting on the desk chair at the foot of Karkat's bed, Rufioh shook his head. "Dude, if I knocked someone up, the first person I'd tell would be my dad. And then I'd get beat into the ground for it. But still. I'd tell him."
Aranea gave her half-brother a look that was full of disbelief. "You'd tell him if you conceived a child with someone, but you won't tell him you're dating a guy. I think you're attempting to seem manlier than you really are, Rufioh. Please don't do that. You'll make Karkat feel bad."
"He's not fucking with my emotions, Aranea, don't worry. I'm more scared of having to tell Terezi than I am about telling my parents. They'll just get a bit crazy over Meenah and how I'm handling things and I really don't want to go there until I have to." There was a soft knock at the door, and Karkat shushed up, before telling whoever was there to come in.
It was Nepeta, who wasn't there to bother her brother, but rather Aranea. "Um, your brother's crying and I don't know what I did, but I think I said something about a cat dying and now he's bawling and Vriska's trying to cheer him up but she's getting mad and I don't want them to fight and break my laptop, so could you come handle things?" she asked, in as close to one breath as she could manage. The blonde sat up, and was about to go, but Rufioh jumped from his chair and said he'd do it, following Nepeta out of the room.
"You can't keep waiting forever, Karkat," Aranea said, once the door was closed again. "Sooner or later you're going to have no way of hiding it. What about when you have no money because you've been buying all these baby things, and you have to ask them for help? Do you want them to find out about your illegitimate child that way?"
"I'm pretty sure I've got enough money to pay for these things Meenah wants me to get her."
"You spent over two hundred dollars today on just clothes. This kid still has no crib, no other furniture, and nothing in the way of supplies. It just has a wardrobe of solely pink things." She laid back down, sighing as she did. "I'm concerned for not just how you're handling things, but how Meenah is going to do once she has this kid to actually raise instead of abuse as a fashion statement."
Without so much as a knock, the door opened again, and it wasn't Rufioh coming back to rejoin them, nor was it one of the adults from downstairs. It was a tall, scrawny guy with greasy black hair that had its exposed blond roots, and the first thing he did was walk to the bed and flop down on it, causing Aranea to scream and push him off. "Oh, whatever, sis. Don't be all stupid like that. Don't you wanna have some close sibling time with me?"
"I moved out just to get away from you, Cronus. Don't touch me."
He responded by placing a single finger on her arm, which she smacked a few times until he pulled it away. "You're just as stuck-up as ever, Aranea. Never change." He then turned to look at Karkat. "You're the preacher's kid, right? The one who got kinky with Meenah?"
"More like, the one who had drunk sex with Meenah and knocked her up. But yeah, preacher's kid, that's me. Nice to make your acquaintance," Karkat said, sticking his hand out for the new guy to shake. He never took it. "What's your name?"
"Cronus. Can't believe you're friends with my little sis and I've never actually met you. My mom and that asshole of a stepdad come to your parents all the time for their problems, and I've never once met their godly son that they apparently talk about so much." Using the hand he should have been shaking Karkat's with, he ran his fingers through his disgusting hair. "Would they think you're so great when they hear about what you did to Meenah? She was a fucking beautiful girl before you got to her."
Karkat was pretty sure that there was something behind what Cronus was saying that he was trying to hide, but rather than trying to decipher it, he just closed the door and replied, "They'll probably make me marry her, knowing them. That's what they did when my sister and her then-boyfriend had a kid."
"You're not even dating Meenah, from what Aranea's told me online." He tilted his head back to use it to point to the woman on Karkat's bed. "You just got freaky with her and now you're gonna be her man for life. Pretty sweet for her."
"I wish you'd actually learn the whole story before you start attacking Karkat for things," Aranea muttered, sitting back up to flick the back of Cronus' head. "He already has a girlfriend, and she's got no idea that Karkat and Meenah is, sadly, a thing."
"Hey, watch the hair! I don't give a fuck about anyone but Meenah in this situation, honestly. If she wasn't your friend, I totally would have gone for her. But that's part of the half-brother code, I guess. No dating your sister's friends." Cronus probably would have gone on and on with his rambling, in his hard-to-understand slur-y voice, but Karkat could hear his mom calling for all the strange people to get downstairs. "We'll talk more later, I'm sure of it." He gave Karkat a thumbs-up and left the room, leaving Aranea behind.
She seemed flustered at his behavior, and profusely apologized to Karkat for it. "You have to excuse Cronus. He's a strange one, and has been for as long as I can remember. I think it has to do with the fact that his dad walked out on him when he was young..." She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. "But anyway, I will try my hardest to keep your secret safe during the meeting with your parents, and if anything happens to slip out, I deeply regret it."
"Secret? What secret?"
Both Aranea and Karkat looked to the door, where Karkat's dad stood. "Is there something I should know?"
"I'll just...go. Leave you two to talk." Aranea covered her reddening face in her hands, pushed by the older man, and ran down the stairs.
"Karkat, what was she talking about? The Vantas family doesn't keep secrets from each other. You can feel safe to tell me whatever it is you're hiding." He came into the room, closed the door behind him, and sat on the edge of the bed, patting the spot right next to him to invite Karkat to join him. "Now let loose. Your mother can handle the session downstairs for a little bit."
"Dad, I'm pretty sure you don't want to hear this." Karkat took the seat next to his dad's, interlacing his fingers and twiddling his thumbs a bit. "You're really going to be disappointed in me because of it."
His dad laughed, wrapping an arm around Karkat's shoulder to make him feel a bit more comfortable. "I know my son, and I know he's never done anything that would make me look down on him. Maybe in the eyes of the Lord he is flawed, but in mine, he is a symbol of perfection. Now let me know what you're hiding. Please. It'll stay between us."
"Well, uh, you see..." Karkat bit on his lip, trying to keep the news hidden for as long as he could. He knew that telling his dad would result in his mom finding out, which, on top of every other thing he had ever brought up in regards to them knowing, would mean that Terezi would know within a matter of days. That would make him lose her, the light of his life, and he really didn't want that. But he couldn't keep on lying to his parents, because every lie he told them killed him a bit on the inside. He was raised to be virtuous, and, even though having a child out of wedlock was one of the least-virtuous things he could think of, swearing he'd be around to help raise it was a pretty noble thing. "Dad, remember how Terezi's sister threw that party for Terezi when she got accepted to her school?"
"Yes, son, I do remember that. You came home hours after curfew that night."
"So, okay, at that party, I may have gotten really drunk, and I may have slept with Terezi's sister's best friend, and I may have accidentally made a baby with said sister's best friend." The look on his dad's face after he said that was one of shock, but the opened mouth turned into a straight line, and the eyebrows transformed the expression into one of disappointment and anger. "I'm so sorry. I swear I'm not going to just leave her to raise my kid on her own...but there's no way I'm leaving Terezi either."
His dad was mad. There was no denying his anger, and the heavy breaths he was taking just cemented it a bit more that Karkat had ultimately screwed up. "That's not how things work in this world, son, and you know it. While I am relieved to hear that you're taking responsibility for what you've done, by staying with Terezi you are just going to hurt her."
"Yeah, I know, but I don't really even like the girl having the baby. I didn't really even meet her until the day Terezi left, and that was, what, a month ago? I don't even really know her!"
"I'm aware of this, Karkat. I've seen a log of all your messages over the past month, ever since you started acting a bit, for lack of a better term, strange. You're never home, always off somewhere with a new friend you won't tell us about, and you've even skipped out on bible study night a few times! I had to know what was wrong with my son, and asking him outright was not the way to do it. Add in Kankri's visit and some of the stories Nepeta's told about you being with a seemingly pregnant girl, and I was able to get the gist of the story beforehand." He closed his eyes and pulled Karkat a bit tighter to him. "And yes, that means I know you're keeping Terezi in the dark."
He was biting his lip again, trying to not say anything that would make his dad act too harshly. "I feel so bad about this," he finally said, resting his head on his dad's shoulder, tears coming to his eyes that he really didn't want his dad to see. "Terezi deserves to know. But I don't want her to, because I don't want her to hate me."
"You know, son, God has a plan for you, and maybe not telling Terezi is part of that plan." His dad let go of him and got to his feet, giving his son a small smile, the angered look on his face disappearing. "Do what you must. Your mother and I will keep this to ourselves, I promise. It most definitely is not our place to make your decisions for you."
"Thanks, dad. Of all the ways I figured you'd react, this definitely wasn't one of them."
"You're not Meulin, you're not in a relationship with the other involved person. I can't force onto you what I did onto her." Karkat smiled, but his dad raised a single finger. "However, I will be signing you and this Meenah girl—yes I know her name, I've seen the messages, remember—up for parenting classes. If you're going to raise this child, you'll be doing it the best way you can. Now I've got a counseling session to return to. We will speak again later."
For the remainder of the night, Karkat sat in his room, staring at his phone, wondering how such a small device could betray him. Even Aranea coming back upstairs before she left to apologize once more, this time for being the reason he had to spill the beans to his dad didn't break him from his trance. He was too busy thinking about how badly things could have gone, and so he didn't even notice that his blonde friend had slipped a small piece of paper under the corner of his laptop, just begging to be read.
When he found that paper weeks later, while researching more about babies, he disregarded it, only looking at the words "beware my brother" before tossing it into the trashcan. There were more important things in his life than cryptic messages from Aranea, like how the development of his and Meenah's child seemed a bit off compared to the things both parenting class and the internet were telling him.
According to everything she had ever said to him, as well as the date of the party and their sexual encounter, she was roughly a month and a half away from her due date, something he wasn't actually sure of simply because she scheduled her visits with the baby doctor at times where he was working. He glanced at her, as she was laying on his bed, reading a book that his mom had found for her, and then back at his screen, trying to match how she looked with the diagram he was viewing. Compared to the picture, she was smaller and didn't look as far along, which just didn't match up. "Meenah, I think there's something wrong with our kid."
"Water you talkin' 'bout? The doc said everyfin's goin' great." She rested her book on her swollen stomach, just so she could look at him quizzically. "Are you tryin' to make me worry?"
"Not intentionally, no, but it's worrying me a bit. You're a lot smaller than you should be, and that makes me think there's something wrong." He swallowed down hard, really not wanting to make her freak out. "It's the beginning of October. You're due the middle of next month. You should be incredibly big right now, but you're not. Like, you're fat, I'm not even going to try to hide that from you, but you don't look like you're smuggling a basketball."
"Karkat, shut up. I know you're tryin' to feel speshell by doin' all this research, but can you not? I'm tired of hearin' your stupid stats." She picked the book up and started reading it again. "'sides, this book says I'm doin' as whale as I should be, which is just like what the doc said. Cool your jets and just let everyfin be."
He groaned, leaning back in his chair and stretching a bit. "Fine, fine, but when something goes incredibly wrong and it's something that I've mentioned a time or two that is what's wrong, don't you dare get mad at me about it. Deal?"
"I wouldn't get mad at you for nothin' other than maybe you borin' me to death. Now shut up and stop tryin' to scare me." She blew a raspberry in his general direction, but the noise of it was drowned out by an alert sound on Karkat's laptop. "Hey, c'mon, don't be lettin' that thing be so loud, 'kay? You're gonna deafen the baby."
"Meenah, it's impossible for this to do anything bad to that kid." Karkat was sitting back up correctly when he realized what that sound meant—it was notifying him that Terezi was trying to have a video chat with him. "Shit. Meenah. Get out."
"I ain't goin' nowhere, not unless you're drivin' me." She blew another raspberry, annoying Karkat as she did. "There's no way that you're gettin' me to walk all the way back to my house like this. Nope. It just ain't happenin' today."
Once again, he groaned. "Well this is fucking great. Terezi's trying to get to talk to me, and you're here and I can't chat with her while you're here. You'll just open your big mouth and tell her about me and you and what we've done and I'm not ready for that." As he rambled on and on about the predicament they had found themselves in, Meenah got off the bed and slowly left the room, closing the door as she exited. He then heard her banging against the door as she apparently sat down against it out in the hall. "Wait, did you really just do that?"
"I'm not dumb, I know that 'get out' can mean just leavin' the room. Now stop beachin' at me and just glub with your gillfrond a bit." Her voice was muffled (from what he assumed was her turning her face into the door), and he thanked her for her cooperation, before accepting Terezi's call.
When the webcam on the other side came into focus, Karkat found himself staring into the wide teal eyes of his lovely girlfriend, and the biggest smile he could muster appeared on his lips. "Hey there!" he excitedly said, putting one of his hands in the view of the camera so he could wave at her. "What's up? Why are you calling me?"
"You sound like you're busy..." She leaned back from her webcam and there he saw the small frown on her face. "Should I go? I don't know when we'll be able to do this again. You'd never believe how crazy life here has been. I've made friends, I've gone to so many events, and then my classes! There's so much work they expect me to do! I never get a moment to myself anymore, except this one, and I want to share it with you."
There were two ways for him to react: one was to tell her the truth, that he was busy, and just come clean about everything and probably have her hate him for the rest of their lives, and the other was lying. The second one was the one he went with. "I'm not busy, not at all. Sorry that I sound like I am, but I love getting to talk to you, so why would I choose to do something else over getting to do this?"
"I don't know, because maybe you've moved on from me?" There was a strong sense of dejection in her voice, and it made him wish that she was next to him so he could give her a big hug. "If you have, I'd totally understand. What use is a girlfriend living on the other side of the country who never talks to you?"
"You've got lots of use, Terezi! You're still the only girl who loves me, and you're still the only the girl I love!" He could hear Meenah out in the hall making fake retching noises, but he chose to ignore her and keep talking to his girlfriend. "Besides, when you come back to visit over Thanksgiving, we'll have lots to talk about from what's happened since you were gone." That was probably the most truthful thing he could have said without giving any hints about what was happening with him, since by the time her break rolled around, he would be toting an infant around with him. "And I'll have nothing but time for you when you're here."
"That's part of why I did this, Karkat. I'm not coming home for that break." It was then that she moved even further back from her camera, and next to her appeared some hipster-looking blond guy wearing what looked like cheap sunglasses. "My new friend Dave here invited me to come spend the break with him and, since my parents don't care about where I go, I took him up on the offer."
Anger and rage began to build up inside of Karkat, but he didn't let Terezi know that. "Oh," he said, beginning to glare at the screen and the new guy on it, "that's cool. I mean, that really is cool. I'm happy for you, making new friends and stuff."
"Uh, dude, I can hear you." The Dave guy turned his head away from the camera and faced Terezi to speak to her and not Karkat, even though it made no difference. "Why's a nice girl like you with some colossal douche like that guy? He's probably a total ass to you in person, if he's going to be all sarcastic and controlling while talking to you here."
"Dave, shush. Karkat's just a bit upset that I won't be seeing him for a bit longer than he was planning. I'll be home for Christmas, Karkat, I swear. I've got my plane ticket that'll get me home the day after classes end. December fifteenth. That's when we'll be together again." Terezi flashed him her brilliantly white smile, and he gave her a less shiny one in return, while Dave groaned and Meenah made more noises in the hall. "Wait a second, is Nepeta listening in on this?"
Karkat's eyes widened; he didn't think they were able to hear Meenah. "Yeah, probably, because that's what she does. She likes documenting what I do for her silly little blog."
"Tell her I say hi and that I miss her! Can you tell my sister that too?"
"Sure can," he replied, swallowing hard as he resisted the urge to explain that he saw Latula a lot more than she probably expected him to. At that point, he was seeing her at least three times a week, mostly when he'd be forced to drop food off at their house for Meenah. "I'll drive over there tomorrow and see if she's home, and I'll talk to her if she is. Anyone else you want me to talk to?"
She cheerfully nodded, pushing Dave away as she pulled her webcam close to her once more. "I'd like you to say hi to Vriska too, if you could. I really miss my best friend. And her sister! Aranea's probably been wondering what's going on with me, so talk to her too. That's it, though, really! Let them know I'll see them in December, and that I miss them so much!"
"I'll do all of that for you, promise." Again, it wouldn't be that hard. Aranea lived with Meenah and Latula, and he spent nearly as much time with her as he did Meenah, and then Vriska was over whenever her parents were for their counseling sessions, so as long as he was around for one of those, he'd be able to pass the message on to her. "Is that it?"
"One more thing, but this is for you and no one else, got it?" He gave her a quick nod to show that he did understand what she had said, and her face turned serious. "I trust you that you're just waiting for me, but if you're thinking me and Dave are a thing, don't think it. That would be so wrong of me, to be cheating on you while you're waiting so patiently to be with me again. I swear on my life and everything I hold dear to me that I am yours, that I will forever remain yours, and I'm as pure now as I was the day I left you there."
"That's kind of heavy and deep, Terezi. Don't you want your Karkat thinking that me and you are having fun while he's stuck alone?"
Like he did in most situations where bringing up his current state would end badly for him, he bit down on his lip. Terezi, knowing Karkat and his body language, read that as him feeling awkward in the situation. "I'm sure he really doesn't think we're doing anything, but I want to make it clear to him that we aren't. I'm being as loyal to him as he is to me."
Karkat went to say something, but Meenah happened to sneeze, and her sneezes were unlike any that Nepeta would have been able to muster, which Terezi immediately caught. She instantly asked who really was listening in on them, and he shrugged, not wanting to have to explain that Meenah was there, even though just saying that would have been an innocent thing. "Must be one of my parents' friends or something. They do that, come and listen to me. I think it's crazy."
"Well, whoever's there, tell them to go away. This is time between me and my Karkat. I even got Dave to leave for this." She suggestively winked, and he felt his face warming up at her seductive intentions.
"Go fuck yourself."
Three words, that's all Meenah said, but Terezi was on top of things, her playful actions disappearing in an instant. "I know that voice. That's not anyone one of your parents would know. Karkat, why is Meenah at your house?"
He had to act quickly to save his sorry ass from being chewed out and dumped. "She's being paid by my parents to clean the place. I totally forgot that she'd be here today. I'm probably going to get kicked out of my room so she can clean it, so I think I'm just going to go. It's been nice talking to you, Terezi. Love you."
"Love you too, Karkat. Talk to you again soon." She waved a farewell to him and he disconnected, before screaming in anger and frustration. He was so close to having blown the cover he had worked hard to create, and that meant he was teetering on the edge of losing Terezi, which was a place he didn't want to be. When Meenah brought herself back into the room, he did nothing but glare at her, while she laughed and cracked fish pun-filled jokes about how stupid the other girl was, and how she was in for a rude awakening whenever she came home.
Karkat didn't say a word to her for the rest of the night, instead choosing to text apology after apology to his girlfriend regarding how the "cleaning lady" ruined their chat. She believed every word of what he said, which made him feel a bit better, but at the same time, a bit worse. She was obviously still in love with him, and he was going to have to break her heart.
He was glad Terezi wasn't coming home until Christmas.
A/N: Three parts down, two to go! Please let me know if you're enjoying this story, and if you're seriously going to spam review it with stupid shit about how "such and such character is meant to be alone", or about how "this goes against canon", please remember that this is a Humanstuck AU where anything is possible. The boundaries of canon don't have to be followed. Oh, and this was originally written in April 2013.
