Chapter 4:

"Equius!" I whined. "I purromise I'm purrfectly fine." I pouted. "I wasn't even in the school when the crazy gun guy was there." I reasoned, lying.

"Nepeta, I am just concerned for your safety. Besides, I was told that a young lady with knives took him down, so please try not to go anywhere without someone else." He said.

I scoffed. "I'll be fine, Equius! I can handle myself."

"Yesterday you were too busy skipping to notice the door you were going to was closed, and I had to take you to the nurse, yet again." He tapped his foot, impatient.

"Oh, purrlease. My nose didn't break, so no harm done. And I don't visit the nurse that often." I shrugged.

"I don't know, Nepeta. I think I'm with Equius on this one. I saw that girl and she was pretty scary." Feferi interjected.

"Not you too, Fefurry!" I whined.

"Yes, me too." She giggled.

This happened every time something dangerous happened in town. All my friends would take Equius' side and insist that I should be watched over. It happened when Gamzee ran out of weed, and even though I insisted I would be fine, they ignored me. Gamzee was fine again, but Equius was still wary of me being near him, regardless of the fact that Gamzee went nuts over two years ago.

I picked up my tray and walked over to the trash, throwing out my four empty milk cartons and half-finished plate of what was supposedly spaghetti and meatballs. I didn't manage to pull one hand out fast enough though; my pinky got squished by the metal flap of the garbage can. I yelled out and Equius was immediately by my side, bless his soul.

"Nepeta, what happened?" He fretted.

I held up my now slightly crooked pinky to his line on sight and almost immediately he grabbed my other and hand hauled me off to the nurse once more.

"It looks like a fracture to me." Ms. Maryam, the nurse, said to me.

I whined. "How long until it heals?"

"Probably a few weeks, less than that if you avoid using your left hand." She said sweetly. I loved Ms. Maryam; she was always really nice to me. "For now though, I'll have to get you a makeshift cast." She added, proceeding to dig through some drawers.

After a few minutes, she pulled out some medical tape and two Popsicle sticks. She took my hand in hers and pulled my ring finger and pinky together. First she taped the sticks diagonally to the front and back of my two fingers, then putting a few layers of tape around them.

"Thank you again, Ms. Maryam." I smiled.

"Any time, dear. Now, remember to go straight to a doctor after class."

I gave Ms. Maryam a mock salute and a smile before heading out to Equius, who was right next to me as soon as the door opened.

"What happened?" He asked quickly. I could see that he was sweating profusely from worry, just as he usually did when I got hurt or looked down.

"Just a minor break in my pinky." I said, wiggling my two tapped fingers in his face. "No need to worry."

"I would have preferred to hear about something nicer, Nepeta." He said honestly.

"Oh well." I giggled. "I'm late for art so I'll text you later tonight!" I said, running down the hall away from him.

When I got to class, Karkat was tapping his pencil impatiently on the desk. I rushed over to apologize.

"Karkitty, I'm really sorry, I was with the nurse and had to get a make-shift cast for my finger," I said holding my two fingers up, "so who's drawing who today?" I said, hoping he would forgive me.

"Can you even fucking draw with a broken finger?" He asked, caring about if I was okay in his own way, until he recognized that I didn't mind and straightened himself out. "Y'know whatever, I guess I'll just keep fucking drawing you then."

"Oki-doki, Karkitty." I said, smiling and getting into position on my stool.

"By the way, how did your class handle that stupid lockdown yesterday?" He asked.

"Oh I don't have class last purriod, I thought you knew that." I explained. "I was furry worried about efurryone, but I'm glad you're all okay." I smiled.

"Well we wouldn't be if T.D hadn't shown up and kicked the shit out of that ass with a gun." He sighed, adjusting his sketchbook on his lap. "It was pretty cool; everyone in my theater class was talking about it. Even our shitty school newspaper is doing a story about it, well they asked me because I fucking called after her, like a dumbass, as if she'd come back just because I fucking called her out, she probably pissed at me for that actually. Being a fucking superhero or some shit, I had expected her to come back, say it was no fucking problem for her to beat the fucking nuts off that guy, but she just turned around and was like "No, fuck you, don't thank me", well, I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea. Also the paper wants to talk to you about it, even though you weren't even fucking there. It's probably about your comics or some shit."

I sat there silently; Karkat had never spoken this much to me before. I knew that he had a habit of rambling, but this was the first time I had ever heard it first-hand. After a minute or so of Karkat staring at me for a response, I cleared my throat.

"Well, I'm sure she's furry busy, being who she is and all. It's cool that our papurr is doing something on her too, but I don't think I need to talk to them." I smiled, scratching my head.

"Yeah, she can do whatever the fuck she wants, I guess. I wouldn't worry much about the newspaper though, it's a pointless pursuit, in my opinion. I just wanna find out who the fuck she is. I know that she goes to our school, I know that she's strong, athletic, and a little fucking rude too." I held back a squeak at his last comment.

It wasn't like I actually liked being mean to people, especially Karkat; I had to so that no one would suspect me of being the Disciple. Apparently Karkat saw my distress and raised an eyebrow.

"What's that for?" He asked, referring to my clenched face.

"Well, I mean, how do you know she's a little rude? Maybe she has to be so that no one recognizes her?" I said, mentally smacking myself in the face.

"I guess you're right." He said, scratching his chin.

After that, neither of us spoke, we just sat there and did our work, and when the bell rang, neither of us said goodbye to the other.

Thank you for reading! Please don't forget to review and stuff, let me know what you do/don't like stuff like that. Thank you all for your continued support on Little Lion Girl.

~Chris