"Fuck!"
"What?"
"Nothing I just haven't fucking said 'fuck' in a while."
She laughs a little bit, "Well at least you're feeling better."
You growl a little bit, "You've been here like an hour, don't you have fucking places to be or some shit?"
"Well," she starts, "I was going to help Equius with some of his robots-"
"Speaking of that douchebag my door is still broken."
"-but he'll be fine on his own. Now you and me, Sir Scratch," her voice starts off light, but takes a sinister twist with her next line, "we're gonna fucking demolish this disease and eradicate its presence from your body!" You simply stare at her. "Then you'll be good as new!"
She goes on to ramble on and on about something, but you don't care to listen. Where did you get this sickness from anyways? You haven't gotten injured lately have you? No..wait, yet you have. The blade on the floor. You never bothered to wash it off, there must have been some sort of bacteria on it. Oh, fucking great. You can't even get a cool, deadly disease from fighting bears or something, no, you have to get a fucking floor disease. This makes you very, very angry.
She must have noticed you spacing out, because she's waving her hand in front of your face, "Alternia to Sir Scratch, do you read me?"
"What?"
She sighs, "I asked you if you wanted anything to eat."
Your stomach twists. "I have no appetite."
"Come on! When was the last time you ate? You're looking skinnier than normal."
You're gonna have to lie. No way you're telling her you haven't eaten for six days. "Uhh..." you mumble, "yesterday?"
"You're lying. You were asleep yesterday."
"Then the fucking day before!"
She glares a little bit, but doesn't pressure it further. Clearly she still thinks you're lying. "Well then, I'm gonna make you something," she purrs as she gets up and goes into your kitchen.
No no no no no no no. You don't want this. You get up and hold your hand to your head, trying to quell the throbbing, and you notice the trembling is back. "Nepeta.."
"It's Doctor Mew!" She whips around and lets out a sigh when she sees that you're up, "Sir you need to stay at least sitting."
You glare, "Please just fucking leave, you're stressing me out."
She walks over to you and makes you sit down, "You're a yarn ball of stress 24/7. Me being here won't change much."
"Nepeta!"
She simply ignores you and walks back to whatever she was doing in the kitchen. Clearly you must play along with her stupid roleplaying game. You let out a heavy sigh, making sure it's audible from the kitchen. "Doctor Mew."
She spins around to face you, "Yes?"
"You're making me uncomfortable with this fucking nonsense about food. I can fucking feed my own fat face."
"But you're so sick you slept through Monday and even now you can barely stand.." she tenses up. "Sir Scratch, we'll have to pause the roleplay. Karcat, I need you to answer something in absolute truth."
You look away from her, not wanting to meet her frozen gaze, "Depends on the fucking question."
"Are you cold?"
"Uhh...kinda?"
"Where's your thermostat?"
"What?"
She clenches her fists in something resembling impatient anger, "The goddamn thing where you determine how much heat you have in the apartment?"
You point to it, and she walks stiffly over, her little tail swishing. She never got rid of it, or even grew out of that little cat phase. She reads the number on there and turns around to you, "It's 75 degrees in here."
You really don't get where she's going with this. She's doing more 'detective work' than Terezi, and that's fucking insane. "Your fucking point is?"
"It's pretty hot in here. You shouldn't be cold. Karkat, how much do you weigh?"
"EXCUSE ME?"
"I'm not in the mood for your fucking games, we just put our on paws! Now stop acting like a 20 sweep year old human woman and just tell me your weight!"
"I don't fucking know! Probably like a thousand pounds!"
She seems close to tearing up. What the hell is going on with her? Where is she going with this? "Karkat...be honest. When was the last time you ate?"
Oh. Oh now you get it. She's following the tail, err, trail. She's smarter than you take her for. She stares at you as you sit there dumbly in silence. "It's...fuck...it's been a while."
She's actually tearing up now. She pulls off her olive jacket and rushes over to you, putting it around your shoulders. "I won't yell at you this time, I won't judge this time." She's crying.
No, please don't cry. You can't bear to see this. "Nepeta? Why are you crying?"
"Karkat I'm not stupid, why do you hate yourself so much? Why can't you see how fucking perfect you are?" Her voice hitches a few times, and she's nearly broken down completely.
As she puts her hands up to her eyes to wipe away the tears, you put your hands on her shoulders. "I'm fine-"
"No you're not!" she quickly gasps for breath, "You're starving I can see it in you, your cheeks are getting thin and you're shaking because you don't have the strength to stand!"
That's probably the reason why. She's got a point there. You don't bother arguing, you know she's right, and she definitely knows she's right. "Why?"
"I don't know-"
"Why can't you see you're not the piece of shit you think you are?! What fucking mirror are you looking in where you see this-" she motions to your body, "as some game character that can be reset once failure takes over?! You can't be reset, you can't be reset" she grips your shoulders and you can feel her nails through her jacket and your sweater. She's holding onto you as if any breeze might take you away. She puts her head on your chest, and you feel her tears seeping through the fabric and hitting your skin. She's racked with sobs over you, you piece of shit. How fucking dare you do this so someone like her?
You're staring at her in absolute shock and dismay now. She sees right through you, no-one else does, not even Dave. And look how much you're upsetting her. She swiftly pulls her head up to look at you, her eyes olive in the corners from how bloodshot her eyes are getting. She's really pouring it out, because of you. "Karkat when you fuck up you're fucked up for life you'll die and I can't kiss you ba- ack!" the last word is practically infused with a sob as she shakes you back and forth. "You need to get a better mirror, look a little closer, stare a little longer! You'll find something good about yourself!" She stops shaking you and presses her head to your chest again. You hug her and try to comfort her.
You two sit there for about seven minutes, before she starts to get over it. She pulls her head off your chest slowly and rubs her eyes with her hands before putting them in her lap. She and you sit there for a little in silence before she looks at you with determined eyes, "I'm going to help you."
"I don't fucking need help."
"I'll call someone if you don't let me help you."
You glare at her, "Don't you fucking dare."
"Then let me help you."
You look away from her, you can't stand to look at you. You're burning with shame after being responsible for her crying. Equius would kick your ass if he knew you hurt his moirail the way you did. Maybe he'd kill you. Wouldn't that be a miracle?
"I'll make something that will be soft on your stomach. If you can just eat a little, I'll rest my case for today."
If that'll get her off your back, even for one fucking day, that would be a huge relief. But you don't want to eat, you cannot stand the idea of eating. You close your eyes tightly before nodding slightly. You probably should eat anyways. For her sake.
She slowly gets off the couch and goes into the kitchen, resuming whatever she had taken up before she called you out on your bullshit. You open your eyes and stare down at the couch. You don't know how long you're sitting there before you feel a hand on your back and you see a bowl with a small amount of soup in it before you.
"Please."
Your whole body tenses up at the sight and smell of food. Your instinct is to kick it away from you, but your stomach growls. Nepeta laughs a little bit, something genuine but quiet, "See? You're hungry." Her voice is still uneven and wobbly, and there's the overtone of sadness.
You grimace as you reach down and grab the spoon. Your hand is trembling. Whether that's from your weak body or the emotional turmoil you're going through when faced with your bane, you don't know. You start to lift a spoonful to your mouth when you put the spoon back down. "I can't do it," you choke out.
You feel the hand on your back start shivering a little bit. You hope she doesn't cry again. "Ple- ease," her voice is absolutely filled to the brim with pleading. It's clearly hard for her to not force you into this. She's trying to be supportive rather than oppressive about this.
With a racing heart you bring the spoon back up to your mouth, and you keep in there for a few seconds before begrudgingly putting it in your mouth. You want to throw it up. It's not even all the way inside you and you want to throw it up. You can feel her eyes on you to see if you swallow it.
You do.
It brings a sense of defeat, not accomplishment. You feel like you've simply let yourself down. Nepeta seems practically ecstatic, but you can't share in her excitement. It's too awful. Once you feel it in your stomach, you hear a loud rumble come from your stomach, and realize you're fucking hungry. As you will yourself through a few more mouthfuls, it becomes easier, and you actually have to pace yourself. Nepeta, behind you, is practically as proud as a mother grub about this petty achievement.
You finish the bowl. You can't believe you did. All you want to do is throw it back up. You feel fat, hideous, disgusting. Worthless, volatile, truly fucking repulsive. More repulsive than Eridan. You're still shaking.
Nepeta takes her hand off your shoulder and walks off into your room. You freeze and hope to any sort of god that she does not look on your windowsill. She returns with a big blanket from your bed that practically engulfs her frame as she walks towards you with it. "Delivery!"
To make it easier for her, you set the bowl on the ground, and she drops the blanket over you. It definitely warms you up, if restricting your breathing quite a bit. You pull it off enough so you can breathe, and you can see she's taking the bowl back into the kitchen. If you wanted to, you could get up and vomit. You start to get up, but immediately get back in your position when she turns around. Looks like you're under watch again.
She cleans the plate then walks back over to you, "Want me to call Dave?"
"Why the fuck would you want to do that?"
"He told everyone at school how you two were...uh...he quoted it as 'we're practically fucking'."
"OH MY GOD. No we are not in any motherfucking quadrant. He and I tried for like half an hour but I cut it off," now that you think of it, you never explicitly told Dave you were cutting it off. Goddamn it. "Just don't fucking talk to him about me, okay?"
She just nods a little bit and sits on the couch beside you. Is that relief in her eyes? "Could you please come back to school?"
"I'm fine doing that bullshit online schooling."
Nepeta looks at her, clearly bordering exhaustion, "Karkitty I'm not gonna sugarcoat this. You're a hazard to yourself, I want to keep an eye on you. You have no actual moirail, and apparently I'm the only one in our social group with proper moirail training, so I'll just try to help you. If I could ditch this weird school thing, I would, because I honestly fucking hate it," she laughs a little, "but the merge of our cultures ended with humans having more power somehow, so they decided this is law. Maybe the higher up trolls thought it would be a good idea to make sure the younger ones were as smart as the humans in case one day we overpower them and enslave them all." She smiles in an endearing yet murderous way.
You sigh in resignation. Compliance is key. "Okay," you mutter, "I'll do the goddamn paperwork and all that fucking nonsense tomorrow."
She grins in delight, "Oh yay!" she hugs you around your neck, "I'll tell everyone the good news!"
"Just, say it was my fucking idea and no-one else's think-pan working on this, alright?"
She's already using her little phone, probably texting everyone, "Sure, sure, whatever!"
A/N I'm still not super good writing Nepeta, but I tried. Oh goodness, I'm such a fucking pansy, I nearly cried when I was writing the part where she cried. I just hated doing that! Anyways, I got hyped up and wrote this chapter, so you don't even have to worry about waiting a whole fucking week for a new one! And I realized the last chapter had an alarming lack of "fuck" in it, so I made sure to add a ton of expletives to Karkat's vocabulary in this chapter. Oh, how will school fuck up Karkat? I know. Heh.
