A/N; okay sorry in advance for any possible grammatical errors. I tend to be sloppy with fanfictions and not proof read. I promise you I'm not an illiterate bumble who doesn't know the difference between "there" "their" and "they're"-I just don't go over anything and I'm SO sorry for that! I've really gotta work on it, I know. So, yeah. Sorry for any typos in this chapter or in future/previous ones. That is all
The next day at school was . . . Eventful.
Karkat's phone started buzzing before he even got a chance to walk in the door.
SOLLUX: hey a22hole come meet aa and ii for breakfa2t
Karkat sighed. He had already eaten a flavorless bowl of oatmeal and managed to stomach an entire travel mug of his father's god awful coffee. The bags under his eyes were more prominent than ever, his hair was a fucking mess, and he just wanted to go back to sleep. Putting up with Sollux so early in the morning was not something he was looking forward to.
He looked in the front doors of the school. The cafeteria was a straight shot down the first hallway, which happened to be crowded with quite possibly every single one of the school's 3000 students. Sollux was so fucking lucky Karkat liked him.
KARKAT: ILL BE RIGHT THERE TRY NOT TO HURT YOURSELF
"Vantas."
Karkat looked up from his phone and found himself eye-to-sunglasses with none other than Dave fucking Strider. "Can I help you?"
Dave shook his head. "Can't a guy hang around with his bro?"
"We are not 'bros'," Karkat told him. "We've had like, one conversation."
"You came to see me at the hospital last night."
"I went to see my idiotic friend with a bee allergy," he corrected.
Dave shrugged. "Tomato, tomahto; you were still there. And you gave Terezi a ride home."
Karkat's eyebrows pressed together. "Is that seriously what this is about? Dude, trust me, I'm not moving in on your girlfriend or whatever—"
"Not my girlfriend," Dave insisted. "And I'm not some territorial douche bag who's gonna tell you you're not allowed to talk to her anymore or I'll get my much taller older brother to beat the shit out of you. Hell, I'll bet Rose could do it. I'm just here say thank you for getting her home safe. None of that alpha male garbage."
"Oh . . ." Karkat's shoulders relaxed. "Well . . . you're welcome, I guess. Now if you'll excuse me—"
"One other thing," Dave said, stepping in his way again so Karkat wasn't able to get through. "I know your friends with that stoner guy. Just . . . don't let Terezi get into that, alright? It won't end well."
"I'm not a—"
"I know you're not. Fuck you're Kanaya's brother, she'd never let you. But if Terezi gets too close to that sort of thing—no, you know what? Never mind. Not my business anyway. I'm gonna go find Pyrope."
"Might as well stick around," Karkat grumbled miserably, pushing his way past the wall Dave's body had created. "She tends to find me."
And because the gods of the universe just fucking love pissing on him, the first thing Karkat heard upon entering the overly crowded school was, "KARKAT!" in that raspy, over-excited, and slightly creepy voice that was becoming a little too familiar.
He sighed. "Hello Terezi."
"What are you doing here to early?"
"Kanaya had to go to some kind of before-school meeting," he explained. "So I'm going to breakfast."
"I'll come too!" she said, inviting herself. Karkat didn't protest, he just kept walking. She skipped along beside him, waving out her cane and bumping dozens of kids in the ankles. Dave stalked along behind them, keeping an eye on his friend.
"Thank you for bringing me home, by the way," she said as they walked. Her voice was calmer now, like she actually meant it.
"Well, I needed something to do anyway," Karkat shrugged it off. "It was no big deal."
Terezi bit her lip. This is a bad idea, she told herself. But then again, since when did she care? She got up on her tip toes and kissed his cheek. At least, she hoped it was his cheek. "It was sweet of you."
Karkat felt heat rising in his cheeks at record speed. Strider sniggered from behind them. "Uh . . . it . . . I mean—"
"Kar!"
"Oh fucking hell—" Karkat began, but he was cut off by Eridan grabbing his shoulder and pulling him through the crowd. He couldn't get one fucking break, could he?
"You'll never guess what I caught Sol doin' this morning!" Eridan exclaimed. "It was so—"
"I DON'T FUCKING CARE!" Karkat shouted.
"But—"
"No buts! God damn it Eridan we get it, yyou hate Sollux can we please talk about something else for once? Are you coming to breakfast?"
"That's what I'm talking about!" Eridan exclaimed. "Sol invited everyone to breakfast but me! How fucking rude."
"Well I'm not surprised considering how much he hates you," Terezi interjected. "Seriously you two have some issues to work out."
"How the hell would you even know—"
"You got some kinda speech impediment or something?" Dave asked forwardly.
"What the hell are you talkin abou—"
"You keep doing that thing."
"What thing?"
"That thing!" Dave exclaimed. "With the 'w's! It's weird cut it out."
"I don't know what you're talkin about Strider."
"And he never will," Karkat grumbled. "Now can I please just get through this fucking hallway without anymore interruptions?"
-skip-
"Alright, first things first," Karkat announced, once they had finally gotten to the cafeteria.
"I don't know any of you," Dave observed.
"Strider shut your goddamn mouth," Karkat snapped. "We're addressing a very important topic in our flawed circle of friendship. As most of you know, before Spring Break, I smacked lips with Terezi, leading the two of us to become somewhat reluctant friends, and crowning me as winner of the final dare of the semester. As the rules clearly state, this makes Sollux, the darer, the loser. And we all know what the loser has to do."
Dave raised his hand. "I don't know what the loser has to do."
"Me either," Terezi chimed in.
"I forget," Gamzee added.
Karkat put two fingers to the bridge of his nose. He was getting a headache from the mass amounts of stupidity in the room.
"Loser has to buy a tampon from the girls bathroom and show it to the rest of the group as physical evidence," Sollux explained.
"That's fucking brilliant," Dave praised. "I want in on this."
"Mother fucker wants to join the covenant of the brotherhood," Gamzee said.
"For the millionth time stop calling it that!" Karkat barked. "Strider, if you want to gamble your own self-respect the next time we have bet that's perfectly fine, but right now, this is Sollux's punishment. As the winner I get to pick the deadline, and after long consideration, I've decided that it will be today, at lunch."
"I've gotta do it during school!" Sollux exclaimed. "KK no fair!"
"Doesn't Aradia make you go into the bathroom with her anyway?" Eridan snorted.
"That's it, Asshole!" Sollux tried to jump on the table and punch him in the face, but Karkat at Gamzee grabbed his arms and held him down, as if they had done it a million times.
Terezi nudged Karkat's shoulder. "Is Aradia here?"
Sollux answered for him. "Not yet. She texted me a little while ago, she was having trouble finding her keys."
"To be honest, I'm surprised she wasn't sitting in here hours ago, waiting for you with a bagel and hot coffee," Karkat admitted. "She looked like a wreck last night."
Sollux smirked a little. "Yeah . . . She did, didn't she?"
"The hell are you smiling for?"
Sollux shrugged. "Nothing . . ."
He looked around the cafeteria. Sitting at the table nearest the door was Tavros. From the looks of it, he was being harassed by Vriska yet again; most likely about his lack of self-confidence. At the table next to them, Equius was fumbling with a screw driver in something that might have started out as a cell phone, and Nepeta was doodling in her notebook. Still no sign of Aradia.
Eridan let out a heavy sigh. Following his eyes to the table behind them, Sollux found the swim team, lead as usual by Feferi. Typical.
"So, correct me if I'm wrong, but the vibe I'm getting here is that; all of you hate everyone, including each other, but you tolerate one another due to your mutual hatred towards everyone?" Dave asked just as Sollux tuned back into the conversation.
"Beautifully put," Karkat agreed with a small nod. "I can't stand any of you."
Terezi scrunched up her nose. "Come on now, we all know that's not true!"
"Yeah bro, you just gotta chill more," Gamzee said thoughtfully. Karkat rolled his eyes. "Let motha fuckin loose."
"I think you're all idiots," Sollux said. "And that's putting it kindly."
"SORRY I'M LATE!" Aradia shouted as she ran into the cafeteria. Everyone in the rooms' head shot up to look as she held out a brown paper bag to Sollux and handed him an iced coffee. "I wanted to stop and get you a treat to say sorry for yesterday. I promise there's no honey!"
Sollux opened up the bag and pulled out what was inside. It was a plain bagel with cream cheese and a chocolate muffin. Karkat raised an eyebrow at him knowingly.
"It's iced coffee, Asshole," Sollux pointed out. "And you said nothing about a muffin."
Aradia looked confused. "What are you—"
"Nothing," he told her, scooting to the side so she could sit next to him.
"I actually got you something to," Karkat admitted, reaching into his backpack.
Sollux narrowed his eyes. "Really?"
Karkat nodded and tossed something at him. "Yep."
Sollux caught it; a little yellow bear with a label that said Busy Bee.
"Wow, that's fucking hilarious," he said dryly.
Karkat shrugged modestly. "I try."
Terezi kicked him under the table. He sighed. "It's honey," he told her.
"Wow you're a jerk," she observed with a sly grin.
The bell rang for them to get to home room. Sighing heavily, they all pulled themselves to their feet and slung their bags over their shoulders.
"We meet back here for lunch," Karkat reminded them. "Sollux has a deed to pay."
Third period was, as always, torturous.
"Why do I need to know this?!" Sollux shouted at his paper.
Terezi sniggered. "Because the educational system sees us all as brainless puppets. We all need to be fed the same information and spit back out into the world with the same level of ignorance to actually issues."
"That was actually pretty deep," Aradia complimented. "And I agree completely. This is dumb."
"Ugh screw this."
Aradia stood up. "I need a bathroom break."
Sollux shot up too. "I'll go with you."
"I think I can handle it on my own . . ."
"Nah . . . there's something I gotta do," he admitted, scratching the back of his head.
Aradia rolled her eyes. "You lost another bet against Karkat didn't you."
"Maybe—"
"I'm not getting it for you this time."
"Come on please—"
"No."
Terezi plugged her headphones back in as they exited the room. Their math teacher didn't make you ask permission before leaving, as long as you got all your work done during the period.
Terezi's disability required her to have a slightly unorthodox learning experience. Instead of doing busy work on the paper, she had a tablet she carried around to every class. Her teachers would upload the assignments and the audio-response would read them to her through headphones. For classes like English and History, she could type her answer with a keyboard. For Math and Science she got multiple choice for anything non-essay related. To be fair to the other kids, the tablet wasn't supposed to be able to get onto the internet. But with a little help from Sollux, Terezi could google any answer she needed. You know, as long as she shared her findings with her Hacker Helper.
She had already looked up all the answers to the math assignment, and had spent the rest of the class looking up information about Karkat online. Okay, maybe it was a little stalker-y but she couldn't help herself.
What she found was disappointingly little. He ran a blog where he wrote movie reviews (mostly about romantic comedies, which she found pretty weird) and ranted about how much he hated the world. But that was all she could find. No Facebook profile, no Twitter, not even an Instagram (not that she'd be able to see the pictures anyway).
She wanted to know more about him but she was too afraid to ask. He seemed a little hostile towards her—maybe her being blind made him uncomfortable. It wouldn't be the first time that had happened. But what really bothered her most of all was his stupid face. She had no idea what he even looked like.
Judging by where his voice came from when he spoke, Karkat couldn't have been more than three inches taller than her, but other than that Terezi knew nothing. What color were his eyes and hair? What was his skin tone? How long was his hair—how big was his nose?
Almost everyone she was friends with had known her before her accident. She could still remember what Dave and his brother and sisters looked like, and she knew what Vriska, Tavros, Equius, and Nepeta looked like too. But . . . she hadn't gone to middle school with Karkat and the others. At least, she didn't remember them if she had. It was so unfair to be in love with someone you couldn't see—
Whoa. No she did not just think that. LOVE?! The 'L' word! No way, not with Karkat Vantas . . . She was letting her mind run wild. There was no way she could possibly feel that way towards him . . . Was there?
Terezi found her way to her seat during health without Karkat assistance. Ms. Dots was absent, so the sub put on a movie about date-rape and left the room. He probably wouldn't come back.
No one was paying attention to the movie at all. They were all talking and laughing and being way too loud to not get caught. But Terezi didn't say a word. She didn't want to bother him.
"Are you okay?" Karkat asked finally.
Terezi nodded. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"You've been completely silent this entire class," he told her. "Did I do something wrong?"
She sighed. Was it that obvious? "No, I just . . . I was thinking, that's all."
"About what?" he asked, and then cursed himself. It was none of his business . . .
"You," she said honestly. "I'm trying to picture what you look like based on your personality but . . . I got nothing."
"Does it bother you that much?" he asked. "That you don't know?"
She nodded. "I like to think that we've become friends over the past few days of knowing each other. For the most part I know what all my friends look like because I knew them before I went blind. With you though? It's a mystery."
"I could tell you if you wanted," he offered.
"No . . . let me think about it a little bit more," she decided. "When I've got an idea I'll let you know, and you can tell me if I'm right."
"Deal," Karkat agreed. "Now come on . . . Let's get out of here before the teacher comes back. The last thing I want is to be stuck in this class longer than I have to be."
"Where are we going?" she asked as he helped her out of the desk.
He shrugged. "The parking lot probably. We can hide in my sister's car until lunches start."
