It took almost two hours for Karkat to relax. He'd been stiff as a board when Dave brought him home, and Dave half wondered if he might just keel over from how uncomfortable he was, shattering all over the ground like a piece of ice dropped by a careless asshole as he just tries to put some ice cubes in his goddamn water. It had taken several cans of pepsi and some careless banter to coax him back into being at ease. After Dave gauged him to be calmed down enough to talk about the move again, he brought the subject up in as casual a way as he could manage.

"So Dirk'll be home in just a few minutes, and I was thinking we could move at least some of your stuff here either right when he gets back or after dinner, or if you wanted we could wait until tomorrow? It's up to you."

Karkat shifted, slightly uncomfortable, hands wrapped nervously around his third can of pepsi. "You really don't have to take me in. I was just fine living alone, I don't need anybody to take care of me."

Dave shook his head. "Out of the question. Unless you'd be uncomfortable staying with us, which I totally get, we're a lot to handle."

"It's not that, it's just that it seems dumb for me to stay here when I was doing fine before."

"I dunno man, it's not good for you to be all alone like that for long periods of time. Like I said, it'll drive you insane." Karkat started to say something, but Dave cut him off. "Tell you what, in addition to getting a no-holds-barred question during our next lightning round, you also get to leave whenever you want after a free trial period of like. Three days. How about that?"

Karkat brightened almost imperceptibly. "Free trial period? As in you're gonna make me work for it later?"

"I mean, no, but the terminology fit the idea." Karkat frowned again, seeming to droop into awkward discomfort again. "Why, do you want to work?"

"I don't want to be a burden, that's all. I can take care of myself just fine, honestly. I don't need babysitters."

The front door opened, and Dirk stepped inside, tossing his bag into the corner next to the door with a metallic thud as he made his way into the living room. "Why are we talking about babysitters?" he asked, yawning and stretching before collapsing on the couch.

"Oh, my day was great, thanks for asking. How about yours?" Dave asked sarcastically. He stood to join Dirk in the living room, motioning for Karkat to follow.

"Oh, shut it." Dirk punched weakly in Dave's general direction.

"Your intimidation factor is truly overwhelming. Really, I'm terrified."

Dirk sighed dramatically, laying an arm across his forehead. "Dave, I'm tired and old. Let me rest."

"Okay, I guess I won't fill you in on what we were talking about then. Come on, Karkat."

"Wait no, that's not fair." Dirk sat up a bit, groaning. "I've been cooped up in that sweaty garage all day, gimmea break."

Dave shrugged magnanimously. "Alright man, but this is your last chance."

Dirk saluted half-heartedly. "You can count on me, sir." His hand dropped limply from his forehead to rest on the floor.

Dave cleared his throat. "So Karkat's been living by himself for...how long have you been living by yourself?"

Karkat glared at him, but muttered quietly, "A couple months, or something." He raised his voice a bit. "But it's not a big deal, I've been taking care of myself since I was like nine years old, so I–"

"Wait woah woah woah, hold your horses there, bud." Dirk was having none of Karkat's reassurances. "What do you mean since you were nine?"

Dave could see Karkat move through the five stages of grief in less than three seconds as he realized that he'd talked himself into a corner. "I mean that my dad hasn't been home for more than two weeks at a time since I was nine. He travels a lot for his...job."

"Well that sounded sketchy and vague," Dirk commented dryly. He turned to Dave. "So did you offer to let him stay here?"

"Well duh, who do you think I am?"

Dirk returned his gaze to Karkat. "So where do you live? I can run stuff back and forth with the car if you want. Also where do you wanna stay? Cuz like, the couch here in the living room's fine, but you could stay in Dave's room or something if you wanted."

Karkat had been getting increasingly more pale as Dirk talked, until he blurted out, "There's no way in hell I'm stealing Dave's room, or your couch, or anything. I'm seriously fine, and I don't want to be here if I'm not doing anything to deserve to stay here."

Dirk stopped, puzzling over something. Dave looked at him inquisitively before he looked up and locked eyes with Dave.

"Shounen Maid?"

Dave started giggling uncontrollably. "Oh my god, it's perfect," he managed to get out before being completely consumed by a fit of laughter.

Karkat stared at the both of them in turns, absolutely terrified. "I don't know what the fuck you two are laughing about, but I don't want anything to do with it."

Dirk recovered from his small bout of quiet snickering to add, "So what color should we make his uniform?"

Dave's answer was incomprehensible in between his laughter.

"What in the earthly fuck are you talking about." Karkat's terror was thinly masked by clearly faked anger.

Dave being completely incapacitated, it was Dirk who responded. "Do you watch any anime, Karkat?"

Karkat actually physically backed away. "Oh fuck no, whatever you're planning, I want you to stop right the fuck now. Take your plan and put it squarely in fuck off land and ship it off to fuck off island and let it rot in fuck off prison for the rest of its fucking existence."

"Relax, man, it's okay. Although, you're gonna have to change your attitude towards anime or you're not gonna like Wednesday nights all that much." Karkat opened his mouth to say something, then decided that there was nothing he could say to get himself out of this situation and closed it in defeat. Dirk coughed, looking pointedly in Dave's direction. Dave still hadn't fully recovered, and waved his hand weakly at Dirk, who sighed in response.

"Basically, we're gonna reach an agreement where you say you'll stay here, but in exchange you can like...clean stuff and shit, I guess. I mean, obviously you don't have to do anything at all, but if it would make you feel better, then you can be like...permanent kitchen god or whatever."

Karkat stared at the two warily. "So you're saying I can be in charge of keeping the kitchen from looking like a warzone in exchange for staying here?"

"Pretty much. Seems kinda dumb to me to have you working, but whatever floats your boat."

"Fine. I'll stay. But only because your kitchen is an actual fucking horror show and neither of you two are willing to give up your cool kid act for long enough to wash the fucking dishes."

"Yesssssss," Dave whispered softly, having finally remembered how to breathe. He reached across Karkat to high five Dirk, who was equally excited at the small victory. Karkat looked at them in disgust.

"You two are impossible, you know that? Impossible fucking assholes."

"Why thank you," said Dirk, bowing dramatically.

Karkat groaned, then crossed his arms grumpily. "So are we going to get my stuff or not? Because I'm not making you assholes dinner unless I have ingredients to work with."

Dirk had begun to stand up with the intention of running outside and starting the car, but looked at Karkat in mild confusion and sat once more. "You want to make dinner...again?"

"Well I'm not gonna let you guys eat takeout all the time, you'll die. Do you know how bad that stuff is for you?"

"We don't have takeout all the time. We have ramen sometimes, too," Dirk defended. Dave started laughing again as Karkat's face flushed with horror.

"Oh my god." He threw his hands up in the air. "That's it. I give up. You're hopeless." He walked away aggressively, then turned to face Dirk again. "You," he said, pointing furiously, "where are your goddamn keys?" Dirk held them up. Karkat returned and snatched them out of Dirk's hand.

"Hey!" Dirk protested, forcing himself up with only a little bit of disgruntlement, and chased after Karkat as he marched out the door. "You can't drive my car, it'll explode probably." Dave followed after the two of them, content to watch them bicker.

"Well then you'd better get this piece of shit car up and running in the next thirty seconds or I'm going to walk all the way there and back with all of my goddamn stuff balanced precariously in my arms like the girl in Jungle Book with the fucking jar of water on her head." He threw the keys at Dirk, hitting him squarely in the chest. When Dirk hesitated to stare at the spot where the keys had no doubt bruised him from the impact, Karkat reiterated: "Now."

Dave watched in mild amusement as his brother scrambled to shove the keys in the ignition, cursing at the car in an attempt to intimidate it into starting. It didn't work very well. His eyes shifted to watch Karkat impatiently tapping his foot and staring daggers at Dirk. There's no way he should be that scary, but somehow he manages to pull it off and yet not come off like a total dick. Once the car had begrudgingly sputtered to life, Karkat threw the passenger door open and sat decisively in the front seat. His gaze snapped to Dave. "Get in shitstain, I have a lot of stuff to move." Dave shrugged nonchalantly and got in, trying to hide the fact that the fear of God had taken hold of him when Karkat looked at him. God...how does he do that?

"Alright kiddos, hold onto something," Dirk said, his voice shaking slightly as he tried to brush off his slight terror of the tiny Anger Factory™ sitting next to him. Karkat never once flinched as Dirk ripped backwards and slid into a U turn that would make Vin Diesel proud, then shot off at the speed of sound, haphazardly following Karkat's shouted directions as Dave prayed silently that no cops would cross their path.

~~~ Are You Tired Of Moderately-Lengthed Time Skips Yet? ~~~

After lots of yelling, tripping over boxes, shuttling back and forth, and one nearly disastrous incident of calamitous box-toppling, they actually managed to move all of the things Karkat needed and wanted into their house. It was a bit hectic after that, since Karkat declared that his new housemates were going to move his things to Dave's room while he made them dinner. It hadn't been previously officially determined where Karkat would stay, so Dave was pleased that he had made a favorable enough impression on his new friend that he would be willing to share a room. There was also a slight gut-clenching feeling that Dave couldn't quite put his finger on, but that seemed more or less to be nerves mixed with a desperate desire to maintain his good standing with Karkat. Why he felt nervous about it all was beyond him, but he chalked it up to having a new member of the household, and someone that he had only formally known for about four days.

Dirk continued to be half-terrified of Karkat's kitchen witchcraft, but refused Karkat's demands that they sit at the table and eat together, saying that he had too much work to do. He took his food, grabbed a mountain dew and disappeared. Karkat shuddered. "I can't believe he would drink something so disgusting."

"I've tried to get him to mend his ways, but he just won't listen," Dave agreed somberly.

"Oh shut up, Dave, you survive off of that apple bullshit."

"Hey, don't push your luck. I'll make you sleep on the couch, man, just fuckin watch me."

Karkat waved dismissively. "Yeah, whatever." He lapsed into silence for a moment, before saying, "Well I guess since your brother was so adamant about rejecting my efforts to sit and eat, there's no reason for us to eat out here."

"Sweet." Dave opened the fridge to retrieve the afore-scoffed apple juice, which elicited a resigned groan from Karkat, then balanced his plate precariously atop the lid of the bottle and made his way to his room. He shouldered open the door, then flicked on the lights with his free hand and sat on the bed. He looked up at Karkat, who had stopped awkwardly in the doorway.

"Come on, nothing in here's deadly. Probably." Karkat seemed to be surveying the room. "I know there isn't much space, but it should be alright," Dave added. Dave and Dirk had managed to drag the trundle bed's rusted ass out from under Dave's bed and get some clean sheets on it, but in exchange there was little to no room to move.

"We can move the trundle bed back under mine for now, if you want," Dave offered. Karkat's snapped out of whatever dream state he'd been in, shaking his head slightly as he did so.

"No, that's fine," he said, joining Dave in sitting on the bed. It would have taken a grade-A idiot not to notice that Karkat was positively radiating discomfort. Dave cleared his throat.

"You doing alright?"

"Yeah." Dave thought Karkat was going to leave it at that, but surprisingly enough, he continued. "It's weird being in a house with people."

"What kind of weird? Good weird or bad weird?"

Karkat frowned. "Just...weird."

Dave nodded wisely. "True neutral weird, the rarest of its kind."

Karkat punched him. "Fucking moron…" he muttered.

Dave rubbed his arm. That one kind of hurt...huh. He was about to retort when he noticed that Karkat had turned away, disengaging completely from the conversation in favor of returning to his food. Or rather, returning to pushing bits of food around on the plate distractedly.

"Something on your mind?" Dave said after a few minutes had passed. Karkat jumped, made eye contact, then turned away again.

"It's...never mind."

"Oh come on, don't give me this 'oh look at me, I'm so mysterious' bullshit. Out with it."

Karkat's face darkened with what would have been rage if he hadn't been in such a strange mood. "Your deal. It's your turn."

Dave's brow furrowed. "My deal?"

"I stay here and you let me ask any question."

Dave swallowed a bite of food. "Sure, okay. Fire away."

Karkat stopped for a second, apparently deciding how to word his question. "I kind of asked it before. The off limits question." Dave's fork stopped midair, his eyes unfocusing slightly. Karkat forged on anyway. "Why do you guys live alone? Where is your family?"

"Hey, I said only one question." Dave's voice was extremely empty, as unfocused as his vision. Its tone scared Karkat a lot more than he would have liked to admit.

"You know what, never mind. It's fine."

"No, you're right. I promised to answer a question, I gotta answer the fuckin question." With tremendous effort, Dave's consciousness solidified itself a bit. He grabbed his apple juice, chugged the entire thing, then set his food aside. "I'll try to keep it short and sweet because it's really fucked up, and I don't really like going into detail about it."

Karkat nodded, unable to think of any words that wouldn't ruin the moment. Dave cleared his throat.

"We live alone because of a lot of fucked up family bullshit, basically. Our parents died when we were younger, and I don't really remember them a whole lot. Dirk was older when they died, but he doesn't really talk about them. He...doesn't really like talking about any of this, so you gotta be quieter than a fucking crypt about this, okay?" Karkat nodded again.

"So wait, you live alone because your parents died? But you said that happened when you were young, there's no way you've been living alone that whole time." Dave tensed up again.

"We didn't. We were staying with our...our half brother." It was taking Dave a lot more effort than he'd expected to force the words out of his mouth. "He's a lot older than us since our mom had him in high school." Dave paused again. "We didn't want to live with him, but technically I guess he's our closest next-of-kin or whatever. We didn't even know he existed until we were told we'd be living with him. It was really fucked up actually, who the fuck puts a fucking 7 year old and a 10 year old in a house with somebody they've never met before in their fucking life. He's practically off the record, who thought that was a fucking good idea. And he wasn't even that old, he had no idea what he was doing, but I guess fuck giving kids to qualified family members. The child support whoever the fucks probably just wanted to get our case over with so they could go back to whatever more important stuff they were doing before.

"And anyway, he was a fucking piece of absolute shit, but they never came to check up on us which I think they're supposed to do but apparently we were not worth their fucking time to make sure we were safe and adjusting to our new household well or whatever. Like oh, I found some family member that they've never heard of that lives with his dad who they've also never met, sounds like a great person to put in charge, let's just not do any kind of fucking background check like we're fucking supposed to because oh his dad has a lot of money so we'll just shut up about it and keep minding our own fucking business because as long as we get paid who the fuck cares about these tiny fucing kids?"

"Dave, it's oka–"

"And you know, we weren't fucking safe and we weren't fucking adjusting. We weren't fucking okay. We were so fucking not okay we have fucking scars. We can't go a goddamn day without seeing them and remembering everything that happened to us. Do you know why I wear long shirts and pants all the fucking time? Because I'm tired of answering questions. I'm fucking tired of people getting all up in my business because hey, that scar looks bad, are you okay? No, I'm not fucking okay. I haven't been okay since I was fucking 7 years old. Do you know what it does to you to live in terror because you have to watch your fucking guardian beat your older brother? And the worst part? Dirk took the beatings so I would have to. He has so many more fucking scars than me, and it hurts every fucking day thinking about it."

Dave was only half aware of the fact that the words that had been so hard to say before were now pouring out so fast he was almost tripping over them. "You know, when Dirk finally turned 18 and got to move out, I was so fucking relieved because I knew that he wouldn't have to deal with that anymore. He wouldn't have to protect me anymore, he could go and live his own fucking life. And he did. He'd been saving up money for a while, lying to Bro so that he wouldn't take all of Dirk's money. He had been planning getting this apartment for months, maybe even years. I don't even know how he fucking managed it, fuck if I know how getting an apartment works, but he fucking did it and I was so happy for him that he'd managed to get out.

"It hadn't fully occurred to me that that meant that I'd have to take the beatings until the first time he drew blood. And you know what? He made me bleed so many times that I can't even look at fucking blood. If I think about it for too long, it makes me fucking sick. I've gotten better recently, I can watch like movies and shit, but it's still really fucking hard and I don't think I'll ever be able to fully fucking recover. And even though it made me fucking sick and sometimes I didn't think I'd be able to move ever again, I let it happen. I fucking let it happen because I'm a coward, because I knew that trying to stop him would make it worse than it already was, if that was even fucking possible. I knew that if I ever brought it up, Bro would just tell me that I was making him out to be worse than he was, that I was the irrational one in the situation. And I fucking believed him. I let it happen because I thought he was right, that I deserved it and that I shouldn't bother trying to stop him because I was the crazy one, I was the one who was blowing things out of proportion, it was me that was in the wrong. Part of me still fucking believes that, do you know how fucked up that is? Sometimes I wonder if it even happened or if I just made it up, but isn't it just great that I have the scars to conveniently prove to me every time that yup, it sure did fucking happen."

"Da–"

Dave was crying now, but he hardly noticed. "If Dirk hadn't gotten me out of there I don't know what I would have fucking done. I thought I was going to fucking die because I wasn't brave like Dirk, I couldn't take it the same way Dirk could. But he came anyway, and he got hurt again because of it and it was my fucking fault. If I'd just...if I'd just had better aim, if I'd thrown something heavier, if I'd done anything besides the useless bullshit that I did. But I didn't know what else to do, I was so fucking scared that he was gonna kill Dirk, he had a fucking knife and Dirk was trapped and I just grabbed the nearest thing and threw it to try and give Dirk a chance to get out but that went fucking terribly and then Dirk was...Dirk was gone, he was out cold and there was blood everywhere and I really did think he was dead, I thought I'd fucked up so badly that he wasn't gonna come back. Bro was too busy beating the shit out of Dirk while he was down, who does that? Who the fuck beats somebody when he can't even do anything to defend himself? And I...I didn't know what to do, I was so scared, I panicked and ran and didn't look back, and I hid in the first room I found, the bathroom, I crawled into the fucking thing under the sink and I was so scared, I was so scared, I knew if I made any noise he would find me so I clamped one hand over my mouth and tried not to cry and called the police but I couldn't even talk to them I had to call them and let them talk to nobody and turn the volume way down and muffle it against my shirt and hope that Bro wouldn't hear it, that Bro was still distracted, that Bro wouldn't find me because I was so scared, I was scared that he'd kill me if he found me. I was scared...I was…"

Dave lost his will to talk about it in favor of drawing his knees against his chest and hiding his face. His tears were streaming faster than ever, and he was trembling, repeating over and over in a barely audible voice, "I was so scared, I was so scared, I was so scared."

And Karkat had absolutely no idea what to do about it.

He was fairly sure that there wasn't really anything he could say that would help, but there was no way in hell he was just gonna let Dave sit there in tears and not try to do something about it.

After a moment of contemplation, he shifted closer to Dave tentatively reached one arm around Dave's shoulders, pulling him into an awkward hug. Dave responded by trembling harder, which almost made Karkat pull back, but the second Dave felt Karkat moving away, he grabbed Karkat's shirt, silently pleading with him to stay. Not knowing what else to do, Karkat sat there, letting Dave cry until he ran out of energy and fell soundly asleep against Karkat's shoulder.