Kanaya was gone. When the boys had finally stood up, John feeling rather weak-kneed, they'd searched the bunker, and Sollux went to check Kanaya's house. She wasn't there, and there wasn't any of her blood, which Karkat said was a dark green color. That was about all he said the rest of the day. Repeated it a few times, saying that if she was dead there would be blood.
And then came the task of cleaning. Karkat had covered Tavros in one of the old bedsheets, and they sort of rolled him up as best they could, a few gears and chips of metal remained on the ground, which John gathered and disposed of. Sollux hoisted the misshapen bundle over his back as Karkat went to get a few shovels from the other room.
John felt like he was in a trance, slowly going through motions as he accepted a shovel from Karkat and followed the other two out the front door. He had never expected to hand bury anyone in his life, let alone before he got out of middle school.
"Careful!" Karkat hissed as Sollux clambered unsteadily out of the trapdoor hole, the body swinging precariously and a drop of something wet landed on John's face. He cringed. They exited the clothing store and turned right, walking the perimeter to the back, John had never been this way.
It was a short walk, barely five minutes before they reached what probably used to be a very small park or garden. Now however, it was just a large rectangle of dirt, about the size of a house. In the top right corner, several large stones were lain on the ground. John supposed they were a stand-in for grave markers. Karkat led him over, and pointed to five stones lying several feet apart in a row.
"That's Kankri, the white stone, and Latula and Mituna next to him. They lived in the bunker before us, and that's Porrim, she lived in the candy shop before Kanaya." He didn't sound sad exactly, mostly just tired. John didn't ask who was in the fifth grave, he could see that next to it lay several wilting flowers. Besides, Sollux was right behind them and John didn't know if mentioning Aradia would bother him.
Tavros' body was laid next to them, still wrapped in the sheet, which was now speckled in brown.
They put their shovels in the ground a few feet from the edge of Aradia's grave and began to dig.
They were barely half a foot in the ground when John's shoulders started to ache, the shovel seemed to get heavier and heavier each time he lifted it. Karkat and Sollux didn't seem to notice, though, they both moved quickly and efficiently, clearly used to the act of grave digging.
By the time they were finished, they stood in a good-sized hole and John's arms were about to fall off. He was sweaty, covered in dirt and generally uncomfortable. Karkat scrambled out of the hole and picked up the body, heaving it in. Neither John nor Sollux was prepared, the body landed on their heads and then rolled to the side, and one of Tavros' metal legs came of with a crunching sound as he hit the ground.
Karkat made a strangled noise in his throat but didn't curse at them, which was unusual. John, who had jumped backwards when it hit him, was fighting a strange urge to laugh, if it was anything else that had fallen on their heads like that it would be hilarious, but at the moment he just felt like they were the completely wrong people to be burying anyone. Sollux had reached down and straightened the body, then pulled the stained sheet back where it had slipped off.
John picked up the half-leg and tried feebly to reattach it, then just jammed it next to the other one. Sollux and John climbed out of the hole, all three of them picking up the shovels again.
It was far easier putting the dirt back in the ground, they finished quickly, but the stars had begun to fade by the time they patted the mound of dirt flat. Karkat quickly found a large, misshapen stone which they placed at the head of the grave, then all three of them paused.
"Do we...say anything?" John asked tentatively, the first time any one of them had spoken in hours.
"What's the point?" Karkat answered. "I mean, he's dead. His family doesn't give two shits about him anymore and if they did I'm pretty sure no one would want us three to fuck up this burial more than we already have."
And with that the three of them turned away from the graveyard. They walked slowly, until Sollux suddenly hissed. A second later Karkat winced as well. John turned around, he felt fine, but both the other trolls were suddenly bent over, heads down. John suddenly looked up, and saw that the sun had come up while they were walking home. He ran behind Sollux and Karkat and shoved them forward, yelling "Hurry up, go!"
They stumbled and ran, half limping and clearly in pain, then collapsed the minute they entered the doors of the clothing store, and out of the sun. John entered a few seconds later.
"Is it that bad?" He asked to the other two, who were both curled up on the ground. Karkat flipped him off.
"We need to stop doing that," Sollux said through clenched teeth.
"Yeah," said Karkat, slowly moving to his feet. He turned, and John could see red patches covering the back of his neck and arms. Sollux was covered in similar patches, though his had a more yellowish tinge. They dropped down the trapdoor and down the hallway to where the door was still open. All three of them groaned, having forgotten about the massive amounts of blood covering nearly every surface.
By the time the bunker was clean, or at least blood free, John's eyelids were drooping. Karkat and Sollux were sprawled across the sofas, holding water soaked rags to their irritated skin. John traipsed to the other room and into the tiny bathroom and turned on the shower. He had already been warned that the bunker didn't have hot water, but at this point he was too filthy to care.
The cold water still came as a shock, however, and John was unfortunately wide awake by the time he pulled some borrowed clothes on, rinsing his dirt-covered ones in the tub. Reemerging into the main room, he made a beeline for the leftmost bottom bed, and crawled under the covers.
The day had been long and extremely strange, but John was a little freaked out about how calm he felt about everything at the moment. It was strange how quickly one could adjust, he thought, he had just spent the evening burying someone who he had met in the same afternoon, but he wasn't panicking. Should he be?
John rolled over to face the wall, one which still held faint brown smears. Sollux and Karkat were complaining quietly behind him, but at least for the moment John put everything that had happened behind him, and fell asleep.
(sorry about the wait, i've been trying to do updates every other day but that's not really working out with all the other stuff i have to do at the moment, so expect updates every 3-4ish days. i will finish though, i can tell you that! and thanks so much again for reading/leaving reviews, i write most of this around one in the morning so feedback/criticism is always welcome:D)
