Chapter Ten

You push the left over pizza crust around on your plate before picking up a napkin and wiping the grease off your hand. You gaze back up at your computer screen and watch more anime. Living the life, weren't you? You really wish you could tell somebody about Karkat so that you could just leave to go see him, but you know that you're selfish and want to keep him your secret. Why is that?

You reflect back on what happened after the conversation with Rose. Jade had just kind of left the room all red faced, and Rose just nodded and told you to act natural. Whatever that meant.

Dave still isn't back from that girl's house, and your dad is still at work. You check the time; it's only three thirty. You click off the internet and open up pesterchum. Not a whole lot of people used pesterchum, but you and most of your close friends still used it. You scroll through your contacts- most of which you barely talk to- and find that Dave is online. You sigh and log out; you don't want to talk to him yet. Your legs stretch and push the roller chair back.

Maybe you'd take a nap, what with the lost sleep and all. You lie down and bury yourself under the covers. Warm. Quiet. No one was around to bother you; Dave or Karkat. No, that isn't right. Karkat doesn't bother you at all. You can be yourself around him, and relax around him, and fall asleep next to him. The warm from the bed reminds you of you and him sleeping close. Your eyes close and you're asleep.

You open your eyes to find darkness all around you. When you stretch you feel the familiar tightness in your back. How long were asleep? You bleary eyes wonder over to Dave's bed. He's sitting there with his laptop on, and you look away because it's really bright. You take a deep breath, hold it, and let it out.

"Morning sleeping beauty."

"Fuck off." You mumble. Your arms hoist your body up and your feet thud on the floor. "What time is it?" You grab your glasses and put them back on.

"Do you kiss your father with those lips?" Dave doesn't seem to even be looking at you. Good. That would be something normal for him to do.

But that doesn't make him as a whole any better. Seriously, he was still a prick. "Dave. What time is it?"

"Why gotta hot date?" Karkat flashes into your mind. He's not really your hot date, or your date for that matter. Yea, the hot part was pretty true but –brain stop these half assed sleepy thoughts.

"Yea I do." You stand up and stretch your arms out. Most people would probably question why you stretch so much. You just do it because it feels nice. Not that it really matters, nobody is usually around or awake when you get up. "But really Dave, the time." You stand up and flip the lights on.

He sighs and reads the time from his laptop. "It's a little after six. Your dad should be home any minute." He sighs again. "Yo, John. Can we talk about this morning?"

You tense up, but finish your journey to your computer desk. "No. We can't. There isn't anything to say about it." You quickly check your phone and iPod. You usually took your iPod everywhere, but sense you plan on going out you charged your phone. You almost never used your phone; however your dad and friends might call you while you're out.

"Yea, see, the thing is, there is stuff to talk about." He closes his laptop and lies down. There's a moment of no talking and you hear his breathing. When he speaks there's a hint of nervousness. "I know… that I probably shouldn't have gone that far. I guess when you actually got into it yesterday and this morning, I got a little over confident." He takes his shades off and sits up, then looks over at you. "I swear to god I won't do it again if you say no. Okay? Are we cool?"

You give it some thought. He did sound sorry, and you guess it was your fault too for giving him as much as you did. "Yea, we're cool." You stop and think for a minute. Just because you forgave him didn't mean that you wanted to let him keep kissing you. You talk to Rose and Karkat about that. So you had to do what you had to do. "But. Umm… Dave-"

He chuckles and you stop talking. "Okay, good. Don't tell Rose I apologized or anything. She'll never let me live it down." It's almost as if he knows what you were going to say and cut you off. It hurts your chest, but not the same kind of hurt from this morning.

"Dave. I don't want to do anything else with you. Like kissing and stuff. Please don't. I just like being friends. Not friends with benefits; just friends." You swallow a small lump in your throat because you feel bad, and you can see that Dave looks like a kicked puppy through his poker face.

Dave smiles and breaks eye contact. "It's all good, John. I was going to stop anyway. I have ALL the bitches trying to get the dick anyway." He laughs, which is just him blowing more air through his nose than usual.

You laugh along with him, which is just some goofy giggle. Might as well go back to normal and not dwell on what happened. "Looks like I have some competition." You both laugh genuine laughs, but somewhere in the back of your mind you know that you don't have any competition.

One week goes by, and then another. Nothing out of the normal has happened, and you plan on keeping it that way. School was nearly over. The temperature was going up just enough to wear shorts if you wanted to. The three aspects of your life were going well.

At school, Rose had still only had a few friends, but she was okay with that and so were you. She still sat with you at lunch. Jade was pretty popular amongst the guys still, but was too unaware that their affections weren't just brotherly or admiration. She still sat with you at lunch, and sometimes invited others. Dave had quite the reputation. Most guys hated him and probably wanted to beat the shit out of him, but with the ladies, there was no way he couldn't tell that all the hormonal walking balls of estrogen were cooing over him. That was also okay with you, even if it was a little weird. He sometimes sat with you at lunch, but usually sat with girls. As for you, you were just…you. Decent grades and doing your normal John things.

At home it was also going well. Rose and Jade mainly kept to themselves. Your dad had a soft spot for Jade, but let's admit it, who didn't have a soft spot for that sweetie. She still clung to the TV remote like it was a lifeline, though. Dave and you were back to your old ways again. Which meant sitting around eating food and disagreeing with most things then insulting each other. Okay it was more fun than it sounded but whatever.

Finally, there was Karkat. You still hadn't told anyone about him, and you planned on keeping it that way. In the mornings you'd brag breakfast for the two of you and head out on you walk. That was around 6:30 every morning. At night after dinner you'd bring snacks with you and occasionally munch on them if he didn't like something. Of course you still brought him peaches. No one thought it was out of the ordinary, so it became a type of schedule. That aside, Karkat and you had become really good friends, you think. There was almost nothing you didn't tell him, but he still kept some things to himself. Like what the deal was with those horns. Oh well.

You slip on a pair of sneaks and a thin jacket. "I'm going out now!" You shout into the other room. Tonight it was your dad's turn to clean the dishes. And by dishes you meant any silver used, because home cooked meals were still scarce.

"Be back by nine, son!" Your dad calls back to you. You wave a quick good bye to your friends, who were all out in the living room watching Power Puff Girls again, Jade's newfound favorite.

You step outside and begin lightly jogging. That's another thing, with taking two trips a day, you had built up a little bit of muscle. Enough so that you could at least jog to the woods. If you had to guess, you'd say it's about a mile there, so that means four miles a day. Not a bad way to start exercising, really.

You let meaningless thoughts float around in your head until you're there and then take a minute to catch your breath. "Karkat!" You shout into the woods. Sometimes, if the weather was nice, you liked to eat out by the lake.

He stumbles out of the woods and gives you the death glare. "I wanted to get some fucking sleep, shit for brains."

Yea, even if you were friends, he was still Karkat after all. And if you've learned anything, it's just to go along with it. "Yea whatever, you have ALL DAY to sleep Karkat. I'm forced to be awake between you in the mornings, school, homework, and you at night." You stick out your tongue at him and set the stuff down on a flat rock you guys have been using as a table.

"I didn't ask for you to take care of me stupid." You shrug and he shivers. "One minute." He runs back into the woods. You arrange the food stash on the rock by color, then by letter, and while you think of another way to organize them Karkat emerges again. "It's fucking freezing on this planet."

You look up at him. It happens almost every time you guys eat out here because of the wind, but each time you have to fight back your urge to hug the crap out of him. During the first week he was here, you brought him one of your sweaters that you didn't really wear do he wouldn't have to be cold. You decided when he put it on it was the best decision you ever made.

He walks over to the rock and sits down across from you. When he starts eating you find the opportunity to ogle. The sweater he used to have was flimsy, and fitted with a turtleneck. This one was a light blue knitted sweater. It was thicker material, so it was definitely warmer, and, sense it used to be yours, it was baggy of him. Just to eat he had to roll up his sleeves. If that wasn't adorable enough, your Nanna had knitted two cat ears and whiskers on the belly part of the sweater.

That's yet another thing you started doing over the last two weeks. You couldn't help but find Karkat breathtakingly attractive; sometimes cute, sometimes sexy. You stopped telling yourself that thinking those things was wrong. Because you who are you kidding, look at him.

"Egbert, you're doing it again." You blind a few times and look around. "Spacing out. You probably do that in school a lot. I bet you get severe discipline." He gets an evil glint in his eye, but he's still smiling. "I hope they fucking stab you a lot."

You just laugh it off. "Oh yea, that always happens. As for the stabbing part, it's the pain I deserve." You wink at him and he chokes on his food.

"For the love of fuck never do that again!" You can't stop laughing and have to put your head down. "You sound like someone I used to talk to! He liked being bossed around and being punished and that shit. I was found him extremely fucking creepy!"

You take a few deep breaths. "Lesson learned. But oh my god Karkat you should've seen the look on your face!" You lift your glasses up and wipe away a few tears. He flips you off and keeps eating.

For another half hour you two sit around and talk about a bunch of nothing, just looking out at the water. You really like this. Just hanging out with Karkat and not thinking about anything else. You slip your phone out of your pocket and check the time; 8:50. Damn.

"Well, it's time for me to go." You stand up and offer him a hand. He takes it and you hoist him up. "I'll see you tomorrow!"

You walk a few steps before he says anything. "Uh… John?" Okay first name time to turn around.

"Yea?" You can't help but smile. He was probably the cutest when he had something that he thought was stupid or embarrassing to say.

He sticks his lips out and looks around. You feel your heartbeat speed up tenfold. "Can you get me one of those…communication devices?" His eyes settle somewhere on the ground and he blushes a little bit. You feel your heart do a back flip. "I get bored out here with nothing to do…"

You really can't hold back any more and oh walk over to him. Even if you really want to hug him, you settle on putting your hand on his head, carefully avoiding his horns. He doesn't shoo you away and now your heart is about ready to explode. "I'll see what I can do." You smile and start jogging away.

When you get home you head right upstairs. Usually you just wanted to hug him because he seems so huggable. But what was wrong with you? Today you actually thought about kissing him.

AN: sorry about the wait guys, i actually feel really guilty about that. i also get that this is a wednesday. so i'll probably have the next chapter out on moday, then go back to weekends. but i got my own laptop for school work, so itll be easier for me to type these now :) thank u to those who still follow the story, i really love you guys! thats all there is to say really :D well, i hope u liked this chapter, i liked writing it. bye 3 (i hope that shows up as a heart!)