Karkat can't get hurt. Way to go, moron.
Terezi felt her chest constrict and a strangled sob barely escaped from between her lips.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. I can't just leave Karkat to die for me, that's not right. I can't choose between him or me. Tell Karkat.
She couldn't tell Karkat now, not in this state. She was on the brink of having a mental break down. She hated herself when she became like this. Terezi felt almost helpless. She felt a pain in her chest, like someone had just stuck a stake through her heart. It hurt for her to breathe. She curled into a ball and lay on her side in her uncomfortable bed.
Gog damn it. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Calm down. Calm. Down.
Finally, she just decided that she should get some sleep. Sleep was really the only escape for her now, even if it was constantly filled with terror and bad memories. Kanaya was there for her, nine times out of ten to calm her down when she awoke to having a panic attack.
As Terezi drifted away into the realm of her mind, another memory re-surfaced.
She giggled as she tossed the match onto the gasoline soaked house. The flame started easily, and began to snake its way around the house. It was like a gluttonous basilisk, slithering its way across the siding, consuming everything and only leaving behind a black trail of ash. It crackled at her in approval and she grinned. The color was red and orange, her favorite color. Gog, it was beautiful.
She stood back next to Vriska and Vriska smiled in approval, "That'll show him not to mess with us."
They stood next to each other and watched the flames begin to consume even more of the house. They left after they made sure the house would burn.
The next day, Tavros wasn't in school. Terezi began to grow worried that he might have been in the house when it was set aflame. But that was impossible; Vriska had made sure no one was home.
A week later, Tavros rolled into school in a wheel chair. It turned out a heavy board fell on him in his sleep and caused him to be paralyzed from the waist down.
Terezi felt a gut-wrenching guilt. She couldn't sleep for days and her lack of sleep began to stress the relationship she was in at the time. It felt like she could only talk with Vriska.
That was until she heard about what she had done to her boyfriend, Dave.
Terezi awoke in a damp sweat. She was definitely not ready to face those memories just yet. Those were too painful.
She heard Kanaya's gentle snoring and assured herself that everything would be okay, even though that was a complete lie. She was fairly sure everything was not okay. Nothing would probably be okay for a very long time, if ever.
She carefully moved into the restroom and splashed some water on her face. She looked ahead of her into the mirror. She couldn't see what she looked like, but she knew she probably looked awful. Her face felt greasy and she felt terribly groggy. She patted her head and found her hair to be horribly tangled and matted.
Fuck this, I'm just going to go back to sleep.
As Terezi retreated to the semi-comfortable mattress, she just couldn't fall asleep. She rolled over, annoyed. She touched the face of the clock by her bed. 3:41 am. Great.
She rolled back over and grunted.
After lying in bed for an undetermined amount of time, Terezi decided to just get ready for her morning classes and then head out for a morning walk and coffee... or something.
She quietly unlocked the door and headed out into the courtyard, cane in hand. As expected, no sane person would be wandering around at this hour. Of course, it wasn't really the sane people she was worried about.
She sat down at a table and read a book she had been assigned to read in class under the orange lights that provided other students a way to navigate the courtyard and Terezi an annoyance that she couldn't see, but hear.
She feverishly traced over the Braille, not really paying attention to the words, shifting her cane under her arm. The fact that it wasn't completely quiet made her very antsy, because it made it harder for her to hear anything above the buzzing of the lights and the noise of crickets and frogs grumbling about the early morning. Finally, she just couldn't take it anymore. Her paranoia and the what-ifs running around in her head had begun to make her very nervous, so she closed her book and shoved it back in her backpack. She needed comfort.
She knew where to go. She patted her pocket and checked to see if she still had a bobby pin tucked away in this pair of pants. Yep. Still there. She almost always had a bobby pin on her; she had gotten herself out of a few possible lock-outs with one of those suckers. She tucked it a little deeper in her pocket, just to make sure it wouldn't fall out.
She arrived at her destination and pulled the bobby pin out of her pocket. She curled it up a little on one side and began to pick the lock. It didn't take her long, seeing as how she'd pick about a million locks before. She turned the door knob gingerly and peered into the room. She could hear soft, sort of nasal breathing, which she assumed to be Sollux's breathing as he slept. On the other side of the room she heard very quiet breathing; she knew that this was Karkat.
She quietly crawled into the room and poked him in the side. He moved away from the edge of the bed and she gently dropped her backpack on the floor along with her cane. She crawled into bed as close to Karkat as she could and plucked and the back of his shirt. He turned toward her and she hugged him. He sure was warm. She kind of thought of him as a giant teddy bear. One that if you squeeze too hard will swear instead of saying dopey things like "Can I have another hug?" or "I wuuuuuuuuvvvvvvvv you".
She closed her eyes and the two of them stayed like that until she was able to fall asleep.