Two hours. That's how long Gamzee sleeps before his alarm goes off. He has too much to do today to sleep for very long.
Stretching he goes to put on clothes and realizes he's got nothing clean left. He throws on some not-too-badly-crumpled jeans and just decides that fuck it, he doesn't need a shirt today. He pulls out his phone and taps the icon for the yellow pages. It loads, opens, and then the screen goes black. Dumbly, he pokes at it a few times before it clicks in his overtired brain: the phone had one bar yesterday night. It's amazing it lived long enough to wake him this morning.
His first thought it simple: phone Karkat and charge his phone there.
It's a full minute before he realizes that that would require a working phone.
Instead, he takes the mop from behind the counters and starts on the floor. He only swept before crashing asleep, and he hasn't done the dishes either. He's out half his booze, there's jars of oil everywhere, he has no power, no phone, and he really wants nothing more than to cry. Or maybe sleep.
Mop away, he starts collecting the glasses, placing them all on the bar, and then sits on the mostly clean floor and buries his face in his hands. He can't do this. He can't. He used to be on meds, back in high school, and between the meds and Karkat he was okay. Now, he's under more stress than exams ever gave him, he hasn't been on meds in years (not through his own choosing-he improved enough the doctors took him off), Karkat is living his own life, and Gam's left trying to hold everything together on less and less sleep every night.
He sucks in a rattling breath, squeezing his eyes shut and rocking back and forth. He could feel the start of a breakdown yesterday, and he's postponed it, but everything has it's time, and everything demands his attention eventually.
Shaking so hard he swears he can hear his bones clicking, Gam pushes himself up. His last breakdown, just before they took him off meds (because sure, he's had a few minor ones, punched some people or something stupid, but a full meltdown hasn't happened in years) nearly killed him, and that's because he was alone and didn't look for help. So now, he forces himself up, grabs his backpack, and tosses things in. His phone, his charger, his wallet, and his dirty laundry. Shoves it all in, zippers the bag. Obscenely, he starts laughing, because it's all so motherfucking funny, all he's trying to do is survive, and make other people happy, and still all his life won't even half fill a backpack.
Outside, he fumbles with his keys and drops them, and he can feel the shaking getting worse. No no no no no no no no. Ten more minutes. Five more minutes. Hell, two more minutes. That's how long he needs here. That's it.
It takes him close to a minute to lock the door and sling his backpack on. He notices he's still shirtless, but can't bring himself to care.
He walks fast, the brisk morning air pricking and stroking his bare chest, no one out but business men and himself.
Gam isn't surprised when most of the business men cross the street to avoid him.
At Karkat's apartment, he slams his fist against the door. There's a spare key, he knows there is, but his fevered brain can't really be bothered to try and find the thing right now. So he slams him hand into the door again, and again, and again, until his knuckles are split and blood is splattering on his chest. The scent of it, all copper sharp and sickly sweet, slaps him in the face. It's more effective than if a bouncer had done the job.
Crumpling to the step, he curls up, arms around his knees, sucking in air way too fast. From inside the house, someone is yelling something, but he can't make out the words. He wants to hit the door again, knows that that will do something, get him some sort of result, but he can't bring his arms to unlock from their position. The yelling gets louder, but he long ago stopped being able to deal with words. There's the faint click of the lock sliding open, and then the door itself creaks.
"What the..." Karkat breathes, not finishing the sentence. He's in an old hoodie and plaid pajama pants-he usually sleeps in until eleven or so, so he's either just out of bed or he wasn't yet awake when Gamzee started pounding on his door.
Although Gam doesn't look up to see, he can feel Karkat crouching beside him, sizing up what's happening, trying to figure out if he should call someone. In the end, he just wraps his arms around Gam and doesn't say a word. That just makes Gam shake harder, rocking back and forth and clinging to his knees.
"Shhhh," Karkat mumbles after a few minutes of this. "You're okay buddy. Everything's gonna be fine." He repeats it over and over, making it sing song and shiny, trying to get into whatever part of Gamzee's brain has broken. Gam just starts making a weird little choking noise, almost like he's sobbing, but there's no tears to be found.
Eventually, he manages to husk, "It's all up and motherfucking fucked up." He bites down on his lip, breaking skin and tasting blood. For the second time in a day, he starts giggling. Now his face matches his knuckles.
Karkat isn't sure what the laughing is about, so he just hugs Gam harder until he finally stops. "Easy bro. You got this. Come on, pull yourself the fuck together."
He tenses for a second, then eases, the shakes finally start to subside. Karkat can feel it, but he doesn't let go, knowing he has to wait for Gamzee to be completely okay. He keeps talking until Gam just goes limp, all the pent up fight going out of him.
Very slowly, Karkat lets go and stands up. He doesn't ask what's wrong or why Gamzee isn't wearing a shirt. Instead, he pulls his friend to his feet and ushers him in the still open door. Turning around to close it, he sees that there's an audience-a couple of business men on their way to work, stopping to see what all the fuss was about. "Fuck off!" he yells at them, slamming the door behind himself.
Inside, it's in the typical messy state of disarray. Nothing an hour wouldn't fix, all superficial really, but it still is obvious that he's the only person who lives here. Gamzee stands dumbly in the hallway, despite how often he has been to this apartment. Karkat sees this and gently nudges his friend toward the living room, where his couch is covered in an assortment of game controllers, pillows, and blankets. Despite it being new-after all, Gamzee bought his old one-it's still got a few rips and stains. Obviously, it is new only to Karkat, but it probably belonged to an old uni student who set it on the curb. Karkat is nothing if not thrifty. He shoves all the stuff off it and pushes Gamzee down onto the cushions.
"Blood," Gam murmurs, holding up his hands, forgetting that his teeth are coated with the stuff.
"Couch is already fucking stained dude."
"I gotta go do stuff."
"No."
Gam starts to stand up. "Bro, there's some mot-"
"I said no."
Gamzee slumps back down. He's never heard authority in his friend's voice like this before. Karkat continues. "You're going to kill yourself if you keep going. Sleep. You haven't hardly at all in days. So just fucking lie down, snuggle up in a blanket, and go to fucking sleep. I'll take care of it."
With only a slight hesitation, Gamzee stretches out on the couch. Despite how lanky he is, the couch still manages to fit him nicely, which is a change from the broken one he sleeps on at night.
It doesn't take long for his eyelids to start drooping. After all, he's only gotten maybe eight hours of sleep in the last three days. It's nice to turn his brain off, and it obliges happily.
He's asleep before Karkat leaves the room.
A/N: Sorry for the pause! Midterms happened, and all writing got chucked to the back burner. This chapter is mostly paving the way for the GamKar I keep getting asked for, so other ships and events will appear in the next two or three. I'm still trying to get them all in there-ones that have yet to make a proper appearance that I'm still writing in are DaveVris, DirkJake, and EriSol. Let me know if you want others/have ideas for the story! Love you guys, thanks for reading!