-Saturday, November 17, 9:14 am / Karkat & Terezi's house-
Katrina: 16 ¼ months old
Casey: 2 years, 2 months old
Rose: 15 ½ weeks along
Roxy: 5 ½ weeks along
"Terezi?" Karkat asked, poking his head out the front door. "Do you need any help with setting up?"
In the Vantases' garage/shed, Terezi sighed before responding. "No," she called back, trying to center a basket on a foldable table. The teal-blood walked out of the garage and made her way to the front door. "I think I'm going to take a break, though," she told Karkat as she came inside. "It's kind of making me depressed."
The mutant-blood sighed and gave his wife a hug. "I'll finish setting up," he told her, "so you can play with Katrina and get your mind off of things. The garage sale's supposed to start at ten, anyway..."
"Okay." Terezi let out a sigh and went into the living room to do what her husband had suggested.
"Mama!" Katrina ran up to Terezi with a piece of paper. "Look!"
Terezi took the paper from Katrina and smiled at the family portrait her daughter had drawn. "Katrina, this is so pretty!"
"It's me, you, Daddy, Miss Augeff, and Miss Obwina!"
Terezi laughed and held up the picture. "Well, I'm going to hang this up on the fridge so everyone can see just what a great artist you are!"
Katrina clapped her hands. "Yay!"
"Oh, so Katrina came to show you her picture?" Obrina asked as she came downstairs.
"Yeah," Terezi smiled. "I am going to go put it on the fridge." She walked to the kitchen with both the purple-blood and Katrina following her. "Is Augeth still not up yet?"
Obrina shook her head. "Remember, she's still not used to this weird human sleeping schedule. She'll be up soon, though."
Terezi pinned Katrina's artwork up onto the fridge with a magnet and got out a Cherry Coke to drink. "Karkat's setting up in the garage if you want to help him," she told her friend as she popped the tab.
"Alright, but I can only help out for a couple of hours, because I have to be at work at twelve." Obrina sighed and followed Terezi's example of retrieving a Coke. "I would have never guessed my thinkpan could retain such an extensive knowledge of writing utensils—wait, why am I drinking this? I hate carbonated beverages!"
The teal-blood laughed. "I'll drink it if you won't!"
As this exchange was happening, Katrina began to wonder where her father was. "Mama?" she asked, tugging on the teal-blood's pant leg. "Where's Daddy?"
Terezi chuckled and took her daughter's tiny hand. "He's outside. C'mon, let's go out there with him, and you can ride your tricycle."
"Why do humans have such strange names for wheel devices?" Obrina took a sip of her cup which she had filled with water this time. "It's so much easier to say 'three wheel device' than it is to say 'tricycle'."
"Not...really." Terezi led Katrina outside and let her roam free in the space that was their front yard and driveway. "Karkat, Katrina's out here playing. I'm going to go back inside and clean or something."
"Alright!" Karkat called back. He stuck a price sticker on an unopened pack of onesies and sighed. He felt awful that Terezi was feeling awful, but he knew that she just had to accept the fact that Isaac was gone and there was nothing they could do about it. It wasn't anyone's fault; it just happened. But he wasn't sure if he should bring it up just yet.
The mutant continued to set up for the sale for a bit, then looked up and saw Vriska coming out of her front door. In her arms was a squirmy golden puppy—John's late fake birthday present to her. She acknowledged Karkat's presence with a wave, then placed the puppy on the ground and walked across the street.
"How's everything coming?" she casually inquired, glancing down at the dog. "Is anyone else helping you, or…?"
Karkat shrugged. "Terezi's still overwhelmed with everything, Obrina has to work in a couple of hours, and Augeth is still asleep. At least Katrina's keeping me company."
Katrina heard her name and quickly pedalled her tricycle over to her father and "aunt". "Doggy!"
Vriska softly laughed and bent down, guiding the puppy towards the young troll. "This is Sammy, Katrina. Can you say hi?"
The youngest Vantas sat on the driveway and let Sammy crawl into her lap. She laughed as he licked her face and wagged his tail.
"Well, I'm going to take Sammy for a walk," she told Karkat, zipping up her jacket. "I can stop by on our way back if Katrina wants to play with him some more."
"Well, it'll have to depend on the garage sale, but that sounds fine. Have fun."
Karkat resumed setting up what little items he had by now. He wondered if the garage sale would even have a turnout—it was November, after all, and relatively cool outside. But since many of the items were unopened baby things, surely at least one person would show up.
By now ten o'clock was rolling around, and so far not a single car had driven down the street. Did they give the sale enough publicity? Should they have put out an ad in the newspaper? He knew he shouldn't overreact, but he was getting a bit worried.
Finally Karkat saw a car. It was a relatively junky car; the paint was peeling off of the hood and a couple of the tires didn't have hubcaps. He tried his hardest not to judge—after all, he and Terezi were in the same place just a few years earlier. And it wasn't like their cars looked much better, either.
The car pulled up to the curb and parked. Its windows were darkly tinted; Karkat tried his hardest to see who was inside but failed to see. Both of the front doors opened and a couple bottles of soda fell out. Squinting a bit, he could actually read the label. Faygo.
That could only mean one person…
"Shit."
"Karbro!" exclaimed the dreaded purple-blood, climbing out of the too-small car with someone else.
Karkat honestly didn't know what to do. His eyes wandered over to his daughter, who was weaving in and out of the Vantases' two cars on the driveway. Thankfully she paid no attention to her dad's ex-moirail, but he didn't know how long that would last.
"What is up, invertebrother?" Gamzee opened his arms like he was about to hug Karkat and walked towards the other troll. "Surprise, surprise! Any motherfucking miracles happened recently?"
The mutant-blood let out an exasperated sigh and avoided eye contact. "The only miracle right now is that I didn't shoot myself in the head after seeing you get out of that car."
Gamzee did nothing but laugh. "C'mon, brother. Bring it in."
Karkat rolled his eyes and refused the hug. "Why are you here?" He looked at the person behind his ex-moirail with confusion. "Why is she here? With you?!"
The purple-blood laughed again. "This down ninjette right here is my matespr— girlfriend, Heather. Babe, this motherfucker is my friend from my wriggler days."
Gamzee's so-called "girlfriend" laughed just about the same laugh her "boyfriend" did. "Hey, my man has told me a shitload about you. He said you were his...muira...moyar...some gay best friend shit."
"Great, you told her I was gay." Karkat sighed and put his hand to his face. "Oh my god. I don't know where this is going."
The front door opened and Terezi walked out, carrying a stack of clothes Karkat assumed she meant to throw in the "to sell" pile. "Karkat," she called, beginning to walk off of the porch, I forgot these— "
She stopped and dropped everything she was carrying when she smelled Gamzee.
Her joints and muscles locked up— she literally couldn't move anything to get away. Even worse, she knew Katrina was still out here, and she didn't want that abusive loser to get anywhere near her daughter.
Karkat sensed his wife's fear and sent a nearly unnoticeable signal to her as he carefully walked over to the other side of his car. "C'mon," he whispered to Katrina, picking her up off of her tricycle, "you can go play inside with Mama."
"Hey, Gamz, look!" Heather laughed, grabbing her boyfriend's arm. "It's a baby!"
Karkat ignored the blonde's words and handed Katrina off to his wife. "I'll take these for you," he quietly whispered. "Please, just take Katrina inside."
"What is he doing here?" growled the teal- blooded troll. "I don't want that asshole anywhere on our property!"
"Terezi, calm down," coaxed Karkat. "I don't know why he's here either, but I'm going to find out. You just go inside."
Once his matesprit was safe inside the house, Karkat turned back around to find his ex-moirail and his girlfriend lighting up blunts while leaning on Terezi's car.
"Why are you here?" demanded Karkat, snatching the blunts from both of their hands and throwing them into the grass. "You don't even know that I live here; I don't understand why it's you that had to show up!"
Gamzee laughed and put a hand on Karkat's shoulder, which was immediately pushed off. "We're here to buy some shit, bro. There's all those motherfucking signs posted everywhere!"
"But… none of this is beneficial to either of you. It's just a bunch of baby stuff we can't use anymore. Unless…" Karkat stopped for a moment and groaned. "...shit!"
Heather smiled and wrapped her arms around Gamzee. "Now where's the cheap baby shit?"
Karkat tried his best to keep calm about the whole situation, but needed a clear explanation of what was going on. "So, wait, wait, wait. Back up. How did you two meet in the first place?"
"She was just helping a ninja out, Karbro," Gamzee told him. Yeah, he's stoned out of his mind. "She and her kickass bros and sis helped me get to the Gathering."
"Great, so you met because she took you to some weed festival?"
"It's not a weed festival," Heather defended, "it's a place of peace and harmony for all the juggalos of the world to congregate and be a family."
Karkat crossed his arms and shot Gamzee a look. "I thought you weren't into that shit anymore. Didn't you say you were going to kill them?"
The purple blood smiled. "I did. For a long time I just wanted to motherfucking murder those blasphemers—" He calmed himself down before continuing. "—then I actually listened to what they had to say. Then it finally came to me: we are all a family, and there's no need for violence, my bro."
"Wait, wait, wait," paused Karkat, remembering something. "I thought you and Tavros were still...?"
Gamzee laughed yet again. "Nah, bro. I left that whiny little fucker after he started actin' weird and throwin' up all over the place. Haven't talked to him in a while."
The purple-blood turned to his ex-moirail. "Now let's see what shit you got here, bro."
He scanned the tables set up in the car port and grabbed more than just a few things. "How much?" he ended up asking Karkat, shoving a few items into Heather's arms and taking a wad of cash out of his pocket.
"Um...can't you read?" Karkat asked, annoyed. He glanced at the price tags and quickly did some mental math. "$37.50."
Gamzee flipped through the bills in his stack before taking one out. "Hey Karbro, do you have the equivalent of $100 in smaller sizes?"
Karkat immediately snatched the bill from Gamzee and held it up to the light to check for counterfeit. "Why do you have so much money?" he cautiously asked, pocketing the hundred and walking over to the money box to make some change.
"Just the works, bro," smiled Gamzee. He told Heather to take some stuff to their junky car and began to walk to the front door. "You got any more shit inside?"
"Gamzee, no—"
The purple-blood intruded into the Vantases' house, where Obrina and Augeth were helping Terezi calm down from her initial Gamzee shock. Once she noticed her pitiful excuse for a kismesis had entered her house, she tried her best to be defensive.
"Leave," she muttered, voice cracking a bit. Terezi began to reach for her cane, but Obrina silently calmed her and made her stop.
Karkat rushed inside and grabbed Gamzee's arm and dragged him out where he came in. "I'm not giving you permission to stay," he stressed to the other troll, letting go of his arm once the two were outside.
"Hey, Karbro, no need to get low," laughed Gamzee as he began to walk to his car. Just then, Vriska came walking down the sidewalk with Sammy at her side. The cerulean-blooded trolls squinted her eyes to see what was going on, then quietly let go of the leash and let the puppy loose.
The small golden retriever darted across the road and into the Vantases' yard. Once he saw Gamzee and Heather, he stopped and began to growl, yapping every so often.
Vriska simply smirked and watched from across the street as the dog jumped on Gamzee and snapped at the troll (he didn't actually bite him, though). Finally seeing this as a signal to leave, Gamzee and Heather quickly climbed into their junky car with their new things and sped away.
Once the two hecklers had left, Vriska ran across the street, laughing. "Good boy, Sammy," she cooed to the dog, bending down to scratch the pup behind the ears. "Sorry about that," she apologized, clipping the leash back onto Sammy's collar and standing up. "I knew it needed to be done."
"No, it's fine," Karkat laughed.
"Um...where's Terezi?" The mutant could tell Vriska was uneasy as she asked this. "Is she okay? With Gamzee and all…"
"Uh, yeah, she's fine. Just caught her a bit off guard, that's all." Karkat nervously laughed. "She's inside if you want to talk to her."
"I...think I'll run Sammy home and then come back over. I can tell she needs someone to talk to."
With that, Vriska bade Karkat farewell until a few minutes later.
Thanks to godlessAdversary, BadWolf256, NightmarePirate, and Guest for reviewing!