I sit in one of the ridiculously uncomfortable hard plastic chairs, pressing a few fingers against my split lip. The police officers had gotten our group and Joshes into different cars and we were all driven to a sort of juvenile center, but Sollux was separated from us since he's legally an adult. Gamzee was questioned about his age, but since he's seventeen they have to let him stay with us.
I'm now glaring at the female officer that has driven Roxy and I to the station, and she just retaliates with a blank icy stare. Gamzee is on one side of me, he hadn't really gotten injured, the guy with the knife was able to inflict a shallow cut on his arm, but he'd cleaned up the blood. Roxy had a palm pressed against the cut on her cheek and is leaning back against the chair.
Since Josh and I had been brawling it out, I've gained a new black eye, split lip, and my head is throbbing from the few times he had slammed it into the shelves and floor, and my chest still hurts from the bruising. Tavros had only hurt his right leg when he helped Sollux out, but it's enough to make him limp. I have no idea what state Sollux is in, because all I got was a glance at him before he was taken away.
My thoughts are distracted when a male officer walks in carrying a box of medical supplies, setting them down on a table before turning towards us and inspecting what we need before setting them out. He doesn't say anything as he first fixes up Roxy before helping me then moving onto Gamzee. He leaves the room with only a slight glance at the other officer before clicking shut the door.
"So, how about you guys start by telling me what happened, your guardians will be contacted after we talk," She says, giving us a look before jotting something down on her clipboard.
A jolt of fear runs through me when she mentions parents, I'll have to call my mom most likely, shit. I shake my head slightly to clear my thoughts and glare at her.
"Well, Josh called me and my friends freaks, so I punched him in the face," I growl, returning her look before being interrupted by Roxy.
"And then the douche lunged at Karkat and then he made his friends start to fight us," she continues.
"And we stepped in and fought back in self defense," Tavros explains, keeping his gaze on his knees. He seems to be really scared, making me sort of nervous. I begin to dwell on what our parents will do once they came to pick us up. It can end up being bad.
She looks at us skeptically, "Uh-huh, well that's quite the simple explanation, your other friend, 'Sollux' is saying the same thing, but we'll also have to cross-check it with the other teens, call your parents alright," She says, walking out of the room, clicking the door shut.
Roxy is already calling before the door is even closed, and a wince crosses her face as the phone is picked up.
"Hey Rose, uh, listen, you sort of need to come get me," She falls silent and winces again. "Police station." Her phone is suddenly held at arms length before she sighs and yells, "I can explain ok! So we kinda got into a fight..." She continues to talk until she falls silent and nods with a nervous expression. As she hangs up she groans and tosses her phone to me, knowing I need it.
"She is so going to kill me, and so is Kanaya, I heard her in the background," She groans, putting an arm over her eyes as she leaned back in the chair. Tavros is talking on his own phone, and I tune into his conversation.
"Yeah, uh, well, you need to come uh get me..." Tavros mutters, "I'm uh at the police station," He grimaces and shuts his eyes, "And yeah, everyone else is uh here too, although Sollux was taken to a different room," He trails off again to listen to the other end before hanging up.
"Uh, Kurloz can get you out Gamzee, and Rufioh's getting me out, what about you uh Karkat?" He questions, looking down at me. I stare at the pink phone in my hand before unlocking my screen and dialing the number for my own phone. After crossing my fingers and looking intensely at the wall, I'm about to give up before a click and a gruff voice answers the phone.
"The little shit isn't here, bye" and another click signifies that he has hung up.
"FUCK!" I yell, about to throw the phone before Roxy yanks it out of my hand. She glares at me before pocketing the device.
"Uh, Karbro? You ok?" Gamzee questions, looking at me.
"Dad picked up," I mumble, grabbing his phone instead. I hesitate and grimace I begin to dial my home phone, before it begins buzzing and I answer it with a questioning face.
"Hello?"
"Oh, Karkat? This works out, I wanted to say that Kankri and Cronus just got here, so Kankri can bail you out if need be," She says, I can tell they're in Rufioh's truck because an unfamiliar voice is saying something and two others are talking to him at the same time and she's definitely driving.
"Uh, yeah, that's be great," I stutter before hanging up, "Thank God, Kankri can bail me out," I sigh thankfully, tossing back his phone.
"That's motherfucking great Karbro! I wonder how Solbro is going to get out of this situation though," He muses, opening his phone and beginning to supposedly text him. We all sit in almost silence until the officer returns.
"Your guardians are here to bail you out," She states, making motions for us to follow her.
"Hey, what about Sollux?" I ask nervously, since Gamzee never answered us on whether not Sollux texted back.
"Oh, he's going to be released too, all of you are only receiving warnings for now, as well as the other kids," She says simply, being a bit more friendly with us now. We fall silent as we walk out to the reception area, where we are met by the angry glares of our 'guardians'. Even though Latula didn't sound angry over the phone, she certainly looks angry right now.
We keep our gazes lowered as we begin to walk past them, but are stopped by a hissed order from Latula. She grabs ahold of my arm since I'm closest to her.
"We have to wait for Sollux," She growls, tightening her grip on said arm. I wince and turn back to the door where we left. After a few minutes Sollux walks out, glaring at the officer behind him. Now that I get a good look at him, the red lens to his glasses is cracked and he has a dark bruise surrounding his eye. He's holding his left arm to his side by the elbow, so I assume he's hurt it.
"Since you've all been released, and the papers have been signed, you are free to leave," the officer reports, turning back and disappearing behind the desk once more.
"Move," Latula growls, releasing me. We all move out in a group, an awkward silence hanging over our heads as we walk to where they're parked. I notice that there's an addition to the group of adults, but the moment is to awkward for me to look up and see exactly who it is.
After a few moments of silence I hear a quiet chuckle, seemingly from Rufioh. I glance up to see Latula covering her mouth with both hands as tears running down her face. Then she seems to break and laughter poured out of her, and soon enough all of the elders are laughing, with us staring at them in bewilderment. I slowly begin to realize what was happening once she tried to speak.
"OH...MY...GOD...You actually, hahah, thought we...were mad?!" She gasps between breaths.
"uh...yeah?!" I say in shock, the others nod frantically in agreement and after a few minutes of laughter someone else answers us.
"You kicked their asses! Of course we aren't mad!" Rufioh chuckles, patting Tavros's shoulders.
Kurloz: You guys did a good job in kicking their ass, we saw the boys as their parents came to get them :O)
The juggalo smiles tightly, signing quickly. I smile a bit at this, but then distracted by another voice.
"According to the first person accounts, the teen you guys beat up called you and your friends an unpleasant name, which meant that you had a proper reason to act in defense, it also seems that you were able to gain the upper hand on them all, is that correct?" The unfamiliar voice on the phone questions. My brows furrow as I find the figure beside Mituna, who was grinning happily as we walked along. I notice he's the addition to our group, and a shock runs through me when I realize who it is.
"Wait, uh yeah that's right but aren't you Kankri?" I question. Everyone sort of stops as the two of us stare at each other, and after a few minutes one could literally feel the tension between the two of us.
"Yes I am Kankri, do you mean to say you don't remember meeting? Well, now that I say that you very well wouldn't remember it we were very young after all, but I would think that you would remember me, now that we are meeting again I'm shocked to see how much you've grown," He begins to say, and I end up cutting him off.
"Whoa whoa whoa, we met? Like, how young were we?" I ask. The adults stare at me in a sort of shocked manner, like they hadn't expected me to cut him off like that. But they all stare as he responds without missing a beat.
"Well, I would say you were about seven then, I was around thirteen at the time, I think this because Nepeta was quite young and living with her mom, and Equius hadn't been sent off to work yet, how is Equius? We haven't talked at all since that last time-" He rambles again and I cut him off. Again.
"Didn't you know? Equius now works somewhere, I don't even know where, I myself haven't talked to him in..." I trail off, counting in my head, "About five years, and I'm not sure why I don't remember you, but I don't and that's weird because i seriously should remember you," I frown, trying to think back.
"Really? That's quite strange, and where was Equius sent off to? I heard that he had moved out recently, but why is it that he hasn't contacted any of us?-" I stop him from talking by covering his mouth with his hand.
"Not now ok? I'll explain later," I hiss, moving away again. The adult just stares at me with wide, red eyes before nodding. The others slowly began walking again and I move to Sollux's side, not meeting gazes with anyone. When we get to where the truck and Rose's car is parked, we all split into different groups to see if we'd have to go back to get Latula's truck or not.
Roxy, Rose, Kanaya, Gamzee, and Tavros in the car, but there isn't enough room in Rufioh's truck, so they leave Sollux and I to let Latula get her truck from the store parking lot for us to go home in. Kankri volunteers to stay behind, although I'm pretty sure I understand why.
Once they drive away, he turns to me, ignoring Sollux. I was personally fine with Sollux being there, so I just glare back.
"What is going on with Equius?" He asks plainly. I'm sort of shocked he doesn't create a whole lecture to ask that simple question, but I just give him a look and explain.
"When he moved out he became a traveling mechanic, but he was soon commissioned to work for a company, and because he either broke his goddamn phone, or tinkered with it, he had to constantly get new ones and he never informed us when he got a new phone so we could never get into contact with him. His boss is really fucking strict and almost fired him just because he went to his fucking mom's funeral, and when he asked if he could take part time to take care of Nepeta his boss said she was a measly distraction and that he should get the hell out if that was the case, so tah-fucking-dah that's why fucking Equius is now no longer involved in our lives!" I finished my rant yelling and cursing, earning worried glances from Sollux and shocked ones from Kankri.
"Oh, well I'm quite sorry to hear that, his boss must be rather strict for him to be unable to contact us, of course it is also his own responsibility to keep up with us using a proper working phone, does he have any sort of computer? Or any other way we could contact him? All in all this is quite the situation to deal with, I understand why you didn't want to tell anyone else about it, well other than you Sollux," he corrects himself, turning to the teenager standing behind me. "Are the two of you together?" He questions, tilting his head to the side. His white-blonde hair falls onto his forehead in a manner similar to mine.
"WHAT?! NO!" I yelp quickly, glaring at my cousin. He looks slightly taken back, and his gaze flicks between the two of us before landing on me.
"Oh, I'm sorry to have possibly upset you, it just seemed like it by the way you two interacted, I'm sorry for assuming," He says, a slightly offended tone to his voice.
"We're jutht friendth, we only met a few dayth ago," Sollux continues.
Before we can talk anymore, Latula arrives with her truck, alone. "The others already went to Rufioh's, so I'm assuming you want to go there too?" She says once we climb into the vehicle, letting Kankri sit shotgun.
"Yeah, thome of our thtuff ith there anyway," Sollux says, referring to the violin he's borrowing and the few papers of homework we'd received and don't really need.
"Alrighty!" Latula grins and speeds away, beginning to engage a conversation with Kankri. I rub at my temples in a feeble attempt to help the headache that is beginning to pound against my skull. A frustrated sigh makes it's way out of my lips as I lean forward, keeping my elbows propped on my knees.
"You alright KK?" Sollux asks softly, "I know Josh kicked your chest pretty hard," He asks, placing a hand on my shoulder.
"Yeah, I'm fine, just a headache," I mutter, "And it doesn't hurt that bad, I'll just need to take medicine or something," I mumble, looking up to see we were at Rufioh's house. Everyone is sitting out front and talking to one another. Well, Roxy had been taken home by Rose obviously, but Tavros and Gamzee are talking to each other, and the adults are talking to an unfamiliar guy who turns toward us when we drive up.
"Hey Kanny, is that your cousin?" The man asks, wrapping an arm around Kankri's shoulders and looking me up and down as I climb out of the truck. I look at him with a glare but respond.
"Yes I'm his cousin," I snap, walking past him toward Gamzee and Tavros, pulling Sollux with me.
"Thup guy'th," Sollux greets, sitting down on the grass with them. I join them and rest my head on my hands again.
"So how all up and injured are you Solbro, they didn't really motherfuckin hurt me and Tavbro that much," Gamzee states, looking at the teen.
"He got my eye good, and my glatheth, and my fucking arm too, otherwithe I'm ok, jutht bruithed ath hell," Sollux replies with a wince, motioning at his face and arm. He turns toward me and grimaces when he looks closely at my face.
"Theemth like you got the wortht of uth KK, geeth Josh didn't hold back did he?" He growls , reaching down to move my head. I scowl and push his hand away.
"I'm fine asshat, Josh is just a dickweed who took some low blows," I snarl, rubbing at my head again.
"You all up and alright Karbro?" Gamzee questions nervously, looking at me closely. I sigh and glance up at him.
"Well, the douche slammed my head into the fucking floor so now I have a headache, would that help define how I'm feeling?"
He stares at me wide eyed for a few moments, "Uh, not motherfucking good?" he says hesitantly.
"No shit," I mutter, shutting my eyes against the meager sunset. I hear the adults walk over to our little group.
"So Sollux and Karkat, do you need to a ride home?" Rufioh asks.
"I gueth tho," Sollux answers, glancing over at me. I just nod in response.
"Oh yeah, give me your phone Sollux," I say, grabbing it out of his pocket before he can ask. He sighs and goes into the house as I begin to dial. I anxiously wait for someone to pick up, but when someone does, I restrain myself from cursing.
"He's not fucking here, I swear, why the fuck do you people keep calling for him!" Click.
"For fucks sake," I hiss, throwing the phone onto the ground. I run my hands though my hair in an attempt to clear my mind. I can feel the others concerned gaze on me, but I ignore them as Sollux returns with our things.
"Alright, let'th go," he says quickly, grabbing his phone from the ground and pulling me up by my shoulder. I growl at him but don't say anything as we walk over to Rufioh.
We're silent the entire drive to Sollux's house and Sollux is the one that thanked Rufioh for driving us, once he's gone though, Sollux turns to me.
"What the hell are you being mopey about?" He asks as we walk up to the door. I stay silent as I walk back to his room and move to sit on the bed, waiting for him to join me. I can hear him talking to his dad, and it takes a few minutes before he walks in and closes the door.
"My fucking dad, he's been picking up my phone, which means I have no idea where my mom is," I state, glaring at him. His mouth falls open and all he says is a soft "oh" as he walks over to his computer chair and sits down in it.
"Yeah, fucking 'oh'," I snarl, letting myself fall back on his bed and cover my eyes with my arm. "Can you go get me some painkillers or something, my fucking head is killing me," I mutter, hoping that he hears me. To answer that I hear him stand and walk out the room, moving through the hallway to move to the kitchen. I let my thoughts wander a bit before he returns.
Sitting up, I take the pills from him, swallowing them before drinking the glass of water he had brought.
"Your glasses are pretty messed up, can you get them fixed?" I asked, seeing them set by his clock on the side table. I pick them up gently and eye them, wincing at the spider webbed cracks on the lens.
"Yeah, I can, it'll take a few week'th though, I've broken them before, but I'll have to wear contact'th till then, damn I hate tho'the thing'th," He sighs, standing and walking over to take them. "I'll be back in a th'ec, I gotta tell my dad."
I watch his back as he walks out, then sigh and lean against the wall. So much has happened in just one week, it's ridiculous. I get beat by my dad, found by a friend, and stay at his house, met a cousin, and only in the span of about five days. Another sigh escapes me as I run a hand through my hair, spiking it up more than it already is. When he walks back in he gives me a small smile.
"Do you want to get a tho'wer? Your other clotheth were wathed," He chuckles.
"Yeah why not," I sigh, standing and grabbing my clothes.
:Sollux POV:
While Karkat is showering I inspect my own wounds. My dad has barely questioned the fact that my glasses are broken and that I have a bruised eye. My arm had been slammed into the ground pretty hard, I'm pretty badly bruised because the damn guy I ended up fighting slammed me against the ground multiple times. Although, I got in some really good hits on him too.
I pull off my shirt with a wince and move to look at myself in the mirror. Yep, just a bunch of bruises, nothing too terrible. Sighing, I grab some fresh clothes and go to the bathroom in Mituna's room, taking a quick shower and moving back to my room. Karkat is still showering, so I sit down at my computer, Gamzee has attempted to message me, but I don't bother messaging him back, I don't want to deal with his stupid quirk.
Frowning, I glance at the time, seeing it's only around nine, which is ridiculously early for me to try to sleep, but I honestly don't want to try to start another strand of coding. Not really thinking, I climb onto the bed and pull the covers over my head to make it darker. After a few moments of lying in almost complete silence I end up drifting off to sleep.
:Karkat POV:
When I return from my shower, running my fingers through my hair to rid it of stray droplets, I glance at the time and see that it's a little bit before 10 p.m. My gaze flicks around the room, searching for Sollux, but after a moment I realize that the teen is already lying in bed, and he has his comforter pulled to cover his entire face. Laughing quietly at the sight, I take a few steps to look closer at him. Judging by the soft movements of his shoulders, he's already deeply asleep. I carefully and gently pull down the comforter so I can clearly see the hit he had received on his face, and it makes me wince in pity before I sigh.
Tossing the dirty clothes into what I assume is a dirty-clothes pile, I sit down at the edge of the bed. I try not to be creepy and watch Sollux sleep, even though I can definitely occupy myself by doing so for a few hours. My headache has been toned down dramatically with the combination of painkillers and a warm shower, so it was more of a dull throb instead of a stabbing pain. Even so, I massage my temples for a few seconds before glancing at the pallet on the ground. Sollux had never cleaned up from the time he'd tried to sleep on the ground and it looks decently comfortable.
Since I don't want to end up sleeping up against the teen again, I stand and make the pallet a bit more presentable and move over to the bedside table. Setting his alarm for him (since he had forgotten to do so) and clicking off the lamp. I situate myself in the most comfortable position on the measly pat of blankets and lay facing the ceiling.
I begin following the patterns in the paint until my mind begins to wander to other topics, and I'm suddenly contemplating the reasons why my mom didn't pick up. I have to roughly shake my head to clear the thoughts and try reverting to something less stress-inducing. I try focusing on Sollux's breathing, which I can easily hear in the quiet of the room. Soon enough my other thoughts are fading away and I fall into a half-sleep stupor.
I'm broken out of that when Sollux's phone begins to buzz loudly, and it takes me a moment to figure out what it even was before I jump up and stumble over to his bedside table to answer it, screw checking ID.
"Hello?" I ask in the most annoyed voice I can muster at...one am.
"Karkat? I guess I woke you...I'm sorry, but I wanted to call and tell you that I couldn't answer earlier because I was out and needed to leave the phone here, I'll call you again later Kat," and with that abrupt exit the phone falls silent again. After a few minutes of just dial-tone, I hang up and set the phone back on the table. Groaning in annoyance, I begin to climb into bed out of habit before I realize what I'm doing. I catch myself though and end up stumbling back onto my makeshift bed. Blushing furiously, I'm thankful I can't see how ridiculous I look. I let out a frustrated groan that is fully muffled by my pillow. And Since the position is fairly comfortable, I allow myself to lay there until I fall asleep.
It's only a few hours later that I'm awoken from my light sleeping state by a distressed shout. Since it being almost five a.m. with barely any sleep, my thoughts are a bit clouded as I sit up and rub at my head. Sollux was obviously still asleep, but apparently trapped in a nightmare because he whimpers again. Muttering some unsavory things under my breath, I climb on-top of the mattress and shake his shoulder.
"Hey fuckass," I murmur, half-heartedly shaking him and still hoping he'll wake up. When he doesn't answer I growl under my breath and end up pushing him into the wall opposite.
"Captor!"
"FUCKING HELL!"He yelps, jumping to awakeness and lashing out blindly. The back of his hand connects with my shoulder with a sharp slap, and I turn to glare at him even though I know he can't see it. "KK?"
"You better have a damn good reason to have woken me up," I growl at him, sitting cross-legged on the far side of his bed. He's silent for a few moments and I'm afraid he's fallen asleep again before he answers.
"It wath jutht a bad dream, thorry KK, thorry for waking you," He replies with a slight slur to his tone. I can clearly hear the exhaustion in his voice though, and I feel a tad bit guilty before beginning to retort...
Except he'd fallen asleep.
With a slump of defeat I just end up stretching out on the ridiculously comfortable mattress and focus on his breathing again as I sleep.