A/N; I feel so ridiculously entertained by the whole 'Karkat, that's the wall.' 'Karkat, that's my chin.' 'Karkat, that's my di- whoops. Whistles awkwardly to change subject* So, anyway, last chapter's song was 'In Our Final Hour' by Go Radio. They're pretty unpopular for such a cool band, and they only broke up last year…on my birthday…
**Sobs**
### ####
"And each day we are torn,
Between the right and the wrong,
Between life and convenience,
Why do we sleep? Why complain?"
-Be Karkat.
"I think you should get a walking stick, Karkat."
"Fuck off."
"No, seriously, it might help! You won't keep walking into things!"
You rub your bruised and aching nose, scowling in John's direction (hopefully in the fuckasses' direction, anyway). He had taken you on yet another long and winding trip around the hospital at your –demand- request, but you were questioning why you'd thought it was such a great fucking idea. While the determination to become independent still stood in your mind, you were sick and tired of running into shit. The only headway you'd made was now you could take a piss by yourself. And even that was usually a royal fucking pain in the ass, seen as your aim was slightly off still. With a bit of direction by a male nurse, however, you had a fairly good idea were the godforsaken thing was now.
"It's called a cane, you oblivious shit-eating fuckhead."
John ignored your tone- yet again proving the 'oblivious' part of your barbed correction- as you bumped into a nearby vending machine, not hearing the mechanic hum until it was too late, stumbling backwards a few steps. Hands went on your hips, the warmth from them seeping through the thin fabric of your skinny jeans. You leaned back slightly, grimacing at where you guessed he and his dipshit brain was. Thankfully, this time you were correct in your assumption and his chin landed on your head, although not painfully. You'd come to realise the Egbert boy was really, really into touching and hugging and all that, and that it was better to just let him have his way every now and then. Anyway, you'd come to secretly enjoy it a little.
"Please? You're going to be discharged from the hospital soon, and you need to be able to look after yourself!"
"Fuck off, Egbert."
"Don't be mean!"
You could almost feel the pout from him, and for the first time in what seemed like eternity you were glad you were blind, simply because it meant you were resistant to those damn puppy eyes you could sense. Not resistant enough though, you thought dimly as your hands covered his, still resting on your bony hips. You had no idea why this was so damn gay, but it truly was. Not that it bothered you- you were fucking homosexual, after all. At least, you thought you were. But who really cares about sexuality in a place and time like this?
Not you.
As fucking gay as you were.
### ####
"So…um, Karkat?"
You didn't even try to look at John, too enraptured with the warmth radiating from the hospital room's window. Even if you couldn't curl up in the sun with a book and just let the day go by, there were other ways around these types of things, and feeling up the fucking window seemed to be one of them. Your cold fingers were splayed across the unmarred glass, the heat not overriding the chill stuck to your skin. You'd always had rather cold hands; and you sometimes supposed it was to match the icy surface of your heart. That wasn't altogether true, though. 'Embarrassingly human at times' was a very apt description for your dismal existence.
"Karkat?"
You huff, realising with one of your trademark scowls that Egbert was not going to leave you alone until he had gotten whatever was on that chest off. Damn pain in the ass, that boy was, which wasn't even in the good (read: gay) way. A quick swivel of your hips turned you away from the sunshine you couldn't see, and you folded your arms, feeling even more pissed off than before. Couldn't he see you and the sun were having a romantic moment and you needed to be left alone with it?!
"What, Egbert?"
"How…how did you get blind?"
Time seemed to freeze in that split second, and a cold breeze floated over your whole body like that time you went out in the snow in your underwear after drinking that vodka. Sound crackled and went dead as silence filled the air, a silence that was heavy with anticipation. You cleared your suddenly dry throat and tried to formulate a reply.
"W-why the fuck does it matter?"
"I was just curious!"
You fell silent again, a whirlwind of thoughts trapping your consciousness and ripping your rational ideas and reasoning away in a millisecond that felt almost like a lifetime. With some difficulty, you moved your suddenly weary legs to the edge of the hard, cold hospital bed and sat down, your hand brushing something. Your fingers closed around the hem of John's hoodie, much like the other days he had visited and you had clung to him because like Jane, he felt like reality in a desert of non-existence and you needed it to keep yourself anchored to the ground. A breath escaped you, and with it you let yourself speak once more.
"…Okay. If you really fucking need to know that much that you're just going to continue pestering me like a useless nooksucker hooked on crack and other people's life stories then I suppose I can waste what little time I have left on this useless planet to inform you of how I got blind, because that's the best way you could explain it! You're not only fucking oblivious, but clearly insensitive as well! Just because I'm an asshole doesn't mean I don't have feelings and all that shebang because I most certainly-"
"Karkat!"
You paused to take a breath and glared sharply in John's direction as delicate, unmarked fingers linked with your own and halted your rant immediately. How did someone who was fucking seventeen have hands that felt like they belonged to a goddamn newborn child?!
"Karkat."
His voice, soft but cheery, broke you from your admittedly stupid thoughts about its' speaker's hands.
"Can you just tell me without yelling or swearing too much? It's hard to concentrate when you keep saying all these bad words and you already speak too fast for me anyway!"
"…Fine."
With a heavy sigh filled with apprehension, you decided at that moment you certainly weren't telling the boy the whole fucked-up tale of your life. You weren't up to that, and if John went off and told anyone, you could be turned even more upside-down than you were at this point in time. So, you could certainly twist the truth a little, and that would work. For now, at least, it would be fine to just fudge up the details a little, as your old friends would have said.
And so you began to explain how you were caught up in the homicide ring that had been going around on the news. John had heard of it, of course (everyone within the damn state had) but you had shooshed him before you had continued the story. While you had been putting up with a few of your friends from high school because they had come to pester you in real life instead of talking on the Internet, an intruder had attacked you all. When you had awoken you had the misfortune to be the last one left alive, due to the murderer apparently assuming you were dead or something to that degree, when in fact you were simply unconscious and about three quarters dead. You had managed to call emergency services and give your address before blacking out, and that was when you'd ended up where you were. Damage to your brain had apparently shorted out the sight receptors in that think-pan of yours, or something to that idea, you'd been told. You hadn't spoken to any of the police or detectives that had passed by, simply telling the hospital staff you certainly didn't want them annoying you when you were trying to fucking recover, and Roxy and her friends had been only too happy to tell them to shove off.
And that was then you had met Egbert's soft, annoyingly oblivious ass.
"…Wow, Karkat."
His voice was subdued, not shocked like you'd expected after blurting out that you'd been the sole survivor of a mass homicide. Before you could react, still feeling nauseous from the thought of what you still blearily remembered of that nightmarish day, you were enveloped in a warm hug. It was different than before to you, however. You couldn't put your finger on it, but there was something different to it, some underlying emotions when you inhaled the scent of the younger boy, feeling yourself relax into his grip slightly. Although it didn't particularly smell like anything, it was a mix of things that just created something that was oddly comforting. Hands slid up your back, rubbing softly, and you buried your achingly cold face in soft skin, the burning of your tears dripping from your cheeks onto cushiony fabric. He sat there, whispering comforting little streams of nonsense to you, holding you tightly as you pretended valiantly like you weren't crying your sightless ass out.
### ####
-While Karkat's busy, let's be the insane guy again.
He was haunting your motherfuckin' dreams now.
That boy.
You couldn't even bear to call him a man, because there were so many feelings trapped within your chest that it made it hard to breathe and you could feel them, the tiny flickers of recollection and those tiny memories that popped up at the most inopportune moments possible. And those shards brought with them emotions, the most awful, heart-wrenching emotions you couldn't even bear to try to remember. There was a burning pain in your chest now, and it had nothing at all to do with the numerous wounds on your skinny, malnourished body. True, you had quite extensive injuries that might have seemed severe to people who specified in the medical area, but to you they simply meant nothing. Blood was simply a liquid that tasted strongly metallic and had a colour that sparked something in your drained brain. You tried to reach for it, but as soon as you made that effort the tiny effort you put into it seemed to push it further out of your grasp. What was worse was the disturbed feeling that it was something important, something invaluable that you were never going to have, and that…that brought another emotion with it.
Anger.
You could feel it, a boiling anger, bubbling from the pain in your chest. The poison of it spread at an unmeasurable pace, clouding your thoughts so much more than any drug or alcoholic drink could. In fact, you'd welcome more of that precious marijuana, just in the tiny, faint hope it might obliterate that hate filtering into your feverish mind. It just never, ever went away, no matter how much you begged or screamed, making effort to try and get redemption as if that would help your worthless cause at this point.
With a start you realised you were back at that building. That one structure you never thought you'd lay your tired, burning eyes upon again. It was covered in that horrifyingly bright police tape, with 'caution' written on it as to keep away any people who might decide to ransack the area, and it looked like a few people had been evacuated, likely the ones closest to the apartment that was sectioned off. Although it was doubtful, that was possible, being that area of town where only old ladies and broke college students lived- and criminals never bothered with because it wasn't worth their time. It was rather odd, how you couldn't quite recall why this particular residence held so many hidden memories for you. The balcony of one apartment caught your eye, and you felt a shift in your stomach as a flicker of recognition hit you, making you still.
There were only two policemen actually at the scene, and it looked like they were simply there to guard the place and keep a look out for something. One, an older man, with dark midnight-coloured hair and a serious, worn expression that looked as if it were permanently plastered onto his gaunt, clean-shaven face. He seemed rather annoyed at the other recruit, a much younger man with a sour look on his face and a purple stain in the part of his hair, likely a trainee. They both looked rather irritated, and you idly wondered if they were related. Perhaps he was on work experience, or something of the like. Whatever it was, they certainly weren't paying much attention to their job, or they would have noticed you climbing in through the balcony window and disappearing into the sectioned-off rooms.
### ####
It wasn't decrepit at all, a little messy, but that was all. You didn't make a move to go near the main living area or the kitchen; the dropping feeling in your stomach supplying the feeling that something was there that you weren't ready to see. Deciding your brain knew what was up with this situation, you instead opened the balcony door and made your way from the short hallway into another room, the layout of the place sharp and painfully familiar, like every corner was a blade sinking into your soft, easily mauled skin. Without thinking you raised a hand to your face, feeling the slight sting from the wound your cheeks had suffered. It burned, but in an oddly pleasant way, and with it came a feeling of satisfaction, although you couldn't quite remember what had brought you to this particular feeling of accomplishment.
You wondered what exactly making your way to this bedroom had served. There was familiar warmth in the air, and your eyes fixed on the black fluffy comforter that looked like it had been tossed onto the bed. Maybe its' owner had been watching movies, probably a sappy romcom that he loved secretly even though he insisted it was for some other purpose, and then after the movie had finished that nameless boy had fallen asleep on his best friend, who didn't mind watching his silly little shows with him.
The best friend, not wanting the boy to get a cramp or somethin' stupid like that, would probably have to pick him up, along with the comforter, and take him to bed. Maybe the sleeping boy would be a bit more cuddly than usual once he was sleepy, and had insisted on the best friend sleeping with him. And once the friend had complied, maybe he would wrap his arms around him, mutter something barely inaudible into his friend's chest And maybe the friend was a little high, and he could have almost sworn on his last, fading breath that that boy whose name had been lost to the flow of time and memories, that the near-impossible had happened, that those words had escaped those soft, untouchable lips.
"I love you."
"Karbro, don't let go," you spoke without thinking, a desperate tone to your voice as it cracked from disuse. Your knees hit the floorboards with a muffled thump, and you rested your aching face and head on the comforter, not caring if some of your makeup had spread onto it. From where your half-closed violet eyes were looking, you could see similar whitish-grey marks all over the soft material, and a lazy smile crossed your face.
Maybe the friend had gotten in trouble for leaving his damn makeup on when he decided to climb into bed once or twice. God himself knew, perhaps even a whole lot of times; too many to even attempt to keep track of. But the makeup was part of the person, or maybe the friend had thought this as he made half-assed attempts to defend himself, even though he knew the whole complaint thing was an act and secretly the boy was just relieved he hadn't been left alone to dwell in his feelings and self-loathing. That boy.
That boy.
That boy.
### ####
-Be Karkat again.
Some unknowing fucking nurse had left the damn news on the fucking television again, and you felt your teeth grit in both anger and anxiety as those horrible, damning words reached your ears.
"The multiple homicide of Sollux Captor, Equius Zahhak, Vriska Serket, Nepeta Leijon and Tavros Nitram is still under research by the local police department. All the victims were said to have been murdered in a different way despite being at the same location and being murdered at the same time, and there is apparently one survivor of this tragedy, a young man whose identity and location has not been revealed to the public for both safety and privacy reasons."
The rest of the newsreader's story faded from your hearing as you closed your eyes. Why you bothered to pretend like you could see even though it was blatantly obvious you couldn't was beyond you right now. A few pathetic little tears leaked past your lids, making you bite your lip harder than you should have. The taste of copper filled your mouth, tainting it. Drips of the liquid, no longer red to you, made a slow track down your chin, dropping onto your chilled hands.
No one was here to help you tonight. Visiting hours had gone past and even though John normally could get away with ignoring the time he had mentioned something about having business today and had left. It was completely silent in your room, not even the beeps from other rooms reached your numb body. It was the first time you'd been left alone with your thoughts for an extended period of time, and it had clearly been a fucking terrible idea. It was almost as if someone was reaching into your already weak mind and ripping it apart slowly, one little shred by one little shred. It was almost physically painful, and a sinking feeling told you that you'd forgotten to mention the medication you had taken before you'd been admitted. It occurred to you that you should probably have mentioned them to someone. Maybe you'd tell Jane about it later, and she could ask someone to go and pick them up for you.
You let out a huff. Relying on people really wasn't your thing; but it looked like you might need to.
…you really wanted John to come back.
"We don't sleep, very much,
These triggers ache for the touch,
Where's the strength,
We relied on?"
