Author's Note: So then. We have reached the culmination of seven months of work (no, not the end, just the climax). We've reached the point we were always coming to. Karkat's facing a mirror more broken than his thoughts and everything begins to tie back together.

If it's not too odd, I'd firstly like to express my concern for how many people resonated with the previous chapter. FFF, darling, you are perfectly lovely, and if you ever find yourself in need of anyone to talk to, please come to me. That goes for all the rest of you, as well, please come talk to me if you need to, because I'll listen to you, and I won't judge you for anything, and you all deserve to be happy in every capacity and I'd love to be even the smallest factor in bringing that happiness about. Explain your lives to me, explain the problem, I'll help you through it. Skype (katgirl28888), email (either kcuccia9 at gmail or mamacuccia at yahoo), PM on here, ask on tumblr (professor-snap), text or call me (12097682231), Facebook (Karina Cuccia), or hell, any other way you're comfortable with talking. You're all such wonderful people and I wanna make sure to the best of my ability that each and every one of you are happy and that there's something putting an honest, genuine smile on your face at least once a day.

In other news, I finally uploaded that mirror on AO3 that I said I was gonna upload like three chapters ago. I'd link it, but FF's a cunt about links to anything. If you'd rather read it there for whatever personal reason, my account is katgirl28888. It took me three fucking days to upload all of it, and the entire fucking interim I was just thinking, "Y'know. Man. I sure would love to upload the rest of those chapters. Just as soon as the internet stops shitting in my mouth! Fuckin', shit on my dick, you know?"

Which reminds me, I noticed the other day just how fucking many mannerisms I've picked up from the Rooster Teeth guys, mostly the Achievement Hunter crew, but Gus and Joel and some other guys too and just what? Hey, I'm not complaining though. I've gotten Michael and Ray's tendency to quietly emphasize certain words in any given sentence, example, "Jack, hitting a blind hill." His voice just gets softer to enunciate and I really like it. I've also gotten Geoff's _ as dicks and _ as butts and pretty much the whole crews', though mostly Geoff and Michael's, "hauling anus/buttholes/butts/other butt related word." Quite pleased with this slight change in vocabulary and mannerisms.

Chapter Twenty-Five, my lovelies. Enjoy~

Everything around me was dark, full of shadows and mocking laughter echoing through the corridor I couldn't see, some voices I could place and some I couldn't. One rose above the rest, resonating through me with a terrifying power and coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once. A voice I hadn't heard in months. "Filthy, selfish shit." A voice that held years worth of memories with a tone that reeked of fear to those who knew it well enough, and smug disdain to those who didn't. "Who would ever want you? Who could?" A voice that belonged to someone I used to care about. "You're sick, fucked-up, a freak of nature. Disgusting." A voice now so harsh and grating that used to contain more love than I could remember now. "Worthless faggot scum."

Trevor's voice.

I jerked awake, my breath coming in quick gasps. The room was brighter now, and it took me a moment to figure out where I was before remembering I was in the hospital, remembering that Trevor couldn't hurt me anymore. That's what I told myself, anyway. A weight on my stomach and something pressing my hand to the sheets prevented me from sitting up, and looking down, I found Sollux slumped over me, sleeping deeply. I couldn't fathom how long he'd been here that he'd fallen asleep, much less been so exhausted to have fallen asleep on top of me rather than drive home.

And so, as was bound to happen sooner or later in a semi-drugged state with a sleeping twenty-one-year-old on top of me, I relaxed into the bed, staring at the ceiling and simply thinking. Thinking about Sollux, and about whether or not the only reason he was here now was because he felt guilty. Wondering if he even cared about me anymore, or if in one moment of bad judgement, I'd destroyed whatever bond we used to have and wrenched both our friendship and relationship apart, leaving myself to fall prey to self-hatred and having just enough lack of give-a-shit to stop myself from doing something about it. I wondered if he'd stay with me, and I wondered if the only reason why was that he'd be afraid I'd kill myself if he left. I wondered if it mattered.

It felt a bit weird, thinking things like this. Self-harm, suicide; those things had always seemed so far away, things you heard about, knew were around you, but never touched, or saw with your own eyes. And suddenly, here I was, recovering in a hospital bed from what my subconscious was arguing was a blatant attempt on my own life, though my mind was telling me was just an experiment. I hadn't ever thought about it this way, externally almost, passively — objectively. It was always "do, do, do, there's nothing to stop you, nobody cares. Why should they?"

Watching my blood siphon off into the sink had been nice at first. Originally, I was entranced by the mere sight of it. As the swirling red water would disappear, I'd imagine myself going with it, vanishing into the darkness, never to be seen or missed again. I had a lot of blood. I certainly wouldn't feel too bad about washing a bit of it down the drain. I'd sit like that for a bit, the shower on so Sollux wouldn't think anything was wrong — not that he cared, I was sure — until the red stopped coming. Some nights, I'd do it again, so I could watch, mesmerized by the color and the patterns it wove in the crystal clear liquid, and other nights, I wouldn't notice the tears spilling from my eyes until they landed on the fresh cuts.

That only lasted the first few days, however. Pain wasn't something I was afraid of. Up until recently, it had been something I'd grown accustomed to, and more lately, once I'd stopped receiving it daily, I supposed it had become something I missed the familiarity of. I missed my constant bruises and the tiny cuts on my face, and gritty, nasty scrapes on my elbows from hitting the ground so hard. I'd gotten so used to them, for them not to be there felt strange and disconcerting, so I found a way to emulate it.

The residing fear of accidental death quickly vanished in turn, becoming something of the past just like a life without the scars of daily abuse, and wherever it went, it took the calming effect of watching my own loss of blood with it. I'd mutter under my breath as I watched the blade sink into my skin, tell myself the truth no one other than him had the guts to say, tell myself the things I'd always been told — things I'd spent so long hearing, that I wasn't good enough, that I was stupid and useless and not worth a damn thing to anybody, that I'd never be good enough, that even months after I'd stopped hearing it, I couldn't bring myself to forget it. It stuck with me like superglue, toxic vapors being released and rising up with each memory to poison my mind until I believed every last word.

I'd find my motivation to dig the blade into my forearm in the oddly consoling thoughts that nobody wanted me around, that I was a liability to everyone. The harsh, violent words gave me reason to hurt myself, excused me for pretending that everyone I was impeding was taking their secret revenge in a blood sacrifice. If it wasn't for me, Kanaya wouldn't be dead, Sollux wouldn't have some stupid deadbeat to take care of. My family'd be better off, not having to make up for what Sollux couldn't pay for in my wasted college tuition, everyone would be happier without me to take care of. The pain reminded me, made up for the fact, that I was nothing but dead weight.

Always nothing but dead weight.

I didn't remember falling asleep, but when I woke up again, I was alone. It seemed that Sollux had finally left, left to live his own life with his own friends and not be stuck at the bedside of his hospital-bound, potentially suicidal boyfriend. I felt extremely selfish when a pang of loneliness hit me. You don't deserve him, I told myself, trying without success to push it away. You don't deserve his presence, or his love, and you definitely fucking don't have any right to make his life miserable by demanding either. Even so, I found myself looking longingly out the window to my right, imagining what he was doing.

It wasn't as though I wanted him to see me in this state. I was pathetic, more useless than usual. Bandaged arms and dripping IVs of saline and blood, inexplicably stiff hair and bruised fists. The night before, when the mirror shattered, the last thing I'd wanted was for him to find me. It wasn't a call for help. It was a stupid mistake, me watching the color drain from my face, reveling in the pallor that ensued, and out of nowhere, finding myself overcome with a surge of fury that this pitiful creature was what I'd become, what I'd made myself into, and wanting nothing more to do with it. Suddenly, I'd found myself utterly disgusted by who was staring back at me — by what — and in a flash of rage, I'd painfully tightened tendons shredded by the blade of a razor and with my clenched fists destroyed the image reflected in the mirror.

The reality of it was worse than the reflection.

I was almost embarrassed by how hopeful I felt when the door opened. Whipping my head around, I prepared myself to be disappointed by a nurse checking in to record my vitals or something to that nature, but found myself face-to-face with an equally shocked Sollux, regardless. "Shit, you're awake!" he said, not even glancing back as he shut the door. I sat up carefully, trying to avoid ripping out the tube-fed needles in my arms. Speaking of arms, I suddenly found his enclosing me, crushing me against his chest. He pressed me back into the mattress and framed my face in his hands, smoothing back my hair and pressing my ears to the side of my head.

"Oh my God, I fucking love you, th'o much, I th'wear, to God, KK, I'll never be mad at you, for th'tupid shit, ever again, fucking Chrith't." His words were interspersed with chaste, loving kisses rained over my face, which lent me to a fairly sizeable bit of confusion.

"I-I don't u-under—"

"Alth'o, if you even th'o much ath' fucking look at a knife from here on out, ever again, I'm gonna punch your fucking lightth' out. I don't even want you thinking about them." I stared at him with furrowed eyebrows, his hard glare matching mine as he sat down in the chair I only just noticed beside the hospital bed. His hand found mine with practiced ease, and my mind suddenly raced with questions.

Before I could ask a single one, however, he sighed and added a lot more quietly, gesturing at my arms, "I know thoth'e weren't acth'identth'."

Oh.

I tore my gaze away when he spoke again. "What did you uth'e, anyway?"

After a moment's hesitation, I muttered as incomprehensibly as possible, inspecting the window opposite him, "I broke a razor."

The lack of background noise of any kind, save a soft, steady beeping, made it pretty impossible for him to have not heard me, however, and he replied with a self-aimed kind of disappointment. "Oh, KK," he murmured softly, running his thumb over my knuckle. "You know what'th' coming, don't you." I didn't react. "Why?" I couldn't meet his eye and simply shook my head by way of an answer. "Okay." The word was spoken quietly, carefully, as though he was admonishing a capricious child. I swallowed hard around the unexpected knot in my throat, clenching my fists and finding a hand that had never left in one of my own. He squeezed back, and I furiously ignored the tears that appeared on my cheeks until Sollux brought the hand unoccupied by mine up to brush them away.

It was then that I saw the tears dripping off his own lashes.

In all my years of knowing him, the only time I'd seen him shed a single tear was after somebody close to him died. Other than that, Sollux didn't cry. Sollux never cried, for anything. And yet, here he was, salt dripping from his gorgeous eyes because of me. I couldn't think straight when a sob wracked his thin frame, my thoughts growing even more scattered when he pulled me into a close embrace. His words came out choked by tears, by fear and concern, "Don't do thith', KK. Pleath'e, pleath'e, don't ever do thith' again. Not to yourth'elf, not to me. You almoth't died. I don't know what I'd do if I loth't you."

I didn't know what to do; I couldn't hug him back in case I accidentally yanked some medical apparatus out of my upper extremities, and I couldn't pull together a sensible enough thought to form words, so I just sat there and let him hold me until he stopped shaking. I didn't even register the tears streaming down my own cheeks, or the wetness surrounding my chin on his shoulder, until long after he'd pulled away.

After a long silence in which I felt him watch me while I turned my eyes anywhere but his, I finally met his gaze and asked, "How long have I been out?"

He didn't look at me as he spoke, though his eyes found mine again immediately after. "A few dayth'." I sighed heavily and attempted to bring a hand to my head so I could run it through my hair, only to find that the odd tightness I'd felt around my wrist beforehand, the one I'd payed not even a little mind to, was a handcuff restricting my movement up to a foot away in any direction from the bed frame.

"What the fuck is this?" I questioned loudly, suddenly furious at the audacity of the medical personnel. I sat up and immediately began struggling against my restraints.

"Robert told me it'th' th'tandard hoth'pital proth'edure for th'elf-harm victimth'," Sollux explained, his tone reminiscent of the cautious one he'd used prior to me yelling at him about college. "Ath' a th'ort of th'afe-guard againth't themth'elveth' in cath'e they wake up in the th'ame mood they went under in."

"This is fucking bullshit! What am I gonna do, fucking jump out the wind—?"

"KK, pleath'e, calm down!" he begged, still fairly quiet in comparison to me. His eyes looked frantically back at the hallway. "Come on, juth't relakth', we don't want th'omebody coming in and—"

"No, Sollux, this is complete bullshit! How fucking dare they—"

"Karkat!"

I narrowed my eyes at him and snarled, "I will not sit here unwillingly chained to a goddamn bed like a fucking animal! I am a human being, they don't have any right to tie me down against my—!"

"If you're a human being, then why don't you th'tart treating yourth'elf like one?!" he shouted back. His eyes burned with fear, regret, anger. "Why the fuck do you think you're here in the firth't plath'e? You're cuffed to a bed becauth'e you can't be truth'ted to not hurt yourth'elf if left alone! Nobody wantth' you to hurt yourth'elf, KK!" The fire within him died just as suddenly as it had risen and he looked at me sadly, repeating far more quietly, "Nobody wantth' you to hurt yourth'elf. Th'o why did you?"

I didn't answer. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second before I looked away. I didn't even know where to begin to explain it to him. Without a doubt, if I regaled him with the rationale in my head, he'd scoff and call me stupid. So I didn't. I silently lay back down, turning my head away. We sat in the most disquiet quiet I'd ever witnessed for a while, until I lost track of time and felt my eyelids begin to droop. "I'm really tired, Sollux."

I'd forgotten when his fingers had woven themselves in mine again, so the gentle squeeze he gave me was a bit of a shock. "Go to th'leep, KK," he murmured gently. I closed my eyes and heard unapologetically loud scrapes as he moved the chair closer to the top of the bed. His left hand in mine, he brought his right up to ruffle through my hair, fingertips brushing my scalp and separating oddly matted locks. Within a few minutes, the sensations faded to uncomfortable dreams I wouldn't remember.

I blinked awake to another empty room. I lay still for a moment, listening vainly to the familiar, quiet voices in the background as I tried to figure out what had woke me, until I realized it must have been said voices. Robert and Sollux were in the hall talking, probably discussing me and if I was depressed or whatever and needed medication. I had no doubt in my mind they'd decide I was, and the former would probably prescribe me some antidepressant with explicit instructions to the latter to make sure I took them. But I didn't want their help. I didn't need it. The last thing I wanted was to be another thing weighing on another person's mind.

Just then, Rob glanced in the room and caught my eye. He gestured towards the door and they both entered, my boyfriend behind my doctor. "Hey, Karkat, how're you doing? I'm glad to see you're—"

"I want out of here." He shot me a glare that screamed, "Really?"

"Karkat, I think you of all people understand how a hospital works—"

"I mean out of these chains."

"Oh. Well in that case, as a doctor, I'm not allowed to—"

"Then how 'bout as a friend?" I pleaded, holding his green eyes. I could see the internal argument he was having in the uncertainty in his gaze before he sighed deeply and walked toward right side of the bed, fishing something out of his pocket as he went.

"I'm pullin' a lot of strings for you, kiddo. If the boss found out about this, friendly or not, I'd be suspended. Don't make me regret it." I ran my fingers gently over the wrists I'd rubbed near-raw on the metal as he unlocked the handcuffs.

"I appreciate it."

"You better." He sat in the chair previously occupied by Sollux, snatching the clipboard from the end of the bed as he rounded it. Glancing it over, he told me, "You're doing good recovery-wise, that's good." Flipping a page back, he slid the pen out from the top and scribbled some doctor shit down. "I think you should know that I've already called your dad, and to be quite frank, Karkat, he's pissed at you. I told him you were going to be discharged in a few days and that for, ahem ahem, medical reasons, no one is allowed to see you. I also told him that this was self-inflicted — don't you even try to argue with me you little shit, I'm a doctor, I know the fuck what I'm talking about," he spliced in when I tried to interject.

"I did not tell him about your sexuality or your relationship, because you're a grown man and that's your own shit to work out with your dad, and I'm not gonna say it for you. I know Kolby, he can be a dick when he wants to, and I'm not about to willingly put myself on the brunt-end of that. So. Now that that's out of the way, let's talk." His tone was soft, but I could see the near threat in his expression. He gave me a long, steady stare and I noticed Sollux back away out of the corner of my eye. There goes my backup, I thought.

"Wanna tell me why?" he began, gesturing to my arms. I shook my head. "Okay, let me rephrase that: tell me why." I swallowed hard.

"'Cause."

"Karkat, I swear to God, if you're gonna be difficult like this, I'm gonna amputate one of your legs in your sleep." I could tell he didn't mean it, but the hardness in his glare didn't dissipate my fear any. I made the mistake of shooting my boyfriend a glance, and Robert, without even looking away, immediately ordered, "Sollux, out." The raven-haired twenty-one-year-old scurried out of the room without so much as a word of protest.

Robert and I sat together in silence, staring at each other and both waiting for the other to make a move first. Said first move came in the form of the older man running a hand through his hair. "What happened, Karkat? I thought you hated self-harm. I thought you thought it was pointless. What happened to that? What made this happen?"

I didn't answer him. Instead, I asked, "What happened to those two people who were in the back of Trevor's truck when he hit Kanaya?"

"They died," he told me quietly.

"Five people, Robert. Five people." I looked down and rotated my left arm palm up. "Almost six."

"H-He's... he hadn't even seen you since he broke your rib, had he? He was dead before you even did this. What could he have done?" The green-eyed doctor looked utterly bewildered.

"He was right, Rob," I said quietly, looking away. I figured Robert at the very least would understand, after having dealt with me and my self-loathing issues that I always changed the topic from, and he was used to the abuse my ex-boyfriend had put me through. He knew the things the asshole said to me, but what he didn't know was how true they rang.

"He was right the whole time. I'm a selfish, worthless piece of shit—"

"That's not—"

"—I fucking yell at Sollux all the time," I continued, ignoring him, "and he doesn't deserve it. I did it last week and I'm pretty sure he fucking hates me now, as he should, because, at home, he's hardly said a word to me since. I don't see why I should bother with being alive anymore when I'm obviously nothing but a burden to anybody, because if I wasn't here, Sollux wouldn't have to take care of my useless ass. Kanaya wouldn't have died, and I wouldn't be a disappointment to my dad like I know I'll be, and I won't have to hate myself anymore. I just don't see the point, when I'm so in the way of everybody."

He stared, dumbfounded, before quickly recovering and shaking his head slowly."You're wrong about Sollux," he told me quietly. "Who the hell do you think brought you in in the first place? You know, after you'd passed out from blood loss. You've been in and out, mostly out, of consciousness for almost two days. He hasn't even left the hospital. He hasn't left your side, except for when I was giving you your stitches, and even then, Cheryll had to come in and ask if I wanted the man pacing back and forth in the waiting room at three in the morning to leave. You obviously mean a whole hell of a lot to him, and whether you feel like a burden or not, I doubt he gives a shit about taking care of you. If you want my advice, you need to suck it up and fucking deal with the fact that you're stuck with him, because I don't think he's gonna let you go, no matter what.

"I've heard the shit Trevor's told you, I've heard it all, because you told me. And he's fucking wrong. Not a word of what he's said was truth." Rob wrote some more shit down on his clipboard and stood up before sliding it back in the metal holder at the foot of the bed. "You're twenty-one years old, Karkat. It's about time you grew up. I'm not gonna be around forever to fix your shit and hold your hand, so you better figure it out quick, because the people you surround yourself with obviously want you around, and if you wanna be more selfish than I like to think you're capable of being, then go ahead and try to take yourself away from them."

"Just know that you're loved. By Sollux, by your father. By me. I'm sure Kanaya loved you. You had nothing to do with her death, so you can throw that idea out toot sweet." He said all this facing away, and paused momentarily to walk to the door. Continuing this trend of not looking at me as he spoke, he added, "Your father's coming to see you tomorrow. Figure your shit out."

His footsteps echoed through the hallway. Aside from myself, the room was empty.

Pretty sure I frucked something up in this chapter. I just got really distracted writing this, you can probably tell how forced it is towards the end. I blame the distraction on this goddamn song Bad Apple!, go YouTube it because it's killing me. The fucking English version by Rockleetist and Ashe, Ashe's voice is so goddamn distracting I'm gonna punch a fucking wall.

EDIT: Rewritten~

Anyway. Review, lovies~