Author's Note: Hooooly shit. Right, so. I actually have a legitimate excuse this time. It took me too fucking long, but I finally moved out of my parents house and I'm now living with my friend and her parents. I have to work on getting a job soon, 'cause I feel like a lazy freeloader as is. Other things are good. School's getting better. Life's getting better. Boyfriend and me hit six months. I reconciled with an enemy and made a couple new ones. Life moves on, y'know?

So, that's it. This is the end. The story's over. This long-ass fiction has come to a close (I would also like to say that I've had most of this written for about six months and I've just been incredibly lazy). There's still the epilogue, of course, but as for actual story, this is it. I hope you all enjoyed reading it, if you've gotten this far, and if not, then what are you still doing here? Either way, as much as this fic gave me, I'm glad it's over. I haven't finished anything I've written before, so this is kind of monumental for me. I learned a lot, met some really interesting, great people, and it's all thanks to Hussie, really. Although, if you really wanna trace it back to the guy who invented the internet, or farther back than that even. Either way, here's the last chapter. Thirty-one, friends. Read on c:

Life was better for me and Sollux since we'd gotten together. Aside from the flares of depression that overwhelmed me for a few months, I was all around happier. No more cutting, no more scars, no more abuse. Well, no new scars, anyway. None since Thanksgiving. No more Trevor to make me want them. Everything was better. Not to mention, we were fucking at least once a week, and I could almost swear that each time was better than the last.

Now was no exception, him on his hands and knees and me kneeling behind him my fingers tangled in his hair and dug into his hips and the obscene, disgusting, incredible sound of his ass slapping against my hips as I thrust into him paired with his whimpers and begs. After a lay like that, it shouldn't be hard to see how I was under the impression, upon exiting our room the following early-February morning, that, at least as far as sex went, Sollux and I had done everything under the sun — everything we wanted to, anyway. Apparently, however, that was not the case, judging by the oddly high-pitched call of "KK" from the couch. "Can you cometh' hera—" He tripped over his words and swore under his breath before correcting himself. "—c-come here a th'ec?" I quickly wiped the smirk off my face and walked around the sofa, plopping myself in my boyfriend's lap. "Oof!"

"What's up?"

"Pleath'e don't do that," he muttered, looking like he was gonna be sick.

"Whoa, hey, you okay?" I asked, a sudden concern in my tone as I prepared myself to stand up. "You're not gonna puke on me, are you?"

He grimaced. "No, I'll be fine."

I shrugged and leaned back into him. "Alright. Did you want something, then?"

"I juth't..." He looked straight forward. "I juth't wanted to hang out with you ith' all."

I rolled my eyes. "Could have just said so, asshole." I reached back and grabbed the TV controller. "Let's play a game."

"Okay," he replied flatly.

I couldn't help but give him a funny look. "Did you wanna do something else?" I asked slowly.

"N-No, this is. Good."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm— y-yeah, yeah."

I glanced at him. He looked pale and kind of panicked. I couldn't figure out a good reason why though, except that he probably wanted to ask me some embarrassing question and couldn't work up the nerve. Even that didn't make much sense, 'cause he'd never done that in the past. He'd always just come right out and said it.

I tried to shrug it off and stood up, setting up the PS2 and digging around for Baulder's Gate. "One or two?"

He mumbled something that sounded like, "I don't care." I put Dark Alliance II in and returned to his lap with a controller in either hand. He didn't complain that I was in his way, and that was definitely out of character for him, but about half an hour into the game, I managed to push the thought out of my head. That is, until he paused the game and threw his controller down in frustration.

"Alright," I snapped finally, "what the fuck's up with you?"

"I juth't — don't wanna play thith', that'th' all," he grumbled.

"Did you take your m—"

"Yeth'."

"So then why're you being all pissy?"

"I—" He cut himself off.

"Do you think you need a different prescription?" I asked, my tone more sympathetic.

"No!" he answered quickly. He stiffened, his words coming out forced and quick — nervous; "No, i-it'th' not that. It'th'. I juth't. I wanted to, u-uh..." He swallowed hard. "Fuck," he sighed, relaxing his body. "Promith'e me th'omething, okay?" he asked quietly, eyes closed.

I raised an eyebrow at him. He continued without an answer.

"Promith'e me you won't — won't... laugh, at me."

"...What?"

He lifted me off his lap and stood me on the carpet between the coffee table and the couch. One thing I noticed immediately upon his knee hitting the carpet was how well-dressed he was — button down, nice, not-ripped jeans, sleek black converse — while I was wearing nothing but plaid pajama pants and white socks. He let out a sharp breath and and looked up at me. "Alright, look; I'm no good at thith' romanth'e crap, but you really like it, and I really like you, and — no, that'th'—!" He growled to himself and looked away, acting as though he wanted nothing more than to hit himself.

He sighed and collected himself once again before looking back at me. "KK — Karkat — I care about you. Like, a lot. I love you, th'o much, a-and you're the moth't important thing in the world to me, more than anything elth'e, and I wanna be able to make sure you're happy and th'afe all the time, no matter what, and I know I'm not the... eath'ieth't perth'on to get along with, but, hey, you've th'tuck with me thith' long, what'th' — the reth't of your life? I'm willing to put up with whatever sh— wh-whatever you can throw at me, so I hope you can be willing to do the same." His voice faltered and stopped and took a deep breath. "I love you, KK," he whispered in what was clearly not meant to be a whisper. "F—" Clearing his throat softly, he said again, "I love you. I really, really, do. And I know I'm a prick, and a handful, and an asshole, and selfish and rude and more fu— more th'crewed up than a box of th'crewth'. And I-I'm an idiot, in the worth't kind of way, but... you'd make me the happieth't idiot in the world if you would... a-agree to marry me."

I stared stupidly at him, mouth open and body frozen in awe and disbelief. He blinked at me a couple times before his eyes suddenly widened. He frantically patted his pockets, blurting, "Wait, I have a — here!" as he pulled out a dark red, velvet covered box, which he proceeded to attempt to pull open from the hinges. "Dammit, no, it'th'—" When he finally did get it open, the thick gold band it encased was sticking out from the top half. Sollux's face was bright red.

"Oh my God," he muttered, hanging his head in shame and holding it with his right palm, elbow resting on his knee. The silence seemed to radiate throughout the room. "Th'orry. Fuck, I'm th'orry. I shouldn't have ath'ked, I should have known th'omething like thith' would happen."

Marry him. Would I marry Sollux. Would I want to resign myself to another sixty or so years of his stupid bullshit, start some kind of family with this asshole like I'd daydreamed about in high school? Would I wanna put up with his mental disorder and unwitting penchant for the dramatic? Would I wanna deal with all the stupid baggage and shit that came with this fuck for the rest of my life?

"I'm really th'orry, KK, I didn't realize I'd fuck thith' up th'o bad, I don't know why I didn't realize, I alwayth' fuck it up—"

Yeah. Yeah, I fucking would. Because this was what I'd been dreaming of since I met him. I'd just thought always thought I'd be the one to ask before he did. Of course, I'd never thought the situation would have arisen in the first place, but I digress. Either way, the question was on the table, and all that remained was my answer. So before he could feel any worse about his "botched" proposal, I gave it: "Yes."

"I should have known I'd—" All at once, he stilled and stared up at me, dumbfounded. "Wait. What?"

My shaking knees finally gave out and I fell onto them in front of him, taking the opportunity to lock my arms around his neck and hug him close. His arms locked tentatively around my torso, and my voice broke, shattered, as I repeated "yes," over and over again into his ear. "Fuck yes, yes, Sollux, yes, I'll fucking marry you, holy shit."

"You... I. Uh. What? You will?"

"Of course, dumbass."

"Oh."

"Fuck, I think I'm gonna cry. Shit. This is your fault," I choked.

Sollux, who appeared to fighting tears of his own, replied with a breathless laugh. "Me too, KK." Pausing, he added, "God, I can't believe that worked. I can't believe you th'aid yeth'. I'm—"

I crushed our lips together just to shut him up. "Well, I did, so believe it, asshole," I said, my lips still touching his. "Fuck, I love you."

He smiled tentatively, as though he still wasn't sure if I was playing him or not. "I love you, too, Karkat." I tightened my arms around him. We knelt on the ground together until our knees started to hurt, and then I held onto him some more. At some point, he pulled away and sat back on the couch before pulling me back onto his lap. My fiancé's lap. Fiancé, I repeated in my head. Holy shit, that's more surreal than boyfriend was. And fiancé leads to husband, Jesus. Talk about a mindfuck. My thoughts were broken by Sollux giggling. I cocked my head at him, and he looked at me and laughed harder.

"What's, uh... what's funny there, Sollux?"

"It'th' th'o you to th'wear more while being propoth'ed to. Like, you probably wouldn't have curth'ed onth'e if you were propoth'ing to me, but the other way around and every other word ith' dirty."

I blinked a few times, realizing he was right. Elbowing him in the gut, soliciting a noise similar to the one he made when I fell on him earlier, I growled for him to shut up and wrapped my arms around him. He laughed and turned on the TV and held me just as tight as ever.

Not that we paid any attention whatsoever to the TV.

Later that day, not a lot had changed. We weren't acting much different around each other, except that I'd called him babe at one point, which irritated him to no end and gave me excellent leverage to piss him off. My stomach rumbled around noon and I spent the five minutes after just trying to convince Sollux to make me something. Finally he agreed, only just so he could get me to quit bugging him. Two grilled cheese sandwiches each and a full stomach later, we were back to cuddling on the couch.

"You know what I don't get?" I asked, nuzzling my face against my fiancé's chest.

"What, KK?"

"Why it's so motherfucking cold in February."

He snorted. "Go put a shirt on, or th'tay here and let me warm you up."

I pressed a kiss to the light stubble on his jaw. "And how do you plan to do that?"

"Oh, I have my wayth'."

I laughed. "No, you don't. I'd be the one doing all the heavy lifting."

"I'll show you th'ome heavy lifting." I laughed again, groaning as I pushed myself off the couch.

"Yeah, fuck this. I'm putting on a shirt." Sollux reached forward to slap my ass as I walked away, smirking to himself as he settled back into the couch and turned his attention to the TV. I stepped around the couch and knocked him lightly on the side of the head, smirking to myself and walking into the bedroom, pointedly ignoring his joking scowl.

The first thing I noticed was how dim it was in our room. The curtain was closed, but usually you could see light flooding in around the edges. I found a shirt that smelled clean on the floor and threw it on before peeking out the window to see why it was so dark. I would have assumed rain, except that I couldn't hear any. "Holy shit," I muttered to myself. "No. Fucking. Way." I grabbed my hoodie from the foot of the bed and zipped it up as I shoved my feet into Sollux's dumb bunny slippers. I went immediately from the bedroom to the front door, ignoring the concerned call of, "KK?" from behind me.

"Holy shit," I said, astonishment plain in my voice.

"KK, what'th' wrong?" He sounded panicked as he half-jogged up behind me. "What'th' going— whoa." The front lawn was covered in at least two inches of snow, and fat flakes were pelting the Earth fast, adding more with every passing second.

"Either we're fucking oblivious, or that happened really fast."

Sollux just blinked. "It'th'... th'nowing. In Oklahoma. I don't. I don't. What."

"We're probably fucking oblivious." I turned around and shoved him inside.

"Hey, what—"

"Snow clothes. Go, tschh, move." He snorted and grabbed my wrists, now leading me into our bedroom. We dug around for proper snow clothes for about ten minutes before realizing we probably didn't have any, on account of how (in)frequently it snowed here, so we settled instead for about thirteen layers of anything potentially water resistant and ran outside wearing that. We dicked around together for about half an hour, looking like kids at an amusement park. It wasn't long before a snowball war was initiated via a snowball to the face, courtesy of Sollux. He quickly ended up with a couple of haggard snowballs stuck to his shirt as well as a handful of snow down his back, and before I knew what was happening, I was being shoved to the ground, tufts of fresh powder flying up in windless flurries around me.

My fiancé ended up on all fours, kneeling over me. He had a grin on his face like he'd never been so happy in his life, and it was all I wanted to do to share that happiness with him. Not that I was aware, but a beaming smile had spread over my face as well, and it took less than a second to decide to kiss him outside and damn the consequences. He was my fiancé, for fuck's sake, if I wanted to kiss the fucker, you can be damn sure I was gonna kiss him. So I did. It wasn't even a particularly long kiss — it wasn't sexual in any way, and not passionate like you would expect a "passionate kiss" to be — it was the most brief touch of our lips we could get away with that somehow managed to convey all the love we had for each other. It was our smiles connecting and our silent "I love you"s and the fact that we were still grinning afterward, because there was no where either of us would rather be than right next to each other.

No matter what bullshit life sent our way, I knew we'd come out of it stronger; my abuse, Kanaya's death, even the knowledge that I'd once thought my life miserable enough to end it — it was all I could say now was that I was so glad I didn't. If I had, I would have missed this. I would have missed my boyfriend proposing to me. I would have missed playing in the snow like a child with my fiancé. I would have missed the rest of my life, with nothing to show for it. Instead, I made the best decision of my life — I kept fighting. Because I'll tell you what: Karkat Vantas does not go down without a fight.

Something I forgot to say ever ago that I want to say now, I'm not going to continue that other HS fic I uploaded here. I might remove it, might not. Let me know what you think, if anything. I'm not going to write it because I started it so long ago that I'm not really sure where I was going with it, even though I kind of do. I don't have an ending and the whole story is ridiculously clichéd and my character was the worst kind of Mary Sue. It's just not worth writing.

Oh man. I know I said I was glad this is over but I don't wanna let it go. I just. Don't. Review, lovelies.