Chapter Two:
Karkat's POV

"Kaaaarkaaaaaat!" Jade and John both whined in unity, latching themselves onto the short boy's arms. "You have to come to the New Year's party!" Jade pouted.

"Yeah!" her twin agreed just before getting flung to the floor.

"No I do fucking not! I have better things to be doing tonight than standing around in a room full of sweaty, drunk teenagers showing massive PDA. Like working. Or sleeping." He growled at them, crossing his arms defiantly.

"You don't have to work tonight! It's a holiday! Besides, you're not supposed to be sleeping on New Year's Eve." John stood up and dusted off his jeans before yanking Jade to her feet.

"Oh, really?" Karkat asked, his more sarcastic tone seeping into every word he spoke. "And just what are you supposed to be doing on New Year's Eve? Please, do educate me on the proper way to spend December 31st."

"Well, you're supposed to enter the new year surrounded by family and friends!" John answered literally.

"There are so many, many things wrong with that. One of them being I don't know anybody there!" Karkat shouted at them. They stared at him, unfazed by his temper. After spending so much time with him at their dad's crappy little corner store, Karkat's little outbursts no longer startled the overzealous siblings. "Yeah you will!" Jade protested childishly.

The word "childish" could pretty much sum up their entire family.

"You'll know me and John! And Jane's gonna be there! And Sollux, and Terezi and Kanaya and pretty much all of your friends!" She seemed to be getting excited just talking about it.

"The answer's still no!" Karkat shouted before heading for the door of the coffee shop he had once been peacefully enjoying himself in. He didn't always enjoy coffee, but unfortunately, the need of caffeine in his sleepless body was far too great to simply ignore. He'd just been sitting there, drinking his expresso and waiting for the caffeine to kick-start his brain . . . And then in walked the terrible twins and the whole day felt wrecked. It almost seemed like the start of a horror movie the way they crept up behind him only to pounce and beg for him to accept their invitation.

His abandoned expresso and blueberry muffin still sat at his table, but he found that he didn't care enough to grab them and take them with. He instead decided to leave, get to his apartment complex as soon as humanly possible and lock himself in his room for the next week.

He didn't like going out for the holidays; it always felt too crowded or like he was in the way or that he wasn't there at all. And he'd already made the terrible mistake once this year to go to a party with his friends on Christmas. The night basically ended with Eridan and Sollux sloppily making out, Nepeta being carried home by Equius since she blacked out from drinking too much, and everyone else playing a very drunk game of Go Fish until they got bored and left.

"Hey Karkat!" John called after him just before he got to the door. Karkat looked over his shoulder at the high-schooler. "Dave's gonna be there." He said. His face crooked into an awkward, half smirk, half grin that was the closest thing to a smug expression Karkat had ever seen the dweeb pull off.

It took him a second to remember just who the hell Dave was – their last encounter had taken place around two weeks prior – but when he did he still felt his face crinkle into confusion. "Okay, why the fuck would that change my mind?" he asked. John just shrugged, breaking out of the smirk/smile to just grin. He stretched his mouth wide enough that his two big front teeth were visible. Even after two years with braces, they still stuck out over his bottom lip when he grinned in a certain way.

"Just thought you might want to know." He said simply. Jade giggled and seemed to understand what John was implying. Karkat shot them both a strange look before flipping them off and walking out the door.

Stupid, goddamn twins. . . He thought to himself as he headed in the direction of his apartment.

"Fuck." Karkat sighed with relief as he sank into the warm embrace of the overly squishy couch he and his roommate shared. They'd gotten it for a great deal since the people selling it said it smelled like weed. Even better for them though; Gamzee was a well-known druggie. But then again, he kind of had to be. Either way, he could somehow always get kicked out and/or banned from numerous hotels or apartment complexes in a matter of weeks, at most, so he would usually end up being soothed to sleep on that couch.

Countless nights had been spent with Karkat falling asleep to the sound of the stoner's snores out in the living room. You would think with so many things irritating him that the snoring would surely be one of them, but you'd be wrong; Karkat found it comforting, knowing that the stoner wasn't going to just get up and leave in the middle of the night and do God knows what like he so feared. And besides, nobody could make scrambled eggs like Gamzee, so it was all good.

"Hey, I wasn't expecting you home so soon!" Nepeta's voice quietly chirped from down the hall. Karkat sat up and looked at her. She was doing that weird reach around thing to put in one of her long, dangly feather earrings. She looked nice, all dressed up for something. Green eyeshadow caked her eyelids and a fresh coat of her favorite green lip stick had been smeared onto her lips. A tight black tank top clung to her torso and a purposefully torn pair of skinny jeans wrapped her legs. She was certainly a sight to see; quite the contrary could be said for Karkat's baggy sweaters and oversized jeans that barely stayed on him.

"Neither was I. But I apparently made the brilliant decision that "Hey! Y'know what? I actually want to stay home, where I've been for the past week instead of going out and enjoying the wonderful company of people!"" he quipped, his voice practically dripping with sarcasm. He tried to refrain from swearing as much as possible when home. Being a big ball of rage 24/7 could actually be quite taxing on one's energy.

Nepeta chuckled. "Well, that's what you normally do." She finished putting in her earring and walked over to the couch, leaning on the back of it. "Ah, and here I was, hoping you'd actually get to meet new people and let me have the place to myself for once." She crossed her arms on it and placed her chin on them. A smug smile was glued to her lips.

"Don't you mean "fur" once?" Karkat teased.

"Oh, come on Vantas!" she stood up straight again. "You know I haven't made a cat pun in years, let it go already!" she giggled.

"Nope. I'm going to make you pay for forcing me to listen to each and every one of them for seven years straight."

"You're such an ass." She shook her head, her light and fluffy black hair bouncing from side to side.

"Damn straight, bitch." Karkat laid back down on the couch and crossed his arms behind his head, a self-righteous look plastered to his face.

This was normal banter for the two; they'd started out as best friends ever since they'd met in high school. Becoming roommates just seemed like the natural thing to do for them.

"Hm. Well. You'd better get ready quick." Nepeta smiled down at him. "Roxy asked me to come play for a party they're throwing tonight and I just couldn't refuse." Nepeta squealed, bouncing from foot to foot.

"Who's they?"

"Oh, you know. Dirk, Roxy, Rose, Dave, the Egberts too, I think. Those guys."

There it was again. That name. Dave.

"Oookaay . . .?" Karkat glanced up at the overly excited girl standing over him. "And how does you hooking a gig for once correlate to me going with you?"

"Oh, c'mon Karkat! You know you're the best singer in all of the Milky Way!" Nepeta leaned her elbows onto the back of the couch again, putting her chin in her hands. She always used flattery on Karkat; when they were younger it usually worked, up until the point where Karkat realized she was manipulating him. "And I already told everyone that you were coming along! Pleeeease?!" She whined, her eyes getting wider and her lip quivering into a pout. She batted her mascara covered eyelashes a couple of times, just for effect.

"Stick that lip out a bit farther and a big blue bird might just come along and poop on it." Karkat grumbled, adjusting his arms so that one of them laid across his chest and the other covered his eyes.

"Ugh. You're impossible." She groaned, giving up the act.

"Nope. Pretty sure the name's Karkat." He peeked up at her from under his arm. "How long have we been friends?"

Nepeta groaned again and Karkat just chuckled. He was the ultimate master of dad jokes. Meaning every single one of his puns ended up with him laughing and everybody else telling him to shut up. "But for real, you have to come." She told him.

"Nope."

"This isn't up for debate."

"Nuh-uh."

"You're going."

"Not happening."

"It's final."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes!"

"No."

"You're coming along, Vantas."

"N."

"I'll force you."

"O."

"Karkat!"

"Nepeta!"

"Why are you so against this?" Nepeta leaned far over the back of the couch, her hair curling just around her jaw as she glared down at her roommate. She clenched her teeth when she talked and tightened her jaw. Even if she was dressed up like a model in a high end fashion magazine, she looked like she could bitch-slap the life out of somebody, right then and there.

"Why are you so for it?" He asked loudly, finally taking his arm off of his head. His eyes to meet Nepeta's steely gaze.

"I asked you first." She practically growled at him.

"And I asked you second, glad we got that out of the way."

"Augh!" Nepeta exclaimed, tangling her fingers through her previously perfectly brushed hair. She sighed and slumped her back against the couch, sliding to the ground with her knees up to her chest. She was far beyond the end of her rope. Karkat tended to have that effect on her.

Guilt rose from his toes to rest firmly on the center of his chest when he heard her uneven breathing. He sat up and slung his legs over the side of the couch to rest his still Converse clad feet onto the floor. Nepeta was usually the type to cry when overly frustrated or stressed and Karkat was typically the type to cause frustration and stress; how the two had managed to remain roommates for so long still puzzled the rest of their friends, but to each other it was no mystery.

Forgive and Forget was the lifeblood of their friendship.

"Is this about -" Nepeta started in a much softer and calmer voice.

"I'm going to stop you there before you finish." Karkat cut her off. He sighed, covering his eyes. "No. It's not that." He mumbled out.

Nepeta chuckled, trying to make the situation a little less dire. "Could've fooled me."

A long pause stretched out into the apartment, leaving the pair to just sit with their backs to each other.

"I'm worried about you, Karkitty." Nepeta murmured into the fabric of her favorite, neon green jacket that she only wore for special occasions. Karkat's head rose from his hands. She only very rarely used her old nickname for him. "You never leave the apartment for anything other than work and school. You've hardly been eating anything; and don't try to lie to me, I've noticed the protein shake bottles." Karkat's eyes widened. How could she have. . . he began to wonder to himself. He usually hid them in the trash pretty well.

His thoughts were cut off as Nepeta continued to talk. "Everyone else is worried about you, too. Kanaya hasn't seen you in weeks and Sollux doesn't even know if you're alive anymore." Her voice cracked in the middle of her sentence.

All of what she was saying was sadly true. Karkat hadn't been eating a whole lot; the protein shakes and bars made up for that, though. Just enough nutrients to make sure his muscles didn't collapse or that his brain didn't completely go cu-put, but not enough to help him keep up a balanced weight. And leaving the house was almost entirely out of the question. He just didn't have enough energy to go around. Go to school, get to work, hang out with friends, eat enough, sleep enough, monitor his mental and physical health, make sure he wasn't stressing out too much, keep in touch with his family, and balance it all without collapsing? Not always the easiest feat.

"Aradia looked it up." Nepeta continued. Karkat shuffled so that he was sitting on his knees, leaning over the back of the couch to look down at the now pitiful ball of color that he called a roommate. "She found this website that said you were -"

"I'm not depressed." Karkat interrupted her again. She looked up at him, a little bit of her mascara and eyeliner running down cheeks. Nepeta had cheekbones that made plastic surgeons weep at not being able to create something so beautiful and natural. He reached down and rubbed a little bit off with his thumb. "I've just been really stressed lately." He rubbed the makeup into the skin of his fingers and crossed his arms. "I'll go with you to the party."

"Really?" she asked, instantly cheering up a bit. Her facial features lit up. Her hazel eyes brightened as a smile slowly slid across her tiny lips. He thought about it sometimes, how it was such a shame that he was queer; if he were otherwise, he'd probably be dating Nepeta. She was a really nice, incredibly beautiful, talented, funny, interesting person that he knew well. In fact, even if he was just bisexual, he'd probably still end up with her. She'd had the biggest, silliest crush on him for years until he finally confronted her and said that he was gay.

"Yep. But if I found out that you were manipulating me this entire time, that's it. I'm done. I'll get a taxi, I'll hitch a ride, I'll walk home if I have to, but I won't let you drive me home."

Nepeta sniffed and rubbed at her eyes, smudging makeup all along her eyelids, making her look like a raccoon. She stood up as she did so and turned to face him. "Oh, Karkitty, I could never do that to you." She grinned and held out her arms for a hug. He gladly met her in the middle.

"We care a lot about you, Karkat." She whispered to him.

"Yeah, I know. I care about you guys, too." He whispered back to her.

Nepeta pulled away slightly, still holding him in place gently by the shoulders. "But do you care about yourself?" She inquired, still in a hushed voice.

Karkat remained silent.

Way to make a guy think, Nep.