The Peacekeeper

==> Eridan: Hang Out With Your Best Bro

Karkat did the responsible thing for once and told Dave what was going on. Not completely and definitely not immediately. He waited three whole days before putting on his big boy pants and telling Dave he was feeling bad and looking for a outlet that would let him feel bad and that he did find one in the shape of reading his dead matesprit's diary. That's all, no more no less. While Dave didn't exactly like what he heard he was glad he heard something. Now only came the hard part where the two had to put their combined total of maybe five brain cells together to figure something out. They got to work, laying width-wise next to each other on the bed.

Unfortunately their brainstorming quickly tapered off when Dave asked what Karkat was doing to take his mind off of things before. Now Karkat was going off talking about how he knows Kanaya knows something about them and if Dave said a single word to Rose he would go back to sleeping on the couch (turns out that Dave yet again accidentally alluded to something between them to Rose when he talked to her), then how he finally threw Eridan a bone and had a pretty decent conversation with him despite everything. He left Dirk out. While it wasn't for any malicious reason Karkat did like that there was a certain level of secrecy between them. Of course Karkat would eventually tell Dave about his friendship with Dirk it's just that right now, the idea of going to someone who wouldn't blab to others was like a breath of fresh air. He knew that Dirk, unlike Rose, wouldn't start a conversation with what Karkat's current top five fears are. He was a hole in the wall he could shout into and occasionally hear something back.

"Just talk to to your ragtag group of rainbow miscreants s'more. I mean, it sounds like you had fun with the purple blowfish." Karkat snorted at Dave's nickname for Eridan. "Maybe you should just try to talk to more of them, not just Kan and Sollux. Terezi is right there, waitin' for the taste of your texts on 'er screen."

"It's not that simple. If it fucking were I'd be in here thumbs tapping so fast on my screen they look like little blurs to your simple human brain." Karkat sighed and brought his hands up to cover his face. "There's something— I don't know how to... ugh. It's some convoluted bullshit that makes sense to no one else but me." He felt a hand pat his shoulder.

"Don't worry about it bro, if you're not ready to go divin' in the rabbit hole then don't start coverin' yourself in carrots cause let me tell ya, the Peter Rabbit you know is intense and merciless and often times bloodthirsty." Karkat slowly turned to look at Dave, just fucking flabbergasted at the batshit analogy yanked out of his ass. "Don't give me that look asshole! It was a piece of verbal art I have bestowed upon you durin' your darkest hour. It's fuckin' soaked with wisdom, overflowing with it really. Makin' a big ol' wet mess on our floors. Flooding us out and seeping down into the apartments below us. I might have to buy this building due to the level of damages my epic advice is dishin' out."

"I have no fucking clue what you said and I think that's a good thing because understanding a single word that came out of your mouth must mean I'm dangerously low intelligence." The troll was staring at him in complete an utter annoyance but the lightness in his tone gave away his true feelings. Dave grinned asked for Karkat's hand, bringing it up to his lips and kissing his fingers.

"Seriously though, maybe you can do Eridan some more. Invite him over or vice versa and the two of you can gossip together all ya want. It might help with both issues." A sigh escaped him. Yeah, maybe this was what had to happen. Whatever jumbled up issue was rattling around his pan, blocking him from talking to his friends, would get blown the fuck away by Eridan Ampora.

Another seedling of despair sprouted within him, small and quiet but still there. Did Karkat ever stop to think that maybe he was stopping himself from letting himself get close to his old friends again in fear of hurting them too with his piss poor decision making? This is a rhetorical question.