Locked Wheels

Chapter 14

"I'm gonna be late," he mumbled as Kankri rushed around the living room trying to collect his things. He'd woken up a little later than usual and spent a good ten minutes chewing out Cronus.

"Just a moment," Kankri muttered, picking up his jacket from the hook and his keys from the dish by the door. They went outside, where it had started to drizzle a bit. Karkat pulled up his hood as Kankri locked the front door.

We kissed.

Karkat leaned his arm against the window on the drive to school, watching the rivulets of rainwater run down the window. He could still feel a slight fog in the back of his mind, but he ignored it. It was Monday, after all.

We kissed.

"How's your cold?" Kankri asked, glancing over at Karkat.

"It's fine."

"Is your head alright? Do you still need medicine? I can drop some off later if you'd like."

"No, I'm--" They pulled up to the school. We kissed. "I'm fine. I've still got some cough drops. You don't have to come by."

"Oh. Alright. I'm glad you're feeling better, then," Kankri said as Karkat climbed out of the car.

"Bye," Karkat mumbled, pulling his hood up again and tugging on the strings a bit. As he walked up to the school, the mantra started back up again, almost in time with his footsteps. We kissed. We kissed. We kissed. We kissed. Karkat sighed, hooking his thumbs on the straps of his backpack. He entered the school and trudged to his locker, pushing back his damp hood and shaking out his hair a bit. We kissed. He shoved his books inside and then slammed it shut, twisting the lock to a random number as he walked away. We kissed. He was quite paying attention to where he was going, he'd let himself go on autopilot. His head was still kind of foggy even after two days. We kissed. We kissed. We kissed. We--

Karkat stopped. He looked up at where his feet had taken him, and his face suddenly flared bright tomato red. Dave was sitting in their usual spot, his elbow on his knee and his chin resting on his fist. He was looking away from Karkat at the moment, his face bored and calm. Karkat felt something in his chest lurch sharply, almost painfully. It all came rushing back: the way Dave's eyes had looked that night, what they suddenly had, what they were suddenly missing; the timid feeling of his cold fingertips ghosting over his cheek, the way he gently curled them under his chin once they started kissing harder; the desperate hunger and desire that had practically bled from their every pore. It all came back like a ton of bricks, nearly knocking Karkat off his feet in the process.

He shook his head a little bit, trying to recompose himself. As he did, Dave moved his head in Karkat's direction and his gaze landed on him. When he seemed to realize who it was, Dave's cheeks flushed bright pink as well and Karkat saw something flicker across his eyes for a split second.

"Oh. Um... H-hey," Dave said softly, sitting up a little straighter and looking down at the ground as Karkat approached. He ran a hand through his hair, tugging gently at a lock of hair near his ear.

"Hey," Karkat mumbled back. Silence hung in the air for a few seconds. Neither of the two could make eye contact with the other for more than a few moments before one of them blushed even harder and looked down.

"I, um," Dave said after a little while, "see you weren't really dying?"

"What? Oh. No, no, yeah, I-I'm fine now. I was just... I-I'm not used to being hungover, I guess." He tucked a piece of hair behind his ear. "I've never had enough to drink to get that sick."

Dave chuckled a little bit. "Yeah, that part's not that much fun. But the part before was pretty decent, yeah?"

"Mmm," Karkat said. He looked down, his hand reaching up to smooth back the hair near his ear. "Yeah. It was nice. I had fun. More than I've had in a while, or at least since I got here."