Two or three more chapters to go if this serves correctly.
Firstly, I'm really sorry that the last chapter was super depressing - I didn't think it was really bad until apparently I shattered your feels into a million pieces. So here's the chapter sooner than I would've thought it to have come!
I'm really intent on this and I never thought it would catch on - I started it just to fill the time! I started this when I barely even knew Karkat and Dave but still shipped them.
Oh well, I'm glad you all enjoy it! And we're not at the end yet.
~~~~~~~
My eyes open lightly, gently. I'm breathing. For another day. I don't even know if I'd have thought that possible a few weeks ago, but the world is full of surprises-shit I sound just like a fucking romcom. No cheesy inspirational phrases that are as obvious as John's closeted homosexuality. As if on que, my phone buzzes. I'm not gonna bother to explain it, you all know the drill.
Dave 5:30am
This is gospel for the fallen ones locked away in permanent slumber
Assembling their philosophies from pieces of broken memories
Oh (This is the beat of my heart)
Don't try and sleep through the end of the world
Or bury me alive
'Cause I won't give up without a fight
If you love me let me go
If you love me let me go
'Cause these words are knives and often leave scars
The fear of falling apart
Truth be told I never was yours
The fear, the fear of falling apart
(This is the beat of my heart)
The fear, the fear of falling apart.
5:32am
I know that there are no odds to fight for anymore and so I'm going to stop. I think that today's the last day I'm going to give you anything. It's just, I always thought we'd last longer than this. Feel free to move on if you want. It's not an option available for me and I think you should take it for your sake.
~~~~~~
"Good morning, Karkat." Came a sleepy Rose. I was back to waking up early, and getting up in the morning. She was dressed in purple pajamas that were long-sleeved and with long pants that flowed at her feet. Walking in, she was rubbing her eye like a cat before her eyes saw me at the stove cooking.
"'morning." I grumbled, slightly embarrassed. I fumbled with a fork I was using to flip over bacon on the frying pan. Maybe if I didn't look over to at her she wouldn't notice how dark red my face was going. There was no fucking way in this miserable shitcrater of a biome-sphere planet anyone here is going to find out what my blood color is.
"Wait, are you making breakfast?" Rose questioned, taking a deep yawn midsentence. I'd always pinned Rose down as the 'look-at-me-i-can-be-up-and-smiling-instantly' type in the mornings. I guess it took a while for her to adjust.
"No, I'm making dinner. Your ridiculous human body forced itself to fall into a deep slumber and now you've woken up. It's been a week." I shoot back.
"That would make a good book sometime." Was she really so tired that she didn't care to reply properly?
Kanaya, a usually unseen person up until around 8:30am, starts moving into the kitchen in her green bathrobe. She's already put on the bases for her makeup - just some foundation for the mornings. I bet she wakes up with bags under her eyes she forces away with makeup. She'd never let us see her in any state other than 'fashionably ready'. Well, they'd seen me in every kind of state now.
"Good morning, Karkat." Came Kanaya as she started moving in for the kitchen. "How are you today?"
"I literally just went over this with Rose. Rose, can't you explain?" Rose sat at the counter her head leaning on one hand and a thin line of drool coming out of her mouth. Fuck, Rose, get a hold of yourself; don't fall asleep on the counter insistently mumbling coffee. coffee. coffee. "Here you go." I said, and slid a cup of coffee across the counter - warm from the coffee machine and done just the way she liked it. Half a spoonful of sugar, another half a spoonful of stevia, and Nespresso's expresso. Zombie-Rose extended her hands to the cup without even opening up her eyes.
"Rose stayed up all night reading that wizard based series with the triplicy of magic infused humans that fight the humanoid lacking proper breathing cartilage on his face-" Kanaya explained, as though she had to make up for her girlfriend's behaviour. "Karkat, you don't have to do anything. You don't have to make us breakfast."
"Shut up, Kanaya of course I have to." I turned around at that point and aimed the spatula in my hand over at the jade blooded troll. I must looked like that dictator lusus scolding their designated troll. "Now do you want your eggs sunny side up, or well done and do you want more water absorbed soft style bacon or harder dehydrated bacon or no bacon and eggs. Do you just want cereal? I've made pancake mix if you guys really want it."
"Something smells delicioussss," Rose said, alert enough to upgrade her talking level but still too sleepy to support the weight of her head without her hand.
Kanaya sighed and I couldn't tell if it was aimed at me or Rose. "I'll have the eggs cooked through and the bacons cooked crisped and umm if it's possible, could you-"
"Not give you any extra bacon grease? I know these things Kanaya." I said, not even needing to look up. "How about you Rose? What could you go fo-"
"Mmm. Pancakesss." Roses reply was near instant.
"That's what the spare pans are for, Rose." I pointed out and I went for the refrigerator to take out the resting pancake batter.
"What is all this for?" Kanaya asked as though she had no clue in her detailed filled mind what this was about. She was probably just asking to be polite. I didn't care about that.
"Yeah,Karkat, whazitfor?" Rose slurred. How long would the coffee take to kick in with her? Another thing, why were the two currently psychedelic inter species fathers asking the virtually the same motherfucking questions? What the human hell is up with that? Is it like, a troll-human female thing?
"Use your brains and put the fucking pieces together; I'm thanking you." Kanaya's eyes looked surprised and taken, while Rose's smile softened in a not-smart alec way. "I'm showing you that you guys are what got me once again as smooth running as one of Sollux's program's and back to being as complicated a Karkat as ever. How would I have ever reached that without your help." I sounded sarcastic on reflex.
"Awww, Karkat." Rose got up and opened up her arms. The gesture of wrapping her arms around my torso was already enough to tell me parts of her were tired. "You know you're only using sarcasm as a defense mechanism set up by your species inexplicably high standard social norms."
"And you know you're only wrapping your human skinned arms around me as a form of self consolation to get up your levels of happy chemicals in your blood. Not to mention because parts of you are evidently still suffering from that deep REM sleep humans randomly get."
"I know." She said, patting my back and I felt completely comfortable standing there for a moment just accepting the gesture. "I know." Then I set my goals back to food.
"Now let go of me before I burn your compensation gifts." And she let go moving on to watch me cook as though it was an intricate practice she'd never seen.
"Oh, Kanaya I nearly forgot to tell you. I have earl gray tea in the fridge iced and ready for your consumption."
Distressed noises came from the other troll present in the room. "Karkat," Kanaya smiled and walked over to me as well. I turned around in slightly confused expression so I was standing parallel to her. She picked up my hands and held them in hers and looked up at me. What? Were those tears?
"I'm so. Proud of you." She said, moving my hands and hers up and down with every word. Wow this was. Much more overdramatic than I thought it would be.
"Yes, okay, I owe it to you both for your psychological help. You can stop acting like one of those human 'Moms' or whatever they're called. Jegus." She smiled, nearly sadly, but her lip, and she made her face stern. It told me, you know what to do about the situation now. It's up to you. And I wanted to grab her shoulders and go 'I know' but fuck if I'm gonna have another emotional conversation with her after these past few weeks. I've worn down her capacity for this kinda shit.
Rose finished her coffee and asked me questions about how I knew when the pancakes were ready (when they bubble up) and then about 'HOW I MADE THEM SO GOOD'. Kanaya drank her tea and thanked me so many fucking times I was close to making her lunch too just because she'd outweighed the scales of being nice to me once again. I settled down with a English muffin with pressed berries of straws and cheese cream and took in the breakfast.
Then when it was ready I picked up the phone and gave another two trolls and a human some pretty graceful calls.
"KK what are you doing calling me at this time. I was gonna thleep for three more fucking hours. You better be dying."
"First thing to point out, ITS 9AM HOW MUCH LONGER COULD YOU POSSIBLY STAY IN YOUR RESPITEBLOCK FOR YOU BLITHERING FECULENT SHITHOLE. Second of all, GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE AND ITLL BE AT LEAST A LEVEL 5 ON THE SCALE OF THE 'THIS IS WORTH OVERSTIMULATED CAPTORS BRAIN TIME.'"
~~
"Hello. This is detective berrybreath, what sort of mind boggling problems can I solve for you today? It better be worth my while."
"YES HELLO BERRYBREATH I NEED YOU TO COME OVER RIGHT NOW AND MAKE SURE THAT IDIOT CAPTOR IS ON HIS WAY, TOO."
"I'm on it, Karklez! I mean." Terezi put on a deep voice. "I'm on it person I do not know for sure."
~~
"Hello? Who is this?"
"Jade, it's the modern era. There IS such thing as Caller ID. I'm not so big a fucking moron that I created a planet without Caller ID."
"What's up?" You could tell Jade was trying to change the subject before I inevitably pissed her off.
"I need you to lug your human form over to Kanaya and Rose's apartment right. Now."
"I'll be there soon as possible-"
"NOW."
"Okay fine! Fine! I'm going NOW."