This is probably the saddest thing I have ever written before and it made cry when I read back over it so good luck ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(____) was sitting alone on the back porch again. She'd been spending a lot of time out there since Karkat and her fought last week. It wasn't even really a fight. It was more or less Karkat unintentionally venting his anger and frustration with himself at her. He didn't seem to know how to talk normally to her without fucking up spectacularly and screaming at her for something or other. The red blooded troll found it frustrating beyond belief. He was so red for her. Her gentle smiles and kind words. He even loved her chubby body. It looked so soft and huggable. He didn't understand why all these human bastards constantly made fun of her weight. She didn't weigh much more than other girls. It just didn't make sense to him. To him (____) was perfect. But even as he thought that he remembered what happened last week. He remembered when he royally fucked up.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Flashback~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karkat was sitting in his apartment reading when he heard crying coming from outside. He jumped up and rushed to the door. He knew who it was and grit his teeth in anger. It was (____). She must have been tormented by her shitty classmates again. This was the third time this week she'd returned to her apartment in tears. Karkat opened the door and saw (____) fiddling with her keys as she cried. She was desperately trying to unlock her door but kept missing the keyhole. She probably couldn't see through her tears. The troll sighed and went over and hugged her from behind. (____) stiffened before she saw it was just Karkat.
She hugged him back and cried into his sweater. He took the keys from her and unlocked her door before leading her inside. She pulled back from the hug and they went out to their usual spot on the balcony. They sat in silence for a while before Karkat decided to try and strike up a conversation to make (____) laugh. He told her about how Gamzee kept trying to paint his face while he slept. It did the trick and she giggled. She gave him a thankful smile and wiped her tears away. They started talking some more and (____) finally relaxed. Everything was going great until (____) brought up Dave.
Karkat couldn't stand when (____) talked about him. About how cool he was and how sick his beats were. Hearing his pathetic name pass her lips always make the troll grit his teeth in jealousy. Karkat thought maybe he could change the subject away from Dave or maybe just wait it out until the subject changed by itself. But no, (____) just kept talking about the blonde like he was troll fucking Jesus or something. Karkat could feel his anger rising. He felt like his red blood was boiling. He tried to hold his tongue but when (____) gushed about how awesome Dave looked while fighing with his sword Karkat snapped. And he made the biggest mistake of his entire life.
"GOD (____)! YOU GO ON AND FUCKING ON ABOUT DAVE FUCKING STRIDER! YOU SOUND LIKE YOU'RE RED FOR HIM! BUT IT'S NOT LIKE HE'D EVER LIKE YOU BACK, YOU KNOW. HE'S SO DAMN INTO JADE IT'S PITIFUL! HE'S HAD EYES FOR HER SINCE THEY WERE BOTH SIX SWEEPS OLD! AND CONSIDERING ALL THE SKINNY GIRLS HE'S DATED YOU'D HAVE NO CHANCE! YOU'LL REMAIN HIS FAT FRIEND FOREVER!"
The silence that followed his rant was deafening. (____) couldn't believe what she'd just heard. And Karkat couldn't believe what just came out of his mouth. (____) thought Karkat was her friend. She thought he was different. But she guessed she'd been wrong again. He was just like all the rest of them. She felt tears well in her eyes but she stubbornly bit her lip and held them back. She never cried in front of her tormentors and she wasn't going to cry in front of Karkat. But he saw her eyes tear up and his chest tightened painfully. He'd done that to her. He struggled to think of something to say to apologize but his throat closed and no sound came out. (____) continued to give him a heartbroken look before she stood and silently made her way back inside.
Karkat waited a few minutes before he followed her into her hive. He saw her writing something in a spiral notebook, but when he came to see what it was she flipped it closed and stood. She looked up at him and gave him a look that made him uneasy. While her almost tears and betrayed look from before left him feeling hollow inside, this...blank, completely empty look made him nervous. When she looked at him it was like she was looking at a brick wall. No emotion or recognition showed on her sweet face. He was about to ask her what she was doing but she beat him to it.
"Hey Karkat, I gotta go. I have some errands I have to take care of before the stores close. So I'll see you later." (____) grabbed her purse and phone before leading Karkat out of her apartment and locking it after her. She gave Karkat a short wave before she walked down the hall and around the corner. Karkat just watched her go, once again not knowing what he could say to fix this mess he'd gotten himself into. He stood there for a time, just letting (____)'s crushed look replay over and over in his head. Now he knew he was just as bad as the asshats who tormented her everyday.
"No." he said quietly to himself as he turned and entered his own apartment. "I'm worse than them because (____), the angel she is, saw me as a friend. And I probably just fucking crushed her spirit."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~End of Flashback~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The candy red blooded troll was now sitting at his table with his head in his hands. Desperately trying to think of something, anything, he could do or say that would erase the toxic words that had spilled from his rotten noise chute. But as usual nothing useful came to his unhelpful think pan. And over the next couple of weeks Karkat noticed (____) began to distance herself from him and their friends. Every time he saw her she was either staring into space with a sad look on her face or writing in that same spiral notebook. It got so bad that Dave, Jade, Tavros, and the others had begun noticing. They tried to talk to her but she just gave them the same blank look she'd given him those weeks before. She told them she was fine. And for them not to worry so much.
But then after hearing nothing but silence coming from (____)'s end for those weeks suddenly music began to pour through the wall that separated their apartments. Karkat immediately recognized the music. It was a record of (____)'s. She had a handful of old timey records that she'd gotten from her grandmother. She played them on her grandfather's antique record player. Karkat smiled, he figured (____) must be feeling better if she were playing music. But the happiness melted away when he listened to the song more. It was a orchestra song, only instruments. And the song was so heartbreakingly sad that it made Karkat cringe. "Maybe she's not feeling better after all...." he said with a shaky sigh.
He sat there and listened to the music play for what felt like forever. But really only ten or fifteen minutes passed. But Karkat looked up when he heard the record start to skip. (____) hated when that particular record, or any record really, skipped. She said it wasn't good for the record and damaged them. The troll waited for (____) to stop the skipping but it never happened. It just continued to skip over and over until Karkat got worried. He stood up and tapped on the wall that segregated their living space and said, "HEY (____), AREN'T YOU GOING TO FIX THAT THING?" But there was no response. Just the sound of the skipping record. And it was starting to sound creepy now.
Karkat knew (____) was still in her apartment. He'd have heard her leave if she had, and plus, she never left things on when she stepped out. Karkat started to become anxious so decided to go and check on her. Maybe she'd fallen asleep or something. He went to her front door and knocked a few times and waited. But she didn't answer. So he knocked harder, in case she had fallen asleep, but with the same results. So he banged on her door but nothing happened. Panic set in and he ran back into his apartment and got the spare key to (____)'s apartment. She'd given it to him in case of emergencies. He rushed back and unlocked her door and threw it open before quickly going in.
Her living room was empty so he looked in the kitchen and bathroom. Nothing. He called her name but she didn't answer. Now the only place left to look was her bedroom, which was where the messed up music was coming from. Dread settled into the pit of his stomach as he slowly approached her bedroom door. It was closed but he could see a shadow from underneath the crack of the door.
"(____)! You in there? I'm coming in okay?"
As expected he got no verbal response. But he steeled his nerves and reached for the handle. He grasped it in his sweaty palm and turned. He carefully pushed the door open all the way only to stumble back against the hallway wall soon after. He was entirely unprepared for the sight that lay before him. He could feel his heart breaking into an infinite amount of pieces as he gazed upon (____). He choked on a sob and slid down the wall, red eyes never leaving the human's unnaturally still form.
(____) was hanging from a noose that was tied to the support beam in the middle of her bedroom. Her bare feet dangling uselessly beneath her while her body was abnormally pale. But her face had turned a sick purple and her lips were blue. Soft hair hanging part way into her face while the other part was tucked into a pony tail. Fresh tear marks left trails on her cheeks to show her despair. And there at her feet was her spiral notebook, sitting innocently on the wooden floor. Karkat didn't know if he should look through it or not. But maybe it held the reason as to why (____) had done this.
So he crawled to (____) and picked up the notebook. He opened it to the first page and as confused when he saw numbers and bank statements. He looked through them and saw that (____) had emptied her bank account recently. Karkat wasn't sure why she'd done that so he turned the page and found a list of things that (____) owned. With prices next to them. Apparently she'd been selling them because they were crossed out and 'SOLD' in bold letters was written next to them. He turned the page again and saw (____) had written a letter to her parents. Out of respect Karkat didn't read it, only flipped to the next page. That page held....doodles oddly enough. Doodles and little drawings of (____) and her friends.
They were doing different things in each picture. In one (____) was knitting with Rose. In another she was with Dave, it looked like Dave was rapping and (____) was cheering him on. There were many more. Tavros and (____) playing Fiduspawn, (____) and Feferi swimming with Eridan, Nepeta and (____) having tea with Terezi and her various scalemates, and one where (____) was hitting either John or Jake in the face with a pie. Karkat gave a sad smile as he looked at all the little drawings (____) had done. But the last one broke his already shattered heart even more. It was of him and (____). They were sitting on her back porch like they used to do before he'd hurt her. They were smiling and, according to the various talk bubbles around them, having a very deep conversation. But what killed Karkat inside was the red heart that surrounded them.
(____) had loved him. Been flushed for him. Wanted his red quadrant.
And he'd...killed her. With his scornful words and jealous heart.
He broke down right there at her feet. Wretched sobs overflowing from him and echoing around the room and mixing with the sound of the repeatedly skipping record. He lay there for an undetermined amount of time. But eventually somebody noticed (____)'s open front door and hear the broken record playing and called 911. They arrived soon after and found the troll a mess at her feet. Crying and begging, screaming, for forgiveness. Clutching the notebook to his chest so hard the book wrinkled. The cops had never seen such a broken troll before but reluctantly pulled him away from (____)'s corpse and out of the apartment. They couldn't get him to talk because he was crying so bad so they took his cellphone and called the first person in his contacts.
Kanaya arrived soon after she'd been called and arrived just in time for the paramedics to wheel (____)'s sheet covered body out into the ambulance. She gasped when she saw a screaming and cursing Karkat with red tears running down his cheeks. He was desperately trying to reach out to (____) but two officers were holding him back. Kanaya rushed to his side and held his trembling form in her arms. He broke down again and clung to her as he cried. The jade blood comforted him as best she could but knew nothing she said would really make him feel better. (____) appeared to be dead. And Karkat was broken. There wasn't anything she could do to fix this.