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The sun has hardly risen, bright shades of red stretch the wide expanse, the sky is mocking him. He can feel the hate burning beneath his skin, hot seething waves, writhing, it is like it's trying to rip itself off, he loathes himself that much. He curls his toes, tensing in his own pain, sitting on the itchy surface of his bed. Jeaned and shirtless, his scars stand out on the rough skin of his abdomen, thin grey lines for the most part, other gashes were deeper leaving greater marks in the boy's flesh. The boy leans back, head resting in the scrunched comforters of an unmade bed, his eyes prickle as his fingers trace the longest scar; it's a reminder of what he lost. A reminder of what he caused, of what he deserves.

A reminder of who he is.
He is a boy who had to kill his own moirail. A boy who gave an entire universe cancer, a boy who hates, who never smiles. But right now, and every day since, he is the boy who lost her.

He is the saddest sack of grub shit who ever had to experience the curse of life.

He is Karkat Vantas.

The sun is rising, but he can't sleep. Maybe he'll stay up a few more hours, mull over his thoughts as the sun rises and burns the vision from his eyes. The burning pressure in the back of his mind is already keeping him awake anyway, and it has nothing to do with the sun. It's like his skin is trying to peal itself off. The pressure is a screaming voice and shrill cry, mountains of fucking hate that boil in his think pan; It's pain that reverberates thorough the troll's abdomen, and forms a residing steady ache that throbs and lingers. As he lets himself fall back onto this human excuse for a recuperacoon he knows this is exactly what he deserves.

This pain, her pain, deaths rain in the end game. His hands rest on his bare grey chest, tracing scars, he can remember so many of them. Each knick and scratch a personal death wish back on his home world; Marks of the boy's own stupidity. That little one by his second-to-last rib, from when he fell down the stairs with his sickle. Another, longer and curved, farther down his abdomen, when he was cornered by a large fur beast returning to his hive, back when he had a lusus to look after him, to drag him back to the hive when he passed out from the sight of his own mutant blood. Terrified of getting caught bleeding, terrified of what would be done to him. Having to be stoic, and careful, he couldn't blush, or cry, or even sneeze.

Sometimes, on days like this, he wishes he had been caught, exposed for his mutation, and culled. Then none of this would have happened. None of the trolls would even have existed, not him, not her...

It's then that he finds himself tracing the longest scar, eyes stinging as if he had just rubbed salt in a fresh wound. A sob catches in his throat. Wet streaks find their way out the corners of tired eyes and down stained cheeks, body shaking, mild tremors racking his system. Karkat turns on his side and pulls his knees up to his chest, shaking, sobbing and alone. He stares at the blank wall, the wall stares blankly back. The Troll knows he will never get a good night's sleep, not even if he had a real recuperacoon; not without her, not ever again. Rubbing his face with dirty hands, he tried to wipe the tears away. In the end he just wound up grinding his knuckles into his temples (To suppress the pounding tear headache) and hoped the world forgets he ever existed.

In the silence of the late morning, red tears fall in an empty room.

___

 

Hallways, on and on forever, this house was huge, bigger, the boy is sure, than any house he's ever seen. He hadn't wasted much time before jumping on the chance to explore its wonders, mostly because, if he didn't, he was sure to get lost at some point when it was most inconvenient. His sister and himself had made maps for the other less exploring types. No one in this home, would be in a panic looking for a washroom, no sir, not on his watch.

Today, just like any other day, he stands in one of the halls. A cross roads between the dining room and darkness. On his way to dinner. His feet drag, each step is faltering and undecided. His mind is divided between his two options. One, leave the troll boy to his own moping and go to the dining hall. Or go see his depressed friend and try to cheer him up. Today he just can't, he can't muster up the courage to go down the darkened hallway and open that door. Through that door, to see that his friend as broken as he was three years ago. 'Why can't he let anyone be there for him? Why can't he let me be there for him?' Useless thoughts. Every day that passes he thinks them, as he questions his ability to cheer up his lost friend, sometimes he can, at least for a while, distract him from the past that haunts him, but today is just not one of those days.

Its been three years, three years since it was over. Yet everything that happened then still lingers in this dark hall. It screams at him from the empty, red and blood shot, eyes of his co-friend leader every time he opens his door. Reminding the boy of everything that happened to him, to his friends, and to the boy who stares at him with those eyes.

There are a lot of stupid things this boy does when his mind is occupied, occupied in ways he doesn't always understand. His absentmindedness brought him closer to the door he was trying to avoid; It's not the first time in the past few weeks he's done this. It's just a few more steps down the hall, and the turn of a knob. Despite that he wants to more than anything, to open that door, to try and cheer up his friend. There is just something in the way of going. Any other day he would just go and open the door, ask if he wanted something to eat, to come watch a movie, argue, fight, anything. But instead, the dark haired, blue eyed boy turns tail and heads to the cafeteria. Today is just not the day he can help Karkat Vantas.

___

 

Most of the shamble of a group already sat around the table in the dining portion of the kitchen. All but the two girls who still remained in the kitchen, and one other that was often missing from their shared meals.

A girl, or as close as trolls can come to being considered female, Stood admiring her handiwork; The cake Sitting on the round island in the centre of the kitchen. It was a piece of art. The other girl with her in the kitchen, Jade, had baked the fluffiest chocolate cake, living alone on an island for years had taught her some essential food preparation skills, if some of these were just a little unorthodox, no one minded, as she was often the one to prepare meals for everyone. The decoration of the confectionary had been left solely to the jade blooded troll.

It would have been more fitting as a small wedding cake. Two tiers high, Covered in a thick layer of an off white vanilla icing, laced with blue and green patterns that looked to much like real ribbons to be edible, though it all was just that. Kanaya knew she had to do it just right, and had to make it perfect, This day was important for many reasons, and her cake decoration would not be the thing to mess it up. Though the worry that was gnawing at the back of her mind, and from down a dark hall, may be the thing do just that.

"Jade?"

The Dark haired girl looked up at her from her crouched position, from which she had been previously looking in the cabinets. She now held a large sauce pan victoriously out in front of her as she stood up.

"Yes Kan?"Concern creeping at the edges of her bright green eyes. Then in a more offhand tone before the troll girl could continue, "Do you think this will be big enough for the sauce?"

"I believe so." turning away from the other girl, Jade went about setting the pan on her burner, Pulling ingredients out of her sylladex.

"Jade, If it is alright, I need to go see Rose about something." Jade did not look up from her work. "You will be alright preparing the rest of the meal wont you?" Jade could feel the tension radiated off the other girl.

"Kanaya I'm sure Rose will be perfectly ok with you going to talk to him." She then turned with a smile showing off all her front teeth, " She'll understand that you need to be there for him today, I think we can all understand that." Jade sounded a little bit miffed, but quite understanding.

Kanaya enjoyed the disease called friendship, She had come to share it with the humans, while it began when they were working together in the game, it had grown in the three years they had lived in this hive. Though some of the members of the household held a more primordial, deeper importance to her, to say they were just fiends was the greatest understatement.

She walked out of the cooking area and into the main hall. It was breakfast for the trolls and dinner for the humans, Because of their inverted day and night schedules; Kanaya herself could function on both schedules. This on most days was the only meal that some of both the trolls and humans would share together, and she and Jade, well more Jade then herself really, had made sure everyone (mostly everyone) was here this evening. Right now she was going to try and remedy that.

First she needed to know if it was ok for her to leave for a while, to try and encourage the last member of the group out of hiding. She glanced around the room. One long table that could comfortably sit their groups capacity stretched across the room, even though the room could have fit a much larger table. John sat nearest its center, he was talking quietly with Dave, who sat a seat over across from him, but was more so staring holes in his own palms than anything else, his blue eyes looking conflicted. Aradia and Sollux sat together at the end closest to the back wall.

Then there was Rose, sitting in the seat next to john. Kanaya headed her way, the glow of her skin hardly visible under the iridescent lights. Rose looked her way, a small smile stealing its way onto her lips. The passage of understanding was wordless. Kanaya knew as she looked at rose, the other girls violet eyes lighting up, a brightness intended only for her, that it's ok to see if the only missing body from the room is going to join them. Johns eyes were following their interaction for a moment before he returned to burning holes in his hands with his deep blue eyes, he almost looks embarrassed, like he'd been caught watching them kiss or something.

___

 

The hall was dark before she entered it. Though as she walked it, it was bright with the luminosity of her skin, casting an eerie glow on the pale walls. His door wasn't far now, She could already hear his sulking. The muffled chokes and sobbing noises. It has been his norm, to hide in his room and sulk, for a week or so now, it always was this time of year, not that he doesn't spend a good portion of the rest of the year sulking, he just does a slightly better job of keeping it hidden, only slightly. It had seemed as though he was improving for a few months, he spent time with John every few days, though a lot of that time was spent yelling, on his part, which was more normal for him, he also saw Jade though less often than John, as well as talking with herself as well as Rose, though often only when she was in her company. But what progress had been made receded as the weeks passed and today's date approached.

She lightly tapped her knuckles against the dark door. Karats symbol was roughly carved into the wood.

"Karkat?" She paused a moment when the snuffling on the other side of the door came to an abrupt
stop. "May I please come in?"

"No." It was muffled, along with the, "please fuck off." that came next through the door to her.

"Karkat, I am very sorry, but I am coming in anyway." Her hand on the door knob, "I hope you're decent." She turned the knob opening the door just wide enough for he to slip through.

There was a musky odour to the darkened room, clothing littered the floor, and there was no discerning between what was clean and what was dirty. He was coiled in a ball, on the centre of his bed. Doing his best impression of a venomous snake, Though his mouth was sealed in a tight-toothless grimace, his eyes were bloodshot and rimed in red, streaks of the same colour deposited down his cheeks and smudged across his face, not to mention the countless number of red blotches she could see in his sheets. The anger he was radiating was dampened by how pitiful the whole scene was to look at.

She lit up the room with her presence and met his anger head on with a frown. "Karkat. You poor thing." She closed the door, and moved to sit on the edge of his bed. "Come here." her arms were open, face concerned. He moved slowly coming to sit down next to her, he was only half dressed and smelled as though he hadn't bathed in a month. She wrapped her arms around him just the same, this is exactly what moirails were for. Despite his consent to the embrace he muttered a few' fuck you's', and one 'stop pitying me I don't deserve it' before he let his head rest on her shoulder. The next few moments passed in almost silence, all but their quiet breathing and the sound of fabric moving against rough skin as Kanaya soothingly rubbed the troll boys back.

As she held him, He began to cry, or maybe he had never really stopped, it was quiet at first, but growing in volume till it was audible. She held him still as he started shaking, his quite sobs muffled by her shirt, his red tears soaking into the fabric. They Sat there like that for a few minutes, till he had his tears contained. He brushed the taller girl off rubbing his eyes furiously.

"How are you feeling?" He looked at her, he almost looked scary, pupils oval slits wrapped in a reddening iris, the grey was so faint; The gold of his eye was reddened and blood shot.

"I'm just fucking fine." Just words, grumbled out of the boys mouth.
"Karkat." She rested a hand on his shoulder. She looked about his room, the blinds were pulled over the small window even though it was clearly night. His wardrobe was hanging slightly open, from here it looked empty, except for the pile of dirty clothes she could see hanging out of the bottom. The rest of the room was the same, clothes everywhere, even on his desk, not a single glint of the metal surface could be seen. "We need to get you cleaned up for the dinner party." His eyes went wide.

"Seriously Kanaya? What the fuck?" Ready to coil up and turn on her, the snake again. But she was already busying herself at the other side of the room. Drawing open the doors to his wardrobe, a few clean items of clothing were hiding in the back. She pulled them out, hanging them over her arm.

"Yes Karkat." Kanaya Is standing in front of him now, in the mess that is his room. With one glowing arm she pulls him to his feet, the other handing him the clean clothes she had retrieved. "You are getting cleaned up. Then we are going to dinner. "-