Chapter Text
When Cronus picks you and your brother up (he literally picks up Kankri like a fucking bride and you wish that you could have taken a picture of the moment but your phone had unfortunately d-i-e-d and was now d-e-a-d in a cemetery filled with d-e-a-d people. If the zombies came and ate you, you were so putting all the blame on Cronus for not rescuing your guys’ asses faster. Also fuck zombies and their brain eating consumption problems) you ask him if Kankri ever took him here. To the graveyard. To see your…parents.
(It was still felt weird and foreign to think that word, let alone say that word.)
He glances over at the tombstones, looks around at the other graves, looks back at you and then shakes his head. “Nope never,” he says, popping the “P”. Adjusting the sleeping Kankri in his grip he continues,
“He wanted you to be the first y’know. First to meet the famous original Vantas ‘rentals. But I guess…” he looks down at your brother. “I guess when this guy’s comfortable with it, I’m going to introduce myself. Properly,” he adds grinning. “In a suit and tie and shit. Like out of a romcom.”
(You growl at Cronus not to diss the magic of romcoms and Cronus counters you by hitting you in the head with sleeping-Kankri’s sneakered foot.)
The thought of knowing that you were the first who Kankri brought here makes you happy for some reason. Of course in retrospect it makes sense that your brother was obviously going to show you your…. parents (still a weird word!) first but still….
Knowing that you were the first person Kankri took to firsthand to meet your…. parents was…is nice. And knowing that Cronus would one day also meet your…parents was also nice. The feeling of “niceness” only adds to the odd feeling of “family love” you suddenly realized you had. It almost makes you want to cry buckets of euphoric bliss (which you do not do. At least, you don’t do the “crying buckets” part.) Embarrassed at your own happiness, you look away and try to hide a smile that you can feel beginning to pollinate your face like a bee covered in sexy pollen from a sexy flower. (Stupid ridiculous bee kid who transplanted bee euphemisms in your poor thinkpan. If he didn’t unlock your phone that one you locked yourself out for three years then you would have engaged in strife with him before you graduated.) You pause in your walking and ask Cronus (who stops only a few seconds after you) if he knew anything about your…. parents. If Kankri had told him anything. Anything at all.
You feel like you know the answer before he even says it though.
A surprised look comes over Cronus’ face. Then an embarrassed look. Then an earnest look. Then Cronus looks down at your brother (Kankri’s head is lolling backwards and its fucking hilarious to look at. Again you wish your phone wasn’t d-e-a-d in a cemetery filled with d-e-a-d people) and lets out a soft sigh before he slowly shakes his head. “Surprisingly your brother kept his mouth shut about the whole thing,” he confesses. “But Kankri’s like that isn’t he? The bigger the secret, the more tight lipped he’ll become y’know?”
You do know. You know too well. Kankri had managed to keep his sexuality under the wraps from your fath- The man you used to live with and it was only after the subtlest of hints that you were able to figure out for yourself about Kankri’s gay standings.
“Had my suspicions though,” Cronus says, breaking you from your thoughts. “It’s impossible to not notice even the slightest change in Kankri’s behavior when he’s onto something. Plus I wasn’t exactly the ‘big idiot’ he thought I was at the time.” He shrugs (as best as he could) and continues walking. “That or I stared at your brother way too much like the fool in love I was and still am.”
That’s…. really sweet actually. Sweet and oddly relatable. You knew that feeling of someone close to you just feeling different. As if they were wearing a mask that day.
(You wonder how often the people close to you have noticed your mask.)
“Still…I must’ve surprised you when I called,” you say, stepping over a d-e-a-d tree root (that suspiciously looks like a zombie hand. Not that you’re scared or anything of course.) “Nothing gets the fucking pathetic cardio vascular organ pumping like an afternoon pick up at a cemetery that holds the mother and father of your fiancé.”
Cronus stops again and you almost crash into him. He stops…. looks around at the gravestones and headstones, and he…frowns. Frowns as if it’s really truly hitting him that this is where your parents are. Where Kankri’s parents are. That Kankri (and you) never had a chance to live a life like he did or any of your friends did because your…. parents were…here. As if realizing that the sleeping sack of Vantas he was holding was related to the two that were currently six feet under. As if realizing that again, there was more to Kankri than meets the eye.
Hell, there was still so much that you felt that you didn’t know about your brother.
“Poor guy’s been through a lot to get to this moment,” is all he mumbles after what feels like too long to be a passing thought. It’s as he finally “gets it.” Of course you knew he “got it” before but now, in this moment as light faded into dark and zombies stirred in their sleep (You were still paranoid okay?) it must’ve been sinking in that Kankri had had all this inside of him the whole time. Hiding. Cronus sighs again. “I wish he…would’ve told me.”
You nod. Kankri had been through a lot. You had too but sometimes you forgot that your brother had his own life outside of yours. Had his own fears and had his own trials. Had his own high school drama with being gay and having a boyfriend.
“He probably didn’t say anything because he cared,” you respond, knowing in your heart that your words are true. “That’s how it usually is with him. After all, the only time he’ll shut up is when it really matters.” You then chuckle. “That and when you do your over the top flirting with him. He seems to like that even if he acts like he hates it.”
That breaks Cronus from his thoughts and a he laughs along too, dispelling any look of uncertainty he had on his face. “Why do you think I do it?” he says and, as if proving his point, he kisses the top of Kankri’s head.
To your utter amazement, Kankri (in his sleep) actually mumbles out a “No…. Cronus…not in front of….” before delving back into his dreams. You and Cronus share a shocked look and the two of you, without using any words, decide to not tell Kankri about this later. Or ever.
These two…must have a story of their own you realize as you’re getting into the “family” car. An amazing story. A harsh story.
A love story.
“I’d like to hear it sometime,” you mumble, relaxing into the backseat as the feelings of sleepiness overtake your eye sockets. “Your guys’ whole story,” you clarify when Cronus looks at you confused from the driver’s seat. “How you two met and how you, in Porrim's words, 'convinced' my brother to go out with you.”
Cronus smiles and turns back around. “Maybe we’ll tell you one day,” he says softly. “Maybe.”
Studying.
You spend your time studying. Studying literary terms that had confused you during the school year, reading all the books you could reach for in the library, and writing like you have never written before. You force yourself to wake up early as a new wave of determination comes over and invokes you. Invokes and drowns you. You are drowning in determination and it is simultaneously the best and worst feeling in the world.
So much was at stake now that you knew your college was being paid for. (You still feel your hairs stand up on your neck whenever you think about that. Someone was paying for your pathetic brain to grace the halls of academia.) As excited as you were however, the first step was still unaccomplished and it was a step that you had to accomplish. First of all, you needed to find a college and aim for it. Aim for that college with all your might. The college that Mr. Egbert, the older Strider, Rose’s sister, Porrim, everyone was counting on you to get into. For the first time in your high school life you felt an unmistakable pressure of college push down on you and, like a schoolgirl with a crush on an older classmate, you grin and bear it. It’s a pressure that you never felt before and a fear you never felt before but you are determined to do it. To accomplish your goals. To get into college.
(You are becoming a fucking monk all up in here. You wonder if your…. parents would be proud.)
Your college counselor had shown you SAT optional liberal arts colleges but you had originally ignored them, deterred by the price tag with the million-bazillion zeros attached to it. But now you looked over those same college lists and studied them like they had just been Pope-d into a new religion. You went online and searched up classes, dormitories, environments, everything. Nothing escaped your eye. Nothing at all. Not even the typo that made one site say “Welcomb Back Class of ’85!”
(You sent a screenshot of that image to your group chat. The shared response was pretty much summarized in the audio clip Dave then sent that had the words “I warned you about the stairs bro” repeating on loop. It had nothing to do with the banner situation but at the same time you felt like it ironically fit the problem as well.)
College. You had to get in. You just had to now.
It’s not until you were bleary eyed, confused, and rubbing sleep off of everywhere on your body, (God you were seeing stars and your head is spinning and you just realized that feeling the rush of blood in your ears after three cups of black coffee probably wasn’t a good sign) that you wonder where in the world John and Dave were going. Literally. Where in the world were they going for college? For that sweet, sweet higher education?
Where were they are going? Were they staying in state? Out of state? Going abroad? Overseas? To the moon?
(Oh hell you must be tired. Humans can’t study on the moon! You think. Actually you don’t know. Technically if people could take online classes and the people who traveled via NASA could talk to people on earth then wouldn’t that mean people could go to college on the moon? Oh god, your mind was entering a pit that it probably should NOT enter. You are way too tired for this shit.)
That question hits you so you hard you fall over. At least, that’s what you tell yourself because you totally did NOT trip over the pile of clothes on the ground that Kankri told you hang up. Totally did not. (And you also did not hit your leg on your desk chair while you were collapsing. Also totally did NOT.)
You stare up at the ceiling as that realization seeps in. You never asked. You never asked what college they were going to and you didn’t know. Of course at this stage of the college process possibly no one knew where they were going to go but still….
You didn’t even have an inkling of a thought of where they would be headed.
You remember that Dave had mentioned wanting to be in the city (“Skyscrapers and shit. I’m going to film the lives of corporate fuck ups and use them as a stepping stone for my own media empire.” “I thought you wanted to study archeology?” “Shhh Karkat…. Don’t tell the bones that I’m cheating on them with my camera.”) and John had set his sights on “Anywhere but here” as a college of choice after he decided that music wasn’t his calling. (“Stop looking at me like that Karkat! You’re going to give me indigestion!” “You’re not even eating anything right now fuckface!” “Well your going to give me future indigestion then.”) Sure they didn’t know the details but for them, their dream locations were somewhere that wasn’t “here.”
Where were they going? How far away from you would they go? Did they even want you to go with them?
No…of course they did. You know that without even having to ask them that they did.
Still you were terrified to even think about where they might go. To even wonder about being separated and alone again. To be the old Karkat that you knew was always behind you and would trap you if you didn't run fast enough.
You didn’t want them to leave you. You wanted to stay with them…forever. Like John had said that day. Like you wanted and how they wanted.
Like how you know they wanted.
Prospit College is a bright, annoyingly happy, annoyingly cheery liberal arts college.
Prospit College is a college you wouldn’t have spared a second glance at because you thought it was filled with rich fucks that all had their heads too up their asses to actually care about humanity.
Prospit College has an amazing English Department.
Prospit College has a nationally recognized, amazing Creative Writing Department.
Prospit College has a trust fund from heaven and from hell.
Prospit College is SAT optional.
Prospit College looks like it came out of a fever dream. A good fever dream and not the nightmarish fever dreams.
Prospit College’s brochure was thrown at your face the second you stepped into Dave’s apartment. There’s an obvious slight smirk on Dirk’s face the second before he threw said brochure in your face.
“This place isn’t my cup of metaphoric red solo cup of beer topped with whip cream and lost dorm keys, but Dave told me you like to write,” Dirk says bluntly as you peel the brochure from your face. The smirk is replaced by a (fake) frown and he (teasingly) glares at the folded paper that was now resting like a wet diaper in your hands. “Read it and please tell me you hate it,” Dirk says quickly (excitedly) “Please. I’m begging you. Jake goes there and if he finds out you love it then not only am I going to have to deal with his bullshit, but I’ll also owe him money.”
You fucking love it.
You hate how you fucking love it. You hate how it hits your feels in just the right ways. And you hate how many creative writing classes they offer. You want to break down and weep right on the spot because of how fucking in love you are with Prospit College you have suddenly become. It would be filled with the worst, most snobbish people in the world but its English Department is amazing. Its Creative Writing Department is amazing. It is fucking SAT optional too.
You want to visit it. You want to take pictures of it with your shitty phone camera. You want Dave to take pictures of it with his superior Polaroid camera. You want John to visit you there during his spring break just so he can fill the trees with water balloons painted to look like apples.
You. Fucking. Love. It.
You tell Dirk you fucking love it and Dirk lets out an annoyed (happy) sigh. He casts you a forlorn (thrilled) look and then begins to (jokingly) bemoan his wallet (named aptly “Rainbow Dash the Cash Bag”).
“Thanks a lot Karkitty,” he complains. “You sure do take one for the team. Too bad it’s the wrong team. I was saving up to buy parts for a new unbreakable katana because someone broke the last one.” From behind him, Dave yells out that he “Totally did not it was John!” to which Dirk just backward flips him off.
“No wonder Dave gives you googly eyes when you aren’t looking,” Dirk says after said middle finger slippage is retracted. “You and him are fucking conspiring behind my back, everyday all day, while John distracts me with fake mustaches and ponies from the front.”
Your grin. “Probably should’ve fucking gotten used to it at this point Dirk,” you say. “Something’s never change.”
There’s a sudden pause that comes over Dirk after you say this and he, to your surprise, pushes up his shades. His eyes have widened in a way where it feels like the fucking sun from the Sunny-D commercial is blaring two holes into you and it’s a bit…. alarming that Dirk is just…. looking at you. As if, for the first time in a long time, he’s really look at you. Of course he always looked at you when he spoke to you (you think) but this time he seems to. …take you in from your head to your toes.
He then, shockingly enough, reaches over, hesitates for a second, and ruffles your head.
“Fuck you’re making me feel old Karkat,” he says and there’s a tenderness in his voice that is all too nostalgic and familiar to your ears. “Seems like only yesterday Dave was dragging you in to show you all of his shitty games and you two were giggling like teenagers who just came across their first dick in an R-rated movie.” He removes his hand and gives you an actual smile. A tender smile. A smile like he’s gifting you a prize from a shitty (but incredibly tricky to win) carnival game. It’s an action that throws you in an emotional loop. Eyes and a smile? In the time interval of five minutes and on the same day? “Who are you and where did you leave Dirk’s soul?” you ask, your voice filled with a mixture of surprise, shock, and slight horror. Dirk just shrugs at your question.
“Just missed you man,” he says. “And I guess I’m just…happy you’re here now.”
Even their website is fucking impressive.
Kankri and you spend at least three hours on the Prospit College website, searching out every possible English and Creative Writing class that they offer, their application process, their needed grades for SAT optional students, even their Honor Code. Kankri can only nod in approval and you can see an excited glint in his eyes as he reads the short blurbs on the professors.
“It’s perfect for you,” he says after your collective eyeballs burn from too much screen appreciation. “Jake…uh…Dirk…. Jake and Dirk certainly found you a good choice.” You can’t help but agree as you smile to yourself.
This is it.
This is your future. This is what is going to be your goal for the next few months. You were going to have to show only your best from here on out. You could see your objective in the horizon and like hell you were going to run and claim the reward.
Kankri, as if sensing your determination, can only smile at your enthusiasm. “I’m glad you found a place that interests you,” he says. “You’ll have an…easier time from here on out.”
He doesn’t say the words “Than me” but the atmosphere is lost after that. It’s lost because you realize that another hidden part of Kankri has been right in front of you this whole time but you didn’t see it. You realize that Kankri went through this same process of college applications and selections once upon a fucking time. He went through it but he never…. expressed any feelings about it.
Kankri notices the shift in your demeanor and begins to splutter out apologies for “triggering” your negative emotions when you were so happy. He apologizes profusely, saying that he did not mean to upset you through stirring up unpleasant memories that involved himself and past events that neither of which wished to talk about. He apologizes again and again, going in circles with himself like Dave did when he was stumped. Just…like Dave actually.
You frown.
This is…. exactly what Dave did when he didn’t want to talk about something. And before Kankri can continue into more “triggering” triggers you cut him off with a question of if he wanted to talk about it.
“We never did before did we?” you say carefully. “We just…fucking never did.”
Kankri bites his lip and looks off to the side. “You were younger then,” he mutters, “And I…. Didn’t want to trigger you,” He says those words so meekly that you want to hit him.
Instead you poke his side (hard) and, wrapping an arm around him, ask him again if he wanted to talk about it. Kankri looks down, ashamed. He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t do anything but twiddle with his hands and not look at you. He’s stalling for whatever time he can get and you all too willingly give it to him.
This is…. personal after all.
After what feels like a long time has passed (you couldn’t be certain because you weren’t look at the clock, the whole of your attention on your brother) Kankri finally leans against you and says softly, in a pained voice that only someone who’s remembering something horrible can use, begins to explain himself.
“Applying to college was…. so hard,” he confesses. “The essays, the applications, the Skype interviews I had to do at school because heavens knows that man would have never driven me anywhere, and all those SAT tests,” he shudders. “The whole time I thought I wouldn’t make it and I thought I…. wasn’t good enough to make it anywhere. I thought I was an idiot for even wanting to try to go to college. It was certainly an…. unpleasant experience.” You can hear the tightness in his voice and it’s as if the Kankri right now isn’t here and has been replaced with the Kankri from the time when you were living with your fath- that man. There’s a stressed tone in his words as if by speaking out the memory he was recreating it right in front of him. He suddenly laughs bitterly, as if remembering something else.
His next words surprise you.
“Did you know that I…. I used our father’s credit card to pay for those tests and I never told him?” he says. You can feel him shaking as he speaks his next words. “I never told him Karkat and I-I…. justified my theft with the idea that he at least owed me that much. He was supposed to pay for my SATs because he owed me that much.” Kankri’s hands had become small fists and there’s a look of self-hatred on his face.
“I never paid him back….” he says. “I took that test three times. Three times. Just to get what I saw were ‘perfect’ scores. Over a hundred dollars spent and I never paid him back. I’m a fucking thief Karkat and…. And I told myself that my thievery was ‘just’ because it was what he should have done.”
You…. don’t know what to say to that. You have no idea what in the world to say besides telling your brother that he wasn’t and is NOT a thief and that paying for shit and caring about their children was what fathers were supposed to do. Fathers were supposed to support their children no matter what. That both fairytale and in-real-life fathers were supposed to do what Kankri had oh-so unwillingly been forced to do.
You can see that Kankri doesn’t believe you though and it hurts knowing that he doesn’t believe you as he reaches a hand up and lightly paps your face.
“I want you to be happy Karkat,” he says. “That’s all I want for you.”
All your friends are nerds. You made friends with a big shit festering stack of nerds. You made friends with a vampire nerd, an in-love-with-said-vampire nerd, an actual nerd, and a nerd who pretended to be cool but was really in the end just a huge fucking nerd.
You guys were an army of nerds ready to out nerd each other. Every time you guys got together it was a an orgy pile of romance novels, vampire fanfiction, awkwardly and professionally knitted scarves, Matthew McFuck-Face’s films, and whatever the fuck Dave was Photoshop-editing on his laptop.
(From what John told you it wasn’t anything too horribly ironic, but it was something that would make you never look at an apple the same way. This did not calm your thinkpan one fucking bit.)
They’re all nerds because they throw you a party when you tell them where you decided to try your hardest to get your ass to get into.
You had casually mentioned it in your group chat (now called “Please Only Use This Chat When You Want To Contact All Of Us David” previously known as “didja know if you put an s at the end of vantas you get vantass?” previously previously known as “JOHN IF YOUR BF MAKES ONE MORE JOKE ABOUT BUTTS HIS WILL BE SITTING ON A THE NEXT FLIGHT TO CANADA!!!” previously previously previously known as “guys my phone changed anubis to anus”) that you eyeballs and eye sockets had graced the pages of education concerning Prospit College and that you might sorta, kinda, maybe, really wanted to go there a lot.
There’s a surprising silence in the group chat with no sarcasm (or butt jokes) from anyone and there’s a panic that shoots through you that maybe talking about college in a group chat with your friends wasn’t the best idea when the name of the chat is changed again.
It’s changed to “karkat vantas is the smartest fuck in the world”.
(There’s a ridiculous grin on your face when you read that shit.)
The party happens the day right fucking after.
John brings three celebratory pineapple-apple pie (with the explanation that the pies were based off of a meme from Japan that you were never ever ever going to watch. Ever.), Dave holds onto several huge yellow balloons as if his life depended on it (he threatens to static electrocute anybody and everybody with his hair if they made him let go of said balloon monstrosities), Rose gives you a party hat (probably the most normal thing that happens that night), and Kanaya slips a non-threatening (probably threatening) note to Kankri that has him and Cronus leaving the apartment ASAP.
“Porrim invited them to dinner at a nice restaurant a few towns over,” Kanaya says and you don’t miss the small smirk that plays on her lips as she watches Dave accidentally release the yellow balloons into your apartment after John had thrown one of pineapple-apple pie thrown into his face. “But don’t worry,” she adds, “She told me that they would return in one piece… more or less.”
You don’t ask anymore questions concerning what the fuck could be happening to your brother after that and instead spend the afternoon chatting (arguing) with John, Rose, and Kanaya, eating a piece of the pineapple apple pie from Dave’s face (it was fucking hilarious watching Stri-Idiot turn red from that), and playing shitty board games (of which you won only one game of and that was because you cheated.)
(It was fucking so much fun.)
August then melts into your collective shitty lives and you are sweating buckets of unsavory salt liquids in your room.
It’s hot. You feel lazy. You’re trying to study. And it’s already lunchtime, a time where you would have usually met up with your friends and would have avoided John’s water balloons/condom filled water “balloons.” But you haven’t been able to write anything good (at least, not what you deem as “good”) and you want to at least put an idea on digital paper before heading out into the world. Groaning, you decide you needed fluids less you turn into a sand monster due to lack of them, and emerge from your room. You stumble with your half asleep feet (hissing in slight pain at the “needle” feeling they were giving you) to the kitchen in hopes of find something, anything (iced coffee) to drink.
That’s when you hear something that sounds like a…. whine.
You stop, listen, and you hear it again. A whine you think. A weird high-pitched whine. You wonder if a cat somehow ran into your apartment and cast a glance around the hallway before you hear what might be a…gasp instead of that whining noise. It’s coming from your brother’s room and you walk over to ask what the fuck Kankri was doing in there (and if there was a cat in his room) when you hear something again and-
Oh.
Oh….
You’re out of the house faster than you can say, “Fucking bulge eating shit is happening in my fucking home where I eat, sleep, and shower.”
August is the hottest fucking month of the year and is the month when you realize that your brother isn’t as pure and holy-than-thou as you thought that he was.
You can’t…. look at your brother after that. After hearing, if only a little bit, what had been going on behind closed doors it was just…Just….
Too weird to go back to normal terms with him.
Oddly enough it’s Cronus whom you can still be on semi-amicable terms with, but it’s Kankri who you just begin to…. avoid.
It’s Kankri whose gaze you can’t meet. It’s Kankri who you don’t interact with. It’s Kankri that you, for the first time in your life, feel separated from.
You don’t talk to him. You eat your breakfast faster than you have ever eaten before just so you could leave the fucking table quicker. You avoid him, his questions, his fucking eyes, and spend the days (and sometimes nights) with your friends. You even use the “I have fucking homework” excuse even though it was the summer just to avoid him.
It’s just…it’s your brother.
The person you grew up with. The person who you spent your practical entire life with. The person who has been with you since you were born and trusted you with so many secrets. It’s your brother and he’s doing more…grown up things then you thought he would ever do.
And it shocks you to your core.
You know that being older than you and living with his fiancé that your brother must have those (you shudder to think of the word) urges hit him. And that, based on your past outings, you would have been out of the apartment at that time when you had been stumbling to get a drink from the fridge but still….
Still…It’s your brother and he’s more of an adult than you thought he was.
You don’t know who to talk to about this to. You feel…. strange. Not jealous (definitely not jealous. Your brother would and always be family) just…. confused. Insecure? Out of the loop? It didn’t make any sense to you. Kankri didn’t need to tell you every-fucking little thing about his life and he DEFINITELY did not need to tell you about his…. sex life (another shudder runs through you) but you feel just…. weird.
You were seeing a different side to him and you were unsure on how to approach it.
It’s after the fourth night in a row that you crash at Dave’s that sunglasses himself asks you if you and your brother had had the “Fight to end all fights.”
You two were chilling (or in your case, hiding out) in Dave’s room and Dave had finally dropped that bomb of a question. “Not that I’m complaining Karkitty,” he says, stopping mid-spin on his desk chair to look at you (he had been attempting to rubber-band shoot one of the action figures on his bookshelf and had instead hit the wall in all four of his attempted shots). “But if this is gonna become a permanent thing I’m gonna need to find those adoption papers and re-iron my red suit. Don’t want the crossing over of families to happen when I’m wearing my jeans and sneakers. Taking in a Karkitty is a suit and Heelys event. Probably gonna have to tell John too cause every family man has to know what’s happening with his spouses.”
You snort and tell him that he is such a nerd for owning Heelys and that those shitty excuses for unicycles on shoes were the worst invention on planet earth next to furbies and jerky made out of fruit (“That’s just dried fruit Karkitty. What do you have against the dried out companions of the living sweets that grow from trees?”) You expect Dave to counter argue and school you on how wrong you were and that his Heelys were the “Raddest thing that ever raided his closet in the past ten years” but to your surprise, Dave instead asks his original question again, this time sans ironic ranting.
“Is your home life…hard…?” Dave asks. He stops himself before he says the words “Again” but you understand his worry and immediately feel guilty. Shit. You didn’t mean to make him feel bad. Especially not after…everything. If there was one thing you didn’t want happening in your life (again) it was making Dave feel bad.
You quickly tell him no. You weren’t hiding from your home life. Everything was still fine and good. Nothing was “wrong.” You just needed time to…. sort things out. Time to be away from Kankri a little.
Dave looks at you stoically (curiously) and you can tell that his silence is his way of saying “Speak to me I can take it.” It’s a silent form of encouragement that you’ve gotten used to. (Again. You think. You never dove deep into the feelings world with Dave back in middle school. Sure there were moments but still….)
It doesn’t take you long to cave to that expression.
You sigh and, pulling your knees to your chest, look at him with sheepish, nervous eyes. “You promise not to laugh?” you ask. “I mean, I’ll fucking tell you why I’ve been dissociating my pitiful self with my more pitiful home life but if you laugh I swear to everything above and below us that I will take your head in my two claws that I call my hands and squeeze until your apple-scented brain juices come out.”
Dave promises immediately. You had been hoping that he would say something to prolong your talking but he tells you quickly, too quickly, that he won’t laugh at you.
It’s…. extremely sincere.
You lean your head back, resting it on Dave’s bed and look pointedly at the wall in front of you and NOT at Dave. “I don’t know if…” you mutter, “Well it’s…. it’s weird at home. And…. fuck. Dave this fucking shit is about…”
You definitely can’t look at him when you tell him it’s about s-e-x.
Dave’s silent and you think you scared him off from ever wanting to invite you into his bedroom in the history of forever when he gets off from his noble perch/spinning chair and slides down next to you.
“Heard your bro and his fiancé?” he asks bluntly. Very bluntly. You’re shocked at how directly he can say those words. He doesn’t look embarrassed but you wonder if there is something happening behind those shades of his that he doesn’t want you to see.
You’re too surprised to do anything besides nod. Dave counters your nod with his own nod. “Messed with that Vantastic brain of yours that your brother is getting some?”
You nod again, a little more embarrassed and a little more ashamed. Dave, as if reading your mind and wanting to comfort you, then hooks the shades from the corner of his face, takes them off, and reaches over to place them on the chair his ass was just on. When he turns back, something tells you that this was going to be one of those conversations you had with Dave.
(Not that you minded really.)
“How’d you know?” you ask. You don’t make any move to scoot closer to him but Dave solves this by letting his arm brush against yours. He grunts out a one-word response,
“Dirk.”
Ah. That would make sense. You had seen how chummy Dave’s older brother got with his boyfriend. Chummier than they had been when you were a wee-tyke in the middle years. They must’ve been hiding their amorous relationship under a veil of platonic “just bros” irony whenever Dave and you hung out.
Huh.
You wonder idly what Dirk did after Dave…stopped talking to you. You almost shudder to think about what Dirk did. Probably nothing to hurt Dave physically, but he must’ve been working on some mind warping life lesson and feeding it into Dave’s brain over the years. Still, knowing that Dave understood you a little (or maybe a lot) made you feel a little (a lot) better. You can’t help but release you knees from the death grip you had been (unknowingly) giving them.
“I shouldn’t be surprised that they would do shit like that,” you mumble (still looking at the wall.) “But knowing that they do now it’s like…. It’s like seeing the Easter bunny sans bunny costume and finding out he’s just an overweight Santa who can’t get a job during the spring time.”
You know that by all the fucking flying frog gods that you sound like Dave when you make those kinds of shitty analogies, but you don’t know how else you can explain it to him. You don’t know how you can explain this weird…betrayal and uncomfortableness you felt. “They hid it so well from me all these years too,” you continue mumbling. “I mean, they must’ve been hiding it for my sake and shit but like…fuck. It’s just…. just weird to think about it. I never thought about it till now because I fucking didn’t know but now that I do it’s not getting out of my-” You hiccup on the air as you say the next word. “Head.”
Dave’s silent as listens to you. One of his legs, exposed in the shorts he’s wearing, brushes against your own short wearing self and the skin-to-skin contact sends a nice shiver through you that you don’t hate.
“Have you ever felt like that?” you ask. “With Dirk? Just suddenly realize that he was so much. …Older than you?” Dave’s silent for a few seconds, letting your mind come down from it’s circling, wheeling state, before he answers.
“Yeah….” he says softly and you can’t help but smile a little at Dave’s tone when-
“But then again, Dirk’s a fucking dinosaur compared to my young bod.”
Yup, he ruined it.
You frown and pull on one of Dave’s exposed leg hairs. Hard. He lets out a cry that he not so subtly turns into a cough.
“Dick,” he mutters and you can’t help but laugh.
With Dave, the problem he had with his brother was that Dirk was just so much more…. confident than him.
“Heard him and Jake gonna at it like rabbits one day,” he says. He groans at the memory before adding that “John just happened to oh-so-conveniently be there too.” The groaning then turns into shuddering and you can’t help but join in on said shuddering. “God it was fucking humiliating,” Dave recalls. “Ten out of ten will never let myself get into a situation like that.”
He pushes off against you and leans forward enough so that he enters your line of vision. (His eyes are too exposed yet not exposed enough for you.) He’s silent for a few long seconds, just looking at you, before he casts his eyes down.
“It was after John and I became ‘official’ official,” Dave confesses, pointedly staring at your chest and not your eyes. “It was…. not great timing. I mean, John and I…. At the time we heard a shit ton of moaning and weird British dirty talk and we just…high tailed it the fuck out of there.” Dave then chuckles slightly. “Almost left my shades behind and John was tripping over his laces. We were a fucking pair of bro-messes and we ended up doing a midnight Denny’s run.”
You can tell he’s trying to lighten the mood for himself but, like the bull-headed idiot you are, you ignore his attempts at joking.
“What happened after that? How did you feel?” you ask and you almost kick yourself for asking because it wipes the smile from Dave’s face. It was like when…. Kankri had brought up his college experience when you were going off an emotional high about Prospit. You almost stand up right there and kick yourself but Dave stops you by sighing and (still staring at not your face area) admitting sheepishly,
“I guess I panicked after that.”
His hands curl into fists and he slumps back against the bed. He’s quickly becoming a picture of pity and you hate seeing him sad but still….
Still you turn your body to face him and ask him, shy but at the same time oddly forceful, “Why?”
Dave takes a shuddery breath, as if feeling the chill of the past stepping on him and crushing him, and lets out a choked exhale.
“I guess I felt like, not good enough?” Dave says softly. You can see him turning red and whether it’s from past embarrassment, current embarrassment, or past regret (or all three) you don’t know. “I mean…I guess I felt like I was just…leading John on,” Dave admits quietly and hesitantly. “Worse I felt ….I felt I had to prove my gayness to John.” Dave shakes his head and you have to wait for him to continue again.
And, for the second time that night, Dave shocks you.
“Before John and me became a couple,” Dave says when he finally speaks up once more. “I…. I fucking I dated his cousin.”
He looks at you and you know he can see the look of shock on your face as he continues speaking. “I know…. I know what you’re going to say Karkitty. ‘What the actual flying fuck Dave?!’ ‘How could you do something so shitty?’ Yeah I-I know how…. bad past me was.”
Dave shakes his head, ashamed.
“I mean, I was shitty with a capital ‘S’ for ‘Suicide Squad’. I fucking dated two members of the same metaphoric apple tree. And…yeah…. Tiny teen Dave was a jerk.”
You would be angrier at Dave (because seriously what the fuck Strider?!) but he looks so disappointed in himself that those infuriated feelings die down in you.
“Did the whole courting shit and flowers,” Dave continues. “Really really liked her and I guess…. I felt good. I thought me and her…. Her and me…. We were like, meant to be and all that shit but…” He sighs again.
“But then I met John and we just…. something was there that wasn’t there with her. Then…” his voice shakes as he continues. “Then I-I panicked about more than bro liking John and…. I felt awful for leading on her.”
He looks painfully sad as he continues.
“She…John’s cousin…Jade…. dating her was great. We did everything and anything together but I…. I felt like I was pretending to be someone around her. I couldn’t be myself. I could be a part of myself but I was always holding back from her and she…. she didn’t deserve that.” He chuckles at the memory. “She let me have it one day. Told me what I was trying to avoid straight to my face. Shit man it was like that scene in a movie where everything goes wrong. I knew she was right for asking me to end things for my own sake but…. God did it hurt like hell.”
Judging by his facial expression, it looks like the memory of their break still hurts. Not in the “I-still-love-you” hurting way but in an “I-wish-that-never-happened-because-I-didn't-mean-to-hurt-you” hurting way.
“When did you start dating…. Jade?” you ask curiously. This was the first you were hearing of Dave’s bisexuality and you couldn’t help but feel…. curious as what past Dave did. What the Dave who you had been wondering about did while you were at your first shitty high school.
“Freshman year,” he says. “She was someone I met when I was trying to prank Dirk with passive aggressive foliage and we just…hit it off. Then…Then she introduced me to John and we found out we went to the same school and…” Dave chokes on his breath and hugs his arms. “I guess…. I began cheating on her without even realizing that I was cheating.”
He sighs again.
“That’s why when that shit with Dirk happened I got…. I got hella jealous of how confident he was in his flaming homosexuality,” Dave says. “Dirk was always better at being himself than me. He was just…. he is just…. he can be himself without giving a fuck. Dude was gay the second he slipped out of the womb and I guess…I always wanted that confidence. And when John and I began exploring our inner gayness and bi-ness and we heard them doing that I just… Started talking about everything having to do with sex.” Dave looks ashamed as he confesses the next part.
“Condoms, penetration, lube. Fuck Karkitty I was a mess. I was a sexy mess but not the good ‘sexy’. I was the literal B-grade romcom ‘fuck me or die’ sexy mess. The only thing that was sexy about me was how ironically un-sexy I was. I felt like if I didn’t do something that showed I could like guys the same way I liked girls then John would be mad at me and all my shit with Jade would’ve been for nothing.” He makes a pained, shaky, breathy noise then and goes silent, blushing furiously at all the truths he laid out to you on a fucking golden platter.
You feel a weird…understanding with Dave’s problem.
To anyone else, it sounded like Dave had been a giant assed jerk and hell, maybe he was. Maybe he was the worst piece of human scum to ever drift in the farts of life. But you still couldn’t hate him when you knew how…. terrifying it was to accept yourself. To know yourself. To go through all the ups and downs in life and still be hanging on in the end. You can’t hate Dave because he’s struggled as well.
And you can’t hate Dave because…. it’s simply Dave. Your confused, infuriatingly stupid, charmingly seductive, Dave and you just can’t hate him.
“I’m better now though,” Dave says, finally looking at you. “Like, John talked me out of it before shit went down and I’m so fucking glad that he did but …yeah I was insecure as hell.”
Dave suddenly, for some god-forsaken reason, laughs and shakes his head. “Feels fucking weird as hell telling you about this,” he says. “But I mean…. I guess I would’ve told you someday.”
The expression on his face makes your breath catch and makes your heart do that weird, twingy, tight feeling. It also makes your face feel too warm and your body feel too cold. It’s an all too familiar yet foreign feeling that you thought you hated but now…Now….
(You can feel a smile, reserved and bashful, creep its way onto your face.)
Slowly then, so slowly that it’s like the two of you are moving at backwards speed like in a bad Adam Sandler movie, Dave leans in and, lightly, very lightly, presses his hand against your cheek. It’s similar to the pap that Kankri gives you…. but it’s not. It’s like Dave trying to tell you something through touching you. But what it is, you’re not sure you’re interpreting it in the right way.
When he doesn’t pull away you lift your own hand and touch the hand on your cheek. You caress the palm further into you and tell him without words that you still, and would always, like him and love him. That he would always be that same dorky boy that you met in photo class all those years ago.
“Talk to your brother Karkat,” Dave says, “It will be better if you did.”
(You come dangerously close to kissing Dave Strider that night.)
You do finally talk to Kankri.
You don’t know exactly how to approach the subject but the “subject” himself approaches you. Kankri looks nervous as he does and you don’t blame him. This is probably the longest you haven’t talked to him since you were…. well…since you were born. It’s strange to think that the brother you had once upon a time wanted to only get into an argument with for arguments sake has become someone so…close to you. He was the one who thought you were growing up quickly when, in reality, you two were growing up faster than both of you had expected. Here you were, going through your own crap and drama, but there was Kankri who too was going through his shit. Shit that you did and did not know about. Shit that he may never tell you about, no matter how much you begged. No matter how much Cronus egged him on to tell you. He was his own person just like you were your own person.
“May we…. talk Karkat?” Kankri asks, a bit hesitant and a bit shy. You nod and make room for him on the couch. He sits cross-legged on the cushions and looks at you, clears his throat, then looks away.
“I am sorry for…for whatever I have done,” he says. You can see him frowning at himself, confused on what exactly to do and what exactly he has done, but determined to make it right once again. “If…If it was my words that have bothered you than I’ll try to…talk less,” he says. “I am aware that I can occasionally speak out of line despite myself and I would hate to know that I have triggered you in a way that had made you feel upset-”
“It wasn’t your fault,” you say quickly, cutting him off. He looks over at you, obviously surprised (and a bit hurt) that his “grand apology” is being disregarded. “If it was anyone’s fault it was fucking my own,” you say before he can reprimand you for cutting off his attempt of saying “I’m sorry.” You feel yourself shrugging as you add, “That or it was technically Cronus’ fault.”
The “Language Karkat” on Kankri’s lips dies and is replaced with a questioning “Excuse me but what does Cronus have to do with it?”
Another shrug from you. “Just…you and Cronus,” you say. “I guess I forget that you two are older than me and have… stuff you do in private.” You blush as you add the words, “Titillating stuff.”
You don’t even need to look at Kankri to know he’s turning red again. “Oh…. lord….” he mutters. It’s followed by another “Oh lord” and an “Oh my god” and a long period of silence.
When you do finally look at him, Kankri’s hands are covering his face and he’s mumbling incoherent words to himself, with a “I’m going to kill him” occasionally thrown in. It takes him a several minutes of non-stop mutterings (and a hard poke-jab from you) that he finally looks up, his face extremely flushed.
“Y-you heard that?” he squeaks. “Oh god you heard that didn’t you?” Kankri actually curses then and he looks horribly guilty.
You nod and Kankri splutters again. “Shit…. fuck….” he curses, “Fuck I…I…. I thought you weren’t home and…. we-we don’t usually do that I swear! We only sometimes-! Oh fuck….It’s just…just…. Sometimes when you’re with someone you love it’s just…just…just-!” Kankri is struggling to get the words out but what those words are you (and probably Kankri himself) have no idea what it is.
“Didn’t hear too much,” you say, cutting him off again before more “Fucks!” and “Shits!” can come out of your brother’s mouth. Kankri’s mouth snaps shut and his face is redder than you have ever seen it before. For some reason, it’s his expression that gives you the courage to continue.
“But I did hear it and I…I guess I felt…. betrayed and….” You can feel the palms of your hands begin to sweat as you say, “Insecure and shit.”
A surprised look comes over Kankri’s face as you say that. “Insecure?” he says. You answer with another nod and you repeat the word one more time before you look away. “Yeah…. Insecure,” you say. You don’t tell him all your thoughts and ponderings, but you’re pretty sure that Kankri understands you.
There’s a silence that follows before Kankri, your wonderfully idiotic brother, carefully and slowly ruffles your head. When you don’t flinch away from him, Kankri leans in and gives you a side hug.
“I’m sorry you had to hear that,” he says quietly. “And I’m sorry I made you feel…. bad about yourself.”
You shrug as best as you could. “It’s a part of growing up isn’t it?” you say, “Realizing shit about your family that you never thought of before.”
Kankri nods. “It is,” he says. “It is.”
To show that you’ve forgiven Kankri you agree to go with him the end of the world the following Saturday. Meaning that you go with him to find flowers. For his dress. His wedding dress.
To any normal person, finding flower would be simple. Go online, find flowers, purchase flowers, and done. Fucking magical story time ending. Over and out.
It’s clear though that this is not Porrim’s first time ordering flowers. First time ordering for a wedding dress perhaps, but not the first time using flowers to help improve her dresses.
“It has to match after all,” Porrim says nudging Kankri as he grumbles in the front seat of the car. You two of you were sitting in Porrim’s car and Kankri had his best “I disagree to all that is going on around me” face on. Porrim just laughs at your brother’s attempt at looking angry. “I imagine that you would just pick any random bunches of flowers,” she says.
You ignore the “adult bantering” happening in the front of the car and watch the passing scenery from your window. To your surprise, you recognize some of the buildings and you realize that the three were headed back to that seaside town where your…. parents…. were. Are. Are buried. Are still buried at.
You guys are going to your not-yet-almost home. The town that means nothing but everything to you.
(Huh, small world.)
“Have more faith in me Porrim,” Kankri complains, looking out the window (he must be watching the scenery too and realized where you guys were going. He’s visibly tense and whether it's from the dark angel known as Porrim to his left or the scenery to his right you don’t know.) “I would’ve picked flowers that were alright and I’m quite offended that you believe my choice in foliage would not be up to standards with your visions of fashion.”
“You would’ve walked down the aisle with a potted orchid Kanny,” Porrim says bluntly yet teasingly. She ruffles your brother’s hair like a whirlwind and he growls at her to stop, which she does. She stops both the ruffling and the car driving so suddenly that you and Kankri lurch in your seats and the seatbelt tightens around abdomen giving you a car-induced sucker punch.
Judging by the gap from Kankri, he was subjected to the same tummy jab.
“Bully,” Kankri mutters as Porrim unbuckles herself and gets out. She ignores him, opens the car door for you, and the three of you walking into the flower shop. There’s a ridiculous picture of what might be an octopus on the shop’s sign and the name “Getting Laid in Jade” is too much of a double meaning for you to not take a picture of. Porrim strolls confidentially through the door as Kankri can only shake his head at your antics.
(You send the picture to John and Dave with the caption “THE FLOWERS ARE ABOUT TO TEAR MY NOSE FROM ITS SOCKET WITH ITS SMELL”. Surprisingly, neither one of them replies.)
The smiling glasses girl behind the counter looks about your age and that surprises you. What surprises you even more is how happy she looks while working. As if she’s in her natural element when surrounded by flowers and green plant life and shit.
She happily bounces back everyone of Porrim’s icy questions like she’s playing a friendly and amicable game of chess. She must’ve done this before because not only is she answering each question like she studied them for a fourth grade spelling test, but she’s also throwing in a joke here and there.
She promises the “Best flowers in the world for your special day!”
“You’ll make a beautiful bride!” Plant Girl says grinning. It’s her grin that has your eyes widen in surprise and you feel your cheeks color a little.
(If you weren’t gay, she would be up there on the list of “Please date me until we marry” list.)
“Oh its not for me,” Porrim says and nudges your brother. “It’s for Cranky Vantas over here. Say ‘hello’ Cranky darling.”
Kankri growls in response and refuses to answer.
Plant Girl then raises a single eyebrow and you watch as she literally becomes the definition of the word “flabbergasted.”
“Vantas?” she says. “Like as in Karkat Vantas?”
You raise your hand as if you were in school (Private school mannerisms sure did implant its ass inside your brain. Your brain now has an ass imprint of Skaia High permanently stuck in it. You don’t know whether to be happy or fucking furious that the educational organization beat your own mind in the game of wits and submission.) “I’m Karkat Vantas,” you say. “The blushing bride over there is my brother Kankri. Please don’t get the two of us mixed up.” You throw in an added glower as you say the words “Don’t” again. Kankri looks like he wants to say something but Porrim flicks his ear, which distracts him long enough for Plant Girl to get a word in.
To your surprise, her grin seems to widen and then become almost…canine, with her two front teeth glistening as if they were about to hurt you like both Maryam’s metaphoric vampire teeth. (At least…you think they’re metaphoric. You haven’t been bitten by either of them but you had seen Rose where a scarf on some days at school and it didn’t take a baby in diapers filled with piss to know that Rose’s neck had become a parking spot for Kanaya’s teeth over the weekend.)
(You wish your neck was a parking spot for hickies. Not for Maryam hickies obviously but for other…hickies…)
“So you’re the one those dummies haven’t shut up about!” Plant Girl yells (actually yells). She catches you off guard and Porrim (dark angel that she is) takes that moment to “conveniently” drag Kankri out of the shop having just “realized” that the town had a “Great cake bakery that would serve the perfect red velvet for a certain red wearing sweater talkative young man.” You hardly process them leaving, too confused with Plant Girl to pay attention to Kankri struggling against Porrim’s grip.
Plant Girl doesn’t stop grinning as she speaks again.
“It’s nice to finally put a face to the name! Honestly I thought you were just a figment of everyone’s stressed out private school imaginations! I guess I owe people money now but hey, at least I know they didn’t dream you up!” She then laughs and it’s like she’s cackling and snorting at the same time. It’s…. oddly charming. That and the way her eyes close slightly when she laughs, as if she’s laughing but also sleeping at the same time.
So far, she isn’t like any of the girls you’ve had invade your life but she seems so…. familiar some how. Those eyes, those teeth, that infectious personality that both pissed you off and made you want to smile. It reminds you of someone. Someone you knew too well…
“Who…are you?” you ask. A part of you for some reason feels like it already knows the answer but you still need to (want to) ask. The girl just winks at you.
“Ah I see, you don’t know me! Should’ve known those chumps would leave me out of the loop of their weird ass conversations they have! John better expect to have his mailbox flooded with Betty Crocker cookbooks on his birthday! But anyway, allow me to introduce myself!” She bows in an extravagant over-the-top manner and gives you a double finger gun.
That…definitely looks familiar too but she can’t be…. Can she even be?
She’s…She’s….
“Jade Harley!” Plant Girl exclaims happily. “The youngest professional botanist on the east coast if I do say so myself! Cousin of John Egdork the First and ex-girlfriend of Dave the Dipshit!”