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“Honestly, if this bathroom were any smaller, I’d literally be perched on top of your fucking head, Harley.” Karkat grumbled as he uncomfortably elbows your right arm on accident. The two of you managed to squeeze into a shitty bar bathroom whilst mildly inebriated because you convinced him to take a selfie with you. Your argument had been something along the lines of ‘Dammit Karkat, we’ve been together for almost a year and a half now and we have like three and a half good pictures, and all of them are from when we took that shitty trip to Chicago when we first got together. We need at least ONE good photo!’
In hindsight, this cramped space and awkward situation might not make for the best memory ever, but the thought had popped into your head so suddenly that you spoke out about it without even thinking and then stuck by it because of your stubborn tendencies.
“Shut up and stop elbowing me! The first three times I can understand but now you’re just doing it on purpose - !” You’re promptly interrupted with an elbow right to the face.
“Ohhhh my god, holy shit, that was – oh Jesus Christ, that was an accident I swear!” When you let your head hang back with one of your hands covering your nose, Karkat groans and puts his hands on your cheeks to pull your face towards him for a better look at the damage. “Are you alright? You have full rights to sock me right in the stomach for this one – or the shoulder, or the chest, but for the love of all that is holy, please leave my fucking face alone. It’s kinda nice sometimes.” You ignore him and groan because of the ache in your nose now.
“I’m bleeding,”
“Fuck me, you’re bleeding?”
“You just jammed your stupid elbow into my nose; of course I’m fucking bleeding!” You remove your hand from your face and reveal the soft trickle of blood to your boyfriend. He sucks in air through his mouth and kisses his teeth before shuffling around to give you more room by the sink and mirror. “Buttface, you’re not getting out of this one that easy, so don’t even think about leaving!” Before he has time to argue his point – which, unbeknownst to you, was that he wasn’t trying to leave the bathroom but was simply trying to give you space to wash your face – you wave him closer. “Hold my hair back at least!”
Karkat rolls his eyes in blatant annoyance, but since he is in no right place to deny your request, he does so. Since both of you are a bit wobbly on your feet due to a tiny bit of alcohol consumption, he tugs at your hair a bit harder than he needs to, which makes you wince.
“I said hold my hair, not pull it out!” This provokes a smug snicker from his mouth as you turn the water on and start cupping it to your face, and specifically, your nose.
“Funny, I swear you said the opposite of that when we -!” You don’t let him finish whatever dirty joke he was about to make and instead you splash water behind you, landing a direct hit onto his neck and chest. “Okay, in retrospect, I had that one coming. But shit, give me a warning first, like, ‘hey ever so attractive boyfriend who sacrifices his incredibly busy schedule constantly to do fucking stupid shit like this with me, I’m about to toss water all over your favorite fucking sweater.’ Something along the lines of that, except with a lot more sucking up. Because this was a really nice sweater and now it’s soggy and gross – thanks for that, by the way.”
You do your absolute best to resist the urge to splash more water in his general direction as you wash the blood from your face and turn the water off. Once he shuts his blabbering mouth and realizes that you’re finished with the sink, he releases your hair, which messily and unevenly falls past either of your shoulders.
“Okay, now that we’ve fixed your goddamn face – uh,” The daggers you send squinting his way makes him change his train of thought quickly. “I, um, I mean your cute as hell face – now that we’ve fixed your goddamn cute as hell face up, can we get out of here?” Karkat is forced to wait impatiently for your answer because you’re too busy grabbing a couple small squares of toilet paper and balling them up together to stick in your nose for the prevention of further bleeding. “Well?”
“Not so fast mister! We still have a selfie to take!” The two of you hold a stare for a good couple of seconds until Karkat throws his head back and groans a cuss into the air before shamefully shuffling forward and squeezing in next to you once more.
“Before we take this god forsaken picture, I want you to know that you have fucking toilet paper sticking out of one of your nostrils. Oh, and it’s also stained red. This isn’t exactly going to be a flattering photo.” It always bothers you how he purposely avoids the word ‘selfie’, like saying it would summon the Instagram gods and force him to make an account of his own.
“We forced our bodies into this stupid bathroom to take a selfie and dammit, we’re gonna take an effin’ selfie!” That’s that, and Karkat seems to accept his unfortunate fate. You slip your phone out of your pocket and fumble a bit to get to your camera option – your piece of shit phone lags a bit and you end up clicking on two different, completely unrelated apps before finally getting to the one you want. The impatient man beside you taps his foot and hums a bit forcefully as he tries to rush you along. Finally, the camera application is ready, and you hold the phone up until it centers on the two of you, and you both strike a pose and you click the ‘capture photo’ button. Karkat drops his pose immediately and rests his forehead against the back of your head in an exasperated manner.
“Jade, I hate to say this, but I’m pretty sure you’re still the fucking cutest one in that picture even with half your nose swollen and bleeding.” What a fucking charmer – the only time he ever seems to really make you blush like this is when he knows you’re probably pissed at him, which make it incredibly difficult to remain angry.
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” You’re allowed to be cocky, you earned that right, dammit! You spin around to quickly smooch his nose before shimmying around his body – playfully hip-bumping him on your way – and exiting the bathroom.
The next morning, it would quickly come to your attention that the photo was blurry anyways, making the entire ordeal completely useless and unnecessary. For that, you end up cooking breakfast and bringing it to your somewhat annoyed boyfriend in bed.