Chapter Text
The belt came down on his back, again and again, splitting open old wounds and ripping fresh ones. Karkat bit his lip until it bled, choking back the tears that would result in prolonged agony.
His father barked an insult at him with each stroke, favouring the word “faggot” this evening. Only when Karkat’s whole back was streaked with blood and puffy with welts did his mother speak up to end it.
“Please.” Her voice was weak and shaky, barely audible, but the man of the house stopped almost instantly. Almost. One last hard crack with the belt buckle and he was finished. As he threaded the belt back around his waist he turned back to the armchair he had been occupying. Karkat was curled in a tight ball on the floor, crumpled from where he had been kneeling.
Head between his knees, he could still hear when his father, under his breath, murmured that “He could’ve done with more.” More painful still, he heard no objection from his mother. Karkat stayed there on the floor, taking up as little space as humanly possible, until his father plodded to the bathroom. Then he began the painful process of unsticking his red-brown smeared limbs from the floorboards.
Dragging himself up the stairs and into bed, he winced as his back hit the sheets. Tonight was not the night to run a bath - that was just asking for it. He wasn’t going to get much sleep. The same thought was running through his mind over and over again for over an hour. He had to get out of there. He had to.
In the middle of the night, when the whole house was dark, silent, but for the hum of the fridge and the light in the bathroom, the boy who was nearly a man packed a bag. At first it was just the basics, like he was going to summer camp, but then Karkat found himself wanting to pack everything. The blanket wouldn’t fit in his school backpack, so he left it in favour of several cans of beans that he was careful not to clatter together. He was closing the door behind him before he stopped to think about where he would go.
In theory, it didn’t matter where. Surely anywhere would be better than staying in this house. Lighting his way by the pathetic flashlight on his keychain, he made it to a bus shelter with half a roof, and curled up on the cold bench for the night. So relieved was he to be somewhere that his father was not, he didn’t even think to worry about people finding him in the morning until an old woman was shaking him gently awake.
“You alright, lovey?” She looked nice enough, if the laugh lines etched into her face were anything to go by, but Karkat couldn’t take any chances.
He took mere moments to come to his senses. “Yes, fine. Thanks.” And then he ran. His heart pounded in time with his footsteps and he could hear it in hears ears and feel it pulsing through his wounds. He had never been one for running, but he put everything he had into it, hitting the ground with one foot after another in a surprisingly comforting rhythm - until he couldn’t remember what he was running from and began to wonder where he was running to. He couldn’t think of anywhere he wanted to be. He just wished he could stop existing. It wasn’t like the world needed a fucked up little whining faggot to look after anyway.
It was then that he realised he was crossing a bridge and for a moment he looked over the edge into the dark water. It was a long way down. The water rushed past under him and the sound was almost deafening. He was standing up on the bottom rail now and it would only take to overbalance slightly and he wouldn’t have to deal with any of this anymore.
Karkat jumped back and hurried to get as far from the water as possible. It scared him how much he wanted to go head first over the rails. His head hurt and his feet hurt and his back hurt and he was hungry and cold despite the morning sun and part of him wanted to go running back home. He found a park bench overlooking the water and sat down, unloading the backpack from his sticky shirt with a gasp and a sigh.
For a moment he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the water and almost laughed out loud. No wonder people were giving him looks. His hair was sticking up at every angle and one of his eyes had swelled up from a drunken punch a few days earlier, and it seemed his back had started bleeding a little. There was a stain on his shirt almost in the shape of a heart. That was funny.
Karkat yawned widely and stretched his arms. He hadn’t got much sleep, what with the sneaking out late and the uncomfortable bus stop and the overly friendly old lady. Part of him was telling him that sleeping in the daytime was stupid and it was true he hadn’t had a nap in the day since kindergarten but it wasn’t as if there was anything he had to do, and it would pass the time. He wouldn’t have to put up with all the sickeningly concerned looks he was getting from passers-by.
He pulled all his belongings around him on the bench and tucked his knees up in front of him. His thoughts briefly drifted to the future. He couldn’t sleep on park benches forever. What would he do about school? He had his finals at the end of the year. He drifted off thinking about sitting an exam at a park bench, and so it was with a very grumpy snarl that he greeted the hipster douche unfortunate enough to wake him.