Work Text:
Your name is Karkat Vantas and is this hell?
Both of your boyfriends are acting very strange, and it's worrying you to no end. Neither of them will tell you what's wrong.
"John, Dave, I'm serious, I can't help if I don't know what's wrong; please tell me."
You are returned with only collective groans of pain or possibly exasperation, and they scoot a little closer to each other. You feel a little excluded, but don't say anything; you think you can figure out the problem just from their companionship towards each other and sort of mild exclusion of you. You walk away stiffly, and you can practically sense that John is over there feeling guilty about ignoring you, but you ignore that, despite your urge to return, eager to pamper them both with affection until neither of them is sad anymore. Unfortunately for you, you know that won't work, so you just continue walking off to the bathroom.
In the bathroom, you open "their" side of the medicine cabinet, where they keep the Midol, various vitamins that supposedly ward off cramps and mood swings, pads, tampons, disposable heating pads, and so on and so forth. You take out the Midol, some B-12, two pads, and two heating pads, then close the medicine cabinet. You grab a Ziploc bag (you keep multiple in the other side of the medicine cabinet just for this purpose) and slip everything inside, and go downstairs, and into the kitchen. You climb up on the counter so you can reach the highest cabinet, where you keep a stash of dark chocolate, and slip two Hershey special dark bars into the Ziploc. You get off the counter, placing the bag on it, and grab two red raspberry leaf tea bags (you read on the internet somewhere that this stuff helps with this stuff when researching how to make them feel better a previous time this happened) and pour some water into the electric kettle. You take a sticky note and a grey felt-tipped pen and write out a tiny little love note while you wait for the water to boil, sticking the note on the Ziploc bag when you're done.
When the water's boiled, you pour it over the tea bags, each in their own cup, and place napkins over the top of the cups. You set a five-minute timer to let the tea steep, and turn to the other counter. You take out some bread from the breadbox, and put four slices into the toaster. You get out two small plates and a breakfast tray, humming quietly to yourself. You arrange the plates and the Ziploc bag on the tray with room for the cups, thanking whatever deities may be that you found a tray big enough for this.
The timer goes off, and you turn to the tea. You take off the napkins, carefully removing the tea bags, which are dripping with boiling hot tea. You place them in the sink to let the tea seep out, and turn back to the toaster. You wait for about a minute, before the toast pops, and you quickly put a piece of toast on each plate. You spread butter and some knockoff chocolate hazelnut spread on each piece, and drizzle cinnamon on them, and repeat the whole process with the other two pieces. You put the chocolate syrup away, and turn back to the other counter. You get out some sugar, hot chocolate powder, and vanilla extract from the cabinet. John likes his raspberry tea with tons of sugar and hot chocolate powder, and a tiny bit of vanilla. Dave only likes a spoonful of sugar, no chocolate, but a little vanilla. You learned this through months of experimentation, until you figured out how their tastes work. You know exactly how much of each ingredient is too much, too little, and just right for both, and you add to one cup just how John likes it, and the other just how Dave likes it. You may have put just a little chocolate in Dave's, actually, but he usually didn't seem to notice if it was just a pinch, and you know how bad he needs chocolate now.
You stir the tea, and carefully set them on the breakfast tray, humming to yourself even still. You take the tray to the coffee table in the living room; no way are you letting them eat in bed.
You return to John's bedroom, where your boyfriends have both fallen asleep. You smile a little, and walk over to the bed. You carefully pick Dave up in your arms, as he's far skinnier and lighter due not only to him being almost alarmingly underweight, but also to John being just a little overweight. Not that you can't carry John, too, it's just easier to carry Dave.
Dave stirs a little, but doesn't wake up. You carry him to the living room, and set him on the couch. Immediately, you scurry to his room, and grab his favourite red blanket, which is even softer than his skin, or John's hair. You bring the blanket back and drape it over him. A hint of a smile crosses his lips in his slumber, but quickly disappears.
You then return once again to John's bedroom, and walk over to the bed yet another time. You carefully pick John up this time, taking his kinda silly Ghostbusters plush throw blanket with him. He also stirs, but he wakes up. He blinks those beautiful baby blues up at you, and all you can think of is how absolutely stunning he is, especially without his glasses on.
"Hi, Karkat," he says quietly after a while. His voice is slightly hoarse, like he's been crying. It almost breaks your heart to think he was crying without you to comfort him, but he at least surely had Dave there, too. It then crosses your mind that Dave was probably also crying, and it almost makes you start crying.
"Hey, John. Have I recently mentioned that you're beautiful, and I love you?"
"Not today, but you're beautiful too, and I love you too!" He smiles, and you can't help but smile back. "Um, can I have my glasses, though?"
"Oh, right." You set him down gently, and practically scamper over to his nightstand, carefully grabbing his glasses, as well as Dave's shades. You bring them back over, and hand him his glasses. He puts them on, smiling a little more (you'd like to think it's because he's so foolish as to think you're beautiful and be brightened by the sight of you) and carefully taking Dave's shades from you.
"I'm sorry about earlier."
"Don't worry about it. There's a surprise for you and Dave in the living room on the coffee table, but Dave is asleep on the couch. I'm going to the grocery store to grab some stuff, okay?" You look outside, and decide you'll leave your oversized turtleneck for your boyfriends. You pull it carefully off and hand it to John. "And I think it's too hot for this, so can you hang onto it for me?"
John smiles a little and nods. "Of course."
You know he notices as you take a scarf upon leaving the house, despite that you're already wearing a pretty warm long-sleeved shirt. And you know he's smiling at your gesture as he wakes up Dave so they can read the note together, even though by that time you're already halfway out the door.
And you know when you get back home with only junk food snacks and chips, the both of them will be delighted to see you and shower you in grateful hugs and kisses, and be even more elated when you offer to warm up two towels and their blankets in the dryer, so they can take a shower together and come out to warm towels and blankets and their loving boyfriend.
And you know it's all worth the effort, because you love them both, and they both love you back.