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You were twelve when you met him.
You met him at your older brother's friend's-friend's-friend's party? You don't really remember the exact relation but there was a room that was, as your brother put it, 'for bratty twerps' and inside you met him and his weird friend who wore huge glasses that made his eyes look significantly larger than they truly were.
Originally, when put in this room, you had the intention to sit in the corner, text your best friend and let the other fuckers fend for themselves but there was a hand thrown over your shoulders and a harsh lisp asking you “So who the hell are you here with?”
You look at the guy, the over sized glasses and two different colored eyes, and he looks over to this other guy, this short little kid with a messy mop of black hair and really light brown eyes. He's wearing a big black sweater, definitely a few sizes too big for him the turtle neck collar stretched and hanging loosely from around his neck. You catch yourself staring at him as the other kid lets his arm move back to his side.
“I'm here with my brother.” You finally answer, finally peeling your eyes away from the other kid to look at the one with the glasses. “Bro.”
He looks at you funny. “Your brother's name is Bro?” He asks, but as you open your mouth to answer another voice chimes in.
“No, fuckwit, he just calls him that because it's what he's been calling him his whole life. No one names their kid Bro what the fuck is your problem.” Your eyes turn to sweater kid, who rolls his pretty eyes in annoyance at the two of you.
“No shit Sherlock.” Glasses boy says and turns back to you. “So who the hell are you here with?”
“Strider.” They seem to pause, looking between each other before Glasses chuckles a little. “What?”
“You're here with the porn guy?” He asks and that alone says a lot about this kid's browsing history.
“Aren't you a little young to be watching porn?” You ask and sweater kid pipes in now.
“We don't have to watch it to know the name, numbnuts.” He grumbles and jabs Glasses in the shoulder with a finger. “The fuck, Sollux, You said we were gonna find out and leave. We know now can we go back to Aradia?”
The kid, Sollux, holds up a hand and hushes his cohort. “Nothing wrong with making new friends.” He insists. He shoves a hand out toward you. “Name's Sollux Captor. I'm Mituna's little brother.” You don't recall exactly who Mituna is but you shake his hand and introduce yourself.
“Dave Strider.” You say simply and he pulls his hand away motioning to his sweatered side-kick.
“This is Karkat, he's Kankri's brother.” Oh, yeah you remember Kankri. You groan outwardly at the thought of last time you were in the same room as him. Sollux laughs at our reaction, Karkat doesn't.
“My brother says the only way to shut him up is to fuck him senseless.” Sollux chuckles and Karkat punches him hard in the arm.
“Shut the hell up Sollux!” He yells and you see a few eyes land on him before they eventually go back to their own business.
“That was kind of mean, dude.” You say to Sollux, who looks between you and Karkat for a moment before holding up his hands in front of himself.
“Hey, my brother said it not me!”
“Your brothers a fucking retard, Sollux!” Karkat snaps and shoves Sollux away form you, taking the place where he was, “Piss off alright?” He makes a rude gesture with his finger and Sollux rolls his eyes, calls Karkat a drama queen and walks off.
Karkat looks from you to the floor and back again before his eyes settle on his hands, folded together in his lap and he mumbles an apology. You don't know why he's apologizing and he says that it's because he was the one who wanted to know who you were and you don't think it's really such a big deal.
He grumbles angrily to himself for the next few minutes, until you offer to sneak out and get some food. You make a successful run, you only get caught once by a young woman named Meenah who helps you sneak a bunch of food in for you and the other pre-teens and younger.
You and Karkat, surprisingly, bond. You get fairly close over the next couple of years, if your friend John lived closer Karkat wouldn't have taken the title of best friend, but seeing as your bro John is living states away and all that jazz and Karkat is available for whatever insane shit you decide to do on any given weekend it wasn't hard to get him to give up the title.
You don't know how exactly you got so close but there did come a point when you two would spend entire weeks at his house or at your apartment. He never asked about Bro's work, which you were thankful for. He and your brother got along well enough that your friend wasn't threatened with strangulation on a regular basis.
He's decided to force you into watching another one of his romantic comedies and you're trying to pay attention but laying on his stomach isn't nearly as comfortable as it was last week and you can hear his stomach gurgling as you press your ear against it.
“Dude are you hungry or something?” You ask, sitting up and looking down at the sweat-shirt hidden torso. He shakes his head quietly and points at the television.
“Watch the movie fucknuts.” He says.
You decide to persist, poking the not-so-squishy flesh with a finger. “Dude you're a fucking twig, what the hell's up with you?” He shoves your hands away rolling his eyes and once more pointing at the television.
“Watch the fucking movie before I rip out your intestines and use them as a sling to hold your head in place.”
“Creative insults will get you nowhere, buttercup.” You say with a smirk and he returns it with a glare.
“No, but seriously, there's obviously something up with you.” You sit up and turn to face him, legs crossed and arms folded across your chest.
You see him fidget ever so slightly before leveling another glare your way. “Do see the look on my face?” He asks, pointing to his own face, the face that was once a little squishy with leftover baby fat, but was now getting on the creepier side of skinny. “This is the face of someone who has their own business. Business that is their own. Not yours.”
“You're getting rusty with your creativity, you know.” You say, not believing him in the slightest. “But seriously,” You swat his knee, “We've been bros for too long, you can't tell me everything's fine when it's obviously not.” His expression doesn't change much, except for the slightest shift in his eyes, away from you before going back up. You almost didn't catch it.
“What happened?” You ask, a little worried about what he might say.
“Nothing.” His answer is simple, and sounds final but at the same time you catch it. That tiny waver at the end of the word that says no, it most certainly is not nothing.
“What happened? And don't lie to me this time.”
You watch still, this time his shoulders tense and he pulls away from you a little bit. “This jackass said this stupid thing and I still think it's none of your business.”
“Does this jackass happen to be a certain lispy dick who still has this weird crush on my brother?”
“The one and only.”
“What did he say?” He throws up his hands and you can tell he wants to yell at you. “Come on, Karkat, I can't help you if you don't tell em what he said! Did he call your brother a whore for the fiftieth time this month? Did he go into the explicit details of his and Aradia's relationship? Did he fuck that... Weird... Purple haired dude and then shove it in your face, I need details so I know how much ass I have to kick. Did he call you fat or-”
“I'm not fat!”
“Wow, touchy. Interrupting me is rude you know.”
“I'm not fucking fat, alright, you and Captor can simultaneously choke on dog shit encrusted cat shit with a creamy bat shit center.” Karkat's so obvious it's not even funny.
Your brow furrows a bit and you watch him fidget under your stare. “He did, didn't he?” He opens his mouth to yell at you again but you throw up a hand and silence him. “You know he's just being a dick, right? You're not fat. “
You can almost literally watch him recede into himself as he turns his eyes back to the forgotten movie. “Karkat.” He doesn't respond for a moment. “Karkat!” He finally looks up, his yelling face on one more time.
“What the fuck do you want, Strider!? It's none of your goddamn business whatever emotional bullshit I happen to be going through, despite what you seem to think I am most certainly not your girlfriend and it is most certainly NOT your job to beat the shit out of the guys who pick on me. I can do it myself. I only have to go through this shit for a couple more years, I graduate early, I get the fuck out of this piece of shit city, go to fucking Canada or something and I never have to deal with you assholes again.”
You're a bit stunned. Karkat did tend to go on and on, long winded metaphors and shit like that, but he seems to be having a downright emotional breakdown right here on your futon and you don't think he's even fully aware of how upset this topic actually makes him. You never would have pegged him as sensitive about that kind of stuff.
“Hey, hey, hey,” You attempt to calm him down, grabbing one of his shoulders which he promptly pulls away from you, “You're getting all emotional in my apartment dude, cut it out.”
“Fuck you, okay.” It's not followed by the normal bite that comes with his voice and, yeah, you're pretty worried now.
His eyes are back facing the movie, but he's definitely not watching it, and you let it go. You don't want to piss him off too much. You did think he jumped to anger way too fast.
You watch him from the corner of your eye. You're not sure what could be u with him now, what may have gone on in his head just because Sollux called him fat.
You're not sure what the worst case scenario is, probably just straight up not eating.
“What are we watching next?” You ask, leaning over to the stack of DVDs on the floor in front of him.
“Fuck if I know. You get to pick next, I guess.” He mumbles, waving a dismissive hand.
“Alright.” You sigh, sitting up and standing. “I'm picking Zombieland. And I'm making popcorn.”
He just sort of grunts at you as you make your way to the kitchen.
In the morning, you wake up before him. Crashed on top of him on the futon with the menu of the last movie the two of you managed to stay up through. You wake up, not sure how you managed to fall asleep on his bony ass anyways, but your cheek is pressed against his chest, and you find yourself listening to his heart thud away in his chest.
As long as he's asleep he won't yell at you for it.
But as you lay there and listen it doesn't sound right. You'll hear a few fast thumps and then it'll go slower and then slower and then it'll pick up speed again. Something's not right about that, you know for sure.
You manage to get off of him without waking him up, dodge around the still full bowl of popcorn, and sneak into your room, your brother crashed on your bed due to the fact that you and Karkat had commandeered his futon.
You stay quiet as you sit at your desk, turning on your computer and waiting a handful f minutes for everything to get started.
When all was finally booted up and ready to go you began to research this shit. If something was wrong with him other than just being emotional it'd definitely be online. You were positive you'd have this all figured out by the end of the day.
Hours later and your brother stirs, sitting u, mumbling at you, getting out of the bed and you hear the word 'coffee' before he ruffles your hair on his way past and out the door. As he steps out you here him and Karkat share small greetings before the scrawny brunette is making his way into the room, and leaning an elbow on your shoulder.
“The fuck are you looking at?” He asks as you minimize the browser and sigh.
“Nothing, I guess.” Your search had essentially turned up bubkus. There wasn't much you could get off of the little information you had. You had given thought to asking Rose, with all her psychology nonsense she may be able to suggest a thing or two, but you hadn't gotten the chance yet. I'd probably have to wait.
“Well if it's nothing then I can see it, right?” He says, grabbing the mouse and reopening the browser. He stares at the webpage for a moment before leaning over to look at you funny. “The hell are you looking this up for?” He asks. Closing it and turning your chair. “You doing a paper for school or something?”
You shrug, then shake your head, then decide there's no point in lying to him. “I'm trying to figure out what's up with you.” His face, once slightly confused and mildly curious, turns a bit angry and he rolls his eyes.
“Still hung up on that, Jesus, Strider, I told you, there's nothing wrong with me that you need to concern yourself about.”
“Well obviously there's something or else you'd be laughing in m face and calling me an idiot.” You say and he pauses, taking a couple steps back and sighing loudly before sitting on the bed.
He's quiet for a while, not really saying anything and you decide that he gets to have the honors of breaking this silence, whatever kind of silence it is.
It takes a few minutes, and it begins to border on uncomfortable when he finally says anything.
“Sollux called me a fatass.” He says and you lean forward on your knees, making a small hand gesture for him to continue. “I think... I think he was joking, at first, but it started to become just straight up mean a couple weeks ago.” He pulls his legs up, crossing them and folding his arms over his knees. “I wanted him to stop.” That seems like the end of the story, you assume from his tone.
“So you decided to stop eating?” You ask, quirking an eyebrow, and all he does is nod, tugging on his legs and holding them against his chest. “So... When were you planning on telling someone about that?”
“Well initially never,” He says, “I didn't really think beyond getting Sollux to stop calling me fat. Didn't really expect it to... Hurt, or whatever.”
You nod a little, “Yeah I saw that.” You say, gesturing to your computer. “Are you hungry?” You ask and stand, hoping he'll say yes. But despite the look in his eyes and the fact that you can very clearly hear his stomach's protests, he declines, resting his forehead on his knees and sighing.
You spend the next couple of weeks talking to him. Attempting to therapist your way into getting him back to normal, but you're no good at that stuff, and you watch him pass out cold in your living room on more than one occasion. It scares you, to see him only getting worse but there's only so much you can do when he won't fucking cooperate.
You force him to have a conversation with Rose and get her to do the therapist-y thing and you don't know how good of a job she did but the next day you saw Karkat accept a cookie from one of the other guys at the lunch table so you considered it progress.
You managed to talk him into talking to Rose more often and slowly but surely he was munching on shit like any other teenager, but you knew it wasn't quite fixed yet.
You got him to come over a few times after he was almost normal again, but he didn't eat anything while at your place. You tried not to notice it.
“You should make some popcorn.” He said from his place lying across the futon, his head pillowed on your stomach as he paused the movie and looked up at you. “Like right now. A girl's gotta eat, you know.” He says and you pinch his nose.
“Get it yourself, I'm not your maid.” He scoffs at you.
“True, but I am your guest, and I, as a guest, demand that you, the host, get me some goddamn popcorn before my blood sugar gets low and I have to pop a proverbial cap in your ass.”
“Blood sugar, Karkat, really?”
“Bite me. Popcorn.”
You release his nose, shoving him off and biting the back of his neck before leaving to get the popcorn he had requested.
When you return with the bowl and sit back in your spot he seems to lean away like he's avoiding you for a moment before sidling up next to you and grabbing a handful of popcorn. He leans into your side, nibbling slowly on the salty snack.
Initially you're not sure what to think of the closeness, but he fidgets around, adjusting until you finally put an arm around his shoulders, insisting he sit still but you feel him manage to somehow get closer.
“Someone's in a cuddling mood today.” You mumble around a mouthful of popcorn and he jabs you in the ribs with a finger.
“Shut the fuck up, I'm just cold.”
“We have blankets you know.” He doesn't respond to that, and you note the hand curling into the fabric of your hoodie. He mumbles something against your arm and you don't exactly catch it, you ask him to repeat and he puts a bit of space between your arm and his mouth before mumbling something that was most definitely not what he mumbled originally.
“You're like a human fucking heat lamp, why use a blanket.” You him a little bit, before shrugging.
“Because using a blanket is less weird.” You offer.
“Do you want me to let go?” He asks, glaring up at you.
You don't really think about it, you just shake your head, and he shakes his head, calls you a dumbass and returns to the unable-to-understand-mumbles position. The movie ends and you're half asleep while he's still curled up against your side.
You look to the bowl of popcorn and aside form the handful you had and the handful he had it's still full. You prod his shoulder with a finger and push him to sit up a little, and he groans tiredly before sitting up and looking at you.
“The fuck do you want?” He rubs a hand at his eyes, in an attempt to wake himself up some more but seems to be failing spectacularly as the lids droop further with each passing second.
“Have you still been talking to Rose. Y'know about the whole eating thing that you hate me giving a name to.” He nods and swats at your hand, laying back down and telling you to fuck off and let him sleep because he's tired.
“No, talk to me about it, dude. I've got my curiosity on and I want to know how you are with all of that and 'fine and fuck off' is not an answer I am willing to accept.”
“You're going to have to, dickmash, because it's all I'm going to say.” He pinches your cheek and mumbles for you to go to sleep.
You shove him off of you once more, swatting at the back of his head once for good measure. “Karkat, I'm not fucking around right now. You're a stubborn piece of shit, but I'm your best friend and I want to make sure you're okay, because if you're not then I'm going to feel all guilty and shit.
He holds up a hand to shush you, shaking his head in annoyance and leaning on the back of the futon. “What do you want me to say?” He mumbles tiredly, shrugging at you. “You want me to tell you everything's hunky fucking dory and we'll all live happily ever after? Because I'm not going to say it, and it really isn't and we won't. Just saying.” He adds the last part as if it was an afterthought.
“I'm not feeling completely up to par and no, I'm not eating as much as I probably should, but I don't want you to worry about it, because you really have no reason to.” He yawns then, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth in an attempt to stifle it. Talking to Rose helped and all, but she'sjust a teenager like us, she can't magically fix all my problems.
“Now I'm tired. You either shut the fuck up and let me sleep, or I'm going to go sleep on the floor in your room.”
“My brother's in my room.” You say.
“Hence why I said floor.” He mumbles, getting up and putting in a new movie before climbing back onto the couch and snuggling back into you.
You don't fight him off this time, and let him latch on like the fucking boa constrictor he is when he's asleep. You wait until he's passed out on top of you before adjusting, and lying on your back, his head cushioned on your stomach. You wrap your arms around him and just let the cuddling thing happen. Typically by the time you wake up you've managed to get the cuddles on in your sleep, but right now you're just pretty happy he's alright-ish. It's better than before, at least.
“Hey Karkat.” There's a small grumble. He's definitely out like a light. Maybe he'll hear you in his dreams, you think with a small chuckle. “Love you, asshole.” You say and he shifts a tiny bit, mumbling something that sounds like 'you too dickweed' and yeah, you'll accept that.