Chapter Text
You meekly pass on the hot steaming bowl of spaghetti John’s Dad offers you. You are nervous, your palms are sweaty and if you were standing your knees would probably be weak. You feel like you’re going to lose yourself in a swirl of nausea; you slightly feel like puking. You haven’t been in a “perfect” home environment in so long that it’s all upsetting your nerves. Maybe it wasn’t exactly “old black and white family television show” perfect, but to you it was close enough. John wasn’t making eye contact with his Dad, and he wasn’t eating. He looked pale, but not so much you could really tell, you’re pretty sure he was always bordering that shade of starving-pale. His Dad constantly babbled about fatherly things, like lawns and pipes and colleges, all the while trying to shove plates and bowls of food at the two of you. He bombarded you with questions that you answered in short sentences and nods. You feel bad for Mr. Egbert, he’s clearly struggling with the fact that John is ignoring him and not eating.
It’s kind of annoying to be perfectly honest. John was probably upset over the pettiest little thing, and causing his Dad so much stress. The ungratefulness rubs you the wrong way, because you wish you were in the position to be able to boycott food. You wish your dad would ramble on and on about college and grades. You wish you could even sit down with your dad without the smell of alcohol and an impending beating lingering in the air. You wish you had a dad in the first place.
You excuse yourself.
You fight to keep the scowl off your face. You can’t feel your mouth curving down, but you knew it was most likely there. John’s dad told you the bathroom down the hallway was available, and you stomp over to it. Not literally. But in your head. In your head you are stomping so loud that this whole situation goes away. You slip in the dirty bathroom littered with what you assume are John’s clothes; most of them are similar to his annoying blue eyes. The mess bothers you, even though you have a plenty dirty house of your own. You slide the clothes away with your foot, then turn your attention to the sink. You turn on the water, relieved that it’s not a sludgy brown when it first comes out. You rub your face with the cold water, and you can feel the skin under your sweater start to rise. You look at your wet face in the mirror, water still running. You look like shit. The bags that you’ve always seemed to have had under your eyes have doubled in their darkness, and you look thinner. You look beaten. You sigh.
You roll up a sweater sleeve, and look at the damage that was still there. You didn’t bruise easily, but they took forever to go away when they were there. How old were these even? You stare up and down your less than appealing arm, and you take in all the fading sickly brown, purple and red spots. You wondered if you would get more before these were gone. You weren’t planning on going back home, but you did need your stuff. And a place to live. Briefly you wonder about the Egbert house. Would they take a piece of shit like you in? Even if you told them your story? Would Mr. Egbert call Children Services or something, and have you put into the system for a year or so? You’ve heard about how that crazy fuckplace is. Maybe if you talked to John...No. Things were already still too weird with him. And that kiss. Maybe he had just been somehow still drunk, but you needed to avoid that at all costs. You had enough drama...and you were kind of pretty sure you were straight for the most part. You rub some cold water on your arm, wipe it on your jeans, which you make a mental note about washing soon, and start leaving the bathroom when you see a weird thing on the floor. Well, you’d seen them before but, only Terezi’s. It was a small, white sports bra looking thing. Along with the LUDE item, okay maybe not lude, but weird and uncomfortable item, you saw a few less than manly (though you couldn’t say John was your definition of a manly man.) bottles lined up on the counter. You thought it was only John and his dad living here, but there was a sister or cousin or something. You’d ask later if you remembered. You decided it was time to “face the music” and cozy up to John to see if you could stay the night. It was too late to head back to Aradia’s and you were so against the risk of running into Vriska or one of her mindless thugs. All you needed was to get beat up, or worse, just because she thought it’d entertain her step-sister. You hoped it didn’t. But you weren’t allowing yourself to think about that, you had already done that for two vague weeks you can’t remember anything about.
Walking out the bathroom, you think of how you would approach asking to sleeping over. The only thing you could think of was to tell John the truth, he’d seen your dad. Maybe he’d understand and ask his dad for you. But even if he knew, you didn’t like admitting to it; the fact that there was a serious issue with him. Yeah, your dad was a violent, alcoholic-fuck, but he was still yours, in a way. He was more like your problem than your father. You know at one time he had taken care of you, when you were little. And when it was you, your mom, sister, and him, he was the strength of the house. He brought in the money so your mom could go to school take care of you and Nepeta, and made sure to dole out piggy back rides and hugs daily. He was the father you saw on tv. He was all you knew and wanted. After your mom and sister left, things changed, and he changed into someone else. Like someone just took over his body, and they were too lost and confused to go back to where he came from. Sometimes you think he looks familiar when he stares at the torn up family picture he keeps hidden in a drawer in the kitchen. To this day you still blame your mother for leaving and breaking both of you, but you are not convinced that her coming back would fix things.
Mr. Egbert is washing dishes by himself in the kitchen when you return. He’s turned partially turned away from you, and he’s mumbling to himself. You strain to hear, but it sounds only like vague, muffled nothings. You acknowledge your ears’ ‘fuck you’ for trying to listen in on the man’s personal business. You walk in and make a weird noise in your throat to get his attention. He slightly jumps, barely visible, but turns his head towards you.
“Hey Mr. Egbert..” Wow, you are stuttering now? You think of a comment, but push it far away because it’s way too insensitive.
“John is upstairs in his room.” You nod but before you leave you push in the chair you used and handed him John’s full, forgotten plate. He slowly takes it from you, stares at it, and then scrapes the untouched dinner down into the small trashcan.
“I left it, just in case he wanted to eat it later. I suppose I already know he won’t. I shouldn’t be acting so silly. Thank you.” You hurry the fuck up the stairs.
You twist the door knob so fast it snaps back when you release it, and you step into John’s room. Thankfully you got lost on the way up, John was finishing sliding a shirt down his really thin self. You wondered if it was from not eating. You got angrier. He hears you, spinning around with a slightly redder face than usual. He smiles and you hold back for slugging him in the face.
“Oh. Geez Karkat. You have no manners at all huh? Like, I knew you were rude, but not rude enough just to rush into someone’s room like that!” You’d rather go home and deal with your father than spend the night with this fuckwad.
“John.”
“Oh, yeah. Dad said you could stay over. Actually I think he wants you to stay over more than anything. Probably so he can interrogate you about me tomorrow. Sorry. You can go home...? I guess...or maybe you should stay...” In your head, you think about how much of an ungrateful little shit this too tall, too blue eyed brat is.
“At least your dad cares enough to actually want to know what’s going on in your quiet, Ghandi acting self.”
“What?”
“Your dad is down there washing the dishes, being all sad and shit because his son is throwing a fucking temper tantrum and refusing to eat the food he fucking worked for and cooked for you. And you sat there the entire time and just ignored him and starved yourself. Like are you kidding me? Do you know how much I would give just for my father to even RECOGNIZE me half the time? Or at least not try to kill me?!” John’s eyebrows bunched up, making his cheery face darker and foreign to you. You didn’t know him that well, but he’d always been smiling whenever you saw him. It threw you off a bit.
“Karkat, I’m sorry about your dad, but you don’t understand what’s going on here, so stop. I don’t need to go into this with you. This is our business, so stay out of it.” He turned back around, sat on his bed and started pulling off his socks.
“This is my damn business. You invited me into your home, and then I have to deal with the ever-fucking-looming teenage drama that is your protesting against what?! Your parent cooking and cleaning up after you?! Or maybe it was the fact that he was actually interested in your day? Oh. Oh. Maybe it was all the worrying he was doing about your future. Ah. Yes. That’s so it. Geez. He’s such a horrible fucking person. I’d hate to have that kind of a father. I couldn’t handle a father that was sober and peaceful when I was being an idiot!” John slams down the pair of glasses he was taking off on his bedside table. The snap of the glasses dot the exclamation point of his anger.
“Don’t you think I know that?! That I’m a shitty son! I know! Every time I look at him, I know! But I need to do this! I can’t let him make everything okay and perfect after he sent them away! It’s not my damn fault. It’s his. I did what I had to and I kept them alive and going. They might not have been thriving but they were alive. They had food to eat, and I LOVED them! They were my only fucking reason for living! The only fucking thing that kept me waking up in the morning and going through my day! And he took them away! For WHAT?! WHO KNOWS! ALL I KNOW IS HE WAS ALMOST ABSENT FROM OUR LIVES BEFORE HE TORE US APART. SO DON’T YOU FUCKING ACT LIKE YOU KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON WHEN I DON’T AND I LIVE IN HIS DAMN HOUSE. NOW GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY ROOM!” He shoves you out with a force you could fight against, but wouldn’t and he slams the door behind you.
You and your spinning head trudge down the dark, carpeted steps, and you hear a door creak and shut in the darkness. You head over to the door to leave, assuming you’ll have to take your chances out on the street. Your eye catches a glimpse of the ratty, white couch by the door. Laid on top is a folded quilt, a pillow, and a long tee-shirt. You feel more guilt than you have in a while.