Collegestuck - Johnkat

5. The Lonely

I... forgot my own birthday, Karkat couldn't help but be stunned as he followed John down the road. It was a single path of pavement that lead all the way back to the house. Of course, due to being strapped on time, there wasn't enough room in the schedule to stop and wait for Vriska to chase Gamzee around a baseball diamond as he carried Tavros on his shoulders. As expected, Gamzee was easily evading Vriska's chase. 

John seemed to have his head tilted up to the sky, lips releasing a sweet and gently hummed tune of relaxation. How can you be so relaxed? Kar thought, nearly slapping himself at the idiotic thought. Of course he would be relaxed. It wasn't like John knew the swelling and churning emotions that washed around like waves inside Karkat's chest. He didn't know and probably wouldn't if there was no reason to confess. 

Even so, Karkat could feel his restraints slowly cracking, his hands shoveling deep into his pockets each time he saw John so that to keep them from reaching out. The burial would keep his hands from grabbing John's face and crushing their lips together, kept them from tearing John's clothes until he was bare, kept them from running his fingertips over every place they didn't belong. 

"...at... arkat.... Karkat!" John snapped, the voice pulling him from his engrossing fantasy of the sex he'd never have. His resolve of chastity until he could have John, that resolve made so long ago that he couldn't remember. 

A word of advice, when you can't even remember the time you promised yourself you'd never masturbate or have sex until you had done it with the one of your dreams, you need to have sex. Even so, no matter how self-evident this fact was, no matter how true it may have been, no matter how badly Kar would have loved to just have the hottest, roughest sex with the fair skinned boy, he was never going to be gay. Or bisexual. 

There was no such thing as a compromise for the poor release-deprived young man. 

"Fuck my life," Vantas muttered, John turning on his heels. 

"What?" 

"Nothing," he shook his head as he evaded a nasty topic, also John's increasingly erotic eyes. 



There's something wrong with you if you think the way someone looks at Christmas lights is amative. Poor Karkat, he was nearly drooling over John at that point and Sollux, even though he was blind in one and eye and half blind in the other, could see this expression. "Kay-kay, you couldn't be any le'th obviou'th," Sollux stepped in the young man's line of sight to hide the blushing expression. 

"Shut up!" 

"Ouch, touchy," he snickered, rolling his eyes as he took the bowl of heavy whipping cream, sugar, and three drops of fresh vanilla and began to whip it by hand. Kar could only stare as the nearly blind friend had a bowl of perfectly whipped cream in just a few minutes. "Why don't you just tell him?" 

"Because not everyone is hot for the other like Erid--..." Kar trailed off as the thespian theatre major walked past the kitchen, sighing as he saw the ear buds in his head. "--dan is for you." 

"Hmm," Sollux thought for a minute and shrugged, "Yeah, but John's got some personality deficits in the cases of love. Remeber Rose?" 

"But Rose's a lesbian," Vantas glowered, the sly one across from him smirking. 

"Doesn't add up to much. He dated Rose, that girl from Chemistry back in sophomore year, and don't you remember the twins in English four?" The numbers seemed to add up by the pile, Sollux listing them off and Kanaya even adding in two more as she entered from the back door. 

The names seemed to climb as Vriska slid in with the groceries, Jade in toe. 

"See? The boy's got a losing streak longer than the Californian coast line," Sollux nodded, sliding the bowl across the island and into Nepeta's hands as she began working on the sponge cakes for the dessert. 

"Doesn't mean he's gay," Karkat pouted. 

"He could be bi," Sollux nodded. This made Vantas tense up as he slid around Vriska and Nepeta, grabbing the whistling red kettle and pouring the hot water into his canteen. "Wha---t?!" Sollux asked as Kanaya came up behind him and pinched the back of his neck. "Ah... oh." 

Karkat had his headphones in, hands around his canteen as he swirled it in a circle. He was oblivious to all things but his own path that which he was walking. A few in the kitchen ignored it, but Kanaya and Nepeta were on Sollux's case in a heartbeat. He jumped, backing into the island as they started nagging on him. 

It didn't matter to Vantas, though. The noise of his headphones and pounding of his feet against the old and groaning steps seemed to satisfy him. Of course, it didn't satisfy anyone else that knew how badly Kar felt for John. It only made the burn hurt more. 



The bed spread was cold to the touch as Kar collapsed on it. He let the icy blankets cover him as he blasted the one song that had ever given him a chance to be the romantic he felt that he was. "Heart beats fast. Colors and promises.... How to be brave... How can I love when I'm afraid... when I'm afraid to fall... Watching you stand alone. All of my doubts suddenly goes away somehow," he sung, eyes closed as he lie against the bed and stared out the window. Rain had begun to pour again and thunder was shaking the house every eight minutes or so. 

Yes, 1000 Years by Christina Perri. 

"On step closer. I have died everyday waiting for you. Darling don't be afraid, I have love you for a thousand years. I'll love you for a thousand more." 

The rain was loud, but Karkat's clear and smoothed voice was louder. 

Walking from her room, Terezi smiled brightly. Eridan opened the door just one flight of stars downward, faintly smiling as Terezi did. "Beautiful, isn't it?" The blind girl smiled, walking down the stairs and near the hipster boy. 

"Why's he trying to be a writer, then?" Eridan asked, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He looked a bit flustered, but it wasn't a thing to worry about around his friend in the red glasses. She couldn't see a thing. 

"His writing's even more beautiful than his voice," she nodded as they walked down the stairs together. "But the songbirds only sing when they cry out for the one they can never have." 

Eridan was stunned as the girl hopped on the railing and slid down the rest of the way. His heart seemed to skip a beat as he looked upward, a note coming from the doorway. The boy almost felt a tear well as he scoffed himself and continued down the stairs. There wasn't a way in the world that he'd cry over that boy's voice. 

Maybe... 



By the second song Karkat was numb right down to the toes, his eyes half open to the smell of fresh rain that blew around him from the cracks in the walls around the window. The smell brushed the inside of his nose, the breeze ruffling his clothes and hair. "Dancing.... slowly in an empty room. Can the lonely take the place of you? I sing myself a quiet lullaby. Let you go and let the lonely in and let the lonely in to take my heart again." The Lonely, also by Christina Perri, nearly brought tears to his eyes. 

The only thing that was a fault in Vantas's entirety was the fact that he had no attention span for paying attention to people around him. He wished so very badly that he had then because John had been standing in the doorway for the past four minutes with a hurt look on his face and tears in his eyes. 

In that moment Karkat had torn his headphones out and was across the room, hands holding onto John's shoulder. "W-what's wrong?" 

"Huh?" John blinked, jolting as if he'd been in a trance as deep as the Atlantic. The boy's crystal clear blue eyes widened, his mouth opening and closing as if to say something, but shutting again to prevent a secret from escaping. He looked dazed and confused, cheeks reddening slightly as he shook his head, thinking about the motion, then nodding. "N-no, wait... augh, yes! Yes, I'm fine," he sighed, smacking himself in the face. 

Karkat wasn't convinced, brushing aside some of John's bangs and pressing their foreheads together. "You still have a little fever," he whispered with his eyes closed, John's wide and fully focused. "What kind of idiot's up with a fever?" The glower upon Vantas's face giving cause for John's sweating neck. He felt nervous the most when his best friend always acted on his harsh instincts. 

"W-well Gamzee and Vriska were trying to until the lights and so I helped them. Th-then I got you from the campus and went to pick Nepeta, Equius, and Tavros up from school with Gamzee earlier. It's busy," John laughed quite nervously as he looked at his feet. 

"Well I could... hey, John?" 

        "What is-- wah!!"

In the split second from the slip of the blue eyed one's feet to the moment that gravity wrapped its arms around both the young men, time seemed to fade away. 

Karkat wrapped his arms around John's chest and shifted his body just fast enough that he took the brunt of the fall on his left shoulder. John clenched his eyes shut tight, gasping as the arms closed around him protectively. The entire floor shook as a jolt of pain rushed up Karkat's shoulder, John instantly flying off of him. 

"K-Karkat!" John gasped, eyes wide as he helped his friend up. "Holy... shit, no! Why did you do that?!" 

"Because you were falling," Vantas cringed through a forced grin as he sat up against the wall. John immediately began to tend to the blackening shoulder. It stood out very obviously against the albino's porcelain skin. 

In a handful of seconds Dave and Sollux were staring at them from the bottom of the next flight of stairs. Sollux had scaled them in less than that time and Dave stood there, mouth ajar. "What the hell happened here?" Sollux jumped as he bent down to look at the purple and black bruise. "Dude, it'th th'welling. What did you do!?" 

"I fell and he caught me, but I think... I think he broke his shoulder!" John jumped, Jade and Vriska arriving on scene. 

The next words were something similar of Sollux's concern and a gasp of shock from the little Jade, petite as ever. "Well, you need to go to the ER," Dave said, folding Kar's arm over in his lap. "If it's not shattered, it's fractured, for sure." 

"Sh-shattered?" John blinked, already looking quite shaken. 

"Could be. It can happen, especially in albinoids," Dave nodded as Equius picked Kar up, John attempting to follow. 

"Stay there!" Vantas snapped at the shaking boy, his lips tightening. "Stay." 

John, at first a little reluctant, nodded and stayed by Jade and Kanaya that had come out of her room with Rose. The boys disappeared down the stairs while John was left to stuff his pride into his throat and swallow. "I... It's my fault," he cringed, rubbing his cheeks so that the pressure wouldn't bring tears. 

"No, it's not," Jade hugged her little brother. "It's not, I promise." 

John just buried his face in her shoulder, letting warm tears stain her green sweater. His shoulders shook as the shock consumed him, Kanaya sighing with her arms crossed as Rose attempted condolence by rubbing his back. It seemed like the entire third floor was stiff with the silence as it loosened again with Kanaya's rough cough. 

"You might find relief in a nap," she offered, John's face to the floor, cheeks flaring, as he nodded. 

"It'll be alright... okay?" Jade smiled weakly, John only giving a soft nod, a hiccup following. 

Rose and Kanaya had already scaled the flights, but Jade hung onto the side of the banister, lips drawn taught as she stared at the door. "Kay-kay, you idiot."