#sigh. idk. id love to be able to afford a place thats still in the general area but that is never going to happen

[coloursofaparadox]

i ✨️cannot sleep✨️ and vaguing about shit on the internet feels more cathartic than writing it out somewhere else. suffer.

[blatherkatt]

Title: The Calm Is Terrifying When The Storm Is All You Know [Homestuck]

Chapter 33: Declarations 

Summary: There were two kinds of trolls who went to Earth: rich shitheads with too much money and free time, and desperate assholes who couldn’t survive on Alternia, even with the best efforts of the young Condesce. Karkat hated the planet almost immediately, but with his home planet too dangerous for mutants, he really didn’t have any choice but to hide out on this weird little diurnal planet. At least he’d be safe. Or so he thought, right before blundering his way into an accidental friendship with the son of an anti-troll terrorist.

Rating: M

Chapter Warnings: Implied/Mentioned abuse, mentions of terrorism, death mention, injury mention, depiction of an emotional breakdown, trauma aftermath; Illustrated; Pesterlog

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— carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling tipsyGnostalgic [TG] —

CG: WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?

— tipsyGnostalgic [TG] is an idle chum! —

CG: FUCK YOU, I CAN SEE THAT FOR MYSELF, YOU PIECE OF SHIT PROGRAM. I’M GONNA FUCKING YELL ANYWAY.

CG: I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO PICK ME UP AT NOON. IT’S LIKE, 1:30 AND YOU STILL AREN’T HERE, WHAT GIVES?

CG: IF YOU GOT KIDNAPPED, TOO, I SWEAR TO FUCK I’M PERSONALLY PUTTING THIS ENTIRE GODDAMN FAMILY UNDER PERMANENT WATCH.

CG: I’M NOT ABOVE SITTING ON YOU ASSHOLES IF THATS WHAT IT TAKES.

TG: okay first off i know youre like a literal alien but heres a protip for ya:

TG: general human earth etiquette is to not text people who you know are probably driving?

TG: its like a whole thing

CG: WHY

TG: idk probs because texting while driving’s a great way to fucking crash lol

TG: anyway!!

TG: yeah im real sorry about that mom fucking rang me up like

TG: hi im at the airport come get me!

TG: out of fucking nowhere because everything has to be a fucking hassle with this woman

TG: so i had to go get her

CG: WHY THE FUCK WAS SHE AT THE AIRPORT?

TG: because fuck me is why

TG: and THEN shes like

TG: ooooh i gotta do some mysterious whatthefuckever errand at some mall out in the middle of nowhere

TG: so now im sitting in the parking lot waiting for her to get back which might be a while because her bad leg’s been acting up lately

TG: and thats why im not there yet >:(

CG: WAIT. WAIT, HOLD ON, I’M CONFUSED.

CG: BY “MOM” ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT RACHEL? I DIDN’T EVEN THINK SHE HAD A BAD LEG.

TG: nonono

TG: ray is like. dirk and dave and rose’s mom

TG: i dont call her mom i just call her aunt ray cuz shes not my mom yknow

TG: my mom is aunt ray’s sister

TG: aunt ramona? they talk about her?

CG: OOOOOOH. YEAH.

CG: THE WOMAN WHO WRITES THOSE SHITTY SUPERNATURAL ROMANCE BOOKS KANAYA LOVES.

TG: hahaha yeah her trashy shit is great

CG: SHE’S HERE?

TG: apparently!!!!!!!!

CG: I’M SENSING SOME BITTERNESS.

TG: ugh its fine she just always does shit like this

TG: womans always gotta make a fuckin entrance even if that means not telling anyone shes coming

TG: and its goddamn annoying as shit!!

TG: but its fine i get it shes here to help out and we are kinda all hands on deck

TG: speaking of tho i heard something about kanaya not coming along after all?

CG: NOT YET, NO.

CG: SHE’S BEEN TALKING TO ROSE, AND APPARENTLY DAVE’S BEEN PRETTY UNEASY WITH THE NUMBER OF NEW FACES AT THE HIVE.

CG: HOUSE. WHATEVER.

CG: TEREZI’S PROTECTION DETAIL HAS HIM KIND OF ON EDGE, I GUESS?

CG: SHE’S GONNA COME AROUND LATER PROBABLY. AND MIGHT END UP STAYING WITH PORRIM AND KEEP IT TO VISITS, AT LEAST UNTIL THINGS SETTLE DOWN A BIT.

CG: SO IT’S JUST ME FOR NOW.

TG: ooooh yeah geez i bet

TG: poor dave :( :( :(

TG: i gotta tell you and mom some uh. serious shit about him when i pick you both up

TG: id pass it on here but its probs better if i just tell you face to face?

CG: OH, WONDERFUL!

CG: MORE NO DOUBT HORRIFIC NEWS REGARDING DAVE.

CG: I CAN’T WAIT. THIS PANIC ATTACK’S GONNA BE ONE FOR THE RECORD BOOKS, I CAN JUST FEEL IT!!!

TG: :(

TG: tl;dr hes not in great shape but hes getting better but theres some stuff we gotta go over

TG: jfc mom what the fuck are you doing its been ages

CG: SO WAIT. SHE JUST HAD YOU DRIVE HER OUT SOMEWHERE AND WALKED OFF ALONE?

TG: yeah

TG: woman can take care of herself just fine so like im not worried??

TG: but still, like. cmon woman!!! whatever it is hurry up a little

TG: it cant be that important we got places to be

In terms of location, it was almost an outlet mall; somewhat detached from the nearest city and surrounded by forest. It was mostly all one building, positioned in a dip in the ground next to a clear stream, and these features had helped make it a serviceable fortress during the invasion, although Derek had regularly complained that he’d have preferred a site that held the high ground. Still, they’d made do; the roof was high enough that one could see for quite some distance, the stream offered fresh water, the trees provided decent enough cover during skirmishes, and the walls were thick enough to turn away most weather and weapons. It hadn’t been much, but it had served well enough as home for six years for around threescore ragtag survivors-turned-fighters.

Out in the surrounding forest, those who hadn’t survived that conflict still lay buried in pitiful graves marked only with a stone or a chunk of wood. There hadn’t been time to properly put anyone to rest; it had been risky enough for two or three people to slip out during a stretch of quiet with a shovel and a body. They simply hadn’t been able to afford to have any sort of formal burial, not with the threat of an attack constantly looming.

Even so, even so…

Derek had picked a spot he would remember.

In life, the oak tree would have been the kind people would have thought of as a monarch, with branches spread wide and gnarled wood ancient and strong, holding children in its branches as easily as if they were made of nothing; but the tree had already been dead by the time the invasion started, a great, ancient, dried-out husk. Even so, decades later, it still stood, its branches reaching toward the sky, the other trees forming a circle around it as though too respectful to come too close. Mushrooms and trails of greenery crept about a quarter of the way up the ancient trunk.

At its roots, a rotting wooden spar stuck up out of the ground. This, too, had been reclaimed by flowers, grasses and mushrooms, decorating the splintered and decayed timber with dark summer greens and pale white-and-lavender blooms.

Derek Strider, down on one knee with his sheathed sword held in his right hand, sighed. Of course, the trouble with having to bury the dead so hastily meant that there’d been no one to look over the graves, so it was to be expected that it be in such disrepair, but even so, seeing this one choked out by the invading flora was…

It wasn’t right.

Overhead, the ancient branches rustled slightly, and the raucous calling of a bird broke the silence. Derek narrowed his eyes and ignored it, tried to write the disrespectful noise out of the scene.

The crow seemed to have other ideas. The bird lighted down on the wooden grave marker, red eyes fixed on Derek’s face. It flapped its wings a few times, cawing incessantly. Derek scowled, unsheathed his sword, and struck —

The blade passed through the bird with no resistance whatsoever. The creature’s body split in two, bloodlessly, as though Derek had cut through smoke — it even looked like smoke, like a cloud cut in two by a passing jet. As Derek looked on, uncomprehending and with a growing sense of dread, the bird’s body seemed to pull itself back together, a video played in reverse, and the bird’s accusatory squawks started up again as though nothing had happened.

Derek was on his feet in an instance, stepping away from the beast, and as he did, he happened to look up…

Perched on nearly every branch of the old tree were ravens. Unlike the crow, they were all silent, and aside from the occasional shifting of a foot or tilting of a head, motionless. Scores of staring animal eyes bored into him.

Derek had never been a superstitious man, but nor was he the sort of fool to ignore the truth his own eyes showed him. He’d spent six years fighting alongside a witch, and seen enough to learn that some things really couldn’t be explained away as coincidence.

Had it been anyone else, he would have responded to the sound of footsteps approaching this site with a furious attack; even Ben knew better than to disturb him here. But when he whirled to face the intruder, he froze.

She’d aged more since he’d last seen her than he would have expected. Hints of silver streaked her hair, and she leaned heavily on her gnarled black cane. A faint breeze stirred the black fabric of her dress, playing with the light shawl laying across her shoulders. The crow had fallen silent.

“Put that thing away before you take someone’s eye out,” said Ramona, nodding nonchalantly at Derek’s sword.

Derek narrowed his eyes, and did not respond aloud, instead choosing to slowly and deliberately slide the sword back into its sheathe. Only after his left hand had returned to his side did Ramona nod and continue.

“That’s better,” she said. “Now we can talk things over like reasonable adults. Mind you, I ought to do the world a favor and wipe you out right now,” and Derek took a slow, deep breath at that, as she continued, “But I’d prefer not to desecrate your brother’s grave by staining it with your blood. I respect him far too much for that. You, however, have somehow managed to exceed all of my worst expectations to a nearly unfathomable degree, as of late. I’ve held off on this confrontation out of respect for the past, but I can see now that this was a mistake.”

Derek shifted. “Everything I’ve done has been to protect our damn planet, Ramona,” he started, but was cut off.

“Really?” she said, “Well, then. I’m not about to attempt to ask you to cease killing trolls, as we both know that would be pointless, but I would very much like to know how exactly burning your own son alive plays into your grand battle strategy?”

“He…he turned on us,” Derek said, through gritted teeth, “He forced my hand, left me no choice!”

“He is a child!” Ramona snapped. “And you, of all people, should know better! If you really must follow this path of self-destruction to its end, fine, but he should never have been involved!”

“I—”

“And in any case, you had a perfectly good sword on hand, I’m sure. If young Dave really did need to die, you could have executed him with minimal pain, but no, you wanted him to hurt, to know he was dying and to fear you and suffer as he passed. How do you justify that, Derek? How does anyone, especially a child, deserve anything of the sort?”

The eyes of the ravens and that damned crow still drilled into him. He could feel the stares on his back, but kept his eyes locked on Ramona’s, refusing to back down.

He wasn’t going to take back what he’d done. There’d be no guilt, he’d done nothing wrong except overreact a bit. It was justified. That…that boy wasn’t Dave. Ramona was using the name like a blade, but she’d not win that way. He didn’t deserve the fucking name, didn’t deserve to have anything to do with Dave, he never would have let Rachel name the kid that if he’d known he was going to grow up to be such a pathetic, useless little coward.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” he said.

“No, I suppose you don’t,” said Ramona, folding her hands over the top of her cane. “I’ve a fairly good idea, in any case.” She sighed. “The war is over, Derek. The time to put aside this violence and misery is long since behind us. Our children do not deserve to grow up as we did.”

“The trolls are still here,” Derek spat.

There was a long silence. Ramona sighed again.

“Fine, then,” she said, “So be it. Do as you will. Chase violence as long as you like. But if you come near my family again, I will consider it an act of war.”

She turned, and he was tempted to take the bait, to try attacking her while her back was turned, but he held still. It was infuriating, knowing what a pointed insult turning her back on him was, knowing that she knew he would not risk attacking her—but she was right. She was much too dangerous.

“Come along, little one,” she said, abruptly. The crow rose off the grave and flew to land on top of Ramona’s cane. If Derek had cared to pay any attention, he might have noticed the crow look back at him with something like regret in its eyes, but Derek was already far too lost in his own thoughts.

As one bird, the ravens took wing, dispersing in all directions, leaving him alone again.

The trouble with trying to go from Alternian to English was a multifaceted one, to be sure, but so far the most obnoxious piece of it that Karkat could see was the tendency of guides on how to speak English to simply use the closest Alternian equivalent as an English word’s translation. More and more, the two languages were notably extremely different, and while he could speak English well enough that he’d never had any serious problems, there were any number of words that he kept tripping over as a result of a translation being extremely unclear and culturally misleading.

Witches, for instance, were clearly something very different on Earth. The Alternian word that was translated to English as “witch” was, like most Alternian words, a series of noises in the ‘click and growl’ family that most humans lacked the anatomy to create, and generally refered to certain lowblood prophets and healers in Alternian folklore. They were those who lived away from society and who, through some lucky genetics and convenient psychic powers, were able to fend of drones and effectively disappear from the world at large’s knowledge. They kept to themselves, sought to harm no one who didn’t attack them first, offered shelter to the weak and the hunted, and as such were always portrayed as utterly despicable beings in fiction, as no writer with any sense of self-preservation had dared to portray such reckless treachery under the rule of the last Condesce. There might have been some changes to the lore under the new one’s rule, but things like that changed slow.

In any case, they certainly weren’t anything like the old woman in a shawl who was sitting next to Roxy in the front of her car.

She was dressed all in black, for one thing. Alternian witches didn’t tend to wear much black. Some Alternian witches didn’t tend to wear all that much clothing at all, really. Most seemed to belong to ancient religions that weren’t particularly fond of shirts.

Ramona was definitely magic as shit, though, Rachel’d been right about that much. Was that all a witch was on Earth, just someone with magic? Fuck, if that were the case, then probably like at least a third of all trolls were witches by Earth’s standards. Then again, maybe magic was another poorly translated word? English didn’t seem to have a word to separate “things that we (read: trolls) know exist, like psychic powers and psiionics and ghosts and chucklevoodoos,” and “things that are super fake and don’t actually happen ever and make no sense.”

Whatever. In any case, Ramona didn’t look at all like Karkat had expected, and when he climbed into the back of the car, she didn’t react to his presence with anything stronger than an amiable nod. She seemed to have her mind on other things, and was largely silent at first.

Roxy wasn’t; she immediately piped up happily as Karkat swung open the door with a “Hey, man! Sorry about taking so long! Can you, uh, do me a favor and check on Jaspers? He’s in the carrier behind Mom, Rose asked me to pick him up while she and Aunt Ray were gone. He’s been missing them a lot, all staring out the window and kneading his blanket and shit, and he’s not a huge fan of car rides.”

“He’s asleep,” Karkat said after glancing into the little crate.

“Awesome. Alright, buckle up and we’ll get this damn show on the road.”

“On the road again, just can’t wait to get on—”

Karkat tilted his head as the car’s radio abruptly changed from quietly playing some human pop song over to something much louder and completely different. Ramona stifled a snort as Roxy stabbed a button, switching the radio back to the previous channel.

“No, thank you,” she said, glaring. “Christ, the fuck is with this thing today, I swear to god.”

“I suppose it may simply be getting into the spirit of things,” said Ramona with a smile. As the car pulled away from the curb, she turned back a bit to face Karkat. “It’s Karkat, isn’t it? Rachel’s been sending me any number of emails with updates, and from the sound of things, you’ve been rather instrumental in bringing young Dave back into the fold, so to speak.”

“…Into the what?”

“It’s a figure of speech, meaning in this case that you’ve helped us return him home as well as helping him to adjust to being there,” she said. “For which you have all of our heartfelt thanks. Ours is perhaps not the most functional of families, but it  is ours, and as I’m sure you’ve seen firsthand, ripping away a piece of it the way Derek did has had some very painful consequences for all involved. We owe you a great deal.”

“Yeah, man!” Roxy said. “And from what Rose has been telling me, you were kind of a big part of why he finally spilled what he knows. Which, he did bee-tee-dubs, which means he’s off house arrest finally, so that’s good—”

“—And a partridge in a pear tree,” the radio crackled.

“What the fuck? It’s August,” Roxy scowled. She turned the radio off altogether as Ramona glanced hurriedly out the window.

“Speaking of Dave,” Karkat said, hopefully before anyone got distracted again, “Roxy, you mentioned that there was something that you needed to say face to face?”

“Right, shoot, yeah,” said Roxy. The car turned onto the long road that led eventually to the Lalonde hive. “Okay, so, like. There’s definitely some shit you should know before we get there, but I wanna preface it all real clearly by saying that Dave’s okay, y’know? He’s got a lot of healing to do, but the doctors said that as long as he’s looked after and we change bandages and shit and he gets plenty of rest, he’s definitely not in any danger anymore. He’s…weak, but he’s not like gonna keel over at any moment, okay?”

“Not actually making me feel any better, Roxy!” said Karkat. Oh, boy, with a preface like that…

“Well, fuck, I tried, I guess. Uh. So, Dave did get hurt…pretty bad, and there were some other complications—oh, for fuck’s sake!!”

“Watch me, watch me, hey, watch me, watch me!” The radio was louder than ever. Ramona’s hand flew up, poorly hiding a grin.

Karkat leaned around Roxy’s seat to glare at her.

“What the fuck, Roxy,” said Karkat.

“I’m not doing this!” Roxy said, waving her hand wildly. “I swear to fuck, I wouldn’t! I really do need to pass on some shit about poor Dave, and the radio’s never done this before? It’s been acting up since a little before we picked you up, keeps changing on its own and shit, augh!”

She fought with the controls, but the song stopped only for a moment before getting even louder.

“Why the fuck do you humans even have this obnoxious song?! Who listens to this?? It’s literally just some squawking wiggler screeching for its lusus’s attention!”

“I mean, I kinda love it for that honestly, it’s terrible and stupid and wonderful, but like, come the fuck on??? What’s with this thing?! Now is not the time!”

“Ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass ass—“

“GOD, that’s even worse!!” Roxy yelled, slamming her fist down on the dashboard. “Fucking stop!!”

“That’s enough for now,” Ramona said, almost murmuring it.

The radio turned off. Karkat and Roxy both turned a suspicious eye on Ramona, and with equal simultaneity, decided to drop it for now.

“Anyway,” Roxy said slowly, “What I was trying to say is, um…Karkat, do you know what it means for someone to ‘flatline?’ Because, um. Dave kinda did, for like, a minute and a half.”

Karkat shook his head, realized Roxy probably couldn’t see him with her eyes on the road, and said, “Uh, I have no idea what that word means, no.”

“Well, um…”

“It refers to a heart monitor indicating that the heart has ceased beating,” Ramona said. “The machine indicates activity with a line which shows peaks and valleys, and it goes flat when that activity has stopped, thus, ‘flatline’. The organ we call a heart serves an equivalent function to what trolls call a ‘blood pusher’ or a ‘pump biscuit.’”

Karkat felt for a moment like his own pump biscuit had stopped.

“Shit, Mom, when did you get so good at translating to trolls?” Roxy murmured.

Ramona shrugged. “I’ve made efforts to reach out,” she said. “The war ended, after all, and since we’re allies now, it doesn’t hurt to learn about each others’ cultures.”

“His fucking—What?!” Karkat screeched, unable to keep the harsh buzzing whine out of his voice. God, that was such a moirail noise, and any other time he’d have yelled at himself for not keeping it under control, but not now, not when… “His fucking blood pusher stopped and I’m supposed to be calm!?!”

“They got it moving again!” Roxy said. “He’s okay now, the doctors said it was going strong! It was, um, mostly just exhaustion, they think? Like, the burn wounds could’ve killed him on their own, sure, but they got on those quick enough that if he’d been healthy to begin with he probably wouldn’t have been so bad off? But between ten years of, you know…and just, apparently he hasn’t been eating enough even while he’s been back with us? And Ray’s gonna get on his ass about that, but, just—look, the thing is, Dirk doesn’t know about this yet, and Aunt Ray’s asked that we try to keep it that way, and I don’t really get why but I think she has her reasons?”

Karkat was definitely hyperventilating, oh fuck, oh fuck—Ramona’s hand reached back to touch his own, snapping him out of it.

“It’s fine to be worried,” she said, gentle. “I promise you, though, it is as Roxy says: he’ll be fine given time to recover and the safety with which to do so. He’ll be alive when we get there.” She sat back in her chair, turning towards the road again. “As for Dirk, I suspect Rachel is waiting for things to settle down before breaking it to him gently. He is, for better or worse, very like his father, and Derek handled his brother’s death poorly, in large part because at the time we could not afford to mourn. Rachel probably wants to make sure that Dirk does not feel he has to force himself to be strong when she tells him.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” Roxy muttered. “Anyway, the main thing about that is that he’s not got a lot of energy right now, so don’t…take it personally if he just falls asleep on you sometimes? Especially with the painkillers he’s on, apparently that’s a side effect, too. He can walk short distances, but he gets wobbly quick and needs help sometimes, so there’s that too.”

“Fuck,” said Karkat, softly.

The next ten minutes of the ride were carried out in tense silence. This was broken by the radio once again bursting back on and blasting the ass song again, at which point Roxy threatened to pull over and smash the fucking thing to smithereens.

By the time they actually got to the fucking house, Karkat felt like his soul was going to vibrate right out of his fucking body with impatience. They had yet another delay in the form of Terezi’s protection detail—Terezi herself wasn’t there, but some officers were, and they insisted on knowing about any weapons the three of them had as well as names, and went in to check with the family while making them all wait outside by the car. Karkat already had his fucking bag in hand, he was ready to go, but no, they had to go through this tedious procedure! Sure, it was probably a smart move, and when he was feeling a little more sensible he’d be more okay with it as it was the sort of thing that probably would make them all feel a bit safer (especially poor fucking Dave), but right now the were a pain in the ass and he was going to fucking explode!!! If they didn’t!!! Let him get in the fucking hive!!!!!

Rose stepped out as they were still talking to the police, and for the first time in his life Karkat was unspeakably happy to see her. She quickly confirmed to the police that all three of them were in fact expected and trusted by this household, and then gently let Jaspers out of his carrier. The cat immediately yowled and threw himself into her arms, kneading at her shoulders and rubbing his face against hers, and it all would have been super cute if Karkat didn’t have his mind on other fucking things.

“Come on in,” Rose said, nodding towards the door. “Dirk’s on the couch and Dave’s in Mom’s room, as neither of them can handle stairs right now and Dave needs his bandages changed at least twice a day. Karkat, do you—”

She was talking to air. He was already in the fucking door.

And then had to face the fact that he’d never actually been to Rachel’s room. Fuck. Rachel was coming up the hall, though, and a slightly bewildered young human (wait, fuck, that was Dirk, what happened to his hair? It looked so weird hanging down like that instead of spiked up) was sitting on the couch with an Earth husktop on his lap. Roxy pushed in the door with Ramona right behind her, dropped a heavy wheeled bag right next to the door, and immediately launched herself at Dirk, who gave a startled yelp as she did so.

Rachel rested a hand on Karkat’s shoulder as she passed him, rushing up toward Ramona throwing her arms around her shoulders. The two shared a long hug, and Rachel kissed Ramona’s cheek.

“God, I’m so glad you’re here,” Karkat heard Rachel murmur, before Rose tapped his shoulder.

“I was asking if you knew where Mom’s room is,” Rose said.

“Uh.”

“It’s down the hall to the observatory, but you take a left before you get to it. Make sure to make plenty of noise on the way over, Dave gets really jumpy when he’s the only person in that room. He can’t block the door since we need to be able to come in and out, and it’s got him a bit on edge.”

Karkat nodded, unable to get any words out past the lump in his throat. He more or less just dropped his bag on the ground and pushed past, zooming around toward the room indicated. Dave looked half-asleep when Karkat pushed the door open, and waved as he sat up with some effort.

God, the photo Rose had taken didn’t do justice to how fucking bad he looked. There were bruises across his face and neck turned a weird greenish-gray but still dark against his skin, and bandages everywhere, his hair was a mess (although that might have just been from sleeping). He was in some oversized shirt with an Earth hoofbeast on the front that was probably Dirk’s judging by the size, and Karkat had no idea why Dave had it on but right now he didn’t care.

“Hey, man, uh. Shit’s been crazy, huh?” Dave said with an awkward grin. He didn’t have his shades on either, which made sense if he’d been sleeping, except they weren’t on the bedside table (which did instead contain a nearly empty glass of water, several bottles of pills and salves, and a first aid kit from which clean cloth bandages overflowed).

Two weeks of emotion boiled over all at once. Wordless, Karkat stomped across the room and grabbed Dave’s stupid fucking shirt in both hands and tugged him close.

“It was three days, Dave,” Karkat hissed.

“Wha—?”

“Three days! And you got yourself fucking kidnapped by a terrorist on day goddamn two!! What the fuck, Dave?!” His voice was threatening to abandon him, but Karkat forced it right back into place by sheer willpower. This tangent would not be fucking stopped, hell no. “I take my eyes off of you for two days, and you get yourself into shit again! What the fuck!!! Do you have any idea how-how fucking agonizing it’s been waiting for news?! And you’re just sitting there like ‘Oh, hey! What’s up?’ What’s up is my foot up your waste chute, you hopeless fucking—!” Okay, nope, his voice was leaving after all, actually. He felt tears roll down his face, and he should’ve been more worried about that, but Dave already knew about his blood color and he was the only troll in the house right now, so, fuck it, fuck it all! Helpless, he tugged Dave closer again, letting his face press against that stupid shirt, claws still twisted into the fabric as he sobbed.

“Holy shit,” Dave muttered.

“I was so fucking scared,” Karkat gasped. This was pathetic, they weren’t remotely a couple, Karkat had no right to be this worked up and he knew it, but…Dave wasn’t exactly pushing him away, either, was he?

“I’m sorry, man, I didn’t even…It wasn’t planned this time, it just sorta happened, and Dirk got hurt, and I…”

“I’m not actually angry at you, despite having so much right to be that legislacerators everywhere have preemptively declared me innocent. I���m just fucking screaming for the sake of it, dumbass.”

“Oh.”

The awkward pause that followed was filled with only the sound of Karkat’s weeping, which, fuck, he was probably too fucking embarrassed to tell him off. Except…Dave’s hand lifted up to rest gently against Karkat’s back, so, maybe he didn’t mind that much? Was that wishful thinking?

“Sorry for this,” he said, just in case, as he pulled away a bit. “It’s really fucking embarrassing, I know, I just…”

“It’s cool, man,” said Dave. Then, with a wink, he said, “I know you got your massive Strider homocrush, it’s only natural—”

“Dave, I swear to fuck, injured or not, I will pummel you into dust with a fucking pillow, don’t test me!” Karkat snapped.

Dave snorted. “Hey, man, it’s fine, everyone’s allowed to be a lil gay sometimes with their friends, it’s only natural.”

“I’ll ‘natural’ you!! Motherfucker, I spent the two weeks worrying about your wellbeing and you come at me with more of this bullshit!!”

Dave cackled with laughter. Karkat rolled his eyes and sniffled. He feigned annoyance as best he could, but, God, it was such a relief to hear Dave laugh. Rubbing a sweater sleeve furiously across his eyes, Karkat pulled back, sitting awkwardly on the edge of the bed. “Okay, but seriously, what’s with the shirt?” he asked, gesturing at the floating head of the hoofbeast. It wasn’t even a joke or a drawing. It was just…a straight photo of a hoofbeast’s face, with no text or explanation of any sort. What the fuck??

Dave glanced down, and snickered. “Oh, shit. Uh, yeah, we needed something that’s easy to get me in and out of, since the bandages on this fuckin’ burn need to be changed like, a lot, not to mention the gross-ass cream they have us slathering all over it on the regular. We tried a button down, but the buttons were kinda chafing, and like…who the fuck wants to ruin a fancy shirt with gross burn juices, right? And Dirk’s shit is more comfortable, and this one’s big enough that it’s real easy to take off even if I’m high on the damn painkillers.”

Karkat winced slightly, but decided not to comment. The scream from the video echoed somewhere in his think pan. “Where’re your shades?”

“Bro fuckin’ stepped on them or something, man, I dunno. They fell off at some point, and they were already cracked before all that, and Terezi just found pieces. Which fucking sucks, I mean God dammit, those were a gift from John. Shit sucks.”

“John?” Karkat tipped his head.

“Yeah, he’s like, an old friend of mine. Have I not mentioned him to you? Whatever, he, uh.” Dave scratched at the side of his head. “He was an online friend from before Bro started doing the, uh, raid shit, and I kept talking to him and another friend, Jade, for a while afterwards even though I wasn’t supposed to?”

“Jade’s name I remember,” Karkat said.

“Haha, yeah, yeah cuz I told you about…anyway.” He cleared his throat. “I guess since Dirk’s college is starting up again soon, not that he’s going for the first couple weeks with his leg and a fucking concussion, but, it’s starting up, and John’s sister goes there too, and he’s gonna come with so we’ll be able to hang out for a bit? Which is fuckin’ rad, I haven’t even talked to the guy in three years and we’re finally meeting in person.”

“You want him to be here? While you’re this badly injured?” Karkat yelped.

Dave blinked at him like he’d just grown a secondary head.

“I mean, yeah?” Dave said. “Like, yeah, I’m not in great shape and I guess it’ll be a lil weird for him to see me like this, but I’ve missed him.” Before Karkat could press the question further, though, Dave yawned. “Ugh, fuck, I wanna keep talking, but I’m…halfway to falling asleep, shit.”

“Oh,” said Karkat. He got up, ready to leave. He wanted to stay, wanted to curl himself around Dave’s obnoxiously lanky frame as best he could and protect this fragile idiot human from the entire universe, but…it wasn’t his place, was it? No.

“You leaving?” said Dave, rubbing at his unbruised eye.

“You said you wanna sleep,” Karkat said.

“Right. Uh. Could you, like…fill this back up for me, then, I guess?” Dave said.

“…Sure,” said Karkat.

He was…still confused, but Dave was tired, so he didn’t press. But he couldn’t wrap his head around wanting a friend around while he was so injured—well, he’d wanted Karkat around, hadn’t he? He’d seemed happy to see him, aside from the, uh, yelling. Still, it didn’t make sense! Every troll knew as a small child that the only people you could trust when you were injured were your lusus, your moirail, and maybe your matesprit! Anyone else might take advantage of the weakness and kill you, that was just basic logic! But Dave didn’t even seem to be thinking about it.

And…and yet, come to think of it, Roxy’d been awfully forthright about how bad Dave’s condition was. Hell, she’d heard it from Rose, who seemed like the one most likely to know not to spread that weakness, but the humans were all sharing it and passing it around. It wasn’t just that they didn’t seem to care who knew that Dave and Dirk were injured, it was like they wanted people to know.

And as he filled up the glass of water in the kitchen, he watched as Roxy and Dirk talked on the couch, as Dirk told her that he’d passed on the news of their condition to Jane already, that Rose had told her and Dave’s friends, and it just kept going. Everyone had to be up to date on the fact that both brothers were injured and vulnerable, and yet…

“I hope the flight wasn’t too long,” Rachel was saying to Ramona.

“Nothing would be too long right now,” she said in turn, blowing gently on a cup of tea that Rachel had just poured her. “Times like these, we all need to do our part. I know I might not be able to do much, mind you. My leg’s been acting up something fierce, as of late, but I’ll do whatever I can.”

Something clicked. All at once, the curtains pulled back and Karkat saw the whole picture—saw maybe not what it always was, and certainly not what the Lalondes achieved on any sort of regular basis, but what it was supposed to be, how it was meant to work.

On Alternia, everyone lived in constant competition. Trolls had to be strong as close to all the time as they possibly could, or at the very least find a moirail who could, because otherwise their society wouldn’t particularly care much if they died. That just meant they didn’t deserve to be a part of the gene pool or to contribute to society. If they were injured badly and left vulnerable, it was seen as normal for others to take advantage of that weakness and exert power or outright kill a rival. It was how they survived so long, or so the cultural narrative had so long stated: by this competition, the strongest survive. Nevermind that this survival was built on the corpses of uncountable trolls who didn’t make the cut, it Worked.

As a result, trolls had been bewildered just as Karkat had by how humans as a species managed to be so frail and yet so reckless and to still survive, especially when they didn’t exactly have the kind of numbers that trolls did. Humans lacked the numbers to be expendable, lacked the strength and toughness that kept Trolls alive, and yet they looked Death in the eye and pointed and laughed, and pushed themselves to extremes for no purpose other than to have some warped idea of fun. It was a question that had lingered around his consciousness for ages; how the fuck do humans even work as a species? How had such a seemingly doomed race not died off yet?

The answer that hit him now, as he watched Roxy help Dirk stand up and balance himself on a pair of crutches, was that humans didn’t have to be strong all the time, and that was the magic of their little social units, their families—they took care of each other. No one person had to be good at everything, or so good at one thing that it could keep them safe in any situation. It didn’t matter that their skin was thin or that they weren’t particularly strong or fast, they always, always had others around who would pick up the slack, others who would come even across oceans to offer what aid they could in times of strife; they weaved together all their strengths and weaknesses into a fabric able to withstand just about anything. Fuck, no wonder they’d wanted Dave back so badly. The Lalondes may have been less a tapestry and more a patchwork quilt, but it was still their quilt, and Dave was a part of it….

He felt a near-agonizing pang of envy that he didn’t have a quilt of his own. Humans might have been stupid about a lot of things, but this…this they’d gotten right.  

“Fucking water? Is that really the best you could think of? Fucking dumbass,” Dave muttered to himself. God. This was stupid. This was all really fucking stupid. He couldn’t even deal with being alone while he was asleep, for Chrissakes! Too scared of nightmares of a big mean dog, like some fuckin’ little kid.

Yeah, he was tired, but he really, really didn’t wanna be alone right now, was the thing. Not with that fucking troll-drug-induced nightmare lingering around the edges, waiting to chase him down again at its first chance. But. Like. Karkat was kind of right? Bros don’t watch each other sleep, that’s fuckin’ creepy. Like. Okay, so maybe they’d done a bit of that way back when Karkat had been kidnapped, but they didn’t have a choice back then, and anyways they mostly slept at the same time during that experience, which was super different from just asking his best alien friend to fuckin’ hold his hand so the  bad dreams wouldn’t get him. Fuck.

So he’d asked Karkat to refill his glass, even though he wasn’t thirsty right now, because it was an excuse to make Karkat come back, at least for a few more minutes, and they could talk for a bit, and maybe Dave’d stop being tired, wouldn’t that be rad.

Karkat came back in looking really thoughtful. He handed the glass over, and Dave took a sip to try and look like he hadn’t been 100% bullshitting there, and mumbled a thanks as he set it down. Then, just as a thought, he jerked his head toward the rest of the bed—it was a big king-sized one, probably left over from before the divorce and Mom had just never downsized or whatever, so there was a lot of space to Dave’s right—and told Karkat he could sit down if he wanted, Dave wasn’t gonna, like, pass out right this minute or anything, haha.

Karkat stayed quiet, which was fuckin’ weird, but he did sit down. He stared at the sheets for a minute, and then spoke up suddenly, saying, “I think I get it.”

“Get what?” said Dave.

“Why they wanted you back so bad,” said Karkat. “I mean, way back when you were first arrested. I kind of fought with Dirk over it at one point, because my only experience with the word Dirk used for why you should be with him was fucking Strider. And also I think I get why this shit all works, for humans in general. I mean, I’m probably just saying obvious shit, but it’s not how trolls work, we don’t take care of each other, not like this.”

Dave tipped his head.

“I mean with the whole fucking family thing,” Karkat said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve been trying to get it this whole time, but this shit’s used to justify so much bullshit with you humans, and I think I get it now, and why it’s so fucking important to you as a species.”

Dave snorted. “Dude, it’s not that big a thing—”

“It is, though! It just seems normal to humans because it’s how you always work, but, Dave, I’m serious, back on Alternia it’s every troll for themself. Maybe you  have one person who has your back if you’ve got a moirail, maybe some are lucky like me and have friends who are actually consistently on your side and won’t take the first chance they get to kill you or fuck you up some other way, but we definitely don’t have a whole cluster of others we can just fall back on any time we’re met with something we can’t handle alone.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” Dave started, but Karkat just kept going. Apparently he’d had some sort of fuckin’ epiphany in the past two minutes.

“It took me so fucking long to get this, but I get it now! You know what I don’t get, though, is why the fuck you ever tried to convince me that Strider is part of your fucking family.”

Something in Dave dropped like a stone.

He’d…had a similar thought, really. Repeatedly. Multiple times, over the past week or so. He’d been kind of trying to avoid it, because every time it popped up, he got really stressed out.

“And don’t give me any of the bullshit about being ‘related’ or what the fuck ever, I don’t wanna hear it,” Karkat kept right on going. “I still don’t get why you humans care so much about that. The whole point of this family thing is that you all take care of each other, not that you’re related or whatever! Your aunt’s here, did you know that? She flew across an entire fucking ocean just to make sure she could help out you and Dirk! What the fuck did Strider ever do for you?”

It was a good question. And the answer, of course, was: aside from trying to  kill him, do you mean? Hahaha.

Karkat was still talking, but Dave wasn’t really hearing him. Fuck, this had been a mistake, he should’ve taken his chances with the fucking nightmare dog. That was better than this old song and dance with his own thoughts.

The facts were pretty simple. He’d operated under pretty clear logic when he went up against Bro: We’re family, so he loves me, so therefore if I ask him to let me leave and explain that I really can’t deal with this, he’ll let me go. Except, Bro had tried to kill him, which meant that…

That was as far as Dave ever got. He couldn’t think any farther than that.

He felt like…like the next thought should be obvious, but he couldn’t make himself think it. It was too big—not so much a square peg in a round hole as it was trying to cram a grain silo into a pinhole, and the thought threatened to overwhelm and destroy him, so instead of thinking it, his brain kept rejecting it, the effect being like a broken record skip-skip-skipping, over and over, repeating the last thought he could get to before the Big One, because he couldn’t not think the Big One, either…

It was so fucking stupid, it was just a thought, why couldn’t he…

“Hah, yeah, now that you mention it, I guess I was always kinda wrong about this shit, wasn’t I?” Dave said, unable to stop the sardonic laughter bubbling up in his throat. “I mean, fuck, no wonder it took you so long to get, I probably gave you the wrong idea. My dumb ass was convinced he’d never try to kill me, cuz we’re family, and, well, here we fuckin’ are!”

Skip, skip, skip—

Karkat was still talking in stuttered phrases in the gaps of Dave’s own flood of words, looking almost scared, but Dave didn’t comprehned any of them, and anyway, the ranting had started, there was no stopping this shit now. “Like, what the fuck was I even thinking, right? I really thought that was gonna work, that somehow he’d just let me go if I asked, like a fucking idiot! Haha, what a fuckin’ dipshit, right?! And here I was thinking he—” Frantic laughter bubbled up, overtaking the words, not that more would’ve come, that next thought was just too big. Was he crying? Fuck, Karkat didn’t need to see any of this shit, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t think

Skip, skip, skip, skip, skipskipskipskipskipskip—

It wasn’t Karkat’s fault. It really wasn’t. He might’ve set it off, but the storm had been building up for days, now, and it broke hard, sweeping Dave up in a torrent of just wordless mental screaming. He couldn’t think the next thought. He couldn’t. But the thing was damming him up, and he couldn’t ignore it anymore, and he was stuck in the middle and left to just completely melt down and dissipate into the flood.

A sound like a cicada crossed with the creakiest horror movie door ever to creak ripped through the tides, and suddenly Dave found himself tugged into a full body hug, wrapped up in four limbs with his face pressed into a thick sweater. The touch dragged him out of the flood and onto dry land, brought him back into now before he even knew what was happening. Karkat’s whole chest was vibrating with some intense cricket-cat hybrid purr, and this should’ve been so embarrassing but he was so tired and so lost and it was fucking comforting, so who the fuck cared. Who cared anymore. It was all bullshit. He could be embarrassed later.

Too soon, Karkat seemed to have the same thought, and tried to pull away. “Shit, sorry, I shouldn’t—fuck, I’m so sorry, this is really presumptive and I know you aren’t even into boys,” he babbled.

Dave groaned, wrapping his arms around Karkat’s chest and pulling him close. “Dude, if you try to make this about alien romance right now, I swear to fuck,” he gasped out between harsh sobs. Christ, he was going harder than Karkat did like twenty minutes earlier, what the fuck.

Karkat paused. Good. It meant his warm arms were still there. “Dave, I…I mean, this is troll romance, this is textbook moiraillegience, and I shouldn’t just be throwing myself at you because you had a moment of weakness, no matter how bad I, uh.”

Dave sniffled, wracked his brain for a moment…Karkat had explained this stuff about a million times, which one was…”That’s like…the bros quadrant, right?”

“The what.”

“The one that’s, like, platonic and shit.”

“…Yeah?” The cricket-purr started up again, cautiously.

“We fuckin’ kinda do most of that shit already, don’t we?” Like. Yeah. He wasn’t gay. That was still a thing. But Karkat was warm and solid and real and Dave was fucking exhausted and didn’t want to be alone, especially not when he felt right now like he was wrapped in safety. “Please, Karkat,” he added, because why not beg. He was already at maximum pathetic, there was no digging this hole lower, fuck it. “I really don’t wanna be alone right now, just, please don’t go.”

Karkat was quiet for a long moment, but finally, the cricket-purr went back to full volume and Karkat’s arms tightened around him.

“Okay,” Karkat said quietly. Dave let out a breath he’d barely known he’d been holding and went back to crying.

“We’re going to have to talk about this later,” Karkat murmured, which put him at about normal volume for anyone else.

“Later, then,” said Dave, and let himself finally fall the fuck asleep.

[leighasnotebook]

Title - Hey Future Leigha ;P

So.. I'm broke as fuck. I can't even seem to get a job. A job at a place I dont even like but need. I barely even made it home from internship at the humane society in Indy. I am on BELOW empty. I tried to sell a galaxy s4 at disc replay to get me by and they wouldnt even take it because apparently theres something wrong with it. So that was dissappointing as fuck too. I've been forced to borrow money from my mom who I STILL live with. So apparently I dont even have the abilty to be independent right now. Sure Im in school but I cant even afford to put gas in my tank to get there and I still owe 1000 dollars or more to my school. I dont even know where Ill work after I get my certificate. Thats right.. CERTIFICATE.. not a actual degree. Still. I stupidly decided to get a credit card a few years ago and now I'm maxed out and cant afford to pay it off. I at least have gotten on a payment plan that will make the interest 0% and make my monthly payment lower. My phones fucked because I broke the goddamn screen on it. So no one can even call me unless its on the house phone and I'm not home all the time AND its a cordless that apparently has fucked batteries in it because it just shuts off after like 10 - 15 minutes. I shouldve never even gotten a stupid "smart" phone. All its done is make me feel guilty about the extra money my MOM is spending for it on the bill. And it is way more fragile than a flip phone. Sure the extra shit on it was fun but I dont even need it. I dont care if Im "stuck" in the old times. At least it was reliable. I have grown up in my life with a nice place to live and nice things but that just isnt me. I know when I live on my own I wont live in a nice place and I wont have nice things. Its as if Ive been blindfolded to my actual lifestyle to the point where I agreed to getting nice things. Things Id never be able to afford by myself. After my car got totaled I got a 12k settlement which I had my dad take care of because he wanted to take it to use to get me a new car. Well he decided to get me a fucking expensive newer car.. the accident happened oct. 1st 2013.. I ended up driving a rape van (huge burgendy van with bars on the windows) to and from Ivy Tech and work for about half a year or more before my dad decided to take out a loan for a Toyota Camry 2013! Why on earth would you opt to get me a expensive car like that when I cant even afford gas or live on my own!? Now Im fucked because I cant pay the car payment.. my dads paying it which makes him think for some reason that its his vehicle. No on the contrary it was his decision to spring for a newer car of which I am entitled to 12k of. so yeah now I have a investment in something I cant even use because the insurance is insanely high and I cant afford it. Sigh Im just so fed up with all of this bullshit. If I could sell everything I have right now and just start new, that would be ideal. Sell the fucking Toyota, use the money to pay off my credit card bill, pay off school and maybe have enough to secure a place for me and my dog to live. Because I am not a goddamn straight woman who has a boyfriend to pay for half of everything. I feel like alot of girls live with their boyfriends and get off easy. Well thats not an option for me is all Im saying. I can barely even find a lesbian whos responsible and even has enough income to hold up their half of living expenses.. I cant say shit about that right now since Im in the same boat but still. Even when I do (which I usually do) have all my resources I still cant find a responsible GF. Either way Id still be dependant on whoever I was living with to keep my place. Even if they were a roommate. Which I guess would be the same financially if it were a significant other providing half. anyway.. Ive been trying goddamn hard to get a job. I signed up for Rover.com to watch dogs or walk dogs for people but IDK if my background check came back clean. which it should because I spent extra money so that it would be. Beyond all.. I am seriously just fed the fuck up with trying to manage all of the bullshit that I have to. It feels like I need 3 of me to accomplish all the shit in front of me. I am overwhelmed I guess is what that means. I feel so useless in the world. The only thing keeping me from spiraling into a severe depression is the fact that Im going to school for something that I love doing. Knowing that in a month and a half Ill be graduating is whats keeping my head up. Other than that.. its my friends and animals that hold up the rest. Some days I for real just want to get drunk and say.. FUCK IT ALLLLL. which is kind of what im doing right now.. but guess what? my box of cheap ass wine is almost gone so this will be a short lived release until im fucked again.. and cant even go to a party I was invited to go to on sunday. Im writing very unhinged right now. I need a goddamn stupid dumb job. And Ive been trying to get one for months. Now its even harder without a cellphone. "hey yeah just call my house phone and let me know about that job" just doesnt jive well with me because ITS A FUCKING HOUSE PHONE.. better than nothing but its real fucked trying to get a job when you cant answer your phone bc you dont have one of your own. gaaaahahahahaha fuckckkckck Im just so fucking stressed. I feel like I cant accomplish anything with the materials I have right now. Even if I had some money.. Got a full tank of gas and paid off my monthly bills I still wouldnt just magically have a job. Even if I got my phone screen replaced. Goddamn and Ive tried going into places but apparently Im a dumbass and come at the wrong times. Sigh.. just. fucking. schedule. me. for. a. interview. its not that hard. Theyre like "oh yeah were hiring" but other than saying that sentence they are so fucking unhelpful. "oh did you apply online?" uhh duh yeah I did you fuck. Why in the fuck would I not fill out an application and expect an interview. Fuckin assholes.. like I get it.. youre busy. but hey you wanna know what would ease that? If I was working right now and could take some of the work load off. Everytime someone would call about a job I would be so informative and supportive because I know what its like. Plus if I ever feel like Im overworked- which is alot of the time at those quick turnover jobs- I WANT the person inquiring about a job to get the job. Why? because I need them to take some of my workload off. Thats how it happens at pizza hut at least. you start with a bunch of people and then they dwindle down to where everyone is being over worked and more workers are needed as to not kill everyone who still works there. sigh.. I dont even want to work at pizza hut again but at this point I will take any fucking job I can get. I am being nickeled and dimed.. just like that fucking book I had to read in school. Given, all of it was brought upon my by my own past hand. I cant do anything about the past and its legit my past self just going crazy on a credit card that has me so fucked right now. After I get these cards paid off I will NEVER EVER EVER have another credit card again. I cannot be trusted with it. Great that I know that now that Im in debt out my ass. Yeah yeah and I have this theory that I learn things in life by trial error.. and guess what.. IVE FUCKING LEARNED.. and now that I have im still super fucked. Usually my trial error didnt cause me this much detrimental pain and suffering. usually it was like touching a hot stove and it was over with. but no.. this has been a very slow stinging burn that wont let up. I know.. I know that I will have to kill myself working my ass off and not having any shred of a life to get out of this hole. but the thought of it just really really makes me sad. Not saying It makes me not want to get a job. because NO WAY I need a job ASAP like yesterday. like if someone walked up and would pay me 20 dollars to eat a worm I would. Because it would spare me the shame in asking my mom YET AGAIN for gas money. God I am so tired of asking anyone for ANYTHING. Its the last thing I want to do in fact. Theres only so much you can ask of someone before they decide they wanna say nope.. youre on your own. and you know? Im surprised my mom hasnt told me no yet. Shes really really helpful. I think she understands me but also just wants me to get a job already so I wont keep borrowing from her. Which is understandable completely.. and thats exactly what I want too. At least i dont just sit around getting drunk and stoned all day in my pajamas. Im actually trying here. Theres nothing more that I want to just have a steady income. I dont care what kind of shit I have to drudge through to get to that point. I am so able bodied and ready to sweat and work and give myself away to a corporation for money. But guess where Im going to get the gas money to get to that job? FUCK IF I KNOW lol. goddamnit. I have really done it this time. How did I let it get this bad? How did I let myself fall so far? I dont even have anything else to sell to disc replay and the only other things I have to sell are all my paintball equiptment.. and I dont even really know how I would go about doing that. Craigslist? idk. I am flailing..... my wings are clipped and i cant fly. I have maybe a few dollars in change right now. Man how I used to just throw it in a jar willy nilly when I had a job. Not touching it at all for months and months. and now its all I have. FUCK. my rope is covered in kerosine and its been on fire for months. Someone in this world needs to cut me a fucking break and give me a job. Just 1 fucking person to say "you got the job, heres your uniform, come in monday at 8". I have been able to keep my hope through the worst of situations in my life. I feel it wearing reaaally thin right now. I almost had to walk miles just to get home today. you know its bad when you cant even afford to drive home. When youre just waiting for your car to give out and its screaming "i need gas!!!" You actually make it home and you get out of the car and hug it and praise it. Thank you. Thank you so much for holding out on me. I will get you gas as soon as I can I promise. Its like if you were traveling by horse and didnt have any water or grains for it to sustain itself but it powers through for you. I feel like a huge bum slacker bitch. Like I shouldve worked harder. done this done that. And maybe I wouldnt have ended up in this tight situation. The only thing in this world that is mine is my body and my animals and the relationships I have with my friends. I'm going to call Pizza hut right now. Ive been trying to fucking get this interview scheduled and they keep being little bitches over the phone. Not this time. I wont let it happen. "oh were in a lunch rush" dude. no. Fuck off. lol. Not this time. BRB. ya okay same old shit.. OH the hiring manager isnt here. Okay I understand but why dont you ACTUALLY give them my name and number and HAVE them call me. I know I know I will call the HIRING MANAGER on monday. See? its just a let down. I will call monday and demand an interview. I am more than qualified for your dumb job. anyway.. I know my friends and family will always be around to help me out. But I am a very stubborn person and have always wanted to do things my way and on my own. asking for help is something that I hold as a last resort. In the situation im in I am at my last resort time. It takes money to make money. money for the gas- to go to work- to get the money- for the gas- to get to work. Thats a 2 week process in itself. once I get past that threshold Ill be more self-sustaining. GGaaah! Please.. UNIVERSE! Im begging you!! Give me a job! Please please please please please! I need to get back ontop of it all. Hold out hope... hold out hope... crunching gears inside me trying to keep that train moving. GO. keep the rusty gears going. Keep swimming like Dory says. I feel like im trying to keep swimming but im in a puddle barely sustaining life itself. Gasps of water into my drying gills every couple seconds. All the while "hold out hope, just keep swimming" goes through my head like a mantra. I go from being super hopeful and positive to super hopeless and negative. Sometimes I'm just on this mid-line pergatory where I dont know how to feel or how I should feel. I know that a lot of people deal with hardships like me. Usually just pushing all their feelings down day to day thinking.. eh ill figure it out. Somethings got to give in for me. things will be different and get better soon. This isnt the end of the world. Im not dieing.. yet. But there are times where no matter what your troubles.. you cannot just push it down anymore. You have to sit there and stare into the eyes of a skull and think.. things are going bad. This isnt how it should be. I shouldnt feel like this. Something is wrong in this equation because its not equaling out right. So here I sit. In my familiar place where Ive faced a lot of things in life. In the garage. (wow a disc replay commercial just came on the radio.. how ironic... fuck u guyz lol). Ive dealt with sooo much in this garage. Most of my epiphanies have happened in here. Most of my hardships. At least in my adult life. And when I wasnt in Terre Haute. Always staring at stuff in here. Listening to the radio. Smoking cigarettes. Drinking. Thinking. [insert link to In The Garage by Weezer here] I cant even explain the range of feelings Ive felt in this garage. Love, lust, loss, depression, happiness, worry, anxiety, calmness, anger, thoughtfulness, perceptiveness, desire, turmoil, empathy, regret, sickness, healthiness, Ive felt hot and cold, bad and good, and at the end of the day when I sit here. It feels so familiar. It could be anywhere. but in this little box on the planet is where all these things have opened up like a bud. So many conversations with friends, on the phone, in person. Oh so very telling and depending on if there was snow, dead leaves, flowers, or sun outside the dynamic would change ever so slightly. And as friends have come and gone, people have died or were born, this has been a constant place for me for the last eight years. After I caught a big fish, built a snow fort, or made a drunken dancing video to missy elliot this place stayed the same and was always here. I feel like im confessing a love affair between me and my garage right now.. but I wanted to express my gratitude to these four walls which I believe have absorbed a lot of the things I am talking about right now. I remember when I first started to dwell in this garage. I was still drinking and smoking on the down-low. Didnt want my mom to know. I would listen to the radio and write just like Im doing now except it was often in a notebook. Its the only way for me gain solace in my life sometimes. Love often drove me to worry as I listened to deftones, linkin park, or staind or anything that came on x-103. Id just scribble on page after page I would stop caring if it was legible... That shear fact that id stop caring in general was all I wanted. I wanted to release all my cares into a song or a feeling or a writing. What do I want? who do i need? who AM I ? Sometimes I never know. I dont know things alot. as much as Id like to believe I have every little thing under control.. I never have it all. this isnt to say that its a negative thing. Sometimes you simply cannot wrangle every little thing into a place you think it belongs. often things are flying like kites with brittle strings. they break off and float out of bounds yet still connected just not within reach. Its definitely angering at times. you think.. why cant i keep my shit in check? but if you think about it. maybe it was never "your shit". I really think its better to not stress over things that blow away. Youre in a spot you let shit fly and it ends up gaining its own separate current without you. You cant always be strong enough to keep everything where you want it. It doesnt work that way, you cant control everything. HELL sometimes you cant control anything. and I know how that feels. shit. right now I could still be walking on the side of the road away from my broken down car. holding up my thumb trying to get home. you cant hold everything down with a thumb tac or a bad attitude. things will happen and ya you probably could have avoided some things but I think things happen for a reason. Maybe to teach you that you in fact are not in control. That things are or arent just black and white. Reppercutions.. actions that lead to situations that you have to handle. Its all apart of one thing. you... its you. hah. I mean you make choices.. and theres always a second and third happening. In my case.. it makes me feel like im unintelligent when I make a choice and it causes something bad. Ex. If I were to have to walk home today.. my mind would have been full of .. "well thats because I didnt have enough gas" Well why didnt I? because I didnt have the money. Why didnt I? because I dont have a job. Why dont I have a job? because Im an irresponsible entitled person. I act like the world will bend to my whim when it doesnt work that way. When weve all got the same probability of things going our way. Why should I think I'm any different? why? because of all those times I made it home when my gas tank was below E? what about those times when I didnt get so lucky? that time my car stopped on a highway and I was late to work and I got fired? Its just this numbers game in my head. Will it be okay or not. I never know but my brain urges me to believe yes. youll be okay. and when im not i think well.. It was about a 50/50 that this would happen and I knew that deep down.. so I cant really be too mad right? lets just walk a few miles and get what i deserve. meanwhile I think about everything I could have done that wouldve lead to a different outcome. ya hmm. maybe if i had a job.. id have gas in my tank.. and this wouldnt have happened. maybe..hmm just maybe..? You know when you drive down a highway and you see a person walking it? You can gaurantee that that person is thinking... how could I have avoided this? That person is me that person is you. Walking on the grass on the side of the road.. looking at all the trash people discard from their car windows. Really slows your mind down when youre walking where you normally drive through. You see people zoom by who will get to their destinations on time. Who had the money and intellect to just buy some gas. We all have our days when were in the gutter. When I have mine, it forces me to slow down.. to really look at my life. Why did this happen.... why am I stuck and fucked like this again. Even though I magically made it home today on my below E tank I still see this as a wake-up call. It brings me back to the times when I didnt make it home. I felt like a lost dog. and ya I know.. poor me.. first world problems. Oh man Leigha had to walk 5 miles to get home because she ran out of gas in the automobile that she has available for her to drive 24-7 usually. And dangg. she even had a full meal before this walk.. poor her. I know I know. Its totally crap. Its not like I almost died or was starving and in a desert left to die. In reality, on this planet I am lucky. I am a lucky person. But to say that we still dont have our problems would be to say that anyone with a roof over their head was flawless. It makes me realize that yeah, first world problems are nothing to those in third world countries. But I shouldnt feel invalidated if I have room to improve my life. Everyone in this world has room to improve their lives. I am not solitary in this one bit. in fact I feel like I am unaware of tons and tons of stuff in life. Theres so many times when I just simply dont know something. Makes me feel like I dont know anything about anything sometimes haha. its like "oh you didnt know about this?!?!" uhhh no I didnt. Should I have? Woops? am I squandering my priveledge to learn about things I should know about? When it comes down to it. I am never done learning. I am never done growing as a person. I am so ignorant to so many things simply because I have never been exposed to them. I cant walk the earth acting like I have a grasp on everything when I dont. I dont know what anyone else goes through day to day around the world.. I cant compare my life to anyone elses if I've only lived my own separate life. I can relate to people of course but I do not think that anyone can fully understand how something feels unless it happens to them. sure ill say "oh yeah Ive felt that before" or "I felt like that when... etc etc" but I dont know how it feels through someone elses eyes, in someone elses shoes. What Im trying to say is that I have had some really really hard times. Personally I feel that they are HARD TIMES. For me and maybe me only. Maybe others would look at these "hard times" and laugh and say "HAHAH you think thats hard?". But that being said this is how I feel and it cannot be undermined by anyone. Beyond all these technicalities that I decided had to be stated, right now I feel as though I have entered the abyss. I feel like Im in a place that is neither here nor there. I am a real nowhere man who has no real nowhere plans. I used to want to get a tattoo that was the symbol for "nobody". It was a onyx or something I dont remember the spelling. For a long time I thought I was nobody. I thought I would just bend to the whim of anything or anyone. And at the time, I thought that was just me. Me was nobody since I felt like everybody but nobody at the same time. Then I thought.. hmm I dont think I should get this tattoo because what if someday I become somebody. And im glad that I didnt get that tattoo because I AM somebody. I guess there are sometimes that my past self is right about how my future self will feel. I feel like everyone is usually thinking about the future. How they will be, where they will live, what they'll be doing and who theyll be doing IT with (bow-chicka). And do you know what I think? I think that everyones present self is the best link to that future self. OBVIOUSLY. but think about it like this. You .. RIGHT NOW.. can have a serious effect on your future self. Not just with succeeding and blah blah blah boring shit like that. Listen. About 6 or 7 years ago I made a video of myself talking to my future self. I completely forgot about that video. I came across that video one day and HEY it was ME! I didnt remember it AT ALL. and as I watched it it really really felt like my past self was talking to me. it was SURREAL AS FUCK. and on point! Ever since that day I have been making videos to my future self. Even stating in the video that I know Im going to just be drunkenly watching this video. Which usually is also on point! hah. But I strongly suggest that more people do the same thing. maybe just check in with your future self every now and then and say hey. what the fuck is up?! I hope you arent broke as shit and running out of gas. haha. its actually pretty comical the stuff youll begin to find your past self saying to you. I think documenting your life is a really good thing. You can learn so much just by sifting through your past experiences that youve written down or video taped. Right now for instance I feel like I need some guidance. So I think I will revisit some of my past selfs videos and make another one. You talk about how youre doing and how youve fucked up and tell your future self about all of it. Then in a year or two guess whos giving you pointers? YOU! haha its really actually hilarious. who'd of thought that it would be what you said to yourself 2 years ago that would set your world straight. I think I should go revisit my videos now. I need some guidance. :D In other news. not doing so well right now. This writing has definitely helped. Leigha Horvath- Signing off. ;*