cool cool cool very nice very fun
It was past midnight when Karkat got a response from Terezi.
“Last class is on the 16th, and everythings due that week. Im so ready for this to be over, my brain feels unreservedly fried. Who knew how ethical laws could get am I right lmao just throw the bad guys in jail its that fuckin easy peasy”
“Are you coming home?” He sent back to her, hoping he knew the answer already. She brought up plane ticket prices about a month ago. He tried to stay awake for her response, but it was getting late and he has an early class and a long workout following that. He can’t miss out on any much needed sleep, and despite however dark his undereye bags look, he needs at least seven hours of sleep a night to function and not be a raging asshole. Loading his schedule up to finish school in four years doesn’t typically mean that happens every night.
Much to his fucking chagrin, she hadn’t texted him back last night, or in the morning. It was around 3 pm when he texted his friends to come over so they could hang out and study together to get his mind off Terezi. Maybe shes not ignoring him, and she truly is swamped with work and cant reply. Or maybe they’ve drifted enough apart for her to feel weird coming back and spending time with him. They haven’t seen each other in person since she left him.
When Karkart extended his hospitality to invite his new friends back to his dorm to study for finals and hang out together, he did not expect to get absolutely fucking annihilated for asking if anybody wanted a glass of water. He was pouring one for himself from the Brita with his back towards his friends, sitting among his couch and assortment of chairs in his living room area, if it was even big enough to call it that. He heard muffled laugher coming from Rose and Jade, who was secretly elbowing her.
“Excuse me? A glass of wood?” John scoffed. Dave couldn’t resist the urge to join in on bullying Karkat and added, “Does that WAHTER come in oak or pine flavor or are you happy to see me?” It didn’t really make that much sense, but he got his joke in.
“I don’t even have a real penis, so shut the fuck up,” is what Karkat would have said if he was with Terezi. Instead, he made a show of clearing his throat and overenunciated the question again, “WOULD ANYBODY LIKE A GLASS OF WOOD-ER?” They all laughed and it was a great time, for sure. But Karkat was beating himself up over not using that high-quality retort and coming out in the same sentence, it could have saved him some breath.
It isn’t that he’s insecure with his body still, but he hasn’t publicly come out to anybody on campus yet. Sure, there’s a rainbow pride flag hanging in his dorm room, but that is so open for interpretation, he thought to himself. Is he just a supportive RA? Did he go to pride? Is he gay? Has he spent too much of his childhood fighting with grown-ass transphobes, because they believed he was too young to decide that he wants to be a boy instead? Since the cishets think it would be so silly and goofy if, say, somebody has their pronouns publicly displayed, and then be referred to as ‘opposite ones!!!!!!!’ When it comes down to discussing identity in some of his social science classes, his heart starts pounding in his eardrums with anger and past guilt from not standing up to those who continued to misgender him. So he just grinned and took a sip of his wooder.