Chapter Text
Eggnog should be illegal.
It’s not just that it’s disgusting (though that’s a major reason—really, who thought of eggnog? Even the name sounds foul) but the fact that everyone, no matter what, always acts like an idiot when they get drunk off of it. Normally, Karkat would think this is hilarious. Normally, he would be enjoying the spectacle of his friends and acquaintances making utter fucking fools of themselves with gleeful abandon.
But tonight, he is cursing eggnog, along with mistletoe, girls, douchebags in shades, and every fucking stupid Christmas party ever.
All he’d wanted was a bathroom. Karkat might be a masochist and a self-destructive shithead, but he did not actively go looking for Terezi, no matter how badly he’d wanted to. He’d been getting over her, dammit; he’d actually sort of been having something that could have potentially been construed as fun! But then he stumbled upstairs because he needed to piss, and bumped—quite literally—into Terezi. Who was sucking face with Dave fucking Strider. And they didn’t even fucking notice.
Karkat fucking hates Christmas.
*
“I am soooooooo drunk right now,” Vriska giggles.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”Kanaya shifts on the couch, knocking Vriska’s head off her shoulder. Vriska slumps back into the cushions.
On the other side of Kanaya, Rose sits primly, watching the crowd with cool, unamused calm. She makes Vriska feel even more trashed just by existing. Vriska bets she hasn’t had a sip of eggnog all night. (God, that stuff should be illegal.)
“Do you think John’s here?”
Kanaya sighs, exasperated. “No, Vriska, we are not having this conversation again. You cannot go looking for him. Especially not like this.”
Vriska sets her lips into her best pout. “I just want to say hi, Fussyfangs. He said we could still be friends!”
“He also said you should try to get over him, and he would do the same,” Rose adds, her lip curled. She is such a bitch. Vriska hates her. “Getting so drunk that you can barely walk straight is not getting over him in a healthy fashion.”
“Fuck you,” says Vriska. “I bet he misses me. I bet he still loves me. You don’t know anything.”
“Vriska, no,” Kanaya says sharply, but Vriska stands—only stumbles once, she notices, savagely glad—and hurries off towards the kitchen, hoping she looks as viciously gorgeous and vindicated as she thinks she does.
John is exactly where she thought he would be. He’s standing right in the entryway to the kitchen, next to the keg, even though Vriska knows the only thing in his cup is root beer, He never drinks. She liked—likes—that about him. There’s a sprig of mistletoe taped to the doorjamb above his head, which could not have been more perfect if she had planned it.
“Heeeeeeeey,” she says, and John looks up. Vriska smiles.
“Mistletoe,” she says, and points.
John’s eyes grow wide. “Vriska, no, you can’t, we broke up—“
Vriska leans in and kisses him, hard, and puts her hands around his waist, and he is so familiar and wonderful that she wants to cry. She has missed him so much.
John mumbles something into her mouth, and she sighs and presses into him, so glad they’re okay now, she knew he still loved her too—
He pushes her away. His eyes—his beautiful blue eyes—do not look turned on or in love. They look frustrated. They look disappointed.
“We can’t , Vriska,” John says gently, and pushes at her shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
“But—“
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and heat rushes up to fill Vriska’s face. He turns and walks away and her eyes burn. She is humiliated.
She rushes out of the kitchen blindly, covering her face with her hands.
*
It took a while for Karkat to find an empty room. The house is big, and upstairs is a warren of dark hallways and rooms, almost all of them full of disgustingly drunk and shameless couples. He has to go to the very end of the hall to find one that’s empty, though it reeks of beer and sweat.
Karkat sinks down by the side of the bed, splaying his legs out on the carpet, and leans back. The ceiling is covered in little glow-in-the-dark snowflakes. He stares at them, squinting until they blur together.
It’s snowing outside. The street is soft and quiet, lit only by sparse streetlamps that catch the flakes in their glare, and Karkat feels as if he’s sitting inside a shaken snow globe.
There’s a loud footstep, and Karkat whips around, already on guard.
“Heeeeeeeey,” says a very visibly drunk Vriska Serket, clinging to the doorframe for support. “Is this room empty?”
“No,” says Karkat, but she smiles wantonly and crashes in, collapsing next to him by the bed. “Thanks,” she slurs. “Thanks…what’s your name? Kirk?”
“Karkat.”
“Thaaaaaaaanks, Karkat.”
“You’re a mess.”
“I know.”
Vriska falls silent, seemingly entranced by the snow. She’s sort of pretty in a sharp, angular way; Karkat wonders if he’d cut himself on her elbows if he tries to touch her.
“Can I tell you something, Karkat?” she asks, and then plunges ahead without waiting for a response. “I’m an idiot. I’m a naïve embarrassment of an idiot. I’m completely fucking trashed. And I hate Christmas,” she adds, almost as an afterthought.
Karkat listens, interested against his will. Vriska is very different from her regular self when she is drunk, it seems.
“Hey, it’s like we’re in a snow globe,” she giggles.
“You’re completely batshit insane,” Karkat says, but he means it affectionately.
After a moment, Vriska puts her head on Karkat’s shoulder. She smells like eggnog and, beneath that, some kind of sweet perfume. Karkat doesn’t know why he lets her stay there—curiosity, maybe, or loneliness—but her edges are softer when they’re pressed up against him.
“Am I unlovable?” she asks softly.
Karkat thinks about everything that he’s ever heard about Vriska—about all the rumors, the whispers about who she’d pissed off or hurt or broken up now, about her long, seemingly-stable relationship with his friend John. Even that ended, though; but John most have seen something in her. Karkat wants to know what it is.
“Nah,” he says. “You’re probably just a bitch most of the time.”
“Oh.” Vriska doesn’t react to that like he thought she would. She just watches the snow, her eyes reflecting the scant moonlight.
Poor girl, Karkat thinks, surprising himself. She doesn’t seem as terrible as he’s heard. Maybe there’s something he’s missing, but she just seems sad and dejected, almost pitiable. Karkat finds himself pitying her.
“You should kiss me,” Vriska says.
Karkat blinks. “Fucking what?”
“You should kiss me. I’m lonely, and it’s cold, and we’re here. And I’m drunk.”
Her logic is so simple that it’s irrefutable. Karkat’s lonely, too, and right now, it doesn’t seem like as bad of an idea as he knows it is. He can’t even think of a single reason to say no.
“You’re stranger than I thought,” he says.
She smiles slowly, her lips parting over her sharp, shiny teeth. “I’ve heard worse.”
Karkat kisses her.
Her lips are cold, but she kisses back languidly, not in any kind of hurry. Her hand moves to his neck, and she sighs into his mouth, and Karkat sort of gathers her up into his arms, all sharp jangling edges and pieces, and holds her together, and she holds him back. And maybe, just maybe, eggnog is not so bad, Maybe Karkat does not completely hate Christmas. Not all of it, at least.