Chapter Text
Karkat didn’t remember much of his stepmom’s funeral. Nepeta slid out of her seat and clung to his leg, so he grasped her under her armpits and pulled her up to sit in his lap. Equius stared straight ahead with his hands on his knees and his back stiff; Eridan had fallen asleep on Dad’s elbow, his hair mussed and lashes clumped together from crying.
Dad’s eyes were red-rimmed, but he didn’t cry practically at all, at least not where Karkat could see. Karkat cried a little, but he’d done most of his crying already. He felt kind of guilty for being so sad when she wasn’t even his real mom. His suit collar was stiff and the stupid clip-on tie’s clip was loose and kept poking him in the neck, but when he tried to take it off his dad grabbed his hand to stop him.
He remembers riding to the graveyard because it was the only time he rode in the back of a car next to his dad. “Dad,” he had asked, “Are you gonna be okay?”
Dad smiled and leaned over and hugged him tightly with one arm, which was shaking; Karkat remembers that clearly because it scared him, his dad actually shaking. He said in a watery, crying voice into Karkat’s hair, “Of course, son.” He sniffled. “You’re gonna have to help me out, okay, Karkat? You have to man up now. You’re gonna help our family get through this.”
Karkat hugged his dad back, his hands shaking a little from being scared, but his heart swelled a little with pride at being asked to help. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “No problem.”
“Good boy,” His dad mumbled, pulling back and smiling a watery grin. There were tears on his cheeks.
Karkat smiled back, then scooted over and leaned on his father’s shoulder, feeling warm and safe.
*
Karkat held up the last clean sweatshirt hoodie in his closet and scowled at it.
The cracked, light purple print design seemed to scowl back. It looked like an angry smiling face on a royal purple background and it was two sizes too large for him – a hand-me-down from his older brother.
Karkat hated it.
He was eying his dirty laundry pile and trying to decide if he could pull off wearing his favorite black hoodie one more day with a healthy dose of Febreeze when Eridan slammed the bedroom door open. “Karkat! Equius got his gross sweaty hands all over my scarf and now I can’t wear it!”
Karkat yelped, whirling, and Eridan had the decency to look sheepish, half-hidden behind the door as Karkat glared at him and struggled to throw the ugly-ass hoodie over his head. “You’ve only got one scarf,” Karkat said, muffled. “You’re gonna have to get over it.”
“But it’s gross, look!” Karkat got the hoodie over his head just as Eridan thrust the purple and blue striped scarf out, holding it up by one end; the other trailed along the rug, snaking out the door.
Karkat snatched the end from Eridan’s upturned hands and gathered it off the floor; it was vaguely damp in the middle, but otherwise fine. “Whatever. It’ll be dry before you leave for school.” Karkat whipped it over Eridan’s neck and scooted past him.
“Ew, ew!” Eridan pulled the scarf off his head and followed Karkat out the door. “But I can’t wear it!”
“Ugh, fine! You can wear my scarf today,” Karkat snapped, stomping down the stairs. “We’ll trade.”
“Your scarf is ugly,” Eridan grumbled.
“Either you get an ugly scarf or a sweaty scarf,” Karkat warned, not even looking back. “You pick.”
“Fuck,” Eridan said, in a kind of daring way like he was trying to find out if he could get a rise out of Karkat. Karkat turned to look at him.
Eridan was precociously tall for a second grader, but he still only came up to Karkat’s armpit. His hair was just starting to grow out from the buzz cut that had made him cry, but he’d taken into his head to superglue construction paper into his hair to give himself a purple streak and it was either that or endure a bald spot from Karkat cutting the shit out. Karkat arched an eyebrow at him now, and Eridan lifted his chin.
“Look at you, learning a new swear word,” Karkat started. “Well done. Great job. As long as you’re being a retard, how about you use that word around your teachers? How about you say that to Dad when he gets home? Yeah, I dare you, show Dad your new word.”
Eridan lowered his chin a little. “He swears all the time. You do too,” he accused, not as boldly.
“Yeah, it’s called the ‘grow up and you get to say whatever you want’ club. Now pick a scarf and pick your breakfast.”
Eridan gave a put-upon sigh. “I’ll take yours, I guess.”
“Fine.” Karkat held out his hand and Eridan deposited the scarf in it. Karkat gave it a disdainful look. Between the purple hoodie and this hilariously gay scarf he was gonna look like a pansy at school today. “Whaddaya wanna eat?”
“Lucky Charms!” Eridan was quick to announce.
Lucky Charms were a rare commodity in the Vantas household, but Karkat had bought two boxes yesterday at CVS since they were having a buy one get one free sale. They were going quick.
In the kitchen Equius was just sitting down from helping Nepeta pour milk into her bowl; the Lucky Charms sat in the middle of the kitchen table, a proud centerpiece. Karkat left the unwanted scarf on the counter.
It was a little hard to believe that Eridan and Nepeta were twins. They were fraternal, obviously, but Nepeta was half a head shorter than Eridan. Eridan looked more like Dad, with olive-dark skin and thick black hair, but Nepeta was almost the spitting image of their mom: dark skin and hair pulled into cornrows. She grinned and sat up. “Hi, Karkat! I thought you weren’t ever gonna get up!”
Nepeta had woken both Karkat and Equius that morning by bouncing into their shared room, bounding off of Equius’ trundle bed, and landing square on Karkat’s chest. His breastbone still hurt just thinking about it. “Yeah, cool,” Karkat grumbled, grabbing a plastic bowl for Eridan while the kid pulled out a seat and sat on his knees, leaning over the table for the Lucky Charms box. “Look, new ground rule: knock before you come in—“
“I did!” Nepeta protested.
“—And if neither of us answer,” Karkat said over her, plunking the bowl down in front of Eridan, “Then don’t come in. Got it?”
“But – what if you died in there!?”
Karkat rolled his eyes. Nepeta always said things like that. Before he could answer, Equius reached over and covered her hand. “Don’t worry about that kind of thing. It’s morbid.”
Equius was almost as much of a pain in Karkat’s ass as Eridan, who was currently trying to see how many Lucky Charms he could get into the bowl in a heaping pile without spilling. (Karkat picked the bowl up again, ignoring Eridan’s protests, and poured half his collection back in the box.) He was kind of pudgy, but he could do ten pull-ups in P.E., as he had proudly announced, and he already had his whole life of building robots planned out. At least he looked out for Nepeta and kind of kept an eye on Eridan, too, which was good because they all went to the same elementary school and Karkat had to get on a bus to go to middle school now.
Nepeta didn’t look too convinced by Equius’ argument. She cast pleading eyes at Karkat. “Can I go to school with you today?”
“Sure. I’ll just hide you in my locker. I think I’ve got day-old pizza in there.” Karkat rolled his eyes.
Nepeta was immune to sarcasm. “Really?”
“No.” Karkat poked his head in the fridge and pulled out all that remained of the loaf of bread: two slices, the butts. “Hey, who ate all the bread?”
“Don’t talk to Nepeta that way,” Equius said. Nepeta was pouting. Eridan had slopped some milk on the table and Equius was multi-tasking admirably, dressing Karkat down for being mean while giving Eridan a hard stare. If Karkat hadn’t told Equius that drinking a whole gallon of milk in one day would kill him, he would probably drink that and more.
“Sorry, Karkat,” Nepeta said, sheepish. “We used it up making sandwiches for lunch!”
“Oh, yeah. Duh.” Karkat sighed, fishing the bread out of the plastic bag and shoving them in the toaster. “Didn’t I bring some more home yesterday though?”
“No,” Equius said authoritatively.
“Wow, I don’t wanna get old like you if I’m gonna forget everything,” Eridan said through a mouthful of Lucky Charms.
“Shut up,” Karkat sneered. “All right, whatever. I’ll get more.” He grabbed a wet rag out of the sink and went back to the table to wipe up the spilt milk. His toast popped back up; Karkat went back to the counter to slather them in peanut butter and debated the value of saving one slice for lunch or just skipping lunch. He’d probably be stuck in the library anyway doing makeup detention for not having his homework done. Again.
Algebra was a stupid class anyway. When the hell was he going to need to graph a quadratic equation in real life? What did they think was going to happen? Some demon would spring out of the ground and snap, “Stop! I’ll damn your soul forever if you can’t graph a solution to 2x squared plus 5x minus 3 equals y!”? It was a waste of his time when he could spend it doing better things, like being on Pesterchum or playing Grand Theft Auto or cleaning the house before Dad came home and skinned him alive.
The house was getting to critical mass levels of dirty. Last night the only chores that got done were the dishes and taking out the trash, which was Equius’ job. The laundry was definitely an all-day-on-Saturday job by now; Karkat was going to lock Eridan in the upstairs bathroom until he finally did his one and only chore and cleaned the damn thing, and maybe he could get Equius to vacuum if he bribed him with something. At least Nepeta would enthusiastically help him with whatever and she liked folding clean laundry, especially when it was hot from the dryer and even in the summertime.
He shoved a piece of toast in his mouth, took Nepeta’s empty bowl and washed it out, then glanced at the microwave clock and realized that if he didn’t leave two minutes ago he was going to miss his bus. “Fuck!” He fumbled the toast when he bit it off accidentally and he swallowed hard before he choked. “Shit, okay, you guys all have lunches, right?”
“Nepeta just told you we made sandwiches while you lazed around in the shower,” Equius snorted.
Karkat ignored him, crossing the kitchen to grab Eridan’s scarf and hussled out of the kitchen, the second piece of toast forgotten. “My scarf’s in the closet. You’d better wear it, Eridan, or I’ll kick your ass--”
“--but it’s ugly--”
“If you don’t you’ll die a slow painful death of pneumonia so suck it up,” Karkat shouted back, shoving his feet into his boots. “Equius--”
“I’ll make sure he wears it,” Equius called.
“You can trade with me,” Nepeta was saying when Karkat wrapped himself in Eridan’s scarf, pulled on his mittens, and slung his backpack over his shoulder. “I’ll wear Karkitty’s scarf and you can wear mine!”
Nepeta was really clingy but at least she was easy to please.
Karkat slammed the door shut behind himself, locked it, and trooped through the three inches of fresh snow on the ground towards the bus stop. There were still kids lingering there, so at least he probably hadn’t missed the bus. If he had, he could probably bum a ride with the parent of some other hapless late-to-the-bus kid. Parents were kind of suckers that way.
--
Karkat was right about makeup detention.
Mr. Grandhy had a white guy afro, he had so much hair; even when Karkat was standing in front of his desk and Mr. Grandhy was sitting, Karkat still felt like he was being looked down at, or as if he was on trial. He was kind of huge, like a linebacker who failed to get into the NFL and decided to torture middle schoolers instead. “Mr. Vantas,” Mr. Grandhy said, “What exactly is your problem with my assignments?”
Karkat shrugged.
“Are they too hard?”
“Uh,” Karkat started, but Mr. Grandhy spoke right over him.
“Do you need to drop back to the Math 8 class?”
The shameful truth was Karkat had really loved math until this year. Graphing made him crazy. He liked solving for x when there was only x: adding y to the equation was the part that sucked. The question put his back up; he already felt stupid, but Mr. Grandhy made him feel stupid-er.
“No,” Karkat said sullenly.
“Then this is the last time, I expect, I’ll have to talk to you about not doing your homework.”
“I guess.”
“You ‘guess’?”
“I’ll do the homework,” Karkat sighed.
“Good. Because tomorrow you’re getting your own special quiz. If you do well on it it will make up for all those missed homework grades. If you fail it, well.” Mr. Grandhy bent over his desk and scribbled on a familiar slip of paper. “Lunch detention, and the homework on my desk tomorrow.” He looked up, handing the paper to Karkat. “You can do well in this class. If you’re not going to try, there’s no point in being in it. Understood?”
“Yeah,” Karkat mumbled.
“Don’t be late to your next class.”
Karkat was late.
--
Karkat had not eaten inside the cafeteria for six straight school days.
“Jutht take the after-thchool detention,” Sollux complained.
“Can’t,” Karkat groused, closing his locker.
“Dad’th out of town again?”
“Yep.”
“God. Why don’t you jutht do the homework? What are you doing, blogging all night about thome terrible romcom you watched on Lifetime?”
Karkat bristled and set a fast pace for the library. “I don’t get it done because one, Algebra is a complete waste of my time. Two - related to one - I’ve got a shitton more important stuff to do. Three--”
“You do not. You thpend half the night watching me write programth in Livethtream.” Sollux fell into step beside Karkat; he was a couple of inches taller, and he kept up with Karkat easily. “It’th not like you’re thtupid and don’t get it or thomething. Ith it?”
Karkat gave Sollux a withering glare. It was not very effective.
“Oh. Well, fuck, I can help you with it. Or do it mythelf, if you wanna pay, I gueth.” Sollux grinned.
Karkat used to make fun of Sollux for his lisp - still did, actually - but he had weird long canine teeth which he claimed caused his lisp to be incurable. He had an unfortunate bowl cut made vaguely less terrifying by the tendency of his hair to curl away from the back of his head. He could program absolutely everything known to mankind and as far as Karkat could tell, he was a certifiable genius. Naturally Karkat called him an idiot as often as possible, which Sollux either laughed at or cried about for the rest of the day. Today was a ‘he’d probably laugh at it’ day.
“It’s fine, I’ll figure it out.” Karkat hunched his shoulders. “Don’t you have better things to do than follow me around and make fun of me?”
“I’m not making fun of you. Thith ith making fun of you. Hey KK, where did you get that thweatthirt, the rumputh fruity athhole thtore?”
“Fuck you,” Karkat groaned. “Fuck you, and your dad, and your other dad, and all your ancestors for a thousand generations. Incidentally, that’s all the fucks I give about your opinion of my sweatshirt, so stuff it.”
“That’th a lot of fuckth.”
Karkat backed into the bar that opened the library door. “But now they’re all out, so maybe you should go take them and throw yourself off a cliff into a rocky shore where they’ll sink you!”
“Ehehehe. Lotht track of your metaphor?”
“Ugh, I hope you choke on the cafeteria’s shitty pizza.”
“Have fun in detention, KK.” Sollux grinned, waving as they parted ways.
Karkat threw the middle finger salute at Sollux’s retreating back and spun around to walk through the door, kicking it the rest of the way open with his foot.
Today it was just him and Miss Dolorosa, it looked like; the table where in-school detention was held sat disturbingly empty, Miss Dolorosa at its head with a coffee and a book. She smiled at Karkat as he approached. “Have a seat.”
Karkat slouched into the chair on the furthest end of the table and thudded his Algebra textbook on the table, grimly satisfied by the clapping noise it produced and the disapproving frown his teacher gave him.
He liked Miss Dolorosa, actually. She had a really interesting-sounding accent and wore a hijab. Karkat kind of wondered what her hair looked like. She reminded Karkat of Kanaya, even though Kanaya didn’t look anything like her; they were both super-calm in the same way. Maybe if she taught Algebra instead of Mr. Grandhy he would like it better.
“Detention slip?” She reminded him.
Karkat fished it out of his backpack and slid it across the table; it got about halfway before it caught the air and stopped. Karkat sighed, got back to his feet, and walked it over to his English teacher.
“Algebra again?” she asked, sighing and signing it before tucking it away in a manila folder on the table.
“Wow, what an astute observation. I would have never guessed that you could read,” Karkat groused, going back to his end of the table.
“Karkat,” Miss Dolorosa said in exactly the same exasperated tone that Kanaya used.
“Sorry.” Karkat slumped back into his seat and opened his algebra book to the page full of problems he was supposed to have solved for class.
“Where’s your lunch?”
“Forgot it.” Karkat thought longingly of the toast butt he’d left on the counter. He felt really dumb for forgetting about it now.
“You didn’t get lunch from the cafeteria?”
“Forgot money.”
“Mm.”
Karkat glanced up from his book to see Miss Dolorosa nodding in a concerned sort of way. Karkat scowled. “Look, it’s not a big deal. I’ll just eat a big dinner.”
“I just want you to be awake and alert for my class.” Miss Dolorosa smiled at him. “If you don’t eat healthy, you’ll be nodding away at the bell.”
“I think it’s just that Kafka guy. Who writes a story about a dude becoming a bug and it’s not even, like. Interesting. How is that possible?” Karkat planted his elbows at either end of his textbook and rested his cheeks against the heels of his hands. “A story about a guy becoming a bug should be awesome. If it was possible to suck the fun out of a story, Kafka could do it. I’ll bet he wrote books about rabid gorillas breaking out of the zoo and they went to go drink tea. Come on!”
Miss Dolorosa’s mouth twitched. “Do your homework, Karkat.”
“... Algebra is so boring, Kafka is more interesting,” Karkat grumbled, but he looked back down at his book and started to slog through it.
When lunch ended Karkat was about two-thirds of the way through, which meant he had to finish that and his regular homework and study for the stupid quiz thing that Mr. Grandhy was giving him. That was entirely too much algebra for one kid to handle. He was probably going to blow off tonight’s homework again.
“See you in seventh period,” Miss Dolorosa said. “And tomorrow, I hope I won’t see you any earlier.”
“I know I’m ugly and looking at my face makes you want to scream. You don’t have to rub it in.” Karkat shoved his spiral notebook into his Algebra book. “That was sarcasm, by the way. A joke.”
“Yes, I know,” Miss Dolorosa sighed.
“See you later.” Karkat barely stopped himself from saying ‘smell you later’ out of habit. He liked Miss Dolorosa but sometimes he felt like she was trying to be his mom, and he didn’t really want anyone to give it a third goddamn try.
--
In science class, Jade was once again conspicuously absent, which left Karkat with the table and the density experiment to himself until Mr. Duoska told him to go sit with Rose and Kanaya. “Nobody should have to sit alone.” His mouth was stuck in a permanent sneer because of the scars on his face, which everyone got bored with making fun of by the end of the first week of classes. Mr. Duoska never reacted, just coolly sneered at the offender, until they were intimidated into shutting up.
“Uh, I don’t really care,” Karkat grumbled, but he wasn’t going to object to hanging out with Kanaya. He dragged his stool over to their table.
“Oh, my. I didn’t quite recognize you wearing those unusually bright colors,” Rose said, watching Karkat settle his book and notepad across the table. “At the risk of using a cliche, who are you and what have you done with my emotionally dismal classmate?”
“Oh, burn.” Karkat glared at her. “At the risk of using a cliche, that was so goddamn funny I forgot to laugh.” He looked at Kanaya, grasping the edges of the extremely oversized sweatshirt and pulling them so the material was flat, displaying the creepy angry-smile face. “Well? Unleash the Kracken.”
“I believe I already said all I wanted to say about your fashion choice,” Kanaya replied in her cool, collected voice.
“You didn’t say anything. You just raised your eyebrow at me when we passed in the halls.” Karkat paused. “Oh.”
“Yes.” Kanaya picked up a metal ball and dropped it in the little tank of water. “How much did it rise?”
“Beyond words. Impressive,” Rose said. “Three centimeters.”
“Wait, I didn’t get the water volume before you started.” Karkat hunched over his paper. “Hey, Rose. Where’s Harley now?”
“15 cubic centimeters. India, I think? She sent an email from there last night.”
“Nice. She could have told me,” Karkat groused.
“Yes, I’m always careful to inform my science class partner of my family trips. Which, granted, I have none, as my passive-aggressive battle for dominance with my mother might drain us both dry if we were forced to spend more than eight consecutive hours in one another’s direct proximity.”
“Rose, they are also friends.”
“What?” Karkat jerked his head up. “Woah, hey, we are ‘friends’ in the loosest sense of the word, and when I say ‘loosest’ I mean ‘best described as total enemies’. She makes me crazy. I make her crazy - right?” He snapped at Rose.
“I think she finds you amusing,” Rose remarked.
“See? For Harley, that’s crazy, because she’s already batshit nuts. I’m also the only person in the entire world she swears at.”
“You should not sound so proud of it.” Kanaya pinched her brows together as she solved for the density of the metal ball.
“Oh, no, Kanaya. That’s quite an accomplishment.”
Karkat rolled his eyes. “My point is, I’m just trying to find out so I know how much longer I have to sit with you two bozos for all the experiments. I’d say only one bozo, but Kanaya keeps making me wonder.”
Kanaya looked up at him through her lashes and returned her gaze to her paper. Karkat felt a twinge of guilt.
“Hm. I don’t suppose anyone knows.” Rose shrugged. “Least of all Jade herself.”
--
Karkat was a little ashamed that in English, he kept closing his eyes. Kafka was boring, sure, but he wished he’d eaten lunch more than ever. His stomach hurt from not eating.
He resolved to walk straight to the CVS after school and pick up more bread. He’d pick missing breakfast over missing lunch.
Miss Dolorosa gave him the raised eyebrow while he was gathering his books after class and Karkat slinked past her without a word. He hated the ‘I told you so’ look.
--
Karkat left for school an hour before his siblings did, but Karkat also got home an hour before them. That was just enough time to get down to CVS, buy groceries, and get home. There was a grocery store even further down the street but Karkat had to cross a highway exit ramp to get to it and even he wasn’t that suicidally stupid. It cost a little more but Dad just got Karkat gift cards to the CVS instead, since it was actually within walking distance. Karkat had just under fifty cents on last week’s card after using it up yesterday, but he had a fresh one from this past Saturday saved up. He was pretty proud of himself for making the cards last longer than Dad even expected.
He got off at his bus stop, dropped off his backpack at home, and started for the convenience store.
The snow had turned to slush along the roads; pieces of evergreen littered the sidewalk, blown off trees strapped to car hoods. Karkat splashed through the puddles, hunching his shoulders against the cutting winter wind. His back was still sweaty from his backpack. By the time he got there his ears were bright red and numb from the cold and Karkat stood in the rush of warm air from the blowers just inside CVS’ doors and rubbed them with his mittened hands for a minute.
About half the employees in the store knew him on sight now. Jane was one of them; when she pushed a cart of poinsettias around the corner, she waved. “Hullo, Karkat!” she said. She said his name weirdly with her Canadian accent.
Karkat kept massaging his ears, stepping a little further into the store. “Hey.”
“I wasn’t expecting you back until next week! Didn’t you already get some groceries?” Jane smiled, showing off her buck teeth that reminded him of Jade. She kept her hair cropped short and had three piercings in each ear. Karkat admired her balls for getting them done.
“Yeah yeah. I forgot to buy bread.”
“Uh oh.” Jane leaned on her grocery cart full of flowers. “But you know where it is, right?”
Karkat’s ears were just starting to hurt, throbbing and giving him a headache. He nodded; clutching his ears, trying to wish feeling back into them, he headed for aisle eight.
The first time Karkat had made the walk to CVS all by himself, he’d been so proud of himself - it had also been awesome weather and he was ten years old. It just went to show how stupid past Karkat was. Now it was a shitty chore. Karkat’s narrow little wallet had four used-up CVS cards and his brand-new one that Dad had given him on Saturday, his school ID, and that was pretty much it.
There weren’t very many customers in the store at this hour; one guy in an overcoat and a fedora, tugging a bawling kid behind him, gave Karkat a curious look. Karkat ignored him with long practice, even though he wanted to stare back (was that a scar over his eye?) So Karkat was shopping - big deal. He was old enough to run errands on his own. Maybe it was weird when he was ten but he was thirteen and a half now. If anyone asked him he just said his dad was outside in the car so they stopped staring at him as if he was a two-headed monster from Mars.
He decided to get two loaves of wheat bread. Eridan had refused to eat wheat bread at first because he liked white bread, which was cheaper, but Karkat liked wheat bread and Eridan was just going to have to suck it up. He held out for two days. Then he discovered that he liked wheat bread the best-est. He’d been five.
Karkat turned to go to the cashier and ended up walking past the winter hats; he grabbed the first one he saw, black and red, because fuck having his ears freeze off again. His old hat had gone to Equius last week when Equius managed to lose his during recess or something - Karkat hadn’t been paying that much attention. Equius was always breaking stuff and losing stuff.
Jane was already waiting behind the cash register. “I was wondering why you weren’t wearing a hat,” she said, making friendly conversation like always as she rang up his purchases. “Did you lose your old one?”
“Yeah,” Karkat said because it was easier than explaining Equius. He handed Jane his keyring so she could scan his membership card, but nothing was on sale. Karkat fished the new card out of his wallet and swiped it.
Nothing happened. Karkat swiped it again; nothing happened again. “What the fuck?”
“Oh no! Did the magnetic strip die? Here, let me type it in.” Jane held out her hand and Karkat handed her the card; she hummed as she typed on her touchscreen. “Karkat, this card doesn’t have any value on it.”
“That’s impossible.” Karkat dug into his back pocket and opened his wallet. “That’s the new card.”
“It says zero balance.” Jane held out the card for Karkat to take. “Are you sure you didn’t give me an old one?”
Karkat snatched the card from her fingers and glared at the back of it. Maybe he was mixing them up. He slapped the card down on the table and pulled out the four old ones in his wallet. He lined them up on the counter and swiped them, one by one.
Zero balance. Zero balance. Thirty-nine cents. Zero--
“Shit. Shit!” Karkat could feel his cheeks going red with embarrassment and frustration.
“Shh, it’s okay,” Jane said hastily. “Do you have any cash?”
“Maybe,” Karkat said through his teeth, digging through his pockets. After checking all his pockets and the depths of his pathetically tired wallet he dug up ninety-five cents and some lint, which sat forlornly on the counter between himself and Jane while they stared at it.
“... Looks like Dad fucked up,” Karkat said after an awkward, solemn silence.
“You shouldn’t say bad words like that.”
“What. The fuck. Ever.” Karkat snarled through his teeth.
So Dad had given him a dud card. This was bound to happen sooner or later, Karkat thought. Dad would be home on Saturday, so no big deal - he could just buy bread and a hat and then give Karkat a working card and everything would be fine. They’d live two days without bread. Or Karkat could dip into the twenty dollars of emergency money Dad kept in a jar in his room.
Karkat’s world had narrowed down to his thoughts and the pathetic ninety-five cents on the counter, so when he heard the guy that had looked at him funny say ‘hey, kid,’ he jumped and whirled.
The guy’s kid was asleep on his shoulder now, her face blotchy from screaming. Jane’s face had gone red. “Sorry, Karkat, one second. I can ring you up here, mister!” She smiled and moved over one register.
Without another word, the guy swiped a card at Karkat’s register.
Karkat felt his face heat up; he drew up his shoulders, eyes wide. “Hey, I didn’t--”
“Where’s your parents, kid?” the guy asked in a rough voice.
Karkat thinned his lips, scowling to hide how nervous he was. “Dad’s out in the c--”
“Then go get him, and he can pay me back.” The guy stared at him, hoisting the kid on his shoulder a little higher. He did have a scar over his eye. Karkat felt like he was being stared down by a mafia king. He was rooted to the spot, caught out.
“Uh, sir …” Jane said.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” The guy turned on Jane and Karkat relaxed minutely. “I’m paying for this kid’s stuff. Where’s the black licorice Scottie dog thingies?”
“Aisle six,” Jane said, flashing a smile at him and then at Karkat as if everything was okay. “Right down the middle.”
The guy glanced back. “Shit, staring me right in the face.” He turned sharply and jabbed a finger at Karkat’s face. “Tell your dad or whatever to get his shit together. I catch you in this place alone again and I’m calling the police.”
Karkat bristled. “What? What for - for shopping!? That’s a federal offense, shopping under the age of whatever-the-fuck you think is okay? You can’t--”
“No. For neglect.” The man watched as Karkat’s face drained of color. “Take your bread and get out.” He jerked a thumb at the door.
Karkat’s heart was trying to escape through his ribcage it was pounding so hard and fast; the guy just kept staring at him, and Karkat looked up at Jane. She shrugged uncertainly.
Karkat hunched his shoulders so far up they were almost touching his ears. He shoved his new hat on his head without taking off the tags, swiped his change into his hand, and stuffed his dead cards back into his wallet. His hands were shaking.
“That’s very nice of him,” Jane said softly.
Karkat’s eyes felt hot. He viciously stuffed his wallet into his hoodie and turned to his benefactor. “You don’t know jack shit about my dad,” he said tightly.
“I know enough. Scraping together change for some goddamned bread and a shit hat. Get home before it gets dark, kid.”
“Thanks for nothing,” Karkat spat. He grabbed his bag of bread and marched to the door with a stiff gait.
The sharp wind on his face made his eyes water. Karkat swiped at them angrily and stomped home, feet splashing in the puddles until the water splashed to his butt.
He should have left the bread on principle, but he couldn’t make himself regret taking the hat.