No One Really Understands

Relapse.

I loved him.

That was it.

There was no way that it wasn't true. It was the only thing that made sense.

I was in love with Karkat.

I could tell from the way I felt when I saw him there on the couch. He looked so small and sad, and the way I felt, the way it hurt, I'd never felt that way towards someone I didn't love. And I knew it for sure when we talked. The way that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't or wouldn't force myself to accept that what happening was happening. The way my brain desperately tried to find something, anything, to prove that it wasn't real; that he wasn't doing what I thought he'd been doing. It was something I wouldn't have ordinarily done, and most certainly not with someone I didn't like.

And the scars... The way I felt when I saw them, I know for sure I wouldn't have felt that way if it had been someone like John or Terezi.

When I saw his sleeve slid down and I caught a glimpse of them, dread and fear struck through me. I knew those couldn't have been the only ones; they were too big. So I told him to take off his sweater. When he did, my breath hitched in my throat and my stomach lurched. I'd been in denial all this time, and when I finally saw it, it was so much worse than I thought.

I hate the way I reacted. My eyes widened, I felt my face flush and my hands flew to my mouth almost involuntarily. It was the exact opposite of how one is supposed to react in a situation like this, I knew from experience that all it ever did was make the person feel even more like crap, but at the time I couldn't help it. There were just so many and they were all so deep, much deeper than anything I'd ever done. How had he been able to stay afloat like this? And for so long?

There was a flurry of emotions flying through my head when I saw the scars. Confusion. Fear. Disbelief. Anger. Sadness. Mostly anger, at first. At myself, for for denying that this was going on, for ignoring all the signs. Then, fear. Seeing all of his scars and cuts and scabs made me remember the ones I gave myself. All of a sudden, all I could see were the blades, the fresh slits in my arm, blood pooling in my palm, blood stained tissues. The feelings all came rushing back as well. All the loneliness and frustration and despair.

No... He couldn't feel like that. Not him, too. He wasn't allowed to. He shouldn't have been. I loved him too much.

I hugged him, holding his body against mine desperately, pressing my face into his hair. It was soft and curly and smelled sweetly of shampoo. I gripped him tightly, still shaking as I tried in vain to get the images out of my head. I wanted him to be okay. I needed him to be okay. I needed to undo the damage that he'd done to himself and make him better.

I needed to fix him.

But I couldn't. Not the way I wanted to. So I kissed him.

His lips were so soft and I could feel the heat wafting from his cheeks. He tensed at first, but soon relaxed into my embrace. The familiar warm tingles ran down my spine and I started to turn my head to deepen the kiss, when Karkat suddenly tensed again.

"What about John?" He asked breathlessly. "Won't he--" He sounded genuinely scared.

I bristled slightly at the mention of his name. I shushed Karkat. "Don't worry about him." I gently kissed him on the cheek and was rewarded with a small shiver from him. I didn't want to talk about John anymore. He'd already swindled enough of my time towards him. But Karkat was persistent.

"But won't he--"

"This isn't about John. He doesn't matter," I said gently. "Not anymore."

Karkat held my gaze for a moment, his eyes fearful and wide. My heart lurched in my chest.