No One Really Understands

Suffering.

It's a funny thing, needing. Being reliant on something. Or someone. Being dependent on one person for all your happiness. All your security. You never even notice it at first, because it just seems like the most natural thing; you reach over, and there they are. There they always are. Until suddenly, they're not. And it shocks you. It's stark, like a shock of static electricity or a splash of ice cold water in the face. It hits you and for a second, you are stunned, too stunned to move, before it all sinks in, slowly, like rainwater into a cracked concrete sidewalk. And then the gravity of it all finally gets to you and the water freezes, locking you into place and pushing your cracks deeper, threatening to break you apart.

And it damn near does.

I woke with a start. There was an unfamiliar room before me. I sat up and whipped my head around frantically, confused and disoriented. Upon closer examination, I found that it wasn't a room so much as it was a single hospital bed on a section of floor cordoned off by light blue curtains on either side of me. I looked down. I was lying on a stripped hospital bed with an IV in my arm. I brought my head back up and hissed sharply when my head throbbed painfully.

"Shit," I breathed, pressing my band against my forehead. I found a small bandage there, covering a spot that was tender to the touch. I exhaled quietly in annoyance. I'd had enough of these surprises. The pain helped to clear my head, though, and it started to come back to me. The window, the doctors, that sound, me passing out, th--

Karkat.

I stopped mid thought as my heart jerked painfully. Shit. I'd almost forgotten. Where was he? I never saw what happened. All I could remember was his eyes and the flatline sound before I blacked out. I didn't know where they'd taken him or even if they'd been able to bring him back. What if he was d--

I stood up slowly, my hand lingering on the bed. I looked around, my head still fuzzy and a little groggy. I started to walk away when the IV in my arm pulled painfully. I reached over and yanked it out, too preoccupied with Karkat to waste time fiddling with it. I pushed back the curtain and scanned the room for Dirk. Surely he knew what had happened to Karkat. Finally, I spotted him by the front desk.

"Dirk?" I said softly, padding towards him. My voice was so quiet and shy it reminded me of when I was a kid and I would timidly tiptoe into Dirk's bedroom after I had a bad dream.

He turned around and breathed a soft sigh of relief when he saw me. "Oh, you're awake. Good. It was a little freaky seeing you faint like that. I thought--"

"Where's Karkat?"

Dirk stopped mid sentence, his mouth still half open. He closed it and I saw his jaw tighten the way it did when he was uncomfortable.

"H... he... he's--"

"Where is he?" I pressed.

"He's upstairs," Dirk said quickly. "But you can't see him. Not yet. He's not... he's... n-not stable yet."

Stable? "His heart, it..." God, I could still hear it. That deafening, piercing sound. "Did they...?"

"What? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they brought him back. B-but, he's..." He looked away and sighed softly. "He... took a lot of stuff, Dave. A lot of really bad stuff. And you got to him quickly, which is good, but..." He sighed again. "It's not the kind of thing you can just bounce back from. Ok? You know that, right?"

"Dirk," I said quietly, struggling to keep my voice still. "Please."

Dirk looked over at me, clenching and unclenching his jaw a few times before exhaling and letting his shoulders sag. "He's... He's in a coma, Dave. Whatever he did, whatever he took, it was too much for his body to handle all at once. They don't... They don't know when he'll wake up. It could be tomorrow or next week or next year. Ok? They don't know. They just--" Dirk let out a sharp breathe. "They're doing all they can but... there's only so much you can do. You get that, right? There's only..." Dirk shut his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck wearily. "I'm sorry." He stepped towards me and wrapped his arms around me. "I'm so sorry."