You Bleed Like Me (Karkat/Dave)

In the quiet dark silence of a dorm room lies a single person in bed. This person, staring at the ceiling behind dark shades, can't seem to fall asleep. He had that dream again; memories from about five and a half years ago when he and his friends were pulled into a world of hell with the help of a certain game. He can't seem to recall when he started having them. They helped to remind him that everything with the game that happened, really did happen. The humans and the trolls beat the game, and everything went back to normal. Well, almost normal.

Alternia, sadly, was unrecoverable. Derse and Prospit were destroyed, thanks to Noir, and left the trolls without a home. They certainly couldn't live on the Veil, so the humans came up with a plan. A plan which involved both species living amongst eachother in society. While the trolls appearance was indeed an eyeopener for the other humans besides the four, they were accepted. The trolls lived alone or with eachother, the aid of the humans dubbed unnecessary.

Dave has been in contact with a few of them to see how they're fairing and everything seems to be running smoothly. Those who wont answer him have been confirmed to be alright by the ones who speak to him, such as Terezi. Dave sighed and glanced over at his clock which read 7 a.m. Shit, he had to get up in an hour. Finding sleep pointless by this time, he got up to make himself some coffee before getting ready for his classes.

On the other side of the campus, at the troll dorms, most of the trolls were settling into their recooperacoons after a long night of classes, ready to sleep. Even though the Earth's sun was no where near as harsh as the one on Alternia, most trolls still preferred to remain nocturnal.

On the other hand, Karkat Vantas wasn't most trolls. Where as all the trolls were relocated to earth (memories clashed in his mind about a game with memories about being born on earth) when one of their moons split in two and fell into the planet, the majority of the trolls making it off the planet just in time and to earth not too long ago, the Trolls that played Sgrub could sometimes recall events from a game they had all played.

Karkat's day always started at 7 in the morning. He dragged himself out of his recooperacoon and into the shower. After dressing in baggy clothes and pulling his hood up, he put on a pair of specially tinted glasses for trolls so that the sun wouldn't hurt his still sensitive eyes and gathered his books to leave.

The troll dorms were the furthest building from the classrooms, so Karkat had almost a 30 minute walk, first to the student commons to get an espresso and a poptart, then a 10 minute walk to his actual classroom, all (except the brief stop at the commons) in the morning chill as the sun hadn't fully risen and spread its warmth yet.

It was the same every morning.

After a quick cup of coffee and an even quicker shower, Dave was dressed and ready to go. Even though he knew he would crash halfway through the course. Strider grabbed his bag, his keys, and was out the door. He made his way down the stairs (3rd floor to make it feel more like home), finally reaching the outside. The sun reflected off of his dark tinted shades, which he pushed further up the bridge of his nose to anchor them.

Once he got closer to the school, it became apparent that the shitty coffee he drank wasn't going to do jack. He looked over at the student commons, contemplating getting something stronger. When a yawn threatened to sound from his usually closed mouth, he decided that was the sign for him to get his ass something stronger.

Since it was so early, not many students were up and about, so most of the bodies in the commons were professors, after the wonderful coffee from the coffee shop in the commons.

It was also the main reason why Karkat took morning classes. Less people to interact with.

Dave walked inside, already feeling his energy draining. Caffeine. He needed caffeine. He walked up to the counter and ordered some coffee, strictly black. He paid and took the hot cup, pouring a little cream in before he took a careful sip. If he was alone right at this moment he would have swooned. This coffee was making love to his sleepy mind right now.

Karkat was just walking out of the foodcourt with his poptart, having already retrieved his espresso from the coffee shop. People usually gave him a wide berth when they noticed the tinted Glasses; trolls were notoriously not morning people.

He clumsily opened the wrapper to his poptart, brushing past Dave on his way to the door.

Dave looked back, watching the shorter male walk away. Wait...he wasn't human. In fact, he recognized him as the loud mouthed caps lock troll from those years ago. He blinked a couple times behind his shades. Talk about a nostalgia trip. He couldn't help himself from following the hot head.

Karkat pushed the door open with his hip, not even noticing that he was being followed. It was a campus, there were bound to be students going the same way as him. Karkat could care less, he needed to get to his creative writing class.

He carefully ate his poptart on the walk there, taking small sips of his espresso, making sure that is was going to last him until he could get back to the commons at noon.

Strider simply continued his strut, following behind him. Though occasionally, he had to slow down; longer legs meant he was walking greater distances. He took another sip of his coffee, which he could honestly say he lived off of. Coffee and apple juice, along with the occasional microwavable burrito.

Eventually, he got tired of just following him. He increased his pace so that he was right behind him, looming over the shorter troll with his pokerface intact.

Karkat increased his pace just in time to make it to the building before he thought he was going to get trampled. Being short had its disadvantages. He was short by the human standards for males, standing at half way between five and six feet. That was short for female trolls, and positively tiny for male trolls, which averaged 6 and a half feet and sometimes towered over humans, like his friends Gamzee and Equius.

He didn't even bother with the stairs, instead ducking into the elevator. His class was on the top floor, and he had no desire to run up the stairs and potentially spill his coffee.

Dave snorted as he saw the other hurry into the elevator. Pansy. He gulped down the rest of his coffee, enjoying its warmth trailing down his throat into his stomach. He tossed the cup into a trash can before he vanished. He proceeded to flash step up the stairs, succeeding in making people double take and wonder what that sudden gust of wind was. He reached the top of the stairs just as the elevator opened, though he just walked towards the class.

Karkat stepped off the elevator just in time to see Dave vanish into the classroom, his classroom. He didn't think much of it, just following him in and making his way to his seat in the back corner. He set his espresso on the desk and adjusted his hood and glasses so the florescent lights didn't bother him as much.

Dave sat in the back, a couple seats from Karkat. He set his bag down, sitting sort of slouched in the seat with his legs stretched out. Tall people needed their leg room. He glanced over at Karkat, raising a brow. He was in the same class as him? Well...this was going to be interesting.

Karkat pulled his notebook and pen from his bag, getting ready to take notes. He used to take notes on his husk top, but his friends were always messaging him and it lead to him never getting any work done. If he ever managed to unhack his messenger so he could go offline, then he might just start using it to take notes again, until then, victory to sollux, the smug bastard.

The professor walked in, a younger looking man who started class immediately.

Dave pulled out a notebook and pen, scribbling notes immediately. Whenever the professor would pause in his teachings to explain something to an ignoramus student, he would put his head down. He wasn't tired or anything, the coffee made sure of that. He was just so...bored. Sure, this would greatly help him as far as his lyric writing, but he had nothing else around campus to do. Since he moved out of Bro's apartment, he's had nothing better to do than watch movies John has recommended to him, though he refuses to watch Con Air to this day.

Karkat wrote detailed notes, in Alternian of course, his English writing was so sadly bad. When the teacher stopped the lecture, he read back over what he had written, making sure he had gotten it all.

Dave glanced over at the troll,, wondering how he was taking in all the information. He knew the trolls spoke english, though they couldn't write it that well. He opened his book to another page, tearing out a clean sheet of paper. He scribbled something on it before crumpling it up and using aimed trajectory as well as waiting for the professor to turn his back on them, tossed it square at Karkat's head.

Karkat flinched and hissed sharply as his glasses slipped off his nose and exposed his eyes. Thankfully the professor didn't notice, which gave Karkat the chance to slide his glasses back up and uncrumble the note to read it.

Dave held back the snicker that wanted to slip out, resting his head on his arm to look at the troll. Written in big red letters was the word "pap".

Karkat glared over at Dave and flipped him the finger, crumbling the paper back up and tossing it towards the trashcan, where it bounced off the far end into the can. Karkat then returned to his notes, his lips pressed in a thin line behind the sharp teeth that poked over his bottom lip.

That was to be expected. He shrugged, returning his attention to the professor for now since he wrote more notes. Dave decided he would catch the troll before he left; out of the few that didn't answer him, Karkat was one of them. The others would explain how the Cancer would always ignore their replies during the day and finally respond at night. Its not like he cared for the little prick, he was curious. Plus Rose had chastised him countless times about watching over their "foreign friends" and making sure they adjust.

Karkat kept writing notes, sliding his phone out of his hoodie pocket to send a message to Sollux, inquiring about lunch with the yellow blood. He wasn't expecting an answer right away, Sollux had afternoon and evening classes like a normal troll.

Dave decided not to bother Karkat any more during class at least for today. He busied himself by doodling on an empty page mindlessly as he spaced out. When he finally looked down, he nearly jumped, seeing a very detailed doodle of Lil Cal. That fucking puppet. He tore out the paper and crumbled it up, leaving it on his desk rather than tossing the second paper at the poor shorter troll.

At the end of class, Karkat shoved his books into his bag and was one of the first to stand. His next class was two buildings over and he had five minutes to get there.

Dave's building was the next one over, so it's not like he had that far to go. He stood up and put his notebook in his bag, heading towards the exit. He glanced over at Karkat, the corner of his mouth slightly curving upward in the closest smirk he would let show. He reached over, giving the shorter troll a pap to the head before he flash stepped out of the classroom.