Don't Leave

Karkat sat in his room, alone like usual. His hands were clasped tightly together and were resting between his thighs and his stomach. His head rested upon his knees, his back pressed against a wall and his eyes were squeezed shut.
He spent a lot of time like this lately, locked away in his room and ignoring the countless worlds going by the meteor. He didn't care about them, because he had two other worlds on his mind.
Two that he had ruined.
He had been stupid in the past- so, so stupid- and had inadvertently caused so many people to suffer. He ran a program that caused everyone to lose their lusus, led them all to failure, bred a universe doomed to die...
And probably a million more things he wasn't thinking about at the moment.
As mentioned before this was a pretty common thing for him to think about, but this day the consequences of his actions were hitting him harder than usual.
His breath hitched as he thought about all his dead friends, having never seen the seventh sweep of their species’ usually long lives. They had been denied so much, and he hadn't helped them at all. He'd made it worse.
Some knight he was.
He squeezed his hands tighter as the first of many tears rolled down his cheek. The edges of the object he was holding bit into his fingers painfully, drawing blood, but what did he care at this point?
Wasn't that what he had stolen it for anyway?
He brought his hands up closer to his face and opened his eyes, watching little drops of his mutant blood poke out from between them. He slowly released his shaky grasp on the small purple object and held it up between two fingers.
He had taken it from Sollux’s room less than five hours ago. Sollux wouldn't need something like a throwing star if he were blind, would he? No. And he was blind, because his friend hadn't had the courage to stand up and help him in his time of need. Instead Karkat had just stood there and watched as Eridan blinded Sollux in an attempt to kill him, then killed two of his other friends and the matriorb- the only thing that could have saved his race.
Why a hadn't he done anything? Why hadn't he even raised a finger?!
A full sob raked it's way across his body as he turned his head disgustedly to the side, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his teeth.
He'd always felt a numb sense of self loathing- hell, who hasn't- but now it had ignited into a raging fire, searing through his thoughts and leaving only darkness in its path.
He knew what he had to do to save everyone now, or at least to protect his living friends from further harm.
He was the cancer of his world, and now he'd be the surgeon to remove it.
He owed it to everyone to fix his mistakes, didn't he? But he couldn't fix them now, and the next best thing he could think to do was to eliminate the source of the problems so there could be no more.
Karkat let one of his legs straighten out a bit and rested his left hand against his knee, palm up. He stared at the soft grey expanse that was his forearm, imagining how easily the star could bite into it. His flesh would give way like butter to the sharp edge and bright red blood would paint the floor, until there was no more left to give.
He lowered the blade to his wrist shakily, pressing the straight edge against the thin skin that held him together.
He was suddenly overcome with panic when he heard footsteps from just down the hall, coming closer and closer. He hadn't heard them soon enough through his own miserable retching, and now someone was going to see him before he could finish.
He looked up to the doorway in front of him miserably, quickly curling his legs back up against his chest to conceal his hands.
A voice sounded as the human boy rounded the corner and stepped into the doorway casually at first.
“Hey Karkat, Terezi wants to know is you wanna join us a-”
His voice cut off as he saw the small troll sitting on the floor, his tear stained face looking up with an attemptedly menacing expression.
“Oh my God Karkat, are you okay?!”
Karkat had hoped Dave wouldn't see the small bit of blood on his legs but he obviously did judging by his reaction. Karkat tried to make his face stronger, to repel the human’s concern, but he wasn't having it. He all but ran over to Karkat and kneeled down in front of him, then hesitantly raised a hand and placed it on one of Karkat’s knees. The latter spoke in a strained, growly voice in response.
“Go away, Strider, this doesn't concern you.”
The human ignored him and tried to examine him for injury, asking questions like “What happened” and “Who did this”. Suddenly he turned his head around and yelled for help, and Karkat aggravatedly grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back around.
“Shut up, I said this isn't your business! Now go away!”
Dave frowned and took Karkat’s hand off of his shoulder, inspecting it as he did so. He looked suspiciously at the small cuts on his fingers and the bit of blood smeared on his revealed wrist, then looked to his face for an answer. Karkat turned his head away again and muttered something about people minding their own business, and Dave let go of his arm in favour of the other one.
He pulled lightly on the troll’s arm despite his initial resistance, but before long he let the human take his right forearm.
He also let Dave gently pry open his hand, revealing the small, slightly bloodied throwing star.
“Karkat, you weren't… you couldn't have…”
Karkat looked at the human out of the corner of his eye shamefully, knowing that he had upset him. Of course he was upset, walking in on someone attempting suicide wasn't a pleasant experience. He took a shaky breath in and whispered that he was sorry, so sorry Dave had to see this, and pulled his hand back. He had screwed up again, hurt another person. How could he have tried to do something like this where someone could find him? Why hadn't he hidden himself?
What if Dave had came in merely minutes later and found him dead, how would that have affected him?
How selfish of him to never even think of that.
He looked down at his hands for a moment then fully at Dave, his eyes widening in shock as the human’s face came fully into his view.
Dave's mouth was pulled down into a deep frown and tears were running down his cheeks from under his shades. He shook his head slightly and spoke, his voice low and strained.
“You can't do this, you can't… please don't do this, Karkat!”
Karkat looked at him strangely.
“Don't you see I need to do this to save all of you? If you hadn't have found me it would have been like I had just disappeared, and then I wouldn't have been able to cause any more problems. But I screwed up, I took too long, I left myself where I could be found, I…”
He trailed off, head down. He laughed humorlessly, tears running from his eyes again.
“I'm pathetic, aren't I? Just forget I said anything. I have to go now.”
He stood, gently closing his hand back around the small weapon. He tried to step forward but Dave had raised to his feet as well and was blocking him from leaving.
“You're not going anywhere- at least not alone.”
Karkat stepped to the side, ignoring his words, and started walking again. To his dismay, though, Dave stopped him a second time.
Karkat turned and faced the human who had grabbed his arm again and spoke, his facial expression confused.
“Why are you doing this?”
Dave took a deep breath in then pulled Karkat against himself, wrapping his arms tightly around the troll’s smaller body.
“I need you, Karkat.”
Said troll froze hearing the words. He stood still against Dave's shaking body, mind racing.
“I love you.”
The human’s voice was but a whisper, but it was like a scream compared to the silence that followed.
After a few seconds of confused thoughts, Karkat’s shoulders relaxed. He dropped the throwing star and slowly wrapped his arms around Dave, pressing himself as close as possible in an attempt to smother the deep sobs that had resurfaced.
“I need help, Dave. I just can't do this anymore.”
Dave raised a hand to Karkat’s head and softly stroked his hair, then spoke to him in a comforting tone.
“Yes you can, but not alone. And I'm here for you.”
They sank to their knees, still in each others’ embraces.
“I always will be.”