You’re not sure which. It takes you several moments to remember why your face hurts, and so many more to realize that your phone is ringing that you miss the call. 

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: i’m in your future.

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: about three weeks.

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: Bull

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: shit

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: oh my GOD YOU ARE INSUFFERABLE

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: I AM IN OUR FUTURE

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: IF YOU WANT TO LIVE YOU WILL TAKE SOME FUCKING NOTES

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: in a week, the world is going to end.

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: and don’t be a smartass. 

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: you need to get our friends together and wait for me to contact you. 

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: you are so fucking full of shit. i’m going to call the police. I’m going to make a new account and you’re never going to be able to find me, EVER

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: fuck you

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: fuck you FOREVER

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: no you’re not, christ, I’M YOU.

fresh prince of shut the fuck up:  you think this is a really fucking good prank right now but you’re going to see

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: I’m YOU!!!! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: YEAH FUCKING RIGHT

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: HAVE FUN BEING A PIECE OF SHIT

You sign off and close Skype. 

If you spend the next hour trying to massage the frown off your face, no one has to know.

You fall asleep on top of your covers. 

Either the sun or your phone wakes you up.

Your face goes really, really cold, and you stare at the screen unblinking. Someone is trying to get to you and they are putting a ridiculous amount of effort into it.

(and

it’s

working.)

You stare at the messages a little longer—too long, apparently.

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: god i remember this

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: you sit there for like ten minutes trying to figure out who has a vendetta against you

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: is it eridan? no not likely, the tool can’t work an actual computer to save his life

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: sollux doesn’t give a shit

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: hello

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: i remember reading these messages too, man, i know you’re freaked out

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: it’s kind of weird being on this side too

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: i’d ask if you’re ever going to say anything but i know you are. this is kind of boring, actually, because i just have to sit here and wait for you to stop being a tool and say what i said.

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: pretty confusing too, now that i think about it.

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: come on, i don’t have forever

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: I DON’T KNOW WHO THE FUCK YOU ARE

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: oh here we go

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: but this is A SHITTY

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: ASS

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: JOKE

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: you can quit it now and tell me how the fuck you did it! WHO ARE YOU

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: Sollux i swear if that’s YOU, i’m going to fuck you up so bad tomorrow you are going to wish you’d never been born

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: that sounded much better when i typed it, wow

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: WOW

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: GOOD CHARADE

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: FUCKING

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: GREAT PRANK

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: i know you’re going to keep having hysterics about this for like twelve hours but i honestly don’t have that kind of time to indulge you

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: this isn’t a prank. i know you don’t believe me, but you’re going to have to.

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: L I K E HELL

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: oh for fucks sake

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: WHAT ARE YOU TYPING

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: GOD I CANT EVEN BLOCK YOU

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: my name is karkat vantas, i’m like a month and a half away from turning eighteen. when i was 12 i thought i was going to marry terezi pyrope and go into the army, even though i was so afraid of blood that i passed out when people talked about it

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: H A  H A 

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: NO

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: WHAT THE FUCK

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: ugh okay now would be a good time to stop being a piece of shit.

→

“I’ll call you back,” you say, interrupting him. He snorts and hangs up before you can say goodbye. You throw your phone towards your pillow and stare at yourself on your list of Skype contacts. Is that normal? You don’t remember this happening before, but then you’ve never really paid attention. 

You click into the conversation and type:

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: ??????

→

“Hey.”

“It’s one in the morning,” he tells you. He sounds about as happy as he ever does. You can hear his fan on in the background and something that sounds like infomercials over the clack of his computer keys.

“Cut the shit, asswipe,” you say, keeping your voice a harsh whisper so you won’t wake your dad up. “What the fuck was that about?”

“Karkat,” he says, and the sounds in the background die down a little. “What are you even talking about? Are you that mad about the code, because jesus, get over it. If you want to get better I’ve been offering to teach you.”

“No, I’m talking about the skype convo we had not three minutes ago. Remember, the one where you told me you might never talk to me again and then signed off like a dramatic shitsmear? That’s what I’m mad about.”

Sollux goes quiet. The typing stops, and he doesn’t say anything. There are some rustling noises. Then he asks, “Are you alright? Did you—did you hit your head or something?” For god’s sake. 

“Get on Skype,” you say. “I’m going to send you this conversation log.”

“Karkat, I’m on Skype. I’ve been logged on since like, three this afternoon. You’re the one who’s offline.”

Neither of you speaks. You crane your neck back and drag the edge of your laptop so the screen is visible. He’s offline. You are totally online.

“Did you do something to your computer again?” he asks. “Like the time you tried to leave it on for a year and the battery almost exploded?”

“Fuck off,” you say. “I was just messing with your code and when I tried to run it,” (“Oh god,” he groans.) “It gave me this weird error and my notepad got all static.” 

The notepad doc is back to just flashing “ERROR” at you instead of looking like a static television. You maximize it and scroll through and behind it, Skype dings that someone’s logged on.

“I don’t know how the fuck you manage to do these things with code, KK.” The clicking noises resume in the background, followed by a hiss of a sigh. “It’s like you were given this special ability to be really terrible at computers and I was designated your patron saint, and now I’ve got to make sure you don’t blow up the whole world on accident.”

“Yeah, whatever,” you say; you hardly hear him talking. You minimize the notepad document and pull up Skype to see who else is on. There’s only one person out of your whole list online.

It’s you.

Yeah, no, definitely not good. What the hell did you do to that script? Maybe it’s time to see if Sollux can help you. 

You open up Skype and send him a message.

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: HEY ASSHOLE 

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: ARE YOU ACTUALLY ONLINE OR DID YOU LEAVE YOUR LAPTOP UP WHILE YOU SLEEP AGAIN

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: hello?????????

stuff it: oh god. this is it.

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: what’s it, what took you so long??

stuff it: look, kk, this is a bad time. it’s actually going to be a bad time for the foreseeable future, and i can’t deal with you right now.

fresh prince of shut the fuck up: what the fuck?

stuff it: so i guess i’ll talk to you later. or never. whenever.

stuff it: bye, kk.

stuff it changed their status to offline

Oh no, you think. No fucking way are you indulging his stupid self hatred drama tonight. You bounce your laptop onto the bed in front of you and forage on the floor for your cellphone. 

He picks up on the second ring.

“Fuck.”

That can’t be good.

YEAH, alright. It’s really fucking cool. You admitted that like 3 and some hours ago after watching it do its thing. Kanaya was thrilled with it. Some gallery bullshit for her college application portfolio. You’re happy for them.

You’ve been sitting here since before he sent it, and you’ve been making the same face since you started trying to edit it.

It is now an absolute clusterfuck. It probably doesn’t do anything now, because you suck at coding. You are probably worse at coding than people who have not bothered to learn anything about it. How is that possible, you ask?

It just is.

Your name is Karkat Vantas and you are a mere two months away from turning eighteen. You have a variety of interests, including but not limited to the various strata of terrible illuminated by romantic comedies while still being emotionally fulfilling, bringing classism to the attention of douchebags who try to pretend it’s not a thing, coding, and the psychology of romance.

None of these things are incredibly relevant right now. Your rival in coding and probably best friend sent you this piece of javascript about four hours ago, along with a string of messages boasting about how cool it is when you run it.

You have to admit, it is pretty cool.

Yeah?