oh hey i am posting this Homestuck fic meme fill here because LIVEJOURNAL HATES ME
RAEG.
I post fanfic updates, notify tumblr follows, nobody can see them?????
First livejournal deletes an entire 20+ part fill of mine and now this sdljlkfhsj.
so here's the fucking thing right here. So people can ACTUALLY READ IT.
And it's not finished either, there's still a couple of parts to goooo
UM BUT this is a Homestuck fanfic and I don't really think I have many lj friends from the Homestuck fandom so ignore this I guess, it's just here for reference and if you actually read it you will have no fucking idea about what this bullshit is ahaha.
That Fic Which I Cannot Name, and Have Called it 'Whoops' and 'Nothing' Already But Whatever
Characters: John POV, Karkat, some Rose in der and mentions of others
Pairing: what, you thought I would ever write something besides John/Karkat? ahahahahahahaha laughing forever
Word count: around 9,000 atm, will probably be 10/11,000 when completed
Warning: do awkward teenage gay alien crushes and copious amounts of angst and Johntears count?
Prompt:
"I would really super love to see something where John is freaked the fuck out by his attraction to Karkat. He has already made the "I am not a homosexual" statement and maybe he is just too young to realize, I know when I was 13 I was still figuring out if I liked boys or girls, and now over ten years later I am still sometimes wondering! Maybe he does not know himself. Maybe he is really horribly in denial.
...
TL;DR
JOHN IS IN THE CLOSET, DOESN'T REALIZE IT, AND DOESN'T WANT TO COME OUT IF/WHEN HE DOES REALIZE"
Songs to listen toooo are this one and this one, okay guys, because they are baw songs and apparently this is a baw fic. Just do it okay, I wrote them while listening and it sort of sets the angst mood.
______________________________________
John Egbert is not gay.
Girls are nice, yes, and while he’s never liked one before that definitely does not make him anything less then 100% heterosexual. When it was first brought up he thought about it a lot and was pleased to find nothing had changed - Liv Tyler was so gorgeous it wasn’t even funny and Cage is his hero and there are definitely no smoochy smoochy feelings there, not matter what Dave says.
He is, without a doubt, not homosexual. He made sure that everybody understands that.
Then why is it that when Karkat sends him messages he gets irrationally excited and giddy. Why is it that when Karkat shakily demands to know why he’s covered in blood he has strange pains in his heart, pains different to the grief he already feels there. Why is it that when Karkat says that he wishes he could make things better, wipe his tears away, hold him, it only makes him cry more, because he knows that Karkat isn’t here. Karkat can’t make things better, can’t comfort him, tell him it’s going to be alright, because he doesn’t even exist in this universe. There are only grey words swimming through his tears.
It hurts. It hurts because he’s alone, terribly, finally alone. His clothes are soaked with his own blood, his Dad’s blood, Rose’s Mum’s blood. His father is dead, Rose has vanished along with Jack, and he sits deep within the tumour’s chamber on the lip of one of the symbols, crying to his computer because he doesn’t have a fucking clue of what else he can do except hide away. Crying to the only one who has felt as much pain as he does now. And it’s so stupid, so ridiculous, because what has happened to him to make him feel this awful? Where has John gone? Chirpy, happy, optimistic John has disappeared, and he has to take his glasses off to roughly rub his eyes of all the tears.
He doesn’t like doing that. It means everything goes blurry because of his eyesight, and then he can’t see Karkat’s text trying desperately to console him.
______
Hours pass. In that time, things get better. The Scratch is planned, the rift into the troll’s session about to be opened; he is with his friends on Dave’s world, they are all dealing with their heartache together, they are somehow still alive, and he is still not gay.
Even if he has to keep telling himself that all the time after Karkat confesses to him. Because he does definitely not want creepy hate-love; not that he has a problem with it, he guesses, he just doesn’t want to be on the end of such intense, burning hatred.
His Karkat is different. His Karkat is his friend, the boy that was there for him when nobody else was, the one he helped survive when everything in the troll’s session went to hell. The one he comforted, supported, when it was Karkat’s turn to feel crushing, overwhelming grief. He doesn’t want Past Karkat’s hate love because he is too fond of their budding friendship and understanding.
He definitely does not consider what it would be like to have a normal, non hateful relationship with him. Because he is not a homosexual, and it shouldn’t even cross his mind when he ends the conversation, feeling weird and numb, like he’s done something terribly wrong to reject him.
______________________________________
The Veil is so cold and metallic, covered and surrounded by darkness. It’s like a twisted maze designed for rats by crazy mad scientists, full of meandering passageways and hidden rooms and stairs that make Dave giddy.
But in the end they find the lab and the few remaining trolls huddled in there, waiting for them - Terezi, Karkat, Sollux and Kanaya. John wants to ask about Vriska, because all he’s been told is that she’s disappeared, but whenever he starts to they all stare at him like they want to say, “please, ask anything but that.” And because they’re all bloody, dejected messes, he bites his tongue to hold it back. Instead the kids sit with them in the corner of the computer lab, quietly, together, and John leans his head against Karkat’s who doesn’t complain, just stares at the opposite wall with his legs drawn up to his chest and his hands scrunched into stiff fists, knuckles white.
He pretends that the bubbling feeling in his heart and stomach is just excitement at meeting them finally, but it’s hard to ignore the texture of Karkat’s hair on his cheek, his small hands, his huge gold eyes that have a weird unnameable emotion in them when they blink at each other.
Later that day - if days and nights have any meaning out here - he finds Karkat walking blankly through the grey corridors of the Veil, alone with his hands stuffed into pockets and back hunched, and John tiptoes up behind him and pushes his shoulder, giggling, making Karkat jump and explode with fucks and shits and I Hate You Egbert Why Are You So Crazy.
And they stare at each other, very close, Karkat still huffing and throwing his arms about as he complains loudly, and John reminds himself that they are just Very Close Friends who Have A Mutual Understanding and there is absolutely nothing at all gay with his concern when he has the chance to say, “are you okay? You looked so lonely and sad.”
“I’m fine, dipshit, it’s you who’s so fucking retarded, next time you jump me like that I’m going to punch your nose so far through your body that when you’re dead you’ll still be smelling your own shit.” He scowls down at his shoes, a little bundle of frustration and anger and John feels such an overwhelming adoration for him - as a friend! Friendlove! Not anything else! - because he’s so tiny and permanently ornery yet he knows what’s underneath all the meaningless threats and insults.
“Are you sure? I know it’s only been a couple of hours since-“
“Don’t fucking talk about that, okay.” His broken, angry eyes almost glow in the half light.
John steps forward, because he can tell by the way his friend hunches his shoulders, the way his arms are shaking, that he’s trying desperately to hold everything together - the other trolls, the situation, his own emotional state - and is failing miserably now that they’re alone together, now that he doesn’t have to keep up the façade. “You know,” John says quietly, “if you want that hug we rainchecked…”
Karkat doesn’t answer or look up, but he can see his big, dilated black pupils staring at him nervously from under his mess of black hair. John forgets all about that overwhelming hate that the troll used to have for him when when, after a long, drawn out moment, Karkat scrapes his shoe against the ground like a shy school girl and squeaks, “yeah? What about it, asswipe?”
He doesn’t care about gayness or hate-crushes when he reaches out and pulls a squawking, surprised Karkat roughly forward, grinning to himself when he wraps his arms around narrow, flailing shoulders. “I just thought you might need it now.” He pretends he isn’t talking about himself at that moment; pretends that he is a strong Friendleader who is a tough street maverick with a heart of gold and isn’t still hurting terribly on the inside. Because Karkat is here now, and he almost wants to cry so he can wipe away the tears like he promised he would.
The troll quietens after a moment, shutting his muttering mouth with a snap, and he’s warm and tense and shaking, and he wraps his arms clumsily around John’s waist. He giggles again, and Karkat mutters, “shut up, you’re spoiling it,” into the crook of his shoulder without much conviction.
______
John Egbert cannot be gay. That’s what it really boils down to, in the end. They’re supposed to restart the human race, right? And that involves babies, and while thinking of Rose that way makes him feel vaguely sick - he loves her deeply, but only as a friend and doing anything with her is… ugh, it squicks him out - it’s not like they really have any choice in the matter. Not like they’ve had any choice throughout their whole session.
It’s wrong, not on the “being gay is wrong” level, but on the “the future depends on this” way. When he can feel Karkat’s eyes on his back, see his sad, angular little face, see his mouth thin into a stubborn line of sharp little teeth, see his big eyes and long eyelashes avoid him when they’re talking, he has to remind himself that.
That he’s not gay. That whatever Karkat feels for him, whatever weird troll-love thing he has, can’t work. He lies, curled up in a stash of blankets in the corner of one of the lab rooms, wide awake while the other humans sleep soundly around him, thinking about it for hours. And for some reason he can’t explain it hurts. It’s like a little punch to his heart, like he’s betraying Karkat. Betraying himself is a whispered concept that keeps repeating itself in his head, but that’s just silly. Why should he think that? He’s definitely not gay, because he thinks Kanaya and Terezi are pretty, and that Vriska was pretty while he was talking to her through chat. He’s never thought any other guy was pretty, and Nic Cage doesn’t count because his hair is beautiful and his wife beater so rugged but he only thinks that because he’s jealous and wants them for himself.
Karkat is not attractive. Of course he isn’t. John does not spend a weirdly long amount of time watching him, and even if he does it’s only because Karkat is an alien and it’s super interesting to watch him move, hear the weird sounds that come from his lips when his long grey tongue curls just so. Okay, so maybe he’s attractive in a cute, adorabloodthirsty way, but not like that. John doesn’t want to wander through the corridors looking for him, doesn’t feel that aching need to be near him even though it does weird things to his body, like make his palms sweat and his heart beat funnily. Nope, definitely doesn’t.
He hides his head under a pillow and groans loudly into the one mashed into his face so he doesn’t wake everybody. Why is this so hard? Why did all this have to happen, why does he have to make babies with Rose and why doesn’t he get to stay at home, on Earth, with no meteors, and grow up with posters of race cars and scanty girls pinned to his walls like the 100% heterosexual boy he is.
Why can’t he just be himself?
Why does he finally fall asleep to the image of Karkat’s big black pupils and the lines of his small hands fisting in dark hair?
______
It terrifies him when they’re not alone together; when Dave is with him and Karkat along with Terezi, when Rose watches him coolly from across the room. Karkat is one of his Best Bros and he doesn’t like him so why do they stare at him like that, like they know something he doesn’t? He tries to make it painfully obvious that he’s not a homosexual, because he definitely isn’t, but it doesn’t stop Rose’s eyebrows from shooting up into her hairline whenever she sees him with Karkat. What’s the big deal anyway? He’s allowed to talk to his friend, because that’s what fellow friendleaders do - they make plans together, talk about the future, and if they do comfort each other, if Karkat does let his head bang into John’s shoulder once or twice when he’s tired and angry and frustrated, resting for that brief moment in-between the shadows of the lab room computers, it is in a totally manly way.
And if John holds Karkat's head close, impulsively runs his fingers through thick black hair and tells him that everything is going to be okay, it's only because that's what it takes to comfort the both of them.
(glorious fic art by the op, inverts ;;U;; <3<3<3
______________________________________
Outside the threat of the Reckoning, they have time. Time to plan, to consider, to heal and think about all that has gone right and wrong. Days pass in the Veil, as humans and trolls begin to learn and accept each other.
Some of those days, John can’t take it. Can’t take all the turmoil in his head, and when he closes his eyes all he can see is his hand holding his father’s, both dripping with bright red ink, and he has to rub the vision out with his palms until all he can see are exploding patterns of colour on his eyelids and then nothing.
Sometimes he just needs to be alone, when trying to explain to people gets too hard. It’s like something in him, a foundation of his personality, has cracked, and suddenly all the sadness he’s never experienced comes pouring out like a flooded dam. And friendleaders aren’t supposed to cry, to be weak, and even though he knows his friends would be more than willing to comfort him sometimes it just doesn’t help and all he wants to do is let it all out into the sleeve of his sweater, cry until he’s dry, until his emotions are washed up and beached in cold emptiness.
One day, he’s sitting alone on the benches in the computer lab, wrapped up in himself, knees drawn up and face buried in his arms because everything is too hard and he shouldn’t have to deal with all this confusion and anger and depression when he’s only thirteen and still growing up. He thinks everybody is asleep elsewhere but he’s not sure because it’s always black in the Veil and for all he knows it could always be night. It’s dark in the room - only one computer screen is turned on, the screen painfully bright and intense in the shadows.
If it had of been turned off, he wouldn’t have noticed Karkat standing there.
When he does he jumps and almost shouts in fright, because for a moment he thinks in a craze of sudden fear is that Jack? but no, Karkat’s eyes are bright and orange in the dark and he doesn’t move - simply stands there, staring at John, and he wonders how long he’s been watching him sniffle into his sleeve.
“Hi,” the troll says awkwardly after a moment, rubbing his shoulder. “I didn’t think you were in here.” It’s about as apologetic as he’s going to get.
John wipes his eyes behind his glasses and swallows back the choke, that constricted feeling in his throat that comes from too much crying. “What are you doing here?” he hiccups.
“I… I’ve been trying to find out if anything else went wrong in our sessions. On the computers.” He gestures weakly to the screen that is still on, and John realises that all of Terezi’s muttered words finally make sense. The other trolls think he’s completely obsessed with backtracking through time to desperately find the one thing that might have saved them. He must have left it on to come back to, and John chose the worst time to hide away in here.
He thinks they just don’t understand that it’s the only “hope” Karkat will let himself feel.
The boy walks over, pulls himself up onto the bench to sit crosslegged next to John, and he almost wishes he would leave because he’d rather have time to himself but he doesn’t want to complain either. Karkat picks absently at the hem of his jeans while John sniffles and wipes his nose again, the collar of his shirt soaked with the salty tears running down his chin and neck. He’s an absolute mess but it doesn’t really matter when he’s with Karkat because, in the end, they’re both going through the same thing. Leaders who are breaking under the stress and the loss, and he’s surprised and proud and jealous at how Karkat can still, somehow, keep it together like this, that he’s stronger than John internally. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that John has always tried to be optimistic - never really realised at how much could go wrong, that people could die here, let alone his Dad, who had always been so invincible and such a concrete presence in his life.
Karkat, on the other hand, has no pretty rose pink flowery assumptions about the universe. He trusts things to go wrong. He’s experienced death and pain and betrayal already, in the world around him and in himself. His entire life has been a fucked up mess, as he had said to John one time, and he’s never expected it to get any better. Sburb is just the cherry on the cake.
It breaks his heart to think that that’s all that Karkat can feel now, that he’s become so jaded to everything around him that anger is the only emotion that fuels his stubborn willpower. He wants to reach out and pinch his cheeks and tell him to stop being so silly and cute, run his fingers through his hair some more, rest his head on his chest and hold his hand there to feel his beating heart and maybe, just maybe, if he shows him how much he cares something deep inside Karkat will mend itself back together and he’ll be able to feel more than just desperation and rage.
But instead he bites the inside of his cheek and lets a choked sob overwhelm him because why does he feel like way? He can’t, he shouldn’t and why why why are these thoughts somehow breaking his identity apart? Why do they make him second guess himself, make him wonder if he’s been lying this whole time, wonder what the lie actually is? The monitor that’s turned on becomes a slash and blurred white in his vision and he’s crying again, forehead beating against his folded arms on his knees with his glasses digging into his nose and he wishes Karkat would just leave so he can feel okay about himself.
But he doesn’t. Karkat reaches out and awkwardly wraps an arm around John’s back, shifts closer until their hips bump, burries his head in John’s shoulder and it does that stupid thing to his heart, makes it skip a beat in-between his sobs. It’s so embarrassing because he never cries like this, especially not in front of other people, and now he’s a confused ball of retarded emotions and feelings and it’s too much for him. He lifts his face to ask Karkat to leave but when he does…
When he does Karkat unwinds himself from John to reach up and ease his glasses off his face. There’s not much difference in vision. The troll’s eyes were already swimming points of yellow through his tears. He doesn’t ask for them back, question what he’s doing, because he doesn’t trust his voice.
Wordlessly, Karkat reaches up and brushes the tears from John’s eyes. His thumb is surprisingly gentle and soft. And time does this weird thing where it sort of stands still, his breath catches shakily in his throat, and he wonders if Karkat isn’t really the Knight of Blood and instead has time powers and is abusing the hell out of them.
“Just like I promised?” he says quietly, face uncomfortably close to John’s, and his sniffles a bit but can’t find the words because he’s so overwhelmed for a moment and there’s this weird buzzing in his chest and stomach that makes it hard to concentrate or hear anything.
Karkat’s thumb meanderings it’s way down John’s face, tracking the lines of his tears and brushing them aside, brushing against his upper lip which is wet and salty. He can’t breathe.
He cups John’s damp cheek in his little hand. He can feel the lines of his palm, the roughness of his grey skin, holding him like at any moment he’s about to break and that’s pretty much accurate anyway.
And Karkat closes the gap and kisses him. His lips are awkward and clumsy because they’re both only thirteen, even if sometimes it feels like they’ve aged twenty years since the beginning and John can already see lines on his forehead when he looks into a mirror. But it’s sweet and simple and Karkat’s eyes are screwed shut, he can feel his mouth trembling a bit, his hand shaking when his thumb draws little mindless circles on his cheek with his tears.
It hurts. It hurts so much when John has to pull away from Karkat’s touch and hand and he can still feel him there, like a phantom on his face, and the look in those big gold eyes kills him. He can’t. It’s too confusing and he doesn’t know what to do - just wants to hide away in silence and never see anybody again, never have to look inside himself. It feels like something is grabbing his heart with an iron grip, constricting and giving chinese burns until everything is quivering. He’s the biggest bastard in paradox space when he forces out what he can't find the courage to fully say. “K-karkat I… I can’t I’m… not…”
Karkat doesn’t even look at him.
Drops John’s glasses into his lap, pulls away, climbs down from the computer bench. He doesn’t look back when he walks through the darkness, alone, out of the room in silence like it's a walk of shame, and in that moment John knows. Knows that Karkat realised from the beginning that John would never accept him like that.
He watches him leave with his mouth hanging open, touching a hand to his lips because he can still feel that pressure there, taste him, still feel the texture of his finger tracing on his skin. New tears wipe the patterns on his cheek and he doesn’t even care enough to rub them away because it feels like that would break the illusion of careful hands and lips that still ghost across his skin.
He doesn’t understand what he feels. He feels terrible, wrenching pain for having to reject Karkat.
But most of all he feels pain because he thinks he’s just ruined his chance at something that would have been amazing. He hurts because his first kiss is with another boy, an alien boy, and why should it feel so good if he’s not gay.
Because he isn’t. Right?
He curls up into a ball on the desk and holds his head in his hands, crying and feeling more alone than he ever has before. Even Karkat has left him, and there are no hands wiping away his tears or arms around him and no blurred grey text to cling to. The thing he wanted the most, he’s ruined.
______
It terrifies him when they’re alone together; when everybody else leaves the room inexplicably and he's left to watch Karkat wander listlessly around the place. John tries desperately to slip out as quickly as he can because he can’t stand staying alone in the same room with him any more. It’s like having his arms grabbed and pulled in opposite directions because Karkat is his friend and he wants to be with him but at the same time it’s so painful and awkward and when their eyes meet he sees… nothing.
Not even regret or anger.
Terezi and Kanaya have taken to staring at him; Kanaya’s skin still glowing eerily and Terezi’s red eyes looking just off his shoulder, like she can see something behind him that he can’t. It creeps him out and more than anything he feels guilty, Terezi silently judging him when her mouth is a thin black line and he knows that they’ve probably guessed, or that Karkat has told them what happened.
He knows his friend was only trying to help, trying to be there for him like he couldn’t be all those days ago but he’s pretty sure Karkat doesn’t really understand, not in the end. Doesn’t understand the implications. Doesn’t understand why John sits up late into that night, wrapped in his pile of blankets and staring blankly at the wall, trying, just trying, to have a moment of peace.
Because,
he thinks that he might be a little bit gay.
And it scares him more than anything.
______________________________________
John Egbert has never been attracted to anyone before. Not in person - wonderful Liv Tyler doesn’t really count. While friendly, he had always been socially awkward at school, a little too nerdy and nervous for girls to pay attention to him, a little too fond of solitude to make close solid friendships with people he vaguely knew. On the internet he could hide behind words, meet people who had the same interests as his, people who connected with him and that he had formed intense friendships with. All he has to do is look around the room he’s in to see how much he has - what these people would do for each other, what they would sacrifice to save someone who was stumbling.
But he’s never liked anybody that way. And if he hasn’t… well, how can he really say what he does like?
He thinks about it for hours, almost needing to come up with a definite answer, like his confused head won’t settle for anything less. Questions endlessly flashing through his mind, realisations that he supposes he’s been keeping buried for what feels like a while.
John is attracted to Karkat. He’s never liked anyone before, doesn’t know what the experience is like, but he’s pretty sure it must be something close to this. That weird buzzing, the tightness in the space between his heart and stomach that clenches with deep red warmth when he looks at Karkat out of the corner of his eye. The way his belly does strange little flip flops when they pass by each other, refusing to say a word, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth when he thinks back to when Karkat had kissed him, the burning guilt and sadness that he still feels, that still makes him cry at night. Such a short moment but it keeps coming back to haunt him, over and over until he tries banging his skull with a fist to keep it quiet and Rose has to grab his hands to stop him.
But what does that make him?
He’s supposed to repopulate the human race. It makes him shudder because no child should be hearing the word “father” at this age, nor have to consider how many babies he’ll have in the future. He’s not supposed to have feelings for a sad little grey alien who never looks at him with those big eyes anymore, because John has killed something between them. Killed something in his mad stubborn panic to… pretend to himself? Keep that fantasy going? It tastes so bitter and sharp and terrible, like vinegar down his throat, when he tries to… say something to Karkat, anything, tell him he’s so so sorry and he never meant for anything to hurt this badly between them, that he’ll do anything to make it up to him, insisting even when Karkat snaps and refuses and screams about how much he hates him and punches him hard in the cheek, leaving a little dark mark where before he touched so gently and John knows he's lying too.
He’s scared. He’s scared because it means so much, scared because he’s never really felt anything like this before, scared because he isn’t allowed to, not when he’s supposed to marry Rose and has such a responsibility for the entire human race. Scared that maybe he doesn’t really know himself as well as he thought he did.
Scared because he’s already lost people that he’s loved. He couldn’t bear it if anybody else died. He couldn’t bear it if, just when he had admitted that rejecting Karkat may have been one of the biggest mistakes in his life, he died on him too.
There is too much pain and loss already in his heart to deal with, so much that he can’t hold onto it anymore, can’t wrestle and lock away everything and pretend he’s okay. In the week since Sburb began, he still reels with how much he feels, how much has changed within himself, how much he’s aged and how much he’s seen - wars and death and space and destruction, Dersite ships on fire off the shoulder of Skaia, and little grey aliens he wants to hold onto, tell that everything will be okay and that he might be in love but he’s not sure because he’ll be terrified if he is. He wants to say that if he is, he’ll never let go, never let those big eyes out of his sight again, so they’re both safe and can drift and feel nothing but each other. So there is no barrier of grey and blue text and only the lines of small hands and the texture of dark hair and salty tears.
He can’t. He doesn’t know what to say, his tongue doesn’t work when he bumps into Karkat accidentally, stares after him when the troll moves past him, doesn’t even push him away like John deserves. When his expression doesn’t change - such a perfect mask he’s kept pulled up his whole life, one that Dave would kill for.
He sits up again the next night, temple resting against the cold dark metal of the lab walls while red flashes across his eyes, the red of blood against white and blushes against grey cheeks, too exhausted to rub them away. He’s tired. He’s so, so tired of everything, so tired of trying to keep up that John personality that is slipping away from underneath him like a rug being pulled out beneath his feet, but he can’t sleep because if he does he dreams of terrible, hideous things. He envies Dave and Jade, side by side across the room, curled up into little balls and breathing steadily.
John jumps when he feels a small hand on his shoulder and for a blinding, excited, irrational moment his heart leaps into this throat and Karkat’s name is on his tongue when he spins around but… It’s Rose, her headband removed and her fine blonde hair falling across her face. She sits down next to John wordlessly, moves up against his shoulder and takes the blankets, wrapping herself up next to him in warmth and security.
She holds his hand in his own and looks at him with those cool purple eyes, and John feels terrible for being disappointed that it’s her and not Karkat, but her hand is warm and comforting and he squeezes it back because he knows that Rose is going through the same grief and loss from the death of her Mom. It’s not the same as thumbs wiping away tears and innocent little black kisses, but it warms him for a moment.
“It’s okay,” she says, and he’s taken aback by how simple and honest the words are.
“What do you mean?” he asks, confused.
“It’s okay to be sad, John. The manner with which you put up this charade is remarkable, but you don’t have to keep going for our sake. We feel the same as you do, and a leader who is broken and burnt out isn’t an effective leader. Don’t think you have to be strong every moment of the day.”
He looks at her. At her serious, compassionate eyes, at the purple nailpolish she wears and the streaks of grey across her cheeks that are the scarred remains of her grimdark, and all he can say is, “I…” because his throat his choked and burning. He rubs at his eyes, trying to push back more tears (god he is like a waterworks) but she takes his arm and pulls it down so he can’t, and they drip down his face quietly with nobody to catch them.
“Listen. John. It’s almost a requirement that I say this because we’re all worried, and you’re going to reject my understanding of the matter, I know that, but… be who you are.”
“Rose, what are you-“
“Sburb is designed to test us, physically, emotionally and psychologically. I thought we’d all come to understand that, but I don’t think you realise that this is one of your own challenges. Nothing comes from trying to push away happiness - I wish I had of realised that years before. If it feels right to you, do it, John.”
She puts her free hand on top of theirs, rubs his knuckles, and her words are just confusing him more. He feels like there’s some kind of hidden meaning behind them, a pointed look in her eyes that he’s supposed to realise, and he knows that she’s not talking about the death of their parents anymore. They had already comforted each other, still did - he had held Rose close, his blue clothes stained complimentary red, crying into her smoking grimdark shoulder as she babbled eldritch nonsense through her black tears. Quiet moments alone together with Dave later on, trying to find the words to talk about it but coming up short and just staring at the ground between them instead.
“…Karkat, John,” she says quietly, interrupting his memories, and he takes a sharp intake of breath.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” but his hand is clenching involuntarily anyway and he’s a terrible liar because he can’t meet her eyes. Because he’s supposed to marry Rose, she knows that and he knows that. She cups his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her, and he squirms uncomfortably because he can feel phantom lines on his face that make him bite his lip.
“Stop pretending, John. I know what you’re thinking - don’t. Don’t let Sburb control our lives more than it already has, don’t hurt because of it. I don’t like seeing you with this much pathos on your shoulders, none of us do. You don’t love me, John, and I don’t love you. You love somebody else, and fuck Sburb. You don’t seriously except that we’re required to recreate at thirteen, do you? We’ll all figure something out in the years to come.”
He thinks he understands what she’s saying, that she’s giving her approval - though what the hell is pathos? - but it just scares him more, because the thought of actually being with Karkat? It terrifies him. What happens if Karkat doesn’t want him anymore, what happens if he’s damaged them too much to repair their friendship, let alone anything else? What happens if he doesn’t have feelings for Karkat, what happens if it just doesn’t work and their personalities don’t mesh as well he hopes they would? What happens if Karkat dies? They’re thoughts he shouldn’t be having, not at thirteen when he’s just beginning to explore the edges of his emotions. He rests his head on Rose’s shoulder, smells the lavender scent of her hair, and he wishes he loved her instead because it would be so much easier than having to deal with everything.
“I think I might be a bit gay,” he mumbles into her shoulder, and she laughs good naturedly and puts an arm around him and it’s wonderful when she does because the smell of lavender wraps around him under the blankets, and Rose understands because she’s always been smarter than he is, always been stronger emotionally. It’s okay if he admits it to her, because she’s one of the closest people in his life and he’s going to get a punching glove to the face of psychoanalysis bullshit later but he doesn’t care.
“John, you are just you.”
“You don’t mind?”
“What kind of friend would I be if I did? That’s preposterous, John.”
“…What about Dave?” He knows that Jade, as his sister, will support him 100%, but he doesn’t think he could take Dave laughing at him behind dark shades.
“Dave already guesses. You've both been particularly transparent about it, I'm not going to lie; all of this lovers' bickering like you're a married couple. He has this strange notion that the irony of it is wonderful. No, John, of course he doesn’t mind, what do you take us for?”
He keeps quiet, gnawing on his bottom lip nervously and feeling something akin to… crushing relief. Like a weight has begun to life off his shoulders because even though he knew, was almost certain, that his friends wouldn’t have any issue with his apparent mild gayness (it sounds so strange to admit that aloud, and the work sticks to his tongue uncomfortably because he still isn’t used to confessing that) but there was always that nagging fear. He’s grateful to have friends like this, friends who are now in his real life, closer than family, people he can hold onto like this and not be blocked by the barrier of a screen or judgements.
And for the first time in a long while, he feels okay. Telling Rose is like freeing something chained up under lies and denial inside him. He feels like this could possibly work, that he can deal with this because he’s strong, he’s a friendleader, he’s… John. He’s himself.
Rose rubs his shoulder and he’s so grateful that she’s here, in a blinding wonderful moment when he realises that she’s right - they can figure something else, he shouldn’t let Sburb control everything, they can wait, maybe clone some babies instead if he… if Karkat… It’s too early to be ruining every chance he gets and he thinks he might really want this. The fear, the responsibility to the human race he has, is the main thing that was holding him back but Rose, if… if Rose doesn’t…
Oh god. The implications of the future come crashing down, but they aren’t implications that make him so sad for things that can never be. It’s whiplash from realising that these are things he can have if he has the courage to ask, to accept, to hold and comfort, and it isn't just the thought of Karkat that makes him think that - it's everything. And Rose is right - his life is his own, and he shouldn’t let Sburb control it. He’s been so caught up with learning and understanding time loops, that in the future he has already done whatever he needs to do, that he’s begun to want to not do anything for fear of something going terribly wrong, for fear of breaking the stable loop.
He forgets that he will do these things anyway. Dave’s words - “the key to it is to just go with the flow and not think too hard” - come back to him.
He chews on his cheek, scared. All throughout their session he tried to be fearless but it was always there, pushed far out of sight so he could ignore it, focus on the goal, and now in the quiet darkness it comes rushing back but it’s a different kind of fear now and it feels so childish, almost, to be scared of a first crush at thirteen years of age. He doesn’t feel that young any more, like any normal emotion that should happen to normal school children is obscure and surreal, because he doesn’t live in a normal world any more and he’s not blushing and stumbling in front of pretty young girls in his freshman classes. Pretty young girls and busy schools that don't exist, that he'll never grow up to experience.
He holds a hand over his heart because it’s beating a little too hard to breath properly and he tries to will it to slow down because fuck he’s so nervous, so nervous now that everything has opened up and come rushing out and so sorry and he hopes he can fix everything. He hopes so painfully, because he thinks the feeling of little grey arms around his neck, of heads pressed against shoulders in moments of rest and piece, could really make him happy. He thinks he might need this.
______________________________________
John Egbert is really only thirteen, even though sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. He’s a brave friendleader; he’s led his friends through tears in space and time, fought against monsters, omnipresent murderers, saved people and worlds and he’s died more than once - there’s a weird white slit down his chest that aches sometimes, not a scar but something else otherworldly and when he looks at it closely in a mirror it reminds him of stars glowing incandescently through gaps in the universe.
John Egbert is a god. He can call up tornados and wipe out fires that rage across worlds and he knows what fluffy clouds feel like in his hands when he floats between them, seeing the past and future combine when they pass through each other. He knows what blood feels like, knows what it’s like to be stabbed through the heart and bleed out until there is only white and then, somehow, glowing eyes crying in his vision when he awakes.
John Egbert knows what it’s like to meet aliens - to meet the creators of a world he used to call home before it shriveled and died. He knows what it’s like to have big bright orange eyes staring at him, knows what it’s like to kiss dark little lips and feel the texture of grey skin on his face and hear whispered promises being kept. John Egbert has realised that he isn’t exactly as heterosexual as he once thought, that he might be a little bit gay when he wanders through metallic corridors floating through a vast endless nothing, searching for the one he might be a little bit in love with so he can say sorry. Sorry for everything; sorry for what he’s done to him, sorry for what they’ve lost, sorry for what they might lose in the future, but he thinks that if they have each other then maybe it won’t be so hard, it won’t hurt as much as it will. That he can promise that he’ll keep him safe, never let him out of his sight, if only he can trust him and let him in.
He goes with Rose’s soft pushes, leaves behind his mutterings of, “no, some other time, not now I’m tired, I don’t want to, Rose please don’t make me what if I’m not ready, I’m frightened, what if…” Somewhere in him he’s still so nervous because saying sorry means admitting it to a angry face and sad eyes and it scares him, scares him more than having to hold heavy hammers in his hands so he can bring them back down on black shale heads.
The trolls sleep separate from the kids, close enough that if anything happens, if anything goes wrong, the other group can come running. He slips out of the room the others sleep in and slinks through the darkness, scuffing his bare feet hard along the ground like he hopes the floor will stick to him and he won’t have to continue. But when he reaches the room just down the hall, he takes deep breaths and peeks around, and it’s quiet and black and the only light is from glowing green machines pulled straight from science fiction movies and huddled black shapes wrapped in blankets. With no day and no night in the Veil, both trolls and humans have begun sleeping at the same time because it’s easier that way, and even though Karkat bitches and complains and demands that everybody stay awake it’s not long before even he has to fight from nodding off.
John finds him curled into a fetal position in the corner, wrapped in dark blankets, fisted hands pillowed under his head and dark brows knitted together over closed eyes and John is surprised, disappointed, and glad that he’s asleep, breathing shallowly, his face still stuck in one of constant frustration. He sits beside him quietly, pulling his knees up so he can rest his chin against them, watching his little pointed ears twitch, wondering what his dreams are like, if he hears eldritch screams and sees hundreds of eyes from the Furthest Ring as well. He thinks he likes watching Karkat, because it makes something deep inside him kind of glow and it’s definitely gay but he doesn’t give a fuck any more because it feels nice, it feels wonderful and it's something to hold delicately between his hands like he would a firefly. He has to repeat Rose’s words in his head, cling to them like a little mantra and remind himself that she’s okay with it, that he doesn’t have to marry her if he doesn’t want to.
Karkat looks so young. Sometimes it strikes him weirdly that they’re all still just thirteen - or six sweeps or whatever the trolls use - like he expects to see someone old and haggard instead, because that’s what he feels like on the inside. Not when he’s like this though, not when he reaches out tentatively to brush against Karkat’s thick dark hair, move it out of his eyes and smile nervously to himself at the feeling of it between his fingers. He feels like a scared little boy with his first real crush, first real attraction, and oh man why did it have to turn out to be an alien boy and not some pretty girl like Rose, because this is still all so confusing to realise within the space of a few days. He wishes life was easier. Or, at least, easier in this department - he can take fighting and hopping between alien worlds and dieing over and over but doing this is pretty terrifying on an intrinsically personal level. He wonders what his father would say about all this if he was... if he was... here.
He hopes he would hug him, hold him close and tell him that it was alright and he would always love his son no matter what, even if some day he would sit in front of a grey alien boy like this, in the darkness, about to run fingers through black hair and tell him that maybe, if he promises not to die on him, they can work it out. That he would write John little notes (that he would snort at but love anyway), slip them into school lunchboxes like he used to, inside pillowslips where he would never see them but feel the meaning anyway.
He touches the troll's cheekbone gently, feels the grey skin because he's so sure he's fast asleep (it feels strangely wet, not dry and slightly rough like usual) and is reluctant still to wake him, but-
Karkat’s eyes snap open incredibly fast at his touch, and he can see for a moment in the green halflight his pupils dilate from pinpricks until they’re huge and black and he’s staring at John sitting there, hand half raised and frozen like he’s been caught stealing something. He opens and closes his mouth like a surprised fish, Karkat bearing his sharp little teeth and snarling at him, body reflexively curling into itself and his hands tightening under his head, nails digging into the cold metal floor.
“Piss off,” he whispers, so poisonously, and John blinks stupidly over his glasses, realising that Karkat wasn’t really asleep at all and that the words are like a sword through the heart again. He bites his lip because the troll is looking at him so terribly, so venomously, and all the fear comes hard and fast because he’s been stupid, he’s almost been expecting Karkat to accept him back, to understand about why he rejected him, how much he hurt because of it but that he thinks he’s better now and he wants to give it a go.
“I…”
“I said fuck off, I’m not putting up with you now Egbert, I am so not in the mood for your ridiculous bullshit-“
“Karkat, I’m sorry!” He blurts it out desperately because this isn’t going how he wanted it to, he almost forgot how angry the troll is with him and the universe in general, forgot about the dark bruise on his cheek from Karkat’s knuckles. He doesn’t even realise how loud he’s said it until he hears someone stir quietly behind them and Karkat’s eyes narrow dangerously, mouth stretching out until it’s a thin slit of teeth.
“The fuck are you talking about,” he hisses back, and he looks so cold and vulnerable lying there in the shadows, skin blending in with the grey floor and dark hair with the rough blanket he’s curled in while the eerie green light bounces off his face and glassy eyes, and John doesn’t know what to say because what was he going to say after that? It's all come so fast, so suddenly and he's barely had time to even think about what comes next. Time is precious in the Veil, as paradoxically bizarre that is when they have Dave here, and it's either now or wait forever.
“I… Karkat, I-I’m sorry for doing that to you before, I didn’t… oh gosh, I know I really hurt you and I’m so… I didn’t mean to! You freaked me out, okay? I was upset, confused and scared. It’s different for trolls, but I’m not…” - he pauses, corrects himself mentally, face hot and heart pounding because oh god he had never expected this to happen - "I might be a little bit more gay than I... thought I was then? Sort of?" He has to squeak out the last part, holding his knees tightly.
Part of him says snidely that he’s probably had these feelings for a long time, just denied them adamantly. That excitement he had always felt when Karkat had spoken to him during Sburb couldn’t have been completely platonic; the way he looked forward to his insults because they were always so ridiculous and the little wars they had between each other because they were adorable, filled with yelling and laughing on his part; the way their friendship had slowly but steadily progressed into something like mutual understanding and grudging respect; when John had been so, so broken and alone and Karkat demanded to know what had happened, why he was soaked with blood and John what the fuck has happened are you okay please tell me you’re okay oh fuck; when Karkat was so alone and frightened that John had sat there resolutly for half an hour in the middle of fighting on LOHAC while Dave complained behind him, trying to calm the troll down, telling him that everything would be okay because he couldn’t die, John refused to let him die, they had promised to be there for each other, right?; getting Karkat to distract himself by setting up the webcam on his computer so they could communicate better. Those nubby horns, the big scared eyes, the way his ears wilted so low as he chewed his fingernails desperately while typing with one hand, arms around his knees, and god he was so cute even then, all spiky words and caps in text but so small and almost delicate in reality. He had expected him to somehow be so nasty looking, full of violent gnashing teeth and long brutal horns and massive claws to fit his big grandiose words; instead he was just a scared young boy with streaks of weird red tears down his face and in that moment they had connected, really connected, and John had been so touched and so concerned for him and his friends and he had edged closer, told him that everything would be okay because they would cross the rift soon and keep the trolls safe from Bec Noir.
The Karkat now looking at him, still curled up on the floor with teeth bared, isn’t the Karkat he wants. He wants him to be happy, to never look so sad again, because that’s what he deserves, it’s what they all deserve, and John had been too scared to admit his feelings to himself when he had kissed him so adorably and nervously. Even though, when he had, the painful feeling in his stomach like fireflies or butterflies being let loose was almost overwhelming. He can admit it now but only just barely, because it’s still such a weird jolt to realise that he has feelings for another boy and not a girl like he thought he would. But he knows that Karkat likes him desperately, knows that his friends are okay with it, knows that Rose can wait for him, knows that his life should be in his control, and he…
He shuffles closer, reaches out his hand to play nervously with the fabric of the blanket, babbling sorrys and not even listening to what he’s saying anymore, just so long as he can find a way to make Karkat’s expression change, fix him somehow, even if he has to make an idiot out of himself like he always does. He’s sniffling now, wiping his nose and his eyes through his glasses because it scares him, deep down everything scares him but just doing this is revealing so much and he just wants to be happy again.
“Just-John, John… No, stop, shut up. I can’t even understand what you’re saying.”
He has to pause mid-word, look away intently at the glowing machines at the far end of the room, at the quiet bumps of darker shadow that he can see now that his eyes have adjusted to the light. He doesn’t even understand what he’s been saying - something about his father, maybe? Something about how he knows Karkat doesn’t understand what family is about but he’s thankful that he tried to learn anyway and was there for him? Sorry that when he was just trying help John had pushed him away? He rips viciously at the frayed edges of the rough blanket because it keeps his nervous hands occupied and Karkat’s eyebrows are a heavy, exasperated line across his shadowed eyes.
“You don’t… hate me again, do you?” He whispers it so quietly he can barely hear himself, and he’s pretty sure Karkat doesn’t, they’re too close these day to pass beyond irritation, but he can feel how much he’s hurt him and he need to have an answer. Take a walk in Karkat’s shoes, he says to himself, imagining how it would feel to be sitting in his place, confessing through touch and being so terribly shot down in such a dark moment of sadness and pain. He pushes his glasses up his face, feels his wet cheeks, and hopes, god, he hopes that’s not what’s going to happen to him now.
There’s a long moment of painful silence when they stare at each other, and Karkat groans and covers his face with one hand. “No, dipshit, I don’t. Happy now? Can I go back to being left alone now? If you’re just going to mouthgab at me for hours-“
---AND THEN THEY PORKED---
I mean.
--- and then Grim will finish the fill with absolutely no smut at all because this is not an au and they are darling thirteen year old bbs.
I post fanfic updates, notify tumblr follows, nobody can see them?????
First livejournal deletes an entire 20+ part fill of mine and now this sdljlkfhsj.
so here's the fucking thing right here. So people can ACTUALLY READ IT.
And it's not finished either, there's still a couple of parts to goooo
UM BUT this is a Homestuck fanfic and I don't really think I have many lj friends from the Homestuck fandom so ignore this I guess, it's just here for reference and if you actually read it you will have no fucking idea about what this bullshit is ahaha.
That Fic Which I Cannot Name, and Have Called it 'Whoops' and 'Nothing' Already But Whatever
Characters: John POV, Karkat, some Rose in der and mentions of others
Pairing: what, you thought I would ever write something besides John/Karkat? ahahahahahahaha laughing forever
Word count: around 9,000 atm, will probably be 10/11,000 when completed
Warning: do awkward teenage gay alien crushes and copious amounts of angst and Johntears count?
Prompt:
"I would really super love to see something where John is freaked the fuck out by his attraction to Karkat. He has already made the "I am not a homosexual" statement and maybe he is just too young to realize, I know when I was 13 I was still figuring out if I liked boys or girls, and now over ten years later I am still sometimes wondering! Maybe he does not know himself. Maybe he is really horribly in denial.
...
TL;DR
JOHN IS IN THE CLOSET, DOESN'T REALIZE IT, AND DOESN'T WANT TO COME OUT IF/WHEN HE DOES REALIZE"
Songs to listen toooo are this one and this one, okay guys, because they are baw songs and apparently this is a baw fic. Just do it okay, I wrote them while listening and it sort of sets the angst mood.
______________________________________
John Egbert is not gay.
Girls are nice, yes, and while he’s never liked one before that definitely does not make him anything less then 100% heterosexual. When it was first brought up he thought about it a lot and was pleased to find nothing had changed - Liv Tyler was so gorgeous it wasn’t even funny and Cage is his hero and there are definitely no smoochy smoochy feelings there, not matter what Dave says.
He is, without a doubt, not homosexual. He made sure that everybody understands that.
Then why is it that when Karkat sends him messages he gets irrationally excited and giddy. Why is it that when Karkat shakily demands to know why he’s covered in blood he has strange pains in his heart, pains different to the grief he already feels there. Why is it that when Karkat says that he wishes he could make things better, wipe his tears away, hold him, it only makes him cry more, because he knows that Karkat isn’t here. Karkat can’t make things better, can’t comfort him, tell him it’s going to be alright, because he doesn’t even exist in this universe. There are only grey words swimming through his tears.
It hurts. It hurts because he’s alone, terribly, finally alone. His clothes are soaked with his own blood, his Dad’s blood, Rose’s Mum’s blood. His father is dead, Rose has vanished along with Jack, and he sits deep within the tumour’s chamber on the lip of one of the symbols, crying to his computer because he doesn’t have a fucking clue of what else he can do except hide away. Crying to the only one who has felt as much pain as he does now. And it’s so stupid, so ridiculous, because what has happened to him to make him feel this awful? Where has John gone? Chirpy, happy, optimistic John has disappeared, and he has to take his glasses off to roughly rub his eyes of all the tears.
He doesn’t like doing that. It means everything goes blurry because of his eyesight, and then he can’t see Karkat’s text trying desperately to console him.
______
Hours pass. In that time, things get better. The Scratch is planned, the rift into the troll’s session about to be opened; he is with his friends on Dave’s world, they are all dealing with their heartache together, they are somehow still alive, and he is still not gay.
Even if he has to keep telling himself that all the time after Karkat confesses to him. Because he does definitely not want creepy hate-love; not that he has a problem with it, he guesses, he just doesn’t want to be on the end of such intense, burning hatred.
His Karkat is different. His Karkat is his friend, the boy that was there for him when nobody else was, the one he helped survive when everything in the troll’s session went to hell. The one he comforted, supported, when it was Karkat’s turn to feel crushing, overwhelming grief. He doesn’t want Past Karkat’s hate love because he is too fond of their budding friendship and understanding.
He definitely does not consider what it would be like to have a normal, non hateful relationship with him. Because he is not a homosexual, and it shouldn’t even cross his mind when he ends the conversation, feeling weird and numb, like he’s done something terribly wrong to reject him.
______________________________________
The Veil is so cold and metallic, covered and surrounded by darkness. It’s like a twisted maze designed for rats by crazy mad scientists, full of meandering passageways and hidden rooms and stairs that make Dave giddy.
But in the end they find the lab and the few remaining trolls huddled in there, waiting for them - Terezi, Karkat, Sollux and Kanaya. John wants to ask about Vriska, because all he’s been told is that she’s disappeared, but whenever he starts to they all stare at him like they want to say, “please, ask anything but that.” And because they’re all bloody, dejected messes, he bites his tongue to hold it back. Instead the kids sit with them in the corner of the computer lab, quietly, together, and John leans his head against Karkat’s who doesn’t complain, just stares at the opposite wall with his legs drawn up to his chest and his hands scrunched into stiff fists, knuckles white.
He pretends that the bubbling feeling in his heart and stomach is just excitement at meeting them finally, but it’s hard to ignore the texture of Karkat’s hair on his cheek, his small hands, his huge gold eyes that have a weird unnameable emotion in them when they blink at each other.
Later that day - if days and nights have any meaning out here - he finds Karkat walking blankly through the grey corridors of the Veil, alone with his hands stuffed into pockets and back hunched, and John tiptoes up behind him and pushes his shoulder, giggling, making Karkat jump and explode with fucks and shits and I Hate You Egbert Why Are You So Crazy.
And they stare at each other, very close, Karkat still huffing and throwing his arms about as he complains loudly, and John reminds himself that they are just Very Close Friends who Have A Mutual Understanding and there is absolutely nothing at all gay with his concern when he has the chance to say, “are you okay? You looked so lonely and sad.”
“I’m fine, dipshit, it’s you who’s so fucking retarded, next time you jump me like that I’m going to punch your nose so far through your body that when you’re dead you’ll still be smelling your own shit.” He scowls down at his shoes, a little bundle of frustration and anger and John feels such an overwhelming adoration for him - as a friend! Friendlove! Not anything else! - because he’s so tiny and permanently ornery yet he knows what’s underneath all the meaningless threats and insults.
“Are you sure? I know it’s only been a couple of hours since-“
“Don’t fucking talk about that, okay.” His broken, angry eyes almost glow in the half light.
John steps forward, because he can tell by the way his friend hunches his shoulders, the way his arms are shaking, that he’s trying desperately to hold everything together - the other trolls, the situation, his own emotional state - and is failing miserably now that they’re alone together, now that he doesn’t have to keep up the façade. “You know,” John says quietly, “if you want that hug we rainchecked…”
Karkat doesn’t answer or look up, but he can see his big, dilated black pupils staring at him nervously from under his mess of black hair. John forgets all about that overwhelming hate that the troll used to have for him when when, after a long, drawn out moment, Karkat scrapes his shoe against the ground like a shy school girl and squeaks, “yeah? What about it, asswipe?”
He doesn’t care about gayness or hate-crushes when he reaches out and pulls a squawking, surprised Karkat roughly forward, grinning to himself when he wraps his arms around narrow, flailing shoulders. “I just thought you might need it now.” He pretends he isn’t talking about himself at that moment; pretends that he is a strong Friendleader who is a tough street maverick with a heart of gold and isn’t still hurting terribly on the inside. Because Karkat is here now, and he almost wants to cry so he can wipe away the tears like he promised he would.
The troll quietens after a moment, shutting his muttering mouth with a snap, and he’s warm and tense and shaking, and he wraps his arms clumsily around John’s waist. He giggles again, and Karkat mutters, “shut up, you’re spoiling it,” into the crook of his shoulder without much conviction.
______
John Egbert cannot be gay. That’s what it really boils down to, in the end. They’re supposed to restart the human race, right? And that involves babies, and while thinking of Rose that way makes him feel vaguely sick - he loves her deeply, but only as a friend and doing anything with her is… ugh, it squicks him out - it’s not like they really have any choice in the matter. Not like they’ve had any choice throughout their whole session.
It’s wrong, not on the “being gay is wrong” level, but on the “the future depends on this” way. When he can feel Karkat’s eyes on his back, see his sad, angular little face, see his mouth thin into a stubborn line of sharp little teeth, see his big eyes and long eyelashes avoid him when they’re talking, he has to remind himself that.
That he’s not gay. That whatever Karkat feels for him, whatever weird troll-love thing he has, can’t work. He lies, curled up in a stash of blankets in the corner of one of the lab rooms, wide awake while the other humans sleep soundly around him, thinking about it for hours. And for some reason he can’t explain it hurts. It’s like a little punch to his heart, like he’s betraying Karkat. Betraying himself is a whispered concept that keeps repeating itself in his head, but that’s just silly. Why should he think that? He’s definitely not gay, because he thinks Kanaya and Terezi are pretty, and that Vriska was pretty while he was talking to her through chat. He’s never thought any other guy was pretty, and Nic Cage doesn’t count because his hair is beautiful and his wife beater so rugged but he only thinks that because he’s jealous and wants them for himself.
Karkat is not attractive. Of course he isn’t. John does not spend a weirdly long amount of time watching him, and even if he does it’s only because Karkat is an alien and it’s super interesting to watch him move, hear the weird sounds that come from his lips when his long grey tongue curls just so. Okay, so maybe he’s attractive in a cute, adorabloodthirsty way, but not like that. John doesn’t want to wander through the corridors looking for him, doesn’t feel that aching need to be near him even though it does weird things to his body, like make his palms sweat and his heart beat funnily. Nope, definitely doesn’t.
He hides his head under a pillow and groans loudly into the one mashed into his face so he doesn’t wake everybody. Why is this so hard? Why did all this have to happen, why does he have to make babies with Rose and why doesn’t he get to stay at home, on Earth, with no meteors, and grow up with posters of race cars and scanty girls pinned to his walls like the 100% heterosexual boy he is.
Why can’t he just be himself?
Why does he finally fall asleep to the image of Karkat’s big black pupils and the lines of his small hands fisting in dark hair?
______
It terrifies him when they’re not alone together; when Dave is with him and Karkat along with Terezi, when Rose watches him coolly from across the room. Karkat is one of his Best Bros and he doesn’t like him so why do they stare at him like that, like they know something he doesn’t? He tries to make it painfully obvious that he’s not a homosexual, because he definitely isn’t, but it doesn’t stop Rose’s eyebrows from shooting up into her hairline whenever she sees him with Karkat. What’s the big deal anyway? He’s allowed to talk to his friend, because that’s what fellow friendleaders do - they make plans together, talk about the future, and if they do comfort each other, if Karkat does let his head bang into John’s shoulder once or twice when he’s tired and angry and frustrated, resting for that brief moment in-between the shadows of the lab room computers, it is in a totally manly way.
And if John holds Karkat's head close, impulsively runs his fingers through thick black hair and tells him that everything is going to be okay, it's only because that's what it takes to comfort the both of them.
(glorious fic art by the op, inverts ;;U;; <3<3<3
______________________________________
Outside the threat of the Reckoning, they have time. Time to plan, to consider, to heal and think about all that has gone right and wrong. Days pass in the Veil, as humans and trolls begin to learn and accept each other.
Some of those days, John can’t take it. Can’t take all the turmoil in his head, and when he closes his eyes all he can see is his hand holding his father’s, both dripping with bright red ink, and he has to rub the vision out with his palms until all he can see are exploding patterns of colour on his eyelids and then nothing.
Sometimes he just needs to be alone, when trying to explain to people gets too hard. It’s like something in him, a foundation of his personality, has cracked, and suddenly all the sadness he’s never experienced comes pouring out like a flooded dam. And friendleaders aren’t supposed to cry, to be weak, and even though he knows his friends would be more than willing to comfort him sometimes it just doesn’t help and all he wants to do is let it all out into the sleeve of his sweater, cry until he’s dry, until his emotions are washed up and beached in cold emptiness.
One day, he’s sitting alone on the benches in the computer lab, wrapped up in himself, knees drawn up and face buried in his arms because everything is too hard and he shouldn’t have to deal with all this confusion and anger and depression when he’s only thirteen and still growing up. He thinks everybody is asleep elsewhere but he’s not sure because it’s always black in the Veil and for all he knows it could always be night. It’s dark in the room - only one computer screen is turned on, the screen painfully bright and intense in the shadows.
If it had of been turned off, he wouldn’t have noticed Karkat standing there.
When he does he jumps and almost shouts in fright, because for a moment he thinks in a craze of sudden fear is that Jack? but no, Karkat’s eyes are bright and orange in the dark and he doesn’t move - simply stands there, staring at John, and he wonders how long he’s been watching him sniffle into his sleeve.
“Hi,” the troll says awkwardly after a moment, rubbing his shoulder. “I didn’t think you were in here.” It’s about as apologetic as he’s going to get.
John wipes his eyes behind his glasses and swallows back the choke, that constricted feeling in his throat that comes from too much crying. “What are you doing here?” he hiccups.
“I… I’ve been trying to find out if anything else went wrong in our sessions. On the computers.” He gestures weakly to the screen that is still on, and John realises that all of Terezi’s muttered words finally make sense. The other trolls think he’s completely obsessed with backtracking through time to desperately find the one thing that might have saved them. He must have left it on to come back to, and John chose the worst time to hide away in here.
He thinks they just don’t understand that it’s the only “hope” Karkat will let himself feel.
The boy walks over, pulls himself up onto the bench to sit crosslegged next to John, and he almost wishes he would leave because he’d rather have time to himself but he doesn’t want to complain either. Karkat picks absently at the hem of his jeans while John sniffles and wipes his nose again, the collar of his shirt soaked with the salty tears running down his chin and neck. He’s an absolute mess but it doesn’t really matter when he’s with Karkat because, in the end, they’re both going through the same thing. Leaders who are breaking under the stress and the loss, and he’s surprised and proud and jealous at how Karkat can still, somehow, keep it together like this, that he’s stronger than John internally. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that John has always tried to be optimistic - never really realised at how much could go wrong, that people could die here, let alone his Dad, who had always been so invincible and such a concrete presence in his life.
Karkat, on the other hand, has no pretty rose pink flowery assumptions about the universe. He trusts things to go wrong. He’s experienced death and pain and betrayal already, in the world around him and in himself. His entire life has been a fucked up mess, as he had said to John one time, and he’s never expected it to get any better. Sburb is just the cherry on the cake.
It breaks his heart to think that that’s all that Karkat can feel now, that he’s become so jaded to everything around him that anger is the only emotion that fuels his stubborn willpower. He wants to reach out and pinch his cheeks and tell him to stop being so silly and cute, run his fingers through his hair some more, rest his head on his chest and hold his hand there to feel his beating heart and maybe, just maybe, if he shows him how much he cares something deep inside Karkat will mend itself back together and he’ll be able to feel more than just desperation and rage.
But instead he bites the inside of his cheek and lets a choked sob overwhelm him because why does he feel like way? He can’t, he shouldn’t and why why why are these thoughts somehow breaking his identity apart? Why do they make him second guess himself, make him wonder if he’s been lying this whole time, wonder what the lie actually is? The monitor that’s turned on becomes a slash and blurred white in his vision and he’s crying again, forehead beating against his folded arms on his knees with his glasses digging into his nose and he wishes Karkat would just leave so he can feel okay about himself.
But he doesn’t. Karkat reaches out and awkwardly wraps an arm around John’s back, shifts closer until their hips bump, burries his head in John’s shoulder and it does that stupid thing to his heart, makes it skip a beat in-between his sobs. It’s so embarrassing because he never cries like this, especially not in front of other people, and now he’s a confused ball of retarded emotions and feelings and it’s too much for him. He lifts his face to ask Karkat to leave but when he does…
When he does Karkat unwinds himself from John to reach up and ease his glasses off his face. There’s not much difference in vision. The troll’s eyes were already swimming points of yellow through his tears. He doesn’t ask for them back, question what he’s doing, because he doesn’t trust his voice.
Wordlessly, Karkat reaches up and brushes the tears from John’s eyes. His thumb is surprisingly gentle and soft. And time does this weird thing where it sort of stands still, his breath catches shakily in his throat, and he wonders if Karkat isn’t really the Knight of Blood and instead has time powers and is abusing the hell out of them.
“Just like I promised?” he says quietly, face uncomfortably close to John’s, and his sniffles a bit but can’t find the words because he’s so overwhelmed for a moment and there’s this weird buzzing in his chest and stomach that makes it hard to concentrate or hear anything.
Karkat’s thumb meanderings it’s way down John’s face, tracking the lines of his tears and brushing them aside, brushing against his upper lip which is wet and salty. He can’t breathe.
He cups John’s damp cheek in his little hand. He can feel the lines of his palm, the roughness of his grey skin, holding him like at any moment he’s about to break and that’s pretty much accurate anyway.
And Karkat closes the gap and kisses him. His lips are awkward and clumsy because they’re both only thirteen, even if sometimes it feels like they’ve aged twenty years since the beginning and John can already see lines on his forehead when he looks into a mirror. But it’s sweet and simple and Karkat’s eyes are screwed shut, he can feel his mouth trembling a bit, his hand shaking when his thumb draws little mindless circles on his cheek with his tears.
It hurts. It hurts so much when John has to pull away from Karkat’s touch and hand and he can still feel him there, like a phantom on his face, and the look in those big gold eyes kills him. He can’t. It’s too confusing and he doesn’t know what to do - just wants to hide away in silence and never see anybody again, never have to look inside himself. It feels like something is grabbing his heart with an iron grip, constricting and giving chinese burns until everything is quivering. He’s the biggest bastard in paradox space when he forces out what he can't find the courage to fully say. “K-karkat I… I can’t I’m… not…”
Karkat doesn’t even look at him.
Drops John’s glasses into his lap, pulls away, climbs down from the computer bench. He doesn’t look back when he walks through the darkness, alone, out of the room in silence like it's a walk of shame, and in that moment John knows. Knows that Karkat realised from the beginning that John would never accept him like that.
He watches him leave with his mouth hanging open, touching a hand to his lips because he can still feel that pressure there, taste him, still feel the texture of his finger tracing on his skin. New tears wipe the patterns on his cheek and he doesn’t even care enough to rub them away because it feels like that would break the illusion of careful hands and lips that still ghost across his skin.
He doesn’t understand what he feels. He feels terrible, wrenching pain for having to reject Karkat.
But most of all he feels pain because he thinks he’s just ruined his chance at something that would have been amazing. He hurts because his first kiss is with another boy, an alien boy, and why should it feel so good if he’s not gay.
Because he isn’t. Right?
He curls up into a ball on the desk and holds his head in his hands, crying and feeling more alone than he ever has before. Even Karkat has left him, and there are no hands wiping away his tears or arms around him and no blurred grey text to cling to. The thing he wanted the most, he’s ruined.
______
It terrifies him when they’re alone together; when everybody else leaves the room inexplicably and he's left to watch Karkat wander listlessly around the place. John tries desperately to slip out as quickly as he can because he can’t stand staying alone in the same room with him any more. It’s like having his arms grabbed and pulled in opposite directions because Karkat is his friend and he wants to be with him but at the same time it’s so painful and awkward and when their eyes meet he sees… nothing.
Not even regret or anger.
Terezi and Kanaya have taken to staring at him; Kanaya’s skin still glowing eerily and Terezi’s red eyes looking just off his shoulder, like she can see something behind him that he can’t. It creeps him out and more than anything he feels guilty, Terezi silently judging him when her mouth is a thin black line and he knows that they’ve probably guessed, or that Karkat has told them what happened.
He knows his friend was only trying to help, trying to be there for him like he couldn’t be all those days ago but he’s pretty sure Karkat doesn’t really understand, not in the end. Doesn’t understand the implications. Doesn’t understand why John sits up late into that night, wrapped in his pile of blankets and staring blankly at the wall, trying, just trying, to have a moment of peace.
Because,
he thinks that he might be a little bit gay.
And it scares him more than anything.
______________________________________
John Egbert has never been attracted to anyone before. Not in person - wonderful Liv Tyler doesn’t really count. While friendly, he had always been socially awkward at school, a little too nerdy and nervous for girls to pay attention to him, a little too fond of solitude to make close solid friendships with people he vaguely knew. On the internet he could hide behind words, meet people who had the same interests as his, people who connected with him and that he had formed intense friendships with. All he has to do is look around the room he’s in to see how much he has - what these people would do for each other, what they would sacrifice to save someone who was stumbling.
But he’s never liked anybody that way. And if he hasn’t… well, how can he really say what he does like?
He thinks about it for hours, almost needing to come up with a definite answer, like his confused head won’t settle for anything less. Questions endlessly flashing through his mind, realisations that he supposes he’s been keeping buried for what feels like a while.
John is attracted to Karkat. He’s never liked anyone before, doesn’t know what the experience is like, but he’s pretty sure it must be something close to this. That weird buzzing, the tightness in the space between his heart and stomach that clenches with deep red warmth when he looks at Karkat out of the corner of his eye. The way his belly does strange little flip flops when they pass by each other, refusing to say a word, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth when he thinks back to when Karkat had kissed him, the burning guilt and sadness that he still feels, that still makes him cry at night. Such a short moment but it keeps coming back to haunt him, over and over until he tries banging his skull with a fist to keep it quiet and Rose has to grab his hands to stop him.
But what does that make him?
He’s supposed to repopulate the human race. It makes him shudder because no child should be hearing the word “father” at this age, nor have to consider how many babies he’ll have in the future. He’s not supposed to have feelings for a sad little grey alien who never looks at him with those big eyes anymore, because John has killed something between them. Killed something in his mad stubborn panic to… pretend to himself? Keep that fantasy going? It tastes so bitter and sharp and terrible, like vinegar down his throat, when he tries to… say something to Karkat, anything, tell him he’s so so sorry and he never meant for anything to hurt this badly between them, that he’ll do anything to make it up to him, insisting even when Karkat snaps and refuses and screams about how much he hates him and punches him hard in the cheek, leaving a little dark mark where before he touched so gently and John knows he's lying too.
He’s scared. He’s scared because it means so much, scared because he’s never really felt anything like this before, scared because he isn’t allowed to, not when he’s supposed to marry Rose and has such a responsibility for the entire human race. Scared that maybe he doesn’t really know himself as well as he thought he did.
Scared because he’s already lost people that he’s loved. He couldn’t bear it if anybody else died. He couldn’t bear it if, just when he had admitted that rejecting Karkat may have been one of the biggest mistakes in his life, he died on him too.
There is too much pain and loss already in his heart to deal with, so much that he can’t hold onto it anymore, can’t wrestle and lock away everything and pretend he’s okay. In the week since Sburb began, he still reels with how much he feels, how much has changed within himself, how much he’s aged and how much he’s seen - wars and death and space and destruction, Dersite ships on fire off the shoulder of Skaia, and little grey aliens he wants to hold onto, tell that everything will be okay and that he might be in love but he’s not sure because he’ll be terrified if he is. He wants to say that if he is, he’ll never let go, never let those big eyes out of his sight again, so they’re both safe and can drift and feel nothing but each other. So there is no barrier of grey and blue text and only the lines of small hands and the texture of dark hair and salty tears.
He can’t. He doesn’t know what to say, his tongue doesn’t work when he bumps into Karkat accidentally, stares after him when the troll moves past him, doesn’t even push him away like John deserves. When his expression doesn’t change - such a perfect mask he’s kept pulled up his whole life, one that Dave would kill for.
He sits up again the next night, temple resting against the cold dark metal of the lab walls while red flashes across his eyes, the red of blood against white and blushes against grey cheeks, too exhausted to rub them away. He’s tired. He’s so, so tired of everything, so tired of trying to keep up that John personality that is slipping away from underneath him like a rug being pulled out beneath his feet, but he can’t sleep because if he does he dreams of terrible, hideous things. He envies Dave and Jade, side by side across the room, curled up into little balls and breathing steadily.
John jumps when he feels a small hand on his shoulder and for a blinding, excited, irrational moment his heart leaps into this throat and Karkat’s name is on his tongue when he spins around but… It’s Rose, her headband removed and her fine blonde hair falling across her face. She sits down next to John wordlessly, moves up against his shoulder and takes the blankets, wrapping herself up next to him in warmth and security.
She holds his hand in his own and looks at him with those cool purple eyes, and John feels terrible for being disappointed that it’s her and not Karkat, but her hand is warm and comforting and he squeezes it back because he knows that Rose is going through the same grief and loss from the death of her Mom. It’s not the same as thumbs wiping away tears and innocent little black kisses, but it warms him for a moment.
“It’s okay,” she says, and he’s taken aback by how simple and honest the words are.
“What do you mean?” he asks, confused.
“It’s okay to be sad, John. The manner with which you put up this charade is remarkable, but you don’t have to keep going for our sake. We feel the same as you do, and a leader who is broken and burnt out isn’t an effective leader. Don’t think you have to be strong every moment of the day.”
He looks at her. At her serious, compassionate eyes, at the purple nailpolish she wears and the streaks of grey across her cheeks that are the scarred remains of her grimdark, and all he can say is, “I…” because his throat his choked and burning. He rubs at his eyes, trying to push back more tears (god he is like a waterworks) but she takes his arm and pulls it down so he can’t, and they drip down his face quietly with nobody to catch them.
“Listen. John. It’s almost a requirement that I say this because we’re all worried, and you’re going to reject my understanding of the matter, I know that, but… be who you are.”
“Rose, what are you-“
“Sburb is designed to test us, physically, emotionally and psychologically. I thought we’d all come to understand that, but I don’t think you realise that this is one of your own challenges. Nothing comes from trying to push away happiness - I wish I had of realised that years before. If it feels right to you, do it, John.”
She puts her free hand on top of theirs, rubs his knuckles, and her words are just confusing him more. He feels like there’s some kind of hidden meaning behind them, a pointed look in her eyes that he’s supposed to realise, and he knows that she’s not talking about the death of their parents anymore. They had already comforted each other, still did - he had held Rose close, his blue clothes stained complimentary red, crying into her smoking grimdark shoulder as she babbled eldritch nonsense through her black tears. Quiet moments alone together with Dave later on, trying to find the words to talk about it but coming up short and just staring at the ground between them instead.
“…Karkat, John,” she says quietly, interrupting his memories, and he takes a sharp intake of breath.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” but his hand is clenching involuntarily anyway and he’s a terrible liar because he can’t meet her eyes. Because he’s supposed to marry Rose, she knows that and he knows that. She cups his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her, and he squirms uncomfortably because he can feel phantom lines on his face that make him bite his lip.
“Stop pretending, John. I know what you’re thinking - don’t. Don’t let Sburb control our lives more than it already has, don’t hurt because of it. I don’t like seeing you with this much pathos on your shoulders, none of us do. You don’t love me, John, and I don’t love you. You love somebody else, and fuck Sburb. You don’t seriously except that we’re required to recreate at thirteen, do you? We’ll all figure something out in the years to come.”
He thinks he understands what she’s saying, that she’s giving her approval - though what the hell is pathos? - but it just scares him more, because the thought of actually being with Karkat? It terrifies him. What happens if Karkat doesn’t want him anymore, what happens if he’s damaged them too much to repair their friendship, let alone anything else? What happens if he doesn’t have feelings for Karkat, what happens if it just doesn’t work and their personalities don’t mesh as well he hopes they would? What happens if Karkat dies? They’re thoughts he shouldn’t be having, not at thirteen when he’s just beginning to explore the edges of his emotions. He rests his head on Rose’s shoulder, smells the lavender scent of her hair, and he wishes he loved her instead because it would be so much easier than having to deal with everything.
“I think I might be a bit gay,” he mumbles into her shoulder, and she laughs good naturedly and puts an arm around him and it’s wonderful when she does because the smell of lavender wraps around him under the blankets, and Rose understands because she’s always been smarter than he is, always been stronger emotionally. It’s okay if he admits it to her, because she’s one of the closest people in his life and he’s going to get a punching glove to the face of psychoanalysis bullshit later but he doesn’t care.
“John, you are just you.”
“You don’t mind?”
“What kind of friend would I be if I did? That’s preposterous, John.”
“…What about Dave?” He knows that Jade, as his sister, will support him 100%, but he doesn’t think he could take Dave laughing at him behind dark shades.
“Dave already guesses. You've both been particularly transparent about it, I'm not going to lie; all of this lovers' bickering like you're a married couple. He has this strange notion that the irony of it is wonderful. No, John, of course he doesn’t mind, what do you take us for?”
He keeps quiet, gnawing on his bottom lip nervously and feeling something akin to… crushing relief. Like a weight has begun to life off his shoulders because even though he knew, was almost certain, that his friends wouldn’t have any issue with his apparent mild gayness (it sounds so strange to admit that aloud, and the work sticks to his tongue uncomfortably because he still isn’t used to confessing that) but there was always that nagging fear. He’s grateful to have friends like this, friends who are now in his real life, closer than family, people he can hold onto like this and not be blocked by the barrier of a screen or judgements.
And for the first time in a long while, he feels okay. Telling Rose is like freeing something chained up under lies and denial inside him. He feels like this could possibly work, that he can deal with this because he’s strong, he’s a friendleader, he’s… John. He’s himself.
Rose rubs his shoulder and he’s so grateful that she’s here, in a blinding wonderful moment when he realises that she’s right - they can figure something else, he shouldn’t let Sburb control everything, they can wait, maybe clone some babies instead if he… if Karkat… It’s too early to be ruining every chance he gets and he thinks he might really want this. The fear, the responsibility to the human race he has, is the main thing that was holding him back but Rose, if… if Rose doesn’t…
Oh god. The implications of the future come crashing down, but they aren’t implications that make him so sad for things that can never be. It’s whiplash from realising that these are things he can have if he has the courage to ask, to accept, to hold and comfort, and it isn't just the thought of Karkat that makes him think that - it's everything. And Rose is right - his life is his own, and he shouldn’t let Sburb control it. He’s been so caught up with learning and understanding time loops, that in the future he has already done whatever he needs to do, that he’s begun to want to not do anything for fear of something going terribly wrong, for fear of breaking the stable loop.
He forgets that he will do these things anyway. Dave’s words - “the key to it is to just go with the flow and not think too hard” - come back to him.
He chews on his cheek, scared. All throughout their session he tried to be fearless but it was always there, pushed far out of sight so he could ignore it, focus on the goal, and now in the quiet darkness it comes rushing back but it’s a different kind of fear now and it feels so childish, almost, to be scared of a first crush at thirteen years of age. He doesn’t feel that young any more, like any normal emotion that should happen to normal school children is obscure and surreal, because he doesn’t live in a normal world any more and he’s not blushing and stumbling in front of pretty young girls in his freshman classes. Pretty young girls and busy schools that don't exist, that he'll never grow up to experience.
He holds a hand over his heart because it’s beating a little too hard to breath properly and he tries to will it to slow down because fuck he’s so nervous, so nervous now that everything has opened up and come rushing out and so sorry and he hopes he can fix everything. He hopes so painfully, because he thinks the feeling of little grey arms around his neck, of heads pressed against shoulders in moments of rest and piece, could really make him happy. He thinks he might need this.
______________________________________
John Egbert is really only thirteen, even though sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. He’s a brave friendleader; he’s led his friends through tears in space and time, fought against monsters, omnipresent murderers, saved people and worlds and he’s died more than once - there’s a weird white slit down his chest that aches sometimes, not a scar but something else otherworldly and when he looks at it closely in a mirror it reminds him of stars glowing incandescently through gaps in the universe.
John Egbert is a god. He can call up tornados and wipe out fires that rage across worlds and he knows what fluffy clouds feel like in his hands when he floats between them, seeing the past and future combine when they pass through each other. He knows what blood feels like, knows what it’s like to be stabbed through the heart and bleed out until there is only white and then, somehow, glowing eyes crying in his vision when he awakes.
John Egbert knows what it’s like to meet aliens - to meet the creators of a world he used to call home before it shriveled and died. He knows what it’s like to have big bright orange eyes staring at him, knows what it’s like to kiss dark little lips and feel the texture of grey skin on his face and hear whispered promises being kept. John Egbert has realised that he isn’t exactly as heterosexual as he once thought, that he might be a little bit gay when he wanders through metallic corridors floating through a vast endless nothing, searching for the one he might be a little bit in love with so he can say sorry. Sorry for everything; sorry for what he’s done to him, sorry for what they’ve lost, sorry for what they might lose in the future, but he thinks that if they have each other then maybe it won’t be so hard, it won’t hurt as much as it will. That he can promise that he’ll keep him safe, never let him out of his sight, if only he can trust him and let him in.
He goes with Rose’s soft pushes, leaves behind his mutterings of, “no, some other time, not now I’m tired, I don’t want to, Rose please don’t make me what if I’m not ready, I’m frightened, what if…” Somewhere in him he’s still so nervous because saying sorry means admitting it to a angry face and sad eyes and it scares him, scares him more than having to hold heavy hammers in his hands so he can bring them back down on black shale heads.
The trolls sleep separate from the kids, close enough that if anything happens, if anything goes wrong, the other group can come running. He slips out of the room the others sleep in and slinks through the darkness, scuffing his bare feet hard along the ground like he hopes the floor will stick to him and he won’t have to continue. But when he reaches the room just down the hall, he takes deep breaths and peeks around, and it’s quiet and black and the only light is from glowing green machines pulled straight from science fiction movies and huddled black shapes wrapped in blankets. With no day and no night in the Veil, both trolls and humans have begun sleeping at the same time because it’s easier that way, and even though Karkat bitches and complains and demands that everybody stay awake it’s not long before even he has to fight from nodding off.
John finds him curled into a fetal position in the corner, wrapped in dark blankets, fisted hands pillowed under his head and dark brows knitted together over closed eyes and John is surprised, disappointed, and glad that he’s asleep, breathing shallowly, his face still stuck in one of constant frustration. He sits beside him quietly, pulling his knees up so he can rest his chin against them, watching his little pointed ears twitch, wondering what his dreams are like, if he hears eldritch screams and sees hundreds of eyes from the Furthest Ring as well. He thinks he likes watching Karkat, because it makes something deep inside him kind of glow and it’s definitely gay but he doesn’t give a fuck any more because it feels nice, it feels wonderful and it's something to hold delicately between his hands like he would a firefly. He has to repeat Rose’s words in his head, cling to them like a little mantra and remind himself that she’s okay with it, that he doesn’t have to marry her if he doesn’t want to.
Karkat looks so young. Sometimes it strikes him weirdly that they’re all still just thirteen - or six sweeps or whatever the trolls use - like he expects to see someone old and haggard instead, because that’s what he feels like on the inside. Not when he’s like this though, not when he reaches out tentatively to brush against Karkat’s thick dark hair, move it out of his eyes and smile nervously to himself at the feeling of it between his fingers. He feels like a scared little boy with his first real crush, first real attraction, and oh man why did it have to turn out to be an alien boy and not some pretty girl like Rose, because this is still all so confusing to realise within the space of a few days. He wishes life was easier. Or, at least, easier in this department - he can take fighting and hopping between alien worlds and dieing over and over but doing this is pretty terrifying on an intrinsically personal level. He wonders what his father would say about all this if he was... if he was... here.
He hopes he would hug him, hold him close and tell him that it was alright and he would always love his son no matter what, even if some day he would sit in front of a grey alien boy like this, in the darkness, about to run fingers through black hair and tell him that maybe, if he promises not to die on him, they can work it out. That he would write John little notes (that he would snort at but love anyway), slip them into school lunchboxes like he used to, inside pillowslips where he would never see them but feel the meaning anyway.
He touches the troll's cheekbone gently, feels the grey skin because he's so sure he's fast asleep (it feels strangely wet, not dry and slightly rough like usual) and is reluctant still to wake him, but-
Karkat’s eyes snap open incredibly fast at his touch, and he can see for a moment in the green halflight his pupils dilate from pinpricks until they’re huge and black and he’s staring at John sitting there, hand half raised and frozen like he’s been caught stealing something. He opens and closes his mouth like a surprised fish, Karkat bearing his sharp little teeth and snarling at him, body reflexively curling into itself and his hands tightening under his head, nails digging into the cold metal floor.
“Piss off,” he whispers, so poisonously, and John blinks stupidly over his glasses, realising that Karkat wasn’t really asleep at all and that the words are like a sword through the heart again. He bites his lip because the troll is looking at him so terribly, so venomously, and all the fear comes hard and fast because he’s been stupid, he’s almost been expecting Karkat to accept him back, to understand about why he rejected him, how much he hurt because of it but that he thinks he’s better now and he wants to give it a go.
“I…”
“I said fuck off, I’m not putting up with you now Egbert, I am so not in the mood for your ridiculous bullshit-“
“Karkat, I’m sorry!” He blurts it out desperately because this isn’t going how he wanted it to, he almost forgot how angry the troll is with him and the universe in general, forgot about the dark bruise on his cheek from Karkat’s knuckles. He doesn’t even realise how loud he’s said it until he hears someone stir quietly behind them and Karkat’s eyes narrow dangerously, mouth stretching out until it’s a thin slit of teeth.
“The fuck are you talking about,” he hisses back, and he looks so cold and vulnerable lying there in the shadows, skin blending in with the grey floor and dark hair with the rough blanket he’s curled in while the eerie green light bounces off his face and glassy eyes, and John doesn’t know what to say because what was he going to say after that? It's all come so fast, so suddenly and he's barely had time to even think about what comes next. Time is precious in the Veil, as paradoxically bizarre that is when they have Dave here, and it's either now or wait forever.
“I… Karkat, I-I’m sorry for doing that to you before, I didn’t… oh gosh, I know I really hurt you and I’m so… I didn’t mean to! You freaked me out, okay? I was upset, confused and scared. It’s different for trolls, but I’m not…” - he pauses, corrects himself mentally, face hot and heart pounding because oh god he had never expected this to happen - "I might be a little bit more gay than I... thought I was then? Sort of?" He has to squeak out the last part, holding his knees tightly.
Part of him says snidely that he’s probably had these feelings for a long time, just denied them adamantly. That excitement he had always felt when Karkat had spoken to him during Sburb couldn’t have been completely platonic; the way he looked forward to his insults because they were always so ridiculous and the little wars they had between each other because they were adorable, filled with yelling and laughing on his part; the way their friendship had slowly but steadily progressed into something like mutual understanding and grudging respect; when John had been so, so broken and alone and Karkat demanded to know what had happened, why he was soaked with blood and John what the fuck has happened are you okay please tell me you’re okay oh fuck; when Karkat was so alone and frightened that John had sat there resolutly for half an hour in the middle of fighting on LOHAC while Dave complained behind him, trying to calm the troll down, telling him that everything would be okay because he couldn’t die, John refused to let him die, they had promised to be there for each other, right?; getting Karkat to distract himself by setting up the webcam on his computer so they could communicate better. Those nubby horns, the big scared eyes, the way his ears wilted so low as he chewed his fingernails desperately while typing with one hand, arms around his knees, and god he was so cute even then, all spiky words and caps in text but so small and almost delicate in reality. He had expected him to somehow be so nasty looking, full of violent gnashing teeth and long brutal horns and massive claws to fit his big grandiose words; instead he was just a scared young boy with streaks of weird red tears down his face and in that moment they had connected, really connected, and John had been so touched and so concerned for him and his friends and he had edged closer, told him that everything would be okay because they would cross the rift soon and keep the trolls safe from Bec Noir.
The Karkat now looking at him, still curled up on the floor with teeth bared, isn’t the Karkat he wants. He wants him to be happy, to never look so sad again, because that’s what he deserves, it’s what they all deserve, and John had been too scared to admit his feelings to himself when he had kissed him so adorably and nervously. Even though, when he had, the painful feeling in his stomach like fireflies or butterflies being let loose was almost overwhelming. He can admit it now but only just barely, because it’s still such a weird jolt to realise that he has feelings for another boy and not a girl like he thought he would. But he knows that Karkat likes him desperately, knows that his friends are okay with it, knows that Rose can wait for him, knows that his life should be in his control, and he…
He shuffles closer, reaches out his hand to play nervously with the fabric of the blanket, babbling sorrys and not even listening to what he’s saying anymore, just so long as he can find a way to make Karkat’s expression change, fix him somehow, even if he has to make an idiot out of himself like he always does. He’s sniffling now, wiping his nose and his eyes through his glasses because it scares him, deep down everything scares him but just doing this is revealing so much and he just wants to be happy again.
“Just-John, John… No, stop, shut up. I can’t even understand what you’re saying.”
He has to pause mid-word, look away intently at the glowing machines at the far end of the room, at the quiet bumps of darker shadow that he can see now that his eyes have adjusted to the light. He doesn’t even understand what he’s been saying - something about his father, maybe? Something about how he knows Karkat doesn’t understand what family is about but he’s thankful that he tried to learn anyway and was there for him? Sorry that when he was just trying help John had pushed him away? He rips viciously at the frayed edges of the rough blanket because it keeps his nervous hands occupied and Karkat’s eyebrows are a heavy, exasperated line across his shadowed eyes.
“You don’t… hate me again, do you?” He whispers it so quietly he can barely hear himself, and he’s pretty sure Karkat doesn’t, they’re too close these day to pass beyond irritation, but he can feel how much he’s hurt him and he need to have an answer. Take a walk in Karkat’s shoes, he says to himself, imagining how it would feel to be sitting in his place, confessing through touch and being so terribly shot down in such a dark moment of sadness and pain. He pushes his glasses up his face, feels his wet cheeks, and hopes, god, he hopes that’s not what’s going to happen to him now.
There’s a long moment of painful silence when they stare at each other, and Karkat groans and covers his face with one hand. “No, dipshit, I don’t. Happy now? Can I go back to being left alone now? If you’re just going to mouthgab at me for hours-“
---AND THEN THEY PORKED---
I mean.
--- and then Grim will finish the fill with absolutely no smut at all because this is not an au and they are darling thirteen year old bbs.