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“Hey Karkat,”
“What is it?”
“Did you ever dream of becoming something when you got older?”
“Of course! I wanted to be part of the mighty Threshecutioners,”
“The Threshe-what?”
“The Threshecutioners,”
“I don’t know what that is,”
“Fuck it,”
Karkat let out a ‘hmph’ and rolled over onto his side. John furrowed his eyebrows and propped himself up on his elbow on the grass. He didn’t get what was wrong with Karkat, and as his self-proclaimed best friend, he wanted to know what. The troll was always a known pessimistic but John was hoping to change that. But there wasn’t much hope to look forward to anymore except to meet someone else.
They were dead, that was one thing.
“Karkat…?” John asked quietly, moving closer and shaking the other troll’s shoulders lightly. “I’m sorry I don’t know who they are. Please don’t get mad at me.”
“It’s not your fucking fault!” he exploded and John yelped, falling onto his back as Karkat sat up suddenly. “John, ugh, I… I’m sorry. There is just nothing left for us, alright? We can watch your fucking human Nicolas Cage movies forever and ever. And we can watch my romcoms over and over again, but I can’t take this anymore!”
“Karkat! Don’t be like that! I’m sure if we wait long enough, sooner or later we’ll crash into someone else’s dream bubble,” John replied, sitting up and hugging Karkat close. “Like… Vriska! Or maybe Dave! Anyone, really.”
“John Egbert, listen to me,” Karkat growled, but made no move to push John off of him. “We. Are. Fucking. Dead. There is nothing left for us. Even if some of us survived that, they would be dead by now. Don’t you get it? The game got us. Bec Noir got us. There is no more reason to exist because we fucking lost.”
John frowned as Karkat finished his rant. “We can always start anew, in this dream bubble right here!” he started. “We have all the time in the world now. And maybe when we bump into someone else’s dream bubble we can make friends or reunite with old ones. We don’t have to worry about the game anymore! We’re all here, not together, but hopefully soon we’ll have everyone. We can all just spend time with each other now! And we don’t have to worry about the game or the Scratch or Lord English…”
“The point is, we’re free!”
Karkat stayed awfully quiet during the whole speech, which worried John. Usually, he’d get interrupted sometime in the middle and then Karkat would yell at him then stalk off. Convinced that he may have finally gotten through to his friend, John smiled and hugged him closer. Karkat gave a soft grunt.
“Let’s not talk about this right now,” Karkat sighed, reaching up and running a hand through his hair. He sounded tired, and for a moment, older than he really was.
“I’m sorry,”
“It’s not your fault,”
It was Karkat’s turn to embrace John. The two sat on a hill overlooking an open and lush field. It was currently night time right now, and the stars twinkled overhead. If they didn’t know that they were dead, they would have believed this illusion to be real. Karkat closed his eyes and buried his nose into John’s hair. John was looking up at the stars.
They both knew there was little chance of hope to meet anyone at all. In the endless space that the dream bubbles floated in, it would be a one in a million chance to bump into another bubble. Getting comfortable with each other’s presence was necessary because they would be stuck with each other for a long time.
And John knew this, but still he remained optimistic. Karkat’s pessimism was hollow for if the troll had really believed that they were doomed—if John wasn’t there and he was stuck all alone—he would have wallowed away in self-pity and despair long ago.
“John,”
“Hm?”
“…”
“Karkat…?”
“… Thank you,”