Work Text:
Your name is Karkat Vantas. You think. It’s been so long since you heard the name that you kind of question whether it was yours or not. It might’ve been someone else’s, you don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t anyones; it just floated to you one day like the motes of ash that float through this wasteland and decided to stick around. Not meaning anything. Not signifying anything. Just hanging on, like you. At any rate, it is yours now—not that it sees much use.
Your name is Karkat Vantas and it’s been eight sweeps since you were stranded in this hell. Roughly. Time doesn’t seem to have any significance for you anymore. Oh, time passes all right. You can see your body evolve and wither; you grow, you ripen, only to fade away as your body eats itself out of sheer hunger (you can hold your hand up to the light now and see the bones through the translucent flesh). Time must pass. It just. Doesn’t mean anything anymore. Day and night don’t exist in the Medium. Skaia always gleams a dull gray.
Time. It is why you are here. Its deepest failure is self-perpetuation, in spite of the bleakness, in spite of your own grievous failures. This timeline spiraled out of control long ago; you, and it, are most certainly doomed. Your own blunder at the critical moment led to this, this wretched excuse for an existence. Now there is nothing to do but dutifully await its own termination, and yours with it. All branch timelines are doomed, after all.
The alternative is unthinkable.
There is a scratch. On either side of the festering rift is silence and hell. Little remains. There were planets, once, within this space; now there are only chunks of stone and ruined flora. What wasn’t devoured was ravaged beyond retrieval. An accidental Veil basks in the cold light of a dead Skaia. Two Veils, equally barren. Two Skaias, equally desolate. There is nothing here for you.
There is nothing here but you, and wind which wails through the Incipisphere bearing ashes like snow, and the passage of time.
Your name is Karkat Vantas and once you were not alone. You had many friends. You still have many friends. You have many names, faces, lined neatly up like a treasured collection. You tend to them, like a collection, and revisit them often. There is a girl named Terezi, in whose blind eyes you were a paragon. There is a boy named Sollux, whom anguish and tragedy beleaguered all his life. A girl named Kanaya, who was the anchor to your rage. A girl named Jade, who burned brightly as a sun. A boy named John.
In your memory, they slip through your fingers and vanish into the insatiable jaws of death, and you are awash in blood of every hue.
You believed you would join them, in time. It was all a matter of when. This aberration of a timeline could not continue forever. You waited, at first. Patient waiting soon gave way to pacing, endless pacing, tearing up and down the Incipispheres, plotting a way to instigate your own termination. Plotting failed, and gave way to anger, a rage which ravaged what little life your Medium still held, from which you still bear the scars. Rage gave way to desperation; desperation, in turn, gave way to begging—down on your knees in prayer, hands clasped, voice fraught with tears. This, at last, gave way to lingering. You linger still.
Perhaps, you think, in moments of slipping sanity, you dreamed it all. Your existence, your name, your memories are just jokes; you were dreamed into this hell by a capricious being who thought that bestowing a past tragedy upon his little doll would give ironic justification to its misery. At times like those, that flimsy justification falls apart, and you are aware of yourself as a clay puppet, a mockery of being—if indeed being is such a thing at all. If there was at all once a world outside this.
You are jabbed by dagger-sharp lucidity, and you regret its intrusion.
Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you are utterly, profoundly alone.
Your name is worthless.
You sleep a good deal these days. Without day or night, you have no routine, mental or biological; you simply let sleep take you when it comes, which is often. The dreams comfort you. They used to be hell for you—still are, to be honest, but you prefer your sleeping hell. There you are swathed in cold water and laid down into the writhing cradle of the darkest of gods. They are your only companions. You prefer to be tortured by them, eviscerated, violated bodily, desecrated mentally, swallowed alive and digested in a hot black pool, over and over and over again—than to wander this wasteland. There, they love you. They love you in the most hideous ways they know. Here, nothing loves you.
You wake to the taste of ashes and the sterile glow of a husktop which should be long defunct. Indeed, the machine is decaying; half of the pixels on the screen are dead; some of the keys are cracked and some stick a bit; it runs slow as paint drying. You always keep it on anyway—to remember. You dutifully keep a Trollian window open, too, and check it daily (or what passes for daily in your world). You don’t know why. Your chumproll is empty. You can’t even read the memos anymore. There’s nothing there but screaming static.
Beside your husktop there is an ancient and rusty sickle, and you pick it up. You toy with it, and it occurs to you how little it would take to end it all yourself.
Your pride won’t permit it. Funny, the masks cowardice wears.
How many more sweeps will it take for you to die, as you should have long ago? You ask yourself this, as you have a hundred thousand times before, and you hug your knees to your chest, and stare into the dead Skaia, and wait, shivering, for an answer you’ll never get. It’s the waiting that will kill you in the end, you think.
You apologize. To whom, you’re not sure. To yourself—your past self, for enduring this. To the friends you failed, who bled to death in a devil’s claws. Hell, to this sputtering timeline trying its damnedest to keep you both alive, perhaps? God only knows. You just think you need to say something.
“I’m so sorry,” you say. And, “I don’t wanna die.”
It’s true. You don’t. Not like this. Anything would be better than this.
It’s the waiting that’ll kill you.
When you get tired of sitting and waiting, you eat from the pale, dirty, crystalline weed that grows naturally on this piece of rock—a piece of what used to be LOWAS. It tastes vile, doesn’t sate your hunger in the slightest. Survival instinct is damnable at times. But what can you do? Nothing, really.
Then you lie down. Try to sleep some more, but sleep eludes you. You’re all right with that, you guess. You miss your slumber buddies, but you don’t mind that right now. You like the numb feeling that spills over you. It’s the closest you get to happiness. Maybe the closest you’ve ever gotten in your whole life.
You lie like this for a long while, thoughtless and pallid, till you feel your eyelids start to grow heavy. You want to sleep, but something needles at the edge your consciousness and won’t let you. You groan. God, you can’t even have the relative peace of slumber anymore. Maybe this is a sign that you are, at last, fading. Knowing your luck, most likely not.
You sit up, and the thing that needles you pokes harder this time. It won’t shut up, will it? You rub your weary eyes, and your spindly fingers jab in hard.
It pokes you again. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.
Shut u—
You realize why it is jabbing you so.
You practically throw yourself at the husktop, at the source of the obnoxious noise. Something just blipped on there. Someone. There’s a little blue bubble in your chumproll.
You must be hallucinating. That must be it. There’s simply no way it can be.
You click the little blue bubble.
-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling ectoBiologist [EB] --
CG: HELLO?
You type tentatively, not quite trusting your fingers to work. The computer takes its sweet time in processing your input.
CG: IS ANYONE THERE?
Nothing but dead silence on the other end, for a good five minutes.
CG: FUCK YOU. SOMEONE BETTER BE THERE.
CG: YOU DON'T GET TO FUCK WITH ME LIKE THIS.
CG: WHAT THE FUCK.
CG; ANSWER ME, YOU DIPSHIT!
EB: karkat?
Your heart. It’s stopped.
EB: hey karkat, say something!
CG: WHO
CG: WHO ARE YOU?
EB: uh.
EB: this is john.
EB: karkat, is this some kind of weird joke?
EB: are you trying to screw with me?
Your hands are shaking. You can't type. It… your mind is playing tricks on you. It can't possibly be him. It can't be John.
CG: JOHN?
CG: IT'S NOT REALLY YOU.
CG: IS IT?
EB: yes it is! i'm right here! you can see me, can’t you?
EB: karkat, is something wrong?
You can’t see him. But you can feel him—him, radiating through your side of the screen, the aura of his sincerity.
CG: IS SOMETHING WRONG.
CG: OH MY GOD.
CG: JOHN, YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW.
EB: don't know what? what don't i know?
EB: oh god. karkat, did something terrible happen?
EB: did jack get you?
EB: are you okay? are you hurt?
EB: say something!
EB: don't leave me in the lurch!
EB: are you honestly gonna leave me here to stress out over you?
CG: WHAT THE HELL.
CG: WHAT THE HELL DO YOU EVEN WANT ME TO SAY?
CG: I HAVEN'T TALKED TO YOU OR ANOTHER LIVING SOUL IN EIGHT FUCKING SWEEPS AND HERE YOU ARE, AND YOU'RE ALL FLIPPING THE FUCK OUT.
CG: HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO RESPOND TO THIS?
EB: i'm not
EB: karkat i'm not flipping the fuck out.
EB: karkat, what's happening?
EB: eight sweeps?
EB: what do you mean?
CG: IF YOU ASK ME HOW MANY THAT IS IN YOUR HUMAN YEARS I AM GOING TO BLOW A FUSE.
It's a hollow threat. One that feels good to make. It brings back a little of yourself, from so long ago. A little fire.
EB: i don't care how many that is in human years.
EB: karkat, what's going on? what happened?
CG: EVERYONE'S DEAD, JOHN.
CG: EVERYONE'S BEEN DEAD.
CG: FOR EIGHT FUCKING SWEEPS.
EB: i
EB: don't
EB: understand?
EB: nobody's dead, karkat.
CG: NOT IN YOUR TIMELINE, FUCKASS.
CG: IN MINE.
EB: then how
EB: can you be talking to me?
CG: HELL IF I KNOW.
CG: MAYBE SOMEONE OR SOMETHING OUT THERE TOOK PITY ON ME OR SOMETHING.
The screen glows silently. The deathly lack of response is tangible, and you can feel it slowly wrapping its cold fingers around your throat.
CG: JOHN?
CG: OH GOD JOHN PLEASE STILL BE THERE.
EB: i'm right here!
EB: i just.
EB: i don't know how to react to this.
EB: i can't tell if you're serious or if you're trying to punk me.
EB: i want to believe it's a joke.
CG: YOU FUCKER.
CG: DO YOU HONESTLY THINK I WOULD JOKE ABOUT SOMETHING LIKE THIS?
CG: BY THE WAY, THAT'S NOT A RHETORICAL QUESTION, FUCKASS.
CG: ANSWER ME HONESTLY.
CG: WOULD I, OR WOULD I NOT JOKE ABOUT A MATTER THIS GRAVE?
EB: this can't be.
EB: i don't want to believe it's real.
CG: NEITHER DO I BUT, WELP, THERE YOU GO.
CG: YOU HAVE YET TO ANSWER MY QUESTION.
EB: no.
EB: i don't think you could make something like this up.
He hesitates before throwing on a last word.
EB: ... no.
You bite your lip to still its trembling.
EB: karkat...
EB: are you ok out there?
CG: AM I OK.
CG: JOHN, WHY WOULD YOU EVEN FUCKING ASK THAT?
EB: i don't know. i just don't know.
EB: everyone's dead.
CG: KILLED.
EB: killed.
EB: and you, you've been out there all alone, all this time.
CG: DAMN STRAIGHT.
CG: HAD TWO WHOLE INCIPISPHERES ALL TO MYSELF.
CG: NOT THAT THERE'S MUCH LEFT IN THEM.
EB: oh my god.
EB: karkat.
EB: holy hell, karkat, do you want a hug or something?
This kid. Just. Blows your fucking mind.
God, you missed him.
CG: WOW. JUST... WOW.
CG: GOOD LUCK WITH THAT.
EB: yeah, yeah, i know.
EB: but you get the sentiment right?
EB: god, if i could i would.
EB: you sound like you need it.
CG: HEH.
CG: THAT’S SO LIKE YOU, JOHN.
CG: IT’S KIND OF UNREAL.
CG: TALKING TO YOU AGAIN.
CG: I THOUGHT YOU WERE AS GOOD AS GONE.
EB: is there anything i could do to help you?
EB: anything at all? even a little thing?
CG: MAYBE.
CG: I GATHERED LONG AGO THAT I WAS DOOMED.
CG: I’VE JUST BEEN WAITING OUT THE SWEEPS TO DIE.
CG: MAYBE YOU CAN HELP ME GET UP THE GUTS TO FINALLY KILL MYSELF OR SOMETHING.
EB: no!
EB: oh my god karkat, please, no.
EB: there’s just no way. you can’t hang around this long and just give up like that. you can’t.
Amazing. Amazing how this kid doesn’t get it.
CG: DO YOU THINK I WANTED TO HANG AROUND THIS LONG?
CG: DO YOU THINK I ENJOY BEING A TOY OF PARADOX SPACE LIKE THIS?
CG: BRANCH TIMELINES ARE DOOMED. THAT’S INDISPUTABLE.
CG: MINE JUST KEEPS STICKING AROUND LONG PAST ITS EXPIRATION DATE.
CG: THAT, OR…
EB: karkat...
CG: YOU KEEP SAYING MY NAME.
CG: HOW MANY TIMES ARE YOU GOING TO DO THAT?
EB: karkat, i
EB: ugh! oh my god.
EB: there's got to be something i can do to get you out of there.
CG: THERE'S NOTHING.
EB: i don't believe you.
CG: BELIEVE ME. I’VE TRIED EVERYTHING ON MY OWN.
CG: AND THERE’S NOTHING YOU COULD DO THAT I HAVEN’T ALREADY DONE.
EB: i...
EB: jesus, karkat!
EB: sorry. i keep doing that.
CG: NO. IT'S ALL RIGHT.
CG: I HAVEN'T BEEN CALLED BY MY NAME IN A LONG TIME.
CG: IT’S KINDA NICE.
CG: ... I MISS YOU, YOU FUCKASS.
EB: karkat.
EB: oh my fucking god. karkat.
It’s a hell of a thing to watch, his reactions ricocheting between anger and disbelief and sadness and pity. Almost funny, in a way that sets your stomach reeling.
CG: I'M JUST STRAIGHT UP FREAKING YOU OUT HERE, AREN'T I?
CG: LOOK, IF IT'S ANY CONSOLATION, I'M 99% SURE THIS TIMELINE IS DOOMED.
CG: YOU'RE GOING TO LIVE.
CG: PROBABLY.
EB: consolation? that's not consolation.
EB: not even remotely.
EB: i can't handle this.
EB: i was in no way emotionally prepared to deal with this.
EB: i can't
EB: i can't...
CG: LISTEN, SHOULD I GO?
CG: I'M KIND OF BEING A SELFISH FUCKER DRAGGING ALL THIS SHIT OUT ON YOU AT ONCE.
EB: no.
EB: don't you fucking dare go.
EB: you don't get to strut in here, tell me you're going to die, and then go.
CG: THEN WHAT?
EB: i don't know.
EB: this is awful.
He doesn’t say anything for a long, long time, and you don’t say anything either. You just… feel him, trying his damnedest to reach out to you through space and time and text. Not quite reaching. You wonder if he feels you, as well, how desperately you want to cry out for him and how little you can restrain yourself. You sit there in the screen’s flickering glow. It bathes you.
Senses can fool you.
The thought sickens you to the very core. You need to know he is still there. On the other side of this connection. That he has not left you.
CG: OH GOD JOHN ARE YOU STILL THERE?
CG: PLEASE DON’T GO.
EB: i'm here.
You breathe a sigh of relief.
EB: i'm... not sure if i can digest all this.
EB: i have so many questions i want to ask.
EB: i still don't know if i believe you.
EB: i... really don't want to believe you.
EB: i don’t want to believe that you've been stranded out there, alone and hurting, for years.
EB: all for nothing.
CG: WELL, HELL.
CG: IF YOU'VE GOT QUESTIONS, ASK AWAY.
CG: AS FAR AS I CAN TELL, I'VE GOT ALL THE TIME IN PARADOX SPACE TO KILL.
EB: i...
EB: where do i begin?
EB: oh god, karkat, what do i do?
EB: there's got to be a way i can fix this.
CG: THERE'S NOTHING.
EB: no. don't ever say that.
EB: there's got to be something i can do.
CG: NOT YOU.
CG: DAVE, MAYBE. OR ARADIA. THE TIME PEOPLE.
CG: HELL, EVEN ROSE. SHE'S JUST CRAZY ENOUGH TO COOK UP SOMETHING.
CG: BUT I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE YOU'D BEGIN.
EB: oh, man! do you really think dave or rose could help?
CG: LIKE I SAID, I DON'T KNOW.
CG: GOD FUCKING DAMMIT JOHN, GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD.
CG: I'M ON A WHOLLY SEPARATE TIMELINE FROM YOURS. AND SWEEPS IN THE FUTURE BESIDES.
CG: YOU COULD NEVER REACH ME HERE.
CG: ANYTHING YOU COULD TRY TO DO WOULD BE A WASTE OF TIME.
CG: THAT, OR IT WOULD JUST FUCK SHIT UP EVEN MORE.
EB: so there's nothing.
CG: NOTHING.
EB: you're going to die all alone out there. and i can't do a goddamn thing.
CG: THAT'S HOW IT'S SHAPING UP, YEAH.
CG: I KNOW IT'S JUST KICKING YOU IN THE TEETH OVER AND OVER TO BE TOLD THAT, BUT... THERE'S NOTHING.
CG: LOOK, I'M SORRY I EVEN CONTACTED YOU AT ALL. YOU DIDN'T NEED THIS.
CG: DO YOU EVEN WANT ME TO STICK AROUND? SHOULD I JUST SHUT THIS OFF?
EB: how can i send you away when you're going to die?
CG: YOU'RE BASICALLY THE DE FACTO LEADER OF YOUR STUPID ASS HUMAN CREW, AREN'T YOU?
CG: SOMETIMES A LEADER'S GOT TO MAKE TOUGH DECISIONS.
EB: i never wanted to be the leader.
CG: I DID.
CG: LOOK WHERE IT GOT ME.
EB: karkat.
EB: i don't know what to do.
EB: i don't even know what to say.
CG: THEN DON'T SAY ANYTHING.
CG: JUST FUCK OFF ALREADY.
You glare at the screen, as the thing you just said sinks slowly into your pores. Again, there is nothing but the silence which seems to stretch for sweeps. You are quivering. Your body aches.
CG: JOHN?
CG: I DIDN'T MEAN IT.
CG: I DON'T WANT YOU TO LEAVE.
CG: I WANT YOU TO STAY.
CG: PLEASE.
The other end goes quiet, and you realize you've probably chased him off for good.
You lay your face in your hands and silently berate yourself for being such a big fat idiot. There's something warm and wet slipping between your fingers. Belatedly it occurs to you that you ought to be ashamed. You’re not. It doesn’t matter. No one can see you like this.
Nothing matters.
The computer chirrups, and you look up.
EB: you know what, fuck it.
EB: i'm going to give you a shitty rp hug and you're just going to have to deal with it.
EB: -hug-
He hasn’t gone.
Your fingers tremble.
CG: JOHN, YOU'RE A FUCKASS.
CG: I MEAN THAT IN THE BEST POSSIBLE WAY, FOR THE RECORD.
CG: YOU'RE THE VERY BEST FUCKASS.
CG: AND I WOULDN'T HAVE ANY OTHER.
EB: karkat, i'm so sorry.
CG: DON'T BE.
CG: THIS WASN'T YOUR FAULT.
EB: i don't know what to do.
EB: i can't stop crying.
CG: DON'T CRY. PLEASE.
CG: NOT OVER ME.
EB: it is way too late for that.
CG: IT'S OKAY. I'LL BE FINE.
EB: it's not okay.
EB: you're going to die.
CG: WELL, YEAH, THERE'S THAT.
EB: i don't want you to die.
EB: i want you to be safe.
CG: I'M NOT GOING TO DIE. NOT IN YOUR TIMELINE.
CG: I'M GOING TO BE ALL RIGHT THERE.
CG: THAT'S WHERE IT MATTERS.
EB: no. you're not going to be all right.
EB: not you.
EB: not the one who suffered.
CG: GODDAMNIT, JOHN. YOU HAVE THE BIGGEST FAT FUCKING BLEEDING HEART IT'S NOT EVEN FUNNY.
CG: IT BLOWS MY MIND.
CG: ALWAYS DID.
CG: HOW KIND YOU WERE, EVEN TO THE PEOPLE WHO HATED YOU AND WANTED YOUR ASS DEAD.
CG: WHO DIDN'T EVEN DESERVE IT.
EB: don't say that. please.
CG: I ENVY YOU THAT, JOHN EGBERT.
CG: EVEN BACK THEN I WISHED I COULD BE AS STRONG AND BRAVE AND KIND AS YOU.
EB: i'm not brave.
EB: everything is terrifying.
CG: YOU'RE GOOD AT HIDING IT. THAT'S WHAT BRAVERY IS.
CG: ME, I'M FUCKED UP.
CG: I WAS HATCHED FUCKED UP.
CG: FULL OF ALL THIS FUCKING HATE. MORE HATE THAN I KNEW WHAT TO DO WITH.
CG: NOW IT'S PRACTICALLY GONE. AND I REALIZE HOW HOLLOW I AM.
CG: JOHN, I'M SCARED AS HELL.
EB: you didn't deserve this.
CG: I’M GLAD SOMEONE BELIEVES THAT.
CG: I SURE DON’T.
EB: i wish i could do something.
EB: anything.
EB: and i can’t.
CG: YOU’RE HERE. THAT’S SOMETHING.
EB: not nearly enough.
CG: WELL, SHIT, HERE’S SOMETHING FOR YOU.
CG: THIS IS GONNA SOUND STUPID AS HELL. BUT...
You brace yourself. There is a good chance this actually will run him off.
CG: CAN I GET ANOTHER HUG?
EB: ...
CG: SORRY. THAT WAS STUPID.
EB: no.
EB: oh, god, karkat.
EB: i am basically mentally clinging to you right now.
It’s funny—he tells you this. And you feel—something. It’s deep within you, and it aches. It aches wonderfully. And you close your eyes.
And with your eyes closed, concentrating on that sickening, wonderful ache somewhere inside you, you can almost—imagine—that he’s here. In the flesh. Hugging you tight as he can. His arms wrap around you, and his shoulders quiver with the tears he can’t hold back. He burrows his head into your shoulder. The ache intensifies—deep in the pit of your stomach—and you lift your hands, to rest upon his shoulders. He is warm. You had forgotten what warmth felt like.
You have missed him very dearly.
You open your eyes, and you’re holding nothing but empty air. But you get the sentiment.
CG: THANK YOU, JOHN.
CG: I THINK I REALLY NEEDED THIS.
CG: YOU... REALLY ARE SOMETHING.
You're shivering, but you feel very warm.
EB: i...
EB: i wish i knew what to say.
EB: anything that would ease the pain, even a little.
CG: SAY ANYTHING, THEN.
CG: I'LL TAKE WHAT I CAN GET.
CG: SAY MY NAME, IF YOU LIKE.
CG: I'VE KIND OF MISSED IT.
EB: karkat.
EB: oh, karkat.
CG: JOHN.
EB: karkat, i wish you were here.
EB: i wish you were safe.
CG: NONE OF THAT MATTERS.
CG: I GOT TO SPEAK TO YOU AT THE END OF IT ALL.
CG: THAT'S THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS.
You have to stop. To wipe away the tears that flow freely now. You wish you knew why. You have no reason to cry. Not for this.
CG: LISTEN, I WANT TO ASK YOU ONE LAST FAVOR.
EB: anything.
CG: WHEN YOU SEE PAST ME. THE ONE THAT'S NOT DOOMED, HOPEFULLY.
CG: GIVE HIM A HUG FOR ME, TOO, WILL YOU?
EB: i will.
EB: i swear.
EB: he'll totally rip me apart, though.
CG: YEAH, HE WILL.
CG: GIVE IT TIME. HE'LL GROW TO APPRECIATE WHAT IT MEANT.
CG: IF HE DOESN'T, I WILL PERSONALLY SMACK HIM UP.
CG: I WILL BREAK REALITY ITSELF TO REACH THROUGH THE SWEEPS AND SMACK HIS SHIT UP.
EB: heheh.
CG: HEH.
EB: hey, karkat.
CG: HEY WHAT?
EB: this might be a weird question.
EB: do you still hate me?
CG: NO. GOD, NO. NEVER.
EB: no, i mean, like...
EB: like, hate-hate.
EB: like you used to.
Weird question doesn’t even begin to cover it.
You had already been feeling a little woozy in the head, but this just sort of blindsides you. You aren’t sure what to say. You don’t even know what you feel anymore.
CG: OH.
CG: ... OH.
EB: yeah. oh.
EB: so... do you?
CG: THAT'S A HELL OF A THING TO ASK SOMEONE.
CG: SHIT, I DON'T REALLY KNOW WHAT I THINK OF YOU ANYMORE.
CG: I TOLD YOU, ALL MY HATE IS GONE.
CG: ALL MY LOVE.
CG: ANY KIND OF SUSTAINED FEELING I COULD DEVOTE TO SOMEONE.
CG: BEING ALONE WILL FUCK YOU UP LIKE THAT.
CG: I'LL TELL YOU SOMETHING, THOUGH.
CG: YOU'VE MADE ME HAPPY.
CG: HAPPIER THAN I'VE BEEN IN A LONG TIME.
CG: I'M CRYING.
CG: BUT SOMEHOW... I'M HAPPY.
There has been something inside you—a terrible entity, tormenting you all these sweeps. You have failed to realize it until this moment.
EB: i am glad.
EB: that i could give you that much.
CG: YOU SHOULD BE.
CG: I COULDN'T ASK FOR A BETTER FRIEND.
The agony that has been within you for so long is vanquished.
CG: JOHN. I THINK I'M READY TO GO.
EB: you mean...
EB: ... i guess there's no other way, huh.
CG: THERE REALLY ISN'T.
EB: you deserve a better end than this.
EB: i want you to know that.
CG: I'M NOT GOING TO DIE COMPLETELY ALONE.
CG: THAT’S ABOUT AS GOOD AN END AS I THINK I’M GOING TO GET.
EB: karkat...
EB: whatever happens to you, please remember this.
EB: you're loved.
EB: even if you're the last one still alive in a dwindling timeline, there’s one person out there, however far away, who loves you.
EB: i love you, karkat.
EB: please remember that.
CG: I DON'T THINK I COULD EVER FORGET.
CG: I’M GRATEFUL I GOT TO SPEAK TO YOU ONE LAST TIME.
CG: AND I
CG: ...
CG: GOODBYE, JOHN.
CG: PLEASE TELL EVERYONE I’M SORRY.
EB: i will.
EB: goodbye.
You want to tell him not to leave you. You want him, so badly, to stay.
-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling ectoBiologist [EB] --
You can’t hold on forever.
Forever. It doesn’t seem so vast a stretch of time, anymore. You don’t feel cold anymore. You were so cold, for such a long time, and now it has bled away. The feeling of his embrace—however insubstantial—lingers with you. Your head throbs, in a floaty sort of way. It’s unreal. This whole experience has felt unreal.
But it is real. You must believe it to be real.
You lie back against the cold, gray dirt, and clasp your hands against your chest, as though holding a treasure close to you. You have been given a treasure, you think—a precious gift. A token of salvation, small though it is. Your time of penance will end one day. You will be granted peace, one day… soon. You are brazen enough to think: soon.
When you close your eyes at last, feel your heart’s pace begin to falter and slow with the onset of sleep, a strange sensation blankets you. Strange, familiar—warm. Almost as if he is still here.
He is—still here, you realize, as the sensation of his arms encircles you. Almost corporeal. You feel weight—his weight. It comforts you. He lays his head against your breast—you run your hands through his hair. He is shivering. You hear—you actually hear—sobbing.
“Don’t cry,” you want to say, but you are not quite sure whether it is him.
The vividness of your fantasy envelops you, and you believe, now, that you are safe. At last. In his arms, in this bed of ashes, you are safe. You are happy. The hum of the barren wind is a fitting lullaby.
You sleep dreamlessly.