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Three years had come and gone. Not in a flash, but in something of a slow trickle. Using their massive grist reserves, John, Jade and Davesprite made do with what they had. Our of everything that they had as entertainment material, the only thing that John never actually managed to finish at least once was the Colonel Sassacre book. As it turned out, the writing held a very dry sort of wit.
The three years did indeed pass and now here they were, with Dave, Rose and the trolls. The reunion, though welcome, was a short one. Kanaya and Rose had quickly informed them that Jack was on his way and they had little time to prepare for his arrival. In the three years, everyone had ample time to prepare for the imminent battle.
Everyone except for John and Jade, of course.
So with newfound stress on his showers, John prepared. He spent almost every waking moment training, sparring, preparing. He honed his windy thing and upped his experience in actual combat with the Hammer of Zillyhoo. If he wasn’t eating, or resting, he was training. He had just a few short days to shove in three years worth of experience.
It was impossible, of course. Even with Dave’s powers of time control, they were shoved in the middle of paradox space. Time meant very little in this place, so messing with time, even for a second, could have potentially dire consequences. John had to make do with what he had, which wasn’t much.
It was discouraging. He had been hoping for so long for a lengthy, comfortable reunion before the shit hit the fan again. He’d barely had time for hugs and handshakes, let alone giant meals, watching shitty Troll romcoms and seeking out his favourite Earth movies in their Troll forms. Instead he was hit with this giant ball of responsibility. Saving the universe was a major drag.
At least they had a vague idea of what to expect.
Right now, John wasn’t training. He was sitting alone on a tall part of the lab, looking up at the void that was paradox space. He was exhausted. Every muscle throbbed in soreness and under any other circumstances, he would happily crawl into his bed and fall asleep for twelve hours.
Right now, however, his mind was wide awake, even if his body was begging for rest. Rose had come down to where he had been training with Karkat and Dave and told them to take a break. Jack was due to show up soon and they needed as much rest as they could get before he showed up.
Technically, this was resting, right?
John shivered and lowered his gaze from the void to the gray dullness of the tower he sat upon. He was terrified. The trolls had all been so strong. They had all of those robots to help, plus they had all topped their echeladders, AND Vriska had been god tier! It wasn’t enough then, so why would four god tiers and three trolls work? If the god tiers died during the fight with Jack, they would remain dead, as their deaths would be righteous.
They were currently putting stock in the fact that Jack still held Bequerel’s loyalty towards Jade as an owner. Jade had brought up that they shouldn’t for she also had Bequerel as a part of her and it might cancel it out and make him fight her harder. Other than raw power, however, it was the best chance they had in order to make the battle successful.
John didn’t like either of those chances. While the enemy was approaching, he needed to have a think to himself to work out his thoughts and perhaps come up with another plan. He was starting to panic. Now, instead of days, they had mere hours. John sighed and his shoulders slumped.
John folded his hands in front of his face, bowed his head and began to pray. In whispers, he spoke words to something that he occasionally held comfort in. He had never really been taken to church and his dad never spoke of God or any other sort of religion. A part of him understood why now, though he never really questioned it before. His classmates groaned about waking up early on Sundays to go to church, and there was the club at school that was centered around worship.
A part of John felt a little silly silently begging for something good to come out of tomorrow, as if something out there could hear him, some sort of God they didn’t know of, or some sort of fate that controlled how things would go. He prayed and begged silently for this to not be a doomed timeline.
Just as his eyes began to itch with tears, a loud, scratchy voice interrupted him, causing him to jump.
“What the everloving shit are you doing up here, Egbert? You need to be sleeping!”
John quickly wiped his eyes and looked over his shoulder at Karkat who was approaching him, hands shoved into the pockets of his pants. He gave a small smile and a wave, flattered a bit at Karkat’s veiled care. It didn’t do much to raise his mood, however.
“Hey, Karkat. Not much, just thinking.”
Karkat stopped just behind him and furrowed his brows in irritation.
“Of all the things you need to be doing right now, thinking is the absolute last. You might hurt yourself or something.”
John turned his head away from Karkat, saying nothing as he returned his gaze to the endless void of paradox space. Of course, Karkat was just concerned for him. Both of their races continuation relied on them winning tomorrow so all of them being in top form was important. John couldn’t help but to be selfish right now. Even if he had gone straight to bed, he wouldn’t be able to sleep with all of the fear and anxiety buzzing through his mind.
There was a long stretch of silence between them. Eventually, Karkat had sat next to John and joined him at staring up at the endless void. He occasionally piped in with comments on how they both could really be doing something much better than sitting here staring up at the darkness but John’s responses were little more than acknowledging grunts or nods of the head.
“Okay, I’ve been doing everything I can to drop the hint that you’re our main weapon, Egbert, and we really need you to be in top form, however utterly pathetic that might be. Our leader seems to think it’s better than what we’ve got, so let’s fucking go with it, other than the shitty idea with Woofbeast Jade that we’ve all been relying on for technically three years. She knows all! What can I do to talk you into taking a nap before we get slaughtered, John? I really must know! The suspense might kill me before Jack does.”
John sighed through his nose, having since curled into something of a ball. His knees were against his chest, with his arms circled around them, head resting on his legs. He peered over at Karkat, hesitated a moment, and then began to speak.
“You told me that you were God, right?”
Karkat seemed a bit taken by that, but shook it off rather easily, “Pretty much, yeah. I mean the others helped a little bit, but you know, I did most of the work. So yes, God of the pitiful, weak humans. Right here. It’s really the best work I’ve ever done, as pathetic as it is.”
John hesitated even more before continuing, knowing exactly how silly this was going to sound. He swallowed thickly, going over the words in his mind a few times before chancing to speak them out loud, hoping that they didn’t sound nearly as foolish when he said them.
“Did you ever hear us when we prayed?”
Obviously his hopes were unfounded as Karkat stared at John as if he had grown two heads.
“The fact that I haven’t gone stark raving mad is pretty indicative of that, John!”
John nodded in response, “I thought as much. So, all those people down on Earth, who prayed for help, for miracles and other things like that were just talking to the clouds, then…”
Karkat snorted derisively, “Probably would have had more luck praying to a flying spaghetti monster or something.”
John curled up into himself tighter, burying his face in his knees his shoulders beginning to shake. Karkat stared at him, genuinely shocked at the reaction.
“What the hell, John! I didn’t know you were so religious!”
“I’m not,” came the muffled reply along with another heavy sigh.
“So what’s with the over dramatics?”
There were a few stretched moments where John didn’t say anything. Karkat was about to throw in the towel when he eventually spoke up, lifting his head away from his knees to make his voice more clear. Karkat noticed that there were streaks on John’s cheeks, but he didn’t comment on them. For once, he bit his tongue.
“It’s sad to think about. Everyone’s probably prayed once, for a good grade on a test or for a clean bill of health. Or to live through an impossible battle with a dude hellbent on universal destruction.”
John looked at Karkat, and the look on the boys face told Karkat everything he needed to know.
“Fuck, John—” Karkat sputtered, looking away from John, momentarily overwhelmed by the raw emotion on the boy’s face.
“We’re all scared, okay? Fuck I— I’m probably the whole reason our campaign fucked up as badly as it did, and I’m probably the reason your campaign was doomed to be fruitless. If past me hadn’t been a cocky little shithead then maybe we would be more certain about our results in this fight or something.”
Karkat ran his hand through his hair, claws scratching at his scalp with stress, “Just you… you’re not the only one who’s scared, okay? So, I mean, come on, John. You’re not the only one with the universe on your shoulders.”
There was silence between the two of them, and it was obvious that Karkat’s admittance of fear wasn’t the least bit helpful to John and his personal plight. After releasing a breath he didn’t realise he had been holding, Karkat dropped his hand from his head and stared forward.
“If I listen to your prayer, will you… go the fuck to sleep?”
It took a second, but John did nod. When Karkat looked at him, there was a tiny smile on his face. Visibly Karkat relaxed and held his arm out for John to come over to him.
“Fine then. Come… spill your worries to God or whatever the hell you need to do.”
John scooted over and pressed himself to Karkat’s side, resting his head on the Troll’s shoulder. Loosely, Karkat wrapped his arm around John and just listened as the boy began to talk, spilling all of his fears about the impending battle with Jack out. He went even further, begging him to let them survive, and talking about his worries for if they did when the game. What sort of world would there be? Would they be able to keep in contact with the trolls? He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to do what he had to do in order to help repopulate the human race as, well, Rose was really intimidating.
Eventually, John talked himself out and an hour had passed. He ended it with an awkward ‘amen’ and just sighed. Together the two sat, Karkat having started stroking John’s hair at some point during the ramble.
John pulled himself away from Karkat’s side after a few minutes of staying like that. He stood up and stretched, popping his back and wincing at the ache in his muscles.
“Thanks for that, Karkat. I feel better now.”
Karkat waved him off, “Yeah, whatever. Go the fuck to sleep. I’ll be in soon.”
With that, John did the windy thing and floated to the entrance to the lab, transportalising with a woosh and the scent of ozone. On the tower Karkat remained, staring up at the void, John’s words replaying over and over in his mind. He hadn’t even given the damn kid any wise words of advice, or answered him. He just sat and listened. John didn’t demand anything, he just asked and begged for what any human wanted: life. Karkat couldn’t hold that against him, for he silently begged to whatever was listening to him for the same thing.
Karkat stood and made his way over to the transportaliser. When they won this battle (when, for he was damn determined to come out of the battle alive) he would find a way to rewatch over John’s lifeline and make a point of listening whenever the boy talked at the ceiling.