Chapter Text
Your name is John Egbert, and you are almost certain that you are not a homosexual. All that changed after beginning your session of SBURB, the game which your poor father must have gone out of his way to actually prevent you from starting. You still miss him, especially during holidays here on this stupid rock. It's been two years already, and how you wish you could have had a cake made by your father, but here you are waiting it out. All with your new friend Karkat, the troll that went by the chumhandle initials CG, one of your best pals even though he seemed a bit angry and hell even a bit pushy at first. It took you a while to realize that was just in his nature, finally you're over that and accepting of it actually.
The only thing you still don't get is how you exactly feel about him. Jade has been running amok with Davesprite, and you were jealous at first, it seemed like your two best bros were pretty much falling for each other. You guess it's not that big of a deal, besides it's just probably because he is like her now, partially a sprite and a human, except she's more furry than anything, and sometimes you still find her angrily chasing down Jaspersprite. Sometimes you get to see your friends through your dreams, but even then it's less likely. At least Karkat is still around along with Liv Tyler.
You hear a string - or rather rope - of explicates coming from down the hall, you quietly sneak up in the air and float gracefully out of sight to him, and there Karkat is, watching for the very first time - ConAir. You decide to knock outside the room before entering, he yells, “John what the fuck are you doing, explain why this idiot is continuing to vacillate his quadrants while he manages somehow to cling on to that fucking plush bunny toy. There is no good goddamned reason for it seriously now.” It’s upon hearing his invitation and question that you smile wide, revealing your two larger front teeth, which a few kids at school used to mock you for having. At least Karkat never did, even if he’s an alien boy from a completely different orbital system. You sit down and carefully explain, “No, Karkat, you’re completely and totally wrong, he needs to do those things first, and then he’ll get not only the love of his life back, his freedom, and even greater his daughter’s respect and appreciation, you just wait and see.” You even promise him he’ll see it all come together at the ending. You both find yourselves laying side by side clenching pillows during the intense helicopter scene, finally Karkat looks back over to you and smiles. This feels to you like its the first time you seen him actually pleased with a Nic Cage movie, and you return his smile, “I would say I hate to say I told you so, but actually I kinda love saying that, so i told you so,” you giggle.
Karkat sighed and scooted away retorting, "Fine John you win, happy now, I'm annoyed now, and we were having a good time watching an otherwise shitty movie. I mean if not for your commentary with strange facts!" You knew that you shouldn't have but it was too late, what was said already had been said, and besides you find yourself enjoying this nice otherwise peaceful movie time with Karkat, after Karkat moved away from you, you got up and grabbed the troll edition of a classic Troll Will Smith film an Alternian edition of Hitch, placed it in the player, and sat closer, pulling up two pillows, one for Karkat, and one for yourself. You decide it's best and easiest if you both just share your blanket with each other. Karkat sighed, as his smirk returned to his face, "You really are a good person, although an asshole at times, and you mean well. Thanks though. This is my favorite movie, you know that right. I bet you've only seen the stupid human one, well this is so much fucking better you just wait," he said clutching the pillow and propping himself on top of it.
You two were laying beside one another on the floor, propped up by their own shoulders on top of pillows, watching the movie together, laughing, as Karkat began to explain various reasons of scenes while you both laughed, even at some points you found yourself fascinated by the intricacies involved in the romantic scenes. You both were divided by Liv Tyler, one which Dave managed to snag one while using his Timetables. You held Liv between you both while Karkat continued to watch. You found yourself grabbing onto Liv Tyler as you are slowly engrossed in the troll adaptation, meanwhile Karkat slowly was falling asleep with less blanket from you, who selfishly tugged more for himself as he continued to watch the movie. When the film ended you looked over and saw Karkat who was sleeping peacefully curling up slowly trying to grab more blanket. Karkat lying on the opposite side of Liv clenching the small pillow tight.
You catch yourself watching the troll sleep amazed at how different he is when asleep, and you find yourself almost admiring and in awe of his peaceful sleeping face. It was then that you remembered how Karkat grew up without a dad and sigh as a memory of your dad tucking you in flickered by. You mimicked Dad's quiet movements and wrapped the small Alternian up with the blanket, and pressed his pillow closer to him, lying beside him. You brush the jet black mop of hair away from Karkat's closed dreaming eyes, and you kissed the troll on the cheek sweetly and tucked him in, and allowed Karkat to keep his grip on Liv, You finally manage to have succumbed and have given up your constant internal fight while he decidedly lay beside Karkat taking off his cape, and wrapping it over the two of them as a second blanket, and fell asleep.
Hours flew past, Karkat was partially awake and confused as to why and who the hell was holding him so gently and how he was covered in front of the television. He sighed as he accepted it and smiled, hoping it was really you, he secretly held a crush over the dorky human boy, his gray skin glowing with a soft red pallor or blush as the humans called it, while he noticed that it had to be you since it was his cape over the two of them. Karkat allowed himself to fall back into a light sleep – hoping John would wake up. John’s grip changed as he squeezed Karkat’s body tighter, and trembled. Karkat turned over and saw the boy was shaking, possibly from a nightmare as he thought, “You know John you really are not that bad of a kid, I guess I sort of like you in a way, and you sleep so nicely. Normally for my people this is an opportune time to kill or destroy you, but I can’t even begin to think of doing that to you so calm down.” Karkat ran his slender fingers on your face, grimacing with fear and terror – without a doubt caused by a nightmare. “Shoosh, John it’s okay I’ll protect you, you can sleep peacefully I’m awake,” while Karkat cradled the boy closer, John buried his face into Karkat’s shoulders and gripped around him tightly. A groggy voice spoke out, “Thanks Karkat, you are the best troll friend a kid could hope for.” As he spoke Karkat let a sigh of relief out, while he held you tight in his arms, and smiled feeling a new feeling – realizing it had to be happiness, he felt genuinely happy holding you. He pressed his face down in your hair and kissed you softly, whispering, “Thank you John.”