nobrandhero

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Jade didn't even mind that John had messed up their landing, or that her legs stung with fresh bruises from crashing against the battleship's deck, not when the end result was hugging John, Karkat, and Daveglitch all close.

Daveglitch's state was... unclear, but optimistic enough for her even though he was unresponsive. Just like the last time the glitch hadn't been actively possessing him, the static had only decreased instead of disappearing altogether, but both of his irises were in plain sight, whereas the static had been so thick just minutes ago that his left eye was barely even visible beneath it. He was almost as they'd found him in the server block, back when they'd first met Jake.

Jade couldn't stop grinning that they were all safe and the mission had matched Rose's orders perfectly and they'd even managed to rescue Daveglitch, but Jane's panicked shout put her excitement on pause.

"Have you all lost your flipping minds?"

Jane and Dirk, along with Dave and Terezi, had caught up to their landing spot, with Rose and Kanaya fast approaching too. Jane had gone so pale that her skin almost had a blue hue to it.

John sat up, keeping an arm locked around Karkat's shoulders. "Jeez, what's your problem?" he said with a confused frown.

Jane pointed her fork towards Daveglitch, who still hadn't noticed his environment in the slightest. "We pulled off all of that just to escape that thing and then you brought it along for the ride, that's what!"

If Jane's weapon had been even another foot closer, Jade would have teleported it away on the spot, but as it was, she just shifted closer to Daveglitch to shield him from immediate danger. Maybe three more stab wounds wouldn't even make a difference when he already had two, but it wasn't worth the risk.

"No, it's okay!" John waved Jane off with his free hand. "We meant to do that!"

"That just means my original question still stands!" Jane shouted.

Kanaya groaned and rested her temple against Rose's shoulder as they grew near. "Is this really the time for more in-fighting? What is wrong with trolls, really?"

Rose snorted and patted her back.

"Nah, in-fighting would be a total waste of our last moments." Dave hadn't looked so tense since the first time they'd encountered Daveglitch back in Sgrub. His grip was so tight on his sword hilt that his claws nicked his palm and he quickly shielded the trickle of blood with his other hand. "I can't believe I'm actually hoping for a doomed timeline, but if that's not what this is, we are so fucked. Hell, we're fucked regardless, but at least it'd be nice to imagine that somewhere out there is an alpha timeline where we weren't stupid enough to sabotage ourselves to death."

"Fretting is cheap," Dirk said, his voice flat, as he stepped forward with his sword at the ready. "Why haven't we just set the bastard on fire yet?"

Karkat clutched Daveglitch tightly against his chest. "Anyone who tries to fucking hurt him is getting a foot so far up their ass that they'll taste the dirt on the bottom of my shoe!"

"I don't think we need to kill him anyway!" Jade set a hand on Daveglitch's shoulder. The static didn't swarm anyone despite two perfectly good hosts in reach, nor did Karkat's Blood powers activate in its presence as it always had when the glitch was around. "He's okay now."

"Jade, don't fucking touch that thing!" Dave must have been really worried to raise his voice in front of everyone. Even Roxy and Jake were back on the deck and close to rejoining the group just in time to witness the Strider facade crumble. "Vantas has never been able to break him free before! Why the hell would that change now?"

Jade scowled at him and didn't move. This was no time for Dave to act as an overprotective moirail, no matter how well-intentioned he was.

John climbed to his feet. "Because I did the ceruleanblood mind control thing first and I made the glitch fuck off," he said.

"You..." Dave faltered. "What?"

"I knew it!" Terezi smacked her hands together and cackled. "Hey, Egbert Senior, remember? I totally said that your descendant had inherited your powers and was just too stupid to know it!"

Jane held a hand over her mouth, only just masking her "Oh!" of surprise.

Jade smiled up at John. She'd had a feeling that he had more blood-related powers than he gave himself credit for, if he could just learn to access them. It had taken him a long time to wake up on Prospit, too, after all! "So you really are a telepath?"

"I don't know, I guess?" John shrugged. "I just yelled at the glitch with my think pan until I got through to the Dave side of Daveglitch. Is that telepathy?"

Rose held her hands up in a helpless shrug, jostling Kanaya with the movement. "I don't know, John. Using mind control to psychically talk to someone might just be indigestion or something."

Roxy slid to a halt next to Rose, with Jake just behind her. "Whoa, what's going on?" She pulled a face, glancing from Daveglitch to Rose. "Whaaat'd we miss? Izzit important?"

Dirk jerked a thumb towards Karkat. "A couple of these idiots brought the glitch along with us."

Karkat bristled and straightened himself up without loosening his hold on Daveglitch. "We did fucking not! The glitch is gone! We expelled it and rescued its host like a couple of loser heroes who can only be assed to rescue a single guy instead of anything significant!"

Jake's mouth dropped open. "Holy moly, you managed that?" he said, his eyes alit in awe. "How in tarnation did that work out?"

Rose cleared her throat. "They hit it with a two-pronged attack. Karkat's Blood powers broke through the glitch's physical grip while John broke its mental grip." She smiled at John while entwining an arm with Kanaya. "It's unlikely either one would have worked on their own, but in tandem they repelled it."

"See?" Karkat glowered. "He's fine!"

"We still can't fucking risk it." Dirk's unreadable expression half-hidden behind oversized glasses was almost more intimidating than any visible glare could be. "If we're wrong here, we won't get a second chance to escape this thing."

"Wait, hang on!" Roxy darted in front of Dirk. "I was possessed too and no one's trying to stick a sword through my think pan!" She smacked her chest. "Why don't I count as a threat?"

Dirk edged back. "We can already tell it's not in you anymore." He pointed at Daveglitch with his katana, making Karkat go tense. "But just fucking look at him. Static aside, he should be dead from those wounds. If the glitch isn't keeping him alive, what is?"

The static was especially active around Daveglitch's stab wounds, but it still wasn't as thick as it used to be when he was fully possessed. He hadn't so much as moved an inch on his own yet, let alone showed signs of going on another rampage.

Roxy scowled and crossed her arms. "From what I hear, he got controlled by that thing about five hundred times longer than I did! Of course the poor wiggler's gonna get a slew of gross side effects and scarring I missed out on!" She twisted her mouth, tilting her head back and forth as she glanced at Daveglitch again. "And you know what, even if we agreed that he's a danger, what would we do with him anyway? He's taken a stab to the bloodpusher and survived! I don't think we're capable of killing him!"

"That doesn't mean we shouldn't try before it can hurt us all over again!" Jane said.

Roxy stomped her foot. "We are not going to brutally kill an innocent pupa out of paranoia!"

Jane cringed. "Roxy, please, just-"

"Na na la la la laa!" Roxy pressed her hands over her hear ducts. "I'm not hearing my best friends suggest cold blooded murder, are you, Jake?"

Jake stepped to Roxy's side and leveled a glare at Dirk. "I just wish I could be surprised that Dirk's first solution to a problem is to try to kill it. It's only Jane that I'm disappointed in."

Jane's lips went thin. "I was too cowardly to take Dirk's side last time. I'm not making that mistake again."

Roxy let out an exaggerated, breathy sigh and rolled her head back. "Janey, it's really admirable that you wanna make up for past mistakes and shit, but your timing is just fuckin' stupid, 'cos Dirk is wrong this time!"

Dave finally put away his weapon, just so he could smack both hands over his face and groan. "Oh my god, my think pan is gonna explode if I have to hear more of this shit. Rose, will you meddle already before the adults get into another verbal brawl and tell them your badass Seer powers can tell that sparing the glitchy asshole is gonna royally fuck us over?"

Rose raised an eyebrow, surveying the group as all eyes turned on her. "Actually," she shrugged, "I sense nothing amiss with letting him live. Do you, Terezi?"

"Nope!" Terezi said with a grin. "No danger on my end."

Dave went still. "What?"

Kanaya narrowed her eyes at Rose. "You knew this was going to happen, didn't you?"

"Hm? Me?" Rose smiled pleasantly. "Orchestrate events by keeping others in the dark because it never would have gone so smoothly if their actions weren't borne of desperation? Kanaya, I'd never."

Karkat let out a strained laugh. "You're all right for a manipulative jackass, Lalonde."

"It's really... just an innocent kid now?" Jane said, lowering her weapon and watching Daveglitch out of the corner of her eye.

Jake came over and knelt by Daveglitch. "I dare say he looks unpossessed to me!"

Karkat wrapped his arms protectively around Daveglitch. He only relaxed when Jake held out a hand and smiled.

"Hello, lad," Jake murmured, papping Daveglitch gently on the cheek. "You're still in there, aren't you? It's just that nasty old glitch that's gone, not you." He slipped his hand down to catch Daveglitch's chin and turn his head towards him. "Come on, you remember me, don't you?"

Daveglitch's fingers twitched and his blank stare wandered to Jake's face. His face screwed up and he raised trembling arms to clutch at the stab wounds in his torso. He let out a pitiful whine, his voice alternating from Dave's normal voice (with a little more emotion than usual) to a robotic filter.

Jake winced and patted Daveglitch's head. "Oh dear, those wounds are quite the whoppers, aren't they?" He clucked his tongue. "But I'm sure you'll get through it, even if it hurts like the devil right now."

Karkat increased his grip and Daveglitch curled up against him, hiding the front side of his wounds from sight.

Jade reached over to rub at Daveglitch's back, careful to avoid the holes. It hardly seemed fair that the glitch could save him from dying but hadn't bothered to spare him from pain. Karkat was already doing a decent job of papping him, whether he meant to or not, so she just whispered, "Shoooosh." She met Karkat's gaze and nodded to him.

"Sh-shoosh," he repeated, glancing between Jade and Daveglitch nervously. When Jade beamed at him, he said it again with more confidence. "Shooooooosh..."

Daveglitch's cries of pain turned to whimpers. Karkat was practically a natural at shooshpapping already and heaven only knew that Daveglitch could use some good old fashioned troll comfort after the beatdown he'd endured while someone else controlled his body.

Jake stood, still acting as a shield between Daveglitch and the other adults. "There, see?" He gestured to Karkat and Daveglitch. "He's just a wounded pupa. He's no harm to us and he certainly doesn't deserve any of this vitriol."

Jane lowered her head and returned her weapon to her sylladex. Dave turned away and Jade wondered if he'd ever mustered the strength to look straight at Daveglitch in the first place -- it was so hard to tell with the dark lenses blocking Dave's eyes. It couldn't be easy to see a version of himself turn so vulnerable and openly in pain, especially with all of his coolkid ego at stake.

Roxy's frown was so deep that it was almost a pout. "Fuck, that poor wiggler. Y'all were seriously wanting to kill him?" She caught Dirk's arm and yanked him close enough to pap at his face.

Dirk tensed. "Rox, what the fuck?"

She grunted, papping around his shades. "You're in no fuckin' shape to be making these kind of harsh decisions, all jaded and bitter from getting your wrists just about seared off, and you're exhausted on top of it!" She hooked her arm around the back of his neck to keep him still. "So I'mma pap some goddamn sense into you, or at least pap you until you relax enough to rest, tightwad!"

"Roxy-" He winced as she papped him again. "Would you just- I don't need-" He leaned his head back and held his hands up in surrender. "If I promise to call it quits for now, will you stop with the fucking paps already?"

"Gimme a couple more. This is kinda fun." She grinned and papped him softly on the cheek before relaxing her grip and leaning against him.

Jake held an arm out to Jane. She hesitated, then sank against his shoulder. He wrapped around her, papping her back.

"I think my predecessor has a point." Rose sighed. "None of us are in top shape for decision making. Break for lunch, reconvene after a perigee or two for sleep?"

Terezi pumped her fist and chanted, "Victory rest! Victory rest!"

John leaned over Karkat's shoulder to peer down at Daveglitch. "So that means we're done, right? Daveglitch is a good guy again and everything's okay now?"

Rose hesitated. She chewed her bottom lip and tilted her head. "Well, we've been indirectly responsible for the death of two universes so far and we're self-exiled in an empty dimension. But, yes, everything is as okay as we can hope for."

Jade raised her head. She'd been so focused on making sure Daveglitch was safe that she hadn't found a moment to take in the new home she'd helped build with Kanaya yet.

The sky, as much as the space surrounding the ship counted as a "sky," was an endless pitch blackness that almost shimmered when she stared at it for very long. Despite the lack of sun or stars, the darkness didn't extend to the battleship. It was as easy to see without any visible light source as it had been back in the sunless medium.

It was beautiful, but maybe just a little lonely. It wouldn't be too different from her old hive, really. She'd have to congratulate Kanaya on how pretty her powers had turned out, but she could wait for Rose to hog Kanaya for a while first.

* * *

The battleship wasn't well stocked with cocoons. There probably hadn't been much need for them, with only four immortal trolls on board at any given time, but it meant they had to make do with one of the few blocks that anyone had bothered furnishing and go without sopor slime. At least they were pretty used to that.

They'd found a block with chairs and even a couch, but as soon as Rose settled against the floor with her back to the wall, no one else would hear of claiming any of the comfier options for themselves. It was quite silly and pointless to let the couch go to waste, but Jade wasn't going to be the one to take it either so she couldn't prod Dave about it too much.

The adults left them to take the block next door, promising to keep an ear out and break down the walls if anything went wrong. Jade was just glad that they never heard shouting on the other side of the wall. Maybe things had calmed down with them in the wake of the battle.

Rose passed out first, leaning against John's shoulder while he sat next to Karkat, who refused to relinquish Daveglitch for even a moment. Kanaya curled up and used Rose's lap as a pillow shortly after.

Dave and Terezi had a wall to themselves across from the others, so Jade switched from sitting next to Dave and moving to the other side of the block to check on Daveglitch every few minutes. She wasn't going to get much rest that way, but she didn't care.

Daveglitch had gone quiet and still again, save for trembling in Karkat's arms. Even de-possessed with nothing to keep his movement in check, it was as if he'd lost track of all except his most basic instincts. Jade wished she could shooshpap him out of it, but he wasn't her moirail and Karkat was doing a good job of it anyway.

Karkat steadily papped Daveglitch's back, muttering things like "Just fucking figure out you've got free will again, would you?" between his shooshes. "John?" He shifted, keeping his eyes on the floor. "You don't, uh. You don't mind that I'm holding Daveglitch this close while I watch over him, do you?"

John snorted and laughed. "Why the hell would I mind you doing something nice for my friend, dude?"

Karkat fixed John with a stare. "Jesus Christ, Egbert, when we get a little privacy again, remind me to stick my tongue down your throat until we forget how to breathe, because it's a goddamn miracle someone as shitty and selfish as I am snagged a boyfriend as decent as you."

John nudged his shoulder against Karkat's and slipped an arm around him to pull him close, sandwiching himself between Rose and Karkat. "I think most of us are glad Daveglitch has someone as stubborn and observant as you to take care of him."

Karkat huffed. "Damn right, I'm the most fucking stubborn guy left in this tiny excuse for a universe." He frowned and adjusted Daveglitch's shirt until the holes lined up with his wounds. "Shit, how do we even treat damage like this?"

Jade leaned over to study the deep cuts. There were bloodstains around them, but the bleeding had already stopped and any flesh beneath his skin was obscured by thick static. "I'm not sure we can. Hopefully it's healing in its own glitchy way."

Karkat circled one of the stab wounds with a finger and prodded at it, prompting a new groan from Daveglitch.

Karkat flinched and held him closer. "Fuck! Shooosh, shooooosh, I'm sorry, I'm just being an idiot again. The other assholes are trying to detox from all the shit you caused, so shut up or at least whine into my shirt if it hurts too bad to keep your mouth closed, okay?" He papped the back of Daveglitch's head until he went silent again.

Jade slipped away once she was sure they had the situation handled so she could hop across the block and plop next to Dave again.

"You don't have to switch places like this, Harley," he said with a small smirk.

"Of course not. I do it anyway!" She studied him, her smile faltering. "Um, Dave? Is your horn okay?" It had been broken since he'd gotten back from his time traveling duties, but she hadn't had the chance to acknowledge it with more than an internal wince. At least he otherwise seemed unharmed.

Terezi whined, patting at Dave's head until she caught hold of his intact horn. "Too soon, Jade! Don't remind me of such a horrible tragedy."

"What, this?" He pointed to the broken horn. "It hurt like a bitch but it's okay enough now. Guess who fucking broke it?"

Jade papped his head, careful to avoid Terezi's hands. "Something that's dead and gone now, because it sure wasn't TG."

"TG?" Terezi said.

"That's Daveglitch."

Dave wrinkled his nose. "Why the hell are you calling him that?"

She frowned. It had seemed like a pretty good nickname to her! It suited him well enough and he responded to it just as well as anything else. "What's wrong with it?" she said.

"It's my fucking username."

"It's his username too." She held back a sigh as she glanced over at Daveglitch again. Karkat still hadn't gotten him to respond to anything except pain. "Besides, Daveglitch sounds too stiff and you probably wouldn't want me to call him just Dave. That would get pretty confusing!"

Dave snorted and thudded his head back against the wall. "I think you could call him Shithead Nooklicker the Third and he wouldn't notice the difference."

"Daaave!" She batted at his shoulder. "That's mean! We'll nurse him back to health so that he notices stuff like that again!"

He fought her off by papping her wrists. "Why the hell are we even bothering?"

"Because he's our friend! Even if he wasn't, I still think we would try to help him after all he's been through!"

He covered his face with a hand and groaned. "Oh my god, he's an irrelevant copy."

"He may not be the Dave who's my moirail, but he still sent me his cool slam poetry every week and drew me funny pictures and fought by my side against the Black Queen." She caught his shades and lifted them just enough that she could stare at him eye-to-eye for once. "He's still a person I care about a lot and right now he needs help piecing himself back together."

Dave shied back and his hands twitched but he let her return his shades to their rightful place instead of taking them back himself.

Terezi interrupted them with a chuckle. "So are you two gonna kiss already or is all this tension in the air for nothing?"

"Well, hey, if the matesprit's encouraging it..." Dave cupped the back of Jade's head to pull her in close and kissed her forehead. She giggled and kissed his cheek in return.

Terezi cocked her head. "That sounded like lips on skin. You two are so fucking chaste." She shoved them apart so she could climb into Dave's lap and settle there. "Moirails are adorable."

Terezi really had no right to talk when matesprits were plenty cute too, but Dave's cheeks already had a tinge of red to them, so Jade just grinned and kept that thought to herself. She considered making her way to the other side of the room, but everyone was sleepy enough that she didn't want to risk disturbing them with the movement.

For once, Karkat's eyes drooped and he joined Rose in the new tradition of leaning on John's shoulder. John seemed happy enough, trapped between his two quadrantmates, plus Kanaya and Daveglitch by association.

Even with Dave right there for comparison, Daveglitch might as well have been a completely different person. He was a completely different person! He hadn't even been able to remember the six sweeps that he shared with Dave before and so far there was no indicator that that had improved with the glitch's removal. All they had in common was a body and even that wasn't close to identical anymore. Dave didn't spark with static, for one, and their horns were damaged in different ways, with Dave's broken off halfway while Daveglitch's only had scarring from a bullet hole.

The biggest difference was in how they carried themselves. Daveglitch hadn't worn any shades since back in Sgrub, so he couldn't mask his emotions even if he wanted to, and he wasn't exactly trying to play himself up as cool just then. Jade couldn't so much as imagine Dave taking his shades off and curling up to someone with such an unguarded expression, no matter how much pain he was in, not even with her -- well, maaaybe with her if they were alone and he was really, really needing quality moirail bonding.

At least no one was going to get them mixed up any time soon. They deserved to stay separated in that way when they were already so removed from each other.

Dave must have noticed who she was staring at, as he quietly said, "Think he'll ever act normal again?"

"I don't know. I hope so." She caught Dave's hand. "How long were you two time traveling?"

"About a month," Terezi mumbled with a yawn, burrowing her face against Dave's shirt.

Jade gasped. "Wooow." Her task with Kanaya had barely even taken an hour, if that, and that had felt stressful enough. "You must've missed us all a lot."

He squeezed her shoulder. "Nah."

She elbowed Dave. He just grinned.

* * *

John pressed a hand against the invisible boundaries of their new home dimension. It compressed under his weight like soft clay but wouldn't stretch very far. It almost felt like liquid, save for the part where he couldn't submerge into it, and it reminded him of the invisible walls in video games that always pissed him off because why couldn't he just walk a little further that direction when there was nothing blocking him?

It was "black," technically, but it was less of a color and more of a nothing. Or maybe more of an infinity? Bluh, game powers were confusing. It was probably black like Space. That made the most sense, given the aspects of the people who created it.

"It's an odd sensation, isn't it?" Jane said, floating beside him. They'd flown as high above the ship as they could manage, which was high enough they wouldn't have wanted to fall since they liked their bones intact. Jane prodded the solid darkness with her fork and the prongs had about as much effect as a finger.

"I thought it was mostly kind of annoying." He shoved both arms against it and flew forward with all of his might, but it only gave a few inches before holding taut.

"Are you insulting my matesprit's handiwork?" Rose said as she zipped past them.

John snorted. "No way, you'd probably hex me or something."

"Of course. I hex people all the time, after all." She stopped every few feet to check the integrity of the barrier. Well, double-check at that point, as they'd made it full circle around the place already.

She'd been testing the limits of the new dimension pretty much every moment she was awake for the past two weeks. She'd gone so far as to hit the barriers with everything she had in an attempt to break it, which seemed like a really bad idea to John, but it was better than finding out later that something from the outside could crash its way in.

The conclusion so far was that the dimension's edges were sturdy and they were trapped, except in a relieving way instead of an imprisoned kind of way. There was nothing good waiting for them if they tried to leave, after all, and it wasn't even that tight of a squeeze anymore since Jade and Kanaya had expanded the dimension bit by bit from the inside to give the battleship a little more breathing room.

Everyone was weirdly somber, even though they were safe for the first time since they first entered Sgrub. Hell, John felt safer in their new pocket-sized dimension than he had back on Alternia before the game! Way less pressure to conform. That was pretty cool, especially when Dave and Jade were both stuck in "instant cull: just add unacceptable blood color" situations.

"I think we've made a full round of it now," Jane said. "Let's not overdo it, empress."

Rose came to a halt and whirled around to face them. "I wouldn't dream of it. We'll conclude this experiment for now, then, so you can take some respite before we begin our next phase."

John kind of hated whenever anyone called her by title. It always made her act all proper and formal and shit, but it was also the fastest way to catch her attention when she was too focused on her work to dismiss her helpers in a timely manner.

Roxy and Kanaya were both waiting for them on the deck. Roxy flew up to tackle Jane when she spotted them coming while Kanaya was stuck waiting for Rose to land next to her.

"Be proud." Rose gave Kanaya a quick kiss as she took her hand. "We still can't put a dent in your hard work."

Kanaya blushed. "Thank god, frankly." She raised her head to stare at the infinite-looking-but-really-finite-actually sky above them, only snapping out of it when Rose nudged their heads together. Kanaya smiled and nuzzled against Rose's cheek.

"Janey, I've got some awesome shit to show you!" Roxy said, tugging Jane down the rest of the way to the ship. "Okay, it's not awesome but its backstory is totes cool. I actually made somethin' out of those game powers we all didn't know we had! It's just this weirdass green block for some reason, but isn't that sweet?"

Jane beamed at her. "I'm sure it's sweet as all heck."

All the gooey lovey-dovey shit going on was enough to make John want to gag, but it equally made him miss his own matesprit. If Karkat wasn't waiting for him on deck, ten to one John knew exactly where he was.

He took off for the ship's interior. John could still get lost for hours in the battleship if he turned down the wrong corridor, but he'd at least memorized the paths that connected the deck, the bridge, and the blocks they'd claimed for basic living quarters.

John could hear Karkat's voice as he turned a corner onto the last hallway, though the words were too muffled to make out until he was right outside of the door.

"Tristan caught Sylvester's tie and used it to lead him to the bed," Karkat said, giving each word extra careful enunciation like he only did when he was reading aloud from a novel. "He never thought he'd feel a desire as strong as what coursed through his body during their last kiss, but something about the way Sylvester..."

John pushed the door open and Karkat went silent abruptly. John already knew exactly what he was going to walk in on, because he'd witnessed it practically every night for the last ten nights or so: Karkat was sitting on the floor while huddled next to Daveglitch, holding a book that featured two attractive humans embracing on the cover.

Daveglitch never seemed to be listening, but that didn't stop Karkat from spending hours reading to him just to give him some social interaction. It was one-sided social interaction, but... well... Daveglitch still didn't really respond when anyone tried to talk to him anyway, so the one-sided part was inevitable.

John grinned. "Storytime with Karkat again?"

Karkat drew himself up even as he blushed. "Shut up! He likes it, probably!" He shook the book at him. "I mean, who wouldn't want to hear quality literature examining the most fragile of human emotions?"

"Dave, probably." John flopped down on Karkat's other side.

Karkat huffed. "Good thing TG has more sense than that guy."

"TG doesn't even talk if you don't repeat the question five times and shake him by the shoulders first," John said. Seriously, Daveglitch had practically turned into an inanimate object since his wounds healed up and he had nothing to groan about!

"That's still better sense than Dave."

"Whatever, dude." John ducked his head and nuzzled in against Karkat's neck. "I'm not trying to interrupt your reading or anything, I just wanted to snuggle while Rose put me on break."

Karkat sighed and kissed the top of John's head. "Missed you too, jackass." He shifted closer to Daveglitch, turned the book away from John so he couldn't peek at the pages, and began to read again. For once in his life, he spoke at a volume so low that John couldn't make out a word of it.

John glanced up. "Why are you whispering?"

"No reason." Karkat tensed. "Shut up and ignore me. The story's too far along for you to follow anyway and I'm not starting over." He cleared his throat and began reading again.

John narrowed his eyes and listened closely, catching only a few words here and there until enough of them came together to form an implied narrative. "You're reading him porn!"

Karkat spluttered as his face reddened. "I am reading him a passionate and tear-jerking tale of pure love between two humans that just so happens to include the occasional scene that describes how the loyal couple show their affection to each other in the physical realm as well as the emotional realm!"

"That's still porn!"

"It is not my fault that the author chose to include important character study in the form of a sex scene!" Karkat smacked the pages. "Look, one hundred and twenty pages in and this is the first time it gets steamy! That's not porn, that's a story that happens to have sex in it!"

John leaned in close. "If it's not porn, why were you whispering it?"

Karkat drew himself up. "You know what, I can just skip most of this scene anyway!" He flipped through the pages. "I'll read the important bits and spare your sensitive ears from the majority of ass touching."

He'd barely settled his finger on the next paragraph when Jade teleported in. Everyone except Daveglitch jumped, which was pretty embarrassing since it wasn't exactly a rare occurrence for her to tag Karkat out so he could stretch his legs and get fresh air for a few hours without leaving Daveglitch unsupervised. (John didn't understand how either of them could stand Daveglitch's company for three to four hours at a crack without dying of boredom, but whatever. They volunteered, so who was he to complain?)

"Hey, guys!" she said. "Did you still need me to watch over TG?"

Karkat smacked the book down onto his lap. "No!"

She drew herself up and gave him her best scowl. "Hey, don't snap at me for being on time! If you aren't ready to switch, you can just say so!"

He ducked his head and fiddled with the edges of the book as she glared at him. "Sorry, I was being stupid. My asshole meter was full and I shouldn't have taken it out on you," he muttered. "I just want to get through two more chapters without someone interrupting. Come back in an hour?"

Jade relaxed. "See? We make a much better team when we're not yelling at each other." She knelt so she could peek up at Daveglitch's face and wave at him. "Hey, TG!" She smiled when she got his eyes to flicker her way, which was about the best result anyone could expect. "I'll see you again soon, okay?" She received no further response, but she still cheerfully said, "You guys enjoy your book!" before disappearing as suddenly as she'd appeared.

John rolled his eyes. "If you'd taken her offer, we could have found somewhere private to make out or something."

"Too bad." Karkat flourished the book, recovering his page. "I told TG we're reaching chapter twelve today and I'm not going to be made into a liar even for a hot date with my boyfriend."

John propped his chin up on his hand. "So are you two officially moirails yet?" he said just as Karkat inhaled to start reading again.

Karkat spluttered and practically choked on his own lingual muscle. "What? I'd never cheat on you!"

John snickered. "I said moirails, dude, not matesprits!" He elbowed him. "Moirails are like me and Rose, or Jane and Jake."

"Oh," Karkat said, shoulders slumping. "You think we'd..." He cringed and glanced at Daveglitch. "Fuck, John, he's barely cognitive and you think I can tell if we've entered a weird troll romance together?"

"Okay, fine, then you should ask him out when he's better."

Karkat blushed again and pointed at Daveglitch. "He's right here," he hissed.

"Good point." John leaned over Karkat's lap to tug at Daveglitch's sleeve. "Daveglitch, when you're better and can talk again and shit, ask Karkat out! He's really cool and you can already see what a kickass moirail he'd be!"

"Oh my god, shut up, you shit-spewing umbrella!" Karkat hunched over John, squishing him against his lap.

John laughed. "He's not listening anyway!"

"Then you're being twice the asshole for taunting him!" Karkat wrestled John away from Daveglitch, then glowered at his book. He ran his finger over line after line. "Besides, who'd want a boyfriend whose lifespan is so short compared to yours that he's barely a blip on your radar? It's bad enough I'm putting you through that!"

John snorted and leaned against Karkat's shoulder. "I don't get human years or anything, but I'm pretty sure we're the same age, dude."

"Yeah, right now! How long is that going to last, Mr. Brainless Immortal God?"

The wisecrack ready to leap out of John's mouth died as his think pan cranked to a halt. Karkat never God Tiered. None of the humans had.

John swallowed. "How long... do humans live?"

"We've got maybe eighty years if we miraculously scrounge up enough food on this ship for three humans to survive on for that long," Karkat muttered. "I think that's something like forty sweeps, probably less. After that, you trolls are on your own."

"What?" John's voice came out high pitched. He clung to Karkat's wrist. "C'mon, you're not gonna just leave us all alone after everything we did to get here!"

"Sorry, John." Karkat lowered his book and glared at his lap. "Unless you know how to find some spare quest beds and dream selves, we're stuck as mortal losers."

Daveglitch stirred. "N0." He curled his fingers. "I don't... nee*d th0se," he said, his voice hoarse when it wasn't robotic.

Karkat snapped to attention and John's eyes widened. "TG?" he said, openly gawking at him. It was the first time Daveglitch had spoken without someone coaxing it out of him.

"[godTier = false]." Daveglitch raised his head. His gander bulbs wandered before settling their gaze on Karkat. "1 can... I can switc#h the boolean."

"Holy shit, you were actually listening?" Karkat whispered.

John leaned down to peer around Karkat. "Dude, you have some of the glitch's powers left?"

Karkat shoved him. "He's still covered in fucking static, dumbass! It clearly left something in him."

Daveglitch cocked his head and stared at Karkat almost as if he wasn't there. He lifted a static-y hand and rested it in the middle of Karkat's chest.

"Wh-what?" Karkat shifted back, bumping into John before he could actually move out of Daveglitch's reach. "What the fuck are you doing?"

Daveglitch's hand glitched into a mess of pixels. John tensed at the visual that had previously meant Really Bad Things were about to go down, but if it was the glitch back for a surprise visit, Karkat's Blood powers would have activated, right? But his aspect stayed dormant, as if the glitch's powers were safely disconnected from The Glitch as an entity.

Daveglitch muttered something unintelligible under his breath, his eyes half-closed. His hand flickered to normal (or as normal as it got) and he dropped his arm, slumping back to his usual position of ignoring the world around him, which was kind of disappointing but a million times better than turning back into a sadistic sociopath or something.

Karkat stared down at his shirt, his mouth hanging open in confusion. "Hey! None of that was rhetorical, you grabby space case!" He shook Daveglitch by the shoulder to regain his faltering attention. "What did you just do?"

"[godTier = true]," was all Daveglitch said.

"This is God Tier?" Karkat said, slapping a hand against his chest. "This is it?" He caught his shirt between thumb and forefinger. "Is your brain still fried or is there seriously no fanfare for something as monumental as becoming immortal?"

John looked Karkat over, but there was nothing particularly God Tier-y about him. Then again, was there anything God Tier-y about him or Rose or anyone else when they weren't wearing their weird game costumes? Humans didn't even get wings when they God Tiered.

"Well," John shrugged, "our ancestors didn't realize they were God Tier, so maybe the glitch's powers can act subtle for once." He leapt to his feet and grinned down at Karkat. "Try flying!"

Karkat recoiled with a look of disgust. "What?"

John lunged to grab Karkat by his wrists and pull him up. "Like this!" He floated into the air, dragging Karkat off the floor with him.

Karkat squawked and kicked at the air. "No, no, no, don't you fucking-"

John released him as soon as he felt the weight on his arms lessen. And, well, if he was wrong, it wasn't a very long drop anyway. The ceilings were too low for that.

Karkat shrieked preemptively and looked all the more ridiculous for it when he stayed floating on his own. "Holy shit!" He stared in horror at the ground. "Holy shit, this is real? How the fuck do I get down?"

John snorted and took his hands again, gently flying him back to the ground. "You'll get the hang of it."

Karkat planted his feet and shuddered. "Jesus, I hope I don't have to." He wiped a hand over his face before he spun around and sat on his haunches, glowering at Daveglitch. "TG, you beautiful broken asshole, I know you're paying attention now! Stop trying to act like you aren't and just look at me for once." He stuck a finger in Daveglitch's face, earning an actual reaction as Daveglitch raised his head. "Did you seriously give me an unearned God Tier upgrade?"

"Ye/s."

John fistpumped without even thinking about it. Fuck yes, good news for once.

Karkat, on the other hand, slumped back and laughed bitterly. "Figures that this was the only fucking way I ever had a chance of leveling that high." He shook his head. "With the help of a goddamn walking GameShark."

Daveglitch's forehead creased and, for the first time in way too damn long, he seemed to have a genuine emotion. "A Game... w#hat?" he said in confusion.

"It's an old cheating device for video games." Karkat groaned and waved him off. "Don't fucking worry about it. The point is you're fucking amazing, I'm fucking garbage, and please, please, please fucking tell me you can do this on command." He worried his lip and straightened enough to stare Daveglitch in the eyes. "You can make Terezi and Kanaya God Tier too, right?"

Daveglitch nodded slowly. "If they're Sburb pla/yers, then they have the G0d Tier bo0lean. I can alt*er any game var1ables, just n0t their constants like aspects."

It was sort of creepy to hear his friends described as if they were just computer programs, but it was kind of hard to argue considering they were literally created by a machine for the purpose of playing a video game. John sighed. "Well obviously you can't change the-" He paused. "Hey, since when do you know basic programming, bro?"

"Since he turned into absurdly advanced programming, probably?" Karkat climbed to his feet and held his hand to Daveglitch. "Take my hand and stand up so we can go make the others immortal, birdbrain. If you can learn to talk, then I'll trust that you can figure out how the walking shit goes again."

* * *

"This is fucking ridiculous," Dave said flatly, keeping a careful distance from Daveglitch at all times -- save for a short exception when he stayed close to Terezi as Daveglitch altered the code in her game data.

"No, this is great!" Even if Jade had wanted to wad up her excitement and hide it away, she didn't think she could have. She wasn't even sure what was more exciting: that the humans shared their lifespan, or that Daveglitch was finally showing signs of recovery. She caught Kanaya's hands and bounced. "Oh my gosh, you're going to love flying, Kanaya! It's great! You and me and Rose should go racing around the ship sometime!" She glanced to Terezi. "Terezi, are you-"

"Uh, I'm good." Terezi backed up, bumping into Dave. "Flying seems dumb anyway. I'm happy with just the immortality part."

Oh, oops, flying probably wouldn't be too fun without any sight to stay oriented in the air. Terezi couldn't exactly use her cane on the wind. They'd just have to figure out another way around that.

Jade released Kanaya to let her slip back to Rose's side -- they'd been pretty much inseparable since they'd admitted their flushed feelings. The adults were the only ones missing, as it didn't particularly matter to them whether the humans were God Tier or not.

Dave crossed his arms. "It's really this easy? After two utterly fucked over sessions, the static-y asshole can just snap his fingers and fix that three of us missed the Quest Cocoon side mission?"

Jade frowned. Maybe it was just as well Daveglitch wasn't fully recovered just yet, if it meant he got to miss out on feeling bad about the nasty things his alpha self implied about him.

"No!" Karkat drew himself up. "It's not that easy! Because you wanted to kill him!" He threw an arm towards Daveglitch. "Everyone was wringing their hands like Play-Doh-devouring babies, because, oh no, Karkat fucked everything up again! How dare he rescue an innocent captive? Obviously TG is the most terrifying victim of shellshock we've ever seen and he'll murder us in our sleep!" he said, somehow managing to both shout and grit his teeth at the same time. "After three goddamn weeks straight of me and Jade nursing his mind back to anything resembling normalcy, after keeping the poor bastard safe from the likes of you and your ancestors, you have the fucking gall to call this easy?"

Daveglitch reached out and stiffly papped Karkat on the cheek. "Sh00sh," he said, his voice bland even by Strider standards.

Karkat's fury drained in less than half a second as his eyes widened and his face flushed. "Uh. Papshooshes can be platonic, right?"

"Sometimes!" Jade said with a grin. For someone who thought he was an expert on romance, Karkat sure was silly about Daveglitch. How could he have missed how pitiful he was?

Karkat batted Daveglitch's hands away. "Cut it out, you featherbrained killjoy. I'm fine," he said, though he was undeniably calmer than before the papshooshing.

"So what are Daveglitch's..." Kanaya cleared her throat. "Excuse me, TG's limits?"

"Yeah, can you whip up an alchemiter or something?" John said, his interest piqued.

Daveglitch's mouth twitched, making its way into an odd frown, as if he still hadn't figured out his facial muscles just yet. "No. There's... n0 co/de to ma*nipulate. Cr*eating it out of not#hing would be... n0t good. Messy. Gl1tched."

John sighed. "Damn, worth a shot. Those were useful as hell."

Kanaya held a hand over her chin, furrowing her brow and staring at the floor.

Rose watched her closely. "Kanaya, what's wrong?"

Kanaya glanced up, blushing a touch. "What about a Genesis Frog?"

Jade's insides made all kinds of knots in a combination of hope and apprehension. Everyone's attention snapped to Kanaya one by one as the implications of her question sank in.

"Wait, what?" John said.

"Daveglitch," Kanaya said, holding herself tall and staring him in the eyes, "what could you do with a Genesis Frog?"

"Wait, do you still have ours?" Karkat said, his mouth hanging open.

Kanaya nodded. "Rose and I agreed back in Sburb that I should keep it in my inventory, just in case there was still a purpose for it. If this isn't that purpose, I give up on it." She reached into her sylladex and held out the small glowing frog that Jade remembered helping her breed almost two perigees ago. "Can you safely mature this into our new universe?" Kanaya asked, holding the immature frog out to Daveglitch.

He examined it without moving anything except his eyes. "Ye*s."

Jade reached over and gingerly caught his arm. "Careful, TG. Last time we cheated with a Genesis Frog, it didn't go well."

He glanced down, staring at her hand for a long moment before he plopped his hand on top of hers. "We cheat/ed?"

"Yeah. You and I were supposed to collect the frogs on my planet by hand, but we utilized a cheat in the appearifier instead." She sandwiched his hand between both of her own. "Remember?"

His fingers twitched and stretched before folding against her hand. "I w0n't... bre^ak the c0de like that. This 1s safe. This is just sw1tching som*e variables."

Her blood pusher skipped a beat. "So you do remember?" she said. Maybe they were knocking some of his old memories free just as they were easing his reaction time back.

He stared ahead blankly, as if he wasn't aware of his surroundings. "I... remember... err0rs. [An irreversible ERROR has been detected: UNIVERSE DATA CORRUPTED]. I rememb/er that. 'Err0r, error, error' blar1ng in my fucki*ng think pan, all the damn t1me. I was corrupted, so it had to be destr0yed. Everyth^ing had to be destroyed to d#elete the corruption." He lowered his head. "I don't... hear that anym0re."

She squeezed his hand, forcing her smile to fight against the urge to let it fade. "TG, that wasn't you. That thing really did get deleted, I promise. You're not corrupted anymore."

"I won't h#urt the code's inte/grity," he murmured. "I'm just... activating the same events Sburb wou*ld have, that's all. I w0n't alter it in ways that might corrupt 1t."

She nodded. "I know. I believe in you."

Dave massaged his temples. "Does this mean we're entrusting our lives to the psycho who we spent the last two perigrees trying to escape from?"

Rose shrugged. "Do we have anything to lose? If he's still psycho, we're fucked regardless. If he's not, this may be our only chance to relocate." She straightened. "I'm telling our ancestors to join us in case it works. Don't start without me."

* * *

Kanaya only relented her Genesis Frog to Daveglitch after a long moment's hesitation and plenty of encouragement from Jade.

Everyone had crowded on the deck, where there was actually room to handle an immense being that should in theory grow to absurd sizes for an amphibian. Jake seemed eager to watch Sgrub's final phase at work, but he was the only adult who wasn't cynical; even Roxy looked skeptical that she wasn't having a prank pulled on her.

Daveglitch's hands never actually touched the frog. Instead it floated perfectly in the air between his two palms. He closed his eyes and his hands flickered into a glitching static, while the frog's glow grew so strong that John had to squint.

The Genesis Frog (or Genesis Tadpole, more accurately) floated into the air as Daveglitch raised his arms.

The frog erupted in so much light that John couldn't make out its shape anymore. It just grew brighter and larger until it hurt to watch, but John couldn't tear his eyes away as the tadpole transformed from a useless if pretty inventory item to an adult amphibian that was steadily growing so large that it took up most of the sky in both size and brightness.

The light faded to a dim but steady glow as it finished growing. The Genesis Frog opened its mouth and let out a croak so deep that it reverberated all the way to the bone. It sounded just as comforting and overwhelming as the first time John had heard the Vast Croak, back when they'd finished making the human universe.

Even better than the familiar and reassuring sound was watching the expressions of first-time listeners. The humans raised their hands as if to block the sound at first, but one by one they dropped their arms as they gazed up at the Genesis Frog with a newfound respect. Even the adults looked on with awe -- except for Dirk, who looked indifferent as ever, but who was probably just as impressed as the others beneath his stone exterior.

The dimension Kanaya and Jade had created to take refuge from the glitch was the perfect size to house the newly grown Genesis Frog. It could still act as a safe haven even, seeing as no outside influences could try to infect the frog if it lived in an empty space.

Jade gasped and that was the only reason John tore his gaze from the sky. A glowing door formed out of light in the midst of the ship's deck, settling its shape into a familiar sight: it was an oversized rectangular doorway with a handle that glowed with the light of Skaia.

"It thinks we beat the game," Karkat murmured.

"We did just beat the game." John held out a hand to Karkat, who took it. "You ready to end this?"

Karkat sighed, watching the door in resignation. "Not really."

"We're doing this anyway though, right?"

"Oh, fuck yes, we are." Karkat marched forward, stopping just short of the door. "We're the leaders and we're going to act like it. If this door incinerates anyone, it's gonna be us!"

John cocked his head. It wasn't that he hadn't also been reminded of rather unpleasant possibilities, but that hadn't been one of his worries. "Okay, actually, incineration sounds way better than another glitch showing up, so I'll take it."

"What have I said about jinxing us, Egbert?" Karkat said, shooting him a glare.

John chuckled. "C'mon, let's do this." He reached his free hand out, drawing back quickly when he heard someone call his name.

"John!" Daveglitch shouted.

When they turned to him, dropping their hands, Daveglitch slunk back. Jade frowned and rubbed at his shoulder until he relaxed.

"I..." He looked confused. "I d0n't know why I just... It... it's okay thi/s time, right?"

John smiled. "Yeah. It'll be okay this time, bro." He nodded to Karkat. "Together?"

"Right." Karkat followed John's example, entwining his fingers with his matesprit with one hand, reaching for the door handle with the other.

They set their palms against the handle at the exact same moment. John winced involuntarily despite himself, because what if Daveglitch was right to be paranoid? What if something bad was always waiting for them when they touched the handle?

Instead the door opened.

John only caught the smallest peek at the other side before their surroundings shot past them as if something within the door had grabbed hold of them and managed to yank them inside without disturbing their legs.

The door led to darkness, and not the infinite fun kind like Kanaya could make. Everyone else had disappeared: Rose, Jade, Dave, their ancestors... Karkat was the only one remaining at John's side, clinging ever tighter to his hand.

Before fear could finish sinking in, lights flickered around them like fireflies. The lights flashed and expanded around them, breaking into colors that were at first nothing more than smears, but they warped and twisted until John recognized images: trees and buildings and non-lethal sunlight pouring down on it all... Unfamiliar humans walked in and out of view within hundreds of displays flashing around them in every direction, save for a total darkness behind them.

The images were distant, as if John and Karkat stood on an invisible platform while a pit below them was littered in monitors of a new universe.

Karkat's grip was so tight that John would have thought he was trying to break John's hand if he didn't know better.

"How do you like the universe you made with Kanaya?" John murmured, smiling even though Karkat's eyes were too busy taking in the imagery around them to notice.

"Holy fuck," Karkat said, his voice barely more than a breath.

There was no visible path, but a door-shaped light appeared in front of them in the distance. John gave Karkat a tug towards it, because where else were they meant to go? Hopefully it didn't lead to the afterlife or something spooky, because that would be a really stupid reward for finishing the game. (Though he wouldn't mind being a ghost, he didn't think. That had its upsides.)

The ground beneath them shook and they stumbled, almost landing on their knees as they yanked on each other's arms for balance.

A large object far, far below them broke through the empty wall of darkness as if it were glass. It hurtled across the open space towards the monitors displaying the new universe. John squinted, trying to work out what it even was and if it belonged there.

It was just a large... bubble? It wasn't fully transparent like a bubble, and it was way larger than a bubble had any right to be, but it glistened like one and its shell was clear enough that John could see a myriad of silhouettes inside of it. There seemed to be two figures helming it from the outside. They were troll-shaped, but not quite...

"Sollux?" Karkat said, voice cracking as his eyes widened. He lunged down as if he could break through the barrier between them. "Sollux! Guys!" he shouted.

John held on tight. "Karkat?"

"John, it's my friends!" Karkat turned on him, frantically yanking at John's arm as he tried to abandon their path. "We need to get to them!"

John planted his feet. "I don't think we're supposed to go that way!"

Karkat looked pained. "But..." He grimaced and shouted down, "Sollux! Aradia!"

There was no response from the bubble below them as it continued its path and collided with one of the displays. John expected it to crash again, like breaking through a window, but instead it slipped inside as if it had hit water and disappeared.

Karkat slipped to his knees, staring after them. "Fuck."

"I don't think they could hear us." John frowned and held tight to Karkat's hand. He didn't want to find out what happened if they separated.

The images around them abruptly flickered and warped into new views, as if someone had used a remote to change the universe's channels to new locations. Most of them were still just random shots of a very Earth-like world, but a few featured faces that actually stood out. John's bloodpusher jumped as he caught a glimpse of Vriska, alive and fighting wooden swords against Eridan.

Karkat raised his head, staring at the images above them with wide eyes. Gamzee was amongst the dozens of unfamiliar locations and people. "Aradia's breaking the damn rules again and going on without me," Karkat said after a moment.

"Yeah, Time players are assholes like that."

"The best kind of assholes, who get shit done and save everyone even after they've all fucking died." Karkat wiped at his eyes. "I thought all my dreams with them were stupid bullshit, but they really were hanging out with the horrorterrors and just waiting for us to get our act together, weren't they?"

"Which we totally did."

Karkat lowered his eyes. "We actually did. We made a new universe for them to fucking break into like stubborn criminals."

John squeezed his hand. "Let's see what we're supposed to do from here."

Karkat took a shaky breath and rubbed his sleeve over his face before nodding. He used John's arm to pull himself back to his feet and stumbled against John's shoulder, planting his face there instead of straightening. John just let him burrow there for as long as he needed, until Karkat raised his head and gave John a clumsy kiss.

"Let's go, idiot," Karkat said and actually smiled.

They ran the rest of the way to the exit and leapt through the light, hand-in-hand, consequences be damned.

The light was so bright that John squeezed his eyes shut. He braced himself for pain, possibly incineration or some other nasty kind of death, but all that happened was that his feet failed to find a hold at first, then landed with a jerking thud.

He peeked an eye open. The light had faded to reasonable levels and they stood on a floating island made of a material John had never seen in his life: it almost looked like a half-opaque aqua-colored glass, except it was sturdy like metal. It stretched out far in front of them, while a building towered above.

It almost looked like the lab they'd taken refuge in on a meteor back in the veil, made of metal and full of more space than they knew what to do with. The building stood in a circle around some kind of giant orb that glowed with a gentle white light. It wasn't quite a spherical orb, as it jutted out in places, but it was large enough that it almost reminded John of a sun. Unlike the meteor's lab, this facility looked far more welcoming, as it was lit up both inside and out and the metal was made of a less dreary color.

The environment didn't hurt either, compared to the dark edge of the Furthest Ring. They were surrounded by more stars than John had ever seen in his life: flickering and glowing and sometimes even shooting past through a cloudy atmosphere. Entire worlds flickering at them from every direction was a pretty nice step up from neighboring with horrorterrors.

When he glanced behind them, there was no sign of the endgame door.

"They made it!" Jane's voice called John away from his observations. She ran over to them, smiling in relief. "Whew, you two gave us a fright!" she said as she beckoned them to follow her.

Everyone was waiting for them just inside the nearest doorway into the facility, even the adults and Daveglitch. Kanaya and Terezi surrounded Karkat just as fast as Jade, Rose, and Dave hurried to John's side.

"This is Sburb's game over?" Karkat said, peering around. The interior was furnished with more monitors of the new universe, computers, and fully upgraded alchemiters. John even caught a glimpse of a recuperacoon through a doorway into a neighboring block.

"A non-standard game over, maybe, but yes." Rose flourished a hand. "Welcome to the post-game."

Dave smirked. "Nah, we cheated off the standard path so we had to beat the non-standard endgame, then cheated our way back to the normal ending. The game thinks we're triumphant here."

"As far as I'm concerned, we are triumphant!" Jade drew herself up, smiling widely. "Sure, lots of bad things happened and this wasn't the happiest ending, but we still did really good! We survived worse than Sgrub's hardest boss battles, we found our ancestors, and we saved Daveglitch so he could help us win the game after all."

She beamed at Daveglitch, who cocked his head and imitated her expression, making more of a grimace than a smile. Jade giggled.

Karkat pointed to a window that looked out onto the sun-like glow that the facility was built around. "So what is that eyesore anyway?"

Rose clicked her lingual muscle. "We think it's the frog's blood pusher. If you watch closely, it moves very slowly like a long beat."

Karkat flinched back. "That's its heart? That's fucking gross!"

"No, it's so we can watch over it and make sure it's healthy and safe!" Jade's eyes lit up. "We get to protect our new universe, guys!"

John exchanged glances with Karkat and grinned. "If this is the reward-punishment combo we get for epically failing yet beating the pants off this game? Then this is pretty damn cool."

* * *

Living on an island lab that floated in the midst of infinity meant that height didn't really matter much anymore. Everything was "high up" when endless depths lived below them. (Thank fuck everyone was God Tiered and could fly, just in case anybody took a tumble.) John still liked to climb his way to the very tip top of the facility and settle on the roof.

He would have flown there, but Karkat was still uncomfortable with his new flight powers and avoided using them when he could get away with it, so climbing it was.

"This place is nice," John said, kicking his feet off the side of the roof.

"I should fucking hope so, because I don't think we can go back to the battleship anymore." Karkat sat so close to John that their elbows touched. He pulled up his knees. "Are you scared at all?"

John shrugged. "No."

"Do you think you should be scared?"

"Why?"

"We're gonna be stuck like this a longass time, unless TG has another trick up his sleeve." Karkat shifted uncomfortably. "What if we're miserable here? What if we don't get along for more than a year before we're at each other's throats?"

Well, it wasn't an unfair concern, considering John had clocked Dave in the face once when they were stuck in the same block for too many hours at a time, but that had worked out in the end, so it was still a kind of stupid concern. "It's a pretty big place. If shit hits the fan, we can just avoid each other until things cool down enough for apologies and we're all friends again." He nudged Karkat. "We'll figure it out. We always do."

Karkat rolled his eyes. "I'd say you're full of it, but it's hard to argue after we escaped two dying universes and killed an enemy that was over two million years old."

John stared up at the thousands of worlds twinkling in the distance. He wondered which light Vriska lived in. "What do you think your friends' lives are like now? Totally different?"

"Some shit's probably the same, other shit's practically upside down." Karkat snorted, following John's gaze. "Sollux is probably still a smug bastard who sits on his computer too damn much, but maybe he's not siblings with Feferi. Maybe his bro is his dad in more than genetics. Maybe he's an orphan, I don't fucking know. I bet Nepeta and Equius are best of friends in some way, though."

"Is Vriska happy?"

Karkat grunted. "It's Vriska. She'll find a way to make herself happy. I'm more concerned that she'll make everyone else fucking miserable in the process."

John nodded. He might try to find her on the monitors sometime, along with the other humans for Karkat's sake. "She wasn't a very nice person, was she?"

"No, but neither am I and that never stopped you from hanging around me."

"Yeah, I like you even if you are a raving bulge sometimes." John turned to study Karkat as he stared into infinity. "Would it be romantic to kiss here?"

Karkat pulled a face. "Yes, John. It would have been. Before you fucking asked your established boyfriend permission to do a thing we do all the damn time instead of, I don't know, going for a spontaneous kiss without making sure the timing's good." He threw his hands up.

John ducked past the flailing arms to plant a kiss on Karkat's lips, holding it there long enough that Karkat relaxed and leaned into it.

John rested his forehead against Karkat's afterwards, staring into his eyes. "Man, I think I'll love you."

"Uh." Karkat raised an eyebrow. "You don't already?"

John chuckled. "No, idiot, we've only known each other for like a perigee. I just really like you." He kissed Karkat's cheek and took his hand. "But I know I'm going to love you someday, after we've learned all the things that are annoying about each other and still want to be together anyway."

Karkat bapped the back of John's head. "You're already annoying, cocksucker."

"Well, fine, I guess maybe it's possible that you love me already, if you feel that's a thing that's true." John shrugged. "I've got more to learn about you first before it'll stop being exaggeration when I say I love you. Hopefully that's soon though!"

Karkat held his head in his free hand. "I don't think my brain can begin to process how shit you are at being romantic." He sighed, glancing up at John. "How the hell did you manage to sweep me off my feet, Egbert?"

"I don't know." John rested his head against Karkat's shoulder, peeking up at him. "You have great taste?"

"My taste is fucking fantastic! You're just an anomaly!"

John laughed. "Fuck, you're awesome."

Karkat groaned loudly. "He says after I insult him." He wrapped an arm around John's waist and pulled him close. "John, if all I'm feeling right now is nothing more than teenage infatuation disguising itself as something more... then I think I'll love you too." He managed a smile. "And god help us both if we somehow manage to keep that up over the years."

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