"What's the big deal, anyway?" Karkat mumbled as he swung his legs over the branch he shared with Terezi. His arm instinctively wrapped around the trunk of the tree to brace himself from an almost certain fall to his death. That fall would in no world or game ever be considered a leader-worthy death, either.
"The big deal is you said you'd take me stargazing for real when we finally met!"
He groaned. "Tez, I hate to be the fucking bearer of bad fucking obvious news, but you're blind. You can't "gaze" at the stars. You can't glance at them, stare at them, or even look at the stars." A second later and Karkat bit back a yelp and rubbed his upper arm. Terezi may not have her eyes, but she was still quite accurate with her targets.
He looked up through the branches though; through the rustling leaves and up into the sky. Terezi was right when she whined about the tree having a better view, though he'd never admit it to her. There was a brilliant view of the sky, as if they could almost touch it. Though the view was just of the sky.
"There aren't any stars, you nooksucker." Karkat grumbled loudly before settling a glare on the young troll beside him who was hopelessly staring up at the sky. She didn't even take notice to his statement. "You dragged me all the way up here going on about those gogdamn stars and—" Karkat paused momentarily as the foreign phrase 'gogdamn' escaped him—where did that come from?—but he immediately picked up his tangent. "And there isn't even any to look at!"
"Oh?" She said after a moment. Her eyes never pointlessly stared at him. They never broke their gaze towards the green-hued sky.
Karkat frowned and stared at Terezi as her nose twitched. "I wondered why I didn't smell drops of bleach and black licorice." She cackled but Karkat couldn't believe what she just said. Terezi could sniff him out miles away and yet she couldn't sense that the sky was fucking green instead of black? It didn't seem right.
Her eyes flickered over to him and her thin lips curled into a grin. "My bad." His train of thought was tugged a different way though as Terezi continued after a moment of silence. "Do you remember when we did go stargazing?"
"Yeah," He said at a stifled volume. They would be at their respective hives and would try to name constellations and stars over trollian. And then there were the moments he would never forget. "You'd always make wishes on those falling rocks like a little wriggler."
"There is nothing wrong with making wishes. You never know when they will come true. Wishes are the best magic the world has to offer!"
Karkat snorted as he rolled his eyes at her childish antics.
"Oh Karkles, if you just loosened up then maybe you'd see that wishes can come true in the strangest of ways. Like that one wish I made about my lusus! And meeting all of you guys!" Her voice dropped to a stage whisper "Or finding a matesprit."
She laughed to herself as Karkat's face heated up with cherry-scented blood at the mention of matespritship. She tried sliding closer to him, all the while teasing him about the wonderful smells, but he pushed her away muttering an embarrassed "Fuck off".
Terezi stayed silent and swung her cane between her legs like a pendulum until she realized Karkat wasn't going to speak to fill the silence. "I wish we could go back to those simpler days, sometimes." She muttered. "The future back then had to be brighter than the one we have now."
Karkat looked up at the pulsing sky and leaned against the tree. "We're just lucky that we have a future. That we're all alive and together, to be honest."
"Yeah…" Terezi said. "This sky is beautiful here, isn't it. All the possibilities." She stumbled over quickly. A wide grin forced it's way across her face at that word before it burnt out into a grimace. "All the possibilities." She whispered, pained, under her breath, but Karkat picked the words up easily.
Karkat stared at the girl and reached out hesitantly for her. "Terezi, wh—"
"Did it hurt?" She said apologetically.
He stared, wide-eyed trying to decipher her unusual behavior. The way she changed subjects. How her eyes refused to meet his or even look in his general direction. Despite her disability, she always looked him in the face. Did what hurt? He thought. That punch from earlier? She never held sympathy for him when they got into their little physical fights. Why would-oh.
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry, Karkat." She finally lifted her gaze and looked him straight in the eyes.
Burnt red shifted into awful white. An awful, expressionless, dead white.
Karkat didn't need to see his reflection to know his eyes were the exact same. All the repressed memories flooded his mind—the only sign of any type of "life".
His hand finally found hers and wrapped around it securely.
Gamzee. The note. The rooftop. Vriska's trail. Their reunion. Jack. Pain. Blood. Darkness.
"I'm so—"
"It's okay." Karkat said silently as his expression fell. He sounded so much like Aradia now. Nothing to live for. Nothing to fight for.
"And the others?"
"We'll see them around here sooner or later. Even Vriska."
She squeezed his hand. At least he had her here with him, even here. At least they could be together.
But still.
He blinked rapidly, forcing back tears. (Can the dead even cry? He thought briefly.) That was not the answer he had been looking for. He had hoped one of them could at least survive even if it meant Eridan or Gamzee. Just someone to carry on their lives and stories.
It was all ruined in the end. It was all a fruitless effort. They were made to die from the very beginning.
In the now patchwork sky held together by neurons and stars, he saw a single star fall.
Maybe Terezi was right. Maybe wishes weren't just for wrigglers.
Karkat closed his eyes.
If he could have just one wish come true. Just one. Then he would wish it didn't have to end this way.
The timeline where Terezi let Vriska fight Jack Noir.