Notes: Title from Shakespeare. This is set in a post-SBURB universe in which the kids and the trolls are separated again after the game ends.
I'm really sad about Homestuck ending okay
(this is my first Homestuck fic, so advice and comments would be appreciated ^-^)
On a clear, starry night in August, you and your friends go out to a hill on Jade's island to go stargazing.
Walking up there takes about fifteen minutes, and you're the one who's walking just a bit in front of everyone else, looking around at the green that's half-shrouded in darkness and wiggling your fingers back and forth so you can feel a slight breeze of wind between them. The air's clean and unpolluted out here, not like the smog that hangs in the air when you visit Dave's house- you can barely breathe over there, but you don't tell him that because you enjoy hanging out over there.
Jade is bouncing along next to Dave, chattering about something- you aren't really paying attention that much- and he looks like he's engaged in the conversation- he keeps letting long-winded metaphors pour out of his mouth ever few minutes, you can practically feel it in the atmosphere around you.
Rose is holding the bags and has a large book on astronomy tucked under her arm, and she's watching them talk with that sardonic half-smile that is her default expression. She adjusts the strap over her shoulder so it doesn't tug so much, and starts humming a tune to herself under her breath. She looks a bit sad, a bit melancholy, you think, and you also think you know why.
(The absence of your other friends hangs heavy in the air.)
Halfway up the hill, you kick off your shoes, pick them up in one hand, and go barefoot the rest of the way, letting the dewy grass crunch under your feet, turning them pleasantly numb. Jade laughs, and does the same, and you race your almost-sister up to the top, breeze ruffling your hair.
Both of you collapse on the grass together, still giggling. Rose reaches the top a moment later, and although she's shaking her head disapprovingly you know she ran up as well.
Dave sets out the picnic blanket on the grass carefully, and all of you lie down on your backs, staring up at the sky. Jade takes the astronomy book from Rose, flipping through it to a page about constellations. She squints at it in the dim starlight, adjusting her glasses and pulling the page close to her face.
"Okay," she says after a while, holding the book up to compare it to the sky. She points upward, brushing her finger to the sky in an elegant stroke. "See that group of stars over there?"
"They all look the same," Dave complains lightly under his breath, and Jade sighs and takes you all through it step-by-step until you've identified the patch of sky that's Terezi.
It even looks like her, you think, bright and glowing and vibrant with some sort of energy that you can't even pin down. You imagine that the two pinpricks of light on either side of the constellation are being reflected from her glasses as she tosses her head back with a short, barking laugh as she decides the fate of the latest wrongdoers.
"Do Kanaya next," says Rose softly, and you almost think she hasn't said anything but Jade flips through the book, and points.
"Right on top of Terezi," she says, outlining a cluster of six stars, the three outside ones brighter than the others, with her hands.
Rose smiles and pulls her hoodie around her tighter, and waves at the stars. You look at her out of the corner of your eye and quickly redirect your gaze to the sky again, pretending you hadn't seen her crying.
"Let me try," you say instead, taking the book from Jade and sitting up so you can see it better. You trace your fingers along the lines and dots overlayed on black black black and frown. "He's… not there."
Dave sits up too, and looks over. "Who's not there?"
"Karkat," you explain, biting your lip. "I was going to find him for you because I know you miss him and- but he's not there." You flap your hands desperately at the sky, and feel your eyes beginning to water a bit. "He's not there!"
"It's too early in the year for-" Jade begins, but cuts herself off mid-sentence, frowning, and tugs the astronomy book out of your hands, pressing her fingers to the pages. She's looking for something, but you can't imagine what.
Rose and Dave move closer to you, and you don't really mind the wind but their presence is nice as well, so you don't complain.
"It's fine," says Dave. You can't tell what his expression is behind his shades, he might be laughing at your overreaction or crying or anything else. "We'll come back some other time and find him, right?"
You bite at your lip some more, tuck your knees up to your chin, and rock backwards to look at the sky. You choose a random group of stars, grouped together into a sharp, jagged mass, and pretend that they're Karkat instead, and you point this out to Dave and he smiles at that. He hardly ever smiles anymore.
Jade looks up, scanning the sky, and uses her fingers to frame a sequence of pinpricks of light, identifying them as Vriska. There's an awful lot of them, and you count them, squinting and making sure that you get them all.
"Seventeen," you announce. "That's more than Karkat and Terezi and Kanaya have. I bet they're jealous."
Rose grins, and imitates Vriska's voice. "I have all of the stars," she brags, sniffing at an imaginary audience of other trolls. "All of them!"
"It kind of looks like her horns!" Jade points out, tracing the jagged patterns at either end, and you look at it, and it does. You beam up at the stars and wiggle your fingers at Vriska, and you imagine her staring back at you with an expression on her face that clearly says 'you're being an idiot human again'. For once, you don't really mind.
"That one's Gamzee," says Dave, and he waves a hand towards a grinning pattern of stars sprinkled across the sky that really doesn't look like anything at all but you're going to assume that he knows what he's talking about.
"Kanaya's probably chasing him," says Rose dryly. "She does it every night, you know."
You laugh, and imagine a troll with long horns and facepaint scrambling across the sky, tripping over planets and galaxies while Kanaya follows furiously, wielding her chainsaw and bouncing from star to star.
"There's Eridan," Rose says, with a sort of half-fond, half-annoyed look settling across her features, and she indicates a messy swirl of stars that's beginning to creep sheepishly over the horizon and towards the other side of the world.
"I never met him," you say curiously. "What was he like?"
"Annoying," she replies, and smiles. "I blew up his computer."
"He tried to flirt with me!" Jade volunteers, smiling too.
"I wish I could have met him," you say. "There's so many people we didn't get to meet."
"There's so many people we'll never see again," Rose says, and all of you sort of huddle together in a small pile of fabric and body parts to make it seem less cold. The picnic blanket is crumpled beneath you, and your legs are hanging off onto the grass and one of Jade's arms is jammed uncomfortably against your side but you can't really bring yourself to complain since everyone's descended into a comfortable sort of silence.
You look up again and the stars are looking back at you, but they're not just stars, they're people too- people that you know and don't know and wish you could have known.
Next to you, Rose is staring wistfully up at Kanaya, and Dave is mouthing something under his breath as his sunglasses are tilted in the direction of the stars you said were Karkat. Jade's reading the astronomy book again.
She seems engrossed, so you don't say anything, and you count the constellations instead, over and over and over again while their tiny pinpricks reflect in your glasses.
You wonder if they can see you right now, wherever they are.