Today was the day. This was it. Today was the day. John was nervous. Today was the day. Karkat kept pressing reassuring kisses to John's cheeks and mumbling comforting things to him. Today was the day. John's head was resting on top of Karkat's chest, listening to the soothing sound of his heartbeat. Today was the day.

"John?" John looked up at his matesprit. Two candy red eyes were looking down at him and fuck did John love this troll. "Are you still nervous?" He nodded his head slowly. He didn't want to be nervous, it was just happening. He hated it. Dave was his friend. Jade was his sister. They would accept him. They love him. They're his friends. Karkat pressed a kiss to John's forehead. "I'm here for you. And I swear to every single fucking horror-terror out there that if one of those fuckers says a single fucking thing about you they will need to live up because I will give them the most intense word fucking that they've ever received." John giggled and sat up, now facing Karkat.

"Oh my god, please don't give me any weird mental images of you fucking my best bro Karkat. I don't want to have those kinds of graphic things in my head." The troll made a disgusted face which made John laugh.

"Eugh, as if I would ever fuck such a self-righteous windbag. I can do so much better. Hell, I would rather fuck an actual bag filled with cacti and swords than him." John laughed more and Karkat smiled. The troll got his nervous matesprit to laugh and relax a bit. That was one small victory.

"Good. I already have to deal with seeing several dead versions of you sucking face with other ghosts, Dave included in some of those! God it's so weird seeing my boyfriend making out with someone else." Karkat rolled his eyes but didn't stop the smile that began forming on his face.

"What, do you get jealous that one of my dead selves is shoving their tongue fuck deep into Dave's mouth?" The troll smirked. It was nice knowing John actually got jealous that his matesprit got slightly jealous at what some completely different version of himself did. It made him feel...a bit wanted. A bit more loved. It made him feel special in a way.

"Get a room you two!" Terezi shouted at the two mushy goobers that were sitting less than an inch apart from each other. The two didn't seem to hear her, or more acknowledge her, because they leaned in and shared a sweet little kiss. If Terezi had a camera she'd be snapping pictures of this cute display.

Time passed and the giant golden ship that Jade had hijacked appeared in the sky above them. Both Jade and Dave flew down followed by Jane and Roxy. The very second John saw his childhood best friend he smiled widely and flew up into the air. The two stared at each other for a moment in disbelief beige John flew over to Dave and tackled him down within the blink of an eye. Karkat sighed and stood up, walking over to the two dorks that were already talking as if they'd seen each other just yesterday. The troll quietly flopped down next to his matesprit and half listened to what they had to say. Karkat wanted to give John and Dave a little moment alone. After what seemed like hours of talk of pure nonsense, John finally noticed Karkat was there and brought him up to Dave.

"Oh, uh, Dave." John's fingers were annoyingly tapping the ground. Dave glanced at John, then his fingers, and when John motioned to Karkat he glanced at him too. The troll subtly moved one hand to go soothingly rub small circles into John's back, just to relax him a little. It worked. "This...is Karkat. Well you already knew him from before with the whole Terezi thing but...yeah." Dave raised an eyebrow at the unusually silent troll who just seemed to be staring him down.

"For some reason I remember him as always shouting and shit. Did he like lose his voice or something on your little detour trip through space?" John glanced at Karkat, who was actually fighting to keep his words down as long as possible for John's sake. He didn't want to ruin it. It was probably best if John stepped in now.

"Hah, no...that's not it. He's just being nice. He doesn't exactly want to scream at my best pal whom I haven't seen in forever." Okay, now might be a good time to say something, anything, about Karkat and his relationship. God but what. John could ruffle his hair but that would seem way too friendly. John could boop his matesprit's cute little button nose but that also seemed too friendly. Fuck, he was running out of time. Without thinking, John quickly leaned down and pressed a sweet kiss to Karkat's lips. Of course Karkat wasn't expecting that so the troll sort of pushed his boyfriend away. Real smooth.

"Ugh, John next time you want to fucking kiss me give me a warning. You nearly bit off my lip and got your gross slobber all over me." John laughed nervously and wiped his spit off of Karkat. That didn't go as planned and now he would refuse to look at Dave. Fuck, his face felt warm. Dave was probably laughing, oh god this was embarrassing.

"Dude you need serious kissing help. Do what I did and take an online class, kissing one-oh-one. Professor's great. Do lip ups, make those suckers nice and prepped for the next time you want to have sloppy interspecies make outs." Dave commented, trying to make John a little less embarrassed. Oh god. This only made it worse for some reason.

"Hey, when numb skulls are done doing whatever boring thing you're doing maybe you could pay attention to our meeting!" Oh good a distraction. John kept his eyes glued to the thief of light as she explained their battle plan, his hand unconsciously sliding into Karkat's.

She explained that everyone would be broken up into groups. Groups that she already chose. Kanaya and Karkat had some sort of secret mission. John had to go off to fight the Condescension. Karkat and John anxiously looked at each other. They both were thinking the exact same thing. The teams broke apart to go gather their weapons, John refusing to even let Karkat go to his respiteblock by himself. He had a small amount of time with him and he was going to spend every second with his boyfriend.

When it came time for everyone to depart, John was less than happy to let go of Karkat. Karkat wasn't about to let go of John either, he was scared for him. If John got hurt he didn't know what he'd do with himself. This was the first successful flushed relationship he's had and fuck, John was his love. It would destroy him if John died.

After a long while, John finally let go of Karkat's hand and pressed a kiss to his forehead before Jade grabbed both Karkat and Kanaya's hands and flew off. The last thing Karkat saw before heading off into deep space was John standing there in his bright blue Godtier outfit, his giant hammer slung over his shoulder.