After three years out of contact, John and Karkat can finally talk again. The conversation doesn't go quite the way they were expecting. Now the three weeks it will take the golden ship to match velocities with the asteroid seem like three million. Why are the laws of physics so unkind to desperate teenaged boys? [an antidote to sadstuck! if this is not the fluffiest, most sentimental xenoporn ever written, i will eat my writekind specibus.]

Karkat has gone really still. He opens his mouth. Closes his mouth. Opens his mouth-- "No. On second thought, no. I don't know what the fuck I was thinking when I said I would do this. I have never had even the slightest desire to do this." "Uh," John says. "Okay?"

"Gosh, Karkat! That's not what I was expecting at all!" Fanart drawn for Porn Battle XII.

John is one of eight mech pilots heroically protecting Earth from an alien invasion. Pretty easy on the moral choices. See evil monster from space, kill evil monster from space. Only then he actually meets one of them face to face.

In which a mutant too famous to cull is dropped like a grenade into the midst of the peace process, a foolish monarch proves himself secretly shrewd, the power of friendship functions as a force multiplier, and it is discovered that in the Great Game of espionage, the dealer does not always win.

When all they have left to hold onto is each other, how can they ever let go?

There are some things you have to do as a friendleader, and some you have to do as a friend. Sometimes, it's the same thing.

Karkat is all for cultural exchanges and trying to see each others point of view, but there is such a thing as going too damned far.

Teasing can be frustrating, but it will all be worth it in the end - right?

Once Karkat figures out the trick to getting John's attention, it's all smooth sailing from there.

When you open yourself up completely to someone else, you also make yourself completely vulnerable.

John Egbert is totally the master of hateflirting.