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Your heart thuds fast and you grip the steering wheel tightly as your beat up little car drives down your boyfriend's street, approaching the broken-down white house of the Vantas family. Normally, when you make the trip down this road, you're grinning and listening to one of the mixtapes he made for you, dancing in your seat and excited to see him. Not tonight. No, not tonight.
Tonight, you're running away. Leaving both of your lives in Seattle, just the two of you, the contents of your college savings account, and your car.
It sounds stupid, and it is, but you have no other choice. You have to leave. Not because you wanted to. Because you loved him.
You've been in love with Karkat Vantas since the two of you were ninth grade. You were paired with him for a science project, and you got to know him even better than anyone except perhaps his friend Sollux, who moved to California in your sophmore year.
Karkat was a huge jerk, but there was more to him than that. Under the bristling rage and insults that didn't really offend anyone because no one knew what the hell they meant, he was sweet, funny, interesting. He had a passion for science, particularly biology, just like you. He was insanely smart, but had no motivation, so he slept through all his classes and nearly flunked out of high school in tenth grade. Everyone thought he was a complete idiot, but you knew better. He loved romcoms but he'd never been in love. You'd been his first. First kiss, first date, first time. First love.
You remember all of those firsts like they were yesterday.
Your first date, to a showing of some silly romcom you didn't really like but he was really into. About halfway through, you built up the courage to do the classic move where you pretend to stretch then wrap your arm around your date. He gave you a disbelieving look, then his features actually softened and he snuggled under your arm contentedly. You finished off the movie grinning like an idiot, and fell asleep that night the same way.
Your first kiss together didn't come til months later. You were both too scared, too shy to do it earlier. You were sitting out on a blanket in your yard, fingers intertwined between the two of you. Fourth of July fireworks were going off overhead, and he was watching them with an illuminated face filled with wonder, dark eyes wide.
"Karkat." You had said softly, and his face turned towards you. He looked as if he was about to scold you for interrupting his view of the fireworks, so you stopped him in his tracks by crushing your lips together. Of course, you slammed him in the lip with your braces and knocked your foreheads together so hard you both had headaches for hours, but when you pulled away almost immediately and started apologizing profusely, he tilted his head to the side and followed you, making the contact gentler and embarrassingly romantic. You shared your first real kiss with fireworks exploding in the night sky above you, and you still wouldn't trade that memory for the world.
As for your first time, that was much more recently. It was only two months ago, on your third anniversary together. You'd gotten him a promise ring, and you both exchanged mixtapes because he saw it in a movie once and thought it was really cute. You have boxes of them in your room; every time something happens that you don't want to forget, you each make a mixtape. It's lame, but it's kind of your thing. Anyway, for your anniversary, Dave's older brother somehow set you up to be at a swanky restaurant at the same time as Adam Sandler, so you shared a romantic meal and your boyfriend got to meet his favorite actor.
After dinner, it was late, but the night wasn't even close to over yet. You snuck into the high school, taking him to the music room, where you normally practiced on their grand piano. You played for him a special song you wrote just for him. You even sang along, words expressing your feelings for him. It was incredibly cheesy, like something out of a bad romcom, and he told you as much with happy tears flowing out of his eyes. He almost tackled you completely off your piano bench in a big hug, crying a little into your shoulder and denying that he's actually crying (even though you both knew he was and you both knew that you knew that he was) in his always hoarse voice until you tilted his face up and started to kiss him.
You made love right there on top of the piano, then lied together afterward until you were almost caught by security. You ran off school grounds, holding hands and laughing hysterically. When you got back to your house, you curled up together in your bed and just talked for hours. You discovered that he liked how small he felt when you put your arms around him, and that when you petted his unruly black hair, he almost purred. That's how you fell asleep; Karkat curled up against your side, your long pianist's fingers combing through his hair methodically. You two slept like that all night. You were happy. In love.
You'd always known Karkat's dad couldn't know of you two's relationship. He was a traditional, angry man, and a very violent father. Karkat told him he was gay freshman year and was in the hospital for an entire week afterwards with multiple stab wounds and moderate head trauma. Karkat still has the scars. His father was never convicted, and the case was dropped. You knew the truth, though, so you kept your relationship a secret. If he found out, there's no telling what he would do.
Except last night, he caught the two of you together. He was supposed to be out of town for the weekend for work, so you two were making out on the living room couch. Mr. Vantas came in on the two of you half-naked, Karkat's hands down the front of your pants and his body stretched out on top of yours. Kar's dad physically kicked you out of the house, and Karkat called you crying hours later.
His dad was making them move. He was packing up Karkat and his older brother and taking them across the country to Maine, where Karkat's conservative aunt and uncle lived. He was going to cut off the internet connection and cancel their cell phone plan, simply to ensure Karkat never communicating with you (or, as Mr. Vantas said, "that boy." He refused to speak your name.) ever again. They were to leave in the morning.
You both decided that you couldn't live like that. You've been John and Karkat since ninth grade; a joint force, always together. You couldn't stand being apart, even for a day. When you had to go to New York for a week last summer to go to a chorus competition, you were constantly on the phone, but you still missed each other insanely. When you came back, he was in your arms for three days straight. At the airport was the first time you actually told him you loved him. He said it back, and you kissed until people started staring.
Those were the good days. And now you're fighting tears as you near his house. You slow down and lean across the center console to open the door so Karkat can jump in on the run, throwing his bag into the seat and pulling himself up into the still-moving car. He's got his brave face on, breathing slightly heavy from running and jumping into the car. You just keep going.
"Are you going to be alright?" you ask, hand going to grasp his, fingers intertwining and resting on the center console.
"Yeah," he sounds shaky. "I'll be fine."
You're quiet for a moment.
"It'll be okay, you know. Sometime soon. We'll get to Sollux in California, and it'll all be alright. He'll help us out. We'll get jobs down there, hell, maybe even change our names. Have good lives together. Maybe even get married some day! We'll be happy, Kar. Just wait."
You look over at him, giving him a weak little smile, trying to calm him down. He smiles back for a moment, and then he glances towards the road, and his face turns into a mask of horror and fear. You look back to the road, and everything seems to come in flashes of sensation instead of continual motion.
You see the huge white dog in the middle of the road, see your hands in front of you turning the wheel as you swerve to avoid it. You hear the screeching of tires as you lose control of the vehicle.
When you slam into the tree head-on, you both hear the terrible crunching of metal and feel the jolt as you're pushed forward, bashing your forehead off the wheel. Everything goes black.
When you wake an indeterminable amount of time later, Karkat's head's against your shoulder, and he's covered in blood. His shallow breathing is interrupted occasionally by him coughing, and when he does, a thin trickle of blood leaves his mouth. You're numb, and when you speak, your voice sounds muffled.
"Karkat?"
"Yeah, douche?" his voice sounds weak and slow. You can barely hear him.
"I'm sorry. I didn't see it." you murmur. It's hard to speak. "It's... shit happens."
Your mouth dries up at how labored his breathing is. You can tell he's in lots of pain. You're really just numb.
"I love you, Karkat Vantas. More than anything."
"Don't say goodbye. I'm not going anywhere any time soon. Not leaving you." He keeps having to stop when he speaks to choke down pained little noises, and you have to try really, really hard not to break down.
"I know, Karkat. We're going to California. I just.. I love you a lot, 'kay?"
"John?" he breathes your name, bloody lips trying to smile.
"Yeah?"
"I love you too, John Egbert. So much more than you'll ever..."
He trails off.
Karkat's really quiet for a long minute.
"Ever what?"
Not a word.
"Hummingbird?"
Nothing.
"Karkat?" your voice is more urgent, and you look down at him.
That's when you realize Karkat Vantas, the love of your life, has stopped breathing. You hear sirens coming closer, and everything goes black for the second time.
You're in a coma for one year, four months, and thirteen days, but you don't know that. You're too busy dreaming.
In your dream, it's your thirteenth birthday, but not how it actually happened. And in this dream, you began playing a game.