#ficstuck

Required: Pairing and Rating (Fluff, Smut, HARDCOOOORE XXXXX, etc.)

In which I attempt to not only sadstuck but also write in second person while not making a horrible story/summary.

Title: Fake Flowers

Characters: John, various dead characters

Spoilers?: Oh, yes. Don’t read until you’ve gotten to around act 6. 

Summary: John spends his extra time making coffins for his fallen friends as he waits to meet the scratch kids. This isn’t the easiest thing he has done, that’s for sure. 

Fanfiction.net version

“There, done!” You chirp as you hammered in the last nail into the wood. You stand up, wiping sweat and grime off of your forehead. Your name is John Egbert and you had been busy all day, only getting a bit of help from the others from time to time. While building things from scratch is not your forte, you figure your handy work is pretty good. It doesn't matter much to you though, after all you never want to make the same object again; a coffin. In fact, it was several coffins, all in a solemn, lonely line.

You and your friends, now all God Tiers, had all recently met up with the trolls, waiting for the scratched universe to unfold itself; waiting for the right moment for you to meet with your old guardians, now kids themselves.

You have taken it upon yourself to help make the coffins for the dead. After all, hammers are your thing! It had been an idea suggested by Jade and, everyone tired and too shaken to disagree, just went along with it.

Kanaya had been kind enough to help prepare the bodies, while the purple blooded troll collected them from the different areas around the veil and on the planets Jade had brought along. Everyone else had worked on plans, got to know each other better or spent time making fake flowers out of scraps from around the meteor. You would often take breaks from hammering to make them yourself but often found yourself to be trembling while you did such. All you could think of was your fallen comrades and not only that, but seeing your own dead body. It had been unsettling but only had worsened with the arrival of your friend's dead bodies.

You made quick but careful work on the coffins for them, wanting to cover them up and hide them from your sight as soon as possible.

You glance over at them. The faux flowers decorate the tops of the closed caskets, shining in a brilliant array of colours and materials. Some seem to have been made by more delicate, creating hands while other are more rough and sloppy, in a way you figure Dave would find ironic. There, near the end of line, lay flowers made by yourself and your friends on the coffins belonging to your dead guardians and your physical bodies. While the coffins make your stomach churn, you have to admit the flowers look nice. All of them have colourful, almost gaudy bouquets except one; Bro's had a single, orange flower. Dave had told you that it had been his brother's favourite colour, right before suggesting – or rather demanding – that no one else was to make a flower for Bro's coffin. Not in the mood for prying or anything of the such, even if you didn't understand his intentions, you just nodded in acceptance.

So, there sat that one lonely orange flower, even if it wasn't really a plant.

You move your eyes along the plain coffins, before reaching the open ones of the trolls. You aren't too sure if trolls are familiar with funerals and the likes, but they seemed to accept the idea easily for once.

It made you a bit glad, actually.

If the sight of your dead family members made you sick, the state the trolls where in did not help. Huge gaping holes in chests; cut in half from the waist; strangled; body beaten to death with a blunt object. Most of their heads had also been detached. It is horrifying to you. It takes a lot of your will power to not think of just how much pain they had been through until they finally died and despite your best efforts, you mind often wanders there.

Each troll has a varying number of flowers, but many seem to have been liked and thus had many. Often times they would be in the blood colour of the trolls, like Nepeta's olive green or Feferi's beautiful tyrian purple but sometimes it was the colour of the troll who had made it – or in some cases, the colour of a troll's blood who had meant a lot to the cadaver. Sollux, the one who you learned did most of the technical stuff, had an abundance of red and blue flowers, and only that. It strikes you as odd. However, you've learned that sometimes things have a greater significance than it may seem so you figure there is a perfect reason for such.

The troll with the least amount of flowers is one of the sea trolls: the boy, Eridan. You had only talked to him a few times and he had seemed creepy but it still seemed odd for him to have so little flowers. His body was a disgusting mess. Internal organs that you'd rather have not seen were easily visible, blood coating him. Even with the carnage, he looked peaceful. His eyes had been closed before hand, body put in a slightly more respectable position – but not as much as carefully as the others, you note. If you imagine it enough, you can almost convince yourself that Eridan was just sleeping.

Eridan has exactly two flowers. These fake plants, made out of what looked like fabric and sea shell, where a similar colour to that of the fluid that soaked his clothes. There were no hints as to who had made them and you had not seen a single person by his current resting place all day.

You try to not think about it too hard. Curious as you are, you are well aware that it is not your business.

You pry your eyes away from him. You never liked funerals, the atmosphere was stuffy and too sad for you to handle. The next body made you feel sick and so sad. It was like looking at the sleeping body of an old friend, one who would never wake up. You know she is not an old friend, not like your dad was. You only talked to her a few times before and had only been actual friends for a handful of hours. You think she showed you a picture of herself once but even then, something about her is far more familiar, welcoming but yet so much more sad than it should be.

Her name is Vriska Serket and you only just found out she was dead.

It was gut wrenching. You should have expected this. She has killed people herself after all, even if she claimed she wanted to change; even if she had been your friend, just like Rose, Jade or Dave. You had not known about the other troll deaths either but you know Karkat had been trying to pull off telling you about her for as long as he could.

Terezi was the one to tell you or rather, show you. She was silent, letting you take in the sight of the fairy-like girl laying in front of her computer in a small pool of a cerulean. You wish you hadn't have acted the way you did. You weren't angry though, just sad and a bit disappointed. You had scooped up her body, and held her close which now strikes you as embarrassing. Neither you nor Terezi spoke. There was nearly peaceful silence that was only interrupted with the rustling of fabric and sniffling from your mostly silent sobs. It makes you feel bad, bad to have cried at her death and no one else. Maybe the tears had been for everyone lost, to let out the frustrations of the day but you weren't too sure.

Now Vriska had taken up residence in her casket. She looked the most like a sleeping person, her wound bloody but not as large as the others. She had a smaller amount of flowers than most but still, she had them.

You are silent as you close up the rest of the coffins, before returning to the one that held your once close friend.

Gently, you placthe smallest bit of pride when you do not choke up as you say this. Slowly, you quietly close the top, sealing the corpse from your sight once more and this time, probably foe a hand on her face, feeling the rough, shark like skin. It was so odd, combined with her wiry hair. “Goodbye, Vriska. I'll miss you... I'll miss you all.” You feel rever.

You wonder what it would have been like to have met her but you brush down that thought. You need to focus on your friends who are still alive. You feel as if, not as a leader but as a friend, that you need to help and protect them, whether it be Rose, Dave, Karkat, that girl Aradia or even the alpha kids when you meet up them. Vriska may be dead but you know you can keep the others from sharing her fate. You need to be strong. You know you just have to. You don't want to make anymore coffins.

For NB/DD/PI.

I just

Maybe

I need to fill this

With Droog being incredibly charming and silently smug that he got both of them to dress correctly and NB is in a floor length dress with a lovely hat and PI is in a tan and cream suit and DD is just like

"We all know what happens later"

Except they don't