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The Summer Set

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“Summer camp?” John looked up over the pamphlet that was starting to crease in the middle from where his hands were gripping it, brows raising slightly at the blonde standing in front of him. The heat from the spring-turned-summer humidity combined with the exhaust from the idling school buses that were stationed around the courtyard’s cul-de-sac was causing them both to sweat a little. John’s palm slide from the waxed paper and up to his forehead to wipe away at the moisture he could feel collecting on his skin. The movement caused his glasses to shift down a little on his nose and he frowned before sliding them back in place with the back of his hand. He watched as his friend mirrored his gesture before answering him.

“Yeah, man.” Dave slid his hands back into his pockets and leaned back, the glare on his shades from the sun moved slightly upwards with the motion and it made John have to squint a little to maintain eye contact— or, well, what he thought was eye contact. Who the hell could ever really tell with how dark those lenses were. Dave unfortunately wasn’t looking too affect by the heat, contrary to John. The blonde’s forehead was merely coated in a barely visible sheen of perspiration and if John wasn’t already standing so close, he wouldn’t have even been able to tell it was there in the first place. Which was totally unfair since the kid was wearing the darkest set of clothes ever. 

“Ugh, why?”

The shrug of nonchalance made him want to roll his eyes. “Should be fun.”

“Fun…” He echoed, feeling his face slide into a slackened deadpan as he stared at the other. What could possibly be fun about summer camp? That shit was for babies and they were almost grown adults for fuck’s sake.

Several responses ran their way through his head as the final bell rang over the loudspeakers and students started to pour out from the variety of doors leading out to the front courtyard and to where all the various vehicles and accompanying parents and drivers were waiting. They both sighed and moved a little as a crowd of junior girls blew past them and up onto one of the buses nearby.

John shook his head a little. Today, thankfully, marked the last day of school and as seniors, that meant that it was the last day of high school forever. They all had survived through the tortures and trials of the first day of classes in a new building and onset of early teen-hood all the way to the bullshit of the last end-of-the-term exams and exam papers— most of which Dave and John had slept through/did on the day that they were due because for one, they were boring as shit and two, they had already been guaranteed to graduate so why the hell not… but hey who was really counting anyway?

They were the slackers of their little group of four and had to maintain that image for fear that the girls’ combined powers of perseverance and pure fucking ability to pay attention to extensively long hours of trig homework would somehow disengage the rotation of the earth’s core and send them spinning off into space only for them to collide Antarctica first into the sun. Or, well… that’s what Dave always sputtered about when he was in the middle of trying to get his cousin or his brother off his back for replacing ‘homework time’ with ‘making some sick beats time’. Rose and Jade were always the ones to keep their male counter-parts in check— which in hindsight, was probably a good thing. The boys were known to get into trouble easily and the fact that they were both almost legal probably didn’t help that one too many slip ups would be sending them to the Big House for a night or two. 

But John wouldn’t have replaced any of them for the world. He loved them all dearly and the fact that they were all going off to college together in relatively the same town/area was just the icing on top of the very tall tier of friendship cake. But after four long and grueling years, they were finally free of this hellhole and why his best bud wanted them all to go to a summer camp— during their last summer together— was beyond him.

“Hey guys!”

They both turned and watched as Jade waved to them from across the courtyard, hand gripped around Rose’s wrist in a friendly fashion. She was practically skipping along side the other as they navigated through the crowd of other teens to get to where their cousins were setting up camp on the sidewalk. Rose smiled as Jade practically plowed into the boys while pumping her fists into the air yelling ‘free at last’.

John was the first to catch her and after tickling her sides for a minute until she yelped for mercy, he let her go with a laugh. Dave took the opportunity to pat her head lightly until she waved her hands around at him for him to cut it out. The girls stepped back and it was then that they completed their usual circle of Dave standing next to John with Jade on his left and Rose facing him directly.

Rose was the first to notice the pamphlet in John’s hand and nodded at it. “What’s that?”

“Huh?” He looked down and then rolled his eyes. “Oh. Dave wants us all to go to a summer camp.” He waved the pamphlet around in the open space in front of all of them and laughed. “Fricken dumb, right?”

“Summer camp?” Jade snatched the sheet out of his hand and looked it over. “Ohh, Sburb. Isn’t that on Lake Skaia? That place is supposed to be really nice!”

John gave his cousin a look. “Uhh, yeah. For babies, Jade.”

She ignored him, bouncing on the tips of her toes while reading off a few things from the list of information. “Oohh, it says here they have canoeing lessons as well as kayaking, swim lessons… wow! There’s a challenge course there too along with nature hikes and astrology activities at night. And they do adventure trips out of the campsite!” She looked up at Dave and grinned. “Sounds fun.”

He smirked at her. “See, Egbert? Your cuz agrees with me.”

“Oh, come on, Jade. Don’t tell me you actually think it’s going to be cool.”

“No really, you picked a good one.” She looked down at the paper in her hands again. “I was worried you were going to pick something dumb like Spinster Records Camp or whatever.”

Dave tilted his head at her. “They have one of those?”

“Wait,” John threw out his hands before his cousin could reply. “You knew about this?”

She blinked. “About what?”

“Him picking a summer camp for us!”

She smiled and tilted her head back to laugh. The corners of her eyes created little creases that were charming to her appearance and when she opened them to look at him again the color of her irises caught the sunlight, making them glimmer a little as she spoke. “Oh, yeah, didn’t you?”

John could feel his mood dropping into ‘unimpressed and a little more than slightly peeved’ territories. Tick, tick, tick, BOOM.

“Obviously not if he was shocked at being told about it today.” Rose laced her fingers and held them in place right below her stomach, the ends of her white blonde hair tickling along her chin from the soft breeze that was blowing by. She had been quiet up until now, probably observing the emotions her friends were running through during the discussion and making mental notes to put into her book that John knew she had but wouldn’t confirm otherwise. It was more fun that way, she had said.

“Oh, well, Dave thinks it’s going to be ‘ironic’.” Jade grinned and bounced on her toes again, hair swinging back and forth causing the long waves to flutter along her shoulders with the movement. John watched as her dark eyes darted from him, to Dave and then to Rose while clasping her hands behind her back. A giggle escaped her lips when she caught sight of his face.

“Oh my god, are you still on that?” John whipped around to the blonde again, sighing shortly. “I thought we were past this, man.”

He snorted. “C’mon, it’ll be sweet.”

“Uh, yeah, because that’s totally how I want to spend my last summer vacation with you guys is at a dinky little swimming hole with a bunch of toddlers. Yeah, no thanks.”

“The summer camp is actually for fifteen and up.”

John groaned and slapped his hands to his face, pulling at the skin of his cheeks while turning to the female next to him. “Nooo, not you too, Rose!”

She smiled a little and patted his shoulder lightly. “I’ve already looked up the website and surveyed the visual tour. It looks very promising.” She pulled out her phone and flipped the screen up, tapping on it a few times before showing it to him. He watched for a minute as she flipped through a few pictures, most of which were of shots of the water front and the cabins that they would most likely be staying in if they were to actually go through with this whole shin-dig. And he did have to admit, the place did look gorgeous...

“But didn’t you guys want to go on a road-trip or something? Like to Vegas or the ocean! Something?” John’s eyes flipped to each of them, hoping that his pleading look would get them to back down and change their minds. “I thought you guys wanted to spend some quality time together!”

“Well yeah,” Dave nodded to the phone in Rose’s hand. “But we can all spend quality time here, too.”

“Plus we get to go swimming and do arts and crafts and all sorts of things.” Jade was bouncing around again, her little fists waving around in front of her mouth as she looked to be trying to hold in all the excited giggles that were bound to be popping out of her mouth at any second.

“And also be productive and active and not have to spend copious amounts of money while doing so.” Rose adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder, sticking her hip out and crossing her arms over her chest casually. “Which is something I would much rather do. We all need to start saving up anyway and I’m sure I’m not the only one here who doesn’t want to get a summer job right before school because we blew all our early grant money on trips to Vegas.” She gave John a knowing look which he wilted at.

“Yeah, but…” He mumbled.

“Dude, it’s going to be chill. I promise.” Dave shifted his footing and set his stance wider to look directly at him. “Rose wouldn’t’ve suggested it if it didn’t looked like the shit.”

“Wait, you what?” Blue eyes flipped to violet.

She shrugged. “It’s better then what Dave suggested.”

“…Which was?”

“He was going to make us go to Texas.” Jade made a face as she looked over the rim of her bi-focals to the boy standing next to her.

“What?” He had the nerve to look offended. “Texas is where it’s at, man. It’s the bitch’s tits.”

Jade’s lip curled up as she squinted at him, an unimpressed frown working its way onto her face. “Don’t ever say that again…”

He waved his hand at her. “Anyway... John, man, c’mon. If we knew it was going to be lame, would we really go through all this trouble to make you come with us, let alone go ourselves?”

John could feel himself starting to sulk. “No…”

“And would we really put in all this effort to research and pick out the perfect place for us to spend a kickass summer at if it was going to be gayer than Lemon Party?”

“No…”

“So?”

He sighed a little. “So… you’re saying it should be really cool…”

“Ding ding ding, we have a winner. Vanna, tell him what he's won.”

John groaned and made another face.

“Jooooohn,” Jade reached across the circle and tugged on his sleeve a few times. He watched her face slip into a plea and her eyes getting a little shinier from the reflection of the sun beaming off her glasses. “We reeeally wanna go. And we’re only going to go if you do. So pretty pretty please?”

He grumbled and tried to glare at her— which probably only came out looking like a squint but hey, points for effort.

“Pleeeease?” She stomped her feet again.

They stared at each other for another long moment before John broke the silence with a loud exhale up towards the sky. “Fiiiiine,”

Jade let out a squeal and engulfed him in a hug that had him chuckling within the second. Rose and Dave laughed respectively and joined in with a group hug. “This is going to be the best summer, ever!”

Chapter Text

 

 

 

[[Music]]

 

The trip to Skaia Lake wasn’t a very exciting one. It was filled with mostly Dave showing off his horrible, and quite frankly just plain embarrassing, rap songs that mostly sounded like poorly phrased poems to various girls sitting around them on the bus as well as Jade swearing and losing over the variety of different card games Rose had badgered her into playing.

About halfway through the trip, John had dug out his headphones and all but crammed them into his ear canals for fear of losing his ever-loving mind if he didn’t begin pumping music into his cranium. It wasn’t that his friends annoyed him or anything but… okay, yeah, they tended to annoy him sometimes. Especially on long, extensive trips like these.       

John had also found out around the time he was digging around in his backpack that Dave’s and Rose’s siblings were going to be camp councilors along with a few of their friends. Which would mean that the only good thing to come out of that was that the four of them would be able to get away with pretty much anything since Roxy and Dirk really couldn’t give a shit with what their siblings got up to after hours, just so long as it didn’t include burning things down or setting fire to anything remotely flammable. Which… was kind of redundant, wasn’t it?

John was jolted out of his thoughts when a particularly sharp elbow caught him in the side of the ribs. He whipped his head around to look at the seat next to him and saw Dave mouthing a few words at him. Popping out one of his headphones, he raised a brow.

“What?”

“I said we’re almost there.”

John blinked and leaned over Dave to look out into the aisle and up to where the large windshield and bus driver were stationed. Sure enough, he could see through the grimy windows that the forest line was starting to slowly open up until the trees broke away completely and they were faced with the bright blue waters of Skaia.

“Ooohh,”

John looked up to see Jade leaning over their seats, elbows digging into the hard foam of the headrest to hold her body upright as the bus started to jostle around when it hit the gravel pathway. John sat upright and looked out his window again, which was vibrating slightly from the road, and watched as they passed by a smattering of various wooden signs saying: ‘SBURB SUMMER CAMP, TURN LEFT; SGRUB SUMMER CAMP, TURN RIGHT’ in yellow painted writing.

John looked to Dave. “What’s Sgrub?”

Jade leaned over more and John could tell she wasn’t touching the floor of the bus anymore by the way her feet started to bounce against the back of his seat. A piece of her hair fell forward and landed on his shoulder and he had half a mind to start braiding it like usual. “It’s the summer camp on the other side of the lake.”

“There’s two?”

“Yup,” Dave nodded and leaned over the armrest, holding up a hand to his mouth while lowering his voice to the point that both cousins had to lean in themselves to actually catch what he was saying. “Word is that’s the troll’s summer camp.”

Both green and blue eyes widened.

“No waaaay,” Jade’s feet stopped bouncing on the back of the chair as she stared wide-eyed at the blonde, mouth falling open a little.

“Way.”

“But,” John’s face fell into a frown as his brow started to furrow and turned in his seat so that he was fully facing the other. He brought his leg up and tucked it under the adjourning thigh, leaning back a little. “I thought that they lived in the city? Isn’t that where most of their providences are? Why would they come all the way out here…”

“Who knows man,” Dave shrugged and leaned back into his seat, gripping both armrests lightly. He tilted his head back and rested it against the seat. “All I know is what my brother told me. And his word is law.”

John snorted. “You are full of such crap.”

“No way, man. It’s true.”

“Oh really,” A smirk grew on his face as he leaned in, jabbing Dave’s shoulder with his pointer. “Then riddle me this, Strider. How come whenever I go over to your house, you two are always arguing over whether or not he’s wrong?”

The blonde’s mouth tilted downwards for only a second before he slipped it back into his impassive mask. He waved his hand. “That’s just an ironic argument.”

“For irony’s sake, right?”

“Yup.”

John shoved the other’s shoulder a little and before long they were trying to get each other into headlocks. Jade squeaked a little and ducked back over the seat to avoid flailing limbs.

“Guys, quit it.” Her voice was barely over the noise of the bus’s cabin but she still managed to get them to look up at her. “You’re going to wake Rose.”

They both blinked.

“Wait, what?” John let go of his friend and stood to lean over the seat, he was followed closely by Dave who mirrored his actions.

“Oh, man.” Dave pulled out his phone and hit the camera button.

John laughed behind his hand. “She’s going to kill you.”

He grinned. “I know.”

 

---

 

The summer air was hot but not unpleasant. The breeze from the lake kept the campgrounds— if you could even call them that— cool and airy, which was something that John totally appreciated. Lugging his bags off the bus, however, was not. It wasn’t that they were heavy, it was just that there were so many. His dad had gone a little over-board in helping him pack and that in the process, he had pretty much packed the entire house. But when John looked over at Rose struggling with her load while Jade tried to help her down off the steps of the bus, he knew that he wasn’t alone in over-zealously protective parents. Though, Rose would probably put it off as some passive-aggressive strife between her and her mother if he were to ever bring it up.

 Deciding to hell with it, John decided to just drag all of his baggage over to where the councilors were lining everyone up for head counts and unceremoniously dropped all of it next to Dave’s small handful. John looked out across the crystal clear water that was literally only yards away and couldn’t help the small smile that crossed over his lips. He had to hand it to Dave, even though Texas had been his first pick, he and Rose made a good team when it came to choosing this site for their adventures for the next few months. Not only was the lake huge, but the mountains surrounding it— creating almost a private little cove— looked so stark against the bright blue of the summer sky. The dark greens of the pines scaled the background and looked as if they could reach up to the clouds that were floating gently with the breeze that accompanied them. John turned on his heel and looked over his shoulder at the bus that was parked in front of the Forest Ranger’s pavilion. He watched as the rest of the group exited the bus and followed suit over to where everyone else was waiting.

The groups were split up between sexes, girls on one side and boys on the other. Roxy and her co-bestie Jane were to be the councilors for the girls and Dirk and his pal Jake were for the boys. Their cabins were split across the property by the large mess hall/recreational center that ran directly down the middle of the site, which was pointed out by Jake as being ‘the bee’s knees’.

As Roxy and Jane started to lead the girls away to their side of cabins, Dirk and Jake did the same. Both groups were led through a small patch of trees off to the far right and onto the dirt road that would lead to the mess hall. Dirk explained that all roads led back to the mess hall so if you were to ever get lost all you would need to do was just find one of the paths and keep going. Eventually civilization would find you. Or one of the councilors… whichever came first.

Upon reaching the pavilion that was labeled ‘MESS HALL’ in rather colorful lettering, the two groups split up and headed in opposite directions. John and Dave— mostly John though— made sure to wave to the girls as they started up the path to their own cabins, agreeing to meet up after everyone was settled in. After a slow trek through more wooded area, Dirk and Jake finally stopped and gestured over to a dozen or so log cabins that were lined up neatly in a row along the rest of the pathway.

A quick run through of the list revealed that there would be four to a cabin and that John and Dave had been placed within the same one— surprise, surprise— along with two others whose names they hadn’t recognized. As soon as they were turned loose to check out their new homes, John and Dave raced each other to the front door of theirs, which was completely unfair considering Dave had had a lot less bags to carry. Upon entering, they discovered that it was actually fairly decent sized. Two sets of bunk beds were pushed up against the walls on either side of the cabin with a long straw-woven rug that looked like it had seen better days was rolled out right down the middle. A small couch was placed over by the window that over-looked the rest of the woods as well as a small coffee table and two more smaller wooden chairs. 

Dave nodded with a small, approving look and nudged past John who was standing in the doorway. The blonde threw his stuff onto the lower left bunk bed and collapsed onto it face first. John laughed as Jake pushed open the screen door and leaned in.

He smiled and nodded at John. “Everything alright, mates?”

John smiled back in return. “Yeah, it’s great.”

Jake looked over to where Dave was and laughed a little. “Uh-oh, I think little Strider it due for a nap.”

Dave held up his arm and threw him the bird, causing another chuckle to rise out of the councilor. With a salute to John, who was now throwing his stuff onto the opposing bunk, Jake backed out of the cabin and let the other two boys who would be staying with them in and then left to likely go check on everyone else.

Turning and feeling the need to introduce himself, John took the initiative and greeted their new roommates. Both were kind of on the short side, one being slightly pudgey-er than the other. The first boy smiled widely and immediately dropped his bags to reach over and shake John’s hand vigorously. He introduced himself as Clover and while still shaking John’s hand, gestured over to his friend— nicknamed Eggs for whatever reason John couldn’t have possibly fathomed— who was clutching what looked like an kitchen timer and looking suspiciously at the surrounding area.

“Well, this is Dave, my best bud. Say hi, Dave.”

Without moving, the blonde muttered into the mattress, “Hey,” and held up his hand in a sort of backwards wave. John rolled his eyes and shook his head at him. After helping Clover and Eggs get settled in and onto their bunks, Dave finally rolled over and suggested that they go find the girls and check out and see if the rumors— whatever rumors those were— were true and that they had gotten better accommodations than the boys. Agreeing, the two left their new roommates with a small wave of parting and out the door they were.

Not knowing which path to take, they both decided on a quick game of rock-paper-scissors which unsurprisingly after a five-to-one loss, resulted in Dave pointing to the right path and off they were again. Jogging down the path, they followed it until the tree lines started to thin a little. Disregarding it, John continued to follow his friend as they weaved around bushes and other trees, making a game out of jumping over boulders and large stumps to collect points in hopes of a a high score at the end, both never minding the fact that the foliage was starting to thin out more and more until finally they broke through a final line of trees and into what looked to be a decent sized clearing.

They both came to a slow stop and looked around.

“I thought your brother said that all of the paths led back to the Mess Hall?”

Dave shrugged a little and titled his glass down to look over them. “Guess he meant all of them except this one.”

“Hm.” John slowly turned and looked out across the clearing. A meadow, John decided, would be a better term for it and as he took a few steps across the dark, lush looking grass he thought of how beautiful it must look at night with hundreds of fire-flies dancing around. He breathed in deeply and held it for a moment, making sure to relax his shoulders before exhaling slowly. He had to admit, the air here felt so clean and fresh that it almost made him want to run around and play with the wind.

“Hey,”

John looked over and saw Dave smirking.

“What?”

“Race ya,”

With a grin, they both took off in a flash.

 

---

 

On the other side of the meadow, in the cover of the tall, dense trees, a pair of eyes narrowed at the sight of the two boys flitting across the grass play-strifing with each other. Slowly letting the bag that was twisted around an aching hand slip down and drop to the ground with a quiet whisper of fabric against fabric, six pairs of eyes turned towards the meadow. Brows furrowed as his companions shifted a little as they all watched the light and dark haired males tackle each other and then roll around in the dirt. One of them, the dark haired one, looked as if he were trying to put the other in a headlock but was unsuccessful when the light haired one jabbed his strife-partner in the ribs and flipping them over.

Why weren't they using weapons?

“Oh, great. Humans.”

Chapter Text

 

 

 

[[Music]]

 

Karkat Vantas was a male of very little. Growing up in the outer providences of Alternia had taught him many things, most of which if he had had a choice, he would have never wanted to learn. But instead they were forced down his protein chute by strict rulings of the higher-ups and lucky for him— self-governing on his own part. He had learned early on of the meaning between need vs. want. Over-spending and luxuries had never been words in his vocabulary, nor had they been realistic views or goals that he had set for himself to accomplish. Instead, all Karkat had wanted to do was live— to live with every damnable fiber of his being and no one, not even himself, was going to stop that from happening.

But above all else, the one fact that remained heavily true throughout the sweeps was that despite his own wants and needs, he was nothing more than a floor mat meant to cater to the will of every and all of the Highbloods’ needs. He was meant to serve them with the utmost care and compassion while they were allowed to mistreat and abuse him simply because of the simple fact that they were higher in the blood-caste system than he was.

The hemospectrum, a dividing tool that classified each member of society by blood color, was as delicate a system as any utopian government had ever incurred and the fact that it was so heavily relied upon just from within the walls of their own society, let alone out within the world that stretched on into the human’s, was only the fucking icing on the cake. It was meant to keep the social structure and class separate but equal— or as equal as you could get with a seemingly idealistic civilization— while also giving each citizen the option of adhering to the laws peacefully and with equal admiration and little question of the law on his or her own part or breaking them and forcing themselves over to the justice of the Legislacerators to have their fate be decided.  

Each were both highly unappealing outcomes, but people tended towards the first option more-so than not. 

However, Karkat had grown to accept the fact that his being a door mat was an inevitable part of his existence and that the fact that Her Imperious Condescension was so kind enough to give them as grand a life style as this to her loyal subjects was admonishing and that really, they should in turn take it in stride and grovel at her feet like the dogs they were.

Right… No thanks.

He wasn’t stupid, though. He knew that if his secret were to ever be exposed, especially to the higher-ups, that he would be brought to his knees and culled immediately. The ugly truth of his blood color and ancestry had come at an early age and the crippling pressure to keep himself, as well as his lusus, safe from the persecution that would be sure to follow once word got out about his mutation was something that he had grown so used to between the sweeps that he couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been looking over his shoulder or double checking himself to make sure every viable point on his body was securely covered.

The adults in their society were ruthless with their younger generations anyway and would often put them through rigorous and out-right deadly methods of hazing up until they were of age of adulthood where they would be presented to the Condesce herself for admittance and integration into regular society. So the fact that he had to be so very careful with even the minutest of scratches was something to be heralded for, honestly.

Karkat had read the histories though, he knew the legends and he knew that it hadn’t always been this way. He knew that back when the Condesce was young and full of manifest destiny that she had took to the stars with her accompanying adults and conquered universes, destroyed enemies that threatened them all, expanded their territories to places one would never even had thought to dream of. That was when the children of the society ruled, they were allowed options and the liberty to make decisions that would last for the rest of their lives, not restrictions and regulations forced down upon them simply because the older classes ‘knew better’.

But after a while, the adults had trickled back to their homelands, growing tired of not being grounded to one place like trolls were meant to be.

Space was no home for the weary and it left little room for the weak at heart.

But the Condesce was stubborn and she continued her journey through the stars, ignoring her subjects who were smart and returned home in favor of greedily conquering more galaxies and destroying more homes for other civilizations.

Karkat had read the legends and knew that by that time, a revolution had started to brew. Whispers and trickles throughout the hemospecrum rippled like waves. Words of equality and absolution floated around the squares and villages, cities and towns. Her unfair ruling had to be stopped, their Condesce had been absent for far too long, her subjects were tired of her greed and her tyranny and they wanted what they deserved. They wanted their freedom.

When the Condesce had gotten wind of his ancestor’s revolution, she had at once raced back home, finding her cities in upheaval, screams for the fair Empresses to be taken down and for the lower classes to rise up and rule instead. It was time for the Lowbloods to take over and the Highbloods to bow down to them just like they were meant to do.

Anarchy had started.

The Condesce had called upon her most trusted Highbloods and had culled any who spoke of the rebellion and had sent out a warrant for his ancestor’s arrest. Three long and bloody sweeps later, The Signless One was caught along with his three most loyal followers and was brought to be judged by Her Imperial Condescension herself. She wanted to meet this self-appointed messiah.

He was asked one simple question by her.

What is your blood color?

But he refused to answer her, instead holding his head high and looking her directly in the eye to tell her that it didn’t matter and that the hemospectrum was nonsense, predicting it would be abolished eventually anyway. Her bafflement and anger towards this small, seemingly insignificant troll’s insult to her most carefully thought-out and well crafted tool to keep her subjects in line was explosive.

His torture had lasted an entire week.  

After that, The Condesce had moved her race one last time. To a small blue and green planet on the other side of the universe; Earth, it was called. It was to be a fresh new start from the bloody homelands her subjects had grown so used to in the last few sweeps and she knew that starting anew was what they had all needed. Integrating with the humans had been smooth; political lines had been drawn and unions had been written and signed almost over night. The trolls were to be governed by their own people while the humans stuck to their own politics. Laissez Faire was put in place immediately. If there was ever a case where a troll or human was found breaking the law in one of their territories, the offender was to be turned over to the appropriate government straight away for legislation.

No exceptions.

Alternia was beautiful in its wretched way. Cruel in a way no human would ever be able to comprehend, let alone see and cold to the very core. The trolls were sure to keep their human counterparts at arms length and the humans, for all of their incredulous stupidity at letting them enter their world without so much as a nuclear threat, were smart enough to do the same. Their coupling was a peaceful, non-violently equalizing pact that had lasted almost a century and for all its distance and linear close-ness that they paraded around each other, it worked. And Karkat was having no qualms about that. It had been ingrained into his brain ever since he had hatched and he had reminded himself every time he had to pass by the home-sapiens and their small, squishy pink off-spring not to get involved, whether it be to help or to hurt. It would only cause him unwanted attention and most certainly would end badly.

Not to mention the thick sludge coursing through his veins was to be the ultimate downfall of his existence, anyway. There was no need to bring himself attention sooner in the game than Fate had originally planned for.

Survival and being smart was key in their world and knowing how to hide and protect oneself from the inner— especially inner— and outer threats that came at him daily was such a deep and primal part of him that every now and then he forgot that he was also allowed to have fun every once in a while.

But right now, all he wanted to do was fist his fingers through his hair and tear it out.

“For the love of god, could you inbreeds be any more blockheaded? The tables go to the left of the building. Not the goddamn right.”

“Chill out, Karkles. We’ll get it done.”

He felt his jaw lock as his back molars started to grind against each other, physically feeling the sharp ridges in his teeth catching against one another and creating a small clicking sound through his parted lips. He pointed at her. “Call me that one more time, Pyrope, and I swear to god I will stab you with your own cane.”

He watched as Terezi— beautiful, light-faced and glossy-haired Terezi— tilted her head up towards the mid-morning sky. Short, chopped hair sliding across her shoulders to hang over her back while her black glossed mouth opened to let out a rather harsh and sharp cackle that made him think of that rabid bark-beast he had run into a few months ago that had gotten so close to chewing its own leg off in an attempt to get a taste of his meaty flesh, that it had given him nightmares for a week.

 He rolled his eyes and sighed, slapping his palms across his face with an audible smackwhile groaning into them. For the past three hours, the twelve of them had been trying to move all of the equipment out from the large warehouse in the back of the camp grounds and onto the grounds of Sgrub. It had turned out that the grounds keepers hadn’t gotten a chance— or in Karkat’s opinion, were just too damn lazy— to take out all of the winterized materials they needed for the rest of the summer before anyone had arrived. Even the cabins where they would be staying had still been boarded up from the fall and winter seasons when they had arrived. Bunch of lazy piss-weeds the lot of them were.

So, to get them all started, Karkat had suggested they just go ahead and do it themselves.

That was two days ago.

Being the so-called, self-appointed leader of a group of idiots was a lot harder than it sounded.

He felt a hand lightly cup his shoulder and squeeze a little. He looked up. His moirail stood next to him, shielding his face from the sun with a large palm and looking down at him with a smile and eyes that he noticed were beginning to become flecked with the tiniest hints of deep indigo. It made Karkat’s stomach churn a little uneasily until he remembered that Gamzee should be proud that the color was finally coming in. He had been a little late to the game but then again Highbloods tended to do that every few generations, so it still wouldn’t be counted against him once he was presented to the Condesce.

He’d thankfully be in the clear.

Karkat on the other hand was so very very lucky that his eye color had yet to come in and he prayed every day up until the morning of his evaluation that it didn’t. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if it did.

 He tilted his head up, not even bothering to shield his own since the other’s height and girth was so pronounced that his body had basically blocked out the sun entirely, casting a heavy shadow over him and giving him a moment of relief from the heat.

“Just wanted to make sure you were okay. Looked like you were about to go and throw a motherfuckin’ tantrum.”

“Tantrum?” Karkat’s eyes widened, hands clenching into fists as his shoulders stiffened into a tight and defensive stance. He turned to face Gamzee and watched as a pleasantly small smile spread across the other’s lips again, the dark and light face paint taking a joy-ride along with the skin. He opened his mouth to tell his moirail to go shove it when the sound of a falling table, along with a few choice words, was heard. They both turned to see Aradia hopping around while holding her foot, shouting obscenities at Vriska who was laughing and clutching her stomach at the toppled over table.

Good god, were they never going to get this done…

“Karkat’s just pissed ‘cause he can’t reach the top of the bunk bed without needing a stepstool.” Terezi called over her shoulder, swinging her cane around like a human 50’s swing dancer and almost cracking Tarvos directly in the face a few times.

Karkat let out a frustrated growl and spun around to face her. For all of the sweeps that they had known each other and all of the history that they had had, never had he ever been more frustrated with her— and with all of them for that matter— then right now. Honestly, did any of them really not see that or were they just being oblivious on purpose?

“That’s it!”

He was pulled back by the collar of his shirt and held in place before he got even two feet away from his original spot. Twisting around to glare at Gamzee while yanking at the grip his shirt was being held in. It was futile really, as the other simply watched with a bemused expression, letting him struggle and work out his anger on his moirail and the offending grip his shirt was in. Karkat knew he was being unreasonable, even a little arbitrary, and in all honestly it was probably just the heat making him more crabby than usual; but Terezi was pissing him off and she damn well knew how to push and prod at his buttons, so he knew she was doing in intentionally for whatever reason she had. Whether to be a bitch or otherwise, it was getting to be more than unnecessary— and maybe a little insensitive, but for all they knew of each other, neither of them really cared anyway— it made him want to go over there and shake her by the shoulders to rattle that large and intelligently complex brain of hers around a little to make her know how it felt and bothered him when she picked on him for stupid shit. But knowing his luck, she’d probably just end up laughing at him. Again.

But Karkat, for all of his fire and chagrin, gave up the struggle within a few minutes and let out a defeated sigh while sagging a little, knowing it was pretty much a stalemate at this point. Gamzee, the loving and benevolent moirail that he was, simply straighten out his shirt— fixing the collar that covered his neck and smoothing out the wrinkles that had been made when he had twisted the fabric around his fingers— and patted his head tenderly, looking over after and nodding to Kanaya who took it as a sign to start rounding everyone up again.

Karkat sighed softly.

Sometimes he just wanted to punch them all for being so caring.

 

--

 

John stepped out into the morning sun and stretched his arms up towards the sky, hearing a few bones in his lower back crack and letting out a deep sigh of satisfaction. He lifted up his glasses to rub at his eyes while Dave finished putting on his shoes so that they could go down to the mess hall and meet Rose and Jade for breakfast.

Eggs and Clover had already left early that morning with talk of going down to the docks and fishing with Jake who had been bounding around the camp fires last night, asking if anyone would want to go with him for some private lessons. Clover had been the first to jump up and raise his hand, meeting Jake’s enthusiasm for the sport almost to the tee, much to Dirk’s and the rest of the groups’ exasperation. Although he had seen Dave’s brother hiking down towards the lake with a fishing pole and tackle box in hand alongside Jake, so he couldn’t have been too tired this morning.

Eggs was forcibly made to go along with his buddy and it was clear by the deep scowl on his face that he had not been too pleased with being woken up at five-thirty just to go sit on a dock all day, listening to Jake and Clover prattle on about various types of lures and fishing line and whatever the hell else they would get on the subject of. John remembered the look on his face when Clover had made him leave the kitchen timer behind on the bedside table so that they could help Jake carry a few things down to the water. The visible relief on Eggs’ face when John slipped it into his pocket on the way out the door still made him smile a little.

Whatever that kid’s story was, it had to be a good one.

“Ready to go?”

John turned to Dave who was running a hand through his slightly damp hair and nodded.

It was chilly this morning, so John— and Dave alike— had opted to wear his favorite light blue hoodie with the lines that looked like blue seaweed insignia on the front, the soft inside of it made his insides feel warm as he pulled the collar of it close to his face to breathe in the smell of home. Dave had worn his favorite as well; a dark red one, almost maroon in color, with a clock gear on the front. He had pulled the hood over his head and around his aviators to keep the warmth trapped in since he had taken a shower this morning and he was more likely to get a cold if he didn’t, or so he told John. Dave had always been in good heath though, while John had usually been the sickly one, so maybe he had the right idea when it came to keeping his body in good condition.

Rounding the corner up to the mess hall, he could already smell the delicious deep-fried searings of sausage and pancakes wafting out through the open doors, making his stomach growl in reply. The mess hall was more like a mess pavilion in the way that it was set up. The place was huge— tall ceilings reaching up to well over twenty feet above them that were held up by robust support beams scattered throughout the hall, large windows spanned the entire way across to give a nice view of the forest on one side and a view of the lake on the other. The entire place was painted top to bottom in a very light, summer-y yellow color that John had to admit complimented the way the various tables and chairs that were scattered around the area had been painted stark white. If he were a painter he probably would’ve thought it was some what of a dynamic contrast. Large fans spun lazily above everyone’s heads and it was nice since he could imagine it got pretty hot on most summer days and the added breeze would be a refresher.

Plus, John liked the wind. He very very much liked the wind.

They got in line at the end of the long row of the buffet and John grabbed a tray and plate, handing a set over to Dave as well while shimming down the line behind him. John smiled brightly when one of the food service worker’s handed him a few extra pancakes when she saw him eyeing them and he made sure to thank her before following after Dave and over to where the girls’ were already seated by one of the windows.

“How was your night, guys?” Jade asked once they sat down, stabbing her plastic fork into a chunk of scrambled egg and popping it into her mouth.

“Good, Dave kept snoring though.”

“Did not.” He gave the other a shove. “That was all you, man.”

John laughed and drizzled a nice healthy serving of syrup onto his pancakes before cutting it and forcing half of the flapjack into his mouth. Rose rolled her eyes at his puffed out cheeks and handed him a napkin.

“Soo, I was thinking.” They all looked to Jade who smiled sheepishly. “Since today’s kind of our free day to do whatever before activities start tomorrow, did you all want to go swimming in the lake for a while? I heard Jane’s taking us all on a hike later anyway.”

“Yeah, sure.” John said through a mouth full of food as the two blondes nodded.

“How about we go after we’re all done eating,” Rose waved another napkin at John who snatched it and stuck it down the back of Dave’s shirt. “It’ll probably be hotter by then, anyway.”

“Kay!”

 

--

 

The walk to the beach was short; thankfully both of their cabins weren’t too much of a hike away and they were all able to get into their swimwear with relative speed. Apparently everyone— or most of the camp anyway— had had the same idea as Jade and were already taking the free time to swim, tan and even play volleyball over on the far left of the beach. John had had to step over a few people who had been sunning themselves while trying to get over to the water, apologizing when he kicked sand up onto their towels.

“Ugh, it’s so crowded here.” Dave held his wave board over his head, stopping over by a group of girls trying to push each other into the water. Rose and Jade stopped as well, coming in to complete their circle.

“Want to go somewhere else?” Rose crossed her arms and jutted out her hip. Her towel was thrown over her shoulders like a shawl, blowing in the wind a little as it passed by.

“Where?”

She shrugged at her cousin and then nodded up the beach. “We can keep heading up. It looks like the beach keeps going.”

They all looked at each other and shrugged. Rose led them up a ways, making sure to warn them when it started to get rocky so they would be careful with their flip flops and not twist and break an ankle. After a few minutes of bush-whacking, the foliage started to thin out again and true to Rose’s word, another beach appeared. John took off his sandals as Jade ran ahead, grabbing Dave by the arm and hauling him into the water with her, causing his wave board to flip up and sail across the water a few yards away. He slowly stood and spit out a good mouthful of water while facing Jade who was giggling and splashing at him. He shook his head and took off his aviators, tossing them up towards the beach for Rose to catch.

John walked over and laid his towel down over by Rose who was neatly laying hers out in the sand. She took off not a minute later for the lake and tackled Dave like a line-backer, causing them both to flop into the water and splash Jade who let out a squeak and shielded her face. John laughed a little and watched his friends, a warm feeling spreading in his chest at the sight of Jade and Rose trying to duck Dave. They were all such wonderful friends and he was so glad he had met each one of them and got to share the entire summer with all of them. Even though he and Jade were related, they both had agreed a while ago that their circle just wasn’t complete without their two favorite blonde counterparts. John had been a little nervous when they had started to sign up for colleges that they would get accepted to ones on either side of the globe and when they had all gotten their letters back stating that they were indeed going to be in the same city next year, he almost cried. Honest to god almost broke down and weeped like a ten-year-old girl watching Black Beauty for the first time and if asked he wouldn’t be afraid to admit it either. He wouldn’t have known what to do with himself if they had all been forced to separate from each other next year.

John shook his head to clear his thoughts, taking his shirt off and tossing it over to where his towel was. Now was no time to be thinking of what could have happened if fortune hadn’t been in their favor. He stopped short when something along the opposite shore caught his eye; scanning the line of trees, he was about to shake off the feeling tingling up along the back of his neck when he spotted it. John narrowed his eyes a little and tilted his head, shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun. There, near the large boulder that looked as if it had just been dropped there it looked so out of place, was a boy around what looked to be his age. He was standing near the edge of the forest, with what looked like a large stick in his hand and a defensive posture.

John’s eyes widened when he noticed the ashened, grey skin color that was mostly being covered by a dark colored turtle neck— who would wear a turtle neck in the middle of summer, John had no idea— and long pants, while dark hair framed his round face. Small orange horns poked out from the top of his head of messy hair and a deep scowl stretched across his face to show off what looked to be sharp teeth.

John’s mouth fell open a little.

He watched as the boy, troll, tossed the stick up into the air, making it flip— once, twice, three times— before catching it, not once breaking eye contact with him. After an unsettling amount of gapping on his end, he watched as the figure standing on the other shore shot him one last frown and turned around to disappear back into the foliage of the forest.

What… He…?

“John?” He looked over and saw Dave heading up onto the shore. “What’s up, man?” The blonde followed his line of vision over to the other shore before looking back at him.

He could feel his mouth still hanging open as he turned to his friend.

“I think I just saw a troll.”

Chapter Text

 

 

 

[[Music]]

 

The rain fell gently against the windows of the mess hall, trailing down lazily in lines and different patterns, big fat drops plinking one by one; making a kind of abstract music that John appreciated on hot summer days that were dedicated to lazing around and taking naps. His fingers tap-tap-tapped against his lips in an off-beat rhythm that kept him distracted from the din of noise that was echoing around the pavilion’s walls. Most of which was bitching from the various camp-goers on when the rain was going to let up.   

“John… John.”

“Wha-? Huh?” It was like lightning hit his spine as he sat up straight and turned around in his seat to face his friends. Rose was sitting there raising an eyebrow at him, giving him that expectant ‘I asked you a question’ look that usually got him a little nervous. “Sorry, what?”

“Are you okay?”

His lungs evacuated themselves as he let out a breathy laugh, reaching up and running a hand through the back of his hair to try and tame the mess from when the wind had taken it for a spin. “Yeah… yeah. Just watching the rain is all.”

“And thinking about how he wants to bone his sexy troll ghost.”

Jade, who was sitting across from her cousin, snorted while popping another grape into her puckered mouth. Jane and Roxy had been going around with a few of the caterers and giving out free handouts to each table, probably in hopes of stopping an all out riot for keeping them holed up indoors like a bunch of Chinese school children undergoing a bomb-threat. Most of the kids had chilled the fuck out after being force-feed a few cheese sticks, but John couldn’t blame them. Who the hell didn’t love cheese sticks? He threw one of Jade’s cheese cubes at Dave who dodged expertly. “Shut up. I totally saw one, okay? I wasn’t seeing things.”

“Yeah, sure man.” The blonde’s tone was casual and as he leaned back in his chair, he slid an arm over the back of Jade’s, the two front legs popping off the ground. He swayed for a good two seconds before getting a good handle on placing his weight appropriately. John rolled his eyes all the same and wished he hand long enough legs to reach over and kick the chair out from under the blonde. Watching an abridged Scarlet Takes a Tumble reenactment right now would’ve immediately put his mood-meter on high.   

“Shut up, Dave.”

“Bro said that they lived all the way on the other side of the lake.”

“If they even do live there,” Rose pointed a slender finger in her cousin’s direction, stealing a grape right out of Jade’s hand and throwing it up in the air, catching it between her teeth with a grin before sucking it back. Jade pouted as she swallowed.  

“Right, if what Bro says is really true, then why the hell would one be aaall the way over on this side?”

“I told you, it was probably looking for firewood or something. It totally had a stick in its hand when I saw it!”

“Yeah. Firewood... For their human sacrifices.”

“Dave.”

The blonde held up his hands, chair not once swaying and he had to give the other credit for the set of skills, even if Dave was pissing him off. “Just sayin’.”

“Ughhh.” John turned back to the window and crossed his arms. Whatever, they could believe what they wanted. No skin off his nose.

It wasn’t long before the rain started to finally let up and waves of people began to file out the doors in impressively single-file order that Roxy would’ve been proud of.

It was a blessing and a half that summer rain here never lasted very long, most usually ranging from fifteen minutes to three hours. Clouds in this weather climate tended to move quickly, bringing their soggy drawers with them as they went. Thankfully it hadn’t rained for more than an hour so the ground wasn’t a complete mess, there were puddles here and there with kids being dicks and stomping around in them, but overall it looked like most of it had run off down hill and towards the lake. Most everyone started their way back to the lake to finish swimming or whatever else they had been doing while others, like John and his friends, had decided to just head back to their cabins for the rest of the evening.

They parted as their trails forked off with a few waves and not very well-hidden yawns on Jade’s part and before long, John and Dave were climbing up the steps to their cabin.

John reached the cabin first and didn’t bother holding the door open for his counterpart, smirking a little when its hinges slammed shut and there was a soft curse from outside. He kicked off his shoes and tossed them in the general direction of his bed and flopped down onto it just as Dave was closing the screen again, much more gently this time. He listened as the blonde’s footsteps thudded softly against the carpeted wood and over to him and felt as the other leaned over him. A good thirty seconds passed before Dave spoke.

“What, you still mad at me?”

John let out a grunt and turned his back to him.

“Aw, c’mon dude. I was only kidding.”

“No, you weren’t.” He could feel himself pouting which instantly irritated him.

“Yeah, I know. But hey, it’s kinda far-fetched.”

John rolled over and sat up, throwing his arms in the air. “But it’s true!”

Dave was crossing his arms and shifting his weight, making it look like he was doing a weird little dance like he had to pee. “Okay, okay. Settle down there, Scarlet, no need to go all Greek heroine on me.”

“Dave…”

“Look,” The blonde held a hand up for him to shut up. “I’m just stating facts here, Johnny-boy. It’s all a little coincidental that only a few hours after I told you about the trolls on forty-second street that you start seeing ‘em.”

“But-” 

Dave put out his hand again and John effectively shut his trap. “Now I’m not saying you’re lying because I know my best bro would never do that. All I’m saying is, is that maybe your eyes were playing tricks on you. Were you even wearing your glasses at the time?”

“I told you already that I was and even if I wasn’t, it was a little hard to miss the glare it gave me.”  John sighed when all he got was an eyebrow raise. “What do I have to do to get you guys to believe me?”

 After a minute of silence, Dave shrugged. “I think I’ve got an idea.”

He looked up. “What?”

“How about you and me go on a little hike.”

Blue eyes widened. “Dave, no.”

“C’mon on John, where’s your sense of adventure?”

“Noooo, no no no. We will get into so much trouble.”

“By who, my brother? Jake? Oh please, like they even care what me or you do.”

“Yeah, but-!” John could see the shift and knew instantly that he was fighting a losing battle. Striders were pig-headed that way when it came to making up their minds and God knew John had learned that the hard way. Eighth grade had never been so stressful and frustrating.

Dave uncrossed his arms and tapped a nail against the head of his watch. The glass clink-clinking softly. “Tick-tock goes the clock, Johnny. You in or are you outtie?”

He made a face.

“C’mon, I wanna see if you’re actually right about this shit.”

“And if I am?”

Dave smirked, taking him by the arm and hoisting him up onto his feet. “Then hats off to you, my brother.”

 

--

 

The trek to the other side of the lake was actually a little more than they had bargained for. Not only was it getting dark as shit out even with their flashlights, but the rain from earlier had inadvertently been collected by all the trees and had unceremoniously dumped itself onto the trail creating what was pretty much a mile long slip-‘n-slide. They had decided unanimously to take the path that had led to the meadow on their first day, assuming that by the looks of where it had continued off into the forest on the other side that it indeed stretched around the entire lake. It was wishful thinking, but they had both agreed that stranger things had happened and even if it didn’t lead to the other side at least they would have a good story for the girls in the morning. God only knew that it was a bitch to try and wake Rose up any other way without the use of coffee.

John had also secretly hoped it was the same path the troll had taken to get onto their side, even going so far as to periodically shine his flashlight into the brush, hoping to catch a flash of eyes, as they continued to meander around the mud holes that seemed to be magnetically attracted to Dave’s converse. Though John wasn’t sure what either he or Dave would do if they actually did manage to get to the other side of the lake or worse, see a troll. Though looking around now, it would seriously be a miracle if they even managed to get out of these woods by dawn.

The forest was thick, thicker than on their side of the meadow or at least that was what it seemed like with all of the thickets of branches and bushes Dave kept whacking him with. Around here there was all sorts of odd vegetation that to him either looked like poison oak or pot leaves, neither of which seemed like the best thing to be getting into while they were Bear Grylls-ing it. The path was still visible thankfully, even with the added annoyance of having to leap-frog around and both he and Dave had silently agreed to keep their lights ahead and not try and waste batteries by having a strobe light show or Star Wars-esque light-saber battle— which honestly was extremely tempting at times, especially with Dave laughing at him every hundred feet when he managed to trip over yet another root sticking straight out of the ground.

They came to a slow stop when the path forked off again around a small batch of pines, each path leading down equally dark rows of trees that looked more than a little intimidating.  

“Where the hell are we?”

“Beats me.” Dave shone his flashlight up to the sky, scanning the trees. The darkness of the night swallowed the glow easily and without the help from a full moon they were pretty much screwed trying to find their way around in the pitch black, even with the added bonus of flashlights. “Think we’re on the other side yet?”

“I don’t even know if we’re half way…” John sighed, watching as the fog from his breathing created a smoky trail around his lips before quickly dissipating. He pointed his flashlight at the ground again frowning at the mud caked on his shoes— man that was going to be such a bitch to get off in the morning— before clicking the thing off to conserve some battery usage. “Man, this was a total bust.”

 Dave didn’t answer for a moment, instead choosing to move forward towards the two paths, his footsteps were fluid and soft. “Maybe.”

John raised a brow, watching as the blonde froze for a moment. His head tilted around as he looked up and down the tree lines. “Maybe what?”

“Shhh.”

He blinked and froze as Dave slowly turned around. His eyes, which were free from the dark lenses that usually covered them, were still fixated on the trees. “Hear that?”

John looked around. “Hear… what?”

Red met blue and he watched as his friend slowly raised the flashlight up and under his chin— making sure to bare his teeth and stretch his other arm up to wiggle his fingers in front of his face— while clicking it on and off a few times. “The trolls. They’ve come to collect our souuuuls!”

John started laughing and wiped at his brow. “You are such a tool.”

Dave relaxed back into his normal stance, a small, easy smile on his face. “I try.”

John shook his head. Normally he’d punch the kid in the shoulder for being dumb but he couldn’t honestly blame him for wanting to break the tension. John was more than a little tense and to say that he was tired would’ve been a colossal understatement, but he appreciated where his friend was coming from. Plus it wasn’t every day that you and your best bud went out troll hunting in the middle of the friggen woods.

John turned, ready to announce that they should start heading back because he was damn hungry when the sound of a twig snapping behind them made them both jump and whip around. John clicked his light back on just as Dave swung around, putting them back to back. Lights darted against the trees, trying to find whatever it was that was out there.

“What was that?”

John shook his head slightly, watching as the florescent glow slowly passed over the foliage and for half a second he almost laughed at the mental image of himself as a lighthouse. A quick flash of movement caught his eye and he whipped the light around again with a silent gasp, gripping the medal cylinder with both hands like a gun, all but ready to fling the thing at whatever it was.

A long lull of complete silence passed before Dave spoke over his shoulder, not even crickets were chirping and damned if that wasn’t the creepiest shit he had ever heard.

“You know, it was probably just a deer.”

His ears began to ring from the silence.

“Yeah…” John let out a shaky laugh, continuing to fan over the area. He swallowed hard, swinging the light back around when more twigs started to snap off to the far right. “Dave..?”

But just before the blonde could answer him back, a dark figure flung itself out from the shadows, its long lean body making a perfect arrow until it pinpointed and tackled Dave into the mud. John yelped and hit the deck, looking up only for a split second to catch Dave sliding across the ground into a tuck and roll while the whatever-it-was landed a few feet away from them both.  John grappled for the flashlight that had popped out of Dave’s hand and had gone rolling off into the brush when he went tumbling. Quickly shining both lights ahead, John slide on his ass backwards until he felt the rough bark of a tree cutting into his back through the thin material of his shirt, there was no time to yell to Dave before the thing started moving again.  

Hands shaking, he brought the light up and caught a glimpse of the creature that was crouching on the ground. A long, lean leg was stretched out and off to the side while the other was huddled up under it, its weight was counter-balanced with a hand that was being pressed into the soft ground while the other was kinked behind its back holding a long white and red staff up from the ground with what looked to be, as John narrowed his eyes, the head of a dragon on the end. Trailing the light up along its back he caught sight of sharp orange tipped horns protruding from its head and almost dropped his flashlights.

Troll.

Oh. God.

It stood slowly, long legs unhinging themselves from their superhero stance and straightening upright all while keeping its eyes on Dave. As he rolled over onto his back, the blonde propped himself up with his elbows to get a look at what the hell had popped him. He squinted against the light from John’s fucking GE grade lights, putting a hand over his eyes and looking forward.

“What’d’we have here? Couple ‘a humans in our neck of the woods?” It— she, definitely a female— grinned at Dave, fangs suddenly making their appearance and holy mackerel were they sharp. She stabbed her staff into the ground next to a boot, making an indentation in the mud before leaning against it. Her red sunglasses flickered as the light caught them and made her look all that more intimidating.  

Simultaneously, John watched as his best friend’s eyes widen and his mouth dropped open and after a second of staring, he let out a small breathy laugh. “Um, nice troll.”

When he went to sit up the troll swung the staff around in the air, the red of the dragon head glinting as it gracefully swooped, and pushed Dave into the dirt again. He gulped as the dragon head dug into the soft skin of his throat and the troll moved closer.

“Did I say you could get up, human?”

“Um…”

“The answer to that was ‘no’.”  

“Yeah. Okay.” He nodded a few times, making sure not to catch his chin on the pointy part of the dragon’s frill.

They both watched as the troll tilted her head, short hair following along with the movement. She scooted forward until she was standing over the blonde, tapping her foot right next to his head before kneeling down with a puckered mouth, one leg over either side of him. Her eyebrows came together as she moved her staff and instead dug it into Dave’s chest and squatted down.

She sniffed. “Okay what?”

“TZ, get off him. You’ll catch germs.”

Her face instantly melted into a pout as she craned her head around. “Well aren’t you the life of the party.”

John, and Dave, followed her line of vision as another figure— troll— stepped out from around one of the trees across from John. He swung one of his flashlights, making sure to keep the other on the female, over and shined it on the other one, hoping that there weren’t anymore of them hiding out in the bushes. This one was a lot taller than the female, built more, and without more than two seconds of thought, John came to the conclusion that this one was male. He had shorter hair than the female’s that was pretty much cropped with the exception of a few strands hanging around his forehead. Two sets of sharp twin horns protruded out from the sides of his head and like the female he was also wearing glasses. However, instead of both lenses being of equal color, his had both blue and red and if John wasn’t so scared he  probably would’ve started laughing because holy hell they looked like 3D glasses and who the frick would even wear those things out in the middle of the—

His thoughts were interrupted when the male moved to lean against the tree, hand slowly reaching into his pocket and pulling out a couple of items, sticking one of them in his mouth. John blinked as he held a palm over his face, the flicker of a lighter shining briefly as he lit up a cigarette before putting the lighter back into his pocket.

“I know. Rules are rules though.” John noticed that he had a slight accent that was different from the female’s, or maybe it was a lisp, he couldn’t really tell over the pounding his heart was doing to his ear drums and just the fact that he could even hear them at all over the thump-thump-thump his chest was doing was a miracle in of itself.

The female grumbled and moved her staff before sitting on Dave, both her legs resting on his chest as her knees knocked into his chin lightly. He grunted at the added weight and tried to move to push her off put stopped as the sharp tip of the dragon head tickled against his ear. His eyes drifted over to it, staring it down for the moment and hoping to god she was paying attention and didn’t accidentally wallop him in the face with it.

“Rules are rules,” She mimicked him, voice trying to drop down to his octave while she waved the hand that wasn’t holding the staff around in the air. “Don’t be sucha wriggler.”

He took a long drag of his cigarette, his chest expanding against the arm that was crossed over it before he popped the cigarette out of his mouth and exhaled slowly, clouds of smoke wafting around his face. “Uh-huh.” He then turned to John who froze in place, putting a hand over his eyes. “Hey, you wanna turn that down? It’s a killer on the eyes.”

John fumbled with the flashlight and ended up dropping it into the mud, wincing as it splattered. He didn’t dare move to grab it though when he saw out of the corner of his eye that both of the trolls were now watching him curiously. The male nodded once before turning his attention back over to his counterpart. “C’mon TZ, time to go.”

He took in another long drag, the tip of his cigarette flaring orange for a brief moment as he flicked a finger up towards the sky. All at once the female was wrapped in a blue and red glow that looked like the offshoot sparks that lightning created when it hit the ground and suddenly she was being lifted off of Dave. As she floated, she let out a string of curses that John figured were in her native tongue from the harsh sounds that were being strung together and flailed around trying to get free of the… what ever it was that was keeping her airborne. When she was placed gently next to the male, red and blue bolts dissipating, she looked up at him and stomped her foot.

“You’re such a prick!”

“I know.” He held out a hand, wrapping her staff that had been dropped by Dave’s head in the blue and red lightning and floating it over to where it landed in his hand. He held it out to the female who merely crossed her arms and continued to glare in his direction, refusing to take it. He shrugged, putting his cigarette out on the tree he had been leaning against and instead placed the sharp edges of the dragon’s head against her back and in between her shoulder blades.

He shoved her with it towards the two paths. “Suit yourself.”

John and Dave watched as they took the path to the left, the female complaining loudly in that babbled language as the male continued to push her with her own staff, before they disappeared altogether after a few moments. He and Dave sat in silence for a good two minutes before the blonde was bold enough to roll over onto his stomach and sit up slowly.

“What… Just happened…?”

 

--

 

“Ughhhh.” Terezi turned around and grabbed her cane out of Sollux’s hands, whacking him in the shoulder with it a few times before his psiionics started to march her forward again. She gritted her teeth and fought against them which was innately frustrating because fighting it just caused her muscles to cramp up. “Stop that!”

“You going to be a good girl and walk on your own now?”

She sniffed the air and threw him a look over her shoulder and around in his general direction. “Yes.”

Immediately the crackling of energy stopped and she was able to feel her left arm again. She massaged her shoulder, rolling the joint a few times in its socket to get it to stop aching. They walked in silence. Terezi trailed the end of her cane in the mud and listened to the sound of it dragging against wet dirt, while occasionally the frills of its head caught a rock or two, not caring if it got dirty or not. It wasn’t like she could tell either way.

“I was just having fun, you know, scoping them out.” She said after a while. He merely snorted and she listened as he took out another cigarette from his pocket, imagining him popping it between his lips and fangs. When she didn’t hear the lighter click or smell the butane she figured he was just using it as a place holder in his mouth, something to occupy his time with. She turned her head in his direction. “I’m serious.”

“I know.”

“So then why the 421?”

“411,” He corrected. “And because KK’ll be pissed if we’re not back soon.”

She rolled her eyes. “Karkat is always pissed.”

“Well yeah,”

“So, what’s it matter?”

“It’s because we’re stressing him out, TZ. I don’t want him blowing his own head off his shoulders because his blood-pusher exploded from yelling too much.”

“Well that’d be his own damn fault, now wouldn’t it, best friend?”

Sollux gave her a light shove which normally would have put her off balance but since it was so quiet out tonight, she could hear the rustle of his clothing and knew it had been coming. It only made her sigh. “Yeah, sorry.”

“What’s up with you lately anyway? You’ve been antagonizing him more than Vriska does on a daily basis.” 

She let out another sigh and swung her cane up onto her shoulder while reaching out and putting a hand on the other’s shoulder to steady herself while climbing over a few exposed roots. “I’m just trying to get him to loosen up.”

“Yeah and you’re doing a splendid job.”

She gave him a look and decided to leave her hand on his shoulder. She was too lazy to use her cane and he didn’t seem to mind anyway. “Shut up, at least I’m doing something about it.”

“According to who?” She felt him turn his head and could feel the glare he was giving her.

“What’s with the third dimension, Kanaya?”

“Third degree. And I’m not trying to auspice for him, you know that.”

“Then what?”

“Goddamn, forget I said anything.”

They both looked away and she could feel the awkward tension rising each step they took forward. Before long, Terezi could hear them approaching the campgrounds by the way the ground shifted from being a bit rocky to smooth dirt and the sounds of the bonfire cookout still going on. Loud laughter flowed through her ears as she sniffed the air and sure enough, they were only a few yards from where the forest opened up into their campgrounds.

She tugged on Sollux’s shoulders and they slowed down to a stop a few feet from camp. She felt him turn to give her a questioning glance.

She sighed. “Look, I know I’ve been a bitch lately. But I’m doing it for a reason.” She dropped the end of her cane into the dirt and leaned against it while sticking out a hip.

“Oh really and what’s that?” He didn’t really sound all that interested and honestly she couldn’t blame him. She’d’ve been pretty pissed if he had been ganging up on her bestie too.

“I’m trying to get him to get over me, okay?”

He snorted and lit up his cigarette, she wrinkled her nose at the smell of it. “Hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but he is over you.”

She laughed softly and shook her head. “Ohh no he’s not.”

“How do you know?”

She tapped her nose. “Smell is better than sight, remember?” Her voice was soft and she could hear him sigh a little as he cursed. There was more silence as they listened to the camp’s activities. Hoots and hollers were coupled with clapping and before long more cheering broke out. 

“Just do me a favor and let up a little, okay? There’s only so much moirailing Gamzee can do.”

Terezi nodded. “Sure thing, pal. I’ll do my best. But trust me on this one, roger that?”

She heard him shake his head before feeling a hand on her shoulder as he gently guided her along. “10-4.”

Chapter Text

 

 

 

 

 

[[Music]]

 

He had been laying there for hours and honestly he couldn’t even remember if he had gone to sleep or not. The first three hours had gone by in a blur— replaying the moments that led up to following Dave into the woods— wondering if maybe juuuust maybe they had made a grave mistake, and then the rest thereafter. The flashes of them hightailing it out of there like the place had caught on fire wasn’t one of their more braver moments and it made him cringe a little thinking about the two of them tripping over themselves because they had been sprinting so fast. However, the twisted feeling in his stomach tightened and threw him back to the present and he was faced with the all too-real reality that they could had died last night. 

A bit melodramatic, yes, but everyone who thought so could just kiss his ass in the meantime.

Hours four and five were passed by staring at the headboard and counting the grooves in the wood, trying desperately to pretend they were sheep or cows or somethinganything that would help him get at least a few hours of shut eye between the snorts and jostling going on in the bunk above him. But then the projected noise of snapping twigs and crackling red and blue lightning threw him into another adrenaline rush and had him snapping his eyes open while reawaking whatever part of his brain that he had been trying to shut down for hours.  

So when the alarm clock flashed 6:14 and the night started to mesh into morning, he didn’t even bothering rolling over because what was the point? In less than forty-five minutes, the birds would start to chirp and the camp would slowly come to life with groggy teenagers and their even groggier councilors. John sighed and rubbed his face, trying to massage the ache away from the back of his eyeballs as it did a nice tap-dance of throbbing across his oculars. He dropped his arms after a minute and re-opened his eyes, turning onto his side to look at the clock again but stopped when he spotted Dave already sitting up in his bed staring directly at him. They watched each other, sharing a mutual look of exhaustion and recognizing that neither one of them had gotten any sleep last night.

Least he hadn’t been the only one.

Slowly, a few joints cracking along the way, John stood and stretched. He winced, mouth twisting into a frown as the scratches that ran across his upper back were irritated with the movement of his shirt and the stretching of muscle underneath the cuts. He dropped his arms and shook his head when Dave nodded at him, most likely asking if he wanted the wounds to be looked at. But it didn’t feel like more than a few scratches and probably a bruise or two so there was no use worrying over it. The other had it worse off anyway judging by the way the blonde stood stiffly and prodded at his neck. John couldn’t really tell in the dim lighting but he wouldn’t’ve been surprised if there was a nice smattering of bruises where that staff had dug into the soft skin of Dave’s clavicle. He’d have trouble swallowing, that was for sure and if his stomach had been a little less queasy, John would’ve totally made the joke and cashed in the proverbial points they liked to rack up on each other.

They dressed slowly and silently, not wanting to wake up their roommates but it was damn hard not to make any noise when every time John lifted an arm or leg his muscles screeched in protest. He looked over and saw Dave sit down while pulling on his pants and mentally commended the smart idea. John flopped down onto his bed, pulling his hoodie over his head and snuggling into it after putting his specks on.

Good fucking god this fleece was nice.

By seven, they were putting on their shoes and heading out just as the alarm went off and Eggs was rolling over to chuck his kitchen timer across the way at Clover. The morning air was cool which was nice since the cabin had been humid and dry. It sucked since they didn’t have any fans to circulate the air currents that cross-sectioned over near the front of the cabin by the door and even just a little one that kicked up the dust every now and then would’ve been nice. It had been agreed upon that the two windows there would stay open indefinitely unless there was another storm, that way they’d get at least a little cool air in there when the sun went down.

The walk was as silent as usual but more uncomfortable than yesterday. John had so much to say and so many questions that had been knocking around his head since they had gotten back it felt they were jack hammering away at the inside of his teeth. None of them were particularly posed at his best friend but just to be able to say it all out loud would have been a blessing, even to have bounced some idea back and forth between the two of them to figure out what the hell had happened back in the woods. He could tell that Dave too had things to say by the way that he looked down at his feet and watched them shuffle along and kick up dirt. He always did that whenever he wanted to spill his guts but just didn’t know how and Rose was usually pretty good at asking the right questions— prodding the right buttons to get him to squawk.

And he would have too if they had been in a more private setting. Looking around now, John could see other boys getting up and beginning their filtration down to the mess hall and before long the pavilion was in sight and they were being led around to where the buffet was.

Sitting down but not touching his food, John rested his chin on a hand and looked out the window.  It was cool and dreary out, the complete opposite of yesterday’s bright and cheery morning light, fit exactly with the type of mood John was currently immersing himself in. Granted, it was by choice and if he really wanted to he could have been striking up a dumb conversation with his cabin-mate right now but all he really wanted to do was go to sleep and stop feeling like he had to keep looking over his shoulder every five seconds.

John shivered.

God he was such a baby…

“You okay?”

Whipping his head around, he saw Jade leaning over him with her hand coming to rest on his shoulder. Across from her was Rose who was also looking a bit curious their way while casting glances at her cousin as he continued to poke at his food.

God could he be any more obvious? He could practically see the sentences scanning across Rose’s eyes like binary as she mentally wrote them down to remember and pull out later at a more ‘appropriate’ time. Then again, John hadn’t been doing so hot himself.

He gave a quick smile. “Yeah, I-” He looked down and blinked, noticing that they had trays in front of them. “When’d you guys get here?”

“…We got here like five minutes ago.” Jade looked over across the table and then back at him. “You were all spaced out when we sat down.”

“Oh.” He looked down and stabbed a fork into his sausage.

His cousin nodded a little and out of the corner of his eye, he could see her opening her mouth to say something— probably to ask him if he was okay again— but thought better of it and clammed it shut. She gave him a quick smile in return and turned back to her plate. He could feel Jade and Rose giving them both quick glances and making faces at each other. To the girls, they probably looked like shit anyway. Between Dave hunching over his plate like a hobo and pulling at the collar of his hoodie hiding his bruises to the dark circles under John’s own eyes that made him look and feel like a fucking insomniac, he was surprised Rose wasn’t grilling them already.

Perhaps that was her strategy though.

He held in a sigh and mimicked Dave, pushing his food around while his stomach twisted around like it was being rung out like a wet bathing suit. His leg started to shake under the table, burning off the excess energy that was coursing through him and making him want to stand up and run a few laps. Which was stupid on his brain’s part because he needed the energy to stay upright so he didn’t fall over and pass out or face plant into his eggs-over-easy from sleep depravity.  

How the fuck did college kids do this all-nighter shit?

He shook the thought off as Rose cleared her throat.

“So… what did you guys do last night?”

John’s leg stopped moving under the table. And slowly, in what he would deem later as perfect symmetry, he and Dave looked up from their plates and directly at each other like his favorite scene in Transformers. Forks were frozen mid-bite as John mirrored his friend’s blank expression.

What to do, what to do…

Dave was the one that cracked first. Starting out with small snickers that he immediately hid behind a hand while his shoulders shook from the effort of holding them in but as soon as John’s face starting to break into a smile the blonde erupted into laughter with John following shortly after.

“I thought we were fucking dead!”

“I know!” John gripped the edge of the table. “When she choked you with that dinosaur club, you looked like you were a goner!”

“Dude, she almost fucking stabbed me with that thing.” Dave sat up and leaned over the table, eyes going so wide under his shades that the tips of his eyelashes brushed over the rim. “I thought she was going to slit my throat.”

“Oh man. And when she tackled you, I thought she was going to eat you.”

“Or fucking sacrifice me to her Pagan gods.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Jade’s eyes were narrowed as she leaned away from her cousin and bounced her eyes back and forth between the two. He almost laughed at the face she made as their talking started to snowball.

John waved a hand at her. “Yeah, but when 3D glasses lifted her up in the air-”

“I thought he was going to shock the shit out of her for not listening-”

“I know, I know. I mean I know they have caste systems or something? And she was disobeying him?”

 “Yeah, yeah, but what was up with the light show. I can’t even believe he actually-”

“I know, it was like levitation but with lightning I have no clue, it felt like my hair was sizzling. But I mean you were closest to it.”

Dave shook his head and touched the top of his head. “It was like needles or pin pricks. I don’t know it’s hard to describe. My skin still feels all weird.”

Jade slammed her tray down onto the table, snapping their attention over to her. “What the ever loving fuck are you two talking about!”

John blinked. “Uh…”

“‘Uh’ is not an answer, John.” Oops… she was mad.

“Chill Harley.”

She growled at him.

Rose leaned over the table and patted her arm patiently and looked pointedly at them.

John and Dave exchanged looks and there was an awkward pause before John kicked his friend under the table. Like fuck he was going to spill, it had been Dave’s plan to go Indiana Jones-ing it up in Snow White’s Dark Forest in the first place searching for the creatures of the night. And he was so not going to get into the ‘are you really that fucking stupid?’ conversation Jade looked like she was gearing up for. Plus he wasn’t very up to the look Rose was currently fixing on the both of them which meant one thing and one thing only: start. talking.  

Dave sighed. “We went for a walk last night.”

Rose rested her chin on her hand and tapped her nails against the table. “Uh-huh,”

“In the woods.”

“I figured as much.”

“Aaaaand we ran into some people.”

John started gnawing on his lip. Ohhhh boy…

A brow shot up. “Some people…”

“Yup.”

Here is comes…

“What kind of people?”

“Just your average Joe’s.”

“Trolls.” John blurted out before Dave could steer the convo back to happyville. “We ran into a couple of trolls and holy fuck they were really scary and they pretty much almost kicked our asses and their teeth look really sharp in the dark and basically the moral of the story is don’t go into the woods at night.”

Oops.

The pregnant paused stretched into awkward silence territory relatively quickly and John really couldn’t have blamed them. Jade’s mouth was hanging open as she stared at him like he had just explained quantum physics correctly and Rose was rapidly darting her back and forth between him and her cousin while looking like she had been tazed right between the shoulder blades.

Dave was right, he really did need to work on his delivery skills.

“…Good… Lord. What the hell is the matter with you two?”

John frowned. “It was Dave’s idea…”

Violet eyes whipped towards her kin. John wasn’t even surprised when he shrunk back a little and covered his face. He even felt a little sorry for throwing him under the bus like that. There was only one unspoken rule between the three of them, one that had held true in even the darkest of moments and had been passed down to them from the wise elder Strider himself: don’t piss off the Lalonde’s.

Pale fingers reached up and wove themselves around the small gauze that was stapled into Dave’s ear lobe, twisting the cartilage and shaking him a few times with it. “What the hell is wrong with you.”

“Owwww!” He slapped at her hand. “Knock it off, Lalonde!”

Her grip tightened, pinching the pierced skin.  

“Ow! Okay, okay. Holy fuck, uncle, you crazy shithead.”

He rubbed his ear gingerly when she let go and scooted away from her.

“Goddamn… okay well here’s the deal. Ever since Egbert over here saw that stupid troll when we went swimming he’s been all pouty about how we didn’t believe him-”

“Well you believe me now, motherfucker, don’t you?”

“Shut the hell up, Johnny, I’m talking. Anywhore, like I was saying. He’s been all boo-hoo about it so I proposed that we take a little hike over into the great beyond to prove that he was just imagining shit because he wasn’t wearing his glasses.”

John rolled his eyes.

“And so you went to the other side and you found them.” Rose crossed her arms and turned in her seat so she could face the blonde head on.

“Oh, we fucking found them alright.”

“More like they found us.” John pointed at him.

“Yeah. Pretty sure they had been tracking us and shit.”

Jade slapped her hands over her mouth, her voice coming out muffled. “Oh my god, you guys.”  

“Yeah, I know. Total Survivor man quality shit we got goin’ on. But like Egbert said, they attacked us— probably to scare us, which mind you worked— talked a bit and then left.”

“What’d they say?”

Dave shrugged at his cousin. “Nothing too important. The guy was just yelling at the girl because she was sitting on me and he wanted her to get off.”

“It touched you?!”

John clamped a hand over Jade’s mouth as a few people looked over in their direction curiously. “Yes, but look Dave’s fine, see?”

Rose narrowed her eyes and reached over to fist the material of her cousin’s sweatshirt around her hands. She yanked down and hissed a little as a large smattering of purple and yellow bruises made their show-stopping appearance.

“Ow, easy with the merchandise, Lalonde.”

“They did this to you?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think on purpose.” He winced a little as she poked one of them. “I mean, it was pretty dark. I don’t think she could see how hard she was jabbing me with that stick of hers.”

“Trolls are nocturnal.” She said without thought, examining more of the bruised area. “They have better eye-sight than felines.”

He made a non-committal sound and tugged his collar out of her grip and back over his neck, leaving Rose to sigh and look across the table at John.

“I think it goes without saying that this,” She gestured between him and Dave. “Little adventuring thing is never going to happen again, yes?”

He nodded.

“Because if it does, I will tell my sister.” She looked at Dave. “And your brother. And I think we both know how well that will go over, capiche?”

Dave nodded. “Crystal clear, cuz.”

“John?”

“It won’t happen again, I promise.”

 

--

 

“You what?”

The shout reverberated across the open expanse of grass, making everyone within a five feet radius wince and cover their ears. She inwardly sighed as she smelled his pheromones gearing up for a verbal strife.

Sollux held up his hands. “Woah, chill KK.”

“No, fuck that.” A finger jabbed into the Psiionic’s chest. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

“Because we knew you’d freak out.” Terezi swung her cane up onto her shoulder, balancing the weight while standing straighter. She heard the intact of breath and felt as both she and the yellow-blood next to her leaned back a little and waited for the verbal onslaught of anger and frustration that was Karkat Vantas. She knew that, yeah, they probably should’ve told him sooner— like say, last night when it had happened for example. But everyone had been in such a rare and good mood that it had been silently agreed between the two of them not to spoil the happy vibe until the morning. Which in hindsight probably wasn’t one of their smarter moves since they were all still crabby from 180-ing their sleep schedule.

But she listened, slightly surprised, as Karkat clamped his mouth shut before he let anymore vulgarity spill out. She guessed he was probably squeezing his eyes shut while doing that thing where he clenching his fists tightly together at his sides and counted to five… and when that didn’t work, to ten… and then probably twenty for good measure. His shoulders and hands loosened as she felt him let go of the anger.

“Where did this happen?”  He asked while opening his eyes.

She could sense Sollux next to her was giving him a troubled look. “Over by the V-path that leads down to the camp.”

Karkat cursed softly and rubbed his hand over his face. “They got that far?”

Terezi nodded. “We were following them for a while to see if they were lost, which they pretty much were, but the taller one had a good sense of direction and was heading right for the main path that leads down here.”

He nodded slowly, crossing his arms and looked at the ground intently. “Did you get a good look at them?”

“Yeah, we’d be able to recognize them if they showed up again.”

“Which they probably will.” The Psiionic cut in. “Humans with their curiosity and all.”

“Mmm…”

They watched as their self-opposed leader continued to stare at the ground. Terezi let out a small breath and then breathed in the scents around them covertly, frowning when she smelled the pungent odor of worry and prudence rolling off of the troll standing in front of her. She didn’t like when he worried; especially when she was the one that had caused it, however indirectly she had. It made her stomach twist into uncomfortable knots and made her adrenaline pump like she was jarring up for a fight between herself and Vriska.

Had they still been matesprites she would have actually done something about it by now. Probably would have taken him on a long walk like Kanaya used to so he could get out all his frustrations without having to worry about upholding this stupid image he had erected for himself. Held his hand as he squeezed it so hard, she would have felt like he was breaking bones. Helped him smooth out the worry lines she knew he got on his forehead when he frowned that deeply. Or maybe if they had been back at home in the city she would have dragged him to the park and made him push her on the swings for nostalgia’s sake.

“Karkat…” She slid her cane off of her shoulder and placed it gently into the dirt. “We can handle them if they come around again. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t want them messing with our stuff. Distracting us. We already have enough on our plate as it is with the upcoming Cullination when fall hits. I don’t want you guys loosing any more time to get ready then necessary.”

“We’ll be fine, KK. Seriously, stop worrying.” Sollux’s speech was a little slurred as he talked around the cigarette in his mouth. Terezi wrinkled her nose as he flicked the butane lighter on and lit up. “We have all summer.”

“You have three months-!”

“Yeah, three whole months. That’s a lot of time.”

“No. It’s not.”

“Good lord,” His Alternian was rough and poignant as he jabbed his cigarette in the air before switching back to English. “We will be fine. I promise.” 

“No, you won’t-”

“Karkat.”

Terezi could hear him swallow as silence fell between the three of them. She could smell the tension between her male counterparts as she imagined seeing them sizing each other up with equally fierce glares of disapproval that would maybe even rival Kanaya’s. Maybe she should have gotten the Jade blood to auspice for them after all…

“We will be fine.” Sollux’s voice was softer than she expected and she turned her head slightly to listen closer and he sighed out more clouds of nicotine. “And stop saying ‘you’ like it’s just me and TZ and you aren’t apart of it. It’s ‘we’, got it? We’re in this together.”

She listened to him slowly nod, tension making its way back into his scent and god she just wanted to reach out and rub it away because Captor sure as fuck didn’t notice it and how could he? He had only his eyesight to rely on and she knew Karkat was good at hiding himself from them— from everyone— and how incredibly depraved of a deal was that?

“Okay. So it’s settled then.” The Psiionic’s voice was already cutting through the silence. “We’ll just have a team set up at night where the trails fork off to see if they come back or not. And if they do… well we’ll deal with that when it happens.”

“What about during the day?”

“Like they’ll even have time. They’re probably just as busy as we are. They’re diurnal, remember?”

“Speaking of which,” Terezi balanced her cane onto her shoulder again. “We really need to get back onto our own sleep schedule.”

“Amen to that, sister.”

 

--

 

The next three days had gone by in a blur. The camp had finally started to kick into gear as the summer activities for the week had been posted on the bulletin board inside the Mess Hall. Each morning after breakfast, kids got to choose and sign up between three different activities to do until lunch when everyone was rounded up after eating to do one big event until the sun went down. It was usually a bonfire or a jam session in the rec hall which got to be pretty crazy and hectic but a party nonetheless.

 The councilors had been cycling through activities which ranged from water sports to hiking and cave exploration with each group being heralded by one of them while the odd man out— it depended on which day but today it was Jane— who stayed behind just in case help was needed with first aid or someone didn’t feel up to a task of rock climbing with Jake and his crazy but catchy enthusiasm.

John and his three companions had opted for hiking with Dirk out by the meadow and up near the mountains they had past by to get into the valley. It would be a calm and uneventful day, which is what they had all wanted since the four of them had stayed out late last night after all of the other kids had gone to bed so that Dave and Rose could hang out with their siblings. It had actually been really fun to hang out with the councilors near the fire, Dave’s brother had always been an eccentric and great story teller and the added fact of Dave and Jake being there to insert a little more sarcasm and adventure into the stories had made the whole experience worth the mere five hours they all had gotten last night.

Plus watching Dirk bust Dave’s balls was hilarious no matter how many times it happened.

The group had gathered early that morning since Dirk was one for punctuality and had set off shortly after. The trail hadn’t taken them too far over, it mainly went back behind their camp and kept going around until it hit the caves— where Jake was supposedly doing a walkthrough of the next day— and looped back around. About halfway through however, as they were being led up the steep incline to where the caves sat, Jade had fallen and twisted her ankle. It was an impressive sight really as John watched his cousin who was famous for her unmatched clumsiness, take out two unsuspecting teens in front of her while tripping upwards and letting out a rather vicious string of curses as her foot got caught between an exposed rock and a small rock.

Dirk, who had been leading in the front of the group, had immediately stopped their advancement. Pushing past a few gawking teenagers and squatting down to where she was sitting on the ground holding her ankle. “You alright, Harley?”

John, Dave and Rose crowded around her.

“Owwww, fucking roots.”

Dirk smirked a little, moving as Rose held out a hand for her to grab. “Think you can still walk?”

She sighed and took her friend’s hand as she was hauled up. “Yeah, probably. Wow, ow! No!”

Rose gently set her back down, helping as Dave’s brother started rolling her sock down. He made a small noncommittal sound. “I believe you sprained it.”

“Ugh.”

Rose leaned over and poked the slowly swelling skin. “Yes, I agree with him.”

“Of course you do, Lalonde. Why wouldn’t you?”

She gave the elder Strider a haughty look.

Dirk looked over at his brother while reaching into his pocket. “Mind running ahead for me and telling Jane that we’ll need her expertise?”

Dave caught the set of keys that were hurled his way. “Sure thing, bro. Anything specific you want done? Scalpel, needle, IV?”

“Mm, just tell her that ice and a comfy chair will do.” Dirk looked back at Jade, shades glinting in the sunlight. “I’ll carry you the rest of the way back. I don’t want you straining it anymore than you have.”

She blew a few pieces of hair out of her face. “Okay,”

He nodded and then looked to his brother.

Dave gave them all a salute. “C’mon, Egbert. Time’s a wastin’.”

John grinned and waved before following after Dave in a jog. It took them about fifteen minutes of fast walking coupled with small bursts of jogging to get to the campgrounds and up to the First Aid station. Inside, Jane was helping one of the nurses clean the tilted floors and upon seeing them throw open the door out of breath immediately perked up.

Without even more than three questions of who-what-where, Jane had cleared off a bed and started tidying up the sheets— which was a bit unnecessary considering Jade only had a sprained ankle, but he wasn’t going to judge since the girl was working at the speed of light here. Getting a little dizzy at watching her shoot around the office, John looked over and spotted Dave practically draping himself over the small metal-framed fan that was sitting on the nurses desk, sweatshirt discarded on one of the nearby chairs.

“I don’t get why you wear that thing every day when you know it’s just going to get hot out later.”

“It’s ‘cause I’m cold in the morning.”

“You’re always cold, dude.”

“I know, it’s a Strider curse.”

“One of many, I’m sure.”

“Yes, good looks and charm are amongst the top twelve.”

John laughed and shoved him. “God, you’re such a dork.”

Dave wiped a thin trail of sweat from his brow, pushing his aviators up the bridge of his nose. “Wanna run back to the cabin so I can drop this off?”

He held up the sweatshirt.

John shrugged. “Eh, why not.” He turned to the other room and leaned around the doorframe. “Hey, Jane! We’ll be back in a little bit!”

“Alrighty!” She called back from the other side of the office, her voice muffled and tiny.

Dave tied his sweatshirt over his shoulders while walking out, making John laugh.

“Oh god, please don’t.”

“Hey, don’t be hatin’.”

“Why do people think you’re cool when you are clearly as much of a loser as me?”

Dave crossed his arms and nodded at his best friend. “I’m glad you’ve finally come to terms with your terminal illness. The first step is to accept the fact that you are incurable. Besides, this is for-”

“Do not say for irony.”

John shoved him as they passed the Mess Hall and started walking down their path.

“…Irony.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

The blonde smirked. “I’d really like to see you try, Jay-jay.”

“Okay, Davey.”

“Okay, Johnny-boy.”

“Okay, D-bird.”

“Okay, Johnathan.”

“David.”

“John Jacob Jinglehimer Schmidt.”

“..That’s so not fair.”

“All’s fair in love and war, poppit.”

Dave raced ahead and took the stairs up to their cabin two at a time, popping the door open with a squeak and letting it shut with a small smack. John rolled his eyes and jogged to catch up to him, grabbing the handle to the screen and sliding it open.

“Seriously Dave, that’s not even a-” He stopped short, almost smacking right into the blonde who was standing stock still in the middle of the doorway.

The hell…?

“Hey, coolkid.”

John’s mouth popped open. Holy fuck… no way…

He pushed the blonde out of the way and looked over his shoulder. There, lounging on Dave’s bed was the female troll from the other night who had practically almost eaten him for breakfast. She had her head propped up on a gloved hand as she waved the other at them, shit eating grin expectantly right in place.

“And other.” She finished when seeing him.

John was about to punch Dave in the shoulder and push him out the door so that they could get the hell out of dodge when he noticed another troll, back facing towards them, over by his side of the bunks. It was smaller than the one from the other night and a lot leaner with wild hair sticking up practically everywhere and baggy clothes that barely hugged his frame. It— he— looked to be as tall, if not a tad taller, than the female currently making herself at home on Dave’s bed but not by much. 

“Um… hello.” John waved a little and darted his vision back and forth between the male who was currently rifling through his belongings and the female whose grin widened with acknowledgement. He frowned a little while hearing the male troll flip a few pages in one of the magazines he had brought with him for the bus ride up. “Uh, could you not go through all of that-”

“Tell me something, human.”

John blinked, startled by the sudden focus on him. “..Y..es..?”

He watched as the male slowly turned around, still flipping through his magazine while walking toward them. The male’s shoes made soft thuds on the old carpet, kicking up a few particles of dust as they scuffed along the fraying edges. John’s eyes widened when he finally looked up from the magazine, the light hitting him from the windows behind he and Dave and a pair of small rounded horns came into view from under the messy tangle of his hair.

“What exactly is it that you’re here for? Because all I’ve seen so far is nonsense and practically no productive work getting done.”

He was the…!

As John continued to stare, Dave cleared his throat. “We’re here for fun.”

“…Fun…” Yellow eyes fixated on the blonde and stared darkly at him. The already large pupils of his eyes widened as he looked the blonde up and down, running over the details of his appearance. Dave stood still as he was visually manhandled and John had to give him props for not even squirming.

“Yep, fun.”

The troll’s eyes narrowed as a look of complete bafflement swept over his face. The magazine in his hands hung loosely as his face tilted down a little, brows coming across his forehead to meet in the middle. He eyed the blonde suspiciously. He looked like he had never heard the word before, which might have been true. John wasn’t really all that familiar with troll culture since he had lived in the suburbs his entire life and was incredibly bad at paying attention in History. Trolls were pretty much unheard of in any other place other than the city since that was were their communities— hives?— were and plus it had a lot more diversity and connection to their queen than a rural middle class neighborhood would have had. John had only ventured once out into the city when he had been in grades school and even then it was for an indoor play so it wasn’t like he would’ve gotten to explore much and see all of the different cultures and people living there.

A pair of snapping fingers broke him out of his thoughts and with a jolt, he straightened up and pointed to the male in front of him.

“You’re the one I saw when we first went swimming last week! I knew I didn’t make you up!” 

The troll blinked, pupils dilating to tiny pin-pricks and John watched completely fascinated while leaning forward. Wow, did all troll eyes do that or were they just his? John couldn’t remember the specific anatomy lessons they had learned in Bio other than the fact that he knew humans and trolls were relatively similar other than the external features that served for survival purposes. He knew they had tougher skin and different blood color types and that their outward appearance was different but other than that… shit he really should’ve paid more attention in class. Goddamn it this always happened!

The troll let out a growl and bared his teeth when he leaned a little to close— wow holy fuck were those things razor sharp— before Dave reached forward and yanked him back by the collar of his shirt.

“Jesus, Egbert.” 

“Sorry! Sorry.” He held up his hands and took a few steps back with Dave, giving him room. The troll stopped growling but stayed hunched in his defensive stance, continuing to bare his teeth and flick his eyes back and forth between the two of them. John looked down and noticed that his nails— oh… yeah right, they had claws, he had forgotten about that too— were puncturing the cover and a few of the front pages of his magazine and he inwardly winced. That had been the newest issue…

“Chill out, Karkles. What’re they gunna do, pick your nose?”

He whipped around so fast John was astounded he hadn’t given himself whiplash in the process.

“Can it, Pyrope. I didn’t ask for your input.”

“You didn’t need to ‘cause I’m giving it anyway.” She gave him a sharp-tooth grin and John watched as it made the male roll his eyes and stand up straighter and relax out of his defense pose. He chucked the magazine at her and she caught it with a high pitched giggle that had both he and Dave shivering a little. As she unfolded herself from her reclined position and sat up, the male turned back to them with a peeved look.

“So…” Dave unwound his hand from the back of John’s shirt slowly. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

The troll crossed his arms. “You never came back,”

Both he and John blinked. “To what?”

“Our campsite,” The female spoke while throwing her staff up above and climbing the ladder up onto Clover’s bunk.

“Were… we supposed to…?”

“Yes.”

Dave turned and looked at her as she sat and swung her legs over the edge. “Says who?”

“Human nature, dumbass.”

He frowned. “So what, then. You came over here and broke into our cabin to see if we were dead or not?”

“No, we wanted to spy on you.”

John would’ve laughed if the way she had said it hadn’t seemed so creepy. But hey at least they were being honest…

“Sooo…” John shuffled on his feet. “How did you find us, then?”

She tapped her nose and looked over in his direction. “The nose knows,”

He blinked. What the hell was that supposed to mean…? Wait had she sniffed them out or something like a bloodhound? Maybe that was how she and that other troll had found them so easily in the dark a few nights ago. Even with the addance of their flashlights it had been dark as balls out and John couldn’t remember seeing any type of lighting device that they had carried with them. Although… that guy could have used his multi-colored lightning… but wouldn’t he and Dave had to of seen it?

He was about to ask her when he noticed she was looking over his head. He turned and looked out the window, ready to see some kid peering in or making a face against the glass but saw nothing of any interest or anything that entirely eye catching. Unless of course you counted the four of five dead spiders bunched up together over in the corner of the windowsill.

Quirking a brow, John looked back over. “Okay, well-”

He was interrupted when the male’s watch went off— a weird-looking sort of Timex but not crossover breed— beeping incessantly as he turned to look at it. They watched as his brows furrows and he looked up and over his shoulder at the female.

“Time to go.”

She pouted. “We’ve got five more minutes.”

“Now, Terezi.”

As she sighed and started climbing off the bed, he turned back around. His eyes glinted in the light and the skin around the golden yellow twitched slightly as they narrowed. 

“I’m going to say this once and one time only and I’ll go slow so your pea-sized thinkpans can comprehend the complex terminology.” His eyes flicked back and forth between he and Dave, making sure to make eye contact with them both before settling themselves on the blonde. “Stay on your side of the Lake.”

John opened his mouth, ready to assure him that it was all good and well since that was pretty much their intentions in the first place but was cut off when the male fixed his eyes on him, cutting off whatever it was he had perched on the tip of his tongue.

“Stay. On your side. Of the Lake.”

He nodded along with Dave who moved aside quickly to free up the door. The troll gave them one last pensive glance before pushing the door open and letting himself out. The wood door bounced a few times against the frame as it shut, making John wince a little at the noise. The female dropped to her feet and swung the white and red staff over her shoulder before walking over to them.

She gave them both a saucy grin. “Don’t let him scare you, he’s just in a pissy mood because I didn’t save him a seat at dinner this morning.” 

John let out a shaky laugh as Dave nodded a little. “Maybe you should just feed him some sedatives. He sounds like he needs a nap or three.”

She laughed, short hair bouncing a little as she bobbed on her feet and leaned closer to him. “That’s what I’ve been saying.”

“Terezi!”

She scoffed and leaned back to look over towards the door. “Coming, your highness!” She turned back to them and started gliding over towards the screen slowly. Her staff dragged across the wood floor, the sharp ends of it catching the grooves and making a scritching sound that was a little irritating but not all that unpleseant. “See you around, coolkid.”

Dave gave her a salute. “Later, skater.”

She let out one last high-pitched laugh before kicking the door open and waltzing out with her head held high. They watched, motionless, as her and her male counterpart disappeared quickly into the foliage, their voices drifting off just as fast as their appearances.

When his ears began to ring from the silence, John turned his head and looked at his friend. “She’s scares me…”

“I dunno, I kinda dig it.” He shrugged.

John gave him a look. “You sure? Cause I don’t think you remember who gave you these.” He reached over and prodded at the now-yellowing bruises on the blonde’s neck.

“Ow. Goddamn it, Egbert.”

“Yeah, serves you right for flirting with the weird alien girl.”

 

Chapter Text

 

 

[[Music]]

 

Rose Lalonde had a total of three constants in her life.

Number one was her sister. Preceding her by a grand sum of five years, Roxy Lalonde had been a trouble maker from the start. For as long as Rose could remember, her elder sister had always been the adventurous wild spirit that was unmatched and had been untamed since the day she had popped out of the womb and screamed her god-given lungs out at the RN who sucked the excess amniotic fluid from her nostrils. From their mother’s various and often quite tipsy rambles, Rose had gathered that between the two of them, her sister had been the hardest one to raise but not so much because she had been a particularly difficult child, but because she had been so inter-dependent and self-knowing that their mother simply didn’t know what to do with her half of the time.

It was hard to recognize, Rose noticed, when people first met her sister. Often, they would write her off as the party girl with boobs and no brains who specialized in happy endings with a side of body shots. But there in lied when the genius set in and since no one expected anything out of her otherwise, Roxy could get away with literally anything that she wanted to and was never even suspected as the culprit— well except by Dirk, but the Strider’s were know-it-all’s anyway.

Not to mention her sister had a hell of a way of getting out of things whenever she got the scrutinizing eye of Ms. Lalonde formally Mrs. So-and-So; and who in their right mind wouldn’t want that super power. Granted… their mother didn’t have the best track record for raising children seeing as Roxy had adopted her love of wining and dining without the dining but neither of them was dead yet so it was a plus on her side of the column.

It was a quality in her older sibling that Rose admired and something she had one day hoped to gain through careful measures of watching and observation. Roxy was an entirely different breed that was well worth the aggravation of trying to sort out her motifs of internet slang and garbled lingo that somehow happened to worm its way in whenever her sister opened her mouth.

Numero dos were her two best friends. John and Jade in a sentence were no doubt the best friends that she could have ever asked for. Dave had often joked that she had prayed to the dark lord for them because no matter how much crazy shit happened to all of them, they had stuck around through everything. And Dave could kiss her feet and thank her for it while making her a club sandwich because he had been too much of a chicken shit to make the first move in acquiring new friends anyway when they had both gotten to their end of the rope and gotten so sick of each other that Rose had seriously started to contemplated parricide, even going so far as to writing out a list as to where she would bury the body— which would have been in a graveyard if anyone had asked, because who the hell would even look there? The correct answer was no one, that’s who.

Middle school had been full of dark, dark times…

And while her dumbass cousin was on the right track, she hadn’t so much as prayed to Satan to find new friends, no, because that was for pussies with half a brain and no income. Instead she had done it the good old fashioned way: bribing through food. It had been simple really, after targeting their prey— which actually had been rather difficult since Dave was picky about who he chose to hang around with and honestly she wasn’t much better since as little as .07% of the population didn’t continuously annoy her with their blatantly ridiculous amount of stupidity— Rose had devised a plan specifically designed to win even the most genius of masterminds over without them even having known that they had been duped. In the end, Goldfish and ham sandwiches had been the final seed that had blossomed their two-some into a beautiful four-some of friendship.

And finally, number three was her idiotic cousin and his unseemingly usual tendency to get into a whole lot of trouble when she wasn’t watching. Her cousin was an enigma that she had a hard time cracking on even the best of days as he tended to be broody and had an self-image of cool so finite that most times she wanted to just throw him off of a building to watch his body filet like a pancake on the sidewalk and ask him what he thought of ‘cool’ then. But that was where John and Jade came in; they were wonderful buffers between her and Dave and often times after a few pokes and prods from either of them, her cousin slowly opened up.

It was hard to get him to do that. And Rose secretly treasured it when he came to her with a problem that he didn’t know how to fix or even where to start. It made her feel like they were children again and when life had been so much simpler and easier to understand.

So when Dave had finally confessed that his cabin had had a little home invasion, she’d decided that that had been the last straw and enough was enough.  

It was time to take matters into her own hands— Lalonde style.

“Rose, where are we going? And could you slow down a little? My ankle still hurts.”

She slowed her power walk to let the other catch up. “I told you, we’re going on a little walk.”

Jade raised a brow, her glasses moving a little on her nose as they reflected the moon’s glow from between the tree lines up above them. “At ten o’clock at night?”  She shined her flashlight ahead, bouncing the light around the thick trunks and in between brush.

“Yes.”

“Why…?”

“Well, I figured it’d be rude to go earlier when the sun was up.”

“Uh, okay...”

“Besides,” Rose continued. “I wouldn’t want my sleep schedule disturbed either.”

As the brunette gave her another odd look, she herded them towards the left and kept up the pace. It was funny, how Jade never asked any questions when they went off on these sorts of endeavors. And it warmed her heart a little that Harley had always trusted her not to lead them both to their deaths or worse. It was like having her own little henchman, ready to dive into whatever fanatical idea she had become obsessed with. And Jade was good at catching on to when an idea was sparked and the mental gears started to turn and whirl inside of Rose’s mind— if the question was asked, the answer had to be solved; case and point. It was a burning need in her that didn’t stop, only consumed, and unless the answer came into full view, thoroughly picked at and tampered to death, Rose wasn’t satisfied.

Though in actuality… Jade had probably just learned not to ask questions because the answers were too long. 

But Rose took pride in the fact that she was the smart one, the one that her friends came to when a crisis needed to be solved and they knew that only she had the answers, even if they admitted that they needed her help or not. Sure it was like pulling teeth half of the time and mostly they just ended up complaining about her methods, but it got the job done so they could all kiss her ass in the meantime. Besides, it was her job as the Problem Solver to tell them all to suck it every once in a while.

When they came to a thicket of trees, Rose slowed down and scanned the area with her flashlight. Jade saddled up next to her and looked around as well.

“So…”

Ruby red lips quirked a little. “So.”

“Nice night for a walk, eh?” A toothy grin was sent her way and she couldn’t help but smile a little at her friend.

“It should be just up here a little ways.” Weeding through a tangle of branches that hung down between two bushes and ducking through a spider web that had Jade grumbling and whipping her hands around in annoyance, the path was revealed once again under a thin coating of dead leaves that crunched satisfyingly as they walked across them.

“What is?”

“The fork in the road.”

She could hear Jade mutter the sentence back with a question and mentally counted backwards from ten while shaking a few twigs out of her hair. There was a small flicker of annoyance as she finger combed the shit out and brushed the scatterings off her clothes. The whole reason— or well partly— that she had kept her hair short was that it was easy to maintain and this sort of thing didn’t happen. That and the fact that Jade sweated like a fat kid at fitness camp under that mop of hair when it got to be above 65 and sunny.  

“..Oh, my god! Please don’t tell me we’re going where I think we’re going!”

“Where do you think we’re going?”

“Rose!”

She turned around and looked at the brunette who was wrapping her puffy jacket around her torso like she was trying to merge it with her skin. She could see that the thick stockings Jade preferred to wear under her dresses was ripping a little on one of the sides and she made a mental reminder to get out her safety pins so she could fix it later for her as a reward for going through with this. Even if she hadn’t known she was going to in the first place.

“What?”

“Are we going to the troll’s camp?” When the she didn’t answer, Jade’s eyes widened. “Oh, hell no! We are not going over there.”

“Well it’s too late now, we’re already here.”

Jade shined her flashlight forward, the glow bounced off a few fallen branches, following the brown dirt of the trail before settling on where it branched off into two different directions. She let out a groan and twisted her shoes around in the dirt. “Noooo.”

“Come on, I just wanted to check them out. I promise there will be no alien contact.”

As she stomped her foot, Rose turned around again and continued to walk, smiling a little when she heard footsteps jogging up to meet her as she headed for the left path.

“I hate you.”

“I know.”

There was a sigh. “How far away are we?”

“I’m not sure, the boys didn’t say.”

“Awesome…”

As it turned out, it hadn’t been that far at all. About a ten minute walk— most of which was used helping Jade over a fallen tree that was the size of a small mountain and with her bad ankle it had been quite the task to heave her over, even with the extra bonus of a landing pad, before they started to hear small voices filtering through the forest. Exchanging looks, the girls slowed and made sure to fan over the area with their lights before proceeding towards the path where the faint glow of red and yellow light was flickering on up ahead. Smoke hit their senses immediately and Rose could have guessed that there had to be at least two or three fires making the stench. She heard Jade breath in deeply and sigh out a pleased hum. 

“Smells like a party.”

“Mm,”

Sounded like one too and as they approached the end of the path, Rose clicked off her light and motioned for Jade to do the same. They followed the tree line, tripping over uprooted stumps and loose sticks looking for a better view of the campgrounds. Rose winced as Jade let out a small squeak while tripping and landed into a pile of dried leaves. Jesus, by this rate they might as well have brought along some fireworks and announced ‘we’re over here!’

“Careful,” She held out a hand as the brunette took it and hoisted her up. They crouched behind a patch of hedges that Rose absentmindedly identified as an Abelia Rose Creek before her eyes widened. She whipped around to face Jade who was already holding her nose shut. She gave the blonde a watery smile before coughing softly in her sleeve.

“Want to move?”

Jade shook her head. “No, I’ll be fine in a minute. Fricken’ allergies...”

Rose watched her in tense silence as she unplugged her nose and sniffled back some snot. Wordlessly, she reached into her pocket and fingered around for a stray tissue as she watched her friend’s face start to screw up into a pre-sneeze. She winced as Jade let one out loudly, her whole body jerking forward as she caught her face in her hands.

“Bless you.”

Jade tilted her head back behind her to where the voice had come from while snatching the tissue from her friend’s outstretched hand. “Thanks.” 

It took a full fifteen seconds for Rose, who was watching the other blow her nose into the crumpled up napkin while making a face, to register the gears click in her head. Her eyes widened simultaneously with Harley’s as they both jerked to look behind them.

Two silhouettes came into view; one had their hands on their hips. “Well, well well. What do we have here?”

“Oh shit,” Jade muttered.

Rose could hear the figure smile.

“Oh shit is right.”

 

--

 

“How the hell did you manage to get all this shit in your hair? I mean seriously, Gamzee. Just fucking wear it up or something.”

The highblood turned around and smiled a wide, doe-eyed grin at him; all teeth and little regret. “No can do, my brother.”

Karkat sighed loudly, feeling himself starting in for a long night as he picked more twigs out of his moirail’s hair. After this was done he was going to break out the Kakadu Double Sided for Dogs and brush the damn kid’s hair and he wasn’t going to take any lip from him whatsoever. It was about time Gamzee got his shit together and looked decent and presentable for once.

“I’m probably going to regret asking this, but why?”

The screen door slammed open and caused them both to crane their necks around. Kanaya stood in the doorway, eyes wide while bending over to catch her breath. The glow of her skin was brighter than usual and caused Karkat to let go of his moirail and turn to face her; it only meant trouble when she was practically throwing off lazar beams that ISS ZARYA could probably pick up from space. She looked like she had seen a fucking ghost and with Aradia around, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

“You better come see this.”

She was back out the door before he could even muster up a ‘god what now’ sigh; jogging to the door and barely holding it open long enough for Gamzee to grab a hold of it, they bolted across the ground’s common area. Up ahead he could see that everyone had crowded around in a lop-sided semi-circle near the main path that lead off into the forest, obscuring whatever it was that was so fascinating from his view. They were all tense and a few of them, Nepeta in particular, were bouncing around in clear signs of anxiousness.

He really hoped it was just a dead body.

Slowing down and saddling up next to Kanaya, he could hear a few voices whispering and bickering quietly among each other. He looked next to him and watched as she shook her head and motioned for him to just go see for himself with a wave of her hand; her glow was dying down into ultra florescent territory but not by much. He sighed at her and blew a few pieces of hair out of his face before ducking under a few arms and pushing his way into the middle of the circle. 

“You must be the leader.”

He stopped dead in his tracks.

Fuck.

 

--

 

Rose brushed off the sleeve of her jacket and frowned a little when seeing that the tear in the hem had widened a little. If she had known that she was going to be manhandled by a female troll with butch hands and a grip that rivaled Jake’s wilderness explorer one then she would’ve worn her nice leather jacket instead. At least that one would’ve been less prone to ripping when they had been dragged through every fricken pointy and pokey bush they could have found. Rose had suspected it had been done on purpose but then again her mind was a big fan of worse-case/people-out-to-get-you scenarios.

She looked up and watched as the troll in front of her, which looked exactly like John’s description, narrowed his eyes at her before snapping his glare to another standing next to him on his side of the circle. This one was a lot taller with bi-focally colored glasses and she guessed that par Dave’s words, he had been one of the two that John and her cousin had first ran into when they had decided to go off monster-hunting.

She mentally rolled her eyes, patting Jade’s hand that was starting to cut off the circulation in her forearm while she muttered quietly, “I thought you said that there would be no alien contact…”

She was about to apologize when the taller troll held up his hands. “Don’t look at me, this was all Serket.” 

“Okay, wow, throw me under the bus. Thanks, Captor.”

Rose looked over to where a female, one of the ones who had grabbed her and Jade, crossed her arms and hmphed at him. Her blue painted lips decended into a frown when the smaller troll began to focus his glare on her instead and she jutted out a hip to show off her displeasure.

“Look, it’s totally not what it looks like.”

“Then what is it.” He hissed, hands clenching together at his sides as he turned towards her. She dropped her hands with a long sigh.

“Okaaaaay, okay. Stop being so grouchy, jeez. Me and Eridan caught them snoopin’ around out by the median.” She jabbed her finger towards the woods. “And since you’ve been so cranky about humans coming over to our side, I figured you’d want to see them for yourself instead of us sending them off on their merry way like Pyrope and Captor did the first time.”

“Hey,” The taller one chided.

The female held up her hands. “I’m just saying. If you guys took care of the problem in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this situation right now.”

“And by ‘take care of’, you mean cull, right?”

“Hey,” She shrugged. “You gotta do what you gotta do.”

Jade’s fingers dung into her arm tighter and Rose had to hold back a wince. Jeez, they weren’t being very subtle about it where they… She looked around; trying to memorize all of their faces just in case they actually did make it out of here alive and she could help the Identikit when it came time to do police sketches. Though… she wasn’t sure what exactly the human police could do against Troll Bureaucracy. She hadn’t had much exposure to it and what little she did know she knew that they weren’t very compatible with the way they handled their legal cases when it came to assault or worse.

“Would you two just shut up already! God damn.”

Rose felt Jade jump a little and was startled herself when the smaller troll, who had been silently watching his other two subordinated bicker, jabbed a finger in her direction.

“You, human. What’s your name.” 

She blinked. “Ah… Rose.”

“Okay, Ah-Rose.” He stepped forward. “What the hell are you doing at my campsite?”

She cleared her throat and reeled back her composure. “Well, I wanted to talk to you.”

It was his turn to blink. “You did…”

“Yes.”

His pupils widened as he rose a brow and she watched, fascinated, as they contracted a few times while taking in her face and that of Jade’s next to her. It was like he was taking a mental picture with the way his eyes resembled a shutter and she wondered if he had a photographic memory. Maybe they all did and it hadn’t been included in the biology section of their midterm on Troll Physiology. But then again all of their other behaviors had… how curious they were.

When this was all done and over with, she needed to dissect him.

“Why…?”

“Well you broke into our friends’ cabin and we wanted to talk to you about it.”

He leaned back, an unimpressed frown deepening the displeasured look on his face.

“Oh. They belonged to you, huh?”

Rose tilted her head and ran through the files she had stored away in her head on troll culture.

“No,” How to put this... “Not exactly. They’re our friends so they don’t belong to us. I know you guys don’t have a word for that.” She tapped her chin. “The closest thing I can say is that we’re related, which we are, but we also choose to be around each other because we enjoy each others company and we spend time together in school also, which is why we’re also going to be going to college together in the fall after we finish this summer over at our camp Sburb.”

He stared for a few long seconds, the yellow of his eyes reflecting in the orange-glow of the fires that were blazing behind them all, before blinking and shaking his head. “Okay, shut up.” He held out a hand. “You’re way too wordy, holy shit. I didn’t even need to know half of whatever it is you just said to me.”

Rose shrugged. “I’m just trying to put in perspective how you’ve personally affected us.”

“Whatever, point is Ah-Rose—”

“Just Rose.”

“What?”

“My name, it’s just Rose.”

“Okay, Just-Rose. Anyway listen, what I said to your dumb human-friends applies to you too. Stay on your damn side of the Lake. Seriously, how hard is that to understand? I said it in simple English so that even mentally challenged adolescent five year olds would be able to comprehend that.” He narrowed his eyes at her when she started to make a face. “What?”

“Well, it’s just that what you said is kind of redundant. Five year olds are already adolescents and by stating it twice just gives your whole threat less value. I mean the first part was good, but next time you should just add a little less adjectives and a little more description.”

She barely held back a smile when his whole body started to seize up with anger and she had to commend him on the fact that he was trying to hold it back so that he wouldn’t completely explode the second he opened his mouth. His fingers curled into fists as he held them in front of his mouth and glared so heatedly that if he had been supernaturally inclined she most certainly would’ve melted on the spot. It was a very typical response with someone who suffered from anger management problems that stemmed from deep seeded issues with either oneself or the people around oneself and judging by the way he was trying to hold the boiling rage in, she was going to guess the former.

Her mental gears started to turn.

“What I originally came here for, though, was to make a peace offering.”

His shoulders started to slowly come unwound and he moved his hands away from his mouth. “You did...”

“Mhm.”

“What the hell for?”

She shrugged and held out her hands. “I think we should be friends.”

A snort came from the other side of the circle. “Why would we want to be friends with you?”

She looked over to where the bi-focalled troll, Captor, was crossing his arms. It was a good question, why would they want to be friends with her and her group of rounded-out misfits? Surely there would be far more intrepid species that they’d have rather associated with. Their cultures were so vastly different and she knew better than what John and Dave preached that they really weren't so bad. They had been raised to be vicious and selfish because that was how they had survived this long, that was how they had come to their planet and settled down. It wasn’t through being nice and making small talk, it was through their actions that they asserted themselves and no one could blame them for being scared or threatened by her and Jade or any of the other humans on the other side of the Lake. They had been taught at such an early age that different was bad and that you were killed for it and that’s why exercising caution got you farther along in the evolutionary chain in the grand scheme of things.

She thought for a moment, eyes scanning over all twelve sets of eyes staring curiously at her and Jade, and for a moment she let herself smile.

“Because I think you’re just as fascinated with us as we are with you.”

 

--

 

John scooped another pile of hash browns into his mouth and stared across the table. Rose was sitting next to Dave like she always did, eating the same two eggs over easy placed on two pieces of whole wheat extra grain toast, a small square slice of butter off to one side with her choice of a small blueberry muffin and a small glass of orange juice to wash it all down with. It was a bit Torretic, the way she organized practically everything on her plate into certain shapes or even sometimes by color or flavor. And he had always wondered what it was like inside the mind of a genius, even if Rose never admitted she was one.

He could tell, though, he was good at that kind of thing; spotting certain outstanding characteristics or qualities in a person that they normally themselves never took into perspective. It was a fun little exercise he had started when he was a child and his dad had began taking him on business trips because the babysitter had gone off to college and John hadn’t liked any of the new hires. They just didn’t fit right into the dynamic he and his dad had going for them and they could get the hell out of dodge if they had ever thought about changing it.  

Rose looked the same though; pulled together even though her and his cousin had probably gotten up at the ass-crack of dawn to help Roxy and Jane set up the activities board like they had been doing for the past week. He never understood why they liked to do that sort of thing. But then again, he had been a slacker since he could remember and Dave had never been an over-achiever either. He usually left that up to his brainy cousin or the ridiculously smart elder Strider. Jesus and God help you if you ever got paired up with those two…

But something was different about them today. And he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

He looked over at his cousin and saw the way she covered up a small yawn with the back of her hand. It wasn’t an unusual action though; he and Jade had always taken longer to wake up in the mornings than the Strider-Lalonde households did. But the upside to it was that they could run a lot longer into the night than Rose and Dave ever could, which was a plus for them because everything fun happened at night and daytime was boring anyway.

“So, what’d you guys do last night? Doesn’t look like you got much sleep.” Dave leaned close to his cousin, poking her cheek lightly with the end of his fork when she continued to ignore him in favor of peeling the wrapping off of her blueberry muffin. “Not busy being scissor-sisters, were you?”

Jade threw her napkin at him. “Dave.”

“What? I’m only curious. A guy’s gotta wonder.”

She rolled her eyes before stabbing her fork back into her half eaten sausage and popping it into her mouth. Rose glanced sideways while patting her mouth with her napkin and took a small sip of orange juice before gently placing the glass back down onto the table and clearing her throat.

“Well, Jade and I have some news for you.”

“Please don’t tell me you signed us up for rock climbing with Jake.” John felt his lips tug down into a pout. God that was all he needed, more high intensity exercise after a good filling meal… He didn’t care, Rose could baby-shmaybe him all day but there was no way on this god forsaken earth that he was doing anything today that required him to sweat. “My feet just stopped hurting from hiking, like, this morning.”

She laughed lightly and pushed her tray away from her; the metal making a soft scrishing sound against the table.  “No. But we did go on a little walk last night.”

“Oh yeah,” Dave’s brow rose over his glasses in an arch. “Did you also go star gazing and hold hands under the moonlight?”

“Yes, how did you know?” She hit him in the shoulder when he faked a gawk. “No, but we did see some interesting things.”

“Like what?”

Jade shoved a piece of toast into her mouth. The bread crunching as her front teeth bit into the hard crust and a few pieces scattered onto her tray. “Well, we went to the troll’s camp. That was interesting.”

She jumped a little as both John and Dave bit out a loud ‘what!’ and quickly turned on her. She held her hands up in surrender, eyes wide with her toast clenched between her teeth as she looked over to Rose for help. She sighed and snapped her fingers a few times to get everyone’s attention.

“Look, it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean, Lalonde?” Dave fingered his aviators and perched them on top of his head so that he could give his cousin the full affects of his glare. Oooohhh Rose was in for it. “I thought you said no more rendezvous with the alien life-forms.”

“I did.”

John bit his lip and looked back and forth anxiously between them. He could understand Dave’s ferocity and honestly if he didn’t feel suddenly so sick to his stomach with the thought of his innocent cousin being ripped in two by pointy sharp teeth and razor sharp claws and eaten for dinner then he would’ve totally been grilling the girls right there with him. He didn’t like that they had gone out seeking the trolls on the other side by themselves. What if they had been seriously hurt? Or worse? For all they knew, the trolls were still pissed at him and Dave because they had been dumbshits and encroached onto their territory without getting permission. There would’ve been no way for them to know if the girls had been in any kind of danger at all and it freaked him the fuck out to even think about it.

“So, then what changed your mind?”

Rose gave him a pensive look while pushing Dave out of her bubble with a hand to his face. “They broke into your cabin, that’s what changed my mind.”

John frowned a little and saw his cousin nod out of the corner of his eye.

“You really didn’t have to go all the way out there to confront them though…”

“Yeah,” Dave swatted her hands away and his dark colored eyes swiveled to her again to give her another hard look. “What if they had taken you hostage?”

She sighed. “They wouldn’t have.”

“You sure about that, cuz? They tell you that themselves?”

“They were actually really nice.” Jade swung her feet under the table, her bottom lip sticking out. She looked back and forth between him and Dave with an apologetic look, though she didn’t seem very sorry. “Well, most of them were. The others were mostly stand-offish but we were fine. I mean they invited us to their Dinner-Breakfast thing and me and Rose had a really good time.”

The blonde nodded, lacing her fingers in front of her on the table. “They were very respectable.”

“So what…” Her cousin took his glasses off his head and slid them back over his eyes. “You guys are all buddy-buddy now?”

“Rose made a peace pact.”

“A what?” John chimed in along with Dave.

“A peace offering, really.” Rose waved her hand. “Their leader and I agreed that there will be no more break-ins or kidnappings or anything anymore.”

“They have a leader?” John raised a brow, taking off his glasses for a minute to wipe the smudges on the lenses onto his shirt before placing them back on his face.

“Mm. The one who broke into your cabin and told you to not go over to their side anymore.”

He blinked. “Oh wow, really?” Man, he hadn’t thought of the possibility that the little ball of anger that had almost ripped his internal organs out to strangle him with would’ve been the leader of Sgrub. To think they had been in the same vicinity of each other and had even had a conversation— albeit it was mostly being threatened on his end— was actually kind of cool!

However, when he remembered the barking tone and the way his shrew eyes had fixed John with a glare that made his bones shudder, the feelings of wondering nostalgia quickly evaporated.

“Yes.”

“So then… what’s going to happen now?”

Rose shrugged. “We’re free to go back and forth as we please.”

“Wait. And they just all of a sudden agreed to that.”

She looked over at her cousin. “Well, it’s not as easy as it sounds. It took all night to convince him, their leader I mean, and there were some rules he laid out that we have to follow.”

“Which are?”

Jade held up a hand, ticking off her fingers. “No breaking and entering, no stealing, no hurting and or maiming each other…” She tapped her chin. “Oh. And no interspecies mingling.” 

“The hell does that mean?”

John pointed at him with his fork. “It means no macking on alien chicks, Dave.”

“Aw, dude. What the hell? That’s no fun.”

Rose shrugged. “Rules are rules and trust me, it was hard enough getting him to agree to just those. At first he wanted there to be absolutely no contact.”

“And lemme guess,” Her cousin waved a hand in the air. “You let him see the error of his ways.

She smirked a little. “Something like that.”

 

--

 

Karkat threw another freshly chopped log onto the pile and bent over to catch his breath. He stared at the ground as the sweat poured down his face, watching the small colored droplets fall in unsynchronized patterns onto the soil only to be sucked up moments later from the greedy dry as fuck dirt. Goddamn it was boiling out and it sucked that the sun had only come up three and a quarter hours ago and it was already hot as balls out. He had so much fucking work to do and so little time to do it that it was driving him insane, getting him more pissed than usual with the time constraints and their messed up sleep schedules that he wanted to pull his hair out. 

But really, who cared about those when you were a chronic insomniac. 

He craned his neck to glare up at the sun only to wince away and curse under his breath. He really should’ve gotten a pair of those eye shielders that what’s-her-face’s siblingother had been wearing every single time they had met. Though meeting really wasn’t the proper word for it…

He rolled up the sleeves of his zip-up and bent over to pick up another log.

“What are you doing out here so early?”

He looked up and watched as Kanaya hopped over a few uncollected logs to get over to where he was. Her arms were crossed and her skirt swayed a little as she walked closer, the ends of it brushing against wood-shavings, making her wrinkle her nose; and he could guess she was already complaining to herself about how hard it was going to be to get the splinters out of the fabric without giving herself one in the process.

“Just cleaning up.”

She looked around. “Looks like a little more than just cleaning up,” Her eyes focused back on him and a kind smile crossed over her face as she nodded to the pile sitting next to him. “How long have you been out here?”

He shrugged and looked around, uncomfortable with the sudden but expected kindness. “I don’t know. A while, probably; since before dawn.” 

She frowned and he turned away before she could wiggle more out of him. He didn’t like when she did that— pry. It made him feel too exposed and too raw, like his skin had just undergone a severe deep exfoliating scrubbing and someone was rubbing the sensitive surface with sandpaper.

“Have you gotten any sleep?”

He wiped the sweat from his brow and pushed back the matted hair on his forehead before picking up another log and tossing it onto the pile. It clunked against the other hundred or so already on the palette.

“No.”

He heard her sigh softly and the feeling in his chest increased, twisting his blood pusher into uncomfortable tangles; making him want to stop disappointing her in whatever way he was doing so. But he didn’t know and that was the most frustrating part; every time he did something, anything, she always got that worried look on her face. The one that said ‘I’m scared that you’re doing this’ and it made him feel heavy on the inside. Something that he was unaccustomed to feeling outside of their providence in the city; he had thought he’d’ve been safe here from feeling those upsetting emotions that caused him to hate himself and made him want to just scream. But the fact of the matter was, was that everything he did, everything that made her sigh or frown or make her anxiety show in even the tiniest of motions, wasn’t intentional. And it was always always towards pushing their group to train more or work harder and it fucking sucked that he was pissing people off when all he was really trying to do was help them; secure their future, make them better citizens under their Condesce’s rule.

Jesus, he never got any appreciation around here, did he?

“You need sleep, Karkat.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t know.” His ears picked up the sound of her walking closer, her feet snapping a few twigs. She put a hand on his shoulder. “You haven’t slept in days.”

He brushed her off and started for another pile. “It’s fine, Kanaya. Stop prying.”

“I’m not prying.” She sounded offended. “I’m trying to help you.”

Karkat whipped around. “Well I don’t need your help!”

She dropped her arms to her side and he swallowed the lump in his throat. The woods were silent and in the distance a cawbeast gave a loud cry that seemed to echo on for miles.

He was such an asshole.

“Kanaya—”

She held up a hand and he clapped his trap shut. They stared at each other for what seemed like eons, her jade eyes sad and full of hurt and he wanted to take back the yelling and all of the shitty attitude problems and mood swings he had been throwing at her for the past week and a half. She breathed in deeply, giving the cleared area one last once over before turning and walking away. He watched her sweep past the fallen trunks and out onto the path that lead into the woods and eventually to their camp.

Karkat stood there for a while, waiting for her to come back and after somewhere between eight and ten minutes of nothing but silence and the screaming in his own mind, he turned back to the pile of logs that sat beside him. He stared at them, wondering why on earth he had thought that coming out here so early to finish up yesterday’s chores would be therapeutic to his wrecked nervous system. As he picked up one of the logs on top of the pile and rolled it over in his hands, the fury that he had buried the night before rose in a wave and split the rational part of his brain that had gotten so good at pushing it down into splinters, shattering what little self control he had self to get this stupid job done.

It took him all of fifteen minutes to completely destroy the wood pile that had taken a day and a half to gather and make. And damned if it didn’t feel good.

Chapter Text

 

[[Music]]

It was still dark outside when Jade opened her eyes. She lay there for a minute, facing the wall and trying to figure out what had broken her out of her dream when the end of her bed dipped down and the muffled sound of clothes rustling against her comforter caused her to sit up a little. She squinted as the figure at the end of her bed froze and she tried to focus her vision long enough to figure out what the hell Rose was doing. If this was another fire-drill practice she was seriously going to lock her out of the cabin for the rest of the night and see how she liked sleeping in a bush.

Laying back down and rolling over, Jade reached for her glasses and shoved them onto her face with a yawn. Her spine cracked and she let out a pleasured sigh as the tension in her vertebrae relieved itself. Hot damn, that felt good.

She rubbed at her eyes, digging the digits into the corners to get out all the gunk and propped herself up onto an elbow. “Okay, Rose. Where are we going now?”  

When the blonde didn’t answer, Jade peeked between her fingers. Across the way, she could see through dirty lenses that her friend was sprawled out, limbs thrown around like a prostitute left for dead on an empty side street. Small, muffled snores were drifting from her parted mouth while her chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. Jade felt her mouth twist into a frown as her brows shot up, feeling the weight at the end of her bed shift around again.

A sinking feeling in her chest caused her adrenaline to start pounding through her muscles.

Slowly, Jade twisted around. The silhouette of the troll at the end of her bed waved sheepishly, the window’s light from the moon’s glow caught the small flashes of little fangs peeking out as it smiled. Jade shot up into a sitting position and grabbed her covers, twisting them around herself while smushing up against the bed’s headboard. The troll let out a little squeak and fell back as the covers were ripped out from under it.

Another silhouette, one over by the door, jerked forward and then froze when Jade’s eyes flipped over and focused on it. The figure by the door as well as the one on her bed both remained still as her eyes flipped back and forth between them; the sound of Rose’s slow breathing the only thing that cut through the sudden and tense silence.

Sitting up more and leaning over, Jade fingered for the small lamp that was placed in the middle of the brown-almost-black side table next to her bed. Her fingers crawled up the metal base and then touched onto the small switch before she flipped it on and illuminated the small room. She squinted and the relaxed, shoulders slumping, as two pairs of eyes reflected the light and blinked back at her.

“Jeez, you guys scared me.”

The troll at the end of her bed— Nepeta, she remembered from the night before— rolled over onto her side and sat up again, fixing her blue knitted hat around her horns and tucking a few pieces of hair back away from her eyes.

“Sorry… we didn’t mean to!”

Jade smiled a little and grabbed one of the pillows behind her back. She fluffed it, making sure that it was big and bouncy before turning and hurling it at Rose’s prone figure. The blonde let out a low groan and rolled over slowly into a fetal position, burying her head under both pillows.

“Wakey-wakey. We’ve got company.”

There was a loud sigh before Rose popped her head up; she rubbed her eyes and gave the other a grumpy frown before noticing the troll at the foot of the bed.

She squinted and sat up, looking over to the front of their cabin. “Kanaya?”

The female inched her way into the light and removed the hood covering her head, the glow from her skin brightening a little more at the removal.

“Hello, Rose.”

The blonde’s eyes drifted back to her friend and then to Nepeta who squirmed in silence. “What… are you guys doing here?”

Nepeta fiddled with the straps hanging from her hat. “Well… I saw that Jade was kinda limping last night. Like she was hurt!” She clasped her hands together and looked at Jade. Her speech rolling the R’s in her words as she spoke, green eyes widening. “So I thought purrchance that maybe you needed help or something?”

“I volunteered to come along as well, just in case.” Kanaya rose her hand as she spoke softly.

Jade laughed a little, ruffling her bed head and fanning the long strands over her shoulders. “Why didn’t you guys just knock then?”

She thought it was totally endearing the way Nepeta’s shoulders drooped a little and she hunched over while looking at her through her lashes. “I furgot that you guys sleep at night and only remempurred when we got here.”

“So you decided to break in instead.” Rose quirked a brow as her voice drawled, looking back and forth between the two trolls. They had the heart to look guilty so Jade figured she couldn’t have been too mad about being rudely woken up. Plus Rose was used to getting only four hours max during school time, anyway.

Jade waved a hand in the blonde’s direction out of habit. “Well, thanks guys! But I’m not really that hurt. Just a sprained ankle, I promise.” She gave them both a toothy grin despite the way Nepeta tilted her head and Kanaya fingered her lips with the ends of her claws.  

“May we see, anyway?” Kanaya gently strode over, the ends of her robe trailing lightly over the worn wood of the floor. Jade watched Rose stand and put a hand on the taller troll’s arm as she passed by. They shared a quick, cognitive glance before Rose turned and headed to the front of the cabin to turn the overhead light on.

Jade threw back her covers, careful not to whip Nepeta in the face while doing so, and lifted the sore limb up onto a pillow; leaning forward, she unclipped the ace wrap and let it unravel. Her ankle was still slightly swollen but the yellow-green bruise around the bone was thankfully starting to fade. The pain had dulled to a low and annoying thud instead of the sharp splices she had first experienced every time she put any sort of pressure on it; and god had it hurt like a bitch then. It was a tolerable annoyance at this point and was much better off then yesterday for sure. The two females bent over her and she giggled when they started to poke at her leg, tickling her with their claws.

Kanaya stood straight and tapped a finger to her chin, other hand on her hip. “When did you do this?”

“Uhhh, like the day before yesterday.”

Nepeta bounced a little on the bed, blinking her big doe-eyes. “Did you put ice on it?”

“For a little while, yeah.”

Rose sat across from them, folding her hands in her lap and swinging her legs slightly. “We don’t have refrigeration to keep any on hand in here though, unless we continue to keep running to the Mess Hall and back.”

Kanaya nodded, looking back to Jade’s ankle and then at Jade. She noticed as the female’s eyes flitted around at her exposed limb, that her eyes were a really pretty jade-almost-emerald green that reflected off of the light overhead, wondering briefly if they were really that color or just embellished with the help of contacts. 

“Well, I guess there isn’t much we can do for you then besides redress it with a wrap to keep it steady. I’m sorry we can’t do anything more, however.”

Jade waved her hand, giving them a wide smile. “Nah, it’s no biggie. Thanks for coming out all this way though to check on me, though. I really appreciate it.”

Nepeta giggled at her, a light purr humming at the back of her throat that she couldn’t help but think was completely adorable. “Of course!” She looked toward the other female who put a hand to her chest and smiled as well.

“Anytime.”

Kanaya pulled out the satchel that had been hanging at her hip and passed it over to the other troll who beamed and set to work at redressing Jade’s old bandages. She was careful and methodical as she untied the old wrap, claws never once catching on the material or nicking her skin accidentally.

“So, since you’re both here,” Rose crossed her legs. “We might as well talk about tomorrow.”

Kanaya turned to look at the blonde and raised a brow. “Tomorrow?”

Rose nodded. “Our friends would like to meet you all,”

“Ah, your man-friends.”

Jade snickered. “Man-friends…”

“Where and when should we meet you?”

Kanaya thought for a moment. “We can meet at sunset.”

“Over at our place!” Nepeta clipped the bandage into place and clapped her hands together. “We’d love to show you around.”

Kanaya nodded in agreement.

Rose smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”

 

 --

 

Sgrub’s camp was in a bit of a commotion when they arrived.

All morning Rose had been badgering them into meeting with the bunch after dinner and surprisingly it had taken quite a bit of convincing to get Dave on board with the whole idea. John hadn’t really put up that much of a fight, between his cousin’s puppy dog eyes and Rose’s long-winded and completely tiring lecture on converging their two cultures, he didn’t really see a point in arguing. It saved him the trouble from tuning them both out.  

Dave for the most part was wary of the whole shebang. Which was understandable, since on every occasion they had had with the trolls, he had either gotten manhandled or threatened— which had been the same for John as well, but hey he was more willing to forgive and forget than Strider was anyway.

Plus he trusted Rose’s judgment. If what she had seen at the other camp was anything to go by, then everything was ship-shape and they weren’t in any danger of getting in over their heads. Besides, Dave tended to ignore her in favor of pissing her off most of the time for shits and giggles, so really he could have been pitching a fit for irony’s sake— who ever really knew with that guy, anyway. Dave Strider prided himself on being an enigma that wouldn’t be cracked anytime soon.

As soon as the four of them had stepped onto the grounds of Sgrub, they had immediately been surrounded with Jade being the outstandingly lucky recipient of being tackled by a small troll with a blue hat and a green jacket. The welcome was a bit overwhelming as everyone circled, reaching over to shake hands and such, but John soon found himself a rhythm and managed to at least get around to most of them. He could see out of the corner of his eye Dave crossing his arms and pouting next to Rose as she mingled with a few of the females who were asking how their trip over was. John laughed a little, ready to go over and help a brotha out when an arm was slung over the blonde’s shoulders, pulling him down into what looked like a painful noogie.

“Hey there, coolkid. Long time no smell.”

John shook his head as his friend flailed in the arms of his captor. Looking around, he was also pleased to note that everyone was engaging with his best friends and they seemed to be getting along swimmingly. It warmed his heart a little to think that yeah, he did have great friends, and was happy that everyone else thought so too.

Slipping into the shadows was easy enough.

John watched his friends mingle for a few more seconds before determining that they were indeed in good hands and then slowly tip-toed back away from the various groups clustered around and onto one of the bush beaten paths that wound its way off the side of one of the cabins. He didn’t know where he was going but he was ready for a little John-only time. Social gatherings were never really his thing; he was more of a one-on-one type and liked being in a more private setting then in big groups of people all trying to talk at once.

He tucked his hands behind his back, looking up towards the sky and watched as a few clouds lazily followed him along down the dirt road. He twisted up his face and spun around a few times to try and figure out what sort of shape they made; usually it was some type of animal or a dead president— Hoover, according to Jade— but nonetheless it was one of the more gentle pastimes that he had acquired over the years that didn’t involve elbows to the face from Dave.

The sound of rustling leaves caught his attention and John looked up in time to spot a brightly colored Tanager land in a tree right above his head, hopping down a few branches to rest on a thin twine of leaves. John whistled quietly, smiling as the bird perked up and answered back with its own trill, flittering its duel-colored wings. He remembered the times of when his dad had used to wake him up at the crack of dawn during the summer months, just as the morning dew still glistened on the grass and the paint cracked window panes of their summer home; before the earth started to begin being heated by the morning sun and the temperature rose to a stifling ninety-seven, they would, together, go out and explore the dense woods that lined the small home.

From those nature expeditions with his dad, he had learned a lot when it came to surviving out in the forest or an unpopulated area, spotting different species of wildlife or foliage and it was one of the reasons that he enjoyed being out here in the middle of nowhere despite how much of a fight he had put up in the beginning. John liked the peace and solidarity, even if he was unaccustomed to it. It was a nice change of pace from the busy suburban city that he had grown up in. 

The Tanager began to hop along another branch until it reached a gap in the leaves. It gracefully leaped to the neighboring tree, black tipped wings shining in the dying sunlight. John followed it down, continuing to whistle to it quietly when it answered back with its loud trills between trees.

When it stopped suddenly at the end of the tree line and bobbed its head around, the bird flitted its wings and chirped quietly. John raised a brow as the forest around him suddenly became silent and still. The bird’s wings twitched a few more times while it stared straight ahead over the tall cranberry bushes and other vegetation that blocked the way. The Tanager chirped again, this time a little louder before the sound of a loud crack sent it rocketing off of the branch it had been perched on and back into the direction that it had come from.

“Jesus,” John breathed and looked ahead just in time to see over the bushes the shape of a thin tree about twenty yards away fall to the ground with a loud thump. He blinked and walked forward, fighting through the cranberry bush’s tangled leaves that grabbed at his clothing and hair; he growled softly and gave the branches another push. They gave way and he stumbled into the clearing, throwing out his hands and barely kept himself from taking a digger.

John brushed himself off while letting his eyes wander. The clearing was more of a dumping ground apparently, judging by the piles of wood strewn off to the side with various tree stumps jutting out from the ground. The dirt was covered in wood shavings and pieces of bark while a few of the fallen trees that had been previously cut down were now lined up neatly next to another stump off to the far right.

Crack!

He jumped a little and put a hand to his heart; following the sound with his eyes, he hopped over a few barren trunks that had been shaved of their bark, noticing the carved marks that dented the smooth surfaces. The job had mostly likely been done with a hard-edged tool and not an actual sand belt, which was a bit archaic when he thought about it.

Another loud crack had him stumbling over a pile of bark and he rushed forward to figure out who the fuck was making all of the noise. With his luck, it was probably some psycho axe-wielding asshat—

John stopped short when the glint of a metal axe caught the yellows and reds from the sky as it was being raised. He watched as firm hands gripped the wooden handle; arms raising to arc above the shoulders and pausing for only a moment before the figure pivoted like a batter-up, swinging so fast that the metal blurred into a single solid shape of force as it sliced through the remaining wood cleanly. He and the troll at the base of the birch watched as the tree tipped back and forth a few times, swaying with its newfound freedom of not having anything sturdy attaching it to the ground before finally deciding to fall towards the right. It hit with a low thump and John felt the momentary vibrations shoot right up through his shoes, tingling his feet.

“Woah…” He mumbled as heavy silence took over.

The troll in front of him whip around so fast that John had barely three and a half seconds to register the action to hit the fucking deck before hearing the shink-ing sound of the axe whipping past his head. Wind skirted across his ears as it flew by and buried itself a few feet behind them in the dirt. He let out a choked breath and sat up slowly to look at where the hell the axe had landed.

The fuck?

John turned his head back to the troll, ready to ask him what the hell that was all about, when the feeling of hands shoved at him, forcing him to fall onto his back and crush him against the ground. The troll climbed on top of him and held a thick, rough stick against his windpipe. All attempts at shoving him off went in vain as John’s arms were pinned under the troll’s knees and the rest of his weight was placed on his chest when the troll shifted and sat back.

John kicked his legs when the pressure against his throat increased and he started to see spots of white. “Wait, wait, wait! Don’t kill me! Fuck.”

The pressure stopped as apathetic yellow eyes blinked at him from above, watching as he sucked in a few breaths. “What are you doing here…”

He coughed and grunted. “Well, I… was just going for a walk.”

“And you just happened to stumble upon the place where I’m trying to do work.”

“Well actually, a bird led me here.”

He watched as the troll’s face scrunched up; the sharp ends of his teeth poking against the soft bottom lip as the upper lip curled out and skywards. The corners of the troll’s eyes crinkled as he narrowed them, brows furrowed, pupils flitting back and forth as he jumped from making eye contact with both of John’s. 

“Jesus, fuck.” All at once the weight of both the troll and the stick at his neck relieved itself as the male rolled off and stood in a single fluid motion. John swallowed and winced; rolling onto his stomach, he watched as the troll kicked at the dirt a few times, pinecones and bark flying everywhere, before bending down and picking up the discarded axe.

He swung it onto a shoulder and looked at John.

“Um.” John stood, making sure to hold his hands out to where they were visible. “You’re not… gunna throw that at me again, are you?”

The troll’s eyes narrowed. “I will if you piss me off.”

He gave the male an uneasy laugh. “Well, I’ll try not to then.”

The male rolled his eyes. “Don’t you have a gathering to get back to?”

“Um, no not really. I don’t even think they've noticed I’m gone yet.”

John rubbed at his cheek and watched as the troll let out a long sigh before swinging the axe down and dragging it through the dirt. He continued to walk past John and over to where he had been before, holding the axe above his head and sinking it into a newly chopped trunk with a dull thud. He bent over, grabbing one of the fallen trees by the end of its trunk and started to drag it over into the middle of the clearing.

John blinked and stood slowly. “Sooo… what are you doing? I mean, all the way out here… by yourself.”

“Chopping down trees. What does it look like, idiot?”

John scowled. “I know that. But I mean, what for?” He gestured to the rather large piles of wood already gathered in neat stacks. “It looks like you already have plenty to pick from.”

“It’s a stress reliever.”

He blinked and looked around at the piles of wood littering the area, another uneasy laugh escaping his lips. “You must have a lot of stress then…”

The troll sighed again and stood up straight, twisting around to glare over his shoulder. “Did you want something, or what?”

“Not really…” John frowned a little when the troll continued to glare. He shook it off and plastered a smile back onto his face. “But I know we haven’t been properly introduced yet, so.”

He jogged over and stuck out his hand. “Hi! I’m John Egbert and you are…?”

The troll looked down and stared at his hand for a good thirteen seconds before looking back up. He narrowed his eyes and scrunched up his face, giving what John guessed was a confused look given the way his brows were creased. He couldn’t really be sure though, since every time John had met the kid, he’d either had a similar look that was coupled with being pissed off or exasperation.

He laughed a little. “You’re supposed to shake it.”

“Shake what?”

“My hand, weirdo.”

The troll growled. “Why the hell would I do that? You probably have some sick nasty germs on you.”

“Aw, c’mon. It’s what you do when you’re introducing yourself to someone.”

“Well I don’t want to introduce myself.”

John laughed again. “Why not?”

His arm was getting a little tired but John was feeling particularly determined today. He didn’t really know why… but there was something about this exchange that he felt would be monumental in its importance later on down the line. Maybe in time they could become best friends, maybe worst enemies, maybe something in between who really knew. But John was willing to take the risk of getting his face punched in in order to do this right.

Now that he thought about it… that sounded kind of weird…

“Because I don’t want to.”

“C’mon. Pleeeease?”

“No.”

“Pleeeeease? I’m saying it so nicely.”

The male let out a frustrated growl and fisted his hands at his sides. “Shut up.”

“Not until you shake my hand and introduce yourself.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup.”

“Ugh…” The male gave his hand one last glare before he slowly lifted his own, uncrimped each individual finger from its fist and placed his hand in John’s grasp. John squeezed lightly, noting that his palm was surprisingly soft and warm for someone so rough and angry and the skin didn’t feel at all that different than his. Who knew their species were so similar!

Okay well Rose probably did, but she never shared anything without being asked first and seriously whenever someone did ask her for the scoop she always tended to give a long roundabout answer that made you have to think about it for at least fifteen minutes after getting her to finally shut up.

Not… that he would ever tell that to her face though.

He gave the other an expectant look.

The male rolled his eyes. “Karkat.”

“Karkat…?”

“……Vantas.”

John beamed. “Nice to meet you, Karkat!”

“Yeah…”

When the troll slipped his hand away, John didn’t hold it against him. Nor… when he wiped his hand on his pants non-too-subtly. Making new friends was always a weird process, he knew from experience, and… plus the troll didn’t really seem like that much of a people person anyway.

Gee, John. Ya think?

He shook his head a little. But he could tell though, under that rough exterior, there was someone that just wanted a good, sturdy shoulder to lean on. He had seen it a lot when he had first become friends with Dave and Rose. They both had been pretty rough around the edges, especially when he and Jade had entered the picture so suddenly wanting to be friends. Rose was convinced that it was all her doing, the subtle ploys to get them all to be friends because they had been bored with each other and needed to add new excitement into their lives. But he and Jade hadn’t been that naïve; they had seen what the Strider-Lalonde duo had been up to. They’d never admitted it, but John, and Jade too, had seen how desperate they had been to become friends with people other then who they had grown up with.

There was a need there for more than just themselves to depend on. Rose was getting tired of Dave and Dave was getting tired of Rose, and they had thought that their only solution had been to bring John and his cousin into the picture to break up the tension. But as Jade had pointed out several times in the beginning to him, the blondes’ had both been severally troubled and they needed someone other than each other to help them through whatever it was that they had caught themselves up in. Be it teenaged angst or otherwise.

And John liked helping people, especially those who didn’t know that they needed help in the first place. Karkat seemed like a classic example of putting everyone first and then ending up completely miserable at the end when there was nothing left for himself. It wasn’t that hard to see if you looked at the right angle or if you knew the behavior from personal experience. And maybe he could hide it well enough when he was around his own friends, but here it was plainly visible to someone like John who happened to be keenly observant about certain things.

His friends were precious to him. And maybe in time, he could help Karkat break out of the vicious cycle he had gotten himself stuck in and he could become someone precious to him too.

…Jeez, why did that sound so weird? Why was everything sounding so weird?

He should… probably ask Dave.

John’s watch started to beep. He blinked and brought it up to eye-level; jeez it was that late already? He pushed the side button to turn off the noise and looked at the troll who was pulling another of his exasperated/irritated faces.

John laughed a little. “Sorry to cut this so short but I actually have to go back to the other side of the Lake now. I forgot we had to get up early to go hiking in the morning.”

Yellow eyes blinked at him. “You guys go hiking?”

He nodded. “Well sure, and then after lunch I think we’re all playing water polo.”

Karkat gave him another weird look, this time something that he couldn’t really decipher before he shook his head and waved a hand at him. He took that as a sign that he was being dismissed and gave the other a short wave before starting to walk back towards the path.

“I’ll be seeing you around then!” 

“Yeah, don’t count on it.”

John laughed and turned around to jog the rest of the way back.

 

--

 

Karkat dreamt of him again that night.

It wasn’t often, and the lucidity of his dreams frequently left him as soon as his head hit the pillow and it was lights out for five or less hours. But tonight must have been different. The erratic 360 of his sleep schedule was probably what had tipped the scale and all of a sudden he found himself flying down the non-existential vortex of validity and face-planting into What The Fuck territory that had his thinkpan spinning.

Actually, it was more of a long and unfortunately very recognizable white corridor that he managed to wind up in.

He sighed to himself and shuffled along the opal-colored pearl tiles that lined the hall’s walkway. It had been a while since his subconscious had forced the reoccurring dream forward into the temporal part of his brain and he wondered, again, at what triggered it. It was usually high stress or anger. But then, he had been having a lot of that lately— which was no news to anyone— but this was the first time since arriving at Sgrub that the dream had taken form.

And what a complete fucking nightmare it was.

He remembered Kanaya titillating, again, at his worsening insomnia just this morning; complaining that if he would for once get more sleep then the three or so that he usually did his screwball head wouldn’t be giving him such mind numbingly cryptic dreams whenever it wanted. But then again who was she to judge when she was off sneaking to the other side of the Lake every night till morning with her new gal-pal Leijon.

Yeah, like he hadn’t fucking noticed that one. And they thought they were being sooo sneaky too, wandering out after everyone had turned in for the night. Yeah, well newsflash for them: he saw and knew everything that went on in their godforsaken joke of a training camp. And nothing ever got by him. Ever.

Karkat stopped when the hallway came to an end and the expanse of the whiteness continued onward into a vast and empty space that looked to go on for miles and miles and maybe even eons if he walked long enough. The silence was deafening and he found it that much more hilariously ludicrous because of course his dream mind would have complete fucking silence when his own waking thoughts were full of such a clusterfuck of feelings and emotions and just goddamn everything that he could barely think straight half of the time.

He had been here before, too though. Many times. And honestly? He really wasn’t feeling up to this bullshit again. He had too much to do and too little time to do it, screw his body’s need for sleep and all of that other baloney.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, willing himself to relax and count down starting from ten. It was an old trick he had learned back in the Providences, when he got stuck in a tight spot and needed to get out fast but the chance of an imperial drone coming around the corner or any number of things that threatened his survival could come crashing down at any second. It helped him click his head into the right set of gears and for his natural Fight or Flight instincts to take over while the rational part of his thinkpan continued to remain intact enough to not let him get himself accidentally culled or worse.

Seven… six… five… four…

“You aren’t even going to say ‘hello’ before you go?”

Karkat flinched and kept his back towards the voice, scrunching his eyes closed harder and counting back from ten again. God damn him.

“Karkat.”

“Fucking christ… what?”

“You shouldn’t wake yourself. You need the sleep.”

“What I need is to get the hell outta here,” He muttered.

There was a soft sigh that it made his insides do weird things. Flip-flop around like they did around Terezi when she was being especially cruel to him. He had to swallow down a wad of spit that for some reason refused to slide down his protein chute and settle into his digestive tract where it belonged. Why the hell was this getting him all choked up? He wasn’t supposed to be feeling bad, he never felt bad! Especially when dealing with this asshole and giving him a well-deserved lecture on leaving him the hell alone. Perhaps it was just the human hormones that that Egbert kid had rubbed off on him when they shook hands.

His blood boiled in sudden remembrance. Fucking Egbert—

“I am only trying to help.”

Karkat threw a glare over his shoulder. “I don’t need your goddamn help.”

He watched as the male remained still in that eerie way that made him want a dozen mirrors plastered around himself so that he could see from all sides. Tattered, grey robes barely traced the floor and Karkat watched sturdy hands appear from underneath them; long, nimble fingers— yellow nails the only source of color on them— laced themselves in front of the male’s pelvis as they continued to stare at each other. 

In another life, they probably would have been described as piano hands.

“You look tired.”

Karkat couldn’t tell what the other troll’s expression was because of the hood obstructing his view, but he didn’t doubt that it was probably a serene mask of concern, laced with pity and probably a little humor because the fucker was always always in a positive mood. Never once had he seen the other irritated or frustrated or god forbid angry. It was always calm, cool and collected on his end, while Karkat himself was a rageball of fury and regret, so they were just two peas in a mess-up little pod, weren’t they.

It pissed him off so much that he could feel his pulse escalating, pounding a drumbeat through his sound cavities. So much for getting out of the dream quickly and without any interruptions.

“Wow, thanks for the newsflash. Couldn’t tell that for myself, thank you very much.”

“I am only trying to help.”

“I know, you said that already.”

The male unlaced his hands and held them out wide, making them parallel with the floor; a flash of his black and red leggings peaking through the gaps of his cloak. “I am sorry I angered you. My only means is to help. I don’t know what more you would like for me to do.”

“Well you can start by leaving me alone, how ‘bout that?”

He dropped his arms, his ropes fluttering down with the sudden motion. They stood in silence again, uncomfortable this time around, while Karkat felt his stomach do acrobatic dances with his intestines. Jesus, it felt like they were performing the freaking flamenco in there for the All Star Championships, Las Vegas edition.

Why was this making him so upset? He never showed any respect for the pretentious shit that spewed out of this guy’s mouth every time they met. And he most certainly never felt bad about calling him out on it, especially the insufferable ‘I just wanna help’ revolting kindness that literally poured out of every single orifice the male possessed. Half the time it felt like Karkat was going to all but drown in it, the iron ball and chain of his own self-righteous who-give’s-a-damn weighing him down and bringing him farther and farther into the deep end after each dream— nightmare. 

Goddamn.

And now all of a sudden he was concerned about hurting the feelings of this guy? No, fuck that noise, he was so not going down the touchy-feely route of complete bullshit. That ship and set sail for no-one-gives-a-rat’s-ass-Nevada eons ago and it wasn’t coming back ever.

The male twinned his fingers together again and started walking east at a slow pace. Unconsciously, Karkat felt his feet start to follow. It was weird that their footsteps hardly made a sound, well more like his footsteps barely made a sound; the male in front of him was gliding on the tiles so lightly that he couldn’t even hear the flutter of his cloak as they ambled along. It felt like he was following after a phantom, which in truth he pretty much was if you squinted hard enough.

“I know you don’t believe me when I say anything. But I do very much care about you.” The hood turned his way and it got him to stop walking for a second. “And I know that you’re especially frightened and frustrated right now, what with everything that has been going on.” The male waved his hand in the air in a circular gesture; he too, stopped walking when there was a large gap between them.

“I’m not frightened.” Karkat bristled, his shoulders tensing.

“There isn’t a need to lie to me.” His tone was so patient that it caused the hackles on the back of Karkat’s neck to rise.

“I’m not-!” He clamped his mouth shut with an audible snap. What was the fucking point anyway? They both already knew the truth so denying it any further would just make both of their heads hurt and make himself look like more of an asshole than he already was. Plus he was feeling pretty crummy anyway and he really didn’t feel like adding to the acidic stew that was rolling around in his lower abdominals.

“Is there anyone that you feel comfortable confiding in? I’m afraid that all of this stress is doing horrendous things on your body and mind. Perhaps talking about it will alleviate some of the weight.”

He rolled his eyes. “If I did, I would’ve done it already.”

“Are you sure?”

Karkat blinked. The sudden challenge in the male’s voice startled him. Since when did he grow a backbone and start talking back? 

“I don’t know, Signless. Why don’t you tell me?”

There was another soft sigh as the male turned slightly and looked off into the vast whiteness that surrounded them. They were the only things of color here and he thought it was weird to view them as such since both of them were wearing nothing but black with maybe a dash of mute color here or there. The older male went still again, his whole body freezing into a living statue; he didn’t even look like he was breathing. And he probably wasn’t; what was the point in breathing if you were already dead?

Answer: there was no point.

Karkat had to blink a few times and shift his weight around to make sure he wasn’t turning into a statue as well.

Jesus, was this really what happened to you after you were…

“I truly do not know.”

“Well I guess you better get a clue then, huh.”

The male turned, reached up and pulled his hood back a little, revealing the lower half of his face and a flash of the bright red eyes that they both knew Karkat was to inherit by the end of this year at the latest. The intensity of the color made him a little dizzy. How would you even classify that as a color? It was too bright to be considered venetian, too deep of a flush to be considered rose or ruby, even crimson paled in comparison.

It was as dark and bright of a color as the red of a target. A big bullseye that was plastered invisibly on his back and right between both of his eyes.

It suddenly made him want to cry.

What he wouldn’t give for Aradia’s rust blood.

“I hope you sleep well, my friend.” The other’s voice was soft but it carried across the distance that separated them with ease.

“I’m not your friend...” His own voice sounded hallow even to his own ears. God… damn everything…

 Signless flashed him a soft smile before pulling the hood back down and letting the whiteness fade out into the inky black that was Karkat’s dreams.

Chapter Text

 

[[Music]]

Karkat found himself the next morning out by the trail that led off into the median. It was a little chilly out this early even if they were a ways inland and the breeze from the water wasn’t blowing directly at them. He found himself wrapping his over-sized sweatshirt tighter around his midsection and twisting the fabric around his hands in hopes to gather a little more heat to the starved appendages.

It wasn’t really working all that great. Which was dumb because he was the hottest-blooded troll here and you’d think he wouldn’t freeze as much as the rest of them did. Or maybe that was their immunity; he never really bothered— or cared for that matter— to ask. 

The group of four standing in front of he and Sollux had decided late last night that they'd wanted to venture over to the other side of the Lake in hopes of joining the humans for their early-morning-to-mid-afternoon hike. Aradia had been the first to hear about it, he suspected, from one of the dark-haired humans— the boy in particular. He noticed that they had been blabbing to the entire camp about all of the activities that they did over at their camp— as innocent as they all made it seem— and as soon as Megido had heard about a hike and possible explorations of the caves over by the human's side, well… it hadn’t taken her long to gather a small group to go on over with. Especially since the past few days everyone had pretty much been acting like they had been smoking sugar cane they were so eager to meet their new ‘next door neighbors’.

Which Karkat thought was incredibly ridiculous, it’s not like they’d never seen a human before. There were plenty of the buggers in the city!

Apparently proverbial humans just weren’t cutting it these days…

 “Did you remember to pack extra socks?”

“Uh... sure.”

“Do you have your hat?”

“Yes.

“What about your jacket?”

“I’m wearing them both, dummy…”

“Ah, yes. Right. Well. What about a—”

“Equius.” Nepeta growled. “As your meowrail I command you to shut the fuck up befurr you make me punch you.”

The group around them sighed.

“You know,” Aradia stepped forward, hiking her backpack higher up onto her shoulder. “If you’re really that worried, you can certainly join us, Equius.”

She was wearing her ridiculous mountaineer outfit, complete with the famous archeology dig Troll Indiana Jones’ snap brim fedora hat, matching dark green shirt and khakis and those huge ass hiker boots that she really liked to kick people’s shins with when she got pissed.

All she needed was a whip and a little shota boy side-kick and her outfit would’ve been complete.

Karkat had to cough into his hand in order to mask his surprised laugh when Nepeta started to frantically wave her hands around at Aradia while her moirail turned his back to speak with the other. He felt for her, Equius was a total brute and when it came to his palemate nothing would get in the way of him protecting her— even if that meant treating her like a priceless little china doll. She hated it though, which was completely obvious to anyone with half a brain and decent eye sight, so she took any chance she could get to catch a break from him and the overbearing mama-bird dotting.

He was glad he and Gamzee weren’t that way.

Well… most of the time...

Terezi grinned wide, showing off both rows of teeth. “The walk over is pretty dangerous after all.”

He still couldn’t figure out why Terezi had volunteered to show them the way over. She was never one to do things unless they had their own benefits package for her attached right along with it and leading the group over to the other side for just a hike didn’t seem at all like her style. She found conventional activities boring unless forced into doing them and even then she put up a stink about it. Her talents were far better utilized else where she liked to preach at him every chance she got when he’d ask the group to help with certainly things like say, maybe, cleaning up the camp every once in a while?

T’ch.

Plus Nepeta already knew the way, or so he thought…

But then again what wasn’t suspicious about Terezi these days.

“Perhaps I shall, then.”

Nepeta clawed at her face and visibly held in a scream.

“Alright then,” Aradia nodded. “Why don’t you go grab your stuff and we’ll wait here.”

“No need.” Equius held up Nepeta’s bag. “I’ve packed more than enough for the both of us.”

“Ugh.” Nepeta hung her head and slapped her forehead with both palms.

“Excellent!” Aradia clapped her hand together and turned, pumping her fist up into the air. “Alright gang, let’s get going then!”

Karkat had to cough into his hand again as she made them literally march into the woods in a one-by-one single file line like in human primary schools. No one, except Terezi, looked like they were enjoying themselves and poor Nepeta was practically being dragged off by the scruff of her jacket by her moirail. She was letting out some rather frustrated snarls and he could practically see the hackles on the back of her neck rising once Equius picked her up and hefted her over a large, sturdy shoulder.

Sollux bent down a little just in time for Aradia to hop up onto her tippy-toes and peck him on the cheek quickly. He snorted and they both watched as she grinned and went bounding off into the woods after her charges like a gazelle.

Crazy kids…

“You’re in a good mood this morning.”

Karkat shrugged. “More like I’ve been resigned to the fate that whatever I tell them to do they’ll do the complete opposite.”

Sollux shook his head and clapped a hand onto his shoulder. “Give ‘em a break. You worked them to the bone yesterday before the humans came over for their visit. I think they deserve a little fun in between, don’t you?”

He grunted and jacked a brow up. “If I had it my way there wouldn’t even be a word known as ‘fun’.”

The psiioniic laughed and shoved his hand back into his pocket. “I know, I know. But hey, if it makes you feel any better, TZ’ll be out of your hair for at least five hours. That counts for something, right?”

He sighed and had to nod his head at that one. “Alright. You got me there.”

They turned and started the walk back to their cabins. God he felt tired and by the looks of it, he wasn’t the only one. He watched, and ducked, as Sollux stretched his arms out wide and let out an earth shattering yawn that had his psiioniics sparking like firecrackers. The electric flares travelled right up Karkat’s spine and extended outwards, making every hair on his body stand on end.

He shivered with the vibrations.  

His friend gave him a toothy grin. “Whoops, sorry ‘bout that.”

Karkat patted his hair down, fixing the other with a fishy look. “Uh-huh…”

“Well, I’m gunna head to bed and catch a few more hours.” He watched as Sollux held in another yawn. “You coming?”

He started nodding. “Yeah, I-” The toe-end of his foot caught onto something and he pitched forward, barely holding in a surprised ‘shit’ before a hand grabbed onto his upper arm and hauled him back upright. Karkat blinked and looked back at what his foot had caught onto, rolling his eyes when he spotted the portable first aid kit Aradia usually carried around lying in the dirt.  

He sighed and picked it up to brush off the dust.

Sollux put a finger to his nose. “Not it.”

Karkat scowled and sighed again. “The one day that I actually want to sleep…” He shook his head and started to walk backwards. “If I’m not back in a half hour, I’m dead and you’re officially in charge.”

His friend grinned. “Roger that, Captain. I’ll make sure to give everyone the day off for your burial.”

He rolled his eyes and waved a hand at him before turning around and jogging out onto the path that led to the median. He hoped that the group hadn’t gotten far— which it would’ve been just his luck that they were halfway over by now— because he really wasn’t feeling up to traveling the whole way over to the other side just to have to come all the way back after two minutes of handing over the medi-kit and exchanging a few ‘hey-how-are-ya’s’.

Yeah, no thanks.

Plus he was, like, really fucking tired. More so than his garden variety sleep-while-sitting-up and verging into the passing-right-the-fuck-out-here-in-the-middle-of-the-woods territory.

Wow, yeah, he really needed to get some sleep. Pronto.

Not five minutes later though, Karkat found himself jumping over a pile of rocks like a fucking ninja and pushing past a few overhanging branches and into what opened up to a small clearing.

It wasn’t like the meadow over by the human’s side, this one was a lot smaller and had a lot more tall grass and weeds sticking out in random patches than the human’s did with all their flowers and bullshit. He slowed to a stop and had to bend over to catch his breath. Jesus he was really out of shape... When the hell had that happened? Wasn’t it just yesterday that he was strifing with Gamzee out by the training grounds?

Actually, no, he really wasn’t when he thought about it; he could usually go a lot longer than this, hell, he could usually fucking run the entire distance over to the other side no problem— he’d done it before. Crap, he was probably a lot more tired than he originally thought and if judging by the way his vision blurred and started to make him feel dizzy was any indication.

He needed to sit down. Or lay, yeah lying down was good too.

Oh god, yes, that felt great.  

Karkat let out a low groan and let himself face-plant into the grass— which was actually, surprisingly, incredibly soft against his cheek; the medi-kit hung loose in one of his outstretched hands. He probably looked like some random dead body left out in the middle of the woods to rot but he really couldn’t bring himself to care too much when the sun was starting to shine from between the trees, warming him a little, and his aching eyes were beginning to drift shut involuntarily.

Eh… the others would be fine without the kit. It was more of an Aradia Precaution anyway, she always tended to over-pack when it came to adventures. And he rationalized with himself that if any of his trolls did get hurt, the humans wouldn’t be too completely dumbstruck not to get them some help from their own camp.

He was hoping.

…Really hoping.

‘Cause fuck if he was getting up from the most comfortable position he’d ever lied down in right now. God, this was great; not even sky-flyers were making their irritatingly loud-ass chirps. It was just him, the sun and the cool breeze that was keeping his whole body in a trance-like equilibrium as he felt himself start to slip into beta waves. 

Yes, this was nice.

His eyes popped open when the sound of someone carelessly stomping through the woods broke the peaceful quiet that had descended over the clearing. He slowly picked his head up and turned towards the sound; it was coming from the other side of the woods. Karkat continued to remain still, eyes darting back and forth across the expanse of tree lines, the ever-present fight-or-flight gearing up to kick in if need-be.

What he wasn’t expecting, however, was John fucking Egbert to come trudging into the clearing, alone. It was kind of momentarily amusing, actually, to watch him watch his feet while he walked along the path; a large stick trailing behind him, digging into the dirt much like what Terezi liked to do with the head of her walking cane. It took the human a good few seconds to look up before he spotted the troll lying in the grass and stop dead in his tracks.

They stared at each other for a solid minute and fourteen seconds before John’s face broke out into an irritatingly large grin. “Hi!”

Karkat sighed loudly.

John wasn’t deterred. “What’re you doing all the way out here?”

The troll grunted and rested his chin against the grass again, his eyes sliding closed almost automatically. “Sleeping. What’s it look like.”

“Oh.” There was a long pause and Karkat had half a mind to open his eyes for a second to see what kind of face the human was making— and he would’ve too if his body wasn't completely dead-set on shutting the hell down. “I forgot you guys sleep during the day.”

He grunted again, listening to the sound of John shift around awkwardly from twenty feet away. His hearing wasn’t as good as Terezi’s— that girl had friggen super hearing— but he could still manage to hear the human open and closed his mouth a few times, probably biting his lip too, before he slowly started to walk closer.

“You didn’t really answer my question, though.”

“And that was?” God he was so far gone, his words were starting to blur together.

“What are you doing all the way out here?” And when he didn’t answer right away, John added. “I mean, over on this side. Do trolls usually sleep outside?”

Karkat groaned and lifted up his face to rub a hand over it. “You aren’t going to shut up, are you?”

John had the heart to give him a slightly guilty look. “Sorry, I was just curious.” He swung the stick around in the air. “I just wanted to know if you were okay… I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

The troll gave him a half-annoyed, half-exasperated look. “I’m not mad.”

“Oh…”  

And because he hated himself for actually feeling a little bad for the kid, he added. “I’m just tired.”

The human nodded and looked around again, blue eyes darting around the clearing and then the sky and then back at him. Seriously those eyes shouldn’t even be a real color, they were just too ridiculously striking.

“…Mind if I sit with you?”

Karkat raised a brow. “You going to shut up and let me sleep?”

When he nodded, Karkat let out another long sigh and dropped his face into the grass again; watching through partially closed eyes as John sat down slowly, cross-legged, and looked up at the sky quietly. He stayed like that for a while, watching the clouds, and after Karkat could no longer fight to keep his eyes open, he let himself drift off into a thankfully dreamless sleep.

 

--

 

He woke to the sound of soft laughter. It was breathy and surprised, taken away as a light wind blew across his face and tickled the hair tucked around his ears. The sun was setting when he opened his eyes; the once bright yellow rays from this morning were now a deep golden red as they darted through the peek-holes in the trees and bushes. He squinted and then closed his eyes again.

More soft laughter.

Karkat rolled onto his side and looked up, blinking a few times as the image of John Egbert became crystal clear. The human was sitting up and smiling down at him, the corners of his eyes crinkled under the frames of his glasses as his smile stretched wider across his face. He was about to ask him what the hell was so funny when he felt his fingers start to ache. He looked over and watched as his own fucking traitorous fingers wound themselves tighter around ivory skin; yellow nails digging lightly into the slightly freckled forearm.

He snatched his hand back so fast that he almost hit himself in the face.

How long had he been holding on to John like that?! 

“You sleep like a cat.”

“A… what?” Jesus was that his voice? He cleared his throat and coughed a few times to get rid of the raspy-ness.

“A cat. You know,” John held up limp hands in front of his face. “Meow?”

It made him roll his eyes. “I know what a cat is.”

John laughed again and dropped his hands back into his lap. “Then why did you ask?”

“Because we don’t call it… that.”

Blue eyes blinked at him. “Really? What do you call it?”

Karkat rolled onto his back and stretched out his arms, he blinked a few times up at the darkening sky. There were fewer clouds now. “What… time is it?”

“Hm? Oh,” Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as the human lifted his arm and pulled back his sleeve. “It’s about seven-thirty.”

“Jesus Christ!” Karkat shot up and twisted around to look at the human. “Why the hell didn’t you wake me up?!”

John blinked at him again and leaned back at little, clearly surprised at the sudden blast of liveliness. He couldn’t blame him though; he was practically a living corpse only a few minutes before. “Uh… well you looked like you needed to sleep so… I dunno. I just… let you sleep.” He shrugged awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck.

Karkat… found it strangely endearing. He immediately decided that he hated the human a little bit more.

“So, what. You’ve just been watching me sleep this entire time?” He narrowed his eyes and leaned forward, making sure to make complete eye contact with him. “Is that some kind of weird human-kink?”

The human’s mouth hung open as he stumbled over words. “Wha-? I! No! I was just… t-trying to be nice! I mean I kind of took a nap too like halfway through after I got bored of cloud watching!”

He gave the human a disgruntled look and leaned back. Whatever, he could deal with this later. Right now he needed to focus and get back to his own campsite to round everyone up so that they could start training. He ran through a mental list quickly, trying to think where he was going to send everyone tonight. Maybe he could send the highbloods to target training while the midbloods went over to do some heavy lifting. Plus everyone knew Vriska liked to sneak a few extra sweets at dinner when no one was looking so they needed the push. Lowbloods needed to focus more on strategy. They were already excelling in target practice, not to mention they were all stronger and a little better fit than the midbloods; it was incredible watching them outshine the mid and highers sometimes.

Sollux better’ve started without him or so help him god he would filet them all and leave them out so that the sun could dry them up like a goddamn roast.

He reached for the medi-pack at his side, furrowing his brow when he only felt grass. He looked down and then around him in a circle when he didn’t see it.

“Where’d the-?”

“Oh, the little first aid kit you had?” When he looked up, the human gave him an awkward smile. “I texted Dave and he came and got it when he brought me lunch.” The smile widened to reveal his front teeth. “Hope you don’t mind.”

This time it was Karkat’s turn to have his mouth hang open.

John’s face fell a little. “Sorry… I just didn’t want to wake you.”

Karkat shook his head and then closed his eyes to let out a long sigh. Okay… now he really needed to get back to his own campsite or he was going to start blowing another fuse. He had been trying to work on the explosive anger for the past week and so far he had been managing it pretty damn well if he had to speak for himself. Yeah, sure, he still whipped out the verbal lashings like he was an Egyptian soldier but he had gotten better at controlling the boiling rage.

He had been trying to keep a firm lid on it ever since he’d yelled at Kanaya. She hadn’t really been talking to him since; she was still dotting on him sometimes but then again, she did that with everyone else too. It was in her nature as a Jade to take care of people and provide, no matter how shitty they treated her in return or as a thanks. He was still… feeling like complete crap about it. And past him was an asshole for not trying to be at least a little more considerate towards his ashen quadrant. She was, after all, what held him together most days.

Fuck, he really needed to apologize.

“It’s… fine. Look, I’ve got to get back to my camp and make sure they haven’t burned the place down so… yeah.” He started to stand. “Thanks for, uh, letting me sleep… next to you…” He felt himself start to make a face, jesus he was never this awkward sounding. What the hell was wrong with him? He quelled the urge to smack his cheeks a few times to get his head straight.

“Oh!” John pushed himself up as well. “That’s fine, I can walk with you. My friends are all over there anyway.”

Karkat blinked a few times and stared. “What.”

Blue eyes darted around and then focused back on him. “Yeah, they… went over there after lunch. Something about a cook-out, I think? I don’t really know. I was only half paying attention when Dave told me.”

“But you said it was seven-thirty.”

“Y..eah…?”

“And they’re still fooling around?”

“I…I guess,”

He let out a growl and bared his teeth, watching as John’s eyes widen and visibly restrained himself from taking a step back— or several. Were they fucking serious? Was no one taking this shit seriously? They were all going to be culled by the beginning of fall at this rate. Forgetting the fucking exam!

“I’m going to killthem all.” He hissed and spun around, fast walking towards the path that led to his side of the Lake.

John followed quickly after. “Why? Aren’t they allowed to have a little fun?”

“We don’t have time for fun! Goddamn, why don’t any of you people get that?”

“I don’t know, maybe because it makes no sense?”

Karkat stumbled a little and almost had to throw out an arm to catch himself. Well well well, look who had decided to grow a pair. He let himself scoff and throw a glare over a shoulder, watching as the human bobbed and weaved around branches and sticks to keep up with him. He had to admit, the kid was doing pretty good considering he was at least a head taller and more awkwardly angled then Karkat was.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

He heard a loud sigh and then a curse that was followed by the sound of a hell of a lot of branches snapping. “I’m not asking you to, I’m just saying that all it seems you guys do is ‘work’ and ‘train’, whatever that means. I just want to know what for.”

Karkat stopped and whipped around, watching as blue eyes widen and John came to a halting stop in front of him. He ran his eyes up and down the other, pausing when they made eye contract.

“Why?”

Pale lips tugged downwards as the human shrugged. “Curiosities sake? And because you guys have got this whole mysterious troll thing going on that’s kind of freaking us all out.”

“Good. Maybe it’ll make you stay away, then.”

John smiled a little. “You and I both know that’s never going to happen.”

Karkat could feel his face dropping into a deeper frown. “Why not.”

The human let out a breathy laugh. “Because both of our friends are way too interested with each other, for one.”

He let out a long, heavy sigh and ran a hand through his hair to brush it back. Having the ability to turn back time would’ve been such a kickass— not to mention complete useful— ability. At numerous points in his life he had fantasized about owning a little watch with the ability to move and bend time at his will— kind of like in that one movie where the kid had a time machine car to go back to 1955, but instead it would be a watch because watches were a hell of a lot more practical then cars and better looking too; plus it just made a lot more sense since watches told time in the first place. He could undo anything he wanted or fast forward through the awkward or unpleasant shit that seemed to literally make up his entire life’s story. He could even rewind all the way back until the moment he was hatched and undo the whole damn thing.

Karkat let out another sigh, looking up to see John giving him another questioning look. “We’re training for a ceremony that is held at the end of the summer for all adolescence moving forward into adulthood.”

John nodded slowly. “So… it’s like an entrance exam?”

“Sort of. But it’s more of an entrance exam into adulthood. And if you don’t pass it, well… bad things happen.”  

“Like what?”

“I really don’t want to get into it. It’s long and complicated and truthfully I just want to get back to my camp and beat some heads in for non-compliance. So, you can tag along or not, I really don’t give a shit at this point.”

Neither of them moved as the uncomfortable stand-still increased ten-fold when John started to bite his lip and fidget around like he had something crawling up his leg. What was it with humans and not being able to stand still? Especially this kid— it was like he was in hyper drive while the rest of the world was stuck in slow-mo speed and he was waiting for everyone to catch up. And the worst part was, the human probably didn’t even notice he was doing it, judging by the way his eyes started darting around again.

Then again, maybe it was just a John Egbert Thing.

Karkat had to resist the urge to shake his head. Man, what was with him and the sudden onslaught of analogies and observations lately, anyway? Every time he was around this kid, his head started acting funny and his brain went into manic-mode— pressing out stupid thoughts and actions that usually made him want to beat himself over the head at any other given time.

But here he was, trying to figure out if the human was antsy or just had to pee.

Fuck, was this what it was like to be inside the mind of a schizophrenic? Good god, if it was he didn’t want it. Or even touch it with a ten-foot pole. Or Terezi’s sharp-ass walking cane.

“Uh, on second thought… I think I’m just gunna head back.” John rubbed the back of his neck and started to walk backwards. “But it was really nice hanging out with you, er, well. Sleeping… next to you, I guess.” He waved his arms. “Anyway. I guess I’ll just let you get back to your troops and stuff. Uh, try not to hurt my friends, okay? And if Dave or Rose start giving you attitude, just threaten them with the pictures on my phone and they’ll shut up. They can be a handful but Jade knows how to keep them together.”

He waved once and smiled. “Bye, Karkat.” And with that, he turned around and jogged down the path.

Karkat stood in a daze and watched as the human slowly faded into the now settling night, the forest and darkening light swallowing him up without any resistance; he realized only after the human was completely gone from sight that he had his hand raised and had been waving at John’s retreating back the entire time.

He let out a growl and grabbed onto his arm, god damn it.

 

--

 

“You’ve been pushing your spaghetti around for like five minutes, Egbert. The hell’s eating you?”

John looked up and rested his chin on a hand with a sigh. “I dunno… I think I made Karkat mad again.”

Blonde brows pushed themselves together. “Which one’s that?”

“The loud, shouty one that bosses people around all the time.”

“Ah, right. What’d you do this time?”

“That’s just it! I have no clue.” He threw his arms up and was thankful that Rose and Jade weren’t sitting with them today or else he would’ve smacked his poor cousin square in the face.

“I thought you two were all good. When I brought you lunch he was all chill and hanging onto your arm like a goddamn lizard.”

“Yeah, I know. But then he woke up and got all angry when I mentioned that you guys were having your cookout thing over at the troll’s camp. He pretty much stormed off after telling me he was going to go beat some heads in.”

Dave popped a sausage into his mouth. “Hm.”

“Sorry I got you kicked out by the way…”

The blonde waved. “Nah, its fine.”

He sighed. “Like, am I doing something wrong? I thought I was being pretty damn friendly.”

Dave shrugged. “I dunno, man. Trolls be crazy, y’know? I wouldn’t take it to heart, though. I mean, he seems like a pretty angry dude. Why you tryin’ to get mixed up in all that, anyway?”

John made a face. “I don’t know... I guess I feel the need to step in or something. He seems like he needs a friend is all.”

“That sounds like a hella lot of crazy, friend. Seriously, you got a man crush or something I don’t know about? Cause that’s the only logical explanation for all this.”

He laughed. “What? No, you know my love only belongs to you.”

The blonde smirked. “Good answer, Egbert. I expect a seven page report about it by Monday. Class dismissed.”

“You’re such a loser, Dave.”

“Pfft.”

 

--

 

John woke with a start when the sound of Dave shooting up into bed and hitting his head on the top of Clover’s bunk rang throughout the small cabin. He winced and rolled over as Dave started swearing softly and curled up to hold his wounded head. A grey hand started to pat his shoulder lightly.

“What th’ hell T’rezi…?” Dave groaned softly, conscious about not waking the other members of their cabin who were currently passed out. She frowned and tucked her legs beneath her to sit up straighter.

“Sorry, coolkid. I couldn’t tell if you were awake or not. You sleep too quietly.”

John sat up slowly, pushing his glasses onto his face and wrapped his sheets around his shoulders. “Couldn’t you tell that his eyes weren’t open?”

She shook her head and tapped at her red glasses. “Can’t see.”

He blinked. “Wait, really?”

Dave uncurled himself from his fetal position to look up. “You’re blind?”

She tilted her head. “Thought you knew.”

“Uh, no.”

“Why do you think I carry this around with me all the time?” She picked up her staff and waved it around. Now that John thought about it… that did look especially similar to a walking cane. Shit, he really needed to pay more attention.

“Thought it was a fancy pimp stick or somethin’.”

Her grin was all teeth and little regret as she leaned in close to the blonde’s face. “Then I guess you’re blinder then I am.”

He snorted and pushed her face back with a hand. “Yeah, thanks for the concussion by the way.”

“You’re welcome.”

John watched him rolls his eyes at her and squint. They looked like they were getting ready to dig into each other which normally would’ve been fine and probably a little bit insufferable but as John felt his bed shake a little from Eggs rolling over in the bunk above him, he decided to break up the party by clearing his throat.

“So, Terezi, whatcha doing here?”

Her grin dropped back into a frown again. “The jury would like to request permission to stay the night.”

“Woah,” Dave leaned back a little and jacked up a brow before exchanging looks with John. “That’s a little forward. I still haven’t asked your dad permission for your hand in marriage yet.”

She tilted her head. “Dave, what are you talking about?” She paused. “And what’s a dad?”

The blonde’s mouth dropped a little. “That… is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”

John threw his sheet over his head like a hood and tucked his comforter around his shoulders. “I don’t think they have a word for parents, Dave.”

“Oh.”

John looked back at the female. “Terezi, why do you want to stay the night? Wouldn’t you rather be with your own friends at your own camp?”

“No.”

“Why?”

She sighed and rested her cane across her thighs, running a hand over the smooth metal and clinking her long, yellow nails against it. “Karkat and I got into a fight and he kicked me out for the night.”

“What?” They both hissed.

She waved a hand. “It’s not that big of a deal, but I didn’t feel like walking around the woods all night, so I came here instead.”

“So what, he can just kick people out whenever he feels like it?”

She turned towards Dave and shrugged a little. “Well, sort of. It’d have to be for a good reason and he’d only be able to do it for an hour before he started feeling guilty like always. I’m just a special case.” She shrugged again.

John stood and let his toasty covers fall off of him and back onto the bed. His body immediately shivered and he at once regretted not putting on thicker clothes before getting up. “I’ll go talk to him.”

Terezi looked over in his direction. “You don’t have to. And honestly I don’t think he’ll be all that responsive anyway. He’s probably off pouting somewhere.”

He sighed and stretched. “Well, I’m already awake so I might as well. You can take my bed while I’m gone if you want.”

She smiled a little. “Thanks.”

“Sure,” John slipped on his shoes and shrugged into one of his heavier sweatshirts. He turned and pointed at Dave, forgetting for a second that she couldn’t see him give the other a critical look while walking to the door. “And don’t let him push you around. Just smack him with your cane and he’ll back off. He’s house-trained.”

Dave threw an arm over her shoulder. “I promise not to get her pregnant, mom.”

She sniffed at him. “Trolls can’t get pregnant.”

“You’re ruining the mood, sweetheart.”

“What’s a sweetheart?”

John shut the door softly with a laugh as he heard Dave let out a low groan. He took the steps two-at-a-time, making his way towards the path that led off to the woods with the help of the full moon’s bright glow. It probably would’ve been wise to grab a flashlight before leaving, especially with how shitty his night-vision was in the first place, but walking all the way across camp just to try and break into the storage supply with as little hassle and noise as possible sounded like way more of a chore then he felt like performing. That and he was too lazy to just turn around and go get his own from on top of the dresser.

He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and looked up at the night sky, deciding that other than the cold, it was a nice night for a walk. There wasn’t too much of a breeze blowing off of the Lake and when he looked out over across the water, he could faintly see reflections of lights glowing from the shore on the opposite side. Looking at the lights, it made him wonder; if he had never seen the Sburb/Sgrub sign when they first arrived— too focused on prattling on with Dave or busy fooling around taking pictures of Rose sleeping— would he’ve ever wondered who those lights belonged to? Would he have cared for that matter?

It was weird to think that only a Lake and a twenty-five minute walk away separated him and a dozen teenagers of a different species. He wasn’t naïve enough to think that Sburb had rein over the entire Lake, that was just stupid, but he had never imagined that those lights belonged to trolls of all things. It was crazy to think that just three weeks ago, John had never even seen one before and here they were now kind of becoming friends with them? Crazy, completely and absolutely crazy; even if their relationship with the other camp was still a little bit on the rocky-roads side of things.

John sighed a little.

Hopefully Karkat wasn’t in too much of a pissy mood.

Then again, that was probably a lot of wishful thinking on his part. Especially added with the fact that he seemed like he was always in a sour mood and to top that off him and Terezi had gotten into a fight? Jeez…

He rubbed his face.

Why was he going to go talk to him again? It seemed like a good idea however-many-minutes-ago. And Terezi had looked pretty down about the whole thing too. Ugh, maybe it was the sleep deprivation talking. Hadn’t he gotten into his own little spat with the guy just this afternoon? God, maybe Rose was right… maybe he did have a thing for abuse and punishment.

John looked ahead and breathed in when the fork in the road came into view. Alright, well it was now or never. He paused and slowed down to a stop, staring ahead at the bent trees. Should he…? It probably wasn’t any of his business getting involved… And Rose would kill him if she found out he was out here alone; pact or no pact it was still two-thirty in the morning and dark as fuck out even with the help from the moon, not to mention that there were probably a million and one deadly creatures out here just waiting in hopes to make him a nice meal.

Then again, he was suddenly extremely curious as to why Terezi was such a ‘special case’.

Steeling his shoulders, John marched forward and didn’t stop until he could see the lights from Sgrub up ahead. He paused again and tip-toed up to the edge of grass that began along the line of the campground. He wasn’t really in the mood to run into anyone unnecessary, let alone socialize for a good half hour before he could finally get out that he was here to see Karkat; so sneaking around it was.

He continued to walk along the edge of the campground and made sure to duck into cover whenever he saw a figure start to approach or walk by. It wasn’t too challenging but on the other hand everyone seemed to be pretty pre-occupied with whatever task they were focusing on accomplishing. It was pretty interesting to watch, though; it was like the entire camp was a bee colony. Everyone looked alert as they moved and zig-zagged around each other, never missing a step in the synchronization they all had going on.

 John headed for the path that he knew led off towards the wood clearing— figuring that the stress of their fight had pushed Karkat to abuse more trees. John shook his head and tsked at remembering all of the fallen trees he had seen the last time Karkat had been stressed; at this rate, the troll was going to deforest the entire area. Chopping down eighteen feet trees was a hell of a way to de-stress, that was for sure.

However, as soon as he had pushed through the bushes that blocked the way into the clearing, he could tell that the troll wasn’t here. For one it was awfully quiet; not even the sound of crickets chirping broke up the silence that started to make his ears start to hurt. And upon closer inspection, after almost walking by it, he could see the axe that Karkat had been using— the same one that had been used to almost behead him— was sunken into one of the tree stumps over by a lone pile of wood.

John frowned a little and looked around. Where the hell could he be, then? He hadn’t seen him at the camp, running around with the others and he certainly wasn’t here.

John bit his lip.

Shit…

Wandering around for another twenty minutes didn’t really improve the look of things either and only caused his anxiety levels to skyrocket. He hated being out in the dark, alone in the middle of the woods. Christ knew he and Dave had had enough experience getting jumped by things out here to scar them both for a good few years or so. And plus, he wasn’t too sure what the other trolls would do to him if they found him skulking around their campsite. It already looked skeevy from his point of view; he couldn’t image what it’d look like to them, no matter the explanation. If Karkat was willing to lob off his head just for accidentally sneaking up on him, where would that leave the rest of his brigade?

John shivered.

Tiiiiime to leave.

He looked around again; yeah, easier said than done, Egbert.

With a sigh, he pushed through the hedges and hoped to god that he was walking in the right direction. He squinted at the ground; it was hard to tell with how everything in this goddamn forest literally looked like each other with the odd angular shapes and varying hues of black slapped onto shades of slightly less black. With his luck though, he was probably heading in the completely opposite direction of the campsite. It also probably didn’t help when he had walked in circles looking around the wood clearing. He needed to stop confusing his sense of direction and start carrying a friggen compass.

He hated when Jade was right.

Another ten minutes of walking around aimlessly had him wanting to scream, be damned if the other trolls found him and burned him at the stake. He was pretty sure he had a will written down somewhere, probably on a math sheet back from seventh grade… What had he wanted Rose to have? His magic book, right? That way she could stop calling it arbitrary and see the true beauty and genius behind it. And also because it was fucking heavier than a Cadi and nothing would make him happier than seeing her trying to heave that fucking thing onto a bookshelf.

He grinned to himself and kicked over another pile of loose branches. Ehhh, at this rate, he might as well wait for the sun to come up. It would be a whole lot easier trying to find his way back that way then continuing to roam and hope that either someone found him or the path would magically appear in front of him. Plus, it was probably like what, three-thirty--four by now? Sun came up at five-forty--six o’clock anyways; might as well wait around by the Lake and watch it rise.

Only question now was where the hell was it?

John looked around and picked a random direction to turn in and barreled towards it. Well, more like casually walked but really, who was judging. Thankfully, his sweatshirt was keeping him not only toasty but free from sticks and branches stabbing at his arms as he walked by. God bless his dad from making him pack it, that man was a life-saver and a half.

The Lake came into view almost randomly and John immediately headed for it before he could get even more lost. He remembered the saying back from boy scouts that if you followed along the edge of water, in the direction it was flowing, that it would lead you north. Only question was, how did that work for lakes?

The moon’s reflection off of the Lake was surreal in the way that it twisted and bent with the movement of the water. John could watch it for hours; it had the same kind of magic that a contained fire did— no matter how hard you tried or how long you stayed, you just couldn’t look away from it. It was strange the way it was so mesmerizing to the eye.

A small splash of water caught his attention and he turned to his right, expecting to see the slow ripples from a fish jumping out of the water or a crane flying off into the distance. What he wasn’t expecting however, was a certain troll with nubby horns and a bad attitude to be sitting on top of a huge-ass boulder that overlooked the Lake.

He grinned.

Karkat.

“Hello, Egbert.”

John brushed off a few twigs caught on the sleeves of his hoodie while walking towards the rock. “How’d you know it was me?”

The troll looked over his shoulder and even from here, John could see how bright the yellow of his eyes were. “You’re the only one I know who stomps around with the grace of a dying forest animal.”

He pouted. “I do not.”

Karkat snorted and turned back around to face the water. “Whatever helps you sleep, human.”

He watched as the other bent over and fiddled around with something on the ground before sitting up again. The troll threw the small object— after a second of squinting and the help of the moon’s light, John could see that it was a small rock— up into the air and caught it and then he paused, arm arched back behind his head. The rock was exchanged between a few fingers until it was pinched between Karkat’s pointer, middle and thumb fingers. There was another second of pause and then it was hucked and sent skidding across the water like a motor boat. It went a good several yards before dunking beneath the surface.

John looked at the troll. “Hey, that was pretty good.”

Karkat turned to him and blinked a few times. His eyes narrowed a little while scanning John’s face but relaxed when he was given a small smile. Yellow eyes darted away and back towards the water. His voice was surprisingly quiet, “Thanks.”

John nodded and looked ahead as well. There was a long stretch of silence for a while, broken up only with the occasional sound of rocks skipping over water and then splashing down into the Lake. He had tried a few times to skip rocks with the other but so far he was doing a piss-poor job of even getting them to go a few feet. Jade was right, he sucked at sports.

“Mind if I sit with you?”

Karkat turned to him again, looking him up and down a few times before slowly moving over to make room. Not that John needed it though, there was already a fairly large gap between them.

He picked up another rock and held it between his hands; running a thumb over the unpolished surface of grooves. “You come out here to de-stress?”

The troll tilted his head and rested a hand on his knee. He let out a soft sigh. “No. I was actually just wandering around for a while.” He shrugged. “Found this place by accident.”

John nodded. “I figured you might be out chopping wood again,” He let out a soft laugh. “But when I didn’t find you there I just started wandering around too and found this place by accident.” He looked over at the troll, annoyed with how anxious he was feeling. “I… guess great minds think alike, huh?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

John frowned, more than a little worried about how far away the other looked to be. It was like he was staring off into some scary nightmare, dark and cold, and there was no way for John to help him. He wanted to reach out and at the very least give him a shoulder to—

He stopped that train of thought.

To what? Cry on? Yeah, because the guy was so in tune with his emotions and everything. Cripes, he could barely hold a normal conversation with the troll for five minutes without getting yelled at or threatened to be maimed. What made him think that Karkat was even going to let him in just because he came all the way out here to ‘talk to him’? They didn’t even know each other. And what did that even mean anyway, ‘talk to him’? Talk to him about what? How Not To Be A Total Jerk 101? Yeah, cause that sounded like a solid golden ticket to happy town right there, Egbert. Good try, please collect your prize on the next visit.

John held in a sigh. Fuck friendship, this shit was hard. Why couldn’t they just bypass all of the awkward stages and get to being buddies already? That was way easier and much more fun then the Limbo they were skirting around anyway. It was like playing chicken with an open flame, hold your hand the closest to see who wins but oh no! don’t get burned Johnny or else mom will be pissed and have to whoop your ass for being a stupid idiot.

Frick, maybe Dave was right. Maybe he was trying to move things too fast. He needed to slow down and check himself before he got into any unnecessary scuffles with the troll. Not like it’d improve anything though; with the way things were going, he’d be lucky to get Karkat to call him by his first name by friggen Easter.

But what exactly were those ‘things’ anyway? Was it really just friendship he was after or did his subconscious have different plans? Plans that involved more than just ‘hey-how-ya-doin’ pats on the back.

Goddamn he needed to stop thinking. Like right now.

“I— We, um me and Dave, heard about your fight with Terezi. She came over to our side and… wanted to chill out for a while. To give you space, I think.”

Karkat sighed. “Yeah… I figured she would.”

John’s eyebrows shot up. “You did?”

As Karkat nodded, his face fell into a sullen look. His head bent down to the palm that was clutching the rock; they both watched as he turned it over and over in his hands, skin just a shade lighter than the coloring of the minerals.

“How… did you know she was going to come over?”

The troll shrugged. “Just had a feeling, I guess.”

“Oh.” John said quietly, continuing to watch the rock exchange between his fingers. It was fascinating the way his fingers bent around the object and flexed. The shade of his skin changing slightly as the light from the moon hit different spots on his hands and shadowed others. Nails a bright contrast against the darker hue of his hand; it reminded him of Indian and Native American culture and how they liked to paint their skin with bright colors that complimented their skin tones.

It was interesting. And almost... exotic even—

Wow, fuck. How about we stop this train and don’t go down that dark pit, huh John?

He shook his head a little and rubbed his forehead. “I’m sorry if this is a little nosy but… what did you guys fight about?”

Karkat snorted. “That’s not just a little nosy, Egbert.”

He gave him a sheepish look. “Sorry.”

Karkat turned and eyed him, looking back out towards the water after a minute. The sound of a bullfrog chorting to the far left of them seemed like it was the only sound in the whole world; John couldn’t even hear either of them breathing.

 “It was just stupid shit that didn’t really have a point, honestly. I think we just say things to each other to make each other mad.”

“Why?”

He shrugged, looking entirely defeated. The need to reach out and pat his shoulder came on so suddenly that John had to literally sit on his hands to fight it off. Goddamn, what was this guy doing to him?

“I don’t know. I think I knew at one point but,” He chucked the rock into the water, not even bothering to skip it. “It’s been too long and there’s just so much shit that I should’ve said or shouldn’t’ve said. Fuck, I don’t even know anymore. And you know what the worst part is?” Karkat turned and looked at him. “She was the first actual friend I ever had. Hell, she was one of my best friends at one point.” He shook his head.

“Is she still?”

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

John frowned and bit his lip. “I’m sorry, Karkat.”

“Yeah,” The other laughed a little, barely any sound escaping his mouth. “Me too.”

John sighed softly and looked ahead. A little ways out on the Lake, he could see a pair of loons gliding through the water; their black heads shiny from dunking themselves under. He watched them as they coasted along the run, lazily swimming back and forth around each other. It was nice to see wildlife at this time of night, given with how quiet it was. One of them let out a lone trill that echoed against the rock line.

“If it makes you feel any better, I sometimes get into really bad fights with my friends, too.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Karkat straighten a little and glance at him. He held in a smile and continued. “Sometimes we just piss each other off so much it gets to the point where I don’t even care what I say. I just want to make them hurt.” He turned and looked at Karkat and caught another side glance. “Because they hurt me you know? And I just want them to feel as bad as I do.” He looked back out at the water again and rested a hand on his knee, shaking his head. “Of course, I regret it pretty much immediately after words. Sometimes even as they’re walking away.” He laughed a little, pushing his glasses back up his nose.

“…Do you ever say you’re sorry?”

“You kind of have to,” John tilted his head, glancing up at the stars. “It’s hard, sometimes. Especially when the other person was being a complete dickhead in the first place. But in the end, I really do mean it when I say it.”

“Mm...”

“Hey,” John reached out and poked Karkat’s shoulder, causing him to look up. “I’m sure if you guys apologized and really meant it, you’d forgive each other.” When the troll started to look sullen again, John nudged him more. “You were best friends, right? At one point? Who says you can’t do that all over again? Sure it’ll take time but if you care about her enough, it wouldn’t really matter. Same goes for her.”

Karkat nodded slowly, mumbling, “Maybe.”

“Just think about it, okay?”

“Sure.”

John let out a breath through his nose and looked at the lightening horizon. He threw his hands over his head and stretched before standing. “Ah, I should probably head back. If I miss breakfast Rose’ll kill me and then go on a man-hunt.”

Karkat stood as well. “I’ll walk you back.” When the he raised a brow, the other added with a scowl, “You’d probably get lost with your shitty human eye-sight, anyway.”

John laughed. “Okay.”

They headed back into the woods and bush-whacked it for a while before Karkat announced that the path back to his side was just up ahead. It was quiet after that; not like it hadn’t been before, but at least John had had the constant threat of keeping branches from smacking him in the face to keep him occupied.

Karkat, he noticed, was extremely quiet when he was thinking. Not something he would’ve thought possible, given all of the things he normally had to say when it came to anything else. But now he was silently walking ahead of John, occasionally slowing down so that he could keep up with the steady walk.

When they finally stepped out onto the path, he was surprised to find that they had arrived at the forked intersection of trees. A thin line of sunlight was starting to stream through the forest and he could guess that it was probably almost six at this point. It was weird that he wasn’t even tired and his eyes only hurt a little but that was mostly due to straining them when trying to navigate his way through the forest.

It was time to get home though no matter how hyped up he felt, because as soon as his head hit the pillow, he knew he was going to be out within seconds.

“Well, this is my stop.” John started to walk backwards, hands in his pockets. “Thanks for bringing me back.” When the other nodded slowly he laughed and held up a hand to wave at him. “Bye, Karkat.”

He turned to face the path. He might as well jog it, at least halfway; it wasn’t too much of a challenging route and plus him and Dave had pretty much ran the entire thing when they were being chased by crazy trolls. Yeah, jogging sounded good; he needed to wake up his muscles anyway.

“John.”

He blinked and whipped around. Did he just call him—?

Karkat’s eyes darted around for a few seconds when they made eye contact and he had to clear his throat before looking at him again. “I— …thank you.”

John’s mouth fell open a little and he could tell that his expression turned to complete surprise by the way the troll snapped his eyes away again and made a face. But before he could say ‘you’re welcome’ or even ask him what he was exactly thanking him for, the troll gave him one last pensive glance and turned away to disappear with a fast jog up the path.

John stood staring at the gap in the left side of trees for what felt like days— maybe months, he was really shitty with keeping track of time. But judging by the amount of light streaming in through the trees, he could probably guess a solid five minutes at best.

He…

Called him by his first name…

He called him by his first name.

John grinned and didn’t stop the entire way back.

 

--

 

“Permission to approach the bench.”

Karkat let a breath out through his nose and put his hands into his pockets, turning away from staring at the water. Usually he wouldn’t indulge her with the role-playing, it had been far too long since they had had any meaningful connections with it, slighting it with the argument of either him outgrowing it or them both being too old to fool around anymore. However, his conversation with John started to play through his head and the more he thought about it, the less angry he was about their fight. It was starting to settle into more of a taunt rope of guilt that he noticed was continuing to fester each time he came into contact with anyone he genuinely cared about.  

 “Permission granted.”  

She stepped forward slowly, cane clutched in front of her between both hands. She kicked up small clouds of dirt that made the shiny red of her boots go a little dull. Kanaya’d probably bug her to get them cleaned in a few days— but knowing her after about two hours of staring at them, she’d probably tell Terezi to sit down while she did it herself. “The defendant would like to formally request permission to apologize to the plaintiff.”

“Terezi, you don’t have to—”

“The defendant would also like to add that she was a shithead for calling you a bad leader and it was wrong of her to suggest that you don’t care about us and only want to boss us around to be a dick and because it makes you feel better about yourself.”

He blew out another breath and nodded. The thing was, what she had said hadn’t even been the worst thing they had fought about. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t heard it before— that he was a bad or selfish leader and was only terrorizing them for his own blackrom fill— she had challenged him enough for her to have already gotten her point across; it wasn’t anything new. It was just that fact that they had been arguing in general had set him off. The tiffs and the scoffs at each other had just come to such a boiling point that everything had spewed over like a giant volcano and their feelings were the people of Pompeii.

He suddenly wondered how long it had taken her to stop wandering around in the woods looking for nut creatures to hunt and head over to the other side. Had she just started walking randomly and happened to end up there or had she planned it as soon as she had left him after their fight?

It made him feel a little nauseous wondering what she and Strider had been up to while John was here, trying to do damage control.

God, why did he care?

“Terezi, its fine.”

“The defendant— I would also… like to apologize.” She looked down and fiddled with her cane again, dropping it down into the dirt and dragging the sharp head through the sand in front of her boots. “For saying that… you are inferior to… all of us because of your blood color.” She looked up and stared at him and if he didn’t know any better he could swear that she was tearing up a little. “It was wrong of me to say that and I’m sorry.”

Ah, there it was.

He sighed softly and shuffled forward, stopping only when there was a small gap between them. “It’s okay.”

She started to step back, shaking her head as the corners of her lips pulled down into a sad frown. “Karkat—”

He took a hand out of his pocket and reached out to tilt her chin up with a knuckle. There was barely any skin contact but it made her stop in her tracks. He sighed again through his nose and slowly reached out to wrap a hand around her wrist gently.

It had been so long since he had touched her, even with just a passing brush. They had somehow maintained this silent agreement to have as little physical contact as possible ever since their matespritship had ended and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out how that had even ended up happening. It was for the best all the same but when had they gotten to that point where complete distance was better? Even as friends it had never been like that. Touching was something of a given in any type of quadrant.

“It’s okay.” He whispered finally and lowered his eyes, trying to remember that at some point he needed to pull away and step the fuck back because he was probably throwing off all kinds of pheromones that were making her uncomfortable. He was glad that she hadn’t snatched her arm back yet, it felt nice just to hold on to her, even if it was a small, tiny, insignificant part.

Jesus, he was pathetic.

He let his hand drop and stepped away to give her some room to breathe in fresh air, looking towards the water and watching the sun reflect off of the moving surface. Maybe someday he’d be able to stop feeling like shit twenty-four-seven.

He looked at Terezi and saw that she was staring at him, red eyes bored deep into his; he tried forcing a smile onto his face even though she couldn’t see it or at least what sort of resembled as one. She reached over and tugged his cheeks down so that he was frowning again and patted his face with a gloved hand.

She grinned. “Much better, now you’re yourself again.”

He blinked and after a second he felt himself, this time, break into a genuine— and surprised— smile. Man, she was full of curve-balls today.

He laughed softly and turned to walk back to camp with her, ready to shake up some cabins and round the troops up. Today was going to be a long day.