#And on dirk anime guy. We have to return to when people would use anime visual gags with him. IT WAS SO GOOD

[zan0tix]

I love perusing 2010s dirkjake fanart and this old prompt is actually so good i had to do my own one.

[ukeealyptus]

crocker corp arg day 14 & 15 recap!!! These are kinda long ones so im gonna put them under a read more :)

DAY 14

((sollux i love u even tho u only talk at 1am for me ily and im glad u liked our tea party  )). He can still read all of the channels in this server but is being polite and only talks in his and usually only answers the questions we ask in his channel, unless they're urgent, funny, or just seem to stick out otherwise. 

 Sollux is still kinda adament about remaining stuck in his position; he fears anything he does ends in death (we get it, you're a doom player). Dirk is still the same. Sollux visits him often because the AGT chamber is a pretty secluded area, and his coworkers are. . . annoying. Dirk proves better company. He can't tell us what Dirk's powers are being used for. 

 Concerning their own god tier powers, Sollux tells Daven't that "if we decide that you would be a good candidate we will be in contact". They know all of our classpects, not just 16. Sollux knows them because he has access to confidential information that only Condy has. 

 He deflected talking about the current AI or Felix by questioning why we love him. ((sucks to suck dude we genuinely like you.)) Apparently there used to be a worker named M who we would have really liked, but he's essentially dead now. Something happened to Mituna- he fucked up and isn't there anymore. Sollux constantly reminds himself that what happened to Mituna could happen to him.

 Sollux gave Felix leniency because he is pretty young maturity and brain development-wise. Felix is a brain copy of a troll, just the same as the current AI. He was really surprised to hear how Felix is doing now, and thinks it's amazing that he can comprehend emotions and love!!! Sollux will contact Felix and ask us to let him talk to other people when he's ready. 

 Sollux doesn't remember the outside world or his past. He knows CC merged human and troll society. He won't look at Jane's file, only knows that she's powerful and important. He won't look at his own file for fear that another IT guy will see him or it'll be a trap.

Although he can't remember much, we can remind him of the things that he loves. Like his lusus, the mind honey, and bees! Bees are soft and he loves them! Bees are an animal! Sollux has a friend who is always talking about animals!!! Tavros went into his office once to try to get information about Tinkerbull, which was blacklisted for him. Sollux is gonna show him bees :) 

Sollux isn't allowed to use his psiioniics unless there's a life-threatening corporate attack. He's not really aware of how caught-up in the timeloop he is, but he doesn't remember having that conversation before. That could be a good thing. Sollux stopped by again last night! Here's the news: 

 Sollux showed Tavros bees and he loved them!!! 

We can now trade mun embarassing videos for discords, so we've gotten tavros's discord! I don't believe he's responded to anyone yet, but it's there. 

Sollux loves bees. He also likes cats!!! We showed him pictures of our cats and he said they were cute and their purring is cute and cuddling is awesome.

 Sollux let us ask about troll biology!!!!! Trolls have naturally sharp nails on hands and feet that are a darkish orange (the same color as the tips of the horns) They also have fangs, with seadwellers having the sharpest. Height isn't correlated to blood color, sollux is just Really Tall, but physical strength is correlated to blood color, though sollux can Lift.  Body temperature is also dictated by blood color- lowbloods are very Warm. 

 Now for society: mutations used to be culled but now they're discriminated. These can include physical deformation, too many/not enough horns/eyes/limbs, and certain blood types (for example candy red or a mutated bronze with psiioniic powers) . These stopped being cullable offenses after integration with human society. 

 Vriska makes fun of Tavros for his stutter. Highbloods give Karkat shit about his blood. Sollux doesn't really know Karkat, just knows that he works in filing. Kankri got demoted for talking too much. 

 The ai's are made of brain scans just so that there's less opportunities for coding era and it's easily reset. It's also a punishment for some trolls, where they are completely rewired, cloned, and made digital. Both Finn and Felix are likely reversed scans of Mituna- this explains why Felix's god tier is a Witch of Life, the reverse of Mituna's Heir of Doom. 

 Wiped memories are kept in the database. They can be retrieved and returned. 

JANITOR KANAYA WITH A BENDY STRAW CANON WE DID IT FOLKS 

 Sollux can send a message to Dirk for us. Tell him that we love him and we're working hard. 

END OF DAY 14

DAY 15

We have a lil more information on seadwellers from yesterday. Apparently CC has two sectors that are completely underwater. Seadwellers use waterproof laptops, which are "like the laptops everyone else uses, but wet." Condy most likely has two offices, one above and one below the water.

lotta new discords today!!!!! We can now talk to Tavros, Nepeta, Vriska, Terezi, Feferi, and Jake. thanks to everyone who subjected themselves to public humiliation for this   

 While most of the characters havent been online yet, Tavros talked to a few of us earlier!!! He's extremely sweet. As far as information goes, there were a few new discoveries.

 Tavros is very kind and trusting, he trusted me enough pretty much right away to tell me about Sollux showing him bees, which he had been told not to share. He even blocked Ardent pretty much automatically when Isi told him to. 

 Sollux refers to Tavros strictly by his ID, even though we know that he knows his name. Tavros says Sollux just does it to be respectful. They are good friends, and Sollux told Tavros about bees!!! 

 Humans are ranked higher than bronzebloods within the CC heirarchy; they hold roughly the same rank as jadebloods. 

 Terezi tends to take the heirarchy pretty seriously, and seems suspicious of how we managed to contact her. She works in paperwork (writing and filling it in), and draws with sharpies in her spare time. She likes the other tealbloods she works with and also likes the janitors, especially Kanaya. 

The tiaras almost absolutely have some type of healing/sustaining power- Tavros's legs were broken, but they magically healed.

 It seems that Dave, Rosaline, and Rose still have yet to return. 

Lastly, daven’t and i are now official invitees of the tour, as a few members of the og16 elected to step down.

 END OF DAY 15

[dukeofriven]

I feel you on criticisms on John. Dude certainly has his flaws and his relationship with other people, particularly Roxy, have clearly been unhealthy. But the guy have apparently been depressed for years, and he haven't actually ever had much experience with real life on person relationships. He got issues he needs to work on, but he is not a bad person.

It’s the rampant hypocrisy that’s eating at me. “Let they who are without sin cast the first stone” y’know? Roxy and John are the only survivors of Game Over - even given the trauma that everyone went through those two went through more. Even Rose, with her vague sense of her alt-self in a doomed timeline, experienced what it was like to fail on such a profound scale: and to know that your failure is the one which the alpha timeline was aiming for all along. Your utter failure was not only pre-ordained, it was requirement for existence to go as planned.Both Roxy and John experienced this, but Roxy got to move to a universe where her friends were still alive, and their formative experiences were identical: Roxy lived through, what, 24 hours that Dirk and Jake and John’s Hot Mom didn’t? Less? Dirk is still hurtling through space when John and Roxy arrive in Post-Retcon world, just as he was before Game Over broke bad. Roxy has to live with the horror of seeing her friends die - but her ‘replacement’ friends are functionally indistinguishable from the old ones. Which I’m not saying to be callous, but to contrast her with John. John moves to a universe where his sister shares almost none of his memories of years spent together on a golden ship, growing up together, bonding as closer friends, as siblings.We don’t talk about that enough, I think. Jade gets shafted in several ways in the final hours of Homestuck: she gets no chance to speak to John and say “you were dead” - to come to some kind of understanding, some beginning of healing. What must that be like, to meet someone - your own brother - who mostly knows a you you never were? John has all these memories of Jade and Jade has only a fraction of the memories of John.And for John there are those issues that he would have encountered anyway in the OG timeline had things gone well. His other close friends (heck, I’d argue he was closer to Dave and Rose pre-Sburb than he was to Jade; he calls Dave, at least, his best friend) had all spent years forming closer bonds with one-another and new people. In the OG timeline, had Game Over not happened and they’d won, John would still have had to bridge that gap of space and time: but he would have had his sister there for support, and companionship, and close bonds. The Jade he instead ends-up with is practically a stranger who spent three years mourning him (AND HER BOYFRIEND BIRDFRIEND WHO IS PART BOY (thanks @technicallynotanon for the reminder that retcon Jade didn’t date)) alone save for a bunch of none-too-bright animals and her ghost clown grandmother.It’s tragic - and to make it so much worse things seem to have been easy for everyone other than John. They all fell in to new things. Relationships, mostly: Dave and Karkat made room for Jade, Rose got married. Relationships tend to tax friendships: the singular I struggles to compete with the plural we. Only Terezi - with her endless capacity to understand the paths of mind - might have understood him: but she left, taking the blackrom crush with her as she did so.John was isolated. John was more isolated, more alone than any other person: even Callie, who had an intermission of eternity being dead, returned to a world full of friends who remembered her well, and she snagged a don’t-yet-have-the-label-for-it-partner in the process. She too had someone to turn to, and that someone was the only other person John shared his trauma with.Sometimes its hard to talk to people. Sometimes it is harder still when the shadow of a life-partner looms over everything.So John didn’t talk to Roxy. Why does that shock us? Why are we the least surprised? Why are we acting like his actions are so unconscionable? For all that they were so darn cute together that cuteness comprised a relation of several hours over which one of the top two greatest traumas of John Egbert’s life occurred.The other was the death of his father, who was murdered, and whose brutalized corpse John had to witness. A murder - as far as we know - that never had any closure. A murder - as he may have come to realize with some reflection - that occurred largely through the manipulations of the same troll girl his only other crush fucked-off to go find and be with.We keep minimizing John’s trauma. We keep not putting it into perspective. We do him such a disservice.We say, instead, that his not talking to Roxy - that brief surge of anger and shame that threatened to break through his crushing anhedonia, his envy of one person who found another when he did not - we say it is some appalling moral failure. I’m a depression sufferer with a life of regrets and an embarrassing number of long years full of singledom and opportunities that were missed accidentally, but just as often avoided on purpose because self-sabotage is a way of life for people like me.Self harm can be as simple a matter as seeing something you want and letting it slip away, watch it slip away, watch yourself watch it slip away knowing you could do something and then… just… not. And afterwards struggling to explain your actions to other people, and even to yourself: if only I’d… if I had just…why didn’t…?You let it happen because, deep-down, you know you don’t deserve it. The paths not taken, the paths heavy with bitterness, shame, self castigation - paths such as these I have in spades, and hearts, and clubs, and even diamonds.But I, of course, could NEVER see myself acting like John does, and I am sure that no one on Tumblr calling John a creeper has ever done something like it either. I am sure their reaction is born of pure and moral rectitude, and not fear and revulsion at seeing themselves reflected so completely in so unflattering a manner.Surely not they. Surely not I.John Egbert doesn’t need a reason to be depressed. Nobody does. But his depression is not solely an accident of brain chemistry: it is rooted in his sense of self, and his sense of self is a failure. He couldn’t save his dad. he couldn’t save his friends. He couldn’t win Sburb and he couldn’t build the universe he was allegedly destined to build. All of that happened only because Terezi knew how to use him: left to his own devices, nothing would ever have gone right. John couldn’t save anyone.Or so it must seem in the haunting privacy of his thoughts.John has lived with that failure circling around and around in his head since… oh, I’d say about thirty minutes after everything settled down on Earth-C, about an hour after the party ended and his friends went to their new homes and their new lives and he was alone for the first time with the things he had done and the things he failed to do. It probably started the moment he first noticed the silence of his house, the house that was essentially an exact replica of the house he had lived in on the very day his father was murdered and his litany of failures began. It probably began when he sat on the couch in that big empty house and stared at the door that his father was never, ever going to walk through and listened to deafening roar of being the only person there.That was when it started: with a hollow emptiness in the stomach. With a skull that every-so-slightly seemed to be pressing in on his brain, a feeling he’d never felt before. The sudden, sharp, jarring flashes of memory: his father’s body ripped eight ways to Sunday, Rose breathing her last in the dust of LOPAN, that awesome expanse of Skaia local alight with burning worlds and desecration. It began when the Heir of Breath found himself short of his own element for no reason at all, save that he simply found it hard to breathe, hard to make his body continue to breathe.He didn’t say anything at first.He made excuses.He didn’t want to bother people - told himself he was actually enjoying the alone time, enjoying having nothing to do after what felt like a lifetime of doing: although, really, the events of his life comprised little more than two sets of 24 hours spaced three years apart. And that bothered him too - “all things considered it’s not like you went off to war, John, and spent years away” he told himself. Retirement after two days of solid work? Most would kill for that. These and other good reasons not to say anything came and went: there was always a good reason not to say anything, and even those times when some semblance of human feeling  burned hot enough to produce genuine emotion he quickly suppressed it. It’s amazing how quickly depression is something you normalize, how quickly you find reason not to disturb it, to upset the status quo.By the time he realized even dimly that he should have said something to someone, anyone - about Roxy, or about that hollow feeling that now comprised his insides, about how nothing caused him joy or distress, that he could feel his youth rushing away from him in a torrent of time that he could do nothing to stop - it was too late. Perhaps it was always too late. This too, perhaps, was something that always had to happen.Perhaps.There is a moment at the end of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead where Guildenstern, standing on the gallows, faced with his impending doom and the absurdity of his existence muses “There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said ‘no.’ But somehow we missed it.”Then he dies.That line echos with me. I suspect it echos with many people like me. That’s the worst part of depression: the sense that no matter how much your condition explains your past you are never free of the feeling that there was a moment you could have done something about it all - but you missed it. The moment was lost, and everything since has been one long, unending chain of payment for that mistake.John Egbert doesn’t need our pity, and nor do I mean to say that he is free of criticism. Our depression contextualizes our actions, but it does not excuse our frailties. John Egbert, however, deserves better than the disapprobation of sinners throwing stones.

[gal-liveblogs]

So we start off Homestuck 2 with a picture of space. Got some green space clouds. So far nothing I would not expect. Though I see there also appears to be a spaceship of some kind, zooming through all this space. Would this be Dirk’s ship?

. . . Yep. That’s defiantly Dirk’s ship. I’m sure Theseus has some really deep, literary meaning, but the reference flies right over my head. As does most of Dirk’s references. He’s too smart for me.

I find it funny that Jake continues the tradition of emblazoning his face on his things. We saw his alt-self of Grandpa Harley doing at all the time. Dirk, of course, has to scribble out the face of his ex.

Dirk. Dirk, are you wearing a villain cape right now? Is that what you’re doing in this moment? Dirk, please.

He is totally wearing a villain cape, complete with tattered edges. He is also wearing a Heart gi, because Dirk is nothing if not anime.

Jesus Christ, I already see the paragraphs of orange under this. You’re gonna make me read all this, aren’t you. Dirk?

Dirk proves to be as verbose as ever.

So did Dirk really write out all his narration on physical pieces of paper and scatter them over his desk? Did he do that just to be Extra, or is that something he has to do as an Author now? Do they only count in the narrative text if they are actual text and not just his own thoughts?

Whatever the case may be, Rose interrupts his soliloquy.

I have it on authority that decanting is sometimes necessary to ensure a wine is at its best. I like to think that the same was ultimately true of her.

Decanting of a person’s soul sounds particularly ominous, thought I can’t express the exact reason why.

ROSEBOT: I just imagined you wearing an apron over your god tier outfit and almost felt my facial fuselage buckle in such a way as to approximate a fleeting smile.

Glad to see being a robot and also assimilating all her possible selves Rose remains a sass queen.

DIRK: Alright we get it you are literally a robot.

DIRK: No need to keep pointing it out every chance you can get. I got enough of this with the Auto Responder.

ROSEBOT: I'm just playing along.

ROSEBOT: One of the fundamentals of bad science fiction is that any artificial beings must make their inorganic nature known at every juncture they can.

DIRK: Do overly precise and completely meaningless statistics that you pull out of your ass on the fly also count?

ROSEBOT: Oh absolutely.

ROSEBOT: That's one of the first things you just sort of spontaneously learn when being booted up.

ROSEBOT: For example, I've calculated that by making these remarks I have raised the base level of amusement in all my conversations by 36%.

DIRK: Well I don't personally find them very funny.

Dirk has some trauma with robots pulling out bullshit statics. Which makes it all the more fascinating he continues to build robots that can have free thought.

Jesus Christ, it wasn’t just the lighting, Dirk’s shades really are orange now. Hussie may not have known about Kamina when he designed Bro, but Dirk always wearing Kamina glasses has just become a part of his character. So much so that they are even colored like Kamina’s instead of black now. I have to wonder, had Kamina not been a character that already existed or if people hadn’t kept pointing out that Dirk/Bro wore shades similar to an anime character, would Dirk be so anime? Is being anime just a character trait that Hussie gave him because of a funny coincidence and he wanted to play up the joke, or was he always intended to be so anime?

Also is that trashcan literally an inferno?

ROSEBOT: I just thought you might like to know that we're getting pretty close to your chosen crash site.

Do they not know how to land the ship? Does the ship not have landing gear? Do they need to crash for narrative reasons and otherwise would be perfectly capable of landing normally? Is Rose just making a joke?

DIRK: Wait, crash site??

Oh, good, Dirk is as confused as I am. So that rules out narrative reasons.

ROSEBOT: A landing gear appears to have fallen just a little outside the realm of vital.

So lacking landing gear it is! God damn it, Jake.

DIRK: (God DAMN it English.)

Ha!

ROSEBOT: Don't be such a chud, Dirk.

I am afraid to ask what a chud is. Is that like a cuck? I don’t know what a cuck is either. I am also afraid to ask what a cuck is.

ROSEBOT: She's functionally mortal, remember?

Yeah, that really sucks that Karkat, Terezi, and Kanaya all lack godtier. Karkat would complain about his lack of flight abilities, but I’m surprised Terezi or Kanaya never brought up this fact. Especially Kanaya, what with her marriage to Rose. Kanaya would eventually grow old and die, leaving Rose to keep on living. Of course, Rosebot has decided to leave her loving wife behind so in this particular case that point doesn’t matter.

DIRK: You mean to say that you don't think we'd be in peril if it came to it?

DIRK: There's nothing about our situation that strikes you as falling within the bounds of precarity, as far as the rules are concerned?

ROSEBOT: Oh. You're right. I suppose I hadn't thought of that.

ROSEBOT: But I think we can remain calm in the knowledge that nothing particularly heroic is going on right now. At least, not that I'm aware of.

DIRK: ... Right.

Not sure if Dirk’s meaning flew over Rose’s head, or if she’s just choosing to ignore the possibility of Just deaths as a joke.

That doesn't mean this (*gestures to the narrative*) isn't still going to be a thing, though.

I don’t know why, but this tickles my funny bone.

All in all I think you'll find, as far as narrators go, I'm an excellent... hm. On second thought, maybe that's a bit of a problematic phrase. Yeah, yikes, that one's got a sordid history. Best we steer clear of it. We're all lucky I'm around to make those kinds of sensitivity judgements on everyone's behalf.

I’m glad you can recognize that Homestuck fans all have a fight or flight response that that memetic phrase, but I don’t appreciate you patting yourself on the back for being sensitive when you, as a narrator, could not use Roxy’s correct pronouns once they came to light.

It's time to get this story back on the rails, back to what it was always supposed to be. I know it, and you've somehow always known it too. There was something else, some other route that Homestuck was meant to take but then didn't, a way that wouldn't've spent so much time dicking around with stuff nobody cares about. Like seriously, why did we all have to sit through talking about everyone's most intimate and private feelings for two hundred thousand fucking words. That would never have happened in Act 1. Where did it all go wrong?

So Dirk’s grand plan is to go back to the asinine tomfoolery of Act 1? To do away with character relations and feelings and have people messing around with their sylladexes? I must say, I never would have expected this from the likes of Dirk. I thought he was all about the complex thought processes and inner turmoil.

Thank you for returning the narration to classic black, Dirk. It’s so much easier on the eyes.

Channelling my full potential as an ascended player of Heart, I expand my consciousness to commune with the boundless force of collective willpower that is the internet.

Wow, who knew Heart players could become the internet. I mean, I guess it makes sense. The internet is just a collection of people, and Heart is all about the soul. 

I was really hoping the command box he made would be an actual command box. I missed out on the Homestuck days of old where the command box was a real thing. It would have been fun to be a part of that myself, but I understand the fandom is just too big for that ever to be feasible again. That’s why it was done away with in the first place, and that was when the fandom was smaller.

The writers came up with e good command, though.

Yeah, I have a feeling Dirk is going to decide to ignore this command and stop taking suggestions. Either that, or he’s going to inform us that he is not making Homestuck, he’s making Homestuck 2.

But I should have known better. People think you can run a story like this? This must be just about the stupidest idea anyone has ever come up with. I'll just have to make up the commands myself from here on out. Seemed to work ok for the other guy.

Yep, pretty much what I expected.

Oh Jesus Christ, what even is this room?

O.K., let’s take things from the top. Looks like we got the beta kids’ entry items, as well as their Aspect flags from Prospit and Derse. Why does Dirk have these things? There also appear to be some cruxite dowels next to them, but they are any of the colors we’ve seen before.

WOAH, HOLD UP, Are those Dave’s copies of SBURB? Or are they Bro’s? Clearly Dirk has just collected a bunch of items from various points in Homestuck’s timeline like some sort of museum. For what purpose, though?

Oh my god, there’s a Tab watering can. I assume it was alchemized, since Dirk mentioned earlier using alchemy to make his rad new shades. I wonder why Dirk has that Skaianet poster on his wall. I would have thought he’d want nothing to do with anything Jake had his fingers in. Then again, there also appears to be a kotatsu with Jake’s bedspread in the middle of the room.

I can’t tell what the green thing is next to the mutated kitten. Or what that other green thing next to the robot horse is either.

OH FUCK ME THERE’S A ROBOT CAL IN THE PROCESS OF BEING MADE. DIRK, NO. WHY. YOU HAVE THE NARRATIVE CONTROL NOW, YOU SHOULD KNOW CAL IN ANY FORM IS BAD NEWS.

Is that... Is that an anime body pillow there at the bottom?

I also keep my FLORA OF THE SUCCULENT PERSUASION in here, so's I can keep an eye on them.

Dirk grows succulents... That is not a character trait I expected of him.

> Continue

[journeysintowebcomics]

Homestuck Liveblog #185

UPDATE 185: Get What You Want

Last time Dirk’s hijacking has been hijacked by the version of Calliope that’s deep in the black hole. She also took over Jade, because if there’s one thing this meat epilogue has a lot of is hijacking. Should be the Hijack Epilogue. So let’s continue.

Terezi has been standing there for a while, and she mentions smelling, so it’s likely this is the version that’s from Earth C, instead of any version that’s able to see. What have you been doing all this time, Terezi? Mind talking about that? Looks like she doesn’t, she’s busy commenting John smells like shit. He really must, what with all the vomit on himself and also the blood, the broken glasses, and finally the big-ass golden tooth stuck on his chest. It’s no surprise everyone John’s seeing tells him right away he should go clean himself.

I like how Calliope’s descriptive narration takes the time to point out all the flesh and dull teeth the characters move, since it’s all alien to her. The way she describes it amuses me a lot. Another reason to prefer this over Dirk’s narration, really. Less pretentious rambling, more amusing asides.

Somehow John spends a few paragraphs thinking Terezi is cute, even going as far as saying the term ‘gap moe’ would apply to her. I’m not really knowledgeable about such terms or really know much about what defines them, but never, in a million years, I’d have thought of calling Terezi ‘gap moe’. Who would have before this was written? I blame you for this, Hussie.

I don’t fucking believe this.

I know, right? Thanks, Dirk.

Dead Calliope is not judgmental and couldn’t care less about John’s cuteness thoughts about Terezi or about creepy human males gathering seven billion pillows with anime characters. Be relieved, John!

There’s a reference to Monty Python, and John says their movies suck, which is blasphemy as far as I’m concerned. It’s correctly said Alternia sucks, and Terezi gets sick, because apparently half of the characters in this epilogue has to be sick or fainting. I’m almost thinking somebody will take over Terezi in the next minute, but thankfully it doesn’t seem like that’s happening.

So, the reason why Terezi is about to faint is because she’s starving to death, she hasn’t eaten in who knows how long. I suppose she has been wandering in the middle of nowhere for a loooong time, and if she took any food with her it must already be gone. She doesn’t have a concrete destination in mind, I suppose. She must be flying around just for the sake of not being on Earth C. If it wasn’t for John here maybe she’d be doomed to die alone in the emptiness of paradox space.

Searching for food in the wallet only nets them a car. Hey, that’s good! I remember John used his wind powers to make a car float and fly, this could be a fast way of going around, although...given John’s delicate state, it may not be good for him to use his powers extensively, poor guy. Terezi isn’t very impressed a car was stored in a wallet.

JOHN: what are you doing out here anyway?

TEREZI: WH4T DO YOU TH1NK 1M DO1NG OUT H3R3?

TEREZI: LOOK1NG FOR VR1SK4 OF COURS3

Oh. So she didn’t leave Earth C because she was going to feel overwhelmed by everything like Rose and Dirk, she went all the way out here to look for Vriska. Good thing John isn’t aware of what happened to Vriska, because how to explain to the person who has almost starved to death that the person she’s looking for was sucked in a black hole? On the other hand, if she had arrived here earlier, she’d have been involved in the Lord English fight and that means she likely would have died. She got a bit lucky there.

I wonder if now that Terezi has heard finding Vriska is impossible she’ll want to return to Earth C. I also wonder if when she gets into that Earth she’ll suddenly feel the same thing Rose and Dirk felt, whether it’s because of her power or because Dirk or Dead Calliope force it on her.

Time doesn’t pass linearly here in the emptiness, so I’m not sure how old Terezi is. She may be just as old as John is, she sounds a bit delighted he’s older. The examination by smell ends when she discovers shaving cream and tries to eat it. Oh boy, she really must be starving! Somehow she seems to be satisfied by it, so maybe it’s not bad for trolls. Who knows.

but no. it’s just my brother’s tooth, lodged deep in his chest, spreading its poison. it really should be extracted before it’s too late.

Hey, now that I think about it, did Caliborn embed a vial of poison or whatever in that tooth? For no reason? Did he have any reason to think someday he’d be biting somebody and leaving the golden tooth behind? Did he install poison in there just because he wanted to? I mean, it wouldn’t really be out of character for him to randomly decide he wants a poisonous gold tooth, but it’s not like he’d have the chance to use it against many people!

Now that Terezi is gorging herself with shaving cream and seems to be a little better, John wants to return home, most likely by zapping, so he can get medical attention for the fatal injury he has right now. Terezi doesn’t want to, I guess because being with an agonizing John is a pleasant enough experience. Kind of inconsiderate, Terezi, let the poor guy get medical attention. John, being the sweet guy he is, accepts and decides to drive around with wind, waiting for Terezi to decide they can go home.

Iiii don’t remember John having such romantic feelings in Homestuck. He did have something that could resemble black romance, at least for a little while, but this is red. He must have really missed her.

Back in Earth C, Jane returns to the office after another political event.

the last traces of trickster mode are bleeding off her aura. the great gift of this sacred boon has run its course for the evening, and though she is not as grateful as she should be, she nevertheless acknowledges the extraordinary benefit it has afforded her with a slight nod to the mirror.

She has been using the lollipop Calliope gave her to get rid of any inhibitions and say whatever she wants in political conferences, without a care if she’s stepping on any toes or offending anyone. Wow. I was actually speechless for a moment. Using the trickster thing again seems like a stupid idea. I can only imagine what the sugary rambling was like. Hopefully it included 100% less paragraphs about having babies with literally all her friends.

however, while a great portion of the electorate adores jane’s elevated sense of charisma and presence when she is in trickster mode, as they should, there are just as many detractors who claim that the whole thing is “extremely problematic.” i doubt this is true but must also acknowledge it exceeds the scope of my expertise to comment on the subject.

JANE: Oh my goodness.

JANE: It’s NOT problematic!

Oh, it’s definitely a problem for your sanity, Jane. This whole political thing is starting to seem a chain of bad decisions, one after another.

Jane’s inner monologue almost looks like it was funneled into her by Dead Calliope, given how she’s praising the lollipop so much. Dead Calliope better not start imitating Dirk on this, thanks. A moment later, Jane tosses the lollipop on the floor, then turns around much to her surprise and places it on a more reverent place over the mantle. Dead Calliope really is forcing things when it’s convenient, too. Okay then.

JANE: You know, the last time we spoke about this issue I could have sworn you asked me to let you handle Jake.

DIRK: Hmm.

DIRK: I guess I did say that.

JANE: ...

JANE: Dirk, are you doing quite okay?

JANE: It’s very unlike you to forget details like that.

DIRK: I’m fine, Jane.

the prince is not fine. he is not the type who takes well to having his plans upended, or his control of a shared vehicle fully suppressed. my brother wasn’t much that type either.

DIRK: Oh, fuck off. I’m nothing like that guy.

It has been days, apparently. Days since Dirk and Rose met, days since he told Jane that. Dirk somehow forgot to go get Jake’s endorsement for days. He definitely is not okay. I thought you were good at multitasking, Dirk! Maybe Dead Calliope’s hijacking of his plans really hit him hard, but dang, I thought he wasn’t the kind of person that’d let miserable failures get to him. I mean, other than the miserable failure that led to him fading away into glitches in that doomed timeline, but that’s a different matter.

but certain objects and actions strike me as more notable than others. that very long, red rifle on the table, for instance. a weapon that does not belong to him and has not been used in a long time. he has been returning to the rifle between his other menial activities of probable misdirection. he dismantles it, reassembles it, slides off the receiver cover to examine the firing mechanism.

Sounds familiar. That was seen before, I think? I think it was made by combining one of Jade’s rifles with some of the Condesce’s technology, back from Act 6. It makes objects teleport, I believe. What could Dirk be planning with this, I wonder...

JANE: Actually, I have been thinking...

JANE: Perhaps this attempt to get Jake on our side is the wrong angle from which to approach this vexing problem.

JANE: Wouldn’t it be much easier to discredit or blackmail him?

JANE: He is much beloved in the Troll Kingdom for his carefully cultivated posterior, true.

JANE: But we both know that his bottom is not the only intimate attribute for which he is famed amongst Trollish citizens.

JANE: It would take almost nothing to expose his many dalliances through the human media.

DIRK: Hoo boy.

JANE: I know! Not to be judgmental, but his zipper is as loose as his pants are tight.

DIRK: That’s not what I meant by hoo boy.

JANE: You don’t think it would work?

DIRK: Oh, it could work.

That’d be such a way to break Jake’s heart and alienate him forever. If this is ever done, you can bet Jake won’t show his face to anyone ever again, whether it’s out of shame or feelings of betrayal. I suppose if he for some reason decides to support Karkaroni this is what Jane will do, but seriously, I hope things don’t come to that.

What makes Jake so marketable – supposedly – is that he’s viewed as innocent while also sexual, at least in the human circles. Discrediting that would break his influence on the human public. Somehow that makes sense, really, but it also has the danger of making it sound like interspecies sex is scandalous, which is...not really something that won’t inflame tensions between species. Wasn’t the point of this whole election that Karkaroni getting elected would make things tense? It’s starting to sound like Jane’s campaign would make things just as bad.

JANE: Dirk... do you want me to deal with Jake or not? You’ve offered nothing helpful yet, but you’ve shot down all my ideas.

DIRK: That’s because lately, all your ideas have been fucking terrible, Jane.

DIRK: Seriously. You’ve got to quit the tricksterpop. It’s rotting your brain.

He’s not wrong! He really isn’t. Jane, listen to him, he tends to be right most of the time – unfortunately for a lot of people he is. Dead Calliope takes offense to the insult to the cherub artifact, but seriously, Dirk is right.

After a baking metaphor and Dead Calliope making sure nothing will happen to the lollipop, the conversation ends, and Dirk focuses on the rifle. He’s satisfied with it. What’s he up to?

DIRK: Your ass is mine, Jake English.

he speaks under his breath inaudibly, perhaps frustrated, unaccustomed to scheming while others look over his shoulder. it’s possible he is not as bold, or as confident in his own designs as i believed.

DIRK: I fucking said, your ass is mine, Jake English.

Oh no! So that’s Dirk’s genius political machination! He’ll use the teleportation rifle to surgically remove Jake’s ass from a distance by transporting it to his workshop, getting rid of any influence Jake has on anyone! Okay, most likely that’s not his plan, but at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if it is. Let’s hope he doesn’t mean that literally.

JAKE: Ah chaps dont you love to take a rigorous jaunt about the wilds first thing in the morning, middle thing in the day, and last thing in the evening?

Said Jake, unaware of the shot that’d extricate his posterior in the blink of an eye—okay, I have to stop with that.

Apparently Jake is torturing Karkaroni by making him hike around in a freaking suit. That can’t be good! Is this something he’s doing to get Jake’s favor? Because if so then it’s not worth it! You couldn’t get me to hike in a suit unless you paid me a veeeeery large amount of money.

DAVE: hey jake were cool on the whole cardio program or whatever

DAVE: karkats not really what id call a kinesthetic learner

KARKAT: HEY!

KARKAT: I CAN HOLD MY OWN IN A THRESHING MATCH BETTER THAN 99% OF THE SQUISHY, PLACID HUMAN POPULATION ON THIS PLANET.

KARKAT: I WAS LITERALLY TRAINING TO BE A COMBAT SPECIALIST ON ALTERNIA.

KARKAT: MAYBE WE SHOULD SOMETIMES TRY TO REMEMBER AND *FUCKING RESPECT* THAT FACT ABOUT ME???

DAVE: hm

DAVE: gonna make another mental note about which material to avoid when writing your campaign speeches

DAVE: like

DAVE: dude is nuts with a sickle

DAVE: can carve a bloody arc through a surrounding circle of gathered squishy humans

DAVE: watch their guts spill on the floor while he roars at the sky in honor of his genocidal ancestors

DAVE: were kinda trying to downplay the idea that trolls are naturally good at violence and shit here?

Hm. Recently I found out the sharp edge of sickles and scythes are on the inside, not the outside, so I call shenanigans on the deadliness of a sickle when it’s about groups of people. Hah! But yeah, they better avoid anything that involves killing humans and how good the trolls would be at that with some training. Don’t say it aloud, you’ll give Jane ideas!

Apparently they hadn’t popped the question to Jake yet, they just did. Jake doesn’t seem very eager to give the endorsement, so Dave tries his hand at appealing to him by pointing out Jane owns the internet, and also that Jane has been saying some nasty things of Jake in the media. Wait, did Jane go ahead with her idea of ruining Jake’s good name? Oh god, she continued messing with the lollipop and lost any inhibitions about not doing that, didn’t she. That’s what happened, I bet. Goshdarnit, Jane.

By now I’m pretty sure ‘Jane Crocker has neoliberal austerity measures’ is the troll campaign’s slogan.

KARKAT: JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

KARKAT: I’M GOING TO SAY THIS FOR THE LAST TIME.

KARKAT: SWEET BRO AND HELLA JEFF IS ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS SUBJECT MATTER FOR PRODUCING CAMPAIGN ADS!

KARKAT: NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THE FUCK YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT, OR WHAT POINTS YOU’RE TRYING TO MAKE!

...ah. He’s using that surreal nonsensical creation of his to argue his points in the campaign ads.

...

Okay, Jane has the election in the bag. So much for being a savvy advisor, Dave!

At least Jake appreciates they’re not trying to disguise their appeals with a lot of pleasantries and sweet words, or trying to seduce him with blue dresses and scotch. After Karkaroni insults Jake half a dozen or so times to his face, Jake tries to settle things down by pretty much saying he’s not convinced yet and that he still hasn’t been given a reason to side with them against Jane, and Jane hasn’t given him such a reason either.

JAKE: Im not entirely ignorant of the rules of this jamboree. I understand that whoever i endorse will have a good chance of winning on nothing but my good word.

Jake definitely isn’t the smartest cookie in this baker’s dozen, but he’s not so dense he wouldn’t realize how desperate both sides are to try to recruit him, and he can pinpoint the reason. Good, he’s aware how important he is in this entire debacle, thank goodness.

JAKE: So why should i trust ANYONE trying to win my favor right now? Do you have ANY case to make which does not involve glowing accounts of my muscular bottom???

Quick, mention to him how you want a wink and double pistols instead of a picture of his ass, that’ll win him over.

Dirk comments spitefully Jake has no proactive thoughts – thanks for your commentary, Dirk, go away – and it’s up to Karkaroni to deliver the effective arguments to get Jake’s support. Oh, this is going to be good! Go ahead, show your oratory chops!

Karkaroni’s argument is that he’s not trying to pull the wool over Jake’s eyes, he’s not trying to hide his intentions or disguise things under a veneer of niceness. Jane is, and she’s more concerned with how things look than how they actually are. He has a point there, I think. Also, she’s holding an entire species’ reproductive rights hostage and that still resembles the Condesce’s actions too much for me to like it. To Karkaroni’s credit it’s a pretty good speech, I actually like it. Will it be enough to convince Jake?

he thinks it could break jane’s heart were he to oppose her. and yet, hasn’t she fired the first shot by broadcasting such scandalous things about him in the media? and it was so soon after they’d nearly had an intimate reconciliation. the more he thinks on it, the more jake struggles to believe in the sincerity behind jane’s friendship with him.

Oh god, she definitely is throwing mud at him. Jane, what the hell.

Until now he had been afraid of disappointing Jane and Dirk, but with Jane throwing stones at him and Dirk being insidious and thankfully far away from him right now, Jake decides he’ll do it: he’ll support Karkaroni. They did it! I’m actually surprised! Hopefully he’ll be able to do something before Dirk retaliates, but really, nice job, guys!

The matter of how much clout he’ll have left with humans is something that remains to be seen, as well as the intensity of Jane’s maybe-scandalous broadcasting about Jake, but this is a minor victory.

Hey, John, how’s it going?

Terezi is munching her way through another tin of human fatherly tobacco as john crawls into the back seat. this has been their ritual for several days. precisely how many, they couldn’t say.

...you know, for an injury that’s poisoned and almost fatal, John sure is lasting a long time. Are we sure it was as bad as it was said to be?

Since they have nothing better to do, John asks questions about how Terezi is the way she is, with her licking and smelling and eating tobacco as if it was chocolate. He says all of his conversations with her was a snark-off or a jokey argument – or that time she literally led to his death, lest we forget that. Somehow, John implied she’s difficult to be around, which isn’t really wrong, but...something I like of Terezi is that although she’s a bit exhausting, she has this way of talking that makes her fun to be around, most of the time. Ever since her pesterlogs that was shown pretty well.

All John wants is a real conversation, because he has been really depressed and antisocial these last few years, and although he doesn’t admit it to her, it was already stated pretty clearly he missed Terezi a lot. She’s here now! So he wants to talk to her. Although she’s really flippant about it, she appreciates it and calls John a dork in an affectionate manner. She may not show it often, but she really appreciates this kind of thing.

All this makes John reminisce about that doomed Game Over timeline, where Terezi bled seventy gallons of blood all over the place and collapsed in an outline made with her own chalk. She had been able to give him good instructions even though she was dying horribly, and John really admires that, he’s even a bit intimidated by it. Terezi admits she remembers that timeline too and is the reason she’s out here in the middle of nowhere.

TEREZI: TH4T DOOM3D T3R3Z1 M1SS3D VR1SK4 *SO* MUCH, 1T W4S L1K3 4 HOL3 1N H3R H34RT

TEREZI: 1 R3M3MB3R TH3 W4Y SH3 F3LT, B3C4US3 ON3 T1M3, 4LL H3R M3MOR13S C4M3 FLOOD1NG B4CK

TEREZI: 1 3V3N GOT TO S33 WH4T H4PP3N3D WH3N SH3 D13D

TEREZI: SH3 4ND 4NOTH3R VR1SK4 GHOST F1N4LLY FOUND 34CH OTH3R

TEREZI: 1T M4D3 M3 SO H4PPY G3TT1NG TO F33L TH4T, 4S 1F 1T W4S ON3 OF MY OWN M3MOR13S

Hmmmm...I suppose remembering all that made her want to look for Vriska, at least to feel again that happiness, because she feels Vriska and she have a connection of some sort. They do, that’s got to be admitted. Now she’s been unable to find Vriska and likely never won’t.

JOHN: you SAVED everyone!

JOHN: you’re the only reason we were able to defeat lord english and win the game at all!

JOHN: if it weren’t for you, me and roxy would have just floated around in paradox space like a couple of losers with no idea what to do!

JOHN: even worse, i might have tried to fix things MYSELF!

TEREZI: OH D34R GOD

JOHN: yeah!!!

Now that I think about it...he’s right. It was Terezi’s guidance what made the best canon timeline happen, without her it’d all have ended in the Game Over timeline. She did save everyone. Maybe things with the fight with Lord English would have gone better if she had been around to give them advice of some sort. If only.

It’s possible the reason why John has been staying in this car circling the black hole isn’t only because he doesn’t want to leave Terezi behind, but also because he doesn’t feel like Earth C is for him. Which is a sentiment I’m not sure I understand, I have to admit. They worked so hard to achieve it and he’s not happy with his life there. It’s strange.

TEREZI: WH4T 3ND3D UP H4PP3N1NG W1TH ROXY?

JOHN: i...

JOHN: dunno.

JOHN: we just sorta stopped hanging out regularly.

JOHN: then she got close with callie and i felt too awkward to try to figure out where our relationship stood.

TEREZI: R34LLY?

TEREZI: HMM

JOHN: what?

TEREZI: 1 JUST 4SSUM3D TH4T BY NOW YOU TWO M1GHT H4V3 GOTT3N TOG3TH3R

JOHN: really?

JOHN: why?

TEREZI: NO R34SON. JUST 4 HUNCH

TEREZI: 1 DONT TH1NK 1T WOULD H4V3 WORK3D OUT THOUGH

Right, it was a couple that had potential to happen. I wonder if it’d have worked out if they really had stayed together. Roxy seemed to really like him, it’s possible John going antisocial and depressed pushed her away. That’s tragic. Still, makes me wonder how that’d have been like if it had actually happened.

Now that he admitted he missed Terezi a lot, he asks her to come home with him. Better that than staying near the black hole doing nothing, no?

TEREZI: 1

TEREZI: 1M NOT R34DY Y3T

JOHN: when WILL you be ready?

TEREZI: 1 DONT KNOW

TEREZI: M4YB3 N3V3R

TEREZI: 1F YOU H4DNT FOUND M3, 1 PROB4BLY WOULD H4V3 D13D R1GHT?

TEREZI: 1S TH4T WH4T 1 W4NT?

JOHN: um, obviously not, dummy!

JOHN: if you wanted to die so bad you wouldn’t have...

JOHN: ...eaten all that disgusting shaving cream and tobacco!

I’m not very certain this is any good. Terezi hardly can be any healthier after eating all the shaving cream and tobacco. It could be she knows that and is just...eating stuff she knows she shouldn’t. But hey, Terezi decides John’s right, she’s not really looking for death. To me it seems she was looking for a meaningful relationship – doesn’t necessarily have to be romantic -- and thought Vriska would be the one to give it to her. Now John’s here, and he’s sincere about missing Terezi, so he’s a good option.

She seems afraid to let go of John, not even for him to get real food. She really is desperate for something meaningful.

now that he dwells on it, he can feel the ache again, both from the tooth piercing his flesh and, more insidiously, from the poison it has been delivering into his bloodstream.

For days. Least effective lethal poison ever.

Terezi isn’t really interested in leaving that tooth embedded into John and is ready to do some surgical operation with her katana. Hah! Oh boy, on paper this sounds like a pretty lousy idea, but it’s as good as it can get when they’re floating in a car around a black hole. May as well give it a try and hope he doesn’t die. Better plan than John’s ‘let’s let the tooth come out on its own’, plan.

She can’t even see/smell/hear anything because his shirt is over the wound! It’s almost laughable. That aside, how is the nasty wound from a poisonous tooth in John’s chest less gross than the description of he eating meat? I’m still scarred about that.

Terezi’s ready to do surgery with her sword, while John gazes poetically at her face and describes her as feminine. He’s really into her, seriously! The go-ahead is given, Terezi gets ready to dig in.

TEREZI: HMMM

TEREZI: 1TS LODG3D 1N TH3R3 PR3TTY GOOD

TEREZI: BR4C3 YOURS3LF 3GB3RT, TH1S 1S GO1NG TO ST1NG

John’s taking this admirably well already, for someone getting a sword between his ribs to take out a tooth I’m pretty sure is the size of a fist. I wouldn’t blame him if he passes out from the pain.

Once the tooth is out, now they have to stop the bleeding. She takes off John’ clothes, John is dizzy, Terezi is doing all the work here. She’s doing well, at least until John pulls her closer and gives her a kiss, because getting toxic teeth extracted from your chest makes you horny, I guess. Golly, John, you could have waited until she was done, at least!

Not that she’s not into it. She’s going into this with enthusiasm, she even lets John take off her shirt. You know, pretty amazing that in one plot there’s a whole lot of political nonsense, and on the other plot John and Terezi are getting romantic in a car. The disparity is so jarring, guys, I almost can’t believe it’s the same webcomic.

TEREZI: OH MY GOD YOUR BLOOD SM3LLS D3L1C1OUS

JOHN: woah.

JOHN: um, wow.

JOHN: ok...

JOHN: i think you’re really pretty, in... the light of the dead universe?

Smooth.

This page ends with them getting even more intense with their snogging. This went in some rather intense directions! When I started reading these epilogues none of this was even close to what I expected. Oh well.

I’ll continue next time.

Next time: next update

[landofsomethingsomething]

I headcanon that there are nights where Dave just can NOT sleep, due to anxiety and feeling so on edge even if nothing's there to hurt him anymore. Karkat can slip back into his old Alternian sleeping patterns pretty easily, so it works, in a way.

He sees Dave walk in from the corner of his eye, slouched over and scruffy-faced, still wearing his wrinkled pajamas. "Morning," he mumbles, drifting nearer.

"It's two in the afternoon," Karkat says, lowering the book he's reading a fraction of an inch. Dave stretches, using one arm to wave dismissively in his direction. His shirt rides up when he does this, and Karkat lowers the book another inch, raising his eyebrows. It's irritating, really, how distracting that is. "I had assumed that you'd return to the inexplicably diurnal ways of your species once we'd settled in here, but apparently not?"

"Well, you know what happens when you assume," Dave yawns, standing over him. His hair is a mess. He probably hasn't even brushed his teeth. "Something something ass, something something, you and me..." he shakes his head, and then he turns and flops onto the couch. His eyes are still closed. Karkat pokes his leg with one socked foot, and they flutter back open. "Hell," he says. "I never said we couldn't just be nocturnal. Fuck it. This is troll land, right?"

Karkat rolls his eyes. "A fantastic idea, really. Everyone else will love it."

Dave just waves at him again, or rather, his arm makes a spastic fluttering motion that Karkat assumes is supposed to be a dismissive wave. He snorts, raises his book, and gets back to reading. Entire minutes go by without interruption, which is almost as distracting as actually being interrupted, because Dave never just lets him read. He narrows his eyes over the top of the pages. Dave's eyes are closed, again, and he's just kind of sitting there, hands loose at his sides, mouth slightly open, chest rising and falling like he's actually somehow gone right back to sleep.

"You know," Karkat says, and Dave's eyes snap open. "You could try a cold shower. Getting dressed. Taking care of basic hygeinic needs instead of being a lazy jackass all afternoon."

Dave blinks a few times, and then sighs. "Firstly, fuck cold showers."

"I'm just saying, they wake you up."

"I don't think I stink, yet," Dave says, and then he lifts an arm and sniffs himself like an actual animal. Karkat kicks him.

"Don't be disgusting," he says.

Dave catches his foot by the ankle. "Don't kick me," he shoots back. "I'm fragile." He then neatly plucks the sock off his foot and tosses it over the back of the couch, an action which is as irritating as it is mystifying. Karkat tries and fails to pulls his leg back.

"What the fuck," he protests.

"I forget, are you ticklish here?"

"No."

"Liar," Dave says, grinning.

"Don't you dare --"

Karkat kicks him with his other foot, Dave grabs his other ankle, and everything rapidly goes to hell from there. Dave pulls him down across the cushions toward him, Karkat drops his book with an undignified yelp, and Dave twists and flings himself over his defenseless body, nearly knocking the wind out of him. Not that Dave is heavy, exactly, it's just -- he's all elbows and knees and other awkward, knobby ends -- and before Karkat can really do much meaningful protesting, Dave has him caught up in a smothering embrace. Karkat's arms are trapped against his sides, Dave's knees are bent between his legs, and his nose is poking into Karkat's neck. He squirms uselessly, kicking his heels against the back of Dave's legs.

"Let me go, you ridiculous goddamn clingbeast! I'll have you know I was twelve chapters into that book and things were finally getting good --"

"Good," Dave repeats, snickering into the skin under Karkat's chin. Karkat swallows, hard. Shakes his head.

"Yes, good, and if you're going to go back to sleep, the last thing I want to do is be your goddamn slumber platform for the duration of this imbecilic expression of your inability to properly moderate your own fucking biological processes!"

"Sexy, you mean," Dave says, and Karkat growls beneath him. Dave exhales loudly -- he has definitely not brushed his teeth -- and squeezes his arms tighter around him. "Whenever you say a book is finally getting good what you mean is that it's finally getting sexy."

"Untrue."

"Totally true."

"Certifiably false."

"One hundred percent absolute purestrain truth, my dude, no shame. Your legendary thirst for textual smut is insatiable, so what." Dave is half mumbling again, and Karkat can feel his face going all shame-blotchy, but he tells himself it's anger instead and growls louder. Dave sighs. "I love it when you make alien noises at me," he says.

"I will roll over and dump both of us unceremoniously off this couch," Karkat warns him.

"Doesn't it feel kinda nostalgic?" Dave lifts his head, hunching up so Karkat can see his face, all pulled into something that looks genuinely curious. "Snuggling up on a couch together? Shit, all we have to do is drag out the old husktop --"

"Are you feeling homesick?" Karkat cuts him off, incredulous. "For the fucking meteor? Is that what this is?"

Dave drops his head back down and doesn't reply immediately, and Karkat can't decide if that's confirmation enough on its own or not. After a bit, Dave sucks in a breath and shakes his head. "Not really," he says. "I mean, not exactly."

"What, then?"

"I don't know," he says, and Karkat feels his brows pull down, an actual thread of worry tangling up with his irritation and fondness and the ever present awareness that his legs are being held apart by Dave's knees, right now, and -- God. He nudges the side of Dave's face with his chin.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm good," Dave says, maybe a little too fast. "Just, you know. Sleep, sometimes. It's, uh." He exhales again, shaking his head. "God, this is so dumb. You're the can't sleep guy, not me. Sorry for stealing your thing, damn, what a douche move, self."

Karkat's growls taper off, subtlely changing tone and timbre to become an equally chest-rumbling sound that means something entirely different. Dave sits up, untangling his arms around him. He runs his fingers through his hair, a nervous habit Karkat is pretty well familiar with, by now, which does absolutely nothing to remedy the fact that it's still sticking out comically in every direction. Karkat blinks up at him. "Uh. Is there something I could do to help?"

"It's probably just some bullshit acclimation nonsense," Dave says. "Like, hey, sorry, new environment, all your weird nervous senses are going to start going haywire for awhile while we adjust to having sunrises and sunsets and middles of the night again, but nah. What it actually is, as far as I can tell, is that I just expect bad things to happen at certain times and I never thought about it because it's been so long since I've even seen the sun set that it didn't occur to me, but it's like --"

He stops, abruptly. Karkat raises his eyebrows at him. "It's like...?"

"I never realized how much I noticed that stuff," he says, and then he punctuates this statement with a shrug like it's no big deal. "It's kind of frustrating, actually? To think you're totally over something and then to find out that maybe the thing is more persistent than you realized? To think, I guess, that maybe it'll just keep coming up in ways you don't expect forever, and maybe you'll always have to worry about being kind of fucked up or whatever because you don't know exactly what makes the thing come back, or least, feel pretty shitty again."

"Hey," Karkat says. He reaches up and wraps his arms around Dave's sides, twists his fingers in his shirt, and pulls him roughly back down against him. Dave complies easily with this, collapsing obediently back down. "Has this been going on this whole time?"

"I don't know," Dave says. "Kinda, I guess. I mean, I thought it was fine, at first." He laughs, quietly. "It's not that big a deal. I know, god, that was a lot of words, sorry. But it's really not."

"I knew I should have bothered you more about this," Karkat mutters. He thinks back, turning the months since their arrival here over in his mind. His own sleepless nights. Teasing Dave about adopting nocturnal habits on those not so rare occassions when he would join him, up at all hours. Sitting together and talking the nights away, or ... passing the time in any number of other ways. He coughs. Dave is shaking his head.

"If there's one thing we can all count on you for," he says, "it's to consistently and predictably blame yourself for other people's shit basically all the time. Fuck, are you Dirk, now? You sound like Dirk."

"Oh, come on," Karkat protests.

"Blah blah, all my fault, I should have done this, I could have done that..." Dave thumps him lightly on the shoulder. "I didn't want to talk about it. And I didn't want to make it a big deal. Still don't, actually."

"All right," Karkat concedes. "Fine. What do you want, then?"

"Nothin'," Dave sighs. He presses his face against Karkat's chest and just lays there, breathing softly. Karkat moves his fingers in nervous patterns on his back. His purring comes and goes in little stutters. Dave lifts his head and -- with this absolutely fake air of forced casualty -- says, "Maybe just this for awhile, I dunno."

"Okay," Karkat says, swallowing hard while a burst of warmth lights up all his pathetically easy to please emotion centers. "But if you want to try keeping normal hours, for a change..."

Dave laughs. "You'd like that, I bet. I can already feel your future smugness smothering me, Karkat, I'm drowning in it."

"No -- look. I'm just saying, if you can't sleep, wake me up, okay? I don't care when we're awake! Morning, evening, some hideous mashup of one and the other, whatever! And we don't have to talk about it!" Karkat clenches his teeth, making a nebulous gesture with one hand. "I just don't want you to be up and feeling all shitty or whatever by yourself!"

"Yeah," Dave says, wiggling up closer, so his face is up against Karkat's shoulder. "All right."

"... Okay," Karkat agrees, hesitantly. His arms fall back into place around him.

"Sounds good." Dave is mumbling, again, and Karkat sighs. He fishes around over the side of the couch for his book. Dave shifts against him, cracking one eye open to observe this, and snorts. "Can't believe you're gonna read a sex book right over my head while I'm trying to cuddle," he says. "Rude."

"You're going to be asleep in five fucking seconds," Karkat says. His fingertips brush the spine of his book and he snatches it up, wiggling his shoulders against the couch cushions. Settling in for the long haul.

"Am not," Dave murmurs.

"And it's not a sex book! It is a romance novel, there is plot. Characterization! Drama! Narrative with satisfying theme and purpose..."

He trails off, because there's no point. The five seconds have passed, and Dave is, as predicted, soundly asleep. Karkat sighs heavily, but his body betrays him by resuming its steady, contented rumbling. Embarrassing. He shakes his head, slings one arm around Dave, and reads until his own eyelids start to droop. Good.

Maybe eventually they'll manage something resembling the waking hours of a sane species.

[whipped-for-kpop-fics]

Blood.

This is what happens when I have an idea for a comedy comic strip but can’t draw.

Min Yoongi (Suga) x Y/N

Supernaturl au. Smuttish. Kinda crack(comedy for those who don’t know the term crack)?

1.7k words

A few months ago, you met a guy and it was pretty much lust at first sight. You saw him from across the bar and your heart beat erratically at the sight of this beautiful creature. As if he heard the sudden increase in your heart rate, he looked directly at you and your eyes met. Shivers ran down your spine and excitement pooled in your stomach. His gaze was dark and mysterious with a hint of danger and you had never wanted to be beside someone more in your life. So, you arose from your seat and made your way through the crowd to him but by the time you reached his stool, he was gone.

You returned to the bar almost every day for just over a week in hopes of meeting the handsome stranger again but, he never showed.

It was two weeks after your eyes were first blessed with his visuals that you came across the man again. You were sat up to your desk at the travel agency where you worked when suddenly a figure stood behind you, looming over your frame. Seeing a shadow had taken over the papers you were supposed to be working on, while actually fantasising about the handsome stranger, you turned to find out who was blocking your light to find the man plaguing your every waking moment stood there, leering down at you.

"Oh, hello." You squeaked in surprise, pleasant surprise but you tried to keep your cool facade. A cool facade he easily saw through, how could he not when you were literally shaking with excitement, your heart pumping so hard and fast he could see the blood rushing through a slightly protruding vein in your neck.

"You've been looking for me." It was a statement, spoke in a harsh tone that was meant to scare you off, give you a silent warning but, the deepness of his voice vibrated through your body sending delicious ripples up your thighs. "Why?"

"I uh-" You swallowed hard and shuffled in your chair, hoping to look more put together when you spoke your next words. "How can I be looking for you when you're the one in my place of business?" You retorted, a slight, teasing smirk lifting one side of your mouth. He stared for a few seconds in shock at your obvious flirtations before a flash of an amused smile quirked his lips, vanishing so fast you almost doubted your own vision.

"I guess I am." He nodded before pulling over a chair to sit directly opposite you. He leant down onto his spread knees with his elbows and studied you. "What's your name?" You pointed to your name badge and he scoffed, chuckling slightly. "I can read, I want to hear you say it."

"Why?"

"To make up for not asking you two weeks ago."

"Y/N, my name is Y/N."

"Y/N." He hummed moving to sit back but he didn't close his legs and it made you want to get on your knees between his spread thighs. "Pleasure to meet you Y/N, my name is Yoongi."

And that was how it started, your casual relationship. It wasn't casual in the sense that you both saw other people because neither of you did, you were only interested in one another. It was casual in the sense that nothing had been agreed upon, at least not officially. At least once a week, Yoongi would take you out for the evening and spoil you, treat you like a queen before dropping you at your house with a simple kiss. Of course you spoke between dates, via phone call and text but you only saw one another on the evenings he took you out. That meant you didn't have much time together, alone. You were always in public places enjoying just being in one another's company but you yearned for more. Yoongi was an incredibly attractive guy with perfect, pale skin that made you envy him, soft black hair that you longed to run your fingers through and tug in hopes of earning a moan and deep, beautiful brown eyes that looked at you so intensely, like you were his next meal. You wanted Yoongi and you wanted him bad.

It was three months exactly after your first date that Yoongi finally took you to his home. It was a lavish, spacious apartment with a beautiful view of the city. His choice of decor was simple and practical, everything had its use or purpose, even the decorative pieces had multiple uses. He used a specific colour scheme; black, white and grey with splashes of red here and there. The living area was open plan and started as soon as you entered the home. But that didn't interest you. You wanted to know about his bedroom. On the other side of the living room, in the centre of the back wall stood a lone, black door.

"Is that your bedroom?" You asked slyly.

"Would you like to see?" You nodded and Yoongi smirked before leading you over. He opened the door and motioned inside.

That's how you wound up naked on his bed with his head between your thighs. "Fuck, I want to bite you so much." He growled, running his nose along your inner thigh as he took a break from eating you out with such enthusiam it was as if you were his last meal. "You taste so fucking good, Y/N." He nuzzled his face into your thigh, spreading wetness onto your flesh before turning his attention back to where you really wanted him. You moaned instantly and arched your back off of the matress.

Usually, you didn't like to watch when a guy went down on you but it was Yoongi and you wanted to know how he looked with his dark eyes peering up at you. So, you opened your eyes and lifted your head to look down. The moment you saw his face you froze and your eyes widened. "Ohmygod!" You shrieked, shimmying up with bed quickly with your hands over your mouth in shock. "I am so fucking sorry, I didn't know."

Yoongi looked up at you, his dark hair a mess and falling into his eyes and that was pretty fucking hot but as soon as you got to his nose, you freaked out. His lower face was covered in blood.

"I thought I had another week left!" You explained.

"What?" He mumbled. "Come back here." He tugged on your ankle but you quickly pulled it out of his grasp making him sigh in annoyance. "What is wrong with you?"

"Are you not aware what is going on with my vagina right now?!"

"I was enjoying myself eating it." He pointed out, looking nothing short of frustrated at the disruption.

"My fucking period started and you just carried on?!"

"Well, yeah." Yoongi looked at you as if it was obvious he would, as if it was stupid to suggest he do anything else. "What else do you expect from a vampire?"

"A what?!" You yelled. You of course knew vampires existed, you knew they walked and lived amongst humans and had for decades. Honestly, you had no problem with them, most of them just tried to live like everyone else, like humans, and fed off animals or blood substitues. Some of your friends and coworkers were vampires, your brother even married one last year. But, you had never realised Yoongi was one. "You're a vampire?"

"You...you didn't know?" He moved to kneel up then, showing you his bare torso and erection that was trying to break free from the constraints of his dark grey boxers. "How could you not know?"

"You never told me!"

"I thought it was obvious, most people know as soon as they meet me." You just continued to stare in shock. "For a start, my skin, it's pale, I clearly don't get much sunlight."

"Not all vampires are pale, my sister in law goes to a tanning salon."

"I have fangs."

"They're not obvious, I've never seen you hungry so I didn't know you have them. I thought they're just slightly pointed canines, mine were like that when I was little."

"You never wondered why we only meet after sun set, or on cloudy days?"

"I assumed you can only spare time in the nights and I never realised we only meet on cloudy days."

Yoongi moved to sit down on the edge of his bed with his back to you while he took in the fact you were incredibly clueless.

"So all this time, you never realised I'm a vampire?"

"No."

"And...do you have a problem with it?"

"No."

"Then lay back down so I can finish eating you out." He demanded impatiently, getting up and turning to face you. You looked at him with an incredulous look. "What?"

"I just, you really want to do that?" He nodded firmly and you bit your lip nervously. "I've never had a guy go down on me while I'm on my period, it seems kind of...weird."

"You've only been with humans?" You nodded. "Well there you have it. Tasting your blood is a turn on, Y/N." Yoongi informed as he crawled back onto the bed. "And I love making girls cum with my mouth so getting both is making me so fucking hard."

"But, doesn't it taste horrible? Because it's period blood?"

"No, it's got a fuller flavour, it's thicker, I can't explain it really. It's like, living on vegetables despite being a meat eater and then finally getting a nice thick steak."

"Oh." You nodded in understanding.

"So now you know, you gonna let me carry on?" You nodded shyly and returned to your previous position on the bed.

"Can't beleive you didn't know I'm a fucking vampire." He chuckled as he settled back between your legs.

"Shut up."

"I literally said I wanted to bite you like five times in the past half an hour."

"Why don't you use that pretty little tongue of yours for something better than talking, huh?" You suggested, a sharp almost demanding tone to your voice. Yoongi licked his lips before growling and diving back in.

The fact that Yoongi was a vampire didn't bother you and surprisingly, the fact he was eating you out while you were on your period suddenly didn't bother you either. You finally got the man you had been lusting after and you were going to enjoy every fucking second of it.

iI know I’m supposed to be writing other stuff but this idea just came tome and I had  to write it

I’ll now get back to watching Dirk Gently’s Holistic detective agency and pretending I’m going to do some work lol

~Chee

[mergays]

i’m late but here’s my contribution to @dirkjohnweek

prompt: AU

basically a quality AU involving a hypothetical fire in the building john lives in during the middle of fucking december and the weaboo neighbor that offers to let him use his jacket

enjoy!

It was thirty five degrees fahrenheit outside when the fire alarm in the apartment complex went off.

John was startled out of his bed, and he rolled off of it onto the floor in a panic to pull on a T-shirt over his pajama pants. The room was dark except for a faint blue light streaming in on his door from his window. Droning on, the alarm continued blaring, and he reluctantly dragged himself with a groan, scrambling on his bedside table for his phone and his keys before jogging out.

Once in the living room, he wasted no time tugging on his boots and running out of his apartment, glancing around at his scared neighbors as they too hurried for the stairs. Resisting the urge to push old Mrs. Jenkins down as she took her sweet time blocking the way, John just bounced on his heels, praying that the fire was at least above the third floor.

The lights of the alarms flashed in his face as the crowd hurried down, loudly talking amongst themselves as they each struggled not to be the ones to freak out. John took the stairs two at a time whenever he could, using his height to squeeze inbetween the taller escapees. He pushed out onto the street and immediately shivered, wrapping his arms around himself as he hurried away from the building. A sizeable crowd was forming by this point, most of them looking angry or scared or just plain annoyed, not unlike John himself.

He rubbed his arms frantically, watching his neighbors enviously those who had thought of bringing jackets. For a few seconds he just stood, waiting for a sign of smoke of flames to appear and show an actual fire.

“Hey.”

John didn’t think the voice was talking to him at first, and so he ignored it until he felt a light touch on the top of his shoulder. He turned around to see a taller man, with long hair hanging in his face, and sharp sunglasses sitting on the back edge of his nose. He didn’t look that much like he had rolled out of bed, but as John watched, the other shrugged out of his orange jacket and held it out in offering, revealing a purple sweater with a big knitted penis underneath.

First John looked at the sweater, and then the jacket being offered, before giving the man a look. No matter how hard he squinted, though, the other’s face didn’t deign to change.

“Is this the jacket from that anime Naruto?” John crossed his arms, refusing to give in. A single dark eyebrow arched over the others shades, and he gave a slow shrug, offering it again.

“Yeah.” Is all he finally responded. John couldn’t believe his ears.

What kind of complete lack of shame was this? But suddenly a freezing breeze blasted through his thin shirt, and he snatched the old-school weaboo jacket from the other man.

“I like your shirt.” The man commented, and John looked down, resisting the urge to let out an embarrassed groan. Out of all the shirts cast out on his floor, somehow he had grabbed the joke one Rose had gotten him for his birthday, that read the following:

BORN THIS GAY

He continued looking at the shirt for a long second before pulling on the thick orange jacket, which was surprisingly heavy and warm. The collar just barely brushed the ends of his shaggy hair, reaffirming that he needed to cut it.

“We can’t all knit dick sweaters.” He responded, giving the one in front of him a nod, and the man actually gave a quiet snort.

“My friend made this for me.” The guy explained, holding out his hand. “My name is Dirk.”

For a few seconds John didn’t respond, trying to decide if he wanted to be friends with this weird guy or not. Finally he gave in, shaking the hand in return and giving a little shrug. “John. Do you think the building is actually burning?”

If he hadn’t have been watching so closely, there’s no way he would have seen the sudden shift in Dirk’s demeanor, almost looking sheepish as he looked at all the people lining the empty street.

“Dirk…?”

“Hypothetically, I didn’t mean for the welding torch to catch the whole robot on fire.”

John stared in horror at him for a few long seconds, looking around anxiously at the people surrounding before leaning in to whisper.

“You started the fire? ...Did you put it out?!”

“Yeah, it’s all good. But I came down while they searched so that they wouldn’t find the evidence.”

At the word evidence, John looked at Dirk closely, trying to see any pieces of metal poking out of his skinny jeans or sweater.

And then it hit him.

“The jacket??” He hissed incredulously, feeling at the lumpy pockets and resisting the urge to tear it off.

“Yep.” John could have sworn that he saw the corner of Dirk’s mouth twitch up slightly in a subtle smirk once he had figured it out, and he pulled the jacket tighter to himself, stepping closer as he looked around.

“You know, you could get in a lot of trouble for this. They probably send arsonists to like, jail.”

“I’m not an arsonist,” he stated defensively. “I just like building things, and I made a mistake.” Dirk reached up to try and push up his limp, dyed bangs.

John just shook his head. He took note of the dark circles under the other’s eyes, as well as the chipped off nailpolish he wore. They stood in silence for a few moments together before John half heartedly nudged his fist against Dirk’s shoulder. The other looked up in confusion.

“That’s for waking me up, asshole. And scaring everybody in the building half to death.”

This time Dirk really was smiling slightly, and John felt his face heat up slightly, looking back at the main entrance.

He punched Dirk’s arm harder, and this time the other really did wince.

“And for trying to fucking frame me with the jacket. Who does that? You’re lucky I’m warm.”

Dirk gave him a look.

“The odds of the police actually searching anyone would be incredibly low. But I guess it kind of slipped my mind when I offered it to you.”

John pulls the shitty orange fabric tighter to his body, squinting intently through his large black frames.

“Bullshit.”

A huff of air escaped Dirk as he chuckled silently, making little white puffs in the freezing, lamp-lit air. John felt the small tickle of butterflies alight in his chest at making the asshole laugh, and he shook his head hard, trying to ignore the persistent fluttery feeling.

“You know, if you’re really so ready to pay me back for my crimes, you should come bother me at work sometime. The Walmart off the closest highway, I’m assuming you know which one it is?”

“You work at a Walmart?” John felt stupid for clarifying, but he couldn’t help but eye Dirk in a mix of admiration and disgust.

If anything he had expected some kind of gaming store, or maybe a Hot Topic type place. Spencers? John shuddered to himself, stiffening up when he felt a very awkward and unwelcome hand placing itself on his shoulder.

Quickly he shrugged it off, stepping about a yard away to watch a blank-faced Dirk drop his sympathetic (and warm) hand back down to his leg.

“Yeah.” Dirk replied after a few seconds, seemingly oblivious to the awkward preceding silence. John held back a groan and just wrinkled his nose up, not even trying to hide his obvious discomfort and distaste.

Dirk opened his mouth after a few seconds, likely to weird John out with something else, but just then their landlord stepped out of the building, calling out the massive all-clear.

Feeling his shoulders sag in relief, John moved forwards with the rest of the crowd, trying to escape the uncomfortable situation behind him. Surprisingly, Dirk didn’t seem to follow him, and it wasn’t until he was upstairs at his door that John remembered that he was still wearing the other’s jacket.

With a sigh, he pulled it off, eyeing the now obvious grease-stains on the sleeves with annoyance. What a weirdo.

The pocket clinked again, announcing the presence of the ‘robot parts’ which had caused the whole fiasco, and John found himself instinctively reaching inside to pull them out, determined to witness the root of the problem himself.

His hand closed around a few metal plates that held no significance to him, but as he tugged them from the soft pocket, an inked wisp of paper fluttered out, landing face-down on the floor. John let go of the metal and knelt to pick it up, flipping the tiny scrap over and just staring.

Apartment 32B.

Aka: John’s place.

Silently, John pulled out his phone, and began to pull up Google Maps. It appeared that tomorrow he was going to have to stop by a certain Walmart.

Tapping the button for bookmarks, John shrugged off the jacket and set it down on his table, with his phone on top. He slunk from the living room to his own room, sliding off his pants and into his sheets, sighing at how cool they had become in his short-absence. Tossing his glasses on his bedstand, John snuggled his face into his pillow, finally settling down to sleep.

It was then, of course, that for the second time that night, the piercing wail of a fire alarm went off.

Turning his head, John pressed his mouth into his pillow and screamed.

[edenfalling]

Ooh! Homestuck, Dirk, Roxy, cuddle. It's the post-Sburb world, and there are too many people all the time, and only Dirk and Roxy want to flee screaming to a (pair of) faraway mountains. Bring back the blissful solitude of the post-apocalypse.

Notcompliant with the credits snapchats, because reasons. :) [2,700 words] 

---------------------------------------------Some Little Talk aWhile of Me and Thee--------------------------------------------- 

The stupid part is, up until that one moment, Roxy washaving a really good night. All her friends (except Dirk, who hung grimly onthrough dinner and absconded immediately thereafter) together in one room, enoughdinner for everyone to eat their fill and then dessert on top of that, thepleasant ache of an honest day's work building the infrastructure of their newworld... yeah. A good night. 

Except the thing is, as much as she needs people -- and sheneeds people a lot, needs that feedback loop of attention paid and returned --there's a big difference between hanging out online and hanging out with adozen people jammed together in a single room. And she hasn't been gettingalone time during the days either, always busy working with a crew ofcarapacians (who at least are quiet) and consorts (who are emphatically not). 

Roxy doesn't notice the slow buildup of stress, but she canpinpoint exactly when the night tips from I-can-manage to oh-god-make-it-stop. 

She's been kibitzing on the edges of Rose, John, and Jane'smeal planning session (defusing any baby disagreements before they grow intoanything serious), keeping half an ear on the Pictionary session Callie,Kanaya, and Terezi have going in the far corner, and watching Jade gleefullyannihilate Dave and Karkat at Mario Kart. It's maybe a little bit much to betracking all at once, but the satisfaction outweighs the strain until Davethrows a piece of popcorn at Jade, who teleports it into the tangle of Karkat'shair, who draws breath in preparation for an inside-voice-what-inside-voicerant, and Roxy is abruptly and completely done.Zip, zilch, finito, cutlery shop's closed up and all the merchandise is gone. 

She shoves herself up from the warm and squashy armchair shestaked out as her private territory back when they first built this grouphouse, and says to nobody in particular: "I'm gonna go check on Dirk, it'sbeen a while since he noped out and I want to make sure he hasn't broken his neckor started a robot apocalypse in his sleep." 

Rose and Jane break off their debate over the relativemerits of fish tacos and sushi to give her a pair of sharp glances. John justlooks adorkably confused. 

Roxy dredges up a smile from her last reserves of sociability. 

It must not be very convincing, because Rose frowns andtenses like she's going to ask if Roxy needs any help, or maybe even stand upand give her a hug. Her concern is like a warm mug of hot chocolate, but thething about warm mugs of hot chocolate is they're awesome on a frigid winterday after messing around in the snow for a couple hours, but this specific timeand place are more like a metaphorical scorching summer day when you're alreadysugared out and anything sweet makes you want to gag. In other words, amomdaughter's loving attention is nice in theory, but it's not conducive tonoping the fuck out of the room, not to mention if anyone touches her rightnow, Roxy might actually break down and scream. 

Fortunately, Jane rescues her. 

She does something to Rose -- elbows her? kicks her underthe coffee table? hard to say -- and while Rose is busy trying to regather hertrain of thought, Jane grins at Roxy, somehow managing to make the expressionboth obviously fake and equally obviously made of 24-carat solid goldsincerity. 

"That sounds like an excellent plan!" she says."When you find him, tell him that Jade needs to run the latest plans forthe electricity grid past him, particularly the battery storage systems forevening the solar and wind outputs. I think the files are in the civilengineering dropbox account, so he shouldn't need to ask her for anything untilhe's finished reviewing and annotating them." 

Roxy nods. 

"Well, what are you waiting for? Scram!" Janemakes little shooing motions with her hands. 

Rose, apparently catching on to Roxy's actual state of mind,smiles benevolently and waves goodbye. "Au revoir," she says in herperpetually dry tone. "If anyone asks where you are, I'll tell them I sentyou to give daddy dearest my love, perhaps in the form of seagull pie." 

Jane rolls her eyes. John snickers and sticks out his tonguein mostly mock-disgust. 

"Thanks, guys," Roxy manages to say, and flees. 

--------------- 

After a indeterminate period of time trying not tohyperventilate in her en suite bathroom, she sits cross-legged on her bed andwonders if she ought to make good on her escape excuse. 

Dirk's even worse with large groups than Roxy is and doesn'tmake any attempt to pretend otherwise, but he's still human (no matter how muchhe sometimes dislikes that fact) and even the most introverted human is, atbase, a social animal. And not all contact has to be as overwhelming as groupevents. 

Roxy pulls out her phone, briefly contemplates calling him,then tosses that plan right the fuck out the window. Voices are bullshit. Textis their mutual mother tongue, and she'd bet at least half a baby universe Dirkisn't up for vocalizing right now. 

-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified[TT] -- 

TG: the thing nobody ever tells you about other people ishow fuckin NOISY they areTG: amiright?TG: i never thought id say this, but i miss ourpost-apocalyptic disaster zoneTG: not like, the looming threat of the batterwitch n shit,but the quietTG: maybe even some of the survivalist stuffTG: rose and the crockerberts gave me the weirdest look wheni said we should make seagull pie for our next movie night extravaganzaTG: there is GOOD EATING on seagullsTG: and they make a nice change from fish you know?TG: i thought id finally gotten away from descaling fishwhen we ditched sea hitlers water hellscape, but nopeTG: here we are back to fish for every meal that doesnt comestraight from our alchemiters and dwindling stocks of gristTG: (its ok you dont have to talk back if you dont want to)TG: (i just wanted to bitch to someone who gets it)TT: It's cool.TT: I know exactlywhat you mean about the quiet.TT: If you're game toendure the ultra minimum of human contact, i.e., breathing within the samecubic meter of air, I'm on the roof by the south chimney.TT: If not, I can seethe dock and it's currently unoccupied.TT: Assuming this isa day when the incessant susurrus of waves will invoke positive memories ratherthan negative ones, that could make a decent temporary retreat.TG: awww, ur a sweetie, sitting watch over our friends likea depressed gargoyleTG: on due consideration im ok with breathing your grosspre-breathed airTG: maybe if we get really daring we can work up to touchingpinky fingers!TG: le gaspTT: Scandalous. What will the neighbors say?TT: But I'm down forperversion if you are, Ms. Lalonde.TG: k hang onto your panties, im coming up 

-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified[TT] -- 

--------------- 

Roxy scrambles over the edge of the roof (she could justfly, of course, but where's the fun in that?) to find Dirk not just near thesouth chimney but actually curled up in the angle where it meets the solartiles, using the heat radiating from the bricks to counter the early autumnchill. He has his shades off in deference to the darkness, but his eyes are closedinstead of aimed up toward the frankly gorgeous light of the pink and whitemoons, both approaching full tonight. 

Roxy flops back against the dark tiles of the roof, armsspread wide, and watches the moons flirt with thin veils of cloud. Her friends'voices drift out of the open windows downstairs, but distance and the ambientsounds of wind and wave blur them into a companionable sort of white noise. Theconsorts' various weekend parties are louder, but further away; noticeable onlywhen a line or two of song finds a favorable breeze or a new branch tossed on abonfire sends a gust of sparks above the trees and roofs of the slowly growingtown. 

The carapacians' celebrations, of course, make no sound. 

She and Dirk breathe in companionable silence for nearly anhour, while the white moon travels fifteen degrees toward zenith and the pinkmoon nearly twenty degrees in the same direction, edging toward partialeclipse. Roxy's still kind of giddy over the orbital mechanics of a three-bodysystem, and the difference two moons make in the rhythm of the tides. It couldtake years to work the changes into her bones. 

She has years tospend on things like that. She spent her whole childhood isolated and trappedunder an incessant, shadowy weight. Now it's gone. She's free. She's not aloneanymore. 

It would be nice if she were better at coping with thatchange. 

Beside her, Dirk sighs, pulls his legs up to his chest, andrests his face between his knees. Something's gone cockeyed in his head again,and if nobody interrupts him he'll just debate himself into knots and grandiose'for your own good' bullshit stunts. 

And hey, an hour of silence isn't enough to get Roxyanywhere near ready to face a crowd, but it's more than enough to talk to heroldest friend. 

"The dumbest thing," she says, jumping straight inbecause what's the sense in wasting mouth noises on irrelevancies, "isthat weekend movie nights aren't even party-parties,nothing loud or crazy intense. It's just all our best friends hanging out oncomfy sofas playing goofy sleepover games, but stupid me got so wound up I hadto run screaming into the night. Otherwise I would've lost my shit at them overfish tacos and a popcorn fight, and that's just wrong with a capital R." 

"Capital W," Dirk mutters, uncurling slightly andtilting his head until a sliver of orange iris is visible over the edge of hisright knee. 

"Pedant," Roxy says, rather than draw attention tohis temporary lack of shades. "I just keep thinking, it shouldn't bug meso much. You've got a perfect excuse to flip out at extended socialinteractions, mister raised-by-robots. I actually had real live neighbors. Ishould be over this by now." 

Dirk shrugs, which looks incredibly doofy when he's allcurled up like a pill bug. "As people keep telling me, brains aren'tparticularly logical organs. Besides, there's a pretty big difference betweensign language and a dozen plus people with actual vocal cords, some of whomhave a tragically shaky grasp of appropriate volume control." 

"Ha. Yeah. Still." 

"Still," Dirk agrees. 

Roxy spreads her arms wide, staring up at the moons and theas-yet-unnamed constellations of their new universe, galaxy, solar system.Their new sun's a little brighter than Sol used to be -- a little smaller inthe sky, a little more pure-white than yellow-white -- and more like Alternia'ssun in its position vis-à-vis galactic center, which makes for some amazinglydense and brilliant starscapes. And she's saying this as a person who grew upwith no artificial light to blank out old Earth's night skies. 

"Humans made the trolls' signs into constellationswithout any outside influence, just the shape of the universe orsomething," she muses. "I wonder if it's cheating to design ourconstellations ourselves." 

Dirk shrugs again, a faint movement of shadow against darkershadow in the corner of her vision. "All our sessions were fucked from thestart; we had to cheat just to get out alive. What's a little more cheatingcompared to that? Ethical qualms aside, I'm pretty sure this planet isn't goingto be the focus of any future Sburb sessions. That dubious honor goes to the billionsof native planets kicking around this universe. If anyone's getting gentlymanipulated into using three-eyed cats and purple horrorterrors as part oftheir star myths, it's all those statistically inevitable aliens out there inthe wild black yonder." 

"I bet their myths kick ass," Roxy says. 

"I believe that's more or less implicit in thedefinition of the word. I'm not sure what they'll make of a hat or an LPrecord, though," Dirk says. 

This time it's Roxy's turn to shrug. "Old-schoolD&D monsters, maybe? Or no, ten gets you one they'll go with crows andseagulls instead." She pauses, reconsiders. "Then again, Terezi'ssymbol is basically a giant lab tool with a shit-ton of cultural baggage, andKarkat's is kind of like, handcuffs, right? Maybe hats wind up as a symbol ofintellect and general badassery -- oh! or artificial life, like Frosty theSnowman's magic hat, 'cause of your robots and puppets thing -- and recordssymbolize creativity and art and stuff." 

"Hats as a symbol of hubris and overreach, morelikely," Dirk mutters. 

Roxy wriggles sideways until she's just close enough toflick the fingertips of her left hand against the side of his shoe. "Knockit off, dumbass. Nobody gets to badmouth my best friend -- not even my bestfriend." 

Dirk unburies his face and meets Roxy's eyes straight on,one eyebrow raised. "I was under the impression that that title belongedto either Jane or Calliope. When did I inherit the position, and why was I notpreviously informed of this change in status? Are you sure you're followingfriend protocol correctly?" 

Roxy flicks his shoe again. "Friendship is a bigcategory! You're all, like, different instantiations of the concept of 'bestfriend' -- Callie's my squee and kissing partner, Janey's my partner in crime,Rosie's my sister, Jake's my goofing off friend, Dave's my surrealism feedbackdude, John's my maybe-kinda-sorta other kissing partner, and so on and soforth. You, Dirk Strider, are theperson who knows me best in two and a half entire fucking universes. Okay?You're the one who knows what it's like. If I ever run off to be a hermit on amountaintop, I want you to come be a hermit on the mountain next door. We cansend heliograph messages back and forth, or learn how to yodel and shit, andonce a month we'll get together and have a wild and crazy hermit party, justthe two of us. That's the kind of best friend you are for me." 

Dirk is silent for a long moment. Then he unwraps his righthand from his legs and lets it drop downward until his fingertips are justbrushing the soft, ticklish (completely un-carapacian) skin of Roxy's leftwrist, right over the veins carrying blood back to her heart. 

"All that, back at you," he says. 

Roxy blinks back a sudden rush of tears, and laces theirfingers together. Dirk lets her. 

"Jade has some electric grid plans for you to lookover," she says after a minute. "You can do that anywhere,right?" 

"Yeah," Dirk says. 

"Then come seagull hunting with me tomorrow. Just the twoof us, out on the water. Like old times. I have a harpoon gun I've been wantingto try out, and we can tell anyone who complains that we're taking soundingsand stuff for potential tidal generators. Hell, we can even actually do that.But I miss you. I keep getting tangled up in everyone else and losing sight ofus." 

Dirk squeezes her fingers. From him, it's as good as a hug. 

"Yeah," he says. "It's a plan." 

Roxy looks up at the night sky rather than try to put heremotions into words. There's a patch that looks a bit like a cat with wings, ifshe squints and takes some heavy artistic license. She holds up her phone inher right hand and adjusts the camera settings until she can snap a usefulpicture. She'll photoshop the constellation in later tonight and show it toDirk tomorrow: their friendship, immortalized in stars. 

"Cool," she says. 

They watch the pink moon overtake the white one in silence,fingers still entwined, the same air pumping in and out of their lungs. 

--------------------------------------------- 

End of Fic 

--------------------------------------------- 

It's still a little disjointed, I think, but whatever. Iwin. \o/

[3one3]

The Sequel - 822

Bit By Bit

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“Have you seen my bit box? Nicky’s getting a rub from the bit guards on the loose ring we travel with so I want to switch to a regular snaffle or find a bigger loose ring. Actually, first, I wanna just see if the one on the traveling schooling bridle is the same size as the one we use at home, ‘cause that one doesn’t seem to bother him. Oh, she’s on the phone,” Christina finished in a whisper. “My bad.” She spun around to continue her 360-degree survey of her gorgeous tack room to look for the miniature trunk/bit box. Half of the burgundy painted room with the stunning Brazilwood cabinetry was still in a state of chaos because the horses and equipment from the North America trip were just delivered, on Monday afternoon. Stefanie was sitting on a packing case and leaning on the tall grooming cart/storage box, on her phone. She was away at a show over the weekend too. It was back to work for both girls that morning.

Christina started catching up with the horses she left home, including Cartagena, who was known around her stable by a variety of nicknames, including “Carter”, “Escobar”, and “Santi”, which the lady of the stable was partial to. She called him Santi after Santiago Gamboa, a Colombian journalist and author whose work to which she was turned on by Juan. Dirk and Calvin got good schools too, and Socks and Kimi would as well after a snack break. Stefanie still didn’t have a job, so it was easy to change her lessons so that Christina would be free to explore the neighborhood with André when he returned from training. She was saving Kimi for that, as he was least likely to freak out on the road, dump her on her head, and take off.

“Sorry, what were you saying?” Stefanie asked as soon as she quietly ended her call.

“Have you seen my bit box?”

“Yeah it’s right over here, but I don’t think you’re getting to it until somebody moves this thing.” She leaned her head back to tap on the portable metal cabinet trapping the fancy bit box. “I thought Kyle was supposed to be doing this?”

“He would be if Tom didn’t fire his help.” So inconvenient, her coach thought, reflecting on the head groom’s dismissal of the very woman he picked to be the “at home” groom. There was some drama first thing in the morning. Strictly on the low, Christina told André, she thought Tom was a little cranky from his travels. He beat the horses home by a couple of hours, at the expense of an aggressive flight itinerary. Nevertheless, he was very dissatisfied with the state of things upon his return from the long trip. He didn’t like how the stalls were bedded. He didn’t like that the water buckets showed signs of not having been scrubbed daily. Kyle reported some other problems that he didn’t think were a big deal but apparently were indeed. The most serious strike against her was a cut on the underside of Calvin’s long and voluminous tail. It was obviously more than a day or two old and hadn’t been treated, which meant the new groom didn’t do a thorough job of grooming, or even checking over the animals regularly. The boss agreed. She had to go.

“I’m sure he’ll find someone else,” Stefanie shrugged. “Is it okay if I bring a date to your cookout?” Her question was barely audible because she totally swallowed the end of it and turned in the opposite direction. Her trainer still heard it.

“A date?” Said trainer’s face expressed puzzlement.

“My sister came to visit the weekend before this last one and we went to a nice restaurant for dinner but we couldn’t get a table, so we just ate at the bar. We weren’t there to like, meet people,” Stefanie blushed, her legs swinging faster against the front of the packing case. “We just wanted to catch up. This random guy sat next to me and I don’t even know how long he was there before he just started talking to us. He was waiting for a date- a first date. He thought the girl was standing him up because she was so late, so he invited my sister and I to take his table. We were already finished though. My sister suggested we all go sit, and we could have dessert and keep him company while he had dinner. He was really sweet,” the younger rider smiled, a deep red color coming through her cheeks. “Maybe we just felt bad for him because he got stood up? I don’t know. But he was nice, and he made us laugh a lot, and is pretty okay looking. He wanted my number. We’ve been texting...and talking...”

“Then yes, absolutely you can bring a date.” Yay! This is so good for her. Either it’s time to give up on Mario, or this is a good way to prod him a little. It will definitely get back to him, Christina reasoned. I know he has a lot on his plate right now but if he’s not leaning on her to help in a difficult time, how could they possibly have a future? This is good. I’m excited. She instantly looked forward to her little backyard party with more enthusiasm than when she invited Stefanie. André wanted to have friends over Thursday evening because his teammates had the day off and the weather was supposed to be nice. He hoped they could celebrate advancing in the Champions League. Christina thought he should have wanted to be alone with her that night since she would be out of town over the one before, but she couldn’t be picky like that. She knew she couldn’t go away overnight and then act like he ought to feel blessed to have her around. He promised to help her do the shopping and the cooking.

“Great. I’m going to go ride Dezy-mare now before you can ask me any more questions.”

And I’m going to figure out how to get to my bits, the resident World Champion thought, studying the traffic jam of equipment around the somewhat worn but still very beautiful and exquisitely made bit box. Her only route to it was crawling over top of two other full size trunks and reaching down. But first, I’m gonna find out where boyfriend is.

“Where are you come home I miss you,” she tapped out all as one run-on sentence, to André. She then did in fact crawl over some big boxes to get to the small one, and was very pleased to find that its contents were still fairly well organized by bit type and style. Only when she lifted the bar full of her many, many loose ring snaffles did it dawn on Christina that she didn’t know what size plain one she needed without having the one on the traveling schooling bridle to compare to, and that she actually wanted to compare that one to the schooling bridle she used for Nick at home.

“Chris?” Kyle asked while she was lying flat across her trunk lids on her stomach and staring into the bit box below. “Would it be all right if I put Goose in Kimi’s field for the rest of the day, as Kimi is about to come in and there most likely won’t be time enough to turn him out again when you’re finished?”

“Yeah, I don’t care. Optimus Prime might hurt him if he tries to pick on him, but they’ll probably be fine. Wait, why isn’t he in his own field?” the trainer questioned curiously while crawling backwards to get to some floor she could stand on. The bits she decided to take with her made annoying and loud sounds banging into the lids as she moved on her hands and knees.

“Carter is in it. We were putting him in Nick and Rio’s field while they were away. I was going to bring Optimus in with Kimi.”

“Oh. I forgot we’re a little short. We should probably find out if maybe he can coexist with Kimi,” she frowned once she was able to get back on her feet. “It’s a shame to give the Iceman and his little bro a whole paddock to themselves, and they’re both pretty chill.”

“Of course, but Goose has no chill. He hates everyone.”

“Well let’s give it a try tomorrow. The run is next to them anyway. Put him there in the morning and then when you’re done with the regular stuff, go move him over and stay out there to watch. Is Socks ready?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Cool. Can you find the bridles from the horse show?” Christina requested, knowing full well that she was asking an annoying favor. The nice thing about being in charge, and about Kyle being a full-time employee working for a paycheck instead of exchanging labor for housing, was that she didn’t have to feel too guilty about giving him annoying things to do for her. She didn’t have to lift a muscle in her barn for anything but riding and teaching, if that’s what she wanted. That felt more apparent to her in her new stable than the one in London. It did feel more like a professional operation than a family effort, like “home”. “I need the one with the plain-mouth loose ring.”

“What for? We have three schooling bridles with plain loose rings in the rotation right now.” Kyle looked like he didn’t feel like looking for tack that wasn’t normally unpacked anyway. He looked like Tom had been driving him crazy for hours.

“I just need it. Hang it up there for me.” His other boss nodded at the grappling hook dangling from the ceiling by the granite-topped island, and then went to amble back into the short aisle to harass her husband some more. Then she remembered she didn’t need to take the bits in her hand with her, and turned around to go back and hang them on that hook. André replied before she could get back to pestering him about coming home.

“I’m on the way, but I don’t think I’m up for the walk today. Sorry pretty girl. I need to rest.”

That’s okay. Why is he sorry? He’s the one who asked me to go on the walk. He’s the one who wants to make plans all the time. I don’t mind resting with him. If anyone knows what it’s like to have ankle pain, it’s me. I hope he’s okay though, Christina thought, sympathetic. It doesn’t seem to be getting better. He hasn’t trained since before I left. He hasn’t even really told me about what’s wrong- how it hurts. I guess he didn’t want to be whiny about it while I was away. Well if I do Rizzle Kicks and Kimi quickly then maybe I can get home in time for Munchkin’s nap and he can nap on us together. Plus those two, she added, tracking Spencer and Lucky in her periphery. They followed her out of the tack room and trotted toward the main aisle at a faster clip than she was motivated to travel.

“I have two more to ride and then I’ll come up and rest with you :)”

“Chris. Where are you going? Get on this horse. I have things to do,” Tom complained from behind her. He wasn’t supposed to be getting her horses ready. He was supposed to be home already, as a matter of fact. He was supposed to just come in to check on things and then take the rest of the day to be with his family. Christina was sympathetic toward her groom too. He worked himself into a major tizzy over what the new and then ex-help did and didn’t do, and acted as if he had so many things that needed to be taken care of right away and which would keep him there all day long. He had Kyle running around to move horses in and out in between sets of buckets he was supposed to be scrubbing in the wash stall. He insisted on tacking up and putting away all the horses Christina wanted to ride. He insisted on getting his hands on every horse on the property, himself, thoroughly. Evidently having to babysit Socks on the crossties was holding up his dramatic whirlwind assault on correcting what he perceived as damage and chaos in his domain. Tom was cranky.

“I don’t know. I was just wandering around,” his new employer shrugged. I’m jet lagged. I couldn’t sleep last night. I’m out of practice on the ride at home routine. I’m thinking more about boyfriend, and I wanted food. I’m allowed, aren’t I? She thought it was fair to take a leisurely and casual approach toward her first day back after such a long spell on the road. It didn’t quite get as bad as laziness and unconsidered, so she felt it was okay. Her right hand man wanted a more precise approach toward her posted schedule, even though he wasn’t even supposed to be part of it. She put her phone in her jacket pocket and let him lead the Dutch horse down to the back door for her so that he could give her a leg up, send her on her way, and begin readying the next and final horse of the day for her. She actually asked for a tall mounting block to be built and placed outside that exit so that getting on could be a one-person job. Tom said any kind of mounting by putting one’s foot in the stirrup and then lifting the other leg over the saddle is bad for the animals’ backs and thus unacceptable. Christina was aware of that. Leaning heavily on just one side of the horse is not ideal, and can be particularly bad when someone does it from the ground because they tend to be hanging there in the one stirrup for even longer. She wanted a tall mounting block, so that she could practically just put her leg over without even needing the stirrup. Tom acknowledged that it wouldn’t be so terrible, but he still didn’t want her using it, so it didn’t get built. She wanted one down in the space between her outdoor rings, with the jump shed and the gazebo, for further convenience. He didn’t let her have that either. She was looking forward to one day just leading a horse down to those rings and using a tall jump, like the faux brick wall perhaps, to mount up on her own, just for the personal satisfaction of defeating and defying his anal thoughtfulness.

Socks and Kimi were good boys for her, and like the others she left behind, right where they belonged in terms of fitness and sharpness. Kyle and Stefanie did well with sticking to the horses’ programs, and even if their other groom for those few weeks wasn’t up to snuff for the most elite-level operation, the animals didn’t seem to notice or care. Christina visited with each one that was still inside before she left for the day, and gave them each a carrot or left one in the feed buckets in the empty stalls. André was both bright-eyed and handsome when she got home. He wasn’t as down as the tone she read in his text. He’d either done his hair nicely that morning before going to Brackel, or he showered there and did it nicely when he was finished. He had sweatpants and a t-shirt on, but his smile, and his voice, and even his eyes all told his wife that he wasn’t in a “sweatpants mood”- what she thought of as the internal need to be dressed cozily and tucked into bed or parked on the couch to do as little as possible, while less than happy with life. He had plenty of energy. He couldn’t wait for her to change her clothes and come back downstairs to play with him and Lukas.

“Am I allowed in here, or no?” he asked facetiously on the threshold of her extravagant closet. Christina was fully installed in there. Everything was put away in a Christina-way, and she usually kept pretty flowers on the counter between two of the tall shelving units. She had black and white photos on the walls, all of which were of herself. They were mostly un-used snaps from her various fashion spreads. They were a rare nod toward a vanity André thought she didn’t really possess. And he liked it. He liked the notion that she’d grown beyond just being okay with seeing herself as a model- as a physical specimen- and grown into appreciating it enough to want to be reminded of it every single day. She was humble about a lot of things, and he loved that about her. But becoming just vain enough to put up modeling photos was a little bit sexy, and despite it proving a challenge for their relationship, the player appreciated that his wife was capable of growing as an individual. He watched her learn, change, and adapt over time. The ability to do that was something he valued in any person, but needed in his partner. André and Christina found static personality types boring and sometimes frustrating.

“I suppose you can come in,” she shrugged, feigning mild irritation. She was turning her just-removed sports bra inside out, to be hung on a cabinet handle. It was against her rules to put sweaty things directly into the laundry basket.

“You look hot in white underwear,” André commented after taking a seat on her bench. It was hers after the move. It was no longer “their” incredibly expensive Van der Rohe bench. It went with the decor in her dressing room, not his, so she claimed it. The bench was an example of another Christina quirk that her partner secretly adored. She literally treasured it. She looked after it. She wouldn’t sit on it without underwear, or if she was sweaty. Lukas wasn’t allowed anywhere near it. No shoes were ever placed on it, and she was even careful about setting certain bags down on it. For example, her backpack couldn’t go there because she often set her backpack on the ground and it could thus get the precious white furniture dirty. She looked after her nice things. She looked after things that cost a lot, and things that mattered to her. André knew some girls who got their hearts set on something expensive, absolutely had to have it, loved it for a month, and then didn’t care enough about it after all to take care of it, or be mindful about using it. He poked his girl’s right butt cheek right in the middle and then leaned over to kiss the side of the other one, outside the white cotton.

“Juan calls these my grandpa underpants.”

“And does he feel positively about that? Because that would be weird, to be honest.” And why do you think I want to hear what he has to say about your underwear, he wondered. Her odd misstep didn’t hinder his fairly fine mood. He was in some pain from trying different things with the doctor and trainers. Even just walking hurt his heel and ankle a little, so he didn’t want to go trekking around the neighborhood. He wasn’t exhausted though, or worn down, or bummed. The frustration he felt at being sidelined for so long could be ignored in favor of enjoying that Christina was home. His best friend was back around, and in small panties that looked nice on her behind and did pleasing things to her hipbones.

“He didn’t say.” I took them off before we got that far into that conversation.

“Did his grandpa wear very small underpants? I don’t know any grown men who could fit into these.” The BVB man ran his fingertip up and down the inside of the small trim sectioning off her butt into equal parts of covered and bare territory.

“That’s what I said,” she laughed over her shoulder. “I think it was a color situation. He associates white undies with grandpas.”

“I associate white undies with you, because you look hot in them.”

“Are you visiting in my sovereign territory to seduce me, or were you just so struck by my hotness after you arrived that you had to play with my butt?”

“I was going to wait until later to seduce you. I really just came here to get attention.”

“Oh, I see,” Christina chuckled. “And now?”

“I don’t know. A nice way for you to give me attention would be getting into bed with me and sitting on me in these panties, maybe without the shirt though.“

“Yeah, and then what?” She had a big smile on for him. Non-serious Schü was cute, sweet, and highly entertaining to her when she was in the mood for him. Non-serious Schü was typically only unwelcome when she was upset with him and needed the serious one, or simply too tired to be amused.

“I don’t know. You could tell me about your day- about the horses, and why you sacked Camille already. These are clean hot white underwear, yes?” the player asked for verification purposes. He didn’t necessarily want to be sat on in panties that were in the saddle all day. He was still playing with the seam around the right leg opening.

“I would love to tell you about my day.” Christina was still smiling, and she was still non-serious too, but she seriously relished the invitation to share with him the events of her Monday up to that point. He didn’t always give the impression that he actually cared about the tick-tock of her life if it didn’t directly relate to him. That was part of the disconnect that was making things tough for them before she went away. “And to hear about yours too,” she added. Again, it wasn’t just lip service. “I need the update on your boo-boo, and how the guys are doing.”

“Okay. Finish whatever you were doing. I’m going to get your ice pack, and do you want juice, smoothie, coffee, or water?”

“I love you,” she sighed, almost resignedly, while spinning in place to administer a kiss for André’s kindness. Traveling for three weeks was supposed to help repair things with Dirk, and that didn’t get to happen. It was clear that it repaired things with Tom on some level. It was beginning to feel like it might have significantly helped to repair the problems with her primary partner too.

“What would you like, Prinzessin?” he asked quietly while she lingered between his knees. He kneaded small spots at the back of thighs between his thumbs and pointers, absent a more sensical idea of how to touch her but with a need to touch her somehow. Another much loved Christina Quirk was her overreaction to kind gestures. Sometimes he forgot how easy it really was to please her. The smallest exercise of his care for her, her wellbeing, and her happiness, was a big deal to her, and one she didn’t take for granted.

“Nothing.” The rider shook her head and bent down a little for a second smooch. The first was just a peck on the cheek. The sequel was square on the mouth, and savoring. I love him so much, she reflected, blues locked on his, and hands ruining his previously perfect hair. But why does it feel so weird? Why is it like I’m almost disappointed or something that I still love him- that he’s still the sweet and caring guy who makes me feel so good?

“Let me go get your ice. You should have it on already. I’ll see you in bed, okay?” The footballer in question patted her bum and winked up at her. She stepped out of the way.