#post act 7

The three-perigee anniversary of the end of the game. Most of the group wanted to stay in their hives, their houses, and use it as a day for sadness. Some wanted to have the company of others.

Especially you. You’d left behind your moirail- not by your choice, but left her behind nonetheless- and there was only one other troll who you’d come anywhere close to having a moirallegiance with. You were on your way to go see him. You stumble along the path occasionally, mostly because your stick is rendered useless by the knolls of grass and huge tree roots.

You think back over the past couple months. You’d become a recluse, rarely leaving your hive. Karkat dropped in every now and then, and you had Rose and Kanaya living close by. Kanaya would come by at least once every two days, to make sure you were eating. Losing a moirail was hard; knowing you’d never see them again was even harder.

The grass began to even out, as if it had been cut recently. One sign of nearing a troll hive. You retrieve your stick from your pocket, and flick it a few times. This isn’t your sword-stick, but rather a more mundane one, one that folded up. Easier to stick in your pocket, when you couldn’t be bothered to reach into your sylladex. The stick snapped straight, and you tap the ground experimentally.

Yup. Flat grass. You continue forward, tapping in front of you.

You reach a wall, and tap it a few times with your stick. You only had to reach out a hand to confirm that it was a hive wall- the strange, spongy but hard texture that you know all too well. The smell of cherries hits you, and you follow it. You friends had all put things on their doors that smelled pungent, to make it easier for you. You didn’t know when they’d decided to do that, but you were thankful for it. It did make things a lot easier.

The cherry smell led to a different texture. Wooden. You give it a small lick just to double check. Tasted like it. You give the door a few sharp knocks, seeing as you couldn’t find the knocker.

The door opens almost instantly, and the smell of your best friend washes out and over you.

‘Karkat!’ you say, grinning widely.

‘Hey, Terezi. I’ve been waiting for you to turn up,’ Karkat says. You can hear what sounds like relief in his voice. You’re slightly confused, but you brush it off as he continues. ‘I grabbed a couple of movies. Hope you don’t mind.’ He taps your elbow, and you shake herself a little. It wasn’t like you to have lost yourself in your thoughts, but you hadn’t really been yourself recently.

Karkat warns you about the small step, and you are careful not to trip. Even if you are incredibly good with her nose and tongue, being blind sucks. You follow the sound of his footsteps on the floor, as he leads you through his hive.

Finally you reached a room, and you plop yourself down on a couch that you know was there. Mostly because you’d just kicked it, but whatever. Karkat hands you a DVD case, going over to what the humans called a ‘TV’. Sure, they’d had them back on Alternia, but the ones the humans had were made of metal. They were sharp. And tasted kind of like Sollux. They worked on electricity, somewhat like his psionics, you guessed.

You hold up the DVD case, and investigate what the front looked like.

‘A shitty Alternian rom-com, Karkat? You have bad taste in movies,’ you complain, but protest no further when it begins. You’d honestly thought he’d watched all these on the meteor. Apparently not.

Of course, you couldn’t see what was happening, and you would occasionally slap Karkat (one, he was very slappable. Two, he shouldn’t have sat next to you if he thought he wouldn’t get hit). He’d pause the movie and explain what the scene looked like.

The voices are very different from each other, so you tell the story that way.

Not even half-way in, and Karkat was already complaining. ‘Did these directors have their think sponge completely fucking obliterated when they were filming? Those two were clearly in a pale relationship, and now its pitch? This vacillation is all over the place, what was going through their thinkpan? Obviously not a story line that makes any fucking sense.’

It made you chuckle. ‘You’re an idiot! That was obviously always pitch. Kismesises look out for each other, keep the other safe so they can rip on them themselves,’ you bark back at him. ‘Closest you’ve ever had to blackrom was me, dummy. We were just like that!’ you finish, and he goes quiet. At least he knows when he’s beaten.

The movie ends with the two somehow getting into a matespritship, and you are glad once it was done. You throw your head back on the sofa, hitting the wall with a soft thud. ‘You got any food around here? I’m really hungry,’ you say, and hear Karkat get up.

‘Sure. You can come with, or stay here. Or you could go dive in the load gaper,’ he growls. You give a sharp snort. Even after the game, he still won’t give up the hostile act. Whatever. You’ll play along.

‘I’ll come with you. Can’t let you make all the food yourself,’ you grin widely. You got the feeling he was smiling back. It was a good feeling.

The walk to the kitchenblock is short. You push yourself up onto a counter and sit as he makes what you think is a sandwich. ‘TZ?’

‘What now, Karks?’ You are facing up the ceiling at this point.

‘You spent so much time with Serket on the meteor. What were you guys even doing other than roleplaying? You can’t have roleplayed constantly for three fucking years.’

‘Hey, now, you watched movies with Dave for the same amount of time,’ you can tell that he opens his mouth to protest, but he doesn’t say anything. ‘Further than the roleplaying, though, is a can of earth noodles I’m not willing to open just yet. Not your business.’

‘Fair enough,’ he replies. It goes quiet. All you can hear is the faraway twittering of birds; what is up with the influx of them on this planet? You can also hear Karkat’s measured breathing. It grounds you.

Maybe ten minutes late, you’re both eating. You’re not entirely sure what’s in the sandwich, because the food here is so much different to what you got on Alternia. Void girl- Roxy, you remember- couldn’t recreate much Alternian food for the trolls. You weren’t too bothered though; you never got to try much of it anyway. Living in a tree, pretty far from everything would do that to someone.

‘Terezi, if you want to stay, I’ve got a few other movies that are less shitty than that one. Ones Dave and I watched, and they’re not too bad,’ Karkat tells you, and you ponder it for a moment.

You really don’t want to leave. One because it takes a while to get back to your hive, and two Karkat’s good company.