#timerails

He ought to talk to her more. But she was a little bit bad at messaging, and Dave was sort of intense about messaging, and she traveled so often it was just hard to keep track of her.

But then there were these parties.

Dave hadn't spent the whole night talking to her, but between the team-ups during board games and the hours long conversation they'd had in the kitchen, it had been a near thing. When most people were filtering out of the building, he was still sitting on the floor, listening to Aradia talk about the politics of funerals with wide hand gestures while her boyfriend, who looked like he'd heard this exact conversation a million times before, sat slumped next to her on the couch, his arms folded over his eyes to block out all light.

Dave had known Sollux for god knew how long, and he swore Sollux always had a migraine by the end of the night, every time without fail. He liked Sollux. Sollux had a dry sense of humor and an uncanny ability to rile up Karkat (something he had to respect), and he'd spent a decent amount of time talking to the guy at these things because of his tendency to find Aradia as soon as his migraines kicked in. He didn't quite understand Aradia and Sollux's relationship, or what exactly they were to each other, but he understood it enough to think whatever they had worked for them.

"You guys are still here?" Karkat said when he found them all, arms crossed and frowning.

"To my misery," Sollux said.

"Dude, come on. Take your sadsack of a partner home already. He's been bitching about his migraine for an hour," Karkat told Aradia.

"He's always bitching," Aradia said, but she sat up, reaching over to peel one of Sollux's arms away from his face and check underneath it. Dave watched Sollux squint at her. "We can go home now, though, so you can start cleaning."

"That would be great," Karkat said, quite bravely refusing to be embarrassed by Aradia's completely accurately called shot. Dave knew he wouldn't sleep until the whole hive was sparkling again.

"Bummer," Dave said, to cover up his genuine disappointment. He really needed to try harder to keep in contact with Aradia.

"I'm sorry, did I interrupt your riveting conversation about rot or whatever the fuck? Tough! You can continue it over Pesterchum, like normal people," Karkat said.

Sollux said from under his arm, "If you want them to talk, we're going to need to start setting up playdates for them or something. I swear they never do until one of these things, and then they don't talk to anybody else. It's untenable. We'll have to introduce them, get them to sniff each other through the door and shit so they know it's safe to start ranting about archaeology outside of party settings."

"That's not true! We talk sometimes," Aradia protested.

"Not really," Dave admitted.

"Well, we could talk more."

"We should."

"I'm so glad you two are making friends," Karkat said. "Really, that's very sweet. Now get out of my house for real, before I explode from sheer exhaustion. I need to see absolutely no people for the next twenty-four hours, minimum. Sollux, I'll message you about a playdate."

Sollux held up a thumbs up.

"He's just cranky because he knows he has to clean, which is entirely self-imposed, by the way. He doesn't mean that," Dave told Aradia.

She grinned at him. "I know. But we should plan something. For real this time!"

"Definitely," Dave agreed quickly. "Like, coffee, or something."

"A dig!"

"Your mind is so beautiful."

Aradia laughed. She unfolded her legs, scooting to the edge of the couch and leaning over to kiss the top of his head. "We'll plan it out later. But I will see you soon, Dave!"

"That's a promise," Dave swore, holding up his hand honorably.

Aradia dragged Sollux off the couch, leading him out by the hand at last.

Karkat heaved a sigh, looking around the room at the mess. "Cleaning time."