Chapter 2
The new universe is infinite, just as each one before it. The limitations of the Frog are practically nonexistent, the great entity itself serving merely as a grid to facilitate the placement of solar systems. Being a construct of the Game for the past three years has given you this knowledge, though you never thought you would live to see it become useful.
Jade apparently had the time of her life creating all the stars and planets and nebulas and other space stuff. She had filled the entirety of the universe within the first three days, and as it continued to expand, so did her creations.
The planet you’ve all taken as your new home will be the new Earth-Alternia hybrid (some have taken to calling it Alterni-Earth, which you think is kind of dumb, but you didn’t contribute to that conversation so whatever). All Dave had to do was flick his wrist and will it, and the concept of time in this new world took on the same frame of time as old Earth. Jane, Jake, Rose, and John have been breathing life into the new world, creating a spread of plants and animals. Their work is overseen by Kanaya and Jade, and every now and then, Vriska will force her input to be considered. Mostly though, Vriska is busy with creating moons for all the planets in the surrounding solar systems. So far, Alterni-Earth has three moons, two of which are always visible during the day (after that Jade forced her to move on to other planets, so she wouldn’t screw things up on the one we live on). Terezi bounces between Vriska and John most days, but you notice that she’ll still spend time with Dave and Karkat whenever the two can be bothered to have company.
Karkat has officially stepped down from any sort of leadership role. You’re not sure if it’s because he’s truly grown tired of the stress of it all, or if Dave’s influence had anything to do with it. Either way, you’re kind of okay with it, because he does seem to be a lot happier this way. You still can’t bring yourself to talk to him one on one, but sitting in the same room in a large group can still give you a lot of information about a person (when you spend half the time staring at him like the obsessed, hopeless creep you are).
The place where you all live is a secluded island, surrounded by a salty sea that stretches towards the horizon in every direction. You’re pretty sure that Jade based it off of Hellmurder Island back on old Earth, except that it’s much easier to survive here. The apartment complex that you all share is the only architecture, but there’s so many rooms and so much stuff (even more, as Dirk continues building new technology), nobody really has a need for any other buildings. Aside from that, and the natural brush of the island, there’s a beautiful park and a garden blooming with life, tended to by Kanaya, Jade, and Jake. Roxy utilized her void powers to separate your island from the rest of the world, so that once intelligent life forms began to explore, they would never find their gods.
Ah, and also within the past week, Roxy had become your moirail. You should have noticed she was obviously pale flirting with you for ages, (but with humans you can never be sure) but when she finally asked to make it official, you were stunned. So, you’ve gained one quadrantmate. That’s about all you’ve accomplished in the week since the Game ended.
Sigh.
Today is day number nine since the Game ended.
Things have gotten slightly easier to deal with—you consider yourself an expert on human functioning now that you’re accustomed to your body. Of course, there are still a few obstructions to your identity. Really just small, silly things like…your name…and your gender. Haha.
A few people call you Davesprite, which you suppose you’re okay with (it’s not like you have a proper name to correct them). Roxy just refers to you with different pet names, which you enjoy immensely. Karkat has called you Nep a couple times, and it always makes your stomach do summersaults, though you can’t get past your flushcrush to really evaluate how that name makes you feel. For the most part though, you’re just greeted with a ‘hey’ or a ‘sup?’ rather than by name. And you are completely cool with that.
“What’s on your mind, sweetie pie? You’re awfully quiet,” Roxy interrupts your introspection, her hands gliding through your strawberry-blonde hair as she combs it with ease.
“Hm? Oh, uh, nothing really important.” You’re a liar. “Wondering what we should have for lunch.” A dirty, filthy liar.
Okay, you just really don’t want to worry her. This is a date, no need for a feelings jam so early in the day. First, you’ll do all the cute pale stuff together. Then later, if you still find it necessary to do so, you can cry about your lack of personal identity.
“Well, some of the others were gonna have a picnic,” she says. “We could join them if you wanna?”
You really, really don’t wanna.
Roxy batts her thick eyelashes and her lips purse into something between a childish pout and a seductive fishy-face.
“I would love if I could bring my meowrail with me so I don’t have to sit on the seesaw all alone!” she whines, like a goddamn practiced professional. Your chest aches as the part of your brain deemed the 'over-empathetic diamond quadrant feelings spewing area' starts working overtime. Roxy is pale and pink and something from the heavens, and there are diamonds in her eyes.
Roxy in the sky with diamonds—Okay, no, hush, no music puns!
“Fine,” you sigh and roll your eyes dramatically. You feel your lip curl into a smirk as she giggles at you. Her head knocks into your shoulder, and her hair tickles your nose. You nearly purr as you rub your cheek against the frizzy blonde locks. “I guess I’ll go with you, if only to curl up in the sun.”
And that’s how you end up sprawled across a blanket on your stomach, the smell of grass and fresh water lingering in the air while the sun warms your back. You feel twitching in muscles you no longer have, and the sudden loss hits you like a water balloon to the face. Wait, no that was an actual water balloon hitting you in the face. You had barely even heard Dave’s warning of, “Head’s up!” before your hair was plastered to your forehead and your shades needed a squeegee. You flick up the orange-tinted glasses and shoot a glare at Dave. He’s currently laughing his ass off.
“The only Strider to be caught off guard,” he snarks.
Ow. That stings. You know he didn’t mean it like that but, damn, that fucking hurt.
Karkat smooshes a water balloon against Dave’s face, and it explodes in a way that reminds you of fireworks. Karkat’s shit-eating grin and mocks of, “That’s a damn lie, Striders aren’t special, they’re bullshitters who hide behind shades,” helps bring back the light-hearted mood. That clutching pain of disillusion fades away, once again thanks to Karkat. Thinking about him brings another pain to your chest. You set your shades beside you and lay your head back down on your arms.
“What a bunch of dweebs,” Roxy giggles beside you. Her legs are spread out across yours, making a little x out of your bodies. The warmth of her skin is comparable to the warmth of the sun; both always so bright and alive and shining as a sign of support. The fuzzy pale feelings help ease the pain of your hearts quadrant.
Terezi whizzes past and you flash your eyes open at the sound of her skidding across the concrete on what you recognize as John’s roller skates. You feel Roxy’s body shutter as she snorts out a laugh. She must be watching this ridiculous sight too. You suddenly recall the stories you’ve heard over the past few days about the different ways John has incorporated those stupid skates into his black solicitations towards Terezi. (Despite his frequent whines about how “it’s not flirting, it’s competitive pranking!” And then he proceeds to blush up to his stupidly gorgeous slanted eyes, and flusters his way out of the room—fuck you guess the Dave part of your brain still had a tiny bit of a crush on John—shit).
It seems that Terezi had finally figured out how to make John’s spades-shaped prank plan backfire. She cackles as she reveals an armful of water balloons, attracting John’s attention so that he turns around to see her just in time for a close-up view of the water-kamikaze. Both you and Roxy sit up fully to watch the splay of waterlogged limbs tumble to the ground.
“Doesn’t the sight of such sweet spades-love just make you swoon?” Roxy sings dramatically as she leans against you.
“Mew-sic to my ears,” you giggle, pressing back into her.
“They could be the goddamn poster poster-trolls for the perfect mainstream kismesitude,” Karkat suddenly huffs from the other side of you. You can feel the warmth radiating off his body even more than Roxy’s.
You make the horrible mistake of glancing at him. Position-wise, the first thing you face when you blinked at him is his crotch. He has his legs crossed, facing you (and the JohnRezi fiasco), while he leans back on his palms and grins. If you lean down just a little bit more, you would be able to see up the little gap of shadowed skin between Karkat’s thigh and his shorts. Luckily you save yourself the embarrassment, and your flushed cheeks will be mistaken as a side-effect of the warm weather as you snap your gaze up to meet Karkat’s eyes.
“They would be the hottest couple in ‘I.W.O.M.P.A.A. Training Camp’ fur sure,” you giggle. Your head spins a little as Nepeta forces herself to the forefront of your brain, bringing her memories and opinions along. Of course, you do agree with her opinions.
The sparkle in Karkat’s eyes lets you know that he definitely recognized the troll whose words those really were. Shit, now that you look at his eyes you’re temporarily paralyzed, you’re pretty sure your brain just suffered a sudden lack of electrons. His eyes are the most beautiful, deep ruby shimmer thanks to the flecks of his blood color starting to appear during his adolescence. The way his eyes flash when he turns his head shows off function the nocturnal night-vision film. That was another thing you missed about being a troll. Your vision had gotten much worse since you were triple prototyped by the game and forced into a human body.
Karkat blinks at you (with his long, thick, gorgeous eyelashes), the hint of a genuine smile playing at the corners of his lips. (His lips, fuck, they’re dark grey and chapped and swelling with his scarlet blood, and you can almost always see one of his sharp little teeth poking over his lip, but you always—without fail—you want to kiss him so bad it hurts.)
“Fuck you’re right,” he says, glancing back to watch Terezi nearly strangle John with his windsock. “They’d be the envy of the main protagonist’s kismesitude interest for the entirety of the first season.”
Your heart flutters as you push yourself up completely and lean on your palms as you grin at him. “O-M-G that is puuuuuurrrrfect!” For a split second you’re worried about sounding obnoxious, but he miraculously laughs.
His eyes crinkle around the edges and you’re sure you’ve seen the face of god.
“No kidding,” he says as he looks to you again. There’s a hint of crimson across his cheeks…is he blushing?
You open your mouth to respond again but your brain doesn’t quite register that you want to keep speaking since it seemed like the conversation had ended. So you just end up leaning towards him and letting out a breathy laugh while stupidly smirking at him. Fuck, you feel like an idiot, your face is burning way too much to blame it on sunburn or heatstroke.
Amazingly, when his gaze meets yours once again, his face is flushed as well. You almost want to claw yourself because this feels like a dream.
“We should see if we can find episodes of it online,” he says. “You can calm me down when I get angry over the misrepresentation of the middle leaf of the main protagonist’s auspescism.”
“Hey, back it up Vantas, that’s my moirail you’re flirting with!” Roxy butts in, pulling you protectively into her arms; you can hear the pout on her lips as she speaks. “All diamond-quadrants in the immediate us area are happily taken!”
You’re frozen as you watch Karkat’s cheeks flush even more, while his smile transforms into a snarl. He glowers at Roxy, and his pupils widen as a sign of challenge and anxiety. It’s like you’re up close and personal with one of those nature documentaries, seeing the details stupidly slo-mo-ed and voiced over by a Morgan Freeman wannabe. You imagine that this is what heaven looks like. Except maybe with someone else in place of Roxy to fight against Karkat for the love of your quadrants—shit maybe even a past or future version of Karkat himself, since he seems to have such a caliginous hard-on for himself.
Oh man, now you’re getting thoughts that shouldn’t be entertained until late at night while you’re alone in your bed. Shit.
You shift your hips and wiggle out of Roxy’s grasp to sit at the edge of the blanket. The two of them are glaring at one another, until Roxy finally bursts out a sharp ‘ha!’ right in Karkat’s face. The tension between them dissipates, and for a moment you’re almost sad that you missed out on an opportunity to potentially auspiescize between someone and Karkat.
“Just kidding man, I know you’re as much of a diamond-slut as any decent human,” Roxy giggles, adding a suggestive wiggle of her eyebrows.
“Well god forbid I even speak to someone you’ve got your claws on,” Karkat snarks back dramatically. “Maybe I was just trying to have a genuine moment of pure, disgusting human friendship, but fuck me, I’m in the wrong again since apparently I’m not allowed to have nice things.”
Your ears perk up at those two words and they shamelessly echo through your mind again (note to self: mentally record and save the sound of the actual Karkat Vantas saying “fuck me” in a dramatized fashion. Mmhm, yeah, that’s one for the spank bank).
Apparently the Strider part of you is strong, because Dave suddenly appears beside Karkat, as if he had felt a fucking disturbance in the force. His eyebrows waggle in a way that rival’s Roxy’s, and he smirks cheekily at Karkat.
“You called for me darling?” Dave grins, rubbing his cheek against his matesprit’s. (Which totally isn’t fair, because you do the nuzzling, you understand how important it is to nuzzle and leave your scent on the things you love in order to tell others to stay the fuck away).
“Oh fuck off!” Karkat shoves at Dave, but he’s blushing and giggling and so is Dave and it’s cute, it’s so great, they’re both so happy—you’re going to be fucking sick.
You launch up like you had accidentally stepped on tinfoil. Luckily Roxy is still half curled around you, so it’s easy to grab your moirail’s hand and tug her up with you. She shrieks in surprise but steadies herself as you pull her along.
“C’mon Rox I forgot my sunblock!” you yelp loud enough to be over heard by the group. You keep running forward, stabilized only by the pulse in her wrist beneath your grip. You can feel the fearful prickling behind your eyes and you’re already afraid of what it means. Your head is splitting into pieces again—it’s not safe to show weakness here you’re a small midblood, they’ll eat you alive—don’t fucking cry, bro raised you to never cry—this is fight or flight, fight or flight, flight- flight!
Your legs are pumping hard and they hurt, they fucking ache, and your back muscles are twitching and spazzing and you’re trying so hard to stretch out your wings but they’re fucking gone—they took your wings, they ripped off your fucking wings!
A sob rips through your throat as soon as you slam the door behind you. You finally release your death grip on Roxy’s wrist so your body can curl in on itself in attempt to stop the pain. She’s trying to talk to you but it’s static in your ears.
It’s so hard to breathe, the walls are collapsing, and your head is spinning so fast that you think you might puke. You try to stop the chaos by gripping onto your head, and your hair threads through your fingers, slicking locks together with cold sweat—you remind yourself to mind your horns until you remember they took your fucking horns too. Shit. Your fingernails dig into your scalp, as if you could keep all the splinters of your personality inside your head if you squeezed hard enough.
Roxy’s touch brings you back down to reality; her fingertips burn in the best way as she rubs your back, pulls you into her lap, gently combs your hair away from your face. You’re gazing into her impossible rose quartz eyes and suddenly you can breathe again.
Moirrailegience is something you can’t explain, but you sure as hell can feel it when it’s there. Your mind is still in splinters; you remember feeling Equius’s strong arms around you, holding you so carefully because he always thought you were fragile even though you were always tough…you remember him drying your tears and dabbing up your olive blood with a towel after you’d gotten hurt while hunting…you remember feeling so warm and safe and—and what the Dave part of you would always wish he could have with his guardian. That was what he, why you, grew so close to Roxy. Every pale feeling you’ve ever felt crashes into you as Roxy’s arms wrap around your shoulders.
“Shhh, sweetie, it’s alright,” her voice is soft and soothing. Her hands are so, so warm as she strokes your hair. “It’s okay honey, it’ll be okay, just let it out. I’ve got you.”
Fuck, you’re so pale for her it hurts.
You finally find the strength to squeeze her where your arms rest around her waist, nuzzling your face against her chest to stifle your tears. The two of you stay like that for longer than you care to admit (longer than you can even recall), until you finally drift off to sleep. At some point she must have carried you to the bed, because when you open your sore, tearstained eyes, you’re staring at a mess of blonde hair and the swishing tail of a black cat.
You can breathe easily. Your grip tightens around Roxy’s shoulders, and you sigh against her forehead. That was it; that was your breaking point. Things are going to change now, as much as it pains you, the hearts quadrant is going to be shoved to the back burner for you. All thinking about it does is hurt you and make you crumble, so you won’t do it anymore.
Besides. You’ve got a much more important quadrant to focus on right now.
As if sensing your thoughts, Roxy sighs in her sleep and nuzzles against your collar. You press a kiss to her temple and close your eyes to finally sleep in peace. You’re going to be okay. You both are.