Chapter One !

Aradia began out her house with a small jump in each step. Her golden orange hair bobbing from left to right and she happily fled her house to meet her good friend Sollux in the car. His dark hair was all she could see, he was bent forward in the driver's seat fishing for something in front of him. Aradia popped herself into the passenger side after clearing some books into the back seat where Nepeta and Terezi sat. Aradia sat down and Sollux finally pried Pounce from under his seat and passed the white furry cat to Nepeta, who let out a squeal.

"WHO'S READY FOR TEXAS?" Aradia yells. The four of them are in Los Angeles, California. Each year, 12 people are selected around the world to represent each of the astrological zodiac signs. You know like Aries, Leo, Libra, Gemini, etc. The four of them were chosen from all over California and decided to go to Texas together, each pitching in a little gas money.

This wouldn't be such a big deal in the world we live in now, and it really isn't, but when you're picked, they give you things. Money, vacations, things like that. All you have to do is be a representative for an astrological sign. It's kind of like being Miss America, except to a bigger audience, and you don't have to be a beautiful girl.

"ME!" Nepeta shouts with utter excitement. Terezi smiles widely and raises her hand and Sollux grumpily sighs.

"Guess we know how cool Gemini's are…" Aradia says with a snarky tone. Sollux giggles a little. "Okay we should get to know each other. I mean, except me and Sollux of course, we're best friends!"

Terezi and Sollux collectively groan and Nepeta says "That would be purrrfect! Haha!"

Half of them excited, half of them dreading this trip, they continue to Texas.

Once they arrived, Terezi is in the back with Sollux smiling and whispering because it's 3:00am and they think Aradia's sleeping, but she was unable to because of her aching stomach, so she looks outside and thinks. She smiles a bit as Nepeta pulls into a cheap motel. "We're here!"

As they walk in they see a friendly yet shy looking boy sitting at the counter playing with a cat and sucking on some candy. He turns around and immediately blushes when he sees Aradia. "Uh... C-can I help you guys?" He says as the cat runs into a room behind the counter. "I'm Tavros- Er Mr. Nitram? No… I-I'm just Tavros. Do you need rooms?"

Sollux sets some of his things down and walks over to him with Terezi. "Yes, we'll be needing two rooms for two weeks please." He says. "We'd prefer if they were somewhat close to each other." Terezi adds.

"Uh sure…What are you guys in town for?" Tavros says while writing something down.

"We're four of the zodiac reps this year!" Terezi enthuses.

"No way," Tavros says looking up "Me too! I come from Colombia. I got here a month ago and this place hired me. I'm the Taurus. What about you guys?"

"Gemini," Sollux says pointing at himself "Libra, Leo, and Aries." While pointing respectively at each of them. "Our keys? Sorry dude but it's late and we've been driving for quite a while."

"Right! Sorry uhh.. Rooms 301 and 302." Says Tavros while handing Sollux four keys. Sollux throws one to Aradia and one to Nepeta. Aradia glances at Tavros and Tavros glances back. She smiles and waves a bit and Tavros giggles shyly. "G-Goodnight… Aries girl?" He manages.

Aradia smiles big. "Goodnight, Taurus boy." She says while following the others to their rooms.

"He was cute!" Nepeta squeals as they enter their room. "I liked his hair. And he was so tan! He was a little scrawny though. I could purrobably tear him apurrt!"

Aradia makes a confused glance at Nepeta, given her small form she's probably never even been in a fight, right? Then she takes off her jacket in an attempt to get comfortable in such a small room. "Whoa! Where'd those come from?" Aradia says, referring to Nep's defined biceps and bulky thighs.

Nepeta jokingly starts flexing and posing as Aradia laughs. "Yeah, my family's all about hunting and manual labor and stuff like that so these kind of just happened! I mean I work out too of course. Kind of have to look out for my sister. She'd deaf, you know. "

Aradia nods "My half-sister Damara is about seven years older than me and has a pretty hard accent. She's part Japanese and grew up there until she was 10 and then we moved here! I don't really remember it, I was just a baby after all, but I'm told her dad was nice."

"Do you know what happened to him" Nepeta says, sitting down on her bed and pulling off her boots.

"Well yeah. He died I guess. Turns out he was involved with the CIA and was killed on some crazy mission in Russia." Aradia sighs "But it's alright. I never really knew him. We should get some sleep anyway, it's late!"

"Goodnight then, Mrs. Nitram" Nepeta says and giggles, "I think you too have something real. I could see sparks flying, you know? It's like when you looked at each other the pure—" Aradia throws a pillow at Nepeta's face and that shut her up. Aradia's face glowed red as she turned off their bedside lamp and fell asleep with a small grin.

A/N: yoooo ! so this was the first chapter of a dumb fanfiction that popped into my head while I was drawing cute aratav fanfiction. It's sort of a rare pair and I don't see a lot of fan contributions to it (fanfiction, art, discussions, etc.) so I always try to act on my aratav ideas when I have them. I really hope you like this ! More chapters to come soon.