496 Reasons Why Multidating is More Complicated than it Seems

Pairing 2: Kanaya/Roxy

Beginning AN:

Hey I think now is a good time to mention, you know who else I'm kinda shitty at writing? No, not 'everyone,' a little more specific than that. I mean Kanaya. I'll try to get the basics down here, but still...


Day 1.

A lone shale imp with Ms. Lalonde's hair had spawned from the ectobiology device and on the pad. It entered its typical fighting stance, looking around at its surroundings while flipping back and forth-

Its already typically short life was cut down even more when a sickle tore through the air and cut it in half. The imp exploded into a variety of grist that then littered around the room.

"There." Karkat said. "That's our renewable food resource. Clone any underlings, kill them, alchemise recipies you can remember. AND DO NOT FORGET TO MAKE URANIUM TO REFILL THE ENERGY. I'm only saying this once, if you starve to death it's your own fault for not paying attention to your game's established leader."

He gave a long look at the crowd. It consisted of all thirty-one other realselves, with the dream counterparts of Rose, Dirk, Nepeta, Meulin, Sollux, and Aranea standing there with absolute focused attention.

"Alright, that's all." He waved his arm up and down. "Team meeting dismissed."

Most of them left, causing a rapid pattern of beeping when the sole pad in the room was activated and sent them off to another section of the meteor. Karkat finally left himself, leaving only Jane and Roxy.

"Roxy." Said the remaining Egbert, "I can finally ask why you told me about... that back in the computer room."

Her only response was, "You'll find out before we get back to the Inci- Insepis- Medium." Before running to the teleporter, and dashing through the labrynth of labs and finding a hiding spot.


"Have you lost Jane again?"

"Yep."

"Okay, now begin phrase two." Nepeta said. "Find somebody you like and go off alone with them. Then-"

"I remember." She looked down.

"Okay, so after what I told you before the rest should work itself out and I won't have to tell you any more."

Roxy sighed.

"Hey!" Nepeta darted back. "If you don't do this there is a higher chance of everyone getting maimed! Do you prefer Jane to the whole herd on this rock?" She stressed the 'pre' in 'prefer' and pronounced it as 'pur.'

"Not at all-"

"At first, that is." Nepeta giggled.

Roxy continued, "I don't know who I should talk to. Because there's like, twenty-eight new people I only knew for three days max and they're all suddenly bunched up here."

"Well, socialize!" Nepeta laughed, before walking away. "I'm leaving now! We'll still be Team Multidate buds but I won't help you anymore!"

Nepeta walked into another of the transportalizers, leaving Roxy alone in the small, enclosed hallway she and the Leijon hid themselves in.

Not wanting to come off as a sleaze checking her crewmates out, Roxy decided to do her considering while not being right by them and looking at them but instead through memory of the three days. The new humans? No, she knows zilch about them. A Megido? One of them has creeped her out with her 'cheating suspicions' about Rufioh and the other creeped her out with her bizzare death fixation. A Captor? No, those guys make everything way too complicated. A Leijon? Probably, but that would really make either of them come off as suspicious, thanks to Nepeta announcing what the Meulin duplicate told her over a massive memo that Karkat was rather quick to dismiss as bull. A Makara? Roxy slapped herself just thinking about it. A Piexes? Feferi was definitley a near option to her, but Meenah's sheer boating- boasting about her makes her feel uneasy about treading into that territory. A Maryam?

...

...

...

Nah.

Roxy continued her train of thought in the room that the entire group was in earlier; by battling a bunch of ectobiologized underlings. The beatings led to alchemizing a typical few samples of alcohol (and a reserve for alchemizing more uranium to restart the cycle), still trying to hold back the lingering thought of Nepeta's plan. No, it was a dumb plan. And she was trying to use her as a puppet. And trying to get her to use others as puppets.

After time the underling killing stopped and Roxy simply started drinking the remainder of what she had alchemized, sitting at a nearby table. She was seated as though she was at some sort of formal invitive dining, even though she was the only one at the table. And the only one in the room.

Subelty was what happened here, one too many drinks and Kanaya entering the room made the possible encounter go from unnoticable to unusual.

"What is that presumably Earthly beverage you seem to be so interested in drinking?"

"Haaaaard liquor." Roxy said, raising the glass up and striking it to the table for emphasis. "Nothing awful about it. I do shit like this all the time."

"Yes. I've... noticed during the three days." Kanaya replied with a more narrowed gaze. "You were very dependant on it and valued the liquid so much. It's almost like some depressing addiction. It's a powerful thing, but when I first saw you I thought you were above such mannerisms."

Roxy shot up. "Maybe I am. Maybe this will be my last drink - ever. If it will satisfy your weird troll customs I could just quit right now."

"I didn't imply you could get better, but it was always what I wanted. So proceed. If you can. Because I believe you can't."

She stared at the surface of the table before knocking the glass over, in spite of saying words that contrasted her action after. "You might be right. Fuck. I gave Janey this speech about love and lust an hour ago, and looking back it was a total waste of time. Kanaya, you know about the difference between love and lust, right?"

"Of course I do. I am not stupid."

"Yeah, everyone knows. Especially right here, right now on this tiny li'l rock. They'll all think that I'm a captain obvious here, trying to be the next William Shakespeare but instead I'm more like..."

"But I don't think it's being obvious. I like to think of it as analytical."

"Yeah, but it's like one of those analysises that everybody knows. So... we're back to pointing out the obvious." She laughed. "How does being analytical make it better, only bad shit happens when you analyze things. Look at my situation. I thought too much about some crazy idea from the Leijons and now I'm drinking up just to get it out of my head. Seriously who gets pulled around by some role player like that? And I thought I was gonna be the one getting everybody to smooch in the way I thought worked best."

"Well, the fact that you have looked at something in a just so slightly deeper way than what it is accounted for-"

"By the way do you know where Jane is?"

"She was supposed to meet with me at this spot for an ectobiology training session. As the space player and frog breeder I know how the machines work, and I can teach her how to use it as a substitute for the smaller, given cloning machine. We were planning on getting a head start in finishing our combined session. Especially taking Dirk's land into consideration. The machines were intended for cloning the game's player species, but it is always an option to utilize it for another purpose."

Kanaya paused. "Jane the person whom you asked about went to get a mustache to 'liven up the mood.' I should tell her that you are here. She was wondering about you. And I'm starting to as well."

Roxy stood up, smiling as much as possible. "Don't tell her."

She turned and slowly, swiftly made her way to the central pad of the ectobiology machine.

"Why? Is there a feud occuring between you?"

"No, mom." She said sarcastically. "When Jane gets here, I just wanna see how you would 'utilize' a little something."

"And what might that be?"

Roxy only responded with a few chuckles until Jane transportalized in the room with a mustache on her upper lip.

It was then that Roxy grabbed Kanaya by the wrist, pulled her on the pad, and gave a second-long kiss on the lips.

Jane jumped back in shock. Her mustache fell off and lazily drifted into the floor, the former owner staring with wide eyes and an even wider mouth. Her hands were thrown up as though someone threatened to open gunfire on her.

Roxy pulled away, leaving Kanaya staring at the spot her kisser used to occupy seconds before moving off the pad and teleporting out of the room.

"Is she always this alien?" Kanaya finally moved to turn and ask Jane.

Jane did not move from her surprised expression and made no sound beyond small gasps. Kanaya chuckled.

"She was always one of the more interesting of your sector. Fine. I'll play her game."

Still no further reaction from Jane, Kanaya smirked while leering at her.

"And I assume that you have just forfiet this very same game?"


Closing AN:

I wasn't even finished with this and I already think that it was a huge improvement compared to the last chapter. But still not that great either... mostly because there really wasn't that much of a romance element to this until the second half maybe.

In case you're wondering why I didn't include Calliope and Caliborn, it was because I didn't really feel comfortable writing for Calliope and I simply don't like Caliborn's... everything. Except his interactions with Andrew Hussie and his 'porn' requests. Both characters would be pretty difficult to integrate into this (both the backstory and the pairings), and neither of them can even feel redrom.

Next up: Jake/Terezi.