A/N: Here, have some fluffy Mitula/Meuloz or whatever you even call that ship. Take in the fluffy Dancestors because the rest of them (bar one a couple) are probably going to be angstier.

Also, I headcanon Mituna as having a much thicker lisp than Sollux, although it only comes out when he's emotional. Which I guess is a lot. But I find it to be annoying when every single sentence from the Captors consists of lisping, so I tried to keep it to a minimum this time.

"Oh man," Latula said, flipping her hair from her eyes as she walked out of the front for of the school. She was thankful in that moment for her red shades, because the sun was bright reflecting off the snow and probably blinding to those who didn't have them. Well, not literally, because that would be ableism or some other BS Kankri liked to spew. Latula didn't really buy into all of that- Terezi had never objected to a blind joke before.

"Oh man." she repeated. "MT, do you hear that?"

Mituna looked up from beside her, where he'd been trying to play on his DS and walk at the same time, a combination that would most certainly result in injury. "What?"

"That sound. You know what it is? It's my brain frying. Those exams have killed me, I'm not even kidding."

"I know!" he said, finally looking up from his DS, although his hair still obscured most of his vision. "And I still have history tomorrow." Mituna's lisp started coming out as he got more and more aggravated. "I can't remember all the dateth Tulip, I can't!"

"Nah Tuna, you've totes got this." Latula tried to sound encouraging, but in reality she was thinking over her own exams she had the next day. The prospects were not looking great, and she knew she was probably going to be subjected to another night of studying and self-loathing.

That was as depressing as it got, and in that moment Latula decided she wasn't going to stand for it.

"Hey, Tuna, we should totally do something."

"Do what?"

"Instead of just studying all night, we should do something. Get our energy out, y'know? I can't stand studying all night, it's cramping my style."

"Me too," Mituna agreed. The two of them had reached the school parking lot and were standing by Latula's car. Too many medical bills to afford one combined with the fact that Mituna should probably never to operate a car made it so that Latula, more days than not ended up taking both him and Sollux to school along with Terezi. On days their two younger siblings could hitch rides with other people (or days such as that one, where Sollux had chess club, the nerd) it also made for a great makeout spot. "What do you wanna do?"

Latula thought for a moment before grinning slightly. "Well, TZ and I found this awesome hill, and I have the raddest sled at home..."

" Yeah!" Mituna cheered. However, a thought seemed to occur to him as all the excitement drained from his face. "Wait. Dad said I'm not thuppothed to do anything rithky anymore after what happened..." He was of course referring to the broken wrist incident. Mituna was not exactly the epitome of coordination and over the years had collected a number of bruises and scrapes to show for it. His broken wrist, however, was a product of extreme clumsiness. He'd seen Latula at the bottom of an icy staircase and, in his excitement, had gone down a bit too fast. Predictably, he had slipped and since then sported a broken wrist that made his already awful handwriting even more illegible. Between the two of them, Mituna and Latula liked to pretend that he'd broken it in some epic way, like punching Cronus in the nose, even when nothing could be further from the truth.

Unfortunately, Mituna's father, protective as he was, took the incident as an indicator that Mituna should not participate in anything remotely dangerous ever. And sledding with Latula definitely fell under that category. Because when Latula went sledding, she went sledding. As with her skateboarding, Latula was fond of doing off the chain and probably dangerous things with a sled, if a sled was even capable of such. And under her control, it was.

So when she'd thought of sledding, it hadn't been on some quaint, snow-covered hill. No, Latula's mind had gone to the tallest, most ice-covered hill she knew of. It simply wasn't radical to do things in small measures; it was in the definition after all. And as far as she was concerned, as long as she steered and Mituna was laying on top of her, holding on tight, then everything would be fine.

But she didn't want to go against Mr. Captor's wishes or get Mituna injured again- it was always a possibility- so Latula decided to tone it down a bit. For his sake. "Do you think you could do a small hill? I was thinking the one by the park, but there's one by my house that's cool too-"

"By the park?" Mituna perked up. "I know that one, it'th so big! I wanna do that one, pleathe can we do that one, pleeee-"

"Hey, don't ask me." Latula said, unlocking the car door. "I'm totally down with doing a small hill 'cause your dad said so, but-"

"No!" Mituna exclaimed. "He doesn't hafta to know about this, Tulip, okay?"

"Your secret's safe with me, babe." Latula replied, placing a finger on her lips. Then she inserted her keys and began to rev the engine. "This is gonna be great."

"Aww yes." Latula proclaimed, the cold wind whipping her hair back. She and Mituna had just finished the climb up the hill they'd chosen for sledding- henceforth known as the hill. It was tall, (quite a task to climb) coated in ice and snow, and absolutely perfect. She felt like yelling something inspiring, "Screw the posers!" maybe.

"Thith…" Mituna was panting slightly. "Thith ith awethome!" Now he was lisping from excitement rather than frustration, and Latula thought it was too adorable.

The top of the hill was empty, but the bottom, near the park, was crowded with kids. Most of them stuck to the smaller hills- it seemed only Latula and Mituna had mustered up the bravery to sled down the largest hill in town. That, or they were stupider than a bunch of 6th graders.

"Okay MT, this is how we're going to do it." Latula set the sled in front of them. It was the traditional kind, steerable and with metal runners- no trash bags or refrigerator boxes for the Pyropes. She and Terezi had spray painted it teal (Terezi had wanted to make it bright red, because that tasted the best, but teal had been a compromise) and made a dragon in the center, with flames running up and down the sides. It was their pride, their joy, and Latula was going to make sure it got taken on the greatest joyride ever. "I'm going to be steering, so I get to sit in front and you sit behind me, okay? Make sure to give us a kick-off first, though!"

"Yeah!" Mituna said. He was practically bouncing in excitement and she could barely see him over his thick yellow coat and bee hat Sollux had given him the year before.

"'Kay, let's go!" Latula settled herself on the sled. A few seconds later, Mituna hopped on beside her, giving a strong kick to push them off.

They were off almost immediately; the runners cut beautifully through the ice and sent them at a breakneck pace down the hill. Mituna gripped Latula's waist tightly as they shot down the hill, letting out a loud, "Woo-hoo!" His screams were somewhat muffled as her hair flew back right into his face, unconstrained by her teal beanie.

Latula was screaming too, caught up in the exhilaration of the moment as they bounced over the ice, full speed down the hill. However, halfway through she remembered that she wasn't just along for the ride; she had a responsibility, and that was to steer.

While it seemed as though the sled would go from top to bottom of the hill in a relatively straight line, that turned out to not be the case as the sled started to swerve to the left. "Tulip!" Mituna shouted in her ear, his voice almost lost with the wind. "Go right! Right!"

She fumbled for the handle, jerking it as far right as she could. The snowbank bordering the side of the hill leered up at them, and Latula thought that it was too late, until the sled took a sharp turn and skidded right.

Unfortunately, that was hardly any better than going left. The sled tipped on its side from the sudden shift in direction and, in its imbalance, nearly flipped Latula and Mituna over. They both tumbled off the sled, going in different directions while the sled itself continued on to the bottom of the hill, only a few paces away.

Latula rolled over the ice, feeling its cold soak into her jacket. There was a thin layer of snow under the ice, and more snowflakes fell, threading her eyelashes and creating a constellation on her nose. She lay there for a few moments, staring up at the clear winter sky and soaking in the complete radness of what had just happened.

Then she remembered Mituna.

"Hey, Tuna!" she called, sitting up and adjusting her beanie. She glanced around the bottom of the hill for her boyfriend. "Hey, B1! Honeybee! Where you at?"

"Over here, Tulip!" Latula turned to see Mituna sitting in a snowbank, looking somewhat dazed. She ran over to him, taking care not to slip on the ice.

"Oh my God, Tuna, are you okay?" she asked. Latula had been anticipating a mostly smooth ride down the hill, and hadn't even considered how bad it would've been if Mituna had fallen on his broken wrist. "Did you hurt your wrist?"

"Nope!" Mituna held up his wrist; the brace was still intact and he appeared to be in no pain whatsoever. In fact, he was grinning. "That was wicked!"

Latula grinned back, relieved. "You're telling me! Up top!" she held up her hand for a high-five, and Mituna delivered. They had mastered the art of perfect high-fives, and this was no exception.

For a few moments the two of them sat there in the snow, both of their jackets soaked through and both of them panting from the adrenaline rush. There were two options. They could either trek back up the hill and do the whole thing over again. As for the second option…

It took Latula two seconds to register what was going on before Mituna had taken her face in his mittened hands and kissed her. His lips were cold, but she didn't mind, the same way she didn't mind the way the wet snow seeped into her clothes as they both fell back into a snowbank, laughing and going in for another kiss. The sled lay forgotten at the bottom of the hill, to be picked up later.

At the moment, they were far too distracted.

As cliched as it might've sounded, Meulin loved winter.

She loved the snow, especially when it came to building snowmen. She and Nepeta had a long-standing tradition of creating snow-cats, sculpting little kitty ears for them (sometimes even placing their own on the cats' snow heads for added effect) and using sticks for whiskers. Then they would have a giant battle and obliterate each others' cats until they were both victorious.

She loved making cookies. Most of her cookies had a cat theme, as did her snowmen, but she wasn't above making her favorite ships into cookies, either. She and Horuss had gotten together that year to bake, and she had used his extensive collection of decorating tools to create some truly glorious scenes of her OTPs- some of which bordered on R-18, causing Horuss to sweat profusely. She had decided to keep those for herself, and went back to making adorable cats.

She loved the decorations and the music (which she could actually hear, thanks to her cochlear implant) and the way she could dress, layering skirts and tights and cute scarves. And most of all, she loved giving gifts.

When Nepeta had told her that Karkat and John were putting together a Secret Santa, Meulin had been all over the idea. She loved making gifts for her friends, usually in the form of fanart or fanfiction, both of which she was exceptionally skilled in. A Secret Santa only facilitated the act- now instead of working hard on a gift for each of her friends and family members, Meulin could focus on one person. She was still planning on giving gifts to the rest of her friends, but she was going to focus most of her effort on one person.

And this year, that person was Rufioh. Meulin had been quite pleased to see that she had gotten him; they were already fairly good friends, and she'd had a few ideas already. He loved Pokemon and various animes, which provided fodder for various ships, all of which she could depict for him through fanfiction or some form of fanart.

Also, she shipped him and Horuss quite a bit. Some might say that shipping real people was strange, but for Meulin, it was a easy as breathing. She was a regular matchmaker and had good instincts for possible ships. And she definitely felt something between him and Horuss. However, given that Rufioh and Damara were still together and yet at the same time not, Meulin had decided to leave well enough alone.

Still, she would try her best in dispersing mistletoe, maybe to give her best friend something of a Christmas miracle.

At the moment, Meulin was waiting outside of school, scanning the heads of the exiting students for Kurloz. He was so tall that he towered above the other students, so Meulin saw him coming from quite a ways away. When she saw his wavy, uncontrollable hair from above the crowds of students, she started waving enthusiastically.

While she had been planning on making Rufioh something herself, Kurloz had decided on purchasing a gift for his Secret Santa. He'd gotten Rose, and had only told Meulin because John had said not to "tell" anybody and as Kurloz was mute, that would've been quite a challenge for him to tell anybody anything. Rather, he'd signed it, which was not a direct violation of the rules (although Meulin had her doubts that anybody honestly cared that much about the "rules" for a casual Secret Santa). Meulin had decided to tag along with Kurloz for when he went shopping, as it was an act enjoyable for the both of them.

Kurloz made his way over to Meulin, signing to her a quick hello. Forgoing greetings, she jumped up to kiss him, a laughable sight with her being so small and him so tall. They'd worked on kissing for quite awhile though, and he caught her easily mid-jump so that it wasn't nearly as awkward.

'Let's go!' Meulin signed excitedly, getting into the passenger side of the car and slamming her door, waiting impatiently for Kurloz to get in as well. He settled in slowly, almost amused with her impatience, and started up the car.

It was hard to have a conversation in the car, since Kurloz had to keep his hands on the wheel which prevented him from responding at all. With her cochlear implant, Meulin could always talk aloud; however, she didn't like to do that, as her speaking voice was still afflicted by years of deafness and came out loud, not to mention awkward around some phrasing. Mituna had attempted to comfort her by comparing her speech impairment with his own lisping, which was an undoubtedly sweet gesture, but overall Meulin preferred to sign rather than speak when it was just her and Kurloz. Unfortunately, when it was the two of them in public, sometimes she was forced to speak.

Still, throughout the ride Meulin signed rapidly to Kurloz, telling him of her day, all the ships that she had seen ('Did you see Mituna and Latula walking out together? They're so cute, I can't stand it!') and asking him what he was planning on buying Rose. He couldn't respond to any of it, but merely listened and nodded as they made their way to the mall.

Once there, Meulin got swept up in the excitement. Both she and Kurloz disliked large crowds, but it was hard to be unhappy when everything was so festive. Because Meulin loved festivity, if it wasn't already clear enough. She was incredibly tempted to drag Kurloz through the mall and point out all of the wonderful displays, but then remembered why exactly they had came.

'What are you planning on getting for Rose?' she signed to Kurloz, who took a moment to look thoughtful.

'A book...' he replied, before listing off some titles she had never heard before. It made sense though; Rose was known for having an interest in Eldritch abominations and other such things, and Kurloz's own interests were of a rather dark nature, which meant that he probably had a good idea of what she would like.

'She also seems to like makeup… Meulin, do you know anything about that?' If Meulin had a cat tail, it would've perked up. That said, she gained a definite brightness in her eyes and a grin spread across her face.

'Of course I do!' she said, squealing as well as a deaf girl with an aversion to speaking could squeal. That is to say, internally. 'Let me show you… MOG! I know the best store!' She took Kurloz's hand and began to drag him through the crowd to one of her favorite stores where she got most of her cosplay makeup.

There she began to show him mascara and eyeliner and lipsticks of all kind. Kurloz was no slacker when it came to makeup- both he and Gamzee used face paint on a daily basis, so he knew the ropes of applying it. But it was clear that he'd never used the kind of makeup Rose liked, as he looked somewhat at a loss as Meulin piled the cosmetics into his arms.

'Stay here for a moment,' she signed to him, before leaving the store and giggling slightly at his look of utter confusion as he stood in the center of the cosmetics store. She was just planning on going to the bathroom, so he wouldn't have to be alone for too long.

However, the mall was especially crowded that day, and Meulin found herself with a good amount of difficulty trying to find the bathroom. There were too many people, and too much noise invading her ears. She could've just switched off her cochlear implant, but she was wary to do that without Kurloz around to indicate if someone was speaking to her.

People pressed in on either side of Meulin, and she felt her breaths coming in faster. She was already quite petite, and being surrounded by so many people taller than her was daunting. Too many noises filtered into her mind and much as she tried to suppress it, she could feel panic setting in.

It was strange; before she hadn't really minded the crowds, but that was probably because Kurloz was there, his presence ever-comforting. Now Meulin found herself missing it as she was swept up on either side by the crowds.

"Help-" she found herself choking out before she bit back the words, desperately looking for a way out. This was too much, this was too much of a sensory overload and-

A hand clamped itself on her shoulder, and Meulin could've sworn she jumped several feet in the air. She spun around, muscles immediately relaxing when she saw that it was only Kurloz.

She didn't even have to sign anything; he seemed to take into account her heavier-than-normal breathing and quietly led her through the crowd to where there were less people.

'Are you okay?' he signed, and Meulin nodded slowly, fixing her hair and smoothing her skirt, the panic she'd felt earlier already dispersed.

'I'll walk you to the bathroom,' Kurloz signed to her, and the two of them made their way back into the crowd, people parting easily for Kurloz because of his height and rather intimidating nature.

They must've looked strange together; her, short and bubbly, bounding ahead in her excitement, and him, tall and lanky and trailing behind almost like her shadow. But they really weren't that different, and it was their similarities that had attracted Meulin to Kurloz- the deaf girl to the mute boy, one of the few people who could speak sign language with the same speed and fluency as she could. It might've seemed like an odd relationship, but at its heart, it really wasn't. It was just two similar, yet different, people that were had fallen heads over heels for each other.

And honestly, it couldn't have been better.