So I've laid the keels for two more femslash ships. Heaven help me, I was in a femslash mood last night. I had this done around midnight yesterday but it was too late to post this, so here, today.

Many thanks to Segory Ampora, YaoiOverlord, Bitblondetoday, MistressLife, CatastrophicAquarius, SakuraRitsu, Aufschrei, and DarkBlueMahogany for your reviews to the last chapter!

if you want, my grandpa said you can come over whenever you want! he's actually been interested in meeting you ever since we started hanging out!

Vriska couldn't help grinning at Jade's text message even though part of her was a little concerned with the prospect of meeting Jade's grandfather. It wasn't that she was against it or anything—she just wasn't sure what Jade had told him about her. Also there was a tiny little problem of most adults she met not liking her.

Last weekend, Grandpa Harley had been traveling or out of town or something, Jade hadn't really explained, so Vriska hadn't had the opportunity to meet him then. She had met Becquerel, Jade's hellbeast of a dog, and he seemed to like her well enough, but the dog wasn't the problem.

sure, sounds good! ::::)

Of course, the most pressing problem was whether or not Sollux Captor was going to help her. He'd said he would talk to Eridan about helping her, though, and she was pretty sure she knew how that idea would go over. She'd originally teased Eridan about Sollux being his boyfriend a few weeks ago as a joke, but apparently she'd hit the mark without realizing it. Which meant she had to start thinking about someone else to help with this, someone she could trust not to dime her out to her sister. The second one would probably be easier than the first, although she really didn't know where to start in the first place. She supposed she could have tried her own hand at setting up the cameras and set the video to be saved at Jade's place, but she didn't want to risk fucking anything up.

She wondered if Sollux had talked to Eridan yet. Probably not, since he hadn't come up to her with any wild accusations yet. Would he, though? So far, he and Kanaya had seemed more than content to just avoid her.

Whatever. I'm over them both. I have way too many irons in the fire to deal with them.

As soon as their teacher dismissed them from class, Vriska was the first person out the door. She and Jade had already decided to meet after their last class of the day, meaning Jade waited around for an extra hour after her Economics class.

Jade greeted her by throwing her arms around her in a tight hug. "Hey, Vris! How was class?"

"Same as usual. Kanaya and Eridan sat in the back, looking like I kicked their puppies. What about yours?"

"Nothing quite as dramatic as you," Jade giggled. "Just discussing the feasibility of backing our currency with pumpkins, and then I took a nap in my car."

"Pumpkins, eh?"

"It was just a discussion! Obviously, it doesn't make sense for real, but imagine there's a finite amount of pumpkins in the world, right? And they don't rot or anything, they just stay like they are. So as there's fewer and fewer, they become more and more valuable, soon surpassing gold in value."

"Those are some bomb-ass pumpkins, I guess," Vriska said. "Shoulda given them the ones in my living room."

Jade choked on a laugh and rested her head on Vriska's shoulder for a moment. "Okay, enough fooling around. Where to? My house? Your house?"

"I'm not picky." Actually, she wasn't too thrilled with the idea of going home right now, not with the threat of Aranea hanging around there, and especially not with Jade in tow—that would be a sure way to get Aranea angry, and without the silent protection of cameras recording any retaliation, Vriska didn't want to incur that, not just yet. "How about your house? Will your grandpa be there?"

Jade shrugged. "Probably. He was out hunting when I left this morning so he should be back by now." Her eyes lit up. "Why? You want to meet him today?"

If "want" meant "simultaneously anticipate and dread," then that was a yes. "Sure. I mean, if he has time."

Jade snorted with laughter. "He's old—he's got nothing but time."

Vriska thought that was a little backwards, but Jade looked so sincere saying it that she didn't bother to correct her. "Alright, then I guess we can go hang out at your house."

"Cool!" Jade grabbed her arm and started tugging her along, and Vriska had to admit that even though it had been a long time since she'd had a real, actual friend, she was pretty sure they were not supposed to try to rip your arms out of their sockets. Still, Jade's solid presence near her was soothing, and she was willing to let it go. Besides, even with her buck teeth, Jade looked really pretty when she smiled.

Almost as soon as the thought floated into her head, she pushed it out. She was not going to do this again. She couldn't ruin another perfectly good relationship with silly notions about making it more than it actually did. That was how she started dating Kanaya and John in the first place, and that had gotten her nothing but frustration. Admittedly, most of the frustration had been her fault, but that was precisely why she needed to completely disregard any more-than-friendly feelings she might accidentally start developing. She wasn't sure she knew how to actually be a halfway decent girlfriend to anyone—she was barely a decent friend.

"So why did you choose pumpkins?" Vriska asked as she tossed her backpack into the back seat of Jade's Sonata.

"Come again?"

"In your Econ class. Why did you go for pumpkins instead of corn or something?"

"Oh." Jade shrugged. "It was the first thing that was suggested, honestly." She grinned. "Actually, I suggested it. Did I show you the pumpkin patch I have growing in my greenhouse?"

"I didn't even know you had a greenhouse."

"Oh! Yep, it's in the backyard! I'm sorry, I thought I showed you!"

"Well, in your defense, there were other things going on this weekend."

"Yeah, that's true. Ooh, I have more than just pumpkins, though! I have lots of other stuff in my greenhouse, like flowers and carrots and watermelons!"

"Why do you have so much stuff?"

"Because growing stuff is fun! It's really gratifying to take care of plants from the time they're seedlings and then watching them grow and know that without you, they wouldn't be there."

"I think my mom said that about having kids," Vriska joked.

Jade giggled. "There's a lot of similarities between the two, except it's generally frowned upon to eat your kids."

Vriska grinned. "I'm not sure—I think they would have made an exception in Aranea's case." Part of her felt a little bad for talking shit about her own sister, but then she reminded herself that Aranea had killed her pet tarantula, and that put any guilt out of her mind.

Jade laughed that much harder, and Vriska felt rather pleased with herself. Maybe she wasn't a terrible friend—she'd made Jade laugh, after all.

"So how much homework do you have to do tonight?" Jade asked suddenly.

"Oh, not much. A little more catch-up work for Photography, but that's about it. Why?"

"Well, I figured that if you're hungry, we could order a pizza while you're doing your homework or something. We could make a night of it."

That was actually a really good idea. Vriska liked it a lot—and she still didn't want to go home right away. She thought about the tarantula sitting in the case at home waiting for her, and she wanted to go back even less. It wasn't her Mindfang. It was just a stand-in, easily replaceable. She didn't hope it died or anything, but she didn't want to get attached just in case it did.

So she agreed, hoping she wouldn't get home until long after Aranea had fallen asleep.

"We still need to decide on what movie to sea," Feferi said, pulling out her phone. She pulled up the Fandango app and started scrolling through movies. "Any thoughts? The sooner I order tickets, the better."

Nepeta bounced in her seat. "I don't even know what's playing right meow!"

"Well, Ender's Game just opened..."

"Mmm..." Nepeta tilted her head and then shook it. "Nah, I hate that guy."

"What guy?"

"Orson Scott Card, the guy who wrote the book! The book is great, and I really want to see the movie, but I refuse to give my money to that guy."

Feferi raised an eyebrow. "Why? What's so bad about him?"

"He's racist, he's anti-Semitic, and he's a total homophobe. He's already said he's donating a lot of money he makes from the movie to anti-Semetic and anti-LGBT charities. So like I said, I'll watch it, but after I can torrent it."

"Wow, I didn't know all that." Feferi scowled at her phone. "Fuck that guy, then. Okay, there's... Bad Grandpa, and Carrie—I do want to sea that! And 12 Years a Slave, that one looks pretty interesting... Captain Phillips looked pretty good, too, and Machete Kills—even though it has Charlie Sheen in it, I still want to sea it. Gravity, Runner Runner... anything catch your interest?"

"The boys would probably appreciate Machete Kills," Nepeta admitted. "But then again, Chloë Grace Moretz. Really leaning towards Carrie here." She drummed her nails on the table. "What do you think?"

Feferi scratched her head. "I don't know—it's so hard to decide! Machete Kills is pretty much guaranteed to be off-the-wall hysterical, but I have to agree with you about Chloë Moretz. I've wanted to sea the remake for awhile now, actshoally."

"Should we flip a coin?"

The swimmer grinned. "I'm not sure—Terezi might be mad if we take her thing."

Nepeta giggled, and Feferi suddenly realized how close she was. The smaller girl had taken off her cat hat and left it on the table, leaving her short blond hair messy but rather adorable. Almost without conscious control, Feferi found her hand floating up to run her fingers through Nepeta's hair.

She'd half-expected Nepeta to give her a funny look, but she didn't. Instead, she closed her eyes with a lazy smile crossing her face as she put her head down, pillowed on her arms. After a few moments, she actually started purring quietly. She's so cute! "That's adorabubble," she joked.

Nepeta opened one eye, her grin widening, before closing it again.

In an effort to distract herself from the abrupt uptick in her heart rate, she said, "Whale, anyway, we don't have to decide right meow. But I figured you might be interested in knowing that, according to Eridan, the only thing he did all weekend was Sollux."

Nepeta had giggled again when Feferi used the cat pun, but now her head jerked up. "He did what?"

"Yeah! They apparently had sex this weekend. A lot of it. Five times."

Nepeta smirked and stroked an imaginary beard. "Hmm, rather impressive. I'll be sure to congratulate them both on a job well done!"

Feferi snorted with laughter. "Eridan probubbly won't be too thrilled I told you, but oh, whale. It's exciting! It's been awhile since he was this tolerabubble."

"Are you implying he's something other than tolerabubble?" Nepeta joked.

Feferi tried not to feel too pleased that Nepeta had used one of her puns, but it was really hard. It was always a sure way to put her in a better mood, something Eridan employed when she was having a bad day. "Maybe... You know how he can be. Boys are so weird."

Nepeta cocked her head, a feat since Feferi was still playing with her hair. "Some of them, yeah. I've found Equius to actually be a bit... okay, yeah, he's weird, but it's a good weird. And he doesn't get moody or anything. Not like Meowster Ampurra. Or Meowster Catpurr, I guess."

"Catpurr—? Oh, Captor. Never mind." Feferi nodded. "True. And even Dave and John can get a little moody, too."

"And don't get me started on Karkitty!" Nepeta added. "Oh, speaking of which, are you coming over for Thanksgiving?"

Feferi laughed. "That wasn't an awkward segue or anyfin. But I haven't quite decided yet. I guess it all depends on what my mom's planning on doing, too. And a lot of other things, too. But I really want to come over!" She realized she was still stroking Nepeta's hair and pulled her hand away until Nepeta reached over, grabbed her hand, and put it back on her head.

"Whale, figure it out soon," the shorter girl said. She playfully stuck out her tongue. "Equius and I are trying to figure out what to make for dinner."

"If I do end up going, I'll probably bring somefin along with me."

"Good. That's a good idea. We can ask people to bring food with them to cut down on the stuff Equius and I have to do." Nepeta yawned and pitched sideways, resting her head in Feferi's lap. "Keep petting. It feels nice."

Feferi bit her lip, grinning, and continued playing with Nepeta's hair. She wasn't sure what it meant, but she knew she liked it.

I wasn't kidding about more lesbians. Anyway, I'm going to try to keep myself from getting distracted from my Big Three and just focus on these for awhile. (Pssssst, I decided not to reenlist, so in a year or fifteen months, I'll be all done!)