A/N: I hope you enjoy this little break from feels, because it's probably the last one you're going to get.

Jake

A couple days later, we had made it to yet another abandoned house. It was already getting dark because we decided to fight more than usual that day so we could get there sooner.

Dirk dropped his things onto the floor of the foyer, not caring about the noise, and collapsed sideways across the nearest chair. "I'm so sick of this," he groaned.

"Me too," John muttered as we put our things down more lightly and followed him into the living room.

"I swear if I see one more of those things I'm going to lose it," Jade said.

After a couple minutes full of more complaining, Roxy decided to interrupt one of Karkat's obligatory post-zombie-hunting rants.

"Why don't we take a break for a day?" She suggested. "We stay here all day tomorrow and leave early the next morning. I think that's what we all need, right?"

We all nodded. Nobody was going to disagree with that after a nonstop pattern of fight, sleep, fight, sleep for what felt like weeks on end.

"It'll give us all a chance to keep our sanity," she said, glaring not-so-subtly at Dirk, who made an unamused noise and continued staring at the ceiling.

"Well what exactly do you expect us to do?" Karkat asked impatiently.

Roxy paused for a minute before her face lit up. "I think I have an idea!" She said, pulling her backpack off and shuffling through it.

I swear if she takes out those cards again…

"Who knows how to play war?!" She called.

"Roxy not again!" I shouted. She sighed and put the pack of cards back in her bag.

"Well what else do you suggest we do?" She asked, sounding very disappointed. I felt sort of bad, but she really needed to give it a rest. It seemed like every five minutes she was whipping those things out to try and lighten the mood, and it wasn't quite working anymore.

We all shrugged, and Nepeta dropped onto the floor and started rolling around. We glanced at her for a second, then looked away because by now we were used to Nepeta just being Nepeta.

"Well if nobody has anything to do that's worth my time, I'm going to bed," Karkat said, turning to walk down the hallway.

Suddenly Nepeta gasped and jumped up to whisper something in Equius's ear. He gave her a look like he was tired of her nonsense but didn't want to complain.

"Nepeta would like to request that we play a game," he sighed.

"As I said, if nobody has anything to do that's worth my time, bye!" Karkat moaned.

"Oh shut up Karkat!" Roxy said, impressing all of us by the fact that she dared to yell back at him. "What game?" she asked Nepeta.

"Hide and seek?"

Roxy gasped. "Yes! We're doing it!" She decided with no input from the others. "You, me, and Equius can seek first! Counting to thirty, go!"

"What?" I thought out loud. But everyone was already dashing out of the room to go hide and Roxy, Nepeta, and Equius were already turned to face the wall counting. Dave was dragging Karkat out of the room by the collar of his shirt, and all of a sudden it was just me and Dirk.

I looked over at him. He was still draped across the chair not paying attention.

"Dirk, let's go!" I said, running over to him.

"Do I have to?" He asked.

Dirk was having another one of what we liked to call his "emo days" today, which more or less consisted of him sitting around complaining and not wanting to do anything. But I wasn't going to let him be like that today. It was our one day to rest; he couldn't just waste it by whining the whole time.

"Yes you do, come on!"

I yanked on his arm to pull him off the chair. Instead of cooperating and getting up, he fell to the floor.

"Dirk let's go, we're going to run out of time!"

He groaned and finally stood up. I grabbed his wrist and pulled him out of the room and down the hallway. I slipped into the first room I could find, dragging Dirk inside despite the fact that he was slowing me down.

It was a lounge, with painted brown walls, a big flat-screen tv, a coffee table with books piled on top, and a couch. I brought him over to the couch and looked behind it. There was just enough room for the two of us.

Perfect.

I pushed him behind the couch despite his protests and crouched down beside him. Now we were safe, but he still didn't seem to be having any fun. He was still staring straight ahead at the back of the couch with a look on his face like I had just pushed him into a pool in his pajamas. I sighed.

Suddenly I got an idea. I scooted closer so I was right next to him, then leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

His face instantly went bright red and I saw his seemingly permanent stoic frown start to disappear.

I smiled at him. "Now will you play the game?" I asked.

He turned to me and half-smiled back, reaching his hand up to my face.

"Fine."

Suddenly he leaned forward and kissed me fully on the lips. My eyes widened in surprise but after a moment I closed them and kissed him back. I had not expected that to work, but I was more than glad that it did.

Regardless of whether it helped him or not, it helped me too. When Dirk kissed me, the nagging layer of stress I was constantly feeling from all this zombie mayhem seemed to disappear. It was like I was in a completely different world, and I could forget all about the pressure of real life and focus on the way he made me feel. Kissing him gave me the best feeling in the world, unlike anything else I had ever experienced, and I never wanted it to end.

"Wow, you guys really suck at this game!"

We quickly pulled away from each other and looked up to find Roxy leaning over the back of the couch.

"Roxy, what the hell?!" Dirk shouted. His face was completely red, and I assume mine was too.

She tapped us each on the head. "Found you and found you!" she laughed.

We climbed out from behind the couch. But Dirk wasn't done being embarrassed. "For crying out loud Roxy, you don't do that!" He said.

"Shhhhh!" She whispered, "I'm trying to forget I ever saw that and you're not helping."

Dirk stopped talking, but he went back to looking like he was mad at everything. This time, though, I could tell it wasn't him being genuinely mad at everything. This was more of a stubborn embarrassment-induced fake anger that would go away in a couple minutes.

I smiled to myself knowing that I had been able to fix one of his famous "Strider moods".

"Come on, let's go find the others," Roxy said, motioning for us to follow her. She took us out of the hallway and upstairs, where we went into the first room we could find. "Equius and Nepeta are taking the rest of the downstairs," she explained.

We looked around the room to see if we could find anyone. It was a cream-colored dining room, with a dining set in the center, a big window overlooking the not-so-pleasant view of the street, a Chinaware cabinet, and a doorway leading to the kitchen. Roxy and I quickly went to work looking under the table, behind the curtains, and even in the drawers of the cabinet. Nobody was there.

"Dirk, why aren't you helping?" I sighed.

Suddenly I looked over at him to see that he was staring at the room with a strange blank expression. He looked like he had seen a ghost.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

He snapped out of it and rubbed his forehead. "Yeah, I'm fine," he said, "just… some weird deja vu or something." I could tell there was something more than he was letting on, but I decided to let him be for now.

"Let's keep going," he said, a little too eager to change the subject. He walked around the table to the kitchen, and we followed him without complaining.

"Well, found one," he said the moment we got inside. Both of us instantly saw who he was looking at.

It was Tavros, trying to hide behind the curtain. It was actually a pretty good spot, and we wouldn't have seen him if it wasn't for the fact that his horns were poking out the sides.

"Aw, not again," he sighed as he pulled aside the curtain and came out. I felt bad for him. With horns that big I don't think there's anywhere he could hide.

"Sorry Tav," I said, "at least you can help us look for the others."

We actually spent about an hour trying to find everyone. Nepeta and Equius had found Karkat and Dave by the time we went back downstairs, and eventually we found John and Jade hiding in the bathtub, although they took a while to find. Kanaya and Feferi were fairly easy to find behind a door and under a table. The only one we were having a hard time finding was Vriska.

After about twenty minutes most of us got bored and sat down in the living room waiting for the round to be over. Only Nepeta and Equius were left looking for Vriska, and everyone else mostly just complained.

Finally, Nepeta came back into the room dragging Vriska by the hand.

"Found her!" She proclaimed.

"Where was she?!" Roxy asked, suddenly seeming interested in the game again.

"In the basement!"

"Who goes in the basement in a zombie apocalypse?!" Dirk said.

Vriska rolled her eyes. "Someone who wants to win," she said.

"That's completely stupid," he muttered.

"Speak for yourself, you were the first one found!"

"Both of you shut up!" Roxy shouted. "Vriska's an overachiever, Dirk's mad at everything, we get it. Who's seeking next?"

Both of them looked very offended but nobody paid any attention. I raised my hand, and Jade happened to raise her's at the same time.

"Okay you two and… who else?"

I grabbed Dirk's hand and held it up. He tried to pull it down, but I wouldn't let him.

"Great. You three count to thirty. Bye!"

She ran out of the room followed by everyone else while Jade, Dirk, and I closed our eyes to count.

When we opened them thirty seconds later, we were surprised to see that while we thought Tavros was bad at hiding, some of the other trolls were way worse.

Standing right in front of us was Equius, with a lampshade on his head just barely fitting over his horns.

Was he serious?

Behind him was a couch, and I could see Nepeta peeking out from underneath it.

Jade sighed, but it was Dirk who said out loud what we were all thinking.

"God, trolls are weird."