As the day of the dance approached, it was not making anyone as happy or expectant as it should have - barring perhaps Nepeta, who was still quite cheerful and oblivious of anything. Everybody else, even John, had their expectations mixed with relative amounts of guilt and sadness for the catgirl: some, including John and Dave, managed to entirely or almost so mask any negative feelings, mostly looking forward to the day. Others, Terezi and Jade among them, were being significantly less happy about it, being closer to the central point of the events. And Karkat, he was not looking forward to it at all: on the contrary, the closer the day came, the more sick he was feeling.

Nepeta, as usual, did not notice a thing. She simply pranced about, went often hunting, and spend much of her time clinging to Karkat, purring, and being generally oblivious. Sometimes she would notice something was wrong, that the others were not being on such good mood as they should: she would ask everybody, Karkat included, if everything was all right, encourage them to a feelings jam with her, but gave up fairly quickly when they told her that they were doing fine.

Karkat himself was starting to get looks from the others, as well as increasingly demanding encouragements that he simply told her everything, despite his reluctance. Some others had also tried to come clean for Nepeta, but she had not believed them either. As for Terezi, she was now staying clear of the entire issue, and had ceased talking to Karkat at all: instead, she was spending more and more time with Dave, something that Jade seemed to have a certain issue with as well.

He even went as far as to contact his own past self, which did not go particularly well either:
PCG: LOOK JUST STOP GETTING ON MY ASS ABOUT IT. I WAS JUST ABOUT TO GO TELL HER. SHE'S PROBABLY AT THE GRAVEYARD AGAIN, SO.
CCG: WELL WHY THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I AM GETTING ON YOUR ASS ABOUT THIS SHIT?
PCG: OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE.
PCG: HOW FAR IN THE FUTURE ARE YOU AGAIN? LIKE THREE WEEKS?
PCG: IF YOU STILL HAVEN'T TOLD HER, THEN FUCK YOU. I'D HATE TO BE SOMEONE WITH SO LITTLE SPINE.
CCG: YOU'RE GONNA BE THAT SOMEONE WITH SO LITTLE SPINE SOON, YOU FUCKASS.
PCG: SURE BUT I DEFINITELY DON'T HAVE TO LIKE IT.

He had tried to get in touch with his future self as well, for a similar hate-filled talk, but strangely could not connect him. This puzzled him: the new Trollian still had its own issues, but there had been known instances of getting in touch with one's (or someone else's) future self before - he still distinctly remembered how the future Karkat had contacted him about three weeks in the past, too.

There were no more results in trying with the others, either. He could find nobody. This puzzled him.

He ended up spending more and more time with Nepeta, mostly from her insistence, but just could not find the courage to wipe that smile from her face, even if it was for everybody's best. It did not help matters at all that he had started to enjoy spending time with her, too: she was the only one left that was still entirely furendly with him, him having pulled everybody else into this shitstorm and then abandoned them all into guilt. He found himself almost returning to her affections, and oh fuck what was wrong with him?

Think about Terezi. Think about her going out with that douchebag Strider human. Think about how she should go out with him, Karkat, instead. Fuck! Just tell her!

With substantial amount of willpower, he managed to not rub her from behind her ear as she snuggled on his lap, but he would not push her away either, nor say anything hurtful. Fuck this was such a mess.

And so came the fateful night at last, and Karkat had, much to his annoyance and guilt and so many other bad emotions all welling in his heart, still not given Nepeta the business.

He was trying his best to not throw up because he was fairly certain that would ruin the night a little. It was a little bit chilly, but otherwise quite nice: the moon was full, the stars were bright, and there were many lanterns on top of poles set on both sides of the paths here. There was a field in the middle of it all, somewhat too large for less than dozen kids that would soon be filling it, and there were stalls here where people could get food from, as well as seats and tables with parasols on top of them where they could sit and eat/drink/anything but dance. John had gone through a lot of trouble.

Most of the others were here already. The humans had largely the same clothes as Karkat had seen them with during the session: John was wearing the white suit, smiling and waving at him with his free hand, the other firmly attached to Rose's, who was still wearing a black velvet dress. Dave wore his sunglasses as usual, and his expression was one of nonchalant coolness, not betraying his true emotions, whatever they might be, at all: he had red, as he rather often did these days, and was paired with - something in Karkat's stomach lurched - Terezi, who had a variation of her old Redglare costume, still quite green and red. She seemed to try and ignore him as much as he did her, which was a relief.

Aradia's dress was red and white, largely inspired by her God Tier outfit, and emphasizing her wings. She was also wearing a fedora, which even Karkat could see did not go very well with the rest of the look at all: she did not seem to give a fuck, though. She went with Sollux, who had a simple yellowish-brown suit and his new purple glasses. Jade and Kanaya had both come alone, wearing the green-and-black star dress and a black-and-red one respectively, and eyeing rather a lot at Dave and Rose, respectively: both gave certain type of looks for Karkat as well, though, which made him feel worried.

Gamzee... Gamzee made him do a double-take. His moirail was wearing an impressively shiny jacket and pants with very broad hems, full of colour and glimmer, as well as similarly white shoes with very tall soles, making him appear two inches taller (and he was quite tall to begin with). He was likewise alone but did not seem to care at all, walking to Karkat as soon as he saw him with a broad, relaxed smile on his face, eyes half-closed.
"Sup my motherfucking bro?", he inquired. "How're you liking this party?"
"I... ugh, Gamzee, sorry, I'm not in the mood."
Karkat himself was wearing a gray suit with a red tie. He had originally put that tie on to impress Terezi, but it was probably not going to happen anymore: Nepeta probably would like it nonetheless.
The taller troll put his hand on Karkat's shoulder sympathetically. "DUDE, MY ADVICE IS, STOP WORRYING AND LIVE A LITTLE," he exclaimed, substantially louder than before. "YOU SHOULDN'T FEEL SO MOTHERFUCKING BAD, EVERYTHING'LL GO JUST FINE IF YOU LET IT."
"I-... hold on. Wait. What?" Karkat brushed the hand away. "I can't just do that!" He looked around and leaned closer. "I'm not flushed for her. I like Terezi. I can't just let her-", he pointed at Terezi, "-go with someone else and be stuck with... with her!" He just spread his arms. "I don't... I mean... augh!"

This time Gamzee placed both his hands on his shoulders, gave him a very empathetic look, the kind that reminded him of the old Gamzee - and pulled him into a deep hug, to which Karkat responded after a little while. "I'm telling you to not worry, my moirail-bro. Terezi seems motherfucking okay with that human kid," there was a weird tone of voice, almost hostile, with the last two words, "and Nepeta's fucking happier than I've ever seen her. Don't you want her to be happy too, huh, motherfucker? And aren't you also happy with her?"
"I... what, no... I don't..."
His moirail pulled away from him and smiled happily. "BESIDES, HAVE YOU SEEN HER? IF SHE WASN'T YOUR MOTHERFUCKER, OR A FUCKING GREEN PEASANT BLOOD, I MIGHT GO FOR HER MYSELF!"

"What? I-" He could not go any further, before Gamzee gently, yet firmly, flipped him around to look behind him, and there she was. Karkat felt his heart leap right into his throat.

Nepeta was wearing a light green silk dress, short and flowing, not all that covering when it came to her chest and ankles. He instantly paid attention to a fact that her two sizes too large clothes (as well as him not being too enthusiastic to feel her around) had always hidden from him: she had curves, and even a reasonable amount of cleavage for her age, both of which were made very obvious for him. She had the pelt of some small but furry human animal around her shoulders. She also wore red shoes, a silver tiara, a necklace with her star sign, and her hair... it was not messy or dirty, but rather neat and straight, smoothly going all the way to her shoulders, and, something he was particularly surprised about, brown instead of black. Funny how he had never noticed. She even had some human scent on her that struck him like that giant hammer John had.

She was... actually not that bad looking. Fuck, more than that, she was gorgeous. He swallowed loudly, subconsciously noticed that rather a few pairs of eyes were looking at him, and then realized that she was still just standing there and smiling at him. "So..." And then he figured that it was probably him that was supposed to ask her to this thing.
"Uh. Yeah... right, right. Okay... let's do this." His hand was shaking as he offered it for her. What was it that John had told him to say again... "Um. May I uh, have this dunce?" Wait, that went wrong. "Gah, fuck!"
She did not seem offended, though: rather, she giggled at him, took the hand, and gave him a short curtsy. The voice lifted his heart enough that he managed to bow at her, leading her to the field to dance.

Goddammit, he thought.. Maybe this was going to be a fun night after all.