The footage that followed was worn, with backgrounds and many of the characters taken from reels that had been used and reused so many times that they had lost all quality and context. More than worn, it was rotted, gangrenous and ignorant to the scenes it had followed, like a dead limb. Back in the town square of the opening, Squiddler once again popped up in front of the camera.

"Wowww, that was sure an adventure!" he said, that one clip almost as worn as the scenery. "I think we all learned a lot from that one! I learned..." he said, his animation suddenly vibrant, his voice clear. "I learned that you really don't want to hit your head on a rock! Oww! Squiddette sure looked like she was hurt!"

Squidnanna, the older Squiddle from the opening, swam onto the set. "That's why you should always wear a helmet when riding a bike or a skateboard!"

"That's right, Squidnanna!" Squiddler swam over to Squibella, whose introduction as a character was too recent for her footage to have worn. "What did you learn today, Squibella?"

"Wwwwelll," Squibella said with a spin, "I learned that turtles eat all kinds of things like sea grass or..." A campfire whisper: "...jellyfish!"

Squibump appeared from the side. "A-And I learned that little kids will eat their weight in free cookies!"

"Wow!" Squiddler said with a laugh. "And what does that tell you!"

The reused shot of Squibump had him looking directly at the camera. "That they should probably brush their teeth twice a day!"

"At least!" added Squidnanna in a group shot.

From there, Squiddle swam up to the audience much as he had at the episodes' start, and all those that had come before. "Wow!" he said, audio quality plunging. "Those are all great lessons, you guys! Well, it looks like all the trouble's gone, so it's time to sing a Squiddly Song!"

"Yaaaaay!" chorused the crowd. "Ohhhh, ? SQUIDDLY DEEEEE! SQUIDDLY DUMMM! EVERYONE SIIIING... ?"

And as that final scene came to its traditional end, like every episode that had gone before it, something swerved. Visually: the camera, which hooked to the left, and began to travel. And as it went the sun began to set again over the ocean, casting shadows down from coral trees and rock mountains, until the camera came to slow as the world woke up in starlight. The music played low alongside, coasting on one last chord of whale song as the pod passed overhead late into the night. The viewer passed eels, fish and other things, until they came to a slow rest on a heavy anchor, and then up, up the chain to the Grundy Catchyegrabber.

With a gentle pop of water, a small, dark green head breached the surface and shot slow looks in each direction, before she signalled below with her staff. Berryboo followed, exchanged glances with her bodyguard, and then pushed off into the air above, dripping water in her trail. Squiddette watched her go until she was over the edge and out of sight, her face screwed up from the moment the princess turned away, but once she was gone Squiddette returned dutifully to the water below.

The deck was empty save for a single shadowy figure leaning against the rail, her arrival perfectly timed. Beside his feet lay a small board, unattended as he blew clouds of smoke into the air and abandoned the watch. Berryboo hesitated, but then inched forward, making sure to stick to the air just above the rail in case she had to beat a hasty retreat. He did not look in her direction, though she waited a fair time; his eyelids drooped low, and what little attention he minded in the present was limited to his pipe.

"Eustace."

Plumbthroat's movement slowed, his grip on his pipe tightened. "Aye?" he said, voice taught but wavering. He settled to brace his pipe along the rail and did not look up.

"I... I came to apologize," Berryboo said. Though she could have fluttered into the air above the sea to face him she respected his right to look away, though it pained her to see him choose it. "You were right. I didn't want to hurt any of you. If you hadn't been there..."

Plumbthroat moved for a moment, as though to wheel, snap up his pipe and respond, but he seemed to think better of it. Berryboo's face fell when she realized she was talking to a wall, so she changed the subject. "Is... will Ox be standing watch tonight?"

"No," Plumbthroat said. He himself off before he could say another word, as sharp as though he had bite his tongue to hold his peace. He glanced over his shoulder, just a few degrees, and saw the Squiddle princess hang her head and sashay her tentacles back and forth in worry. That time the pipe made it back to his teeth. "Why? Are ye going to pick us each up and apologize in turn?" Berryboo froze when he caught her in her favouritism, so he pounced. "How ye almost drowned us, left us in wreck and repair and not a dime to show for it back home?"

"'Not a dime...'" Berryboo's embarrassment turned to shock and she did fly up to him, eye-to-eye. "Your ship needs fixing because of your plan to kill us! I think you've earned every lost penny! The only thing you have to blame for that is you being pig-headed and selfish to point of... of murder! If I hadn't..." She trembled, and let out a shout of aggravation. "You're not going to listen! Why don't you ever listen?"

Her tentacles hung limp, but as Plumbthroat opened his mouth, she floated down to the rail. "No," she said, the wind taken out of her sails. "I know. I know how it works." Plumbthroat held his pipe to his lips as he watched her drift slowly to her stop and then drape about the edge, letting gravity pull her lower. He kept his silence.

"I am sorry, you know," she said. "And grateful. I dont think I could have lived with myself if-"

"We'd have survived," Plumbthroat said, before his sudden reversal in stance caught even his notice. "Ye were right. I didn't hire this lot because they're bad at fishing... goodness knows..." He coughed. "I hired them because they're stubborn."

"Stubborn as an Ox," Berryboo muttered.

"And now ye want t' apologize to him."

Berryboo glared back. "He was my friend. He was..." she repeated. The Skipper's only response was to blow a stream of smoke in her direction, which she coughed at out of contractual obligation to the censors but otherwise ignored. "He was more than my friend and I wanted him to come back so much..."

"It's not that easy," Plumbthroat said. "Ye think I don't talk to my men? That one wants subordinates, an' nothing else. I don't know what happened between you two, but... I'd wager 'friends' are fairly low on his list. Much less you, princess."

"I think you're wrong," Berryboo said. "I think everybody wants friends, Eustace. You just have to open your hear to them and if they want to come..."

"Let in the bosun? Princess," said Plumbthroat. "I don't think you were listening to me today. He's not yer friend any longer, princess. Letting him in would mean nothing but pain and trouble t' ye."

Berryboo knew well enough when she was being made fun of. "I listened. And I thought about it, Eustace. I did. But I think... if you don't let people in, they can't get in."

Plumbthroat replaced his pipe between his lips, his eyes turned away. "Aye."

Berryboo's face fell. "I know he's not very good right now. I don't think I'll ever really understand why. And, today... when he..." She clenched her tentacles, ground them at the tips as though crushing sand, then released. The venting drained the hate from her eyes until there were only traces of hurt. "But you stopped me. You."

She perked up, leaning in closer. Plumbthroat barked a dismissal and turned away, but Berryboo was not so easily pushed aside. "But you did!" she insisted. "You didn't let me hurt anyone!"

Plumbthroat was aghast. "I didn't let ye hurt me!"

Berryboo laughed a bit. "Well, yes, but..." Berryboo shook her head. "It's not just that. You've been looking out for me all day! You're a good person, Eustace! Isn't that what I told you? You could have talked to the others, but you talked to me because you knew I would listen! Because you listen!" Plumbthroat turned even further away, his shoulders hunching in as if wincing under the blows of her words. Encouraged, she pressed on. "Because you know me. You knew you could stop me and I... That was more than I deserved." She seemed to flutter for a moment, the memory searing her still. "Because... you've got a good heart, and you just need to listen to it, Eustace! I just needed someone who cared to remind me who I was, and maybe that's all you need, too!"

Plumbthroat's hand shot out, directly in front of Berryboo as she tried to close the final gap between them. "Stop," he said. She looked up toward his face and met with angry eyes, choked and narrowed. "Stop, aren't you listening to yourself? Don't you know how you sound?"

"Eustace..."

"Plumbthroat!" he shouted, and he slammed his hand down on the rail, blowing her back up into the air as it rattled. "You! You with your smiles, you with your glassy-eyed speeches. You!" He removed his pipe and jabbed it at her. "There be a word for this," he said, "and I'll have no part of it!"

Berryboo's frowned at him. "I am not delusional!" she countered. "This isn't some... coping syndrome! Don't you think for one minute, 'Skipper Plumbthroat,' that I've forgotten whose plans these were today! You were the one who kidnapped me and you were the one that tried to have my friends killed! I'm not here because I'm deluded, Eustace." Her shouting calmed. "I'm here because I think everyone deserves a chance. I think you're a good person because... well, that's just how you act. You listened to me today. You helped those kids as soon as I mentioned them, even though that thing was in the water. Squiddles just... with our friends, we can do anything, and we'd do anything for our friends. I just... I think if you had someone who cared for you, you'd see how good you are."

Plumbthroat glowered, and then he began to mutter. Whatever dialogue had been set before his voice actor had been read with only a whisper, but it was a whisper sharp and personal. It sunk to murmurs cut by sharp lashes of his tongue to heights of legibility, where the viewer could catch the hint of a phrase, none of it complimentary. He stopped only with a jolt, and when he looked down, Berryboo had latched to the back of his free hand.

"...Princess..." he growled in caution, though that only succeeded in getting her to squeeze tighter, eyes clenched shut in strain.

"You care," she insisted. "I know you do, I just want you to see. I don't want anyone to be hurt and I don't think you do, either. I don't want you to hurt anyone, anymore."

The Skipper had reached toward her, to pry her from his hand directly, before he realized what she was trying to do and halted, tangled in her grasp, and he said: "Then you don't know 'care'." He rested his hand instead on the rail aside the other. "And what will you do when you're wrong? When I have your friends in my traps and all you have is that I 'care'?" He set his pipe back to his lips. "Or what if you're right? Because I don't think you understand what you're sayin'. Yer talkin' about takin' on the weight of another person, a person who wants things you hate, while you cap their violence until yer overwhelmed. That's no friend. That's pourin' all your care, and your love and your pity into a pit to win nothing o' yer own!"

Berryboo glared up at him. "My people would be safe."

"Aye," Plumbthroat said with a chuckle. "Your people. A good royal answer, except not for you. Yer people are yer friends, princess. Yer friends, watching yer sails lose their wind, day after day, only for it t' come blast ye back the way ye came."

She tightened her grip on him to reinforce her honesty, but he ignored her, so she spoke instead. "You can't ask me to give up, Eustace. You can't ask me to give up on people. Mi-Ox and I were friends my whole life! You... much as you've been a rash on it, you've been here my whole life, too, and I don't... I don't need to be friends. If you'd just look out for other people. That'd be enough." She pointed to her face. "I'm allowed to hope for the world. And I'm allowed to work for it, too!"

"Not like this, not like this!" He raised his hand so that she was at eye level. "Ye can't force help on people tha' don't want it, and the people that do... you don't want that. Ye won't find joy strapped to a deadweight on the ocean floor, ye won't find safety chained to a monster!"

"You're not!" Berryboo rubbed at her eyes, as though afraid of tears that had not yet come. "You're just trying to work, I know that, and Ox-"

"People change," Plumbthroat snapped.

"People grow!" Berryboo cried, though her grip loosened to do it. "As much one way as the other!" Her tentacles tensed under her, above his hand, as was reflex, and she shook with pain and hope. "Sometimes all they need is a friend who loves them."

Plumbthroat paused, and he took a moment to dump his pipe, to tap it against the rail until it had emptied into the sea. After that, there was silence. Drained and exhausted by the day, they waited alone on the deck in silence. Stars peaked through above: the Isle of Dread and hate had lost its curse.

Finally, Berryboo picked herself up. "...You care. I don't know what you call this if not that. B-but I'm done. I'm sorry, Eustace. I did mean what I said. I... won't bother you any more."

"Wait," Plumbthroat growled. "Princess." She turned up to look at him, though he did not look to her. "Why're ye here, princess?" Berryboo half opened her mouth before he interrupted again. "Are ye truly here to apologize, or are ye here so an old monster will tell ye that ye don't have to?" Berryboo looked up as Plumbthroat continued. "That the ends justify the means, that ye were 'just protectin' yer people,' that yer father and mother would un'nerstand?"

"...I don't have to take this, Eustace," she said, and she turned.

Plumbthroat paused, and as he did, he reached down and picked up the board that rested by his feet. "Ye said ye thought I'd be happier if I had someone in me life to love and t' hold. Well imagine me, if ye will, with a little one. Heart as big as yours." That stopped Berryboo. Though they stood apart, their eyes met, and she listened. "And one day, she saw the world was dark? That other folks were like storms instead of good winds, and that even she could be dangerous? D'ye know what I'd tell her?"

Berryboo looked away, but Plumbthroat stepped forward. "I'd tell her it was all right to be angry, when the time is right," he said, drawing her attention and surprise. "And seein' as how she was growing into the world, I'd hope she'd find someone to love and love her back. Just as angry as her," he added, and it was clear he knew how odd this must have sounded at first. A smile cracked on Berryboo's face. "So that they'd both un'nerstand why, when one of them was sad or angry," he explained, his voice still soft, "and bring each other back again. Both ways. That's not friendship. That's love, and it's stronger, even if it's much, much harder. I wouldn't damn her to someone so opposed to her that she'd never get anything back. That's not love. I think you see that."

Berryboo sat up as straight as she could in his hands. "I don't think of you or Ox as worse than me, Eustace." Her eyes wavered all the same, and Plumbthroat's face fell.

"Take it from an old man, princess," he said, lowering her to the rail. "Who's been there before. Ye tried, and ye can be proud of that. But I think ye've spent enough love, even before today. Don't waste it. We both know how that would end."

She looked up at him, sad at first, but then smiled as broad a smile as she had ever managed. "I don't think you know Squiddles very well, Eustace. We know we're not wasting our love on our friends!"

But he did not smile back. Instead, he took up the board he had gathered and brought it into the light: the mesh cage that had rested atop the aquarium. Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved a spool of wire and a pair of clippers, and set to work repairing the thing. "Ye'll see," he said.

When he looked up next she had disappeared, leaving him alone on the deck, and he nodded to the empty air. He worked for a moment before his hands first fell lax, and then toward his pipe as his mind drifted. Finally, Plumbthroat held up the mesh frame, examining not the tear but the opposite, intact corner. The starlight that bounced off the ocean shone through obscured, casting glimmering light onto his face past grid in black. And Plumbthroat sighed, stepped back, and let the frame fall into the sea.

It was beyond late, deep into the Human's night and the Troll's day, and Karkat watched the screen with eyes too bloodshot to hide his once-greatest secret. He had cleared the others out with his trusty Broom of Office and had locked himself, metaphorically, in the corner of the computer lab, trapped with his new roommates. His new roommates were bright neon, and voiced in only the highest octaves. He had trapped himself, he thought, until he had watched Season 1 from start to finish, scouring it for "evidence."

They were driving him slowly mad, and he was sure it was intentional, a surety that grew with each passing scene. That only made sense, didn't it? After all, these episodes were messages from a sanity-twisting pack of gods, weren't they? Or was that just the third season? After seeing what he had of the first, he was no longer so sure. The morals of the Human children's programming were opposed to his own, nearly to the point of induced vomiting. The programs the fleet air-dropped on Alternia and slipped alongside the schoolfeeding was focused on the hemospectrum, on the importance of filling quadrants and on taking your neighbour's land if he or she didn't deserve it. Perhaps because the foremost applied so little to him, Karkat had trimmed his respect for the last, but he had never discarded them entirely.

Besides, the show was shit.

Kanaya entered the room via the transportalizer, her arrival gone entirely unnoticed as Karkat stared up at the screen like an antlerbeast caught in the vehicular visible spectrum highbeams, and did not even notice her nervous hand touch down on the couch. He sat there, hypnotised, until the moral of the story had been triply confirmed and the credits rolled. At first, he was too incapable to give her any more response than an askance glare.

"The animation looks different," Kanaya commented.

"Watching the first two seasons first to get context before going back to Three. This style is early nineties anime," Karkat replied from memory. Jade had been allowed to stay until he had gauged that she had "overdrawn her helpfulness account" for the day.

"It seems somewhat more limited than that the later seasons, but that may just be a cultural difference."

"It's asinine," he said, and then stammered: "I-I mean the writing is asinine. Unbelievable. Did you know you shouldn't fight with your friends, Kanaya?" His hand clenched the arm rest next to him near hard enough to tear. "You really shouldn't! Because they've told me five times. And this show is fucked, by the way. The end credits try to convince Human babies to go to sleep on time or their favourite characters will be horribly murdered. People in our shows were only murdered if they deserved it!"

Karkat's manic mood began to fizzle when he looked up for a reaction. Kanaya's look was haggard, heavy. Though she kept her voice even, it was clear at a glance that she had been crying. Karkat truly did not have the energy for this.

"What is it?" he asked. He was worried that the worst had happened. He and Kanaya had had a conversation the day before on other subjects. He had helped defuse that situation. It couldn't be the same thing.

"I may have... exploded at Vriska." Kanaya wavered. "About... everything."

"Oh... Good. About time," Karkat said as credits wrapped up. Soon the screen had exploded in a familiar pattern of technicolour that made up the main title credits as the next episode began.

"No 'I told you so?'"

"I said you should, is what I said. Did you hurt her?"

Kanaya stopped, as though this was a particular worrying point. When she replied it was to say: "No, I did not."

Karkat glanced partially over his shoulder before the gleeful grins on the screen forced him to growl at the TV just for posterity. He upturned the pillows he had been leaning on and slapped a hand on the cushion he had freed. "Sit."

Kanaya did not approach. "No further inquiries as to the outcome? Lectures about the need for cooperation in trying times? No insult implying that, given my temper, my 'explosion' must have been lacking?"

"Jegus, Kan, of course you can blow up as bad as the rest of us. Better with the gogdammed chainsaw." Karkat reached forward to the coffee table of stacked DVDs to retrieve the bowl of popcorn, which he offered to her along with the adjoining seat.

Kanaya, somewhat less nervous, took the offered seat with a graceful toss of her skirts. "How have you found the program's earlier seasons?"

Karkat grunted and collected the popcorn for her to share. "Harley wasn't lying, these Season 1 episodes don't have a thing to do with one another. Though it's messed as fuck watching Mint fucking Julep," he said, pointing to the Squiddle that would become Ox, "cuddling with Carefree Princess Bubblegum here." Karkat did not have to look up to feel Kanaya's stare at the names. "...Terezi decided to drop back and started naming everyone. With the clown again, of all people."

"I take it the conversation did not go as you could have hoped."

Karkat squelched a puffed kernel between his fingers, in what at least passed as unintentional. "Kanaya, rule number one is to not talk about Pyrope."

"I Was Simply Observing That Your Use Of Her Colour-Coded Terms Implied-"

"Hey!" he snapped. "SHUT THE FUCK UP AND START TALKING!"

Kanaya stopped and took a handful of popcorn. "I'm sorry things aren't at their best."

Karkat just ignored her save to gesture for her to continue her story. Instead, Kanaya stopped and watched the show, the manic and flashy appearance of a children's program always hard to ignore. Mint - Ox - spun about the town square, saying good morning to all the citizens. A little red Squiddle, somewhere in size between Squibella-to-be and his fully grown, third season self, trailed after him. The young Squiddle parroted Mint's greetings, though he suffered at the uneven hands of comic relief in pratfalls and stumbles aplenty. Like dj vu in form of a script, Mint's conversation with a carpenter Squiddle was interrupted by the royal entourage. A discouraged Berryboo approached to tell him that the Pepper Islands were behind on their Smiles Quota (oh no!).

"Fascinating," Kanaya said. The two Squiddle leads were over-enthused to see one another in a way only lazy anime could convey; with the bonus of shots being reused and taken out of context in a way only a shoestring could afford. Mint and Berryboo had exchanged these same emotions a dozen times before and would a hundred times more, until the show turned a profit and a tentacle-driven hook would slam through mesh wire. "Whatever could have changed things so drastically?"

Karkat just shrugged. "I haven't seen it yet, have I?" was all he had to say. The comfortable repetition of the opening scenes had already seized his attention in a way he would never admit. The Princess, too, had a shadow: a dark green Squiddle with a crooked chunk of coral in her grip and an iron headband that slumped over her eye. "So are you here to watch TV or are you going to tell me why you decided to blow up at Vriska now, of all times?"

Kanaya did not at first seem all that comfortable with his question, and curled up her legs to her chest. She kicked off her heels instead - a blister of green ran along one side of her foot - and sighed. Onscreen, Berryboo and Mint reassured one another about their dangerous mission with egregious, Tangle Buddy tangling. Mint's little brother tried to copy him but the girl that-would-be-Squiddette deflected him with a blow from her coral staff. Comic injury, frames dutifully recycled. Something about the scene caused Kanaya's sad frown to fade even, and she said: "I've grown."

Karkat did not quite know how to take that sort of ambiguity, and Kanaya simply sat with her head on her knees. She kept her eyes on him, and when he had nothing to say, spoke up again, cautious. "Can I talk to you?"

Her tone was quite serious, even for her, and lacked all ambiguity. Karkat met her eyes, a bundle of cautious nerves suddenly between them both. "Why me, anyway?" he asked.

"Because I want to." Straightforward, for Kanaya. Though perhaps not for a Kanaya that had just had words with Serket. She smiled. "Because a cartoon Human told me to look for balance in my relationships."

Karkat growled. "I hope you realize that if this story of yours doesn't end with Lalonde or Nitram prying your heel off of Vriska's throat, I'm just gonna be fucking insulted."

Kanaya laughed in spite of herself. "Of course, Karkat. What am I here for if not to humour your delusions of rage?" Karkat harrumphed. "You... still wish to speak with me?"

"Of course I'll talk with you," Karkat said with a wave of his hand. He reached forward to grab a new bowl of popcorn - he had prepared several out of what he firmly felt was necessity. "You're the only one sensible or pleasant on this rock. It's nice to pretend the world's still sensible and pleasant from time to time, and how the hell am I gonna trick myself into thinking that when the most sensible person here's got a beef with Vriska big enough to throttle her."

Kanaya smiled.

On screen, Berryboo and Mint had arrived at the islands, where they worked and brought smiles to everyone they met, implicitly trusting their friends to bring reinforcements if it came to that. Karkat and Kanaya talked. Kanaya told him about Vriska, how she had come in the middle of her time with Rose and how it had all gone downhill from there, and how Rose had to pry her off in the end. Karkat provided a running commentary, solid as he could manage second-hand. Kanaya had lashed out, and he told her that only made sense - it was an action he understood, and applauded. She had threatened to put paid some of Vriska's old debts, and while Karkat had leaderly concerns about her carrying it out, he was proud to hear she had stood up for herself. She asked him questions about Rose's response, and he answered.

As the conversation carried on, something changed. Though Karkat was happy to compliment his friend on her behaviour, Kanaya's early enthusiasm began to burn away. She began to pull back, into her corner of the couch, and Karkat was at a loss to explain it. As flowed naturally, he had his own questions, though he tried to turn things back to her. She was stubborn, however, and he came to ask her about Nepeta's behaviour that afternoon, and had questions about her answers in turn.

The show went on, Mint and Berryboo's investigation landing on the troublemaker with only a single interview. Kanaya, on the other hand, kept quiet, not willing to speak another word even as Karkat pried at her for follow-up. He asked about the conversation Kanaya had had with Rose after the fight and more, until the entire conversation had dried. The Squiddles took their information and moved on, to stop the evil Colonel before it was too late. Kanaya shrank further away.

"Is that all?" Karkat asked, after a long, awkward pause he was at an utter loss to explain. Kanaya nodded and Karkat resigned himself to wait. The episode wavered on, through obvious reveal and final conflict. Mint and Berryboo had made friends with a local hermit crab, who helped their reinforcements arrive right on time. As time wore on, Karkat noticed Kanaya watch him: gauging, guessing and trying to speak, only to cease each of her own attempts. It was only once the plot was almost said and done, and it seemed to Karkat like her time had been exhausted, that she spoke again.

"I wish..." she confessed, "I wish that I hadn't."

She shook to say it, but she had Karkat's full attention. "You..." Karkat had never heard a Troll confess to anything of the sort. "Is that what you're so tightly wound about?"

She slowly nodded. "I know, considering the circumstances, that that is not the prescribed response. You've been very supportive of my attitude, and I appreciate, but that was never..." She shook her head. "Vriska and I have known one another for some time. And though our relationship is no longer in the state it once was, I hardly think that justifies my response. I told her that she'd never had a pitying thought in her life, and she never bothered to be my moirail... but I would never all of our history to simply come to senseless platonic violence over some minor slight. If I could take it back... and... I'm sorry, this is... much harder than I thought it would be. I am a mess this evening."

"What, you're apologizing for not wanting to gut Serket?" Karkat rolled his eyes. "Well of course you don't want to hurt her. What, you come in here post-cry and you think I don't get that you were upset about what happened?"

"I..." Kanaya's legs slipped out her arms. "...truly?"

He reached for more popcorn. "Yeah?"

"...Karkat, if I had said that to anyone else..."

"That's why you're here, isn't it?" he said. He stopped his digging for snacks and snapped up a raised finger in Kanaya's direction. "Do not," he ordered, "hug me."

Kanaya retreated to her former position with a fang-bit smile. "I Will Refrain"

Karkat nodded. "I mean, shit. Who did I go for when I wanted to bitch about how I was getting used to fucking Egbert? Don't you realize we need to co-operate in these trying times?"

"Karkat."

Karkat snorted. "What, that was funny!" Kanaya frowned her hardest - she was quite good at it - and Karkat took another handful of popcorn before turning the bowl over to her. "You don't wanna hurt Vriska?" Kanaya ignored the popcorn and shook her head. "Good," he said. "I don't want you to hurt her either." Karkat took to his feet, and swung out his tired arms. "...You're right," he admitted. "That was weird to say. But I mean it. If you're this upset because you jostled her a bit I'd hate to see the mess you'd be in if you killed her."

"Stranger to say, stranger to hear," she said, a nervous smile on her face. "Considering it's you. You, saying it's all right to not want to hurt another; you, the one with the speeches about pride in our natural bloodlust-"

"Uh huh."

"...and your initially persistent attempts to terrifying the Humans with our culture clash!"

"Ah! I did no such thing!" Karkat said.

Kanaya shook her head. "No, Karkat, I remember it being direct orders!"

"They're standard tactics!" Karkat countered. "Every species is afraid of Trolls!"

"It didn't work." Kanaya crossed her arms, trying to look cross, but her anxiety had melted away. "Karkat... Speaking of speeches."

"What?" But then he remembered. "Oh. No, it's nothing. For fuck's sake..."

"I seem to recall," she said, ignoring him, "a certain noble and... vociferous leader of mine making an example of his own red and black quadrants, despite several pieces of evidence implying he had no such filled quadrants."

Karkat coughed, and took a seat on the pile of DVDs serving as a table across from her. "Now, see, what I was doing..."

"Mm-hm." Kanaya leaned forward.

Karkat held up his hands between them to gesture. "What I was doing was making a illustrative point in front of the moron gallery." Kanaya nodded. "They don't understand subtleties, people like Egbert, so I based my example on... uh..." Kanaya had pulled down his hands.

"Your speech was to the other Trolls, not John," she reminded, "...and a gentleman asks," she said.

Karkat could not help it if he broke out in a smile. Just a little one. He freed a hand to point at her. "A gentleman was going to fucking ask the next fucking afternoon. Gog knows you're the only one who listens to me any more, and I think the speech proves it."

Kanaya used her free hand to pull back a lock of her hair behind her horn, where it would stay out of her face. "Would you like to know a secret?"

Karkat suppressed the urge to shrug. If he was going to flirt he was at least going to pretend to know what he was doing. "What's that?"

"I... despise... your speeches." Karkat snorted and she laughed. Still. He should have seen that one coming. "I find them... biased," she said, and he nodded. "...poorly organized... and most disappointing I find they are often conducted by a small, angry little boy who - while he has my respect as a leader!" she said, while taking his hands between her own. "He is nowhere near as eloquent as a certain calm young man I know. He and I have spoken to a number of times in moments of duress or stress, and I think would do excellently in a... more public role."

"Mm-hm," he echoed, looking at his hands pressed between hers. "...You trying to picture my manicure?"

Kanaya managed to keep a straight face. "...It is favourably towards the back of my mind."

"...So," Karkat said. "You want to take me and my rage issues and turn me into a portrait of authority..."

"Mm," Kanaya said, now overtly examining his nails.

"And I..." Karkat let her do it. "I want you to go back to doing... whatever the hell it is any of us are doing here in this lab of infinite opportunities." She laughed. "But I bet it'll be kind of hard for you to do if you start by putting half of an old friend in one side of the room and the other half in the other."

"Extremely hard."

"Well," Karkat said. "I just wanted to point out how that sounds."

"Well," she said, "we do need to cooperate in these trying times..." Kanaya freed her hands and set them under her chin. "I think it's exactly how it sounds. You?"

"...do you want to know a secret?" he asked.

Kanaya nested her hands tighter together. "If you're willing."

Karkat nodded, and then sighed. Kanaya reached up to brush some of his hair behind his ear. "...Here it is:" he said. "...if I watch another episode of this show, I'm going to... brutally murder everyone in this laboratory. Starting..."

"With Jade," Kanaya said, understanding covering her smile. "This is originally her fault."

"Right, so instead, I was thinking that instead of the killing... you and I get something to eat, and then we riff this shit into paradox space and no one has to die."

Kanaya crossed her arms looked at him in feigned suspicion. "You can't cook."

"No, but Egbert and Gamzee can and I have all their alchemy codes."

Kanaya, feigning faint, fanned herself with her hand. "Oh my, Mr. Vantas! You'll spoil me!"

"Shut up," Karkat groaned as he took to his feet. There, he stood up straight and offered her his hand. Smiling, she reached up and took it, and when she was standing to her full height, she pulled him into an embrace.

"My pardons," she said, past his shoulder. "But I think I have a certain imperative to sidestep your orders from this point if they're against your... better interest."

"Yeah, yeah," Karkat muttered. He fidgeted for a moment before caving and pulling her closer. "Hey," he said when she broke off the hug. "Speaking of ignoring my orders, what the fuck was Vriska doing in your room when you were so pissed at her, anyway? I thought those things were locked."

"Oh," Kanaya said, with a shake of her head. "Did you hear the news?"

"Doubt it."

Kanaya took the lead down to the kitchen. "Apparently, Vriska was in the main transportalizer chamber with," she counted off: "Aradia, Feferi, Equius and Dave, and... well, I should step back for the full story..."

They left the DVD paused behind them as they went. There on the screen, Berryboo and the others had returned to town, where the morals had passed and the celebration had begun, each frame of animation still new and fresh. The Squiddle princess cheered and danced with her Tangle Buddy, happy and safe, in that childhood world that would keep them so, forever.