Nepeta and Gamzee traversed the asteroid for a long time, walking silently through the corridors. They spoke very little. Nepeta left her arm laced through Gamzee's, even though it was difficult, considering their height difference. After about five or ten minutes of just walking, Nepeta looked up at Gamzee confidently striding next to her.
"Gamzee? Where are we going?" Nepeta asked, and Gamzee laughed a little bit and told her she would see. So Nepeta dropped the topic, and they continued on their way. When they reached the main area of the asteroid, they passed Terezi and Karkat, sitting on a bench and talking. The pair looked up as Gamzee and Nepeta strolled by. Gamzee waved good-naturedly and winked in response to Karkat's gaping mouth. Nepeta giggled a bit, and deep down, she secretly hoped that he was jealous. Just a little bit.
Eventually, they entered an area Nepeta wasn't familiar with. After reaching what at first seemed like a dead end, they took a sharp right and faced a metal door, which Gamzee pushed open with ease, gesturing Nepeta through. She somewhat reluctantly let go of his arm and entered, finding a deep spiral staircase ahead of her. It was dimly-lit, and only wide enough for one person to climb at a time. So Nepeta began her ascent, dress swishing around her knees, with Gamzee following close behind.
The stairwell seemed to go on forever. At the top, there was a platform with yet another door. She crossed the platform and reached out for the doorknob, but suddenly Gamzee was beside her. "Motherfucking allow me," he said, and opened the door, letting her step inside.
The room was large and circular, and a little dark, because the only source of light was the group of candles resting on a small table in the center of the room. The ceiling was domed and made of glass, allowing Nepeta to observe the asteroids around them and the stars twinkling far out of reach.
"What do you motherfucking think, kitty cat?" Gamzee asked, pulling the door shut behind him. "I found it the other day just motherfucking wandering the place. It's pretty nice, if I do all up and say so myself."
"It's beautiful," Nepeta breathed, tearing her eyes away from space in order to be led to the table by Gamzee. He pulled out a chair for her and let her sit down before rounding the piece of furniture and sitting down opposite her. There was a napkin, a fork, a knife, and a plate before each of them, and on both plates was a fresh fillet. Gamzee's was glowing slightly green.
"I might have put a little bit of motherfucking sopor in mine," Gamzee admitted bashfully. "But I prepared yours motherfucking clean." Nepeta blushed, trying to wrap her mind around the concept of Gamzee doing this all for her.
"Thank you so much, Gamzee!" Nepeta said finally. "This is lovely. You didn't have to do this."
Gamzee looked down at his lap and played with his napkin a bit. "Well, you know. I figured you might not have had much motherfucking fish in a while, and I know you like it, so. Motherfucking all up and dig in!" Nepeta experimentally tasted a small bite of fish. It was delicious, and she made short work of the rest. When she was finished, she looked up. Gamzee's plate was empty, too, and he was watching her intently. When their eyes met, he looked up at the stars.
"Sure is a pretty night, huh?" he commented. "Well, I mean, I guess it's always motherfucking night on the outside way out here, but. You know." He looked back at Nepeta. "So…what do you want to all up and do now?"
Nepeta thought about it for a while. "Hm. I've been wanting to show you this human movie Kanaya showed me. It's really cute. It's about lions." Gamzee pushed his chair out from the table and grabbed Nepeta's hand.
"Let's all up and motherfucking find it, then!" he said, and dragged her back to the stairwell. The suddenness of his movements almost caused her to trip.
"Shouldn't we clean up, or something?" Nepeta asked, glancing back at the candlelit table under the starry sky.
Gamzee didn't even look back. "I'll motherfucking deal with it tomorrow," he said, as they dashed back down the stairwell and across the asteroid once more. When they reached the main transportalizer chamber, Nepeta hesitated.
"Gamzee, uh, why don't you head back to your room? I'll go get the DVD and meet you there," she offered. The clown troll looked down at her dubiously, but then spun around dramatically on his heel and took the transportalizer that lead back to his room. Breathing a sigh of relief, Nepeta took the transportalizer to Kanaya's. Once the dizziness had passed, she knocked lightly on the door. There was no answer, so she knocked again, louder. The jade blood yanked the door open moments later and propped it open with her foot, as she was holding a swath of fabric in one hand and a pincushion shaped like a tomato in the other.
"Nepeta! It's good to see you again," Kanaya enthused, despite being obviously up to her neck in work. Nepeta noticed her friend glowing with pride when she saw that Nepeta was wearing the dress she made, but her look then turned to confusion. "Why are you wearing my dress this evening? Is it a special occasion?"
The cat troll looked down at the olive masterpiece. "Um, no, I just…I was just looking through my closet and felt like dressing up tonight. It's so pretty! I dunno, it's just…just for fun, I guess!" She laughed nervously. "So, um, I was wondering if I could borrow the film we watched together, with the lions? I wanted to show it to Equius," Nepeta lied.
"Yes, of course! My hands are kind of full right now, but you're welcome to find it. It's on the top shelf of my bookcase over there, with the other DVDs. They're all in alphabetical order. It's called The Lion King, but I sorted it under L because when things start with 'the' I tend to categorize them with 'the' at the end. So in this case, 'Lion King, the'. I don't know why, but it makes more sense to me –"
Nepeta had already found the disk and was speeding out of the room. "I'll have it back by tomorrow! Thanks, Kanaya!"
"You're always welcome," her friend responded as she raced back to the transportalizer pad and disappeared. Nepeta stumbled into the main chamber and found her way over to the pad that led to Gamzee's. After arriving outside of his door, she sat down against the wall, fighting the urge to vomit after transportalizing twice in a row. The other trolls didn't have this problem, why did she? As she struggled to catch her breath, she wondered why she didn't want anyone to know that she was hanging out with Gamzee so much. Their relationship was waxing a little red, anyone with eyes could see that, and she had to admit it to herself now. But she had lied to Equius and sent Gamzee back to his room so as to avoid alerting Kanaya that the object of her newfound affections was the clown troll. Why was she being so sneaky about it? Maybe she felt guilty about having such a sudden change of heart after loving Karkat for so long? Yes, that could be it.
Still lost in her musings, she knocked on the door to Gamzee's room, which he swung open as if he had been expecting her. Which, of course, he had. Nepeta broke into a smile, seeing that he had already changed back into his normal clothes, and had popcorn popping in the microwave. She brandished the DVD triumphantly, causing Gamzee to snatch it from her and pop the disk into the VCR. He strode over to the still destroyed couch, plopped down, and tossed her a bundle of clothing gathered there. She caught it deftly.
"There's a motherfucking bathroom over there," Gamzee said, motioning in the opposite direction of the kitchenette. "Go ahead and change, I wouldn't want you to all up and be motherfucking uncomfortable in your fancy dress when we're watching a motherfucking movie." Nepeta did as she was told, disappearing into the bathroom while Gamzee read the back of the DVD case.
When she closed and locked the door, she examined the clothes in her hands. They smelled fresh and clean. Giggling, she donned the oversize Capricorn t-shirt and long, polka-dotted clown pants and emerged from the bathroom, carefully crossing the room to hang her dress on the hat stand by the door.
"Let me motherfucking see," Gamzee instructed, gesturing for her to spin around. She did so, and modeled the outfit for her friend. They both broke out into a bout of laughter. It was true; she looked ridiculous wearing his clothing. "I'm motherfucking sorry, sis. But that's pretty much all the clothes I motherfucking had." Nepeta nodded in understanding and went to retrieve the popcorn from the microwave as Gamzee gathered some blankets and remote and turned off the lights. Nepeta paused halfway between the kitchenette and the couch, gripping the popcorn in her hands. Although her cat-like eyes allowed her to see excellently in the dark, they took longer to adjust than other trolls'. So she cautiously took a step forward, nearly blind in the sudden lack of light.
"Are you having trouble getting your motherfucking vision on, sis?" Gamzee asked from the couch, giving Nepeta the direction of his location. She walked confidently toward him.
"Yeah, it just takes a bit for my eyes to - OOMPH!" Nepeta collided with the back of the couch, and the popcorn went flying. She tumbled over the seat and ended up sprawled across the cushions, feet in Gamzee's lap and arm hanging off the side of the couch. "Oops." Nepeta sat up on the couch, embarrassed, as a laughing Gamzee rescued the fortunately unopened bag of popcorn from the floor. The clown then pressed the "menu" button on the remote, causing the screen to light up and cast a blue light over the room. Gamzee handed Nepeta a blanket and threw one over himself as she cuddled up in hers.
Putting his feet up on the coffee table, Gamzee turned to Nepeta, face bathed in colored light from the television. "You motherfucking got your comfortable on, sis?" he asked. Nepeta nodded cheerfully, he pressed "play," and the movie began.