Author's Note: Sorry for the long break. I've been busy. Mainly I rediscovered a TV show from my childhood and decided I needed to watch the first fifty episodes before anything else productive could be done. I've also recently undertaken mundane tasks such as calculating the amount of different ships possible in Homestuck (244,068 – check it out: post/57753278653/homestuck-shipping-mathematics). You can also follow me on Tumblr. *wonk* Anyway. Enjoy.

When the credits started rolling, Nepeta sat quietly on the couch, trying not to move. She didn't really want to move. Gamzee was still holding her hand. She kept her gaze trained on him as he reclined casually in her left peripheral vision. Eventually she thought she saw him glance over at her, so she turned her head, to find out the Gamzee was actually a lot closer than she thought he was.

They blinked at each other for a few moments before Nepeta spoke up quietly. "Thanks for the dinner and everything tonight, Gamzee. It was fun." The clown troll smiled.

"Any motherfucking time, sis." They smiled at each other for a minute or two before Nepeta realized their faces were slowly approaching. She jerked backwards suddenly, nearly toppling over the side of the ruined sofa. She pulled herself back into a sitting position in time to see a flash of disappointment cross Gamzee's face.

To dispel the awkwardness, Nepeta jumped of the couch and nimbly navigated her way through the dark room to the light switch, which she flipped on. The lights flickered for a few seconds before providing a steady illumination. Nepeta grabbed her dress off the hook by the door and returned to the bathroom to change while Gamzee popped the disk out and returned it to its case.

When Nepeta emerged, she padded up to Gamzee, who was inspecting a yellow fingernail, and passed him the bundle of clothes he had lent her. In return, he handed her the DVD case. Nepeta rocked back and forth from her toes to her heel.

"What time is it, Gamzee?" she asked, delaying her departure by a few precious seconds. Her friend walked into his kitchenette and opened his laptop.

"About 9:55," he informed her, at which she gasped and dashed to the door. "Thanks, Gamzee!" she called as she whizzed out into the hallway and slammed the door behind her. She screeched to a halt, a tugging sensation in her chest urging her back into the room she had just left. Ignoring it, Nepeta sprinted down the hallway, her dress rustling against her legs and her flats smacking against the hard metal floor.

She burst into the apartment in the nick of time, Equius rising from a chair in the main sitting room, where he had undoubtedly been awaiting her return. "Sorry, Equius!" she apologized as she came to a halt just under his nose. He grasped her upper arms, lifted her into the air, and placed her back on the ground a foot away. His sweaty hands felt slippery on her bare skin.

"You were almost late, Nepeta," he chided as she padded past him back into her room, closing the door halfway so she could have some privacy while changing back into her regular clothes. She could hear him talking through the gap as she slipped out of the dress.

"Consider yourself quite lucky you returned when you did," he was saying as she pulled on her t-shirt and pants and squashed her hat back onto her head. She ran across the room to pull her laptop open. 9:59. She had been so close to never being allowed to go out late again.

"Why, I was in half a mind to go to retrieve you myself, had you been another minute or two," Equius continued. Nepeta shrugged her olive trench coat onto her shoulders and opened the door, allowing for Equius' entry. He immediately strode into the room quite forcefully. Nepeta collapsed face first onto her bed, and Equius perched carefully on the edge of the mattress. He regarded her small form, prostrate on the blankets, and spoke quietly but firmly.

"Nepeta. I just want you to know that whatever unfolds between you and Gamzee…" he began, and Nepeta's heart skipped a beat at the mention of the indigo-blooded troll, "I will still always be your moirail, if you permit me to do so. I…rely on you Nepeta, but I also care for you a great deal."

She sat up and snuggled into Equius' arm, looking up at him with bright eyes. "Thanks, Equius." She sighed happily. "I love you."

"I…love you, too, Nepeta," her moirail stated matter-of-factly. It was the first time he'd ever said it.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, her scrawny body clinging to his muscular one. Finally, she regarded him seriously and asked, "What should I do about Gamzee?"

Equius disentangled himself from her and looked her straight in the eye. "How do you feel for him?"

Nepeta sat and thought. In just half a second, her mind conjured up all sorts of images of Gamzee. Of them first meeting online, just three or four sweeps old. The first time she saw him, surprised by his impossible height. His hair flying wildly as he juggled his clubs in the face of large imps as they battled their way through the game. And, more recently, the many visits she had paid him in his room on the meteor. Holding out a plastic container of scrambled eggs in the hallway, washing her former OTP off the wall, wearing a bowtie and eating fish under a starry sky, regarding her like frightened wriggler as different colors of light played off his face paint.

His horns long, his feet large, his form tall. His face painted, his hair crazed. His eyes tender, his smile contagious.

The aching in her chest, that she hadn't felt since she had left Karkat behind, returned. Except now, the aching wasn't really of pain, but of hope. The feeling grew as she struggled to remain seated on the bed. She clung once again to Equius' arm and planted her feet firmly on the floor.

"I feel red for him," Nepeta admitted, resisting the urge to jump up and run. Equius cocked his head to one side and cautiously brushed a free strand of hair from her forehead.

"And does he reciprocate?"

Nepeta envisioned Gamzee blushing indigo, refusing to tell her who he loved, rushing from the room to bring two glasses of milk, and awkwardly shuffling his feet in her presence. She remembered her accidental pairing on her shipping wall: Nepeta and Gamzee with a big, red heart. And she recalled the way his face seemed magnetically attracted to hers after the movie, and the way his eyes looked when she pulled away.

"Yes," Nepeta stated, absolutely sure of the fact. She needed to go. She needed to leave and do something. She gripped onto Equius. "Can I…may I be excused for a few minutes?"

Her moirail nodded like he understood. "Be back by ten thirty."