This act ran away with me. There was no way I could have finished it last night.

Many thanks to region-discontinued, SlytherinUnicorns, obsessed01616, FanficFinatic2, LinkinPark X, Random person, Bitblondetoday, CatastrophicAquarius, DJMeow, Heki564, MissArsenicChaos, Fabylou55, iDreamBig, and Rand0mAn0nym0u2 (I AM SO SORRY I FORGOT YOU I AM A HORRIBLE PERSON) for your reviews to the last act! I was especially amused with how concerned everyone was for Cronus's welfare. Also, I know several of you have expressed a desire to see more Jade/Vriska... I do have plans for that, as well. Halloween will be a big night for everyone, trust me. (Keep in mind, this act is set on October 30.) More Jade/Vriska and more drama very soon! (Just when you thought the story was winding down!)


"Well, I must say, I'm surprised to see you in your own clothes again," Aradia said slyly to Sollux the next morning.

"Why?" he asked innocently. "We washed my clothes last night."

"I figured your boyfriend would want to dress you again."

Sollux snorted derisively. "Believe me, he tried." He had, too. Eridan had nearly insisted on at least forcing him into something besides the T-shirt he'd worn on Monday ("I'll let you keep the jeans—they're not so bad—but come on, let me find a different shirt for you"), but Sollux had to put his foot down. Eridan had sulked for a few minutes, but after Sollux made him coffee, his mood brightened.

"Oh, well. So what did you guys do last night?" Aradia sounded innocent enough, but there was a devilish look in her eyes that hinted she wanted juicy details.

She wasn't about to get them. "Movie, burritos. No big deal."

"Liar."

There was no way he was going to tell her that Eridan had sucked him off. She would probably explode—in fact, the only way her reaction would get any more excited was if he told her that they'd had sex. He was half-tempted to tell her just to see what would happen, but he knew he'd regret it after he told her he was lying. "Delving into further details seems like the ungentlemanly thing to do. I don't ask you what you do with EQ, but that—"

Aradia cut in smoothly. "He fingered me."

All activity in Sollux's brain shut down as his mind desperately tried to purge that information from his memory. He was dimly aware that his face was probably frozen in an expression of stunned horror but he couldn't do a thing about it—he was still reeling.

"Sollux? You okay?" she asked, nearly laughing at his face.

For a few more seconds, he struggled to even form words, but he finally managed to say, "I... I did not. Need. To know that. There's a reason I don't ask you about that kind of stuff—I don't want to know!"

She finally started laughing, leaning back in her chair and laughing until she was nearly crying. "Oh, my God, Sollux, you're too funny. I was joking!" She wiped a tear from her eye. "Or was I?"

"I don't need that mental image—I really don't. And ever since he said he was going to be a horse for Halloween, all I've been able to associate with it is 'horse cock,' and that is really not what I want to be thinking about."

Aradia's laughter redoubled and she almost fell out of her chair. "Oh, my God," she practically sobbed, clinging to the edge of the table for support, "Nepeta is going to lose her fucking mind when I tell her you were thinking about my boyfriend's horse cock!"

Sollux put his elbows on the table and cradled his face in his hands. "Why do you laugh at my pain?"

She tugged at his arm and managed to pull one of his hands away from his face. "No, I'm sorry—it was just too funny! I'm not laughing at you to be mean or anything!"

"Yeah, I know." He ran his fingers through his hair. "God, just don't tell NP I even mentioned him in conjunction with the phrase 'horse cock,' okay? It's just so fucking embarrassing."

"Okay, fine, I promise," she sighed.

"Thanks." Sollux looked up at the ceiling and decided to give her one single detail from last night, although he got the distinct feeling he was going to regret divulging this particular piece of information. "So ED gave me a blowjob last night."

"You're joking. This is your petty revenge for what may or may not have been a joke on my part, and it's not funny."

"I'm not joking. I probably still have the teeth marks to prove it," he added with a grimace.

"Teeth? Oooh, that doesn't sound good at all."

"Once he stopped using them, it was fine."

"'Fine'? Honey, if you can describe a blowjob as 'fine,' it clearly wasn't that good."

"It was his first time. I can forgive a botched technique. And, okay, it wasn't fine, it was..." Sollux considered it. "Pretty awesome, actually."

"Better," Aradia said with a grin. "Definitely better."

"Also information you are not allowed to tell NP."

"Shit! I can't tell her anything!"

"Nope, because you'll probably end up telling her way too much."

Aradia stuck her tongue out at him. He ignored her and headed off to his programing class.

When he arrived in the doorway to his classroom, he looked around, attempting to scope out Terezi. It was the first time in several months that he'd actively sought her out—usually, she randomly appeared over his shoulder or they just happened to be hanging around the same people and started talking to each other—but he'd meant to talk to her on Monday, and that hadn't ended up happening. He was determined to fix that today, though.

But the moment he caught sight of her near the back, he started wondering if he should. Maybe he should just let it go—after all, it wasn't his business anymore (and hadn't been in a long time) who Karkat slept with, but he still wondered what had happened. He'd been able to tell almost immediately that, for some reason, Karkat seemed to have a soft spot for her, but how had that turned into illicit fucking in the bathroom during a weekend-long house party? It didn't make sense to him, although whether it really didn't make sense or if he just didn't want to understand it remained to be seen. What about Karkat had so endeared him to her that she slept with him? He hadn't realized they were that close already.

He could still avoid that conversation. He desperately wanted to know, but he could also anticipate the drama that would inevitably go along with it. Terezi's eyesight was shit, after all, and he could easily just go to his seat and pretend that nothing was happening. She wouldn't know he'd been hovering there, caught in indecision.

Sollux sighed and headed to the back to sit next to Terezi. As he slunk closer to her row he saw her ears perk up slightly and her fingers paused over her keys momentarily, but her head never turned in his direction and he wasn't sure she knew he was there until, a second before he sat down, she said, "Hey, Sollux. What's going on?"

"How did you know it was me?"

"I think the more important question is, why do you smell like Eridan Ampora's shampoo?"

"I think an even more important question is, how the Hell do you know what his shampoo smells like?"

"I know what everyone's shampoo smells like. And I know that you don't smell like yours right now. But you're the only person who talks to me in this class, so I figured it was you." That was true—Terezi sat by herself in the back of the room. Sollux would sometimes join her, but no one else strayed even close.

"Huh. I guess that makes sense."

"So why do you smell like Eridan Ampora's shampoo?"

"Because I showered at his apartment."

"And since when do you shower at Eridan Ampora's apartment? I thought you two were in the middle of a hatred-fueled prank war." She grinned as though she already knew the answer, but Sollux was confused.

"Um, do you not remember what happened at the party this weekend?"

Terezi finally stopped typing to turn her head and look at him, condescension written all over her face. "Sollux. I'm blind, remember? If something happened this weekend, I didn't see it, and I didn't hear it since no one told me."

That made sense—and Terezi had been involved with the game of beer pong while the rest of them were playing Truth or Dare as well. Whoops. "Oh. Well... the short version is, we're dating now."

She looked stunned for a moment. "Gonna need a little more information than that."

"Okay, well, I was dared to kiss him during Truth or Dare at the party and I did and I guess he's gay for me now or something."

Terezi gritted her teeth. "Somehow, your story has raised far more questions than it answered."

"I don't know what else to tell you. That was pretty much how it happened. We made out and then we made out more on Saturday and..." But that hadn't been it, had it? No, Sollux had seen Eridan kissing Feferi and he'd run, and Eridan had chased after him. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten about that—but he'd been drunk, so maybe it followed. "I don't know. I like him, he likes me. I spent Monday night and last night at his place."

She finally grinned that typical predatory grin of hers, and Sollux was reminded of a shark—or a dragon. "I like it a lot. So are you just dating, or are you two officially boyfriends now?"

"Uh, yeah, he's my boyfriend now." That was still weird to think about—he had a boyfriend. He hadn't dated anyone since he was a sophomore in high school, and for a bisexual, the only two people he'd slept with (or come close to it, in Eridan's case) were both boys. It was weird for him.

"Awesome. Does Mituna know?"

"Fuck, no—and if you know what's good for you, you won't tell your sister, because I'm almost a hundred percent sure she'll tell him."

"Why don't you want Mituna to know? I thought twins were supposed to be close or some shit."

Sollux rubbed the bridge of his nose. This was not how the conversation was supposed to go. "We were, but he pulled a dick move on me a couple of summers ago and I never quite forgave him."

"Oooh, what happened? Think he'll do it to Latula?"

"I highly doubt that. It..." He gave an exasperated sigh. "Look, I don't hate him exactly. He's not a bad guy or anything, and I'm sure he'll treat your sister right. Just... he used to be a bit of a tool."

"How so?"

"Well, the summer between high school and college, he happened to catch me and Ka—uh, the guy I was messing around with. And for some reason, I don't know if he was just trying to fuck with me or if he was legitimately upset or something, but he found our mom and said, 'Sol's making out with some boy in his room!'

"I really don't know how he expected her to respond, but she brushed it off like it was nothing and even invited the guy to stay for dinner, but he'd gotten really freaked out by the whole thing so he left, and then later he basically told me he was straight and we needed to end the sex part of our relationship and I guess that's not Mituna's fault, but I did kind of blame him for it, at least a little. He apologized for it later, but... fuck, it's hard to let go of something like that."

For the first time, Terezi looked genuinely sympathetic. "God, I'm sorry. I had no idea. I didn't realize he was that much of a dick."

"Used to be. I don't know if he is anymore. I don't hang around him all that much. I think what bothered me most was that I hadn't come out to my family at that point, since up until I got involved with... the guy, I wasn't even sure I was bi, but I was convinced after then. I was just waiting for the right time to tell them, and Mituna went ahead and outed me before I was ready. I'm just glad my mom was so cool with it. She says she doesn't care—she just wants us to be happy and she doesn't care who we end up with, so that's good."

"Yeah. Jesus, that's horrible."

Sollux sighed and sat back in his chair. "I'm pretty much over it."

She stared down at her keys for a few moments, and then a strange look crossed her face. "Hey, Sollux, how long have you known Karkat?"

"Since middle school. Why?"

"I see. Well, call me crazy, but I could have sworn you almost used Karkat's name in your story." She gave him a suspicious look. "Did you?"

This was definitely not how the conversation was supposed to go, but it was getting back around to where he wanted it to be. "Uh. Yeah."

"So... what you're telling me is, you fooled around with him."

"Yeah."

"Did you have sex with him?"

"Um. Once..."

"Oh," she said. The concern melted off her face.

"A day."

"Excuse me?"

"For about two months," he finished quietly.

"Okay, um, wow. He didn't mention that."

"He wouldn't. I think he'd like to pretend it never happened."

She rubbed her temples and sighed, setting her elbows on the desk in front of her. "Oh, my God. Fuck."

"What? You slept with him, too."

She whirled to face him again. "How the fuck did you find out about that?" she demanded in a whisper. She glanced anxiously toward the front to see if anyone else was looking, but they were ignored.

"I happened to need to piss on Saturday night and I got up and... well, you and KK were in there."

"Fuck," she groaned. "Did you tell anyone else?"

"I may have mentioned it to NP. I didn't tell anyone besides her, but as for who she told..." He shrugged.

"Great. What did she say?"

"I don't remember exactly, but she was excited."

"Oh. Well, that's good, I guess."

"Yeah. Look, I just have to know—why?"

"Why, what?"

"Why'd you sleep with him?"

"Because I like him? Seems pretty obvious, right?"

"Well, yeah, but why? I mean, he's shouty and annoying and—"

"Outspoken and caring and funny and, the best of all, he doesn't make me feel like 'the blind girl,'" she finished for him.

"Like—what?"

"You heard me. Somehow, everyone has made me feel like I'm my disability. I'm the blind girl who needs help with everything. I can't see—I can't do anything. Except Karkat doesn't treat me like that. Sure, he helps me get around sometimes, but only when I ask him to. He doesn't automatically assume I need help with everything. I can navigate stairs and walk without tripping and see well enough to know he cares about me. So, yeah, I slept with him, because I wanted to and he wanted to and I like him and he likes me." She crossed her arms over her chest and sat back in her chair, glaring at him, silently daring him to question her, but that was the last thing on his mind.

"Sorry," he murmured. He hadn't realized that she was actually concerned with how she was perceived. He'd always thought of her as this cool, aloof, don't-give-a-fuck tough girl who happened to be blind. He couldn't believe he'd been so far off.

Her face softened a bit at his apology. "It's okay," she sighed. "I get that he hurt you, and I'm really sorry about that. But he's good to me and I got the impression that you were pretty much over him, right?"

"Yeah." He was about as over Karkat as he was about to get—and it helped that Eridan wasn't following Karkat's pattern of behavior.

"So can you be happy for me?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Good." She reached over and messed up his hair. "And I'm happy for you. Now go do your fucking work."


*whistling increasing in pitch* BOOM! DRAMA BOMB!

I think I'm gonna make the next chapter a GamTav one...or at least partly GamTav.