This update is all hells of late, but a necessary delay. I wouldn't be expecting much more until the new year. I also am going to thank my Beta Reader Fatal Blow, who's work it is definitely worth your time to check out. As always, send me a message should you have any questions or concerns!

Theta Waves

Chapter Five:

Cardio and yogurt. These two things you hate the most. More than ties, more than people, these two things are what you loathe most of all. Cardio because days upon days alternately spent hunched in front of your husktop and lying on the couch have left you with lung strength that would shock an emphysema patient, and Jade making you run through the city is running you literally ragged.

And yogurt because you stepped in some three blocks back. And man, just… screw yogurt.

"C'mon, Karkat! You're falling behind! It's like you've never run before or something!" Jade somehow has the breath to shout over her shoulder at you, paces in front, and showing no signs of tiring. You don't know how she can be so perfect in every respect. She has to be smart, beautiful, and athletic? You don't buy it. Plus she's wearing a sweater, and it is the middle of goddamn summer.

"Eat shit!" That brought on a few deserved glares from passing mothers. You never really learned to censor yourself, or saw a need to, to be honest. "Why the hell are we running? Running is for people in a hurry! The gallery is open all night, and I hate running!"

"You hate everything, Karkat! Save your breath, you'll need it." She, in a moment of heavenly mercy, stopped at the next street corner to spin on her heels and grin at you. The sight of her spinning into the light, coupled with the sever lack of oxygen in your blood and brain at the moment, bids you almost collapse. You settle for panting with your hands on you knees.

"Did I already tell you to go to hell?"

"It's always been interspersed in our conversations liberally. It's been a lot more in the subtext lately but I think that just speaks to your growing sophistication."

"Well, stay in hell." This actually got an eyeroll.

"Karkat, we weren't even running for that long—"

"Six city blocks, my ass it wasn't long!"

"—As I was saying, it wasn't even that long. You must be terribly out of shape. I should bring you to a gym."

"You'd have to be dragging my cold carcass, and I'm a lot of dead weight to haul around. I can't even imagine how you'd prop me up on the treadmill." Wow, great job making that way too dark, idiot. Now she thinks you've got a healthy fascination with cadavers.

"Oh, don't worry, I won't make you run anymore. Sweaty Karkat's a pain in the ass; even more so than normal Karkat."

You're too out of breath to dignify that one with a response. Instead you just growl in a sufficiently menacing fashion and stalk off in the direction of the gallery, Jade beside you. You don't really talk much for a few minutes, partially because you don't like small talk that much, partially because you enjoy being able to walk quietly beside someone for once, but mostly because dear sweet Christ what the hell should I say? Do I give her a compliment? Should I have brought flowers? I definitely should have brought flowers.

"You don't like small talk, do you, Karkat?"

"Nope."

"Or giving people openings to continue conversations, apparently."

"Well, I mean—shit—it's just—"

"I don't like small talk too much either." She said in a manner that sounded kind of relieved.

"Oh, thank Gog…"

She actually laughed at that one. Score one for Karkat. This isn't exactly disastrous yet. Key word yet. Beautiful weather, nice part of town, you actually made Jade Harley laugh.

"Grumpy as you are, Karkat, I'm glad you came with me."

"You're a pain in the ass, Harley, but I wouldn't have thrown even you to Eridan, lousy sti—"

"I kind of meant in general."

"Oh." By 'oh' you meant 'oh s***, what am I supposed to say to that?

"But Eridan is annoying too."

"And elitist and a snob and—" Anger had risen in your voice before she cut you off.

"Don't blow a capillary Karkat."

"Why do you teach?" you abruptly change the subject to something less uncomfortable. "Last I checked, which was never because I don't care what you do, you were super into robots and nuclear submarine engineering or some science shit like that, and not teaching little snots how to add. Teaching? It just doesn't seem like the same game."

"You don't beat around the bush do you? Well, I only teach part time." She tucks hair behind her ear and studies you as she says it. You alternate between watching your shoes connect to the pavement and looking off into the middle distance. "But I like teaching them, and it pays for school. School for that 'science shit.' In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you saw me on the cover of science weekly!" She beams.

"I would. I'd be surprised at why I'd be reading the nerdiest sounding magazine ever published. I'd be surprised at why any photographer wouldn't have run from you immediately."

"Wow. I forgot how crazy you drive me."

You run a hand through your hair in a tired way and put the other in your pocket. You look right into her eyes for a second and exhale for added effect. "I don't think I'll ever forget how crazy you drive me."

"Awww, Karkat! That's the sweetest thing you've ever said to me!"

"Er, Christ, get off me! No, really, get the hell off of me!" You've been assault hugged. "It wasn't meant to be sweet!"

"Nubby-horns, if you don't think I know you well enough to read between the lines, you've got another thing coming. Now shut up and cross the street."

With only that as a warning, she dashes heroically across the street, paying no mind at all to the cars that by all rights should have hit her. Damned space powers

"You-You didn't even look one -let alone both- ways!" you shout, flabbergasted, as she smirks from across the street.

"You know we don't have all day, Karkat!"

You hate it when she's right. And against your better judgement, you take off at a half-trot across the street which you immediately regret. You see a simultaneous look of terror alight on Jade's face and an ear-piercing shriek of tires screeching on hot pavement. Instinctively you recoil and brace for it in a not completely graceful way, waiting for your cranium to smack into either window shield or blacktop with your eyes squeezed shut.

No impact… but whoever is behind the wheel is laying on the horn. When you open your eyes, a belligerent looking asshole with little piggy eyes is sneering at you and shouting out the window.

"Why don't you use a goddamn crosswalk, you blooming idiot!"

"Why don't you eat hell! Who says blooming anyway?!" you rebuke as you scamper off of the street to Jade's side to watch this jackass roll away in his shit-piecs Subaru.

"Yeah, keep driving, ass-hat!"

Jade had been standing looking astonished at the whole near fatal turn of events, but as your brush with death ends, you can see new humor take shape in her face.

"Not a word Harley," you warn her.

"Did you just tell that guy-"

"What did I just say? Not a word about it."

"Karkat, you told him to eat hell! Don't try to tell me that wasn't adorable!" You had this coming.

"I-I'd like to see you keep your poise in a brush with death like that; I almost got run down by a two ton machine, on your watch no less! Go play in the street and come back to me with the results."

She shakes her head and leans it to one side to study you, with something that doesn't quite seem to be disappointment in her eyes. "Sometimes you can be such an idiot…"

When she lays her eyes on you, you feel yourself unclench your teeth. You exhale deeply. The invisible and imperceptible tension in your shoulders unclasps and they fall visibly.

"Sometimes I'm inclined to agree." Instead of spacing out forever in her green eyes, you take a moment to tear out of her gaze and brush past her on down the road. "Come on, let's just go see some dumb paintings."

"Be careful when crossing the street from now on, dear, I wouldn't want you splattered all over the pavement."

"How about I- just shut up."

"Awww, Karkat," she adopts a motherly and condescending tone to make fun of you this time, "do you need to hold my hand when crossing the street?"

"Shut up!" You're really hoping she can't see you reddening, or hear your voice rise in pitch. In fact, you're about to launch into another tirade when the front of the movie theatre beckons to you, and you stop to check out what's being released this week. All garbage.

"Jesus, Karkat, give a girl some warning. I mean, I know you like movies and all, but…"

"I always check the fronts." You straighten up, having concluded your inspection. "Nothing good is coming out. But they are having a late night showing of 'Sixteen Candles' on Thursday."

"Lame." She huffs. How dare she…

"Lame? Lame? That movie—that movie, Jade, is one of the high points of cinematography."

"If your planet's version is anything like ours, I can assure you, it's not. How do you manage to catch up on all human cinema anyway, I thought you didn't even like our movies."

"Well, actually, I've noticed something about that. And it may sound crazy. It is crazy, it's batshit insane. Throughout all of my forays into film, both domestic and foreign, Alternian and Earthern, I've found," you pause a moment to lower your rising voice, "I've found that every single troll movie, through some universal anomaly, has a near exact human duplicate. Every one."

"Every one?" she asks, not sounding impressed by your field work.

"Every nookbusting one." She's taking it rather well you think.

"You're a little insane, aren't you, grumpy?" There goes your ego boost for today.

"What? What do you mean, it's the truth!"

"Karkat, we both know it's a ridiculous theory. Two completely separate, yet admittedly analogous cultures, with radically different customs, located light years away from each other, would never line up for something as silly as a movie."

"Firstly, movies are art, don't ever deny that in front of me. Secondly, I shit you not, Jade Harley, every single one of your human movies has an exact troll copy, or may lightning fry me on the spot! You guys have you own Will Smith, we have a Will Smith, don't tell me that isn't bizarre!"

"I think I'll let you keep your dweebish movies to yourself."

"Fine," you puff, "If that's your attitude toward them, I wouldn't want them sullied by your patronage anyway." But you decide maybe it's time to let it go. For now.

For the better part of this walk, you've been in a nice part of town: Beautiful buildings, open shops, kids frolicking and all of that malarkey. The only problem you can see is the flower shop you're about to walk by.

You're once again tortured by your nagging mind. Oh shit, you think, should I buy her flowers? Would that make this a date? Is this a date? No? Yes? It isn't. But if I don't buy flowers, she'll think I'm okay with it not being a date…

This train of self-interrogation lasts you past the stand anyway, and away from the steely gaze of its elderly attendant. Well, that ship has sailed.

"Some gentleman you are, Vantas. You didn't even offer to buy me flowers." Son of a… The impulse hits you hard enough to spin her around to face you and look her in the face with your sudden joyless excitement.

"You want a flower, Jade?"

"What?"

"I'll get you the god-damnedest flower you ever saw!"

"Karkat, what are you doing?" she calls after you, shocked.

But she's too late; you're off like a shot, sprinting back toward the stand before you can be stopped. Once you reach the table, trying to avoid the shocked senseless stare of the owner, you tear one fine specimen away from its brethren, bringing a dozen or so down as you sweep it up into your arms. You gracelessly watch them fall noiselessly to the sidewalk before you fall back on your butt from your own momentum. But before the owner can react, you're on your feet and doubling back toward Jade, who is looking absolutely mortified.

"Karkat, what the hell do you think you're doing!?" In lieu of an answer, you grab her wrist and pull her with you as you run past.

"Keep up, Harley, and we can outrun this guy!" You really hope that's true; he seems to have enough wits about him to be screaming and running after you. All for one lousy flower? Yeesh.

You're not even sure what came over you. You're sure you looked more panicked than anything during the whole ordeal. You just run. You just take Jade and run for blocks, twisting and turning enough to lose your pursuer, but not so much as to lose your way to the gallery, before finally stopping for much needed breath in the shade of a nearby sapling.

"Karkat, you dirty thief," Jade is laughing between panting breaths, "you of all people… What was that all about?"

You're still recovering breath too violently to answer, but you think you can hear well enough to detect Jade's attitude change from entertainment to annoyance. "I mean, yeah it was just a dumb flower, but you stole it idiot," she snorts when she laughs, "And I was joking about the whole gentleman thing." You're still panting too hard to respond.

"And why the hell did you have to drag me all that way for a plant you could have spent three dollars on, a stupid plant you nincom—"

"Here."

You turn your head and extend one hand to her, holding the flower, and you both get a good look at it for the first time. A long, smooth stem, slender and bright green, fleshy and likely bitter to the taste, sloping into white petals, three, that curve and peel gently outwards into broader sheaves with flecks of indeterminate color along their medians. Nestled in the seat of the petals are three lavender, antennae-like lengths, each with a delicate yellow puff of pollen on the end.

She looks just as taken aback as you. She reaches forward without taking her eyes off of it, and slips her hands around yours briefly to take it from you. You think you love her hands. They are slender and fine, and at one point, must have been dainty and delicate looking, before seasons spent tilling earth and feeling the grime of the earth has left them with an ageless quality of substance. Hands with character.

She has the flower cupped in her hands like cleanest water, just below her chin so that the petals bounce softly on the air just below her lips and accent their flush. It's close enough to her nose for her to catch the smell, but far enough away to be seen in perfect detail, and from where you are, at an angle just fortunate enough to reflect as a slight white shield in her eyes.

"Karkat…" she starts. She says nothing else for a few moments that could constitute a life age before uttering, "Beautiful."

Now you stand up straight, and plant yourself just in front of her so that the plant rests equidistant between the two of you both. A perfect moment, perfectly romantic. You stand at equal height with her. You love that about her, among everything else, no matter how much you deny it, she was your equal, if not your superior, in every respect, and she knew it.

You cup your hands under hers, taking your part of the miniscule weight of the flower. What can you even say?

'You are the more beautiful flower, Jade.' Yuck, awful. How could you even…

'Yeah, beautiful like you, Jade.' Boooooo….

"It is."

Her hands aren't warm, not at first. Her skin is soft as expected, but you think you can even feel the rich soil in them, and the tips of her fingers are cool before the long silence allows them to warm. Your contact doesn't seem to set her off, she isn't blushing or sweating or flinching. A strand of her hair catches the breeze and lays across your wrist. It's the little things.

"I'm gonna have to carry it around all day, won't I?" Jade asks, killing with zeal the mood, which conflicts with you. Yeah, it ended on a high note, and you didn't make a complete ass of yourself, but could you have made it something more? Should you have? Actually, no.

"Wow, Jade, I adopt a life of crime for you, and you won't carry a piece of flora. Goddamn waste."

"Oh shut up, I'm joking"

You sigh with faux dejectedness, "I'll carry it for you if you really want."

"No, no," she stops you, "I think I want to hold it." She takes in the scent of it again. "It really is lovely, Karcrabby."

"Don't call me that." Assholery won't cover your blushing… "Anyway, let's just go see some stupid paintings. They might even have little cubes of fancy cheese on platters."

"Well, I'm sold," responds Jade as she jumps to your side. "Why Mr. Vantas, I do declare that that sounds delightful!" She places her fist on her hip for a moment before gesturing it in a sweeping motion down the street. "Won't you lead the way?"

You turn an idea over in your head for a moment. Should I? Eh, I'm feeling brave, why the hell not. You snap your heels together, and extend the crook of your arm for her to take. She gives you a knowing smirk and loops her arm through yours.

"I'd be honored, Miss Harley."