Lulu: I have brought a newer, longer chapter~ with shipping too! Yes, I know the first chunk makes absolutely no sense, and I choose to blame "2 a.m." syndrome. I do assure you, however, the rest of it was as coherent as I could make it. Enjoy~

NOTICE: IF YOU HAVE ANY PROBLEMS WITH THIS FANFICTION, PLEASE DON'T REPORT ME; JUST TELL ME YOUR ISSUES WITH THE PARTICULAR FANFICTION, AND I WILL DO MY BEST TO FIX THEM. I REALLY DON'T LIKE HAVING TO LOSE FANFICTIONS AND REUPLOAD THEM ALL OVER AGAIN. THANK YOU

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN HOMESTUCK, FOR THAT IS OWNED BY ANDREW HUSSIE. I ALSO DO NOT OWN MARIO BROS. ENJOY

WARNING: THE CHARACTERS IN THIS FANFICTION AND THEIR PERSONALITIES MAY NOT BE TRULY CORRECT; THIS IS BECAUSE THE AUTHOR (aka Me) MAY EITHER INTERPRET THEM DIFFERENTLY THAN THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE INTERPRETED, THEY MAY BE CHANGED IN ORDER TO FIT THE SPECIFIC AU, OR IN WORST CASE SCENARIO, THE AUTHOR (again, Me) MAY HAVE HAD THEIR PERCEPTION OF THESE SPECFIC CHARACTERS CHANGED DUE TO READING TOO MANY OTHER FANFICTIONS CENTERING AROUND THESE SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. PLEASE READ THIS FANFICTION WITH THESE THOUGHTS IN MIND.

POV specifically targeted in this chapter: Spades Slick (Midnight Crew), Dave Strider (Other kids)

Your name is Spades Slick, and you're starting to worry about your brat…wow, you never thought you'd actually have to say that out loud. Ok, so obviously there's the whole thing where you ruined the first and probably only date he'd ever have in his life, but goddamn man! Why did he have to be so depressed about it? You thought that he'd at least go back to his old self after the talking you'd given him about girls and shit (because you were an obvious master at that).

But no, the brat was still acting pretty fucking upset, and you had to just fucking deal with it. What else could you possibly do? Talk to your kid? Preposterous! Such a stupid idea would never even bother crossing your mind –

"Hey, asshole…" Your rambling is interrupted by the aforementioned brat, who has the nerve to block your tv. Granted, you were too intoxicated to care what was playing, but it was the principle dammit! You reached out to push him out of the way, but froze when you saw his face. The brat was obviously uncomfortable about whatever bullshit moment he was trying to conjure, but he also seemed stubborn in wanting to ask you something. You try to give an appropriate response.

"What is it, fucking brat?" Brilliant, now look what you've done; you've succeeded in allowing your kid to become even more nervous. Jeez, when did your kid become so fucking sensitive! Either he needs to stop spending time with Tavros or you're going to need to toughen him up all over again. Still, at least the brat tried to look like he wasn't an awkward eleven year old.

"Do you wanna play a game?" He held up a controller in each hand, both of which were connected to that random game system you'd "bought" (stolen) about a year ago. You didn't respond, but instead you grabbed one of the controllers from him and let the brat fiddle with the television until the video game screen came into view. You weren't an expert in games, but at the same time you didn't completely suck at them either. Especially since the game plugged in had the familiar ring of the "Mario Bros" theme song.

Karkat sat down on the floor in front of the couch you'd completely taken over and began to play as Mario. Normally, you'd argue about having to play fucking Luigi, but your rage was somewhat out of whack today. Maybe someone had slipped something extra in your vodka? You didn't know, but you certainly didn't feel like arguing with anyone right now. You watched as the bright technicolors passed on the small television screen, burning your night-adapted eyes. Karkat's play didn't seem to be altered by the harsh light, though you knew he was probably suffering just as horribly. Oh light, why must you make us suffer your horrible torture?

Suddenly the colors stopped moving in a blur, and you realize that it's your turn to play. Despite your clunky drunken movements, you somehow manage to go even farther than Karkat had before eventually dying in a pit of damn lava. Hours cycled on, and eventually you switched to single-player mode because you couldn't hold the controller up anymore, and Karkat had admittedly become better at the game than you'd expected. You watched as your brat easily passed through levels at record speed, and the next time you looked at the clock, it had magically become 2 a.m. and the brat had arrived at the final boss fight with Bowser. It was an easy fight, of course, though Karkat didn't really seem happy with the results.

"Hey asshole, why does this chick always end up getting fucking kidnapped?" You blinked at the kid, your mind toying with the idea.

"Dunno, brat; she just gets fucking taken a lot by that lizard bastard."

"That's fucking stupid! No person should get abducted as much as she does! If you weren't there to save her, she'd probably still be in that fucking castle…she could at least give you more than dumbass cake…and a kiss…and a goddamn annoying smile." You realize that you're no longer talking about the lovely Princess Peach, and now you feel a bit uncomfortable. You can't exactly respond to the brat, but you suppose that he senses that because he just continues to ramble.

"I did everything that a guy's supposed to do…I was gonna take her on a date and everything…but after that failed, she stopped talking to me as much. And every time she fucking does talk to me it's always something about fucking Dave. 'Oo look at Dave, he's so cool and red. He's so much more awesome than you, Karkat.'" The impression was mediocre, but it brought it point across. "It's not fair…"

You sigh, finally deciding that this will be the only moment you ever act as a parent to your kid. From your lips will come the ultimate advice that sets him on the path of adulthood.

"…Well kid, life's not fucking fair. It sucks and you just have to fucking deal with it. Now move on and turn that fucking game off, the light is fucking blinding."

…You had one fucking job, and you're pretty sure you blew it. Karkat doesn't cry about it though, because he's not the type to cry about something as meaningless as the lost love of a chick who was figuratively blinded by her own confusing romantic pursuits. Instead, the brat looked fucking miserable, and you'd end up redeeming yourself with a lame ass rom-com jam that left you dearly wishing that you'd never watch one of the crappy movies again.

Sadly, you will have to do this again; your kid had a lot of crushes over his lifetime, most of which made absolutely no sense. He was a "fucking hopeless romantic" as Karkat liked to put it, though sometimes you wondered what would've happened if he hadn't been absorbed into such a mentality because of Snowman's dumb daughter and the other asshole brat with the douchebag shades. You made a mental vow to stab that guy where it hurt the next time you met him, but unfortunately by the time you have the opportunity to do so, the situation isn't quite right for it. You still hate that fucking shade-douche though.

BE THE FUCKING SHADE-DOUCHE

Your name is Dave Strider, and while you do wear shades, you don't really think that you're a douche. In fact, you really haven't done much that would constitute as "douchey" behavior lately; you've received your usual bout of losses from strifing with your bros, your near-suspension last time made it so that Bro was always cracking on your shit to make sure you didn't flip off a teacher and what not. You've even been being nice to Terezi, though some of her mannerisms creep you out immensely, specifically the licking.

Now, no one should be taking this the wrong way here; you do like Terezi, she' s pretty chill, but lately she's been kind of acting…well, weird. It wasn't just the plain type of weird either, it was the kind of weird you wouldn't understand until your immensely hormonal teenage years, so for now you're simply labeling her behavior under the file of "Chicks, man". You also think Karkat's been kind of odd too, but you don't tend to talk about that kind of stuff with him. You've been avoiding his rants for about as long as you could remember. Building up an immunity to the shouty guy's annoyance over time, you sometimes dreamed that he could just be quiet for a while so that you could be bros. Like really awesome bros.

You wouldn't understand until later what your actual feelings towards Karkat were; instead, you'd catch on that you were supposed to be thinking about boobs and shit, because that was literally the only thing that John would talk about for at least three months after his voice started to crack. You'd date a bunch of chicks in your teen years, almost all of which meant absolutely nothing to you; the exceptions were of course Jade, who fell for handicapped softie (Tavros) in college, and Terezi, who made a bunch of other romantic mistakes before realizing that her perfect match had been roleplaying with her the whole time (Nepeta).

Even in the future, when you discovered your interest in guys and dated a major amount of them (as was quite normal in the Strider family because Striders fucking rule in the bi-sexual department), your interest in Karkat didn't spark until high school, and you kept a pretty tight lip about it until prom. You're not sure why you did it because the only person who knew nothing of your intentions was Karkat; everyone knew, and they loved teasing you about it until the day you all shut them up in one fell swoop.

For now, however, you know nothing of any of this, because right now you're playing fucking Mario Bros like a boss.

Lulu: End~ Hope you enjoyed the ships :3

Confirmed ships so far in this fanfiction: JadeTav, TerNep, Davekat (all three pairings are just really adorable). Expect more to come.