Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dave Strider was suppose to be getting only a few things from the store. It consists of only the usual: eggs, cheese, apple juice, milk, soda, cereal, apple juice, bread and some apple juice. Of course, that was the original plan. No biggie, get into the store, buy the needed material and leave. Cronus was accompanying him as the official list checker, a very important job in the need for shopping.

He had been betrayed by his brother, Dirk, into going and doing this. He didn’t want to. No, he was in the middle of replying to the emails that had filled his entire box. Bro had been guilt tripping him that he had gone the last two times and how he had to just give Sollux and Karkat a bath- it was his turn for a chore.

See, Dave lived with Bro in their apartment in a distinguished location. Wasn’t that bad of a place, nice people. But about a year or so ago, Dave had rescued a small troll from a box on the side of unwanted. The mutant troll turned out to be sick, so they took him to the vet- Dr. Z. Then after that, he found Sollux, a yellow blood from an abused home. Eventually they gained his trust and the two trolls lived with them. Then, just to add to their cake, he had found Cronus. More or less…anyway, the three lived with him and Bro and they started an organization that saved trolls. After all, they're people too.

Now, teamed up with other troll defenders, Dave and his friends help out trolls as much as they can. They even have their own network going. Including a facebook page with cute ass pictures of the trolls.

So, grudgingly, he and Cronus had to go to the store to get list of goods. They took the car and left the other three back at home. Everything was cool so far; wasn't hard to find a parking spot, people were actually bearable, not too long of lines, they made it out in a shocking short amount of time. Cronus didn’t even get smacked when he had hit on a pair of girls from the local college. All in all, so far, so good.

It was the way home when came the trouble. They were just cruisin’, no biggie, radio was jammin’, everything was great. Cronus had started a couple conversations, and they were going well until he stopped talking and leaned out the window. Literally, half his body was out the window. Dave cursed and was about to scream at him to get his ass back into the car, but then Dave saw what made Cronus haywire.

On the side of the road was an small oval, green egg. It was lying in some watery leaves in the gutter. Jeez, it was really small. Actually, it wouldn't have even caught Dave's attention, but with Cronus in the car, it was hard to miss. Dave pulled over to the side with the egg and watched as Cronus had gotten back into the car and struggled to get off the seatbelt.

The car had barely even stopped and Cronus had already shot out and began running to the egg. Dave watched him rip off his shirt and bend down over the egg. He picked the green egg and wrapped it in his shirt. He got up gently and carried it over to the car, got in, and demanded they go see Dr. Z immediately. When Dave asked why, Cronus gave the best excuse he possibly could've. "It's a troll egg."

From what Dave knew, troll eggs are suppose to be very well cared for. There's a specific and precise temperature they need to be kept in. They have to be in a safe place too, somewhere they wouldn’t move around too much. Otherwise it might just slowly kill them. Then once they actually hatch, they have to be taken more care of. Grubs aren't easy to be taken care of-not in the long run. Watching them, feeding them, the works. It’s like a pet. But, if you know a vet who loves trolls...it might be a little easier.

However, after a while they'll go into the stage of actually turning into a troll. It takes roughly six weeks and once they're out it'll be exactly like taking care of a baby. Their grub legs go into their side (for whatever reason, Dave didn’t know) and are suppose to be sensitive. Now they’re like a human toddler with a tail and horns, sometimes with gills, sometimes with powers, sometimes with fangs, it all just depends.

They're going to imprint however, so it's important for the first few months that they're in a good, safe, happy, environment. Especially with somebody with the same qualities and are able to take care of them for a good while. Then after the first couple of months, they'll be able to go around other people. Some will be shy, others will bound over to new people to explore them. Again, it all depends. They won't know any better- after all they're only a few months old. No matter what their reaction, it's important to be careful with them.

To sum it all up: troll babies are hella ton of work.

Finally, after it seemed forever with Cronus fussing over the egg, Dave pulled up to the infamous clinic. Cronus immediately got out of the car and sprinted up the steps. Strider slowly got out of the car-amazed at how intense he was about the egg. He understood that trolls were hella important- they were people after all- but he never imagined Cronus could be this worked up after something like this.

After parking the car and locking it, he soon jogged up the steps too and opened the door. He was confused, but it seemed that Cronus was already on it. He was talking to Feferi about all of this and she was just nodding, expecting the egg as well. See, Feferi and Jade worked for Equius Zahhak at the vet clinic. They all were a huge help with everything.

Dave eventually stepped up and tried to understand what all they were trying to say about the egg thingy that's going on.

"...don't know how long it wvas out. I just saw it and went after it." Cronus was shooting out words faster than Dave had imagined a gun shooting bullets.

"I know, it's okay-" Feferi tried to consult him, she too, was examining the egg carefully. Yet, something caught Dave’s eye that the other two might not have seen.

"There's a crack in it."

Near one of the ends of the egg, there was a crack. It was barely noticeable and probably didn't have much effect on the troll inside. It wasn't even that big, just an inch or so. It seemed to be important though because Cronus and Feferi shared a worried glance.

He soon began to feel worried himself. He was starting to feel the same way about Karkat, Sollux, and even Cronus. In other words, the young Strider wasn't about to let anything happen to it.

Dr. Z must’ve been with a patient because Feferi carefully took the little egg from Cronus and cooed at it. “Poor little trolly…” She nervously bit her lip, bouncing on her feet. “Stay right here, I’ll get a blanket.”

She handed the egg delicately back to Cronus and he nervously inspected the crack. “Shit,” he cursed. “That’ll hurt the little guy for sure.”

“It’s just a crack, man. I think it happens all the time with chicks and stuff, what’s so bad about it?”

Cronus shook his head and groaned. “You don’t get it Dave,” he snapped his head to him and shook it slowly. “Troll egg shells are really thin. It might’ve caused the little guy to be scratched before it even got the chance to come out into the world.”

Dave now saw why Cronus was so upset about all of this. Before he could fully talk to Cronus about this, Feferi and Dr. Z came out. A patient followed him with a small chihuahua in her arms. She was one of those women where you could tell she was handed everything on a gold plate with no question. Fake boobs, fake lips, fake nose, even fake jewelry. Yeesh.“You’re kidding me, right? A stupid egg over my precious Bittzy?! What’s the matter with you?!” Ah. Doc must’ve ditched her when he heard about what they had instead.

Feferi handed the blanket over to Cronus, who wasted no time in wrapping the egg up. But Dr. Z didn’t look too thrilled. His jaw muscles tightened and he turned and glared at the woman. “Ms. I can assure you, I can surely check up on Bitty when I get a chance, if-”

“Let me get this straight. I wait in here for ten minutes with my poor darling, Bittzy, and now you want to reschedule for a troll?!” The lady bitched at him.

Zahhak snapped his head towards the lady and shook his head. “I will get to you as soon as I can, miss, but until then I have a bigger emergency than just Bittzy’s shots.”

The bitch seethed and literally stomped her foot. “For-get it! I’m taking my baby elsewhere.” She stormed out of there with the sound of her heels clicking following her out.

The four of them stood their with shocked and puzzled expressions on their faces. “She seemed like a bitch anyw-” Dave started, but the expression on his face made him reconsider his choice of words for the woman. “She wasn’t cool.”
Dr. Zahhak rolled his eyes and looked at the troll egg. “Where was it precisely?”

“Found it on the side of the road.”

“It was in wet leaves, I thought it was gonna go into the gutter.” Cronus muttered, shaking his head. “Do you think it’s still alive?”

He handed the bundle over to Zahhak and he carefully examined it. “The olive blood might’ve taken damage from the crack. We should probably examine it closer to be sure though.”

“How can you tell the blood color?” Dave asked. All he saw was a gree- oh.

Feferi smiled and giggled while Zahhak adopted a small smirk. “The same pigments in the troll’s blood and tissue systems are somewhat expressed into the shell color. It helps identifying what the troll will need later in life.”

“And tells which one if more valuable,” Cronus rubbed his fingers together. “Olive bloods are okay, but not very much on the scale. Still lowbloods.”

Zahhak shook his head. “It’ll still be higher than Sollux and Karkat. Besides, every troll is valuable, no matter the blood color, Cronus.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I know.” He leaned back on the wall and ran his hand through his greasy hair. “So is it going to be okay?”

Dave watched Zahhak shrug his muscle bound shoulders and look at the egg in concern. “I have no idea. I want to keep it close though, keep an eye on it. Ms. Peixes, would you mind getting me an electric blanket? We need to keep it warm.”

Feferi nodded and jogged to the other room while Dr. Z continued to examine it. His stone face was on, meaning that he was deep into thought. Dave and Cronus had both seen it numerous times, especially when the latter was one sick. The man could hide his feelings and thoughts pretty damn well and it was even harder to read him when he was wearing his shades.

“I’ll have to make a call about this to an associate of mine,” he muttered. “I don’t think we’d be able to provide it the care that it requires.” He glanced up to the other two standing there as if he just noticed them. “Thank you for bringing it here. Later I’ll call you and let you know how it’s doing.”

Dave nodded and turned to Cronus. “Hey, man. I’d think we’d better get home. Dr. Z and Fef got this.”

Cronus watched the egg for a couple more seconds before nodding.“Yeah, I guess.”

Dave nodded at the vet and practically shoved Cronus out of there. Once they were actually on the way home, Dave spoke up for the first time since they got back into the car. “Dude, what’s your deal? You’re rarely like this.”

Cronus just shrugged and continued to stare out the window. It was pretty rainy today, and the forecasts say that it’s not going to let up anytime soon. It was unsaid but agreed that they were both glad they had found it before the rain started. The egg was already pretty cold when they had found it.

Dave sighed and decided not to push the troll anymore and had left the car in an awkward silence. When he finally parked the car he got out and took ahold of most of the bags. He had always thought of more than one trips being for the weak (most of the time he made three). He turned to Cronus, who was still sitting in the car, and sighed.

He shut the door and started to walk up to the elevator. He pushed the up button and waited with the groceries in hand. They weren’t really heavy, but the damn plastic was starting to irritate his skin. Why they made the bags with the handles the thinnest, nobody knew, but it sure was stupid.

“Do you think it’ll be okay?”

Dave jumped a bit and turned his head to see Cronus right behind him. He was almost as quiet as Bro usually was and it was starting to creep him out. But, after a quick second of regaining his cool, he nodded. “Of course, man. Dr. Z has it, there is no way he’d let anything happen to it.”

The pair once again was emerged in silence as the elevator dinged and opened their doors. “Dude, if you’re seriously worried about it, we can go back and see it whenever you want. Maybe we can even take Karkat and Sollux.”

Shrug.

Dave sighed, and walked out of the elevator on their floor. “Dude, you gotta work with me a little bit, okay?” He put down the bags of groceries on the floor and dug out his keys. “I know you’re worried, I am too,” he put the key into the lock and turned, “but it’ll be okay.”

As soon as he pushed the door in, Karkat came running around the corner and jumped onto the couch, smiling at them. “Did you get the cookies?”

Shit. Dave nearly facepalmed. He knew he was forgetting something.

“Sorry, little man, I didn’t. But we can get some later, okay?”

Karkat seemed to pout a little but lightened up at the idea of going later. “Okay!”

“Where’s Bro?”

“With Sollux.” Karkat dismissed him and flopped down on the couch.

“Well, where’s Sollux?”

“He’s in his room,” Karkat looked over at Ampora and waved. Cronus waved back and surprisingly went to sit with him.

With a grunt, Dave set the groceries down in the kitchen and set out to find him. “Yo, bro! We need to tell you something.”

“What’s up?”

For the second time in the past five minutes, Dave nearly jumped out of his skin. He sharply turned around and found his brother right behind him. “Don’t do that!”

Bro smirked and ruffed up Dave’s hair. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, man.”

Dave grabbed his arms and threw them back to their owner. “We have some serious troll business, Bro.”

All play was immediately set aside and Bro practically came to attention. Whenever it came to troll business, or any subject about it, Bro was always serious. He, or anybody else in their circle of friends, didn’t mess around when it came to that subject. “What’s up?”

“We found a troll’s egg.”

Bro’s eyebrows shot up and he gaped for a second from shock. “Seriously? Did you keep it or-”

Dave gave him a look and shook his head. “We gave it to Dr. Z to look at.”

“Tell me everything that happened.”

After explaining everything to him, the parts he didn’t really get coming from Cronus, and relaying what Dr. Z had said, Bro, Dave, Cronus, and Karkat were sitting at the table trying to be patient and wait for the phone call from Dr. Z.
“Can we see the egg?” Karkat spoke up.

Dave and Bro looked at each other and shrugged. “Sure, Karkles. We can go see it if Dr. Z says it’s okay.”

“Sollux and Mister Purple come too?”

“Sure, little man, just wait for Dr. Z to call.”

As if on cue, the phone rang and Bro immediately reached out and grabbed it. “Hey, Doc.” A long pause. “What? Why?” Another pause, this one shorter. “But you don’t have the equipment for it.” Bro took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. You almost gape at the sight, he rarely ever did that, if rare covered never.

“Well, then who’s going to take care of it?”

At this, everybody’s attention spiked and all ears, minus the small ones, strained to hear the other line.

“We can talk about it. Can the kids come see it? Karkat wants to see it and Cronus is-” The shortest pause. “Yeah, that’s fine. Alright. Talk to you soon.” He hung up and looked at Dave with exhausted eyes. “You wanna go see the egg now or wait until the morning?”

Chapter Text

The next morning, Dave dragged himself out of bed. The terrible duo didn’t want to sleep, they wanted to see the egg. Even after he promised them that they could see it in the morning, they kept whining about it. Something about it hatching before they could see it.

“You guys were eggs before too, what makes this one any different?” Dave asked the next morning over pancakes. He thought that having eggs would be a tad too ironic, and well, just douchey.

“Because this one is a baby!” Karkat slammed his tiny fist down on the table.

“Definitely proves your point, little man.” He scooped up some pieces and dunked them into the syrup.

Bro was on the internet, trying to find any information they could find about troll eggs. Granted, they did have Dr. Z on their side, which made it hella ton easier. But in casa de Strider, they knew about as much as nothing. Not only that, but it was cracked.

Cronus was silently drinking a cup of coffee at the end of the table. He was behaving odd about this entire thing. Sollux was glaring at him somewhat, but that was only because he was concerned that Cronus was going to hog the egg today. Oh, speaking of-

“Hey, guys. Today, we can’t touch the egg, okay?”

Bro briefly glanced up, having his poker face on full effect, but slightly nodded anyway. “Yeah, guys. The egg’s already cracked.”

Sollux and Karkat adopted shocked faces and looked at each other. It was like looking into a mirror only with different blood, different horns, different well...okay, screw that simile.

“But we wanted to hold it!” Sollux groaned, putting down his fork and sloping down into the chair. Karkat nodded and took out a folded -to the extreme care, by the looks- piece of paper and handed it to Dave.

Dave eyed him carefully and opened it. All eyes were on him and the paper, even Cronus had taken interest in it and was watching it. Dave shrugged and just as carefully unfold it and almost awww out loud. It had seemed that the two had worked on drawing an egg together and had even put in the little details. Meaning, as such, putting themselves in the picture.

It was actually pretty adorable. But Karkat jumped up on the table and snatched it out of his hands and ran back to wherever they had colored it. He felt himself smile a bit and tilted his head. It was kinda nice to see them so happy about something like this.

Bro looked up at you and smiled. “Should we put it on the fridge too, mommy?”
Instant poker face time. Daves gave him the bird and continued eating the pancakes. He woke up at five in the AM today and he was going to finish the pancakes if it was the last thing he would ever do.

Karkles coming running back into the room with the newly improved picture. He hands it back to Dave and races back to Sollux. “I fixed it!” He grins at him.

Dave looks back down at it and resists the urge to laugh. When Bro had said the egg was cracked, Karkat took it way too seriously and had drawn black lines all over it in an attempt to crack it. He let himself smirk this time, screw Bro Strider and his teasings, and handed it back to Karkat. “Well, that’s much better. Are you gonna put it up on the fridge?”

He shook his head and bounced in his chair. “Doctor Zack!”

Dave and Bro share a look and glanced back to Karkat. He was already having Sollux put in more lines with his black crayon so their work would be evenly shared.

Cronus gets up and finished the coffee before putting it in the sink. “Can we just go already?” he muttered. “I bet they,” he pointed to the two drawing more cracks (it could look like an egg if you squinted at it). “Want to see the thing too.”

The two looked up and nodded.

Bro got up and shut his laptop. “Alright, alright. We’ll leave in ten. Anybody lagging will be walking.”

----

The car ride here was so much busier than it should have taken. Traffic wasn’t bad, no, and you had only had hit like three red lights all the way there. It had only taken twenty minutes to get there.

No, what had taken up so much time was Sollux and Karkat coming up with names for the egg. They even had a bet if it were going to be a chick or would it have a dick, just not in those words. Karkat was head set on it being a girl and Sollux was convinced it was a boy. When they were questioned why, Karkat said that green spoke to him as a fun color, and that he would have fun with a little sister. Sollux had said that he wanted a little brother and that green was a boy color anyway, because Jake wore it all the time.

Bro and Dave once again smiled in their Strider way. They had wanted a little sibling. That was another issue that you guys had to talk to Dr. Z about. When he had called last night, he had explained to Bro that the Hatchery that usually accepted eggs wouldn’t accept this one. Apparently, they told him that the egg wouldn’t have survive over the night due to where they had found it. Nobody was even sure if the crack had made the troll sick or not. Which had made it even more displeasing for the Hatchery.

It had ticked all three of them off when they found out. Dave, Cronus, and Bro were somewhat taken to the egg. Cronus had even explained why he was so obsessed with it when they were waiting for the two to make sure they had all the toys they wanted to bring with to play with it (you made the limit one for each troll). Apparently, when he was only like ten, he had found a jade egg and it had died in the factory. He had tried to keep it safe, but the scientists found out about it and well...he didn’t go into detail.

But, as we all know, Dr. Zahhak would have never let that happen. Dave was fairly sure that Zahhak had spent all night with it, just to make sure that it wouldn’t just drop dead. Speaking of the infamous clinic vet, here they were at said clinic the vet worked at.

“His name isn’t going to be Grape! Grapes are purple!” Sollux shook his head at the ridiculous name.

“She can be a green grape!” Karkat argued. “Plus, what name did you have for her?”

“His name is going to be Oliver.” He said matter-of-factly. “It even has the color in the name.”

“Alright, alright, enough,” Bro interviened. “Let’s just see what gender the troll is before we even decide on the name.”

That seemed to please them enough and they got out of the car in one piece. Cronus didn’t even say a word to suppress them, which almost left Dave and Bro speechless for a first. Instead he had popped in a cigarette and lit it up. Bro glared at him, but Dave shook his head before he could say anything.

“Hey, Cronus,” Dave called at him when he was by the door. Zahhak had yelled at him one too many times about his smoking habits in the clinic to make him reconsider even thinking about it. The violetblood turned to him with an eyebrow raised. “Meet us inside when you’re ready.”

Nodnodnod.

Dave followed the others inside and Feferi was already talking to the small ones about things the Striders covered beforehand. Needless to say, they were super glad for a review. “Did Dave tell you to be super super careful being with it?”

They two nodded enthusiastically and hugged their toys closer to their chests.

“Did Bro tell you that it has a crack and that you need to make sure not to touch it?”

More enthusiastic nods and grins.

“Can you tell me why?”

“Because,” Sollux spoke up. “It might crack it more.”

She smiled sweetly and nodded. “Exactly right.” Feferi turned and waved her hand to sign for them to follow her. “Equius has taken quite good care of it. If you ask me, I think he has puppy love.”

“Puppy love?” Dave asked. Whatever the hell ‘puppy love’ is, he never thought that Zahhak could catch it.

“The trouble with working at any place that involves animals is that you get attached to them sometimes. I fell in love with this adorable cat once,” She smiled sweetly at the memory. “But Equius usually keeps that stone face. I haven’t seen him ever attached to anything before.”

This comes to a surprise to all of them. That strong ass, straight faced, vocabulary addict, vet has become attached to something? That egg must’ve been laid by Jesus Christ Himself or something.

She leads the four into a backroom where the egg is resting on a stand under a heat lamp and surrounded by blankets. Feferi lets them all in before closing the door behind them. “We don’t know when it’s going to hatch, but Equius says it’ll be soon.”

“Is it a boy or a girl?” Sollux says, eyes wide on the never before seen object on the table.

“We don’t know that yet either. Guess we’re going to have to find out soon though, huh?”

The door opened behind her and in came the vet. He nodded at all of them silently and looked over at the two examining it intensely. “Are you finding anything interesting?”

Karkat turned around and bounced up and down. “It’s an egg! It’s an egg!” He cried. It was the most important thing of the day happening in the world. Zahhak just nodded with a small smirk and watched the egg carefully.

Seeming to remember what one of the things was so important to bring, Sollux took out the picture from his pocket and tugged on Zahhak’s pant leg. The big vet turned to look down and Sollux gave him the folded paper.

Zahhak took it from him and unfolded it with a bemused, yet confused look on his face. “What’s this?”

Karkat and Sollux shared a smile and anxiously waited for Dr. Z to open it up. When he did he stopped and blinked once, twice, three times before glancing at the two. “Is this the egg?”

“Uh, huh!” Karkat and Sollux simultaneously announced.

“It has a bunch of cracks, the egg only has-” He started to correct them but looked up to see Bro and Dave standing behinding them shaking their head furiously. “Cracks. Just...like the egg, huh?”

“Yup! Do you like it?”

Zahhak studied the drawing a bit more and looked back up to the others. “It’s very well drawn. Which one of you drew it?”

They both raised their hands and Zahhak smiled at them both somewhat awkwardly. “Well, it’s very nice. Would you mind if I hang it up on the wall back here?”

While he did that, Feferi, Bro and Dave watched the kids’ faces brighten up and they followed him with their eyes to the wall with schedules posted and important notes. It was a pretty full bulletin board, but he somehow made room for the picture.

The kids high fived each other and raced back to the table with the egg on it. Zahhak watched them carefully to make sure they didn't accidentally break it, but once he declared them in the okay, he turned to the three adults and nodded to the hallway.

Bro must've understood what he was asking because he got up off the wall he was leaving on and went into the hallway. Dave shrugged and did the Strider thing: just do whatever Bro does and you'll be okay.

Feferi waved to the kids and told them to behave and followed the rest out. "We'll be back in a bit, be careful, okay?"

Cronus had been waiting out in the hall already when the four went out. He paled a little bit when he saw Dr. Z, but relaxed when he noticed the vet hadn't noticed him smoking in the lot. "Hey, chief. How's the egg?"

"It's doing well, I think. The egg was close to freezing when you brought it here, but we put it under the lamp." Zahhak informed him. "We still have a problem with it, though.

"The Hatchery I called won't accept the egg. They think it's going to die or it'll infect the others there."

"How would it infect the others?" Dave asked bravely. "It hasn't had a chance to get sick."

Zahhak sigh and rolled back his shoulders, causing the muscles to roll like a wheel was under them. He looked exhausted. Did he stay up all night with the egg? Dave knew that they had a couch here to crash on if need be, but he didn't think Zahhak would ever use it.

"The crack in the egg lets in bacteria. I will have to run some tests on the grub when it's hatched to make sure it's okay, but until then I don't know how healthy it'll be." He stopped for a moment and his eyes flickered to Cronus. "I'm afraid that the grub might also be effected by the crack as well. It depends on when it received it, and what stage it was in, but it looks like it's been there for a while."

Cronus bit his lip and Dave could see his resistance to straight up pull out a cigarette and smoke right in front of Dr. Z- a death sentence resistance.

"So where is it going to go when it hatches?" Bro asked. He had crossed his arms and by the way his eyebrows had drawn together, Dave could tell he was pretty worried about it.

Zahhak shook his head and fixed his glasses. "I don't want you to take any more trolls in. Three is enough for the Strider household. Besides, a grub will imprint. We need a less full residence."

"What about Jade?" Dave pointed out. "She and her dog live together alone, right?"

Zahhak nodded. "Yes, perfect. A new chewtoy for the dog."

Dave sighed and nodded- the dog was cute and everything but he seriously thought that there would be a chewing Olympics in the near future. Dave had lost a pair of shades from Bec at one point, which was still not forgiven.

Feferi suddenly jumped up and clapped her hands together in glee. Her smile reached her ears and was producing a squeal. All eyes were on her as she pulled out her phone and pretended to take a picture. "What if we film it hatching and put it on our website? We could say that we need a good home for it!"

Now that was an idea. Not only would it help the website by adding more 'awww' factor, but not many people have ever seen a troll hatch. It'd make a good video, for sure.

Zahhak nodded, seeming to agree with his future girlfriend. Dave and Jade were taking bets on when and who will ask the other out. His friend, Andrew Jackson, said Feferi would be asking Zahhak within the next two weeks.

All seemed to agree with the idea by the nods or the approving one word answers. Cronus shook his head and leaned up against the wall. "With the two half pints in there, they'll be screaming about who's right."

Zahhak scrunched his eyebrows up in confusion and looked at Feferi, who was somewhat happy to be confused. "Pardon?"

Bro sighed under his breathe and shrugged. He had a smirk on his face and it was so un-Striderly that Dave almost broke his poker face.

"They're having bets on the gender. If it's a girl, the name will be Grape. If it's a boy it'll be Oliver."

Cronus shook his head again and gently hot his head on the wall. "We aren't naming it those stupid ass names. It's not a pet, it's a grub."

Feferi shrugged. "It's still fun for them to try and guess what it's like." She eyed Zahhak down and smirked. "Maybe Equius could take it home."

He straightened and blushed. "N..no. I couldn't. I wouldn't be very good to imprint on for six months-"

"Bullshit." Bro cut him off and stood straighter. "With the amount of vocabulary you spit out, I bet that it'll be accepted to fucking Hardvard when it's a year old."

He didn't have a response to it. He cleared his throat and fixed his already fine glasses. It was pretty cute how he had puppy love for it. It was obvious that he liked the egg and that he wanted it. And by the look of Feferi, she knew it too.

Before anybody could respond further, Karkat and Sollux started shouting loudly. With a confused looked, Bro opened to door (him being the closest to it) to find them shouting at each other.

When the door opened the two snapped over to the doorway and they immediately started blaming each other and pointing at each other. As if that wasn't worrying enough, what they were shouting brought ice to everybody's blood.

"HE BROKE IT!" Karkat gasped in a tattle tail
voice.

"DID NOT! I DIDNT EVEN TOUCH IT!" Sollux defended himself.

Zahhak and Cronus shoved their way through them into the room quickly and quickly went straight to the egg. Said object was moving slightly and more cracks had spread out around it. With a relieved sigh and an excited skip in his voice, Zahhak turned to the others in the doorway. "Feferi, your phone."

She gasped for a minute and rushed over. Bro must've called the two over to them because they groaned and trudged over there. Karkat looked at Dave and sniffed. "Didn't break it."

Dave picked him up and shook his head. "No way, Karkles. It's hatching."

Their faces lit up like a Christmas tree and they turned back to the egg. He quickly balanced Karkat on his hip and walked over to the egg.

The olive blood was starting to make progress. It had already gotten a tiny piece off of it. It was towards the top where the origins crack was.

Feferi was 'awww'ing and holding the phone on the table so it would get a good view and wouldn't shake. Zahhak, surprisingly, was cooing to it, giving encouraging words to it.

It had reminded Dave of Jurassic Park. The scientist (a vet was counted as a scientist, right?) had an egg in a lab and was excited to see it hatch. He had guests in the lab that were equally eager to see it. And hey, they even had two kids.

Tiny black legs started to make their appearance into the world as the pushed their way out first. In the beginning, it was just the first leg that came out, but then it was the second and the third and wow it was making progress. At one point the entire egg fell on it's side and the little eggs scrambled around.

It broke the rest of the egg off from underneath it and was able to crawl around blindly. Not because they've got blurry vision for a bit, but because the top half of the egg was still covering all of the upper body. The egg reached down to it's chin.

It 'ran' up to Zahhak's arm and smashed into it. He chuckled lightly and gently peeled off the shell covering it. The grub blinked and squeaked.

But as soon as Zahhak had taken off the egg shell, he lost his smile and Dave guessed his vet mode kicked in because it's lip was.. In the middle it had been drawn up. It had a cleft lip. It's head must've been where the crack was and the lip had been effected, apparently.

Cronus stepped back and cursed quietly. He had been afraid that something like this would happen, but given that many things worse could've happened, a cleft lip wasn't that bad. Plus, he turned back, it was pretty cute.

Zahhak reached his huge hand over to the small body, only about a foot from nose to tail, and gently rubbed her hair. The damned thing purred and rubbed into his hand. When he tried to pull his hand back, it tried to follow where it thought it was going. Zahhak quickly put his hand back to petting it and looked up at Feferi and smiled softly.

She smiled back and leaned over to the others and whispered, "Puppy love."

Chapter Text

After a couple minutes of drooling over the grub, Equius picked it up and took it over to the counter. Tools and other needed things were already waiting there for the grub.

It squirmed a bit in his hands, but after he gently rubbed it's hair a bit more it calmed down enough for him to set it down on the weight scale. After a second or two of reading it he jotted down some notes on a nearby chart on a fancy clipboard. It looked like he had already had started a medical record for the thing. He was doing a really good job of keeping an eye on it too. Every time it squirmed around he would gently pick it up and put it back in place.

Apparently Dave wasn't the only one who was watching. Sollux and Karkat were owl eyed and itching to see it again, the two of them too short to see it properly anymore over the counter. Bro was leaning on the wall with a smirk being shown on his face freely. (Which was starting to creep Dave out.) Cronus was practically breathing down Zahhak's neck with how close he was next to the vet. The only one who wasn't watching was Feferi, who was on her phone unleashing the new video onto unsuspecting subscribers.

"Ms. Feferi," Zahhak called over his shoulder-somewhat professionally. "Could you get Ms. Harley for me? I need her assistance to get a blood sample. Maybe we could even figure out what gender this grub is."

Fef nodded and got up to go get Jade. Equius was somewhat blushing as he watched her move out of the room. She had noticed this and sent him a wink, which had effectively added to the blushing. However, he wasn't the only one watching her move out. When the grub saw the person with colorful clothing moving around (especially her neon skirt swishing around on the floor) it tried to follow/pounce on the colorful clothing and almost fell off the counter. Dr. Z didn't even notice it falling until it squeaked when Cronus caught her mid fall.

Everybody watched as Cronus del-icate-ly stood up with the grub in his arms. He nodded at Dr. Z and gentle pet the hair on the grub like he had done earlier. "I gotcha, Chief."

Zahhak blushed out of embarrassment for not even noticing what the grub was doing, let alone that it would've been hurt on his watch. He turned to Cronus and nodded a thanks and turned to fiddle with a machine on the wall. His Easter Island face was on and everybody could tell not to mess with him any time soon.

Feferi came back into the room a few minutes later with Jade, who was throughly disappointed that she wasn't informed the grub was hatching. Feferi must've shown her the video to make her feel a bit better, because she was smiling brightly when she ran into the room. Cronus had even taken a step back when Jade squealed and jumped over, "It's so cute!"

"Ms. Harley, please!" Zahhak snapped as he slammed down his hands on the counter, which had effectively startling everybody. "This grub needs to be checked out and I have no time for your girlish and immature acts."

Jade nodded, suddenly very somber and obviously hurt. "Of course. Sorry."

He said nothing the next ten minutes. The grub was a tad hesitant to be around his massive hands now that they slammed on the counter so harshly. After a bit, it warmed up to him again but he didn't even react to the cute acts it had displayed for him.

Actually, when the grub licked his hand and rubbed her head into it, he gently pushed it away.

The only thing he muttered before he left was that the grub was a girl. After that he slammed the door and it was hard not to hear his heavy footsteps retreating to his office.

"What the hell happened to puppy love?" Feferi turned to the others. "He doesn't seem to be very excited about the grub anymore."

"He let her fall off the counter," Cronus replied. "I caught her, but he must've felt bad."

"'Felt bad' is the wrong term to use," Bro spoke up from his wall.

Jade nodded firmly in agreement.

Feferi groaned and pulled out her phone again. "Guess we'll start looking for people to take her in..."

Karkat looked at Dave in shock and grabbed onto his shirt with iron fists. "She going away?!"

"That's right, little dude." Dave ruffled his hair with a sigh. "I guess Zahhak doesn't want her after all."

Karkat let go of his shirt and wondered under the table. He sat himself down and put his head under his arms. Sollux was watching you with a glint of sadness in his mismatched eyes and sighed to himself. He practically deflated himself as if he were a pump up troll. He went over to Karkat and sat next to him in defeat.

Cronus's eyes flashed dangerously and picked her up off the table. The sea dweller brought her closer to his chest and shook his head firmly. "No."

"Cronus," Bro stood up and went over to him. "We can't keep-" Cronus backed up and bared his teeth when Bro got near. He even dropped his head so his horns were pointing slightly at the approaching human.

Bro stepped back and tensed. He was quickly on edge and careful. His hands clenched at his side and he took a deep inhale through his nose. "Ampora. We cannot keep the grub. Do you even know how to take care of one?"

Cronus said nothing.

The grub started to struggle in his arms and he relaxed his grip on her slightly. She was now free to roam around his arms and was enjoying it apparently. She went up to one of his fingers and started to gently bite on his thumb.

Cronus relaxed completely and looked at her as if he was the one who had puppy love. He watched her affectionately and pet her hair with two of his fingers. She started purring and seemed to curl in on herself, relaxing against his chest.

He looked up at all the adults in the room with pleading eyes. "Please. I can't risk her endin' up some place bad."

It was a full minute of silence, minus the grub making sounds, before anybody did anything. Feferi and Jade exchanged glances and sighed in defeat. They seemed to share te same idea because they turned to Cronus and spoke softly. "We'll go talk to him now."

Cronus had seemed so excited and in disbelief of what they said that purple tears came to his eyes. "For real?"

Jade nodded. "I think Equius needs this-he's only had puppy love once before and the owners were all like 'quit playing around with Floppy,'" Jade deepened her voice to imitate them and shrugged. "He needs this. We'll be right back."

The two of them smiled reassuringly and left to go find Equius. Dave turned to the other trolls in the room and grinned. "Okay guys. You know what time it is?"

"Snack time?" Sollux peeped up.

"With cookies!" Karkat added with great interest.

Dave laughed and shook his head. "Close," he stepped towards Cronus and the grub. "Time to name the beast."

Meanwhile at Zahhak's office, the girl had entered an were trying to talk sense into the vet. "C'mon, Equius! You're great with kids," Feferi said.

He was in his office chair, hands rolled into fists on the arm rests. His body was defeated, like a kid who was waiting outside the principles office, just waiting for a punishment. He had taken off his glasses and pulled out his pony tail. It was very obvious he was tired and done with the shit the day had to offer. He had half a mind to tell the girls to try and find a home for the grub, but he had...puppy love. God, he hated puppy love with a passion.

The girls were on the office couch, Feferi was using her begging technique right now with a lip sticking out and her eyes artificially wet with tears. Equius wasn't exactly amused with the girls being there, and even with stone face it was obvious without his glasses on.

"Plus look at how Karkat and Sollux look at you!" Jade put in. "That must mean something, right?"

"Sollux and Karkat live with the Striders and only see us when-"

"When they're sick or troll business, yes, we know," Feferi rolled her eyes in exasperation. "But look at how much they love being around you!" An encouraging smile from Fef was given. "Remember the hug you got from Karkat after the last check-up?"

"He loves you! What makes you think that a smaller troll won't?"

"Because it could've died today." He spoke with guilt stinging his words. "If I hadn't been standing by Cronus..."

"But you weren't. You were distracted and you've obviously learned from that, right?"

"....I suppose."

"Plus it probably wouldn't have died. Trolls are studier than that!" Jade put in with a tiny smile.

He said nothing so she went on. "Equius, look at it like this," Jade stood up off the couch and wondered around his office. She raised her hand at all his awards and diplomas. "You probably failed a test, or gave an animal the wrong dosage, right? Well, that's okay and you leaned from it-a mistake. Because everybody makes mistakes!"

Feferi stood up too and went over to him and pecked his cheek. "You know you'll be okay with the grub. Trust us."

He shook his head. As tempting as it was, he just couldn't risk it getting hurt on his watch. "Thank you, ladies, but I must ask you to find a more suitable home."

There was a pregnant pause in the room along with tension you could cut with a knife. Feferi seemed a little mad at him and Jade seemed more disappointed than anything else. The two girls hesitated a bit before his words sunk in and slowly nodded.

Feferi threw her hands up and shook them in the air. "Fine. Whatever you say, Doctor Zahhak." She turned on her heel and stomped to the door. "You can be miserable all on your own, see if I care." With a quick hand she threw it open, stormed out, and slammed it shut.

Jade glanced over and gave his hands a small pat. "Just think about it, okay? The grub really seems to like you a lot. Maybe you don't want her, but we do need to name her sometime soon. Try to think of some names, that's fun, right?" She got up and walked to the door and smiled at him a final time before walking out.

He sighed when she left and messaged his head. "Why must I have the damned puppy love on a troll..." Equius sat up and closed his eyes. He was tired and could go for a strong drink.

"Watch, they're going to name it off a character or something stupid." He grunted to himself.

Hm...well, he did have a break right now. A spare thought about the name couldn't be that bad.

He automatically ruled the more common and unusual names off like Princess, Desire, etc. done humans have those types if names and while it gave them personality, he found it to be demeaning.

Well, he wanted the name to be proper and fitting. The human groaned as to what that meant he had to do. To properly name her, he'd have to see what her personality showed right now. Meaning, more interaction with his puppy loved troll.

Chapter Text

When Equius went into the room again, he found the two youngest members of the group studying Cronus. The three of them had officially decided to watch over the grub while everybody else was off doing more important things. Equius knew for a fact that Feferi was responding to people on the facebook page, Jade was trying to find people she knew or mutual friends who could take in the olive-blood. The Striders were separated at this time, Dave was babysitting the trolls and Dirk was helping out with Jade.

The grub was purring slightly when Cronus pet her hair. The cleft lip was unfortunate, she was scarred for life before her life actually began. He once heard somewhere that our bodies were like canvases, clean when we came out into the world. As times goes by, the canvas is decorated with scars, emotions, memories, etc. When we die, the canvas would be a masterpiece and the title of the perfect art would be your name.

Her canvas had gotten a head start and was damaged a bit on the way there. But all the same, her soft features made up for it. In fact, with the framing black hair, the cat like horns, the soft grey skin tone in the light, her baby teeth barely poking out from the lips, all of it seemed so perfect. So her.

The vet smiled to himself and crossed his muscle covered arms. Yes, it seemed as though her canvas had gotten a head start and was already adding to other people’s canvases. He glanced at the clock. Not even an hour old, and he already could swear she was changing his life. The puppy love was strong with this one, he could tell. Sometimes, if a caretaker was lucky, they would be able to keep whatever it was that gave them that infectious disease.
In the middle of winter, the little grub was the center of attention, but it seemed as though all of her attention went directly to Equius when she saw him. She started to squirm in Cronus’s arms and squeaked loudly. Equius slowly kneeled down onto the floor and nodded for Cronus to let her go. The purple-blood did, but with a tad bit of concern written on his face.

The olive-blood started to crawl towards him. She started slowly and wobbly at first. It was her first time walking on actual floor. When Equius glanced around the room, everybody was watching him. Dave had his phone pulled out and seemed to be filming this for more “aww” effect online. The other three trolls in the room were watching her as well, they wanted to hold her, but they knew to let him have his time with the grub while he still could.

“Squeak?” The grub spoke up with her opinion. It was a soft little squeak too, but it seemed as though it took a lot of effort to make that sound. And just like that, all who were in the room with them disappeared to Equius. It was just him and this adorable little olive-blood who just started life. She had no idea what was going on, oblivious to everything in the world. So innocent, so young, so...perfect.

She started to go a bit faster in walking. Every now and then she would stop and watched him intently, but always continued on. He spoke encouraging words to her softly, as though he was apart of a musical. He refused to sing, but just in that moment, it seemed as though his whispers were of that; soft notes being hit perfectly.

When she was close enough to pet, he started to encourage her further. Before she had made it to the finish line, he noticed that she was slowing down significantly. “You’re almost there, now. Don’t stop, it’s okay. Keep going,” he repeated to her. She made a noise that sounded like she was agreeing and continued on to him.

She eventually made it to him and collapsed in his waiting hands. She yawned and curled up in the massive, protective, loving, hands that were of Equius Zahhak. She rubbed her head on his palm and licked it delicately. He watched over her as she slowly went to sleep. His face was full of love for this small being. When he finally tore his gaze from her, he was met with two smirking faces and two of just normal curiosity.

He blushed slightly, but didn’t mind the attention. In that moment, all he really cared for was the bundle of olive in his grasp. But first…

“Cronus, I need you to take her for a moment.” Equius whispered to Cronus. He didn’t want to wake her just yet, she was tired from her first walk.

Cronus came over immediately and gently, they switched the troll from the vet’s arms to the former patient’s. “The two have been arguing what her name is, chief.” Cronus whispered to Equius when he got the grub. “When do you think we can all do that?”

Equius paused in his thoughts and considered it. “Give me an hour and we can think of something.”

Cronus nodded and looked at Karkat and Sollux. They were standing near him and he went down on his knees so the two could see her better. He began murmuring something to them, probably along the lines of being careful with her and to be quiet when she’s asleep.

Equius nodded at Dave and the two went out into the hallway. They gently shut the door and walked a bit further away from the door before the conversation began.

“So, Dr. Z.” Dave smiled. “Do you want to keep the little bundle of joy?”

Equius sighed and pulled out his sunglasses. “She is cute.”

“But nothing other than cute out of you? Damn, man, she is adorable.” After getting no response, Dave added. “Chicks dig cute things.”

Equius stopped and looked at Dave carefully “I am not going to keep her just so Feferi will gawke over her.”
Dave continued to smile in the way that taunted he knew something.

“Why are you still smiling? I told you that I wasn’t goi-”

“Ah. But you said you’ll keep her.”

Equius paused to realize what he let out and shook his head. “Mr. Strider, I am keeping her because I want her. The darn puppy love, as the ladies called it, had gotten me and,” He paused and looked back at the room she was in. “I can’t let her get hurt. I love her already.”

Dave bobbed his head slightly with a smirk on his face and turned around. “I got you, bro. I feel the same way about Karkles and Sollux.”

Equius nodded. “I think we all share some love for those two.”

Dave smiled again and slapped the vet on the back as he passed him to go back to the room.

He smiled to himself for a second, but then moved into the room where Dirk and Jade were working on finding the grub a home. Jade was on the phone with somebody and Dirk was shooting out emails on the computer in the room.

“That’s right, she’s an olive-blood.” Jade spoke into the clinic’s phone. She took the phone off her face and mouthed to him that she found somebody. “In fact, Dr. Zahhak is here in the room. No, ma’am, he just walked in. Would you like to speak to him? He would have more details then I would.”

She nodded and spoke when needed. She looked to him and smiled. “Yes, ma’am, he sure can. Alright. Alright. Sure! Just one moment.”

She took the phone off her face and pressed the ‘hold’ button before setting the phone down on the receiver. “We found somebody!”

Dirk nodded and continued to type on the computer. “She lives fifteen minutes away from here, has a huge back yard, plenty of room for the grub, no pets, no kids, and agreed to switch over her from her usual vet so you can see her.”

Jade winked at him when he glanced at her. “What else did she say?”

“Her name is Mrs. Wilson, but she’s a widow. She’s been wanting a pet for a while now and has been hearing about the troll rights lately. She’s a full supporter and feels that if she got a troll she could do more for them.”

“Occupation?” He began the drilling. Whenever they had a pet that they needed to give away and somebody was offering to take them, they always did a background check. And he felt it was right to ask as many questions as he could about this one. Especially if it were for the little grub.

“She’s a dental assistant at the office by that bookstore.”

He sighed and pinched his nose bridge. “I hear bad things about that one.”

“She’s trying to get a new job someplace else.”

“Does she live in apartments or a house?”

“She and her roommate are living at a house.” Jade turned around on the wheely chair to face him. “Equius, usually these type of people check out okay in our book. I think we should let her take the grub.”

After a moment’s pause he went around Jade and picked up the phone and took it off hold. “Mrs. Wilson?”

Jade and Dirk were watching him closely. Something was up with him. If this were for a dog or cat, he wouldn’t have blinked an eye at them and let the animal go with them. What was he planning?

After a moment of listening to her talking, he shook his head and smiled gently. He made sure to turn to the wall and avoid both of their gaze. “Mrs. Wilson, I’m terribly sorry, but we already found a home for the small grub.”

Jade turned to Dirk and smiled brightly. She turned back and jumped up and hugged Equius. He almost fell forward, but managed to hold himself up by throwing his arm up on the wall. “Oof! No, no, sorry. That was my associate. Sorry, what was that? Yes, it is in a good home, thank for you asking. Yes, ma’am. Alright. Have a good day.”

He hung up the phone and tried to block out the squeals Jade was making.

Later that day, the eight of them were sitting in the waiting room watching her run around. She had so much energy for something that size, it was entertaining for them to watch. They pulled the lunch break out early and was closed for the next hour or so. Karkat and Sollux finally got their cookies and were munching on them peacefully.

Equius was going without lunch that day, while Feferi made do of his salad for him. Jade had a sandwich and the Striders had gotten McDonalds for themselves and Cronus. The small grub had received a very yummy treat of green apple slices, ironically enough to match her blood color.

“So, I think it is high time to name her, don’t you think?” Equius spoke. His voice was now in his normal deep tone and it seemed to snap everybody out of their trance of watching her.

“Yeah, but what should we name her?” Dirk sighed, leaning back in his chair.

“Olive!” Karkat shouted, the grub flinching a bit.

“Karkat, remember that we have to be quieter around her right now,” Dave chided. “She has sensitive ears.”

“What about Candy?” Jade spoke up. “She’s sweet enough it could work for her.”

“No, I’m not going to name her after food or have her get a pet name like,” he turned to Feferi, “tuna.”

She giggled and playfully pushed him. “I told you I was kidding!”

Sollux was studying her deeply. Her hair was a mess, almost tangle and bangs everywhere. The ends seemed to point straight back up and curled a bit as well. Her small fangs poking out from her cleft lip, making a three appear on her face. Even her horns, which were extremely sensitive for the first few weeks. “She looks like a cat,” he observed.

The others looked at her and tried to figure out her features as well. “Sorta, yeah.” Jade remarked. “Maybe we should name her something that deals with cat-like stuff!”

“‘I told you, no pet names.” Equius sighed. “Trolls are not pets.”

“I know, but hear her out.” Feferi defended. “I think I like where she’s going.”

Jade smiled at Feferi and went on. “I think if we gave her a name that’s uncommon, but deal with cats, it won’t count as a pet name.”

“And I doubt that a troll would like a human name,” Cronus pipped in. “I sure as hell wouldn’t. No offense or anything, but I doubt that a troll would really like the name ‘Susie.’ All of our names are unique.”

Silence filled the room and Dirk reached for Sollux’s Ipad. He started typing in things in google and quickly found what he was looking for. “Nepeta. AKA, catnip. Well, a type of.”

The grub looked up when he said that and blinked questioning what was going on.
“Dirk, say that again. Everybody, look.” Cronus said.

“...Nepeta?”

The grub looked around at the name being called. “Nepeta,” Dave laughed. The grub turned to him and squeaked.

“Nepeta,” Karkat clapped and giggled when she turned to him.

“Looks like we got a responder.” Dave smiled. “What do you think, Equius?”

He studied her for a second then pronounced the name, “Nepeta?”

She turned to him and crawled over to him and squeaked, putting her legs up on his foot. She rubbed her head onto his jeans and he smiled softly.

“Not only that, but I think grubby chose you.” Feferi smiled and pecked his cheek. “I think you just got a new friend, Equius.”

“Nepeta.” Equius agreed. The name sounded right. “Her name is Nepeta.”

Chapter Text

Throughout the next week, the newly named grub had been very cared for. They had all pitched in to take shifts watching it to make sure nothing happened to it. Originally, it had stayed in Zahhak’s office with the door almost constantly being locked. Every once and a while the grub had wandered off under furniture in the office and it was, a long story short, a fiasco to try and retrieve her.

“Oh shit, come on out,” Cronus cursed softly to himself. “This isn’t funny and my shift is almost over!”

He reached under and stretched to try and reach her, but she crawled away from his grabbing hand. "Nepeta, come on," he groaned. "Equius's turn is next and he's gonna-"

"I'm going to what, Cronus?"

Cronus jumped and quickly got up on his feet. He backed up and smiled feebly. "Chief! You're early!"

Equius have him a confused face and nodded slowly. "Yes, I realize. I finished my last patient earlier than I expected so I decided to come and help you out." He stepped towards Cronus and looked around. "Where's Nepeta?"

Cronus sighed and ran his hand through his hair. He tried to think of an excuse that would somehow help him out of this mess, but failed to think of something believable. "She's uh..she's under your chair again."

Equius sighed and got onto his knees. He tried to reach under and she crawled away too. Over the past week, she had been working on crawling and was getting pretty damn well good at it. That's one of the reasons that the door was to remained locked at all times. If she got out and a pet thought of her as a moving toy...

That's when Dave had found something on Pinterest one night that sparked an idea. You take an inflatable pool and put a bunch of blankets down inside it, along with a couple toys and bam. Instant crib that a grub couldn't get out of. Neither would a baby, but it's easier to lose a grub than a baby.

It works splendidly. Once Nepeta is put inside, she crawls around to explore what new type of floor it is. The plastic feels foreign to her little..leg...type things. Dave had no idea what to call them, Equius and Feferi had told him what they were called many times. But he really just didn’t know what to really call them after he forgot. Stubs didn’t really seemed to work, but so far that’s all he got. So for now, we call them stubs.

Her stubs wanted to explore around the pool with new feeling to it. The plastic feeling to it made her mind confused. This was all so new, especially with huge plastic walls around her. She can’t see over the walls anymore, making everything seem so much smaller.

She was used to it being huge and having huge things to hide under. They were like mountains, only with space underneath to hang out. Whenever she was under them, enjoying the view of everything around her. It was like her private hiding spot that nobody could see her.

Of course, for some reason, she was usually quickly discovered and people would try to grab her. She never really liked this, but she would take the grabbing over walls that surrounded her constantly. Nepeta had tried to climb over them a few times, but the plastic always just made her go down and land painfully.

Pretty soon she gave up on escape and decided to wait until something happened that allowed her to flee the scene. Until then, she had a bunch of toys to play with. Her absolute favorite was a white cat with green eyes. She would always lay on top of it and bite it’s ears when she was bored. The other toys in there were a squeaky toy, a tug of war rope, a rubber ball, some yarn, and a stuffed mouse toy that smelled strongly of catnip.

They took that last toy away somewhat quickly. After she had smelled it she dove on it and was quick to start acting weird. She started squealing and running around in circles in the pool like a racetrack. Equius glared at Jake who was the one who gave her the toy in the first place. He had his stone face on and even took off his glasses when he found out what happened to Nepeta.

Jake and Equius had words. Jake wasn’t allowed to enter his office while Nepeta was in there anymore.

Now, Nepeta was being watched by her favorite person. In her perspective, Equius was really really cool. He even sat inside the pool with her and tossed the ball for her to run after it. Granted, all of the people who came usually did that, but he was different. When it started to get less busy, he would come in more than other people. And every now and then, he would come in to lay down in the pool with her and he would sleep for a long time.

She would always crawl up onto his chest and snuggled up and sleep there with him. She had no idea what time was or any idea of it passing. She was inside an office with a window that had the blinds shut. All she knew was different people would come inside and watch her for a while then would switch out.

Equius was the most frequent visitor of them all, obviously. She started to recognize him quicker than the others. She wouldn’t be able to speak until a little after she was a troll instead of a grub. But until then, she liked to think of picture stories in her mind. More pictures than words, but the stories would usually include her and the people that watched her.

Right now Dave was watching her. He had brought her food earlier, and she was still working on the apple he brought her. He himself had brought a tuna sandwich and was somewhat eating it, somewhat playing with her. The younger Strider had tried to get her to play with the ball a bit, but she was currently lying upside down with a bored expression on her face.

“Come on, don’t you wanna play a bit?” Dave prodded, rolling the ball to the wall and catching it when it bounced back to him.

She groaned and abandoned the apple he brought her. “You know Dr. Z wants you to eat that, right? It’s not just a decoration.” He chided and picked up the apple slices that she had left out and started towards the trash can.

As he was throwing the apples away, a knock on the door caught his attention. After the door was unlocked, he opened it to find Bro there, holding a bag. “Hey, man. This is for you.”

“What is it?” Dave began to open it and reeled back when he saw what was in the bag. “Dude, not cool!”

“What? Lil’ Cal missed you and wanted to say ‘hi!’”
This quickly escalated into a miniature argument. For normal people, it only meant that they were discussing with snapping responses. But for the Striders this meant that they weren’t going to take out their weapons and udderly kill each other quite yet.

Nepeta listened to them fight for a second, but something else quickly got her attention instead. She smelt something that called out to her like nothing else had ever done before. She turned her head and saw Dave’s tuna sandwich sitting on the top of the pool. She knew for a fact that she couldn’t be able to get up there, so instead she charged forward and rammed her head into the side of the pool. The attempt proved to be successful! The sandwich fell to the ground with a splat.

Neither Strider noticed this. Nepeta paused for a second to make sure and quickly dug in. The tuna was something she had never laid eye on, but this was definitely better than apples. It tasted like mush compared to the apple and was significantly better. Instead of the fruity juice that slipped into her throat, this had more of a different taste. It definitely tasted better though, something indescribable to her young mind. The tuna also had these green dot things that were juicy too, but it tasted different than the other green thing that they were feeding her.

She continued to eat the soft fish meat until Dave picked her up roughly. “Crap, did you eat this?” He cursed under his breath and took her over to Bro, who was still in the doorway. “Take her, would you? I think she got into my tuna sandwich.”

She squeaked in protest and squirmed around, but Bro had an excellent grip on her. “Sure. What’re you gonna tell the others?” The elder brother smirked at him. “I mean, tuna’s healthy, I think, so you shouldn’t get into too much trouble, will you?”

“Man, I don’t know. Crap she got it everywhere. Is there any towels or something?” Dave glanced up from the pool with a hint of fear on his face. The pool had tuna smeared across the floor around where people were sitting when they played with Nepeta.

“I would guess so. This is a vet’s office,” Bro looked around and sucked in air through his teeth. “I could ask somebody if you want.”

Dave quickly shook his head. “No! No, then people would know.”

Nepeta wiggled around in Bro’s arms and squeaked loudly. “I think that Lil’ Grubby likes the tuna. Wanna give her some more?” He asked sarcastically.

Dave gently pushed his older brother out of the way and raced to the bathroom. He returned a second later with soaked paper towels. “I gotta clean up this mess.”

Bro nodded. “Better do that. While you’re doing that, I think Nepeta and I will go hang with Feferi.”

“Whatever, man, just don’t loose her. I’m pretty sure that Equius scares me just as much as he scares you.”

“He does not scare me. Plus I’m not the one who caused this to happen.”

Dave groaned and Bro smirked as he walked away with his grasp tightening when they entered the lobby/waiting room. There was a small white kitten in a woman's arms who perked up when it saw Nepeta and in turn, she perked up as well. Her eyes barely were able to peek over Bro's shirt to see the kitten.

"Hey Dirk! You're not suppose to have her out here," Feferi smiled and gently pet her head.

Bro shrugged and set her down on the counter. "I know, but Dave accidentally fed her tuna and had to clean it up."

Feferi giggled and pet her again. "God, she is so cute."

The conversation continued from there, but Nepeta blocked it out. The kitten managed to wiggle out of it's owner's arms and started running over to the counter. Nepeta started crawling towards the feline.

Feferi and Bro noticed what was going on when the owner called out the small cat's name, but by then Nepeta and the kitten were nose to nose. The cat was sniffing all over Nepeta to try and figure out what the hell she was. Nepeta on the other hand was thrilled to see something like this. She had no idea what it was, but it had to be something great. Nepeta began purring and the cat purred back at her.

"Squeak!" Nepeta struggled when Bro picked her up. The cat strained to manage a meow when the owner picked it up.

"I'm so sorry, is the um...is it alright?" The lady asked as she held her cat in concern.

"I think so." Bro checked her over. "Crap. I don't want to tell Equius this, but..." He glanced over at Feferi. "Does she seem alright to you?"

Feferi ran her hand through her hair in distress and sighed. "I'm not sure. I think so."

Nepeta struggle to get out of his arms and squeaked again to the cat. As if it knew what she was saying, the cat meowed back. Nepeta tilted her head and purred.

"Do you think they know what they're saying?" The women asked and pet the animal's head.

"Dunno. Maybe."

The kitten meowed again, this time slower. Nepeta opened her mouth and tried it herself. This time, more than a meow came out instead of a squeak. The adults looked up at each other in shock. The cat did it again and Nepeta played copy cat with it.

"Pounce, what do you think you are teaching her?"

Nepeta meowed this time and it came very close to Pounce's own. Nepeta purred at their reactions and smiled. She was so proud of herself for meowing for the first time. Pounce was too, apparently. The white kitten managed to reach far enough and lick Nepeta on her face.

Nepeta giggled and licked Pounce's face back and rubbed her head on the soft white fur.

"Well. She already looks like a cat, why not have her act like one?" Feferi smiled and petted her gently.

Later that day, Dave, Bro, and Feferi stopped Equius just as he was about to head home for a quick shower before coming back here to watch Nepeta. He usually left right after the clinic closed and came back an hour or so later. He was pretty tired after such a busy day and didn't really want to talk very long.

"What?"

"We have good news and bad news," Dave stated again. "Which would you like?"

"The bad news." Equius sighed. He could already feel his headache coming on.

"Okay, so good news!" Dave clapped his hands together. "Nepeta..." Equius began to stare over the horrid glasses and blinked for him to continue....carefully.

He didn't. "Nepeta's news will be told be Bro Strider!" He shoved his older brother forward and stepped back.

The elder sighed and cracked a nervous smile. "Well, she uh. She learned a new trick today."

"And what was that?" The vet asked curiously.

"She leaned to meow." Bro braced himself for impact.

"That's good."

Dave strode forward and grinned brightly. "Yes, isn't it great? She learned to meow, are tuna and got to meet a cat all in-"

Bro quickly slapped him over the head and hissed for him to shut up.

Equius glanced between them and with a confused face, turned to Feferi. "What?"

She smiled gently and kissed him. "She's fine. Dave accidentally left his tuna sandwich out and she ate it. Bro took her out of her pool and brought her to see me. Then a cat came up and taught her to meow." She pecked his cheek and smiled sweetly at his flustered face. "I think it's adorable. Don't you?"

He nodded with a blush to his features. She smiled again and turned out of the room, calling behind her, "Maybe tonight you could teach me to meow."

Equius's blush deepened and he nodded furiously before following her out to the car. He tripped on a chair near the door an actually cursed before jogging to his car. Feferi had already left, but as they watched his car turn left they could tell he meant to. He turns right to get home and left for Feferi's.

Dave and Bro exchanged glances before Dave groaned and pulled out a twenty before placing it in Bro's hand. "I still say that she'll be the one wearing the pants."

"Kid, over there, nobody is going to be wearing pants anytime soon."

Dave nearly gasped at his brother's comment, instead pulling off a snicker. "Yeah, maybe."

After a second, Jade came out into the room and looked between them. "I have to close up for now, guys. I'm sorry, but Equius hates it when-"

Bro held up his hand. "No. That's fine. We have to go home and make sure that Sollux didn't kill our favorite purple blood anyway."

She nodded and began to gather her things while the Strider brothers got into their car and pulled out of the parking lot. The car rides were usually silent, awkward, or very loud with blaring music or three trolls. This one was a comfortable silence with just them.

"Hey, Bro?" Dave broke the silence after a few minutes. "Do you think Nepeta's okay being there by herself? I know Dr. Z will be back after like two hours, but I'm a little worried about her being by herself."

Bro shrugged. "Well, she's been fine these last few nights. What makes you think something would be different about this time?"

"I have a really bad feeling about tonight though. Like, this could be classified as Strider level of not good feeling." Dave exhaled through his nose. "Please, can we take her with us? Just for tonight. I can't leave her."

Bro copied his sigh and pulled over to the right. After a few minutes he muttered something then spoke louder. "Dude, where would we put her?"

A pause. "Cronus's room. He wouldn't let anything happen to her."

Another minute passed. "Don't you think Equius would flip when he gets there and she isn't?"

"We can call him. Please, Bro, please. This is a Strider-"

"A Strider level of ickiness. I got that." He took off his glasses for a second then shook his head in surrender. A Strider feeling was not to be ignored under any circumstance. "Call Jade, we'll turn around. Then phone Cronus and tell him that he's babysitting tonight."

After they pull back into the clinic's parking lot, Jade arrives up in her small blue car. All three of the humans get out of the car and continue to venture up to the glass doors. Painted on dog and cat paws greet Dave as he goes into the building. He only is there for a small green troll while the others will wait by the door.

He passed by a traveling case-probably for a cat or small dog, but he picks it up anyway. It'll be easier to travel with Nepeta that way. Not only that, but she would arrive at Casa de Strider is style. It had holes in the side she could see out of and a handle for you to carry. There was even a towel on the floor already, prepared just for Dave.

After picking the cage up he went to the locked office. At the top of the door there was a key that leaned against the wall on the surrounding out frame. He put the golden key into the slot and professionally turned it to the right until he heard a click and went inside.

It was very dark without any lights on. Nepeta didn't really like the dark just quite yet, so they usually had a lamp in the corner on for her so she couldn't be surrounded by the scary dark. Even though Dave had just stepped into the room, he could already hear her scampering around in the pool, peacefully playing with a toy or playing a game.

"Hey, Nepeta! You're gonna go someplace new!" Dave spoke with a, somewhat fake, excited voice.

She believed him as she meowed up at him. That was pretty adorable, actually. He smiled at her and let her smell and remember him before he picked her up. Just because he was nervous for whatever reason, didn't mean that she should be. He gently released her into the cage before shutting the door in and locking it by letting go of the two push down handles.

After that, he turned off the lamp and out the door he went. He didn't bother locking the door to Dr. Z's office. There wasn't anything important in there, anyway.

He found Bro and Jade waiting for him when he got to the front door. He smiled at Jade and playfully ignored his brother. "I got the cargo, are we ready to launch?" Dave joked.

"That depends. Are you going to be a dweeb all the way back to our place?" His brother smirked. "Because I like the grub more than you so I wouldn't have a problem with leaving you here."

"Oh ha-ha. Jade," he turned to their friend. "Thank you for coming back. Did you want to come over and hang out?"

"Oh I can't, thank you though. It's our parents anniversary today, so Jake and I are going to dinner here soon." Jade sighed. "I wish I could though. Tell the boys we said hi, though!"

"Will do," without a warning, Bro put his hand on Dave's head and started stearing him away from Jade. "But dweeby and I need to get home and get Nepeta set up."

Jade laughed and waved. "Okay. I'll tell Dr. Z that you guys took her for the night."

Later that night, Dave was shaken awake by his brother. His glasses were off and the strange orange color was eerie to see the first thing in the morning. "Hey, Dave. Wake up," his brother hissed softly. Everybody else was asleep and he didn't want them to worry just yet.

"What," Dave groaned. "What is it?"

"Zahhak called me just now."

Dave got up and yawned. "I thought Jade was gonna tell him we took Nepeta?"

"She did." Bro leaned back a bit and stood up with his hands in his jeans. He was dressed, but Dave knew very well that he slept in his boxers. If he threw on his clothes then he probably was going somewhere. "It's the clinic. It's been broken into."

Dave gasped and was about to say something when Bro went on. "They got into Zahhak's office and didn't touch a thing."

"Then how do we know they went in there?"

"Because the pool was destroyed. They were trying to take Nepeta."

Chapter Text

It was too early for bullshit like this. After Dave had nodded back to sleep five or six times, Bro called it quits and didn't even want to threaten him at that point. When his little brother didn't respond, he emptied a bottle of water from the fridge on him.

Dave instantly sat up and cursed around in surprise. "Dude, what the actual fuck?!"

"We have to get our asses over there, that's what." Bro wasn't the best to mess with this early in the morning. He pulled the covers off of Dave and threw a shirt off the floor at him before turning around and leaving the room. "Now move."

Dave groaned and turned around to find the grub of attention in view. "Bro, what about Nepeta?"

He heard him curse from the hall and turn around to come back into his room. Dave could see the tired bags under his eyes and the strain he's putting on his brain for more ideas. "I don't know." He ran his hand through his hair like he always did when stressed out. "I don't think we should take her with."

Dave only had to think for a moment before picking her up, trying to ignore her squirming a bit, and silently pads to Cronus's room before pushing the door open. "Wake up, dude. You got babysitting tonight."

Cronus groaned and rolled over. "No way, Chief. I'm not waking up to watch the twerps."

"Wake up and watch Nepeta. We have to go to see Dr. Z." Bro comes into the room, pulls the blanket off of the troll and crosses his arms. "Now."

Cronus finally stirs and takes Nepeta in his arms. She's pretty tired and wants nothing more than to go back to sleep. She must be confused with all that's going on. And apparently scared with how she's shivering already. Her squirming increased and she actually managed to get out of his arms and scurried to hide under his pillow.

Dave studied him for a moment before rubbing his head. "Are you positive that you can handle this?"

Cronus nodded and lifted the pillow up I reveal the grub. She turned tail and hissed up at him, tiny teeth bared at him. Her expression was already starting to look more like a cat. Her horns, lips, the threatening eyes, everything about her features made her seem as if she were a kitten instead of a small grub. Cronus blinked and hissed back.

The grub charged at him with her horns pointed out and rammed into his arm. He barely flinched and lifted her up into the air. She whimpered and began to pace nervously in his firm grip. When she couldn't move she began to cry a bit with tiny sobs and green tears.

Cronus instantly felt bad and cooed to her softly, smiling like a father to his new born child. Dave nodded and left the room before he was sucked into watching the display Cronus was putting on for the grub. He wondered who would win in a match for the grub, Equius or Cronus. Equius was pretty strong, but Cronus had horns. He could just imagine them fighting while Dave pulled a classic story plot and ran off with Nepeta.

Bro was waiting for him by the time he finally emerged out of the room and tossed him the keys. "You're driving. I have emails to respond to." Dave rolled his eyes under his shades and followed him out to the car.

Outside the night air was still active and instantly covered them with a icy bite. It had started to snow a bit earlier and frost covered everything in a delicate blanket. You could smell it from the doorway with the ice biting your nose. In Texas they didn't have much of a problem with this, but every once and a while they would get an inch of snow and cities would shut down.

Dave wished the city shut down when it was this cold. The Striders made it to the safety of the car before the ice could completely consume them. "I hated the movie, I don't want to actually be frozen, thanks." Dave sneered to himself as he stuck the keys into the ignition.

The drive to the clinic was a very quiet one. The white glow from Bro's phone filled the car for most of the ride, street lights flashing by too fast to put up a fight. Every once and a while Bro would mumble his response or read aloud the important ones that needed both of their inputs, but other than that, silence ate away. It began to snow again and Dave watched the snowflakes fly by the car. It always interested him as a kid to watch the snow fall slowly then faster as they got closer to the car. But to drive in them was a pain, he actually had to take a class of how to drive in snow because of how difficult was for him.

When Dave eventually pulled up to the clinic, both of the Strider brothers were shocked to see a few police cruisers parked outside. Equius's car blended into them with Jade's right next to his. The lights were on inside, the door was shattered, and the alarm was still flashing around above the doors. Equius, Feferi, and Jade were already there, talking to cops outside. He could already see that they were all tired and worried, but had to keep a professional face on.

Dave and Bro parked next to a police car move carefully then other times. They did not want another parking ticket today, it would be so embarrassing to get one parked right next to it. Unfortunately, before he could fully park, his wheels hit the curb and bounced them back. Dave cursed and shut off the engine. Bro have him a thumbs up and got out of the car before he was seen with that loser of a brother.

Dave tabbed the steering wheel with his fingers and sighed before opening the door and stepping out into the snow. The snow crunched under his feet as he walked closer to the others. He began to shiver and instantly wished he brought a jacket or something. It was freezing and he could see his breath easily.

Bro was already talking to Equius and his cop by the time that Dave walked up to them. Equius nodded at him politely as he stepped up. Dave could tell he was beyond angry with everything that happened. He was glad that they took Nepeta with them, but Equius seemed worried about her still. She was safe at home, why was he upset?

The cop nodded and finished the conversation that had been going on. "Well, Dr. Zahhak, we will let you know any further information."

"Thank you, sir. I appreciate it." He stuck out his hand and shook it firmly with the officer. The officer turned and joined his partner in the car. The ones talking to Jade and Feferi were still there taking notes for as they talked on.

Zahhak sighed deeply and ran his hand through his untidy hair. He looked like hell. His tired eyes were uncovered from his glasses, messy hair that was out of it's ponytail, even his pajamas seemed to be upset and out of order. He turned his blue eyes to Dave and Bro. "Where do you think they took her?"

The Striders shared a confused look before turning back to him. "W-what do you mean?" Dave shivered. He was running his hands over his arms to try and keep some of his warmth and generate more.

"I mean Nepeta. She's gone." He snapped and began to shift his weight from leg to leg. It was very obvious that he was tense and didn't want to keep still.

"What? No she's not. She's back at our place with Cronus." Bro crossed his arms over his chest. "We took her for a sleepover tonight. Jade was suppose to tell you."

Equius relaxed as soon as the words came out of his mouth. He smiled and laughed in relief. After a second he shook his head and looked over to Jade. "No, she didn't. Is Nepeta okay?"

"Yeah, she's cool. She didn't like being woken up and taken to his room though." Dave smirked a bit at the memory of her charging Cronus. "She's a tough little grub for her size. She tried to take our dear Mr. Purple on."

Equius shared his smirk and crossed his arms. "And?"

Dave nodded and smiled with a chuckle. "She didn't win. Last I saw he was trying to get her to calm down from that rough ride. Oh no, no, she didn't get hurt. She just rammed him and then realized he wasn't dead and freaked out."

Equius 'hmm'ed and widened his smirk. "She's very eager."

The sound of car doors shutting caught their attention. The two police officers waved at them through the windshield of their cruiser and pulled out of the parking lot.With the parking lot free of cops, it felt almost normal again. Just as if they were talking about normal things, not like a thief tried to enter or anything. All just normal things.

Not too soon afterwards, Jade and Feferi made their way over to them. The two of them seemed exhausted from having to get up so early and make reports to the police. Feferi still managed to achieve her usual cheeriness and smiled at the males as they approached. “Hey guys! How’re you?”

Bro grunted and Dave shrugged. “We could complain, but are choosing not to at the moment. It might change in the very near future.” Dave greeted her with a high five and nodded to Jade. “I think you forgot to tell Dr. Z something, Jade.”

Jade scrunched her eyebrows up, confused at what he was saying. “What are you talking about?”

Dave gave her a black stare. “About Nepeta?”

It took her a few seconds before it clicked and she immediately turned to her boss. “Oh my god, I am so sorry. See, Dave had me turn around and we went and got her-”

Equius held up his hands and nodded a few times to make her stop talking. “Mr. Strider already explained everything to me. I understand. You just gave me a heart attack.”

“So no big deal then,” She smiled and relaxed.

“No, it is, but I forgive you regardless.” He crossed his arms and looked at the rest of them. “What are we going to do now?”

Feferi looked at the broken down door and deflated a little bit. “I guess we close for a couple days while that’s being repaired and for the police to finish their investigation. And,” she turned to him in a sing-song voice. “That gives you time to take Nepeta home!”

He looked at the floor and smiled slightly. “I suppose it does. Would you mind if I take her?” He turned to the Striders. “I know how much you enjoy having her over, but I would like to steal her back.”

Bro patted the vet’s back and managed a small smile. “We got three trolls to spare, I think you can take her back.”

------

The group all went back to their houses to get a few more hours of sleep before the real work began. And for Dr. Z, he had to begin now.

Equius had to grub-proof his house, which wasn’t as easy as he imagined. His grub, no, the grub, was very catlike and would like to get under or on everything. Counters, the fridge, chairs, everything in his house would be a playground to her. His house was fairly large and had a huge backyard with plenty of trees and bushes. Maybe he would be able to bring her outside every once a while. She would like the trees he had around his house to play in or around.

He realized that he would have to take all the knick knacks he owned and put them up on higher shelves. Speaking of shelves, his entire living room was mainly books. Shelves upon shelves, books were stacked everywhere. They all ranged from a simple hundred pages to over seven hundred. He didn’t have anything for kids, which would quickly need to change. She might like to read, or watch tv, he didn’t know. For now, he would need some help on how to raise kids.

He had brought in a much smaller pool for her to play in in front of the book shelves. He filled that with the couch pillows he usually used for decoration and brought the other things found from the other pool in there too. She would like the familiarity of it. She won’t like the new surroundings, however, so that could be an issue. But he was sure that after a few days that she’d get used to it and calm down.

What made him most anxious though was the fact that she would probably imprint on him. After a few days of hatching, a grub would imprint on whoever had been around the longest. If the grub was wild, the lusus would be around almost constantly, so of course, the grub imprints on them for the first few months of it’s life. Nepeta, however, was around so many people at different times she might’ve been confused and not imprinted on anybody yet. Karkat and Sollux were passed the point of that phase when they were found and nobody needed to worry about it. But now that they had a newly hatched troll, things were very different.

Equius knew he would be okay to imprint on. There could be worse people in the world to do so on. She could’ve ended up with a cage fighter as a caretaker. That would’ve been horrible. The vet cringed at the thought of Nepeta being in a fight like that. He had treated some trolls that managed to escape or were abandoned, and he knew what horrors were brought to those trolls. At least he would take proper care of her and treat her kind, but firm. Just like with his other patients, of course...he did favor this one more than the others.

To help calm himself down, he looked up on sites about grubs and babies that helped him a bit, he already knew most of the things grubs would do. But in his excitement, most of it was forgotten. He needed to make sure that he knew what he was doing before he actually brought her in. The sites were helpful, giving tips that he wouldn't have even thought of himself.

He stayed up through the night and made her room perfect. He had a spare one anyway, so he could afford to give it to her. He made a bunch of shelves for her to climb on and to perch herself and watch the world go by. The window in the room was cleaned and was given a child lock so she couldn’t open it without him. The mattress had to be taken out and given to his storage room that he rented out a while ago. Her new bed consisted of a pile of pillows and sheets for now until she could actually use a bed in later years. He made sure to add a white cat he found on Amazon after the encounter he had heard about. Equius knew that she could be very fond of cats in her life, so why not start now?

He had left her room paint blank white so that way later on in life she could pick a color she liked and they would paint it together. A fresh new start with her seemed to be a good idea. He smiled and closed the door. Her room was still in progress, but Equius hoped that it would be okay for her to settle in now.

Chapter Text

"How much longer?" Jade perked her way over to the vet with a smile splattered on her face.

"A few more weeks, Ms. Harley." Doctor Equius Zahhak answered mindlessly. He was occupied with the papers and documents on a current patient and couldn't help but tear his eyes away for a second to glance around.

Equius sighed. He knew it was only temporary, but he still missed her terribly so.

A handful of weeks ago, he had finally taken Nepeta home. He was immensely concerned with everything in his house and had gone to the extreme measures of child proofing things, putting away anything sharp, and had even installed a house alarm. Needless to say, he was anxious that she would get hurt. When they were driving to his house, she was placed in the back seat where she had gazed around with interest. This wasn’t new to her, but she still couldn’t place what exactly was going on. He would check the mirror to view her at least three times every minute.

When they walked through the door with her in his arms and he set her down for the first time, it seemed as though his heart would explode from how hard it was pounding. He hated to admit it, but he feared that somehow her cleft lip would lead her to harm in life. He of all people knew that it wasn’t going to, but a little fear could always disrupt his logical thoughts.

Instead of doing anything extreme and daredevil like, which he expected fully from her, she looked around almost in fear. She wouldn’t even move unless prodded, and even then she would back slowly towards him. Within a minute she was practically tucked away in his coat he was wearing. A small smile had broken out on his face and he gently lifted her out and took her to her room.

Oh, how she loved the shelves he had installed in the room. She crawled all over those things like they were the only things available to her in this world. He watched from the pile of clothes on the floor from his sunglasses, which were still on. He wrote it up that he forgot to take them off with all the excitement going on today.

The vet smiled again in remembrance of the small yawn he gave out watching her. It was like watching a goldfish swim around mindlessly in it’s small glass bowl. Therapeutic. He didn’t even realize that he fell asleep until he felt a weight on his chest. When he had looked up it was darker than before and his grub was on his chest, curled up and ready to sleep.

“And how exactly did you get down from there?” He asked with a lopsided grin. He gently ran his fingers over her smooth shells and she purred deeply, leaning into it slowly.

Then as weeks went by, he knew it was only a matter of time before she went into her cocooning stage. This was the time when a troll grub transitions into being a troll version of a toddler. It took a few weeks to complete and afterwards everything would change. Instead of being small and durable, they were able to get more hurt and explore more. The shells would escalate into their side and stay there the rest of their lives. What's more is the fact that they would have teeth, or in some cases fangs, growing in.

Literally everything changed with the transition period and Nepeta was right in the middle of it. She had gone into a cocoon a while back and was still inside of it. He didn't know when she would come out or what happened afterwards, nobody had ever really documented anything of it online and he couldn't find anything in books. He expected it to be something similar to that of a butterfly, but he honestly had no idea what he was going to do. There was no information on it whatsoever, and he was almost desperate enough to post on their troll page asking if somebody had an idea. He never did though in fear of people thinking that he didn't know what he was doing. He didn't, but he didn't want others to know.

He was on his own and he hated it.

Feferi was a major help in this. She was always there for him when he would hit an emotional block or if he needed something. Which was getting often. She would always laugh at him and tell him what a good parent he would make. The p-word shocked him to the core to the point of him not being able to talk for a full minute, which she had found hilarious. “Equius,” she would coo, “do you think that you would ever have kids?”

He would always choke in response, which she thought was hysterical.

The day eventually came when the two of them were watching a movie together in the living room of his house when something from upstairs sounded out. It sounded like something had fallen off a shelf or something. At first, they didn't think anything of it, but when another sound occurred, they paused their show and looked at each other in confusion. When they heard a third noise they went upstairs, him insisting to be in the front in case it was something dangerous. They expected to see broken windows and a man holding a gun whilst taking something valuable. Instead, they saw something he had been waiting for for what seemed like forever.

It was Nepeta.

She had finally came out of her cocoon, covered in the slime that had surrounded her for the last few weeks. Her body was a pale gray and had a slight tint of green to it, though that might've been from the slime. Her long tail was swishing about wildly next to her, hitting the wall with a thump each time that it hit. She was rubbing her head, her horns looking bigger and more cat like than before. They were mostly a yellow color, barely any red showing at all. Her hair was still jet black and wild. Her chest was proudly baring the green shells from her grub stage and was lifting and lowering quickly. She was still rubbing her head with the gray hands with yellow nail color on the fingers. Her toes also wore yellow and were a slightly different darker gray than the rest of her. Her cleft lip was still there, and it seemed like it was almost dragging her lip in the middle to make the number three.

She opened her eyes to look at the new intruders.

Equius swore that he felt his heart grow wings. Her yellow eyes pierced his own and she blinked them quickly with green tears filling them with each blink. She was scared, he knew that. She didn't recognize him yet, but she would once he began to talk and reassure her that everything was alright. The only problem was that he didn't know what to say or what to do.

“Equius,” Feferi nudged his back. “Go on.”

He took a step forward and she instinctively lowered her head a bit to make the horns point out towards him in case he was trying to harm her. “No, no,” he smiled softly at her. “It's alright, Nepeta. It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you. I won't let anything hurt you.” He sat down slowly and reached out his arms towards her. “Do you remember me?”

It took a minute for her to piece together everything that he was saying. By the time she did he had put down his arms and was looking towards Feferi for any sort of guidance as to what he needed to do now. All of a sudden, she scrambled over to him and all but tackled him into a massive hug. It knocked the wind out of him and her horns were piercing his skin, but he just winced and hugged her back.

It seemed that she was an avid crawler and before long, she was learning to walk. When Equius had read up on it, it seemed as though that while they were the size of a human toddler, they were no means the same structure or level of understanding. She was able to walk, climb, eat some soft foods, you name it. The only setback she had though was one that Equius would've gladly traded it for, in a heartbeat.

She couldn't speak just quite yet. She was still very young, and for her age was very small. She would be able to walk and run, jump, all physical activities she was doing fine, but speaking rose as a challenge. She would squeak or meow softly sometimes, but Equius was slightly nervous that she thought that was the style of speaking. He used smaller words and tried to get her to sound out a few, but she never would repeat him. What terrified him the most was the fact that some trolls never learned to speak and that she would become one of those. He wouldn't care of course, he would love her all the same, but still, he wanted the best for her and prayed that she would be able to speak somehow.

Feferi had gotten her some cute girly clothes that she hated at first, no dresses for this troll. She didn't like pink all that much either. It seemed as though whatever they had bought her she turned her face at. At the moment she was wearing an oversized shirt of Equius's until they could find proper clothes for her. They both agreed that she wasn't going to wear oversized clothes of Equius's forever so they took her shopping almost within a week of being a toddler troll type thing.
When they entered the store, they got a few weird glances, but they tried to shrug it off the best the were able to. Which wasn't very easy. Once they had gotten to the clothes department she immediately went to the darker shades of the boys' section.

“Nepeta, sweetie, the clothes for girl trolls are over here,” Equius gently tugged on her hand. “We need to get girl clothes for you.”

She just shook her head and picked out a black shirt with some skulls on it. She held it up to him and smiled brightly.

Equius was very hesitant. He was raised to believe that girls stuck with girl things and boys stuck with boy things. He didn't know if he could actually buy that for her. “Nepeta,” he sighed. “I want you to get somethings from the girls' section, okay?”

She scrunched her eyebrows up then glanced over to the girls' stuff. Everything was pink and glittery and frilly and she wasn't a fan. She glanced back at the black shirt that was in her hands and thought silently for what seemed like an hour, before coming up with an idea that saved both of their skins. Instead of putting the shirt back like he thought she would, she meowed loudly at him and put the shirt in the basket then went over to the girl's department and got out a green shirt with some paw prints on it. She held that shirt up to the couple and glowed at their approving smiles.

She had combined the girls' clothes with the boys' to make them both happy. After some reassurance from Feferi that she could do whatever she wanted with the gender line, he agreed to buy her the mixed gender clothes. The line was so thick either way, for boys it was dark colors and lots of action, and girls had apparently claimed the brighter colors and lots of glitter.

So long as she was happy, he supposed that he could swallow some of the ways he was raised as well. Besides, it's not like he keeps in touch with his dad anymore anyway. It was a sure of a way to make sure his kids not to talk to him. Maybe somethings should change.

In the end of the two hour shopping experience, she had gotten five or six shirts, three pairs of pants, two pairs of pajamas, a coat, some shoes, short shorts, and of course, the necessary evil of underwear. She despised it, but the guy with the long hair that she knew said that everybody had to wear it. So wear it she shall. That doesn't mean that she liked it though.

Once they were home and properly dressed, Nepeta scurried under her blanket pile and yawned. All the shopping had worn her out completely and she wasn't even going to wait for the sky to turn black. She heard the two hornless people talk to themselves in the kitchen. The troll wondered why they weren't gray either. Was she different from them somehow? A lot of the people at the store today weren't gray like her either. Was something wrong with her?

These thoughts and worries had chased away all exhaustion from her system and she crawled out of the pile to run down the hall. Her feet hit the floor with a pitter patter pitter patter sound with the shoes she was wearing. They were a new concept that made her feel a bit trapped, but it made turning a lot easier though, especially when she made sharp turns. She dodged the corner's edge to see the pair of questionably ungray people standing there, putting other things they got at the store away.

She took a gasp of air and called out “ECUS!”

The two humans shot their heads towards her in amazement and started smiling instanly. The one with long hair that was usually there went up to her and picked her up. “What did you say?” He asked with a proud tone to his voice.

This was annoying. Couldn't they see that she was on a mission to find out why they looked different? She squirmed in his grip and groaned, trying to get out. “ECUS!!” She growled out.

He put her down, but the smile wouldn't slide off of his face. “Wa diffurant?” She stumbled on the word.

“What was that, honey?” Equius asked.

Nepeta jabbed her finger out to Equius and to Feferi and back to her. “Wa diffurant?”

“Are you asking why we look different,” Feferi suggested to Nepeta. At her head nodding, the two humans looked at each other. Nepeta was more observant than what they had thought was possible. Especially at her age. Maybe she was more toddler like, but that didn't mean her intelligent level was at a toddler's.

“Well,” Equius began softly. He had thought that this question was to come much, much later than this. “We're a different species than you are, my dear.”

“Wha dat?”

“Feferi,” he raised his hand and her gaze followed. “And I,” eyes followed hands to him, “ Are humans. You,” he pointed at her. “Are a troll. We're different.”

“Wa?”

He swallowed. How was he to answer why they were like that? “Um, b-because.” He stammered out.

She didn't say anything, just generally accepted it. She put her hands on her chest and tilted her head to the side to watch him with great big yellow eyes. “Me?” Nepeta asked in a quiet voice.

“Yes.”

Almost instantly, her mood changed. She sniffled a bit and turned to go back to her room. Her tail was dropping on the floor. But she didn't pick it up. She felt it drag through the carpet and nearly shut her door on it by accident.

Feferi and Equius shared a concerned glace. “You should go talk to her,” Feferi whispered.

“I don't know why she's upset.” Equius shook his head. “If I did, this wouldn't be such a dilemma.”

“You need to find out why then.” Feferi nudged him. “I have to go in a few minutes for my shift anyway, go talk to her then text me, okay?”

Equius nodded and kissed her on the cheek. “I love you,” He whispered in her ear.

She reached up and wrapped her arms around him and kissed him deeply on the lips. “I love you more,” she teased and grabbed her stuff. He opened the door for her and she all but glared at him in the doorway. “Go talk to her.”

“I will, I will.” He sighed out.

“Good.” She turned around and began walking to her car.

He watched her leave and sighed. Now was the fun part.

“Nepeta?” He opened the door. “Are you okay?”

He heard sobs coming from underneath the pile of blankets and his heart nearly broke.

“Nepeta,” he sat down next to it and watched with concern as the blankets moved with each sob. “Baby, what's wrong?”

She poked her head out of the blankets and frowned. “ME!”

“You? What's so wrong with you?”

“Diffurant!” She screeched.

“You're just different from me and Feferi. We're humans. You're a troll.” Equius thought this would calm her down, but this made everything worse. She began crying loudly. He frowned with her and picked her up. “Nepeta, please calm down.”

She cried into his shirt, making wet spots all over. He sighed deeply and rubbed her back. “What's wrong with being a troll? You get horns and a tail!” He said exhilarated. He was trying something to make her happy about being one, if that was the problem.

“Me,” she sobbed. “Don't want!”

“What down you want?”

“Diffurant!”

It took him a minute of shoosh papping before he realized what she might be saying. All day today they were surrounded by humans. She hadn't seen another troll after she had hatched, meaning that she wouldn't remember ever seeing one. Realization dawned on him and he gently pulled her away from his shirt so he would be able to look at her better. “Nepeta,” he began extremely softly. “are you worried that you're the only troll?”

She nodded and hugged him again. “Oh, no, no, dear. You're far from being the only one.” She shook her head into his soaked shirt. “You aren't. In fact, I'm friends with three of them.” Slowly she peeled her face from him and blinked.

“Furends?” She squeaked.

“Yes, friends.” He smiled. “Would you like to meet another troll?” At her nodding, he kissed her forehead softly. “Alright. We'll go see some trolls.”

She hugged him tightly, still digging her horns into his chest. “Ecus,” she said softly.

She fell asleep in his lap like that.

Chapter Text

"Nepeta, calm down, we're almost there."

The young child ignored him completely and continued to climb the seat of Equius's car. She wanted to see the outside world blur by. The strange colors and scents sped by her and it made her feel special. Almost like she was flying! Or, better yet, like she was actually running. She loved running, she always tried to move fast enough to blur the colors like in the car. She couldn’t quite make it yet, but she still tried.

"Ecus, look!" She pointed her small gray finger out to whatever caught her attention. "We play?"

He briefly turned his head to check on whatever she was looking at. He have a halfhearted grunt and continued watching whatever was in front of the car. "Nepeta, please sit down," he chided again. "It's very dangerous to be doing that."

No change happened.

Equius sighed deeply. Nepeta was only a few months old and she already was energetic and lived to rebel against him. Today he had finally agreed and cleared it with the Striders to make a "play date" with the other trolls. He wanted her to be introduced to them so she would stop crying about her being the only one in the world of her kind. That and of course, he needed the pleading for this day to stop. It was driving him up the wall with how much she was bothering him.

"Ecus," she smiled at him with a laugh and jumped back into the seat. He sighed. Every damn time he said his name, or any word for that matter, incorrectly he swore he could feel a nerve being picked at.

"My name is Equius, Nepeta. Not 'Ecus' as you put it." He slowly stopped the car in the driveway and undid his seatbelt. He helped the small troll with hers and off they were to the play date.

"Coming! I am coming!" Dave Strider's voice sounded out after Equius knocked on the door to their residence. Nepeta glance at Equius nervously. He smiled back at her and rubbed her wild hair reassuringly. She was ninety-nine percent hunter and attacker, and one percent little girl who was apparently very shy with the world around her.

The door suddenly swung open, causing Nepeta to freak out and jump behind Equius's legs. He felt her tail wrap around his leg in an anxious way. Dave tilted his head down to her and back at Equius. As if a silent conversation went on, Equius nodded. Dave bent down and slowly reached out his hand. He recalled how Karkat was when he first got him, Sollux was the same as well, shy. "You must be Nepeta. I'm Dave."

Nepeta slowly peeked out a few inches to view him and watched him. The troll bit her lip with her nubby teeth and blinked her owl eyes at him and his outstretched hand. Eventually, she declared him to be in the okay zone and slowly took his hand. "Are you stranger?"

"Nope!” Dave smiled. “Equius and I are good friends. You don't remember me, but I used to watch you as a grub." He gently held her hand in his. His hand easily overfilled hers and she knew it by how she took it back.

Equius bent down and picked her up. She wasn't too thrilled with this and grunted pitifully. "Ecus," she whined.

"Ecus?" Dave scrunched his eyebrows up and unknowingly broke the vet’s thoughts. "What's that?"

"That," Equius sighed. "Is what she thinks my name is. She can talk, but not very well."

"Can too!" She whined louder.

"Of course, of course." He smiled and shook his head at Dave when she turned to look at him again.

"Hey Nep," he smiled. "Do you want to see some other trolls?"

Instantly she perked up and wiggled around. "Yes! Yes!"

Equius set her down carefully and she had to stretch up her arm so she could hold his hand. He looked down in question. "What?"

"Want you!" She smiled and pulled his hand. "See other me!"

He smiled gently. "Alright, alright. Calm down, we can go see the trolls."

She liked hearing the good news and tried pulling him into the house. Dave simply smirked at this and stepped aside to let them pass. "How's the guardian life suiting you?"

Equius gave him an exasperated look as part of the answer. "I didn't realize that trolls could speak so much."

"Karkles never gave me much trouble and Sollux was mostly upset." He paused. "Aren't you suppose to know these things anyway?"

"Somewhat." Equius grunted.

Karkat and Sollux were at the table with Dirk and Mr. Purple himself. Sollux was messing with his iPad before he realized that another troll was there. Once he did, he blinked quizzingly at Dirk then back at the troll. Karkat was already on top of the new intruder to their home and gasped while pointing at her. Cronus was already explained what was going on so he didn't really care all that much but waved to her regardless.

Nepeta was stunned at the trolls at the table. Equius was right! There were other trolls in the world. And they had grey skin! And horns! And yellow eyes! They were indeed like her! She smiled and stepped forward excitedly to greet them.

"Karkat, Sollux," Dave waved his hand over to Nepeta. "This is Nepeta. Remember her?"

"Olive!" Karkat smiled. "I remember it!"

"Nepet!" She whined, forgetting the last letter in her name. "Not olive."

"She is an olive blood though," Cronus nodded to Karkat. "'Least he got that right."

Nepeta blinked before letting go of Equius's hand. She hesitantly took a few steps over to where Cronus was sitting. He looked down at her with a quirked eyebrow. “What?”

She tilted her head and twitched her tail. She scrunched her nose, giggled, then pointed at his fins. “Smell funny.”

The eyebrow went straight back down and joined the other in a scowl. “Well, ain’t you a bit-”

“Cronus,” Dirk snapped. “Not here.”

The high blooded troll sighed deeply. The other two trolls were happily talking with her already though, Cronus forgotten already. Equius sat down at the table with Dave and Dirk. “Have you two seen what’s been happening lately in the news?”

“Yeah, with all the troll fightings rings?” Dave’s brother shook his head. “They’re getting harder to find according to the cop’s reports.”

“They’re apparently kidnapping trolls,” Equius sighed deeply. He looked over the table to Karkat and Nepeta playing on the ground, oblivious to their conversation. His heart began to speed up with anxiety. If something were to happen to any of the children…

After a few hours, Equius took a very tired Nepeta home. She was very happy to meet the other trolls, despite hanging out with mostly Karkat, or as Nepeta put it, “Karkitty.” She behaved in the car on the way back home, but that was due to her being asleep. Equius was in a good mood. Nepeta was finally happy and not upset to not being the only one in her world. She was even okay to leave. As long as she got to have more play dates with Karkitty and the other two, she was contempt on leaving.
No, Equius Zahhak was in a very good mood. His girlfriend and he were getting pretty serious, and he was okay with that. Cronus was in a healthy state, finally, and the same went for the other two trolls that he had treated. Nothing could ruin his mood. It seemed as though nothing could ruin his mood.

Until he heard the news reports on the radio as they were driving home. “Another two trolls go missing from the streets. Police are suspecting that the new troll fighting rings are related to these incidents. Any troll owners are cautioned to watch their pets closely to prevent any more activities arise. If you see any suspicious activities, the public is encouraged to alert the police.”

Equius shut off the radio and looked at Nepeta curled up in the seat next to him. She was smiling slightly and twitching her tail. Her hair was wildly out of shape and the near future almost guaranteed that it would stay like that. Equius sighed. He promised to protect her, make sure that nothing were to happen to her. If something did, he didn’t know what he would do.

Chapter Text

Three years later…

The course of three years changed Equius's opinion on mothers. He had no idea how hard children could be, especially trolls. Nepeta was a very wild child who loved the outdoors. Whenever she could she would sneak outside to climb the trees or to play in the mud. It had scared him at times the things she did, but the worst had to be when she had found a snake outside and tried to catch it.

Nepeta does not like snakes anymore.

Children were a tornado designed to make messes wherever they went. Their howling demands and pointless screaming filled the air at the most inconvenient time. Their fierce attitude was the strength that could break objects anywhere they went. Parents couldn't take shelter from them because they were the ones who had to clean it up or prevent it. A prime example would be when Equius decided to pour himself a glass of milk when he had put her down for her nap. Well, Nepeta decided that this was a 'purrfect' time for a sneak attack and silently creeped up on her caretaker.

She had seen the shiny reflection of the glass and tried to pull it down by tugging the table cloth down closer to her. Equius didn't even know that she was there until the glass shattered on the floor right next to Nepeta. He jumped, but the quick shock didn't compare to the fear that she had somehow gotten hurt. So, like any concerned guardian, he picked her up and checked her over. She didn't even get scared, she was just laughing and smiled.

"I did!" The young troll gloated to her confused, anxious caretaker. "Do again!"

He sighed. This troll was something, that's for sure.

And it didn’t stop there. Over time as she explored more of the world that surrounded her, he began to worry. She was so pure and innocent. How could he let her go out into a world that judged them as they walked by purely by what she was? They couldn't even go to the store without being judged so harshly. She didn’t notice it, but people would either be thrilled about meeting a real troll or give them disguised looks. He hoped the feeling would go away.

“It doesn’t,” Dave explained. “It gets better with time but every time you go out, you leave, they leave, it just gets worse.” He shrugged. “At least I have the male trolls, you get to deal with the future boyfriends.”

Equius decided that Nepeta was not allowed to date until she was thirty sweeps old, at the very least. No way was his little grub going to do anything of the sort until he decided she was ready.

And of course, Feferi thought that this was all very funny. She was the one who was helping Nepeta with her speech, the one who would watch her for a day or two if Equius got sick and couldn’t get her sick or take care of her properly. It was his girlfriend that suited the mother role in Nepeta’s life. And he couldn’t love her more for that aspect. It was not possible. Lately they had been getting very close with each other, to the point where she had brought up marriage.

“I know it’s usually the man who proposes, but we’ve been together for years now.” They were sitting on his couch in the afternoon. Nepeta was in her room getting things ready for her sleepover with Karkat they were suppose to go to soon. Feferi had thought that while she had a free moment with Equius she could ask about it, he rarely had any free time now. “Do you want to get married, Equius?”

He sighed deeply and kissed her forehead. “You know that I love you more than anything, Feferi. But,” he paused. “I don’t know if I can right now.”

She sat up with a knowing face. “Is it Nepeta?” When he nodded slightly, she caressed his head and pecked his lips. “You know that I’ll gladly move in, or you could move into my house. I can help take care of her. We couldn’t ever forget her, at all.”

“It’s not that. I’m just perturbed by how she will take the change.”

“Does she not like me?”

“No, no, she loves you. I just don’t know if she’ll realize how she’ll take it.” He ran a hand through his hair.

“She’s only what? A sweep?” Feferi asked. “Talk to her. She might not realize what’s going on, but it could work out in our favor. Besides, with me around I can help take care of her. I’ll be here to watch her when you’re working, I can go shopping with her, we can do lots of things together.”

He nodded and leaned his head on hers. “I’ll talk to her when I pick her up from the Striders' residence tomorrow. I don’t want to make her upset tonight.”

Feferi nodded and hugged him back. “It’ll be a yes from me, I hope you know.”

Silence soon after filled Nepeta’s sensitive ears as she sat on the steps with her overnight bag. She had been waiting for the two adult humans to finish their conversation like Equius had taught her was polite (whatever that meant) but now was worried. What was marriage? And why were they worried about her reaction to it? Her head tilted down with bad feelings filling her tummy. She wasn’t looking forward to anything now.

Nepeta was getting along with her life fairly well. She got to see Karkat a lot, which was always great. Equius was doing well in his job, so he was usually in a good mood. Feferi was there at their home a lot, recently she had been coming over more than ever before. Weirdly enough, Nepeta was left with Dave and Bro more and more as well. And with what she heard earlier, she was getting worried, what if they were going to get rid of her?

She brought it up with Karkat that day.

They were in his room with the blanket pile already thrown quite literally together. He was friends with her easily and they both spilled their feelings about what was going on around them. Well, as much as a sweep (and three quarters) old and a two sweep old could. Mostly it was just venting about how much they hated how Dave was acting at times when ‘it totally wasn’t my fault,’ or how Equius didn’t let her say some words that the other did.

But today was different. Today was about how she was beginning to think that Equius and Feferi were planning on getting rid of her. It wasn’t all that clear that they didn’t want her, it was more so on how she was being left behind or how they had ‘closed door moments’ that she was not allowed to disturb, as past conversations had taught her. Feferi even stayed the nights over the times Nepeta wasn’t allowed to! She didn’t like it at all, but lately she was getting scared.

They were suppose to be asleep a long time ago, but she desperately begged him to stay up and talk to her. They whispered to each other quietly on their pile and often ended up falling asleep thinking about what all was said. They aged differently than humans, but one and two seemed too young to be worried about abandonment.

“What do you mean they don’t want you anymore?” He asked with a concerned frown. “You still live with them, right?”

“Well, yeah,” she admitted. “But I mean they keep dropping me off here fur sleepovers a lot.” Her pronunciation had improved GREATLY over the two years, but she would still piss off Equius by slipping in cat puns that she loved to use. “And sometimes I hear them saying ‘what about nep?’ Like I’m not even there!” She hugged her white cat closer to her body and shut her eyes.

Karkat crossed his arms and scrunched his eyebrows together. “That’s not very nice.” They sat in silence for a minute or two before realization struck Karkat and he sat up with a gasp. “Where will you go if they DO get rid of you?”

The olive blood huffed. “I don’t know. I was thinking about being like a wild kitty and living in the woods!”

Karkat frowned and shook his head. “I dunno if that’s a good idea, Neppie.”

They sat in silence. Nepeta was wearing her oversized plain white shirt and some small shorts underneath. She wasn’t a fan of restricting clothes, which happened to be most of the girls’ departments at almost every store. She couldn’t stand them, which Feferi could not understand. Her tail had to have a hole in every pair of pants and was poking out right now. When she was uncomfortable, it would curl around her ankle. Currently it felt like it was going to chop it off from all the tight pressure it was under! Equius said it wouldn’t, but he also didn’t know all that much about trolls. She teased him about it a lot, but it was quickly becoming something that irritated him and forced him to check out books about trolls.

“Well, what should I do then?” She asked, clearly out of ideas. The sweep old only had so many ideas going through her wild head that she could actually do.

Karkat didn’t respond. It seemed like a full minute in the dark room before any sound come out. It was a contained curse from the room next to Karkat’s. Suddenly, Karkat had the solution to everything in the entire world. He shot up to his grey legs and stretched his hands to the ceiling in excitement. “I know, I know! We can talk to Mr. Purple!”

Nepeta tilted her head. “Why?”

“He’s the bestest, smartest guy I knows! We can talk to him about your thing!” Karkat smiled at her and grabbed her hand. “We have to be quiet though. Dave and Bro are sleepin’.”

Nepeta pursed her lips together. “Um….I guess.”

They quietly made their way from his room to Cronus’s across the hall. Tiny, grey hands reached up and managed to twist the handle, but weren’t able to push the door open at the same time. The two of them were too short to be able to do that feat. Karkat grunted with effort and continued to try and to push the door open. The purple blood must’ve realized that somebody was at the door, because all of a sudden the wooden separator flung open and the two trolls fell into the room.

“What're you guys doin'?” Cronus asked with an eyebrow raised.

“Nep has trouble!” Karkat filled him in.

“Yeah? Well, so do lots of people. What makes it different?” He crossed his arms and his face advertised amusement. "Ain't you suppose to be 'n bed anyway?"

"We can't! Nep needs help!" Karkat pointed at his conflicted friend. "Now!"

Cronus watched the two of them for a second before sighing. "Fine. Get in an' we'll talk."

The three of them entered his room, one that was a bit unfamiliar to Nepeta, but she did recall playing in here when she was younger. She and Karkat sat down on his bed and he leaned against the wall, waiting for one of the two to start talking. "Well? What is it?"

Nepeta sighed and lowered her head. "He's gonna make me leave."

Cronus stood up in surprise. "What? Who is? Zahhak?"

Nepeta nodded her head. "He don't want me anymore."

Cronus couldn't understand this at all. He knew for a fact that Equius loved Nepeta more than anybody. "Why d'ya say that?"

"I heard him say so." Nepeta's tail curled around her ankle dangling off the bed and she pet the fur as a distraction. "He and Feferi are gonna get together and leave."

Confusion now filled the purple troll's face. He didn't know what Nepeta meant, he knew that Equius and Feferi were getting pretty serious. But he didn't know what she meant by her leaving. "Why do you think that they're gonna leave ya, darlin'?"

"Beclaws!" Nepeta sighed in frustration. "They says he don't know how I'll react or if I be okay. Plus they keep having doors closed and groaning and stuff! Why can't I be with them?" Tears rolled down her face and her cheeks turned green. She didn't understand why she couldn't go with them, were they groaning about her? Were they fighting?

Cronus rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. With a deep sigh he turned to the two kids and cursed. "Well," he began, slowly turning purple, "Zahhak and Fef are just havin' sex. It's an adult thing, so they ain't gonna include ya."

Nepeta looked down and sighed. "But why is it an adult thing anyway?"

"I uh...don't know."

"What do you do?" Karkat peeped up with his own question.

Cronus groaned. This is what he gets himself into. "Look, sex is when two people who love each other, actually no. Sometimes it's better that they don't," he smirked to himself as he looked around the room actually. "And they just enjoy the other's body." He coughed awkwardly. "Equius and Feferi are doin' that. That doesn't mean they don' want you, Nep."

She shrugged. "I dunno."

A few minutes passed with two males staring at the youngest member of their crew. "Tell ya what," Cronus got up and sat next to Nepeta. "If they do leave ya, I'll take ya in. Fact, I'll take the four trolls here and we can go. Travel the world, 'kay?"

She nodded. "'Kay."

Cronus rubbed her back. "Good. Now go on squirts, I wanna sleep sometime tonight."

Nepeta hugged Cronus and jumped off the bed before running to the door, threw that open, then raced back to Karkat's room. Karkat turned to Cronus and gave him a smile. "Thanks Mr. Purple!"

Just a few seconds later, Karkat knew how to make his friend happy again. "Nepeta, I have an idea!" Karkat called to her. "It'll make you feel better too!"

"What?" Nepeta tilted her head.

"Let's have sex!"

"Yeah!" Nepeta beamed at him before a thought arose. "How do you do sex?"

Karkat stopped before flopping into his pile. "Well, Mr. Purple said that you just enjoy their body. So come here!"

Nepeta came up and snuggled down next to him. As soon as she was a bit more comfortable, he wrapped his arms around her. She nuzzled his cheek with the top of her head like a cat would, despite her horns being a bit sharp against his chubby cheek. Both of their hearts were beating faster than ever before. Her tail flopped back and forth, it was too scary being an adult.

"We doing it right?" Nepeta whispered out in the dark.

"I think so." Is this it? Are they now adults?

The two snuggled with each other for a few minutes more before Nepeta sighed out in happiness. "Sex is nice." Maybe that's why Equius and Feferi were groaning. They didn't want to separate from this! It was pretty comfortable.

The rest of the night was spent with the two innocent trolls having 'sex,' not realizing that they were just cuddling in a pile of blankets and pillows. The young trolls fell asleep like that. The night was very peaceful for them. Nothing came to terrorize them in their slumber, no loud sounds to disturb them, not even Dave's alarm clock woke the two. In the end, it was Sollux who woke them up.

"Get up, guys!" He exclaimed, opening the door. "Breakfast is ready!"

Nepeta yawned and rolled over onto her back. She reached out her arms with a relaxed groan and sighed softly once she felt her muscles being stretched out. She got up and shook her head back and forth to shake out anymore sleep she had left. Her friend got up onto his feet and rubbed his tired eyes. He had a different way of waking up, but that's okay. Nepeta figured it just how he was raised or something. Even if he came off of the streets...

Karkat turned to Nepeta and smiled at her. "Are you doin' better?"

She smiled and nodded at him. "Yup, yup!" A pause occurred before the two of them before they caught wiff of the waffle scent coming from outside his room in the kitchen. Immediately the two raced out of the room to be able to devour the sweet breakfast meal that awaited them.

Once they got there, they couldn't reach it fast enough, they climbed up into a chair at the table. Bro and Dave were working in the kitchen while Cronus sat at the chair by the window. He seemed deep in thought about something on his mind and gave off waves of energy that easily could be read by two illiterate toddlers that said: 'Do not distrub.' Sollux was watching him from the other side of the table, Ipad in his lap that was turned off at the moment.

"Hey guys," Bro commented from the kitchen sink. "Doctor Z and Feferi will be here in a few. They're gonna eat with us."

"Which means no sharp objects flying around the kitchen, Sollux." Dave spoke up. "Even if Cronus gets more food than you." Of course, this sparked a defensive argument from Sollux, but was ignored by the two toddlers. They were concerned only with the food and the people around it.

Once Equius and Feferi arrived, the food was ready to eat and was set out onto the table for everybody to grab their filling. Nepeta watched anxiously across the table at Equius and Feferi. The two of them were sitting side by side and were talking about whatever they were to Dave and Bro at the human side of the table. She could feel her heart beat wildly, along with the circulation in her ankle to slow down by the tail habit. She could barely hear what anybody was saying until Karkat grabbed her hand. She looked up to see his concerned face.

Cronus next to her spoke up to voice their concerns. "Hey, Nep. You okay after last night?"

She nodded glumly. "Yeah, I'll be okay."

"What happened last night?" Dave asked, grabbing another waffle from the center of the plate.

"Nep had a problem," Karkat smiled. "And Cronus helped us!"

"Did his help work at all?" Feferi smiled gently over at the purple-blood. "Cronus is very smart."

She lifted herself up a bit at that and nodded. "Definitely! And then Karkitty and I listened to him!"

"Yeah? What'd you do?" Cronus sat up straighter. He expected any second now for her to spill out about she was wrong about being abandoned or something, how he was very helpful in her life, how he was right-

"Karkitty and I did sex!"

-about to be punched by Equius Zahhak.

Dave choked on his waffle, Bro watched on in silent shock, Feferi gasped and her hand went straight to her mouth, Sollux only blinked in confusion. But Equius, poor, strong, Equius was not at all amused.

"You told her to do WHAT?"

Cronus stood up quickly and backed up a few steps. He held up his hands in surrender and shook his head. "I didn't tell her nothing! I never said that!"

"But you said how Doctor Zack and Feferi do sex." Karkat piped up, missaying the vet's name accidentally. "And they enjoy the other's body. So we did." The two humans blushed heavily, Feferi covered her face and Equius put on his poker face from the embarrassment.

"What exactly did you say?" Bro chided him.

"Nevermind that, what did they do?" Feferi turned to the kids. "What did you guys do exactly?"

"We enjoyed each others body." Karkat muttered and furrowed his brows. "Did we do something bad?"

"Are we in trouble?" Nepeta joined him in worry of being punished.

"Just tell us what you did," Equius sighed, still glaring at Cronus.

"We sat in the pile and hugged each other." Karkat blinked. "And slept like that."

"Did you do anything except hug?"

"No," Nepeta sniffed. "I don't know what we did-"

"Nothing." Equius cut in. "But I would like to speak to Cronus for a moment in his room."

After everything was figured out, Feferi talked to Nepeta and Karkat about how sex is for adults only because it can be very tricky if kids do it too young and they'll learn much more about it later, but until then they shouldn't half to worry about it. Dave had apologized all over the place about what had happened and Bro had assured the two other humans that it would not happen again at all. However, because Cronus had reiterated what he had said, another problem arose for Equius and Feferi.

They had buckled Nepeta into the car and were on their way home. Nepeta felt awful and confused. Plus she didn't want anything to change and had a feeling that things were going to change very soon, regardless of what she wanted. Equius and Feferi hadn't said anything at all so far, which was a very bad sign that a talk was going to take place. To try and take her mind off of it, she watched the scenery blur by her window.

"Nepeta," Equius looked up in the mirror to glance at her for a second. "Cronus had said that you thought we were going to get rid of you. Is this true?"

Tears sprung to her eyes. She couldn't say anything. If she did, then she would start crying and she didn't know if she would be able to stop when that happened. Not with something like this.

Equius had figured that tears plus silence equals yes, so he went on. "Nepeta, do you know what marriage is? It is when two people love each other very much and want to spend their lives together. It is a ceremony for that occasion, it is very special to humans."

"Equius and I want to get married, Nepeta." Feferi said. "I will move in with you guys, or you guys might move in with me. But we are not going to get rid of you."

"We will never get rid of you," Equius promised. "I will sooner give up my practice license than even consider letting you out of my life."

Nepeta sobbed. Tears were streaming down her face and her heart was torn between feeling like it was in her gut and like it was flying from relief. "No change?"

"Well," Equius sighed. "There will be a little change, but not much. Feferi will be in our lives much more and live with us. Like how you live with me." He let there be a pause for her to think about this before asking her what she thought about it.

"That's okay." Nepeta shrugged. He did so much to make her happy, she can make him happy too, right?

Later that night, Equius had told Feferi that he needed to spend the night alone with Nepeta. She had completely understood and left a little after with no complaint whatsoever. He knew that Nepeta had watched Feferi leave, but from where he had no idea. It seemed as though Nepeta had more knowledge of what was going on around his house than he did himself.

“Nepeta,” he called out. “Come on now. We have to go to bed. It is getting very late.”

No response.
“Nepeta,” he groaned. Why did it have to be like this so many nights? “Come on. Please. I’ll let you sleep with me tonight and I’ll read you any story you want.”

It was when silence answered him again he began the search. He would usually look under tables or behind couches, but he could not find her for the life of him. She was good at hide and seek, but wasn’t usually this good. “Nepeta?” He called. “Where are you?”

When silence responded for the third time, he went upstairs and saw her door closed. Concern filling his features, he gently walked down to her room and opened the door. Inside, on the floor, was a sweep old troll who was currently crying. She had her pajamas on and her white cat next to her as if it tried to offer any type of support it could give. Her back was to the door, but that still couldn’t block the sobs wracking her frame. It broke his heart.

“Nepeta,” Equius cooed and kneeled next to her. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head and turned away.

He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. She didn’t shake it off or react to it, so he guessed that she sought out some form of comfort. For the thousandth time since he got caught up in all this troll business, he wished desperately for some way to be better with emotions. Sadly though, his wish was denied. Nepeta sobbed again and again his heart broke.

He scooped her up in his muscular arms and picked her up. She curled into him and pressed her face into his chest. It broke his heart to even know that something so precious to him could be in this much pain, especially at this age.

He took her to his room and gently placed her on his bed. He lied down next to her only to be glomped by tiny arms. Nepeta quickly buried her head into him, her horns poking his sides painfully. It hurt like a bitch, but Equius didn’t say a word. He only rubbed her back comfortingly to let her cry this out. Once she had slowed down, he asked her again what was wrong.

At first, she said it so quietly he couldn’t hear what she was saying. But after a minute, his ears finally caught what she was saying: “I don’t wanna be furgotten.”

“I already told you, we won’t let you out of our lives. Why do you think that we will? Did I say something?” Oh if it was he something he said, he couldn’t forgive himself. Not if it caused this big of a problem.

She shook her head no. He sighed out in relief. “Then what is it?”

It took a few seconds before she continued. “I’m scared that you won’t love me anymore.” At his confused and shocked look, she went on quickly. “Beclaws you’ll love Fefuri more.”

Equius shook his head and slightly tilted her head up so he could see more of the troll he loved most. “Nepeta, you could never put into words on how I feel for you. I will always love you in a very special way. No one, not even Feferi, could ever make that feeling go away.”

“Even when you get marry?”

“Not even when we get married. Once we do, you’ll stay with Karkat for a week, but I swear that as soon as I get back from that you and I will not be changed at all.”

She held up at tiny finger. “Pinky purromise?”

He took it in his massive finger and curled his around hers. “Pinky promise.”

They lied there comfortably for a few minutes, Nepeta finally feeling relief.

“Oh shoot. Nepeta, I must apologize, I forgot something.” He whispered to her.

“What?” She whispered back.

“I forgot that I can’t meet up with you once I get back,” he pauses for effect. “if you can’t breathe.” He quickly reached his hand out to begin tickling her. She laughed and squirmed back, tears long forgotten.

She pushed on his back and kicked with her legs to try and get an advantage, but to no avail. His arm was much too long for her to get away from him in time. The two of them continued to tickle or be tickled for quite some time and by the end of it, they were both out of breath from laughing so much. Nepeta jumped onto his chest and looked down at him.

“Thank you, Equius.”

He smiled and rubbed her head lovingly. “Of course. Now, let’s sleep.” She jumped down off of him only to turn right back around and snuggle up to his chest. He rested his arm around her protectively. “Goodnight, Nepeta.”

“Night, Equius.” She yawned and closed her eyes. It wasn’t too long before the darkness reached her and she fell asleep deeply for the night.

Chapter Text

A few weeks later, Nepeta was reassured that nothing would happen to her once the two humans she lived with got married. Of course, Equius hadn't proposed quite yet, but she noticed that he was being very nervous at times when Feferi was around. And he would start to propose, but soon back out of it and simply do something else. Like the other night, they were having dinner at his house. Nepeta was sitting next to Equius, who was sweating very badly. He had already taken off his coat and was about to go through his shirt. He had all of a sudden gotten down on one knee in front of where Feferi was sitting and she gasped all happily, but he had only just gotten down to tie his shoe.

Nepeta was getting impatient. She wanted to see what Equius was going to do. Of course, he had talked about doing it one night to Nepeta when he was helping her getting dressed. When the time came, however, he turned chicken again and did nothing. She wasn't the only female getting impatient, Feferi wasn't impressed either. She was getting very tired of waiting. Her soon to be fiance kept making it seem like he was going to propose, but he never would. It was getting to the point of her wanting to do it herself. At least that was it would be over with and they would be able to get married.

"Nepeta," Feferi came inside the vet's house one day when he was gone shopping. He had asked her to go watch the troll for a few minutes until he got back. "I'm here."

Feferi went into the kitchen to set her stuff down on the counter. She heard some small feet pounding down the stairs. Any second, she would come into the kitchen and playfully tackle her...What was Feferi to Nepeta? Equius was her guardian, would she be her co-guardian? Friend?

Small horns poking her side snapped her out of her thoughts on what she was to the small troll. Nepeta was already there, hugging Feferi around her side. "Hiya!" Nepeta smiled as she took a step back. "Whatdya wanna do?"

"Well, I don't know. Do you have any ideas?" Feferi crouched down to Nepeta to meet her on eye level.

Nepeta nodded enthusiastically. "Guess!"

Feferi made a playful face. "Shopping?"

Nepeta shook her head with a grimace on her face. "No way!"

"Swimming?"

"Nope!"

"What is it, Neppie?" Feferi gave in. "What does the infamous troll want to do today?"

The olive-blood smiled devilishly.

Feferi knew that grin. That grin only meant that Nepeta had something up her sleeve that shouldn't be. "Nepeta, we don't have very much time until Equius will be here. In fact," she muttered to herself as she took out her phone. "I think he's on his way now. T-minus three minutes or so." She put it back in her purse. But when she turned back to Nepeta, the troll was gone. "Nepeta? Come on, we don't have any time for games. Equius will be here soon."

"Come get me!" Nepeta called from somewhere upstairs.

Feferi sighed. The swimming session she had last night was way too hard on her body for this. "Okay." She groaned. "I'm coming." She forced her legs to move up the dreaded stairs that made her muscles groan from the movement. Once she had finally gotten to the top of the stairs, Nepeta wasn't anywhere in sight. "Equius will be home in just a second. Do you really think he wants to find you as soon as he gets through the door?"

No response. Feferi should've guessed it would be like this. Nepeta loved to play hide and seek and would play it at the most horrible, inconvenient times. Feferi mostly just walked around the rooms, not really looking for her. She was tired, hungry, and did not want to play. If Nepeta wanted to hide for a while and give her silence, fine. She wouldn't mind the quiet for a minute. She loved the troll, but kids could be taxing.

Feferi glanced out the window for a minute like a bored kid in school. She longed to daydream like she used to, but she was too old for it. Instead she only saw the grey car that Equius drove pull into the driveway. Game time was finally over. "Okay, Nepeta. Time's up. Equius is home."

No movement or response at all from upstairs. Usually when Equius was home he would get a full on tackle, no restraint at all was in Nepeta's limps when she was pouncing on her favorite person. But this time, nothing. Feferi was about to call out again when she heard feet run downstairs and a door slamming open. She quickly jogged down the stairs only to see Nepeta running opposite of where Equius was into the yard.

"Nepeta?" Her boyfriend asked. When Nepeta didn't stop and kept running, out of the yard, down the street-the two humans quickly saw the problem. "Nepeta!" Equius called out again. She was running away!

Feferi began running after her, Equius joining her as soon as he had thrown the keys in the house. Nepeta lived to run through the woods, the car was no good in chasing her down. It would be more of a hinder than an advantage. The two also discovered that while Feferi was a swimmer, she was not a runner. Equius didn't run all that much and was no match for the endless amount of energy that Nepeta had, so the two of them were very slow compared to her. At one point during the chase, just as the two were gaining on her, she dropped to all fours and began to sprint on.

"Are you glubbing kidding me?" Feferi groaned and tried to pick up the pace.

"Nepeta," Equius bellowed. "Get back here, now!"

She paused for a second, she recognized that tone of Equius's as the 'you-are-in-so-much-trouble-be-afraid' tone, but couldn't stop. She had a job to do and if she stopped now, they would never get there! So, waiting until they were a good fifty feet from her, she turned around again and kept running.

The two humans were getting very nervous. People didn't always have the respect for trolls like they did and could possibly hurt her. What's more is that it was starting to get pretty dark, the streetlights were turning on, birds were going back to their nests for the night, people to their houses. If she were to be kidnapped, it would be very bad news for everybody.

Eventually, they realized where she was leading them. She was running to the park where they would walk her to on some days when they had the time, and the energy, to do so. But instead of it being a normal occasion for her, this was different. She completely ignored the jungle gym she lived to play on. It was what she thought she was born to do. Instead, she kept running to the bridge where some figures were standing.

"Nepeta, wait!" Equius called again. Fear was gripping his heart too tightly for him to even breathe. If any of the people dared to touch her, they were going to be very hurt very badly. But all the same, if she got hurt….

But instead of the figures hurting her, one ducked down and picked her up. Equius charged forward with a bit more energy, Feferi struggling to keep up. As they got closer, the figures became more and more recognizable. Two humans had glasses covering their eyes and blonde hair to shine light off of.

"Took ya long enough!" Bro laughed.

Equius and Feferi stopped running and began to pant heavily. They shared confused glances with each other before turning back to the others in front of them and gave them dumbfounded expressions.

"What?" Equius huffed out. "What are you talking about?"

Dave laughed and shifted Nepeta in his grip. She was laughing and smiling like no other and sighed happily. "She," Dave explained, "made a great plan for us. We had her run from you guys so you'd end up here."

"But what for?" Feferi asked, still out of breath.

"Turn around." Bro suggested.

As the two turned, they were shocked with amazement. Candles lined up the bridge handrails behind them, all lit and giving a soft glow of orange light that lit the air up. Below the candles resting were delicate red and white rose petals that gave off a beautiful aroma to the area. At the end of the bridge were two more figures, one with a guitar that was playing a gentle song, the other was softly humming along to the song. They were standing under a tree that was now lit up due to the bright white Christmas lights wrapped around the branches. All of it was just...right. Suddenly, the two lovebirds had left the dull park that Nepeta loved to play into a utopia of love where everything else seemed pointless and dull.

"Well, you two." Dave spoke behind them. He gently took the two hands of two different people and connected them. "I believe you are wanted over there."

Feferi smiled up at Equius and he did the same. He took a few steps forward with his love as the music player began to sing. As soon as the words had been said, the two realized who was waiting at the end of the bridge. Cronus and Jade were there, both singing the lyrics of a very romantic song that always made Equius and Feferi think of the other: Can't help falling in love.

"Wise man say, only fools rush in," Cronus and Jade sang together in perfect harmony. "But I can't help falling in love with you."

Slowly, Cronus came up to Equius, who was only a few feet away. He handed him something square into his hand and gently pushed his hand back to his side. He winked at the vet and stepped back to continue to sing with Jade. Equius began to blush, but now he knew that this was the perfect timing.

"Equius, oh my gosh, are they," Feferi gasped. She felt his hand turn and she turned her body to look at him. He was on his knee, opening the box that contained the most beautiful ring she had ever seen. It was a silver band that proudly displayed an indigo gem in the middle. It was the color of his eyes, the color that would appear in the ocean water on just the right nights, when the pure white moon shown above it, when everything was in perfect alignment. It was the shade of blue that to most people seemed meaningless, but was the color of love to her, her most beloved shade. The color that made her heart melt every time she saw it. It was his color.

"Feferi Peixes," Equius smiled nervously. "Four years ago, I had accepted your dinner date request. I never thought that a simple sandwich shop and a movie could begin the spark of something so incredibly amazing, that I would be kneeling to the most wonderful and brilliant person I have ever known. It had only been the first night of many, just like tonight that started something so big. And now I ask you, to continue this marvelous privilege of loving you and marry me." He took her trembling hand into his. "Feferi, my love. Will you give me the honor to marry you?"

She couldn't speak. No words would obey her thoughts and speak aloud. All she could manage was to collapse into his awaiting arms and kiss him.

Nepeta smiled in Dave's arms from across the bridge. "Thank you fur helping." She whispered to her friend.

"It was a good idea, Nep. If you get anymore, you know where to call."

She giggled and turned to watch her caretaker and his now fiance kiss each other under the tree they set up that day. It was tricky to plan this out and everything could've gone wrong. He couldn't caught her and they never make it, somebody actually catching her. The list could go on, but her young mind didn't focus on that. Instead, it began to focus on the feeling of being watched. But when she turned to look around, she found nothing. The only suspicious thing she saw was a parked red truck across the field. And it didn't have any humans in it at all. There wasn't anything for her to be afraid of, besides, she was the mighty huntress! She could take anything on and come out okay.

…couldn't she?

On average, weddings are a pain to plan. They can take anywhere from four to eighteen months to plan, depending on what you want. Feferi and Equius's wedding was to take a year to wait and plan. They would have it at a club that Feferi's father belonged to. It over viewed a lake and had beautiful fields to play in. It was perfect.

Well, maybe the idea of it was. But in actuality, things were far from being anything related to perfect. Nepeta was okay with a little bit of change now, like Feferi coming over almost all day everyday. But more and more she was being left alone or forgotten in the midst of wedding day plans. And she was far from being okay with this anymore.

Take that day for example. Equius and Feferi were on the couch downstairs while they thought that she was asleep or something. She was watching the clock tick by and sighed for the thousandth time that hour. Today was her second wriggling day. She would turn two and she was beginning to think that Equius had forgotten. It was already way past lunch time and she still hadn't even been told anything. Actually, she recalled him telling her good morning earlier.

Carefully, she went down the stairs to see two heads talking quietly together. As she got closer, she could see they were holding something in their hands. It looked like a book, but it only had pictures in it. Adults didn't really read books with no pictures, Nepeta knew that. Why were they doing that?

"Equius?" The two heads turned to her. Just as fast, her confidence went away. She had hoped to make him realize what he did wrong, but maybe he could remember with a slight nudge. "Do you meow what today is?" She asked hopeful.

He scrunched his eyebrows together. "I believe it is Wednesday, the twenty-third of July. Is there a reason why you need to know?"

Her heart sunk and she shook her head with tears pricking her eyes. "No. I wanna go play outside. Is that okay?"

He nodded and turned back to the picture book they were looking at. Nepeta went out the back door and closed it gently behind her. She had to rub her eyes to stop the tears from coming out. She knew that this would happen. She knew it!

Equius had forgotten her. She knew he was happy, is not a bit stressed, but he promised her that he would remember her and he wouldn't stop loving her. If he forgot, does that mean he doesn't love her anymore as well?

You know what. Enough was enough. If he didn't remember, then she would go to somebody she knew would. And he loved her just as much as any other troll. They were best friends after all and Cronus had promised her that he would take them around the world! It'd be better than that dumb old veterinarian clinic anyway.

With lots of effort and climbing, Nepeta swung herself over the wooden fence of her backyard. She landed in part of her front yard where she knew that she couldn't be seen no matter what window or angle you were at. Her two sweep old mind had to think hard to remember where exactly Karkat lived. She knew the location okay, but the way to get there was a bit harder.

She had to think about the way they drive to get there. She couldn't see out of the car very well, but could still feel the movements when she wasn't sleeping.

"Here I come," she smiled and began running. She wasn't wearing any shoes at the time and her feet were not liking the feeling of the hot concrete at all. Luckily, the pads of her feet helped a bit to prevent any burns.

Nepeta was walking for what seemed like hours. She wondered if Equius even realized that she was gone from the backyard. She hoped so. She hoped that he felt sooooo bad about it and was crying about how she was gone.

...but at the same time, she really hoped that he wasn't. It was a conflicting feeling that had only made her feel worse. Maybe she should turn around and go home. That way Equius wouldn't worry anymore and maybe he remembered that today was worth celebrating. However as soon as she turned around to start walking home, she realized something very important.

She didn't know where she was anymore.

She realized with horror that she was completely and utterly lost. The green blood was sure that she had known the way there, but nothing looked familiar anymore!

Panic struck the lost troll as she whipped her head back and forth trying to find something, anything, that looked familiar in any way, shape, or form. Her heart was beating way too fast for this to be healthy at all. She could barely focus on anything anymore. She regretted coming this far, she regretted trying to leave, she wanted to take it all back, do it all over again. This wasn't fair, she was too scared for this and she was so lost that she didn't even know where she was! All she wanted to do was to find Equius again.

"Hey!" A voice called out. Nepeta didn't answer in her state of panic, so the voice's owner made their way over to her. "Hey," they said much softer. "Are you okay?" Nepeta peeked out from behind her bangs to look at the human. The human smiled pitifully at her. "Are you okay?" They asked again, a bit more softly this time.

She shook her head and crouched. "'M lost."

He looked around for an owner. Surely trolls needed to be on leashes, especially one this small. He figured that she was pretty young since she was so small and she was so panicked by the event that had happened.

"Hey, it's okay. It's okay. What's your name?" The man asked. "Mine is James."

Nepeta peered out at him. He seemed nice enough. Maybe he could even get her home! With the thought of returning home she slowly got out of her crouched position onto her knees. "Nepeta," she told the man(now known as James.

"Well, Nepeta. Where's your owner? Trolls shouldn't be out on their own."

Owner?

Nepeta didn't think she had an owner. At least, not that she was aware of. Was Equius her owner? He never called himself her owner, he always said that he was her caretaker, guardian, or friend. She was so confused that all she could do was slowly shake her head in thought. "Don't think so." She muttered.

James frowned slightly. He wasn't for troll rights and only saw them as pets. But all the same, he couldn't leave her there. She would be taken away or something. Before he did anything, he needed to know more about this troll. "Well, do you have a home?"

She nodded at that. She was sure that she had a home! She was happy enough to get a question right that when James had reached out to take her hand, she didn't remember what Equius said about strangers: don't trust them or go anywhere with them. She only remembered that as James was buckling her into his car and by then it was too late. Nepeta found herself being taken away by a stranger.

A feeling of uncertainty filled her gut along with a cold finger touching her back. "Um, mister?" She asked, not being able to see out of her window. "Where are we going?"

"Somewhere safe, sweetie. Don't worry."

She worried.

A little bit after he had strapped her in, he pulled up into a parking lot. He parked the car and helped Nepeta out of her seat before holding her hand again (only her 'furiends' get to pick her up and hold her) to walk her inside. The building there looked pretty clean and had a kitty on the sign, which made Nepeta feel a bit better. On the inside, there weren't any animals that Nepeta could see, which made no sense. If there was a kitty on the sign, where were all the animals?

James began to talk with the lady at the desk and often used her name. She didn't quite understand what they were saying, something about registrations and licenses and stuff. James still had his hand in hers, which she was okay with, but liked Equius's hand more. At the memory of her large friend's hand, she felt the fear bubble up in her tummy. She didn't like that he was so far away from her and she knew by now he had to notice her being gone. The sun was high up in the sky when she had left and now it was getting dark. Guilt for leaving and making him worry, fear for when she could go home, and regret for ever leaving in the first place all filled her body and made her want to throw up. Her tail wrapped around her ankle again.

Suddenly, James picked her up and placed her on the counter. "Okay, sweetie. They're gonna take care of you from here, alright?" She scrunched up her eyebrows. What did that mean? "It was nice to meet you." He rubbed her wild hair before turning and leaving.

Now even more emotions filled her. Why was he leaving? Why wasn't she going with him? What was going to happen now?

The lady at the counter gently pat her head. "It's okay." She cooed. "We'll find your owner. Now, let's go to the back and get you settled, yeah?"

Once again, Nepeta was picked up from the counter and was taken around the corner of the desk. She watched with interest on where they were going but couldn't really get all that much with her head being held to only look behind them. The only time she was able to look in front of them was when she was set down. But instead of it being a room or something more comfortable, like she expected, she had been set down in a cage. The lady stepped out from the cage and had closed to door behind her. With not another word or explanation what was going on, the lady left and did not come back.

The cage wasn't very big. Only about the size of a small walk in closet. She was able to walk around freely if she so choose to do so, with the cages being high reaching fences, but all the same, she did not like this. In the cage there were some chewed up toys, a bowl of water, and a questionable towel. The floor was a cold concrete that froze her bare feet. She quickly went up to the got and began shaking it.

"Hey," She yelled. "Lemme out of here!" Tears started to blur her vision when nobody answered. "Let me out," she sobbed again, choking on the last word. She sat down, back against the fence," and pulled her legs up to her chest. She leaned down a bit to rest her head on her knees and put her arms around her head. She began to cry out of everything that had happened that day. All she wanted was to go home...

What seemed like hours dragged by to Nepeta. She eventually had worn herself out and was sleeping when the door to the front opened. The lady from last night took out a bag of food from a closet that created the surrounding dogs in other cages to bark. Nepeta flinched. She wasn't a big fan of dogs already, she didn't need to have them barking in her sensitive ears. The lady filled up from bowls and slid them under the cages.

When Nepeta received hers, she looked back up at the lady. "What's this?"

The lady jumped, as if not expecting her to talk. "That's, uh, breakfast." She answered curtly. "You get two meals a day."

Nepeta frowned. "What about lunch?"

"You don't get lunch," the lady answered.

Nepeta huffed and picked up a piece of kibble. It had a weird texture to it, like it was covered in dust. Her stomach growled hungrily, but she didn't dare eat the 'food' they served here. She was beyond hungry, she hadn't eaten since breakfast the previous day and was starting to really feel it. Equius would've given her food, anything, by now. And if not she could've gone to Feferi to get something to eat.

Feferi...Maybe Nepeta was being too harsh on Fef. Sure, she had taken the attention away from her multiple times, but she made Equius happy. Plus she did a bunch of stuff with Nepeta too, so maybe she wasn't all that bad. Her thoughts didn't expand much onto it, she would later in years, but not while she was this young. Her mind simply wasn't mature enough.

A bit later, a new lady came around and played with all the dogs and such. Nepeta hesitated, before walking over to her fence wall and pulled on it a few times to get the lady's attention. "When do I get to go home?" Nepeta asked over the barks.

"You have a home?" The lady asked, clearly surprised by this news.

"Yeah, don't you?" Nepeta thought maybe the woman lived here with the dogs. It'd explain why she smelled like that at the very least.

The woman smiled a bit and walked out of the dogs' cage. She made her way over to Nepeta's opened it, and walked inside. She crouched down, not minding that Nepeta had backed up a bit from nerves. "We only knew that you came in last night. I didn't know that you had a home or could speak."

Nepeta blinked at her. Didn't all trolls and humans talk? Why was this place so weird?

"Do you know the phone number there?"

The olive troll shook her head. Equius had tried to teach her, but the numbers were just too confusing. The lady frowned at her answer and she cursed herself for not trying harder to memorize the nine digit number.

"Well, do you know any names? Maybe I can look them up in the phone book."

Nepeta knew that one! A bit of joy seeped into Nepeta as she told the lady her caretaker's name. The lady nodded her head and told her that she would be back in a bit when she called the Zahhak number.

When she came back, she had a smile on her face. "Good news, he picked up. He said that he'll be here in a few minutes to take you home." She reached through the hole in the fence and pat Nepeta's head. "You're going home."

Nepeta beamed at this and jumped around in her small cage. She was so excited to see Equius again, she could not wait! She tried to sit down and wait, but her body's energy level prevented this. She had to walk around or do some form of small exercise in order to be a bit more comfortable.

When the door to the front world opened again, she hit the fence with the force of her running speed, but to her confusion it wasn't Equius. The man that appeared certainly looked like Equius. And he did not work here, the dogs backed away from their cages when he passed by. The man was tall, if not a bit taller than Equius. His arms bulged with muscles, much like her version of Zahhak. He had long, black hair, a square jaw and face set, strong everything, and was wearing the facial expression of annoyance.

She backed away from the gate opening. She didn't know who he was, but he gave off the impression that she should be nervous around him. He squat down to meet her eye level and she swore that she heard him growl. The two of them stayed like that, frozen with fear and annoyance with the other until Nepeta broke it.

"Do you meow Equius?"

"Equius," the man had a very deep voice that rumbled. "Is my son."

As she would find out later, the shelter she was at had an outdated phone book. At the time it was printed, Equius was living with his father in college. So the only 'Zahhak' number available was his. And unfortunately enough, he had been the one to answer his phone and be demanded to come down and pick up his troll. The father of Equius should have just let the troll be and give it up. No son of his needed to have an animal, but he needed to talk to his son anyway. Having given away his troll would not be an acceptable conversation starter, thus he went.

He had taken care of all the paperwork that was needed and even went to the extreme and paid for the fee of taken care of Nepeta. But he still bore the face of an extremely upset man. Nepeta was very nervous around him and wanted to ask about Equius, but she didn't dare. Not when he was like this.

Once all of the paperwork was finished and everything was set to go, the man grabbed Nepeta by her arm and walked out of the shelter, not paying attention to Nepeta's struggles or complaints of the pain. Once outside of the building, Nepeta realized how early it was. The sky was still a bit pink from the sunrise, the air still smelled a bit like dew on the plants, the birds only just waking up. The traffic jams also filled her ears and made her heart beat just a bit more. How long was she there? How long did she make Equius worry…?

"Equius," his father barked into his phone. "I have something at yours from the shelter. Get over here now," he growled and hung up. Nepeta's ears laid flat against her head and her tail slightly curled in towards herself. No wonder Equius was so stingy sometimes, being raised by this man.

Equius's father looked down at her with disgust. "Why my son got you, I don't know. But I must ask, what blood are you." He didn't say it like it was a question and Nepeta took a second longer to answer. "Olive," the father spat. "I cannot believe that. I cannot fathom the fact as to why he wanted such a disgusting mistake in his life."

Nepeta flinched. She tried so very hard not to cry, but that was nearly impossible. Especially when he went on.

"At the very least he should've gotten a blue blood or at least something worth the air."

She wanted to run up to Equius's car as it turned into the parking lot a few minutes later, but was still trapped in Equius's dad's hand. His grip was crushing her arm very literally and she whimpered. Once Equius had gotten out of his car, he began to run over to where Nepeta was.

She smiled slightly for him, but was still weary of her captor. And she turned out to be right when the ground was suddenly rushed up to her face. She didn't have time to reach out to stop herself from falling, so her head hit the black road full force. She could feel the scrapes forming on areas over her body and pouted. She was able to get up on her own, but welcomed the feeling of her best friend and guardian's hands on her small arms to help her up.

"I believe that thing is yours."

Equius growled under his breath and picked up the shaking Nepeta. He knew that she had to be freak out. And even more so with the fact that his monster of a father had picked her up. She wrapped her arms around him tightly and dug her face into his chest. He could feel her crying slightly and sent his heart out to her. This was not okay. Not in his book, not okay.

"'That thing' has a name. Her name is Nepeta." Equius growled. He glared at the man. "Apologize. You pushed her down for no reason whatsoever."

"Why would I apologize to something that won't understand?" He shook his head. "Why would you even want a thing that vile? I can't comprehend it."

"Because she understands much more than you ever could and you have to feel sorry for yourself because of your pitiful life," Equius snapped. "You don't ever treat her with such a force again, do you comprehend that?"

His father's facial expressions turned sour and he began yelling at his son. Equius began yelling back, but kept one calm hand on Nepeta's back, gently petting her. He was furious with his male parental unit for treating her like that, but also was releasing all the worry and stress he had gotten from the second he realized she was gone. He didn't know what he would do if she was actually gone. There were some very cruel people in the world that he didn't even want to think about. He was glad that she was safe, but he was also worried about what she encountered.

Trolls were not viewed the same as humans and were often treated like animals. Yet they could go to school, read, speak, they could do everything a human could do. Maybe in some ways they could do it better too.

Whatever the case, Equius and his father soon finished their argument. His father had been wanting to know what Equius was getting up to now that he was taking large sums out of the bank recently and now he knew why, his son was engaged. He seemed to be a little happy, but was just glad that now he could expect actual peace and quiet. Once he was gone in his own car, Equius wouldn't leave without him going first, he went to the grey car and strapped Nepeta in.

"Are you alright?" He asked her in a worried tone. "No broken bones or anything?"

"I'm hungry." She yawned. "And tired. And thirsty."

He nodded. "Well get you all the essentials once we arrive back home. And we will be having a talk about your actions once we get there."

"Eq," She stopped him for a second. "Yesterday was my wriggling day." She was so exhausted that she didn't have any energy left for nerves and had to get it out in the open so he might be able to see what she was thinking.

His face twisted into regret and he rubbed his face. She could barely hear him, but he cursed. This made her surprised. He never cursed, ever. He climbed into the car and sat down in the seat next to her. He grabbed her hand tightly in his own. "Nepeta," He began softly. "I cannot express my level of sorrow for what I had forgotten."

She said nothing. She didn't really know what to say. He looked really upset. The vet reached up and took off his glasses, then rubbed his eyes. He looked really tired, like he didn't sleep at all last night. He didn't sleep? She looked around the car, not knowing where exactly she should look.

"But I thought you weren't gonna furget me?"

He sighed deeply. "I didn't mean to. I guess that I was just wrapped around my own selfish desires I forgot to care for you." He turned to her. "But that is going to change right now. I promise, Nepeta, I will do my best to make sure that you're safe and happy."

For whatever reason, that made her heart fly. It brought her all the happiness the last day should have. If she could, she would have reached out and hugged him, but the damned seat belt was making sure that she wouldn't be able to. Instead she gave him a toothy smile and furgave him instantly.

She didn't know it at the time, but as she looked back on it in future years, she would realize that this was the first moment that she had shared with her moirail. It was her first pale feeling she ever received. And what made it even more spectacular was that even more were to follow it.

Chapter Text

After months and months of harsh fighting, tough decisions, multiple family visits that everybody dragged, some things were made final about the upcoming ceremony. The wedding was going to be held outside, with flowers everywhere. Tress would have lights hung up in them to light up the dusk when it turned dark. The bridesmaids would wear a soft purple color, the combination of both of the humans’ favorite colors. Feferi’s hair would be curled slightly, but mostly wavey with some glitter sprayed into it. Equius would also be wearing a blue tie along with his best men. The ring bearer would be Karkat and the flower girl, of course, would be Nepeta. All the trolls they knew were coming, they would even have their own seat section if they wanted. All the invitations were sent, most replied they were in fact, coming to the wedding of a lifetime. The only problem was:

“Don’t wanna!”

Nepeta.

“But Nepeta,” Feferi held the dress in front of her in a mirror. “Look how cute it is!”

“No!”

Nepeta didn’t like a list of things. Dogs were on the list, along with the color purple, girly clothes, not being able to rough house, and more that irritated the humans greatly. The dress was a small, purple dress that had flowers and jewels sewn into it, making it very girly. The fabric was also very shiny, making Nepeta just itch to wrestle in it. But that, of course, was not allowed. In total, the dress had at least three things on the list. Despite her love of the number three, this was far from okay.

Feferi sighed and ran her hand through Nepeta’s long hair. She knew what was going to happen next when she spoke of it, but she had to say it anyway. “It matches what your makeup is going to be.”

“Makeup too?” She whined and flopped her tail against the ground pathetically. “Whyyyyyy?” Her small voice carried out the ‘y’ that nearly drove Feferi to another sigh.

“Neppie, I thought you liked dress up.”

She scrunched her eyebrows together. “Yeah when I can be me in it!” The green-blooded troll rolled her eyes. “Next you’re gonna tell me they’re gonna touch my hair.”

Oh shit. Feferi huffed and closed her eyes, not wanting to see what the reaction would be. “Well, they have a few ideas.”

Nepeta groaned louder and rolled her head back. “You gonna kill me!”

“That’s ‘you are’ going to kill me, Nepeta.” Equius walked into the room with a glass of milk in his hand.

“Why I have to do this?” She asked, ignoring his grammar rules for now.

“Because you’re the flower girl and we have to get you prepared for the ceremony.”

“But that’s not fur a while!”

“In five days,” Feferi groaned and stepped back with the dress still in hand. She hung it up and looked at Equius with a ‘please help me’ face on. “She doesn’t like the dress or anything I’ve suggested.”

“That’s beclaws I hate it!”

“Nepeta,” Equius sighed. “We are all on edge. Just bear through it and it’ll be a nonpareil wedding.” Nepeta tilted her head at the big word. “It’ll be the best.” He simplified.

She pouted and crossed her arms. “We don’t even cut a hole fur my tail!”

“That would ruin your dress,” Feferi chipped in. “And it was not on the cheap side.”

“That’s right. And speaking of not cheap,” Equius turned to Feferi. “Do you know when they are arriving?”

“When are my parents getting here?” Feferi asked herself, pulling out her phone. “They said three, right?”

“My father and brother are going to the dinner tonight as well.”

“What dinner?” Nepeta asked, jumping into her pile of pillows and blankets. “Are we gonna eat?”

“Oh yes. There will be a lot of delectable treats at the dinner. But,” He cut in. “It is at a fancy restaurant.” Equius smirked. “I don’t know if a wild troll like you should go.”

Nepeta furrowed her eyebrows. “I can go! I be good troll!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah!”

“I don’t know, Equius.” Feferi joined in. “What if the wild troll doesn’t enjoy the food we are having? Steak is pretty expensive and I don’t want to ruin it.”

“Steak?” Nepeta’s mouth began to drool at the thought of it. “I go! I go!”

“Can a feral olive blood go, Nepeta? Can she be on her very best behavior?”

Nepeta nodded enthusiastically. “I want the steak!”

Equius squatted down and held her shoulders gently. “That isn’t what a civilized troll says.”

Nepeta paused in her jumping spree to think for a second before she smiled. “Purrlease?”

Equius nodded. “There you go.”

Later, Nepeta was on her pile, she was too busy with her sketchbook to notice that new people were now in her territory. She didn’t hear the doorbell ring, now was she aware of Feferi’s high pitched squeal, but her ear did twitch slightly. She felt rather than heard Equius’s heavy footsteps going down the stairs. The young huntress was totally oblivious to everything until she went to the kitchen to fetch her kitty she had left on the counter. The toy’s presents was required for her to teach it to hunt the small dust bunnies she found.

She had heard strange voices when she went downstairs, a weird laughter and some unfamiliar voices. She stopped walking towards the kitchen, raised her head and took a very deep breath in through her nostrils. Nepeta smelt an strange new scent that she couldn’t quite place and slowly followed it, cautious just like in one of her hunts. After all, you could be killed if you stuck your neck out too far without knowing what was going to be around the corner.

She slowly approached the island in the middle of the kitchen, trying to avoid being seen. The key to being a great huntress was to not be seen and to always be silent. She was still working on being silent, but not being seen was her specialty. She had even got onto her tip toes to retrieve the animal in view that she wanted. Nepeta didn’t want the strange people in her house to know that she was here, it was a secret where the mighty huntress in training lived and she didn’t need her fans to come and praise her just yet.

Equius was dragging talking to all their relatives, especially the ones he had no idea existed. But Feferi had wanted all in her family to come, so they shall. He was mainly staring off into space and not paying any attention at all to what was going on. That stopped when the tips of a grey hand reached up over the counter. They weren’t able to reach fully over and he could hear the grunts of a trying troll behind the counter. It warmed his heart to see Nepeta trying so hard.

He silently got up off of the counter across the island he was leaning on and padded over to the tips of the grey fingers. He guessed what she was trying to get and poked her kitty toy closer to her. She continued to reach for it, still not being tall enough to grab it off the counter. He had to push it slightly every few seconds so she wouldn't know that he helped her out. A troll, especially young ones, would want to do it on it's own.

Eventually Nepeta was able to grab the cat and drag it out of Equius's hands. She brought it back down to herself and hugged it tightly, glad she could do it all on her own. The soft white hair of the toy made her arms feel super soft and relaxed. She purred, thinking of how the dust bunnies were going I die very soon at the hands of-

"Gotcha!" Equius said.

Strong arms wrapped themselves around Nepeta and lifted her off the ground. Nepeta squealed and laughed at the same time, kicking and throwing her limbs around playfully. A smile showed itself on her small face in pure joy that couldn't be taken off when Equius began to carefully fly her around by tossing her up gently. Her laughter paused the two ladies' conversation and instead they looked upon the scene before them with a grin of their own.

"N-noooooo," Nepeta laughed loudly. "Lemme go!"

Equius set her down softly onto the ground and kneeled down. His face was showing a smirk that only showed he had a mischievous plan coming for the troll. His hands quickly sprung upon her and tickled her sides. She began to howl with laughter and pure absolute joy. Her feet danced in the air to try and hit their target, whatever that might be, but wouldn't really ever hit it, tail swishing around uncontrollably, green shading hinting in her grey cheeks. Her body emitted the feeling of happiness that could brighten anyone's day.

He smiled to himself, that was why. That was only one of the thousands of reasons that they had to save the trolls from being treated like they were only animals. Trolls were very much like humans, in fact some areas began to hire trolls as well as regular humans. They were after all, practically identical. They were many things, but they were definitely not animals and Equius prayed to whatever God was listening that Nepeta would never be treated as one.

She eventually had escaped his playful hands and absconded back to her room with her cat.He let her play for a bit, but eventually he had reminded her that she needed to dress nicely for the dinner that night. They were leaving soon as well, which meant that she would have to get dressed soon. Equius helped her with this of course, he saw what had happened when she dressed herself and knew it was far from a good image.

The dinner was a fancy one, as they had expected. Nepeta was very nervous around such nice things and it really didn’t help that Equius’s father kept glaring at her. She shifted multiple times throughout the meal, this was very awkward for a young troll and she just wanted to go play with something, anything. She even kept quiet, which made Equius worry immensely. He wanted to make sure she was okay, to help her, so badly it made his chest squeeze. It nearly drove him insane (he really honestly could care less about whatever color something was, it didn’t matter anyway), but before he could voice anything, her eyes opened and she jumped from her chair.

Nepeta ran around the table and jumped into the lap of a man sitting at a table not too far from their own. She wrapped her arms around the man and smiled happily.The man seemed very surprised and a bit flustered at the sudden appearance from the troll that popped up, but hugged her back nonetheless. By this time, Equius had already chased her down and was beginning to sweat out of nerves already.

“I am so sorry, sir. Nepeta, what do you think you are doing?” He asked as he pulled her off of the man.

“I know, I know!” She smiled and hugged her guardian instead.

“It’s okay. It’s nice to see you again, Nepeta.” The man smiled in a...weird way. “My name is James, I found Nepeta a while back.”

“I beg your pardon, you found her?” Equius scrunched his eyebrows.

“She was lost and I brought her to a local shelter.” James explained and wiped his mouth off with a napkin. “Are you her owner?”

“No.” Equius did Easter Island impression instantly. “I am her caretaker.”

James continued to look at Nepeta in the most creepiest of ways. His mouth was twitching up at the corner and his eyes had a glint of suspicion in them. Equius now knew what parents felt like when they felt their instinct screaming at them to get their children away from this scary bad person.

Nepeta reached forward with her hand, a gesture she often used when she would like to play. Equius gently lowered her hand down back to her side. “Nepeta, I believe it is time for us to go back to our table. Don’t you?”

“Eqqy, I wanna purrlay!” She whined in a tone that only urged his instincts to get away.

“Yeah, Eqqy,” James spoke up. “Let her play.”

Equius glared at him through his glasses and stepped away. “Come on, Nepeta. Let us return to dinner. We might even go to the store after for something.”

Nepeta whined, but let herself be carried away. She didn’t say anything about the man for the rest of the meal, which Equius found himself to be very thankful for. He never escaped the feeling of being watched until he was carrying a sleeping Nepeta out of the store. She had bits of food in her hair, which Equius knew he was going to have to take out later. But all he cared about was getting her out of there. The sooner, the better.

Feferi and her mother went to go back to her own establishment, Equius bid his father a goodbye, without the good part of it, and returned to his own home. Nepeta was still asleep when he pulled the car up, but woke up when he picked her up out of the car. She muttered under her breath and leaned into his shoulder, yawning softly.

He changed her out of her small dress and into some pajamas with a cat paw print on them, chosen by Nepeta. They were her favorite thing to wear, day or nighttime. She always felt so much more comfortable while wearing them and almost immediately went to sleep. Her soft smile complimented her long hair that was now almost down her entire back. He suppose he should get it cut sometime, but she loved it. Why take away that pleasure from her? She was so cute and so innocent of the evil of the world it made his heart hurt. He just wanted to protect her...

Memories from earlier replayed in his mind. Mainly the ones about what was his name? Jack? James? Something along the lines of that. The man creeped him out. He watched her for a few moments before deciding. Like a child needing a toy to be able to sleep, he needed to know she was safe. He wouldn’t be able to sleep if she wasn’t there anyway. He would just be up all night being worried and checking on her.

He carried the young troll into his bedroom and gently closed the door behind him. He made his way into his bed and got under the covers with her. He put her right next to him, within arm reach in case something happened, and made sure she was comfortable. Equius reached over and pulled some of her hair out of her face.

“You’ve changed me, little troll.” He sighed to himself. “I love you.” He kissed her forehead briefly before resigning himself back into his bed to sleep. Sometime during the night, he felt a weight on his chest. He opened his eyes a crack to inspect whatever was the reason, and found Nepeta curling up on him. He smiled and stroked her hair until he completely went into the dark abyss of sleep.

Chapter Text

"Equiuuuuuus!"

He flinched in his sleep as he heard his name being called. It had only taken a second to place that scream in the middle of the night for him.

Nepeta.

Panic filled his system almost like if somebody had shot his veins with adrenaline. He wasn’t used to such a feeling and had very high doubts that any parent could get used to this feeling of absolute dread. He threw the covers off of him and fell out of bed. Equius cursed under his breath and raced to her room. Minus the fact that he nearly broke the door pushing it open when he finally managed to get there, he got there in less than thirty seconds of the call for him.

Nepeta was in her pile on the floor with her cat in her small grey arms. She had green rolling off of her cheeks and in her yellow eyes, creating a weird combination of her blood and eye color. Her small hiccups riddled her body and he could see her shaking in the moonlight shining through her window. Her tail was curled tightly around her ankle, a habit that he noticed her developing.

“Equius?” She whimpered.

He sighed. He already had glanced around the room to make sure no dangers posed a threat to the small troll under his care. So there he went, kneeling in front of her. He watched her slowly crawl out of the pile into his open arms.

“What’s wrong, Nepeta?” Equius wrapped his arms around her. She didn’t respond, only dug her head into his bare chest. He responded the same and held her until she ready to talk.

“Wedder.” She muttered at last.

“The wedding?” He repeated, confused.

“Yeah,” She sighed.

“What’s wrong with the wedding, Nepeta?”

“Take you away furom me.” Her voice cracked at the pun and more tears followed.

“Aw, Nepeta.” Equius sighed and lifted her up into his arms and stood. “You know that I will be there afterwards. I will only be gone for a week. You’ll be available to spend time with Karkat as well.”

It was silent for a moment. “Purromise?”

“I promise, Nepeta. I promised this before, why are you really upset?”

“Nervous.” She shrugged.

He had to bit his tongue to laugh at the irony. The only person that was really, truly, nervous for the wedding wasn’t the bride or the groom (that he would admit to), it was the troll version of a flower girl.

“Well, you have nothing to fret over. We will be able to handle it. Together too. Did you know that the flower girl is one of the most important things that people remember?”

She looked up at you, now with tears and a spark of interest in her curious eyes. “Really?”

“Yup, there’s the cake, the dress, the flower girl and something else. I think it might be flowers or somesort. I can’t reiterate what Feferi told me.”

Nepeta seemed to consider this and looked up at him again. “‘Kay.”

“Are you doing better, now?” He asked in shock. His voice was able to control his surprise, but at the same time he was really shocked at her attitude. Normally it would take a lot more than just a simple reassurance to get her to calm down. She would normally ask for something else, like a chance to play with him or something similar.

“No.”

There it was.

“Want story.”

He glanced at the kitty clock he put up on her wall. The small cat arm was hovering over the one and the bigger arm was over the seven. It was too early, or was it late, for this to be going on. But who was he to deny her a chance to relax? He wouldn’t be here for the next few days.

“Alright, what story?”

“Trolls.”

“Trolls, huh?” He groaned in his head. Sollux had shown her and Karkat a game that allows them to upload pictures to be able to edit and revise whoever was in it to look like a troll. She had uploaded his and Feferi’s into the game and made Feferi’s blood her favorite color, pink, despite how rare pink bloods were. She made him blue after his eye color and gave him arrow horns for his love of archery.

She showed him what she would’ve thought she would look like as a human, the game permitting, but he didn’t want her wishing to be human. He needed her to be proud of being a troll. So lately she had been wanting him to dress up like his character, but he refused up and down. He wouldn’t dress up as a troll. He wouldn’t even know where to start. How would one make horns attached to his head anyway?

But there he was, having colored cat ears colored as horns on his head. She had drawn grey circles on his cheeks to make up for the fact that his skin wasn’t the right color for a troll.

“Meow you need a sign!” She laughed. “I need one too.”

“You will get your sign later, I promise.” He smiled at her. It was always a very big moment in a troll’s life when they got a sign to wear on all of their clothes and belongings. “But as for me,” He sighed and looked around for inspiration. “I suppose it could be something like my horns.”

“Oh!” She exclaimed suddenly and grabbed the marker again. She draw a very sloppy arrow and a line in the middle of it. “Like this?”

He recognized it as a Sagittarius sign. “Where did you find this?”

“Sollux showed us furom his ipad.”

The vet sighed and nodded. “Alright, sure, this can be my sign.”

She smiled and hugged him. “Meow, down to bussyness!” She giggled at him cringing at her grammar. “Mr. Highblood, do mew like anypawdy?”

“I like Feferi.”

“Red, black, pale?”

“Red of course,” he sighed in thought. She scribbled this on her sketchbook paper of him and Feferi holding hands. In between them was a small red heart.

“Do mew have anybody fur the others?”

“Not at the moment, no. Humans only have-”

“Yes, but you’re a troll!” She interrupted him and gave him a stern look.

“That’s right, that’s right.” He yawned and leaned back on her pile of pillows, blankets and small cat toys.

She waited for a moment for him to say something, but continued to scribble on paper with his watchful eyes on whatever she was creating. He was beginning to get to the point of exhaustion of not being able to process whatever she was drawing. His vision was growing darker and his eyelids heavier. He yawned and stretched out.

He didn’t even realize he fell asleep until Nepeta jumped on his stomach. Equius bolted upright and grunted. Nepeta only laughed and pushed on his shoulders. “Wakey wakey!”

He was confused. He had only shut his eyes for a few seconds, didn’t he? He looked at her, confusion written on his face, then noticed that the moonlight that had been shining through the window was now gone. In it’s place was sunlight pouring through, brightening and warming the room up. The sun distracted him. Last night he couldn’t wait until the morning came, because that meant-

Oh. Oh no. He stood up, Nepeta in his arms, and looked at the time. He needed to leave for the wedding at- oh look at that he was suppose to leave in five minutes.

“Fiddlesticks.” He groaned and looked at Nepeta, playing with his hair. “Okay, Nepeta. Time to play a game.”

“Game?” She perked up at the magical word. “What game?”

“It’s a game called ‘Grown-up,’ and we need to get ready as fast as we can before we leave. Do you think you can get ready without me?” He was taking a huge risk, but he had no other choice.

“Yeah! Yeah! Nepeta can do it!” Nepeta wiggled out of his arms and began to run around her room, getting ready.

“Don’t forget to brush your teeth. I don’t need you to have bad breath today.”

“Kay!”

He ran out of the room and to his, throwing off his clothes before he even reach his own room. With his luck, he was able to get his clothes off before he was able to put on the new suit. He went into the bathroom connected to his room, and cursed loudly, the stress building. He still had the grey marker on his face!

After managing to take care of all the necessary bathroom routines, he put on his fancy black suit, complete with a blue tie. He checked himself once more in the mirror before deciding that he was good enough for the wedding. After all, they would have about an hour before everything started.

“Nepeta?” Equius called to her room as he was getting everything else ready to go. His suitcase, check. Her backpack for her week vacation at the Strider’s, check. He was checking things through and making sure everything was right. He heard Nepeta coming down, which was good. That was next on his list; Nepeta in a fancy dress and ready to be dolled up by the other females at the wedding…

“Coming!” She jumped down the last step.

“We are leaving in a moment. Do you have everything you want in your bag?” He grabbed both of their bags and turned around to face her. “You have got to be kidding me.”

She was...wild. That was the nicest thing that he would think of to describe her. Her hair wasn’t brushed, he doubted that she brushed her teeth, her hands were still messy with marker ink from the night before, her dress was the only thing that was clean. And even then, it was on backwards. Her shoes were alright, but the socks she was wearing weren’t matching.

“What did you do?” Equius groaned and looked her over in horror.

“I got ready!” She smiled. “I look fancy!”

He said nothing and shook his head slowly. “Alright, fine. We will leave and get you ready at the place.”

“‘Kay.”

The two of them exited their house and drove, very close to breaking the speed limit, to the country club Feferi’s family belonged to. It was a very nice, and fancy, place. They made it in record time and Equius gave the keys to the man parking cars elsewhere. He was too busy to think of whatever he was called, took Nepeta, and ran inside. Once he entered the beautiful building, he was speechless and stopped completely, lost to the amazing sight.

The club rested on the top of a hill, overlooking a lake. Through the windows all over the opposite wall, the light shimmered off of the waves and gave the room a very nice light touch. The chandelier dangled from the ceiling and sparkled, giving rainbows and shining sparkles over the room along with the other lights.The walls were a light blue that complemented everything, giving it a nice feeling that made you feel lighter on the inside. The tables that were set up inside had white table clothes with purple flowers and white candles on top. They had leaves underneath them that put everything in place. The light, the wood floors, the white tables, the blue walls, everything, and he meant everything, made it feel like it was taking place in the sky rather than just in a country club.

“It’s purrty,” Nepeta commented with interest.

“It is. Now, we need to get ready.” He hated to tear his gaze away from the room, but he had to get her ready and get his place stationed.

He fed Nepeta to the sharks and placed her into Jade’s hands. He himself was giving himself some touch up details. He didn’t have that much to do, so he was finished rather quickly. When he went out to get to the altar, which would be outside, more people had arrived. There were only minutes left until the actual wedding began and people were taking their seats.

The altar was the definition of beauty and amazement. It had rows of chairs for the guests to sit in, flowers everywhere, at Feferi’s request, a red rug leading up to where the man was standing, ready to marry yet another couple. Everything seemed to be in place for the wedding. Everything seemed to be right. Everything was ready, except for him.

But when he stepped out into the sun, and everybody turned to him with smiles on their faces, he never felt more ready for this.

Everything after that seemed like a blur to him, Nepeta throwing flowers down as she walked ahead of the bride, Feferi’s stunning dress and even more stunning smile, the mindless babble the man spoke, everything just faded together. And yet, he could tell you every detail he noticed. He never felt more alive, more excited, in his life. It was the best day of his life and the best moment he felt was when he got to hear and speak the best words.

“I do.”

The only thing that could possibly ruin it for him didn’t even catch his attention. A man sat in the audience, suit worn and everything, with a smile on his face. The man truly loved weddings, he attended a few in his lives, but he never imagined that he would attend one for his job. He clapped when appropriate, teared up at the right moments but, again, they were all an acting job for his real bounty occupation. His eyes were mainly on two objects: an olive-blood and an interesting new troll.

He would have to tell his boss about him. He never met a troll with nubby horns, let alone human red irises. Almost as if he were a mutant. There was a troll with psionic powers too, but the boss already had one of those to play with. Yes, James would have very good news for his boss. And he would have some alone time with those two trolls of interest very soon. Weddings were a place for gatherings after all, and the olive troll trusted him now. This would be too easy.

Chapter Text

After the vows were said, the newly wedded couple walked down the aisle. The two appreciated everything that was going on, the flowers being thrown at them, tears being shed by the sensitive family members, the clapping of their shared loved ones.

And speaking of loved ones, Nepeta’s yellow eyes shined with excitement when she saw the cake when she entered the reception room with the other guests. The cake was white with cool designs decorating it. It must’ve been really expensive, but she was somewhat aware of the fact that both families were not shy with money. She wasn’t really exposed to that quite yet, so she had no concept. But the main thing that was bothering her with the cake wasn’t the fact of the cool designs or the price of it. No,no, the thing that was bothering her the most was a couple of tiny people were stranded on the top of the cake.

It vaguely looked like Equius and Feferi, but from that far of a distance, even a hunter’s eyes can be fooled. She hadn’t seen the two of them since they kissed and everybody clapped for them, and that was almost a full hand on the clock. It was only a few minutes, about twenty, but to a troll this age that meant trouble. And trouble meant that the two up there were really Feferi and Equius, and she had to rescue them!!

But before she was able to go rescue her friends, a hand gripped her shoulder and pulled her back. Nepeta squeaked in surprise and looked up to see the familiar face of Dave’s brother. She cracked a smile and giggled. “Hiya, Bro!”

“Hey, Nep.” He gave a small, very slight smile back at her. He turned her around and kneeled in front of her. “What’re you up to?”

“I’m gonna go save them!” She pointed in the general direction of the small figures on the wedding cake. “They’re in trouble!”

“Oh yeah?” He asked and scooped her up in his arms. “You’re gonna be in bigger trouble if you touch them, y'know?”

She tilted her head and looked back to the cake. “Why?” Wasn’t she suppose to help people when they needed it?

“Because those guys are chill being up there.” Bro smirked and set her down in her chair at the table. Karkat was sitting next to her with Sollux next to him. Cronus was smartly sitting across from the three young trolls and was looking around in awe. The three of them snapped to attention when Bro clapped his hands together. “Okay, guys, listen up. Equius and Feferi are now married and this is the after party adults call the reception. You don’t have to stay here, but I want you to stay on property and be with a buddy.”

Nepeta grabbed onto Karkat’s arm and he smiled at her.

“But try to stay nice looking, okay? Pictures are later.”

The three nodded and watched eagerly as all the guests sat down, though some looked upon them in slight disgust, which were returned by Cronus’s glares. Nepeta paid them no attention though, and continued to talk to Karkat, who was listening back. Sollux was preoccupied with his Ipad, too into it to really care that everybody was annoyed that trolls were there. Jade was up at the head table with Feferi because she was the head bridesmaid and Bro went up to sit with her since he was Equius’s main bro.

Dave sat at the table with the trolls and was sitting with his legs crossed. He was mainly eager to eat the cake, that’s the best part of weddings, after all. After the fact that his friends were finally getting together. But definitely cake first.

Across the room, sitting at a table with a bunch of strangers he had no care or interest in, was James. His sight was set on three trolls across the room. He was interested in two of them, they looked like the smallest out of the group. But now that he knew there were more, his boss would be very interested in this. He pulled out his phone and began to text.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Equius’s voice broke out from the front of the room. His voice cracked and he coughed to clear his throat out. “S-sorry. Thank you for coming today, it means a lot to me and my new wife,” he smiled. “I-I hope you all enjoyed yourselves this far into the ceremony,” he smiled nervously at the staring, unamused faces.

Nepeta rolled her eyes and giggled. “This is gonna be bad.”

“Nepeta,” Karkat tugged on her dress to get her attention. “D’ya wanna go play outside before it gets dark?”

She turned to look out the window and sure enough, it was already getting close to the sun setting.

“Yeah.”

The two scampered off from their chairs and raced outside, accidentally slamming the door behind them, startling some of the people in the crowd and actively pissed off the others. Some comments were made towards the trolls, which was met with displeased looks from the head table.

James finished texting his boss, whom was on his way in their truck. It was a little risky because they were suppose to use it for the big act that was going to be taking place in a week. The kidnapping, or trollnapping in this case, was hard enough to do alone. But with a familiar truck in this equation, things would get hard.

A glance out the windows revealed the truck easing up the drive up the hill to the country club. James sighed in relief and quietly excused himself from the room. Equius narrowed his eyes a bit when he saw the man again, especially at his wedding, but was much too nervous to be suspicious enough to worry. This was exactly what James needed in order to sneak away and talk to the boss long enough to get the information across. Besides, he could possibly meet one of the trolls if they were lucky enough.

The white van pulled up to the club and parked enough away that the valet didn’t ask for the car to park. James jogged up to the van, often used for companies or to kidnap kids off the sidewalk. Horrible joke, but that was his job. He got the kids, or in this case, the trolls, his boss put them in the ring, and then they fought for big bucks. It was definitely worth the money.

“What did you want?” His boss hissed as the window cracked.

“Those two trolls have friends,” he smoothly replied, “a yellow and purple. Though the purple one looks to be fully grown with no special qualities. The yellow has psychic abilities, I believe.”

“Is that so?” His boss rolled down the window a bit more. Not enough to show his ugly face, but enough to actually make contact with his employee. “I believe your salary may increase if you manage to catch the yellow, but I don’t want the purple if he’s useless.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll catch the three. Now,” He leaned a bit on the car frame. “What is my salary as we speak? Because this suit was not cheap.”

“James!” A voice broke the conversation. The headman in the car rolled up the window a bit more to conceal himself. Nepeta ran up to the two men just as the window finished rolling. With it’s special darkening, he would not be able to be seen from outside. He could, however, see clear as day from inside the van.

"James! Whatcha doing?" Nepeta asked innocently.

"Nothing, kid, leave." He grunted.

Her face immediately fell a bit, but she kept going on. She could usually bother Equius until he gets really mad, she knew that James wasn't any different. "Are you talking to somebody?"

"Nobody important, just my boss for a job." He cracked a smile to show her he meant no harm. After all, the job next week would be a lot easier if she still trusted him. “We’re talking about the, uh, electric bills that we have to cover for our job later tonight.”

She smiled wider and jumped on her feet a bit. "Like in Pokemon!"

He faltered. "What?"

"Your name is James and he's your boss! Are you on Team Rocket?" She grabbed her dress and twirled it a bit. “I don’t like Team Rocket all that much, I like Team Flare more!”

James watched in confusion as the girl continued to blabber on and he mentally groaned. He had to continue the conversation with his boss and he needed to do it soon, he couldn’t be caught with this girl again. His boss was at the diner when she jumped up on him and he first met that hulk of a guardian she had. Boss wasn’t pleased at all and he has the bruises to prove it.

“Nepeta,” he sighed. “Why don’t we play hide and seek? I’ll seek you out,” he smiled at the inside joke. “And you hide.”

“Okay!” She smiled, but stopped. “But Karkat and I are playing that now.”

“Then why aren’t you hiding?”

“Oh!” She smiled and ran off. “I forgot!”

James tapped the window after a minute and shook his head. “Sorry, I didn’t know the two trolls were so close.”

“It’s fine,” He boss hissed. “I like her. I like her a lot. How old is she?”

“Only a few years old, no less than five or six.”

“Beautiful.”

“Sir? Do you want me to grab them tonight?”

A pause.

“No. I would normally, but the schedule won’t allow it. Besides, why ruin a wedding night? It’s suppose to be the best night of a man’s life, isn’t it?”

“I thought that was game over day for the dude.”

“It normally is. But let’s let the real game over day be during his honeymoon.” His boss cracked a wicked smile. “That’ll be a treat, no?”

His employee nodded. “Understood sir.”

“James?” His boss rolled down the window to reveal the sick green mask he was wearing. “I don’t want you out here anymore. We’ll discuss our plans on the way back to HQ.”

“Is there a reason, sir?” James shiftly looked around for anybody who could cause for alarm or could see him.”

“There’s too many people out and about. The valet’s getting antsy just watching you talk to somebody he can’t even see. We need to get out of here and get back to set up everything anyway, with a new yellow in the plan. And when we are done it’ll be time for us to snag the trolls and take them to the ring.”

“Yes, sir.” James nodded his head and waited for the boss to move over a seat. When the boss wasn’t alone, he would never drive. When he was alone, or the only one well enough to actually be able to drive, he would be able to drive professionally.

James crawled into the car and closed the door behind him. He moved the stick into reverse and began to back out of the way so he could move the car and drive off when the two men heard a bloody scream coming from right outside the van. James slammed on the brakes and opened the door, quickly shutting it behind him to conceal his boss.

Nepeta was on the other side of the van, scratching at the tire desperately. The tire was resting ignorantly on her tail, blood slowly dripping from underneath the tire. James cursed and quickly got back into the car, relayed what event happened to the other man, who commanded that they left immediately. A crying kid got attention and they did not need attention.

Nepeta only knew they left when the tire moved off of her tail. The pressure she felt leave her was immense and immediate, but the pain waved in almost as fast. Her screams continue to roll off her tongue and she paused to sob a bit before continuing on. Karkat zoned in on her quickly, but he could only watch in worry. The two were far enough away from the reception room that nobody could be able to hear them, but the valet was close enough to see what was going on and quickly went into help.

Nepeta was holding her tail, but it was hurting so badly. She was hiding behind that tire and when it began to move, she did too, but not fast enough! Her tail was hurting so badly, she cried more green tears as a man quickly came running to help her. But she didn’t know what to do; she only knew that when she got hurt usually Equius could patch her up. He was, after all, a vet.

The valet turned to Karkat, asked him a few questions, sent him off to get somebody to help. And Karkat knew that when he was hurt, Dave would be able to help him!

Nepeta didn’t know what all happened from this point on, the pain was too great to really be able to tell what all was going on. But from what she could tell; people were worried. The valet had actually taken off his coat and wrapped it around her and held her, gently petting her. She appreciated it, but wanted the pain to go away more.

She continued to sob until she saw the familiar figures of Cronus, Dave, and Jade running towards her. She held up her arms to be picked up and her wish was granted. Dave held her tightly and sat down, next to the valet man, and gently rubbed her back.

Jade began to inspect the tail and made a very sad face, looking at the men around her. Nepeta noticed that Karkat hadn’t returned either. Nor had Equius, which was comforting to her, but upset her more. Equius’s wedding was suppose to be happy, that she was positive on, and this would make anybody unhappy. But at the same time, she wanted to be held by him, to be comforted, by him, she wanted him to be here.

Nepeta felt Jade’s shaking hands gently wrap around Nepeta as Dave gave her over. “Nepeta,” her voice cracked like Equius’s had early. She briefly wondered if she missed out on the cake. “We need to get you to the clinic.”

“Equius?” She whimpered.

“Equius is coming.” She replied, hugging Nepeta comforting. “He’s arguing with his dad.”

Nepeta burrowed her head into Jade’s shoulder as she gently touched her tail again to inspect it. Waves of pain crashed into her and she sobbed again, hearing Equius’s voice yelling from a distance.

She looked up to see him and Feferi running, he in the lead, towards her. “Nepeta,” he called out, slowing down only when she was within arm range. He nodded towards Jade and the two bolted off towards the cars, valet already fetching them.

“Equius Zahhak!” Nepeta looked over Jade’s shoulder to see a very red headed man yelling at her guardian, whom was ignoring the calls. Even from this distance and lighting, she could see the veins popping from this head.

She buried her head deeper in Jade’s hair.

She closed her eyes and didn’t open them, even when Equius and Feferi begged her to.

Equius eventually held her as they travelled to the clinic, her sobs still wracking her frame and his heart broke a little bit every time. His anger also grew every time she had to stop for breath, fury whenever she flinched from the pain from him examining her tail.

He grimaced when he realized what he had to do, medical in his mind stating the obvious fact; he was going to have to amputate. The tail was beyond damage, blood soaking the fur around the area, he was surprised that the bones themselves were sticking out, but if he moved some fur you could see white surrounded by green and it hurt.

He might be able to save some of the tail, but not much of it. She wasn’t going to be happy, not at all. And worst of all was the timing, he was suppose to go to Hawaii for his honeymoon with Feferi, but now that she was hurt even that might be cancelled. How could he leave his troll to suffer while he enjoyed himself? Nepeta sobs broke his thoughts and he gently rubbed her horns the way that she liked it when she was upset. It usually made her purr mid-cry, but this only worsened the cries, and his emotional pain.

Eventually, whether it be from the drugs they used on her when they got to the clinic, or the blood loss or shock, Nepeta passed out and slept while they operated on her and removed her tail. It was a very long surgery, lasting almost an hour and a half. Feferi, Dave, Jade, and Equius all worked together on the tail while Dave simply hung in the background and pass them the needed equipment when they asked him to do it.

When they were finished, Dave called Bro and told him everything. Cronus and the other two trolls were frantic with worry, Karkat more than anybody else. They had left the wedding with the group, but were in a different car. A lot of the guests left after they had too, but were done so in a more than unhappy manner.

But when all was done, Equius didn’t care. Nepeta was hurting and he had to take care of the girl, he wouldn’t want her to be upset anyway.

His dad was going to kill him though, and he’s pretty sure that his mom rolled over in the grave because of today too.

But as he sat with Nepeta in his car, on their way back to the house, after dosing her up and making sure that she was comfortable enough to go to sleep, he realized he didn’t care that he ruined his family’s relationship with him even more. He didn’t care that he pissed off his father yet again. He only cared that Nepeta was safe.

The next morning when Nepeta woke up and was taking the medicine that Equius gave her, one pill for the pain, two for antibiotics, a bit for the nausea that she was having, and a gentle talk to her about what he had to do with her tail, they were hugging it out. She was worried that she had angered him about what happened, but he was more worried about her. He told her that she had nothing to fret over, that whoever inflected this on her was in much more trouble.

She told him that he should go on his honeymoon. If it were true that she was going to be doped up on meds all week, and she was, then he should go on his ‘vacation thing’ with Feferi. She was going to be asleep all the time and sleepy when she wasn’t. It wasn’t fair that she ruined both of his things because she got hurt. He was very hesitant, but eventually with more convincing from his friends and newly wed wife, he agreed to go to Hawaii for the week.

The vet continued to pester the Striders about what to do if something happened, who to call in what situation, everything that a concerned guardian would do when leaving their injured child behind on a vacation. They assured him over and over that she would be perfectly safe, which she piped up from the couch, should be, in fact, ‘purrfectly fine.’

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” he sighed and looked across the room at Nepeta, who was watching Steven Universe on the tv. “You are going to be fine.”

“I meow,” She laughed and waved from the couch.

“Behave yourself, Nepeta. I don’t want to get a phone call that you damaged something else.”

“Get me something nice!”

“The only request she says to me,” He sighed and looked down at the ground. When he looked back up, she was giggling. “I’ll see you soon, Nepeta.”

“Better believe it!” She laughed and launched herself from the couch into his stomach as she hugged him tightly.

“I see your medication today hasn’t started to kick in,” he groaned and set her back down. “Rest, okay? You need it more than ever.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

“I’m serious!”

“I’m serious,” She mocked him in a deep, gruff voice.

He sighed and ruffled her hair up. “I’ll see you soon,” he smiled fondly and turned out the door with a final goodbye over his shoulder.

Hours after the plane landed, Dave walked into the room to join the trolls in a SU marathon that was showing. Nepeta was already out, medications kicked in and was sleeping nicely under a blanket that Equius brought from their house for her. She had been sleeping for hours and wasn’t planning on stopping anytime soon. “Hey guys, did you hear we have a new neighbor?”

“Really?” Karkat jumped up. This was news! He knew that the old house had been for sale for a while, but didn’t imagine anybody actually buying it.

“Yeah, I think it’s just an old guy. Name’s James if I remember correctly.”

Chapter Text

Hey y'all! Just a warning for you, from here on out it gets graphic, hence the T rating it has. There's going to be abuse and fighting from now on, so if you get upset by that, I recommend treading carefully. Thanks for reading it though, I hope you enjoy.

During the week that Equius and Feferi were gone, young Nepeta was going to stay with the Striders. Before the wedding, Equius got with them and had planned out fun activities for the trolls to do. This of course, changed with her getting hurt half way through the wedding. The appendage was throbbing constantly and wouldn't stop stinging at times. Her medication would help, but she was only able to take a pill every six or seven hours. What made it worse was that her antibiotic pill made her nauseous and she had to eat for the painkiller. So, she had to get prescribed on another medication because the regular over the counter stomach medications weren't working.

This week was not kind towards Nepeta.

She spent majority of it resting on the couch, aware that the tv was on and playing her shows, but wasn't able to watch it with her full attention. At times somebody would carry her to their room to relax with them, usually it was either Dave or Bro, but occasionally she would wander into their room by herself. Karkat would stay with her and give her his favorite crab to play with, but she ended up using it as a pillow and hold her stuffed cat Equius had gotten her a while back.

Equius usually was the one who took care of Nepeta when she was feeling ill. He was pretty good at it too, considering that he was a vet. He would crash with her on the couch and watch the shows that she wanted, made sure that she was wrapped up in a blanket, the whole care packet was given out. He even let Feferi come over sometimes, who would sneak the oliveblood some get well soon cake when Equius wasn't looking.

She really missed them. They were coming back that day though, or so she was told. So far they called her once or twice to check up on her and tell her of their adventures they were having so far. Yesterday they were talking to Dave to see how her condition was and told him that they were going to pick her up at three o'clock the next day and take her home, where Feferi now lived as well.

She was lying on the couch, listening to the storm rage on outside the house. Her medication was making her really sleepy and she was going to give up trying to stay awake for her caretakers any second now. Karkat was sitting on the lazyboy chair that was next to her, watching the movie that was playing. She thought it was a Disney movie, but that one must've ended when she fell asleep earlier. Sollux was in his room, doing whatever he does on the Ipad, and Cronus was with Bro, who was at the store getting food for the week. It was one in the pm, so her caretaker would be flying back right now.

It was weird to think about that if you really thought about it. How some people could be thousands of feet up into the air, translating to miles up in the sky, flying in a machine that had wheels taller than some people. The machine took hundreds of years to actually develop and was going hundreds of miles per hour and yet everybody on the ground was oblivious to that fact. She smirked, feeling special to think outside the box.

She slowly nodded off, but woke up to a knock at the front door. She leaned up slightly, hoping that Equius and Feferi had gotten here early, but was disappointed to find a somewhat familiar face when the door opened. Her medication was taking effect and she couldn't clearly remember the face of James standing there in the rain. So instead she shrugged and rolled over to sleep. Karkat watching curiously, thinking that it was the new neighbor.

"Hello," The man sweetly smiled. "I'm in the house across the street," he pointed down to the house that he had been taking residence in for the short time. "I had been moving some boxes that I brought with me, but I need some help moving them. Do you think you can lend a hand?"

"Yeah, man, sure, just, uh." Dave looked at the two trolls lying in the living room. They should be okay for a bit. "Hang on a sec." He turned and marches towards Sollux's room and had brought the troll back out. "I want you to watch them while I'm helping a bro out," Dave explained and plopped him down on the couch next to Nepeta. "Okay?"

"Okay." Sollux watched Dave leave and turned to the other two, barely aware of the door closing behind him. "How long has she been sleeping?"

Karkat looked up and shrugged.

Sollux leaned forward and poked her cheek. She didn't even twitch in her sleep, just continued to snooze on. "She's really out of it." He poked her again and turned to the mutant. "I bet if we picked her up she wouldn't notice!"

"No, that's mean!" Karkat made a face. "Leave her alone, she's hurt!"

"Jeez, I was just joking. Calm down." He made a face. "I didn't want to poke your matesprit anyway."

"She's not my matesprit!"

Dave, meanwhile, was across the street lifting an impossibly heavy box down some stairs where James was leading him. He was holding the box and was viewing the front, where they were going. Dave, however, was the one who was stuck relying on his new neighbor for the directions. "Just a few more steps to the left, no, my left," James instructed. "Almost there." So far they had set more than one box that weighed like Bro after Thanksgiving feasts down into James's basement.

James looked at the young man from under his unprescribed glasses and nodded to himself a few times. It was best to keep his cover as a dorky neighbor for as long as he could. His heart was beginning to pound and it wasn't from the box lifting. He was almost ready to roll out his plan. He had watched the Striders for a while, and seeing how often they were ordering out he knew that he was going to have to act fast if he was going to get any chance of catching those three trolls alone. The grocery shopping trips shouldn't last long if he was correct and he needed to be thorough if he was to be paid the full amount.

"That should be the last of the boxes that I needed to move down here for today." James sighed, putting his hands on his hips. "I think I have a pair of scissors upstairs, I can dig out something for you to take home."

"What? Oh no, it's fine." Dave shook his head at the man. He held up his hands and started to move towards the stairs. "I don't need any payment, man."

James widened his eyes almost a fraction in slight panic. "No, I insist." He ran up ahead of Dave and gently pushed him back down the stairs. "Besides, I have some toys that I think your trolls might like."

Dave shook his head again and tried to climb the stairs politely without telling the guy to move. "No, really, it's fine, I gotta get back to the kids anyway."

James pushed Dave a bit harder down the stairs and crossed his arms, his face darkening. "Now listen here, young man, I was raised to repay my favors from others and I'll be damned if some kid is going to break my raising, ya hear? You will wait here until I get my scissors and I'll dig something out for ya and that is final."

At Dave's shocked face and lack of response, he nodded. "Good. Now you wait right here. I'll be back in a jiffy."

James turned and sprinted up the stairs, heart pounding from excitement. This is why he loved his job so much! As soon as he turned out of the doorway from the stairs, he turned and gently closed the door behind him. There weren't any windows down in the basement, so he wouldn't be able to escape. As the lock clicked in synchronization with his fingers' movement, he couldn't help but contain his grin. He had done it! "Now to get the three."

He raced outside, the rain not bothering him in the least, and barged into the house, effectively scaring the two conscious kids on their couches. "Guys, quick, come with me!" He raced into the house and scooped up Nepeta in his arms. Man, she was really a heavy sleeper! She didn't even notice all the commotion he was bringing in.

"Be careful with her!" Karkat groaned and jumped up. "She's sleeping!"

"Her medication makes her pass out," Sollux explained in a more logical way.

Oh this could not have been more perfect.

"Why do we need to go with you?" The yellowblooded troll asked with his eyebrows scrunching up. "Where's Dave?"

"He's...hurt! We need to go get help before he dies!" He could applaud himself about his creativity on the spot to the annoying questions.

Karkat immediately gasped and was racing out the door ahead of James, who still had Nepeta in his dangerous arms. Sollux was suspicious and followed James at a slower pace, almost as if he knew what was going on. "He was helping you bring boxes in your house."

"And fell down the stairs!"

Sollux crossed his arms halfway across the road while Karkat was already in his yard. "Come on, we gotta go in my truck and get help!" James said desperately. "We don't have time to play games, kid!" By now Dave had probably figured out what was going on, anyway.

He unlocked his car and placed Nepeta on the seat, buckling her in himself. She was still out cold and was wrapped in her blanket, she had no reason to be a concern for him anymore. Karkat had practically flung himself to be buckled in next, but Sollux refused to budge from across the yard. He had two down, only one more to go.

"Come on, troll, we don't have all day." The man barked, losing his patience.

"I want to see Dave!"

"You'll see Dave quicker if you come over this way and get help with us!"

Sollux shook his head, sparks beginning to buzz around his horns. "No!"

The man narrowed his eyes, slammed the door, and marched over to the young troll. "If you don't help me I swear," he growled.

"What?" Sollux sneered back. He never lost an argument against Cronus and this man wasn't any different. He got a bad feeling as soon as he saw him earlier and wasn't liking the feeling he was getting now. This man was bad and there was no way that Sollux was going with him, even if Dave were in trouble. "What're you going to do?"

SLAP!

James stood above a troll, now freshly hit, on the ground. When he hits, he hits hard. Sollux was covering his head, where a bruise was already forming. Yellow tears sprung to his eyes and he looked up at the man. Flashbacks of his old home were forming in the back of his mind and he knew that he was right in not trusting this man.

"Are you coming with me or not?" James asked one more time. He reached down to grab Sollux's shirt when his hand was attacked by blue and red bolts of electricity. Almost as if his hand touched an exposed wire. He jerked his hand back and instinctively kicked out his leg, pushing Sollux back to the ground and hurting him further. "Fuckin' kid!"

James turned and marched back to his van. If he only caught two, that's as good as his boss will get and he'll like it. He was not going to touch that kid even if he had to answer to his boss about it. He got into his truck, looked at Sollux one last time before slamming on the gas, jerking the car back out onto the road. "Time to go get help, kids." He said to the two in the back.

"Where's Sollux?" Karkat whimpered from his seat.

"He's staying with Dave."

Sollux watched with yellow tears streaming down his face as the bad man took away his two friends, if not siblings, in his car. He didn't know what to do, he was concerned on one hand and on the other scared. His chest was hurting, but not as much as his face was. He still held it tenderly as he watched the car disappear out of sight down the street.

He said Dave was inside, right? Dave could fix this.

He opened the door and was immediately greeted by the sounds of fists banging against a door and muffled shouts. Sollux sped his pace up and went to where he heard the sounds the best, down the stairs and to a door where a locked handle flashed at him. The door was vibrating with the punches knocking it and he could clearly hear Dave's voice, screaming at James to let him out.

"Dave!" Sollux shouted at the door. "Dave!"

"Sollux?" The banging stopped. "Is that you? Where's James?"

"He took Karkat and Nepeta and drove off!" Sollux sobbed. "He hit me."

Dave couldn't breathe for a second. Then two, three, four seconds. It hurt him to breath when he did. This was bad, this was beyond bad. He took gasps of breaths and shook his head violently, as if he could shake himself awake and this be just a dream. But nothing worked. He slammed his hands against the door and screamed a cuss word or three.

Sollux backed away from the door for a second before dashing forward, unlocked the door, and flung it open. He wrapped himself around Dave's legs and stifled a sob. He didn't know what to do, he was in so much pain, he was scared, and now his caretaker was freaking out. This was too much for any child to take in and he broke out a sob.

Dave's hands wrapped around him a second later and picked him up. "It'll be okay, Sollux. We just gotta go get help."

The two found themselves in their kitchen minutes later, calling first Bro then the police. Equius should've called when he and Fef landed, but nothing yet. They'd have to worry about breaking the news to Equius later, which would cause a lot of worry to be reasoned with, but until then, he would have to do break it to his own brother first.

Dave wanted to punch something when he dialed the number of his brother's phone. Every time it rang the feeling increased until he was sure he was going to punch the wall. He felt his heart beating in his chest wildly, as if he were running back in Texas on a hot August day. Finally, when his brother answered, Dave tried to tell them what happened.

His voice broke on the words and before he knew it, he began to cry to his brother. He told him that somebody had stolen Karkles and Neppie, that their kids were gone and oh my god this feeling wasn't right. He wanted to throw up and he needed backup pronto.

Sollux watched on with an uneasy feeling in his gut. This was really bad if Dave was acting like this. Maybe Dave couldn't fix this one? He looked up at the human and felt guilt for telling him. He shouldn't have let the man take Karkat. He could've done something to fix this. A sigh escaped his lips. This was really bad.

Bro and Cronus had immediately left the store and made it back to the house in record timing, not bothering to stop for stop signs or red lights. They didn't have any time for that, right now they needed to get back to Dave and Sollux and help take care of them. When they had finally got there, they barely stopped the car before sprinting inside, as if hoping that they would find it all a prank and that Nepeta and Karkat were on the couch, watching tv or something.

Instead they found Dave in the kitchen. He held his head in his hands with his shades off and Sollux sitting on the counter next to him, holding an ice pack to his face and arm across his chest.

"Dave." Bro spoke softly, as if he were afraid he would accidentally break his brother. He went over to him and took him in his arms, hugging him to his side. Dave turned into his brother and wrapped around him, breaking into sobs. Cronus looked helpless and scared. The older troll shook his head, not able to believe the turn of events himself. Sollux even didn't say anything, he was too scared to do so. He felt sick, like he was gonna throw up from all of this.

A flash of lightning flashed through the windows and flickered the lights for a second. The thunder rolled out a few minutes later.

Two pairs of snake eyes looked up to the mirror that hung in the car. The other troll fell asleep a while ago. He would be out for a while, the kid was yawning for a while in the back. James turned the car into the turn that would lead him out to the platform where he would meet his boss in the plane, get the kids into their cages, and best of all, get his payment for this whole fiasco. The snake eyed man smiled to himself and sped up the car a bit more, despite the horrid weather conditions.

The sight of the plane that he had been looking forward to for weeks soon came into view and he honked his horn a few times to let the employees know he was here for the awaiting plane. Some people rushed towards him when he parked, others waited a few seconds, hesitated on what to do. They soon learned though when the bark of their boss alerted them and snapped into action.

"Got the two trolls we scouted, sir." James walked towards the man with a smile on his face. "Both the mutant and the olive."

Instead of the glee that he expected on the face of the man he was employed for, he found rage and a hint of expectation. "Two? What about the yellow?"

"He gave me problems, sir. He will not be joining us."

"Then you will not be joining me when we leave." The man snapped, James found himself carried off by two other employees, arms pinned behind him. "Dispose of him."

"B-but, boss! I got two!" James cried desperately, he knew what would happen if he were to be disposed of. He wouldn't see his wife or child ever again-that's what would happen.

"And I don't have two chances to give away. You disappointed me, so I don't have any further use of you." As James was taken away, he turned to other employees that were at his disposal. "Put the two in their cages. I would like to reach my house by this evening."

He turned and climbed the ladder up the stairs and caught his hat when the wind from a plane landing nearby blew it off, barely even stopping his stride. He grunted at the plane and continued into the plane and inside, safe from the rain.

Inside the plane, Feferi looked outside the window and tried to see through the rain. "Equius, look," she smiled as she turned to her new husband. She pointed out the window enthusiastically at a plane nearby with a car parked next to it. "It must be one of those stars that can afford their own plane!"

Equius leaned over and looked out where her finger pointed. "Huh. Lucky, I wish I could afford a plane like your sister."

Feferi laughed and nodded. "Maybe it could be a gift for us."

He nodded. "I need to call the Strider's residence and let them know that we landed."

Feferi gasped and grabbed his arm. "We should let it be a surprise for Neppie! That way she'll be even happier to know that we're there!"

He thought about it for a few seconds before giving in. He smiled, nodded, and kissed his gorgeous wife's forehead. "Alright, but I get to give her her gift."

"Fair enough." She laughed.

Unknowing to the couple, the plane they had seen earlier contained the two kidnapped trolls. They were in cages and tied down in the cargo hold with blankets over them so they wouldn't be able to see what was going on. They were drugged of course, so they wouldn't even be aware of what was going on anyway. Nepeta had barely felt the bumps as the plane began to rise through the sky, putting more distance between her and her family, and the ground, than ever before. She wouldn't touch the ground again until she was thousands of miles away, almost across the entire country.

And it would be months before Equius got to see or hear of Nepeta again.

But until then, Equius drove the car through the rain to the residence of the Strider's. Feferi was talking about one of the funniest moments of their honeymoon, causing him to smile as he drove through the falling water. It was getting pretty bad, but nothing this vehicle couldn't handle. Besides, he could be flying still. The air turbulence was getting to be really bad up there.

The two were shocked when they turned into the street to see a cop car parked outside of Dave and Bro's house. It alarmed the couple, but they were slightly eased when they saw Jade's car there as well. But while it was comforting to know that Jade, and probably Jake, were there, it was also alarming too. Why did they have to call Jade to come over along with the police?

The two got out of the car, held each other's hand as they trekked the terrifying walk leading up to the door. It was still pouring rain, but they could tell that it wasn't the weather that was sending chills up their spines.

The door swung open immediately after Equius had rang the doorbell, revealing a very concerning appearance of Bro. His hat and shades were off, something the two never imagined seeing in their lives. His hair was messed up as well, hair strung everywhere and dark bags hung underneath his eyes. He opened the door wider, gesturing them inside.

Around sat the faces of their friends. Jade was holding Sollux on the couch, both pairs of eyes wet with tears. He was holding an ice pack to his face delicately, as if he were in pain for some reason. Jake was sitting next to Jade, rubbing her back supportively. Next to them sat Cronus, who had a look of thought and worry on every inch of his body. Some police officers were standing off to the side, apparently the ones that were just interrupted by their arrival. Dave was no where to be seen, along with Karkat and Nepeta.

"Dave's off in the bedroom, cleaning himself up." Bro answered their question. His voice was like a robot, dull and void of much emotion. "It's been brutal here today."

"What happened?" Feferi asked. "You all look like somebody died."

The silence that was given off made Equius all the more worried. "Did somebody die?"

"Ma'am," the police officer stepped up next to her after nobody spoke up. "We were called in for a report of two missing persons."

"They weren't missing reports and they ain't persons," A voice snapped behind them.

Equius had seen Dave when he looked bad. But this was no where near the state that Dave was in now. His hair had been handled by a blind sadist, his face no different. His bags were deeper than his brother's and his eyes were red with tears in them. He had been crying hard for a while. Either somebody had died, or it was just as bad as it.

And still no sign of Nepeta.

"Mr. Strider?" The police officer almost stunned, turned around to face him.

Dave was looking at Equius, almost shaking. "I'm sorry." He whispered, body beginning to shake more. "I'm so sorry."

"Dave?" Equius asked, no idea what he was talking about. "Are you okay? What happened?"

"He took them. He took Nepeta and he took K-Karkat," His voice broke off in a sob when he forced out the name of the mutant troll. "They're gone."

Chapter Text

When Nepeta Leijon woke up from her extended, forced upon, nap, she was confused. Instead of the warm, comfortable couch she fell asleep on, she found herself in a new place. She was on a cold, hard, concrete floor. Nepeta also didn’t have any clothes on her body, nor her blanket. That confused her further. Shouldn’t she be at least wearing something?

She tried to pull herself up off the floor, but found that her head was spinning too wildly for her to actually stand. She stumbled forward a few steps and fell onto a wired wall, fingers clutching at the opening. Her eyes scrunched up in concentration and she took frequent breaths, trying to calm herself down. Unfortunately, she didn’t think that she’d be able to.

The temperature made all of her hair stand on end and she started to shake, which didn’t help her head in any way. The horrid smells around her were assaulting her nostrils, filling them of piss, and what seemed to be a form of dried blood. It was almost like a sewer, but none of that made sense. Wasn’t she just with Dave and Karkat?

She forced her eyes to open and focus on what was going on. She couldn’t hear anything, and she was the only one who was in the cage she was in. Dave had to be somewhere too, right? Plus, she was going to see Equius later, she can’t be in this cell for long. In fact, her cell looked like the ones she saw in cartoons or tv shows. Was she in jail? She didn’t even remember getting here, what did she do to end up in jail?

Eventually, footsteps sounded from down the hall (she assumed it was a hall from her limited range of vision outside her cell) that made her ear twitch in response. She got off the concrete floor that she had been resting on and ran to the front of the cell to see who it was. She was a bit embarrassed to be caught without and clothes, but that of course, didn’t really matter to her at her age. She hadn’t developed the ability to be ashamed quite yet. Equius always got mad at her when she was caught without wearing her shirt, but it made Feferi giggle, so it wasn’t that bad, right?

A man approached her cell with heavy footsteps. When she saw him, she backed up a bit from nerves. He was wearing a scary white mask with no face on it. The only things on it were tiny eyeholes and holes for breathing. Otherwise nothing else was on it, except for a small scratch on the left eye. The mask was scary enough, but in the eye holes were red eyes staring back at her with fury. They were staring her down, her young, exposed body, and almost seemed to be glowing with interest. He wore an entirely black suit with matching leather shoes. The back of his head was covered by a black covering, almost like it was a jacket hood tucked underneath the mask.

He terrified Nepeta.

She backed away slowly from the cell bars and bared her teeth in a hiss on instinct. The man bent down slowly and chuckled.

“Hello, Olive.”

She didn’t respond to the voice, she was too scared to do anything but watch and try to predict his next move.

He put a hand on the bar and tilted his head. “Won’t you come over?”

She slowly shook her head in a no.

His body suddenly tensed up and he slammed his hand on the cage, causing her to jump in surprise. “COME OVER.” He roared, almost deafening her.

She slowly inched forward, scared to upset him again. Her long hair was knotted all over and she had to brush it out of her face quickly, needing to be able to see. She’d go mad if she didn’t.

His hand gently came through the space in the bars and opened his palm up for her. “There. See, that’s not too bad, is it, Olive?” His voice was slick and quiet, like a snake.

But as soon as she was in reach, he grabbed her hair and pulled her sharply, sending her to crash into the bars. He pulled the hair tighter, forcing her to stay there. She sobbed quietly, from the pain and from her overwhelming fear. “You will obey me, troll. Otherwise we will have a lot of issues in the future, and we don’t want that do we?” He leaned closer to her, his breath on her skin, and whispered to her quietly, “say no.”

“N-no…” she whispered back.

Her hair was released and she scampered back, shaking more than before.

The man stood, took a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door. He stepped inside, giving Nepeta no more feeling of security or protection. There wasn’t anything in the cell, she was naked, and she was completely defenseless. She didn’t think that she had ever been more scared before in her entire life. Her heart was beating so fast, she didn’t think it ever went that fast, that she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

But it must have been important because he threw his hand to her head, her eyes barely registering the motion before it happened. She let out a squeak of pain and something came up and met her forehead sharply when her eyes were closed and head bent. White exploded in the back of her eyes, more pain wiggled into her head. She fell to the ground, holding her head and whimpering. Her body was shaking so much and she felt nauseous. She waited for a few seconds for more beatings to come, but when she didn’t, she peaked out of her hand for a second, only to see a foot above her head coming at her quickly. She tried to move before it hit her, but it made contact, pushing her to the ground once more.

She didn’t get up.

When she finally did wake up, she felt everything on her body throbbing. But at least when she woke up this time, she had something covering her. she slowly got up into a sitting position and looked down at her new clothes. The huge shirt was more fit for a grown, fat adult rather than a child and was already dirty with grime. She lifted it up slightly to see if she had anything underneath and was shocked to find that there was nothing. All she received for clothes was a dirty shirt that was way too big.

Nepeta sighed and silently sat against the wall, trying to ignore how much her head was pounding, how badly her shirt was, or how her tail was starting to her again. Wasn’t she suppose to be taking her pills?

She didn’t know how long it was before she heard some footsteps coming from down the hall. Her ears perked up slightly, but she was weary. On one hand, she wanted to go see who it was, but on the other she didn’t want something like that scary man coming back.

She was pleasantly surprised with a new face this time. He didn’t have a suit like the last guy, but instead wore a normal pair of clothes, a good shirt and khaki shorts. His face was warm and he smiled slightly at her. But underneath the warmth, Nepeta saw something bad, like how some people would pretend to be happy to see her but didn’t like her when they saw her. She’d seen it plenty of times when she was at the store or saw Equius’s dad. Though, she paused in her thoughts, his dad never really pretended to smile.

“Hiya, Olive,” the man said kindly. Her new nickname scared her when these people used it. “How’re you?”

She looked at her feet as she slowly stepped forward, her long hair brushing against her back. She twisted her hands slightly and looked up at the man. He seemed nice enough though, compared to the other man she already met.

“Good,” she muttered at last.

He nodded and the smile turned into a smirk. “Yeah? I bet this place is weird to ya.”

She nodded.

“Well, I have a wee surprise for ya!”

She looked at him, more hope in her eyes. Maybe he would get her out of there. “What? What?”

“I’m here to cut ya’s hair!”

She looked at him in confusion. She didn’t want her hair cut, why would he do something like that? Nepeta shook her head and stepped back into her cell. “No!”

The man sighed and took out a pair of keys, fit them into the lock, and stepped into her cell. He flipped out a knife from his pocket, trying to ignore her scared cries. “Look, the quicker ya do this, the quicker it’s gonna be over.”

Her cries grew in length and volume as he grew closer to her. She hissed at him and got into a crouch position, as if she was trying to imitate him or threaten him, but he didn’t care. His patience had grown so short with this stupid troll that eventually he grabbed a chunk of her hair and chopped it with his knife. The knife went right through her hair, effectively cutting it in half the length of before.

This went on for what seemed like hours. Her tiny hands scrambled to get his off of her hair, he was pulling it so he was able to cut it neatly, but because of her scrambling, wasn’t able to. Near this point, Nepeta slowly felt herself go into shock. She didn’t know what that was at the time, but she wasn’t truly aware of what was going on anymore. She barely felt anything with what was going on with everything and she slowly just let herself go. When the man seemed to stop cutting her hair after minutes of struggling, she relaxed slightly, but was shocked to feel the blade on her hair once more. The knife began to saw through the rest of her hair, leaving chunks uneven and messy with unclean ends.

She simply surrendered completely, letting the man do whatever he pleased to her hair. Green tears silently slipped down her face. She wasn’t away that she was shaking until the man snapped at her to hold still so he wouldn’t cut her. When he was done, she ran her hand through her hair, which was almost all gone. There were chunks here and there missing, and she was sure that it wasn’t going to grow back anytime soon.

“Why cut it?” She mumbled at him a bit later after she saw the pile of hair on the floor. Her head felt so much lighter, but her body was still sore, and numb, from struggling.

“It’ll help ya. We’s gonna do more stuffs later too.”

‘Help with what?’ She thought to herself as she sat against the wall. She was vaguely aware of him leaving, but only truly noticed when nobody said anything when she began to sob loudly.

Hours later (was it hours? Did any time pass at all? It was impossible to tell), she found out what one of the ‘other stuff’ was. Even is she was given any food she wouldn’t be able to eat very well, her teeth were still sore and she could still taste the leftover blood. They had taken a file to her teeth and filed down her teeth to make them sharper. Luckily, all of her teeth were still baby teeth so it wouldn’t be permanent, but she was still worried that if she lost them they would file down the new teeth.

She ran her tongue gently over the edges and winced slightly when a sharp end poked a new cut on her tongue. Already, her gums were swollen and cut all over from the new teeth. If she was able to see a reflection of what she looked like now, she doubted that she would be able to recognize herself anymore. She felt so tired that she was sure her entire body would be a new shade of grey from exhaustion and from the new bruises she earned when she struggled.

She sniffed loudly and looked around. It was already dark, but trolls could see in the dark quiet well. Nevertheless, when the lights shut off without warning, she jumped a foot in the air and began to shake even more. When the lights were on she felt like she could at least pretend that she was going to be safe. Now with nothing else to comfort her, everything around her gave her the willies.

The bars on her cell shaped to form terrible stick monsters, the stones that made up the walls on the inside grew teeth that snapped at her from all around, even the small pebbles on the floor began barking at her. Normally, Nepeta would hiss fiercely at what scared her or go hide somewhere. But now, after a single day of this hell, she was starting to break and quickly went to go the furthest corner from the bars.

She brought her legs up to her chest and began to weep softly to herself, trying to calm down somehow. She didn’t know where she was or how long she was going to be there, but she knew that it was going to be way different from living with Equius.

Despite her tears, a small smile broke out when she thought of her friend. Nepeta thought of all the fun times they had together, like when they had played hide and seek and she won by always being able to sniff him out. Or maybe the time that he had thrown her a surprise party for her wriggling day, Nepeta thought that maybe his new wife had something to do with helping that.

Suddenly, guilt flooded her tummy. She felt bad for ruining his wedding and not being able to just stay out of trouble for once. She was always causing some form of trouble that made Equius stop what he was doing to make sure nobody got hurt. Maybe this was punishment for doing all those bad things.

Her sobs grew louder slightly and she hugged herself as tight as she could. She tried desperately to ignore how it echoed off the walls around her and to instead focus on happy memories with her favorite human. It was better than facing whatever hell she faced solo right now anyway, even if it were facile.

She briefly wondered if Karkat was going through the same fate as she was and hoped not. It already sucked that she had to deal with this, but him too? Maybe he had managed to elude the man who took them? She doubted it though. Everything seemed too wrong today to be able to have something good like that happen.

Across the span of over three thousand miles, Equius was not faring very well either. It had been two weeks since Nepeta and Karkat were kidnapped and the police haven’t found anything yet. He hadn’t gone back to work today and wasn’t planning on doing so the next day either. He doubt he would be able to sleep tonight, anyways. He hadn’t been able to rest since they got off the plane at the airport.

The vet was currently sitting in Nepeta’s room, holding one of her small colorful cat toys in his massive hands. With soft colors and a simple structure, it felt so simple, so plain, in his hand. But he still felt like it was something he might never had been able to hold if she wasn’t in his life in the first place. Imagine if he hadn’t taken her in, where would they be today? Would he be married to Feferi? Would they have moved away? Maybe with kids?

His fingers curled around the toy and he brought it to his face. No, this was the way that his life needed to be. But it needed to be with a small, olive blood too. With a deep breath, he tried to control his tears. He had already cried enough for today, it was okay. She was going to be found, he would make sure of it, even if he had to quit his job to be able to look for her, he would.

A tear rolled down his cheek.

He shook his head and cracked open an eyelid. Why did this have to happen to her? She was so sweet and helped him in so many ways, even if she was a bit annoying at times. But he couldn’t blame her for that. He knew fully well that a child was fully dependent on their caretakers to be able to live. And he would do anything for his charge to just..come back home. It was his dying wish for her to just come back home. He prayed to anybody listening that she would return safely. And even if she didn’t he would fix her.

He looked up when he heard footsteps coming from outside the hall and saw Feferi coming in the room with a glass of milk in her hand. “I brought you something to drink,” she said carefully. He didn’t blame her speaking softly. Anything could set off another emotional outburst.

“I am not thirsty.” He grunted, voice cracking.

“Equius, you need to drink something.”

“I’ll need a much stronger drink than milk right now then.”

Feferi sighed and placed the milk down on Nepeta’s small bedside table. Equius stared at it and took another deep breath. Feferi began to rub his back reassuringly, not knowing fully well what to do. The police were already on the case, but the humans were strongly suspicious that they weren’t going to take this case as serious as a missing person. To them, trolls weren’t people and wouldn’t be taken care of like them.

Poor Sollux was beside himself, scared out of his mind for his two younger friends. Cronus tried to make him feel better, being the only other troll there, and to everybody’s surprise was actually able to. Sollux was crying in Cronus’s lap for a good twenty minutes while Cro just rubbed his back, like Feferi was doing right now with her love.

She looked back at him when she heard a sob break out from him. Her eyes filled with pity and she reached over to peck his cheek. “Equius, she’s going to be okay.”

He didn’t move, only began to shake from keeping his tears in.

“I promise you that she’ll be okay.”

“She’s such a little girl, Feferi, what are they going to do to my troll?” He gasped out and turned to his wife. His eyes were brimmed red and puffy, contrasting the bags underneath them greatly. “She’s so precious. Why would they take her?” Another sob. “How could they take my Nepeta away?”

“I don’t know what they are going to do, Eq.” Feferi spoke after a moment of just holding him and trying to think of something to say. “But I can tell you that we are not going to lose hope that the two of them will be okay. They’re going to come home to us and they are going to be fine. Nothing will change.”

Equius leaned into Feferi and hugged her tightly. He needed something to hold on to right now, he was so unstable he doubted that he would be able to stand up on his own right now. His hands grasped her smooth pajamas and held her as tightly as he dared to himself. Their chests were touching without any sexual desire behind it and he found it slightly comforting.

“Just let it out, honey. I promise you I won’t think anything less of you if you do.” Feferi spoke softly into his ear. She brushed his hair with her fingers as she felt her shirt get wetter and tried not to think about how she doubted her own words. But she needed to be strong for her husband right now, clearly he wasn’t going to be himself for quite a while.

Chapter Text

Blades jabbed at her face with piercing ends, ready to kill. The silver shined brightly as Nepeta ducked underneath her opponent’s blades, narrowly missing her head by inches. She jabbed out her own claw like blades and tried not to wince at the feeling of her claws sinking into the flesh of yet another troll. The spray of blood sent cheers to her audience, but sent more guilt to her.

Her opponent, who looked a sweep or so older than her staggered backwards, Nepeta taking out her claws from their stomach. She watched the troll stagger for a moment, trying to find a way to survive and somehow come out on top of the battle. With a small, invisible sigh, she pounced on the troll and sunk her teeth into the troll’s neck, tasting the blood that filled her mouth. The olive blood had learned early on what the sharp teeth were for and used them often. This time it was very effective finishing the other troll, who let out a small scream, shuddered, and went limp.

Nepeta stood, breathing heavily, and wiped the blood off of her lips. She looked up at her audience from the bottom of a hole she was currently in. Her fighting rinks were usually like this, at a bottom of an empty pool, a huge hole in some forest, once even in the ditch of a forest. They were always so the trolls wouldn’t be able to reach the humans above, for protection for the cowards, as she thought. They should be the ones fighting each other, not making trolls fight for their petty entertainment.

She looked over at the troll she had just slain, a green blood like her, and turned away. This was not her first kill, far from it. She didn’t have any knowledge of where or when she was. The only way she could truly be able to tell time was if it were day or night or if she monitored the seasons changing. So far she had been there for two winters. She hated winters the most, it was freezing in her metal cage, with no blankets or nice carpeted floor to keep her warm. Some of her fellow trolls had froze to death. The summers were worse, she had to take off her shirt to avoid sweating to death, quite literally. She barely received any water or food, so when she began to sweat it was risking her life.

In the two winters, or two years, she had been there, Nepeta had to quickly learn to defend herself and how to fight, how to kill. She’d kill countless times, the first time was the hardest at her young age. Now she was used to being coerced to fight, and to kill, but it didn’t make the guilt any harder to wear on her shoulders. Every death was another nightmare she had to haunt her even when she opened her eyes.

But the most important that she had to learn was how to survive. She was glad that she was a fan of cats before because they had literally saved her life now. She would watch them when they came close to her cage, observing how light they were on their paws and how they stretched when they pounced. It took practice, but she was doing a fantastic job at mimicking them now. Nepeta had learned how the cats would hunt mice and other rodents, too. She made sure that she would be able to find her own food when she starved on nights she didn’t fight.

When she fought, they would give her food afterwards if she survived. Most of the time, her masters would lose a troll or two a night so she would get their share of food, split along the others there. Her masters had a lot of money, so they were able to afford to simply waste a troll to make the crowd more excited.

She didn’t even know things like this existed when she lived with her human. She could barely recall his name, she was sure that she would be able to remember it if somebody had said it, but to be frank, she didn’t care. They had abandoned her to this monster, so she didn’t give a damn what their name was. Most of her fucks went straight to living through each night.

Speaking of, Nepeta looked around for her master. Most of the time there would be a door or something that led to tunnels upon tunnels that she knew the routes too pretty well. At her home, which was the farthest thing from the definition of home, she would just crawl through the hole in the side of the pool where she would go back to her cage and wait for the next fight. But she wasn’t at her home, where she would fight in a pool, she was at her master’s friend’s place. If she recalled correctly, this guy was her master’s son or something. Either way, she was to be respectful of who she was staying with at all times or risked a beating.

Her master appeared before the pool’s side with his mask still on. She raised a lip at him, tempted to bite him. She didn’t, of course, just sneered at him as he nodded his head to the ladder that led into the hole. She sighed and began to climb the steps to get over the side. As soon as she was, her shirt neck was pulled at and before she knew it she was thrown against a metal fence. She landed on her side, not daring to move until she felt the final click of her chains.

“One.” Her master, she wasn’t allowed to call him anything else, growled in her ear. She sighed in relief when he left. The number meant how many fights she had left, and thankfully, she only had one left for tonight.

Her wrist was forced to stay up above her head where the chain held her in place. She didn’t mind, honestly. She was away from people and trolls at the moment and had no reason to be on guard for the next few minutes. She was free to think about whatever she wanted to. But, unfortunately, most of the time when she was “free,” the eyes of those she killed returned to haunt her.

So, instead, she thought about how much she was worth to her master. As a green blood, she wasn’t much at first. But through so much agony and tears, she was beginning to climb throughout the ranks. For each fight that was held, each viewer or master had to pay a hefty fee of upwards of about two grand. With three nights of fighting a week, per person, which ranged in the hundreds, whoever was running the show made a pretty penny.

Then there were the bets. If you thought a troll was going to die, bet a hundred on it. If you thought a troll was going to slaughter it’s opponent, bet two hundred. With Nepeta, you could damn well be sure to bet a few hundred dollars on her. Wit her foot long claws, great record, and dangerous attitude, most of the time she went without injury. However, there have been fights when she was flirting with death and had to sit out of the next fight, which always resulted in beatings.

“Hey, you need anything?”

Nepeta flicked out her claws and pointed them out to the voice that interrupted her thinking. As soon as she saw who it was, she lowered them cautiously, but still had them pointed at him.

“Holy fuck, calm down. I had to make sure that master’s father’s troll needed anything. I’m under orders, you know?” He scoffed and crossed his arms, clearly unimpressed with her position. “Besides, how are you going to fight me chained to a fence.”

The troll had grown, that’s for sure. He looked a lot better than she did, too. His skin was clear of any scars, minus a few on his arms. (Those were from whips, she could tell. What had he done to deserve that?) He had nubby horns still, and hair that was too messy to even attempt to style it to go with them. His bright yellow eyes now had red irises to match them. She recognized his blood color in his eyes as a final confirmation of who her friend was.

“Karkat?” Her voice cracked at the name from the lack of use. The only time she was allowed to talk was if she was spoken to first or if she was screaming. “‘s that you?”

The troll blinked and tilted his head to an angle in suspicion. He narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms over his covered chest. It made Nepeta realize that he had clothes, both a shirt and pants. Lucky bastard. “Who wants to know,” he cautiously retorted.

“It’s me, Nepeta.” She spoke slowly, getting used to talking for so long. “Remember?”

It took him a few seconds, but he opened his eyes wide and dropped his jaw in shock. His tail brushed against the concrete near them, gently sending a wave of envy in Nepeta. She missed her tail, she would be so lucky if she had all of it back. They chopped it all away when it got infected from going without antibiotics when she first arrived.

“Nepeta? The small little troll that loved cats?” He choked out. “That’s you?”

She nodded. She knew that she must’ve looked different. Her eyes had to be rid of innocence, her hair was matted and greasy. Her last rinse down was a few weeks ago, and that’s only where they sprayed her with a hose. She had scars covering her entire body from head to toe. Her tail was gone and she looked feral more than anything else.

At least Karkat had gotten the better end of the stick. He looked like he was a servant troll for a human. When trolls were too valuable to risk in the ring they were made slaves instead, caring for the chores and other things that humans were too lazy to do on their own. They also served food and tea for their masters and took care of the trolls that were in the master’s show. It was only polite to do so, after all. Wouldn’t want anybody thinking that they were rude, oh, no, no . Far from rude.

“How long has it been?” She asked after he sat next to her. “I think it’s been two winters.”

“About a sweep or so,” Karkat sighed. The two of them were watching the fight and he shook his head. “I don’t know how you manage to do that,” he looked at her with hints of worry in his face. “I mean none of us have it easy, but at least I don’t have to fucking fight for food scraps.”

She glared at him. “Yeah, I don’t like it, neither.” She hissed. The only words they heard were the ones spewed out by their masters, who were the worst people some had the pleasure of knowing. So, of course, their grammar was now enhanced by errors and curse words. It showed clearly when Nepeta was allowed to talk or screamed in pain. The f-bomb was dropped in the ring like fish in water.

The two sat in silence for a few moments, just listening to the grunts of the fight below them and the cheer of drunk men in front of them. The fence was well away from the pool so they were in safe distance from anybody and were under constant watch by dogs. If anybody were to go near them that didn’t have permission they would be in the hospital for days.

“What if we just went away from all of this?” Karkat looked over at Nepeta. “We could just leave. You know how to fight and I can read. We can make it.”

Nepeta watched the blood colors fly around in the pool. They had no where to go. Their own families, if that’s what one could call them, abandoned them. They had no idea where they were, were both under five sweeps old, and without a guardian they would be where they are now. This was hell enough, to taste freedom then be sent back would just be salt in a wound.

“Karkat, you’re stupid.” She shook her head and looked at him. “I know how to fight,” She cleared her throat, “can barely talk, and don’t even have a tail. How we gonna live out there?”

“I dunno,” He sighed. “But if we find Dave and-”

“They abandoned us.” She said without emotion. She looked straight forward, not looking Karkat in the eyes.

“How d’ya know?”

“Wouldn’t they come back for us now?” She turned towards him. “Wouldn’t they have noticed that we’re gone or cared enough to look?”

“You don’t know they ain’t.”

“You don’t know they are.”

It was a tense moment between them as they simmered at each other’s words. Finally, Karkat broke it by saying that if they were to get out, he would go find them so they could at least know what was going on. Then, if they didn’t like it there, they would leave.

“Sound good?”

She looked at Karkat. His eyes held honesty and sincere feelings for her. She didn’t trust many people now anyway, didn’t bother getting close to those around her because she ended up killing them anyway. But Karkat was a friend since forever, the least she could do was at least give him the chance to prove her wrong.

“If we go and find them and they actually care, I might stay.” She said slowly. “If they come to me, I’ll forgive them of everything.”

Karkat smiled and nodded. “A deal.”

The smile disappeared when Nepeta’s master came up to her and began working on her chains. “It’s time for your fight, Olive.”

-----

Her olive tongue ran over her cut hand, trying to make it feel better. She usually found that when you rub spit in a cut or red areas, it would make it the area seem a bit more doable and less likely to kill her. After all, any infection was likely to spread. Just look at her non existent tail for the proof.

She was currently camped out in her dog sized cage. It wasn’t too bad, she’s been in worse. The cage was a cube with wires all around it, so she had free range of view. And this time it had a blanket in it! She was indeed loving it. The cage across from her in the yard was holding Gamzee, an opponent worthy of a fight. He’s never lost one yet and killed every troll he went against. It sent shivers down her spine every time she had to look at him.

Since the fights were to take place at night, everybody slept in the day. Tents were sometimes there if no hotels were around, but since there was one near this place, people rested there. So it was only the trolls camped out in the yard for today. And yet, Nepeta felt at ease. She was to go against Gamzee in the next few nights sometime, a fight that viewers had to pay extra to see. She rarely had lost before and seemed to be a good opponent for Gamzee, or so she overheard their masters talking.

Just as Nepeta laid down after licking her hand, a sound cut through her drowsiness and made her sit up with a jolt. Her ears were erect and her eyes shined with heavy suspicion and caution. She scanned around her full three hundred sixty radar and growled slightly when she saw nothing. The olive blood laid down again, slower this time, listening for the sound. She wiggled her fingers slightly to make sure she had her weapons on her.

When she heard the sound again, out came the claws (literally) and she crouched in her cage with a loud growl that startled some birds in the tree next to her.

Karkat stood there a few feet away and took a step back in shock. Then he realized that she couldn’t do anything to him and shook his head at her. “Jeez, would ya mind stopping that each time ya see me?”

She narrowed her eyes at him and looked around for anybody that might’ve heard him, or worse, seen him. “What’re you doing here?”

“Easy. I told you last night.” Her took out a small metal object from his pocket and crouched next to the lock in her cage. “We’re bustin’ outta here.”

She gaped at him and shook her head. “Are you dumb?” She hissed at him. “We’ll be killed!”

He shrugged his shoulders at her and leaned closer to the cage. His looked at the lock tentatively. “I don’t think so. Besides, anyplace is better than this, right?”

She didn’t say anything, only watched as he shoved the metal in the lock and poked it around until a click was heard. “See? I got it!”

She shook her head at him and gently pushed the door open with her armed hand. She looked around warily. If this failed their lives would be put in jeopardy and she’d be damned if that happened. “Are you sure nobody saws you coming out here?” She whispered.

“Positive.” He whispered back. “You ready? We’re gonna go that way,” he pointed across the field to a road that was barely visible. “And we’re gonna follow the road until we hit civilization about twenty miles west.” He chucked the piece of metal across the field and nodded to her. “We have about five hours before everybody wakes up, so we should make it by then.”

She nodded back in understanding and the two embarked off towards the road until she met Gamzee’s malevolent gaze. It froze her solid and she actually stopped for a second to meet it. His look terrified her to the core and made her olive blood run cold in her veins. He growled under his breath and lunged at her, arms and claws spread out as if to reach her from where she stood. It instantly gave her a boost of adrenaline and she took of sprinting after Karkat.

His crazy howls filled her ears even after the two joined up again near the road.

Nepeta felt like she was flying when she ran like this. Her shirt, dearth of cleanliness from all the battles she’d been in, was flying behind her as the wind pushed against her. Her wild and unkempt hair flew around her face like a halo and showed off her smile of wild teeth. She hadn’t been able to run like this for more than a sweep and she felt fantastic. She felt more than fantastic, this feeling was indomitable. This was almost what it was like to live again. The feeling of freedom coursed through her veins, solid like the concrete below on her exposed feet.

She was skeptic at first of the entire plan, but now, now she felt like nothing could stop her and Karkat. This plan might not be as horrible as it seemed. Maybe, just maybe the others did try to get to her, maybe they were still there. Nepeta knew in her heart that they loved her still. She could just feel the strong arms around her. If she concentrated hard enough, she was able to see Equius’s face vaguely. Maybe she’d be able to see it again before she-

A roar from a wild animal screamed behind them, effectively ruining their getaway. Nepeta turned and her blood went cold. Her face paled and her claws automatically sprung out. Karkat next to her cursed like a sailor and he took a few steps back.

Gamzee was charging at them.

It was a few seconds before Nepeta was able to speak functionally. “Karkat, go.”

“What?” He sharply turned to her. “No!”

“Get the fuck out of here!” She pushed at his chest harshly. “I’ve killed lots of trolls before that didn’t have to die,” she panted out. “Good fighters, too! You don’t fight worth a damn and I’m not gonna let you die!” Her eyes showed a harsh light in them that made him break eye contact with her.

The two stood for half a second before he nodded. There wasn't anything he could do to help without being in the way. Though this moment haunted him for sweeps afterwards until he died, he turned around and fled without saying a single word. His feet scraped at the road, trying to get a better grip to launch him forward faster. The only thing that ran through his mind at the moment was “get out of here.”

Nepeta turned to the crazed troll behind her, who stopped right in front of her, teeth bared. He didn’t waste anytime speaking, he never does when he’s in a fight.

He brought his massive arm swinging towards her head at lightning speed. She barely had time to register it and move to evade it before she felt the air swishing above her. She jumped up to headbutt him, but he easily saw that, brought his arm back and hit the side of her head.

She saw colors dance behind her eyelids, but got up from the ground. She hissed at him, or where she thought he was, before realizing that he had moved. His speed was legendary and impossible to detect, so she simply sat and listening for his movements.

A footstep behind her indicated where he was and she jumped up, claws pointed, to attack him. He grabbed her wrist and slowly dragged her claws against his face, smiling like nothing was wrong. Her eyes widened and screamed as she saw the purple spill from the cuts in his face, future scars for sure.

Gamzee shoved her down to the ground and held her there by his foot. It was crushing her rib cage and Nepeta cursed, trying to regain herself from the adrenaline to breathe properly. Gamzee stood above her with his malevolent face, blood smeared across it. It was the type of face that would haunt nightmares of children. One that wouldn’t leave their mind for years to come.

She wiggled underneath his foot and tried to shove his leg off of her. He watched along, clearly amused in her efforts. In a simply instead after he got bored, he bore more weight onto the foot on her chest and leaned in close enough that some blood spilled on her skin. She whimpered as he drew closer and he chuckled underneath his breath before bringing down his fist to her forehead.

A loud thud sounded out as her head ricocheted off the ground. She went still, but continued to breathe, albeit a bit strained. Gamzee grinned and got off her then looked at the coward running away from his friend.

Karkat had heard the two fighters behind him crash and began to wrestle around, her hisses and his roars. Her screams of pain and his of triumph. Eventually, the sounds stopped altogether. He tried not to look back the farther he went, but when Gamzee’s harsh ballistic yell broke out, louder than before, he stumbled to the ground in shock, in fear, and had to fight to get back up on his feet.

He turned around and watched for a few seconds. A very, very faint dot of Gamzee stood over a smaller one. He couldn’t see them clearly anymore, but he was sure that Nepeta had lost. He choked down a sob, he couldn’t cry here, and turned around.

His steps felt heavier than before.

“She’s alive, motherfucker!” Gamzee called out behind him. It sounded like he was right next to Karkat, who had to turn around to make sure that it wasn’t, in fact, him there breathing down his neck. “She’ll be dead in two days if you don’t show your ugly ass face to come get her!” His laughter rose in volume. “That’s when our fight is!”

Gamzee picked Nepeta off the ground, from what Karkat was able to see, and plodded back into the forest where their cages had been. Karkat pondered how it was even possible for Gamzee to be out of his cage anyhow. Was it possible for him to kick down the lock? Maybe his cage had never been locked in the first place. He thought about everything he had done to get Nepeta out. Had he somehow missed that his cage was unlocked?

Karkat stopped breathing for a few seconds when he realized that he let Gamzee out. When he tossed the key across the field, it must’ve landed near the purple blood’s cage. Then Gamzee must’ve reached, got it, and freed himself. But why not run away with them?

Karkat took deep breathes and turned around, for the final time. He couldn’t help but let a few tears run down his face as he resumed sprinting towards his temporary freedom. He would have to come back. He’d have to return to this hell again. He’d have to face his former master too.

Only this time, he would have his family there to help break her out for good.

---

It must’ve been hours before he finally spotted the first building. Though it was a small city, it meant that there were people there, and people meant that somebody could help him Energy spiked up inside his small body and he began to jog towards the small city. He had run out of energy to be able to do more than a slight jog, it hurt to even pick up each foot and place it in front of the other.

By the time he had reached the welcome sign, his clothes were soaked with his sweat, his hair placed flat against his head, horns sticking out more than usual. He stopped for a slight second or so, bent forward, hands on knees, breathing heavily. He looked up at the city for a few more seconds, counted the seconds, then began to jog again.

He didn’t even get to make it to the city before he managed to get a ride.

The car, purely white, pulled up next to him and stopped. On the side of the car (truck?) were small lines with locks in little holes next to the lines. There were words on the side underneath the lines, some lines below it, and a number placed next to it. It puzzled him for a few seconds before he could properly read it.

Animal Control.

Fast forward two or three hours, he lost track of the time, he was in a cage with a new shirt that the vet had given him. He had a small check-up before he was deemed to be in okay health. After his check up, he was placed in a small cage with food and water in bowls next to him. He understood what Nepeta and the other fighter trolls felt now. When he had to travel place to place, he would ride up in the front of the pickup trucks with his master instead of in the back in cages with sheets over it. His master taught him how to read a map so he could give directions when they were on the road, so now he could tell where he was. It didn’t help much when he didn’t know how far it was from his old home, though. He had told the vet his family’s name, the page on facebook they could check to see that he was with them, even down to the Clinic’s name. But still, he heard nothing.

He sighed and rested his head against the metal wall. He was just a kid, why did he have to deal with this? When he tried to sleep earlier, he had a nightmare about Nepeta dying for him and his family blaming him for everything.

He just wanted to go back to the way things were a sweep ago.

---

Doctor Equius Zahhak pulled up his hair into a ponytail and put on his white jacket that was just for his job as a vet. It had been two and a half years since Nepeta was kidnapped and he was doing as well as any guardian could. Feferi was being very helpful in this and supported him in every decision he made.

But she had to put her foot down when he said he wanted to quit his job to be able to look for her longer. The police were still “looking” for the two kids, but they hadn’t any luck (surprise, surprise). She had eventually convinced him to go back so they wouldn’t be behind in any bills or had to start working for some run down place if he got fired for taking too much time off.

So here he was.

He was almost done with his day, only a few more check ups, a shot to give, and simple paperwork to get through. It had been a long day, but at least when the clinic was closed for a holiday tomorrow he’d be able to sleep in.

As he walked down the hall to the next room, he realized how tired he was. He grew deep bags underneath his eyes from being awake at night so much. Feferi tried to get him to get on sleeping pills, but he refused them. He hated to be awake sometimes, it reminded him of when he would get up to help Nepeta with something. But at the same time, it reminded him of those times too. One of his favorite memories so far was when she had made him get up at two thirty to make sure that he didn’t disappear overnight for whatever reason she had. Then afterwards she had followed him back to his room and tried to sneak in his bed without him knowing.

When he placed his hand on the lump in his blankets, she jumped and pounced on his hand, rolling around with it. He laughed loudly and had picked her up and snuggled her to his chest, like a child would do with a toy.

They woke up like that the next morning and she licked his nose in good morning. At the time, he was annoyed slightly, but he would give anything to be able to get a nose like from her again. He would give anything just to be able to see her again.

It’s been a very long time. Sollux had grown up more since Karkat had left their lives, too. He was practically over the fact that Karkat was gone and gotten used to life without a younger brother. Yet, the adults were far from used to it. Well, more like Equius, was far from. The others were more used to it, but still refused to give up looking. No good guardian would ever give up looking for their trolls, even if it had been two and a half years.

He vaguely heard the phone ring and Jade answer it before he went into the room to provide a check up on a dog. The bulldog was a pure breed with a timid owner to go along with it. The owner sat on a chair next to the exam table before standing and shaking the vet’s hand.

“Thank you for, uh, checking Tinkerbull over.” The man smiled tentatively.

“Of course.” Equius began checking the dog through, making small mental notes. All of which were on the good side, this check up was going to be very easy to breeze through. “Is there anything I need to look out for or to look for specifically?”

“No,he’s been doing okay. I think that he’s, uh, good to do. But I had to bring him in anyway for a checkup.”

Equius nodded as he somewhat listened to the man.

The door opened all of a sudden, startling all three of them inside the room. The dog barked at the Jade, who was wearing a grin bigger than any since the trolls were gone.

“Ms. Harley! What is the meaning of this?” Equius scrunched up his eyebrows and shook his head. “I am with a patient!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know!” She squealed. “They found him! Equius, they found him!” She jumped up and hugged the vet, wrapping her arms tightly around his chest.

“Found who?” He groaned and peeled her off of him.

“Karkat!”
----

Karkat listening closely, trying hard not to breathe as he listened to the lady on the phone in the next room over. She’d say his name every few seconds and he was pretty sure that she was calling his family. When she said a few more things, including the address, and some high pitched sounds on the other line sounded out, he grew exhilarated and relieved.

She had gotten through to them. A smile grew on his face. They were coming for him.

He was going to see his family again. After so long, after what he’s been through, he would see Dave, Sollux, Bro, even Cronus again. Maybe that old vet he liked so much, the one with glasses. Eq...something. He was so excited he couldn’t help but smiling to himself and repressing the guilt that came with the news of him being rescued.

Two days. They had enough time to reach her by then, he hold himself. Just bask in the knowledge of freedom.

Chapter Text

“You know what to say?”

“Uh-huh! Say happy wrigglingday!”

Feferi had to suppress a loving giggle from escaping as she looked upon the excited troll before her. Nepeta was going to surprise Equius with a breakfast in bed for his birthday. The plan had been set in motion ever since she found out that Equius had a human version of her species’ wrigglingday. With the help of Feferi, the two of them were going to give him a very exciting birthday, starting with food the two of them had made earlier.

The two sweep old held the tray with trembling hands. It’s containments were a few pieces of toast with blueberry jam on the burned sides, some eggs that were surprisingly in good condition, and a bowl of cereal with milk in it. She had decided to make his breakfast all by herself, Feferi helping when she wasn’t looking, so most of the food were in some way ruined, but good enough to eat.

Feferi nodded her head. “Alright, sweetie, I think he’s still asleep, so let’s go in quietly, okay?”

Nepeta nodded, giggled, then closed her mouth as Feferi shushed her playfully.

The door creaked open, but didn’t disturb the sleeping resident. Nepeta held the tray high in her hands, slightly shaking still from the weight. She padded her way across the room to the bedside table, gently put the food on it, and from a nodded approval from her guardian’s girlfriend, jumped up on the bed carefully. She watched him sleeping for a second, smiled, and pounced on the massive form.

Equius bolted upright with a grunt from impact, fully awake now, and blinked rapidly from the surprise pounce. He was instictively ready to fight or flight, but he realized what was going on once he saw Feferi grinning across the room and the troll on his lap.

“Happy wrigglingday, Equius!” Nepeta laughed and jumped up on his chest to make eye contact with the exposed eyes of her friend; no glasses were worn when he woke up.

“For humans, it’s known as birthday, Nepeta.” He said in a calm voice and placed his hand on her head. A throat was cleared across the room as Feferi approached the food, queuing Equius to fix his mistake. “But you have permission to call it wrigglingday if you so choose.”

Feferi handed him the food and beamed at him. “Happy birthday, Eq.” She kissed him and Nepeta giggled slightly, which earned her a playful push to make her fall back on the bed.

“Oh, be careful with the eggs!” Nepeta told him as he was taking his first forkful. “There’s a bunch of shells I couldn’t get out!”

Equius blinked at her and nodded slowly. “I will exert caution. Why don’t you get some food for yourself and Feferi?”

Once the food was handed out and his girls were sitting on the bed with him, stealing some of the food without his knowledge (he totally knew, but let them), Nepeta gave his presents for the day to him. It was wrapped very sloppily and looked like it took a lot of tape, but he knew that it had taken the troll some time to work on this.

It was green, just like her blood. Some kittens were drawn on it as well, smiling at whoever was looking at it. Equius had complimented on her art skills and loved the present underneath of it, a tie that had pawprints on it. Nepeta told him that it was going to be his new work tie and that he would wear it everyday. He swore to it and promised to do so.

He kept that promise, and everyday Nepeta said that she loved his tie. Equius told her in response that he loved her and would ruffle her hair to mess with her. It wasn’t going to tame itself anyway, so it wouldn’t really matter if it was ruffled to the extreme. They’d always end up in a tickle war and she would eventually lose, but it was still fun to fight with him.

------

Nepeta watched as more green blood dripped down off of the whip in front of her face with blurry vision. It was the same color as the wrapping paper from that day. It was probably less time than she thought, but it still felt like it was a lifetime away. It was almost ironic, that the wrapping paper was so crumbled up, sloppy craftsmanship, and messed up with so many strips of tape on it. She guessed that it was like her, green and ruined.

Unperfect in every way.

After Gamzee had recaptured her from her short breath of freedom, he brought her back to her master, who was beyond furious that she dared to leave. Most who tried to escape were killed immediately, but they needed her to make more money for the upcoming fight.

“You worthless brat,” he spat on the ground next to her. “You couldn’t have waited one more day before your death. You would’ve been spared of this pain.”

Her hand gently went to the small amount of pooling blood next to her head. She swirled it around gently, her vision going black around the edges.

“‘m w’rth s’m’ng.” She whispered to her cruel master.

“You what?” He squatted next to her and tugged her head up by her hair so he could see her face. “You’re not worth the ground you’ll die on.”

“Why ‘m alive?”

“I need you for money. That’s all you’re good for and all you’ll ever be. I make money off of your pain and your skills.” He stepped away from her, shoes making clicking sounds as they stepped down.

“So ‘m w’rth it.”

“No you ain’t.” He dropped her head down and brought the whip to his hands. “You are going to die tomorrow night and I’ll make money off of it. That’s it.”

She blinked slowly, trying to stay awake. If she fell asleep right now it’d be hard to wake up. And, honestly, she was tired of waking up to this disappointment. If she didn’t wake up, she’d be okay with that. A small child thinking about death was hard, but maybe if she just slept forever, that’d be okay for her.

But nothing was okay.

Her small body was covered in bruises, her head was pounding, lips stinging from a stray whip across them. Everywhere she saw was green. Her green, the green that flowed through her veins and gave her life. It was the same green that was on her shirt after a fight, after she had wrapped his present so carefully.

Nepeta sighed and forced her eyes to stay open.

She really missed Equius. What would he say right now if he were there? Would he get her out? She guessed he would. If nothing else, he wouldn’t stand for beating. They were against trolls being abused like this, right? The group? She thought so, but her head was really foggy.

“Olive, listen up. You’re gonna be kept alive, barely, then fight tomorrow, yeah?” Her head was lifted up again. “Don’t die on me yet. I need the money you’ll get me.”

The young troll made her eyes turn to slits in a glare and shook her head. “‘m not ol’v.” She grumbled. “N’peta.”

“What was that?” Her master leaned down to hear her better.

She opened the tired eyes more. “N...Nepeta.”

Her master shook his head. “Oh for god’s sake,” he groaned and dropped her again.

She let herself sleep.

------

Karkat was beyond feelings.

He didn’t know what exactly to feel. He knew that he should be exhilarated that his family was finally going to come and rescue him from this hell, but he couldn’t help but feel less than happy emotions. Guilt rumbled his guts around, making him feel nauseous and didn’t want to eat anything that was in his temporary cage. He also didn’t want to feel nervous, but he did. It had been an entire sweep since he had last seen his human family.

What would they think of him when they learned what he did? Would they still love him? Were they even coming?

The last one was a dumb question, of course they were! The lady was so enthusiastic about telling him the conversation, down to the last word, that it was too good not to be true.

He could barely wait any longer than he had to. It was a few hours wait for them to get here, apparently he was closer than he predicted, but it was still quite a ways to drive. He tried different things to distract him, trying to think of what to say when they got here, tried to watch the clock in the room tick by, tried to conquer the idea of any event happening where he could show off his learned vocabulary. But, unfortunately, he didn’t think that there would be a swear word contest anytime soon. Even if there was, they wouldn’t let somebody so young join (but that’s just because the people running it would know he would win).

Finally, when it was time, he heard the animal control’s door open from the front. The lady from earlier began talking to somebody, her voice louder than the other person’s when something happened. It sounded like something fell, but he couldn’t be completely sure.

“Sir, you must stay here!”

“Ma’am, you gotta know I’ve been waiting for two years and I’ll be damned to wait just for you to unlock the door.”

Karkat froze in his cage, breathing hitched. His heart was pumping his blood around so wildly, he could feel it rushing around his head, but he couldn’t help but think it was stopped. He knew that voice. He knew who it belonged to! He had waited for so long he couldn’t believe it at first.

“It’s against the rules!”

“Screw the rules, I’m getting him with or without you.”

The voice’s sounds grew closer and Karkat dug up the scripted conversation he had with the human he’d been waiting for. He’d start out real cool like, like the things Dave showed him when he was younger. First, you bob your head up in greeting then grab their hand and bump their shoulder with theirs. If you were really close, you’d pat them on the back and say “What's up?”

Karkat could hear the footsteps outside of the door. He went through it over and over again in his head what he needed to do so he’d be all cool like. Bob head, shake hands, pat back, what's up, bob head, shake hands, pat back, what's up….

The door opened and in came in the human he’d yearned for for two years. He forgot how blonde Dave was, his hair reflecting the artificial light in the room, his sunglasses covering up the red colored eyes the two shared. He was wearing his infamous sweater that he always had worn since the beginning of time. The jeans he wore had some holes starting in the knees and were complemented by some pair of shoes that had to be really old to be that worn.

“Karkat?” Dave smiled at the troll and scrambled to unlock the cage. Karkat heard Bro and some other voiced coming in, the lady groaning and racing towards the front. But he couldn’t notice that, his eyes were wide and staring at Dave.

The human pulled the cage door open and breathed out a held breath. “Karkat, little man, you’ve grown so much.”

Karkat whimpered slightly, ear going back. He completely forgot the imaginary script and began to form tears in his eyes. His bottom lip began to wibbly and he reached out for Dave to pick him up. As soon as Dave had started to lift his arms, Karkat launched himself into him, holding him so tight it almost hurt Dave to breath. It was almost like it was when Dave found the small troll in the soggy box all those years ago. Karkat dug his head into his chest, horns and all, and began to sob.

----

It must’ve been ten minutes before Karkat let anybody move him from Dave. He didn’t want to be separated from his family again by anybody, even if it was the family he was no longer used to. But, eventually, he let himself be picked up by somebody else and held by Bro. Bro was relieved to be able to hold him, from what Karkat could tell.

They soon left the pound, and he was placed in the car that was driven here to get him. It was easily able to hold up to eight or so people, so he still had plenty of room to move around if he wanted. He hadn’t been seen a lot of the people that were in the car for so long, he almost forgot what they looked like.

Dave, Bro, Doctor Zahhak, Feferi and Cronus were in the car with him. He was hoping to see Sollux, but as he was strapped into the car, he realized that maybe it was a good thing he didn’t come. He didn’t want to be pestered with pointless questions or to deal with his probable emotions of not being able to help him. He almost felt selfish and didn’t want to do anything but be in the attention of those around him.

“Karkat?” Dave sat next to him and turned to face him properly. After Karkat responded with a tilt of the head, he went on. “What happened when you were... gone?”

Karkat looked out the window for a few seconds. They were still in the parking lot, just pulling out. Zahhak was driving, which Karkat didn’t mind. Right now he just wanted to think about Dave and everybody. He didn’t want to feel guilty about Nepeta. They’d have time to get her.

But for right now, the question dragged out memories that Karkat would rather forget.

“’s not the best story,” Karkat sighed. His speech changed, coerced into a formal form with a mix of curses because of where he was placed. Nepeta’s would be more trashy and almost all with curses. But that’s for a different chapter. “I don’t like thinking about it.”

“That’s okay,” Dave said. “We can totally talk about it later.”

“As douchey as this is, we can’t. It’s been two years, we kinda need to know.” Bro spoke up from somewhere in the car. “Especially if Nepeta is still gone.”

They passed a place that sold food. Karkat was kinda hungry.

It took a few minutes and exactly nine blocks they passed before Karkat was ready to tell his story.

“When I woke up when I noticed something was wrong.”
-------

One of the first things that he noticed when he woke up was that he was not alone. Around him were other trolls, shivering and holding their arms to their chest. He didn’t understand why they were shivering, it wasn’t really all that cold in there, until a bucket of water was poured over his small frame. A small squeak came out of him and he looked up with a small sense of panic coming in.

Immediately, the cold set in. The water was freezing and the stale air didn’t help whatsoever. The water did, however, make him more alert to his surroundings. He was in a cell with the trolls, age and size ranging, but none were fat. He could see some of their bones when they moved, even through the shivering. The cell was made up of limestones and concrete to seal them in tightly, no windows whatsoever. The only thing he could really see out of were the bars in front of him. Besides that, a few brooms, and the trolls, nothing else he could really use were in the cage with the,. He noticed a drain sucking up the water underneath them, making tiny sounds that reminded him of how a straw sounded when it was getting the last of it’s contents.

An older troll came up with a broom and began to scrub his back. Karkat growled and whipped around, backing away with a few steps. “What’re you doin’?”

“They want us ta wash. Doncha wanna get cleaned up?”

Later Karkat would look back and realized that they were taking a batch. They used push brooms to scrub all the grime off, but afterwards when they got clean clothes, they’d just lay in dirty mattresses. It didn’t really matter if they took a bath or not.

Weeks went by without Karkat really knowing. He had to learn how to properly be a servant or was punished by many ways. The punishments usually varied, depending on what he did wrong. The worst was probably not getting any food to eat for a few days. He grew hungry with food anyway, but having nothing to eat or drink (minus the bath water he sometimes drank) was worse than going off of some bread and soup every day. The best punishment he had would probably be just to clean something. It made him tired, but it didn’t hurt him much in the long run.

And his services weren’t bad either. Most of the time, he would retreat to get his masters something, or do a chore. Really, all in all, it wasn’t that bad. Don’t speak unless spoken to, don’t ask for things unless absolutely necessary, don’t upset the masters, really it was basic common sense for a servant. Though he was only a child, he was doing rather well in the service world.

In comparison of what Nepeta went through, it wasn't bad at all. He wasn't beaten on a regular basis and he was treated pretty okay by the other trolls. He even got his own food! Later on, he would find out that not only did the fighting troll have to fight, they would usually find their own food either. Nepeta’s favorite was rats.

The main thing were the conditions he had to live in. He slept in a squeaky, very old bed that was never comfortable. But by the time he actually was able to lie down, he was too tired to be comfortable. The other trolls would agree with him easily. They shared a single bedroom the size of a small household gym together. While it was always crowded for everybody, they had individual space most of the time. They had bunk beds with three bunks to a frame. Rows upon rows were beds with a troll or two to each bunk.

But even when they were at rest, they would sometimes be at work. His master would come in every night, pick a troll, take them to his room and wouldn't return with them. Karkat didn't know what happened in the night at first, but was very concerned when he saw the bruises on their bodies the next morning. He soon found out that the master was into very kinky things that trolls were included in and would have his way with them every night.

While Karkat was never chosen for that, he and a few others were deemed too young and were a turn off, he lost a lot of innocence from learning what happened to others and hearing the story directly from the trolls themselves.

Eventually, he was to go with his master to the troll fighting rings. He had to take care of the master and whatever troll he was ordered to do so. A lot of the time the other trolls would strike out at Karkat, not realizing that he was trying to help them. They wouldn't accept any food or water he brought to them, cursing at him and warning him to stay away. He saw a lot of trolls die in front of him, just because they wouldn't accept his help.

It hurt him more than the other trolls sometimes to see what was going on at the rings. So many colors of blood were spilled, so many missing limbs or broken horns, so many deaths. He didn't understand why they wouldn't accept his help. If he were in that position, he'd get all the help that he could. He would kill to get out of there.

Eventually, Karkat lost a lot of his old cheerful self. He was mostly grumpy all the time now because he was so frustrated he couldn't help them more. He was about to go crazy and lose all hope for his future, he almost completely forgot about his green blooded friend, he would just see death after death or just fetch something like a dog.

He just wanted to escape. He didn’t care if he ended up on the streets, he would find his way. Maybe he’d even find his friends that he remembered faintly. Almost like a dream from his childhood, his friends (though the names were somewhat hard to remember) were the closest thing he had to a family and they were heaven to his hell that he was living in.

Once he had heard a fighter bark at him to be somebody else’s slave. He was confused. He had heard every name under the moon, but slave was new to him. When he mentioned it to another servant troll under the same master, they agreed. “Of course we’re slaves. What’d you think we were?” At the answer of servant, the troll laughed in his face. “Servants are there by choice and are hired, right? Slaves are kidnapped and forced to serve.”

He thought about Nepeta that night. She was kidnapped too, where was she?

He wouldn’t receive an answer until a future event. He was ordered to go help an olive blood who slaughtered troll after troll. Karkat had to be especially nice here because his master’s father was here tonight and this was his troll. Karkat hated to admit, but he was a little nervous being around such a deadly troll. At least it wasn’t that purple clown maniac, but this thing was suppose to be a good enough match for it.

When he approached, he got the same greeting as he always did at these things. A warning to stay away, a hiss, a swipe of the claws, it was routine. But when he took a closer look-

-------------
“It was Nepeta.” He finished. “Then I escaped, I tried to take her along but Gamzee got out of his cage and…” he trailed off. “He said we only have two days to get her.”

A heavy silence filled the air. Karkat kept his head facing towards the window so he wouldn’t see anybody, he didn’t think he would want to.

“How long did it take for you to get here, Karkat?”

“‘bout a morning.”

“And it took us an afternoon to get here.” Dave sighed. “What’re we going to do?”

The car pulled over to the side of the road slowly. Equius turned around in his seat and faced Karkat with a fierce gaze in his eyes. “Karkat, do you think you can remember where to go to get to where Nepeta is?”

“Yeah, no problem. I have to remember how to get around places really fast so I can get stuff if I hafta.”

Equius nodded and turned to Feferi. Their eyes locked and they must’ve had a short conversation with each other because after a few seconds she shook her head fiercely, almost baring her teeth. He nodded back at her, but she continued to shake her head and mouthed something to him. After that, he groaned, turned around and redid his seatbelt. The car pulled out from their spot on the side and they continued down the road.

“Where are we goin’?” Karkat asked as he watched the scenery fly by at a much faster than legal speed.

“We are going to go rescue Nepeta.”

Chapter Text

People were beginning to slowly drip into the campsite by the dozens. Each one stank of drugs, even from this afar of a distance. The musty men and women were laughing loudly and shouting about useless items that they were concerned with. The flickering fires glazed their sweat and oil, making them all look more stale and shiny than before. The adults looked more like drunk or high teenagers than anything else.

The green blooded troll was on her side, watching this from her cage. She had stopped bleeding from her earlier beating for now, but whenever she moved, more blood dribbled out from the sore cuts. Despite the pain from her beatings, the feeling of anxiety was even more so. A ball of fear was settled in her chest that throbbed with every heartbeat. This feeling had shown itself before in the past when she had slaughtered the most trolls than she had before. There was going to be a very big fight tonight, she could feel it.

She closed her eyes with a choked sob, remember the earlier conversation with her master clearly.

Her master had decided that it would get him more money to move the big fight to tonight instead of waiting another day. That way, she would be much more weaker and wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight, putting more bets against her, and she would get her master a lot more money that way when she lost. With more money stacked against her and people complaining about waiting for this, her master seemed to think it was a better idea to move it ahead. People were too tired and wanted to get to the finale, no more stalling. So, the master complied with little hesitation.

She cracked open her yellow eyes and looked to the sky. It was turning orange with the setting sun. Birds were flying back to their nests for the night, making some music for her tired ears. The trees provided thick shade for her to sleep in, but she was filled with too much anxiety and adrenaline to sleep. She couldn’t even eat the mice that ran by her cage when they were looking for their own meal. She was too exhausted and hurt to move, too petrified to do anything else.

Nepeta hated feeling so pathetic and helpless. She exhaled deeply, and desperately hoped that Karkat was able to find somebody to help her. But if she were in his position, would she come back?

That was a useless question, of course she would. A huntress would never abandon her friends, even if they were in this position. A good question would be if he would come back?

She didn’t know the answer to that one.

As the sky turned from a deep orange to a deeper blue, the stars began to poke out. She used to be able to look at the stars and imagine lines going from star to star, and would play a game through that. But now when she looked at the stars, she would imagine each one as a different soul. She was told that each night a new star was created as one would leave. Could that be a soul? Each one being a soul that was living and dying? She wondered where her star was if that were the case.

More people had showed up by now. The fire’s light had gotten stronger with the dark and had lit up the entire camp now. The trolls in the nearby cages had woken up and had been taken off one by one, some having brave faces as they went to their eventual death, some being taken with tears going down their face.

Their wails would haunt her nightmares. She hated to be the one to cause those screams when she had to fight other trolls, it made killing them a lot harder. But being the one to hear those screams from far away, not being able to do anything about it made her shudder. Even killing was easier than this, at least she could make the cries stop sooner.

Eventually, she was the last one left besides the malevolent purple blood. She stopped listening to whatever he had to say, his brandishing words were scaring her more and more and she needed to block him out. Nepeta focused on her surroundings, something that watching the stray cats had taught her. When looking for prey, be still and listen.

Despite her augmenting fear, she was able to find the quick chirps of the crickets near by, the barks of some dogs by the fire, the nocturnal birds waking up. The world was buzzing around her, even if hers was going to end very soon.

She hear the footsteps approaching from the distance, heading in her direction. She opened her eyes to see her master coming towards her with her leash, covered in other trolls’ blood in his hands as well. Tears built up in her eyes and she took a breath of fear in. She didn’t want this, she didn’t want to die tonight, she wanted to run free, be able to climb trees again, be able to have pancakes at Dave’s house with everybody again. She yearned to be able to see the cats and all the other pets at the clinic when Equius was working and took her with, she wanted to play with them again, she wanted to joke with Equius and play with him again, she wanted her old life to magically return with clemency instead of this hell.

Nepeta trembled as she stood, the keys unlocking the cage a song to the siren. She gasped for breath and walked out, she didn’t want to die.

Nepeta did not want to die.

Her world was one of blood now, she was one who was going against the most dangerous troll to live in the fighting world because she was claimed to be a worthy opponent. Her life was in jeopardy simply because they wanted to have illegal entertainment. This was not fair, far from far. She was not going to take it. If they wanted a fight, she would give them one.

Her master had already put her collar and leash on and was leading (more like dragging) her to the ring where she would be put to sleep. They weren’t going on the main path to the arena, they usually wanted to have a nice entrance and going to main way would spoil that. They weren’t alone either, Gamzee was trailing behind them with a separate human guiding him to his eventual victory. The four of them walking in the shadows, the fire from a distance barely lighting their way.

It was now or never.

With a deft move, Nepeta unshielded her claws and jumped out, claws outstretched now. She raked them over her master’s chest, earning her a good gasp as he stuttered back. She landed with grace on all four limbs, hissing as she landed. She got up in a flash and jumped back, light on her feet. With a flick of the wrist, her collar was off.

“I ain’t fightin’ anymore.” She spat.

The man was on the ground with his hand over his bleeding chest. Red was seeping through his shirt and she knew that her resignation was not in vain. He growled under his breath and turned sharply to Gamzee and the human next to him, who were watching in wonder and hesitation. “What are you waiting for,” he gasped. “Kill her!”

The man unleashed Gamzee, who now took on a deadlier look. Nepeta took a stolid look, the only emotion showing was one of determination. The two glared at each other for a moment before he charged at her.

She leaped into the air, taking a roll to avoid him. He swung his club at her, narrowly missing her skull each time as she bounced around him. They were like a dancing couple, he would advance the same moment she stepped back to dodge it, each knowing each other’s moves as they flowed with one another.

She knew something he didn’t though, and that was that her back was in pain. It was screaming at her to stop and to just let him kill her, but she wasn’t ready for that. Her next jump was one of height as she leaped into the air, grabbing a tree branch and lifting herself up. She swung around the branch and landed on it with a wince. Her back was almost killing her now and she had to pause for a moment for the pain to subside.

During the pause, Gamzee came up to the root of the tree and began to climb it sluggishly. He was too big to be as deft as Nepeta, but was big enough to reach the higher branches easily. As he crept closer to Nepeta, she realized that she was running out of options. If she jumped now, he would follow and pummel her easily, or he could fall on her and crush her. If she were to stay in the tree though, he would eventually reach her and it would be game over. She wasn’t able to climb anyhigher in the tree, her back was hurting too much for her to be able to reach the branches or to jump.

Nepeta sunk down on her knees in the branch and crept slightly to the end of the branch to try and prolong his arrival.

As he edged closer to her on her branch, she hissed instinctively and began to shake heavily. This wasn’t how she wanted to die. A huntress would try to fight her way out of this, not cower in a corner! But she was in too much pain and filled with fear to do much else other than that.

But before Gamzee was able to reach her completely, the branch began to tremble violently and make sharp creaking sounds. The two trolls stopped and looked at the branch that was shaking beneath them. Nepeta knew that the branch was going to brake very quickly, and they would drop the twenty feet down to the ground if she didn’t move now. If she did, Gamzee would follow her for sure. She could jump and try to run, but would she be hurt when she landed?

Nepeta weighed her options for a second and decided, the hell with it, and leaped from the branch. The airtime was very little, but she felt like she was flying for a few short seconds. For the first time and a very long while, she felt like she was free. The few seconds of freedom that she tasted were the best that she had ever had in the last two years. She would’ve smiled from the pure joy that she was experiencing if she had the time, but the ground rushed up to greet her before she had the time to do so.

She fell on the ground hard. On impact, she let out a combination of a cry of pain and a gasp. All of the air in her lungs flowed out upon her drastic landing and she struggled to breath for a few seconds while she rolled around on her back slightly in pain. She almost felt her jaw lock in place as she gasped for breath.

Her eyes were closed tightly and her ears were ringing of that high pitched sound that annoys everybody to no end. She sat there for a moment, her head feeling as if it were made of cotton. She couldn’t hear anything going on around her for a second; she barely heard the crack above her as the branch finally broke off the tree and followed her to the ground.

The landing with just her body was painful enough, but when the broken branch landed on her leg, a wave of fresh new, worse pain flowed into her. Despite never having a broken bone, she was pretty sure that the cracking feeling in her leg was a good indicator of one. Nepeta screamed out as soon as it dropped on her. With the combination of no air and being forced to scream from the pain, her body was worse for wear.

It felt like hours had passed when she felt more weight being added to her when a body moved atop of her chest. Sweaty, massive hands clamped down on her throat and the body shifted forward so all of the weight was pressed forward on the attacker’s hands. Her airway was cut off, cutting her screams silent and replacing them with cracked, choking sounds.

It became impossible to breathe. Nepeta cracked open her eyes to squint at who her attacker was. It was hard to see through her tears in her eyes, but she was still able to see the wavy horns of the purple blood.. She could barely lift up her hand to grasp the hands on her throat, let alone push Gamzee off.

Her eyes went up, to the back of her head. The stinging in her eyes as they did this made Nepeta realize that this was it. Karkat wasn’t going to come back after all, that this was all just wasted hope. Gamzee was going to kill her now, she wouldn’t ever be able to escape this hell. What was the last thing that she did when she was at her old home? She couldn’t remember.

She could remember all the small things they did when she was a smaller troll though, she remembered running to the park to get Equius and Feferi to follow her, she remembered telling the group that she and Karkat had sex. They were so innocent then that they didn’t even know that they weren’t doing that in the slightest, but the reaction that they had got was definitely worth it. It brought a small smile to her even now.

More memories filled her eyes, she recalled climbing trees, petting the cats that came into Equius’s office, how she was able to meow because one had taught her to do so. She remembered how careful Equius was when she convinced him to give her a piggy back ride. Her heart squeezed with nostalgia as her life flashed before her. It twisted at parts where she was taken, forced to fight, forced to kill. Nepeta was a small child, only a few sweeps old and her life was far too short to stop now, even if the events in it were too evil for her to concede with.

She was too young before to actually process things, like what Equius and Feferi did behind closed doors, why she spent the night with the Strider’s so much, why Cronus would whisper about her lip to Dave sometimes. She was so innocent back then.

Now she had been forced to kill, forced to see trolls being raped in front of her, seen and done things no child should be exposed to. But she also had learned about the quadrants and what they meant. She learned that what she had felt for Equius when she was smaller was not, in fact, love, but was pale feeling beginning to bloom. She wanted to be Equius’s moirail.

As the darkness began to fill her entire vision, and her heart slowed down enough to be able to stop at any given moment, she thought about the moirail she never had. What would he do when he learned of her death? Would he even learn about it?

She closed her eyes tightly in preparation for dying. She didn’t want the last image of her life watching Gamzee’s face as he killed her. All the feeling of pain in her body slowly became fuzzy, quickly numbing to the point that relaxed her. Her hand slowly fell off of her strangler’s, body relaxing in preparation of dying.

She was just starting to stop living when a numb weight began to prick at her senses. Air was shoved back into her lungs and she no longer felt gripping hands on her neck. She felt herself cough heavily and slowly regain consciousness. Nepeta sat upright and began gasping for breath, coughing heavily and trying to focus on the sounds around her instead of the buzzing in her ears.

She opened her eyes and had to blink rapidly a few times to clear all the fuzzy images away. Once her eyes were in focus, she rubbed them again to make sure that she was seeing clearly.

There, across from her, was Equius. He was fighting against her previous master while Gamzee was on the ground, holding his, what appeared to be, bleeding head. She blinked heavily, that didn’t make any sense to her. Were they dead too? Why were they with her? This had to be a fake Equius, her's wasn’t there.

Hands wrapped around her from behind and lifted her off the ground, quickly turning the opposite direction and beginning to charge the other way. Nepeta tried to focus, these arms belonged to a blonde human wearing pointy glasses. She recognized him from somewhere, like a dream from long ago.

She felt so tired now, her body was exhausted to the point of forcing her to sleep. She tried to keep her eyes open, but wasn’t able to fully do so. Things weren’t making any sense, she didn’t know if she were dead or alive, and people from dreams were carrying her, shouting nonsense about getting a car. Why would they get a car? She wasn’t allowed to ride in cars, she had to be in a cage at all times. Didn’t the dream men know that?

They kept running, they ran into a meadow with tall yellow grass. Things blurred together for her, creating an ocean of yellow. A car was parked across the ocean, the waves flowing brightly near the lights.

Nepeta looked behind them, trying to see what happened with the dream people there. She saw Equius following behind them with blood on his face. He seemed to be limping a bit, but she didn’t know why. Her Equius was healthy.

Things became fuzzier.

She saw bright lights ahead, people surrounding them. Familiar people.

Karkat was there, looking scared. She tried to speak, tried to say something to him, but wasn’t able to move her mouth.

She was passed to Equius. He seemed to be talking to her, trying to get her to stay awake.

Words became fuzzy, she didn’t understand what was being said anymore.

She closed her eyes. She was so tired, she just wanted sleep now, nothing more.

Chapter Text

“How long has he been there?” Jade asked Feferi, who was watching Equius through the window in the door.

“Ever since the surgery,” she sighed. “I don’t think he’s going to be leaving her anytime soon.”

“Do you think they’re gonna be okay?”

The two girls stopped talking when sounds of soft crying came from the other side of the door Equius was on. They shared a look of dismay and worry before they silently moved away from the door together, murmuring about whatever plans popped into their minds that they needed to attend to, giving the man some alone time.

On the other side of the thin door, Equius sat on a chair in his office, holding a tiny grey hand in his massive one. It had been so long since he was able to hold this tiny, precious hand, and he feared that it would be his last time to do so for a very long time after this.Tears rolled down his face silently, or as silent as he could try. Nepeta lay next to him, sleeping peacefully with the help of a lot of medication and exhaustion from her injuries and surgery. Equius shared her exhaustion, but refused to sleep in case something went terribly wrong.

He was exhausted, hurt, and so worried that he already threw up a while ago in a nearby trash can. He hadn’t slept since they came back, not like he had been sleeping well anyway, and he felt like he was going to tip over at any moment. He swore that if you blew on him, he would fall over like the pigs from that old story he heard as a child. His eyes were like a wolf’s, you could clearly see the darkened bags underneath them. He didn’t care though, her condition was far from stable and it wasn’t looking like things were going to get much better for her soon unless a miracle happened. And the way things have been happening for them lately, a miracle was not going to happen.

Though he had gotten Nepeta back, he was almost bereft of all hope for her surviving this one.

His injuries came from that vicious fight he saved Nepeta from. A lot of bruising all over his body, some minor cuts, and, what he imagined to be, a broken leg. He had to limp the rest of the way back to the car, while watching behind his back for any more attackers. They had gotten Nepeta alright, but she was much more hurt than he ever wished to see on any animal, be it troll, human, pet. Nobody deserved this much pain on their body.

His body was sore, but he couldn’t imagine her level of pain that she was going through.

She had sustained a broken leg as well, more bruises than he knew what to do with, some cuts as well, major signs of abuse through the years, and a pretty bad spinal injury. Her tail injury from before had gotten infected and then was crudely chopped off, cutting the rest of her tail off, causing more infection to her spine, not to mention the major strain it went through. Her spine was by far the worst of her injuries and that surgery alone was almost three hours.

He had no idea what to do for her spine at first, it seemed like she was doomed to be unbalanced the rest of her life if he didn’t think of something soon. It was almost like torsioned spine, where the spine is curved instead of straightened out, like it should be. So to fix it, he had put some small metal wires in to help keep it straightened and help with the balance issue. She’d have to go to physical therapy for a while until she was completely used to the balance issues and her back muscles were less irritated, but until then, she would have to cope.

As for her other injuries, he spent hours taking care of them, checking over her body, scrutinizing over every injury. He set her leg, putting a special cast for furry animals over her leg once it was completely set. He was almost glad that she was knocked out, she wouldn’t have to deal with pain while he did this. Equius would administer her some pain medication once he was done to help her sleep and heal better, but he didn’t know if she would wake up from it. She was beaten up pretty bad, and it was clear that she wasn’t fed properly for the last two years while she was away. Her hydration levels were so low he was forced to drop an iv into her arm to help give something to help her.

Her life was jeopardized and he wasn’t sure if he could help her.

Once he was done and her medication was given, he took her to his office. He gently put her on the pull out bed he would sometimes use. It was an army bed with a small, thin mattress on it, it wasn’t ideal for a resting bed, but it was better than a cage that normal patients woke up to after being treated for this many injuries, the few rare. He wrapped her as best as he could with a soft blanket to try and make her more comfortable. After that, he pulled up a chair and sat next to her, holding her hand tightly.

He didn’t notice the hours flying by until Feferi came in and told him that she would watch over Nepeta while he slept. The clinic was closed on Sundays, so it would be okay if they crashed here for the night. Equius reluctantly agreed to sleeping, only if to be ready for more medical events if needed. A doctor wasn’t very good if he wasn’t able to think properly, and a vet was no exception to that.

Feferi put an arm around him and led him to the old, trusty, couch that inhabited his office. He crashed here on nights that he either wasn’t able to make it home, was too tired to drive, or if a pet needed looking after during the night. He was left alone for a minute while Feferi went to their house to get some supplies and somethings Nepeta might like if she woke up.

Equius cringed at the thought. IF Nepeta woke up.

The vet didn’t sleep much during the night on the couch in the office, but at least he was able to to rest his body. He mostly watched over her, almost daring something to come and attack her again. He had to control his anger and his strength most of the time to avoid breaking things, but during that fight, he unleashed all of it. He had sworn to not to hurt another human or animal, but those promises blurred when he found Nepeta being choked by another troll, completely unable to do anything else other than fight.

He was glad that Dirk and everybody else who went, did, in fact, go with. He was so thankful to have somebody to take Nepeta back while he fought the rest off. Once he was done fighting, he wasn’t sure if the two were dead or simply unconscious (he would never truly find out, something that haunted him the rest of his life), he was running as best as he could with a broken leg back to the car. The car was ready for him, he even got to take Nepeta into his arms. Her eyes were blurred over with exhaustion and what seemed to be the remaining ounces of strength she had left. He pleaded with her to stay awake, out of fear of what would happen if she did close her eyes, but she wasn’t able to.

The rest of that night was a blur to him now as he laid on the couch. It seemed like a dream, he could only functioned like a robot, no purpose in his mind other to save the child that had been taken away from him when he wasn’t able to help her.

He remembered when they told him what happened to her.

“He took them. He took Nepeta and he took K-Karkat. They’re gone.”

Equius was still. He had mastered the stone face before, but now he was excelling at it. It only last a few seconds though before he exploded, turning into rage that he didn’t keep well and began yelling at Dave, demanding to know what had happened. Dave tried to explain as best as he could, the cops and his newly wed trying to calm him down. Bro held Sollux as tightly as he could on the couch, not saying anything. Cronus stood against the wall and seemed to be crying as the yelling increased in volume.

“I couldn’t get out! They locked me in!” Dave sobbed at Equius. “You’re not the only one who lost a kid!”

“But your’s wasn’t injured and knocked out from heavy pain medication!”

“He was still taken!”

“On your own watch!”

“You think I couldn’t gotten out?! I tried breaking down the door!”

“They are gone because of you!”

Dave charged at Equius, pushing him backwards. Equius pushed him back and was about to punch when the cops stepped in, separating them.

Equius charged out of the house across the street to the house were the kidnapper locked Dave in. He pounded on the door, not wasting anytime. After a three second pause, he kicked down the door in rage and fear. He charged into the house and began shouting again, trying to be louder than the thunder that rolled over him. He searched the house top to bottom before he sprinted out of the house and down the road.

He ran until he literally couldn’t run anymore. His legs were burning so badly he checked to see if they were bleeding. He fell to the ground, sobbing, as the rain fell around him, effectively soaking him with water.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when a car pulled up to him and out came Feferi and Cronus. They brought him back into the car and took him home.

He fell into depression for a week before he realized that the only thing he could do to help Nepeta now was to find her. And he tried he damned hardest to find her.

A small groan broke through his memory and he sat up like somebody had shot a gun in the room. He looked over at the bed in the corner where Nepeta was starting to move. Her hand moved up and rubbed her tired, open eyes.

He gasped happily and got up slowly to walk over to her. He knew from experience with other pets that if they just woke up from getting surgery from a traumatic event, they don’t like surprises from strange people. The vet didn’t know if Nepeta could recognize him right away, he needed to know more about her now that she was actually back with him.

“Nepeta?”

She flinched and looked over to him. Her body was still so tired that she didn’t even try to get up. Her eyes were wide for a few seconds before blinking a few times. A line appeared above her brow and her mouth moved, talking silently to herself.

“Nepeta, do you remember me?”

It took just a second before she began crying. He stepped closer to her once more, taking her hand in his and hoping, pleading, with her to recognize him.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Eq.” She sobbed out and she tried to sit up. He gently rested his hand on her shoulder and down she went back to lying on the bed. “What happened?”

“A few members of those who love you came to rescue you. You are safe, you will never have to fight again in your life.” He explained delicately as she began crying harder, rolling onto her side to face him more directly. “Are you in any pain?”

“N-no.” She choked out and looked up at him with shiny, yellow eyes. “You okay?”

“I am fine, don’t worry about me.”

She nodded and blinked at him for a few moments before taking a deep breath. “Eq, I gotta tell ya somethin’.”

He nodded. “What is it?”

She paused, hesitating for a moment before shaking her head. “Never mind.”

Feferi walked into the room after that, breaking up the moment that Nepeta had been dreaming of ever since she was kidnapped. She was desperate to tell him that she was pale for him, that she wanted him to be her moirail, but how could she do that when she was only a burden to him?

Equius eyed her suspiciously, but turned to Feferi. when she began to squeal about Neppie waking up and how this was “fintastic” and began asking Nepeta questions about if she were hungry, did she want anything, etc. Equius zoned out as she was talking to her, and tried to focus on suppressing that bubbly feeling he was getting. He didn’t know if it were just nerves or he was excited, but this was definitely new for him.

It was a week before Nepeta could go back home with them. She stayed in his office the entire time, being visited by a few people. He didn’t let everybody go in all at once, or even in altogether, he needed her to be able to be calm and not get overwhelmed. She had explained her story to him on the second day when she felt like she was ready. She broke down crying and he had to rub her back for a good twenty minutes before she was able to breathe normally.

He let Karkat in to go see her. He was better to explain what happened when he last left her, and she was able to trust him fully again when he did that. Karkat seemed to miss Nepeta a lot and was worried sick as well, why not let him go see her for a bit?

She was okay with the few that he allowed in to see her, especially Cronus and Sollux. They had been through something similar to that and helped her cope with it, but she was still waking up at night from nightmares every night.

She was getting nervous around him though. For some reason, she didn’t feel like talking to him alone much anymore. She was always flustered around him when they were alone and became distant, shrinking back in on herself. When other people were in the room, she would focus on them and only respond to their questions, otherwise she gave him a one or two word answer.

He had to figure out what was going on.

She had to find a way to tell him without making herself more of a burden.

She was able to tell what she was doing was hurting his feelings, and she didn’t want that. She just didn’t know what else to do. She was so upset when she was around him because she was dying to tell him that she was pale for him. But humans didn’t even have quadrants, and the only human that she knew had a quadrant was Dave and that was because Cronus was an emotional wreck.

But she guessed that she was now one as well.

He stayed with her at night, and she really wished that he wouldn’t. When she woke up from the nightmares, he would always wake up with her and comfort her as best as he could, but lately she just didn’t want his help. Not with them being a guardian who has to watch over his pathetic child relationship. This entire situation was driving her insane and depressed.

She didn’t want to speak to him anymore and she felt horrible.

She could tell he knew that something was wrong, but he couldn’t figure it out. She felt like screaming the answer to him, just getting her courage up and telling him, ‘I’m pale for ya, be my ‘rail?’

But she didn’t think that it would ever happen. Not when she burdened him with the task of taking care of her, let alone dealing with all the trauma she was going through. Honestly, sometimes she just wishes that Gamzee killed her. Why couldn’t he have been ten seconds late and let him kill her? Everybody would be better off at that.

She was three sweeps old.

The night that Equius took her home, Feferi had decided that they needed some alone time and went to sleep over at Jade’s for the night. She was in the car with them, not leaving until later hat night, but Nepeta didn’t know how to feel about it, she didn’t want Equius to get upset over her being so taciturn when Feferi left. What if he made her leave and never come back? What if Gamzee and their master found them? What if she had to go back to fighting? What if she was forced to kill agai-

“Nepeta?”

Her wide eyes flew to the person driving the car. Her vision was so blurry that she could barely make out details on the man. He sounded familiar, but she couldn’t really quite place it. Her heartbeat was like a drum in her ears, beating to a fast pace rhythm that was unheard of. The oliveblood tried to control her breathing, but she wasn’t in control of her body at the moment.

“Nepeta, it’s okay.” A soothing voice reached through the drum and calmed her down bit by bit. “I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”

Nepeta blinked a few times before focusing on Equius, her guardian. Guilt crept in and took the place of fear. She didn’t want him to deal with her panic attacks. She rather he just be quiescent until she was able to get things down herself.

She noticed that the car was pulled over and the two adult humans in the front seat were watching her expectantly.

“’m okay,” she sighed. “Can we just go?”

They shared a look, but the car lurched forward in a few seconds time as Nepeta drilled a hole through the window. She tried her best not to let Equius see her crying, but she couldn’t hold back her tears as much as she used to, and silently sobbed in the backseat.

Equius watched in the mirror, feeling more guilt poor onto his shoulders. He had to figure out what to do and he had to do that soon.

Feferi and Equius let Nepeta explore around the house to get a good feeling on what was going on around her and what her surroundings were again. They cautioned her to be careful about her back, but Nepeta waved it off. She was going to be careful back injury or no back injury, that was how she survived these last few years, after all.

Things were basically how she remembered them to be, a few rooms had changed with new furniture, or things moved around, but other than the minor things, everything was basically the same. Even her chair in the living room was in the same place as it was before, though she couldn’t properly fit in it due to growing so much in the two years.

Nepeta’s room hadn’t changed much. It was cleaner than she left it, that much she could tell. But other than that and the occasional new toy, everything was basically the same. Her pile was one of the things that she missed the most out of everything in her room, but that was to be expected after two years of sleeping on concrete. She immediately dove in and burrowed her way into the cool fabric until she was comfortable enough to let out a yawn and go to sleep.

She was running.

A monster was chasing after her in the woods. She crashed through branches to try and make a way out of this nightmare, but she couldn’t see in this darkness for whatever reason that was. A growl was right behind her, almost right on top of her. She screamed and continued to run, out of breath.

She felt tears prick her eyes as she began to jump over corpses of trolls that she had slain before in the past. She didn’t want to, she really didn’t, but she was coerced and there was nothing there to save either of them.

The corpses began to rise and follow chase after her. She tried to go around trees or something to that effect, but the corpses and the monster were too quick for her and began to gain up on her. They were faster than she was and were closing in around her.

It wasn’t too long before she tripped and tumbled down a hill, screaming all the way, until she landed in a field of yellow grass. She remembered this field, it was the one that Bro had carried her through to get to the car. Heat began to build around her now, and it was starting to be impossible to breathe. To her at the time, it seemed like an ocean, but now it seemed like fire.

Smoke filled around her and when she looked up with teary eyes, she saw she was surrounded by the corpses and the monster, only a silhouette of one, began to walk towards her in the middle of the circle she was in. She screamed and tried to look around her for a way out, adrenaline pumping through her veins, but there wasn’t one anywhere she looked.

“You killed us.” The corpses began to chant. “You murdered us.”

The monster crept closer to her. The chanting began to get louder and louder the closer the monster got to her. She was struck still by the fright and began to shake. Above her stood Gamzee, blood dripping down his face where he dragged her claws across.

He stepped forward and began to choke her again, exactly like before. Fire swirled around them, corpses chanting about her being their reluctant murderer, she gasping for breath, it was all too much. She was losing feeling everywhere, yet adrenaline building still.

“Your murder shall appease us!”

It was around midnight that she woke up screaming from a nightmare. Gamzee had found where she was living and tried killing her again, flashes of the last fight she was in popping in and controlling her body. Equius didn’t come in time and she was able to breathe properly. When she awoke, she was gagging on air and was trying to breathe normally when footsteps pounded down the hall and her door was thrown open.

Equius was wearing nothing but some pj pants he threw on, his white cast matching hers on his leg. The pattern was of horses running with stars swirling around them on a dark blue background made up majority of his leg, the cast the other half. She made a note in the back of her mind to make fun of him for it when things were better in their relationship.

She began to sob gently as he approached her pile, squatting down next to it. He watched her silently for a few seconds, then began to rub her back and make shushing noises. She continued to sob and build his worry until he recalled something that a therapist mentioned to him in an email. (He had been so worried for the girl that he contacted several adolescent therapists in attempts to find remedies to help her)

“Nepeta, it isn’t real. It’s simply a nightmare.” She continued to shake. “What are five things that you see in the room?”

She looked up at him with a confused expression on her face.“Huh?”

“Name five things that you see in this room.”

She glanced around for a second. “Pillow, kitty,” she paused as she looked around a bit more. “You, my window, and...uh….” She sobbed again. “Fuck.”

He flinched slightly and tried not to chide her on her vocabulary just quite yet. He already tried and that didn’t go very well. “Nepeta, it’s okay. Nobody is going to hurt you again, I promise.” She nodded, as if she could truly believe him. “Don’t freak out, just tell me one more thing that is in the room with us.”

A minute passed by. Then two. He was about to say something else when she broke through. “Me?”

“Great job. Now tell me four things you feel.” He smiled at her for encouragement.

“Sheets, your pants.” She stuck up two fingers to keep count. She ran her hand around in the dark to find something else. “The floor and…” she turned back to him and put her hand on his face. “You!”

He smiled at her lovingly and nodded. “Very good.”

“Now what?” She asked, expecting more.

“Three things you hear.”

Immediately her ears began twitching and moving this way and that, trying to catch any sound waves that came by. “Crickets, a dog barking,” Her eyes widened and she tried to gulp down air. She turned to her guardian and asked in a small voice, “The dog ain’t comin’ here, is he?”

“No, the dog is not going to come here,” he gently corrected. “What else do you hear?”

“You, I guess. You’re talking.”

“Okay, what do-”

“Eq, I don’t wanna do this.” She bluntly replied and sighed, looking away.

He pursed his lips and sighed heavily. “Okay. Well, are you doing better?”

“‘m fine.”

“Nepeta, please. Don’t be laconic. You can talk to me.”

“I can’t.”

His sigh felt like a stab to the heart. She began to try and hold her tears back again. “‘m sorry, Equius.” She turned away from him and curled up on her side, holding her cat plushie.

“I just do not understand why you don’t want to talk to me anymore. Is it something that I had done, Nepeta?” He reached out with a hand, but pulled it back, not wanting to upset her further. “If you do not wish to stay with me, I can find you another place to stay.”

She looked up at him with fearful eyes. “I don’t wanna leave!”

“Then you do not have to,” he calmly replied. He put his hands up, showing he wasn’t going to make her do anything she didn’t want to do. “But I need to know what’s going on, what I did wrong, so I can fix it.”

“You didn’t do nothin’,” she sobbed. “It’s all me!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can’t tell!” She sobbed and turned further away from him once more.

“Then I can’t help you.” He sighed. “Nepeta, please, it’s me. I raised you the best I could and I know that I messed up a lot but you can tell me anything. Please believe that.”

She studied him for a moment over her shoulder then slowly edged closer to him. She began to shake slightly, palms getting clammy at the thought of her about to tell him. The weight began to shift excitedly inside her, ready to be released from this cage of secrecy that had been trapping it for almost a week now. It’s exactly like telling your crush that you love them, and knowing that they love you back, you expect the best possible outcome of it. But you still get nervous, you still get super excited over it.

It’s the best and worst feeling ever.

“I….” She took a deep breath. “I’m...pale. I’m pale for you, Equius.”

A moment went by.

When two moments went by, she looked up at him, worried that he could, and would, throw her out. Make her go back to her harsh life, make her fight to survive, but she found he was stunned, watching her with hope in his eyes.

“You mean...You…” He cleared his throat. “You’re serious?” She nodded nervously. “Oh my god, I never imagined this. You,” he broke out in a smile and hugged her tightly. “I can’t believe this.”

“What?” She giggled.

“I didn’t ever dare to think that a troll would like me this much. Especially one that I feel almost the same for.”

“What?” She looked up with a new feeling settling over her. A feeling that she hadn’t felt in a very, very long time, one of joy, purrhaps? She couldn’t fully tell.

“I try my hardest to make sure that you are safe, I try so hard to make sure that you are happy all the time and would fight for you any day. And you helped me become such a better person as well in return. I went ballistic when you were gone and I can’t help but,” he broke off in laughter and hugged her tightly. “Thank you, Nepeta, you have truly changed me.”

The rest of the night was spent in Equius's bed. He picked her up and took her to his room where he brought out his laptop and they spent the night watching funny, yet appropriate, youtube videos. He showed her the best cat videos he found and she clicked on the related searches next to the videos. They broke out the popcorn and snacks and ate those while watching them around two or three in the AM.

When they did finally fall asleep around six in the morning, the sun was just peeking up through the dark blue curtains in Equius’s room. He was fast asleep, having long ago fallen asleep, but his heavy arm was around Nepeta as she cuddled next to his chest. She was purring softly, eyes closed as they prepared to go to sleep.

The only thing that disturbed her sleep was a soft click of a camera from Feferi’s phone as she came back into the house later on.

Chapter Text

“So what’re you gonna do after this?”

It should’ve been a simply question really. But, to Nepeta it held much more meaning and conversations than just a straightforward answer the human next to her expected. For the question posed many meanings to the cat like troll. It had been the question that was asked numerous times for the last school year. Most kids at her school were human and were going to college after the summer ended to begin a more formal education. A few were going to stay local and hold onto their part time jobs, which Nepeta figured was normal for them. But Nepeta wasn’t human nor did she have a part time job. Not many places were willing to hire a troll at this point in the game, afterall. Besides, she did help out at the clinic more often than not.

“I dunno, I kinda would like to be a ranger or something at a national park.” She turned to the guy that sat next to her at the ceremony. “I know that a lot want me to go and try one of the colleges, make a difference and all that, y’know?” The human nodded in understanding. “But school hadn’t really ever been my thing. I’d rather play with animals or walk in a forest over just reading texts about history that isn’t really in my culture.”

And that was true. Over the last thirteen or so years (had it really been that long?!), Equius would constantly have to hound her about working on her homework or her studies. And even then, it was hard for her to focus. Eventually, she was started on a reward system as a child. For every day she finished her homework, she would get to put a sticker on her chart. Once the chart was full she could turn it in for a prize-a toy, a dinner out, or she could go somewhere like the aquarium or zoo. Weird as it may have been at the time, it continued throughout her middle school and even after that, her high school career. Equius offered to find another way to help her get her work done, but she liked the system and continued to keep it.

Nepeta’s attention refocused as the principle of the school went up to the microphone on stage. Most of the students still talked amongst themselves, even after he cleared his throat in the microphone and called them to silence. After every student (more or less) had settled down, he smiled and began the ceremony. He began the normal high school graduation speech, how proud he was of all the students and how he enjoyed the years with all of the kids in the audience. She resisted the urge to flatout roll her eyes (Equius would kill her if he saw her disrespect her principal like that) and instead continued to wander in her thoughts. Despite the man not even knowing who majority of the student body was or even what color blood she had, the man was nice. And it had been a challenge to get into different schools over the years. It had been an interesting few years for her at this school. A lot of public high schools continued to discriminate and forbid trolls from attending, but this school was special and welcomed her and the others with open arms. And even better, it kept her throughout all three years she attended there.

A few kids had bullied her in the beginning, mostly for her tail. They tried to call her a broken toy (or worse) but she simply brushed it off. At this point, Nepeta was well aware of what her tail had looked like and she was very accustomed to all the names and teasing she would receive probably the rest of her life-however long that may be. At first, she was tempted to get into a fight with them but she knew that it would’ve destroyed all those stupid lessons Equius drilled into her about self control and how to control your rage (which in Nepeta’s opinion, he was being very hypocritical!). But another part of it was that she didn’t want to go back to work on the therapy she had achieved over the years.

She had gone to the therapist Cronus went to (and still goes to every now and then when the need arises) and while it had taken quite a while for her to see any improvement, it was there and she was glad. More than glad, she was ecstatic! She had thought that she would always wake up in the nights, screaming at her fears coming to life, or that she’d continue to have panic attacks every time that she was left alone in an unfamiliar place. She was very reluctant at first to do anything of the sort. She didn’t think that she really needed therapy, so when Equius had told her where they were, she...overreacted a bit. Nepeta was so stubborn that she refused to leave the car at all. The therapist, the name escaping Nepeta’s guilty mind at the moment, had gone out to the car and shared their first appointment together there in the backseat of Equius’s car.

Nepeta smirked at the memory and huffed a puff of air out of her nose in a laugh. She was an interesting child, that was for sure.

It had taken years for her to relearn everything once she had returned and recovered enough to stay conscious for more than a few hours at a time. The list was painfully long, even looking back: How to read, how to speak without cursing, how to not fight anything that upset her, you name it. In the end, her recovery was going to lead her to a life in a wheelchair. Equius wasn’t able to quite figure out how to allow her to walk without balance issues and was worried sick about it (she knew he stayed up all night sometimes, too anxious to sleep). But her story had been posted on their small facebook page, begging and pleading for somebody to submit advice on what to do then. And luckily, some students at a bioengineering college had heard their pleas and answered the call.

And here she was today with a brand new tail. Granted, it was super obviously fake, but that was okay. She knew she would have to go and get it checked out and/or maintenanced with Equius every couple of months and there was no problem with that. Actually, Equius was very interested in the tail and had begun to learn everything about it so he could help her again without the aid of others. He actually took a lot of interest in that and had begun to work more and more with mechanics than ever before, even beginning to build successful robots that could move on their own accord.

Everything in the last couple of years was all thanks to Equius and Feferi.

Nepeta leaned over her chair and glanced around the audience for her favorite moirail and their group of friends. Once she spotted them, she waved to them. Of course, Equius was focused on the principal, who was still speaking, but Karkat waved back at least. He never failed to disappoint her (though he did turn her down for another troll when she confessed her love to him. But that was an entirely different story that was best left unsaid. The Striders and Equius still would butt heads over how it was handled at times) and she appreciated their friendship everyday. In the seat right next to Karkat was her moirail, looking uncomfortable as hell in his attire for today. Her moirail was dressed in a suit for once and seemed pretty emotionally content with it, which took her by a great deal of shock. The last time he wore a suit was for Feferi.

Oh Feferi….

Nepeta lost her smile and turned forward once again, her face scrunched with a brief flash of longing. The bright and cheery human had met her end about seven years back, when Nepeta was about eleven years old. She remembered being woken up in the middle of the night by the shouts Equius gave when the police showed up at their door. Nepeta still wasn’t quite sure about all the details- she was too young for the full explanation- but she knew it was bad enough that the coffin was nailed shut at the funeral and she never got to say goodbye to Feferi’s face.

Equius was devastated.

She wouldn't ever tell him this, or admit it to even Karkat, but Equius had really scared her. During his depression phase of his mourning, he’d stay in his room and wouldn’t come out for days. The Strider brothers had come over and took her back to their home for a while, having Cronus watch the trolls while the humans had helped Equius out. It had taken a few days, and by that point, Nepeta was tired of being in a constant state of worry for her moirail. She was tired of just waiting for a quick phone call from one of the brothers, briefly telling her that he was okay then leaving her with nothing else. She was tired of worrying that she’d end up without him in her life or worse. She was especially scared that something like….before would happen again.

So she went to him. Like before, she walked her way from House A to House B without telling anybody. This time, however, she was able to successfully make it by herself and pounded on the door the moment she walked up to her porch. As soon as Dirk had opened it, she ran in and found her Equius sitting on the couch, head in his hands with his curtain of a hair hiding his face. Dave was trying to talk to him above him, worry etched onto his face even with the glasses on. She almost shoved Dave aside as she pounced on her moirail, sending both of them back into the couch’s plush cushions.

She knocked the breath out of him, she knew and didn’t care, and just hugged him. She nuzzled her head into his neck and just closed her eyes. Nepeta’s hands were wound tightly in his hair and refused to let go, even when he didn’t respond for a full minute. She remembered how hesitantly he hugged her back after that awkward pause. She knew it worked though, of course it did- she was his moirail for a reason. As soon as he wrapped his muscular arms around her, he brought her closer to his chest and just let all his tears out then and there. They must’ve been on that couch for an hour straight, him just rocking the two of them as she held on as tightly as she could’ve, afraid to let go.

It was the scariest part of her life, even more when she was in that part of her life. And the more she thought about it over time the clearer the reason why became: She was scared when she had to fight other trolls and take their life, sure. She was terrified when she was told she’d be going up against Gamzee. Hell, she was petrified. But none of that compared to the moment when she thought that she would lose Equius. Feferi was hard enough, but she couldn’t, wouldn’t, lose him too.

And so it was. She finally felt like she was helping him along just as much as he was helping her. He would help control her and would never allow her to act out again, with the exception of the occasional panic attacks, and helped protect her in the earlier years. And before Feferi died, she would always cheer him up after a bad day. She felt like she couldn’t do much of anything else for him since Feferi could handle all the grown up stuff for him. Afterwards? She became his anchor. She would always know when and how to cheer him up, how to be held as he sobbed in the middle of the night, you name it.

It was meant to be.

Nepeta smiled to herself as she thought about that. In the back of her mind, she was able to register that the row of students she was sitting with were beginning to stand and move towards the front of the stage. With a jolt and a bigger grin, she too got up and trotted over with her classmates, tail swinging every step of the way.

When the principal called her name from the podium, he stumbled across it and pronounced her last name wrong, but that’s okay. Equius at least knew what he was trying to say and wouldn’t say a word against him in the end, no matter what Nepeta tried to say against him. Her heartbeat was pounding in her ears and she felt every eye in the stadium focus on her. There were only three trolls in the entire school (there used to be five with Karkat and Sollux, but they graduated way before Nepeta could even think of the word graduation) and she was the only one who walked the stage today. Finally, Nepeta got her diploma in one hand and shook the principal’s hand with the other, she glanced up at Equius and saw him standing up in the stands with the biggest, proudest, grin on his face. And all at once, she knew it was all worth it.

--------

“Really, Nepeta. We can find a college that will accept you and have a program you’re interested in.”

“No, Equius. We’ve already had this talk, like, a hundred times over!”

“I’m very well aware of that, but you haven’t expanded your horizons, you could find an amazing job you’ll love with a salary to match. You like animals, surely you could do something with that? Have you thought of something such as a zoologist or perhaps a trainer? Or maybe you could become a caretaker of them-.”

“Liiiiike you?” She smiled over at him and stuck her tongue out. “I was basically raised in a vet’s office, Eq.”

Equius snorted and twitched his lips in an upward smile for a second. “Hmph. One would think that you would have liked to work in a clinic since that is indeed the case at hand.”

Nepeta stopped packing her clothes in a box and looked up at him. He was standing in her doorway, leaning was probably the better word for him at this point though, and was watching her almost with pleading eyes. Actually, no. His eyes were pleading. They were pleading with her for the thousandth time for her to stay with him. Neither wanted to leave the other, or in Equius’s case, let her go. But she was right about having this talk for the hundredth time and they both knew it. He desperately wanted her to go to college and earn a degree so she would be making the “big bucks” and would be able to take care of herself.

Nepeta knew that she would be able to take care of herself anyway that she wanted. Whether it be in the big city, a smaller town in the suburbs where she was raised, or even out in the wilderness. Thanks to a few years training to fight, she knew how to take down animals much larger and heavier than her. Throughout her life she continued to train-whether it was because it was simply instilled in her or the nerves, she didn’t know, but she just wanted to be prepared for anything.

So, with a small knowing smile on her face, she stood up and opened her arms. Equius blinked heavily a few times and walked over to her, closing the distance with a hug. She never grew past his mid chest, so hugs like these were always comical at the least and (all the same) heartwarming. Equius’s muscles tensed all around her before they completely relaxed and his frame surrounded hers. “I’m going to miss you so, so much, Nepeta. More than you could ever imagine.”

She sighed and shook her head against his chest. “No, I think I have a pretty good idea about how this is gonna feel, but we both know that the ranger station has empty rooms and they’re gonna pay me to live on site. It’s the best deal we have.” She looked up at him and smiled sadly. After a second or two of them just looking into the other’s eyes, Nepeta stood up on her toes and bumped her horns against his jaw. He chuckled and ran his hand through her hair (still cut short like she liked it).

“You know,” his voice had that tone that it took when he was thinking of Feferi. It was like calm water after a storm, peaceful yet remorseful, as if he were still in mourning of what he had lost. For all Nepeta knew, he could very well still be. “I still remember taking care of you as an egg.”

Nepeta pushed back against his chest. “You sound like an old, creepy, man when you say sh...stuff like that.”

He raised an eyebrow at her slip up, but continued on with a smirk on his face. “You were almost as big as a good potato and-”

“Are you calling me a potato?!” She laughed and bounced on her toes. “I’m totally not a potato!”

“No, you are a silly, obnoxious troll who insists on doing whatever she pleases.” Equius laughed and slowly, his smile decreased in size. “Feferi would’ve been really proud of you, you know.” He took a deep breath and sat down next to a pile of boxes. He looked over the edge of one of them and pulled out a small stuffed cat that managed to survive these years just as well as Nepeta. “She was so proud of how you were turning out. She would talk about you all the time at the clinic to the animals who just had surgery to help comfort them or whatever she had planned in her mind.”

Nepeta watched as his eyes glazed over with a broken heart. She sat down next to him and let her head rest on his shoulders. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. His hand sprang to life and the two simply let their hands play with each other. Equius sighed heavily and looked around the room. What was once a child’s room with a stubborn little troll was now filled with boxes and some suitcases. Even the infamous pile where Nepeta and Equius would often nap together was packed away.

“How did time pass so quickly, Nepeta?”

“You know that they say the older you are, the faster time goes?” She didn’t feel him respond and he didn’t say anything so she continued. “You must be pretty old.”

He shoved against her affectionately. “And yet, you are still a brat.” He rested his hand on her head, right between her horns. “How am I going to get on without you?”

“Well, you got the clinic and the Strider’s to take care of now that they have an empty nest too.” It was true, Sollux now worked at a large computer industry and was sharing an apartment with Karkat who was working a part time job at a local store while he attended college.

“Yes, but they are not my meowrail.”

It was Nepeta’s turn to take a deep breath and look at him with glazed over eyes at the sound of her childhood nickname for him. “You can come with me,” she whispered. “We can share a room and you could work with all the animals there in the wild who get hurt. We can make it work, Equius, really, we could!”

It took him a few seconds to gather his thoughts to respond. “You know that my place is with the clinic, and yours is wherever your feet take you. Besides, we’re going to call every night and talk about our day to each other.” He ran his hand through her hair again and sighed. “And if you think you could get away from doing that then you’re even crazier than I thought.” She giggled and he continued. “You can’t ever get away from me, little one.”

“Like I’d want to….except maybe the smell. You do smell. Like, a lot.”

He shook his head with a smirk. “Still Nepeta after all these years.”

A moment of silence fell over them. The only movement in the room was their breathing, almost synched, and Nepeta’s tail twitching.

“If anything goes wrong, Nepeta. No matter if it’s just at the park or later in life, my home is always welcome to you. My door will always be open for you, don’t think otherwise.”

She purred and closed her eyes. Equius thought it was just because she was happy and content in the moment, but really….Nepeta didn’t want him to see her cry. She had to do this and if he saw her cry, their feels jam instincts would take over again and she couldn’t handle that right now. It would’ve made leaving impossible for her.

“Always, Equius.”

--------------

Nepeta tapped her foot against the floor in a cafe anxiously.

It had been twenty years from that point in her life when she first had left her home with Equius. The park had been a blast and it was thrilling to be able to track down animals and record them to count for the animal numbers. She had been able to do so much more there than she ever would’ve thought and had been paid a sufficient enough, but once she heard Equius was sick she dropped all of that to take care of him. He argued of course, he didn’t want her to put her life on hold for just him, but she shushed him whenever he got whiny like that. He was worth that to her, he was worth so much more to her than that.

She sighed. She hoped that Feferi was taking excellent care of him, because she desperately didn’t want to think otherwise.

For the last year, she had been living in the wild. She was mostly living within the park boundaries, protecting the animals from poachers or otherwise. She had found this mountain lion that was pretty awesome and had even came to terms with Nepeta living in her territory. The park rangers were well aware of her situations and would normally update her if anything big was going on. Usually it wasn’t anything worth tracking her down and telling her a quick message, but this time was different.

Apparently one of her friends had posted on their facebook page Equius’s quick overview during his lifetime and somebody wanted to write a story on it. All she knew was that she knew him best so she would be the one to give the guy the most facts as she could (or was comfortable sharing).

…

But seriously where was this guy? It had already been twenty minutes since he said he’d be there. If he wasn’t there in ten more minutes Nepeta figured she’d leave and head back to the park. At least there it didn’t smell so strongly of coffee or humans. Though, at the same time, it was for Equius. If there was one thing Equius had tried to teach her, it was to be respectful and give whomever you’re waiting on at least thirty minutes for traffic.

Just as she was thinking of this, and any other memorable life lessons her late moirail had taught her, a man burst through the doors. He was a stumpy looking man with a hat made out of straw. He wore a normal outfit, but his neon yellow jacket really made him stand out. He seemed nice enough, even if his big glasses made him look funny enough to laugh at. (Seriously, you could stick an entire dinner plate through those!) The man quickly scanned the cafe for any troll that fit Nepeta’s brief description she gave him over email. As soon as he saw her, his entire face lit up and he made a beeline for her. He didn’t even wait for the waitresses as he stumbled around the cafe, bumping into tables and annoying customers, muttering any apologies he had towards those who he bumped into.

She smiled warily at him and shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “Hi, are you-?”

“James Magi! You must be Nepeta, right?” He extended his hand towards her as he sat down across the table from her. “I heard so much about you and your caretaker that I couldn’t help but want to write about it. Wait, what’s wrong? Did I say something wrong?” Nepeta had squirmed a bit more in her seat and grimaced at the word ‘caretaker.’

“Look, Mr. Magi….If you think that what Equius and I had was nothing more than what a normal human and his dog have then I’m afraid we can’t do this.”

“Oh.” He sat up a little bit straighter, held his shoulders up a little bit higher. He looked like he was trying not to offend her and be respectful, which Nepeta appreciated. “No, no, of course not. I’m so very sorry, what would you like me to refer to him as?”

“He was so much more than a caretaker...referring to him like that feels like an insult to him. Especially after all those fights he went through just to make sure I had what I did.” Nepeta looked out of the window next to them and sighed, lost in her memories. “He took care of me even before I hatched. He was there for me when I took my first steps, he searched for me every day I was gone, he even offered to pay for my college.” She smiled over at the man across from her. “I remember that conversation very clearly, he was desperate for me to go on and make a name for myself but I was already content with who I was.”

“So….do you want me to write him as a father figure?”

Nepeta laughed at that. She couldn’t remember the last time she had truly laughed at anything, but that comment made Nepeta feel giddy all over again. Like a pet owner who was recalling something their pet did even after they died. Happy and excited, full of laughter at the event even years later, but...still sad because they know that those moments are gone forever.

“...No,” she finally answered. “No, I think that he would’ve thought as him as a father figure in the beginning but as things went on…” She looked out the window again at the people passing by on the busy street. “As things went on, we changed each other for the better.”

“Well then, Nepeta,” she glanced back at him and saw he had a notebook and pen out. His face had turned from something of amusement to serious curiosity and interest. He was well prepared to listen. “Why don’t we start at the beginning and go from there?”

She turned back to the window and sighed in nostalgia. Where to begin? Was it her first memory of chasing Equius or later perhaps when the story really began with her kidnapping? Maybe it was when she hatched? After all, that was when her life began. But if she was truly honest, it had started out completely different from all of those. “It had started with the Striders needing apple juice desperately,” she smiled as she thought of the goofy family. “And on their way home they spotted something. On the side of the road was an small oval, green egg. It was lying in some watery leaves in the gutter....”