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You don't know why you're wandering this fucking meteor.
Honestly, you'd rather be sleeping - but no, thanks, not doing that again. And you just can't deal with all the other trolls right now. Bickering and squabbling as if you hadn't just completely failed them as a leader. Seriously, about to win, and then this black dog guy thing comes out of nowhere, and you can't do anything. Yeah, that still really fucking hurts.
You sigh and stick your hands in your pocket, now feeling a bit lonely without the constant murmuring of people in the background. You're just about to turn around and head back, when you hear a crash. Head whipping around, you run over and pull open the door you're pretty sure it came from behind, only to find-
"Nepeta? What the fuck are you doing?"
She was buried in crates and paint cans, and as you help her get out, you notice the walls around the room. You've stumbled upon the infamous shipping wall of Nepeta Leijon.
She blushes green when she realizes that you've noticed her paintings, but you aren't really paying her much attention. You're looking at all of the pairings she put up there.
"Strider and Nitram? Really?"
You find the words falling out of your mouth before you can stop them, and you resist the great urge to slap yourself. But instead of taking offense at your dissing of her ship, she shrugs. "I think they'd have been great matespurrits!"
You turn to look at her. "Why the fuck would you think that?"
She just laughs. "Well, why not?"
"Because..." Your words drift off as you realize you can't find anything particularly wrong with that relationship. "Because Tavros is dead?"
She scoffs. "Yeah, beclaws thats always stopped some of us in the past." She vaguely gestures to a crossed out sketch of her moirail and Aradia. "But yeah, I know it's not the most likely of my ships."
You look around again, and can't help asking, "Most likely? So which ones are the likeliest?"
She smiles, and you can't help but notice that she looks kind of pretty without her hat and when her hair is brushed. "Well, I honestly think that Dave is better with Terezi, but the point of the wall isn't to say what's already catpunned- it's to show all the pawssibilities. Like this."
She points to a picture of Kanaya and you, holding hands under a white diamond. "But that's not reality, it's a pawssibility. That's reality." She says, and gestures to a well-drawn portrait of you Gamzee.
Slowly she takes you through every painting, every picture, every pairing, and for the first time in a while you actually feel happy enough to smile and laugh at some of the more ridiculous ones. You don't even realize there's a wall you haven't seen until you're about to leave, and you see a gray curtain covering the wall behind the stack of crates you helped her out of earlier.
"What's that?" You ask curiously, and she shrugs, looking tense but trying for nonchalant.
"Nothing."
You don't believe her. But as you leave the room, you tell yourself you won't bother coming back later to find out.
You finally head back to the library, which is where you had been before, but the thought of that curtain never leaves you. And when you see Nepeta deep in conversation with Terezi, you think, 'fuck it,' and get out.
It doesn't take you very long to find the room, and you give it another admiring glance before moving towards the curtain.
You move the boxes and sweep the curtain to the side.
OTP. The words are the first thing you see, and you can't help but notice the intricate detail- so much better than any other painting so far- before you actually notice the two trolls being depicted.
Oh.
PLEASE IGNORE THE PRETTY LINE
You leave the room quickly, making sure to put the curtain and the boxes back in place. Then you go straight to your room.
Fuck.
You idiot, you knew she had flushed feelings for you before. Why would that have changed? You knew.
You realized afterward that one of the only pairs not on the wall was you and her. Oh, gog, it's so obvious in hindsight.
You need someone to talk to. And you also need to not see Nepeta until you've figured all of this out.
So you set out, looking for Gamzee. He's your moirail, he should be willing to listen to your problems, right?
Or, he would be willing. You know, if you could actually find him.
Finally, you just give up, curling into a chair in the library. And that's where Kanaya finds you. She is, oddly enough, not with Rose, which is where she spends most of her time nowadays.
You don't realize she's there until she taps you on the shoulder, and you sit up with a start. "What the fuck-"
She steps back. "Hello, Karkat."
"Hi, Kanaya. Is something wrong?"
She shakes her head. "No."
"Then what the fuck do you want?"
You receive a shrug. "Honestly, I was wondering if everything was okay with you."
"I don't know how that's any of your fucking business."
"I like to meddle." She sits down across from you, as if she knows how much you want to talk to someone right now. "So, what's wrong?"
You sigh. "It's- It's Nepeta." You almost blush just from the admission. "I found something today..."
You then proceed to tell her everything. About going through the shipping wall with Nepeta, having a great time, and then going back later to see behind the curtain. You talk about your conflicted feelings, about how you've liked Terezi for so long, but you've never felt like this about her, and how don't even know what you're feeling anymore. And she just sits and listens with a small frown on her face.
Finally you run out of things to say, and Kanaya gives you a smile.
"Well, it sounds to me like you are flushed for Nepeta."
"But what about Terezi?" You question, turning to look her in the eye. "You can't just write that off."
"I think," she says, hesitating slightly, "that you DID like Terezi. But you spent so much time liking her that you started resenting her for not liking you back. And that, maybe, you've been holding on to that flush crush because it gives you a sense of stability, like, no matter how much your life changed because of the game, or in general, or because people died, YOU hadn't changed enough to make you stop liking her."
Her words floor you. You kind of wish it wasn't true, but you know in your heart that denying it would be lying. Taking a shaky breath, you turn to her.
"Yeah. Yeah, I think you might just be right about that one."
PLEASE IGNORE THE PRETTY LINE
You get up out of that chair eventually, and she gives yo a hug, a sibling type hug like you've seen Rose giving Dave. And then you go back to your room, because you have some serious issues to work out now. First on the agenda:
Figure out what the hell you're going to do.
But that's easy enough. Obviously, Nepeta is flushed for you. And you know you're flushed for her. But how to go about it? Honestly, after all you've put the poor cat troll through, she deserves way more than just, 'Hey, I'm flushed for you, can we be together?'
So you sit down and start planning.
It takes about three days to settle on a single plan, and then to set it up, because most of your plans aren't worth shit. But you do come up with a plan (a pretty good one in your opinion), and you start preparing immediately. First you find an empty room, which is way harder than it sounds. Then you set it up, making sure you have everything finished before you finally swallow your pride and ask Dave to hang nearby with a camera.
And then you go to find Nepeta.
The first place you check is her shipping room. But she isn't there, so you head to the computer room, her bedroom, the library. When you finally run into her, it's by accident. She's carrying empty cups of paint, and you have to try not to laugh at the really bright smile she gives you.
But you don't even bother trying to keep your smile hidden.
"Nepeta," you say excitedly. "Nepeta, you have to come with me, okay?"
"Okay, Karkitty!" She says, skipping up until you are side by side going down the hallway. "Where are we going?"
"I- I decided to make my own shipping wall. But I need your opinion."
She almost squeals. "Awwww! That's pawesome! Which way?"
Steeling your nerves, you grab her hand to pull her along faster. "This way."
She doesn't speak again again until you let go of her. You are both standing in front of a door, and you gently push it open. She steps inside, and you follow her, holding your breath in anticipation.
She examines your pictures of different people, starting at one side of the room.
"It's no where near finished yet," you ramble. "Actually, I just started out with a few relationships that have already happened- like me and Gamzee," you point to a self portrait shoosh-papping the troll in question.
She looks at it seriously and nods. "These are purrretty good. Why exactly did you need my help?"
"Not really your help, more like your opinion."
You grin as she turns back to the wall, giving each ship a thorough once over, slowly making her way down. So, so slowly.
Finally, there's only one spot left on the wall. Actually, you've covered it with a blanket much like she had, but you made no attempt to hide it. The whole point of this had been for it to catch her attention.
"What's this?" She asks hesitantly, and you shrug, pretending to be indifferent.
"Well, it's kind of my- what would you call it? An OTP? Yeah, I guess you could say its my OTP."
She gives you another glance as her hand touches the corner, as if making sure she's allowed to see it. You give her a smile and she lifts the blanket.
You never got to see her initial reaction. Dave, apparently, had been slacking off on camera duty, but oh well. She turns to face you, and the look on her face is full of hope and disbelief.
"This isn't a joke?"
You shake your head. "Would I actually go to the trouble of painting an entire room simply to play a joke on you?"
She giggles, and before you even realize it, she's leaned in and snatched a kiss- your very first kiss with her.
Well, you can't exactly let her steal a kiss. At least, not without stealing one back.
And that's when you hear the camera go off.