A/N HOMESTUCK! hee hee hee... by the way, every time Gamzee says 'mother', or 'mothering', that's not really what he's saying. I think you guys know what I mean...

Holy crap, this turned out R34LLY long... :)

Terezi had to estimate where the head and shirt were on the picture. She could smell the picture, but couldn't smell where she was drawing until it was too late. She at least got close. The short, nubby horns and gray sign reminded her of Karkat. She hoped he would understand. She flipped the paper over and started to write.

My dear Kismesis,

No, no, no. That couldn't be right. Claiming Karkat as her Kismesis like that had to be wrong, and yet nothing had ever felt more right. But was that really their relationship? Sometimes she felt like she was his Moirail, keeping an eye on him and making sure he didn't do anything stupid. Other times, it was like she was his Auspistice, mediating between him and the other trolls.

And then, above all, a part of her was sure she was none of those things. Part of her felt like she was in fact his Matesprit. The thought left her breathless and uncertain of reality, more so than any of the other feelings. She recalled the times he'd actually been kind to her. Like when she'd witnessed Jack killing doomed Dave, and he'd tried to comfort her before she'd run out of the room in tears.

Perhaps there was no real name to their relationship, and trying to force one on it was what made it feel so wrong. Perhaps it was not a Matespritship, a Moirailegiance, a Kismesissitude, or an Auspisticism. Perhaps it was a mixture of two, or even three. Or maybe it was one of those rare relationships that only existed in Tavros's fairy stories. The ones that slipped the bonds of the four quadrants, and became their own quadrant, or maybe the correct word was quindrant.

What would one call a relationship like that? A Moiraspritmesisticism? No, that sounded stupid. With a heavy sigh, she looked back at her letter. All she had written was the opening, where she had claimed Karkat as her Kismesis. She guessed that relationships could change. Like Aradia and Equius. One moment they'd be a Kismesissitude, the next they'd be a Matespritship. Maybe that was how it was.

She guessed that she couldn't really be Karkat's Moirail. Not with Gamzee around, anyway. That ruled out the quindrant mix.

But what a mix that would be! In Tavros's story, ancient quindrant mixes between reds and blues created the first Highbloods. If she and Karkat had that, perhaps they could re-write the social hierarchy. A mix of the two most delectable bloods, red and green. Like twelfth perigree's eve. That lucky little wriggler would head the new order, would be even above the royal purples, the Gamzees and Eridans and Feferis of the world.

She laughed. That wasn't true and wouldn't happen. Tavros's story was mythical. Relationships did not ascend past the bounds of the four quadrants. And a mix of red and green would simply make an ugly brown. But sometimes she liked to imagine.

Okay, Terezi. Get back to the letter. She thought. You can play fairytale world later, in a dream bubble with Tavros's spirit. Hopefully Vriska won't interfere this time...

Karkat finished ranting about the futility of their situation to Sollux, and went back to his desk in a rage. He thought about trolling one of the humans again, but it just didn't seem worth it. They were all going to die, anyways. He heard a soft honking in the background, followed by shuffling footsteps and a grunt. He remembered how he had left one of Sollux's bodies on the ground. He cursed under his breath.

"Gamzee, put Sollux's body down." Karkat said without turning around. He heard a dragging sound. His voice rose. "Gamzee, you better not be taking that body."

A moment of silence. And then, the dragging sound started up again, with a few honks for accompaniment. He turned around, cursing again when he saw Gamzee almost to the door, still dragging the body.

"You put that body down this instant! I told you, I'd take care of it in a minute!" he yelled. Gamzee dropped the body and walked over to him. He began patting Karkat on the shoulder and shooshing him. Karkat shoved him away. "What the heck are you doing?"

"I'm pulling a Karkat." Gamzee said. "Honk!"

Karkat's blood was boiling. "You're pulling a Karkat?" he asked, angrily.

"Yeah, I'm all calming you all down, cause I'm all your mothering Moirail, mother!" Gamzee said.

"Get out of here." Karkat demanded. "And don't you dare touch that body on the way out. I don't want to have to picture you having sloppy makeouts with my best friend's corpse."

"No problem. I'm all getting out of your personal space and all." Gamzee said. He started to leave.

"And will you stop saying all so much?" Karkat asked.

"I'm not all making any mothering promises on that one!" Gamzee said. "Oh, and you best be all reading that note!"

"What note?" Karkat asked.

"The one all on your desk? The one that says 'My dear Kismesis'?" Gamzee said. "I didn't even know you had a mothering Kismesis!"

"I..." Karkat started. He glanced down at his desk and saw the note, written in gray in all caps, like he normally wrote. At the top, just as Gamzee had said, were the words 'My dear Kismesis'.

"Unless you all up and wrote that to your mothering Kismesis, in the which case I still wouldn't be all knowing who that was. But then you would be all delivering it to the mother instead of reading it." Gamzee said. Then he left. Karkat turned back to his desk and picked up the letter with trembling fingers.

Did he have a Kismesis? And if so, who was it? Certainly, it had to be one of the trolls still alive. Kanaya, Sollux, Gamzee, Terezi, or Aradia. At least, that's who he thought was still alive. Sometimes it was hard to tell if Kanaya was really alive. Aradia too.

Kanaya didn't really hate him, not like a Kismesis. He didn't really hate her, either. Aradia's Kismesis had been Equius, but perhaps she felt lonely now that Gamzee had killed him. Nah.

Gamzee was his Moirail. Sollux was his best friend. And Terezi?

Every time he approached that conundrum, it left him with a migraine. There was no good descriptive word for how he felt about her. At one time, he'd thought his feelings were somewhere in the flushed quadrant, but after that fight in his respiteblock, it was hard to tell. That had been way back in the day, though. He took a deep breath and started reading.

My dear Kismesis,

Or are you even my Kismesis? It may be wrong for me to call you that, but at the same time, it has never felt more right. Yes, there are times when I feel we are a Kismesissitude, for we fight more often than not. But there are some times when I feel like we are a Moirailegiance, though I soon remember Gamzee. And still other times, I feel like your Auspistice, mediating between you and the others. And then there are the times that leave me breathless and uncertain of reality, the times that make my skin hot like yours. The times that make me tremble in fear, and yet I want to cry out for joy.

The times I feel you may very well be my Matesprit.

I often remember something those times. Something that always held me back, that kept me from revealing those feelings in the past. Those flushed feelings. Those thrice accursed flushed feelings. Those hated, stupid, beautiful, wonderful flushed feelings. I'd rather feel pale or black than red. Anything but red. And yet...

And yet, it is part of our relationship. It's almost as if our relationship is a well-shuffled deck of human cards, and every time we cross paths, a new card is drawn. And whichever quadrant's symbol is on that card decides how we interact. There's a one in four chance it will be the one we want. Whether hearts, diamonds, spades, or clubs, it's like we absolutely have to stick to the symbols on the card drawn.

And that won't change unless we decide for ourselves. I have already established that I don't know which quadrant we're in, but I instead feel like we toggle randomly through the grid. So I leave it to you to decide. Simply choose the quadrant that suits your fancy, and I will apply my whole heart to your choice. If you choose the hearts, I will be the best Matesprit you've ever had. If you choose spades, I'll be your best Kismesis. Clubs, and I'll devote all my time to keeping the peace between you and the others. Diamonds, and... well... I'm sure Gamzee will understand.

Make your choice, Karkat. I'll be waiting.

Terezi went back to her desk after leaving it for a long enough time. She was certain that Karkat had to have answered her note by then. She hadn't signed it, but she knew he was smart enough to figure out who it was from. Sure enough, there was a small note sitting on her desk. She felt unsteady, and sat down in her computer chair. With shaking hands, she lifted the paper. She sniffed it cautiously. Karkat had sprayed nasty smells on notes to her before.

But the paper just smelled like eggshells and seafoam. Green, like her blood. Like the color she wrote in. He had gotten it, alright. It had felt weird to write in all gray caps, without the numerals of the blind prophets, but she had done it to throw him off a little. Like how he did it to mask the color of his blood. The sweet candy red she loved so much. She often wondered why no one else liked his blood. Why he was an outcast because of it. Dave's blood was that color. What difference did it really make? They were the last twelve... no, six trolls in existence, so why did blood still matter?

Because that was how they were raised. That had to be it. Old habits die hard.

She couldn't read the words on the paper by sniffing alone. She tried and tried, but it was too blurry. She licked the paper where the words were, and gasped. Karkat had written a single word, exactly how she would have written it.

Y3S.

She sat tasting the word on the paper, making sure that was what it said. But that couldn't be right. 'Yes' was not an answer to her question. She got online and tried to troll Karkat for an explanation.

GC: K4RK4T, 3XPL41N YOURS3LF!

GC: 4R3 YOU TH3R3?

GC: WH4T DO YOU M34N, Y3S?

GC: 4NSW3R M3!

There was no response. She huffed in annoyance and got up. When she got to Karkat's desk, he was not there. All she smelled was a trail of mustard blood and one of Gamzee's horns. Feeling suddenly silly, she picked it up and honked it. It made a delightful sound, and she grinned. Then she hastily put the horn down and got back to serious mode. She had to figure out what was going on. Her guess was that Karkat still hadn't taken care of Sollux's body, and while he'd been distracted by her letter, Gamzee had run off with the body to do... to do whatever perverted thing he did with dead bodies. Terezi was pretty sure he'd kissed Kanaya's, but what about Sollux? Sollux was alive, and blind and toothless. The guy had gotten like... three dream selves, or something. The lucky guy.

She guessed there was a possibility that Gamzee was having sloppy makeouts with Sollux's corpse. That was a sort of gross thought, even though technically trolls weren't supposed to care about stuff like that. There was nothing wrong with it. But it sounded like a thought Dave would have, and that was what caused her initial grossed-out reaction. She shuttered when she remembered all the gross things he'd said about grubs and buckets. Then her face flushed, and she banished the attendant images from her mind.

No, I will not be Dave. I will never be Dave. She told herself.

She followed the trail of blood through the lab, ending up in Gamzee's room. The trail stopped there, so she began looking around for signs of Gamzee or Sollux's corpse. There were none.

"I swear, Gamzee! If' you're in there making out with Sollux's corpse, I'll ditch the Karkat act and totally go Kanaya on you!" Karkat yelled on the other side of the door. "I'm gonna borrow her chainsaw and everything! Don't you test me!"

Then the door burst open and Karkat was staring at her, wide eyed. She grinned.

"Don't worry, Karkat. Gamzee is definitely not in here making out with Sollux's corpse." she said.

"Terezi?" he asked, dumbfounded.

"Yeah." she said. "But seriously, what do you mean 'yes'?"

"It just means what it means." Karkat said.

"Answer me, Vantas!" Terezi said, trying to be threatening.

"I did answer you, Pyrope." Karkat said.

"Gosh darn it, Karkat." Terezi said. She sighed. "Would you please stop speaking in riddles and tell me what you mean?"

"Listen. I don't know what kind of relationship we have either. I'm agreeing with you, that there is no one quadrant we're in." he said. "If you think the humans are confused by the grid, you should see some of us trolls."

They were both silent for a moment. Terezi felt those flushed feelings again, and almost thought Karkat was having the same feelings. But then that old memory came back to her, and she pushed the feelings away.

"Want to go find Gamzee now?" Terezi asked. "We'll probably find him faster if we work together."

"Yeah. Let's do that." Karkat said. She took his warm hand and they walked out of Gamzee's room, in search of the Highblood and the corpse.

A/N

Me: Aww yeah!

Kayla: Terezi and Karkat?

Derek: dude, I thought you hated Karkat.

Me: I do. But I love Terezi, and I think she and Karkat make a good match.

Kayla: whatever. Can you do an actual match now?

Derek: yeah, like Equius and Aradia.

Kayla: didn't you just love that part when Equius gave her the robot?

Derek: that was so funny!

Me: nah, I think I'll go with Vriska and Tavros instead.

Kayla and Derek: aww...