Time For Some Well-Deserved Naps

[kisashika]

The peaceful nothingness that was his dreams were interrupted by someone shaking him awake. Gamzee groaned unhappily and burried his face further into Tavros' shoulder, trying to block out the light and the noises, he just wanted to sleep. He mumbled a few incoherent words, maybe a couple of explicit words jumbled within, and tugged the blanked further up his and Tavros' bodies.

[sleepZombie]

A tiny grunt escaped the Taurus as he was prodded awake. Blurrily he opened his eyes, vision swimming until he felt the comforting warmth of Gamzee at his side, burrowing the both of them further into the blankets with a few salty grumbles. He dimly was aware that someone else was here but he'd missed the initial gleeful sounding shout so he wasn't sure exactly WHO it was.

All he was concerned with was wishing he could roll over and nuzzle against Gamzee's chest. As it was he shifted fitfully, head tilting slightly to the side as far as his horns would allow, nose brushing against Gamzee's as he lightly made shooshing sounds to relax him. He reached up with his left hand, lightly papping at his face in a calming gesture.

--

Jade was positively BEAMING when John said her name. He knew it was her! Even though they'd never really seen each other before! And... and he called her sis! She returned his gleeful hug, arms tucked up under his arms as she squeezed him tightly, bouncing on her heels in her excitement.

"Of course I made it, silly! Didn't we all? Cuz you made the scratch happen?" She heard the disgruntled murmurs of the others behind John, peeking over his shoulder and silently 'awwww'ing over the snuggly trio. Her voice turned down a little bit. "Or is Rose not here yet?"

She tugged on the sleeve of John's shirt, leading him over towards where the couch was tucked along the far side of the room. It was in the same place as the bed but it was far enough away that they could sit together and talk quietly, heads bowed and knees pressed against each other. As she flopped down she couldn't help the bubbly giddiness inside of her. John was her brother! They were totally siblings and who cared if there was ectobiology involved, she'd ALWAYS wanted to have a brother or sister! Someone to talk to and be with and... and John had kind of already been like that for her, anyway.

[shiftyPotentate]

The other two trolls weren't wanting to wake up for this. Oh well, Nepeta shrugged. They could see later.

She instead turned to see John and Jade's reunion. Well, she guessed it wasn't a reunion, so much as a... union!

She knew the other eleven trolls were technically her brothers and sisters anyway, by the human definition, but Nepeta found herself wishing she had someone to consider family as Jade and John had each other. Yeah, John was her moirail now, but that was... different, somehow.

Or was it? In a way, a brother or sister, she postulated, was someone you could count on to watch your back and understand your experiences and share them with you. Maybe moirallegiance was like having family?

She shook her head softly. She probably had it wrong, anyway. But she was happy that the humans were happy, and sit quietly to let them have their moment.

[nintendonut1]

John chuckled at her bits of bounciness he was expecting, rubbing her back and leaning his head into hers in a half-nuzzle. Her delightful and happy demeanor was all he ever hoped for and more from his dear sister. At Nepeta's words, he smiled most gratefully and opened his mouth to thank her, but then Jade spoke.

"Well, yeah, but... it's just, so awesome to see you in person finally!" He pulled back to look at her, but his smile faltered very slightly. "Oh...damn. I was hoping you had seen her."

Realizing they were disrupting the matesprits' nap, he followed Jade to the couch, nodding to Nepeta to let her know she could follow if she wanted. When he was settled with Jade, leaning close to her to stay quiet, he continued, "Last I saw her I kinda had to kiss her back to life... Dave told me she's okay, so hopefully she'll turn up soon."

It was a little sad to think about their missing friend, so he grinned at Jade and sought to lighten the mood. "So, where on the island did you pop up? From what I can tell we sorta scattered out a bit. I was lucky to end up in the caves out west with both Nepeta and Tavros..."

He blinked in realization. "...oh! Duhhhhh, we never knew them by name, huh?" Quietly, he pointed at the sleeping couple. "The bull-horn one is Tavros, and the other one with the crazy purple hair is Gamzee."

He then smiled at his moirail. "And this is Nepeta."

[kisashika]

Trying his best to block out the talking in the room, Gamzee tried to bury his head further, but it didn't seem to work. Another frustrated groan and he was about to ask if they could be a bit quieter- then Tavros started to pap his head. Being half asleep, Gamzee absentmindedly grabbed the prodding hand and gently nibbled and kissed at the wrist.

Even if Tavros were to try and pull his hand back, it would be in vain, Gamzee was enjoying this too much to let go any time soon. Then he started to move slow, taunting kisses down the Taurus' arm, occasionally nipping at the soft skin.

[sleepZombie]

Tavros did not try to pull his hand away, instead giving a little hiccup of a groggy sound as he felt the gentle ministrations of Gamzee's mouth against his wrist. He flushed faintly, orangy-brown, and squirmed just a bit as the kisses traveled. "Uhm." He sighed, eyes still closed even as he shuffled closer. His trapped hand opened and closed, eventually bending at the wrist to grasp and tug lightly at Gamzee's hair with a faint, groggy hum of encouragement.

--

Jade sat up straight to look at the others, giving a cheerful, slightly buck-toothed smile and wave. "Hi!" She tried to be loud enough to hear but quiet enough to wake anyone who might still be sleeping up. She was pretty sure Tavros reached up and waved back! She was kind of relieved to see him so snuggly with the other troll, Gamzee. That meant that maybe he'd gotten over trying to flirt with her... because that was kind of really awkward.

"Yeah... I haven't seen Rose." She frowned a moment before perking back up. "But we'll see her eventually, I mean.. we're all here. But yeah! I came out at the edge of this place! Literally THE EDGE! It just dropped right off into nothing it was amazing! We should go see it sometime... Then Dave was there! That was really great." She paused to take a breath, and reflexivley went in for another hug, arms thrown around John's neck to press their cheeks together. "This is so great, though! But I don't think this is the scratch... from what I've gotten this place has been around for a while. It's so weird, though, it kind of seems like it's something in the Incipisphere!"

[shiftyPotentate]

Nepeta took John's cue and followed Jade and John, sitting beside the latter. Again, she took a side seat and let them talk, though she waved and smiled happily when John introduced her.

She listened to Jade talk about where she ended up. The edge? Well, if it was an island, it would make sense to have an edge. And the more she thought about it... This entire island seemed like a tiny planet floating around in an empty space. She'd had a similar feeling on the space rock, in the Veil. That, combined with the eerie sunlight she saw earlier, and finally with the odd whisperings (which felt like they were trying to subconsciously put ideas in her head)...

Jade hit it right on the nose. Kind of.

"I think it's more like... an empty Incipisphere," she summarized. "Purrhaps a session that hasn't happened, or nefur will! A null session that this place just kind of curled up and decided to take a catnap in." She didn't know how she knew these things, she just kind of... knew.

"But it would need a pawer source to keep it intact, like the lab did..." She stared at her own mouth, or down in its general direction. Where was she getting this knowledge? She stopped talking. Then Nepeta held her head as she realized she had a light headache. That'd been happening a little more often than usual lately...

[nintendonut1]

As far as John was concerned, Jade could keep babbling on and hugging him all day; he was just too delighted to see the person behind the bright green text.

"The edge... oh, you mean out east!" he replied, nodding and making wide hand gestures as he continued. "Yeah, I know what you're talking about. From what I've seen, the island's surrounded by an ocean, all except the east edge, where it just drops into the void. I'll bet it was awesome, but I didn't get a chance to take a closer look."

He softened a bit. "Oh... sweet. You saw Dave too, huh?" Good. He was well aware of how sweet they were for each other.

It was when Jade began to discuss the Scratch and Incipisphere that John began to get a little lost. He figured that was her being her usual smart and seemingly all-knowing self, but then Nepeta contributed and he glanced between them, rubbing his head in growing concern. Wow, was he just seriously out of the loop or something? How did everyone seem to know more about the game than he did?

"Wait, so, what, Scratchers get sent to a null session?" he ventured, hand moving down to the back of his neck uncertainly. "I mean, I guess that would explain the lack of Prospit or Derse... uh, right? I guess?"

Figuring he was sounding stupid, John leaned back, a little floored. To be honest, he hadn't expected this outcome, nor was he looking forward to trying to figure out why, because whenever he tried to think too hard about the game mechanics it gave him a headache. He more or less sort of went with the flow; it was in his nature, really.

He saw Nepeta rub her own head gingerly, and smiled at her sympathetically. He then nodded. "Right, okay, I get that. The island can't just float in the void without something keeping it together, right?" That much he could gather through a sci-fi breed of common sense.

[kisashika]

Those small noises from Tavros were the only green lights he needed and Gamzee kissed up his arm and up to his shoulder. He was still a little worked up from their earlier make-out session and still had it in his mind to continue. He planted a small kiss on the others' neck and moved to sit up some, this little activity waking him up.

"Hey, Tav," Gamzee started and reached up, pulling the Taurus' hand from his hair- as much as he enjoyed it being there, the others that occupied the room probably wouldn't like it if they got too frisky in front of them. He leaned over and nuzzled Tavros' cheek before continuing. "You wanna' move to another room or would you wanna' stop?" Better off nipping that bud before it grows too much, especially if his matesprit wasn't comfortable with it.

[sleepZombie]

Eyes popped open, certainly more awake as he felt Gamzee shift and lean close, nuzzling his nose against his cheek and whispering about... about going on. The Taurus locked up, the sleepy state he had been in before washing away as he almost scrunched in on himself shyly. Anxiously he grasped at the front of Gamzee's shirt, eyes darting back at the others to make sure they weren't paying them any attention and fervently shook his head back and forth.

Move to another room... did that mean he. Tavros swallowed nervously, looking up at Gamzee in sudden anxiety. He. He wasn't... wasn't ready.

"I... u-uhm." He bit his lip, feeling at once terrible and almost panic'd. "L-Let's, s-stay." He tried to swallow the stammering and couldn't.

--

Jade wasn't paying any attention to the trolls in the bed, she was acutely focused on the conversation at hand. That and she was currently snuggled against her brother's side. She never wanted to let go! Well maybe she'd let go if he had to do something really important, but otherwise nope! Nope, she wasn't going to!

"I don't know! I mean, I thought this was because of the scratch but I guess I could be wrong. I'm not sure what's holding it up, though. It's pretty boggling, actually! There's a lot of rough wind generated out between the edge and the space where it drops off... I wish I could tell if it's possible to break past the barrier and see if it's just void out there!" And without noticing it she actually HAD let go of him, busy being animatedly expressive with her hands as she spoke.

"Like... is it like outer space? That would explain all of the wind a little bit, where the atmosphere of this island meets the emptiness of space. But what is the force at action between them!? Then again it kind of seems like there isn't ANYTHING out there. Not even space, just... nothing." She gave an exaggerated shiver. "Kinda creepy."

[shiftyPotentate]

Nepeta jerked slightly, suddenly getting more information. But that came at the cost of another splitting headache. "Ow, ow, ow..." She winced and held her head. "Out there are... the gods of the Furthest Ring, Jade..." She blinked. "Fefurry said you saw them, I remember that..."

She found her tablet and sketched a picture of one of them, though it looked stylized and cute. "They look kinda like this, I think..." The tablet automatically attempted to captchalogue whatever she had drawn. It processed it and created a ghost image of a Squiddle on one of her captchalogue cards. "Oh! Huh, I'm... not used to this modus of cat-chaloguing things yet!"

Jade would more than likely recognize the fetch modus, and more importantly, what it had attempted to grab.

[nintendonut1]

Well, color John completely confused by now. Jade started mentioning space and void and nothingness and he was on the verge of wearing a complete "duuuuhhhhhhhh" face in response. It was good that he was more distracted with just watching her marvel at her theories, that big smile on her face that just made him feel GOOD when he saw it.

As such, he missed completely what Nepeta had said in response, but he DID hear and recognize her little mewls of pain. He turned back to his moirail, watching her fetch modus for a minute, then glanced at her clearly pained face. Maybe she needed more sleep. "Nepeta, are you okay?"

[kisashika]

Smiling softly, Gamzee leaned forward and gave Tavros a peck on the lips and moved back to lay down next to him. In now way, shape, or form did he want the other to feel uncomfortable or rushed to do anything- they had all the time they wanted to do whatever they wanted. There was not telling what miracles this new world would bring them, and Gamzee figured that those things would fall accordingly in their relationship in due time, he could wait however long Tavros wanted to.

Getting comfortable in a similar way he was before, Gamzee wrapped an arm loosely around his matesprits' waist and the other one gently stroked through his hair.

"Sure thing, Tavvy." He still smiled, nestling the two of them in the blankets.

[sleepZombie]

Tavros burrowed down closer to Gamzee, too awake now to go back to sleep. He was mildly comforted by the strong arm around his waist, soothed even further by the hand stroking though his hair. For the umpteenth time he wished he could roll over on his side and face Gamzee or something but those horns were just not allowing it.

Reaching down he laced his fingers through Gamzee's at his hip and tuned into the conversation, trying to understand what everyone was talking about.

---

Jade sharply realized what Nepeta was trying to draw, secretly really grateful that a squiddle had come into her inventory rather than the real deal. She'd maybe have to talk to her later about it... but right now she looked like of like her head was hurting her!

"Oh!" Jade detached from John finally, leaning forward with a open mouthed frown of dismay, looking goofy but pretty regardless. "Nepeta, right? Do you need to lay down? You guys were sleeping and I woke you all up..."

[shiftyPotentate]

Nepeta smiled at Jade. Her headache went away, as did the wince she'd had. She looked at the ghost image of a Squiddle her captchalogue card now possessed. It appeared that that particular card was now completely useless. She flipped it over. Well, it did have a code on the back. If she wanted a Squiddle for any reason, all she needed was a fully-upgraded alchemiter, she guessed.

She put the card away, and shook her head. "No, I just get headaches lately, they pawss purrty quickly." She giggled. "Anyway hi Jade! I am Nepeta Leijon, its so purrleasant to finally meet you!" She wrapped her arms around Jade and gave her the best hug she could in close quarters. It was no pouncegreet but it was close!