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She's looking diamonds at you again. She thinks you don't notice, which is adorable and kind of pathetic (okay, so the word isn't always completely discordant with the way you feel about her), because otherwise you'd say she knows you just about better than anyone at this point. One of the perks of being a time player, after all, is that you can spend more hours together than there are in a day. But there she is, sneaking glances, and you know you've been found out.
With a sigh, you adjust your shades slightly—just a little push up the bridge of your nose—but that's it, all it takes, and she's got you by the elbow.
“Okay, Dave?” Aradia asks softly.
“Oh, get a room,” mutters Karkat. You glance his way, glad he can't track the movement of your eyes behind the protective screens of your totally rad eye-wear.
“Jealous, Karkles?” you ask, and then regret it, because fuck, he's probably still raw from that whole...Gamzee mess. Shit.
You know better than to apologize.
Aradia knows better than to reprimand.
She pulls you away into the tangle of passageways that fill the asteroid until you've reached her bedroom—respiteblock, she calls it. The pile here is different from the one you made for her in your room, more used for sleeping than feeling jams. In the absence of their weird slime bath beds, the trolls have had to make do. She all but pushes you into it, and you wince as a trowel jabs into your back. You shift until it isn't.
“Dave,” she says, and her voice is stern. She's got one fist on her hip, and the other hand is open and ready to pap your face. “You've been twitchy for days. If you have a problem, you need to bring it to me, not wait till it festers.”
You lean forward until your elbows are on your knees, and you carefully pull your shades off, placing them on top of your head instead.
“I know,” you say, but it's just—it's such a stupid problem, so uncool. You shrug, not looking at her. My, your shoelaces sure are fascinating today aren't they!
“Dave...” You feel her sit next to you, but don't look up. Her hip against yours is way more comforting than it should be.
“It's dumb,” you say at last. “It's stupid, and emo teenage girl levels of pathetic.”
“Explain it to me.”
You're trying, but shit's all sorts of minor thirds in your mind, all sad and bright; it's sweet and sour like cheap Chinese takeout, and just as messy, seeping in all the cracks between your thoughts until you think everything you touch is tainted by it.
She's running her claws gently through your hair, and you are embarrassed by how much it helps, but you can't seem to get the words out. She knows expressing your feelings is not something you're good at (okay, everyone probably knows that, shit, but it's how Bro raised you and there's no going back now, which is hella ironic—the most ironic—considering you probably literally could go back but....but now you're just avoiding the situation again, and the problem hasn't gone away just 'cause you wish it would).
“You said it was pathetic,” she prompts. “As in platonically pathetic, or...?”
When you shake your head, you are ridiculously relieved that she's not the sort of girl to get all giggly and excited over your stupid love life. Or lack thereof. Fuck.
“Are you flushed for someone, Dave?” She's shifted so she's sitting behind you, and you slide forward so you can lean back until you've put your head on her crossed shin bones. A brief rest along the timeline before you nod. Her hands find your face, and she's tracing little whorls and fine notes across your brow, like she can straighten out the tangle that way. Maybe she can, at that; some of the tension is starting to slip out like sand in an hourglass, leaving your head more spacious and less gritty than it's been since...since you noticed what she'd called “flushed feelings”.
“Is it girl problems or boy problems?” she asks, ramming the problem head-on. She's like that, and it helps.
“Boy problem,” you admit, real quiet-like.
“Karkat.”
You groan, your hands instinctively flinching towards your shades, desperate to bring them back down to hide your face, but she catches your wrists, just holding them tight and comforting. She's observant, your Aradia. She'd have to be—she's used to looking for long-dead life in the dirt, a little thing like a crush would be as blatant as trumpets fucking sounding. You sigh, long and slow.
“Karkat,” you agree.
She drops a gentle kiss onto the center of your forehead. Her lipstick lingers after, and you wrinkle your brow because of it.
“So tell me about Karkat, Dave.”
It's too jumbled, sounds like an orchestra playing each others' instruments in your head, and above it all Karkat's voice cuts through. Too sharp, too defensive, too unhappy with...everything. But sometimes he gets excited about something—a shitty romcom, or doing well at a video game—just little things, and he forgets to be miserable, forgets that the circumstances of his genetics marks him as a freak. And when that happens, all the mixed up sounds go clear and ringing, and you just...
When he's happy, you're happy. And it's so middle school romance to say that, but Aradia never went to middle school, so you do say that, and she laughs at you. Fucking laughs, but not maliciously. Just nods, still grinning, and says she thought so.
“It's miserable,” you say, not at all emotionally equipped to handle the feelings you get when Karkat laughs at one of your jokes.
“Of course it is,” she says. “Why do you think we call it pity?”