Like any responsible parent, Mr. Egbert always did his best to find that mythical sweet spot of involvement in his son's relationships. In a way, he were happy to even be there, having been spat out into a restored earth in a conclusion to a deadly game, all of which still struck him flippant and somewhat unlikely, overall. His boy proved brave and adult, and so he had loosened his rein and strived to be available, but not intrusive. He imagined that if his immortal God-son needed any help at all, it would be on the subject of relationships. After all, Mr. Egbert had been around that block himself from time to time, and even at the present. It makes an old man proud, and he told Mrs. Lalonde the same as he set the table. The children tended to serve as an ice-breaker when they met for dinner every month. It was generally on the tip of their tongues anyway, and it helped to keep them informed.

Of all of John's relationships, Mr. Egbert's focus was naturally drawn to Rose. She was intelligent, polite and seemed to have made some sort of psychological case out of his baking, so they had a shared activity in a sense. And it was an important relationship to follow, considering his own relationship with her lovely mother. There was room for worry, that young love might blossom in the shadow of mature, but Rose cleared his suspicions with one of the strange Troll loanwords. "Moirail." Further inquiry and confectionery bribery only earned him a few vague hints: something about a bomb, eldritch magic, "the windy thing" and Bruce Willis. The four Guardians had often expressed regret to one another that they would be forever barred from knowing what went on in the final hours of the game, those most critical to their children, but there was something reassuring about how it always come back to familiar celebrities.

He lay out wine glasses – dinner could wait – and lit the candle in the middle of the balcony table with his ever-handy lighter. There was once something unpleasant for him about meeting again over a candlelit dinner, but they both agreed that fears were best faced head-on. Now it was like a funny story they could tell, if only in very select company. Do you remember that time when…? And once Harley was finished: Well, when we died… His work with a lighter was smooth as ever. It is ready for his date's cigarette in time with her raising it, and she rewarded him with a smile lit in red flash.

With Rose in this alien role, John seemed instead to be dating the… well, the evil Troll. Mr. Egbert didn't like calling Vriska that, but first impressions stuck hard. The first impression was somewhat marred by his hundredth impression, not a few hours ago, when she came in to examine the meal he was cooking the assembled group. It was the first time he had ever cooked for the Trolls – most of their meetings taking place where they hid out – and so he had asked John's opinion as to the menu. John said a few things here and there, but his concerns seemed to veer towards one guest in particular. Vriska had made a few off-hand comments to Mr. Egbert about chocolate and Batterwitches, but when she learned he had prepared something vegetarian at John's request, her lips had parted slightly, she had muttered something half-heard about something her mother "would never do," and had fled the room. And then there were the other two, with John, Vriska and Rose at that very moment.

Karkat used to think of me as a kismesis, ha ha, can you believe it?

Kanaya could auspistice for anybody!

So Mr. Egbert did his research. Just in case. It was the anniversary of the game, three years since, but these five weren't with the others. They were there, at his house, having a sleep over of all common things for a group of aliens tightly wrapped in secrecy. Already, muffled, late-night conversation reached his ears. John hardly told his father everything, and if John and Vriska were spending their third anniversary in the company of these others, perhaps there were stronger ties on hand than it seemed. So he had made inquiries with John's other friends, into "moirail", "kismesis", "auspistice" and "matesprit". Perhaps his son had "filled the quadrants," so to speak? Is that something I should talk to him about? he asked his date, having outlined the situation. Her response is a little too underhanded to be workable in Egbert's style. In parenting they might clash but it hardly drove them apart. Soon wine turned to dinner and the conversation has shifted to shared interests and quiet nights until the stars are their only company. From there: soft music and elegant dancing, with poetic whispers in the private dark.

"La da dee da da!" came John's singing voice from below. " I think I'll get a bucket… dum de doo. "

And then a harsh whisper: "What? You're what?"

By the look in Mrs. Lalonde's eye, Mr. Egbert realized she must have done a spot of research of her own. John continued to noisily rummage through the storage below, continuing to sing over the harsh interjections from the Angry Troll.

"Nothing's wrong! Da de doo ba… I just want a bucket to hold some…"

"Oh gog…"

"…some stuff! "

"Oh…" moaned the angry Troll, obviously growing more nervous with each moment. "Oh gog."

The couple moved toward the edge of the balcony to get a better listen. By the sound of thing, the loud Troll was standing a good deal away from John, who continued to sing as he searched.

"Let's see, how many buckets do we have?"

"I can't believe you talked me into this," said the angry Troll. "I…" Step. "I have to leave."

"No cause for alarm!" John shouted to cover the footsteps of his friend. His… kismesis? "I just want a few buckets!"

The couple exchanged glances.

"You know," Vriska said, ignoring the creeping wet feeling slipping down her pant leg. "This is a new kind of uncomfortable."

"I suggest you get out of the puddle," Kanaya said from the doorway, where she kept watch. Just like Fussyfangs to have such to-the-point, yet pointless, advice.

"Geeze, you think I hadn't thought of that?" Vriska said, shifting her weight all the same. "I can't keep it plugged if I leave!"

The Egbert bathroom sink had long-since generously overflowed, leaving Vriska sole-deep in a rapidly spreading pool of water. Her finger was jammed, a ring of blue blood where it had been cut off at the edges, into the gap where the faucet had once been set. That self-same faucet now lay embedded in the wall, where Karkat had kicked it in a moment of frustration, not long after knocking it off its perch in the first place. Despite her best efforts, water continued to gush out at a constant rate.

"Alternate fingers," Rose suggested, from where she worked bailing water with a shallow soap dish, which was all Vriska really expected to get from her. She did not even bother to point out that her other fingers would hardly block the water so well, which Vriska felt was truly a generous gesture coming from her.

"I'm back!" John said, though his arrival was preceded by Kanaya jumping away from the doorway so forcefully that she collided with the door itself. At first Vriska assumed that her matesprit had simply arrived with the usual bravado and energy, at least until she saw what he had brought with him.

"…"

"Here, Vriska," he said.

"…J-Joh…" Vriska was having a fair bit of trouble speaking past her spare hand, which had clamped over her mouth. She finally managed to snap it away and onto his shoulder, pulling him closer so that she would not have to look at… it… only to realize that it was now touching her leg it's touching my leg!

"This…" she said, trying to salvage any comfort by focusing on his familiar face and not his hands. "I-I realize that it's… it's our anniversary! Haha! Ha…" She grabbed his shoulder hard and shook him. "But this is not a good time!"

Rose passed by to collect another dish full of water, and her barely muffled snicker seemed to tune John in. "I, uh, no! Vriska, no, this isn't… uh… I mean, I know it's our anni… anniversary, but this isn't…" He coughed, and when he continued his voice had dropped an octave. "I know it's not a good time."

Rose tried to bury her laughter in the shower curtain. Kanaya was giving Vriska the dignity of looking strictly out the door, if only because she was too embarrassed to turn back.

John coughed again. "It's for the water," he said, and held it up.

"I know it's for the water," Vriska hissed, "but did you have to… to…" John had not lowered the thing again. "What?" She stared at the offending object.

"Take it!" he insisted, though he seemed to regret it at once.

Vriska swallowed. What was the big deal? She's a god, she could do this! It would be a lot easier if it wasn't being held by her matesprit of three years, considering what they had been up to before Karkat's shouting and the spray of water had jarred them back to the real world. But it wasn't going to be a problem. She reached out, closed her fingers, and clasped air. A second attempt got no closer to the handle.

"Oh dear," Kanaya said to Rose under her breath, the tone of a nervous joke still audible. "I feel like I'm intruding a deeply private moment."

Vriska snapped up the handle in a rage, only to find herself otherwise impeded. Her eyes froze on it, and only worked back to John's at an effort.

"John…" she said, "Let go."

"Huh?"

No sound had left her lips. Oh gog our fingers are touching on the handle of a… of a… "Let. Go."

"Oh," he said, not moving. "Well, once it's full of water, it's going to be pretty heavy, I mean, I did get the biggest bucket I could find."

Of course you did, Vriska thought, though all she vocalized was a dying whimper.

"Oh my fucking hell, what are you two doing?" Karkat stormed in from the door, arms loaded from glasses and mugs. He dumped them into the tub with a rumble of glass and took a solid step away from the both of them. "You know, I thought we were in on this disaster control thing together but it's pretty obvious that Ebert's got other fucking plans that are more important than his good buddy Karkat! Well fine! I know where I stand!"

Vriska wanted to slug him, but one hand was stuck in the faucet and the other was still on the bucket, and after all the trouble she had gone through to get it there, she was not about to let go. Instead, she yanked the bucket from John's hand and released her other hand, water spraying everywhere and gushing up over the edge. She set the bucket to pull out the water from the sink, but only managed to get it half-full, with excess spilling out from the awkward angle. At the sight of the overflowing bucket, Kanaya, who had been watching over her shoulder, turned fully away, and Karkat outright left the room. Vriska swallowed and tried to hold the thing under the waterfall that had formed over the edge, but watching it fill to the brim, gently rising, was more than she could take and she settled it, like a fragile egg, on the ground. She then defiantly stepped away.

It was Kanaya who broke the palpable awkward silence. "I'll do it," she volunteered, and crossed the room to the bucket's side. She leaned down a moment, then stood back up and retreated. "No," she said. "No. I'm sorry."

Vriska pushed John back away from the bucket before he could even volunteer.

"…You could have just said so, you know." Rose said with a roll of her eyes, and collected the thing. Vriska was not surprised to see Kanaya go emerald and turn away, but at this point things had gone beyond all bounds and she and Karkat were also examining the wall tile.

"I just don't get you twelve," Rose said. She did not continue at first, as Vriska and the others had jammed fingers in their ears she poured the bucket into the tub. Rose handed John a pair of large mugs and gestured for him to join in. "I mean, the four of us have not, to my knowledge, been any more sexually active than all of you, but we do not become paralyzed at the very mention of the same."

"I'm not afraid of sex," Vriska insisted, a shock-chill shooting up her spine as John brushed past her, and Karkat replied with only a grunt. "It's just… these."

Kanaya did not seem to have anything she was willing to offer up as to her views on sex, but she did about the buckets. "There's just a certain… unavoidable, concrete facet to the genetic receptacle."

Karkat snarled at John as he passed. "And I don't see either of you offering up any sort of gross Human analogue to help bail."

"Karkat, considering this is your fault…" Rose started to say, but John interrupted her with a laugh.

"Well," he said, "condoms are pretty stretchy! We could probably carry some water in those!"

Rose smiled an evil sort of smile Vriska had come to recognize. "Well… we could search your father's room if it would get our compatriots to help out in our efforts."

"Huh?" John said.

"Isn't it obvious?" Rose said, analytical to a fault, "our parents have been together for three years now. They're both mature adults, I can only imagine…"

John interrupted her as fast as he could manage by pouring water into the toilet from a height, and then flushing. "Can't hear you, Rose!" he shouted. "I came up with a new way to get rid of water! It's pretty loud! I guess we won't be able to talk!"

"You've never thought about it, John?" she asked. "Because I certainly imagine… I mean, remember the time we were at my house and my mother suddenly arranged for a late-evening trip to the movies? And your father is the perfect gentleman, I'm sure he'd be well prepar—"

"LA LA LA LA LA!" John sang, running as fast as he dared on the wet floor. "This really is a loud thing I'm doing, Rose, this, uh, thing. I really don't think we can talk about whatever it is we're talking about!"

"It's not actually all that likely," Rose said in a speaking voice to Kanaya, a contented smile on her face. "My mother's on the pill, now that I think about it."

"The what?"

"Birth control pill. I remember because she tried to hoist the same on to me when I turned fifteen, 'to regulate my cycle.' Delightful woman."

Vriska did not want to hear anything about Human cycles or anything of the sort, but what could she do? Turn and leave? Rose and that thing were going back and forth across her only escape route!

"And of course, not a week after she was introduced to all of my friends, she leaves me a pack of condoms in case I wanted to 'get to know any of those nice young gentlemen any better.' At thirteen. I do not exaggerate. I'm afraid I don't have them for bailing purposes, however, three years old or otherwise," Rose lamented. She dumped out the bucket as quietly as she could, which based on what Vriska could see, Kanaya appreciated immensely. "I filled them each with helium and tethered them to her window sill."

But then Rose grunted, and continued in spite. "She said that I should have told her that I wasn't interested in any of the nice gentlemen, and I returned to my room to find a box of disposable latex gloves and a box of cellophane! As I said: delightful woman." Rose tone was soured, and Vriska could not help but notice how Kanaya's eyes trailed suddenly to the ground at Rose's casual dismissal. She perked up however, when Rose continued, almost absent-mindedly. "The latter of which, of course, is hardly ideal and may or may not be dangerous, as further research suggested, so I arranged a careful demonstration for her using—"

"Who the fuck cares?" Karkat said, the momentum of his outburst carrying him into Rose's path. He jumped back into the wall. "Man, I wish I had a fucking water balloon, because I'd plaster each and every one of…"

His complaint died on his lips. John was the last of them to freeze, as he turned back from the sink to catch a glance of the door. He backed away, first one foot and then the other, until he was standing next to Vriska against the wall. Rose slowly set down the bucket she was carrying and stepped away.

Mr. Egbert stepped into the room until his nice shoes were soaked in the water, and took one look first at Vriska, then over at his son. Considering the circumstances, Vriska was becoming very aware indeed that she was soaking wet, cold and cornered, and she mentally began to plan an escape route. Mr. Egbert then lowered himself to his knees (stopping, Vriska would later swear, for another moment of eye contact at eye level). He paused to examine the faucet still embedded in the wall and then reached under the sink, and turned a knob Vriska had not noticed before. The water's flow ceased.

"Of coooource," Rose said, tapping a finger to her chin as if registering the memory away for future plumbing disasters, but she stopped as she came in line with the doorway and spotted the cat's eyes looking in. "Ah... mother. How long... how long have you been standing there?"

John shied away from Vriska and Karkat's killing glares, even more so when Mr. Egbert specifically collected the bucket as he stepped out of the room, as though to remove it from their presence. Vriska could not help but notice how he shirked away as she leaned closer, and flinched when she blew a wet lock of hair out of her face.

Mr. Egbert had never thought he'd say this the destruction of a portion of his house, but honestly? He was relieved.