Chapter Text
It was a mistake to try and access the dream bubbles.
You don't know what you were thinking, really, except that once you were alone in the dark of your room, the contented feeling in your chest had soured to a melancholy loneliness. You held Mutie close and decided that what you really wanted, right then, was an opportunity to talk to the dead troll named Nepeta. She was a sweetheart, and speaking with her always reminded you of Jaspers. So you tucked yourself into bed and whispered the eldritch words that Feferi had taught you -- always so much easier to pronounce for you than for everyone else -- so that your consciousness would gently slip away into the deepest darkness, all the way back to the Furthest Ring, as you fell asleep.
But now that you are here, floating in negative space before your designated dream guide, you regret everything about this decision.
You really should have known. You should have remembered how earlier that day, Terezi had laid face down on your mother's pink bed and asked if you remembered Sollux. You should have realized that meant she would probably want to speak with her friend, that she would journey to the Furthest Ring in her sleep, as well. And of course, anyone knocking on dream bubble doors asking for Sollux is bound to get Aradia for their living spirit guide. Which, of course, leaves you with the other, much less desirable option.
You are not prepared to deal with this right now.
"What the motherfuck do you want," asks Gamzee sullenly, looming in a way that is probably meant to make you reconsider your decision to procure his services tonight. It is working.
"Good evening," you reply, doing your best impression of someone unflappable. This is not fair. Betray the party, get left behind as a dream guide in eternal limbo, that is how it works. He has no right to be so nasty about it.
"Look, sister," he says, baring his teeth, and you concentrate very hard on preventing your knees from shaking. "I'm a motherfuckin' busy guy. So unless you all up and got plans for making this upright interesting-like, you'd better at motherfuckin' least make it snappy."
You curse paradox space one last time for not allowing you to switch places with Terezi, who, being a troll and therefore in possession of strange, strange priorities, probably would have been not at all opposed to making this "interesting-like". As it stands, the best you can hope for is making it out of here with the sanctity of your dreams mostly intact.
"I was hoping to talk to a deceased friend," you say, proud voice betraying not a quaver, "but I understand now that this is likely a bad time. I don't suppose I could trouble you to return me to the bubble my consciousness was destined for this evening?"
He laughs an awful, honking laugh, and you congratulate yourself on not flinching. "Not a chance, sister," he says, smiling, and tips you back into a bubble just behind you, a bubble that smells of smoke and rain and the metallic tang of blood on steel.
---
To your dismay, you are still tipsy when you wake up. You've barely been asleep for an hour, but it's been an hour too long, too full of violence and vengeance and the scared, sickened faces of your friends to endure any longer. You sit up and glance out your window, expecting black rain. Instead you see a picturesque forest landscape, stars just beginning to wink to life in the sky above. It is newly dark. Your head pounds.
Dimly, you realize it was not your nightmare that woke you. A small red light blinks from your shoulder bag across the room -- that's right, you turned your laptop back on earlier to look up the etymology of "Zazzerpan" to show Terezi. Whoever is pestering you know, they must have signed off or gone idle, because the chiming has stopped. Bleary, you stumble your way out of bed, and, taking care not to trip on the hem of your nightgown, you eventually make your clumsy way over to the computer.
You flip it open. There is a message waiting for you.
--- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 21:24 PM ---
TG: rrrrrosie!!!!!
TG: ababy i almost forgot to say!
TG: i kno i said u and ur little friend are welcome to, like, ALL OF MY BOOZE that i have in the house, that didnt stop bein a thing or anything
TG: but i just wanted to remind you
TG: that you are still a growing girl!
TG: and i dont want you to overdo it
TG: cause idk
TG: just judging by personality an stiff it seems like you would maybe be kind of a desruictive drunk??
TG: * destructive
TG: and i just wanna make sure that you dont hurt urself or anything
TG: not that i dont trust u and shit
TG: * (oops pretenf mommy didnt say that)
TG: because i know that u r a very smart n responsible girl!!
TG: but just
TG: yah
TG: be careful
TG: ok sweets?? <3
TG: k that was all
TG: sorrt rose im a little drunk as you can tell wowww mom way to be a huge fuckin HYPOCRITE
TG: * not a swear word
TG: anyways that was all
TG: love youuuuuuuuu sweetie!!
TG: DONT FORGET TO LOOK AFTER THE CAT!!!!!!!!
TG: k ttyl honey xoxox
--- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 21:31 PM ---
Your head is about to split open, your thoughts slosh and fizzle and spark, and the lump of despair in the pit of your stomach that you've been carrying since the game ended combusts into flame. You tell yourself, coax yourself, command yourself to resist the urge to do something angry, stupid, and vindictive.
You fail to resist the urge.
---
Twenty minutes later you are standing at the top of the Rainbow Falls themselves, your nightgown flapping in its spray and your arms full of wriggling burlap sack, trying to decide if you're enraged or relieved that R. Lalonde and T. Pyrope are so close to each other in your computer's address book.
Terezi is standing framed in the doorway of the house, mere meters away, in an oversized t-shirt emblazoned with the word "SPORTS" and the pyjama pants you were wearing earlier. She is holding her cane sword. She is not smiling.
"Rose," she says, levelly, evenly. "Why are you drowning your cat."
"He's my mother's cat," you correct, just as civilly. "I see that I sent my message to the wrong number."
Terezi will not be deterred. "Why are you drowning your mother's cat."
You turn back to the waterfall, shivering a bit in what is probably the cold. "No one thinks I can be trusted," you say to the empty space in front of you, "so I am proving them right."
"Goddamnit, Lalonde!" she cries, finally at the end of her patience. "You are not even that drunk!"
You guess you are done with being patient, too. You whirl back around. "Oh, I'm sorry, I apologize," you say icily, your voice rising more than you intended. "I suppose I am not in fact capable of being one hundred percent perfect all the time! What a travesty! What a scandal! If only I were a Seer of Mind, like you, Miss Pyrope, then I would surely never make such a horrid mistake! I would know all the answers!" Funny, you never would have considered yourself one to shriek.
Terezi gives a short bark of laughter in response. "Are you serious right now?" she asks, and it seems like a sincere question. "You think you're less perfect than me? Rose, please! Your Seer powers were lightyears better!"
"Fuck you, my dear," you say, because you are done, you are done with her faux-modest attitude, really. "My powers were dummy powers. They strung me along to do precisely what the game wanted of me, at all times, and not a step left up for debate. Not even the game trusted me!"
"Will you just quit it with the trust thing!!" she growls, and this time she is showing off her mouth full of daggers in something that is quite unlike a smile. "Every. One. Trusts. You. Everyone respects you! Did John never make a joke at your expense before you threw your lot in with the squiddy nasties? You think he doesn't give sass to anyone else? That he doesn't make fun of Karkat, or Dave, or me?"
"That is completely beside the point."
"Only if the point is beside itself with how amazingly dense you're being! And to think the game didn't trust you is ridiculous!! Firstly why do you care what the game thinks, secondly, your powers were fucking great!!"
"Oh, you think so, do you? Maybe we should have traded."
"Oh my god." Her clouded eyes are wild. "Rose, my powers were garbage! I had to trust my own judgement for everything, and once I messed up once, there was no going back! You want to talk about trust?? Who would trust a Seer of Mind who had all the facts, but made the wrong move anyway?!"
"Do not dare," you snarl as you clutch your bundle of squirming cat to you with harpy's claws "Do not dare appropriate my problems! You, you are just tired of dealing with Dave and Karkat and people who require things from you. But no, you're right, if only you had my powers! Then you could have always found the best way to serve your own interests."
She steps one step forward, and says, scarily calm once again, "It was never about my best interest. It was always about what was right, and good, and just, for everyone. Objectively."
"Oh, really," you laugh, in a timber that some corner of your mind classifies as something like hysterical, and you phase into God Tier state, because you are a petty little girl. You hold out Mutie's sack in one hand, giving her a clear shot at the sun sigil on your chest. "Then what are you going to do, Terezi Pyrope?!"
She stops stone cold. "I made what I thought was the best decision at the time." Her tone is unreadable.
"Really! What a shining example of your objective judgement."
"I made what I thought was the best decision at the time!"
"Really!"
"Well, let's see you decide what's best for everyone, Rose!" And she's striding forward again, closing the distance between you fast. "Oh, that's right, you don't even have to try!" She stops, and you're within reach of her sword cane now. She looks like she may start to cry. "Your Light powers always let you make the absolute best decisions! So I don't know why, on Earth or Alternia or any reality in paradox space, you think that you didn't do a good job?"
"Am I doing a good job now?!"
"No, obviously!!"
"So, I ask again," you say, teeth bared, head full of noise, sobs threatening to rip up your throat, "what are you going to do about it?!"
She takes one step forward, you are nose to nose. "I am going to stop you."
"Because that's best for everyone?" you hiss, venomous, into her face.
"No," she says, her voice hard and weary. She is all angles in front of you in the starlight. You notice, now of all times, that there is no moon.
"Because I want to."
She lunges, then, in a blur of movement no non-Strider human could ever hope to achieve, and you presume it is to stab you. But instead, as your back hits the wet concrete at the top of the waterfall, you realize she's just tackled you, her hips and shoulders cutting into you like blades. You lose your grip on Mutie; he and his bag go flying back towards the house. Meanwhile you and Terezi roll, the momentum of her diving tackle carrying you closer, closer, until it tips you just over the waterfall's edge. Heart pounding, you scrabble with your fingernails, and see her scrabble, too, until with a great, uncoordinated heave, the both of you roll, much more slowly, back up onto the relative safely of the concrete.
The night is silent. You take a deep breath.
And then you begin to cry in earnest.
It is a terrible cry. Your body is wracked by great, heaving sobs, and you're blubbering all manner of tears and mucus into the shoulder of her SPORTS shirt. But you do not have it in you to care. It's not like you can actually lose any more dignity in this situation. You cry yourself out, lying there on the soggy concrete in her arms, until the worst of your sobs are reduced to hiccups.
It takes you a while to realize that Terezi is quietly crying, too.
"I didn't want to kill Vriska, you know," she says at last, softly, shakily.
You gulp down the last sob. "I know," you say. You didn't know, but it seems like what she wants to hear.
The two of you breathe in silence for a while.
Eventually your head starts to pound in new and innovative ways. You take it to mean that your mind is beginning to un-fuzz from your earlier drinking escapades. Now is as good a time as any. Awkwardly, you clear your throat.
"Well," you say, your voice scratchier than an infinity mechanism, "I guess that settles the question of whether or not I am the most completely terrible."
Her laugh is thin and spent. "I don't know, Madam Tangerine Tunic! You were pretty spot on with that not wanting people to expect stuff of me thing. I'd say I'm a pretty terrible person as well!"
"Oh no," you say, tentatively testing the sarcasm waters again, "it turns out our problems were the same problem all along. Whatever shall we do?"
Thankfully, she cackles, and it's so completely usual that you want to start crying again. You nip that firmly in the bud, but find that you are unable to suppress a watery smile.
"Go back inside and get some Ovaltine?" you suggest, wincing.
"Yes," she agrees. "We should clean up, too, and also you owe a major apology to your cat."
"Deal," you say, and now that the adrenaline high is gone, the mere thought of that latter one makes your cheeks burn and your heart positively twist.
Terezi disentangles her razor limbs from you and climbs, after much rigmarole, to her feet. Once upright, she turns back to you.
"Coming?"
You take her hand.
---
"I was thinking," you say the next morning, as you give Mutie his seventh compensational milk saucer and complementary ear scratch of the day, "that we might start to consider going back at the end of the week."
Terezi looks up from her Fruit Loops and grins. "I think that's an excellent plan. God knows what those doofuses are getting up to without us to help them put their coats on right way round."
For once, it is not difficult to smile a meaningless, conversational smile. "How lucky we are to have friends who tolerate our awfulness."
"Mmm, you've got that wrong," she says, getting milk and cereal on the table as she gestures with her spoon. "They don't tolerate. They love the awfulness, too."
You smirk. "Let the records show that the prosecution is a sentimental sap."
She flicks the remaining drops of milk on her spoon at you by way of a rebuttal. There's no one around to preserve dignity for; you giggle.
"Should I inform Dave that we'll be home in about seven days' time, then? He keeps hounding me about our estimated trip duration. It would be sweet if it weren't so annoying."
Terezi's grin could puncture the ozone layer. "Oh, you tell Mr. Strider, alright. And tell him I have words to say to him when I see him next, too."
"Will do," you say, and she gets up from her chair to put her dishes in the sink.
Or at least, that's where you thought she was going.
"Can I help you?" you ask, nonplussed. You wonder again how a person goes about having such nice eyelashes.
"You know, Rose," she says, and her smile never gets old, especially not at this sort of distance. "The records show that the accused is a pretty darn sentimental lady herself. They also project that she is most likely to taste like buttermilk and violets."
The prosecutor, on the other hand, tastes like Fruit Loops and fire. It's not altogether unpleasant.
It's going to be a good week-long vacation.