Chapter Text
Roxy Lalonde stands outside the front door of the Crocker household and she has never felt less brave.
She's done a lot of brave things in her time. At the age of sixteen, she started playing a game that ended the world, got sober, saw all her friends die, resurrected one of the loves of her life, and killed the millenias-old genocidal fish Empress responsible for the death of her mother and Earth's apocalypse. All of those should pale in comparison to opening the door with the key June lent her and walking inside to talk to Jane Crocker.
And yet.
Roxy shouldn't be this scared. She's real good at helping out her friends, after all, gotten to be a dab hand at it. She wasn't nearly this scared when June frantically texted her 'i think i might be a girl roxy!!' at 2 in the morning, having come to her as both a friend and a fellow trans woman. Jake still rambles on about his various issues to her, frequently enough that Kanaya seems to regard the pair of them as moirails. And Dirk... well, she and Dirk are about as close as close can be.
But this is different.
If she's right, this is related to the Game- a topic none of them talk about as much anymore. Better yet, it's about the Condesce- a woman that Roxy hates, hates with a burning passion, and that she's beginning to understand Jane still has a complicated relationship with.
And on top of all that, like a sinister cherry on a bright pink poisoned sundae, it's her fault. If this is about what she said the last time they really hung out, then she's responsible for Jane having what looks to be a breakdown of the highest magnitude from all possible angles. Roxy doesn't know how to make up for a misstep this big.
It doesn't help that she loves Jane more than she should.
Loving Calliope is as easy as breathing- the girl she brought back from the dead, who calls her dearest and darling and sweetheart, whose name she would have called into the void forever. Sometimes, Roxy looks at her and thinks the very stars aligned, winking in the night, to give them to each other, to let their hearts touch.
Loving Jane was harder.
It isn't now, of course- these days it's joke books and detective movies and making fun of Dirk and Jake and Ace Attorney games, the furrow of Jane's brow as she pieces together a puzzle. These days, loving Jane is dancing stupidly in the kitchen while laughing so hard that breath becomes an afterthought, holding on tight to her soft, warm arms and never wanting to let go.
It's easy to forget how hard it used to be back when they were stupid teenagers, especially since none of them like to think back on that time of uncertainty and trauma and harsh words and bad decisions. Sometimes the Game could make them into their worst selves. It was hard, loving Jane back then.
Loving Jane was skepticism, a furrowed brow, hands thrown in the air in frustration as Roxy tried to get through to her, was long and fruitless arguments about her drinking habits- no, alcoholism, there's no sugarcoating it- and pining for a boy who wouldn't love Jane back or even give her the time of day, and the true face of a genocidal corporation that Jane defined herself around.
Those had been the bad days, and during the Game there were a lot of bad days.
But it was also murder mystery stories and witty comments and safety- the knowledge that when she talked to Jane she didn't have to be a part of the world outside and all its dangers, just be with a girl who thought things were simple. And later, a girl who would fight for her, who would stand by her side and hold that red trident in the air in a way that meant protection instead of fear.
She loved her then, at the end of the world. And Roxy Lalonde is many things, but she's not the kinda gal to fall out of love easy. And she's not someone who'll step out on Jane, not for anything- not then, and not now.
It is this thought that makes her step forward and open up the door to Jane Crocker's house.
It turns out that Mr. Crocker is out at some sort of... business conference, she thinks? Roxy doesn't know. She hardly knows the man, really, which from what she's heard is a damn shame. June says that her Dad was where she got her wily prankstress skills, and she has also said that Jane's Dad is just about the same.
Speaking of which. Roxy takes the stairs to Jane's room slowly, runs her hand along the banister. It's a strange mess of clean and messy, considering. She's seen Dirk after his own meltdowns, and the apartment has always been a mess- crushed Orange Mountain Dew cans on the floor, discarded scraps of metal from robotic projects, bits of food stuck in the carpet that always stain. And she's been there to see the aftermath of Dave's need to clean his and Karkat's apartments- utterly pristine, not a single stray item on the floor, no matter how innocuous.
Jane is a... mix between the extremes. There has been an obvious effort to clean up- some things have been brought to the trashcan, but others languish on the floor. The bottom half of the railing is dusty and the top half is pristine, and if she peers downstairs she can see half-washed plates in the sink. Like Jane started to clean but changed her mind halfway through.
She creeps across the hallway and comes to Jane's door. No light shines from underneath her door, and there's not a noise Roxy can hear. Roxy wonders if maybe she's sleeping, the way June was when Roxy burst into her room babbling about needing a key to Jane's house. For the second time tonight (the first being on the walk over here) she considers going back home and waiting till morning.
Instead, she presses onward and slowly opens the door to Jane's room, as quiet as she can manage, so as not to startle her.
She fucks that one up spectacularly all on her own. At the slightest easing of the hinges, Jane, who is sitting on her bed lit only by the soft yellow halo of her desktop lamp, yelps and rolls off her old white ghost-patterned comforter in shock, landing haphazardly on the floor in a failed youth roll that Roxy would normally laugh at.
As it is, they can laugh about it later.
Roxy takes a step closer, drops to her knees so the two of them are eye-to-eye, and doesn't speak. She's too busy looking at Jane- Jane, whose hair is mussed from lying on a pillow, a mess of flyaway curls that tickle the nape of her neck, her glasses discarded, purpling bags under her too-blue eyes. Jane, wearing an old ratty nightgown and looking for all the world as if she hasn't slept since the last time Roxy saw her two weeks ago. She looks a wreck, and the urge to help burns in the hollow of Roxy's throat, the deep of her stomach.
She gets as far as "Hey, Janey," before Jane is blurting out words of her own.
"What are you doing here, Roxy?"
To be honest, she should have prepared for that question. She should have prepared for any questions at all, but because she is somewhat impulsive and ran over here at two in the morning instead of any of the many reasonable hours she could have done that, she's flying blind here. So instead of saying anything that might be tactful at all, Roxy just cuts to the heart of it.
"I'm staging an intervention!"
Hey, no one ever said she was a mistress of subtlety and tact. Jane stares up at her, utterly bewildered for a moment, and then her face just- shuts down, metaphorical shutters pulling down in her eyes. Roxy winces. Right now you're really screwing the pooch, Lalonde- you sound like a Lifetime movie or something. She tries a different tack.
"Jane, we're worried about you-"
"Worried?"
The flash of anger in Jane's voice cuts through Roxy's words, leaving her tongue useless in her mouth. The clenching of her fists is minute, but Roxy sees it- sees the way those short, clipped nails are still managing to leave white half-circles on her skin.
And just like that, the fire in Jane's eyes dims and she slumps back, flattening her hands into open palms. "I'm sorry," she sighs, and the exhaustion in her voice weighs down her shoulders and her voice. "I'm sure you've been worried. You're a good person, Roxy. Don't worry. I'll be back and better than ever soon enough."
Roxy wants more than anything to be relieved, but she's heard too many assurances from her friends that they are fine, really, they don't need help. They've all gotten good at it- Dirk, Jade, June, all of them. Now that she thinks about it, Jane has always been eager to deny her hurt until it overflowed out of her. She might have been the first of them to get good at it.
"I didn't even realize how bad it was," Jane continues, eyes large and luminous. The words drift out of her mouth without her seeming to realize it. Her voice is breathless, tight, superficially light. "How much of me she'd touched, tainted, bruised. So much of me was broken."
Roxy stares at Jane. Her mouth forms around words once, twice, but discards them because what is she supposed to say to that? What is she supposed to say to the knowledge that one of the girls she loves thinks this little of herself? Roxy has never once hated being right as much as she does now. She wants to reach out and pull Jane tight and never ever let go.
Jane looks up at her- her open, hanging jaw, her wide eyes, her half-outstretched hand. Jane's bushy eyebrows furrow for a moment before her cheeks flush dark with embarrassment- apparently, she hadn't meant to say that out loud.
Something inside of her is all pain. A Heart player could sense it a mile away, but Roxy only needs to look at the clench of Jane's straight white teeth to see it, the set of her jaw, the slump of her shoulders as she curls in on herself. She knows this girl almost as well as she knows herself.
"Don't look at me like that, Roxy. I didn't exactly want to tell you about this," Jane mutters.
"And why not?" Roxy's voice breaks. She feels sixteen again, hurting for her friends and not knowing how to help. "You're-" the girl I love, just as much as Calliope, the girl I would have done anything for, the first person I ever gave my heart to- "my best friend. You can tell me anything, Jane. I never want you to feel alone."
Jane's face twists at those words. "I hate making you look at me like that, Roxy. I never wanted to disappoint you. Or worry you."
"Then why are you avoiding me?" Roxy bursts out. She's shaking now, her anger and fear and self-hatred quivering in her shoulders. "I care about you, Janey. God, you being here alone and so obviously in the middle of a self-hate spiral so bad you could give Dirk a run for his money? That's a nightmare straight out of a dreambubble. I want you to be happy-"
"I don't know how to be happy!"
Jane almost shouts it. She's shaking too, worse than Roxy- her edges tremble, her fingers brown blurs. For the first time, Roxy notices that her arms are scratched up, as if someone dug short blunt nails into the soft flesh and didn't let go until up welled blood.
"What do I have, Roxy? Tell me, please. Everything I have, it's just another way I'm like her." Jane ticks off each item on her fingers, speaking fast and desperate. "Baking was hers. Games, puzzles- those are the things she wanted from me. I was supposed to be the brains. Comedy- oh, she was a real comedian, she was, she loved jokes and pranks and she liked making people hurt the same way I liked making people hurt, she thought it was funny. We wanted to be in control. We even share the same Aspect- I can't be happy, not when everything that makes me happy first belonged to her!"
"But why does that matter?" Roxy asks, voice as soft and soothing as she can make it. "You're not her, you're not the Condesce. It doesn't matter if you like the same things-"
"Bullshit." When Jane swears, it hits with the same precision and intensity of a 40 caliber bullet shot straight from the barrel of an appearifier sniper rifle. "I am just like my great-grandmother, Roxy, and we all know it!"
The words strike her with enough force that Roxy reels backward- at the sheer conviction in Jane's voice and the premise of her words themselves.
She knew that what she'd said about Jane being like Betty was enough to hurt, even if she hadn't meant it. The Condesce ruined their world, their lives, their future- a comparison to her would be enough to make anyone flinch. But she'd never thought that Jane had believed it.
The idea that Jane- witty, intelligent, whip-smart Jane with a mean streak and a heart that has only ever wanted to be kind- would think that she is just like the fascist alien dictator that made their lives hell is enough to make Roxy's eyes wet with salt. It's so wrong, and yet somehow it's exactly what Jane thinks of herself.
Roxy can't help it. She moves forward and takes a hold of Jane's shoulders- gently, she knows her own strength- puts herself close enough to look Jane directly in the eyes. Jane shivers at the touch, confused, but she leans into it anyways. Her skin is so cold, but Roxy doesn't move away, just holds Jane close and tries to convey all the love she feels with only the touch of her skin.
How could she have let it get this bad? How could any of them have let it get this bad?
"Why would you think that, Jane?" she whispers, and the spell of silence is shattered.
Jane laughs, broken, and twists out of Roxy's arms. She stands, nightgown fluttering around her knees, and Roxy stares up at her- at the bags under her eyes, the shine on her cheeks of what she now realizes are dried teartracks, her messy hair, the self-hatred in her shoulders. She looks broken.
"Because of course I'm just like her!" Jane shouts, and her voice might be raised but she sounds anything but angry. Each word breaks with sheer self-loathing. "The proof is all around us, in every birthday photo of me before sixteen, where I wear red dresses and smile and hold Crockercorp branded merchandise in each hand. Who else could I have become? She's been in my head since I was a child!"
"She knew I was hers, from the start. I was her granddaughter and her heiress and her legacy. I grew up with her products in my bedroom, I grew up with her name as my own- she was my grandmother, Roxy, how could I not have been touched by her? How could I have escaped it?"
"Even if I could have escaped her- not like this. No. I did things with her hands in my hair and in my head. I told you I would kill you. Jade and I, we told you we'd spill your guts on the floor and then we'd bring you back, again and again, you, hurting, until you gave in. I terrorized Jake, I told him I would make him give me children against his will- I just about told him I would rape him Roxy! Even if I didn't mean it, I said it! And I still can't figure out what it was that she made me feel and what was already there."
"I'm still like her, Roxy! Baking, and puzzles, and Life powers, and jokes, and detectives. All of it. I have to scrub her out, I have to get her out, I have to be okay again, I have to be safe the way you want me to be. I'm evil on the inside, I have her wires still in my head, and until I can rip them out I'm not safe, I'm not safe to be around."
Her hands come up to clench in her hair, pulling hard at the loose strands. "It's so hard, Roxy, it is, I don't know what is me anymore. I don't know if I can ever be angry again. Don't I deserve the hurt? I ruined everything. Don't I deserve to be ruined? Parts of me are so rotten and necrotic, and they have to be cut out for me to be safe again. I think of when I was angry and I don't know how to feel anymore- was I right to be mad? Was it allowed?"
"I can't be angry, never again," her words come out hitching and broken. Jane is crying now. Tears run fat and wet down her cheeks, staining the shoulders of her nightgown. "It never comes to anything but hurt. I was sixteen and my dad was gone and it was five months of being entirely and utterly alone, in a world that was broken and that I didn't think I could ever understand, with the girl I didn't know I loved sleeping on my couch and leaving your clothes on the floor, and the other girl I didn't know I loved never answering my messages, and boys in my Pesterchum talking about romance and each other and never anyone who wanted to ask how I was, full of hurt in my stupid stupid heart, rationing canned foods in my pantry and almost relapsing into the eating disorder that I worked so hard to get over, and fucking skeletons in my yard- and what the fuck did it all come to? She used all of it to hurt you. I'm wrong and selfish and bad for still feeling the ache and the anger. I'm so fucking stupid and awful for wanting to be good in a way that doesn't hurt. It's all wrong, Roxy, I'm all wrong and it all hurts-"
Jane is cut off by Roxy almost tackling her in a hug, wrapping her bony arms around her torso and pulling her close. Jane doesn't even struggle- she just collapses in the circle of Roxy's arms, burying her head against the ridge of Roxy's shoulder, her whole body shaking with deep sobs that wrench themselves out of somewhere deep in the hollow of Jane's chest, where they have been sitting there festering for weeks. With each one, Roxy sways Jane gently, rocking her back and forth.
They stand there for a few minutes, the room silent except for Roxy's soft shooshing and Jane's sobbing, muffled by Roxy's shoulder, until the sounds of tears become slower and less frequent and finally trail away to hiccups and deep breaths that shudder out against Roxy's skin.
When Jane's final tears have dried on Roxy's shirt, she takes a step back and pulls Jane to sit next to her on the ghost-patterned comforter, squeezing Jane's hand as she sniffles, wiping at the tearstains that have left her cheeks puffy and flushed. Jane won't look her in the eyes.
"Janey," she murmurs, soft, "I'm so sorry."
Jane starts to shake her head but Roxy keeps talking regardless. She refuses to let this be awkward or embarrassing or strange, the way she knows it can feel after letting out years-old bottled resentment to someone who didn't know about the way you were hurting. She did it to Rose once, about the way she hated her mother for the alcohol lying around the house for a twelve-year-old to find and drink and nearly ruin herself with, the dark side of Rose Lalonde's legacy, and afterwards she didn't speak to Rose for a week, too consumed by shame and embarrassment.
She doesn't want that. Not with anyone. Certainly not with Jane.
"I didn't know you were hurting this much, Jane," she says, and strokes Jane's black hair, so thin and fine compared to Roxy's thick frizz. "I'm sorry. I shoulda been there, I shoulda been better, I never shoulda said you were like her. Because you aren't. Not in the ways that matter."
"But I am, Roxy, don't you get it-" Jane protests, and Roxy shakes her head.
"Yeah, you can be shitty sometimes, Jane, because we're all shitty sometimes! But you're more than that, we're all more than that, and I don't want you or anybody else thinking that just because we fuck up and do shit that hurts people sometimes, we're as evil as that genocidal fish bitch. If anything, Jane, it's a testament to you and how fucking strong you are that you're still as good a person despite having been raised with her as your role model. The idea that you could be like her... it's fucked up and wrong. Even as a joke. And about the Crockertier stuff..."
Jane flinches when Roxy says those words, squeezes her hand tighter almost unconsciously, but it needs to be said. It does.
"I don't know if you're aware of this, but before the Game, I said and did some real fucked up stuff to Dirk. I knew he was gay- he told me when we were like eleven, right after we told each other we were trans- but I... I don't know what the hell I thought, but I thought he could love me back somehow. And I think part of it was my own gender issues, and part of it was that he was the only boy I thought would ever like me, but I hit on him all the damn time. I knew he wasn't exactly comfy with it, but I thought it was okay anyways. There's one thing I did that I'm real ashamed of now. I haven't told a lot of people about this cause just thinking about it now makes me feel sick to my stomach, but I think maybe you need to know."
Jane is shaking her head, but Roxy ploughs ahead anyways. She needs to say this- she's thought about it for a long time now, and she thinks maybe saying it out loud will be... some kind of relief, or penance. It's not doing any good locked up in her brain.
"Hal and I, we were close. I thought of him like a replacement Dirk most of the time. And sometimes... sometimes we'd roleplay. As me'n'Dirk. And sometimes those roleplays got kinda not safe for work, and I thought it was okay cause Dirk never really had to know, but I was still doin that with Hal, without tellin him, even though I was... usin him, in a way. It was fucked up of me, is what I'm saying."
"I've apologized to Dirk and to ARquius, and he says he forgives me but I still did that shit. And I was a tipsy sixteen-year-old girl with a crush, Jane, you were being mind-controlled into saying some of that shit. I don't care if those are thoughts you had- Dirk's got super messed up intrusive thoughts that he doesn't act on and hates himself for having. She made you say that shit. You weren't in control. It was her, not you, and none of this- none of this is your fault. You were sixteen. We were all sixteen and full of trauma. I'm not letting you hate yourself for it."
Jane isn't shaking her head anymore, and tears have started falling freely down her face, but she's still staring down at her hands, her shoulders slumped and uncertain. Roxy knows none of this can be fixed with just what she's saying. From what Jane said, this sounds like something that's been rooted deep inside her, hurting for a long, long time.
Roxy isn't a therapist. She can't make all of this be better in one night- she can't make all this better on her own at all. Her words might be helpful right now, but they won't be enough to make Jane 'all better' again, because Jane, like the rest of them, wasn't really okay in the first place. Love helps, and heals, but it can't make someone all better just like that. No matter how much Roxy wishes that it could.
She can't fix everything. But she can tell Jane the truth: that she loves her, and it's going to be okay.
"Listen, sweetheart," she whispers, and wraps her arms around Jane again, holding her close. "I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry we didn't see. I'm sorry that it hurts and I'm sorry that it feels unfixable right now. It's not. I promise you it's not. We all love you so much, Jane, I love you so much, Callie and I both love you so much, we want you to be okay. I promise you it will be okay."
Jane goes rigid in Roxy's arms before softening, collapsing in. She's crying a little, and Roxy is too, as she whispers anything that sounds right, anything that might help, all of her love to Jane, hoping that if she says it for long enough Jane might start to believe it.
They stay there for a long time, arms wrapped around each other. Roxy whispers things and Jane squeezes her tight and every so often says, "but maybe- what if-" and every time Roxy counters it with more of the truth- that Jane is loved, that it is going to be okay.
They fall asleep there, after a long time, and both of them dream of the other.
In the morning, they will wake, and Roxy will gently tell Jane that she's arranged a therapy session with someone who has helped so many of their friends with the trauma that lingers around them and never really goes away, and Jane will reluctantly acquiesce.
Roxy will make burnt pancakes and Jane will think about helping. Roxy will see how Jane looks at the cooking pans and then looks away. She will not pry. Recovery does not come easy. She, of all people, knows that.
The two of them will go to movie night together and no one will ask any questions, but they will all hug Jane with uncommon force, and tell her that they're glad she's okay. They will watch the Room, and Jane will forget herself briefly in laughter.
Dad will drive Jane to the therapy appointment, since she doesn't have a car of her own. He will tell her that he is so proud of her when he drops her off, will press her tightly to his chest and kiss the top of her forehead, and she will breathe in the pipesmoke smell of him.
The therapy appointment will be quiet introductions, and Jane will feel awkward. She will wonder if going will actually do anything, but she will make another appointment because of the way Roxy had looked at her when she had said yes to therapy, and the way her Dad's voice had been thick with pride when he had dropped her off.
She will wonder if getting better for the sake of other people is really recovery, but Roxy will call her to ask how it went at that moment, and she will forget the thought entirely.
The movies will continue, and slowly Jane will decide to rejoin the Discord server. The others will welcome her back with open arms, and she will not tell them the truth about why she left, but Angelmod will figure it out, and fae will message Jane to say that fae's glad that she's doing better now.
Jane will keep going back to therapy. It will take many sessions but eventually she will begin to be more amenable to it; she will begin to like the therapist with their soft voice and gentle, probing questions. Jane will start lingering at the hospital after shifts, no longer hating herself for the blue lightning that crackles along her arms and down her fingertips, and a mother will wrap her arms around Jane's waist and cry in thanks for the girl whose life she saved.
She will stop avoiding the others; she will sit down with June and tell her about June Crocker, exchange stories and watch her archived comedy specials together, will rib June about her... eclectic fashion sense and prank her enough to get her back for her month of absence. She will sit down with Dirk and they will talk about intrusive thoughts, the visceral disgust and self-hatred that comes with each one. Dirk will make her a little bunny robot and Jane will put it on her bedside table and look at its red eyes every night before she goes to sleep.
She will talk to Jake, for real this time, and both of them will cry and hug each other and let every bit of their hurt out and then Jane will go to therapy to work out the residual guilt that finds a way to take root in her lungs, will dig out each of its weeds and feel able to breathe again.
Jane will start roleplaying with Calliope again. When it gets close to upsetting topics, Calliope changes the subject and Jane loves her for it. Callie will go suit-shopping with her. They will stroll through the aisles of the store together, Jane running her hand along the silk, and then she will see a red suit and freeze, thinking of things that she wants to forget. Callie will take hold of her arm and pull her away, will sit next to her on the bench outside the store and talk her down from a panic attack, and then they will go out for Chinese food and Calliope will make her laugh, and Jane will forget about the suit entirely.
Roxy will bake Jane cakes, and when Jane feels sick to look at them, she will start cooking instead; makes Jane beef burgundy and sears up steaks and fries up some stir fry. Every dish comes out tasting terrible, but Jane eats every bit. They will watch Parks and Recreation together and Roxy will tell Jane that she would look a thousand times better than Ron Swanson with that mustache, and Jane will blush, hit Roxy's arm playfully, call her a flatterer, but her heart will feel full to bursting.
Jane will start replaying Ace Attorney with Roxy and Calliope, and cheer whenever Calliope- who's never played the games before- figures out the twist before it happens. The three of them will laugh at the quips and work through the puzzles and sigh over Franziska Von Karma's utter beauty.
They will finish the final case of the second game with aplomb, and Roxy will yell with pride, grab Calliope by the shoulders and kiss her on the mouth, and the jealousy will creep into Jane's heart and make her look away until she feels a gentle hand on her chin and Roxy will pull her in, kiss her softly, Calliope cheering in the background and asking for her turn, and Jane will ask if they mean it- truly- and they will say yes- and she will feel an urge to cry, an urge to say no, a voice saying she doesn't deserve it, but she will kiss Calliope anyways as Roxy nibbles at her neck, giggling, and she will feel like the happiest girl on Earth.
All that will come later, and it will be a hard road to get there. But for now, Jane curls around Roxy's body in her childhood bed and thinks that maybe she doesn't need to hurt to get better.