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Sometimes, you thought you were a side character.
You knew it didn’t really make sense to think of yourself that way, because your life was a life, not a story, but, still. You felt like you were born to pop in to your friends’ lives every now and then and tell them what they needed to know to be heroes, then disappear again when they didn’t need you. You knew if you said any of this, they’d all say no, say that you were important, and, even so, they’d always needed you, but…you’d wonder how true that was.
You didn’t really see yourself as a person other people really needed. You used to, back when you’d look up at the clouds and see the future spelled out to you in the most basic terms, and then you did again, back when you felt power coursing through you for the first time and you finally knew exactly what to do again. But then, after that…you didn’t know.
You’d thought Davesprite had needed you, for a bit, but it was a different sort of need than before. Before, you had been needed as a guiding hand into your friends’ dangerous futures. Now, you were needed for more personal reasons. A shoulder to almost-not-cry on. A mouth to kiss. A person to message late into the night when he couldn’t sleep. He had asked you about it, one time, when you were tired and he wasn’t, not in the way you knew, because he technically didn’t need sleep, but his mind was weary and his fingers were fast.
-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] --
TG: i kinda feel like this is all sorta unfair
GG: what do you mean?
TG: like
TG: i keep fucking bothering you about shit and you just put up with it meanwhile you never wake me up at ass o’clock to talk about your problems or whatever
TG: not even just problems like
TG: you don’t talk about like happy shit with me
TG: or you do but only when i do first
GG; um…
GG: sorry :(
TG: shit jade no don’t be sorry
GG: :?
TG: i just mean i keep bothering the hell outta you and you don’t to me
GG: you don’t bother me!
TG: sure whatever you say
TG: just
TG: you know what whatever
TG: it’s late as fuck i’m going to sleep
TG: night
GG: goodnight!
-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] --
You didn’t really talk about that conversation after that. He broke up with you soon after, anyway.
The next year on the ship was kinda dreary. It was just you and John, waiting to finally meet the rest of your friends. Occasionally, when he slept, he’d meet with the trolls, both the ones you had talked to and the ones you hadn’t. He would tell you about them, and each night, you’d go to sleep hoping to find the sort of relevance that John had.
You didn’t.
It was frustrating, because you felt useless - completely and totally useless - for the first time in your life. You had thought, maybe John would need you kinda like Davesprite did (not like that, you were siblings, but maybe just…to talk to?), but he didn’t, not really. You think he was too preoccupied with everything happening in the dreambubbles to think about that stuff. And, not that you didn’t want John to go and be heroic like he was supposed to be, but…sometimes you wished he felt as bored and useless as you. Or that you felt as preoccupied and useful as him. Either or, really. You just hated that he was out exploring the universe in his sleep while you were sitting on your bed and not-missing home.
You considered talking to him about it. You’d played back dozens of hypothetical conversations in your head where you broke down and sobbed in front of him and talked about how sidelined, useless, unimportant you felt, and then John would comfort you and talk about how no, Jade, you’re really important! I need you! Everyone needs you! And then you’d wipe your eyes and ask really? And he’d say yes, really, and then you’d fall asleep and find yourself right where you needed to be to save the day (or help John or Rose or Dave save it), and you’d feel fulfilled and useful again, finally.
All those things ended up achieving was making you cry alone in your room.
You turned your thoughts, then, to your other friends, thinking about what they were doing. You knew they were alive (you’d seen it in the window you shot through to get to the Furthest Ring), but you didn’t know what they were doing. John had filled you in on the basics - Rose, Dave, Kanaya, Karkat, Terezi, and Gamzee were on a meteor together, hurtling toward the two of you like the Andromeda Galaxy was toward the Milky Way back when that seemed important - but you didn’t know how they were doing. How they were feeling. If they were thinking about you. If they still needed you.
You were still thinking about them. You still needed them. (You kind of hated that about yourself. That you needed people. You liked to think of yourself as someone everyone else needed - needing other people felt selfish. You weren’t a person made for yourself.) Much as you hated it, you still needed Rose’s dry humor, her sarcastic lines about psycho-analyzing your dreams for beastiality (you showed her your fursona one time). You still needed Kanaya’s proper way of speaking, the way she seemed so similar yet so, so different from you (it wasn’t the species difference - it was something else, something you couldn’t place). You still needed Karkat’s constant yelling and heckling to keep you grounded, to make you feel like you were a whole person, not just a happy shell of one that everyone liked (also, sometimes you needed someone to yell at). You hadn’t talked to Terezi much, but you still needed her, just for the presence of another person. You hadn’t talked to Gamzee, either, but you needed the idea of him - a villain - to keep you motivated and determined to keep living. A reason to fight. A reason to have power.
The one that hurt the most to admit was that you still needed Dave.
Davesprite wasn’t the same person as Dave, but he was familiar. He was similar. He still made you laugh with his long-winded metaphors and constant “ironic” rapping. He still made you miss him.
Dave…Dave was always the one of your friends that made you feel needed the most. He needed you, and you needed for him to keep needing you. He needed to message you at ungodly hours in the night (his time or yours, it didn’t matter) to talk at length about some random this-or-that that you didn’t really know or care about (but you cared about him, so it didn’t matter). He needed you to occasionally get dangerously close to unironic with. He needed you to drag out some form of genuine excitement from him, or to accidentally get into his Problems with a capital P with. He needed you, period. And you needed that.
When you and Davesprite had started dating, it had just sort of felt right. Natural. The logical progression of events. He had always needed you, and now he needed you for one more thing. You were happy to oblige.
That’s why it had hurt so much when he broke up with you - it felt like he didn’t need you anymore. You were, then, without a use. You were just a girl, floating on the ship you saw in your dreams constantly reminding you of the times when you had more than one use. When you had a use. You were, now, just a girl. You were just you. And that was fucking terrifying.
When the time came to see your friends again, you were more scared than ever. You were afraid they’d look at you, and instead of seeing you, they’d see all the wasted power. The wasted potential. You were afraid they’d really see you, Jade Harley, girl that no one needed. You were afraid they would look at you and immediately try and find John.
And then you weren’t.
A voice came into your head, smooth and alien, and told you that she needed you. She told you that everyone needed you.
And then she told you that they would never appreciate how much they did.
Your life had been a flurry of fury and tears from that moment onward. You were so goddamn angry, you realized, and you always had been. You had been born with anger coursing through your veins instead of blood. Anger and power. And you needed everyone to know.
Everyone found out easily enough. They found out how absolutely screwed they were without you. They found out, and you paid for it.
You woke up hours later with a weight on top of you.
You sat up and saw Dave staring at you, his eyes white behind his sunglasses.
You sighed. You knew what had happened, in the clarity of death: you’d been controlled, and you hadn’t actually been needed. Of course.
You wondered if you had ever been needed, really needed, even in life. Dave asked you what was wrong, and, when you didn’t reply, he asked if you were sad that you were dead.
JADE: no.
DAVE: what is it then
JADE: i don’t want to talk about it.
A beat of silence passed.
JADE: actually, you know what? yes i do.