Chapter Text
There’s a sharp rap at my balcony and the breeze slides the glass door open. Entering my apartment, a backlit body interrupts the light of the sunset, so I set aside my ritual cup of crepuscular earl grey. Prescience, which once made me so softly smug, still lends me the ability to engage in theater of this sort when it benefits the comfort of my friends. Picture:
I, Rose Lalonde, am seated in my overstuffed armchair and enjoying the evening light. My sight has granted me knowledge of the result of our conversation, and its beginning, but thankfully its specifics are mine to discover. I think it is best-- for reasons you will surely find momentarily apparent-- if I withhold, for now, exactly what I know about this person's name and the pronouns most apropos with which to refer to them. (If you will forbear a grammarian's indiscretion, 'they' and 'them' will have to suffice for the time being, until they decide to share more.)
is anybody home?
The door clicks shut. Our eyes meet as they turn around, great blue windsock twirling at their back, and I smile a practiced, serene smile. I'm met with, after a moment, a relieved-seeming breath and toothy reciprocated grin. And the pause tells me everything I need to know about the purpose for their visit.
oh! rose! perfect.
just who I hoped to.. bump into.
ROSE: Well, in that case my home is an ideal place to find me.
haha, yeah
i was hoping to ask about something that's been bothering me lately but i figured you wouldn't mind if i just... dropped in!
i guess it is a little late...
but it's not the sort of thing i'd like to talk about over the phone?
Their hands clasp behind their back as they arch onto their tiptoes. I beckon with my fingers, to bid them not stand on formality in my archway.
ROSE: Come inside! How was your birthday? I had a feeling you might stop by.
They waft over to my couch, then recumb slowly as if willing their body to release a muscle that's been flexed past comfort for too long. The distinct, crisp scent of cut grass exudes from their clothing.
ROSE: Were you... laying in your front yard again?
I make a note to clean my couch, but try to put it-- and the shoeprints-- out of my mind.
well, yeah.... after the party, jade stuck around, and we chatted for a while outside, and i think i really stressed her out!
ROSE: C'mon, it couldn't have been that bad. She's lived with Karkat and Dave for the past year, so is used to at the very least--
A startled laugh emits from my interlocutor, and I quiet myself and enjoy a sip of tea. Lavender, bergamot, and cream swirl through my palate. I'm not Dirk, so I can't hear the gears turning. But I would be lying if I said I didn't try to fill in the gaps. However, I confess to being caught off guard by what they blurt out next, face sullen and eyes wide.
i told her that i wanted to die.
I set my cup down, slowly, carefully, trying to steady the hint of tremulousness I could feel sinking from my medulla and boiling up from the base of my tailbone.
ROSE: I don't mean to impugn your judgment, J--
I have to stop myself from saying their name, the old one. Any other referent would certainly be rude, and yet, there's a hitch in my brain, some extant needle outside of my perception that suddenly pricks against the word, and I've learned to heed those after years of subconscious thorns. Thankfully, they interrupt me, hands rubbing contritely atop the blue windy icon at their chest.
i think... i think i meant it?
just for that moment, really! maybe i just shouldn't have even said it, i've never even had that thought before! heck, it scares the SHIT out of me!! but i'm worried i really scared her, too.
ROSE: Is it wrong that she would be worried? She loves you; she is your sister, after all, and despite all the dismal circumstances that have drawn distance between you two-- between all of us, over the years-- I know she'd move the literal heavens to ensure no harm came to you, emotionally or otherwise.
that's the thing. i know she would, but that's... why i told her, maybe. i needed her to listen, and she did, she really did.
she hugged me, and we talked.
ROSE: About what made you feel that way?
about my birthday party, actually. she came over with dave and karkat, and said they were happy to have a quiet evening, and i believed it.
there was cake, and a few silly games, and a movie, but when they...
when they sang to me, i kinda freaked?
ROSE: Sang... Happy Birthday.
yeah.
ROSE: And why was that?
I watch their brow contort as their gaze tracks across my ceiling. A momentary grimace. Their ragged speech quickens.
i always have, i think. paniced, at the singing. even when it's just people i'm close to.
i used to think it was just spending birthdays with only my goofy dad, then being sad because he wasn't around any longer.
but i don't think it's that, anymore...
Their voice breaks. For their father? No. They press on, desperate to connect the thought.
is it weird that i don't like when they... say your name, at the end?
it ties my stomach in knots just knowing it's coming.
ROSE: Can't say I'm familiar with that particular anxiety, no.
ROSE: Perhaps most aren't afraid to hear their own names.
They roll away from me, then. It sounds almost like a stomach gurgling, but after a few uncertain moments, I rise. My friend is sobbing, tears streaming between halting, strained heaves for air. Were I in a more detached mindset, I would view it as a particularly cruel metaphor for their distress, but as I am I drop to my knees in the carpeting, arms meeting their shoulder and hip. When they continue, it's only choked between gasps.
i, i, i, just can't take it, i don't know what i'll do if i ever hear it again, if i have to listen to that godawful song again.
Despite myself, I laugh, even while I swallow a singular tear of my own.
ROSE: It IS a godawful song, to be sure, truly an affront to both taste and dignity in public restaurants. It should be outlawed. But it's not worth your life.
But they sob-laugh along with me, hands turning back towards me to rest at my midriff in a halfassed hug. It'll do.
you knew, didn't you? that i'd be coming here.
ROSE: Yes. Very little is obscured from me, these days, especially moments of burning need from my closest companions.
so you know what i'm going to say.
I shake my head, then. I'm thankful for the gaps; the casting of bones could never compare to the beauty of a spontaneous gesture.
ROSE: I knew that you would seek me out.
I can infer it, from tidbits; at least, the fleeting wonder had crept into the edges of my vision, less from prophecy and more from a mere trail of evidence. From the ways their fingers stroke the noncommital mop of hair they've grown in over the last few months, despite benign ribbing from Jade's irony-poisoned ex-roommates; despite a few innocuous-but-surmounting questions about how Paradox Space determined group compositions and whether Typheus was a guardian strictly reserved for 'male' players.
ROSE: And I know how the evening ends. But the words can sometimes be... obscured.
I know how impolite it is to suspect, so I put it from my mind.
ROSE: Still, I can't say it for you.
i said it to jade once i finally realized it, how i want everybody to use 'she' and 'her' for me now-- and she did, and she called me her sister, and she hugged me and said she'd always love me, a-and...
She rolls her body towards me, elbows pinned to her sides and snot running across her cheek with abandon. She looks like a chipmunk that's been struck with an arrow, but as she embraces me I find myself smiling a most indignified and grandiose grin.
i think i'm a girl
She buries her face in my stomach, tears-- of joy, now, thankfully-- warm against my skin through two layers of a dress and sash. I wrap her in my arms.
i think i have to be, and i want everybody to say it, and i want to hear them say the right name
and i think i've wanted this for a long fucking time.
And I take a deep breath. She inhales with me, despite her cheeks glowing with the same intense red as the evening light outside.
But now she can't stop laughing, palms covering blue irises. Flexing my knees, I drop to sit on the floor.
how did it come to this?? how it is that even two days ago, this feeling was just this weird itch in the back of my head, when i noticed baggy clothing that wouldn't fit right or the way that BLINKING made me feel like I've never been doing it right for people to see.....
and now...
ROSE: And now, you've told yourself, and you've told Jade, and you've told me.
ROSE: Thank you.
ROSE: On behalf of all three of us.
She fingercombs at her scalp and bunches the lengths at the nape of her neck in alternating hands.
no, thank you!! i might not have ever quite figured it out, except that...
a couple years ago, back in the game, i overheard you say something really funny, and it... it's kind of stuck with me ever since? you said:
She sits up, balled fists held proper atop her knees, to best summon an imitation of me.
'I seriously have the DUMBEST arc anyone could conceivably imagine.' and when you said that, you were looking into the eyes of your silly cat sprite clone, the one who you said would never help any of us! but...
she made roxy so happy!!
and complimented callie's appearance...
and even gave us Davepeta sprite! and they're great!
so even though we don't have, you know, 'arcs'... i had to wonder
when you rolled on the floor, and laughed at her existence, did it really sound so bad?
and ever since i've thought, that maybe i almost felt like it was this perfect extension of the way i felt then, that despite knowing that everybody else got to have these great gender revelations primed by this ridiculous cat-you, and got to have their own great 'arcs' because of it, why not me?
I sigh, and shake my head. The floor looks eminently inviting, because certainly she's correct; even for my youth, I did not need to claim that somehow Jasprosesprite was useless because my naiveté demanded some kind of personal literary trajectory rather than, say, natural human growth.
ROSE: It's true, while she may have been, ultimately, a moribund and mortifying reflection of some unfettered alternatives of mine, I suppose it's possible she sparked--
sorry, i don't want you to feel embarrassed by that! but i bring it up just because... even though i didn't even realize this at the time, and it's probably bullshit anyway...
i just knew i wanted what they had, but somehow i never put together exactly where that would leave me.
what it would mean for me.
Lazily I roll my neck upward again, and draw to my feet. My aspect may not be kind-- dark corners abhor the light for a reason-- but sometimes illumination is called for.
ROSE: So, where does that leave you? Miss...?
She shifts her excited hips.
i think it's time that i learn all of those little flairs this windy gal has yet to experience!
so, i think
JUNE: my name is june! and i have a LOT to do, suddenly!
JUNE: i've gotta hem these silly pajamas, and i want you to teach me how to braid hair, and--
She floats off the couch, gimballing and gyring above my glasstop coffee table for a moment before kicking her legs in unbridled glee. Her whole glorious mass of hair flows with gravity from her head, shaggy and unkempt.
Three hours later, we're still awake, facing each other from opposite ends of the couch, our beverages switched to cocoa.
ROSE: The last time it was sung to me, it was in private; and by a composed and genteel seamstress and vampiress, with whom I came home after another strenuous day in the caverns. She replaced the word in question with 'Wi-Fey,' and I laughed, took her in my arms, and rubbed my nose to hers as we tumbled together onto the bed.
ROSE: Suffice to say, it's never bothered me.
JUNE: oh my god!!! so it IS just me!
She's painted her nails with some old supplies I had in a closet someplace, a shimmering shade of emerald green that somehow evaded the merging of my cosmetics with those of my wife. Kanaya has since arrived home, and gone to bed in the next room, but given her propensity to sleep like the, erm, dead, June and I may proceed without so much as a conspiratorial whisper.
JUNE: Still, though... do you think i would look good with long hair? i never got to go through poorly thought out phases with my hair, to try bangs or anything else.
She reminds me-- unintentionally, I'm certain-- that my own are due for a trim. Thankfully I've been keeping them sideswept for a while, now, so the effect is likely unnoticeable.
ROSE: I think long hair would be a great choice for you. Just make sure to grow it out evenly and keep it trimmed, and you'll be fine.
ROSE: I'll have you know I never got to have a phase of cutting my own bangs, though; despite her inscrutable inebriation, my mother was quite adroit with a stylist's scissors.
ROSE: I was speaking seriously, however. I'll happily help with anything else you might want to try, and you said you were reaching out to Jade for...?
But she averts her eyes, picking out a maxi-marshmallow with careful, slightly-smudged fingertips and popping it into her mouth for a thoughtful gnawing.
JUNE: jade says she can't do it. i did ask, when she said i could have anything i wanted for my birthday, but it sounds like even the alternian tech can't quite do it.
ROSE: I'm sorry. I'm sure that, maybe Jane--
She waves me off, wincing.
JUNE: don't worry about it. you don't have to explain this stuff to me, you know?
JUNE: i've read enough to know what my next steps are.
I grit my teeth for a cautious exhalation and draw my knees up to my chest.
JUNE: all those years ago... when you would message me, late at night, and i said i was coding?
ROSE: Yes?
JUNE: most of the time i wasn't coding.
ROSE: Sensible enough, in retrospect.
JUNE: i was... i don't know, i guess just googling some really weird questions, or at least they don't seem so weird anymore.
JUNE: eventually, every time, no matter how hard i would tell myself to focus on programming or something, i would just start to...
JUNE: meander? and read anything i could, until i would come across these scary words, like 'thrombosis' or 'ketoacidosis' or 'breast-bud fusion'. and even now they keep coming up in my head! i don't even know how i still have them rattling around up there.
ROSE: The dire sorts of words that get seared into a thirteen-year-old's subconscious as to why she can't have the thing she wants so all-consumingly, sure.
The sorts of words that stick in place in lieu of the ones that could make the most sense, that scream their truth unavoidable.
JUNE: and even after we entered the game, i actually DID try to...
JUNE: i saw what dave did, when he printed out a copy of his own brain for ironic purposes.
JUNE: i hoped against hope, as we discovered so many little tidbits and weird currencies that one of them would be...
JUNE: i don't know
JUNE: progesterone grist, or...
We share an unguarded laugh. Her shoulders twinge, as though she weren't the most prominent draught in the room. It runs up her spine, and she rises, face tense with nervous energy. She sets down her mug on a counter. Planting both sneakers in the soft carpeting, she grasps at nothing with both hands.
JUNE: i always hoped i'd be able to just... print her out, y'know?
JUNE: recombine my better self, with a little bit of the ol' egbert slight-of-hand and just
She sighs, eyes dropping to the floor.
JUNE: everybody would just get it. i hope they CAN get it, even if i end up doing it the old fashioned way.
Slugging the last unmixed dregs of milk and chocopowder, I clank my mug next to hers and sidle up alongside her, giving a hug of reassurance around the waist.
ROSE: She's not your 'better self'. She's merely you, the person you are, have always been.
ROSE: There's no question of 'getting it'. I'll be right next to you the whole time, as will Kanaya, and Jade too.
JUNE: oh, yeah.
JUNE: think she'd make me a new outfit, if i asked?
JUNE: or at least help me take this one in around the waist, and the legs, or something.
JUNE: she looked pretty tired when she came in, so i didn't want to do anything more complex than reintroduce myself.
ROSE: She would, in a heartb-- yes. I'll ask her tomorrow to be in touch.
JUNE: thank you, rose. i really appreciate everything.
ROSE: I'm so glad for you. Thrive, June Egbert, and tell the world unafraid.
She draws me into a grateful embrace. In that moment, we breathe together, and I feel her chest rise with a new, unpent zephyr, totally unlike anything I've experienced from her before. And I know she'll be alright.