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The moment Terezi wakes up, everything hurts. She feels as if she’s on her deathbed, surrounded by her dozens of fake children and grandchildren she has had with her wife after an average tealblood lifespan of 61 and three quarters sweeps, teary-eyed but smiling as their lovely Terezi slips away into the beyond.
She rolls over and finds that she is not, in fact, dying, however nice it would be. She just feels like she is. Her head is full and pounding, her hands are involuntarily clutching at her stomach, shaking, as her insides roil. She turns her back towards the wall so she won’t have to smell the lights on in the kitchen, one of two other tiny rooms on the ship. Just because she can’t smell, though, doesn’t mean she can’t hear. The TV is blaring downloaded episodes of Real Housewives of New New New York (New New York was tragically destroyed not long after their little band had arrived in the Earth-C present, due to shenanigans no one will ever speak of again) (Jade and Roxy blew it up on their first Christmas there because they wanted to recreate Die Hard, even though neither of them had seen it).
Rose loves Real Housewives of New New New York, even though whenever Terezi asks her opinions on it, she pretends that she only keeps it on for background noise while she knits.
Terezi’s body is far warmer than it should be, but she also, somehow, feels frozen. Shivering, she pulls the thick blankets that she always kicks down to her feet all the way up, but with no heat source to keep in the blankets, it only serves to weigh heavy on her chest as she shakes and begins to come to her senses. The friction from her shivering and rolling around creates the bare minimum of warmth that she huddles into, leaking snot onto her pillow as she tries to wiggle herself towards it.
TEREZI: MMMHPPHH
TEREZI: HOLY SH1T 1TS COLD
She tries to say something more intelligible, but her thoughts are caught in the cotton that is in place of her brain.
A tickle starts in her dry throat, and she can’t really keep it down. She wheezes, at first quietly. They turn to hacking and loud choking, tears coming to her eyes until they subside.
TEREZI:h3y ros3
She clears her throat and tries again.
TEREZI: H3Y ROS3
Real Housewives of New New New York continues playing. If Terezi strains, she might think it gets a little louder as she coughs pitifully for Rose.
Terezi does strain, and does hear it get louder. Terezi will remember that the next time Rose gets a virus from playing Dark Animal Jam on her deliciously red eye screens.
Resigning herself to death, she flips back over and stuffs her face in the slightly damp pillow. It’s either drool, tears, or snot, and she doesn’t want to think about that right now. Wriggling a bit more, Terezi creates enough friction against the blankets to warm herself up. The shivering subsides. So she lays there for a few minutes, basking in the relative heat of Dirk’s old comforter and sheets.
Terezi is usually not the type to get sick; however much she overworks herself or refuses to sleep when trying to find viable planets to colonize. She also has a rather strong immunity to human germs, being not human. As the fog in her mind starts to clear, she tries considering what could have caused this. She doubts a robot could give or get sicknesses, and Dirk hasn’t so much as sneezed in a few months. Resigned to the idea that she may have just worn herself out to the point of sickness, Terezi wiggles more.
After those nice several minutes of warmth, the blankets begin to get cool again. Terezi groans and pushes herself out from under the covers and onto the thin rug in front of the bed. The rest of the floors are a freezing metal, and even with practically impenetrable, chitinous skin, she dreads walking them. For a second, she considers shuffling along the floors with the rug on her feet, but figures it to be too much effort to go find a glass of water, or even some of the hot tea that her companions love- Like human father, like human daughter, if they were the exact same age, and one was a robot. Tiptoeing across the metal, she spares a glance back at the bed, chilly as it is, not as cold as the floors. Then she remembers the microwave, and how she might be able to stick herself in there so she doesn’t freeze to death.
She steps out of the bedroom, arms wrapped around herself.
TEREZI: ROS3
TEREZI: D1D YOU H34R M3
ROSE: No.
ROSE: I'm very focused on
ROSE: Um
ROSE: My knitting here.
ROSE: It's taking up a lot of my attention span.
ROSE: What did you want?
TEREZI: NOTH1NG
TEREZI: just dy1ng
Rose finally takes her eyes off of her knitting- Oh, she’s not fooling anyone, least of all the ill seeker of truth and justice. She finally takes her eyes off of the TV.
ROSE: Yeesh.
TEREZI: Y34H
Rose doesn’t offer anything but her distasteful sympathies. It seems as if ever since her ascended soul entered her robot body, she’s been a little divorced from both her wife and from her humanity. Terezi wants to get it, but doesn’t really, and feels a little bad about it. Rose knows she doesn’t get it and feels bad about not getting it, and feels bad that Terezi feels bad. Terezi knows- It goes on.
In a nutshell, both of them feel for themselves and one another and neither of them will say this.
Padding into the kitchen half of the main room of the ship, Terezi grabs a cup and fills it with tap water. She just assumes the technology of Earth-C had evolved past both human and troll technology to produce water from thin air. The three of them all want to think that. They don’t question it, because if they did, the water might stop.
Without questioning where the water came from, Terezi drinks it down. It barely soothes her throat, so she grabs another cup and drains that too. With a third, she finally feels good enough to speak.
TEREZI: so
She coughs heavily and rubs her throat before continuing.
TEREZI: SO
TEREZI: 4NY 1D34 WH3R3 TH1S M4Y H4V3 COM3 FROM
Rose shrugs and puts down her needles. There is no yarn on them. She gets up, not gracefully, because only a living being can be graceful. She gets up precisely, and walks toward Terezi.
ROSE: I’m going to see if you have a fever.
ROSE: I wouldn’t doubt it.
Terezi stops herself from cringing or stepping back, even though Rose seems like she’s about to kill her with that hand reaching for her face. It doesn’t grip at her neck or attempt to rip out one of her disused eyeballs, so she lets the hand come closer.
ROSE: My sensors indicate you have the Black Plague.
TEREZI: TH3 WH4T
TEREZI: WH4T 1S TH1S
TEREZI: HUM4N BL4CK PL4GU3
ROSE: You know what the Black Plague is, Terezi, I’m positive I told you back when we were teenagers.
TEREZI: 4CTU4LLY D4V3 TOLD M3 BUT Y34H
TEREZI: HOW HOT 4M 1
TEREZI: 1 TH1NK 1 H4V3 4 PR3TTY COMMON
She bends over and hacks for a few seconds.
TEREZI: COMMON M1DBLOOD 4FFL1CT1ON
ROSE: You are very hot, actually.
ROSE: I don’t actually have temperature sensors on my hands.
TEREZI: T3RR1BL3 D3S1GN CHO1C3
DIRK: What about my design choices are terrible?
TEREZI: 3V3RYTH1NG
TEREZI: WH3R3 D1D YOU COM3 FROM
DIRK: The bathtub I put a blanket in and am currently calling my “bedroom”.
DIRK: There’s literally four rooms on this ship.
DIRK: Why would you ask.
Terezi, feeling woozy, leans back against the countertop that houses the microwave and toaster.
ROSE: Terezi’s sick.
DIRK: I repeat:
DIRK: There are four rooms on this ship.
DIRK: I know.
Terezi groans and puts her hands to her temples.
TEREZI: 1 4LSO KNOW
TEREZI: B3C4US3 1 AM TH3 S1CK ON3
DIRK: Thank you for your input.
DIRK: Do you want some medicine?
DIRK: Can you even take medicine?
DIRK: I’m personally partial to beating illnesses through pure willpower, but I brought some ibuprofen just in case.
TEREZI: Y34H 1 GU3SS
She feels her soul and her body disconnect- Not literally, although it’d be easy for Dirk to do, she thinks. No, she just feels her brain go out of focus.
TEREZI: UNHGGG
TEREZI: 1M
TEREZI: UHH
The walls spin, and she presses her face into the countertop to cool them down. It slows the room’s spinning. She’s hardly out of bed, and she’s already wanting to sleep for hours longer. Terezi hasn’t felt this tired since her three year period of feeling nothing, seeing nothing, eating nothing, and not sleeping at all, traveling through Paradox Space with only her constantly-charged cell and a pair of very cool wings. At least when she slept after that, she slept for two weeks straight and woke up feeling physically fine, if a little hungry.
ROSE: What can I do, Terezi?
TEREZI: URGGGHH
ROSE: Well, then I’ll get back to my knitting?
Terezi hesitates. Rose softens.
ROSE: All you have to do is ask.
TEREZI:
TEREZI: SOM3 T34
TEREZI: M4YB3?
ROSE: I’d be happy to.
Rose sets the kettle to boil some water. It always annoys the three of them, the discrepancies between a spaceship that goes nearly thrice the speed of light and a kettle that still takes just enough time to boil to be pissed off by. While she waits, Terezi peels her forehead off of the counter and slumps down onto the floor. It’s hard for her to smell everything going on around her while her nose is clogged to hell and back, and the brain cotton is returning in full force. Her breathing comes out heaving and shaky, like a rabid animal- and the comparison is hardly far from the truth.
ROSE: If you can, get up and stand over the kettle to clear your sinuses.
ROSE: My mother always did that if she was “ill” and had a presentation to give the next morning.
DIRK: You can do that?
DIRK: I always gargled saltwater.
ROSE: For your sinuses?
DIRK: I mean for every illness.
TEREZI: H1 C4N W3 HURRY TH3 T34 UP
TEREZI: 4ND 1 DONT C4R3 4BOUT HOW YOU CUR3D YOUR 1LLNESS3S
Slumping, she curls up and presses her cheeks to the floor.
TEREZI: 1M TOO T1R3D TO 3V3N G3T UP 4ND ST1CK MY H34D 1N TH3 K3TTL3 OR WH4T3V3R
DIRK: Sucks.
ROSE: On that serendipitous note.
Rose pours the water from the nearly whistling kettle into a cup, a chamomile tea bag already in it.
ROSE: Your tea.
Terezi tries to thank her, but it doesn’t come out. Her senses give out, and she fades into a welcome blackness.
DIRK: Rose, get the smelling salts.
ROSE: I can do a pack of Flintstones multivitamins crushed into small pieces.
DIRK: Can you?
ROSE: Depends.
DIRK: On what?
ROSE: Never mind.
ROSE: She’s waking up.
She was only out for a total of 15 seconds, much to her dismay. When she comes to, she sees Rose putting the tea cup on the counter and Dirk leaning in towards her. That gets her moving, and she pushes herself back up on her elbows.
ROSE: Terezi, are you quite sure this is just a simple cold?
ROSE: Not some sort of
ROSE: Plague?
Terezi glares at Rose as best she can.
Rose’s fans whir in an approximation of a well meaning sigh.
ROSE: You’d think an omniscient god with a troll still-legally-a-wife could do a little better. I’m sorry.
TEREZI: H4S K4N4Y4 N3V3R GOTT3N S1CK
ROSE: She has, but it was never serious enough to faint.
Rose shrugs helplessly.
DIRK: Well, let’s start by taking your actual temperature with hands that can feel heat.
ROSE: Bastard.
Ignoring her, he raises a hand up toward Terezi’s forehead.
DIRK: May I?
TEREZI: S1NC3 WH3N H4V3 YOU 4SK3D P3RM1SS1ON FOR 4NYTH1NG
DIRK: Ouch.
TEREZI: GO AH34D
He places a hand on her forehead. If Terezi doesn’t think too hard, she can imagine it’s Vriska putting her gross little gamer fingers on her forehead, not Dirk. They have remarkably similar sweaty hands.
DIRK: What’s an average temperature for you anyway?
TEREZI: H3H
TEREZI: 69 FUCK1N D3GR33S B4B3Y
ROSE: Nice.
DIRK: Good to know you’re well enough to make jokes ill-suited for the situation.
ROSE: No, she’s not joking.
ROSE: Average tealblood temperature is around 65 to 70 degrees fahrenheit.
DIRK: Huh.
DIRK: Well, a la Rose, I’m no thermometer, but I’d say you’re a little hotter than that.
TEREZI: YOU FL4TT3R M3
DIRK: Wow.
DIRK: That’s so funny.
Taking his hand off her forehead, he stands up.
DIRK: I probably have a thermometer in my study.
He walks out of the kitchen into the third and final adjoining room.
TEREZI: H1S “STUDY”
Rose snickers.
DIRK: I can hear y’all.
While Dirk’s gone off to rummage around in his piles of random things he stole from his friends, Terezi attempts to lift herself off the cold kitchen floor. She fails miserably.
ROSE: Need a hand?
TEREZI: TH3 L4ST THR33 T1M3S 1 S41D Y3S TO TH4T OFF3R, YOU THR3W YOUR H4ND 4T M3
TEREZI: WHOS3 1D34 W3S 1T FOR YOU TO H4V3 D3T4TCH4BL3 H4NDS 4NYW4Y L4LOND3
ROSE: There are many things I don’t appreciate about having a robot body.
ROSE: But these detachable hands make it all worth it.
TEREZI: FUCK YOU
Terezi sticks her arms up in the universal ‘uppies’ motion, and Rose hauls her to her feet. She sways a bit, but makes it to the couch in the adjacent room without any more help, laying down on her stomach across it, face first into a pillow.
Returning with a small, rectangular box in hand is Dirk, who Terezi is worryingly relieved to see. He perches on the armrest nearest to her head and waits for her to roll over.
DIRK: Well?
DIRK: Do you want to know if you’ve got a fever or if you’re dying?
TEREZI: NOW TH4T YOUR3 H3H3 1T F33LS L1K3 1M DY1NG
DIRK: Bullying hurts, Terezi.
Rose nods solemnly.
TEREZI: UGH
Impossibly slowly, she turns over on her side so that she can grab the thermometer from Dirk. She reaches out and plucks it from his hands, then immediately drops it on the floor beside the couch. She looks at her hands and finds them shaking and slick with sweat.
TEREZI: HM
TEREZI: TH4T W4S
TEREZI: UN3XP3CT3D
Dirk picks up the thermometer.
DIRK: Want me to?
TEREZI: NOT REALLY
TEREZI: BUT 1 GU3SS YOULL H4V3 TO
DIRK: Let me put the thermometer’s condom on.
DIRK: How could you forget the thermometer’s condom, Terezi? Who taught you sex education?
ROSE: Every day I wish you were dead.
DIRK: Thermocondom, if you will.
ROSE: Every day.
He prepares it and awkwardly angles it towards her mouth. Equally awkward, she lets her eyes close, and he pops it in with no fanfare. Her consciousness barely holds on to the edges of reality; the beeping seems to come just seconds after she put the thermometer in. She doesn’t open her eyes or make any attempt to take it out. Rose reaches over from behind the couch and plucks it out of her mouth.
ROSE: 74.
ROSE: Natural troll temperature fluctuation doesn’t occur in more than a few degrees, so it’s safe to say that Terezi has a fever. Not a dangerous one.
ROSE: She’s definitely sick, and she’s probably right, a version of the common cold.
Terezi wants nothing more than to fade back out, but her lungs rebel, and she starts hacking, right on cue. She debates spitting the gunk coming up from her throat onto one of them, but swallows it back down instead. Tears spill out of her eyes without her feeling them. Heaving, she opens her eyes and looks to Rose above her.
It turns out Rose can approximate human emotion in her empty eyes and chromium face. Even through her clogged nose, she can smell the pity dripping off of her. Terezi narrows her eyes. It isn’t like Rose doesn’t know anything about romance- She’s quite the expert. Despite this infinite knowledge of pity romance, Rose doesn’t turn away. Her eyes soften, though they’re made of reinforced glass and LEDs and she hands the thermometer to Dirk. Terezi follows the thermometer via her senses instead of laboring over the red solicitations Rose is so obviously making.
He keeps his emotion in check far better than Rose’s metal and glass face can, which would speak volumes to his character if Terezi fucking cared at all. Through his glasses, though, she can see him worried. To top it all off, when she tries to speak, her voice breaks in a way that tugs at both Rose’s metaphorical and Dirk’s literal heartstrings.
TEREZI: WH-
TEREZI: WH4T?
They just sort of stare at her, so she buries her head in the pillow she’d been leaning against and waits for them to be helpful.
Rose finally reacts and comes around from the back of the couch, grabbing the chamomile tea on the way, and sitting on the left of Terezi. Terezi just shoves her head deeper into the pillow, her eyes filling up with tears.
ROSE: Hey…
As gently as a robot body could be, she places her chilly palm on the part of Terezi’s cheek not covered by the pillow. Involuntarily, Terezi leans into her hand, taking her face out of the pillow. Rose tenderly wipes Terezi’s wet cheek with her thumb.
ROSE: Hey, Terezi, it’s…
ROSE: It’s okay.
ROSE: We’ve got you.
Terezi scrubs at her eyes, flushing harder than her feverish cheeks are already. Rose reaches her other hand to put it on Terezi’s other cheek. Terezi let’s Rose take responsibility for holding her head up and goes limp. With a tinny laugh, Rose turns Terezi’s head to face hers and tips her shiny forehead towards Terezi’s.
The relief is incredible, if ephemeral. Gradually, Rose’s metal frame absorbs Terezi’s fever and Terezi has to pull away. She doesn’t turn away from Rose’s face, though. They gaze at each other, sightlessly, in bright red. Through her tears and other sick bodily fluids, Terezi can taste her plum black lipstick and can’t figure out whether she wants to kiss her lips delicately or bite into them, and force them to spill a blood that no longer flows through her body.
DIRK: Hello? Hello? What’s going on here.
Well, at least she doesn’t have to choose.
ROSE: Do you want your tea now?
Terezi nods, not trusting her voice to not crack.
She presses the mug into Terezi’s shaky hands and watches her carefully as she sips for any signs she might drop it. Seeing none, she leans back into the couch. As Terezi drains the tea and begins eating the teabag, Rose begins to formulate a plan to care for her.
ROSE: You’ll need rest, mostly, that’s all. Medicine doesn’t do much for illness brought by exhaustion other than knock you out to heal, so it’s okay not to take any. Pain medicine for inflammation is the only thing you’ll need, lucky us. Do you want to lay back down now?
TEREZI: Y34H
TEREZI: TH4T SOUNDS GOOD
ROSE: Let me get your bed together. Don’t… Don’t die while I’m gone.
Rose gets up from the couch, walks towards the bedroom Terezi sleeps in, and flicks on the light.
ROSE: CHRIST
ROSE: What the fuck is happening in here?
ROSE: Terezi, I thought you would have cultivated some hygiene skills in, like, ten fucking years.
ROSE: Have you ever made the bed?
TEREZI: OH TH4TS R1CH COM1NG FROM TH3 ON3 WHO H4D 4 5 FOOT T4LL D3S1GN4T3D CLOTH3S P1L3 YOU WOULD H4V3 TO D1G THROUGH 3V3RY T1M3 YOU W4NTED TO W34R SOM3T1NG 3LS3
TEREZI: H4V3 YOU 3V3R US3D 4 CLOS3T
ROSE: That was, like I said, ten years ago!
ROSE: I’m an adult now!
DIRK: Don’t try to tell me you don’t make clothes piles instead of putting away your shit these days. I’ve been to your house. I’ve tripped over your clothes pile. The only reason you don’t have a clothes pile is because you wear one outfit.
ROSE: Bastard.
ROSE: Whatever. Can you wait while I change your sheets, clean up and make you a presentable sick nest?
TEREZI: S1GH
TEREZI: SUR3
She is trying to nestle back into the couch when Dirk interupts her.
DIRK: Do you want to…
DIRK: Let me work up the courage for this incredible display of generosity that I am about to display.
DIRK: You want a bath?
Terezi gasps overdramatically.
TEREZI: YOU WOULD L3ND M3 YOUR COV3T3D B4THTUB
TEREZI: SO BR4V3
TEREZI: SO K1ND
TEREZI: SO G3NEROUS
DIRK: Whatever.
He gets up from the armrest and heaves Terezi to her feet. She feels dizzy, from the changed blood flow or the cold, she doesn’t know, so she stands in front of the couch for a few seconds before starting the trek to Dirk’s bedroom. She arrives in the bathroom to find him grabbing the blankets from the bathtub and shoving them into a corner. Flopping to the tile, she finds herself shivering again.
TEREZI: 1M COLD 4G41N
DIRK: Damn, that’s crazy. Let me get the hot water on.
Dirk turns all the appropriate knobs and the room begins to take on a steamy quality. The sound of the water flowing out of the faucet is painfully loud, and Terezi longs to cover her ears or leave, but the promise of a hot bath makes her pause.
DIRK: There’s enough water to get in now.
TEREZI: MM
She starts to strip. Her shirt is just snug enough to cause trouble and her glasses trap her head in the neck-hole.
DIRK: I’m ill equipped for this but-
TEREZI: JUST GR4B MY SH1RT 4LR34DY D1PSH1T
He plucks her glasses off and puts them atop his own before yanking her shirt off of her. She kicks her pants off herself, thankfully, and Dirk turns around while she slips off her boxers without prompting.
DIRK: Want me to stick around?
Terezi sniffles, then nods, hesitantly.
DIRK: I’m still turned around. Do you want me to turn around or do you wanna give me a verbal answer?
TEREZI: 1F YOU MUST
DIRK: Must turn around, or wait for a verbal answer?
TEREZI: 1 M34N TH3 F1RST TH1NG YOU S41D 1D1OT
DIRK: What first thing?
TEREZI: 1M S1CK FUCK YOU
DIRK: Okay.
Stepping into the hot water is painful. The hot water on Terezi’s numb-with-cold feet burns. But she bites her cheek and lets herself adjust for a second, then begins to sink down into the bubbles. The tub is deep enough and the soap is obscuring enough that all Dirk sees when he turns around is her head poking out. His chest contracts slightly and he breathes audibly, which constitutes as a laugh for him.The exhaustion somehow hits harder once she’s relaxed. Her arms feel like lead, and she drifts.
She drifts, perhaps, a little too much, for a little too long.
DIRK: Oh shit, are you dead?
DIRK: Terezi, wake up or I’ll...
DIRK: I’ll, like, double kill everyone you know and love.
DIRK: Wait. Triple kill. Sorry.
Terezi doesn’t have the energy to open her eyes. She doesn’t care enough- Dirk can’t triple kill her loved ones, she’s almost sure. She opts to groan very quietly, which seems to do the trick.
DIRK: Cool. I guess I’ll just stay here, lest you drown in your sleep.
He attempts to keep himself busy by folding the blankets he took out of the bathtub neatly, but there are only so many blankets one can fold before one gets bored. Terezi, half asleep, isn’t quite sure what to do either. She’s far too blissed out with the hot water to actually try and get clean. In lieu of actually asking for what she needs or wants, she dunks her hair in the water and presents it to Dirk.
DIRK: What.
She smashes her cheek into the hard plastic side and waits.
He seems to get the idea. Picking up one of the many generic looking 5-in-1 shampoos from the floor, he scoots toward the tub and pours the soap in his hand. Awkwardly, he places the soapy hand in her hair, dips his other hand in the water, then pulls it out to work in the shampoo.
DIRK: Your hair is greasy as hell. Can I back out on this double nice thing I’m doing for you?
TEREZI: N4H
DIRK: Thought so.
DIRK: It is really gross.
TEREZI: YOU M4NU4LLY M4K3 YOUR H41R TH1S GR34SY FOR 3V3RY OCC4S1ON
DIRK: Key-word, manually. Yours just sucks naturally.
One handful of shampoo doesn’t do it anymore- Her hair has long since grown out past her chin. It reaches down below her shoulder blades now. It’s conceptually good-looking, but the upkeep is practically impossible. Dirk finger-combs through her hair, strands far thicker than any humans. The shampoo bubbles up and as he adds more and more to try and coat it all, and her hair seems to turn bubbly white. Terezi finds it funny, but not so much that she even huffs a laugh. He’s not all that good at hair-washing; he pulls at her hair and spends far too much time looping his fingers through chunks of it, playing with it. It gets the job done anyway.
Terezi doesn’t care if it’s weird, she tries to imagine his hands as Vriska’s again. She daydreams of another timeline, another place, where the girl she never told she loved was washing her hair, caring for her while she was sick. A hot bath, even hotter than this one, naked next to Vriska, hoarsely complimenting her body and half-jokingly promising to ravish her when she can dirty talk without copious amounts of phlegm coming up her throat. Soft blankets, the heavy ones that Vriska likes even more than Terezi does. Being underneath them, next to her, would make her feel safe, cared for in every sense of the word. The gentlest of kisses planted on everywhere but her mouth, so not to get sick, until the wait is too much and the cheek kisses are not enough, and Vriska would kiss her on the lips anyway, darting her tongue in, knowing in time, she’d wake up ill herself. No dark blue lipstick residue left on her mouth, here, Vriska has outgrown performing a semblance of femininity to make up for lost time. She wears rough flannels that Terezi could bury her face in, to smell Vriska while she waits for her to bring in a bowl of hot broth to soothe her throat.
And suddenly, she’s sobbing again. Not because of the fever, although it’s likely part of it. Dirk’s hands stop, twisted deep in her hair. She heaves, unable to stop the tears that prick at her eyes and leave her face hotter than the hot water from dripping down into the bath. One of the hands leaves her head and is placed on her shoulder, but she doesn’t notice. Breathing hurts; Trying to make sense of anything except her own deep, deep sense of loss, a wistfulness for a day that never happened, for a love that never happened. Like the opposite of deja vu, she thinks, abstractly. It’s the only coherent thought swirling around in her head. She tries to pull away from Dirk’s hand coiled around her hair, but there’s nowhere to move, so, impulsively, she shoots her head forward into the crook of his neck.
The hug is not at all like a rainy rom-com hug, although it is just as wet. It barely counts as a hug, for one. He tries to pull away with his hands still on her, one on her shoulder, one on her head, so he ends up dragging her halfway out of the tub. Terezi splashes water all over him and the floor and holds fast, despite it. She wants to apologize- After all he’s done, there’s no rational reason to, but Terezi is anything but rational now. She wants to sob into his arms and tell him sorry for crying, sorry for getting his shirt all wet and snotty and probably stained with a light teal if he doesn’t wash it soon enough after, even if he doesn’t deserve it.
They are barred from getting too close by the bathtub wall, which Terezi is both grateful for and indignant at. After about twenty seconds, the desperation evens out into an uncomfortable cold and Terezi unsticks her face from the top of his chest and sinks back into the water, his hands leaving her as she does.
Later, she will be loath to admit that Dirk doesn’t give terrible hugs. He doesn’t quite execute the concept right, but he gets double points for being softer than anyone in her life for a long time and dubiously available.
Dunking her hair in the water once again, the soap starts to dissolve out of her hair. Dirk reaches to finish the job, and she lets him. He doesn’t take his time, but the way he touches her makes it seem like he’s trying to calm a frightened animal- He makes his movements audible, but not loud, and is slow and deliberate with his hands. It’s embarrassing. She continues sobbing, shaking, trying to stop, but to no avail. Dirk finishes washing her hair in record time, and stands up quickly to grab her a towel. He leaves it on the side of the bathtub clinically and walks out.
In the wake of it all, Terezi sits, the water still churning around her, making the parts of her not anchored the floor sway involuntarily. The waves even out as her tears do, and in a few minutes, she finds herself dry-eyed in still water. She gathers herself as best she can and stands up. She doesn’t shake or heave as she steps out and wraps the towel around herself. She picks up her glasses and Dirk’s, both abandoned, and opens the door.
Rose sits on the couch, knitting needles empty. She gives Terezi a quick scan, shrugs, and returns her gaze to the TV. Terezi drops Dirk’s glasses on the floor and walks on to the bedroom. It’s not perfect- The vague smell of sweat stuck around, but the bed is made and the pillows are arranged nicely. A shirt and sweatpants are placed on the made bed. The floor is free of any debris, so she drops the towel, pulls on the clothes left out for her, and falls into the bed. She is far too tired to make any effort to think about… Anything. So she falls asleep, finally.