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You get to Rose’s house ten minutes after Dave texts you to say that you should come over at 6pm. It’s 5:53, but punctuality isn’t something that anyone in your family really values, maybe with the exception of Dirk. It’s early fall, just before sunset, and rain is starting to drizzle down from the gray clouds that have been hanging in the sky for the past week.
“Hey!” you call.
There’s no answer, which isn’t much of a surprise. Rose tends to either get ready absurdly early or right at the last minute, and the fact that she wasn’t standing right behind the door probably means that she’s in her bathroom acting like she needs to wear makeup around you all.
The walk down the hallway is short, but you take it slowly, partly because you’re so early and partly because Rose or Kanaya has put up new pictures since the last time you were here. Most of them look like they’re from the end of summer pool party you’d had with everyone just a month or so ago. They make you feel sappy in a weird, suburban, this-is-the-ending-you’ve-earned type of way, but that’s not a particularly new feeling when it comes to your family.
You smile at one photo in particular, a shot of Dirk crouched on the pool deck with a roll of duct tape and a half-deflated flamingo float - troll horns and inflatables don’t mix well, unsurprisingly - while Karkat stands just in the background with his arms folded, and then force yourself to keep walking before you spend all night here. You’re not sure why Dave said that you should come over, but whether you’re here for game night or family therapy or to settle a debate on the ethics of some psychologist from the 70s (yes, it’s happened before and you have no doubt that it’ll happen again) doesn’t really matter. Your family asked you to be here, and here you are.
The door to Rose’s bedroom is closed. Your hand lands on the doorknob and is just about to turn it when the sound of soft voices brings your entire body to a halt.
“- don’t know if it’s a good idea,” Rose’s voice says quietly.
There’s the rustle of movement, then Dave’s voice says, “I mean, look, if we’re basing it off of your track record-”
“If we’re basing it off my track record, shit’s been doomed from the start,” Dirk interrupts, followed by something you can’t quite make out. Huh. You hadn’t realized that they were all already here. You’re about to open the door and head in to see what they’re talking about when you hear Dirk’s voice catch on a pair of syllables that sound suspiciously like your name.
“Dirk,” Rose says, sounding exasperated in the painfully fond way that you’ve heard more times than you can count.
“Rose,” Dirk says. You can’t quite place his tone. “You can’t tell me that I’m overthinking it if you’re overthinking it.”
“He makes a good point,” Dave says. There’s the sound of more movement. “Either way, though, it’s six now, which I’m pretty sure means that it’s getting your heads out of your asses and realizing that it’s going to be totally fine o’clock. We just have to talk to her.”
“Dave-”
The creak of bedsprings covers up whatever Rose says in response to that, and you make the executive decision that this hallway probably isn’t where anyone wants you to be right now. It’s - it’s your family, you can just ask them what’s going on, but you can give them space first. Space is a weird thing with you all, never seeming to land in the right happy medium between too much and not enough, but you’re all working on it.
So you silently make your way back out to the porch, and this time, your hand lands on the doorbell. The door swings open just a moment later to reveal Rose with a soft smile and disheveled hair. The sight of her makes your heart pick up its pace like it always does, and you accept the feeling without thinking too hard about it like you always do.
“Hey,” she says. “Come on in, the boys are already here.”
You step inside and give her a hug, since you know she won’t initiate one but will lean into it like she needs it. She smells like the perfume you’d imagined your Mom wore and something that you can’t quite place, and you let yourself nuzzle your nose into her hair for just a moment. “Everything okay?” you ask.
Rose huffs a laugh into your shoulder. “I was going to ask you the same question.”
You force yourself to let go of her and take a half-step away. “What, I can’t hug you?” You’re aiming for banter, familiar territory, but something about whatever it is that you overheard earlier lands your tone a little closer to accusatory.
If Rose picks up on it - and you know that she does -, she doesn’t show it. “Considering that you’re one of the few people that can, I expect you to take advantage of the privilege,” she says, arching one eyebrow. This is normally where you’d kiss her forehead, but you can hear Dirk and Dave coming down the hall from the bedroom and something feels different today. Things with your family have never been ‘stable’ in anyone’s opinion, but today’s air feels more nebulous than usual in a way that you can’t quite put your finger on.
“Is Kanaya home?” you ask.
Rose shakes her head. “She’s out in the caverns, so she probably won’t be back until tomorrow morning.”
This feels like an exchange that different people could have, with different intentions and hidden meanings, but it’s you and Rose having it, and when you reach for a response, it takes you longer than it should to find one. “She loves those grubs, doesn’t she?”
Rose’s eyes soften. It’s a sight you’ve seen a million times now, but you don’t think you’ll ever get used to the fact that you’re allowed to see it. “She does,” she says.
Before you can reply, Dave is coming up behind Rose and slinging an arm around her shoulders. He holds his other hand out for a fistbump, which you give him immediately. “Hey,” he says. “Sup?”
“I’m pretty sure you’re the one that should be answering that, since you’re the one that told me to come over,” you tell him.
Dirk is the one that answers, though, from his place by Dave’s free side. You don’t think he’s quite meeting your eyes, which makes something you can’t name twist in your chest. “I’ve never had homemade soup before, which is apparently a tragedy we have to fix immediately,” he says dryly.
“Shit’s wack,” Dave says, deadpan. “Like, okay, my pre-game soup experience was limited entirely to microwaved Campbell’s that I - actually, let’s not get into how I got those because that’s a little too depressing for right now, I think, but the point is that that was it, but it turns out that Karkat makes this really good Alternian stew that I’m 90 percent sure doesn’t have bugs in it, so my soup box has been thoroughly checked.”
Rose pinches the bridge of her nose and shakes her head, but she’s still smiling and you have a feeling that her other hand appears to be absent only because it’s wrapped around Dave’s waist. That’s … weird, sort of, if only in the sense that it feels completely normal despite never having happened before, at least not at this hour. “So-” she starts.
“We need to pop my soup cherry,” Dirk interrupts. He manages to keep a straight face until Dave snorts, and then the two of them dissolve into laughter.
“As long as you never phrase it like that again, I’m down,” you say. “So, what are we making?”
“Chicken noodle,” Rose says quickly, shooting Dirk and Dave glances that practically dare them to argue. “After much debate.”
Dave looks like he’d very much like to continue said debate, but he knows how not to cross the line of actually being obnoxious to Rose much better than anyone else. It’s the kind of thing that could make you jealous, if you let it. You try not to. You know that you get parts of Rose that no one else gets too, parts of all of them that have been granted just to you, and you know that each of them have a part of you that only they can see.
Dirk and Dave, for example, aren’t the people you call when a well-meaning carapacian drops a welcome basket, complete with wine, on the doorstep you’ve chosen to call yours for any given year. It’s not Dave and Rose that show up in your kitchen in the middle of the night when you need to remind yourself that there really is someone that can do that, now. Dirk and Rose are never on the receiving end of the messages you send when you need someone that can help you ignore whatever’s wrong until the sun rises and it all feels that much more manageable. It, like so much else between the four of you, works.
There’s something weird going on tonight, though. A paradigm shift, everything moved just to the left of where it was before, and it feels like your family is following a script that you haven’t been handed yet. But it’s not the first time you’ve felt this way, and to be honest, there’s always something weird going on when you all get together and it almost always goes unspoken, so - no big deal, right? It’ll work itself out. It always does, somehow.
Before you can get lost in your thoughts any further, Rose shepherds you all into the kitchen and starts boiling water and bouillon cubes on the stove. Dirk takes the spot next to her, watching with interest that he can’t conceal with his lack of shades, leaving you and Dave leaning up against the counter. You watch Dave watch Dirk and Rose, and you try to find the words to ask him what they were all talking about earlier.
It’s a losing game. Everything you think of sounds accusatory or painfully insecure, and when you finally open your mouth to stumble through a sentence that you think is going to start with, “So, I actually got here early,” Dave is suddenly following Dirk into Rose’s absurdly large pantry to find egg noodles.
You take Dirk’s place at Rose’s side. Her fingers brush yours when she hands you the large wooden spoon. You’re not entirely sure why you notice; it’s barely even a half-second of contact, and besides, you all have been trying to get better at the casual touch thing lately. But you do notice, the feeling like an electric shock, and you almost miss Rose saying, “Here, stir this?”
“Sure!” you agree, just a second too late. The steam already rising from the pot heats your face when you lean over it to look at what you’re doing, and you’re glad that it gives you an excuse for how hot your cheeks suddenly feel.
Rose is watching you as you stir the soup around, pressing the bouillon cubes up against the side of the pot with the spoon so that they dissolve faster. The sound of the rain outside has picked up, and the golden-yellow lights of the kitchen feel that much more like home in comparison to the dark skies just outside of the windows.
“Have you had actual soup before?” Rose asks.
You look up at her with a smile that you mostly believe in and nod. Her expression is one you don’t think you’ve ever seen on her before. “Yeah, my mom left some recipes - I kinda got tired of pumpkin soup after a bit, but it was nice to make on cold nights.”
A smile slips onto Rose’s face. “My mom used to make pumpkin soup too,” she says. “And this when I was sick or when she was hungover.” A pause. You catch another cube, press it against the pot, watch it dissolve. Moments like this tend to belong to Dirk and Dave, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t happen between you and Rose too. “I got kind of tired of it too, after a while.”
You switch the spoon to your other hand so that you can wrap your closest arm to Rose around her shoulders, pulling her in so gently that the choice to lean against your shoulder is all hers. She makes it, of course; she always does.
“Rose-” you start, but then she stiffens against you.
“It shouldn’t be taking this long for those two to find the noodles,” she says abruptly. “One minute.”
And then she’s gone, and Dirk takes her place at your side with a box of egg noodles, and every time that you almost ask what it is that you’re not telling you, there’s another rotation. You’re trying not to think about how it feels. You’re trying not to worry about it. You’re trying to lean into the warm kitchen, the solid presence of whoever’s beside you at any given moment, the scent of the soup as the minutes tick by.
It’d be better, you think, if you had any idea what was going on. They were talking about you earlier, and it didn’t exactly sound like a positive conversation. They’re acting different around you in a way you can’t put your finger on, and it feels like something has shifted, and it doesn’t so much as come close to clicking until you’re the one that’s been set on a pantry run - you’re grabbing dried parsley - and when you come back into the kitchen, Dirk and Dave are talking in low voices and Dave’s hand is curled loosely around Dirk’s elbow.
It’s like something clicks into place in the back of your mind, where you keep all of the realizations you’re not ready to have until you’re ready to have them, and before you can think about it too much, they’re breaking apart and Dirk’s turning to face you.
“I think it’s almost done,” he says. “Did you get the uh, green shit?”
You laugh a little and hold the parsley up for him to see. “Green shit, check. How much of it am I putting in?”
“Just a pinch or so,” Rose says, switching the burner off and stepping to the side so you can step up to the stove. You sprinkle probably more than a pinch into the soup, but no one calls you out on it. “Hey, I think we all just actually managed to make something, and at risk of speaking too soon, I think it might be edible.”
“Hell yeah!” Dave cheers, pumping a fist in the air. “I mean, not like we didn’t already make an entire planet or anything.”
“Yeah, but this is a Strilonde-only creation,” you point out.
“Strilonde,” Dave repeats. “I like that, it’s kinda like - fuck, what are those things called, where you mash the names together?”
“A ship name,” Dirk fills in.
“Of course you’re the one here that knows that,” Rose says, a smirk tugging at the edge of her lips as she grabs some bowls from the cupboard. You remember these bowls - you all did a pottery painting night together at your suggestion, and even though it took a stupid amount of time to get them all done, you each painted four bowls so that everyone can have a full set in their house. The outside of the one that you gave Rose looks pretty nice - it’s a garden of abstract flowers, since realism isn’t your strong suit - and the absolute mess that the inside accidentally became is ignored easily enough. That’s … probably a metaphor, huh.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dirk challenges, leaning back against the kitchen counter and folding his arms. He’s going for a tough face, but you can see the way he’s just barely holding back a smile. “Like you weren’t writing gay wizard fanfiction for most of your teen years.”
Rose laughs as she sets the bowls on the counter and reaches for a ladle. “It’s bold of you to assume that that’s a past tense statement,” she says.
“Wait, wait, seriously?” you ask.
“Do you really think I wouldn’t inflict Complacency of the Learned on my own planet?” Rose replies, which, now that you think about it, shouldn’t come as a surprise. “It’s taking a little longer than before, since I have a lot of revisions to make, but the first book should be out within the year.”
“Holy shit,” Dirk says. “I think you might be inspiring me to see if this world’s produced a Jeanne Betancourt.”
“Oh, it absolutely has,” Dave says. “I’m pretty sure Jeanne Betancourt is, like, a universal constant.”
Dirk hums, considering. “I don’t know if I want that to be true or not.”
“C’mon, where would we, as a society, be without horse girl books?” Dave asks, waving one hand in the air to emphasize his point. “Also, hey, Rose, babe, stop making all the bowls yourself. I thought we were getting rid of gender norms on this planet.”
It takes all of you a second, you think. The kitchen goes quiet except for the soft patter of the rain outside, and nobody moves.
Your first thought is to write it off. Dave tries different nicknames and slang all the time, most of them not lasting beyond the first few disgruntled looks he gets, and that’s probably all that was. But he was in Rose’s bedroom when you got here, and as you watch, Rose doesn’t respond to him but gives Dirk a look that you can’t pick out the meaning of. Dirk gives her a look in return, then looks at Dave, and you feel more out of your depth than you have around them in years as they have an entire silent conversation that you have no hope of participating in.
After what feels like ages, Dave clears his throat. “Rose,” he says, voice still a little scratchy. “Babe, give me that.”
He steps across the kitchen and takes the bowl he’d painted from Rose’s hands - it’s patterned all over with a warped SBaHJ comic that, if you remember correctly, stars her and Kanaya -, and you’re not sure what to think as Rose hands it to him.
“I’ll get spoons,” Dirk announces. It’s almost too loud in the quiet, still kitchen, and you feel like you’re holding your breath as he walks over to the silverware drawer, placing one hand on Rose’s hip to gently move her out of the way, and it just - clicks. You don’t know how it took you this long to see it.
You put your hands behind yourself on the counter, resting your weight on them as something in your chest tightens, releases, sinks. It feels like your heart is breaking in the way it does when you find out you’re missing out on something you never let yourself realize you wanted until it’s too late.
“How long?” you ask, almost before you realize what you’re doing.
Dave, despite being the one that started whatever this is, looks nervous. Dirk’s hands are frozen where they’re wrapped around four spoons.
“Three months,” she says. “Well, for Dave and I it’s been three, but for all three of us, it’s just been two.”
To surprised looks from the other two, Dirk picks up where Rose’s voice trailed off. “And we’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you, ‘cause, uh, three’s not exactly a complete set.”
You feel like you should be taking longer to process this than you are. You feel like you should have one hand over your mouth, that you should be shocked, that you should feel betrayed and relieved and maybe a little disgusted all at once, but, well, it makes more sense than it probably should, and the way Dirk looks at you when he finally drags his eyes up from the floor makes you feel like you’re melting.
“I’m sorry we took so long,” Rose says. “I was - scared, and we all were, really, and -”
“Hey, I wasn’t,” Dave interrupts, ladling some soup into his bowl and picking up Dirk’s. He painted horses on it because he’s Dirk, but him being Dirk also means that each one of them is dressed up as a famous psychiatrist. “I’ve been trying to get this show on the road since I saw you in those pjs back in the fuckin’ dream void or whatever.”
“Um-” you say, because you don’t know what else you can say. It’s not that it doesn’t feel real, exactly, but you also wouldn’t be surprised to wake up back in your house any minute now.
“Here,” Dirk says suddenly, handing you a bowl of soup. You follow him to the table, and you set your bowl down as he slides into the cushiony window seat and pats the empty seat next to him. “We can talk about it in a minute, but let’s eat before it gets cold.”
You sit down - you can’t imagine yourself ever doing anything else -, and it feels natural as anything when Dirk takes your hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. “Okay,” you say. “Sounds like a plan.”
Rose takes the seat across from you with a small smile and a soft knock of her foot against yours, and Dave sits down next to Rose with a grin, flipping his shades up on top of his head with the hand not already reaching for one of the spoons that Dirk’s holding out, and - you want to talk about it, want to learn more about how it all happened and where everything stands and what this means. But at the same time, there’s no rush, not when there’s nothing that really needs to be said.
*
If this isn't a kingdom then I don't know what is.