Work Text:
Your name is KANAYA MARYAM, and you have a secret.
Though before we elaborate on that- the secret that is, the one that everyone is surely dying to hear already because you are master of building and defusing tension both- you’d like first to recall a manifesto’s worth of backstory as a means of establishing your character and then your character’s motivations, of which there are many complex sub-motivations that exist within a much larger, much more complex context that must be examined through a critical (and painfully detailed) lens if one is to gain anything worthwhile at all.
A secret such as this cannot be divulged to one who’s unaware nor unwilling, and as such you- someone with a strong predilection for helping, as will be illustrated through a number of lengthy anecdotes, several demonstrations, an unfortunate amount of audience participation, and one high-budget musical number- have taken it upon yourself to grasp any wayward reader you may come across by the hand and tug them along past denial and general confusion and into the wondrous world beyond.
There will be love; there will be death, and undeath in turn; there will be lust (for blood, by and large, though you’re leaving your options open); there will be heart-stopping action, blood-pumping betrayal, gratuitous neck-biting; there will be attractive, mysterious women, made all more alluring for their mystery and all the more mysterious for their sheer hotness in a never-ending feedback loop of moral ambiguity, impeccable stylings, and very sharp teeth; and there will be drama, god will there will be drama . High-stakes drama, middle-grade drama, drama only slightly damaged in transit, drama regarding whose turn it is to take the trash outside (because it’s definitely not yours ), drama with writing in the margins, drama packaged in a plant that processes peanuts- drama, if you may be so bold, to the max.
Are you prepared, then, to enter this dimension beyond our own? To suspend your disbelief and slog through tens of pages of tedious, amateurish worldbuilding, hamfisted foreshadowing, and the clumsiest attempts at thematic coherence you’ve ever seen? Are you ready to depart from this world and jump to one that’s slightly to the left at most, because your immersion keeps getting disrupted by blatant continuity errors?
Good! Because your name is KANAYA MARYAM, and your skin is colder than death and your aversion to garlic is infamous and you have a secret, a very big secret, a death-defying secret that’s never seen the light of day, and that secret is that you…
Are kind of a dick, sometimes. You are also standing outside a Dillard’s. These two things have more to do with each other than you might think.
To elaborate, because as much as you love a good bit (and you do love a good bit), you have significantly less love for beating around the bush: your name is still KANAYA MARYAM, which bears repeating because you are very proud of it- you picked it out yourself- and you are twenty-one years old and you are (dreadfully, thoroughly) human and you design clothing for a not-quite living, not quite yet. You’re getting there. Slowly. Very slowly. So fucking slowly.
These things take time, you see, time and effort and lots of fucking luck, and as it is your fling with lady luck was by all accounts disastrous and while effort’s always been second nature, time is more fickle- which is to say that it fucking hates you- and so right now you are at the Dillard’s because you have an Ambiguous Deadline (that will not be further elaborated on due to its nature as a convenient plot device) coming up and you’ve hit something of a wall, if a wall were made up of debilitating self-doubt and also bricks. A lot of bricks. Your head hurts.
See, the thing about debilitating self-doubt (and also bricks) is that they don’t pair all that well with many things at all, but they clash especially horribly with deadlines. You cannot afford to be paralyzed by self-doubt at the moment; you are several days out, and you are not nearly as close to being done with your project as you would like to be, and you have Shit To Do (™) and you’re not doing that shit because your brain is throwing a tantrum that would give Karkat (your roommate and supposed best friend but he ate your fucking chips so he’s on thin fucking ice right now) a run for his money.
So you need a little pick me up. You are going to be bad- a little wild, even- and get that latte. You are going to listen to sad music and stare up at your ceiling with your hand flung across your forehead as you feel a pain that literally no one else has ever felt, literally ever. You are going to go into that Dillard’s, and you’re going to look at all those ugly as fuck dresses, and you’re going to walk out feeling much, much better about yourself as a student, as a designer, and just as like. A person in general.
Now, this might not be the nicest practice, but consider: you don’t care. A woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do, and if a woman has to walk into a somewhat intimidating department store and criticize the stitching on a mediocre prom dress as a way to motivate herself into doing some actual work then that is simply the way that the cookie crumbles. All over your fucking floor. Oh no. There is proverbial cookie everywhere. Oh no. The proverbial cookie has collapsed beneath its own weight. Oh no. The proverbial cookie no longer recognizes itself. Oh no. The proverbial cookie has entered a downward spiral. Oh no. The proverbial cookie is no more.
We shall now observe a moment of silence, for these are the crumbs of an empire! King of kings; look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
“…”
“…”
“…”
THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU, the little shoulder-devil Karkat that sort of loafs around somewhere in your peripherals informs you once your moment of silence is sufficiently through.
PULL YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS AND GET ON WITH IT, the little shoulder-angel Karkat that exists mostly to round out the bit adds. When you and Karkat inevitably get platonic-married (for the scandal and the benefits, in which the scandal is included), you hope that these two will take that as their cue to fly off and do whatever it is that Karkat does when he’s not serving as your designated straight (hah!) man. Until then though you’re stuck together, so you suppose that for the sake of efficiency, you’ll have to take them on a field trip of sorts. Line up children; we’re off to tour the ruins of Miss Maryam’s dignity!
First, foremost, and thoroughly vital: in deference to your chosen theme (and because you have never been able to let a joke die, ever; you’re a healer) you take it upon yourself to imagine both halves of your Karkat-conscience in matching neon green shirts. Then you think again, and emblazon KANAYA’S SCHOOL OF THOUGHT across the front- enviably fitted, impeccably designed. You’re a classy bunch.
Second, and significantly less important: you set the scene. You are standing outside a Dillard’s, right in the middle of the sidewalk, and just sort of staring up at it with your bag slung over your shoulder and your head full of all sorts of bullshit. Not pictured: the incessant march of time that bears down upon us all. Please, feel free to use your imagination- you rather like to think of it as a bunch of fucking bricks (and also debilitating self-doubt) yourself.
Anyways, this isn’t helping with your procrastination. You speed that incessant march up to an incessant jog. You go inside.
You walk fast, because you know what you want and what you want is not, in fact, the emotional agony of avoiding eye contact with the salespeople that are roaming around waiting for poor, unsuspecting Maryams to wander into their line of sight. You will skip describing your excruciating ride up the escalator (you are wearing a long skirt, and you are also very anxious), and you will skip describing your awkward little half-run over to where the special occasion dresses are kept, and you will also skip describing the rest of the things that you skipped describing because you are still on a deadline and it’s only growing more ambiguous by the minute and frankly if it keeps being thrust into the ill-timed spotlight like this then it’s going to simply dissolve into the thin air of contrivance, and then where will we be?
Anyways, so we’ve established that you are in the dress section, and you brought your crippling self-doubt and a twofold microcosm of your best friend, and you look completely natural and completely at ease, and there is a dress in front of you, ripe for the mocking. It is ugly as fuck. So fucking ugly. Very ugly, very uh. Fucking. This normally helps. This is not helping. You are not feeling any better. Why are you not feeling any better.
YOU NEED TO PUT IN MORE EFFORT. ADD A LITTLE STYLE. SOME FUCKING PANACHE, your shoulder-devil Karkat advises. BEING A COMPLETE FUCKING JERK IS A GAME, AND YOU’RE THE TEAM AT THE START OF ONE OF THOSE GODAWFUL BASEBALL MOVIES. BATTER UP, MARYAM. DON’T FUCK THIS UP.
Yes. Alright. So there is a dress in front of you. It’s very yellow, and also very hurting your fucking eyes, and you like sequins as much as the next person but here there’s far too many, and they’re scattered with some rhyme and reason, but like the sad sort where you rhyme a word with itself and then deliberate that (bad) decision until you’ve constructed a neat little echo chamber of rationalization and rhythmic faux-pas. You don’t like the stitching, either- seems sloppy to say the least, especially for the price. It’s ugly, is what you're saying; it’s ugly, and you don’t feel any better.
TOO MUCH TECHNICAL TALK. NOT ENOUGH OF BEING AN ASSHOLE, your shoulder-devil Karkat says. TELL IT ITS A PIECE OF SHIT.
TELL IT IT’S MOTHER DOESN’T LOVE IT, your shoulder-angel Karkat echoes. You wonder (not for the first time) if perhaps your perspective has become a bit… skewed by all these years spent living in each other’s pockets. You find that you don’t really know, and you don’t really care; you have more important things to focus on at the moment. For example, absolutely decimating the self-esteem of this dress in the hopes that schoolyard-bully logic will give you the last boost of energy you need to complete your own project so that you can crash for the next thirty-two hours.
A woman can hope. A woman can dream.
Regardless.
“You’re very ugly, aren’t you,” you say out loud this time, very quiet and somewhat hesitant but picking up speed as your shoulder-Karkats keep egging you on. “From the looks of it, your designer was trying something experimental. Stitching in the dark, maybe, or else throwing scraps at the wall and not even bothering to care what stuck because they were too busy scraping shit from the floor and thinking that it would make a lovely accessory. A belt, perhaps, in the hopes that such a thing would lend this mass of fabric they’ve mistaken for a dress some actual shape. ”
HELL YES, shoulder-angel Karkat yells, directly into your mind’s-eye ear or whatever the fuck. GET HIS ASS.
“Also,” you say, triumphant and riding that damn high as you lean in close. The sequins give a pathetic little twinkle. “Your mother doesn’t love you.”
There’s a moment where you very nearly feel better, where you think for a moment that this worked and your creative vision is going to come to you in a vaguely mean-spirited flash, and then you’re going to take that deadline and cut it in two and everything is going to be right with the world, it is, it is. And then:
“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to refrain from verbally assaulting that garment,” a voice somewhere to your left says. It sounds… unimpressed. Measured, maybe, and a little amused if you’re open to completely redefining your understanding of amusement. “You’re going to give it a complex, and frankly I’m overbooked as is.”
Oh dear. Oh Dear. Oh shit .
You turn, doing your best to paste on your best who, me? half smile. Between that and your general demeanor- cool as fuck but also hot and with any luck super dramatic as well- you hope that you’ll be able to wriggle your way out of this one with only minimal damage to your image and then your pride, which was already woefully depleted due to the half-covered dress form that’s taken up a permanent residence in your and Karkat’s living room. A woman can hope. A woman can dream. Jesus Fucking Christ.
“Hi,” you say to the sales associate you have come face-to-face with. She is unimpressed, black-painted lips pressed into a straight, even line, arms crossed and head quirked ever so slightly to the side in picture-perfect (and perfectly deniable) disapproval. She’s… short. Bleached-blond hair, soft brown skin, very pretty eyes, very pretty everything. She’s also very goth. You love that for her.
“I… apologize for that,” you say, all on your own because your Karkat-conscience has gone suspiciously quiet. “I was simply participating in a little recreational. Dressing down.”
NO MARYAM, NO, shoulder-devil Karkat wails, head in hands, but alas! It is too late. Yes Maryam, yes.
Anyways. The lady’s face twists for a moment but she recovers quickly and admirably in the face of your ill-timed pun, which is more than you can say for most anyone else who’s ever found themselves on the wrong end of one of your linguistic flights of fancy. You feel somewhat obligated to assert here that most people are, in fact, fucking cowards .
“I’d assumed that dressing up was more your style,” the lady- the one who is presumably not a coward- says, nodding down at your outfit, “But we do contain multitudes, don’t we?”
Oh god that’s a joke that’s so fucking hot. She’s so fucking hot. You don’t love yourself enough right now for this.
“I’m keeping my options open,” you explain, somewhat louder than you really have to in an attempt to drown out your incessantly annoying self-doubt. “In the hopes that having a suitably large number of stylings available to me will ensure that I’m prepared for anything that life might throw my way.”
“Whether it be a schoolyard spat or a mid-level department store, I suppose,” she replies without missing a beat, and you grin despite yourself. Sure you haven’t quite found your footing in this conversation yet, but you have faith and you figure that in the worst case scenario, you will simply pack your life up and drag Karkat off to start a new life in the Netherlands. This is not only perfectly reasonable, but viable as well. You know a guy.
“Maybe even the gas station if the need arises, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” you say, putting those particular plans on the backburner for a minute. “The key to dressing for success is in the ambiguity, understand, though between the two of us that’s just a faster way to say plausible deniability . It requires a certain amount of proficiency in skirting the specifics, though of course my pre-established efficiency in such things suggests that you probably shouldn’t take it from me .”
YOU’RE FUCKING KILLING ME, shoulder-angel Karkat groans. I’M STARING DOWN THE BARREL OF A LOADED FUCKING PUN.
You give him a fun little halo-hat for his troubles.
Anyways the lady raises her eyebrows and hums a bit, standing there with her weight shifted all the way to one side as one of her fingers taps at her forearm. You get the sense that you are being… looked at. That would likely be because she is looking at you. Such is life: never half as intimidating as it seems at first glance but still just as goth, and yes okay you lied it’s still just as intimidating as it when you started this trainwreck of a metaphor. Fuck.
“So what’s the occasion here?” she asks, snapping you from your reverie in an unprecedented reprieve. “Did that dress in particular do something that we ought to know about before the second floor collapses into anarchy?”
“Yes. Left me a bad review on Yelp,” you answer immediately, and then visibly grimace. Shoulder-angel Karkat screams into his impeccably designed, 100% cotton blend commemorative t-shirt, and you think that you might be dead. As in very dead. You always thought that Dillard’s had a certain… hellish tint to it, and though you’d initially chalked that up to all the headless mannequins and incessant fluorescents, you suppose that it’s possible you met an untimely end somewhere along the line (probably that fucking escalator ) and are now doomed for eternity to regurgitate uninspired comebacks in front of every woman you’re even remotely attracted to as your emotional-support best friend screams into your ear until you can’t so much as remember what you were damned for in the first place.
Lord. Life after death is exhausting, it seems.
“Tragic,” the lady says, flat but with that hint of amusement still lingering. You are clinging to that hint of amusement like it’s the last thing keeping you afloat in the ocean of complete ineptitude that you’ve found yourself circling. There are (indeed) sharks. They’re not exactly an issue however, because due to your dedication to all things coordination the sharks are theme-conscious and thus also completely inept. It’s just good business.
“Doubtless,” you agree, pushing all that aside. “I’m willing to forgive quite a bit, but I’m afraid that even I have my limits.”
“And this dress is one of them?” she asks, voice laced with light disbelief- a challenge, if you’ve ever heard one, and what’s a good challenge or two among people who met three minutes ago?
“I’d elaborate,” you say, “But I’d like to think that I made my feelings on the matter quite clear already. At length. To excess, or maybe to detriment, and we wouldn’t want to push too far, now would we? To avoid a breakdown. The figurative coming apart at the seams, or maybe the literal because if I may”- pull a face here, just in case- “the stitching on that dress looks as though it would come undone at the slightest provocation.”
That you quite enjoy provocation goes unsaid, though from the looks of it- and with the help of your heavy-handed implication- the lady seems to get what you’re metaphorically wiggling your eyebrows at. You mentally deem yourself Very Good At This, Actually.
“I suppose that in the store’s best interests, I should ask that you ease up, or something to that effect,” she hums. “But we all have our vices, don’t we?”
“A given,” you answer, growing more comfortable by the word. You gesture to the dress. “And for some of us, that’s having too many damn sequins.”
She laughs audibly at that one- point, Maryam. It seems that if you work hard enough, you can achieve a basic goal! A woman can indeed hope, and a woman can indeed dream! What an immediately relevant and important observation!
“If I were a little less employed at this particular location I’d agree with you, though you didn’t hear that from me. And as for your critiques regarding our products, am I correct to assume that you could do better then, Miss…” she says, trailing off.
“Maryama. Kanaya Maryam. You may have heard of me, if you’re in the habit of telling lies about the people you’ve heard of,” you answer, matter of fact and before you can stop yourself. “And yes, I believe that I could. Do better, that is. Then again, I imagine a particularly determined termite could as well. Hell, I’ve heard that some designers are doing wonders these days by simply throwing fabric into a heap and then asking very, very nicely.”
“Just a rumor, I’m afraid,” the lady says. “And in the absence of such a miracle it’s up to people like you, Miss Maryam. The integrity of prom dresses everywhere rests on your shoulders.”
“That’s quite the heavy burden,” you tell her, though a not insignificant part of you is on the verge of whipping out your portfolio right then and there. The grind never stops, etc etc. “Especially to have received in a department store. Something of an occupational hazard?”
She smiles- she smiles!- and raises her eyebrows, a neat little expression of amusement. You find that you’re rather excited for whatever it is that she’s going to say next- you’ve got a nice thing going you think, a rapport, a back-and-forth, so on and so forth, something to that effect. Thesaurus.com is only so helpful in the end.
“More than you could know,” she replies. “Just last week we received a higher calling on line one. Third this month.”
“Efficient, outsourcing like that,” you shoot back. “Though I imagine that it must get stressful, having such a direct line to… management, well call it.”
“Well, for someone I imagine, but that someone was very much not me . These particular tasks fell outside my department,” the lady replies, and then gestures to her uniform with a wry grin. “I’m more familiar with persuasion than anything more complex, and if it’s none of my business then it’s none of my business and honestly , do I strike you as the sort of person to involve myself where I’m unwanted?”
Something about the way that she says this gives you the smallest, barest, near microscopic inkling that yes, she might in fact be the sort of person who involves themself where they really ought not to, but that’s all well and good because you are too. Funny how those gods on high work; fate, ordinance, Jennifer from management. Everything in your head is sort of blending together by this point.
“Well, I seem to recall you interrupting the rapport I was building with this dress. A shame, because I really thought we were getting somewhere,” you tell her, and she shrugs.
“Company policy. I figured that if you were going to systematically dismantle the confidence of every item of clothing on this floor that was unlucky enough to catch your eye, then you ought to do it with something approaching a sanction,” she tells you. “And besides, if you’d like some advice on how best to twist the knife of inadequacy you’ve so kindly introduced to our winter line, then I’d be more than happy to offer some assistance.”
“I’d appreciate that,” you say, because well. You would. “Though if we’re going to team up in our attempts to tear these dresses down, so to speak, then I’d very much like to know the name of my partner in crime. To keep our stories straight in case things go wrong, of course.”
(You’d like to mention here that she’s not wearing a name tag. This is also a convenient plot device. Deus ex Dillard’s, etc etc)
“Of course,” the lady echoes, ignoring your blindingly witty inner monologue on account of not being a mind reader. “And no other reason?”
“None at all,” you reply. She smiles; you smile; your Karkat-conscience makes several (ignored) comments about all this damn smiling, and you carry on. “So I should call you…?”
You trail off here, very mysterious, one (perfect) eyebrow raised. You’d like to think that you’re coming across as exceptionally hot at the moment.
“Anytime, if you’ll excuse the joke,” the lady says, mouth quirked at the corner. “And Rose, if those standards from earlier would like to make a reappearance. Rose Lalonde.”
You. You think that you might be in love.
“Well, Miss Lalonde,” you say instead of any of that, which is a very good call by the way. “I suppose that I did see an evening dress that was looking a little too egotistical over by the customer service desk, if you’d like to help me knock it down a peg or two.”
She considers you; she considers you with a sort of long, sweeping look that’s a little curious and a lot more intimidating. Luckily, you know this one! You, surveyor and definite understander of social norms, are sure to look sufficiently intimidated!
“If it’s the one that I’m thinking of,” she says at last, surely because you impressed her with your ability to look terrified at the drop of a hat, “Then it’s… fitting, for this particular activity. A shapeless embarrassment, on a better day.”
“And a synthetic nightmare on a worse,” you agree, and she smiles like you just passed some sort of test. She is still very pretty and very goth and very looking at you. She’s giving you a chance and you do not intend to fuck it up- batter up, Maryam! Flirting is a game, and by god you are winning.
“Well then, Miss Maryam- shall we?” she asks with a flourish that’s as necessary as it isn’t, and you nod and she nods and everyone nods, and that’s that, you suppose; it’s as good an ending as any.
So she walks off towards your next victim and you follow at her side, carefully sidestepping clothing racks and all sorts of other blatant health hazards like “strollers” and “other customers” as you do your damndest to dredge up every witty little turn of phrase you've ever thought up that you haven’t gotten to use yet, because frankly you’ve got some good material that you’ve been itching to show off and that you get to drop your carefully crafted insults in front of one Miss Rose Lalonde over here is simply a bonus.
You’ve got this, after all, because your name is KANAYA MARYAM, and you have a secret and that secret is that you…
Are kind of a dick, sometimes. You are also successfully flirting your way through this Dillard’s.
These two things have more to do with each other than you might think.
( HEY, shoulder-devil Karkat says as you two walk off into the sunset to live a happily ever after full of snark and banter and mutual emotional support. HEY, KANAYA, DIDN’T YOU HAVE LIKE, A FUCKING PROJECT OR SOMETHING? LIKE, THAT’S STILL A THING, ISN’T IT? KANAYA YOU FUCKSHITTING IDIOT ARE YOU REALLY ABOUT TO THROW YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING EDUCATION AWAY FOR THE FIRST HOT GOTH GIRL THAT LOOKS YOUR WAY? JESUS, WHY DON’T YOU JUST THROW YOUR FUTURE DIRECTLY INTO THE GAPING MAW OF EARLY-ONSET STAGNANCY RIGHT HERE AND NOW, LIKE MAY AS WELL JUST SCRAPE UP ANY PROMISE YOU’VE EVER HAD AND DROWN IT IN ITS OWN FUCKING POOL OF SLOBBER AND MEDIOCRITY, AND DAMMIT KANAYA, ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? KANAYA? KANAYA??? )