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You're orphaned twice over: your birth mother dies from complications that arise during labour, and with no father to speak of, you're taken in by a family with room to spare. Your father dies on a clear April morning on his way to work, caught in a pile-up on the M25, and eight years later, a month before you turn fifteen, your mother is taken by her long-term illness.
It's a banal sort of tragedy. No one's left swearing revenge, and no one turns to a life of crime to cope with their loss. People feel sorry for you, but that's the long and short of it. They'll nod their heads sympathetically when they talk to you, and smile weakly, as if they don't expect you to be able to do anything with any measure of strength, anymore. A few years pass, and to the whole world outside of your household, things may have always been as they are now.
The money left to you and your brothers is enough to pay off the mortgage, but still, there are bills to worry about, and living doesn't come cheap. Kankri, five years older than you and Karkat, takes responsibility for the both of you, and works full-time to see that you get through school.
Karkat is always louder in his grief than you are, and while Kankri breaks his back to ensure that you have food on your plates and clothing on your back, he's always a little too eager for people to be aware of the good he's doing. After sixth form, you all sit down and run the figures, but you and Karkat going to university just isn't feasible; and so, although it's not exactly what you planned, you head out into the working world.
Five years later, and you're still happily employed at the same little business. Ms. Rosa's Repairs & Alterations is a small store tucked away between a pastry shop and a post office, with thin windows that fog up in winter and seem to turn to ice as they draw the cold in. There's a sign on the door that boasts a cheerful challenge – All Jobs Taken – and the inside is awash rails of clothing, mannequins draped in different outfits every day, low tables where you sit and work while customers flutter around the cosy shop floor. Parents come in when their children's school trousers fit around the hips but drape around the ankles, business men and women seek you out when their jackets weren't tailored as neatly as they'd been expecting, and people come in when they need their old clothes revived, their favourite dresses and shirts made to last.
The hours you work are long, but not exhausting, and you're good at what you do. Add that to a fair wage, and you don't see why you'd ever want to work anywhere else. Ms. Rosa – who insists that you really should call her Dolores, dear, it's been five years, after all – is the only other person who works in the shop, but you're never left alone for long. The bell above the door is always chiming and, point in case, at two-thirty in the afternoon, in walks one Vriska Serket.
With jeans that are too big at the hips, even with the assistance of a belt, and a t-shirt hanging loose around her like a potato sack might hang around a scarecrow, anyone would be forgiven for thinking that she was ducking in to inquire after your services. But you know Vriska better than that, and even after endless years of pleading with her, she still won't come within five feet of a tape measure.
“Heeeeeeeey, Kanaya,” she says, dragging out her words as she perches on the edge of your table. She reaches out a hand, absent-mindedly playing with what she calls the pokey metal bit on the top of your sewing machine. “I've got a problem.”
She smiles brightly around the word problem, as if it will distract you from frowning. It doesn't.
“What manner of problem? An I-need-money-no-questions-asked problem? A my-car-is-in-a-ditch-and-I-forgot-to-renew-my-insurance problem? Or the ever popular, I-smashed-an-eight-ball-and-now-the-plastic-is-stuck-in-my—”
“God! Enough!” She waves both hands out in front of her, cutting you off mid-sentence. Mostly likely because all of the above problems were, at one point or another, far from hypothetical, and she knows that the list can keep on growing. “You need to have more faith in me, Kanaya. This is absolutely a normal-person problem.”
The fact that Vriska's trying to write this off as normal disturbs you more than anything else. You've known Vriska Serket for a long time. You went to secondary school with her, met her on your first day during form, and when your mother died, she brought you your first beer. She'd always been a trouble maker, forever getting into fights, even those she didn't start, but when she left school at sixteen, she only got progressively worse. She ended up living rough, and then, once you found out, spend a few months crashing on your sofa, being lectured, at length, by Kankri.
It wasn't that he was trying to shame Vriska out of her current career, but he just couldn't see a future in dealing weed to – he imagined – school kids. Vriska had shrugged him off, continued to grudgingly accept his hospitality, and you're happy to say that she's been making her own way through life as a bartender for as long as you've been a seamstress. Though not at the same establishment for the entirety of that time.
All it took for her to see sense was the loss of an eye.
Point is, you've known Vriska for a long time. So when she isn't exaggerating something to feed her own ego and draw in attention, you know that something has to be really wrong.
“Please, Vriska. Don't keep me in suspense any longer.”
“Pyrope's back in town,” she says in one breath. P'rope'sbackintown.
You raise your brow, and Vriska sits back, arms folded across her chest. She looks as if she immediately regrets having told you, but both of you know that she can't keep anything from you for long. Vriska and Terezi have been a disaster waiting to happen for as long as you can remember; you sat through years of Vriska not talking about her feelings, while Terezi, busy with university, refused to deal with her usual brand of bullshit, and the only real peace you've known from it has been over the last ten months, while Terezi's been off travelling.
“I see.”
“She didn't even have the decency to tell me! I had to hear about it from Aradia, for fuck's sake. Can you believe she'd do that to me? Because it's totally the sort of thing she'd do to me.” She pauses, upper lip curling as she glares at the top of your sewing machine. And then, in a flash, her eyes are back on you. “Soooooooo... ?”
“So?”
You turn over the dress you've been working on – an original piece from the seventies, still as bright as the day it was bought, but with a few hems in need of rapt attention – and Vriska glares at you as you smooth out the creases. She's hopeless on her own, ever in need of your advice or a lift at four in the morning, don't ask me where I've 8een!, and, really, you don't know what you ever saw in her.
(Except, to be honest, you do. She dresses as if she's done so in the dark, only ever brushes her long, blonde hair with her fingertips, but still manages to catch your eye more often than you'd care to admit. Vriska is frustrating and overbearing and you can't imagine her life without her constant interruptions, but you know that anything beyond friendship would be less than what you deserve.)
“So how do I not fuck it up!”
“Think of what you'd usually do,” you tell her, “And then do the exact opposite thing.”
She frowns, and keeps on whining. Because you have to help her out, apparently, you have to meet up with her after work and help her make a dinner to impress Pyrope. You're surprised that Vriska isn't putting on a great show of emphasising just how much she doesn't care about Terezi's return, but either way, you still leave her to her own devices.
It's a Wednesday, and Kankri attends a few of the free evening lectures at one of the universities midweek. With Karkat working at the pizza place he hates so much (even more than the three places he worked at before it) until ten, you promised that you'd make dinner, for him and whichever friend it is coming back tonight.
“Some friend you are,” Vriska grumbles, when no amount of arm-twisting will get you to budge. You've involved yourself in Vriska's love-life before, and it's been an unmitigated disaster each and every time. “I guess I'll have to take care of Pyrope all by myself!”
She says it as if you're the one passing up a great opportunity to experience something truly magical, and with a smile, you assure her that, “Your natural charisma will see that this is a success, no doubt.”
“Whatever, Fussbucket,” she says, waving her hand over her shoulder as she strides out.
You watch from the window as she wrestles with her car door to get it open, parked over the double-yellow lines, and with a slight shake of your head, get back to work.
*
It's six when you finish up, and twenty minutes and a brisk walk later, you're home. It's still September, so there's no need to fret over making your way back in the dark, but once you step inside, you turn all the lights on, just to feel more comfortable. Hungry, you turn the oven on straight away – you had your lunch at ten because you missed breakfast, and were so busy all afternoon that you didn't have time to pick anything else up – and stare bleary-eyed into the cupboards, yawning.
You'll feel more awake once the smell of something cooking wafts up at you. After a few minutes of picking jars out of the cupboard, turning them in your hands, and putting them back, you settle on lasagne. You and Kankri like it well enough, there'll be leftovers for Karkat, if he doesn't eat and work, and if Kankri's friend isn't keen on it, you happen to know a very good takeaway menu.
That said, as much as you love your brother, you have to admit that most of his friends are far more tolerable than he is. You don't foresee any real problems. His lecture ends at half-seven, which gives you plenty of time to put the meal together, but when you hear a key turn in the front door, it scarcely feels as if you've been home for more than five minutes.
“I'm back, Kanaya,” he calls out, and you hear him shuffling out of his shoes. “I apologise for not having called when the lecture drew to a close, but my phone's battery was dead. I hope you don't think I was intentionally leaving you in the dark as to my whereabouts.”
“It's fine,” you say, sighing loudly enough for him to hear over the sound of plates clinking together as you take them from the cupboard. Honestly, it's as if he doesn't realise you aren't fifteen anymore. “Rest assured that in the twenty-five minutes it has taken you to drive home, I did not entertain hysterical delusions of your car having overturned and promptly caught fire, or you having been kidnapped by a tribe of lunatics and summarily placed on a rotisserie. I am used to dealing with Vriska's coming and goings, and I can certainly deal with yours.”
You've cut the lasagne into four even pieces by the time he makes it into the kitchen, and you're using a spatula to serve it up onto the plates as he says, “Yes, well, though I am not condemning Miss Serket for her attitude and inherent tardiness, because we are all victims of our upbringing and the less said about hers the better, I would rather not be compared to her so flagrantly. Anyway, this is the friend I spoke of.”
You glance over your shoulder, half expecting to see somebody you already know, Latula or Mituna, but – shit, there goes the perfectly square portion of lasagne, plopping ineloquently on your plate, that will have to be your one – it turns out you were way off. Standing next to Kankri, as easily as if she's been in this kitchen a hundred times before, is a woman in a dress you wouldn't expect to see in a lecture theatre. It's rather nice, you think, the plunging neckline is daring and, goodness, are those tattoos?
You think you might blurt out a hello, throat closed up tight, no matter how you were rambling moments before, attention quickly diverting back to putting the finishing touches on dinner. “I'm Porrim Maryam,” she says from behind you, and dear god, why did nobody teach you how to exist around attractive women?
“Kanaya Vantas,” you say, nodding, nodding to no one in particular.
“Your brother's told me a lot about you, Kanaya,” Porrim says, and you think you hear a smile begin to form in her voice. “Then again, your brother's told me a lot about an awful lot of things.”
Once dinner's on the table and you're all seated, you manage to pull yourself together somewhat. Porrim looks to be around Kankri's age, perhaps a year or two older, and he tells you that she gives lectures on feminism, or something. He says it with a wave of his fork, and from across the table, Porrim shoots him a glare so cold that suddenly, the only heat you can feel in the whole house is the lasagne pressed between your tongue and the roof of your mouth. But rather than snap at him, Porrim only rolls her eyes, and turns to you, explaining the lecture in the detail she feels it deserves.
Kankri's appetite increases tenfold as she speaks, and you hear yourself saying, “It sounds fascinating. I'd like to come, some time,” without having thought it through first. You wince, quickly grabbing your drink to mask the expression, but Porrim doesn't seem to mind.
Leaning over for another slice of garlic bread, she says, “I hope to see you there, Kanaya,” and you gulp down your water.
To your relief, Kankri and Porrim move onto a conversation of their own, one that you can't quite keep up with, without the context of the lecture they've both attended to fall back on, so you use the time to gather your thoughts. You assure yourself that there's absolutely no reason at all to be jealous of your brother, because you highly doubt he's dating Porrim, and that it's not gawking if you look at Porrim as she speaks. Because it's not just tattoos she has, spread across her collarbones and arms, but piercings, too; no wonder your eyes are drawn to her lips.
“You must have the patience of a saint to put up with him,” Porrim later tells you, as she helps you carry the plates over to the sink. She says so with a smile, but it's still an odd thing to hear; Kankri's the saintlike one, in most people's eyes. You laugh, not knowing what else to say, other than Yes, well—, and Porrim grabs a tea towel, announcing that she'll be on drying duty.
“Considering that Kankri has likely already told you far too much about me,” you say slowly, having stared at the bubbles in the sink for long enough, “I do not think it would be too forward for me to ask what you do for a living. When you aren't lecturing, that is.”
“Not forward at all.” She takes plate from you, and begins drying it. “When I'm not boring your brother senseless – my lectures aren't bad, but there are other issues he'd rather discuss – I work at the tattoo parlour off Station Road.”
“Oh—” you stop yourself from saying Oh, I noticed your tattoos, because of course you did, but before you can think up anything more intelligent than That's cool to say, Porrim cuts you off.
“Yes, I had thought you might like them,” she says with a smile, gesturing to her tattoos. Your gazes falls to follow the motion of her hand, and you take half a second too long to look back up. “As for you, you're a seamstress, aren't you?”
“I am. It's hardly as exciting as what you do, I expect, though probably just as colourful. But if you ever find yourself in need of any alterations—not that I am suggesting your current garment looks as if it needs to be altered in any way, quite the opposite... it's rather nice, actually, um. What I mean is, if you ever require any assistance, wardrobe-wise—yes.”
Porrim looks at you the entire time you speak, still running the towel across a plate you're certain is long since dry by now. “You look nice, too,” she says, and you'd thought you had, clad in a white blouse and a smart black skirt, until she actually started looking at you.
“Um,” you say, and she seems to take it to mean thank you.
You talk a little longer, and somewhat more successfully, as you finish clearing up and make her some fruit tea. She tells you she met Kankri because it's hard not to meet Kankri, when you're in a lecture with him, and she speaks about him with a teeth-grinding fondness that tells you they definitely aren't dating. Before you have the chance to put your foot in your mouth again and trip over your own teeth, the front door slams open, and with a disgruntled shout of, “I told you, stop talking to my goddamn manager!” you know Karkat's home.
He storms into the kitchen, mood made worse by hunger, hunger made worse by eight hours of smelling nothing but pizza, and when he catches sight of Porrim, his reaction is nothing like yours was. He freezes, for a fraction of a second, only caught off-guard by the fact that there's a stranger in his kitchen. Other than that, he doesn't seem to acknowledge Porrim. He storms over to the table, slouches down in his usual seat, and you suppose that's your cue to get out the last of the lasagne you've been keeping warm in the bottom of the oven.
Porrim polishes off her tea, and you try your best to say that it was nice to meet her, but lose track of what you were saying when she compliments your apparent culinary prowess, and says she really does hope you find the time to attend one of her lectures. Kankri, agonising over having become the apparent taxi of the household, takes Porrim home, leaving you with alone with Karkat's ranting.
You make yourself a cup of tea and settle down opposite him, as he tells you all about the shitstain who ordered a meat feast pizza and then had the nerve to complain when it didn't magically come with green peppers, and that was the least of his troubles tonight. He swears to god that he's going to get a new job, just as soon as he gets the chance, and then wants to know what you're smiling so much about, anyway.
*
The next morning, you open up at seven, because Ms. Rosa's at the doctor's and you're more than happy to help out by being in a few hours early. Vriska's slumped against the door when you arrive, which no doubt means that she's yet to sleep, and you can practically smell the alcohol seeping from her pores as you approach her. You wave a hand, and with a grunt, she shuffles to the side, so you can unlock the shop.
“How did things go with Terezi?” you ask, once you've lead her out of direct sunlight.
Vriska, who'd been rubbing the bridge of her nose and screwing her eyes shut, looks up, and tugs on her shirt collar with one finger. There's a bruise the size of a fist against the side of her neck, and she grumbles out “Fucking terrible.”
You let her take a seat at one of your tables, but because she doesn't look as if she wants to talk about it, you tell her to go home, to get some sleep. She shakes her head, because no can do; she's scheduled to start work at two, and you know what her rule is. Eight hours of sleep or nothing. After you've dealt with the first customer of the day, a man on his way to work who needs the sleeves of his new jacket shortened an inch and a half by this time tomorrow, you empty your pockets, and ask her to run out and fetch some breakfast.
Because she'd never do it, if she thought you were trying to fuss over her. But you give her enough cash to ensure there's enough money there for her to think she's pulling the wool over your eyes in grabbing something for herself, though in truth, she knows as well as you do that it's for her own benefit.
For the rest of the morning, you have the pleasure of Vriska Serket's company. She sits behind you, feet on the back of your chair, whining about how much she hates coffee, so why did she even bother buying this stupid drink, Jesus. You ask, at one point, if she knows the tattoo parlour off Station Road, and she shrugs, and says yeah, maybe some of the regulars at her pub have been there before.
You ask as casually as you can, but she still wants to know why you did so. Before you can answer, though, Vriska scoffs, laughs over the thought of you wanting a tattoo, and then seems to forget the subject entirely.
*
Over the next few months, you get to know more about Porrim. Kankri invites her over for dinner, two to three times a month, and the second time her arrival is a surprise, you become rather short with him, saying that you'd wish he let you know in advance who he's dragging home with him. You are the one cooking, after all, and you'd hate to serve up the same meal over and over.
When you know Porrim's coming over, you might put a little more effort into preparing dinner. There's no crime in that; just the opposite, if anything. You might put a little more effort into presenting yourself – might, because you always take more care of your appearance than most, so who's to say – fretting over what to wear. Suddenly, everything in your wardrobe either seems too formal, or more slobbish than jogging bottoms, and oh, you wonder what the point in bothering at all is, it's hardly as if Porrim's going to notice. She doesn't know what is and isn't effort to you.
Except for she does notice, the fourth time she's over. She gives you a smile, and says, “I can tell Kankri hasn't taken any of your wardrobe habits to heart.” With a roll of her eyes, she adds, “So unfashionable,” and if you have a weakness greater than attractive women, it's attractive fashion-minded women. You find yourself leaning on the breakfast bar, poking fun at Kankri, laughing when Porrim says she's going to knit him the ugliest sweater this universe or any other has ever seen for Christmas.
Your fun is ruined when Kankri comes into the room, and says he'd appreciate it if you either shared what was so funny with the rest of the household, or stopped excluding him and Karkat alike.
Porrim's main source of income is the tattoo parlour, where she's worked for the last six years, and the lectures she gives at local universities is something she does on the side. She's written a few papers that have been nodded over by a handful of academics, but really, the best way to reach the audience that matters is online. She puts up all her notes on her blog, and you read them through three or four times more than you need to.
One evening, when she's not over for dinner, but to drop a few books off to Kankri, she stops to talk to you. You'd rushed to the door in your pyjamas, a baggy jade t-shirt and shorts that absolutely don't match, thinking Karkat had forgotten his keys again. But when you'd seen it was Porrim, you'd stood there gaping in abject horror, because now she knew that you weren't perfectly presented all the time and, shit, your hair was probably sticking up from where you'd been slumped in your bed, reading.
You start off self-consciously trying to flatten your hair, tugging at the hem of your shirt, but within minutes, you're too caught up in the conversation to remember how embarrassment works. Midway into the story she's telling, she says, “Oh, and that was before my ex-girlfriend...” and you hear nothing beyond that. Your mind becomes a mess of mental fistpumps, cheers erupting in your ears, because here is Porrim before you, gorgeous and very, very gay.
Not that it means anything, because look at you, a seamstress in mismatched pyjamas, but in that moment, you're too happy to care. You must be beaming with the amount you're smiling, and you think Porrim notices, because her words trail off, and the corner of her mouth quirks before she continues. Before she leaves, she reaches out, tucking a strand of your messy hair back into place.
After that, you don't care how ragged you look.
For the next few weeks, when work is slow, you indulge in fantasies of Porrim coming down to the shop to see you under the guise of needing something fixed up. In these daydreams, she never needs to do much more than simply be there, and after a while, you're so distracted that whenever the bell rings, you look up, thinking that it might really be her, this time.
But she never does come down.
Throughout all this time, you're treated to what basically amounts to a blow-by-blow account of Vriska's sex life. It's November by then, a few days before Vriska's twenty-third birthday, and you assure her that if she's been fucking Terezi and Terezi alone, and vice versa, for the last six weeks, then it probably is alright to ask her on a date. When Vriska asks you how your love life is, anyway, you give her your usual shrug, and she sees nothing of interest to be gained in prying.
During the first week of December, it occurs to you that while Porrim has never visited you outside of your and your brothers' house, you've never taken her up on one of her offers to attend a lecture, either. You hadn't wanted to intrude, as if one face in the crowd would make much of a difference to her, but your interest in the subject is genuine enough, and you have to do something to bring the daydreaming to an end.
And so you finish work early one Friday evening, and find yourself in a lecture theatre that you've made certain that Kankri has no plans of drifting into. It's a bit odd, being there. It reminds you of what could've been, if you'd gone to university and studied fashion design as you'd always dreamt of, but the real strangeness comes in realising that you're perfectly content where you are now. There's little point in lingering over what-ifs, and if there was something in your past you could change, not going to uni wouldn't be it. You've plenty of money saved up, and it's hardly as if you've missed your one and only chance.
Most of the people in there are around your age, sitting slumped in their seats with food and drink to pick at, but attentive in a way that makes it obvious they've chosen to be there. There are a few speakers on before Porrim, a real mixed bag, considering they all come under the general umbrella of feminism, and you pay attention to them as well as you can, while knowing that Porrim will be out soon.
And when she does take the floor, you swear that her lecture is far shorter than the other twenty minute slots. You take in all the information and retain it so well that you find it hard to believe she's finished when the theatre gives token, hushed applause, and wonder if you entered a state of staring so hard that you spaced out.
When everyone else begins to clear out, you take your time in leaving. Because as often as you've spoken to Porrim in the comfort of your own home, the thought of approaching her now makes you uneasy. Especially with all the people going to speak with her. You pick your bag up, and slowly sort through it, just in case something has slipped out and rolled under one of the seats, and then stare at your phone, praying for a text that will give you reason to remain rooted for another minute or two.
Eventually, you feel awkward standing there, and make your way towards the exit. Porrim, still talking with a woman who was sitting two rows in front of you, glances at you as you leave, continues speaking, and then, a few seconds later, calls out in realisation, “Kanaya!”
“I'm glad you finally decided to come,” she says, when you're the only two left in the hall.
Suddenly, you feel bad for having put it off for so long. “I had to find a day when I wasn't needed at work until six,” you explain, even if Ms. Rosa would've let you go whenever you pleased, considering that you've never asked for time off before.
She says she hopes you found it informative, and before you can do much more than nod, she asks how you're getting home. Porrim is none too impressed with your plan of walking back alone, and no matter how you protest, she insists on going along with you. Not that you protest very hard. “Kankri will guilt himself into giving me a lift, anyway,” she says, when you point out that it would leave her walking home alone.
It's been dark for hours, and as soon as you step out of the campus and onto the poorly lit streets, the cold bites at your bones. It's not as if you're unprepared for the weather – perish the thought – but it's been a while since you were out in these conditions, and you have to readjust to the bitter wind.
“... well, it was very interesting,” you hear yourself say, “And I'd never thought of it in that way before. Er, I hope that doesn't sound too dense, because now that I've heard things from your perspective, it seems embarrassingly obvious.”
“Not noticing it says nothing about your intelligence,” Porrim tells you, “That's how we're conditioned to think. The patriarchy systematically makes us oblivious to the obvious, sweeps the heart of the matter under a rug, and if anyone points out that we've been looking at things wrong all this time, they're being radical.”
You nod in agreement, arms tight around your waist. Under a street light, you see your breath curl before your lips.
“You're cold,” Porrim states, and you're not given the chance to shrug her assertion off. She wraps an arm around your shoulders, and with a smile, says, “I can't offer you my coat, because then I'd freeze, and we'd find ourselves forever passing coats back and forth.”
“This—” If nothing else, the tips of your ears are certainly warm. “It's fine. Thank you.”
For a while, you walk in contented silence, Porrim's arm tight around you. Even through the fabric of your coat and hers, it's as if you can feel the heat of her skin against your own. You want to slow down, so that you don't find yourself home too soon.
From behind you, a car horn blares, and if it wasn't for Porrim anchoring you down, you're certain you would've leapt in the air. You still start a little, and she laughs, before looking over her shoulder at the offending vehicle. It tears past you, horn sounding over and over, and from the driver's window, you hear a cry of “Vaaaaaaaantas!”
Porrim looks to you for answers, and the fact that she's so close comes as more of a surprise than the honking did.
“Vriska Serket,” you say with a long-suffering sigh. “You would've expected her to grow out of such behaviour the better part of half a decade ago, but this is hardly the worst of it. One time, she allowed her girlfriend, Terezi Pyrope – her blind girlfriend – to drive down what she deemed to be a 'quiet street.' Not that Terezi was her girlfriend at the time, but now that they're together, I do not even want to imagine how they will influence one another.”
Porrim hums thoughtfully, and after a moment, says, “So. You and Vriska—?”
You look away from her. Porrim must've assumed that you were bitter because of Vriska's current girlfriend situation, when in truth, you're only worried over how Vriska's going to react tomorrow to what she thinks she's seen.
“Oh, no. Absolutely not,” you say, shaking your head, “Well, maybe, back when we were both in school. But not anymore. Certainly not.”
Waiting for you to finish, Porrim nudges you in the side, and says, “Good,” in a tone that's impossible to read.
You don't know what you were expecting to happen when you reached your front door, but whatever it may have been, none of it transpires. Porrim lets go of you, and when you're stood face to face, reaches out to straighten the collar of your coat. She says it was good to see you tonight, and she hopes that it wasn't a one-off, but is promptly interrupted by Karkat, who swings the door open and says, “Jesus Christ, Kanaya, I thought you were going to be home two hours ago! Why the fuck doesn't anyone in this household tell me anything?”
The rest of the evening is spent curled up with your current vampire-flavoured romantic escapade of a novel, all of which you're smiling too much to take in.
You don't see Vriska over the weekend, as she's pulling two ten-hour shifts and tackling some dungeon or another in the latest MMO she's roped Terezi into, and you're as relieved as you are disappointed to not have her prying into your business. You need someone to talk to this about, but you know Karkat would seize up in a rage fit if you uttered a word of it to him, and Aradia's on the other side of the planet, taking part in a dig as part of her MA.
But when Sunday afternoon comes around, you're momentarily glad you didn't breathe a word of it to anyone. Kankri comes into the living room with a scowl on his face that tends to mean someone's reblogged one of his posts and now he has to dissect the commentary they've added, in order to prove not just how wrong they are, but how right he is; this time, however, he's had some sort of disagreement with Porrim.
He gets into one of his famous, hour-long rants, during which you learn a few more things about Porrim than you knew before. Three things, in fact, by the names of Aranea, Meenah and even Latula. He lists them off with a scoff, and when you ask Kankri to repeat himself – something you've never done before – he simply pats a hand against your shoulder, and says he's glad that his dear sister doesn't endorse promiscuity with her every waking action.
Porrim, it seems, knows no restraint when it comes to women. In one way, you aren't surprised to hear it; you have, after all, seen Porrim before. You do your best to shake it off, reminding yourself that there isn't technically anything to shake off. An arm around your shoulders doesn't mean anything. Better that you know now, so that all the time-consuming daydreaming can come to an end.
Realistically, even if Porrim didn't have a long line of potential suitors, as Kankri so eloquently articulates, there would've been no reason for her to show any interest in you. She's a twenty-nine year old tattoo artist, a lecturer, intimidatingly good looking in addition to being as smart as anyone you've ever met before, with a fashion sense that almost rivals your own, and you're just—you. Kanaya Vantas, twenty-three years old, always wrapped up in sewing or reading ridiculous vampire novels.
As is often the case, Porrim was only ever being polite to you.
*
Vriska stops in on Monday afternoon, and you don't have to dance around the issue: she doesn't mention anything revolving around Friday night. If she did, you'd tell her that there was nothing to it, nothing at all, and after a good night's sleep, you're feeling less sore about the subject.
You were a little harsh on Porrim, you realise. You were shocked to learn what should've been obvious – because who wouldn't jump at the chance to be with her? – and far too eager to find reasons for her not to be interested in you. You've decided that, unlike Kankri, you absolutely aren't going to judge Porrim for how she chooses to live her life. You're just going to put your ultimately childish, entitled feelings in a box, and let that be the end of things.
When Vriska becomes boooooooored of you not having anything interesting to talk about, she tells you that she's getting out of there, as if it's your loss. Not looking up from your latest task, you hear the door slam shut behind her, and not two seconds later, the bell's chiming again. She must've left her wallet behind, or one of her gloves. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.
“If you continue to misplace your gloves, Vriska, I am going to run a piece of string through the arms of your coat, and tie each glove to the end, in a style reminiscent of primary school.”
“I hadn't actually misplaced anything,” comes a voice that definitely doesn't belong to Vriska Serket, “And I don't think I will ever again, with threats like that.”
You look up immediately, pricking your finger with the needle. Before you stands Porrim, and without so much as a daydream to prepare you for her arrival, you've no idea what to say. She stands at the window, framed by the pitch-black of the late evening, waiting for a proper hello.
“Oh. Porrim. Hi,” you say, belatedly rubbing your sore fingertip against a thumb. “Did you need something repaired or otherwise transformed?”
She furrows her brow a little, as if confused by the sudden distance you're creating with your choice of words, but naturally slips back into a smile. You can't help but do the same in return, and take a deep breath as you mentally scold yourself; you love Kankri, you honestly do, but not much of what he says is worth listening to.
“Actually, this is more of a personal call.” You don't think it's possible for Porrim to truly hesitate, and though you may have thrown her off by not immediately beaming at her as you now realise you always do, she still only pauses for half a second. “Seeing that Kankri is always having you make dinner for me, I thought I'd return the favour.”
If you were still holding the needle, you'd jab it into your palm, just to make sure you were really awake.
“You're asking me if I'd like to have dinner with you.”
“Home-made, though probably not as good as what you whip up,” she says, “Friday, after work, if you're interested.”
You babble that you definitely are interested, and that gets you beaming up at her, just like always. She takes out a business card, one of the ones from her tattoo parlour, drops it flat on your desk, and leans forward to write her home address on the back. It isn't far from the high street, but it could be on the moon and still wouldn't seem too far away.
Porrim places the card in your hand, presses it to your palm with one finger, and you clutch it so tightly that you're worried the ink will smear beyond recognition against your fingers. She tells you that she really has to get back to work, and you're glad that she leaves so soon after, because you're on the threshold of doing something to make her take it all back.
*
Karkat quits his job on Wednesday. He gets home before you do, and you find him with his knees tucked up to his chest on the sofa, furiously mashing his thumbs against the X-Box controller in his hand. Not needing to ask what's wrong, you pick up the other controller, settle down next to him, and wait for the next round to join in.
Tied two-for-two, you lean over, nudge him with your elbow, and say, “I'm glad you quit. You weren't happy there, and they were always making you work the evening shifts. I didn't get to see you enough.”
Exasperated, Karkat's reply comes as a pffff, which also serves to blow his hair out of his eyes. He becomes more focused than ever on the game, which only causes him to stare so intently he sees nothing but a blur that used to be the screen, and you win the next two rounds without even having to try. He throws the controller down on the cushion next to him, and it bounces against your foot as he leans his head back, giving his eyes a break from all that glaring.
“I'll make dinner,” he grumbles. “Something that's not a fucking pizza so greasy it's a goddamn miracle it never slid out of my hands and onto the manager's lard-smeared cesspool of a face.”
There's no need to reassure Karkat that he'll get another job in due time. He's always been a reluctant hard worker, and it's not as if the household is going fall to pieces if he's out of work for a few weeks. Karkat returns with the promised dinner, reheated stir-fry Kankri made last night, and when he sits back down, he grips his fork as if he's not sure whether he wants to spear it into his noodles or poke you in the arm.
“What's going on with you lately?” he says, and though you ask him what he means, he suddenly doesn't want to talk about it. All he says is “Never mind,” huffing as if having to explain himself is some great effort, and you do your best to shrug him off. Even if Karkat wasn't your brother, you're not certain you'd want to discuss the slowly kindling embers of your love life with him.
You'd be better off throwing a bucket of water over them there and then.
It's not until Friday itself that Vriska finds her way back to your shop. You're already on edge about the upcoming date that might not be a date at all, what if she's only trying to be nice, what if you turn up and you're not the only one who's been invited, and for once, you're in the mood to talk to Vriska about these things. You hope she brings up what she saw last Friday night, but half an hour into her visit, you conclude that she's either forgotten all about it, or thinks she knows you well enough to assume that you could never get up to anything worth gossiping about without her help.
She says she's bored of going on dates with Terezi, and you sigh, head in your hands, because it's just like Vriska to want to back out of things so quickly, without giving them a fair chance to play out. Just as you're about to tell her that you don't want anything to do with orchestrating a break-up, she flicks your forehead and says, “Not like that, moron. —do you think we're too old to go to a water park?”
Relieved that you aren't going to have to deal with Vriska shrieking like a banshee when she inevitably imagines that Terezi is hoarding all the things she left over her place and refusing to give them back, you tell her that you're certain those sort of attractions don't have an age limit, and that Terezi would probably like it very much.
“Yeah,” Vriska murmurs, thoughtful. Probably planning out how best to cause Terezi the maximum amount of distress possible on a lazy river.
In the silence that follows, you hear yourself blurt out something about thinking you might have a date tonight.
“If you think you might have a date, you proooooooobably don't,” Vriska tells you, and flicks your forehead again. Scowling, you sit back in your seat, and make a show of being far busier than you really are. Now that Vriska's in the know, now that she's asking who it's with and what you're doing, oh my god it's that Porrim girl, isn't it, you find yourself less forthcoming with information than you thought you'd be.
“As you said, it probably isn't even a date,” you say, cutting her off, because god forbid Vriska begins giving you her top eight tips for getting laid, “I'm certain she's being friendly to me, as the younger sibling of one of her friends. Besides, she has some—history...”
“Oh, and you don't?”
You narrow your gaze at Vriska, but can't bring yourself to stare at her as you should. Your whirlwind romance with Rose was short-lived and doomed to failure from the very start, what with her heading off to university forever, and absolutely not applicable to this situation.
“Pfffffffft, come on, Fussyface! You can't mope around forever.” Vriska winks at you. You think it's a wink, at least. Hard to the tell with the eye patch and all. “I'll tell you what! Because I'm such a great friend, you can call me at aaaaaaaany time, and I'll come pick you up if it goes to complete shit. And if it actually goes well, maybe I won't have to pick you up at all.”
You smile, unable to help yourself, though Vriska does nothing to help settle your nerves.
*
You take the bus to Porrim's place. If it's a date, there'll probably be wine, and you don't want to have to turn it down because you're driving home. God, you hope there's wine. Anything to help calm you down. All the way there on the bus, you sit smoothing out the creases in your dress, certain that the journey there is going to devastate your outfit. For obvious reasons, you didn't feel like asking Kankri for a lift to Porrim's, and you doubted Vriska's generosity would've stretched that far.
Once you reach Porrim's flat, you stand at the door for an eternity close to five seconds, and when you finally do buzz up, her voice comes through with a crackle. She doesn't just open the door for you, but comes down to meet you, too. In the time it takes her to descend the stairs, you become convinced you're overdressed – surely the perfume is too much, you should've just stuck with jeans and a t-shirt – but she opens the front door to her building dressed in a suit trousers and a pressed shirt, waistcoat and all.
“Um,” you say, and she holds out her arm. You take it, and by the time you reach the first step, manage to tack on, “Hello.”
Porrim lives alone. Her flat is a small, one-bedroom deal, living area and kitchen wrapped up in the same room, and you spend a lot of time looking around at the walls and furnishings, because it means that you aren't staring at her. She offers you a glass of wine, and deciding that there is a god after all, you do your best not to gulp the whole glass down within a matter of mouthfuls.
Reminding yourself that you've had dozens of conversations with Porrim before, you manage to tell her about your day, when asked. You keep out the parts that revolved around discussing her, and avoid talking about Vriska too much, lest she end up thinking that you have some unresolved issues with her.
Porrim doesn't have a dining table, exactly. There's a low coffee table in the living room, and you eat around this, sat comfortably upon cushions. She serves mezze, and when you tell her you don't know where to start, you really do mean it: everything is so colourful, so well presented, that you feel as if you'll ruin the meal by taking something from it. She gives you a suggestion of what to try first, and you feel yourself reddening when you realise that alright, this definitely is a date.
Hopefully, Porrim just thinks it's the wine.
“So, where does Kankri think you are?” Porrim asks. “I can't imagine you told him you were coming here, considering that I haven't had to screen his calls to avoid him.”
“I told him I was out with friends.” You might be twenty-three, but Kankri's never got out of the habit of wanting to know where you're going, what time you'll be back. “I thought that telling him might be rather awkward.”
Porrim nods in understanding, but your mouth keeps on going. You cringe even as you speak, because everything had been going so well up until that point. You'd been speaking to Porrim easily, already knowing her well enough to circumvent the scripted getting-to-know-you questions, and then you go ahead and say, “Kankri seems to believe that you are somewhat...” and even though you do the smart thing in trailing off, it's too late. Porrim knows exactly what you're getting at.
Never one to hold anything back, she raises an eyebrow and says, “Promiscuous? That's usually the word he uses.”
You set your fork down, shaking your head. “It's just that he made a point of mentioning Aranea, and Meenah, and Latula, which I thought rather unfair, honestly. It was as if he was attempting to deter me without realising what he was doing.” Sooner or later you'll figure out why you're still talking.
Porrim sighs, and the sound of it is enough to turn you red again. But it's not a pleasant sensation, like before, it's more like a heat gnawing at you, intent on branding this very moment into your memory for all time.
“Aranea and I dated for fourteen months, and parted on excellent terms. Meenah and I—well, you wouldn't understand, but we remain friends. Actually, having met through me, the two of them are now together. As for Latula, she gets rather handsy, from time to time,” Porrim explains, and you stare down into your lap, because she shouldn't have to explain herself to you. Not under any circumstances.
“Sorry,” you blurt out. “I'm sorry, Porrim. I've been a bundle of nerves, recently, because I wasn't certain if this was a date at all, or why you would want to date me in the first place, and it was only a matter of time before I did something to sabotage myself.”
Porrim doesn't say anything. She doesn't say anything for so long that you finally bring yourself to glance at her, and when you do, you realise she's been waiting for you look back up at her all the while.
“It's alright. Contrary to what some people may believe, I see no reason to be ashamed of the way I've lead my life,” she says, but still, you can't help but feel as if you've made a royal mess of this.
Porrim insists on clearing the table herself. When you try to help, she says absolutely not; when you remind her of all the times that she helped you clear away the dishes at your house, she points out that well, those weren't dates, were they? You're sure your sigh of relief is audible, and when she ushers you towards the sofa, you begin to accept the fact that she's not going to politely bid you goodnight and never speak to you again.
When she's done in the kitchen, she brings the wine back over, and you gratefully accept another glass. Alcohol feels like a life-line in this situation, and though it could just as easily be your downfall, this is only your second drink. There's no way you could say anything worse, and nobody remains friends with Vriska for over a decade without being able to tolerate a little booze.
She sits closer than you would've dared to sit next to her, and when you turn a fraction of an inch to speak, the sides of your knees touch. Which was probably her intention all along. You ease back into conversation, doing your best to move on from any residual awkwardness, and find yourself asking about her tattoos. You've avoided talking about them thus far, sure that she is ever having to answer far too many unsolicited questions, but she seems happy you asked.
She even has a few suggestions of where you could get a tattoo, if you ever wanted one. Each time, she presses her hand to the potential location, letting her fingertips linger; against the inside of your arm, your shoulder, your hip. During this time, she moves closer, so close that if she doesn't actively intend to kiss you, it's going to happen anyway, and you pray that your heart doesn't lunge out of your chest, because that really would be embarrassing.
You tilt your jaw up, making vague plans with yourself to close your eyes, and Porrim leans away, suddenly, throwing herself against the back of the sofa with a frustrated groan.
Through your confusion, you're sure that no kiss could go so badly as to leave one party physically distressed before any actual contact was made.
“What's wrong?” you ask, managing to sound more concerned than you do disappointed.
Porrim groans again, pinches the bridge of her nose, and in a rushed breath says, “I'm not certain whether I want to kiss you or eat you.”
Oh.
Well.
Not exactly what you were expecting her to say.
Had she used any other tone, or tweaked her phrasing a little, you might've thought it was some god awful innuendo. But as things are, your only thought is What the fuck. You recoil a little, back bumping against the arm of the sofa, but don't take your eyes off her. She has both hands covering her face now, and though it's reassuring to know that she isn't constantly the picture of perfect composure, now really isn't the time for feeling endeared.
Porrim peeks out between her fingers, as if waiting for you to say something, and you can only shrug. She's going to have to explain this one herself.
“Oh, come on, Kanaya.” She drops her hands into her lap, tilts her head back, laughs. You wonder if she helped herself to any more bottles of wine while she was clearing up. “I'm a vampire. Obviously.”
Now you know she's messing with you. Kankri must've made an off-hand reference to your love of vampiric literature of admittedly questionable quality, and now Porrim's gone to all this effort to make fun of you. She's arranged a date, just for it to end in her own spiteful amusement, because that's absolutely the sort of person she is. Of course.
“Oh. Sorry. Was that supposed to be obvious?”
Porrim rolls her eyes. More at herself than at you, and she takes a deep breath through her nose to calm herself. She looks to you, opens her mouth as if to speak, but then seems to decide that no explanation is good enough. All the while, you're just staring at her in a way you've never felt comfortable doing so, amazed you're not the one who's said something so utterly bizarre.
She opens her mouth again, though not to speak. You furrow your brow, at first, upon seeing all her teeth, but then all at once, you understand the point she's making. Very slowly, her canine teeth seem to grow, until you can only think to describe them as fangs.
And in spite of all you're seeing, in spite of the fact that vampires absolutely one-hundred percent do not exist, no matter how much you want them to, the only thing you manage to blurt out is, “Garlic bread. I've seen you eat garlic bread before.”
Porrim, glad that you've managed to say anything at all, carefully takes one of your hands, and with unblinking eyes, you let her guide it towards her throat. You understand what she's going for straight away, and press your fingers over her pulse. Or rather, you press your fingers over nothing; for a solid minute they remain pressed there, searching out a heartbeat, and you don't feel so much as a single dull thud beneath her skin.
As you fumble for a sign of life, she says, “One vampire is allergic to garlic, and suddenly we all foam at the mouth after the first bite.”
It's then that you begin to panic. Didn't she say something about wanting to eat you? While the thought of Porrim's mouth on your neck may be something you've entertained over the last few weeks, never once did said imaginings end with your throat torn out. Porrim does her best to calm you down, and to her credit, when you jump to your feet and begin to pace frantic circles around the living room, she lets you do what you need to. She doesn't grab hold of your arms and try wrestling you into a state of acceptance.
“I suppose next you're going to tell me,” you begin, voice an octave higher than usual. You bump your shin on the coffee table, but barely even feel it. “Next you're going to tell me that you are in fact hundreds of years old, and once had the honour of tattooing Dracula himself?”
Porrim frowns, but for the most part, looks amused.
“Kanaya, please. Do you really think that I'm going to turn out to be some four-hundred year old creep, preying on girls far younger than I am?” A good point. There have always been some aspects of your novels that make you uncomfortable, no matter how the audience is expected to suspend their disbelief and usual moral qualms. You can't very well do that with real life. “Like I told you, I'm twenty-nine. I've only been a vampire for two years, so using my real age has yet to pose a problem for me.”
You nod. You nod and you nod, and Porrim keeps on talking. Something about having had Meenah help her adapt to the transition, to offer up quick snacks whenever she needed a fix, and that's what you couldn't have hoped to understand half an hour ago.
“And after I went home, that is, after our date, if you had kissed me and still been hungry, would you have gone out and found yourself someone else to snack on?”
You can't believe you're saying any of this. You can't believe that you have a good reason for the words to keep tumbling out of your mouth. If this all is a prank, then you're going to be just as dedicated to it as Porrim is.
“Absolutely not. As if women don't already have enough reasons to be rightly wary of walking home in the dark.”
That sounds just like her. Of course she'd get the strict consent of her donor before taking so much as a sip from them. As you continue pacing, certain that the sound of your footsteps is disturbing whoever lives in the flat below, you wonder if Porrim shares this information on every first date she has, and you find, after a while, that you have mentally exhausted yourself far too thoroughly to do anything but slump back on the sofa.
You lean forward, face in your hands. Next to you, Porrim wraps an arm around your shoulders, tugs you close, and though you're now sat down, you're overcome with giddiness. You've been going through rapidly interchanging bouts of acceptance and denial since she opened up a can of undead worms, but it's only now occurring to you that your potential girlfriend is a vampire. And you have to be honest with yourself: this is everything you've dreamt up in absurd, overblown fantasies of since you were a teenager.
You turn to Porrim. You take a deep breath, and in doing so, wonder if all of her inhaling and exhaling up until this point has all been for show. You're suddenly more curious about her than you ever have been before. You're terrified of how much there is to learn, and how much you want to know it all.
Slowly, you reach out, pressing both palms to her cheeks. She remains patient, lets you study her, and though her skin is noticeably cooler than your own, it isn't uncomfortably cold.
“You may kiss me,” you say, “As long as you promise that I will not function as an additional wine bottle.”
“I'm perfectly capable of controlling myself. I only phrased things in such a way because I have a policy of being truthful, but wasn't sure how to...” she begins, belatedly realising that you've giving her permission to kiss you.
Her fangs retract, and you're sorry to see them go, until she bows her head to kiss you, and then you aren't sorry about anything. Her hands press lightly at your hips, and you cling to her shoulders considerably harder. You've already gone through so many turbulent emotions in the last half an hour that you're amazed something as seemingly mundane as a kiss manages to shake you up, after a dramatic vampire reveal. The thing that sticks out most in your mind is that you have your mouth pressed up against a vampire's and don't feel as if you're going to be torn to ribbons, but regardless of that, you break the kiss off a second or two before it's due to come to a close.
Porrim kisses your forehead, tugging you against her. You lean against her side, head on her shoulder, not needing to say anything, for a few minutes.
“You're a vampire,” you eventually say.
“I am.”
“But you're certain I'm quite safe here with you.”
“You are.”
Your mind slowly recovers from the shock, only to bring about another: the creeping realisation that you've kissed Porrim Maryam, and that she has an arm wrapped around you as she idly plays with the tips of your hair. Your arm around her waist tightens, you press your face into her shoulder, which causes her to laugh softly and tilt your head up, kissing you all over again.
Deciding that you've already said enough silly things unprompted, as light-headed as you are, you allow yourself to give into curiosity. You ask her about feeding, and whether it hurts. Apparently not, though the strangeness of it all has been known to cause some initial discomfort. She doesn't always feed through the neck; a wrist or thigh is fine, and you shuffle a little on the sofa at the thought.
You ask her that if someone agreed to be fed on – let's say you, for the sake of being hypothetical – if that would make them a vampire, in turn. She presses her nose to your neck, kisses you there, and sighs softly as the feeling shoots straight up your spine. Absolutely not, she says. Besides, this is only a first date; you shouldn't have to worry about concepts like eternity, just yet.
You're so drained by the whole evening that you can't bring yourself to do anything but kiss her lazily, which is just as overwhelming as it is wonderful. When you tell her that it's probably best if you head home now, in order to try digesting the information, she doesn't try convincing you to stay. She offers to call a cab, but you decide that you may as well see if Vriska makes good on her offer of picking you up.
Porrim walks you down to the street when Vriska pulls up, and says, “Perhaps we'd better keep this from Kankri, for now. I don't think he'd be too happy.”
“Kankri knows you're a vampire?” you ask, bemused, and wonder if this will all just lead to a lecture on how not all vampires should be tarred with the same brush, and that popular culture has twisted our tolerance of them.
Porrim puts her hands on your shoulders, even though Vriska's right there, sat in her car across the road, and between kisses, says, “Kankri knows how he thinks I am around women.”
You're in far too much of a good mood, head spinning, body light, to care about the look Vriska gives you when you bundle into the car next to her. You even indulge her in a high-five. You've no doubt that there will be plenty of freak-outs to come in the near future, because the fact that Porrim is a vampire hasn't even began to settle in yet; much less the fact that she's a vampire who seems rather eager to kiss you.
Halfway home, you say to Vriska, “How would you react if I told you Porrim was a vampire?”
She snorts out a laugh, but doesn't give you anything close to an incredulous look. This is hardly the first time you've asked her questions about vampires out of the blue.
“You're such a fucking dork, Kanaya,” she says, “Why? Are you gonna tell me she used her vampire powers to seduce you? Is that what's happening here?”
You can't help but laugh in response and tell her that you probably should stop investing yourself so thoroughly in your novels, one of these days. And truth be told – this part you don't say out loud – it isn't a case of Porrim having used any supernatural powers to seduce you. You think back to the first time you met her, and remember how being in the same room as her instantly made you feel as if you'd promptly forgotten how to exist in the same universe as her.
Porrim being a vampire who presses her mouth against your own has done nothing to make you feel any more prepared to deal with drop-dead (hah) gorgeous ladies; it's all a work in progress.