Work Text:
Vriska Serket leaves, and you alternate between productivity and instability. The next morning, or the morning after that (you keep the curtains drawn and your vision blots around the edges, a headache seeping into the mushy tissue inside your skull, so time slips from your grasp like so many half-empty glasses), you dig out a copy of Complacency of the Learned, and fold it open before you. It takes the better part of an hour and a handful of aspirin to find a couple of pens and a highlighter, but once you've settled down, you begin analysing your own novel, not intending to stop until you've beaten the meaning out of the words so thoroughly that the pages turn to pulp.
There are theories on the internet. Dozens of them, a hundred more that don't hold water, and some that might get to the heart of it. But you ignore those, because your laptop is buried under a pile of clothing or cushions or books, and you don't want to taint your own interpretation with what casual readers and cultist fanatics want to read into your works. Most of the explanations lurking on the surface of the web are too pedestrian for you: none of it is real, it's all a fantasy world, inside a savant's mind; it's a thinly-veiled metaphor for rampant Oedipal urges; they were all dead to begin with, actually; it takes place on Earth, only in the future, where technology and magic have become indistinguishable; what, you guys really managed to wade through the prose?
The interpretations that come closer to the truth, the ones so eerily correct that you almost believe you'd posted them yourself, in one of your fits of unmitigated creativity, with no intervention as divine as a liquid-based one, are hidden deep in the bowels of the internet, on text-based forums, where no one's ever even heard of a social network. These, however, would require staring at a screen for long minutes at the time, and so you opt to work in the dark, one stray lamp throwing light across your desk from the other side of the room.
Page 26. . . and it was not from the onyx cauldron that the power sprung forth, as if a great tree had finally uprooted itself, and found strength in its thick, unyielding branches, but from the sky itself, as if moved by the hand of another; a hand of someone more versed in the arts, darker or otherwise than him, and this in itself was unnerving. But the power did rise, and it aided him yet, building towers from nothing, creating aught from the ashes of enemies, and his castle rose up, and up, towards the clouds . . .
- - -
Page 97When asked, the young man claimed not to be mirthful out of malice, but simply out of a desire to lighten the mood – in the same way that one might lessen the burden of a mountain by knocking back a few loose boulders, Frigglish supposed – and played these jokes, practical in nature, not for his own amusement, but for the good of others. All through their journey, this blithe attitude persisted like a particularly stubborn knot in a particularly tangled beard, and Frigglish doubted that a sword through the chest would be enough to rid his companion of his gaiety.
- - -
Page 118... she spoke in riddles. She spoke of time, of how it faltered, how it waned, like the turning of a moon, only far less constant. She spoke, and the wizards listened; they heard her half-hearted scorn, and one returned it with jovial spite. Together, they spoke of darkness, a darkness one would see, or not see, while the other became it, or overcame it.
- - -
Page 283. . . and saw in her that they were quite alike, after all; that they were kin, and always had been. And to realise as much was to have never known, or indeed felt, any other way. The only sign of acknowledgement he gave was the slight nod of his head, though one hand was raised to cover the clock he wore on a chain . . .
---
Page 386The thief claimed to know what she was, and to be no traitor; she spat the word out, heavy in the middle, traitor . . .
- - -
Page 413. . . falling, tumbling, deaf to the words of the gods, hearing only one whisper in the dark, a bubble of hope in an ocean of black: renewal, rebirth, retry.
You know it all means something, but there are gaping holes in your memory so big and so dark that if you leapt into them, you'd topple out the other side, somehow ending up back where you started. Thinking on it makes your brain creak, like hinges at the mercy of a draft, and so you close the book, using your notes to mark certain pages, meaning to come back to it later.THE END.
There are things you remember clearer than others, and it's the knowledge you do have that unsettles you more than the threat of the unknown. Ever since you saw Kanaya's face, no matter how briefly, and heard Vriska's words, you've had to accept that your delusions are the truth, and everything else is an afterthought. You spent so many years with so many psychiatrists coming to terms with the fact that your mind was a no man's land, where neither reality nor fantasy claimed dominion, but pushed against one another constantly. Soldiers sent into battle without swords, but with shields. Sobriety was the battlefield where these hallucinations, these manufactured memories built from false, unfounded recollection, waged war against you, and there was only one way to wash them aside.
Inebriation had been your life, ever since you turned both fifteen and a key in the lock of your mother's cabinet, still stocked long after distant relatives had forgotten she'd ever died, let alone lived. You had thought you'd known yourself like that, had thought you'd been using one poison to flush out a more potent one, and the fact that you've only ever seen the light of truth in your sober moments is something you still don't quite comprehend. Some part of you is certain that it's just another delusion stacked atop all the others, and you make a mental note to research what drugs you need to fix that.
But first things first: the alcohol has to go. You carry the bottles to the sink, stepping quietly through the house, as if you're thirteen, arms full of knitted fluthlus, trying to avoid your mother's silhouette in the dark. Twisting the caps off one by one, you lay them on their sides, letting them empty themselves, glug-glug-glug, whiskey-brown mixing with vodka clearer than any ice mixing with fruity red liqueur. You tip the bottles, necks facing down, and wonder when your tastes stopped being anywhere close to discriminatory.
There are thirty-six bottles in the house, thousands of dollars literally poured down the drain. You pretend to have forgotten about the ones you keep hidden behind the cistern in the guest bathroom that's never used.
It's foolish, and you've tried this time and time again, but you're proud of yourself. One of your cats mews at your feet, brushing himself against your ankles as he winds around your feet, and you kneel down, rubbing your fingers behind his ears. You thank him for his faith in you, open up the curtains of the dining room, and finally get on the phone to a cleaner. If this is to be a new start, then you can't be expected to live amongst the clutter you've collected, scraps of a life that you barely remember.
By the afternoon, your headache has bled into a migraine. Your fingers keep twitching, and no matter what you try, the whole of your body remains restless. You try to read more of Complacency of the Learned (and by god, what were you thinking when you wrote this? Was it published on a bet? Likely.) and when another of your cats stretches out on your bedroom rug, claws catching on the frayed ends, you hiss at her, and toss the book across the room.
You weren't aiming for the cat. Of course you weren't. The book doesn't even land anywhere near her, but thuds loudly enough against the corner of your bed to make her scamper away.
That night – or a night. The next night, perhaps – you go to a bar. Which is alright, you tell yourself, because you were ridiculous to expect miracles. You can't simply stop altogether, and not expect to crumble; it's taken you a decade to get to where you are now, and it's going to take more than a little decisive alcohol-spilling to undo all of that. Besides, this is progress: it's dark when you drink, and not simply because you've got the curtains drawn, and you aren't drinking alone. This isn't binge drinking. This isn't habitual drinking. This is social drinking, and therefore perfectly acceptable. Socially speaking.
You let a woman with short, dark hair take you home. She lets you smoke in bed the next morning. Either you don't give her your name or you give her a fake one, and it doesn't make you feel any better.
Once you're back at home, oily smudges of black make-up wiped from the corners of your eyes, you think back to Vriska Serket and her bony wrists, life held together even more feebly than she herself realises, and revert back to productivity. If she was an alien who has since been reborn into a human body (are you still drunk? You think you're still drunk) and has managed to make something of herself, even if that something is, on the surface, worth far less than all the money in your bank accounts and all the land spread around your big, empty house, then you can at least make a single phone call.
You phone your agent, first of all. He does good work, there's no denying that, and certainly knows how to make and keep contacts, but when it comes to talking to you, there is something undeniably pathetic about him. It's as if the mere sound of your voice rips the spine right out of him, and you've never needed to shout in order to turn people against you. But he keeps you as a client, no matter how many book signings you miss out on, because he claims that you remind him of his own daughter. Personally, you think he sticks with you because you pay him far more than he asks, and the fact that you rarely ever make public appearances only adds an air of mystery to the persona you choose to put forth to the public.
He is used to pleading with you, used to asking gently, knowing that you'll say no already, and so when you actually put forth the effort to call him, he claims to be pleasantly surprised. Though you initially take his tone for one of terror. You keep it short and to the point: you ask for the number of the designer who asked for a meeting with you, and say you hope his family is doing well. He finds the number for you in a flash, and says he hopes you're doing better.
And then, because you've lost your nerve, you have a drink, just one drink, before immediately punching Kanaya's number into the phone. It connects immediately, but dials for a long, long time; with every tone the line makes, you pray that it'll be the last, that it will switch to voice mail, or abruptly cut out before Kanaya has a chance to pick up.
But she does, with a burst of static and a cloud of chatter behind her.
“Hello?” she says, accent not like you imagined it to be, but instantly blending into your memories of her.
Hang up, hang up, your mind screams, and you look down at the notepad in front of you, where you've written out a script for the conversation. “... hello.”
She pauses. Even through a phone line, with a hundred people seeming to throw their voices around behind her, you can tell that she's paused, breath caught in her throat. Your eyes skim over the next line on the page.
“I apologise for missing our meeting,” you inform her.
“Okay,” she says, and this time, you're the one who pauses. As if realising how something must be lodged in your throat, as it was in hers, she adds on, “I'm currently in the airport, and don't have much time to talk. But...”
You cut her off.
“—I won't keep you. You wouldn't want to miss your flight.”
Her voice sounds stiffer, the next time she speaks. “Alright. Thank you for calling, Rose.”
Neither one of you says goodbye. You lower the phone, let it hang loosely in your hand, and long minutes later, it occurs to you to hang up.
Four days later, there's a letter from your agent. You only come across it because your cleaner tidies everything the postman brings into a neat pile on the edge of your breakfast bar, and throws the junk mail out. She's been coming over every day to get things in order for the better part of a week, but you can't really consider this to be progress; she only comes as often as she does because it hasn't occurred to you to tell her not to.
Inside is a simple note explaining that seeing as you never got back to him, he isn't certain whether or not you had any luck reaching Miss Maryam on the phone; and so here's her business card, email address included.
With your laptop dug out, screen a little more tolerable, now that you're becoming acquainted with direct sunlight again, you spend hours staring at a blank email, carefully crafting exactly what you need to say.
But it all comes out sounding dramatic, fictitious. Even you can't believe your own words, and you summarily become convinced that Kanaya won't, either. She won't even recall who you are, other than a let-down, someone who stood her up for a business meeting, and there probably was no Vriska Serket to begin with.
You've seen stranger things.
In the end, you settle on being obtusely simple, and redefine what it means to beat around the bush.
To: [email protected]
Cc:
Subject: A belated inquiry.
Miss Maryam,
It occurs to me that I have absolutely no idea why you sought to arrange a business meeting between us in the first place, and consulting with my agent never brings me any substantial joy.
Curiously,
Rose Lalonde
Kanaya matches the bluntness, the intentional obliviousness, of your first message, just as you knew she would.
To: [email protected]
Cc:
Subject: A Prompt Reply
Dear Miss Lalonde If You Wish To Be Formal About It
The Meeting Was Set Up Under The Guise Of Wanting To Release Several Designs Inspired By Your Novel
Please Find Attached A Selection Of Pictures Which I Assure You Do Not Do The Pieces In Question Any Justice
Regards
Kanaya Maryam
PS You Should Probably Call Me Kanaya
This is easy. Well – it's easier than trying to speak, at any rate. You can take your time, backspace each and every letter, and then spell check the whole thing, if you want to.
To: [email protected]
Cc:
Subject: Some clarification.
Kanaya,
Many thanks for your prompt reply. Although I feel I should point that the formatting of email lends itself to unintentional formality, and it wasn't necessarily my desire to be so coldly business-like. I can only communicate through the means I have been given.
Rose.
You reconsider.
To: [email protected]
Cc:
Subject: I didn't mean to hit send.
... despite having signed my name.
Are you still a patron of Pesterchum?
You wait.
To: [email protected]
Cc:
Subject: Im Certain You Didnt
And The Fact That You Went To Such Length To Point Out That You Had Indeed Symbolically Wrapped Up The Email With The Typing Of Your Name Only Convinces Me Further
Anyway Yes
My Chumhandle is garmentAmeliorator
Feel Free To Bother Me Whenever You Please Time Zones Permitting Of Course
You add the username to your list of contacts, to which you have long since appeared offline, and delete all of the emails. It takes you three days to open a chat window with Kanaya, and another four to being typing. You manage to count these days, and are certain of how many have passed; which doesn't mean that you're sober, only that you're thinking more than usual.
You wonder how she felt between emails. You wonder if there was apprehension on her part, unrest, even a flicker of excitement; maybe she checked her email more than she needed to, maybe she kept refreshing it manually, in case her inbox hadn't updated of its own accord. It's taken you this long to comprehend just how far she came to see you, and that might just mean that those emails are the highlight of her days. It might mean that you're doing something good, for once, and for somebody else, at that.
Or maybe she barely even takes heed of them at all. Whatever she came to America to tell you, or ask of you, has been left in New York, and she's resumed her life with barely a thought paid to you. She isn't sending such replies to match the cut of your wit; that's all she has time to type. That's only as far as the effort she's willing to put forth will take her.
Your thoughts of Kanaya sift back and forth like this, her imagined opinion of you going to and fro, and you slowly begin to think that you should've sat and spoken with her when you had the chance. But you also think that she had no right to interrupt your life like that, to draw you out into a public space, suddenly exposing you for what you really were all along.
You go to tell her as much, in several emails. But you never send these, as they're full of too many typos.
*
-- tentacleTheology [TT] began pestering garmentAmeliorator [GA] --TT: Hello.
GA: Hello-- tentacleTheology [TT] is now an idle chum! --
-- garmentAmeliorator [TT] is now an idle chum! --
-- tentacleTheology [TT] returned from being idle --
TT: Why is it that as soon as conversation presents itself in real-time, our sparing social skills instantly seize up and assume the most ingratiating posture of defeat possible.
TT: Theoretically, conversations aren't that difficult to hold.
TT: Instant messaging is a utility we have resorted to using many times in the past, after all.
TT: Well, not in over a decade, but.
TT: That doesn't stop it from all being pretty pedestrian.
TT: But no.
TT: We exchange a simple greeting, and then (or so I assume) proceed to stare blankly at our screen, fingers hovering above the keyboard, as if we've never so much as typed a word before.
TT: I don't see how we're to adequately communicate if we continue to insist on failing to engage in the most basic conversations which even twelve year old children are able to partake in using only mobile devices, in the back of a math class. While popping gum.-- garmentAmeliorator [GA] returned from being idle --
GA: Hmm You Were Correct About The Staring Blankly Part
TT: Then it wasn't just me. Reassuring in some ways, depressing in others.
TT: ...
TT: Are we really going to do this?
GA: Do What
TT: I start typing, notice you're typing, and stop typing. In the interim, you start typing, notice I'm typing, and stop typing. Both of us sit, fingers poised, pressed to keys, each one a hairline trigger.
TT: And yet we don't type, lest we interrupt the other.
TT: We are holding the door open for one another, insisting no, after you from continents away.
GA: Apparently So
TT: Well, go ahead. I concede.
TT: After you.
GA: I Dont Doubt That Youll Regret Your Supposed Generosity In A Moment But Alright
GA: The Reason I Did Indeed Hesitate After Our Initial Paltry Greetings Were Exchanged Was Because I Had Absolutely No Idea Where To Go From There
GA: Despite Any Planning I May Or May Not Have Indulged In
GA: I Have Been Waiting For You To Message Me Like This Ever Since I Gave Out My Chumhandle
GA: But As I Waited And Waited For Days And Days Although I Planned Out A Thousand Conversations In My Head While Working And May Or May Not Have Become Badly Distracted Throughout That Time I Could Not Have Prepared For How This Would Make Me Feel
GA: Which Is
GA: Uncertain
GA: I Am Uncertain Of What To Say To You
GA: Furthermore I Am Uncertain Of Whether Or Not I Actually Have Anything To Say In The First Place
GA: It Has Been Many Years And An Entire Universe Since We Spoke Rose
GA: Did You Know That I Dreamt Of You
GA: I Do Not Mean That In Some Foolish Lovestruck Or Otherwise Uncomfortably Obsessive Way
GA: I Dreamt Of Everyone
GA: But Some More Than Others
GA: And For Twelve Long Years I Thought You And The Others Were Figments Of An Overactive Imagination
GA: Characters Of My Own Creation That Dwelt In My Subconscious Mind
GA: And Then Along Comes Vriska Serket And I Discover That You Are All Memories
GA: Not Dreams At All
GA: And I Put So Much On The Line In Reaching Out To You
GA: Though Rest Assured I Do Not Mean Money By That Because Not To Brag But That Is Not What Troubles Me Here
GA: Only For You To Turn Your Back To Me
GA: You Had Your Reasons Im Certain Of It And Many Of Them May Even Be Valid But
GA: I Am Starting To Wonder If It Was All Childish Of Me Because In All Honesty
GA: That Was A Lifetime Ago
GA: What Could I Even Say To You Now
TT: You could ask me how my day was.
GA: Pardon
TT: We don't have to talk of the past, Kanaya. We don't have to compare what we do and don't remember, and we don't have to dig deep into the more troubled parts of our minds for things we're probably better off repressing. We could just have a conversation like two normal people.
TT: We could just talk.
GA: Just Talk
TT: Please?
GA: I Think Id Like That
You do talk to Kanaya, about anything you can think of, though not quite everything that's on your mind. You talk about her work and then your own, the former more in demand than ever, and your own already half a decade in the past. She asks if you have plans of ever writing any more, like so many have before her, but unlike the masses of faceless fans you've somehow collected, you give her a straight answer. Complacency of the Learned was meant to stand alone, and you think writing one hard-hitting novel and then disappearing into the shadows rather suits the image you've built up of yourself; but there are a few short stories that have been churning around inside your head for some months now.
She encourages you, not forcefully so, but with genuine interest in what you could produce. You make fun of her taste in novels, and she says there's no need to be quite so hard on yourself. You talk about the little details of your lives, with some glaring omissions, as is to be expected; Kanaya sends you pictures of her apartment and the artwork she's collected, and you send her pictures of your cats. Eventually, as if in jest, you ask her if that apartment is hers and hers alone. She gets what it really is you're asking, and says that there was a woman, some nine months ago, who she parted from under dreary but civil terms, and there hasn't been anyone since.
Kanaya asks the same question in kind – Well Not In Regards To The Apartment You Dont Have But You Know What I Mean – and you tell her that no, there isn't anyone. Women at bars whose faces you scarcely remember shouldn't count, and so you aren't lying.
Sometimes, you'll speak of the past. Kanaya will idly wonder what's become of the others, because there must be others, don't you think?, and one day mentions Jade. The name throws you, at first. It's been a long time since you thought of her by her name, rather than a hazy figure in the back of your mind, but once you do, the other names flood back. The important ones. Jade, John, Dave.
You don't remember their surnames. Not straight away, at least, and you begin to wonder if this has something to do with the veil this new universe has chosen to pull over your eyes, or is simply a side effect of what you've done to yourself.
It's not every day you talk to Kanaya, but you find yourself thinking of her more and more. You treat the conversations as a reward: you promise yourself to never sign onto Pesterchum when you've been drinking, and it works. Better than anything else you've tried, that is. Sometimes, for a day or three or five, you won't get to talk to her at all, and you know how dangerous it is to rely solely on someone else to keep you sober. It's a lot to ask of her, and you can't afford to be dependant on anything else.
She tells you a lot about Vriska and Terezi. Despite Vriska's apparent decision to say nothing about Terezi when she spoke to you, you aren't surprised to hear that they're together, and Kanaya fills in any blanks for you, and then some. She tells you when Terezi goes for a job interview, she tells you when she's called back, but more than all that, she speaks about Vriska Serket.
There's always something scolding in her tone when Kanaya does so, but there is fondness in equal measures; you knit your eyebrows together, trying to puzzle it all out. But understanding troll romance was difficult enough when you were talking with a troll, and this is something altogether unique to them. You become fascinated in Vriska, in a bizarre way. A fellow Hero of Light, who Kanaya assures you isn't holding herself together as well she thinks.
You imagine her moulting from her old hard, monochrome shell, emerging with softer, human skin. Some days, she still glances over her shoulder, looking for that shed skin, because this new body just doesn't feel right against her bones. You'd like to study her. You'd like to pin the glassy wings she doesn't have back and dissect her like a bug, to see what makes Vriska Serket barely function. And maybe learn some things about yourself, in the process.
And yet no matter how many hours you spend talking to Kanaya, no matter how you make one another laugh, or how ridiculous the conversation becomes, you lie in bed after with your eyes wide open, knees tucked up to your chest. You wish you could remember how to have fun. You wish you knew a way to celebrate your own good moods that didn't involve alcohol. More than that, you wish you knew how to be fun.
You can't shake the feeling that Kanaya only speaks with you to humour to you. Because she feels guilty, in some way. This feeling comes up in full force when she talks about Vriska's latest exploits. It's a sore reminder that she has people in her life, no matter what she says, and they're far closer than you are.
It takes two months to break the promise you made to yourself.
As it happens, jealousy tastes oddly like your own vomit. You wake up half on the living room sofa, head pounding; and for a moment, it feels as if everything's as it should be. But then you remember Kanaya, and while the words you said are a blur to you, you remember the general tone. You remember drinking more, after that, to spite her.
-- tentacleTheology [TT] began pestering garmentAmeliorator [GA] --TT: Kanaya.
GA: Hello Rose
TT: You haven't been around in a few days.
GA: I Havent
GA: And Everything Is Fine Thanks For Asking
GA: I Was At Vriskas This Weekend
GA: Actually
GA: It Would Be More Accurate To Say That I Was At Terezis Considering I Was Entrusted With The Daunting Task Of Helping Her Decorate Her New Apartment
GA: Advising Her Against Each And Every Colour Combination She Had Her Heart Set On Etc Etc
TT: Oh.
TT: It mustbe convenient.
GA: What Must Be
TT: Terezi's blindness.
GA: Quite The Opposite Really
GA: All The Obvious Hindrances Aside Sometimes Vriska Finds It Amusing To Hide Her Cane
TT: Not for Terezi
TT: For you.
GA: I Must Admit To Being Rather Mystified By This Line Of Conversation
GA: Likely Because I Have Only Just Arrived Home After A Tiring Journey
GA: But As The Saying Goes
GA: What
TT: It must be convenient for you, Terezi's blindness.Because, visually speaking, it makes her oblivious to how you treat her girlfriend.
TT: Then again, if she has two brain cells to rub together, she must have figuerd it out by now.
GA: Errr
TT: Can't even respond to that, can you.
TT: Well, let me make it perfectly clear to you,
TT: However you feel about Vriska, and whatever you do to and with her, I have no interest in hearing it anymore.
TT: I am exhausted by the mere thought of her being the topic of every conversation no matter what I try to speak of.
TT: I don't care if you're fucking her
TT: .
TT: I just don't want to hear about it.
GA: Youre Drunk Arent You
TT: Finally! That particular elephant in the room was beginning to become excruciating. What did Vriska tell you? All the gory details, no doubt.
GA: She Is My Moirail So Yes
GA: She Told Me All That She Managed To Observe
TT: How good of you to tiptoe around it all this time, Kanaya .
TT: Once again, you prove yourself to have the patience of a saint.
TT: And that isn't my patented brand of human sarcasm. Because why else would you put up with the likes of me?
GA: Rose
GA: Please
TT: Not that you have anyright to feel too self-satisfied, though.
GA: Stop This
TT: You come to my country, and the only word of warning you think to give me is a lie.
TT: You take me to a public place. You stand befo
TT: re me, knowing you could bring my life crashing down around me.
TT: Even more so than it already is.
GA: Rose I Am Going To Have To Block You
GA: Im Sorry But
GA: We Can Talk About This In The Morning
GA: When You Feel Better
GA: Really Youre Only Going To Regret This
TT: In the morning, when I feel better.
TT: And which morning is that, Kanaya?
GA: I Want To Help You Rose
GA: More Than Anything I Honestly Do
GA: But I Cant Help You When You Are So Resentful Of Yourself
GA: As Well As Me
GA: Im Sorry-- garmentAmeliorator [TT] has blocked -- tentacleTheology [TT] --
TT: Your'e running away.
TT: Fuck.
TT: fuck
When the cleaner comes, you shout at her, ensuring she never returns. When you finally force yourself to move, in order to feed the cats, the can opener misbehaves, and you throw it at the wall, before collapsing into a miserable, sobbing heap on the floor. One of your cats nudges your hand, and you cover your face with it, gasping down horrible, blubbery breathes.
After that, you think you drink to spite yourself.
It takes you a full week to realise that being awful to yourself isn't going to cancel out how awful you were to Kanaya. You still can't stand the thought of opening your laptop and seeing the conversation on the screen, but bits and pieces of it flutter into your mind, each fragment of text making you cold all over. You've no doubt that she still has you blocked, and the anxiety you face at the thought of having to open an email from her and peek at the contents makes your mouth dry.
And so you pick up your phone.
You're on the floor again, though not in your kitchen. It's hard to say how you got down there, exactly, but you haven't stumbled and fallen; you've sat down, in defeat. Which is absurd, because you've helped slay gods. You've recreated a universe. And, in case it wasn't clear already, you've proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that magic exists.
You can make a simple phone call. You sniff, wiping your nose on the back of your hand. You can overcome the less literal demons in your life.
The phone dials three times, and there's her voice, immediately cutting through a burst of static.
“—Rose?”
Fuck. You'd forgotten that she must've saved your number.
“Kanaya,” you say, and screw your eyes shut, pretending that there's no phone in your hand. There's no one around to hear you speak the words that tumble from your lips. “I'm sorry.”
“I've emailed you,” she says, and there's that scolding edge to her voice, the same tone that comes across when she types about Vriska. After a pause, the fondness comes across, too. “Several times. I was worried, but did not wish to intrude upon you. I would've called you, eventually, but...”
“It's fine. I was actually calling to say that I—” It occurs to you that you don't know what you're calling to say, much less what the next words out of your mouth are going to be. “I'm going on a vacation, for upwards of a month. And I highly doubt I'll have internet access while I'm away.”
Kanaya doesn't reply straight away. You hear her breathing, and the connection makes it sound rasped.
“A vacation,” she repeats, and you nod. For all you were doing to pretend that you were only talking to yourself, now you're convinced that Kanaya can pick up on these slight gestures of yours. “I— I believe you deserve a break, Rose. It's for the best. It will be strange not talking to you at all manner of odd hours, but I do not wish to hold you back.”
“Right.” You've straightened up. You're on your feet, now. “That's all. I just wanted to let you know.”
“Alright,” she says, nothing scolding in what she says, now. “And I mean what I said, Rose. You do deserve it.”
*
You check yourself into rehab. Because you weren't dragged in kicking and screaming, because there was no formal intervention held, the other patients don't think you're on their level. They don't think you're bad enough, whereas you've only ever thought you're not good enough. Call it paranoia, but the staff look at you differently, as well. You have no family and friends constantly calling on you, no people checking in on you at the front desk; they think you're there because addiction is fashionable, these days.
The month that you spend sober is worse than any you've spent drinking. You eat less now than you did before, no longer having the appetite for it, as if your organs are only now processing what you've put them through. Many of your hours are spent alone, sat in an armchair, staring bleakly at one spot, when there is peace between headaches. At times, you feel outside of your body; as if Rose Lalonde is one of your characters, who you are failing at writing redemption for. You see doctors, and forget their names. You forget why you wanted to be there in the first place.
You try not to think of Kanaya, but it doesn't work. And so you remind yourself over and over that you aren't doing this for her, because she isn't going to be around forever. If it's going to stick, you can only do this for one person, and that's yourself.
At night, the shadows begin to scare you. Even the ones cast by the folds of your own bed covers. Your limbs feel heavy, the bones inside brittle, and at times, your heart beats so quickly that you can taste your pulse in your throat. You're told all of this is normal, perfectly typical of recovering addicts, as if that makes any of this easy.
You don't want to be a recovering addict. All you want is a drink, just one, you promise. If somebody told you there was alcohol flowing in your veins, you think you'd chew straight through your own wrists.
The month is the slowest of your life, and yet once you're standing outside, bag in hand, the whole world open to you, it's too soon. The sun is too bright, the streets are too crowded, and the people that swarm through them are too loud. At first, it's as if there are eyes on you. You're certain every step you take is being monitored, recorded, and that alarms will blare the moment you step into a bar.
You cling to this fear. You walk and you walk, cleaner and healthier than you've been in years, but more miserable, too. When you can't walk anymore, you stop at a bench, collapsing down on it.
You pull your phone from your bag, turn it on for the first time in a month, and moments later there's Kanaya's voice, “I missed you, Rose,” shamelessly cheerful.
She tells you about the meal she's making for her parents when they visit tonight, a new recipe she found online, and feels the need to detail out the ingredients blow by blow for you. You close your eyes and listen to all of her rambling, taking in each word, turning it over in your mind, and when she asks you why you haven't said anything, it takes you a moment to find your voice.
“I don't think things are going to be alright,” you tell her, pinching the bridge of your nose.
She hums thoughtfully, and immediately you regret burdening her with the truth.
“I can't promise that it will be, but hopefully you'll feel less pessimistic when get home and see the parcel I sent you.”
Inside the box that's so carefully wrapped you're sorry to have had to tear it open with one of your door keys, is, unsurprisingly, a piece of handmade clothing. It's a deep purple jacket, perfect for the upcoming winter, and stacked neatly inside of it are a set of leather-bound writing journals. Just the right length for a few short stories, the note says.
You do what you can to keep yourself busy. You pick up your cats from the cattery, and though your house is filled with the sound of a dozen paws scurrying up and down the stairs, there still isn't any life in the place. You've had therapists back in your life over the last few weeks, therapists who don't want to hear about what you think happened to your late mother, and were content to focus on you, and you alone. They asked you how you viewed yourself, and how your surroundings came into that, and it's only now that you're back in it that you see what the house is doing to you.
Though you're not wearing a defaced Squiddles t-shirt day in, day out, you've made yourself into a mockery of Miss Havisham; trapped in one moment, waiting and waiting for a conclusion to your old life, before you can move on. You notice that you no longer sit on the front steps, as if Vriska and Kanaya were what you were waiting for all along. But they alone aren't enough to shake you from this stupor. You have to dredge yourself out of the mess you've encouraged, if not actively created, without waiting on a miracle, a quick-fix solution.
Because Kanaya coming back into your life isn't extraordinary. Things aren't magically better. The smoking you give up easily enough, that's never been your downfall, but when you try to stop anything else, if feels as if what you're leaving behind is some vital part of you. You're stripping yourself down to the bone.
You put the house up for sale, and move out within days. You rent a small apartment closer to the centre of the city, with two bedrooms. One for hypothetical guests. There's a small garden out on the balcony, just enough room for your cats to play and laze around, and the place is too cosy, too modern, for ghosts to linger. You begin to feel more solid in yourself.
There are a dozen meetings within walking distance. You haven't had a car in years, you know you can't trust yourself with anything that could end up wrapped around lamppost, and brisk walks through winter in New York make you willing to take shelter in any poorly lit church hall.
Weeks in, you buy a calendar, pin it next to the fridge, and begin counting off the days.
Thirty-four days. Fifteen days. Two days. Two days. Twenty days. One day. Fifty-three days.
As the months pass, you fall into a more comfortable pattern, when it comes to talking to Kanaya. You no longer see conversations with her as some sort of reward. You simply talk to her when you both happen to be around. Sometimes you're trapped in conversations for hours with her, and your fingers ache from typing so much so quickly, and you're starving, neglecting food in favour of finding out more and more about her, and other times, you'll exchange a few words at a time, leisurely linking one another to things around the net.
Eventually, you stop imagining that this is all a chore to Kanaya. You go to bed without grinding your teeth together, and stop going over every last thing you could've phrased better, or refrained from saying at all. You enjoy the conversations for what they are, and when she isn't around, you don't sit there staring at a blank screen, waiting for her return. You find other things to busy yourself with. You hands remember how to knit, and your brain begins churning out fragments of sentences that might actually slot together to form a story, with some work.
At the end of spring – sixty-four days, this time – Kanaya makes the suggestion of spending time together in person. You've known it was coming for a long time, and you've managed to put it off thus far. Though for a while, you haven't been able to think of much else, no matter what twists the conversation has taken, and have had to refrain from bringing it up yourself. Even in jest. Especially in jest.
You agree to it, because you're supposed to be making an effort to get out there. And maybe a real vacation is what you need. Kanaya says she'll visit New York again; you inform her that you have far more free time than she does, and would like the opportunity to see France. You've never really been abroad, unless leaving the universe itself and visiting several different planets counts.
You're not sure that it does.
You pack, and leave your cats in the care of a kindly old lady who sometimes makes you meals from her own recipes, because a young lady shouldn't be alone in the city, dining on dishes fresh from the microwave every night. What you're about to do doesn't hit you until the night before you leave. Up until then, you'd done everything calmly, you'd made arrangements, booked your tickets and bought what you needed without a hitch, and the nerves come out in full force at the last moment.
Usually, you'd deal with this by searching for the bottom of a bottle. But it's late at night, the local stores are all closed, and the thought of missing your flight is worse than the feeling of being sober. You stand in front of a mirror, clad in nothing but your underwear, and take a long, hard look at yourself.
There are bags beneath your eyes, still. A watery sheen across your pupils, a thin, grey tint to your skin, and when you pull the tips of your hair between your fingers, you realise how brittle it's become. You inspect yourself like this, pulling your mouth open, pressing your fingers against each tooth, checking your gums, and imagine that Kanaya will see exactly what you do. You picture the disappointment written all over her face, a disappointment neither of you ever had to ponder over while you were safely separated by an ocean, only ever presenting yourself through text.
You fall back on your bed, arms spread out wide. You could cut your hair, that would deal with the split ends, but more likely than not, it'd end up uneven, too short in places. Some risks aren't worth taking, and you'll have to hope that a lick of make-up will hide what's cracked and dried out beneath.
You make it to the airport well before you're due, and everything goes relatively smoothly. There are no delays, no problems at security, and all because you're praying for something, anything, to go wrong, so long as it's all out of your control. You've already thought up a thousand ways to tell Kanaya how awful you feel for things have gone so disastrously, when suddenly you're on the plane, and you know that this is it. You are going to France, and you are going to see her.
The flight makes you queasy. When they bring the drinks around, your stomach is bubbling and boiling, and you don't need to convince yourself that being tens of thousand of feet in the air doesn't somehow negate the effects and consequences of drinking alcohol. You take a bottle of water, and barely touch it.
It's of little surprise when you land, finally, and your head is pounding, mouth dry. The messy, unsettled feeling in the pit of your stomach has turned into a pang of hunger and an ache of upcoming dread, and when you collect your luggage from the carousel, it feels too light, as if you haven't packed it. You should stop to check that you've at least put a toothbrush in there, but your body isn't listening to your mind, and you just keep striding forwards, passport clutched so tightly that your hand isn't given the chance to shake.
Kanaya's waiting for you. It isn't until you see her, stood on tiptoes, peering over the rest of the crowd, that you realise how ardently you were convincing yourself that she wouldn't show. You'd like nothing more than to turn and run, but you march towards her, exuding confidence you've never felt.
There are a striking number of things you notice about her that you never took the time to mull over online; she is far taller than you remember her being in the restaurant, and you have to tilt your head up in order to work up to a proper hello. She is, without a doubt, as suddenly terrified as you are. You both do a good job of fumbling out greetings and avoiding eye contact while simultaneously trying to steal glances at one another, and the walk to her car makes you feel ghostly, as if you're hovering outside of your own body, looking on.
But if there's one thing you're certain of, it's that Kanaya really is by your side. This isn't one of your imaginings, sparked off by another life or one drink too many, and you wonder how on Earth you're expected to talk to her without the comfort of keys spread out beneath your fingertips.
You sit next to her while she drives, hands balled into fists, resting on your knees. Kanaya fills the silence in the car and drowns out the pounding in your head by pointing out this and that as you drive past certain landmarks, and goads you into speaking with questions about your journey over, and inquiries into whether or not you're hungry. You're surprised to learn that you are.
She takes you to a quiet little restaurant out of the way a few miles before you're due to reach her apartment. Once you're seated, Kanaya orders water for herself, and drinks nothing more for the rest of the evening. She talks, and you hear her words as clearly as you're used to reading them, but it's strange in ways you can't explain; you want to pull out your laptop and connect to garmentAmeliorator, and let her know how overwhelmed you are, as ridiculous as that is.
Gripping your fork tightly, you remind yourself that you can't create a distinction between the woman before you and the woman you're used to talking online, on the phone. You look at her properly for the first time since landing, and the corner of her mouth twitches into a smile as she colours slightly. There she is, not afraid to look at you, even though she knows all of the terrible things you've made yourself into.
When the waiter offers you the dessert menu, you say to Kanaya, “I'm tired. Can't we head back to your place?”
She has no objections.
The room she gives you must be the one Vriska stays over in. You make a conscious effort not to think about Vriska Serket unless you absolutely have to, and decide to use the time you have here to make the place your own. You unpack, change into pyjamas after what feels like a decade of wearing the same pants and blouse, and though you told Kanaya you were tired, you have no intentions of sleeping, just yet.
You run your eyes across Kanaya's bookcase in the living room, and find your own book displayed proudly among her collection. It feels odd, thinking of your fans in a tactile sense; imagining them as real people, rather than a faceless swarm of poorly-formed theories and questionable fanfiction online, a jumbled crowd that merges into one; and when you hear Kanaya's footsteps behind you, being with Kanaya in the same room after so long suddenly strikes you as incredible.
“I thought you were tired,” she says, but you can tell she's glad to see you're still in the realm of the waking. You can no longer imagine how many questions she must have to ask you, how much there must be she wants to say, because your own thoughts amount to nothing but a contented blank.
“I am,” you say, sinking down onto her sofa. After a moment's deliberation, Kanaya joins you, sat by the opposite arm. “But I don't think I could possibly sleep.”
“Me neither,” she admits. “Despite the fact that I found myself sleeping far too late and waking far too early in anticipation of your arrival, now that you're here, it hardly feels as if I've been awake for more than five minutes.”
You shuffle so that you're nestled between the back and arm of the sofa, half facing her, and try not to wonder where you'd be now, if not for Kanaya. And so you talk to her about the little things that don't matter, like where she bought her paintings from and how long she's lived there, and the conversation flows easily. All the while Kanaya does a remarkable job of pretending that she wants to indulge in nothing beyond small talk.
When a brief pause in the conversation finally surfaces, she says, “I'm happy you're here, Rose. I am glad that you're—” She shakes her head, cutting herself off, but doesn't try again. Later, you'll claim that you knew exactly what she was going to do, but in the moment, as she leans to close the small gap between you, you don't fully grasp it in its entirety, even when she has her lips pressed to yours.
The kiss doesn't last long. It's light enough for you to believe you imagined it seconds after, and you can't quite comprehend why Kanaya would want to kiss you, knowing what she does. But more importantly than that, you can't comprehend why you didn't kiss her back; you can keep putting yourself down until Prospit overthrows Derse, but you can't insult Kanaya by questioning her taste.
After a drawn-out silence, during which Kanaya becomes redder and redder, you turn sharply, both hands on Kanaya's shoulders. The next thing you know, she's pressed up against the back of the sofa, her hands are on your hips, and you're kissing her so fiercely she might mistake your sudden movement for an attack. The pounding of your heart serves to alert you to how fast you're moving, but once you've started, there's no stopping.
Not until your front teeth clink against Kanaya's, and your foreheads come together at the shock. The two of you pull apart at the same moment, bringing your hands up to check your teeth for damage, and though you're certain you should be staring at her in wide-eyed horror brought on by embarrassment, you can't manage it.
Instead, you laugh. It isn't derisive laughter, and it isn't aimed at yourself. It's not aimed at Kanaya, either, though when you end up with your face in your hands, she wraps an arm around your shoulders, asking if you're alright. You can't do much more than laugh, because you are alright, no matter how difficult it can feel to be nothing more than okay, some days.
You laugh because you're realising, all at once, that it's alright to fuck up. Kanaya isn't going anywhere because of it, so long as you keep trying to put things right. She isn't going to give up on you, just because you forced months of confusion and wanting into a kiss, and it didn't end so well. All she's going to do is kiss you on the top of your head, telling you how ridiculous you are as you can do nothing but nod in agreement.