Work Text:
Your name is Rose Lalonde and, as usual, you have everything under control. Your mind is clearer than ever, your plans are sound, and you are eating a proper breakfast. Terezi kicks you in the shin under the table.
You smile sweetly. “Need something?”
She jabs a finger towards the last corner of your toast, smeared red with strawberry jam. “Are you gonna finish that?” She licks her lips. In fact, you were; you pop the whole piece into your mouth. She scoots her chair back to stand. “I’m going to get some more,” she calls over her shoulder as she saunters towards the fridge. “You want some?”
“Yes, please,” you call back to her.
The lever on the toaster clicks as Terezi presses it down. “Too bad,” she crows. “It’s the last piece, and it’s mine.”
Just as well—you’ve had two slices already.
You sip your coffee. Best to try to finish it while it’s hot enough to mask the taste. This instant stuff is on the brutal side, but it’s all that’s available, and you can’t say it’s really worse than what you were drinking just a couple weeks ago. It really is nice to feel like your old self again.
The toaster pops and dings and Terezi hisses softly as she burns her fingers going for the toast too quickly. “Hey,” she says, sitting back down at the table. She starts spreading the jam on her charred toast, getting black crumbs and red gooey flecks all over the table. You scoff. “Thanks for hanging out with me. I guess I really needed a change of pace.” Her face is pointed straight forward as usual, cheeks flushed clammy blue, and you’re sure she knows that you are scrutinizing her expression. “After all that.”
You’re about to open your mouth to request an update, but then Karkat storms around a corner into the room and freezes, locking eyes with you across the top of Terezi’s head.
She wrinkles her nose and doesn’t turn around. “What’s eating you, Vantas?”
He snarls, “None of your business, Pyrope,” at the back of her head, then resumes his storming, passing through the kitchen and out of your range of sight.
You quirk an eyebrow. “What’s your read on that?”
Terezi jerks a shrug. “Whatever it is, he’s not interested in sharing the juicy details! That’s all I’ve got.”
“And here I thought you called yourself an investigator.”
“Legislacerator,” she corrects sharply, then smirks and adds, “in training. What are you doing today?”
“Close your mouth when you chew.”
“Nah.” She makes a real show of her next bite of toast, excessive quantities of jam dribbling down her chin. You roll your eyes and make sure to sigh audibly as you wait for her to swallow. “Really, though?”
“I’m spending time with Kanaya tonight,” you answer. “Until then, I’m all yours.” Terezi stands, brushes her hands off on her pants, steps around the table, and offers one to you, palm up. You know it will still be sticky. You reach up, take it daintily, and allow her to help you out of your seat. “Well, a quarter yours, anyway. An eighth?”
“That is so not how it works!” She laughs and gives the side of your head a shove, rough enough to make you step back but nowhere near injurious. “Put in a little effort, Lalonde. Your human ignorance is showing.”
“I haven’t heard you complaining so far.” You brush past her to lead the way out of the room, hoping she’ll take the bait.
She doesn’t disappoint, spinning you back around by the shoulder and sliding her fingertips up to prickle her claws under the corner of your jaw. “This time I’ll make sure you’re listening.”
Your mouths knock together ungracefully. You make sure to bite her lip nice and sharp—she seems afraid to do the same to you, giving you the advantage—and subtly wipe your sticky fingers clean on her t-shirt as you grasp at her ribs. She makes a high, scratchy sound, clenching a fist in your hair as she backs you into the edge of the table. You snarl.
You haven’t felt this good since before grimdark.
After a long day of mean banter and gratuitous groping, you find Kanaya leaning over the heavy wooden table in the old computer lab, immersed in a book. You walk up behind her, set your hands on her shoulders, and plant a kiss on the top of her head. “Hello. Reading something interesting?”
She shuts the book and turns in her chair, making room for you to plop yourself down in her lap. “Not especially,” she says. “But I did want to talk to you about something.”
You twirl your fingers in her hair. “Oh?”
“I’m worried,” she says, looping her arms under yours, “about Karkat.”
“I saw him this morning, actually. He didn’t look good. What’s going on?”
“I think it will be more efficient if I just show you.” She reaches across the table, drags her lunchtop over, and pulls up a pesterlog.
-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA] --
CG: KANAYA?
GA: Hello Karkat
CG: SOMETHING HAPPENED. AND I GUESS I COULD USE SOMEONE TO TALK TO.
GA: I Can Be Someone To Talk To
CG: YOU CAN’T FUCKING TELL ANYONE ABOUT THIS, OKAY?
GA: Are You Alright
CG: YEAH. SURE. I’M FUCKING DANDY.
CG: THE PROBLEM IS DAVE.
CG: THIS FEELS SO FUCKING JUVENILE, BUT.
CG: I GUESS I KIND OF MADE A MOVE ON HIM, AND IT DIDN’T GO SO WELL.
GA: What Happened Exactly
CG: WELL, WE’VE BEEN FLIRTING FOR A WHILE, RIGHT?
CG: LIKE, TELL ME I WASN’T READING THIS TOTALLY WRONG, AND MAKING IT UP OUT OF MY EGREGIOUSLY OVERINFLATED SENSE OF EGOTISM.
GA: As Much As I Wish I Could Say I Havent Noticed The Fact Is That Yes I Have Witnessed Your Entirely Unsubtle Jabs At One Another On A Number Of Occasions
GA: However That Does Not Answer My Question
CG: I FUCKING TOLD YOU. WE WERE HANGING OUT, EVERYTHING WAS NORMAL AND FINE, WE WERE FIGHTING OVER A PEN OR SOMETHING, I SHOVED MY MORBID SNOUT IN HIS DELICATE HUMAN VISAGE, AND THEN HE KIND OF STOPPED MOVING.
CG: LIKE THAT’S A THING RIGHT, OCCASIONALLY A HUMAN WILL JUST GET BROKEN AND STOP? DOES THAT HAPPEN TO ROSE?
GA: Not As Youve Described No
CG: GREAT. SO HE FROZE UP OR WHATEVER, WOULDN’T SAY A SINGLE FUCKING WORD, SO I RAN AWAY LIKE A FUCKING COWARD.
CG: HOW DISGUSTING MUST I BE? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH HIM? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME?
GA: I Am Sure That There Is A Reasonable Explanation For His Lack Of Response
GA: Have You Considered Asking Him About It Now That You Have Presumably Had Some Time To Recover From The Incident
CG: YEAH, I GUESS I COULD ASK HIM, IF I FEEL LIKE COMPLETELY FUCKING EMBARRASSING MYSELF AGAIN.
CG: THEN AGAIN, HOW MUCH WORSE COULD I POSSIBLY MAKE IT?
CG: I’M GOING TO GO, I DON’T KNOW, WATCH A HUMAN ROMANTIC COMEDY ALONE IN THE DARK, AND TRY TO FORGET THAT THIS EVER HAPPENED.
CG: BYE.
-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA] --
You look up so she’ll know you’ve finished reading, and wait for her to speak.
“I was wondering,” she says, “if you might have any insight into this situation, given your relationship with Dave.”
You purse your lips. “It’s hard to say what exactly went wrong with only Karkat’s perspective, but knowing Dave, he’s unlikely to be the one to break the awkward silence. Karkat will probably need to approach him to talk, if he hasn’t already.”
Kanaya pauses, pursing her lips. “What are your thoughts,” she begins slowly, “on Dave and Karkat?”
You huff in laughter and roll your eyes. “It’s only a matter of time, right? They’ve been at each other’s throats for a whole sweep.”
“Well, my question is, in particular.” Her fingertips trace idle circles on your hip. Kanaya is always so careful with her claws; it’s quite sweet. “I would like a human perspective on the situation, with regard to quadrants, and the matter of their relevance and applicability.”
Oh, you see now. Based on what you’ve picked up over the past couple years—and you’ve needled Kanaya for details many, many times, as well as Karkat himself, you’ve even read most of the books he’s shoved or thrown at you, both the tacky novels and the more formal theoretical ones—Dave and Karkat have struck you as a dead ringer for a budding kismesissitude. But Kanaya’s uncertainty reminds you of Dave’s comment after he and Terezi broke up, which you at the time took as more offhand, about how quadrants are, what had he said, “a toxic ass tangled heap of rotting emotional compost,” and he was swearing them off forever.
You make a mental note to ask Terezi about it.
“My human perspective, at this point, has been very much influenced by your troll perspective. As you know.” You work your fingers carefully through one of the perpetual snarls in her hair. “So, when you ask about relevance and applicability: relevance to whom? Applicability in what sense?” Kanaya nuzzles against your shoulder. “To be frank, it looks like black romance to me. What it looks like to Dave, it’s harder to say. He could be framing it as either human romance or matespritship with a friendly antagonistic component, or as platonic friendship, or as blackrom.”
She hums into your neck. “I suppose I should not have expected you to give me a simple answer.”
“In general, I would agree with that assessment,” you tease.
“I would just like to make sure that Karkat is not hurt, insofar as that can be avoided.”
That makes you quirk an eyebrow. “Are you looking to fill another quadrant, dearest? Trying to catch up with me?”
“I had not realized that it had progressed that far already,” she comments, quirking right back. When you hold her challenging stare, she looks away and says, “Karkat is a dear friend and is much more sensitive than he cares to admit.”
“That sounds awful pale to me,” you tease. “Apparently we both move quickly.”
“Oh hush you,” she says, wrapping her arms around you tighter. “I am actually worried about Dave as well. He never really took to quadrants the way that you did, and it seems to me that the culture clash could go very poorly for both of them.”
You return the squeeze and continue untangling her hair, hoping it soothes. “Dave is capable of sorting things out. I’m sure that he’ll issue a spiteful apology in no time, to be followed by more of his usual ribbing and sloppy interspecies makeouts with plenty of teeth.”
“Perhaps,” she admits, but there’s still so much tension and hesitation in her voice. “That may be one possibility, but it is not the only one, nor, I think, the most likely.”
“Dave just needs to get his act together. And Karkat may be sensitive, but I’m sure he’s handled worse. I have great faith in the romantic capabilities of anyone who can stop a highblood juggalo in the middle of a murderous rampage.”
“I still don’t fully understand your use of the word juggalo. I have watched Dave’s videos and they have not been entirely illuminating.”
You tip her head back with a deft thumb under the chin. “You worry too much, Kanaya. I can handle this. Trust me,” you add with an optimistic wink, “I’m a Seer,” and you lean in for a kiss.
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC] --
TT: Hello, Terezi.
TT: I would like to start by saying that I, too, have been enjoying spending more time with you. It’s a shame that we haven’t gotten to know each other sooner.
TT: However, I think it’s important that we step back for a moment to talk about how things are going.
TT: My initial offer, as I understand it, has been neither accepted nor formally rejected. Last I heard, you were going to talk to him about it. That was the better part of a week ago. And, while I am certainly a fan of the direction things have moved between you and I since then...
GC: 1 GOT TH3 S3NS3 TH4T YOU’V3 B33N 3NJOY1NG YOURS3LF >:]
TT: While I am quite happy about that,
TT: I am unsure what to make of that within the context of what we were previously discussing.
TT: My understanding is that auspisticism, as a conciliatory quadrant, is not, in human terms, at least, a sexual relationship.
TT: As such, I would like you to expound on the nature and meaning of our makeout sessions.
GC: OK4Y L4LOND3 I S33 WH3R3 YOU’R3 COM1NG FROM
GC: TH4T 1S D3F1N1T3LY 4 F41R QU3ST1ON
GC: H3R3 1S 4 QU3ST1ON FOR YOU 1N R3TURN
GC: DO YOU W4NT TO COM3 M4K3 OUT R1GHT NOW?? >:]
TT: I would love to drop everything and give an immediate overeager affirmative. But, while I understand you’re in a complicated position and don’t want to push too hard, I also need to know what’s going on.
TT: I’ll be honest, my insistence is in part because I can tell that Kanaya is becoming worried. Not that she’s involving herself directly, or even attempting to give advice, but she seems concerned, and I trust her judgment. This leads me to suspect that what we have been doing is not, in fact, a legitimate part of the typical auspistice path.
GC: WH4T 1S TH1S TYP1C4L P4TH BUS1N3SS >:[
GC: JUST B3C4US3 YOU L34RN3D 4BOUT QU4DR4NTS FROM K4N4Y4 4ND K4RK4T DO3SN’T M34N TH4T TH3R3’S 4 STR1CT H4NDBOOK TH4T H4S TO B3 FOLLOW3D TO TH3 L3TT3R
GC: M4YB3 TH4T’S NOT 3V3N TH3M. M4YB3 TH4T’S JUST HOW YOUR S1LLY HUM4N BR41N TH1NKS 4BOUT ROM4NC3?? HUM4N ROM4NC3 DO3SN’T S33M V3RY 1M4G1N4T1V3 FROM WH4T 1’V3 S33N
GC: YOU H4V3N’T 4NSW3R3D MY QU3ST1ON THOUGH
GC: DO YOU W4NT TO COM3 OV3R?? >:]
GC: 1 4M S1GN1NG OFF NOW, SO YOU W1LL H4V3 TO COM3 D3L1V3R YOUR 4NSW3R 1N P3RSON
-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] ceased being pestered by tentacleTherapist [TT] --
You take a slow, deep breath and release it, pushing your laptop closed. Alright, you’ll play it her way for now, but she’s lucky you’re so committed to the part you have offered to play. Time to go conciliate.
Terezi’s room competes with Kanaya’s for most brightly colored on the meteor. Most of the doodles and notes and portraits scrawled in chalk on the gray metal walls have faded with time. There are multiple rumpled blankets on the bed, but no sheets. As with the last few times you entered this room, your eyes flicker carefully past the newer patches of art, which are disproportionately purple, and the piles of empty Faygo bottles scattered around the room’s perimeter.
“How kind of you to join me,” Terezi says in her typical grandiose way, sweeping an arm wide to gesture at the empty spot beside her on the bed. There is a chair in the room, but it’s currently tied up—literally tied up, with one of her scalemates, undoubtedly under criminal charges, gratuitously restrained against the stiff back.
“Have you talked to him again?” you ask bluntly.
“What is this, an interrogation?”
“Would you like it to be?” You stand subtly straighter. With her seated on the bed and you still standing, you can pull off a little height-based intimidation.
She grins and waggles her eyebrows and you remember that intimidation tactics don’t work the same way as usual in this context, although that itself, you now realize, may be a sign that the quadrants have turned. “Do what you will, Lalonde, I won’t admit to anything.”
“You can call me Rose, you know.” Maybe you’re going to have to be less direct. You soften your shoulders and step over another scalemate to take a seat beside her. “I realize that I’m killing the mood with this, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make. I need to know what’s actually going on here. I fear it would be unwise to proceed otherwise. Can we please be serious for a minute, Terezi?”
She grimaces. “He hasn’t said anything else, and I’m not sure I want to ask. It’s been more of a relief than I expected to get some space from the guy.” Her voice lacks its usual sharpness but she’s as loud as ever, almost as bad as Karkat. “I’m not in a rush to piss him off, and I kind of want to just. You know. Actually enjoy this for a second before things go to shit again?”
“I suppose I can understand that,” you respond carefully. Your instincts say to give her a pat on the shoulder or something, but you don’t want to risk making things even more complicated by running into red territory, so you keep your hands folded in your lap. “But, as your potential auspistice, I think I have to insist that you make some sort of progress on the situation soon. In the next couple days would be excellent. Does that seem agreeable?”
Terezi purses her lips and sniffs.
“Am I completely out of line here?”
She turns her face towards yours and wrinkles her nose, then her grin is back all at once and she’s gloating, “Yes, your request is completely and utterly unreasonable, there is nothing at all conciliatory going on here and I have no idea where you ever even got that impression.”
You suppose that’s the best you’re going to get for now. “Understood. So, since I’m already interrogating you anyway, I was wondering, what are your thoughts on Dave and Karkat?”
She laughs. “My thoughts are they really need to get a room.”
“Which quadrant, though? It certainly looks black to me, but as I recall, Dave’s opinion thus far on your entire romance system is rather ambivalent.”
Terezi lowers her eyebrows. “I wouldn’t say ambivalent so much as openly contentious.”
“Fair enough,” you agree. You’re sure it’s been months since he said that, but you’re not going to push it. “My apologies if my question was untoward. I figured you would be more than happy to sink to the level of gossip.”
“Curiosity culled the meowbeast, Rose,” she quips coyly.
You smirk at that, trailing your fingers up her arm. “Do trolls not have the second part of that saying?”
-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] --
GA: I Just Spoke To Karkat
GA: About Everything That Has Been Going On The Past Couple Of Days
GA: Well Primarily About What Has Been Going On Between Him And Dave
TT: Oh?
GA: Yes But That Is Not What I Am Messaging You About
GA: I Asked Him About Gamzee
TT: Now, not that I’m not grateful, because this has been frustrating on my end and it’s been hard to get any information out of Terezi, but, I had the impression you were planning to keep your hands out of this one.
GA: Well Admittedly I May Be Meddling But Not I Think In The Way That You Expect
GA: And Also The Possibility I Raised With Karkat Has Some Implications For Myself As Well
GA: So It Seemed Appropriate If Not Necessary For Me To Broach It
GA: Although I Would Rather Not Go Into Great Detail
GA: I Have Had A Growing Hunch That Terezi Is No Longer Interested In An Ashen Relationship With You
GA: Or May Not Have Been Truly Interested In The First Place But Needed The Option Available As An Unfortunate Stepping Stone To Ending Her Romantic Relationship With Gamzee Entirely
TT: I suppose that makes sense, although I admit I’m not sure what to think about it.
GA: It Would Be Understandable For You To Feel Confused Or Upset Although I Don’t Think She Intended Such A Quick Flip
GA: He And That Vile Sugar Drink Seemed To Her What Alcohol In My Understanding Was To You
GA: Although She Never God Tiered I Regarded Her Abilities As Reasonably Impressive During Our Session And All Other Events Leading Up To This Trip
GA: She Seemed To Lose Sight Of Her Aspect So To Speak Under Gamzees Influence
GA: Now She Has Come Back To Herself
GA: Much As You Have
GA: But She May Be Taking A Moment To Sort Out Where She Stands
GA: But That Doesnt Mean You Shouldnt Nudge Her To Clarify Her Position
TT: What did you ask Karkat about, exactly?
GA: Recall That Their Moirallegiance Was Rather Crucial To Ending Gamzees Abhorrent Behavior A Sweep Ago
GA: And Although He And Karkat Separated A While Back He Was Already Quadranted With Terezi At That Point Which Seemed To Keep Him Busy
GA: I Feel It Necessary To Worry On Behalf Of Everyone Who Is Otherwise Mentally Preoccupied Whether He May Become Dangerous Again If He Loses His Sole Remaining Quadrant
GA: So I Sought Karkats Advice On That
TT: And what did he say?
GA: He Said That If It Comes To That He Is Prepared To Step In
Your fingers freeze above your keyboard. Even to you, this seems like a mechanical way to conduct romantic affairs; furthermore, you don’t think your words were empty when you teased Kanaya the other day about being pale for Karkat. It’s hard to tell if you’re just projecting it onto her text, but she seems despondent, if in her typical reserved fashion. You choose your words with care.
TT: I suppose if it comes to that, it’s good to know that the situation will be handled with expertise. But I hope it won’t be necessary.
GA: Would It Be Too Much To Ask For Us To Spend Some Time Together Tonight
GA: Soon
TT: Of course not, Kanaya.
GA: I Dont Mean To Get In The Way Of Any Plans You May Have
TT: I hope it doesn’t seem that I don’t have time for you. I know I’ve been busy with Terezi this week, but if you ever need me you should always feel free to ask.
GA: Thank You Rose
GA: I Feel Silly Now For Feeling That Way
GA: Youve Always Been Very Reasonable And Considerate When Approached In A Direct Manner
TT: I understand. It’s natural to feel uncertain when a major social shift occurs. Perhaps I could be more attentive and proactive as well.
GA: Are You Free Right Now
TT: Come right over.
-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] ceased trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] --
You’re barely awake the next morning when Kanaya starts worrying. An earlier riser than you, she’s using her lunchtop in your bed, sheets tucked neatly over her lap to shield her bare legs from the cold metal. “Rose,” she whispers, nudging your shoulder very carefully, trying to determine whether you’re awake yet. “Rose, when did you last hear from Dave?”
You sigh and steel yourself to leave the comfortable darkness provided by the outside of your matesprit’s thigh. “Not since before the thing with Karkat,” you say as you push up onto your elbows. Your vocabulary isn’t at its best right after waking. “And good morning to you too.”
“Good evening,” she says. “I’m sorry, I hope I didn’t wake you up.”
“May I?” You scoot upright beside her and pull the lunchtop onto your own lap, closing her Trollian window and signing into your Pesterchum account. You shoot Terezi a quick inquiry for strict reconnaissance purposes—she doesn’t miss much, and you’d expect no less of another Seer—and she confirms that Dave has at least been through the kitchen recently, and is therefore probably alive. That’s all she’s got, though. You suppose you’re going to have to message Dave directly. You double click his chumhandle.
Kanaya squeezes your knee before sliding out of bed and throwing on some proper clothes. She leaves the room quietly, presumably to return shortly, given that you’re using her computer. Dave is infuriating as ever; it’s sad that you’ve been talking to him less recently, but now you remember why. You do your best to goad him into actual thought, and close the window just as Kanaya steps back in with two generic white mugs.
“I’ve done what I can,” you tell her. “Any more and I risk being accused of meddling.”
“I brought you some coffee,” she says, holding one of the mugs out to you, “to thank you for your trouble.”
You accept the mug with a smile. “Thank you, Kanaya. That’s sweet of you. And very much appreciated.” The first sip is grainy and sour, exactly what you’ve come to rely on to jolt you into full alertness for the day. “Are you at least feeling a bit better than yesterday?”
“Yes, thank you.” She slides back into bed beside you, sipping her own beverage; you make sure not to look inside the cup.
You drink in silence, leaning your head on her shoulder, and then her lunchtop dings. You both look down. Your window with Dave has opened back up.
-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --
TG: i dont know what the fuck youve seen or heard or read
TG: but this shit is fuckin disgusting
TG: it feels ugly as hell and i want nothing to do with it
TT: What happened?
TG: the bullshit o meter was sky high
TG: the thing was flying off into the goddamn sunset
TG: like thor him fucking self hit the goddamn carnival buzzer
TG: troll thor even
TG: dudes gotta be like twice as big and nasty right
TG: shot the bell into the fucking stratosphere
TT: You sound agitated.
TG: dont even try it
-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] --
You and Kanaya sit together, staring blankly at the screen, and finally you say, “Well that was rude.”
“What just happened?” Kanaya asks.
“It seems that Dave messaged me just to tell me to fuck off,” you huff. Part of you is more curious than before about what’s prompting his behavior, but right now you’re mostly irritated.
Then the computer makes a different sound and Trollian starts flashing at the bottom of the screen. You look at Kanaya and raise an eyebrow as she hurriedly drags the lunchtop into her own lap, trading you her mug of alchemized blood, which you reach down to set on the floor. The last of your coffee is getting cool; you tip your head back and down the dregs as Kanaya’s fingers fly single-minded across the lunchtop’s keys. You look up at her, waiting for some indication of what’s going on. She’s biting her lip.
“Kanaya?” you prompt.
“It’s Karkat,” she says, turning to meet your eyes. “He ran into Dave and tried to talk to him. It did not go well.”
“That’s disappointing,” you muse, “but I guess not entirely surprising.”
“What did you say to him earlier?”
“I asked if he’d been thinking about the situation; he avoided the question and said some unkind things about your culture’s way of conceptualizing romance; I implored him to give Karkat a chance.”
“Was he receptive?”
You roll your eyes and half-shrug. “Not as far as I could tell.”
Your matesprit rolls her lip between her teeth, glancing back and forth between her lunchtop screen and your face. “Would it be horribly rude of me,” she begins, “to ask for some time to deal with this? Karkat is a bit hysterical, and I’ve half a mind to look for Dave myself and force a straight answer out of him, or at least figure out why he is being so obstinately uncommunicative.”
“Well,” you muse, “it’s been nice getting some quality time with you, and I think we should have more very soon. But I’ll get out of your hair for now under one condition.”
“What’s that?”
You grin and poke her cheek. “Admit you’re pale for Karkat.”
She shoves your hand aside with a fond but frustrated roll of her eyes. “Terezi has been rubbing off on you.”
You give Kanaya a quick kiss on the cheek and slip back into your Seer robe, taking a second to fix your tuck in the conveniently snug matched leggings, then exit quietly as her fingers clatter across the keyboard. Her eyes remain fixed on the screen.
Having no other plans for your morning, you decide to pay Terezi a surprise visit and see if she’s made any progress. You even stop by the kitchen first and bring a tray of toast. She can spread the jam herself though. It’s almost like watching a sport, seeing how much more of a mess she can make each time; by now you are certain she’s making a show of it. You knock on her door and she wails something unintelligible in return, which you take as permission to enter.
What you don’t expect as you step into the room is to find her regressed: boxers-clad ass in the air, torso hanging off the bed, the tips of her horns scraping against the floor. One of them knocks a not-quite-empty bottle of Redpop on its side as she struggles to put herself upright. “Rose.” Her voice cracks. “I wasn’t expecting you. To what do I owe the honor?”
You nestle your breakfast tray onto the chair with the still-restrained Lemonsnout Junior and hurry to help Terezi up before she falls on her face. “What happened?”
She makes a frustrated growly groan that turns into a dry cough, reaches for the Redpop on instinct then growls louder and knocks it across the room instead.
“Terezi,” you say, putting a steadying hand on her shoulder.
She hands you her glasses, closes her eyes, and flops facedown onto the bare mattress. You put them on. There’s a Trollian window open.
-- terminallyCapricious [TC] began trolling gallowsCallibrator [GC] --
TC: hey wicked sis.
GC: H3LLO G4MZ33
GC: 4R3 YOU M3SS4G1NG M3 4BOUT L4LOND3’S OFF3R
TC: well.
TC: I’VE BEEN GETTING MY THINK ON.
TC: and it ain’t easy bein how i'm still all fresh out of my pies what help me think good.
TC: i gotta say i miss those motherfuckin pies.
TC: miss shovin my face straight in them and gettin my think on real nice.
TC: and also,
TC: MISS SHOVIN MY FACE ALL UP IN YOUR MOTHERFUCKIN PIE.
TC: :o(
GC: TH4T 1S CRUD3 4ND PR3S3NTLY 1RR3L3V4NT TO TH3 QU3ST1ON 1 H4V3 4SK3D YOU >:[
TC: well ain’t that too motherfuckin bad.
TC: don’t get me wrong sis, it ain’t that your new pal’s offer is fuckin unappreciated.
TC: BUT THIS AIN’T HER MOTHER FUCKIN BUSINESS.
TC: this shit is between me and motherfucking you.
GC: W3LL 1 4M NOT SUR3 1 W4NT TH4T R1GHT NOW
GC: 1F W3 4R3 GO1NG TO ST4Y TOG3TH3R 1 TH1NK TH4T 1 WOULD B3 MOR3 COMFORT4BL3 W1TH 4N 1NT3RM3D14RY >:[
TC: well mother of fuck.
TC: I GUESS I’LL HAVE TO KEEP GETTING MY THINK ON.
TC: without no motherfuckin pies of any damn kind. :o(
-- terminallyCapricious [TC] ceased trolling gallowsCallibrator [GC] --
Well, that was more clown troll than you ever needed to see. You pass the glasses back to Terezi, who takes them and puts them on with a long-suffering sigh. She still doesn’t seem prepared to speak, so you start instead. “It seems like he’s willing to give it a shot.”
“He didn’t say that,” she grumbles.
“Well,” you point out, “he didn’t say he wouldn’t, either. It sounds like he’s seriously considering the option.”
“He didn’t say anything!” she shouts, slamming a pillow down over her head. “He’s so fucking useless.”
You hum a wordless platitude and reach down to rub her back. She twitches away from your hand as if it tickles, so you try with your nails instead, and then she stills. “Should I talk to him?”
“Why?”
You frown. “Is that not what an auspistice would do?”
“He doesn’t want,” she spits, shoving the pillow aside so you can hear her clearly, “a fucking auspistice. He’s just stalling for time. Trust me.” Her voice drops almost to a whisper and she shudders softly. “I know him.”
You feel your innards throw themselves against your skin in a desperate and hopeless attempt to escape. “Are you going to go back to him?”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
She sounds disgusted, and you wonder at the line between the kind of disgust that fuels romantic passion and the regular kind that makes one turn up one’s nose and walk away. You don’t think you’re disgusted with Terezi, not really. Respectable people go through bad phases. Ok, the soda bottles littering her room are a bit disgusting, and that chat log she showed you, that’s so disgusting you think you had better try to forget what you read, as quickly as you can. “Are you going to leave him, then? If he isn’t willing to try it ashen?”
All she does is shrug.
You look down at her, one cheek still squashed into her mattress, glasses askew. Her expression is completely slack with apathy, at odds with her shoulders, which tense like a prey animal that can’t make up its mind. Her hair is one massive snarl, and in addition to her lack of pants, she’s wearing a stained and crumpled shirt that’s falling right off her shoulder, as if it were made for someone two sizes larger.
Your hand suddenly stills on her back as all the color drains out of your vision. You did not prepare for this.
“Give you some time to get yourself together,” you find yourself muttering. “Left you some toast.” And you close the door behind you as fast as you can.
You see Kanaya again that night, and when you mention your encounter with Terezi, she gathers you up in her long arms and strokes your hair, but by that point it’s too late to soothe you. You fall asleep after lying for what might be hours, still and open-eyed, in her embrace, and you wake up feeling the same. You tell her you’d like some time to yourself.
Your name is Rose Lalonde and you are a fully realized Seer of Light, capable of literal magic; you trust that the solution will present itself to you. You just have to sift through the contents of your mind until it is clandestinely unearthed. That’s why you’re leaning over your laptop in the dim computer lab, attempting to approximate avid investment in the document you’re currently working on.
As the Learned fall one by one, Zazzerpan finds himself intrigued with his enemy in increasingly complex ways. It enrages him that his Disciple not only remains an enigma to him, but also lets bloom within Zazzerpan himself another puzzle that he cannot understand. Passionate hatred possibly fueled by decline and eventual death of Frigglish? Ought to check timeline.
Your original drafts are presumably still intact, but out of your reach since you left your session, safe in your bedroom in Jade’s sylladex, and you’ve mostly been content with that—why miss a perfectly good chance to burn a bridge and cut your prosaic losses? But at present, the refrain seems appropriate. You feel mired in sickly-still water, much like the Predicant Scholar himself, though you know the analogy is off in other ways. Namely: you, unlike Zazzerpan the Learned, are going to adapt.
Zazzerpan perhaps always hated Calmasis, perhaps only took an apprentice at all because the youth was brilliant in a way and to a degree that sparked Zazzerpan’s envy, whether or not he recognized it as such at the time. Reason would surely turn Calmasis away, however deeply Zazzerpan craved the sight of that mind at its peak. Perhaps he initially met opposition. Some slightly more reasonable member of the Learned, worried that to transmit their great knowledge to those without the wisdom of their years could bring them and the world to ruin.
Of course, by the time Zazzerpan stands over the mass grave of Syrs Gnelph, he is beyond caring, too far gone himself in his morbid fascination. Ironically, it is only the Disciple’s grab for power that sparks his own ambition, releases his own potential.
Yet as he follows Calmasis down into the depths, certain of his course, to make his apprentice atone for an unfathomable streak of destruction, it is not until the moment of his own demise that he realizes: he is no better.
This is trite.
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering gallowsCallibrator [GC] --
TT: I apologize for my hasty departure yesterday. I fear the early hour left me in poor shape for a serious heart to heart.
TT: I recognize that you are in a highly complicated position right now, with more layers than I am perhaps prepared to fully comprehend.
TT: If you would like to help me understand, I will be more than happy to hear a fuller account of your present situation, from your own perspective. I do not believe that my previous studies in troll romance have touched upon this sort of thing. Perhaps it is a bit beyond a textbook case.
TT: I have benefited greatly from our time together so far. It is my hope that you have as well, and, if this is the case, that you would like to continue engaging one another’s wit.
GC: ROS3
GC: DONT T3LL M3 K4RK4T 4CTU4LLY GOT SOM3ON3 TO R34D H1S R1D1CULOUS T3XTBOOKS >:]
GC: H3 TR1ES TO P4SS TH3M OFF 4S L1GHT R34D1NG
GC: BUT TH3Y 4R3 SO CL1N1C4L
TT: I am not one to turn down any source of information. Especially here, where such resources are so finite.
TT: In any case, you are proving my point. My education in quadrants, I have realized, is lacking.
TT: But, I would like to understand as best as I am able, with whatever assistance you are willing to provide.
TT: Do you accept my apology?
GC: Y3S
GC: YOU 4R3 4 G1G4NT1C DORK
GC: L1K3 4LL HUM4NS 4S F4R 4S 1 C4N T3LL
GC: SO 1 4CC3PT YOUR 4POLOGY UND3R TH3 K1ND 4SSUMPT1ON TH4T YOU 4RE DO1NG TH3 B3ST TH4T YOU C4N
GC: B3C4US3, LUCK1LY FOR YOU, 1 4M JUST TH4T G3N3ROUS!! >:]
TT: Thank you. Your generosity is noted and will be taken into account in our future dealings.
TT: Please excuse me now. I believe that I owe Kanaya a message as well. She has been nothing but patient with me and I suspect that I have given her mostly frustration in return.
GC: 4CTU4LLY
GC: 1 JUST T4LK3D TO H3R
TT: Oh?
TT: Hold on, she’s messaging me now.
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering gallowsCallibrator [GC] --
-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] --
GA: Rose I Have A Confession
GA: I Have Been Holding Back Out Of Fear That You Would Not Take Kindly To My Interference But I Have Reached A Tipping Point
GA: Your Demeanor Last Night Concerned Me Gravely And I Have Been Wringing My Hands In My Skirt All Day Since You Left
GA: To The Skirts Detriment
GA: When You Initially Brought Up The Possibility Of Auspisticizing Months Ago I Was Uncertain As To Your Seriousness Given Your Inebriation At The Time
GA: Your Commitment To Research And Education Between Then And Now Served To Bolster My Faith In Your Commitment And Your Ability Both
GA: Despite The Challenge That The Ashen Quadrant Poses Even Under More Normal Circumstances
GA: I Now Fear That You May Have Bitten Off More Than You Are Able To Masticate
GA: More Than Anyone Should Attempt To Or Would Be Comfortably Or Safely Able To Masticate
GA: I Fear That You Have Placed Yourself In The Middle Of Something That Is Going To Play Out Poorly With Or Without Your Becoming Swept Up In Its Tide
TT: I haven’t placed myself anywhere.
TT: Recall the circumstances: the truth came into my path organically, without my having looked for it.
TT: And while I was relieved you weren’t set to immediately kill him, the situation still left me in a bind.
TT: I couldn’t talk to her. We weren’t close at the time, and I wasn’t certain enough what fell within the bounds of kismesissitude and what within those of straightforward emotional violence.
TT: But I could see that she was in pain.
TT: It felt like I was the only one who saw.
GA: I Am Not Sure That That Is Entirely True
GA: But Even Once Your Revelation Made Clear To Me Why Terezi Had Been
GA: Below Her Usual Standards Of Conduct
GA: It Is Never As Simple As The Ashen Romance Classics Would Lead You To Believe
TT: Do you think I don’t know that?
GA: Rose Please
GA: I Dont Want Anyone To Suffer
TT: And yet, I seem to be the only one taking direct action to prevent further suffering.
GA: That Is Exactly What I Am Trying To Do Now
GA: In This Very Conversation
GA: You Dont Need To Do This
TT: I can do this.
TT: I would prefer to do it with your support.
GA: I Do Not Know That I Am Able To Continue Supporting What You Are Doing At This Time
GA: Please Understand Rose I Support You And All That You Are From The Very Core Of My Being
GA: But I Am Not Sure You See What This Is Doing To You
TT: I see what it’s doing to her. Shouldn’t that be enough?
GA: I Am Going To Go Talk To Karkat
GA: We Will Catch Up Soon I Am Sure
GA: Goodnight Rose
GA: Im Sorry
-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] ceased trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] --
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering terminallyCapricious [TC] --
TT: I won’t allow you to keep stringing her along like this.
TT: You need to make up your mind.
TT: Or I may be forced to make it up for you.
TC: that don’t seem like a kind of thing you can all up and fuckin do. :o(
TC: SEEMS MAD MOTHER FUCKIN DISRESPECTFUL OF WHAT WE GOT GOIN ON HERE.
TT: Regardless, I am stepping in.
TT: Consider yourself notified.
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering terminallyCapricious [TC] --
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC] --
TT: Well, that’s been taken care of. Where were we?
GC: 1 B3L13V3 YOU H4D R3QU3ST3D 4 L3SSON ON QU4DR4NTS
TT: Yes, of course.
TT: Shall we start with a survey of film?
GC: WH1CH QU4DR4NT WOULD YOU L1K3 M3 TO SCHOOLF33D YOU FIRST?
TT: Dealer’s choice. Your room, fifteen minutes?
GC: 1 W1LL B3 W41T1NG >:]
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC] --
You save and close your file, captchalogue your laptop, and step onto the transportalizer.
Terezi puts on a movie and you turn out the lights. You make out in the dark, pulling her hair hard, in defiance of the reflections scattered through every empty three-liter stagnating in clusters throughout the room. You make her growl until she bites you back, and you feel a victor at the metal tang of your own blood on your lips.
You don’t even notice which quadrant the movie is about.
Your name is Rose Lalonde and you are bettering yourself through education. Terezi has been teaching you what she knows of Alternian quadrant law, and it’s quite fascinating, between the codification of condoned violence and her uncouth exuberance for the subject. She’s been schoolfeeding you all morning, pulling notes and colorful diagrams out of a small stack of thick books, leaning this way and that to spread them around you on the floor as she jumps back and forth between subjects.
“There’s this really interesting famous case,” she says, flipping through one of the big hardcovers, “where this lowblood troll had a pitch affair with a highblood, so the highblood’s kismesis went to kill her, but they wound up having their own affair instead. So the highblood killed the lowblood as a romantic gesture towards his original pitchmate. But instead of taking him back,” she gloats, “she killed him.” She chortles and shakes her head. “What a lovestruck fool!”
You’re not going to remember all of this, but you’re having a good time. You spot Dave sauntering around the kitchen through the open doorway, and give him a little smile and wave when he catches your eye. He surprises you by waving back. You’re about to comment (quietly) to Terezi on his apparent revitalization, but instead she earns a stern look when she roughly shoves your open laptop aside to make more room. When she leans practically into your lap to get a good close whiff of Alternian Quadrant Law: An Overview, you strongly suspect that she is just looking for an excuse to wave her ass in your face. You admit, you’re tempted to give it a slap.
Your laptop dings. You pull it back towards you and tab out of the notes you were taking before Terezi’s law lecture devolved into epicyclical tangents.
-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] --
GA: Hello Rose
GA: I Was Hoping That We Could Talk For A Few Minutes
GA: In Person
GA: While I Stand By My Statements Of Concern And Apprehension From Our Last Conversation I Have Now Given More Thought To The Position In Which You Have Found Yourself
GA: I Do Not Mean To Blame You For Your Circumstances
GA: Especially If Your Feelings For Terezi Are Genuine And Perhaps Had Some Substance To Them Earlier Than I Knew
GA: I Would Like To Attempt To Be On Your Side In This Matter
GA: That Is
GA: I Would Prefer To Establish A Unified Front In Assessing And Strategically Managing The Entirety Of This Mess We Have All Stumbled Into Of Late
GA: Truthfully I Could Not Bear To Lose Either Your Company Or Your Insights
The lines of text roll in as you watch, hands poised above the keyboard. Terezi tries to get your attention and you shoo her away with one hand, eyes on the screen. You soften as you wait for Kanaya to take a breath.
TT: Were you going to save anything for talking in person?
GA: I Apologize
GA: My Mouth Seems To Have Gotten Away From Me
TT: I’m only teasing.
TT: I’m sorry too.
TT: I’ll see if I can wrap up what I’m doing now. Where can I find you?
GA: I Have Been Wandering The Facility
GA: Currently I Am On The Lower Level
TT: I will try to be there shortly.
TT: <3
GA <3
-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] ceased trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] --
Before you can turn to update Terezi on your plans, she’s leaning over your shoulder to sniff out your conversation directly. You elbow her back. “This is private.”
“Don’t worry, Rose,” she says, steadying herself. “I have no interest whatsoever in your flushed quadrant, nor Miss Sour Appleberry’s, so there is zero conflict of interest. You’re going to tell me about it anyway!”
“Not the details,” you snap, then take a deep breath to collect yourself. Terezi gently shoves your shoulder. You knock her hand away, smile, roll your eyes. “I hate to cut this short, but Kanaya and I really need to talk. Would you mind picking this back up soon, maybe this evening?”
“Yeah, yeah, do your thing.” She lays back on the floor, spreading her arms and contorting in a full-body stretch. “I could use a nap anyway. I hardly got any sleep!”
“You weren’t complaining last night,” you smirk.
She grins back at you from the ground, showing her teeth. “You’re tougher than you look, Lalonde.”
“How do you expect to educate me about blackrom without providing firsthand experience? The movies can’t teach everything.”
She shoves your shoulder again. “Go talk to your matesprit. I’ll message you later.”
You captchalogue your laptop and offer Terezi a small, grateful smile as you exit.
The stairway down is long and steep and makes jarring tight turns, and by the time you descend fully into the laboratory’s basement it’s very dim. You don’t mind. It makes it almost fun to round each corner, waiting to spot the colorless glow of your flushmate’s skin blotted across the dull mirrors of the metal corridors, leading you toward rectification and reconciliation.
There she is, fidgeting with a ruffle on her skirt. You take a deep breath as you approach Kanaya, stretching out a hand, palm up, for her to take. She does, and you stroll together.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“You don’t have to be,” you reply.
You walk on for a moment with only the soft echo of your footsteps and the lukewarmth of her firm, careful grip around your fingers.
Then you say, “I messaged Gamzee.”
“What?” She looks at you sharply. “Directly? When?”
“Yesterday. Right after you and I last talked.” She’s beginning to slow, jaw falling slack as all the intensity in her face draws into her eyes, which are still trained on you. You tug on her hand and she starts matching your pace again. “I told him I won’t let him do this to her any more.”
“What did Terezi say? I thought you were waiting for the two of them to speak about it.”
You draw a deep, loud breath through your nose, bite the inside of your lip, and admit, “I haven’t gotten around to mentioning it to her yet.”
“Rose,” she groans. “I really hope that you understand now why I have been so concerned.”
“And I appreciate that concern deeply,” you say, squeezing her hand again. “And I will make an effort to pay slightly more heed to all forthcoming concerns. But you know better than anyone that I’m going to do what I think needs to be done.”
Then there’s a frantic tug on your sleeve, and when you swivel on your heels the Mayor is standing there flailing, beckoning you to follow him as he scurries back down the corridor.
Kanaya looks at you and shrugs, so you follow after him, still hand in hand.
He leads you towards Can Town, and you’re joking with Kanaya that there must be a state of civil emergency as you step into the storage room where the township has been erected. The light floods your eyes after the dark corridors, but you hear a distinctive sharp sound, and when your eyes adjust on the spot that it came from they widen at the sight of Karkat, mouth agape, one cheek flushed candy apple red, and Dave, who seemed so cool and collected not thirty minutes prior, staring at his own open palm, vibrating as if on the verge of spontaneous combustion.
Before you can take a breath, Kanaya is gliding forward, posture perfect, and setting her hands on Karkat’s shoulders, checking his face, brushing his cheeks with her thumbs. You see her lips whisper One Moment, then she turns, gently takes Dave’s forearms, and whisks him to the other side of the room to talk.
Between the situation itself and Kanaya’s unreasonably swift grace, you need a moment to process before moving forward, sidestepping a piece of abandoned toast to approach Karkat.
He’s patting his cheek gingerly. You don’t try to touch him; you’ve talked enough about quadrants and gossip and the game, but you’re not exactly close. “What happened?”
His mouth jerks in a silent snarl. “What happened is Strider over here thinks that he can do whatever the fuck he wants and be exempt from all consequences, not to mention mores of basic social decency.” He sounds hoarser than usual.
“Are you okay?”
“Fucking fine, thanks.” He rolls his eyes. “At least somebody gives a shit. Not like the bar is set that fucking high!” He raises his voice on the last bit and you and Kanaya give each other a quick look across the array of cardboard and cans, but thankfully the Mayor is all over Dave and you think he probably didn’t hear.
You really do need to listen to Kanaya more. You frown. “What happened to you two?”
“Fuck if I know!” He throws his arms up in the air, then lets out a long, deflated groan as his hands slowly fall and settle on his face. “Romance,” he mumbles into his palms. “Fucking interspecies romance. I never should have made a move on him. This is all my fault, I...”
Kanaya is back, placing a hand on your shoulder. “Please see to Dave for a while now. I think he will be compliant. I need to talk with Karkat, but I promise I will check in on the two of you soon.”
“Glad to be of help,” you say dryly, but she’s already past you, her hands settling on Karkat’s to tease his fingers away from his face so she can slip hers underneath. She tuts at him and cradles his head against her chest, giving you one last look—you’re fairly certain her eyes are saying what in paradox space have we gotten ourselves into—before all but carrying Karkat away. You close your eyes and take a quick breath, shaking the hair out of your face, and then you collect Dave and escort him back to your room.
He keeps looking at you like he’s whining with his eyes, through his sunglasses, somehow, so you crawl under your bed and dig out your last dusty half-bottle of alcohol, because you aren’t really sure how else to pacify him. He doesn’t seem like he actually wants to talk, you can tell from the way he keeps shifting his stance nervously, not quite opening his mouth all the way, like he’s trying to crack a joke and it keeps getting stuck in his throat. He’ll talk when he’s ready, if he wants to; Kanaya can’t expect you to perform miracles.
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering gallowsCalibrator [GC] --
TT: Drama is afoot.
TT: There was an altercation between Dave and Karkat. Kanaya and I are playing damage control.
TT: I figured it would be polite to let you know that there is something of a crisis situation occurring, that might even be reasonably described as a state of civil emergency, and I may be tied up with it for a while.
GC: UND3RSTOOD. TH1S 1S QU1T3 UNFORTUN4T3 BUT P3RH4PS YOU C4N M4K3 UP FOR 1T...
GC: W1TH SOM3 JU1CY GOSS1P >;]
TT: Actually, I’m not sure of the details. I couldn’t get much out of Karkat before Kanaya whisked him away, and Dave is being no more forthcoming.
TT: I expect that when Kanaya contacts me next she will be able to provide a fuller picture of the situation.
GC: OK4Y
GC: SO 1F YOU DON’T KNOW WH4T’S H4PP3N1NG 4ND K4N4Y4 4ND K4RK4T 4R3 GON3 4ND D4V3 1SN’T T4LK1NG
GC: WH4T 4R3 YOU 3V3N DO1NG R1GHT NOW??
TT: At present I have been relegated to the role of, essentially, a babysitter.
TT: Dave was the aggressor in this altercation, at least the part of it that we witnessed before our presence interrupted whatever they were in the middle of.
TT: As such, I am acting as his chaperone while Kanaya talks to Karkat about what happened.
TT: He’s not feeling talkative, though. So I’m messaging you instead, because, to be perfectly honest, he is being a bit of a drag right now.
TT: Kanaya is well equipped to handle this situation. It seems reasonable for me to step back and act in a supporting role, and observe.
TT: I am realizing rather quickly how little I actually know about the intricacies of quadrants.
TT: I have been told time and again that the ashen quadrant is particularly challenging. But to consider attempting it and to start getting my hands dirty are not really comparable experiences.
TT: Actually, the more that I think about it, the less certain I am that I’m prepared to act in the role of an auspistice.
GC: WH4T 4R3 YOU S4Y1NG, ROS3
TT: Honestly, it’s a lot of responsibility, and I’m concerned about whether I’m up to snuff.
TT: I messaged Gamzee yesterday. I didn’t tell you.
GC: H3 TOLD M3 4CTU4LLY
GC: 1 TH1NK YOU GOT THROUGH TO H1M. 1 TH1NK H3 1S 4CTU4LLY T4K1NG YOU S3R1OUSLY
TT: Well that’s a surprise.
TT: And, I must admit, a gratifying one.
GC: 1 TH1NK TH1S M1GHT 4CTU4LLY H4V3 4 SHOT 4T WORK1NG
GC: 1 4M ST4RT1NG TO B3L13V3 1T
GC: 1 4M ST4RT1NG TO W4NT 1T TO WORK 4G41N
TT: Well, there’s something else, too...
TT: I’m not particularly romantically interested in Gamzee. I feel like that’s a given, but perhaps it ought to be brought onto the surgical table under a clear, bright light as we undergo this delicate social procedure.
TT: In all honesty, I find him rather abhorrent, and not in a way that I believe properly corresponds to either of the black romantic quadrants.
TT: My primary interest in this venture has been your wellbeing in the context of a relationship that, to my perception, seemed largely detrimental to you. But now I find that my investment in you has taken, or has always held, somewhat of a more personal nature.
TT: And I am no longer so certain as I was that I could be as impartial with the two of you as an auspistice needs to be.
TT: I hold a great many beliefs about myself.
TT: For the most part, I prove them founded.
TT: This one, however, I may have misjudged.
GC: ROS3 WH4T 4R3 YOU 4CTU4LLY S4Y1NG
GC: 4R3 YOU BR34K1NG UP W1TH US
This is going poorly in so many ways.
TT: I know a lot has happened, but I still don’t believe we’ve made a fully formal commitment yet.
GC: NO, YOU JUST M3SS4G3D H1M TO M3D14T3 4LL ON YOUR OWN ON 4 WH1M
GC: OR JUST TO S33 1F YOU COULD PULL 1T OFF?? >:[
TT: What I’m saying is,
TT: I think I might rather have you over a bucket than on top of a pile.
You swear you are smoother than this.
TT: It looks like Dave is ready to talk. I’d better sign off for now. This may take a while.
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pesetering gallowsCalibrator [GC] --
You set your Pesterchum status to invisible and control your breathing until you feel the blood start to recede from your cheeks. Then you glare at Dave until he seems ready to talk, which he very pointedly isn’t, so you go ahead and start. “Would you like to explain what happened, from your perspective?”
“Would you like to explain why that’s any of your fucking business?”
You raise an eyebrow. You’ve seen Dave stubborn before, you’ve seen him secretive, but this frenetic avoidance is dry enough to spark and catch fire. “You do realize that you’re living as part of a group, right? And that your actions impact those around you, just as much as his do?” You are barely projecting right now.
“My actions?” He sets down his drink. You frown. “My actions. Because I’m an active party in this clusterfuck.”
“Are you not?”
“He kissed me!”
“You were flirting.”
“I don’t know what the fuck he was doing, but I was doing the same shit I always do.” There’s a growing rough edge to his whine. “He changed the fucking game on me. And now I’m supposed to roll the fuck over like a good fucking alien woofbeast which is a term I should not even fucking have to know.”
He’s lashing out and you know that pointing it out will only make it worse, but he’s not the only one who’s frustrated, and your filter has already started to slip. “Have you considered that we’re actually on your side? That we are, in fact, trying to help you?”
“I didn’t fucking ask for your help,” he snaps, predictably. “I asked to be left alone.”
You roll your eyes. “You’re showing textbook signs of caliginous attraction. You’re the only one who doesn’t see it.”
Dave leaps to his feet, fists clenched, and shouts, “You can’t fucking see everything!”
For a moment it feels like you’ve been slapped across the face. You’re almost grateful: with the sting comes greater clarity, and if he really thinks you don’t know that, he is most certainly beyond rational communication right now. You turn back to your laptop.
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering grimAuxiliatrix [GA] --
TT: Please tell me there’s good news.
TT: You have unearthed some minor but key miscommunication that, once explained, will resolve all of this tidily. Dave will apologize to Karkat. I will figure out, somehow, what to do about Terezi. Gamzee will take a wrong turn and float off into the ether, never to be seen again. You and I can go back to uneventful evenings of research and simple, straightforward red affection.
TT: I hate to admit it, but I am beginning to reach the end of my rope with all of this happening at once.
GA: One Moment
GA: Im Sorry I Am Just Finishing Something With Karkat And Then I Need To Communicate Something To Dave Which I Will Do Electronically
GA: Then I Expect He Can Go To Bed And We Can Have A Nice Uneventful Rest Of Our Evening
GA: But For The Moment Please Excuse Me
-- grimAuxiliatrix [GA] ceased being pestered by tentacleTherapist [TT] --
You hum in irritation and open your CotL notes instead because there’s not much else to do to pass the time, with Dave sulking and incommunicable in the corner. You try not to think about your parting words to Terezi, but you don’t close the window, either.
Eventually Dave gets up and he doesn’t so much lie down on the bed as stand up briefly and then fall and wind up prostrate, facedown, with his ankles knocking against your knees. You sigh and reach around your laptop to give his calf an awkward pat.
You’re relieved when Kanaya arrives. She smiles at you, but frowns at Dave, whose face is buried in the blankets. He gives a sluggish thumbs up when she prods him for signs of life, so she shrugs and sits down on your other side.
She kisses you above your ear and sighs into your hair. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting so long.”
You nestle into her shoulder and breathe until you can feel your whole body again, the weight of the laptop and Dave’s legs across your thighs, the texture of your matesprit’s skin against your cheek, the rise and fall of your chest, the chill in your toes and fingertips. Then you show her your conversation with Terezi.
Kanaya strokes your hair as she reads, helping you maintain the fantasy that everything is perfectly calm and you have not just said something embarrassingly crude and potentially destructive and entirely unplanned. For a moment you are deeply envious of your fellow Seer’s aspect. Though, you muse, it still didn’t help her avoid this mess, or that mess.
You can’t see everything.
Even if you could, how much good would it do you?
“So,” Kanaya says, “you seem to have at least decided where you stand.”
“I’m afraid she’s not ready to let go of him,” you hear yourself say, as if listening from underwater, because you don’t want to say it but you want Kanaya to know, someone has to know.
She keeps stroking your hair.
Then she taps your shoulder and points; you didn’t even hear the alert when the new messages appeared on the screen.
-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] --
GC: 1 JUST SPOK3 TO G4MZ33.
GC: TH1S H4S GOTT3N M3SSY. WHY DO YOU 1NS1ST ON B31NG SO 3NT1C1NG, L4LOND3?? >:[
GC: 1 TOLD H1M WH4T YOU S41D TO M3.
GC: H3 M4D3 1T OUT L1K3 H3’S R34LLY 1NTO TH3 4SH3N TH1NG NOW 4ND 1 C4N’T 3V3N T3LL 1F H3 M34NS 1T OR 1S JUST FUCK1NG W1TH M3
GC: 1 TOLD H1M TO FUCK OFF, BUT 1 C4N’T R34LLY T3LL 1F 1 M34N 1T, 31TH3R
GC: 1 JUST W4NT TH1S TO GO 4W4Y ROS3
GC: 1 4M T4K1NG TON1GHT TO TRY 4ND TH1NK 4BOUT TH1NGS BUT 1 4M PR3TTY SUR3 1 W1LL W4NT TO S33 YOU TOMORROW
GC: 4T L34ST TO T4LK, 1 GU3SS??
GC: THOUGH 1’M K1ND OF S1CK OF T4LK1NG 4T TH1S PO1NT
GC: WH4T3V3R YOU PROBABLY H4V3 PL3NTY TO TH1NK 4BOUT TOO SO JUST COM3 F1ND M3 TOMORROW 1F YOU F33L L1K3 1T, 1 GU3SS
-- gallowsCallibrator [GC] ceased trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] --
You realize Kanaya is waiting for you to react, and in a sense you’re waiting for yourself to react, too. You are suddenly very glad that Terezi gave you the night off from further communication. There is a slim chance that you have been working over capacity.
“I suppose that’s something,” you finally say. Kanaya nods and you breathe a sigh of relief. For a while you just lean on each other and breathe the same air. It is deeply comforting to be surrounded by her smell.
Dave starts to snore. Kanaya chuckles, and you jostle his leg until he shifts and it dies down a bit. It occurs to her that he might not have eaten all day—you remember the toast on the floor where you found them—so she asks if you want anything from the kitchen, but you can’t think about food right now. Dave wakes up long enough to eat and make some small talk and drink a bit more, but he drifts off again before you can ask about him going back to his own room, which you think is rather rude.
“He’s had a bit of a long week,” Kanaya says when you bring it up. “I suppose I’ve been privy to more of that information than you have.” She puts a hand on the back of Dave’s heel in her lap, and you recognize a certain tenderness to the gesture.
“So what’s the full story here?”
She sighs deeply and taps her fingers against the rubber of his shoe. “I have put myself in a position to act as auspistice between him and Karkat. Karkat is on board. I asked Dave to take the night to think about it.”
“Clearly thinking hard,” you joke.
She shrugs. “It’s very possible he hasn’t been sleeping much.”
You suppose that’s reasonable enough. “So, how long have you been angling to auspisticize for them?”
“I wasn’t exactly angling for it,” Kanaya says, fingers still drumming on the back of Dave’s heel. “It just seemed the natural thing to do. I was already involved by proxy through Karkat, and I enjoy speaking with Dave more than I expected to, and I seem to be effective at consoling him, and perhaps even keeping him in line.” She rolls her eyes and smirks. “Boys’ problems are not exactly the most complex.”
“Do tell.”
“It essentially boils down to both of them adamantly avoiding anything resembling actual communication while refusing to acknowledge how their own choices to act or not to act contribute to the overall miasma of open pettiness and passive aggressively suppressed pain.”
You snicker.
“I could ask you the same question.” You stop laughing; her lips stretch and part in a playful grin. “How long have you been angling for Terezi over a bucket?”
Once more, you focus on your breathing until you can no longer feel the blood pounding in your face. You’re terribly embarrassed. It was a reasonably good joke.
You breathe and collect your words around you like a shield against the fear. “At this point, with how things have been progressing...” You shrug helplessly and smirk back at Kanaya. “It just seems like a matter of calling a spade a spade. So to speak.”
Your name is Rose Lalonde and you are awoken by sudden hyperawareness of a massive crick in your neck, a presence and an absence, and the keen impression of a looming threat. You have no idea how long you slept, but it was certainly not enough. You have a foggy memory of Kanaya pulling you down onto a pillow, you guess after Dave left, since he doesn’t seem to be here now, though she still is, sitting up with a book beside you.
“I feel terrible,” you say once you’re able to summon the words.
“Coffee?” Kanaya says, and offers you a mug.
You sit up, put your hands on her face to steady yourself, and kiss her. Then you sling your arms over her shoulders and lay your face in the cradle of her neck and just hold yourself there, breathing her in, clinging to the last dregs of sleep’s warmth.
She has to hold the coffee off to the side to keep you from leaning into it, and she still has the book, finger marking her page, in her other hand. “Are you going to drink the coffee or should I put it back down?” One more moment. “Rose?”
You inhale one more time before letting go, taking the mug of coffee, and kissing her on the cheek. “Thank you,” you say, and chug half the scalding liquid at once. You shiver. The heat settles as resolve into your bones. “I need to go see Terezi.”
“I know,” your matesprit smiles, brushing your hair away from your eyes. “I need to see Karkat, too, but I didn’t want to leave when you hadn’t woken up yet.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“We mustn’t forget our basic courtesies, Rose. In trying times more than ever.” She leans down and you lean up and you touch your foreheads together.
“Any last insights,” you ask, “as I walk into what may be the belly of a sinking ship?”
She hums a moment in thought. “If it is not abundantly clear that said ship has already been ejected from the harbor, then I suppose your options are to walk away, or else simply cross your fingers and hope the ship sinks fast.”
You kiss one more time and try not to let your embrace linger any longer than eternity. She wishes you luck and departs.
You clean yourself up on autopilot and slip back into your Seer robe, wishing you hadn’t slept in it, but glad for the fabric’s remarkable resilience. Once you’re dressed, all you have to do is reapply your lipstick and eyeliner, and find Terezi Pyrope.
She’s in the first place you look, which is her room. “Come in,” she projects in a monotone, and you get the sense that she’s been up for a while although it doesn’t seem she’s gotten out of bed.
“I apologize for what I said yesterday,” you say right off the bat, to get that out of the way. She shrugs it off, pushing up onto her elbow and then sitting fully upright. She pats the bed next to her. You sit down so you’re facing her at a three-quarter angle.
“You know,” she starts. She’s wearing her own shirt, bearing her own sign. “I never thought I was much good as a Seer of Mind, but I’m pretty sure that I can read you just like licking a book, Rose. I can see exactly how stubborn you are. Single-minded, even.” She licks her lips, nervous. “Maybe your being a hero of light makes you easier to read or something?”
You grit your teeth and nod and twist your fingers into your robe.
“I don’t think you can actually read me as well. But it feels like you see through me anyway.” Slowly, she smiles. “To be honest, you can be kind of a piece of shit. But that’s what I like about you. You don’t miss a beat and you don’t let anything slide. It would take that kind of unstoppable force to make me and Gamzee work, if anything could do it.”
“Do you...?”
Terezi shakes her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know.” She scoots closer.
“There are still different ways this could go.” You gulp. “Different paths.”
“Take this path,” she says, and she grasps at your back and hair and whatever she can reach with clumsy and devastating desperation. “Take me out of here.”
From the way she claws at your arms and growls, high and keening, into your mouth, you think she wants to be held firmly enough to crush, bitten hard enough to bleed.
If you hold your breath long enough, maybe you can survive underwater.