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Tap, tap, tap. There's a cadence in this meteor that makes her wish she had picked up a pair of drumsticks instead of a violin when she was six years old, but after that trip to see the symphony she had insisted. There's a certain elegance about her little string instrument, anyway, a grace in the rosin of her bow and the tilt of mahogany hourglass against her neck.
But there are only so many songs to play in three years, only so many sheets of staff paper just lying around, and only so much grist to expend with their construction. There's only so much yarn with which to knit only so many essentially useless articles of winter-warmth, though the beneficiaries of her purple artifacts never cease to wear them once in a while for the sake of a glimmer of matching purple eyes.
She would like to pretend that three years floating in the middle of bumfuck-nowhere is not consequential, like she spent that much time waiting to catch a bus on any given day of the week. Not that she caught buses, ever, Mom had insisted on (drunk) driving the BMW everywhere and every DUI was a secret-silent victory for the sake of a victory.
There are only so many people to miss, only so many chores to do, only so many games to play and books to read and languages to learn.
She is constantly searching for something new to occupy her frenetic mind, flitting from music to penning to knitting to troll romance to shitty movies to sewing and designing and suspiciously alcoholic chemistry and sleeping, but there is nothing to do but wait and waiting is not her forté. She is willing to bet that it is not any Seer's forté, and that waiting is that much harder for those who can already tell what's coming next.
A door slides open, she enters without taking her eyes from a page of nothing. Dave is here, she can smell him from a mile off, like a bad habit she picked up from Terezi or an instinct she picked up from the ectobiology that she has a secret-special loathing for. Crystal-clear and sudden in her corybantic brain activity is cemented his image as she knows it is without even looking; sprawled across a beaten old sofa, head thrown back, arms splayed wide, knees out, ankles crossed casually on the table, like he's ready to take whatever this fucking meteor can throw at him whether it be a sword through the chest or a slap in the nuts. He is ready, of course, and she knows that already, and she watches her fingers thrum against the musty pages of a book she can't concentrate on and marvels that he can keep so still.
She envies him because he can speed up time; he can keep himself sane. In fact, if he wanted to, he could probably fast-forward through the whole three years. She wonders for a moment if he's doing it right now.
If she were Dave, she would be.
The book falls carelessly to the floor--she's read it three times and there are four copies in the library, her inner bibliophile can shut the fuck up. She steps right out of her shoes and the cement is cold against her toes, she is sure they will be a little bit blue by the time she crosses the room, a little bit purple, and that is very appropriate.
Rose crosses, nudges his legs off the coffee table only to have him prop them right back up when she's passed, sinks on the opposite end of the horrific, gaudy orange piece of upholstery and crosses her ankles in his lap, making the almost-view up her skirt just frustrating enough. Elbows on the armrest behind her, fingers steepled over her ribs, she pulls her scarf lazily over her eyes and they play the waiting game.
This is the one moment in her entire day, week, month, year--she doesn't bother to keep track anymore--when she starts to remember what not-bored-numb-out-of-my-fucking-mind feels like.
She can feel the smirk in his eyes, under those shades that'll be flung as far as the book on the floor soon enough, the jesus fuck how long were you plannin on powderin your nose lalonde in the rise of his almost-not-quite-broad chest.
That's why he wears the shades, to hide from the Seers, the two of them ready to pick him to pieces if he doesn't have at least some defense, to stare the armor into rust and choke the gears of his clockwork with vulnerability. She, however, is ruthless, and he has had to waste more grist than he would care to calculate alchemizing new pairs because she always somehow throws them hard enough to break. She wants to know every single fucking thing, because mysteries are not enough anymore when you have too much time to think about them.
I'm afraid that this time it was the lipstick, Strider, whispers the occasional restless twitch of her toes into his dark jeans and the faintest hint of her smirk that won't be black for much longer.
That's why she wears the lipstick, to pierce the Knights, to whittle her smirks razor-sharp and unavoidable-uncomfortable, to show the shining-armor boys that she can draw some blood herself. But he is also ruthless, and she has had to waste more grist than she would like to calculate replenishing the makeup that he's slowly but surely kissed off of her face every single time. He wants to prove she's not a goddess, and there is only so much you can take of watching a girl tear herself apart trying to keep herself together.
She waits until he picks at the fringe of her scarf and slowly slides it across her smirk and off her face. He waits until she daintily lifts one leg and flicks his aviators across the room with an expert twitch of her toes. He keeps time, she keeps score, the game has begun, and both of them have already lost.