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Your name is Roxy Lalonde, and frankly, you’re in a bit of an emotional rut right now.
It’s been a couple of months since you beat that dreadful game, and a good couple of months at that. Everybody generally seemed to be exceptionally happy nowadays, especially given that the threat of death and Double Death seemed to be nothing more than a memory to you, albeit a recent, painful one. People were adjusting quite well to life in peace; the dead trolls brought back had a little of a difficult time getting accustomed to living both on a planet with humans and on a planet whose star was not the unforgiving, blinding mass of plasma that Alternia was. Still, things worked themselves out, slowly but surely.
You, meanwhile, while having been exposed to other non-carapacians for a few months by now, are not quite used to the idea of having people around. Not to say that the carapacian’s aren’t good company, you actually rather love the little chess people! Although, if you had to choose, you’d go with the company of other humans (and trolls and cherub, of course!) over that of the carapacians.
That said, you are, generally speaking, not all too excited to see your girlfriends go, even if only for a short while. Which it just so happens they are, right now; early evening it may be, it’s not as though any of you have anywhere to be in the morning and the trolls are still accustomed to being nocturnal. They left around an hour ago at Jane’s behest to, and you quote, “Introduce our dear, sweet, precious Callie here to some of our other friends.”
You argued that you ought to go as well, as you’d like to see Calliope’s reactions to their friends, but Jane thought it best if you stayed home. Something about her “not wanting you to lose your patience with some of our less-than-sensitive chums,” which you suppose is a reasonable thing to say, were it not for the fact that it would be TOTALLY warranted.
Honestly, anybody deciding to trash talk Calliope, well-intentioned or otherwise, probably deserved the swift ass-whooping you were perfectly willing to deliver.
Still though, you trust Jane’s diplomatic skills. You don’t just grow up an heiress to the single largest company on Old Earth without learning a trick or two regarding tactful arguments and what-have-you.
Plus, if that ever failed, she’s always been good at making threatening displays with her Forkkind to pacify boundary-overstepping acquaintances. Honestly, you think it’s kinda hot.
You decide to keep yourself busy while they’re gone the way you normally would in such a situation: by sitting in your room, gazing up at the ceiling, thinking about your new life and new relationships. Which, if you’re being honest here, is probably a really shitty idea, but hey, it hasn’t killed you yet.
’Yet,’ you remind yourself
At times like these, you’re hard-pressed not to think back to before all this Sburb nonsense, back when you lived all on your own in your Mom’s old manor. Well, alone with hundreds of cats and thousands of thieving, desperate carapacians, but I digress. You’re surrounded by life now, sure, but you often wonder to yourself “How long can this all really last?” thinking that, regardless of how many of you are now literal gods, there has to be an end eventually, right?
Right. But, still, you tell yourself that you really shouldn’t dwell too long on that. Wouldn’t want to bring down your friends and partners just because of some shitty anxiety and stuff. They may tell you as much as they like how they love being around you and “won’t ever leave you ever forever,” but coming from your timeline - wherein after sixteen uninterrupted years of solitude, with texting being the only social interaction you ever got, you finally meet your friends in person, only to watch them all slowly crumble away, drift apart, and eventually die horrific deaths – left a noticeable Void in you, and having two incredibly incredible and loving girlfriends and a couple dozen new wonderful friends in the form of a plethora of trolls and several more humans doesn’t stop you from thinking that no matter how good this is, how incredible it is that you’ve all made it this far and out of that hellish game, everything could just. Stop. Without warning, and without mercy.
As you look over to check the time on the Deluxe WizBiz Grandalffather Clock, carved from mahogany to bear the perfect resemblance of Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings, you feel water drip down the side of your face. Closer examination to both your face and the clock reveal that you have, in fact, been crying silently for the past- sweet sassafrassing duckbills, it’s been over an HOUR already?
Well, on the bright side, you think to yourself, it’s been a whole hour already. Jane and Calliope SHOULD be coming back soon, they did say they’d only be out for around an hour, as they were mostly just showing Callie around and letting her at least introduce herself to a few of their friends. You hope she liked them, and that they liked her. Really, who (besides her brother) could really not like dear, sweet, precious Calliope? At least in your opinion, which you admit is more than a little biased. Biased or not though, the thought of your friends all getting along brings a smile to your teary face.
On the OTHER hand, and god you really hate yourself for this next train of thought, it’s been a little over an hour already, if Gandalf the Grey is to be trusted. Shouldn’t they be back by now?
What if something went wrong while they were out? One of the troll players out there suddenly snapping and going on a psychotic rampage wasn’t exactly out of the question, given their history of extreme violence before. Your friends are tough though, so the more you think about it the more you realize that it’s likely that if that DID happen, someone else would have the offending party pacified within minutes, if not seconds, of the beginning of a potential rampage.
What does get you, however, is the possibility that Jane and Calliope might just have decided not to come back. Sure, it’s a stretch, but you’ve seen it happen before with relationships as close as yours, most prominently between Dirk and Jake. Lack of proper communication can be highly destructive, especially in a romantic relationship - this applies twofold when dealing with multiple partners, you note - and that’s exactly what happened with Jake and Dirk.
And you can, and probably will at some point let’s be honest, bet that you’d sooner eat your cat than want any such fate to befall your current relationship with Callie and Janey.
Now granted, you think you should maybe NOT bet the life of precious Mutie on your communication skills, seeing as how, among other things, you’ve been hiding these fears from your girlfriends since, well, since the day you three started dating. Which only serves to scare you even more; you simply can’t bear the thought of losing them over piss-poor communication and secrecy.
You only realize just how badly you’d spaced out in the midst of your crying and mulling when you hear a worried “Roxy?” coming from a few feet in front of you, despite having never truly registered anybody coming in. And it’s only when you finally look up, eyes straining to focus through the tears pooled in your eyes and running steadily down your cheeks, that you realize that the person in question is none other than Jane Crocker, who you now see is worriedly coming over and sitting on the edge of the bed to look you over. Callie’s nowhere to be seen, must have gone straight to her repurposed Sarswapagus to get some rest; you can hardly blame her, you’re all too aware how exhausting social interactions can be for her.
“Oh, gosh golly, Roxy what’s the matter?” she asks you, kneeling over you and carefully brushing your bangs out of your eyes, “I came in to check if you were asleep and I just found you shivering and crying over here, did something happen?”
Your only response to her these questions is a shrug as you turn your eyes towards the bedsheets, feeling far too guilty to tell her the real reason, and doubly so in regards to holding her gaze.
She is not deterred, confound her persistence, and though some tears seem to well up in her eyes, she presses on, eyes teary but full of nothing but concern for her girlfriend – for you. “Rox, sweetheart, please answer me, what’s wrong?”
You shrug again, though this time accompanying it with a verbal response
“S’nothin, Janey, m’sorry” you croak out, finally, forcing your eyes to look back up at her as you say it. “’M just tired an’ stuff,” and though not technically a lie, you feel bad right away for phrasing it like that, correcting yourself by saying “Scared, I mean. I dunno, it’s nothing important, don’t worry.”
Though more accurate than their previous iteration, your words don’t seem to do much good. Jane furrows her brows, looking suddenly frustrated in addition to being immensely worried for you.
You find out the reason in record time as she begins speaking again, “Roxy, whatever it is that scares you, for it to have you in this state right now, is by no means unimportant.” Her voice quivers slightly, but in comparison to you, she speaks with near perfect clarity and evenness “So please, tell me what’s wrong. You can always trust me, you know that.”
Fuck. It almost- well, okay no it does - physically pain you to hear her talk like this and- oh god, you hear Calliope come in; she probably heard you and Jane through the wall and came to check on you both.
‘This is actually hell, wow’ you think to yourself as Calliope comes over to the bed, saying in that usual all too innocent, curious tone of hers, “Girls, what’s going on? I could hear you from my room, is something wro- oh my goodness.” Yep. There it is. You woke up Callie and now she’s seen you and Jane crying.
“Roxy B. Lalonde, girlfriend of the year amirite?” you consider saying. The thought makes you chuckle a little bit, if only out of amusement with the silly phrase, until you realize you actually said it out loud, at which point you can practically feel your face turn white and veins run cold. Fuck.
Naturally, Jane and Calliope react poorly to this, with Jane looking as though her heart just got grabbed out of her chest and Calliope quietly gasping and, by the sound of her breathing now, covering her mouth.
It’s right around now that you decide it’s probably time to try and fix this situation and talk to them about what caused it.
You practically shoot up, which, given that you’ve been lying in the same position for around an hour and a half now, is really disorienting, but you can’t just keep being so passive about this anymore, so you stay up, wiping your eyes of tears as you scoot over so you’re able to look at them both and boy do you regret that decision so hard. Jane’s expression is much clearer now that you’ve wiped most of the water from your eyes, and Calliope’s, unsurprisingly, is roughly similar to Jane’s, though without as much expression from her mouth save for her jaw hanging open in what you believe is shock.
It’s heartbreaking to see them like this, more so to know that it’s your fault, but you have to talk to them, so you try your best to power through it, hoping that by the end of this all they at least didn’t hate you, preposterous as it may be to think they might.
“Jane, Callie please just. Don’t get upset. Please, I’m so sorry for worryin’ you and…” you pause, thinking about how best to phrase what you want to say next, eyes darting between them until finally you say “I’m just… scared. Of losin’ you two again. I mean, I know it never happened for you two, but I’m worried somethings gonna happen and you’ll die again or leave me or something like what in my old timeline and I just… can’t handle that.
“I didn’t wanna make you worry, so I never told you two, an’ I’m so, so so sorry for that, and I know I got no excuse and if you guys are like, super mad at me or like hate me or something I get it and I’m sorry.”
By the time you’ve finished telling them, you’re hyperventilating and have started to cry again; feeling ashamed of yourself by the end of your confession, you simply bow your head, daring not to look up at them for fear of what emotions their expressions may hold. They hadn’t spoken a word, hadn’t moved an inch any direction the entire time you spoke. You expected them, or Jane at least, to sound indignant or angered or even just frustrated when they finally spoke up.
You expect to hear ‘I almost can’t believe how little faith you have in us, Roxy, I’m ashamed of you’ or ‘How could you keep this from us for so long? Don’t you trust us?’ and you’d be lying if you said you don’t feel like you deserve either.
But when they start talking, both of them, they say simply “Oh, sweetie no,” in damn near unison, not a trace of anger or distaste in their voices. Under better circumstances, you’d giggle at them over this, and they’d probably join you. Now, however, no such thing occurs.
You exhale a breath you didn’t even realize you were holding in, the tension in your shoulders leaving almost entirely as you lift your head, saying “…what?” just in time to see both Jane and Calliope climb into the bed, wrapping their arms around you.
Calliope speaks up first, pressing her crown into your right collarbone and gripping you tightly in her arms. “Roxy, we’d never hate you, especially not over something like this.”
“Exactly, Callie,” Jane agrees, kneeling to your left and pulling back from you a little only to start wiping your face of the tears covering it. “Roxy, darling, we love you, and we wouldn’t ever just leave you or love you any less no matter what, and we know you feel the same towards us.”
Looking at both of them now, you notice that they’re smiling at you this time. Their eyes are sad, but the smiles are no less genuine for it, and though Jane is, or was, crying – and you can tell that if she had tear ducts Callie would be too – you can see now that anger or frustration are the furthest things from their minds at this moment.
Callie lifts her head, bright lime eyes trained upon yours.
“Let’s get some rest for now, yes?” she asks you, Jane nodding in agreement to your left, “We’ll all be home tomorrow, and we can spend the whole day together. Does that sound okay?”
You take a couple seconds to respond, and Callie waits patiently as you do. Then, smiling at them both, genuinely smiling, you answer.
“Yeah… yeah, I think that’d be awesome. Thanks, you guys. For like. Bein’ here. Like, seriously you rock, and I love you so so so so much. So much.”
Before you can fit in another ‘so much,’ Jane gives you a little squeeze, saying “We love you too,” followed by Calliope pulling away and getting off the bed. Before either of you can ask if she’s going to bed- er, slab? You think? Yeah. Going to slab – she holds up a finger, telling you to wait a moment, then leaves the room.
You guess she is going to sl- oh, never mind, she’s back. And. Holding a folding table?
“Why’d ya get a table?” you ask, briefly making a confused face as you are genuinely curious as to why she would bring a table into your bedroom.
She responds by setting it up on the right side of the bed, pushed up against the mattress so that it serves as a hard, flat extension to the bed, and lays down on it, giving you and Jane some jazz hands and a bright, friggin’ adorable smile, saying “Makeshift slab!” drawing giggles from Jane and laughter from you.
Honestly, who gave her the right to be this cute? If it weren’t Terezi and Dave making the laws around Can Town these days, you’re pretty sure that level of adorability would be straight up criminal. You’re probably going to tell her that at some point. Probably tomorrow. Or right now.
You decide right now, stating “Callie babe you are srsly too cute holy crap,” pronouncing the ‘seriously’ as close as you could to the pseudo-abbreviation you would normally only type.
When yours and Jane’s and now Callie’s laughter die down, you give a low, wistful sigh, wishing them both “G’night, I love you guys,” and giving and receiving goodnight kisses from both as Callie lays back onto her “slab,” arms crossed over her chest, and you and Jane tuck yourselves under the covers, clinging to each other off to the right of the bed to feel a little less distanced from Calliope.
Calliope falls asleep first, not a sound coming from her still-as-stone form, followed by Jane who, despite cuddling you like a child would a kitten before she fell asleep, rolls off of you and sprawls out on the bed, taking a bit of the sheets with her as per usual.
And soon enough, you fall asleep yourself; the problems of earlier in the evening all but absent from your mind as you drift off into a pleasant sleep, your favorite people in this new universe at your sides.
You don’t think you’ve been this content in quite some time, and for the first time in – well, ever, you’re not worried about losing this, or them, any time soon.