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You’re about halfway through your grocery shopping when you hear the sound of clicking coming down the hallway, a familiar noise. And you had thought your day was coming along so well.
Well, as well as someone with a life as shitty as yours can be.
You had gotten your new food stamps in the mail, which was nice. It was also the weekend, which meant no work as a bartender at the pub you worked at until your shift late into the night.
This was supposed to be a nice, relaxing event; you rarely get to shop. The fact that you actually enjoy grocery shopping probably reflects how much you hate your life.
You’re broke, in debt, and you’ve all but run out of your precious luck. And now, to make things worse, you just had to meet your ex-girlfriend (not to mention childhood friend) while you’re scrounging around with your food stamps in a grocery store. You consider just letting her go on; she would never notice you, she’s blind, all you’d have to do is be quiet. You turn to the shelves and pretend to be interested in the no name brand spaghetti sauce as she walks on by.
You sneak a peek at her in between glances of sauce and your red converse to make sure it’s actually her. As soon as you’re done, you regret it. She still looks the same, with her stupid affinity for horrible graphic t-shirts, red shades and pants that are way too tight to be worn in public. She’s still as thin as ever, cutting a silhouette of knobby elbows and knees as she taps her cane along the halls. Then again, you’re no better, thin, wearing a too-large hoodie which hides your already lacking set of tits, and a pair of pants that are also probably really tight by society’s standards.
Maybe that’s why you dislike her –never hate, you couldn’t even begin to understand how to hate her-. She reminds you so much of yourself.
There’s no chance in hell you’re going to willingly speak with Terezi Pyrope. You have what you like to call Bad Blood between the two of you, and speaking with her isn’t exactly how you’d like to spend even a few minutes.
However, what you deem as your dwindling luck bites you in the ass. The blind woman stops and looks up at the shelves, inquisitive. “I know someone’s there,” She says, the same old characteristic smirk playing on her lips you remember. “Think you can help me get me a bag of pasta from one of these shelves?”
You look around, gritting your teeth. Great. You’re the only one in the aisle. You square your shoulders and let out a huff, then move over to her. “Yeah, sure.” You find yourself saying. You had contemplated changing your voice to keep her from knowing it was you, but really, what was the difference?
She cackles, that sound like a saw cutting through wood that sounds so horrible but draws you in even after your five years apart. “Vrisdork!” She says, turning her sunglass-covered eyes and that alluring, dreadful grin splitting her face towards you. “Fancy meeting you here!”
You muster up your old bravado, forcing a grin –even though she can’t see it-. “Oh, heeeeeeeey sister!” You greet back, handing her the pasta. She grips it, then gently takes it away from you. The two of you stand there for a few seconds, grinning at each other like idiots before you run a hand through your messy hair and say, “So, uh… How’re you doing? Still with that Coolkid?”
Her grin falters for a split second, and the only reason you catch it is because you know her so well. “Naw, I dumped him. He was cramping my style, you know?” Her voice cracks more than usual when she says this, and she places her spaghetti into the basket hanging off from the crook of one of her spindly elbows. “What about you? That elegant girl? Papaya or something?”
You don’t seem to have the same composure as her, because your grin falters entirely and forms into your usual gritted teeth. You cross your arms and huff, “Who, Kanaya? Heh, she couldn’t stand up to how great I was. I had to drop some dead weight, you know?” You’re really glad she’s blind and can’t see how much of a wreck your face is. You look away from her colored shades and focus on a random can on the shelf opposite to you, trying to regain your composure.
Kanaya abandoned you like everyone else in your life. It was your mom first, when you were just a kid. You thought Terezi would stick with you forever, until she left you, too. Kanaya did the same. She dumped you. She abandoned you. They all did. You sneer subconsciously at the thought, tighten the arms you crossed and settle on staring down at your frayed shoes.
“Ah. Okay.” Terezi answers, snapping Vriska from her reverie. She shuffles her foot and her cane keeps on clacking an unsteady rhythm on the cheap linoleum tiles, dangerously close to your feet. You wonder if she’s doing it on purpose, having that cane slowly creep closer until it snaps down on her feet like that. Knowing her, you think it probably is. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah. Five years,” You say, way too quickly, leaning forward. Once you realize what you did you lean back, pretending to be nonchalant. Terezi must have noticed your gesture because she stops her clacking and leans on her cane instead, grin widening again. “Or something like that,” You recover, half-mumbling and scratching at the nest you call your hair.
“Or something,” She agrees. It sounds like she has a cackle waiting under her breath, and you want her to do it. You want her to laugh, because you’ve missed it so much.
(Not like you’d admit it; your last meeting had a lot of crashed furniture and things said that weren’t true and no make-up sex could ever repair that hole in your relationship. You had left, bitter and angry. You hadn’t even told her face-to-face, just left a note while you gathered your tiny amount of things from her home and went back to your shack you had inherited from your mom.)
But she doesn’t chuckle. She just keeps on grinning, and she folds her other hand on her cane and leans on it more. You wish you weren’t in a public place so you could knock her cone over and watch her fall over. “Still dying your hair black?” She demands, trying to make conversation.
You could just run away –in fact, that’s what the smart part of your mind is telling you to do-, but you find yourself saying, “Yeah. I still look as awesome as I always do, for your information.” You fix your glasses, and you swear you can see Terezi’s dead eyes glint from behind her own red lenses. Truth be told, your roots are starting to show but you don’t have enough money for another box of hair dye. You ran out of enough funds for going to an actual salon long before that point.
She cackles then, when she processes your information. It rolls off of her tongue, and she leans back. “Then I assure you, I’m doing as great as I was back then.”
“Oh, just as great? Pshhhhhhhh, I’m doing better than before!” You don’t know what you’re saying anymore. It’s just coming out of your mouth at this point, faster than those dudes in barrels floating down Niagara Falls but probably twice as suicidal as that.
“Let me correct myself. I’m doing much better than before. Probably twice as well,” She says, and you can tell she doesn’t know what she’s saying either, but she sure seems like she’s putting up a better show of faking it than you are.
“Twice? I’m probably eight times better now, without anybody holding me down!” You try to keep your voice down, you really do, but you notice you’re sort of shouting.
You’re shouting at your blind ex-girlfriend in the noodle aisle of a grocery store. When did your life turn to this?
Terezi just keeps flashing that shit-eating grin. “I’m sure that’s how it is.” She says, going back to clacking her cane. This time it actually does hit your foot and you let out an unnecessarily loud yowl. “I graduated law school.” She says conversationally. You wince. The most you’ve done since you’ve split is gamble all of your mother’s death insurance money away.
Still, you say, “Well, I have a job, too. I make drinks,” and you aren’t even surprised when she lets out one of those mock impressed hums.
“Wow, I never thought you’d ever even have a job!” She says, but her voice cracks again and her grin falters. It shrinks into a small smile, and she adds, “I’m happy for you.”
“Oh, uh. Yeah. Thanks.” You say, probably in the most awkward way possible. You’re making a habit of touching your hair. “You too.”
Terezi’s features soften, and she reaches out to pat you on the face. She almost draws back halfway, but suddenly you’re grabbing it, and you press it to your cheek. “I missed you, you know.” She says, and your rough edges seem to melt away, your defensive confidence that does absolutely nothing to bostler your actual self-esteem –the word reminds you of Tavros, and there’s another friendship you ultimately ruined-.
“I missed you too, you stupid blind girl.” You grumble, turning into her hand, admitting what you had wanted to say barely a week after you had split up.
She ruins the moment by pinching your nose and cackling. You ruin the moment by flicking her in the forehead. You both chuckle, and she takes a small step forward, which you match. She has to get up to the tips of her toes and grab onto the back of your neck in order to pull you down for a kiss, which you think is pretty fucking funny. Your lips meet, and she feels like she always did; like cooling peppermint and amusement and sharpness. She was never a great kisser –she uses waaaaaaaay too much tongue-, but you don’t mind at all and kiss her back, like fire meeting ice. The experience isn’t nearly as poetic as it sounds, and once the two of you realize you’re still in a public place you detangle yourselves from each other.
You clear your throat and wipe your mouth like the great romantic you are. You say, “You’re still bad at kissing.”
Terezi doesn’t seem to take it badly and cackles. “Your hair still seems like it hasn’t seen a hairbrush for years. My hand almost got caught in it.” She says, and you grin, shoving her shoulder.
“You’re just jealous,” You retort, pretty weakly.
“Jealous of what, your nest?” She answers, grinning again. She clacks her cane just once, then looks around. “Hey, help me pay? We can go out for supper.”
You could say no. You have a legitimate reason, your shift starts in a few hours and you’d have to change out of your ratty hoodie to get to your shift. But instead you say, “Yeah, sure.” You can get a new job. Probably. You start leading her, then add, “You’re paying, though.”
She keeps on laughing, and pays for her things, which consist of the pasta you picked up for her, a cherry pie, cookies, and some cat food.
“I hope you’re not the one eating the cat food,” You say, and Terezi looks at you, lips pursed.
“No,” She says flatly. She grins again –you wonder briefly if that ever makes her mouth hurt-, and adds, “I got a kitty. His name is Pyralsprite.”
You freeze for a moment, trying to remember where you heard that name, then burst out laughing. “You named your cat after your dragon in our games?”
“Uh, duh.” She says, handing you her bags which you, like an idiot, hold without complaint. She loops her arm through yours as you start moving out of the parking lot. Four steps out, she stops you. Terezi finds the sidewalk, then sits down. You stand there for a few moments before she pats the empty space next to her and you comply. Your hand manages to find hers, and you two sit there in relative silence. You lean against her, and she leans against you. It feels right.
“My life sucks, actually.” You blurt out, pursing your lips. “It sucks a lot.”
“I dropped out of law school,” Terezi admits.
“I’m ten thousand dollars in debt.” You say. She doesn’t even blink, just sidles closer to you and rests her head on your shoulder.
“Are you trying to one-up me in how much your life sucks?” She demands, and you let out eight huffs that resemble a chuckle.
“You started it, Neophyte.” You shrug, purposefully jostling her head on your shoulder.
“Don’t call me that, it’s embarrassing,” She grumbles, and you actually laugh then, grinning like a fool. She has her lips pursed like when you and her were ten, and the hand in yours grip your fingers almost painfully.
“But naming your cat Pyralsprite isn’t? Gimme a break, Terezi.” You answer, and she just half-hums in agreement. You sit there for a few more moments before Terezi stands and extends a hand towards you to pick you up. “Good,” You say, wiping the back of your pants. “My ass was starting to hurt.”
“Well, you have no plush rump for protection from solid surfaces,” She teases. You begin to say something about her own bony ass before she interrupts you with a quick kiss. “Now, let’s get to supper, shall we?”
“Yeah, I guess.” You mutter, trying to force down the stupid grin on your face.