Work Text:
Yet do our hearts wear Timon's livery --
That see I by our faces. We are fellows still,
Serving alike in sorrow; leaked is our bark,
And we poor mates stand on the dying deck
Hearing the surges threat -- we must all part
Into this sea of air.
-- Timon of Athens, 4.2.17-22
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Scourge Sisters
They’re all yours now. I’d pity you if I knew you didn’t enjoy a challenge. Pyrope is incorrigible and Serket is moody. You’re welcome for the scientists by the way, Megido and Captor are some of the best, and they’re thicker than thieves so they might actually be productive. Which also reminds me: Vriska shoplifts (supply-lifts I suppose) and pickpockets on occasion, don’t mind it too much, I find it’s helping her learn how to coordinate with the new arm, and she’ll return anything terribly valuable eventually.
I can’t believe the deals I sign off on for you. You owe me one, and also you owe me that transfer I was promised. Call me when you inevitably wash your hands of these two.
Regards,
Marshal Dirk Strider
Los Angeles Shatterdome
Pan Pacific Defense Corps
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From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Scourge Sisters
Zahhak and Leijon are on their way :P. Which is going to significantly hurt Shatterdome Anime Club participation — see the things I do for you!!!!! If Zahhak gets weird (he will!!! lol) just lock him in a room with Nepeta for a while and they’ll sort it out. Say hi to Jake for me!!!! He and I are still on for that arm wrestling match next time he wanders up here.
I can’t believe I’ve finally run into something that’s too hot for Marshal Strider to handle!!!
xoxo,
Marshal Jade Harley
Anchorage Shatterdome
Pan Pacific Defense Corps
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From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: re: Scourge Sisters
You’ll see.
Marshal Dirk Strider
Los Angeles Shatterdome
Pan Pacific Defense Corps
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P.S. — Did you really let them name their Jaeger Meow Beast? Is there something in the water up there?
You hate Alaska. You hate Alaska with a fervor unknown to you until right this very second, touching down on the helipad outside the Anchorage Shatterdome, hate the icy wind hate the stupid snow hate the shitty stupid way Strider transferred you out here just because you broke a few things!!!!!! GOD, they were little things, it wasn’t a big deal, you could fix it.
Well, someone could fix it. Fixing things was not your specialty. You look across the helicopter, see your co-pilot slumped into her seat, a little smudgy frown on her stupid face. Fixing things was definitely not your specialty.
Your name is Vriska Serket and you are the second biggest fuckup this side of the Pacific Rim.
Your name is Aradia Megido, and you are not the biggest fuckup this side of the Pacific Rim, though your palscience lab partner seems to think he has claim to that throne.
“I’m so sorry AA,” he keeps muttering. “I must’ve done something extraordinarily wrong --even by my standards -- to get us transferred here with those two, I’m so sorry.”
“Sollux, it’s not your fault!” you say. And you believe it! You two were just collateral, a way of sweetening the sour pot of a Pyrope-Serket transfer, which you knew Marshals did sometimes when they wanted to get a tricky Ranger team out of a Shatterdome where they were being disruptive, but it seemed a — you frown — particularly Dirk thing to do. Marshals would always trade one Jaeger for another (no trade was worth shorting yourself a Jaeger, no policy in the world would allow it), and besides, if there’s anyone equipped to provide support to Scourge Sister, it’s likely the two of you.
It’s not the best of things, being here, but it should be interesting, and you’ve promised Sollux you’ll talk to Marshal Harley about what happened back in Los Angeles so she understands your involvement.
“At least we get to meet new people.”
Sollux groans. “I hate meeting new people.”
You’re rolling carts of equipment through the bay, a massive empty cathedral of a room in the Shatterdome, somewhere big enough to roll in a Jaeger or hold the whole population of the dome, if need be. The labs are further into the compound, further away from the waves and the water and the actual huge pieces of kaiju facebreaking machinery, but you’re trying to get there by the most scenic route possible.
One jaeger support team has taken up a whole corner of the hangar, the head of the giant mech on the floor, separate from the rest of it. You guess they probably wanted to take it somewhere they could work on more delicate and fiddly bits without having to worry about the elements effecting the fine intricate processes of the neural net interface or computer programmers falling to their deaths.
The head belongs to Knight Watch, you’re pretty sure, and there, yes — out steps her pilots, drive suits and all, dark skinned and light haired and pretty cute, truth be told. You knew the guy, Dave, from the time he’d visited Dirk, but you’d only ever heard of the girl. Rose Lalonde’s smirk as she whispers into the ear of her co-pilot is the world’s worst pokerface, and she startles when you catch her eye and wink.
Anchorage may have its perks!
But before that, you should probably have a talk with the marshal.
-- gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 17:25 --
GG: oh my god
GG: oh my god!!!!!!!!
GG: i owe YOU one?????
GG: you owe me like thirty!!!
GG: you didn’t even tell me half the story!
GG: just
GG: just!!!!!!!!!!
TT: You have reached Marshal Dirk Strider’s autoresponder. Please leave your message at the beep.
TT: Beep.
GG: oh fuck off.
-- gardenGnostic [GG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 17:27 --
The worst of it is there is not even ever one second to be free of her, free of Serket and her long grins and bad makeup and goggle glasses, her patched jeans and her jackets, the universe of her rough edges. She is in your head, she is in your goddamn shampoo in the morning, in the way it smells, in the steam, so you’re choking on her before you can even get your head straight, before you’ve had chance to brush your teeth. You can smell the disgust on your face as you spit into the sink.
No, the worst of it is that you don’t want to be rid of her. The worst of it is the way you didn’t protest when they gave the both of you just one (which is normal, for co-pilots, most of the time), instead of two. The worst of it is the roiling anticipation in your gut when you think about drifting again, because it’ll be hard and painful and confusing but you’ll get to crawl inside her mind again.
You have been in Anchorage two days and there is not much longer you can put off testing, put off practicing with Scourge and Vriska, put off the drift. The first time you drifted after the accident, you’d almost put both of you back into the hospital again, you’d chased the rabbit, you’d broken something crucial in Scourge’s left arm — you were a disaster. The second time you drifted was going after a Cat 3 kaiju, and you’d started sinking. Little Pupa, of all things, had had to come and bail you out. And oh how humiliated Vriska had been that the Nitrams could do what she couldn’t: that they could recover, that they could drift without wanting to tear their own damn robot apart, that they could fight and win and be gracious in that winning. Oh how humiliated you had been, because you were her and she was you too often and forever.
You are, to put it simply, washed up! You are has-beens, and if this were any other war or any other time, maybe you would have quietly been demoted/promoted, sent to instruct at the Jaeger Academy or serve as a technician or watch over other teams from LOCCENT. There were plenty of other positions you could fill. But not a lot of people who could fill your position. Anchorage was supposed to be another chance, but all you could see was a fresh new set of faces waiting to be marred by the red miles of your wild drifting.
The steam evaporates, the concrete walls leech warmth away somewhere else. Prevent the apocalypse by improving your interpersonal relationships! That was something they hadn’t put in the brochure.
When you step out of the bathroom, you can hear her snoring softly still. You shrug on something approximating clothing, and decide to go for a walk.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: lo8ers
Slacking off on the job, Redglare? Spending a whoooooooole lot of time with your K-Science 8uddies instead of training with me! It’s almost like you don’t care if we all die terri8ly in a deadly attack from the terri8le deadly monsters that w8nt to destroy us all.
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To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: lo8ers
1LL R3M1ND YOU TH4T TH3 N3RD CR3W 1S 4LSO P4RT OF OUR T3CH CR3W. 4ND ONLY ON3 OF US H4S TO L34RN HOW TO COMP3NS4T3 FOR 4 L4CK OF 3Y3S1GHT 1N TH3 FI3LD, HOW TH4T 3FF3CTS TH3 DR1FT, HOW TO CORR3CT FOR 3RRORS. YOU’R3 LUCKY (H4H4) 1 4M SO T3RR1BLY BR1LL14NT 4ND R3SOURC3FUL, YOU’LL B4R3LY NOT1C3 N3XT T1M3 W3 F1GHT.
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To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: re: lo8ers
Gosh, not like that’s something your fucking co-pilot would need to know a8out!!!!!!!! Guess I’ll just have to adapt to any changes in the middle of a kaiju att8ck since its such a federal fucking issue getting you to do a test run!!!
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To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: re: re: lo8ers
GOSH, M4YB3 YOU SHOULD H4V3 THOUGHT OF TH4T B3FOR3 YOU M4D3 SUR3 NO ON3 1N K-SC13NC3 WOULD 3V3R SP34K TO YOU 4G41N!
4ND Y3S, 1 GU3SS YOU W1LL >:]
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To: [email protected], [email protected],
CC: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
BCC: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Scourge Sister Test
Hi guys!
Finally got everything assembled after the move from Los Angeles. We’ve scheduled the test run for tomorrow morning at 0900, Bay 4.
Dr. Captor, Dr. Megido, I know that you’re not technically and officially part of the J-Tech team for Scourge, but as you can see, around here everyone wears many hats! Many of our J-Tech crew also have a background working in K-Science, and vice versa. You might, on occasion, see me down in the labs running a few experiments of my own (and also, re: hats, just like by the way Thursdays are Weird Hat Day there’s a prize for the weirdest one so smoke ‘em if you got ‘em). So I hope you won’t mind if I have you occasionally help us with the more practical aspects of keeping Scourge Sister battle-ready.
I’m looking forward to seeing you all bright and early tomorrow morning!!!!!!!!
Marshal Jade Harley
Anchorage Shatterdome
Pan Pacific Defense Corps
— tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering apocalypseArisen [AA] at 20:45 --
TT: So what, precisely, is the deal with Serket, if you don’t mind me asking?
TT: And quite frankly even if you DO mind me asking.
AA: i d0n’t know how i became the world’s foremost vriska serket expert
AA: why don’t you go and ask the person who’s been inside her head on a regular basis
TT: Because she’s been inside her head on a regular basis.
AA: okay i guess that’s fair
AA: i better not find out you’ve been asking sollux about her though
TT: No, no. Don’t worry.
TT: Just about Terezi.
AA: 0_0
AA: i’d prefer you left him out of it
AA: and if i find out you’ve been bothering tavros
TT: I’m not going to bother Tavros. I understand why you’d like him left out of the conversation, and see no need to bring up painful experiences. I worked with the Nitrams on a mission or two. They’re very nice very awkward boys who would also be the worst possible people to convey to me any sort of meaningful information. They are safe from my prying eyes and keyboard both by virtue of their pure hearts & etc. and their inability to not become flustered halfway through a conversation about the weather.
TT: I wouldn’t bother Sollux, but, well, he’s in a more immediate vicinity, and he seems to be friendly with Terezi. Not Vriska.
TT: To tell you the truth, I’m running out of potential sources.
AA: look
AA: why don’t you just talk to HER then
AA: everyone treats her like a bomb but she’s not a bomb
AA: she’s not going to suddenly go off
AA: because she already has
AA: she’s an oil fire or something
AA: a continuous conflagration -- do you understand?
AA: and i love terezi! she is clever and funny and i like playing games with her
AA: but she’s part of what makes vriska dangerous and she’s dangerous too
AA: mostly they are dangerous at big terrible things that want to eat our faces but
AA: sometimes they’re dangerous out of the drive suits too
TT: Gee, thanks, that’s certainly information I could have gleaned from no one but you, and isn’t anything painfully obvious to everyone who wanders through their path.
TT: Here, let me try another question, one which you may be uniquely positioned to answer for me, since every official report is so obviously heavily censored and edited as to be useless, and since everyone else involved is apparently off limits.
TT: Jade told me some of what you told her, but she doesn’t seem to think she got the full story either, so:
TT: What really happened in Los Angeles?
— apocalypseArisen [AA] has ceased pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 20:55 —
— apocalypseArisen [AA] has blocked tentacleTherapist [TT] —
— apocalypseArisen [AA] has unblocked tentacleTherapist [TT] —
— apocalypseArisen [AA] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] at 23:25 —
AA: we were experimenting with drift technology
TT: Oh dear.
The drive suit’s heavier on your shoulders than usual as you prepare to enter Scourge. Sollux gives you the thumbs up as you pass LOCCENT, he’ll be watching over the test run from there, which is both soothing and incredibly unsettling. Everyone will be watching! You tell Vriska as much.
“Yeah, no shit, so?” she mumbles as she stuffs her hair into configurations small enough to fit under the helmet.
“So!”
“So don’t fuck it up, Redglare.”
You frown, you are inches away from a pout. Vriska does this, this thingsometimes, with calling you Redglare, and every time it casts you back to playing pretend and being ten years old, to the Bay Area before it was just Oblivion Bay, this instant fire of memory that recoils back to here, you, both of you, recoils back to how you remember how she felt too.
You hate knowing you’ll know how she feels right now before too long.
— clamshellCollator [CC] began pestering arachnidsGrip [AG] at 23: 30 —
CC: so did you really try n off your co pilot
CC: that sure takes —
CC: i was gonna say guts but im not sure if thats right. SOM—EFIN anyway
AG: Wow who even told you that!!!!!!!!
CC: like everybody
AG: Peixes, you seemed like a cool customer who never listens to any8ody and always knows whats up. does me killing terezi really seem like whats up!
CC: shell yea on both accounts
CC: you two are freaky
AG: Since you have 8een so terri8ly misinformed, let me tell you!
AG: What really happened!
CC: how bout not
AA: sollux is very brilliant! he is brilliant and i am quite frankly remarkable in my own ways and well
AA: you know how the kaiju have a hive mind?
TT: Of course. This is a thing that is well known and established and not in any way a revelatory piece of knowledge.
AA: right! an obvious part of our understanding of kaiju!
AA: how do you beat an enemy who can coordinate with each other against vast distances in a heartbeat
TA: so beiing the utter fuckiing geniiu2 ii am ii deciided to exploiit the uniique mechaniic2 of the kaiiju2 multii miind liink web
CG: YOU HACKED IT
TA: that ii2 the lea2st accurate a22e22ment ii have ever heard but 2URE
TA: why not
TA: ii hacked iit
TA: let2 not undere2tiimate how bada22 thii2 make2 me
TA: after all the opportuniitiie2 presented by harne22iing thii2 kiind of connectiion --
AA: what if we could use that if we could have a
TT: More collective drift. A drift across some physical distance, one not restricted by the hardware we currently must be attached to.
AA: yes! you see the utility
AA: and the possibility
TT: An easier way to share information?
AA: and an easier way to coordinate multi-jaeger assault teams! you need the drift to co-pilot, obviously, but that immediate connection with another mind, if you could work that seamlessly if less physically with the other people you needed to work with the most, a less potent form of the drift
TT: But that’s an awful lot of risk. The drift is already a delicate thing.
AA: risky, yes, but that’s why sollux was the one in charge
AA: because see again his utter brilliance and so on
AA: SO we were running some tests
AA: me and sollux and tavros because we were all friends and i was and am sollux’s partner, and any weird brain shit he subjects himself to i am duty bound to also subject myself to
CG: EXCUSE ME IF I SOMEHOW SLIPPED AND FELL AND UTTERLY CONCUSSED MYSELF IN THE LAST FEW SECONDS BUT THE WORDS I JUST READ ARE SO COMPLETE IN THE UNIVERSE OF BAD IDEAS THEY REPRESENT THAT ITS THAT IVE HIT MY HEAD OR MY ENTIRE WORLD MUST REORIENT ITSELF AROUND THIS NEW MASSIVE GRAVITATIONAL PULL OF SHITSTORMS.
CG: YOU TESTED IT ON YOURSELVES?
TA: plea2e, kk
TA: we both know that the ppdc 2ee2 2ciientii2t2 a2 a liitle more expendable than ranger2
CG: BUT WHAT ABOUT TAVROS?
AA: he was supposed to be safe!! he was supposed to be perfectly fine.
AA: he was just going to drift regularly, with me, because we’re drift compatible enough that it wouldn’t be hard — it doesn’t have to be perfect, we didn’t need to be able to pilot anything just have that sort of connection
AA: and sollux was going to try and patch into that
AA: i’d be the link
AA: the connection, if there was a point of failure — it’d be for the links in the chain not the person at the start. he was the initiating point
AA: and that went okay and terezi comes in, because she’d heard about this and she is awfully curious and she goes okay now you’ve done this with the three of you and you have to make it more complicated
GC: TH3Y W3R3 S1TT1NG TH3R3 TW1DDL1NG TH3IR THUMBS L1K3 UND3RGR4DS!
GC: T1NY M1NDL1NK3D B4BY B1RDS N33D1NG TO B3 PUSH3D OUT OF TH3 N3ST
GC: PLUS 4LSO 1T S33M3D L1K3 FUN >:]
GA: If Youll Forgive Me For Interrupting Your Narrative Flow
GA: How Did This Lead To Vriska’s Involvement In Tavros’s Injuries
GA: He Was Reported To Have Been Injured By A Kaiju
GA: And While Vriska From My Brief Experience And How You Have Depicted Her Certainly Seems Beautifully Volatile And Capable Of Great Damage
GA: She Is No Kaiju
GC: P3RH4PS MR. 4PPL3B3RRY BL4ST W4S CORR3CT 1N TH4T 1T W4S TOO SOON FOR SO M4NY D1FF3R3NT V4R14BL3S
GC: 1N W4YS 1 COULDNT 3V3N R3COGN1ZE UNT1LL L4T3R
GC: TH3 DR1FT C4N B3 4 VULN3R4BL3 PL4C3
GC: 4ND DR1FT1NG W1TH MULT1PL3 P3OPL3
GC: TH4T W4S STR4NG3!
GC: 1T W4S NOT H4RD FOR H3R TO JUST BUTT 1N W1THOUT OUR 1NPUT
AG: whats a hivemind without a queen?
AA: at this point is where things get a little hazy for me!
AA: there’s chain reactions
AA: vriska somehow gets tavros to jump off a cliff
AA: that’s how he got paralyzed it wasnt in a fight with a kaiju
AA: something goes wrong with the link and i go adrift entirely
TA: my fault on both counts
TA: ii 2hould have antiiciipated 2omethiing liike thii2
TA: ii dont know HOW, iit wa2 the mo2t unexplaiinable thiing
TA: the way aa ju2t
TA: went el2ewhere
TA: iinto my head
TA: into her head
AG: she wouldnt shut up!!!!!!!!
AG: all day all n8ght!
AG: have you ever drifted with someone completely and totally uncompata8le in every way?
CC: once
AG: its that except endless!!!!!!!!
AA: i can’t explain very well what it was like
AA: but i was almost certain i was dead or close enough to it
AA: in a permanent way!!!
AA: in the not coming back sort of way
AA: which i think wouldve been okay? i wouldve been okay with it
AA: if sollux didnt feel so responsible and if i wasnt stuck in serkets head for all eternity
AA: it’s very easy to hurt someone from within their own mind
AA: and i very much wanted to make her pay
GA: Im Sorry Again To Interrupt
GC: INT3RRUPT 1NT3RRUPT 1NT3RRUPT
GC: 1TS F1N3 YOUR 3X4M1N4T1ON OF 3V3NTS FROM 4 FR3SH P3RSP3CT1V3 1S W3LCOM3 4ND R34SON4BL3
GC: 1NT3RRUPT 4W4Y >:P
GA: Are You Saying That Aradias Consciousness Existed Outside Of Her Physical Body
GA: While She Lay In A Coma
GA: For Over A Month?
GC: SH3 W4S 4LSO 4 ROBOT FOR 4 WH1L3 1 TH1NK!
GA: Oh Of Course
GA: How Silly Of Me
AA: sollux keeps messing with the tech
AA: because he thinks he can use it to bring me back
AA: terezi is . . . pretty upset! with the whole deal
AA: she — i don’t know what happens here
GC: TH3R3S NOT MUCH TO T3LL!
GC: TH3R3 W4S 4 F1GHT
GA: In The Drift?
GC: 1N 4ND OUT
GC: SH3 P1CK3D TH3 WRONG T1M3 TO TRY 4ND PR3SS M3
GC: 4ND 4 TR4P 1D S3T SPRUNG
AA: there’s a fight with a kaiju
AA: that much of the official report is true
AA: and vriska is ripped from the conn pod
AA: her arm gets torn off and its because of something terezi does and so vriska
AG: The goal was never to kill her!!!!!!!
AG: Just
AG: M8ke her pay
AA: separate from Scourge and bleeding somewhere on a shore
AA: uses her knowledge of sollux’s hive mind experiments
TA: ii shouldve thought about the effect2 on piilots who driifted for 2o long
TA: people who2e miind2 have had so much non ca2ual contact that theyre permanently fucked
TA: but of cour2e 2iince ii exii2t to mock the god2 of rea2on and good iidea2 ii diidnt and ii 2hould have KNOWN
AA: and her lingering link to terezi — because they have drifted so very often for so very long —
AA: to force her to take her helmet off
AA: to stare into the sun
AA: as the kaiju comes barreling towards her
AA: and then i robot-kicked vriska’s ass for a while! that was pretty fun lmao
AA: the end
TT: Well.
CC: damn serket
CC: that’s fucked up
The way Vriska shoulder checks you as she bolts to her spot, the way she jostles her feet and hands into the controls, the terrible little grin on her face: they are all so familiar. They are the looks and touches of a thousand missions past, and they make you think, alright Pyrope, maybe you’ve just been overthinking this, maybe this time’ll be —
You’re drowning, you’re drowning again, white hot light and searing pain, a roar somewhere above you so you can’t see either, grappling forward with your hand (hands? no, just one now), grasping at whatever debris you can — no, grasping at the broken edges of the conn pod as a monster from the heart of the world bears down on you. Someone was supposed to learn a lesson here but you’re not sure who, if there is a who.
A desperate thought comes to the surface. No, wait. Two thoughts. One: you are still driving this bulky beast of a machine and you must stop this thing in front of you. Two: this is not the first time you’ve done this.
When someone goes chasing the rabbit, ideally what happens is their partner can follow them just far enough to pull them back, reorient them, remind them of the here-and-now. But what do you do when the memories that come hunting you when you drift are ones your partner shares, are ones that happened in this same goddamn robot, and so it’s hard to tell, are you Vriska? Are you Terezi? Is there a difference any longer? There must be. There has to be. You are different people! Or were. You and her, fighting at eight. You and her, sailing toy boats in the bath at five, you&her entering the Jaeger Academy, attached at the hip, and everyone always knew always knew that you were the best, that you&her were the real deal, ranger material, kill after kill, advance or abscond? kissing on the beach at fifteen, eighteen, twenty-five, interviews where you make up different childhood origin stories every time, the way her shoulders crumple inward when the helicopter touches the ground because Alaska is not what she wanted not what you&her wanted, and she can’t stand the way she can’t touch you, can’t breathe you in, can’t stand regretting this moment the moment of the Drift remembers the first time you drifted the revelation and the confirmation it held like a long sigh but this drift is like a scream a scream and you keep screaming
until
(blissfully)
the power goes out.
We can’t do this anymore, you think, now that you know the only you in here is you, just you, Vriska Serket.
Here is how you both know you have lost: all the bitterness has leaked away, because you don’t have the strength for it any longer. The strength, nor the pride. How embarrassing could it be to concede to Terezi, your best and most constant rival, after that show? At least in Los Angeles, when you’d drifted after the incident and things went terribly wrong, it was understandable to most people. The wounds were fresher. You were surrounded by people who had been there. No strangers (or at least, not many) had seen you wreck. Unlike here, where they all gathered to watch. Where Aradia narrowed her eyes at you as you walked by, Sollux glaring straight ahead, everyone else still nameless to you, just these two bright high spots of disapproval. They love Terezi, but they hate you, which to you says they lack a certain fundamental understanding of the you-ness of Terezi, of the Tereziness of you.
God, but you hate your interior monologue after drifting.
“We can’t do this anymore,” you say, out loud this time.
“I heard you the first time!” says Terezi. You both fled to your room after the doctors hesitantly gave the all clear, nearly running down the corridors while desperately avoiding eye contact with passerby. Now you’re sitting on Terezi’s bed, cross legged across from her. There’s a bottle of rum in between you two but neither of you have taken more than a sip or two, your heart’s just not in it.
“I’d tell you I hate you,” Terezi says, carefully (and you’d say “like she was defusing a bomb in your mind” except that one time she really did sort of plant a bomb in your mind), “but we’d both know it was a lie.”
You sag into her. “I hate it here. I half hate the Scourge. I wish I hated you.”
“It’d be easier.”
“But I can’t.”
Her shoulders straighten and straighten and straighten as yours curl in. This is always how it is: she expands when you contract, and it’s like resetting a bone, the slow way your bodies are reorienting to a familiar position, you curled and her sprawled, her hand in your hair and your thumb under her shirt. Difficult, so difficult, every inch you allow yourselves, though it should be the easiest thing in the world. You two are a foregone conclusion, you have been your whole lives. Touching her back underneath all the fabric, the press of skin to skin, grounds you and you bite back tears with the relief inherent in the fact that you haven’t ruined this one small comfort.
She presses a kiss to your shoulder, right above where your metal arm starts. “We are obscene,” you say.
“I know,” she says. “We’re not fit for polite company. For any company, really.” Her eyes close (there are so many things you’re going to have to learn to deal with never being able to atone for) and when they open again she parrots out one of the older jokes between you.
Terezi pinches the bridge of her nose. “Back before all this started I was going to be a lawyer, you know.”
You laugh, remember her perspective of the first time she told you this, the way you’d looked at her like you won the biggest prize at the fair, before saying what you always say. “Yeah, dipshit, I was just in your head, remember?”
“I do,” says Terezi, kissing you once, twice. “I do.”