Work Text:
It surfaces, shatters. You hold the pieces in your hands and wait for the emotion to melt away into your steel frame, for circuitry to carry the aching out of your wires. You are at the end of the world.
SimulationEnter(Timeline)
> Y
> N
***
On the morning of your tenth birthday, you received a pester from a complete stranger. She had decided to open with the following words:
GG: happy birthday rose!!
GG: oops
GG: oh god this probably sounds really stalkery
GG: sorry… it is your birthday right?
And you confess, for the sake of a good story if nothing else, it was love at first sight.
Looking back, she was barely an infatuation. You found yourself immediately enamored by her relentless optimism, her strange tendency to know much more than you disclosed, her refusal to divulge her methods. The mystery was just as intriguing as the conversation, in which she told you there was somebody she wanted you to meet, then introduced you to Dave.
You and Dave would, later, privately, agree that Jade Harley was some strange third coming of Christ manifest in the body of an eleven year old girl. She had delivered her equivalent of the Ten Commandments by single-handedly premeditating your collective social circle — a few months later, you were introduced to John, and suddenly gained two more friends than you’d ever had in your life. She would love you despite your oddities and malformations; hell, she knew of your oddities and malformations before you even broached the subject, and had decided to befriend you anyway. Surely she would see you for who you are. Surely it was love.
School was tepid and unentertaining. You were pointedly the odd one out amongst your peers, and though you had a ragtag group of social rejects to keep you company during the worst of it, you were — for some unknown reason — unable to keep conversation with them. At that point, your passive aggressive feud with your mother had just commenced, and not many sixth graders were willing to withstand an hour-long rant on exactly how you planned on getting your mother back. You willingly distanced yourself one evening, after realizing that nearly all of your “friends” were picked up by their mothers rather than a neon pink, bedazzled self-driving car decades ahead of its time, and that was that.
The first time Strider dared you to kick his ass on Team Fortress 2, on the other hand, kept you occupied for weeks. John pestered you about every new update to Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, a comic you analyzed with religious fervor, certain that you would unearth some deep psychological truth about Dave Strider (you would later figure it out, of course: that he was such a loser, and perhaps the best human being you’d ever know).
Jade Harley remained ever vague. Just barely out of your grasp. She admitted one evening that her foresight mostly came in the form of dreams; when you pressed further, she spoke of a golden kingdom with towers miles into the air, where clouds passed by her window while whispering of the future.
You told her to please, please cut the shit, and she hit you with a characteristic smiley face in response. And you stared at that smiley face for hours, a strange feeling stirring inside your gut that you would not put a finger on until years later.
Your first love came to you early on a December morning, when snow was barely beginning to dust the thin space outside your windows, when your mother spontaneously decided to don her winter garbs as she showered you with gift after gift that only confused you, when she promised in neon green text to never be understood by you.
***
And how you would kill for the thrill of it all over again. Your heart beating out of your chest. Sweat gathering in your palms, then dripping sickeningly down your index finger and onto the carpet below you. Your typing indicator, flickering in and out of your screen, mocking your indecision. Each response felt so consequential, as if the right move here or there would finally coax Jade into spilling her deepest secrets; as if cracking her, whatever that meant, would somehow prove you clever.
Later, cleverness would become one of your few fundamental axioms. You are smart; you know this; you make rational, logical decisions based on evidence; this is something you know how to do. Aiming your wit at anything that would take the blow, you haphazardly engaged in round after round of verbal strife, not knowing how lucky you were to be met with friendly fire rather than cold hard silence.
You have always been too sharp for your own good, you think.
***
Nowadays, the single tube of lipstick you thieved from her vanity before leaving is your most prized possession. An ironic double reminder of times long-past: she is gone, gone for good, as is your habit of constantly reapplying a fresh coat of black onto your lips.
Or at least, they should be. You touch the tip of the lipstick to cold hard metal and delude yourself — for, once upon a time light years ago, it touched her lips too — and rationally, logically, it’s sort of like a kiss.
***
Can an abstraction bleed?
Frankly, you didn’t know your mother could. Such a concept of a person. Unknowable to everyone, including her own daughter — though in hindsight it’s your fault for never attempting in the first place. You often wonder how she went thirteen long years in utter solitude, drowning herself in vodka and olive juice and bronzed household tools, slipping into the same pair of heels as she prepared for the universe’s apoptosis. You wonder if she wanted to reach out to you after all,
You could have handled it, if only you weren’t too busy with your head up your ass. You could have known your mother. It was your fault for never realizing this fact until she was dead in your arms, her blood seeping into the black fabric of your dress, an invisible stain that would remain on you forever.
That miserable, ridiculously pink excuse of a bedroom in the middle of a desolate laboratory. Coordinates and plans that began three decades before you arrived.
An abstraction cannot bleed, but that woman was a human being — the scientist behind the operation that would bring about the apotheosis — someone who, somehow, knew both Dave’s brother and Jade’s grandfather — Roxy Lalonde, your mother. You had one way of knowing her, by experiencing that sweet, hazy buzz of alcohol that she lived her life under, before you denied yourself even that.
So, the question must change. How many times did you bleed your mother out when you left her drunk on the couch, rambling about meteors and mutant felines, in favor of sulking in your room? How many nails did you drive into her heart, acknowledging her addiction with nothing but haughty annoyance? You could have put a blanket over her and stroked her hair, or at least kissed her goodnight — the way she always did.
***
Something warm drapes over your skin, and you barely manage to moan in protest — with your skin burning to the touch, the wool is just a little too warm. The figure over you hesitates before removing the insulting garment.
You sigh, soft, and blindly drag her into your arms, stabbing yourself with the tip of her horn in the process. She laughs,
You knew you were prone to addiction, via genetics if not upbringing. Standing on the dock, realizing your mother had left you in this strange world without a word of advice, you had suddenly been seized with fear — a bone-deep intuition that you would never, ever receive anything more from her than the half-drunk martini she left behind.
The liquor in your system felt feels like a hug. Better than the actual hug you’re receiving, gangly limbs wrapping around your torso as soft lips murmur unintelligible pleas into your ear, full of devotion and so fucking cold.
You are awful. You are awful. You always have been, and always will be. You do not deserve a lover so sweet, so easily showing you the kindness you never showed your mother. You press a kiss to every inch of her skin you can reach and murmur a prayer she will never understand before falling fast asleep, your head in her lap and a hand in your hair.
***
This is what you deserve for taking a Strider at face value.
No, really. Why did you ever think this was a reasonable, much less good, idea? You know better than to assume a Strider is speaking anything but bullshit when they come to you with Their Ostensibly Really Good Plan; Dave LARPed as Matthew Mcconaughey for three interactions minimum until you accused him of wanting to vicariously be the object of John’s affections, an accusation that would turn out to be true.
A new SBURB session with your own created races. A competition between gods. What is this, the Trojan fucking War? What a load of horseshit. You cannot believe you convinced yourself into playing a part in a glorified prolonged suicide attempt; your first hint should have been that, amongst the many default programs making up your “consciousness,” there is an option to simulate timelines.
Dirk knew what you would use this feature for, only because he himself uses it for the exact same purpose. The inclusion of this tool was a mercy. And what sickens you is that you are both capable of lying to yourselves until everything comes to an end; that you would rather sit there, hallucinating reality after reality where you love Kanaya the way she needs to be, instead of ditching this glorified suicide attempt to rush back into her arms and beg for forgiveness.
Ah, but what you would you even say? How exactly would you tell her that you sabotaged everything the two of you had out of sheer desperation; a need to survive, though at the expense of the ring on your finger? You vividly recall proposing to her, then explaining the significance of such a gesture as she stared down at you on one knee, confused out of her mind. You
For all the time it took picking out the ring and drafting your speech, it was explaining the human tradition of marriage that you took the most time over —as you clumsily, awkwardly, told her that you wished the spend the rest of your life with her, no matter what form that took. At several points you had to clarify that this was not a promised matespritship, or any kind of quadrant at all; she would be your wife, not just your alien lover.
***
And would your wife caress your metal skin the way she did your flesh? Would she pierce through silver-tinted plates with two long fingers, make an attempt at not-quite curling them right when you begged for it, breathless? Pyrope is incapable of anything resembling gentleness, for you look and act like her; and you prefer it that way. You’re not sure you could stand that careful, scared way she might brush against you, afraid of hurting you even after you gave permission for her claws to scrape and tear; whether Dirk would find you uninjured post some mockery of copulation and just know.
He would, probably. He is your maker, after all, and he made you in his image — primed to burn out for good at exactly the same time he will. Sometimes, the dark circles faintly visible under his shades are a bit wider than normal, so you know; whenever he looks into the flat red discs that you now call eyes, he knows.
You drape your hood around your body, obfuscating those very eyes, and step out for a meeting.
***
Your actual first love is, undeniably, her.
GA: Yeah Maybe
GA: Why Dont We Be Friends
The two of you would be friends, alright, and so much more. Kanaya — your confidant, your darling, your wife. You would tell her everything about yourself except what you withheld for her sake, kept locked in a pink frilly box deep in your heart and refused to unearth no matter how much she attempted to pry. She would know you at your best and your entirety, so long as you kept the uglier pieces at bay.
You want to be my friend?
, types back a younger you, looking amused at her screen. At this point, the most simple time shenanigans simply entertain you — and you still think she’s running an elaborate temporal bit on your person. You are, at this point, mildly intrigued.
But this mild intrigue will rapidly, unconditionally spiral into a car crash nightmare dumpster fire of emotions you are entirely helpless to prevent. In fact, you would not want to prevent it for the world, because loving Kanaya Maryam is the best thing you have ever done with yourself, no matter what the cost.
You float away into Kanaya’s point of view, just as she finishes up her response to you.
GA: I Think So
GA: I Think Were Supposed To
GA: You Suggested As Much Earlier
Mild intrigue, meet attraction. Her uncertainty, her elusiveness — it was familiar to you. It turned out you were just the same girl you had been at twelve; perpetually drawn to the unknown, however it manifested itself to you. When you responded, you had fully been convinced that you were speaking to an elaborate prankster with a mild ego problem, willing to faux-school you on matters of time travel for the sake of completing her bit.
You did not know, at the time, that she was being entirely genuine. But when you will find out — sometime between now and a year into your trip on the meteor — it will only make you fall harder for her. In classical Freudian fashion, your attraction to the genuine began with your mother.
TT: You mean I did in the future?
Kanaya, thirteen, is biting her bottom lip into shreds as she reads over your message. Eventually, she responds:
GA: Yes A Couple Minutes Ago
And you’re wearing the exact same smile you did six years ago when you shot back the prepared response, knowing you had her for good —
TT: Probably because I remembered you mentioning it in the conversation we're having now?
Her brows furrow adorably. You giggle quietly at the sight, for once not thinking of the sound specifically being programmed into you; instead you find comfort in the gears whirring quietly as you float about her childhood home.
Her parent, some sort of fucked up furry moth, floats behind her. Your own mother is downstairs, pouring herself a glass of wine for once, glancing frequently at the clock. Everything is okay. Everyone is alive. You are not yet wicked, and there is the possibility — though you know you won’t take it — that you never will be. Kanaya has drawn blood by the time she replies, jade pooling onto soft, sensitive skin and sucked into her mouth.
GA: Thats Likely
Your teenage self laughs, unaware of the events that will commence. Unaware of this inevitable future, where she will stand invisible and yearning for the events that will shape her being. She is grinning ear-to-ear as she types back, putting on her best air of control —
TT: Hmm.
TT: Your commitment to this roleplaying scenario is intriguing.
But Kanaya smiles at your inadequate, overdramatic response anyway. Your first love will grow jaded throughout six beautiful summers, until one day you make an irreversible mistake and drive a stake into your lover’s heart for good; but she will heal, and this memory will keep you company in a place where you cannot hurt her anymore. So what choice do you have but to accept?
SimulationExit(Timeline)
> Y
> N