MSPA Fanfiction III

[Wigmund]

If anyone needs the color codes for the kids and trolls; it's as follows:
John - 0715cd / Rose - b536da / Dave - e00707 / Jade - 4ac925
Aradia - a10000 / Tavros - a15000 / Sollux - a1a100 / Karkat - 626262
Nepeta - 416600 / Kanaya - 008141 / Terezi - 008282 / Vriska - 005682
Equius - 000056 / Gamzee - 2b0057 / Eridan - 6a006a / Feferi - 77003c

Oh god can I write anything other than sad-fics?

Okay this thought came into my head a day or two ago and plays with the thought of how Sollux copes with the loss of Feferi. Strange I thought of it and then that update happens, huh?
I didn't think of a title so instead you get something lame and cliche.
The Final Goodbye

show spoiler

hide spoiler

Italics are flashbacks

Sollux looked over the code again. It was coming together rather nicely. He still needed to fix some loopholes but it was still coming together. A project that should be impossible. He just had to make sure Equius would do his part of the plan.

“Hey, Sollux?”
“Yes, Feferi?”
“Can I see what you look like without your glasses?”
They were standing in Sollux’s room and he had barely just changed out of his derse clothes before they had been attacked by some imps. They were quickly slain though.
And then Feferi asked that question. Sollux was caught completely off guard and dropped his stoic facade for just a moment.
“Wh-what?”
“Glub!”
“But you already thaw them... I didn’t have them on when I wath dead!”
“Yeah, but you were dead! And I’m wondering if I can see a change. Maybe like, a secret burning passion! Or something else really -----EXCITING!”
Sollux made a long sigh. He didn’t really want to. He liked the mismatched eyes. The finishing touch on his ‘Double theme’. Also he liked the colours. But having a girl asking to see them? That was a bit awkward.
“Yeah, okay,” He said as he took them off. Feferi looked into them for a long time, until Sollux finally spoke again, a bit nervous: “Tho, do you thee a burning pathion?”
“No,” Feferi said. “But they’re really pretty,” she said with a smile.

Sollux rested his head in his hands. He was tired. Extremely tired. It felt like the last time he had taken a nap was two sweeps ago. He took his glasses off, and shook himself awake, putting them back on afterwards. He needed a break. He saved the code, closing it for the eyes of others (not that they could understand what it was but still) and took off to find Equius. The other trolls looked at him, but none spoke. Kanaya seemed like she was about to say anything, but chose to stay quiet. And so Sollux stepped on the transportaliser.

“Are you alright, Sollux?” Feferi asked with big eyes.
“Yeah it’th nothing.”
“I am really sorry this happened. I mean, I knew he was hurt when we broke up but I didn’t expect him to do something like this to my ma... You!” Sollux ear perked. Did she really just say that? Did she really feel that way?
“Feferi?” Sollux asked looking at her.
“Glubglubglub,” Feferi said trying not to make eyecontact.
“Feferi, do you feel that way about me?” Sollux said, getting up.
“NO! I mean, yes! I don’t know! I think you’re really cute, and funny, and you’ve saved my life and, and..” but she was cut off by Sollux putting a hand on her shoulder.
She slowly turned around to look at him. He could see her cheeks lightning a nice violet colour.
“Fefe, I... I feel the same way.”
And as he uttered thoese words, her eyes beamed and they shared their first kiss with both parties being alive.

Sollux was making his way down the long stairs of the laboratory. Of course the architects hadn’t thought of making an elevator. That would be too simple. Too efficient. Atleast he was almost at the blue-bloods workspace. He didn’t dare fly. In his state he might end up hurting himself.
As the door opened Sollux saw the massive amounts of robots Equius had managed to actually make. They all looked a bit similar to the one without an eye for detail, but Sollux had. He actually had two. He could see some of them were build for speed, and some for strength. He had actually made an updated battle program for the robots soon after getting on this desolate rock, after having opened the viewports on trollian. He found the blue-blood working very concentrated on a robot at his bench.
“How ith it coming along?”
“Exceptionally well. It will definetly be done on time. I still cannot believe you would do this, a lowly gutterblood such as you.”
Sollux had to bite his lip not to throw back an insult. Or fling a robot.
“I’m not doing thith becauthe of the blood.”
“I see. Well it is true we need a real leader, unlike this mister Vantas. I still cannot believe the princess chose to listen to his advice.”
“KK’th a good leader.” ‘Better than you anyway’ was his thought. “And that ithn’t the reathon either.”
“Then what is it?” Equius was beggining to build up a little sweat.
“It’th for thomething you’ll never know what ith.” Equius turned in his chair to look at Sollux, letting Sollux see the delicate body behind him. “I’th for love,” Sollux said as he walked back out the door.

“H-----ey Solux!”
“Hey Fefe.”
They shared a quick kiss.
“Are you gonna troll the humans?” Feferi asked looking him in the eye.
“No I won’t bother. I juth don’t see why we thould,” Sollux answered looking back to the code on his screen. “Bethideth, I have better thingth to do.”
“Aww, stop carping,” she said sitting in his lap. “Don’t you think it’s just a bit.... EXCITING?”
“Nope,” he answered not looking away from his screen.
Feferi pouted and looked at his code. “What are you working?”
He gave her a quick kiss on her neck, catching her attention again. “That’th a thecret.”
“Oh come on, Sollux! You can tell me.”
“Nope.”
“Don’t be so mysterious!”
“But wasn’t that the way I... Caught you?”
“Hehehehe!”

He sat back down at his workspace, looking over the last couple of lines of code. Yeah it seemed like now was the time. It was time for a test.
It took to minutes for the program to start running. The massive computer power needed was hard on the sucky computers they had here in the veil. He doubted they were good at even playing the troll game ‘Solitaire’.

-- cuttlefishCuller [CC] began trolling twiinArmageddon2 [TA] at ??? --

tA: Fefe?
cC: Sollux?
tA: Oh thank gog! Iit iit’2 you!
cC: Sollux, I feel weird...
tA: Iit’2 okay, Fefe. The program iit’2 don yet...
cC: Program? Solux, w)(at are you talking about?
tA: ...
cC: Sollux?
tA: You’re dead, Fefe.
cC: W)(at!? But, then )(ow can I be )(ere? T)(at isn’t fun, Sollux 38(
cC: Glub!
tA: Iit’2 true, Fefe. You went to 2leep and then and then you woke up, 2creamiing and... And...
tA: And then you were gone...
cC: Oh no... Sollux you )(aven’t...
tA: Ye2, Fefe! Ii wrote a program for you! It work2 ju2t the way you would!
cC: Sollux...
tA: And Equiu2 ii2 building a robot, becau2e we can’t add the program diirectly to your braiin, even iif we have your body.
cC: Sollux.
tA: And now Ii’m almo2t done, and we can be together again.
cC: SOLLUX! PLEASE! I DON’T WANT T)(IS, SOLLUX! I DON’T WANT TO BE A ROBOT! I DON’T WANT TO BE LIKE ARADIA!
tA: You won’t! You’ll have feeliing2 and you’ll be liike your normal self! Everythiing wiill be liike before!
cC: No it won’t, Sollux! It can’t I won’t be the same as before! Please! Don’t do t)(is!
tA: Fefe...
cC: PL---EASE! DELETE T)(E PROGRAM! Let me go, Sollux! It’s t)(e way it was meant to be...
tA: ...
tA: Okay, Fefe... Ii wiill.
cC: Thank you, Sollux.
tA: Heh... Ii gue22 Ii’m lettiing you off the hook.
cC: E)( e)( e)(e...
cC: Goodbye, my fire and water.
tA: Goodbye, my priince22.
cC: Glub?
tA: Glub.
-- twiinArmageddon2 [tA] ceased trolling cuttlefishCuller [CC] at ??? –

Sollux sat with the sleeping beauty in his lap, gently stroking her hair when all of a sudden her eyes opened.
“Fefe? You awake?”
Then there was a blood freezing scream as the body of the sea dweller started trashing about.
“FEFE!” Sollux tried to hold her down. Tried to calm her. But it didn’t work. She just pushed him away, screaming incoherent words.
“NO! LEMME GO!”
“FEFE!!” Sollux still tried, her nails digging into his arms and back, drawing yellow blood.
“WHY!? HELP ME! SOLLUX!”
“I’M HERE FEFE! PLEASE, STOP!”
And then her body stopped moving. Sollux caught his breath, still clenching the body of Feferi to his chest. The other trolls had garthered around but no one spoke, or had tried to help. They had all been frozen with fear.
Sollux slowly took her face from his chest. Down her cheecks countless tears flooded and her eyes were dulling. “Sollux,” she said as her eyes began to close.
“Fefe? Are you awake?”
“I love you...”
“Fefe!?

“Fefe?”

Sollux had wrote the last many lines with tears in his eyes. And now he moved the cursor and clicked on the file once, highligthing it.

“But I think they’re really pretty!”

Delete.

“I love you, Sollux.”

Enter.

“Goodbye.”

And his love was gone, once again, but this time, tears was flooding down his face. Last he had thought out a plan to get his love back, but now. Now there was no way. He barely noticed when Kanaya lend him her shoulder to cry on. He didn’t notice the comforting pats she gave him on his back. All he could do was cry.
Cry until the pain was subsided enough for him to think.

Three hours later, Sollux was sitting in his room. He had been so busy with the code he hadn’t noticed when the other trolls had made her a grave and given her a resting place. He had only visited the grave now after he had stopped crying. And once he saw the name on the small tombstone they had made, he had begun to cry again. ‘There muth be a way’ he thought. ‘ It can’t end like thith.’ Sollux didn’t really see a light in the dark with her gone. All she had done was sleep.

And that’s when Sollux got an idea.

He woke up in a weird blank space. Floating. Without using his powers. He looked around but nothing was there.
“Hello?!” he yelled into the void world.
“Sollux?” a small voice called back. This was hoarse and wavering as if the caller had been crying.
“FEFE!” Sollux activated his powers and flew towards the sound. And there she was. Curled into a ball she floated. Her cheeks were violet from tears, but Sollux still thought she was as beautiful as ever.
“Sollux? Is that really you?!” she said strecthing out, holding her hands towards.
“Yeth, Fefe. It’th okay,” he said locking hands and fingers with her.

“It’th all okay now.”

show spoiler

hide spoiler

Oh god! I hope I caught the typing quirks right. The 'fire and water' are totally something I figured would be a poetic nickname for Sollux. I have no idea why i wrote this, but I hope you enjoyed it nontheless.

Also to everyone who wrote a story before this: I read them and approved! I am sorry I can't commentate each and everyone but I have to go to bed.

*sob* I can't accept that Feferi is actually dead until we get more proof.

*in denial* The Dead reveal was Jade's dream turning into a nightmare...or Fef messing with her... *sob*

[Katrika]

I personally think it's a nightmare. Jade has been prospit dreaming almost her entire life. She has little-to-no experience with nightmares.

[Ganato]

Luckily I have enough time to comment comments while they're few.

Ganato that was beautifully sad.

Thank you. It was what I aimed for.

Oh bluh, this is a pairing I can't stomach sadness for :<

By the way, Sollux's blood color is best respresented with olive. It's puke yellow really, not mayonaise yellow. I had to highlight the text =P

Thank you. Now I know I was succesfull.
Thank you! The trolllog is now much easier to read. I just found the colour in another fic and took it from there, so.

*sob* I can't accept that Feferi is actually dead until we get more proof.

*in denial* The Dead reveal was Jade's dream turning into a nightmare...or Fef messing with her... *sob*

Thank you. It's awesome to see the story made an impact.

On the subject of Feferi being dead, I'm not a believe either (might be her dead dreamself that horror-terrors are using or something of the sort) but that doesn't stop me from writing a fic about it.

[BPrinny]

Oh god can I write anything other than sad-fics?

Okay this thought came into my head a day or two ago and plays with the thought of how Sollux copes with the loss of Feferi. Strange I thought of it and then that update happens, huh?
I didn't think of a title so instead you get something lame and cliche.
The Final Goodbye

show spoiler

hide spoiler

Italics are flashbacks

Sollux looked over the code again. It was coming together rather nicely. He still needed to fix some loopholes but it was still coming together. A project that should be impossible. He just had to make sure Equius would do his part of the plan.

“Hey, Sollux?”
“Yes, Feferi?”
“Can I see what you look like without your glasses?”
They were standing in Sollux’s room and he had barely just changed out of his derse clothes before they had been attacked by some imps. They were quickly slain though.
And then Feferi asked that question. Sollux was caught completely off guard and dropped his stoic facade for just a moment.
“Wh-what?”
“Glub!”
“But you already thaw them... I didn’t have them on when I wath dead!”
“Yeah, but you were dead! And I’m wondering if I can see a change. Maybe like, a secret burning passion! Or something else really -----EXCITING!”
Sollux made a long sigh. He didn’t really want to. He liked the mismatched eyes. The finishing touch on his ‘Double theme’. Also he liked the colours. But having a girl asking to see them? That was a bit awkward.
“Yeah, okay,” He said as he took them off. Feferi looked into them for a long time, until Sollux finally spoke again, a bit nervous: “Tho, do you thee a burning pathion?”
“No,” Feferi said. “But they’re really pretty,” she said with a smile.

Sollux rested his head in his hands. He was tired. Extremely tired. It felt like the last time he had taken a nap was two sweeps ago. He took his glasses off, and shook himself awake, putting them back on afterwards. He needed a break. He saved the code, closing it for the eyes of others (not that they could understand what it was but still) and took off to find Equius. The other trolls looked at him, but none spoke. Kanaya seemed like she was about to say anything, but chose to stay quiet. And so Sollux stepped on the transportaliser.

“Are you alright, Sollux?” Feferi asked with big eyes.
“Yeah it’th nothing.”
“I am really sorry this happened. I mean, I knew he was hurt when we broke up but I didn’t expect him to do something like this to my ma... You!” Sollux ear perked. Did she really just say that? Did she really feel that way?
“Feferi?” Sollux asked looking at her.
“Glubglubglub,” Feferi said trying not to make eyecontact.
“Feferi, do you feel that way about me?” Sollux said, getting up.
“NO! I mean, yes! I don’t know! I think you’re really cute, and funny, and you’ve saved my life and, and..” but she was cut off by Sollux putting a hand on her shoulder.
She slowly turned around to look at him. He could see her cheeks lightning a nice violet colour.
“Fefe, I... I feel the same way.”
And as he uttered thoese words, her eyes beamed and they shared their first kiss with both parties being alive.

Sollux was making his way down the long stairs of the laboratory. Of course the architects hadn’t thought of making an elevator. That would be too simple. Too efficient. Atleast he was almost at the blue-bloods workspace. He didn’t dare fly. In his state he might end up hurting himself.
As the door opened Sollux saw the massive amounts of robots Equius had managed to actually make. They all looked a bit similar to the one without an eye for detail, but Sollux had. He actually had two. He could see some of them were build for speed, and some for strength. He had actually made an updated battle program for the robots soon after getting on this desolate rock, after having opened the viewports on trollian. He found the blue-blood working very concentrated on a robot at his bench.
“How ith it coming along?”
“Exceptionally well. It will definetly be done on time. I still cannot believe you would do this, a lowly gutterblood such as you.”
Sollux had to bite his lip not to throw back an insult. Or fling a robot.
“I’m not doing thith becauthe of the blood.”
“I see. Well it is true we need a real leader, unlike this mister Vantas. I still cannot believe the princess chose to listen to his advice.”
“KK’th a good leader.” ‘Better than you anyway’ was his thought. “And that ithn’t the reathon either.”
“Then what is it?” Equius was beggining to build up a little sweat.
“It’th for thomething you’ll never know what ith.” Equius turned in his chair to look at Sollux, letting Sollux see the delicate body behind him. “I’th for love,” Sollux said as he walked back out the door.

“H-----ey Solux!”
“Hey Fefe.”
They shared a quick kiss.
“Are you gonna troll the humans?” Feferi asked looking him in the eye.
“No I won’t bother. I juth don’t see why we thould,” Sollux answered looking back to the code on his screen. “Bethideth, I have better thingth to do.”
“Aww, stop carping,” she said sitting in his lap. “Don’t you think it’s just a bit.... EXCITING?”
“Nope,” he answered not looking away from his screen.
Feferi pouted and looked at his code. “What are you working?”
He gave her a quick kiss on her neck, catching her attention again. “That’th a thecret.”
“Oh come on, Sollux! You can tell me.”
“Nope.”
“Don’t be so mysterious!”
“But wasn’t that the way I... Caught you?”
“Hehehehe!”

He sat back down at his workspace, looking over the last couple of lines of code. Yeah it seemed like now was the time. It was time for a test.
It took to minutes for the program to start running. The massive computer power needed was hard on the sucky computers they had here in the veil. He doubted they were good at even playing the troll game ‘Solitaire’.

-- cuttlefishCuller [CC] began trolling twiinArmageddon2 [TA] at ??? --

tA: Fefe?
cC: Sollux?
tA: Oh thank gog! Iit iit’2 you!
cC: Sollux, I feel weird...
tA: Iit’2 okay, Fefe. The program iit’2 don yet...
cC: Program? Solux, w)(at are you talking about?
tA: ...
cC: Sollux?
tA: You’re dead, Fefe.
cC: W)(at!? But, then )(ow can I be )(ere? T)(at isn’t fun, Sollux 38(
cC: Glub!
tA: Iit’2 true, Fefe. You went to 2leep and then and then you woke up, 2creamiing and... And...
tA: And then you were gone...
cC: Oh no... Sollux you )(aven’t...
tA: Ye2, Fefe! Ii wrote a program for you! It work2 ju2t the way you would!
cC: Sollux...
tA: And Equiu2 ii2 building a robot, becau2e we can’t add the program diirectly to your braiin, even iif we have your body.
cC: Sollux.
tA: And now Ii’m almo2t done, and we can be together again.
cC: SOLLUX! PLEASE! I DON’T WANT T)(IS, SOLLUX! I DON’T WANT TO BE A ROBOT! I DON’T WANT TO BE LIKE ARADIA!
tA: You won’t! You’ll have feeliing2 and you’ll be liike your normal self! Everythiing wiill be liike before!
cC: No it won’t, Sollux! It can’t I won’t be the same as before! Please! Don’t do t)(is!
tA: Fefe...
cC: PL---EASE! DELETE T)(E PROGRAM! Let me go, Sollux! It’s t)(e way it was meant to be...
tA: ...
tA: Okay, Fefe... Ii wiill.
cC: Thank you, Sollux.
tA: Heh... Ii gue22 Ii’m lettiing you off the hook.
cC: E)( e)( e)(e...
cC: Goodbye, my fire and water.
tA: Goodbye, my priince22.
cC: Glub?
tA: Glub.
-- twiinArmageddon2 [tA] ceased trolling cuttlefishCuller [CC] at ??? –

Sollux sat with the sleeping beauty in his lap, gently stroking her hair when all of a sudden her eyes opened.
“Fefe? You awake?”
Then there was a blood freezing scream as the body of the sea dweller started trashing about.
“FEFE!” Sollux tried to hold her down. Tried to calm her. But it didn’t work. She just pushed him away, screaming incoherent words.
“NO! LEMME GO!”
“FEFE!!” Sollux still tried, her nails digging into his arms and back, drawing yellow blood.
“WHY!? HELP ME! SOLLUX!”
“I’M HERE FEFE! PLEASE, STOP!”
And then her body stopped moving. Sollux caught his breath, still clenching the body of Feferi to his chest. The other trolls had garthered around but no one spoke, or had tried to help. They had all been frozen with fear.
Sollux slowly took her face from his chest. Down her cheecks countless tears flooded and her eyes were dulling. “Sollux,” she said as her eyes began to close.
“Fefe? Are you awake?”
“I love you...”
“Fefe!?

“Fefe?”

Sollux had wrote the last many lines with tears in his eyes. And now he moved the cursor and clicked on the file once, highligthing it.

“But I think they’re really pretty!”

Delete.

“I love you, Sollux.”

Enter.

“Goodbye.”

And his love was gone, once again, but this time, tears was flooding down his face. Last he had thought out a plan to get his love back, but now. Now there was no way. He barely noticed when Kanaya lend him her shoulder to cry on. He didn’t notice the comforting pats she gave him on his back. All he could do was cry.
Cry until the pain was subsided enough for him to think.

Three hours later, Sollux was sitting in his room. He had been so busy with the code he hadn’t noticed when the other trolls had made her a grave and given her a resting place. He had only visited the grave now after he had stopped crying. And once he saw the name on the small tombstone they had made, he had begun to cry again. ‘There muth be a way’ he thought. ‘ It can’t end like thith.’ Sollux didn’t really see a light in the dark with her gone. All she had done was sleep.

And that’s when Sollux got an idea.

He woke up in a weird blank space. Floating. Without using his powers. He looked around but nothing was there.
“Hello?!” he yelled into the void world.
“Sollux?” a small voice called back. This was hoarse and wavering as if the caller had been crying.
“FEFE!” Sollux activated his powers and flew towards the sound. And there she was. Curled into a ball she floated. Her cheeks were violet from tears, but Sollux still thought she was as beautiful as ever.
“Sollux? Is that really you?!” she said strecthing out, holding her hands towards.
“Yeth, Fefe. It’th okay,” he said locking hands and fingers with her.

“It’th all okay now.”

show spoiler

hide spoiler

Oh god! I hope I caught the typing quirks right. The 'fire and water' are totally something I figured would be a poetic nickname for Sollux. I have no idea why i wrote this, but I hope you enjoyed it nontheless.

Also to everyone who wrote a story before this: I read them and approved! I am sorry I can't commentate each and everyone but I have to go to bed.

Excuse me while I go cry.

[Dermonster]

Seven(Sept[Crowbar])

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This is mine.

This is my home.

This is my gang.

And this is gonna be my town someday.


You run.

It shames you to do so but you have no choice. The felt has bypassed your hideouts defenses, which, should be impossible.

The lower ranks are holding them up with the Status's leading them. The Wilds (Which you are the leader of.) are evacuating.

You crash through a door and hurry toward the submersible. Your contact in West City should be able to hide you for some time.

You run towards the hatch, drop in, and start procedures.

Lights boot up, the engine revs, you're good to go.

Until suddenly the power shorts out.

Nonononononono C'mon baby start up we gotta get out of here-

There is a knock on the side of the sub. You panic and press the launch button.

Nothing happens.

You might as well come out, We've got you surrounded.

You sit there for a moment. Then grin.

If you're going down you're taking these fuckers with you.

You stand up, go to the back and take down a nondescript machine gun and stuff a revolver into your pocket.

Always good to be prepared, you think as you take a couple of clips.

You climb out of the hatch and peer out at the dock. Green. They are all green. Skin, eyes, hair. Except for the numbered hats. And there are... Only four people? The entire Uno gang was taken down by four people?

Rage fills you and you fling the hatch backwards and start shooting.

Itchy.

Ratatata-ratatata-rata-Silence.

Your gun is gone.

You stare at your hands in shock as you hear Good work Itchy. come from the apparent ringleader.

You glare at them and dash off to the left entryway. The number two is standing there.

Doze.

You ignore the seven, skid to a stop in front of the blue hat, and tackle him to the ground.

You dislocate your shoulder as he stands there like a brick wall. You drop to your knees in pain.

Why won't you just give up? Maybe the rest of your friends wouldn't have been killed...

You hate them.

Rage fills you and you stand. You wipe the sweat off of your head, replace your joint with an audible snap and grit your teeth.

You charge at him.

Fin.

The sharky one standing to his right moves right at you. Number five.

He dodges all of your blows. All of them.

You Snarl in anger as an idea forms. You line him up with a series of blows, snatch your revolver and shoot him in the face.

He tilts his head to the side as the bullet whizzes by... and flies straight at crowbar.

Then the bullet disappears.

Yellow hat is tossing something in his hand.

You scream in rage, which is cut short by a punch to the stomach. You wheeze and fall to the floor.

The leader stands over you.

You think you can resist? How laughable.

He picks you up by the throat and you gasp as you try to pry them off.

It was suicide to try this, you know. Resisting only makes it worse.

He grins.

Uno.

He drops me.

Wild plus four.

He hefts his crowbar up.

Color to green.

It comes down.




This is my town.

This is my gang.

And there ain't nobody that's gonna stop us.

[SkaianRedeemer]

A Hand in Holding Hands
Part 8a (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, recap1, 7, 8b, 8c, 9)

(A Hand in Holding Hands has been fully re-edited and is now on Archive of Our Own! Better spelling and grammar, half the fat! There are no colour tags there (boo) but at least I still have editing power (yay), which means all locked forum back-links will now point there!)

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The Troll’s sections of the lab had not been selected entirely at random. As far as Rose understood it, the long straw had gone to Nepeta, who had immediately selected the dilapidated, rat-infested Underlab to make her den, and so on down a chain until Sollux, who was left with the custodial and laundry rooms. Kanaya, who had received one of the later choices, had still managed her favourite thanks to her completely esoteric sense of décor compared to the other Trolls. She had taken the executive offices and adjoining dormitory, easily the smallest section of the lab, comprising of a former waiting room, the main office, an expansive bedroom decked to the nines with plush carpeting and wood finish, and an en suite bath.

Rose found all the doors unlocked as she passed and made her way into the office, which she found unoccupied, save for Kanaya’s stocked collection of clothing. The desk remained clean as a whistle and ready for use, not that Kanaya ever did, and the windows behind it remained locked and heavy shuttered, overlooking some part of Equius’ section of laboratory that he had nevertheless been unable to reactivate. Rose passed through with only enough care to notice that Kanaya had taken one of the racks away from its usual spot: knowing Kanaya, it was already in her room.

Rose knocked. “Kan?”

“Ah, yes! Come in, Rose!” Kanaya’s voice came through flustered, though the door muffled sound well enough to keep Rose from seeing the full of it until she opened the door and found the room completely askew. Rose had never quite seen Kanaya’s place so dishevelled, and worse, Kanaya herself. It was as though the entire suite had been tossed on its side, shaken and then returned to its original position. That was not to say Kanaya was not the type to keep things in their place, simply that she liked to organize her chaos. Rose was always careful not to leave footprints on a bolt of fabric or to upset the pyramid of emptied spools of thread. Now only the pyramid lay undisturbed, and virtually everything else was covered with discarded dresses and outfits. By the looks of things, Kanaya, who was presently in her work clothes, had begun cleaning up near the door, but had only managed a half dozen or so before Rose had arrived.

“I… uh…” Kanaya said, two blouses and a skirt in her arms as she walked away from the corner of her room that housed her recouperacoon. “…hi.” She pulled another skirt into her arms. “I let my ten minutes go by and figured I shouldn’t…” She squinted down inquiringly at her bed, a huge king-sized bed wrapped in a fluffy red comforter that Kanaya preferred to use more as a chair, and snapped up a dress at the foot-end corner closest to the door without even risking the ones in her hand. “…shouldn’t keep you waiting. You can take a seat.” She pointed down at the fresh corner.

“Uh…” Rose checked the shoes mining the path between her and the bed for a path of open space, and had pushed two of them aside with her foot before ultimately deciding that Kanaya’s sense of hospitality just misleading her from the proper course of action, and she began to collect them in loads, passing them over the bed.

“Oh, please don’t,” Kanaya said, biting her bottom lip but not stopping her attempts to clean. “You’re my guest.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Rose said, handing over three pairs of heels. “But I’ve been in here almost every other day for a month. I’ll help out.” Kanaya made a face, but ultimately bit her tongue. “So,” Rose said, “did you find the outfit you were looking for?”

“Am I that obvious?” Kanaya said, trying to decide how to sort the items she had in-hand.

“With fashion.”

“No luck.” Kanaya turned back and started to rifle through the shoes to collect the shirt Rose had accidentally been stacking them atop. She tossed it into the (plastic) weaved hamper that had come with the room and began to sort the shoes into their cubbies. “I’m certain it must be on the second rack, because I was so sure it was the first. I had found the rest of the ensemble,” she waved vaguely to the storm damage that was the rest of her room, “but obviously the dress is key. And now it’s invisible. Transparent. Gone.”

“Maybe you just imagined it?” Rose said. “Maybe you still need to sew or alchemize it, I mean.”

“I did,” Kanaya replied, “the latter. But I didn’t see the point in pushing through the kitchen at lunch time just to get to the alchemizer to make another.”

Rose pulled up the last of the shoes and passed them over. Gingerly picking up three shirts that had somehow made their way from the rest of the pack, Rose passed them into Kanaya’s wrinkle-conscious hands. From there, she took her earlier-intended seat. Kanaya did not outwardly react to this belated compliance but Rose nevertheless got the impression that she approved.

Rose gave the problem some thought. “Do you think it might be in Karkat’s?”

“…ohhhh…” Kanaya slumped for a moment before diligently returning to her cleanup. “Yes, that’s it exactly.”

“You should really stop hiding things there.”

Kanaya, having just finished with her handful, turned back with a smile. “But it’s entertaining!”

Rose laughed, passing her some of the clothes from the head of the bed on request, and noticed for the first time that Kanaya did not seem to be wearing her makeup. It was not the first time Rose had caught her like that. Kanaya did tried her best to never allow her face in public without at least a brush of her hair, and Rose was again struck by the chaotic first impression. Strange as well, though she would never admit it, were Kanaya’s eyes, which she tended to treat with eye shadow and appeared much less defined without, though Rose could still see the detail-hunting look and the churning gears of creativity that defined Kanaya even as she picked up rejected costumes at random.

“I’ll have to see it once you find it again. Sure you don’t want to go hunting? Karkat’s busy with his movie.”

“Please,” Kanaya said. “I don’t think he even watches it any more, he certainly knows it by heart. We should get him to recite it for us, it would be entertaining to see just how far he can get.”

Rose collected a pair of pants from the floor and handed them over. “I guess we all have our guilty pleasures,” she said, smug.

Kanaya caught her meaning at once and over-indignantly snapped up the clothes and huffed. “Certainly.” She collected another set of clothes from next to Rose’s cleared corner, and Rose took the opportunity to lie down, watching her work upside-down. Rose was glad to see Kanaya working without any sign of the earlier discomfort; she imagined Kanaya would have realized just how relaxing work can be some times and had set more to work for that than any other purpose.

Rose laughed as an ice-breaker. “Oh, you should have seen…” She rifled through the days events: “Nepeta, earlier. Talking about Eridan and Tavros. She was…” Rose was really not sure where to begin, and she absently pressed her fists together without any accompanying narration. “She was really into it. Of course, I had no idea.”

“Mm,” was all Kanaya said, comparing a set of blouses.

“I mixed up some rules about auspistices today,” Rose said, hoping for a larger reaction. “You’d have been ashamed of me.” In reply, Kanaya seemed to smirk for a moment before Rose’s view was blocked by a discarded blouse tossed over her face. She tried to swat it away but only ended up more tangled. “Ack, Kan—!” She struggled for a moment and found enough purchase to remove the thing and hand it back. Kanaya tried to keep a straight face as she accepted it, which Rose tried to match upside-down. A stare-off began, both trying to break the other, until Rose added: “Yeah, I feel your burning scorn.”

Kanaya laughed and at once clapped a hand to her mouth. She threw the blouse back at Rose to cover for her odd behaviour; Rose caught it, tossed it back and watched as it landed on the floor on the opposite side. Kanaya took that a cue to stop working, which Rose took with pride. She had never been able to get Kanaya to stop working until just a week ago. Kanaya sat side-saddle on the opposite corner and looked down on Rose from above – fairly rare as Rose had an inch on her when standing – and set her hand to her chin for a moment before reaching down and brushing aside Rose’s bangs.

Rose reached up to catch her by the hand. “Thank you, mother,” she chided, a familiar admonishment Kanaya took with her typical chuckle, though Rose noticed the unwelcome return of that morning’s monitored, close-lipped smile. Not wanting to do anything to provoke the accompanying mood if she could help it, Rose flopped over to her stomach (no doubt ruining whatever Kanaya had been attempting to do with her hair) and immediately changed the subject. “I’ve got a question, if you don’t mind.”

“Shoot.”

“So… Tavros and Eridan just kissed, like, a few minutes ago.”

“Oh?” Kanaya gave a wry smile and Rose could not help but suspect her grease on some of the axles in that relationship. “That’s good to hear, Eridan was incredibly nervous about the kiss.”

“First kiss?” Rose asked with surprise. True, she had not had her first kiss either, but her surprise was more a subconscious side-effect of Eridan’s boasting making her assume he had at least some progress, both with and maybe prior to Tavros.

“For them, yes,” Kanaya said, anticipating Rose’s needs as they had learned to do so well over the internet, “for Tavros, no. You have Vriska to account for that.”

“Oh. …oh.” That detail had not quite made it into Kanaya’s explanation of the second Tavros/Vriska incident. Rose reached out a hand and rubbed Kanaya’s knee through her skirt. Kanaya smiled fondly, but neither made any effort to stay on that topic. Rose tented her hands and set the weight of her head on the peak. “That may change my question a little. Before I go any further: is that a sentimentally valuable interaction for Trolls?”

“The first kiss? Depends on the person.”

Rose shrugged. “Generalize.”

“Well...” Kanaya broke eye contact in thought and began to drum her hands against her thigh as she went. Rose covered her own mouth at that point, as she found Kanaya’s little drumming quirk nothing but endearing and wanted to do all she could not to draw her attention to it, lest she stop. It reminded her of Jade’s pencil-chewing, or John’s occasionally head-bopping to the Ghostbusters theme: little humanities (trollmanities?) that made her appreciate her friends all the more in person than she ever had away.

“For Eridan,” Kanaya said, “it would be valuable because he had been trying so hard to reach that point in confidence. As a social construct it would be hard to pin down. I would value it,” the Virgo said, with almost with a shrug in her tone, as though she expected this information to come to no surprise across the board. “The Aradia of… of my youth expressed a similar sentiment, as did Sollux. I used to hope that they might have found some satisfaction on that end, but privately…” Kanaya lowered her voice. “Privately I don’t think they had yet decided where they stood in one another’s lives before it happened.”

“They said they talked,” Rose said. “Just a few minutes ago they told me they had a talk when she… recovered?”

“Yes,” Kanaya said. “Aradia started trolling me after he left, but…” She sighed.

Oh no, now I’ve done it, Rose thought, and spoke up. “No, I wasn’t asking—”

“No, I never meant to start down that track.” But Kanaya’s expression did not improve. “If you’d believe it, it has been more surreal having Aradia back in her own mind than when she was working entirely for ‘Fate.’ Even when she was a ghost, or when we were getting used to her being a robot. It’s like meeting a childhood friend after a dozen sweeps, knowing she’s ‘Aradia’ from little expressions or tones of voice, but not knowing her, or any of the stories she knows. She’s grown.” Kanaya sighed, but continued for a moment: “I think, with Sollux, she wants… but you didn’t want to hear about that.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to hear,” Rose said. Feferi’s anger in the discussion before had a staying power. “…It’s that it’s none of my business.”

“Probably.” Kanaya turned back, her eyes still sad, and she brushed her forefinger once through Rose’s hair, around her ear, before Rose once again swatted her away from her compulsive grooming.

“I’ll fix your hair,” she threatened, knowing Kanaya would never allow it even in the mess it was in. Indeed, she got an immediate glare in reply.

“Well you shouldn’t be surprised at all you’re hearing. Everyone here’s still in their early-mid-sweeps,” Kanaya said, back on topic. “If you start poking around in their relationships, they’ll be lining up to spill them before you know what to do about it.”

“What makes you think I’m interested?” Rose asked, and Kanaya crossed her arms, looking offended.

“You think I don’t know anything that’s going on in this lab, don’t you?” she sniffed.

“Bah,” Rose said with a swat of her hand across Kanaya’s midriff. “Can I ask my question or not?”

Kanaya defensively covered her lower body, grinning when Rose poked at her arms. “Of course. You were talking about Eridan and Tavros’ first kiss.”

Rose took a moment to put everything back in place in her mind. “So, say Vriska actually does want Eridan back.”

“You think that is the root of the problem?”

“There are a lot of roots,” Rose admitted, and tapped her headband: “I pulled one out of my hat. Now,” she said, and took the opportunity to actually sit up straight, comfortably at height with Kanaya’s horns. “Imagine they’re actually kismeses again. Because for some reason I can picture all the teenaged drama of them wanting to be kismeses better then I can with them together. Now… what is Vriska supposed to feel towards Tavros?”

“You mean pretending all the other problems in your… hat…” Kanaya reached up and pulled off Rose’s headband. She began to arrange her own hair and set the band up against her horns. “…You mean pretending they don’t exist?”

“Yes,” Rose said, unconsciously adjusting her own hair. Pink was not Kanaya’s colour, but it would appear that mischief outweighed style. “See, with a poor understanding of the poly relationships on Earth, I don’t really know what to base the relationship between Vriska and Tavros. How are you supposed to act towards your kismesis’ matesprit? Your matesprit’s kismesis?”

“Well,” Kanaya said, “unless they’re in an independent relationship, they’re not really supposed to have anything to do with one another.”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean, they don’t—”

“No,” Kanaya said, gently touching Rose’s hand. “Take it literally. Your hypothetical Tavros and Vriska really aren’t supposed to have anything to do with one another. Turning On Your Kismesis’ Matesprit Or Moirail Is Just A Cheap Shot. Besides Those People Pity Your Kismesis They Don’t Want Anything To Do With You And if you’d rather turn on your auspistice than your kismesis, not only are you not letting her do her job, but you’ve probably got your hate wires crossed.”

Rose shook her head. “I’m hearing a lot of explanation but also a lot of ‘On the other hand, Vriska…’”

Kanaya smiled only slightly. “Vriska… well, I’m not trying to say that Vriska can’t or shouldn’t be in a relationship with Tavros. Or want to, or whatever. We just don’t normally form these kinds of interrelated groups! If I went out and found myself a kismesis in the fleet, not only would I not know her matesprit or moirail ahead of time, but I wouldn’t want to. There’s Not Much Out There To Cover This Situation Rose. Vriska May Not Like It But She Might Just Have To Wing It She, Eridan, if the both of them work out, and their auspistice.” Suddenly her tone shifted, from lecture to worry. “And you. R-Rose.”

Kanaya’s stammering was equal parts distressing and endearing, and Rose managed to keep a neutral face as consequence. “Kan, what’s the matter?”

She shook her head. “It’s nothing. I’m sorry, just something in my throat.”

Rose did not buy that for one second. “…You don’t want to be one step removed from Vriska, do you?” Kanaya slowly nod, more tense than ever.

Somehow, Rose got the impression that she had not even scratched the surface. Rather, Kanaya was so distressed all of a sudden that Rose knew she had hit on the very problem she had seen that morning, and it was starting to get worse, and now she felt horrible. As a last ditch effort, Rose tried to calm things down with a joke: “Now what did you just say about trying to wing it?” But rather than provoke a smile or even playful ire, Kanaya only looked worse, and Rose’s mood fell at once to the floor.

Rose did not like to see any of her friends upset, learned first-hand after Sburb had provided so many opportunities. Her human friends preferred the back-to-normal route: Dave’s non-reaction to his brother’s death, John’s overcompensating good humour, Jade burying emotion in a cloth of self-imposed maturity … but Rose had never seen Kanaya even this mildly upset in person before, and did not really know how to respond.

“…Come here,” Rose said, and reached out to hug Kanaya.

“W-wait!” Kanaya said a moment too late, and she gasped in pain when Rose touched her shoulder. Rose immediately pulled back, and Kanaya looked away as though ashamed.

Rose could not beat around the bush another minute: “Kan, what’s the matter?”

Kanaya did not immediately reply, instead lightly touching at the same spot. She tried to rub it but apparently this caused too much pain even under her own hands, but before Rose could say another word, she lifted it and opened her lips to show her teeth.

“…Oh my god, you lost a tooth?” What best equated to an incisor, in fact. Rose wanted to get a closer look, but Kanaya shut her mouth, a look on her face as though she was already expecting a reaction, one that Rose had not even begun to form. Assuming the loss was permanent, Rose could understand Kanaya’s mood, but it did not explain the problem with Kanaya’s back.

Did she maybe get in a fight? Rose wondered, and began to think over any possibilities. Kanaya getting into a fistfight seemed odd enough. If Rose was right, that just left their more violent housemates. Karkat, was out: for all his tone, he had chosen a relatively harmless broom to serve as his whacking stick for a reason. Equius might have not meant to hurt her, but a misaimed brush of the hand could certainly have caused some damage. Vriska…

Vriska. Thinking of Vriska shot the answer straight into Rose’s mind. Not Vriska’s violent behaviour, but her appearance. Rose had seen too much of her sneering face in the past few days to forget it. Hunter’s eyes, uncanny speed when she put her mind to it, and those shining, not-bone teeth that had appeared suddenly on her dreamself body just overnight after Karkat had lectured her about growing too much like a boy…

“You’re moulting,” Rose concluded. Kanaya replied with only a glum nod. “Is that… why it hurt when I touched you?”

“Rose, it hurts to shower!” Kanaya pouted. Rose gaped. She could only assume this had something to do with Karkat’s assertion that males and females shed differently, but could not imagine the particulars. Kanaya reached up a hand as though to demonstrate, but thought better of it and settled it instead of her own neck.

“Is there…” Rose hesitated. “Is there anything I can do?” Before the Trolls, Rose would not have hesitated for a moment, but with Kanaya things were different. Naturally she wanted to help, but as it stood, there was nothing she could really say or do. They could talk, Kanaya could make medical suggestions, perhaps, but she knew that was where it would end. There was nothing she could do but sit there looking stupid, spouting petty wishes that she could help but unable to follow up. She would know how to help a friend, but with Kanaya the gestures would only crossing the moirail line, or the matesprit. Kanaya knew it too. Rose could tell by the way the offer of help was only received with a frown and a set of drooped shoulders.

“No,” she said. “I’m doing everything I can. Sollux and Feferi helped me alchemize some cream and…” She sighed and reached up to her head and collected Rose’s headband, placing it back on Rose’s head and adjusting her hair to fit. Then she smiled, and Rose realized she was trying to use the hair brushing to change the subject or mood back to where they had been before they had started down this road. But Rose was not willing to just let it drop. Her friend was in pain and worse was trying to hide it. There had been little she could have done to help Jade or Dave or John as the game had been in session. She had not had the joy of sharing space with them for most of her life, with a few dream exceptions, and there had been nothing she could have done to help them in their time of need but a few kind words spat out through Pesterchum, mangled by her magic-corrupted fingers.

“Where does it hurt?” Rose asked, and Kanaya’s face fell at her insistence on carrying on the conversation.

Kanaya held up her arms in defeat. “I don’t know. Most my back, shoulder to hip. My heel.” She pivoted so that her legs faced off the foot of the bed and tried to oscillate her foot, but that seemed to be just as painful, so she set them both down, sitting knee-to-knee with Rose. She tossed Rose another forced smile, but it seemed that she had run out of ideas to lighten the mood. Rose had her own plans.

Pulling her legs up to her chest, Rose scooted back a bit and repositioned, settling down just behind Kanaya. Before she could object, Rose wrapped her arms around her friend’s stomach, careful not to make contact at any point along her back. For thanks of the distance her hands barely crossed, though she scooted up close with her lower body and sat astride, buying enough room to hold on just a little tighter, and to set her head as close as she dared to Kanaya’s own, just above her painful shoulder. Kanaya, still overcome with surprise, reached down and touched Rose’s right hand.

And then Kanaya began to cry. She turned her head to the side to look at Rose, pale green tears forming in her eyes, and Rose saw some misery there that had no ground in the moult, something she had not even started to uncover. Rose pulled in closer, as close as she dared, and tipped her head in towards Kanaya’s neck. And so she sat, eyes closed, as Kanaya’s crying began to intensify and she felt Kanya’s hand crawl into hers bit by bit every time it seemed she might pull away.

Asking what the matter was never really crossed Rose’s mind. She could not ask. If she did, she knew she would come to that petty line again between what they had and what they could not decide they wanted. This was all she could do. Kanaya trembled in her arms, crying mystery tears and cupping one of Rose’s hands in her own, and it was the best Rose could do.

Kanaya settled her head against Rose’s, and Rose felt her cheek against her face. The feeling of her skin was as alien as ever. It was rougher without being truly rough, firmer, and alien. The aquatic trolls were smoother, she had felt their hands before, but Kanaya’s hands were delicate atop from care and calloused from work. Her hair was stiffer than a human’s and her breathing patterns were just distinct enough to notice. Even her smell was different. These traits were all things Rose had once felt divisive, when she and Kanaya had first met in the lab and had shaken hands, but now struck her as something else. Though Kanaya probably shared these traits with the other nine land-dwellers, Rose did not hug them, comfort them or sit on their desks from nine to five in a wandering conversation. To Rose, they were Kan’s things. She was even a little resentful that those things were about to change, and Kanaya grow into someone new. It was her friend she held, it was her friend who cried, she knew her just by touch. She would have done anything to help her, in her mind. In deed, she did nothing at all.

Kiss her, she thought. It’s no great leap. Kiss her neck, let her know you care, and how. It would be so very simple. Kanaya’s face had been puffed and stained by tears, but Rose remembered her glamorous Kanaya, and the messy one who had thrown clothes about the room in manic, secret privacy, and she was always beautiful. Though she would not dare risk to sit closer, holding her in her arms felt right; the idea of kissing her had more of a selfish stir to motivate her than just support. And yet— No. She didn’t ask for that, and if she doesn’t want the same, I’ll have done more harm than good.

Tell her you’ll help, she thought instead. Tell her you’ll do whatever it takes. Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you for Dave, for Jade or John? But if she could not raise her lips to kiss, then she knew to offer help would turn their relationship Pale, a conciliatory commitment. And would that be so bad? Moiraility was a stronger bond than friendship, but was alien to her closest friends, so why not let in another? The responsibilities she could fill gladly. And yet— No. It almost seems marginalizing. Isn’t she good enough for more?

Guide her then. Find the problem, be the help she needs. Certainly she’s strong enough on her own on a better day. Eridan certainly thought Rose could serve as guide. He had listened to her in the midst of his own rage, and she had felt a certain rush at that that she had never felt before. She could play Kanaya’s auspistice. One helpful evening would roll the ball the way it would take to fill the role in the future, and watch her friend stand tall as she deserved, without the lingering worry that Kanaya’s kismesis would disapprove of her. But aren’t we closer than that? Rose did not know.

Rose held tighter as she warred with her own mind, Kanaya’s hand squeezed in her own. There was nothing she could do. The choice flew in her face like a wall, until she had taken the time the study them, and the wall turned into a crevasse. It was not choosing her destination. It was the commitment. “I will handle this,” she could say again. Clubs. “I’ll be here,” she could say instead. Diamonds. And a kiss would do for hearts, and another, each easier than the last. She could not do any of them: not the land beyond the crevasse, but the width of the jump.

And so Rose began to cry as well. And she looked up to Kanaya and their eyes met, paralyzed by indecision, and Rose could not take it. She had done nothing, Kanaya had done nothing, and Rose thought she had a better idea than liked about why Kanaya had begun to cry when she had hugged her. She felt she understood why Kanaya’s mood had fallen when they began to talk about Rose’s potential auspisticeship. Her hand freed from Kanaya’s to wipe away her own tears, and she understood. She realized that if their situations had been reversed on the auspistice issue that she would have felt just as jealous to see Kanaya’s life being filled when she was just as unable to take a stand. She could not tell Kanaya how she felt, and Kanaya was just as helpless.

“I have to…” Rose freed her other hand. “I have to…” But this was the shortest ditch, an easy, coward’s jump. “…I gotta go, Kan.”

Kanaya’s tears had begun to dry even before Rose had broken away, but still she replied only to nod her head, just barely, and then again. She raised a hand, feeling the need to feign a friendly wave goodbye, and Rose bolted from the room as soon as she found the button. She cut through the office and sat in the waiting room beyond, lacking the energy to take another step.

[SkaianRedeemer]

A Hand in Holding Hands
Part 8b (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, recap1, 7, 8a, 8c, 9)

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Rose tried to clean the tears from her face, but they just kept coming. She took several deep breaths to calm down, which helped for a time, but knew there was no way she could stay here. She had to leave Kanaya alone; she really had no right to stay. She eyed the stuck door that led into the disused halls and maintenance tunnels of the lab, and then she turned to the transportalizer. The Gods were waiting for her. She could almost hear their whispering in her heart, and she hated them for it. She could hear every taunt, and each one made her somehow less afraid. Let them, she thought. I’ll show them. I’m not going to let them run my life just because I’m having a bad day! And so she stepped onto the pad.

She found herself in an empty void, and there were no Gods to taunt her. “Where are you?” she shouted in their tongue. She had expected the one that disguised itself as Dave’s bro to tease her about wanting to be with Kanaya, or the one dressed as the Dignitary to garble the whole affair into looking like some holier-than-thou outburst. She wanted to shoot them down so badly, she almost expected one of them to taunt her about that instead. “Don’t you have something to say?”

“At your service,” said the god, and all the shades appeared at once. Dead faces, lost faces, familiar faces and strange appeared in all directions, speaking in one voice with a resonance that shook Rose to the core. Her ears rang, her nose bled and her stomach roiled as the voices spoke in screaming harmony. “After all, Rose, I’m only here because you want me to be.”

Rose was ejected into the transportalizer room, stumbled back into the wall with a painful bite on her tongue, and was immediately sick on the floor. For a moment, in her nausea, she understood. Almost every mystery was clear, like a puzzle missing a single piece, but it dissolved into its component parts and then to useless sand, and Rose tossed them aside. A god with a thousand forms. She didn’t care that she knew him, so she forgot his name. A god pretending to be many gods, the only voice she had ever heard from the first time she had spoken to them to today. She didn’t care why he was misleading her, so she stopped wondering. The only god in the whole cosmos that was not indifferent to them, tiny germs in a grander scheme that used to sleep in bubbles and asked petty favours, and this one had instead singled her out and pursued her actively. That final thought was the first of many that did not even touch her consciousness. Rose only wanted to lie down and wait for the world to stop moving. She wanted to call Kanaya her friend, her girlfriend, her moirail and smile again. She wiped the blood away from her nose with her sleeve, and wished that this long and ugly day would end.

“There you are! I’ve been looking all… Oh!”

Vriska. She had just appeared out of Aradia’s portal, no doubt checking the Human’s rooms. Vriska looked taken aback by Rose’s appearance, and Rose was in no mood to humour her.

“What do you want?” Rose asked, trying to stand up straight. She forcefully wiped the tears from her eyes, for what little good it did.

“Did you just…?”

“Vriska!”

“Hey, I just came to talk!” Vriska’s coming to talk voice was just below shouting, perhaps because of her conversational partner’s attitude. “Maybe you should keep in mind: since I wasn’t here, I didn’t have anything to do with whatever the hell is up with you!” Rose shot her a death glare, so she got back on topic. “John told me that Eridan asked you to auspistice for us.”

Rose felt like she was going to be sick again. “Oh god, not again. Vriska, he doesn’t speak for me. It wasn’t my fucking—”

“I like it!”

Rose braced against the wall. “You… you what?”

“I really do!” Vriska rolled her dice in her hands, licking her lips and thinking deep, and looked even brighter when she was done. “I mean, this is the most proactive thing he’s ever done! Ever! He’s got over his stupid kissing thing, he’s growing up hot, and… and…” Vriska thumped her fists together as she tried to put a finger on the last point, and made it with a dramatic finger-gun in Rose’s direction. “And he totally went behind my back to do it! Underhanded, unbelievable! He’s a new Troll!”

Rose could not believe it. Was Vriska even taking in what she saw on her? She had reacted to the tears, or maybe the vomit, but she showed no sign of either. She was wrapped up in a sudden happiness, almost gloating. In fact, yes. Definitely gloating,Rose thought. Her smile a little too malicious, her tone a little too cutting. Maybe it was just a part of her imagination, wanting to find a target for her sudden onset of rage, but Vriska was serving admirably.

“And you… can keep him that way, c8’t you, Rosey?” Vriska said with a lick of her lips. “Whaddya say?”

Rose could not believe her. Vriska’s antisocial tendencies had rubbed her the wrong way from time to time, but as she understood Vriska was mostly improved from a darker past. But rational thought was no longer the order of the day. When Rose had cut between Eridan and his chance to be an idiot because of Feferi, she had been doing it mostly out of sheer desire not to see his stupid hero act another time. He was an idiot she was keeping in line. She had felt an urge towards playing guide to Kanaya, which was really the guiding feeling behind wanting to restrain Eridan, so she knew that auspistices could occasionally have a caring relationship toward their mutually-hating charges. But here, with Vriska almost spitting in her face, she hated her, and she understood for the first time what an auspistice was really for. In that moment, nothing in the entire world would have made her happier than to have her boot hovering above Vriska and Eridan both.

“You want my help?” Rose shouted, finding her strength. Vriska began to grin, licking her teeth, and nodded. “You want my help? Okay: here’s my terms.”

“Wait,” Vriska said. “You don’t get terms!”

Rose spat, bile and the iron tang of blood. “Oh yeah? Well how about this? I’m not an idiot. You have twenty-three levels on me. I know it, and I think you know it too. In fact, I think that’s why you’re here!” Vriska’s smile turned to a scowl, and Rose went straight up into her face. A little part of Rose realized just how foul her breath must have smelled, and that part was proud of it. “You think you can pick an auspistice you can just ignore and get away with anything? Not a chance. I want you to show me you’re actually going to listen. Then I’m in.”

“Oh, suddenly it’s inter8sing!” Vriska grabbed Rose’s hand and yanked Rose closer show she was not intimidated. Vriska held their linked hands up, almost as though they were sharing a pledge. “Lay it on me.”

Any intimidation Rose felt was shoved aside. It was time for business. “All right: one! I want you to find a moirail. Someone level ninety-nine, just like yourself. So not John, Vriska! You’re a menace.” Vriska tried to look flattered. “And if I can’t curb you, someone else had better.”

“Fine,” Vriska said, and pointed past Rose’s shoulder. “She’s my moirail.” Vriska feigned a gasp. “I guess she never told you!”

Rose turned her head to see if Vriska was pointing where she thought she was: yes, straight at the jade green Virgo symbol. Help her, kiss her, guide her, hit her! Rose was impressed she managed to keep her self control and acted to the right of where she would much rather be if only for an instant. “Oh my god,” she said instead, back on the clubbed path. “You actually are this stupid, aren’t you?” Vriska did not look a mite offended, but as Rose continued, emotion surfaced: “Vriska, you and Kanaya haven’t talked in two months! What, did you think you were doing so perfectly that she had no moirail advice for you whatsoever?”

“I…” She whispered, and Rose barely caught it. “But…” She said something else, whispered it under her breath, and it sounded like she had said: “…Fussyfangs…”

“Oh, please say you really did think you were that perfect,” Rose interrupted. “That would just make my terrible day.” It was mean, and Rose knew it. It was horrible, rubbing the salt into what was clearly striking Vriska as a wound, and it was exactly what Rose was supposed to do. Vriska’s response was immediate and, most importantly: pointed her straight back towards Eridan.

“All right, deal. I can find a better moirail than her, no problem.”

“Good self confidence,” Rose said. “Too bad there isn’t a better one to find.” Defending Kanaya like that was more than a little moirailic but Rose switched topics fast to keep both her own mind and Vriska’s off balance. “Second, and listen close: you apologize to Aradia for killing her.”

Vriska burst out laughing. “I’ll what?”

“You heard me!” Rose said, and, still joined at the hands, advanced, pushing Vriska back a step. “My job’s to stop you both from running around hating everyone and their matesprit. You want to prove that you’ll listen to me? You will make nice with the person you killed and who killed you back. For some reason, I think she might be some sort threat! Until then, I’m not your auspistice, and I don’t even care, got it?”

Vriska had not stopped laughing, even during the demands. “W-why…” she managed. “Why are you so interesting all of a sudden? I mean, what the hell did Kanaya even say to you?” Rose realized she should have expected that. Certainly, if she was entitled to take shots at Vriska, retaliations would be inbound. But Vriska was finished, and decisively so: “Deal!” She shouted. “I’m in!” She broke their mutual grip and headed off towards her own transportalizer. “You’ll see, Rose. This is going to be a cakewalk. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Rose was left alone in the transporter room, heart pumping and adrenaline flying, enraged. Somewhere beneath her burst of energy was all that mass of feelings that she had picked up in Kanaya’s, but her urge to go hide in bed and wish the day had never happened had vanished, replaced only with a wary apprehension regarding the conversation that had just occurred. She had to do something to vent off her frustration, and she started by taking out the ever-ready cleaning kit that John had passed out to them weeks prior, and mopped up her mess.

As she worked, her anger began to fade, and she became once again aware that the only real way out of the room was through the transportalizers or the maintenance tunnels. She was a mess, and she knew it, but there was no sense in staying, so as she packed her things away and she opened the hatch leading to the tunnels. It would be a longer trip, and she would have to bear the weight of her feelings with every step before she found her way to anywhere or one worth visiting, but she was not about to face the God alone again.

[SkaianRedeemer]

Part 8c (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, recap1, 7, 8a, 8b, 9)

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Even though they were well within the bounds of what the Trolls and Humans liked to pretend was “day,” something about that day seemed to have set their internal suns far earlier than intended. Tavros stayed awake during the entire third movie thanks to Equius’ constant repair work, but both he and Eridan fell asleep at the start of the fourth, and had to be helped back to their respective rooms. In a reverse of his usual, Gamzee had never bothered to return from the kitchen. Karkat found John waiting for him when he returned from lifting Eridan back to his recouperacoon, and his Human couch-buddy said something about Vriska wanting to talk to Rose. Karkat did not really care about Vriska’s goings on, so long as she was not going on armed, and Rose was with Kanaya and, he hinted, probably not going to come out just to see Vrsika. As for the rest, as far as Karkat understood the situation, he imagined that Sollux and Feferi were probably still fighting and no one had seen Strider or Pyrope in hours. A half an hour into the fourth and final movie of the series, Karkat’s beloved favourite, Kanaya arrived.

“…uh oh,” John said at once upon seeing her.

Karkat looked up, trying to ignore the sound of Aradia and Equius fighting in one corner of the room as he made some adjustments to her left arm. Kanaya looked like absolute shit. Nepeta’s sad groan was enough to communicate the mood for all of them.

“Oh Kan,” Jade greeted. “Didn’t it work out? I’m so sorry.”

“Karkat,” Kanaya said, sputtering, and ignoring the Humans entirely. “I couldn’t tell her… anything! It just lodged in my throat!” While John and Jade looked a little snubbed at being ignored, Nepeta treated Kanaya’s preference it entirely in stride, and glumly began to fiddle with her tablet, probably making an ugly update to her charts. “I just… I…” She looked him in the eye, ashamed. “I just screwed up.”

Karkat groaned. “Ugh, come here you big…” he spread his arms and she immediately fell into them. “…Stupid.”

“Karkitty,” said a voice from the floor. “Maybe you should…” Nepeta pointed over her shoulder toward the feuding kismeses and Karkat gave her a nod.

“Come on, you,” he said, and guided Kanaya back to the transportalizer.

--------------------------

“So, what?” Karkat asked. “I figure you’re a talker.”

“A what?”

“You know, you want to talk about it.” Karkat shrugged. “Some people want to talk about it. I’m not one of them, and I don’t really know how to deal with them. Just so you know, those two Humans were trying to talk their way to Strider all damn day and it didn’t do them a thing. You walked past them like they were chumps, so if that’s what you want, you should probably turn around.”

“No,” Kanaya said. “I don’t… I don’t even know if I understand what was going on in my head enough to talk about it.”


Sollux sat in the dim of Feferi’s bedroom, waiting out alone with a knotted heart. Feferi had not ultimately locked him out, but she had made a point of switching off every set of lights from the transportalizer to her door. He only found his way through thanks to memory and a few bumps to the shin, and now he sat at the edge of the pool she kept as her own, feet bare on the wet edge of the pool and surrounded by rusted exercise equipment of all shapes and purposes.

Feferi surfaced, the underwater lighting casting surreal shadows over her face as the only set in the room. “So…” she said, staying off in the middle of the water.

“Fef, I’m thorry,” Sollux said at once, before she could say another word. “And if you want to keep being mad at me, that’th fine, you’ve got every right. I was jutht trying to find a chanth to talk to you, and when Karkat went a little crazy with it I jutht… I didn’t do a thing.”

Feferi listened, and then sunk down to her eyes as she tried to take in the information, and returned with the first of what Sollux figured was going to be many questions.

“You… really didn’t tell Terezi to trip me?”

“Holy crap, no! Fef…” Sollux crawled forward to the edge of the pool and clutched the edges. “If you think I’d do anything to hurt you then I’m really… I don’t know what to thay!”

“No, wait, no!” Feferi swam up to the edge of the pool to face him. “That’s not what I meant! Ugh, I guess I’m not very good at this either.” Her face fell, and she began, once more, to sink. “I mean… I guess that is what I said. I just wanted to know why you didn’t want me to talk to Aradia! If you didn’t want them to stop me, why didn’t you… fuck, Sollux, why didn’t you tell me what was going on?”

“I…” But Sollux was Sollux in the end, and his emotions gave way to offended logic. “ii wa2n’t goiing two insult you by ju2t telliing you, you know”

Sollux knew she would hate that but it was something he could not help: Feferi knew hishis emotional and logical sides were both part of the same coin but knew as well that she hated the way he would jump between them. Well, what was said was said.

He felt a little better when she only took the shift with a grunt of annoyance. “Sollux, I’m not that smart, don’t you get that? You’re the smart one.”

“Fef, if you weren’t as thmart as I think you are we wouldn’t thtill be together because I’d have thcared you away a long time ago.” Feferi shook her head, and used the gesture as an excuse to look away. Sollux sighed and lay down on the edge of the pool. “What’th an array?”

“What?” She had to check to see if he was being serious. “It’s a… I don’t know! It’s one of those things you get when you type the square brackets.”

“Uh huh.”

“It’s a whole bunch of variables in a list.”

“Yeah, and what’th a function?”

“Sollux,” she protested, but he reached out and touched a finger to her lips. “…it’s a block of commands you can put somewhere else.”

“And did I have to thit you down and tell you either of those things? Ever?”

Realization dawned. “I…” Feferi laughed. “You really think that’s special?”

“It’th bathic but I didn’t have to lift a finger. You could totally get into thith if you wanted to, though that’th up to you. You’re ahead of Karkat with jutht that and he’th been trying for yearth.” He shook his head. “I’m thorry I didn’t tell you,” he said. “I thought you’d… well I wanted to talk but guess I don’t really have an excuth.”

Feferi nodded, a strange reaction. “I’m…” She laughed to spite the tear that appeared on her cheek, shimmering in the strange under-light of the pool. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you talk. I just wanted it to be a SURPRIS-E! …I didn’t know it would bother you. …I feel stupid.”

Only a few minutes before, the idea of Feferi breaking up with him to set him with Aradia had made Sollux bark the fear out to Rose of all strangers. Here, inches away from Feferi, smiling, the moment overcame the fears. For now she was still his matesprit, and no matter what she might have in mind, he loved her. “Fef…” His composure slipped, maybe a mood swing or maybe just the weight of things falling down on top of him, and he wrapped his arms around her. She rubbed her cheek up against his, arms wrapped tight and his hand dipping in and out of the water as she breathed, absorbed in one another and a mix of calmed fears and stupid mistakes that would hold them together all the stronger than to have gone without.

As their emotions faded, Sollux tipped his head and kissed Feferi gently on the cheek, to which she responded with one of her own, then along the edge of his lips, and then towards but stopping just before. Both their eyes closed, she whispered: “Come into the water.”

Sollux’s eyes fluttered open just in time to catch the grin that started to form on her lips. “W-what?”

Before he could even think of stopping her, her legs went up to the edge of the pool and she pushed off, pulling him in with her. He sputtered back to the surface and the sound of her laughter, and tried to meet her with a splash. She shrieked and dove. Having lost track of her in the dark of her room, Sollux growled with frustration and checked his glasses for damage. Finding none, he dealt with the only thing he felt he was able: getting rid of his water-logged, heavy shirt. Feferi breached a few feet from him, wet hair hanging haphazardly about her face, and bit at her knuckle as she watched him as though appraising. “So…” she asked. “why were you all so eager to keep me from Aradia, anyway?”

Sollux was not so involved in what was going on at that very moment to ignore the loaded question. “I… Well, ‘we’ all sort of figured you were uncomfortable about the whole… her being my ex and me killing her thing. I mean, I wouldn’t be.”

“And… so?”

“Well…” Sollux rubbed at the back of his neck as he treaded water. He was not sure he wanted to approach this so directly. “We thought you might have wanted to…”

But now that the facts were in front of her, Feferi did not waste one second working out the last of the puzzle. “Oh holy carp,” she said, to Sollux’s surprise and utter fear: giggling. “You all… you all thought I was going to break up with you, didn’t you? Ugh!” She thumped him with balled fists. “So stuuupid! --Especially you!!” She fell onto her back, still laughing and kicking water in his face.

Sollux fled back from the splashes, realizing he had come up against the edge of the pool. He was completely aghast. “well ii diidn’t thiink ii wa2 that wrong I…”

Feferi cleared her throat and righted herself, taking hold of a lock of hair and spinning at her side. She approached him elegantly and stuffily, as though walking through the water. “Sollux Captor, I am not nearly finished with you, you big stupid boy.” Her smile broke through her tone and he felt the blood rushing to his face in a yellow-faced blush to be ashamed of. “And if you hear anyone else saying otherwise…”

She was almost up to him at that point, and he reached out and pressed his hand to her stomach, drawing it along her side and up to her back where he pulled her in towards him. “Really?”

And she pulled him in to a kiss, her hands anchoring them to the wall he only pulling back when they realized a strand of her hair and gotten caught between their lips. Feferi started to giggle. “You have no idea what I really do want with Aradia, do you?” Sollux shook her head. “)(-E)(-E)(-E)(-E)(-E… I didn’t realize t)(is was going to be FUN, too! And I’m just getting started!”

Sollux rolled his eyes, not that she could really see, and kissed on the cheek. Feferi ran her leg up his own. “You know…” she cooed. “This is exactly why Karkat told you to lock all our rooms apart.”

“fuck KK” Sollux muttered, and spun the both of them about to swap places with Feferi. “becau2e a2 a matter of fact, iit wa2 my iidea two lock the pad2 Karkat doesn’t have any control. It’s just me.”

“Why would you… oh!” she gasped as he cupped her face in one hand, and returned a mischievous smile. “O)( you’re sneaky when you’re on game.”

“Y-EA)(” he said, and met her lips again, the water splashing up gently against the edge of the pool in the dark of night.

--------------------------

“You know, Terezi’s a fucking talker. Sometimes I think she expects me to rattle on about every single thing on my mind, but I know when to keep my mouth shut.”

“You should…” “You should probably talk to… her…”

“Oh, okay,” he said. “You’re a normaliser.”

“What? Karkat, what are you talking about now?”

“I mean you want things to be normal. We can do that. You can lecture me about my relationships for an hour and I’ll enjoy every goddamned minute of it, won’t I? I mean, isn’t that the point in the end? To get back to normal?”


Dave watched the skies disinterested. His thoughts were indoors, so he forced them out by sitting out, atop some heating unit on the side of the lab that kept him warm as he kept guard. There was no sign of Jack, or of his or Aradia’s past or future selves. He had already been out to fight Jack twice since he had been forced to let Rose die in the dead timeline, and he was just starting to let in the hope that he might be able to sleep tonight.

“Hi,” said a voice to his side, and he turned, surprised, to see Aradia sitting next to him. He could not believe it. She was made of metal and was sitting on metal, and getting there could not have been very stealthy. How had she gotten there? Was he really that distracted?

“Evening,” he said, conversationally.

But Aradia did not say another word, and Dave had nothing to really say to her. They looked out over the blank sky for danger together. Dave did not know why she had come. She had never come to watch with him before. Normally they split the job so that the other could pretend to live inside the lab. Today she watched with him.

A half an hour passed, in silence. Aradia kept her watch with multiple spectrums, and Dave frankly felt inadequate for just using his bare eyes. His thoughts wandered back indoors, and he was forced again to return to the present and the perfect still of timeless space. When he did, he found a metal hand outstretched before him, and in it clutched a toasted sandwich with some sort of jam in between. He accepted it with a simple “Thank you,” and Aradia nodded to the sky. And they sat, and they watched. Dave ate his sandwich in peace. Time, their servant and master, ticked by in that strange way it managed in timeless space, and Dave felt, for once, at ease.

When he had almost finished his sandwich, he spoke up. “…Terezi broke up with me because I said she was just a friend. I didn’t… I didn’t know that was bad.”

Aradia looked up, though Dave did not meet her eyes at first. When he did he found her open, but aloof. Her robotic body mimicked a sort of caring passivity, and at first he wondered if it had done its job wrong.

“So… no thoughts on this?” he asked.

Aradia shrugged. “If you want me to say she’s an idiot for not telling you she had feelings for you, I will, but I don’t really think you want me to.”

Dave tossed aside the remaining crust of his sandwich. “What happened to ‘You’re allowed to be sad, you know?’ I’m pretty sure that’s what you said.”

Another shrug. “You are, but if you don’t care to, I don’t see any reason to drag it out. It sucks, this Terezi thing, but… I know you can handle it.”

She smiled and with that, turned her eyes back to the sky. Dave was left overcome and strangely proud that she thought of him that way. John and Jade had pounded up and down his door trying to talk and bribe, but it seemed that all he had really needed was that, simple and to the point. He didn’t know how he felt about Terezi any more, the afternoon had thrown that into disarray, but the feeling on at the top, the misery that had sunk in at losing her as a friend in the first place, had gone entirely. It was tactful, it was concise, it was downright…

He stood up. “Aradia.” She looked up, her body language casual, and he smiled as smooth as he could, which was a fair bit. “Do you… wanna go for a walk?”

And she returned his smile with a smirk. Her music boxes appeared at her side, and she hovered up to level with him. “…I wanna go for a run?” And with a moment, challenging him with her eyes, she took off into the air, towards time.

“Oh hell yeah!” Dave said to no one in particular, as he pulled out the timetables and started after her. There was still no sign of Jack. Good, the fucker had better stay away. Dave had been waiting all his life to meet someone else this cool.

--------------------------

“Look, Kanaya, am I reading this wrong? Tell me what happened, lecture me about Terezi, but don’t sit there and mope. Why are you even here?”

Kanaya shook her head, curled up in a ball by her clothes in Karkat’s not-very-secret room. “Because…” But she did not seem to have an answer. Kanaya’s tears had been rejuvenated in the lab, at the sight of a caring face, even if it was Karkat’s, but the second quiet walk to his section had dried those tears as well, and she was starting to calm down emotionally, though her mind still turned things over and over in a cycle she could not escape. “You’re my leader. You’re…” a waver returned to her voice. “You’re strong.”

Karkat heaved a mighty, leaderly sigh and crawled over across the room to sit next to Kanaya. “Does your back still hurt?” he asked as he settled down.

“Yes.”

“Then don’t take this personally,” he said, and reached over to pull her over sideways with a grip on her behind. Sniffling still, she leaned over and laid her head against Karkat’s chest, and a peace settled in over the secret room, save when she shifted a touch head and accidentally brushed him with the tip of her bent horn.

And even Karkat was able to keep the quiet, for a few minutes at least. “Should have guessed.” he said. “You’re one of this unbearable quiet-but-loving support types.”

“Rose tried this,” Kanaya said. “It’s like she knew. It was perfect, and I just wanted to tell her, one way or the other, but I just didn’t…”

“Yeah, I get it,” Karkat said. “But I don’t think I need to remind you that that’s why the plan today was to just fucking tell her how you feel. You know, I don’t think you got us all together the other day for advice just to ignore it. John and I don’t agree on much, but when me, him, Jade and even the cat-wearing mistress of subtlety all reach the same romantic conclusion, you probably should have rolled with us. Then you can get all the fucking hugs you want no awkwardness required. Until then, you’re stuck with me.”

Kanaya nodded, and Karkat felt fairly confident that he had gotten through to her, and began to go off on a tangent. Not out loud, of course. He started by muttering a few things under his breath, something about John that he really would rather she not catch. She let it slide, thank goodness, curled up against him, first laughing (he chose to take that personally) and then almost asleep. A few more minutes on, as Karkat was wrapping up his argument with himself having long since trailed from the original subject matter, he turned up the volume: “…I can be quiet. I can be loving. I don’t get why people think I can’t.”

“Shut up, Karkat,” Kanaya muttered. But she smiled as she said it, and gave him a squeeze. Her horn dug into his chest again, but to be honestly, it only bothered him a little. “You’re our leader. We all know you could take care of anything.”

“Especially if I find it personally humiliating.”

“Especially.”

--------------------------

Throughout the lab, the day was dying down into proper night. Even though the movie was only half over, Equius came from his fight with Aradia to pick up Nepeta, reminding her that she had promised him that she would clean out her sylladex of “filth and meat.” She surrendered without a fight, waving forlornly to Jade. Jade waved back and took a seat next to John, sad to see Nepeta go but happy for some time alone with her old friend, who she distracted from time to time by tickling his feet. Eridan and Tavros lay in their own recouperacoons, dreaming sopor-muffled dreams and smiling in spite; Vriska lay awake in hers, plotting and strategizing and smiling all the broader. And as the lab began to sink into the quiet of their mutually declared night, Rose found one last bastion of sound as she emerged from the tunnels.

“So, so, the lusus says ‘Well I don’t get it,’ and the other one says ‘Holy shit, a talking Uberduck!’”

Gamzee’s uproarious laughter greeted Rose: she found him practically falling over himself against one wall of the cafeteria, and found Terezi watching and shaking her head.

“Gamzee, you don’t get it!” she said with a smile. “You haven’t got one of them yet.”

Gamzee shook his head, unable to otherwise communicate as tears streamed down his face. “Ducks… are so...!” But they never did learn what was so funny about ducks, and Terezi laughed on her own, though into her palm. When she saw Rose standing there, lost, confused and still hurt, it seemed to take her a moment to realize there was no reason for her to be laughing too. But comprehension overcame humour in seconds and she waved Rose in. “Hey,” she said. “Gamzee said you might come.”

Rose was not really sure how in the mood she was to see Terezi. She still remembered the scene in the lab too well, and was not willing to relive it, but something made her step forward and into the light, right arm clutched awkwardly in the left.

Gamzee calmed down at the sight of her. “Bra, T just told me about Eridan telling you off about Tavros. Dude’s completely fucked.”

“Oh?” Rose had almost completely forgotten about Tavros and Eridan in the noise of the afternoon. “N-no, that’s not it. I had a talk with Vriska and… with Kan.”

“Oh, is that how it is?” Terezi frowned. “Well, you came to the right place! This is the lonely hearts club! W3’R3 G3TT1NG THROUGH OUR H34RTBR34KS TOG3TH3R”

Rose was not sure which part she found more ridiculous: that the Terezi that had knocked her on the floor was willing to address “heartbreak” or that… “Gamzee? You’re not heartbroken, are you? Tavros didn’t…”

Terezi looked over at Gamzee, who did not seem to understand the question. “Hm, you’re right,” she said. “Gamz! You wanna go out some time?”

“I… wHuT?”

“Oh Gamzee!” Terezi said, and she swooned into him, lucky that he was cognizant enough to catch her as she slipped into the high-faulting tongue of theatre. “My love for your beautiful painted face grows with every passing hour!” She thrust a victory fist into the air. “Our love shall pierce the heavens!”

“Bro, what the hell are you—”

Terezi’s character abruptly shifted to later in the play, and she turned about and grabbed him by the collar. “Where have you been? Don’t you know I wait up for you? Why do you hurt me like this, my love?” She took a step away from him and clasped her hands above her the pump of her collapsing and expanding vascular system and jumped ahead to the grand finale, eyes glistening with stage tears. “Gamzee, don’t you see this is all I can take? You have to draw the line! I… have to draw the line. Me or the sopor, Gamzee!” A dramatic about-face and accusing, lawerly finger-point. “Me or the sopor?”

Gamzee, who was either catching on to the game or had simply been that offended, lost his confused mask and stood up straight, arms crossed. “Terezi, if you’re going to cut me off from my sopor, I think we both know how this has to end.”

Rose could not believe what she was watching, and she was finding it hard to keep focus. Gamzee harrumphed and turned his head away, and so did Terezi, and then she returned to her normal self and clapped. “4W3SOM3 W3’R3 4LL M1S3R4BL3 NOW And you know what that means!” She reached out to Rose and tickled her nose with her pointer finger, but when she did not respond, Gamzee, back to himself as well, did instead.

“FuCkInG HoT DoGs!”

“Fucking hot dogs!” Terezi agreed, throwing her pointing hand into the air.

They both led a bewildered Rose into the kitchen, which had all but exploded since she had been there last. Ketchup lined one wall in what looked roughly like a happy face. Discarded hot dog buns lay staling on opposite sides of the room, some of them stuck to the walls, and the sink was overflowing with pots and pans. Each time Rose noticed a successive mess, Terezi and Gamzee would just laugh harder. Ultimately, Gamzee guided Rose to the one, giant pot still simmering on the heat.

“…Holy crap,” Rose said when she saw it. “How many…”

“Well,” Gamzee said, philosophically. “Let’s say I was in the room hitting the multiplier to make four hot dogs, two each for me and my bro here. Now, I’m not really sure what happened—”

Rose was. “You made forty-four hot dogs, didn’t you?” Terezi shrieked with laughter. “…Why did you cook them all?”

“Rose!” Terezi impatiently jabbed her on the shoulder with a foreclaw and held out a plate with two hot dog buns on it. “C’mon, get your dogs and pick toppings!”

She was so excited that Rose could not help but smile a little at her eager insistence, and did as she was told, shuffling off to the fridge as Terezi and Gamzee began to talk in the corner, giggling about a message they had stuck to the fridge in incomprehensible Alternian magnets.

Rose opened the fridge to find chaos, chilled. All the same, it was probably the most organized part left of the kitchen after these two had gotten to it, but that did not mean she could find anything she wanted. Terezi and Gamzee had set no less than three completely empty ketchup bottles immediately in the way of the top shelf, and Rose could not find a single container of mustard. She began to remove things and stack them to her left, but stopped as a particular item caught her eye.

A squeezeberry, ripe and fresh as any of the others Gamzee had shown her earlier in the day, if smelling a little like the meat it had been stored aside. Rose pinched it at the fat end and its jelly squirted out of the other and dribbled down her fingers. She laughed in spite of herself, Terezi and Gamzee’s giggling infectious. She looked up, half-ready to share the joke on the tip of her tongue, when she remembered exactly who served as her audience. Terezi caught her look, and Rose tried to hide the berry, worried that provoking memories of Dave would ruin Terezi’s peculiar good mood. But she had forgotten with who she was dealing. Terezi smelled the squeezeberry around the fridge door, and to Rose’s surprise began to sputter with laughter afresh.

“Pfft… Rose. Rose. ‘Just HOW HIGH…’”

Rose could not help it, and they said it together. “HOW HIGH do you have to BE…”

She had to do it. She had to. And so did Terezi, and Gamzee. Squeezeberry on one dog, grape jam on the other, and they discovered just how easy it was to suppress one’s gag reflex when one was busy making fun of someone else for being unable to hold down. But there was no way it could end there. Whipped cream was next, then ice cream and humus. They ate the dumbest things they could mix until their stomachs would not let them eat any more, and then they started a bread fight, flinging baked goods at one another in the luxury of infinite food and the maturity of five year olds.

Out of alchemized bread, they kept at it, full of energy and playful childishness. After an hour, Terezi and Gamzee had taught Rose a round of an Alternian children’s song Gamzee had startd to hum, and she returned the favour with a drinking song, which for her mother had sufficed as a children’s song. After another, Rose had tried to spin Terezi’s cane with the buried experience of three forgotten rhythmic gymnastics lessons some time in her past, dropping it to the ground after every second spin, and Terezi set fire to a bench with the Quills of Echidna and they put it out with dirty hot dog water. It was the most fun Rose had had in two solid months.

Gamzee, on request, explained his crazy clown religion in detail (they both understood it far less than they had before, and Terezi swore some of the details had changed). Terezi told Rose about how she had first met each of the Trolls in person, and Rose outlined the genesis of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, and how she, Jade and John had clustered into a memo scrambling to figure out exactly what they were expected to say about it. Rose laughed at the story of how Terezi met Equius for the first time, and how his attempts to be polite and formal were mangled by Nepeta pouncing up for a piggy-back. Terezi laughed at Rose’s attempts to get Jade to tell her her name, which had taken almost a month and a half thanks to narcolepsy, confused conversations with her dreamself, and sheer misunderstandings. Gamzee laughed at everything.

In time, they were the only ones in the entire lab making the slightest bit of noise, and an ugly day came at last to its formal end. They were not the only ones awake. Some had settled in to cure their open wounds in the comfort of a silent other, wrapped in warm arms in a quiet hideaway. Some had found their answer in openness, and set aside their misunderstandings to embrace a mutual understanding and growing passion. Others had slipped away from the lab to find their old lives unchanged by one unfortunate incident, their personal identities durable and strong, pulled back on track by a helping hand and ready to be built anew. And the luckiest of all those blessed with a someone that cared were the ones that found something left to laugh about, to remember the durability, passion and support of life and others all at once, eating stupid things and telling stupid stories in the impossible comfort of new friends as the night wore on.

[raequiem]

@Crash: Hahaha oh wow. Please write more Equius, you do him so perfectly.

@Ganato: Dat ending... oh man this is my favorite pet pairing.

@Derm: Ohjoy, more Felt! I can't wait for Snowman!

@Skaian: NINJA'D BY AHIHH! *squees* Off to read!

[SkaianRedeemer]

@Dermonster: I've always loved the interpretation of Crowbar as the Boss (or at least, The Boss Under The Boss, in other fics), so this was a real treat. Also, Uno gang for the win.

[lucidSeraph]

AH GOD first actual ficpost in here what am I doing

I know, I know. More goddamn Bro stuff. but the idea wouldn't leave me alone so here it is. WARNING: Contains headcanon and excessive violence.

also to me it feels rather drafty. Lots of other stuff I could have/should have done. Muh.

ALSO! Parts inspired by both Lexxy and Kas' beautiful art.

Signal to Noise

show spoiler

hide spoiler

Noise

Time slows when he moves fast enough. It's all relativity, simple physics. He's never known why. He's never cared. Most of the time, it's a gift, got the drift? Cept for now. Now it's hell. It's watching something that even he isn't fast enough to stop.

Destiny.

Signal

He's always known this moment would come. No... not always. But he has known for a long time, and while he's never liked it, this isn't a surprise. Shouldn't be.

Except that it is. The form of the event, the way it all happens, this isn't how he imagined it at all. And he didn't imagine he'd feel this way. He doesn't do feelings. He certainly doesn't do sorrow, or despair, or pain.

He holds the bloodstained feathers in his fist.

Reverse

“Fuck you,” he says. Not shouts. He never shouts. He doesn't shout because they always shout, every last fucking one of them. He has the baby in his arms and he looks completely ridiculous, a fifteen year old boy with a baby. She's still screaming in his face about which of those fucking skanks was it (None of them, you dumb bitch) and now he's done. Completely done.

He takes fifteen years worth of saving up from newspaper routes and carrying old ladies groceries and selling his music online and working retail in the record store after school and he walks out, the kid on his shoulders.

Reverse

He runs across the rooftops, five year old feet smacking pavement as he jumps across distances no human should be able to. Here, he's out – here he's alive. No more defense by making stupid jokes and acting like a jerk, none of that. Lil Cal's on his shoulders and there's just him and heat and speed. He didn't try out for track. He knew that he shouldn't, that they'd be suspicious.

He knows a hell of a lot of things. Despite what the belt marks on his back attest. He knows a shitting fuckton of things that that fuckhead who calls himself 'dad' never will. Fathers are fuckheads, the lot of them. Fathers yell. Fathers hurt.

He'll be a brother, not a father.

Reverse

They all look at him strangely. His eyes. Just. His eyes. The woman in charge can't understand it – he passes all the vision test with flying colors. Too well, even – 20/15 vision. It's not right. It's not natural. But that's not what bothers them most.

It's the way he looks at things like he already knows what they are.

It's the way all his drawings are of spirographs. Swords. And some of them of a dog-thing, usually cut into pieces. They put him up for counseling which he sits through in stubborn silence. He hates dogs, sure. But he's never hurt one.

Not yet, anyway.

Forward

It's nothing like how the books say, and everything like how it is in his head. Which is weird. Really fucking weird, he can't deny it. The baby is quiet. Never cries. That's chill with him.

Except tonight. It's three in the morning and the kid is crying and he can't fucking sleep and his job got hit by a fucking meteor and if he can't make the rent this month he's gonna get them both evicted and fuck if he's going to admit that he's really fifteen and fuck if he's going back to the foster care system because that's no place for him and it's really no place for Dave.

He gets up, lifts the kid out of his crib, and looks into the boy's eyes.

“Crying is for pussies.”

Forward

The porn site is doing way better than he'd ever dreamed, which is both awesome (for his bank account) and kind of disturbing. He'd already had a pretty dim view of humanity in general and this just confirmed what he suspected all along – people are seriously fucked up. And way too fucking easy to make fun of.

He looks up at the sky. Those meteors can't come fast enough.

Forward

Dave loses again in a sparring match. He does his usual big-brother cocky smirk and puts his foot down on the smaller boy's chest. He's twenty-five years old and it's really nothing to beat a ten year old.

Except this time it had gotten a little closer.

“Give it up, lil bro. You ain't never gonna touch this,” is what he says.

But what he thinks is, get back up. Take me down. I know someday you'll do it, you little bastard. Get stronger. I want to live to see it.

Forward

He doesn't scream from the nightmares. Just like he doesn't cry. Just like he never shouts, or loses his temper.

But they do come. Green fire and orange feathers. He has no idea what the latter means. But the former...

“Jack.”

Forward

He climbs up on the roof and he stares at the sky. He doesn't scream. But his fists do shake. Some nights are like this. Some nights, he just wants to live his own goddamn life.

Some nights, he wants to be human.

He walks back down the stairs and looks at Dave's sleeping face.

Maybe I wanted to see him grow up. Did you fuckers ever think about that?

Forward

Skaianet. He's on the website and he already knows where to click. What to look at. It's like this shit is predestined. It is predestined, actually, and he hates that just as much as he hates dogs (and cats. And chess. And fucking harlequins). He looks over at Dave and for a split second something in his chest tightens.

Jesus fuck I am so sorry about what's coming.

“Yo. You do your reading?” he says instead.

“Yeah,” says Dave.

“Fuckin liar. Go back and do it again. Motherfuckin Tolkien. You gonna learn this shit or I'm gonna put you back in the public school system.”

“Whatever,” says Dave, but he picks up The Return of the King anyway and goes to flop on the couch.

Maybe I'm Gandalf. Maybe I'll show back up and be like sup bitches got me a white staff and even more badassery!

But he knows that's not the case.

Forward

The ground spins. The heat burns. His eyes narrow behind his glasses.

A wordless challenge.

Jack recognizes it. Both of them know – this was fated. Neither quite know how it's going to end, though. Jack doesn't know how this will end. And he...

He knows the ending. Just not how he's getting there.

Pause

Flash. Speed. Steel and flesh puppet and flash they fly, a cloud of orange and black feathers and blades. He's not even sure if he's breathing anymore, maybe he's already stopped; maybe he's moving too fast to breathe. Between it all, he somehow has a conversation.

“How's life?”

“Incredibly shitty.”

He smirks, just a little. “C'mon, lil bro. Live it up. We be heroes, here.” For the few seconds left that they have. Which at this speed, might actually be an eternity.

There's no reason to treat this version of Dave any different than the one he knows. They're both Dave. They're both his son brother.

“Sides,” he says. “Ain't nothin that can stop two Striders.”

Davesprite actually cracks a smile at that. Just a ghost of one. Just a hint. And he fights on.

For an instant, he thinks, maybe it'll be alright. He doesn't remember Dave being here. He grins. Maybe they can win. Fuck you, Jack Noir. We'll end it here. Here and now.

Scratch

Except in the next instant that dream dies.

Thunder.

Fire.

Green.

Fucking dogs. He's always hated dogs.

Noise

Time slows when he moves fast enough. It's all relativity, simple physics. He's never known why. He's never cared. Most of the time, it's a gift, got the drift? Cept for now. Now it's hell. It's watching something that even he isn't fast enough to stop.

It happens so fast.

He has enough time to think, Dave bleeds orange birds? before it hits him that his brother is dying, his outline shimmering and fading. And no, fuck you, that is his brother. He has two brothers, future and past, and one of them is dying.

For the first time in his life, he loses his composure.
“Dave-!”

Jack picks him up by his shirt. How the hell did the guy get there? How did Jack even catch him?

He didn't remember it like this. He can't think of anything but that orange form currently fading, turning into a flight of orange crows all around them.

Dave

Something in him is breaking.

I'm a Guardian I'm a Guardian I guard I guard I guard, dave dave, “Dave!”

Jack grins, and throws him. He hurls across the place and when he hits the ground he hears something snap.

He can't feel his legs. But that doesn't matter, he can't even think straight. He's not thinking about how he's going to die, he's not thinking about how fucked up this all is.

He's holding onto three orange feathers. And that's all he can think about at all.

Noise

“Hate to uh, stab you and... er...”

He pushes himself up so that he's almost sitting and glares.

“Shut up and finish it, you son of a bitch,” he spits. He swears, he's not crying. Somehow, it must be the rain.

Somehow.

“It'd be my pleasure.”

But the bastard doesn't even make it through his heart. A stomach wound. A fucking stomach wound, so he can watch as Jack takes his glasses and so he can squint as the light hurts his eyes. So he can watch as Jack walks off with Cal.

So he can sit alone.

So he can die alone.

Signal

He can feel his body shutting down. He struggles against it, gasping like a fish, feeling his own fucking diaphragm against the blade. He fights it to the end. He won't lay down and sleep. Not ever. Not Bro strider.

His fingers are white knuckled around the orange feathers.

His breathing slows. He can't keep this up. The green flames grow higher, and his vision narrows. Everything goes blurry.

(Though he thinks he feels a breeze...)

He holds those feathers like his fading life depends on them. He takes one last breath.

“I never told you...”

How very much

I...

Silence

Fire burns.

Wind blows.

The rest is silence.

[Dermonster]

Hmm.. Snowmans gonna be a tough one.

I mean the others really don;t have much back story so I can do a lot more with them, Creative license and all that.

But Snowmans got this big history of stuff, ya know? Plus she doesn't really have much in the way of powers except for teleportation and Death=end of universe.

Spellcheck reads teleportation as Deportation.

Snowman is an illegal immigrant?

Ninja'd by sadfic.

[DJ-P0N3]

Okay, keeping this train wreck rolling.

Part 3 - Backwards billiards

show spoiler

hide spoiler

Just saw your buddy go up in a puff of smoke, a violent explosion did two of your associates in. You wonder if their sacrifice was worth it, or even necessary. You are Trace, you’ve been speaking to Die lately to see if he could finish the pins of the Midnight Crew. He has been working on them, he assumes that is why they have come.

To do you and your Felt members in before you do them in.

You are being messaged telepathically by someone, who is it?

“Who is this?” You ask in an ill-tone, you hate being spoken to in this manner.

“It5 ju5t me.”

“Fin, alright.” You sigh in relief, he’s one of the few here you care about, “So what do
you n33d?”

Fin proceeds to tell you of Doze’s future demise, also of Itchy carrying off Deuce to see Crowbar, he tells you it doesn’t end well. You wonder why you need to be informed of all this, he tells you to go see Stitch, says he’ll be ready.

You follow Stitch’s trail, it is a vivid yellow that used to hurt your eyes, but now it is simply part of your world. An Extension of the mind. It leads you to his usual location, how shocking.

He stares at you a moment, you look at Doze’s effigy. Its bruising. Why isn’t he fixing it up? What the hell is he holding, why is he handing you this explosive.

“What th3 h3ll is this?” You say, your expression went from confused to pissed. Isn’t this the very thing that is going to kill Doze? You can’t think about it.

“You 9ot to 9et over there, place it, and 9et the hell out.”

“Why would I kill on3 of our own?”

“Because it already happens in the future, so 9o. I need to fix up Clover, he 9ot a bruise for once.”

Clover bruised? You’re surprised, but still in a foul mood. You follow Doze’s past trail as soon as you get a whiff, a single hint at it. Following you make quick work of the track he left behind, its upsettingly short. That’s when you realize it, Doze did this on purpose. He was a useless member of the crew, everyone knew that, if sacrificing him gets rid of the Midnight Crew’s big muscle.

TICK

“Mayb3…” you begin to whisper

TOCK

“This’ll b3 worth it in th3 3nd.”

TICK

You place the bomb underneath his hat in the past and walk away.

TOCK

The timer reads 00:04:13.

You’ve just sacrificed an ally in order to take down a foe. You feel his blood on your hands, you can’t wipe it away, you begin to wipe your hands upon your coat, then the walls. It just won’t come off, you rush off to Stitch, maybe he can help.

4/15 green torsos dead

¼ midnight crew deceased

1 doomed idiot

1 guilt ridden buffoon

[Kassiopeia]

EVIL AND HEARTBREAKING STORY

oh my goddddd

(I love your Bro headcanon. Even though aaaa so sad. But this is fantastic and soul-destroying, oh god. I AM ONCE AGAIN RESIGNED TO WEAKLY GOING "DAAAVE NOOO" IN MY HEAD. WOE.)

(oh and, ninja-edit-wise: I am honoured to have had some part in inspiring this, angst fetishist that I am. )

[neuroticIndecision]

AH GOD first actual ficpost in here what am I doing

BEING AWESOME?

MAKING ME WANT TO HUG BRO SO TIGHT HIS EYEBALLS POP OUT OF HIS SKULL?

I'm pretty sure it's both of those.

[myu2k2]

Hmm.. Snowmans gonna be a tough one.

I mean the others really don;t have much back story so I can do a lot more with them, Creative license and all that.

But Snowmans got this big history of stuff, ya know? Plus she doesn't really have much in the way of powers except for teleportation and Death=end of universe.

Spellcheck reads teleportation as Deportation.

Snowman is an illegal immigrant?

Ninja'd by sadfic.

she is an Exile, not a natural citizen of Alternia, and doesn't have anything to say otherwise..... so, yes..... illegal immigrant.

[lucidSeraph]

oh my goddddd

(I love your Bro headcanon. Even though aaaa so sad. But this is fantastic and soul-destroying, oh god. I AM ONCE AGAIN RESIGNED TO WEAKLY GOING "DAAAVE NOOO" IN MY HEAD. WOE.)

(oh and, ninja-edit-wise: I am honoured to have had some part in inspiring this, angst fetishist that I am. )

[/collects reader tears]

(I, too, am an angst fetishist. I swear all my fic comes out really damn sad one of my friends calls me the king of the baww, idk)

and yeah the feather thing was inspired by your painting of Bro reaching for the feather. So yes. :\

BEING AWESOME?

MAKING ME WANT TO HUG BRO SO TIGHT HIS EYEBALLS POP OUT OF HIS SKULL?

I'm pretty sure it's both of those.

:`) thanks man THEN I HAVE DONE IT RITE.

[Metaflare]

Skaian I am 3333333 with AHIHH

[Bufu]

skaian so much mood whiplash in one chapter of a fic, but it was awesome regardless. Terezi-Rose-Gamzee shenanigans probably made me grin too much while part a had me in that watching-two-people-in-a-romcom-and-wanting-to-throw-something-at-the-screen-because-JUST-KISS-ALREADY mood. in a good way!

@ Zizzo, Kass, Ember: thanks!
@ Rae: oh, those sprites are actually mine! O: thanks, I never sprite because it's kinda fiddly and weird to me so I'm glad you like them!

[egregiousBass]

So here is a humourous shortfic that I might implement in a fic I might be writing in the future. Probably in the next term. Or not at all. It's quite an angsty thing. Not this, though =P

Ace of Trump

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hide spoiler

All the pieces are in place. If this weren't such a ditzy underground joint, there would be a curtain call.

The room is dimly lit. The Crew can hardly even see their own instruments. But that's how they like it. The air is rife with cheap tobacco. Nothing out of the ordinary, at least as far as logistics are concerned.

There are high stakes attached to this particular performance. The Crew's vendetta with the Sordid Shmoes smuggling ring has spiralled out of control, and Spades Slick would rather not have another shootout in public. You know, to keep the peace. As if there are people living in his town who aren't hardened mafiosos.

So instead, Slick figured he'd settle it with a jazz-off. He knows their leader, Don Contrabando, well. Honest man, true appreciator of music. Even the tiempoelectrical shit, which isn't really Slick's cup of tea, but eh, who's he to judge?

But the man's got temper, and a trigger finger. Let him down and who knows what'll happen. This is a real risk for him to take, unlike with the Felt. They can just show up days too early, take a few shots until they've got the perfect run and then forward through time or some stupid shit like that. But Slick's got confidence. He's got his dream team of six, ready to come out with a classic.

His crew of five is doing the usual. Himself on piano, Droog on tenor sax, Cars on bass, Mobster Kingpin on trumpet. Deuce is doing alto sax this time. He's usually the drummer out of sheer necessity, but keeps messing up the rythm in his excitement. Really, this guy's a liability. If he were to mess up in front of the Don, well, tough luck.

The sixth member is a touchy subject, the result of a mob 'trade', if you will. The Crew recently offed Matchsticks in a turf war, who happened to be a bassist for the Felt, who happened to have a pretty big gig coming up. In an act of pulchritude, Hearts Boxcars offered to play so the event wouldn't have any lasting consequences. Despite him lacking Matchsticks' time-freezing powers, the performance went well enough, but Cars came back confused as fuck. Said he could swear unwillingly playing in reverse at one point. Bunch of freaks.

Anyway, Cars told them he needed a drummer. Despite all odds, they had one. Why would an orchestra have a jazz drummer? Still, the Crew got to 'borrow' them for this performance. It's the huge bitch. And she's good.

How does that even make sense? She plays the violin. Yet, in their rehearsals, she came out with solid, engaging riffs like you wouldn't believe. Maybe it's because Deuce has always been so shitty, who knows.

But enough mulling. If the crowd is kept waiting any longer, they'll start asking for blood. The Crew (with guest) kick it off with All Blues, a standard by legendary rifleman and jazz composer Miles Davis. If only the man could snipe mobsters as well as he could strike notes with his trumpet, maybe he'd still be able to play today.

The eerie opening stanza fills the room. The Don's interest is piqued. The crowd of Shmucks yawn. This is nothing, though. The real deal is the solos, and Kingpin's up first.

Good thing he's practiced this solo a thousand times. It's his little musical lovechild. It's going to blow these joes away. Before he can even finish the first line, a projector is activated above the stage. An image is beamed onto the wall behind the seats, in Kingpin's view. Slick knows this trick. One of the oldest forms of sabotage. Heck, he hasn't had this one pulled on him for centuries. Just how green are these guys, really?

Mobster Kingpin is unphased. His bulk is as hardened as it is enormous. No vile imagery can throw him off this solo!

The projector appears to be linked to a computer. A website called "mspaintadventures" is opened. Slick starts to get a little worried. Kings loves this webcomic.

Kingpin isn't concerned in the least. He already watched Jade: Enter the same morning and got rocked off of his socks well before this performance. Wait... what?

He hasn't seen this update. This is rather disconcerting. He can feel emotions welling up inside him. But it's okay, he can take this. He's going to have to ask Slick some time to weep in the horn pi- Oh god, not Davesprite too!

Kingpin is becoming dangerously emotional. He's still doing the solo, but it's interspersed with surpressed sobs that give the whole thing a rather comical feel. The Don is loving it, though. Progressive jazz and all. Sucker.

The saboteurs do not show Bec Noir donning the shades. Instead, they come up with a piece of fanart. Neither Kingpin nor Slick saw this coming. It deals another blow to the lard's emotions. And another. And...well this one's not so bad. Oh shit.

That last one sends him over the edge. Mobster Kingpin begins crying into his trumpet like a little girl. He still tries to go on, but fuck, he can't even get a hold on his embouchure anymore. The crowd is getting antsy, ignorant of the extremely tragic turn of events unfolding behind their backs. The Don's open-mindedness is at its end. He stands up, every bit of his body language saying something akin to "What the fuck is this shit", and draws a revolver. Kingpin's suffering is cut short with one fell shot. The impact with the floor makes the building shake. No more brasses for the Crew, apparantly.

The Don shouts at the Crew to scram and never come back. Sort of a more generous alternative to just killing all of them. Slick glances to the other side of the stage. snOwman is already well on her way, slinking into the darkness. Was this planned? The Felt could've, with their freaky time shit. Why else would they lend out their highly volatile broad? Diplomacy my ass. This isn't the last they'll see of him.

As for the Shmoes, that dispute is pretty much settled. Three lives tragically taken in one evening is quite enough.

Oh shit, Skaian just ninja'd me with something. Better come in after than before, I guess.

[Ember]

@lucidSeraph: Fuck. It hurts.

[sarasvati]

AH GOD first actual ficpost in here what am I doing

I know, I know. More goddamn Bro stuff. but the idea wouldn't leave me alone so here it is. WARNING: Contains headcanon and excessive violence.

also to me it feels rather drafty. Lots of other stuff I could have/should have done. Muh.

ALSO! Parts inspired by both Lexxy and Kas' beautiful art.

Signal to Noise

show spoiler

hide spoiler

Noise

Time slows when he moves fast enough. It's all relativity, simple physics. He's never known why. He's never cared. Most of the time, it's a gift, got the drift? Cept for now. Now it's hell. It's watching something that even he isn't fast enough to stop.

Destiny.

Signal

He's always known this moment would come. No... not always. But he has known for a long time, and while he's never liked it, this isn't a surprise. Shouldn't be.

Except that it is. The form of the event, the way it all happens, this isn't how he imagined it at all. And he didn't imagine he'd feel this way. He doesn't do feelings. He certainly doesn't do sorrow, or despair, or pain.

He holds the bloodstained feathers in his fist.

Reverse

“Fuck you,” he says. Not shouts. He never shouts. He doesn't shout because they always shout, every last fucking one of them. He has the baby in his arms and he looks completely ridiculous, a fifteen year old boy with a baby. She's still screaming in his face about which of those fucking skanks was it (None of them, you dumb bitch) and now he's done. Completely done.

He takes fifteen years worth of saving up from newspaper routes and carrying old ladies groceries and selling his music online and working retail in the record store after school and he walks out, the kid on his shoulders.

Reverse

He runs across the rooftops, five year old feet smacking pavement as he jumps across distances no human should be able to. Here, he's out – here he's alive. No more defense by making stupid jokes and acting like a jerk, none of that. Lil Cal's on his shoulders and there's just him and heat and speed. He didn't try out for track. He knew that he shouldn't, that they'd be suspicious.

He knows a hell of a lot of things. Despite what the belt marks on his back attest. He knows a shitting fuckton of things that that fuckhead who calls himself 'dad' never will. Fathers are fuckheads, the lot of them. Fathers yell. Fathers hurt.

He'll be a brother, not a father.

Reverse

They all look at him strangely. His eyes. Just. His eyes. The woman in charge can't understand it – he passes all the vision test with flying colors. Too well, even – 20/15 vision. It's not right. It's not natural. But that's not what bothers them most.

It's the way he looks at things like he already knows what they are.

It's the way all his drawings are of spirographs. Swords. And some of them of a dog-thing, usually cut into pieces. They put him up for counseling which he sits through in stubborn silence. He hates dogs, sure. But he's never hurt one.

Not yet, anyway.

Forward

It's nothing like how the books say, and everything like how it is in his head. Which is weird. Really fucking weird, he can't deny it. The baby is quiet. Never cries. That's chill with him.

Except tonight. It's three in the morning and the kid is crying and he can't fucking sleep and his job got hit by a fucking meteor and if he can't make the rent this month he's gonna get them both evicted and fuck if he's going to admit that he's really fifteen and fuck if he's going back to the foster care system because that's no place for him and it's really no place for Dave.

He gets up, lifts the kid out of his crib, and looks into the boy's eyes.

“Crying is for pussies.”

Forward

The porn site is doing way better than he'd ever dreamed, which is both awesome (for his bank account) and kind of disturbing. He'd already had a pretty dim view of humanity in general and this just confirmed what he suspected all along – people are seriously fucked up. And way too fucking easy to make fun of.

He looks up at the sky. Those meteors can't come fast enough.

Forward

Dave loses again in a sparring match. He does his usual big-brother cocky smirk and puts his foot down on the smaller boy's chest. He's twenty-five years old and it's really nothing to beat a ten year old.

Except this time it had gotten a little closer.

“Give it up, lil bro. You ain't never gonna touch this,” is what he says.

But what he thinks is, get back up. Take me down. I know someday you'll do it, you little bastard. Get stronger. I want to live to see it.

Forward

He doesn't scream from the nightmares. Just like he doesn't cry. Just like he never shouts, or loses his temper.

But they do come. Green fire and orange feathers. He has no idea what the latter means. But the former...

“Jack.”

Forward

He climbs up on the roof and he stares at the sky. He doesn't scream. But his fists do shake. Some nights are like this. Some nights, he just wants to live his own goddamn life.

Some nights, he wants to be human.

He walks back down the stairs and looks at Dave's sleeping face.

Maybe I wanted to see him grow up. Did you fuckers ever think about that?

Forward

Skaianet. He's on the website and he already knows where to click. What to look at. It's like this shit is predestined. It is predestined, actually, and he hates that just as much as he hates dogs (and cats. And chess. And fucking harlequins). He looks over at Dave and for a split second something in his chest tightens.

Jesus fuck I am so sorry about what's coming.

“Yo. You do your reading?” he says instead.

“Yeah,” says Dave.

“Fuckin liar. Go back and do it again. Motherfuckin Tolkien. You gonna learn this shit or I'm gonna put you back in the public school system.”

“Whatever,” says Dave, but he picks up The Return of the King anyway and goes to flop on the couch.

Maybe I'm Gandalf. Maybe I'll show back up and be like sup bitches got me a white staff and even more badassery!

But he knows that's not the case.

Forward

The ground spins. The heat burns. His eyes narrow behind his glasses.

A wordless challenge.

Jack recognizes it. Both of them know – this was fated. Neither quite know how it's going to end, though. Jack doesn't know how this will end. And he...

He knows the ending. Just not how he's getting there.

Pause

Flash. Speed. Steel and flesh puppet and flash they fly, a cloud of orange and black feathers and blades. He's not even sure if he's breathing anymore, maybe he's already stopped; maybe he's moving too fast to breathe. Between it all, he somehow has a conversation.

“How's life?”

“Incredibly shitty.”

He smirks, just a little. “C'mon, lil bro. Live it up. We be heroes, here.” For the few seconds left that they have. Which at this speed, might actually be an eternity.

There's no reason to treat this version of Dave any different than the one he knows. They're both Dave. They're both his son brother.

“Sides,” he says. “Ain't nothin that can stop two Striders.”

Davesprite actually cracks a smile at that. Just a ghost of one. Just a hint. And he fights on.

For an instant, he thinks, maybe it'll be alright. He doesn't remember Dave being here. He grins. Maybe they can win. Fuck you, Jack Noir. We'll end it here. Here and now.

Scratch

Except in the next instant that dream dies.

Thunder.

Fire.

Green.

Fucking dogs. He's always hated dogs.

Noise

Time slows when he moves fast enough. It's all relativity, simple physics. He's never known why. He's never cared. Most of the time, it's a gift, got the drift? Cept for now. Now it's hell. It's watching something that even he isn't fast enough to stop.

It happens so fast.

He has enough time to think, Dave bleeds orange birds? before it hits him that his brother is dying, his outline shimmering and fading. And no, fuck you, that is his brother. He has two brothers, future and past, and one of them is dying.

For the first time in his life, he loses his composure.
“Dave-!”

Jack picks him up by his shirt. How the hell did the guy get there? How did Jack even catch him?

He didn't remember it like this. He can't think of anything but that orange form currently fading, turning into a flight of orange crows all around them.

Dave

Something in him is breaking.

I'm a Guardian I'm a Guardian I guard I guard I guard, dave dave, “Dave!”

Jack grins, and throws him. He hurls across the place and when he hits the ground he hears something snap.

He can't feel his legs. But that doesn't matter, he can't even think straight. He's not thinking about how he's going to die, he's not thinking about how fucked up this all is.

He's holding onto three orange feathers. And that's all he can think about at all.

Noise

“Hate to uh, stab you and... er...”

He pushes himself up so that he's almost sitting and glares.

“Shut up and finish it, you son of a bitch,” he spits. He swears, he's not crying. Somehow, it must be the rain.

Somehow.

“It'd be my pleasure.”

But the bastard doesn't even make it through his heart. A stomach wound. A fucking stomach wound, so he can watch as Jack takes his glasses and so he can squint as the light hurts his eyes. So he can watch as Jack walks off with Cal.

So he can sit alone.

So he can die alone.

Signal

He can feel his body shutting down. He struggles against it, gasping like a fish, feeling his own fucking diaphragm against the blade. He fights it to the end. He won't lay down and sleep. Not ever. Not Bro strider.

His fingers are white knuckled around the orange feathers.

His breathing slows. He can't keep this up. The green flames grow higher, and his vision narrows. Everything goes blurry.

(Though he thinks he feels a breeze...)

He holds those feathers like his fading life depends on them. He takes one last breath.

“I never told you...”

How very much

I...

Silence

Fire burns.

Wind blows.

The rest is silence.

okay this right here

was fucking unstoppably gorgeous

[egregiousBass]

@Seraph: I know the arts you based this on =P
Sadbrofics have stopped getting to me a while ago, but this came fairly close.
I liked the bit where Jack fails at a one-liner.

[raequiem]

Oh man so much mood whiplash everywhere.

@Skaian: HB: YOU KISS THAT GIRL THIS INSTANT, ROSE HUMAN. And sometimes, you just need to have a breadfight.

@Seraph: FUCK YOU I am crying. My roommate's wondering what's wrong. I can't say. Just... orange feathers. Fuck.

@Bass: Fuck you too. That's heart-wrenchingly funny. Does MK need to join us on the hornpile?

[Katrika]

....Seraph you broke my heart into like a billion pieces.

I hate you and I love you for that fic.