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> Be Vriska Serket.
Your name is Vriska Serket. You are with Terezi Pyrope, at the very end of the world.
At least, that’s where you are in your mind. In reality, you’re out in the tall grass at the edge of this cluster of hives. You’ve just finished sparring, and you lay there on your backs, on the earth with her, panting and grinning, your flushed-cerulean skin shining with sweat. Neither of you are wearing shirts, and normally that would make you self-conscious. After all, you don’t have rumble spheres like she does. Your chest is concave, curves in like a bird. You don’t take up space the same way she does.
You turn to her.
VRISKA: How was that?
She rolls over, and the way her softness settles makes something in your breath catch.
TEREZI: PR3TTY GOOD BUT YOU N33D TO T1GHT3N UP ON YOUR D3F3NS3
TEREZI: YOU L3FT YOUR R1GHT S1D3 OP3N ON YOUR L4ST 1NSTR1K3
TEREZI: 1TLL B3 4 L14B1L1TY ON TH3 F13LD
On the field. She talks like she doesn’t know you’re going to rule it someday.
You scoff and flick sand at her.
VRISKA: It was perf8ct and you know that, you 8itch.
She picks some dirt off her cane-sword with her fingernail. The turquoise nail polish you did for her is starting to flake off. After all, she bites her nails when she gets nervous. You do too. Plus, it’s hard to do your nails when you’re blind, and you’re all too willing to do her this small favor.
Also, you’re...
Not friends. Friends isn’t quite the word for how you see each other. It’s not the word for the intimacy of knowing just how she likes to be handled (roughly, mercilessly), what side she favors in combat (left), how she likes to bite when she kisses (to draw blood). Friends isn’t the word for how you feel about her.
You’re red for her. You know this. You’re practically glowing with it, bouncing on the balls of your feet and skipping when you walk. You just... don’t know how she feels. How is it fair that she can peruse your mind like a filing cabinet, can peer into every nook and cranny, can take apart your head whenever she wants, and you can’t so much as know how she’s feeling?
You’re not pitch for her. Not in the way you were for Kanaya. With Kanaya, it was pathetic. Every single encounter ended with a hurt expression. She was soft. You felt a need to make her better, stronger, to harden her against the world. Now she’s off with that Rose human who treats her like she’s the finest china in the world. Well, 8ully for her! You have the best... whatever Terezi is to you, anyway.
You couldn’t be pitch for Terezi like that, though. Not she, who shows her teeth in every smile. Not she, who couldn’t be further from helpless if she tried. Not she, who could hurt you to kill you if she wanted to.
But she doesn’t want to. That’s why you feel safe when you sleep next to her during long, sun-bathed Alternian days.
You bite her because she wants you to. You hurt her because she wants you to. You let her hurt you because she wants to. And that’s love, isn’t it?
TEREZI: 1T W4S PR3TTY GOOD L1K3 1 S41D >;]
TEREZI: 4LSO YOU W3R3 JUST TH1NK1NG 4BOUT K4N4Y4 W3R3NT YOU
Shit.
VRISKA: It’s none of your 8usiness, stop 8eing a 8usy8ody.
Those words come so thoughtlessly. But when she turns her head to look you in the eye, her burnt-out gaze on yours, you realize with a sinking feeling that she knows something, that she’s found a thread in your Mind to pull free until the whole thing unravels.
TEREZI: YOU H4V3 S41D THOS3 WORDS B3FOR3 H4V3NT YOU
TEREZI: 4 PR3TTY LONG T1M3 4GO NOW BUT 1 C4N T3LL
Her words seep into the cracks and crevices of your Mind the same way sopor does. You try to push her out.
You fail, with a dizzying spell of nausea. Even your psychic abilities don't hold a candle to a godtiered Seer of Mind.
You manage to collect yourself and give her a rebuttal.
VRISKA: Get out of my fucking thinkpan.
VRISKA: I don’t need you 8utting into my 8usiness.
VRISKA: I’ve told you, I don’t want you looking in my past.
VRISKA: I was different then.
VRISKA: You made me different.
The deflection goes wide and misses by a hundred feet. A smile curls across her lips. She bares her teeth to you, gleaming, and you want to hate her.
But you don’t.
TEREZI: T3LL M3 4BOUT K4N4Y4
TEREZI: WH4T SH3 W4S TO YOU MOR3 SP3C1F1C4LLY
TEREZI: *SH3* W4NT3D YOU TO B3 D1FF3R3NT D1DNT SH3?
VRISKA: Don’t talk to me a8out Kanaya.
VRISKA: You don’t know what you’re asking a8out.
Her smile could blind the sun.
TEREZI: POOR K4N4Y4
TEREZI: POOR L1TTL3 K4N4Y4
TEREZI: K4N4Y4 N3V3R H4T3D YOU TH3 W4Y YOU H4T3D H3R
TEREZI: SH3 N3V3R W4NT3D YOU TO SUFF3R
VRISKA: Shut up.
TEREZI: SH3 N3V3R W4NT3D TO HURT YOU
TEREZI: 4ND 1 4M LOOK1NG FOR TH3 P4RT WH3R3 SH3 H1TS YOU B4CK BUT 1TS NOT H3R3 >:?
VRISKA: Shut up! Get out of my head!!!!!!!!
TEREZI: K4N4Y4 W4NT3D YOU TO LOV3 H3R D1DNT SH3?
TEREZI: P4L3 OR FLUSH3D 1T D1DNT M4K3 A D1FF3R3NC3
TEREZI: 1TS 4LL SH3 3V3R W4NT3D
TEREZI: ON3 S1D3D P1TCH 4TTR4CT1ON
TEREZI: WH4DDY4 C4LL TH4T VR1SK4?
VRISKA: It wasn’t like that.
VRISKA: I never hurt her worse than she could handle.
VRISKA: She’s a rain8ow drinker. She didn’t need me to treat her like a wriggler.
VRISKA: She could have made me leave. She could have said no. She could have hit me 8ack.
VRISKA: 8ut she didn’t. So what’s the 8ig deal?
TEREZI: TH1S 1SNT 4BOUT TH3 PHYS1C4L 4SP3CT
TEREZI: THOUGH 1T V3RY W3LL COULD B3 >:]
TEREZI: TH4TS NOT WH4T 1M T4LK1NG 4BOUT
TEREZI: 1M T4LK1NG 4BOUT WH4TS UP H3R3
She taps her temple.
TEREZI: K4N4Y4 1SNT L1K3 YOU VR1SK4
TEREZI: SH3S W34K TH3R3
Anger flares in your chest, an indignancy that turns in your stomach.
VRISKA: What the fuck are you trying to imply????????
The words left unspoken hang in the air, a tension you could cut with a knife. She’s still grinning that ridiculous grin.
TEREZI: ON3 S1D3D P1TCH 4TTR4CT1ON
TEREZI: YOU HURT H3R
TEREZI: SH3 N3V3R HURT YOU B4CK
TEREZI: WH4T WOULD YOU C4LL TH4T VR1SK4
There’s a long, gravid pause. When you speak, your words come weakly in your defense. She is the prosecutor, you’re the defendant, and the conclusion is as foregone as it comes.
VRISKA: I wanted to m8ke her 8etter.
VRISKA: I thought may8e,
VRISKA: if I h8ed her enough,
VRISKA: she’d come to h8 me too.
VRISKA: And then I could have made her 8etter.
Your tone gains just a little more conviction.
VRISKA: I could have made her gr8.
VRISKA: She could have 8een so much stronger than she was.
VRISKA: So much more powerful.
VRISKA: She w8sted her potential on 8eing too soft for anything I threw at her.
VRISKA: I don’t regret what I did to her.
TEREZI: L14R >:]
TEREZI: BUT TH3 R34SON YOU R3GR3T 1T 1SNT B3C4US3 YOUR3 SORRY TH4T YOU HURT H3R 1S 1T
She reaches into your Mind and extracts exactly what she needs to close the case. Her grin is triumphant.
TEREZI: 1TS ONLY B3C4US3 YOU F33L L1K3 YOU W4ST3D TH3 3FFORT ON TRY1NG TO M4K3 H3R H4T3 YOU
TEREZI: B3C4US3 SH3S GON3 NOW
TEREZI: 4ND YOU C4NT CH4NG3 TH4T
The silence hangs in the air like a death knell. You start to speak, and your voice cracks. You shut your mouth again.
She rolls onto her back and stretches, like she hasn’t just completely identified and disassembled the entire machinery of your feelings toward Kanaya. For a moment, you think — hope — she’s lost interest in the topic entirely.
Then, she speaks again.
TEREZI: SO SH3 K3PT G1V1NG YOU LOV3
TEREZI: 4ND YOU K3PT PUN1SH1NG H3R FOR 1T
TEREZI: TH4TS 4 FUNNY K1ND OF ROM4NC3 >:]
You feel sick.
Your tongue darts out to wet your lower lip. Then, you find your voice, finally.
VRISKA: Do you think it was 8ad?
VRISKA: What I did to her?
Terezi thinks for a moment, picking absentmindedly at the dirt beneath her chipped nails.
TEREZI: OBJECT1V3LY SP34K1NG TRY1NG TO M4K3 H3R FL1P QU4DR4NTS 1S 4 B4D MOV3 Y34H
TEREZI: BUT TH3R3S NOTH1NG YOU C4N DO 4BOUT 1T NOW
TEREZI: 1TS 4LR34DY B33N DON3
You stare at her hands, and you think of Kanaya. Kanaya’s nimble, delicate fingers. Her perfect nails and trimmed cuticles. You think of her long lashes, of the soft glow of her pale skin when you said a bittersweet nothing to her, or looked her way. You think of her clothes, of her silks and colors and the deep red of her skirt.
You think of her, the first time you ever hit her. The shock on her face, the way her hand flew to her cheek. The clatter of the sewing scissors she had been bustling around with. Your breath quick in your chest, as you prayed for the surprise on her face to bloom into an expression of hatred. She had turned away, and had quietly told you to get out. You listened, and you left.
But you came back the next night. And she pretended it never happened.
Terezi doesn’t call you out on thinking about her this time, and you are endlessly thankful for it.
She stands, stretching her back and yawning.
TEREZI: W3LL 1M GO1NG B4CK TO MY H1V3
TEREZI: 4R3 YOU COM1NG W1TH?
You stare at the ground, then shake your head.
VRISKA: I’m going to stay here a little longer, if that’s okay.
VRISKA: I need some time to think.
Terezi looks at you. She tilts her head.
TEREZI: T4K3 YOUR T1M3! NO RUSH NOW >:]
She cackles, and you flinch at the sharp noise. She tucks her hands into the pockets of her cargo shorts, then starts walking back the way you two came, whistling a tune offkey.
You stay there, nestled in the wild grass, the wind blowing through your hair. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you remember how Kanaya used to ask to brush the mats and snarls out. You always laughed and told her no.
You lean back, and let the wind run her fingers through your locks.
You pretend it’s Kanaya, for the first and last time.