The night buzzed with insects. As usual, the air was hot and humid, even inside the hotel Terezi, Tavros, and their band of “protectors” had set up as a semi-permanent residence. It wasn’t grand, but it wasn’t a hovel, either; Tavros had moved his mafia money into a new and not entirely legal location, and it was serving them well in their exile. Terezi had covered their tracks thoroughly, partially with the help of Sollux. No one, not even Rufioh, not even the mafia, knew where they were. They could last months at the rate they were going, living “the good life” off the beaten road in the tropics.
They laid next to each other on one of their beds, staring up at the ceiling. Terezi held two sealed envelopes in her hand, a habit she had developed lately.
“Can you remember what they looked like?” Tavros asked, ending the long silence.
“No,” she said. “I can remember everything that happened, but they’re just shadows now.”
“Yeah...for me, too. I can’t remember their voices or anything.” Tavros glanced at Terezi as she drew in a long sigh. “So, on a scale of one to ten, what is the update on your emotions for today?”
Terezi thought for a moment and finally settled on, “Four.”
“Wow, that’s kind of low. What, um...what are you thinking? Are you...regretting our decision more than usual?”
“It’s not regret, Tavros,” Terezi said. “We did what we needed to do.”
“Yes, that’s true, but sometimes what you need to do isn’t the same thing as what you want to do.”
“I wanted to do it. We both did.”
“Yes, but...also, we didn’t, because there were additional factors, and it’s okay to acknowledge those factors and feel emotions like regret.” He hesitated, looking at her now-blind eyes. She tightened the grip on the envelopes in her hand. “Remember what Jade and Dave said to us about having a healthy relationship with our emotions?”
“I’m really starting to wonder if they’re the ones who should be giving us emotional advice. The longer we’re with them, the more it’s clear they have their own problems.”
Tavros let out a small laugh. “Yeah, but Rose trained them, and she at least knows real things about psychology.”
“I have my doubts about her, too,” Terezi joked with a smirk. It wasn’t long before the smirk slipped. “But they are getting the job done, so I can’t rip on them too much. My guess is that Rose is almost done nullifying the contracts, and that’s why we’re losing our memories of them.”
“That makes sense. So, when we don’t remember them at all, even their names...that’s when the contracts are nullified entirely?”
“Seems that way.” Terezi gnawed on her lower lip for a moment and, with another sigh, finally said, “I guess...I do miss them. Even Gamzee. He sucked, but at least I could blame him when I made bad decisions. Now, it’s just me when I fuck up. And...I’m starting to think that I felt like I deserved it. All this tropical paradise stuff is beginning to rub me the wrong way. We ruined people’s lives, and here we are, drinking coconut water and going swimming with all the money our demons made for us, like this is the right thing to do. Blargh, I feel like shit just thinking about it.”
Tavros turned onto his side to look at her. “I try to avoid those feelings most of the time with all the denial I can muster,” he said. “If we feel that way, then we’ll return to the cycle of abuse that led us to do bad things in the first place, and it will just fuel the suffering in the world some more.”
“Which one of the idiot brigade fed you that line?” Terezi asked.
“I forgot,” Tavros replied, laughing. “But I agree with the sentiment. We have to stay positive and practice self-love aggressively, even when we remember all of the things that we did to justify hating ourselves, or else we will go back to being terrible human beings who are easy for bad people, such as demons, to take advantage of.”
Terezi pressed her lips together into a grimace. “They make it sound so easy. ‘Just love yourself!’ Sure.”
“Well...that’s why we’re sticking together, even though we have no reason to be connected anymore, right? So that we can love each other aggressively when we can’t love ourselves,” Tavros said. He reached out and touched her hand so that she could read his sincerity. Her grimace slackened a bit.
“Yeah. That was the most competent thing the idiot brigade has taught us so far.” She intertwined her fingers with his.
“Do they know that you call them the idiot brigade?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Okay.” He laughed again. They fell back into a more comfortable silence.
“...Hey, Tavros?” Terezi said.
“Yeah?”
“Do you really want to open these envelopes again when all of this is over?”
“I...don’t know. Should we?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you want to, right?”
“I don’t know about that, either. Do you?”
“...I had fun with Gamzee,” Tavros said after a pause. “I got along with him. I wouldn’t mind talking to him again someday. And...you liked Vriska, right?”
“But would it be good for us?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t know either.” They looked down at the envelopes in Terezi’s hand. One had the name “Terezi” written on it in bold letters, and the other said, “Tavros.” She closed her fist around them, crumpling them up. “We don’t have to sign a contract with them again,” she said. “That’s what Rose said, at least.”
“We would just see them? Like how we can see Dave and Karkat?”
“When you know a demon’s sign, you can see them. You wouldn’t have to see Vriska, and I wouldn’t have to see Gamzee. And we wouldn’t have to feed them. That would make a difference.”
“Yeah...but what about temptations to have the boons a demon can provide, such as what landed us in this problem in the first place?”
Terezi looked down at the envelopes for a moment longer, and then she sat up and dropped them into the drawer of her side table. She closed it with a snap. “We’ll be strong,” she said, flopping back down onto the mattress. “We won’t open them until we’re sure we’re ready. Until we can really love ourselves first and won’t give into moments of weakness. We have a lot of work to do before then.”
“I was thinking, actually, about donating all the dirty money that I got, as a first step to redemption,” Tavros said. “That way, we can start to clear our consciousness and make up for all of our terrible sins of the past.”
“We can keep some of the money,” Terezi said with a wicked smirk. “Wealth never hurt anyone’s self-confidence.”
“Well...maybe a little bit. At least until we can go back to work again, if we can go back to work again…”
“We’ll figure something out,” Terezi said. “I can think of a couple gigs I could sort out for you. Maybe I could give law school another shot.”
“Really?”
“Why not? It can’t go worse than it did the first time.”
Tavros grinned. “Yes, good. Maybe we’ll be okay after all.”
“You know, I think we might be able to make this work.”
The insects continued to buzz outside, and eventually, the light in the hotel room extinguished. Outside, Karkat, Dave, Jade, and John sat on the curbside, dripping melting ice cream onto the road.
“So?” John asked, glancing sidelong at Karkat, who was gazing blankly into the distance.
“So what?” Karkat said.
“Is it working?”
“It’s been working. I’ve been hauling ass this whole trip.”
“I know, but is it working working? Are they going to be okay?”
“It’s none of your business!”
“I think it’s been working,” Jade said with confidence as she slurped up the dripping ice cream. “They’ve been really taking our lessons to heart lately! Right, Dave?”
“Sure have. Hell, they’ll be opening up a restaurant and buying a dog by the end of the week. Real new start material.”
John leaned back. “So how long do you think they’re going to need us?”
“Forever, I hope!” Jade said with a laugh. “This is the best vacation we’ve had in a long time!”
“It’s not a vacation!” Karkat snapped at the same time John said, “It’s the only vacation we’ve had in a long time.”
“I doubt they’ll be kicking us out any time soon either way,” Dave said. “We’re the shit. They’re all about hanging out with us. They hit us up every day.”
“They’re fun to be around, too,” Jade said. “Maybe we can still be friends when this is all over.”
“Maybe Rose will hire them,” John said with a shrug.
“Wait, really?”
“I don’t know. She could!”
“She should! Hey, Dave, go tell Rose that she should hire them! Terezi even has some legal training! And Tavros...can probably do some office stuff and help Kanaya?”
“Hell yeah,” Dave said. “But after I finish this ice cream.”
“Why don’t you just call her yourself?” Karkat said. “You have a phone. It’s morning over there.”
“You’re right!” Jade pulled out her phone and dialed the number of the agency. They all leaned in as the phone rang, ready to give a glowing report.
On the other side of the world, as Kanaya picked up the phone, Rose murmured the last spell of the ritual. Two contracts, pulsing with gold light, deepened to red as they caught fire. The embers floated away into the abyss, and, as they slept, the demonic symbols faded from Tavros and Terezi’s skin.
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8inding Contracts: Chapter 20 (Scene Fan-Art) by TheBluAceofSpades
WOW.
Just... WOW.
So, I've been following mtjester's ContractStuck AU for some time now.
Her fanfiction for this AU titled "8inding Contracts" was in a hiatus for a several months while she worked on Chapter 20. Turns out, she made Chapter 20 a semi-animated video.
AND IT BLEW MY MIND.
The timing was so good and I loved the art.
It was just so wonderful! Definitely worth the wait!
All of you Homestucks should go check it out!
Her tumblr is @mtjester
Her Ao3 is archiveofourown.org/users/mtje…
i was just rereading through your contractstuck story and noticed it was unfinished! while it's always not required of an author to finish something they don't want to finish, i tried to find something where you said you stopped but i couldn't find anything. is it unreasonable to think you'd try to at least release whatever you couldn't finish, or is contractstuck done for good?
I never officially said I’m done with contractstuck, and I’m positive a part of me believes I will finish it someday…but to be honest, I just don’t know when that day will be. I wanted to draw something for the last chapter, but I haven’t touched my tablet in like forever. It feels a little daunting now. I thought about trying to finish it for the homestuck 10 yr but you can see how that turned out. I may just cave and write out the final chapter. It doesn’t feel as big as I wanted it to be, but it’s better than nothing! So I won’t say don’t have hope. I’m hoping that I finish it too.
Was just reminded that i kept meaning to back and read through all of contractstuck, so I did today. Dang, so good. Thank you for giving me all these feels!
Wow, thanks! I think I needed the reminder, too. It’s great to hear from a reader about a fic again. I’m happy you liked it!
Art for the most recent chapter of Contractstuck! We should have only one more short chapter left, which will be art heavy and may take until the summer to finish.
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I dunno if I’ve done an update recently on my goings-about that aren’t related to job/job anxiety, but I have been working on finishing up the art for the end of contractstuck. I’m still doing that. It’s getting done I swear
