@vriska asked for her crack otp of red vriska/roxy. Preferably lots of fluff and cuddling/kisses. I could never let such a rarepair go unwritten, so here’s a little something that I hope you enjoy!
“You’re absolutely cheating. There’s no other reasonable explanation! I can’t keep losing like this unless you’re doing- something to make me!”
Roxy stretched her arms in the air, fingers still wrapped tight around her controller, before she flopped backwards against Vriska’s legs and left her head in her girlfriend’s lap, fluttering her lashes up at the irritated pout that met her.
“Oh noooo,” she cooed. “Vriska Serket ain’t number one in absolutely every game we play? Unthinkable! Simply awful.”
“You aren’t even that good. I always win!”
“Yeah, hun. You always win this game we played once that Terezi was helpin’ you in last time. Uh huh.”
“That’s still a flawless record.”
“Of one. Out of one.”
“It’s still flawless!”
Roxy grasped the couch and pulled herself up, brushing her skirt down carefully before she flopped gracelessly over Vriska’s lap, arms dangling to the ground and hair falling all around her head. Vriska dropped her own controller with a sigh that was drawn out for 8 quiet beats before she folded her arms over her chest and refused to look down at the whining human draped across her legs.
“Vriska.”
“No! I’m mad.”
“Vriiiiiiiiska.”
“No, I- Did you count that out?”
“Of course I did.”
“Aww- But no! I’m angry! I’m very angry. You’re a cheating- cheater, and I’m not just going to forgive you.”
“But you love me.”
“Love is a dumb human thing.”
“And yet, you looooooove me.”
“Long vowels can’t win my red affections back, Lalonde!”
“Are you... suuuuuuure?”
Vriska stifled the first snort poorly, turning her face away to try to hide the tremor of her lips as she fought to keep the twitch in them down. She wasn’t laughing! This wasn’t fine. She was mad, dammit, she was so very mad, and Roxy reaching a hand up to pat and paw at her cheek wasn’t going to change that.
Roxy hummed. “You’re smiling.”
“I am not.”
“You absolutely are you terrible liar.”
“I’m an excellent liar.”
“So how come I can see you smiling right now? Lips quirked up, check! Eyes all curvy, check! Shoulders shakin’, check!”
“You’re dumb.”
“Well you’re the one datin’ me, so who’s really the dumb one here?”
“Definitely you.”
Each of Roxy’s laughs was bright and clear, and Vriska would never admit how much she enjoyed listening to them, the sound free of implication beyond honest excitement and mirth. There was no knowing chuckle or vicious snicker- just honest laughter so hard it make Roxy hiccup and snort in a way that was probably hideously unbecoming to others but made Vriska struggle to keep her face stoic in the face of such a lovely joy.
“One day you’re gonna have to just admit you can’t stay mad at me,” Roxy’s words were choppy as she caught her breath, before she rolled her body over and got her arms around Vriska’s neck, pulling them together and smacking a pink-stained kiss on Vriska’s dark blue cheek when their faces were close enough to reach. “You human-love me, and it’s gay as hell.”
“You’re just in denial about how flushed you are for me, which is a waaaaaaay more logical definition of our feelings!”
“Should I go get my fake horns and the grey face paint? We can make a pile of cushions an’ get all Alternian up in here.”
“Well if you want to embrace the much better lifestyle, I’m happy you’ve finally come around! Quadrants are much better for defining relationships than your weird human mess, I mean, someday you’ll all accept reason and take up the good way to live, but until you do, I guess I’ll just have to keep reminding you that human love is this weird messy thing you made up because you can’t bear the fact Trolls have it figured out in ways you can only dream of!”
“Oh? That so?”
Vriska failed to hide this grin, and Roxy was kind enough to cover it with her lips, before nuzzling her way to Vriska’s perked-up ear and giving a sultry whisper.
“You sound like Karkat.”
“And just like that, the mood is dead.” Vriska brought her hands back and neatly shoved Roxy off her lap, watching her girlfriend topple into a giggling heap on the ground. “I can’t believe you killed the gay. All of it! All of it is gone now, all because of you.”
“Vriiiiiiiiska.”
“Give me back my extra vowels and pick up your controller, Roxy. My honour has been insulted! I’m wounded, and you’re going to eat my dirt and learn your lesson!”
Roxy grinned and swiped up her controller, wiggling it with a wink that sent a fresh blush over Vriska’s face as Roxy settled back into place against her legs.
“If I win,” Roxy announced, “you owe me a kiss.”
“If I win you owe my eight,” Vriska replied.
“Makin’ me want to throw the game makes you a cheater!”
“Takes one to know one!”
“I didn’t cheat-”
Vriska hit start while Roxy was distracted, and the elbow to her legs was worth it for the first big hit and the smile that flourished on her face.
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What do you think of when I say Dave <3 Kat <3< Dirk?
Not If I Fuck Myself First
A/N: Dirkat is one of my absolute favourite ships there isn’t enough of so bless you Anon. Post-canon, quadrant use prevails, with added Dave<>Dirk to complete the circle of stupidity and a self indulgent Dirk<3John Dad<>Karkat (you heard me) aside.
Karkat’s POV
You can very precisely pinpoint the moment you began despising Dirk.
“Your red and pale quadrants can be comfortably filled together, I’m not saying he can’t be there, he can keep being disgustingly supportive and you can keep emotionally balancing him to your heart’s content, that isn’t the issue and you fucking know it!” Dave does know it, just like he knows you can’t believe you’re even having to have this talk again and, by the look on his face, he can’t believe it either. “The issue is that when one quadrant starts eclipsing another to the point I’m pretty sure we haven’t even filled our weekly hand-holding quota that you instigated after the travesty with Rose counting every time our fingers touched and presenting an essay on why the graphs- graphs- she made proved something about our repressed issues with our respective guardians!”
Dave groans, pressing his forehead down against the table as you pull his bowl of Crockerbert Mystery Cereal Mix out of the way and prevent another incident of milk and obscenely neon loops all over the table resulting in Mister Crocker once again forbidding you from having emotional discussions in the dining room without aprons and a waterproof tablecloth. You’ve only just earned back your right to discuss relationships in the lounge without a safety harness and at least two members of the Felt present, you refuse to lose it just because Dave’s face needed a milky escape from reality.
“I am overjoyed you’ve embraced the quadrant system as a more logical form of compartmentalised romantic endeavour,” you continue patiently, setting the bowl aside and poking his back until he sits up and folds his arm at you, “but your pale fixations are getting to the point I’m seriously considering sitting everyone down at a table and setting out some shitting grid-lines to put this disaster of an arrangement into something fixed and suitable just so no one, and by no one I mean me, ends up slipping off the map altogether and plunging into an abyss of colourless apathy just because your brother was so unsettled he needed you to constantly stroke his face and his ego just to get through a single day.”
He groans. “If you make a chart, I swear to God-”
“I am going to make a chart, Dave.”
“Karkat.” Dave laces his fingers and clasps his hand in prayer, pulling them to his lips for a beat before he grasps your shoulders instead. “Man, please, just- I thought we’d been through this. I know I’m spending a lot of time with Dirk, but- Come on. It’s not like that.”
“It’s absolutely like that.”
“Absolutely like what?” Dirk asks from the door behind you, and you’re not sure who reacts first but you and Dave do the world’s worst attempt at a double dismissive nonchalance since John and Terezi explained they had no idea how that shaving cream had got there, honest.
“Like, you know. Stuff. And things, and shit.” Dave waves a hand slowly in a circle, and you nod solemnly along. Dirk looks between you slowly, one of his precisely drawn on eyebrows rising slowly above his obnoxious shades before he steps forward and settles in the seat opposite Dave with a slow yawn. “Uh. Just. Just a couple of guys talking like bros. Man to man missives, small-talk as an artform so sublime we’d hang it in a gallery if we’d got around to building one anywhere. Improving human-troll relations one metaphorical mic drop and shouty rant at a time. You know how it is.”
“Uh huh.” He collects some toast from the plate in the centre of the table, letting a slice droop from his mouth as he leans to fill a cup with Jade’s fresh, suspiciously cheerful orange juice. The sight finally reminds Dave you have his bowl, and he snatches it back, shovelling cereal into his mouth in a way you’d think was gluttonous if you knew he wasn’t just trying to make himself very clearly unable to hold any sort of conversation.
It’s almost cunning.
Dirk, meanwhile, drops the toast to the plate and has no qualms drawling out a question.
“We still on for today?”
Dave’s eyes flick to him and then swing to you in alarm, and you feel the little knot between your eyebrows tighten as you draw in a long, deep breath to try to steady yourself. It does not work at all.
“Oh. Oh. You’re doing something today? Again?”
He swallows hard. “Karkat-”
“Oh no, no, this is exactly what I’m talking about.” You point accusingly at Dirk, who blinks placidly at the gesture, watching you turn on Dave entirely. “Still on? So you already had plans, you’re complicit in this shitshow, which leads me to face the prospect you’re attempting to shut me out slowly, or that you’re just genuinely unaware how fucking frustrating trying to find time to spend with you is when all of your time is already earmarked by this douchebag!”
“Okay, so.” Dave flinches. “Maybe I’m spending more time with Dirk than I thought, but can we not do this here.”
“Why not? This is a matter for everyone at the table! I wouldn’t possibly exclude the source of the problem from figuring out how to fix it! And you know how we could fix it?”
“Does it involve making a chart?”
“Ding ding we have a winner.”
“We don’t need to make a chart,” Dirk interrupts, stretching his arms and draping one down the back of his chair in a way only assholes do, with the exception of you doing it and making it look totally casual and friendly, usually in a comforting manner. They could learn from you. First lesson, the Striders’ joint allergy to good organisational planning needs to stop.
“Well given apparently without one we’re in this mess-” You start, huffing, but Dirk raises his hand and shakes his head, bobbing his head as he raps under his breath. You’re far too attuned to Dave’s mumbling to let that stop you hearing it, unfortunately for both of you.
“I’ll table the motion to pause, and amend a, better use of our time, through an a-grade agenda-” He catches the paper that shoots up, smoothly pressing it to the table with a spin before he slides it towards you.
You stare at it. You stare at the meticulous line-work, the easy-to-identify colour-coded slots all provided with possible alternate placements and a clear logical methodology to their initial locations with regards your respective interests and responsibilities, at the fact he’s pointedly not taken any prime-time and left it painted red and grey, and you feel something jump in your chest.
Then it compresses into a focused ball of irritated respect that plummets straight through you with a burning sting, the moment compounded by the fact Dirk isn’t watching Dave as he presents the answer to your problems before you could even begin to imagine what it might contain. He’s watching you. He’s watching you, and he’s smiling.
This is the moment you begin to hate Dirk Strider.
“What if Dave doesn’t agree to the times-”
“They’re for our sake, if you wanna make arrangements you have time to do it that’s guaranteed to not step on my toes and vice versa, and Dave gets to overrule the entire thing to do what he feels like because this is about us having a way to organise shit, not about controlling his time. None of this is for his benefit beyond him not having to deal with us squabbling.”
You hate him, and you hate him more because you realise any arguments you might create against his fancy schedule are only going to result in you losing the good times he’s already allotted you. You can’t even nitpick without being the one who loses out somehow and having to act like it’s what you wanted from the start.
He’s played you.
“Fine.” You pick up the paper, starting to stand. “I’ll copy it, and-”
“No need, that’s already a copy, and I have spares if you ever lose it.”
Dirk’s smile spreads, and your blood simmers with antipathy.
“Are we done here?” Dave asks hopefully, and you nod stiffly, but your eyes are burning a hole in Dirk’s shades as he takes a pointed, slow mouthful of toast.
You are very far from done here. Very far indeed.
“…And then he starts telling John I asked to hang out with him in times I specifically asked to be with Dave! And sure, John says Dirk didn’t do it, that it was his own fucking idea to hang out, but I know. They’re in cahoots. Fuck- You hear that? That’s your daughter infecting me with atrocious slang, that’s what cahoots is.”
Crocker continues patiently sipping his synthesised coffee, staring politely at you despite his eyes having the glaze of a man already considering the precise frosting masterpiece he’s going to construct on today’s dessert. You’re aware you’ve been bitching far longer than anyone needed to here, so you don’t leap down his throat for it, this once.
After a noticeable period of silence he blinks, focuses on you, and then replies with the infuriating understanding of someone who somehow soaked in every word you said despite being a thousand miles away.
“Jane would be thrilled to see you adopting some more civilised language. As for the rest… I can’t say for certain if John is acting of his own accord or not. You cannot deny that if presented an opportunity to aggravate you in an already sensitive position, he would not hesitate to seize it without any encouragement. Though, of course, encouragement may still be present. Dirk’s attempts to solicit your attentions have been fairly unforgiving.”
“To solicit-” Not this again. “That isn’t what it is! He’s just- an asshole!”
“An asshole who is notably pleasant to everyone except you, Karkat.” Crocker shrugs one shoulder, settling his mug aside as he hums. “Consider the broader picture. He is showing you a highly targeted, clearly specifically tailored sort of aggravation. Isn’t that precisely what you told me these black solicitations tend to be?”
“I was just explaining your situation with the Dignitary, alright? It wasn’t- You don’t get to gather that shitpile of nonsense up and shove it back down my windpipe.”
“No one is shoving anything. I am merely… analysing the facts.”
“Well maybe your should go analyse your hefty steel ballsack.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
He gestures to the seat beside him and after a whole moment of pretending you’d rather continue your frustrated pacing you walk over and flop down into it, folding your arms and pouting up at the ceiling.
“I take it his black interested would be unwelcome, if that is what this is?”
You open your mouth, then close it again, pressing your hands over your face and groaning into your palms. There it is! The crux of the problem. The real thing that’s got you tied up in knots that delicately spell out fuck everything.
“It wouldn’t be unwelcome.” You growl, dropping your hands and slumping backwards. “It wouldn’t be unwelcome. That’s- that’s the problem. I didn’t think I was ready for that sort of relationship- I didn’t think I’d ever be ready for it! A Kismesis is a lot of effort, maybe even more effort than a Matesprit! You know I was this close to thinking I didn’t even buy into Quadrants anymore, and then- there he was. Dirk Strider, with his ignorant swagger and his know-it-all smirk, making my blood boil just by thrusting out his hips like he’s about to start grinding on everything in sight.”
“So…” Crocker pauses, savouring the moment as he looks you over. “You’re irritated… at him being so good at irritating you?”
You groan.
“You don’t have to make it even more ego-evisceratingly clear what a colossal failure I am at resisting this pathetic attempt at rivalry, but thanks for the contribution to my growing mire of self-hatred. It’s really swelling into an impressive collection of idiocy.” This is stupid. He’s stupid. Dirk is stupid. “I don’t even know why I bothered bringing this up!”
“Because you wanted someone else to force you to confront your feelings and knew I would do so, as per our… arrangement.” Crocker is infuriatingly right, as ever, but that doesn’t mean you have to be mature about it. “Karkat, much as I’m sure it pains you to admit it, the best thing to do in this situation is to talk to Dirk, or reciprocate in such a way he cannot mistake your intentions.”
“What’s Dave going to think? Even if it can be stable- which I’m sure it fucking can, Dirk is so intent on eating John’s face all the time I seriously doubt we’d ever vascillate- he’s still going to have to put up with his brother and me trying to outdo each other all the fucking time.”
“You mean, exactly what he puts up with right now, but without the strange unspoken tension?”
You groan again.
“Stop making sense.”
“Never.” Crocker retrieves his coffee and sips it, which does nothing to hide his amused smile. “You’ll talk to Dirk, I assume?”
“I’ll figure something out,” you reply quietly, glaring down at your own hands as you narrow down the exact moment you started hating Dirk Strider, and try to pretend you’re as upset about it as you’re acting to the world.
“You want to do what with Dirk?” Dave repeats, lacing his fingers and pressing them to his obnoxiously attractive pout.
“Oh my God,” John presses his own hands to his cheeks, grinning at you with hideous excitement. “It’s happening! It’s happening.”
“Unbraid your joint panties and just give me a nod or a head shake.” You’ve already explained yourself as fully as you’re going to, and you’re not going to repeat a word of it ever again in polite company. “That’s all I want. Just- Tell me this is okay or tell me to go fuck myself.”
“Dirk’s going to be so happy you hate him! Which is a weird sentence I never ever expected to say.” John pauses, pursing his lips, before his sunny smile is back with a snort. “Oh, oh, you better do something really bad to him after everything he’s done to you! If you need any help with pranking ideas, you know where to find me!”
“John, a Matesprit doesn’t usually go to a Kismesis and offer to help them.”
“It’s a good thing I’m just a regular boyfriend, then!”
You sigh and accept the defeat, turning your attention to Dave. He’s staring back at you with a bemused expression, which would be adorable if you weren’t so close to hyperventilating.
“Okay… Okay. So. All that freaky shit you and Dirk have been doing about managing my schedule and whatever, all the weird passive-aggressive notes I got to bring back and forth… Those were hateflirting.” He makes a pained expression, dragging his fingers down his cheek. “I was the shitty cupid carrying withered arrows of fuck you between you both and I never even realised. Holy shit. Holy shit. I helped hook up my bro and my boyfriend, what the fuck.”
“Dave. Yes or no.”
“What?”
“Can I reciprocate his black solicitations,” God, saying that out loud hurts you, “or would you rather I shut him down.”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Because you’re my Matesprit, asshole, and he’s your Moirail and your brother, and I don’t want to fuck any of those good things up by getting selfish with my Quadrants. Sure, I probably wouldn’t have cared once, but… You’re important to me.” Your cheeks heat and you look away, ignoring his lips starting to curve into a stupid smile. “I… I don’t want to do anything that might mean I lose you.”
“Karkat…”
“No! No. Don’t make this some nauseating sap-fest. Yes or no. Come on. Right now.”
Dave sighs, but shrugs after a moment, stabbing a thumb towards John. “He’s fine with it, I honestly don’t think it’s going to change much beyond me clearly having a new right to make fun of you both spite-fawning over each other, and Dirk’s apparently been gunning for it. Knock yourself out, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Karkat, go punch Dirk in the mouth with your mouth or whatever Kismesises- Kismesi- Whatever you fucking do when you’re in hate-love.”
“It’s not-”
“Go tell my brother you hate him before I send John to do it for you.”
John is beaming at the suggestion. You decide hastily that you have no further complaints, apologising for interrupting their game night before you dart out the door and hurry on to the hunt for your next target, ears twitching for hints of lame rap, nose flared to try and catch the trail of eau de pretentious prick.
Dirk is reclining at his workbench when you find him, lazily adjusting the screw in the back of a cartoonish remote with a single red button. He doesn’t look up when you enter, but you see his impassive expression flicker, the faintest hint of a smile gracing his usually assholishly flat mouth.
“Strider.” You do your best to drag yourself up to your full height, clenching your hands into fists at your side. “You know why I’m here.”
“Enlighten me.”
He’s so- so aggravatingly self-assured. So egotistical. You hate him. You hate him so much and it’s so relieving to admit that.
“I loathe you,” you announce coldly, and voicing the acceptance sends a shiver of anticipation down your spine. Dirk’s eyes fix on you behind the glasses, and he slowly sets his screwdriver down, rising to his feet and staring at you. “I- I can’t stand you. You’re so fucking annoying, every time I have to put up with your smug face I want to shove it face-first into a pile of trash and remind you that’s where you belong, you insufferable jerk.”
“Strong words,” he mocks, but his lips twitch again, and he starts to slowly walk forward. “Seriously though, dude, I can’t believe it took so long. I’ve been working my ass off here, I figured I was never going to get your attention.”
“Well you’ve got it. How could I ignore such a shitty attempt at hatred? It’s pathetic. Clearly one of us has to step up and show you how a Kismesis should actually behave.”
“Oh, that so?” He sighs, pretending to swoon as he waves the remote at you. “Oh, wise and infallible Karkat, teach me your ways! I too would love to know how to avoid all confrontation by acting like loud curse-words are the solution to all of my problems!”
“You’re a piece of shit.”
“You’re proving my point.” Dirk grins at you- openly grins. “You need to learn to get creative, Karkat! Put a little spirit into it.”
“And what if I like what I’m doing now just fine?”
Dirk leans forward, putting his face on height with yours and tilting it forward so he can meet your gaze over his dumb anime glasses.
“Then I guess I’m just going to keep getting the drop on you,” he hums.
You don’t have time to move when you realise, and hear the remote click under his thumb.
The ceiling above you jerks open, and the puppets hit you like an avalanche, hideous felt aberrations quivering their over-plump proboscis and gyrating plush asses over every part of you on the way down. You don’t scream, but you’re screaming on the inside, cowering under the waterfall of primary-coloured monstrosities as more of them than you wanted to see in your entire life gather around you and leave you cherry-cheeked in the middle of a sea of embarrassingly sexual, sewn terrors.
Dirk is smiling, and you hate it, and you hate this, and you hate him.
“Your move,” he tells you sweetly.
You can very precisely pinpoint the moment you began despising Dirk.
You will never admit to anyone that you never want to stop.
Maybe you can write something about Eridan? I miss the fishy douchebag and I love to see him a little happy... thank you.
@cyanideoreo said: Prompt: Eridan meets a witch. Not a Sorceress or a dark magic user or a Fortune teller just a regular witch who uses charms to keep bugs off her garden plants and sometimes wards off deamons with a stick and a few strong words. She’s a proper witch who understands that magic is too important to be used for big showy nonsense. Eridan is pissed.
A/N: Thank you both for your prompts! There’s not enough Eridan in this world so I couldn’t help but add a little more. I hope you both like it!
Featuring Rose, a pale relationship of sorts, more plot than I intended, and more than a little inspiration from the great Sir Pratchett if you squint.
There had been thunder, and light; fire and smoke. He remembered the sound of spooked horses and the cry of a voice from somewhere ahead-
Eridan woke with a start that was something like falling without moving, his legs thudding against the bed in a struggle against the blanket that had choked him like smoke. He threw it off with a gasp of air and then a grimace of pain as his shoulder complained against the motion, grasping at it with his other hand and pausing when he found it wrapped in linen that was stained from beneath.
Fire and smoke and a beast in the dark, limping for an escape that turned out to be a fall-
He grit his teeth and swung his legs off the side of the low bed he’d ended up in, warily examining his surroundings with narrowed eyes as he pat his pants down and found them predictably empty, even the amulet he’d accepted from Feferi at her repeated insistence absent from his aching neck. The room was hideously plain, whoever owned it not even doing the walls the dignity of painting over the cracked stone or papering over the stains that were worked deep into the grain of it.
They had however seen fit to hang a single spring of some leafy twig or other on the wooden door, and that seemed to be about as far as their understanding of décor extended.
It took him a while to find anything of use, but the chamberpot beneath the bed was heavy, if hideous. He wasn’t sure it was even fit to be squat over, but it’d cave in a head with enough energy behind it, and even if his arms weren’t particularly used to holding anything more taxing than a wand and his shoulder was still very eager to remind him he was wounded, he could manage a single good swing and he was a good enough tactician not to waste it.
Yes.
Right.
He took a moment to gather all his courage and energy, raising the pot above his head and taking a long breath to steady himself before he moved forward to his freedom, dropping one hand to seize the door handle and frowning when the twig seemed to spark and smoulder-
Eridan woke with a start, legs hitting the bed as though he’d fallen and brain catching up a moment later with the fact this was stupidly familiar and he knew the taste of ether that was stinging in his nose.
“Well then, if you know it, you’ll be smart enough not to try that again, won’t you?”
“Who the fuck goes around wardin’ their doors with a knock-out charm?” He blinked the last remnants of it out of his eyes, rubbing at his face and then peering until the gloomy room came back into focus, now host to a young woman who was smiling pleasantly down at her knitting as she rocked back and forth in a chair he knew hadn’t been there before. She didn’t look up at him, continuing to work patiently for a moment before shrugging and carefully pushing back a few stray hairs behind her ear.
“Who goes around opening doors without checking for charms?” She chuckled, softly. “Ah, but of course. The same sort of man who goes around with a wand stuffed into his briefs to hide it, and more books in his bags than food or water he may actually need.”
He frowned, slowly drawing his knees up towards his chest. “Water can be summoned.”
“It can be, but only from somewhere, and one day the person whose well you’ve been draining is going to catch up to you and do things to your face a wand won’t really be much help against.” She sighed, needles clicking softly as her fingers fluidly slid too and fro beside each other. “Books can be better summoned, or stored on something light, or better yet memorised. Water and food and other such things are the burden of us all, and unless you had the foresight to organise an actual store of them that you already spent the time amassing and possessing, magic does not exclude you from it.”
“Listen, no, no, technically, you could gather the component parts of food and combine them with a separate spell, or take a little water from a ton of places and combine them so no one loses out on enough it matters, or take it from the sea and just drain out the salt.” He huffed, chest puffing up. “You’re makin’ a ton of assumptions about my use of magic and a lack of control in it, but-”
“Oh God.” She had lowered the needles, staring at him for a moment before she gently pressed her hand to her forehead and groaned. “You’re in theoretical magic sciences, aren’t you? No wonder you didn’t check for wards.”
He bristled, grasping the blanket tightly. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“That I’m going to have even more of a headache than I expected to tonight, and am very relieved I picked enough dandelions to deal with it.” She slowly set her knitting aside, picking up a cup of tea instead and sipping it cautiously as she watched him do all he could to avoid her gaze. “Tell me, oh master of scientific arcane exploration, what would you have had me ward my door with?”
“Well,” he glanced at the wood and pouted thoughtfully, then gave himself a curt nod. “If you wanted me alive, something to freeze me, maybe a caging spell. If you didn’t care, incineration is the way to go.”
She watched him, then snorted, shaking her head against the rim of her cup.
“Wizards,” she said simply, as if that meant something.
Eridan scowled at her, wincing and shifting his arm when the pain grew too strong to keep it fixed in place around his legs. He steadied himself on his good arm instead, glancing at his bandages and considering them for a long moment.
“What happened to me?”
“I found you at the bottom of an incline with a wreckage at the top.” Her brief mirth faded again, her gaze pensive as it dropped. “It appears you were not forewarned as to the dangers of the region, so you rolled right into them woefully unprepared. Somehow, you survived, which is a miracle in itself given the circumstances, and I brought you here so you could remain protected until your scent was forgotten and you could safely leave.”
“The circumstances of the region?” He repeated disdainfully.
“Here be dragons, my dear fool.” The witch laughed quietly, no joy in the tone. “You have woken a beast best left undisturbed, and if you leave before your time, it will come for you the moment it tastes you on the breeze, and it will kill you.”
Fire and noise and grasping talons reaching for his neck, making him panic and not notice when his foot caught on the edge of the cliff-
He blinked fast and turned his face away, trying to count his breaths out to steady the way they’d started to race. His chest ached by the time it was still, and in the rush he hadn’t noticed her stand and move to the door, her knitting beneath her arm and her cup in her hand, the chair nowhere to be seen.
“How long will I be here?” He muttered, and she shrugged.
“Long enough.” He saw her hesitate, and then she turned to him, lips thin. “You were going to the University to learn, I presume?”
“…Yes.”
“Then here are some lessons. Do with them what you will.” She nodded to the door. “The charm will only affect you; others could come and go as they please. Others might do this with blood, or hair, but I prefer nothing so grotesque. So your first lesson then is that there is a great power in names, and that they bind better than fresh flesh when woven into an enchantment.”
She smiled politely, opening the door but lingering a moment in the light that flooded in.
“Your second lesson, Eridan Ampora, is to be careful what you write in the front of your books.”
She told him her name was Rose on the fourth day when she brought him breakfast, setting the tray on the end of the bed. His just Rose? was met with a smile and a chuckle, before she sat in the chair he once again hadn’t seen appear.
Rose asked him if he’d made any progress escaping, and after trying to laugh it off his admittance that the hole he’d started gouging in the wall merely closed up when he paused to catch his breath got a laugh in return.
“This would be easy if I had a wand,” he told her flatly, and she smiled and slipped her knitting needles from her sleeve, starting back up on the knitting in her lap.
“What makes a stick a wand, I wonder?” Rose asked when enough time had passed his plate was empty and he was amusing himself by drawing equations into the oil that glittered across the glaze.
On the sixth day, the wall was covered with scratched-in workings that the stone had let linger.
He lifted the fork she left behind with his plate and stared at it with brightening eyes.
The door came off its hinges with a burst of air that threw the room beyond into disarray, the fork in his hand still humming with the force of the spell as the splintered wood smashed into her neat little dining table and knocked the vase of flowers on it straight over, the chairs around it toppling as pages from a long writing desk whipped up and scattered over the floor. Eridan stared at the chaos for a moment, then lifted the fork straight up with an excited whoop, jumping up and down and then darting out to search for his captor with a proud grin refusing to drop from his face.
He found her in the garden, on her knees between a few plots of vegetables that she was carefully preening and checking with gloved hands, the bonnet on her head broad enough to easily shade her from the sun.
“It’s the belief, right?” Eridan swung back on to his heels as he twirled the fork between his fingers, and Rose lifted her head from her work, looking back at him over her shoulder with a pleased sort of surprise. “It doesn’t matter what you’re wavin’ around, you just gotta believe it’s gonna work. That’s the secret! Only people who make sticks into wands are the people insistin’ that’s what a wand oughta be.”
“Very good.” She turned back, and he wasn’t surprised when she drew out her needles and gently began to knit, not with thread this time but with a light she drew from the air itself to bind a translucent net across her garden. “We’ll make a witch of you yet.”
“That’s… That’s huge, though, you know that, right? I mean this paves the way for magic bein’ cast without any implement at all, and that would allow some truly amazin’ practical applications of magic and particularly opens up some excitin’ routes in the combative arts, and-” He paused as Rose stood and looked at him, judgement deep in the furrow between her brows. “And… Uh. Man I don’t like that expression.”
“Lesson number three, Eridan, because we will consider the education on the topic of wands as an interesting distraction and nothing more. Not all power is in explosions and incinerations and summoning foul demons just to prove that you can. There is more worth in a well-protected garden, a well-defended cottage, and a pleasant working arrangement with the spirits of the world than there is in being able to make colourful smoke and start petty wars.” Rose slipped off her gloves, collecting them both in one hand and tutting before he could say aloud how stupid she was being. “You want to call me a fool? I am the one living in the middle of a dragon’s territory with, you will notice, no dragons attacking me. You are one of the men who was here all of five minutes before your coach was burning.”
“That’s not- Hey!” He frowned at her, raising his fork defensively. “Stop doin’ that with my thoughts, those are private!”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t be thinking them so loud!”
Eridan opened his mouth to snap back, but paused as he looked at the fork and thought of the door. For a moment, he weighed his options, the indignation in his chest almost making him turn away- but then curiosity bloomed, and he wondered what other secrets there were to learn about the magicks he’d always been convinced followed laws this woman and her cottage in the middle of nowhere had already broken more than once.
“…How does someone think quietly,” is what he asked at last, and Rose’s expression grew more hopeful, her lips parting in surprise before she smiled.
“They start by cleaning up the mess in my dining room, and if they do a good enough job, I suppose we will both see how things go from there.”
“Why did you want to be a wizard?” Rose asked him over dinner, one night when the candles had run low and she gathered the wax between her needles to knit it back together.
Eridan watched, and thought of blood on a sword and sea water in his lungs, and of a promise that was vicious on his tongue and uncomfortable in his thoughts.
“I wanted to be stronger,” he said at last.
“Not all strength is in spilled blood and vengeance, Eridan Ampora.”
He looked back to his hands, and the fireflies she’d helped him catch between them, their glow draining away to pool soft over his palms.
“Not all strength has to be,” he told her, “just mine.”
Two weeks passed before the faeries came, dancing on the sunlight and singing songs in voices that had tangled all his thoughts in gossamer web before Rose pressed the same wax into his ears and huffed muffled curses as she vanished into her closet and returned with an old broom, hefty and thick with straw for bristles.
Eridan thought of the sirens luring men to the deep as he watched Rose run down her garden path swatting the hissing fae from their perches and batting them all the way off her property. He thought of the rope they’d used to bind the sailors, of slaves chained to their oars, of a deaf captain who had survived by taking a knife to both his ears.
He reached up and touched his own as Rose yelled after the receding creatures, and wondered why all those men who’d drowned and suffered had never thought of something as simple as wax.
“I know why you warded the door like you did.”
Rose glanced at him across the room, continuing to knit the purple thread that had worked its way into the mix that coiled in her lap.
“It didn’t hurt me badly like freezin’ might’ve or fire would’ve, and it made a noise when I fell so you knew somethin’ was goin’ on, and bein’ unconscious wasn’t somethin’ I could figure a way out of until I was awake, but you were there by then.”
She smiled and turned her attention back to her knitting.
Eridan considered that a victory.
Her garden was dark when he wound his way though it to get the dandelions she’d forgotten for her tea, the patch they grew in familiar from the month he’d tended to it, nestled down by the wall in a wild space she let grow rampant within the confines of a ward so the weeds couldn’t spread beyond their bounds. He’d forgotten the lantern on the porch, but a whistle called the fireflies and a quiet request let him borrow their glow, the gift turning the world around him a warm yellow as he slid the liquid light from hand to hand, catching it in his cupped palms over and over to entertain himself as he walked.
It was soft, malleable, not quite like water; more like molten metal ready to pour into a mould, but already cold and easy to touch. He wondered what it would do to take a blacksmith’s hammer to a firefly’s glow- and then he paused in step and just looked at the light, and wondered what he might do if he had the will for it.
It wasn’t the tools, as he had learned: it was the belief in the hands that held them. If a fork could send a door from its hinges, why couldn’t he bend light to be a tool all on its own?
He scooped the light from the air when it started to swell over, cupping it in both his hands at once and starting to shape without a goal, closing his eyes and following the pull beneath his skin as he let something deeper in him lead his motions. The light grew hard and cold under his fingers, and he felt when it grew still, his eyes hesitantly opening again.
“You know, it’s never going to be anything different,” Rose said behind him as the lantern shone across his back and shoulders. “Not as long as you think it’s what you need.”
He turned to her and raised the white knife in his hand, beautiful in its simplicity, point begging to be washed over with red. It was funny, really. He’d thought it would be different, but perhaps he’d known deep down it wouldn’t be, guided his hands down the path of least resistance and fallen back into something his time with Rose had almost fooled him into thinking he’d left behind.
“Why were you going to the University?” Rose stepped forward, armed with nothing but the lantern raised high to illuminate his face.
Eridan sighed, closing his hand around the hilt and avoiding her gaze.
“…We lived on the coast. Me and- There was a girl. She’d stayed with me longer than she oughta done, and maybe if I’d made her leave sooner…” He shook his head. “There was a wizard, turned up on a wrecked boat and stayed around. Guess he was what I couldn’t be, for her, but- He didn’t like me. I didn’t like him. I wanted her to leave before he got us in shit, she didn’t want to go and I…” He looked over the knife in silence for a moment. “She wasn’t meant to get in the way, and I wasn’t meant to have magic. I wanted her away from that, I didn’t want it to be in me, and I didn’t mean to kill him, or…”
“Or her.”
He laughed.
“I promised myself, if I had this shit in me, it was gonna go to good use. I’d go to their fancy ass University, I’d let them train me in how to beat them, and then I’d…”
Silence fell, and Rose sighed, carefully lowering the lantern to the floor and stepping forward to take hold of his wrist, not firm enough to hold it in place, nothing more than a supporting touch.
“Killing them won’t bring her back, Eridan.”
“Nah, but it mighta made me feel better.”
Rose watched him, her eyes soft and sad, before she put her other hand around his to hold the hilt and smiled.
“Do you want to know the secret?” She asked softly. “What makes me a witch, and not a wizard?”
She reached and touched the point of the knife, gentle enough it didn’t break her skin, and Eridan watched in silence as she tipped it down to point at her own throat.
“A wizard will summon a knife from the light of fireflies, and it will be the sharpest blade ever held, and kill his enemies as he wishes, pierce any heart that he wants stopped.”
“And a witch?” Eridan murmured, his fingers steady as her hands both fell away.
Rose smiled.
“A witch,” she explained softly, “will remember there’s more than one purpose for a knife.”
He cut the stems of the dandelions instead of her throat, and she made them both tea as she watched him pull apart the blade and give each and every spark back to the firefly it had come from.
In the spring, he’d been in her home for a year, and the plain stone walls were papered over with sketches and writing, and the empty room held a desk and a chair that came from nowhere when he needed to sit, despite the fact he was sure he never asked for it to form. Around his neck hung a scarf knitted from wool, and clouds, and spider webs, no matter if the weather demanded it, and now and then when he sat and spoke to the birds who gathered on their windowsills, Rose settled beside him and kept knitting, adding more length to the project she’d gifted him that he was certain would never be finished.
We’ll make a witch of you yet, Rose told him when she brought him bread she’d baked from nothing, plucking just the ingredients she needed from enough places the pieces wouldn’t be missed. His theories in motion, more mundane than he’d intended but still full of worth and skill. We’ll make a witch of you yet.
Eridan wondered if she was right, but he knew now he was willing to stay and find out.
In the fronts of the books she gave him, he marked only the sign of waves.
hiiii, i love your fics so much, and i heard you were taking requests again and i was super excited, so yh! if you havent had your fill of prompts yet id really really love some good old fashioned davejohn cliche as hell fluff. like maybe just a memory of some point when they were practicing kissing eachother, you know, for the future with someone else, and they have genuinely no idea how homo it is, but its a fond memory and its super coma-inducing, tooth rottingly sweet and fluffy? thanks! <3
A/N: I don’t write cliché often enough and sometimes it’s a lot of fun to just do something like this, thank you for the prompt! I hope the direction I took it in is okay, it veered slightly off from the prompt ; u ;…
John and Dave are 17, and have recounted said fuzzy memory! This is what happens next.
Who convinced who and where the idea even came from was long since lost to the hazy annals of history, but if pressed for an answer John would explain very sincerely that it was all Dave’s doing and Dave would manage to insist- somewhere between the waterfall of words- that it was John, okay, it was John, everything was always John.
If this had been a world where somehow someone could pass back through time and check, perhaps Dave would have found his memories were the sharper of the two.
This wasn’t that world, however.
“It was you.”
“It wasn’t me!”
The red had spread fast over Dave’s face, finally hitting his ears and dying them dark. That rapid denial had been a little too loud, too emphatic, and John was grinning at him in that one way that meant his life was about to become hell and somehow he was going to be fine with that as long as it came from John. He ducked his head back down, burying his mouth into the collar of his hoodie and groaning softly into the muffling fabric as he did his best to ignore the snort and giggle beside him, even more ridiculous in John’s broken voice than it had been high-pitched and squeaked.
“Okay, sure, whatever.” John stretched and leaned back on the bed, swinging his legs again to drum a beat against the wooden frame. “You were totally into it, though.”
“I- It was practise makes perfect or whatever, what’s the point giving half-assing a learning experience you thought was offered genuinely as a bro-to-bro sign of trust and affection for the benefit of the future babe you’ll sweep off their feet with those same skills you honed in a bedroom under a blanket with the one other person in the world who thought practise kisses are even an actual real thing and not just an excuse to mack on a crush you’re too young to work out you have.” John opened his mouth and Dave beat him to the punch, continuing too fast to be interrupted- “Not that I had one! Not that I’m saying that about me I’m implying that about you because you’re the one who started it and you can blame me all you want but that shit don’t fly when I specifically recall you convincing me that us mashing mouths was the straightest thing any two dudes have ever done in each others company since the last time your Dad and my Bro discussed sports neither of them watch while downing cheap cans of store-brand beer.”
“I didn’t think your Bro was straight.”
“He’s not, John.” Dave groaned. “Do you see what I’m maybe saying with that comparison there, do you grasp what I might possibly be implying?”
“It wasn’t like that, Dave, it was… You know! Kids do things like that! It doesn’t mean anything, it’s just…” John paused and collected his thoughts, then wiggled his fingers into air. “Hey, no girl wants to kiss me because they think I’m carrying an infectious boys only disease or whatever, but everyone keeps telling me I’ll need to get good at kissing so someday I can get a wife and have kids because I still think kids are made by putting your tongue in a girl’s mouth once you’re married, I know a guy who’s got my back and had a great mouth that kind of looks like a girls if I squint-”
“Oh my God.”
“What?” John avoided meeting the disbelieving gaze being aimed at him over Dave’s shades, his cheeks darkening as he admired his own wallpaper instead. “I was like… ten! Cut me some slack here, Dave!”
“John if I cut this homoerotic shitshow of a conversation any more slack it’s going to lose all shape and form and turn into a puddle of rainbows on the floor.”
John pursed his lips briefly, starting to tug at his own fingers as his amusement cracked to agitation that welled up in the more rapid swing of his legs. “Well you didn’t think it was like that either!”
“Yeah- When I was ten I didn’t, sure, mainly because growing up with Bro meant I was still pretty hazy on the whole divide between what was gay or not and what was just stuff it’s okay to do whatever you want to stick your dick in if sticking a dick in something was your thing.” Dave dragged his hand down his face, exhaling his frustration. “But- I haven’t been ten for years, and I learned about shit, and I began to be able to categorise shit, and it’s cool to claim ignorance about interpretations of actions we were way too young to actually apply any labelling system to even if the labelling system wasn’t bullshit, but considering the very conversation we are having right now that you started because your defining memory of being in this room with me is the one time we made out badly when we were kids, maybe what I’m trying to address in the most roundabout fucked up way ever is that there might be a reason that particular memory stuck with you and if it’s anything like the reason is stuck with me, we might finally need to wrestle the elephant in the room into some kind of cage where we can actually address it without it freaking out and trampling us in its attempts to ollie the fuck out your window to the balmy beaches of Isle Denial, population you!”
“I- I’m not in-” John stuttered to a halt, swatting Dave’s accusing finger away from where it had jabbed at his chest and looking everywhere that wasn’t quite his face. “It’s not like-”
He stopped, and then fresh colour bloomed in his cheeks, his eyes snapping to Dave’s as his hand flinched back and his fingers curled tightly to his palm.
“The reason it stuck with you?”
“Oh come on, we aren’t doing this. We aren’t doing the cliché thing here, John, I’m not throwing open a closet door. My closet was always glass and this is me setting fire to it and sacrificing my dignity in the pyre to summon the ancient spirit of losing all my fucks to make the smoke spell out hey, John,” Dave spread his hands in an arc, smiling tensely between them, “I am so fucking gay you would not believe.”
John blinked.
“You’re…”
“Oh my fuck Egbert if you finish that sentence with any sort of disbelief at the reveal so mediocre I may as well have revealed my name is Dave, I’m going to get my coat and beat the elephant to the punch because that’s not the conversation I was trying to start and you know it.”
“No! No- No, I didn’t mean it like- I mean it makes a lot make sense- but… You’re right.” John nodded slowly. “It’s… not a surprise? It’s like when stuff slots into place at the end of a film and you realise it was there the whole time but you were just paying more attention to the cool hero moving than what he was actually doing.”
“See… See.” Dave clasped his hands together, pressing his joined palms to his mouth as he watched John critically. “It’s when you say stuff like that that I get pretty sure the elephant is in the room with us right now and if we cracked out a ouija it would shuffle on over to spell out wow, dude with its proudly painted intangible trunk.”
“I’m not gay, Dave.” John cupped his face in his hands, ignoring Dave’s eyebrows twitching as he sighed and rolled his eyes. “Don’t start with me! Don’t do it. I’m… Okay, look. I’m like… bi, I think. Maybe? I haven’t given it as much thought as you, probably, because I have had maybe three crushes ever and I don’t have to be Jade to know that’s a terrible sample size to gain any relevant data or whatever she’d say about it.”
“Three crushes.”
“Vriska, Karkat for like five minutes one time that we will never, ever talk about do not bring it up ever again or this friendship is over, and-”
“And.”
“If I said Rose right now, how far off your dumb handle would shit flip?”
“Don’t fuck with me, John.”
“But fucking with you is so fun!”
“John.”
“In retrospect that was absolutely not the right comment for this moment. Or maybe it was! Or maybe it will be in a few years.” John shrugged over-emphatically, grinning sheepishly as he held the pose far too long and dragged out the vowels in “who knows?”
Dave stared at him, lacing his own fingers completely before he dropped his hands into his lap. “Is this seriously how you tell me?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” John put his hand to his mouth in mock shame, “did I need to use an imaginary elephant too?”
“Excuse me, the elephant was here as a helpful metaphorical representation of our inability to have a straight conversation-”
“Well I guess now we both know why we could never manage straight talk!”
Dave stared at him. He opened his mouth once, and closed it, then gestured at John as John badly stifled a laugh.
“Did you just-”
“If you want to take the confession back, you and your elephant can still climb out the window.”
“Technically I didn’t confess a damn thing.”
“Uh huh. Okay, sure.”
Before Dave could continue his objections, John flopped back and grabbed his bunched up blanket, shaking it to unravel it before he sat up and dragged it behind him so it drifted over them and settled over Dave and his own raised arms, tented above them and throwing their faces into blue-tinted shade as the sunlight diffused through the printed sky. Dave gave him a look and John smiled straight back, shuffling closer along the edge of the bed.
“Egbert-”
“Dave.” John leaned down, voice dropped to a secretive whisper. “Here’s my idea. We’re under blanket of bro relations or whatever you’d called it. The broket. The, uh. The blanbro.”
“No.”
“Okay, whatever, but we’re here and all the dumb conversation we’re having is under here too, and if you want you can leave the blanket and the words- even the ones between the lines- will stay trapped and we don’t ever have to look at them again.”
Dave glanced up at the fabric, raising a hand to run his fingers over the reversed image of a cloud, before he nodded slowly. “Or? There’s an or, right?”
“Or, the blanket of bro relations could become a blanket of I guess maybe more than bro relations, if you want it to, and no matter who started it last time-”
“-You-”
“-We can both agree to start it this time, and emerge from the blanket blinking in the light of a new dawn where we hold hands and romantically roast marshmallows over a burning closet and just see where things go from there.”
“John Egbert,” Dave said slowly, “no one has ever made that much of a mess of asking someone out since the last time a Strider tried it.”
“Well as my local Strider decided not to do it, someone had to take the hit. Whoops, there goes my dignity, straight into the flames next to yours.” He sighed. “A noble sacrifice… It’ll be missed.”
“I think such a worthy fallen hero deserves a moment of silence.”
They paused.
“But- Anyway.” Dave raised a hand to take half the job of holding up the blanket, glancing down at John’s hand when it fell to rest on his leg. “Whoa, whoa, wait for me to give an answer, come on, have some style.”
John lifted his hand and raised his eyebrows, his grin not diminished in the slightest.
“Anyway,” Dave started again, “that’s an interesting deal you’ve brought to the table there, John. This shady-ass back-street blanket-bound exchange is shaping up to be something special, but who knows, maybe I’m gonna pack up my case of affection and stub out this cigar on the table as I make my dramatic exit to the afternoon sun of this very same day instead of macking my way into your brand new dawn, find myself someone smoother to sweep me off my feet.”
“Maybe you are,” John agreed solemnly, “and I’ll live with your decision, even if it sucks.”
“Or.”
“Or…”
“Or maybe you’re an absolute ass for making me wait way longer than fate intended and maybe this whole segue was a disaster that we can never admit happened to anyone, ever, especially Rose, and maybe if you don’t shut me up by kissing me in the next five seconds I won’t stop talking until I run out of breath and I have killer lung capacity, John, and-”
John decided that was enough and cupped his hand around Dave’s neck instead, fingers threading into his hair to pull him forward and close the gap between them. For a long moment, too many heartbeats that thudded steady in Dave’s ears, all there was was John’s lips over his and John’s body there, pressed up close to him; then John moved and kissed him again, and again, quick enough it all blurred into one, his senses jolting back into life as he pressed forward and met every touch in kind and ignored the flock of anxious crows who had decided to taken roost in his stomach.
John kissed softer than Dave had expected, leading without forcing, lips still stained sweet by frosting from dinner. He chased the taste and the touch until John’s hand dropped to his back, catching him as his curled fingers slid out of the blanket and both his arms wrapped around John’s shoulders instead, ignoring the soft weight that fell on top of him and cocooned them both in a more literal fuzzy warmth.
The kisses slowed, and stopped, and all either of them could hear in the small space was their own breathing, before John laughed softly and pressed his other hand into Dave’s hair.
“Hey, Dave?” He whispered, and Dave blinked, still lost in a pleasant daze he had no intention of letting go of any time soon.
“…Yeah?”
John pressed his lips to Dave’s forehead, and grinned against his skin, shoulders shaking with a silent laugh.
Troll experiencing a human having a panic attack for the first time and initially thinking the human is going to go into a rage/lash out but being confused when it instead seems like they're dying ("oh god why are they breathing so fast!? is that normal!?" type thing).
A/N: Went with some Dave and Karkat because that fulfils two of my headcanons and adds in a pair I like, so here we go. Thank you for the prompt anon! Interspecies culture shock is a fave of mine.
Karkat’s POV
You knew taking in humans was a terrible idea.
Sure, the interspecies makeouts were less objectionable than you’d assumed, and with Rose occupying the girls you’d even found Dave was willing to listen to you without passing judgement every second like some other people you could mention, but you should’ve known it was only a matter of time before your fragile false sense of security was shattered by the recollection that humans and trolls were never meant to occupy the same time-space and were bargaining with a shitfest of hitherto unknown proportions when they did so despite all laws of common sense and feasibility.
In short, you should’ve known it was too good to last, and more fool you for ever forgetting.
“Dave,” you repeat, hands up and fingers spread. The urge to run or lunge for him pumps through your veins, tears you in two directions, but judging which route to take is hard when you still barely know how humans even respond to anything. It’s why you weren’t expecting Dave to lock up over an idle comment, why you don’t know what to do when his casual smile turns to bared teeth and wide eyes, his hands curled into tight fists at his sides.
“Dave,” it’s all you can manage, the record skipping as you see an image of fangs snapping and claws clenched before they grasped for you, one wrong hit and the blood will flow, they’ll see and they’ll know-
Then he recoils, sharply, and the breath that shudders out of him is tense and high-pitched, his eyes snapping away from you and what looked like fury suddenly sharpening into fear and shock that sting the panic out of you and make your choice before you can think about it, drawing you in to put your hands on his shoulders and try to get him to look back at you. Oh shit, oh no, you fucked up in the wrong direction, you fucked up and you don’t know how to fix this but his breathing sounds painful and the colour in his cheeks is turning blotchy and draining away.
“Hey, hey, come on, hey.” His eyes lock back with yours as you speak and his teeth finally loosen, his breaths sounding even worse wheezed through his mouth fast and hard, pushed beyond panting into something awful. Is that- Is that alright, is this a human thing? It seems bad, it seems really bad and you don’t know what to do. “Dave, hey, what can I do, tell me what to do!”
“B-Bag, bag.” He gestures at his mouth, voice strained and short as he blinks rapidly and sways in your grip. You fumble through your Sylladex, scramble for a pack of some inane human snack Rose created for you to try and tears it open with a spray of salted snaps, tipping the rest onto the floor and handing it to him hopefully as you pray you understood his rapid hand gestures and aren’t just offering a dying man a fucking useless piece of trash.
Dave seizes it and presses it hard to his lips, doubling over as you watch it swell and wilt with each frantic breath. You hover, afraid and frustrated and still at a loss, until your fingers find a purpose and your nails start to card gently through his hair, a motion he seems to press into instead of moving away from- You’ll take that as a quiet victory.
The speed of each breath is slowing, and you watch alertly as a few blotches of red return to his skin, one of his hands rising to grasp your waist and staying there, holding tight.
On impulse, you lift your hand, lower it gently, and before you’ve thought better of it you’re patting and stroking his hair in earnest, your cheeks dark and your eyes abruptly averted at the disgustingly uninvited pale solicitation. Great, well done, choosing a moment of near death or whatever the fuck just happened to start having an emotional crisis that’s unimportant and needs to take a back seat to Dave, you know, staying alive and okay in whatever messed up human way he needs to be.
“It’s okay,” your traitorous lips provide anyway, “hey, it’s okay, you can hold me, whatever you want, come on.”
Dave nods and holds tighter, dropping the bag and panting heavily but at a reasonable pace at least, his eyes shut as he presses his head forward and against you and his other hand loops around your hips to keep him steady. You keep mumbling pointless, soothing shit, keep doing your best to pet at him attentively, until his head rises and he looks at you with an embarrassed- ashamed- frown, his glasses askew and his hair a mess from your hands.
He looks exhausted, and the same urges you are trying to slam into a hole deep in the ground are back, telling you to feed him and put him to bed and make sure he drinks water to replace what he lost in the tears you can now see streamed down his cheeks.
“What was that?” You ask after a moment, taking his hand to start pulling him towards respite and nutrition as the urges grow too loud to deny.
Dave groans, voice raspy, and squeezes your hand tightly.
“Don’t tell Rose.”
“I’m not going to tell Rose you nearly died of suddenly breathing too much, Dave.”
His laugh is weak but earnest, and that’s a start. You want to understand what just happened, but more than that- More than that, you want to know he’s going to be okay.
“Let’s start with water, and we can figure it out from there,” you tell him stiffly, but it’s a relief when he just nods in return, surrendering to where you’re taking him and whatever you have planned there.
“It- It won’t happen again.” He swallows, and you can hear the lie. “I’m cool.”
You’re going to start carrying a small, useless bag everywhere, whether he likes it or not. If abandoned snack receptacles can save a human life, who are you to question it?
You’ll take care of this human.
The stirrings that brings in you are too broadly shaded for to accurately pick them apart, so you don’t bother. They can wait, like the questions, like everything else.
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can you do some post-canon calliroxy? or any kind of calliroxy really!
A/N: The sweetest children.
The Crockerbert cereal creation of the day was a luminescent orange, and Roxy gave it a long stare before she shrugged and heaped it in her bowl, coating it with what she was going to continue insisting was totally normal milk and not the questionable excretions of one of the weird creatures that roamed in the fields beyond Can Town. Not that she’d ever had normal milk, but somehow the thought was better than the alternative, so she clung to it all the same.
She was two mouthfuls into what she discovered was the obnoxious orange burst that Dirk had requested, exploding through her sense and leaving her unsure if she liked it or was just losing the ability to taste, when she heard her name from above and looked up to the ceiling. It was repeated, along with a thunder that raced away towards the stairs, and she had enough warning to shift the bowl away from her and wipe her mouth free of sparkling orange dust before the door to the dining room was thrown open and Calliope raced in so fast she lost her footing and ended up skidding to a halt across the floor.
“Oh, bugger.”
“Good mornin’ to you too, sunshine.” Roxy plucked up a slice of toast and offered it off the side of the table, smiling when it was snatched out of her hand and vanished out of sight. “Nice entrance. The judges are decidin’ their scores and- Well, looks like it’s nine for intent, four for execution, but a whole ten for sticking that landing.”
“If Mister Crocker didn’t wax these floors so often then maybe one could get a grip on them bare-footed.”
“If Mister Crocker didn’t wax these floors so often they’d still be covered in shavin’ cream and whatever else John and Jane were throwin’ around in here last.”
A thoughtful munching responded, before Calliope seized the table, dragging herself up with the toast hanging between her fangs like an image from one of the Animes until she pulled it out and slammed it on the table.
“Roxy,” she repeated urgently, gesturing with her claw. “Look at me! Look at me. What’s different?”
Roxy blinked, peering at her critically with the spoon that had only just returned with another orange payload drooping between her lips. Cute floral dress, check. Claws still painted and glittery from their last girls night, check. Wig that today was pink and curly and tied back in a fancy bun, check.
She pursed her lips, looking harder. Cute eyes that were an ocean, check. Cute nervous wiggles of her hands that were also an ocean, double check.
And-
Roxy’s eyes widened.
“Your spiral cheek things.”
“My spiral cheek things!” Calliope beamed, clapping her hands over them before pointing with her fingers, tapping her talons to the soft layer of skin that covered her pronounced skull. “They filled! They filled! They finally, actually filled, love!”
Roxy made grabbing motions and Calliope dutifully shuffled over in small motions so the wax didn’t claim another victory, smiling broadly as Roxy poked one cheek and then cupped her face in her hands.
“So, I’mma just goin’ by memory here, but.” Roxy whistled. “That means that asshole is definitely, certifiably, one hundred percent and counting gone for good, right?”
“Yes!” Calliope wiggled, bouncing her clenched fists up and down in front of her chest. “Yes, yes, yes!”
“And you are absolutely, forever and always, just Callie now, no limits and no terms and conditions bullshit?”
“Just me!” Calliope laughed. “Just me, just me, no more being afraid of going to sleep!”
It had been tense, the first few nights, Calliope insisting someone sit with her and be ready, just in case. She slept peacefully enough, but Roxy had known the worries never faded, not as long as there was a gap that might’ve been filled, a ghost who might’ve come to haunt them- But the gap was gone, and Calliope was smiling. No more being afraid. Roxy’s lips curved into an eager grin of her own.
“Just you.” Just Callie, and the worries were gone, one final peace for the girl who deserved it most of all. “Just Calliope.”
They’d show the others, and there’d be laughing and smiles and the sag of shoulders that had no more reason to stay tense, one last nail in the coffin of a past life and the future ahead looking bright and lime green. Until then, though, Roxy scooped Callie up and placed her in her lap, squeezing her close.
“You’re free,” she murmured, and everything was wonderful.
“I’m free!” Calliope answered, and her cheeks glowed green.
Jade and Terezi taking tango lessons ? Kanaya and Rose are here too and Kanaya makes dresses for everyone. Terezi be like "yeah this one fits Jade" "TZ you don't even see her !!" (Good to see you again btw ^^ Hope you're doing good)
A/N: (Thank you! I am, it’s good to be back :D) I love Jaderezi you know my weaknesses.
“This one.”
Kanaya managed to move the dress out of the way before it was pierced by the wanton cane of indecision, her brow knitting as she shook it out in front of herself and peered critically at the blue and black she had barely finished stitching.
“Not that I am questioning your knowledge of Jade as presumably gained through wandering hands,” she said slowly, “but I am less ready to accept you have knowledge of the measurements of this dress as precisely needed to know it is designed to fit her.”
“But it is designed to fit her, right?” Terezi’s face split into a pleased grin, her cane tapping across to nudge Kanaya’s knee. “I bet she’ll taste great in it.”
“I was not aware clothing could function as a form of seasoning.”
“The best kind of seasoning! And you know what would make it better?”
“Terezi I am not changing all of my fabric choices to red scales.”
“Well you’re no fun.”
Kanaya sighed heavily and gazed across the remaining pools of cloth and silk, finally reaching and picking up a ribbon in a fitting crimson that she very carefully began winding into a rosette. Really, it was going to let down the whole ensemble. A travesty, and stitched into place by her own, traitorous hands.
“Delicious,” Terezi hooted, slamming the cane down and then twirling around it to make all the fluffy layers at her waist spread out and float in spiralling trails around her. “Share the red around, don’t waste it all on Dave!”
“I still think the dress I designed for Dave is one of my finest creations and that he looked magical dancing in it.”
“Well, yeah, but Jade will look even magicaler.” She span the opposite way, then grasped at the where the dress puffed out. “It tastes like candy-floss when I move! Candy-floss but better.”
“I am glad it is to your liking I did spend as long as I could trying to make your first real experience of a fancy dress as fancy as Jade asked for it to be.”
“Well, a suit would’ve been best, but… this will do.” She nodded sagely. “And Jade will love it. And I love Jade!”
“We know.”
With that, Terezi flopped down beside her, beaming at a space to the right of her ear. “Do you think they’ll be here soon?”
“I expect so. Rose was very adamant the music needed to be exactly right and I am sure you know how long Dave and Dirk will take to provide a version that is not ironically superimposed with something inappropriate or played at half speed with a looped one second bass at a different pace in order to further Dirk’s attempts to redefine the dancing genre.”
“They should’ve asked Dad.”
“The last time Dad was asked he produced a playlist consisting of nothing but human jazz and one track of what Jane referred to as death metal that was never adequately addressed or explained.”
Kanaya finished fixing the red rosette into place with a small flourish, offering it out for Terezi’s approval and smiling with relief when she got a cackle and a nod in return. Another dress down, another task completed. She set it with her offering for Rose and finally let her shoulders slump with the relaxation she’d been fending off until her job was done.
“We could do human dances to death metal,” Terezi murmured after a while.
Kanaya sighed. “I am sure we could and that inevitably we will live to see you try.”
“Once again, I can’t help but suggest Jade should be leading, given she is, in our dearest Strider’s parlance,” Rose inhaled and then did her best impression of Dave’s illogically fast paced drawl as she continued, “twice your fucking height have you seen her that should be illegal she’s a goddamn Amazon is what she is.”
“What’s an Amazon?” Terezi asked, keeping her hands firmly where they were despite the stretch. Jade giggled above her, adjusting her own hold again.
“Someone who is totally fine with being led in a dance, and also kicks ass.”
“Well why didn’t Rose say so? Sounds perfect to me.”
Jade beamed and glanced up at Rose, rolling her eyes as the beat-box solo that had interrupted their rhythm continued way beyond what was reasonable. “We should’ve taken the version with the random horse noises.”
“And allow Dirk to force his fetish onto others? Never.” Rose hummed, stepping back to Kanaya as the tell-tale signs of Dave growing out of breath started to draw the beat-box thin and heralded the return of actual music. “Very well, we will continue with your positions as they are and pretend that hunching over is a trademark of true grace. Like this, ladies, follow my feet-”
The beat was steady but relentless when it returned, a drum that left no room for slipping out of time. Rose took them through a bar of it with certain steps and another quick lift-tap of her foot, a drop and a spin and- Jade whispered descriptions quickly as Terezi paid attention to the shifts in the air, and when Rose finally stilled and spread a hand to them, they were ready.
They got three whole steps in before Jade’s foot caught on Terezi’s shin and they toppled to the floor.
Rose clasped her hands over her mouth and shut her eyes, nodding quietly when Kanaya awkwardly pat her back. It was Jade who laughed first, flustered but genuine, and Terezi followed, cracking up and reaching to drag Jade into a tighter hug, sprawled over the wood as they were.
“There was progress,” Kanaya observed patiently.
“There was,” Rose agreed, taking a deep breath and opening her eyes. “There was progress. They are improving.”
She clapped her hands as the pair staggered up, giving them a weary smile.
“Once more, ladies. With feeling.”
It took a while to get the hang of it, but when they did Rose’s relief was palpable. Once they fell into the beat and the flow of the motions, once they began to think of each step as one single act between the two of them instead of individual gestures, then stumbles turned to gliding and furrowed brows became excited smiles, their postures evening out and Terezi even managing- improbably- to never step on Jade’s toes.
The thing Terezi liked most about it was how aware of Jade she was, when they were together and Jade trusted herself to Terezi’s grip and support, each low dip and each new push of momentum into a dragged spin making her hyper-sensitive to the way Jade’s breath caught, and her muscles tensed and gave, the way her fingers curled and her foot caught just enough to let Terezi know it was there before it hooked around her leg so Jade could swing into something new.
It wasn’t even close all the time, there was plenty of moments they were parted, or leaning away from one another, but something still felt intimate about it, their hands held together and the steady beat of the music pulling them back together each time they stepped away. There was something in the way Jade let Terezi lift her without hesitation, in the way their bodies curved together when she was dragged back upright from nearly touching the ground, and in each taste of red that shocked Terezi’s senses when the rosette grew close and the blue-black haze became a sharp blast of Jade.
They danced, and at some point the steps came naturally, their bodies remembering so their minds could wander.
“You look good in a dress,” Jade whispered when her mouth dipped by Terezi’s ear.
“You’re leaving flowers all across the room,” Terezi told her later, trying to think of better words to describe the blue trail that had left the world glittering and gorgeous.
“I think we should do this again,” Jade squealed excitedly as her hands stretched up to grasp Terezi’s hips from her place on the ground.
“I think I’d like that,” Terezi replied, out of breath but unable to stop smiling.
They danced, and the days drew on but the moments lingered. At night Terezi stared at nothing, and thought of hands in hers and a laugh above her, legs tangled without toppling and the music drumming on, and on, and on.
“You never told me why you wanted to dance with me,” she asked at last, one day when Jade smelled of cocoa skin and strawberry flush, her hair tied back and her top and pants tight. Jade laughed, touching her cheek before settling back into hold.
“I never had anyone to dance with, growing up, and I always wanted to. Squiddles and stuffed toys can only do so much!” She paused, and Terezi tasted the flush spread. “It was a dream, really. To dress pretty and dance with someone real.”
“That’s so obnoxiously cute I might throw up on you.”
“Terezi!”
The music started, their hands grew tight, and they knew the steps without thinking.
“I’m glad I could be that person,” Terezi said at last, quiet enough it was only for Jade to hear. “Even if being so sweet is forbidden under international law.”
“Terezi, you made all the international laws!”
“Exactly.”
They strode, and turned, and Jade dipped low before rising with a sigh.
“I’m happy it was you, too,” she said, and they followed the forward marching beat together.
rosejade! they'll finally be able to meet up in person now, how does it go?
A/N: I hope you like it! Thank you for the prompt :)
The first thing you learn is that Jade Harley is far taller standing next to you than she seemed even looming in front of you, and that a lot of the intimidating breadth and strength that you had previously assumed came from the dark possession that had overwhelmed her was in fact simply Jade.
The second thing you learn is that the broad smile that lights up her face does wonders for making the same things that seemed terrifying before seem utterly charming, which is why the same clawed hands and sharp canines you feared are all but forgotten as she throws her arms around you and laughs brightly into your hair.
When she laughs, her whole body shakes with it, snorts and what you highly suspect is a quiet bark breaking the sound into bursts. It is not quite how you had read her typed amusement, but then again she is hardly the person now she was when she sent you those messages, kneaded down by loss and battle and then risen back to maturity in the oven of strictly forward-moving time.
You no longer know Jade, you realise, but that doesn’t stop you curling your fingers into her dress and settling comfortably into her warmth, smiling quietly and resisting the urge to join her laughs even as they fade into a content hum and an excitable wiggle. This is likely already the longest hug you have ever been a part of, but you absolutely couldn’t care less. You will hug Jade as long as you like and everyone else will learn patience if they require you for some bizarre reasons in the final fading moments of your life within this constructed world.
A new day awaits, and even after everything, you will get to share it with her.
“Rose,” Jade says at last, and draws back enough to cup your cheeks in her palms and turn your face up to see her blinding smile, not dimmed at all from the first moment she started bounding towards you. “Rose!”
“That remained my identity when last I checked.” You smile back, every attempt to keep it soft falling apart in the face of her unrelenting joy. “I’ve waited a long time to finally say this, but- Hello Jade.” You blink, nose stinging and accomplishments seeming just a little more worth it. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
“We’re really here- You’re really here.” Jade beams, dropping her head to press your foreheads together. It would be very easy to kiss her, your mind informs you, then fixates on the possibility. “And- us this time, and free, and we did it, Rose! We did it-”
You did do it, didn’t you? Her lips are a very just reward.
You don’t know Jade Harley anymore, not like you used to, but as she grabs you with absolutely no hesitation and grins into your kiss, you are sure you will take great delight in reacquainting yourself with all that she’s become. Her hands are sure against your back, your arms finding a natural fit around her shoulders, and back far in your past a girl who wondered what it would be like to meet the woman of her dreams gets an answer at long last.
Jade shines as bright as the future, and you will hold her hand walking into it with one more dream come full circle; one less childish regret.
