Chapter Text
If you walked up to somebody on the street and asked them when they would cut off the one they love’s life support, what would they say?
Would they give up after the first week? After the first month? The first three months? The first six months?
Or would they give up when they started to sell their personal belongings? When they sell the knitting needles their love gave them to some strange woman? How about when they sell the piano their love would play to you all night to someone who’ll use it as firewood for all they know? If not that then surely when they sell the house they had dreamed of growing old in with the one they love. Or as a last resort, the ring their love proposed with.
Would the life support be cut off when they are fired from their job because their boss thinks they are too obsessed? Or because the hospital is selfish and won’t let them sleep there, so they spend the first of many nights sleeping out in the cold and digging through garbage? Is that when they cut the life support?
You’ve fallen far. The doctors tell you to give up; that he’s practically dead now. But you can’t. You just can’t take the risk and see if John can breathe on his own and force wake up. One of the nurses suggests that you go see a psychologist. Ha! She thinks you’re delusional. They’re the crazy ones. Don’t they see that John will wake up? He’ll rise up from his bed stronger than ever? You know better. That’s why you can’t let them sway you. No matter what, you hold on.
But it is difficult. Almost too difficult for you to stay the way John wanted. You barely regret abandoning the job you had with Scratch. In a moment of weakness you did return to him, or tried as he wasn’t at the bookstore.
There is some hope; there’s always hope. You’ve found a job at some shitty pizza place with a lower blood class boss. Grub what would Equius say? Wait, why do you care what he-You have truly fallen. Could you even ask him for money? Demand it maybe? You’ve seen the news; he’s the Chief of Police and that troll-Aradia-is a reporter. It curdles your blood to see that they’ve managed to have the relationship and their lives at the same time. It’s not fair.
Argh, you can’t even show Equius weakness and demand money. You’ll have to make due on your own.
Thinking of which, your job barely makes ends meet. Luckily your boss doesn’t mind if you come in smelling like trash; it matches the rest of the restaurant.
With your situation you think it’s understandable to go back to your stealing, right? Is that what John would say? Just don’t hurt anyone this time.
You think that guy was just asking it. You look back a few hours ago.
You pulled up to a mansion that a maid opens up only to be pushed aside by a sea dweller.
“There you are!” he shouts accusatorily. “Grub, how can I expect to have pizza night with my loving matesprit if the stupid delivery troll takes fucking forever?!” Holy shit he sounds like a douchebag.
You hold out the pizza box and bag of fish sticks, “Seventeen fifty.”
The troll scowls at your lack of grace and searches his pockets, “Oh would you believe it but I left my wallet in my other pants.” He’s kidding right? You don’t have time for this.
“Listen asshole, I don’t have time for this shit.”
“Hold your tongue servant.” He grumbles to himself. “Follow me and don’t track in dirt.” The sea dweller motions for you to follow him inside up the stairs. If you weren’t so sick of this day you would have just stayed put, but fuck it and just get it over with.
You follow him up the stairs into a master bedroom. The bastard peels a section of carpet aside and continues to mutter to himself about “Fef always said to give to the poor.”
He starts to brush his fingers alongside a hidden safe, and your blood starts heat up with excitement. It’s perfect. The asshole can’t even tell that you can easily tell his
combination code with your vision. Wait, don’t do this to yourself, don’t catch the code. The combination is . . . 3-8-D-3-8-P-3-8-0-3-8-C. What kind of fucked up code is that?
And Grub damn it you already have it memorized! Bad Vriska! You tell yourself. You don’t do this anymore.
He opens the safe and-whoa that’s a lot of jewelry. He reaches into the safe and pulls out a stack of money and pulls out a single twenty. “Here you go, I’m sure this’ll make more than enough. I hope the shine didn’t burn that freak of an eye that you have.” Is he seriously trying to patronize you? “Now for my change-“
You steal the twenty from his grasp, “Nope that’s tip.” You hand him the food and leave while making note of structure and security of the building. You think these rich, greedy, snooty fish can spare some jewels.
So when the night arrives, you come back prepared with your old disguise. You sneak pass the guards and into the building. Your body clings to the wall as you climb up the ceiling to the stairs and soon enough to the master bedroom. You are only side tracked once by that sea dweller flirting with a maid. You use your psychic abilities to have her stomp on his feet. You keep from laughing aloud at his befuddlement.
Once near the bedroom entrance, you stare at the female sea dweller sleeping in her bed. What a princess. You bring a hand to your forehead once again to put her into a deep sleep. Ha, she snores.
You enter inside clinging closer to the wall to eventually cover the only camera that you would have no way to avoid. By using web, it will mask the camera and dissolve by the time Princess wakes up, and she won’t notice.
You lower yourself to the floor and remove the carpet. The code is used and the jewels are inserted into a web sack. You make a quick exit back to your hideout in an alley. There’s no way anyone will catch you.
But fuck you because the next day someone did.
Some Nancy Drew that’s breaking in her police badge sleuths you out. What the hell? To make it worst she brings along a collection of Skaia’s finest including: Princess Fish, some troll that’s had her noise scrunched up from the smell of the disposed pizza, a dork troll that has two colored spectacles, a short troll that looks like he’s about to explode by Drew’s accusation, and worst of all Chief of Fucking Police, Equius Zahhak. He’s sweating so much he might as well give away that he knows you. Way to be discrete.
So the little brat nailed you on your crime, are you getting rusty? Seriously, what is with this little bitch? The only thing she fucked up is that you used poison to knock out Princess, but you can’t correct her on that. You practically had to hold your hand back to keep from grabbing her skull and bashing it on the floor.
It’s only when she explains that she’ll arrest you when you come back to your senses and get the fuck out of there. You should have run out of the city, but you know that you can’t abandon John. So you run to him for your finale moments of freedom; there’s no other way you would rather spend them.
So of course they catch you, the two cops practically waltz in. The woman wonders who he is and the troll reads that John’s been asleep for eight months. Has it really been that long?
You can’t believe the break that is handed to you; the woman actually wants to hear your story. Give you a chance. And it actually works. You’ve always had a flair for the dramatic speeches; why don’t people appreciate them more?
While the troll tries to fight her, the woman claims that Princess has the final say as it’s her crime that she filed. Thank you corrupt troll hierarchy.
So they send in Princess, and you realize that you need to work a little harder for this. You pretend to be exasperated and throw your hands to your head. It creates a subtle way for you to control her. You tell her your story, but you increase her emotions. You bring out all sentiments she has of being abandoned, desperate and lonely.
It works perfectly.
Princess sucks it up and explains a deal to you; you get a job working for those cops but you’ll at least have a stable job. She’ll even help pay off John’s hospital bills, so you can get your life back together. Overall you would call it a success.
Even for Princess since you heard she asked out the cop with the stupid glasses. Whoops, guess you influenced her a bit too much.
When you are later alone with Equius you mess with him a bit; remind him who’s still in charge. Seeing him scared to a perspired puddle brings a smile to your face. Good to know where you both still stand.
Working for Officers Harley and Vantas is simple enough. You do a little bit of work and barely keep them organized. You actually prefer Off-Jade to anyone, more than anyone else in a long time. She doesn’t push you too much and she actually pretends to care, or she’s being earnest.
You still manage to see John every morning; which consequently causes you to be late to work. However you don’t tell anyone why you are late.
It’s not long before your secret is revealed. Aradia just had to get kidnapped didn’t she? So you just had to save the day and share your history with Jade and Karkat. You don’t think Equius was even grateful. To make matters worse, Aradia attacks you. Great, now Freak-Blood Vantas and Shut-In Jade know that you have both have psychic powers.
Yet they both surprise you by not exposing you.
Which is why you don’t expose them, the caution Karkat hides does not go past you when he handles the paper to prevent minor injuries. Even Jade tries to hide, but it’s practically written on her face that this world confuses her like deodorant confuses Equius. You’ve saw her break when she took you home after that incident. Your ‘break down’ scared her too much as evident to the look on Jade’s face. You doubt Jade knows what’s it’s like to spend nights drinking the pain away. They both try to hide, but you know.
Life stays calm until someone runs into you again.
You were just leaving John to head for work when Scratch sneaks up behind you. “I see that you haven’t improved much from the first time I found you here.”
You back up to the wall, “What are you doing here?”
“You should relax more Vriska, what would happen to unfortunate John if you had a fatal heart attack?” You snarl. “Again, put yourself at ease. I’m not here to confront you, merely to check up on you. I thought we worked well together before, so I wanted to see how you live without me.”
“I’m never helping you again.”
Scratch chuckles behind his hand, “Vriska, who do you think you are in this?”
“What’s this?”
“The game. Do you actually think you’re on the same level as me? No, you’re merely a disposable pawn, now working with other pointless pawns where you think you belong. Do you think you are repairing the damage that you’ve caused your whole life?” He directs a smile at you that sends shivers down your spine. “Officer Vantas and . . Harley is it? I’m sure that I’ll meet her soon.”
You clench your hands to your sides, “If you even think of hurting her, I swear I’ll-“
Scratch points to the wall clock behind you, “Watch the time Vriska, someone is bound to go if you waste your life in this hospital.”
Almost panicking, you bolt out of the hospital to the rust on four wheels that is your car. You drive as fast as you can worrying that Jade might actually be hurt.
You are going to make it for once on time but you hit someone near the department. “What the hell?!” you scream while grasping the wheel to keep from swerving. You’re tempted to look back, but the loser should have paid attention to the road.
And that ended up costing you a week playing sitter.
Honestly you would choose not to dwell on that memory, that baby wiggler of a troll was a little too much to tolerate. Pushing him down some stairs might have done him some good.
But you were finally reunited with Jade and Karkat at a bar. They informed you of their week and how they had fallen on their case when Scratch got in the way. You tell Jade to stay away from him and you actually care whether she listens to you or not.
You decide afterwards to spend more time with Jade, that way you can make sure Scratch doesn’t hurt her. That . . That makes sense.
So when Jade invites you to go drinking with her and Princess; you consent after some phony, hesitant struggle. But in ends up a whole group joins you, and you are not okay with that.
It’s one situation if it’s just the three of you, but it’s completely different with Kanaya, Terezi, and some Rose girl that Jade told you about tagging along. It’s just too many people that you don’t like hogging the attention.
Kanaya acts weird around you, and sometimes you just want her to back off! You’re not some pathetic wiggler that she thinks you are.
Rose talks weird and annoying. And how Jade could ever think to befriend her is beyond you.
Now Terezi is something entirely different. For some reason, she does not like you. You don’t know what you did to piss her off, but she constantly antagonizes you.
But worst of the lot is this Feferi troll. You don’t care that she paid for like the whole evening, she has no right to steal allllllll of the attention! And Jade just gave the “Oh poor you” spiel and acted like she cared.
You preferred when Jade was focused only on you.
And Jade should be focused more on you! Look what happened when she tried to help Aradia at the banquet. She nearly got killed! It infuriates you that Aradia came close to seriously damaging Jade. How dare she! You’re glad that you keep your eye on her.
You feel horrible that Jade was rattled afterwards. You prefer when she has that spark.
Wait a second, do you really feel that way?
You turn lonesome when Jade departs for vacation. Then words were said around the department that caused you to visit John earlier than usual.
“Hey,” you say to his slumbering body. You grab a seat next to his bed and start to brush his hair back, “I realized that I don’t usually visit you at this time.” Grub, you wish he would answer you. “I-I’ve wanted to talk to you about something really concerning me. I really miss you and I want you here to help me.” You swallow back to keep calm. “Jade, the officer that I’m working for, she’s special. I-I-I think that I have feelings for her. But it’s strange. It’s not the type of feelings I was supposed to feel for my lusus. Not the type I felt for my mom. Nor the-ahem-type I felt for my mentor that I told you about. And-“ You reach for his hand, “They are definitely not the same feelings I share for you. She’ll never be able to replace you John. But there is something. Something red I feel towards her. But it’s also paler than what I feel towards you. I think I really love her, as a friend. An-And when she comes back from vacation I think I’ll tell her. Maybe give our relationship a title.” You listen to the still air, hoping for some form of communication to come from John. Nothing happens. “But I promise you John, I won’t give up trying to help you. I’ll never give up.”
You stay there as long as you can until the nurse tells you to leave.
Jade returns the same day as Karkat; Kanaya mention some sort of ‘shenanigans’ happening with the vacation arrangements. Since you arrived so late, you are one of the last people to greet Jade in the department. So seeing your opportunity to talk to Jade, you walk over there and stare at her.
That wasn’t a good idea as it spooked Jade. “Uh Vriska, are you okay?”
You open your mouth to tell Jade, “Of course I’m fine,” or “Can we go talk somewhere private,” or at the very least, “It’s great to see you again,” you can’t believe you missed the opportunity to say, “I hope Karkat wasn’t crabby on the trip!” Hehe, Jade would have laughed at that terrible joke; John too.
But instead no words come out of your open mouth; which again scares Jade. “Should I call Kanaya? Vriska? What do you think is going on Karkat?”
Before anyone can answer her, you pull her into your arms for a tight, embracive hug. She is startled but returns the affection. It’s not time to tell her. You need to prove that you can be a beneficial moirail to her too.
Karkat stares up at you from his seat annoyed, “You are not hugging me.”
You say nothing back but instead enjoy the touch of a true friend.