Work Text:
It's strange, in a way, seeing her laying on the floor, twisted up in her cape, clutching onto both her scalemate and a near empty bottle of Faygo, wearing little more than her boxers and a t-shirt. Oh, yeah, and let’s not forget that purple nail polish on her toes. Like you didn’t notice that.
It’s not like you hadn’t seen her like this before. You had, though you chose to keep it quiet then and simply walked away. You’d seen her in a lot of ways that you chose not to acknowledge for one reason or another. What reasons were they? Was it to save her the embarrassment? Or was it just your utter incapability to acknowledge that the person you love and care about has fallen so low?
Were you scared of having to deal with it yourself?
Three human years on a meteor. For much of that time you pretended to be in the dark by her and Gamzee’s little black affair, and the rest was the small bit of time you legitimately did not know about it. You acted like it didn’t bother you, and on a certain level, it didn’t. Gamzee and you were over, and it was for the better. If he wasn’t interested in his former best friend as a moirail, then you weren’t going to waste your time caring about him and his “Mirthful Messiahs.”
But you did care. Because the more you saw Terezi sneak around in the shadows with that religious maniac, the more you saw the former semblance of the girl you fell in love with sweeps ago—the girl who you messed up all your chances with, and ultimately chose Dave over you—turn into something you didn’t recognize.
Did that scare you?
She snores loudly, breaking you from your self-loathing for once in your terrible life. It really is strange how staring at her like this just reminds you of everything you ever did wrong by her. Not that you never thought about it—just in the wake of screwing up two whole universes, it was hard enough to think about all the shit you did wrong to your friends to add to that. But her lying here in a soda-induced stupor really drives the whole thing home for you. How you selfishly tried to grab her in every quadrant; how you actually considered sharing her red quadrant with Dave only to vacillate to black later on; how you always belittled her feelings or acted sarcastic about them, even when it was clear she was being genuine with you; how you never said anything about her dealings with Gamzee…
How you never once tried to stop her from destroying herself, no matter how much you wanted to.
Dave once said you always act like you’re “a piece of shit in the middle of the universe” (in spite of none of you being in any given universe for the past nearly one and a half sweeps). In that you always think your actions are bad, but you still manage to think you’re important enough to affect everyone and everything else. In not so many eloquent words, he said you were self-hating enough to think everything you did was awful, but you were selfish enough to think anything you did mattered so much. (Of course, the way he said it was more like, “You’re a dick and an asshole, man.”) And maybe he was right in saying that. Maybe you’re awfulness is so pervasive that you’re willing to believe it ruins everything you touch.
In spite of knowing this, standing before the girl you love makes you feel like somehow, someway…you could have and should have done something for her a long time ago. And as much as everything else had, it all just reminds you how you’ll never be good enough for the life you have…or the people who are crazy enough to call themselves your friends.
You aren’t a poet by any means, but you’re sure some cosmic god is probably laughing his ass off at your misfortune and writing sonnets about your hilariously fucked up life.
You sigh, and decide you can’t hold this back any longer. Not that you ever really meant to.
Turning your gaze up to the shining blue dot the behemoth of a rock your on is hurling toward, you click the crab phone on, ready to talk to the person on the other side.
“Dave are you there. Come in Dave.”