vastderp replied to your post: Hi Ribs! I just wanted to check on you and ask how…

*wave wave* Glad to hear things are balancing out. We’ve been keeping the internet warm for you.

Oh wow, I only just saw this because I am a dumb butt who can’t figure tumblr out! Thanks Luka ahghlghk. I’m glad to be back!

[I’m back! Oh man. This chapter took forever to write, but I hope that you all like it. I am feeling ridiculously un-confident with my work lately, but I figure this is as good as this chapter’s going to get, and I’ve been working up to this moment in the story for a long time.]

ERIDAN: BE LOVESICK ==>

You fell asleep last night with one of Kar’s romance novels open by your side, a flashlight that you’d previously hidden at the bottom of your bag alight next to you. Kar grumbled at you for keeping him awake, but he never sleeps anyways and the two of you ended up erecting an impromptu fort of scratchy sheets, thin foamy pillows, and a dresser in the middle of the room and reading and gossiping until you both fell asleep sprawled on the floor. John laughed good-naturedly at you as he gave the two of you a scolding for improper sleeping arrangements this morning, but it was okay. He’s just a giggly guy. Nurse. Wwhatevver.

“I’m startin to think that maybe I got friends noww. It’s kinda neat, thinkin about that, since I nevver reel-y had anyone I could call a friend before, y’knoww?” you say to her during Individual today. “Nobody evver cared about me before I got here. An’ I nevver cared about anyone all that much either. Not like I do noww.”

“That’s really wonderful, Eridan. I’m happy to hear that. From what I’ve seen, you’ve made astonishing progress with the other residents,” Lalonde smiles. You hated her at first, but now you’re comin to realize that she might talk sense sometimes. Somehow, using some kind of magical shrink bullshit, she’s managed to get you to realize how fucked up your situation with Betty was. The name you scarred into your arm now sends little sick twists of guilt through your gut, but you like even that uneasy feeling better than the obsessive longing they used to evoke. You’re thinking of writing her a letter, or something. You want to apologize.

Your crush on Vriska has only gotten worse, though. You sigh dreamily over the way she dotes on Kanaya, blush when she sneaks up behind you during dinner to drop croutons down the back of your shirt. She smiles her brace-faced, blue-banded grin at you while rubbing cigarette ash into her filthy jeans and your heart goes all a-flutter. Vriska gets you, in a weird demented way that nobody else ever did. When she whacks you with her cast, it’s different than the way she whacks everyone else. It’s got to be love.

“Eridan, your interpersonal relationships do not all have to become romantic. In fact, for the moment, it’s healthier for you that they don’t. Being able to initiate and maintain a friendship is essential before you can start to become emotionally and physically intimate with others,” Lalonde used to tell you. You guess that she thought you looked for attention because you never got any, cause you had Lonely Little Rich Boy syndrome or something, who knows. But you think maybe this time, with Vriska, it’s different.

You tell Karkat this as you clean up the remnants of the fort before breakfast. He whines at you and rolls his eyes, but you know he loves hearing this stuff—he’s the biggest gossip here, but he doesn’t spread shit around. He just wants to know everything that’s going on.

His face is all scrunched up and contemplative when you finish. He scratches at something under his sleeve, wrinkling his nose in thought. “Y’know, man, I never thought I’d ever say this, but it looks like you might have a fucking infinitesimal chance here.”

“Reely?”

“I’m not saying you’re suddenly a goddamn Cassanova, you desperate shit. But I don’t know, it sounds like something that might actually pan out.”

You answer this with a rather undignified squeal and a bit of frenzied hand-flapping. Karkat scoffs, but a smile plays at the corners of his mouth. “Shit, Kar, you have no fuckin idea howw excited that makes me—shut up, you reely don’t!” You toss a pillow at his head as he starts laughing.

“So, are you going to actually fucking talk to her about this, or are you just going to yak into my aural canals until they start bleeding everywhere?”

“I.. maybe. You know wwhat? I totally wwill. I’ll do it today, Kar. Don’t let me back in this room until I do.”

“Gladly. You get to explain to the nurses when I lock you out, though,” he grins. “I will barricade the door on your sorry hipster ass.”

ERIDAN: TALK TO VRISKA ==>

Gog, you’ve only been trying to do that all day! During breakfast, she was too absorbed with organizing a D&D game with Terezi and Nep to talk to you, and during Group she was already sitting with Equius and Kanaya. You’ve got to talk to her soon, or you’re gonna lose your nerve completely. You’re thinking of sneaking out to smoke with her instead of going to art therapy, but Kanaya and Jade promised to teach you all origami and you don’t want to miss that.

By evening, you’re starting to get desperate. It’s too dark to sneak outside, so a smoke break is out. The art room’s closed for the night—plus, every inch of it is covered in paper cranes. The waiting room for Individual isn’t private enough, and the dayroom is full of nosy assholes. Karkat has been making joking threats about making you sleep in the hall since lunch, and hell if you’re gonna let him make good on ‘em. You fling open the door to the dayroom, steel your shoulders, and decide that you’re gonna do this, nosy assholes or not. 

You plunk down next to Vriska on the couch, trying to compose yourself. You’ve got to be smooth, here. “Uh. Hey Vvris.”

So smooth.

“Hey Eridan. What’s up with you today? You’ve 8een acting like a total spaz,” she grins, flipping a lock of hair out of her eye with practiced ease. She smells like smoke and laundry detergent and girl.

“Nofin is up wwith me! I’m perfectly fine, I haven’t got the foggiest idea as to wwhat you’re glubbing about,” you say. You feel yourself ready to choke, so you force out the next sentence so quickly that you stumble over the words. “So uh. Can wwe maybe talk or somefin? Like in privvate?”

Her brow furrows, but only for a second, quickly replaced by her ever-present wicked grin. “Sure, I guess. The hallway’s pro8a8ly as priv8 as it gets right now, though.”

“Awwesome.” The two of you worm your way through the crowded room, stepping over a carefully-arrayed Fiduspawn game on the floor, dodging errant ping-pong balls, and—for you, anyways—avoiding Karkat’s eyes. You only realize how overwarm the dayroom was until you open the door and are greeted with a wave of cold air. Your palms are sweating something fierce.

Vriska slides to the floor gracelessly, and you gingerly sit next to her. “Soooooooo, what’d you want to talk a8out?”

“Uh,” you mumble, fiddling with the edge of your scarf. “Um.”

“Wow, don’t talk so fast, Ampora, I can’t even keep up with how much you’re saying right now.” She gives an exaggerated eye-roll, then quirks up an eyebrow. “Just fucking spill already!”

“Wwhale. Uh,” you stutter. You can’t do this! But you can’t let yourself choke. This is the reel deal. “Vvris. I. You’re really fuckin cool, you know that?” A good start, you think.

“Tell me something I don’t know! Is that why you dragged me out here, to compliment me? I mean, thanks and all, 8ut I’ve got irons in the fire, Eridan! So many irons.”

“All the irons?” you smile.

“Aaaaaaaall of them!” Both of you laugh, then trail off into silence. You try to meet her eyes, but can’t make yourself do it.

“So,” she says.

“So,” you say.

“Soooooooo.” She drags the word out, then quirks an eyebrow at you. “You gonna get on with it?”

“Yeah. Yeah, that,” you stammer. You try to continue, but the words keep getting caught in your throat. Christ, you feel like Tav right now. You think she’s about a second away from saying exactly that when you bury your face in your hands and blurt out, “Uh. FuckIreelylikeyouVvris.”

Silence.

BE VRISKA ==>

You cannot be Vriska, because Vriska is frozen in shock!

OKAY, BE ERIDAN AGAIN THEN. ==>

It is very difficult to be Eridan again, because Eridan is dissolving into a puddle of mortification! But you manage to do it anyways.

Eventually, you’re forced to move your hands away and look at Vriska. Her mouth is agape in surprise, but as your eyes meet, she shakes herself.

“W8. Eridan. What did you just say?”

“Oh fuck, don’t make me say it again.” You tilt your head back and address the cracked tiles in the ceiling. “I fuckin like you, okay? A wwhole damn lot! Cause you’re so fuckin cool and strong and shit and you make me wwanna touch your hands for stupid fuckin reasons and my bloodpusher gets all fluttery wwhen you shovve croutons dowwn my shirt!”

You probably could have phrased that better.

QUICK! WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE DAYROOM? ==>

You suddenly switch perspectives. You are now in the dayroom, engrossed in one of the various activities going on within.

All of these activities have halted, however, as something very loud is happening outside. Vriska is laughing, so hard and so loudly that it catches the attention of everyone inside.

“Hahahahahahahaha, oh my gog, Eridan! I can’t 8elieve this! Didn’t you know I’m gay????????”

BE ERIDAN AGAIN ==>

Wwell, that was an unexpected twwist.

northernvehemence replied to your post: Who do you usually write on Trollmegle as? :O

That’s awesome. I’d love to write with you some time!

That would be awesome! I am online now and probably will be for a few hours. Come find me! Haha.

• The next chapter of “Get Better” is halfway done!
• I have an AO3 account where I am posting all of my finished fics.
• I have been using Trollmegle as a warm-up to writing, lately, so some of you might have run into me already! I’m on at various times throughout the day, but shoot me a message if you ever want to be sure. 
• I’ve been online a bit more, lately, so I’ll probably be less terrible at getting back to peoples’ messages and comments and such. I absolutely love all of your feedback, so feel free to talk to me whenever!

vastderp replied to your post: RE: Lack of updates

that sucks ass, dude. internet hugs of condolence for the shittiness of losing your friend. we’ll be around, take your time.

*hugs* thanks Luka. Starting to write again will hopefully be cathartic, so I’m looking forward to it. Thank you so much though ♥

I want to apologize profusely to all of my wonderful readers for not updating lately. I recently lost a close friend who helped me through a lot of my own mental illness, and who suffered from it as well. It’s been hard to start writing on such a subject so soon after this loss.

I hope to start writing again before the new year, and hopefully you’ll all get a nice long update ASAP.

I hope that you’ll all stick with me through this mini-hiatus. I love you all dearly and your comments always bring the biggest smile to my face—you’re the best readers anyone could ask for ♥

Lots of love,

Ribs

TRIGGER WARNING: SELF HARM

Law is hard.

Ever since your Judge Judy-fueled epiphany, you’ve been immersing yourself in the intricacies of justice. Mostly, this has involved calling group therapy sessions to order every day and forcing Vriska to stand in front of a jury of her peers every time she bothers you too much, but practice is practice! You’ve also gotten some law books in Braille, and are trying to learn as much as possible despite your lack of full Braille literacy.

But that is irrelevant. You will still become a daytime-TV lawyer if it kills you. And you will practice and practice until you do!

Right now, you’re especially concerned over dear Karkles. The accused has been withholding evidence.

BE KARKAT A FEW MINUTES PREVIOUSLY ==>

You can’t be Karkat, you are Karkat, numbnuts. And you’re not having a great day, either. This morning, you got a call from your Papi—a rare enough occurrence. The two of you sat in surly silence on either end of the line (family bonding at its finest) until he informed you that the insurance is threatening to stop paying for your stay here. And your school won’t take you back until you legitimately get discharged and you get a big red rubber-stamped sign on your head pronouncing you “cured.” Your blood ran cold at that, a tiny “porqué?” stuck in your throat. Silence, background noise of television and your mother vacuuming. Finally, tells you why.. The rest of the conversation was a blur.

You keep running it through your head now as you sulk through the hallways. You’ve taken what Lalonde calls “baby steps”, but the insurance might still kick you out. You hated it here until you realized you might have to leave, and now you don’t know what you feel. Eventually, you end up in the waiting area for Individual, half an hour early but too depressed to care. What do they want from you? To show your secrets to the world, show everyone how weak you are? No thanks. You sink into an ugly chair and rifle through a People magazine to make yourself feel better. The shiny celebrity gossip helps, but not enough. You pull your knees up to your chest, chew on  your sweatshirt, and wait.

BE TEREZI ==>

You’re bored. You’re so bored. Doc Stridenasty is just trying to help you lay out a plan for your eventual law degree, but you don’t want to deal with that right now! It’s boring! There are only a few minutes left of your individual session, though, so you halfheartedly gab about your Future Goals until he informs you that your time is up.

When you tap your way out of Stridenasty’s office, you hear a snuffly noise that you recognize immediately as the sound of a mopey Karkat. You grin. You slide into the seat next to him with a chipper, “H33333Y, K4RKL3S!” and he barely even reacts.

“K4RK4T, 1 DON’T 4PPR3C14T3 B31NG 1GNOR3D. YOU’R3 GO1NG TO BR34K MY H34RT H3R3!”

“Sorry, Terezi. I’m just.. not in the fucking mood right now, okay?”

“4WW, WH4TS WRONG?”

“Nothing. It’s fine. Just. Just go away, jegus.”

“TH4T 1S SO RUD3!!!”

“Sorry. I’m just. I just can’t do this right now, okay?”

This is worrisome. Usually, when Karkat isn’t “in the fucking mood,” he’s blatantly, unapologetically ornery about it. Not to mention verbose, earsplitting, and grumpy. But this Karkat sounds all folded up into himself and you’re starting to worry. You scoot your chair a little closer to his and attempt to find and deliver a comforting pat to his back. (You wind up accidentally groping his chest and arms, but you get there in the end.)

“4R3 YOU SUR3 YOU’R3 OK4Y? YOU’R3 K1ND4 WORRY1NG M3 FOR R34L H3R3,” you say. He just shrugs, a shifting-fabric sound, and it shakes you to the core. You were expecting him to blow up, or huff and walk away, or something. But he’s just deflated. An empty, crabby balloon.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Seriously.”

“YOU 4R3 SO NOT F1N3.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“YOU N3V3R W4NT TO T4LK 4BOUT 1T,” you huff.

You’re expecting a blustery protest, or a rage-filled deflection, or anything but the shuddery, pained sigh you hear. Anything but the sound of barely-contained tears. Anything but the snuffly noises of Karkat Vantas curled in on himself and crying as quietly as he can.

“…K4RKAT,” you whisper. Your voice breaks. Your heart breaks. You pull him into your arms and marvel at how tiny he is, how strange it is for someone with such a big voice and big opinions to be so small. He latches onto you and shakes with messy silent sobs, his tears soaking into your t-shirt and you cling to him and whisper that it’s gonna be okay, it’ll all be okay.

You don’t know if it’ll be okay. You don’t know what could make Karkat Vantas cry like this.

“PL34S3 T3LL M3 WH4T’S WRONG,” you beg. “OR T3LL SOM3BODY, 1 DON’T C4R3 WHO, JUST DON’T SUFF3R L1K3 TH1S ON YOUR OWN—”

“I can’t, I can’t,” he whimpers. “I… I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know, Terezi. And I’m scared.”

You know how that feels. You just hold him. It’s all you can do. Eventually, he speaks again.

“They might. The insurance. I.. might not be able to stay here,” he finally whispers. You hold still. This is the first time Karkat has ever opened up to you, and you don’t want to ruin it. “We can’t afford to keep me here without the insurance. And I can’t go back to school until I’ve gotten treatment. So I’ll be stuck and not be able to do anything and I was supposed to go to college next year and I won’t even be able to graduate—I’m terrified, Terezi, I’m fucking terrified. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

You’re reacting before you can even think. This is an outrage! “TH4T’S HORR1BL3! GOG, K4RK4T, WHY WOULD TH3Y DO TH4T?”

“Because…. Because of why I’m here,” he sniffles, then pulls away and you hear him clap a hand over his mouth. “Gog, I’m an idiot, just. Just forget it.”

“YOU DON’T H4V3 TO T3LL M3 1F YOU DON’T W4NT TO, YOU KNOW. 1T’S OK4Y.” You pat around until you find his hand, then hold it. He squeezes your hand back. His palms are soft. He sighs. It’s a different kind of sigh this time, like he’s decided something.

“They don’t want to cover my stay here anymore because… because of what I do,” he says, his voice hoarse and tear-stained. He pulls his hand away, and you hear shifting fabric. He takes your hand in his and guides it towards him. You hear him start crying fresh tears. “Because… because it’s self-inflicted. And. It’s like a pre-existing condition or something, it’s all bullshit but that’s what insurance does to you—I just… please don’t hate me for this—”

He places your hand on his arm. You feel soft skin, a light dusting of hair. And you feel scars. They’re like a linear braille, some thin, some thick, some with the smooth shiny feeling of an old wound, some rough and painfully new. A patchwork of his pain, carved in flesh. They cover his arms—parallel lines, criscrosses, jagged diagonals, so many that you can barely feel any untouched skin. Tears drop onto your entwined hands, from his eyes or yours neither one of you can tell. After a few moments, or maybe a few lifetimes, he releases your hand and pulls away.

“You’re the first person I’ve ever told. I mean, I’ve shown the doctors here, but it’s not the same. You probably think I’m disgusting and a freak and you probably hate me now—”

“K4RK4T… HOW COULD 1 3V3R H4T3 YOU FOR TH1S?” You pull him close, and you both slide to the floor where you can sit and hug unimpeded by chairs and plastic armrests. He rests his sweaty head on your shoulder, a few tears dampening your t-shirt but he’s not crying anymore and that’s what matters.

“I just feel so ashamed,” he whispers, the words coming out muddled and slushy since his mouth is pressed against you.

“DON’T. 1 M34N, 1 C4N’T T3LL YOU HOW TO F33L, BUT 1 DON’T TH1NK 4NY L3SS OF YOU FOR TH1S.” You hear him wiping his nose messily on his sleeve, and you shove him and give a teary chuckle. “4CTU4LLY, 1 TH1NK YOU’R3 PR3TTY D4MN BR4V3 FOR SHOW1NG M3. 4ND FOR W4NT1NG TO ST4Y H3R3. FOR W4NT1NG TO G3T B3TT3R.”

“But sometimes I feel like everyone’ll think I’m disgusting and fucked up and—” His voice cuts off when you locate his shoulders, pull him to face you. You hope that you’re looking him in the face, because you want him to listen.

“DON’T YOU G3T 1T, K4RK4T? W3 4LL DO TH1NGS.” When you feel his tense shoulders relax beneath your hands, you think maybe, finally, it clicks for him. Aradia’s chewed-ragged fingernails, Gamzee’s ravaged veins, Tavros’s pierced face, Kanaya’s starvation, every single little thing that each and every one of you do. “1F 4NYON3 1N TH3 WORLD’S GONN4 UND3RST4ND, YOU C4N B3T 1T’LL B3 US.”

He flops his head on your shoulder again, and you sit in comfortable silence for a little while. He nudges your ribs with his elbow, and you nudge back, smirking. He chuckles and pokes you, and you poke back. Soon you’re breathlessly, hysterically giggling, tickling each other on the waiting room floor, until one of you calls uncle (neither of you will admit to being the one to surrender) and you flop on your backs, shoulder to shoulder, and regain your breath.

“Hey, Terezi?”

“Y34H?”

“Thanks.”

It came on just before dinner. You felt the manic little prickles at the corners of your brain coming on for hours, and had to stop yourself from babbling and fidgeting and freaking out. But a few minutes before the dinner bell, in the middle of a conversation with AA, it hit you like a snapping rubber-band and you were up.

Your whole body suddenly stands at attention. You shift consistencies, from your Bag Of Coat Hangers Hanging Halfway Out A Window slouch to the posture of Something Extremely Erect And Vibrating. You start laughing at your own innuendo, a sharp burst that makes AA jump. You just got your dosage changed again after the depressive episode a few days previously, so you’ve been waiting to see if there are any new side effects. Apparently, there are. Technically, when you’re manic like this, you’re supposed to get a sedative from the nurse’s station so you don’t keep EQ awake all night, break the dayroom’s computer again, or hurt yourself.

But fuck that.

“S0llux, are y0u 0k?”

“Eheheheh, II’m better than OK, AA, II can do fuckiing anythiing riight now!” Something whispers from a corner of your brain. It’s quiet. You hush her as she goes to respond, wildly papping her face as you concentrate and try to listen. She shoves your arm away.

“Seri0usly, S0llux, y0u d0n’t seem 0k t0 me, have y0u been taking y0ur med—”

“2hoooooooo2h! II’m tryiing two lii2ten!”

“T0 what?”

You flail your arms in a motion that you recognize as an elaborate sign-language term for “giive me a damn miinute”, but she just raises and eyebrow and looks confused. You squint your eyes shut and concentrate, and the whisper gets louder. Your eyes pop open and you run off without any explanation, leaving AA behind as you run towards the dayroom.

(Unfortunately, the dayroom is in the other direction, so you skid in a wide U-turn at the end of the hallway and end up tearing past her again in the opposite direction. Her hands are on her hips and she looks torn between confusion, annoyance, and amusement.)

You burst through the door, beeline for the computer, shove Karkat aside (he’s trying to fix something with the anti-virus on the ancient thing, or maybe write code, you really don’t care), and crack your knuckles. You open Internet Explorer, inwardly weep that it’s the only internet browser available, and google. You google so hard that the internet crashes twice. You google bees.

FF walks in on you staring intently at the scene from “Wicker Man” in which Nic Cage meets an untimely near-end at the hand of a basket full of bees. You’ve been taking notes in a shorthand that you just invented. The whispers have upgraded their cell package, obviously, because instead of grainy barely-there hoarse voices, they’ve started jabbering incessantly and you can barely catch every other word. They’ve gone from “really really iimportant” to “really fuckiing annoyiing” so you stopped taking notes on them a few pages ago. Through the cacophony inside your head, though, you manage to tune into her frequency.

“Seallux! W)(at are you doing? Aradia found me and said you’re acting R-E—-ELY weird!”

“FF, calm down, II’m fiine! II feel great!” you laugh. You jump up and hug her, sending a shower of papers to the floor. She hugs you back with a confused smile, then pulls back and examines you closely from over her round glasses. There’s that eyebrow raise again that AA wore before. You wonder briefly if there is some kind of psychic girl link. You scrawl “FEMALE HIIVEMIIND?” in binary on your arm in felt-tip pen and she stares at the strings of zeroes and ones in bafflement.

“Sollux, I t)(ink maybe we s)(ould go to t)(e nurse’s station?” she says carefully.

“Fuck no! II feel awe2ome and the med2 are workiing, thii2 do2age ii2 iincrediible, and II have iimportant work two do!” you huff, and plop firmly on the ground like a petulant child. Your hands twitch and make shapes that you didn’t know where anatomically possible.

“W)(ale… the doctors s)(ould probably )(ear about t)(is as soon as possible! T)(at your dosage is working, I mean. Come on, Seallux, let’s go—” she offers you a hand up, and you bat it away.

”No, FF, II’m fiine, II have more iimportant stuff two do than lii2ten to thii2 bull2hiit, OK?” you snap. You can feel a migraine coming on. Her face crumples, and you instantly feel bad. You jump up so fast that you knock over the computer chair with an errant elbow and pull her into a crushing, bony hug. She stiffens in the way you’ve only ever seen her do around her mother and pulls away, running for the door. You watch for a moment, posture stiff and erect, hands twitching and head pounding, and are overwhelmed with guilt until your notes distract you again.

AA eventually enters your line of sight, waving her hands in front of your face as you transcribe your notes from invented-shorthand to a more elaborate secret code that you’ll never reveal to your enemies. You beam at her until you see Doc Stridenasty’s pale ass right behind her, a concerned furrow carved into his brow. He offers you a hand up, a folder for your notes, and an emergency session. You grudgingly accept all three.

BE FEFERI ==>

You are now Feferi, and you are on the verge of tears. Sollux is acting so W—EIRD, and he snapped at you, and you’re scared and confused. You know it’s probably not his fault, that he’s adjusting to his new dosage and probably is having bad side effects, but your sense of security is shattered. He was never what you could call consistent, but he has never been so volatile before and as much as you try not to you can only seem to connect him with your mom’s rapidly-shifting approval and disappointment.

As soon as you leave the dayroom, you try to find Jade. You like her the best out of all the staff here, and she’s the one you need to talk to. After a bit of wandering and sniffling, you find her behind the desk at the nurse’s station doing some filing. She looks up as soon as you come into her line of sight and waves.

“Hi Feferi! How’re you doing?”

You sniffle.

“Oh, hon, something’s wrong, I can see. Come here, you wanna talk about it?” You nod. She walks around the desk and plops into one of the waiting room chairs, patting the seat next to her with a smile. You sit down next to her, anxiously fiddling with your hair. You wanted to talk, but now you’re all frozen up. You heave a shuddery sigh. Jade digs in her pocket and pulls out a stick of gum, offers it to you. You take it. She unwraps one for herself and you chew in silence for a bit.

“Sollux is acting weird—it’s not )(is fault! But it’s… it’s making me reel-y sad and worried and… and I don’t know w)(at to do!” The words come out in a huge rush and startle even you. You bring your knees up to your chest and hug them tightly, your body wire-tense.

“I see. You and Sollux are close, huh?” she gives you a wink. Your mouth twitches into a little smile. You appreciate her levity right now. “How was he acting?”

”)(e snappered at me. And )(e was writing so many NOT——ES, and t)(ey were all weird symbols, and I t)(ink it’s )(is medication but it’s freaking me out and I don’t know w)(at to do..!”

“It sounds like he’s having a manic episode,” she says. “Does any of the staff other than me know about this?” You shrug. She pulls out her pager, checks it, then puts it away. “Looks like it’s already being covered. Anyways, back to you, sweetie. Watching someone you’re close to go through something like that is hard, I’m not gonna lie.”

“I just feel like I’m over-reacting or making stupid connections and it’s glubbing stupid,” you say. Your shoulders are starting to ache from being so tense.

“You’re not being stupid, Feferi! Nobody in their right mind would ever think that what you saw was an easy thing to go through. Your feelings are perfectly normal, okay? Sollux is just having a bad reaction. I’ve seen him like this before. He knows what he’s doing, but he’s not making judgments like he normally would. He reacts before he can think and feels bad about it later, but things are whizzing through his head too fast for him to be able to compensate.” You nod slowly. That sounds about right.

”)(e just ended up—cod, this is so dumb—)(e ended up reminding me of my mother,” you sigh. “That sounds totally… w)(o’s t)(at old guy w)(o t)(inks everyt)(ing is a penis? Freud? Sounds like )(im.” Jade laughs. “But )(e did and it was cod-awful and I ended up running away and now I don’t know if I can trust )(im anymore.” Now the tears are coming. Jade passes you a tissue, and you blow your nose loudly.

“Feferi, I can’t tell you what you can and can’t associate with something so triggering, but I can tell you this. Sollux cares about you a lot, and right now he’s just not feeling well. This reaction of his was probably triggered by a dosage problem, not by him. He wouldn’t yell at you normally, you know that, right?” You nod.

”)(e’s always so nice, normally! And even once )(e realized I was freaking out )(e tried to )(ug me and make me feel better. I was just… freaking out.”

“I’m not saying that you should ever let someone yell at you, though. Even when someone isn’t in full control, they’re still responsible for their actions. You can’t let someone make you feel bad, you know that.” Her expression is serious. You remember one session of Group in which she discussed unhealthy relationships with everyone, and you nod. “But Sollux has been making a huge amount of progress, and I don’t think that he is fully at fault in this situation. Not that you’re in the wrong at all! Because you’re not! But I do think he deserves a second chance once his dosage and mania is managed.”

You can feel yourself calming down. Slowly, the tension in your shoulders is relaxing, and you’ve stopped twisting your hair around your fingers. The more you think about it, the more you agree with Jade. You give her a little smile.

“You’re rig)(t. T)(anks, Jade. I t)(ink I just needed to glub about it, and let myself calm down a little?”

“Anytime, Feferi. Don’t let anyone push you around, though, okay?”

“Okay!”

Tomorrow, when you see Sollux waiting for you outside of the cafeteria with twitchy hands and a bouquet of clumsily-made paper flowers (you’ll find out that Terezi and Karkat attempted to help make them, and subsequently caused a tissue-paper apocalypse in the craft room), you’ll beam at him and give him a big hug. He’ll apologize two thousand times, and you’ll forgive him. Then you’ll start concocting the perfect remedy for dry-mouth. (Orange juice, water, and fake hospital-grade maple syrup may taste disgusting together, but apparently they work!) You’ll laugh at his face when he drinks the concoction, and he’ll gag and still thank you for putting up with him.

And it will be so good.

hi i drew fanart for your story because this is like my favourite homestuck fanfiction ever aaa sorry for a lame caption im just really nervous about submitting this…..

(submitted by lordbutts)

Ohman oh man oh man! This is awesome! Ahh I’m having all these feels about fanart, you are seriously great!