She grabbed his green shirt, picking him up to face her. What was she doing?! He obviously couldn't run away from this. But what would he be running from? What WAS she doing? And that dress...
She brought his lips crashing quite forcefully into hers. His eyes widened at the sudden move. He struggled, but her metal arm was not going to loosen its grip anytime soon. And he hated her. Well... Hate was a strong word. Disliked? He didn't want to say hate. It wasn't exactly that. But he was pretty sure that she felt the same way. It was hard not to hate her, considering she paralyzed all feeling below his waist, almost killing him. And then she hated him, because he was just a shy, useless torso that couldn't stop her from doing anything. Maybe that was why she hated him? He didn't struggle? He didn't fight strong enough? Well, he sure was fighting now. He didn't like this. But somehow, there was something there. Something that wasn't dislike, despise, or hatred. Was that... Pleasure? Was he... Liking this? Just a little? He-
She stopped, disappointed by his lack of cooperation. Certainly she'd given him a happy thought? Holding him at arms length, his face gave clear fear and dislike. But she knew he MUST have liked it. How could he not? But he didn't seem to. She frowned in disgust, dumping his pointless husk onto the floor. So he didn't like it? Fine. She didn't care. She would MAKE him like it. She focused on him with this furious intent. Slowly he pulled himself up, love written clearly in his eyes. She would MAKE him love her. He grabbed her dress to pull himself, his face begging for more. He would love her. He would love her. He would love her the same way she loved him, through the manipulation, the torture, the permanent scars she'd left behind...
The scars she'd left.
This was her fault.
The thoughts had hidden in the back of her mind for a long time. She'd known what she'd done. The only reason she'd ever felt sorry was because he was so booooooooring! But then she realized. She left a permanent scar. On him, and on others, too. Terezi. Aradia. But she didn't care about them at the moment. Tavros was the one she was thinking about. Certainly, she'd crippled him. But a tiny bit of guilt had hidden in the back of her mind ever since she did. Strangely, it was the first time she'd ever even felt guilt, or at least acknowledged it. When she killed Aradia, she barely cared. So why did she feel it now, with him crawling to her lips, begging for her love?
Because it wasn't real.
She was forcing him to love her. He'd never ACTUALLY love her. No, not after... that. Not after what happened. Never. She wanted his love, and she didn't even know why. She HATED him. Certainly he hated her back. But she felt something else alongside that hate. Love. Compassion. Sympathy.
Guilt.
Tavros slowly crawled up, wobbly arms from the surprise making this take a bit of time. He wanted her. But not like this. Why was he crawling to her? He couldn't stop. She... She was controlling him. Of course. But did she really want him that bad. She wanted him to feel flushed for her? Or... Blackrom, instead? Both? Neither? What did she want from him?
She wanted his love like nothing else. She wanted his hate, too. She wanted. She wanted his pain. She wanted his joy. She wanted his despise, his displeasure at the thought of her. But she also wanted his compassion, his forgiveness. She wanted his confusion, the difference between Kismesistude and Matespriteship, in their "relationship", to remain a mystery. Just as it was to her. But that guilt, oh, that tiny smidgen of regret. She had felt it before, she remembered now, but she pounded it out of her thinkpan, into the darkest corners of it she dared not enter. But now she felt it again. And it was growing. Guilt. Remorse. Regret.
Mercy.
Her face was riddled with... Guilt? He'd never known her to feel remorse or anything of that sort. She was a merciless machine. Well, part machine, since she had one robot arm. But then she stopped. He slumped to floor, free will again reaching for him. She had let him go? Why? That wasn't like her. No, it wasn't at all. She'd never done anything of that sort in her life, as far as he knew. So how could she now?
Vriska hated this new feeling.
She hated guilt.
She hated the emptiness she felt in her entire being.
She hated the sympathy it made her feel for this young boy, and she hated how it made her give up her power over him.
She hated the urge to apologize a million times over, not that he would forgive her.
She hated that it made any threats empty.
She hated that it was so powerful, more so than her.
She hated how it grew.
She hated what it had done to her in the past.
She hated all those times she'd spent in her respiteblock, denim tears falling over such a pathetic feeling for this boy.
She hated how it had made her want to die, so that maybe one day they would all forgive her. Maybe.
She hated how it felt like the walls were closing in on her, like she was suffocating.
She hated it.
She loathed it.
But mostly, she hated how she pounded it away, back into parts of her thinkpan she wouldn't even acknowledge. How she would feel so fine after she accomplished that, after she killed that thing. How she would continue life as normal afterward, like nothing had even happened. How when she felt most content, happiest she could ever be, it would pounce and escape into a stronger being.
How she would suffer forever.
How they would suffer forever.
How he would suffer. Forever.
She hated him.
But mostly, she hated herself.
She had lost hold of any happy thoughts long ago. Any thought that she might be a good person, who can feel good about things. The day she hatched it was gone. It had almost never existed. Almost. But at one time she'd hoped. Once. But that was gone now.
But Tavros knew what happy thoughts were. It must've been how he made it through the day, knowing what she'd done to him and millions more. And there was no way she was his happy thought.
But he was hers.
She hated Tavros.
Because he was Vriska's happy thought.