Thank you to my newest favourite roleplay for being the most perfect Rose roleplayer I've ever had the pleasure to roleplay with.

Okay guys, tissues at the ready.

Warnings are all in the summary, but just in case you failed to see them there, this chapter includes mentions physical and psychological abuse, so if you don't want to experience reading it, please don't read this.

This is a humanstuck AU, you can grasp the rest of it through the story.

Go along with it, let us pull your heartstrings like we're world class harpists.

The rain was always welcome to Rose. She did not shy from thunder and the lightning on the horizon did little to shake her. Her eyes were closed and her arms folded across her belly, she felt the pricks of water hit her skin, bead, and fall to the wayside. Rose was, as she often was these days, at peace. She stood in the large grounds of her mother's house, where she'd prepared to go out for a drive before the weather had worsened. Now she just wanted to be away from the house for a while, so she stood and waited for something she wasn't quite sure was coming.

It came in the form of a girl with very long, very thick black hair, a tune hummed on her lips as her shoes slipped on the wet pavement and the rain poured down on her soaked form. Her feet narrowly avoided clashing as she hurried away from the rain.
A little further on, she succeeded in tripping herself, falling to her knees with a small, surprised noise.
Rose glanced over at the sound of someone else in her yard, watching curiously as a young woman sprinted her way across the wet floor, coming to her knees a small distance away. She walked over the girl on the floor and knelt down, the girl looked up at her with an even more surprised look on her face when she touched her shoulder. "Not exactly safe to go skipping around in a storm,"
The girl smiled at her words, as if her skirt wasn't muddied and her knees weren't skinned. She stood up and brushed herself off, "I'm so sorry fo- Hey!" She exclaimed, her face lighting up further, "Don't I know you from somewhere?"
A coy grin spread, a faux flip of the hair that didn't quite exist beneath her bob, a fanning of fluttery rain-soaked lashes, "Also, I'm pretty sure you're in my Classics Studies class, Tuesday mornings?"
A short, bubbly giggle came from the not-so-stranger's lips, "That must be it! You're always hanging around that other girl who answers all those questions, aren't you, and that girl who transfered in half way through from some weird place?"
The descriptions vaguely described the girls Rose knew from that class, and she nodded. The other girl was frowning softly, trying to remember something that slipped her mind, "Where did she come from again?"
"Kan and Jade? Yes, Jade comes from a small island in the Pacific and-" She paused, her face mirroring the concentration, "I can't for the life of me think of the name."

A sudden crash of thunder and flash of lightening broke the serenity of the rain, Rose's soft smile disappearing as the storm worsened behind them. She shivered in the falling rain, "Per-perhaps we should get inside, unless you need to be somewhere? I can drive you."
"I need to get out of the rain!" The girl pushed her sopping dark hair out her face, "Are you always around them, or just in class?" She sounded honestly interested, as if this wasn't small talk between near-strangers.
Her arm slipped into Rose's, something she wasn't prepared or typically fond of, but her fear of the lightening made her disdain of people soften. "I wish I had a car! My mother is so strict on giving me any sort of freedom!" This time she laughed, it had a sadder tone to it.
"In fairness, gas prices, insurance and yearly emissions? Your mom might be doing you a bit of a favor, dearest."
Rose pulled her towards the patoi of her home, a stylishly out of touch, broad affair compared to the others in the neighbourhood. "As for the girls, not specifically. Kan and I dated a little, but it's more an aromantic affair for the two of us searching for some semblance of affection. Our mothers are various forms of shrew."
She said it with a quiet smile, but did not betray actual meaning behind the apparent joke. She received an empathic smile and a soft squeeze to her arm for her efforts, "Well, mine isn't exactly the cookie baking kind either. Hey, you're, uh…"
"Rose, Rose Lalonde." She finished for the girl, "And you're Feferi. Uh, Peixes, right? You were a bit fan of... was it Roman classics?""
Feferi nodded enthusiastically, "Yes, everyone seems to be able to tell me who I am, but I can hardly remember names to save my life! Wow, you remember that much? It's more my best friend's thing, but I guess that makes it mine too!"
Feferi looked up over the building with wide awestruck eyes,
"You house is so pretty!"
Rose tried and precisely failed to sneer at the compliment to what, in her mind, looked like an assortment of bleached legos, fashioned into a house. "I suppose. Big, which I enjoy, but oppulent to the point of absurdity, I feel, more of my mother's nature."
The patio covered them, and rose took to padding her hair carefully, flushing rain water down her back.
You should see mine! Its pretty far out though, and my mother doesn't like guests that aren't hers..." Feferi looked faintly sad as she squeezed water out of her very thick hair, shiver now that they were out of the rain.
The sadness in Feferi's voice did not sew on infertile soil, but she sensed that Feferi would rather talk about anything other than that, he nodded. "Personally, I've always found Roman Classics a bit dry. I prefer the western European going into Early-to-mid American tradition of literature- God, I'm rambling already." She paused and took in a deep breath, "Do you need a change of clothes? My shirts might be a bit, uh, small for you, but I'm certain I have a pair of pants or a skirt you could fit into." She absently gestured to her own chest at the mention of shirts, causing a light blush to dust over Feferi's cheeks, "Oh! No, it's fine, I'll just stay in these! I don't want you to have to go through that trouble!" Her arms went up in front of her as a visual of her refusal, "Thank you very much, really! I just-" She paused, her face contorting in confusion again, "I just like my clothes." She finished in an unsure voice. "If you let me use your telephone, I'll phone my mother to see if she can come pick me up, I'm sure you have plans for today. I wouldn't want to get in your way." She sounded hurried and apologetic.

"I was in my yard getting rained on, you're hardly a bother." Rose smiled reassuringly, "If you need, I can take you somewhere? I could use the change of scenery to take my mind of this American Lit paper I've been working on for a couple of hours." She tried unsuccessfully to halt her rambling, making her way backwards to the door as lightening dramatically split the sky, briefly turning it a brilliant white purple. Feferi picked up on her brief shudder, touching her hand softly to Rose's shoulder and walked them both the short distance to the door, steering her forward gently. "I don't really have anywhere to go today, I was just going anywhere out of the house. You're shaking; really, I'd feel bad if I asked you to take me anywhere."
"It would appear my shield has failed me."
Rose realised too later that her inner monologue was accidentally vocalized, and smirked to cover up her thoughts, "Storms don't bother me too much when I'm inside somewhere, I've always been scared by lightening so close by." After another rage from the storm, she flinched dramatically, "Though, if you wouldn't mind, could we continue this inside, over tear or coffee, but most definitely inside?"
Feferi pried the key out of her hand, and after some struggling with the lock, she unlocked the door and lead her in. "Do you want me to make some? If you show me the kitchen, I'm sure I can figure out where everything is." Rose shut the door, taking a deep breath to calm her, "What kind of a host would I be if I let my guest make my tea?" Her voice delivered the question in a way that did not, in any way, convey a question. Kicking off her shoes, she made her way to the left, a linen closet and a pair of beach towels that rarely met with active use. Feferi recieved one decorated in pastels, and appears to be inspired by a professional Easter egg. "No, dry off a bit and come sit at the bar. Do you have a preference?"
Her visitor dabbed her hair and clothes with the towel, not entirely sure what to do with it in this strange house.
"Oh, no, make whatever you like. Really, if you want to be left alone, I can find someone to come collect me. I do have friends with cars…"
Rose knew that Feferi was really quite popular, her mother's social status being passed down to her automatically assure that. Everyone seemed to know her, even people she'd never seen before. "I'd just need to borrow a phone, mine ran out of power earlier!"
Rose's own towel, a personal artifact of a deep purple color, was wrapped around her entire body, encompassing her relatively small frame. "Darling, you'd think you wanted to get as far from me as you can imagine. Honestly, I don't mind. You fell on my property. I'm culpable. Worse case scenario, I'm responsible, and would receive the slings and arrow of the law."
Her ranting continued, finally giving up on being quiet. She wasn't good at it, she never would be. "So, do you want the tea, or do you want to head out?"
Once again, a question posed as a challenge. Her expression had a hopeful, almost dangerously playful bite to it. Feferi smiled sweetly, , "If I was going to get the law involved, I wouldn't have you make me a hot drink, because that might ruin my claims of injury at your hands, might it?"
She slipped off her sandals, a shiver running down her spine.
"I suppose it could hurt your case. Then again, you could just as well suggest I've intimidated you into tea and a pleasantly fluffed towel, and your pained delirium was clearly too strong for you to resist."

Rose smiled a genuine smile, the idea of someone who could tolerate her bone dry jokes, however black they might be gained her a light of hope. "I've got white, green and red. I'm out of black at the moment, any preferences at all?"
"I don't mind whichever you do, as long as you slip some rophenol in there so I can properly take you to court." She smiled, but her eyes looked almost longingly around at pure white and wizard-inhabited room.
"Your house is a lot nicer than mine... It feels less... Coldly furnished? I wouldn't mind if you showed me around"
This confused Rose; white, flat, square, with an odd affection toward the arcanely capable aged men, whom she just didn't feel terribly comfortable about, particularly in the company of another, didn't seem all that warm to her, but she shrugged it off and turned the kettle on. Feferi smiled at her confused expression, "You wouldn't get it." Her voice was soft, but sounded almost hurt.
She gave the towel back to Rose with a quiet 'thank you', after sussing that it would do no more good. She'd have to air dry, or change, the latter more likely for now. Part of her almost want to leave, this contact was getting a little too close to home, too personal to be comfortable.
Rose noticed the telegraphed act; she was at her heart, capable to unfold the twitches of others, partly due to her own capability at suppressing her own. Her voice carefully strung together her thoughts, preying her toes crushed no eggshells. "Feferi, if you need to go, I understand, I wouldn't be offended." She hoped she would answer in the negative, offer to stay a while longer, but she'd pass no judgement, the water only beginning to heat and the box of white tea left to sit on the counter top as Rose took the towel and folded it in her own.
Across the table, Feferi started suddenly, as if she'd drifted far from reality.
"Oh! I- No."
She shook her head, "No, I don't want to leave you alone in this kind of weather! You're still shaking like a leaf. I just don't want to get in trouble, you know?"
Rose's nod was a more gracious, slower one. "Would you be okay to call and let her know you're at a friend's home?" Feferi chewed nervously at the skin around her thumb, a glimmer of hope in her dark eyes."It'd be a bit of a stretch, what with you being an abject stranger and this being, at best, a lurid meeting predicated on carelessness in the rain." Her joking tone picked up from their earlier conversation, though at a notably softer octave, trying to reassure her of her safety. "If you truly need to run, I'll take you home so we don't need to trouble her. I certainly don't mind..."
Feferi winced as she drew blood, withdrawing her hand and looking down at the damage done, "It won't help, she'd just tell me to come home or something. I don't think she really minds where I am anyway!"
She paused apprehensively, then looked over at Rose, "I kind of like to think we're... friendly at least now?" She shrugged, "But I guess thats up to you too!"
She dropped the tone of snark, her voice a little clearer as she stepped forward to the table. "I'm joking, Feferi." She offered her hand, palm up. Rose was not the maternal type, but there was a fear that quaked in the girl before her. A fear that shook Rose bodily, and caused nothing short of anger. "I'd like to think we're at least friendly acquaintances, but I don't want to get you in trouble on my account."
"I'm always in trouble!" Feferi said, louder than intended, a short, sharp laugh followed, as if trying to soften the accidental statement. "I mean- Well, my mother is kind of strict, so... she doesn't really like me doing anything." She backtracked, smiling brightly. "Can I borrow your phone? I need to call my friend, he'll be worried since I told him I would text him when I got home, and I haven't yet."
She nodded, reaching under the bar for a cordless phone dock, receiver in its cradle. Neat, clinical almost, and were it sold as such; it too would have been white. She placed it next to the girl opposite her. "...Go ahead, darling. Do what you need to." Her fingers tapped to her lip, trying to study the girl's character. She tried to cover her concern, but all the same it was etched into her eyebrows, like a hem stitched too tightly.
The phone call itself as a near comical affair, and would have been in another other situation.
After quickly dialing, she started trying to talk, frequently getting interrupted before she can even finish the first word. "Hel- He- Hell- Eridan, god damn it listen!" She yells, surprising both of them. She flushed embarrassed. "No, I'm fine. Really, I am. I'm at someone else's house." She pauses for a moment, listening. "No, its no-" She stops abruptly, "No," More listening. She replies in a quiet, venomous tone eventually when he finishes talking, "You don't need to know, and you aren't going to know at this rate. You'll know when I want you to, so shoosh up." Her face softens at whatever he says next, "Yes, I know. Bye. Goodbye. Yes. Bye!" She hangs up, and lets out a long sigh. "Sorry," She glances at Rose apologetically. "He's... Kind of hard to deal with sometimes!"
Rose watched intently while she was talking, the girl before her constantly changing before her, from someone so terrified that she jumped at every word to a defiant woman with an air of royalty about her as she dominated her conversation with one of the self-proclaimed king of their education establishment.
"It's quite alright," Is everything alright? She tried to ask, pointedly failing. Her finger tapped against her lips, trying to find a more careful way to ask. "...Dear. You said you're in trouble more often than not, yes?"
She offered it as carefully as possible, but she knew it was a time bomb no matter her timbre. Her hand turned upward, presented in such a way one does for moral support.
Feferi smiled and nodded, "Yes, yes… My mother is very, very strict. You know who she is though, it's only normal." She turned away, staring at the rain pouring outside.
Rose's words dried up on her lips, yes, she knew who Feferi's mother was. Everyone did. Ms Peixes is a model, actress, tv personality, and just about everything else that would put her on top of the world. Feferi was as beautiful as her mother, with big dark eyes, torrents of pure black hair, near perfect proportions, and pure, pale skin.
Aside from that, she knew relatively little of the woman before her, but she immediately felt drawn to making things right for her, somehow. "...even still... you're... I mean, you're in my university classes. You are an adult woman, are you not?"
Personally, Rose asserted this position adamantly, despite living at home, she was quite her own the second the winter of her eighteenth year came to an end. "Do you not deserve some level of autonomy?"
Feferi bit her lip- Hard. Rose could instantly see a bruise form under her teeth. "Yes, you're right, of course." She was used to Feferi sounding happy, bubbly, though she sounded like a completely different person. "I just make a big deal out of it, I guess."
Rose bit her own lip, albeit considerably less hard, deciding it would be best to take a proactive approach to the situation. "Feferi," She started "I understand that we haven't known much of one another, but we're, well, new friends, I like to think."
She stretched out her hand, gently placing it on Feferi's wrists, "Dear, is everything okay?"
Feferi flinched, pulling her arm away as if Rose had burned her, breathing in sharply. "I'm fine! Really, Rose, just-"
She swallowed hard, blinking away tears. "I'm fine, it's nothing."
She stood up and turned away briskly, "where's your bathroom? I think I need to tidy myself up."
Rose recoiled, though she tried hard not to show it, as she gestured down the hall. She overstepped her bounds, and felt the lake below the thin ice envelope her legs. "Down the hall, second door on the right."
"Thank you," Feferi's tone was clipped and soft as she quickly left the room.
Rose sat and waited, making their tea and setting it down on the counter. She watched as the clock ticked by almost twenty minutes, both their tea slowly cooling.
She waited a few more moments, before decided she enough was enough. She crossed the kitchen and went to the bathroom door. As she stood there, she heard a soft, barely audible sob, her fingers traced the door before gently rapping against it, "Feferi?"
As soon as she knocked, she heard a sharp gasp and a great deal of scrabbling around.
This was not at all what Rose was hoping to find, she took the door handle in hand and pulled the door open. "Feferi, what's going on?"
The girl in question sat awkwardly next to the bath, her hands up around her defensively, wrapping around her waist like armour.
Rose notices that her new friend has obviously been crying very recently, within the past few seconds even. Her eyelashes are wet with tears that are still damp on her cheeks and stinging her eyes, "Rose! D-Don't!"
Her voice seemed distant and foreign as Rose's eyes caught a large but faded dark bruise snaking across her wrist, the same that Rose had touched earlier.
She rushed across the room, falling onto her knees, her hand going to Feferi's face softly, her heart sinking as Feferi shrunk back against the porcelain bath. "Feferi.." Words stuck in her throat again, looking at her wrists directly, dark bruises circling thickly over both of them this close up.
"Please, please tell me what's going on. This isn't okay, you need someone to be there for you."
Of all the things she had prepared for, this wasn't one of them, but she wasn't about to let Feferi down. "I swear, you can speak to be in confidence, honestly…"
"Please, please, don't tell anyone, please. No one can know about this. It's really nothing, it was a mistake, there's nothing I can do about it now, please, just leave and we never have to talk about it again."
She gulped down air, tears trickling down her cheeks as she muttered under her breath in hushed, hurried words. "Please?"
"Feferi, tell me who did this to you." There was no question. But if one could pin the exact scent of abject rage, it was what was beginning to fume behind the rolling tears on Rose's face. "I'll help you, Feferi, please, you can't let yourself be hurt like this..."
She shook her head fiercely, trying to get to the door but not daring to pass Rose, "You can't. No one can, just leave it. Please." Her tears were fuelled by pure helplessness, having long ago given herself into this being the way things were. "Its really okay, I messed things up..." She sniffs, her body shaking with quiet tears.
Rose drew closer, she watched as Feferi fall apart before her eyes, her whole façade crumbling away, leaving a delicate, broken girl whose translucent skin clung to her bones in a skeletal frame, layered with dark bruises.
"I promise, I won't say anything, and I won't do anything. Please, I honestly want to help you, but I can't if you won't let me."
Rose could feel her composure cracking at the anger she felt, watching her breakdown with so little to do to help.
Feferi sighed in a way that made her body shake, "She doesn't mean to…"
Her eyes met Rose's nervously, "Really, I just do things wrong and she has to."
Rose had to carefully hide her rage, choking on her words, "I understand, I promise."
As soon as she met the other girl's eyes, she was swiftly avoided.
She took a bold step, sliding herself around Feferi, her arms around her shoulders, bringing her to her chest.
"I'll do anything I can for you," Rose felt Feferi retreat from her touch briefly, before going limp and clinging onto her. She held Feferi like she was made of glass as she shook and sobbed. Rose let go of her own tears, letting them flow freely, losing her fingers in the depths of Feferi's hair. "Please don't tell anyone, please." Feferi's mother was known to be ruthless, cruel and deadly beautiful, and she feared for the girl. She wanted to wrap herself around Feferi, keep her from her mother's hatred. "I promise I won't. You're safe with me."
She shook with how hard the girl in her arms was shaking, raking her fingers through the black hair,
"S-she just-"
Feferi drew out of her arms, looking into violet eyes, "I'm not pretty enough,"
She blinks heavy tears out of her deep brown eyes, "Not thin enough-"
Rose stroked her hand down Feferi's cheek, feeling her cheekbones glassily sharp under her fingers, "Not good enough, never enough."
She soothingly shushed the sobbing pile of woman in her arms. "No, shoosh darling, no… You're such a beautiful woman, I wouldn't lie to you."
The rage shook her bones, but she did not portray it. Another day would be for anger. Rose felt something in her gut she wasn't terribly familiar with. The only words that came to mind as apt, that came to mind as the truest gut feeling she'd ever had.
A war was coming.
But for now, Rose would shift to her backside and pull Feferi to her, cradling her to her stomach, petting her hair and whispering quiet notes of reassurance, commendation, and compassion while Feferi sobbed in despair.