Alright, this was a thing written for my moirail. I'm sorry but there's a lot of upcoming sadstuck. Warnings apply, they're mentioned in the description.
Disclaimer: Yeah guys, I don't own Homestuck. It belongs to the man with the luscious lips.
Where was she?
Your name is Dave Strider, and you've been waiting for over an hour in Can Town. For Terezi Pyrope. She's never late.
Well, she is sometimes.
Actually, a lot.
But never this late. You huff to yourself, and leave Can Town in search for Terezi, something you should've done a long time ago. You check all the common rooms and the kitchen before finally heading off to find her respiteblock. You go to it often enough, so it's just your feet taking you there out of habit. You don't even need to think of which ways to turn anymore.
Once you finally reach her respiteblock, you give a few taps on the door.
"Hey, 'rezi. You in there?" you call out. You don't get a response, but you swear you could hear something move from inside. You know she's in there. You try the doorknob, but it's locked.
"C'mon TZ, lemme in!" you whine, bouncing on your toes. For ironic purposes.
Again, no response, but you're fairly sure you heard a whimper. This worries you slightly. But cool kids don't worry, so you just try the handle with a little more force, fully intent on breaking it if you have to.
"Terezi."
You hear a sniffle, a sob, and she calls out, her voice broken and cracked, "Don't come in Dave, please. I don't want you to see me like this."
Okay now you have real reason to worry. Your inner cool kid is making an exception this time.
"Terezi, open this door or I will break it down! What's wrong?"
You only hear more sobbing from the inside, and you yell to her, "I'm coming in!"
With that, you shove your shoulder into the door. It takes a few times, but you've finally broken in. And oh, are you horrified by the sight in front of you.
Terezi is naked, you can tell, but she holds a sheet around most of her. There is teal and red everywhere, and you think it's blood, but you don't really know. There are bruises just covering Terezi. Your eyes widen behind your shades, and your jaw drops.
"What the fuck happened to you?!" you half ask, half demand as you rush forward, dropping to your knees in front of her.
Her glasses are gone, and she looks up at you with red, blind eyes.
"H-hey Dave..." is all she manages.
"Terezi. What's wrong? What happened? Who did this to you?" questions pour out of your mouth, and you aren't sure she's keeping up.
"I...I..." she stutters, not being able to form a coherent sentence. "It's nothing. R-really...I'm fine..."
"No you aren't. You're bleeding and crying and covered in bruises, man. You are not fine."
"Dave, please. I'm okay."
"That is the biggest and shittiest lie I have heard in my entire life. That's worse than John's "I'm not a homosexual" thing. Tell me what's going on."
"It's nothing, Dave!" she snaps. "It's nothing to worry about!"
"No, no, no. It is a fucking huge thing to worry about! You look like shit, you are not fine!" you say, losing your cool fast. How could you even care about something like that when...this is in front of you?
"Is this because of your stupid kismethingy? Because if it is, that is so fucked up!"
"N-no...it's not that, it's not Gamzee," Terezi mumbles at you, turning her head away. As she turns, you see a ringed bruise around her neck. It sickens you.
"Well then who the fuck was it?" you demand, ready to kick fucking ass. It could be anybody, since the meteor had just passed through a dream bubble. Next time you saw those fuckers, their shit was going to be wrecked.
"It was..." Terezi trailed off, seemingly unsure of whether to tell you or not.
"WHO?" you demanded once again.
"K-Karkat..."
Wait, what? Karkat?
"Oh hell no. He has crossed the motherfucking line," you spit out. Terezi just stares blindly ahead.
"Wait, is he your kismesis now? Or has he gone batshit crazy too?"
"No..we aren't kismesis. It's just..." she pauses, taking a moment to think. "There's a word for it in English. What is it? Rape?"
You deadpan. No, no. This was not okay. This was so far beyond the levels of okay it was deeper into not-okay territory than the burning furnaces of hell.
"Oh my fucking god. Holy fucking SHIT I'm going to beat his ass!" you are fuming. Your face has gone completely red with anger, and your fists are clenched so tight, you're sure you've broken your own skin with your nails. You're mumbling profanities that gradually get louder.
"Holy mother fucking god dammit FUCKING SHIT! Terezi this is not okay! This is completely inexcusable, and he is going down!" you yell.
Great. Terezi is starting to cry again. She's telling you to calm down, but that is not something you can do.
"I...on Alternia, it's the victim's fault for the inability to defend and protect oneself..." she tells you through hiccuping sobs. This is total bullshit, you think.
"Well, we aren't on Alternia, now are we? Oh my god I can't even...I can't even fucking THINK straight anymore! I am going to kill Karkat!"
"No, don't!" Terezi immediately jumps to his rescue, and you have no fucking idea why. "Please, don't! He's just a-angry and...confused!"
"But this isn't okay! Not while I'm around! I don't give a shit how sexually frustrated he is, this was not okay! I'd rather have him take it out on me than you, and that's saying something! I hate the shit out of him, especially now, and no, not in that way. That's FUCKED UP."
Terezi speaks softly, in complete contrast to your yelling. "He's just jealous and hurt, Dave...he doesn't know how to heal..."
"I don't care. He crossed the goddamn line into definitely not okay territory and he's going to need to pay up for his actions," you spit out. You're trembling, and you know you've never been so angry in your life. Terezi senses this, and she gently leans forward, hugging you. The words she gives you are meant to be reassuring, but they aren't.
"I should have just fought back harder..."
She wipes tears off your cheeks that you didn't notice were there.
"I tried...I tried so hard but I just wasn't strong enough. It's my fault that this happened."
You're quick to respond.
"No. It's not your fault, it's his. It's not your fault that he was selfish and took advantage of you, and it never will be. I don't care what kind of fucked up society you grew up in, it's not okay what he did, and it's not your fault."
Now you're trying to reassure her. You're hugging her tightly, gently kissing away her tears and brushing your fingers over her cuts and bruises. She buries her face in your chest, and mumbles.
"You're soft, Dave."
You run your fingers through her hair, and gently rub her horns like she taught you to when you started as moirails, before the two of you shifted into red territory. You're sure this comforts her some.
"Is there anything I can do?"
"I...I really don't know. I just want to stop hurting..."
"Is there anything you need? Anything I can do to take the pain away?" You're sure you've never been so open and comforting in your life. There's not a cool kid thing about you right now, because that's not what you need, that's not what Terezi needs. She needs you, she needs your comfort, she needs you to drop the facade for her. You'd do it anytime for her in a heartbeat.
Terezi shakes her head slowly at your question, but she does gently weave her fingers into your hair, pulling you down and kissing you slowly. You kiss her back hesitantly, so, so afraid of hurting her. When she pulls away, her words are so soft you can barely hear them.
"Just be gentle, okay?"
Just this one phrase almost breaks you apart, almost makes you cry again.
You don't cry, but your voice does crack with your response.
"I would never intentionally hurt you, Terezi. Ever."
She knows this is true. She looks you in the eyes again, as well as a blind girl can. "I love you, Dave."
"I love you too," you respond without even the slightest hesitation.
"I don't want to hurt anymore..." she whispers.
You swallow, hard. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry he did this to you, and I'm sorry I wasn't here to stop it. I should've been there, I should've protected you, I should've stood between you and him..."
Terezi shushes you. "You're protecting me now."
This makes you tense up. "Does this mean he's going to try to do this again? Oh my god...I'm never going to leave your side, Terezi," you brush your lips carefully against hers again, murmuring, "I'm never letting you go. I swear, it's never going to happen again."
"Don't ever let go.."
"I won't, I promise I won't."
"Thank you, Dave..."
Silence carries on for awhile, until you chance a question.
"Was this really normal back on Alternia?"
"Well, yeah. But more often, the victims were killed. I got lucky...of course, most of it stopped once the adults were gone."
You frowned. "Good thing you survived...so why didn't Karkat ever explain this? He talked about the terrible past of Alternia and the romances and culture and everything. Why not this?"
"This is a much more dark side. I mean even the big war wasn't as bad as the animalistic things like this that trolls did..."
"It shouldn't be normal. It's sick," Karkat is sick. You hate him, you hate what he did. Why, why?!
"I know it is. But I guess it was a way of breeding a stronger race."
"Maybe, but it's still terrible. It really shouldn't be okay. I mean, it isn't. It shouldn't be considered okay for trolls..."
"There's things worse, Dave.." Terezi tells you. "Things a lot worse than rape."
"I don't even want to know..." you told Terezi. It's bad enough that this was a thing, and you'd probably be plagued by nightmares from it for awhile. Of course, it'd be worse for Terezi. You didn't want her to have nightmares. She didn't deserve those, she didn't deserve this.
You hold Terezi, brushing her hair out of her face, gently rubbing her horns, just comforting her in all the ways you knew how. Slowly, she relaxed, the hiccups and tears dying down. You press a kiss to her forehead, and gently pull her body up, careful of her injuries, and lift her into her recuperacoon. She was sleeping, and you knew that the sopor slime could help ward away nightmares.
You sit down, leaning back against the coon. You told her you were never leaving her side, and you meant it. You'd go all lengths, even death, to protect her. Because you loved her, and you wouldn't stand to see this happen again. You'd stay true to your word too, because next time you saw Karkat, his shit was wrecked. He was going down.
Next chapter's coming soon, okay?