Vriska woke up for her slumber. She felt cold, and her side hurt. She stood up with difficulty, and staggered to her bath room. She poured some water, and washed her face. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, only to be greeted by milky white pupils that belonged to her.
"So I really am dead uh."
She let out a sigh. It seemed like being god tier wasn't enough to avoid dying. Guess she really was meant to die all along. She dried her face, and went around the place. This was her hive. Well, a dream bubble version of her hive anyway. Her broken 8 balls were neatly piled up in a corner of her respiteblock. She smiled weakly at the thought of Kanaya, that had arranged them that way. She wondered how she was doing, now that she had cut Eridan in two. She remembered her former moirail's skin was white and shiny – not unlike a rainbow drinker's skin. She tried to guess whatever the hell had happened.
Right as she was pondering on that matter – not like she had anything else to do – a crashing sound was heard and her hive shook. Some things were thrown from their shelves, and her pile of 8 balls collapsed – but well, they were already broken anyway. She went to see what had happened and saw that apparently something had crashed into her dream bubble. And this something was another dream bubble. Wondering who could inhabit it, she got closer to it. Apparently, the owner of the colliding bubble did the same, because she heard footsteps coming her way. Suddenly, the other person stuck out their head out of the nearest door.
"Is there, uh, someone there?"
And with that, Tavros was in front of her. Both of them were equally surprised to see the other. The most surprised was Tavros though. Vriska just didn't think their bubbles would meet so quickly – if at all. They stared at each other for some time. Obviously enough, his eyes were as empty as hers. He noticed that too, because his eyes widened. After some bewildered seconds, he finally stuttered:
"So you're… uh…"
"Dead. Yeah."
"What happened? Uh, to you I mean."
"Terezi killed me."
Once again, he seemed surprised.
"Why? Weren't you two friends?"
Vriska didn't answer. He carried on.
"Also, weren't you, uh, god tier? You even had wings and all!"
The mere mention of wings and flight made him smile. His dream had always been to be able to fly after all. She lowered her eyes, a bitter expression on her face.
"It seems I… deserved to die. That's all there is to say on the matter."
Tavros immediately understood he shouldn't dwell any longer on the subject, and looked around, visibly trying to find something else to talk about.
"So that's uh, your hive? It's really huge!"
She seized the occasion to change subjects, so she went along with it, and puffed out her flat chest.
"Yes it is! Do you want to visit it?"
He nodded meekly, and thus began the guided tour of Vriska's hive. She didn't like the design as much as she used to, but being back in a dream bubble version of it after such a long time actually felt kind of nice. Nice and nostalgic.
"As you can see, I was pretty good at architecture, even at such a young age!"
He chuckled.
"Kind of like how spiders are good at weaving webs, uh?"
A brief memory of Spidermom darkened her expression for a split second. It was enough for Tavros to notice.
"What's wrong?"
"I just thought of Spidermom."
"Oh, your lusus?"
"Yes. She was so bossy, asking for food all the time."
A bitter laugh escaped from her cerulean lips.
"It's stupid."
"What is?"
"I don't even know if I miss her. Even if I've had to do so many bad things to feed her, killing her was still… hard."
His eyes widened.
"You killed your lusus?"
She winced.
"She was already dying. I just gave her a swifter death."
Tavros looked away shamefully.
"Sorry."
They both knew what he was apologizing for. Vriska merely replied:
"A bit late for that but well, thanks."
Several minutes passed in complete silence, with the two of them walking around her stupidly huge bubble dream hive. Vriska was a couple of steps behind him, looking at his back. She had never noticed it before, but his shoulders were actually rather broad, almost muscular. She absent-mindedly thought that it was maybe due to his strolling around in a wheelchair because of her. She remembered the day she tried to kill him and failed. At the time, she didn't have a second thought about it. But lately, it had been on her mind more than it should have – even before she killed him once and for all.
The more she thought about it, the more irritated she grew. His forgiveness and lack of resentment made her mad with anger. She just didn't understand why he didn't hate her. It's not like she expected any black feelings from him, but his indifference was annoying. She had wanted to kill him or at least hurt him. She half succeeded in the latter, but in an unsatisfying way. Even if Tavros' body bore the marks of her murder attempt, his spirit was still holding strong. He was afraid of her, but it had always been the case.
She had made things this way or, to be frank, she had felt compelled to do so. She had always been feeling weird when it came to him. Something in her just couldn't leave him be, and was yearning for his attention. She wanted to dig her sharp claws in his tender cheeks to force him to look at her. In a way, she wanted this hatred to be mutual. But then, it occurred to her that this was pretty much black feelings she was having toward him. She remembered Mindfang's journal and her musings about the Summoner, Tavros' ancestor – this fate literally hit her in the face.
That was too much for her to bear. Now that she had put a name on what was agitating her heart, it just couldn't exist any longer. So she pushed him off a cliff, hoping that she would be able to feel at peace, at last.
He didn't die.
Her feelings grew more desperate and violent – she didn't know what to feel, nor what she wanted from him.
Fear me. Hate me. Go away. Look at me. Get angry. Feel something, anything.
But despite her efforts to antagonize him, everything she threw at him was swallowed up by a black hole of indifference. She messed with him quite a lot, ending up being reprimanded by Kanaya. She tried to put aside her animosity and play properly at Sgrub as Tavros' teammate. And even though she hated to admit it, she was having fun. Real, light-hearted fun. Before, her fun consisted of FLARP sessions where she killed trolls to feed her lusus. She didn't think it was possible to enjoy herself in another way. And yet, pshooing around with him in the game was fun.
Then, Aradiabot came after her life; she beat her up, leaving her to die. But Vriska didn't want to die yet. She had Tavros bring her on her quest bed, but even though she begged him to kill her, he didn't do it. His muddy tears had mixed with her blood-covered cheeks, and his whole body was shaken by his sobs. She had made his life miserable, so she didn't understand why he couldn't kill her. Even when being begged for it.
She stopped reminiscing this unpleasant moment of her life, and went back to her afterlife world. Maybe she could try to ask him. After all, now that they were both dead, it didn't really matter anymore, did it?
"Say Tavros", she started.
He stopped walking and turned around to face her.
"Uh, yes?"
"Why didn't you kill me back then?"
He looked at her for some time, wondering how to reply. He finally answered:
"I can't kill anybody, that's all. I know you think it's, uh, kind of lame but… "
She clicked her tongue impatiently.
"No I mean, why didn't you want revenge? I tried to kill you, and I had always been horrible to you."
Once again, his reply didn't come immediately. He seemed to genuinely wonder about it.
"I… don't know, frankly. I just don't know. Even if I know I should, uh, hate you."
She clenched her teeth; his lack of hate was just irritating – and more than she could take. She violently grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, hissing.
"Then why don't you? You're so annoying."
"I know this is uh, stupid, but I can't hate you."
He put his hand on her wrist, but wasn't trying to push her away. He looked kind of sad, but she didn't understand why. She was too mad at him to care. All the feelings that she had kept to herself were starting to flow out of her sharp-toothed mouth, and there was no stopping it.
"Please release me Vriska."
It wasn't an order, barely a request. He didn't understand what was going on, and was a bit worried.
She tightened her grip, trembling with barely controlled anger.
"Why won't you look at me? No matter what I do to you, you just don't care. You don't care if I kiss you, you don't care if I hurt you. I killed you for fuck's sake…!"
He lowered his eyes.
"I'm sorry."
"Stop saying that! You should be… You should be the one to ask for an apology…!"
He smiled bitterly.
"I've left you to bleed to death, isn't that more cruel? Isn't this enough a "revenge" for that cliff, uh, "incident"? And you know, the time you actually killed me, I was coming for your life. It was either me or you. But I guess that you killing me was uh, more socially acceptable. You're a blueblood after all."
These last sentences were the last straw. She just started saying everything. She didn't care anymore.
"I didn't want to kill you; my reflexes got the better of me. I've regretted doing that so much. I don't understand why…! It should be no big deal, just how the natural order goes. I'm supposed to be used to this, I killed thousands of trolls! And yet, I kept thinking about it… Over and over… This isn't what I wanted…"
Blue tears were rolling down her cheeks, and her head was spinning. She was now clinging onto his shirt, as if it was the only thing preventing her from collapsing on the floor. He was surprised by her outburst – he didn't think she cared about that. And he didn't know very well how to react, so he ended up patting her back awkwardly.
She wanted to say other things, but they were trapped in her throat – or in her mind, who knows. The anger and regret were dizzying – everything around her seemed to emit its own light, and all that was to be seen was white and black. Her eyes were burning.
She swayed. He caught her. Maybe her spirit still was weak – she had died very recently after all. Their surroundings were slowly fading away, turning into blankness. Her eyes closed, and she fell softly against him, unconscious, leaving him to figure out whatever had just happened. He lifted her and left her now empty dream bubble.
