Tavros was laid out in bed with a broken face, broken horn, and broken leg. It could have been worse, he reflected. He could have been thrown off a cliff and paralyzed for life. Instead he'd just been mugged on the way home from the Peixes's synchronized swimming meet. Can Town was getting dangerous these days, ever since the mayor's assassination.
He rolled over onto his side with a grunt and stared at the open door to the ablution block. He really liked this human invention called a 'bed' because he didn't get his horns tangled in it and didn't have any trouble getting out—when he was healthy. He slept for much longer as a result, but still woke up feeling tired. Maybe he should take a hit of sopor before bed, best of both worlds. Damn he really had to pee. Tavros levered himself up into a sitting position, feeling exhausted already. With half a horn missing he was terribly unbalanced, and not just from the weight distribution. Horns were full of sensitive nerve endings and had a great deal to do with trolls' sense of orientation. He practically fell to the floor just getting up and grabbing his crutch, and then where would he be?
He took care of business then hobbled right out. Tavros was almost to his bed when his cracked horn seized with pain and he fell insensate to the floor.
Feferi was looking down at him with a concerned yet hopeful smile. "You don't normally sleep on the floor do you?" she asked.
Tavros jumped to his feet, or rather, tried to jump to his feet, hurt his broken leg, got dizzy, and fell right back to the floor. Feferi shushed him and laid him back down. Tavros noticed that he had clean bandages on. "You are in reely bad shape," she said. Furrowing her brow, she added, "I had to hear from Karkat talking it over with Kanaya! You got hurt coming back from seeing my show and no one glubbing told me! How do you think that makes me feel?"
Suddenly feeling awful, he muttered the beginnings of an apology. "Um, I, I'm really sorry, Feferi, I just—"
She shooshed him again. "No. I am your frond and it's time I started acting like one. I promise that I am going to kelp you recover." Holy crap she actually used fish puns in speech, Tavros thought. That was adorable.
"I'm going to be your nurse," Feferi declared with a bright bubbly smile, helping him to his feet. She was quite a bit taller than he. Tavros suddenly imagined her shapely figure squeezed into a nurse's outfit and turned a fetching shade of chocolate. Feferi giggled and pinched his cheek. "You're so glubbing silly!" She led him over to the couch. "Don't worry we're going to have a whale of a time," she said, fishing around in her purse—despite having a perfectly useful fetch modus, she carried a purse for the express purpose of "fishing around" in it—and pulled out a DVD boxed set with a scowling bald human on the cover. "Breaking Bad! It's one of those Earth human TV shows that everyone is glubbing on about on the internet. This show is so good; I've only seen one episode and I am hooked!" The slightest wink alerted Tavros that this, too, was a fish pun.
Feferi skipped over to the DVD player and popped in the first disc. "While you watch the pilot, I'll make you some cluckbeast soup." Chickens existed in this city, and while they were all well and good, but nothing helped you recover from illness like stock made from the irradiated blood of a fifty foot monster.
The expensive sound system one of the alternate Daves had given Tavros for his last wriggling day fired up and damn near pushed Tavros off the back of his couch. No version of Dave was nice enough to just give someone a good birthday present without modifying it to, say, have an eleventh setting, and then expertly breaking it so it can't be turned down without turning it off or breaking it. The screen hummed to life to reveal the scary man from the cover, or perhaps a different guy played by the same actor. Tavros thought these things had good production values. The man was naked and standing in front of a crashed driving pod of somekind, in nothing but his underwear, speaking into a camera. "This is not an admission of guilt. I'm speaking now to my family. Skyler…you are…the love of my life, I hope you know that. Walter Junior. You're my big man. I should have told you things, both of you. I should have said things. But I love you both so much. And our unborn child. And I just want you to know that these…things you're going to learn about me in the coming days. These things. I just want you to know that…no matter what it may look like…I had all three of you in my heart."
Five days later, Tavros and Feferi were on the couch, sweaty, disheveled, and breathing hard.
"Oh my glubbing Gog please don't stop," Feferi whined, biting on her cushion.
"Jegus, I-I'm gonna have a heart attack," Tavros gasped, clutching at his chest.
Feferi threw her arms around his neck. "No Tavros, let's finish together!"
Gustavo Fring walked out of Don Salamanca's exploded room, looking completely intact. "Holy shit!" Tavros screamed. "He's like the devil!" Feferi, overcome with emotion, began to tear up.
The camera panned to the side, revealing that half of Gus's face was missing. Feferi threw up just as he fell to the ground, dead.
The two of them took a break for another two days before watching the last season. "I don't, um, really think it…needs another season," Tavros muttered while she washed around his cast.
"Don't be krilly," said Feferi, scrubbing roughly to get her point across. "The last villain to be vanquished is Heisenberg himself, obviously."
Tavros ignored her, because it was a sound argument and he couldn't argue with it. "Also the spongebaths make me, um, super, incredibly—"
"Uncomfortable?" Feferi said with a huge grin that was meant to be comforting but interpreted as predatory.
Tavros nodded in a way that said "sure let's go with that."
Feferi snickered lasciviously. "Come on, we're just friends, who cares if I see your buoy parts?"
"I really can wash myself," Tavros said in a voice that was, due to circumstances, suddenly much higher than usual.
"Would you feel better if I let you wash me?" she said with a sense of pure innocence, fluttering her lashes as if she were trying to fly with them.
Tavros, in a sudden attack of cool, was able to completely and purely ignore her. "We should have people over to watch the final episodes with us and have a Breaking Bad party," he said, gazing into the middle distance.
A few people responded. Female Dave, known only as Dave, from the gender-swapped doomed timeline, showed up in a sailor fuku despite the fact that they were not required in any of Can Town's schools, which was just as well, because it was covered in sequins and probably not school appropriate. There was a Gamzee who had had a bad trip on some expired sopor and only used casually. He never became a clown-worshipper as a result, and the great troll massacre was perpetrated by Karkat, finally snapping and beating Nepeta to death with her own tail. Then one of the sparkly, incredibly gay Johns showed up uninvited. He was such a kawaii little uke shota that they didn't have the heart to kick him out, plus he brought chips and dip. "Hey best friends!" he said, kicking down the door, rainbows refracting off his luminescent shorts. He stampeded in and gave everyone a big hug. "I love you all," he declared. "Even you, Dave-with-boobs. Despite not liking boobs myself."
"Why is that?" Feferi asked with curiosity. She thought boobs were pretty awesome.
John turned to her and gave a huge smile that melted the hearts of every gentleman within fifty square miles. "Because," he whispered, sidling up to her, "I am a homosexual!" he declared.
Feferi's mouth formed a fascinated little "O". "What does that mean?" asked Tavros.
Feferi shrugged. "It sounds reely finppressive though!" What was impressive, thought Tavros, was how she was able to pronounce 'really' in such a way that he could tell it was a fish pun.
The entire party was in tears as the show came to a close, with Walter White bleeding out on the floor of someone else's meth lab. Gamzee took a hit of sopor to still his trembling hands. Dave pretended to be stoic, but a single glimmering tear dripped down from behind her sunglasses. John was on the floor, wailing and sobbing, hugging onto Dave's shapely legs. Feferi was clutching Tavros's arm tight. Tavros was simply watching, rapt. Calculating.
"Guys," he said, "let's be drug dealers."
Gamzee snorted out all of his sopor. "What?"
"We've seen this show," Tavros said, sounding excited. "We know what not to do!" He tried to stand up but Feferi pulled him down. "I'm serious!" he said, for the first time ever his voice sounding clear and confident. "There's no market out there for sopor pies, we could have an instant monopoly!" He pointed at Gamzee, "you can be our chef," he declared. Gamzee's eyes widened with joy.
"Dave!" he said next, "street level enforcer."
Dave shrugged. "As long as I'm not a hooker."
'Feferi," she jumped a little.
"What do you want me to do!?" her face was quite tyrian with apprehension.
"Launder money," Tavros smiled.
"And I'll be legal representation!" said John, leaping to his feet, dropping several law degrees onto the floor.
"Who's Jesse Pinkman?" asked Feferi.
"We so don't need a Jesse Pinkman," said Dave with a toss of her hair.
"And me," said Tavros, standing to his feet, "I will be the mastermind." With a hopeful little smile, he said, "you can call me Rufio."
A year later, Tavros glared out from under a porkpie hat at his massive bakery. Squads of Gamzees hurried ingredients to all ends of the factory while a massive tank of sopor pumped the liquid down into each and every pie shell. He tightened his grip on his cane. The leg had never quite recovered.
"Wow," said Feferi, placing her hand on Tavros's shoulder, "we sure have come far from stealing sopor from people's houses and baking in the back of an RV."
Tavros nodded grimly. "Too bad about the original Gamzee. I'm sorry I made you shoot him though."
Feferi smiled radiantly. "It's okay, anything for you." There was an awkward silence, and then Feferi poked him with her elbow. "I'm more sorry that you had to kill Terezi. I know you were close."
Tavros clenched his teeth. "I didn't kill Terezi. The Brotherhood of Evil Nepetas killed her."
"I know," said Feferi, before he could go on a rant and bring out his inner Rufio. Then she leaned over and gave him a friendly peck on the cheek.
Tavros gulped. There was only one thing left that made him afraid. "Um, Feferi," he said, sounding like his old stuttering self for the first time in months. "Like…" he thought for a moment.
She raised her eyebrow at him. "Yes?"
"Fuck Skyler," he spat. "She is, umm, the worst. Like, it'd be fine for her to be unsupportive if she was at least interesting, but no, she's just the nagging wife archetype all over again. Marge Simpson, but instead of having a good heart and being funny, she cheats on her husband at the first opportunity. Don't even fucking tell me it's because he lied to her or whatever, that's not an excuse, especially considering that the extent of her knowledge at the time was that he was cooking meth and not any of the fucked up shit he'd actually done. And it was pure revenge fucking. Fuck her."
Feferi blinked. "Yeah Skyler was the worst." She sounded just slightly disappointed.
"In a hypothetical situation where…"Tavros gulped once again, and then fired off a string of words before the courage left him, "where you and I were matesprits you wouldn't suck as bad as she does, right? You would be like…supportive and junk, wouldn't you be?"
Feferi stood dumbstruck for a few seconds, color slowly rising in her face. 'Well," she said, "in a hypothetical situation that is purely hypothetical…" she put her hands on Tavros's shoulders. "I would never, ever betray you, and be as faithful and supportive as a matesprit can be!" Tavros felt a tug on his heartstrings. He wished he had the courage to do what he wanted to do, grab the girl and pull her into a passionate, Earth human Hollywood kiss.
Tavros Nitram was too much of a coward to do such a thing.
Rufio, druglord of Can Town however, was not.
Rufio looked down at his chest, weeping thick, chocolaty brown blood. He touched it, thinking for a second that he might stem the tide, but instantly stopped. He was dying. There was no stopping it. Someone screamed for Feferi, and something exploded. That fucking addict she'd hired had gotten into the mind honey they flavored the pies with.
He stumbled through a scene from a horror movie. Dave impaled on her own sword, rictus grin on her face, John, still in his evil clown costume, choking to death on his own laughing gas, much like every Gamzee in the bakery. Rufio raised his cane, and brought it down hard on John's throat. It crunched, and he stopped laughing. Rufio took off his gas mask and threw it to the ground, collapsing sideways into an industrial bag of flower. It burst open against his jagged stump of horn and he was inundated in the substance, his blood mingling with the dust into a sort of obscene batter.
Feferi hobbled into view, limping, using Ψdon's Entente as a crutch, face running with pinkish tears and makeup. Her left leg was a burned and shriveled mess, and was missing her foot from just above the ankle. She looked like she was going to run straight for Rufio, leg or no leg, but instead limped to a nearby machine and fucked with the buttons until the pressure gauge slipped into the red. "I'm sorry," she said. The sounds of sirens could be heard in the distance. Red and blue lights appeared in the windows. "I thought we could trust Sollux, I really did!"
A voice thick with pain shouted her name in the distance, howling like an animal. Something exploded.
Rufio coughed a wet, hacking cough; his lungs were filling with blood. "Don't you mean…reely?" he said.
Feferi laughed. It was deep and shuddering and unpleasant like a sob. She went to another machine, an oven, and set it to its highest heat, and tore open several more bags of flour, creating a cloud of white before collapsing in a heap next to Tavros. Gazing into Rufio's eyes, already glazing over, she brushed the paleness from his face. "Are you still flushed for me, after all that happened?" she whispered.
"Baby," Rufio whispered, "you were still a thousand times better than Skyler."
She kissed his lips one final time as his life slipped away. Sollux called her name once again. Still kissing her dear, dead Rufio—her Tavros, she smashed her trident into the ground, kicking up sparks. The flour ignited.
Note: back from the dead bitches. I loved Breaking Bad, and wanted to do something really stupid with it in a fanfic but not just make a straight-up crossover, because I know it wouldn't hold my interest that way. Anyway, if I update this with anything resembling frequency, expect the next few chapters to involve Feferi, or a Peixes of some kind.
This particular chapter was based on an RP I did that ended right after Feferi agreed to launder our cash…it could have been awesome. And yeah, gay John turned into the Joker, and yes, Fem!Dave is gorgeous.
And I am getting kinda tired of using horizontal lines, but in all the time I've been using this site, shift+enter has done fuck all for me *anime poppy-vein* How do I make a line break you guys!? *angry tears*