Soteriophobia and Snark

part four and two halves: sound and fury, a high school au


~For my crimson moirail, the wonderful, marvelous WBM. You are

the alphaBETAzation to my disorganized life. FRIG YEAH HORRIBLE PUNS!

Love you endlessly. Love you in all of the universes. All of them.~


"She said maybe."

These are the first words I hear from a pale-but-ecstatic Tavros the next morning as I walk into biology and try to start taking notes. It's not a lab day, so students are scattered about the various tables and counters, sitting where they please. I don't look around any more for... fear, apparently... of seeing her. Her. Why is she Her now? She's not a villain. Maybe an entity, but an entity is still not worthy of the title Her.

Oh, right.

Tavros was talking, wasn't he?

"What?" I ask.

"She said maybe to the dance in a text. Maybe!" He smiles hugely.

And then all I can feel is my numb lips moving in the shape of what the hell, and my abdomen fills with something hot and uncomfortable and heavy, something distinctly familiar.

"-fuzzy so I couldn't-"

"Here-"

"-the paper is due next Wednesday-"

Muddled pieces of other conversations mix with the roll call in my head, but Tavros's mouth, though it's moving, is not making any sound. He tilts his head as he stops his practical monologue to breathe and I finally part my own terribly dry lips.

"Yes?!" I manage to splutter out something that sounds like a cough. I listen to myself with a kind of horrified, detached interest, not aware of what I'm speaking until it's gone. "That's... I mean, congratu- I mean, yes, wow...Great for you."

"Thanks for all your help!"

I helped with this? I reach up and touch my hair absently. It's smooth but messy-feeling, and somehow reminds me that I need to stop being a metaphorical emo ghost right now. I breathe out, pulling myself back into my body in time to hear my name being called.

"Maryam..."

"Here," I say assertively, but my voice betrays me. It cracks halfway through the "r" and makes me sound as if I've swallowed something large and plastic. I'm certain Terezi stifles a giggle at this- or is that giggle directed at Tavros's goofy, oblivious staring out of the window? Either way, she's being kind of a bitch.

I take this moment to organize my pens. ROYGBIV order. Then alphabetical. Then by amount of ink.

I quickly exhaust the pen permutation game.

I will not look up I will not look up I will not-

"Serket," the teacher calls out, and I, resigned to my predictability, look up.

I can't help it.

There is no quiet, velvety smirk accompanied by a hair-toss and a Here. In other words, Vriska is not here.

"Cutting school again, I presume," I hear the teacher whisper under his breath, frowning as he makes a decisive mark on his clipboard. I hate him suddenly, hate that his pen is such a cruel, unforgiving shade of red, hate his way of fixing his thick glasses, hate his eagerness to denounce the saintly and innocent possibilities of a missed day, (sick father, broken arm, family vacation!), placing my light-haired lab partner firmly in the category of Unexcused Absences.

How do you know she's cutting? I feel protests begin to rise in my throat, but I smush them down, not wanting to start something.


I may have gone shopping for a dress for the dance.

The shops may have been filled with middle-aged women and disapproving glances and "what are you doing here kid you're supposta be in school," but I may have ignored this.

The bottom line is that I am now sitting in a tree contemplating my entire and absolute lack of said article of clothing. (I figured I might as well go with that blithering idiot Tavros boy. But as friends ONLY. And not friends, even. Pretty much acquaintances who attend a dance together. God, that sounded stupid even in my head.)

And yes. A tree. I am sitting in a tree. I nailed a bunch of wood to it as a kid and now I skip class and climb up and shout curses at the sky when I'm mad. Normally I just sit cross-legged and play with this one loose nail and think. (I skip class anyway.)

Pretty foolishly childish thing to do for That Serket Rebel Girl. They think I miss school to do drugs, I bet, or get raging drunk off cheap vodka. I have nothing against alcohol- I don't mind a beer or two when I'm home alone- but drugs aren't my style. I don't like the idea of depending on anything, and that includes speed or meth or whatever they sell behind the Pathmark in the shady part of town.

Dependency.

For whatever reason, the word triggers feelings. My mind wanders slowly back to Kanaya and the dance lesson. Her fingers were so slim and soft in mine, so breakable. I wonder if she's curious about where I am.

Nah.

I bet she's doing something stupidly OCD like organizing her pens in ROYGBIV order. She hasn't thought about me since then, I viciously yell into my own thoughts, just to feel better. (Self-punishment works great for making me feel better.)

I feel I'm greatly overestimating what we have, anyway. I do not desire a friend, and yet she practically insists on being kind. We've only known each other a few days. I tell myself not to overthink this.

Do not overthink this, Vriska.

"Don't." I hear a voice, realize like a psychopath that it's my own, and startle in spite of myself. It then occurs to me, in slow-motion Matrix bullet time, that I have shifted just enough for-

-me to fall-

-off of the-

-I hit the ground hard, and time returns to normal, but then that's the least of my worries. My left arm, having landed first and tensed on impact, is on fire, bent oddly. I curse and curse and curse and I writhe on the ground, screaming in pain. It feels like fire and hornets have banded together to create an exquisitely perfect representation of hell.

"Satan!" I have run out of swear words so I begin naming every incarnation of the devil I have ever heard of. I'm on Beelzebub when a stick snaps nearby, and a strange-looking man appears out of nowhere.

"Hey, honey. Need... hehehhee... a hand? You're a pretty little thing."

His leer is sick, and makes bile rise from my stomach. He continues laughing, advancing slowly, savoring the moment.

"Do you need me to help you there? I can do so much for you, hon..."

"Get away from me." My voice is calm, until he puts a hand on my shoulder. Then, I'm springing up, my legs turning to jelly under me, and all of a sudden my arm is made of nothing but liquid pain and I'm running and running and flying over thorns and brambles and all I can hear is my frenetic heartbeat. He's gaining- I'm normally quite fast, but I can barely breathe from my arm injury. There are houses up ahead- big ones- and I realize I'm in the nearby rich neighborhood. I have no choice.

I will hate myself forever for this, no doubt, but I sprint up and bang hard on the door of the house with the little Civic Coupe I've seen leaving school.

"Openitopenitopenit!"

The door actually opens. And, imagine my thrill.

She isn't about to let me in. The man is nowhere to be seen behind me.

"Why, if it isn't little miss-"

Terezi doesn't speak anymore because my fist has connected with her face and I'm already running off again.

"Stubid beliquent! I'b telling the princibal about dis!"

Hm. Nosebleed, it sounds like.

I allow myself a smirk, before realizing I just punched her with my left arm.

And then there is only pain.


It's Thursday, and I'm sitting in Bio when I overhear things.

"Did you hear about Serket?" Equius, that hall monitor from earlier, comes over to speak to his dance date, Aradia. I cock my head, listening.

"I heard she hit Terezi so hard she broke her own arm, and she broke Terezi's nose, and she's got detention every day after school for six weeks. Because she was also cutting class that day and suspension would just make her miss more school." Aradia lifts her chin, sufficiently up-to-date on the gossip.

"Hmph." Equius tuts and leans back, sighing. "A menace to society, if you ask me."


"V-Vriska?"

I look up from my haze of hurt to see a familiar green-eyed brunette standing in front of me, holding books.

"Hi." The girl who taught me to dance twists her hair nervously with her free hand.

"I brought you your schoolwork and a book, because I know how boring it is to be in the hospital," she adds, her voice curling up into a question, almost, at the end.

"It's a frickin' compound fracture," I groan.

"Ohh, sorry, that must be awful!" The sickest, sweetest sympathy fills her eyes.

"I don't want your pity, asshole," is what I'm supposed to say, but the painkillers just kicked in and then the sleep meds and God I'm so tired.

All I remember of the rest of day was a hand in mine and dreams about flying, flying in a huge ship into the sky with ten thousand jewels and diamonds. A pretty girl named Kanaya was there, and she touched my wrist and pulled me close, then she was drifting away into the chasms and her voice rang out, "It's a trap!" and I shrugged and yelled back, "It's okay because I like your poetry."


"I can carry my own books."

Even with her arm in a sling, Vriska is as stubborn as ever.

"If you say so," Tavros smiles nervously and gives them to her. She balances them all in the crook of her right arm.

"Did you really-"

"Hit Terezi? Yes. Break my arm doing so? Hell no."

Vriska turns up her nose at him, and storms away. I watch her go, my cheeks coloring faintly.


"Wait... seriously? I break my arm and still have to get dressed for gym?!"

Shit just got awkward.

"Yes, Serket. Have Maryam help you, like I KEEP SAYING."

I stick out my tongue at the gym teacher and sigh. She growls at me.

Weird. They aren't even human anymore, the teachers around here. I consider adding a middle finger and decide against it. Those are all for Terezi when she returns from her pity-week of mourning her beautiful nose.

Anway. I don't need stupid Kanaya's help. I can do this by myself.


"Arghfuck!"

I poke my head into the locker room to see Vriska frowning over a gym shirt, in nothing but a bra and underwear.

(I swear to God that I had no malicious or perverted intention when I looked down. It was to examine how her arm was doing.) But then I say "You having trouble?" and because it is polite to look at people when you talk to them, I have to look again.

She maintains a tan, and the blonde waves of her hair make a neat color match with it as they spill over her slim shoulders. Her bra is black and strapless and lacy, and she has curves, to put it appropriately- her hips are curved too, and... oh God... dat ass. Sorry, I meant- argh! You know what, never mind. Here: Vriska is attractive in the sense that I am mildly jealous and that-

"Are you going to stand there blushing and staring all day or are you going to go away?"

"I'm going to help you," is what I think my muffled noises mean. Or they could mean "Lime-flowing chew elfloo." Either way, she's pretty. Fantasy-castle pretty. Magazine-cover pretty. Hot, frankly. Ohmygod she could pose for Playb-

No! No. I mean that I am going to help her because that's what friends do!

"What the actual hell?" Vriska is voicing my exact thoughts- because I am staring at her again.

"Arghfuck!"

"Hey, that's my curse word!" Entirely oblivious to her broken arm and.. erm.. lack of clothes, she grabs me in a clumsy headlock. My face is embedded in her chest.

Oh, hello.

This is... kind of pleasant.


After about ten thousand more shenanigans, including helping me rob Terezi's gym locker (she didn't really help, she more like stood there and worried while I picked the lock,) Kanaya helps me put on my gym clothes and I end up watching them all play volleyball.

Funtastic.


And I spend the entire rest of the evening daydreaming about Vriska. I mean. No. I don't. That would be silly.

Then my phone rings, and it's bearing strange news.