Soteriophobia and Snark

part i don't even know anymore: sound and fury, a high school au


She doesn't pick up the phone for like ten rings and I'm already busy cursing my bad luck.

"He'lo?"

"It's me."

"Vri'ka?...D'uyou know islike one in the morgig?"

"Oh. Were you sleeping?"

"No, I'wuz skydiving."

Even at such a late hour, she still manages to be bitingly sarcastic.

(I noticed it in her poetry already.) But enough about that.

I have a request.

I proceed to ask in an ingenious fashion.

"I have a request."

Foolproof, right?

God, I'm an idiot.

"Wha."

"I don't have a dress for the Valentine's Day dance and I heard you're good at fashion and stuff. Make me one?"

"Dress..." she echoes drunkenly, a robot filled with useless facts.

I shouldn't have called when she was tired. She probably has no idea what a dress is at this time. At best, it's an accessory of her dream that she'll cast aside as madness.

"You should come over." I keep digging myself into my hole of stupid unreality. I already know her parents won't let me do these things, because I'm the class delinquent, and Kanaya's too pure to be touched in any way by such a creature.

"Address? I need your address..." she whispers.

She sounds awake now, and noise can be heard, like she's rummaging around looking for something.

I give it to her, and she makes a series of noises indicating agreement, then I realize something.

"You're doing this out of pity cuzza my arm!"

But she has already hung up. I slam my fist against my wall, cursing. I pay mind to the fact that it is my right fist this time.

I expect some kind of visit tomorrow.

I hate pity visits.


"Psst." KNOCK.

I cannot believe I am doing this.

I feel a rush of surreal adrenaline as I come to terms with exactly what kind of criminality I am partaking in here.

I have snuck out of my house, in the dead of night no less, to visit my detained classmate, who has just asked me to make her a dress at two in the morning.

Pardon, more like one. But it's two now, so I am technically right.

Vriska lives in a run-down section of town, in a small one-story house. Damien sits outside, along with a station wagon that seems to have seen better days. A pathetic-looking tree, too small to muster up a shadow that looks spooky in the dark, hangs over the narrow driveway.

I creep closer.

"Psst."

I rap at the window nearest me again. After a terribly suspenseful wait, it opens, and my heart jumps into my throat.

Vriska, her hair a mess and her smirk as wide as ever, pokes her head out and nearly bangs her chin into my forehead. She shouts quietly, (how is that even possible?)

"You snuck out? Why?"

"I... don't know."

There proceeds to be a long, strange silence. My bare feet tremble against the cold earth and the chill shoots all the way up to my knees. I gaze at her for what seems like a small eternity, my breath not slowing, my heartbeat still stumbling along in a series of uncoordinated throbs.

This was a stupid idea.

"Well, come in, then."


My room's a mess. Fuck.

She glances around. My lights are on, and it makes her eyes catch said light and glow steadily.

I know I'll be the one to initiate this, so I start.

"So. I assume this is about pitying my poor arm?"

"Vriska. I... should measure you for the dress.. no... it's not about your arm... I just wanted to help..."

"Help?"

The word slips from my mouth like poison.

Kanaya nods.


So that's how I end up crouching on Vriska's floor, measuring her waist for the dress.

(...Yes, I brought a tape measure but didn't wear shoes. I don't really think when I'm tired.)

My fingers brush nervously against her flannel pajama pants as I work. When I get to her sides, I can't help but notice she's wearing a tank top that hugs her curves and comes just low enough to show cleavage.

I try and ignore this.

"You're weird, Maryam." Her voice floats down from above me, and my cheeks turn red.

"Be quiet and let me measure," is all I can say. Anything else would let her win- she's trying to provoke me, I can sense it.

Measuring her bust is difficult. She shivers and bites her lip as I wrap the tape around her chest, as if she's enjoying this.

All too soon, it's done and all written down and now she's watching me with extreme...

...worry? No.. That can't be right. I'm just so tired.

I'm just going to sit down for a second.

Just a...

...second.


"Wake up, Vriska."

The body next to mine is soft and warm, slender and lithe, and I happily cuddle closer because I'm freezing.

"...mom'll kill me," the voice adds, a twist of anxiety piercing it.

"So warm," I say happily.

"Vriska! Please wake up."

"Fuck you," I tell it and turn over...

...Only to meet directly with Kanaya's eyes.

They are an amazing jade green color.

"Your eyes are pretty," I say hopefully.

"Flattery won't get us to school," she frowns, but she looks pleased.

"Fuck." I feel my cheerfulness evaporating.

"Why are you here, anyway?" I add, snuggling up to her again for the warmth.

"I think I fell asleep while measuring you for the dress," she says reasonably. I nod.

"Let's skip school."

I suggest it just to provoke her. Ha. Her eyes flare up and she shakes her head vigorously. "I want perfect attendance!"

"No," I mumble and go back to sleep.


We take my car to school anyway. I hope Mom didn't notice it was gone from the driveway last night.

Oh, who am I kidding, she's going to murder me when I get home.

Vriska taps her foot against the dashboard.

"Get off my dash," I say immediately, and she rolls her eyes.

"When you wear my spare uniform, you let me do whatever the fuck I want, capiche?"

I laugh in spite of myself. Her skirt is too short for me; I prefer the long ones, but beggars can't be choosers, right?

The sun has begun to really come up, and I watch it furtively as we circle the parking lot like wolves, trying to find a spot. I don't want her to see me being so observant and sentimental. I feel as if she knows everything about me, but I know nothing about her.

She sees me watching it anyway.

"Like your poems, huh? Sunrise?"

I look over at Vriska in mild psuedoconfusion and mostly shame. She has her feet up regardless of my threats, and I can see that she's added red Converse to her uniform instead of the required loafers. She's breaking dress code again, and somehow she's managed to put shoes on without my notice or help despite the fractured arm. Her hair is tied back messily- for once- and her eyes burn through mine with such dark, sensual mystique that I can practically feel them searing the back of my head.

Dark, sensual mystique could also be rage. Note to self, it can always be rage.

"Yes, I suppose," is what I finally give her.

"I liked them okay."

"Uh, good," I say. I don't know her motives here. I don't think I ever will.

Vriska Serket remains a mystery.


School is vastly uneventful, besides the metric tons of detention afterwards. Detention is basically two hours of doing homework in a stifling-hot room, (stifling hot regardless of weather) while a substitute monitor stares at you, bored but unwilling to show it.

The fan whirs around (who turns on a fan when it's thirty degrees out? Honestly.) and I tap my pencil on the desk. I give up on the Statistics worksheet. It's impossible. Why do I need to know this? I've considered dropping out of school many times, but what would I do? I'd become aimless, drifting through life like a ghost.

This terrifies me more than a lot of things. I don't want to become a ghost. You write like someone who likes to make her presence known, no matter how horrible you are, the English teacher had written on my report. Well, without the horrible part, but it's implied based on the sheer amount of lectures I've been given in that class.

I do make my presence known.

I try, anyway.


Since Vriska went through my poetry notebook, I have no qualms about reading the assignment she gets back in English. It's just sitting there on the teacher's desk and nobody is here and while I wait to ask him my question I might as well have something to do.

Right?

Prompt: Write about something you want in a style that you do not normally write in.

Vriska's untidy scrawl fills the paper.

"[I want her to look at me and wince and be so jealous that blood shoots out of her ears all hot and feverish. I want the sugar on her lips to be ineffectual against my sharp wit, and I want the needles she holds to be bent and tangled up so she can't change the future with silly coercion. I want to call her by surname only until she begins to feel how it is to be Serket, and then I wanna tie our names together until they make a clash of tongues and teeth, ugly to spell but pretty to speak, or maybe I have it backwards. I want her cheeks to burn hot with my humiliation, and mine to smolder equally at her sarcasm. I want to choke the dictionary and write on its dead body my own definition of infatuation, one involving stupidity and cars and dancing and glass eyes and being a pirate. I want to be drunk on giddy lust and not cheap beer. I think this means I want to fall in love. But love is weak, so maybe not.]

I want the new girl to notice me."