Soteriophobia and Snark

sound and fury, a high school au


I wake up with the most extensive and ridiculous hangover I have ever had ever.

"OH MY GOD, MY HEAD HURTS ARGHFUCK," I whisper, but I must've actually shouted or something, because Kanaya, a breathtaking vision in a sheer nightgown, winces and closes her eyes.

"What happened last night?"

"You snuck into my room and scared the daylights out of me and then you fell asleep here."

The pretty girl continues to make her bed, (wait- I moved to the chair? I actually got out of bed!? I have no idea what I'm doing today!) neatly fluffing pillows as she does so. Somehow, this is incredibly soothing to watch, so instead of being a bitch I speak in a tone that's oddly childish.

"Why do you make your bed?"

"Why don't you?"

Stubborn and somewhat cutely victorious about her comment, Kanaya turns on her heel and disappears into her large walk-in closet for a few minutes, emerging looking demure and calm. (Damn. I miss her smug smirk already.) For our dressed-down uniformless Friday, she seems to have chosen her first-day outfit; the long red sparkly skirt and white blouse, with the addition of an unbuttoned dark sweater. Her lips are sweet-looking, sugary as candy, I think out of nowhere, and immediately blame my hangover.

I realize I have yet to return a witty remark.

"Because I... don't want to." It starts out to be a strong statement ending in a curse, but then it peters out and becomes kinda pathetic-sounding.

"You shouldn't drink."

That was random.

I make a noncommittal noise at her and she moves closer, fussing over me.

She tuts over the state of my hair and it takes me a few seconds after that to realize she's carefully dressing me in jeans and one of her T-shirts.

"You sure I won't steal this when today's over?" I laugh bitterly at my own lame attempt at a poor person joke, but my mind is a million miles away. I'm only focusing on the feeling of her soft hands, her long fingers on my shoulders and my waist and oh God!-

"Vriska? Are you okay? You're hyperventilating."

"I'm fine-" I don't know pain anymore, even in my arm, because she's frowning in concern and it is disconcerting how close she is to me and the temperature of my face rises ten billion degrees.

"Okay, if you say so..." I know that voice because it is mine in most of my life: wary. I feel a rush of gratitude that she obviously doesn't believe me, doesn't try to wrap her tongue around my lies and swallow them whole. She keeps disbelief in that lovely head, keeps it held close to her the way she should, because I am Vriska Serket. Everyone should doubt me and nobody should trust me.


We make it out the door without being stopped by my parents because they left for work, thank God. I'm glad they see me as responsible and not necessarily hosting a hungover delinquent, and I'm glad they allow me to get up and ready all by myself.

I actually feel a little bad for betraying this trust, as I drive us both in the general direction of school. We make a detour by Vriska's so she can grab her schoolbooks, and she runs back out and hops in the car with frantic speed, as if worried I'll leave her.

"I wouldn't have..." I don't end the sentence because she tilts her head up and closes her eyes, obviously dismissing me for a moment.

I sense something dark and profound on her mind, as she wears her sternest philisophical revolutionary look. I tense and anticipate a deep observation.

She shakes hair out of her eyes.

"As a kid, I played pretend I was a pirate."

God damn it, she's almost obnoxious in her unpredictibility.

"Uh... what?"

This is, of course, by now my default response to Vriska-isms. I grimace at how I sound, then grimace at my display of self-conciousness-by-grimacing. (I'm probably too weird.)

"I seriously had this whole made up world and I would have my huge ship with all this treasure and shit in it and my name was Marquise Spinneret Mindfang and I had mind control powers and I fought the aristocrats to get their jewelry. Everybody feared Mindfang, and nobody messed with her or told her to do her homework or hollered that she was a lazy bitch who'd never amount to anything. No, they called her the greatest pirate the world has ever seen. As a child I had fantasies about knocking people out or even killing them with cannons and then stealing their treasure and laughing. Haha, that's the end of a life, ha ha time to celebrate. Isn't that pretty fucked up?"

"No," I tell her uselessly, because of course it is. If Vriska thinks something's fucked up, nobody changes her mind.

"But I learned to curse just so I could be more like a pirate and just was so eager to spit those words in a teachers' faces, make their eyes grow huge at the impudent girl, the rebel, the queen of the pirates. I was a psycho. Still am. I still sit up in trees and pretend they're my ship, in the back of my mind. And then I fall out of trees and break bones."

Her bitter tirade against the sins she has so willingly given hersef over to stirs something in me, a memory, the ghost of a boy running after me and calling me something.

"We used to play grand games too," I say haltingly. "I was an officer, or a sheriff, or a jail guard, and my friends were all robbers, and I had to catch them. I always let the worst ones go for some reason. Maybe because they were always the cute ones."

Vriska swivels in alarm, her shoe squeaking across the dashboard.

"Don't ever let the bad ones go," she says. "They deserve to be caught."

"I... it was just a game..."

"But it matters."

"All the kids played games..."

"No!" Rattly urgency is heard in her voice and she jerks my shoulder hard. (I take a moment to be thankful that we are at a train crossing and aren't moving.)

"Kanaya," she uses my name for the second time ever, "don't you see? You become who you play. I'm a pirate. You're still good, you have a chance."

"Your philosophy is ridiculous," I breathe, suddenly unable to process everything at once. The slow mournful hum of the train, the people staring from the windows wondering about things that have nothing to do with us, the Moon revolving around the Earth where we are and the Earth where we are revolving around the Sun, the brightness of which is somehow peeking through the clouds, the urgency of the setting and Vriska's face so close to mine is all too much.

"Then kiss me, Miss Righteous," Marquise Spinneret Mindfang tilts her head and gazes at me with eyes that are fantasy forever.

In the part of my brain reserved for terrible humor and snarkiness, I think it would be ironic and hilarious if she actually was a pira-

My hand on the steering wheel is numb, as is the other hand, which now rests on her waist. My lips move then, becoming free of feeling as they encounter hers.

Our makeout session (is it possible to make out with her? That phrase is so superficial. This... this thing... deserves a grander term, one that isn't used by the people who don't understand Us. But anything else sounds cheesy, so making out it is) is interrupted by angry honks from behind us. A small line of cars waits for us to move; the train has passed and we're remaining at a standstill.

"Damn the Man," Vriska, who is now not Mindfang, says as she settles against my shoulder.

"I'm trying to drive. Don't put your head there. It's dangerous."

"Scaredy-cat," she grins, showing sharper teeth than agreeable people usually have. Then again, she isn't very agreeable.

We get to school.

"Come on." She pulls me along by the hand, right into the building, and she doesn't drop it when we get into the main hall. Instead, she cackles wickedly, throwing her head back, a triumphant pirate, and we make an unbelievably fancy entrance, because we're running. Running, two differently-dressed-one-messy-one-neat sixteen-year-old girls, laughing like idiots, backpacks bouncing all over the place.

Equius's voice resounds like a bullhorn in front of us.

"No running in the-"

"Fuck the police!" Vriska cries enthusiastically at him, swinging my hand. I accept her cheerfulness and find myself gaining it too, and we run and laugh and snicker until we're both positively giddy.

"I can't believe we just ran through the hallway." The shock is still somewhat new to an inexperienced rule breaker (me.) Vriska, troublemaker extraordinaire, merely smirks and wags a finger.

"We did, though. And it's better now."

"What's better?"

"The school."

"Why?"

"Because nobody fucks with Mindfang."

I laugh.

"Don't even ask me what we are, because I don't know," she sings, setting the words to a tune unfamiliar to me.

"We're..."

"We're cohorts, Maryam, and do you know what cohorts do?"

"They're in cahoots?"

"Yes!" She seizes my hand and grins again, that rare smile I've seen a total of maybe four times.

"Let's be horribly awesome teenage stereotypes," she suggests.

I'm laughing too hard, and too much happiness is filling me. I am rendered speechless, instead letting the mixture of our mirth serve as a pact of agreement.

Yes.


I can't decide how I feel.

I study my cohort's head and think about kissing her, the small noises she makes, the little motions of her soft tongue on mine.

Meh, words are overrated for this anyway.


The dance is tonight. I can't believe that never crossed my mind this morning.

I'm curling the fringes of my hair, having just taken a long shower and used up the last of my sweet-smelling lotion.

I still feel faint pangs of jealousy that Vriska is going with Tavros. I gave her the dress at the end of the day, and she'd touched my hand briefly, smiled and disappeared.

She hasn't tried it on in front of me. I hope it fits, otherwise I'll feel awful.

I shake my head vigorously. I should worry about my own current preoccupations.


There is a knock on my door at precisely six-ten. It sounds hesitant and shy, and right away I know who it is. I gulp down butterflies. Nobody's ever seen me in a dress.

Phhh, nervousness. Mindfang isn't nervous. Be Mindfang, Vriska.

"Hey," I smile confidently (I hope), opening it to see- yes, Tavros. He looks somewhat adorable in his suit jacket, white shirt and tie.

"You look nice," he stammers, handing me a corsage. I accept it with my standard smirk and nod. Gotta keep up the delinquent image.

"So do you," I finally say, when he has helped me into his car, an old rickety affair that's probably in worse shape than Damien.

We get there on time. (Punctuality is strange and new to me, but it's okay.)

I feel very nervous.

God. I am such a cliche.


A/N: One more chapter till this story-in-story is over. The oneshots will continue.

Thank you for all of my reviews. I love you guys. Endless hearts. :)