A request.

Sorry I haven't updated in awhile. Life continues to eat me alive as I protest. Also, it's exam week, so any excuse to avoid math is fine with me. That includes updating this piece of feelsy bullshit.

if it helps: "telescope" by cage the elephant

"i am not a robot" by marina and the diamonds


vulnerable: humanstuck


The hospital waiting room is an awful place in general, and you feel worse by the minute as she slumps against your arm, muttering about how she's "fiiiiiiiine."

You've been watching the clock for two hours now. Your head is racing less now, but your palms are still sweaty and your throat is bone dry.

They call her back. You help her up and lead her to the room directed by the nurse. Voices drift through you and you listen numbly, fidgeting with threads on the fabric chair, the sticky surface lukewarm against the bare skin of your lower legs.

"Pneumonia" is mentioned, "IV" and "medicine." They try for her temperature and she bites down on the thermometer, shattering the glass tip. They murmur in disapproval as red runs down her chin like she's been in a fight.

They get a new thermometer.

Somewhere, at sometime o'clock in your haze of worry, a nurse asks your relationship to her. You almost say meddler, but correct yourself and whisper Friend. Her friend.

The people keep buzzing around you as the nurse tugs off Vriska's grey jacket. She holds back shivers, and minutes and years later you slip the thin hoodie on yourself, inhaling cigarettes and angry bloodshed and saltwater.

They make her get on the scale in her black tank top and jeans. You're struck by how skinny she is, elbows sharp as blades, cheeks flushed dark with cold despite the summer weather. They take notes and more notes as she spits harsh words in their faces and they confirm her condition as Definitely Pneumonia.

Your heart wrenches in the way it only can with a gaze from her blue eyes. She offers a fearless smirk, but you can always tell when she is scared. (A lot more than one would think.) Her sneaker is untied, dragging against the cold sterile hospital floor. An odd contrast. There's another rip in her jeans next to the one you just sewed up. Her blonde hair is a rat's nest.

She looks pathetic, you think, and immediately crush the thought like a soda can under a heavy boot. It's traitorous to have thoughts that undermine the "non-pathetic, damn brave, towering tower of self confidence Vriska Serket" (her words, not yours.)

A new, bearded doctor sweeps her into a bed, clicking a remote to bring her down to a reclining position as she licks her cracked lips and rolls her bloodshot eyes.

They do more hospital stuff. They attach her to a monitor for her heart, take her temp again, write more notes. When they take her blood, she looks at you, the slightest spark of terror manifesting in the creases between her eyebrows. Her veins, sticking out starkly against her thin skin, are purply-blue spiderwebs.

They call her a "brave girl" and she stifles a ridiculing snort. Of course I'm brave. I'm the bravest.

She clenches her fists, making the heart thing dance with lines and spikes. They ignore this comment, and she turns to you again, raising her brows and biting her lip. Your heart starts to pound at a speed that would alarm the entire cardiac unit.

Her knockoff Ray-Bans slide down her nose and you could swear they get caught on her eyelashes. She blows you an aimless kiss. You can't see to remember what lungs are or how to use them.

The nurse remaining in the room smiles. Y'all are cute.

Nah nah. We aren't... Vriska beats you to it. Your whole soul withers and dies a bit as she denies what you've pined for, what you've wanted and ached for and cried over...

"But we could be." You hear your own words like they're someone else's. You just told her what you want. A huge no-no in Vriskaland.

The room is silent except for the quick beeping of the machine. She stares at you, and for once you can't read her.

Looking closely at your face, she could be scowling or expressing confusion with that particular head-tilt. But it's neither, you're 100% sure.

The nurse has vanished. You want to cry as Vriska closes her eyes and doesn't bother to respond to your deepest confession.

Instead of being selfish for once and demanding an answer, you find yourself, predictably, with your hand on her wrist, saying something about her wanting help? She violently slams her hand on the bed and yells no, then bursts into a choking cough, her face turning blue.

As if you've been preparing for this job your whole life, you push the help button on the bed.

In moments, doctors come in and begin making her breathe. They stabilize her in a flurry of calm movement and she passes out in safe exhaustion.

You ponder if she'd mind if you held her and figure she's never going to know. You silently inch ono her bed and gather her still form into your arms. She's hard in places, her tight muscles and razor fingernails, but her hair is cloud soft and smells like sea salt and kiwi- your body wash. Doesn't she know about shampoo?

You feel yourself getting warm, your feelings deepening and softening and intensifying, and she turns over to rest against you. You sense her need for affection, the false confidence bleeding out from holes in her heart.

She deserves this once and awhile because she isn't a terrible person at all. She's one of the best people you know, despite what she secretly thinks.

"Kan," she whispers hoarsely, opening her eyes. You're curled around her shoulders and sides, clutching her, and she understands. She looks into your eyes again and you understand too. You touch her hot forehead and run your fingers through her hair, removing as many knots as you can. Closing her eyes, she presses closer, murmuring in her fever dreams, her heart monitor steadily beeping at a reasonable pace.

"I love you," she says suddenly, and you feel certain she's never said those words to anyone before.


la fin