Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The sheets are warm beneath your fingers.

You make a familiar groggy reach for the glasses folded atop your nightstand, sliding them onto your face and watching as your bedroom snaps into clarity. The lingering memory of blood stains your atmosphere with the scent of copper. Green lighting flashes behind your eyelids, every blink sending snapshots of a battlefield thundering inside your head. Your fists clench tight enough to leave crescents in your palms, the muscles in your arms tensing, even in the absence of warhammer clashing against red-stained sword.

The ghost-print blankets covering you are tossed aside, and you leap up from your bed. There’s no time for a slow flooding of memories, or gradual recovery from temporary amnesia. One thought registers, loud and clear.

You’d broken the game.

You find the bathroom mirror, and you look older than you remember.

You’re wearing blue fleece footie pyjamas; the Hero of Breath symbol is emblazoned in aqua across your chest, the rubber-bumped soles of your covered feet decked in bright yellow. This outfit still has your massive windsock of a hood trailing behind you (which comes as a mild relief, seeing as you’d grown rather attached to it).

The thin, sharp slices of flesh stolen by Noir’s blade tingle beneath your skin, but you pull back your sleeves back and see nothing, nothing as non-existent wounds prickle your nerves in afterthought.
You unzip the top of your pyjamas and you lean in and you can still feel it, the ghosting pins and needles of an invisible sword skewering through you. You watch your fingers trace absently across your bare, scrawny chest. There’s a gentle pulse beneath smooth, unscarred skin, and a realization.

(It’s over.)

(That means...)

You dash out of the bathroom with renewed excitement. A quick movement, and you find you can still fly; you reach the end of the second floor hallway where your bathtub used to be, and you hover down, landing softly at the bottom of the stairs.

(Gotta find him.)

Your world is now one without the game.

The walls and floors of your home are free from slicks of oily black. The view from the window is of your neighbourhood--your neighbourhood!--a place you hadn’t realized you missed so dearly. You pass your windows and smile as the warmth of the sun tickles your skin. You’d almost forgotten what the sun felt like, at least one that wasn’t green and ginormus and threatened to compromise your entire existence if it wasn’t handled just so.

Frustration knits your brows together, impatience increases your searching speed.

(Where is he?)

In your urgency, you don’t see that the walls around you are bare of paintings and caricatures. You don’t notice that every harlequin figurine and statue and novelty lamp you’ve ever grown to know and hate is absent from the rooms.

You reach the living room again, and you realize neither Nanna’s portrait nor her ashes could be found atop the fireplace.

You are now zooming throughout your house in a panic.

Your heart is pounding, fiercely, same as before. Same as when you stared death in the face for the third time, the weapon Vriska had helped you alchemize in your grip and the fate of your universe on your shoulders. Same as when your body slowly remembered how to work after your first resurrection, causing you to stumble around in dull pain as the thudding of your heartbeat grew to a proper rhythm and you taught yourself how to breathe again.

The sensation stabbing your chest from the inside is much, much worse.

You’re floating in the kitchen, and you’re three years old, sitting on the counter, licking the chocolate-covered spoon from a batter he’d just mixed.

You’re hovering on the balcony, and you’re in the fifth grade, your arms and legs sticking out between the wooden bars of the second floor patio balcony while you snack on an after school pop-tart, waiting for the sight of his car to pull into the driveway.

You’re standing in your bedroom, and it’s your thirteenth birthday; he’s downstairs cooking for you, and the smell of baked goods is making your overloaded stomach turn.

You’re trembling in your living room, and the idea that he isn’t here drops your aching heart to your buckling knees.

...dad?

You whisper in a house you know is empty, save for you.

The resulting silence pains you more than any sound in the world.

A loud tapping at the upstairs window jolts you from your thoughts, and you jump a good foot off the ground. You keep the height as you levitate back up and out to your balcony.

A familiar, long-haired girl stands on your lawn, her arm cocked back, holding another large pebble in her hand. If you squint a little, she looks just like you, and you don’t know if that insults your mangrit or compliments hers.

holy shit, jade? is that you?

Her buck-toothed smile pinches the skin beneath her wide, bespectacled green eyes. She jumps in joy waving up at you. Her strapped black dress, glittering with green sparkles, bounces prettily around her skinny, island-tanned legs.

You soar off the banister. She leaps when she hugs you, catching you mid-air.

thank goodness! i had a feeling we would find you here and youre here!! youre here youre here youre here!!!

The sound of her delighted laughter brings a grin to your face. You hold her close and spin her around and don’t set her down until you see the others approaching from behind her.

The first thing that strikes you about Rose is that she is no longer grimdark. Her dress is a sweeping black nightgown with opaque pink long-sleeves and a thin ribbon hugging her waist to match. Her hair is white, bright white, almost glowing--the faint grey tint of her skin seemed darker because of it.

Dave still has his shades on, and you feel a warm appreciation in realizing he cherishes those stupid things so much. Right now, he's shirtless beneath a red and black smoking jacket, fuzzy black slippers covering his feet. The pattern of records on his red boxers is more than familiar.

You are thoroughly confused.

what is going on? where are we? and what the heck are we wearing?

weeeeeeell

i think waking up in our beds with our normal outfits turned into pyjamas signals the end of the game somehow

but john the point is we won! we did it!!

Yes, it appears the Resurfacing Virus was successful in repairing the tear initially caused by the Rift, and I believe we are currently located in the new universe resulting from our recent victory.

does anyone else feel a draft

dave i told you to put pants on before we left. are you too coooool for pants?

ice cold babe

couldnt cover these stems in fabric without risking freezer burn

got hired for the monochromatic portion of a ziploc commercial so they could record incompetent strangers mishandling my legs

salarys paid in pants made out of plastic baggies with smart zip seals instead of buttons

boom i instantly become a walking choking hazard to stupid pets and stupider children

gotta keep that freshness locked in

Jade shoves Dave’s shoulder, laughing, and he smirks before turning to you.

by the way kudos on the fight back there thor its a good thing you like hammers

i mean you know in spite of the fact you didnt even try using the weapon i gave you the blueprints for

not like i went out of my way to con the denizen of blacksmithing for you or anything like that no big deal

Rose picks up on the nature of your silence first.

You can’t say you’re surprised.

She touches a hand to your shoulder when she approaches you. There’s worry in her lavender eyes. It makes you feel young, and stupid.

Are you alright?

Your nod convinces no one.

john if theres something you want to say...

seriously man you dont cause the destruction of the universe with a bunch of people then not tell them whats yanking your chain

spit it out

btw i didnt mean that shit i said about the hammer

no no, it’s not that, it’s just.

he’s gone.

You can see the weight returning to everyone’s postures, you can feel the way their breathing changes, but you can’t bring yourself to feel guilty about it. You can’t bring yourself to feel much of anything right now.

The expression in Rose’s eyes is replaced with gloom and sympathy.

I didn’t want to say anything until we had at least deciphered where and when we are, but so far, it seems as if anyone or anything that may have died during the course of the game has been lost permanently to it.

You bite back the tears welling in your eyes. You smile when you look over at them, the three people who have taunted time and cheated death, the partners who have been by your side to the ends of paradox space and back again, the friends who now by fate’s command know exactly how you feel.

i’m sorry.

this is our whole new universe now and we are in this together and it is so great to be here with you guys alive and kicking but

i can’t stop thinking about how he isn’t here anymore.

he can’t be here to see the world we all fought for and he can’t be here to know that we won and

he won’t be here to watch me get into high school or teach me how to shave and we’ll never go camping or play the piano together again and he won’t be here to cook breakfast in the morning and he won’t be here to tuck me in at night and

i can’t even remember what the last thing i said to him was.

You voice breaks.

Your fists are bundling again, nails digging even harder against the markings in your palm.

i thought. i thought for sure winning would bring them back. everyone. that is why i wanted to finish this so badly. if it can spawn a whole universe, why can’t it bring them back?

...he’s gone, rose.

Slow and careful, she slides her arms around you, cradling a hand against the back of your head. You press your nose to her shoulder.

She strokes your hair, softly, keeping her voice lowered enough for your ears only.

He would be so proud of you.

Your fingers tighten in the back of her dress.

And for the first time in a long time, you cry.