Terezi is munching her way through another tin of human fatherly tobacco as john crawls into the back seat. this has been their ritual for several days. precisely how many, they couldn’t say. between her frequent naps and his diligence in keeping a lookout for any additional survivors, they have been losing track of time. john, eyes unfocused, stares at the expanse of nothingness. perhaps he imagines it, but it seems as if the emptiness itself is curving against the staggering weight of the black hole they orbit.

he hasn’t seen any sign of vriska. he’s seen no one at all. it’s just him, terezi, and the sky on all sides. he scoots back to lean against the car door, drawing his knees up to his chest, unsure how to act around terezi or how much room to give her.

she holds out a handful of tobacco.

she shrugs and licks the crumbs off her hand. his eyes can’t help but follow the motion of her tongue. it leaves a trail of faintly teal saliva behind that glistens in the strange light coming through the windows.

she gives him a narrow-eyed look. her thick eyelashes shadow her gaze. he feels anxious without knowing why. it’s as if he’s waiting for something to happen. for something to change.

terezi’s expression changes in a subtle way, slowly, like the tide pulling out. she snaps the tobacco tin shut and sets it down on the floor of the car.

he unfolds his legs, so he can set a comforting hand on her shoulder. he wonders if he’s allowing it to linger there longer than it should.

he pushes her shoulder, lightly, so that they’re looking at each other.

terezi makes very close eye and nose contact with john, in a way that comes across as intently sincere. this arrangement lasts for about ten seconds before her mouth cracks in a grin, and she doubles over laughing.

she pulls her legs up under her. her shoes catch the light and reflect it all over the ceiling in little red dots. john’s heart skips a beat.

terezi frowns, and then her eyes widen as if she’s been caught. her reply is defensive.

the doomed timeline, he means. the state of the session he entered, where he was confronted with billions of pieces of debris from several shattered planets. he pictures terezi’s lifeless body as it collapses onto a corpse-shaped chalk outline she drew for herself.

suddenly, terezi’s voice is very small.

she nods, smiling grimly.

his hand is on her shoulder again. and his other hand has found the other shoulder. john notices his own palm grazing up the side of her neck to cup her face. the act was made with barely a thought, and his own boldness surprises himself.

terezi shrugs out from under his grasp but doesn’t move away.

john swallows a thick breath. he reminds himself that he never wanted perfection, never asked for it. and yet he feels guilty every day for failing to enjoy it as much as he believes he was supposed to.

a tear hits his knee, staining his pants dark. he rubs his eyes furiously. he’s afraid terezi will mock him for his childish display of emotion. but she just watches him, patient and sympathetic.

she tips her head to one side, and asks,

she taps her nose and winks.

john wonders, after he makes the statement: what if she just needed someone to tell her that she was missed? a bit late to consider the question, but he considers it anyway. perhaps this will make her want to end this search and come home with him.

he wonders if the time is right. the time to ask.

she shakes her head. her face is turned against the light so he can’t read her expression.

he gestures to where she still has a smear of shaving cream on the hem of her shirt, crusted over from sitting there for hours. she sniffs at the residue, then lifts her shirt to lick it off, crinkling her nose.

it seems to him like an uncontroversial compromise to offer, so he pulls back, preparing to travel back to earth c via his retcon capability. but terezi grabs him by the wrist.

her eyes are wide, her voice cracked and desperate.

he has no idea how to react to her behavior. he’s never seen her this vulnerable. she’s shaking where she is touching him, and her lower lip is visibly trembling. he nods, and she slowly lets go of his arm.

they are silent for a minute. they both stare ahead at the car seats in front of them, sitting close enough to hear the beat of each other’s hearts.

john had gotten so used to the pain, he’d almost forgotten about it. he looks down at the place where his shirt has grown stiff from the congealed blood. now that he dwells on it, he can feel the ache again, both from the tooth piercing his flesh and, more insidiously, from the poison it has been delivering into his bloodstream.

he rolls his eyes. terezi produces her cane and unsheathes the blade in one fluid motion. the metal rasps against the grain of its sheath, rather loudly. I’m sorry, what? No it doesn’t. the noise resounds throughout the sealed interior of the car Actually, drawing a sword is pretty quiet. It only makes that sound in the movies. and rings through john’s skull like a gunshot.

Are you seriously manifesting inaccurate physical properties of swords for the sole purpose of antago john reflexively backs up against the door at Oh, fuck this. the sight of the blade.

he holds still. her eyebrows are knitted with fierce determination. she sets a hand on his thigh and draws the blade up under his shirt. he shivers, letting out a breathy laugh at the coolness of the metal against his bare chest. there is a pinch when the congealed, bloody fabric rips from his skin.

he glances down. the wound looks worse than he was imagining, is far more than just a puncture. an uncanny darkness spreads across his chest. the gash is scabbing at the edges, bruised all around. his entire torso appears to be a mottled mess of purple and yellow, like a sort of fancy earth cheese. terezi’s blade cuts into it as easily as if it were.

she’s close enough that her breath washes over his face. it smells like shaving cream and tobacco, which is jarring to him, if not surprising. she is without her glasses, and so close that john notices things he hasn’t had occasion to before. like how lovely her eyes are. the length of her eyelashes, now that he’s really seeing them just inches from his face, is astounding to him. he has never thought of terezi as particularly feminine, at least in the way humans understand this idea. but he has never been forced to reckon with her features so unavoidably.

the dark borders around the perimeter of her eyes are thicker and darker than what most trolls have. the tired bags under them are ditches in the shadows cast by her angular features, made more gaunt from hunger. when she blinks, her lashes brush the ridges of her cheekbones.

her nostrils are flared, assessing the scent of his blood.

he presses his eyes shut, and nods. he feels numb, clammy, jittering down to his bones from a particular sensation. a feeling he still seems to be denying to himself. as his own thoughts struggle to be honest with him, he cannot disguise the truth from me. what he is fighting is an intense desire to kiss her.

she grinds the sword between two of his ribs. the pain returns instantly, his acclimation erased nearly as quickly. he clenches his jaw hard, and his head spins. terezi’s blade catches against something.

he can feel the tooth moving around against his flesh, the fibrous, spasmodic contractions of his muscles around it. when she wrenches the blade and pops the tooth out, he isn’t proud of the sound he makes.

he finally opens his eyes. terezi’s arms are covered in his blood. she tosses the sword down to the floor of the car, in what suddenly strikes john as a fairly unhygienic surgical situation, and grabs his shirt with two clenched, red fists.

she peels him out of his hoodie and then his shredded t-shirt. he’s dizzy. his vision wavers, fades. it takes terezi’s sudden grip on his shoulder to bring him back from the brink. the brink of what, he doesn’t know. unconsciousness. canonic dissolution. he has no cognizance of what the poison in his veins does to someone, or that it’s even in his system. all he knows is that terezi is the only thing keeping him moored. she holds him firm, her thumb in the dip of his clavicle, her sharp nails etching scores in his back.

he watches her tear his t-shirt into a long strip. he lifts his arms obediently as she wraps it around his chest and ties it off. her hands slide over the bandage and linger there. her fingers splay on his collarbones, her right hand resting above his heart. she slides her palms down his stomach, then around to his hips, leaving long bloody streaks along his torso. his blood, ten uneven tracks of it, one for each of her fingers.

when his arms come down, they wrap around her shoulders. pulling her into his lap feels natural to him. a simple redirection of her momentum, to guide her closer. what comes less naturally is the first kiss. her lips are there, hovering just over his. yet he hesitates. his mind is still lying to itself, casting doubt on what it really wants. i don’t see a purpose in allowing his self-deceit to continue for much longer. it’s wrong to contradict one’s true thoughts and feelings. irrational. unbecoming of an existence governed by free will.

what are you waiting for, john?

he nods stupidly, and leans forward to kiss her. terezi attacks, closing the gap between them swiftly. she bites into his mouth, drawing blood when she sucks his lower lip. he twists his hands in the fabric of her shirt so hard it rides up her back.

john can’t tell if it’s the pain or the arousal that’s emboldening him. it is neither. he is simply being barred from ignoring his true thoughts. even without the aid of a juju, he is fortunate enough to be blessed with the only true form of divinity. to be released from the prison of nonsensical inhibitions which so often psychologically hobble the more primitive forms of life. in his newfound clarity he discovers bravery, pulls terezi’s shirt off all the way, and does what he really wants to do, which is ghost his hands all the way up the curve of her spine.

she sighs into his mouth.

terezi rears back with a faint snarl and wraps both her hands around his neck. she doesn’t press down, but the weight of her thumbs above his throat makes his heart race.

careful of her grip around his neck, john locks his arms around her waist and pulls her flush against him. she’s ravenous when their mouths collide, her desire intensified by the taste and scent of his blood. she doesn’t give him a chance to say anything else for a while, stupid or otherwise.