Chapter Text
Written anonymously for Captchalogue way waaaaay waaaaaaaay back in the day Right Here.
-- gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG] --
GC: D4V3!!!
TG: oh wow things i don't need more of:
TG: terezi's bullshit
TG: yup
-- turntechGodhead [TG] has blocked gallowsCalibrator [GC] --
- but the ruins of Earth and Alternia are inextricably wound together now (that's part of the bullshit) and she just tracks him down. He hears the click-clack-click of her cane tapping against the stone and doesn't bother to run. He's too cool for that and besides, Terezi's a crazy bitch who will just sniff him down like a vampiric bloodhound anyway and that's not even a metaphor. He shoves his hands in his pockets and leans back against the wall, watching the fractured Veil turn above him; he doesn't even look at her when she stops in front of him, mouth cracked wide open with her creepy, toothy smile. Not that it matters much cause she's blind and all but it's the principle of the matter.
"You can't do this, Dave. I'm going to stop you!"
"How did you even fucking find out?" Dave doesn't quite curb the edge in his voice, but it's close enough. Not even Rose has figured it out yet although he's sure that's more a case of exceptional and unusual short-sightedness on her part. Hard to pick apart your stoic friend's heroic but suicidal intentions when you're sneaking around planning your own dumbshit kamikazee assault.
Terezi clasps her hands over the top of her cane and tips her head to one side, "Because blind people have senses that other people don't. And because you're pretty obvious, Dave. Not very cool at all this time."
Get this girl out of my head. She's like some terrible love song circa 1995, always inside his mind and reading his heart or whatever. Real Bryan Adams stuff going on here, "Not nearly as endearing as you think it is," he mutters.
"Dave, relax."
"I am. Chilling out. Relaxing. I'm maxing all cool." he says, his hands shaking.
Her smile folds in on itself, turning into one of those weird pouts she does, like that dumb emoticon with the question mark in it, "Is this you, Dave?" she asks, resting her cane against her side and framing Dave inside her thumbs and forefigners, "Standing here, shaking and upset- all terrified and convinced that you're the most expendable player?"
"Not nearly as endearing as you think it is." he repeats steadily, "And please don't tell me that you can smell shaking. The rest I can buy, but that's too much. My belief is suspended like a crack-addicted trapieze artist at this point."
"I told you already. I know you better than you know yourself! Your mind is an open book to me right now and you don't have your mind made up about this nearly as much as you think." she's still got her fingers pressed together like a fake camera frame and despite what he said earlier, it is a little endearing. There's always been a bit of gravity between him and Terezi- she gets him like a knife cutting through butter. Like Rose does, really, except instead of measured and helpful she's kind of a sociopath and she's kind of shameless and
Dave kind of likes her
"Hey, T-Z, that's what I meant about you and my grill. You are all up in it."
"Maybe just a little," she admits, her hands falling to her side in a dismissive shrug, "But this time it's for the Greater Good!" and the way she says it you just know it has capital letters, "I know what you told John and you're lucky that he's a moron and believes that a Doomed Dave blowing up the Green Sun will really result in anything except a paradoxical split timeline." here, she has the audacity to poke Dave in the chest, "But I know better than that. I've seen the future so you should believe me here, Dave. You're not expendable."
"Oh I see. But Rose is." he counters flatly. Terezi just sighs and gestures uselessly with one hand.
"The battlefield on Skaia is kind of like a chess board, right? So think of it as chess. John is the King. You gotta keep him. Rose is the Queen- she can make the most moves, but it's not over if she's gone. You-"
"Yeah, and Jade?"
Terezi's frown twists a little, "Look, I have no idea what Jade is, okay. She's a weirdo. But you. You're ever other piece on the board. That means we can lose a few of you, Dave, bits and pieces, but when you're all used up the game can't be played. At all."
"So you're saying," and Dave has to take a deep breath to keep his voice from cracking, "That if I die, it's an auto-lose. Game over, the last dance, the last duet for you and me?"
"Basically, yeah. It's more complicated than that, but the point is you have to live. Trust me- I'm just trying to help."
Dave considers her for a long, tense moment. She's not showing any teeth, her shoulders slumped but her pose confident. One of her eyebrows is quirked but that might not mean anything at all- Terezi's poker face isn't the same as his; it's the opposite and it's even more (impossibly) inscrutable. But the only thing worse than dying he can imagine is letting Rose go through with her plan and sacrifice herself. "I don't believe you." he says finally. It's not really true. He kind of does. He kind of believes Terezi's bullshit but like hell if he's going to ever admit that.
Not one to be defeated so easily, Terezi reaches for his face, her rough-skinned fingers brushing against his cheekbones delicately and for about five whole really terrible seconds Dave is worried that she's going to kiss him. Instead, she gently lifts his sunglasses off the bridge of his nose and hides them behind her back and because the alternative is to flail at her like an idiot, Dave fufills her creepy red fetish and stares at her evenly.
"Have I ever lied to you?" she wonders, an odd sincerity tugging all pout-faced and wounded at the edge of her words and features.
"You-" Dave doesn't finish his thought but dead Johns and Doomed Daves and God Tiers are all in there, unspoken and implied.
"To you." she repeats with emphasis, "Have I ever lied to you. I've lied a whole lot to other people, Dave, but not to you. Not like I'm gonna start now."
Dave feels his composure slipping as he runs out of ways to belittle her argument. He slumps against the wall and tries to sort of make it like the shadow of his bangs covers his eyes which is just about the lamest thing he could be doing but, "Are you saying that Rose is supposed to die? This is something that's supposed to happen?"
Terezi sets her jaw firmly, pauses for moment, and then nods. Resolutely.
"... okay." Dave whispers and he covers his face with one hand. Eventually, she gives him back his sunglasses.
The next day Rose leaves
with the tumor
headed for the Green Sun.
"It's okay." Terezi says when she doesn't come back, "We've got an extra Seer."