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The thing about quitting is, once you do that motherfucker right, you start to be able to see how bad you'd fuck yourself up if you went back on the poison. A brother gets in the habit of being able to follow a thought, track it down in its motherfucking den and murder it when he damn well pleases. Your ragey little palebrother up and alchemized some recuperacoons for all the survivors, figured out how to get that machine to spit out enough slime to go around, and the humans even went and figured out a cookalizer. You could be stuffing your face with motherfucking pies any old time you wanted to. It's just that lately, there ain't really any times when you want to.
And your palebro, he comes around sometimes to check on how you're doing, but he's all up and found himself angry hissing pale for everyone on this fucking rock (except his own motherfucking self, and that right there grieves you fierce), so he's got a lot of shit to be juggling all the fucking time. Which means you, for your part, got a lot of time.
You get to know the back ways and side ways and wrong ways of this whole motherfucking space lab. You figure out how to get places without nobody having a clue you're there. You find places you can go when you want to watch the others doing their thing, and places you can go when you don't want none of those motherfuckers breathing the same air as you. You talk to all the friends you got stashed in your sylladex—Tavbro most of all, cause you never did get to really tell him what you wanted to before, but you don't let the others feel left out. You're all in this motherfucking dark together.
You watch them heretical motherfuckers messing around, killing time like a pack of little bored pouncebeasts, playing with their prey but not really giving a damn about making it bleed. Bright shining Kan-sister that you can barely look at without your eyeballs trying to melt right down into your paint. Kan's cool-cucumber human ladyfriend, with her sharp little smile and the hint of something old and motherfucking wicked in the backs of her eyes. That goofy little mayor dude that could have been such good friends with Tav. That MOTHERFUCKING HERETIC pink monkey boy that all up and made everything go wrong.
And whip-sweet hungry killer Terezi Pyrope.
First time you catch a decent gander at her after you all start this little interstellar avalanche rolling, she ain't so much the one you been looking for. You been maybe keeping an eye on her monkey boy, just kind of all motherfucking casual, maybe having a think here and there about cracking open that motherfucker's braincage to see if you can figure out where the FUCK he went all so wrong in there to think that pissing all over a brother's miracles was a clever move. Just having a think about that, maybe tossing a club to catch, end-over-end, flip-flip-catch to feel its weight land in your palm. Not making any real plans right at the present moment, just having a little ponder in the dark, you and your clubs.
You feel the prickle up your back as your club flips in the air, and the second you gotta wait to catch it makes your lips skin right back from your fangs. You turn around good and slow, and maybe you got a little chucklevoodoos starting to fire up in your nerves, starting to breathe out into the air around you. Terezi is standing in the nearest doorway, head cocked a little to the side with this listening face like a carrionbeast's, black lips parted for slick blue-green tongue. Tasting you and your chucklevoodoos on the air.
"Ain't this a motherfucking treat," you croon, rolling the club over the back of your knuckles, catching it again. Never used to be so easy, before your hands got this big. Before your thinkpan got this clear. "My sweet little bloodhound kill sister."
Her grin splits all the way across her face, showing you all those motherfucking pretty pointy edges. "Keeping out of trouble?" she says. She doesn't smile like you're both in on the same joke. She smiles like she knows you're about to take a fall. "I'd hate to think you were taking advantage of your temporary reprieve to commit further crimes."
You grin back, wondering whether she can scent that on the air, the way your lips go quirked up at the edges, the way that creases your paint. "Chica, you can't tell me it'd be no motherfucking crime to break what's made to be broken." A new thought peeks out from behind the curtain like a little tease. "Or you telling me you got to feeling some ash all up in your blood pusher, and you want to get between me and that heretic monkey?"
Terezi laughs, this full-throated giddy cackle like a savannah pack huntbeast, and that sound plays up and down the lengths of all your bones. That sound does things to you, even before she says, "The coolkid can handle his own strife. I'm not here on anyone else's behalf."
"No?" You might be just a little bit fucking interested right here. She ought to be feeling your chucklevoodoos pretty bad, but she's standing her ground, even if she's holding on a little too tight to that cane. "Motherfucking personal business you got all up in here, huh?"
She settles her shoulders, relaxing all purposeful and still showing you her teeth. "Watch your step," she says sweetly. "That's all. Or the long noose of the law will haul your delinquent posterior up to dance the convict's waltz when you least expect it."
Motherfucking invitation if you ever did hear one. You lunge for her, hands out to catch, maybe about to rip her open, maybe not—and your claws get only air, as she skitters out of your path like a little long-tailed scalebeast. She's still giggling as she absconds back to the lights and company of the rest of the lab.
And you? You've got fire licking all up your insides, burning sweet and hot and black.
You figure, might as well do some proper motherfucking courting, let her know how much you appreciate that nasty streak she up and got for you. There's sneaky ways into just about every place on this asteroid, and you know the most of them out of anybody here. When she's up and out of there, you let your fine self in and smash up a couple toys and trinkets so she knows where you been. When she's all tucked away nice and sleepy in her 'coon, you come by once and paint some motherfucking poetry on the side with some of the extra-special paint you got from your sylladex full of friends.
Then one night you turn a corner on the way back to one of your hidey holes, and there's something dangling on a string up ahead of you. A little long-legged puppet, black and purple, dangling all crooked with a string tied up in a fancy motherfucking knot around his neck. You rip that little prize right the fuck down and keep it close by. You got it bad for your little law sister, want to split her open and paint with her soft insides, want to see if she can get those sharp chompers of hers into your hide.
Motherfucking impoverished circumstances mean you ain't got no place for an outright carnival, and no kind of motherfucking court block, either. But Miss Pyrope is all up and clever with the make-believe, and you think you could get your thinkpan humming to that groove. It don't take more than a little motherfucking imagination to see some potential in that one chamber with all the wicked fucking wildlife up in jars. They'll be your motherfucking witnesses, since your spade-sister didn't have no fucking fondness for the last jury you went and called.
You leave her a trail of broken things, smashed up and ripped up bits of bright motherfucking color. You can appreciate a blind sister's love of them things, bet they taste like miracles, just as wicked sharp on her tongue as they are on your motherfucking eyeballs. And this here is your fucking invitation to her, your dare, straight-up pitch romantic. (Your little palebrother would be so fucking proud, if he could get his chill on long enough to stop worrying his bloodpusher sick over the both of you.)
And Terezi smells the broken-toy carnage like a shark smells blood in the water, got a smile on her with just as many sharp edges when she comes all stalking through them twisted-up corridors to find you where you've gone to fucking ground. You hear the tick-tick threat of her cane, and your palms get to itching, and you got to grit your teeth all fierce to keep the clubs out of your hands. You don't want to do nothing that motherfucking fast with a girl this fine.
She even went and dressed the fucking part, that sharp legislacerator garb, bright-on-bright, the cold threat of the law. Law can't fucking touch you here, no matter what she wants to believe. You got the chucklevoodoos heavy in the bottom of your lungs just waiting to be set loose, and you got the sound of the carnival playing in your head even if she can't hear it. What's a jury but an audience for the motherfucking show?
Still she stops in the doorway, strikes a fucking pose because this shit is about to get bloody and real. "I can smell your guilt, Gamz," she purrs.
"Don't see how all that could motherfucking be, sister," you tell her, not getting up from the throne you built for your bad self. "On account of this here defendant is pleading not motherfucking guilty."
"The court is skeptical," Terezi says. She sounds all kind of motherfucking pleased, and you want to rip her the fuck apart. "All of the evidence points to you being a terrible liar. What do you have to say for yourself?"
Now you get up, unwinding yourself on up, stretching all your bones all up into some kind of order. "Ain't no motherfucking thing more true than anything else, and that's a miracle," you say, hands spread wide. Nothing up your motherfucking sleeves, just pure murder out in the open.
"There's no such thing as miracles," she says, and you get your growl on, letting her know you ain't all about to let that motherfucking pass. Her shoulders hunch up nervous but she keeps them fangs bared. "We can't accept such ridiculousness in a court of law."
"There ain't no law but to do what all feels motherfucking righteous," you tell her, because that's what your heart motherfucking tells you, but also maybe a little because you like seeing how she can't keep quite so icy fucking cool when you say that kind of shit. "But fuck, you want me to be all proving my motherfucking innocence, chica?"
Her claws flex and curl and you fucking want. "You think you can do that?" she asks, head cocked all to one side, glitter on them red lenses. "Do tell."
You let the bottom drop right out of your voice, let the chucklevoodoos crawl on up your throat. "I have the right to TRIAL BY COMBAT."
You lunge, and get her cane between your ankles for your motherfucking trouble, as she launches herself out of your way. No motherfucking absconding this time, she just turns and throws herself back at you again and finally finally you taste them pretty sharp claws. The little spark of pain up your arm makes your blood sing, make her pay make her scream make her moan, and you take a swipe at her your own self. You catch her fancy costume and rip through it, get just a touch of skin with the tips of your claws. Sweet blue-green on the tips of your fingers, and as you catch your balance to go after her again you can see her licking the indigo off hers.
She's growling right back at you now and you can feel that sound dancing all up on your nerves, makes you crave, makes you feel alive as she stalks a slow circle around you, mouth open and breathing deep, tasting where the fuck you got to. "You taste guilty," she says. "It's delicious."
"All kinds of motherfucking heresy you got going on here, little sister," you say, by which you mean, I got reasons to RIP YOUR THROAT OUT, TOO. She knows it. She's clever. "Coming up to a brother as has the WORDS OF THE MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS all up in his thinkpan and BUZZING LIKE THAT about law and order."
"Preaching only makes you an easy target," Terezi says.
You grin. "So come at me, sis."
She does, low to the ground, and your swipe this time gets the rest of her pretty jacket all torn to ribbons, just before she catches you in the knees to drop you. The pair of you go rolling, this horns-over-paws sprawl as she struggles out of the dead remains of her jacket before you can get her all bound up in it, and you wanna lick scratch bite get her all up in your senses, wicked motherfucking beautiful, want to split her open and crawl inside and find her blood pusher still hammering a promise to make you pay. You land on your back with one leg jammed up between her thighs, feeling how warm she grinds down against you. You got your hands on her glutes and maybe you'd clench down, rip through fabric and into the motherfucking flesh underneath, only she's getting her threat on with sweet sharp claws right up against the big veins in your throat.
"The court finds you—" she starts and you ain't all having with this guilt nonsense, so you motherfucking kiss her before she can make the rule, stop them empty words with teeth and tongue. Her fangs in your lip are a wicked fucking miracle whether she likes it or not, raising the hairs on the back of your neck, getting your bulge all up and attentive. Your hips make a suggestion their own bad selves, pushing on up, and this close you can see right through them shades of hers, see the empty eyes that looked right into the fucking sun. Sometimes a miracle ain't a thing you just sit and contemplate, all motherfucking serene. Sometimes a miracle melts you right the fuck down, shakes you to your bones right where you stand.
Right where you're pinned, more like. You arch up and flip and she gets some fresh lines open across your throat but you get her under you and the sting of her claws makes it better. "I hate your stupid miracles," she tells you, all crooning and low, yanking your pants down.
"I can't stand your motherfucking rule of law," you tell her just as sweet, doing your motherfucking best to keep it in the sheath until you can bat her claws out of there. Them leggings come down off her skinny hips easy enough and then she's grabbing for your wrists as much as you are hers, the both of you rocking and rolling on that cold motherfucking floor while your bulges get their own wrestle on.
Feels like fizzing and bubbling up inside you, little sparks running all tingly through your insides, your bulge and Terezi's curled up in each other and squeezing hard, neither one of you about to let go enough for the other to get any kind of nook-stuffing action going on. You're still having a motherfucking fight, all claws and growling, it's just now instead of all feeling good up in your blood pusher, it's the kind of fight that gets to feeling good lower down, too.
Terezi's pretty words all up and fly away, and she ain't got nothing left but hisses and snarls, same kind of wicked noise as makes your own windtube rattle, her claws down your back and you with one fist tight around her horn to keep her from ripping out your throat like the fearless motherfucking killer she is. Couldn't neither of you stop this motherfucking ride by now, knotted up tight around each other and pulling tighter every fucking breath, till there ain't nothing left of you but the heat and the thunder of blood all through your veins. You didn't bring no fucking pail, either, but that ain't about to stop you. She can fight you for it if she wants to go after one—or she can turn out one freak nasty sister who don't even care, going off like a rocket and getting you motherfucking soaked, and you can smell her, sweet as blood and shuddering deadly under you, and ain't no part of you could resist a thing of fucking beauty like that, and you see stars.
You go a little wobbly in all your strings and tendons when you're done, maybe just a tiny bit like a certain puppet you know, and fierce little Terezi goes all like a spring coil, tense-then-push, throwing you right on your ass. You roll and maybe now you're letting a club fall into your hand, keeping a close motherfucking eye on where she's going now.
She all up and grins at you. "So I take it you're not going to submit to legal judgment," she says.
"Not motherfucking likely," you say. "A sister ain't about to get her repentance on for all that heresy, neither."
"Nope," Terezi agrees. "Sounds like we'll have to have another debate sometime."
Your laugh comes out all broken up and honking, and it feels fucking righteous to be making that noise. "You just send me a motherfucking invitation, chica," you tell her. "I'll up and come running."