Work Text:
==> Be Rose Lalonde
You stretch, leaning back in your “gamer chair” Dave got you last year for your birthday. You were going to regift it to someone else, but Kanaya persuaded you to keep it. “If you’re going to write all day, you may as well have a comfortable chair,” she had said. Now, you’re grateful for her insistence. You have been writing almost nonstop for the past few days. You have deadlines to meet and being a god and one of the creators of this universe doesn’t give you extensions on them, unfortunately.
Your vision starts to blur as tears fall down your cheek, your bloodshot eyes stinging with relief. When you get into the zone you tend not to blink as much as a human should, but you’re hardly human anyways. That’s what you tell yourself, at least.
You squint at the time in the corner of your screen. It’s only about one am. You decide you can go take a bathroom break and have some of the dinner you skipped out on earlier. You know that Kanaya will know if you skip meals, and you’ve already gone through that, even if you do have work as an excuse. (She probably wouldn’t take it as a valid excuse anyways.)
Quietly, you sneak downstairs. You and Kanaya decided to move into a simple house, only two floors. Any large mansions you two looked at were too… reminiscent of past negative experiences. In a two story suburban house, you don’t have to worry about creaks in the floorboards that may or may not be your neglectful mother coming home drunk at 3 in the morning. You gag a little as you think of how alcoholic her breath smelled.
As you step into the living room, a cool chill runs down your spine. You glance at one of the windows. It’s been opened and the curtains are flowing gently in the breeze. It’s summer, but close enough to fall that the nighttime air is as cold as the daytime air is hot.
You sigh, stretching. Kanaya must have forgotten to shut the window before going up to bed. You walk over, intending to close it, but then decide against it. The cool air feels so, so nice after staying in that stuffy office all day. You close your eyes. Even looking into the pitch black nothing of your mind, you can still see the grass outside. About 50 yards out is the treeline. You don’t have any neighbors. All the others who survived and came to Earth C decided to either cluster together or move far out. You and Kanaya were part of the latter group. Even though it’s been 15 years since you all walked through that door, ending the game that stole three years of your lives, you’ve stayed. Some may say it’s isolation, but you still meet up with your friends for brunch now and then, so you don’t see the big deal.
You take in another breath as you open your eyes, staring at the treeline. Sometimes when you close your eyes, you expect it to disappear, to see gray metal in its place. As if you awoke from a fantasy, from a dream, and now you’re back on the hunk of metal flying through space, feeling as though you’d be stuck on that “meteor” forever.
Turning away, you stalk into the kitchen. You open the fridge, seeing the soup right in the middle of the fridge. You take out the plastic tupperware, pouring some into a pot sitting on the stove which you’re pretty sure is clean. You grab a bottle of wine as well.
You’ve been sober for 10 years, and now you look at your alcoholic teen years in disgust. You’re to the point where you can drink a glass of wine now and then, even get drunk for special occasions, and not feel like you’d die if you didn’t keep drinking. Kanaya’s proud of you. So is Dave, Jade, June, and Vriska. Especially Vriska. She gives you some shit, but you know that she’s really the one who made you stop. Somewhere in an alternate universe, she died by Terezi’s hand, and you’re still an alcoholic. Not this universe, though. June made sure of that.
As you pour yourself a glass, you feel a presence coming down the stairs. You keep your eyes on the soup, turning off the heat when you know it’s time. A bonus of your Light powers is that you always seem to know when the food is ready. No timers required for this Seer of Light, nope! Unfortunately, the internal timer doesn’t outway knowing anything and everything about you and your friends’ futures with the imminent threat of fucking something up and ruining this timeline for everyone, thus causing you and your friends and family to die, but you’ve learned how to cope with that without always being drunk.
You are pulled out of your thoughts by the feeling of eyes on your back. Your wife’s eyes, to be specific. You know that it’s her because you don’t live with anyone else and, as previously stated, you live in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t matter if your window is open. Even if it is some random person, you can hold your own. Your wife also happens to be a vampire, which is pretty useful in home invasion situations, you would guess. Well, not a vampire, because she also happens to be an alien, but basically an alien vampire.
Yeah. Your life is weird.
You take a sip of your wine and turn around.
“Hello, Kanaya.”
“Hello, Rose.”
“Wow, where are the pleasantries?”
She chuckles.
“It’s almost one thirty, love,”
You dramatically place your hand over your forehead, leaning back a bit, but being careful not to spill your glass. “My goodness, would you look at that! It’s simply so early, I must get back to what I was doing,”
“Lalonde.” Ah, yes, that’s the tone for when she’s tired of your bullshit.
“Excuse you, it’s Maryam-Lalonde to you, ma’am. Don’t you know I’m married?” You set down your glass of wine and reach out your hand, wiggling your fingers in the other Maryam-Lalonde’s face. You never take your ring off. She gently takes your hand between two of her own. She sighs.
“Well, Mrs. Maryam-Lalonde, what is a gal like you doing out so late? Your wife must be positively disquieted at your disappearance.”
It’s your turn to chuckle. It seems she’s taken your bait. You push off of the counter you find yourself leaning onto and inter her arms. You both position yourselves accordingly. Your free arm rests over her shoulder, and you lean in until your head rests on her other shoulder. You have the perfect height difference for this. She’s let go of your hand with one of her own, moving to rest it on your lower back as well. Your free hands are loosely holding onto each other.
“Oh, Ms. Mysterious Alien Woman, it seems that you’ve lured me in with your… feminine wiles. Is that a thing people actually say?” You’ve begun to sway slightly, and Kanaya sways with you.
“I mean, I’ve heard it on that one soap opera that you know I love.”
“Yes, who doesn’t love a good medical-drama-slash-soap-opera,” You’ve begun to play with her short, black hair. It’s soft to the touch. You take a deep breath, and you can tell immediately that she took a shower before bed.
“Do you like it? It’s vanilla jasmine. Your brother got it for me, he said that Karkat helped him pick it out.” You roll your eyes fondly. Of course Karkat helped him pick it out, Dave can barely wash himself.
“I do. I might just steal it from you.” You reply, taking another deep breath. You try to remember the last time that you showered.
“Steal it from me? For what?” It seems Kanaya is thinking the same thing that you are. You sigh into her. She’s wearing a camisole, one that she definitely stole from you, seeing as it’s showing off her midriff. Her belly button would be out if not for her weird alien anatomy. She also has on sweatpants- definitely not stolen from you, yours would be too short- and the Twilight socks you got her last week. You saw them and knew right away that she would love them, and she does.
“Mmm, good point….” You almost drift off then and there, gently swaying to imaginary music, your wife holding you in her arms. Suddenly, all sleep leaves your mind. You pull away.
“Kanaya, I need to get back to work.” You look at her in the eyes. The yellow-orange sclera is almost glowing in the darkness, a big change from the jade colored pupils. Her brow creases in concern.
“Rose darling, you know I love you, but it’s almost two in the morning at this point. You almost fell asleep on your feet.”
“No, no, Kanaya, I’m fine, I just came down for a snack and a drink, and then I was going to get right back to work. I’m almost done with chapter 34, and once I get to chapter 39, I have to go back to 26 and clean up the big mistakes. Then I have to send it over to the editor, and Kanaya dear, you know how snippy she is with timelines.”
“When are the drafts due?” Kanaya rubs your back soothingly. You know you’re rambling at this point, just like Dave always does, but you actually have a point to this.
“They’re due Friday, and it must be Thursday by now, and as I’ve said I still need to go back and-”
“Sweetheart, it’s Tuesday.” Oh. “I can feel how tired you are,” she leans down and gives you a kiss on the forehead, “please, just come to bed. Or eat first. If you eat first it would be better, but I seriously need you to lie down.” You try to pull yourself out of her grasp, but now she has a rock-hard grab on you.
“Kanaya, come on, let me at least finish the rough drafts, then-”
“Rose, that’s a lie and we both know it.” A beat. “If I let you go back in there, you won’t come out unless I come in and drag you. By then you’ll be screaming and probably crying. You need to sleep and eat and take a shower before you get back to work.” Tears are stinging your eyes by now. You say nothing.
Another few seconds, and Kanaya releases her grip on you, but doesn’t let go entirely. “I’ll let you eat, and please remember to drink some water. I’m going to draw a bath for you, and you can use the jasmine vanilla body wash. I’ll put the blankets in the dryer and get you the soft pajamas I know you love. I’ll prep the bed so when you get in, it’ll be like a little cocoon, and I know you love that. If you want, I can read you to sleep. I’ve started reading Fahrenheit 451, I think you’d like it.”
She steps away from you, letting you go entirely. You feel cold where she previously was. She turns to leave before you call out to her.
“Kanaya?”
She turns around, a certain softness on her face. “Yes, love?”
“Could you put bubbles in the bath?”
She smiles, leans in, and gives you a kiss.
“Of course, Rose.”