There's not actually any sound. I just imagined this as more like a flash panel and less like a set of panels when I wrote it.

Chapter Text

You are Jane Crocker, and you wake up somewhat late that morning - You get to sleep uninterrupted after the last time you wake her, which means you get four hours of uninterrupted sleep. Roxy at least only had to roll back over every time you woke her, but you had to walk too and from her room, and so you lost a good 20 minutes trying to get back to sleep each time. Either way, it’s 10:30 when you get up, which is much later than you’d like to be awake today, but it’s still not too bad.

That’s really not the way you want to feel on a morning such as this, since this is perhaps the most important day of your life. You have to give a compelling presentation today, after all, and being exhausted will not help. Still, there’s nothing to do about it now.

You grab your laptop, and sit down next to Roxy on the couch.

You open your email client, and then start typing out an email.

To The Advisory Council,



I regret to inform you that I cannot sign off on the September 20th Memorandum “Binding Finalized Ethics Document For Write Capabilities Of The TiarraTop”. I feel that the document is not sufficiently complete to warrant a final sign off, and I am deeply concerned that we are likely to wind up in substantial legal and moral jeopardy if we proceed as it is written.

Sincerely,

Jane Crocker, CEO.

You embellish your title in the last line, but the whole thing is kind of self-righteous: It’s hardly the centerpiece of this plan, but coming off as unprepared probably helps you more than it hurts you here, since you want your “advisors” to not see what’s coming until the last moment.

“Hey, Rolal.” You smirk, “Want to see me set off a national news story?”

Roxy raises an eyebrow, “IDK, What are you doing?”

“I’m pressing the send button on an email, refusing to sign off on a document.”

“And that’s going to create a national news story?” She asks skeptically.

“It might spell the end of a decades old multinational corporation, too.” You smirk, and press send, “It’s done. I need to go change into something presentable and put on makeup. I have the feeling it’s going to be a long day.”

You are Dave Strider, and you are in English class when you receive an alert on your phone at 11:13 AM.

“Baking Heiress Jane Crocker to be fired from CrockerCorp.”

“Holy shit.” You’d been loosely following her for a while, because she’s relevant to your life now, apparently, and this was not a message you expected to read.

TG: rose holy shit did you just get that alert too

TT: No, we don’t generally have the same interests, so I don’t know why I would

You send her the link, apparently a Charlotte Observer article.

TT: Holy fuck.

TT: I’m going to text Roxy, hold on.

A few minutes pass while you wait for Rose’s response, and then

TT: Wow.

TT: I’m speechless.

TG: rose lalonde speechless

TG: it is a special day indeed

TT: Roxy’s harebrained plot to get the girl and save the day worked.

TT: Apparently after she got wasted and almost broke her head open.

TG: wait she what

TT: Our sister is an idiot, Dave.

TT: Our wonderful, clever sister apparently managed to convert a three foot dropoff of pavement in Cornelius into a near-lethal falling trap through the alchemy of anxious drinking.

TG: holy shit

TT: Our sister is a fucking idiot.

TT: I mean, I’m not sure I get to say that, since what I had assumed was the stupidest plan I’d ever heard actually worked.

TT: But she’s still kind of an idiot.

TG: i’m glad she’s alive i guess

TT: Yeah, me too.

“Hey, Earth to Dave fucking Strider!” A voice next to you says, “Hey, dipshit, we need to form groups to talk about the goddamn book, so put your fucking phone down and pay attention!”

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” You say, putting down your phone.

The book for the week was boring, so you and Karkat finish your discussion early.

“Hey, wanna come over to my place tonight? We can hang out and watch movies.” Karkat says, because of course, who doesn’t want to be friends with a coolkid like you. Plus, the two of you are pretty much cool now, so it makes sense.

“Fuck yeah.” You say, which honestly somewhat surprises you, since you’ve long been something of a loner. You just don’t have reason to be a recluse anymore: You don’t live with an absolute fucking psychopath who is a danger to your friends anymore, and you don’t have to hide the fact that you used to. You’d still rather nobody knew about Bro, and you’re kind of worried you’ll show some sign of abuse and Karkat will find out and be scared off and want nothing to do with you, but…

But that still assumes that having a friend is a worthwhile thing in the first place, and you can only lose what you already have, so yeah, actually, saying yes to Karkat is just fucking obvious, when you think about it.

You are Roxy Lalonde, and it’s 11:19 when Jane rushes you upstairs.

“Everything is about to get very hectic.” She says as she shuts the blinds on the window, “Way more hectic than things already are. I’m going to have to leave for a bit, but I’ll be back in less than half an hour to check on you, I promise. If you start feeling worse, call me. I know I’m in the middle of something, but if you die because I focused too much on what I’m doing, I will fucking bring you back to life so that I can yell at you, you understand me?”

Jane Crocker is normally not an anxious woman. You’ve known her for some time: She can be high strung, certainly, but high strung is different from anxious. It’s one thing to hold impossible standards for yourself and for everyone around you, even if you sometimes hold bizarre standards that might let you get away with awful things and put yourself in awful positions because it might be worth it some day. It’s another to be scared.

The first is her day to day life. The second is what she is right now. She’s scared, and that’s unnerving to you. So you nod, even though you want to say that you’ll just call an ambulance, which is what she'd do anyway, and then text her, because that would give her more space to handle things. Anything not to throw her off her game. Then, you consider for a moment, and ask, “Babs, would it help if I offered you a hug?”

She doesn’t even wince when you call her ‘Babs’, which is unnerving, because even you find ‘babs’ pretty irritating, and then she nods, “I’d like that a lot right now, Rolal.”

You hug her. She smells like dough and coffee, and while you miss the way she used to smell when she also had the vague hint of mud to her back when she played at being a detective, you find that even the smell she has now is comforting. You realize as you both relax into the hug that you were really stressed, too, which you suppose makes sense. You have no idea what’s going on, but everything is going down really fast.

She only lets you hold her for fifteenish seconds before she lets go, and reluctantly, you let go, too. She nods at you, “Alright, I hate to be a bad host, but stay up here. You don’t want the paparazzi to see you, because you don’t want to know the kinds of things they’ll say about you, and I don’t want them to see you, because I don’t want them to say those things about you and also because it would absolutely ruin my plans given what it would say about me and my trustworthiness.”

She seems to realize after a moment that that’s actually a pretty nasty insult, so she hastily adds a, “I don’t mean that you’re a bad person, Roxy, but I’m about to be walking an incredibly fine tightrope and any whiff that I might have a secret would be destructive, and ‘she has a secret alcoholic insert seven other negatively connotated but true statements about you girlfriend’ would be a hell of a secret right now.’”

You nod, “Knock ‘em dead.”

As she walks out, you decide that you’re still kind of insulted, but that she’s also right. It’s hard to argue that there aren’t a lot of things that someone could say about you that would really burn. She’s not wrong that any reasonable person snooping on you would decide that you had a drinking problem, and, while she didn’t say it, you imagine that the tabloids would also include the word “slut” several times, and the more reputable papers would probably just sub in the word “controversial”.

You don’t want to have to see that, so you stay put where you are. Still, you don’t want to have to sit here absolutely without knowing what’s going on, so you set up a stream to one of the business channels.

There's a ten minutes of speculation about what could possibly be going on: was Jane Crocker stealing money? Did she have some secret? Was she just incompetent? A few ‘experts’ are brought on, some of which point out that just being born into a company doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be any good at running it. You have to resist punching the screen - firstly, this is your only laptop, and secondly, just because they’re wrong about Jane doesn’t mean the statement is wrong in the general form. It’s certainly harder than normal to restrain your temper, though, and you realize it’s probably because, on top of sleeping poorly, you’re fully, genuinely sober right now.

That’s a weird thought. Before you can be pulled too deep into the holy shit I’m not currently drunk train of thought, the TV hosts seem to perk up.

Don’t fuck this up, Janey You think, although technically, that bit of wishing her well is a little silly, since obviously she’s already either fucked this up or not.

“And we have a statement from Jane Crocker.” One of the hosts says, which you could have told by the change in their body language, although you suppose you have the advantage over the rest of the world of knowing that Jane Crocker just left to do something. “We managed to get an exclusive video interview with her, and… well, let’s just play part of it now.”

The screen changes to a grainier video, and you realize that the picture is of Jane, sitting downstairs, on the couch you napped on yesterday afternoon. The grainy picture is probably her laptop’s camera, then: she always had cheap webcams, since she never had much use for a nicer one.

“I probably will take legal action if they don’t retract the document by tomorrow afternoon. It’s almost certainly against the contract, even in the distorted version they’ve created, for them to have fired me for refusing to sign off on a document that almost certainly would have obligated some of our workers to break the law. I’d file the paperwork now, but I’m somewhat concerned that what would be revealed in the process would destroy the company.”

You know she’s lying somewhat. She moves her left hand in a way that’s stereotypical of someone using her hands for emphasis, but you know that when she’s genuine she doesn’t do that. She taps her fingers together when she gets a question she’s not sure what the best lie for is, and she pauses just a third of a second longer than she normally would on starting her answer.

You also know that no one else on earth would know that. It’s weird, watching the same video the world is watching, and seeing it so differently, but that’s precisely what is happening. A moment later, they return to commentary, and the speculation has changed.

“She says what the files reveal could destroy the company. Given they recently released their earnings report, do you think the file she refused to sign falsified that?”

The speculation continues, is the company losing money? Do they have debts they’re hiding? You don’t know what Jane’s game is, but you suspect she must have missed. After all, this is all disastrous for the company. But she walks upstairs with a smirk on her face, and says, “How are you doing, Roxy?”

“I... You realize they’re speculating the company is going to fail, right?”

“Oh, I know.” She replies, with a mysterious smile, “I’ll take that as an ‘I’m fine.’ Can’t spend too long up here until 4:00, I need to be generally visible from one of the windows, somebody might catch on I’m hiding something. I’ll check on you in 45 minutes. Again, if you start feeling bad, call me. I know it might give up the game, but you’re really important.”

You are Rose, and at 12:15, you’ve officially gotten bored of tracking what’s going on with your sister’s best friend’s company, because while it’s an intense story, you really don’t understand Jane’s ploy (only that she clearly has such a ploy) and to be honest, you were never close enough to Jane to care on her behalf alone. It’s a car wreck, but it’s not really your car wreck, so it gets boring to watch pretty fast.

You do have more important things to do. Namely, scheduling a time for your date with Kanaya, since you didn’t do that yesterday, and you and she were so busy with “oh shit we have to fix this” two days ago to realize that you needed to actually schedule a date if you wanted to have one.

TT: Does Thursday work for our next date?

GA: That Works Fine For Me.

GA: A Family Friend Runs An Alternian Food Restaurant Would You Like To Go There?

TT: Two questions:

TT: 1) There are Alternain restaurants on Earth and I never heard of them?

TT: 2) If it’s a family friend’s place, would it be weird to take a date there?

GA: For Your First Question Yes There Are A Small Handful

GA: There Aren’t That Many Trolls But Humans Love Novelty And What Could Be A Better Novelty Than Food That Is Like This Was Once Served In A Distant Star System?

GA: As For The Other Question Most Trolls Are Family Friends

GA: I Have A Big Family And They Were Pretty Central To The Event That Ended In Trolls Being On Earth

GA: Most Trolls Are Thus Family Friends In The First Place Or At Least Most Troll Families Know Of Other Troll Families

GA: It Will Be No Weirder Than Any Time Two Trolls Date And They Go To Any Restaurant That Another Troll Owns

TT: I suppose that makes sense.

TT: Well, as a human, I do love novelty ;)

TT: So count me in.

GA: That Was Not Intended As An Insult

TT: I know.

TT: I’ll admit, I think the human tendency towards xenophilia is perhaps the only trait that prevents our rampant countervailing xenophobia from leading to an impossibility of cultural contact.

TT: Being reminded that I have such a trait is not an insult.

GA: Well I Am Glad To Have Complimented You Then

GA: Although I Think The Human Tendency Toward Xenophilia And The Human Tendency Towards Xenophobia Aren’t As Universally Opposed As You’d Like To Imply

GA: There Were Men Who Supported My Mother’s Torture Who Later Would Eat At Alternian Restaurants.

GA: Still I Don’t Mean To Imply That They Are The Same Either

GA: But I Do Think You Should Know For Instance That While There Are Reasons I Like You And Even Reasons I Tend Toward Trusting You That Your Crush On Me Alone Does Not Mean That I Will Ignore It If You Start Behaving In Obviously Speciest Ways.

TT: That’s fair. I hardly meant to imply any of that, but I guess what I said could be used to defend someone saying that.

TT: I’m not going to use you as a justification to say “I have troll friends”, I promise.

GA: Just Making Sure

GA: I Look Forward To Seeing You Thursday

GA: Although I Guess I Will See You Tomorrow As Well

TT: No. I’ll miss class tomorrow.

TT: Yom Kippur is kinda a big deal™

GA: Is That Tomorrow?

TT: Technically, it’s in 6 and a half hours.

GA: Uh

GA: Have An Easy Fast I Think?

GA: Am I Doing This Right?

Your name is Jane Crocker, and it is 3:58 PM. Your company's stock is down 14% day over day, which is fine - it was down 2% over the week anyway at the start of the day, having started the week at 413.09. You frown a little that you’re rooting against your own hard work, but you guess sometimes you have to do that.

It’s funny, though. Five years ago, you looked at that number, did some math, and then did the math again, because the company couldn’t possibly be worth that much, and your 60% equity share couldn’t possibly be worth that much. It had been. Now, the company has doubled in value since then, and here you are, hoping to lose millions and millions of dollars, more money than you understand, off of an even bigger amount of money you can’t fathom.

3:59. Still down enough. You open the clock so you can see seconds.They pass by - the stock price has been ticking up for a while now, since about 2:30, but it mostly levelled out. It just has to close down 15%.

You wonder if you could have prevented this. If you’d paid attention sooner, you might have had a chance to stop one or two rules from going through, might have had time to win allies before everything imploded. If only you had listened to Roxy, maybe you could walk away with the whole company and your conscience.

At 3:59:25, it ticks up to 12.5% day over day. (352.28)

You have a moment's panic - are you going to walk away with nothing? You have more week left, but the faster things go against you, the more substantive a counterattack can be leveled. You might well have to wind up fighting either 1) a legal battle you’ll almost certainly lose or 2) walk away, and allow terrible things to happen.

You want Roxy here. You want her hand on your shoulder, but you’re 25% sure that she hates you, and 50% sure that she doesn’t like you, 20% sure that she’s mad at you and will never fully forgive you even if she likes you, and the last five percent thinks she’s super mad at you but might forgive you.

At 3:59:45, it ticks back down to 12.9% day over day - the last 6 days adding a 2.2% - barely below 15% week over over, but still, still below 15% week over week. (350.634)

You suck in a deep breath.

Half of what you own.

This will cost you half of what you own.

Is it worth it?

3:59:50. Down 13.0% (350.24)

Of course it’s worth it.

3:59:51. Down 12.9% (350.71)

You don’t need that much money. You can lose most of the company, 59% of it, and still live comfortably for the rest of your life. You could lose 99% of it and never worry about money again. It’s not that serious a thing to lose.

3:59:52. Down 12.9% (350.73)

You’re going to save thousands of people from having their minds manipulated. This is ethically essential.

3:59:53: Down 12.6%. (351.95)

Of course, if you fail, you suppose, you’ll walk away with nothing. But you weren’t bluffing about court: If push comes to shove, discovery will reveal what’s happening. If that’s true, you’ll get a chance to destroy some of the harm. You might have to get a real job, but it’s not like you won’t have an excellent business degree. At the very least, you’re not going to starve, not least of which because you still have a not-small severance pay, by the contact.

3:59:54 Down 12.6% (351.97)

But you’ll be honest: You wanted to run this company. You’ve spent years learning how to do it. Even if you’d won, and it looks like you’re going to lose, you’d have lost a LOT of what you were trained to run.

3:59:55 Down 12.6% (351.92)

You were good at it, damn it! You are ready for this, you’re good at it, you had so many ideas, so many plans, and you have to give all of it up. You’re a little mad at Roxy - she made you feel like you had to give up what you’d spent years learning to run.

3:59:56 Down 12.6% (351.79)

That’s not fair, though. She was right . You did have to give this up. You just wish it had turned out in your favor - you wish you had won. But losing is better than where you were headed. Being good at something doesn’t make it a good thing to do.

3:49:57, Down 12.7% (351.54)

And this is your fault, anyway. You were outmaneuvered at every turn. You never listened to Roxy earlier, and you had to listen to her now, when it was obvious at the stakes were everything. Just because you ignore someone’s warnings doesn’t mean that when you have to sacrifice a lot to save your own conscience, that you have to sacrifice EVERYTHING to save your own conscience, that it’s their fault.

3:59:58, Down 12.8% (351.13)

Which is, you note, is down 15% rounded, but you’re looking for down actually fifteen percent or more. This one is your fault. You almost grab your sketch pad for the next fight - you need to figure out who can help you with legal matters - you can find someone, surely, and you’re not giving up.

3:59:59, down 12.7%. (351.39)

You’re going to lose everything, and you’ve accepted that.

4:00:00, down 12.8%. (351.12)

For a moment, you reach toward your notepad, before you realize something.

That’s .01 points lower than it was last time the number was rounded to 12.8%. That’s actually, genuinely 15%.

You have what you need.

That sinks in for a moment.

You’re going to lose a LOT. But you’re not going to lose everything.

The rule said that it had to be at days close, and it is the days close. That’s fine, you’d have probably had to wait for close anyway - otherwise they might have pumped the stock if it was possible, actually. That’d be illegal, of course, but all involved will claim that they absolutely didn’t mean to modify any prices, and all of you will find some way of having plausible deniability - in your case, it’s just that you can claim you didn’t care , because you won in the perverse case the stock fell. It would be illegal to intentionally influence such an event, but feeling free to tell the truth because it couldn’t hurt you? That was a whole different matter. After all, wanting to tell the truth is legal, so feeling freed to tell it is fine.

You copy an email you wrote earlier, noting the close down more than fifteen percent, and pointing out that, in this instance, it allowed you to dissolve the board.

As a result the final line says, You are all fired as of 4:02 PM tomorrow, and the sale of assets begins the next day. I wish all of you luck in whatever jobs you are employed in next.

Sincerely,

Jane Crocker.

You send out a second statement, this one prepared for the media, just saying that you had fired the board, and that this would happen chronologically before the decision to fire you, and that you would send out the way the sale would go early tomorrow afternoon.

And then, you walk up the stairs, open the Charlotte Observers website, and put your phone in Roxy’s hand, and with a smile, “Is that good enough?”

You are Dave Strider, and you’re on your way over to Karkat’s house when you get the second notification blast.

Crocker Corp CEO fires board, begins selling off company .

You are taken a little bit aback. Can she do that? As you read the attached article, you learn that, yes, apparently, in a very small handful of cases, she can, and in this instance, she has.

You’re a little mad that she’s strung your sister along for so much of this crap. Roxy isn’t perfect, but she deserves better, and if Jane had a way out, she should have taken it. You get a message from your other sister about as you finish the article - she’s always been a slightly faster reader than you.

TT: Did you see the news?

TG: yes

TG: kinda pissed at jane tbh

TG: if she had a way out all this time and she’s been stringing roxy along

TG: that’s not cool

TT: I don’t know if this was a viable option always, Dave.

TG: wait you’re defending her now

TT: I suppose I am.

TG: eh you're probably right

TT: I usually am

TG: except you’re admitting you were wrong before about jane

TT: No, she did exactly what I said she would.

TT: And Roxy got hurt as a result!

TT: But I’m glad she found a way to make things better because Roxy deserves something nice to happen to her.

TT: And it’s good to know that her belief in Jane wasn’t entirely without purpose.

TG: i don’t think jane is responsible for roxy getting wasted and hurting herself

TG: don’t get me wrong i think this whole thing could have gone way better

TG: but roxy hurting herself is on her.

TT: I guess.

Your conversation ends there, because your bus reaches its stop. You step off the bus, and follow the directions to Karkat’s house. It’s not a long walk, but by the end, your hands are visibly shaking, and you can hear your own breath come fast.

It’s partly that you still don’t trust Karkat. It’s partly that you never really had an in person friend before, except kind of Dirk, and he’s your brother. You’ve had acquaintances, but friends in person were always straight out. It didn’t help that you were always kind of a weird kid in the first place, but largely, not being able to hang out in your house because it was literally full of your guardian’s weird porn and literal fucking swords in the fridge, and not being able to hang out away because he forbade you that meant you couldn't have much in the way of friends.

You knock on the door.

Your heart races - what if this is a prank? This could be a prank. He could do all kinds of cruel things! He could shame you on the internet, he could call all his friends and make fun of you, he could-

The door swings open, and Karkat steps into view.

“Are you OK? You look like you’re about to flip the fuck out.”

“I’m fine.” You say, schooling your expression back to the poker face you used to use around Bro. You can’t slow your breathing, you were never able to do that, but you can manage to hide the obvious signs of emotion.

“You’re obviously fucking not.” He replies, “I… get in here, and then tell me what’s going on, or just tell me you don’t want to talk about it, but don’t pretend it’s fine, and don’t give me that weird expression where you pretend you don’t have feelings.”

You step inside, carefully suppressing a frown. Maybe Rose is right. Maybe you should just explain what is going on.

“I-” You begin, but beyond the word I , you don’t know how to start this. You push through, and it comes out in an incomprehensible rush, “I had a really shitty home situation as a kid and so I never had any friends and I know it’s not cool to talk about that kind of shit and it makes me seem like a loser but it’s true and I can’t always say a lot of shit about my internal experiences and shit and any kind of talking about feelings and shit is really hard and this is impossible I mean Bro, no it’d probably make more sense if I call him my guardian because he isn’t actually my brother anyway he used to make me sword fight him if I gave away I was having one fucking emotion and never having any friends is really scary when you’re suddenly 18 and all the people you know have normal, developed personalities and I just don’t, right, I’ve never had a friend in my life and so I have no idea how to be friends and I can’t stop thinking that you’ll do something to hurt me on purpose because every time anyone has ever been nice to me when they weren’t family or some shit they did, I mean, even you did it kind of when you made fun of me for talking to myself, and it’s awful and I don’t know how to trust people so please don’t make me express emotion Karkat I’m better at it than I used to be but when I’m scared I can’t do that and this is impossible all by itself.”

Karkat just stands there, with his mouth open. You expect him to start laughing. He doesn’t. You almost run off. If it weren’t that you were too scared to even flee, you would.

“Ok. Cool. Question.” He says.

“Yes?” You say, your face a flat calm. It’s the flattest calmest flat calm you’ve ever managed, like the flat calm got crushed by the weight of an entire placid lake, and at the same time was a calmness vampire that sucked all the calm out of that lake. You look so calm.

“Can I fucking kill your parents?”

“No.” You reply, “Mom wasn’t a part of this at all, she just had custody of the other two kids and was a mess throughout much of my childhood and had no ability to contact us, and… Bro is 1) still in Houston, and 2) I think he’s been properly handled.”

“He’s dead already?” Karkat guesses.

“No, but he knows he’s dead if he ever sets foot in New York.” You say.

“Alright.” Karkat says, “Well, uh... hey, if I’m doing something that makes you particularly scared, please let me know? I don’t want to always be the douchewaffle who is making things worse, OK?”

You laugh at ‘douchewaffle’, and then shrug, “I’ll do my best. I just told you how it’s hard for me to express emotion when I’m scared.”

Karkat nods, “Alright. I’m sorry I was such a globefondling ignoramus before.”

You sigh, “It can’t really be undone now.”

Karkat leads you in through a second door (he has two doors and a tiny space in between, which is super weird, but they keep a lot of shoes there.) You notice that the house is pretty chilly, like the insulation is bad or something. He leads you across the room and points out the television and asks you if you want to watch something or play a video game.

You tell him you’re down to watch something, because even though you know he knows you’re scared, you’re pretty sure it’d be obvious you’re still scared if you played anything. He puts on a really shitty romcom , which you have to admit that you’re not a big fan of, but… he does this thing where he becomes running commentary, and you wonder momentarily how this kid thought he had any room to talk about you talking to yourself.

Either way, you find his commentary fascinating. It’s a human rom-com (he says he “doesn’t want to fucking explain fucking quadrants again right now”, which you’re totally down with because you don’t really want to try to wrap your head around that again right now), and he spends the entire time making fun of human romantic norms, which is actually pretty funny, because you are both always down to make fun of sappy romantic bullshit and his commentary is actually insightful in some ways you wouldn’t expect, even if his proposed solutions don’t necessarily always solve the problems.

The movie ends and you order pizza and play video games, and honestly, having a friend is nice. It’s really, really nice, and you manage to relax before the night is over, because he’s being nice to you, which is super weird, because he’s not even nice to himself.

Your name is Roxy Lalonde, and Jane Crocker has just handed you a phone.

“Is that good enough?” She asks.

You read the headline.

It’s the same as it was earlier today.

“Janey, I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be seeing.”

Jane turns the phone around. She sighs, and refreshes it, and hands it back to you.

CrockerCorp Dissolved!

“I can’t believe it took them longer to get a new headline up than it took me to walk up the stairs.” She says, “I just fucking dissolved a multinational corporation and I can’t even get a dramatic entrance in here!”

You snicker. “Totes. That’s a massive injustice, Jane. You wanna tell me what happened? Because I’m hoping you haven’t had this power all along.”

She shakes her head, “No, the share price had to fall of a cliff before I could to this. I was prepared to actually have the legal battle, but I vastly prefer this outcome.’

“Alright.” You pause a moment. You don’t want to tell her she is forgiven if she’s not, “That is good. I think it might be good enough. I don’t know. I’m still upset that I had to take a train across the country to convince you to do this, but… I think, given what you’ve just given up in the process, I can forgive you.”

Jane smiles, “Excellent.”

She stands there for a moment, and you sit still. You don’t know what comes next. You really don’t. You were angry at her, but you forgave her. You told her you loved her - does your forgiveness mean that survives what’s happened? Is it that kind of forgiveness? Or is it the kind of forgiveness that just saves a friendship, but still makes acting on being in love ill-advisable? What does her future look like? If you still are willing to act on loving her, what does the new future she has dictate for your mutual futures?

A lot of those are questions that are probably still up in the air, and you don’t know if now is the time or place to broach any of them. So she stands there, awkwardly, and you sit there, awkwardly, and you try to keep the blush out of your face because now that everything isn’t falling apart forever, you’re reminded that she’s actually really cute.

Luckily for your train of thought, she breaks the silence.

“So, this is a weird thing to ask, but I’d really like to get away from here for a while, because I hate the times when I’m a major celebrity. Do you think, some night, we could sneak out, take a train to NY and... do you think I could stay at your house for a while?” She asks.

You nod, “I’ll send a text home. I’m not travelling until after sunset tomorrow, for the obvious reason, but I’m pretty sure that should be OK. How do you plan on getting us there without getting found out?”

Jane smirks, “The crowds should thin and by tomorrow night, so we should be able to sneak out without being seen, and then… remember when I used to drag you into wearing shitty disguises as a child?”

You laugh, “Yes, but I don’t see how that helps.”

“It’s simple: We do that, but with good disguises.”

You laugh.

You eat a large meal around 6:00, after searching to make sure it’s OK to fast with a concussion (yes - it might be neuroprotective?) and if it’s OK to fast during alcohol withdrawal (possibly not - you’ll stop fasting if you start feeling any major withdrawal symptoms.)

After you finish eating, you send off a series of texts to Dirk.

TG: hey dirk

TG: dont tell jane i said this

TG: bc i don’t want to get her hopes up

TG: but

The next message freezes on your fingers. It’s one thing to say “I have a problem”, and to think “I should stop.” It’s another to say “I’m going to stop.”

And then, are you going to stop? What if you fail? Wouldn’t it be worse to fail if you’ve told someone? Can you handle how disappointed you’re sure Dirk will be if you fail? Should you just try, and not tell anyone?

TT: Uh, Roxy?

TT: You still there?

TG: sorry gimme a moment this is fucking hard

That probably gives it away, doesn’t it?

You still have to say it.

Your fingers freeze again, but then you take a deep breath, type it out, one letter at a time.

Do you want to send this? You absolutely don’t. You take a deep breath, count to three, look away, and press send.

TG: i think im going to stop drinking

And then it’s out there, and you are scared, but also kind of free, like now you’ve said it, and nothing you’ll ever say will be harder. So you keep talking, because it was liberating, and maybe saying the rest will be liberating, too.

TG: i know its a problem

TG: i know everybody probably thinks im dumb for waiting this long

TG: tb totes h i feel pretty dumb for waiting this long

TT: I don’t know what “everybody” thinks.

TT: I do know that I am proud of you.

TG: u don’t have to patronize me dirky

TG: i know i fucked up

TT: I’m not patronizing you, Rox.

TT: You did fuck up.

TT: But you’re the only one of us who decided to act without massive intervention from someone else.

TT: It seems like the rest of us are all wringing our hands about the things that are problems in our lives.

TT: We’re all too proud to do anything, or insist on suffering in silence.

TT: Jane backed herself into a corner and won’t admit it’s a problem until her best friend / love interest took a train halfway across the country to yell at her.

TT: I’m still not taking mom’s money even though I could, because that would mean accepting that someone else has control of me.

TT: Jake is still too “manly” to accept that if you start college with a mediocre education, you probably need more help than other students.

TT: So yes: I’m proud of you, Roxy.

TG: i wish i could feel the same.

TT: Everyone is always their own harshest critic, Rox.

TG: i just

TG: the rest of u grew up

TG: and im starting to realize that ive been a child this whole time

TG: not literally obviously

TG: but i never grew more independant

TG: if anything i grew more dependent

TG: i think when i was 16 i would have probably been ok with being this far from home

TG: i mean not today

TG: but in general

TG: now it’s scary and exciting and new

TG: and im 21

TG: how fucked up is it that im 21 and this is the first time ive ever left home for more than a day alone?

TG: how fucked up is it that ive never held my own job?

TG: how fucked up is it that im still at a god damn community college

TG: u moved out and moved across the country to get away from our monster of a father

TG: janey took the offer and moved away from her parents at 16

TG: i mean i guess jake is still with his family

TG: but he fucking works because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to keep the house

TG: he’s not so much dependant as interdependent

TG: and in the middle of that im a child

TG: i just

TG: i hate this

TG: everyone else grew up and im a fucking kid

TG: and i had to get stuck hundreds of miles from home on yom kippur to realize it

TG: fuck ur like i wring my hands

TG: but u made a fucking hard decision dirk

TT: I ran, Roxy.

TT: I left my little brother behind and I fucking ran.

TT: He needed me and I ran.

TT: Don’t pretend that I’m some fucking epic hero.

TT: Someone needed me, someone was dependent on me.

TT: And I fucking ran!

TG: he told u to run tho

TG: it was the best for both of u.

TT: Was it?

TG: kids in school now

TG: would he have been if u didn’t run?

TG: keeping in mind that it took u a year to get into school

TT: Kid has scars all over his body now.

TT: New ones, not just the old ones.

TT: The kid has a fucking scar under his eye.

TT: The facial scars?

TT: All of them are new.

TG: and he’s safe now

TG: and he has a roof over his head

TT: Maybe you’re right.

TT: Maybe this is better.

TT: I guess I understand how you’re feeling.

TT: But you’re the one of us who does things for reasons other than the threat of a sword to the face or the opportunity to be a billionaire.

TT: So I have faith that you’ll do something about it.

TG: maybe ur right

TG: now that i see it its hard not to

TG: seeing the stakes in janes world its hard not to feel like im really not good enough for her

TG: but i feel like i have to do something about that

TT: It’s easy to feel insufficient, Rox.

TT: But it’s probably important to remember that she didn’t do the things she did today just on her own agency.

TT: Left to her own devices, she would have only worked herself deeper into the corner.

TT: You’re probably the best thing that’s ever happened to her.

TG: maybe

TT: She’d agree with me.

TG: yeah but she’s biased lol

TG: thanks for listening

TT: No problem.

TT: Glad you’re going to work on getting sober.

You are Dirk Strider, and Roxy has just closed your conversation.

It was good to hear from her, and it was better to hear that she is getting sober. Your phone buzzes again. This time, it’s Dave.

TG: hey dirk

TG: is it ok if i spend the night at karkat’s house?

TT: You’re an adult.

TT: You don’t have to ask me, just give me a heads up so I don’t have to worry you’ve gone missing.

TT: Which is to say, absolutely.

TG: good

You smile at your phone. Today has brought incredible news. Roxy getting sober is amazing, everyone who knew her was worried, and it’s nice to know that she’s at least trying to address things. Moreover, while it’s clear that she’s sad, her wanting to be more independent and free is probably good: you think that she’s wasting her potential on some level, and if she thinks so too, she’s seems like to work harder and do better.

And Jane won her long struggle for control of the company she inherited, even if it was in the destruction of that company. That’s huge. You wish she’d done it for herself and not for Roxy, because you want her to be making choices for herself, but if she is just choosing people who care about her to make those choices for her, that’s at least a start.

And this? Dave spending an evening out of the house? Dave being so excited to be around someone that he doesn’t come home for an evening?

That’s huge for a ton of reasons. It shows him growing up well, taking on being his own person and making his own choices and it also shows him leaving his shell. He spent his whole childhood mostly friendless, and him having a good enough friend that he wants to spend the night at his friends house can only be good for his development.

And it can only be good for his happiness. You know how much being lonely can suck, and if he’s finally going to have friends that aren’t his family, maybe he can avoid the worst of that shit.

This is all good. Everything is well with your friends, and so everything is well with the world.

You fingers hover over the text button for your mother’s number in the phone. Giving up control like this is humiliating, it’s terrifying.

But if all the people you love are being brave, then you should, too.

DS: Mom, you know how you said you’d be willing to provide money for Dave and my education?

DS: Dave and I are tight on money this month. I mean, we’ve been tight on money every month.

DS: I would immensely appreciate your help.

Your life is going to get better. But right now, your brain is screaming at you that it is only going to get worse.

You take a deep breath, and remind yourself that, in the lives of all the people you love, everything’s well.

You are is Jane Crocker, and it’s about 9:00 on the 24th. You and Roxy are leaving in 15 minutes to catch 10:00 PM train, which, of course, means you’re figuring out a disguise. But first, you grab a fake mustache and your detective’s hat.

“Roxy, look at me, I’m Inspector Jacques Clouseau!” You giggle.

Roxy laughs, “The tabloids will never determine otherwise.”

You laugh, and take off the shitty disguise. Then, you take out a makeup kit.

Your focus is to keep yourself recognizably the person on your ID, but not immediately recognizable to a camera. Then, you put on a hoodie to hide your hair. Yours barely fits - you’ve put on weight since you moved down here. Roxy offers you hers, and you laugh.

“Rox. You are tall and thin. I am short and fat.” She looks like she’s about to object, and you glower at her, like ‘don’t fucking pretend I’m not’. She shuts up, and you continue, “Nothing you wear is going to fit me.”

Once you’re done, you just hope nobody catches a good glimpse of your face. Luckily, the paparazzi left at some point this evening. You kept your blinds drawn today, so that Roxy could move around - you only left them open yesterday because you wanted to give no excuse to publish something negative about you.

“Rox, you ready?” You ask. She nods, and you grab your bags and rush to the rented car. You have your own, of course, but if you don’t move your car, no one will be able to track you to the train station and then to New York.

Once you’re in the car, you and Roxy laugh. You feel like you are thirteen again, sneaking out of the house so you can catch a movie despite your father grounding you for something or other. The nostalgia digs deep into your bones, and you become grateful that you’ve made the plans you did.

The car drives you to the train station, and you get out, and present your tickets, and get on the train.

You go to the compartment your reserved together, and put your stuff away.

“Jane, earlier, when we were talking, you looked really upset when I was about to say that you weren’t fat. Why?” Roxy says.

So you are having this conversation.

“Because I am fat.” You sigh, “It’s fine. It’s not something I’m ashamed of. But when you say I’m not like that’s supposed to be reassuring, it’s actually upsetting, because you’re saying what I am isn’t good enough.”

“But of course you’re good enough! You’re incredibly beautiful!” She says.

“I know you’re attracted to me, Roxy.” You smile sadly, “I want you to act like you’re attracted to me and not some other person. Because I know what I look like. I know better than anyone else - I’ve seen me naked, and every time I look in the mirror I’m looking at me. You can’t say either of those things about me.”

“I’ve seen you almost naked.” Roxy points out with a waggle of her eyebrows.

“Not the time.” You say, but you smile, because it was funny.

“Fine, fine.” Roxy laughs, “And you’re right, you’re really pretty the way you are, and I don’t need to pretend you’re things you aren’t to admit that.”

“Thank you.” You smile.

There’s a pause, and then, Roxy almost-whispers in a nervous tone, “So, uh… What is your plan from here?”

“Short term, I’m going to buy as much of the company as I can with the shares of the money I get from the early sales, particularly, I’m going to focus on a few parts that have significant ethical issues - things like the parts of the company that have the worst labor records, or the worst polluters. Some of those I will outright sell, piece by piece, asset by individual asset, although I’ll try not to make too many people unemployed in the process. At least one of them, I’ll put certain limitations on the product, but I’ll continue it’s development because it’s absolutely amazing.

Medium term, I already have enough credits to graduate, I just wasn’t allowed to fully inherit until the end of this year, and that’s out the window, so I’m going to graduate. And then I’m going to move up to New York, because North Carolina is lonely and I miss my family and my friends and I can manage the company I wind up building from what I buy from a distance for the most part, which means I’ll have to buy up some of the New York branch and then move the headquarters.”

Roxy visibly brightens, then bites her lip.

“To be very clear, you’re not moving up for me, are you?” She asks, “Because I love you, Janey, I totes do, but I don’t want you to damage your future for me.”

You shake your head, “You’re part of it, but only in so far as you’re part of my connection to other people. I miss my friends. I felt so isolated and being isolated only made me make worse decisions. I never made friends down there because everyone at the company saw me as a means to an end and everyone in the business world didn’t take me seriously and everybody at the university had a completely different life from me.”

Roxy brightens still more, “Well, uh, good!”

You smile back. You’re glad that she’s glad to have you home, even after all the shit you put her through.

You are Rose Lalonde, and today, Thursday the 25th, is your date. You’re pacing, because you know this is your last chance to make a good impression. You’re dressed nicely, maybe too nicely, if the place you're going is a casual sitdown place, but you know that Kanaya will be dressed up as well, so it’s fine.

You get in the car five minutes earlier than you planned to: You’re just so nervous that you can’t help yourself. You hate that you can’t control how you feel right now, the giddy feeling in your gut threatening to consume the last of your ability to think. You’re only hanging on by the fact that you’re pretty sure this will go well, because all the other times you’ve hung out with Kanaya have gone well.

When you show up, she’s wearing a nearly all green and black dress.

“You are early.” She teases, “I almost did not have time to prepare!”

“Well, you know how it is.” You smirk, “You get a chance to take a pretty girl on a date, it’s hard to wait a moment longer than you absolutely have to.”

Her cheeks take on a faint green tint, and you smirk. You can’t help but internally acknowledge that you are smooth as fuck. It takes her a moment to recover from being flustered, but she eventually returns with, “Well then, you should consider that I had no choice but to wait for your arrival, so therefore I wonder why you did not arrive sooner, if you are aware that it is hard to wait for a pretty girl on a date.”

It’s your turn to blush slightly - it’s another example of “bounces off me, sticks to you”, which you’ve always felt was the lowest form of repartee, but it’s still flattering, and you are off your game more than a little because of the nerves.

Either way, you have a response, “Well, I had to be ready. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to compare to how well you dressed up, because you actually have a fashion sense” Kanaya laughs at that, “so it took me a little extra time.”

“Well, your outfit isn’t a disaster, so…” Kanaya smirks, “I suppose it paid off. You know, sometime, you should let me dress you up.”

“Are you looking to dress me up, or undress me?” You say, and she blushes all the way to a satisfying jade.

“I am wounded, Rose Lalonde! To think that I would imagine undressing a girl who I have not even gotten a proper first date out of!”

You rub the back of your head, “I still feel spectacularly stupid about that.”

Kanaya frowns, “Don’t worry about it. Just give me a better one this time.”

“Well then, shall we?” You ask, and put your arm through hers for the short walk to the car, to a giggle from her.

You continue flirting lightly during the car ride, although you’re less on your game because you are now also driving, so you don’t manage to thoroughly fluster her along the way, and she manages to fluster you several times during the drive.

When you arrive, Kanaya speaks to the person at the front of the restaurant. Particularly, she speaks a strange language, one much more full of clicks and pops than any language you have ever heard. That must be Alternian.

“Wait, will we have to order in Alternian? Can you order for me?” You ask nervously as you are lead to your table.

She laughs, “Let us see, Rose. There are not nearly enough trolls on Earth to maintain the number of Alternian restaurants here, and there can not be more than twenty humans who speak Alternian in total - and none of you speak it well, given that you lack some of the required anatomy. Additionally there aren’t that many trolls, so nearly early every troll on Earth speaks the language of their resident country well. Do you think you would have to order in Alternian?”

The last bit is a playful question - she’s gently making fun of you for your assumptions, which is fair.

“That’s fair.” You laugh, “No, of course not.”

You’re given an English menu, whereas Kanaya is given one in Alternian. Still, even in English, a number of the words are completely unfamiliar to you. The ingredient names are mostly all things familiar to you - you start to realize that they are limited by the things available on Earth, although a select few things are things you don’t recognize.

“Kanaya, do you have any suggestion for what I should eat? I’ll admit, I don’t understand any of the preparation techniques or the dish names, so I’m pretty useless.”

She suggests something you can’t pronounce, and you admit as much. She laughs, and tells you she’ll order for you.

When the waitstaff comes, Kanaya does order for you, much to your relief. After that, nerves start to wear off, and it begins to dawn on you that this isn’t that different from just hanging out with her. There is absolutely a possibility that this is part of building a romantic relationship with her, but that’s even true of every time you’ve spent time with her.

And that, that this is special but also not that special, finally gets you to relax.

You make small talk about your respective days for a few minutes, and while that’s charming, it hardly seems appropriate for a third-first date.

“Tell me something I don’t know about you.” You try. It can’t hurt, and if you’d really like this to be more than just awkward small talk.

“I have a passion for bad vampire romance novels.” She says, “Well, I have a passion for novels about vampires and also for the nearest Alternian cognate, which are rainbow drinkers, which are like vampires, but they prefer the daylight - that’s broadly considered strange, by the way because trolls were broadly nocturnal on Alternia, but most of us aren’t here because, while being awake during the day messes with our sleep somewhat, the day isn’t nearly bright enough to be distinguishable from our sense of “night” here anyway - and they glow in the dark.”

“Are we talking vampire novels like novels focusing on vampires as a main character, or about killing vampires?” You ask.

“The first one.” She says, “Honestly, I find the idea of killing vampires somewhat distasteful - they are sentient! Anyway, it is your turn: Tell me something that I do not know about you.”

You volley back and forth for a bit, and once your food comes, that stops for a bit so you can focus on the food - yours is unlike anything you’ve ever eaten before, although it’s not at all bad. You’re not really sure how to evaluate it, on some level. Eventually, you wind up focusing less on the food and more on each other, as your plates begin to clear, and your conversation turns to troll internal politics on earth.

“Well, those higher on the hemospectrum generally had better educations, and are more likely to adopt children higher on the hemospectrum.” She explains, “Plus, they are simply less likely to adopt children, since they are more likely to believe that the old ways only needed smaller changes, and thus are less comfortable with the idea of raising children instead of having luscii raise them. Not that there ARE any luscii here. Additionally, there are simply fewer children born higher on the hemospectrum. As a result, higher bloods are generally richer and lower bloods are generally poorer. This has massively set back any attempts to actually deconstruct hemoprejudice among trolls, since trolls higher on the hemospectrum make up much of the elite, although I suppose the old revolutionary leaders were often lowbloods, and they make up the elite of the elite socially, although not economically.”

“Wait, I thought all of the people here are either revolutionaries or their children. They’re still hemoprejudiced?” You ask, somewhat astonished.

Kanaya shrugs, “It is much better than it was on Alternia. That does not mean that it is anywhere near perfect. I suppose if you asked Karkat’s brother, he would say that it was not nearly good enough, which I suppose is true, but I think it is also worth mentioning that something was accomplished in the uprising.”

“That makes sense.” You respond. You’re completely out of your depths here, which is fascinating. You’re so used to being the smartest person in the room, and therefore knowing almost everything anyone else has to say on a topic before they even say it, or worse to know why they are wrong. Here, however, you know nothing .

It makes you somewhat giddy, actually.

The bill comes, and Kanaya pays it.

“But I was going to pay!” You say petulantly.

“Well, you will just have to pay next time.” She grins, “Because I got there first.”

Next time. She wants there to be a next time. You want there to be a next time as well.

“Yeah.” You say, smiling broadly.

There will be a next time. There will be another date. You didn’t fuck this up this time.

You are Roxy Lalonde, and today is September 27. It feels like you and Jane have been awkward all the times you’ve interacted since you got to New York. You know you have a conversation to have about the state of your relationship, and you know you’ve both been avoiding it, because it’s frankly a terrifying conversation.

You approach the guest room she’s staying in. It’s a terrifying conversation, but any outcome is better than the one that you have right now, where you avoid each other awkwardly because you are unsure how the conversation will turn out and don’t know if you can handle what the other will say. You will be friends after the conversation, at least, and you know that, and right now…

Right now it feels like you aren’t friends at all.

You knock on the door.

There’s a pause, and your heart breaks when she speaks.

“Who is it?” She asks, her voice shaking.

“It’s me.” You say, “Can we talk?”

There’s an even longer pause.

“Yes. Come in.” She says. She squashed all the vulnerability out of her voice, clearly trying to hide her nerves.

You open the door.

She’s sitting on the corner of the bed, and she gestures you to the chair as far away from her as possible. You swallow - is she just nervous, or is this an insult? Is she still mad at you? She hadn’t seemed like it before. You wish you were drinking so you could have this conversation drunk.

You know she prefers the conversation this way, though, and if you’re being honest, much as you wish you could be drunk for ease of conversation, you know that you’ll do a better job of having the it sober.

“So.” You begin, but tail off. You don’t know where you’re going with this at all.

“So.” She agrees.

“I guess… I guess I wanted to talk about us. Like, what are we, Jane?” You ask.

There’s a long pause, and Jane frowns, “Isn’t that up to you? You were the one who was upset with me. I guess I’d like to be angry at you for not backing off when I blocked you, but if I’m being honest, you were right about what needed to happen, and I was being stupid.”

That gives you pause. You expected this to be a complicated negotiation. She would be angry with you and you would be angry with her and you’d either work things out or not. Now, however, you’re just being asked to forgive her. Again.

You want to, but you don’t know if you should. Moreover, you’ve already forgiven her, but you’re being asked to trust her. You desperately want to, but how do you provide trust to someone who has already betrayed that very trust?

Sure, she’s here now, but will having to fight her every time she is convinced that she has to do something horrible be a part of your relationship for the rest of the time you are friends? If it is, then this cannot be a romantic relationship. When you were first young and in love, you would have believed that love alone could be enough, but you know the world better than that now, and now you know that love is less a thing conquering all the ill in the universe as a thing being conquered, at best.

It’s not like love has no part in evil, either.

“I.. don’t know!” You admit, voice shaking, “I want to fall in love, I want things to be simple, I want to just say ‘I love you and I want that to bloom into a relationship’ but… it’s not that simple, Jane! How can I trust you?”

She’s silent.

“That’s not a rhetorical question!” You say, and you can feel yourself crying, “I want you to tell me how I can trust you so I can trust you, but you made me a promise and you were ready to break it and the things I had to do to convince you to keep your promise might be compatible with friendship, but they aren’t compatible with love! When you said I violated a clear boundary you set, you weren’t wrong. That can’t happen if we have a relationship, but... how can I know that won’t happen again?”

She’s still silent. She looks like she’s about to cry, too, and you hate that. You hate this so much.

“I’m not trying to berate you here.” You say, “I don’t want to make you feel bad. I just… I want to make this work out. I don’t want to get involved in a relationship with you that is toxic.”

“Roxy.” She says, and she’s crying now. God, you made her cry, you’re such a piece of shit. You want to drown all this in alcohol, and you know you shouldn’t but you want so desperately to not feel this, “I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t know where we go from here.”

You don’t know either.

“Maybe I can just let you go if you decide you want to do something terrible?” You try.

“No.” She laughs, bitterly “No, that’s what I wanted last time. You promised you wouldn’t get dragged into whatever I was doing wrong. You can’t do that. You aren’t able.”

Now it’s your turn to pause. Whereas the last pauses drew quick responses, this one hangs in the air, like fog that stops you from seeing past two feet from your face. If it’s like fog, though, it’s like fog when you’re driving: You really need to be able to see. But, like fog, you have no clue what you could possibly do about it.

“Is that it, then?” You ask. You really don’t want that to be all. If it is, a romantic relationship is unworkable, then it’s unworkable.

“Maybe…” Jane hesitates. She shakes her head, “I’m not sure that’s fair to ask.”

“What?” You ask, “I can take care of myself if whatever you want is unreasonable.”

“Maybe, if we’re going to try to make something between us work, you have to trust me.”

“How?” You ask, “You already showed how willing you were to-”

“Did I?” She asks, “I don’t think I did! I think you decided I was wrong about the situation I was in. I think that you assumed I wasn’t trying. I think you tried to make my decisions for me, Roxy. I think maybe what you did was OK because we were friends and I needed somebody to check me, but if you want to make this about love and not about friendship, you have to trust me in a different way.”

You pause.

“I… I don’t know if I can do that.” You say. You don’t really want to sound scared, but your voice wobbles all the same.

“I think…” She pauses, trying to put the words in order, and then continues, faster, ”I think that’s what it takes to love someone, though. To at least trust them enough to be a person who supports them and not try to be their conscience. If you can’t trust me that much, I… That sucks, but it decides what we are.”

She’s probably right. At some point, you can’t negotiate with her to solve this problem. At some point, you have to decide: Do you want her, or not?

You’re not ready to say yes to that, but you’re not sure you’re willing to say no. But you still need to decide - it’s not fair to either of you for you to string her along forever. You feel like you might both be at a turning point in your lives, though. Yes, you weren’t willing to trust her then in the way she’s asking you to trust her now, but circumstances are about to be different. She’s about to be making her own choices, and while you’ll always know the kind of person she is willing to be when others tell her what she has to do, you don’t know who you would be in that context. It’s easy to judge someone when you're not at risk for having to make the same hard choices they have.

And you want to trust her like that. You know you don’t, but that doesn’t mean you can’t. And it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work for it.

You can’t keep her waiting forever, but… maybe it’s alright to keep her waiting a while?

“Can I make this call another day?” You ask, “I think… I think we’re both in important transitional points, and I want to work on trusting you, because I think you do and will deserve it, but right now I am pretty raw from what just happened. I guess I’m not even asking you to give me time to think, I know what my answer is. I’m asking you to give me time to prepare.”

She nods, “I think I can do time.”

You are Karkat Vantas, and today is the 29th. You and Dave are in English together, and you’re currently holding your notebook as far away from him as possible so that he can’t draw dicks in the margins.

“Hey, Karkat.” He says. He looks awkward, the way someone might be before asking someone out. You are momentarily worried you’re going to have to reject him: He seems like a nice enough guy, but you really don’t know him that well yet. Instead, he asks, in the most unconvincing ‘cool’ voice you’ve ever heard, “Would you like to hang out at my place today?”

“Su-Sure?” You say. You’re really puzzled as to why he looked so awkward before, at least for a moment. You decide he’s probably never asked anyone to hang out with him before: He did mention that he’d had a really rough time of it at home as a child, and that he generally didn’t hang out with other people back then.

“Sweet!” He says, completely losing his previous cool-kid impression. You snicker. He looks offended, “What?”

“Your ‘I’m cool and not worried’ impression is really spectacularly fucking unconvincing.” You say.

“I don’t have a cool impression. I am cool. Like, I am the very definition of cool! If you looked ‘cool’ up in a dictionary, you’d find a picture of my face and the words ‘this badass.’”

You snicker, “Hoofbeastshit."

“Hoofbeastsh-” Dave begins quizzically, before getting it, “Oh! You mean bullshit.”

“No, I meant what I said.” You respond, “Fuck you for thinking otherwise. I said exactly what I meant, and you being too ethnocentric to understand slang form a culture outside your own definitely doesn’t help your cool case here, Strider. You lose 26 fucking coolness points, Strider.”

“Fuck, man, I got roasted.”

Your name is Jane Crocker, and it’s 3:30 PM on Thursday the 30th, and you’re bidding in the auction to purchase the part of what was until recently supposed to be your company that was the attempt to transition into the hardware market.

You lost slightly more than half of the company when you started the sale. You’d never strictly owned it, just been theoretically set to inherit control of it. You had, after all, been set to inherit about 51% of the voting shares in the company, which was actually slightly less than half of the shares overall. Moreover, in the breaking up of the company, you had to pay back significant debts, which diminished the parts of the company any shareholder could buy.

The various members of the transition committee owned 10% of the company by themselves. That’s nothing on what you owned, but it meant that they would wind up with some of it, which leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

Still, you got the chance to order the parts you want sold in what order, and now you are relatively certain you will be able to regain at least some portion of what you lost.

This part, the technology part however, is really expensive. As you bid again , you note that it’s costing you several times what it should, but you knew that would happen. After all, the sale of the company was ultimately about this small section of the company.

Still, you win. You knew you would - none of the individual board members owned that much of the company, and, at the same time, you are unquestionably the one most willing to go to the wall over this.

You sigh.

You won.

It cost you more money than most people would ever imagine, but you will lose no sleep over the decision. It was the right thing to do. That much is certain.