Archive of Our Own

Terezi doesn't know why she didn't think of this before. It seems obvious in hindsight, as most things do, and she used to be so good at seeing outcomes. These days, she avoids any kind of seeing as much as possible, whether it involves her newly repaired ocular sponges or not. She keeps the blindfold wrapped tightly around her face and refuses to see or See. Seeing with her Mind tricked her into killing one of her closest friends and served as a reminder that, in Alternian, the word 'friend' also means 'enemy'. Using her eyes has earned her nothing but headaches and self-loathing, and one of those things lingers around like an unwanted guest and a painful reminder of her failings.

She knows how to fix this though, knows who to go to because when there is a problem that needs solving or a bloody favor that needs doing, there is only one person in their group to go to. Still, getting the other girl alone is a trial. She is always busy with something or other, and everything she wants to do is trivial in comparison to what Terezi desperately wants and needs. Where Kanaya has become selfless in her life, Terezi has become just a little more selfish, and she wonders if they will ever reach an equilibrium, or if they're doomed to be completely off balance and in-tune at the same time.

When she finally manages to get Kanaya alone, it's in her garden. The other girl is tending to her plants and murmuring softly under her breath what sounds like the words of a poem.

Terezi cringes once at the words, imagines what it would be like to have her sight and immortality, is glad she never went god tier and never really wanted to. She doesn't recognize them, thinks that it must be something Rose taught the other girl, something that she felt the need to memorize.

The garden smells like grass and flowers of all colors. There is cherry and orange and blueberry on the breeze, and Terezi focuses on this and then clears her throat. Kanaya stops murmuring, then looks up at her and smiles like Terezi's presence actually means something. She stands and brushes dirt off her skirt then walks over to Terezi silently and swiftly. It makes her seem ever more a predator, which everyone in their little group must constantly remind themselves that she is, that she drinks some of their blood on a regular basis with little to no problem these days. It's easy to forget sometimes, because Kanaya is usually made of patience and kindness, but she is also capable of bitterness and sarcasm and anger and viciousness. If she wanted to, Terezi has no doubt that Kanaya could kill or trap them all, keep them and feed off them periodically until the end of time. It's a miracle that they are not in constant appreciation of how much of a monster she is not, and Terezi resolves to make her gratitude for this known if Kanaya will just do this one thing for her.

Kanaya stops in front of her, still smiling, and runs her fingers over the blindfold and then over a few scars littering Terezi's facial landscape. They were parting gifts from Gamzee, had taken days to heal and even the fast healing of their race couldn't prevent scarification. They were 'parting' because they were the last things he gave her before Kanaya parted him for good. Half of him on one side of her chainsaw and half on the other. Taking care of problems is what she does and Terezi feels bad for having to have more than one resolved by her. She feels like a coward, for wanting this to happen and needing it to mean something.

Kanaya pulls her fingers away and Terezi instantly misses the feeling of comfort and warmth in the other girl's skin. Kanaya runs hot these days, fueled by the brightness of her transformation and her constant indulgence in the warmer side of the spectrum. She prefers to be gray more often than not, but it does nothing to hide the light that burns in her core. There have been times when she shifts and Terezi can sense the impression of a hole underneath her shirt and, in her more imaginative moments, she finds herself wondering if Kanaya's insides were replaced by a miniature sun when she transformed.

She shakes herself out of her reverie and focuses less on Kanaya and more on the reason she came here. It is difficult, because the two are so intertwined, but easy at the same time because she needs this.

"I need you to blind me," Terezi says.

"Explain," Kanaya responds, and pulls her over to a stone bench to sit.

So Terezi explains what it meant for her to be blind. What it meant to see the world differently, what it meant to have Vriska blind her and her lusus teach her. How her blindness was all she had of the selfish and arrogant girl who managed to catch her in a web of feelings she never had the chance to figure out. Explains what it felt like to know she wasn't really an orphan, to have a connection to her lusus for the first time, and to learn from her like a normal pupa was supposed to.

Kanaya has a way of looking at people that can make them feel wonderful or terrible, but it is not a look she's giving Terezi now. Her face smells like it's contorted in a null expression with slashes of confusion lancing through every once in a while. "I'm sorry," Terezi says in response to a statement that was never said, "It's just that... I can't do it myself."

She tries not to cry into her blindfold, because she is just so tired of crying and it has been such a waste of time and effort lately. Kanaya gnaws absently on the nail of her thumb and leans back a bit to look at Terezi in full before sighing. It is not wistful or annoyed or angry. It's just the kind of sigh that's released when someone is going to do something that will require a large amount of preparation. It is the kind of noise that signifies that there is work to be done. This is as good as a 'Yes' from Kanaya, and Terezi flings her arms around the other girl and ignores how she tenses before melting a little and allowing her arms to circle around Terezi in an embrace.

"It's going to take a while," she says, "and we probably shouldn't tell anyone. They'll think we're hiveshit maggots, acrobatic pirouettes and all."

------

In the end, it takes two weeks for Kanaya to get ready, and Terezi spends all of them both excited and terrified. If she's not practically vibrating with delight and pacing all over the place that her and the rest of their group call home, she is curled up on her bed shaking with apprehension. It is in the latter position that Kanaya finds her, and huffs to herself before putting her hands on her hips. She is past the point in her life where she puts up with unnecessary amounts of nonsense, and sees no problem with waltzing right up to the bed and tapping Terezi on the shoulder. The other girl jolts, but doesn't really move, so Kanaya is left soothing a hand down her back in sure strokes.

"Are you afraid?" She asks, but doesn't need to in order to know. Even through the thin cotton of Terezi's shirt, Kanaya can feel the way that her blood pulses just a little faster and a little warmer than normal. "It's fine if you are."

It is unspoken between them that Kanaya is not going to let her back out of this. She was not grimAuxiliatrix for nothing, and she is good at helping people when they can't or won't help themselves, regardless of whether they want her to or not. She reaches over and searches for the other girl's hand, and when she finds it, uses it to pull Terezi around and to her feet.

"Talk to me?" Kanaya says, and pulls Terezi along dark corridors while she does.

"I wish Nepeta were here," Terezi says, because she can't think of anything else at the moment. "I mean, yeah, she was in a moirallegiance with a total jerk, but I still miss her. I miss all of our friends, even the ones I didn't like that much. I even miss Gamzee. He was the biggest piece of shit we knew, probably. Eridan could give him a run for his money. And I still miss him."

She hates herself for it too, and Kanaya grips her hand just a little tighter, squeezing it in sympathy before she halts and turns the knob on an inconspicuous door, ushering Terezi in and closing it behind them.

The room is painted white, with slashes of tyrian and olive and blue all around the walls. To Terezi, it smells like peppermint and olives and pomegranates and blueberries. It smells like sterility too, like alcohol and sharp metal. She sees this room for what it is, both a surgery and an attempt to bring her comfort.

"Things were easier then, in a way. We were younger then," Kanaya says, guiding Terezi towards a cot in the middle of room. She wants to say that they are still young, because they are, but Kanaya feels ancient so frequently these days. Duty has straightened her back and strengthened her body, but there are times when her heart sinks to her feet and her back bows forward and she truly feels the weight of her responsibilities. Still, this one thing is a responsibility that will be over quickly and that is something she can deal with. When she was younger, she cut off Tavros' legs so that he could walk again before they all died. The situation is less urgent now, but it is even more important, and less filled with the leftover and misplaced feelings of a child.

“If it helps,” she says, “Sometimes I miss Eridan and the way we used to be.”

Kanaya coaxes Terezi out of her clothes and into a hospital gown before gathering her hair into a shower cap before slowly removing the blindfold from her eyes. The other girl doesn't open them without significant cajoling, and when she does, she ends up squinting until her eyes adjust. Part of her is scared, but most of her is elated. Soon everything will be a blur of interlinked color and flavor once more, and Terezi couldn't be happier.

Kanaya washes her hands in a small sink off to the side while Terezi lies back on the cot and wiggles her toes. She listens to the sounds of the other girl pulling on latex gloves and then snapping them lightly before picking up a syringe from a nearby trolley and flicking it twice before pressing down on the plunger just enough to clear any air bubbles. She feels around for Terezi's vein until the other girl wraps her hand around her wrist. If Kanaya wanted to ignore her grip, she could easily do so. Instead, she pauses and raises a liquorice-scented eyebrow. She has learned from past experience.

"If..." Terezi says, and licks her lips. "No. Hold on, let me start over." She shakes her head and opens her mouth to speak once, then again, until she finally finds the words.

"When I was blinded. When Vriska made me look into the sun. It hurt."

Kanaya looks at her, taking her in and looking for some sign or minute facial twitch to help her understand a little more. The relationship Vriska and Terezi shared always felt like a club she wasn't allowed in. Finally, she nods and puts down the syringe, instead reaching for something that looks like an ancient torture device Neophyte Redglare would have used to pry secrets from criminals. Terezi breathes in as Kanaya breathes out, then braces herself for the pain of having it affixed. Of all their friends, Terezi trusts that Kanaya knows what she is feeling in this moment, knows what it's like to take pain of all sorts and come out the stronger for it.

"If I could do so," Kanaya says, "I would glow bright enough to burn your eyes instead of cut them out."

Terezi huffs out a nervous laugh and wills the beating of her vascular pump to quiet. Kanaya is romantic without meaning to be, and she would respond with something about the heart of a poet and how it beats in the other girl, except Kanaya's heart doesn't beat much anymore. Her hands do work perfectly well though, and she hooks the optical speculum in with enough precision that Terezi probably feels less pain than she normally would.

Kanaya is careful when she works, but it still hurts. To Terezi, it hurts more than Gamzee's beating and having her eyes torched to bright ruby red by the sun. It hurts more than her sore muscles and lacerations after the battle with the Black King. It's strange, to watch her own vision grow spotty and dim while Kanaya cuts away the muscle tissue that keeps her eyes in place. Eventually, the damage to them is severe enough that her vision simply goes dark in one eye and then the other, and she can't help but shiver at the finality of it all when Kanaya severs both of her optic nerves. What slips out of her first is a heaving sob, then a small and manic giggle. She can smell the way Kanaya's face shifts at this, and on the air she can taste the faintest hint of her tears mingling with the blood that flows out of the side of her eyes and down her face to smear across her shower cap.

Kanaya works quickly, pulling and snipping and suturing, generally making sure that Terezi doesn't bleed as much as she could. She pulls out both eyes and snips anything that keeps them attached, makes sure there is nothing left of either eye before she presses in something foreign to Terezi's senses. For a moment, she panics and wiggles and twitches, then Kanaya hushes her with the severity of a lusus school-feeding an unruly charge.

"It's an implant," she says, practically hissing, "stop squirming."

Terezi has to swallow down vomit several times while Kanaya makes sure that the implants are both affixed firmly in place with the right sort of sutures and stitching, makes sure that they're both properly swaddled in muscle tissue before sewing her eyelids shut and bolstering them with small pads of rolled up cloth. Kanaya dislikes this shortcut but there is only so much she alchemize with what they have, so she cleans the area and places a pressure patch over both eyes before wrapping Terezi's head in bandages and pulling her up from the table. She does not hide her nature, licks the blood off her latex-clad fingertips with both fervor and care, before taking the gloves off and reaching for something else on the table. She ties a new blindfold around Terezi's face, and from the smell of mint and greenery, Terezi can tell that this one is jade-green instead of candy red. It feels more fitting than her old one now.

Where her eyes used to be, Terezi feels a persistent and painful throb that both makes her want to be sick and scream with joy. It feels like something is lancing into her skull, but she feels victorious. She can smell and taste better than when she could with her sight, and it feels like coming home again. Like having a home again. She can smell and taste the way Kanaya is standing near her, tense and worried, and the touch feels a little more intense when she grabs Terezi's hands and laces their fingers together.

"How are you?" She asks.

Terezi responds with, "Never better."

To her surprise, she finds it to be true despite the pain. This is not the bitterness and rage and helplessness that filled her when she first lost her sight. This has been done as a favor, and with affection and pity that makes her bloodpusher ache. Kanaya is concerned for her, is usually concerned when she hurts someone she cares about, so long as they deserve her care. She misses how things used to be, but killing who she's killed is not something that tortures her like it does Terezi. There is a small and slowly warming heat that pulses in her cheeks and in her chest when Kanaya pulls her hands away and reaches for something else on the trolley near them.

"What should I do with these?"

She holds up a small jar filled with a pungent fluid, and Terezi can smell banana-yellow orbs with a licorice center floating in them. The way they bob around is almost comical, and while it hurts when she smiles so wide that it reaches her eyes, she doesn't hiss in pain. "Keep them," Terezi says, pushing the jar toward the other girl with an insistence that surprises even her.

Kanaya smiles at her (and for her, Terezi would like to imagine). It is a gentle parting of mint-leaf lips that reveal perfect peppermint teeth. She tucks jar away in her sylladex and reaches for Terezi's hand again, tangling their fingers together again.

They walk out of the room hand-in-hand, with their hearts a little lighter.