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Rose is a woman who lives in the apartment above a used bookstore where the floor in the hall is rough turn of the century wood that creaks and the kitchen has plates propped along the walls with fancy chickens painted on them—silver sebright hens, she tells you. She finds the pretty gray and black lacework of their feathers very charming, and used to think about keeping a few around. She is a woman who knits her own socks and scarves and just about everything else, really, and she listens to Edith Piaf and Louis Armstrong before she falls asleep, almost always before midnight. She is a woman who stands in for the school librarian up to three times a week on the turn of a dime and for no pay, and plays her violin at the farmer’s markets in summer, for goodness sakes! She may be a far ways from conventional but she’s a good person. Vriska still says she’s dangerous and crazy.
Then again Vriska calls any number of people dangerous and crazy—the nice old couple who sell their homemade preserves along the highway in summer, the president and every president before him, people who have a PhD after their name, you, Mister Noir and Miz Snowman. You guess you can grant her leniency for the last two specimens, though, since doing otherwise would be hypocritical. Vriska is nervous and paranoid even when she says she isn’t so you’re used to her ragging on everybody in the world. She likes to complain; it’s one of her pastimes, really.
She tells you in a different way, though. She usually says somebody is dangerous and crazy when many people with many opinions of varying potency are within hearing range. But when she lets slip that Rose Lalonde is too close to the deep end for anybody’s comfort, it’s just you and her as you work to clean out the back of your van. It had been gathering various bits of junk every time somebody new took it for a drive and you have had enough; you gave the entire house fair warning, that if they left something in your van and didn’t retrieve it by noon then you were donating it to any bewildered schmuck you could pass it off to or burning it, depending on the social acceptability of said artifact. Vriska isn’t actually aiding your cleaning. She sits on the ground with her back leaned up against the open doorway, her head knocking into your ankle as you get down on your knees to attack a suggestive stain ingrained in the carpet.
“Hey.” She says
You reach for the bleach and roll up your sleeves.
“Kanaya.”
Oh fuck that smells bad.
“I…you should know…”
Urgh and it’s staining sick yellow-white as bleach does with everything. You knew it would do this and you’re too tired to give a spectacular damn about it; you’ve been out here nearly three hours now. You just want the stain gone.
“Could you say something?” She snaps. You hum distantly, prodding the bleached area with the tip of your claw without care. Bleach does jack shit to tough troll features.
“That’s bullshit, Kanaya. I’m trying to be seeeeeeeerious here.” She yanks on your ankle and you skid out of the van, yelping and somewhat furious. You end up on your back in the gravel and dirt, staring up at the cozy sky. Vriska leans her face over yours, eyes dark and wide.
“What do you need?” You hiss out, wiping smears of bleach from your claw onto the ground.
“I need you to know something about Lalonde.”
You groan.
“Vriska, I know you are a vitriolic, needy being who wants me all to herself, and I know you don’t play well with others, but would you please keep yourself from ruining this one prospective relationship of mine?”
She snarls at this and you see her bright teeth. “Jesus fuck, Maryam, I’m trying to be serious with you and you’re just…fucking mother of fuck, you’re sounding just like her!”
You push yourself up on your elbows. She shoves you back down and jumps to her feet.
“Whatever. Fuck this. You don’t want to hear what I have to say, fine by me.” She stomps back to the house.
You work on the van a little more, knowing that she will return. She does, not five minutes after she takes her leave. She sits next to you, on the spot of still-wet bleach, and you hope she is not particularly attached to this pair of jeans. You don’t hope this enough to actually say anything however.
Neither of you say a thing for the longest time. You carefully scratch gum off from under the driver’s seat and chisel food remnants from the stereo. She sits behind you, slowly hitching her knees to her chest like she’s caught in a plastic funk. Every so often she makes wanton noises deep in her chest that she regrets before they even properly breach her larynx so she always cuts them off before they can become something any more interesting or harmful. If she were anybody else, even a stranger, you would caringly ask what was wrong, but she’s Vriska and the part of you that cares about her is apt to vanish for very long spans of time to places most discreet and unreachable. You feel as if you could make a Strider-esque metaphor about you caring for Vriska being like a comb-overed husband and father of two point one (plus mandatory white picket fence) on a Bangkok ‘business visit’ but you don’t fancy sinking that low right now.
“I know you’re getting in with Lalonde and shit and I just think you should know she’s fucking crazy.” Vriska says with the scared voice that she only ever uses when she’s telling a truth. Normally you would call her out on this because since you met her she’s always been trying to hoard you and make sure nobody else touched you, but there’s something in her tone that makes you consider believing her should you ever become extremely bored. The way she sounds like she’s just warning you; she isn’t going to drive herself between you and Rose, she isn’t going to come steamrolling in and ruin everything like she has been known to do. She is simply telling you and asking in the most broken and polite way she knows that you please, please, please do not go see Rose tonight like you’ve been planning on for the past few days.
“Thank you for that, Vriska.” You nod graciously at her, motioning for her to get out of the van with you so you can lock it up and go get ready for your colt-footed date.
“I’m serious, Kanaya.” She says as you walk back up to the house. “I’ve talked to her a few times and I know a freak when I see one.”
“She’s not going to hurt me, Vriska, and she’s not going to kidnap me.”
“Sure. Whatever. Think that. And maybe she won’t. But she can hurt people. I know. I’ve seen it.” Vriska peels away from you. You watch her slither up the stairs to go do whatever. You frown a little, consider her words, and then guess that she’s just laying things on a little heavy this time.
Rose wouldn’t hurt you, or anybody else really. Because she is tiny and well-educated and she always maintains eye contact, even when she talks to Terezi. She’s not the kind of person who hurts others. She’s too subtle for that.