TW// Intense and graphic descriptions of suicidal ideation, depersonalisation and thoughts of self harm
If you feel like this would be triggering skip down to the marker (---), which will help you understand the plot progression for future chapters, and ensure that your mental health is looked after.
Every step Sapnap drags me is agonising. My hipbone feels like it's grating against pelvis, every time my foot comes down spikes of pain spear straight through my leg. My head pounds, so loudly it drowns everything else out, the thoughts of the people I love exploding in a horrible cloud of exquisite colour, the screams that are still echoing in my ears, the shaking ground that never stopped.
Sparks of canary yellow and lime green ricochet off the blurry leaves, bouncing wildfire lit up in unnatural vividness, magenta rain hammering down from the sky. They slice into me, into my face, and my neck, and my arms and my stomach, burying deep down inside my skin, setting me alight with their sickening glow.
I wish they had taken me too. I wish that I had gone up in thundering explosions painted with the same childish hues I used to use when I was a kid, wish that everything had burned, these scars, and these memories, and this person.
This broken, unrecognisable person, this shattered, ruined girl.
Wished I could have watched the world, one final time, etched in colour and bright green wildfire, watched the purple waves crash down around me, watched the yellow haze settle in over my fading vision, nerve endings fried, feeling nothing at all, except the end.
Oh the end, the sweet release of nothing, and no one and eternal solitude that you won't even know, just that it will all end.
But if I did, then Tommy and Tubbo would be all alone, and I would betray what Niki deserves, and Sapnap, and even Punz, now, another person on the list that I'm terrified to add too because it's just another opening to have the life I try and rebuild destroyed.
If I died then, I would be breaking the promise I made to Quackity.
And so, aside from longing hopeless dreams, and far off fantasies my shaken mind concepts, the beautiful, broken picture my exhausted brain tries to paint, I cannot die.
That does not mean I will live.
Life, living; words that used to mean something to me. Now, everything they used to represent has slipped through my fingers, smashed and beaten by the viscous waves of this existence into texture fine as sand, scattered in the wind beneath my feet, long gone in the distance, off into worlds I cannot reach.
It's not about me anymore though, is it? It's about everyone I love, it's about those that I hate. It's about pushing them through this fucking mess, and tearing them down. I will rip my enemies apart, place their heads on goddamn pikes if I have too, send a warning to this cruel, callous Earth, and it's twisted people, that there has been enough bloodshed on this grass.
That these beaches have seen enough bodies, and these waters have felt too many tears. The mountains have watched too much burn, these flowers have witnessed too much war. That I want them to bloom, and to grow, and to wilt and die when it's their time, and I want them to be able to live.
And I should feel angry, and I should feel sad, and there should be the rage of all that is wrong in the world imbued in my heart, rolling sadness of all the might of a thrashing sea broiling underneath my skin, frothing in my chest, drowning my lungs.
I should feel fear too, those startling ice cold daggers that lodge in my spine, paralysing terror that locks my joints tight, nightmares warped beyond what our human minds can conceive, needle-nails gripping my brain.
I should scream with the millions of voices of those who have been betrayed, cry the stinging, hot floods of tears of all of those who have lost, thrash with the horrors we are forced to witness, every day, every life, every world.
Instead, there's just nothing where my heart should be, like it's just finally been torn out, along with my voice, and my tears. The world has taken what they wanted, stripped bare and ripped apart by selfish hands of men that do not deserve what they steal, left behind an empty hollowness that floods the gaps in my humanity, the ones that really could never be fixed.
And this empty woman, this pale imitation of a human, will keep going, keep up the acts and the pretence, let old anger ruin those who hurt her, let stale sadness and long dried tears steer her in the right direction, let mellowed love and it's black-burnt heart cling onto those she once loved, let the faint memories of happiness drive her forward.
Keep the pale, weathered sketch of a good world she drew as a child play like a movie in her head, let it lull her to sleep with kind faces, and loving words from lingering, distant voices, let it hide all that evil, all that violence, all that pain. Wait, until the world has been set right, until her time comes, and she can finally rest.
Maybe she won't feel again. Maybe she will.
I don't know which is worse, I don't know which to hope for her.
That pain in my hip has faded to a twinge, a barely there reminder of the event that just turned this world upside down, slapped me so hard in the face that I can't recognise it anymore, and I want to feel something, anything, because despite everything, I have always felt.
The arm in front of me is pale, and bloodied, dark red blood smeared onto it's palms, crusted into the well worn crease lines trailed into the skin. I imagine silver-sharp knife points and sharp red lines, the way they paint across plastic skin, the familiar cherry red and mottled pink and yellow, blood on skin, stinging wounds and pretty patterns.
I feel like laughing.
I am losing my mind.
It's fracturing with every moment that passes, every flash of colour under my eyelids, like that girl in the mirror distorting in the fractures in the glass, cracking, twisting, splintering into incoherent little pieces spiralling off into their own little worlds.
I watch a tree trunk meander by, imagine slamming my head into it's solid bark, the satisfying crunch and the dull ache that silences all that shit in my brain, imagine using the sharp edges of broken off flint to gouge out my eyes, plunge all those awful horrors that are out there into darkness, shield that mind from the barbarity that's to come.
Strip off this skin, marked by men who are responsible for this, soiled by their touch, and their hands, and him, his lips and his tongue, dragged against everything that was mine, plunged his greedy fingers into my thoughts and muddled them, so he could seize that lost girl, so that he could use her for what he wanted.
And the thing is, those thoughts are still that mixed, ruined mess, and while everything I should know, and every remaining ounce of logic and common fucking sense is screaming so loud I think my ears would bleed, that I don't, that I shouldn't, that this is not right, they still love him. I still love him.
I wonder, if I asked him to kill me, whether he would.
Probably not, because asking him to sacrifice his own feelings for me has always been an impossible ask in our relationship. He just can never let go of those strings.
The grand puppet master and the simple, worthless pawns in his game, some fucked up version of chess where he controls every piece on the board, sending us in a sick dance around one another, not realising he was sacrificing his prize while doing so.
I was human once.
They break when you push them too far. They all do.
I suppose that's what happened to Fundy in a way, granted he was born with the fault lines already etched into his head of course, but shoved too hard, by loneliness and desperation for his fathers approval and the whole awful mess of this world, and it shattered, taking his humanity along with it.
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Will I end up like him? Driven mad by rage and misdirected grief that I could not feel, that I would not feel, ripping apart the enemies I fabricate in my ruined mind, hurting the people I love?
Quackity wouldn't have wanted this.
Quackity, who's barely recognisable body is still lying on a scorched podium in a haze of thick acrid smoke and the stomach churning scent of singed hair and skin, who was ripped from a life that was supposed to be so much better, the man that gave me a home, and love, and light that blinded me then, but is so bright now, like it's waving in my face, tapping me on the forehead.
I'm right here, it says. There's still a chance! I'm still here!
I suppose his final, beautiful, fragile, hopeless gift was a tiny spark of hope, golden white-gold warm glow that shines through the grey smog and the hollow nothing, and the flurry of awful memories looped in my brain.
And my final gift to him is that I keep it.
I don't embrace it, I don't try and cup my hands around it, fan it into a flame that burns everything up in my head, clears that fucking fog and all the cobwebs of a past that I don't want to think about, of a person that I do not see in that mirror anymore. But I don't throw it away, don't let it fizzle out in a frenzied glint, don't watch the faint wisp of the ash it leaves dissolve into the wind.
Maybe he will be able to forgive me, one day. Maybe he'll be able to look down, see the girl he remembers.
I don't hold much hope, but I know he does.
Did.
Does.
Did.
Who fucking cares.
"Hey, Rosie?"
Sapnap's voice is soft, pitch lowered like he was speaking to a wounded animal, dulcet soothing tones lathered in pity, aimed at a condemned life.
"Yeah?" I answer, I think. The voice is gravelly and distant. It doesn't sound like me, the word doesn't feel like it fits in my mouth.
"We're here." He squeezes my hand. "You ready?"
No.
"Sure."
They aren't going to recognise me, they cannot love me anymore, not this, this thing I have become, a shell, a hopeless, empty shell. The Rosemary they are expecting died along with Quackity.
She probably died long before that, but I supposed I still had hope of unattainable fanciful dreams.
I am not ready to see them, I am not ready to watch them cry over the life that bleeds from me.
I'm covered blood, limping, scratched. It's not even my blood, it's the guard I killed.
I had forgotten about him.
Maybe I am truly beyond redemption. Maybe Quackity was wrong.
Loose dirt rumbles, chunks of dried mud and little pebbles skitter down a carved out hill, pushed open to reveal the startling clear figures of my family.
Niki, Tommy, Wilbur, no longer ghosts in my weeping, wailing mind.
Tommy doesn't hesitate, already running before he's even seen me, colliding together with so much force it spins me off balance and onto my bad hip, buckling under our collective weight and sending us thumping into the ground. I grip onto the back of his thin shirt tightly, hugging his too-thin frame with all the strength I could muster.
I failed him. I failed this kid so much, and he still hugs me with all the force in the world.
"I'm so sorry." I choke out. "I'm so sorry Tommy."
He's crying into my neck, and neither have a moment to say another word because Niki crashes into our tangled pile on the floor, throwing her arms around his both, nails digging into my skin as if she loses hold of me I will be gone forever, crescent moons in my bicep, hair tickling our faces.
"You're okay." Niki sobs into both of us, squeezing tightly.
"I'm okay." I repeat. It's a lie. "I missed you so much." I say to both of them, crushing them in my arms like I'm trying to squeeze the life out of them, no one daring to let go. "I missed you so fucking much."
Slowly, their arms loosen, and they sit back, letting me peel myself off the grass and sit up, cheeks glittering with tear tracks that worm through a layer of grime, looking back at a motionless Wilbur, still standing back at the entrance to whatever shithole they live in.
He clears his throat.
"Rose." His tone does not betray the love I remember he left me with, it's a raspy, mocking imitation of the man I knew.
"Wil." I stand up, brushing leaves off my pants, and face him.
"Come here to help out Dream?"
Oh this motherfucker.
"What?"
"Are you here to spy for Dream?" He repeats impatiently. I blanch.
"Wilbur I don't have time for whatever dumb-fuck game you want to start playing again, I just escaped from Dream, I just watched Schlatt try and execute Tubbo, I just watched Quackity get blown up by a firework. You think I want to do this stupid shit again?"
"Until we can trust-"
"Wil shut up!" Tommy snaps, standing up next to me. "It's Rose, we finally have Rose back and you want to turn her away? What the hell is wrong with you man?"
Oh Tommy, if only you did have her back. Oh how I wish I could give her back to you.
I am so sorry.
Niki places a reassuring hand on his shoulder, sending me one of her looks that screams, not this again.
"Tommy." She starts gently. "We won't turn Rose away, you know that. You know Wil's slipping, we just have to sort this out, calmly."
"Then why is he here?" Wilbur snarls, thrusting an accusatory finger in Sapnap's direction, who's uncomfortably standing in the shadows, before weakly raising his hands in defence.
"Uh I just brought Rosie here because she had no where to go and Dream was after her, nothing else, okay dude? I'm not here to spy on you or whatever."
"He is Dream's best friend-"
"Wil!" I snap, clicking my fingers sharply to get his attention before he launches into some unhinged rant I've witnessed him do when he gets on one of his everyone is against me tangents. "Stop. We've been over this. I have no reason to betray you, or anyone here, or L'manburg, and I know it's hard to believe, but Sapnap doesn't either. He saved me by bringing me here, that's all okay? That's all."
"You bring Dream's allies to our base, and just expect me to know that you're not a traitor?"
"Dream's already been here, nothing I do gives him anymore information." Sapnap says in a bored tone, but I can see a bit more of the whites of his eyes than usual and I know he's at least a little freaked out by Wilbur's erratic behaviour.
"That's convenient." Is all Wilbur sneers, watching as Sapnap hugs me tightly.
"You gonna be okay here?" He asks in my ear, and I can hear the concern no doubt plastered on his face. I nod into the crook of his neck.
"Yeah." I whisper. "I've got Tommy and Niki, and they're my family."
"I'm so sorry about Quackity Rosie," Sapnap says, accompanied with a squeeze. "I love you so much, okay? I'm always here, you know that right."
I nod again. "Thank you." I squeak out, and I can feel his shoulders shake with a rumbling laugh.
"You don't have to thank me."
"No, no, you do so much for me, and you don't have to, and I am so grateful to have you Sap, I love you so much."
He presses a kiss to my temple, before letting me go. "Look after yourself, okay? I'll be back soon, when things cool down, so Dream doesn't get suspicious."
I watch him leave, back through the forest, disappearing in the foliage while Tommy and Niki sling their arms around me, walking me back towards Wilbur, who hasn't moved.
The mood is quieter now, more somber, as the weight of today's events settle heavy in the air, and the brief, brief moment on respite, that joy of seeing them alive, and well and as okay as you can possibly be in these circumstances, evaporates in it's wake.
Because yes they're alive, but Quackity is dead. Quackity, who promised me the world he was going to fix, the mountains he was going to move, the mistakes that seemed to topple my life, and the man behind it all.
I told him I forgave him, and I did. That anger and emotion seemed to falter in the magnitude of the fact I was holding a dying man in my arms, and I couldn't let him go without knowing that that shit meant nothing, not anymore, not with him gone.
No one says anything.
I think we've run out of things to say, words to comfort, ways to pretend. Being with each other is enough.
Wilbur disappears down a spiralling staircase that leads to something underground. We're in a small shack, held up up caked in mud and dirty wooden planks, knotted wooden support beams. There's a table, and a few chests, and a bed tucked on one side.
"We stay in the ravine." Niki explains. "But I'll sleep up here with you."
"Thanks Niki." I whisper, sitting down on the bed. She brings me a set of worn clothes, but they're clean and comfortable and I quickly change, dumping the ruined remains of the old ones in a corner.
I didn't wear any of Quackity's shirts today, and I can't decide whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Niki extinguishes the lamp that rests on the table when she comes back up the staircase, with a clean face and pyjamas that have been worn almost thin, ragged holes in the hems. She slides into the covers, next to where I am, facing my back.
Our breaths fall into a steady, calm rhythm, and I close my eyes, exhaustion from the utterly confusing mess of the day settling in, deep to my bones, dragging me under. Niki falls asleep quickly, and soon my heart thumps at its calm, steady, slow pace, and my eyelids feel like they weigh of lead, and my brain is blissfully, wonderfully empty.
I'm here, sleeping, safe, with my family again.
The spark that's buried within me burns a little bit brighter.
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A/N This was a lot. It was hard to write this chapter, and it brought up a lot of self reflection for me. I drew a lot from my own experiences, and while it's really good to be able to express my feelings, it's also hard to confront things that are suddenly laid out in front of you.
A lot of the way Rosie deals with things is based off myself and how I deal, which is through an unhealthy dose of avoidance and stewing in internal anger. While it may feel that Rosie is not touching on Quackity's death, especially compared to her reaction to Jack's death, it's actually her way of subconsciously (and consciously) protecting herself, because she has been through so much. Instead of focusing on a really awful, horrible subject that she can't handle right now, she looks inward at her position currently.
In a way her reaction is both 'good' and 'bad' (and I say that with the fact that there is not really good and bad reactions to trauma), while she does not address or intend to address Quackity's death and how that's affected her properly, she does do a lot of reflection on her current position, running through the slew of internal views of herself she has. There is a shift throughout the chapter on her thoughts, from hopeless and wanting to die, to resigned and ready to keep pushing on and so on. For me, my mindset never stays in one place, and whenever I have to deal with a mess of emotions, my mind flip flops from one place to another, so for me that feels the most natural and raw, but I'm curious to see how it feels fro you guys.
If you are struggling at all, please make sure to reach out if you need. My DMs are always open, and I'm here to listen, especially if you want to talk about this chapter.
Stay safe my loves, and I do hope you enjoyed,
Oopsies x