The first time Nepeta catches you, your feet are dangling over a cliff in the dream bubbles. You're thumbing at the scars on your arms in thought, sniffling every now and again. Some of them are from the clown. Others.... Those others, you do not want to think about.
You're so preoccupied that you don't notice her approach, don't tuck your arms into your dragon cape. ".... Hey, Terezi," she greets you softly. She sits beside you without waiting for you to say anything, but you're not annoyed as you would be with some. Instead, you lean on her shoulder and sniffle softly. You think that this is probably not alpha Nepeta. The smell is a little off, and when she strokes your cheek, the gesture is pale.
You lean into it anyways, and the two of you don't say a word.
The next time you meet with this Nepeta, you have made sure to entrench yourself in a private wood, though in dream bubbles that is not of much convenience. Not many people come here anyhow.
Nepeta is here, though. She approached loudly, for your benefit- you know that if she so wished, she could certainly stalk up on you and surprise you. You look her way as she sits beside you once again, under the tree you'd chosen.
There's silence again. Then she glances at the scars on your arms; you don't see it, of course, and you don't smell it, you just feel her gaze on your skin. You swallow thickly, and she speaks.
"Why are you hurt?" Her voice is gentle, and she touches the hand that you've been tracing your newest scar with- not yet a scar, but a scab. There are three more like it just beside it, but that one is the most recent.
When you don't answer, she begins to pet your hair, another pale gesture, and you lean into it, closing your eyes. You haven't had anyone flirt with you for a while, and this Nepeta is flirting pale pretty hard. it feels nice to be treated as reverently as her touches suggest, to have fingers caress you in a platonic way. Your body begins to relax after a moment, and you hadn't even realized you'd stiffened.
"I know I'm not your Nepeta," she whispers to you after you've sat in silence for a while, "and that you're not my Terezi. But would it be too terrible if, maybe, we could pretend for a little while?" You notice she carefully refrains from cat puns- from her quirk as a whole. That hurts your blood-pusher. She's doing it to comfort you, to try to show you how serious she is about this, but it's only serving to injure you further.
You smile anyway. This is much better than not having her at all. "Yeah. We can."
It's not long before you see Nepeta next. As soon as you close your eyes, there she is, watching you. You're still in the forest, in the same spot. "I missed you," she says quietly, almost as if she didn't want you to hear.
"I missed you too," you respond, and it's the truth. You had made yourself wait to sleep again, forced you to keep your eyes open.
She scoots over beside you, and you rest your head on her shoulder. "What happened to your Equius?" You ask this quite suddenly. She stiffens. "If you want to tell me, I mean...."
"I haven't seen him in a while. I stopped looking, eventually," she mumbled. "Every Equius I asked said he wasn't my Equius. It was always the wrong quadrant, or no quadrant, or a vastly different timeline altogether...." She sniffles, and you put your arms around her and kiss her cheek, stroking the other one gently with your thumb.
"I'm in a relationship with Gamzee," you tell her after a long pause. "That's why I'm hurt. He's... my kismesis, I guess. He's rough on me. I'm rough on myself." That wasn't the only reason why you were rough on yourself, you think, but she doesn't need to know that.
She kisses you then, very suddenly. It's right on your lips and it's forceful and it's flushed. You feel heat rising to your cheeks, and you let yourself sink into it, and you feel her hands trace your skin, and you melt under her touch, letting this become a sweet dream that you dearly need.
You feel bad when you don't wake up in the same dream bubble that Nepeta is in for the next few days, then weeks. You find yourself avoiding your other friends, and when you are around them, you zone out, thinking of her. Your Nepeta is still out there, somewhere- but you have it on good authority that she was flushed for Karkat, and not you.
When you do see your kismesis again, his words seem less harsh to you, and you bare your teeth at him and put up more of a fight than usual. Your fingers dig into his skin and find purchase, and when you leave, indigo stains your claws and your teeth, and you are holding your head high. You won this round.
When you finally wake to Nepeta again, she's sleeping, or doing something like it. Did the dead need sleep? You forgo the thought as you brush her hair back from her face, studying it, her sleeping form, making constellations of the freckles that bridge her cheeks and nose, counting the lashes of her eyelids. It's all done by smell, so you don't think any of it is exact, but you do the best you can.
She stirs after an hour, maybe more. You don't have a clear idea of time any more, if you're honest. She sits up, and then, she gives you a broad smile and hugs your neck tightly. The two of you talk in the same manner as you did last time, your words pale, your motions even more so. Unlike last time, however, the transition to flushed attitudes isn't so sudden, happening so slowly that you barely realize it until you feel the springy grass of the forest floor on your bare back and Nepeta's soft lips and gentle teeth on your throat.
You begin to think of her as your Nepeta. That is what she is now. You two share pale and flushed as if it's completely normal. You cry and laugh together, and she tells you things that happen in the dream bubbles while you're not there, while you tell her what happens amongst your living friends. You feel like you might be beginning to spend too much time sleeping, but when the two of you spend more time together outside of the forest and socializing with others, you don't think anyone can blame you.
You and Dave break up. He says it's because he learned you were with Gamzee, but when you look at him, you know it's not true. He knows about your Nepeta.
You stop talking to your friends as much. In fact, you avoid them. Between your unavoidable kismesis and your near-comatose dream-states, it doesn't take much. Sometimes you resent that they don't seek you out, but when you are confronted by a concerned Karkat, or Dave offering to drop sick beats with you, you find yourself even more irate.
Despite the happiness you've found in your new Nepeta, you can't help but spiral back into depression, with the help of the strong venom that oozes from your kismesis's tongue. Almost every time you meet with Nepeta now, you have a new scar. And one day, you have new eyes; eyes that you bawl out when you realize that she's not there that time, that you've dreamt yourself into a completely different secluded forest. You think yourself worthless, and the very kind of outlaw that you despise.
Nepeta smiles at you and holds your hand and you can see the sympathy in her eyes. You don't even have to look at her, but you do anyway. She kisses the tears away from your cheeks, and then kisses every scar that's revealed when your arms are pulled out of your cape, and then kisses the ones inside of your thighs as you're presented with every scar she wears proudly on her body as if they were trophies.
One day soon after, you do something bad.
You avoid Nepeta. You hear that she's looking for you, when you can bear to face others. It's not often for the next few months that you can.
Her hands wipe away your tears as your body shudders and heaves. You feel like you're going to be sick as she paps you and shooshes you and you curl into a ball beside her.
You finally stop crying. You sniffle, look up at her, and blink away the rest of your tears. She smiles sadly, and not a word is said.
She leans down, and you close the lids of your white eyes, feeling her press a kiss to each one.
You join a band of pirate ships. They're Vriska's. You two are on one of her last boats, and you have learned to be happy as long as you are together.
You hold Nepeta tightly. You feel her, tense in your arms as you are in hers.
Then, you don't feel anything at all.
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