Chapter Text
“I just can’t go through with it”
Earlier they had received a court order to euthanize Vriska.
She had told john that she couldn’t do it and after asking around found and took notes on several other individuals who had stated the same during this she filed an appeal
Now they were in a courtroom about to decide the final fate
They decided the best they could do was give it their all. First decision was to invalidate all of Scratch’s claims due to him pleading guilty to his own crimes. In Terezi’s own words: “His crimes are what led her to act in such a manner. If she was in a different situation the outcome would be much different.” More points made were that if she hadn’t fought and acted in that manner she’d be the one killed in the rings and the fact that trolls were more cognitively developed and seemingly more sapient than other pets makes the act of the court order seem cruel and unusual than was intended.
After a brief recess, the judge looked at them and said “It will take a few months to find someone to carry out the court order, but if in that period of time no future incidents occur, the order will be canceled.”
After a brief moment of silence John said “ We can make this work” as he was saying this Vriska asked what he meant by everything.
“It means,” John says, “ That if you want to ensure you will live, you have to be on your best behavior.”
Vriska slowly nodded in understanding and agreement, the weight of the words coming down on her shoulders.
The ride home was full of a silent sense of unease in the air that made it so nobody would make a sound. Everytime someone tried to say something an unseen force silenced them. This silence lingered well until they were inside the house. No one would say anything as any action would feel wrong in their minds. They sat in silence, no TV, no computer, not even a snack.
Suddenly John looked like he was having an epiphany and picked up his phone. Vriska couldn’t make out what he was saying as her mind was too occupied with how to make sure her life will go on. John sat down with a slightly more relaxed aura. Vriska was curious.
“What was that?” she asked.
“You’ll find out.” John said reassuringly.
~~~
The next day John pulled out a moderately sized package and placed them in front of Vriska. They sat down at the table so he could explain.
“You understand how you have to be on your best behavior so you can live, right?” He asked
Vriska nodded.
“Given that some recent events seem to be blown out of proportion, I figured it would be a good idea to keep track of our side of events. Last night I was on the phone with Terezi and she gave me some advice and said I could go ahead and order everything. All we will be needing is right here in this package.”
John opened the package, inside was a large notebook and a collar with a rectangle in front. Vriska tensed slightly, anticipating the worst. John understood and explained in a reassuring tone.
“This collar has a camera on it, it’ll be harmless to you. We’re just going to use it to record your side of things so things don’t get messy. In the notebook I will take notes of everything that happens on a daily basis. This camera is pretty high end, good battery life, good storage and the ability to plug in to computers to upload footage. I’m also taking time to make sure nothing gets lost or corrupted to make sure that everything is where it needs to be.”
Upon the end of the explanation Vriska lifted her head and let John put it around her neck. She then proceeded to walk to the nearest mirror and do some poses, much to John’s slight amusement.
With both methods of recording everything felt like it could be well organized.
~~~
After a week of collar wearing they had settled into a routine. Wake up, put on the collar after having been charged for the night, and go about their day. To avoid any trouble that may jeopardize the situation they decided to stick with familiar places and taught themselves calming exercises in case they needed to wind down. Whenever things got too hot to handle they’d take deep breaths. Sometimes if things were really out of hand they’d say it was ok to leave and go to a safe space. At the end of each day John would take notes on everything important that went down and removed Vriska’s collar to upload that day's footage onto a file on his computer as well as a thumb drive. Afterwards they would hang around the house for the rest of the day until going to bed, which was when the cycle would repeat.
Vriska took the notion of “good behavior” to a literal extent as well. Sometimes John would be in the midst of household chores and Vriska would offer to help. He made a point that being good at chores doesn’t necessarily ensure survival in her case, but still accepted the help nonetheless.
One day the stress of everything backfired horribly and almost led to disaster.
John, in a moment of stress, had forgotten to read the ingredient label on a new snack while he was at the store. He had eaten part of it while watching TV when he realized his mistake. It began with a tightness in his chest. Thinking he was snacking too fast he went to put the package down and tried to take a sip of water. He brought the water to his lips and took a sip but he couldn’t swallow it, instead spitting it everywhere. Eventually his mind went back to when he had purchased it. He remembered being so stressed about Vriska’s future he had forgotten to check the label for peanuts, of which he was severely allergic. Now that mistake had come back to bite him.
He needed to get to the kitchen cabinet. He knew he had stashed an epipen there for that purpose. He also needed to call emergency services. When he stood up from the sofa, he immediately fell to the ground, too dizzy to stand upright, limbs too heavy to move. gasping for breath. When he fell his glass fell and broke on the ground, the noise bringing attention to Vriska’s ears. She looked at him, several emotions flickering through her expressions before she ran into the kitchen.
The last thing John saw before he blacked out was Vriska running back towards him with something yellow and orange in her hand. She had a phone to her ear saying things he couldn’t make out through the fog of oxygen deprivation.
He flickered in and out of consciousness throughout the ordeal, hearing murmured voices that barely reached his ears, the hiss of oxygen drowning everything out. He closed his eyes and decided to submit to the fog.
When he came to, he was in a hospital bed. Jade was leaning over him with tears in her eyes.
“I found out through a call and when I heard you were in the hospital I had to come as fast as I could and-” She had to stop to catch her breath before regaining her composure and calling the doctor in. Upon arrival the atmosphere in the room had taken on a more formal vibe.
The doctor looked at his notes and said, “Mr. Egbert, do you know why you’re here?”
John fumbled his words a little and started with “contains peanuts…”
“More or less that’s what happened.” was the response from the doctor, “you suffered a serious reaction from the snack you had been eating, based on reports you had forgotten to check the ingredient label before indulging yourself and the consequences were dire. If you hadn’t gotten the intervention when you did this would’ve been an entirely different story.”
The memories came flooding back into John’s brain. He had forgotten the ingredient label reading and remembered the helplessness of his situation but the biggest question on his mind still remained: If he was supposedly not in the right condition to inject himself or make the call, then who did it? He asked this to the doctor and everything went quiet.
“According to paramedic reports, the only other one in the house was a troll-“ the doctor started but was cut off by John.
“Vriska… where is she?” He said. Suddenly he remembered something else.
“Guess teaching her how to use an epipen was a good idea…” Jade started. “Oh, and to answer your question, she’s in the lounge. I gave her a handheld game system to keep herself busy.” Jade said reassuringly. She was aware of the situation involving the court order and possible chance to cancel it.
John nodded. The doctor was impressed at the fact that a troll had learned how to act in such an emergency. He knew about how pets could detect allergens but he never heard of such a case where the pet could respond in the proper manner, including the ability to call emergency services and provide such information.
“I should probably get her,” Jade continued, “She seemed really worried about everything.”
“Go ahead,” John said, as Jade left the room, he explained the situation to the doctor:
“Vriska, the troll I’m fostering, is part of a criminal investigation. We’re trying to maintain a good record so that she could have a second chance at life and if anything goes wrong, they’ll go through with the court order and put her down.”
The doctor slumped slightly and said “I’m not sure if this will change anyone’s minds but given that she did save your life I could write something down for the hearing. If you want I could even show up to testify”
“That sounds like a great idea” John replied, “Maybe I could track down the paramedics to see if they’d be available to add on.”
Moments later Jade came back into his room with Vriska in tow. The doctor attempted to block her but she cut him off saying “I’m only going to be here for a brief moment.”
Jade approached John and said, “I should probably take Vriska home. I can watch her til you can leave.”
“Great idea” John replied.
“I am going to do some preparation for your discharge such as cleaning your living room to purge it of all the peanuttiness so when you come home you won’t have any further issues.” Jade said.
Upon discharge, John was much better. He had requested his paperwork, the ER intake sheet and his discharge paperwork to add to the folder. He got a ride home from a neighbor and upon returning, Jade and Vriska were there to greet him. First thing he noticed was a pleasant clean scent.
“Yeah, after we cleaned the living room spill area, we got a little carried away and did the rest of the house, it’s been awhile anyways you were long overdue for a proper deep cleaning. We also went ahead and did the collar camera uploading, assuming you wouldn’t be available.”
“Well I am very grateful.” John replied with a grin. He was more grateful that no footage had been lost and nothing of value was jeopardized.
“We also made a card!” Vriska cheerfully said while giving John a piece of paper that said “WELCOME HOME” in blocky letters and crayon. Her spelling skills seemed better now. John paused before asking an important question.
“Vriska did the paramedics have name tags?” He asked, “It’s fine if you don’t it was a very scary situation and even if we don’t remember we still have the collar recordings.”
“Thorpe” Vriska said, “Was one of them.”
After cross referencing this statement with the discharge paperwork it was determined that the paramedics’ names were “Thorpe” and “Kurita”. One day, Jade came over to hang out with Vriska while John went to the office to track them down. Luckily they were there, having returned from a call to restock. John was standing near the garage when Thorpe came out and asked what he was doing and if he needed help.
“I don’t know if you remember but I was the guy with the peanut allergy and the troll.” John started, “It was a few days ago so it should be fresh.”
“Oh right…” Thorpe started. Kurita had shown up to listen.
“Didn’t dispatch say the troll was the one who called 911?” Kurita asked.
“Yeah that was interesting,” Thorpe responded.
John went about and explained the situation to both individuals as well as the court order and life or death situation, using the words he gave to the doctor while he was still in the hospital, “She is part of a criminal investigation. We’re trying to maintain a good record so that she could have a second chance at life and if anything goes wrong, they’ll go through with the court order and put her down.”
“Those do sound like high-stakes situations,” Thorpe started.
“Unfortunately we can’t go to court but we can provide written testimonies.” Kurita said.
“That’ll work,” John answered.
~~~
Those months came and went quicker than either was expecting. To get ready for the hearing, John sent a copy of both his notes and the footage to Terezi, he also went ahead and brought both originals along with him.
After meeting Terezi they entered the courtroom and went to their table, the suspense of the moment in the air. This was the hearing that would decide fate, the decision would mean life or death. John tugged at the collar of his shirt, grateful he had gotten a full nights’ sleep. After the judge entered and everyone took their seats, the hearing began.
Within the stack of notes for how the time had gone were John’s discharge paperwork from the hospital as well as ER intake forms, the written testimonies from the paramedics and the 911 call that had been made.
Every piece of info was laid out before the jury. The hardest part was combing through over 2 thousand hours of footage to find important details. One of the most important details was the footage of the day John had gone to the hospital. Everyone could see, from Vriska’s POV, the moment she had been alerted to the situation by the broken glass. After a few seconds of footage of seeing John lying on the ground, covered in hives and struggling to breath the camera shifted to frantic running to the kitchen, grabbing the epipen and a phone as well as hearing her side of the call with dispatch whilst John was being injected.
There was a stunned silence for a few seconds before the judge composed himself and began reading the testimonies from the paramedics. They had stated that they had never seen such a situation before and were somewhat impressed by the fact that Vriska had understood the instructions so well. The doctor had arrived to testify, saying that if she hadn’t intervened and done what she had done, the outcome would’ve likely turned out much different.
The rest of the footage and notes were otherwise unremarkable. Just some notes about troll care, including the detail that the preexisting food contained carcinogens and a note that maybe homemade food would be better. In this segment John had made a copy of a book and had several annotations including the fact that trolls had an overall open diet, with the exception of onions and other members of the allium family, noting toxicity to trolls.
After a few moments to deliberate, the judge offered the final verdict: “Given the lack of unfortunate events, with the exception of the time she saved your life, it’s safe to say that you have proved yourself well in this case. I am now officially cancelling the court order.”
The trio cheered. Vriska cheered a little less so with a look of confusion on her face. John stopped and leaned over to explain to her. “It means you’re going to live.” She cheered a little louder after that.
During the drive back home, John stopped by a bakery and told Vriska to wait in the car. He returned a few minutes later with a box. He told her not to peek and it was for later. When returning home the atmosphere felt…almost liberating. Like a huge weight got off their shoulders. Dinner was uneventful, a home cooked, onion-and-peanut free dish. After dishes were done, John returned with the box. Upon opening it, there were two small cakes inside. Vriska was visibly confused, “I don’t think it’s my birthday.” she said with confusion.
“You’re right, it’s not your birthday,” John explained, “It’s a celebration for your second chance at life. Your chance to live.”
Vriska smiled a little, awkward but sincere. “Thanks for letting me live,” she said.
John was surprised by her statement and said, “It wasn’t really me who let you live, it was the judge, I just did the convincing.”
They ate while talking about what the future could hold. Afterwards, Jade came over, having heard the news. John sheepishly apologized, having acknowledged the lack of cake for her. Jade accepted the apology with a giggle. “That’s fine, I’m not hungry anyway.” she said before patting Vriska’s head and saying, “Congratulations on your new beginning.”
The three of them hung out and watched TV. After a while Jade had to go home. At that time it was time to get ready for bed. Going out on the balcony to stargaze after changing into pajamas. It was a very calming situation. Everything suddenly felt like it was clicking back into place, everything felt like it was going smoothly.
For the first time since everything started, everyone slept soundly knowing that things were finally going to change for the better.