I'd rather run the other way than stay and see

[pythianjudgment]

Who| Terezi, Disciple, Karkat (but not at the same time)
What| Visitors! Terezi doesn't want them, but she's going to get them anyway. There's people with things to say.
Where| District 3 Suites, Terezi's room
When| Not long after Terezi's return in Week
Warnings/Notes| None so far



After her fight with Fraysong, Terezi hasn't felt much like leaving her room. She's already gone over as much of the broadcasts as she really cares to. Everything has been hashed and rehashed and quite honestly, she's tired of hearing the Capitol voices on the television screen going on and on about how tragic or exciting their lives are. It's enough to make her sick.

Save for her venture to the roof, her only other excursion consisted of a trip to see the Disciple. Or rather, to slip a picture under her door with a note written on the back. There's other places that she would like to visit, but the risk of running into people that she doesn't want to deal with is too high. So she retires to her room to whittle away some hours browsing the network.

It seems that not everyone has been as preoccupied with the arena as she has.

Comments

[sleeplessinalternia]

It takes a little longer for Karkat to show up than it does the Disciple, mostly because he's trying to plan how the talk will go. It starts out as a list of topics to cover and ends up as a flow-chart. In the end, though, he throws both list and chart away in frustration and settles for standing outside Terezi's door, trying to psyche himself up to knock on it.

Finally he ends up beating his head against the door in frustration with his own cowardice.

[pythianjudgment]

The banging sound almost makes Terezi jump. She wasn't expecting it, and honestly she has no idea who it is. There should really be peep holes on these doors... Maybe she'll ask about having one installed, even though it's not likely.

"Who's out there?" she calls through the door, after crossing the room. The door remains locked for the moment.

[sleeplessinalternia]

Well, that was one way to make the decision. "Me," Karkat calls through the door. "I think we need to talk."

He feels around in his pocket, nervously, his fingers brushing against the fur of the fuzzbeast--not the extra black one he accidentally made when he fed Signless' white one a piece of baabeast flesh, that one's still in Signless' room, but one he bought properly with the cullmoney he got from Sherlock.

It trills at him.

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi recognizes the voice instantly. She winces internally, hesitating in her response. There's no going back, he already knows that she's in here. She might as well talk to him.

"...What about? I thought everything was pretty straight-foward at this point." She doesn't unlock the door yet. She knows well enough that if she lets him in, it'll be a huge pain to get him back out again.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Stuff," he says. "Look, even after I shunned you for over a perigee, you still tried to save my life. I'm not so much of a worthless piece of shit that I can't acknowledge that. You don't have to let me in, but could you at least open the door?"

[pythianjudgment]

"Talking doesn't require the door being open," Terezi responds. It's stupidly petty and petulant, but she doesn't feel like she has to open the door for him.

"If all you want to do is talk, you can do it from right there. I can hear you just fine." And so can her other district-mates, probably. But she doesn't really care about them.

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat gives a long-suffering sigh. "Yeah, but giving you a thing does, all right?"

[pythianjudgment]

Giving her a thing. Like a present? Terezi frowns, leaning her forehead against the door. She's not sure what to think about more gifts. He already sent her a gift in the arena, and she wasn't even sure how to feel about that one.

"Who says that I want it?" she asks, after a pause. Her voice sounds quieter than before.

[sleeplessinalternia]

He snorts. "You aren't going to know until you see it, are you?"

He takes the fuzzbeast out of his pocket.

[pythianjudgment]

"I'm not going to see it in the first place," she retorts. It sounds a little off-key, though, lacking in the full flavor of her usual snarkiness. She can't seem to find that old groove to fall into--and she's not sure that she wants to go back that easily, anyway.

There's a lengthy pause as Terezi tries to figure out what she wants to do... It's probably not too much to at least find out what he has. But regardless of what it is, she's not sure that she wants it.

Eventually, there's the sound of a lock clicking. Terezi slides the door open, just enough for half of her face to be seen.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"This is a fuzzbeast," he says, holding it out to her. "It's made of fur and smaller fuzzbeasts and it makes soothing noises."

If Terezi sniffs the air, she might notice that the so-called fuzzbeast is obnoxiously bright cherry red.

"Don't feed it unless you want more fuzzbeasts," he adds after a moment.

[pythianjudgment]

"They're called tribbles," Terezi says flatly, not opening the door any wider than it is. She can smell the furball in the palm of Karkat's hands and hear it trill and coo, but she doesn't make any motion to open the door wider nor does reach out to take it.

She's still not sure what to think. Maybe once upon a time she would have accepted a token gift as an apology, but that time isn't now, anymore. She doesn't know what to do with the gift or with the motivations behind his offering.

"...What are you expecting this to do?" she asks, after a moment. "Presents aren't going to fix everything that's happened. It doesn't stop being a thing for me or for you, just because you brought me something red."

[sleeplessinalternia]

"'Tribble' doesn't describe anything," Karkat mutters under his breath. It's exactly the kind of name a species that would call their nutcreature equivalents 'squirrels' would come up with.

"I don't know," he says louder, a bit peevishly. "It's supposed to be a spontaneous offering for the cessation of hostilities, okay? I have no fucking clue what we're supposed to do now. You did a really shitty thing, Terezi! And then I was incredibly shitty back to you! And somehow, despite how shitty I was, you ended up putting yourself between me and a raging clown even though I hadn't done fuckall to deserve it. So yeah, I sent you shit in the arena. I wanted you to stay alive as long as you could!"

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi doesn't want to get sidetracked, so the complaint over the name Tribble gets ignored completely. Instead, she responds in a quieter tone, frown apparent on her face.

"I wasn't trying to be shitty to you."

She could explain everything to him right now... but that would defeat the purpose of keeping quiet about it in the first place. She doesn't know how well they're being kept watch over, but she does know that they are being watched. That, and she doesn't want him to throw it back in her face like she half expects him to.

"I just don't like him. I don't like how he thinks, and I don't like the influence he has on you. If I could have told you that I couldn't follow through on your shitty request, then I would have. But you weren't there."

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Signless wasn't trying to be shitty with the Helmsman either and we all know how well that turned out," Karkat retorts. "Look, what I asked you to do was pretty fucking stupid of me, I get that, I do. I thought we'd be together in the Arena, that once you got to know him you'd see why I've been trying to protect his crazy ass, but that shit didn't happen. But, fuck, Terezi, there's a difference between not lifting a frond to help someone and premeditated culling. You know that."

He takes a deep breath. Keep to your outline, Karkat. Keep to your fucking outline. "I don't want fucking justification, okay? And I don't want to hear that I'm incapable of comprehending why what you did was for everyone's good. I... I want an apology. Because even if you hate his ass, even if you don't like where he is in my quadrants, even if you thought you had every fucking reason to do it, he's still my moirail. And I deserve that much from you."

He breathes out slowly. "Then you can yell at me for being a shitty and worthless fucktard, because fuck knows I probably deserve that too."

[pythianjudgment]

It's apparent the way that Terezi bristles at his words. Briefly, she considers slamming the door in his face. But that won't solve anything, even if it might make her feel better.

"Karkat." Her tone is even, measured, neutral. "I'm not sorry for what I did. I'm sorry for making a promise that I couldn't keep, but that's it. That's the only apology you'll get out of me. I'm not sorry for killing him. I'm even less sorry now for disliking him as your moirail. You don't deserve anything from me for that, after the way you've been acting."

And on that note, some of her anger fades. She hesitates, uncertain, then continues. "...I don't like what he's done to you. You were never like this before. Even if you were a pain a lot of the time, you never would have asked your friends to die for someone else."

[sleeplessinalternia]

He bristles initially at her response, but by the end is visibly deflated. "I shouldn't have asked you to do that. It was incredibly shitty of me. And... I'm sorry."

He looks down, because apologizing is hard and so is looking at her when he knows he was wrong, even if it had taken him way too long to figure it out. "Cuthbert and I had this strategy we came up with for the arenas, this fucking long game we were playing. After you guys showed up... well, I wanted to include you in it. Getting him out was only going to be the first stage. Then we'd have gotten you out. And then Nepeta. And I guess me, then Cuthbert. Signless was just going first because he's weakest. But, shit, you're right, it's one thing to be willing to sacrifice yourself and another to someone else to do the same and I was an asshole who asked shit from you I shouldn't have." He looks back up at her. "But that wasn't his fault, all right? That was me being a shitpan and if he'd known I'd asked at the time he'd have probably yelled at me."

[pythianjudgment]

"I don't really care what he would have yelled at you about. I have a lot of other reasons to not like him. Your inexplicable favoritism is only one of those." There's still the whole issue with the scratch and also his general association with Karkat. She's not sure why or how him and Karkat got to be moirails, but she probably wouldn't like that, either.

"Did it occur to you that we might have not come back from that sacrificial death?" she asks. The door slides closed just a little bit, enough for her to rest her forehead against the edge of it. "You seemed so worried about him not returning... Did you have the same concern for the rest of us?"

[sleeplessinalternia]

Oh.

Oh fuck.

Just because the plan had meant they'd have control over their own deaths.... it didn't mean they'd have control over their resurrection. One didn't follow the other, he should have been thinking of that, why hadn't he, why was he so stupid?

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'm a pan-cracked moron and you're right, I don't deserve anything from you."

[pythianjudgment]

She's quiet at that. Maybe he gets it, why she's been so bothered. Maybe he doesn't, and she's just making him feel bad. She doesn't know. But she doesn't know how to explain it any other way.

"I didn't enjoy it," she says after a long silence. Her head is bowed a little against the edge of the door. She frowns miserably at it, like it somehow offended her. "Killing your moirail, I mean. I hated it. But I didn't want him to win."

She should shut up. Just tell him that she won't do it again and leave it at that. But if she doesn't tell him, will he really understand? Not just what she was trying to do, but what he needs to do.

"I was...scared," she says the word quietly and strangely, like she's not used to saying it. "That if he won, if he got into those circles, obliviously saying the things that he says... They would punish him. And he would unwittingly drag you into that by association, one way or another. ...And I don't want them to hurt you."

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Oh," Karkat says. "Oh shit."

And then, quietly, he starts to cry.

[pythianjudgment]

The tears aren't...entirely surprising, but Terezi still lifts her head with concern in her expression.

"Hey...Come on. Stop that." She doesn't want him crying on her doorstep. It's equal parts embarrassing and guilt-inducing, even as fragrant as the scent is. She shifts awkwardly at the door, opening it just a fraction further.

"You don't have to stand there and blubber at me... I don't hate you. We're still friends. Just... Keep in mind what I've said. You have to be careful. Everywhere, and with everyone. Okay?"

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Okay," he whispers.

Karkat sniffles, rubs his eyes with his (thankfully dark brown) sweater, and tries to stop crying. It doesn't really work, but if he keeps wiping his eyes maybe she won't smell it.

It occurs to him that if they were back on Alternia he would have had to cull half of District Three by now. Thank fuck the aliens don't care about his mutation.

"I don't deserve to be your friend," he says. "I was an asshole for perigees and you were trying to protect me. Like you always do. Like you did in the arena, like when they sent us out to fight those xenomorph things and you made sure Maximus would lose his leg instead of me losing mine. You don't deserve a shitty friend like me."

[pythianjudgment]

"Probably not, but you're stuck with me anyway. So try not to be too much of an embarrassment, okay?" She doesn't mean it, of course. Teasing him for the crying and the self-depreciation is just easier than trying to figure out how to comfort him. It's familiar, and that's comforting enough, isn't it?

There was one part that caught her attention, though. Just an otherwise off-hand remark that shouldn't have bothered her. But she frowns a bit as he says it, and returns to it after her bout of teasing. "...Who told you about the Maximus thing?"

[sleeplessinalternia]

In a weird way, it really is comforting.

Karkat shakes his head. "Nobody told me. I figured out myself later. I'm a moron but I'm not that much of a moron."