thecapitol | And if you leave me, rest assured it would kill me

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And if you leave me, rest assured it would kill me

Who| Initiate + the Signless, Terezi, Sigma (and any others whom he would go to, PM or hit me up elsewhere if you want in). All separate threads.
What| The Initiate gives a warning and request.
Where| The Signless's room, Terezi's room, Sigma's room.
When| After running into the Psiioniic.
WARNINGS| Language. Pale heartbreak. Mentions of a formerly-terrible person doing terrible things? Skewed sense of what garners a death sentence. Probably a slap or two. (Probably going to be some wibbly wobbly time madness.)

Now, now at last that he's left the Psiioniic's side, he can come apart, is what he thinks, but it ain't true. It's always one thing after another, one trial ignored, another break all the fuck postponed. Hold together, hold together, that's all it is what he keeps doing. It's what he keeps fucking telling all everybody, just motherfucking hang in there. It is not. Fucking. Working.

He's angry, all sharp and sudden for a good ten seconds. If he was just allowed to be what he was he'd be fine right now. If he'd just stayed a goddamn monster he wouldn't have to deal on with none of this. The Psiioniic's threat? Shit would be a joke. A joke what he'd be laughing his damn ass off then and still now.

The moment passes though, as it always does.

He just promised his death to an ex-moirail ex-friend what don't remember him no more. All this time trying to stay alive and now this. He can't even curse himself for impulse or stupidity because his mind ain't changed, it still sounds as to be just.

Either way, he has to hold together. He can't all fall apart up as of yet. He has to let them know, them what it's being relevant to. In place of the anger, he's almost numb. He regains that quiet hollowness as like he held when he was Avoxed. He trails through the halls all like he's being one, eyes down and careful not to touch nobody. He keeps the cleaned off side of his face facing the wall wherever all he can. Soon, he can come apart, but not yet. Not yet.

He knocks on the door.

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The door swings open with no preamble. Anyone who might come all the way up to Twelve and knock on the Signless's door is someone he'll want to let in; what would be the point in asking who was there?

At the sight of the Initiate's face he lifts a hand to his mouth and then extends it to brush against that bare cheek, almost not touching at all. He knows the significance of the paint, knows that seeing the indigo without his entire face covered means that something very serious is going on.

"Kurloz, your face... come in. Tell me what happened."

It's instinctive it up and is, when the Signless reaches out and gets just close enough to touch. His eyes close and he leans the bare part of his face against the hand, sighing soft and the tiniest bit of relief that brings.

He steps forward into the room, hesitates at the pile, then decides, no, they're moirails still right now and he doesn't want to be anywhere else. He doesn't have it in him enough to fight it.

But he doesn't collapse on the pile like he wants. He looks at the Signless and simply says, "He's back. MITUNA. He's back." And then the Avoxed mask crumples and his ownself starts with it.

Their relationship is no longer entirely new and yet it still makes the Signless's bloodpusher flip when the Initiate leans into his touch. This is the first time they've really done anything overtly pale entirely on their own and he finds himself now more than ever wanting to get it right.

Especially when he hears what the problem is. His face falls and he puts his hands on the Initiate's shoulders to steady him before sliding them around to hold him tight. He can't exactly physically support a troll so much larger than him but he feels compelled to try.

"I know. I spoke to him earlier. Did he -- I told him about you, that you weren't a threat, but he's never listened to me very well."

If it were another time, he might try to soothe that worry, tell Kankri to hush, it's okay, all what he's doing is right. Now is not that time.

His hands rise up, clutching the fabric on Kankri's back. He takes that second hanging on, with Kankri trying to hold him up to re-steady his legs. But that's it.

"IT'S FINE, HE LISTENED. I took off the paint. PROVED IT." He babbles. "I missed him so motherfucking much and he screamed when I touched him. HE LOOKED AT ME LIKE A MONSTER AND, KANKRI, HE AIN'T EVEN KNOW THE MOTHERFUCKING EXTENT!"

He's weeping, staining the Signless's clothes with indigo.

"Should be happy. HE'S SAFE. I ain't never gotta go back to Alternia for nothing. AND I- I KNEW SUCH THINGS, IF AS I WENT BACK FOR HIM, HE WOULDN'T REMEMBER ME. I motherfucking knew that but it still..."

It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. It hurts so fucking much. And Signless would know, he's faced this too in his own way, even if all he wasn't forgotten. He feels guilty, asking understanding of Signless now where before he gave none.

He forces himself straight, with a couple of slipping false starts.

"HE REMEMBERS YOU THOUGH. He wants to protect you. HE CARES ON YOU SO MUCH, BROTHER, SO, SO FUCKING MUCH. It's just like I said, he ain't never been able to think ill of you proper, and now he ain't got no reason. I'VE GIVEN WORD. If harm comes to you, my life is his. I'VE GIVEN ALL SUCH AS BEING BOUND, BUT KANKRI, I'VE ALREADY GONE TO HURT YOU. I've hurt you and him so fucking much so you just gotta let it aight? IT'S RIGHT, THAT IT BE HIM. Don't you be getting harsh at him for it. IT'S GOOD THIS WAY. And then you and he can get on like you was, okay?"

Without me. Fuck him, he was supposed to do this calmly. He keeps telling himself this is alright so why can't he up and act like it's being?

He listens, and at first his expression is one of sympathy. Of course this hurts. He knows that it hurts, he's felt it -- twice now, even, if Karkat counts. Of course Fraysong is in pain seeing someone he cares for so deeply terrified and distrustful of him.

Fraysong doesn't stop talking, though, and as he lays out his plans and his vows the Signless's expression shifts from one of sympathy to one of anger. 'It's good this way'? Really? He lifts a hand to Fraysong's bare cheek, lets it rest there for just a moment before he hauls it back and smacks his moirail hard enough that he hopes it might jar some sense into him.

"No, it isn't okay. Throwing your life away wouldn't be doing me a favor, Kurloz, what is wrong with you! Do you really think I would just keep going like nothing had changed if I lost you?"

Blindness be upon him. The Signless's anger doesn't even get to register beyond that it's being there and it's directed at him, but the mental connect of the way and why of it just ain't there, all too caught up in his own misery is he.

His eyes close as the Signless touches his face. In all ways true and legit, he doesn't see the smack coming. But he sure as shit feels it.

He holds a hand to where he's been slapped, staring on at the Signless with wide eyes.

"I..." He says. "BUT YOU AND HIM. Him and motherfucking you..." How does he say it? How all does he say he thought his moirail would be perfectly okay up without him? It sounds so illogical from that perspective, where it made so much sense in his head only a minute before. He tries to find that string of reason that he's sure must have been in there. He scrubs a hand at the bare half of his face. "HE WAS YOURS WASN'T HE BEING? You was his. YOU WOULDN'T BE ALONE. You pity him just as much as I do. I KNOW YOU STILL DO." Ain't that a funny thing, two trolls in Moiraillegiance still pledging secret pity for a third. Funny in a way what makes him ill. "You can give him that and all your diamond, but I owe this to him as on what all I've done. IT'S THE ONLY THING WHAT I GOT TO GIVE HIM. And I figured, being like that, shit would all work the fuck out, you get me? IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN WHETHER ALL I LIKE IT OR NOT! I ain't fighting him, not for anything. THOUGHT AT LEAST THIS WAY IT AIN'T GOTTA BE SO BAD ON YOU. I can't just up and thieve this from him..."

"I have enough space in my diamond for both of you, you complete idiot. I don't have a finite amount of pity -- I care for him but he could never replace you, any more than you'll ever replace him, or replace Guy, or replace the Disciple or Karkat. You all have your own special pieces of me that won't ever be given to anyone else. Still having him wouldn't somehow make up for losing you."

He knows it's hard for other trolls to grasp his particular way of doing quadrants, when most trolls don't conceptualize quadrants as something that more than one troll can ever fill for someone. The problem is that right now he's too aggravated with Fraysong to keep that in mind, in favor of being aggravated at him for not understanding what to him is so simple.

Special pieces. Not one bit what gets passed around. Special pieces leaving all the more holes. Mirth but that seems so risky. More so than the pan holes he makes in his own head by use of voodoo. It's difficult, but he can grasp that Kankri's saying like he'd be hurting him. But what then? What the fuck is he supposed to do.

"HE'S GOING TO FIND OUT, KANKRI!" He cries. "No staying secretive at all in this bitch. AIN'T NOTHING A MOTHERFUCKING SECRET HERE! He's going to find out and what then? WHAT COULD I POSSIBLY BE ABOUT FOR SAYING HE OUGHT NOT? Even if he didn't have the motherfucking sense to cull his and your torturer before chances were being had, I still hurt you in my time here. I MADE YOU CULL. I wanted you to come apart, I'm half the motherfucking reason you're not who you was, I know it worked, I got exactly what I wanted." There's something demented about it all, a crazed sort of look as the old Alternian attempts for surfacing with the memory, and what's been made new of him (drawn up from things so long ago) reels away from it all. The two opposing parts of him scrape raw at their edges and grind the shattered shard bits like to chip it all apart.

And he realises this. He realises and his eyes drop down, both hands rising up to press against the sides of his head, like he can keep himself together, just force the pieces all to fit. The old Alternian, so fucking joyous in that false broken way, all revelling bloodthirst and vengeance-desiring, and the self what's new and old in the way of being young-- the bright-eyed wriggler what was better, suddenly walking around sweeps aged without none to back it up, but still fighting that Alternian so hard. It's not literal. He's not of two minds, but he still feels it all.

He keeps talking, not wanting to come so undone, not where he's supposed to be better than this. "I DIDN'T MOTHERFUCKING KNOW HOW AS TO TELL OTHERWISE. Could barely make like I wasn't commanding him, even where such things wasn't meant. HOW COULD I TELL HIM NO? No matter how much as all I claim pity for you now, I can't prove nothing and I can't deny what's been done. WHAT RIGHT HAVE I TO SAY HE CAN'T DO WHATEVER THE FUCK HE GETS GUMPTION TO?" Truly, he doesn't have the faintest knowing.

Signless sighs deep and sets a hand on each of the other troll's shoulders.

"You're right. You can't deny what you've done and you don't have any right to tell him how he should or should not react to it. That doesn't mean acting like you're already culled is the answer."

He shakes those shoulders, not with much force at all but enough to get his point across. Snap out of it. Don't do this to yourself.

"Did he ask for your life outright? Do you really think he'd take it for things that you and I have put behind us?"

"He doesn't want to," The Initiate says, stalling, never quite saying 'no' but still saying it. "HE AIN'T LIKE THE CULL. Put it behind but what if he don't motherfucking believe nor trust? I WOULDN'T. I wouldn't never."

It's not a lack of opinion on Mituna. He knows of the kindness and goodness what is of that motherfucker, he knows all what it's being about. But it pales in the shadow of what horrors his future unleashes. Even the kindest motherfucker would have to cull that, surely. If the chance was there...

But still, he asks, "DO YOU THINK HE'D NOT?"

Because maybe, just maybe, the Signless knows better. The Signless isn't caught up in a swallow self loathing what blinds perception, at least not at this moment.

"I know he wouldn't. He's frightened and he doesn't trust easily, but it takes far more than that to prompt him to cull. Instead of assuming that he'll judge you for things you've done in the past -- or for things that haven't yet happened -- show him who you are now."

One of his hands slides from Initiate's shoulder to his chest, over his bloodpusher, and presses.

"You are a good troll, Kurloz. He just needs more than my word to believe it."

The Signless's hand goes over his heart, that flaming warm over the source of his cold, and his pusher races suddenly like it can absorb it all, take that good and that warm all for his own, like a motherfucking sneaktheif. Instead all it does is claw at his inner cavity trying to reach.

His hand goes up over the Signless's, fingers curling around to hold it there, head leaning down towards and the rest of him sagging about. A good troll.

"...I want to believe that..." He says, in the smallest voice possible, "...but I'm not so motherfuckin sure..."

He bends to kiss those fingers soft. "BUT I'LL BELIEVE YOU ON HIM. If as you say it to be possible for his sway be truth. I'LL TRY..."

It's intensely awkward to be sitting here telling this troll that he knows someone who was once his moirail better than he does. Luckily almost all of the awkward is pushed aside by the need to comfort and reassure. He runs his unoccupied hand through the Initiate's hair, fingertips brushing against the base of one horn.

"Trying is all I could ask or expect of you. We can make this work, Kurloz. Between the three of us we'll find some kind of even ground."

He might've taken qualm with it, truth said. Were it not for what was making evident. He knew the Helmsman. But the Helmsman was being different from the Psiioniic as what he is to his future, it seemed. And his own self hatred makes it hard to rationalize someone not making leave of him.

Those thoughts go fuzzy and distant though, with Signless's hand in his hair. He feels the brush against his horn base and he pushes his head all against the feel of it, a small chirrup slipping out.

"S'one good thing," He mutters. "THAT. You getting your friend back..."

His mind lingers on the three of them. Like there's any way they could make good of their tying together pale, but never all fitting. Strings made taught around their wrists, were pulling taught one way meant closeness the other. It ain't fair.

If with the Signless has his way, those strings will all be twisted up together one day. They can find ways to all be close without any one person having to bow out to make it work, he's sure of it.

"It is, yes," he says, settling into gently rubbing the base of that horn. It's getting a good response so he sees no reason to stop. "Does that feel a little better?"

"Mmm," Is the reply at to that. His eyes fall slowly shut. His hands go to curl on the cloth over Kankri's arms, pulling him with as all he sinks into the pile with a heavy sigh.

Sometimes they both had hope impossible. Sometimes they both fell apart with lack. He's glad they have a share of each, on some level.

"WILL YOU TELL IT AT TO ME? Not what's being private or none just... SEEING HIM AGAIN. Seeing him with all it being good." Was it like when we met back when we was young? Was it anything better than what all was when we met here? "YOU BEING HAPPY..."

"Are you sure it won't hurt you to hear it?"

The last thing he wants to do is rub his happiness in Kurloz's face, remind him starkly of what he feels he can no longer have. He's putting it off just a little, because he can't sugarcoat the fact that it wasn't all being good. There wasn't the instant rush of the relief, the immediate connection, just uncertainty and fear that everything he'd built up was about to crash down around him again. Even now he's scared they'll never quite be able to connect like they used to. He doesn't want it to be like the Disciple all over again.

"'M already hurting..." He mumbles. He cracks and eye open and reaches out with a hand to cup the side of Signless's bristly face. He runs a thumb over that warm cheek.

"SIDES," He says, "EVEN IF IT AIN'T WASN'T GOOD. Should tell at to me anyway. I'M YOUR MOIRAIL TOO. Not just you being mine."

Either way, he'd have something else to focus up on, besides his own aches. He'd be making Signless happier, one way or other.

"TELL ME BROTHER BEST. What plagues your pan?"

Edited 2015-02-05 05:42 (UTC)

"I had grown so used to being without him," he admits quietly. "I had grown so used to the idea that I'd never have him in my life again, first because he didn't want me and then because he was gone. Seeing him -- a him that still cares for me, that has no memory of hating me --" He breaks off with a shaky sigh.

"I can't lose him again, Kurloz. I want so badly to go back to being his best friend but it doesn't come easy anymore. He's hurting and scared and I can't make it better as easily I should be able to." His expression deepens into a frustrated frown. "I couldn't even hug him."

The hand what was on Signless's face goes back down, reaching for a hand instead. He curls his fingers around and squeezes.

"DON'T WANT TO LOSE HIM NEITHER." Even if Mituna hates him now. Even if he wishes he could have the Helmsman-- and feel ill for it. He wouldn't really wish Mituna back in the Helm, or even back on Alternia.

"You're afraid of being hurt. SO WAS I, WHEN I SAW YOU AGAIN HERE FIRSTLIKE. So was Mituna when he saw you here first." He rubs his thumb in a circle of Signless's hand. "THE WOUND IS RAW, KANKRI. But it will heal in time. LIKELY NOT ALL THAT LONG UP AT ALL. So long as you let it."

He nods, squeezes the Initiate's hand tight. Kurloz is right -- he is afraid of being hurt, but in comparison to the deep wound that was his relationship with the Helmsman this is barely a scrape. It will close over in no time at all if he ignores it.

"I know. I just need to re-learn being friends with him. It will come back."

He nods his head in agreement. "JUST GOTTA RELAX. Get a chill on. AND DON'T THINK ON SO MUCH UP ABOUT IT. What you're good at is all what comes natural at to you."

He was the one what had to think and plan and work out every damn thing, like a clicking gear. Signless worked miracle when at doubt left him. He remembers. "GOT MY FAITH IN YOU."

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And if you leave me, rest assured it would kill me

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