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

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

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.

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Ah. Honestly, she's getting a little tired of people saying that. She's aware of the loving detail that the Capitol paid to that whole mess of a situation. It was one of the first things she noticed on the broadcasts, once she returned. It's one of the reasons she's been reluctant to leave the Tribute Tower. She really doesn't want to be accosted by people in the city about her personal decisions.

"You're not intruding." She makes another motion for the Disciple to step inside. "If I didn't want your company, I wouldn't have given you directions to my room."

Stepping inside hesitantly, she glances around. Similar enough to her own room that she doesn't feel too out of place. Was every room a copycat.

"I honestly don't know why you gave me directions I suppose. I didn't think you liked us enough to invite me."

"I never said that I didn't like you. It's your matesprit that I don't like."

Terezi shuts the door behind her, clicking the lock back into place. She hopes that it doesn't spook her guest. It's easy enough to unlock from this side, and she doesn't want anyone just barging in unannounced. The room must have been scrubbed down while she was in the arena because there's only a few half-hearted scribblings on the walls. Next to the bed, the scenery-wall has been set to depict a lush forest. An Earth forest, but that's as close as she can probably get.

"I don't know which 'us' you mean other than him," she says, heading over to the bed and flopping onto it. "But I have a strict no-factions policy. I'm not taking sides in your weird shitty politics."

Disciple doesn't sit, looking at the fake view. She had hers set to some huge canyon and desert. Day of course but more like home. Finally she drags her eyes away, watching her flop on the bed.

"I'm too used to it being the four of us that i hardly notice saying that. Our -Alliance? Grouping?- kept us alive. We..."

She clasps her hands and smiles faintly, "I'm used to the sentiment as I've told you. I just didn't realize you liked me. I thought I was a...meddling adult."

Edited 2013-12-11 03:59 (UTC)

"Oh, you are! But that doesn't mean that I don't like you." Terezi flashes her something close to a grin. It feels good to be able to joke around with someone. She's too at odds with... almost everyone, to be honest.

But making playful jabs doesn't clear away all of her other concerns. There's still the whole thing between the Disciple and the Signless that sits uneasily on her mind. The things that he said... It's probably a good thing that she hasn't gone wandering around. She might be too tempted to punch the Signless.

"Are you okay?" she asks suddenly, rolling onto her stomach and fixing the Disciple with a neutral sort of expression that's partly curious, partly concerned. "After all that stuff?"

She smiles slightly, teasing is better than the alternative. Meddling adult is a true label for herself after all. Relaxing enough to lean against the wall, she almost opens her mouth to reply, with something teasing and light when Terezi spoke again.

Her stomach dropped a little and her eyes search the room for a point to fix on that isn't Terezi's too blunt and too honest face.

"I'm...better. I'm okay. We spoke about it. It's not... We forgave each other."

Better, she says, and Terezi frowns. She knows better than that. Even a blind girl knows a fib when she hears one.

"You're really bad at lying." She folds her hands together, interlocking her fingers and resting her chin on top of them. "You're not better. And you probably shouldn't have forgiven him, if you're not actually okay with it. What he did and said in there was really cruel and unnecessary. You didn't deserve that. And if you're not going to be mad at him for treating you like that, then I will be."

Not that she's not already mad at him about other things, but she's pretty good at multi-tasking her anger--especially when it coincides so neatly onto one person.

She still doesn't look at her, staring fixed at the wall while she gathers her thoughts and tries to pull back up her brave face. She does forgive him, he was hurt, angry, full of pain and all his ideals fallen to the side. He didn't mean it.

"He didn't mean to, he was just...A lot of things happened and I don't...I can't blame him for it. I've said awful things in dark moments." She shakes her head quickly, banishing thoughts.

"And you needn't be mad at him for me. It isn't like it's your fight."

"No, but you're making excuses for him."

She feels bad for the Disciple. She really does. She knows what it's like to care about someone so much that you just want to ignore all of their flaws. To rationalize away all the bad things. In a way, she completely believe her when the Disciple says that she can't blame him for what he did.

"It doesn't matter if he didn't mean to. He doesn't stop being responsible for his actions just because a lot of things happened. He didn't even care that you were still out there. He had the gall to say that he didn't even think of you! What kind of matesprit does that?"

Not one that Terezi can abide by. Maybe it's none of her business, but she likes this troll. More than she really cares to admit. And she doesn't want her to end up more hurt than she already is.

"It's not my fight, but I'll make it my fight. Like I said, if you're not going to fight for yourself, then I'll do it for you." She pauses, dropping her blind gaze for the first time in a few minutes. She picks at a loose thread on her comforter. "You're too good to be used as a doormat for his issues, intentional or not."

She flinches and has to snap her mouth shut on all the excuses and rationalization that threatened to pour out. Her nails dig into her skin, making marks on scarred skin that barely show. She should have known better than to come to Terezi when the wounds of the Arena were still healing. When had Terezi not poured salt onto them.

Maybe because it was refreshing in a way to have someone pull the honesty out of her in a way no one else she knew could. By not letting her push it and avoid it.

"A matesprit doesn't have to just think about me...So much of our life has been putting others ahead of our own happiness and I understand that his suffering had to put in front of mine."

Her nails catch in her hair for a moment, a missed clump of tangle and she mumbles, sullen as a teenager in the moment, "And I'm not a doormat. I'm a disciple. I understand my needs can't always come first."

"Maybe not, but do they ever?" She lifts her head again, once again fully training her attention onto the Disciple. This wasn't the conversation that she intended to have, but maybe it's the one that they needed.

"When was the last time you put yourself first? Even better: When was the last time that he put you first?" Because she suspects that answer isn't as recent as she thinks it should be.

The Disciple takes in a sharp breath and crosses her arms. No, she won't let herself react so vividly. She's such an open book, it's ridiculous.

"He helped me adjust to the Capitol, he's been here for me quite a lot. It's not his fault that we were seperated in the Arena and it's not his fault his moirail is better at taking care of him than I am half the time."

Terezi takes note of that reaction. It's not difficult to tell that at least a few of her words are hitting their mark.

"You're supposed to be his matesprit," she continues. "Aren't you? You shouldn't have to 'take care of him' like his moirail does in order for him to think about about you. In the end, that's not actually about you. That's still about him."

Maybe she's biased, but as long as she's known Signless, she hasn't heard one thing from him that didn't revolve around himself. His ideals, his suffering, his decisions that led to so many problems. Even the Disciple's mere presence had been attributed to a product of his mistakes.

"You may be his Disciple, whatever that means; but you're more than just an extension of him. You have feelings, too, don't you?"

"I'm all of them, I'm everything. Matesprite, moirail, kismesis. I'm just...shit at being everything lately." She doesn't say that it might be their vast divide in time, him so early, her so late and her living without him.

"And of course I have feelings, I'm just not selfish. I went sweeps without him, I'm not going to ruin my second chance because I'm too much of a wriggler to deal with harsh words spoken in anger and sorrow."

Terezi's gaze narrows on the other troll, eying her critically. "A second chance that he was willing to throw away without thinking of you. Was he that careless about his death the first time, too? Color me unsurprised if his track record for not learning his lesson extends back further than this!"

Maybe that's going too far. She remembers well enough how badly she took talk of Signless's death before. She shouldn't be bringing that up again. Frowning, Terezi picks at the comforter again. Maybe she should steer the conversation in a different direction, before she says something she regrets.

"If he already had you as a matesprit, moirail, everything else; then what is he doing with Karkat?"

She pulls back, everything about her closing off. She doesn't want to hear things like this. He hasn't lived it and she spent her life trying to forget that moment. And she...

Her back straightens and she looks towards the door, her face a mask.

"We allow each other quadrants outside our own. I just haven't found anyone for mine. Perhaps I should go." Every word a stilted effort.

"Don't." The way she glances at the door tells Terezi everything she needs to know. It was too much, and suddenly she feels a little guilty for pushing so hard. She wasn't trying to upset her more.

"I'm just worried about you." The words are forced out, and she's back to picking idly at the comforter for something to focus on that's not the Disciple. It's not an easy thing to admit for her. Admitting to emotional attachment never has been, what with how Alternia was.

Maybe she should try something else. Something less interrogation and more comforting. If Signless isn't going to treat her well, then at least she can do something to assuage that, not make it worse.

"Do you want to go do something? Out in the city? Just the two of us?"

She doesn't meet her eyes. She wouldn't even if the girl could see. There's a long space of silence. She'd prided herself on being his Disciple but also on being a troll who didn't need others to define her. The ideals had been taken on as her own and the man she loved/pitied/hated was her complement, not her world. Right?

Part of her worries that she's been too long just his Disciple, just repeating his words, to not latch onto him as if he is her world. God she wanted a moirail, a proper one, just hers and theirs. Not a lover trying to be everything at once for her and her for him. Not a small troll interrogating her with an agenda in mind even if she worried for her.

She finally dragged her eyes up to look at Terezi, nodding once. Something beyond the world she had created between floors 7 and 12 would be nice.

"Alright."

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