When you were young you were the king of carrot flowers

[carnagecarnival]

Who| Initiate, Gamzee, Kurloz, and the old goat! OPEN TO ALL!!

What| Bad raps, bad food choices, bad habits, bad people, brooding. Come meet the Makaras!

Where| All over the tribute tower, the commons, D5, and outside

When| Thicker Than Blood week!

Warnings/Notes|  Swears and slurs. Drug references. Past abuse/neglect implied. Atrocities done in the name of rap and miracles. Body modification / self harm / mouth stitching. Creepy awful people with Problems.

[Multiple prompts below in comments. Be sure to specify if you want one or another or all in prompts with multiple characters.]

Comments

[carnagecarnival]

He doesn't breathe. He doesn't move.

And for a long time, he says nothing. His mind is wiped blank, all gone to naught but her words. He sees it, the other ends, the way it all comes undone in his trying to keep it from coming undone. He hears the ring in his bones and the back of skull.

She's put a name to the fear and now, and motherfucking now, it ain't to stand down. It thrashes and screams for acknowledgement. It tears at his throat and lungs, it burns in his veins.

He's never, never let her see this, him in this way. Mituna, yes. Sigma, once. But not her.

And it ain't less shameful. It ain't less wrong.

"I can't lose you all," He breathes. "I CAN'T. I ain't strong enough for that no more. MY OTHER COULD DO IT, HE COULD MOTHERFUCKING CONQUER CARELESS, HE WOULDN'T BE STOPPED, HE COULD DO IT, BUT I-" tried not to be that. Tried to be something different. Better? That he's not sure of. But he tried. And he tried for them because they mean something, his family.

And she says it like being someone's culling machine ain't the honor he was told countless. What he got at to believe. She says it like it's less of himself. He doesn't know what good she's thinking of but it can't be all what he knows. It can't be none of what kept him strong for so long until now. Its the things that make him weak, the things that don't let him turn from this, that she means. He's fostered them too long here, let them be fostered.

But to think of otherwise... to think of Mituna and Sigma and her and... everyone seeing his other, standing before him, and the Initiate knows they'd be dead. And he doesn't want it.

"Sister," he says, quiet as he can get, "I am made of fear... I ain't never been nothing but."

He stares at her. He thinks, What if I can't? What if I can't stop?

[pythianjudgment]

Even if he doesn't say it, she hears the worry implicit in his words. He says he's made of fear, and she knows that he's scared that he won't stop being afraid. That he won't stop tearing himself apart like this.

Gently, she reaches out to him and takes a hold of his hand. "I don't know why you lie to yourself like that," she says, turning his hand over, palm facing up where she can trace a finger along the curve of the lines. "There's fear in you, but it's not everything you are. You're... a lot of things. Kind of like a walking ball of opposites." Terezi smiles a little, but she doesn't laugh like she might have otherwise.

"You're strong sometimes, and other times you're vulnerable. Comforting, but also harsh. Kind... and angry, yes. But also understanding. And stubborn. Patient, but impulsive."

She curls his hand in on itself and cups both of her hands around it. "So, do you know what the opposite of fear is?"

[carnagecarnival]

His ashmate takes his hands again, not for the first time. She follows the scars earned and the lines hatched with. A walking ball of opposites, she says of him. He could laugh too. Even despite all this and everything.

"CAPRICIOUS," He says, without missing the trace of the joke in it. "That be the word what at you seek."

But when she continues to ask what opposes fear, he doesn't know. He tries to recall ever feeling someone what all didn't have fear at the forefront, when all he had to drag it up tooth and claw, but he can't recall what he was fighting against. Just a void? A nothingness? His power is on fear, not anything else. The opposite would have to be something what he ain't touched.

In answer, he shakes his head.

[pythianjudgment]

Capricious... Yeah, that would be a good word for what she means, even if it wasn't exactly the word she was looking for.

"Everyone says the opposite is courage, but you can be brave and still be scared. That doesn't sound like an opposite to me. I think that the only thing that really opposes fear is trust." She says it with confidence, but inwardly, she hopes that he won't laugh or scoff. She's not sure that she'll know what else to say, if he does.

"Trust me, trust Mituna, trust Sigma. Everyone that you care about... Trust them. We're not going to let things end badly for you. We're going to do everything we can to hold you together. Because you're important to us, too."

[carnagecarnival]

His breath whistles out through his fangs. His head bows some, a hand rising up to pull at the hair, not gentle, but not tearing. When he lifts his head again, he doesn't look happy. He feels tried. He wants to point out that it makes him sound pathetic, put like that, but he's already done this to himself.

"ALRIGHT," He says, as resigned as he can get. "But I do need you to promise me something. NEED FOR THIS I UP AND DO." He looks her in the eye, at last. "Don't you ever motherfucking drown yourself for on again."

[pythianjudgment]

"Alright. I won't. I promise." She agrees easily and sincerely. She doesn't add that she doesn't think she'll be able to even touch a body of water again, let alone drown herself. But her promise means more than just that. She's resolved not to let him be the reason for her death again. And she hopes that he realizes how deep that promise runs.

She squeezes his hand in comfort, smiling up at him. Her ashmate. Her friend. She's glad that an agreement could be reached.

[carnagecarnival]

Maybe it could end there. Maybe he should let it be there. His pride has suffered plenty, she's satisfied but.

"WAIT."

His teeth drag over his bottom lip. "Look... he's... sorry too. HE OWES SUCH. Up into a sister's motherfucking face he threw such things discordant as if all to cut. ALL MOTHERFUCKING STRIDULOUS HE WAS LIKE TO BE." He breathes deep.

"You didn't make him do those things. OR, WELL, SHE DID, A LITTLE. But he still let her and chose to. HE'S TRYING TO BE DIFFERENT... FROM WHAT ALL HE WAS MEANT TO BE. Don't want that to be for naught. DON'T WANT ALL TO BE FOR NOTHING. But for such he nearly went to make it so anyway."

He doesn't want to be that person. Not anymore. It's still who he is and it's still part. But maybe if he does this right, he can make it a smaller one.

[pythianjudgment]

She pauses at the word Wait, her brow furrowing in confusion. Was there more to say? She didn't think there was. Not until he speaks again, and she's momentarily stunned by his words.

The smile is slow to reach her lips again, but when it does, it's accompanied by a squeeze of his hands. "...Thanks. I didn't...really expect you to apologize." And maybe that's more telling than she realizes with how far he's actually come. These simple yet kind surprises.

"But it's okay. Forgiveness secured. No grudges here."

[carnagecarnival]

He makes a face at first, at her comment of not expecting it all. Half to have it rubbed in again, half because why wouldn't she expect. He realises in contradicts and manages to keep his mouth shut.

Then the annoyance leaves altogether and he's just tired again. He's still... He's not... alright. He's not alright. He wants Mituna but he can't. He can't leave his Da or the motherfucker might rampage. He can't leave Gamzee lest the kid drown.

"AND SHE IS ALRIGHT THEN?" He asks her.

[pythianjudgment]

"I'm alright," she replies with a nod. Better than she was, anyway. As good as she'd going to get right now, when she's standing a number of yards from a particularly deep body of water. She tries not to let that discomfort show.

"What about you? Are you alright?" She can smell how tired he is in those little movements, the slumps and sags that otherwise wouldn't be there.

[carnagecarnival]

"They brought his lusus," He says. Just a drop. Like guts. And that would be explanation enough alone. "GOT A FUCKING PAST LIFE WHAT ALL I AIN'T UNDERSTAND UP AT ALL. I got a descendant..." That. And him understanding his descendant far more than his own damn self and that's... that's fucking terrifying.

"WOULD GIVE HIS ARM ENTIRE RIGHT IN THE NOWS OF US TO SEE XANTHOUS. But if I go-" He nods his head back at the old goat.

"WITH EVERYTHING WHAT BE. He's just tired, sister. OF SO MANY MOTHERFUCKING THINGS IS HE TIRED." Of fighting capitol. Of fighting himself.

But if she's alright that counts for something. "But he'll make as to deal with it."

[pythianjudgment]

She understands. More than maybe he realizes, but... Having that lusus there, when there was nothing before. His is forced to stick around. Hers is forced to live. Both of them are forced to care for them, where they otherwise had no chance.

But she doesn't say that. She doesn't remark on his lusus, and she doesn't remark on the Beforan, and she doesn't remark on Gamzee, as much as she might want to. Her fists clench a little, but release again as soon as she notices. This is about Fraysong... Not about Gamzee.

He can't leave his lusus, but he wants his moirail. She understands that, too.

"I can get him for you. Tell him to come down here, so you don't have to leave. Would that help?"

[carnagecarnival]

His eyes go wide and there's a change in him so clear, it makes his exhaustion even more obvious. He looks hopeful.

Then grateful. He closes his eyes, swallowing, and nods.

"THANK YOU," He says, meaning it with every part. He'd offer the same but... he can't. And he doesn't know who she'd want. So he just leaves it as such.

[pythianjudgment]

The change in Fraysong is notable enough to pull a softer smile onto Terezi's lips. It's not a very long-lived expression, but it's there for a moment to see. Pleased and also relieved that she can do something to help him.

"No problem." She gives his hands one last squeeze before letting go and stepping back towards the Tribute tower again.