Are you hurting the one you love

[carnagecarnival]

Who| Initiate, Signless, and Disciple
What| Quadrantmates reacting to their ashmate's/moirail's arrest.
Where| Signless's room.
When| Immediately after the anouncement of Penny's death.
WARNINGS| Language. Freaking out. Self harm possibly. Last resorts.

They'd brought him down, thieved his moirail, then lifted him up with small hope. Slimmest grace with the return of the Nameless and his alter.

And then they did the worst thing that could possibly be done.

No word comes from his mouth. Just a scream, loud and long. And then he's running. Without even thinking, without even knowing where he's going he's running fast as he can like it's dawnrise and he's been caught out in the day. But worse. He'd have taken a second blinding. He'd have taken anything else.

He needs his moiral. He needs his moirail. He needs him so bad he can't hardly breathe. He shakes like he's caught within an isolated earthquake and his limbs are going to rip off him any second.

With chattering teeth and wide eyes, he goes to the last person he'd ever thought he'd go to.

"Please, PLEASE, I need-- I CAN'T-" Is what he says, eyes going red on the brink of losing himself completely, blood flowing fast from the palms he's tearing into, to the troll-- trolls-- there in the room. "Didn't know where else. PLEASE-!"

What is he begging for he doesn't know. He just knows he needs to be stopped before he hurts his best friend's last chance. At least for a quick death.

Comments

[69problems]

The Signless has already had to deal with one moirail breaking down on him in the wake of the news (Karkat is fitfully asleep now, not entirely naturally, but they'd both thought it was best). He's in the middle of calming down another when the Initiate bursts in. His first instinct is to wrap his arms tighter around her, afraid some word of her anger at the situation has already got to whoever is conducting the arrests and they're here to take her too. But -- no, this isn't a peacekeeper, this is an indigo.

An indigo who has nowhere else to go, he realizes, and a heavy weight settles in his stomach. No-one else to turn to, not with the Helmsman gone and Terezi in a van somewhere. He weighs the two of them, the big indigo with the blood-red eyes and the oliveblood in his arms, and decides one is a lot more of a danger than the other right now. He carefully disentangles himself from her and crosses the room in a few quick steps, arm already on its way up.

He can't pap the Initiate, that would be crossing far too many lines in far too many ways, but he can smack him, hard, across the face (even if he has to stand on his tiptoes to do it).

[carnagecarnival]

Pain is a gift. Pain is a focuser. Sharp and clear and bright and glorious and really all sorts of unmotherfuckingexpected. But in this case, so very goddamn welcomed. He stumbles, off balanced eyes wide. He tastes blood where his own fangs have cut the inside of his cheek.

He hits and slumps again the door frame. Then gasps. Then sinks as his eyes squeeze shut tight and he shudders all over, not caring if that small bit of blood spills over his lips thanks to grit teeth.

He can't even find it in himself to offer grattitude because the moment he opens his mouth, it's a terrible not-yet-sob that, "They took her. THEY TOOK HER. I- I-! What do I do... I WANT TO TEAR THEM ALL APART!" Those words are screamed. And then he makes a noise of pain. His hands rise to his horns, an old disturbing wriggler habit for calming what one wasn't to do public but he can't help. He digs his claws in his scalp. "Oh Mirth... OH MESSIAHS..."

[disciplewhomsignlessloves]

She can't breathe, it had been hard enough to run to him, to not claw and fight and force the machine to show her face as she had screamed for her back. She had just been here, so close to her, so close, they had just talked. She's gone, disappeared, vanished from her reach.

It had been hard to force herself up and to him. Part of her wanted to rage, claw and tooth until she reaches her, found her in her arms, held her close and vowed nothing will harm her. The others knew that it will only bring death to her. Destruction. Horrors and terrors and she just wanted her moirail back. Her tears have long been flowing when she fell into his arms, when she spewed her hatred and her wish to pull them apart, to find her, to let nothing stop her path. He soothed her but soothing only does so much when another comes in, reigniting the rage in heart.

There's a long moment where she wonders if he's here for his promised death. If he's here to pull her promise from her and ask for the cease to his rampage. She doesn't think she can give it to him. Her eyes lift, meet his--but she's distracted when Signless pulls away, slaps him. The sound echoes and she shrivels in on herself. The lines on her arms from her claws scraping are all vivid and pale and green in the light of the room.

She wants to scream again, like she had done in her room. She wants to join in his screams and she does for a moment, unbridled pain and tears. Even without her quadrant, there would have been this reaction--but its twice fold with the soft peaceful memories of hair twisted in fingers and hands clasped and smiles beneath red glasses. It hurts, harsh and painful, it hurts because she's seen her friends disappear to never return, dragged away like Terezi had been dragged.

Gone to never return. She draws blood on her lips and arms when the thought arises.

[69problems]

"Shhh, shoosh," he says, turning back to the Disciple in an attempt to keep her from relapsing back into a state as bad as the Initiate's. He can't go to her yet, though, not with another troll shaking and bleeding on the other side of him. He's stuck looking despairingly between them. He can't possibly soothe them both at once, he's only one troll, but they both need him.

He thinks back to the deserts and the times when he'd have to care for both his moirails at once. This won't be so easy when pale affection would be unacceptable with one of the trolls here, but perhaps he can take inspiration from those times all the same.

"I need you both to breathe and to listen to me. We're going to sit together on the floor where I can get at the both of you," he takes the Initiate firmly by the elbow and attempts to nudge him away from the doorframe as he speaks, "and no one is going to do anything that might result in them getting permanently hurt."

[carnagecarnival]

He's already gone lapsing on every other goddamn thing it is possible to laspe on. Why not one more thing? Why not let the mutant heretic pull him out, and follow him, hands dropping to the floor to crawl? His eyes are up on the Signless like he's 4 sweeps old and his words are god again.

He nods. He nods because yeah, sure, that make sense, ain't like he's got any better ideas. All he's got in his mind is the desire to kill, the want for Terezi, and the memory of torture after torture after torture that he took part in because he's a subjugglator and you don't ever stop, no matter the screams, stopping makes you weak, a liability to be culled, you don't ever stop, no matter what be done, the horror what get's--

He nods again, barely there. He tracks blood on the floor with his open palms.

[disciplewhomsignlessloves]

Her breath shudders and it's easier to calm without the raging influence, the indigo all in bloodlust spurring on her own. Her breathing is still ragged but she turns to him like always, like before, like it's someone else in their pile and not Fraysong.

"Kankri, they're going to torture her. What ..." What if she doesn't return? What is she supposed to do, just wait? She waited before, let her people be dragged away and they never came back. Her lips are pressed into thin black lines as she remembers torture. She's been through that before, been half broken, her body rejects the very idea of Terezi in her place with a shudder.

[69problems]

Signless leads the Initiate over to the pile, wincing a bit at the blood on the floor but knowing there's no reason to fuss over it now. He hates making work for the avoxes, but they've dealt with worse.

"You sit here," he says, patting a spot next to the pile but just removed enough to not be uncomfortably close to pale. It's close enough that he can keep a steadying hand on the Initiate's arm while being able to twine his other hand back up with the Disciple's.

"I don't know what's going to happen, Meulin."

He can't in good conscience tell her not to worry, and he certainly can't tell her that things are going to be okay. Even if Terezi's only tortured and then returned to them, the damage could take sweeps to be fully undone -- or worse, it could prove to be permanent. The Disciple has every right to be worried.

"But I think the important part is that we keep ourselves safe so that when she comes back we'll be able to be here for her. She'll need us and especially she'll need the two of you." He doesn't want to voice the possibility that Terezi may not come back. Surely she isn't stupid enough to have actually done what they're accusing her of? His general impression of her is that if she were going to murder someone, she'd be able to do it without being caught.

[carnagecarnival]

He gets right up there and settles. His eyes stay closed. His breath still comes hard. And for all the Signless grips his arm he rocks on the spot.

He shakes his head when the Signless speaks. Because he know what can happen, he knows the million ways it can happen.

Seadweller writer. TORN MITTS. Runner limeblood. CLAWS PULLED FROM DIGITS, ALL RUNNING IMPOSSIBLE. Propaganda poser rustblood. SCARRED UP AND DOWNLIKE, MOUTH TORN FROM MAW. Ribbon dancer indigo. HUNG BY RIBBON, LEFT TO SUN SCORCHING, PAINT REMOVED, TICKET DENIED. culled. ALL CULLED. Teal- OH MIRTH. Oh Messiahs, the holy two and mirth makers. I GIVE UNTO THEE SOUL OF THY AND BEARING FOR THINE WICKED WILLINGS. Let thine sinner’s tongue plead to thee, give unto thine loyal gracious blessing upon family mine, let us not fall to the blinding and so see Carnival's path--" He doesn't know when what's in his head starts coming out of it. But at some point it did and right there he stops.

"SORRY. Sorry," He says looking down. He squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them. "KEEP SAFE. How?"

[disciplewhomsignlessloves]

Her claws are still sharp, that's still a thing they're doing, making them into points anew with every awakening, just the same as they repierce her ears and straighten her mess of hair. Every time anew. They dig into her palms until she feels the blood drip, listening to the Initiate's words. The pain grounds her, helps her hold back the screams and the urge to throw herself at him, make him take it back, stop praying for her, she'll be fine, she doesn't need it.

The Disciple remembers Terezi's calm fury, her anguish, the promises to talk later, and she thinks maybe Terezi did. Maybe she did--but it's not something to kill her for. She was defending them all, justice--her little moirail was all justice and revenge.

She won't say it aloud. Won't condemn her.

"Quiet, shut up, don't talk about it. That's how we keep safe."

Her words are bitter. It doesn't feel like enough, she doesn't want to be quiet.

[69problems]

It feels almost hypocritical when in the past the Signless has been so unhappy to be told to shut up, to pretend not to care, that that's the safest thing to do. Here, though, he has no choice but to agree with the Disciple.

"If we lash out now it will be seen as taking a side against them. They could even frame it as being complicit in murder, if they particularly feel like punishing us for something -- or if they want a reason to make her punishment worse. If we speak out we run the risk of hurting her, too."

Because that's how this place has always worked. Punishment for acting out is often done through hurting someone else. If they say anything now, Terezi's chances of not coming back skyrocket.

[carnagecarnival]

He looks from Disciple, then to the Signless. He gets his look on like they've crushed something precious of his and he ain't believing. He takes the words in, turns them over repeated for hope. He finds none.

The balls of his palms press into his eyes, as his body tenses and goes through another round of shudders with barely restrained need to cull. He is both ignorant and hyper aware of the arm holding him tight. He is less aware of the way the blood of his palms marks his face like tears after he pulls them away.

She'd have more time if he was quiet. Just a little more time. A little more time to torture her-- no, no, no, he can't think on that. Small whines leak out but nothing more.

They're going to kill her. This he knows. But he needs time. He needs to give her time.

Slowly, he starts to bob his head in a miserable nod.