thecapitol | [open]

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Who| Sollux and whoever!
What| Sollux is out of the arena, and though there's people he wants to find, he's kind of at a loss for what to do.
Where| All over the training center.
When| Late week 4/into week 5
Warnings/Notes| Descriptions of past death and violence (nothing bad in the starter, possibly worse elsewhere), otherwise just foulmouthed nerd. He does have a lisp, so let me know if you want me to not type it out in replies to your character!

If dying did one thing for Sollux, it was to mash in a sense of helplessness. He was weak. He hadn't even been able to shoot one person with the gun he won from the scavenger hunt. What was the point of it? Neither of the times he tried had been the calmest, but what use was it if he couldn't protect himself in a situation like that? And in the end, both had revolved around some kind of misunderstanding.

But ignore that. If you set the whole thing aside, then what? The gun didn't make him bad. He could barely do anything when Starkiller had tackled him to the ground, and soon enough he was dead. It was so easy. He might as well have not fought him at all.

But now alive and with Feferi found earlier, he at least had a better understanding of the circumstances of her death. That and other events left him wanting to find certain people: the man who killed them both, the pair she'd fought before, others he'd met or run into during the arena. Some he knew where to find, and those would be dealt with in time, but much boiled down to aimless wandering.

He didn't know if they'd even be in the tower. He didn't want to leave it, himself. Outside were only Capitolites, and he didn't want to see the reception they had to him. He didn't think he'd earned fans, but if he'd accidentally impressed a stylist into sponsoring him, he knew he could be quite wrong.

In any case, it would be hard to miss a four-horned alien with red and blue eyes, either looking about with intent, or with the apathy of someone who didn't know what better to do.

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Dave really rolled into action when he got back here. Slowly. A slow roll into action. He got a hair cut, an uncomfortable date with a guy who was weirdly familiar claiming to be his escort and participated in some vandalising. He's done all of this whilst pointedly avoiding watching the games, so it's a surprise to see Sollux wandering the halls again.

"Nerd!" He calls after him, strolling along to catch up with the familiar skinny frame. Their last conversation hadn't exactly ended on the coolest of terms, but he was getting used to that with Sollux. Maybe he'll be less tetchy out of the Arena. "Sup?" He cocks his head to the side, not sure how much or little he'll be told.

Sollux hasn't been looking for Dave. It's not out of a sense of avoidance, not really; a part of him feels like they ought to talk eventually. If he did want to track him down, he could just wait until he shows up on their floor. It would be easy. But there's been a lot on his mind, a lot of things he wants to talk about and sort out with other people, and he's not real sure how to tackle that with Dave yet.

So when quite suddenly a call of "Nerd!" hits his ears, Sollux's feet stutter to a halt. Dave... Dave has a haircut. Dave looks perfectly over what happened and not worried in the least. The only part of things being back to normal is where they both have their shades again.

What the hell is he supposed to do in this situation?

"You're looking energetic," he says after a pause, and it comes out almost like an accusation.

The Signless actually didn't immediately notice Sollux wandering around the training center. He was caught up in his own thoughts practicing some of the defensive strategies Hubert had shown him before. It was so frustrating to find all of his work and muscle memory gone every time he came out of an arena, but the only real fix was to just start back in on practicing as soon as possible.

With that in mind he'd selected a sturdy staff, more his speed of weapon and one that would be extremely easy to improvise in an arena, and was running through motions. It wasn't exactly something he was used to and that was probably obvious.

The training floor itself is one Sollux has visited now and then in his search. He's not sure what to do about it himself at this juncture. He needs to get better, he knows he does, but how long are they even going to have before the next arena? How much can he learn? He had no idea what to expect for the last one before he went in, and he has no more clue what the next will be. Besides, he couldn't even hit someone with his gun. (He was nervous, he was taught secondhand by someone new to it, but it's a gun. How hard can it be?) It all presses in a feeling of futility.

Suffice it to say that when he visits now, it's not for the sake of learning.

He scans the room, looking for familiar faces or those who match descriptions he's been given. What he doesn't expect is grey skin, messy hair, and two nubby horns. He doesn't see him from straight on, but why should he need to? He--he forgot, almost, in the chaos of everything else, but now the memory surges back up like a nauseous wave. He saw it right when it happened: Karkat exploding together with his podium. He still doesn't know if any of the blood Kurloz (accidentally) dragged him through belonged to him; he couldn't bear to keep his eyes open for any sign.

There's time discrepancies, so he doesn't worry that Karkat looks taller than he remembers. It's his friend standing there, who never talked to him when he showed up, and didn't get the chance in the arena. He has to... talk to him, catch up, something. He has to confirm in a way that it's real.

"KK!" He breaks into a jog, trotting over with hand held aloft to wave in case he looks.

The nubby troll turns, staff lowered. Suddenly it's apparent that his hair is a little too long, his jaw is a little too scruffy, his eyes are a little too filled in with their bright red pigment. This is a Vantas but it isn't Karkat.

He's a little surprised that Sollux is approaching him at all given that they didn't part on terribly good terms the last time. His expression hovers somewhere between confusion and cautious optimism. Part of it is that he has no idea what 'KK' is supposed to mean; Karkat told him a good deal of things about Sollux but not about Sollux's particular way of nicknaming his friends.

"I -- I'm sorry?"

Just like that he stumbles to a stop. That's not Karkat. He's seen this guy before, back on the network, and though only once and briefly it was enough to give an impression. You don't just forget the guy who looks like an older, scruffier edition of your best friend.

Sollux's lips press tight as they can with the obstacle of his fangs. The look in his eyes is almost one of offense that the Signless had the audacity to be the wrong guy. His tone is flat as he says, "I thought you were Karkat. Do you know where he ith?"

Oh, no. Ohhhh no. Sollux doesn't know. He hasn't seen on the reruns or possibly no one's told him. The Signless is still for a few moments, stuck between answering truthfully and not wanting to be the one to tell someone that their close friend is permanently deceased. Still... it's probably better Sollux find out this way than through some upbeat Capitol bullshit.

"He..." Fuck, how do you deliver this news to someone you're on shaky ground with and still be gentle and respectful about it?

"He didn't come back from the arena. It's been long enough that I don't think he will."

He's been trying not to watch the games. He checks lists to see who's still in the arena, but that's the end of it. Troll or not he can't get behind the idea of making it into entertainment. It's sick.

The Signless's hesitation doesn't bode well. Sollux's jaw is tight for the silence, tighter still for that trailing start, but it means a bad answer is just what he expected. It's too bad that doesn't stop the hurt of the answer itself.

"No." His eyes scan back and forth over his face, looking for a sign of joke or insincerity. "You're lying to me. He hath to be around here thomewhere. They can't jutht... They can't have jutht ekthploded him and have that be it, they can't have."

But it's not the first he's heard of this kind of thing. Someone warned him before that they don't always bring people back when they die in the arena. But how is it fair? They put Terezi back in after they arrested her, but why does Karkat have to die that way and have that be the end?

He shakes his head, his mouth very dry. This was exactly his reaction, he knows what Sollux is going through. It's especially painful because he didn't expect it. Karkat was fairly popular, he fought in the arenas, he was entertaining. Why wouldn't they bring him back? It was all so senseless, everything in this place, and he hated it.

"I wouldn't lie about something like this, that would be cruel. I've looked. Believe me, I have, everywhere he might possibly be."

Sollux doesn't even know the context. He didn't know Karkat was here at all until he saw him at the beginning of the arena, and now he'll never have the chance to talk at all. He's gone, just gone and that's it. He can feel a prickle at the corner of his eyes, and he blinks fiercely to keep it back. He wants very badly to sit down, but he can't do that here. He doesn't even know this guy in any meaningful way.

"Thith whole thtupid plathe ith cruel," he says, and his arms cross tight. "Thith ithn't fair."

"I know," he says, a little lamely. But what else can he respond with? It's all true. This place is stupid, it's cruel, it's unfair. It's soul-crushing and it makes you feel powerless and frightened and stagnant, and if Sollux isn't starting to feel that already he probably will soon. In Signless's experience it's hard to avoid.

"But I've found its best not to dwell on things you can't change here. It won't help."

Sollux gives him a look like he's just been insulted. His shoulders hunch up beneath his sharp frown. "How am I thuppothed to not? I can't even hear the voitheth of people who are going to die and yet it'th imprinted everywhere around me becauthe that'th jutht the kind of plathe thith ith."

And how is it fair for this guy, this douchebag he barely knows, to tell him that? His arms slip out of their fold, locking into straightness and clenched fists as he strides up closer. "My betht friend ith dead," he snaps. "For all I know I'm never going to thee hith ugly, nubby fathe again, and you tell me not to dwell? Fuck you! Why do you keep trying to pretend you're all helpful and nice then you've told me literally nothing utheful, jutht shit to pithh me off?"

At any other time, in any other circumstance, the Signless would have winced, stepped back, tried to undo the damage. He would have said that he was only trying to help, that he was sorry for making things worse.

Now, though, with all the anger that's been bubbling beneath his skin ever since the jailbreak and which has only increased tenfold with the loss of not one but two of his quadrantmates, he can't. Instead he takes a step forward, drawing himself up to his full (if unimpressive) height.

"I am telling you these things because they might help you stay alive. My moirail is dead, and he's not the first I've lost here, either. I've tried dwelling. It doesn't help, it just pulls you down into a pit of self-pity where you can't help anyone at all, let alone yourself. If you want that, if you want to be a selfish wiggler and just roll over and let them cull you because you're too busy feeling bad for yourself, I'll leave you to it."

This he wanted, in his own strange way. Someone should get mad, someone should yell, because it keeps him up in energy and lets him keep on raging instead of clamming down once more to keep it all inside. He tries, oh he tries, but it boils and festers and leaves him more miserable for the effort.

"Well maybe I should!" he yells back. His arms are up now, elbows bent, hands still in their fists, but it's meant just for the gesture. "You're not going to keep me alive jutht by telling me not to dwell when I hate almotht everything here. I died, my friendth died, and I'm alive for no glubbing reathon when I'm uthelethh and can't help them."

It is amazingly cathartic to have someone to yell at, someone that isn't the Capitol and therefore isn't as likely to kill him for being angry in the first place.

"There is always something you can do! Even if it's small, even if it doesn't feel like much, you can find a way to make yourself useful. I guarantee just sitting around twiddling your nubs and hating things won't help your friends either."

It's like yelling at himself of only a few months ago. In that way he's probably helping himself more than he's helping Sollux, shouting off whatever of that dead-end way of thinking is still clinging on to him.

More help to Signless than him is probably right, and Sollux finds himself growling frustration under his words.

"Like what? What am I good for? I can't do anything out here, and I can't do anything in the arena. I'm weak. I'm a uthelethh nerd who'th never had to uthe hith handth to fight until they took my thionicth away. They took the voitheth from my head but it hathn't done me any good when everything elthe thtill thuckth.

"I can't..." He trails off, scowling at himself. He can't just up and say he can't blow holes in this whole structure, tear down the city piece by piece, can't hack for lack of direction or knowing where to start. "I can't even thay half the thtuff I can't do.

"All I did latht arena wath mope and follow my matethprit around. I couldn't even thtop her from dying, and when I went after the guy who killed her I mithunderthtood the thituation and couldn't hit him onthe with the gun I had."

He died so fast, so easily, and it still freaks him out. He's had nightmares about it - nightmares about a lot, being a troll with no sopor to soothe him. But how do you just walk away from that? It's not like when the Vast Glub killed him; that was powerful, unavoidable. This was one human with a crowbar who had him tackled in a bare minute. He shrinks inward with it as his anger threatens to flip back into base misery.

"Violence is not the only way to help people," he says. Normally he'd be more understanding toward another troll, especially a younger one, when he knows how hard it is to unlearn Alternian society's stress on your ability to kill being intrinsically tied to your worth. Now he's already annoyed enough that he just can't understand why something that's so simple to him is so hard for everyone else to understand.

"You must have skills other than being able to hurt people. You must have knowledge of something that can be useful, something that doesn't require psionics or voices or whatever else they took from you. If not there are things that you can learn."

He gestures to the stations around them: knot tying, camouflage, edible plans, trap making, fire starting.

"I already know that!"

He does. He does. Violence is relevant here and the area he fell down most with in the arena, in a whole game devoted to fighting and killing and death. He quivers with it, the thought that the Signless judges him so blandly.

"I tried to thave my friendth before thith," he says, features pressing down to bitterness. "I tried to thtop the world from ending. I died to thave Feferi. But what I did there can't help here, and my other thkillth aren't oneth I can uthe. I don't..." He has no direction for them. He can hack, but then what? Hack what? Talk to who? Do what about it? "If I tried I'd be flailing around like a grubfithted idiot."

Maybe he could learn things, but none of the stations the Signless points out strike him as ones that would have helped last arena. Who even knows what the next will be? He feels doomed to the extent he doesn't want to try.

"Trying and failing is better than doing nothing at all," he points out. "At least then you can say you did something."

This is getting him nowhere fast and he's not nearly close enough to Sollux to entertain notions that just continuing to grumble at him will suddenly make him understand. He really has half a mind to just leave, but some stubborn part of him keeps him right where he is.

"At the very least you can be there for your friends emotionally instead of being wrapped up in yourself."

Did he just ignore the rest of what he said? No acknowledgement, no apology, not even a single nod to show he heard what he did before, just more arguing that thinking he can't help now is wrong because reasons. Shitty reasons, if you ask him.

He snaps, "Bee-ethh. If I fail I didn't do anything. I didn't help or accomplish a thingle thing, jutht wathted everyone'th time. And being there for my friendth didn't thave them latht time. And FF wath there for me but it didn't thave me at all. Our thituation ith going to thuck no matter what, and I'm not going to abandon her, but don't pretend to me that jutht hugth and and feelingth jamth are going to make it all better."

Alright. He is officially past the point where he's responding in a way that's really fair and logical, and on top of that he doesn't need this kind of frustration. Sollux has people he's closer to who might be able to talk some sense into him, and he hopes they do because this is no longer a battle the Signless wants to fight.

"Fine. I won't because you're right, hugs and feelings jams won't magically make it all better." He sighs. "I know how hopeless you feel, how frustrated and useless. I know the rut you're in because I've been in it too and I know how horrible a place it is to be. But you have to find your way of it somehow, and I don't think I can help you do that. I'm sorry for wasting your time."

He turns to go. If Sollux wants to have the last word he's welcome to, but the Signless at least knows when to just let something go.

Edited 2014-10-03 10:58 (UTC)

Sollux quiets, but not for calmness. What satisfaction he may have had in that first agreement isn't much after all the frustration and disagreement they've had. The rest doesn't do much either - of course he's in a rut. Ask him and he'd tell him so. But just telling him to find his way out somehow isn't going to do the trick, and in the end he does indeed feel like his time was wasted.

He doesn't say anything as the Signless turns to leave. Any quip would be juvenile. So he watches him go, silent, until he's gone from sight.

If Dave knew Sollux were back, he's not sure if he would have sought him out straight away. Then again, they're in the same district, it's hard to avoid each other. Better to nip these things in the bud, probably, and there's a lot to nip in the bud.

He really doesn't mean to give out such an offputtingly casual hair, but he'd prefer it to looking as whacked out and phased as he is. Shit keeps getting harder so he's been learning to roll with punches.

"Is that an ingenious way of saying I look hot?" He can't help running a hand over the shaven part of his head because he's still hyper-aware of them and it makes him less uncomfortable. "I said sup."

Whacked out and phased is Sollux all over, written to every inch of him. He has things rolling in the back of his head, need-to-do's and should-do's and want-to-do's, but piecing them out is difficult, and has brought this aimless wandering. He feels so stricken by it, it's hard to imagine others not - or at least not acting so. Dave looks fine as anything, bright as two moons, and the tool got a goddamn haircut.

The quirk of his brows presses down to follow narrowing eyes, and his frown stretches deeper. His posture straightens, but it's stiff. "I found out you died from your blood-covered brother and tried to shoot him. I found Feferi dead and beaten, tried to kill her friend who merthy-killed her, and got thtrangled to death with a crowbar."

He says nothing else, but the tone implies a how dare you act normal.

This being the third time for Dave certainly changes the perspective, particularly since he'd had a week or so to himself to enjoy his nightmares and solitude before taking a foray into the open. The haircut had not been a choice made on his part, but Sollux would eventually figure out that sometimes you get killed and then sometimes you need to endure brow tinting. It's a rich tapestry of fucked up.

"Well I would have left a note, but.." He holds his hands up in a shrug. He feels like Sollux is getting accusatory, but he zeroes in on one particular part of that story. "Bro told you- You tried to shoot Bro?" His brows furrow for a moment before they simply raise in surprise. "You have balls, bro. Who did it?" He doesn't expect Sollux to answer, because he probably wouldn't, but maybe he wants to talk about it.

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> mad at life and everything about his situation > take it out on Signless

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