thecapitol | i knew you were tribble when you walked in

Entry tags:

i knew you were tribble when you walked in

Who| The Signless and Kankri; The Signless and ANYONE WHO WANTS A TRIBBLE.
What| Signless and his past life are sad together and Signless realizes if everyone had a small soft friend to comfort them things might be marginally less terrible.
Where| D5, D12
When| The thread with Kankri is backdated a little, the tribble giveaway is happening now.
WARNINGS| Nothing; will change if anything comes up.

[For Kankri]

If he's taking Karkat's disappearance hard then he knows Kankri must be too. Whatever their relationship was or was not, Kankri and Karkat were close. With that in mind the Signless makes his way down to District 5, his tribble Friend tucked under his arm. He's had his time to grieve and now he's more than ready to take care of someone else while they grieve -- and even if Kankri isn't as distraught as he thinks he might be, visiting his past self is something he feels he should do more of.

With all that in mind he knocks softly on Kankri's door.

"Kankri? Are you there?"

[For Everyone Who Wants A Tribble]

Within the next few days signs pop up all over the tribute center in all the common areas and inside the elevator. They're all a little different from each other, as though whoever made them either couldn't find a copier or didn't know copiers were a thing. They all look basically the same, though:

The Signless is now in possession of a lot more tribbles than he was just a few days ago. Between Friend, Sekhmet and Tribble Will Smith all having healthy appetites he now has a healthy stock that range from bright white to deep black (and a good deal of colors in between) in plain or stripes or spots. He's gathered them all in the District 12 common room where they cover the couches and chairs and spill onto the floor. The combined cooing isn't so much a gentle murmur of sound as it is a dull roar.

He's set up another hand-written sign by the couch that says TRIBBLES HERE and there is a small stack of cards on the table that he made by tearing up larger pieces of paper. They're each labeled with Tribble Care Instructions and the only thing written on them is DO NOT FEED underlined several times.

It just seems to him that having a small, soft thing to hold when he feels particularly horrible always helps. Logically it follows that it might help other people too, and since tribbles are so easy to multiply there's no reason not to offer. He sits back amongst his herd of puffballs and waits (and desperately hopes someone shows up, because being stuck with this many tribbles is not something he exactly wants).

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Darcy stops her squeefest long enough to fill him in on the deets. "Nope. Feeding them leads to them reproducing and that can be a giant, fluffy clusterfuck," she says as she scritches the cooing striped ball of fluff. "It's like in Gremlins, only they don't get all scaley and evil."

Except, well, he probably doesn't know Gremlins either. She hands him the tribble she's holding before scooping up another one with spots. "Not that I'm saying the Capitol being flooded with tribbles wouldn't be hilarious and adorable, but I doubt the overlords would be happy about that."

"Then how do they survive?" he tries to question, perhaps out of concern, up until the point Darcy is passing him the 'tiger-striped' tribble and he has no choice but to take it or allow the creature to fall on the floor. Bucky doesn't know if that would hurt it or not.

It's his right hand that caught the creature and because of that the shock of just how soft, fluffy and warm it is hits him immediately. With as much care as he can muster he draws his hand up closer to his face to inspect the animal. He can't make out eyes, ears, a nose, even a mouth underneath all that fuzz but the thing gives a happy little shiver alongside a warbled coo that almost has him dropping it again.

Bucky doesn't drop it, carefully adjusting his grip and looking slightly nervously after Darcy. "Is this okay?"

This is what happens when the Signless goes to get a snack in the middle of tying to adopt out a gigantic pile of fluffballs, potential customers show up while he's not there.

"Oh, hello!" he says as he emerges from the adjoining kitchen area, a poppyseed muffin in-hand. He takes in several things in quick succession: he recognizes one of these humans. He recognizes one of these humans because said human killed him in the last arena. The human that killed him is holding a tribble with obvious nervousness, as though he's afraid of accidentally hurting it.

Well. Today just got more interesting.

Darcy takes a moment to pull her focus away from the cooing ball of fluff in her hands to look at Bucky and shrug and a small "No clue." Most responsible adult Darcy Lewis, everyone.

There's something precious about the look on Bucky's face. Not that she's going to let out a giggle at it, as much as she wants to, but she does smile. "Yeah, that's okay."

Which is about the same time she hears the man...alien? he looks pretty alien...coming from the kitchen. "Heya. So I'm guessing you're the tribble pokemon master?"

He's allowed to have a pet. He's not sure he was ever allowed one even in his old life. Carefully Bucky closes his fingers a little more firmly around the furry creature and is rewarded when it gives out another coo, a sound that sends an unexpectedly pleasant rush of warmth through him, making his tense muscles relax just a little more.

Bucky hears footsteps and looks round, frowning a little as he stares at the being who just came out of the kitchen. He knows him, he knows him from the arena but the being doesn't look like he's going to be holding any grudges either from his greeting which means Bucky won't either. The rules of the arena are different than those outside.

He nods slowly in greeting while internally wondering what a pokemon was

He's not the only one. Signless has never heard that word -- he's never even heard a word like it that he can extrapolate from. Humans are weird.

"I'm the one giving them away, yes," he says. Either that's what she means or he's just corrected some wild misconception. "It looks like you've already found ones you like?"

He can't help his eyes from sliding over to Bucky a little more than was probably polite. Part of him wants to openly address what happened in the arena, wants to make it clear he isn't going to hold any grudges, but it's hard to decide how exactly to bring that up.

If Darcy knew about their previous, less than pleasant history, she'd probably try to intervene or would be breathing a sigh of relief that this isn't awkward and bordering on erupting into some sort of weird one-sided violent throwdown since she's pretty sure that the scruffy alien dude wasn't the violent type. Like he's a grey, horned space hippie or something.

"I think Bucky found one that likes him right back," Darcy says with a satisfied little grin. At least she thinks it likes him from the little coos since those don't sound like mildly distressed sounds in the slightest. Maybe she could bail on this whole murderfest thing and become some sort of person-to-pet matchmaker. Okay, not really, but it's a cute idea to toy with. "I'm Darcy, by the way. And this is Bucky. Though I'm guessing you might know that already since you've both been here longer than I have and, y'know what, I should just stop talking before I say something really dumb." Smart move, stop talking and just cuddle the tribble instead.

Well Bucky hadn't so much found one he liked as had it thrust upon him by Darcy. When he thinks about it though he can't find himself disagreeing, there's nothing unpleasant or unlikable about this tribble and they all seem to act much the same as one another with only size or colour to differ them.

He'll notice soon that he's already started to gently stroke his thumb over the tribble in his hand.

"Is it really okay not to feed them?" he seems stuck on the idea that this animal could sustain itself without food.

"Oh, I've been here a while but that doesn't mean I know everyone." He offers them both an encouraging (and very fang-filled) smile. "It's good to meet you both -- my name is Signless."

Bucky. Darcy. He files the names away, pins them to the faces so that he won't forget later. It's become a habit to try to learn people as quickly as possible in a place where meeting new people is such a common occurrence and being able to recognize someone as a friend or foe quickly is so vital.

"It is, yes -- it's actually vital that you don't. Feeding them makes them multiply and while they're good company I'm assuming you don't want this many of them all to yourself." He gestures at the cooing carpet of tribbles. "As far as I can tell, if they need any sort of sustenance to survive they find it themselves."

"Oh." he blinked, looking down at the little fluffball in his hand for a moment. He might be able to handle one (yes Bucky's coming around on that idea quickly) but not a whole little of them. "So that's why you need to give them away."

Bucky's strokes the tribble in his hand gently and when it purrs it's like a rush of calm runs through him, relaxing his always tense muscles. Even those ones twisted andworn by the weight of his prosthetic seem to ache a little less. "Are there any other rules?"

Darcy tries really hard not to question that the tribble master's name is really Signless because, really, that's a terrible name. But then, hey, he's an alien and maybe he comes from a world where they just give everyone titles instead of names. Like Doctor Who, only with horns.

"Did you feed them anything specific to get enough that you could make a literal cuddle puddle? Just so we can avoid accidentally having it in their general area." Not that she plans on letting any food around them. Though, she does pick up another, slightly larger tribble that she's pretty sure could find a home with Bruce.

"I think they'll eat most anything if given the chance, which is strange considering I don't think they have mouths. But no, there aren't any other rules. They're really very easy to care for. All they need is affection and I think you're doing very well with that already."

He tries to ignore that it's a little jarring seeing the man who threw a knife at him gently stroking a purring ball of fluff. It just goes to show that everyone has more than one side to them -- often a great deal more than one, even. Should he say something? He should probably say something rather than leaving it up to guessing. In his experience, if things are left unsaid here then they almost always fester and twist.

"I know this may be a strange thing to say, but in case I don't get another chance to say it, I'd like you to know that I'm not angry with you for what happened in the arena. We all do what we feel we must to survive. It would be petty to hold a grudge."

"Acknowledged." he said, a little self-conscious but absorbed his new pet.

He thinks he can handle this. More importantly, he finds he wants to handle it. If the tribble is truly his then he wants to do a good job with it. Bucky is so wrapped up in those thoughts he almost misses the next words out of the trolls mouth.

"The rules of the arena are different, it was nothing personal." is what he says after a short considering pause. He is glad that Signless isn't holding a grudge because neither does Bucky, it was simply a matter of doing what was considered necessary on his end. "Thank you."

For both the words and the tribble.

If Darcy had known beforehand that Bucky had apparently killed the resident tribble dealer...okay, she probably still would've brought him along since, really, him finding and connecting with something comforting is important. But she would've been a little bit more cautious about it.

At least this isn't erupting in a fight or a screaming match. Hell, they're downright civil. She isn't sure she'd be able to say the same thing if she ran into the Terminator-esque dude who killed her in the Arena. "Well...that went better than I would've expected," Darcy says, less to the two men in front of her and more to the two tribbles cooing in her arms.

"I've found after being here long enough that it's better to forgive where possible than to create division between people who should ultimately be supporting each other," he says. He's firmly of the belief that tributes should be in solidarity with one another (with the notable exception of those who kill for sport and clearly would want no part of anything like that in the first place).

"There's no benefit to fighting outside the arena." Bucky agrees, drawing the tribble in closer to his chest. Okay he's halfway to snuggling it now. He feels so much calmer in its presence, the constant paranoia he carries inside himself quieted by its relaxed presence.

He should say it to Darcy, he reflects. "Darcy... this was a good idea, thank you."

Edited 2014-12-23 22:17 (UTC)

Darcy can't help but raise an eyebrow just the slightest bit at the two men (alien men still totally count as men, right?). "I don't think there's really that much benefit to fighting inside the Arena either," she says with a slight edge to her voice before shrugging slightly, as if to wave off her own words.

She shoots Bucky a small grin, unable to help but marvel at the sight of him snuggling the cooing ball to his chest. "Hey, it's no big deal. You obviously needed it."

Privately Signless agrees with her -- there isn't much benefit to fighting anywhere, in his opinion. But within the arena at least fighting means coverage and coverage means sponsors and the chance that even if you die you'll be brought back because you're popular enough to merit it. Fighting in the arena can mean survival, not just basic survival like staying alive one more day but long-term survival in the unforgiving culture of Panem. He can respect that even if he would never do it himself.

"They really are calming, aren't they?" he says, perfectly happy to let the subject naturally wander back to the tribbles. "It's good to see that it's already helping."

"Yes." he admits and looks between Darcy and Signless, lost on anything further to say. The events of the past half-hour have been enough to drain a lot of what he can handle of being around people in a day, particularly those he doesn't well know.

Bucky shifts and after a moments deliberation settles the tribble in his pocket where he hopes it will be comfortable until he returns to his quarters. Part of him still has the impulse to ask for permission to leave before he reminds himself that he does not need to, "I need to go. I'll take good care of it."

An assurance against any chance anyone might think better of allowing him the pet and seek to take it back. He doesn't want that to happen, he has so few good things of his own. Bucky turns to head for the elevator.

Darcy has to admit that it's really nice to see Bucky at ease. Okay, not really at ease and more like at ease's heavily traumatized cousin, but it's close enough. At least he doesn't look like he might accidentally strangle anyone, so it's something resembling progress, in her opinion.

She shouldn't be surprised when Bucky decides that he's done. That doesn't change the fact that she is, just a little bit. She offers Signless an apologetic glance with a quick, "It was nice talking to you. Thanks for the tribbles," she says before running slightly to catch up with Bucky's strides. Sure, he's a supersoldier assassin who can technically take care of himself, but she feels weird about making him go back down alone when she's the one who dragged him up here in the first place.

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i knew you were tribble when you walked in

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SWOOPS IN

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