thecapitol | [closed] not much chance for survival

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[closed] not much chance for survival

Who| Karkat and Dave
What| Venting at his best bro about clown problems.
Where| Some floor of the tribute center, then Dave's room.
When| About a week after the mini-arena, following his convo with Terezi.
Warnings/Notes| Nothing in particular beyond Karkat's awful mouth.

The thing about no longer living on the meteor is that when Karkat's mad at something, he doesn't know where to look for Dave. He doesn't know his usual places anymore, not where his room is, and he doesn't want to mess with the communicator just to call him up. It's not as personal and safe as his old wrist crab, and it's a bit much to bust it out in the middle of a district that's not his.

He's already left the floor he found Terezi on. That was the first order of business after their fight, salt of his words still on his tongue. He's got no more patience left when it feels too much like she was taking Makara's side, calling him by title and everything like he deserved it, like all he did needs a slap on the wrist and no more. It boils inside him in a way he knows won't just settle on his own.

District 6 won't have him, he's sure, so he skips his own floor in his search. But with only two eliminated, that leaves ten left, and that's not counting the roof or the training center or god knows where else he might be. Maybe he should just call him, but he feels like yelling too much to not make an ass of himself this way.

"DAVE!" "STRIDER!" "SUNGLASS SHITLORD!" "DICKBAG DOUCHEMUFFIN!" "FARTMASTER NOOKSTAIN!"

His volume isn't mild as he stomps across floors, baring teeth at hapless tributes and scanning for blond hair and indoor shades. It's not even that long before he descends into the vague, unspecific insults, and little longer than that before a couple peacekeepers take notice of him. He's the one who got in that fight the other day, isn't he?

Damn his luck.

"Oh, fuck--Look, no, I'm not--I'm just trying to find my friend, he's a tribute--I'm yelling because I'm mad about something. I want to vent to him, peacefully, and--Come on, just let me go!"

There he'd be found, hands up and open, warding, nonthreatening. He's trying to argue his case but god if he can find the right words, and yes, he knows he was loud, and maybe it was unnecessary, please please don't haul him off over something like this before he can even find his friend.

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A little while after their initial conversation, it occurs to Dave that he didn't tell Karkat his district or probably anything actually important. He doesn't imagine he'll have a hard time finding him if he needs him. He can ask around or he can call Karkat or he can wait in the lobby for hours on end until he shows up.

He isn't searching for him right now because, as usual, he's heard bupkis about supposed drama. It's on the eighth floor that he hears Karkat's yelling, he'd been in the elevator to nine when the barking permeates the metal box. He pokes his head out, raising a brow and considering moving on, but the allure of Tantrum Bingo is too great to ignore.

As usual he arrives just in the nick of time, his chest tightening just a little when he comes across Shouts McAttitude being hassled by the goddamn Power Rangers of oppression. He strides over quickly, forcing himself to be calm as he does.

"Woah, woah. There you are." He reaches for Karkat without looking like he's about to rip him away from the Peacekeepers. "It's all good, it's all good. He's new, he needs a nap. You know how it is. Stress. Right?" He gives his shoulders a shrug, spreading his hands a little as he does. The Peacekeepers stare for a long moment before they shake their heads, giving Karkat a final look of warning before moving to turn away.

Now it's Dave's turn to level a flat stare at Karkat. "You got something to say?

Good job Dave. You're so helpful and thoughtful about what a person might need to know. Thank goodness your told him everything he needed so all problems could be avoided.

(It's still Karkat's fault for yelling around like an idiot.)

He doesn't notice Dave behind until he hears his voice. He's been here longer so he lets him handle things, even allowing the hand as he falls silent. Normally he'd resent the treatment, but right now it's the help he needs, and he even adds in a nod to accentuate Dave's points. Technically speaking none of it's wrong.

He waits for the Peacekeepers to distance themselves before he looks back. He takes a deep breath to steady himself.

"I got in an argument with Terezi about Makara Extra Dickish Edition. He slammed me into a wall a while back for stupid reasons. Can we go to your block?"

It's been a while since someone Dave really cared about arrived, to be honest. There isn't a tried and true method of running through all the necessary information, but at least they live in the same building.

Even though Dave feels like he has this handled, his heart is racing. Memories of people being dragged off to jail are still fresh in his mind, even if it's been months now. He needs to exhale faintly when they leave, trying not to show how worried he sincerely had been.

"Extra dickish? Big Top- oh. Aw, man. I thought he was cool." Dave's shoulders slump just a little, but he bucks up a little at the request. "Shouldn't you ask me out to dinner first?" He asks, but he's heading toward to elevator again anyway.

"He's a fucking clown, of course he's not cool," Karkat fires back with a raised eyebrow. He might have been more charitable had things not turned so bad so fast, but the Initiate's preformed dislike of him kind of ruined that chance. Bias: solidified.

He'd shove him for the tease, but for all he knows the Peacekeepers might jump on that too. Overzealous assholes. Instead he mashes the call button once they're at the elevator.

"Apparently he's got some beefgrub with past me big enough that he wouldn't stop to listen to half what I was saying, and when I agreed on avoiding each other like he wanted, he accused me of 'ordering' him - I didn't order anything - and shit exploded," he explains during the wait. "That's the short version, anyhow, but the full version is just as moronic."

"I don't mean cool like wow I am accepting of this bullshit religion and his weird-ass diction. I mean cool like he doesn't like. I dunno. Shove people against walls? Anymore, anyway." He hasn't had great experiences with the guy in the past, but since the whole Terezi going to prison and consequential Avox thing he'd found him to be pretty chill.

Dave pushes the elevator button and finds that it hasn't moved to far, so it doesn't take long for it to ping and arrive. Dave shoulders Karkat in, pointedly jabbing the nine button before standing back and thinking on what he's saying.

"Once we sit our asses down you can give me the extended addition. The ordering might have something to do with the fact that he was an Avox, also touchy as hell and more sensitive than Chris Crocker." He doesn't care if Karkat gets it, but he'll imitate him anyway, putting his hands dramatically on his face. "Leave my shitty religion alone."

"Watch it," he says for the shouldering, but he shuffles on in regardless. And the nine button, okay. He'll remember that.

He pretty much intended to give the full story once he got the chance, but for now he's stuck in gawking as Dave does his ~~old meme~~ impression. If that's what Chris Crocker is, he doesn't want to ask.

"I didn't order him, though," he insists. "Not until after he flipped out on me, and at that point I was too pissed to care and meant it like a fuck you. So no shit he's touchy."

It doesn't take all that long for the elevator to arrive, and once the doors ding and slide open he steps back out. From there he'll let Dave lead, not that there's another option.

"Hey, hey. I'm not defending him, I'm just saying that they kind of fucked with his head. He was all submissively acknowledging my existence last Arena because they made him all down with the servitude." Yeah, he might be working that in a Juggalo-esque way.

"I dunno. Maybe you're lying in the bed of past Karkat's mistakes. Again." He raises a brow over his shoulder at Karkat before he begins to lead Karkat into the District 9 suites and toward his bedroom. He spares Karkat an eyebrow waggle before he pushes open the door.

His room is pretty typical of his age, it's a little messy but not terribly so. Some clothes and magazines are strewn around and there's a sizable collection of empty bottles and cans which he has kindly stuck notes to asking the avoxes not to touch them. In the corner there's a little red bird on it's perch, chirping softly to itself as Dave crosses toward his unmade bed and flops onto it.

Edited 2014-12-12 11:13 (UTC)

He gives Dave a look, but less for the phrasing than the content of his words. It doesn't seem a thing like the guy he ran into. It's hard to imagine the Initiate acting like that at all.

"I am," he answers to the other part. "I don't know what happened or what past me did or Makara did or anything, and Terezi didn't tell me anything beyond us being on different sides of interpersonal drama - whatever that means."

The eyebrow waggle gets ignored along the way. Normally he'd have some quip for it, but right now he's too stuck in the current subject. Dave flops onto his bed, and Karkat follows to take a seat near him.

"What's with the bird?" He did notice that.

"Don't ask me." Dave makes a sound between a huff and a snort, an forced attempt to be flippant and casual that doesn't work in his favour. "I walked past that mess about two months late and then they hardly spoke to me long enough to involve me in that shit." He lifts his hand as if to wave off the situation, but the gesture is enough to draw his bird into flying off his perch and onto his hand.

"This guy? He's Mayorito Junior Sanchez. I call him Mayor for short, it's an homage." But Karkat asked what was with him, not for an introduction. "I dunno, Loki and Cleminem decided to give him to me one day for no discernible reason. Like a chirpy little "Guess what, you're stuck here" sign." That was probably a little too bitter, so he pulls his hand down to boop the bird's head affectionately.

Karkat watches as the bird flaps over, along with Dave's affectionate gesture. He misses the actual Mayor, but that probably goes without saying for the both of them. "He's cute, I guess. I never thought about birds much."

He'd do better with something like a hermit crab, if it were him. But that's not why they're here.

"Anyway, Makara--I met him a while back. I heard him behind me say something like 'not motherfucking you', so I thought it was Gamzee, but when I looked I realized it wasn't. So I asked if he was Carlos, right? Only he gets huffy because it's pronounced Kurloz." He rolls his eyes. "I figure he's different anyway because the other guy was mute, wasn't he? I mean, obviously he's a Makara, whatever, I don't care. He says we had some agreement about avoiding each other, which obviously I know nothing about and say as much. He explains, I tell him fine with me, and he accuses me of ordering him when I did no such thing. And yeah, yeah, you told me something happened to him, but I still don't get what I did to piss him off. I snap at him because fuck that attitude, and the trumped up soda stain picks me up by the collar and slams me into the wall. If Nill hadn't found us then and interrupted we probably would have been carted off by the Peacekeepers."

There's the thing with Terezi still to discuss, but Karkat pauses here. That's a solid chunk of info, the whole story he couldn't tell earlier, and he's listening if Dave has input to give.

For a moment Dave considers verbalising that he didn't know trolls had birds, but he decides it's a tangent he doesn't want to send Karkat on for the moment. The tangent tantrum square isn't a coveted one, it's all too easy to nip that in the bud early.

When Karkat goes on. And on. And on. Dave listens, he doesn't interrupt for witty commentary and he doesn't space out like he probably would if they were talking about anything else. This is a topic that holds his attention because it legitimately concerns him.

"Well, shit. I thought he was a rare juggalo walking the fine line of sanity. I mean, he came for me in the Arena once? But I know plenty of people who go for the kill there and come out all civil and shit." He shrugs his shoulders. "Not gonna lie, it kind of sounds like there's something missing from that story though. Not that I'm even going to pretend his angle would make any sense to me, but what exactly did you say when you snapped?" He's on Karkat's side a hundred percent through this, but that doesn't mean he isn't a little curious.

Karkat's mouth presses flat, but Dave does have a point there. That part was different, and it doesn't come off like he's being blamed over the order thing, which has been one of his main qualms.

"I was a dick then, but namely because if he couldn't even listen when I agreed to something he wanted, then what was the point of holding back? What did he need me to do? I asked like, if I was too much of a heathen for him to listen properly, and told him to get the stick out of his ass," he explains. "He didn't need to slam me into a wall for it, though. I was keeping it verbal, hands to myself. He did that all on his own."

It's a careful approach Dave takes, because the last thing he really wants is more infighting. If there's an easy answer and an easy solution, he'll push for it, but he's been harboring his own quiet suspicions and he's not sure if he should be glad that he's vilified or disappointed that he isn't surprised.

Initiate was alright, but he doesn't trust this song and dance with Terezi. He should feel bad, probably, but after the bullshit on the meteor it feels like everything is an alarm bell.

"Right so, typical Karkat pleasantries. Nothing to flip over, obviously. I dunno, I guess I'm missing a link here." He shrugs a little. "Whatever past Karkat did must have been fucking rough, but I'll bet anything that Initiate's part in it has been conveniently forgotten." He twists his mouth in sympathy. "Sucks to be you, scapegoat."

"Fuck if I know what beefgrub died in his chute," Karkat answers back. "And seriously. I know I'm not the nicest troll around, but if he knew me he should have expected the attitude. I wasn't even that bad until the end there."

Much more of that, though, and he'll be going around in circles. He sighs.

"But I ran into Terezi earlier," he says, turning to what prompted him to hunt him down. "It wasn't bad at first. We talked, she made cocoa, but when I went to tell her what happened... The Initiate had told me to go thank her for not doing worse, but I bet if Nill hadn't stopped things he might have tried anyway. I mean, he told me to enjoy the games." He looks to Dave then, lip curled at the memory.

"She acted like... like there's something else I had to have done, like it was my fault, and went on this big thing about me being important to her automatically meant he wouldn't hurt me despite what he just did." That's the part that makes him frown most. "Sure, she said she'd talk to him and that he went too far, but what part of that points to 'safe, sane, trustworthy clown'? She even acted like she thought I'd start shit--told me not to go after him, to avoid him, when I already fucking said I'd told him I would! I don't want anything to do with that sugar guzzling horn fondler."

Part of him wants to go smack around one of the training dummies downstairs, but that wouldn't really do anything. Instead, with another thick sigh, he lets himself flop onto his back. It doesn't matter how messy Dave's bed might be. He's just mad, and tired of drama, and yet here it's ensnared him anyway.

"Everything just exploded at the end. She called him her 'best friend', said he was 'kind', said he was nothing like Gamzee--Pfft." It's too easy for him to lay them over each other, bitterness at one clown just built on by another.

But still...

His hands come up to cover and rub at his face as he admits, "I told her she had her head up her ass." Mad though he is, he doesn't feel so good about that one after the fact.

"Yeah, no. You're not in the wrong here. I mean, you're not perfect. But shit, if he's flinging people up against walls for being smartasses then I'm gonna have to watch my spine." He rubs his back, as if having sympathy pains for his bro.

He shuts up when Karkat mentions Terezi, looking a little more solemn. Dave has had more time to get over the whole Terezi thing, maybe that's why he isn't as worried as he should be. Dating her? The Gamzee thing? It's like a fever dream he's trying to forget. Not that.. Dating her was bad, of course, but the way it ended makes him want to hit ctrl+z on that memory forever.

"Eugh." Dave can't help scrubbing a hand on his face. "I didn't think they were that close, then I turned around and they're holding hands and crying over each other. I mean, she's right. He's not Gamzee? Gamzee is way, way worse but like.." He trails off with a small shrug. "Should we be worried?" It's a question that's been simmering since he figured out that they were close, but his lack of consideration about it hadn't really brought it to the surface until now. Until Karkat got dragged into this crap.

"See, exactly. That was my whole point." And it's what makes the whole thing so frustrating. If she could have just agreed with that and not given him trouble, it would have been easy.

Now he has another clown fucking shit up between them, and this one he doesn't even know. And that's without full knowledge of what's going on between them. "Holding hands and crying over each other? Are you serious?" he asks with another glance his way. "I asked if she was getting into his clown shit, but that's when she went off on me not to compare them. You tell me, dude. How bad is it between them?"

He's inclined to worry as it is, but that's his bias as much as anything. Clown cultists are just too much trouble; they've hurt him and his, and it's hard not to bear a grudge over it.

When Karkat agrees, Dave nods as well. He can see this getting ugly fast. Hell, you know it's bad when Karkat is coming off as the logical party. He'd rather not inspire anymore inner drama between all of them, not something as sincere and close to home as this anyway. This isn't marketable, this is bullshit.

"It's kind of a par for the course interaction here, realistically speaking, but not for people who're just allies." He feels a little bad, like he's really letting his tinfoil hat show here. "Sounds like she knows what she's getting into. So nah, why worry?" He says that quietly, with the slightest amount of bitterness in his tone. "If this is what she wants, then it doesn't matter what we think. I dunno what shit your other self started, but she's clearly got a chip on her shoulder about it and so has the big guy."

He shrugs his shoulders. "Just don't get involved, Vantas. You'll obsess over it." He owes it to be honest, right? "If I were you, I'd just drop the whole thing. Be civil to Terezi, let her know you're mature enough to handle your shit and if there's something wrong, it'll come to light pretty fucking fast in a place like this."

"Mm."

It's an intermediate sound, considering but not quite buying. For all his projection of his issues, it would be hard not to worry all on its own about Terezi and a clown after what he learned of her and Gamzee. He'd hate for her to fall into the same pit of Faygo and disrespect for herself.

"I'm not going to start shit," he insists, frowning over at Dave. "Like I said, I'm going to avoid Makara, and the less he comes into my life the better. That means not trying to drag it up again with her when it's obviously just going to explode in my face if I try. I'm just frustrated with past me causing problems for present me, especially when I don't know a damn thing of what he did."

Dave is just frustrated, generally when he gets frustrated he just stops paying attention or backs out of a situation. He still has a chip on his shoulder for everything that happened before he got here and everything that happened directly after, but he'd rather not think about it if he can.

"Alright well, good. Now we can just clear this up and can get back to focusing on minor things like the upcoming murder fest." He doesn't mean to sound quite so belligerent, but there's something about this conversation that's making him want to nip it in the bud and call it all resolved quickly.

"I'd help you if I could, but I talked to him once. Twice, technically. If you want to go on a spirit quest for your past, Terezi is probably your best bet."

"Yes, we can call it done," Karkat answers back with just a hint of exasperation. Nothing too bad, it's mostly an answer to Dave's own tone. "If I want to figure it out I'll get to it in my own time, with the people who can actually answer it."

But if it's the 'minor things' Dave wants to focus on, he can do that. He pushes at the bed until he's sat back up, head turned again to look at his friend as he speaks in a calmer voice. "So how do you deal with the murder fest? I barely had time to process the abridged version, so fuck if I know how to approach the full game."

Dave flops backward so he's draped over the end of the bed. He doesn't know why he chose this subject in particular to focus on, but he can imagine that Karkat is probably ready to hear some things about Arenas.

Is he really switching Terezi's relationships as a topic for horrible slavetertainment? He has some issues he should look into.

"They usually span over about two months. I don't think I've made it far past six weeks in, though." His mouth pulls into an unimpressed line. "The one you saw was a mini one, they have them between big Arenas and they pull in a select crowd. Usually favourites, they like spoiling us." He waves a hand airily. "I usually run. There'll be a cornucopia and it'll be laden with booty for taking, I only went for it once and it triggered some explosions somewhere else. Seems like that was a one time thing, but sometimes it's just as much of a gamble to go it without supplies."

Karkat listens to the end before offering any thoughts. "I heard some of this already--about the mini version, and general Cornucopia stuff. You're serious about the explosions?" he asks, looking back at him. Neither Linden nor Stephen had warned him about anything like that, though mention of other risks had come up.

"Two months, though... You'll have to remind me how long a month is, but six weeks is a lot on its own. Even Sgrub didn't last that long." Sgrub also didn't involve them having to kill each other, Aradia's revenge against Vriska aside.

"How do you put up with it all?"

"Well you'd know about the mini one since you were in one, but they don't usually make it a kids only thing. That was the gimmick, always be wary of the gimmick." He points a nagging finger at him and waggles it in the air. "I'm fully serious, some chump touched it and it all went south. Hell, last time they didn't have a cornucopia so much as a bunch of keys."

Not that he really got to see where those went when he was getting sidetracked nonstop through that whole Arena. "Eight weeks. Long as balls. To be honest you lose track of time so easy it almost doesn't matter, even I feel all out of kilter when I've spent a few weeks with the lights on."

He falls silent for a moment at that question, running his tongue over his teeth as he does. "It's not so bad during down time. You can eat whatever, there's plenty of shit to do and there's more than four people to talk to. It's kind of like Sburb if we actually got to have breaks somewhere other than a fuckin' asteroid."

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[closed] not much chance for survival

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god I didn't realize the Christ Crocker thing was that old

history in the making

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