thecapitol | When you've been fighting for it all your life

It's possible that he's still grinning a little from reading Kurloz and Terezi's conversation on the Lonestar post. He can't help it; it's real damn good seeing his friend happy, especially with all the shit that's been going down.

He's sipping on a cup of coffee as he turns down the alley - more for an excuse to be out around here, but hey, he can always use the caffeine.

"Hey," he greets with a smile as he stops in front of her. "Terezi, right? I'm Sam, it's good to finally meet you."

Terezi isn't exactly sure that she knows who she's waiting for. She has a vague idea of the people who live on Kurloz's floor, but she hasn't met all of them. This one, Kurloz seems to be very close with--at least enough to call him 'brother', so she's not too worried about meeting him.

Indeed, when said someone approaches her with a greeting, Terezi is all smiles herself. "Yeah, I'm Terezi," she confirms, getting to her feet just as she's finishing off her doughnut. She is happy to conclude that she made an excellent choice. That doughnut was delicious. She takes a sip of her hot chocolate, lifting her eyebrows appraisingly from behind her red glasses. "Nice yo meet you, too. You're the jerk who was egging Kurloz on?"

It's always good to make sure she's meeting up with the right person, after all.

Sam chuckles, the corners of his eyes crinkling up in his amusement.

"That wasn't egging him on, that was supporting him in his demonstrations of love. I'm just as serious about it here," he teases.

It was absolutely egging him on, and Sam knows it. But he still finds it sweet. He's heard a lot about Terezi from Kurloz, especially recently, so Sam's already inclined to like her.

"That was egging him into making sappy raps about me, and you know it" she retorts, wagging her finger at him sternly. It's really hard not to smile, though, but she'll attempt to at least purse her lips in what might be mistaken for displeasure.

The bag that her doughnut came in is lying at her feet, and she reaches down to pick it up. Her head turns to the side, and then the other as she sniffs-- No one seems to be paying them attention, so she pulls a folded piece of paper from her sock while grabbing the bag. The bag is crumpled up, and the folded paper is offered to Sam.

Her expression turns just a little suspicious. She really has to ask. "You two seemed... close. Just how much has he told you?"

"I could be persuaded to a compromise that maybe my support was egging him on a little bit." He's not even bothering to try to pretend like he's not amused as hell by her finger waving.

His smile doesn't go away when she leans down to pull something from her sock, though the amusement does fade into something a little more serious. He takes the paper, folding it over again before tucking it into an out of the way pocket on the inside of his coat.

Close. Yeah, that's a word for it. Almost guiltily, Sam's mind flashes briefly back to his and Kurloz's second, much more awkward conversation about moirails, but he doesn't let himself linger there.

"Kurloz is my brother," he replies, giving a one shoulder shrug followed by a fond smile. "But that depends - you asking how much he's told me about himself, or about you?"

"The Law does not compromise with the guilty," Terezi informs him, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against the graffiti-marked wall. She holds that position for a moment, then leans to the side to sip her hot chocolate without uncrossing her arms.

She doesn't say anything about the hand-off. His expression tells her that he knows what that is, and she's glad that he knows to keep it out of sight. This spot might not be observed, but voices can carry. If they wanted a place to talk business, she would have directed to the speak-easy instead. Besides, they already had a place to exchange words now.

No, she takes note of his mention of being Kurloz's brother with another quirk of her brows. She leans forward a little, uncrossing her arms again and resting her hands on her knees. "...Both. I'm asking about both." If he's going to offer, she's not going to put a limit on that information.

All right, this time, he does try pretty hard to keep a straight face at that. It's hard, but he manages to do a decent job. Even if the edges of a smile do peek around some time. "It's good to see someone sticking to their principles."

Sam doesn't bother checking to make sure what the paper is. Kurloz vouched for her, and that's enough for Sam to assume she's legit. Instead, he leans back a little, pushing his hands into his pockets. He's absolutely aware that he's all but getting the third degree here, and he drops most of the joking around to go for honesty.

"You're his matesprit." He's pretty sure he said that right. "He's told me you see the good shit about him that sometimes he can't, when he's too caught up in the person he used to be and he thinks that's all there is to him. Said all he had to do was try, and you'd help him see another way out."

There's probably more that Kurloz'd told him about her, but that's what'd stuck with Sam the most. That's what'd made him almost immediately like her.

"About himself..." Sam pauses for a moment, considering. The short answer is a lot, but it feels like that's cheating. "I'm a soldier. Kurloz and I have some stuff in common, and we talk about our pasts a lot."

Edited 2015-04-20 01:58 (UTC)

Terezi tries not to flush when Sam comes right out with what he knows about her first. Being Kurloz's matesprit... That part isn't so surprising. It's public news, after those interviews made such a big deal about it. But the other things... Sometimes, she was left wondering if Kurloz realized how good he was and how far he had come from the person he used to be--or the person he could have been. It was such a tremendous leap, and she was so proud of him and glad for him, even when it seemed like he was blind to it all. It meant a lot to her, to hear that he could acknowledge it to someone else--even as the tips of her ears flush teal at her involvement.

She clears her throat a little, trying to move past that part. The fact that Sam is a soldier doesn't surprise her. He has that air. It was part of the reason that she had jokingly called him one.

"What kind of soldier?" she asks, deciding to delve into that a little more, considering that she doesn't know anything about this human.

His smile comes back a little when he catches that flush, but he doesn't say anything about it. She'd seemed embarrassed enough with what Kurloz was saying to her on the Lonestar post, it probably isn't a whole lot different hearing what he'd told Sam about her.

Doesn't do anything to dissuade Sam from thinking they're both very sweet, though.

Instead, he moves on, going with the sort of subject change with ease. "Pararescue, but I know Kurloz said that you guys don't have that back where you're from. When other soldiers were trapped behind enemy lines, or stuck somewhere injured, we were the ones that found 'em and brought 'em back."

"Oh." No, they don't have anything like that, that's for sure. Terezi frowns a bit, rolling the idea around in her head. In the Alternian military, if you were unfortunate enough to wind up injured or behind enemy lines... That was your problem. The Empire didn't waste resources trying to retrieve soldiers who couldn't hold their own. It was something that she had told Shepard, months ago... There was always someone willing to replace you. If there was one thing that trolls were not short on, it was bodies to throw into the fray.

"That sounds..." Terezi pauses, rolling the idea around in her thoughts until she can settle on the proper adjective. "...Good. It sounds like something that would be good to have. If you were in a position to care about a soldier's life." Just another reason that she's grown to be none too keen on the Empire and it's ways.

"How do you decide who to rescue? I mean... You can't rescue everyone, right?"

Sam waits while she processes that. Kurloz hadn't really gotten it until Sam explained, either, had told him that no one gave a shit about downed soldiers back where he was from. Sam can guess that Terezi's thinking something along the same lines.

"It's real damn good to have. Caring about soldiers is what I do." It's probably the most accurate summary of everything he's done, actually, from pararescue to the EXO-7 program to working at the VA, and even to helping Steve.

He gives a small smile at her question. "We would've if we could, but no, we couldn't. There was only about 300 of us on active duty, even less for what I did before I retired. We had to prioritize on who needed it most." Sam makes a little face, then admits, "And political reasons, sometimes, there's no escaping it."

Edited 2015-04-23 01:50 (UTC)

Political reasons... Yeah, she understood that part. But even so, she still thinks it's a noble idea. It's hard not to like some of the things that humans have done with their society. It's hard not to wish that her own had been a little more similar.

"It would have been nice to have something like that in the Fleet." Not that Terezi ever had a chance to join... Not that she was certain she ever would have been allowed. "How much did Kurloz tell you about it?"

"What he was a part of before he came here? Some. Enough to know that whatever faults the military back home's got, I'm still real damn grateful for it whenever I hear him talk about it."

Sam shakes his head, running a hand over his jaw. "Some of it's alien to me, some of it's... unfortunately similar to some of the stuff I've seen back where I'm from. Were you a part of it, too?"

"No." That answer comes immediately with a shake of Terezi's head. "He was...something else entirely. They're called Subjuggulators. It's a different division of the Fleet, but way back then, I think they were a lot more separate than they are in my time."

"By my time, everyone was required to join the Fleet when they came of age. Adults didn't stay on the homeworld unless they were Jadebloods, who were tasked with manning the brooding caverns." That part probably required more explanation eventually, but it's not an important part of her story right now. "I wasn't in the Fleet yet, but I was training to be a Legislacerator. They were like bounty hunters in my ancestor's time, tasked with going out and apprehending the guilty to bring them before justice--dead or alive. In my time, they did most of their legal work in courtblocks under the watchful eye of His Honorable Tyranny. It was the best position that a tealblood could ask for."

The title sounds familiar, because he's pretty sure Kurloz mentioned it before, but "my time" is what Sam picks up on. From what she's saying, it sounds like there's a significant time difference between when she was from and when Kurloz was from, and that... definitely isn't what Sam was expecting.

"Sounds like lawyers," he says, almost absently, before clarifying, "We've got something similar, back where I'm from. People holding trials and arguing the law in courtrooms."

He's curious about her training, in the same way as he's curious about pretty much everything he's learned about where their from - but his attention's still on the time thing. "How long is it, between your time and Kurloz's?"

Terezi is about to comment that Legislacerators and Lawyers are very similar--and to outline the differences in their legal systems, but Sam moves on to a different question. It wasn't one that she was expecting. To be honest, it wasn't something that she really thought about much lately.

"Um, about a thousand sweeps, give or take a few centuries?" She does some quick math in her head. "Two thousand years, I think. Plus change."

His eyes widen briefly, eyebrows raising in surprise. "Damn." And he thought it was weird that Steve'd showed up five months before him, even though they'd both been taken from the same point back home. But still, assuming they both got to go home, it'd be to the same time - Sam'd figured that Terezi and Kurloz were like that, knowing they were both from the same place.

This, well, they might as well be from different worlds, for all it means about them getting to go back home together.

Suddenly he's even more glad, that he asked Kurloz to come back home with him.

"Did Kurloz tell you what he and I talked about, about what to do if we win, if we gain control of how the Capitol's bringing us here?"

It never fails to surprise Terezi whenever she's reminded that humans think a century is a long time, let alone a millennia. It's a long time for her as well, but not nearly as much as Sam must be thinking. She wonders for a moment if she should point that out, but her curiosity is piqued with Sam's question instead.

"No, he hasn't mentioned anything about it." Not about Sam or about his plans for after the Capitol is conquered... "Just that he promised not to go back. To our world." Because she made him promise.

A century is ancient, okay, there's a reason everyone makes fun of Steve. Even if he's really younger than Sam, in terms of years actually lived.

Sam frowns a little, considering that. He wonders how Kurloz was gonna manage that, with them going back to their worlds if the Capitol doesn't bring them back. It hadn't seemed like going somewhere else had been something Kurloz'd thought of - but maybe it was one of those promises you make without really knowing exactly how you're going to keep it, just that you have to.

"We thought of a way for him maybe not to have to. I asked him to come back with me, when we figured out a way to get back to our worlds. To bring you, too." He quirks a small smile. "I might have suggested we form our own Avengers, if you're interested."

For all the promise in those words, there's something jarring about the way that Sam says them. She's delighted at the prospect of being invited to someone else's world, but... She thought all this talk of 'having' to go back to Alternia was over. It weighs on her mind more than she really wants it to.

"What do you mean, a way for him to not have to?" she asks, her brow furrowing. "Why would he have to in the first place?"

Sam's own brows furrow as well at her question. "If the Capitol doesn't bring you back when you die here, you end up back where they took you from. Somehow."

Honestly, Sam can't figure out the logistics of it all, but he can't really explain the couple of thousand years difference between Kurloz and Terezi or even the five month difference between him and Steve, despite them coming from the same time back home. Knowing that is a relief for some - it's the main thing that'd soothed him when Natasha hadn't come back, though it hadn't been much help with Albert, seeing as Sam'd still thought he'd never see him again - but for others like Kurloz, it's an even worse fate.

"Back...?" Terezi stares blindly up at Sam, her brow furrowed and her mouth slightly open. Back? Back to where they took them from when they died? No. No no no. Her brow furrows deeper as that really sinks in. Back to Alternia. For Kurloz, that meant either a life of cruelty and destruction of himself and everything around him... or being snuffed out by paradox time. And for her, that meant going back to a useless life on a meteor that might never reach its destination, spiraling out of control until she was only a shell of her former self. Neither one of those things are anything less than horrifying.

And he's telling her that it's unavoidable?

"...How do you know that going to your world is going to change that?"

That question makes him pause a little. He'd half assumed that the revival mechanism was arena related only, since he'd been warned that if you die here in the Capitol, or anywhere not in the arena, you're not coming back - but he does wonder if it's that the Capitol can't bring them back outside of arena, or that they won't. He doesn't know how any of it works, and he can't promise that world hopping is going to change anything.

So he doesn't, he just goes with honesty. "I guess I figured if we figured out how to use whatever the hell technology's the Capitol's got that lets them take us well enough to choose where we wanted to go back to, we could figure out how to break that."

'We'll figure it out' is not necessarily the best motivator, but at the moment it's really all that they have. It might not work, but to be honest, there's no saying that anything will in the face of the information that she's just been given. It's something to hope for, and hope can be a pretty powerful thing.

"Okay," she says, exhaling a sigh. "Alright, sure. It's worth a try." She doesn't have anywhere else to go, and she's not going back to her own world, that much is for certain. Where she ends up after they've brought the Capitol down... It doesn't really matter to her. "I want to stick around long enough to help fix this place. I'm not just abandoning everyone here. But after that.... Sure. Whatever." Her thoughts trace back to what they were talking about before that tangent about going back, and naturally there's really only one question to ask:

"What's that Avenger thing you were talking about?"

Hope's all they've got, right about now. But it's enough for Sam. "Me neither. Might not've been my choice to get involved in this, but now that I am, I'm in it for the long haul." There's too many people here that he wants to fight for, now.

He grins a little when she goes back to the Avengers thing. "Back where I'm from, we got a team of - well, superheroes. When something comes along that's big enough to threaten most of the planet, they're the ones that fight back. I'm... kind of one of them."

Not really, not officially, but he's more involved now than he had been when he first got here. He'd already been ready to follow Steve, and between Tony claiming him as part of the team and Clint being his partner, Sam's going to have to accept it at some point.

"They're the reason I don't think you and Kurloz'll have a problem fitting in."

"Superheroes?" Terezi looks like she's caught between skepticism and interest. That's...kinda cool, even if she's reluctant to admit it just yet. She still has a few more questions, just to make sure they're not a bunch of nerdy dorks.

"Like the kind that dispense vigilante justice on unsuspecting criminals? Punishing those that the law can't touch? Cool outfits and cooler accessories? Fighting for truth and protecting the innocent and... and all that stuff?" Careful there, Pyrope. Your excitement is showing. "Or is this more of an underwear-on-the-outside kind of superhero? Because I'm not really about that."

Sam laughs, eyes gleaming a little in amusement. Yeah, he caught that excitement there, but he can’t blame her. Shoulda seen him the day he found out he was being recruited for the EXO-7 project.

“Only time I ever saw anyone wearing their underwear on the outside was when they were really, really drunk, and I gave him so much shit for it afterwards.” He shakes his head with a smile, focusing on the memory of Riley for a moment before letting it go. “I like to think they were pretty damn cool, anyway. I had wings, before I came here.”

"What. Really?" That seems to pique Terezi's interest even more than the mention of superheroes. She was pretty accustomed to humans being able to weird things, but... She's pretty sure she never met a human that was also part bird.

"Like, actual wings? Feathers and everything? Did they have to pluck you clean when you got here?"

Edited 2015-08-04 02:10 (UTC)

When you've been fighting for it all your life

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