thecapitol | [open] and the stains coming from my blood tell me

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[open] and the stains coming from my blood tell me

Who| Karkat and anyone currently around the Capitol
What| Died like a loser at the Cornucopia, now back in the Capitol. At least his leg's fixed?
Where| Tribute Tower + out in the city
When| Evening the day after the start of the arena + the following days.
Warnings/Notes| Mild wound reference/description, but nothing big planned.

God damnit, really?

It's been about a day since Karkat's untimely death post-Cornucopia, and he wastes no time lingering about the cold room he wakes up in after every death. He's whole and hale again, his leg free of so much as a scar to hint where he'd been shot, and it feels good to be able to walk around without hurting. Doesn't hurt after his death, either; whatever that was, it sure wasn't a comfortable way to go. Speaking of, how did he go? His memories are jumbled and vague, and he mostly remembers a bang and then being carried somewhere by Shepard. Where, he doesn't know; he doesn't think he made it that far.

A. Tower Lobby

He makes a stop in the lobby, not planned, but because he catches the answer to his question. There on one of the various screens playing this arena's games is his own body, rushing on up to the pyre that served as the Cornucopia. There's others around him, some familiar and some not, and is that the douchebag he ran into at last Crowning? He looks different without all the glitter and LEDs, but he's positive, and--

Holy shit, that is lightning. A commentator rattles in the background, explaining how the charge radiated outward, hitting not just Gary but a number of nearby tributes. He sees himself laying there, and--wow, yes, this is about him, huh? Because the footage sticks on him as Shepard comes up, telling him to hold on and how they're gonna move, and how he better not puke on her. To his credit he didn't, but man, he really couldn't move, could he? And he couldn't hear a word. But she walks, carrying him somewhere, and...

"Are you kidding me? I died just like that?" He gestures at the screen, as if whoever is blathering about the moment can hear him. "That is the lamest, most watery nooked excuse for a death I've ever been through! Even worse than that time with the fork! Didn't I do anything? There were sickles that time, come on--"

The camera zooms in as Shepard, having realized his death, now fishes for the necklace he wore as token. She grips it and gives a hard yank.

"She broke my fucking necklace!"

B. District 6

It's after he's vented his anger at his arena performance (and gotten away from whoever might have found him there) that Karkat finally hauls up to his district. He's grumpy still and not real keen to be back, but he wants to change, and he figures he'll need to talk to some people. Which is to say, his mentor and escort.

It's after he's switched into something comfortable and familiar that he heads out. If any other tributes have the misfortune to be here already, they might spot him, but otherwise he makes his way to bang on Stephen and Linden's doors.

"Guess who's dead!" he shouts through the barrier by way of greeting. He hopes they're around. He is not in the mood for an untamed honkfowl pursuit.

C. Training Center

It's in the later days that Karkat gets back to training. With his body fully healed again, he's able to actually work at it like he wants to, and make up for what he missed after his return from jail. Well, maybe not 'make up' properly with the way bodies reset around here, but it feels like it anyway, and he's glad to be able to work out again.

In a way, he feels like he owes it to Shepard to keep up with the regiment she put him on. So for all she's still in the arena, each morning bright and early he brings himself down to train. Running, practicing forms, and generally keeping at old habits is part of it, but another is honestly a good chunk of angry sickle training.

He's really mad he didn't get to use one in the arena. He's going to stay mad. His training dummy, innocent and sweet, takes the brunt of this anger.

D. The Capitol

The best thing by far (apart from the healed body sweet mother grub hell yes) is that with his return from the arena, Karkat is finally free of the tower arrest that kept him cooped up after the mess with the Initiate. Better yet, that second point means he can go out and walk to his heart's content. He downright refuses to stay in, and he goes everywhere, from parks to that favorite pastry shop he hasn't visited in a month to just random paths down the streets. In a rare sight, he can even be spotted talking animatedly to fans, bitching to them too about how unfair it is that he died in such a lame way. They are sympathetic to his plight, and a good few are eager to hear him boast about the sickle skills he could have shown off.

But whether his path takes him to restaurants or bookshops, gardens or city streets, it's not hard to find him somewhere.

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He makes a sound halfway between sigh and groan, and reaches his hand up to rub over his face. "Of course it is," he grumps in agreement. "That's why I got that stupid train in the space arena."

She's at least winning points for sympathy, and a whole pile add on as she tells him that. His eyebrows raise up.

"What, really? I thought it was just... you know, Mentors and Escorts who could lobby for that, and the rest was what sponsors happen to like you." And of course there are people who like him; much as he's baffled, he's run into enough that he can't deny it.

"Well...." There are some technicalities to elaborate on here, but she is happy to do so. She just needs a moment to string the words together and to build an appropriate sense of drama. "Traditionally, Tributes couldn't do much because they were either in the arena fighting or... well, dead. Dead-dead." She coughs and briefly averts her eyes. Unpleasant memories of unpleasant earlier days, that. "But since you're back here, you're free to go out and really work to get those sponsors to like you! And if you slip them the idea that hey, maybe someone like... Nill... or someone... might need a little help...."

Her eyes roll innocently skywards and she shrugs. Stuff happens. Stuff like getting helpful supplies.

Karkat nods slowly as she starts. He knows about the original games; Linden explained them early on. He can't judge much from just a cough and a sideways glance, and he doesn't particularly want to ask. He can't afford to look dissentious.

Besides, this is good news. His expression changes subtly at the mention of Nill, nothing clear, but she is one of the people he'd want most to help.

"I'll see what I can find out for it, then. My District's staff can probably tell me something useful." He'll need to talk to them anyway after this. Dying early, bluh. He can't have people looking down on his capabilities for that, and after the Initiate drama last month he knows he'll need to build PR up anyway.

"So who are you? You've clearly already been watching me." She sounds like a fan, but he won't exclude the possibility of her being staff herself.

She hadn't been completely sure that Nill was the right choice of 'person that is significant' to name drop, but that little difference in Karkat's expression eases her worries. It is always good to know that you have your fingers on the pulse of romantic speculation.

"Oh yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Six has a really good crew." She's nodding quite vigorously as she says this. 'Good' is a relative thing, but Linden is clever and Stephen is.... well okay, you can't win them all, but he at least has a grasp on the social side, theoretically. Possibly. Hopefully.

She makes a little startled sound when the focus is turned onto her, though. "Uh, me? Just a fan! I, ah, I'm here waiting for my uncle to drop by, though! Torin Byrd, you've heard of him? District 2 mentor? Wears white suits all the time?" There's some anxious drumming of her fingertips along the glass of her ice cream float. "I, I'm Felicity! It's nice to meet you!" ...this is probably not how proper Capitolites handle meeting celebrities. How do they actually do it? Hell if she knows, right now.

Nill is very dear to him. They had their half-heard conversation in the space arena, their travel together, their fight against the xenomorph and the slow decline as the bit resultant wound in her side drew her close to death - but never fast enough - until he had to deliver the last mercy. They had their moments in the snowy one to follow, with him fussing over her to take care of herself, and their final end at the saber fangs of a smilodon. It's since last Crowning that he's officially been her moirail, though he kept his voice down and she kept her writing careful to try to keep from spreading it to the Capitol.

Unless she's familiar with troll romance, it's probably not the relationship she thinks it is.

Here in the present, Karkat's eyebrows lift at her praise. He likes his staff, especially since he learned that Stephen supports the rebellion. But both of them have been far from media darlings, between Linden's altercation with Jason and stifling addictions, and Stephen's since-cleared-up glitter catastrophe of fashion. He's not going to comment on it, though; it's better than the probing questions he got when the drama was going on.

"Not one clue," he says, moving on. "Never met him, and I don't know anyone else in that District either."

A fan, though, huh. He's not wholly surprised, not really. He's glad she's one of the tamer ones.

"Is this the part where you ask for an autograph? I'm going to have to start carrying a pen with me for these. I already know I'm going to get bombarded if I start going out into the Capitol again." He's not sure she would know about the tower arrest he and the other victims of the Initiate's brainwashing were under, but he's not going to mention it just in case.

She is vaguely acquainted with the concept of troll romance, which is to say that trolls seem to have lots of feelings about lots of people at once and have an actual word for hating someone so much that you want to hit their mouth with your mouth repeatedly and with much force. But that is not immediately relevant to matters. Karkat likes Nill, and whether that is like-like or love-like or friend-like, it's all sweet and lovely and worth petitioning for presents over.

"Oh. Well, now you kind of know someone related?" She smiles a little wider, a little more honestly, the nervousness leaving her for a moment. But then it's right back again when the talk turns to autographs. "Uh... uh, could I get one? I've got paper! I've got pens!" And she is already reaching back for the bag slung over the back of her chair, feeling around for some kind of writing implement. Autographs! Yes! "Aaah, aah, yeah, you're pretty popular, people're looking forward to seeing you around, so... so..." Damn it, where is that pen? This would be easier if she took her eyes off of him, but she doesn't want to risk it. He might slip away.

Karkat snorts and says, "You're not going to find a pen by gawking at me, Felicity."

He's actually kind of amused by her, and glad for it; he's sure he'll run into plenty who test his patience sooner or later, judging by what she's saying.

Still, he stays right there and holds out his hands for paper and a pen once she can take her attention away enough to find them.

"At least popularity means I can probably lever some sponsorships better. Why support someone no one likes, right? Unless it's the kind of asshole who's more entertaining for being loathsome, but I'm not looking to go in that direction." He's not entirely pleased by the way he has been marketed (thanks Dave), but he'd rather be liked than hated.

"Say, how do you spell your name? I'm crap at human ones."

"Sure I am!" And tada, she produces a pen the moment afterwards. It is a green ballpoint pen with no cap and half the ink used up, but it is a pen and still good. She offers it out with a triumphant grin, and then a small notepad, open to a blank page is offered with her other hand. Everything's got a place in her bag. Mostly. When it doesn't get shaken around too much.

"Oh? It's F-e-l-i-c-i-t-y!" And having provided that, she continues to natter on while any signing takes place. "That's pretty true. Love to hate is totally different from hate-hate. There are some people that are just rotten in ways that aren't... interesting? Relateable? One of those." Aaah, the Hunger Games, where the greatest sin is to be boring.

Karkat frowns a little as he takes the pen. Green? Green is not remotely his color, but he knows enough not to whine for grey. Humans, he's learned, don't really give a shit the way trolls do. He takes the notepad too and sets to writing.

"I'd have a word for it if you were a troll and I could use my native language, but I'm stuck with English here and you wouldn't know what I'm talking about," he grumbles. "There's engaging-awful and hurry-up-and-cull-him-awful, and those are both clunkier than the collapse of the space arena to say."

A little more, and he holds the notepad and pen back out to her. It reads:

Felicity,

Thanks for the advice about sponsors, I'll definitely look into it. Also for not being one of the fans that makes me want to crawl down my own raw, gaping shout sphincter, because there are entirely too many of those, and they make the sane ones that much more worth it.

Next time I'll pull myself up from the dregs of my disgrace and not die the first day like a moron. Keep an eye out.

- Karkat Vantas ♋

(My sign should be grey, but never let it be said I don't work with what I'm given.)

So maybe he whined a little. His penmanship is jagged, the letters all in capitals, but it's legible just the same.

"How's that?"

Edited 2015-08-04 06:04 (UTC)

"Really? Well, hey, that means we've gotta make something up. That's what the English language is all about. Jamming together letters to name some new thing. Hmm..." And now she is pondering new words for these two concepts of awful, which likely buys Karkat the time to write his nice message. She hadn't expected him to write so much, and she's absolutely delighted.

"Aaah, thank you, thank you, that's great! So great!" And then a thought hits her. And then she is leaning in slightly and lowering her voice. "....so uh. Is there any of the Tributes that you... like.... find hurry-up-and-cull-him-awful?"

There is fic forming in her head. She has plans.

It's not near the first time someone has given him that attitude, but it's always a strange experience, hard to take fully. It doesn't feel real, is the thing. Karkat's too entrenched in his own self-hate that buying in a joke. Fans are in abstract, even when one stands chatting with him.

Easier and realer is the stuff of his direct life, like what she asks. He blinks off the weirdness, and his brows push down over a squint. "Why are you asking? I haven't tried to..." He pauses, finds his phrasing. "... proactively off anyone yet. And I doubt it's going to be personal next time I'm in the arena."

It is a weird, invasive question, but sometimes as a fan you've got to wade on in there and get weird and invasive. She's good enough to look a little embarrassed at least, given Karkat's reaction. "Juuuust checking! For... for promotional purposes? Rivalries are good for getting people's attention, too!" Will he buy it? He might buy it. Maybe.

His look stays wary, and he's quiet for another pause as he considers his answer.

"Rivalry is a different thing for trolls. It's more sustained and purposeful, for pushing each other to try to be better. If I want to take someone out, it's straight to the point," he explains. His arms cross. "I'm pissed off at Gary for getting me killed, but that was a fluke on all sides."

"Is it? It is?" And she's a little less shifty looking and a little more openly curious now. "...so like, I mean, with the Gary thing, you'd just sort of want to yell at him until he... uh, apologizes? Or something?" It is turning into less of an interrogation that might net her story details, and more some genuine trying to figure out what the heck is going on.

His look scrunches down in more, which is telling enough before he asks, "Okay, what is your deal? Why is everything suddenly twenty questions? Yeah, I'd like an apology from Gary, but what does it matter to you?"

"Nothing! I mean... well, people wonder stuff and if I know stuff that maybe they don't then... then that's cool, right?" She's already quite plainly a fangirl. If she doesn't admit to the writing, then it's not so bad, is it? It won't make him yell.

...wait.

"And I wanna write a fic about you and him and maybe yelling at each other and then either being friends or you push him off a cliff or something cool and I need details!" There. She has been completely honest, and if it makes him get all shouty and mad then cool. She will have seen the true wonder of a Karkat tantrum with her own eyes.

At first his look keeps skeptical and reluctant, but then Felicity goes and drops the bomb: fanfiction.

"I'm not a subject for fanfic!" he snaps, arms splaying out grandly. "Do you know how much ignorant crap there is floating about in books and magazines and interviews and basically everything I've spoken to that twists my words and culture around to something it isn't? The last time I tried to bring up anything 'interesting' to an interviewer, they edited things around to make it look like I have an incest fetish when incest isn't a thing for trolls." This is totally unfair. Look at his face: it's the face of a troll thoroughly wronged.

"And now you're telling me you want to rip off my life experiences for some made up story about a guy I've met all of twice? He's the pit fashion crawls into to die a nauseous death; he's the ground beneath a long-since empty barrel of the intelligence they hand out when you monkeys squirm your way out of your disgusting mammalian mothers. The second meeting was me seeing him before he got struck by lightning, and yet he lived while I'm the one back here dead. Friendship isn't going to happen on those terms!" he yells, hands flung up high this time.

Just as rapidly he brings them down so one can point at her. "And don't you think shoving him from a cliff is the accurate alternative. My desire to win is not populated by a dense and sulky penchant for pushing assholes off the nearest sharp incline. If I cliffed every crusty slime stain who happens to piss me off then no one would be left to hassle me about my 'tantrums', let alone make them into a high-selling bingo game, thanks a fucking lot, Dave." His eyes roll out the finish.

"And before you start getting ideas, Dave is not the one to write about either. Our friendship and our conflicts alike are personal matters best relegated to our own lives, regardless of whatever that shade-blinded tool chest would say. And he's the one I've actually known three years of my life! Three! Years! Gary is a fucking blip, and while I will surely feed him a full course meal of steaming hot wrath lasagna when his ass skids out of the arena, there is nothing greater or worse happening than what I have already described."

His hands flutter about, somewhere between emphasizing his own desperation and indicating her, the heart of this problem.

"Have I made myself clear? Do I have to exhaust my shout blisters until naught but trickling rage pus weeps from their spent hulls? Or is this your cue to go and write it anyway because who cares what Karkat wants! His frothing anger is just an amusement to everyone anyway!"

He might have gotten a little shrill at the end there. Just a bit.

This is precisely what she wanted, and it's glorious in a kind of terrifying way. The longer it goes on (and she does not dare interrupt, he's got his momentum going and it's very impressive) the more her face moves into something between a delighted grin and a pained grimace. He has points, many good points, but those points are suspended in a lovely cloud of deets. She's a little frightened, but mostly delighted. And doubtful that she can ever capture something this amazing on paper but oh she must try.

"....yeah, that's pretty clear!" The grimace-grin holds strong. "You have shown me the light as to why that particular pairing is garbage. And also the Dave one." The grimace-grin wavers a moment. "...never did like that one much..." And bam, it is back, her back straight and her shoulders squared. "I understand completely."

The one true pairing here is Karkat x His Undying Rage. She has figured it all out. Everything makes sense now. Everything is beautiful.

Karkat's own stubborn scowl wavers in time with hers. Since when is it her business to like or dislike given pairings? Not that it matters; Dave is taken, and he's made a point that his romantic prospects aren't open for discussion.

"Fine. Good." He's still frowning anyway. "Then if we're done here, I'm leaving. I've got shit to do and I haven't even been back to my own District yet."

Shippers gonna ship, whether it's tasteful or not. Once the opinion has been registered, it has a tendency to linger. But to Felicity's credit, she manages to keep a relatively serious expression going. "That's fine! Go, go! Do your shit!" ...eh, wow, that's more profanity than she normally likes to use. That's enough to put her right off her game, mouth going into a straight line and attention going back to her drink. "...it's important! Way more important than this. Yeah."

Karkat even raises an eyebrow. It sounds odd out of her mouth.

"See you around, maybe. Just keep your fanfic away from me, alright?"

And with that he goes to leave. There's a lot on his mind, from how he'll confront Gary once he's back, to how he might go about earning sponsors for his friends. For now, though, he wants to go relax. If nothing else, this means he won't have to struggle around for weeks on end with the injured leg he had before.

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[open] and the stains coming from my blood tell me

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