thearena | then I woke to coil and shiver

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then I woke to coil and shiver

Who| Karkat and Terezi
What| Running into a friend, talking, and then a mishap.
Where| A random corridor in the spaceport.
When| Mid week 2.
Warnings/Notes| Death, traumatic amputation, Karkat's filthy mouth.

Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this place. Karkat's hatred of being stuck in the Hunger Games has not had the chance to slip into resignation but has festered as a wound for the drag of the weeks and the course of events. He has been through fighting and pain and having to struggle on despite it. He was beat to what should have been death at the start of the Cornucopia, and even after Feferi saved him and healed him to something liveable, he's been struggling.

Sure, he's done remarkably well for himself. A pocket knife might not be a sickle, but a blade's a blade. A taser is nothing he's used before, but he's pulled it out a time or two to shock something off him. He's a troll and that means hardiness, for all the pain and injury and sheer weight of exhaustion pressing increasingly down on him. He doesn't dare sleep, not if he can help it.

But it's hard still. He misses food. He misses not fighting. He misses knowing what the fuck he's supposed to be doing, because he expects no win; he's just fighting to not die yet. He hasn't killed anyone - hasn't even tried - and he wonders why he should still live for that. Someone else died to save him just earlier this week, someone he'd never met, and the guilt of it lays thickly on him. A scatter of burns dotting him and the loss of his case - he abandoned it to take the knife and taser, leaving the blue gel he never used and the by now dead flashlight behind - doesn't equal the loss of a stranger's life.

And he can't relax about any of it. The whole incident was a harsh warning for letting his guard down, and it leaves him jumpy now and he trails through the station. Many of these paths he's been down by now, but growing familiarity doesn't ease his nerves when there's always something to look out for. A monster, an alien, a turret, a tribute--he crouches down and to the side as he hears movement now, waiting to judge which one it is.

It's when he spots short, conical horns that he's moving again. "Terezi--Terezi, wait," he calls as he heads after her, voice harsh and low between the desire to be clear but not loud enough to draw something else.

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Resignation is about where Terezi stands, even only two weeks or so into the arena. It's been a brutal round already. She's lost more people than she usually does in the first two weeks of an arena. It hasn't escaped her notice that they haven't (and don't plan to) send in any sponsor gifts this time. Not to mention the impending finale that she's Seen in her visions, looming over all but one of the Tributes. The whole thing has made her rather sick of this place far quicker than she normally would be.

But that familiar voice pulls her up short, faltering in her stride as it calls for her to wait. She wasn't paying attention. That could have been anyway, she scolds herself, even as she slows to a stop. There's a brief moment where she considers ignoring Karkat's calls and making a run for it... but she doesn't. There wouldn't be any point in it. She has to face him again at some point, whether it's here or in the Capitol. That would only make things more awkward when he finally caught up.

She turns around, deciding to test the waters. "Hey. You're not dead yet. Congrats." It's more than a lot of people could say right now. Mostly because they're dead and not saying anything.

Edited 2014-12-30 06:19 (UTC)

Had Terezi run, Karkat would feel a lot worse. It's one thing to be stuck in something this awful, but another to be denied even the chance to fix one of the things he can. That is, he hopes he can. He doesn't yet know if she'll listen or give him the chance.

"I'm glad you're safe," he answers her back, earnest in eyes and voice alike. This is no time to pretend he doesn't actually care that much. Which means, too, that he shouldn't dance around this.

"Look, I..." And his gaze dips some. "I know I was an ass to you last time we talked. And I know this isn't the best place for it, but it's not somewhere there's any point in letting shit sit and fester into a gross, infected, pus-swollen wound. I had my head up my own ass back then, and even if I was mad for some good reasons, I was still stupid about it in a lot of ways and took it out on you. What I mean is, I'm sorry."

It's more open than he might give her if the situation were any different. But they're stuck in a death game together, aren't they? It hurts enough having to fight and hope you survive and hope your friends don't suffer too much without dragging in all the stupid drama from outside. Especially now, when he's since spoken to the Initiate, strange though that encounter was.

When she first heard him, Terezi would have to admit that she was scared. Not of being hurt physically, she knows that Karkat would never attack her. (Or if he would, that would certainly be a new low reached, she thinks.) But after all the troubles that they faced the last time he was here, she couldn't escape the fear that things would end up just the same as before. He wouldn't understand. He would yell, call her nasty things, and storm off; and she would be left standing there, holding the broken pieces of a friendship that she still cared about too much.

He speaks, and that fear wanes just a bit. She wasn't expecting an apology from him, if she was perfectly honest. It catches her by surprise like not many things have in this arena.

"It's okay." The answer comes easy enough, even if she's still uncertain on whether this apology will last. "I didn't handle it very well, either. I just... I didn't want the fighting to start again. It was hard enough the first time."

Hard, and not something that she really wants to remember. It had taken months for them to smooth out all the tears in their friendship and knit them back together. Months, and it still hadn't been back to what it used to be. And then, he was gone.

"I really did talk to him," she offers, hoping to distract her thoughts away from that particular guilt. It's clear in her tone that she knows he didn't believe her the first time. "He said he would try not to hold a grudge over the stuff that happened before you got here."

Karkat's shoulders lose a smidge of tension for her positive reply. She doesn't seem wholly relieved yet, but he doesn't blame her on that, especially as she voices her thoughts further. Still, it's a comfort that she takes his apology and gives something of the sort of her own.

The fights that did happen he doesn't know about, and hasn't pried into elsewhere. Know too he lets them lay - they seem a frustration, more a mess to all involved than something worth recounting, particularly as things sit now. The conflicts of a past he never new serve no purpose in being dredged to his present.

As soon as he has the space to, he says, "I know." Not to shush her, but somewhere between apology and reassurance. "I talked to him, I mean, earlier in the arena. He told me himself. It was... weird, I'll say that much, but I figured if I could hold a conversation with him, then there's no use staying mad at you."

It would just be holding a grudge for stubbornness' sake if he tried. She cared enough to help despite how things ended, and more than that her efforts bore positive fruit. And he saw things when he talked to the Initiate, glimpses of her jailing and their escape shown through chucklevoodoo - not much, but enough for sympathy, for a little more understanding. More things besides that, too, enough to lay things even and make up for past transgression. It proved a point.

Edited 2014-12-30 16:04 (UTC)

If Terezi was expecting any kind of response, it certainly wasn't a positive one, let alone Karkat admitting that he had already talked to Kurloz earlier. The surprise is probably apparent in her expression, and a small part of her is intensely curious about what that conversation entailed. It seemed to have ended on a good note this time, though, so that is at least an improvement.

At the very least, she resists the urge to say 'I told you so'. It would be a lie to say that she doesn't still have a little bitterness over what happened, but she's good at keeping a lid on it. There's no point in ruining this with petty shots.

What comes out instead is more curious than anything else, and possibly a little concerned. "What did you talk about?" Not that she couldn't find out back in the Capitol, but she would rather know now than wait.

It's better that she does hold back. He's been forgiving and willing to reassess his view on things, and it doesn't need ruined with petty remarks.

For her prudence, her question earns a proper answer, if after a moment's consideration. "This place. I saw--I saw they took his horns, and I couldn't just leave and ignore that," he says, though it leaves off much. He can't tell the full, how he led him to talk about how awful the Capitol is, or the contents of what he said in his chucklevoodoos. "I was an idiot about something, and I caught myself and said sorry for it, so he offered to talk properly. He apologized for what he did--said how you wanted us to start over, let go of old grudges. Whatever that was--I still don't know what past me did." He passes her a curious glance.

"I'm not about to call him a friend or anything, but I'm giving him a chance," he finishes.

Right. The horns. Terezi resists the urge to shudder, trying to ignore the way that her stomach rolls at the memory. They were always so cruel to him. It was hard to stand it without wanting to punch the next Capitolite she comes across. She tries not to imagine how a million people out in that city were probably delighting at the injury.

It surprises her that what she had said actually made a difference. It's nice to be pleasantly surprised for once.

"Thank you," she says finally. Her tone doesn't sound quite as distant or strained. Friendlier, and a little grateful. "It's a long story... What happened before. I'm trying not to hold grudges, either." Trying, and mostly successful. She didn't exactly leave the meteor on the best terms with Karkat, and nothing that had happened here had made it much better. But she catches that curious glance, so with a bit of reluctance in her tone, she continues:

"We had a fight. A bad one. Because of something that had happened in one of the arenas. There was a lot of yelling, a lot of name-calling. Mostly on your--his side. Other people got involved. Fraysong was the only one who had my back. It lasted for two months, and even then it never really got past being haphazardly smoothed over."

His head lifts higher for her thanks, a gladness passing into him for both that and her tone in saying it. It speaks of hope that maybe things can be alright again. He doesn't interrupt as she goes on to tell the story, however simple and abbreviated in detail. Part of him wants to ask more, but what's it matter? He didn't experience it, and he has no reason to get worked up over the mistakes of a past he never had.

"Past me is always a dumbass," he says eventually. "I'm not going to say sorry for it, because what kind of idiot apologizes for things he doesn't remember and can't feel regret for, but--I don't know, you've got my sympathy for having to deal with that pasthole's mistakes. If I ever get to the point where I'm going to repeat it, I hereby give you permission to smack me fully across the face."

She knows that the offer is meant in some kind of camaraderie, but it doesn't actually make her feel any better. Even after all this time, it's hard to simply forget the words that rang so sharply in her ears. She wants to trust this new version of Karkat, but there's a part of her that doesn't want to deal with that hurt again.

"Duly noted. But I'd prefer if we just...avoid repeating it at all." That would be best. For the both of them.

It would probably also be for the best if they didn't stand around chatting in the middle of a hallway. "We should keep moving. Not everyone is cool with the idea of chit-chatting around this place." She makes a motion with her hand for him to follow.

"I wasn't meaning--" He sighs. "I don't want it to happen either."

More trouble is not what he needs, and not what she does either, he wagers. Particularly if it's going to cause strife with others on top, but he'd rather keep a friend as a friend then push her away with stupid shit.

He leaves it there, though, instead nodding as he falls into step with her. His attention he turns outward, watching and listening.

It's a few moments later that he says, voice quieter, "I'm glad you've made it this far."

That sigh pings a bit of guilt deep in her chest. Maybe she's not being as far as she could be. He's not the same Karkat. He's not the one who said those things to her... He doesn't even know what things were said, as far as she can tell, and she doesn't doubt that he doesn't want it to happen again.

But for whatever reason, she doesn't say anything more about it. He doesn't seem overly upset, and she doesn't want to drag that tangled mess of hurt feelings back into the open. They could just stay where they were, and maybe she'd forget about them eventually.

"...I'm glad you have, too," she returns his sentiment, even as her thoughts drifting for a second. There's one particular troll who didn't make it this far. She swallows, continuing, "The timelines are thinning out. Less people. Less choices. Not that it's going to matter much."

He glances her way, but his expression is nothing special. Being glad for their present survival is temporary at best, and even before she says what she does he knows they're not going to make it to the end. Not both of them.

"Yeah." It's not much of an answer, but there's not much to say to it. "At least you've got your Mind stuff to help you figure things out. I just have my own best guesses and..." His lips curve down. "And what help I get along the way."

Like, you know, Feferi helping him not die, and what's-her-face dying via the one guy. He feels like an ass that he didn't even know her name.

"Mind stuff only goes so far." She feels obligated to remind him. Even for all it's usefulness, it's not particularly effective this late in the game. If the Gamemakers wanted her dead, they would be able to find a way. It's not exactly a comfort to watch it coming.

She does take notice of the catch in the conversation, though. He seems preoccupied with something, and she can only imagine what. 'Help along the way' sounds benign on it's own, but she's not new to these arenas. Sometimes you can only get by with someone else's help.

"Don't worry about it so much. For what it's worth, I don't see you dying any time soon." Not while he's with her, anyway.

Preoccupied indeed, but he doesn't go into it. Her reassurance that she doesn't see a near death for him does help a little, but that preoccupation holds back the rest: it's less himself he's worried about than others.

Of course, he can't bring himself to ask if she's seen anything about her own death.

"It still has to help, being able to see anything," he says instead, continuing forward down the bit of station they're stuck in. "I managed to get a knife, though. It's no sickle, but I've figured out how to not be completely inept with it."

Terezi snorts a little, her lips quirking up at the side. "Yeah, knives are about the extent of weaponry that we get in here... I got a staff once. And some rope another time..." Terezi trails off for a moment as they reach a junction, her brow furrowing at the corridor ahead. Then she turns and heads down the adjacent path.

"That's good, though," she continues, picking up where she left off. "Having some kind of weapon is better than none. Knives are pretty useful for things other than gutting people, too... Not that I have to tell you that." She's pretty sure the most trolls who make it past the Trials know the ins and outs of resourcefulness. Karkat shouldn't be any exception to that.

Karkat's still letting her lead, and when she turns the corner he doesn't question it. She'd know better than him where to go with her abilities, and after Sgrub he trusts her judgement on these things well.

"I haven't attacked anyone," he says, open and unguarded, neither defensive nor snappish, "and I don't intend to unless circumstance forces my hand. But it's saved my hide from enough of those freaky little aliens they stuck in here."

He glances around as they progress. She may have a Seer's vision, but regular sight does well enough when watching for present dangers.

"I still miss the hook, though. It was better for disabling things. You can't really catch a limb with a knife unless you stab into it."

"Limbs usually require trees, and I doubt you're going to find many trees out in space," Terezi teases, though there's a bit of a distracted quality to her tone. She doesn't turn her head towards him as they talk anymore, or if she doesn't, it's only a little. Her attention is focused forward.

The hallways are a little more narrow than the main corridors, but still easily traversed side-by-side. There seems to be rooms every so often, but Terezi doesn't stop to check them out. She keeps walking.

"Rope would be more useful than a sickle here. Just saying. I mean, what if you got it caught on something. Hooked the back of your shirt or something." The bit of a teasing smirk on her face is a sure enough sign that she doesn't believe that would happen, but... who knows.

"Arms and legs, Terezi." He doesn't sound as amused, yet his voice isn't the sharp sound of actual anger. "And you know I'm not as shitty as I started out. Do you think I would have made it through the game if I stayed that bad the whole time?"

Unlike her he does peek at the rooms they pass, just in case, but he doesn't hold her up to investigate.

"You're better with rope than I am, anyhow. I don't think people would be intimidated by my shitty knots."

His lack of amusement is one of the few joys that she has left in this arena. She's not going to pass up a pointless gag for anything. Even his correction can't dampen her teasing grin.

Something else does, though, just as she's about to remark on the exact shittiness of his attempt at knots. She pauses uncertainly at another intersection, after venturing only a few steps into open space. After a few seconds, she takes a step back. "Not this way..." she mutters under her breath, turning and grabbing Karkat's hand to pull him quickly back the other way.

Instead of going straight back the way that they came, she heads for a much smaller corridor, nothing more than a maintenance hallway of some kind. It's only just barely a person wide, so she leads the way in.

And the humor of the moment - for there is humor even in his stubborn lack of a laugh - fades out. Her body language and tone are too telling, that even with only a "not this way" to warn him, he can guess what danger might have been down that path. His mouth presses flat, and he allows the pull of her hand to guide him. Back, down a corridor, tiny and narrow. He tightens his hold on his knife, wary.

"Tell me if something's coming," is all he says, voice quiet.

"Not quite," she returns, just as quietly. Not coming so much as lying in wait. Traps and trigger carefully constructed in the floors and walls and ceilings. Secret compartments where they could unless any number of horrors. Hidden weapons that could strike any number of tributes down in a single blow. These arenas were one giant mouse trap just waiting to spring, and Terezi understands that more than ever right now.

Up until now, it hasn't bothered her much. She could maneuver away from the traps that were set to go off without too much trouble. No, the problem now was that they were watching her.

She's not more than a few steps into the narrow hallway when suddenly the whole place lights up in red. Sirens wail, buzzers shriek. Amid the din, a calm voice starts to inform Karkat of what Terezi already knows: An oxygen leak has been detected in the vicinity. Emergency protocol is initiated. All emergency seals will be closed.

Before the first few words have been spoken, Terezi spins on her heel and shoves Karkat hard back into the hallway they came from, just before the metal door slams shut.

Not quite? That's vague, but it keeps him on alert, listening and watching still for what he can. There's enough danger in these passageways that he knows to be wary even when there's no creature or tribute around, but at least with those it's easier to know what to expect. You can at least see the threat, then.

Turns out it's not something he can watch for, anyway. Suddenly sirens are going off, the light is bright, bloody red, and his pulse jumps faster than he can react. Danger, death, something--and faster than him comes Terezi's spin and her hands shoving at him. He stumbles back with eyes wide, but his reflexes are just enough that he refuses to leave her behind in this even when he can hardly process the emergency warning against the alarms.

He grabs her arm, and he pulls.

She Sees it a split second before she feels the grip around her wrist and the yank of his weight. She tries to brace herself, but she's already off-balance from the shove, and it's a good thing that she doesn't regardless. Karkat has just barely cleared the door when it snaps shut, locking air-tight--and slicing her forearm in two as cleanly as a blade.

The sudden pain knocks the wind out of her lungs, and she crumples against the door as teal quickly pools below her bloody stump. Alarms wail in the background, shrieking their oxygen warnings in steadily decreasing percentages. Terezi barely hears them over the rushing in her ears and the pain like fire that ends in an unsettling nothingness where there used to be feeling.

It's too fast for him. He has no benefit of Seeing, and even with it it's not enough. The door slams down and suddenly he's holding the severed end of her forearm, hand still clutched tight on hers.

Blood--blood--teal blood, a hand, and she's not there, she's--her arm--her ARM--

"TEREZI!" He slams his other hand against the door, balled in a fist, hard enough that it's going to bruise. The knife clatters at his feet, dropped without a thought to it. "TEREZI!"

He's still holding her hand like it will do a damn thing, like somehow she'll come on over to this side and still be attached. There's blood on the door where it sliced through, a blue-green smear, and more drips from the stump at his leg and foot.

He keeps hitting his hand on the door, keeps calling her name, interspersed now with a please, no, no; no, don't die, no, PLEASE; and more besides. His face is wet, his throat is ragged around the sound of his own screaming, and he feels sick enough that he would have vomited if he'd eaten recently enough. His hands throb in match for the muffled alarms, one from soreness of impact, the other from burns clutching tight against her chilling skin.

He sinks to his knees eventually. He doesn't want to move from here.

It's hard to tell if Terezi can hear the screams of her name being called through the door. Her head is swimming with the pain, and her breaths are short--punctuated by visible puffs as the air leak drops the room temperature quickly out of the comfortable range.

Terror snakes it's way around her heart, crushing it tightly like a vice. She's going to die here. Either from the blood loss or the vacuum of space leeching the air out of the room. She doesn't have the focus to call on her Sight anymore, but there's no need. She doesn't want to know how the end is going to come.

Stubbornly, she tries to hang on regardless, even knowing that there's no way that she can survive. She tries to say something to the screams coming from the other side of the door--but they're farther away now, and she can't lift her voice to be heard over the alarms. Eventually, her eyes close and she slips away from the scent of her own minty blood and the screaming noise overhead.

After what must seem like forever, the sirens finally cut into abrupt silence. The lights cease flashing, and after another minute, the doors slides gently open with a quiet 'ffwt'.

His screams die off eventually, lulling into rough-throated sobs and hiccups as he waits beside the door. His head is pressed against it, catching the occasional drip from his eyes even as others land on his knees or the hand he's still holding. She's dead; she's dead and it's his fault for not acting sooner, for not pulling faster, for not shoving her through instead of him. She's smart and strong and capable, and what does he has for himself but the sacrifices of better women? He should have died back at the Cornucopia if it would just turn into this.

The sudden motion of the door startles enough to jerk him back from it, the same feeling finally unclasping his hand from hers. One of the alarms must have gone off for her death, because there's no mistaking the body before him as anything but. (He flashes back to the meteor, to seeing Kanaya and Feferi laid out bloody on floor and horn pile.) He feels sick and sorry, and his hand hovers over her a moment like he's not sure what to do with it. He's seen other friends die, but never her, and even knowing she'll come back eventually means nothing when he's still stuck in this stupid game.

He ends up laying her arm back by the stump. It doesn't fix anything, but it feels more respectful than leaving it where it lay.

It takes a good few moments longer before he can bring himself to his feet. They can't collect her if he's still hovering around, and it's only that she tried to save him that makes him move forward at all.

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then I woke to coil and shiver

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finally caps this off