thearena | don't be afraid

Entry tags:

don't be afraid

Who| Nill and Karkat
What| A couple different things. Mostly meeting up and then dying, oops.
Where| Throughout the station.
When| End of week 2.
Warnings/Notes| Character death, gore, crying, and obligatory Karkat Warning™. There'll probably be another prompt for that stuff, or it'll just be one huge long thread.

To say that the Arena had been unkind up to this point would be an understatement. The first day hadn't been all that bad, generally speaking. For a few minutes she thought she might even survive long enough to make sure that someone she loved made it out of the Arena alive, to never enter one again. It was a goal. It was something to keep her going in an experience that she would rather have never lived again, even if it was better than sitting back with cigarettes and the Giant Wall of Child Death. She had found people she cared about. She kept them alive.

Even now, nearing the end of week 2, Nill would still maintain that being in the Arena was better than watching it. While close to a comforting thought, it could only do so much in the wake of all the deaths that occurred during Week 0, or the ones that followed it. It did little to help with the images in her own mind.

Being in Beth's head as she died, managing her pain so it was just a little bit less awful as she faded away. Watching Kurloz be cut in half in an instant. Seeing the face of a dark-haired boy in the stars. Kankri, Clementine, Davesprite, Gary; those were just the faces she'd seen when she had the willpower to look for them.

Despite all of that, Nill was holding her own well enough for a little while. She ate almost nothing, stuck to mostly water when she could find it. Once or twice she'd tried the dehydrated food, but she hadn't trusted it to do more than have it when she really needed it. She began to look gaunt and dehydrated, but it could have been worse. It remained that way until she found the Orb with the Initiate's voice, and it was all downhill after that. She'd cried out most of the moisture left in her system, couldn't bring herself to eat much of anything after it, didn't make a point of looking for water so much as just taking advantage of it if she came across it. Before the Mirth Core Nill still moved with purpose. She still looked like she might accomplish something if she tried. Now she mostly just looks miserable.

But hey, having to deal with an outbreak of Xenomorphs can do a lot to keep a person on their toes. They're not too hard to avoid right now, but it's tricky when they notice you, and Nill has had a few too many close calls this week. She leans her back against a wall, ignoring her wings entirely, so that she can actually catch her breath while keeping an eye on the halls around her, knife held tightly in her hand. The place was going to hell so much sooner than she expected from what she'd seen of other Arenas. How was it already this difficult? How had any of the kids she knew survived in other Arenas?

There was no way this could keep going for much longer.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Karkat pulls back some small amount when she goes to slide down, to make sure she has the room for it. He can't blame her. He might have dealt with stab wounds before without much trouble, but the doesn't mean they didn't hurt, and none of them had come after the hell they've been through in the arena.

"Yeah, we can stay."

He settles back against the wall himself, eyes turned out and ears alert. He takes his knife in hand - he set it down while he dealt with the rope - and keeps firm hold on it now. They won't get caught off guard again.

He doesn't ask her how it's doing now. It has to hurt; her body language makes it obvious.

She doesn't let them linger in that spot for too long. Nill stays where she is on the ground for a few long minutes, shoulder leaning against the wall, and when she adjusts to the pain and acclimates the best she can she pushes herself back up on her feet. She does a good job of keeping up with him for the most part, of hiding the pain and the severity of the wound, but her appearance betrays her.

It's been nearly half a day since the xenomorph attacked them, and the more time that goes by, the worse it gets. It might not be obvious to Karkat - trolls and humans have pretty different anatomies - but any humans watching will probably take notice of how her steps get progressively slower or the way the color has drained from her face, or how after awhile she has her teeth gritted with almost every step she takes.

For as long as she tries to just deal with it and keep going eventually it gets to be too much. She takes her next step wrong somehow, and it tugs the skin just so, and pain lances through her gut like electricity. The knife slips out of her hand when she tries to grab the wall to hold herself up, and Nill doubles over, wrapping her other arm around her middle.

It's not that Karkat fails to notice everything, but it's easy to write off. She's injured; of course she'd slow, and it's not some great imposition to slow down for her. Her paling face could be from a number of things. The grit of her teeth is easiest to miss, though, as his attention keeps outward more than on her. He can't let them get ambushed again.

It's fine. They can rest when they need and keep going. It's worked so far.

But it doesn't stop a sudden clatter behind him. Karkat turns when the sound hits him, seeing just in time as she bends, clutching at herself.

"Nill?" His focus snaps up around them, darting for sign of something or someone that could have attacked from a distance, but he sees nothing, hears nothing. "Nill, what's wrong?"

He dips before her now, gaze flicking between her face and her middle for any sign of explanation.

She tries so, so hard to shake the pain off, to breathe, but it's not working this time. She can feel her head pounding, the wound throbbing, and she's so, so cold. Her fingers feel like ice against her side, and Nill lifts her head so she can look at Karkat and try to reassure him, to tell him that she's fine, but it only results in another jolt of white-hot pain, and she doesn't understand how she can be so cold when it feels like her side is on fire. Her hand slips against the wall and she sinks down to her knees, trying and failing to will it away even as her eyes start to water.

"It hurts," She manages after a moment, a shudder going through her that mostly just manages to make her grimace more. She lets out a slow, shaky exhale, and doesn't lift her head.

His hands lift and hover as Nill struggles with her pain and ultimately falls to her knees. He doesn't know what to do, what to try, or what's even wrong, to the point that her eventual answer only garners a frustrated snap. "Well of course it hurts. You think I can't see this?" But it's not her he's mad at: it's his lack of knowing on all fronts.

He ends up settling his fingertips delicately at her shoulders, barely even touching, but feeling the need for some kind of contact.

"You should have said something." His voice is softer, worried. His head turns, looking off to either side of them. "Damn, I wish there was some water around here. What do you need? Just rest? What can I do?"

Nill doesn't think for a moment that he's actually angry at her, and the snap just makes her smile slightly, though he probably can't see it, and it's fleeting anyway. She's still mostly hunched over, but she tilts herself just a little so that she can rest her weight against the wall, use the muscles in her abdomen and back less. She switches arms, too, so that the one closer to him is free. Nill still doesn't lift her head, but it might make it easier for him to see her expression.

"I've had worse," she tells him again, because it's still true. It's just that when she did have worse, it never lasted this long. Usually she was in a hospital by now, or dead. Not walking around for hours after. She hopes it helps, knowing that, that she has felt worse than this, because she doesn't think anything is going to help with this next part.

"I think humans are a lot more fragile than trolls are."

She makes a vague gesture with the hand still wrapped around herself to her abdomen and chest, before she reaches up with the other to gently curl her fingers around his palm, hold his hand.

"Most of the stuff that makes us work is in that part of our bodies. I don't know what it hit, but it hit something."

If he looks at the wound much, he might notice where before the skin around the wound was pale and speckled with blood, now most of the pale color is gone. Most of her lower side has gone an ugly reddish purple color. Karkat probably won't know what that means, but Nill can feel the effects of it enough to make a vague guess.

"You need to leave, Karkat."

She's very, very slowly bleeding to death. It's just that most of the bleeding is on the inside, pooling under her skin and between walls, putting pressure on everything near it, and that's where most of the pain is coming from. It's agonizing and Nill isn't sure there's a way to actually fix that.

His hands move as she does, pulling back, then one resettling once she's leaned on the wall. He misses her smile, but it wouldn't have helped in the end.

The worry is thick in him still. Just because she's had worse doesn't erase how she's feeling now. His eyes search over her, judging her condition against her words, but that initial brush-off seems like such bullshit the more she goes on.

"Fuck," he issues, quiet, not thinking about it. His fingers finally leave her shoulder properly when she takes his hand; they curl back against hers. It's not that he doesn't know humans are weaker, it's just...

"Come on, no," he says with more volume. He's definitely looking, and the dark-colored inflammation or whatever it is looks far too troubling. "I'm not leaving. I'm not going anywhere, don't tell me I need to leave. I--"

He looks from her wound to her bowed head, back to the way she clutches her side. His teeth dig into his lip.

Some stupid and hopeful enters his voice as he says, "You have mind powers, right? Feferi--I have this friend, Feferi, she can help. She has Life powers. She helped me; I would have died if she hadn't. You just, just push your thoughts or whatever the hell you do. She has to help. I haven't seen her in those constellations at night; she has to still be alive."

Why isn't he leaving? Why is he trying to make suggestions to save her? For one, irrational second, Nill is angry that it wasn't enough, that he's not doing what he should, what would probably be the kindest thing. But then again, if she had actually been kind about it, she would have made him see things. She would have made it seem like she was fine, and just projected an image, and led him away until she didn't have the energy to keep it up. It would have been better. He'd hate her for it later, but he wouldn't need to see this.

That's probably the thing of it though, isn't it? She knew she was going to die hours ago. But occasionally he'd say something to make her smile, or be worried, and it hadn't felt so bad, then. Her other deaths were terrifying, painful and miserable. They were so awful and so painful, and she always took people down with her.

Why couldn't she have figured out that she didn't want to die alone sooner?

And the thing of it was, if it had been earlier in the Arena, she might actually be able to find Feferi. But she's tried too many times to reach anything outside the Arena since she got here. Her head was pounding even before that monster stabbed her, and now on top of it she's dizzy and a little disoriented. Maybe if she knew Feferi she could manage it anyway, but she doesn't. It would need to be done the long and hard way, and that was exhausting even when she had all of her energy.

She shifts a little, straightens, a grimace settling into her features, but it lets her lift her head a little more, look at him more easily. It also makes it seem like the moisture gathering in her eyes was a result of pain, and not being close to tears. She actually manages a smile, but it's strained around the edges.

"I'm sorry. It's too much for me right now. I can't find her like this."

She gives his hand a gentle squeeze.

"I'm grateful for everything you've done for me, but you need to leave."

It makes him wince to see her struggle like this. Before it was easier because he didn't know; he wasn't looking, wasn't thinking. Humans are weaker but what's a stab wound? It's nothing, it's fine, it's easy, he thought, but it's become this bad and his wounds never darkened up and put him on his knees this way.

Why is she trying to smile at a time like this?

"Stop telling me to leave!" he snaps with a sudden burst of volume.

Terezi died, and the woman before died, and he doesn't want to go losing someone else because of some other fuckup he made. He doesn't want her to have to die at all, but he's already blaming himself on it. She hasn't even said death yet, but that's what this is, isn't it? She's not going to get better on her own. If she had that power he's sure she would have used it by now.

His tone pulls quieter as he begs, "Come on, just, just try. It can't be that hard, right? She has to--she has to be around somewhere." His head cranes, searching once more, but of course he can't see anything from here. "I didn't help you out just to let you push me away without trying anything."

She's not exactly surprised that he's not listening to her, but it makes this so much harder, and she's not sure how much more she can actually bare before she starts crying. She squeezes her eyes shut for a few seconds, and inhales and exhales slowly, though even that doesn't look pleasant. Whatever the exact thing that's killing her is, it's starting to feel like it's putting pressure on her lungs. Deep breathes are difficult and are probably just going to get more difficult.

"Listen."

She opens her eyes again to look up at him, trying to make sure that he understands, that this is important, that he knows just what their situation is.

"I wasn't born with this power. I didn't know how to use it for a long time. I did too much a lot, and it was too hard for me to handle."

For a moment Nill glances down at the hand against her side, the wound that still oozes fresh blood occasionally, still dark.

"When it was bad it knocked me out. Sometimes it was just a few minutes, but other times it was hours, and I don't have the energy to do it right now. I'm too tired, and everything hurts."

Her gaze flickers back up to him, searching, hoping beyond hope that he understand.

"Finding her means I need to go through every thought here because I don't know her. That's a lot even when I'm not tired, and I don't know if I can find her in time. I won't stay conscious if I do it now, and I'm still losing blood. I can feel it."

The feeling that edges it's way into voice in his head isn't exactly fear - it's desperation, but the two do tend to go hand in hand.

"If I try that I'll die before I wake up again. And if you stay here, waiting for me to wake up, one of those things will smell my blood eventually and I won't be able to hide you from it."

At first he keeps looking past her, stubborn as much as futile in his search for something to help. But she's looking at him, and who would he be if he didn't listen to her now? Reluctantly he turns his head back.

How she got her power he doesn't know, but those specifics aren't the important part, and he doesn't ask. He's already worried, but the dread in it pools up like thick syrup filling his insides. He feels sick as he comes to understand.

She can't find Feferi, it will make things worse if she tries, and that means she can't even try to get healed.

His second hand joins his first in holding hers.

"I'm not leaving. I can't just... go and let you..." Die. She said it, but he can't yet; it sticks in his throat when he tries. "You can't tell me you want to be found by one of those. You don't get to tell me this is your burden to bear when--when I'm the dumbass who didn't think to realize how bad this is. What kind of heartless asshole just leaves his friend like this?"

She doesn't. She really doesn't want to die by one of those things finding her - their mouths were terrifying but not huge, their claws were sharp but probably only good for an instant kill if they were lucky. Chances were if one found her it wasn't going to be a pleasant death, and it won't be the first time monsters try to rip her apart. It's not a good way to go, but she'd take that over passing out with the huge likelihood of Karkat dying because of it hanging over her.

"There are worse ways to die. It's going to be too dangerous for you to stay here."

And who knew, she might finish bleeding out before one found her. Or she could do something to knock herself out after she was sure he was gone.

"This isn't your fault."

There's a thick, sore lump forming in his throat, a prickle at his eyes, and it's hard to listen for all no real hearing is involved. She's talking about having him go so she can die alone here, and how is he supposed to accept that? But it's when she goes and tells him it's not his fault that tears finally slip past the edge of his eyelid.

"Yes it is," he insists with stubborn petulance. "I got stabbed like three times by this friend of mine and walked them all off, and I didn't stop to think maybe a tail from a monster is different than a knife and means something more to a human who's already weak from the arena."

It feels like an insult to put it that way, but the bluntness carries his meaning best. He didn't notice; he didn't consider.

"Two people already died because of me, Nill, and now you..." He rubs a knuckle at his eyes, leaving her hand to just the one again. "You can't make me leave. I don't care that it's dangerous. I don't, I'm not going to."

"The only one at fault for this is the thing that attacked us."

And President Snow, the Gamemakers, the people that set up the traps, the ones that released the monsters. There are so many other things this can be blamed on, so much so that she might feel nauseous if her stomach wasn't empty. But she mentions none of these, because Karkat is upset, and sometimes he says things before he thinks about them. She doesn't dare give him anything outside the Arena to spew vitriol at.

Her grip on his hand tightens a little, and Nill blinks back tears that have been threatening to fall for most of this conversation. Not yet.

"I don't want you to stay and die with me. I don't want you to die at all."

She'd thought that, just maybe, if she could just protect one person, they could get out. And if that person was Karkat it would be even better, because Karkat wasn't a killer, and these Arena's would take so much more from him than they would other people. And maybe what she's asking of him is selfish - maybe she just can't bear to see it, but surely there are worse things than this kind of selfishness.

"Please don't die here."

Part of him feels he deserves it, but still he argues, "I'm not dying here."

He looks from their clasped hands to her face to her wound, colored all painful and disturbing. He sniffs and blinks hard; he doesn't want to be crying, though he knows there's bound to be more.

"I have a knife. I can fight. I'm fine." He looks back up. "Don't make me leave you, Nill." His hand squeezes back. "I'm--I'm responsible for this. I can't fucking run away like a coward because, because it might be dangerous, not when you're hurting and can't even stand anymore. Who do you think I am? I've said it too many times: I'm not leaving."

No sobs clog his voice, but his tone creaks with the effort of making words past the hurt of this. He's so tired of friends always dying, of things going to shit, of his own inescapable mistakes. It doesn't matter that she's the one telling him to do it; leaving would still be running from things.

His head tips as he asks of her, "Nill, please."

"You're not responsible for this. You're not."

The desperation is still there, the need for him to leave, to at least know that he'll be safe when she sees him go, but this is a battle that she's losing quickly. It still hurts, everything hurts, and she can feel her heartbeat pounding in her temples, though she's sure it was never that soft before or that fast. The world tilts depending on where she looks, and Nill knows that she's dying, she can feel it.

But the ways she died before this were so awful, and this was awful too. She doesn't want to die alone again. She'd done some bad things after she left her world, some of them even awful things, but it's so unfair, and she's always hated being alone.

The tears she's been trying to hold back finally make their way onto her cheeks, and Nill's lips tremble as she tugs on his hand a little, to get him to look at her again.

"Promise. Promise me you won't die here."

"I am," he insists still. This whole damn thing is his fault, and that's a habit it will take more than this to shake him of. Blame himself on every failure: if there's a way to turn the picture to set it in that view, he'll find it.

But he looks up still at her tugging hand, and now she's crying. He feels more tears slip down his cheeks, hot and translucent-red, almost pink against his ashen skin. He goes to sniff again and pulls a hiccup of a sound into his chest.

"I promise." No looking down this time, his eyes holds her solidly even as they keep welling up. "I won't let myself. Just please, don't make me go."

Terezi dying was different, sudden and sharp like a knife in the chest. It wasn't all instant, but it happened faster, without this kind of prelude. Nill's wound is in the wrong place for her to bleed out all at once, and there's no failing systems to compensate and draw the curtain. It's got to be slow and awful, painful and gnawing, and he hates all of it. He can't let her have that alone.

Even if she wanted to keep trying to convince him to go - and she does, she really does, him dying here is about the last thing in the world she wants to happen - she doesn't have the resolve to keep asking him to do it. Not when the second-to-last thing she wants is to be here alone and just wait to die.

"Alright."

She's already got a headache from it already. She sniffles, and blinks as if to ward away the tears, but more just fall instead. At least it's not like she'll be around long enough to die from dehydration at least, even if she has the headache to go with it already. Blinking several more times proves just as useless, so she stops trying.

"I won't ask again."

She straightens a little, and though that inspires another grimace she stays up.

"Could-- can you help me move a little?"

She hates to ask it. She hates that he has to do anything, but like this just moving hurts, and she'd rather not be stuck with her legs under her like this when she dies. Having her back against the wall would be better, even if it'll make her wings stiff. She just needs a little extra leverage to make it easier, which mostly just involves holding onto his hand.

A breath falls out of him, the sound caught somewhere between a sob, a laugh, and a puffed out sigh. He's relieved but overwhelmed, and doesn't know any better than before what he should do.

But her asking help to move gives him a task, and he nods. "How do I help?"

He hopes despite everything that it won't be hard, that the aid she needs isn't too much, but he worries too what comparative ease might mean. How fast is she dying? How close is she now? He's never died a slow death; Jack blew up Prospit, Jane impaled him, and the animatronic tore him apart. How hard is it going to be for her? How hard is it for a human?

But he can't know yet, only offer his hands and wait for direction.

"Let me hold on to your hands when I need to. I think I can do the rest myself."

Hands also tend to be easier to hold on to than a spaceport wall, especially since he'd be holding on, too. She uncurls her arm from around herself and braces it against the wall so she can pull herself up enough to get one leg out from under her.

It must hurt though. The minute the first leg is moved she's back to leaning all her wait against the wall, a hard shudder going through her that Karkat can probably feel just from holding her hand. But she's determined to actually get this done so she won't need to start moving again too much after this, and before he can try to say or do anything she does the same to get her other leg free.

Like the first time she shudders again, teeth grit and eyes squeezing shut, and she sort of falls more against the wall this time than leans into it.

"Almost done," she tells him, as if to brush off any concern that might already be forming in his mind. She's fine. Really. Outside of the dying and pain thing, anyway, which comparatively wasn't too bad at all when she wasn't doing the moving thing. In a moment she can do the rest, and she won't need to do that much again, which she's sure she can manage. She just needs a minute.

Karkat nods again. It's easier in a way to let her do the moving, to just offer support when he doesn't know what would make her hurt more. There's something horrible and anxious about watching her like this, fearing for her and knowing what's to come but not when, and having to observe the frailty of someone weaker through no fault of their own. He can't blame her for any of it, and it hurts him to see her so worse off. His jaws clench tight for every shudder that goes through her and for the way her body finds itself back against the wall.

It's not even that she needs the support, but how much she needs it. How is it that she can be so weak that she can't even do this much at once? Things were bad for him after the Cornucopia, but then he had injuries bigger and more dramatic than a little hole in the side: a broken leg, blood in his lungs, a hard knock to his head that bled and left him disoriented. This is so slow and strange, and a part of him wishes that if it has to happen, that it would be quicker. There's something cruel in how it draws out.

"Nill..."

He wants to do more, but doesn't know what. She's hurting and all is a struggle, and it's horribly, terribly unfair.

He blinks hard to clear his eyes again and bites out, "Stop acting like you're alright, for fuck's sake."

It's mostly where the wound is specifically that makes every movement hurt, every twitch tug at torn skin. Using her arms to sort of lift herself has all her weight from the waist down pulling on the wound. Turning her torso twists the skin. Lifting her arms isn't too bad, provided that she's careful about it, and it's not too difficult to be careful when she's tired anyway. As far as movement with injuries go, there are a lot of places that she could have been hit that probably would've killed her just as slowly without restricting her movement so much.

"I'm sorry."

She means it. She's never had to worry about talking with someone while she was in the process of dying. She's never even had to worry all that much about her friends watching her die, either. The first time it ever became a possibility she hightailed it out of there. The result was watching some of her own friends die, and then dying horribly, alone. None of them had ever seen it, and they never asked.

Slowly the tension starts to go out of her again as the flare dies down to a more bearable pain level. Her jaw unclenches, she opens her eyes again. She doesn't try to sit up again quite yet, but she will soon.

"Walking hurt less, but I don't have the energy to walk more. This is less work, but it hurts a lot more."

Her wings shifts a little against her back before settling again into a more comfortable position. At least that doesn't hurt.

Karkat stays where he is, watching and waiting, frowning still. He doesn't say anything to her apology. He doesn't know what he would say if he tried.

A fleeting thought does seize him as she goes on: what if he carried her? But it dies just as quick. Trying that would slow him down and take up his energy, and make it harder to react to oncoming threats. He doesn't know how to optimally carry another person, much less someone dying slowly from internal bleeding or god knows what human organ damage. He'd have to drop her if something attacked, and what good would that do?

He wants to sit beside her, but he doesn't dare move before she's settled fully. He wants to give up, frankly, if this stupid game just means more friends dying, and more of his mistakes causing it. But everyone keeps doing something, saying something, wanting him to do this or that or run or get safe to survive and live, and even if he hates this, he can't turn his back on that wish. Especially not when given in these circumstances.

"How bad is it?" he asks at length. "How much it hurts, I mean."

He wants to ask how long it's going to last, her sitting here in pain before she dies, but how the fuck do you ask someone that?

"Bad."

There's no real point in lying to him by now, is there? She wasn't to begin with, but she'd also made a pretty good effort in downplaying things. She's still dealt with worse, but those things usually killed her, and she can't exactly make comparisons by trying to say it's not as bad as dying. It's exactly as bad as dying.

"It might get worse."

She really hopes it doesn't, but Nill has nothing to gauge that against, no experience with this kind of injury. All she knows is that it hurts more now than it did when she got hurt, and that means it might hurt more before this is over with.

Nill doesn't seem willing to linger on it for long. Shoving that thought aside she sits up again, and twists herself around with some effort so that she can finally lean her back against the wall, and draw her knees up a little. It doesn't seem to have hurt as much, but she still lets out a shaky exhale when she's done, eyes squeezing shut again.

The voice is soft and hesitant this time, close to a whisper for all that it isn't real sound. She can't hear anything coming their way, no monsters in the immediate area, no tributes ready to come down the hall. For a few minutes at least they're safe, and it hurts enough that she doesn't feel as bad as she might otherwise to ask it.

"Will you sit with me?"

So she doesn't know much - that's what it sounds like. Not in the way of how it will go or what exactly will happen. It makes him worry for her more, and he hurts with it. It's all so stupid and unfair. He can't keep it from his face either; as she moves to finish settling, he squeezes fresh tears from his eyes with a tight blink.

He nods when she asks her question. He's already begged her not to make him leave; he has no reason to refuse. It takes him only a fraction of the time to settle his back against the wall beside her, close but not touching. His left hand has taken hold of his knife in the process, and he clutches it tight as he stares straight ahead.

"I hate everything," he murmurs, and he doesn't have it in him to sound mad.

don't be afraid

I'm thinking we can timeskip from here maybe?

sounds good to me! let me know if this doesn't work

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