Karkat Vantas ♋ carcinoGeneticist (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
crabmunicator) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thearena2015-11-16 06:59 am
crabmunicator) wrote in thearena2015-11-16 06:59 am
Entry tags:
[closed] all the neighbors are startin' up a fire
Who| Karkat and Roland, then Alain
What| In punishment for his interview speech, Karkat gets an aura that causes rage in those around him. Things don't go too well.
Where| The bunker.
When| Final week.
Warnings/Notes| Everyone dies, description of gore, allusion to/possible discussion of suicidal ideation, PTSD-type freakouts.
A. Roland
The weeks have gone on and somehow he's still going. Alive, tired, worn out, sore, driven by momentum more than his own wish. People drive him on in their way. Sansa needed help, then there were dragons, and Phil said to keep fighting for her - for Maglev. He can't pay back anything to District 6 if he doesn't win.
It's been hard, sometimes.
But things are getting late in the arena now. Time's hard to keep track of, but it's been long, over a month, and he's seen the dwindling numbers by the names put in the sky at night. The arena has shrunk, driving them in closer together. Now, the Gamemakers have bombed out the land above, and he's been driven into the bunker.
When it's not disturbingly quiet, it's something coming for him. The things they put down here have too many arms, too much speed, and voices that they shouldn't. Karkat hears them call like people he notices who aren't around anymore, and he knows they would kill him if he stopped. It might be fair in some roundabout way to let them do it, but in making it this far he's compelled to keep doing it.
So he runs, a sickle tight in his hand, until rounding a corner sends him slamming into someone else.
B. Alain
The door swings open and Karkat slams into the wall ahead of it. The door lasted fine enough. Dented when the thing after them hit it, sure, but the lock held; it was his own slick, fumbling fingers that undid it. He's alive. He's breathing. It comes in thick, choking gasps, hitching, then retching when he turns his head to vomit. It's not much, this late in the arena.
Nothing much smells good this late, either, but entrails and blood fill his nose more than the sick. There's red on his front, on his hands, dripping off the sickle he holds in a trembling hand. Some is his own, but it's Roland who lies inside the room, his gut cut open by the jagged curve of his weapon.
He's not watching his steps when he stumbles from there. They're loud, clunky, soles tracking more of the mess. He barely sees what's in front of him to even bother looking back. Everything is images: Roland matching Sheen, Maglev in the dirt, Signless and his eyes. His thoughts are too much a jumble. He doesn't know where he's going, and doesn't care to listen.
What| In punishment for his interview speech, Karkat gets an aura that causes rage in those around him. Things don't go too well.
Where| The bunker.
When| Final week.
Warnings/Notes| Everyone dies, description of gore, allusion to/possible discussion of suicidal ideation, PTSD-type freakouts.
A. Roland
The weeks have gone on and somehow he's still going. Alive, tired, worn out, sore, driven by momentum more than his own wish. People drive him on in their way. Sansa needed help, then there were dragons, and Phil said to keep fighting for her - for Maglev. He can't pay back anything to District 6 if he doesn't win.
It's been hard, sometimes.
But things are getting late in the arena now. Time's hard to keep track of, but it's been long, over a month, and he's seen the dwindling numbers by the names put in the sky at night. The arena has shrunk, driving them in closer together. Now, the Gamemakers have bombed out the land above, and he's been driven into the bunker.
When it's not disturbingly quiet, it's something coming for him. The things they put down here have too many arms, too much speed, and voices that they shouldn't. Karkat hears them call like people he notices who aren't around anymore, and he knows they would kill him if he stopped. It might be fair in some roundabout way to let them do it, but in making it this far he's compelled to keep doing it.
So he runs, a sickle tight in his hand, until rounding a corner sends him slamming into someone else.
B. Alain
The door swings open and Karkat slams into the wall ahead of it. The door lasted fine enough. Dented when the thing after them hit it, sure, but the lock held; it was his own slick, fumbling fingers that undid it. He's alive. He's breathing. It comes in thick, choking gasps, hitching, then retching when he turns his head to vomit. It's not much, this late in the arena.
Nothing much smells good this late, either, but entrails and blood fill his nose more than the sick. There's red on his front, on his hands, dripping off the sickle he holds in a trembling hand. Some is his own, but it's Roland who lies inside the room, his gut cut open by the jagged curve of his weapon.
He's not watching his steps when he stumbles from there. They're loud, clunky, soles tracking more of the mess. He barely sees what's in front of him to even bother looking back. Everything is images: Roland matching Sheen, Maglev in the dirt, Signless and his eyes. His thoughts are too much a jumble. He doesn't know where he's going, and doesn't care to listen.
no subject
He lets himself go still. Roland is angrier now, yes. Angrier, and quieter. "Every young man thinks he has but to reach out, and the world will twist itself to suit him. In a fine and fair place, you'd have the chance to indulge that. Hide away, pretend to yourself, then learn your foolishness and let it pass. But this world is neither fine nor fair, and this is a lesson that is going to destroy you."
"This world wants to see into you, Karkat. You can curl up and kiss your own ass as long as you like, pretend you can ignore that part of yourself and not simply disappear afterward, go out in your own terms and not leave the rest of us to go on in your wake. Pretend as long as you like. But this world wants a fight, Karkat."
Roland watches him. Takes a step forward. "They'll get it."
no subject
It's all presumption, what he's saying, or it feels like it. Does Roland know all what he's been through? Karkat carries the guilt of it even when it's not his to bear, and it feels much like mud shoved in his face to be told he's playing ignorant for thinking the world could be fair.
Loud and sharp, he snaps, "Back off, old man." His hand is tight on his sickle, for he refuses to put it down, especially now as Roland encroaches on his position. He'd like very much to punch him, but knows it wouldn't prove anything.
"I've fucked up enough to have it engraved deep on the walls of my skull that the many and various universes are not fine and fair, and you do not know the goddamn half of what I've been through. Don't pretend you give half a shit when something more comes on to add if all you're going to do is turn around and pull a grub's tantrum on me because I don't handle it how you like!"
His posture is set for defense, all the same. Trolls may not have always been violent, but the long and careful nurturing of Alternia to that end has made such cultural mores night unto an instinct in him. Roland talks of fights, and sounds as close without outright saying it that he threatens one. His glare is hard and unwavering.
no subject
He starts to pacing again. Around, this time, curving in a circle around Karkat to one end of the wall and back again. Steps heavy and quick, hemming him in. His expression tries to be calm, distant, as if everything else in this room is much more worth looking at than Karkat. He can't quite manage it. His jaw keeps twitching. "What I'd like is for you to give half a shit about someone other than yourself. Do you know how it was after Cuthbert, after he gave in and never came back? After he stopped fighting?"
Each time Roland reaches a wall he turns and heads back again, and each time that invisible boundary he draws with his steps draws further in, gets closer to the boy. Closer. "Would you like it if I called you selfish? If I said-" He digs through his mind, tries to find just the right ammunition here. "-that you're failing everyone around you with this self-indulgent foolishness?" Roland stops, for the first time in his pacing looks right at him. "It's in you, Karkat. It's in you to survive, and you just aren't using it."
no subject
"Go fuck your lusus!" Now as Roland's met the side of the semicircle at the wall, Karkat steps out and around, counter-circle, horns lowered forward even as his fangs flash on his words. "Or the mammal bitch that had to bear the indignity of having your slimy husk crawl out of her! I've made and fucked up bigger things than you've imagined, and the mold-slimy dish sponge you keep inside your lobe in place of a thought organ does not have one singular wisp of knowledge to what I think or care about." His voice is snarl-rattled, and the sibilants hiss harshly. "You shut your gutter trough of a mouth and fuck off out of here, or I swear to two dead universes I will bite you for the next word out of it."
no subject
In practice? Well. Maybe the lower parts of him, the animal parts of him waiting there in the dark of his mind, maybe they mean to hit a little harder than that.
no subject
"The fuck, Roland?"
He threatened to bite him. He doesn't. His sickle rises, though, stance turning from agitated and wary to outright expecting combat. His eyes sit alert and focused. The door is to his back, locked still and jammed with its chair. Roland's action is answer enough to whether he'll leave peacefully. Trying to get it open himself won't be easy. There's no telling before he tries it how the denting may have damaged or jammed the parts keeping it shut.
"I don't know what beefgrub laid its eggs up your ass, but the larvae have clearly traveled up into your brain. What's your problem? What the hell do you want from me?"
no subject
"If you won't-" Roland's other hand pulls the shillelagh out from his purse. It's longer, wood instead of metal, but a weapon in each hand feels right. He doesn't question it.
"Then you die." The shillelagh strikes out. He aims it toward Karkat's throat, where a human windpipe would be. He isn't holding back.
no subject
Die, though, is as clear as it gets. Karkat sucks a breath, leaning back from the sweep of his shillelagh. He catches himself with a step and ducks, darts sideways. He's glad suddenly for what training he's had, for Shepard's many lessons and even the brief bit of swordplay with Éowyn. Neither of these is a weapon he's fought before, but it's the principals that may save him.
That's not to say he's not scared. Flickers of thought rush through, recollections of the first day of the meteor when half his team died, disorganized and stir crazy in its metal walls after a lost reward. He thinks of Signless back in the Capitol.
This room is much smaller than he wants it to be, and if only there were a second door he could make a break for it. He wishes he had a different sickle. This one is jagged and brutal, more for tearing wounds than the clean cuts of a blade, which is probably why it was here. He thinks of the knife in his dwindling pack, but it's a big hunting blade with serrations. Its wounds wouldn't be much lighter.
"Fuck!"
Karkat's steps carry him circularly. He wants ever to keep more toward Roland's side if he can, knowing too well that two longer weapons would mean an easy blow to him if he goes in straight from the front. He baits him with darting half-jabs of the sickle, the back faced out to deflect. He wants to get the shillelagh; if he can time it right, he could turn his hand, snag the burled head in his sickle's curve, and yank it out of his grasp.
no subject
He lets the shillelagh go, in one smooth movement turning to face Karkat and raising his arms. The pipe swings at Karkat's head from one direction, the heel of Roland's hand from the other, and Roland thinks that if Karkat is not very quick indeed, quick to realize and quick defend, the boy'll still be all tangled up with Roland's weapon while Roland finds out just how sturdy a troll's horns really are.
no subject
His own hands come up next. One, empty, seeks to shove away the arm used for the pipe. The one holding his sickle swings in and forward; if Roland's not quick enough, the jagged hook of it will snag his other arm.
no subject
If it succeeds in that job then Roland will have a grasp on Karkat's injured horn, will pull it toward him until Karkat must either stumble or bend backward with it. If it does not succeed he'll circle around, make an attempt to get close enough to his other fallen weapon to retrieve it. Either way, his side will be angled toward Karkat, the side which carries the pipe. That arm will hang down. The grip will be loose. And either way, he speaks: "Try harder, boy. You'd let me do this to you? All those back on Alternia who'd step on you and spit on you for the color of your blood, all those here who'd do the same whenever it suits them - you'd let me be one of them? Swing again, and aim this time, for your father's sake!"
lemme know if this is okay. presumed some stuff would happen because of our planning earlier
As Roland moves to circling, he easily sees which hand is toward him. Is it on purpose? Is he thinking? But the words come, and they hit too hard on his soft spots for him to think further of it. He moves, and the swing is wild, but should hit hard enough send the pipe falling from his grip. Even then it's only with the back of his sickle. He kicks the pipe away with his foot, then holds the sickle out toward him, pointed and straight, grip firm.
"You're unarmed." Karkat's eyes are angry and hurt. There's a tremble to him from adrenaline and pain, but his focus doesn't waver. "If you go out there, you'll have to face anything on your own. No one's going to send you bandages for your arm this late in the game. If you go for your weapons, I'll take them from you again."
He sniffs, then exhales.
"Leave."
yeah that works
It explodes.
"YOU FOOL!" Roland roars, teeth bared, the wrinkled planes of his face stretched into something all taut and hollow and ugly, and he bursts with all his speed into a dive toward the arm with which Karkat is holding his weapon. He tries to get a grip on the spots which, on a human, would affect tendons and bundles of nerves, make it easier for him to fold the boy's arm up, make easier his efforts to drive the weapon there toward that vulnerable and deserving throat.
"YOU STUPID LITTLE FOOL!" This tone of voice was not designed for this; it was designed for battlefields, shouting cool and calculated insults to enemies, shouting orders to bondsmen and allies over chaos and panic and distance. Roland uses it, though, because his voice is a tool, his whole being is a tool toward this one purpose, and from all of six inches away he bellows noise and spit and rage against the boy who, five minutes ago, he would not for a second have hesitated in defending with his life.
"I gave you everything you needed!" Roland's been leaning on Karkat with whatever grip he can manage, trying to drive him back toward any solid surface, and if he manages it he'll try and slam Karkat against that surface to punctuate the end of every sentence. Even if he does not manage it he'll still give that small form a little shake, a little shove. "You squander it! You'll live, by god! You'll live, even if I have to KILL YOU!"
And with that Roland pushes off with his toes and leans forward to give a mighty shove, a shake, and this one even more than all the others is one he shifts his grip for, one he loosens the tight pull of his fingers for, maybe even lets go for a space which is not a full second, but which in this state feels like an eternity.
Or maybe it isn't an eternity. Maybe it may as well have not even happened at all. That depends on just how much this selfish little boy is determined to squander.
nnrnrnrghhggh here are words
There really isn't much left of the arena.
And he wanted to ignore that. Why else would he have wanted to survive with him, to help him, when he could have run past or shoved him the monster's way? It doesn't matter if it would have worked. It's his failure as a troll and his failure as a tribute: when these easy chances to kill or at least try come up, he fails to take them, barring extreme circumstances.
Roland looks apt to force them. It's what he's screaming about, isn't it?
But Karkat's head is full of images, memories, thoughts. What would Signless think? What does he think already? He remembers people dead before him, Nill killed for mercy, Sheen for rage, and Terezi's severed arm by accident as she died behind the door between them. He thinks of Gamzee the last time he saw him, but of his other friends, too.
Roland's grip loosens, and Karkat pushes with the flat side of it against his chest.
"Please." He's not meeting his eye, though he feels his gaze bore into him. "Just go. Just leave."
they are lovely words.
One hand tries to cover Karkat's, tries to guide his grip on the weapon. The other hand, the one near the blade, slides up onto it, feels hot pain as the jagged points of it tear parts of his hand open and he bares his teeth, does not flinch because that heat is the same as the heat which burns through the rest of him. That hand pulls the sickle, turns it, feels its point tear through his clothes and begin to press against the skin just below his ribs.
"LISTEN TO ME!" He yells it just to shock the boy, try and make him more vulnerable and suggestible, lets his rage out in his voice one more time. "You'd let me do this to you? No one else! You'll leave this room and no one will do this to you! You'll use what's in you or you'll never dare to look on my face again! Do you understand? You'll damn well USE IT!" His hands, both of them, pull. There's a strange noise at his belly, a strange feeling. It almost feels like a pop.
no subject
He breathes hard and fast, and his face is streaked with pink from tears brought both by pain and emotion. Now, though, his sore spots sit like an afterthought. The words hit him on some level, but in truth the particulars slide past. It's more rage and anger, more denigration of the same kind. What's more important are the actions.
Roland had both hands on the blade.
He sees it - he's watching it - and he knows just as Roland does what it means when he pulls. He sees Sheen again in his mind's eye. He sees Nill, even, remembering when the xenomorph's tail lodged itself in her side, and what came at the end of their travel together. Perhaps if he'd been using his knife it would be different, but if he even tries to pull his sickle back, his flesh would tear more for the effort.
He can't fathom why Roland wants it. Why this anger stole over him, why this should be the way Roland would teach him. The lesson, whatever it is, does not reach through--
"Damn it, Roland..."
He pulls not against but with his hands now, dragging across with force, tearing through flesh and pushing deep enough to snag the soft, inner organs. It's decisive, and not something meant to be survived.
--He just can't let him die slow.
gonna follow the fine tradition of roland's canon and not gloss over much of this, so cw for gross
It feels strange. He looks down. It feels strange. It doesn't hurt and that would be a bad sign, except that 'bad' would be a word for someone who hadn't seen this coming. He'd known exactly what was coming. But he hadn't known how, how-
There's the sliced edge of an organ or two hanging out of him, wobbling against the loose flaps of his skin. Roland stares down, fascinated, identifies that warm soup spilling down and pooling against the waistband of his underwear as the mostly digested remains of this morning's breakfast, they must have got his stomach.
He realizes his mouth is open, and his expression slack. He knows now the look which must be on his face, knows exactly because he has seen it on countless others, countless times through countless years. Never really thought it'd ever be on his. Dumb surprise, shock too deep to really process what his senses tell him is happening - but of course, he'd always mostly expected to be shot. Or, lately, expected to fall from some place high. He realizes, too, that he's pressing at his belly reflexively, trying to keep everything in. Huffs, a sound mostly derisive, tinged with something genuinely amused. The time for dumb shock is over. Roland knows what happens now.
He lets go. His guts spill out, make a plopping noise as they hit the ground and sit there shining in the bunker's bright white lights and Roland spills over with them, can't keep on his knees and his hand slips as he tries instinctively to prop himself up with it. Slips on blood, he realizes, and quite a lot of it. Breath's coming hard now and he's more than a little dizzy, not that it matters here on the floor like this. There are shoes in front of him. The boy's, he realizes, Karkats, and something makes him reach out and try to grab at them, except he must be using the hand which sliced itself all up on that blade in those seconds which must have been years ago, and the grip of his hand won't close.
There's the smell, too. Roland takes a breath, realizes they must've also gotten his bowels. They also apparently got at least one artery, though, so there's no need to worry about that. The blood loss will feel as if it kills him slow, but it will in reality be very quick. "You listened," he mutters, voice rasping, tone absent. "Listened to me. Took you long enough, maggot. But you did, in the end. Very well. It's very..."
"Huh," he finishes, as the thread of his wandering thoughts runs out. Roland realizes his eyes are closed, and lets them remain so. He feels his blood warm and wet against his face and maybe he can feel air slipping all chill inside the hole in him, too. With his eyes closed all those sensations are more vivid and his mind moves slowly, sluggishly over them, he lays in the cooling remains of himself and takes slow, heavy breaths of the fouled air and time slows around him, stretches out. It fades after a while, after an eternity. After no time at all.