[She doesn't really have a plan. She doesn't have a reason for being here. She's running purely on instinct because at this point in time, thinking too hard about any of this only makes her upset.
He answers the door, and her lack of preparation must seem obvious, she thinks. She stands there as the seconds tick by, his question hanging in the air without an answer. Does she want to come in? She doesn't know. She wants a lot of things right now, but she knows that half of them are impossible. The other half... She's not sure if she should want them or not.
She doesn't break the silence, but she does shatter the way that the moment seems to hang between them like a fragile bit of glass on a string. She moves forward, wrapping her arms around his torso and pressing her face against his chest. Her fingers dig into his back, clinging as if he were a lifeline in a particularly nasty storm.]
[It comes out a sad sort of whisper as she clings on to him and he in turn curls around her. His arms fold around hers and he presses her close. There's a kiss lain to her head, then hes shuffling and spinning with her still held so he can get them inside and shut the door. Gentler this time.
When he closes his eyes the waves of fear rock him. He tastes the sea she's lost herself in. He keeps holding on to her.]
I know. I know, sister. But you ain't coming apart, I promise.
[Even if it might feel like it.
He doesn't typically respond vocal to fears. He makes to hide what he knows. But this time, with her silence, there ain't no point pretending.]
[You ain't coming apart. He says it so easy, like truth. It doesn't feel that way, but she lets him move her, pulling her inside and closing the door. She lets him wrap around her in the first place, and there's something like relief in that, even if it's plagued by guilt.
Should she even be here? Should she be accepting this comfort? Wouldn't a better person have worked this dilemma out by now? Her worries have become recursive now, moving in now on her hesitance and her inability to solve this problem, and thus posing new ones. That feels like a very good definition of "coming apart".]
I don't want to lose you. [She says it this time for a completely different reason than before. Something has to give in the middle of all this turmoil, and part of her is terrified that it's going to be him. For once, she wishes there was someone to tell her what to do--only for her to regret that thought a moment later when she realizes what they would probably tell her.
She feels the urge to defend him against this unspoken, imagined entity. Kurloz is good. He's been a steady shoulder for her to lean on. He's protected her. He's here right now, comforting her, even as she questions that goodness. What more does he have to do? Hasn't he proven himself by now?
Has he? Is good will something you can quantify and hoard as currency to pay off past debts? Does that change who he is as a person? That doubt curls around her thoughts like a snake, dropping poison into her mind. If past crimes are so easy to erase, then what does right or wrong matter? Why bother with being good in the first place?
She doesn't have a good answer to that. She doesn't have a good answer to anything.]
I just want to go back. To not thinking about this.
[ He doesn't want to lose her either, he thinks. He doesn't want it to be such that this means she turns on away from him. They've come so far... ]
Always going to pity you. No matter what. You know that.
[Even if she can't choose him, after all this. He doesn't mind she comes to him now. He worries for fucking this up but not to be having her near. It's too late to worry on whether having her now might make it hurt later. He can't care about all that noise in this time immediate.
But he shakes his head when she gets talk of going back.]
I can't be doing that girl. Ain't going to be making that the haps. Box is done opened and the clown is up and out. This is just something what's got to be dealt. Just like how things was being like with me back then. You remember that? You remember all them ways I'd get to resist? I'd tell like I couldn't be taking none no more? But I'm here still. You'll be here all tomorrow too.
[Even if not here with him exactly.
He scoops her up. He lifts her easily off the ground, cradling her close, until he can set her down in that pile and they can get this going once a-motherfuckin-gain. He crawls and curls in close to her. He'll take what he can, which may also mean sitting in silence for a moment, simply having her near. He sighs when he must finally admit to greater importance in speaking.]
The past can't be up and undone. Only the future can be made at to change. But that makes things complicated for me... and for Gamzee. To you all, our futures are the past up already. The wicked shit has been done kicked. We may be easier forgiven, but we must atone yet still.
[He takes her hand and kisses the back of it. She doesn't like him bearing guilt, he knows. But he must.]
I had a talk with someone recentlike. Brother what did on some ill, took lives whilst being broke, couldn't be bearing it for his ownself when he came back to. I've been trying to tell him that he can't be bringing the dead back. They ain't going to absolve him and he's knowing that. I told him like what I've been working on out. I said that it ain't his fault for what losses be, but he does have at a responsibility. Those lives taken have to be a lesson. They have to be things meant as all so that up in futures, one can be preventing such happenstance from ever again making to be. The hurt doled is being there still, the guilt all too, but it's being one small way what to make it matter.
[He looks down at her direct.] I can't ever be all good. Can't perceive no light without dark to shine in. Can't never have light without a shadow. My mistakes and the results keep me from making them again. Even the ones I never did upon. It ain't anyone's job to forgive me nor help me, only mine to atone. But without reason to atone, I wouldn't know to do so. You've brought me so far and you ought to be proud. But it ain't on you to preform impossible and claim me clear. You can't unpaint a canvas, but you can paint over it. Do you understand that?
[She doesn't complain when he scoops her up, taking her to the pile that this all started on. He curls in close, and she takes that opportunity to cling tightly to him, feeling a lot like a child in that moment. Still, she wishes they could stay that way forever. His words come as an unwelcome reminder, jarring her out of this safe moment.
But she listens when he speaks. She's been doing a lot of listening lately. To him, to Meulin, to her own messed up train of thoughts. There's so much to sort through and so many conflicts. But what he says feels true. What he told this other person feels right in a way that her thoughts say isn't. It sounds like something she might have told Kurloz once. Maybe it was. Or maybe he came up with it himself.
He talks of painting over a canvas as a metaphor for his past crimes, but it sits uneasy in her heart.]
...Yes, I understand. But it doesn't... Painting over the canvas doesn't make it blank again. It's still been marred. It can't ever be pristine again. Even if you paint it blank, it's still painted. It's fake.
[And by that logic, it can't ever be good. Any attempt to be so is just...pretending to be something it's not.]
[He smiles just a little bit, something sad but amused as well.]
Fake, sister? I don't think so. Not unless you got thinking me to be fake.
[He doubts that. If he's one thing he'd like to think he's honest. She should know, from artist's perspective, what he gets at. Hopefully she'll understand.]
Painting over it to a blankness seems strange, ay. But you can paint a new picture entire up over it. You can fix the flaws. You can add life and color and beauty. The canvas can collect it all like experience done lived. Until one motherfucking day, the picture ain't what it was being no more. It ain't that what's underneath got being gone, for it backs the colors new, but altogether, new shape is making form. Life and experience and passions and memory. Sounds the least fake of things what be.
[Even if it came through terrible means.]
Carrying around a blank canvas... I'd figure that means one ain't never lived yet. Maybe the strokes is smaller. [A pause.] A lot smaller. And maybe the pictures painted got being done near perfect by watching of how another's got formed, mistakes learned through them. But we's all got a little mark, I think. Even the very best of us. They just form the prettiest pictures up with it.
[She is small in his arms. He'd love just to keep her there, never a need for leaving.]
Does that make ill yet? A world what ain't got blank canvas? Just one what's trying to paint a better picture?
[Their metaphors are mixed up, she thinks. He must be talking about something else. He talks about a blank canvas to mean something boring and unlived, while she means it to be something that's simply unmarked. Innocent. He can't mean the way that it sounds, like doing harm is a good thing. That it can create something beautiful. That isn't the Kurloz that she knows... so she abandons the metaphor entirely.]
It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't work like that. There's good people out there in the world. And there's bad people. You don't decide to be one or the other, you just... are. Sometimes it's difficult to discern, like when we met... I wasn't sure which you were. I wasn't sure for a long time. I'm not sure that you knew, either, but the truth always comes out.
There's always a moment where you realize which it is. And it can't be anything else. You don't paint over it and make something new, not unless you've been pretending all this time, and I can't imagine...
[That all of this is fake. That he's not the troll that she's known him to be.]
[His jaw is set firm. He looks sad upon her. She is either going to reject that which he teaches now, or she's going to hurt for it. He pities, truly.]
There are good people, yes. And there are bad people. But it's not simply being on one side or the motherfuckin other. It ain't even simply staying on what side's being what, Terezi. It's this big motherfucking expanse, just a direction what to be going in, and every motherfucker's having at a different map as to where the borders lays. We get lost or we turn the fuck around in moments or we get direction, but sister, we don't... we don't boil the fuck down to a motherfucking moment.
[He reaches and he cups her face, holding her steady so as to look into her eyes, even as foolish as that has always been.] You can't condense me to a choice alone. Not if I really matter to you. [He brushes the bangs from her face and lets her go.]
I was never just bad. The Grand High has all the cares what mattered to me when you met me. And I ain't just good now. I am trying all the damn time to make sure I ain't fucking it up, and I still do, a lot. We, people, ain't things what to sort and quantify if the only options is being good or bad. You can't take what a person is and say as this is how all they'll only ever be. That's falsehoods.
[He shakes his head.]
If change isn't possible, then I never really got to changing at all. But do you think I am fooling you? After all this time, all this way? Or do you think the Grand High then is merely pretending his harm? That it's just... fake, somehow? I've changed so many times, my girl. I've been and become so many different things. And I've meant it. All of it. Paint to paint, good to bad. The only thing what I've always been is Kurloz Makara. That's the axis upon which I spin and everything else is variable.
[She looks troubled, that much is clear. She looks like he's told her the world will end, and there's nothing she can do to change it. She looks like she can't bear to hear the words that he's speaking, like she wants to cover her ears and block him out. Some of his words sting. When he holds her face and tells her that she can't do this if he really matters to her, she looks gutted. She does care about him. He does matter. But...
Everything was so much easier before all of this, before everyone she cared about started challenging what she's known as truth her whole life.
It's never failed her before. It's never failed her.]
You're different from him. You're... practically different people. Whatever happened to him... Whatever broke him and made him think that he had to murder the people he cared about, that tragedy didn't have to happen to you. You're still good. You're safe. You're never going to be like him.
[He shakes his head again. The more he pulls at this the more she crumbles and the more it tears at him too. She says like what happened to him didn't come to be and that carves on into his guts for a whole other reason entire. The hurt is evident.]
No... We broke the same time at we always do. I've told this story before, don't you know it? Surely I must have got telling you...
[Or maybe he just assumed. Either way.
He speaks slow, careful like he's tip-toeing.]
I was six sweeps. It wasn't a quick snap girl, my edges was already worn in by then. I was six sweeps and my only friend was gone. You remember that tale? You remember you traced my scars and told me I was different from them other highbloods? I had all this rage and pain built up inside. I was six sweeps... my bones were broken all the fuck over, my skin carved... I was drawn up by the motherfucking hair of my head to get this throat of mine slit. And I was ready for it. I wanted to die, Terezi. I wanted it to end.
Then my Da came back, there on the shore. I thought he'd come back for me. I thought he'd save me and right then I wanted to live again and I hoped with all my motherfucking heart. And he looked at me... and he left. Just like I thought Signless had because I wasn't good enough. He left and then I killed them. I tore out a seadweller's throat with my teeth. I carved up an olive. I beat a blue to death with my broken motherfucking fists. Then I took the last of my hope, my heart and what good got in it, and I ground it to dust. I screamed out with my voodoo so loud my voice got changed and it never stopped fluctuating until I wished at it away. I dragged myself back to my hive and waited up until I healed.
That was the moment for me, in this life. That was when I decided all would betray. If I ever cared it would merely be my own fault, tearing upon my wounds. No one was good. No one was safe. I had already decided who I was going to up and motherfucking be, those people whom I cared for were just blocks up in my way. If I suffered, it was only my own fault for falling short. The punishment of trusting.
[It's hard to say like this. When he's told this story before it was through bravado and laughter. It was boast and joke. The truth wasn't all that funny. The truth has him trace his own scars, remembering each near death and what it added the fuck on up to. His eyes are distant.]
That happened to me. It's what happened at to him. When at you met me, sister, I was already broken. I have tortured, I have had hiveclusters burned, I've even killed a sister what wanted me in black and I had full intention of killing my Da, and Signless as well if it came to it. My only rules were that I never motherfucking betray them what were truly loyal to me and that I preach no hypocrisy in act to writ. My word would be true. I would look past to see them what had potential, no matter their place. I would keep my word as it was given. The Grand High and I have always done just motherfucking that. You slipped me in through your loopholes, but you too have been making leap through mine, until you tore out all them rules from my hands.
[He had not liked it at the time. He wonders if now she'll understand that, as she's feeling first hand what it's like to have the floor rip out from under.]
I want to help you like you've done for me. Which is why you've got to understand that I'm not a different person as much as all you think. The differences came after, not before. Much as you laughed back then, the troll as all who told you he was the Grand Highblood was very much motherfucking being so. And his ghost is always being with me like I am with him. We're the same. We're Kurloz Makara.
[She remembers that story, but not in the detail that he tells it. Before, it was something that he seemed almost proud of. A defining moment that built his character, not... Not a cage that he locked himself in. And everything that followed after... It doesn't sound like him. It sounds like another person entirely. She couldn't imagine him setting fire to a hivestem or torturing another person. It was all so firmly outside of her idea of who he was.
Even back then... She remembers being horrified at what he did to Karkat and Signless. She remembers having her faith in him shaken. She hadn't been sure of who he was back then, and that seemed pretty damning, but she had wanted to give him a chance to defend himself. A chance to explain. What happened instead was less an apology and more a plea for help. And she hadn't thought twice about reaching out to lend that help, provided that he understood her limits.
She knew he was angry, but she had never considered him cruel. She never realized--or maybe she just hadn't wanted to see it. He had been kind to her when she needed it. He had been a friend to her, done all that she asked of him to keep the peace. He had followed every rule, every stipulation... but only after she met him. What was that supposed to mean, then? Did it even matter that there was a before? And what did that say about after? If someone could move so easily between good and bad... Did it make a difference at all what anyone was?
She draws her hands back from him, if only to press them over her ears. She curls in on herself, as if trying to shut out the world. Her eyes close tight, squeezing tears out of the corners.]
[She draws away, curling in small, so much smaller than she already motherfucking is. Even then he can spot tears.
It kills him. He starts reaching out bring her in, to be a harder shell, then stops, hesitating before proper touch. He's been trying to get her to understand who he is for as long as he's known her, even if the reasons for that have changed again and again. Now she knows. Now she sees at last when it's already done, she pities a monster.
And the monster pities back. He finally wraps around again, so long as she'll allow. As long she lets him take her hands from her ears. He speaks in hush.]
I'm sorry. I know this ain't what you wanted. But don't... don't blame yourself for what I am, aight? Was never your responsibility. And you've gone about it, haven't you? You thought I was better for all what reasons you did. You didn't know. It ain't your fault.
[If he can, he'll unwind her. He'll try to wipe those tracks of teal away.
If not, he'll still go on, however much it breaks his heart.]
It ain't too late either. If thought in pan is being to change on me, I get it, and I won't stop you from going. You can claim as it was necessary being near me... for survival, if it soothes a conscience. Just so long as it's being because you do understand now. The world is different than what we make it on the fuck out to be. We do it to protect ourselves, but eventually we got to making truths to be known. Even when it hurts. Like now.
[And it does, terribly.]
Good and bad are complicated. People and what choices get being made are too. There isn't being easy answer at to this all, no matter how much we got wish for there to be.
... And bad or no, with or without, I pity you. You'll always be a hero good what's to me. So please, don't take this too hard upon you.
[Even as she tries to shut him out, he seeks to comfort her. He wipes her tears and piles on her all the reasons she would ever need to leave him with a clear conscience. He places the blame at his own feet, piles the guilt onto his own shoulders so that hers might feel lighter.]
Stop it. [Her voice comes quietly, a small protest but a protest none the less.] Stop...trying to act like it's not my fault, too. Like I wasn't the one fooling myself. You're not responsible for the things I told myself.
[He's always been like that. Or well... maybe not always. She has to actually think on it now. She's not sure where it started, but she knows this habit of blaming himself. Of assuming that he's the worst that there could possibly be. Is there any wonder that she felt it necessary to deny that assumption so strongly?]
You're not... You can't tell me that there's no easy answer and then try to blame yourself for everything. What are you even trying to do? Do you want me to hate you? I just... don't understand. You're not... You're not bad, Kurloz. You're not. Nothing that you say is going to convince me of that.
[They've been through too much for too long. He's been too kind to her, even now, for her to think that.]
[The protest comes immediate. It would be more accurate to say she's better than he is.]
You take it all on your ownself, you know. Don't think I ain't up and noticed. Ain't your moirail and it took me all fucking long for this but I do get about some things. At least I got a list of sins significant what make like I should take responsible.
But it ain't about that either, Terezi, I don't want you to leave. Fuck, I ain't ever want you to leave, I pity you. It's just that I pity you more than all that noise. If this ain't being something what all you can handle then I want like for you to be happy all the same. If I make it easy for you what to be doing what makes you happiest then what's so wrong of it?
[But there's some small spark of hope in it now. He allows himself closer. He allows himself not to doubt as fully.]
What I'm trying to do is make it so that whether you can choose me or not, you'll be able to get on out in this world of ours you can understand what's happening. I want you to see it ain't one thing or the other and I want you to be able to get talking at to people and not be bound by these things what got built up. I want... [He looks down, away from her.] you to be knowing who all it is I am... and if you pity me it's because you pity me, not just who you're maybe thinking me to be.
[He sighs.] You say I ain't bad and I can't get to tell if you understand my preach or not. Maybe I ain't bad now, but I was. Some motherfuckers ain't good. But they could be, maybe, if all got really lucky and tried real fucking hard... the way you and I did. Nothing is inherent. Not like that anyway. Does any of this got any motherfucking means for reaching you?
[His protest takes her aback for a moment. Long enough to hear out his explanation, as he continues. She didn't think she was bad. Did she? No... Probably not. Though she can't deny the thoughts whispered in the back of her mind. Those little prickles of fear that still tell her over and over that something is wrong with her.
He doesn't want her to leave, but he wants her to be happy. She almost laughs. Almost, but doesn't. How does he expect her to be happy without him? She needs him. As much as she needs Meulin or anyone else that she cares about. And in a way, even more important than that... He needs her. If what he says is true, if he's this way because of her, what would her leaving do to him? Would he still be the gentle Kurloz that she knows? Would he change yet again?
He bows his head, looking away from her. I want you to be knowing who all it is I am. Is that what he thinks is going on here? That she pities...some image that she's made up of him?]
Kurloz... I get what you're trying to say, but you don't realize... It's not... The troll I pity isn't someone that I only think exists. The troll I pity saved my life. The troll I pity comforted me when I felt broken down. The troll I pity wrote me poetry and held me close when we danced. The troll I pity...changed everything for me. Himself, and Panem. Maybe that other stuff is harder to swallow, but... That reason is still there.
[Even if she has to take everything that he says as truth... That Kurloz still exists. He can't say that he doesn't. There's just... other parts to him that came before. Parts that she tried not to think about, but parts that he wants her to...for whatever reason.
It's not easy. She's unsettled, and she's struggling with it. But at the very least, she feels little more sure about him. No one as considerate as he's being could possibly be bad. No one who has been as kind and gentle with her as he has deserves to be punished or abandoned.]
[He half expects she'll keep fighting against this. And in a way, she does. But he finds himself looking up instead of frowning down.
He can remember instances of each. Even times he's only tried. He remembers dancing with her, growing closer with each time up between. He can remember how it got easier and easier to think well of her, even as he struggled to know what to say to ease her broken heart. He can recall how gradual but inevitable she transformed into a miracle before his very eyes until the poetry simply came on out. And of course, of course, he remembers fighting for her and futures.
But most importantly, it feels like she finally understands. She understands and she still wants him.]
You still wish to stay?
[The hope fills his voice and swells his heart. It lights his face and a smile slowly starts growing on back. It bubbles out of him with a laugh of relief. He leans in to kiss her, right upon her cheek. His hands find hers.]
You don't have to fear, by the by. Can feel you worrying on my changing. I've been... getting better up by that. Wouldn't be like to say nothing could break me, any troll can be motherfucking broken, but I can't think of anything what could natural making happenstance. And nothing abnormal can be making about me either anymore. I got a long life and short temper but... I think I might be okay, maybe.
[Especially if he's got her too. That'll make it all the easier.]
And the rest of this all, [He says, stroking her hair back.] what's getting to stir in your pan. It'll settle. Trust me, that. You'll find out new ways to fathoming the world. Better ones.
[He hesitates. He looks Terezi over and tries to sense her out too.] I haven't talked to Gamzee. Not yet. I couldn't, not until I was being sure with you. And even then I wanted savoring what time I had with you. Was thinking as I'd start with a letter all anyways now. Just to be seeing if he even wants an ancestor, let alone this motherfucker. But I can get about it sooner than later, should you wish. If you'd like being near and all.
[He lights up at her response, and her heart eases a little. Even if everything else feels uncertain, he's the one thing that she knows can't be wrong. That's what her heart is telling her, anyway. He kisses her cheek and takes her hands. She squeezes them back.
It's difficult to worry about other things when he's so happy. Difficult... but not impossible, given the shift in topic that he eventually brings.
He asks if she'd like to be nearby when he talks to Gamzee... and just the thought has her stiffen a bit. There's that old flair of fear--but it's more unsure. More out of habit than anything logical. Her thoughts on Gamzee aren't just going to roll over so easily, even if she's trying to understand his logic behind it all. She tries to keep her response as rational as she knows how to be.]
I don't... want him around me. I don't want to talk to him. But if you're going to write to him... I'd like to read it.
[It's not a positive reaction, but he also knew it wasn't going to be. What it is being is the best reaction he's got from her so far. It ain't got lash back. He can feel it habit more than all anything else, more than him taking on off and getting hurt or whatever all things come to pan.
He smiles again and puts another kiss upon her head.]
No intention of that. Only got meaning during this time when you're in the meadous. You ain't got to have nothing to do with him.
But uh... [He looks a little hesitant.] Truth is I may have got to writing it recent. Not sent or none but. It's mere been done for. And I... I ain't sure it will make you no sort happy. Got real carried away you see. I wasn't looking to be making accusation or changing him yet until I was certain, I just... I just wanted him to hear me. He's got on so avoidant, so fearful to be losing you... I guess I didn't want to scare him off more but I said so much, too much, and that might scare him still and I-
[He stops, rising up. He leaves her just a moment to find where he stashed that thing. He walks back with it slow, scanning it over and feeling dread. Still, he holds it out to her, bracing. ] I want to be a good ancestor. I just don't know what the fuck that really up and means.
[She's relieved that he doesn't want her to meet him yet. She's not sure that she could bear it right now. Everything is still uncertain, and she's not sure how to feel. She's not sure what she's supposed to think.
That feeling only increases as he admits that he already wrote the letter that she's asking to read. He might notice the way her lips press together a little tighter, but she tries not to think ill of him for it. She can't blame him. He's been so hopeful of this, despite her trepidation; and at least he told her the truth of it. It's not as if he was trying to hide.
He babbles like he thinks that she's going to be angry, already making excuses for why she might not like what she reads.] Kurloz, please... Just let me read it. [She holds out her hand, trying to be gentle with her words. She takes the letter when he offers it, bracing herself as she starts to read.
He's right, of course. She doesn't like any of it. There's too much here to twist, too much left open for someone to use. It's not the kind of letter you would write to someone you were wary of. It's half apology, half plea for reconciliation. There are a lot of bitter thoughts that come to mind, especially with the talk of how proud he is getting thrown around. She swallows them down with all the others.
Once finished, she folds the letter up again. The urge to rip it up right there is strong, but she hands it back. Her grip on the paper is tight, turning her knuckles a lighter grey. Her jaw is tight, too, and it takes her a moment to loosen it enough to speak.]
Laying it on a little thick. I guess you didn't think to consider some restraint? Maybe invite him to at least talk once or twice before making proclamations of "protecting him until your dying breath"? [Her tone veers dry, and she wrinkles her nose a little in annoyance. She's not trying to be an ass, but it's difficult to rein in her feelings.]
Best case scenario, you're going to overwhelm him. [Worst case, he's basically handing Gamzee everything he needs on a silver platter.]
[His face is twisted right up with trepidation, shame, and embarrassment. Even before she says a thing, he's already shrinking down. Once she does, he somehow manages to shrink further. He takes it back like it's going to sting just to touch.]
You're right. It's stupid. This is stupid.
[He crumples it immediately, shrinking it down and turning it to trash, even when he doesn't have the heart to tear up what was a spilling of said heart. He paces a little, crumpled paper still in hand.]
I just wrote what up and came to me. He ain't need this. He doesn't fucking need me. I ain't a decent troll, barely a decent person. I can't be an ancestor to nobody. I should be... I should just... Maybe an invitation to congregation? No, no, then he'll presume it like it was or like I did of my ancestor. But if I don't get talk of what's being the haps, he'll take the fuck off.
[He keeps going, rambling to himself now, a hand through his hair occasionally.]
I just wanted to be what I would've... wanted to hear... back then... Which is all the motherfucking more pathetic. Maybe if I had something else what to offer, but I don't! Ancestors are supposed to have great legacies what to pass along and I've nothing. [He walks to a wall, slumps against it, and groans loudly into his hands.] He's probably not even going to motherfuckin like me let alone want to talk and here I am telling you like it ain't burden open you to have to pretend to give a damn!
[He straightens out and tosses the note aside.]
... I'm sorry. It's just, I ain't actually knowing what all I'm doing yet. I'll figure out what to be doing. I can let you know then.
Kurloz... [She tries to jostle him out of his ranting when he's only partway through, but her voice is low, and he probably doesn't hear her. She's too tired to try again, instead letting his rambling run its course. When he finishes, she meets his apology with a dry exression, art annoyance and part exasperation.]
Kurloz... You're already a far better ancestor than he deserves. [He probably isn't going to like hearing that, but at least she's not saying it to be cruel to Gamzee. It's just the truth as she feels it. She tries to focus on him, more than anything else.] You're barely more than a wriggler yourself, and you've done so many things. Everything you did in Panem? That's not Nothing. Everything you've done here? That's not Nothing, either. Any troll should be glad to have someone like you to look up to. You shouldn't have to do shit to earn their favor.
[He frowns at her for such a comment but says nothing, both because he expects that sort of thing from her and because it's clear she's got more to say and he's really rambled on enough. He's also got to frown at being "barely more than a wriggler" but that's old habit by now. On that at least, she's right.
As for the rest, he's unsure. He's mostly felt like he's fumbled up everything, except for where at she called him her hero.]
Maybe. But it ain't just that. [He starts toward her, moving back into that pile, if not so close as he was.] I remember the way you'd speak of the Neophyte, even when you felt hurt. Aletheia too. Only a fool could be missing what she means to you both. And then all them other motherfuckers we've met knowing of ancestors, idolizing... But opposing is my own memory, my own ancestor. I kept my distance cause even then I got presumption like there ain't wouldn't be time for me and then it was me what got running out of time. And when the kid showed the fuck up in Panem I got being distant again.
[He sighs.] No one in the world is going at to get these things what is being between us, me and him. There ain't know other what's got experience so alike. Same form, same pan, more or motherfucking less. And you and me and him, we ain't got lusii so... this is all we got. Doesn't it ever make like... [He turns over to her, just a little.] like you ought to connect? Don't you ever want to pry out story and all the fuck else from 'em just to be knowing it ain't you alone? They're your literal goddamn blood, doesn't that just wipe the fuckin pan entire?
[He's doing it again. Babbling. And worse babbling to his matesprit. He frowns.] ...We ain't got to talk about this. We've been so caught up in strife I ain't even gotten to asking you nothing. I think right now it might just be me what's being overwhelmed. You talk, aight? I'll get my listen on quiet.
[He keeps going, and by this point, she figures there's no stopping him. He rejoins her in the pile, and though it's not as close as she might like him to be, it's good enough. He offers to let her talk for a while, and she wonders if he really means that. He's obviously rattled in a way that she doesn't think is going to ease.
He promises her his quiet, but she leans a little closer, kissing him just to make sure that she really has it. It's a brief kiss, short and sweet and sorely needed, she thinks.]
...What do you want me to talk about? I'm not sure that I have anything to say... Except that I think you're being too hard on yourself. Our ancestors never did anything to earn our favor directly. We learned about them through textbooks or journals or another people. It was an idea already built up in our minds. I don't...actually know that much about mine, outside of that. I barely got to talk to her. [Not for lack of trying, of course. The memory still hurts, though, so she moves on. She tries to make it sound a little more teasing, but the humor probably falls a little flat as she asks:]
Do you want me to write some stories about you? Leave them lying in undisclosed locations for...whatever trolls you might want to impress in the future? [She's not going to name Gamzee specifically, but she'll leave it open for Kurloz to assume.]
[Very, very much needed was that kiss to be. He smiles under it, eyes closing in the moment so as better to savor. It's brief, but he ain't mind. He moves to fill some of that space, small and gradual.
He definitely is making sure not to say that that's being the kind of ancestor her doesn't want to be. He's had his real and self-imposed isolations. He's seen her sadness. He doesn't want to cause something like that. But again, that requires Gamzee caring first.
He thinks to explain the Neophyte again, to elaborate that it's not to do with Terezi that things was being as they is. But he doesn't really get the Neophyte too well either and it's far easier to reach for her hand, squeeze, and let the sorrowful thoughts settle.
His quiet first breaks with a laugh. It spills out and makes his smile brighten. It's a flat humor but it's good all for him anyways.]
That would most mother fuckin certainly be impressive and not any manner of desperation move, that. Talk so much of I all the time already. [He winds his fingers with hers, in so much as that's being possible.] And you'd have all the best sort. Save a few Beforan. I'd read your writ. You should tell about my matesprit. She's a miracle, don't you know. She can do anything. That's where the real wonder's being to lay.
[He kisses the back of her hand, hopping briefly back into solemnity as he says:] Perhaps I should tell you of the other shade of your ancestor some time, back in her younger days Beforan. If you'd like that. I don't know what she'd say to being spoken of... [But he doesn't think she'll ever be here to say no. His friends as he knew them were very, very dead.] Or you could make writ to the Neophyte yourself. She's in that place, Midnight. Just warn she can be... terse. And unfriendly-like, as us ancestors is seeming to be. But maybe you'd be getting through.
[His talk of making stories about her gets him a dry look. He flatters her so much--too much, in her opinion. But she won't be swayed to deviate from her topic.
At least, not until he mentions her ancestor being in one of the other realms. She looks startled. Half a moment of stunned silence, and then a graceless "What" blurting past her lips. Her heart taps out a beat just a little quicker than normal. She should really keep her focus on Kurloz, but she can't help but ask now that he's brought up the possibility.]
She's in one of the other worlds? Is she... Does she remember? What happened in Panem? [She tries not to appear too hopeful, but her voice betrays her desperation.]
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carisma_sensei
[action]
Date: 2017-03-23 01:20 am (UTC)He answers the door, and her lack of preparation must seem obvious, she thinks. She stands there as the seconds tick by, his question hanging in the air without an answer. Does she want to come in? She doesn't know. She wants a lot of things right now, but she knows that half of them are impossible. The other half... She's not sure if she should want them or not.
She doesn't break the silence, but she does shatter the way that the moment seems to hang between them like a fragile bit of glass on a string. She moves forward, wrapping her arms around his torso and pressing her face against his chest. Her fingers dig into his back, clinging as if he were a lifeline in a particularly nasty storm.]
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Date: 2017-03-23 02:19 am (UTC)[It comes out a sad sort of whisper as she clings on to him and he in turn curls around her. His arms fold around hers and he presses her close. There's a kiss lain to her head, then hes shuffling and spinning with her still held so he can get them inside and shut the door. Gentler this time.
When he closes his eyes the waves of fear rock him. He tastes the sea she's lost herself in. He keeps holding on to her.]
I know. I know, sister. But you ain't coming apart, I promise.
[Even if it might feel like it.
He doesn't typically respond vocal to fears. He makes to hide what he knows. But this time, with her silence, there ain't no point pretending.]
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Date: 2017-03-23 03:37 am (UTC)Should she even be here? Should she be accepting this comfort? Wouldn't a better person have worked this dilemma out by now? Her worries have become recursive now, moving in now on her hesitance and her inability to solve this problem, and thus posing new ones. That feels like a very good definition of "coming apart".]
I don't want to lose you. [She says it this time for a completely different reason than before. Something has to give in the middle of all this turmoil, and part of her is terrified that it's going to be him. For once, she wishes there was someone to tell her what to do--only for her to regret that thought a moment later when she realizes what they would probably tell her.
She feels the urge to defend him against this unspoken, imagined entity. Kurloz is good. He's been a steady shoulder for her to lean on. He's protected her. He's here right now, comforting her, even as she questions that goodness. What more does he have to do? Hasn't he proven himself by now?
Has he? Is good will something you can quantify and hoard as currency to pay off past debts? Does that change who he is as a person? That doubt curls around her thoughts like a snake, dropping poison into her mind. If past crimes are so easy to erase, then what does right or wrong matter? Why bother with being good in the first place?
She doesn't have a good answer to that. She doesn't have a good answer to anything.]
I just want to go back. To not thinking about this.
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Date: 2017-03-23 04:41 am (UTC)Always going to pity you. No matter what. You know that.
[Even if she can't choose him, after all this. He doesn't mind she comes to him now. He worries for fucking this up but not to be having her near. It's too late to worry on whether having her now might make it hurt later. He can't care about all that noise in this time immediate.
But he shakes his head when she gets talk of going back.]
I can't be doing that girl. Ain't going to be making that the haps. Box is done opened and the clown is up and out. This is just something what's got to be dealt. Just like how things was being like with me back then. You remember that? You remember all them ways I'd get to resist? I'd tell like I couldn't be taking none no more? But I'm here still. You'll be here all tomorrow too.
[Even if not here with him exactly.
He scoops her up. He lifts her easily off the ground, cradling her close, until he can set her down in that pile and they can get this going once a-motherfuckin-gain. He crawls and curls in close to her. He'll take what he can, which may also mean sitting in silence for a moment, simply having her near. He sighs when he must finally admit to greater importance in speaking.]
The past can't be up and undone. Only the future can be made at to change. But that makes things complicated for me... and for Gamzee. To you all, our futures are the past up already. The wicked shit has been done kicked. We may be easier forgiven, but we must atone yet still.
[He takes her hand and kisses the back of it. She doesn't like him bearing guilt, he knows. But he must.]
I had a talk with someone recentlike. Brother what did on some ill, took lives whilst being broke, couldn't be bearing it for his ownself when he came back to. I've been trying to tell him that he can't be bringing the dead back. They ain't going to absolve him and he's knowing that. I told him like what I've been working on out. I said that it ain't his fault for what losses be, but he does have at a responsibility. Those lives taken have to be a lesson. They have to be things meant as all so that up in futures, one can be preventing such happenstance from ever again making to be. The hurt doled is being there still, the guilt all too, but it's being one small way what to make it matter.
[He looks down at her direct.] I can't ever be all good. Can't perceive no light without dark to shine in. Can't never have light without a shadow. My mistakes and the results keep me from making them again. Even the ones I never did upon. It ain't anyone's job to forgive me nor help me, only mine to atone. But without reason to atone, I wouldn't know to do so. You've brought me so far and you ought to be proud. But it ain't on you to preform impossible and claim me clear. You can't unpaint a canvas, but you can paint over it. Do you understand that?
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Date: 2017-03-23 01:57 pm (UTC)But she listens when he speaks. She's been doing a lot of listening lately. To him, to Meulin, to her own messed up train of thoughts. There's so much to sort through and so many conflicts. But what he says feels true. What he told this other person feels right in a way that her thoughts say isn't. It sounds like something she might have told Kurloz once. Maybe it was. Or maybe he came up with it himself.
He talks of painting over a canvas as a metaphor for his past crimes, but it sits uneasy in her heart.]
...Yes, I understand. But it doesn't... Painting over the canvas doesn't make it blank again. It's still been marred. It can't ever be pristine again. Even if you paint it blank, it's still painted. It's fake.
[And by that logic, it can't ever be good. Any attempt to be so is just...pretending to be something it's not.]
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Date: 2017-03-23 02:23 pm (UTC)Fake, sister? I don't think so. Not unless you got thinking me to be fake.
[He doubts that. If he's one thing he'd like to think he's honest. She should know, from artist's perspective, what he gets at. Hopefully she'll understand.]
Painting over it to a blankness seems strange, ay. But you can paint a new picture entire up over it. You can fix the flaws. You can add life and color and beauty. The canvas can collect it all like experience done lived. Until one motherfucking day, the picture ain't what it was being no more. It ain't that what's underneath got being gone, for it backs the colors new, but altogether, new shape is making form. Life and experience and passions and memory. Sounds the least fake of things what be.
[Even if it came through terrible means.]
Carrying around a blank canvas... I'd figure that means one ain't never lived yet. Maybe the strokes is smaller. [A pause.] A lot smaller. And maybe the pictures painted got being done near perfect by watching of how another's got formed, mistakes learned through them. But we's all got a little mark, I think. Even the very best of us. They just form the prettiest pictures up with it.
[She is small in his arms. He'd love just to keep her there, never a need for leaving.]
Does that make ill yet? A world what ain't got blank canvas? Just one what's trying to paint a better picture?
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Date: 2017-03-23 02:51 pm (UTC)It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't work like that. There's good people out there in the world. And there's bad people. You don't decide to be one or the other, you just... are. Sometimes it's difficult to discern, like when we met... I wasn't sure which you were. I wasn't sure for a long time. I'm not sure that you knew, either, but the truth always comes out.
There's always a moment where you realize which it is. And it can't be anything else. You don't paint over it and make something new, not unless you've been pretending all this time, and I can't imagine...
[That all of this is fake. That he's not the troll that she's known him to be.]
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Date: 2017-03-23 03:21 pm (UTC)[His jaw is set firm. He looks sad upon her. She is either going to reject that which he teaches now, or she's going to hurt for it. He pities, truly.]
There are good people, yes. And there are bad people. But it's not simply being on one side or the motherfuckin other. It ain't even simply staying on what side's being what, Terezi. It's this big motherfucking expanse, just a direction what to be going in, and every motherfucker's having at a different map as to where the borders lays. We get lost or we turn the fuck around in moments or we get direction, but sister, we don't... we don't boil the fuck down to a motherfucking moment.
[He reaches and he cups her face, holding her steady so as to look into her eyes, even as foolish as that has always been.] You can't condense me to a choice alone. Not if I really matter to you. [He brushes the bangs from her face and lets her go.]
I was never just bad. The Grand High has all the cares what mattered to me when you met me. And I ain't just good now. I am trying all the damn time to make sure I ain't fucking it up, and I still do, a lot. We, people, ain't things what to sort and quantify if the only options is being good or bad. You can't take what a person is and say as this is how all they'll only ever be. That's falsehoods.
[He shakes his head.]
If change isn't possible, then I never really got to changing at all. But do you think I am fooling you? After all this time, all this way? Or do you think the Grand High then is merely pretending his harm? That it's just... fake, somehow? I've changed so many times, my girl. I've been and become so many different things. And I've meant it. All of it. Paint to paint, good to bad. The only thing what I've always been is Kurloz Makara. That's the axis upon which I spin and everything else is variable.
no subject
Date: 2017-03-23 04:03 pm (UTC)Everything was so much easier before all of this, before everyone she cared about started challenging what she's known as truth her whole life.
It's never failed her before. It's never failed her.]
You're different from him. You're... practically different people. Whatever happened to him... Whatever broke him and made him think that he had to murder the people he cared about, that tragedy didn't have to happen to you. You're still good. You're safe. You're never going to be like him.
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Date: 2017-03-23 04:40 pm (UTC)No... We broke the same time at we always do. I've told this story before, don't you know it? Surely I must have got telling you...
[Or maybe he just assumed. Either way.
He speaks slow, careful like he's tip-toeing.]
I was six sweeps. It wasn't a quick snap girl, my edges was already worn in by then. I was six sweeps and my only friend was gone. You remember that tale? You remember you traced my scars and told me I was different from them other highbloods? I had all this rage and pain built up inside. I was six sweeps... my bones were broken all the fuck over, my skin carved... I was drawn up by the motherfucking hair of my head to get this throat of mine slit. And I was ready for it. I wanted to die, Terezi. I wanted it to end.
Then my Da came back, there on the shore. I thought he'd come back for me. I thought he'd save me and right then I wanted to live again and I hoped with all my motherfucking heart. And he looked at me... and he left. Just like I thought Signless had because I wasn't good enough. He left and then I killed them. I tore out a seadweller's throat with my teeth. I carved up an olive. I beat a blue to death with my broken motherfucking fists. Then I took the last of my hope, my heart and what good got in it, and I ground it to dust. I screamed out with my voodoo so loud my voice got changed and it never stopped fluctuating until I wished at it away. I dragged myself back to my hive and waited up until I healed.
That was the moment for me, in this life. That was when I decided all would betray. If I ever cared it would merely be my own fault, tearing upon my wounds. No one was good. No one was safe. I had already decided who I was going to up and motherfucking be, those people whom I cared for were just blocks up in my way. If I suffered, it was only my own fault for falling short. The punishment of trusting.
[It's hard to say like this. When he's told this story before it was through bravado and laughter. It was boast and joke. The truth wasn't all that funny. The truth has him trace his own scars, remembering each near death and what it added the fuck on up to. His eyes are distant.]
That happened to me. It's what happened at to him. When at you met me, sister, I was already broken. I have tortured, I have had hiveclusters burned, I've even killed a sister what wanted me in black and I had full intention of killing my Da, and Signless as well if it came to it. My only rules were that I never motherfucking betray them what were truly loyal to me and that I preach no hypocrisy in act to writ. My word would be true. I would look past to see them what had potential, no matter their place. I would keep my word as it was given. The Grand High and I have always done just motherfucking that. You slipped me in through your loopholes, but you too have been making leap through mine, until you tore out all them rules from my hands.
[He had not liked it at the time. He wonders if now she'll understand that, as she's feeling first hand what it's like to have the floor rip out from under.]
I want to help you like you've done for me. Which is why you've got to understand that I'm not a different person as much as all you think. The differences came after, not before. Much as you laughed back then, the troll as all who told you he was the Grand Highblood was very much motherfucking being so. And his ghost is always being with me like I am with him. We're the same. We're Kurloz Makara.
no subject
Date: 2017-03-23 07:10 pm (UTC)Even back then... She remembers being horrified at what he did to Karkat and Signless. She remembers having her faith in him shaken. She hadn't been sure of who he was back then, and that seemed pretty damning, but she had wanted to give him a chance to defend himself. A chance to explain. What happened instead was less an apology and more a plea for help. And she hadn't thought twice about reaching out to lend that help, provided that he understood her limits.
She knew he was angry, but she had never considered him cruel. She never realized--or maybe she just hadn't wanted to see it. He had been kind to her when she needed it. He had been a friend to her, done all that she asked of him to keep the peace. He had followed every rule, every stipulation... but only after she met him. What was that supposed to mean, then? Did it even matter that there was a before? And what did that say about after? If someone could move so easily between good and bad... Did it make a difference at all what anyone was?
She draws her hands back from him, if only to press them over her ears. She curls in on herself, as if trying to shut out the world. Her eyes close tight, squeezing tears out of the corners.]
no subject
Date: 2017-03-23 08:24 pm (UTC)It kills him. He starts reaching out bring her in, to be a harder shell, then stops, hesitating before proper touch. He's been trying to get her to understand who he is for as long as he's known her, even if the reasons for that have changed again and again. Now she knows. Now she sees at last when it's already done, she pities a monster.
And the monster pities back. He finally wraps around again, so long as she'll allow. As long she lets him take her hands from her ears. He speaks in hush.]
I'm sorry. I know this ain't what you wanted. But don't... don't blame yourself for what I am, aight? Was never your responsibility. And you've gone about it, haven't you? You thought I was better for all what reasons you did. You didn't know. It ain't your fault.
[If he can, he'll unwind her. He'll try to wipe those tracks of teal away.
If not, he'll still go on, however much it breaks his heart.]
It ain't too late either. If thought in pan is being to change on me, I get it, and I won't stop you from going. You can claim as it was necessary being near me... for survival, if it soothes a conscience. Just so long as it's being because you do understand now. The world is different than what we make it on the fuck out to be. We do it to protect ourselves, but eventually we got to making truths to be known. Even when it hurts. Like now.
[And it does, terribly.]
Good and bad are complicated. People and what choices get being made are too. There isn't being easy answer at to this all, no matter how much we got wish for there to be.
... And bad or no, with or without, I pity you. You'll always be a hero good what's to me. So please, don't take this too hard upon you.
no subject
Date: 2017-03-23 09:40 pm (UTC)Stop it. [Her voice comes quietly, a small protest but a protest none the less.] Stop...trying to act like it's not my fault, too. Like I wasn't the one fooling myself. You're not responsible for the things I told myself.
[He's always been like that. Or well... maybe not always. She has to actually think on it now. She's not sure where it started, but she knows this habit of blaming himself. Of assuming that he's the worst that there could possibly be. Is there any wonder that she felt it necessary to deny that assumption so strongly?]
You're not... You can't tell me that there's no easy answer and then try to blame yourself for everything. What are you even trying to do? Do you want me to hate you? I just... don't understand. You're not... You're not bad, Kurloz. You're not. Nothing that you say is going to convince me of that.
[They've been through too much for too long. He's been too kind to her, even now, for her to think that.]
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Date: 2017-03-23 11:06 pm (UTC)[The protest comes immediate. It would be more accurate to say she's better than he is.]
You take it all on your ownself, you know. Don't think I ain't up and noticed. Ain't your moirail and it took me all fucking long for this but I do get about some things. At least I got a list of sins significant what make like I should take responsible.
But it ain't about that either, Terezi, I don't want you to leave. Fuck, I ain't ever want you to leave, I pity you. It's just that I pity you more than all that noise. If this ain't being something what all you can handle then I want like for you to be happy all the same. If I make it easy for you what to be doing what makes you happiest then what's so wrong of it?
[But there's some small spark of hope in it now. He allows himself closer. He allows himself not to doubt as fully.]
What I'm trying to do is make it so that whether you can choose me or not, you'll be able to get on out in this world of ours you can understand what's happening. I want you to see it ain't one thing or the other and I want you to be able to get talking at to people and not be bound by these things what got built up. I want... [He looks down, away from her.] you to be knowing who all it is I am... and if you pity me it's because you pity me, not just who you're maybe thinking me to be.
[He sighs.] You say I ain't bad and I can't get to tell if you understand my preach or not. Maybe I ain't bad now, but I was. Some motherfuckers ain't good. But they could be, maybe, if all got really lucky and tried real fucking hard... the way you and I did. Nothing is inherent. Not like that anyway. Does any of this got any motherfucking means for reaching you?
no subject
Date: 2017-03-24 12:40 am (UTC)He doesn't want her to leave, but he wants her to be happy. She almost laughs. Almost, but doesn't. How does he expect her to be happy without him? She needs him. As much as she needs Meulin or anyone else that she cares about. And in a way, even more important than that... He needs her. If what he says is true, if he's this way because of her, what would her leaving do to him? Would he still be the gentle Kurloz that she knows? Would he change yet again?
He bows his head, looking away from her. I want you to be knowing who all it is I am. Is that what he thinks is going on here? That she pities...some image that she's made up of him?]
Kurloz... I get what you're trying to say, but you don't realize... It's not... The troll I pity isn't someone that I only think exists. The troll I pity saved my life. The troll I pity comforted me when I felt broken down. The troll I pity wrote me poetry and held me close when we danced. The troll I pity...changed everything for me. Himself, and Panem. Maybe that other stuff is harder to swallow, but... That reason is still there.
[Even if she has to take everything that he says as truth... That Kurloz still exists. He can't say that he doesn't. There's just... other parts to him that came before. Parts that she tried not to think about, but parts that he wants her to...for whatever reason.
It's not easy. She's unsettled, and she's struggling with it. But at the very least, she feels little more sure about him. No one as considerate as he's being could possibly be bad. No one who has been as kind and gentle with her as he has deserves to be punished or abandoned.]
no subject
Date: 2017-03-24 01:26 am (UTC)He can remember instances of each. Even times he's only tried. He remembers dancing with her, growing closer with each time up between. He can remember how it got easier and easier to think well of her, even as he struggled to know what to say to ease her broken heart. He can recall how gradual but inevitable she transformed into a miracle before his very eyes until the poetry simply came on out. And of course, of course, he remembers fighting for her and futures.
But most importantly, it feels like she finally understands. She understands and she still wants him.]
You still wish to stay?
[The hope fills his voice and swells his heart. It lights his face and a smile slowly starts growing on back. It bubbles out of him with a laugh of relief. He leans in to kiss her, right upon her cheek. His hands find hers.]
You don't have to fear, by the by. Can feel you worrying on my changing. I've been... getting better up by that. Wouldn't be like to say nothing could break me, any troll can be motherfucking broken, but I can't think of anything what could natural making happenstance. And nothing abnormal can be making about me either anymore. I got a long life and short temper but... I think I might be okay, maybe.
[Especially if he's got her too. That'll make it all the easier.]
And the rest of this all, [He says, stroking her hair back.] what's getting to stir in your pan. It'll settle. Trust me, that. You'll find out new ways to fathoming the world. Better ones.
[He hesitates. He looks Terezi over and tries to sense her out too.] I haven't talked to Gamzee. Not yet. I couldn't, not until I was being sure with you. And even then I wanted savoring what time I had with you. Was thinking as I'd start with a letter all anyways now. Just to be seeing if he even wants an ancestor, let alone this motherfucker. But I can get about it sooner than later, should you wish. If you'd like being near and all.
no subject
Date: 2017-03-24 01:51 am (UTC)It's difficult to worry about other things when he's so happy. Difficult... but not impossible, given the shift in topic that he eventually brings.
He asks if she'd like to be nearby when he talks to Gamzee... and just the thought has her stiffen a bit. There's that old flair of fear--but it's more unsure. More out of habit than anything logical. Her thoughts on Gamzee aren't just going to roll over so easily, even if she's trying to understand his logic behind it all. She tries to keep her response as rational as she knows how to be.]
I don't... want him around me. I don't want to talk to him. But if you're going to write to him... I'd like to read it.
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Date: 2017-03-24 02:19 am (UTC)He smiles again and puts another kiss upon her head.]
No intention of that. Only got meaning during this time when you're in the meadous. You ain't got to have nothing to do with him.
But uh... [He looks a little hesitant.] Truth is I may have got to writing it recent. Not sent or none but. It's mere been done for. And I... I ain't sure it will make you no sort happy. Got real carried away you see. I wasn't looking to be making accusation or changing him yet until I was certain, I just... I just wanted him to hear me. He's got on so avoidant, so fearful to be losing you... I guess I didn't want to scare him off more but I said so much, too much, and that might scare him still and I-
[He stops, rising up. He leaves her just a moment to find where he stashed that thing. He walks back with it slow, scanning it over and feeling dread. Still, he holds it out to her, bracing. ] I want to be a good ancestor. I just don't know what the fuck that really up and means.
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Date: 2017-03-24 03:06 am (UTC)That feeling only increases as he admits that he already wrote the letter that she's asking to read. He might notice the way her lips press together a little tighter, but she tries not to think ill of him for it. She can't blame him. He's been so hopeful of this, despite her trepidation; and at least he told her the truth of it. It's not as if he was trying to hide.
He babbles like he thinks that she's going to be angry, already making excuses for why she might not like what she reads.] Kurloz, please... Just let me read it. [She holds out her hand, trying to be gentle with her words. She takes the letter when he offers it, bracing herself as she starts to read.
He's right, of course. She doesn't like any of it. There's too much here to twist, too much left open for someone to use. It's not the kind of letter you would write to someone you were wary of. It's half apology, half plea for reconciliation. There are a lot of bitter thoughts that come to mind, especially with the talk of how proud he is getting thrown around. She swallows them down with all the others.
Once finished, she folds the letter up again. The urge to rip it up right there is strong, but she hands it back. Her grip on the paper is tight, turning her knuckles a lighter grey. Her jaw is tight, too, and it takes her a moment to loosen it enough to speak.]
Laying it on a little thick. I guess you didn't think to consider some restraint? Maybe invite him to at least talk once or twice before making proclamations of "protecting him until your dying breath"? [Her tone veers dry, and she wrinkles her nose a little in annoyance. She's not trying to be an ass, but it's difficult to rein in her feelings.]
Best case scenario, you're going to overwhelm him. [Worst case, he's basically handing Gamzee everything he needs on a silver platter.]
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Date: 2017-03-24 03:42 am (UTC)You're right. It's stupid. This is stupid.
[He crumples it immediately, shrinking it down and turning it to trash, even when he doesn't have the heart to tear up what was a spilling of said heart. He paces a little, crumpled paper still in hand.]
I just wrote what up and came to me. He ain't need this. He doesn't fucking need me. I ain't a decent troll, barely a decent person. I can't be an ancestor to nobody. I should be... I should just... Maybe an invitation to congregation? No, no, then he'll presume it like it was or like I did of my ancestor. But if I don't get talk of what's being the haps, he'll take the fuck off.
[He keeps going, rambling to himself now, a hand through his hair occasionally.]
I just wanted to be what I would've... wanted to hear... back then... Which is all the motherfucking more pathetic. Maybe if I had something else what to offer, but I don't! Ancestors are supposed to have great legacies what to pass along and I've nothing. [He walks to a wall, slumps against it, and groans loudly into his hands.] He's probably not even going to motherfuckin like me let alone want to talk and here I am telling you like it ain't burden open you to have to pretend to give a damn!
[He straightens out and tosses the note aside.]
... I'm sorry. It's just, I ain't actually knowing what all I'm doing yet. I'll figure out what to be doing. I can let you know then.
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Date: 2017-03-24 04:12 am (UTC)Kurloz... You're already a far better ancestor than he deserves. [He probably isn't going to like hearing that, but at least she's not saying it to be cruel to Gamzee. It's just the truth as she feels it. She tries to focus on him, more than anything else.] You're barely more than a wriggler yourself, and you've done so many things. Everything you did in Panem? That's not Nothing. Everything you've done here? That's not Nothing, either. Any troll should be glad to have someone like you to look up to. You shouldn't have to do shit to earn their favor.
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Date: 2017-03-24 05:08 am (UTC)As for the rest, he's unsure. He's mostly felt like he's fumbled up everything, except for where at she called him her hero.]
Maybe. But it ain't just that. [He starts toward her, moving back into that pile, if not so close as he was.] I remember the way you'd speak of the Neophyte, even when you felt hurt. Aletheia too. Only a fool could be missing what she means to you both. And then all them other motherfuckers we've met knowing of ancestors, idolizing... But opposing is my own memory, my own ancestor. I kept my distance cause even then I got presumption like there ain't wouldn't be time for me and then it was me what got running out of time. And when the kid showed the fuck up in Panem I got being distant again.
[He sighs.] No one in the world is going at to get these things what is being between us, me and him. There ain't know other what's got experience so alike. Same form, same pan, more or motherfucking less. And you and me and him, we ain't got lusii so... this is all we got. Doesn't it ever make like... [He turns over to her, just a little.] like you ought to connect? Don't you ever want to pry out story and all the fuck else from 'em just to be knowing it ain't you alone? They're your literal goddamn blood, doesn't that just wipe the fuckin pan entire?
[He's doing it again. Babbling. And worse babbling to his matesprit. He frowns.] ...We ain't got to talk about this. We've been so caught up in strife I ain't even gotten to asking you nothing. I think right now it might just be me what's being overwhelmed. You talk, aight? I'll get my listen on quiet.
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Date: 2017-03-24 05:44 am (UTC)He promises her his quiet, but she leans a little closer, kissing him just to make sure that she really has it. It's a brief kiss, short and sweet and sorely needed, she thinks.]
...What do you want me to talk about? I'm not sure that I have anything to say... Except that I think you're being too hard on yourself. Our ancestors never did anything to earn our favor directly. We learned about them through textbooks or journals or another people. It was an idea already built up in our minds. I don't...actually know that much about mine, outside of that. I barely got to talk to her. [Not for lack of trying, of course. The memory still hurts, though, so she moves on. She tries to make it sound a little more teasing, but the humor probably falls a little flat as she asks:]
Do you want me to write some stories about you? Leave them lying in undisclosed locations for...whatever trolls you might want to impress in the future? [She's not going to name Gamzee specifically, but she'll leave it open for Kurloz to assume.]
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Date: 2017-03-24 06:48 am (UTC)He definitely is making sure not to say that that's being the kind of ancestor her doesn't want to be. He's had his real and self-imposed isolations. He's seen her sadness. He doesn't want to cause something like that. But again, that requires Gamzee caring first.
He thinks to explain the Neophyte again, to elaborate that it's not to do with Terezi that things was being as they is. But he doesn't really get the Neophyte too well either and it's far easier to reach for her hand, squeeze, and let the sorrowful thoughts settle.
His quiet first breaks with a laugh. It spills out and makes his smile brighten. It's a flat humor but it's good all for him anyways.]
That would most mother fuckin certainly be impressive and not any manner of desperation move, that. Talk so much of I all the time already. [He winds his fingers with hers, in so much as that's being possible.] And you'd have all the best sort. Save a few Beforan. I'd read your writ. You should tell about my matesprit. She's a miracle, don't you know. She can do anything. That's where the real wonder's being to lay.
[He kisses the back of her hand, hopping briefly back into solemnity as he says:] Perhaps I should tell you of the other shade of your ancestor some time, back in her younger days Beforan. If you'd like that. I don't know what she'd say to being spoken of... [But he doesn't think she'll ever be here to say no. His friends as he knew them were very, very dead.] Or you could make writ to the Neophyte yourself. She's in that place, Midnight. Just warn she can be... terse. And unfriendly-like, as us ancestors is seeming to be. But maybe you'd be getting through.
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Date: 2017-03-24 08:40 pm (UTC)At least, not until he mentions her ancestor being in one of the other realms. She looks startled. Half a moment of stunned silence, and then a graceless "What" blurting past her lips. Her heart taps out a beat just a little quicker than normal. She should really keep her focus on Kurloz, but she can't help but ask now that he's brought up the possibility.]
She's in one of the other worlds? Is she... Does she remember? What happened in Panem? [She tries not to appear too hopeful, but her voice betrays her desperation.]
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