capeandcowllogs | (no subject)

(no subject)

WHO: TORTURE VICTIMS, and OPEN to visitors and idk anyone else who might have a reason to be around
WHERE: the import clinic
WHEN: TAG IN AND SET YOUR OWN \o/
WARNINGS: Possibly
SUMMARY: Communal visitation log for torture victims.
FORMAT: Words

[ The clinic’s full today due to the recent influx, and probably swarming with activity from all quarters. The victims are spread out - or in some cases close together - so try to can the outbursts during quiet hours. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tavros arrives...probably mid-day. Getting to The City from swampland, Louisiana is a bit of a trip, even if the person taking you is flash-stepping. He possibly smells a little boggy anyway, but

When he sees her, he doesn't know whether he should smile in relief, sob with guilt, or...punch something. The wanting to punch something was pretty novel, but first he really needed to be closer to Carrie, who he was now afraid to touch.

"Oh god, I am fired from partnering. I will, uh, bring you all of their heads, and then I will be less fired."

She can see a little better by mid-day, enough that glancing over at the sound of the door opening is actually rewarded with a vague, blurry shape. A vague, blurry shape with really colorful, wide horns. She smiles, because unless that's some radical new kind of clown, Tavros made it back from the swamps.

"Hey." She sits herself up, eyes not quite focused. "S'okay. You're already less fired."

"No, just...stay there, you don't have to move for fired people, and me being even a little less fired makes no appreciable difference in the overall firedness, which is vast, like a behemoth with a glandular disorder. What happened?"

He is so fired that he's going to sit on the floor by the bed. WORST PARTNER EVER OH GOD.

The smile droops with a sigh, because man, she has no patience for that kind of thing right now. She's not currently prepared to tolerate any kind of behemoths with any kind of disorders, sorry Tavros.

"Stuff it, Tav," she says, and pats the bed next to her. "'N c'mere."

"Okay."

Up he comes. Oh man she looks bad. If she looks this bad now... Okay. Urge to Hit Something has returned, with friends Stop on Face and Scream a Lot.

"Wow. I legitimately want to make someone pay for this. With their teeth. And vertebrae."

This is kind of a big deal, even if it doesn't sound like it, but Carrie is wounded and not a troll, so she is not expected to do anything other than sit there and regale him with tales of horror and glory.

"Looks worse'n it is," she mumbles, not entirely sure if it's true or not, on account of not actually being able to see anything just now, but pretty sure it's the right thing to say. And, besides. She's had worse.

She shifts, leaning against him a little gratefully.

"I figure out who it was, though, we can do it together."

"What a load of bull." It would be a carefree snort were it not heavily tinged with terrible worry.

"People are talking about Vulcanus and shape-shifting aliens."

"Yeah. Been listening." There's not much else to do in here.

Which reminds her, actually, that Tavros could well be one of them. Anyone could, really. If people are getting tortured over this, it's obviously a bigger deal than she thought. She doesn't move much or go far, but pulls away ever so slightly.

"Any thoughts?"

He notices that, looks over, and gives a different sort of frown before reaching out and papping her gently on the cheek.

"Carrie, I am definitely, an alien, but not a skrull." Pap pap.

"Tactically, I am not a good person to replace or kidnap because I am already outside of the society, and thus not trusted, and a kid, and thus have limited autonomy, and am part of a close group of allies that all meddle with each other and kill each other with way less compunction than humans do, thus the likelihood of me being discovered and culled is far higher than, just about, anyone else." It's just logic!

"If I were an invading alien, which is, actually, what I trained all my life to be, probably what I would do is find people with various kinds of power, who nonetheless isolate themselves and whose behavior people make excuse for rather than investigate. Those people I would observe and replace. I would use those agents to tap into the local communication network to identify other weak points, and communicate those points back to the fleet so that when the invasion struck it could be as fast and efficient as possible. Uh. Not that I would be making those decisions, I was going to be a cavalreaper, so, I guess, a shock troop on the ground. But those are the general tactics."

Hi. This is who you're friends with, Carrie. Isn't that great?

...Okay, well, laying out a whole plan like that would be just. Ridiculously suspicious, if he were a skrull. It'd be convincing if she were in any kind of mood at all to be trusting. As it is she just offers a tiny little smile at his proof, and adds a half a shrug. If she's going to be watching everyone, likely target or not, then it hardly matters whether or not she trusts him.

She settles back again against her pillow. Relaxed, but not quite as touchy as she'd been a second ago. "You guys gotta have some pretty good stories. I mean, not personal ones, but... handed down, or something." Despite not having parents. Actually, she's not totally sure where these stories would have come from, but every culture has to have them somehow, right?

Okay, well, he's just going to sit here and...try to convince his heart not to feel cracked.

It wasn't personal, he knew that. He smiles and scoots away a little. See? Everything's fine.

"Well. Vriska's back, and she was, uh, totally obsessed with her ancestor, so, uh, she's got the stories. Terezi knows some, too. I just know what we were taught which, uh...it's not that I think that we were being lied to, but I sort of...kind of think that most of troll culture was terrible, now that there is any sort of option to think that."

Vriska. She remembers the name. And, because this is such a preferred topic to feeling like shit for pushing away her friend (who might not be her friend), she focuses in on it with a passion.

"So, you know anything about your ancestor?" she volunteers, a little hopefully. Anything to keep them peaceably talking, and not having to think about much.

"No," he says with a head shake. Sorry, Carrie, no dice.

"Did they say how you can tell if a skrull is a skrull?"

Damn. She exhales slowly, letting herself back down again. A skrull would want to know if they'd worked out any definitive way of telling them apart. But so would Tavros. She really needs a successful distraction.

"Don't remember anything. Sorry."

He sighs.

Fine.

"So instead of talking Gamzee into coming back, I asked to make out with him instead."

Here. Let's talk about how dumb your moirail is, Carrie, that's distracting?

Oh. Uh. She has to blink at that, even if it hardly does any good. This suddenly sounds like territory she has absolutely no advice for.

"Oh." ...Add more words, it needs more than that. "Uh. How'd it go?"

"Not too great, basically. I think that I am probably doomed. I never figure out that people like me, I never know what to do when they tell me that they do, and once I figure out that I like someone back, they don't like me like that anymore."

Yep. It's a bad case of teenage romance drama.

"And then all of this is going on. So right now sucks. I think that is a fact that should be put on the table for everyone to observe and, probably, agree with. Um. So, since you're here in the hospital and can't escape, how's your romantic life?"

..........Tavros don't tease the invalid. It's mean.

Yeah, no, she's really bad at this. She wasn't too interested back in school, when everyone around her was, and now that she's doing far less kid-stuff she's even less into it. She makes a face down at the bedsheet in answer to his question, and does a quick little uncomfortable squirm.

"It's, uh..." Weird and unnerving, thanks to Kanaya? Does that even count as a romantic life? To a troll it does, she figures. "...Non-existent, as usual." That seems like a safer answer.

"Partner, we are good at heroing, but we are really bad at everything else. But don't worry, you are great and eventually someone will prove that they are worthy of being in a quadrant with you."

Maybe a little leaning again? Just a little?

"I mean, who else can get all smashed up and still be totally chill? Your super power is being the coolest kid around!"

If this is a skrull, it's a great actor. Ugh, but she doesn't even want to wonder. If it's a skrull, she'll take her comfort from it, instead. She leans back, frowning.

"Yeah, thanks. Figure I don't really want any of that, though." The frown is definitely turning pout-wards. "Especially not somewhat what hates me."

[There may be just the smallest noise when Carrie returns the lean - he couldn't even wonder if she was a skrull yet, he needed his moirail.]

"Huh? Is someone making, uh, black advances on you?"

That meant it would be a troll, but wh-

Oh. Oh man, she was going to say it's Kanaya.

Uh. I guess, a little.

[ to be honest she can't tell what the crap Kanaya is ever up to, but that nice little talk with Terezi had... shed some light onto it. She scrubs her face with her hands, a little miserably. ]

Um. I am not going to hug you, but I want to, I guess, register, that if it wouldn't be all weird, I would do so.

[He will very carefully rest his head against her shoulder for a moment, though.]

Should I get an auspistice? Someone to, basically, be a go-between?

[ Oh, hell with that. She shrugs off that leaned head, but only to twist sideways and wrap both arms around him. A little awkward while sitting, so that also comes with an insistent pull, to drag him down onto the propped-up pillowed portion of the hospital bed. ]

No. [ Calmly, like she hadn't moved at all. ] Last thing I want's more people involved.

[He makes a small noise going over, and ends up somewhere inbetween sitting and laying down, and there's the horns to consider. For a second it all feels impossibly awkward but then he shifts to prop himself up half over her on one arm and rests his forehead against her temple and everything just fits.

[This hug has been upgraded to a cuddle. Tavros closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and finally relaxes.]

Mmm. Okay. I'll talk to Terezi, though. See how she thinks.

How're Jason and Jessica? There was, I remember, a tentacle thing.