capeandcowllogs | (no subject)

WHO: The blunder twins
WHERE: The garage at their house
WHEN: At some point after this and also this
WARNINGS: tbd
WHAT: The dam has to break sometime. Probably.
HOW: Molasses

Procrastinating, she's found, hasn't made it any easier to prepare herself. There's no easy words, or rehearsed speeches; no galvanized ambition, or steady heart. She's not ready, but she might not ever be ready. Her fears and hesitations, still as strong as ever, are only countered by more of the same. If he doesn't know, then he can't be hurt by it—but if she doesn't speak, then he will be hurt by that. It's not now-or-never, she thinks, but there's no way of knowing when that now-or-never moment will arrive. There's never any warning, about this kind of thing. So when she slips into the garage—Rua's converted workshop—it's without ceremony or fanfare: she opens the door from the house, lets it close behind her, and lingers there, out of the way. Behind her back, her hands clasp tight together, to keep her from the more obvious postures of defensiveness, and from going right back for the doorknob.

She owes him this much.

She can do this.

"Hey," she calls out, loud enough to be heard over distraction. But even with just one word, and just that intention, she can feel her heart begin to race for nerves—and her mind already racing alongside it, searching for invented topics to follow with rather than say anything important. Maybe they need to go pick out some decorations for the house. They need to stock up on groceries. He needs to fix the heater. If she orders take-out, would he prefer that Thai place, or the sandwich place with the goofy names? Will he drive her home after she willingly undergoes a dozen root canals in order to avoid this not-yet conversation? Anything would be better.

Her hesitance is written in her slouched shoulders and averted gaze. She can't do this. Not now. What was she thinking?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

His thought processes aren't terribly different from hers - he's actually stood up in his seat and about to leave his workshop, about as ready for this as he thinks he's gonna be. Right when he's about to head for the door, it opens as if it had second guessed him exactly who he was thinking about walks in.

"...hhhey," he says. He gulps and immediately realizes that 'about as ready for this as he thinks he's gonna be' might not actually be very ready at all. But he doesn't think about bailing. He's done that too many times already. He's known something was up basically since he got ported in, and how freaking long ago was that? He can't get cold feet again. He thinks back to Karkat's words from earlier, the conversation they had and his, in retrospect, kind of stupid idea to fight Karkat to get his adrenaline pumping and get him ready for this.

His hand shifts on the bag of ice he has over his left eye. It was not one of his better ideas, he could now admit.

So, rather than make some excuse to leave or declare himself to be in the middle of something important and need privacy, he tentatively asks, "Wwwhat's up?" Figuring there's no harm in her talking about whatever brought her down here in the first place. He'll get to the important stuff after that.

Her heart lacks conviction. Can and can't spin through her heart with equal intensity, fear of both conclusions chasing one another at matched, quickening pace. Even for as tight as she holds them together, her hands tremble.

Her gaze flicks up after a hesitation. The lull between his answer and now is growing wide, pressing and surpassing the boundary for something mundane, and what shields she might hide behind are diminishing and growing weaker.

Even so, Rua's appearance is a distraction, and in her anxiety her focus latches onto it, her self-chained hands falling free to her sides. So easily preoccupied by the scene, when the words come tumbling out—

"What happened to your eye?"

—She does not comprehend the irony.

"Karkat punched it."

The answer comes quickly and is probably obvious enough in retrospect, but the 'why' takes a few more seconds. Rua glances off into the distance. He grimaces slightly, but he doesn't really have it in him to be angry about Karkat socking him. He waits just long enough to think of a more acceptable version of the truth.

"I tried to steal his fries."

Close enough. He stares across the short distance at her for a second. For a second, he actually does get the irony of the question she missed and it gives him a vague notion of an idea that he rolls with all too quickly.

"What. Happened to yours?"

So much for waiting.

So much for artful deflections.

Startled, her expression pulls into a grimace, a pinching at the visible corner of her good eye and a smile like a white picket fence, closed off and locked stiff in the most pleasant way possible.

"I got jumped," she says, nowhere near as convincing as she would like to sound. Anxiety feels like a live beast in her stomach, trying to claw its way out, and while she's not even sure who it is she's trying to protect by keeping the details out of sight, speaking at all is so much easier behind that instinctive defensive.

"Two years ago, now, but the guy who did it is long gone."

'Got jumped'. Okay, given enough guesses, he probably could've figured that out. The answer is so innocuous, he's not sure what to think of it or what he was expecting in the first place. He considers pressing for details, but that seems pointless at best. It happened, and just forcing her to relive it so he can know won't accomplish what he's trying to do here. For a few seconds, he's afraid he's hit a dead end until something occurs to him. It wasn't what caused the injury to her eye that had bugged him so much.

"...two years ago," he repeated. "So, um." He scratched his head. "Why didn't you get it healed? Wasn't there somebody in the City with a power that could've done that?"

The smile flickers, and falls off; Ruka has to force her arms to remain where they are, rather than cross in front of her. Maybe she shouldn't let him know about Gamzee, and his connection to Eridan and Karkat — but, won't there come a time when one of them will blurt it out in shameless disregard for the barriers she's made? What then?

Is now the time to make it clear? Or...

Even when she wants to be open, it feels like all the latches are rusted shut.

"There were." The diversion is easier to answer, she finds, nodding once with her words. "A few people offered to help me... and even more than that offered to go after the guy who did it. I turned them all down. All of them.

Angry, pitying voices on the Network... Remus's worried face, drawn and thin from so much weariness. The strange sense of cold, that's never quite gone away... She may have been focused on the body language of her arms, but Ruka's attention was incomplete; she doesn't notice the moment she begins pacing, but when she does, she stops.

"Because... I thought if I accepted it... once my face was back to normal, everyone could pretend it never happened. It didn't feel like the right answer."