hypertoxic | CONSIGNMENT; inbox

[ And maybe 50, 52 hours from now, Vriska will be high above Macha, crying her heart out and mourning deaths she knows are inevitable, deaths she's deeply terrified she will have to personally inflict. But she doesn't know that yet. For now, she'll savor the victory. Because she does know it can't last, and what's wrong with a little basking when you've earned it?

Her grin is brood and toothy. ]

Fuck off, jackass. I take it back, I don't owe you shit! Not with that attitude.

[ Of course she doesn't mean it. She lifts her hands as if to smack his away from her shoulders, but the motions end up having no strength at all, and she actually circles her fingers around one of his wrists, her smile as gentle as her grip, before releasing him. ]

Aren't you going to shower me with rewards and gifts? I've clearly earned them!

[ She's come very far. Further than she ever thought herself capable. But that doesn't mean she can't still be a little shit when she wants. ]

[ He laughs again, for no other reason than it feels good to do so, and bends to pick up the chocolate. Letting go of her shoulders is almost unpleasant; it's as if he feels like this single apex of feeling is definitive and will never return.

He take the butterfly-shaped chocolate and gives it to her, its plastic cover glinting in the sun. ]

Enjoy it. Share it with Hibari, if you want. It's yours, now.

[ It isn't as if he'll get through all of it on his own. ]

[ She beams at the chocolate, all fangs and bright humor, noting the stupid choice of wings. ]

Don't think I don't notice the wings, you jackass! [ But when she looks up at him, her smile softens just a little, and she shakes her head. ]

Sure, why not. I can share it with my new rovermates, too. [ The corners of her mouth quirk. ] You know. In that rover I totally have now.

[ Of course wings. He wasn't about to give her a regular egg. ]

I know. Who are you rooming with? I'll want to wish them good luck.

[ Unwilling to break contact, he reaches over, toying with a strand of her hair. This is comfortable. This is good. He'd like to keep this feeling locked away where no one else can touch it. ]

Edited (tmw u accidentally a word) 2015-03-17 07:25 (UTC)

[ Now she grins, a little mischievous but still delighted. She lets him toy with her hair and hugs his gift to her chest. ]

Jean and Mineva. I guess the instructors wanted a rover full of Blues for some reason. Jean is fine, he and I can bitch at each other to our blood pushers' content. But Mineva? Noh-Varr, have you met her? She's nice. [ The way she says it has such a wealth of feeling beneath it. Not derisive - well, not exactly. There's exasperation, but a note of respect, too. ]

I haven't met her. Isn't she a friend of Banagher's?

[ He can imagine her in his mind's eye, a vague image formed out of cross-camp sightings and a single network conversation. Just from Vriska's description he assumes her to be the willowy, quiet type, gentle, but noble of spirit. He knows what's Vriska's 'nice' means. The kind of people you'd like to dislike but can't bring yourself to. ]

Jean knows the kind of trouble you are. Don't torment her too much.

Is she? [ That's news to Vriska, and both her brows lift. ] Huh. I can see it. She seems okay, though. She's got steel!

[ That Noh-Varr should be so dead on about what Vriska means by "nice," should be a little embarrassing, honestly, but she'd actually just be proud if she knew. But there's at least a glimmer of respect in her when she says "steel," which means Mineva is probably (mostly) safe. ]

Hey, fuck you! I never torment anybody. I am the single nicest person I know. [ She flaps an airy hand, which a moment later she puts to work opening the box. ]

By the way, I am making you have some of this with me, I don't care how much chocolate you've already gone through.

[ Steel. It's a funny comparison to make, but the adjective completes the image nicely, and gives the Mineva in his mind a straighter, firmer posture and a determined glint. Maybe he'll get to know her for real, sometime.

At that, he makes a face. ]

Please don't. I've had enough.

[ If it makes her happy, though, he'll pull through. A little more chocolate never killed anyone. He settles down next to her, watching her open the box. ]

[ Yoink. Vriska tugs on his arm so she can maneuver him just so, and then make herself perfectly comfortable against him. It's as imperious and bossy as anything she ever does, but fond, too. His comment just gets her to lift her brows at him. ]

Oh, I see how it is. I'm just getting your leftovers! What a shitty gift. You've pretty much just guaranteed your own fate of chocolatey death.

[ It says a lot that when she was young, and still alive, she genuinely would have been insulted. But now she's just teasing. She's got the egg out by now and is considering it, turning it this way and that. ]

What do you even do with one of these things? Just bite right into it? [ A beat, and: ] Oh man, it would be so awesome if there was something inside.

[ Almost immediately, an arm goes around her shoulders, tugging her closer unabashedly. He won't refuse her, not at a time like this. She deserves to feel his pride. ]

You can break pieces of it off first, or just bite. There might be something inside, I don't know.

[ The box is unlabeled, aside from announcing the confection is made from dark, milk and white chocolate. Noh-Varr doesn't even know if it's hollow or solid. ]

[ She tucks herself against him unselfconsciously, seeming to find the fit natural. If the corners of her mouth twitch, well, maybe that's just your imagination. ]

It's an egg, numbnook, how do you break pieces off of it. [ After a moment's more thought, she shrugs beneath his arm and bites into it. Man, she's going to have chocolate all up in her fangs. Turns out the egg is hollow, so Vriska breaks it open, snaps off a clean piece, and hands it up to Noh with a sneaky little smile. At least it's a small piece. ]

I don't know, how do you usually crack an egg? [ Do trolls even eat eggs? They seemed to be strict carnivores, perhaps also insectivores.

He wrinkles his nose at the offered piece, but, true to Serket style, she isn't that generous, so he can breathe easy. It's milk chocolate, pleasant enough, almost excessively sugary in that way processed Earth treats often are. Vriska is a cool stripe against his side. ]

I'm glad, you know. It took me a lot longer to figure things out.

[ An a considerably larger number of interventions. ]

Shrug. [ ... and another, actual shrug. There are probably some trolls who eat cluckbeast eggs, but Vriska subsisted almost entirely off a diet of junk food and grubloaf.

She drops the pieces of egg that remain back into the box for safekeeping, and continues to hug that against her chest as she leans into him and looks out into some middle distance. She's uncharacteristically quiet, and even more uncharacteristically gentle, when she responds after a few thoughtful moments. ]

You were a lot of it. Gaining and losing Simon, Sollux showing up... [ The blue team exercise back on Ajna. She doesn't name that one. ] At some point I had to actually start backing up my promises, you know?

[ She tilts her head back to look up at him with a faint, sweet smile that almost looks out of place on her face. ]

How long did it take you?

[ Did she actually just say 'shrug' out loud?

No, scratch that, she definitely just said 'shrug' out loud.

Oh well.

He continues to pet the edges of her hair as she talks, considering her words. At the beginning of all this, he hadn't thought of it in terms of 'building towards' anything, but eventually somewhere along the line he began to asses her capacities in terms of 'progress', gained or lost. ]

About three years, give or take? We were only a handful of realities away from home when we crashed on Earth--those who didn't die in the epiphany fire died on the dissection table. I was able to escape, but I had nowhere to go--just my ship. [ He draws one knee up, drumming the fingers of one hand against it pensively. The memories don't draw up pain like they used to, healed-over psychological scars. ] I was so angry, Vriska. Lost in my own pain. I spent most of that first year in prison, being tortured. Second year, I got out, but I hadn't really learned anything, and ended up making poor choices because I couldn't think for myself.

[ She doesn't need the details, though he suspects she'll ask for them. Those memories still hurt. ]

Third year, I stopped caring, went into space and tried to live under the radar. [ His tone is softly deprecating, as they both know he doesn't really do 'under the radar'. It wasn't all that healthy. He never did well in isolation. ] Eventually, I made friends. Actually lived, you know? I guess that was the healing I needed. That's when the CDC found me.

[ At no other point in his story would he have accepted the CDC's offer. He needed to be there, at that time, knowing what he did about himself and his options in life. Maybe they would have gotten him fresh-faced out of the Avengers, running from the accuser corps on Hala--but would he have been as effective? Doubtful. Just scared. ]

[ Vriska makes little adjustments to her body, pressing her head back against his shoulder just a bit more and shifting in increments tiny enough to make her feel just a little more comfortable tucked up against him. Other than that, she provides no interruptions to his story. She knew, at least, that he'd had Issues of some kind of with Earth; but hearing the whole story, or at least the bald, honest core of it, is another matter. It strikes her, as it's struck him in the past, just how alike their histories have been. Steeped in cultures that prize strength and races that see themselves as conquerers, species that as a whole despise weakness and yet produced the pair of them.

Stupid teenagers who hated their own pain and just wanted to be a little less alone, in the end.

She actually does not ask about his poor choices. At least, not now. Maybe another time. Instead, she simply says: ]

You, stupid choices? I don't think I have ever been so shocked in my life, or death. [ But her tone is wry, and the smile on her face a crooked and understanding one. But now that he's done talking she lifts her chin and looks away from him, this time directly up at the sky. ]

My friends and I used to mock the humans with this stupid joke. We'd talk about the "human disease called friendship" and things like that. I mean, we were messing around, and human friendships are pretty different from troll ones. But we were also definitely full of shit. Friendships were just as important to us. Making friends is kind of a big fucking deal. It can change a lot of things! Not just how you see yourself, but who you become.

[ She leans forward now with a long sigh out. ]

I get being angry, though. You go through enough shit and you stop knowing how not to be angry, I guess? That was what it felt like. I tried to play it off like I didn't care, but. [ Her shoulders lift in a jerky, guilty motion. ] You know how that kind of thing worked out for me. For both of us, I guess.

[ When she settles back against him again it's less tucked in this time, her arms folded across her lap and the egg box placed down next to her knee. ]

But the times the CDC got us couldn't have been more different! You were healing, but I was breaking. They know their shit about when to recruit. But hey, it worked out. At least for me.

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