010 ♐ the treatment is strong, but lasts only so long ♐ ᴄʟᴏsᴇᴅ

[geometry]

Characters: Equius Zahhak (AU) and Tavros Nitram (OU)
Setting: Floor 21, the art gallery. Backdooted to the sixteenth, during the event.
Format: Starting in action, but I'll do whatever.
Summary: Tavros gets his brownie points for the day and does the right thing... but who knows how nicely that's going to go over?
Warnings: Probably a lot of shit-flipping.

[Slowly walking through the art gallery is one Equius Zahhak, tall and imposing and looking completely uninterested in everything going on on the walls around him. Happy pictures, sad pictures, even the ‘bad side’ of the gallery that showed nothing but unspeakable horror — he really didn’t care. Because whatever was on the walls didn’t matter to him as much as what was happening inside his head. The gallery was just a fine place to walk, endlessly; like the maze, but rather less monster-infested. And of course, it wasn’t that hard to find one’s way back to the entrance when one was innately aware of every single hall and corner.]

[Equius had spent the past couple of days puzzling over time-space shenanigans in a way he never had before, which was an incredible accomplishment in itself. The tower administrators had really outdone themselves this time, but the fact that he couldn’t figure out how was what concerned him — and it concerned him much more than any monster he could find in the middle of the day in a fucking art gallery. (Someone had never played Ib.) The whole time had been spent exploring, poking around at things which he had long since learned were best not poking around at, trying to figure out what exactly had happened. Every answer raised a new question, and since he hadn’t seen Eridan or another Time player for three or four days now, there wasn’t any way he could figure out the other half of the problem.]

[Goddamn stupid lousy hidden variables.]

[Equius stops in the area near the stairs, sitting down on one of the minimalistic wooden benches (really, ‘bench’ was a strong word) and steepling his fingers. There was no way he could keep walking forever, and yes, he was beginning to get tired. So anyone who wanted to go enjoy some fine art would be greeted by the sight of an extremely large and unhappy-looking troll in the corner.]

Comments

[pushedaround]

[ The art gallery is not really his thing, but let's try out some different floors today. It might distract him from the unpleasant thoughts. Also, it happens to be one of the few floors Gamzee is least interested in, therefore- chances of running into him are limited. That's what he wanted right now. A little time out from his matesprit.

Quality problem solving. It starts with a punch and now total avoidance. Whatever. He keeps moving forward, but it was nearly impossible to disregard the unhappy troll in the corner. And of all people, it had to be Equius.

What an interesting coincident. ]

... Hey. Are you okay?

[ Tavros moves closer, wings fluttering rapidly. He looks pretty calm. For now. ]

[geometry]

[At first, Equius had dismissed Tavros as another part of the background scenery, just... going about his business. He didn’t frequent the art gallery enough to know whether that particular brownblood liked to come here. He only stopped with the brooding when he realized that Tavros wasn’t just talking out loud for the sake of talking out loud — he was talking to him. Whoops.]

[Equius looks up, fixing Tavros with a hard stare that’s become par for the course with him.] I’m fine. Just... concerned.

The Tower’s antics may be going too far.

[Yeah, that’s what he looks so grim about, Tavros. He’d spent the thirteenth jumping around time (with Eridan, coincidentally) and noticing some very serious anomalies popping up around the Tower, and these anomalies were what captured his mind. Not any other thing in particular that might have happened in the span since this event began, no, just the admins being stupid and dumb as usual.]

[It seems he really doesn’t know what’s happened yet.]

[pushedaround]

... That's it?

[ Welp, that answered his question. Apparently Equius is still as clueless as ever, which is not really surprising to be honest. It's not like Gamzee was planning to come clean, so why should he expect the same from Eridan?

He takes a deep breath and folds his arms against his chest. Totally not happy about this, but let's try to keep the cool. ]

Equius. Bro.

We really need to talk.

[geometry]

[...That’s clearly not it, Equius realizes as soon as Tavros opens his mouth. As soon as he looks up and sees the posture that the brownblood is assuming, he straightens his back and holds on to the edge of the bench. He looks up at the troll expectantly, noticing for the first time the unusual fluttering pattern of his wings. Whatever Tavros has to say, it’s clearly not going to brighten his day any.]

Alright then. Talk.

[pushedaround]

[ No. It's not going to brighten his day, but Tavros strongly believes that it was Equius' right to know. Whether it was his business or not, he's not sure about that, but-- fuck it.

Deep breath. ]

Okay. It all started yesterday when I met with Gamzee. I ... noticed he had some marks around his neck ... bite marks and other shit. He tried to hide it, but after some persistence he confessed it was fucking Eridan getting his dinner or some weird shit like that! Also, apparently things went 'out of hand' and from Gamzee's point of view- he liked it. But, that's it. Just a bite and nothing else happened.

[ There's a pause, and then with a less angry tone, he mutters. ]

... I don't believe him, to be honest. I just ... I don't know ....

[geometry]

[Grabbing on to the bench turned out to be a good idea. Equius’ eyebrow twitched once at the word yesterday, and got predictably worse around Gamzee, but he allowed himself to go no further than that; it wouldn’t be right to take it out on Tavros, after all, he just wanted to share a very problematic little fact, Tavros had done nothing wrong. (Except perhaps for involving himself with Gamzee Makara in the first place, but that was another matter entirely.) Still, the deadpan expression became much more forced.]

He was lying, of course.

[The voice was flat, with the minor exception of a very dark undertone he tended to adopt whenever the discussion turned to indigos. He knew Eridan and Gamzee both; and much as it troubled him to admit it, in a situation like this, that was the most believable way it could have happened. Bullshitting hadn’t worked on him in a long time, Eridan’s bullshitting especially, and resisting the urge to go ‘out of hand’ had never been one of the jadeblood’s strong points. He knew it happened. He knew it did. There were plenty of times that Eridan never bothered to tell him about, and he wasn’t as bothered with fixing it — because that was a moirail’s job, fixing, and Eridan was already taken in that department. And besides, Equius wasn’t sure that even Jade could fix that particular problem, frankly.]

[For all that he tolerated Eridan’s less-than-desirable qualities, there was always one line. One line where, when crossed, he just couldn’t allow it any longer.]

[That line was purple and painted with polka dots.]

[pushedaround]

... Yeah. I know.

[ He is really done making excuses for Gamzee, and going through the 'what if' dialog in his head. He reached the point where he had nothing but frustration and so little tolerance to the highblood's games. He watched Equius' reaction intensely, and he had to admit- he was handling it a lot better than he thought, especially since he knew how he felt about Gamzee.

Regardless of what he appears to be- he figured deep down, he is probably seething with anger.

He keeps hovering in the air, leaving a fine distant between them. Equius might blow up in any minute, and he certainly didn't want to be the one taking all that rage. ]

I'm pretty sure he was messing with me. It's a habit of his.

[ He sighs and shrugs his shoulders. ]

It hurts. It sucks. Not sure what needs to be done now.

[geometry]

[Actually, Tavros, ‘seething’ was a bit of an understatement. The words closer to describing what he was feeling right now were taken out of any sort of modern lexicon around the time of the Crusades. Fortunately, however, Equius had learned enough now to be able to channel most of it into a less disastrous state. His grip on the bench increased further; if it didn’t, of course, there was no telling what they would be clamping around instead.]

Oh, you don’t need to do anything.

[He stands up then, walking straight past Tavros. ...Whoops, didn’t mean to flip that bench over, but he did as he stood up. Ah well!]

I’ll handle it from here.

[pushedaround]

[ Okay, need to avoid that flying bench. By the time he turned to face Equius, he was already walking away from him. ]

Wow, hey! Hold on, Eq!

[ He rushed over to his side, looking somewhat annoyed. ]

Okay, you're angry. That's great and all. But, what do you mean by you'll handle it ?!! It's my fucking problem, too! [ And a little hesitantly. ] ... You're not going to do anything to Gamzee, right?

[ Haha, he couldn't care less about Eridan. Gamzee, however, is another issue. ]

[geometry]

[Yeah, good call, Tavros. It wasn't a particularly heavy or spiked bench, but it still would have hurt a lot if it caught you in the knees or something.]

Gamzee? [He spits the name.] Why the hell should I be going to find poor fucking Gamzee? He is your responsibility, Nitram. Whatever I may want to do to him, it's not my place to, so I'm going to take care of my side of the issue, thank you very much. [But yeah, this announcement doesn't extend indefinitely. Don't try to half-scold him and make out afterward. Equius finds out about that, and yeah, you're both dead.]

[pushedaround]

Heh. Sassy ...

[ He raised his hands, somewhat gesturing for Equius to cool it down. No, wait. He didn't want him to cool down! Just save all that aggression to who deserves it. Yes, that would be better. ]

So, uh, how are you going to handle this situation?

[ Totally not trying to get any ideas for himself! Nope. It's just an innocent question. ]

[geometry]

[He knows how he's going to try and handle this situation, but he doesn't know how it will actually turn out. There's always a degree of unpredictability with Zahhaks, you understand; they can just go shithive maggots at any given time, and then all bets are off.]

Find him. Secure him so that he can't run away. Get the truth, one way or another.

It's really not that complicated.

[pushedaround]

[ And that's why he will never fuck with a Zahhak. Except for Darkleer, because Tavros really likes the old grump.

However, on a more serious note. ]

... Do you think you can ever forgive him? If he apologized, that is. I mean-

Uh.

[ Okay, let's try this again. ]

Like ... Should we just forgive them and move on?? I'm ... really confused.

[geometry]

I'm not going to answer that right now.

[Because whatever he says will be wrong and, probably, extremely dangerous.]

Perhaps you should think more about what you want to do here [implication: "like you should have done already"] and get back to me.