towerofanimus | 011 ♐ it's easy living in the house of your dreams ♐ ᴏᴘᴇɴ

Characters: Equius Zahhak (AU) and YOU
Setting: Floor 70, the machine.
Format: Starting in action, but I'll do whatever.
Summary: Equius gets his geek on in the worst conceivable way.
Warnings: Possible crushing, burning, or acid corrosion. YAY SCIENCE!

[...Wow.]

[There was no telling how big this floor was. The walls and ceiling were nowhere in sight, because they were completely covered by a massive breathing machine. There was a faint tinge of rust in the air here, and the outer reaches were further obscured by smoke of various colours. Metal parts clunked and ground against one another, making extremely unattractive noises as they did so. A truly staggering amount of the mechanisms here were burned or dented (or maybe they were supposed to be that way, since they were unfamiliar), but they all seemed to be working together towards... something that wasn't immediately clear. There had to be a million different platforms all around the place, but most of them were conveyor belts, carrying scraps of some kind of metal into a huge boiling vat of liquid that sizzled when something dropped in.]

[It was beautiful.]

[Not much to see here, Tower; just a troll, standing next to the staircase, gawking in amazement at the monstrosity in front of him. Judging from the oil streaks that have long since dried on this particular pair of pants, he could feel perfectly at home here... if he got an opportunity to look around. Right now, it's all unfamiliar. And way too big. All Equius can do for quite a long time is stand there and gawk. What could this thing be for?]

[He seems to want to find out, as shortly afterward he's examining the closer and less dangerous metallic innards. And then the slightly further metallic innards. And eventually he's crawling and jumping all over the place, still in view of the staircase, but observing mechanisms that could crush a hand and balancing on things that really ought not to be balanced on, all in the interest of getting just a little closer to that peculiar piece of machinery. It's just so interesting. He seems to be doing pretty well now; one of Equius' few talents is coordination and nimble movement. But who knows how long that'll last if someone startles him...]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah... He was. See, Vriska sort of liked Tavros and Kanaya had a flush crush on Vriska...

[Equius stopped listening about two words in.]

Oh god. Oh god. Oh god...

[Yeah, Karkat, uh, you're not the only one with flashbacks.]

[ groan ]

Is there a reason you're hyperventilating on me?

U-uh... [Yeah, he just stammered on 'uh'.]

The l-legs... we... we found 'em.

[ and that... that makes his blood run cold. Karkat swallows, hard. ]

What...

...inthefreezer.

[Tiny voice. Tiny, tiny voice.]

What the fuck were his legs doing in the freezer?

[ doesn't Vriska carry them on her person or something disgusting like that? actually.... Karkat has no idea what became of those legs... not that he really wants to know. ]

I don't know!

[ ;A; ]

What did you do with them?

Oh god... Does Gamzee know? Does Tavros know?

W-we just lef-left them there, I don't know! That's gross!!

[ ;A; ]

You left them there for someone else to find and also suffer that awkward feeling of what the fuck do I do?

[ he has his best judging face for all of ten seconds. ]

...Yeah okay. I can live with that. It's pretty damn gross and I wouldn't have done shit with them either.

I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I didn't know what else to do!

[Ten seconds is more than enough time for him to crack.]

...Equius. I just said it's fine.

[ ... ]

Sorry.

[Yeah, he's not too good at this 'normal conversation' thing.]

Equius.

[ srsly bro. stoppit. ]

...What?

Dude. Relax.

...

[That's, uh, kind of a tall order, Karkat.]

[But he tries anyway. Takes a few deep breaths. Grounds himself. Stops doing stupid things with his hands, and shoves them into his pockets instead. Yeah. This is as close as he's going to get to calm.]

Alright.

[ and Karkat is just watching with some irritated mortification. this is not how things should be... well what he means is that there's just no reason at the moment to be wound that tight.

just what the fuck is wrong with all of the people from that corner of the universe? ]

[A lot of things, Karkat. A lot of things.]

Uh.

[His gaze wanders back to the machine again. He just can't seem to keep his eyes off of it.]

Do you... know anything about this, by any chance? Not even this system specifically, just... mechanics or coding in general.

[ Karkat's eyes drift to look at the machines. Zahhaks and this sort of thing...

he shakes his head. ]

I did coding, but pretty much everything I made would turn into a virus.

...By itself?

[Wow.]

[That's either a sign that Karkat is really good... or really bad. Depends on what he meant by "turn into a virus". Equius wasn't fond of them himself, but...]

[ Karakt huffs, and looks to the floor. ]

I used to tell myself it was on purpose...

[ he's just that bad at coding. ]

[ ... ]

Then... why did you keep doing it...?

...Besides other things, such as pride getting in the way, I didn't want to let people think I was one huge fuck up.

(no subject)

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