Open Post 002

[2020mod]

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musebox • rules • character list

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saturday night. COHERENT TIMELINES?? those are for squares

[crab]

The form in the interrogation chair is hunched forward, arms cuffed behind him, a power nullifier locked around his throat like a collar. No sound is heard from him except for the somewhat labored breath he sucks in and out through clenched teeth. He's spoken only two words since he was hauled into custody, battered and bloody, a little less than a month ago, in fact -- and if given his way, they will be the last words he ever utters.

"You understand why you were arrested, don't you, Karkat Vantas?"

"Fuck you."

Perhaps it's ironic, he thinks, forehead pressed to the cool metal gurney as the faint, repugnant odors of blood, vomit, urine, terror and pain climb up his nostrils, stick to the back of his throat, his tongue. He represses the urge to gag. Karkat was always the one doing the interrogation up until now, always the one asking the questions. His methods had been so kind in comparison to the treatment he's been given since his capture, though. It's not hard, really, to get someone to answer your questions once you've bound their loyalty to you and soothed away every last negative emotion in their heart.

He's better at it than they are, he decides. After all, he hasn't broken. Though it isn't as though he hasn't come close, once or twice. They are creative in their cruelty, you see. When he isn't being questioned, he's shut away in a room without light, where the only sound is the constant, mind numbing sound of static. There is no routine to when he will be fed in that room -- sometimes he will go days between meals, sometimes mere hours. The food itself is little more than a tasteless nutrition gel, a nothing-food. Sensory deprivation is the intent, and it works. By the end of the second week Karkat had bitten a hole clean through his tongue trying to keep himself from screaming to be released.

He's come to look forward to his interrogations, in the end. At least there's light, and interaction with another living being. No two sessions are ever the same. Sometimes it's physical, sometimes it's mental, but always, always does it hurt. And always, always do they promise to stop -- make it all stop -- if he'll just do them this one, small favor.

Talk.

At the sound of his interrogator for tonight's voice, Karkat Vantas raises his head to survey him through bloodshot, bright red eyes. The nubby horns, the grey skin, the sharp teeth, the yellow sclera -- it's all there, all the same. They're very careful not to damage him permanently, no matter how much pain they put him through.

He says nothing.

YEAH WHO DOES THAT SHIT

[amoray]

And when Eridan glances up, he visibly pauses. That's never happened before. They know what he is. And he's certain, without a doubt, that they know who Karkat Vantas is to him.

Was. It's hard to tell these days.

He glances back to his interrogatee for the night. Six years, right? Karkat's a little taller, so there's that. It's funny where the mind goes when it's busy trying to tear itself apart in indecision.

"Vantas."

Clean, utilitarian tone, crisp pronunciation. The Rubicon between who Eridan Ampora was and who he is now, in this new world, summed up in one little v.

He doesn't sit.

[crab]

Karkat's eyes widen in recognition and shock as he gazes at Eridan Ampora, uncomprehending; his mouth falls open, his shoulders slump, and he gasps. It's more reaction than any interrogator has gotten from him so far.

Before the implications of what seeing a familiar face here, like this, sink in, the first thing that floods through him is relief. Since he'd come to perceive his interrogations as a respite rather than as torture (the torture was the respite, the respite was the torture; oh, they were clever) he doesn't entirely view his interrogators as his enemies any longer. They're the only sentient interaction he has, they give him the only sensory experiences he's allowed. And this is Eridan; this is one of the people he's been searching for. For a split second, he's almost happy to see him.

But then, it's only been a month; he retains more than enough of his wits to realize that this reaction is probably the point. They want him to sympathize with his tormentors. They want him to want these interrogations. He swallows these feelings down, reminds himself of who he is and what he has to do, and in the wake of the twisted, false sense of relief bubbles up something else, something dark and poisonous and corrosive.

Eridan. Here. Interrogating him. For the government.

Karkat's eyes flash with wild fury, and all of a sudden he attempts to lunge at Eridan; his attempt is laughably pathetic, cuffed to the chair as he is, but the snarl on his face is more feral than any expression Karkat has carried before, there is more violence in simply his posture and expression than Eridan will have ever seen in Karkat Vantas in his youth. The captive young adult is, in several ways, not the same tender-hearted youngster Eridan once knew. He's harder, angrier, less forgiving. He would scream at him, if he wasn't voluntarily mute. It's much easier to keep quiet, he's found, if he tells himself he can't talk. He can't, therefore he won't. The things he would say if he could trust himself to speak would be fairly predictable.

Traitor. Coward. Bastard.