=> CAMRON: CONTINUE (NOT) PAPPING PEOPLE

"Culling or maiming."

You’re quick to correct him, smiling tentatively.

"Hey, doll. You’re missing the point, which is that you’re handling this just fine."

You sound a lot more sure than you feel, for fucking once. You lean in the doorway and watch him freak. Probably best to keep an ocular out, even though he doesn’t seem to be the murdery type.

 

“Of course. Maiming.” You laugh weakly.

After a moment, you lean your elbows on your knees and hold your face in your hands. Just being in a different block from him is doing wonders for your composure. That’s not to say your stomach isn’t still queazy and your chest still tight, but it’s better. You… haven’t noticed he’s still watching you yet, which is probably why you look so comparatively relaxed.

“What about this is fine?” you insist under your breath, before looking up and cringing. Well, there he is, still watching you have a breakdown. You stand up and straighten your shirt. Time to handle things. You're pale and still shaky on your feet, but you are a seadweller dammit, and you're not going to lose your shit anywhere visible. "I- I'll have to... get a few things. There's the-" What's the word for the- the glowy picture box. You just gesture. Fuck everything forever. "Trollflix should log in automatically, if you like. Ah. Right." You hesitate, and then you just. Walk out. Yeah.

You walk a little too quickly your respite block, and then you lie on your back in the middle of the floor to work on getting yourself together. Nearly 45 minutes pass before you can think clearly again, and you almost don't to go back out there. He's gotta know you were in here panicking. He's thinking you're pathetic. He's... just some kid. You can do this. You fix the makeup around your eyes, and you walk... to the guest block to make sure it's presentable. Which it is. Cool. Now you'll go look for him.

 

He comes back in at the worst possible time.

For the first half hour, you're too nervous to move. You stand for a while, antlerbeast in the headlights, and finally, stiffly sit. About a quarter of an hour after that, your right contact starts to bother you. Fucking perfect. You'd wait it out, but your ocular's starting to water, and lime tears are a dead giveaway. You try to rationalize it away- he's too busy having a panic attack to notice you, the hive is massive, you'll hear him coming- but it's the threat of lime tears that finally does it. You pop out one of the wiggler-gray contacts you wear to hide your aberrant ganderbulbs, hear a noise, and end up jerking your head up just in time for his oculars to meet yours.

Shit.

 

You blink a few times, blanked faced, like that will correct the obvious error in your vision. Nope, still grey and unholy lime staring back at you. Lords dammit, you're too tired for this. You want to cry all over again because this just isn't fair anymore.

"No," you deadpan. You turn on your heel and leave the room, repeating the word a few more times for fucking emphasis. You were just calming down lords dammit you were just calming down. Don't punch the wall. Do not punch the wall. Maybe you can pretend that didn't happen. Or, will he try to cull you first? You don't want to cull anyone, and this is all too complicated for your fried think sponge. (You are going to flay Emeron.)

You do not punch the wall, but you give it a very withering look. You rub your temples and count to ten. Back into the room you go, thoughts on your specibus and footsteps wary. You were gone all of 11 seconds. "That didn't happen."

 

He...doesn't cull you on the spot. Huh. Maybe he just doesn't want to have to try and get the blood out of the carpet?

Freaked as you are, though, you waste no time in popping your stupid contact back in. Should you cull him? Fuck, no, he's been decent so far and you can't overpower a wader any night of the sweep, wiggler or no. You sell yourself as a twink for a grubdamned reason.

When he comes back into the block and speaks, you nod furiously and try not to think about the pistolkind specibus your frondstubs are itching to reach for.

"What didn't happen, doll? Nothing's what."

 

"Glad we're on the same not-page." In the not book. In the invisible library.

You take a half a step forward. You lock your fingers behind your bowed head and fold your fins down, watching Cam from the tops of your eyes. "The guest block is out the door behind me. Take a left, first door on the right. Ablution block is attached." You take a deep, slow breath. He's twitchy, and understandably so, and you have no idea if that twitchiness is going to progress to culling you in your damned sleep. You take another halting step forward, and another, and then you force yourself to go the rest of the way. You sit on the opposite end of the couch from Cam.

There's something you ought to be saying, to fill the silence and make it ok. Nothing comes to mind but the contents of your strife specibus.

 

"I- thank you."

Should you call him sir? He's highblooded enough, but you don't think he'd like it very much. Or would he? Fuck, you don't know him. You don't know him at all, and that's what makes this so bad.

...You can't help but be curious, though. You kind of want to know him, if only to figure what kind of wader lets an aberrant-blooded whore live after he barges into his place and ruins his whole damn day.

"So-"

Your throat closes up and you have to start again. You curse yourself silently.

"So you're feeling better, dollface?"

 

You take a slow breath through your nose. You want to drawl out a number of biting and sarcastic responses, you want to laugh in his aberrant face, you want to ask why you're dollface (you kinda like it), but when it comes right down to it, you don't have the energy for much more than answering the question more or less truthfully.

"No," you say, and your eyes widen, because you fully intended to lie outright. You swallow. "Yes? Somewhat. I'm not-" Nope, nope, you're not going to dump your feelings out to a pale-hooking limeblood, that's not a thing that's happening. You pick up a remote and proceed to do nothing but fiddle with it. "Don't think there's a social protocol for this situation. Apologies for my disappearance."

 

"Sorry to hear that, then. You want to talk, doll, I'll listen. Been told I'm pretty good at that."

You breathe out slowly and try to will your pusher slow and calm. It, to the surprise of approximately no one, doesn't work. You're not outright shaking, though, so you'll count it as a win.

"Don't have to get any closer than this."

Okay, getting back onto familiarish ground's helping to soothe your frayed nerves.

"Won't pretend to know what's going on, but there's clearly something, isn't there? If you're looking at me like I'm about to eat you up despite me being, well-"

You gesture to your thoroughly underwhelming self as a whole.

 

You huff and make yourself busy setting up the TV. "I know what you got sent here for, but I can tell you it is not happening." It comes out a touch sharper than you intended. You grimace a bit and glance at him, and you hope the apology can come across.

"Now, I don't know about you, but I need a distraction. Games? Trollflix? Any other preference?" You pause over the select input menu. "Did you meet Emeron in person?"

 

You raise up your fronds in surrender. Guess you'll just...hang out. How do trolls hang out, again? With Anhaga and co you're always planning for something, doing something, and it's just easy with Rorrie in a way that this'll never be.

"No preference. It's your hive, doll, you get to choose the entertainment."

The question takes you by surprise. You stiffen up a bit, check Ilbodo out out of the corner of your ocular.

"Barely."

 

"They shouldn't know. Ah, where I live. Met them only briefly through my matesprit. Chatroom." Speaking of, you ought to text her about this.

sB has being trolling aG!
sB: -0 Darling, did you ever give Emeron my address?

"Don't believe she'd give out my address without permission. Stands to reasons they-" You sigh and make a thinking face. "-know me from elsewhere," you murmur. "Distinguishing features? Jog my memory some."

 

You shrug and decide to humor him, thinking back to the day in the bar.

"Geez, doll, wasn't paying too close attention. He was a lowbie, like- well not quite like me. Uh, red oculars?"

You gesture to your throat.

"Had some nasty business around here. Other than that, pretty generic."

 

Your stomach drops when you hear 'red oculars' and you feel your spirit actually shrivel and die inside of you. You drop the palmhusk on the floor and lean back into the cushion. You flop your head onto the back and lineface at the ceiling. You feel oddly... empty. Nothing matters anymore. You're fucked. Everything's fucked. Empress stick a fork in you, you're fucking done.

"Mirthful fucking Messiahs, I thought he was dead, why isn't he dead," you monotone. You drag your hands down your face. "I don't-" well maybe you do deserve this, but you still don't have to like comeuppance. You plan to sit here until you die. Or until you manage to fear for your life the way you should be. Whatever comes first.

 

You sit in uncomfortable silence for a while, hyperaware of the seadweller sprawled out not two feet from you. You fucked up, and it's not even your fucking fault this time.

"So, uh. I'm going to take a wild guess here, dollface, tell me if I'm wrong- the troll I talked to goes by a different hatch than what he gave?"

 

You twist your mouth around the words before you can say them. "Thames. Tremel. Thames Tremel." You swallow like you need to get a bad taste out of your mouth. "Probably a few more. Don't know. Demoness, he's been-" You cut off. Hanging around your friend group? Trying to get to you through Teylir? And now he's sending you aberrant-blooded palerom prostitutes.

"Why? Why you? Why did he send you? Tell me everything he said." You're upright now and looking at Camron very intently. Your fins have flared out as an instinctual attempt to get more information. Hey, they are first and foremost sensory organs.

 

Oh, great. Now he's sprung into action and his fins are fluffing out everywhere and it isn't even all the way your fault this time. He rounds on you and you do your best to look innocent.

"Just, just that he had a friend who needed to take a load off and chits to pay me upfront. I was a couple drinks in, doll, I can't recall verbatim-"

Yikes, and there you go slipping your nerd words into a simple conversation. The mask you use most is crumpling like wet tissue paper under the stress and oddness of the situation and mothergrub is this ever a mess.

 

Nerd words put you at ease. It's efficient. You like that. Cam, on the other hand looks nervous. You gotta reel it in a bit (you want to demand he try anyway).

"Nothing else." He can take that as a question or not, whatever. You try to take a deep breath, but it's... incredibly not deep. You swallow. Fuck. Fuck. You realize you've started biting the knuckle of your index finger. Bad habit. You stop. "And he didn't know that you're- no of course he didn't know. Of course. Coincidence."

You didn't wanna bring the lime thing up again, but shit's gone amazingly turnways. You really, really hope you don't look a half minute away from crying. "Demoness," you say again, and you sag back into the couch. What the hell are you going to do?

 

"...Despite the impression you might've gotten, doll, I don't go around showing it off. On planet. Too many watching oculars for it to be worth it, heh."

You sit up a little straighter.

"He mean something to you? Only asking because I want to know what I've waded into."

 

"It wasn't a promising impre-" You side eye him. Waded? Lords, you hope that was intended. You look as almost-amused as you feel.

"Ex-moirail." You know how that sounds. "This ah, pales in comparison to previous interactions," you say shakily.