#anarchytrapped

"What're you doing here?" he asks, voice slow and drawling and yet his words just a bit too sharp and his posture too tense to properly convey inebriation.

Rubele, all too much of him, sits a few feet away and lets his booted legs dangle from the sheer drop. "Usually you're tied at the hip with the teal fellow, I've been meaning to catch you for a private conversation is all."

"Wanted to get me all alone, huh?" Belphe says, carefully neutral. Rubele's face goes deep violet and he shakes his head so adamantly his glasses begin slipping.

"Heavens no! I-I just--"

"I'm fucking with you."

"Ah, right! Okay."

Rubele looks off into the distance as well. It is an uncomfortable silence, one that Rubele struggles to find the right words with which to break it. 

In truth, he isn't sure why he decided to track Belphe down now, aside from the opportunity granted by Harris needing some time to themself and Corinn and the other teal being seen elsewhere together. He wanted to say something, to ask questions or express concerns, anything, and yet...

He can't place it, what he feels about Belphe. Only in passing had they ever known of the other's existence, and last he had heard before Sgrub was that Belphe had been culled on his own lawnring. 

He does, however, know exactly how he feels about Zeerce. Part of him wasn't surprised to learn, once he began untangling the threads of knowledge that lead him towards his own alternate past, that the wretched violetblood had done him in.

He swallows thickly, feeling that odd sense of deja vu again. A whip around his windpipe and a mind too groggy to even consider fighting back--

But that wasn't him, not really. Just as the cobalt beside him wasn't the cobalt who had been gunned down by drones without mercy. 

Regardless, he was the same Belphe who was aligned with Curorr's gang for so long. How willing that alignment was remained to be seen, but his guarded posturing was more than telling.

"So are you going to knock me off the roof or something?" Belphe says finally, after minutes of heavy silence passed. "Can't say that'd be particularly Heroic for me but it just damn well might be Just if you're here for vengeance."

"What? No! You… you didn’t do anything to deserve my ire, I assure you."

Belphe finally looks at Rubele, the visible half of his face unreadable. "I wasn't there when she killed you but I heard about it. Every detail. And I congratulated her for offing some highblood scammer. Didn't mean it, but I sure as hell didn't spare you a single goddamn thought after that," Belphe says, his tone carefully flat to hide the underlying challenge in his words.

Rubele resists the urge to rub his neck. Belphe's words stung, but Rubele could tell they weren't thrown from a place of malice. It was a warning shot, a defense mechanism to strike first and make assumptions of Rubele's intentions later.

Rubele merely studied Belphe. "Yes, well… I thought you were an ill-mannered layabout with a cruel streak matched only by Cruorr herself so I suppose we must all suffer underneath the weight of our initial misconceptions, hm?"

Belphe blinks, then bares his teeth in a bitter facsimile of a smile. "Nah, you were right."

He turns away again, slouching further. Rubele groans.

"I swear to you, ol' chum, I didn't come here to deepen your already morose mood."

"Who said I'm morose?"

Rubele laughs. Belphe does not.

"Oh I'm doing a wonderful job of mucking this all up, huh?" Rubele says, pulling his knees to his chest.

"I still don't know what this is so I dunno. Maybe this is exactly how whatever the fuck this is usually goes."

"I still can't rightly say what this is," Rubele says, frustrated. "I just know that I-I have these memories that are not quite mine but too, um, detailed to easily forget. That I've had first hand experience with the cruelty of your thankfully departed ex-moirail, except that I haven't! I hadn't done business with her since before this blasted game was ever unearthed and even then I was never exactly thrilled to work with her lest she said the wrong thing to the wrong buyer and Harris and I found ourselves at the mercy of her masses. And I know I… dealt with her far less than you had to."

Belphe shifts, pulling one knee to his chest in a not so subtle attempt to lean away from Rubele.

"Whatever," Belphe says far too casually. Rubele picks up on the bitterness he hides instantly. "Count yourself lucky. You only got secondhand memories."

"Indeed I do, ah, for the most part," Rubele says sincerely. "I avoided the worst of her. You… didn't. And I think I'm in a unique position to know the full extent of her evil without experiencing the, well, more permanent effects."

Belphe sighs, then looks at Rubele with an expression bordering on gentle.

"Sounds like the effects are still pretty goddamn permanent to me though. Remembering your own poisoning and strangulation is pretty fucking shitty whether the whip was around your neck this time or another. Hell, knowing anything about her is fucking shitty enough on its own. She had her way of leaving her mark on people and never for the better."

Rubele frowns. "Quite. Heh, well… same can be said for you too, huh?"

Belphe looks away, his breath catching. He takes a deep breath and speaks to the horizon. "Like I said, whatever. Listen Excrim, I don't know you. I'm not your moirail and I'm not your friend so don't try this shit, alright?"

"Fair enough, but we are allies at the very least."

Belphe grunts. Rubele rubs his temples and sighs. He has no idea how to talk to Belphe. If he's honest with himself, he is still trying to reconcile his initial assumptions with the scared, guarded troll beside him. Belphe had surely felt Zeerce's whip against him just as he had, if not physically then mentally. Likely both. Rubele looks back over at Belphe's hunched form, his angular limbs and tired eye, the ill-fitting clothes and hidden face. Everything about him seems to stem from a desire to escape or distract from his own existence.

Rubele isn't one to let things fade from memory if he can help it.

"I… am far from the only poor sap who has faced her wrath and wiles. I merely want to extend understanding. You don't need to take the option now or ever but rest assured I am on your side, my friend."

Belphe seems frozen, his nervous shifting stopped as he stares intently away from Rubele.

"Still not your friend," he manages eventually. "But. Thanks, I guess."