Notes: Late because was writing a paper all weekend, which meant all-nighters, which meant fucked up sleep schedule. Sorry.

Behind Blue Lies – Part 7

It wasn't going to be a good night. Vriska resigned herself to that fact as she heard Remium calling after some troll who obviously wasn't having any of this 'Vriska is busy' nonsense. Not that it had started out all that pleasantly—except for waking up next to Kanaya, that was always pleasant. Despite the brownblood's (it hurt to think of him, of his name, so she avoided it as much as possible) assurances the daymares kept coming relentless and terrible. For all that he'd forgiven her for the death, Calgor's shade hadn't and Vriska hadn't forgiven herself.

Sollux too hadn't been the best company in the past two nights. For once she was preferring his manic moods to his depressive. At least in the manic he ranted and argued and snarked better. The rest of the time not spent discussing the sudden increase in hierarchist activities—Vriska was sure it had been motivated by her and Veruna's display at the last meeting—he was pressing her on her request about Tavros. No matter how he pressed, though, she evaded,, and just that morning he'd finally verified that one of his watch bugs was buried deeply in the brown's systems. No one would be able to hack him, to track him. Still, she wouldn't risk reaching out to him, or letting him know he might be able to talk to her.

"Serket!"

The bellowing of her name was only punctuated by the sound of shattering wood as her office door flew open from the force of a blow. As much as she wanted to wince at the sound—it meant she was going to have to replace the door—she kept a level expression, feigning absolute indifference. It was the best way to start off dealing with what came next.

"You owe me a replacement. Again," she purred as someone strode forward to fill the empty space where the door had been. "Do you never learn?"

'It would behoove you not to play your loorid games tonight," the troll said, his voice deep, rasping, and already grating on every one of Vriska's nerves. When it wasn't his superior attitude, it was the hoofbeast pun language, and his odd tendency to make parts of words rhyme with 'blue' for no apparently reason. Gamzee said it was because he was proud of his place as a servant of trolls, but Vriska guessed at the real truth: it was pointless, pompous, and a guilty pleasure of the indigo blood.

"I don't have any time for your games, Zahhak. Speak your peace and get the hell out of my sights."

"Then explain to me the reason I was recently faced with a severely injured..."

"Remium, leave," Vriska snapped, pushing herself to her feet even as she guessed why Equius was here.

"But..." the olive blooded troll started to protest, only to shrink away from Equius after Vriska glared at him. Luckily Remium wouldn't hold it against her. He, like Sollux, was a member of her web these days. Trolls abused by hierarchists were willing to whisper secrets to him, knowing he'd gotten out from under the thumb of a hierarchist guardian. In front of most others, though, he kept up the act of nervous subservience, a facade Vriska had spent perigees helping him perfect. It allowed her a way to maintain a 'proper' highblood-midblood relationship and helped her protect an old friend all at once. Now, knowing what Vriska needed, Remium was likely ducking out of the office block, closing doors behind him. If he didn't, what came next would affect the productivity of the lines for the night.

And would would get out about what was bound to happen.

"Do not take such a tone with him. It is your duty as..."

"I don't give a whinny for what you think my duty is," Vriska countered, smirking as she hoofbeast punned. It always made Equius cringe to hear her 'profane the majesty of such noble creatures.'

Sure enough he did cringe, and Vriska's purposefully viscous smirk grew wider as he did. There was something to be said for the pleasure of watching him cringe. Such a large, annoying, simple minded troll laid low by a whinny. And there was no denying that Equius was a large, strong troll. While not by any means the largest or strongest troll she knew—there were plenty of older and thus larger violets and purples among the hierarchists—there was an undeniable something that made Equius different. For one thing, no matter how hard she tried, neither her vision eightfold or her empathic gift ever seemed to get a grip on him. Everything that went on below the surface was a mystery to her. She hated it.

Almost as much as she hated him.

"I will not be distracted by your vulgarities, Serket. I demand your explanations as to what you have done."

"If you have a problem with my changing the composition of the plastics..."

The thing most trolls didn't notice when they saw Equius was that he was built for speed. They saw the bulk of his arms, and his blood color and assumed his strength was in his arms. Once that might have been true. From what Sollux had found out, Equius had gone through a lot when he was younger. About one in every thousand indigos were born with some issues with their pan's control over their bodies. It meant many different things, but in Equius it had manifested as an inability to control his own strength. His body had been capable of great displays of strength, but only because his body did not know how to prevent them. Apparently it was hell on the muscles, and until he'd gotten training, therapy, and medication, he'd had to deal with too great strength that destroyed things around him and frequently tore his own muscles in the display. Luckily he healed with all the rapidity fo a cool blood.

Now, though, Equius knew how to channel his strength, and it was impressive to see it put to use. His legs were excessively long, even for his height, and in two strides he was across the block, his hand wrapped around her neck and just tight enough to be painful. His other arm easily swept the desk from between them, and one final stride found Vriska wincing in pain as her back was slammed up against the block wall, only the tips of her toes still touching the ground. There was a fury in his indigo eyes, fury only framed by his glasses, that much was plain to any troll who could see. His teeth were grinding together hard enough that she could almost hear it, and in his hands she could feel the tremble of barely suppressed fury. Which was pretty much how she liked him to be.

"Do not play games with me. I will not stand for it."

"You can't stand for someone sneezing in your direction, so I'm not surprised you can't stand for other things."

The words armed her a tightening of Equius's fingers, but that didn't' last long. Even as Equius started to tighten his grip, frowning in displeasure, Vriska jerked her arm to the side just so, smirking in satisfaction as she felt the knife slide from her arm sheathe and into her hand. There was a moment of pleasure tinged with pain as she wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the dagger. Then, smirking wider, she lashed out with the blade, delighting as it, just for a moment, met flesh. There was the scent of blood in the air as the hand left her throat. Her smirk grew wider as she noted Equius was now a comfortable distance away, a hand pressed at his side, hiding what was likely a cut in his shirt and a superficial wound. If there was one advantage to Equius, it was that whatever kept her from reading him also kept her from sensing his pain. Made him the perfect kismesis.

"You loonatic!" he gasped, though there was more anger in his voice than shock.

"Says the troll who was just trying to strangle me. Would you like to try again? I'm better prepared."

"You would bring blades into this?"

"You would kill me for what?"

"You well know the crimes you have committed. Or must I number them for you?"

"Oh please, number them. You know I have such a problem keeping count with how high it's gotten."

That put a snarl on Equius's face. For all that he was a genius with machines and tech, in all the time they had known each other the older troll had never bested Vriska in a battle of words. There she had all the victories. Made their kismessitude that much sweeter and balanced. Then again, Vriska preferred it when the scales were tipped in her favor. Why else had she kept herself out of physical fights with him until now? She hadn't wanted him to know she felt confident that she could at least hold him off in a fight. But there was something in his directness that promises issues if she didn't finally come out with some fraction of her skill.

"Then you claim no part in what happened to one Tavros Nitram?"

Which was exactly what she'd feared this would be about. For a moment she regretted putting Tavros in touch with her kismesis, but that was quickly pushed aside. Equius was, if nothing else, the best prosthesis creator in any real distance, and a skilled healthmender at that. If any troll could save Tavros from his quiet foolishness and still let him keep his independent life, it would be Equius. Somehow, though, Equius had figured a connection between Tavros and her and was trying to put the blame for his injuries at her feet.

"What are you rambling about now?"

"Do not feign lack of knowledge with me. He let your name slip when he came to me. What slight did he give you? Did he refuse to allow you to command him like a drone? Was that why you thought it needful to ruin his leg?"

Well, this was good news as much as it was bad. At least she knew Tavros had listened to her insistence that he turn to Equius. He hadn't, though, remember to not mention her name. The only question now was how to get more information out of Equius while not getting herself killed, losing her kismesis, or letting slip that she wasn't actually a hierarchist. Their pitch romance had started with Equius praising her for assisting her wardmates against her guardian, but lecturing her on letting it go on and at the same time for turning against the guardianship system. It had been so infuriating that Vriska had let slip that she had wanted Spided caught in the worst way possible, which had gotten Equius angry. From there she'd had fun implying that she'd done it for what she could get when her guardian was punished. After that their relationship had bloomed. Equius—though she suspected this was only on the surface—hated her for suspected connections to the hierarchists, or at least sympathies towards them. What really connected him to her in hate was the fact that—this she had from Gamzee—she was so superior, so conniving, so deceitful that it was an offense to the system he so esteemed.

The reason she hated him was because he followed it so blindly. Sure, the hierarchists were bad, but Vriska was uniquely equipped to see things below the surface of the system. She could see the underlying spite some warm bloods had for their short life spans and the condescending way the cool bloods tried to provide for them. Cool bloods, on the other hand, found the expectation of service to be draining on their desires to do other things. The system was flawed, and rotting from the outside in now that the hierarchists were stepping up their activities. And yet Equius was so blindly devoted to it that she wanted to punch him in his face until he fell over.

Part of her wondered just how furious Equius would be if he ever found out that some of the trolls he was friends with were hierarchists. The funny thing was that the two he'd always thought were hated the hierarchists too. Vriska loathed everything they fought for and worked to destroy it from the inside. Eridan, a violet blooded member of the planetary guard, spoke very loudly against the system and had earned Equius's ire for it. Luckily Gamzee had stepped in to deal with that farce. Equius thought Eridan was a hierarchist, not knowing Vriska had talked him down from that path three sweeps back. While Eridan had his own reasons to hate the system, they weren't the kinds Equius should hate him over.

"Oh. That brown. Well, I'll tell you that his injuries aren't my doing. I just wanted to get him to sell me his advice for a new line of products. Sure, I was going to short sell him on it, what's the point in wasting good credits on a beasttalker, but I didn't beat him. What kind of use would he be as a spokestroll if he's crippled. He was no use to me, so I left him behind."

"He said you..."

"He said I sent him, right? I was bored, and figured that you could use something to brighten up your miserable existence. It's not like you ever do anything important anyway. Live and breathe your fucking work. Never seek out things for your own advantage. It's disgusting. What kind of troll are you?"

"One loyal to the system, unlike you."

"Just because I don't see any problem in being out for myself doesn't mean I'm a threat to your precious system, Equius. You're far more of one than I am. What troll in their right mind barges into another's office block and tries to kill them? I should call you in for this."

"If you did, I'd tell them..."

"What?" Vriska laughed, advancing on him with her dagger twirling in her hand. "That you attacked me without provocation? Because that's all you're going to get. The pathetic brown won't speak against me no matter what you offer him..." In part because she hadn't done anything. "And you don't even have ANY of the proof you're always claiming about wrong doing on my part. I know. I'm too good to let you find it."

"You... You will pay for this one day, Serket. I swear it."

"Get out of my office and get over yourself, Zahhak. Do whatever it is that makes you happy. Go pail a hoofbeast if I care. Oh, maybe the brown will help you with that. He's got a way with beasts. Fuck, maybe he does it himself. Won't that be a wonderful bonding exercise!?"

Equius roared in rage, and for a moment Vriska was worried she'd pushed him too far. Prodded the right buttons in just the wrong ways at just the right time to push him out of the hate that kept you striving to be better and into the hate that got you killing trolls. That would be a sad way for this all to end. The hierarchist threat going unchecked because she couldn't read her kismesis well enough to keep him from killing her. The moment passed, though, and Equius just glared at her, his eyes narrowed in the kind of hate she'd spent years cultivating, the kind of hate she shared.

"This is by no means finished yet, Vriska Serket. I will catch you and have you punished for the things you have done."

"Better trolls than you have tried," she snapped back. "Now scurry on back to your mewling moirail and have her coo and purr over how pathetic you are to not even get the upper hand with your kismesis. Just do it far away. I'd be sick if I had to see it."

Equius was through the broken door before she even got the entire sling out, leaving Vriska alone with her trashed office.

All in all, it was just turning out to be the most amazing night.

Not.