Chapter Text
Gamzee wakes up and feels wet all over. The air is cool on his skin and his damp hair sticks haphazardly to his forehead and cheek. When he opens his eyes, it takes a while to focus on droplets of dew littering the grass in front of his face. He doesn’t try to move just yet, takes stock of himself instead because it doesn’t seem like he’s in danger if something didn’t come kill him while he was sleeping. And resting itself is a bit of a novelty, really, one he hasn’t really indulged in often since… Well, it’s been a while. A soft wind plays through his hair and it’s kind of soothing, like someone scratching their fingers through it. Makes a motherfucker all up and ready to just lay around for the next however long he has because he’s comfortable and there’s no battle to run to and no scheme to hatch and no overwhelming crisis of psychological health to deal with badly.
(He’s been running away from that one since he sobered and there’s no reason to stop now. No reason to face it and even if he did, well, what would change? Not a thing. Not one motherfucking thing.)
Besides, he’s sore all over. He feels like he went tumbling down a mountain, all banged up and achy, and at least laying still doesn’t make it any worse. The smell of his own blood is a pungent aroma that bothers him absently but he’s pretty sure he deserves it and that’s still not enough to rouse him. Pain never has been, either.
Gamzee wonders where he is but it’s an idle thing, like wondering if he’s alone (yes) or whole (no). This definitely isn’t Alternia but maybe Beforus? They might be so lucky. It’s not like any of them really worked that out before they tumbled through the get away portal. The air tastes wetter on his tongue and it’s colder than he’d imagine. Not that the cold bothers him with how high up in the spectrum he is, but it’s something to note. It’s something to idly realize. Distraction from the weird (the alien) the way the grass isn’t the right color and how he isn’t hearing the right sounds and the light is all wrong.
Then he realizes the blue-purple sky is getting steadily brighter. Gamzee doesn’t have much of a survival instinct but death by sun isn’t high on his list of things to ever have happen. It’s enough to get him to his feet and then he stumbles because one leg tries to go out from under him but he catches himself just barely. He gives the ripped trouser leg and bloodied limb a glance but, really, not as bad as getting shot umpteen thousand times. He’s already over it. It hurts but he soldiers along, looking for shelter. He’s not going to burn, not after surviving the game (somehow, not really by his own devices, things are a little hazy on that front; he thinks he might have sucker punched the Lord of Time to death possibly) and despite that nothing else seems to be running for cover, he finds a small, stone building to duck inside.
His eyes adjust quickly and he finds himself in a public toilet, stained and forgotten. The smell of waste offends him, rippling along with his unease about how secure the building is (not at all) and the one exit. He senses the vague presence of his sylladex, wonders how deadly the cargo is, and then catches sight of himself in one of the cracked mirrors. His paint is smeared unrecognizable, bits of his hair touched with white, no fixing it now, and his face...
Gamzee resists the urge to break the mirror and instead turns away to give a look out the bathroom door again. It’s kind of nice looking, this place he’s woken up. Green as far as he can see, a stone path winding along well manicured lawn. There’s a huge, intricate looking fountain he can barely catch sight of but mostly it’s wide open space. He almost ducks back inside to hunker down for the day when he spots a flash of bright gold from what seems to be a shadow. Gamzee knows that color. Any troll would know it.
He hesitates. It’s none of his business if one of two dozen other trolls gets toasted for being too stupid to take care of themselves. Remote chance it’s someone he actually cares about and besides, most of them wouldn’t want him around anyway. He’s doesn’t owe them anything-
Except he motherfucking does.
He heads out cautiously at first and then goes at a run, as well as his bum leg will allow. The sky is shot with pink and pale violet and the horizon has grown deadly red. Gamzee doesn’t even stop to look the troll in the face. He grabs handfuls of black and gold cloth and drags them onto his back. He twists and stumbles on but the sun is beginning to peek over the horizon when he gets back into the bathroom like a terrifying bomb inching ever closer. He slams the main door closed, drops his cargo against the inner corner of the last stall, and then glares the thin barrier to the outside that will do little if someone really wants to get in. Fuck if he’ll let them in. He’s pretty sure he can tear apart anything the world throws him at this point. (He’s done great so far at destroying everything he touches.) This is his hive now, temporarily at least, and he will break a motherfucker for getting all up in his motherfucking space!
Gamzee’s still glaring down the door like it offered some kind of offense when he hears a sleepy little mumble from the last stall. He pauses, glancing back, but he doesn’t see any movement. The other troll is crumpled in a pile of limbs on the floor and Gamzee can just barely make out a few locks of messy black hair from under the stall door. For a moment, he thinks about trussing up that body to keep the door fortified, give him a few extra seconds to ready himself for whatever might come through, but he catches himself.
He’s not-
He’s trying to be better-
He doesn’t care about some low blooded motherfucker (could be Sollux, the spatters of blood on the floor are the right color) and he doesn’t need anyone, especially not one of them (they don’t want him) and what was he even all up and thinking, dragging dead weight along (maybe if he could save one)-
Gamzee glares as the troll twitches, arm flailing out from under the stall door in an uncontrolled sprawl, gloved fingers flexing at nothing. Pathetic. The troll is muttering and the voice isn’t right for Sollux, too high and the tone all wrong and Gamzee’s pretty sure he’s spitting gibberish in his sleep. Unless someone gave Sollux a lobotomy, this isn’t one of his trolls. He doesn’t have to care what happens to him.
He doesn’t care.
He still ends up easing the stall door open again so he can stare at the tangled pile of troll in black and gold, covered in Sollux’s blood color. Gamzee stoops down and pokes at the twitching hand. It jerks back up, but too far, smacks right into the guy’s face and then he gives a grumpy curse that’s half mangled as he jerks onto his side. He’s got a lot of hair, a lot more than Sollux, but the teeth are right and the symbol on his chest is a dead giveaway. Beforan Captor then. Gamzee never got a chance to get to know him (for the best) but he’s heard stories (when no one knew he was there to listen.)
He doesn’t know what to do with him. (He barely knows what to do with himself.)
Captor keeps sleeping. Gamzee keeps staring. He’s going to have to make a decision on this pretty soon. On the one hand, figuring out this place is going to be hard enough without having to look after some thinksponge addled idiot. On the other, he’s not supposed to be getting his killing on so much anymore. Lord English, Caliborn, all his embodied lords and masters are dead and gone and they were the last murders Gamzee wanted to assist in. (There’s one left, one who’s still around, but he won’t let her into his pan again. He will die before he lets her in.) He’s swearing off killing, at least for now. Besides, he’s pretty sure if he leads this pitiable thing back to safety, Karkat might-
Gamzee feels his entire body jerk and a clicking growl starts in his throat. He doesn’t care about Karkat (he does, he does so much, his little shouty palebro who was so good at keeping him steady) and he doesn’t need him (he needs him more than he ever wanted to and he wishes he’d never broken that but he doesn’t know how to fix it and now he is so lost) and he is just fine on his own. Motherfucking fine! (That’s the biggest lie of them all.)
Gamzee gets up and paces along the line of sinks. He's restless and hemmed in and he ends up drawing out a club so he has something in his hand. He wonders how long a day is here because it’s already been too motherfucking long and he hates that he’s trapped like a squeak beast in a motherfucking cage. At least he’s gotten used to the smell.
A small sliver of light peers in from the bottom edge of the door. Gamzee is careful to stay out of it but he prowls around the barest edges of it. He thinks about testing it because he’s not feeling the oppressive heat from it that he’d expect through such a thin barrier, but he doesn’t quite manage to make himself yet.
The troll in the stall flails violently, a fury of banging limbs and garbled cursing, and then he’s whimpering like a fool. It grates on Gamzee’s nerves. He should have left the idiot out to motherfucking burn.
“Helmet- thuppothed to- fffuck-“
Gamzee crouches near the main door. The stall walls stop about a foot off the ground and give him plenty of sight to figure out what Captor is doing. Which isn’t much. He’s sat up but he’s curled on himself with his head between his knees, hands tightly clenched in his shaggy hair. Still muttering. Gamzee’s kind of disgusted by him. It’s like someone tried to clone Sollux but only got half his genetic material and replaced the rest with a severely addled hoofbeast. It’d almost be mercy to just kill the poor bastard.
Captor finally gets on his hands and knees and bats the unlatched swinging door open so he can get out, but he stops there. He stares at Gamzee (at least he thinks so but that hair is so long and messy Captor might not really be seeing at all) and leans forward on his hands, like he’s trying to figure out what to do but isn’t quite all there. There’s blood running down his cheek and a patch of his hair near the front is wet and matted with it. If it weren’t for the stories, Gamzee might think the head wound had addled him.
“Kurloth?” Captor asks and then he rocks back a few inches like he knows it’s wrong but can’t trust himself.
“Wrong motherfucking Makara,” Gamzee corrects anyway and he grips the club tighter. Had his dancendent adopted this pathetic excuse for a troll as his own? Peripherally, Gamzee supposes he should keep him alive then. Not that he owes Kurloz anything because he’s a pathetic piece of shit, but somehow Gamzee doubts this idiot was in on anything. Damn is this motherfucker pitiable, but it’s dropped past diamond and gone straight culling offense. Gamzee wants to bash his pathetic skull in. But he doesn’t.
(He thinks about the way Caliborn looked at him when the culmination of all their efforts gave him the power he craved, the power to do anything, the power become the timely messiah that he’d already motherfucking been all along. He remembers the moment that he realized Lord English was bringing with him everything Gamzee hadn’t, actually, wanted after all, because he was the end and the beginning and the destruction of both. He remembers the stunning moment of clarity about what he had done, what he was doing, and what he’d lost in the process.)
Captor fidgets but it’s less bound energy and more lack of motor control. Gamzee wonders why no one else had already culled the poor bastard. After a little while, Captor grabs the side of the stall and starts pulling himself up to his feet like it’s the hardest thing he’s ever done. He stumbles, his fingers twitch at random, and he doesn’t seem to be aware of where his head is half the time (his horns must be as cracked as the rest of him for his sense of space to be so screwed up.)
“Where’th thith?” Captor manages but his voice is trembling and uneven, not scared so much as uncontrolled, just like his body. It’s a marvel of a thing. “Who’re yonnngggfffff-fuck your mouth hole, cockthucking bithangsiwsjdgl!”
He’s on the ground again and slams his fist against the tiles with obvious frustration that his stream of unintelligible cursing has already made clear.
Gamzee watches him flail. Yeah, great idea, saving the most damaged troll he’s ever met. His gaze trails to the door. It wouldn’t be that hard to get the door open and toss the meatsack outside without getting scorched.
“Nnngghhhfuck fuck fuck,” Captor mutters to himself as his fingers spasm, thwarting his attempts to get up again. He ends up on his back and then just gives up, laying there panting. It’s. Just. Pathetic.
And for some reason past his half hearted vow not to do it anymore, Gamzee still isn’t killing him. He’s almost curious about that, except his dancendent hadn’t killed off Captor either. He wonders if there’s something to that. Shifting off his feet, Gamzee rests his back against the wall between a sink and the door, folding his long legs under him. There’s no sense in staying on guard around this failure of life. Just a motherfucking waste of his ever loving time.
“Calm your tits, bro,” he mutters as Captor spits out another string of mangled curses. Gamzee sets down the club (on the side away from Captor, he’s not that stupid). “Ain’t gotta be so motherfucking excited when the sun’s all up and out.”
Captor mutters something, twisting his head back so he can look at Gamzee and- oh look, there’s an eye in the mess of black bangs. Gamzee can barely see it but he’s oddly comforted that the other troll has eyes, even if they’re the same weird Captor eyes as Sollux’s. After a few moments, Captor drags himself over to the line of sinks and sits up between two of them, throwing his legs out straight before him like he doesn’t know what else to do with them. He’s the most uncoordinated thing Gamzee’s ever seen.
“You are one useless motherfucker,” Gamzee tells him blithely.
“Thuck my bulge, nookthniffer,” Captor replies and then gives a cackling laugh.
Gamzee blinks. Hadn’t been expecting that. It makes him grin despite himself and then he’s laughing, too. It feels so motherfucking good to laugh like that, all nice and deep in his chest, completely sincere, and even if Captor’s laugh isn’t one he knows, he likes hearing them together, all wrapped up in one another like soulmates and he remembers how it used to sound when Tavbro got the wicked giggles-
He quiets and stares out across the bathroom. But he doesn’t want to feel bad right now. He wants to be motherfucking triumphant! He wants to laugh and he will laugh until there’s no air left in his lungs and no motherfucking thing is going to keep him from doing it either. He is above all that bullshit. He is free of it, free of everything and he laughs even though his bruised chest hurts from the effort because he doesn’t motherfucking care, he’s all up in the sweet joy of being alive-
Pap.
Gamzee stares, dumbfounded. Captor’s on his knees in front of him, wobbly but determined, and his hand is on Gamzee’s cheek like it has any motherfucking right to be and Gamzee is going to KILL THAT STUPID MOTHERFUCKER WHAT DARED LAY HANDS ON HIS SUBJUGGULATING PERSONAGE LIKE SOME WIGGLER TO BE PACIFIED, LIKE HE’S SLUTTING FOR PALE CONNECTIONS IN SOME PATHETIC ROADSIDE WHOREHIVE-
“Thoooth,” Captor tries but can’t quite get it right past his teeth and Gamzee hates him so much right now, he hates him because it’s not the sound he wants or needs or recognizes and Captor’s not aggressive enough with his fingers, but he’s hitting the right spots enough that Gamzee’s feeling the instinctual calm starting to come over him but he doesn’t want it, not for Captor, not here and now-
He swings the club without even thinking, catching the side of Captor’s head. The swing is weak and uncoordinated, but it’s enough to get Captor’s motherfucking hands off him. Then he gets his good leg between them and boots Captor across the bathroom, skittering back himself until he’s wedged into the far corner of the bathroom. Captor hits the back wall with a grunt and drops into a cursing, whining pile of misery and Gamzee swears if that motherfucker comes any closer he is going to beat his brains in and paint the whole motherfucking building with his blood. He’s got clubs in both hands and his bloodpusher beats hard and fast in his chest as his eyes go near blind with rage.
“Where do you all up and get off thinking you had ANY MOTHERFUCKING RIGHT TO MOTHERFUCKING SOOTHE ME?!”
Captor sputters out noises and obscenities as he scrambles to his feet, swinging an arm up to flip the bird as red and blue crack ineffectually around his bleeding face. “FFFUCK YOU! Cuz you’re crying like a little bitch!”
Gamzee bares his teeth because he is not but when he touches his face for confirmation, his fingers come back wet with paint and the watery imitation of his miracle blood color and he is going to kill this motherfucker for seeing him like this, for daring to try to pap him and make it better because he’s not Gamzee’s moirail, he’s not the one Gamzee would ever want (or let) pacify him, and Gamzee hates him so motherfucking much. He is going to PAINT THE ENTIRE MOTHERFUCKING WORLD IN HIS MOTHERFUCKING BLOOD-
He stops dead, club raised high to strike (when the fuck did he even move) and Captor’s hunched in front of him with his head down and he’s muttering out tiny, pathetic, whimpered apologies. Not even running or defending himself. Just standing there waiting like some stupid hoofbeast-
And Gamzee hates him-
Pathetic excuse for a troll with his whiny voice and spasming fingers and utter defenselessness-
Gamzee lets his arms fall limp at his sides. He’s still angry, so motherfucking angry, but the bloodlust is gone like it was never there in the first place. He growls low in his throat and Captor looks at him all unsure and it takes everything in Gamzee not to try to soothe him. Pitiful motherfucking thing, no wonder Kurloz never killed him (not that Kurloz is, actually, all that much like Gamzee, and the comparison grates on him even though he made it himself because Kurloz is nearly as terrible an example of troll kind as this sack of shit.) Captor’s almost as bad as Karkat, but that thought hurts so Gamzee shies from it. He glares at Captor while the guy just stands there, useless, then twists around and goes back to pacing. He’s full of nervous, angry energy and there’s nothing to destroy except sinks and toilets and he doesn’t want to end up drenched on top of miserable just because he burst a pipe.
Captor keeps to himself. When Gamzee finally calms down enough to even think of interacting with the guy, he finds Captor sleeping in the corner of the last stall, wedged between the toilet and the wall. It’s like something out of those pale romance movies Karkat made him watch sometimes (he never made much of a fuss, really.) He can almost see the burly palebro come around and gently carry off his tiny, sleeping snowflake to a hive they scandalously share- Gamzee shakes his head, rolls his eyes, and goes back to pacing.
He’s tired (so motherfucking tired) but there’s no way he’s sleeping here with a flimsy door that’s the only protection between him and the burning rays of the sun. He sits at the edge of the light coming in from the bottom of the door and stares at it. No heat, at least not enough to count. He weighs his options. Then he realizes he’s got absolutely nothing to motherfucking lose.
The light does absolutely nothing. Gamzee sticks his hand right in front of the open space under the door and nope, nothing, not a motherfucking difference. He’s almost disappointed. Getting back up to his feet, Gamzee gives the door a thoughtful look. If the light doesn’t burn, there’s no reason to stick around here, and he can escape Captor and the closed in feeling with one go. He doubts Captor will even notice he’s gone.
(He knows he’s not going to leave Captor there but he wants to pretend he will for a little while.)
Gamzee opens the door and because he’s not a frightened wiggler, he doesn’t bother keeping himself out of the way of light. Which turns out to be not dangerous at all. It’s warm and the air smells crisp and clean and he is not going to stay in this motherfucking bathroom any motherfucking longer. Gamzee takes a lungful of air and then goes back to grab Captor, who snarls and curses as he’s roused, and then fights tooth and nail as Gamzee drags him out the door. He screams and begs and curses Gamzee’s entire lineage until Gamzee throws him onto the grass and hisses at him to shut the fuck up already and look. After that, Captor’s surprisingly docile and when Gamzee decides to go, he follows. Captor stumbles every few steps, falls every few more. He’s exhausted, just like Gamzee is, but if the two of them are here then most likely others are and Gamzee means to find them. He’s going to shove Captor at them and then continue alone. He always did better alone (when he wasn’t convinced he was his own messiahs, anyway. Except no, not really then either.)
Captor is a chatterer. Most of what he says is mangled and worthless but Gamzee doesn’t bother trying to shut him up. At least for now. Instead, he concentrates on trying to figure out where the hell they are because his innate directional senses haven’t quite settled yet and he knows none of the landmarks. He’s got a sense for magnetic north, can figure the rest, but that’s not going to help much. It still doesn’t take long for them to find the end of the over large lawn ring, which turns out to be edged on all sides by roads, strange hives, and stranger vehicles. And there are humans everywhere: big, small, all shades of pink and yellow and brown, with any number of colors of hair on their weirdly hornless heads…
Gamzee isn’t like the rest of his old crew. He never really warmed up to the humans (except maybe Dave Strider and that had more to do with his burning hatred of that motherfucker, or Rose, who liked listening as long as Gamzee was willing to talk, which wasn’t often) and he certainly doesn’t want to be around them now. Disgusting bags of defenseless pink with their aggravating tendency to worthless annoyance… He likes them even less now, alone with only a damaged troll at his side in some place he guesses must be the human homeworld. Too much to hope it might have been Beforus. He’s lucky, but not that lucky.
Captor is close enough to his back that Gamzee can feel his body heat. He growls and Captor snarls at him but he backs off a bit only to fall on his ass again. When Gamzee drags him back to his feet, Captor stays close again and this time Gamzee doesn’t bother.
It’s about then that a vehicle painted black and white pulls up at the edge of the road. The window rolls down and an adult human in a dark blue uniform peers out at them. Authority figure, definitely. He doesn’t need to see how a few of the surrounding humans tense up to know that; he can see it in her posture, her utter comfort in her own skin. Her eyes float over Captor and then center on Gamzee. She doesn’t seem to know quite what to make of them. (Her expression becomes blanker when looking at him, like she can see something in him that isn’t in Captor. He knows exactly what that is.)
“Still a couple months until Halloween, boys,” she says, lifting her brows, but she’s still looking right at Gamzee and he just... He can feel the challenge she’s calculating in her mind, the way she’s testing the waters to see what might jump out. He wants to. His muscles coil in preparation, bloodpusher quickens as adrenaline shoots through his system. Just a human but this is a human used to combat, or at least ready for the threat of it. He almost draws a club because he wants to know what color her blood is because she’s so different looking than the humans he knows-
Captor makes a noise filled with confusion and as incomprehensible as ever. The red developing at the edges of Gamzee’s vision recedes. If he attacked this human, the others might gang up. Humans were a lot more pack oriented than trolls. He needed to duck out of this one’s attention, find somewhere for him and Captor to hide away until he figured out what to do.
“Ain’t no need to be bothered,” he grits out.
“Uh-huh.” She looks very much disbelieving, her eyes narrowed and watchful. “Well, maybe you want to be getting on home now to clean that stuff off. There’re kids in this neighborhood. No need to expose them to anything weird just ‘cause your parents don’t reign you in. You should know better at your age.”
He has no idea what she’s talking about and for a moment, he’s almost offended that it’s so obvious someone should be reigning him in, pacifying his actions, keeping him from going crazy. He knows they should. That doesn’t mean he likes being reminded that no one is. Gamzee stares at her as his hands fists and he thinks about the clubs in his sylladex.
She squints at them a bit, giving Captor a closer look and lingering on their horns. She seems to be figuring out if they’re worth the trouble. Gamzee’s hackles rise in anticipation. If she attacks them first…
“Well. Get on, then,” she says finally, settling back in her vehicle. “Don’t you let me catch you acting a fool around here. I live in this neighborhood. I’ll know. And clean that paint off your clothes; you look stupid. If you’re going to be paintballing, show yourselves a little respect and bring a change of clothes. Now get home before I change my mind about letting you off the hook.”
Then she rolls up the window and goes on with what seems to be a routine patrol. Gamzee glares after her even as he feels some of the tension in him fading. He still wants to get the fuck out of here, go home, get to something normal and familiar… Not that he thinks anything will be familiar again. Fuck.
Gamzee chooses a direction and Captor follows, just as he figured he would. Captor’s got all the sense of a smashed grub which suits Gamzee just fine because if that motherfucker starts a fight with him, he with all up and end him, and he doesn’t feel like getting any more covered in blood. His nerves are shot. He’s exhausted. He’s hurt. He’s surrounded by wide eyed humans and a bright sun and everything stinks unfamiliarly. He doesn’t even have the option to get high and level off a little. Gamzee is ripe and ready to kill a bitch (he wonders if Captor would try to pacify him again if he did and the thought makes him shudder with unease.) He concentrates on where the fuck they’re going.
Even if he doesn’t find familiar faces before they find him, Gamzee’s fine with it. He figures the humans will gossip enough to spread word. There have to be other trolls around here. He and Captor can’t be the only ones. He doesn’t care who it might be because any of those motherfuckers would pity Captor enough to look after him (he has a habit of surrounding himself with people like that (barring Vriska, maybe) when he isn’t off being stupid) and maybe he can have a place to hole up for a few hours of sleep before he sneaks off because unless he finds Kanaya, the ones he knows won’t kill him in his sleep.
He’s about ready to just find a tree to curl up in when he notices two odd hives that look the same right next to each other, rather than the pattern of designs he’s seen in the rest of the area. In front of one of them is an adult human in a wide brimmed hat embracing a juvenile that’s familiar- Yes. He knows that one. It’s another one of the first human group, the dark haired male. Jawm, something weird like that. Gamzee doesn’t care enough to work on remembering and the holes in his mind are difficult to manage even when he’s trying.
The adult human notices them before the Heir of Breath and waves his hand at them. It takes Gamzee a moment to realize they’re being beckoned. He hesitates but then starts towards the human only to feel a tug at his shirt. He looks back. Captor’s stopped grinning. He looks apprehensive under his messy head fluff and his hand is tightly clenched on the edge of Gamzee’s shirt. Gamzee says nothing because what the motherfuck is he supposed to say to get this jangle of troll moving. After a second or two, Captor takes a hesitant step and the two of them go to meet up with Jawm and the other human.
“You guys got here too?” Jawm says, lifting an inch or two off the ground with excitement. The older human sets a calming hand on his shoulder to bring him back down to the ground.
“We should get you boys inside and cleaned up,” he murmurs, already steering Jawm to the hive. Gamzee follows but he’s smelling the familiar twang of troll, hints of presence. He’s not sure how many, but someone else is here and he feels something inside both relax and clench with unease. Captor stumbles behind him, knocks into Gamzee’s shoulder, but when he turns to glare at the addled troll, Captor’s face is so pale and drawn and Gamzee finds himself biting back on what he’d meant to say.
“Careful, bro,” he says instead and lets Captor keep tugging his shirt to keep along.
“Lick my taint,” Captor replies quietly but he doesn’t let go and Gamzee finds himself snorting and cracking a tired grin.