towerofanimus | [OPEN] you waste your time with hate and regret

Entry tags:

[OPEN] you waste your time with hate and regret

Characters: Jade!Eridan Ampora('s half dead carcass) and YOU.
Setting: Floor 12.
Format: Action, but I'll match you.
Summary: Nobody told Eridan sleeping in this cold is a bad, bad idea. What did you expect from him? He knows how to survive extreme heat, not extreme cold.
Warnings: Jadeblood popcicles. Jadeblood popcicles for everyone. Also Eridan sliding down the slippery slope of murderously batshit crazy, yay.

[Watching the universes ending and stars imploding and the whole thing... it's rather soothing. Sort of. Eridan was in dire need of soothing things, to put his mind back together. He'd intended to maybe sit there for a couple hours, watching the stars dying, and trying to calm himself down from an abrupt, nonsensical rage that even he could tell was irrational. He'd been pushing down a bubble of hysteria for the better part of four days now, mostly because hysteria meant bad, bad things for all involved, but maybe if he went at it slowly, it wouldn't be so bad. Because meltdowns totally work that way, obviously. Though even he had to admit that he couldn't keep on pretending everything was right and peachy. Putting on a smile and going through the motions was getting almost physically painful, but he didn't want anyone to get hurt. (And of course, being a responsible troll and asking Jade for a feelings jam was not an idea that occurred to him, either, because what is doing the right thing, haha, you must have confused him for someone else, Eridan Ampora never does the right thing unless Paradox Space has him at metaphorical gun point about it.)

Eridan watched the cycles of destruction repeat over and over again, while he tried to put order to the mess that is his head, but it wasn't long before he started feeling sleepy instead. Not really knowing any better, and given the alternative was thinking more about Rei and such, he started nodding off, fueled by the cold.

Which is why you'll find him tucked away in a corner of the room, face buried into his knees, arms around his ankles and limbs already stiff. The sleeves of that jacket have been brutalized already, but hey. At least there isn't a single bloodstain on this floor.

Yet.]

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[Gamzee just stares at him a moment, fairly certain now that this Eridan is not okay and that he should at least get him somewhere warmer before they talk about anything.]

Hey, uh... Why don't we at least go on up to my place. It's a little more motherfuckin' comfortable than what all we got to sit around on here.

[If the troll is going to look at him that way the whole time, he's not sure he'll be entirely comfortable just talking anyway.]

[But he chose this place because it's mostly empty as it is. And then no one has to get hurt. And... and... Eridan concentrated on breathing slowly and offered a stiff shrug to Gamzee's proposal.]

Well, if you want to, sure.

[Because this is for Gamzee's benefit, not his own, right. Right. He'll just go, talk a little, then he can come back and go on with his business. Right?]

Ain't all too much of a fuckin' mess. I'll show you where it's at, yeah?

[He stands, offering a hand out to the troll and hoping he'll just follow along.]

Okay.

[He's overdoing the meek right now, a little, but it's better to err on the side of caution, right? Especially when the alternative is throwing himself at the kid and then squeeze his neck until his eyes pop out like a---

Whoa there, okay. No. Calm down.

Eridan nods slowly and follows after Gamzee, very carefully monitoring his thoughts. They're not nice thoughts. He hopes Gamzee doesn't notice.]

[Thankfully, Gamzee is a simple human and lacks any sort of mind reading, thus remaining blissfully unaware of any unpleasant thoughts he may be involved in.

This doesn't mean the walk to his room isn't still awkwardly silent for most of the way.

He knocks first when he gets there, to make sure no one else is in, before leading the troll over to sit on his bed. It smells faintly of bath soap, for reasons he'll try to avoid mentioning.]

Same as everyone else's got.

Edited 2012-12-16 02:53 (UTC)

[Eridan can handle the awkward silence. Awkward silence makes up for time he gets to put his head in order and not freak out too much about anything so that's okay. Yay for awkward silence.

He offers Gamzee a very small smile as they enter the room, fingers stuck into the depths of his jacket's pockets, where they can writhe and twitch in peace, unseen.]

's okay. I haven't really seen you around since last time we talked. How're you holding up?

[Because 'how are you doing' in the tower is always universally answered badly.]

[Sit on the bed, Eridan. Sit, so he can flop his blanket around you like a good bro. Look at this hospitality.]

...Holding, I guess.

Got all the human parts of me I should got. Friendly as fuck roommate...

[Hold on while he tries to think of something else positive. Might take a while.]

[He's not sure how to handle your hospitality, kid, specially when he's still trying to curb the urge to murder you a little. Just a little.]

That's good.

[This is the single most pitiful attempt at an encouraging smile in the history of ever. It's so bad it almost deserve a medal.]

[Yeah, that's pretty bad. Gamzee's hardly bothered, though. He's a little pleased to have company. Even strange company.]

It'll do, anyway. Not all much else.

[...]

Hey, do you... got anyone else here from where you were at?

[Given his quadrants are from his own world, you'd expect him to think of them first. But given his frame of mind isn't the most positive thing in the world right now, he thinks of Karkat and Kanaya instead. And that only causes a flash of repressed aggression to cross his face, lip twitching to bare a fang. Then he smooths out his expression, shrugging and thinking of Jade.]

Yeah, a few.

Don't know all so much about your fuckin' situation, but from where all I sit that's something I can be mother fucking jealous over.

[Best friend or worst enemy, not a single other person from his universe has yet to show. Perhaps it's for the best, but it doesn't fell like it.]

[Oh well, excuse Eridan, he's just going to curl up at the foot of Gamzee's bed and all casual like gonna sink his claws into his ankles, clean through the denim, don't mind him, he's being subtle and shit.]

You miss your friends, huh? I feel you there.

[He shrugs, not entirely sure how to answer.]

Ain't so simple as all that. It's a little motherfuckin' complicated. Let's put it down to a bro missing what all he thought his friends to be.

[Something ugly coils in the back of Eridan's mind, turning his piss poor attempt of a smile into something bitter.]

Sometimes it's better if they stay just memories, though.

[Memories don't fuck you over.]

Might be.

[He can't really argue with that.]

S'just worse when every motherfucker here looks the same except me.

[Eridan is sadly wholly ignorant of your backstory, Gamzee. But that's okay, it wouldn't be a grilling session otherwise.]

You mean, 'cause you're not a troll?

[Eridan hasn't really given it much choice about the whole thing, except that he probably shouldn't attempt to roughhouse with this Gamzee the same way he does with the other one. But that's more of a general rule to not roughhouse with anyone but the other Gamzee, since they might object to getting hurt and such. And wow, that was a terrible train of thought and he's gonna focus solely on this Gamzee before he does or says something stupid. Or stupider than usual.]

Yeah...

[Because none of them should be. Because it was a false concept, a reality created by the programmers.]

There's a small part of me what still can't all acknowledge this place as real.

I think we're all secretly waiting for something to prove this to be a really bad joke.

[Lord knows Eridan is, even after all that's happened. He shrugs.]

I don't think I've ever really asked what your world's like.

[He meant that to be subtler than it came out, but he's not really braining his usual subtleties well right now.]

Tend not to want to be all gettin' into it when a motherfucker does, anyway.

[He shrugs.]

It's the same as the other me what's here. Mine just didn't actually happen.

Oh.

[Well that hits close to home, hang on, give him a minute to unclench his jaw, he's going to pull an Equius and break his teeth one of these days.]

You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. Fuck knows I'm tired of people nosing their way into my fucking business when I'd rather not talk about it, because fuck taking a goddamn hint some days.

[...whoa there, boy, how did you end up growling by the time you finished that sentence? He lets out another loud sigh. Yay, mood swing.]

Not gonna deny I'm curious, 's all.

[Yeah, Eridan not wanting to talk about himself still doesn't really compute, and now he's backed himself into a corner conversation-wise.

Oh well.

He shrugs.]

Don't mind sharing with a bro now, I guess.

[Exactly as planned. Eridan offers a wan smile.]

Thanks.

[Gamzee nods.]

It's just as I was telling you. Everything what the other me's seen and did - most of it all up to what's here, anyway - is the same as what all happened to me. At least that's how it seemed.

Mine weren't none real, though. I was seeing it all as hooked up to a motherfucking machine. Fed pictures and memories of me being that, when all of that time I was just being this.

And it's still hard to be taking any of this in as real, and that I'm not just strapped in being fed something new again.

So they made you go through the shit he did, but only just in your head?

[...boy, that's shitty. Way to make someone question their sense of reality! Eridan doesn't want to ponder on that, because his sense of reality is fucked up enough as it is, and the idea of someone meddling with his head has always been kind of a personal brand of Do Not Fucking Want Ever Kill It With Fire. But still, the only real thing Eridan can think of is:]

Why?

[Like, why the fuck would anyone even do something like that?]

[Gamzee shrugs.]

Some all kinda project what gave people somethin' to live on through while traveling space for several years.

We were just kinda the motherfuckin' guinea pigs when it came to them seeing what all they could get away with doing.

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