[OPEN] you waste your time with hate and regret

[chronomancer]

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.]

Comments

[chronomancer]

[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.]

[thereisnopie]

Might be.

[He can't really argue with that.]

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

[chronomancer]

[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.]

[thereisnopie]

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.

[chronomancer]

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.]

[thereisnopie]

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.

[chronomancer]

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.

[thereisnopie]

[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.

[chronomancer]

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

Thanks.

[thereisnopie]

[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.

[chronomancer]

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?]

[thereisnopie]

[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.

[chronomancer]

[Eridan's eyes narrow a little, but he doesn't say or do more than that for a long moment.]

I met a Jade here, a long time ago. Nearly half a sweep now. She was like you, in a way.

[He shrugs.]

The game and what happened in the game and... her life as Jade. It wasn't really real, in her world. Her name wasn't even Jade.

[thereisnopie]

[Gamzee tilted his head.] There was a group all fuckin' before mine, I hear. Just all with a group of kids, but they just got normal life shit.

Then we got some copies of them in ours.

Heh... I don't really all know if Gamzee's mine, neither. But it's all I got.

[chronomancer]

[Eridan clicked his tongue.]

Your name's Gamzee if that's what you want to be fucking called. Bein' stuck here at least means you get to be who you want to be, and not who someone else tells you to be.

[He smiles, somewhere between empty and entirely too full of teeth.]

Or so I keep getting told.

[thereisnopie]

Then I got to wonder if I want to be Gamzee, you know?

[Things shouldn't be so complicated.]

But nothing else sounds right.

[chronomancer]

I guess at this point all you can do is play it by ear.

[Eridan shrugs lightly.]

It's not like there's a "right" way to be yourself, or anything.

[thereisnopie]

S'pose you're right on that.

[Gamzee flops back onto the bed.]

Man, fuck.

...Hey, you warmin' up any?

[chronomancer]

[Eridan shrugs.]

Dunno. Don't really feel the cold, y'know.

[thereisnopie]

Don't usually or don't right now? Because I don't know if that's being such a good thing.

[chronomancer]

Bit of both, I think.

[He shrugs.]

Probably for the best though.

[thereisnopie]

How's that for the best? Still think you should get all motherfuckin' wrapped up.

[chronomancer]

'cause cold makes me sluggish.

[Read: hypothermia makes his brain slow.]

[thereisnopie]

...And that all's supposed to be good?

[chronomancer]

...for now, yeah.