pull out the fourth cord

[thereisnopie]

Characters: Gamzee Makara (AU) and you.
Setting: The Cafeteria.
Format: Either
Summary: Realizing you're stuck in the lie again doesn't necessarily make it easier to escape it.
Warnings: Language. Psychological trauma.

Gamzee sits slouched in a chair in the cafeteria, a glass of water sitting half empty (if we're being pessimistic, which he is) on the table in front of him. He stares through its clear exterior with a feverish gaze, dark hair plastered to his face with sweat.

Water has been the only thing he's put into his system for the past couple days now, and that only because he needs it to survive (not that this seems to matter here anyway). It's not poison he's afraid of, at least not the sort of poison his counterpart is worried about, but rather anything that they might have put into his food to keep him sedated again - to keep him docile and pliable to their whims. He'd been a fool to ever thing he'd escaped from that madhouse, from the program that had kept him under its spell for years. He was beginning to think he'd never get away from it.

And the worst part is he doesn't know how to fight back. This is the best he can do for now - sit and ponder and possibly contemplate giving in to the desire for food despite all desire not to.

Comments

[caliginous]

Karkat had been doing amazingly at avoiding getting sick, but he had ignored food for far too long. As such, it was no real wonder that he would come nervously creeping around the corner to try and get food without touching anyone or anything. He could already feel the tickle in the back of his throat, and when he thought about it, it had been stupid to think that he wouldn't fall prey to the sickness eventually. From everything he'd seen, it was airborne.

But he had to try. And now his stomach was winning over stubbornness. Or rather, it would have been, if he didn't spot Gamzee on his way inside the cafeteria, which causes him to freeze. He had already heard some people that were sick freaking out over random crap (Feferi came to mind) and there was no way to tell if the same thing was going on with the human in front of him.

So he just sort of stands there awkwardly and waits for a reaction. This Gamzee, at least, didn't seem too keen on severing his head from his shoulders.

[thereisnopie]

At the sound of footsteps, Gamzee's eyes raise from the table slowly and he stares at Karkat for a good few moments before the image truly processes. The blue one. The different one. The one he would have gladly tried to know better until he realized it was just another lure - another trap to draw him into the false reality.

He tilts his head slightly, voice scratchy as he speaks. "Quite the motherfuckin' ill creation you are." It's strange. As easy as it is to get angry at those that made these images, it's harder to snap at the images themselves, even if they could be one and the same. The same - or others trapped just as he is.

He will never really know, will he?

[caliginous]

"I get that a lot," Karkat comments simply, maybe with a hint of resentment. It bothered him a lot in the beginning, being told he was a duplicate and not the "true Karkat", so to speak, especially considering his counterpart was a mutant. He didn't really have anything against mutants (how could he, when Kanaya was one of them?), but it kicked some part of his pride that he couldn't quite articulate without sounding like a huge tool. He had since gotten over it, considering how many people a month were surprised at his existance, but lately it had been bothering him again -- perhaps because people like Vriska, who he had gotten along with, were returning to the Tower without memories of him.

Gamzee sounds sick. So when Karkat approaches the table, he leaves a good bit of distance between them, hands stuffed in his pockets.

"You get used to it. Everyone else did," he adds, lip curling a little over one of his sharp canines. No, everyone else probably didn't, but it was easier if he thought they did.

[thereisnopie]

"Not what I meant, bro." He shakes his head. "Almost got me, though. Almost motherfuckin' had me in those lies. Could've found some fuckin' kinship in someone what seemed all as displaced as I am." A foul sounding chuckle followed this, and he lifted his glass to toast it mockingly at the troll.

"...But you ain't any more real than the rest of them."