towerofanimus | I'm not calling you a liar;

Entry tags:

I'm not calling you a liar;

Characters: Feferi Peixes and Gamzee Makara (both OU-flavored)
Setting: Floor 56
Format: Prose to start, action in comments.
Summary: Feferi found out Gamzee's been messing with the Slap-Chop. YOU DON'T GO MESSING WITH THE SLAP-CHOP.
Warnings: LANGUAGE. Is mentioning Jason a warning? IT IS NOW. Also, highblood trolls are their own brand of crazy, and angry ones even more so. Violence is always a possibility, and they might try to kill each other before this is all said and done.

What the fuck?! Feferi chanted the words almost like a mantra as she climbed the last few stairs. Really, what in the name of the motherfucking horrorterrors had Gamzee been thinking? She would have helped. Tavros would have helped. Anyone in the fucking tower would have helped.

You didn't fucking go to Jason. That was worse than her own breakdown. That was worse than all the brainwashing, because nobody had volunteered for that shit. This was completely voluntary, and that made it so much worse. Who knew what was going to that asshole now? Nobody but him.

And Feferi wasn't going to stand for that. Not without knowing why, and why nobody was allowed to do anything.

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[Gamzee was rarely one to check his mailbox, but he often attempted to tamper with those of others'. However, while he was there, in between failed lock-picking attempts and random bouts of wailing on the metal containers, he noticed a summons poking out of one of the slats of number 7770.]

[Feferi.]

[He might have had a terrible memory for any and all things, but the quirks of his former teammates was something not-so-easily forgotten. From the tone of her note, it sounded like the girl had one too many oysters crammed up her waste chute. Gamzee had half a mind to discard the thing - women were notorious naggers, and he couldn't see this confrontation going down any other way. However, life in Tower Wonderfuck does get heinously boring sometimes (when you aren't being chopped to pieces or forced to do things against your will). It'd be a nice change of pace to actually have a direction for once, even if it wasn't usually his style.]

[Not to mention, as the sopor wore off from his most recent binge, he could feel the now-familiar pique of curiosity beginning to grow anew in his pump biscuit. The chip he'd had shoved in his think pan only served to dull his most impulsive, violent urges - it didn't sate his curiosity any, or his lust for danger.]

[His perpetually-untied shoelaces dragged against the staircase as he made his way to... which floor was it, again? Fifty-six. He didn't recall the nature of the floor until he'd stepped off on it. Ah, yeah. The creepy-ass medical ward. It was an interesting time, poking around in here. Although, he had to question Feferi's choice a little, because it really didn't seem like her taste. Ah, well. She'd explain if necessary.]

[He really had no idea what the fuck she wanted with him, but he couldn't find it in himself to get too worked up over it. Still clutching the crumpled-up piece of paper, it didn't take him long to find the little fish girl hanging around down here. Of course, she was earlier than him. Everyone was earlier than him, always.]

[Sucking his crooked teeth in a forced display of mock-awkwardness, Gamzee shrugged his bony shoulders as he sauntered his way towards her.]

Fuckin' strange-ass place for a pair to get their motherfuckin' tryst on, wouldn't you all be sayin'?

[The floor didn't seem like her taste? That was because it wasn't her taste. If this were going to be a little friendly chat, she would have picked the beach, or the pool, or the meadow. Friendly places for friendly chit-chat.

No, her choice had been made entirely because of what this place was, and what it represented, in a moment of cool calculation in the middle of her anger. Bring out the scalpels and the operating tables, and bring out the abominations in the shadows. If she was going to drag out the skeletons in the closet, she was going to do it literally, if that was what it took.

When he enters, he'll find her sitting on the edge of one of the operating tables. There's a faint squish - she's stepped on the corpse of the retrieval unit that's been her constant companion until now, and she doesn't appear to care - as she hops off, approaching with an entirely too chilly air about her.

There's a note in her hand, and she presses it into his before she even says a word.]

What the fuck is this?

[Everything about Feferi is chilly. Usually her attitude was the only thing that resembled anything of warmth, but now it was all frigid. Frigid bitch walking. While he still didn't know what he was supposed to be expecting, Gamzee remained aloof, but with a stupid, cocky grin on his face. When in doubt, mock your enemies and feign disinterest. Though Feferi wasn't exactly an "enemy", per se, she certainly didn't seem to be high on the "ally" list at the moment. Generally, his allies were more volatile than anything, anyway, so this brief attitude change from her only served as a curious triviality.]

[Did she just kill something? Maybe the fish sister had gone full on murder mode when he wasn't looking. That could prove interesting. Now that he'd learned the trick of shoving the handles of his clubs into the waistband of his pants, he could carry them around with him without keeping his hands full. Gamzee rested an elbow on the butts of them, sticking up at his side, and unfurled the note she'd stuffed in his palm.]

Always bein' at with the motherfuckin' sticky papers...

[The grin was still on his face as he joked with her, rolling his neck and stretching his shoulders before scanning his eyes across the new piece of paper.]

Records indicate Gamzee requested the procedure.
Riki
[It was simple enough to figure out the context of such a note. Not so simple to figure out why such a response was needed, especially in a conversation between Feferi and Riki. "What the fuck was this?" Feferi had asked him what the fuck it was, when he could have easily asked her the same question. Why the fuck was she poking around in his records? If she needed information, she should have just come to him directly. Sneaking around behind his back was a thing he simultaneously respected and abhorred. Props to whoever did it without him catching wind, and damn them for being able to hide something from him. Although this was a brief fact mentioned in passing between the two, there could have been something bigger, here. Feferi was usually pretty reasonable, but it would be foolish to think that that was all she was capable of.]

[Enough with the fatalistic mentality. Although his mind was racing, the douchey smirk never left his lips. With a comical huff, the boy wadded the note back up, reaching forward to stuff it back down the front of Feferi's tanktop.]

Be lookin' all mostly like a god damn note to my motherfuckin' gander bulbs.

[With a generous spring, he released the plunging collar of her shirt, letting it snap back up over the paper.]

One of what ain't no one's motherfuckin' business, is what at that. Hope that fucking helps.

[She would have preferred the words ice queen to frigid bitch, but it's all semantics at this point. The ocean doesn't teach kindness to its young; it never has and never will. Its children are meant to be hard and cold, to break what they touch if they don't care for it, and to rule over everything with an iron fist.

Feferi's lessons might have been tempered by her own natural sweetness and her honest desire to make things better, but she learned them all the same. She might have told herself at one point that she would only be cruel in order to be kind in the end, but that changed the moment she took her trident to the drone. Gamzee might have applauded the kill, given its violence, the way her trident forced a third eye where one wasn't naturally. The number of stab wounds in its body - most of them after death - is more than a quick kill calls for.

She cleaned the blood off her hands and face afterwards, but missed one tiny streak of red at the left side of her neck that her hair doesn't quite cover. If he looks, he'll see that she didn't clean off her trident, and it glitters gold and crimson in the dim light.

That grin doesn't faze her in the slightest. She knows it's going to fade, and sooner, rather than later, but she remains impassive. She doesn't kick back or push away when he grabs her shirt, and she only takes a few steps back when he lets her go.

When she steps forward again, the look in her eyes is completely different. Now she's angry, and the impassivity drops entirely.]

Do you even fucking realize what the implications of this are? Of letting fucking Jason fuck around in your head? After everything that happened downstairs? I get it. It was a lot of shit that went down. I know that.

But fucking hell, Gamzee! You let him do something to you after that. And it became my fucking business, because somebody has to - somebody has to make sure we don't wipe ourselves all out.

Edited 2013-05-06 15:26 (UTC)

[FUCKING GIRLS.]

[He knew this was going to turn into nagging. Nag, nag, nag. Bitch, bitch, bitch. Why the fuck did he still choose to associate with people, when that was all they knew how to do? Do this, don't do that, start doing this, stop doing that, why aren't you doing that, why'd you do this...! He was getting sick and fucking tired of all of this bullshit.]

[His surgery had prevented him from having a temper spike, which would surely have been the case right now. Feferi's catalytic remarks coupled with his own compulsive thoughts would have worked him into a right tizzy in no time. Instead of snapping back at her, however, there was a brief expression of malice, short-circuited by a few jerks of his head before being replaced by a similarly dissatisfied, yet more subdued expression.]

Just because you fucking tell in yourself it be your motherfuckin' business, don't actually make it your mother fucking business.

[He lifted a lip, baring a few fangs before shuddering again and dropping his defenses.]

I ain't got no problems hashin' out what secrets I deem all fuckin' suitable to be provided answers at to motherfuckers what think they all be owed to knowing on such shit like what's that all is.

But the entitlement fuckin' drippin' off you be more that the human candy juices what be all motherfuckin' flowin' from that pokey stick yours.

The fuck you get it up in your thinkpan to be comin' at a brother all on his fuckin' decisions when you ain't even seemin' right in the nug your motherfucking self!?

[She starts to turn on her heel, fully intent on forcing an answer, but she stops the moment she sees his head jerk. It makes her want to vomit, seeing his emotions forcibly turned off like that. Feferi is silent for a moment, as she swallows hard against the bile rising in her throat.

...the worst part, she thinks, is that it's probably all being recorded downstairs. She can see Jason's face in her mind's eye, hunched over some kind of computer screen, looking at this data, and laughing. There are a lot of things she has had to learn to tolerate, but that? She'll never stand for it.

She only barely hears what Gamzee's saying about whether this is her business or not, about her own entitlement issues. If she's being entirely honest with herself, somewhere deep down in her mess of issues, maybe she does feel entitled, but that's not registering right now.

All she can feel is that mix of shock, anger, and pure hatred, and all she can hear is the pounding of her blood pushing through her veins, as she pulls herself up to her full height.

Not a moment later, Feferi backhands Gamzee as hard as she can across his face.]

The fuck do you get off saying that when you made it so you can't feel anything at all? You're a fucking coward. You had everyone around you who would have done anything in the world to help you get through what you were feeling, and you ran for the easy out.

Maybe I'm not right in the head right now, but at least I have the capability for it.

[The strike was met with no response on Gamzee's end, save for maybe the low rumble of a growl in his throat. He didn't move, he didn't attack. The only reaction was the sound of sharp smack across his face that echoed off of the metal walls of the hospital. When he straightened his head back up, there was a distinct smear of greasepaint across his cheek and mouth, bare skin visible and purpling under the strength of her blow.]

[He could feel it. The burning, swelling sensation of a spark in his chest. The heat that spread from his pump biscuit down to his fingertips. It was like a ball of noise scratching and flaring in places it used to frequent so often. It was a slow burn, slow enough to burn under the sedation of his chip, controlled enough to keep him focused instead of tearing at her throat for raising a hand to him.]

[He kept his expression neutral, well, almost neutral. It held the telling strain of someone trying to keep a straight face. His jaw was set, and his breaths were audible. His eyes softened.]

Ohh, baby girl.

[She could scream and hit him all she wanted. The things she was doing only served to make that fury nest in his chest cavity, and he prayed to every fucking messiah he had that it would stay, because this burn was a burn he hadn't felt in forever. As soon as he let it get out of control, though, he'd be helpless again.]

You even more fucked than all I once was thought.

[Still keeping his breathing level, he stepped towards her, fingers itching for the clubs held at his side. As soon as that thought crossed his mind, his hands jerked involuntarily. God damnit.]

You self-righteous bitch. YOU IGNORANT, PRISSY, SANCTIMONIOUS MOTHERFUCKING CUN--

[As soon as the c-word rolled from his lips, his hands stretched out to take hold of the many necklaces draped over her torso. As his fingers closed around them, he jerked. His arms snapped away like someone had yanked a marionette, and the scattering of beads had declared that one, if not more, of the strings had been broken. He'd attempted to cry out, but it was stifled by his own tongue.]

How fuckin' dare you say all like you know just what the fuck be happening. How dare you try to stomp all up in my life where you ain't never was before havin' the gall to make a motherfucking splash at.

[He was fucking seething, and even though his arms had returned to his sides, he made no move to put back the distance between them.]

The only reason you be gettin' your ungodly screech on at me right the fuck now is all 'cause you be needing to reaffirm your mother fucking image. Take your fuckin' false pity and all shove it up that clammy, frozen nook yours before I all find myself a motherfuckin' way to do it fucking for you.

[Feferi's own hand was bruising after that slap, her grey skin turning fuschia. But she wouldn't take it back, and she wouldn't back down. Not when she was finally getting a reaction.

Let him get angry. Maybe it would blow out whatever it was that Jason had done. Blowing the bastard's work to hell had never sounded better.]

I said it and I wasn't lying when I said I fucking broke last month. But at least I was able to feel it. I didn't and I don't want any of the things I fucking feel gone. The minute I quit being able to feel any of my own emoceans - and own them for what they are, even if they're fucked up, even if they make me a bitch, even if they make me a fucking monster - then you might as well make a grave for me. I'd rather be dead and gone for good than unable to act on what I feel, or to have it zapped the fuck out of my head by somebody who's down there laughing at me.

[She makes no move to stop him when he reaches for her necklace. If it tightens? She'll fight back. If it doesn't, she might do it anyway.]

How dare I? Because we both know that's the truth of it. It's a fucking game to him. How much of this science shit can he push down everyone, can he force on us, before we forget ourselves? That's what he wants to know. And I don't want that motherfucker to find out.

Maybe I am ignorant. Maybe I am that prissy, sanctimonious cunt you tried to call me. And maybe it's not my call.

[She hisses when that necklace snaps, coral and turquoise beads falling and scattering to the floor, but all she does is hiss this time. The words mean more.]

But don't say it's motherfucking false pity. That's the last thing this is. If I didn't give a fuck, I wouldn't have gone so far to find out what the fuck happened to you. Because this isn't you. We both know that. And I'm not gonna fucking stand there and watch that fucking asshole get into your head over and over and over again.

You don't need that bullshit. You want to find a way to shut me up? Then come the fuck at me.

[This would be the point. This would be the point where Gamzee would lunge, claws and teeth and clubs first. He would twist his fingers in her hair until he could snap her neck back, raise a club and wail on every inch of flesh and bone and cartilage he could find. He'd snap her in two, he'd splash tyrian all over the walls of this once-pristine medical facility. He'd...]

[It wasn't there. The charge or dopamine or whatever it was that came from that fucking chip must have been flowing, because, as much as he tried to imagine Feferi's eyes rolling back beneath her goggles, it did nothing for him. That in itself made him angry, because everything she was saying was true. It was true, but she didn't know. She didn't know what it was like, not knowing who you were or what you were becoming. There were things talking and screaming and never shutting the fuck up inside his head at all fucking times. They weren't his voice. The sopor was a temporary calm. His moirail was a temporary calm. But every time they resurfaced from being squashed down, the voices were louder, and more in control. He faced a choice of letting them take over, or doing something drastic to stop them. He wasn't informed enough to make a sound decision, so he did something rather rash. He was used to facing the consequences of his whims. He didn't need some bitch coming in and acting like this was some new, fresh shit he'd never done before.]

I can't. I CAN'T FUCKIN' COME AT Y-YOU.

[He threw his hands up in exasperation. His face was an odd mix of fed-up and given-up, and he suddenly felt really, really tired.]

You can't fuckin' fix all what he and I motherfuckin' did. If you feel all like you be motherfucking got your obligation on to flatten out what I all done up and went to mother fucking crumple the shit out of, then consider me fuckin' not part of the god damn group no more. Pretend I don't fuckin' exist, 'cause I ain't wanting no part in this fuckin' species race camaraderie hoofbeastshit no more.

[The defeated expression was replaced with one of exhausted defiance, and he flattened his mouth into a thin little line before retrieving Feferi's note from his pocket and tossing that at her, too.]

[She had been expecting it - not that Feferi had a death wish, but seeing something besides that eerie, unnatural calm would have been reassuring. It was twisted logic, and she knew it was twisted logic, but burning out the circuit, or tearing it out somehow, or some show of action...something to let her know that the little pieces that made Gamzee Gamzee hadn't all been hacked away would have given her some peace before the drones came and took her downstairs and she got put together again. She wouldn't have worried as much, at least.

And so she stood firm, and she waited for the claws at her throat, for the teeth ripping at her fins, and braced for the impact of a club slamming into her skull. It would have been an okay death this time, by that twisted logic of hers.

When those claws and teeth and clubs didn't come, she didn't expect her own tears to start. Feferi's eyes filled with watery tyrian, and all she could do for a moment was stare, letting those tears drip down her cheeks silently.]

...it really wasn't fair of me to ask, was it?

Even if I do mean well. I can't just meddle and fuss and yell and expect that to fix it all, because that's not how this goddamned place works.

It's not that I feel like I -

[Feferi stops, and shakes her head, catching herself in the lie before it's out of her mouth completely. No, she does feel like she needs to fix it. That much was also clear.]

- no. I did feel like I needed to fix it. But I can't.

I'm not just gonna abandon a friend, though. I'm a fucking barnacle, and I don't get shaken off that eelsily.

If it calm your fuckin' tide at night, think on it like we was never friends to motherfuckin' be beginning on.

[He stood there, unmoving and unmoved. Her tears were nothing but a few dribbles of wasted pity. He didn't fucking need this, and he didn't fucking need her. He was getting to the point where each and every relationship held no purpose. He thought by getting the surgery, he'd be preserving himself for the people that mattered. Since then, he'd watched as three of them disappeared, one of them earning a grave.]

[It was so stupid. What a stupid waste. He'd damned his chances of survival just so he could keep his weak, sane ass around for other people. He was beginning to see what a grave oversight this truly was. Look at how easy it was to reduce Feferi to tears! Severing ties with everyone and embracing a life of wild, uncontrollable power was so much easier than dealing with being utterly nothing.]

[Gamzee shrugged, but didn't take his eyes from her.]

You don't gotta motherfuckin' be no damn barnacle. I ain't even the thing you be so desperately wanting to cling to, anyway.

You said for your fuckin' own what I ain't me no more. Give it the fuck up, girl. Find some other vessel to get your latch on at.

No.

[She braces herself again, wiping at her eyes with her free hand. Feferi might still be crying, but there's anger in her tears now.]

I'm not fucking giving up. I've lost too damn much and I am not losing any-fucking-thing else. You think I don't know about those graves? You don't think it hurts me every time I hear about a new one? It does.

And yeah. I thought I fucking broke for good last month. I thought that was it. Go down to the water, live forever, fuck the world, I wanted to get off.

[Feferi suddenly snaps her trident to the side, letting the gold hit the steel table with a loud clang. The sound echoes through the entire room, and she's glad. Let it echo. Let it drill into his head, if it can.]

But the world doesn't stop spinning just because I want it to. People won't stop going and coming from this fucking place just because I decided I was gonna give up. So I came back. Am I entirely okay? No. I'm not. I'm never gonna be okay.

But that doesn't mean I can't heal. It doesn't mean I can't get stronger.

You go get your thinkpan fucked with, and the world's still gonna spin, it just means there's that much less of you to handle it with.

It was fucking stupid, Gamzee. There's no two ways about it. But you can quit being stupid and own up to your shit. Burn out whatever it is you did. Let yourself heal.

Because even if you gave up on yourself, we didn't give up on you.

Edited 2013-05-18 03:20 (UTC)

[The sound of her weapon against the table did pierce his hear ducts. It wasn't muffled by voices or screaming or muttering like it would have been before. He very much enjoyed the new internal silence, even if it did unnerve him a little. The most confusing part about this whole ordeal was - he wasn't sure which way was truly the right way. All of his life, he'd done exactly what he wanted to do, based on his gut feeling. It was so simple - pick the choice you wanted to do more, and fuck the consequences. It was his modus operandi since the day he was fucking hatched. This time, he didn't know what he wanted to do. The choice wasn't as clear-cut as it always had been.]

[Even though he was listening, he gave Feferi's words a sharp roll of his eyes.]

I AIN'T GONNA FUCKING HEAL!

[He wasn't even that angry, just exasperated. And tired.]

Fuckin' take a grubfuckin' gander at me!

[His tone was mocking, a cruel grin playing on his lips to expose many points of crooked fangs. In a shadowy flashstep, he was sitting up on the edge of the table where Feferi had thrown her trident. Greedy, spindly fingers snatched it up in an instant, flipping it between them in a dexterous display.]

Tidal princess bustin' my fuckin' frond up all in them other motherfuckers' beeswax like I all know just exactly what the motherfucking shit I be all spoutin' on.

CLAMP YOUR FUCKIN' GILLS, BITCH.

[His grin dropped instantly, and the trident he was holding snapped forward to point at her with a cold calculation.]

Don't fuckin' you all dare to be claimin' you be knowin' what's the rightness for my fuckin' ass. Alls a sudden you be fuckin' comin' up after me like a grubsitter chasin' a mother fucking runaway. [He hopped off of the table, pacing wide circles around her - giving enough space to keep himself away from her, but not straying far enough to break eye contact.] And shit if I ain't all motherfuckin' flattered at your little advance, but I think we both got a little sorting out to do in that department before we all can be twistin' our pans around a fresh mother fucking pink endeavor, ain't you bein' in all motherfuckin' agreeance!?

ACTING LIKE THAT, OF COURSE YOU'RE NOT GOING TO FUCKING HEAL!

[Her lips curl up into a wry little grin. Let him get mad - if it was actually getting mad - like this. Even if it's not, it's a sign that she's getting to him. If she can get to him? Then yeah, actually, it's a sign that healing's possible.]

You're just choosing not to do it because it's the lazy way out. I'm not gonna clamp anything, because you and I both know it's the truth - horrorterrors or messiahs, take your pick, they'd both say the same exact fucking thing right now.

[Feferi will stare down the point of that trident, then move forward. Her attempt to grab her weapon back is thwarted by distance and a few quick mental calculations. Gamzee's taller and heavier than she is, and while she's got plenty of speed and strength for being so small (for now), the physical disparity and the fact that he's got more weaponry than she has means that she's at a disadvantage.]

The fuck do you mean, 'suddenly'? Have you forgotten that I've been checking on you in one way or another for a while now?

[But he's got a point, and she's got a history of pale relationships that go straight to hell. She dies at the hand of her former moirail, and that's a pattern that doesn't need repeating.

...still. Someone has to keep an eye out.]

Maybe you do. I'm at the point where I've realized something: it's not really about being perfectly balanced, because that doesn't fucking happen in real life. It's about having someone - multiple people, if it has to be - in this place who gives enough of a shit about you to realize when something like this is going on and call your ass out on it.

Ahaha... ahahahahahahahaha!!!

HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK!!!

[His laughter was as sudden as it was unexpected, and it took even him by surprise. He took a moment to clutch a hand to his belly in an attempt to quiet the laughter, but it rang out for a while before he eventually cut it off completely.]

[Reaffirming his grip on the trident, he cleared his throat and wiped a stray purple tear from his eye as a result of his bout of hysterics.]

Fuckin' tell the shit in a motherfucker all up and fuckin' true:

[He narrowed his yellow eyes to slits, grinning cruelly and pointing her own weapon at her again.]

The fuckin' reason' you all was draggin' my fucking ass down here were 'cause to all put the motherfuckin' moves on me!?

[He had a lot more to say, but her sudden broaching of quadrant discussion had caught him off guard.]

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