vatheon | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who: Sufferer and whoever wants to ~~mob~~ join him
When: September 24th, early afternoon
Where: in the Plaza to start
Style: whatever you like!
Status: totally open

In the beginning, there was pain.

The arrow that pierced his side was not the least of it, but only the last. By the time its barbed head sank into his flesh and hit something deep inside, sending a torrent of cherry blood spilling over his hip and down his leg, blood that looked almost black in the bright light of Derse, it was almost an annoyance and nothing more. Hardly a little pang, after the constant burning on his wrists, and the way the flesh crackled and turned black under the heavy irons. He had lost feeling in his hands long ago, the nerves dying under hot brands and his fingers curling inward towards his palms, and the hot blood that ran down his arms felt almost cool by comparison.

And then, after his blood--his cursed, mutant blood--gushed away from his body and left a sticky, clotted pool under his feet... then, there was nothing.

No neverending light, no peace, no absolution. Just darkness, and emptiness, and a million years crying soundlessly into the void.

And then there was a jolt, and a return of the pain, and he was lying face first on cobblestones, soaked through, and this was all very familiar.

Sufferer looks up, his hair soaked and falling in his eyes, his bare back exposed to the air and still slowly running with blood. His eyes blur, and refocus, and he's next to the fountain, in the Plaza. Vatheon. He's back in Vatheon.

Struggling, he tries to push himself to his knees, but he's hindered by the arrow protruding from his side, its shaft slick with blood and its blue (b100) feathers tacky and standing up like little brushes. His hands are useless; blackened, melted things on the ends of his wrists, and the chains he wore when he died, his shackles... they're still there, turned a cold, sullen black instead of pulsing red, and it's hard to tell where the chains end and his wrists begin.

His mind whirls, remembering Vatheon, images coming to him in fractured, fragmented half-memories--Karkat, growling crabbily after getting a hug... Dualscar's fins, moving under his fingertips... Sola, asking questions with that plaintive look on his face... Zelda... Johnny... Jacob... Dave... Disciple... Spider... Psii...

Psii.

He tries again to get to his feet, but his wounds and the chains on his wrists are too much, and he topples forward again, groaning as the arrow digs deeper into his side. He's worthless, useless, he led them all down the wrong path, everything he told them was wrong, he's a failure, he's failed them all...

Sufferer looks up at the bubble's dome, his eyes so bloodshot they're red almost all the way through, and his jaw works, his teeth grinding together and the tendons in his forearms standing out as he tries to clench his hands into fists. His voice is raspy, his throat raw and choked from the last time he spoke, centuries and seconds before.

He throws his head back and screams at the bubble's dome. "FUUUUUUUUCK!"

His voice ripples and echoes back to him, distorted, animalistic, the cry of a brute instead of a savior. Slowly, he bends back over his chained wrists, resting his forehead on the irons, and the red that stains the cold steel is not blood this time.

"...fuck."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Gamzee's hand drops to the pavement. This isn't like Karkat's struggling a little against his hugs, which is more like a motherfuckin' game cause they both know Karkat really fuckin' needs a hug anyway. This is raw and pained and if Signless doesn't want to be touched than Gamzee don't need to be laying prong on him.

"Aight." A pause. "You alright?"

Sufferer makes a choking sound that might be sardonic laughter, and spits a glob of blood out onto the ground. He thinks about trying to get up, but it's just too much effort.

"You're not... stupid. What do... what do you think?"

He is not stupid. Unfocused mostly, but not stupid. What he is however is young and inexperienced. He can't exactly deal with shit like this, he was never taught to. But he knows someone who can.

"I... I think I gotta get Karkat."

Karkat'd know what to do. And not only that, this is the kind of crazy-ass situation, Karkat'd want to know about. Especially if it involves his ancestor.

Edited 2012-09-24 22:32 (UTC)

For the first time, Sufferer perks up, and he looks at Gamzee through shielded, haunted eyes. He's conflicted; he doesn't want Karkat to see him like this, doesn't want him to know what a miserable failure he has for an ancestor, but at the same time, desperately wants someone beside him who gets it.

"Please..." he whispers, his lips dry and cracked, "please call him."

See, calling in Karkat is always the right choice. Always. Partially because Karkat does have the good ideas (mostly) and in part cause not calling him would just lead to his chill getting harshed in radical ways and Gamzee kind of disapproves of shit like that happening.

But mostly, he just really needs some help here.

"Aight." He gives a little nod and fumbles for his SFC. Now how should he... text is out. He can't really find the words to describe this. And it'd probably take too long. Directly calling him seems like the better alternative.

He rests his SFC against his knee, waiting for the call the patch through, muttering a soft 'pick up, pick up, pick up' under his breath, while watching Signless with concern.

Karkat has not been out today. Apart from simply being glad to be back in his own body, barely a half hour after Sunday rolled into Monday, he got a message. Not just any message, but one from a certain journalist via an automated "deadman switch". If that wording wasn't concerning, not much would be, especially when the message stated it hadn't been reset for six days. But when he went - pointlessly, he berated himself after - to call him and see if he could get in contact, he found his name missing from the list. Spider may not have been a usual friend, but he was an acquaintance he respected intellectually, even for such a complete weirdo.

Attached to the message, however, was the draft of the article he had written on the Signless, one he had made mention of before. One to be specifically written in memoriam of his absence. And as he read the thing, taking in how Spider had compared the Signless's sudden removal to murder, made all the more valid by the death he had waiting for him, well...

Karkat frankly hasn't felt like doing much of anything.

He is curled up on his bed when the call comes through. Fishing out his SFC, the first answer he fires through once he's thumbed the button to speak is a harsh, "What the hell do you want?"

Edited 2012-09-25 19:09 (UTC)

Luckily Gamzee is used to Karkat's grouchier moods. The harsh answer doesn't even stop him for a moment. Hell, regardless of how harsh it is, it comforts him. Whatever. Karkat will know what to do. "Best friend. I need your help. I--" Then he pauses because, fuck, how do you even find the words for all of this. Gamzee sure as fuck doesn't know. Instead he thumbs on the video button, raising his sfc to point at the sad heap of troll that is Signless right now. "Just look, aight."

Gamzee. His voice is a more gentling force than any to him. While others would get a "Fuck off" with the mood he's in, and even Gamzee would if it were something frivolous, there's something in his tone that stops him. He might brush it off with something to the tune of "not right now" if it weren't too pressing, but how he cuts off and switches to video nails in the seriousness of the situation.

If that's the nail, the sight of the Sufferer is a sledgehammer.

"What--" It hits him so hard he can barely process it. He pushes upright and stares hard at the image on screen, his ancestor curled there and covered in blood again, and all the worse than when he first met him. "What did they..."

He knows, though. He heard the story from the Dolorosa before the Signless even showed up. He knows how his sign got its form, what the arrow Darkleer poked against his chest was used for, and how the cruelty of the empire forced the Vast Expletive from his ancestor's lips, as much as he can without having been there. To see the blue fletching, it feels like he's been shot, but it pales to be incomparable next to all the suffering this troll's been through.

"Fuck--FUCK--"

Hatred boils up through him, so acrid and acidic he near wants to vomit from it. It burns inside him, to know how much could be levied in turn against a troll who wanted peace, and something better. Streaks of red are already starting to roll down his face. He has cried over the deaths of his friends; to see the aftermath of such torture and execution wrenches at him in ways the mere knowledge of it couldn't.

"I'll be there," he chokes into the SFC, "as fast as I fucking can."

He doesn't bother to turn it off or shove it away, this task too imperative for him to do more than clutch it in his hand. He leaves no message or explanation for Eridan. He doesn't even stop to lock the door once he's out; it took too long just to get on shoes.

The dash to the Plaza is as quick as he can make it, and all the while he wishes for bygone curses: for the longer legs Eridan's body had granted him, or the older body he had the first time his ancestor arrived. Anything to make him faster.

Edited 2012-09-25 19:57 (UTC)

Sufferer, meanwhile, has calmed down a little in the Plaza; just hearing Karkat's raspy, crabby voice made him feel... not better, but more grounded. More like himself, like how he used to be, before all this.

He lays on the ground, curled in a loose ball, watching Gamzee through half-lidded eyes and occasionally shuddering as pain runs through him. He thinks about asking if the older indigo is still here, but besides he'd rather not know. Not while he's like this.

Gamzee sets down his SFC besides him when he is sure Karkat is coming. Now they just gotta wait a little. He licks his lips for a moment, shifting a little. "I'm all like fuckin' sure he'll be here right like fuckin' that, aight? Won't be long." A pause, awkward. "You... uh... want me to like... be helpin' you up or something?" Awkward, a pause! "... I got a towel."

Gamzee isn't dangerous, Sufferer reminds himself. He's not a threat, he doesn't believe in the hemospectrum, he's kind and gentle and practically a believer... but he's an indigo. Sufferer swallows, hating himself for thinking that way, for going with such a base, gut reaction, one so based on fear, and he hangs his head.

"Water," he says quietly. "Can you... please get me some water?"

"Aight, yeah, no biggie. Stay here, okay?" Cause Signless sure looks in a state to be making anywhere. But Gamzee barely thinks about his words in the best of situation, and hardly at all in a situation like this.

He quickly jumps to his feet, simply leaving his SFC laying next to Signless, quickly jogging at the nearest source of water: the fountain. It takes only a little bit of fishing around for him to draw an empty bottle of faygo out of his sylladex and he quickly sets to work to fill it with water, after rinsing it out once.

It isn't before too long that he returns, carrying his filled to the brim soda bottle.

Yeah, Sufferer isn't going anywhere. He stays where he is, collapsed in a sad little heap, while Gamzee goes to the fountain and back.

"Thank you," he says quietly, and reaches out to take the bottle. It's only then that he gets a look at his hands. He gets a good, long look at his hands, because he freezes when those mutilated, dead stumps come into view; he wants to look away, but he can't. He just stares and stares, the water forgotten, his eyes wide with slowly-mounting terror.

Well, that does answer the question of what the fuck smells like burned meat.

Even Gamzee, Mr Iron Stomach Extraordinary, feels his foodsack give a little churn at the sight of that. It's just... yeah, it's just really not good. It's worst than not good, really. It's just really really...

"Eww."

Karkat arrives out of breath and panting. Pacing himself for a nice jog was not an option here; he wanted to get there as fast as his feet could carry him. It hasn't helped the queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, spawned by the hate for those who did this, and the sight of his ancestor in such a state.

But here, as his pace slows on his approach, he can take in more. The details are finer when not crammed into a handheld screen. There is the scent, of blood and sea water and... and something burned. A part of him knew, intellectually, that burning irons would burn flesh, but here is where it sinks in. The acrid smell, the way, when he notices, that Gamzee and the Sufferer are staring at... at his blackened hands...

He can't stop smelling it, either. He's breathing too hard, lungs demanding more air than he has in him, and each inhale brings the sent again. Do not faint. Do not fucking faint. But he can't stop the sick feeling, and he stumbles off to the side, away from the two, to empty the contents of his stomach. Once the scent inspires no more but dry-heaving, and he's wiped his mouth clean with some miscellaneous scrap from his sylladex, he approaches them again.

Breathe, he tells himself. Breathe, and don't faint. Kanaya may have bisected Tavros in front of him, but this here is already done, and he can't help any if he lets it overwhelm him. There are still tracks of red down his face - tears - but he can hardly care about not crying in a situation like this.

"How... how do I help? What do I do?"

Gamzee glances to the side when Karkat joins them. He had noticed him earlier, of course, but with the sight before him, and Karkat veering off to be sick instead, by the time his mind had caught up sufficient to tell him 'go see to your moirail' Karkat was already returning. And he has no input here, absolutely no solution forthcoming from this brain. Instead all he does is lay one hand on Karkat's back, perhaps hoping to offer some comfort or perhaps hoping to draw some from him. Cause fuck. Fuck what do you even fuckin' do in a situation like this? He does wordlessly offer Karkat the faygo turned water bottle though, in case he wants to rinse out his mouth.

Edited 2012-09-26 23:44 (UTC)

Sufferer doesn't even realize Karkat is there until he speaks, and it's only the sound of his descendant's voice that gets him to tear his eyes away from the burnt ruins that used to be his hands. He turns his head slowly, the tendons in his neck creaking, and stares at Karkat for a moment, his eyes wide and hopeless, before he makes an awkward, lurching movement towards the younger troll. He can trust Karkat, he can trust him like he hasn't trusted anyone else yet, it will be okay, this will all be okay... somehow...

The motion is too much for his precarious balance, and he starts to topple over again.

When he feels Gamzee's hand, Karkat wants to cling onto him. In this moment out of any, with this situation - not utterly unfamiliar, but worse yet than their first meeting - he feels a need for that comfort, for the solid presence and cool touch of his moirail. Before he can so much as take the bottle, however, the Sufferer starts to stumble.

"Shit! Gamzee, help me!" he shouts without looking. His movement is a dash, direct and unthinking, ending right before his ancestor as he tries to catch him from his fall. For all Karkat isn't weak, the Sufferer is taller than him, larger, unable to hold his own weight from the pain and exhaustion of it all. The irons at his wrists can't lighten him any further; and when it's this hard just to stop him from collapsing against the ground, it's near impossible to attempt real care about his injuries.

Gamzee ducks to Sufferer's back, looping his skinny yet rather strong arms around him. As gentle as possibly, he tries to tug Sufferer against his own body as a support, trying to take as much of his weight directly of Karkat as he can. Karkat needs to be able to help him, and he can't do that if he is just being squished underneath his ancestor's heavier and taller frame. He's completely forgotten about Sufferer's earlier demand not to touch him, too focused on trying to help Karkat.

"Aight, here, I got ya. We got ya. S'gonna be alright."

Sufferer groans as they catch him; the motion jostles the arrow in his side, and Gamzee's chest against his back presses into some of his cuts and bruises. The worst, of course, are his hands, caught between himself and Karkat and squeezed between their bodies. He didn't think they were capable of pain any longer. He was wrong.

"Karkat..." he mutters, his voice thick and slurring with exhaustion. He's in pain, but he has something very important to tell his descendant, something he needs to get out as quickly as he can. "Karkat... I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Karkat wishes he were taller or stronger, or hell, that he was psionic. If he just had the means to catch him more simply, there wouldn't be the aggravation to his ancestor's wounds. With Gamzee at his back, and it seeming that he won't fall, he does try to shift to support him better. The movements are slow and careful now, not daring to risk letting him topple over again.

What stops him is the Sufferer. To hear his name is one thing, but the apology makes him outright cringe.

"Signless--Dad--" he starts, meeting his eyes. "Don't, god, don't apologize. This isn't your fault, okay? It's--it's those casteist assholes, those bastards who did this to you, they... Fuck."

He tries to peer past the mass of the Sufferer. "Gamzee, help me get him to the coral. Slowly, and don't you dare let him go."

He nods, though he doesn't need Karkat's reminder in this case. With his arms around Signless, he tries to help him rise onto his feet as carefully as he can, forcing himself to pay no attention to the wet stickiness that had leaked from Signless' wounds onto his shirt. Just... just sea-water. Sure, yeah, it was just that.

He tries to take the manebeast's share in the awkward shuffle trying to get Signless as carefully to the coral as possible. He keeps his posture awkwardly stooped so Signless can lean on his shoulder as much as he wants, his hands occupied with trying to keep him steady. It's a sigh of relief when they finally manage to bridge the small distance to the coral.

Dimly, Sufferer realizes that they're taking him to the coral, and a part of him laughs bitterly at the irony; his second time arriving in Vatheon, and his second time getting dragged towards the coral by his descendant and another troll. But this isn't a joyful reunion with Lulu, or meeting his descendant that he dreamed of so often, or even a shared bottle of Faygo between new friends; this is him realizing that everything he ever said or believed was a lie, and him leaving a trail of filthy mutant blood behind him on the cobblestones.

"So sorry, Karkat..." He's not apologizing for being an inconvenience; he's apologizing for existing.

Karkat offers what aid he can, even being the shortest one of the three. He stabilizes, he supports, and he gives directions where needed; it wouldn't help for Gamzee to go the wrong way. Once there, he looks from coral to Sufferer as he tries to sort out how to do this next part.

The repeated apology still makes him frown.

"No, come on, don't say that," he exhorts, looking at him again. It hurts to hear him so defeated. "We're going to help you, and things will--they'll be better, I promise you. Just stop apologizing. How could you think I want that after everything that's happened?

"Just hold on, and try to endure this. I'm going to touch the side of your arm to the coral, alright? Gamzee, hold him steady."

After checking that Gamzee's support won't waver, Karkat goes to take hold of the Suffer's arms just below the elbow. His hold his light and ginger as he can make it, and his movements slow to keep the irons from jostling too much. His aim is to just brush the nearest forearm against the Lamufao.

Sufferer stops apologizing, but only because his throat is too dry and raw to continue. His lips keep moving though, mouthing and forming the words over and over again.

There's no resistance when Karkat lifts his arms, beyond slightly narrowed eyes and a hiss as the weight of the chains tug on the skin the cuffs have melted into. He closes his eyes and hangs his head when his arm touches the coral, and as energy drains into him, he becomes more awake and lucid.

"How long was I gone?"