vatheon | (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 understands. He has a stuffed plushie of his lusus too.

He takes each thing Karkat hands him, quickly building a rather competent (and nicely soft) pile out of it. He fusses a little with the blankets, giving a crabdad plushie a smile before placing it somewhere, before he leans back. Yeah, this is good. As good as they can make it with just the stuff from Karkat's room.

Reaching over, he catches Karkat's arm, tugging him towards the pile. "Come on. Get the fuck in here with me."

Better something soft than something composed of hard metal edges and constant honks. With the pile complete, and Gamzee tugging, Karkat easily goes over to flop onto the piled mass. The hard part is not just closing his eyes after he's down there. It's infrequent that exhaustion gets the better of him, but it's been threatening to since earlier - which brings them to the whole purpose of this.

Though the moment he spends to get comfortably positioned is partly just for that, it's also to buy time to think. "... I don't even know where to start on this," he says eventually, giving up on a bit of blanket he fussed at.

Excuse you, the honks are very relaxing.

Gamzee waits for him to stuff fussing at the pile, tucking himself a little bit closer so he can wrap one arm around Karkat. Not just to comfort Karkat, but also to calm his own nerves that have been left a little too frayed after this whole day. "Wherever you start is a start. We can figure it the fuck out."

The arm is welcome at a time like this, and Karkat places a hand to his bicep in turn, thumb rubbing soft over the edge of his sleeve. It's a small gesture, but not one without meaning.

"It's just a lot to think about, you know? Even after sitting in that stupid clinic for all that time I've barely gotten anywhere in sorting it out," he begins. His gaze has settled around the collar of his shirt. "But I guess that makes as good a point as any. I know you had to be worried for him, and they helped him, but... They had to take his hands. Amputate them, I mean--there wasn't... anything else they could do about it. You saw them yourself. Before I did, too."

That comes as a little bit of a surprise, but not as a shock. And the surprise only stems from the fact that Gamzee had very much not let him dwell on Signless' hands. They had looked a mess, but he was no-one who knew medicine beyond the very common 'how to put a bandaid on a scraped knee' and as such he had had no idea what the doctors would've been able to do with that. Maybe miracles. Who knows.

"He'll be okay, you'll see, brother. Gonna be right as the motherfuckin' rain. We get to getting him some all of those robotic motherfuckin' prongs what our bros does like to build and he'll be chill as all fuck with them."

For all some knowledge of first aid has been a necessary skill to Karkat, having the blood he does, salvaging the Sufferer's hands is beyond anything he could ever imagine. That the doctors couldn't? Not a surprise in the least. All the same, he's obviously not glad, even if the loss is far preferable to outright dying.

The idea of robotic prostheses is in turn an obvious one, but it deepens his frown. "From who? We've only got, what, Equius and Darkleer around, don't we? The grubfucker who executed him, and the grubfucker's descendant," he seethes, not holding back one drop of hatred from his tone. "Do you really think he'd take help from them?"

Gamzee lets the hate wash over him without a reaction. For all he understands Karkat's feelings, he doesn't share them, but it really isn't the place to argue about it. Wouldn't get either of them any more chill. Instead he shifts his arm, raising his hand to stroke his cool fingers over the side of Karkat's face.

"I dunno know, we'll gotta have to fuckin' ask him, speak on it and shit." He combs his fingers through Karkat's bangs, pushing them aside. "Else we find some other motherfucker what can. Loads of different peeps here at all to be possessing skills what we ain't even can get our imagine on for. Maybe one of them can help."