PaInT tHe WaLlS [Gamzee/Highblood]

[Gamzee Makara]

His thinkpan ached.

Granted, it hadn't really stopped pounding since the virus outbreak, the catastrophes that had sent them rushing for cover in the last safe haven they knew. He knew the word 'withdrawal.' He'd just never assumed it would apply to him. It had never been a problem before, the drug in his system. It had always been there. He'd assumed it always would be, too.

His head pounded, throbbing behind his forehead, that feeling of someone gouging an ice pick into his eyeballs refusing to abate as he stumbled into the mess hall, determined to find something to soothe the burn in his gut. It had been two days. Forty-eight hours without the sickening sweetness on the back of his tongue, calming him and the dark gods that hid within the furthest confines of his rotted-out brain.

'Your name is Gamzee Makara,' he thought to himself, sinking at one of the long benches to rest his aching legs. 'You're ten and a half sweeps old. You like the sound of the ocean. You like the way strawberries smell when you cut them open.' It didn't ease the pain, the way he repeated these things to himself. But it gave him something to think about beyond the headache, the way his joints seemed to stiffen every time he slowed down.

A moment later (or maybe it had been sweeps and sweeps, it was hard to tell), he picked himself up and shuffled toward the industrial sized fridge, resting his forehead against the cool metal. Maybe this would be his cure. Or maybe he'd just look like a gigantic tool, his face stuck against a fridge.

Pulling it open, he frowned, blinking blearily at the lack of anything appealing in it; he'd eaten at the last mealtime (whatever it was, he couldn't be assed to remember). It had been unpleasant going down, and even more so coming back up not long after. Slamming the door shut, he let himself sink to his knees, curling up on the cold tile, hoping no one would find him like this.

'It's hard,' he thought to himself, suppressing a hiccup. 'It's hard, and no one understands.' And for the first time since those words had been uttered, it was terrifyingly true.

[Grand Highblood]

[atrb=cellSpacing,30,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 410; background: url(http://i53.tinypic.com/35n95qp.jpg); border-left: 7px ridge #5e0085, bTable][cs=2]

[atrb=style, font-family: Tahoma; word-spacing: 1px; text-align: justify; background: #000000; border-left: 5px ridge #5e0085; color: white]Filth. Vermin. Squalor. It was disgusting, the way that the parasites banded together, the city they had built teeming with an overflowing populous that effected to be nothing more than insects beneath his claws. No, not insects, insects were survivors, vicious and cruel and unforgiving of any sign of weakness. To compare the two, the bloating, stinking society with such tiny despots....it was a gross insult to the insects themselves. No...these were something less than that, an infection, a disease, sludge-colored rainbows pumping through their veins that looked so damn beautiful spilling out and over and the heat of a thousand miracles running through his claws to dr- No, no. That would come in due time, when there were politics to deal with, rebellions to crush beneath his fist. His wall of warning would regain its vibrancy with all shades of the hemospectrum, and someday (someday motherfucking SOON) mutant red and tyrian purple would be the grandest motherfucking splash to it. Oh that day couldn’t come soon enough, but no no, no point in being hasty, one didn’t overthrow an empire, crush a disgusting rebellion, in a day. Perhaps not in a sweep. Perhaps in a hundred sweeps, who knew? All that mattered was that it was an inevitability

[/b] and it would be his club, his smiling face, that would end the both of them.

But that was for nothing in the city, neither the fish bitch nor the mutant made their peace there, only scum and filth and the soft, weak underbelly of what should have been a glorious race of conquerors but it had instead degenerated into a flock of woolbeasts afraid of their own shadows. Pathetic It was his to rule, and certainly rule he would, with club and fist, with fang and claw. There would be nothing to escape his judgement, and no rustblood or blueblood would be exempt from his displeasure, if he felt so inclined.

It was that that had set him upon his current path, a whisper of weakness spread throughout his dark court. There was a weak link, a motherfucking problem with something wrought from his own pail. It was a disgrace, a blasphemy of a thousand dark nights, and it would

be

motherfucking

solved[/b].


His footsteps rang out through the halls, curiously echoed and sharp in the close quarters. It seemed that the lowbloods had had the foresight to make themselves scarce upon his visit, which was most certainly for the best. He had no need to deal with then now, and this wasn’t his room, this didn’t have his wall, and so it would have been a waste to kill any of them. The color of their veins needed to be preserved, after all, for all to see. Perhaps there would be blood spilled, rich indigo running over the floors, dripping from the ceilings and walls, oh he didn’t know. Though he had to admit it begrudgingly, it was better to try to preserve another of his case, one that was thought to be his progeny, than to simply cull and be done with it all. Wrigglers could be tamed, bent into their places, after all, it just took a bit of work. If there was still failure then....well that would just be unfortunate.

His path had taken him to the kitchens (that was the proper term, not whatever the idiotic lowblooded term for them), and there, there the scent of indigo-and-paint. It caught him in a whirl, and there was a low, rumbling growl that escaped from his throat. The scent of himself, a younger version, it provoked every defense mechanism within his split-thought mind, but he soon caught himself and the noise was summarily cut short.

“grub,” came the rasping word, spat as if it was a curse. “motherfucking GRUB. come out grub, we have words.”[/size][/td][/tr][/table][/center]

[Gamzee Makara]

Words. Low, gravelly, abrasive against every inch of his pounding pan, but he heard them. He had heard that voice in his deepest nightmares, the dreams he hardly acknowledged happened. Perhaps if he ignored them, the words would go away, and the night terrors would leave with them.

But they continued. It was inevitable at this point, he knew. It would come down to more of those words, those painful sandpaper phrases that seemed to grind against his skull, pressing his eyeballs out of their sockets as he clenched them against the invasion, get the motherfuck out of my fucking head before it explodes.

Curling against the suddenly frigid device, Gamzee tried to hide his face, paint smearing under his fingers and against his pants. This was what he didn't want to deal with. This... This would not end well, he could sense it even through the terrible pain and the voices telling him to get up and fight fight for your motherfucking life brother if you lose you ain't worth your motherfucking blood color.

"Words 'bout what, brother?" he called, low and quiet and oddly pathetic against his fingertips. "'cause I got a lotta motherfuckin' words 'bout the things all up in my skull all the sudden."