bothme: (Default)
Gamzee Makara ([personal profile] bothme) wrote2013-10-09 07:30 pm

Equigam

Gamzee was asleep. He knew he was asleep because the whispers were louder and the voodoos were far away. Also, because he was pretty fucking sure last he checked, he hadn't been on the meteor for a while, and the corridors on it were not usually so linear and infinitely long. Shit, this even looked like one specific hallway. One he didn't go in after he'd come to collect some bodies he'd left there.

He looked up at the opening of a vent, and then at himself. He wasn't even sure he'd fit in there anymore. It had been about a year, and he'd been growing. But that didn't matter in a dream, did it? Shit, he wasn't even sure of that, himself. And the answer to it didn't much matter, either way, because he'd decided, for once, that since he was in a dream, nobody would be about to jump down his throat for having a little stroll by himself.

He wandered down the hallway, fascinated by how it went on and on, like one of those fucked up game maps that just looped around on itself. He was almost convinced it was one, until he saw a figure up ahead. He kept walking towards it, his shoes making the only sound in the hall.
voidarcher: (Default)

[personal profile] voidarcher 2013-10-10 01:43 am (UTC)(link)
Suddenly, the corridor was a lot shorter, opening up to a wide, dark room bathed in shadow and smelling of blood. In the middle of it the figure sat with its legs crossed, back turned to the highblood that was the only source of sound in the place. The other body might as well have been a statue for how still it sat. Around it there were smudges of blood both vibrant blue and olive green, a broken bow at its side.

One ear twitched when the steps came to a halt and Equius sat up a little straighter in his meditative posture, his hands on his knees. When he stood, he did so slowly, turning in place to finally face the intruder upon his bubble, his hands at his sides. His eyes were milky white and the ligature marks were still there around his throat, bright as ever, as was the splash of blood from the wound, now unfelt, through his left leg. He said nothing as he moved forward and suddenly, there was no doorway behind Gamzee for him to retreat through as one hand immediately snapped out and closed on the highblood's head, obscuring the top half of his face.
voidarcher: (eyebrow of doom)

[personal profile] voidarcher 2013-10-10 02:06 am (UTC)(link)
Equius said nothing as he held Gamzee against the wall by his head, his upper lip curled back from his teeth, which were no longer broken in his dream incarnation, though his horn still was. He squeezed his fingers down into Gamzee's skull until he fancied he could feel the bones starting to creak, then leaned his weight on the heel of his hand and looked under his arm at the highblood's face, or at least what he could see of it. He wasn't fighting back. Not like the subbjuglator persona would.

"What are you doing here?" Equius hissed, easing his grip only enough that he wasn't about to crush Gamzee's skull. Of all the people to appear in his bubble after this long, why did it have to be Gamzee?
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[personal profile] voidarcher 2013-10-10 02:29 am (UTC)(link)
"I could very easily send you on your way," Equius growled, leaning his weight down more heavily for a moment before standing back upright, still keeping his hold on Gamzee's head but now simply holding him in place rather than aiming to crush his skull. He stood up straight, rubbing his chin in thought with his free hand. "In fact, I see no reason that I shouldn't." He wasn't sure where this slightly sadistic streak had come from, but it had apparently taken the place of the immediate subservience.
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[personal profile] voidarcher 2013-10-10 03:05 am (UTC)(link)
Equius' expression drew in then tightened as he bared his teeth once more, his hand tightening on Gamzee's head.

"No, highblood...if I ever kill you, it won't be because you allowed me to do so." As it was, he rounded away from the wall and tossed Gamzee to the floor to bounce and roll away. He followed after the progress of the lanky body slowly with his hands at his sides once more. "But you have one thing correct: I despise you. Everything you are and everything you stand for. It is a platonic hate that you never understood and now you will not be allowed to warp it into anything else." He aimed a sharp kick at Gamzee's torso, aiming to shatter his ribs. If this didn't wake him up and send him away, he would have to find other ways.
voidarcher: (outrage)

[personal profile] voidarcher 2013-10-10 03:29 am (UTC)(link)
Equius forced himself not to recoil at the observation, his hackles starting to rise in response. "My reaction was automatic and naive and I assure you, it will not happen again." He drew his hands back as the air shivered between them, a bow materializing between them; it bent dramatically, but it did not break, allowing him to train the arrow on Gamzee as he moved overhead. "I had not seen what you were truly capable of. You could have simply killed me and gone on with your life, but no. You left me on the brink of death and killed Nepeta. You are worse than the lowest of lowbloods." With that, he loosed the arrow, aimed for Gamzee's leg to take it out from under him and send him to the floor.
voidarcher: (intenseface)

[personal profile] voidarcher 2013-10-10 03:42 am (UTC)(link)
"No," Equius murmured, once more taking a seat on the ground with the bow across his lap. "What I wanted was to immobilize you. I want you to be put in the same position that you've forced me into. You will sit and you will consider exactly what it is you've done. To all of us. To Nepeta. To yourself, and to Vantas." If he wanted, he could do so much worse. But for now, he was content simply to let Gamzee lie there in his pain.
voidarcher: (I need a towel...)

[personal profile] voidarcher 2013-10-10 04:09 am (UTC)(link)
"You are delusional, highblood. Vantas never treated you like a friend until it benefited him to do so. Just like nobody treated me like a fucking person. I am the punchline, don't you see that?" Equius muttered, looking down at the ground between them, turning blue around the ears when he heard himself. On reflex he grabbed for a towel that was suddenly there around his shoulders, wiping it across his brow. "And then you killed the only one that ever spoke to me like I was worth anything more than an idiot joke in a very bad story. So you will excuse me if I don't exactly sympathize with your plight."
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[personal profile] voidarcher 2013-10-10 04:34 am (UTC)(link)
"I never set out to be pleasant," Equius pointed out, once more grimacing at Gamzee's comments. "As I said before, the way I conducted myself was naive and I have grown since then. You, on the other hand, have somehow fallen further from your rightful status and all of it by your own hand. You are a disgrace to your bloodline. But that does not mean that what you did was what you should have done in the circumstances. We are so few now," he said quietly, his hands coming together in front of him and pressing against his lips. "It is the fault of your loss of what little coherence you had and the uncouth actions of the seadweller that have doomed us."
voidarcher: (outrage)

[personal profile] voidarcher 2013-10-10 04:50 am (UTC)(link)
Equius' brow furrowed as he listened, his hands curling into tight fists. "Foreseen? Foreseen by whom? You've been making up these so-called prophecies yourself," he growled, standing and walking away from Gamzee before he finally decided to strangle the damned clown. "I know more than you give me credit for, Makara. And I wouldn't be trapped here in this purgatory if it weren't for your actions so you can just...just stick it in your ear and leave me be. I did not ask for this."
Edited 2013-10-10 04:51 (UTC)
voidarcher: (now see here!)

[personal profile] voidarcher 2013-10-10 05:10 am (UTC)(link)
"Don't give me that, you pathetic excuse for a highblood," Equius snapped. "You have always been much more intelligent than you ever let anybody see, and that in itself is disgraceful. You are wasting your potential and doing your caste a grave disservice. But perhaps it is better that you killed me," he continued, "for it has given me the chance to really think about my conduct, as well as yours. And what I know about each of us is that while I may have conducted myself poorly, I never once hurt those that I considered on some level to be comrades. You, on the other hand, took it upon yourself in your pursuit of whatever position could be gained at the demon's side to kill half of what remained of our race. You should be ashamed of what you did, not just to Nepeta, but what you did to all of us. Including your moirail."
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[personal profile] voidarcher 2013-10-10 05:55 am (UTC)(link)
Equius tensed, closing his eyes as he blocked the instinctual pain at being grabbed; he'd long since learned to manipulate this dream state that was his existence, and as such it offered him a tactical advantage, especially given that Gamzee didn't have control over anything here save for himself and what he came with. Equius reached back and wrapped a hand around one of Gamzee's horns, holding it halfway up and putting pressure on the outward curve of it. "You will release me, highblood, or I will deal you the damage that you did the rest of us." He started to turn his hand, the hard outer structure of Gamzee's horn starting to creak under his grip.
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[personal profile] voidarcher 2013-10-10 07:59 am (UTC)(link)
"So what you're telling me is that you're too spineless to resist it without chemical assistance. That your ancestry is just as pathetic as you are that none of you know how to conduct yourselves," Equius continued to needle him, riling him up very well as he was released. He turned back to Gamzee with his bow in hand, keeping another arrow trained on the highblood as he moved. "You may not have wanted it, but then you took it and you owned it to the detriment of your body, your mind and your relationships with everybody you cared about. Or fooled yourself into thinking you cared about. What of Nitram?" he asked, his head tilting up to track Gamzee around the room with his sights still trained on him. "He may not have died by your hand, but you desecrated his corpse when you had feelings for him. Your values, such as they were, are all completely defunct now in the face of what you've done to yourself.

You want me to respect you? Now you have to give me a reason to."

He loosed another arrow then easily reloaded, keeping his distance as he knew that Gamzee specialized in close range, blunt force attacks. His fists would do little good if his skull was caved in by juggling clubs. He would recover from it and continue to exist in this silent hell, but at least he'd been able to face Gamzee and confront him over everything that he'd been mulling over for the past sweep.
voidarcher: (now see here!)

[personal profile] voidarcher 2013-10-11 01:35 am (UTC)(link)
Equius' breath hissed through his teeth as he stared straight back into Gamzee's face, eyes wide and blank and glaring straight back at the highblood.

"I am no longer a living being that you can manipulate," he growled, then instead of lifting his arms, Equius brought one foot down on top of Gamzee's and pinned it in place as he lunged forward and smashed his forehead into the highblood's nose. There were chills running down the length of his body from the chucklevoodoos he could still hear in his hindbrain but he tried to block them out as he snatched the clubs out of Gamzee's hands, spinning them deftly in his own, prepared to use them. It would certainly lend some poetic justice to the situation to bludgeon the dream body of the highblood into jam with the same clubs that had killed Nepeta. "Wake up and leave me be, highblood. Play your games with your mirthful messiahs, I will kill you myself eventually."
voidarcher: (intenseface)

[personal profile] voidarcher 2013-10-11 01:57 am (UTC)(link)
"Killing you here would be pointless," Equius muttered, but he stepped forward and planted his foot in the middle of Gamzee's chest, holding him down as he held the clubs at his sides. "All it would do is wake you up. While I do want you gone, I'm not going to simply end it quietly. And certainly not because of your badgering." He pressed his foot down harder into Gamzee's sternum, the sole of his boot likely to leave a bruise, had this not been taking place in a dream bubble. "My rage is my own, not something for you to control."
voidarcher: (outrage)

[personal profile] voidarcher 2013-10-11 02:20 am (UTC)(link)
Equius let out a hoarse cry as his kneecap was shattered between the clubs, supporting himself against the wall until it had knitted and allowed him to support his weight on it again. He looked up toward the wall, how opened back up into the hall, as it had been for several minutes outside of Gamzee's notice. "I take no pleasure in this, highblood. But I do feel fortunate that I am able to level this warning in person..." He lashed out, grabbing Gamzee's wrist then his head once more, lifting him and swinging him in a wide, fast arc then releasing him to ragdoll away once more. "If I am ever restored to life and I know where you are I will not hesitate to tear you into so many pieces that nobody will be able to identify the indigo smears on the landscape!"