Work Text:
Your name is-
Fuck, your head hurts. Do you even have a head right now? Is it still connected to your body? You’re not sure but it hurts and if it hurts, it must be there. You think. It still seems iffy. Either way, wow does it hurt.
WHAM.
What the fuck, is someone attacking you now?! Really?! You are so fucking done with all of this pussy ass shit and you are going to destroy some fuckers if-
Oh. You’re pretty sure you just hit yourself, actually. Your hand is doing something on its own right now. Actually, none of your limbs are really listening to you much. Your head feels like it’s underwater and being chewed on by some kind of seabeast. When you manage to get your eyes open, your head hurts worse and you have to blink a few times before you can keep them open for more than a second at a time. You give up on that.
You wake up before you realize you’d gone to sleep again. This time, you’ve got a little more clarity on things. Not much, but some and that’s a victory you’re going to savor just the way Latula taught you.
Your name is Mituna Captor and this place smells like bullshit drenched in the water of a load gapper. Maybe just regular shit. Pffftttt. It fucking stinks.
You manage to sit yourself up even though your hands keep deciding they want to do other things. Maybe you should punish them. You think about sitting on them but that’s something a stupid little wiggler would do and you aren’t. Instead, you try to blow your hair out of your eyes because the stiff strands are poking at your skin and itching and annoying-
Where the hell is your helmet?! You panic. “Helmet- thuppothed to- fffuck-”
You’re supposed to be wearing your helmet. She told you to always wear it and Latula knows best (she thinks when you can’t, when nothing in your head makes sense) and where did you leave it, where is it, you can’t think without it. You can’t think. Your helmet helps you string your words together better, helps you understand when you say things wrong anyway. It’s. You’re supposed to-
Hnnnngggg.
She’s not going to be angry with you, you know that, but you’re still angry at yourself for losing the stupid helmet. It’s yours and you’ve gotten so much better at keeping track of your things lately. Lately? When is here? When is now. That’s what you mean. You think? What is- Where is here. Questions, you need to keep them straight, keep them organized, keep them from getting mixed up and jumbled in one another. Where is here.
No wonder it smells like a load gapper. It is a load gapper.
You stifle a giggle. There is nothing not funny about that even if you’re twisted up in your think pan.
When did you get up? You dismiss it. Not important. What’s important is getting out of the stall and- And you’re not alone. Your vision keeps messing up, going wavy and wonky and fuzzing out completely here and there. You think you hit your head. Your skin is gummy with blood and your hair is sticking down and- Yeah, you hit your head. The pain is more dull than it was but you’re pretty sure your pan got bruised up. Just what you need.
There is someone there. You squint. It’s- no it isn’t. It’s- It’s not. You know it’s not. Kurloz has never felt that hostile around you, not ever, and even though you’re having trouble seeing straight, you can still feel the barely contained violence. Kurloz has meant safety for longer than even Latula.
You still ask.
“Wrong motherfucking Makara,” the other troll tells you. His voice is rough, like shattered glass, like his insides have been bruised up so much that he can barely rumble the words out. You don’t like the sound. It scares you. You keep imagining that voice overlapping Kurloz’ face like he’s something you’re supposed to fear.
Are you? Didn’t he- You’re confused. Half of you remembers that Kurloz helped try to destroy the universe. The other half of you is sure you’re mistaken because Kurloz would never hurt you. He’s your moirail. He looks out for you. He’s the one who helps keep your tits calmed and always smiles. You like his smile. You wish you could curl up in his lap and just lay there while he pet through your hair and ran his fingers down your face.
You wish you knew where he and Latula were. Without them, you feel aimless and lost. If something’s happened to them, you are going to lose it. You will break yourself to pieces in the aftermath of the rage you will unleash on everything. You’ll be gone and so will everything else. You really, really hope they’re okay.
It occurs to you that if you’re going to find them, you need to stand up. You start, muttering out questions as you go, but you’re not as invested in knowing the answers as you are getting to your feet-
You shouldn’t have split your attention. Not now, when you can barely think straight anyway. The floor is cold when you hit it and you hate it and you hate everything, fuck this, fuck bodies and fuck walking and fuck everything. Your body doesn’t listen, your limbs feel mangled and unwieldy, fuck it. Who knows how long you snarl before you just give up and lay there.
It’s times like this that you really, really hate your stupid, damaged head. Sometimes people think you don’t realize, like you could possibly fucking miss what a fuck up you are, and then you want to claw out their faces, but you don’t because you aren’t actually totally okay with clawing faces to begin with. Not for yourself, anyway.
You hear the other troll mutter out something and then twist up your head so you can look at him. Closer, he looks less like Kurloz but your vision is still pretty bad right now. He’s got the same razor thin frame, the same stillness to his resting form, but his eyes are all sharp and watchful like Kurloz’ never was and his utter disarray, from the blood spattered clothes to his messy hair, is so unlike Kurloz that you almost want to reach out and just clean him up. Just fix him. Because if Kurloz ever got that messy, something would be very, very wrong.
Getting your body in order, you finally wrench yourself off the floor and shuffle up to the wall to sit next to the other troll. It’s better like this. Your body isn’t quite as annoying when you can lean against something and your head doesn’t hurt quite as much.
“You are one useless motherfucker,” he tells you.
“Thuck my bulge, nookthniffer,” you grumble back.
And then you laugh because it’s funny and this entire situation is so stupid. You’re stuck in a communal load gapper with a possibly dangerous troll covered in way too many colors of blood. You should be terrified, but he looks too much like Kurloz that your pan keeps giving you conflicting signals that just mess you up more. Besides, he’s laughing with you, so maybe it’s okay?
Except the way he’s laughing shifts. The sound is wrong. It makes your bone cage tighten up like you’re hurt, but you aren’t. You aren’t. You stare at him as he laughs because it sounds like he’s hurt. Like he’s forcing the sound out because he wants it, even if he doesn’t feel it. You don’t want to be moved, but you are. Because you keep flashing to Kurloz and thinking about what you’d do if that sound came out of his mouth, even though you haven’t heard his voice since he sewed his mouth shut. If you did hear something like this… If it were Kurloz…
Your hand is on his face before you can stop it. He goes so very still, staring at you, but there’s muted purple dribbling down his cheeks and you can’t keep from trying to soothe him. You’re not as good at this as Kurloz, not with the way your hands keep flinching and twitching wrong, but you try. You pap your fingers across his forehead and cheeks, shoosh the best you can through your teeth. And it’s working, it’s working, he’s-
It’s not working. That hits you a second before the club rams into the side of your head. You reel, too shocked to even yell because it hurts in a distant, weird way and your vision is swimming in circles of nothing. Something hits you, right in the center of your chest, and then in the next second you’re in the air and slam hard into an unyielding force. Nasty language pours from your mouth as you start picking yourself up but you’re dizzy and uncoordinated and it takes forever to get your feet under you. Abstractly, you know he’s yelling but you can’t understand but half the words because sound keeps going in and out past the ringing in your head.
And when you do figure out what he said, you’re too furious to do anything but snarl back, “FFFUCK YOU! ‘Cuz you’re crying like a little bitch!”
Why else would you try to soothe him?! But that just makes him angrier and the violence in the air is suffocating. It feels like something is wrapping around you tight and you can’t escape, you can’t- Gonna get you, gonna get you- and the fear makes you sick inside. You’re simpering out words you don’t even understand, apologies you mean the way you didn’t just seconds ago.
You’re going to die and you can’t even run. You’re too terrified to move, stuck in place, and he’s coming, he’s going to get you, he’s going to tear you apart-
And then it fades. And you are left panting and shaking in the aftermath of- of what? Because you haven’t felt like that since- your pan is so messed up, where is your helmet- you haven’t felt like this since you Saw the End and Made the Choice.
You realize that the other troll is standing in front of you, but his clubs hangs limp from his hands. He’s not going to cull you, at least not right this second, and you don’t know what he will do, but he’s not- It’s okay. You stay still until he looks away, then scuttle back into the stall you came from.
You don’t remember going to sleep but suddenly you’re awake and there are hands on you and the purpleblood is dragging and pulling and there’s light and-
He’s going to fucking throw you into the sun!
You snarl and fight him, feel the spark as your psionics fail, and then you try to beg but your words are even more jumbled than before with the panic. You are going to burn, you’re going to die, again, and fuck, fuck, fuck, what if you’re just the start, what if he goes after Latula next-
You hit the ground and cringe and try to scramble back into the protective cover before the sun can get you, before you can burn into nothing, fuck is that the smell of your skin sizzling away, is that…
It isn’t. Because you aren’t burning. You’re…
He’s grumping about something but you can’t quite hear him over the rush of blood in your ears as your pusher hammers away.
You look up.
The sky is an unfamiliar blue and the sun is bright within it but only makes your ganderbulbs hurt. It isn’t burning you away. You look at him and he’s waiting impatiently for you to get it, like you’re stupid (you’re not stupid. You hate it when people look at you like that.)
Struggling up to your feet, you look around. Everything is off, way off, in ways that bother you to your core, but it’s fine. You’re alive, he’s not killing you and maybe he’ll help you find Latula (you want to see her so badly, want to crush her against you and never let go) and Kurloz (you think you should look for him even if you don’t know for sure. Maybe now is the moment he needs his palebro most.)
He starts walking like he knows where he’s going and you follow.