Work Text:
The things you do for moirallegiance.
You are sleeping off an unplanned encounter with your kismesis—the lispy little fuck liked to use his teeth; you have bruises and bite marks everywhere—when the sensation of the sopor rising in your recupracoon rouses you enough to register that someone has climbed in with you. You snap awake, already reaching for where your sickle hangs on the wall, but then you're wrapped up in a pair of lanky arms, your face squished against a familiar cool chest, and you growl into Gamzee's shoulder as he proceeds to cling to you like you're his favorite grubtoy.
“This is the third time this week, faceache.” you mutter.
He shudders and makes an unhappy noise into your hair and you roll your eyes and squeeze back.
“Shiiiit, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be the kinda joker that's all to be waking a brother up like this but I needed to be seeing you fuckin' now--”
“Okay, okay. Shh. Tell me what's wrong.”
He is silent for a few minutes in a way you've come to know means he's too emotional to make words yet. You press your face against his neck and struggle to keep your eyes open while you pet his shoulders calmingly. It's hard. You ache all over. The sopor is exhaling little blups and bloops and the fumes of it are invading your sinuses. You mumble on automatic while he struggles for words, and eventually he stops clutching at you quite so tightly.
“C'mon, Gamzee. It's okay, dude, let it out. I'm here.” When you stroke his curls, he sags against you, bone limp and trusting. “What was it, another dream?”
“Nah, man, it's dad.”
Your chest seizes up. Oh shit. If his pathetic excuse of a lusus was dead you have no idea what you're going to do. You go for the horns, and he makes a small incoherent noise and nuzzles.
“I saw him. I swear it was him. He was way out there, though, just a lil speck, and I thought if I was screaming loud enough he'd swim over, but then he dove back under the water and didn't come back up.” His voice goes all thick and strangled. “Stood there for fuckin' hours, man, 'till the sun rose, but he didn't come back up.”
He blurts a hiccuping sob into your hair and you keep kneading the bases of his horns in firm circles, sick with pity and queasy with relief.
“Your dad,” you state. “is an asshole.”
You're pretty certain he'd club anyone else who dared say that into pile of pulp and bones. With you, all he does is suck in another ragged breath and cling.
“You've got me.” you whisper and give him another squeeze. “Come on. Let me look at you.”
You gently untangle him from you and flick on a lamp. He grunts and grimaces and squeezes his eyes shut. You take one look at him and your sopor sticky hand meets your forehead with an audible smack. Gamzee is sunburnt, flushed violet all along his shoulders and neck and across his nose and cheekbones.
“Nnnngh. God fucking damn it, Gamzee.”
He's frowning at you too, and you remember all over again that you also look like shit. His brows furrow upward as he thumbs your swollen lower lip, and your face stings as his eyes land on a vivid bite mark on your neck.
“Uh. Yeah. Um.” Wow, this is awkward. But he nods, a little uncomfortably.
“You and Sollux get your hatemance on then?”
His eyes roam down and he fidgets like he can't help what he's doing, taking in hickies and thumbprint bruises and the spots where Sollux's nails left long welts down your sides.
“Yeah, he wooed the hell out of me.” You nudge him, turning him toward the rim of the recupracoon and poking his ribs to make him climb out. “Come on, out, let's make sure you don't have sun sickness or anything--”
“But--”
“Gamzee.” You smile, all teeth, your voice deceptively pleasant. “Let me put cream on your face and I swear to you I'll tell you who was on top, how many times, what pail was used, and whether or not he managed to knock the power out within a ten mile radius blowing his giant crackly load, just walk your narrow clown ass to the loadgaper for the love of Mother Grub's saggy well-traveled reproductive tract.”
That gets a wan snicker out of him even as he squirms. “Brother, you dirty.”
The two of you drip sopor all the way to your tiny loadgaper. There's barely enough room for the two of you to stand facing each other, and Gamzee has to squash himself uncomfortably against the sink to let you dab ointment on his face and shoulders, but he doesn't seem to mind. Once you're satisfied, he insists on adorning you with a few Hello Mewbeast adhesive medical strips.
Gamzee folds you back up in his arms the moment you're both back in the recupracoon, and you know it's going to be a long afternoon.
“Still need to talk, huh?” you mutter against his collarbones.
“Yeah.”
You give him a squeeze and draw back to yawn and rub your face. “Okay, bro. Get out your paints.”
Early in your moirallegiance, you both discovered Gamzee talked easier when his hands were busy with something, and so painting became a regular part of your jams. At first you just indulged him, but after the first few times you found it sort of relaxing, the feel of the brush or his fingertips making aimless patterns across your arms or down your back. For all you grump sometimes that it's a wonder you haven't keeled over from paint poisoning by now, every so often you'll find a tiny smiley face on your palm and end up awash in pity so disgustingly pale that you half expect your vision to go soft focus from it.
This time he wants to paint your face. You are too tired to grumble. You lean back against the rim of the recupracoon, squeeze your eyes shut against the psychedelic flashing of his modus, and sigh in relief as he manages not to accidentally jettison any Faygo bottles or bags of special stardust.
You don't bother opening your eyes, even when he nestles close and starts unscrewing the paint jars. He is quiet while he begins applying a thin layer of white paint to your face, his fingers feather light and slow and very, very careful.
“What's wrong?” you ask.
A calloused thumb spreads paint across your cheekbone and down your jaw. You hear him sigh through his nose. “Just some some sad thoughts livin' up in my pan during the walk over here.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah... like sometimes a brother gets to wondering what he'd do if he was ever all alone again.”
You open your eyes. His face is very close to yours, his brows furrowed down in concentration as he applies more paint to your skin. The layer is so thin that it dries almost instantly. You take his chin so he's forced to look at you and not his work.
“I won't let that happen.”
His eyes slide away from yours and the way his teeth dig into his lower lip makes you crazy. “Yeah, bro, I know you wouldn't. I just get these thoughts and they won't up and leave, you know?”
You cup the back of his head and press until his forehead butts against yours. “Yeah, I know. Everybody has those, and after the night you had...” He takes in a shuddery breath, and you feel paint slick fingers twining with yours. You squeeze them. “But you're not losing me. That's a thing that just isn't happening. I didn't pack up all my shit and haul ass to live near you just to get hit by a meteor or whatever. And you can stay here as long as you want until that soaks into your pan sponge, okay?”
He slumps a little, relieved, and nuzzles. “Okay.”
“Your dad will show up or he won't. Either way, you're never alone, man.”
He hugs you tight enough to squeeze the breath out of you, and you return it. He is shaking with tiny, soundless laughs that have nothing to do with being amused and everything to do with being completely overwhelmed. You pet his back until his breathing steadies, and Gamzee's whispering how lucky he is, how he can't imagine life without you, it's just not life that way.
“Same.” You don't feel awkward saying it anymore. “So fucking pale for you.” You press a kiss between his brows before nudging him back a little. “Now finish your painting so I can go back to sleep.”
He cracks a grin and nods. It doesn't take him long to finish with the white paint. The last thing you see before your eyes drift closed is him reaching for a paintbrush and the grey pot. You spend a very pleasant few minutes trying to guess what he's painting as the brush moves over your cheeks and forehead. You breathe an amused sound as it drifts up the bridge of your nose, oh what the fuck is he even doing...
You don't realize you've drifted off until you wake up to your gabhusk buzzing angrily. It's flashing red and blue. You squeeze your eyes shut and groan.
Your neck is giving you stabbing pains from having slept with your head lolled stupidly over the edge of the 'coon. Gamzee is tucked up near you and snoring, his long gangly legs slung over the back so he could more easily burrow into your side. It can't be comfortable, but then again, this is the dude who has been known to nap upside-down on park benches...
Your gabhusk hasn't stopped vibrating. Growling, you snatch it up and flip it open to find Sollux smirking at you. You bare your teeth.
“Oh my fucking god, you moronic waste of air, don't you ever sleep.”
You see his eyes widen behind his shades and you know immediately it has nothing to do with your impressive and intimidating evening scowl.
Then he throws his head back and cackles and you remember your face is caked in clown paint.
“HAHAHAHAAAA, MOTHERFUCKING MIRACLETH BRO.”
“Choke on a bulge, you piss blooded sack of fuck.”
You flip the gabhusk closed, then turn it off for good measure. You let yourself sink into the slime up to your chin and tuck yourself under Gamzee's arm. It's too early for this shit.