soul_skirmish | Where Are They Now? (5 Year Edition)

Gamzee had every right to "be there," as far as L was concerned. In fact, when he had been committed, it had been largely conditional on the troll's ability to come see him, if he so desired. Not that L could truly hold it against him, if he didn't want to; though he and Gamzee had remained partners over the years, there were months when it had been in name only, weeks where he had spent more nights with Light than he had at home, and days when he had prioritized selfish, destructive things over missions. It was difficult, because there was no quadrant equivalent for his relationship with Gamzee. Light was his lethally seductive Kismesis, he had been something like an Auspistice to Mello and Near, and Bakura had been L's long-suffering Moirail. But Matesprit was an empty quadrant for the detective, hanging like a sleeve over an amputated limb, and attempts to fill it typically backfired spectacularly. That left "Partner" as the obvious next-best thing, the plain and available void that could be occupied, and Gamzee had remained even when L had seemed to falter and fade, first physically with his frequent absences and then mentally.

He glanced up when the troll was admitted; he had taken to feigning a catatonic state when someone came in that he didn't want to speak to. Mostly that comprised doctors and nurses, and he could always tell them because they approached quietly and talked to him like a child. But Gamzee's blunt, sad greeting was never one that he could bring himself to deliberately ignore, not even on his bad days when he was genuinely unreachable.

"I wish I could," he said, his tone lackluster and flat once he was sure that the door had closed and they were alone. "You know I wish I could, but it isn't up to me. The last decision I made was signing that paperwork, and anyone crazy enough to sign those papers definitely deserves to be here."

Edited 2013-02-04 16:12 (UTC)

"A motherfucker's got a right to be changing his mind. A motherfucker's got a right to a lot more things than what he's given himself." It's an old, tired argument. Still, Gamzee hasn't lost hope that some day a change of wording will hit just the right note with the man and bring back some of that old partner he was so fond of.

The troll slammed a bottle of Faygo down in front L. This too, was old habit. After all, he knew the man wouldn't be getting nearly enough of what he enjoyed here. Getting the bottle past security had been difficult at first, but by now they hardly batted an eye at it (though they considered his tastes questionable at best). If he could get his way, he would have brought a bag of sweets with him each time too. And by bag he basically meant pillowcase, as if he'd just done a round of trick-or-treating, which was probably why that action was frowned upon so much.

Gift delivered, he took a seat across from L, pulling his legs up in a manner resembling the way his partner did. "Cat won't eat," he added. Though if L would return for an ugly feline over him, he was doing something wrong.

Every person who had cause to visit L, whether frequently like Bakura, infrequently like Mello, or never, like Light, was difficult to some degree, and they were all difficult in their own ways. For most of them, it had to do with the fact that he was being semi-mourned... but Gamzee hadn't seemed to accept that there were consequences to the kinds of things L had been doing before being committed. His fugues were dangerous, and he had almost killed some of the people who had meant the most to him. His intentions had been the best in the world, and he had done it for all the right reasons, but the end result was the same. L had harmed Mello and Bakura, among others, too grievously to even consider continuing to live as he had been.

Please try to understand that this is for the best, Gamzee... it might just be for a little while, even. Take care of the cat while I'm gone, and when I'm back, it'll be just like before.

The soft words had served their purpose at the time, as L was hastily boxing up his life and preparing to relocate. But even if Gamzee had let him leave then, L hadn't been able to maintain that there was any truth in the words. And yet, even after six months, Gamzee kept coming back and asking him to come home. Gamzee, he knew, would be the one least likely to treat him differently, if he did. It would be like the last year had never happened, and that made it all the more tempting, and all the more difficult to say that he wouldn't be able to.

"There are privileges, here. Not rights. That was on one of the papers I signed," L said tiredly, startling slightly as Gamzee slammed the bottle of strawberry Faygo down in front of him on the table, which nearly broke under the sudden stress. His table, like most of the pieces in his room, was flimsy plastic lawn furniture. He braced, almost expecting it to split, with the fissure spreading to the floor and destroying the whole place, but it didn't happen, outside of his fractured thoughts.

He took a deep, shuddering breath. Even on the best of his good days, composing himself wasn't easy. He wasn't as able, these days, to be Gamzee's voice of reason.

"I thought the cat died," L said, inwardly consulting his mental calendar. Not that it was very reliable.

"I said it was liable to kick the wicked shit if you left me all in charge of it." He corrected patiently. "Not that it had yet. Not that it motherfuckin' will." After all, refusing to eat could always just be a sign of petulance, a good example of which sat before him as he spoke.

To Gamzee, issues such as the ones L had been having were nothing that couldn't be fixed. And even if they couldn't, everyone had their own little quirks. So the detective accidentally killed someone - they'd be back, usually. Failure to calm him could be blamed on a moirail who wasn't doing their job properly. Although he had a feeling that what worked for trolls didn't always work for humans in this case. Even still, in the clown's eyes L hadn't committed any sort of crime worth being locked up for.

And that's what this place was, no matter what anyone else said. It was a prison, plain and simple. If it was really for his partner's own good, then L would have been allowed far more freedoms than he currently was. This was just a place to stash him away and make sure he didn't cause any harm. A typical human thing, setting a problem aside as if it would just go away when ignored long enough. Sometimes Gamzee could see why L wasn't so fond of his own species.

"It misses a motherfucker." Though far less than he did, he was sure.

Just because Gamzee was frequently about as poetic as a horrorcore album meant to shock and offend didn't mean that his words couldn't be genuinely touching. Context, as well as the way he said his overly profane statements, often said more than the words themselves.

It was obvious that, whether or not the cat still clung vengefully to life, when Gamzee said that it felt things, the cat was not the cat. The cat was Gamzee.

It was a prison, though, and it was therefore easier to walk into it than it was to walk out. The challenge was largely in maintaining, when L could, that it was all for the best, even if it felt like dying in slow-motion to pretend that he was content when nothing could be further than the truth.

"Please help me, Gamzee," he murmured. "Don't talk about this like it's a fight I can still win. As difficult as it is to get used to this place... leaving it feels impossible. Because if I leave, someone is going to die, and if I am very, very lucky, it will be me. Don't make me happy about dying," he said, in a voice like string.

Edited 2013-02-06 18:53 (UTC)

Help me. Perhaps those weren't the words L should have uttered, because they meant quite different things to Gamzee than they did to the detective, most likely. The rest of what the man said was drowned out by what that evoked in the troll. It was just a subtle shift in his features, a narrowing of the eyes, a slight parting of the lips to reveal the barest glimpse of teeth. But his mind was spinning, formulating.

"And when... when, brother, did a motherfucker allow himself to be accepting of a loss?" He'd been with the detective long enough to learn plenty about him, this being just a small part of the greater picture. "I'll talk about it like it is until you realize the illusion ain't all what you think it is. Until you motherfuckin' realize the sham you done set for yourself."

"I want you to listen, bro. Give me your fuckin' ears. What you got here ain't no sort of answer for nothin'. Not a damn mother fucking thing. What you been sayin', preachin' about deaths you may or may not be the cause of. That's what a loss is, my brother. That's when you motherfuckin' fail. And that's what makes winning so damn important."

He held out a hand, then - a determined expression on his face. Maybe L couldn't truly understand until he showed him. "Get your resonating on with me."

He wouldn't be accepting 'no' as an answer.

Edited 2013-02-07 08:54 (UTC)

A year ago, maybe even six months ago, L would have known better. But the people who still came to visit him were varied and fragile in their own ways, and it was exhausting to keep track of the ones he could be honest with and the ones with whom he had less freedom.

Gamzee made it so easy to want to cave entirely to his own desires, which, were, in so many ways, things that would break his human friends' hearts.

He withdrew, initially, the room seeming to shrink and close in on his wilting frame as Gamzee unwittingly antagonized him. Because of course, that wasn't what he'd meant, at all... "Help" meant to make it easier for him to stay here, not more difficult. And Gamzee, with the best of intentions, always made it harder. Gamzee, by merit of being able to resonate with everyone, could still resonate with L. And when they did, it had a tendency to open the floodgates.

"Don't..." The word died on his lips as he reached for Gamzee's hand, anyway.

To say that their resonance wasn't as good as it had once been was an understatement. L's resonance with Light was largely to blame for this; what had felt rapturous and perfect had actually been corroding and poisoning him, and with a weapon form that was all but forgotten, any partner that attempted this with L was left with a scattered, faint trace of what had once been strong and firm.

/Please take me away from here. I don't care how you do it... Help me. Get me out of this place, Gamzee, please.../

It was what he didn't dare to ask Mello on the days where he was almost himself.

There was no immediate run for the door, although the troll well could have. L's form was small, easily stowed within his clothing. Guards were far less likely to pat someone down on their way out of this place than they were on the way in. After all, what was there to leave with? Macroni pictures?

But he remained where he was, closing his eyes. Their resonance wasn't as good as it used to be, that much was certain. He didn't even know if it was any better than the general resonance he got with any weapon as opposed to the stronger one he got when they were more of a match, but he was determined to strengthen the bond as much as he could while he sat there. He had things to get across to the man, things that he could only show them when their resonation was strong enough.

So L didn't receive an immediate response in the affirmative to his plea. What he received was a low Shhhhhh..., a far gentler sound than Gamzee was used to making, and a heavy blanket of calm that the troll usually associated with his connection to his moirail. Or, in the sweeps before, a good pie.

I can't help you, bro, until you let me.

The soothing sound served as that calming blanket, but a jagged, frustrated little edge dug into their resonance when Gamzee urged him to let him help.

/What... Do you think I'm trying to do? Help me... I am letting you HELP me.../

Gradually, though, his struggling subsided, and he more or less went limp and pliable in Gamzee's hands, transforming fully into his Weapon form for the first time since he'd initially forgotten how.

Those who shared a strong bond, meister and weapon, were often capable of being able to see into the psyche of each other to an extent. The weaker resonation made this difficult right now, but Gamzee was trying his damndest.

Get your focus on me. Set your mind on where I'm speakin' at.

If L did this, he might be able to find both of them on an empty plain, the troll's dark figure flickering in and out of focus before him. It was a strain, doing this much, but the image didn't relay such. Gamzee thumped a fist to his chest a couple times.

You got a darkness here. That ain't a death sentence unless you make it. You got a thing you crave - a toxic motherfucker of a need you got yourself graspin' for as if it's your last gulp of air.

I've felt all this, my brother. I know what it's like, staring through that hole in your pan and thinking everything can only fall the motherfuck through from then on.

The very darkness around them flickered then, flashes of a grinning clown face. Splashes of what might as well have been various colors of paint but was recognizable to those familiar as troll blood. Severed heads on a table labeled as the jury.

Things don't gotta be the same as they were before. They can't be.

Edited 2013-02-09 09:51 (UTC)

The sheer effort on the part of the troll was enough, just enough, to pull L's fractured psyche into his.

He opened his eyes, a dry, arid wind moving through his tangled hair as he raised his dark gaze to meet his troll partner's. It wasn't easy; the horned, painted figure flickered in and out like a faulty hologram, as if he was an echo rather than a being of flesh.

You got a darkness here.

He took an unsteady step back, but there was in fact a darkness there, a prickling, whispering, hideously living thing at his shoulder blades when he attempted to retreat. So, he was forced to listen.

...a toxic motherfucker of a need...

A shadow puppet was at his elbow, then, a form fainter than Gamzee's on the plain. It was humanoid, but distinctly inhuman, with sharp, glistening teeth and glinting red eyes standing out against the deeper shades of its form.

And then there was a horrific flash of funhouse lights, a distorted face with exaggerated features and shrapnel-splatters of multi-colored viscous liquid. And the heads, all in a row, as cabbages in a garden...

L was on his knees, clutching his elbows as if trying to keep himself from scattering to pieces within the resonance-dream. The shade at his side suddenly had him in a headlock, pulling him back toward the cold give of the shadow-wall at his back.

They can be worse... I know because every time I say that, it comes true...

Edited 2013-02-12 05:08 (UTC)

They can be worse if a motherfucker makes them. If he fights too hard. If he rages too strong.

You just gotta chill, my brother. Settle with what all's in you and realize it's always gonna be there. It just wants a little attention, so trickle it in slow.

Gamzee's image almost faded out completely, but that also seemed to anger him so he focused harder, causing it to flash back more visible than before. He wasn't done with L yet.

Back in reality, the troll had carefully stashed the weapon in his pocket, still attached to one wrist. He'd planned on waiting, but if he stayed there too much longer he wouldn't have the energy later for a proper escape. He stood, making his way casually toward the door even as he held their connection.

The words elicited a paralyzed fear in the detective; maybe that worked for trolls, he thought as cold dread sank into his skin where it contacted the shadow form, but to give in to his personal monster would be to be devoured.

Then again, it wasn't as if he hadn't already lost most of what mattered. Perhaps ceasing to struggle, just for a little while, wouldn't be the worst thing.

I'm empty. Hollow. Metal, but lighter than air. And it's quiet now...

His weapon form remained coiled and silent in Gamzee's pocket as L's restless soul was momentarily soothed. And, aside from one lost-looking young woman wandering the halls outside L's room, they were practically deserted.

Gamzee walked right out the front door of the building, and no one was the wiser. At least not yet. He was frowning as he did so, which was nothing out of the ordinary for him when it came to his chats with L. It was for a different reason today, though.

He couldn't read the man's mind, but he could sense enough in the way he reacted to know that his words may have been misinterpreted.

I'm not saying let the darkness be you, brother. You gotta be it too. It's a motherfuckin' two-wheeled, four-peddled device what takes both sides of you to keep moving.

He steps faltered a little the further he got away from L's former prison and the closer they got to home. That was telling enough for the troll. He wouldn't be able to keep this up too much longer.

Gonna get you all back to my hivespace. I'll get you the proper help you need.

Edited 2013-02-16 01:06 (UTC)

The reaction was definitely more like resignation than anything else. He'd done this before, in his own world, reached the understanding that he was no longer in control of the direction of his case and, therefore, his life. He had had a harried several hours to arrange his affairs before he'd died, as he'd predicted he would but was powerless to stop.

The analogy made his mind wander, idly, to a bicycle. Was that his weapon form? A bicycle chain for a tandem model? For a moment his sense of identity was utterly compromised, anchored in place only by Gamzee's wavelength, and then the reassuring words cut in and brought him, once more, back to Earth.

/Tell me when it's safe to transform back. I want to see my cat again./

The door to Gamzee's apartment was shoved open, then slammed shut behind him. He leaned back against the door, dizzy, as he took L's weapon form from his pocket and held it out in front of him.

Go on, bro. But don't go nowhere yet.

He had other things to say, things to do, and he had to make sure and do them before he passed out on the floor. The troll didn't want to make this just a more lenient prison for his partner, but it wouldn't be good for anyone if he just ran off in his current state.

If L shared any of the strain of resonation, he didn't seem like it, stepping neatly down from his weapon form and transforming back, a slender human barefoot on the carpet.

"Where would I go...?"

It was a question intoned like a song, as he noted his mangy cat, still indeed clinging to life, slinking suspiciously along the walls. It crouched warily as he approached it, scooping it up and holding it too tightly. Hissing and yowling, it dug its claws into his arm, but he only held tighter, eyes wide, but more in fascination than fear or pain.

Gamzee, meanwhile, slipped down so he was seated with his back against the door, head tilted back. He turned it just slightly enough to keep an eye on L. He didn't honestly care much for the cat's fate, just that L remained himself for a time.

The act of resonating was never a strain for him. It was the act of dragging his partner into his mindscape that had done it, and continuing to converse with him while simultaneously acting awake in the outside world. The troll thumped his head back against the door a couple times, horns scraping wood, in order to keep himself focused now.

"You know where, motherfuker." To him. To the one Gamzee should have killed a long time ago. "And come back to me when you done your share of purrbeast greets. I got something to fuckin' give you." It sat in his other pocket still, as he'd meant to give it back during his visiting session.

Edited 2013-02-19 09:18 (UTC)

For a tense several moments, L clutched the protesting, increasingly agitated cat, all but oblivious to Gamzee's clear exhaustion. It took an alarming amount of hissing, biting and scratching for the cat to finally fight its way free, but L eventually dropped it to the floor, the creature bolting into the nearest bedroom with a furious squall.

The scraping, and the not-so-veiled reference to Light (who else?) returned L's attention to his troll partner. He returned, shuffling slowly toward Gamzee and holding his cupped hands (bitten and scratched to hell, currently) towards him, palms-up.

Gamzee frowned at the injuries, but he wasn't the mothering type. He wasn't going to run for band-aids any time soon.

The item he'd been fishing from his pocket was a friendship bracelet crafted from multicolored string in a repeating rainbow pattern. It had obviously been made by the troll, as it was clear that he'd started out not knowing what he was doing only to eventually get better at the pattern as it progressed. One end was a bit of a mess, but it worked out somehow.

The troll leaned forward enough to tie the item around his partner's wrist. Sewn into the thick band in black letters was the phrase I AM WHAT I AM.

"Humans got this thing, motherfuckin' strange-ass tendency where they go and all tie some bright colored knots all up on their prongs. Like lookin' all at that shit will jar back into them whatever they done mother fucking forgot. But I figure I done you one better with that. Figure that makes up for fifty little string rings."

Stroking the bracelet with his glass-fingered touch, L studied it, wide eyes drinking in the pattern and the words. He raised his bone-thin wrist to get a better look at the colors, the technique that had started shaky and grown to expertise.

Without warning, he reached forward with both arms, pulling Gamzee into a tense, odd embrace.

Then he was striding briskly across the room, stopping by the kitchen for two permanent markers, red and black, dropping their caps to the floor and defacing the white wall with wide, sweeping strokes. A cross materialized, and in each quadrant, surprisingly accurate depictions of everything L had ever been told of troll relationships.

Heart, diamond, spade, clubs.

"So? What do you want to be?"

While Gamzee had always been amused by the way L so easily incorporated troll relationships into daily life, the fact remained that the man himself wasn't a troll. Therefore, there was still something a little off-putting about how easily he related to their quadrants. But then, this was Gamzee. He was rarely put off by anything he should be.

Yet he'd never really considered himself to be romantically involved with L. They were partners. That was something that fell outside the usually spectrum, and he was perfectly happy with it.

But perhaps there was one thing he'd been all along without realizing it. Of the four quadrants, it was the one others were the least appreciative to find that they had, but one that could be necessary all the same. He wouldn't claim to be pale for L. Things just weren't like that between them. But on the opposite end...

"Ashen, bro." Clubs. Something he'd been for a while. The job of an auspictice wasn't always just to keep people from having more than one black romance, but to stop those that clearly weren't in the best interest of those involved.

And that had been the case with L and his from the start.

Edited 2013-02-27 22:29 (UTC)

Even at his sharpest, most astute mental best, L hadn't been able to relate to humans particularly well. Unless, of course, they were the broken, brilliant variety that drew his laser-precise focus. Where Mello and Near got alomg well with Sollux, L preferred a more volatile, unpredictable and strange combination, which was why he tended to gravitate toward the royal-blooded Alternians. Gamzee had always been his favorite. That was just as true now as it had ever been, even if the detective was just clinging to the edge of sanity, and not nearly as adaptively as Gamzee historically had.

On hearing Gamzee's answer, L began to color the other quadrants black, eliminating them from consoderation, leaving only the clubs in the lower right-hand corner of the cross.

"So, it isn't different. Not really. And until someone comes to bring me back... you won't let me see him."

Edited 2013-03-01 04:28 (UTC)

"Don't be a mother fucking wriggler." He'd expected to get this sort of reaction the moment he gave his answer. Auspictices were rarely appreciated, but here he'd gone and stuck himself in that position.

Gamzee remained sitting a bit longer, wanting to regain his strength. Of course, sleeping in front of the door was also an option, as it would likely keep L from exiting through it at least for the night. The troll rarely looked as serious as he did then, but the weariness did help attribute to that.

"It's different because I actually fuckin' give two shits. It's different because I ain't lockin' you all the motherfuck up and walkin' away." He shook his head. "Ain't like we can stay here all so long anyway, as this'll be the first place they'll send motherfuckers to find you at. And if you go back to HIM, he'll just send you back there too.

"I'll let you stalk a brother all you motherfuckin' like, once you can prove to me you can tell him from yourself."

L knew that "wrigglers" were to trolls what very young children were to humans, and he'd heard it many times daily even before his break with reality: don't be a child. You're too old, too clever, too powerful for this to be acceptable. "Too sane" was no longer a viable reason, so people had stopped with that, out of respect that only came coupled with pity.

"You're not locking me up?" He inquired, returning to Gamzee's side and nudging the sitting troll's knee with his bare toe. "I disagree. But I will say that you are not leaving... even though it would be tempting, for some. And how can I prove it?" he asked quietly, crouching so that he and Gamzee were at eye-level. "I want to see him. And I know he must want to see me. It's how we are, we're..."

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thehonking - 2013-03-07 21:53 (UTC) - Expand

Where Are They Now? (5 Year Edition)

Re: L Lawliet

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