A/N: Ok I kind of messed up the dream bubble mechanics. Or rather, this fic has none. They're just... awake while the inhabitants of the dream bubble come into their environment instead of the opposite. So don't mind that, it's trivial. No harm done, really. It's just a quick draft-y thing to get my cracky Gam/Nep feels out anyway.
Vindication
He knows what dream bubbles are. His best motherfucking friend, Karkat, he tells him about these weird illusions all the time. He's always telling Gamzee that it's weird, seeing the dead trolls talk and walk and exist like they weren't brutally murdered some five hundred days ago. He says it's even weirder that they're never from the principal time line. Not once, he says, has he spoken to a Feferi, Eridan, Vriska, Tavros, Equius, or Nepeta (he cringes) from the current session. Maybe they hadn't come across their dream bubble yet, or maybe their dream bubble wasn't accessible given the fact their original session was still in progress.
But Gamzee isn't idealistic. He knows that even if they did come across a dream bubble containing the trolls (friends) he killed, they wouldn't stick around long.
Well,Vriska might, if only to chew Terezi out for killing her. Tavros might even visit, with Feferi maybe. That would be mighty motherfucking nice of them, sticking around to chat a while. Hell, maybe Feferi would have forgiven Eridan and would drag him along, too.
But Equius and Nepeta would never come. And even if they did... it certainly wouldn't be as cheerful a reunion as the others.
He turns a corner, hums the verse of a rap he and Tavros made together, and closes his eyes. He imagines what it would be like to be Terezi, blind but tenacious, and smiles to himself. Terezi's a real piece of work sometimes. She came to find him once. She searched all over the place, high and low, near and far, but (and he remembers this clear) he was hiding very cleverly atop the jar his dead Lusus' remains were contained in.
In the end she just grinned a little fiercely, said that Karkat needed his moirail, and turned and left. Of course she was right and the next day he let Karkat find him so they could hit a pile (not his horn pile, he knows Karkat still hates the sound) and jam some feelings.
That must have been over three hundred days ago.
If he were the same troll he was before the game he might have considered Terezi to be a miracle-worker, Karkat the miracle, and the Dave-human to be a blasphemous stain of existence on the universe's vast plain of being. Of course, he knows miracles don't exist anymore.
Or, he guesses, maybe he knows they never existed at all.
His thoughts are derailed by the sudden, "Gamzee, you fuck, hold on!" being howled at him from the other end of the hallway, which was no short distance away.
"Hey, best friend," A grin is stretched from one side of his face to the other. He puts on the act for Karkat and Karkat alone, because he loves him and because Karkat is the only one who needs him around. He does it because that's what Karkat considers Gamzee's 'sane' to be and that's what he needs to see.
He scowls at Gamzee while he rests his hands on his knobby knees to catch the breath that got away from him when he sprinted down the hall. It's a long hall, sure, but Gamzee thinks maybe he should be concerned for Karkat's mediocre physical health. He doesn't remember Karkat being so easily winded before, unless he was unwinding a wordy rant at someone.
Maybe that had something to do with the coming-up-on two year gap of inactivity. No one to strife with (besides the Dave-human, but Gamzee's heard enough to come to the conclusion that Dave could blitz Karkat without breaking a sweat) and no imps to fight. Even Gamzee's not in the best health he's ever been in, and he walks miles everyday through the winding hallways below the surface of the meteor.
"What's the news up top, brother?" Gamzee asks, when he sees Karkat reeling himself back together.
"We ran into another dream bubble." Karkat starts, and Gamzee relaxes a bit. His best moirail-friend always comes down to jam a little after a dream bubble comes to pass. It's been less lately, like he's been distracted by something else, but he still does on occasion.
"Motherfucking sweet, bro. How were our dead selves shaking up this time around?" He asks, only partially paying attention. Karkat seems fidgety so he drapes an arm over the squirmy little guy's shoulders. He relaxes, but only slightly, and Gamzee has to wonder what has him wound up so tight.
"Yeah, that's actually what I came to talk about." Anxiousness now; as plain as day. Gamzee isn't liking this one bit.
They trod on in silence for a long while after that. Gamzee is almost tempted to prompt Karkat into talking again but he knows his moirail better than that. Rushing him will only run him off because for whatever reason, Karkat takes offence to being asked questions. Quite the finicky troll, if you asked Gamzee.
But before he can speak again, the PA system crackles to life above and Karkat starts. Gamzee chuckles at him and in reward receives a scathing glare."Yo, Vantas, we got ourselves a SNAFU happening up here. Small, sharp, and kawaii has gone MIA. Her meowrail is going shithive maggots and we kind of need your shitty help-" a loud crash filters over the speaker and Karkat smacks a palm to his forehead as the voice cuts out for the final time.
"Gog damn it." He glances up at the taller troll looking so sorry that Gamzee couldn't have begrudged him for leaving even if he wanted to, so instead he grins.
"It's alright, motherfucker, duty calls. You've got a mess to clean up." In response Karkat grabs Gamzee's hand for a brief instant, promising to come see him again later, and proceeds to sprint back down the hallway. Gamzee hears him complain, loudly, about why they fuck they had to walk so far down the stupid hall in the first place and Gamzee snickers again. His best friend is the motherfucking shits.
For a while after that he wanders down the empty hallways, twisting and turning and in general just not paying any attention to direction until he finally found the place he had been after.
"Alright, my feline friend, coast's all clear." He announces to the dim light of the room. There's a pause of complete silence and Gamzee waits patiently, observing the lights above flicker intermittently. It's been a while since anyone's been down here, he notes, and it could be in better shape. It's empty except for a few splatters of blue and green stains, but Gamzee pays them no heed. Instead, he waits and ponders the events that occurred in the room he stood in.
"You knew I was stalking you." Nepeta clambers swiftly out of the air-vent; the very same one she pounced out of in an attempt to rescue Equius. She hasn't changed much, if at all. Her clothes remain the same, although her hat is mysteriously absent and her hair seems flatter and less unruly. She's still short and thin with feline eyes and blue claws protruding with a certain menace from the sleeves of her coat. She's not smiling, though, and that's a critical difference. This Nepeta isn't smiling at all.
He had a hunch before, but this confirms it.
This is the Nepeta he killed.
"Sure did, motherfucker, but it took me a while to realize who it was." He plasters himself a lazy grin and notes the small troll. She's about Karkat's height from five hundred days ago, probably shorter in comparison now that Karkat has grown some.
"How did you know? I was sure my technique had been purrfected." Well, if nothing else, the return of the cat puns is reassuring. Gamzee's grin broadens.
"Instinct, sister. When you're alone as much as I am, you get to understanding when you've all up and got some unidentified company." He says quietly, his tone as guarded as he can make it. He's never been all that good at being unfriendly to trolls he wants to be friends with.
Nepeta isn't moved by what he said and instead appears apathetic.
"So what's the deal, motherfucker? You come down here to pick a fight?" In this instance, he really doesn't have time to get his friendly on and apologize to her. The trouble is that she doesn't look angry. Maybe a little bitter, or even resigned, but anger isn't the emotion she's carrying now. His body stays tense anyway, just in case she decides she wants revenge because she can move fast and he doesn't want to let his guard down.
"I tried that method out last time, and look where I am now." She replies blandly. "No, Gamzee, I'm not here fur a fight with you, or anyone here fur that matter." The tension in Gamzee's shoulders leak away until he's fluid again, watching her watch him in an almost amiable silence.
"So... how're the dream bubbles all up and treating you?" He queries, not because he's curious, but because the silence is strange and a little unnerving. Nepeta snorts at the question, but had she really been expecting anything else?
"Alright, I suppose." She shrugs with the kind of indifference that a living Nepeta would never have had. "Equius and I are purrty good at finding things to ameowse ourselves with, anyway."
"That's fucking great, motherfucker. I'm glad you're not bored or shit." Gamzee means what he says. Boredom is a troll's worst enemy, be them living or dead. He's been bored before; it was the worst experience he's ever had the displeasure of going through.
Another long silence, and Nepeta looks restless.
"How's Karkitty?" She asks unabashedly, her grossly blank eyes meeting Gamzee's with the same steady resilience she boasted while she lived. He wonders for a moment if that's resentment he sees there, or maybe surrender.
"Karkat's doing motherfucking fine, sister." Gamzee grins. "No worries and all that."
This doesn't seem to be what she wanted to hear.
"That's a furthright lie and you know it." Nepeta corrects him brusquely, eyeing him with something akin to distrust. "I spoke to him. He's pretty transpurrent when he's upset. And he yells a lot more." She stares right through him and Gamzee shifts.
"You're helping him through whatever is furustrating him, right?" She's not asking to be mean, so he nods slowly.
"Yeah, motherfucker. I've been stepping up my moirailing game. He's gonna be papped so hard I won't even need to shoosh his ass." Gamzee grins, Nepeta smiles vaguely, and everything is okay for a very brief moment in time.
"Do you regret it?"
Time stops.
She's completely serious though, patiently waiting for his answer. Her composed stare is so convincing that Gamzee almost believes she wouldn't care if he said no, or yes, or that he didn't care. Instead his gaze drifts to her sides where he can see the navy claws just barely trembling.
"Yeah, sis, I motherfucking regret it like it's nobodies business." He says it quietly, vague flashes of broken bows and fractured bones littering his imagination. The more he tries to wade through them, the more he sees. He's grown a thicker skin in dealing with them now, but remembering Nepeta's resigned whimpering always sees him smiling blankly at the ceiling. "I regret it." He says again. Nepeta's gaze wavers.
"You know, fur a while I thought I really would kill you if I efur saw you again." Nepeta says coolly. Her posture screams apathy. Her eyes, though, are a little wistful. Gamzee doesn't cringe, doesn't frown, doesn't blink. He waits. "But we were sort of furiends when I was alive, weren't we?"
She sighs, looking conflicted. Gamzee doesn't reply because, yeah, they sort of were. Until he went and murdered both her and her moirail in one fell swoop. He knows he wouldn't have the right to be upset if she hated him. He came to terms with that a long time ago. So he waits some more.
"I guess I'm not like you, Gamzee. I can't snap on my furiends and lambaste them to death when I get bored." She says that out of spite, maybe to see if she can rile him up, but he laughs. It's his candid reaction to everything, anyway. "But I'm purrfectly okay with that. So instead I guess I'm here to ask you a question."
"Shoot, sister." He replies, curious despite himself.
"Do you think you deserve furgiveness?" She stares on, completely unruffled by the nature of the question she just proposed. Gamzee feels a bit befuddled that she would ask him that question, of all she could potentially have asked, seeing as it's not his decision to make, and he says so. Nepeta's response is asking him to answer the question because they are very quickly running out of time here.
But he doesn't get the chance to reply because he's abruptly blindsided by a hysteric Karkat, spewing profanities about his 'dumbfuck of a moirail'. Gamzee isn't sure why Karkat's down here, or who told him about this place. As far as he knows, the only ones who even knew the way down were Nepeta, and himself, and Equius.
He glances up, sees the blue blooded troll guarding over Nepeta with clenched fists and tense shoulders, and chuckles with understanding. He supposes he did all up and forget that Equius was absolutely as fierce as they came when it was regarding a matter of Nepeta's safety. He's also pretty certain that killing both of them hadn't improved that overly cautious nature of his any.
Karkat is still raging loudly in his ear, so he gives him a quick shoosh, paps him for good measure, and doesn't take his eyes off of the pair of moirails he ended a year and a couple hundred days ago. Like Nepeta, Equius doesn't look any different from the day he had killed him. If it weren't for the blatantly vacant eyes, Gamzee might have thought he had never killed the blue blood.
Equius has a firm hand on Nepeta's shoulder and begins guiding her away from him, disregarding her quiet protests. Karkat tries to do similarly with Gamzee but he can't reach his shoulder, so he settles for dragging him by the wrist. He holds his hand, fingers lacing together so tightly Gamzee feels the tips of his fingers going numb, but he feels vacant still.
Karkat, in the mean while, continues to chew him out, telling him that he's been so stupid and how could he do that without asking for help? This is the kind of thing moirails are for!, but Gamzee can only vaguely hear him. Perhaps this is grief, or maybe it's repentance, but he feels very tired. More tired than he's ever felt in his life.
When they're close to reaching the main platform, Gamzee pulls himself free of Karkat and flashsteps ahead to block the transportilizer from his moirail and his undead companions. He hears Karkat curse and Equius frowns like he's having a hard time comprehending what he's doing. Nepeta just stares at him, without a shred of fear or remorse. He places a hand on the juncture between her shoulder and her neck and Equius clenches his fist.
"So what's the plan here, Gamzee? Gonna kill me twice?" Nepeta asks with a sneer. Karkat grabs Gamzee's shoulder and prepares to try and forcefully drag him away. "That's purrty low, even fur you."
Gamzee shoots her a genuine grin, teeth and all, and Karkat's hand lowers from his arm with shocked sluggishness.
"Nah, motherfucker, just gonna say this to your face and all that." He says with a chuckle. He stoops himself down to her level, which is quite the bend from his full height, and stops smiling. "I'm sorry, sister. I fucked up and sent you and this rad motherfucker," He tilts his head toward Equius, "To a place you shouldn't have had to go for a long motherfucking time. And you don't know how all up and motherfucking ecstatic I am that you aren't suffering. I am so motherfucking sorry, you don't even know."
He stands to his full height, feeling more sheepish than he ever thought he could, and slowly drops his hand from her shoulder. His wrist feels weighted down by something heavy, his whole body does, but at the same time it's like a weight has been lifted from his heart. He feels a lot better now, actually.
Nepeta sniffles.
"You better be sorry, you pawful, pitiable, stupid troll!" She mutters, head ducked down. Equius places an arm over her shoulders and she laughs bleakly. It's a sad little sound, not at all fitting coming from someone whose meant to be as cheerful as her. "This is dumb." She sighs, rubbing at her eyes. When she looks up again, her hands are clenched into fists but her eyes are almost soft.
"Not like it matters now anyway but," Her hands shoots out and grab his before he can react. Really, she's quick. Her palms are warm and yielding against his, thawing his chilled fingertips. She doesn't feel dead; she feels alive. Her skin is smooth but slightly calloused, and Gamzee remembers that while she's small, she's far from weak. She's a little strange, but mostly just kind, and she's still invitingly warm. Her eyes are clear but persistent and her lips are pursed together readily. She's like a stubborn little flame that flickers and falters but never quite goes out. "I furgive you, Gamzee."
She smiles briefly, just the barest flash of her canines, but her steady hand doesn't leave his until Equius calls her away.
"Come here, Nepeta." Equius beckons her as he steps around Gamzee, who promptly shuffles over beside a gobsmacked Karkat, and makes his way to the transportilizer. "You will go first."
She nods at the both of them, steps on, and then she's gone.
But Gamzee can still feel her hand on his.
"So... what the fuck just happened?" Karkat's eyebrows are almost comically creased in thought and Gamzee honks in response, shoving his best moirail-friend onto the transportilizer.
"Motherfucking miracles, brother."