You are ROXY LALONDE and you are WAY TOO SOBER.
Gog, Los Angeles was practically a potluck of clubs and bars. Flashing lights and pounding bass rhythms assaulted her every night on the way back to the hotel, irritating her head and eyes.
But here she was, three days into their trip, still sober.
The first day, they had immediately split up into the city's many supermalls and begun their shopping. By the time they had finished, it was already nighttime and they returned to the hotel, physically exhausted. The second day, Roxy's bus decided to take a detour to the giantass white letters everybody made a big deal out of but in reality weren't very impressive. After the wasted hour of burning the word HOLLYWOOD into her retinas, they continued on their way to the La Brea Tar Pits, where they stared at sticky black asphalt and pretending to see fossils in the oily black mess. If there was a single person who actually gave a fuck about bones of extinct animals buried in the equivalent of tobacco-waste, it was certainly not her.
Stopping for a lunch break at a random restaurant, all of the buses drove to the Los Angeles Central Public Library, which delighted her little sister and confused Roxy to no end. Why on earth did libraries have to be modeled after Egyptian architecture? Egypt was a pretty random-ass country, next to Czech and Slovakia. Or was it Czechoslovakia? Czechslovakia, Czechoslovakia... she couldn't remember which one it was. But either way, it was absolutely preposterous and ridiculous. They'd spent a good four hours there, staring at books before it was evening again. She had taken a quick shower and fallen asleep instantly on the bed she shared with Rose, ignoring her sister's mumbled protests when she stole all of the blankets. All of them.
And this afternoon they were standing on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Roxy studied the brass stars and names embedded in the cement. Farther away, Jane was walking around outside the Kodak, looking for actors or actresses she knew. The occasional giggle of recognition as Jane saw a handprint or footprint belonging to one of her favorite movie stars floated over to Roxy, who dawdled by the square with Walt Disney's name on it.
She looked over at John and Jake, who were discussing [very loudly] movies.
Terrible movies, to be specific. She would never understand their thought processes.
Noticing Dirk, who was casually leaning against a wall, she maneuvered over to him and huffed. He stared at her [or was he? Stupid shades] and nodded. "Hey, Roxy."
She could feel a headache coming on. "When are we getting out of this place? Please, please let it be soon."
"I'd say another fifteen minutes before we're packed on the bus again."
Swearing quietly, she slumped against the wall as well. "I need a drink." Preferably one of alcoholic content. Dirk sensed it.
"No, you don't."
The exchange finished, they stayed there until Karkat, drawing many nasty looks as he did so, screamed at them to get "back on the fucking bus you ignorant pieces of-"
At which point a drumming over the head with Terezi's cane caused him to turn his attention to the owner of the cane.
Your name is SOLLUX CAPTOR and you are SIXTEEN YEARS OLD. You are the HEAD of GEMINI HOUSE, and you tend to thpeak with a BIT OF A LITHP. You mean LITHP. LISP, GOGDAMNIT. As of RIGHT NOW you are on a BUS headed back to the HOTEL for LUNCH.
The radio was on [he didn't know buses even had radios], reporting about some grisly chain murders that had been strung throughout LA. Apparently they had all been stabbed through the chest and left where they lay.
Well, didn't that make him feel safe and sound? Looking for a distraction, he turned to his right.
Aradia was sitting next to him again, her face turned towards the window. She had the prettiest eyes, he thought, studying her profile from behind his red-blue glasses. Large, dark, thick-lashed, and…
They used to be soulful. Before the incident.
Now they were blank and empty and wide and vacant, but hell if he didn't love them just as much.
It was you.
She never used to be bored. Now she was almost perpetually so.
Did you forget?
Yet lately there had been a small spark, a little more emotion, a bit of life, of caring that had sprung into her eyes, almost without notice. He saw it in the way she smiled, a real smile, the way she laughed, a real laugh.
It was like Aradia, his Aradia, was coming back from whatever deep abyss she'd fallen into. He averted his gaze when he remembered exactly what had caused the blackout.
You.
He didn't want to remember.
The bus jolted to a stop and they began to file out of it and into the hotel. The hotel provided lunch for them in one of the conference rooms, buffet-style. Sollux handed a plate to Aradia and passed another one to Feferi, who was behind him, dumping little piles of food on the white ceramic as they moved down the line.
You are now JANE CROCKER and you are a NERVOUS WRECK.
Why?
The word could be applicable to begin countless questions.
Why was she on the same bus as him? Why did he pop up everywhere? Why did he always have that terrifying smile on his face?
Why, why, why, why, why?
Jane tried to relax herself as she took a bite of spaghetti, but her body remained as tense as ever. John looked at her, concerned. "Jane, are you okay? You look stressed."
Gritting her teeth and stabbing another cluster of pasta, she said, "Oh, yes, I'm perfectly fine." She managed a weak laugh, trying to control the involuntary spasm that ran up her arm.
She supposed it was an irrational fear. But then again, most of her fears were irrational. Gamzee had started out as simply a rather intimidating, tall, lanky boy with clown makeup plastered across his face.
With a creepy smile on his face.
And then she began feeling uncomfortable around him, which escalated her phobia more and more until she was completely afraid. Afraid of him.
"Jane?" Roxy waved a hand in front of her face.
"You can diagnose me with juggalo phobia now," she sighed, rubbing her eyes behind the glasses. "You wouldn't happen to have some sort of prescription for that, would you?"
Rose cut a sausage in half with delicate precision. "No, I wouldn't. But I have compiled a psychoanalysis of your phobia."
A few seats away from her, Dave scoffed. "Oh, hell no. Just add it to your giantass library of fucking psychoanalyshit, Lalonde."
"Your clever wordplay aside, Strider," sniffed the blonde, placing the severed sausage in her mouth and chewing daintily.
"Where's dear, little Huggy Bear?" interjected Dirk, playing around with his fork. "Would having a robot bunny armed to the metal herbivorian molars give you a sense of security which is, by the way, completely useless?"
A groan from Jane. "He's in my room, stuffed in the closet. You know, just like the way I first found him. And he's a bunny, not a bear."
"You need to rename him, then. Or possibly change his gender, if that's what the almighty Jane Crocker desires." Dirk tapped out a rhythm with his fingertips.
Jane thought over it for a few seconds and snapped her fingers. "Lil Sebastian," she declared, earning a nod of approval from Dirk.
"Sebastian like… that cute little crab thing from The Little Mermaid?" piped Jade, a wide smile on her face. "That's so adorable!"
"Well… not quite, but oh, whatever," sighed Jane, running a hand through her short hair.
Finishing her food, she rose to put it in the… in the…
The dirty-plate area?
She nearly sprinted on the way back, having seen a certain Capricorn get up from his seat. Ducking behind tables as she went [and earning odd looks along the way], she eventually made it to her seat and collapsed, her heart racing. "He's everywhere," she hissed frantically.
Jake chuckled. "Oh, Jane, you'll be graduating this year so you shan't see him after this, am I right?"
She scowled at him. "Too bad 'this' is six months away. I've never been in such a rush to graduate from high school. If this even qualifies as high school."
Pushing back her chair, she bid good bye to her friends, planning to go and rest in her hotel room. Sight-seeing was over for the day, unless the students wanted to go out on their own. Fumbling around in her pocket for the key card, she cast a cautionary glance towards the Heads' tables and was strangely relieved to see that Gamzee was not there.
But where had he gone?
Deciding that she didn't want to take the elevator, she slipped around to the stairs and trudged upwards.
Honk.
Oh, this was ridiculous. She was going insane. All of the 'honks' must have been a figment of her imagination.
HONK.
She slid the plastic card into the thingamabob on the door, waiting for the click and beep before sliding in the room and shutting the door. Making a beeline to the closet, Jane shoved the clothes aside and retrieved Lil Sebastian from the bottom, smiling as his red shades [just like Dirk's] lit up in recognition.
"Fake sense of security?" she said aloud. "I'll take it."
Setting the bunny on the dresser next to the bed she shared with Jade, she curled up into the blankets and took out a book to read, plugging in her headphones as she did so.
She didn't hear the honks.
And if she had, she would have been terrified.
First, stop being the juggalo-phobic teenage girl. Second, be the juggalo.
Your name is GAMZEE MAKARA and you are-
PSYCHE. You cannot be the juggalo for unknown reasons. You try to be somebody else instead.
You are now JADE HARLEY. You have just FINISHED eating LUNCH and you are in front of the door to your ROOM.
On the way up, she had heard so many faint honks that she was beginning to think she was losing her mind. She thought she kind of knew why Jane was so afraid of the sound, when repeated so many times it became rather eerie and haunting.
Unlocking the door, she poked her head in before adding the rest of her. Jane was sitting on their bed, reading a thick book while listening to music.
Jade crept silently towards the bed before pouncing and landing heavily on the bed, startling Jane and provoking a shriek from the older girl.
"Shit!" Jane swore as her book fell to the floor. Meeting Jade's green eyes, she smiled wearily, still in shock. "Well, hi, Jade."
Giggling, Jade sprawled on the bed, shoving her long black hair out of the way. "Hi, Jane! Do you want to go out with us later?"
"Who's 'us'?"
Jade rolled over, nearly squashing her cousin. "Oh, you know, Jake, John, Dirk, Dave, Rose, and Roxy!"
"Sure. Pourquoi pas?"
"Bon! Je vais parler avec nos amis!"
"You go do that, then. When are we leaving?"
Jade had already bounced off of the bed and was halfway out the door. "Umm, at three! I think we're going out to the convention center, Dirk says there's some sort of expo there and he wants to go!" The door swung and clicked shut.
She checked the time on her iPod. Two-fourteen.
Honk.
Shivering involuntarily, she put her earphones back in.
Stupid lousy goddamn honking.
A/N: Eep. I'm way behind schedule. We're supposed to be at the fall ball [hehe] by now! Mrrh. Maybe I should just start making my chapters longer. It's just that after 2000 something words I get sick of the same chapter and I like, HAVE to start a new one. This chapter's a bit short, though... fwoooooomph.
Oh, and 7zebey, thank you for pointing it out! Leaving 'Tavros' as her last name would have been really really embarrassing... so you have my gratitude (: All of it. Aaaaall of it.
And I realized... there is absolutely NO Jane/Gamzee shipping on this site. If there is, I haven't found one. I wasn't really planning to put them together, but I guess it's been shifting towards that direction, even if Jane is currently scared shitless of our lovable [batshit crazy] juggalo.
Yep. Thanks for reading, & review, please? Reviews are like the jelly donuts to my police officer alter-ego. Just kidding, I lied, I'm not a police officer in any aspect or fragment of my personality.
I'm rambling again... well, until next time!