Karkat raised up one hand, fingers clutched together in a loose fist, and rapped his knuckles against the door to room eight.
He had been in his own room moments before, working on something to keep himself awake, when he heard what sounded like screaming, and something breaking. He had stared at the wall for a few moments, dazed from lack of sleep and still getting over the flu or whatever it was he had, before he was able to comprehend what he heard, and decided to check on his neighbor.
So he had meandered out into the hall, and stood in front of Gamzee's door for some time, arguing with himself, before he finally just fucked it all and knocked, waiting for the highblood to answer.
From within the room came a series of honks an awkward thump, before with a click, the door opened. Gamzee blinked for a moment, before looking down, finding the knocker with a smile. Well... somewhat of a smile, as he was holding one of his slime balls between his lips. His neck was wrapped, concealing the wound caused the previous day, and thankfully he had pants on, but in the terms of a shirt... well, he had one appendage in a single arm of a long-sleeved charcoal colored shirt. The rest of the cloth, was just sort of hanging on his shoulder, as if he had been in the process of putting it on, before answering the door.
The Capricorn tilted his head back slightly and inhaled, pulling the slime roll into his mouth with an audible crunch, before swallowing the thing whole. There was a distinct lack of clown make-up on his face, and the spotted bangles that normally hung from his wrists, "Hey Karkat, what can I do for a motherfucker?"
Karkat blinked a bit as the door suddenly opened and revealed a two thirds of the way dressed Gamzee, and for a second, he just stood there, a little bit caught off guard. Not because of the other troll's lack of clothing, but because of the lack of make-up. He couldn't explain it, but it just looked... weird when he didn't have it on. he shook his head, though, banishing the thoughts to get himself back on track, and pointed at the area between their doors.
"I heard yelling, are you okay?"
Gamzee sort of just blinked, confusion crossing his face, as he seemed to be attempting think. It really didn't look like the male knew what he was talking about, before a little light bulb went off and the Capricorn seemed to remember. "Oh yeah bro, my husktop and I was just rolling about in some strife... hey, Sollux was in the mention that you've got all kinds of technicality wired into your mind. Would you mind getting your see over my electronic device?" As Gamzee spoke, he wrestled to get the rest of his shirt on, doing three full circles, before he seemed to capture the elusive cloth, and get his other arm in the sleeve. However, that process seemed to make him a bit dizzy as he swayed a bit on his feet, before falling against the wall.
Whenever a few students passed by in the hall, Gamzee took a step back, sort of doing this sort of half-turn to the side, before looking back to Karkat after they passed, patiently waiting for his answer.
"I guess, no guarantees though" Karkat answered, biting on his lower lip to keep from smirking at the other troll as he fumbled around with his shirt. He wouldn't admit it, ever, but he had a tiny urge to laugh, just a tiny one, that was gone within a flicker of a second. He was about to step inside, but forced to step back instead to let some students pass by, and then nodded to Gamzee, and headed inside the other's rooms.
He smiled, the action feeling awkward on his face without the paint he used forming to his skin and cheeks, before turning and leading the way into his room. There were now multiple pictures of his capricious minstrels hanging from the walls, smiling at the room occupants in all of their madness. Gamzee relaxed a bit after getting out of view of the hall, though this was minuscule, and was an easy thing to go unnoticed. "Thanks motherfucker, watch out for the horns. Those little cousins are mischievous as hell, they'll sneak up on you." As he spoke, the Capricorn dodged a few of the noise maker mines, doing this sort of hop as he maneuvered over to one wall, simultaneously buttoning up his shirt, except for the top three latches which he left unfastened.
"Husktop is perching in it's designated position," the Capricorn gave his hand a wave towards the troll styled computer, before rolling up his sleeves and giving his head a tilt to gauge Karkat's reaction/see if he thought he could fix it.
Karkat looked down at the floor as Gamzee mentioned something about horns, and saw the place was littered with the little noise makers. "Wow, a week and you already managed to make this place a mess" he stated absentmindedly, eyes going glossy for just a second before snapping back to reality.
He walked over towards the computer, and stared at it, blinking again.
"Jegus christ did you take a fucking hammer to it?" He asked, lifting it up to look at the smashed keyboard, for that was indeed what it looked like, that someone had decided to just get their rage on and start bashing shit in. "What the hell happened to it?"
Gamzee blinked for a moment, simply staring once more, before- "Fuck... I can't remember. My hands are kind of motherfucking throbbing though, so maybe I gave it some fist contact," the Capricorn gave a shrug, watching Karkat examine his computer for a few more second, before maneuvering to his bathroom. He shuffled through his drawers for a moment, before he pulled out the white and charcoal gray grease paint. Then he proceeded with pulling back hair via the use of copious amounts of bobby pins.
"Think you can bring it back to life? Be a troll Frankenstein?" he shouted, probably a little to loudly, but the slightly echoing sound in the tile bathroom sounded kind of wicked and made him chuckle to himself as a paint brush found it's bristle in the white paint, before skillfully becoming layered on the male's jaw and cheeks. Gamzee had done this so much, for so long, that even if he was so high on slime he couldn't remember who he was, he could still paint his face near perfectly.
Karkat frowned, taking a few seconds longer to stare at the computer before he responded. "Not sure, I can try, but it might take a while, depends on how much and what is damaged" He called back, picking up the partially busted husktop and tucking it under his arm. He'd toss it in his room on the way out. It was six in the morning and he didn't have his first class until ten. So he could focus his attention on the broken computer while he was passing the time. Maybe if he ended up with no homework, he'd even be able to get it done before nightfall, it was a challenge, but he felt himself determined to do it, even if it meant skipping on homework, after all, he still had the entire weekend for those things.
He looked towards the bathroom, where Gamzee disappeared into to apply his face paint, and waited not-so-patiently. "When you're done, I'm looking at your damn hands, make sure you didn't break a finger or something"
"Sure bro, but the fuckers don't feel quaked," he responded as he re-capped the white paint, temporarily putting a second, smaller brush in his mouth with a twist, before moving to the ash colored face application. Not that he'd feel it if they were actually broken, Gamzee did have a tendency to feel numb to these kinds of things. He gave a hum, outlining lips, eyes, the accents on cheeks and the dots on his temples. Then, with a final brush across his nose, put the lid on the paint, slipped on the spotted bangles onto each wrist, and stepped out of the bathroom.
He felt better. Although he didn't mind Karkat seeing him without his face, it still made him feel a little odd. A part of him was relieved that he still felt somewhat comfortable talking to the current Karkat like that, even if the male didn't know the significance of it. When he stepped out, he held up his hands so the Cancer could inspect them, the metal bracelets on his wrisst tinging together at the movement. "What kind of appointments do you've got from the school feeders today?"
"not much, just biochemistry and Data structures" Karkat answered as he grabbed hold of Gamzee's wrist (Just in case his fingers were broken, he didn't want to grab his hand and cause any unneeded pain) and carefully inspected the other male's hands. They looked a little sore, but not misshapen or odd or anything like that, so he decided that they were fine. "your hands look okay, just try not to go around beating on random things" he practically ordered, letting go of the taller male and stepping back.
"Honk."
And that was his answer, as that smile grew, falling more naturally on his lips now. It felt almost unreal, talking to Karkat like this. He could nearly imagine that everything was good and right, that he hadn't talked to some psycho bitch who claimed to have harmed the Cancer. That there was a very real threat of Karkat never remembering those old times. Those rather depressing thoughts were chased away rather quickly, as the haze seemed to block that memory and thought pattern. The uses of sopor. "If you're going to be tinkering with the broken husk, mind if I get some chill going around? I can take pen to paper, sketch up some ideas for your wicked picture, be all nice and shhhh quiet time now. Like a motherfucking hushbeast."
"Sure, I guess, I just gotta grab my stuff from my room, hold on a second" The red blooded troll responded, carrying the laptop with him as he slipped out of Gamzee's room, and ran into his own. He put the laptop on the floor near the unused recooporacoon, and walked over to the dresser, grabbing his bag, and dumping it upside down, and then he began to shift through the contents, before locating a tiny case filled with small tools and what not. He grabbed it, picked the laptop back up, and headed back into Gamzee's room.
He took three steps through the doorway before he tripped on a horn, the honking making him jump and drop everything he had been carrying.
"GODDAMMIT What is with all these fucking horns you brainless Juagglo fuckhead!" He swore, muttering under his breath as he regathered his things from the floor and, making sure not to step on any more horns, made his way back into the main room, and cleared a spot for himself, and sat down.
While Karkat had been gone, Gamzee had maneuvered to his kitchen, tinkering with mixing bowls and utensils. Because man, he suddenly had a hankering to bake like the motherfucking wind. He could get some drawing done while his pies were cooking. The excessively tall troll was just about to start pouring some ingredients, when the honk of a horn, proceeded by an angry Karkat yelling rather vigorously in his disdain. The Capricorn laughed, poking his head out of the door way, in time to see the irritated Cancer clearing a spot for himself, and getting comfortable, "Tools of the motherfucking messiahs brother. Told you the cousins were want anything to munch or drink on? I got some fuckin boiled plants and just plain water, since your buds aren't feeling faygo."
The boiled plants, AKA tea, were something of a favorite of Valus'. He didn't care for the tangy taste, but he kept the stuff around so that she would have something to drink when she came to visit his dorm. Jarren and Tansis usually just drank water.
"No, I already had breakfast" Karkat lied easily, his voice still somewhat sour over the incident with the horn a few seconds ago. He opened his case, and first pulled out a screw driver, taking out the screws that held the laptop together to open it up, and that was when he really went to work, but first, an analyses to see what exactly needed to be fixed and if this thing was worth the trouble of being saved, if that was even possible.
...
A few hours later, and Karkat sat in the midst of a laptop that had been picked apart piece by piece, everything that had broken off or was capable of coming apart without damaging anything permanently had been taken apart, and laid carefully out to be kept track of. Thankfully none of the important stuff was broken, just mainly keyboard stuff, and the screen was cracked. Karkat could get it to work, but the screen would always have this huge, annoying crack running through it, that would probably need to be replaced, which was no big deal, he could show Gamzee how to order one online.
Gamzee had kept his word. The entire time Karkat worked, he didn't say a single articulation. He hummed notes and certain raps he had been working on sure, but no actual words passed from his speak hole. After the Cancer had declined his offer of anything to drink or eat a few hours ago, the Capricorn had proceeded to finish mixing his pies, preparing two separate creations, a different mixture of sopor in each. While they had been cooking, Gamzee had retreated to the main room, hunted down the drawing pad he used for his Fine Arts class, a coal stick, and hopped comfy into his horn pile.
Then, he simply drew in silence for a remaining hour and fifteen minutes. His sketches ranged from a little bit of everything. There was some doodles of horns, of capricious minstrels, of ideas for Karkat's picture, and some of Karkat himself. Pie, a cluckbeast, some of his pesterchum smile face, severed legs balancing on a high wire, anything that came to that frayed mind. The steady scratch of paper hardly stopped, the Capricorn didn't even use the eraser. He never did for his sketches, merely because he saw those 'mistakes' as part of the drawing, and he didn't want to harm that miracle.
A buzz from the kitchen, made Gamzee pause in his drawing, look up towards the kitchen without comprehension, before it dawned on him what that sound meant. He set his drawings to the side, stretching as he stood with a series of small pop, before directing a lazy walk towards his kitchen. He released a brief glance in Karkat's direction, taking in the skeletal parts of his husktop, giving a smile, but nothing else yet. Just in case his brother was still getting some concentration going. Once in the kitchen, he pulled on some clown-faced mittens, and propped open the baker door to pull the cooked sopor from the heat trap.
Karkat jumped a little when he heard the buzzer, and looked up momentarily to see what it was before realizing it was for whatever Gamzee was making in his kitchen area. He turned his attention back down towards the computer parts, stretching out quickly and feeling his bones pop into place. Man his back and neck felt a little sore from being hunched over this damn thing. He yawned, and cracked his neck, setting the piece of computer he had been working on, and started to put the whole thing back together. Thank god for electrical tape and super glue.
He closed his eyes, and fell backwards, landing on his back as he sighed, rubbing his temples in slight frustration. The floor was pleasantly cool, and soothed his headache some, and his throbbing eyes enjoyed the chance to get some darkness, rather than staring at the world, which was blurred by the contacts that irritated his eyes. He blinked, looking up at the ceiling, listening to Gamzee doing... whatever the hell it was he was doing in the kitchen as he convinced himself to take a tiny break.
He sighed again, closing those eyes as he soaked up the coolness on the floor, and before he knew it, he curled up on his side, and slipped off to dream land.
The smell of the cooked slime filled the kitchen. It was a spicy tang, the steam from the edible-but-your-not-supposed-to-really-eat-it substance, cleared Gamzee's senses for a brief moment, before the haze settled nice and snug over his mind again. The male set the green substance on the top of the oven, turning off said appliance so that it wouldn't over heat and burn down the dorms. It would be difficult for his pies to cool if his kitchen was on fire.
Satisfied that everything was in order, Gamzee abandoned his kitchen, only to stop himself in the doorway. The last thing that he noticed was his re-assembled husktop, the first, was a sleeping Karkat.
He didn't move at first, waiting, watching. The indigo blooded troll was searching for any sign of distress, of tensity, or anything else unpleasant. But from where he stood, Karkat simply slept. Carefully, cautious of his horns, Gamzee navigated towards where the Cancer had curled up near his horn pile. Looking at him like this, peaceful, at ease, made the threat of this morning's tenaciousObscession seem like some sort of ridiculous joke. After another long moment of silent observation, a smile pulled on the corner of his lips, as he reached carefully for his sketchpad, mindful of any small noise he made, before sitting cross-legged across from Karkat. His charcoal pencil was just about to touch the pad, when his phone vibrated.
Gamzee lunged for the thing, his hand wrapping tightly around the device, before he stared unblinking at Karkat... waited... before a silent sigh fell from his lips, and he opened the device.
EI: wherE arE yqU thE absenceS yqU havE displayeD tqdaY arE unbecqminG
TC: SoRrY SiS I GoT DiStRaCtEd
EI: thaT iS nqthinG unusuaL
EI: I wilL savE yqU A seaT aT luncH I suppqsE
TC: ThAtS OkAy vAl, i'M GoInG To cHiLl iN My dOrM WiTh kArKaT ToDaY
EI: whaT
EI: havE yqU becqmE mqirailS agaiN
TC: NoThInG LiKe tHaT, BuT We'Ve gOt sOmEtHiNg mOtHeRfUcKiNg fLoWiNg
EI: sqmethinG
EI: I respectfullY requesT yqU specifY
TC: SoRrY SiS, BuT I DoN't wAnT My dEvIcE ViBrAtInG AnD RiSkInG HiS WiCkEd cUtE Z's
EI: zS
EI: waiT hE iS sleepinG iN yquR rqqM
TC: I'm gOiNg tO ShUt dOwN, TaLk tO YoU LaTeR VaLuS. : o)
EI: WAIT!
Gamzee did not see that last message from the elegantInformer, having already turned his cell phone off and closed it. Now, he could focus on what he was doing. Drawing his brother wandering apparently comfortable in dream land. He only hoped that what he saw on the outside, was also reflecting the inside.
...
When Gamzee focused on drawing something specific, something he wanted to etch as close to possible as what appeared in his mind, or directly in front of him, everything else closed out. Time, noise, hunger, all of these things became irrelevant. It had started when he had first painted his face. From there, it had manifested itself in partials. At first as something childish, finger painting using his slime or whatever else was present. But slowly afterward it developed, even in his madness one of the first thing he wanted to do after a kill, was paint pictures, words, and images, in their blood. He hadn't actually thought of art or drawing as an option for distracting his mind, until Tansis urged him to give it a try. Gamzee had been fond of it sense.
So it was understandable, as he sat there with a near finished portrait of a sleeping Karkles, darkening specific lines in his hair for shadow with quick sharp stroked, when he didn't hear the door knock the first couple of times. That was, until the door was slammed against so hard that it sounded like whoever was knocking would have surely broken their hand. Gamzee looked up, lazy eyes half-lowered as he looked towards the door to his room, blinking sort of unevenly at it... before looking over at the large digital clock on his wall. 1:00 pm.
The Capricorn blinked in surprise, slowly pulling himself to a stand. Bones and body creaking and popping from sitting in the same location and same position for so long. A yawn was stifled, as he made his way towards the door, turned the knob, and opened. He was met, by a very stern-faced Valus, her arms crossed tight over her chest, and eyes glittering with suspicion and accusation. "Is Vantas still present?"
Gamzee blinked for a moment, withholding a laugh, because he knew that face the highblood female was making. It was her 'i'm about to give you a lecture because I care and you are being incredible ridiculous/stupid" face. "Yeah motherfucker, he's still getting snoozes in dream world."
"May I speak to you out here please."
"Sure thing sis," Gamzee quietly exited his room, and closed the door with a muffled click, "What's got you in such a ruffle that you had to get navigated to my HQ?"
"Vantas is what has me in a ruffle! You don't speak to the little freak for days, and now suddenly he can presumptuously sleep in your room! And you're skipping classes to what... watch over him?"
Gamzee blinked, "Well, yeah. Didn't want the moth-"
"So if he's not your moirail again, then why are you going through so much trouble! You are risking your social position, and standing by catering to that... that... midget fucker!"
"Woah sis..."
"M-my apologies, I do not like to result to such vulgar language."
"It's cool. But look, I'm not in the care about rank and hemospectrum's and shit. You're in the know about that. Besides, if any motherfucker wanted to challenge my position or lineage, I just fucking strife with them and inform them of their misgivings. Then we'd make like the sky and chill with the sun."
"That's besides the point! You realize you put him in danger as well, since for some reason unknown you seem to care for the mystery-blooded abomination. What if he gets jumped because you've taken such an interest in h-" Valus stopped what she was saying half-way through, at this odd look that crossed Gamzee's eyes.
"If any motherfucker had the bulge to do that, they'd be a dead motherfucker."
Valus sighed, bringing a hand to her head, tangling her fingers in her bangs as she tried to make Gamzee see reason. "Okay look, I'm not asking you to break all contact with him again. But at least be mindful of what you do. For example, him sleeping in your room gives off an... impression."
Blank blinks from Gamzee, "Impression?"
"If you are not moirails, and you obviously do not hate him, or are acting as an auspice, what does that leave."
"Woah sis, Karkat and I don't have little red hearts for each other."
"Yes, but no one else knows that! I can not stop you from perusing a friendship with the abomination. But at least ensure he sleeps in his own quarters."
"But..." Gamzee held up the sketchpad, showing the drawing he had of the sleeping Karkat. He looked peaceful, relaxed, the dark lines surrounding his image giving him a sense of rest, "Motherfucker looks bad ass cute when he's sleeping. I don't want to upset happy dreamland."
Gamzee watched in fascination, as Valus' eye gave an audible twitch. Followed by, "YOU ARE MISSING THE FUCKING POINT!"
30 minutes later, Gamzee returned to his room with suppressed laughter twitching at his lips. Valus' lecture had been a slow rise and fall of screaming, quiet attempts at understanding, and more screaming. It had been funny watching her bob around and flap her arms like an owl that had woken up to find it's feathers dyed green. She had eventually given up, storming down the hall and growling at an unfortunate lowblood observer, who quickly absconding back into their room, back into safety.
Indigo eyes rose, scanning the floor, and finding Karkat where he had left him. Man, he couldn't believe his brother had slept through all that. Maybe his room was deaf to the screeches of an angry Valus? Gamzee kind of hoped so, that sure would be nice. Setting his sketchpad on the side-table, the Capricorn maneuvered into the kitchen to indulge in one of the officially way cooled slime pies. Time to recharge.