bothme | and all god's people said amen.

When a slightly rattly-sounding engine idled and finally stopped out in the parking lot of the garage he'd set up temporarily for himself in this complex, the first thing Sollux did was stop what he was working on: a scooter whose components had seen better days, but would get him around the city until he figured out what the fuck he was doing here in the first place. Waking up in a back alley like a body dumped after a murder hadn't helped his disposition all that much from its baseline, but here, at least he was accomplishing something, away from the public and less likely to throw a man for getting on his nerves.

When he stepped out of his little unit, he was squinting in the sunlight, wiping his hands off on the thin, ragged button-up he'd tied around his waist, leaving streaks of black on the red and yellow. The sunlight immediately warmed his bare shoulders as he slid a pair of shades on, and was finally able to focus on the van that immediately had the back of his pan tingling. He walked in a slow, wide arc around it, until he caught sight of the highblood's shadow, then of the highblood himself.

"That haircut lookth thtupid on you," he pointed out by way of a greeting, his thin arms crossing over his almost skeletal chest.

Looking up at the lisping mouth from whence the snark originated through the curtain of loccs, Gamzee raised both brows, distorting the painted smile on his face before a real one spread across it. "Man, look who's motherfuckin' got his spit on; you look like you lost yourself a battle with a whirling device, brother." No, no amount of fake surprise could be mustered for this. Gamzee had been dreaming of purple bees, forest green fate, and gold blood for a week. But he did straighten his posture somewhat, and pulled Sollux in for a brief, but genuine hug, familial and friendly, before releasing the other and looking him over with a chuckle.

"Glad you up and alive. And all wholly sighted at that. You got a rag, Captor? Need to spin off a coolant cap, don't want no second degree burns from Vision, here, know what I'm sayin'?"

When Sollux was pulled in, he immediately wrapped an arm back around Gamzee's shoulders in kind before stepping back, scratching at the shaved side of his head. "Fuck you, it'th hot out here and I looked even dumber with a full shave. Tho what'th with the Thcooby van?" he asked, tugging on a lock as he glanced over the VW with an arched brow. He reached into a pocket of the baggy secondhand hunting pants he was wearing and retrieved a glove, pulling it on to unscrew the cap in question and let Gamzee top off the water in it.

"Y'know, I wath wondering when you'd show up," he said conversationally. "Pan'th been crawling with bloody wall thcrawlth and honking for the last couple of weekth."

"Vision's my hive on wheels," explained Gamzee, looking her over. "Gave her a paint job near as soon as I found myself livin' all within her, haven't parted from her since. Spent a few months all workin' on a motel outta Barstow for room and board, but she's where I go when I can't get my conkin' out right. Better than a motherfucking cocoon." He poured the water in, and then patted Sollux on the shoulder to have him cap it back off.

"Been gettin' my prophecies all onto you, myself, bro. Just a matter of time 'fore we slid into each other's views again." He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his very obviously not-once-but-was-now-sleeveless denim jacket pocket and pulled one out with his lips. "Heard whispers you wasn't doing so hot, neither. You aight? Not tryin' to get my pity down into this, just gotta wonder if them motherfuckers is trying to bolt me to a wall with this shit."

"If I'm being perfectly honetht with you, I wouldn't care even if you were angling thith in a pity direction. Got no time for that shit right now jutht trying to get mythelf thituated out here. I'm thtuck up in the tract housing near here, have to do everything out of thith shitty unit until I'm thet up better."

After screwing the cap back on and reaching up to close the hood of the van, Sollux nodded into the shade of his makeshift garage then led the way inside. He reached up and snagged the cigarette from between Gamzee's lips, lighting it himself and tipping the highblood a wink.

"I don't know about you, but jutht waking up in thith plathe ith literal hell. Yeah, you can thtand out in the thun, but why the fuck did they drop me in the middle of the fucking valley here? I'm tired of the dutht and I'm pretty fucking thure I thaw a tumble weed yethterday jutht kind of chilling where the buth ith parked."

"So s'all true," muttered Gamzee as he grabbed another cigarette and lit it so Sollux could have that one. "Shit, homie, you'n me both got our shit knocked out from under our stalks like it ain't nothing to sit us all down in motherfucking human wonderland, no skrill to our names. Only thing I got going is steady flow all coming in from the motel gig, they gonna do that shit up so I got a couple hundred a month to live on. Ain't worth shit 'cept to eat by, do up some little wicked pleasures, but the way I smoke through that, it ain't gonna do me no good to be gettin' a place nowheres, 'Specially this close to LA." He looked around the garage and took a half-squat against the workbench.

"So I come out here, get my peep onto the want ads. Figure there's some shit a motherfucker like me can up and do while I get my own shit figgered. Might just be fate's doin' us a solid it owes us both. Settin' us up so we get our shit straight together." He added a grumbling, "mighty accommodating," before he took a sharp drag of his cigarette.

"So how's about this shit a minute. You'n me, gettin' outta this dump dive, go on up to Van Nuys, where there's bound to be a motherfucking job or two. S'up on the other side of Sun Valley from here. Worst comes to worst, could get us some skrill doin' little side shit to save up for a hivin' unit... apartment. Whatever they got their name on 'round here. It'd be closer to the ocean, not that you got your care onto that much, but it's better than dust."

"I'd prefer thomewhere in town or clothe to it but I know that'th not really gonna happen with the abtholute lack of regular income. I don't have credentialth or anything that humanth need to actually acquire regular employment tho I'm thtuck until I find thomething that hath really lax polithieth to thtart building that up."

Sollux sat in the doorway of his garage with his feet still out on the pavement, his cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth. He considered the implications, about Gamzee being thrown back into his life so that they could help eachother around to an actual living, and nodded a bit before looking back at the highblood. "Tho how are you paying your way? Outthide of the motel royaltieth or whatever. I figured you would be able to thell jutht about anything and thave up enough to get thomewhere on the coatht, if you showed up before I did."

"You right and wrong at the same motherfuckin' time," Gamzee said with a lopsided smile, looking at the other troll with a bit of amusement. Sollux the dichotomous as always. "Actually started my ass out right close to here, in Sherman Oaks. Then I got arrested for slingin' bootlegs, so I moved on after payin' my motherfuckin' fines with the bootleg money, wandered on down south. Then swung my happy ass up the coast, doin' up the same shit, sellin' bootleg concert shit, kicked it in San Fransisco a minute, then slid down to Barstow when the whispers said there was a place I gotta up and do some miracles to. Been followin' what they been tellin' me, ain't led me wrong yet." He scratched through his dreads and sauntered to sprawl beside Sollux, his bare feet out near Sollux's. "Probably burn through money more than you think. Got habits. Gotta stay level. Don't got a motherfuckin' choice in the matter, neither."

"Doethn't thurprithe me any that you're thtill hooked on whatever the fuck you can get your handth on, you alwayth were an addictive perthonality. Ath long ath you're not letting it rot out your pan more than ith thtrictly nethethary." Sollux leaned his shoulder against Gamzee's and took a deep drag of his smoke, letting it back out through his nose. "Firtht thing I remember here'th waking up not too far outthide of Panorama Thity then booking it the hell out. Freaked out when I woke up in the rain."

Gamzee nodded ruefully. It wasn't so much that he was addicted to everything he could get his hands on, it was that there were certain things that inhibited the darker voices, kept them from boiling over and dragging the black beasts from the void down on their budding reality. He didn't say that, however, and muttered, "Woke up in the bus. Heard explosions and thought shit was all about to go down, so I came out and did some investigatin'. Wound up they was all just fireworks bein' lit off." He took another drag of his smoke and looked behind him.

"Could put a rack on my roof, get this shit packed up and hit the road. Ain't nobody gonna be all up and bothered by it none. Could get us a storage unit real cheap in the valley, operate outta one for a minute. I ain't got legit paperwork neither, but I got connections. Could get us some fakey IDs and shit. Forge up some hatchin' certificates. So long as you good with me gettin' stoned once in a few hours, smokin' some opiates to get my pan slow enough to function, I think we could make this work."

"Ath much ath I'd like to do thith legally, there doethn't look like much other option," Sollux sighed, glancing down at Gamzee's arm for hints of track marks, just in case. There weren't any that he could see at least, so he would leave it alone. He leaned forward and pulled his knee up against his chest, looking out toward the hills. He held up a finger, then pointed it at Gamzee. "You'd better be willing to share."

"Share the motherfucking spoils of our misspent skrill? Shit, you know I wouldn't bogart. Ain't like I'm some sorta stingy motherfucker with all I got," he murmured, reaching out swiftly to grab the other's finger, smirking as he brought it up to his mouth to lightly bite the other's fingertip with a quiet honk before letting it go with a chuckle. "Aight. Let's get this shit up and packed. I'll go get a rack on Vision, get her an oil change, then we can hit the road." He stood as he flicked his cigarette out into the center of the parking lot, and offered Sollux a hand up.

"Promise me somethin', though. You ain't just gonna up and kick my pan-broke ass out if the ugly motherfucker rears up, takes over a minute. He don't mean no motherfucking harm to you or none of us. Not no more." He bowed his head and looked through his loccs at Sollux, like a pitiable, overgrown puppy. "He just got his way. Loud, brash. Force of nature type shit. But he won't do you no sorta harm."

Sollux wrinkled his nose at the bite, drawing his hand back then prodding Gamzee's nose. He half expected another honk when he did so.

"What, you mean the athhole that wath doing all the wicked endgame shit? Dude, he never did a damn thing to me, I have no quarrel with him, or you. Jutht keep him from thticking hith nothe all in my shit and we'll get along fine. He callth me 'lowblood' though, I'll thmack him in the mouth, jutht warning you now."

After that, he stood and took a last drag then dropped the butt of the cigarette to ground it out on the pavement underfoot. He went back into the garage for a moment then came out again with an oil pan, wrench and a box. He could change the oil in a van pretty easily, he figured, after he worked out the underside of the engine. He had found that he rather enjoyed working on human vehicles since he'd woken up in this world, and had been earning an unsteady income that way for some time now. The entire back wall of his little garage was nothing but spare parts and tools. He passed the pan off to Gamzee after bonking it against the top of his head, figuring they could speed up the process by working together on it.

"Got fresh oil, or you expectin' me to just be all havin' that straight in my sylladex, homes? I ain't..." He paused and furrowed his brow, then dug in his oversized pants to grab his sylladex to open it up, watching the painfully speedy oscillating cards float around him until he thrust his hand out to catch exactly what he needed - the bottles of oil, four of which dropped at his feet when he grabbed one from the card, and then let the rest of his cards slip back into his sylladex. "Shut up, motherfucker, I might just have everymotherfuckin' thing all in this," he started, wagging his finger at Sollux, walking back to the van to start the process of changing the oil with his old friend.

He wasn't a whiz at car repair, but he knew his van inside and out, and when Sollux wasn't sure what he was looking at, he was able to explain what it was, what it did, and where the rest laid in relation to it. He handed tools down when necessary, peeking through the engine from the top down at Sollux with vague interest in his expression until it was done. That being done, he wrinkled his nose at the pan, and then walked off back into the garage, licking his lower lip as he scratched through his hair, mentally piecing together the loose pipes and then grabbed up what he needed of them, setting them in a pile before grabbing the welding torch and a pair of safety goggles. "Hope you don't mind, but I can make us a rack easy," he explained as he sat down with his new project. He fished out his wallet and pulled some cash out, waving it at Sollux. "Take Vision and get us some motherfuckin' grub wouldja? Doin' this up won't take a motherfuckin' half hour." He had offered up enough for a whole LOT of fast food, or a fairly meager meal of good food. Either would work.

"I didn't thay anything," Sollux pointed out, though he grinned; Gamzee always had just the right thing at any given time, of course he would just have a quart of motor oil hanging around. He finished up the process while Gamzee went to eyeball what he had just laying around in his garage, wiping his hands on the knees of his pants after closing the hood of the bus and heading around to the driver's side.

"There'th a mathk thitting in there, jutht under the bigger work table. Try not to catch anything on fire while I'm gone." He took the cash and folded it over, tucking it into his pocket and pulling his shirt from around his waist to shrug on over the oil-stained off-white undershirt he was wearing. He watched Gamzee and his new project for a moment, then shook his head and climbed into the bus, already having in mind what he wanted to get for both of them. He pulled out the slightly ponderous vehicle and made sure he was clear of Gamzee before taking off with a chirp of tires.

When he came back, Sollux parked a little closer to the garage and got out with a couple of massive bags from the nearest In n' Out, as well as a couple of drinks that had to have been picked up separately. He put down one of the bags and a drink at Gamzee's side, then went to eat in the shade of his open garage.

By the time Sollux had returned, Gamzee was without his shirt on, but with the mask, having found a rather heavy leather welding apron to wear in his jacket and shirt's stead, and had already constructed a fairly reasonable facsimile of a roof rack. He'd had his earbuds in, so when he saw the movement out of his periphery, he immediately turned the torch away from what moved and turned it off, looking at Sollux, slipping the mask up. "Shit bro, thanks," he said with a sigh of relief, grabbing the drink first, slurping down a great deal of it as he set aside the torch and picked up the food instead, following the other inside out of the heat of the sun. He hopped up to sit on the workbench properly as he unwrapped a burger, toes curling at the first bite. "Fuckin' good, thanks," he muttered over the bite, nodding to the taste. "Got any idea for what you wanna get doin'?" He muttered as he wiped a bit of ketchup that had gotten on the corner of his lip off with his wrist. "Or, maybe more motherfucking succinct-like, what you ain't gonna want to do?"

"I don't really know what I want," Sollux sighed around a mouthful of fries. "Ideally I'd be working on shit like I did at home, thoftware and fucking with people, but realithtically, I'm gonna have to thtart thmall. Could work on engineth for a while or thomething, find a plathe that needth their computerth upgraded, whatever will take me with the thkillth I have." He shrugged and looked toward the rack that Gamzee had been working on, the shape of it coming together. Gamzee certainly worked fast, he had to admit. It wasn't pretty but it would work. "Y'know, you could make a business out of fabricating cheap structural shit like that, no doubt."

Gamzee shrugged a shoulder at the thought. "Could do. Wouldn't do it up, though. This is for motherfucking necessity. Ain't bad at it, nah, but I done up better shit with other shit. Got marketable qualities that ain't piecin' together metal junk," he muttered, letting one leg sway as he ate and thought. "Ain't no thing I wouldn't do to get ahead though. Just gotta find me a niche. Grab as much as I can 'fore the whispers come again, rip me outta the situation, put me elsewheres for a minute." He took another large bite of his burger, following it up with another large slurp of soda. "Think you'd like the motel I was at, but I told 'em I wouldn't be comin' back 'til I saw to gettin' you set up. Get you outta whatever hole you fell in." He finished off his burger and started in on the fries, staring at the other burger in the bag, deciding that would be reward for finishing the rack before sundown.

"Got about three hundred bucks to grab a unit for a month, maybe do us some divinity in findin' a cheapo flop off Victory Boulevard, somethin' ain't a bus cause no doubt we two would fit in the back here, but it'd get real claustrophobic in no time." He looked at Sollux and then got a simple sly smile.

"We'll figure shit out. Two smartest motherfuckers in the session, we'll get this shit down."

Sollux propped his drink against his knee and gulped at it as he listened to Gamzee talk, occasionally nodding. He made a face at the idea of moving anywhere near Van Nuys again, but he trusted that Gamzee could handle himself and anything that came their way if they set up there.

"When do you think that'th thomething you're gonna have to worry about?" No question of if, but when. He knew it just as well as Gamzee did that these things were just inevitable sometimes. At least this time around, he might be around and not distracted by his own bullshit enough to be of some kind of help.

"Ain't gonna be a problem for me, I like company," Gamzee said with a shrug. "Was thinkin' more on your end of shit, cuz. You got your space, ain't gonna invade that shit. I know how you do, we lived together for a bit already, know you like keepin' to yourself if you can. For a motherfucker all down with the hivemind, you ain't no motherfuckin' drone." He smiled genuinely at that. It was admirable in Sollux, he thought, that the guy was his own entity, above and beyond. He'd always been that way. He hopped off the bench and looked over at him. "You get needin' space, and I'll make it spacious as fuck for you. And anyways, I know I ain't the most motherfuckin' gentlemanly all with what I up and get to doin'. Ain't a motherfuckin' unrude bone in this motherfuckin' carapace, I know how I do ain't real keen for a brother to be all steppin' in time to. So if you need your room to breathe, well," he said, tipping his head to the side, before slipping away to start back up on his project, pulling the mask back down.

"You'll wanna pack up your shit. If you ain't got your sylladex, we can put the small shit in mine. Rack's for your scooter shit." If worst came to worst, the two of them could easily live in a storage unit. He'd done it before with little consequence. Only thing that got shitty was when it got cold and he didn't have a space heater.

"That thertainly wath a lot of wordth to thay if I need breathing room I got it," Sollux pointed out with a smirk, his hands busied with his burger, smashing it down enough to be able to cram more of it into his mouth at one time. He washed it down with a few swallows of soda, then took his carton of fries with him into the garage as he took stock of what he had in there, then went to a clipboard he had tacked up on the wall that listed the contents of his little space. He started making little check marks beside a lot of it, and then started moving everything not checked off outside.

"Alright man, tho I figure that a lot of thith can be eathily thold and replathed later. If you feel like chilling here for a while, we can cash in on the shit I have here, have thomething to thpend on gath and food and whatever you wanna thmoke on the way to wherever."

"Could be a good option, 'til we got up the dough to get us 'round," Gamzee agreed, finishing up his work on the rack. It didn't take more than fifteen minutes to get the thing fully assembled and then he hopped up onto the roof of his van with the rack, and started to screw it down with some heavy bolts, lit cigarette drooping from his lower lip as he worked. He tilted his head at the look of it and looked over at Sollux with a smirk. "You got any spray paint, cuz?" He wanted to make the rack and top of his van just as wild as the rest of it.

Sollux straightened up and wiped his hands on the seat of his jeans, smirking back at Gamzee then retreating inside for a few seconds. When he came back, he was carrying a large cardboard box that rattled faintly as he set it down.

"What do you take me for, thome kind of hooligan?" he athked even ath he picked up a can with a bright green splotch of paint on the lid and started to shake it.

"My favorite motherfuckin' kind," Gamzee added as he hopped down to rifle through the selections, spraying unknown colors on the tires of his van before climbing back up onto the top of the van, taking a long drag of his cigarette as he tilted his head from one side to the other, pondering what he wanted to do with the rack and the top of his van. "Getchor motherfuckin' spindly ass up here, brother, gimme a hand figgerin' this piece out. Thinkin' some dystopia all up on here, maybe technicolor technological monstrosity, you know what I'm sayin? Cybertechin'."

Sollux grinned as his eyes lit up briefly, and in a subtle burst of psionic power he was lifted onto the top of the van, crouching on top of it as he looked it over, his can of paint propped on one of his knees. He scratched some at one of his sideburns, then smirked and started to map out a basic circuit board pattern into the dust with his fingertip before starting to go over it with the paint.

"Tho, you have actual planth onthe we get on out toward LA proper? Ath much ath I know that planth never really thurvive contact with reality, it'd be good having thome idea what we'll do after we thet up houthe."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject