On Even Ground (ch 03)
On Even Ground
~part of the Dark Season universe~
Chapter: 3/?
Rating: NC-17
Major Characters: Gamzee, Tavros, Equius, Aradia, Canren (OC)
Warnings: slavery, some violence, lots of swearing, angst, SMUT
Summery: AU where they never played the game. The only way for Tavros to avoid being culled is for a highblood to claim him as their slave. As his matesprite, Gamzee is the obvious choice for this. But Gamzee is severely squicked by the new found power imbalance.
Previous chapters are linked here
Canren returned and Gamzee did his best to recover his mask of interest. After handing Gamzee his glass and settling back in his chair Canren finally got to the point.
“Gamzee, have you ever had the pleasure of a walk along the painted cliffs near your hive?”
It was a good thing Canren was ignoring Tavros because if he wasn’t he might have noticed the new flavor of startled embarrassed on the brownblood’s face. Yes, Gamzee had been to the painted cliffs. The two of them had taken the winding ramped path and had a picnic in the wooded area at the very top. At the time Gamzee was coming down from the hypersensitivity caused by the reduced number of pies in his diet, to a point where dim light didn’t hurt his eyes but he was still exceptionally responsive to his matesprit’s touch. Tavros milked it for all it was worth, pulling Gamzee into his lap and feeding him by hand, sometimes putting the morsel in his own mouth so that Gamzee had to kiss him to get it... Tavros only meant to tease a little but after seeing how good he was making Gamzee feel he couldn’t stand it. So he gathered the animals in the trees into a perimeter which would alert him if anyone came their way and then he made love to Gamzee out in public. It was easily the boldest thing he had ever done.
From the way Gamzee’s shoulders tensed and he buried his face in his glass he was definitely remembering how much of a pleasure that walk had been. That thought was far too funny and Tavros had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep the laugh from escaping. That was not good. He always got really giddy right before he had a knock down drag out panic attack. He focused on his hands and imagined that his pulse wasn’t trying to pound its way out of his head.
Gamzee collected himself with a couple of sips on his drink and then very carefully responded, “Yeah, I’ve been up there before.”
“Ah,” Canren said with dramatic disappointment, “I was hoping I’d be your first.”
Tavros had to dig his fingernails into his arm and bite his tongue hard enough to make it bleed to hold in the hysterical giggle.
“Regardless,” Canren continued, oblivious to how Tavros was losing grip on his control, “it is a beautiful place and I would thoroughly enjoy a stroll along the cliffs with you.”
Gamzee did his best to look nonchalantly surprised and disappointed. “Oh man, a walk up there would have been nice.” The unspoken ‘with anyone but you’ was obvious to Tavros and he felt his expanding and contracting blood bladder clench, but Canren didn’t seem to pick up on it. Tavros fought to control his breathing and reminded himself that he could read Gamzee better than anyone and that Canren wasn’t going to catch any of the little things that screamed Gamzee’s discomfort.
Remembering that he and Gamzee had that strong connection, that both of them were overcome with flushed feelings the first time they met in person, that all doubts were chased away with their first chaste kiss and they both knew that they had found their fated matesprit... Tavros felt the panic fade. It was still there to be sure-nothing short of a long breakdown was going to remove all the stress-but he regained control enough to make it out of the bastard’s shuttle without cracking. But everything was going to be okay because he loved Gamzee and Gamzee loved him and they were going home. Their home, the hive they would share.
While Tavros got himself calmed down the conversation continued. Canren raised an eyebrow at Gamzee’s response and asked, “What do you mean, ‘would have been’? I assumed that you would be free as your plans included a three hour wait at the shuttle station.”
There was a dangerous edge to Canren’s voice. Gamzee swallowed hard and spoke very carefully.
“I was actually going to be in the casual comm center across the street. Still have a gaping hole in my hive, you know, and the carpenter drones are going to be setting up right now. I was set to give them the blueprints over vid-Trollian, and you know how there’s always a million things you don’t think about that the drones want to know so I’d probably still be working out details when the shuttle came.” Gamzee faked a remorseful frown. “I didn’t realize you had plans in mind; I just through you were checking on that island fishery you’ve got out that way. I’m really putting you out of your way aren’t I?”
The irritation in Canren’s eyes faded, still there but no longer sharp enough to split a photon. “No, no, not at all.”
“Man, I’m feeling all sorry and sh-“ Gamzee barely caught the unseemly swear, “stuff.”
Canren put what was probably supposed to be a comforting hand on Gamzee’s thigh; Tavros saw Gamzee suppress a physical gag at the contact.
“I am the remorseful one,” Canren said. “I was thoughtless in my suggestion. I should have realized that a man of such high standing would have plans. Though I wonder if you might find an opening in your busy schedule for-”
Gamzee was not happy about the hand still on his leg and it bled into his voice enough that not only Tavros heard it, “Yeah, I can’t be up and dropping everything any time some mo-guy expects me to.”
Canren threw his hands up in a mock gesture of surrender and both his guests breathed a sigh of relief. “You wound me, my dear Gamzee. Forgive my rash forwardness.”
Gamzee made a vague agreement-they still needed to get home and it was Canren’s shuttle-and the conversation turned back to the nothings of weather. It was noticeably more strained, however, and Gamzee didn’t lose himself in the act again. Tavros was surprised at how well Canren seemed to be taking the sudden icy turn, but then again Canren had shown a marked interest in Gamzee acting his class. Taking offense and glaring with barely concealed threat were mainstays of an indigoblood and Canren was one of the many who wanted to see Gamzee shape up and join the backstabbing flock.
Tavros was just glad that Canren didn’t flirt with Gamzee for the rest of the trip. He wasn’t sure how much more of that he could watch without cracking. Gamzee always felt slimy after being around good and proper highbloods for a while, sometimes to the point of needing to physically take a shower. Tavros was half-hysterically worried that it would take a wire brush for Gamzee to feel clean after Canren touched his thigh. Tavros liked Gamzee’s thighs and he didn’t want the skin all scratched up.
Tavros sunk further into the false calm covering his hysteria as they disembarked. Gamzee offered Canren a curt farewell and immediately turned to the swarm of carpenter drones gathered outside his hive. Canren just smiled as through Gamzee’s ire was the most endearing thing he ever saw and then decided they needed to chat some more. Gamzee made a point of first telling Tavros to go into the hive and put something on, then greeting the lead carpenter drone who was having a fit about the change in schedule, and finally turning to Canren and semi-politely asking if he didn’t have anything better to do.
Tavros didn’t hear Canren’s answer; he had gotten inside as fast as he could maneuver his four wheel device around the piles of materials the drones had stacked haphazardly all over Gamzee’s front lawn. It was going to be a major construction project; aside from fixing the damage caused by the hungry creature the drones were going to be renovating most of the hive. Gamzee’s reason for the complete makeover was that he had outgrown the design he created at his emergence and needed something a little more adult, which was true. Ever since coming out of the sopor haze he was far less prone to clutter, so there was a need for storage and display solutions for what used to sit piled high in empty Faygo crates. There was a lot of clutter to go through.
This is what society in general knew about the renovation. It was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Another reason for the renovation is the need for a permanent four wheel device accessible solution; in previous visits Tavros was limited to the first floor aside from one occasion where Gamzee picked him up out of his chair and carried him upstairs. Usually they’d just stretch out on the floor of the unused dining room when they wanted to get intimate, but the last time Tavros was there Gamzee carried him upstairs to a makeshift concupiscent couch. It was a very crude imitation made of all of Gamzee’s clothes and a few dust cloths tossed in a big pile in the floor of his bedroom. As Gamzee set Tavros down he said that it wasn’t much but soon he’d have some proper furniture for when they got their hot flush on.
It seemed that Gamzee had found a temporary solution; when Tavros got to the living room he was met with a series of crates and boards nailed into the floor and walls to create a rampway up to the second floor. There was a carpenter drone standing next to it looking very distressed; they tended to do that when something wasn’t on the floor plans. It was a little steep but Tavros was able to make it up to Gamzee’s bedroom. He quickly wheeled himself to the wardrobe storage device, dug out a pair of Gamzee’s boxers (bright green with pies drawn on with marker), and pulled them on as fast as he could. Once he had something on it really hit him that he had been naked. He expected and accepted it for the ceremony; that he was prepared to deal with. But being forced to crawl across the ground to his four wheel device while all the highbloods around him jeered, being forced to go outside in the street without anything covering him up, and having to bite his tongue while that creep felt up his matesprit.
He hugged himself and tried not to cry, but it was a losing battle. The panic was rising to the surface and he didn’t have the energy to fight it anymore. It was all so unfair. A highblood with a psychic means to compensate for a crippling injury would likely be spared from culling, as long as they worked hard to prove that they were still useful. Tavros had done everything, he honed his ability to commune to unheard of levels, he worked out his arms and torso every single day, he even abandoned the lance as his primary weapon and with a little help from a friend of Nepeta’s he grew to be deadly accurate with a pistol. But none of it mattered because of the color of his blood. His name was on the list to be culled every time and the only reason he survived this far is because Sollux was such an incredible hacker.
The Empress’s death couldn’t come soon enough.
This sentiment was only driven home when Gamzee ran into the room. Tavros looked up helplessly, brown tinged tears rolling down his cheeks. Gamzee’s face flickered between concern, guilt, and anger all in the span of a couple seconds spent standing wide eyed in the doorway. Then he all but dove at his matesprit. He ended up pulling Tavros out of his four wheel device and they curled up together on the floor. His matesprit held him tight, stroked his hair, and through the whole of Tavros’s breakdown Gamzee trembled with rage. Tavros clung to his lover and sobbed, the humiliation and shame and all those people saying how he was useless and ugly finally catching up with him. He felt so cold, so alone, as if every vicious word and cruel look were needle thin daggers of ice that pierced him down to the bone. He felt as if his very soul was freezing. He forced himself to listen to all the sweet nothings Gamzee was whispering in his ear, he reminded himself that it was all over and everything was going to be okay, he focused on Gamzee’s hands pressed against his bare skin...
Tavros was so aware of Gamzee’s heat. The arms around his waist and shoulders felt like they were burning. When Gamzee pressed soft, sweet kisses to Tavros’s damp cheeks each light touch was a hot iron searing into his skin. He felt his blood rush to the surface, tinting his gray skin brown from his face all the way down his shoulders and stomach. His pulse pounded like a stampede running through his head and the only thought he could hear through the noise was what if he doesn’t want me anymore.
Tavros crushed his lips against Gamzee’s in a move full of desperation. At first Gamzee was still as stone and Tavros felt the ice fill his veins. There was so much fear it choked him and he couldn’t breathe until finally, finally Gamzee responded. He returned the kiss hesitantly and it warmed Tavros’s lips but he needed more. He needed so much more.
Gamzee broke the kiss and started to say something but Tavros had already pressed his lips to his matesprit’s ear and was begging him in a low keening whisper, “Touch me. Touch me everywhere. Please just kiss me and don’t ever stop. I want you, I need you and I-“
Those hands that burned hotter than the Alternian sun gripped Tavros’s face and he was made to look in Gamzee’s wide eyes.
“Tav, babe, hold on a motherfucking second and think about this.”
Tavros was beyond reason. He kept kissing, biting, licking every piece of skin he could reach to while he got his hands under Gamzee’s shirt. “Don’t make me wait anymore,” Tavros breathed against his lover’s neck. Tavros could feel the jump and twitch; Gamzee liked the feeling of words whispered hotly into his pulse. No one knew what turned Gamzee on better than Tavros. Maybe that would be enough to keep him?
Gamzee was biting his lip and getting that heavy lidded look; Tavros was having a definite effect on him. But Gamzee was still holding back, still trying to hold onto the anger he felt, the ghost of a reason why they shouldn’t be doing this right then...
“I need you,” Tavros breathed, “please.”
~part of the Dark Season universe~
Chapter: 3/?
Rating: NC-17
Major Characters: Gamzee, Tavros, Equius, Aradia, Canren (OC)
Warnings: slavery, some violence, lots of swearing, angst, SMUT
Summery: AU where they never played the game. The only way for Tavros to avoid being culled is for a highblood to claim him as their slave. As his matesprite, Gamzee is the obvious choice for this. But Gamzee is severely squicked by the new found power imbalance.
Previous chapters are linked here
Canren returned and Gamzee did his best to recover his mask of interest. After handing Gamzee his glass and settling back in his chair Canren finally got to the point.
“Gamzee, have you ever had the pleasure of a walk along the painted cliffs near your hive?”
It was a good thing Canren was ignoring Tavros because if he wasn’t he might have noticed the new flavor of startled embarrassed on the brownblood’s face. Yes, Gamzee had been to the painted cliffs. The two of them had taken the winding ramped path and had a picnic in the wooded area at the very top. At the time Gamzee was coming down from the hypersensitivity caused by the reduced number of pies in his diet, to a point where dim light didn’t hurt his eyes but he was still exceptionally responsive to his matesprit’s touch. Tavros milked it for all it was worth, pulling Gamzee into his lap and feeding him by hand, sometimes putting the morsel in his own mouth so that Gamzee had to kiss him to get it... Tavros only meant to tease a little but after seeing how good he was making Gamzee feel he couldn’t stand it. So he gathered the animals in the trees into a perimeter which would alert him if anyone came their way and then he made love to Gamzee out in public. It was easily the boldest thing he had ever done.
From the way Gamzee’s shoulders tensed and he buried his face in his glass he was definitely remembering how much of a pleasure that walk had been. That thought was far too funny and Tavros had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep the laugh from escaping. That was not good. He always got really giddy right before he had a knock down drag out panic attack. He focused on his hands and imagined that his pulse wasn’t trying to pound its way out of his head.
Gamzee collected himself with a couple of sips on his drink and then very carefully responded, “Yeah, I’ve been up there before.”
“Ah,” Canren said with dramatic disappointment, “I was hoping I’d be your first.”
Tavros had to dig his fingernails into his arm and bite his tongue hard enough to make it bleed to hold in the hysterical giggle.
“Regardless,” Canren continued, oblivious to how Tavros was losing grip on his control, “it is a beautiful place and I would thoroughly enjoy a stroll along the cliffs with you.”
Gamzee did his best to look nonchalantly surprised and disappointed. “Oh man, a walk up there would have been nice.” The unspoken ‘with anyone but you’ was obvious to Tavros and he felt his expanding and contracting blood bladder clench, but Canren didn’t seem to pick up on it. Tavros fought to control his breathing and reminded himself that he could read Gamzee better than anyone and that Canren wasn’t going to catch any of the little things that screamed Gamzee’s discomfort.
Remembering that he and Gamzee had that strong connection, that both of them were overcome with flushed feelings the first time they met in person, that all doubts were chased away with their first chaste kiss and they both knew that they had found their fated matesprit... Tavros felt the panic fade. It was still there to be sure-nothing short of a long breakdown was going to remove all the stress-but he regained control enough to make it out of the bastard’s shuttle without cracking. But everything was going to be okay because he loved Gamzee and Gamzee loved him and they were going home. Their home, the hive they would share.
While Tavros got himself calmed down the conversation continued. Canren raised an eyebrow at Gamzee’s response and asked, “What do you mean, ‘would have been’? I assumed that you would be free as your plans included a three hour wait at the shuttle station.”
There was a dangerous edge to Canren’s voice. Gamzee swallowed hard and spoke very carefully.
“I was actually going to be in the casual comm center across the street. Still have a gaping hole in my hive, you know, and the carpenter drones are going to be setting up right now. I was set to give them the blueprints over vid-Trollian, and you know how there’s always a million things you don’t think about that the drones want to know so I’d probably still be working out details when the shuttle came.” Gamzee faked a remorseful frown. “I didn’t realize you had plans in mind; I just through you were checking on that island fishery you’ve got out that way. I’m really putting you out of your way aren’t I?”
The irritation in Canren’s eyes faded, still there but no longer sharp enough to split a photon. “No, no, not at all.”
“Man, I’m feeling all sorry and sh-“ Gamzee barely caught the unseemly swear, “stuff.”
Canren put what was probably supposed to be a comforting hand on Gamzee’s thigh; Tavros saw Gamzee suppress a physical gag at the contact.
“I am the remorseful one,” Canren said. “I was thoughtless in my suggestion. I should have realized that a man of such high standing would have plans. Though I wonder if you might find an opening in your busy schedule for-”
Gamzee was not happy about the hand still on his leg and it bled into his voice enough that not only Tavros heard it, “Yeah, I can’t be up and dropping everything any time some mo-guy expects me to.”
Canren threw his hands up in a mock gesture of surrender and both his guests breathed a sigh of relief. “You wound me, my dear Gamzee. Forgive my rash forwardness.”
Gamzee made a vague agreement-they still needed to get home and it was Canren’s shuttle-and the conversation turned back to the nothings of weather. It was noticeably more strained, however, and Gamzee didn’t lose himself in the act again. Tavros was surprised at how well Canren seemed to be taking the sudden icy turn, but then again Canren had shown a marked interest in Gamzee acting his class. Taking offense and glaring with barely concealed threat were mainstays of an indigoblood and Canren was one of the many who wanted to see Gamzee shape up and join the backstabbing flock.
Tavros was just glad that Canren didn’t flirt with Gamzee for the rest of the trip. He wasn’t sure how much more of that he could watch without cracking. Gamzee always felt slimy after being around good and proper highbloods for a while, sometimes to the point of needing to physically take a shower. Tavros was half-hysterically worried that it would take a wire brush for Gamzee to feel clean after Canren touched his thigh. Tavros liked Gamzee’s thighs and he didn’t want the skin all scratched up.
Tavros sunk further into the false calm covering his hysteria as they disembarked. Gamzee offered Canren a curt farewell and immediately turned to the swarm of carpenter drones gathered outside his hive. Canren just smiled as through Gamzee’s ire was the most endearing thing he ever saw and then decided they needed to chat some more. Gamzee made a point of first telling Tavros to go into the hive and put something on, then greeting the lead carpenter drone who was having a fit about the change in schedule, and finally turning to Canren and semi-politely asking if he didn’t have anything better to do.
Tavros didn’t hear Canren’s answer; he had gotten inside as fast as he could maneuver his four wheel device around the piles of materials the drones had stacked haphazardly all over Gamzee’s front lawn. It was going to be a major construction project; aside from fixing the damage caused by the hungry creature the drones were going to be renovating most of the hive. Gamzee’s reason for the complete makeover was that he had outgrown the design he created at his emergence and needed something a little more adult, which was true. Ever since coming out of the sopor haze he was far less prone to clutter, so there was a need for storage and display solutions for what used to sit piled high in empty Faygo crates. There was a lot of clutter to go through.
This is what society in general knew about the renovation. It was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. Another reason for the renovation is the need for a permanent four wheel device accessible solution; in previous visits Tavros was limited to the first floor aside from one occasion where Gamzee picked him up out of his chair and carried him upstairs. Usually they’d just stretch out on the floor of the unused dining room when they wanted to get intimate, but the last time Tavros was there Gamzee carried him upstairs to a makeshift concupiscent couch. It was a very crude imitation made of all of Gamzee’s clothes and a few dust cloths tossed in a big pile in the floor of his bedroom. As Gamzee set Tavros down he said that it wasn’t much but soon he’d have some proper furniture for when they got their hot flush on.
It seemed that Gamzee had found a temporary solution; when Tavros got to the living room he was met with a series of crates and boards nailed into the floor and walls to create a rampway up to the second floor. There was a carpenter drone standing next to it looking very distressed; they tended to do that when something wasn’t on the floor plans. It was a little steep but Tavros was able to make it up to Gamzee’s bedroom. He quickly wheeled himself to the wardrobe storage device, dug out a pair of Gamzee’s boxers (bright green with pies drawn on with marker), and pulled them on as fast as he could. Once he had something on it really hit him that he had been naked. He expected and accepted it for the ceremony; that he was prepared to deal with. But being forced to crawl across the ground to his four wheel device while all the highbloods around him jeered, being forced to go outside in the street without anything covering him up, and having to bite his tongue while that creep felt up his matesprit.
He hugged himself and tried not to cry, but it was a losing battle. The panic was rising to the surface and he didn’t have the energy to fight it anymore. It was all so unfair. A highblood with a psychic means to compensate for a crippling injury would likely be spared from culling, as long as they worked hard to prove that they were still useful. Tavros had done everything, he honed his ability to commune to unheard of levels, he worked out his arms and torso every single day, he even abandoned the lance as his primary weapon and with a little help from a friend of Nepeta’s he grew to be deadly accurate with a pistol. But none of it mattered because of the color of his blood. His name was on the list to be culled every time and the only reason he survived this far is because Sollux was such an incredible hacker.
The Empress’s death couldn’t come soon enough.
This sentiment was only driven home when Gamzee ran into the room. Tavros looked up helplessly, brown tinged tears rolling down his cheeks. Gamzee’s face flickered between concern, guilt, and anger all in the span of a couple seconds spent standing wide eyed in the doorway. Then he all but dove at his matesprit. He ended up pulling Tavros out of his four wheel device and they curled up together on the floor. His matesprit held him tight, stroked his hair, and through the whole of Tavros’s breakdown Gamzee trembled with rage. Tavros clung to his lover and sobbed, the humiliation and shame and all those people saying how he was useless and ugly finally catching up with him. He felt so cold, so alone, as if every vicious word and cruel look were needle thin daggers of ice that pierced him down to the bone. He felt as if his very soul was freezing. He forced himself to listen to all the sweet nothings Gamzee was whispering in his ear, he reminded himself that it was all over and everything was going to be okay, he focused on Gamzee’s hands pressed against his bare skin...
Tavros was so aware of Gamzee’s heat. The arms around his waist and shoulders felt like they were burning. When Gamzee pressed soft, sweet kisses to Tavros’s damp cheeks each light touch was a hot iron searing into his skin. He felt his blood rush to the surface, tinting his gray skin brown from his face all the way down his shoulders and stomach. His pulse pounded like a stampede running through his head and the only thought he could hear through the noise was what if he doesn’t want me anymore.
Tavros crushed his lips against Gamzee’s in a move full of desperation. At first Gamzee was still as stone and Tavros felt the ice fill his veins. There was so much fear it choked him and he couldn’t breathe until finally, finally Gamzee responded. He returned the kiss hesitantly and it warmed Tavros’s lips but he needed more. He needed so much more.
Gamzee broke the kiss and started to say something but Tavros had already pressed his lips to his matesprit’s ear and was begging him in a low keening whisper, “Touch me. Touch me everywhere. Please just kiss me and don’t ever stop. I want you, I need you and I-“
Those hands that burned hotter than the Alternian sun gripped Tavros’s face and he was made to look in Gamzee’s wide eyes.
“Tav, babe, hold on a motherfucking second and think about this.”
Tavros was beyond reason. He kept kissing, biting, licking every piece of skin he could reach to while he got his hands under Gamzee’s shirt. “Don’t make me wait anymore,” Tavros breathed against his lover’s neck. Tavros could feel the jump and twitch; Gamzee liked the feeling of words whispered hotly into his pulse. No one knew what turned Gamzee on better than Tavros. Maybe that would be enough to keep him?
Gamzee was biting his lip and getting that heavy lidded look; Tavros was having a definite effect on him. But Gamzee was still holding back, still trying to hold onto the anger he felt, the ghost of a reason why they shouldn’t be doing this right then...
“I need you,” Tavros breathed, “please.”