On Even Ground (ch 05)
On Even Ground
~part of the Dark Season universe~
Chapter: 5/?
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.
Tavros woke up in Gamzee’s guest recuperacoon to the sound of heavy construction. He pulled himself over the lip-Gamzee had at the walls with a saw so Tavros could lie down properly-and glared at the clock. With a start he realized he had been out for almost a full day; he guessed that all the sleepless nights of the past perigee finally caught up with him. He still felt exhausted but he doubted he could get back to sleep with all the banging around the carpenter drones were doing.
With a heavy sigh he hauled himself out of the recuperacoon. His four wheel device was in easy reach and the seat was wrapped in towels; his matesprit was so thoughtful to spare him from having to mop up all the slime before he got dressed.
Still half asleep Tavros wheeled himself into the hygieneblock . He transferred himself onto the plain metal chair in the standing ablution trap and turned on the water. Gamzee had made a lot of changes to his guest respiteblock just for Tavros, though soon it would be returned to its generic guest purposes and Tavros would have his own room on the third floor. Gamzee was moving his respiteblock from the second to the third, and they would only be separated by the expansive, four wheel device friendly hygieneblock that the carpenter drones would build in what used to be a storage area. Of course, Tavros would have his own, smaller hygieneblock for appearance sake, but in practice they’d share the one. They already picked out all the fixtures including a seated ablution trap big enough to fit both of them comfortably.
Tavros smiled as he absently considered how much fun it would be to test if the trap could really fit two trolls. The model they picked out was pretty deep and Tavros was hoping that there would be enough water lifting up his weight that he would be able to ride Gamzee properly. He always wanted to do that in spite of, or maybe because of, the fact that his disability made it almost impossible. Even if it didn’t work out the way Tavros hoped it would still be fun to try, and if it really wasn’t working it would be easy enough for Gamzee to lay him down on the thick rug they were going to have in the center of the room and...
He felt this nagging feeling that he was missing something but his think pan was still too fuzzy to grasp what it was.
He quickly finished his shower and toweled off, leaving the slimy towels in the soiled cloth receptacle and wheeling himself back into the guestblock. A change of clothes was already laid out for him; his things must have arrived when he was asleep. He held up the shirt and stared at the sign, his sign. As though in a dream he reached up and felt the thin silver band that circled his neck.
It seemed impossible that only a day had passed since that horrible ceremony. It was supposed to be a solemn event. Sure, there would be plenty of nobles in the stands looking at the new slave with contempt and distain, but they weren’t supposed to openly mock and insult them. They shouldn’t have been able to get away with making him crawl to his four wheel device. Most willing slaves were facing culling due to some disability or another so it wasn’t as though a cripple was new to the officials. When Aradia first suggested this to Tavros he looked up the vidlogs of other ceremonies; as they were a matter of public record anyone could view them. No one else was in a four wheel device but he saw plenty of canes, crutches, and braces being handed to the new slave without any fuss.
They definitely shouldn’t have been able to burn all of his clothes and make him go outside naked. But they saw Gamzee as the best kind of victory. Not only was an indigoblood who used to be friends with those in the lower classes taking one to be his property, but it was a friend of Feferi’s doing it. So they made an example of them, humiliating Tavros in every way so they could point to Gamzee sitting there impassively and crow in triumph. Celebrate their win while Gamzee was dying inside.
Tavros realized his hands were shaking. A few sweeps ago he wouldn’t have believed he could feel this way, but the events of the previous day just made him so angry.
He took a deep breath and pushed the rage away. Gamzee was going to be feeling enough for both of them and Tavros had to be strong for him. None of the shame of the previous day mattered anyway; Tavros was saved from culling, Gamzee was saved from suspicion, and the others were saved from being used against Gamzee. For that Tavros would gladly suffer through another ceremony if he had to. He’d even repeat the shuttle ride with Canren. It was all worth the safety they all gained.
Not to mention that Tavros was home. Home with Gamzee where he belonged. It didn’t matter how angry either of them got because the other would always be right there to kiss it all better. Just like how Gamzee made it better the night before...
The circumstances of Tavros’s passing out suddenly came back to him.
“Did I really start sobbing right after he came?” he asked the wall. He recounted the memory and realized that was exactly what happened. He was so embarrassed he dropped his shirt and slapped both hands against his forehead. Yes, he was in fact so smooth that he burst into tears right after having sex with his matesprit.
Not yet done with the emotional hairpin turns, Tavros blushed brown as he remembered exactly how good the sex had been. Gamzee was always amazing but last night was... Tavros squirmed at the thought of how his lover touched him. And then as he was watching Gamzee moving above him, in him, he was gripped by some unnamable urge and he did that. Tasting his own genetic material was a level of kinky Tavros didn’t know he was capable of. He wondered if all the stress broke him and made him crazy, which he realized was probably true given how he couldn’t stop the meltdown even though it was making Gamzee feel absolutely terrible.
That thought snapped Tavros from his embarrassed daze and he quickly got dressed. He paused for a moment when he picked his shirt back up, staring at the brown symbol that was no longer his. Now that he was more awake he was registering the dull throb of the hatch marked cuts on the back of his neck: his slavemark. Gamzee’s sign was the only sign he would be able to wear from then on.
He shook his head as if to dislodge the wistfulness he felt when he looked at the symbol he wouldn’t wear again. What he gained far outweighed the loss of his sign. Though something would have to be done about his wardrobe; he hadn’t even thought of it in the whirlwind of the perigee before the ceremony, but he needed new shirts. For the time being he turned the one in his hands inside out so that the sign wasn’t showing; it would do until he could order some blank ones from Kanaya.
Fully dressed-did that ever feel good-Tavros left the guestblock and entered a warzone. At least it looked like one, with rooms gutted and walls knocked out. Luckily the busiest construction was going on at the other side of the hive so Tavros didn’t have too much trouble getting past the carpenter drones.
Tavros knew exactly where Gamzee would be. The sand of the beach wasn’t exactly four wheel device friendly, but Tavros had lots of practice picking his way across a path of sparse grass and patches of gravel. It was slow going but Tavros finally made it to the water’s edge. There was a large flat rock right on the waves. Gamzee sat on it cross-legged and stared out over the gray ocean, his face painted white and black.
Tavros saw the face paint and slowed his approach. He knew that it was a sign of the worst.
When the two of them first became matesprits Gamzee stopped wearing the makeup when he knew he was going to have a chance to be intimate with Tavros; aside from getting smeared everywhere it wasn’t exactly designed to be kissed and so it left Tavros with an unpleasant aftertaste. Tavros was struck silent the first time he saw Gamzee without the face paint because, while Gamzee looked good with it on, he was absolutely stunning with it off.
It was a few seasons before Tavros worked up the nerve to tell his matesprit this. Gamzee was pleased with the compliment and stopped putting it on anytime that he and Tavros would be together, even if it was a group outing. This was the same timeframe when Gamzee was cutting back on the pies and he did it for the same reason: Tavros. Not that Tavros ever asked him to stop wearing makeup, just as there was never any request that he step away from the sopor; Gamzee did it on his own because he felt it was getting in the way of being affectionate with his matesprit. It was purely a purely functional choice and nothing else, or at least it was.
The whole thing started as soon as Gamzee was free of the sopor haze and a little more aware of what was going on around him, but everything came to a head a sweep ago. Terezi had started her internship with the junior small claims branch of the Legislacerators and spent most of her free time ranting to the others about all the corruption she was seeing; their justice system was supposed to be harsh but it was also supposed to be fair. Everywhere she looked were different rules for the different classes. She said that the breakdown in justice was making her sick.
The double standards were brought into sharper focus when Sollux admitted that he had been hacking Tavros’s name off the culling list ever since the FLARP accident. Sollux said that he was only doing it temporarily to give Tavros enough time to overcome his disability, but then the hacker stumbled upon logged conversations and records from the culling ministry that made it clear that was never going to happen. The internal memos and reviews which should have detailed and updated the culling boards on Tavros’s recovery were completely blank. As far as the board was concerned, Tavros was still as he had been when he first fell off that cliff. When Sollux looked into disabilities among the higher bloods the reviews were filled with information, and the higher the blood the more favorable the diagnosis.
When Sollux told everyone what he found Tavros took it hard. He really thought that everything he had done-honing his psychic abilities, making the working half of his body strong, earning a living that a greenblood would be proud of-had shown the culling board that he deserved to live. When Tavros found out that he never had a chance he was crushed. Several days after Sollux broke the news Tavros was able to make his roundabout way to Gamzee’s hive. He was hoping to collapse into his matesprit’s arms and just cry it out. He didn’t expect to come around the last bend and see a bonfire on the beach.
Gamzee was standing in front of the fire and at his right were a series of crates, all stuffed full. As Tavros picked his way across the rocky and grassy areas Gamzee took things out of the crates and threw them into the fire one by one. By the time Tavros made it to his matesprit’s side the crates were half empty. Yet to be burned were dozens of posters depicting clowns which may not be in full possession of their mental faculties, a couple dozen books with ‘miracle’ in the title, a few more about the dark carnival, horns of all sizes, and sweeps upon sweeps of pamphlets and flyers sent out by CMM-the Cult of the Mirthful Messiahs.
When Tavros wheeled up beside him Gamzee acknowledged his presence with a glance and then went back to throwing things into the fire. Gamzee’s face was makeup free save for a few smudges left around his eyes and hairline. His unpainted face was a stony mask and the motions of picking something up and tossing it were almost mechanical, but with a hidden edge of anger. Tavros didn’t know what to say or do so he just sat there in shock and watched his matesprit burn a lifetime of faith.
When the crates were emptied Gamzee collapsed next to Tavros’s four wheel device. He took Tavros’s hand in his and pressed kisses against the palm. As the fire burned itself out so did Gamzee’s barely suppressed rage and he was left with an empty sort of grief. There staring at the embers Gamzee said that he didn’t believe in miracles anymore, not if someone as strong and amazing as Tavros could be tossed aside by anyone.
Given a season Tavros convinced him not to let go of everything. Given time Gamzee accepted miracles again, though under different rules. This new, more hands on definition of miracles was the only thing he kept of his old faith. He refused to replace what he lost in the purge by bonfire, he broke off all contact with the CMM, and he didn’t wear his makeup again.
Except very, very rarely when he buried himself in a pie tin and in his sorrow thought of the time when he had faith without basis or reason. When he’d sunk so far in his sopor haze that he couldn’t see reality anymore he’d think that he believed in miracles when he wore the face paint, so maybe if he wore it again he’d find a way to pretend that all he had to do was pray and everything would be okay.
Tavros looked at the man he loved sitting there stoned out of his mind. He looked at Gamzee vacantly clinging to the naïve convictions of yesterday and felt as though his soul was being ripped to shreds.
~part of the Dark Season universe~
Chapter: 5/?
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.
Tavros woke up in Gamzee’s guest recuperacoon to the sound of heavy construction. He pulled himself over the lip-Gamzee had at the walls with a saw so Tavros could lie down properly-and glared at the clock. With a start he realized he had been out for almost a full day; he guessed that all the sleepless nights of the past perigee finally caught up with him. He still felt exhausted but he doubted he could get back to sleep with all the banging around the carpenter drones were doing.
With a heavy sigh he hauled himself out of the recuperacoon. His four wheel device was in easy reach and the seat was wrapped in towels; his matesprit was so thoughtful to spare him from having to mop up all the slime before he got dressed.
Still half asleep Tavros wheeled himself into the hygieneblock . He transferred himself onto the plain metal chair in the standing ablution trap and turned on the water. Gamzee had made a lot of changes to his guest respiteblock just for Tavros, though soon it would be returned to its generic guest purposes and Tavros would have his own room on the third floor. Gamzee was moving his respiteblock from the second to the third, and they would only be separated by the expansive, four wheel device friendly hygieneblock that the carpenter drones would build in what used to be a storage area. Of course, Tavros would have his own, smaller hygieneblock for appearance sake, but in practice they’d share the one. They already picked out all the fixtures including a seated ablution trap big enough to fit both of them comfortably.
Tavros smiled as he absently considered how much fun it would be to test if the trap could really fit two trolls. The model they picked out was pretty deep and Tavros was hoping that there would be enough water lifting up his weight that he would be able to ride Gamzee properly. He always wanted to do that in spite of, or maybe because of, the fact that his disability made it almost impossible. Even if it didn’t work out the way Tavros hoped it would still be fun to try, and if it really wasn’t working it would be easy enough for Gamzee to lay him down on the thick rug they were going to have in the center of the room and...
He felt this nagging feeling that he was missing something but his think pan was still too fuzzy to grasp what it was.
He quickly finished his shower and toweled off, leaving the slimy towels in the soiled cloth receptacle and wheeling himself back into the guestblock. A change of clothes was already laid out for him; his things must have arrived when he was asleep. He held up the shirt and stared at the sign, his sign. As though in a dream he reached up and felt the thin silver band that circled his neck.
It seemed impossible that only a day had passed since that horrible ceremony. It was supposed to be a solemn event. Sure, there would be plenty of nobles in the stands looking at the new slave with contempt and distain, but they weren’t supposed to openly mock and insult them. They shouldn’t have been able to get away with making him crawl to his four wheel device. Most willing slaves were facing culling due to some disability or another so it wasn’t as though a cripple was new to the officials. When Aradia first suggested this to Tavros he looked up the vidlogs of other ceremonies; as they were a matter of public record anyone could view them. No one else was in a four wheel device but he saw plenty of canes, crutches, and braces being handed to the new slave without any fuss.
They definitely shouldn’t have been able to burn all of his clothes and make him go outside naked. But they saw Gamzee as the best kind of victory. Not only was an indigoblood who used to be friends with those in the lower classes taking one to be his property, but it was a friend of Feferi’s doing it. So they made an example of them, humiliating Tavros in every way so they could point to Gamzee sitting there impassively and crow in triumph. Celebrate their win while Gamzee was dying inside.
Tavros realized his hands were shaking. A few sweeps ago he wouldn’t have believed he could feel this way, but the events of the previous day just made him so angry.
He took a deep breath and pushed the rage away. Gamzee was going to be feeling enough for both of them and Tavros had to be strong for him. None of the shame of the previous day mattered anyway; Tavros was saved from culling, Gamzee was saved from suspicion, and the others were saved from being used against Gamzee. For that Tavros would gladly suffer through another ceremony if he had to. He’d even repeat the shuttle ride with Canren. It was all worth the safety they all gained.
Not to mention that Tavros was home. Home with Gamzee where he belonged. It didn’t matter how angry either of them got because the other would always be right there to kiss it all better. Just like how Gamzee made it better the night before...
The circumstances of Tavros’s passing out suddenly came back to him.
“Did I really start sobbing right after he came?” he asked the wall. He recounted the memory and realized that was exactly what happened. He was so embarrassed he dropped his shirt and slapped both hands against his forehead. Yes, he was in fact so smooth that he burst into tears right after having sex with his matesprit.
Not yet done with the emotional hairpin turns, Tavros blushed brown as he remembered exactly how good the sex had been. Gamzee was always amazing but last night was... Tavros squirmed at the thought of how his lover touched him. And then as he was watching Gamzee moving above him, in him, he was gripped by some unnamable urge and he did that. Tasting his own genetic material was a level of kinky Tavros didn’t know he was capable of. He wondered if all the stress broke him and made him crazy, which he realized was probably true given how he couldn’t stop the meltdown even though it was making Gamzee feel absolutely terrible.
That thought snapped Tavros from his embarrassed daze and he quickly got dressed. He paused for a moment when he picked his shirt back up, staring at the brown symbol that was no longer his. Now that he was more awake he was registering the dull throb of the hatch marked cuts on the back of his neck: his slavemark. Gamzee’s sign was the only sign he would be able to wear from then on.
He shook his head as if to dislodge the wistfulness he felt when he looked at the symbol he wouldn’t wear again. What he gained far outweighed the loss of his sign. Though something would have to be done about his wardrobe; he hadn’t even thought of it in the whirlwind of the perigee before the ceremony, but he needed new shirts. For the time being he turned the one in his hands inside out so that the sign wasn’t showing; it would do until he could order some blank ones from Kanaya.
Fully dressed-did that ever feel good-Tavros left the guestblock and entered a warzone. At least it looked like one, with rooms gutted and walls knocked out. Luckily the busiest construction was going on at the other side of the hive so Tavros didn’t have too much trouble getting past the carpenter drones.
Tavros knew exactly where Gamzee would be. The sand of the beach wasn’t exactly four wheel device friendly, but Tavros had lots of practice picking his way across a path of sparse grass and patches of gravel. It was slow going but Tavros finally made it to the water’s edge. There was a large flat rock right on the waves. Gamzee sat on it cross-legged and stared out over the gray ocean, his face painted white and black.
Tavros saw the face paint and slowed his approach. He knew that it was a sign of the worst.
When the two of them first became matesprits Gamzee stopped wearing the makeup when he knew he was going to have a chance to be intimate with Tavros; aside from getting smeared everywhere it wasn’t exactly designed to be kissed and so it left Tavros with an unpleasant aftertaste. Tavros was struck silent the first time he saw Gamzee without the face paint because, while Gamzee looked good with it on, he was absolutely stunning with it off.
It was a few seasons before Tavros worked up the nerve to tell his matesprit this. Gamzee was pleased with the compliment and stopped putting it on anytime that he and Tavros would be together, even if it was a group outing. This was the same timeframe when Gamzee was cutting back on the pies and he did it for the same reason: Tavros. Not that Tavros ever asked him to stop wearing makeup, just as there was never any request that he step away from the sopor; Gamzee did it on his own because he felt it was getting in the way of being affectionate with his matesprit. It was purely a purely functional choice and nothing else, or at least it was.
The whole thing started as soon as Gamzee was free of the sopor haze and a little more aware of what was going on around him, but everything came to a head a sweep ago. Terezi had started her internship with the junior small claims branch of the Legislacerators and spent most of her free time ranting to the others about all the corruption she was seeing; their justice system was supposed to be harsh but it was also supposed to be fair. Everywhere she looked were different rules for the different classes. She said that the breakdown in justice was making her sick.
The double standards were brought into sharper focus when Sollux admitted that he had been hacking Tavros’s name off the culling list ever since the FLARP accident. Sollux said that he was only doing it temporarily to give Tavros enough time to overcome his disability, but then the hacker stumbled upon logged conversations and records from the culling ministry that made it clear that was never going to happen. The internal memos and reviews which should have detailed and updated the culling boards on Tavros’s recovery were completely blank. As far as the board was concerned, Tavros was still as he had been when he first fell off that cliff. When Sollux looked into disabilities among the higher bloods the reviews were filled with information, and the higher the blood the more favorable the diagnosis.
When Sollux told everyone what he found Tavros took it hard. He really thought that everything he had done-honing his psychic abilities, making the working half of his body strong, earning a living that a greenblood would be proud of-had shown the culling board that he deserved to live. When Tavros found out that he never had a chance he was crushed. Several days after Sollux broke the news Tavros was able to make his roundabout way to Gamzee’s hive. He was hoping to collapse into his matesprit’s arms and just cry it out. He didn’t expect to come around the last bend and see a bonfire on the beach.
Gamzee was standing in front of the fire and at his right were a series of crates, all stuffed full. As Tavros picked his way across the rocky and grassy areas Gamzee took things out of the crates and threw them into the fire one by one. By the time Tavros made it to his matesprit’s side the crates were half empty. Yet to be burned were dozens of posters depicting clowns which may not be in full possession of their mental faculties, a couple dozen books with ‘miracle’ in the title, a few more about the dark carnival, horns of all sizes, and sweeps upon sweeps of pamphlets and flyers sent out by CMM-the Cult of the Mirthful Messiahs.
When Tavros wheeled up beside him Gamzee acknowledged his presence with a glance and then went back to throwing things into the fire. Gamzee’s face was makeup free save for a few smudges left around his eyes and hairline. His unpainted face was a stony mask and the motions of picking something up and tossing it were almost mechanical, but with a hidden edge of anger. Tavros didn’t know what to say or do so he just sat there in shock and watched his matesprit burn a lifetime of faith.
When the crates were emptied Gamzee collapsed next to Tavros’s four wheel device. He took Tavros’s hand in his and pressed kisses against the palm. As the fire burned itself out so did Gamzee’s barely suppressed rage and he was left with an empty sort of grief. There staring at the embers Gamzee said that he didn’t believe in miracles anymore, not if someone as strong and amazing as Tavros could be tossed aside by anyone.
Given a season Tavros convinced him not to let go of everything. Given time Gamzee accepted miracles again, though under different rules. This new, more hands on definition of miracles was the only thing he kept of his old faith. He refused to replace what he lost in the purge by bonfire, he broke off all contact with the CMM, and he didn’t wear his makeup again.
Except very, very rarely when he buried himself in a pie tin and in his sorrow thought of the time when he had faith without basis or reason. When he’d sunk so far in his sopor haze that he couldn’t see reality anymore he’d think that he believed in miracles when he wore the face paint, so maybe if he wore it again he’d find a way to pretend that all he had to do was pray and everything would be okay.
Tavros looked at the man he loved sitting there stoned out of his mind. He looked at Gamzee vacantly clinging to the naïve convictions of yesterday and felt as though his soul was being ripped to shreds.