It's another tequila sunrise

[biiowiired]

Who| Commander Shepard earthborn, Karkat Vantas crabmunicator, and The Ψiioniic
What| Carnival, nerve gas, killing a bicyclops, death car ride, murderdeath sunlight, undead, thresher maw, and awkward conversations about clowns
Where| Alternian Carnival, Alternian desert, Earth desert, the Normandy
When| dawn of the second day (sep 29)
Warnings/Notes| gore decorations, PTSDness, mention of murder and torture including whipping, not!lusus death, aliens shrieking about the sun, a goddamn thresher maw

Comments

Carnival

[biiowiired]

The night peeled back its clouds to reveal one pink moon and one green one sinking towards the horizon. Psii found himself in the Alternian city, of all places. He'd grown up in a city and had all the awful memories that came with slavery, but at least it was familiar. He knew what lawnring traps to dodge. However, as his ill luck would have it, he ducked into a long underground pedestrian tunnel on a whim and emerged blinking at colorful string lanterns....

Oh fuck.

The skeleton strung up with the lanterns with half its flesh still on it wasn't too much of a surprise in an arena, but the tents, streamers, snack booths, and paintings of clowns killing people were enough to seriously spook him. Like any sane troll, he thought the carnival decorations were more frightening than the torture implements that came with them. It didn't matter if the rainbow stains didn't smell like real blood. There would be enough actual blood here soon enough.

He shivered in the cold desert night and willed his feet to move. This was something out of one of his daymares. He had to get out of here. No, wait, he had to hide and make sure the coast was clear. He didn't know what to do. What if they sent in killers dressed as clowns? He'd freak out, become useless as a sack of dirt tubers, or maybe just kill everything that moved. He'd lost his shit in the throes of a flashback before, gibbering as his friends held him down.

Breathing raggedly, trying not to panic, he snatched the handle of some weapon and folded himself under the tablecloth of a snack booth. It wasn't until he'd wedged himself in pretty tightly that he realized he was holding a whip. The noise he made as he flung it away was half snarl half sob. He clutched at his own shoulders and the scars underneath his clothes. It was hard to get a grip when the thing he'd just been gripping had been the source of so much pain. In any other place, he could handle a nasty surprise like that, but here, memories rose from the mire and played tricks.

Silence, then a whooshing sound as a vent in the ground next to him slid its grate open. Before he could stumble away, the gas was burning in his throat and lungs. He collapsed in the middle of a large path between tents, wheezing and twitching and blinking water out of his eyes. Come on Captor, you sack of shit. MOVE!

wow I'm alive terribly sorry for the wait

[crabmunicator]

You know Imperial Drones? Those big, hulking monsters made of chitin and spikes? The terror and danger laced into every troll as a part of growing up and learning their place in society?

The thing about those was that, when one was after your heels, it was a bit hard to think of where to go. Karkat had only found one by chance, after an equally unexpected encounter with a Mother Grub. Being in this copy of the Alternia just meant he had to explore, though, and to explain to Maglev about where he came from. He hadn't been trying to find the literal origin of trolls; it had just been there, massive and white and bewildering as anything. But there were no Mother Grubs without Imperial Drones to serve them, and when the sound of one hit his ears, he didn't wait to see it before telling Maglev to run.

He ran, too, of course. He ran with such fear in his heart that it wasn't until bright colors and the scent of blood cropped up that he could think to stop. Stupid, stupid, fucking stupid--but a drone would have killed him, no question, just for being the mutant he is. Here, though, other fears swelled up like a wave he couldn't see until it was already arched over him.

As already proved, fear wasn't good for thinking straight.

He stumbled and blundered, breath caught seizing in his lungs, eyes blown wide at the sight of tents, bones, rainbows marked in blood paint. Reels of memories and babbling thoughts rolled through his head, your fault your fault all your fault over a background of Gamzee's face, Initiate's, the Grand Highblood from an encounter during the week of dreams.

On high alert for sight of twisting, orange horns, seeing a set made in pairs hardly stopped him long enough to remember his last conversation with the owner. Instead he scrambled over to the collapsed Psiioniic, dropped to a crouch, and took his hand to tug. "Move! Move! We have to get out of here!"

arrives at starbucks, late, with coffee from another starbucks

[earthborn]

One thing Shepard never really parsed was the fear of clowns. Most people feared them because something outwardly cheerful, meant to comfort, to amuse, was too obviously an illusion, too clearly the strange man beneath the paint, and all his foibles and in-born violence. That made some people feel vulnerable, made them forget the illusion for the favor of vigilance.

Not Shepard, she knew the truth; you can kill men, but icons are immortal.

So, it was about the time that Karkat was coughing his way through a half failed rescue, surrounded by tentcloth and rising miasma, that Shepard arrived. The first sign of her arrival was a rising growl under the hiss of gas and the carnival atmosphere, rising like anger and fire. The tent stretched and tore, snagged on the rugged chassis of the vehicle, tent-poles were torn from the ground, and the air cleared in a venomous cloud as clean air rushed to follow the arc of fabric and exhaust. Commander Shepard was not the worse driver in the world, but it was a close competition, and she had never been the kind of woman to settle for second place; the real miracle was that, in tearing down the tent, she hadn't struck either of the trolls inside.

It wasn't a subtle entrance. But then, was she ever?

plot twist: i'm the starbucks barista, and i also forgot to track this

[biiowiired]

Part of the endurance of the Alternian clowns' image was their ability to cow the rest of the castes to their whim. Even sea dwellers feared them and trod lightly. Psii and Karkat had a bit more personal experience with their violence. Their paint was an identifying marker to be sure, but not the uncanny source of their fear.

Psii tried to hiss at the person yelling and grabbing his hand, but all that came out were a few rasping croaks. Two seconds later, he realized that 1) he wasn't being murdered, and 2) it was Karkat. Their last conversation didn't cross his mind, mainly because he was too busy trying not to die in a carnival. Psii tried to tell Karkat that yes, genius, he knew he had to get the hell out of here. He had a coughing fit instead.

Then the tent burst open, and for the second time, Psii fully expected to die.

He was powerless to react, other than a few fish-out-of-water flops. Not running was a blessing in disguise, though; he stayed put and took full stock of the situation. A human might not be able to see into the dimness of a vehicle's window at night, but he could make out the form of Shepard inside. Another ally, someone to team up with or even just bum a ride, swap supplies and information, and—Mother Grub's second sphincter, she could have run us over!

Psii mustered all his neurological willpower and raised one arm to give her a middle-finger salute.

[crabmunicator]

Holy shit, holy shit, fuck everything. Not only was the asshole at his feet not answering, but the rasping chokes suggested it was physically beyond him at the moment. Probably why it was beyond him to stand up at the moment.

"Fuck, come on, we don't have time--"

Not the least before tearing fabric and a roar took over his hearing, tearing a bluntly terrified scream from Karkat as he scrambled off to the other side of the Psiioniic. He couldn't just leave him, but oh god, oh god, what if it was the Grand Highblood, come back to kill him for real instead of just in his dreams and here he was fucking up someone else's life in the process and--

Car. It was a car. A big, spiky, monstrous, fuck-off car. Karkat choked audibly on his surprise, coughed, and straightened to see what Psii was already saluting: Commander Jane Shepard behind the wheel.

He let go of Psii's hand and stomped over to the door.

"WHAT IN THE MOST BEFOULED SLAUGHTERHOUSE TORTURE PIT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, YOU CRAZY HELL BITCH? My blood pusher is currently clawing itself viscerally from the tatters of my rapidly expanding and collapsing bone cage in a grand virtuoso fuck you performance dedicated to the stunt you just pulled. You could have killed us! You could have run us over, or impaled us on the absolutely superfluous amalgamation of death spikes dotting the surface of the murder machine you just drove in here like your crackle-skinned husk owned the place! Do you even know where you are? Do you know what the actual hell is going on? I am sick of insane women nearly murdering me to death with their scuttle buggies!"

Here at the end he turned to the side, arms splayed out, eyebrows raised in a silent can you believe this shit? to Psii.

[earthborn]

Shepard considered this mutual tirade with all due solemnity.

It was pretty good! A little weak around the overly-verbose description of Karkat's belabored ribs, but over all, not much to complain about. Psii added a lot of style with the interpretive fuck you dance, a classic, and the kid had a talent for saying shit that Shepard would have paid good credits to see printed on a mug. Scuttle buggies. Heh.

"Are you gonna get in, or are you two going to keep bitching until I leave your skinny grey asses hanging out for the clowns?"

[biiowiired]

He knew better than to argue about the saving of his own life from a stupid death that didn't need to happen. Raising a middle finger was about all the extra effort he could manage anyway. Nodding in understanding at Karkat made him dizzy. He dearly wanted to ask if there were indeed clowns, but he couldn't speak.

He grunted and tried getting to his knees with all the speed of an overturned shellbeast. He crawled and ambled his way over, tripping over a few stairs on a raised part of the floor. The ground smacked his face again. Clearly his inner ear was shot for the moment, and none of his limbs seemed to want to do what he told them.

He got up more carefully this time and put his hand out for some kind of support. Something rusted and vaguely sharp found its way into his grip, and he turned his head to stare at a spike inches from his face.

Ok then. 

Time to ditch the walking around the car idea. He didn't feel like stupidly impaling himself while trying to get into the back seat. He made some sort of futile explanatory gesture with his hand, hovering around his nose and indicating the air and his own head. He didn't really care if they could understand him, but it was the closest thing to an apology he could give.

THRESHER MAW

[biiowiired]

"I'll hate you forever for looking tho damn thmug, Shepard. Alternian thun and the undead it bringth aren't thomething to joke about."

They had plowed through the Alternian desert by now. Psii was scowling at the Earth sunlight as if it might burn him. To be fair, the desert was pretty bright, and it would only get hotter as noon approached. They needed to reach shelter soon. Psii kept his eyes peeled for that despite his cringing. This would be all over soon.

"What'th that rumbl—"

The world tipped and lurched as the ground screamed open. Psii braced his arms and jerked his head from where it had banged the side of the car and cut his ear. Sand was shooting towards the sky behind and to the left, and rising with it, a massive chitinous length with too many legs to count. Psii realized it wasn't the ground tearing itself apart with a shriek, it was a creature. 

[earthborn]

"Hate me all you want, you're not getting--"

You don't ever forget your first encounter with a Thresher Maw. There's a terrible, awkward sort of fluidity to the way they move, hoisting themselves above the ground like a snake, up, up, impossibly far up. How large must the underground portion be if the part you can see is more than twice as long as the car? No eyes, not a one, but it sees you all the same, turning the blind head and oh, the roar, the incandescent mouth, splitting open like no natural thing should. The grossly bulbous swell, preparing to spit deadly, acidic venom.

The moment she heard it, she knew. You never forget it.

"Thresher Maw! Brace for evasive maneuvers!"

[crabmunicator]

Karkat had settled from hands pressed tight over his eyes to slumped in his seat. The sun wouldn't kill or blind him here, but the continued sand meant only that they had wound up on the exact opposite side of where he wanted to go. He wouldn't find Maglev any sooner if he'd just gone further from where he started. And who knew which way she and Luna had ran? He hadn't looked, hadn't watched, had been too scared by the imminent threat of what he thought he heard to even make sure they stuck together. How was he supposed to keep her alive like this? At least he was alive, but he wasn't the kind of troll to let that stop him worrying.

It took the noise to rouse him, but the sight of what followed easily cast off his mood for later. Like something out of a movie, the kind of horrible alien creature on a world being colonized, not yet wiped out by the noble Alternian forces - it looked almost unreal, but he knew better than to doubt it. The rattle of its emergence proved that enough.

"Oh my sweet Mother Grub's perpetually chafed taint, what the fuck--" Karkat yelped as the reason he should have braced himself hit him before he could do so, and his shoulder slammed against the car door. He did better then, found grips to hold onto, lodged his feet against what he could to help that way. His eyes, though, stayed wide, glued to the Thresher Maw so long as he could follow it.

"What the hell is that?! Shepard, what--how the fuck do we avoid that?"

karkat's fucking face tho

[biiowiired]

He chuckled and hissed, "Not tho thmug now, are you, Shepard?!"

Judging by her reaction, they might be this thing's next meal, but as he "braced for evasive maneuvers," he couldn't help egging Shepard on. It was a totally socially acceptable method of encouraging a friend towards their best potential—on Alternia, anyway.

Psii saved some hissing for the thing outside their car window, too. It glowed just a bit brighter before some bright glob shot from its mouth and landed in their tire tracks, too close for comfort. The ground sizzled.

"Oh and it apparently thpitth athid, oh how lovely!" After all he'd been through today, Psii was too fucking done to be afraid any more. "Fuck your planet up the ath, Shepard! At leatht it'th thome ground dweller without eyeth—Do we have anything to throw at it?"

God forbid they actually have a useful projectile weapon in an arena. Psii's fingers curled around the blackout fabric on his window. Yes, he was prepared to rip it off and fight back, even without his powers. Yes, he wanted to stick his torso out and fire at it, or maybe chuck stuff to distract it. If it really couldn't see, then throwing anything, even the stale alcohol bottles tastefully placed on the floor for effect, was fair game.

[earthborn]

"These things are not from my planet, and shut up both of you."

This last snarled into the grinding complaints from the gearbox as Shepard struggled to master the swerving, over-clocked mess that was the buggy's engine. IT worked, well enough, trading forward momentum for a long, sliding arc in the sand and a new direction. Acid spat and sputtered, sinking interly into the sand behind the, but it was already forgotten; the Thresher roared and backed up.

The ground trembled, shivering like a living thing, and Shepard rammed the gas down as if to crack through to the other side and momentum caught the movement as the Thresher rose up, immediately behind them, where they'd been. The sun was behind them now, and Shepard swerved past the looming shadow of the next gobbet of acid with expert timing and a string of curses.

"Son of a fucking bitch better hope they lined this fucking bullshit arena with titanium, do you know what it takes to kill a maw? Sixty fucking years down the line, half of fucking panem gone suspiciously fucking flat and it'sgee I sure wonder what happened to all the-- Shit!"

The Maw resurfaced like a mockery of the legendary kracken, its mouthparts swinging about like angry tentacles, and Shepard's face was a rictus of annoyance as she fought the steering wheel and the sandy terrain for the traction to skip past it to the north. At this rate, they'd run out of luck before the Thresher Maw ran out of territory. In desperate times...

"What have we got back there to throw?"

...Desperate measures.

[crabmunicator]

Karkat at least had less to scream about this time. It was true, believe it or not. Out in the desert there were no memories of trauma to torment him, no clown-like associations, and anything Alternian was gone with the passage from blind-yourself bright to unpleasant-but-bearable glare. Just because he had less, though, did not mean he had nothing.

It was a giant death worm, for fuck's sake.

"I will shut my trap as soon as death stops pursuing us like we have its name painted on our backs, Shepard, and not one fraction of a second sooner! And I'll tell you right now that we're not throwing my sickle." This he had wedged under one foot, braced there as well as he could. It wasn't designed for chucking like that, and at worst it would be like a thorn in the worm's side, if it had the luck to strike point-first.

He craned his head to look back over the seat, but from this angle he could barely see. Trying to turn around would only invite chance to knock him out a window, he bet. But with Shepard driving, the Psiioniic in the back, and him here at the front passenger seat... He thrust his hand back. "Hand me something!"

[biiowiired]

Psii clutched anything and everything he could with bone-white knuckles, including the back of Shepard's seat. Nice driving, asshole. The Thresher screeched in frustration; all its other prey had been on foot. Psii was fascinated, in a sick sort of way, to learn that these giant worms flattened entire landscapes. It might even give some of the smaller musclebeasts a run for their money.

"You'll be lucky if it thwallowth you, thickle and all, tho then at leatht you could jab it from the inthide!" Psii shouted helpfully at Karkat.

Psii saw the inevitable, the three of them scuttling in every direction until they were out of fuel. He wished the shit in the back could do more damage than a few shards of glass. If only they had a rocket launcher or something equally flammable.... He ripped down part of his window's blackout curtains.

"Shepard! Pleathe tell me you inthpected thith primitive crap heap before you thtarted driving it. Where'th the fuel line? We have all the ingredientth for beverage bombth!"

He shoved the bottle and its scrap of fabric at Karkat and grabbed one for himself.

for Karkat, aboard the Normandy

[biiowiired]

Psii gingerly raised a hand to a bit of dried yellow blood on his ear and cast his eyes around their shelter. The Normandy was cold smooth lines and utilitarian spaces. It didn't appear to have any biotech built into it, like all Earth things, but it gave Psii a small feeling of uneasiness anyway, as with all spacecraft. He grew up knowing that if his powers were discovered, he'd be forcibly commissioned as a helmstroll. Even if he wasn't a psionic, he'd most likely be shipped off as a slave to space military to help conquer other planets anyway. The Alternian Empire was all about that, and Psii was all about people leaving him the fuck alone.

Shepard was strutting around like she owned the place—which, to be fair, she did. Psii took the opportunity to rest. He found a wall and sat down with a groan next to Karkat.

"Thankth for helping me back there."

He didn't want to directly allude to his lusus; saying it would make what happened real. But that was what he meant.

[crabmunicator]

Karkat didn't feel much better. Space ships said his first arena - first full arena, that was - and that one held too many unpleasant associations. Injuries, people dying, that fatal moment where he had let the Initiate into his mind. He wasn't jumpy but he was tense, and he couldn't resist scanning whatever room he went into like danger would find him if he didn't.

This room was fine. He didn't see anything apt to jump out, and he didn't hear anything else moving within the ship but Shepard and the Psiioniic.

He looked over as Psii settled beside him, then raised an eyebrow. "Helping you? What did I do but panic over something that didn't happen?"

Clown attacks, he meant. Even though nothing came of it, he still wouldn't want to go back.

[biiowiired]

Ah yes, the self-depreciation. Psii was familiar with that. It frustrated him to see either Signless or someone who shared his face wallowing in that. Excuse you, asshole, that's my job.

"You were there, and even though I wath on the train to idiotopia, your dulthet thquawking got through to me. You dragged me into the thcuttlebuggy. You didn't leave me for dead, which ith more than I can thay for thome of my patht mithadventureth with friendth."

Psii sighed and chewed his lip. This next part was difficult to bring up, but mention of fear and panic brought it to mind. Initiate mentioned chucklevoodooing specific people in order to sacrifice himself to avoxing.

"Jutht becauthe there might not be any clownth at all, doethn't mean your fear ithn't real. It'th definitely thomething that affectth you. To you, and to me too, it ith real. Jutht becauthe I'm no longer shitting my pantth around one clown doethn't mean I'm not thtill fucking afraid of them. Panic ith our inthtinctive way of trying not to be culled."

[crabmunicator]

Karkat chewed his teeth together in thought. It wasn't really a normal thing to hear. Fear was appropriate at some times, certainly, but exalting panic as a survival mechanism seemed untrollish. Trolls were supposed to be confident and deadly, weren't they? They were supposed to push themselves to be the toughest thing around, to let threats know they wouldn't be suffered lightly, that they would be eliminated for daring to try it. Or with highbloods, it was always deference--if a subjugglator had come along to cull them after all, it would have been their duty to submit to it.

Beyond that, there lay the more direct issue: clowns themselves. His own qualms were obvious for as much ad he'd spoken of them, but he couldn't resist a curious look at the Psiioniic.

"I didn't want you to die. You... You're not a teammate like my friends were, but just because you're an asshole doesn't mean I'd let you get killed." His jaw shifted to put his lip under the worry of his fangs. "What is your thing with clowns, though? You never knew Gamzee."

[biiowiired]

Psii himself was ashamed of being anything but stoic and badass, but even he had to face facts. His vigilance, driven by fear of losing his friends, kept people safe. Signless repeatedly telling him over the sweeps not to be ashamed of surviving with this many scars might have helped, too. Psii knew what it was to be scared shitless, how fear could take over whether or not someone was resolved to be brave.

"I won't forget the thingth you thaid, even if panicking wathn't the motht utheful thing you could have done at the time. Thankth for not wanting me to get pulverized by my anti-luthuth." He gave Karkat a wry smile. Desperately not wanting people to die was a very Vantas thing. They believed they could save everyone, or that everyone's doom was somehow their fault. Idiots. He sighed.

"I've had run-inth with clownth. Everyone knowth I wath a thlave back home, thankth to SS'th Crowning. It hath to do with that. I'd rather not go into thpethificth." Like hell he was going to talk about scarring wigglerhood experiences on national television. It was bad enough everyone saw his regular arena freakouts.

"My conditioning wath over a longer period of time, and there were no chucklewhatthitth involved, but the rethult wath the thame. I know what it'th like to be thlave to fear. But I broke out of my own head. It can be done."

For some dumb troll (or two), aboard the Normandy (make separate subthreads)

[earthborn]

There's a great deal to say for the impact a slab of scrap-metal makes on one of the idling space cows. And a whole other list of nice things to say about the head of the day on a metal hull, and what that does to an irregularly cut slab of meat taken from said cow.

Shame that most of the meat was going to rot, but for now, and for tomorrow at least, they could eat well. Space cows were too stupid to run away.

"Here," She handed off a healthy chunk in the shaded inside of the broken Normandy hull. The meat was a little purplish under the roasted-brown color, but it smelled good, and right now it was that or nothing, "You look hungry. Go on, it's good."

[crabmunicator]

Being on stationary ground after all that mess was a comfort. Sure, Shepard had kept them alive well enough. But zipping around at high speed, slamming full force into threats, or swinging around like crazy in effort to avoid what they can't kill - it got draining. Very draining. He had to sit down for a while once they finally got out of the car.

He was hungry, though. The trip hadn't been a short one, and he had only avoided a terrible case of carsickness by the fact he hadn't eaten recently before it. The meat did smell rather good.

"Thanks," he said as he took the chunk from her. It would have been nicer to have a plate and utensils, but Karkat wasn't too picky in the arena. The purple beneath the browning didn't bother him either. He was a troll; he'd eaten stranger things.

After he'd downed a few bites, he asked, "So, are those things from your universe, too?"

[earthborn]

"Yeah. Not Terran, though. I think they're some kind of Asari colonial fauna; invasive species," She bit into her own hunk, and chewed thoughtfully.

The sun was setting, painting the whole wide, hilly expanse of the desert in shades of red-orange and violet. It was beautiful, and you could see for miled out across the terrain. From this distance it wasn't hard to see the edge of the Thresher-nest, where the dunes became more pronounced and the edge of the flats curved away. Shepard took another bite.

"Stupid, though. They don't even have the sense to run away."

She and the cow, they had that much in common.

[crabmunicator]

His eyebrow lifted, curious, as he chewed another chunk. His gaze did draw back to the sunset as she looked. Sunsets and sunrise were when the sky got closest to Alternia's on Earth, and always stirred something strange and nostalgic in him. Even now it did, despite the more familiar sky set over the false Alternia in its section.

He'd have to get moving back that way, sooner or later. Preferably soon. It would be safer to travel during night.

But for now...

"You've never actually told me much about where you're from before. Training is always do this, do that, fix your stance, whatever." He looked back. "Spill the backstory, Shepard. I think surviving a crazy, death-courting desert car ride together should be enough to unlock that accomplishment."

[earthborn]

"What backstory? I was born on Earth, lived on the streets for as far back as I can remember, and enlisted the second I thought I was old enough to pass for legal. Never looked back."

That was bullshit, and she knew it. It wasn't even the shadow of the truth, so pithy that there wasn't anything left.

"I've had a few... Adventures, I guess, but-- who in this dump hasn't?" She gestured vaguely with her food, and a droplet of meaty juice fell onto her pant-leg like a spot of black blood, "What did you want to know, exactly?

[crabmunicator]

Karkat lowered his chunk of meat to turn a skeptical gaze on Shepard. Skeptical here meant much frowning.

"Don't hand me over that hoofbeast excrement and expect me to buy it. A few 'adventures' could mean anything when we're from completely separate universes. I could take up the whole night if I delved into the vast array of quote-unquote 'adventures' my long-suffering husk has been party to."

In an unintentional follow of her move, he pointed his food back at her to punctuate. "You're some space person who got to travel around in a ship and knows enough combat to have taught me for the better part of my time spent here. You had to have picked that up somehow, for some reason, and I know for a fact that honing the particulars doesn't come without lived experience. Spill. What were you doing out in space?"