Chapter Text
There are a good many eyes on them as they arrive.
This is not exactly a new phenomenon, of course. Over the perigees, Gamzee has pretty well grown used to the way that most people take note of him as he moves through polite society, or at least the portions of polite society available to someone who has nearly but not quite reached the status of an adult. Not just the wariness of kids confronted with a potentially violent indigo, but the caution of adults confronted with a potentially politically volatile adolescent. He knows the sensation of both flavors of nervousness well, now that he’s sober enough to take note.
There is perhaps less nervousness than usual to it this morning. He’s not sure whether that makes it more comfortable – people are less likely to do something stupid, but it’s also harder for him to get a bead on their mood if that mood is not predominantly scared in some way.
He’s also not sure when he got so goddamn dependent on his chucklevoodoo for insight into the people around him – or maybe it’s not something to worry about, maybe Gamzee’s just functioning as he ought to now and the worrisome part is that he spent sweeps deadening this sixth sense with toxic sopor.
Minstrels take him, he’s fucked up.
Terezi’s grip on his arm steady as they wend their way into the crowd in the legislacerator academy atrium. He’s a little surprised by the venue – isn’t the point that they’re done with this phase of training? But it’s a nice space, nicer than most of the areas he’s seen in this wing of the ship, especially with the lighting atmospherically dimmed and something sedately jazzy playing over the audio system.
The block is also more full than he’s seen it in a while – it hadn’t really occurred to him how much the pre-legi population had been dwindling over the perigees, until he sees them gathered en masse and mixed in with nearly as many higher ranking legislacerators.
“More grown-ass motherfuckers than I expected,” he comments under his breath, and Terezi shrugs.
“Mostly it’s officers who’ll end up supervising a Neophyte or two,” she explains. “This way they’ve got a chance to scope us out and maybe scramble to get someone to trade them intern assignments before the onboarding interviews later this week.”
“So if we can get it all together to impress some motherfuckers, shit will get you a leg up?” he asks.
“More or less,” she agrees. “Don’t sweat it, though! It’s a party.”
A party. Right. Not like those don’t have a habit of blowing up in his face, lately.
They haven’t been wandering long, when a familiar figure falls into step next to them. Rookwrit is… well, less severely disheveled than she usually is, having traded her baggy coat for the sharp red bolero of the legislacerator dress uniform. She might even have done something with her hair, although on the other hand that “something” might be “brushed it.” The bags under her eyes are about the same as ever.
“I take it the politically motivated murder went well?” she asks.
Terezi frowns. “Didn’t you… help with that?”
The older tealblood shrugs. “Just because it was necessary doesn’t mean it wasn’t a shit thing to do to someone,” she replies. “Both can be true. I happen to think that’s an important thing for someone in our position to remember.”
“Yeah, well, consider us as having fucking developed a complex over it,” growls Gamzee.
“However you want to process it,” Rookwrit says. She pulls a slim folder from her sylladex, holds it out to Terezi. “That thing you wanted me to look into.”
Terezi opens the folder; Gamzee has just long enough to register a page with a sizable block of text that, while printed in anonymized black, has the familiar rhythm of initial capitalization, before Rookwrit pushes the folder closed in the younger legislacerator’s hand. “I’d wait until you’ve got time to go over it in private,” the Legalist warns. “Too many eyes looking over too many shoulders here this morning.”
“Fair point,” Terezi allows, and slips the folder into the security of her sylladex. “Thanks.”
Rookwrit nods. “Let me know if you need any help following up on this.”
“You’re my best source,” says Terezi. “Assuming I have time to keep working on side projects once I’ve got my Neophyte posting, anyway. If I get too wrapped up in things I might ask Gamzee to pick this up for me.”
“I’d offer to try and get you on my department’s list,” Rookwrit says, “but we’re pretty full up already.”
“It’s fine! I’d rather have something a little less… settled down, anyway,” Terezi assures her. “I’d rather not spend the next several sweeps in a stuffy officeblock on the Levity.”
Rookwrit seems to consider this for a moment, and then nods. “Fair enough. Good luck,” she says, and then steps away again, heading for another newly minted Neophyte.
Gamzee watches her, a little curious as to who she’s talking to – one of the teal kids that he knows he’s seen a dozen times, but doesn’t actually know anything about, it turns out.
A few minutes later, though, he spots Staiko and Rossan, standing with a small knot of young legislacerators. Staiko looks up, meets his eye, and nods a little “get over here” nod; Gamzee grins, and settles a hand on Terezi’s shoulder. “Figure you can get yourself a moment out of important networking shit?” he asks. “There’s a motherfucker I said I’d introduce you to.”
“Who now?” she asks, although she lets him steer her in the right direction. “I though I’d already met all your friends.”
Gamzee shrugs. “Pretty near,” he admits. “You met all the pious motherfuckers last week? Staiko ain’t down with the clown.”
“Because he’s sensible, or because he’s got some other damage?” Terezi asks, but they approach the little group too quickly for Gamzee to have to worry about dignifying that with a response.
Rossan grins as they approach. “Hey! Mindseye, right? Gamzeementioned,” he says.
“That’s her,” Gamzee confirms, giving Terezi’s shoulder a little squeeze. “Sis, you met Rossan the other day. Other motherfucker’s Staiko. Staiko, get your acquaintance on my girl Mindseye.”
“Nice to meet you,” Terezi says with a nod.
“New names all around, yeah?” Gamzee asks, glancing around the group. He recognizes Caltra, and he knows he’s seen the other two teals around but he’s never actually been introduced. Just as well, probably. Less names to have to learn to stop using.
“Ah, yeah,” Staiko says, and quickly points out the two unfamiliar trolls - one the bookish, blunt-horned kid Gamzee’s pretty sure was hanging out with Sephar at the party, the second a taller boy with slicked-back hair and a confident posture – before hesitating on Caltra. “Vastscan, Keenmark, and, uh...”
“Trapstep,” Caltra supplies easily.
“Didn’t know you knew so many legal types, bro,” comments Gamzee.
Staiko shrugs. “I mean, Ca- Trapstep’s with Rossan,” he points out.
“Speakingof,” Rossan says, looking over toward the entrance, and reaching to grab Caltra’s hand. “Looks like Hemion finally got here. C’mon, Trapstep, you invited him, you gotta makenice.”
She groans, but allows her auspistice to drag her away. There’s a brief, awkward silence in their wake.
“...He’s less obnoxious than I expected,” Vastscan says finally. “Based on how you talk about him, I mean.”
“Usually there’s more overt flirting,” Staiko admits, and Gamzee chuckles in agreement. “It’s honestly a little weird to see him so… focused.”
There’s the faint sound of a phone going off inside a sylladex, and Keenmark looks a little sheepish as he fishes it out. He blinks at the screen for a moment. “Weird. Ungeun’s freaking the hell out… he’s sending a link.”
“He knows we’re busy, yeah?” Vastscan asks, leaning over to look at the screen himself.
“He should...” Keenmark tilts the phone obligingly; Vastscan isn’t the only one peering at the screen as a video window opens. “Another one of these?”
On the screen, the camera is a little wobbly, as Feferi grins and beckons whoever’s filming to follow her. She pushes through a nondescript set of doors into a broad hanger bay, chattering as she goes. “So, there hasn’t been a lot of official response to the last time I talked to you all – which yes, I know things take time! But last time was so formal, I thought maybe someone thought I was just playing around when I said I was going to have to seize the throne. So this time we’re gonna let down our hair a little and meet a few of the other folks helping out!”
“Hey, do either of you know where Metawing is?” The camera turns, following her, and a couple of other trolls come into shot, and Gamzee’s bloodpusher just about stops in his chest. Nepeta looks much the same as she ever has, though moreso, hair wild and coat slung over her shoulder. He barely glances at her, though – because there next to her, in a four-wheeled device modified to accommodate the wings now neatly folded behind him, is Tavros.
He looks – he looks amazing. Tavros always looks amazing, as far as Gamzee’s concerned, but even accounting for that the perigees and the pupation have been good to him. There’s something about the way his shoulders move as he turns the chair toward Feferi and her cameratroll that makes Gamzee’s heart catch in his throat, that makes him abruptly question why he thinks he could convincingly pretend to be flushed for Terezi.
“She’s, uh, finishing up on the Pique, I think,” Tavros offers, and his voice is a bit deeper than Gamzee remembers. A bit deeper, but still very much the same voice – he hadn’t been sure if he even remembered anymore, what his matesprit sounds like, but he hears it and it’s like he never left.
“Thanks, Windskim!” Feferi chirps, and the camera swings away far too soon for Gamzee’s wishes. He wants to tell the others to stop, to go back; wants to linger for a moment on the delighted, proud look on Tavros’s face when Feferi uses what he can only presume is his matesprit’s new adult title. Only with a colossal effort of will does he keep his mouth shut and an expression of mild interest on his face as the recording follows the heiress around the nose of a light patrol ship to where an exterior helm access panel stands open. Feferi raps her knuckles on the exterior of the ship and a skinny goldblood with stick-straight horns swings down, apparently hanging by her knees from something inside the structure and holding a scalpel in her teeth. She grins, shifting the knife to a psionic grip that occasionally sparkles with the same gold and magenta that flash inconsistently in her eyes and reflect off the multiple piercings studding her face.
“Oh, hey, are we doing another propaganda ‘cast?” she asks. “Cool. Hey, galaxy, better watch your six.”
“Helmsman Metawing’s doing some very exciting work with helm engineering,” Feferi explains.
“Shouldn’t be anything special, but it is,” Metawing agrees cheerfully. “Because hey? Seriously? The Imperial helm industry wouldn’t know the cutting edge if it bit them. I’ve been at this like a quarter of a sweep and I’ve got just as good of engines with wildly less helmsman upkeep. Better maybe? Depends on what you’re measuring.”
“Good enough that our ships keep catching Imperial craft, anyway,” Feferi agrees, and Metawing laughs.
“Well, that’s probably more because we’ve got some great people flying them, honestly,” she admits easily. “That and the fact that giving the helmsman the helm neatly corrects for that well known issue where most imperial craft handle like wounded cholerbears? Turns out the way your ancestor’s got people doing shit sucks, Heritrix.”
“Not arguing there,” Feferi agrees.
Perhaps there’s more to the conversation; that’s the point where Staiko reaches out and plucks the phone out of Keenmark’s hand and shuts the video off. His attention torn suddenly from the video, Gamzee’s suddenly all to aware of the way that Terezi’s gone carefully, tensely still at his side – not like she’s spooked so much as like she’s studying the others.
Keenmark mostly seems confused; Vastscan’s doing a pretty good job of playing it cool, but playing it cool doesn’t do anything to keep him from reading as pretty fucking freaked out, to Gamzee’s chucklevoodoo.
“No wonder-” Vastscan begins.
“Shut up, Benthi,” Staiko warns, his words accompanied by a touch of chucklevoodoo – not aimed at Gamzee, but strong enough and near enough that it echoes slightly in Gamzee’s horns nontheless.
It’s stranger, honestly, than the tealblood’s reaction. Staiko barely ever uses his chucklevoodoo like that, even when the rest of their cohort are casually slinging nervousness at each other. Gamzee turns his attention a little more on his classmate, gets a brush of deep unease before Staiko turns to glare at him and he hastily pulls his extrasensory perception back to himself.
He has no idea what’s going on with Staiko, but he thinks he agrees – this is not the time or the place to pursue it.
It’s Terezi who breaks the brittle silence. “Well, I hate to be awkward and run, but I just heard someone I wanted to talk to over there,” she says.
Gamzee gratefully grasps at her blatant opening. “Fuck, then, we oughta hunt them out,” he agrees.
“It was… good to meet you,” Staiko says. He’s clearly still a little off-balance, but the pleasantry rings true enough, and Terezi grins at him as she hooks her arm through Gamzee’s and starts to pull him away.
“Same!” she assures him, and then the two of them have peeled off into the crowd, and mutters, “You ok, Gamzee?”
He swallows, his tongue heavy in his mouth, and nods slowly. “Yeah. Fuck. He’s ok.”
“They said he would be!” she reminds him. “Get a hold of yourself, though, we are still up to our asses in law enforcement here.”
She’s right, of course. He can’t afford to get in his feelings now, even if those feelings are overwhelmingly positive.
Luckily, it seems that for her current purposes his input is not really needed; he’s not sure how she does it, but Terezi proceeds to spend the next forty minutes or so flitting from conversation to conversation like a very pointy butterfly, and he’s not called on to do much more than be polite and acknowledge the various legislacerators’ presence. He hopes she doesn’t expect him to remember names or specialties later, because there seem to be a lot of both.
Of course, if she ends up under the supervision of one of them, he probably is going to look like an asshole for not remembering them – but then, he looks like an asshole a lot of the time.
And then, as he’s finally feeling like he’s gathered his wits again, he spots a familiar adult heading their way – dressed in a slightly more ornate version of the legislacerator uniform, with the red highlights set off by deep blue rather than teal. Crossed horns and an aquiline profile, seared into Gamzee’s memory with one of the less pleasant experiences he’s had since conscription, although to be fair that experience hadn’t been the legislacerator’s doing.
Gamzee rests a hand on Terezi’s shoulder and leans in to mutter, “Ain’t fucking gonna be a plan with no wisdom on it to try and get untruthful up at this motherfucker.”
He can only hope that she takes the warning to heart.
“Makara. You’re looking well,” Overseer Vextruth says in greeting as he approaches.
Gamzee shrugs. “Thanks. Not like it’s hard for a motherfucker to be looking better than as all I was last you saw me,” he points out.
The Overseer chuckles, although Gamzee suspects he might just be humoring him. “His Levity mentioned you’d formed an attachment to one of our new Neophytes,” he comments, and his gaze turns to Terezi.
“Uh, yeah, this is -” Gamzee begins, not sure what to say that won’t arouse the adult’s suspicions. It would help if he had a better idea of how Vextruth’s powers functioned, beyond being difficult to deceive.
Terezi, however, shrugs off Gamzee’s protective grasp as he flounders, and salutes sharply. “Neophyte Mindseye, sir,” she introduces herself. “Don’t mind him, he’s embarrassed because he went and told the Grand Highblood we’re flushed without asking me first.”
That’s… ok, that’s definitely one way to put the truth of it. Gamzee grimaces sheepishly. “Chica gave me kinda a hard time over it,” he admits.
“Is there a reason you didn’t want it known?” Vextruth asks.
“Legal girl’s more than fucking capable of getting shit done on her own merits,” Gamzee says – consistent with what he’d told his ancestor, and true enough. “Ain’t no call for motherfuckers to be asking no questions bout whether she earned shit or whether she’s just got me.”
This draws another dry laugh from the legislacerator officer, but he seems to accept it. “High-minded of you. Maybe unnecessarily so,” he comments, and then speaking directly to Terezi, “There’s no shame in leveraging your matesprit’s connections, Neophyte.”
“Oh, I plan on it,” she says, with enough conviction that it’s just a little alarming when Gamzee knows perfectly well what her actual matesprit’s actual connections consist of. “I just didn’t want to draw too much attention to myself before I was out of schoolfeeding.”
As deftly as Terezi is navigating this, Gamzee’s still a little ill at ease, and he grasps for a chance to turn the discussion away from Terezi’s relationship status. “Didn’t all up and expect to see yourself here, Overseer,” he comments. “I’d got the impression you was pretty damn well settled on… fuck, whatever other ship that was, I ain’t sure anyone told me proper.”
“The Sobriety,” the adult supplies.
Gamzee can’t help laughing, an abrupt bark of amusement that he swallows quickly. “Motherfucking ironic as shit, that.”
“We don’t see a great many assaults by drugging,” Vextruth informs him dryly.
“Aight, ok, I’m not unfamiliar with having to be a special case,” Gamzee sighs.
“I expect you aren’t,” the adult acknowledges. “At any rate, my department’s due some fresh blood this sweep. I suspect you’d prefer to keep Neophyte Mindseye close at hand, though?”
Before Gamzee has quite grasped the implication of the question, Terezi’s speaking up again. “I was hoping for a field agent posting, actually.”
Vextruth looks to Gamzee, arching an eyebrow. “And you don’t object to your matesprit’s absence?”
“Oh, I fucking object,” Gamzee groans. “Just I fucking object more to thinking as I’d get in a motherfucker’s way on account of I care, get me? And this girl here ain’t gonna do the shit she’s hatched to do if I’m fucking sitting on her.”
For a moment, as Vextruth fixes him with a thoughtful look, Gamzee worries that he’s mixed too many unlike truths, that the adult’s on to him. If he’s suspicious, though, Vextruth doesn’t call out that suspicion, just comments, “That’s very noble of you.”
“He’s got his moments,” Terezi agrees, taking Gamzee’s hand in hers and leaning her head against his arm in what is probably a carefully calculated display of affection but also manages to poke him directly in the shoulder with the sharp tip of her horn.
“She just likes when I buy her food,” says Gamzee, and Terezi cackles and elbows him. “Speaking of, we probably better get our asses moving soon, yeah, sister?”
“Is it that late already?” she asks, sounding a little surprised; but then, he supposes, the morning has probably passed a lot faster for her than it has for him.
“Pretty near,” Gamzee confirms. They’re not in any danger of missing their plans, but it’s getting late enough that it makes a convenient excuse to disengage. He turns an apologetic grin to Vextruth. “We got dinner reservations waiting on us.”
“I want to talk to a couple more people before we go. I’ll be quick about it,” she says, and then turning back to Vextruth, “Sorry to run off on you, Overseer.”
The adult chuckles. “No you’re not, not particularly,” he replies – he sounds good-humored about it, but it’s still a reminder that insincerity doesn’t obfuscate anything from him. “I won’t keep you, though. It was good to see you again, Makara.”
A conversation with another of his elders comes suddenly to mind, and Gamzee smiles crookedly. “Yeah? Glad for my own company, or just hoping as to win more bets off of Blackice on account of my not getting my dumb ass culled?”
“She mentioned that to you, did she?” Vextruth sighs. “It’s the former - if it brings you any peace of mind, she’s declined to re-up that particular wager. You must have impressed her during the Imperial season.”
Gamzee’s not sure whether he ought to care about impressing her, but he can’t help feeling a bit of a swell of pride at the news of Blackice’s approval, anyway. “Huh. Uh, give her my best, I guess? Shit don’t go real sideways and I’m sure you’ll see her well up before I do.”
“Let us hope,” the legislacerator agrees, and with a nod of acknowledgment to Terezi, he turns away into the crowd.