three ♓ video;

[cullscuttlefish]

[Feferi looks...tired. That's all you can really say about her, when she lets the video come on. She looks like she hasn't slept much, and she looks like she's gone somewhere to cry for a few minutes before calming down enough to speak.]

H-hi, everyone. I hope everyone's all right?

I - mm. I was going to ask whether or not anyone else's roommates weren't waking up, but...

Please be all right, Sayaka.

...what do you do when this place finally gets to you? I've been trying not to - to let it, but...I think I just really need some friends right now. I was up by the aquarium earlier and I think I'm gonna go back up there.

[She wipes at her eyes, and she thinks she's cut the feed, but:]

...it's never easy, this whole 'actually needing to step up and make decisions' princess stuff...

Comments

[hystericull]

[Every word she's saying sounds just dead on. He tries offering a sympathetic smile, but it doesn't really come out right, so his face just sort of twists up awkwardly.]

This motherfucker be feeling every syllable you got to be spewing, yo. Towerland ain't been what's fuckin' nothing but shits and motherfuckin' miseries for all a long fucking while, now. Up and wrings the motherfucking happy outta every motherfuckin' inch of you, it all does.

Anything this brother can be at doing for a beached motherfucking glubberfish?

[He holds up his hands curiously, not sure what he can offer, but that old, stupid part of him just wanted to keep making sure he took care of his friends the best he could. Ironic, given past events. He really wasn't sure what or who he was anymore.]

[cullscuttlefish]

It does. It can just about make you forget what happy even means, even if it's right there. You know, but you just get so glubbing down in the muck that...yeah.

[She's quiet for a minute. It's been too damn long since she's seen most of the crew from back home. She's been trying to keep tabs on new arrivals, but it's a lot to keep track of.]

Yeah. There's one thing that only a clownfish can do. I need a gigantic hug. Can that be a thing?

[hystericull]

Sure!

[The reply came out a little too quickly. Feferi was a link to everything he remembered and everything he used to be. She was always around to cheer the others up, and seeing her down made him want to dig up his old, jubilant self to put a smile back on her fishface.]

Ain't no motherfucking limit on these clownhugs, girl. ...Where you say you bein' all at, again?

[cullscuttlefish]

[It didn't sound too fast, not to her. If she was honest with herself, it hurt Feferi deep down to hear Gamzee sounding so empty. That wasn't like him at all, and she didn't like that, not one bit. It made her want to apologize for letting her feelings get the best of her, even if she knew that was stupid.]

How's about I come find you, Gamzee? Where are you?

[hystericull]

[That was absurd and she should feel absurd for thinking that way. In fact, her being so down was making him want to cheer up to cheer her up. Reverse gloom therapy!]

[He looked around, as if he'd forgotten where he'd parked himself today to waste away on the network. Ah. Books and shit. The library. Why the fuck did he pick the snoozeplace!?]

Motherfucking Naptown. Popu-fucking-lation: books.

-> action;

[cullscuttlefish]

All right. I'll come find you.

[It takes a minute, but she does. The funny part? He says it's the snoozeplace, but he's parked himself right around the joke books.]

Hey, Gamzee.

[She settles down right next to him, then turns, opening her arms for a hug.]

[hystericull]

[Wow, it would have taken him a lot longer to find her. Maybe it was a good idea that she came to him, instead of vice-versa. Lords, he was still hunched over the network terminal like a crazed thing. He wasn't startled like he usually would be when meeting up with someone. Usually he'd get absorbed in the network again, forget they were even coming, and get the wits scared out of him when they finally did arrive.]

[Feferi's entrance was fluid and anything but abrasive. Gamzee leaned back from the terminal as she addressed him, cracking a few kinks out of his back and neck that had formed from the hideous position he'd just been in.]

[She was sitting next to him at the terminal, turned sideways and holding her arms out. It would make for a mediocre hug at best, the way they were positioned. Certainly not any hug fit for a princess.]

[Using her open arms as as good an opportunity as any, he placed his hands on her underarms, hoisting her up as he rose from his chair. Their height difference had Feferi well off the ground as Gamzee got to his feet. It was pretty easy to hold her up, despite his stupid sickly-skinny arms. Anyway, back to hug business. He pulled the little fish against him, wrapping his arms now around her back and swinging her back and forth a little as she dangled in midair.]

Hey, Feferi.

[cullscuttlefish]

[She snuggles up into his arms, laying her head on his shoulder and letting her legs dangle. While that's happening, she hums a little, an old sea song her lusus used to sing when Feferi got fussy when she was a grub. It's always been soothing to her, and she hopes it's soothing to Gamzee, too.

She rubs his back a little, letting him hug her as long as he needs. What she isn't saying: she needs it just as much. There's a lot left unsaid, a lot of hurt that hasn't been healed.]

[hystericull]

[He was okay through this whole thing. He was going to help Feferi and she was going to help him and they were going to comfort each other through this. He knew hugs - he was fluent in hugs, and he was fluent in hugging dear friends.]

[What he was not fluent in, however, were the methods of dealing with the lullaby that she'd begun to sing. Though he was unfamiliar with the tune, the melody itself had very distinct characteristics, which Feferi's voice carried wonderfully. The flow of the wordless verses, the changes in pitch and tune held so much of the sea in their notes that it brought back the memory of a feeling he'd long forgotten. A feeling of salt and surf and spray, of the depths he'd endlessly peered into but could never reach. Depths that had, at one point or another, taken things from him to a place that he could not follow.]

[It had been so long since he'd been soothed with a seasong like this. It was lovely in all sense of the word, but it made his chest clench quite painfully, made his arms tighten their hold a little, made him bite his trembling lip and promptly tuck it shamefully in the crook of Feferi's shoulder as he stood, completely transfixed by her song.]