BONUS ROUND 4

[hso_mods]

Bonus Round 4

Mobius Double Reacharound FST - Revisited


Hi shippers! Welcome to Bonus Round 4! Bringing back a favourite from last year! (Sorry for the delay, we're very busy!)

Here’s how this is going to work: somebody will submit a selection of 3-6 songs without comment. Then somebody else will come along and create a companion fanwork to fit the soundtrack!

Rules

1. If you are submitting a soundtrack: submit only the track listing and download or youtube links. The idea is that people should ~interpret~ your selections!


2. You are not allowed to fill soundtrack prompts with your team's ship, nor are you allowed to fill your own soundtracks. (Filling your team's soundtracks is okay!)


3. Soundtracks count for 5 points each, for a maximum of 100 points per team.


4. Fills may be in whatever format you choose (except FST, of course) so long as they link the songs by mood and/or lyrics in some kind of narrative.


5. Post your fill as a comment to the prompt post, using the title format described below.


6. This challenge will run until 11:59PM EST August 3rd.

Title Format
If you are starting a new thread, please use this format in your title.
SOUNDTRACK: TEAM [YOUR SHIP]
Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team YOU belong to; please use the characters and quadrant, not whatever portmanteau or nickname you've come up with.
If your team name is not in this format and in the title we cannot guarantee that it will be counted.

If you are filling a prompt, use this format in your title.
FILL: TEAM [YOUR SHIP]
Replace [YOUR SHIP] with the name of the team YOU belong to; please use the characters and quadrant, not whatever portmanteau or nickname you've come up with.
If your team name is not in this format and in the title we cannot guarantee that it will be counted.

Posts not using this format in the title will be understood to be unofficial discussion posts, no matter what they contain. They, like all comments on the comm, are subject to the Wank Policy.

Scoring
For prompt posts: 5 points each (maximum of 100 per team)

For Fills (as stated here)
First 5 entries per team: 30 (per entry)
Entries 6-10: 20 (per entry)
Entries 11-15: 10 (per entry)
Entries 16+: 5 (per entry)

All scored content must be created/assembled new for this round.

We would prefer that any questions about this challenge or anything else in the HSO be emailed to us at homestuck.shipping AT gmail!

Comments

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM ERIDAN<>ROSE

[thelawisnotmocked]

1. Not A Pretty Girl by Ani DiFranco
2. Still Fighting It by Ben Folds
3. Round Here by Counting Crows

FILL: TEAM Eridan <3< Vriska

[myrrh_darkwing]

She's not a pretty girl. That's not for her. She's a beautiful girl, all long-legged awkwardness and vicious claws and no one but you thinks so. You think she'd look even better with that beautiful cerulean blood staining anything and everything you can reach, and you're definitely the only one who thinks that.

She's not a vulnerable girl. She's no maiden in distress hidden up in a shining crystal tower waiting for her Prince to come. Only, she is vulnerable, just in a different way that you're the only one who ever sees. You see her when she cries after her very first (ruined, mangled) kill, and you see her when she laughs before her friends. You like being the only one to see this, since you know you're the only one she'll trust enough to show.

She's not a flawless girl. Not by any stretch of the word. She's cracked and mad and violent and not really that murderous but has an overwhelming need to survive. But it's okay. No one's flawless, really; even you have issues, though you hide them better than most. You don't mind.

She's not a strong girl. Not like she boasts and wants everyone to believe. She talks like a lion but you get her alone and you know her, pretend to really know her, and she acts like a lamb. She relies on you to comb the tangles from her unkempt hair and soothe all her worries away. Everyone knows growing up hurts, but everybody does, and you'll force her to whether or not she wants to (it's for her own good).

She's not a sane girl. Maybe none of you are, but she dreams more than most and immerses herself so fully in those mad dreams. You think she might be one of the most broken of you all, often mistaking fantasy for what truly goes. Even when she shakes her head at you and tells you, "It's all just in my head. All of it." You can't believe her, because if you don't, who else will dare?

She's not a loveable girl, not at all. And yet, for some reason, you do. She could be the centre of your world if you let her.

Now, though, you are twelve and you have no choice but to believe in each other to let each other survive. You don't think she's seeing that, though. You can already feel her slipping-- slipping away.

SOUNDTRACK: Team Bro<3John

[ivori]

Cinema - Benny Benassi
Beautiful Girls/Stand By Me - Boyce Avenue cover
I am Zero - Iko
Good To You - Marianas Trench

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM ERIDAN<>ROSE

[thelawisnotmocked]

1. Audience of One by Rise Against
2. Miss Impossible by Poets of the Fall
3. Opheliac by Emilie Autumn

FILL: TEAM Eridan <3< Vriska

[myrrh_darkwing]

Love, love, sweet Feferi love, can you hear me singing? I sing songs of screams with a throat full of rust for anyone miles away in void-space to never hear, and they're requiems for you...

im so sorry fef i didnt mean to i swwear

wwhy did you get in the wway

oh god fef please wwake up

please

I still remember you from the time we first met, when you were tiny and black-haired and beautiful, dancing barefoot and naked in the rain. Sundown to sundown to alwaves, swaying freely, all of your responsibilities and tasks seemed to float away with the current of the icy dashing rain, and you're freed. The water is cool, calming you down, purifying you. Pacifying you in the way I never could.

I wish that I'd been able to do something aside from fight, from punch and strife and watch my beautifully royal blood stain anything and everything around us. I've always been so proud of that blood. Guessing maybe now it's because I had nothing else to take pride in...

Oh, Feferi! I can still remember the words we pledged and what they meant, when we said we knew each other and so whitely hugged each other and promised to stay by each other's sides all their lives. Our moirallegiance could have been the best. It should have been the best, with seadwellers the both of us, the best of them all! The days blurred into each other then, when I knew nothing except you, and I would that it had stayed that way. I'd hang on to those days and never let them go-

- but I'd give them all up if only you'd just open your eyes.

I would have brought down the sky for you and written your name in the clouds. You gave my emptiness a name and you took a part of my heart for yourself, a part that you never gave back when you said no, no, let's just be fronds. You put a hole through my heart, Fef, sweet Feferi love; all I did was return the favour. Fair's fair, no? Just please, wake up! Don't leave me here alone!

I couldn't be your friend, my world was too unstable. My world still is, you just got in the way, why? I would have made it all better. All beta, just for you, Feferi, alwaves and anyfin for you.

But you were never able to keep me breathing and the water breaks over my head as I breathe one last time and the world goes solar-flare white as something kisses through my side.

My name is Eridan-- your name is Eridan Ampora, and you have nothing left.

You've killed it all.

(and you can take the responsibility i nev(v)er have)

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM ARADIA<3FEFERI

[hoodedscarlet]

Fever - Peggy Lee
Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words) - Diana Krall
Why Don't You Do Right - Jessica Rabbit Version

FILL: Team John<3Rose

[jelajade]

Jade and Rose take the preforming arts scene by storm

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM ARADIA<3SOLLUX

[thebowagirl]

Mine by Christina Perri
Who Knew by P!nk
Colorblind by Say Anything

FILL: TEAM Eridan <3< Vriska

[myrrh_darkwing]

This isn't how it goes.

Karkat explains what happened as Vriska kneels by the body with green seeping into gold and fingers twisted through hair too short for her to get the kind of grip she needs right now. To get a grip on anything like she needs, because she’s going to fall to pieces if she doesn’t, what with all the crazy talk Karkat is babbling on and on and on. At first, all she can think of is how perfect it could have been. Eridan storms in, announces his intended treason, duels and blinds Sollux (‘cause who really cares about that arrogant little snot anyway, certainly not her), turns the wand on Feferi — and is blasted to pieces when it backfires due to a sudden lethal luck deficiency. Oops, her bad, but funnily enough everyone turns to stare at her, shell-shocked and awestruck, and suddenly she isn't the crazy one anymore.

Suddenly, she’s the hero, as it should always have been and now actually really truly is. Hmm, maybe she should let him kill Feferi so no one can say that she acted too quickly or that he didn't deserve to die, but no—Feferi’s never been anything but friendly to her, and Vriska doesn't want her to be dead, so she gets to live, and anyone soft-skulled and rotten-panned enough to doubt that Vriska did the Hard But Necessary Thing like the big damn hero she is can kiss her nook. She might forgive them (magnanimity is a virtue) eventually, if they beg for it, worship her like the god and hero she is.

That's the right reality; this one is all wrong. Important things don't happen when she's not around to be part of them. Important people don't die. Kanaya doesn't check out before she can watch Vriska kill the demon and see once and for all that her moirail isn't a stupid little girl anymore. Is this what she gets for wasting time on Tavros? That can't be it; she can do all of the things and play all of the roles — all of them, all of the time. If she wants to kill someone, everyone else with a homicidal agenda needs to wait in line, that means you Eridan—

Wait a minute, you don’t need to know. Whoever you are, that’s been watching her, you don’t need to know how it really went. All you need to know it how it’s supposed to go, the one in the reality that’s all right.

"I did kill Tavros," she blurts out suddenly, glaring at the girl before her, the quiet girl who lets Vriska vent as she always did when she… when she was alive. Alive like she still should be, because (not that she’s admitting it or anything) it’s now that she needs her moirail more than ever.

"Oh God, what?" says Karkat, but she isn't talking to him. Why would she be, when he’s just useless, not the hero she should be or the leader he claims to be? When there’s nothing—not a single damn thing—he can do to make this reality the way it should be. The way she needs it to be, only it isn’t, but instead she just glares more at a girl she once thought was practically immortal. Fighting off zombies and revenants and daywalkers-evil and who knows what else, only now… to die at the hands of an arrogant sea-thing? No. This isn’t how it should be at all.

"I killed Tavros," she repeats. "It was his own stupid fault for challenging me to a duel, but he's so far beneath me I could have snubbed him. I just didn't want to." She yanks on Kanaya's hair, jerking her head around without resistance, her anger only growing at the blank stare in those glassy eyes. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to touch Kanaya again, hug her and know that there was still something there for her in those marvellously expressive dead eyes. She wishes she could still call her her friend, and what she wouldn’t give for those days to be back again and the reality playing out in her mind to not be as utterly unreal as it seems to be. "Are you listening, Maryam?” she spits instead, refusing to admit her eyes are wetter than they should be. She’s the Big Damn Hero, she doesn’t do something so pathetically weaky-weak as cry. “You liked him, riiiiiiiight? That's what you get for not paying attention to your moirail!"

"Oh fuck no," says Karkat. "Not three of you."

Three of them? He’s babbling gibberish again, just has he has been the whole sarden time, because Kanaya isn’t dead and Eridan isn’t as nuts as murdering a girl she could have sworn was his friend and she’s the hero. She’s the hero. She’s got to be the hero, because if she’s not the hero none of this has any meaning whatsoever and therefore it’s all wrong-! “What’s her deal, anyway?” Vriska snaps to conceal her burgeoning… ah, distress, that’s as good a term as any.

He looks at her like she’s a moron. When he speaks again, she thinks she is, and always has been. “She loved you, you bitch.”

That shuts Vriska up — but only for a moment. Then she screams, and the room floods with light as violently bright as the Alternian sun.

“This isn’t how it goes,” she whispers, a single tear tinged cerulean dripping down her face and falling through the green-gashed bleeding hole. “This isn’t how it goes at all.” What has she got to do to make them all realise… she can’t love? She doesn’t know how to love, doesn’t deserve to love, and why can’t she find out just why she’s broken enough to not be able to love the one troll who really, truly mattered?

“No,” he agrees softly, too-softly, and when she looks back up it’s with horribly pale eyes.

And here comes the sadness she’s grown to hate so much, that lonely aching coming from each all-wrong word and too-wrong touch. But it’s a change from the void, from the all-encompassing nothingness of memory’s picture gallery. The grays and blacks and replaying of her life in ways she can almost pretend are real, and…

This isn’t how it goes.

It never has been.

But does it hurt so terribly much to play pretend?

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM ARADIA<3SOLLUX

[icylily]

Violet Hill-Coldplay
The Catalyst-Linkin Park
Strawberry Swing-Coldplay

FILL: TEAM Eridan <3< Vriska

[myrrh_darkwing]

They sit together on a hilltop where the skies were lit with blood and the sun scorched all that it gave life to—where every moment was precious, because in the next the person beside you could be gone. The clouds drip acid down onto the few scraggly, burnt trees that have somehow managed to survive, and all those who ever needed sopor find it putrid and infested with the black rot of death. It’s good there aren’t many left who need the crutch of sopor, now.

Memories bloom and decay all around them, a trick of the rain Rose insists she can play, even with her deathly white eyes and terrifyingly normal grey skin. Somehow, even as irrational as their self-styled therapist is by now, she’s managed to survive. And she’s managed to keep a few of them with her, through bargains with the darkest powers of the furthest rings and a willingness to take all the rot of their Ends into herself for safe-keeping.

No one knows what’s happened, or what’s happening still. It just started one day as the grass faded to grey and burned away and the clouds grew thick enough to obscure the sun. Even so, they go to sleep every unspecified-time-of-whenever with symphonies of blindingly harsh light playing out on their lids.

“We’re gonna burn someday,” Vriska predicted, her mouth stained rotten with teal (the reason for her tears), her wings twitching and shaking, edges all bent and creased, the blue drained right out of them. Rose was certain that she could reach out, pinch one between her fingers and make it turn to ash, just like a moth's. They couldn’t have been good for flying. Couldn't have been good for anything but to send flashes of pain through Vriska as they continued to wilt as her body rotted. Rose was the one to put her out of her misery, to take her life-force for her own, but she still remembered the other god of luck losing all faith in such a thing, and her last whispered words, “It hurts, hurts so much, Rose. Burns with the fire of a thousand suns…”

Kanaya’s death was far less dramatic, really, but far more meaningful since Rose had managed to protect her for so long. Rose had just been waking up from what she would've once described as a nap but now thinks of as a spate of unconsciousness, vision bleary at the edges. She blinked, causing something in her eyelids to crunch, and the blurred smudges of her vision, like fingerprints pressed to her retina, refused to fade fade. Eridan stood beside her, only recognisable from the shape of his gills; and in the next moment, he's bowed his head and bitten Kanaya's shoulder. She strangled him in an eyeblink with a tendril of festering shadow, but the damage was done. The two (three?) people who’d mattered most to her from this strange alien race, the three others of hers already long-dead (at least they went out like heroes, even if she can’t remember how—none of this slow rotting and waiting for them).

Nepeta watches her from her position curled up in her meowrail’s arm-and-a-half, her golden eyes the only ones that haven’t been torn from a face by the rot dragging them all down. She doesn’t say a thing, for her tongue did rot away, and the last time she swallowed her throat caved in. Equius isn’t much better off, but Rose thinks he’s still alive in the vaguest of senses. It’s fitting, that they’ll die together, the two best palemates in existence. The two last trolls of the entire race. Moirallegiance is diamond because it lasts furever, but bodies are fragile and nothing like eternal-- and eventually betray even the best in the end.

And Rose wishes she could have had something like that for herself, instead of watching the two girls die and not watching her three best friends die. Instead of crouching here like she is, curled around a whitewashed body, the only one of them who shows no visible signs of how she died.

“If you love me,” she whispers, her voice raspy and harsh and of no use anymore with no one to talk to, “won’t you let me know?”

There’s no response, and it’s only hours later that a beautifully grimdark girl is the only one of this whole world to be left alive. The world is hers, every goddamn bit of it, and…

The queen is dead. Long live the queen.

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM ARADIA<3SOLLUX

[icylily]

Bottle It Up- Sara Barreilles
Rolling Girl- Wowaka-P
Here It Goes Again- Okgo

FILL: TEAM SLICK<3<SNOWMAN

[denialdelirium]

"Nepeta, what are you doing there with your back against a tree? .. Are those tears I smell?.. The mighty dragoness reluctantly returns the cub-"
"No! That's-that's not- Oh, Terezi.. I don't think Karkitty likes me very much.."
"Pfft! Who does he like? Why are you even worrying about it?"
"I worry fur- I worry because I'm.. Purrhaps, I might be- Terezi!"
"The dragoness licks away the lioness' tasty sour apple tears! You don't have to say anything."
"Why are you-?"
"I do it because I like you, Nepeta... Besides, the terrible dragoness is hungry and does not want to relinquish her prize!"

--

It's a rather quick painting. I had to fill this because of Rolling Girl. It's one of my favorite Vocaloid songs.

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM ARADIA<3SOLLUX

[icylily]

Matyoshka- Hachi
Pumped Up Kicks- Foster the People
F*** You- Lily Allen

FILL: TEAM ARADIA<3ROSE

[rakopandaowl]

TW: suicide and murder

Her lips quirked into an upright position. It was a subtle gesture on her part, after all no one would see. Cars raced below, the wind was cold and wispy like short rugged breaths.

"Rose?"

The small figure of Rose Lalonde shifted her eyes to a boy of striking resemblance.

Rose gave no response, simply adjust her scarf. It was cold out, about 40 degrees if she remembered correctly, and her brother Dave had come to meet his sister on top of her apartment building.

"So what's this about?" Dave bit his lip, he was freezing.

"You should know." Rose replied.

"I should?"

"Yes."

"Well I don't know. So you'll have to explain." Dave knew his sister had some issues. He was well aware of her schizophrenia and he had decided to humor her and go up to the roof, knowing she had no reason for him, or her for that matter, to be there.

"They told me to get rid of you." She fumbled with the clasp on a shoulder bag.

There were voices in Rose's head. They told her to break things, they told her to not take her medicine, they told her to hurt herself. The voices had slowly broken her down, and made her someone from a nightmare. Her arms slashed with white lines and stitches, her apartment a disaster of broken wizard states and plates. She sought help from her brother, who moved to New York from Texas to help her.

"Your friends?"

"Yes." She replied. "They don't like you at all."

"Rose, I want you to come with me. We're going to get your medicine and you're going to take a nap. Okay?" Knowing she would forget what her "friends" told her if she took a long nap.

"No."

Or she could be difficult.

"Yes, Rose."

"No."

He stepped towards her small frame, if it came to it he could carry her back. "Rose, you're being ridiculous."

"Don't come closer to me." She spat.

He ignored her.

"Stop."

He pressed onward.

"Dave I said stop." Her hands shook. She pulled something out of the bag.

Nothing moved. Dave's heart felt like it had stopped. "Where did you get a gun?"

She raised the barrel of the weapon, clenching it in her hands until her knuckles turned white. Knees shaking, eyes blank, she placed her index finger on the trigger.

"Woah, Rose. Rose listen to me." Dave stumbled backwards, he put up his right hand defensively, "You don't have to listen to your friends. You don't have to do what they say."

Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. "I do." She pulled back.

Everything moved in slow motion. Her brother fell back, his head smashing on the concrete roof. The bullet lodged perfectly above his left eye. Heels tapped as she walked over to his still frame.

Sunglasses were removed, his red eyes frozen open in fear. She ran her fingers through the bloody blonde mess, planting a light kiss on top of his head. "I forgot" She murmured, resting her head on his chest, and wrapping her arm over his protectively. The barrel of the gun raised to her head.

"They want me gone, too."

Bang

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM ARADIA<3SOLLUX

[icylily]

Love Song- Sara Barreilles
Smile- Lily Allen
Blame it on the Girls- Mika

FILL: TEAM Eridan <3< Vriska

[myrrh_darkwing]

When you first left me, I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know how I’d hurt you or even what I’d done at all, and was absolutely terrified of doing anything—anyfin—for fear it might just hurt you more. I went through the motions of krilling and culling and feeding, knowing it needed to be done and-

- well, whale, you could hardly do it, isn’t that right? You’ve always hated to krill, sweetheart. That’s why I was there, your loyal knight. Your prince, even! Ha… ha, ha, ha. I was so lost back then, but now… I think I’m a bit better. Say, do you remember when we first met? You tried to kill me—me!—to feed your lusus, only I wouldn’t die, and I promised to you that I’d always, alwaves be at your side. And what’s the matter?

Did you remember your half of the promise, that I’d be your prince if you’d be my princess, and together we could have been unstoppable, oh, Feferi… we would have been great together, if only you’d realised. But don’t mind me. Not now. I’m sure you have so many of your own problems to deal with, and I’m not one of them anymore. You made sure of that, didn’t you?

Now my head’s under the water (you’ve destroyed my sanity, dear, dear sweet Fef, you’ve come and seen and conquered and left me an unstable wreck but that’s okay because I know you didn’t mean to and I hate you for it anyway) and everyone knows the breathing only gets harder, but that’s okay too.

You mean well, I know. But I can’t do it, Feferi. I can’t write this to be anything but what it is—not a love song. Just a ballad. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about ballads, it’s that they never have happy endings.

And I really did lov(v)e you, in the end. At least, until I couldn’t anymore.

(The violet prince laughs, and laughs, and laughs until he can laugh no more. Something has snapped in these dream bubbles, this wasteland of half-forgotten memories. As the waves break over his head, it turns out it is, in fact, possible for a boy half-fish to drown…)

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM ARADIA<3SOLLUX

[icylily]

Speed of Sound- Coldplay
Death and All His Friends- Colplay
Glass of Water- Coldplay

FILL: TEAM Eridan <3< Vriska

[myrrh_darkwing]

It’s dark inside of the vents—overwhelmingly, claustrophobically dark, and Nepeta’s never realised how much she hates being imprisoned like this until now. All her life, she’s had the freedom to run as far and as fast as she wanted through the woods by her cave-hive and her cute teacup Land. The only thing that’s ever even begun to compare to this was the time when she got her leg caught in some sort of nasty biting trap; the time when she’d screamed until she could scream no more, too weak to pry the trap open on her own; the time when her beautiful dead lusus went and ran to get her beloved (just as dead) meowrail to save her.

“How long til I get in?” the voice echoes through the vents, and she shakes her head to clear her thoughts (chokes back a sob) before pulling herself again to her feet and taking off down a passageway she hasn’t yet tried. Hoping against a hope utterly destroyed that he won’t find her, won’t track her trying-to-be-super-soft footfalls until she collapses yet again, her tiny frame wracked with grief and exhaustion. For Nepeta’s lost track of how long she’s been in here, in this horrible clanging metal prison.

And she knows, if she’d only let herself remember everything, that she’d know exactly how long it’s been. She’ll always know just how long she’s been without the very centre of her universe and so dreadfully alone. But she can’t let herself do that now, there’ll be time to sob and fall to pieces as her world shatters again around her later; right now, she’s got to keep moving. Even if the sweet mercy of death is sounding better and better the more she thinks about it.

It’s the words that make her keep moving. She won’t let him have the satisfaction of killing them both, no matter how much she wants to just give in and surrender like he did. Except he’s always been first in her view of the world, and he said to stay up here and gave her a message she needed to give to Karki—Karkat, and maybe that doesn’t apply now that he’s put the hemospectrum before her and left her here alone to die? “Before it starts, catsis, before I motherfuckin’ begin? Paint the walls bright motherfuckin’ miraculous shades with your unworthy blood!”

Nepeta’s choking on her tears now. His body is just below; somehow, she’s gone in circles like a squeakbeast in a maze and has ended up right back where she started. Where her tormenter has written all over the walls in all-too-familiar dark blue blood.

“Come on out, li’l catsis, you’ll miss all the motherfuckin’ carnival fun!” The laugh echoes too, even worse than the madness-tainted words. “And by fun, I mean carnage. I all up and get them motherfuckin’ confused sometimes!”

(so blinded by love and grief is she, she fails to see the stained hand that reaches up to tug her grate free, and so the little cat-troll goes tumbling down)

“Come on over—just be patient, you’re next in the motherfuckin’ line. Don’t you go getting your worry on, catsis, this should only sting a bit.” Wild and mad and gleeful, all because a high(low, scum)blood wouldn’t all up and motherfucking bow to him. “It’ll go away when the searing pain all up and motherfucking kicks in!” He can afford to play, she knows. She’s the first guest to his carnival (the only one, she hopes), the Dark Carnival written scribbled scrawled all over the walls. He’ll play with her, be gentle as he can (because sometimes, that way, it hurts worse).

Death is indeed a relief when it comes, the sharp pain of the clubs (the relentless pain of the clubs, beating and beating and shattering things she didn’t even know were there, and she sobs and does not give him the satisfaction of begging) no match for the pain his death brought her. It was sixty-one minutes and twenty seconds exactly, the longest hour of her life.

But in the end, as her twisted, broken body gives out, she dies with a smile on her face—never alone again.

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM KARKAT<3NEPETA

[anothera]

1)Brand New Colony - The Postal Service
2)IAMX-Mercy
3)Lay Lady Lay-Bob Dylan

FILL: TEAM Eridan <3< Vriska

[myrrh_darkwing]

((I'm so sorry I don't even know HOW I got this-!))


The table is set for two. He’s sitting alone dressed in his princely best; his finest suit, by now torn and stained and almost completely ruined beyond all repair, and on second thought perhaps he should have changed into it after he set the table. Maybe then he wouldn’t have had to fight in it, to clear his way here in it and get it all spattered and flecked with rotten blood (and other things, things he really doesn’t want to think about right now). But the table is set and the food is waiting, a strange little oasis in this wasteland the world has become. A paranoid haven in the mess of raided Dumpsters and trashed ruins of formerly majestic skyscrapers. The streets of Chicago stopped being safe long ago, but for now, the revenants are leaving the table and its lone occupant alone.

And she comes, as he always knew she would. Their greeting isn’t friendly, isn’t warm, is barely even cordial. Yet when she draws near, he could almost swear he smells something aside from the rot and terror—it’s a scent that’s wholly her and makes his whole world want to weep in relief. She’s still alive.

“Eridan,” the girl with the single eye and the fierce glare says. She wears a dress of tattered blue which clings to her, accenting everything while giving none of her pain away. Wwear your best, he’d told her on the invitation. And it had been pretty damn hard to carve that much on a twice-dead revenant’s body, so it’s nice to see that for once she complied.

“Wriska,” the boy who carries himself so regally and returns her glare with one of his own replies. He’s in violet as always, so that together they’re two spots of colour against the muddy gorey backdrop of grey. Whatever colours the world had in mind have been covered and recovered and ignored long ago as desperation trumped beauty.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she snaps, dropping all pretence of cordiality—though, he’s pleased to notice, she takes the seat he pulls out for her in a mockery of chivalry. “Hell, I shouldn’t be here! Why the hell aaaaaaaam I, fish-boy?”

He shrugs. She's right. The only person he should depend on out here is himself, and he knows absolutely nothing about her that sets her apart from any other stranger. She's probably considered knocking him out for the clothes on his back and whatever's in his pockets at least three times already, and he can't allow himself to act as if she owes him something for what he’s done to help her. Because really, he’s done nothing. So what if necessity forced them to fight back-to-back for a bit? So what if he’s saved her life three times over (and she’s returned the favour just as much, if not more)? Neither of them should be here, and yet they both are. “I brought food,” he says instead.

His clothes are dirty but his hands are as clean as any can get in this madcap world as he tears off a hunk of vaguely recognisable meat for her and hands it over. “Here, I’we been hangin’ onter this for a couple days now-wuh. Should still be good.”

She shakes her head, but takes it anyway. “God, you’re a crazy fucker, Eridan. Know that?”

“I’m a desperate fucker, Wris,” he corrects her, and is rewarded by a startled blink and a renewed glare as he fumbles with the buttons at his shirt.

She curls her lip in disgust, but tears into the meat with the kind of ferocity that makes him think she’s not used to having food just given to her without a fight like this. As well she should be, now. “I’m not that kind of girl; take it somewhere else, idiot. Thought you’d have learned that by now.”

He slides his shirt off his shoulder, revealing a nasty-looking bite mark. “I need your help, Wris,” he says quietly.

And she screams and pushes away from him, one hand already on the knife at her side. “I knew it was too good to be fucking true!” she snarls, her eye narrowed in suspicion and hatred and… fear?

“Listen to me! I ain’t here to hurt you! There’s a colony out there. A human colony, somewuh-where. They’s wuh-workin’ on a cure, Wris, an’ I wuh-wouldn’t be askin’ you this if I didn’t think you’d need it too by now-wuh.” It’s news she wasn’t expecting. He can tell, because honestly, he thinks it’s too good to be true as well.

See, nobody knows how it started. It isn't like in the movies, and as far as he’d known, there weren’t any scientists working away, bound to create an antidote at the last conceivable moment. He isn't going to be saved. He knows this, and has long since accepted it, but he had to keep his ears open, especially with this bite that spells near-certain doom. Maybe that's why he never fretted as the others did, never treated the situation with the weight that it deserved. Maybe he knew it would all amount to nothing, and that he'd end up like this, hair plastered to his face, bones aching, relying on rumours and an unwilling ally to survive, no matter what he did.

Nobody knows how or why or when or where the revenants originated, but out there, maybe, someone knows a cure. All he’s got left is that hope, that someone can fix this—fix him.

“I’m fine,” she spits at last, but it’s taken a moment too long. He knows. And-

“No,” a third voice comes. A little slip of a girl steps from the shadows, her pale gold hair and shiny white half-smile a stark contrast to her dead lilac eyes or the way her arm hangs uselessly at her side. She’s dressed in black, the colour of death, and he thinks it suits her. Especially now. “No, you aren’t, Vriska. I should know—I bit you myself, didn’t I?”

And she keeps talking, as her appearance has stunned the two into an uneasy sort of silence as he reevaluates the equation of success with this new variable and she gets ready to run as fast and far as she can. “The creature's teeth barely broke my skin, as mine did yours, so it doesn't seem that the chance of infection is particularly high. And, it might just be the impression I'm getting, but as far as I can tell, my skin's yet to fall off in clusters, and I'm being perfectly coherent. Perhaps more coherent than before, actually, considering that no one else sees fit to talk right now.” It’s a reasonable point. Unfortunately, it’s probably not a good one.

“Oh, now I’m reassured, Lalonde, you fucking bitch,” Vriska snaps, her glare having found a new and completely unaffected target. “Because sure, infection doesn't happen that easily. That's why the majority of this fucking planet has become one gigantic heinous brood of the undead in less than half a year! Because it's a fucking complicated procedure that requires surgical precision, time and devotion. Noooooooow I'm convinced. Let’s all bow before the solution to all the world’s problems, shall we? One Rose Lalonde!”

Eridan’s greeting is a bit more succinct, if laced with just as much malice as hers. “Rosey.” That one word is filled with as much hatred as his tired self can muster, and her answering shrug takes all that hatred and returns it to them colder, stronger by tenfold.

“I don’t like either of you,” she says (the understatement of the century, perhaps), “but our chances are better if we work together. You know that. You’re… well, you may not be smart, and you may not be particularly rational, but somehow the pair of idiots you two are have managed to survive at least as well as I have. Therefore, it would probably be to all of our advantages if we worked together, at least until we got to this colony—yes, Ampora, I’ve heard rumours of it too.”

He shrugs, and holds out both his hands, a bit of his old wry grin returning. “She got a point. So… Let’s find this bran’ new-wuh colony, hope ewerythin’ wuh-will change. Giwe ourselwes new-wuh names, maybe.” He’s got a bit of a bad reputation around here. In his defence, it was only mostly his fault. Then again, he’s sure they’re equally as hated.

“God, you are suuuuuuuuch morons,” Vriska sighs, but something seems to have registered in her mind, and so she takes his hand reluctantly.

“Allies it is,” Rose agrees, and takes his other.

The table sits abandoned in the middle of an a street filled with wreckage and rubble and bits of gore, a lonesome picture of neglect, as the three figures who burn with such hatred walk together towards the horizon…

And hope.

FILL: TEAM DAVE<3ROSE<3TEREZI

[minna]

1. Depeche Mode - Judas
2. Empires - Spit the Dark
3. The Smashing Pumpkins - Mayonaise
4. Rogue Traders - Casting Aside
5. Single Gun Theory - Fall

FILL: TEAM DIRK<3EQUIUS

[rje]

"If you would only trust me..."

"And how am I to do that, Vriska?" Tavros replied, adjusting the horse's saddle without turning to face the dark-haired woman at his back. Eyes the color of Autumn leaves turned to her and she felt that familiar heat in the pit of her stomach. But his gaze was cold and the warmth only lasted a moment. "I could no more trust you than trust a viper at my heel not to strike." His words were soft, but firm, lacking the stutters and pauses his speech held when they met. It was the way she'd always wished it, but now this steel was turned on her and it cut deeply.

"All I have done, I have done for u--f-for you," she amended, stepping closer. Tavros only snorted and moved around his steed, as if even the space of her touch was poisonous.

"For you, not I." His eyes turned to her once more, and she thought she detected bitterness in their depths. Did that give her comfort? A little, perhaps. "And not us. There is no us."

She lifted her chin, glaring at him, and tossed her wild mane behind her shoulder. "Do not do me the discourtesy of lying, lord." The last word was venom on her tongue.

He said nothing to this, merely turned back to his horse, cinching its saddle tightly.

"You loved me once!" she pressed, moving to him again. When her taloned hand reached for his shoulder he slapped it away sharply, stepping from her grip.

"I loved a woman, not a witch!" he spat and her eyes, black as pitch, flashed dangerously. He met them without hesitance, standing taller and staring down at her. Out of the corner of her vision she saw his hand move to rest on the pommel of his sword and she breathed out slowly.
"Tavros..."

"Lord Nitram, Vriska," he corrected, voice hard. After a pause, a slight smile flickered over his lips. No, not a smile - a smirk. "King, soon."

"Thanks be to me," she said flatly. He stared at her silently for a few moments, then reached out a hand to her cheek. She wanted to flinch, but her cursed instincts betrayed her and she pressed into his touch, eyelids sliding closed. His thumb traced her cheek so gently she could have sobbed for the want of it, but before her own hand could cup his, he pulled away. She opened her eyes questioningly and he gave her a smile of such icy loathing her flesh prickled.

"Yes, thanks be to you milady. I never could have rose so far in this world if you had not hardened my heart to the ideals of peace and charity and brotherhood." He turned from her and she nearly flung herself upon him in frustrated fury, all claw and teeth. But he could too easily kill her, and she could not kill him, so she stood and did nothing as he pulled himself up onto his steed, gathering the reins in his large hands.

"How like your father you are," she mused, attempting to regain the reins herself; but she knew she went too far when there was a flash of silver and she suddenly felt cold metal at her throat. She gasped, but managed to keep herself from stepping back.

"I will kill you if you say so again," he hissed and she swallowed thickly. "I am nothing like him, now, save all but demeanor, and that is a poor thing to copy without heart, without soul. I have risen far above his common blood and common morals; and I have you to thank for that, milady. Trust that I shall find a way to do so properly, someday." He removed his sword and Vriska rubbed her neck warily.

"I MADE you into a nobleman, into a King!" she growled desperately. What did she even want? Acknowledgment? Gratitude? A gods-be-damned thank you that was sincere? Perhaps not to be left here alone. "I made you into someone who could survive in this cruel world! And you shun me for it? You call me corrupt, cursed?! What right have you!"

Tavros dropped his head. "You think to survive in a cruel world you must become cruel in turn. You were taught well, and thus you came to teach me. I followed you long, but I follow you no longer." His lips slowly curled into a smile as sharp as a dagger's edge. "Ah, but I see what you crave. Shall I thank you from the depths of my blackened heart for this hell? So be it."

He turned and bowed low, above her. "I thank thee, lady, and thank thee well." He sat up. "And when I am King, I shall not rest until I have razed you and your kind from the earth and washed it clean with your blood."

She snarled at him, the threats long stale and meaningless. "You loved me!" Perhaps if she repeated it enough it might begin to mean something.

"The love I felt was an illusion, a conjured vision by a witch cursed by demons," he said airily, not looking at her again. Was this how he truly felt, or was it a comforting lie? She supposed it didn't matter either way now. Everything had turned to rot and it was much too late to leave this narrow path. They both knew they must travel it to its end.

"You are a fool, Tavros! You were always a fool and would be nothing without me. Does that knowledge keep you up at night, afraid and trembling, weak thing?" she sneered.

He laughed and she felt a trill of discomfort at how much it sounded like her own. "Screech all you want, witch. You will not be there at my side when I am crowned."

"All...all I gave for you, all I sacrificed to gain the Sight, to make you worthy!"

"All your plans," he replied in mock sympathy, tilting his head in sorrow. "But you are made of plans and machinations milady. You shall survive." His lip curled in a half-grin. "For awhile." And with a flick of the rein he was gone, galloping to the west, to the high city.

She watched him go for as long as it took his silhouette to melt into the setting sun. He was gone, strong and hard and unforgiving as a stone wall, and she was alone.

As night shadows slowly enveloped the moor, she drew the black stone from her pocket and stared into its depths, as she had a thousand times before, huddling with him beneath furs, dreaming perfect dreams.

"We both shall, my lord and King," she whispered, smile a flash of sharp white teeth in the dark.

"For awhile."

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM DAVE<3ROSE<3TEREZI

[minna]

1. Shampoo - Bare Knuckled Girl [direct download]
2. Veruca Salt - Seether
3. Republica - Ready to Go
4. Devo - Girl U Want

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM KARKAT<3NEPETA

[anothera]

Regina Spektor-Machine
Liar Liar (Burn In Hell) - The Used
Dance Anthem of the 80s - Regina Spektor

FILL: TEAM ARADIA<3SOLLUX

[thebowagirl]

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM KARKAT<3NEPETA

[anothera]

Give 'Em Hell, Kid - MCR
1234 - Plain White T's
The Zephyr Song - RHCP

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM KARKAT<3NEPETA

[anothera]

Father of Mine - Everclear
A Long December - Counting Crows
Sing - MCR

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM KARKAT<3NEPETA

[anothera]

The Way You Look Tonight - Frank Sinatra
Like a Virgin - Madonna
Hey Jude - The Beatles

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM KARKAT<3NEPETA

[anothera]

Modern Love - David Bowie
New Perspective - P!ATD
Last of the American Girls - Green Day

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM Dave<3Rose<3 Terezi

[indigold]

Pope's Concert - Red Violin OST
Storm - Vanessa Mae
Bond - Oceanic

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM Dave<3Rose<3 Terezi

[indigold]

Escape The Fate - Gorgeous Nightmare
Yes - Coldplay
Trouble - Bittersweet

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM FEFERI<3JADE

[pallidot]

Keane - Somewhere Only We Know
Jukebox the Ghost - So Let Us Create
Freelance Whales - We Could Be Friends

FILL: TEAM AUTORESPONDER<3ROXY

[teakei]

please don't put your face into your hands (we could be friends)
dirk<>roxy

----

If there’s one thing Roxy knows for sure, it’s that she’s no longer on Earth.

For starters, the medium is a geographical nightmare; mountains jut out in nightmarish angles and neon-colored rivers meander around haphazardly. It’s beautiful and it’s magical but everything is different, too different, and sometimes it’s just unnerving. In another time, Roxy would have jumped at the chance for an epic adventure with her friends, exploring new lands and fighting evil like the heroine of an RPG. But when she looks up at the night sky and doesn’t recognize any of the stars, she misses home.

Even though Earth is long gone, the links tethering them to the past is not broken. It lives on in Jake’s shaky laughter and Jane’s trembling hands and Roxy knows that behind their bravado, they worry for their family and home. She knows the feeling well and wonders whether her Carapacian neighbors have somehow made it out alive. To Roxy, the colony is the only place she’s ever known - a world of seawater and checkered streets, burnished steel against pale blue skies. It was lonely at times, but it was still her home. On nights when she’s especially exhausted from running, hiding, and fighting for her life, Roxy closes her eyes tight and thinks of concrete and sea.

But from the four of them, Dirk worries her far more than the others. The past is alive, so very much alive in the calculating crease in his brows and the tightness of his smile. He lingers on the brink of breaking, neither here nor there, and Roxy knows it’s a matter of time before he shatters. Dirk has always been a man of many faces, but Roxy has learned how to tell them apart, the subtle differences between the Prince of Heart and the Dersite spy, the changes between the clever genius and love-struck teen. It’s a bit disconcerting for sure, but years of lonely webcam conversations and drunken pesterchats have long dulled the surprise. But since entering the medium, the differences are vanishing under one uniform Dirk that is precise and driven, sharply focused and coldly stubborn. That Dirk is an amazing leader, but Roxy misses her friend, the one who stayed up past three to watch terrible romcoms with her, the one who hacked into her MMORPG account and looted all her money in an act of petty revenge, the one who she has watched grow up from freckled awkwardness to a golden confidence that still takes her breath away. Although she hopes he will always be as brilliant as she knows he can be, he is only sixteen and under the weight of the world - she knows that it cannot be so. She just wishes she could hold his hand, squeeze it tight and tell him everything will be ok, jsut wait and see.

One night, after a particularly harrowing battle with the imps, Roxy slips to his side. She nudges him in the ribs until, with a long-suffering sigh, Dirk shifts so she can slide under his arm. But instead, Roxy clambers into his lap and sprawls across him, pointy knees and pointier elbows digging into his skin.

Roxy, what the hell- Dirk begins but Roxy jabs him sharply with her finger.

sshhhh! she shushes, reesitance is futile!!

Roxy is 100% sure that if she was anyone else - well, except maybe Jake but Dirk would probably let him get away with a lot of things, honestly - that Dirk would have shoved her off then and there. But like everybody else, Dirk has long learned that given half the chance, Roxy will drape herself over anybody and everybody like an overly affectionate cat and that it's better to comply, lest you wish to get a faceful of elbows. Although though he shifts stiffly, she fits comfortably against him, as if he was molded for her and she was made for him.

When his breathing steadies, she says u know, im here for u. if u need anyhting, just say the wrd.

Dirk cocks his head to the side. The lights of the stars gleam bright against his glasses.

Anything? he asks.

Twisting to face him, Roxy leans in close and lowers her head, gently pressing her forehead to his. She stares deep into his eyes, or at least where she hopes his eyes are because it’s really hard to tell with those stupid glasses in the way, but all she can really see is her own pale reflection, full of wistful hope and frustrated love.

anything she says and she means it, truly truly means it, and she wonders if he can hear the sincerity, the precarious balancing of her whole existence in that one word. And she thinks – no, she knows he can because there is a slight hitch in his breathing, so soft and subtle that someone else might have missed it but she’s Roxy Lalonde and she’s pressed up against his side so closely that she can feel the thrum of his veins against hers. Her own heart flutters frantically against his, thumping out a steady one, two, three.

On the fifth heartbeat, Dirk slips his hand into hers. His grip is tight. Through the inky darkness of his shades, his eyes seemed to smile, yet didn’t.

Roxy laughs.

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM FEFERI<3JADE

[pallidot]

Lily Allen - Fuck You
Florence and the Machine - Kiss With a Fist
Meg and Dia - Black Wedding

FILL: TEAM ARADIA<3ROSE

[rakopandaowl]

TW: blood

A stream of purple trickles down the highblood's face. He grins as the bright white hands of Kanaya Maryam close around his neck, her teeth grit and eyes narrow.

Her skirt has shimmied down her waist with the help of Gamzee Makara, her purple-blooded attacker. The green stained cape she used to protect the hole through her stomach has been tossed to the side, exposing her bright white, bleeding skin.

Gamzee's hands are covered in bite marks, and his face paint is smeared on her sleeves. He has her pinned to the ground, one hand on her hip so she lifts her knee into his stomach repeatedly, but her attempts to free herself are futile.

She lets out a grunt, trying once again to shove him off. He smirks and moves his right hand to the left slightly, right by the edge of the hole in her stomach, then presses down hard. She screams in pain and knees him once more.

Still nothing.

His eyes are smug and he knows they're going to be there for a long time.

She growls. "Fuck you."

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM ARADIA<3SOLLUX

[icylily]

Lynne- Hachi
Call it What You Want- Foster The People
Burn It Down- Linkin Park
42- Coldplay

SOUNDTRACK: TEAM FEFERI<3JADE

[pallidot]

Foster the People - Waste
The Hush Sound - You are the Moon
The Fray - Happiness

SOUNDTRACK: Team Kanaya<3Vriska

[memyselfandi]

The Suburbs - Arcade Fire
Death of Me - City and Colour
I Fought the Angels - The Delgados

FILL: TEAM DIRK♥JAKE♥JANE♥ROXY

[ferrrox]

so can you understand why I want a daughter while I'm still young?
i wanna hold her hand and show her some beauty before all this damage is done.
but if it's too much to ask, it's too much to ask, then send me a son.