Mallstuck OR New Kids in the City

[sleepZombie]

"You're... body? That's, uh, kind of weird."

Tavros was stopping a ways behind as John sped up and rushed towards Nepeta as she leaped over some kind of short separator wall. While they were doing that Tav took the time to look around, marveling at the huge crowd of people.

And the way he made them part and make a wide path around him thanks to his chair and long horns. He figited slightly, a bit embarrassed. "There are, so many here. Wow. And, they are all human. This is so strange." He turned his head side to side, looking for Gamzee and seeing him catching up.

[kisashika]

"Wow, man, what the hell just happened?" Gamzee had been to busy trying to soak in everything when Nepeta and John dashed off. When they returned, he was staring up at one of the skylights. "John, how the fuck did they get that window up there?" He asked, out of the blue. None of the placed he'd been before had anything like it!

"Oh shit, there are humans everywhereeeeeee....." Gamzee watched several people walk by, carrying trays of food and bags from shopping. Some of them looked really weird to Gamzee, but then again, he wasn't used to seeing so many humans in one place.

As he glanced around the crowds, his eyes landed on one of the Janitors, who was whistling while they mopped the floor. Sitting on the floor next to him was a bright yellow bucket- Gamzee couldn't help but stare for a long moment, his face flushing a slight indigo. Then a grin slowly crept across his face and he gently nudged Tavros with his elbow. "Hey, Tav."

Nonchalantly, he pointed at the bucket and wiggled his eyebrows, and chewing on the bottom of his lip- grinning from ear to ear.

[shiftyPotentate]

Nepeta smiled to John as if nothing was wrong, hiding her injured hands behind her back. "Nothing, nothing at all!" Unbeknownst to Nepeta, behind her back, her hands began to heal themselves. Nepeta suddenly blinked.

She'd done the Healy Heart Thing. Nepeta rocketed up her own Echeladder, reaching Rogue Sureclaw, the highest possible rung at her current tier! Her collection of boondollars swelled even more, making her even more obscenely rich! Not only that, she was now ready to God Tier!

Of course, she didn't know any of that. How could she? Besides, her quest bed was lost when Jack Noir had destroyed the Land of Little Cubes and Tea. Either way, she'd now learned the Healy Heart Thing!

She showed John her hands, good as new. "See? Nothing happened!" She giggled, not entirely aware of why she'd suddenly healed up. She saw Gamzee point to the janitor and oh dear lord is that what she thought it was.

A bucket. Her face flushed bright olive green, and she looked to John. Oh no, awkward! He was her moirail! That was... She didn't know how to react so she just stammered and stepped away from John a little, the offensive bucket clearly overwhelming her tender sensibilities.

[nintendonut1]

“Wait, come on, Nepeta, lemme se—“ John blinked when she brought her hands back and suddenly they seemed untouched. But… but he heard her scream! She wouldn’t have howled like that over nothing!

…did trolls heal fast or something? And she just didn’t want to make him worry? Geez, this troll stuff was harder to keep up with than he first thought.

He remembered that there were people around, and he did his damn best to hide the fact that he was embarrassed beyond belief, leading Nepeta out from behind the counter. It wasn’t like it was her fault. “Nepeta, you… you don’t have to hunt your own food here, these people make it and prepare it FOR us. We get in line, tell them what we want, and then pay for the food and service when they give it to us. That’s how it works here.”

He waited for a response, and what he got was Nepeta pulling away from him all of the sudden. His initial thought was ‘oh no did I insult her on accident oh shit she’s probably mad at me now oh shit,’ but as he turned there was a VERY clear look of embarrassment on her face, washed over in olive green.

Oh, well great. He made her all self-conscious. Somehow that made John feel way worse.

He then glanced over at what she was looking at—oh. Bucket. Okay, yeah he remembered the whole bucket thing. Oops.

“Um… that’s, uh… um.” A hopelessly stumped pause.

“…let’s go get in line.”

[sleepZombie]

"What?"

Tav looked at Gamzee, then to where he was pointing. The flush that came over him was almost immediate. He gulped, looking back towards his matesprit and catching his suggestive eyebrow wiggles and the look he was giving him. It was completely silly but also kind of suggestive and that, uh.

"G-Gamzee!" He hushed, leaning and grabbing at the other troll, hands flailing frantically. "That's... uh! We're. And. I'm not, uh, even, and!" His words made absolutely no sense, he was so flustered by the subliminal message his matesprit was giving him.

Hearing the janitor scoot the bucket further across the floor as he moved on to mop had Tavros giving a high-pitched squeak, his voice cracking as he swung around to look, deftly beaming someone in the gut. He turned to apologize and proceeded to smack someone in the rear with his other horn, another turn of the head later he found himself irrefutably entangled in the plastic-y grips of someone's shopping bags. They were shouting and angry and it was terrifying and he was kind of excited already from the bucket and.

"W-WEH!" The wail of distress that escaped was completely not of his own accord!

[kisashika]

"Ah!" Gamzee lept out of the way of Tavros' flailing, dodging the others' horns. "Whoah, whoah, whoah!" He said, reaching out to grab Tavros' horns, trying to keep him from skewering any of the mall patrons, or their friends. "Tav, Tavros! Chill out man!" When the other stopped flailing, Gamzee pulled whatever items that managed to get stabbed and hung up on his horns.

"I'm sorry for embarrassing you, man." Gamzee still hadn't let go of the others horns. "I guess it wasn't that funny." He didn't pay mind when John suggested they get in line, his focus was in front of him. "No more bucket jokes, I swear."

[shiftyPotentate]

Nepeta calmed down considerably as John distracted her. She took his hand - apparently customary to her of a moirail - and frowned. "But John, I can feed myself, I don't want someone else to hunt the food and give it to me!" She had a deep need to be self-reliant, that seemed to be universal to trolls. And why wouldn't it be? The troll that relied on everyone else for help and couldn't do anything themself was the first troll to get culled.

She pouted and got in line with John anyway. She remembered John's windy thing, and was curious how she managed to heal herself. Feeling the urge to do some more practice with that power, she checked John for any cuts or bruises he might have gotten. Sure enough he had some mild burns on his arm. She put a hand over them, closing her eyes. His light burns began to soothe themselves and heal up, good as new.

"Hee hee hee!" she giggled, delighted with her new power! "John, I can do stuff like your windy thing now!"

[nintendonut1]

John nodded, frowning right back as he brought her to the end of the line. "Yeah, I can understand that, totally! I know it's different than what you're used to, but we're all pretty hungry, I think.” He began to glance around, weighing the options they had in terms of variety. He hoped this wasn’t the only place in the whole city to eat. “We'll get food this way for now, and then once we've settled into this new world, you can go right back to hunting! Maybe for all of us!”

He paused at a tingling sensation in his arm, glancing back to find Nepeta’s hand hovering over it. He vaguely remembered finding the small burns on his arms last night (from the brief scuffle with the candles), but deciding they weren’t serious enough to care about right away and just going to sleep. He imagined he’d take care of them eventually, but he never expected it to be in this fashion!

“Oh, wow!” John looked over his fully-healed arm, genuinely impressed. “Healing is your skill? Oh man, that’s so cool.” He glanced back up at her; it was good to see familiar gaming elements occuring here too, so he grew a little excited. “That means you reached the top of your Echeladder now, right? What WAS your SBURB role, anyway? It’s supposed to fit with your power--”

He flinched at the cries back behind them, realizing they had left Gamzee and Tavros behind, and the Taurus was absolutely panicking and endangering people around him. “…oh, shit!” Briefly, his hands slipped out from Nepeta’s. They’d have to discuss this later. “Hold our place in line, okay?”

He hurried over, and thankfully Gamzee had done some damage control before he caught up. He played baton-pass with the shopping bags, passing them to disgruntled patrons, some giving him a few choice words that made Karkat seem like a gentleman in comparison.

“Are you guys okay?” he wheezed.

[sleepZombie]

Tavros calmed as Gamzee started helping out, going a bit limp in his chair, face flushing a mild orangey hue as Gamzee's hands rested on his horns like handle bars. He watched through half-lided eyes as John came over, looking harassed as he handed bags back to strangers.

"S-Sorry." Tavros muttered, still under the lethargic thrall of the way Gamzee's palms were resting on the span of his 'rack'. A low, pleased sound somewhere between a sigh and a... a... purr escaped the Taurus as Gamzee rubbed his thumbs back and forth soothingly over them. He was caught somewhere between being completely relaxed and being a little...

...a little something that was probably not public appropriate.

Not that he just sort of... ignored that. Because he was too relaxed. He sighed again, face a complete flush. "Th-This is nice."

[kisashika]

Once everyone had settled down enough, Gamzee let go of his matesprit's horns and wheeled him over to an empty table. When Tavros spoke, Gamzee got an idea. He leaned over to his ear, and whispered to only where Tavros could hear. "Man, if you thought that was nice, just wait til you get to see what this motherfucker is capable of." A low chuckle before he placed a small kiss on the Taurus' horn and stood back up.

"So, uh, we getting food from there, John?" Gamzee asked, pointing to Nepeta's space in line. "Do they got chicken nuggets or some shit there? 'Cus Tavbro lives those fucking things and I'm gonna chillax with him here while you motherfuckers get food." After a second he added. "And anything with meat's cool with this troll." Gamzee took a seat next to the wheelchair-bound troll, sitting in the chair backwards because he could.

[shiftyPotentate]

Nepeta took a breath to explain to John what her SGRUB role was, but he had other matters to attend to suddenly. She saluted. "Aye aye, captain!" she said, with a giggle. She dutifully held their place in line. As she waited, she looked around the food court. It, along with the rest of the mall, certainly was impressive. She tried to find out what kinds of stores there were.

It seemed like every concievable item was here! Someone with ample captchalogue cards and an alchemiter would love this place. Then she remembered she didn't have her captchalogue cards. And she rather doubted there were any available here. But that was why they would look around.

For that matter, she wanted to get a fetch modus like Jade's! Drawing pictures was something she liked doing anyway, if she'd had that modus before she'd have been so happy.

She looked over to Gamzee and Tavros, the former holding the latter's horns. Tavros seemed to be relaxed by it, and Nepeta experimentally touched her own. It didn't seem to do much, so she pouted. Maybe it was just those with big horns that had that effect. She was one of the three among her and her friends with the smallest horns, and she frowned.

The line suddenly moved up, and Nepeta went along with it. Hopefully John would come back soon, she was close to the front!

[nintendonut1]

"We all good?" John asked, hands up as if preparing for another threat. They raised a bit into a thinking position, index fingers raised, as Gamzee gave him their order, and finally, he snapped his fingers and pointed at them in confirmation. "You got it! We'll meet you at the table!"

Idly, he noticed Tavros' suddenly relaxed state, in huge contrast to the conniption he was having earlier. As Gamzee rubbed and kissed those large horns, John made the connection immediately. Rubbing their horns is a relaxing technique, huh? That's something he'd definitely have to remember for later.

Looking up and realizing Nepeta was getting close to the front, John hurried over, sliding up next to her and bumping shoulders in a friendly fashion. "Heeyyy, thanks a ton, Nep, I appreciate it. Tavros wants chicken nuggets, and Gamzee's good with anything, so we can get him a couple burgers. Me..." He looked up at the menu. "I'm probably gonna get a chicken sandwich and some fries. How about you?"

[sleepZombie]

Tavros managed to sink down a little further into his chair, hands coming up to shyly cover his face as Gamzee leaned in to whisper to him. He squirmed slightly, feeling kind of nervous and anxious but conflicted because it was Gamzee and they were matesprits now so it wasn't anything that was strange. To be honest HE was probably strange for not really thinking much about that kind of thing... had he been leaving Gamzee stranded in some kind of weird relationship moirail-zone? The realization alone made him give a little frown of dismay.

Except that, too, went away as he felt the tender kiss on his horn. He flustered further, giving a tiny yelp of surprise, followed by a tiny shiver. He looked at Gamzee next to him on the table, subdued and shy.

[kisashika]

After John ran off to rejoin Nepeta, Gamzee kind of stared off for a minute, watching all the interesting humans walk by. They sure were some freaky looking creatures, Humans. Even John had his weird features and Gamzee kinda' liked the differences- it was a nice change from the norm of Trollkind; maybe he'd go off and dye his hair kinda like Eridan when they got him new clothes, maybe all of it Indigo- or Green- OR ALL THE FUCKING COLORS. Gamzee chuckled at the idea of rainbow hair and the field day Terezi would have if she smelled it.

The out of the corner of his eye, he caught Tavros staring off dreamily at him, and smirked. What would Tavros think about him dying his hair? "Hey, Tavvy." He nudged said troll's arm, trying to gain his attention. "Imagine this motherfucker with indigo hair, or green; what do you think?" His grin was huge and he couldn't stop the laugh escaping his mouth.

[shiftyPotentate]

Nepeta smiled and bumped shoulders back at John. "Anything that's good and meaty!" she said. She turned to John fully. "And to answer your purrevious question, I was the Rogue of Heart!" she exclaimed proudly, puffing her chest out a bit. "Though I didn't get to do much with it... Mostly it was Vwhiskers and Terezi who got to do all the cool stuff! And Aradia too I found out!"

She leaned her shoulder against John's, purring softly at his presence. Her pale affections were in full force. If only she'd had a wall available, she'd definitely ship them! And Gamzee and Tavros too!