Gamzee/Karkat (Pale): Meshuggeneh (Yiddish), Crazy, Broken, Messed Up, Something That Is So Broken That One Doesn't Even Know Where To Begin With Fixing It
Warning for child neglect and substance abuse (sopor) in this story
Sometimes you wonder if you're up to this. Because you want it, you really do, you want to be there for him so badly it hurts. But you've spent your whole life trying to pretend you're something more than you know you are, and you've spent most of your life painfully failing to live up to the standards you set for yourself. And this is higher stakes than you've been playing with before, because you're not just fucking with your own life now, you're fucking with his, and what with you being a hideous mutant abomination and all, if you go down, it'll probably drag him with you. It's better for both of you if you just keep your distance.
Yeah, okay, you can say that, but in practice? You can't stay away. When you realize that he's not just eating pies, he's eating sopor pies (what the actual fuck, who does that?) you can feel your stomach twist, and before you can stop yourself, you tell him that he needs to cut that shit out and find him a link to a sopor addiction rehabilitation site. You're kicking yourself after sending that link because holy fuck, could you make a more blatant pale overture if you tried? And then he doesn't answer for a whole hour, and that's it, you fucked up the friendship and he thinks you're trying to pick him up and you ruined everything. But no, he was just watching the waves hit the sand or something, and you have to bite back the urge to tell him the sea is dangerous and instead say something rude about what kind of moron is so easy to distract, and ha. You are a master of deception. He'll never guess that you're pale for him.
That's the worse it can get, right? You're not going to meet anyone more screwed up than living on sopor and so out of it that they get distracted and just sit down right next to the fucking ocean like murderous seadwellers and troll-eating finbeasts aren't even a thing. Wow are you good at being wrong. You can't leave well enough alone, so you keep bugging him about sitting inside and maybe seeing if he likes these new recipes you've been trying lately, and maybe sitting inside, but he tells a brother not to worry, he's just waiting for his dad to come in. Okay, yeah, that's legitimate you guess, but what about all those other times he sits out by the sea? Well. He's always waiting for his dad to come in. He's been doing that for how long? He says it's been happening since before pupation, but when he was just a wriggler he wasn't tall enough to open the hive doors himself.
That's so fucked up. It's so fucked up. You can't actually deal with it. You have to leave the husktop for a little and go do something else and calm down, and maybe you happen to pass your dad and give him a hug and just lean up against him for a minute and try to imagine if he'd abandoned you and no you aren't tearing up at all. Gamzee's left worried messages by the time you get back, and wow, now you feel even shittier for just ditching him like that, could you actually have picked anything worse to do at that point in the conversation? You completely freeze up and say something painfully idiotic about getting distracted and watching the stars, and instead of being hurt that you totally bailed right after he told you something huge like that, he just tells you awww, that's beautiful as all motherfuck.
You can't stay away. It would be so much better if you knew how to leave well enough alone, because. He needs a moirail, but it can't be you. It can't. You barely manage to hold your own life together on the good days, and if he's dumb enough to trust you (he's definitely dumb enough to trust you), you're going to fuck him up so badly. You want to help, but you know you aren't good enough for this. It's all. It's so bad that you wouldn't even know where to start, but you're such a dumbass that you want to try anyways. Regularly, you beat yourself up for acting so pale towards someone who hasn't given you a single sign that he's interested back, but you don't know how to stop. He calls you best friend, and it makes your pump biscuit clench, and at the same time, you feel like he's trusting you with everything he's got while you do nothing but lie to him. It kills you to realize how often his dad isn't there, and that as miserable a substitute for a moirail you are, you're the best thing he's got right now. You finally ask him if he wants to visit your hive for a week. Or two. And that, uh. Maybe your dad could do some hunting for you guys and um, you've got a recipe for grubsteak you've been meaning to try, if, you know, he's interested. Or something. He replies that that he would be right motherfucking pleased to see your hive and asks if maybe a brother has a pile he'd be willing to share? ;o)
Well. Well, then. You're still pretty sure you're not good enough to handle this the way he deserves, but. You're still grinning like an idiot as you begin to make plans.