About three things I was absolutely positive.
First, Gamzee was a juggalo.
Second, there was a part of him-and I didn't know how dominant that might be- that didn't know how magnets worked.
And third, I fucking hated his stoned ass.

GallowsCalibrator's Blog – Entry 67 – 03/03/13
There are not enough words in the world to describe how irritating Gamzee "Dude Where's" Makara is. I'm not kidding. There really aren't. I checked.

My older sister, Latula, tells me I'm being too hard on the guy. She would say that too – she's pals with his creepy as fuck older brother, Kurloz. I don't think I'm being too hard, personally, but she practically tackles me whenever I say a bad word about either of them in the house. Mom just drifts on by without commenting, grinning away in her distracted absentness. When she does pay attention she's scary, but ever since she retired from being a lawyer she's relaxed so much it's a miracle she's ever awake. I'd be a little freaked by it if I didn't have Latula keeping us steady and making sure things still run smoothly at home.

Latula seems to be of the opinion, though, that Gamzee is just misguided. Personally, I think that's bullshit. He's an idiot, and he's in your face about it. I still remember my first sighting of him – on my first day at high school, I was on the bus reading. We pulled into the stop, I put away my book, walk down the aisle, step off – and the first thing I saw was Gamzee fucking Makara mooning all of us from behind the school gate.

Moron.

Just. Ugh. I cannot even deal with him. Not at all.

5/04/13
Terezi wakes up late the Tuesday after the long weekend, and proceeds to freak out. She leaps out of bed, stubbing her toe in the process, and frantically grabs clothes from the floor. She screeches "LATULA! WHY DIDN'T YOU WAKE ME?!" as she runs to the bathroom, almost slamming the door behind her. She showers with determination, getting herself clean, shaved and scrubbed in less than five minutes and drying herself in half that time. She dresses, almost falling over tugging her tights up her legs, and Latula comes around the corner, rubbing sleep out of her eye. She yawns.

"Why didn't you wake me up? I'm going to be late!" Terezi snaps, buttoning her shorts and reaching for a hairbrush. She tugs the brush through her shoulder length brown hair, which is thankfully drying fairly quickly. She pauses for a second, checking her scar that extends from one side of her nose, over the bridge, and to the other side. It looks the same as ever, but she can never resist checking. She sighs, then strides out to the kitchen. She eats a bowl of cornflakes, grimacing at the taste – Mom had done the shopping last week, clearly – and then rushes back to the bathroom. She brushes her teeth, then runs to the door where her bag is waiting, packed and ready as she had left it last night. She pulls on her shoes just as the bus pulls up outside, and she offers a thankful prayer as she runs to it, her bag bouncing against her back.

She nods to the bus driver, wincing at the thick blueberry smell of the bus, and sits down to wait for her heartbeat to slow down. She breathes slowly, calming herself, waiting for herself to settle. All she can smell is blueberry which doesn't help. It's been two years since the LARPing accident that left her with the ability to smell and taste colours, but it's still hard to get used to. It's called synaesthesia, her little ability, and it came at the price of the scar on her face. The bus slows to a stop as it pulls into the school, and she stands, her heart calmed down considerably.

Terezi gets off the bus, stepping down with practiced ease. It's her final year in high school, and she carries herself with the quiet dignity that seniors seem to have. Most of the time, anyway. Some people never quite get the dignity thing down. She looks around, swaying a bit from the assault on her senses. While she's thankful the synaesthesia and the scar are the only things she ended up with, she doesn't really like how a lot of things in suburbia smell. Especially the school. She knows she was lucky knows how badly it could have gone, knows in detail what Vriska would have been charged with, what she could still be charged with by Tavros' guardian. Vriska should be damn grateful the Nitrams are the nicest people to exist ever, and that Tavros' dad had a fling with Vriska's mom back in college.

When she and Vriska were friends, when all of the LARPers were friends, they had met her at the gate. They had never been without each other. That was before Vriska had brought the real sword to a session though. Before Terezi had fallen on a rock, and ended up with a crosswire in her brain that makes her senses get muddled up. She copes as best she can. The business with Tavros had been worse, but then Vriska and Tavros had been kind of intense.

Terezi shakes herself a little, shivers in the cool wind. She forgot her jacket and the breeze has an unwelcome bite to it. She thinks she has a scarf in the bottom of her bag but can't be bothered rummaging around in there. She sighs and rubs her arms, walking as swiftly as she can towards the mercifully heated school buildings. Her palm hits the glass of the door with a slapping sound and she reels a little with how warm the air is on her chilled face. She walks to her locker, slowly. Not many people are here yet, as she caught the second earliest bus in so that she can get more time to herself in the library.

She is standing by her locker for three, maybe five minutes, shifting through the chaotic mess of papers and books that occupies the dark space there, when Dave appears at her elbow. She is used to his quick movements by now, the characteristic whoosh-tap of his flash stepping – which has improved near exponentially over the last year. He is at her elbow, a familiar warmth, and he breathes into her ear: "Stop fucking zoning Rez goddamn."

She whirls, flipping a book and hitting upside the head with it; he steps to the side just enough to weather the blow, and then steps back. "Alright, alright. I take it back. But seriously, why the face?" he says, his Texan drawl coming out thicker than usual because of his early morning tiredness. She pulls a small box of applejuice from her pocket and waves it in front of his face. His eyes light up a bit, and she laughs.
"It's nothing, Dave. Just a little out of sorts. It's too early in the morning and it's too damn cold." she replies, relenting. He nods, understanding what she means perfectly. They both come from hotter states, and despite having both been in town almost five years now they still haven't quite adjusted to the winters. He takes the applejuice from her when she turns back to her locker, fingers snapping it out of her hands with nimble ease. She just shakes her head. She's gotten used to his shenanigans in the last year – ever since her and Vriska had their little falling-out, he's been her best friend.

"Yeah, I hear you. Oi, did you hear about Karkat? His older brother's gotten in trouble for trying to get a teacher fired." Dave tells her, as she closes her locker and spins the dial. She snorts.

"That doesn't surprise me. Latula thinks Kankri's fucking psycho when it comes to authority abusing power." Terezi says, inhaling the cherry scent of Dave's red shirt. He has gotten used to the sniffing thing, so he doesn't say anything. He gets it.

"Dirk reckons Kankri must own a few smuppets of his own. Dude that worked up? Gotta have something up his ass." Dave says with relish, probably hoping that he's evoked some mental images.

"Dirk reckons everyone has something up their ass, or wants something up their ass. Hell, he probably thinks you want something up your ass." Terezi laughs. Dave goes quiet, unusually, and they walk to homeroom in companionable silence.

Homeroom is, unsurprisingly, a dull affair. The roll is called, with everyone responding to their names sullenly. It is the first day back after a long weekend and it is clear by the atmosphere that no one really wants to be at school. Vriska gets her phone confiscated (for the nth time this semester), Sollux flicks paper at the back of Eridan's neck the whole time, and Terezi takes no small amount of pleasure in noticing that Gamzee is auspiciously absent. Well, he is for a while. He comes in at the last minute, escorted by his older brother Kurloz. Kurloz pushes Gamzee into the room, signs at him furiously and with disconcerting speed, then thumps Gamzee on the chest and leaves.

The class stares at Gamzee and he blinks at them with tranquilized slowness, his eyes glazed over beneath the juggalo paint he's wearing on his face.

"What?" he says, and the chatter begins to build again as people take their attention of him. Terezi doesn't. She sits, completely paralyzed with how incomprehensibly angry she is. She doesn't quite know what lies at the root of her hate for Gamzee. She can count off a dozen little reasons, but not the one that the hate really stems from. She grits her teeths, and Dave puts his hand on her arm. "You okay Rez? You need to take a breather?" he asks, voice pitched low in the way that only musicians can really master. She inhales, and lets out a huff.
"I'm okay. Don't worry, it's cool." she tells him, and while her voice betrays her tension he knows to trust her at her word. If there is one thing sure in the world, it's that Terezi Phytea Pyrope doesn't break her word. Her moral code is too complex, and too unforgiving, for her to allow herself to break her word.

In any case, Gamzee takes his seat and reclines back, putting his feet up on the back of the empty chair in front of him. He is so far down in his seat that the crook of his long pale neck is resting on the edge of the chair, and she resists the urge to tug his hair. The bell rings almost as soon as he's sat down, so she doesn't need to resist for long. There is a clamour of pulled back chairs and a rush as everyone makes for the door, but over the din Terezi still hears Dr Scratch's call: "Miss Pyrope and Master Makara, can you please come here?"

She sighs heavily, nodding to Dave to go on to their next class – Legal Studies, with Ms Snowman – and pushes out of her chair, wrinkling her nose at the dry concrete dust smell of Gamzee's face paint. They walk up to the desk, and Terezi keeps a metre of space between them – partially because of how he smells to her cross-wired senses, and partially because of her dislike of him. Dr Scratch looks at them for a moment, staying seated (possibly because of how short he is, but hell if she knew for sure).

"Gamzee," he says, his fingers steepling, "I'm sure you are aware that because of your dissatisfactory grades, we have had to take action in order to prevent you from failing your final year."
Gamzee nods at this, his face growing almost serious. There's no trace of his usual stupid grin, and he seems present in a way that Terezi has never seen him.
"Your guardian, Kurloz, and I have been in correspondence about this for the last week, and we have decided that the best course of action is to ask a fellow student of yours to tutor you." Dr Scratch continues, and Terezi feels her stomach sink.

"Terezi, you will of course be compensated for your time. Your guardian has agreed that in this matter you will be allowed extra time whenever you need it to tutor Gamzee. She's also agreed to having Gamzee come over to your home and for you to go to his if it proves necessary. In the end, though, this is your decision. I am simply asking you to do what's right, and not allow a peer of yours to continue on his current path."
And there is the clincher. He's asked her to do something because it's the right thing to do, and Terezi grits her teeth. She knows it would be the wrong thing to do to refuse, she knows she needs the money, she knows that it would probably be satisfying to see how badly Gamzee's doing in school – really, she has no choice.

"Alright, I'll do it." she sighs, and then she turns to Gamzee. "You will be in the library at 1.20. No questions, no complaints, just do it." She waits long enough to see his nod of confirmation, and then she leaves, turning on her heel and striding out.

Gamzee doesn't understand, really, why Terezi is so angry all the time. She's so snappy, and loud, without any reason to be. He doesn't really understand why she's going to tutor him, either, because as far as he know she really doesn't like him and she never looks like she pays attention in class. Not that he does, either. Other people are much more interesting than schoolwork. Why would he listen to English reading the daily notices when he can watch the way Vriska's eyes linger on Terezi's scar, or the way Karkat looks at Nepeta with confusion and possibly longing showing clear on his face? Why would he listen to Scratch's lectures on iambic pentameter when Equius is scrawling Aradia's name all over his pages, when Sollux is looking at Feferi instead of at Aradia like he should be – and when Aradia's looking at Feferi too, in the same way.

People are what interests Gamzee. They're fucking miracles, each person, from the fact that they exist to the nuances of their personality. They're so strange, and beautiful, and confusing. Gamzee doesn't really get people – he never has. His dad used to say that both him and Kurloz were fucked in the head, that he must have dropped them or something. Between Gamzee's inability to function socially and Kurloz's selective mutism, Gamzee supposes he can understand why his dad would think that. They are a little fucked up.

But he loves Kurloz, when it comes down to it. More than anything, because Kurloz doesn't shout at Gamzee when he's been smoking pot and he doesn't make Gamzee feel stupid because he can't think like regular people do. Kurloz tries to help Gamzee with his homework, tries to help Gamzee open up when he's at home. Gamzee knows how hard he tries but he can't ever quite get it. Sometimes he'll get close but it'll always slip away before that moment of understanding.

Kurloz calls it a 'learning difficulty', which is the technical way of saying that Gamzee can't connect things properly. The only time he feels like he can is when he's high, but he tends to get distracted. He'll get high to do his homework, only to find himself outside hours later, staring up at the clouds with not a single worksheet done.

He feels guilty, and useless, a lot of the time. He tries not to think about it. He amuses himself with practical jokes, with being the clown, because it stops him thinking.

He knows it's probably not healthy, but he can't really bring himself to stop.

So he leaves homeroom, treks off to Music. He plays piano, somewhat, so it's one of the classes he isn't failing. He walks in late, but he has a note from Scratch and no one can say a fucking thing. He crosses the room and takes up a seat on the piano, because John is too busy kidding around with Karkat to use it. He settles in and plays, stupid simple stuff at first, but he gets into it slowly, working his way into the music. He plays languidly, lazily, like it's not so much a labour of love but an expression of it, and he doesn't feel useless. He doesn't. Really.

Terezi spends the hour and a half of Legal Studies writing notes to Dave, as she knows the set texts off by heart and has already completed the first assignment for the semester. Dave just seems to get impeccable grades no matter what, probably due to his ability to wax lyrical about almost any subject. Dave may seem idiotic sometimes, but he's very well read.

TG: so what happened what did scratch want you for? you don't look happy
GC: He wants me to tutor Gamzee. Apparently Gamzee's failing (not really a surprise) and DS and Kurloz and Mom have all agreed I should tutor him.
TG: what and you just agreed to that? what the fuck rez you never give in without a fight
GC: He appealed to my sense of justice.
TG: oh right, that rubbish. rez, i love you like a sister but goddamn youre thick sometimes. he was just playing you.
GC: I know.
TG: ?
GC: I know, I know. But I'm getting paid and at least I'll get to see how bad Gamzee is. That's got to count for something.
TG: haha right that makes sense. rez, youre gonna hate every minute of being near that dickhead.
GC: I know.

She leaves Legal Studies for recess with a heavy weight on her chest. She doesn't want to tutor Gamzee, but she's committed now and she won't break her word. Dave follows her, Rose coming out of her Psychology class to walk behind him, holding Kanaya's hand with a firm grip. They normally sit together, the four of them. It's a little awkward sometimes, with Kanaya and Rose being so obviously in love and Dave and Terezi so obviously not, but they get along well generally.

Dave and her tried dating once, after her and Karkat had broken up (he had felt that she was becoming distant; she had felt the same), but it was so odd that they broke up after agreeing that it felt wrong. Terezi suspects he has feelings for someone, but she's not sure who. Dave won't tell unless he wants to, and she respects that. Still, she wonders.

They sit at a table outside, beneath a large shady tree. Rose and Kanaya start talking about the latest vampire romance novel, which also has a warlock in it, while Terezi begins to read her own book (Eldest by Paolini) and Dave mixes on his laptop. It's a quiet table, one of the quietest in the school.

The other tables consist of:
• John, Tavros, Aradia and Sollux
• Jade, Karkat, Nepeta and Equius
• Vriska, Feferi and Eridan

No one really knows where Gamzee sits.
Terezi sighs, eventually, unable to focus on her book. She snaps it shut, and stands. Dave slips his headphones down. "Where are you going?" he asks, suspiciously. The year before she had periodically snuck off to spend increasingly long periods of time reading law textbooks. He had been trying to wean her off them. It was an addiction, she freely admitted.

"To the library. See if I can find something to spark my interest." she replied, shifting her weight to one foot.
"No law books?"
"No law books." she confirmed.
"Alright."

She left, putting her book in her bag as she went. The library wasn't much of a walk, so she should have a fair amount of time to browse before the bell went. She walked swiftly, though, for one of her greatest loves was reading – after the scare with her eyesight (they'd thought she might go blind from the blow to the head she'd received) she had learned to love reading more than she ever had before.

She entered the library, wincing at the feel of heated air on her cheeks once again. It hadn't felt too cold outside, but it must have been. She nodded at the librarian, having become acquainted with her quite well, and began to wander through the stacks. She was in the Adult Horror section when she encountered Gamzee, sitting in one of the reading chairs by the window.

He was sitting curled up in the low round chair, his head leaning against the side of it, sleeping.

She stopped and stared. There were books on the table in front him – books like Your Learning Difficulty and You, and A Guide to Social Anxiety. Books that she would never have associated with Gamzee Makara, the stoner of the school, in a lifetime.
She quietly walked out, after asking the librarian politely if she would mind waking the student in the Adult Horror section when the bell went. The librarian agreed, and so Terezi walked back outside, where the world made sense.

TerminallyCapricious's Blog – Entry 67 – 05/04/13
I borrowed out some books today. Kurloz thinks that might help him understand me. I hope it works.
I hope Terezi doesn't hate me too much. I don't want her to hate me. I don't want anyone to hate me. I just want to be left alone. I don't want to be tutored. It's not going to work and she's going to get mad at me when it doesn't.
I hope dad doesn't find out what's happening. He already thinks something's wrong with me.
I don't want him to be right.