Most days all he really wanted was a buzz. Something to take the edge off his mind or ease the pain, like when he thought of his father. It helped him function and just exist. Sometimes he wondered if it was as bad as the school counselors told him. An addiction. It was times like these he figured he just wasn't at that buzz yet and would inhale more, exhale, and forget about them.
Other days he needed more. Days when he'd get a message telling him that, no, his dad wouldn't be home for his birthday again. Days when he'd get beat up at school for being a "retarded juggalo pot head" by assholes whose sense of self entitlement competed for first place with their egos.
He needed even more smoke to ease his worry when he beat the everliving shit out of them and got suspended. It didn't matter to him much, he was hardly at school anyways. What his father thought about it, though… Yeah, days like those happened but not often.
And then there were days when all he wanted was to get shitfaced stoned and not even give a single fuck.
A day like today. As he inhaled, comforting warmth spilling into his body, his conscious, he reread the messages again. And again. And again.
TC: AnD ThEn mAyBe mAkE OuT A LiTtLe.
AT: uH,
TC: ;o)
AT: ,
AT: ,,
Inhale. Exhale. His eyes stayed glued to his laptop. Why was he so stupid? On an angry whim he shut the laptop and flung it to the floor. Inhale, burning comfort, expansion. Exhale, sagging relief, compression. Again. Fog, in his mouth, throat, lungs, creeping onto his face, in his nose. Fog, in his mind, his thought process, his memories. Heavier. More.
A few, wait no maybe more than a few, minutes found him on his floor. Well, on top of a pile of clothes on his floor. He was face up watching the expanse of his ceiling bouncing his eyes back across it's off white expanse when they hit the walls, the bumpers, like pinball, his eyes like pinballs, his mind the gutter, the walls, the bumpers, bouncing his eyes back across the ceiling, don't let them fall back into his mind, the gutter, the game-over zone, because when the walls fail to catch his eyes they'd roll back into his mind (Game Over) and Tavros was in his mind, and Gamzee, yes strange as it is that is his name isn't it? (No time to contemplate your name when staring at the reason for your anxiety, the reason that keeps you up at night, the reason why you're slipping off the deep end the reason you FEEL SO MOTHERFUCKING WORTHLESS YOU PIECE OF-) your father's voice yelling. You don't understand.(PLAY AGAIN Y/N?)
And then your eyes roll back out, your eyelids flutter, the pump, the reset button, the force that pushes your eyes, the pinballs, back out onto the playing field, the ceiling, around the fan, 20 points, and an extra 500 for the flawless dodge your foggy mind executed (+1 heart, now he has two chances at the game, at life) as his eyes bounce off of the many things in his room and the game is three dimensional and he doesn't ever want to lose another life like that again.
He vows never to set up a game like this, somewhere, his subconscious is functioning, and it's saying that as long as he doesn't put his heart on the line like that again he won't lose it. Because if he loses this extra heart so generously provided he'll be down to one and it would be so easy, so simple, for someone to reach out and just—crush it.