Flesh is Frail
Prologue
"And another one bites the mother fucking dust," he muttered dryly.
Gamzee watched from his perch at the building's edge as the artist he'd been "inspiring" plummeted to the pavement below leaving a halo of blood and gore around his bald head. The sight didn't really effect him much. He hadn't really liked the mother fucker to begin with, but he'd had his orders. Orders that had officially ended the second his fucking brains exploded onto the sidewalk. No, Gamzee hadn't didn't give a shit that the lame ass mother fucker was dead aside from the fact that the head burrito probably already had another basket case lined up for him.
The fact was the boss man didn't like Gamzee much. You start one little ass Russian revolution, and that somehow puts you on the permanent shit-list. Oh, Gamzee wasn't even entirely to blame for it all. He had just taken the role of muse seriously and inspired a few hotheads to start the ball rolling. By the time things really heated up, Gamzee had settled in for well-deserved show only to find out that he had been fucking reassigned. From then on out, he was ordered to be the personal muse for some of the worst fucking artists of all time. The only bright side of his assignments was that the assholes kept dying on him at a pretty good rate. The latest—exhibit A being scraped off the sidewalk—had only subjected him to a month of his fucking God-awful iCarley fanfiction before taking his swan dive. Still, he knew it was only a matter of time before Vriska appeared to tell him what shithead he'd been babysitting next.
As if on cue, the bitch to end all bitches materialized beside him. "Tsk, tsk, Gamzee, what did you do?" she said staring down at the body bellow.
Gamzee barely spared her a glance. Over the last millennium or so, she hadn't changed much. Tall, slender, with gray eyes and thick black hair, she could have been fucking hot if weren't for the psychotic gleam in her eyes. Even the glasses—a more or less recent addition to her look—didn't do the trick. Somehow "naughty librarian" didn't outweigh "murderous whore." Unfortunately, Gamzee was her favorite prey. She'd get his immortality revoked if it was the last fucking thing she did.
"Well, now," she began smugly, "I already have the perfect candidate in mind for you."
Sighing, Gamzee tucked his hands behind his head. "Get the fuck on with it."
The pair vanished—if vanishing was the right term, given that they weren't visible to the poor, mother fucking humans to start with—into a mist of fine blue smoke. Taking in their new surroundings, Gamzee chuckled to himself as moved between rows miniature desks where tiny children sat. A plump, young woman sat behind a larger desk decorated with apples and all sorts of other junk that educators of this era seemed to love. The teacher seemed completely oblivious to him as he reached out a pale hand toward her shoulder.
"Oh, no, Gamzee," Vriska murmured in a sly tone. "That's not your assignment."
Pulling back his hand, the troubled muse frowned. "What the fuck do you mean she's not my mother fucking assignment?"
"You're instincts are as dull as your intellect," she said with a laugh. "Can't you feel him?"
Gamzee closed his eyes and focused on the indistinct pull of his chosen artist. Opening his eyes lazily, he spotted the boy from across the room. Small and brown skinned, the boy was doodling on the back of his worksheet. His tongue darted out as he scribbled away intently. Gamzee frowned and skulked over to where the child sat. Immediately, the kid stopped what he was doing and shivered. He could feel the intense energy that saturated the air between them—an almost unheard of occurrence. In countless years on this fucking rock, not one human being had ever reacted to Gamzee's presence in such a way. The idea that the child could sense him was thrilling. His lips curved into an almost macabre grin.
From where she was seated on the edge of the teacher's desk, Vriska let out an indignant snort. "Of course, you would be the one to bond with a kid," she muttered.
"Tell me your name," Gamzee whispered, ignoring the dark haired woman glaring daggers at him.
The boy's head snapped up and he looked over to where Gamzee was crouching. Clutching a purple crayon in his tiny hands, he scrawled out "T-A-V-R-O-S" in uneven letters.
"Well, Tav-bro," Gamzee drawled as he plopped down cross legged on the floor beside his new charge. "You are a mother fucking miracle."
"I've got better things to do than waste my time in a kindergarten," Vriska said mere seconds before disappearing. Her leaving barely registered with Gamzee. He was too focused on Tavros to care.
And began the most idyllic time of Gamzee's long life.