Harlequin
inspired by this picture - http:/royalheather dot tumblr dot com/post/15055259444/because-god-tier-gamzee-wearing-a-harlequin-mask
Three lines of deep purple, and each symbolised a death.
One for the death of friendship in its purest form, for blue and green spilt on the ground.
One for the boy who made the world seem brighter, for a hole where two hearts were torn apart.
One for the boy he was, for the dead boy who always smiled.
Gamzee couldn't remember the last time he had smiled.
It was dark in the abandoned lab that had become his home for the past year. Dark, quiet and cool. The corpse-rot luminescence cast by the unidentifiable tubes that lined the walls drew hard lines on a face that once smiled so readily as he sat in the middle of the floor, thin arms wrapped around thin legs, head resting on his knees. He didn't smile. Footsteps echoed, the dull sound of rubber soles on a steel floor.
"Gam?" Even now, there was a wary hesitance in his moirails voice. Gamzee felt a sharp pain in his chest, knowing that Karkat's hesitation was justified.
"Right here, brother."
"Right here, Kanaya. What's the matter?" Rose handed the sachet of black sequins to the Jade Blooded Troll, who had burst from her Respiteblock, brow crinkled. Kanaya took a slow breath, and planted a gentle kiss on Roses forehead.
"Nothing, dear. Just a project. I'm sure Terezi has been rummaging in my possessions for ornaments to decorate her Can Town, and she never puts things away properly." The Rainbowdrinker smiled, a little wearily.
"Well, don't wear yourself out. We still have a lot of books to get through. I mean... I know, the vampire thing, but do you even sleep? You look so run down..."
"You look so run down, man. I'm getting worried about you."
"Don't have much in the way of good memories waitin' for me in dreamland, Kar. Not too keen to get my slumber on." Lips stretched in the dark, a poor imitation of a smile at an old cadence adopted to put his friend at ease. The dim light cast shadows on Gamzee's unpainted face, cruel shades of the design he once sported.
"Well, alright. What do you want to do?" Silence. "Just talk?" A shrug. Karkat sighed. "I brought you something." He proffered the tissue paper wrapped package he had been clasping to his chest. Long, thin hands took it, shaking ever so slightly.
"You don't need to be bringin' me gifts, Kar..." Gamzee's low voice sounded pitiably sad in the steel room. An unkempt claw sliced the paper. A rustle, and two discs slid onto the floor, followed by a paintbrush. Gamzee made a puzzled noise as he removed the lid of one of the discs, then pressed a finger onto it. He held it up to the light, the black grease paint on his fingertip contriving to be darker than the shadows.
"I... I noticed you'd stopped wearing it, thought you might have run out... I know you couldn't while your face was healing, but its okay now and..." Karkat mumbled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head. Gamzee rubbed his thumb on the dirty fabric of his trousers, and replaced the lid carefully.
"'S real sweet, bro. But it don't look right, the scars still stand out, can't use my design anymore. Just looks... wrong."
"It just looks wrong!" Kanaya sat down on the sofa in the common room, head in hands. Before Rose could open her mouth, a strong draft fluttered the pages of the book in front of her. The Heir of Breath had entered and now floated towards the women, waving.
"Hey Rose! Hey Kan! What's shaking?" Rose rolled her eyes internally at John's last remark, but his smile had vanished at the look on Kanaya's face. In one clawed hand was a crumple of stiff fabric, and she was glaring at it like it had just insulted her Mother-Grub.
"You okay Kanaya?" Said John, king of tact.
"No. I cannot get this... this blasted thing to look right." She hurled the offending item to the floor. John drifted over, picked it up and uncrumpled it. He couldn't hide the fleeting wince of sadness that ran over his features at what he recognised instantly as an attempt at a Harlequin mask, and for a moment he wished his Dad was there.
"It looks fine, Kan. Really! If you want some help, I saw these things every day back on Earth!" Another pang of regret, but he pushed it out of his mind when Kanaya looked at him with hopeful yellow eyes. John might have well have told her he'd discovered the Philosophers Stone, Rose thought.
"Really? That would be most helpful, John!" John grinned, buck-teeth grazing over his lower lip.
"Sure, no problem! What you need to do is..."
"...give back the bodies, Gam. Then everyone will..." Karkat trailed off, because Gamzee's eyes had flashed yellow in the darkness.
"I told you, bro. I'm keepin' 'em safe." There was the slightest hint of polite threat in the ex-juggalo's voice, reminding Karkat that this was a topic that he did not wish raised again. Karkat bit his lip, but didn't press the issue. He had searched for the bodies, everyone had, and no one could find where it was Gamzee was keeping them. His refusal to relinquish their dead friends was the thing that frightened Karkat the most, as aside from that, Gamzee seemed to have recover most of his sanity in the year he had spent in hiding. His hoarding of the corpses was too close to his behaviour during his madness, and Karkat wanted the Indigo Troll to put that behind him, more than anything.
"Okay, okay. Well, I should get back, I guess. Keep the paint, okay? Who knows, you might want to put it on later." Karkat slowly stretched his arms towards the lanky figure in front of him in a permission seeking manner. When he took the taller troll into his arms, he felt ribs dig into his torso painfully, and reminded himself he should make sure Gamzee ate more.
"It'll be okay, Gam. I promise. Everything is going to be okay, real soon." A throaty chuckle, devoid of humor.
"Thanks, Kar. I'd love to believe that."
"I'd love to believe that, John, but I am sure that my efforts pale in comparison to skilled Human Mask Makers." Kanaya turned it over in her hands, looking at it from every angle. "Are you sure about this long nasal proboscis?"
"Yeah, trust me. They ALL have the freaky long noses. Don't ask me why."
It had taken just over two hours, John's overenthusiastic efforts to help in the construction hindering the process more than anything. A whole pack of black sequins had been blown across the room, caught by a stray breeze. But, Kanaya had to admit, it looked much better than her own attempts. She had been nervous that John would ask about the colour scheme, but the implication seemed to go right over the boys head. She smiled toothily at him.
"Thank you so much for the assistance, John. I would not have been capable of creating it without you."
Karkat turned from the common room coffee machine just as the two returned to Rose, who was lost in reading. Karkat coughed nervously at seeing John, who waved enthusiastically. Seeing Karkat's attention was taken, Kanaya slipped from the room, mask hidden safely in a velvet pouch that hung at her hip. The door clicked shut behind her, and Rose looked up, blinking a few times.
"Where's Kanaya gone?" she asked. John smiled at her.
"It's just a guess, but I think she's gone to make up with Gamzee!"
By the time Karkat had finished choking on his coffee, Kanaya was down the hall and lost in the maze of corridors.
The footsteps caused Gamzee to stir from his repose, still sitting where Karkat had left him, staring at the black and white discs in his lap. Slowly, he raised a hand and a club materialised from his Strife Specibus. The footsteps were not Karkat's, which he had heard every day. These had the distinct click of raised heels.
The footsteps stopped, and a pale light played on the steel walls, leaking down the corridor. Gamzee tightened his grip on the club. Kanaya. She'd found him.
He'd been expecting this, really. Karkat had told him about her anger, and it was only a matter of time before she discovered his hiding place. He waited, ears perked for the first rev of the chainsaw.
"Gamzee, I am not armed." Kanaya's voice echoed in the dark, and there was a click followed by a little trundling noise. The tube of lipstick rolled in front of the door and came to rest against the frame. Gamzee frowned at it, but placed his club on the floor and sent it rolling through the doorway. A moment of silence, then the footsteps resumed, the light of the Rainbowdrinker's skin drawing closer and flooding into the room.
Kanaya stepped over the threshold, hands raised in a sign of peace. She approached the sitting troll, but stopped just as the luminescence of her skin lit his face.
There was a long moment of silence.
"Karkat tells me you have been improving at a good rate, Gamzee." There was still a note of anger there, but the voice was the soft, nurturing tone Gamzee remembered from the time before the troubles. He shrugged, noting the brief tensing of Kanaya's posture at his movement.
"I 'spose. Can't hear the voices no more. I guess that's what he meant." Kanaya nodded at that, but Gamzee's long fingers were tracing the lines on his face. When he spoke next, his voice was choked.
"Sorry doesn't fuckin' cut it, right?" He put his face in his hands and drew a long, shuddering breath. Kanaya moved a few steps forward.
"No, no it doesn't. And I do not think anything ever will. But..." Now she was only a few feet away from the huddled figure, and she knelt down carefully. Gamzee looked up at her, bright purple lines tearing across his features.
"Why you here if you ain't gonna slice me up, Kan?" Kanaya adjusted the set of her skirt, and took the velvet bag from her hip.
"If I had wanted to do that, I would have done so three weeks ago when I discovered your location." Manicured nails tugged at the drawstrings. "No, Gamzee. I am not here for violence. I am here to offer reconciliation." The bag opened.
Between Kanaya's fingers the mask gleamed a rich, dark indigo. Black braid ran around the edges, the cheeks coming slightly lower down than a traditional half mask, and black sequins sparkled in the light from her body. Intricate detailing around the eye holes showed a more refined, elegant variant of the design Gamzee once used to paint his face. Black ribbon flowed from the edges to be tied behind the head.
Kanaya placed the mask between the two of them.
"You can never again be the Gamzee you were before the Game, but you are no longer the Gamzee that murdered our friends. It is time for a new Gamzee. This is to hide the scars of the Gamzee you were. What you are now is up to you. But Karkat thinks you are getting better, so I believe you deserve a chance." She stood up. Gamzee stared at the mask, not moving or speaking.
"I hope that, whoever you decide to be, that we can be... friends again, Gamzee Makara."
The noise of Kanaya's footsteps had faded away. Minuets passed without Gamzee moving a muscle. Then, with glacial slowness, he reached out for the harlequin mask at his feet. There was the almost imperceptible noise of hair being swished out of the way, and the faint thung of a ribbon being pulled tight.
In the darkness, Gamzee smiled softly.