Contrary to what Vriska thought - and probably half the school's population would agree - Gamzee's house was not a dilapidated, rotting mess of wood. The house wasn't too big, but wasn't exactly cramped either. She admired the way the trees were shaped: slightly macabre, but still artistic. It especially intrigued her that a tree could even be shaped macabre-y. There were no flowers, but it wasn't like Vriska was into frail things that came and died. Screw the flowers.

Gamzee walked up to his door and threw the door open; no locks, no keys. It would seem that the Makara family did not feel like anyone would burglarize their house anytime soon, and therefore locks were highly unnecessary. Vriska stepped in, and, again, was slightly disappointed by how average the furniture was. There was a large hallway, which divided into separate large rooms by the special placement of columns. When one entered the house, they could pretty much see everything that was on the ground floor.

"Wow Makara, not even a speck of makeup anywhere. And no clown stuff, too. Are you sure this is your house? I mean, you didn't even have a key, if you know what I'm getting at. BREAKING AND ENTERING. BREAKING AND ENTERIIIIING!" Vriska was going to get the upper hand in their passive aggressive war of teasing. Gamzee gently nudged her into the wall, and commented on how the house was now finally dirtied by her clothes.

"Well, Gamzee, I'm sooo sorry I have graced your house with my residue."

"So you admit you have residue. Gross! Get the motherfucking hell out of my house!" More shoving ensued.

A spiral staircase was located in the back corner of the house. Its elegant polished wood finish did not match the 'feel' that Gamzee Makara gave off at school. People who didn't know him would get a kick out of this. In fact, the stairs were so beautifully crafted that they didn't even make much creaking noise as they inched up the stairs, arm-in-arm, engaged in their wrestling competition.

They both crashed into Gamzee's room, which reflected his appearance better. Dark clown figures hung over his bed, probably luring the Capricorn to sleep with their piercing, murderous gaze every night. One green clown, with the body of the deformed caterpillar, was especially close to his respitecoon. "Hey Gamzee. I bet that's your matesprit right there, right?"

Vriska continued to glance around at the messy room, amused by its contrast to the rest of the house. Suddenly, she became curious. "Hey Gamzee, don't your parents care that you've basically defiled this house, just as you've defiled my notes earlier?" Gamzee turned his head and looked out the strange window with twelve openings towards the sea, completely ignoring Vriska's reference to her notes. A strange silence hung over them.

Vriska immediately felt like she'd cross another line. Third strike for the day. One more and she'd hit home-run.

"Well, you wouldn't have motherfuckin' saw me last night at the club if my father cared. If you ever see him, most people call him Goatdad- or I guess you wouldn't have seen him. He's never motherfucking around." He sat on the edge of his respitecoon, careful not to slime up his clothes just yet. He solemnly replied, "He's never home, so-" He stopped midsentence, as if trying to grasp a reason from his incoherent thoughts.

Huh, who would have thought little clown boy here had daddy issues, Vriska thought to herself.

Gamzee's room was cluttered with empty Faygo bottles, and piles of horns sporadically decorated random areas of the room. To break the silence, Vriska once again tried to change the subject like she had done earlier in the day. "So… what's with all of these bottles?" Her thin finger pointed to an impossible tall mountain of plastic bottles, decorated with every colour. Some were even still half full.

"Funny story. So you see how these motherfucking bottles are plastic right?" Gamzee's tone changed back to the carefree clown that Vriska had talked to before; this boy really knew how to keep the mood up. "Well, I think it's a miracle that I came to love these beautiful motherfucking plastic bottles. Glass bottles aren't my motherfucking thing, you know? And why? Miracles told me. Last night, I was attacked by a glass bottle. This is a war. THIS. IS. A. MOTHERFUCKING. WAR." The less sense the clown's speech made, the more Vriska knew he was 'back to normal' and not sulking about daddy issues.

She began to crack up and even fell back into the larger of the horn piles, which was surprisingly comfortable. As she laughed, her sides and her bottom began to push on several horns, creating a cacophonic, yet slightly amusing, symphony for the clown. He plunged in after her, crashing right into her torso. Gamzee thrusts his hands into her hair and wiggled around.

"Gamzee, Gamzee g- get off me! Hahaha."

"That's payback for earlier by the stairs in the school."

"No seriously, I have something to tell you! Hahaha! Get off! That- HAHA. Tha- That TICKLES! Stop!" A light cobalt blush appeared on the Scorpio's face, and Gamzee scrambled off to the other side of the horn pile to allow the spiderbitch her five minute spotlight. "Alright. En – motherfucking – lighten me."

"So," Vriska puffed between breathes and small giggles. "That bottle, haha. I threw that bottle- Well, no, I dropped that bottle, but I supposed it doesn't make a difference right?! Where did the bottle hit you? Do you want me to kiss it better?" Gamzee threw some horns into her face lightly, and told her that her flirting was not going to him to tutor her more than what was required for the test, which meant other subjects were off limits. Certain times in the day were labeled 'clown time' and no one else gets to experience 'clown time' but the clown himself.

"Well, that was my confession. Now, tell me your grades." Vriska had finally thrown out the question. It was one of her reasons for coming here today – to satisfy her curiosity, of course – aside from studying, and she wasted no time to going after the knowledge treasure.

Gamzee sighed, giving into the stubborn girl's demands and grabbed a crumpled, dirty piece of paper off the floor. He threw it in Vriska's direction. She unfolded the mess and was baffled by what she saw. "Wha-"

"READ IT AND MOTHERFUCKING WEEP." Knowing that he had destroyed every rumor that surrounded him, he triumphantly rolled around on the floor like a gleeful puppy, making random cartoon sound effects and occasionally flinging whatever was in his way in some direction. Capricious…..

Vriska's eyes scanned over the sheet. All A's. All motherfucking A's. "That's it, bro. TUTOR ME." She threw a couple playful winks and sat next to the boy, who was now lying face down like he did at the end of school today. "Only if you motherfucking kiss me first."

The Scorpio was thrown back by the demand. Of all the guys she met, this one was by far the most forward. And to think that any man was more forward than the melodramatic, metrosexual Eridan Ampora himself was a bit of a stretch. She remembered when Eridan and her first met, he had tried to charm her with his wavy speech, showing off his might and slinging empty threats around. It took him a full twenty four hour period to declare his feelings of redrom, to which Vriska bluntly replied with a sharp "no". Of course, this lead to a great social tug-of-war, where Vriska always held the upper hand in being more devious, but this memory was far from relevant, so she pushed it out of her mind.

The clown continued to stare at her with his dark indigo-purple eyes. Those dark dark dark-ity dark alluring eyes. Without out another word, she began to lean into him, narrowing her eyes into a seductive gaze. The Capricorn began to close his eyes, too. Vriska gently raised her arm and brushed the clown's face with her cold fingers. The coldness gave him a small shudder, or so that was how the girl took the clown's strange, sporadic movements. Her other hand reached up and grabbed the magnificent horns. She slowly began to lean in, fangs bared for a little lip biting.

Gamzee Makara suddenly sprung his eyes open and shoved a horn between their lips. As Vriska bent in towards what she believed was to be the lips of Gamzee, she dove into the horn. It produced an ironic, deflated 'honk'. She kept her lips there for a few seconds, in utter shock; Vriska, the sex icon of the school population, had just gotten cockblocked by a cheap, mass produced clown toy. The moment settled in, and she blushed so intensely that Gamzee almost believed for a second that she may be choking on the horn.

He pulled the toy away and stared at his newfound study partner's face. "What's motherfucking wrong, bro?" The look that crossed his face resembled a stoner that had just inhaled five cans of paint thinner and was about to cram more permanent markers up his nose. A stupid smile began to materialize on his face, and from his demeanor Vriska guessed that he believed this he had done nothing wrong. She remained frozen, convinced that the upper-hand-in-teasing meter was now about to burst so far into Gamzee's side that any chance of the dial ever turning back to hers had gone into the abyss known as Gamzee's attention span.

The blush did not dissipate. The embarrassed girl turned ninety degrees away from the boy, grabbed his arm, and threw it onto her lap to study, as if it were a detached object - in fact, Vriska would have loved to detach it then and there. Oh, would those detention happy guardians at the school get a kick out of this; another excuse to whip out some 'protective gear' to swing around and terrorize kids with. "Watch out, we've got arm-detacher and lunatic here," she pictured the guards screaming as they swung their spiked bats around 'for their own safety'.

"Let that bat hit him. Let that bat hit him," she mumbled. Gamzee snapped back into reality, and began to softly pat Vriska's head semi-apologetically. She secretly pouted, and continued to stare at the notes. The shorthands and scribbles, neatly written next to ':o)' shaped bullet points would have made more sense if she knew what all the acronyms and strange symbols meant.

"Come here, motherfucker." He pulled her towards his direction. Vriska began to scoot towards him, but gave in a fight to know that she was not completely willing to make up with him just yet for making her feel so embarrassed. And seriously, who would pass up these lips, her darted looks said.

She ended up sitting next to Gamzee with both of their backs rested up against a mountain of bottles and balled up papers. "Alright," Gamzee cooed uncharacteristically.

"Hmph."

"Bro, you can't stay mad at a motherfuckin' bro for messing around."

"You're lucky you're just so fucking out of it that I don't unleash my inner fury and throw you off a cliff. You're even lucky that I don't curse you. I will feed your delicious blood to my mother…." She trailed off, and Gamzee continued to softly pat her head, occasionally running his fingers through her locks. Her hair was long, almost reaching the ground as she sat up. A sweet smell drifted towards Gamzee every time she shook her hair. Strangely, the clown wanted to bury his face between her horns, just to get a better smell.

"Doesn't mean I'm still not angry at you. Hmph." She continued to pout; she was starting to enjoy the attention that Gamzee gave her. Had it been any normal guy, she would have unleashed her inner demon and swept him into a corner with her stinging retorts.

And to Gamzee, if Vriska Serket had been any other average girl, he would have scared her away already with talks of miracles and soporific pie. The company that each troll provided for each other – strangely – made the other feel at ease. As the study session continued, Vriska occasionally jabbed a random area of Gamzee's are to inquire about the scrawls, to which Gamzee would occasionally response with a 'pained look' just to mess with Vriska even though her nails didn't really hurt that much.

Amidst their semi-academic squabbling, they did not hear the front door open and shut. They did not hear the footsteps that pounded beneath them. They did not hear the staircase creak – because it did not creak at all – when the same feet transcended upward. They did not hear the giggles, the talk, or the movements. Unbeknownst to them, two trolls had just entered the house.

The door to Gamzee's room creaked open and a gray hand gripped its edge. Vriska suddenly sat straight up, fearful, and determined which of the objects in the pile behind her would cause the most damage if she hurled it. Either the broken hardware of some sort or the unicycle would suffice. Yes, she would use the unicycle. She was ready to protect the savior of her grade. She was going to protect her friend.

Just as she was about to spring up, Gamzee jumped up and darted for the door. He tackled the figure in the arch way to the ground just outside his door with a loud grunt. The other parties also grunted as the sound of limbs tumbling through the hallway echoed throughout the house. The was silence, and then more struggle sounds. Then more silence.

Vriska, stunned by the sudden events, sat still and listened intently for any more signs of struggle; no way in hell was she going to just sit there. The moment she heard more movement, she-

"MOTHERFUCKER, YOU'RE HERE." "FUCKASS, OF COURSE I AM."

Serket recognized that yelling; she recognized it well because the annoying loudmouth was hard to ignore when you tried to sleep in class every day. Karkat Vantas and Gamzee Makara entered the room, arm in arm, like two soldiers returning from the battlefield. Gamzee gave a chuckle, and Karkat returned with his version of a laugh, which sounded more like a constipated grunt than anything else to Vriska. The shorter, new troll turned and stared at the female before him.

"What-"

"Motherfucker, I forgot to tell you. My motherfucking bro here is joining us for studying."

"STOP SAYING MOTHERFUCKER. STOP CALLING ME YOUR BRO. WE'RE NOT BROS. JUST THROW THOSE BOOKS OPEN AND SPEW YOUR INFORMATION AT ME," the troll screamed. Despite being significantly smaller than Gamzee, he seemed to believe that he was the alpha troll in the room, which magically granted him the power to boss others around. Vriska huffed, and her eyebrows knitted.

"Haha, don't mind the motherfucke-" "FUCKASS, I SAID DON'T CALL ME THAT. AND THROW ALL OF THIS TRASH AWAY. IS THAT FAYGO!? I TOLD YOU THAT FUCKING ROTS YOUR BRAINS OUT. GOG, CLEAN THIS MESS UP." "-This motherfuckin' Karkat is my bro, but he's just shy about it." Karkat continued screaming at Gamzee, while Gamzee continued to talk over him so Vriska could hear.

Nothing made sense. How can the clown stand someone so irritating? Who was saying what? Vriska stared deer-in-headlight style at the boys.

Suddenly, the door creaked open some more. Another male troll appeared, hands behind his back and head bent a little towards the floor. Large horns protruded horizontally from his head. At first, Vriska couldn't make out his face, or what he was saying, but after a while she realized that he was trying to wiggle his way into the conversation.

"Ah, TAVBRO. YOU'RE MOTHERFUCKING HERE." "GET IN HERE FUCKASS." The two loud trolls burst into even louder chants, hugging and jumping.

Suddenly, Vriska understood jackshit.