A/N: Okay yep send hate my way cause this took way too goddamn long and I'm sorry. Or just read it because I don't like receiving hate ahahah. Enjoy!
After a long lecture from the teacher about the classroom's rules, Gamzee took a seat behind Eridan. The boy aimed a nasty glare at him as he passed, to which he could only respond with a dopey grin and playful waggle of the fingers. Eridan huffed loudly and removed a notebook and a pencil from his desk. While the teacher, whose name Gamzee had forgotten already, droned endlessly about subjects and predicates and objects and clauses, the teen in front scribbled furiously then tossed the paper behind him. Gamzee caught the sheet by the tips of his fingers and tucked it under his desk while staring fixedly at the teacher, praying she didn't notice. She didn't, or at least pretended not to, and continued on with the lesson while jabbing at the whiteboard with a bright red pointer. Allowing himself to relax, Gamzee looked at the note clutched in his fingers.
okay so let me let you in on a few things
you saw those glares you got when you entered the classroom right
and no im not talkin about the hatestare i gave you cause that's just a complementary thing for being a complete embarassment im talkin about fuckin everyone else
thats what you get for bein a purple cause everyone fuckin hates purples
they think were self-entitled shits which some are but thats not the goddamn point
Here, Gamzee rolled his eyes, for Eridan was a prime example of a "self-entitled shit".
youre probably gonna get a lot of shit
so youre thinkin "whys eridan doin this why the fuck does he care"
its cause i dont want you fuckin whinin to me when you cant make any friends
im not even gonna pretend to entertain that shit you got me loud and clear
good now fuckin pay attention cause im not helpin you with your homework either
Gamzee snorted, balled up the note, and beaned it at the back of Eridan's head. He froze, slowly tightened his hold on his pencil, and slightly turned his head to glare from the corner of his eye. His mouth curled into a grimace and a disgusted noise escaped his throat.
"Do that again an' I'll fight you in the middle a class," Eridan hissed. "Don't try me. I'm not even in the mood."
Gamzee stuck his tongue out at the back of his spiky head just as someone knocked on the door. The teacher stopped in the middle of writing an example sentence to scowl.
"Someone get the door," she said, irritation in every syllable. When no one moved, she picked up her pointer and cracked it against the board, catching most of her class off guard. "That wasn't a request."
A girl with wildly curly hair and a teal stripe on her sleeve bounced up and jogged to the door. Opening it, she grinned a shark's grin.
"Karkat's here," she announced to the room. There were a few snickers from the kids, silenced immediately by a sharp glance from the teacher.
The boy named Karkat entered the classroom, stopped, and swept his eyes across those assembled. Gamzee shivered as it settled on him and grew angry.
Karkat shifted his weight and tapped a foot on the ground as he scrutinized the wild-haired boy. "Who's that," he asked in a carefully neutral voice.
"His name is Gamzee and he is new," the teacher replied, casually inspecting the damage on her pointer and not paying the slightest bit of attention to the animosity rolling off of the boy in waves.
"He's in my seat."
"They're all the same." She waved the stick and a piece of wood flew off. "Pick a new one."
Karkat huffed and stomped over to Gamzee's row. After glaring at him for a while longer, he sat down in the seat next to him and dug around in his backpack for his books. Their teacher resumed writing her sentence down and smoothly launched into another discussion about sentence structure as if nothing had happened. To Gamzee's surprise, she seemed to like Karkat and called on him frequently to answer questions. Not surprising at all was the boy's reaction to all the attention: his scowl grew deeper and his ears turned a brighter shade of red as he stood up amid the giggles of the class to answer a question or provide an example. Perturbed, Gamzee quickly wrote a note to Eridan.
dude, why's everyone pickin on karkat like that?
Eridan glanced back at him and sighed. He wrote something down and passed it back.
cause he doesnt have a color duh
Gamzee looked at Karkat, who was furiously taking notes on the proper use of semicolons. He passed the note back with a response.
"Eridan, Gamzee? I know you're not passing notes."
Eridan cursed venomously under his breath. "No, Mrs. Kline. We're not."
"Then show me what you two were writing."
He stood up and made his way to the front of the classroom with his chin tilted defiantly upwards. No one smirked or giggled at him; rather, they watched wide-eyed with anticipation over whether one of the richest kids in the school would get punished. His fingers raked through his hair as Mrs. Kline scanned the note, balled it up, and tossed it near the trashcan.
"Go back to your seat. I don't want to catch you passing notes again."
"Yes, Mrs. Kline," Eridan murmured as he walked back to his desk. Everyone, barring Gamzee and the indifferent Karkat, released a disappointed sigh. One kid put a foot out to trip him, but Eridan saw it in time and made sure to step on it with his heel as he passed. He smirked with satisfaction at the kid's sharp intake of breath.
Gamzee felt his phone buzz in his pocket and skillfully unlocked it before taking it out. He looked at the unfamiliar number and, after checking to see if the teacher had seen anything, unlocked his phone to see who had texted him.
Gamzee, it read, This Is Kanaya I Got Your Number From A Friend Because I Forgot To Ask You What It Was I Hope This Does Not Come Off As Stalker-Like Behavior
He blinked in confusion at the text and started to respond as Mrs. Kline called his name.
"Yeah?" he asked, jerking his head up.
"Do you care to join us anytime soon?"
Gamzee glanced around the classroom and saw Karkat furrow his brow at him, waiting for a response.
"Uh… sure?"
She narrowed her eyes. "Good. Now please come up here and write the proper tense of the verb in parenthesis in the blank."
He stood up and did so. While he was putting the marker back down, Mrs. Kline wrote his name in the corner of the board.
"Gamzee, make sure you stay after class so you can pick up an extra assignment as punishment for texting in class," she said as she inspected his answer. "Very nice job. Sit back down."
Gritting his teeth in annoyance, he went back to his desk and rested his head on his arms. He felt a sharp tap on his shoulder and looked up into Karkat's face. His brows were still knitted together and his face remained one of repressed rage, but he looked more like he was studying Gamzee rather than trying to burn a hole though his soul.
"What?" Gamzee whispered.
"Are you trying to be an imbecile on purpose, or were you dropped on your head as a baby?"
His pulse quickened. He felt like wringing Karkat's neck.
"Well, I grew up around a crack addict, so I could get up to supposin' it's plausible I was all bein' dropped on my head," Gamzee snapped.
"Explains why you might be the stupidest asshole I've ever encountered," Karkat answered evenly. "You know, I'm actually looking forward to seeing your face when you receive Mrs. Kline's extra-special 23 page packet that is required to be handwritten and answered in complete paragraphs. Oh, and did I mention the mandatory near-calligraphic cursive? I don't think I did."
Gamzee made a horrified noise.
Karkat shrugged and returned to his notes. "Have fun."
He shoved the packet into his bag and stomped out of the room fuming. Checking his schedule, he pushed and shoved his way to the second floor and stormed down hallway after hallway until he was thoroughly lost in what seemed to be an abandoned part of the school.
"Fuck!" Gamzee threw his still-open backpack against a wall and watched as books, papers, and pencils flew out. A kid poked his head out of a door and regarded him with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance.
"Wow. It's not even the beginning of second period and you're having a bad day? Shit man, stop trying to beat my record."
Gamzee glowered at the scrawny kid and forced a smile onto his face. "Me? Havin' a bad day? Hell naw, I'm just motherfuckin' fine, yo."
The kid looked back and stepped out of the room, closing the door carefully behind him. "Bullshit. You're lost, aren't you?"
"Now how all did you motherfuckin' guess that," he answered sarcastically as he started to gather his things and put them in his backpack. The stranger's lisp was starting to annoy him.
"Where're you headed?"
He turned around and looked at the kid suspiciously. Forget the lisp; those mismatched eyes were beginning to freak him out. And what was up with the 3-D glasses perched on top of his head? "Why's it all bein' any of your motherfuckin' business?"
The kid covered his face and sighed. "I'm trying to help you, alright? Am I not allowed to be helpful?" He caught sight of other boy's tie. "Oh, I get it. You're a fucking purple. You don't need help from us scholarship kids." He threw up his hands. "I get it. Let me just get back to class and leave you alone. Maybe I should kiss the ground at your feet and give you all of my money before I leave? Actually, you know what? Forget all of what I said; how about you just make it easier on all of us and GO THE HELL AWAY?"
The kid wrenched the bag from Gamzee's hands and threw it down the hallway, scattering even more papers and sending books flying. "I've got better things to do then babysit a self-entitled—"
He didn't get to finish his sentence; Gamzee had aimed a vicious punch to his jaw. Stumbling back and holding his mouth in pain, he picked up a stray pen and threw it at Gamzee's eye, an attack that was easily dodged and countered with another punch. He fell to the floor and held his hands up in surrender, face screwed up in a mixture of pain and apology.
"Look, look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry! I didn't mean anything by what I said!" He rubbed his head, messing up the twin spikes on the sides a little and pushing his glasses further back. "Look, can we just pretend none of that happened and start over?"
Gamzee's heart was still racing over the adrenaline rush, but he lowered his fist. Breathing heavily, he went to get his backpack.
"You're just going to walk away?" the other asked incredulously. "Dude, I'm trying to say sorry!"
Gamzee ignored him, knelt down, and began putting the scattered supplies back once more. He picked up his schedule, studied the room number, then looked at the nearest door. How had he managed to get this far away from where needed to go? There was no possible way he was that hopeless at directions. Gamzee looked back at the kid, who had stood up and was about to open the door to his classroom with a resigned look on his face. This boy had started a fight over something ridiculous, threw his stuff everywhere, and now looked like he was about to cry. After setting aside his emotions and weighing the options, Gamzee whistled.
"Yo."
The kid looked back at him. "Yeah?"
He waved his schedule. "You wanna get to motherfuckin' be helpin' me out with this?"
"Wait, you're not mad at me? You don't want to cause me to go blind from sheer blunt force trauma inflicted to my head by your fist?"
"Uh no. That's probably all a terrible thing to want, bro, even for a sorry-ass clown like me."
A smirk crossed his face. "Alright, then." He walked over and studied the piece of paper. "God, how did you manage to get this far off?"
"Don't ask." Although, it was probably because his mind was preoccupied over how much he had to write for English.
"Fine." Sollux pointed in the direction Gamzee had came from. "Just head back down the hallway, turn left, head down until you get to the fire extinguisher, and then turn right. Go down a bit and turn right again, then turn left at the stairs. You'll know when you're there."
"Thanks, bro." Gamzee put the schedule back into his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. "Uh, what's your name?"
He frowned and mumbled something.
The other kid tilted his head and cupped his ear. "Hello? Didn't quite get that."
"Sollux," he said quickly. "Don't ask. It's a stupid name and I hate it, but it's way better than my full name."
"It's not that motherfuckin' bad, bro," Gamzee reassured him.
"It totally is, but whatever, it's not important." Sollux rubbed his jaw. "You gonna be okay?"
"Yeah, I think so."
As he was getting ready to leave, Sollux shoved something rectangular into his hand. Gamzee stopped to look at it and glanced back quizzically at the boy standing nervously behind him.
"Sburb?" Gamzee pronounced carefully.
"Yeah."
"What the mother fuck is it?"
"It's a game a friend and I made," he answered, rubbing his head again. "Uh, it's pretty much done and beta tested and everything. You just need to plug it in. If you want to, that is," Sollux added.
Gamzee tilted his head. "Why're you tryin' to all be nice to me all of a sudden?"
He shrugged. "We'll probably never cross paths again, so I just wanted to make sure there was no hard feelings." His head tilted down and he looked up at Gamzee from underneath his eyebrows with his freaky eyes. "No hard feelings, right?"
The other kid beamed. "Nah, no hard feelings at motherfuckin' all," he said, heading down the hallway.
Gamzee threw his things onto the grass and collapsed onto the curb after the bus drove away. He laid onto his back and stared at the clouds, contenting himself with finding abstract shapes rather than face the reality that was the massive packet he had to fill out and the other homework his teachers cruelly gave to him. Not one would listen to him when he said that he literally had no time to finish it; it was due the next day or he would get a 50 percent, no compromises.
His fingers twitched in response to his stormy mood. The old goat was going to have his head.
After an indeterminate amount of time spent watching the clouds float overhead and eventually disappear, Gamzee stood up and slouched inside to the elevator. He stood with his finger hovering over the up button for a few moments before executing an about-face and heading towards the stairs. Climbing all the way to the top floor should pull at least one muscle in his leg and earn him a few days off, unless his dad somehow had the knowledge to properly care for a sprained muscle.
Upon reaching his penthouse, Gamzee opened the door and fell onto the carpeted floor. The weight of his backpack turned him onto his side, where he clutched his sore legs to his chest. Unfortunately, other than the ridiculous lactic acid buildup in his muscles, nothing was sprained, pulled, or even mildly out of shape. He briefly entertained thoughts of shredding all of his homework and saying he lost it, but dismissed them with a shake of his head. His dad probably would have gotten hold of a syllabus and memorized all of the assignments on it for every one of his teachers.
Forcing his burning legs into supporting his weight, he gathered himself as best as he could and shuffled to his room. Gamzee snatched his tie from around his neck and threw it along with his backpack onto his bed. The mattress accommodated the weight of his books without a single bounce or squeak, but he couldn't even bring himself to appreciate the quality. He had homework to do.
Retrieving his English, math, and science books along with packet from his backpack, Gamzee wandered into the kitchen and dumped his things onto the table, freeing his arms for the raid on his refrigerator that soon followed. He sat back with a large container of rice and an equally large platter of steak, along with several bottles of soda, chips, and several delicate-looking pastries. By the time he had finished all of the food, most of the daylight and his homework was gone. All he had left to do were a few wicked-looking math problems.
He stood up and stretched, working out a deep cramp in his back from sitting hunched over a table for several hours straight. Glancing over, he read the time on the oven clock: 8:47. Why wasn't his dad home yet? Were late nights normal for him?
Gamzee shook his head, unsure of why he was worrying so much. His mother would usually stay out for days, sometimes weeks on end, and she always came back; the same had to apply to his dad. He stood up and walked back into his room to rifle through his backpack. His fingers brushed against the game Sollux had given him and he paused. Should he? It would be best if he finished his homework completely, but then again, it was nothing he couldn't finish in homeroom the next day.
"Let's find out what you're going to be motherfuckin' about," Gamzee whispered. Opening his laptop, he inserted the disc, a simple CD-ROM with Sburb scrawled across it in careful handwriting. While the game installed, a loading bar appeared and took up most of his screen. Odd little sayings scrolled across the bottom and a spirograph whirled around while the bar filled up, making Gamzee chuckle in appreciation. The pattern continued to spin around while he watched, and eventually, it disappeared, replaced by a floating "SBURB".