A/N: Author: Execute PSYCHE X1 combo! ===+
Wickedstuck: Skip to the End. ===+
The show was over.
The curtains had been drawn to signal the end. The villain had been defeated by the hero and the story was complete. Half of the audience had already left their seats. The actors had taken their bows and said their final lines. The last song had been sung.
But the true Carnival had just begun.
Good news…
A solitary figure peeked out from behind the curtain. After looking to and fro for a moment, they drew the fabric back just enough to slip through. They were now backstage.
The person cast a strange silhouette onto the ground. A tall, cone-shaped purple hood was drawn up over his head like a party hat. Two symmetrical troll horns curved lazily out from the horn holes. A cape made of streamers rustled at his back. His shoes were purple and pointed like an elf's. Small tufts of straw-like material could be seen poking out from the ends of his sleeves and underneath the hood. The symbol for Rage was on the front of his shirt, and…oh god. Wait, no, it was just a codpiece.
The troll ambled out across the room, his limbs flopping as if they were not quite fastened at the joints. It was a truly clownish sight when combined with the outfit. But all things considering, somehow he still managed to move with the grace of a dancer.
When he had gone a few paces, the troll stopped. He cocked his head as if listening intently. A smirk broke across his painted face. "Suckers."
The troll knelt down in the center of the room. His fingers searched the floor clumsily, bumping over every little protuberance. Finally he seemed to find what he was looking for. He knocked on the ground twice. "HONK."
To anyone watching, he would have appeared to be crazy. But the clown knew exactly what he was doing. He was looking for a miracle.
And after only a moment, his prayers were heard. A square area of stones not a foot away shuddered before sliding back. The smiling face of a troll rose to meet him.
"Gamzee!"
Karkat popped out from beneath the trapdoor. "You foolish assgrab clown, where the fuck have you been?"
The brown sleeves of his outfit brushed against the flooring panel, now revealed to be shallower than one would suspect. Karkat had lost the leggings, and there was no cape on his shoulders. Instead, he was wearing a plain form of his Blood-themed outfit: a long-sleeved shirt with matching pants.
"Well aren't you just the baddest circusfaithful yourself, being all playing at the motherfucking trapdoor executionator?" Gamzee's smile was just like how Karkat had remembered it. "I'M MOTHERFUCKING GLAD AS HONK HORNS YOU'RE SAFE, KARKAT."
"Not as glad as I am, douchecanoe."
Karkat glanced down at the trapdoor hatch. He would never admit it, but Eridan's technology had perhaps played a part in inspiring this trick. Nobody would have ever expected him to use the most non-magical escape route of all. It was just a simple, stupid circus trick made possible by the Big Tent. All it had taken was one well-timed flash of light. Still, Karkat couldn't help but feel a little bit like the Land of Tents and Mirth, Gamzee's home, had protected him and kept him safe, just like the troll had promised.
Karkat turned his gaze upwards and took a few moments to just enjoy the sight of Gamzee smiling back. The troll's clothes were even more ridiculous up close. A thought came to Karkat's thinkpan unbidden—the outfit must have been meant as a way to humiliate Gamzee before his "death".
Karkat shifted his gaze to drive the realization out of his head, but failed when his eyes landed upon Gamzee's shirt. Badly-mended holes peppered the clown's torso. The amateur stitching was only visible from this close up. Who had repaired him?
"I'm sorry," Karkat started to say, although he had no idea how he could ever apologize for any of this. "You-"
His attention was caught by three gashes across the troll's face. The lines stretched from Gamzee's left eye all the way to his opposite cheek. The small gashes even crossed over his eyelids. They must have been made before Karkat's spell had taken effect, when Gamzee could still feel the full brunt of the assault.
Gamzee must have seen the anguish in Karkat's eyes. "Oh. PAIN'S NOT GETTING ITS MOTHERFUCKING HURT ON NONE AT ME, KARKAT. See?" He lightly drew his fingers across the scars. "IT'S ALRIGHT, BROTHER. I don't got no mind to it."
Gamzee sat still as Karkat reached out to touch his face. He did not shy away or even so much as flinch when the mutant's red hands came into contact with his scars. Although Gamzee probably had no blood left to bleed, the wounds were still edged in deep purple. And considering the troll's transformation, Karkat had a feeling that they would never fully heal.
"AH, DON'T BE GETTING THAT MOTHERFUCKING SADWHIMSY ON, KARKAT. You did what best you could. ALL UP AND SAVED MY MOTHERFUCKING LIFE WITH YOUR MIRACLES, BROTHER." Gamzee took his hand and Karkat knew that the troll meant it. He had been forgiven without even having to ask.
Karkat couldn't think of anything to say. So he spoke from the heart instead. "Fuck. You're still pitiful to me, you know? Beautiful, even."
Gamzee shifted on his heels. He tucked a stray bunch of straw back underneath one sleeve. "There's not being any motherfucking need to get a lie going on for me, Karkat."
"I'm not fucking lying," Karkat insisted. "It's just…seeing a different side."
No one mourns the Wicked,
Now at last he's dead and gone,
Now at last there's joy throughout the Lands…
"I ALL UP AND RECEIVED ON A DIPLOMA-TYPE PAPER MOTHERFUCKER FROM THE WWIZARD," Gamzee mentioned after he helped Karkat out of the trapdoor shelter. "But I gave that shit away. SOME OTHER ACROBAT CAN UP AND BE THE ONE TO LEAD THIS BITCH TO MOTHERFUCKING SHANGRI LA PARADISE. I may have gotten my realization on at the brains what I did to actually been having all along, Karkat, but I'm no wiseclown leader like you."
"NO ONE AROUND HERE WILL GET THEIR MISS ON TO THIS SORRY TROLL PROPER. It was a ninjabitching funhouse of a time getting to see that girl home, but…I know where I motherfucking belong at." Karkat felt the brush of Gamzee's kiss against his forehead. The troll's lips felt like the side of a cotton bag.
"IT'S TIME FOR US TO GO," Gamzee said.
"…This really is goodbye, isn't it?" Karkat broke away from Gamzee's embrace just a little bit. He gazed back into the room, searching for…what? What the fuck was he looking for?
"We can't ever be coming back to Oz, Karkat. YOU MOTHERFUCKING KNOW THAT." Was it Karkat's wishful thinking, or did Gamzee also seem like he was masking regret?
"I just wish…" Karkat said. "Fuck. You know what I wish. I wish that there was some fucking way to let John know that we're alive."
Gamzee paused. "Do you really motherfucking want that?"
Karkat did not respond.
"THEY CAN'T GET ANY KNOW ON TO IT, KARKAT. It's not motherfucking safe for any fleshbro to be in on that what's happening. EVEN JOHN WHAT WE BOTH CHERISH. No one can ever know."
Karkat felt strange, like he was already far away from this place. He wrestled with himself for a moment, having a good what-the-fuck tussle with his past and future selves just like old times. But his decision had already been made. Karkat had known that from the moment he closed the trapdoor hatch.
They had no idea about the true story of Oz. And they never would. It was for the best.
Just as Karkat turned to leave, he thought he might have heard a sound. He imagined that he something came through the window, faint as if it were coming from somewhere over the rainbow. For a moment Karkat almost believed he felt something drifting by on the Breeze—a few soft notes of a song.
Good news!
Karkat made his way over to his matesprit. Gamzee was right. It was time.
Gamzee, cracked and damaged and ridiculous as his entire pitiful self, wordlessly extended a hand to him. Karkat came over to accept the gesture. He felt the troll take his hand, straw-filled fingers brushing against ones colored cherry-red. The action was easy, natural, and Karkat knew that he would never again feel so happy and yet so sad all at the same time.
"Because I knew you…" Karkat imagined a reply to no one forming between the rhythm of his breath and the beating of his heart.
No one mourns the Wicked…
"I have been changed…"
And so they left, off to a new story.
Wickedstuck: The End. ===+
Afterword: So, does this story really end "Wicked", or "For Good"? ;) Who can tell?
Haha, I hope that fooled all of you who are familiar with the musical.