Title: Shoot the Star

Rating: T

Pairing: Gamzee/John

Summary: Why is there purple paint in your backyard? AU

Review Responses:

ectoBiolOgist: thank you so much! :3 Robin: I want some more of that unironic loving. :D Luci: I'm sorrrry! Here ya' go! Alkaid5447: thank you! Neon: MOAR IS BROUGHT. Thelizfantasy09: it is pretty hawt. And thanks soooo much! Miss Kalea: your friend sounds like me! I just basically sent tons of fanart to my bestie via Dropbox and she fell in love with Homestuck, and eventually read it. We are both HS bros now. Ever since I first read Homestuck, I had this pairing in my head, but there was no content whatsoever for it! I enjoy writing fics for unknown pairings. IT. IS. FUN. I actually….need to work on my old fandoms, like IZ and SP. That just means you and I have similar tastes! Thanks so much for reading a lot of my stories! I really appreciate it. I hope I don't disappoint you, and I'll continue to dish out the weirdness. It's my specialty. BlackRitual: No problem! I'm surprised I have this many reviews. I didn't really think about it getting this much. I think it has to do with the rarity of the pairing really xD For HS fics, I usually update on AO3 first, then this site. Thank you for reviewing on here tooooo! :3 SomersetAldebourne: Gamzee's getting a bit sober. This will be explained later though, hehehehehe. He's gonna' need something to get him "high" again if sopor slime doesn't exist on earth though! Just a hint. Haha. I don't have cookies right now. I have banana cake. :C anon: Thank you so much! I shall! :D MFcappu: thankies OuO Patriotichetalia13: I hope you don't fall off your seat! Patchworkhearts17: He won't hurt John…much. Hehehe lisa: I will! Sorrelshift: I'll gladly send you the link to all G/J fics I've found! I'll need your email though because it won't send links through PM on here -_- Your friend is a classy lady. You should listen to her. I.Write.Love: I want to spread the love for this ship! Thank you! Death8y8unnies: thank you for the wonderful tips! This isn't usually my writing style, it's very new for me, so I'm working on trying to perfect it so that it mimics how I usually write, but still has this unique Homestuck feel that everyone has down pat. Thank you for pointing this out! The relationship between these two is going to be gradual. I want them to get to know each other, and then, we'll see where it goes from there. Thank you soooo much for reviewing! :3 IcyShadowsFTW: thankkk youuu! I'mOnTopOfTheWorld: thank you for your input! Amaya-nights rain: Pot sounds like the most logical choice….hehehe. Dante Taryn: SOLLUX WHY IN THE EVER LOVING FUCK WOULD YOU READ THIS HOOFBEAST SHIT. IS THIS HOW YOU SPEND YOUR TIME? (hehehe…and thank you! i like to balance out the more serious bits with humor, so I'm glad I could give ya a laugh!) Hey-Fay: let me just eat up all those yes's. mmmmm. CrowsGurl: my mission is to get this pairing some moar loooove. And here ya go bro! Nyx: DAT ENDING. Sorry! I think I need to stop ending on cliffhangers.

My apologies to anyone I left out!

All is silent.

You're still staring.

The boy is standing stock-still at the top of the staircase, arms slightly swaying by his side, his head lolling about his shoulders. He looks completely manic, and that terrifying needle-point smile is still stretched wide across his face, so entirely creepy that you feel a shudder wrack through you. In the next instant, his smile vanishes and his eyes cloud over, purple-tinged optics roving all over the place. The engine from your father's car turns off and an empty nothingness wrings shrilly in your ears.

As soon as you hear the jingle of your father's keys as they toggle with the front door, you sprint up the stair case, leaping the steps two at a time, and without even thinking about the repercussions, you snatch the boy's arm and practically drag him down the hallway to your room. He makes this uncanny growling noise at you, vibrations rumbling deep from his throat. Every nerve in your body tells you to let go of him, he's going to bite you or stab you or do whatever brutal things non-humans do, but you ignore the warning pulses. At this moment in time, you're more afraid of your Dad coming in and seeing you two than getting mauled by a boy with claws and fangs.

Once you make it to your room, you all but throw him in and slam the door shut on his face, cursing silently under your breath as you jog down the hallway and notice there are more streaks of purple smeared across the floor of the corridor.

"Dammit!" you mutter, panic starting to cripple your limbs. You almost trip and land on your face but you manage to lean against the wall and prevent yourself from eating shit. You have no time to clean any of this up, so you're going to have to come up with an excuse. Since your Dad already got a glimpse of the blood in the backyard, although he didn't know it was blood at the time, you'll just tell him that you're working on a project for school that involves paint and hope everything falls into place from there. You're sure your dad will believe you; he could be a bit gullible sometimes. Yeah, you can do this. You can totally lie to your dad! You're going to make this happen.

"John!"

You freeze in your place at the top of the staircase, your fingers clenching the banister in a white knuckle grip.

"Come down and help me here, son."

You take a deep breath, steeling yourself, and practically run down the stairs. He can't know. He won't know. You can do this.

The time spent with your dad packing away canisters of frosting and boxes of cake had been shockingly mundane. You two chatted in between putting things away, talking about trivial matters such as school and girls, and although you were rushing yourself, your dad didn't seem to notice anything amiss and merely thanked you when you were done. Before bidding him goodbye however, you explained to your dad that there might be a little bit of a mess upstairs due to a science project you're working on, but that you'll clean it right away. He merely clapped you on the shoulder and asked what kind of cake you wanted for tonight's dessert. You had looked up at him despondently with your mouth agape, before promptly booking it out of the kitchen so fast that you're sure even Dave would be proud. You're happy. You have no reason to feel happy, but you are. Maybe this will work.

You find yourself outside your doorway.

Your arms are pressed tight to your sides and you're standing ramrod straight like a tin soldier, your stomach doing somersaults. You have every right to step inside your bedroom, it's your room for crying out loud, but you're scared. You're petrified. The fact that you have a bite wound on the underside of your wrist is proof enough. Your injury is stinging and throbbing, blood pulsing so hotly through your veins that you clamp your uninjured hand down on the gauze. This does nothing to stop the pain.

The reality of the situation becomes more apparent to you as you hear a slight shuffle come from inside your room, and then silence. You know as soon as you step inside, he could be waiting to pounce and maul you to death. There is absolutely no noise coming from your room now, and thankfully, the door is still shut tight, just how you left it. When you were helping your dad put away groceries, you were rushing so fast to get things done that you had been dropping canisters of frosting all over the place. You shouldn't have left that boy in your room alone like that, no matter if it had only been for a little while. You could have endangered both yourself and your father, and if the boy had escaped, it would have been all your fault if something terrible happened. Thankfully, none of that came into play, so it's really pointless to keep standing here questioning yourself on what could have been.

You shakily press you hand on the doorknob and give it a slight twist, the door opening with a pop. Before stepping inside though, you kick the rest of it open and wait for the rusty cry of the hinges to stop squeaking. The floor of your room is nearly covered with blood, and in the far, far corner sits the boy surrounded in a pile of blankets and pillows.

You hesitantly step inside, your eyes watering instantaneously when the stench of blood hits your nostrils full force. The odor is overwhelming and bitter and nauseating, and you realize you really, really have to tend to his wounds as soon as possible. Forget him being hostile, forget him being strange and alien; he's hurting and you have to save him.

You cross the room slowly, stepping into random puddles of purple goop, the soles of your shoes making sick squelching noises as you smear the blood across the floorboards. You're going to have to do one hell of a cleanup once you're done with him. As you draw closer, you can hear how labored his breathing is, his entire frame undergoing massive convulsions as his chest heaves. His strange violet eyes are open, but heavily lidded, lips drawn in a thin, tapered line. His face is a mess, smeared white, gray, and dark blue-purple, and his hair is as chaotic as his gaunt appearance. You halt about two feet away from him, too afraid to go nearer.

"Hey," you call out gently. It takes some time for him to respond, but eventually he does. He tilts his head up and looks at you through slanted eyes, blood dripping from the gashes across his face and leaking onto chapped lips. You take a step further and hope he doesn't lash out at you. He doesn't even need to open his mouth to release a soft growl. You can hear it thrumming in his throat, low, guttural, and grating, but nothing compared to the growls he gave you earlier.

"I want to help you," you start, taking another step closer. The rumbling in his chest doesn't stop, but he does nothing to keep you from advancing any further. You lick your lips. "I'm not going to hurt you, okay? You're bleeding and it looks like you're hurting pretty badly, so please, I'm not gonna' harm you in any way. Can you understand me?"

You slowly drop down to your knees, your knee caps smearing against the blood on the floor. You grimace, but don't say anything. He's only a foot away from you now, and from this vantage point, you can see him so clearly that it almost hurts to look at him. He looks so gone and messed up, and the sporadic expressions of pain that burst across his face does something weird to your insides.

"If you can understand me, give me your hand," you whisper. You're aware that this is a tender moment for the both of you. If he doesn't have your trust, then you won't be able to help him as much as you want to. You have to get him to trust you. Handshakes are universal right? You hope they are.

For a while, your hand hangs in the air, sad and alone, and you have the slightest hunch that he might not take it, but then, he lets out a soft grunt and twitches his hand. You trust your instincts and carefully worm your hand towards his, grasping it firmly in your palm. His hand is clammy and cold and there are streaks of purple along his fingers, sharp talons coated in neon green, but your hand is warm and you hope he can feel it. You hope he can see and feel how badly you're concerned for his welfare, even if you don't know him at all, and when you both lock gazes, his eyes stir and instantly you know. You're surprised to see a lazy smile cling to his lips, so much gentler than the manic one he had given you previously. It's as if he's an entirely different person, and strangely enough, that thought doesn't sit well with you.

"Can I clean you up?" you ask tentatively. He merely blinks owlishly at you, resting his chin on his chest, the rest of his body splayed out around the blankets. Your bunched-up comforter is stained purple, or is it indigo? You really can't tell. You're not an art whiz. You're surprised when he actually nods at you. It's more of a slight tilt of the head than anything, but to you, it means so much more.

"Okay, okay," you mumble to yourself, releasing his hand. You lean back and rest on your haunches, looking to the ground as your mind scrambles around for a plan. "I'm gonna' need towels. Lots and lots of towels." You nearly jump and fall backwards when the boy lets out a brief, sharp laugh.

"Motherfuckin' towels man," he wheezes, and you're staring at him, your mouth agape, because this is the first time he has spoken to you since first bringing him to your room. You still can't believe that he can speak this much at all. His voice is deep and limber, a bit on the throaty side, and despite the baritone, for some reason you can't help but shake the idea that he speaks listlessly, almost as if he's high. He certainly looks like it anyway.

"Yeah, towels," you laugh with him. When you meet eyes again, you instantly clam up. He's not laughing anymore, just staring at you unblinkingly as if his eyes are stuck on you. His smile is completely gone, no remnants of the previous grin left on his face. You can't help but feel ridiculous and turn away. This is getting awkward. You push your thoughts aside and sit up straight. You have no time to feel nervous right now. You have a job to do.

"My name's John," you blurt out, staring at him with wide eyes behind your glasses. You wonder why you haven't thought about exchanging names with him before. This is sort of a critical thing to know.

The boy is still lying on his back, gazing up at you through wiry bangs. Boy, does he look completely out of it. The only time you've ever seen someone looking this inattentive was when you ventured into the bowels of the 400 building and took a piss while two people toked it up in the far corner of the bathroom. The marijuana smell clung to your sweater for the rest of the day.

"Jaawn."

You flinch, but when you realize he's only trying to pronounce your name, you let a smile capture your lips. You nod your head enthusiastically. "John!"

"Jaaawn," the boy flicks his tongue at you when he puts extra emphasis on the "n" in your name. His voice sounds really strained, as if he has a sore throat. You put your hands up and tell him to take it easy, but he doesn't pay you any mind. He keeps on repeating your name like a mantra, chuckling once or twice when he gets tongue-tied and ends up pronouncing your name like "Joan". All you can do is watch him as he says your name repeatedly under his breath, his eyes staring at nothing in particular. His gaze looks glazed over and you're starting to get a bit creeped out by it. He gets progressively better at saying your name, whispering it like some kind of whimsical chant. You can barely hear him now. Really, this is sort of freaking you out now.

He only stops when a glob of blood leaks from the gashes along his face and enters his mouth, causing him to jerk forward as he coughs and sputters, sprinkling purple spittle and blood on the floor. You rush over to him and hesitantly put your hands on his shoulders, gently patting him on the back. He doesn't growl at you this time. He lets you softly lower him to the surrounding blankets until he's bordered by fluff and fabric. His coughing attack quiets down until only a gentle hum from his throat can be heard. It's a weird sound. It's not a growl or a guttural vibration. The hum seems to encase your very being. You can hear it right next to your ears and you can feel it thrumming along your skin. For a second, you believe you can almost feel it in your own throat, but it stops when you heave yourself up and stand up straight before him. He regards you silently from his pile, eyes trained to your form as you shuffle from side to side.

"Alright, I'm going to go get some supplies, okay?" you ask one more time, your fingers fidgeting at your sides. You have to make sure he understands what you're doing. You don't want him lashing out at you. "Or…do you want someone else to take care of you? I can make a call." Inside, you hope he rejects that suggestion. You just know that the police would have a field day with him. You know this boy isn't human—who in the world has purple blood for crying out loud? You can only image what they might do to him. They might take him away to some facility in the middle of nowhere and perform experiments on him while he's strapped to an operating table. The image makes your insides twist and turn—that's completely sick. However, if his condition turns out worse than deep cuts and gashes and runs much deeper, you have no choice but to seek professional medical help. There is only so much a 15 year old boy can do. You really hope it doesn't come to that.

He shakes his head, and you feel yourself light up inside. His care is in your hands now.

"Stay here," you tell him, swiveling around. When you're nearly out the door, you halt and turn around again. "Oh! I didn't get your name, sorry. What is it?"

There's a moment of silence that leaves the room completely quiet. It's not a really awkward silence, but it is kind of unsettling. And then finally, he answers.

"Gamzee."

I'm sorry this chapter turned out a bit short, howeverrrr! I did this on purpose. Things are really going to start to get rolling next chapter, and I didn't want to write more than I needed to on this one. There might even be….a POV switch from John to Gamzee (but for only one chapter or two)…and I'm still debating on whether to save it for later or post it up next chapter. Gamzee's POV is going to reveal a lot of stuff, so I'll probably wait. Thank you for the lovely reviews, and I do hope to continue to please you! Thanks so much for reading this! :D

Also, I'm sorry for any mistakes on here. Right now i gotta really pee and i'll fix any mistakes laterrrr omg bye