The Prisoner of Rage

[Gamzee Makara]

In a very over dramatic and unnecessary display, Gamzee throws himself to the ground at the force of Strazio’s strike. The clown lay on the ground, crumpled and defeated and deflated. Strazio stares at him for a moment. The mage isn’t exactly one for pity, but in this situation, at this moment, all he felt for his fallen friend was remorse.

“Get up, Gamzee.”

The troll barks out something akin to a laugh, before rolling over onto his back, eyes pasted on the smoky sky. He can see the stars, little pinpricks of light flashing through only when the ever swirling smoke allows it. Ambrosia was truly razed, the blotting out of the sky testimony to that fact.

“I said, get up.”

Before he has even finished his command, Gamzee grunts and bolts upright, rounding on Strazio with sparks of intensity crackling in his gemstone eyes.

“And what if I don’t, motherfucker? What if I don’t feel like it, you rage-spittin’ angst-feelin’ contradictory low-blood?”

“Wh- Gamzee, you just got up.”

A hand, stained in dry, rusted blood grabs the mage by his collar, pulling him closer to an insanity he wasn’t sure how to deal with. “What if I didn’t want all them nightmarish abominations all roused and kicked up? All up and freed and let loose? ‘Cause you done kicked the hornet’s nest, brother. You done stomped on it.”

“Listen, I don’t know what the fuck you’re screeching about, but if you don’t start making a bit of sense, I think I might have to punch you in the mouth again, you little shit. Now calm down, let go of me, and maybe we can get your head back on straight.”

“There is no such thing as straight, brother. Not with me. Not when I’m like this,” he mutters, gesturing at his blood stained clothes. The clown swallows a huge gulp of air, and then points frantically at his dark, orange eyes. “You see this shit? You see these eyes? These eyes ain’t okay. They ain’t motherfuckin’ straight. Thas ‘cause all they want to see is blood, ruin, death and destruction, motherfucker. And who am I to object? Eh? So I see what I want to see. And if I don’t see it, I make it seen. Get it motherf-”

*THWACK*

Gamzee’s fingers let loose the scrap of fabric giving him hold of Strazio. His eyes are once again a luminous, alien yellow. He stares at his rage-friend incredulously.

“Ow.”

“I told you I’d hit you.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

They just stare at each other for a moment. Several times, Gamzee’s eyes fall to the ground, only to return to Strawso’s gaze once again.

“There’s this thing inside me right? Like a nasty hobo livin’ all up inside my bloodstream rent free. Well, I used the slime, that green stuff. I cooked it, made some admittedly dee-licious pies with it. But uh, shit was poison. Literal poison. Addictive and druggy and all that crap. Kept that stuff in my High blood motherfucking suppressed like a rebellion or some shit.”

Gamzee drones on, little inflection in his voice. No trembling octaves or lowered tone. He just blurts it out real slow like, as if stating a fact he wasn’t quite sure he knew to be true.

"For the longest time, it kept my chill all chill. I could have friends and shit, y’know; Kar-bro and the rest of mah wicked species. But draining all that slime down my gullet gave it a nice little pit to make a home in. Shit was fucking me up all over and inside. But I had to keep cookin’ and nomming, you know? If I didn’t, well, shit wasn’t really good for anybody.”

There wasn’t much for Gamzee to explain. What the Riverweldt native saw in the run-down movie theatre answered any questions he might have had about how ‘not good’ things could get with this particular clown. As if he needed a further reminder, nearby Ambrosian home collapsed in on itself, sending the flames and sparks higher into the smoggy sky.

“Well, ever since I got vortemenexed into this magical universal place, I ain’t really felt the slime that much. That pit I was talking about? Gone. At first, I was kind scared shitless, really. Thought maybe I’d lose control and just be destined and ordained by the Mirthful Messiahs to wander around the O-Verse looking for shit to kill until someone put my ass down like a rabid dog. The only amount of inner-chill I could’ve found in that motherfucking outcome would be that at least I was all up and disappeared yaknow? From my home world. No friends to murder, nope. Not here.”

Sheepishly, the High-Blood scratches the back of his head, looking as zoned out as ever.

“But I soon realized that naw, this ain’t the same deal. The slime wasn’t really gone it was just...I don’t even know. I really don’t. It’s been there, right in my motherfucking face, but I can’t see it, even now. Hurts my think-pan tryna puzzle that shit out. S’pose it was a good thing that I was still uh, sedated, I guess, would be a good word,” The teen says, trying not to cringe at his own word choice. “I dragged my best buddy into this mess, found this little chillville called Ambrosia, and hell, I made more than a couple new friends all over. Kinda fucks up the whole “well at least I won’t murder everyone I care about” plan.”

There’s a bit of a pause. Gamzee hadn’t talked this much since he had to explain how a giant seahoofbeast had managed to find its way into Karkat’s hive. His jaw was starting to ache.

And he really didn’t want to talk about this next shit.

“Now, it was in no way, shape, or fashionform your fault, but you and I found that shit. That nasty, green, delicious sludge. And guess what? You tore that shit out. You tore it out by the throat. Straight up chokeslammed that shit. Know what the fucked up bit is? We had to. Without a shade of a dizoubt, we had to. And you know what’s even worse? It didn’t matter. Look where we ended up anyways. Deader than home entryway pins. And you know what’s the absomotherfuckinglut-”

“Get on with it.”

“Right, my badness. Well, what’s all kinds of fucked up from sun down, is that it felt good. It felt so motherfucking righteous to have that big ass stage curtain fly off of my shoulders. It felt like the greatest show on earth was about to begin and I was the centerpiece and I was gonna-”

“Got it.”

“Yeah. Well, long story short I liked that power. That rage, coursing through my lifeblood. I can’t like it though, I’ll fucking lose it if I like it. Trade in one addiction for another, ya dig? I just can’t win, Strawso.”

“It’s Strazio.”

“Right.”