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[cookinglikeamotherfucker]

Nobody talked to the kid with the dreads.

Nobody knew if he'd been held back with the jocks, or if he'd just hit the world's worst growth spurt, but the long, lanky highblood seemed to top everyone else in stature, even the select little clique of seadwellers, all of whom had taken to muttering about him indiscreetly. Of course, it didn't help his image that he wandered the halls with the dazed expression of the perpetually baked. He'd already been forced to stop painting his face by the faculty to keep from distracting others in his classes. As if that was really what everyone was focusing on.

He was intelligent, even brilliant according to some of the instructors, but that didn't count for anything when none of his homework was turned in, either coming up missing or simply forgotten, or occasionally doodled on. He never took notes and rarely remembered to bring his textbooks. The only class he did well in, for that matter, was his visual arts elective and even then, he rarely stayed on task, often speeding through the lessons then slinking away to one of the broken-down loveseats what were used for the occasional sit-in model for life drawing sessions.

He was a flake, and ninety percent of the time, he was alone.

Fourth block Gym was never something that he participated in. He simply stayed long enough to be counted there for role call, then slipped out easily to settle down behind the gymnasium where the security guards never went, sitting on the ground in the shade in his gym clothes and packing a bowl out of sight where the smoke would be whipped away by the breeze.

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[cookinglikeamotherfucker]

Gamzee froze momentarily, then wrapped an arm around Eridan in kind, his face pressing into the other's shoulder, his eyes closed tight. He murmured a promise that he'd be alright then simply stayed in the embrace until they had to pull away to be able to make the short trip, already rather late for the time he had to be there. "I'll be real close to my moirail's place so even if something doesn't go down I'll have somewhere to crash until school tomorrow," he sighed, rubbing his fingers into his eyes and the bridge of his nose.

When they pulled up just outside the neighborhood he'd been assigned to wait at, he lingered in the car a minute, fiddling with the clasp of his bag then reaching back over and laying his hand against the side of Eridan's head, his fingers tangling into the back of his hair briefly then slipping away as he got out, grabbing his longboard out of the trunk and rolling down the rough street without looking back.

[princeofmelodrama]

Eridan turned when Gamzee put his hand on his cheek and neck. He looked at him with a weak, but hopeful smile, and when he closed the trunk, Eridan got out of the neighborhood, unnerved by just being there. He quietly wished his friend luck in whatever nasty shit he had to be up to.

Once he got home, he immediately went up to his room, getting to his computer, talking to Feferi for a couple hours, pouring out all his feelings of worry for Gamzee at her, and at how he very much was not trying to bring himself into a matespritship with the guy, as much as his feeling had been leaning hard into the red for him. She gave him no pertinent advice, but soothed him and told him that he just had to trust that Gamzee was capable of handling himself in such dire situations. It was what he was born to do, after all! Eridan didn't accept that; he knew far better about the highblood than to believe that a mellow, easygoing, gentle, artistic guy would eventually find some perverse glee in doing what the GHB had sent him out to do.

Once he logged off and finished up what little homework he had left to do, Eridan wandered down the stairs of the otherwise empty house. Cronus had gone out to do whatever miscreant shit he got up to, and their guardian was out on the ocean, doing whatever was required of him; likely off hunting lusii to feed to the great old god that acted as the Condesce's guide. Eridan himself found that sort of thing rather exciting, but didn't like the idea of it being all that he would eventually do. He didn't like the idea of being some pawn. He had higher goals than that.

He settled into the sofa and started in on one of the many books that he'd been working through, enjoying the silence for the time being. He eventually drifted off, curled up around his book, trying not to think too hard about what his friend was doing just then.

[cookinglikeamotherfucker]

Working as the family's enforcer was the least pleasurable thing he could imagine as he stood out in the cold. He had his clubs in his hands, his face painted into a more jagged, intimidating pattern that very clearly let anyone in the vicinity of his operation site who he was working for. Meeting with rival groups from other areas often proved to be interesting, but when they brought their own fighter and noticed that nobody had come to back Makara up, they seized their opportunity.

School the next morning ended up being something of an interesting affair. People were used to seeing Gamzee walking the halls sporting some injury or another, but this was the first time they'd ever seen real wounds. There were long diagonal gashes across his face, one looking as if it had come very close to blinding him. He'd been forced to leave his paint off for the time being to prevent aggravating the injury, instead letting his hair fall to shade as much of his face as he could manage. He was quieter than usual and actually concentrated on doing his work, and as soon as the bell rang for lunch he was gone.

[princeofmelodrama]

Eridan had immediately seen the wounds and winced in sympathy for his friend, though once lunch had come, Eridan wandered out to see if he could find his friend. First, he'd tried the stand of trees by the track, and when that warranted no results but a few idiots smoking cigarettes and giving him a few weird looks, he tried the other spots outside that he'd thought he'd find Gamzee.

When he came up with absolutely fuckall, he sighed and started down to the green room, where he'd taken to leaving notes sometimes for his friend, intending to do just that. As he walked into the green room, he couldn't help the shiver that went down his spine. He'd so far managed to stay lucky and not get ill, but the drop in temperature found him getting more sniffly. He murmured, "Last thing I fuckin' need, a cold," as he turned on the light in the far end of the room so he could see what he was doing, so he could write a note for Gamzee.

[cookinglikeamotherfucker]

The light was flicked on before he could touch it, Gamzee's hand on the switch. He'd been out of the way, staying out of sight and remained so, hidden snug in the alcove between the desk and wardrobe, sitting atop a small stack of cushions with his knees pulled up level with his chest. He tucked his arm back down and looked up at Eridan with wide, tired eyes, his hands perched on his knees. In spite of his size, he looked like a child, hiding in his closet from the monster under the bed. His nose was starting to run from the cold but mostly going ignored save for occasionally being wiped on the wrist of his sleeve.

"Hey, you think you could pick up the rest of my homework for the day?" he asked quietly, his voice hoarse.

[princeofmelodrama]

Eridan jumped back with a gasp, his eyes gone wide and his earfins tight against his neck, looking scandalized, though his expression softened once he saw Gamzee. He stepped closer as he reached down into his bag to grab the small packet of tissues, dabbing at Gamzee's nose. "I was goin' to leave a note tellin' you I've got to go home. I'm comin' down with somethin'," he murmured, moving his hand down to Gamzee's chin so he could bring his face up to look at him.

"I'll go get your other classes' work for you," he quietly agreed, brow knit in concern, "but you should at least come with me so you can have my dad take a look at these," he said with a pout to the wounds. "He's good with this sorta thing. An' really, they aren't as bad as his, either. With a little care, they'll heal up an' you'll barely be able to see 'em," he assured.

[cookinglikeamotherfucker]

Gamzee cringed some, then winced as he did, the scabbed over cuts stinging a little as he pulled a face. He nodded when the prickly feeling subsided and took one of the tissues to gingerly blow his nose, slowly unfolding and picking himself up then shaking his sleeve over his hand before offering it to help Eridan back up as well. He glanced around then fished behind where he'd been sitting, coming up with the snapped halves of his board and carrying them both under one arm, his bag slung over his shoulder. Going to see Dualscar wasn't the ideal end to his day, knowing that more likely that not it would get back to GHB, but it was better than going him to be immediately punished for his failure.

Walking behind Eridan as they went to their last few classes to retrieve their work, Gamzee kept his head down, ignoring the burning of his ears at the hushed murmurs, wanting to either sink into the floor or else scream at them all to stop. He couldn't handle this. Not today. He compromised by letting his hackles rise, baring his overlong teeth at them until they'd fallen silent.

[princeofmelodrama]

Eridan had noticed the whispers and gossip again and glared at everyone who even tried to start talking, his eyes gone narrow and his pupils gone to slits. Once in the stairwell on the way to the parking lot, Eridan turned around and put his hand on Gamzee's chest, then put it up against his cheek, shooshing him carefully and quietly as he papped the highblood's face. He made a quick stop into the office and signed Gamzee and himself out for the day, asking very discreetly not to inform the Makara family about the half-day absence, for... pretty obvious reasons. He was sure by now that the faculty knew that dealing with the GHB on a personal basis was the worst thing possible, and that putting Gamzee in further distress would be remarkably bad for the young highblood.

Once in the car, he finally blew his nose into a tissue, tucking the used tissue into a small trash bag in the back. "How long will it be 'til you need to be back?" he asked. He didn't want to incur the wrath of the Grand Highblood any more than he wanted the school to, but on the other hand, he didn't want to put Gamzee into the line of fire until it was strictly necessary.

[cookinglikeamotherfucker]

"He knows by now I fucked up," Gamzee muttered, picking at a hole in the knee of his jeans. "Doesn't matter when I go home, it's gonna be the same no matter when it happens. He ain't gonna expect me back for a couple motherfuckin' days at least though so...I guess that's somethin'."

Hunkering down as Eridan drove, he stared out of the window, his horns scraping the roof of the car every so often. He looked up at the house when they turned into the drive, giving a soft whine at the open curtains, knowing that more likely than not, Dualscar was home and that he knew that they were there. Cronus at least would still be in school as far as he knew.

[princeofmelodrama]

Eridan couldn't help the pout that came to his face at that. What he wanted was to keep Gamzee safe from retaliation, safe from that abuse that he'd eventually get. However, there was no clout outside of Her Imperious Condescension herself that would hold back the wrath of the Grand Highblood. He parked in the garage and sighed, looking up at the gouge in the fabric in his car's hood, and grimaced. Small price to pay, he thought, and patted Gamzee's hand before he grabbed his book bag and started in.

The place was opulent, even by seadweller standards. Around every corner was some piece of treasure or a displayed suit of armor, or a painting of large, and ridiculous proportion. Eridan breezed past those, and through a large hallway to knock on the door of what was Dualscar's study. He looked behind him to Gamzee with a weak smile, and at the gruff call of "Come in," he opened the door.

He started with, "I'm takin' the day off, got a real nasty cold comin' on. An'... well." He stepped away from between his guardian and Gamzee, looking over at Dualscar with hopeful eyes. "This is Gamzee Makara. I told you about him. He needs someone to look at these wounds he got. An'... Y'know." He inched out of the way of his father as the large, rough looking seadweller came around from his seat behind a large, ancient desk, and came to crouch down and look at Gamzee face to face. He was fully two feet taller than the highblood, and had a pair of scars that gouged his face from his thick left eyebrow to his chiseled right jaw.

"You're the Grand Highblood's little wriggler, aren't you," said Dualscar, not really in the tone of a question as he put the curve of his knuckle under Gamzee's chin to make him look up, so he could get a better look at the damage. "You shoulda gotten this fixed professionally first thing. Guessin' that wasn't an option, though. Stay right where you are. I'll go get my kit." He stood and rumpled Eridan's hair on the way out to grab his medical kit.

Eridan was violet in the face with how he was treated like a damn pupa, but also at how quickly his guardian rose to the occasion to help. There was no argument, no chiding about putting off responsibility. It was as simple as that.

[cookinglikeamotherfucker]

Gamzee swallowed hard as he stared Dualscar in the face, never looking away until he'd been passed by in the pursuit of first aid. He looked back around at Eridan, unable to help the quiet chuckle at his fluster. He started to fuss his friend's hair back into place, his tongue poking from between his lips. Dualscar's reappearance and raised eyebrow made him back up again, then slink away to sit down and let his face be scraped and dabbed, occasionally letting out a quiet, colorful curse until the cuts had been properly tended to, butterfly bandages holding them together to heal more easily. He made a face then muttered his thanks, going to scratch at one of the bandages and having the back of his hand papped. His nose had started to run again and Dualscar sent him back to Eridan's side, shooing them away to a huge room with a huge tv, huge sofa, everything fit for a huge seadweller, even an immense fireplace that was prodded to life.

"Man I don't even know what's fuckin' goin' on anymore, people bein' all motherfuckin' nice to me and shit," he murmured as he curled up at Eridan's side with his chin on his knees, pouting a little at the world at large.

[princeofmelodrama]

With a sheepish smile, Eridan nodded and handed the remote to his friend. "I think you're just goin' to have to get used to it," he murmured quietly, getting a blanket draped over his shoulders, watching as Gamzee got one of his own draped over his as well. "He's in one of his good moods," he explained as Dualscar left them alone, likely to heat up some stew, "Gets like this just after a good hunt. He's. Like this a lot, actually." He didn't want to say so at first, because it sort of sounded to him like bragging. Eridan just didn't like his father's sour moods. They were hellbent fury of thousand storms on an ocean. A maelstrom of temper.

He pressed his finger's knuckle against his lips as he looked at the TV, pointedly not looking at Gamzee as he murmured quietly, almost so quietly that it could have been missed. "You don't have to go until you want to."

[cookinglikeamotherfucker]

Gamzee dragged the blanket tight around him, thumbing the remote without really paying attention to anything on the guide he'd pulled up. He paid more attention to Eridan sitting beside him, the expression on his face and the tension but mostly the tone of voice. He put his cheek against the back of his free hand, glancing back up at the TV every so often. "Don't really think I could get used to all this fancy-ass nice shit. Not really somethin' I ever grew up with. I mean yeah we got money, but it don't really count for shit when it don't make anything better." He'd never take Eridan home with him, that was for damn sure. He smiled faintly nonetheless, finally stopping it on one of the science channels and putting the remote down between them.

[princeofmelodrama]

"Better here with the posh things that can't hurt you, than with the familiarity and those who can," Eridan pointed out in the same quiet tone, before settling back into the back of the sofa, his feet curled up under the blanket in front of him. He sniffled once and wrinkled his nose at the indignity of it all, before looking over at Gamzee, smiling again. "Even if it's just overnight. Unless you want me to give you a ride over to your moirail's place. I'm sure that'd be pretty safe, too."

He didn't say how much he didn't want that to happen. He liked Gamzee's company. It was novel having no pretense outside of illness and injury between them. It was comfortable just being there with him. Yet, he felt terribly awkward. He'd stepped some bounds over the past couple days that were contrary to what he'd told Feferi.

And he wasn't even sure he gave half a shit about that. In fact, it was fucking bizarre how comfortable with the idea of stepping over those societal lines was to him. He smiled as he looked over at Gamzee again after spending a few minutes of simply occupying his eyes with the movement of the things on TV. "Gam, if..." He started, and then shook his head, smiling sheepishly. No, that would be a stupid thing, asking to test the waters a bit.

[cookinglikeamotherfucker]

"I hear those motherfuckin' finish crumbs," Gamzee prodded gently, a small smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. He reached over and poked Eridan's side lightly then leaned against his shoulder, nudging him a bit. He let the thought go for now though and shrugged the other shoulder. "I'll just stay one night, see about going home and getting it overwith. The sooner the better, y'know?"

[princeofmelodrama]

"Leave my fuckin' finish crumbs alone, Gam," he snipped jokingly. Eridan squirmed to wrap his blanket over Gamzee's shoulders as well as his own and pressed his forehead against his friend's shoulder, nodding. "Fine, but if you're fucked up to the point a needin' somewhere to be for a while longer, you're gonna come here. I won't stand for seein' you get beat the fuck up anymore. It isn't fuckin' right." He simply blurted it out, but stood by it, looking at Gamzee with a stern, but worried gaze. His friend had endured so fucking much that it was enough to make him want to assassinate a member of the Condesce's taskforce. And he would, if he knew he would be able to get away with it.

It wasn't out of flushed feelings - or rather, it was, but not entirely - that he felt that way, either. But rather, a deep sense of personal ethics that said to protect what brings you joy, and to destroy all that sullies what you see as your own. Gamzee was his friend; one of the very few that he made that his father approved of, nevertheless. And he intended to see somebody pay for his friend's feeling like kindness was a completely foreign concept.

He sat back up only to flop back against the back of the sofa once more, hearing his guardian walk back in, the scent of fish soup wafting in his wake. He handed over two bowls to the young trolls and gave Eridan another rough muss of the hair, telling them in his rough, inadvertently booming voice that once Cronus came home, they'd have to find somewhere else in the house to go - he was bringing friends over for a study group. Eridan practically gagged at the news. "Ugh, his friends are terrible." He slurped his soup then, and looked up at Gamzee once again.

[cookinglikeamotherfucker]

Gamzee had taken to drinking the soup straight from the bowl rather than using the spoon that Dualscar had given him. He looked up at the announcement that Eridan's brother would be coming home and raised an eyebrow at Eridan and the look on his face, then licked his lips and nodded out the window. "You said you had the guesthouse right? Could just go hole up out there 'til his friends go home, that sound good to you?"

[princeofmelodrama]

With a lopsided smile, Eridan nodded. "Wouldn't a thought a it myself, but yeah, we could go there. Even has a TV a its own an' all the amenities. But it won't be for another couple hours, anyway." He took another large spoonful of soup, savoring the warmth and flavor of it. The fish was of a kind that he'd gotten used to eating cooked, and didn't bother his stomach so much to begin with. Once he finished with the soup, he set the bowl aside and reached over to grab his book bag, handing over the packet of tissues to Gamzee. "We can get this shit outta the way later," he said of the homework they had gone to get before leaving school.

[cookinglikeamotherfucker]

"Thanks man, I appreciate this more'n you know. When this is overwith I wann try and do somethin' for you. Dunno what I plan on, but somethin' to make up for all this." Giving Eridan a small pout, Gamzee put his bowl down between his feet and leaned back against Eridan again. He knew he would argue that it was just something he wanted to do, but he couldn't help that want to repay the admittedly unfamiliar kindness of both his friend and Dualscar. Not just the help with his homework or his wounds, but the unrelenting compassion with which he had been treated since that first day. He took a chance and laid his hand on the side of Eridan's head, pressing a tentative kiss to his forehead.

[princeofmelodrama]

"That's real nice a you to think to do that," Eridan murmured, "but there's nothin' to make up for." He leaned comfortably against Gamzee's shoulder in turn, looking down sheepishly at the closeness of them together, when Gamzee turned to kiss his forehead. That made his cheeks burn and glow, and he tightened his hands into the blanket, holding back the urge to catch Gamzee in a proper kiss. He promised himself that he wouldn't make a move towards the flushed. He all but promised Feferi the same thing. But he didn't say the first thing about Gamzee making a move.

He wasn't even sure that this was a move towards the redder end, and the ambiguity laid heavily on his mind, even though he was happy to lean back against Gamzee's shoulder, looking as if he had just gotten a wish granted, looking at the TV but not really watching it. He figured if Gamzee wanted to clarify things, he would. But until then, Eridan figured that it was likely that his friend knew quite well where he stood in his wants. It wasn't very often that he lit up like that, and it wasn't as if it was very easy to make him glow. That was something that a lot of the kids found out during that biology lesson. All the other seadwellers seemed almost ridiculously easy to fluster and turn on, but Eridan managed to be more prone to hissing and snapping his teeth at those who tried.

[cookinglikeamotherfucker]

When it came to Eridan and his luminescence, the only thing that he really noticed was the way it accentuated the lines of his cheekbones, especially when he smiled. Which was depressingly seldom. Gamzee's thumb dragged lightly over one side of the pattern under his eyes.

"I mean it though. I owe you a hell of a lot and it ain't even been a month since you came up talkin' to me. Didn't even know it was somethin' I needed 'til you gave it to me."

[princeofmelodrama]

Eridan's cheeks glowed brighter at the touch, and his smile grew as he made eye contact with Gamzee, shaking his head subtly. "You don't owe me anythin', though. You hangin' out with me's just fine."

He was glad that he'd had a death grip on the edges of the blanket, because he knew that if he didn't, he'd be trembling. It was embarrassing enough to be unable to stop the glow of his cheeks and the tiny pinpoints of luminescence that ran up his nose, up to his forehead, but if he had been trembling, he knew he'd want to slink away and bury himself under a large rock for a while.

And although he was sure that his hand wouldn't be steady after unwinding it from the blanket, he put it up against Gamzee's hand and brought his friend's hand down to leave a firm, but somehow still barely chaste kiss against the back of its knuckles. "Please don't think you owe me anythin'," he murmured against Gamzee's fingers.

[cookinglikeamotherfucker]

The kiss only made him smile a little wider, his hand flattening against Eridan's cheek briefly then falling away again when he noticed the trembling. He frowned softly and wrapped the excess of his blanket around his friend's shoulders; while it wasn't by much, he was still warmer than any seadweller. He focused back in on the tv for the time being. One way or another, he would find some way to pay the Amporas back.

"What if your dad says somethin' to GHB about runnin' errands for you guys?" he said after a little while of silence. "He might not like it but he'd listen to royalty..."

He hoped, anyway.

[princeofmelodrama]

Eridan bundled closer. It wasn't out of chill that he was trembling, but rather, due to the fact that his blood pusher was pounding so hard in his chest and that he didn't know what to do with himself, and he didn't want to screw anything up to make Gamzee think that he was only thinking of the... one thing he'd been caught up about thinking about since they sat down, really, that he would be scared off somehow. And once they were sharing both blankets, Eridan stopped worrying. It was weird, but it seemed to help.

At the idea, Eridan's eyes went wide and he grinned, sitting up. "That's a marvelous idea! That'd keep you outta the line a trouble an' I know father's got lots a things he can't get done on his own. An' you know, workin' with royalty's a step up on the ladder, it'd be a definite power play on your part." It was obvious from his devious smile that the gears in his mind started spinning.

"Now would you rather propose this arrangement to father or shall I? I very much doubt he'd understand the gravity a your situation unless you told him, an' would turn down the offer of help unless it was for a noble cause," Eridan thought aloud, rubbing his irritated nose, "but if he understood it was to keep you from comin' under danger a your guardian, or gettin' caught at some really underhanded shit he has you doin'," and he moved to brush his fingertips gently just beside the cuts on Gamzee's cheek, "or havin' this or worse happen again. He'd be sure to say yes." He bowed his head. Dualscar also knew how Eridan felt about his friend. It wasn't as if he bothered trying to hide it.

"Maybe we should propose it together. It might be hard tellin' exactly why, but... well, it's better than just lettin' you go back to doin' that foul shit again, an' if he says yes, you'll have good news to come home with an' maybe he won't be so hard on you."

[cookinglikeamotherfucker]

"Don't know if he'll look all that hard at this," Gamzee gestured to his face, "without just calling it a hazard of the job. But I do wanna try and see. I don't... I don't wanna live like this no more," he finished weakly, looking Eridan in the face again and swallowing hard. He didn't want to be known as nothing but the Makaras' runner. He didn't want to be an enforcer, or carry his clubs for anything besides his own amusement anymore. He didn't want Eridan to have to worry about him anymore.

"Tomorrow. We can talk to him about this tomorrow. Before school or after, whichever works."