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Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.
You spin about and face the wall. Black dances in your vision, like usual, but it feels different. Tastes different. He's coming. You can almost hear him coming down the hall.
The death penalty, perhaps?
Your own cackle echoes in your head, but you haven't heard it out loud in ages. You brush your hair out of your face. It's limp and slightly greasy. The last time you felt the inside of an ablution trap...? Well before you started this. Whatever this is. Folly. Idiocy.
The defendant remains silent...
You're a little glad that your scalemates are nowhere to be found on this meteor. You couldn't face them, not now. They were always in love with Karkat. Lemonsnout was his biggest advocate from day one, always nudging at you whenever you would just throw something in a fit of pique, reminding you that maybe his ego was half the size of a nutbeast's tail and he wasn't sure how you felt. Shouldn't he know by now that you pity him more than anyone?
Witness, to the stand.
It's time. You asked him to come, you have little appointments set up so Karkat never has to see even though he knows already. You don't do surprises anymore.
The door creaks open.
When he walks in, a searing hatred rips through your gut. It bubbles up in you, makes you want to vomit at the feel of his hands when they slip around your throat softly, teasingly...and that is how it should be. Hatred. It's a quadrant, like the others, and this boy knows how to fill it. He gives almost as good as he gets, and you give it.
Exhibit A.
His teeth nip at your lips and there's white paint streaked on your cheeks, you can feel it. Thinking of how this is hurting Karkat, it makes you hate him more. And yourself.
You make sure your face is right by his and you make like you're going to kiss him back when you pull back, take a breath, and bring up your hands like claws. You rake at his eyes.
If you're both blind, neither one of you has to see what you're doing.
He bats your hands away laughingly, because you're the more violent one. It's always him on defense, especially when you are this revved up. You wrap your hands around his horns, and they don't feel like Karkat's horns, how you imagine Karkat's horns would feel since he never let you near them. Round, and soft, and Karkat's blush filling the room like roses...
"YOUR HORNS 4R3 NOTH1NG L1K3 H1S."
Exhibit B.
Whenever you say something like that, he gets mad. He gets so mad and it makes it a hell of a lot easier to hate every single part of this stupid clown. There comes the slap you were expecting, and it tastes like victory. Takes just the mention of Karkat to make Gamzee lose his cool, and it's funny-it's freaking ironic-because the only one who can calm him down is the very boy he's screwing over. The jury is hung, Gamzee: you're an asshole.
His horns are nothing like Karkat's. His horns open the skin on your hands and stain teal, the teal of you. You claw at his back with your running hands.
Karkat doesn't have the damn right to make you feel this guilty. He doesn't get to be jealous.
He gets one quadrant, one quadrant with you. He can't own you, he can't make you want to be owned heart and body and bulge and nook and everything by one little redblooded troll who yells. Except he does, and you know it's wrong and this is right, so why does life feel fucking upside-down?
Karkat could never be your kismesis. Hurting you would kill him, even if it was only a bruise.
Besides, how can you hate your candy boy when he already hates himself?
You can't.
You're drowning in this clown's wine, his Faygo sopor slime of a mouth that makes you into this monster, and you hate what you've become.
You hate yourself, and so does Karkat, so why isn't that enough for him? Why do you have to give everything?
You hate Gamzee, and you love Karkat, and it's as simple/difficult/fucking impossible as that.
Gamzee lets out this little moan, and you yank out a curly lock of Makara hair with excess fury.
"1 HOP3 YOU DROWN 1N YOUR BLOOD."
No need, Counselor. I'm already on death row.