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Karkat Vantas was a shitty gangster, and an even worse thief.
Which is why, at the current moment, he was running from the police, sirens blaring and lights flashing around the corner he had just turned as his feet pounded harshly against the concrete sidewalk.
It’s not like he had even stolen that much, just the snacks, candy, for the meeting he was supposed to be in later today. But still, he had gotten caught. Not a surprise, considering he always got caught. Sometimes he wished the leader would just give him money to buy these things, but apparently that wasn’t how it worked.
But hey, now wasn’t the time for all this. He couldn’t afford to get arrested again, and Kankri would have a full on heart attack if he did.
Then, bingo! A large, dilapidated apartment building, a safe haven, and the entrance, as easy as the fire escape in the alley. He darted in and up the unsturdy structure with a flourish, all the way up to the top, climbing in the nearest unlocked window with a flourish and leaning, eyes closed and breathing heavy, against a wall, trying to catch his breath as he clung to his pilfered candy. Outside, the police cars passed harmlessly by the building. And in this city, they would forget about him soon enough.
“Are you…..are you here to motherfuckin’ kill me?” a small voice, rough and overtly male sounding, whimpered from the corner of the room, causing Karkat to look up and across the room at where it came from.
The boy was thin, and pale, and….lanky, almost surreally so, but that really wasn’t what stood out about him, apart from his shocking pale indigo eyes that stood out against his face even in the dim light of the dirty amd sparsely decorated apartment. No, he had the most hair Karkat had ever seen, ebony curls that streamed down his back to wave around his face and frame and pool messily around him on the floor.
That’s when Karkat snapped out of staring at him for long enough to realize that the pale boy was absolutely terrified, shaking against the wall with wide eyes. But he guessed breaking into anyones’ house in the middle of the day would scare them just a bit.
“What? Kill you? No, why the hell would I do that…….?” he answered, maybe not in the most soothing tone he could have considering it was him, and he was kind of known for being soothing. Unsurprisingly, the pale boy wasn’t convinced.
“My dad…..t-told me all the people out there want to kill me……” he spoke softly, and from his tone it was obvious that he at least somewhat believed what he was saying. “Th-that the o-outside world is dangerous……"
“Does he think a haircut will kill you too?” he joked, only to be crestfallen when the other boy didn’t even chuckle. Then again, he was just as shitty a comedian as he was a gangster and a thief.
“He doesn’t…..up and like…..sharp things, like…..scissors…….” he looked away, playing with a lock of hair that was close to his hand, almost like a nervous habit.
“Of course he doesn’t. So, you got a name?”
“Dad told me not to be gettin’ onto tellin’ no strangers my motherfucking name……..”
“Would it make you less nervous if I told you mine first?”
This seemed to make him pause in thought, and he wrung out his hair like you would a dishtowel before nodding softly.
“I’m Karkat.”
“……..My name is Gamzee.”
“Well, Gamzee, it’s….nice to meet you.” He shot his gaze back down at his hands, remembering the candies he had and holding out the bag to him. The gang could suck it, this guy looked like he hadn’t eaten anything in a year. “You want some?”
“What….what are those? Are they poison?”
“Of course they aren’t fucking poison, it’s candy, haven’t you ever…..had candy before?”
Gamzee sadly shook his head, and moved closer to Karkat to get a better look at the bag he was holding, hair trailing behind him as he crawled much too skillfully for someone so ungraceful looking across the floor. “What’s in it?”
“You know, just….chocolate and sugar, and……stuff that tastes good. Here,” he popped open the bag and handed the other boy a chocolate candy, one of the small little cream filled kind. “Just eat it.”
The taller boy shot a wary look at Karkat, and then the item in his hand, and then Karkat again before he popped the candy into his mouth, sucking for a small moment before his face lit up in an expression of absolute joy, a happy content noise issuing from him.
“You like it?” the Hispanic teenager joked. Something about the way Gamzee smiled, with his whole face and his eyes and even with his voice, made an answering smile spread across his own face, made him happy just to be there for it.
“Man, this tastes like….miracles wrapped in the specialest kind a stardust known to man.” He went to reach for another, looking at Karkat before he did so for permission, and only doing so when he got a nod, popping the small candies into his mouth with all the enthusiasm of a small child.
“You can have as many as you want…….”
“……Do they have more things, like this…..outside?”
He had been about to answer with a smart ass comment, really he had, but then it hit him, something that should have been obvious from the very beginning. “Have you…..never, gone outside?”
“Once, when I was real tiny……but dad had a fit, called me an idiot, went on and on about how I could have died, how I was nothin’ without him……” he trailed off, as if it hurt him to remember, and he popped another chocolate into his mouth, though it didn’t quite brighten his expression like it did before.
Right then was when Karkat Vantas got an idea. A wonderful, horrible, awful idea. “Do you want……I mean…..how would you feel about….leaving with me?”
The other boys eyes widened to take up three fourths of his face, as if Karkat had suggested they jump off Mt. Everest and not merely take a few steps outside of the front door. “Isn’t it……dangerous? My brother…..brother died from up and going outside…….that’s what Dad told me……I don’t got my knowing on if I……”
“You don’t have to, I just……….well, I know, you have to wonder, about….about what it’s like…..sunlight, that comes from the sky and not the windows……..other people, friends…….don’t you?” His expression and voice were soft, and brownish red met pale indigo for the first real time in they were bathed in light for the single window.
“I do, believe me, Karkat. I motherfucking do, but I, I’m…..” Gamzee looked at him, torn, and when he spoke the emotions in his voice were raw. “I’m…..scared……”
It practically broke Karkat’s heart for him, and when he spoke he took his hand, bony and thin and yet somehow quietly lithe and graceful, as the rest of him seemed to be. “I’m not gonna lie to you, Gamzee. There are bad people out there, and bad experiences, but…..there are also good people, and great ones……don’t you think….you should get to have them, even if it means that bad things are gonna happen sometimes?”
He nodded slowly after a moment, the movement making his hair bounced in ringlets around his face.
“You’re gonna love it……and I…..” he swallowed, trying to say anything that would break the tension. “I may not look like much, but I’ll protect you…..from as much as I—” The shorter teenager was cut off by a finger placed shakily against his lower lip.
“I…..I don’t know why, but I…..well, I can feel all my trust for you just welling up inside me….but, if we are going to do this leaving thing, we better do it fast, before my dad comes back……” He released Karkats hand and stood up to his full height, hair trailing a few feet behind him as he went into the next room and grabbed a Faygo out of the fridge in the messy kitchen before trodding back into the dark living room. “Can’t go nowhere without my wicked elixir.”
He was going to ask him if he had any shoes, and then realized he probably didn’t and decided not to make him sad again, standing up. Gamzee was so much taller than him, tall enough to almost hit his head on the admittedly low ceiling of the room. He took his free hand in his own and squeezed.
“We’ll go out through the front door this time…..” he said, and though it was obvious he was trying to be funny, his voice just came out nervous and scared and shaky as he led Karkat to the front door pushing it open so it led into the hallway, the doors to the other apartments, showing their wear, becoming visible.
“I’ll take it from here….just relax…….” he moved to stand in front of him, still holding his hand, and pulled him out the front door into the dingy hallway, flourescent lights flickering above their heads. To Karkat’s surprise, his words were actually working, and Gamzees’ hand untensed a little in his own as he led him down the long hallway that led to the elevator. “We can take that all the way down, safe as kittens.”
“Are you jammin’ with positivity about that?”
“I…….have no idea what you just said. But you won’t get hurt.”
This reassured him just a bit, and he followed him while clinging to his soda and the other boys hand hand like a life raft, never ceasing in looking around as if trying to take in every single second, as if this little adventure could end at any second and the pretty boy leading him around and the worn carpet beneath his feet would disappear, become no more than sad memories.
They reached the elevator, and Karkat pulled the taller boy inside, pressing the one button to go to the first floor. With a whirr, the elevator began to move down, and Gamzee clung to the shorter boy with everything he had. “Holy motherfuck……..”
“Ow, too tight, fuck, it’s supposed to do that…….and in a few seconds….” there was a loud ding, and the elevator stopped, followed by the doors sliding open to reveal the spacious front room, brightly lit by sunlight from the outside due to multiple large windows and a glass front door. “See?”
“S-sorry…..” The taller boy squinted as his eyes adjusted to pure sunlight for what was only the second time, and he let go of Karkat, sliding his Faygo open and taking a sip like it gave him courage or nerve before twisting the cap back on and stepping over the threshold into the lobby.
The Hispanic teen followed him, reaching up to place a hand on his shoulder before moving forward again, towards the door, to hold it open when he got there.
Gamzee didn’t know if this was what was right, and he would probably worry his father half to death, but……somehow, he felt, as long as he was with Karkat, he would be fine, he would be safe, but more importantly…..he was where he was supposed to be. With a deep breath, he took several long strides forward, until he was on the bottom step of the front porch of the apartment building, bathed in the sunlight that warmed him through to his core, and looked out over the crowded street. A mother pushing a baby in a stroller, people selling food and oddities and knickknacks, even a jogger who waved at him as he passed by, smiling.
Karkat followed him, enthralled with how he marvelled, finding his eyes locked on that thin face with the perfect expression of happiness and the way the light bounced and reflected beautifully over all that hair. “How do you feel?”
He had almost forgotten he was there, and turned to him with a smile bright enough to blind someone. “I feel miraculous, everything is so motherfucking beautiful, Karkat, I…..” he didn’t have the words, didn’t even pretend to, and leaned over to pull the other boy into a crushing hug against his thin frame. “Thank you.”
Karkat felt his face flush, and he wrapped his arms securely around the other boy, finding him to be just so warm and inviting. “You don’t have to thank me, really……”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, cause I up and am.”
“How about we go get some ice cream? You can even put more a those chocolate candies in it.”
“………….” he paused pulling away to look at him, a bit of his old suspicion resurfacing. “I don’t….know what that is, but why are you up and being so nice to me? Why are you…..doing all this? What do you…..want?”
“I…..I don’t, want anything Gamzee.” Honestly, he didn’t even know why he was doing this, or at least, couldn’t phrase it in a way that wouldn’t sound cheesy. The truth was, ever since the first time he had seen the pale boy smile, something in him had…..changed. And he wanted to see it again, and again, and again, as often as possible. “I don’t know, if this is hard for you to believe, and it probably is and it sounds really stupid considering we just met, but I……I like to see you happy.”
His face lit up, and he was filled with a warmth that didn’t come from the sun. “That doesn’t sound motherfucking stupid at all, Karkat…….I think it sounds just right……” he pulled him flush against his frame again before letting go. “Now seriously, what’s ice cream?”
The shorter boy chuckled, helping him step down off the last step and pulling him toward his favorite ice cream place. “It’s great, just like the chocolate. Trust me.”
“I do……” Yeah, he was still a little bit scared, but……for now he was happy, in such a way that he had never been before, and Karkat had brought him that happiness. So he did trust him, as much as a guy like him could trust anyone.
Karkat Vantas was a shitty gangster, and awful thief, and a crummy comedian, but he could make Gamzee smile, and right now, that was all that mattered to either of them.