Work Text:
Sometimes you ain’t sure who you are.
Like, you all know you’re supposed to be Gamzee Makara. You know it but it just don’t motherfuckin’ feel right. Nothin’ feels normal, or familiar, or safe. Sometimes your head’s all up in the clouds like it’s to be just floating away, but your body’s all this lumbering, gangly mess that feels like it’s got vines all snaking around it trying to tie it to the earth and shit, ‘cept the vines are your arms and legs. You feel like your brain and body are just gonna rip apart. Your head’s gonna go right on out the atmosphere and into space and never come back, and your body’s just gonna all get sucked into the dirt and buried forever like a corpse.
Sometimes it just feels like you’re all inside some other brother’s body. You look at your reflection all up and staring back at you, and it’s like it ain’t a reflection at all. It’s just some dude you never met staring back at you and looking haggard as fuck. But like, he ain’t someone you could be getting your wicked chill on with.
Something about him just makes your motherfuckin’ stomach clench up in little revolted knots. You don’t ever feel that way about anyone, and you loathe it. You loathe him for up and making you feel like that. And you look at everyone else, and it’s like they’re all to being strangers, too. It’s like that feeling you get when you all know you ain’t never seen a bro before, but he’s all looking familiar anyways. You get this vague twinge of recognition, then everything else in your head is all, “Naw, man. You ain’t ever met this motherfucker. Move along, you crazy fuck, and stop seeing things that ain’t there.” And when they talk, it’s like the sounds are all coming outta a fuckin’ record player. It’s clear as day, but it’s got this humming or crackling edge you can’t quite place that makes it feel like it ain’t real. Just a recording, talking to no bro in particular.
And on those days, you remember the nightmares the worst, because they’re all to being the only thing left that’s real. Even at the best of times, you still feel like you got this little monster all living up inside you. It’s like a caged animal, all primal and fierce and wanting to break out and destroy. WV says everyone’s got that part to ‘em, but when you been hurt a lot it starts to act like abused dogs do, all teeth and claws. He says it ain’t that it wants to hunt, it just feels cornered and scared and it bites at any hand what tries to pet it.
But when things get bad, you get really motherfuckin scared of that thing. See, normally, you got this morbid fascination with blood and death and stuff, but it don’t mean anything. Death’s a part of life, just like you gotta feel sadness to be appreciating the happy times. In its own little way, it’s a miracle. And blood? That shit’s magic. It’s like your motherfuckin life force all flowing through you, and sometimes outta you to remind you how alive you really are. Violence in movies and shit draws you to it like one of them fuzzy moths to a flame. It makes life feel so fuckin’ fragile and profound.
But actually hurting another motherfucker? You don’t go and destroy miracles like that. It ain’t right. How could any brother do that shit? But when you’re at your worst, you get real scared, because you get so detached from everyone and everything that your empathy starts getting flushed right on down the toilet. You ain’t never been so far gone that you did anything you’d regret, but what if you do?
The thought sends you spinning into the worst motherfuckin’ kind of anxiety that you’ll just lose all your control one day and hurt someone or yourself. All this shit is why you became a Juggalo. Music’s the safest thing you got, and it’s like Jay and Shaggy understand what’s up in your head and let it out through wicked beats instead of actions. When you remember who you are enough to realize you got the music, you sit and listen and it’s like all the pressure goes whistling itself out your ears. Then, you can walk out the dark carnival in your brain for a bit and be the happy clown again. That happy, goofy, cheer-bringin’ motherfucker is who you always wanna be, and who you get so afraid of losing forever when you go into a dissociative episode.
But today, he’s here. He’s plastered all over your face in the form of the wicked paints that serve to cover up both your physical and mental scars. You grin like a doofus, and while it never completely takes the ghosts of your past out of your eyes, it lets you remember all the miracles around you, and feel safe in the knowledge of just how motherfucking important they are to you.