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You could smell the deceit on him every time he came into the room. Since Gamzee had stopped hiding, he’s been nothing but a thorn in your side, which didn’t help matters. Karkat insisted he had changed, and the only ones who didn’t believe that were Kanaya, Dave, and yourself included. You could sense he had changed, but not for the better. There was a constant scent of dried blood that lingered around him like a dark aura, and you never missed it. It was impossible to ignore.
He liked to play at things nobody else had treaded onto before, leaving small obstacles in your way. You could always tell where they were and could easily avoid them, knowing fully well that you were aggravating him. It was a constant game of “I can do better than you can” and really, he wasn’t bringing up much of a challenge. As much as he annoyed you, and brought about suspicion within the dark halls, Gamzee Makara was a difficult person to annoy in return. You could just smell the shit eating grin on his face, almost plastered on along with the faint scent of greasepaint, something you could always sense around corners and in dark hallways. His presence was almost suffocating if it wasn’t so infuriating. You often found yourself barking out into the dark for him to go away, the only answer being his peal of laughter. Your name is Terezi Pyrope and you hated the Juggalo.
It wasn’t so much that you purely hated him, because really, your relationship was more complicated than that. Gamzee hated only two other people, that being Kanaya and Dave, but the kind of reeking fury that was presented whenever he and the Strider was in the room together wasn’t there when it was only you and him. And that, if anything, spurred on your feelings of black romance even more. You couldn’t trust him as hard as you could hit him, and he fully knew that. Everyone could see it by the way you would wrinkle your nose when he walked past, like his very existence was a foul odor.
He liked to take things that you would notice to be missing; your cane, glasses, shoes, that sort of thing. At first you ignored it, pretended it didn’t bother you, but that only seemed to escalate the situation to the point where ignoring it was downright idiotic. You could no longer feign ignorance to his motives, he made sure of that. It was then that you started to fight back. You had never gotten the chance to pass judgment on him as much as you wished you could; Karkat saw to that. His philosophy was forgive and forget, but when the lingering aroma of death hung around the clown, you found it very hard to forgive or forget. Your judgment would have found Gamzee guilty of course, and as much as you wanted to punish him for his actions, you couldn’t with Karkat constantly watching over his moirails shoulder. So you found other ways to crucify him.
When a horn found its way under your foot, you put all of your weight on it until it collapsed and sunk into the floor. You could smell his anger when you did these things, and it only spurred you on further. After a week or two of horn crushing, you stole away one of his tubs of paint and had at the walls around his room, mocking his symbol with your own. The territory was yours, and you would sink that message into his thick skull even if it killed you.
You had gotten the upper hand each time until now, and you could feel it grating on your nerves. When Karkat would ask Gamzee what was going on between you two, he would play innocent, and for a while that would work. But the ugliest side of him was always brought out, the conniving side that hated to be outdone and loved to be one step ahead of the game. With Dave it was different, more physical and less psychological, but with you and Gamzee, there was no other way to be. You had to attack on the mental stage, had to have him second guessing and looking over his shoulder. You wanted to make him question his already crumbling sanity, but you didn’t trust what would come out of him. He was a criminal and had to be treated as such, while he treated you like a toy. It was a game of cat and mouse, and he would bat and scratch at you when he was bored, just to look for some kind of amusement. It was a sick and twisted game, and both of you knew it. But somehow, while things on the meteor had grown quiet, you found the both of you could play at this and not care for the consequences.