*If any of you have noticed, this is indeed a re-edit! It got to the point that I would just stop and ask myself 'seriously? What's wrong with you?! LOOK AT ALL THOSE MISTAKES, OH MY GOD WHY." It's probably still god awful, but it's a hella lot better than it was before.

Just to clarify again.

Re-edited because I thought it was a piece of shit! And I Aint got no shame in admitting that. It took me three days to sift my way through my own shitty writing so it shouldn't take too long to sort my shit out and post the new chapters.

Chapter 1: Where the Author gets her shit together long enough to re-upload her story.

It was always the same.

'Always the same', Gamzee thought as he wandered, BARELY on time, into the ruckus that was third period Art class. Walking straight in without knocking he headed to the back of the class. Ignoring the dirty look he got from the teacher as he walked past, though he thought that by now they would be well used to his untimely arrivals, he made a bee line towards the back of the room.

After finally making it past the teachers searing glare, making it through the incredibly cramped room without knocking anything over, he stopped in front of the long desk right at the back of the class and beheld what was left of the troll race.

And what a sight it was indeed.

Whoever had decided that placing twelve trolls disguised as humans into one classroom was a good idea was so OBVIOUSLY out of their godamn thinkpan. ESPECIALLY so if said class was right before lunch break.

Having a bunch of trolls in an enclosed room was bad enough, but adding paint, glue and papier-mâché into that scenario and you might as well declare it as a riot zone.

Sighing, Gamzee hurled his bag next to Karkat's chair, causing the crabby troll to jump at the noise and mess up the picture he had been attempting to draw (Extra stress being put on the word ATTEMPTING). But it still didn't change the fact that Karkat had practically poured his heart and soul into his random scribbling's of boredom. And Gamzee's hurling of bags towards him had fucked it up. Gamzee wasn't and most certainly didn't have time to prepare himself for the crayon that was hurled at his head or for Karkat's indignant shouts and screeches that quickly followed. Wincing as he shouldered the yelling, plonking himself down on the chair next to him, Gamzee had just enough time to give his morail a quick shit eating grin of apology before promptly face planting onto the desk with a groan.

It was bad enough that these damned earth school hours started so early, but this splitting headache that had been with him the past week was only dampening his mood further.

Wait 'dampened his mood?' Chucking him into the godamn ocean, holding his head underwater until the salt burned his throat, then hauling him out kicking and screaming like Karkat's first swim would be a better example… then setting the inside of his head on fire would be an even BETTER example of how he felt at the moment… Ok maybe not as bad as chucking Karkat into a pool like John had a couple of days ago. He was pretty sure that John still had the wounds from when Karkat had gone after him with sickles after that move, even WITH his accelerated healing and god tier statues. But any way you looked at it, the fact remained that even with all of his god tier powers he'd still almost gotten his ass handed to him on a silver platter by one of the smallest, but surprisingly fucking speediest, as he'd found out himself on many occasions, troll in the group but also the most bitchtits best friend that was his morail, Karkat.

But whatever boosts the prankster's gambit he supposed.

Gah, this was getting him nowhere. If anything it was making his head ache worse. He needed a distraction before his brain ate itself.

Braving the bright light of the art rooms he looked up to observe the yelling and screeching of his fellow trolls around him, wishing that they'd shut their motherfucking pie holes for two GODAMN seconds.

It was still strange to look around and see them in their human guises. Since the game had ended Earth had been restored. Of Alternia however they did not know of yet, but earth was a pretty bitchtits place to settle down at anyway. With no caste system there was no risk of being culled if you could not produce a pail, which in itself was a miracle for some certain trolls he knew *COUGH COUGH!Eridan!SPLUTTER WHEEZE*, or if you had a part not quite working right or playing up you wouldn't be culled on the spot. Which was always a perk if you looked around at some of the trolls up in his group.

So they had decided to make a home of the blue planet. Not having the technology to search for their home planet in the small chance it had been restored, they had all ended up in Washington with John. Dave, Jade and Rose had decided to tag along as well rather than go back to their respected old homes. After the initial shock of finding everyone, alive and in almost ship shape condition, everyone had agreed to stay in their current location of outland Washington and go to John's old school before the game had begun. With a little help from the alpha kids and their 'connections' (Hey don't make that face, Roxy could be one fucking persuasive bitch when you pried the vodka bottle away from her long enough.) They had been able to pose as foreign exchange students who had moved to Washington to continue their studies.

Not because they WANTED to though, oh dear grist NO.

It didn't matter whether you were practically god or if you were a superior species. Eventually they would run out of Grist to alchemise stuff and convert into human money. God or not, they needed to eat. And unless they wanted to be stuck working twenty-four hour shifts at gas stations for a living they needed to suck it the fuck up and go to school. And it wouldn't hurt any to learn about human culture either, seeing as they knew almost next to jack shit about what the human 'festivals' and 'customs' were all up and about.

But it wasn't like Gamzee could just waltz right up into a human establishment hanging all out and 'Au natural' with his horns and shit with another eleven other trolls behind him marauding about somewhere now could he? No they needed disguises.

And luckily they had them.

Looking down briefly at his now quite pale, pinkish skin, he couldn't help but marvel at how well Sollux, Equius and Kanaya had made these things. 'These things' as Gamzee nicknamed them because hell to the NO was he going to be able to remember their full names (Something along the lines of "holographic-technological-timey-whimy-bullshit-thing-that-hid-their-horns-in-an-alternate-space-in-time-while-changing-their-appearences-and-looking-bitchtits-cause-that's-what-Kanaya-said). A Holo-band or something like that.

Basically they were just a piece of jewellery or something that the trolls wore that would project a holographic 'film' over their bodies. They were originally big heavy metal bands Equius had made that went around their arms like a tourniquet band, but after a lot of discussion and, very loud, yelling from Karkat a problem was found that couldn't be avoided. Stating the obvious, they would not have been able to go around without someone noticing the huge 'bleeping bullshit bands' on them. Gamzee smiled slightly into his arm as he remembered his best friend voicing his opinion on the matter.

*flashback to the past, but not too far back*

"DOES NO ONE ON THIS GODAMN PIECE OF SHIT PLANET HAVE ANY GREY MATTER LEFT FUNCTIONING IN THEIR THINKPANS TO NOT SEE THE OBVIOUS FUCKING PROBLEM HERE? I DON'T CARE HOW FUCKING DUMB THE HUMAN RACE IS, SOME ASSHOLE IN THE STREET IS GOING TO NOTICE THAT WE HAVE A PIECE OF FUCKING BEEPING BLINKING ALIEN METAL BULLSHIT STRAPPED TO OUR APPENDAGES. SO NOW, NOT ONLY DO WE HAVE THE WORLDS MOST UNSUBTLE PIECE OF METAL CLAMPED ON TO OUR BODIES, WE ALSO HAVE THE WORLDS MOST HEAVY AS FUCKING CHRIST PIECE OF UNSUBTLE METAL STRAPPED TO OUR BODIES. OH, IM GOING TO FUCKING ENJOY SEEING NEPETA LIFT THIS SHIT AND HAUL IT AROUND ALL DAY. OH WAIT. I CAN'T" and it was so, that at this point in time, Karkat somehow broke the charts with how loud he yelled on the'PROMPTLY-FLIP-MY-SHIT -O-METER BECAUSE THE PEOPLE AROUND ME ARE FUCKING DIPSHITS'meter "BECAUSE I CAN'T FUCKING MOVE THE TWO STEPS TO THE OTHER ROOM TO WITNESS THIS MIRACLE! DOES THIS CLEAR UP THE FUCKING SITUATION? Good.

"Get the fuck off the floor Gamzee and shut your bulge swallower, I can say miracles if I damn well want to!"

Not one of Karkat's most graceful rants, nor the quickest, but he had raised a good point. Only Equius could wear the bands with ease without toppling horns over heels like a flushed red motherfucker. And people WOULD start taking notice if they all up and wandered down the street to buy milk with an iron band around their arms beeping occasionally while struggling to walk. Kanaya of course had come to the rescue by suggesting that Sollux install the chip that projected their image into an Accessory that they could wear and that Jade could help out with her godtier powers and create a free space in space onto which their horns mass could be projected so that if anyone was to run into Tavros let's say, they wouldn't coat hang themselves on nothing but thin air as it would seem.

Oh and she'd also volunteered with making the accessories that would hide the chip, MUCH to the despair of the other trolls as they groaned in unison at having to be Kanaya's fashion dummy AGAIN.

An icy glare from Kanaya and a reapplying of jade lipstick shut them all up.

That's what led to him sitting in an art classroom full of humans, oblivious to him or his friend's true appearances with nothing more than an innocent enough looking purple septum through his right ear, Indigo eyes the only abnormal thing about him. If you didn't count the clown facepaint but then again, why would someone want to up and hate the paint?

Turning his head to the side and resting it on his folded arms he considered what people had to hate about the paint while looking over at Karkat on his right. All skinny pale albino skin and red eyes flashing angrily. Wearing his traditional black turtleneck skivvy and tight, tight jeans, trying to fend off the breeze as always, Karkat was rubbing furiously at his paper trying to erase the mistake Gamzee had made him make. Karkat probably fit the 'human' look the best of all the trolls. A close second would have to be Nepeta and Equius on his left, Nepeta's green eyes twice their size and glowing with excitement. Still in her trademarked cat hat and trench coat that was three sizes too big for her, Nepeta seemed to fit into the category of 'cute' the most. While Equius looked for the most part, the overprotective best friend/brother of Nepeta. They were almost complete opposites, but they seemed to pull of the human 'best-friendship' the best.

Watching Nepeta as she colouring in a page with crayons, her tongue sticking out in concentration as she mapped out a small shipping wall while Equius, sitting next to her, raised his dark blue eyes to the ceiling in exasperation while he tried to stop her from shipping him and Aradia in such a 'lewd' way before giving up entirely and rummaging around his bag for one of his small portable towels. Aradia's loud laughter from across Nepeta and Equius drew his attention away from the two. Aradia seemed to be encouraging Nepeta on, teasing Equius about how he would soon be running out of towels at the rate he was using them all up, before jerking back when something flew past her nose. Smoothing down her dark red skirt and checking her black t-shirt for any signs of offending paint when the jar of paint tainted water went sliding past her and down the table towards Sollux at the end, who ninja lifted his laptop out of the way without looking before water splashed all over it. No one in the class even bothered to look up as it slid off the table with a crash except for maybe the teacher, who lost just a bit more hair from his stressed hair pulling that day.

Satisfied with the state of her shirt she turned her almost brown-red eyes to Sollux, raising an eyebrow at the look on his face. The bi-polar Psionic was currently ignoring his work entirely, choosing rather to code something on his laptop, probably working to plant another virus on Eridans computer. Seconds later this was confirmed as Sollux looked up, smiling deviously to Aradia, before re-adjusting his miscoloured glasses and looking back down. Typed rapidly before leaning back, Sollux looking extremely smug with himself before turning his gaze away from the laptop screen and onto Eridan. Said sea dweller seemed to detect a disturbance in the force and looked up catching Sollux's smirk and frowning.

"Sol? Wwhat are you even-"Eridan started before jumping as his phone lit up and started vibrating its way around the table, screeching out every single porn theme ever to be created and even a few Alternian ones, drawing the attention of the table of trolls. Needless to say it almost scared the scarf off of Eridan, who frantically tried to turn his phone off before catching the attention of the teacher (Said poor teacher proceeded to smack his head down on the desk in defeat, questioning whatever god that was up there about what he'd done to deserve such a horrifying group of students) or other students. After finally managing to shut it off by taking out the entire back and yanking out the batteries he snapped his head up, searching for the guilty culprit he already knew, furious purple eyes settling onto Sollux.

"THE FLYING GLUBBING FUCK SOLLUX?" He yelled shoulders hunched, his scarf bunching up around his face and getting caught up in his glasses.

"What?" the psionic asked innocently, scuffing one of his black and white converse clad feet on the ground "Not my fault if you don't check your subscriptions to all those sites that you've been using up our ENTIRE internet usage with"

Over the top of Eridans indignant spluttering, Terezi's mad cackling could be heard loud and clear over the noise the other trolls seemed determined to make. Gamzee turned his head towards the noise just in time to see Feferi wiping up some red paint from hers and Terezi's clothing. Not that Feferi didn't think Terezi wasn't capable of doing it herself, but Terezi seemed determined to cover herself in more of the 'candy red' paint. While Feferi had to keep Terezi from tasting the lead based paint or whacking students she didn't like with her dragon hilted "seeing" cane, Kanaya continued unperturbed next to them, quickly dodging a swish from Terezi's cane without looking up while sketching fashion designs (that she was SOMEHOW going to get Karkat into) and absently texting with Rose as she worked all at the same time. Vriska was at the end of the table sketching spiders or…something somehow resembling a spider he guessed…? No seriously, what the hell was she drawing!? Next to her Tavros was chuckling quietly at her repeated failures as she got more and more frustrated.

Tavros

Of all the trolls he was glad to see alive after they had all landed on Earth, Tavros topped the motherfucking list. King of the hill on his list of dead friends he wished he could forget about but would never dare forget at the same moment. Fucking won the race and got first motherfucking prize on the list of friends that he wished would just stop hurting so much when he thought about what he'd done to them, but at the same time not letting himself forget what he'd done, silently hoping that the pain wouldn't leave. 'It's because you deserved it' a small voice whispered in his head 'it was YOUR FUCKING FAU- Shit no calm down, there's no need for that sort of thinking up in here now' Gamzee rubbed the bridge of his noise soothingly and exhaled 'no need for those nasty thoughts up in here at all'

He hadn't thought that the game would ever be kind enough to give back his dead friends, ESPECIALLY not Tavros. Any other time in his life he'd have given his thanks the Mirthful Messiahs. But no, those once happy memories of the mirthful messiahs only brought on the nightmares of his friends dying by his hands faster and more horrific to his sleep now.

Wincing visibly and groaning as he hid his eyes once again from the artificial light as another flash of pain ripped through his brain, starting just below the horns and ending as a slow burn behind his eyelids. Fuck what part of 'stop thinking you stupid fuck' hadn't his thinkpan gotten? Flapping one of his arms about in an attempt to get Sollux's attention in the hopes that he might be able to nab some migraine medication if he had any, though knowing Sollux he wouldn't have left their hive- er HOUSE, wait no- (man humans were WEIRD when it came to naming shit) without the handy pill jar.

"DRUGS" he demanded voice muffled by his sleeve, "pain medication, Pills here, fucking Panadole? Valium? Shit just fucking something!" Sollux arched an eyebrow before ruffling around his bag for his migraine medicine. Chucking the bottle at him once it was found, Gamzee only just managed to catch it before it fell off the table and onto the floor after it rebounding off his shoulder when he hadn't even bothered moving from his position of safety his arms were providing from the light.

"Don't fucking overdose on this shit, take ONE. This stuff was designed to take down trunk-beasts." Sollux frowned as Gamzee struggled with the child proof cap.

"Fucking brilliant then bro" Gamzee muttered before ignoring Sollux's exasperated growl at his idiocy when he took two.

~!~

Karkat glanced over at the two, eyebrows furrowing in concern at the exchange. Gamzee was complaining? Gamzee was complaining about PAIN?

Gamzee never complained about pain?

Unless the pain was worse than being stabbed-by-Jack-noir-a-couple-of-times or getting kicked in the bulge he would more often than not give no signs that anything was discomforting or hurting him and just grin and bear it. Usually keeping his complaining to a minimum until Kanaya or Karkat or another troll told him to stop being either, "So Foolish As To Not Accept My help Because It Is Obvious That You Have Injured Yourself, Now Stop Being A Wriggler And Let Me Get You Some Medicine Or Perhaps A Strong Tea." or rather "Stop fucking arguing and FUCKING HOLD STILL SO I CAN PUT SOME DETOLE ON THIS SHIT. For fucks sake Gamzee! You're dripping blood on the fucking floor!"

Shit, this might actually be serious for Gamzee to WILLINGLY ask for pills from Sollux.

In the end, Karkat deciding against pressing the matter because apparently Gamzee was dead set on falling the fuck asleep right there and then.

This was starting to worry him though. Throughout the month that they had arrived Gamzee had been getting steadily worse. And as Gamzee's morail, he couldn't help but feel guilty that he was letting Gamzee get into this sort of state.

Fuck he was a terrible morail.

~!~

Tavros was in the middle of sketching in the horns of a portrait of Tinkerbull and chuckling quietly, Vriska STILL couldn't seem to get her spider-mom sketch for her visual design project right, when he heard a loud smack almost as if someone had passed out on their desk- Oh. Well it DID actually appear that Gamzee had passed out on his desk. Again?

Tavros couldn't help but frown a little, not that he was mad at Gamzee or anything! He was worried for Gamzee of course! , Though he had all good reasons to frown. Since they had arrived on earth Gamzee seemed to be… well almost like he was slowly… Sighing silently so Vriska wouldn't hear, he put down his pencil. He just hoped that Gamzee was alright. Even though he had been dead, Tavros had very well seen Gamzee go insane and go on a rampage through the asteroid from his dream bubble. It wasn't as bad as anything like that though… But still…

He shut his eyes momentarily trying to rid his mind of the memories, but like always he couldn't stop the images that flashed behind his eyelids. A sick slideshow that was made to torment him, like a horror terror invading his dreams.

He would never forget the look on Gamzee face when he had found his body; impaled, gruesome and gushing blood like nothing else. Would never forget watching Gamzee slide to the ground trying desperately to see if there was still a flicker of life left in his impaled and demolished body that he could somehow save. Never forget the hopeless guttural sound, like a cornered, wounded animal that saw the end coming, that had come from Gamzee as he skittered back after one of his hands had slipped in the pool of his brown blood that pooled out of the open wound in his chest. It was heart wrenching, watching Gamzee's stare down at his hands covered in Brown, his brown, eyes filled with terror and grief before something in Gamzee just…Snapped. Tavros couldn't explain what had happened next, Gamzee was bent over into himself like something inside him had physically snapped. He had just gone so still… before chuckles emanated softly from under Gamzee's breath, turning into raucous laughter that echoed harshly from the metal walls, sounding almost like a harsh bark and honk combined. Turning his head towards Tavros's body, grin all but tearing his face, Gamzee had stood up slowly, disturbingly red eyes slitted and trained on him. Bending down and gingerly touching his cold face in a gesture mocking affection before harshly gripping the head by the horns with two hands and tearing upwards-

"Avros…TAVROS! PUUUUUUUUPA?" Tavros jumped out of his stupor to see Vriska shaking a tanned hand in front of his face, sky blue eyes narrowed in annoyance and yes, just a LITTLE bit of concern.

"Taaaaaaavros? Did you hear a word I said?" when he just stared at her blankly she sighed in exasperation, "God you never listen to a THING I say! I swea-!" she stopped abruptly when she saw the expression on Tavros's face.

"...oh, Was it another game flashback?" Tavros nodded slightly and leaned back in his chair, "Yeah, sorry... Didn't mean to zone out on you or anything..."

Vriska was silent for a few moments, looking like she was about to say something but then closing her mouth-almost a perfect imitation of one of Feferi's cuttlefish glubbing.

"…You do know that I am sorry Tavros? I honestly do regret killing you…and everything else I did." Vriska said turning back to her work as though she had just commented about the weather instead of confessing how bad she felt and how much she had actually MISSED (yes Vriska Serket the spiderbitch admitting to being guilty to something) Tavros and how fucked up she had felt for almost endangering the entire game and the others lives after she had made the decision to go after Jack alone.

Tavros just stared at her for another long moment, what NOW? Now in a shitty earth classroom in Washington with clay on the ceilings Vriska wanted a feelings jam about how she had regretted killing him, talking as though she had broken his laptop or something? Well, many things could be said about Vriska, but subtly was not one of them. Sighing he turned his body towards the spiderbitch he called his morail and punched her shoulder, not entirely hard though!

"Aaaaaahh! TAVROOOOOOOOS! I just got that leg right! You utter bulgemuncher!" Tavros just tilted his head in mock confusion and innocence before bursting out laughing at Vriska's face, Vriska quickly losing her scowl and joining him. The time for confessions and tears had already passed. After the initial shock of waking up alive Vriska had been on him faster than Nepeta could ship two people together, Sky blue tears in her eyes, just staring at him as if he was going to disappear if she blinked, before she had promptly punched him in the gut before hugging him and just apologizing over and over again as those same sky blue tears escaped from her eyes and ran rivers of regret down her face at seeing him alive again. He couldn't harbour any anger for the poor pitiful troll that was in front of him. Vriska, it legitimately seemed, had turned a new leaf, if you didn't count all the shit they'd fucked up in the dream bubbles. Well as much as the spiderbitch could with her snarky attitude but he supposed that's why he was her morail, just that touch of 'rebellious confidence' that he needed.

"This was what life was supposed to be like" He thought happily as he looked round at his friends, alive and happy. His smile faded slightly as he glanced back up the table, he hoped that Gamzee was alright though.

He didn't know if he could lose him like that again.

~ O-O ~

Oh dear Christ on a cracker what the fuck did I just write?

Thank you to anyone who stayed around long enough to get to this point! Basically this entire chapter was backstory for most of the characters and why there all on earth and yadda, yadda. So essentially what I just wrote…was an enormous story summery…That didn't explain the story in the slightest …because there's STILL a shitload more explainin' left to still write. Once again, Apologies in advance for dragging it out for an ungodly amount of time. Don't worry; the plot of this story should come out about chapter four if I keep up this word count. Im intending for it to be a Sober! Gamzee…but with a bit of a twist, sorry my lips are sealed for now! Though I promise it will be different from a normal Sober! Gamzee *call it a head cannon of mine*

R&R not only encouraged, but necessary for my survival. Do NOT hesitate to give me a verbal beat down.

And with much ado, I TIP MY TINY TOPHAT TO YOU ALL!