An Unscratched Surface: Part 11

"Gamzee, could you hand me that..."

Goatad didn't even have to finish the motherfucking question before Gamzee was passing a sheaf of paperwork over to his guardian. It earned him a grunt of acknowledgment, but nothing more. No, his guardian was too busy pouring over the papers, making a note here, scratching something out there, signing in a third place. The only times his guardian even acknowledged Gamzee's presence was when he needed something, and that was a fact that he all up and had his understand on about. The paperwork was way to motherfucking important to turn his attention to his ward.

More important than a guardian could even up and get his understanding on. More than Karkat's happiness relied upon the paperwork being properly filled out, submitted, and reviewed by the panel that had been started to be put together when Goatad had requested the paperwork for temporary transfer of guardianship. His temporail's health, sanity, freedom all relied on this. All Gamzee could do was sit back and help his guardian in whatever ways possible.

That's what he'd been telling himself all perigee, and sometimes it wasn't enough. Sometimes he was up all morning trying to find some motherfucking way to stop all this, to free him. The only comfort then was Kanaya's patient, comforting presence in the form of walls of jade green text. A motherfucking palesis was always there, whether he needed her or not, whether he had to get his feels out or just wanted to talk about those shitty motherfucking romcoms she sent, or anything else. The only thing that kept him going better than her was the angry, demanding gray words that flowed from his husktop every night after work ever since he'd convinced Karkat that he couldn't be a good temporail (Gamzee'd come up with the word himself, and he knew it reassured Karkat that this wasn't something permanent, just some short term miracle for his sake) if they couldn't talk over Trollian.

Harder to handle was the intermittent splash of olive and teal on his husktop in the evenings. Nepeta would drop in to offer new romcoms or talk to him about how her attempts to get the olive that Spided was responsible for to talk—and he wasn't doing that much—and her cheerfulness and openness about how much she loved helping someone she pitied made her comments hard to handle. That, though, had nothing on Terecita's infrequent messages. She would stop in to talk about how she was dealing with Spided's cerulean ward—which wasn't good, apparently her relationship with Vriska had gotten worse the more Terezi pushed—or ask Gamzee how his moirail was doing. Her attention always made his bile sack act up, made him grit his teeth and glare at the screen and try not to let it motherfucking get across in his typing. As for Equius, well, that motherfucker had his own issues he was getting his deal on with, and it was getting harder and harder for Gamzee to get him for more than a few minutes.

So here, after a perigee of learning and fighting to find a way to deal with Karkat's problems, all he could do was wait for Goatad to finish the paperwork and hope it went over well. Whether it would help or not was a question Gamzee didn't want to get his think on about, but there was an upside. One motherfucking upside that almost made it all worth it: any troll who was the subject of a temporary change of guardianship investigation was given over to the care of troll requesting the review until such time as everything got itself sorted out. For a few nights, a few weeks, a few something, Karkat would be safe.

"The..." Goatad started to say, reaching out again, and Gamzee slapped the next stack that needed initialing into his guardian's hand. This time Goatad looked up and smiled at him. "Thanks for being so motherfucking helpful, little brother. And the idea. If we can pull this motherfucking shit off, it's going to be a miracle you know."

"If anyone deserves a miracle, it's him."

Goatad nodded in agreement and turned his attention back to the paperwork, the last stack of it in motherfucking fact, leaving Gamzee all but free to do what he wanted. Not that he could motherfucking think of anything to do. Right now he couldn't wrap his thinkpan around one of those shitty romcoms the girls had given him, didn't care to do any work, and couldn't excuse himself enough time away from his guardian to spend some time on his husktop filling everyone and their motherfucking quadrants in on just what was up.

Knocking cuts into his thinkings and makes him jump in his seat. There was no one expected, no postage droids meant to be coming through to deliver something, or any other motherfucking thing that might make sense right now. With a sigh he pushed himself back from the dining block table—no one was going to get between Goatad and that paperwork—and made for the door of the hive. Whoever or whatever it was needed to be sent away now.

Except when he opened the door it wasn't some random troll. Well, no, that wasn't motherfucking right. It was sort of a random troll, or trolls as the truth was, but they were ones he knew. Karkat and Terezi in particular, his temporail letting the legisticator lean on him all heavy like, her arm wrapped around his neck and his arm around her back. The sight of it in his eyes, the image of it in his thinkpan, made him want to snarl. They were close, far too close, for his comfort. All holding back did was force a honk out instead, which actually managed to make the pair jump a little in surprise.

"Gamzee..." Karkat growled, keeping his angry tone despite his obvious distress. "Help."

And did the pair ever need it. Now that Gamzee was getting his inspect on, he could see the details that his anger had kept from him. The two weren't close because they necessarily wanted to be, but because they needed to be. There were a variety of cuts across Terecita's face, her teal blood past the flowing stage and well into the slow ooze—looking so much like a pie just out of the bake box. Karkat had a few scrapes too, but they were minor, secondary next to Terezi's.

"What the motherfuck happened here?"

"Vriska," Karkat grunted. "Now you going to get off your fucking ass and help?"

"Yeah, bro. Ain't a thing," Gamzee assured him, moving aside so Karkat could help the legisticator into the hive. "Why the motherfuck did that Vriska girl get her violence on with Terecita?"

"She doesn't like people prying into her business. And to her, Spided's business is her business," Terezi mumbled through grit teeth.

"Motherfuck," Gamzee mumbled, waiting to close the door before moving to pull Karkat away from Terezi. His temporail looked about ready to protest for a moment, but it stopped as Gamzee scooped the chica up into his arms. Whatever problems he had with the chica lately wasn't enough to keep him from getting his helpful on.

"You already said that," Terezi chuckled, but the laugh obviously hurt with the way she was grimacing.

"And I'll keep on saying it," he countered as he began to carry her for the back ascent tube so he could get her to the hygiene block without disturbing his guardian.

"He will," Karkat agreed, sighing. "Had no other fucking place to take her. Spided wouldn't care, and her guardian's out of the city at the moment. Couldn't take her to the hospital without..."

"Getting your explain on, which I'm guessing was a little too motherfucking complicated to do."

"Yeah. That."

"Don't even fucking get me started," Karkat snapped. "You just keep your craptrap shut. I'm going to deal with this stupid fucking shit that you and Vriska have gotten yourself into. So just shut-up."

"If we wanted you to but your head in, we would have said something," Terezi snapped back. "Neither of us needed you trying to be all ashen. So back off."

"You two can't handle a real black relationship," Karkat growled. "The point is NOT to kill your kismesis, did you fucking forget that? So every time you try to go black, I'll be there to pap you both ashen until you can't fucking handle another shoosh."

"Idiot."

"Bulgelicker."

"Would the two of you stop being so motherfucking stupid? I ain't about to just stand here and listen to you get black or ashen or whatever at each other. Terecita, you're all up and close to getting blood in the hive, so you should just shoosh up and let me handle this. I'll all up and get my health kit on and patch you up."

"I didn't ask for that either."

"Well, you're in my hive, and it's what you're going to motherfucking get."