An Unscratched Surface: Part 8

The office normally emptied out around the lunch hour, as most trolls took the chance to go out and share lunches in the other parts of the city around them. Gamzee, though, wasn't bound out today. The day before he'd gone out with Goatad to lunch, but seeing as his guardian had chosen to take lunch with Spided to continue their conversations, Gamzee had been left behind. Not that he was entirely alone. There was perfectly fine reheated grubloaf, some faygo, and a slice of pie, not to mention the company of two terribly gossipy chicas. At least, though, they had their motherfucking attention on each other and their gossip instead of on him. Last thing he wanted to do was get Terezi's attention all up and on him so that she'd go and ask him what he'd wanted in front of Nepeta.

"So, Gamzee, just what was it that you wanted to ask me about earlier?" Terezi said, turning her grin on him. Go figure a sister'd all up and ask him just as he was hoping she wouldn't.

"Gamzee wanted to ask you something?" Nepeta asked, frowning in her cute little way. "Something he couldn't ask me about? How pawsitively interesting."

"He said that it was only something I could answer for him," Terezi answered, following it up with that laugh that Gamzee found it hurt his head pretty bad.

"Wow. When did you get something only a legisticator could answer?"

"It really ain't much of anything at all," Gamzee mumbled. "Just some question that I got wrapped up in my thinkpan during my studies at home."

"Oh stop dancing around the question, Mr. Dancing-Horns," Terezi said, shaking her head. "You seemed so serious about it this evening."

"I might even be able to help," Nepeta added, smiling. "I've learned a lot about guidance adjusting, so whatever you have to ask can't be too bad."

Oh well, there wasn't much to do about it, so Gamzee sighed, took a swig of faygo to buy himself the moments to properly frame the question, and then let loose with the possibly wicked dangerous question.

"I was getting my read on last night, and found a case-study where a guidance adjustor believed a guardian was abusing their ward, but he couldn't scratch up the proof. The ward wasn't about to get his tale telling on, and there weren't no witnesses, so the guidance adjustor couldn't all up and file a complaint or get the guardianship transferred. The book didn't give a good answer, though. Is there anything the adjustor could do?"

Out of the corner of his eyes, Gamzee could see Nepeta starting to frown, trying to figure something out. It was all he could do to focus fully on Terezi, hoping that Nepeta wouldn't have a reason to connect Gamzee's question with Karkat or Spided.

"Well," Terezi said after a moment of contemplation, "my class hasn't gotten to that part of the schoolfeeding yet…"

"It's okay," Gamzee said, sighing, only to have Terezi continue on without paying attention to him.

"But I read ahead, because it's the kind of stuff I'm interested in. Other than the methods you mentioned, there is a clawful of ways to deal with the situation. First, I wouldn't give up so easily on finding someone willing to file a complaint. A person who abuses on troll is just as likely to abuse another, so having another person file a complaint should be enough to insist upon a change of guardianship with the board. There's also the potential raised by matesprits and moirails. Cases have been made before that these romance partners have a better, and more productive, claim upon their partners. I read a case where a violet blooded troll with anger control issues was transferred into the care of their brown blooded moirail as the moirail was better able to pacify and guide their palemate than the violet's guardian ever was. The exception for matesprits typically only applies when the pair has one long lived troll and one short, or one matesprit is far older than the other and thus likely to die sooner. Then allowances are made so that the pair can enjoy what time they have left together.

"Either of these two options are available not only to a guidance adjustor, but any legisticator or other service-troll willing to fill out the paperwork and handle the potential hearings and such. There is a final, rarely used method that is available only to guidance adjustors, though, and even that only applies to ones with a lot of experience and seniority."

Which described Goatad to a motherfucking claw, so Gamzee waved for Terezi to continue.

"Which is guidance through guardianship. When a troll is a problem case and the senior guidance adjustors feel it is necessary, his wardship may be passed on to a senior case official for a temporary period. This allows for sustained contact and a more claws-on approach to determining not only what interests might lead a troll to a better life, but how to reach goals. This, though, is used in maybe only one out of every million cases, and all temporary wardship transfers must be presented to a joint meeting of the guidance adjustors bureaucracy, the guardianship council, and the Empress herself. So it's not done often, and even some attempts at it have been rejected. You know the system doesn't much approve of transferring wardships without ample proof."

"I can see why my text didn't suggest any of these," Gamzee said, trying to keep up that lie, even though Terezi was giving him a weird look. "Ain't much of what a normal guidance adjustor could do, after all."

And even less for what he could do. Well, that wasn't fully true. He could try getting in contact with the other two trolls Spided was the guardian for, see if he couldn't get one of them to file a complaint. But Karkat had seemed adamant about keeping Goatad out of it, so he probably didn't want Gamzee blabbing about their short-term moirallegiance, or going to Goatad about a temporary transfer of guardianship. So really, all his hope rested on trying to convince at least the green-blooded troll to file a complaint, because he didn't expect a cerulean raised by a cerulean to do so.

"So, what's all this really about?"

Gamzee's head snapped up at Terezi's question, far too fast for him to really deny that any motherfucking thing other than what he claimed was up. Well, there went that attempt at keeping secrets. Couldn't even keep one motherfucking story straight for the sake of his palebro.

"What do you mean?" he tried anyway, hoping that Terezi would take his question to mean that he didn't want to get his explain on.

"Oh come on, the line you've been feeding us is so transparent. A blind girl could see through it. I can almost smell it in the air around you. This isn't about any text. Why do you want to know about guardianship laws? You got a bad one?"

"Hardly," Nepeta cut in. "Goatad's purretty cool. That being said, this was the kind of question he easily could have answered. So if you didn't go to him, it has to be about something you don't want to let him know about. So Gamzee, the real question is this… What can we do to help you with Karkitty?"

"Oh, this is about Karkat?" Terezi asked, even as Gamzee was reeling from the wicked suppositions of Nepeta. "Well then, count me in."

"What? No, sisters have totally got things wrong here. This ain't about any troll…"

"Gamzee, there's no use denying it. I can see right through you," Terezi laughed. "Besides, I've lived a few lawn rings away from Karkat for sweeps, and spent a lot of time with his wardmate, Vriska. I guessed a long time ago that things weren't all peachy at their hive."

"Really?" Gamzee asked, leaning in closer. The movement obviously confirmed Terezi's thoughts, because the sister just grinned all the wider at the motion. That sister just had one wicked grin, and useable in so many motherfucking situations.

"Yep. Tell you what, I'll see if I can't get any information from Vriska about the hive situation there. She's always been observant in her own way, not to mention schemey enough to make Spided look legitimate. Even if she won't tell me something for free, I'll be able to get it from her somehow. Especially if it means she can further her own goals."

"I'll do anything to help Karkitty too. But what can I… Oh yeah, there's a third ward in that hive, isn't there? Well, you just leave talking to him to me. I purromise I'll bring something useful back. Meanwhile, Gamzee, you work on Goatad."

"Work on…?"

"You obviously wouldn't bring up a change of guardianship if you didn't think it was important, right? And Goatad purrobably wouldn't think of it himself. So you've got it in your paws to convince him, right? We'll trust you with that. But you have to tell us one thing first."

The conversation hadn't gone at all how Gamzee thought it would, and now faced with help with what seemed like a motherfucking insurmountable problem, he was more than willing to share. To have both of these sisters jump at helping Karkat was more than enough for him, though he wasn't going to tell Karkat about it.

"What do you want to get your know on about?"

"Why are you doing this?"

Gamzee looked from Nepeta, who'd asked the question, to Terezi, and then down at his hands.

"Would you believe I was pale for him at first sight?"

"Yes! I knew it!" Nepeta cheered, bouncing around in her seat. "The way you looked at him, it pawsitively shouted meowallegiance! Oh yes, Gamzee, it can totailly happen at first sight. The second I laid eyes on Equius, that's my meowrail, I knew I was pale for him. Poor silly troll was at an intersection and helping little old maroon and brown bloods across the road. He would get to one side with one, and then there'd be another going the other way and he'd help that one, and so on and so forth until I stopped him and papped him until he understood that service didn't mean every waking moment. How can you serve anyone if you're all worn out?"

As hard as Gamzee tried to pay attention as Nepeta kept going on along that motherfucking vein, he could see Terezi out of the corner of his eyes. Her sharp smile was gone, had been since he'd claimed pale feelings. That was the reason, though, right? So why was she giving him the same look she had when he'd tried to lie about why he wanted her to answer a question? Could she really smell lies? And if so, just what was he lying about, and who to?