Note: My initial thoughts on this came from Aranea's comments to Jake on how troll culture worked when she was alive and playing Sgrub. Before that I'd been wondering just what Gamzee would have been like before the troll scratch, and wanted to work in that realm for a GamKar fic. With Aranea's input I decided that this would be what it would be like. Or maybe what it might be like. Still, here it is and I hope it isn't too bad. This will, clearly, be a multi-chapter story, but I'm going with shorter chapters than I am normally prone to. I hope this will better enable me to write more frequently and on the fly whenever I have some free time.

An Unscratched Surface

The world is full of miracles. That was something that Gamzee Makara had been sure of since he'd been a little wriggler, under the tender care of his guardian. The very fact that a troll as attentive as Goatad had taken time out of his important work as a guidance adjustor to teach him was all the proof Gamzee had ever needed that miracles existed. But there was always more proof. With every motherfucking night when the sun set and the soothing, pale pink light of the moon came to wash over the world, it was a miracle of beauty. The way that the little tweet-beasts sang songs to the moon was a miracle. The way that everyone and everything could be connected through a husktop was a miracle. Learning about how he would one day get to help people find joy in their lives—no matter how long or short—was a motherfucking miracle to end all miracles.

Life itself was a series of unbelievable miracles, and sometimes Gamzee got it in his thinkpan that he was the only one that knew it. That in itself was a miracle, but not the kind of one that made Gamzee happy. It was a miracle everyone should have, not just him.

Tonight, though, was one of the more amazing miracles in Gamzee's life. Tonight he was finally being allowed to go with Goatad to the guidance annex he was the division bureaucrat in charge of all of the other guidance adjustors. After years of learning (and basking in the miraculous cotton candy light of the moon), he finally felt Gamzee was ready to start more hands on learning. After all, he was born to help others, just like others of his blood color. In fact, those with purple blood tended to be better at serving those trolls with shorter lives to finding what they wanted in their lives than other longer lived bloods. They could feel what made people excited, comfortable, happy, could help encourage those feelings to overcome other reservations. The only ones better than a well trained purple blood at that kind of work was one of the rarer empathically gifted cerulean bloods. And Gamzee, Goatad had said more than once, had the potential to be talented even for a purple blood.

But the real miracle of the night was one that Gamzee couldn't see coming.

"And this is the organization block," Goatad said, his large arm gesturing in a small arc around the slightly cramped room he had led Gamzee into. Well, it wouldn't be so cramped without the huge form of Goatad in the room, leaving more than enough space for Gamzee—while he was tall, he was still lanky for a troll eight sweeps old—amid the filing blocks, paired husktop computers and the desk covered in paperwork that was up against a set of sliding glass view ports. "This is where you'll be working at first. You'll be responsible for checking trolls in, sending ones with appointments to the right guidance adjustors, and setting up meetings for those without. Filing is also important, so we'll have the olive who just moved on to his first adjustor assignment show you how that works when he's free. Better stick that in your thinkpan hard. Paperwork is something you'll have with your motherfucking self all throughout your work. Got it?"

"Ain't nothing that slips past this thinkpan. Got it all trapped up in here," Gamzee assured the older troll, tapping his head. "You can motherfucking count on me."

"That's what I like to hear, my brother. If there's an emergency, you can reach my work block on the talkbox by hitting 10. As for what a motherfucking emergency entails... Well, I'm gonna trust a brother to know."

Gamzee nodded and honked (Goatad once told him how when he was a wriggler he tended to 'honk' more than 'screech' like other wrigglers, and he'd always found it motherfucking adorable), and Goatad took the chance to smile and ruffle Gamzee's already disorderly hair before turning to go. The brother wouldn't have time to get his chill on for a while, because Goatad was not just a guidance adjustor, but a motherfucking busy bureautroll at that. There wasn't the kind of time Gamzee might want for their chucklefests or even helping him get a better understand on for what he was supposed to do. Good thing Gamzee'd had all this schoolfed to him for years, ever since Goatad realized that Gamzee loved chillin' with other motherfuckers, loved to help people. Loved just to make a troll feel better. Ain't that just the kind of person you wanted working as a guidance adjustor rather than some kind of schoolfeder, or blockrepairer or any other support role a long lived brother might look into? Goatad thought so, and Gamzee knew that motherfucker knew just how to help a troll find their calling.

For a while Gamzee was left to himself, like as not to adjust to everything around him. Without much to do he sat around for a while making a chain out of some of the multicolored paperfasteners, arranging the writing sticks in their tray so that trolls could sign in, and spinning around in his seat. Soon enough one of the older trolls came by to make sure he knew what to do when they opened, then moved to unlock the block door and make sure the waiting block was arranged to their satisfaction. And, before any trolls came in for their guidance meetings, a young female troll all but bounced into the organization block, a huge, toothy grin on her face.

"Hey! You must be the new troll Goatad mentioned. I'm supposed to help you learn to handle the paperwork like a pawsitive purrfessional," the female greeted him. Gamzee couldn't help but look at her in a bit of confusion. Was she really making purrbeast puns, or was his thinkpan just attributing that to her because of the blue purrbeast hat she was wearing.

"Yeah, Gamzee Makara. Nice to make your motherfucking acquaintance. Glad to see you came around before trolls started coming in. I need to get my understand on about these paper issues."

"Nepeta Leijon," she responded. "So we're getting Goatad's purride and joy here? How purrfectly wonderful! He talks about you all the time. My Gamzee this, my Gamzee that..."

It was enough to make a troll blush, and when he did, Nepeta chuckled at the sight. He could almost forgive the embarrassment when a sister could get her mirth on. Besides, the girl looked like she was made to be mirthful. She had a face made for smiling.

"Well, anyway, the filing system isn't that hard to work out. When someone comes in you match their name on the arrival sheet to a file if they're not new. Then you take their file and make a note of when they showed up and who for on the log in there. Then you refile. There shouldn't be any new trolls in tonight, never is at this time of the perigree. If there is, then you just call me up. I'm on line 205. Remember to be nice and furriendly to everyone that comes in and you'll be set."

"Thanks, Nepeta. Getting any bit of understand..."

Gamzee found himself cut off by the sound of the door of the waiting block creaking open. Quickly he spun in his chair—resisting the wriggler-like urge to go 'whee' as he did—and found himself facing something he hadn't expected. A young troll, looking about his own age, had come just inside of the welcome block, and was glaring in Gamzee's direction. And it wasn't a glare like any other Gamzee had ever seen before, because the black of the troll's eyes (that alone told Gamzee something of this troll's age) was sprinkled with flecks of the most brilliant red Gamzee had ever seen. Such a shade of red that he almost found himself unable to look away. The eyes weren't the only thing either. There was the tussled hair, cut just long enough to be fetching without obscuring the troll's short, stubby horns. To top it all off, a scathing scowl was stretched across his face, as maddening as it was wonderful to look upon.

"Oh! Karkitty! I didn't know you had a meeting today!" Nepeta cheered as she all but fell over herself getting out of the office block and into the welcome. She threw her arms around the angry looking troll, giving him a big hug, and making the face of the troll in question turn a bit red from restrained anger.

"Dammit, Nepeta, I've told you a hundred times that my name is not fucking Karkitty. Can't you get that through your thick thinkpan? And would you get your fucking fur covered arms off of me? Do you do anything when you're not here other than plan with damn purrbeasts?"

"Aww, Karkitty, don't be so mean. You'll scare our new worker."

"If he wasn't scared off by your insanity then a little yelling isn't going to do anything. Unless he's the kind of fucking troll that can't even handle some anger. And if he is, what the fuck were you trolls thinking putting him in a position like this one?"

"Not everyone has as sourpuss of a disposition as you, Karkitty," Nepeta countered, finally releasing 'Karkitty' and dragging him over towards Gamzee. "Gamzee, this is our most frequent visitor, Karkat Vantas. I believe he's in to see Goatad today."

"As if that fucking mirthful bastard could be any more helpful than any of these other wastes of blood."

Nepeta actually flinched away from Karkat at the comment, not that Gamzee could blame her. She knew about Gamzee's connection to Goatad, and she probably knew better than this Karkat that while purple bloods tended to be patient, they could get pretty easily riled up when something made them made. What neither of them knew was that Gamzee was a pretty chill motherfucker. He hadn't found a reason to get mad before in his life, and wasn't about to start now.

"Yeah, well he can be a little trying at times," Gamzee admitted instead, putting on his best chill grin. "Could forget his own horns if they weren't motherfucking attached to his head. One night we went to the beach to see the seagoats, and he lost the hive key in the surf. If I hadn't had mine on me, we would have been motherfucking cooked."

Karkat's eyes went wide as Gamzee spoke, almost impossibly wide (and giving Gamzee another good look at those compelling black-red eyes) as it all processed. Then he was stumbling over himself, getting his apology on. Gamzee might have laughed if it wasn't absolutely motherfucking adorable to see the brother getting so worked up over a comment he didn't know would offend. And Gamzee wasn't the kind of troll to take offense at complaints. It was a miracle that trolls got on as well as they did, so why should he get upset when they didn't?

"...didn't know," Karkat was saying, and Gamzee just raised a hand to stop the rambling in its tracks.

"Chill, brother. Just get your chill on. Why don't a brother just sign himself in and I'll see to getting you back to Goatad as soon as a brother is free?"

The troll seemed to consider this for a while, before moving forward to sign in. That done the troll went to flop down on some random seat, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at nothing in particular. Gamzee took the chance to send Nepeta off to inform Goatad of Karkat's arrival. Try as he might to focus on the processing of Karkat's paperwork (and that of other trolls as they arrived), Gamzee found his eyes being drawn repeatedly back to Karkat until, at last, Goatad came to fetch Karkat back to his office. It was only then that Nepeta seemed to reappear from wherever she had disappeared to.

"He's not like the others," Nepeta all but whispered. How the sister knew that Gamzee wanted to know about a troll was something he couldn't fathom. Just another one of life's little miracles he guessed, like rap, and magnets, and faygo (how did the motherfuckers that made that wicked elixir manage to make EVERY SINGLE FLAVOR taste so motherfucking good all the time?).

"How's that?"

Nepeta sighed and collapsed into a stray second chair that Gamzee had noticed early but not really thought much of. Seemed now like it was there just for the gossipy little chica next to him.

"Well, you noticed his eyes, right?"

"Motherfucking beautiful eyes," Gamzee confirmed.

That got a little sparkle into Nepeta's own peepers, and the way her fingers flexed it looked like the girl was yearning to jot something down. Almost made her seem like a purrbeast after some prey, its tail flicking side to side, all excited like. Well, that moment quickly passed as Nepeta continued on as if she wasn't all getting herself wound up like a piece of string.

"See, that's the issue. They may be pretty, but the color... No one I've met has seen it before. Karkitty's thrown everyone for a loop. There aren't any records of trolls of that color, so no details either. Fur all anyone knows, he could die next perigree, or outlive both the Empress and the Heiress Feferi. The color works on both extremes of the scale. To make it worse, he hasn't shown any of the expected powers of a shorter lived bloodline, or the strength of a longer. Add to that the fact that he always seems to bitter about the fact that none of the guidance adjustors can seem to tell him or lead him to something he would enjoy..."

Nepeta sighed and shook her head. "Karkitty has been a client of all of the trolls working here except for Goatad. Every few visits he insists on a new adjustor. Last time they gave me him between my normal shifts on the desk, hoping since I was closer to his age... But that didn't work. It's being said that if Goatad isn't able to handle him, they're going to transfer Karkitty to a new division. Oh, it's so pawfully sad!"

Gamzee couldn't help but agree, his thoughts completely on the glorious miracle of those black and crimson eyes.