Not that Preosh had a lot of experience, but she had enough to know that this could turn out horribly. Which was why she was digging through the slightly messy room to find where her shirt had fallen. At least she'd have a bit of time to look around before Ganmed woke up. Finding her shirt, somehow, half-behind the dresser, she put it on and looked over to the sleeping purpleblood.

She hoped he slept soundly, because she couldn't really come up for an excuse for looking around and into his things. She'd just rather avoid another scene like the last one she had. Of course, Ganmed had no such reputation, and as far as his quadrants went, it was apparently pretty much normal for their caste not to find many or any at all before conscription. most of them isolated from the population and each other. It seemed a bit bitter or cold of the carpenter drones, though judging by the ruthlessness she'd already witnessed, it was pretty much necessary for young trolls to keep surviving. Poor thing, though; he seemed rather starved for positive attention. A troll could really pity him over it…

She wasn't quite sure where to start her little reconnaissance mission, so she opened the drawers of the dresser, taking a peek in. She felt a bit like a stalkerish moron, but she just wanted to avoid anything unnecessary. Especially here, and definitely not again. Seeing nothing but changes of clothes and what looked like a small box of safety-pins, she assumed that yes, dressers even for subjugs contained clothes and the means to repair them.

Her fingers brushed something papery as she went to close the bottom drawer, and she opened it again, pushing the clothing aside to discover a small notebook. A page had come loose and was sticking out; she could see colourful markings on it which suggested a drawing. Hm, so he liked artwork beyond the traditional blood murals. She pulled the notebook out and, glancing back to check that Ganmed was still asleep, pulled out the page, intending to satisfy her curiosity and put it back.

The drawing was a pair of crude stick figures, both in black and purple suggesting subjugglator uniforms. Going by the horn shape, one was supposed to be Ganmed, and the other was probably the Grand Highblood. Both wore broad toothy grins, and most of the paper was taken up with multicoloured scribbles. The stick-figure Highblood appeared to be ruffling stick-figure Ganmed's hair, or possibly crushing his head, but context suggested the former.

Preosh stared at the picture for a moment, trying to make sense of what exactly was occurring. He wasn't much of an artist, he should probably stick to the culling, but okay, it wasn't too unusual for any recruit to think highly of such a successful troll.

Curiosity now sated, she opened the notebook once more, intent on replacing the picture so he might never know she saw it. She flipped to the general page she thought it had been at and was assaulted by lines of tiny, scribbly writing. Quirkless. He intended for others to read it. Though she assumed that this wasn't the context he would have wished for it to be in.

She glanced over the lines and had to stop. She put the picture back and flipped the pages back, far enough she could be sure that it was relatively close to the start of what he'd written. She had to be sure. After reading another line, she was sure and she fought the urge to face-palm. Instead she stared down at the words as if they were meant to be completely baffling. Though this offered her a look into Ganmed's thoughts, and she would take it even if it was silly. She flipped back a few more pages, finding herself close to the front of the notebook, at the beginning of his story.

hi, THIS is MY first ATtempt WRITing WITHout MY quirk SO please FORgive MY spellING! (mayBE not INclude THIS, does NOT look CONfidENT.)

Grand Highblood Makara was walking along the beach and he found a little purple grub that was crying and he picked it up and then it stopped crying and he knew that this grub was the chosen one who would grow up to be a great hero so he took it back to his ship which was the kind that goes on water because this was before everyone went to space and then…

Preosh flicked forward a few pages.

… cut the ropes with the sharp fangs of the howlbeast skull atop his staff but his hand slipped and cut through her dress as well and it fell off.

"Oh no," she said. "My dress has fallen off."

So he took off his clothes and they started to do it.

"STOP THAT" said the jadeblood who was still watching but they did not…

A sound from Ganmed alerted Preosh, and she slapped the notebook shut in a hurry as he sat up, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

"Huh? Oh, hey, Preosh… what's that?"

"Nothing!" she said hurriedly, holding the book behind her back. He wasn't fooled, and crawled closer, peering around her.

"Hey, that's private!" He grabbed the notebook and straightened out a crumpled page corner with a scowl and a blush. "It's not ready for posting yet."

"You write fanfiction," Preosh said simply. It was a fact. Though her face obviously reflected at how she felt about that revelation and how much of a terrible writer she thought he was. He scowled at her, as she looked back at the notebook and pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. "You wrote real-troll fanfic about your boss. And about a long-dead traitor and his followers just so you could have your Mayree Tseouh rescue one you thought was cute?"

"It's sort of the rough draft, and who cares? No one was supposed to see it yet." Ganmed held the notebook close to him, obviously not wanting to be judged on it. "Anyway, why were you looking around my room? I guess I should say snooping. Looking to meddle in my personal crap to get ahead?" Ganmed shook his head a moment after he said it. "That came off dumb, let me try again. What I mean is are you trying to get me in trouble or something? Not that you'd offer… that to be manipulative."

"What? No!" Preosh shook her head. "Really, I wouldn't do that to anyone. I just…" She toyed with the idea of saying more. Well, he'd already been present when she'd been pushed into spilling the details, what more harm could she do? And besides, he seemed… surprisingly trustworthy for a follower of the Mirthful Messiahs. His presence was soothing, somehow. "Well, you know how badly my last experience turned out. I just wanted to… make sure I could trust you."

"Breaking my trust in you isn't going to help much," he said, frowning. "That wasn't nice."

"Yeah. I'm sorry." Preosh looked at her claws.

"Y'know, you could have just asked me right? I'm not really the kind to just let whoever the fuck into my squares. I mean, I know you had it bad, but you could have told me you were worried. Anyway, I'm a little more trustworthy than that seadweller. No intentions whatsoever to abandon my faith for a guy who got racked up pretty easily and died. Didn't even prove his worth as a prophet." Ganmed broke his train of thought and looked towards Preosh. "Listen, Pre, I'm sorry too. I was thinking about a few things… Mind if we have a talk? I mean you did sort of have a look-around, so I might as well be honest with you."

Preosh looked up at Ganmed, and stared for a moment. She could see something akin to guilt or worry, or something on his face that she didn't want to see. She could feel herself wanting to chew on the inside of her lip from rage bubbling inside her. It wouldn't be the first time, her poor taste got her pailing with a hypocrite.

"What?" she said, more stiffly than she'd intended, and didn't miss his slight flinch.

"Well, see, that's sort of the thing… I've been thinking, and… I mean, it was fun and you were great and all, but… I'm a little uncomfortable with, uh… I don't think we should pail anymore because-"

"Because what?" She stood up, looming over him, and he tried to shuffle away and get to his feet at the same time and fell over backwards.

"Pre-"

"Don't do that. Don't call me Pre as if you have that right." She wanted to growl, her fists were already balling up at her sides. "What the fuck is it with me, do assholes just get a little voice in their head saying 'dump her once you use her nook'? Or am I somehow missing the sign that says 'will sleep with you and is okay to be dumped'? Or am I really that terrible in bed that it's only fair to dump me afterwards?"

"No, Preosh, Listen."

"Why would I listen to you?"

"Yo, Preosh. I don't—"

"You going to call me a slut too? Shit, I bet you were lying about getting around. You know you couldn't scratch me into your book if I knew that. Fucking sick assholes all of you."

"Preosh, listen to me. Come on." He took a deep breath, and carefully reached out to touch her. She slapped his hand away, but he extended it again, and touched her hair. "I'm not dumping you. I just think… I mean, this is what I'm talking about. You're so angry all the time, and it's only gonna hurt you. No, I don't mean that in a bad way! I just… I want to make sure it doesn't."

"So what? You're going to pail me then we're friends. Wonderful. That makes this so much better."

"No, Pre, I'm saying that as uh, great as pailing you was… I'm thinking something a bit lighter. I mean, I don't really like seeing you like this. You're always angry and assuming that everyone is going to hurt you or use you. I mean, shit girl, it's not good for you."

Preosh's body relaxed and her mind started to race. "You mean… oh. Oh, I'm sorry, I…"

"Yeah," Ganmed said, smiling and moving closer, offering a hug. "Pale for you, Pre."

He gasped as she hugged him hard enough to knock his breath out. "I'm sorry! I should have let you finish."

"Yeah, well. I can help you stay calm, you can help me learn to put words in the right order?" Ganmed chuckled. He touched Preosh's hair-ribbon; when she didn't resist, he untied it and let her hair fall out of its long ponytail. He gently ran his fingers through the mass of hair, humming soothingly until Preosh's grip relaxed. "So, uh, am I to take it this is a thing now?"

Preosh thought about it for a moment, before she nodded a little. "I guess, yeah." Ganmed's claws were soft on her scalp. "I mean, I think it might work. I suppose it's not unheard of for a purpleblood to take on a seadweller as a moirail… This isn't because of your hero worship, right?"

"I don't have any ill intent with your emotions, and really, if someone is toying with you like that or did… They deserve the slowest and most painful death I can imagine. And I'm pretty creative."

"Okay, yeah, this is definitely a thing now, because you really could benefit from a moirail," Preosh said. Ganmed beamed, apparently missing her meaning. "Well, we're already in need of a shower. Would you like to…" She went slightly violet in the face, cleared her throat, and finished "… wash my hair?"

Ganmed gave her a little smile and nodded. "I'd be happy to, girl." Ganmed shifted from where he was sitting, setting the notebook down, before grabbing something to cover his naked form with. He offered her his hand. "Well then, let us get ourselves purified."

Preosh took his hand, bringing herself up to standing, Her shirt was long enough they could get to the showers without insult, as long as they didn't bump into anyone. She glanced over to the only clock in the room, noting that it was unlikely anyone else was around, because the last thing she needed was to be hooted at by the other subjugs in the area.

As they walked out, arm in arm, she snickered.

"What?"

"'His head exploded like a shaken Faygo bottle'? Really?"

"Hey, you can talk. I think I recognised your quirk on that site."

"Oh, that, heh." Preosh blushed. "Yeah, that one's something of a tradition in our squad. The newbies all get the account password and add to it."

"'The Many Deaths of Lieutenant Gritch'?" Ganmed shook his head, smiling affectionately. "Eh, I've written worse. I noticed that one hasn't updated in a while."

"It became much less fun when we found out he was adding to it himself. I'm not sure if he was trying to be funny or if he actually meant to put us off…"

They laughed all the way to the shower block, pressing their hands to their mouths to avoid waking any potential snoopers.