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Jedd Crocker is his favorite. He sneaks him extra bacon and gave him a spot to sleep all his own. And sometimes, Crocker smiles at him, all soft and gentle like, and it makes his pusher do weird things and makes him want others. He’s pretty good about not voicing that.
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Jeff Egbert is fine, too.
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Joe Egbert smells like John (smells like Jane too), is colored like John, and when distracted sometimes smiles like John, but he is definitely not John. That’s why Gamzee is pretty sure it wasn’t Joe that put color in everyone’s shampoo no matter how adamantly John says so because Joe is all soft smiles and half embarrassed laughs… But when Joe visits again after the incident, he and Jane exchange matching grins.
Maybe he’s a little more like John than Gamzee thought.
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Jade English doesn’t have a reverent bone in her body, but maybe he doesn’t mind when she takes a brush to his hair and spends the afternoon putting it in tiny little braids with bits of colorful ribbon. She feels harmless in a way he should suspect, but somehow, he always lets it slide.
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No, wait, Rose Lalonde is the favorite, but she’s also a little terrifying the way she gets information from him with just little questions he never has any intention of answering but does anyway. And the way she’s always soft and quiet and patient, like she could just sit there and wait for him to spill his guts to her at his own pace. Like she’s got nothing more important than listening.
He’s never been listened to like that. He doesn’t know how to feel. Rose doesn’t tell him, either. She just lets him figure things through on his own, like that’s a thing he’s supposed to be doing, like he can be trusted to do it right. He thinks he might be more than a little scared of her after all.
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Bro Strider can go jump off a cliff for all Gamzee cares, and he would be glad to help him do it, but that might amuse the bastard too motherfucking much to allow.
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Same with the other Strider.
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Roxy Lalonde is loud and cheerful and snarky and plies her weird black-pale solicitations on every living thing that comes her way. Gamzee avoids her when he can, which isn’t as often as he’d like, because she sticks around Rose and… And Gamzee doesn’t avoid her.
He doesn’t know why Roxy won’t stop flicking the tips of his horns with her nails in passing and she’s so quick about it that it usually just leaves him bewildered and confused after. He tries telling Rose, but she just smiles.
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He doesn’t need the adults and doesn’t want most of them around, but maybe he doesn’t mind the unspoken (and sometimes less unspoken) reassurances that they’d beat a motherfucker’s ass for messing with him. That he's theirs, just like the other trolls, just as much. It’s nice. It makes him feel warm inside.
He guesses he’ll keep them.