Stroking the bracelet with his glass-fingered touch, L studied it, wide eyes drinking in the pattern and the words. He raised his bone-thin wrist to get a better look at the colors, the technique that had started shaky and grown to expertise.

Without warning, he reached forward with both arms, pulling Gamzee into a tense, odd embrace.

Then he was striding briskly across the room, stopping by the kitchen for two permanent markers, red and black, dropping their caps to the floor and defacing the white wall with wide, sweeping strokes. A cross materialized, and in each quadrant, surprisingly accurate depictions of everything L had ever been told of troll relationships.

Heart, diamond, spade, clubs.

"So? What do you want to be?"