This story can also be found on my AO3 (snowy_the_sane_fangirl), my DeviantArt (SnowytheSaneFangirl), my Tumblr (dog-ears-and-shades), and my Wordpress (sanefangirl).

At eight years old, Jade Harley thought travel was exciting and seeing all these cool new people was great and she was sure they were going somewhere awesome. Grandpa always went to awesome places and came back and told her about them and she couldn't wait to see them all for herself. And they were going off-planet, too!

At eight years old, Dave Strider wished he didn't know why the fuck he was being dragged out of his house and into the fucking spaceport. Bro never even made him leave his room, much less the house, much less the goddamn planet. Fuck this noise, fuck Bro, and fuck everyone in the goddamn spaceport.

Dave glared daggers at the troll customs officer as the man rifled through his bag, pulled out his laptop, unlocked his phone, and then finally shoved the bag back at him before turning to the next person in line. Dave took his stuff and tried to shovel it all back in the bag without breaking his laptop, not an easy task when he was following Bro toward their gate as quickly as his legs could carry him.

Jade couldn't wait to try every single alien fast food restaurant in the spaceport. Of course they would only be there for about an hour, so there wasn't time for all that, but Grandpa let her have her pick and after some deliberation she decided upon Lolar cuisine. It was some kind of fish sandwich with a light and fluffy sauce and a box of juice that seemed to be purple as it came through the straw. It wasn't the best thing Jade had ever tasted, but it was good, and it was different, and it was cool.

Jade ran around the waiting area, looking at all the people and talking to some of them and peering out the window at their ship, which was a large freighter. She ran back to her grandpa to ask him about restricted areas and if she would possibly be allowed to see the bridge or to explore the halls and then ran over to the little bookshop just outside, picking up books and flipping them open to scan the summaries.

Dave sat in a corner on the floor next to the first electrical outlet he could find and put on his headphones, focusing exclusively on his thankfully unbroken laptop screen. He could hear people moving, but Bro was ignoring him, and as long as Bro wasn't getting his attention, he knew it wasn't loading time.

Dave walked to his cabin slowly, dumped his carryon on the lower bunk, and then climbed onto the desk by the window so he could look back out. He couldn't really see anything except the side of the airport, and the lines of people waiting to board through the windows. He pulled back and let his legs hang off the desk while he unlocked his phone and opened the messaging app, starting a new message to "gallowsCalibrator". At that moment, a speaker in the roof reminded all passengers to turn off their devices until the helmsman had reached full power, and then to only use them in specially designated areas. Dave held down the power button and slipped the phone into his pocket.

Jade had already turned her phone off in the spaceport because who needed a phone when there was so much to see? The window of her cabin opened on the shipyards and she was classifying all the ships in her head, model number, Alternian or Earth origin, helmsman grade or engine type, if applicable. And when the ship finally began to rise into the air and she could see further and further across the shipyards, and then beyond the shipyards into the city, and then beyond even the city, and then so far that she could see the planet curving beneath her, she thought she would suffocate from holding her breath so much, because breathtaking was the only word for it, goddamnit!

Before they breached the atmosphere, Jade was in a public bathroom just off the deck, rocking back and forth in front of a toilet, clutching her stomach, and hoping desperately that this sudden illness was due to Lolar food and not airsickness. The trip from Alternia to Locah was about a month on a ship like this, and she couldn't deal with this kind of illness every day for a month!

Dave knew he should have taken the time to walk all the way down to the bathroom in his cabin when he entered the bathroom just to see a black-haired girl, either human or a troll with pitifully small horns, bending over the nearest toilet and making occasional moaning noises. Not that he blamed her; when the porcelain god leaned down into this mortal realm and threatened to rain literal feces down on the crops unless he was provided with a delectable sacrifice, rather than the usual literal shit he got, well, gotta save those crops. Nobody wants the food to be smothered under under literal grosses of stool, and not the mushroom kind. Even if it would make the fields unbelievably fertile a couple of years down the line.

Jade heard the door open and mentally said all the swear words she knew, including a few that she thought might actually not be swear words, but Grandpa thought they were. Whoever had just walked in stopped, apparently taking her predicament in, and then took two steps forward before Jade was suddenly hurling into the toilet, gripping its sides as she tried to keep her head up high enough to prevent any half-digested food from coming out her nose. This was probably the most humiliating thing that had ever happened to her. And she honestly wasn't sure if it was better or worse when whoever it was stepped closer to her and grabbed her hair, pulling it back and away from her face. Jade retched again, waited a few moments, and then retched a third time for good measure. After a few moments, she decided no more was coming and she spat a couple of times before reaching for the toilet paper roll.

Dave let go of the girl's hair and stepped away as soon as it was clear that she was done. "You shouldn't leave your hair loose like that," he said, not waiting for her to speak. "You never know when something like this is going to happen and an incredibly handsome and dashing fellow won't be there to rescue your ivory locks from a fate worse than death."

"Ebony," Jade retorted, wiping her chin. She spat again. "Ivory is white." She still wasn't sure she liked the fact that some total stranger had just watched her vomit, but shit had happened, so okay. He seemed nice enough, she thought.

Dave hesitated a moment, not really responding to the correction, and then sidled past her. "Well, nice talking to you, but I definitely had things I was planning on doing in here that were not saving your hair from the deluge." Then he turned and quickly went to the next stall and vanished into it. Well, that random act of kindness had turned out to be really fucking awkward. His day had probably just gone from shitty to barfy. Literally.

Jade slowly walked to the sink, watching the stall of the other person, a boy about her own age, by the sound of it, in the mirror. She washed her hands and her face and ran her fingers through her hair to check, just in case, and the boy hadn't come out. She'd heard him finish both usual bathroom duties, and it was kind of painfully obvious that he was waiting for her to leave. She decided to put him out of his misery, after a manner of speaking. "I'm not going anywhere, you know."

"Dead set on making this even more awkward, aren't you?" he said, making no move to open the door, or even stand, from what she could see under the door.

"It's already pretty awkward," Jade replied. "If you don't want to make it more awkward, maybe you should come out so we aren't talking through a bathroom stall door."

"Nope. Not moving. I plead the fifth. I'm being harassed. I have rights!"

Jade rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well you were the one who came up behind me and grabbed my hair with no warning. That was a little weird."

He sputtered, but didn't deny it. "I was - fucking hell. Whatever the fuck your name is. I don't know why you're so dead set on talking. Since when did people bond over awkward hair holding moments? Take your fetish to someone else. I'm so fucking vanilla I make ice cream just thinking about it."

"I know what you were doing," she said. "The thought was nice, but the execution was... well, it was really awkward. Almost creepy. Give me a warning next time, okay?"

"Is there going to be a next time?"

"God, I hope not." Jade grimaced. "It was just some bad food, I hope. I guess I can't eat Lolar food."

Suddenly, Dave laughed. "Pink Shell Bistro?" he asked. He didn't wait for an answer. "No shit you threw up. Guess you've never eaten there before. Most of what they serve you isn't actually food. Pink slime, like McDonald's but worse. Nobody's quite sure what it is, but, y'know, the wildlife there is awfully pink. So is the sand."

Jade didn't particularly care about the first thing, but the second one caught her attention. "Are you telling me I might have been eating ground up sand?"

"Yeah, that's exactly what I'm telling you." He laughed again. "I wouldn't judge all of Lolar's cuisine on that place. It's like judging Alternian food by Troll McDonald's."

Before Jade could reply, the door opened and a woman walked in, and she fell silent, not wanting a stranger to see her talking to another stranger through a bathroom stall door.

The next time Dave and Jade met, it was the next day on the observation deck. Jade was glad to see that her illness of the previous day had apparently been due to the food and not the movement of the ship, and thus was glued to the window, watching the stars streak by. They weren't going quite the speed of light, but they were going close to it. She was taken completely by surprise as someone walked up and leaned against the window right next to her.

"Sup," he said. "Feeling better?"

"Hi!" Jade said, glancing over and taking in his blonde hair, combed just so, and the aviators he was wearing, even though there was no sunlight here to protect his eyes from. "Yeah, lots. It must have been the food, just like you said."

There was a pause. Then Dave turned to Jade and held his hand out. "Dave Strider," he said. "Former resident of Alternia, soon-to-be resident of Locah. rapper, DJ, artist, and the coolest guy you're ever going to meet."

Jade took his hand without a second thought. "Jade Harley," she said, copying his manner of introduction. "Resident of Alternia, engineer-in-training, bassist, and definitely the coolest girl you're ever going to meet."

Dave didn't respond right away, just sort of awkwardly holding her hand. Jade decided that despite his claim to be cool, his primary skill laid in making situations awkward, or awkward situations more awkward. He obviously didn't mean to, which made it almost cute, although she had no doubt he would object if she told him that.

"You mean you don't know?" he asked, and for the first time she noticed a little wrinkle at the top of his nose, and thought it might mean his brow was furrowed.

"Know what?" Jade asked, her own brow following his example.

"Well, you're human, right? Unless you're some human-looking troll freak of nature, in which case you're still alive and I'm impressed."

"Shut up," Jade said. "I'm human. What's the matter?"

"Well, humans can't live on Alternia anymore. Something about our culture disrupting their traditional way of life. Their cultural rejuvenation program is sending all humans off-world."

"What?" Jade yelped. "Grandpa didn't tell me that! We're moving to Locah? But I have friends here! Troll friends! What about Karkat and Vriska and Tavros and Feferi?" She hesitated. "Well, okay, I might be okay with never seeing Vriska again. But the others are my best friends! Karkat is my moirail!"

Dave shrugged. "I mean it's not like Locah is a desert wasteland with no people in it. You can make new friends." He hadn't really bothered to think of this himself, but now that he said it to her it seemed obvious. "And there's still texting and shit."

Jade frowned, but didn't object too much. Instead, she pulled her hand out of Dave's and he realized he'd forgotten to let go after they'd shaken hands. "I still kind of wish I'd known," she said. "I'm sure I can get used to having long-distance friends. But still, I'm gonna miss them."

Dave paused, then quietly said, "Well, you already have a new friend, right?" Oh there was surely a better, more roundabout way to imply that they were friends, one that didn't invite so much disappointment if she said no.

But she turned to him, smiling a little, with a little sadness still around her eyes, and the smile seemed brighter than the streaks of flaming gas that could be seen through the windows. "Yeah," she said. "You're my friend."

Okay so I feel the need to address the elephant in the room here. Do not go up behind people without warning them and grab their hair, even if they are throwing up. That shit's just creepy. Dave can get away with it because he's an eight-year-old, but I still felt the need to address that within the story. So yeah. It's not cute, unless it's like your significant other and then it depends on the situation. And you should probably still warn them.

Also, I don't think Grandpa I-Take-My-Adopted-Child-To-An-Island-In-The-Middle-Of-The-Ocean-And-Raise-Her-There-Even-Though-I'm-Rich-Enough-To-Have-A-Really-Nice-House-In-A-Civilized-Part-Of-The-World-Where-She-Could-Get-Help-If-Something-Were-To-Happen-To-Me Harley would tell Jade what the fuck was going on, just to pack all her shit because they're going on a trip. That's probably what he told her when they moved to the island, anyway.