On a hill in sunny Skaian Park, two trolls walk up together holding a basket. They laugh as they grind up struggling to carry the basket in between them. One of the trolls, Karkat Vantas, takes a deep inhale of his lit cigarette and looks to his matesprit serenely.

Nepeta Vantas smiles back at him and helps him lower the picnic basket at the top of the hill. She soon follows the basket and drops to the grassy ground with the wind tickling her skin. Karkat moves on top of her smiling and kisses around her face to finally touch her lips. Giggling, Nepeta forces Karkat away to reach into the picnic basket, but her matesprit just wraps his arms around her waist.

However, when Nepeta opens the basket she screams so loudly that the sound appears to come at every angle to Karkat. The male troll looks over her shoulder to find Nepeta lifting a severed head out from the basket. The head is unidentifiable due to burns and bruises that were inflicted while it was alive. Karkat tries to tell her to release the head but she refuses to so he smacks it out of her hands and tries to comfort his wife. Nepeta is hysterically crying while masses of red blood cover her hands, but then Karkat looks down at his own hands to find them spewing out the same blood on Nepeta's hands.

He immediately withdraws away from her to rub them dry, but no matter how hard he tries, they are never clean. "Nepeta!" he shouts out, "You need to stop crying!"

"Why are you doing this to me?" she hollers back. "I'm innocent!"

Karkat tries to hold her, but every attempt he makes she revers back, "You're innocent Nepeta! I-I just-"

"You can't just leave me to die!" A new voice replaces Nepeta's. Karkat looks up to find a beaten and tied up human crying to him. He recognizes it as the soon disembodied head.

Spades Slick coolly walks up behind the fallen troll, "Nothing to see here Officer Vantas. Just a disobedient employee."

Karkat stares at the doomed man, "Please!" the man shrieks. "Please you gotta save me! They're going to kill me! Pl-Please, I have a family! I-I'm afraid to die," he ends withdrawing to sobs.

The mafia man lays a shoulder on the troll, "Time to leave."

Obediently, Karkat gets up and walks away from the still begging man to find himself surrounded in a dark room. He looks back to see if he could return, but nothing is there.

Suddenly a force hits him in the side, then the stomach, and then the face. Karkat collapses trying to hold every part of his body that is continuously beaten, but holding his own body doesn't stop the pain. He manages to look up to a young woman crying; she is held up against a black wall and is unable to rescue him.

Karkat turns away from the woman to look down at the floor so she wouldn't see him, "Please," he whispers, "Don't hurt her. Don't hurt Jade."

The troll wakes up in his bed in a jolt. He looks around the room to find himself in his own apartment. Furious, Karkat grabs a nearby bottle that helped him to sleep and throws it at the wall. He then curses because Karkat realizes that he'll have to clean that up, but in the meantime he looks at the time: three fifty-two am.

Karkat collapses back in his bed wide awake and with no desire to try sleeping again. His hand tries to find the troll's cell phone on the bed stand. In his hand, Karkat finds the contact number to reach his friend.

"Hey motherfuckers," the voice on the other line greets. "You reached motherfucking train station central. The party is on and the fucking is hot like a bitch between her tits. And there's no getting off this party train because who the fuck knows how trains work."

"Gamzee," he sighs too tired to be angry, "cut your hoof-beast shit."

"Ah shit bro, did my best motherfucker get a bad dream again?" Karkat responds with an affirmative noise. "Well why don't you just tell your bro what happened this time."

"I told you about the night when I found Slick killing that guy; basically that again."

Gamzee's voices cracks, "Fuck, that still eating at you? It was like years ago or something."

"I know, but I practically killed that man. It's my responsibility to protect every Skaia citizen, but I couldn't stand up for myself to save that one and the countless others Slick's murdered behind my back."

"Bro you can't let that get to you. You need to be a cool motherfucker and realize that that shit is just going to happen. Don't forget that you kept that fucker from killing more."

Karkat digs his nails into his head, "Cock-sucking lies. I could always do something, but I'm too much of a bitch biting bastard to stand up and stop him. I hated being his fucking lap dog!"

"Well you're not anymore my number one bro-before-hoe. Anything else about that dream?"

"Yeah," Karkat holds his covers close to him hoping to hide his shame. "Yeah Jade was there for once. It was that night when Slick broke our pact. Grub I wish she didn't have to see that."

"Hmm," Gamzee ponders.

"No. Don't you fucking dare. I don't need your shit-fucking interpretation on what 'miracle' my dream means. I don't need that tonight."

"Okay bro okay, just trying to help a fellow fucker out."

"Well don't, dreams are rectum-bursting idiocy that only assholes would try to decipher."

"You sure about that? Is there nothing from your dream that you might want?"

For a brief second Karkat's mind turns to Jade, but he shakes that idea away because Karkat knows that there is no reason to ever think of Jade. Ever. "Actually Nepeta was there, but she wouldn't want to get back together. Would she?" Gamzee is silent. "Gamzee? Gamzee what the fuck do you know?"

"I-I don't know anything. I'm a mindless motherfucker over here."

"Stop talking shit Gamzee, I know that you still talk to her. Does-Does she miss me?"

Gamzee deeply exhales into the phone, "Of course she misses you. She asks about you a lot because she cares like a bitch."

Karkat recognizes the hesitation in Gamzee's voice, "But?"

"But she doesn't want to be with you like that again and bring back that feelings junk. She-She's moved on."

Karkat lays back in his bed staring at the ceiling, "Oh. Who is it?"

"Now bro you know she wouldn't tell me that. I'm lucking that she was willing to spill that much. How are you feeling?"

"How am I feeling? Actually," Karkat checks his heart rate finding it a little fast, but working, "I'm doing surprisingly better than I would have ever fucking imagined when hearing the old love of my life has moved on."

"That's great my little bro, I knew that you'd get better in no motherfucking time. And hey, maybe you'll move on and find some sweet ass to fuck soon enough!"

Karkat rolls his eyes, "Night Gamzee." He gets up from his bed to get ready for work all too well knowing that he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep.

Hours pass seeming endless to the officer until his boss loudly wakes him up with a thud.

"Ah!" Karkat shouts waking up.

Chief of Police Zahhak frowns at him, "I do not tolerate sleeping in my department." He places his hand on a file, "I have a report and assignment here. Go over it with Officer Harley when you can keep two eyes awake." The blue blood then walks away from him to hand out folders to other officers. Karkat gets up from his chair and heads toward the break room where he knew his fellow officer would be.

Officer Harley and Vriska Serket are playing a round of ping pong together during their break; it appears as if Vriska is winning. The ball makes a tough dash to Jade's left and rolls to Karkat's feet. "Another point for me," Vriska announces.

Jade studies the paddle as if there's a defect, "Ugh I thought I was finally getting a hang of this game. I'm better using both hands instead of one."

"Don't worry Jade you'll beat me eventually, I am the best teacher so it only fits that you would become the best student."

The woman then turns around to retrieve the ball, but is surprised to find her partner there. "Oh, hey there Karkat, how long have you been there?"

The troll manages to glare through half-awake eyes, "Long enough to realize that you left me to sleep to play a fucking game of ping pong."

"Come on, that's not fair."

"Yes it is. I told you to keep me awake, not to abandon me so I could get scolded by the chief."

Jade starts to pout, "It's not our job to keep you awake."

"Technically it would be Vriska's-"

"It's not my fault you slept; I tried to wake you up before we left."

"-But you know what, it doesn't matter, it's time to do our real job and stop acting like three-sweeps-old playing fucking ping pong!"

The human finally notices the folder in his hand, "Assignment?"

"Yep, so put down the hand-fucking paddle and get back to your desk."

A little annoyed, the two females put down their paddles and follow their friend back to their desks. Then they watch him as he reads the file silently to himself; a little annoyed because he could've done this before getting them.

But after skimming the report, Officer Vantas hands the file over to Jade to look over. He sighs and rubs his face, "We got an idiotic assignment where we have to watch out for suspicious activity near a warehouse that we expect SJ to be making and exporting his own alcohol; fucking illegally of course. And we'll be waiting outside in the car all night; Jade you'll have to go home to get a change of clothes and whatever shit you'll need tonight."

Vriska tries to read some of the instructions over Jade's shoulder, "Oh like a stake out."

"No. It's not like a fucking stake out. Don't you dare use shitting cop show lingo with me. We are not a fucking cop show; we're real cops."

"Then what the fuck am I supposed to call this mission?"

"Nothing," Karkat snarls, "You're not going to call it anything because you aren't coming; in fact, get out of here! This is classified work."

The other troll turns to her woman ally, "Jaaaaaaaade," she whines, "I want to go. Tell Karkat that he's stupid."

Jade frowns as she reads over the file, "Sorry Vriska, but I think you'll have to sit this one out. It's dangerous and needs to be kept on the down low so less people is better; besides, I need someone to watch Bec while I'm gone. So could you please just-?"

"Fine." Vriska stands up, "I'm going to the bathroom."

"Wash your hands," Karkat orders. He looks to Jade, "So do you think you can handle this? If we're going to be stuck together all night then I want you to be capable of taking care of yourself."

Jade reveals a smile that she's been hiding for a while, "Wow Karkat, I've always wanted to go on one of these missions. They look like so much fun!"

He exhales already exhausted, "This is your first one right? Well it's not fun it's boring. The majority of these end up with nothing going on. And-" he sees that Jade is far too excited to depress.

"Sorry, I really am thrilled to finally go on a stake out mission!"

Karkat lowers his head frustrated, "Grub damn it you're going to make this a long night aren't you?"