Karkat meets his partner against crime in front of a car that barely passes safe-for-road regulations. "So this is Vriska's car?" he asks.
"Yup," Jade confirms, "she's not planning on going anywhere so she lent it to us. Don't worry, it will get us there. It doesn't look like much, but it . ." Jade quickly wipes away something falling from her eye.
Karkat notices, "Is everything okay?"
She nods her head and takes a deep breath, 'Yeah. Come on, we need to get there before it gets too late. The chief is expecting us!"
The officers have their luggage stuffed into the car and pull out onto the highway.
Jade has the first shift, "I figured an hour's drive each would be good? We both can't get to tired."
"For a four hour drive that's good," Karkat agrees. "In the meantime we should prepare."
"Nervous?" Jade quips. "Good. We should be. I most certainly am."
Karkat takes a deep breath, "Yes, I'm fucking nervous. I need to grovel to an overpowered politician to help us."
"Hey work on your wording! WE need to CONVINCE a CHARIABLE politician to help us."
The troll looks over at her impressed, "That's good."
Jade sighs, "Karkat, I know you'll do fine. You're just nervous. But don't worry, together we'll get each other through this."
He smiles, "I know you get pretty energetic when it comes to work, but I'm pretty surprised that you're not barfing over your own nerves."
"Oh I am. This was just my idea so there's no way I can back out now. Ha ha. Besides I've learned to hide my feelings. You don't know how many times I've wanted to bark at the people who yell at us." she shares cheerily.
Karkat looks over confused, "You seriously learned all your social behaviors from a dog?"
"Hey! Bec was a great friend! Best friend! But yeah, sniffing someone's butt didn't go well in the Capital. But you learn fast when people threaten institutionalization."
"Well, I'm glad you're here Jade."
"Yeah, me too." She keeps her eyes on the road, "Let's discuss who we'll meet. Know your enemy-er sponsor I mean."
"Sure. We got some time to kill on this road. Tell me, is the chief the same guy? I think he had like a scar that he always used to scare the rookie officers. What's his name again?"
"Chief Terres? Yup! He's still pushing everyone to move right along with him."
"Great," Karkat groans, "I wasn't his favorite."
"I'm sure you'll be fine," Jade reassures. "It's the mayor I'm more worried about. Have you ever seen him?"
"I was always too busy to. I'm sure when the time comes we can find him surrounded by his bodyguards and his esteem," he says the word 'esteem' with vile.
"Karkat, you need to let that go. He's a decent enough mayor and he has the ultimate say on our proposal."
"Don't worry Jade, I'm getting it all out now." He opens up a folder from his bag with notes, "Come on, let's return to our talking points for tonight. Last thing I need is for me to start shitting my pants like a fucking baby."
In the long hours that follow, the two officers arrive at their hotel room. Karkat drops off his share of the luggage and moves to open the curtains.
He looks outside and sighs, "This is a view."
Jade lifts her suitcase onto her bed, "Yeah. I'm taking this bed okay?"
"Huh? Yeah that's fine."
The woman laughs, "It's not like on the cruise, is it? You don't have to sleep on the couch or anything. "
"Well that WAS vacation."
"We'll see if we can fit some free time in here. I'm sure we can have some fun together."
Karkat looks at her suspicious, ". . Sure."
"So how about we take a quick break, maybe a nap, and then we get ready in an hour?"
"Fine by me," Karkat collapses on the bed ready to pass out. "Never get enough sleep anyways."
And not long . . .
Karkat adjust his tie, making sure it fits and isn't sloppy. He's sure it won't look right. "Jade?" he calls to the bathroom, "You almost done?"
She opens the door, "Almost," and steps out. Jade wears an appropriate, blue cocktail dress that Karkat can help but see the beauty in her. She moves slowly towards him, "I need your help with something."
Jade turns around to reveal that her dress is unzipped, thus revealing her bare back. "Oh uh sure," Karkat manages to get out. He zips up the dress, he thinks she didn't even try to zip up at all, and spins her around to face him. "You look great." She smiles back at him.
"Thank you." Jade works on tightening his tie, "There you go. Now you look perfect." The woman grabs her bag and extends an arm to Karkat, "Shall we?"
He grabs her coat, "Don't you think you'll be cold?"
Jade takes it and puts the coat on, "The cold doesn't bother me. It's all just part of my rich biology!"
"Well I'm sorry to say I'd rather avoid your 'rich biology' with the mayor. Might freak him the fuck out if he thinks we have super soldiers or something."
"I understand," she responds. "But I do like talking to you about it . . and Vriska! You both make me feel so . . normal. I don't know what I would do without you."
Smiling, Karkat reaches out to gingerly touch her face but instead settles for her arm, "This is going to be a good night."
"Oh I'm sure it will be." Jade presses her hand on top of his, "We should get going." She then casually loops her arm around Karkat's and starts to lead him to the door.
The two officers stand side by side outside of a fancy, rich person restaurant for the elegant and super fancy mancy fancy. It should be mentioned that it is fancy.
Karkat stares at the place nervous, "How are we going to pay for this?"
"Don't worry!" Jade squeezes his arm reassuringly. "The mayor offered to handle it. He says that we are guests in his city!"
"Okay, but I thought we were supposed to meet with Chief Terres tonight?"
Jade waves Karkat's concerns off, "You're worrying too much! I told you that everything is taken care of." A high pitch ringing goes off from inside of Jade's purse. She reaches inside to pull out her phone. "One second, Karkat! Hello?"
"Good evening, Jade."
"Jake! It's good to hear from you! What's up?"
"Oh I'm just making this rubbish phone call that you ask me to do. Also I do believe Jane is trying to experiment some blasted baking concoction. "
"Oh no that's terrible!"
"Quite. We both know she's wonderful, but when she strays too far from the recipe then my pistol will be cocked and ready to fire at the blasted monstrosity. . . Don't take that the wrong way."
"So what's going to happen now?"
"That's for only you to know apparently. And your friend. I wished you explained to us what you were doing tonight. Ah well. Have fun with your little charade! I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yes, goodbye." Jade hangs up the phone. "Oh Karkat, I'm so sorry!"
Karkat looks concerned, "What's wrong?"
"That was Jake and he told me that Chief Terres is too busy tonight to meet us. He must be caught up in paperwork or something. But we'll instead meet him tomorrow with the mayor."
The troll sort of kicks the ground, "Fucking bullshit. And after we had to get . . dressed up."
"Listen," Jade calmly says, "We're meeting him tomorrow. And we shouldn't bring this up later. He'll think we're petty and we don't need that. Tomorrow we'll focus then, but how about tonight we have a little fun for ourselves. I mentioned free time possibilities! And we are in the one of the biggest cities in the world. There's quite a bit that we could do. Let's enjoy ourselves before we have to get serious again. Besides, we do look great."
Karkat sighs and lets the disappointment go. He looks at Jade with slightly forced enthusiasm, "So what do you want to do?"
"Ever been to the park?"
"Everyone that's ever been here for at least an hour has."
"Do you remember that they like to do special events?"
"How do you know one is tonight?"
"Oh," Jade sort of walks around Karkat, "I looked them up when I was thinking of bring Vriska here."
"Okay, so what is tonight?" Jade smiles brightly at him.
Jade and Karkat stand side by side just outside of the Capital's Park that holds a brightly lit carnival. The woman tugs on the troll's sleeve, "Come on!" And they both move towards the bright lights.
Karkat looks around at the other people, "Dear Grub, we are overdressed."
Jade looks over at him and laughs, "I know, right? At least we are doing it together!" Karkat smiles back feeling at ease. "So, you hungry?"
"Sure, but I don't know if I want to eat something filled with rodent shit."
She rolls her eyes, "Don't worry, Karkat." Jade then begins to speak in a most snooty tone of voice, "In the Capital, everything is pristine! Why you could eat your own feces and it would taste simply delightful!"
Karkat is now laughing, "Holy fucking shit. I completely forgot about all that lusus shit propaganda. They're still running that?"
"Of course! Capital is 'the best' place to live!"
"Huh," Karkat looks the place over. "It is an improvement from Skaia though."
"Maybe, but they don't have everything." Jade stares into Karkat's eyes and smiles. "Anyways you're hungry." She quickly gets the two of them food. "I'll admit that it isn't that great, but it's not that bad either!"
Karkat eats his share and is impressed and then disappointed. "It's actually better than what Gamzee has given me."
Jade leans on her hand interested, "How is Gamzee doing? I'm actually curious on how he even keeps that restaurant afloat. It's always empty when I visit."
"Fuck if I know. I've asked him to show me his records but he refuses. For all I know he's sucking some guy's dick to keep the place running."
"Why does he work there? He never seems invested in the place."
Karkat sighs, "When I first moved here, Gamzee and I worked together there. There are a lot of memories in that shit hole, and Gamzee has trouble moving on." He starts to look unsettled.
"Ooo!" Jade looks past Karkat, "There's a small band that's starting to play!" She stands up, "Come on Karkat! We have to dance!"
"What?" He doesn't even remember the last time he danced. In most cases, Karkat would have refused, but not tonight. "Alright then."
The two go over to the small dancing section and hold each other close. Jade moves in closer. "This is nice," she whispers to him.
"Y-Yeah." Karkat will admit that it's nice not being stared at. The Capital does have this right. He even sees other mixed species couples dancing. It's almost bizarre to him. But Karkat returns his attention to Jade. Grub, she looks beautiful. He wishes that she'd just rest her head on his shoulder, but that'd be too much. Instead they both sway back and forth holding hands and just feeling each other.
Jade starts to grow nervous, "Karkat?" He looks at her. "I was wondering . . if you wanted to ride the Ferris wheel?"
"Oh? Sure," Karkat drops his arms away from her.
Jade could just hit herself for that. Perfect opportunity just gone. She knows that Vriska would be screaming at her now.
But wait. Jade looks back at the Ferris wheel. The top of the ride. Just them sitting together. No distractions. And it's totally cheesy enough for Karkat to love it! This is it! That is the moment she needs! That they need!
Jade almost pulls Karkat over to get them in line quicker. It's only when they almost reach the front of the line where Karkat reads a sign. "Oh we apparently need to buy tickets for this." Jade looks behind them to see that the line is longer than when they started. And the ticket stand is worse. There's no way that she can get tickets by the time they reach the front.
"Don't worry, I got this!" she tells Karkat determinedly.
Reaching the front of the line, the carnie holds his hand out, "Tickets." Jade puts a five dollar bill in his hand. "Alrighty then," and he lets them in a pod.
As they start to ascend, Karkat looks at Jade quizzically, "I don't think the tickets would have cost that much."
"It's fine," Jade reassures. She starts to rest on Karkat's shoulder, and Karkat starts to take deep breaths to calm himself.
They are close to reaching the top.
"Karkat?" Jade says softly.
"Yeah?"
"I'm really enjoying being right here next to you."
Karkat swallows, "Me too!"
"I-I want you to know that you are important to me. I care about you a lot."
"Me too!"
Jade almost laughs, is that all he can say? "In fact, I need to tell you something."
"Me too-Oh?"
Jade looks to the window to take a deep breath. She turns back around, "I think you're . . Bec?"
"Bec? What the fuck does that mean?"
But Jade is already turned back to the window, "Bec!?" She starts to pound on the window.
"Whoa calm down, Jade!" He tries to pull her back. "What are the chances that Bec is here? Come on that might be someone else's fucking dog!"
Jade continues to scream, "BEC!"
The carnies notice Jade and think she's going to vomit on the ride. They quickly move to get her and Karkat to the bottom.
Jade rushes out to embrace the white dog, "Bec! What are you doing here?"
Karkat is flabbergasted, "How the fuck did your dog get here?"
Jade almost looks embarrassed, "I-I've never actually been able to measure his speed or endurance."
"Your grandpa made a fucking super dog," Karkat whispers to himself in disbelief.
"I don't understand!" Jade says. "You're supposed to be with Vriska! Huh?" Jade then notices a piece of paper wrapped tightly in the back of Bec's collar.
She stands up with the paper and unrolls it, "Oh my God." Karkat stands behind her to read the paper.
It reads: SKAIA IN FLAMES. SEND HELP. -V
