I'd never been in a human bathroom before.

It wasn't too extraordinary, other then the graffiti all over the walls. The tiles were dark green with white grout, all limes and peppers. The walls were milk and spinach pinstripes, and the whole place didn't actually smell too bad. All over everything, though, were scratches and drawings and words and numbers, written in all sizes, styles, and colors.

CALL 281-776-3226 FOR A GOOD TIME

I read, inked in bright red by the door.

There were also walls inside the room, freestanding white metal walls, cutting off part of the room and enclosing two small spaces in the corner, like stables. They enclosed and separated two porcelain sculptures. I recognized the bigger one from my Human Studies class—a "toilet". The other was smaller and oddly shaped, mounted on the wall and almost chairlike.

"What's this thing?" I asked. Gamzee had dropped his bag by the mirror, and was busily smearing some oily, greasy shit on his face.

"it's for the brothers," he said, glancing at me in the mirror. "I dunno. They use it for something the sisters can't do."

I stared at it in wonder, keeping my distance. Humans, in my opinion, could be pretty disgusting.

Grossed out by all the possibilities of the function of that thing, I joined Gamzee at the mirror.

Mirrors were strange things for me. Normal glass was like a wall that bounced colors and smells back at me from the reflections. But with mirrors, my nose couldn't tell the difference between a reflection and the real deal. Was I looking in a mirror, or was I staring at my double? Was Gamzee standing beside me, or in front of me?

I drained the bottle in my hand and looked again, and this time... Gamzee was definitely in front of me. He took the empty bottle from me and set it on the counter, then threaded his claws through mine. His grin was wider then ever, his posture more relaxed.

"Feel better?" I asked, ignoring the fact that we were holding hands and examining the paint job he'd slathered on. It smelled like gasoline.

"Like my motherfucking self," he said, with a tilt to his head and a lilt to his voice.

And then he kissed me, pressing me up against the cold, white-blood metal wall.

One second I smelled his eyes, dark with intent, the next I was tasting oily white and plum grey, then lips and teeth and tongue, then I stopped tasting flavors altogether and the world was just a swirl of black and white and grey and teal and indigo and then his tooth caught me, just hard enough to bruise, and I caught him back, and he growled from somewhere deep within his chest and he pulled me closer and farther and deeper and stronger until I pushed him away with a gasp for air, and colors and flavors and light and sound all rushed back to me at once.

"Are you crazy!?" I spat, darting away from his arms and backing towards the door. My mouth tasted like his, all sweetness and bubblegum.

He held some fingers up to his throat, as if checking for a pulse. After a moment he said, "don't think so."

"I'm with Karkat," I told him. "I'm dating Karkat." I held up the corner of the red varsity jacket I wore for proof: Karkat's name was clearly embroidered just below the pocket, and the back bore his last name, Vantas.

He nodded slowly, face serious, and for a moment I thought he was actually listening to me, for once. Then he said, "Haven't you ever heard of blackrom?"

My vision was fading fast; I edged around him and dove for his bag by the sink, uncapping and drinking heavily from the first bottle I met. Its label called it Rock & Rye! but my thinkpan instantly recognized it as the source of the sweet bubblegum on his breath.

Eau de Fucking Clown.

"Do you hate me, Gamzee?"

My question gave him pause, so I plunged on before he could say something dumb.

"I don't do meaningless quadrants. I know you do, and I know you've got hatesprits or whatever all over the place, but I only do quadrants that mean something. OK?"

I expected him to back off, at least. But instead he tipped his head to the side, his mouth a neat little bow, and said "Just how many dates did you and he go on before you decided you were flushed?"

What kind of question was that!? We never decided anything, we just were. I gave him a measured stare, making sure not to blink my useless eyes before answering. "Like twenty."

" 'K," he said, snagging his bag off the floor and pushing past me for the door. "Then just think of this as our first date. If it works out, fine, if not, fine."

Then he left, and, irritated, I followed.

.

He had stopped just outside, on the near side of the spiral staircase. He shooshed me when I came near, irritating me further, and peeked out at the main part of the diner.

I couldn't see anything past the nearest arcade games. I took a gulp of the Rock & Rye! I still held, but it didn't help much.

"What is it?" I hissed, hating that I had to ask.

"Meenah," he said, barely a breath, and held a finger to my lips.

"Sand-swallowing beach scum finally left," I heard, her voice crystal clear to my excellent ears.

"Oh, they're not so bad," another voice said. It was female, but beyond that I couldn't tell much.

I yanked a lock of Gamzee's hair. "Who's that?"

"Pink sister," he said, pushing me away by the face. "Blonde. Human. Be quiet."

I would have shoved him back but he held me off, and his muscles were, for lack of a better word, fantastic. It sent a shiver down my spine just knowing, without a shadow of a doubt, that he could best me in a fight.

I shook the thought off and focused on listening. No use thinking about things like that after the speech I just gave, even if it was mostly bicornbeast feces. I mean, sure, I was dating Karkat, and sure, I didn't have a lot of experience with fooling around, quadrant-wise. But mostly I'd wanted to see if denying Gamzee my spades could be the thing to finally make the clown's smile fade.

"...Left this shit all over the table. Ugh! Smells like hell," Meenah's voice was saying. The pure revolution in her voice was enough to vividly bring back the acrid taste of the peach Faygo she was no doubt referring to.

"Fucking kids come in here, make a mess, spill crap all over the fucking place," she went on. "Like they think this is their damn respiteblock or something."

"Kids these days," the pink human sighed. "Act like they were raised without moms."

"Some of them were, Roxy," another voice, male, said. This one I recognized: Dirk the soda jerk. His voice was a little muffled; he was probably behind his counter. I suddenly became aware of how likely one of the staff were to go into the kitchen, and how close Gamzee and I were to the doors. It didn't take a seeing-eye-barkbeast to realize we'd be caught if we hung around those stairs much longer.

"Were what?" pink human Roxy said.

"Raised without parents. Or whatever the Trolls call them. Lucious?"

The conversation was like a song, the squeaking of rags over Formica and shoes on tile providing the beat, the crackling of Daisy, Daisy from the jukebox adding subtle background sounds.

"They're called Lusii you triangle piece of pond scum," Meenah said. "Way to completely suck at diversity. Good luck whining to me next time you feel discriminated against, you brine-fed bucket sucker."

"Who?" Roxy asked, clearly not paying attention to the conversation. "Which ones were raised without parents?"

"You mean besides you and me?" Dirk said, his bored tone indicating this was not the first time they'd had this discussion. "Terezi."

I froze at the mention of my name, and I didn't hear Gamzee's next breath. We stood woodenly in the dark, neither one of us daring to make a sound as we listened to my story unfold.

"Terezi, that's the aquamarine one, right? With the glasses?" Roxy said. Her voice was nearer; evidently, she'd wandered closer to Dirk's counter to hear the story.

"Yeah. She was in here earlier, with Jade and them," Dirk said. "Dave told me... well, actually I read about it on his blog, since he never tells me shit. But anyway, Dave says her Lusus lives in an egg, and they only meet through dreams or something. But I think it died?"

"...Oh," Roxy said. Then, "That's awful!"

"It's common, is what it is," Meenah said, sounding defensive. "It's a Troll eat Lusus eat Lusus eat Troll world on Alternia. It's actually kind of rare for a Lusus to live even half the lifespan of its Troll."

"But its so sad," Roxy said. "Isn't she sad, living on her own like that?"

"Probably not," Dirk said. "I mean, just look at her. She doesn't look like she's sad, does she?"

"Well... Neither does Gamzee," she said, and beside me, I heard Gamzee stumble over breathing. I wanted to feel sorry for him, having to hear them talk about us both so carelessly, but Gamzee never talked about his home too much, and I was curious to hear.

"Who's Gamzee?" Dirk said. "I know the name..."

"The purple one?" Roxy prompted. "Likes polka dots?"

"It's indigo, you useless bubblebulge Human," Meenah spat. "That wriggler I'm cleaning up after right now? Which, by the way, someone is supposed to be helping with!"

"Oh! Right," Roxy's voice was punctuated by the squeaking of sneakers on tile. "Anyway, I heard from Janey, who heard from John, who heard from Vriska, who heard from Tavros, who probably heard from Gamzee himself, that his Lusus is never home, and it just lives in the ocean and swims around, doing its thing, and Gamzee's basically had to raise himself, ever since he was old enough to walk."

"Trolls are hatched knowing how to walk, human scum," Meenah muttered.

I couldn't hear any more. The longer we listened, the sooner we were likely to be discovered. I tugged Gamzee's arm, but he was frozen stiff.

"Wait," Dirk said, sounding suddenly more alert than usual. "His Lusus... isn't it a giant sea goat? Since Capricorn is a goat, and he's practically a seadweller...?"

"Congratulations on the logic," Meenah grumbled. I was beginning to wonder how she had ever come to work at Doc's in the first place.

"Why do you ask, Dirkums?" Roxy asked, half-giggling his name.

"Nothing, it's just... Jake said he's been hearing more and more reports of a giant sea goat in the bay. Which doesn't make sense. How could a Lusus get to Earth? And if it's still alive, shouldn't it be taking care of Gamzee, or whoever its Troll is?"

"A question for the ages," Meenah said, dousing every syllable in sarcasm. "Jesus, they got it on the floor, too! Roxy, grab the mop, willya?"

"It's in the kitchen," Dirk said, and my lungbox filled with ice water. I grabbed Gamzee's horn-that got his attention-and started up the spiral staircase as quietly as possible, dragging him behind me.

.

At the top was a very small landing and a nondescript white door. We darted through as fast as we could, then slammed it behind us, turning to press our ears to its wood surface for sounds from below, indicating we'd been seen.

We waited thus for several moments, but no one came to investigate. Once my cardiovascular system stopped beating doubletime, I took a look at where we were.

All I could smell was the dank moss flavor of darkness. I couldn't make out a thing, so I had to rely on touch.

"You ever been up here before?" Gamzee muttered, but I didn't bother answering. I drained the bottle of Rock & Rye!, then tossed it to him, though because it was so dark, or maybe just because it was Gamzee, it bounced off his head.

I put a claw to the nearest wall, on my left, and walked cautiously forward, careful to not let go of the wall, even for a second. Behind me, Gamzee made a lot more noise then necessary, doing whatever he was doing. Standing up or sitting down or whatever.

"Where the motherfuck are we?" he hissed, sounding annoyed. "Why is it so dark?"

I shrugged, just because he couldn't see it, and felt my face slip into a gloating smirk. It felt good to be the one in charge, the one to know the most, the one to lead the sightless. I silently thanked my Lusus for everything she ever taught me.

I came to a corner. On the wall beside it, there was a paper. I ran my tongue over it, letting the letters pop into my mind as I tasted them. It was a paper sign taped to the wall, with an arrow pointing back the way we'd come and the word "EXIT".

"Come on," I said, smelling for Gamzee. I could just make him out, still by the door, a patch of shadow a shade darker then the rest. "Follow my voice."

"No, wait," he said, a whisper.

I kept walking, feeling the corner and turning right. This fed into more hallway, it seemed, but this darkness was just a little bit lighter.

"There's a light up ahead," I said, walking forward a little faster, now. I smelled furnature polish and blood, and something else, something acrid. I guessed gunpowder.

The wall turned into a door, with a glass panel set into it. I toungued that, too, and found that it read A.D.

"What the hell is this place?" Gamzee asked, sounding, if I was not mistaken, just short of terrified.

"A murder scene," I whispered, sniffing along the line of the door. "There's fresh blood somewhere. Can't you smell it?"

"Not unless blood smells like Pine-Sol," he muttered.

I tried the door, and found that it opened quite easily. Inside was a stale-smelling office-type room with a lot of strange smells within. Gamzee, standing just behind me, make a shocked sort of sound, and I suspected it wasn't just the smells that were strange.

There was a man within, though my nose couldn't tell me if he was Human or Troll or Something Else. He was short and wide and wore a hat and a scowl.

"Madam Murel's girls, I presume?" he said, coming closer. His voice was as growly as he smelled, and I could feel his strange-smelling eyes on us both.

"Of course," I said.

He nodded. "Of course. So should I strip first?"

I choked back nervous laugh, and could have sworn I heard Gamzee do the same. After a moment I gathered myself enough to say, "um... yes, you will want to strip thoroughly before we provide our service."

He nodded sagely. "Okay, I'm stripping now..."

.

We clambered down the stairs, falling over ourselves in our haste to get away. I was wearing a suspiciously Dave-smelling pair of shades, which we had found on the face of a bust near the murder victim, and Gamzee was wearing a very long string of pearls, which we had stolen from the strange man. Neither of us could stop laughing.

"That was insane!" Gamzee said, as we collapsed into a pile at the bottom of the spiral staircase. "He actually thought we were..."

"Can you blame him?" I asked, or tried to; my sides were tearing apart at the seams. "You tied him to a CHAIR!"

"He asked me to," he protested, finding our bags where we had left them, at the foot of the stairs.

I admitted that the man had, indeed, asked Gamzee to do something with the rope. "But I don't think that was quite what he had in mind," I said.

"You're the one who broke his face statue," he said, passing me a bottle. I drank with reckless abandon, and it turned out to be Black Cherry. Not the best, but far from the worst (which I was sure would prove to be peach).

We looked around then, for the first time noticing that the lights were off down here, too, and all was quiet. Evidently, we had successfully passed the "stay until closing" phase of the plan.

We did everything we could think of. We took off our shoes and danced to the jukebox's sad song, we raided the kitchen and ate strange Human things like saurkraut and little packets of plastic cheese, and I found more of that red somethingnew, and took a bottle of it for myself. Then we played Spin the Faygo, except instead of kissing there was mostly hitting and telling jokes. We did each other's homework, and I braided some of his hair, and he tried on my glasses while I wore the shades and pearls.

Then, when we were tired and bored, we spread ourselves out on the floor, talking in the dark about whatever we thought of. I listened to him talk about his neighbors, how he sits awake sometimes and listens to them getting culled, and wonders if he will be next. Then I told him about living in a tree, what it's like to stay home sick and never hear any voice but your own. What it's like to sometimes hear your toys talking to you, and what it's like when the things they say terrify you.

Then we got up and we danced. We danced for a while, sometimes slow and sometimes fast, sometimes jokingly and sometimes dead serious. Then I started feeling dizzy, so we sat at Dirk's counter and shared a Moon Mist. The jukebox sang a song that reminded me of Karkat, and I hummed along.

After a while of just sitting in silence, Gamzee said, "It's not like he never comes home. I mean, sometimes he just gets busy. You know. Family, and all that."

I nodded, even though I didn't know. This seemed strange, coming from the devil-may-care indigoblood. He was laying out his weakness for me to inspect in the moonlight, almost as though he trusted me, which of course he couldn't have, because in my opinion, as well as the general unspoken laws of Troll culture, that would be a very bad idea.

"One time," he continued, "he was there for some of second autumn, and he showed me some fight moves. Then he ate some of my neighbors. I think he was trying to protect me from them or something, but it just made me all the more scared they'd cull me, next. You know?"

I didn't know about that, either. "My Lusus talks to me in my dreams," I said, though he probably already knew that. "She showed me how to smell and taste colors, so I wouldn't be helpless. So I could still have a chance, I guess." But that was pretty much the only useful thing she ever did for me. All her other lessons were things like "look both ways before crossing a highblood" and "don't eat anything that's been dead for more than a week" and "never help anyone unless it benefits you" and "fill every quadrant as fast as you can so you always have one to fall back on". All things most Trolls usually figure out pretty quickly by the time they pupate.

I felt uneasy, like something bad was going to come of this conversation. As a tealblood, I had always known better than to expose any weaknesses to anyone higher or equal to me, and as a result everyone seemed to think I was made of stone, like I didn't have feelings. But no one, not even my dreaming custodian, had told me what to do if a highblood chose to trust me with his weakness.

"I'm just glad he's fine out there," he said, softly. "Not starving or whatever."

And then he leaned towards me, and his face, in the pale slice of moonlight, smelled as bubbly as the Moon Mist did, like clear, sparkling newness. And his kiss, a memory of the one in the bathroom, with no trace of the harshness from before, was like a whisper in a language no Human school could ever teach. We kissed, and in that moment, I didn't think about Karkat at all.

.

We laid out on the floor again, and the clock on the wall said it was somewhere around Human midnight. On Alternia, most Trolls would be just settling into their recooperacoons, if their custodians were strict enough to enforce regular sleeping habits. Most of the Trolls I knew would still be up, trolling one another in avoidance of sleep, or roleplaying with their stuffed animals to drown out the voices of their fears. At least, that's what I would have been doing, had I been home.

As it was, I was laying on the weirdly comfortable floor, feeling the muted green and white tiles beneath my fingertips, and thinking about quadrants. I was starting to think I'd misjudged him, that he wasn't as horrible as I originally thought. I was wondering if I should recede my original statements from the bathroom, and propose something a shade more red than the original caliginous proposition.

Just as I opened my mouth, however, there was a sound from somewhere outside. A clicking step, perhaps, or a crunching gait. Gamzee sat up suddenly from where he was lying beside me, pupils dilated, movements swift, mouth open to draw scented air over his windhole.

I tried too, but I couldn't smell anything new, othe than his adrenaline.

The limeblood in me wanted to hide from the unknown danger, but hiding would make me seem weak to Gamzee, who would then take the opportunity to kill me. So, against all my primary instincts, I gathered myself up into a crouch behind him, and, as he turned his head to catch some sound, I pounced.

I hardly knew what was happening; all my killing instincts were dominating my movements, my thoughts, every action. I could smell his fruit punch blood, and I heard a roar that could have been me or it could have been him or it could have been the blood rushing in my noisetunnels. He slammed me to the ground, driving breath from my lungs, but I clawed my way back up, careful of his horns while trying to gouge him with my own. He bit my arm and I bit his leg and we shrieked and howled and spat and the only way to accurately describe it in Human terms would be to liken it to whisker creatures pailing. Sans the pails.

He managed to pin me, legs heavy on my hips, claws bleeding cages around my bleeding wrists, though I writhed and struggled with all my might.

I hissed at him, spitting and bleeding angrily, and he roared back, his snarl loud and bloody and dangerous and raw. My blood had never felt so green.

I managed to heave myself up and spear him with my horn. I wriggled free, then, as he recoiled in pain, and I ran, scrambling and sliding in my sock feet, to hide behind the soda counter. Peering out, I thought I saw the gleam of his eyes through the dark.

I shoved myself back, pressing my back into the shelves below, doing my best to breathe silently, to keep my skirts from rustling. I was about to pee myself I was so scared, a fear that only intensified when, through the darkness, I heard his breathing, a slow, ragged sound.

Note to self, I thought, as shivers danced along my spine, look both ways before crossing a highblood.

There was silence, and a warm trickle of blood slid down my cheek. Then the quiet darkness of the diner was split by the white-hot sound of shattering glass. The next second I saw him-illuminated in a freeze-frame moment, my vision enhanced dramatically for a second by sheer terror-hurtling over the counter towards me, hands outstretched, face hidden in a tangle of dark hair, every incredible muscle in his body perfectly arranged in preparation of his landing. I drew out my claws, bracing myself to tear his flesh, but too soon he was on me, his breath, reeking of plum blood, hot on my cheek.

His hand clamped tight over my mouth, tasting like his blood and my blood and his rage and my fear.

I opened my mouth, fangs protruding, ready to bite, but his voice hissed in my ear, "someone's here," and our mutual fear mixed, sharp and bitter, in the blood-smelling air.

I took a moment to control my instincts, to hide my claws in my fists and seal my lips over my fangs. Everything smelled too bright, and the moment I stopped thinking of killing, all I could think of was hurting. There was blood on my hands and in my mouth and staining my clothes, and most of it was mine.

"Did you hear that?" we heard, from somewhere directly outside. "Shit. Did you hear that, Crowbar?"

"Just some cats makin' it," said another voice. this one sounded much angrier. "Come on."

"But it sounded like it was comin' from inside..."

"Oh, you're turning chicken now? All those places, and you're turning on me now? God damn it, Eggs!"

"Look, I know this isn't anything to you, breakin' into all these places, 'ooh, who could it be?' but if we get caught..."

"It's not just that," the voice grumbled. "You're saying we should call it quits?"

"Maybe just not this one... place gives me the creeps."

"Yeah, me too."

"Okay then. Let's go."

And then they left.

Gamzee and I both heaved sighs of relief, and he gallantly removed his hand from my face. Then we laughed, and then he kissed me, and I bit him, and we fought again, but this time with a little less bloodshed. Then we curled up right there on the floor, behind the soda counter, and fell asleep, though I was longing for the warm comfort of my 'coon's slime. We woke just as the Human sun was coming up over the Human horizon, spilling through the large window, and I reflexively recoiled. But I reminded myself, as I did almost every day, that the Human sun wouldn't hurt me.

Then, as the slimy rotten-egg smell of Doc's came back with the light, we found a back door, through a green apartment draped with green velvet. I felt watched, there, and the air smelled suspiciously like licorice, but nothing went awry. We found the door and slipped into the early-morning chill in the alleyway outside.

We figured what Karkat didn't know wouldn't hurt him.