The Seventeenth Day of Dark: 7:30 AM: LOG 0018

You wake earlier than usual.

Perhaps it's because of the cold. The temperature has dropped considerably in the past few days, and soggy straw atop concrete encapsulated by metal walls isn't a very warm place to sleep. In fact, it's a downright awful place to sleep. You feel as if you slept in a bog, except the bog was filled with the tears of the frozen damned.

Or, maybe, it's the wind. It whistles through the cracks in the metal, sounding like ghostly whispers. Utterances of your past and future misdoings.

It might have even been the fact that your dreams strayed into the realms of nightmares. They've been doing that a lot lately. Your unconscious conscience strolls through familiar landscapes. Blood covering your hands. Soaking through the soles of your shoes. Matting your hair into thick, unmanageable clumps.

It may have been all three.

Whatever the reasons were, you're awake. And it seems you're not the only one, because Dave is parked at the table. His fingers are tangled in his hair, and his shades are clipped to the collar of his plain red undershirt.

"You couldn't go to sleep, either?" you ask.

"We've got a bad seed in the ranks," Dave mutters, never turning to look at you as you sit across from him. "Three mail couriers have disappeared, two bases have been raided, and were starting to get pretty low on funds."

You nod slowly. You suppress the urge to turn away as you present yourself as nothing more than a concerned confidant. "Sounds fucking bad."

"Not the sort of news I can sleep with," Dave mutters. Without his usual higher-collared shirts, you can see a small plastic piece at the base of his neck, which seems to have a bright red cap with an odd sort of pinwheel design. Perhaps noticing your interest, he eyes you with a wariness you haven't seen since the first day. He tugs at his undershirt until it's been displaced enough to cover it. " Why're you up so early?"

"No idea," you lie.

"Hmph." For the first time, you realize how heavily he breathes.

Or, really, that might not be the best word to describe it. His breaths are short and shallow when he's not speaking. They come at an interval only slightly faster than you're accustomed to with Humans. When he speaks, though, his words tend to come quickly. You'd thought it to be out of anxiety or awkwardness, but you're starting to wonder if it's an act of necessity.

"You talk a lot faster than most Humans I know," you point out.

He frowns. Finally, he looks up at you. Dark shadows stand out around his eyes, and it seems as if he's aged. "My lungs are weak," he explains, his voice flat and unaffected, "It's easier to say a lot in less time than to say the same amount of shit but take longer to do it. It's also awkward. If I pause too often, people speak over me. So, I trained myself to be fucking certain that everything I want to say gets said."

You nod. "That makes sense."

"Mhm." Dave frowns. He backs away from the table and let's forth a pained groan. The chair comes to an abrupt halt as his left leg bounces rapidly, slowly sliding him out of place until he's hunched over to the far left. After nearly a minute, the rapid up-and-down shaking slowly subsides.

You're sure this isn't a normal thing, but you're not about to question it. You've had enough Human body lessons for one day. Instead, you silently approach Dave and offer your hand, which he rejects in favor of pulling himself back into place by himself. "You seem to be having a whole constipated assload of problems today, aren't you?" you mutter, fully intending for the comment to go unheard.

However, it seems your intents are ignored. Dave snickers, smoothing out his pants over relatively thin legs as he responds, "Nothing gets past you, jackass."

"I didn't actually mean for you to hear that," you admit. (If trolls blushed like Humans, your face would be bright red.)

"It's fine," Dave says. As if to reinforce this, he tacks on a surprisingly powerful playful shove.

It takes nearly everything you've got to avoid stumbling.

"So... If you caught the rat, what'd be the punishment?" You ask the question purely out of curiosity.

"Interrogate, jail, and kill." Dave responds with a vigorous vengefulness. Almost as if this has happened before.

You make a mental note to be even more cautious from this point forward.

The Seventeenth Day of Dark: 10:00 AM: LOG 0019

Having followed Dave around for a few hours through the rotten wood and rusted metal facades of what you can only assume to be the lowest socioeconomic part of Skaia, you're more than happy into the warmth of a slightly nicer-looking place on the edge of town, seemingly on the border between the lower class and the upper class.

"The Golden Greyhound is a pretty historic hangout," he explains as he holds the door open for you, parking his chair in front of it. "I figured you might want something more than toast to eat."

"That's pretty decent of you."

The words are said offhandedly, as you're too busy enjoying the warmth of the space. Outside is like the coldest reaches of some ice planet.

And Dave seems to take the remark with his usual brand of oddball grace. "I'll take that as a compliment," he says, straightening his shades. "The place runs kind of funny. You stand in line and order, and then you choose a table." Here, his right hand—its fingers forming a loose fist—rises slightly in the direction of a line of about ten people. "You can go sit down, if you want."

"That would make me a pretty shitty bodyguard," you shrug. "I'll stick in line with you."

Dave nods approvingly, as if you've passed some sort of test. "Well, then, let's see what you want to order." As he lowers his right hand, the fingers extend and contract with unnatural stiffness.

For some reason unbeknownst to you, but perhaps due to your dislike of the sound of nails scraping against textured plastic, you set your hand atop his, flattening it against the armrest of his chair.

And, in this moment, many things hit you, like a sack of frozen fish across the face.

Dave's hands are warm. Surprisingly warm. And they're just slightly larger than yours. You're certain that his left hand is different, being the dominant one, but this one is also surprisingly soft. Or, perhaps, not so surprisingly. He doesn't seem to use his right hand often. Finally, that strange feeling—the odd, fluttering, all-encompassing warmth, which rises from your gut and seems to spread throughout your body—returns.

All of this combines, and you quickly withdraw your hand. Nonetheless, the strange sensation remains. "Sorry. I didn't mean to... intrude on your personal space.

A small consolation is that Dave seems as flustered as you are. He pulls his right arm so that his hand rests loosely in his lap. He clears his threat, though the sound is more akin to a harsh breeze than a solid "ahem." He sighs. "It's fine."

"What sort of pallet-numbing Human trash do they serve here?" Your inquiry is the most forceful attempt at changing the conversation that you've made in a while.

And, not to your surprise, Dave takes the bait. You notice, though, that he's now preoccupied with straightening his shades. "Lots of things. They've also got some troll food."

"Mhm."

He looks away.

You look at him. You study his jawline, which is strong and pronounced. You note the cluster of stubble on his face, which is concentrated on the far right side. You glance at the lines on his lip, marks from where he's bitten into the skin again and again.

And, for the first time in your career, you realize that you'll be erasing the stories this Human could tell the universe with his murder. The immensity of the task suddenly weighs upon you. This bastard—this asshole with enough positive traits to make you question your morals—has experiences comparable to only his own. He has memories only he can share.

Who are you to decide whether or not he should be able to share all of it?

Who are you, beyond a desperate, greedy murderer?

"Karkat! KARKAT!"

You frown.

"What're you ordering?" Dave looks at you expectantly. Perhaps it's only your imagination, but he seems to be genuinely interested in your choice.

Unfortunately for him, in your panic, you simply order the first mildly tolderable item in the list. "Curried Jupiter Sandcrawler," you sputter.

Dave laughs. And the knot in your stomach tightens, pushing even closer to its snapping point.