The Blood I Spill for You

One for Sorrow, Two for Mirth

A single crow sat at Dave's window sill, but it could not be seen through the closed blinds. It squawked repeatedly—annoyingly—though it couldn't be heard through the bright red headphones blasting some beats. The crow has been there for the whole seven days, non-stop. There were usually two, but the other one was no where to be found.

The mini fridge was completely empty but Dave wasn't hungry anyways. He just stared at the ceiling, not even listening to the music.

Karkat was gone.

It's already been a week and the most productive thing Dave's done was walk across the hall to use the bathroom. He knew Dirk was simply hoping if he ignored the current situation, it would eventually go away.

"Maybe it will," Dave lied to himself.

He growled, throwing his headphones across the room. They hit the wall with a crack and laid probably broken in the tangle of cords. He curled up on himself and faced the wall, not really looking at anything. Without Karkat, the bed felt cold. Empty.

And so did he.

He doesn't know how many minutes had past, but a knock on his door broke the silence as well as his train of thought.

"Hey little man, I ordered pizza. It's on the counter downstairs," Dirk said, loud enough to make sure Dave could have heard it even with his music on.

"Thanks," Dave mumbled. Though it was sincere, his voice was raspy and sore from crying. Half the time he didn't notice the tears until he could taste them and that only made him cry more.

Dirk bit back a growl at how pathetic Dave sounded. Even after all this training, he's still soft. Weak. Dave wound be able to survive out in the real world if he couldn't even handle his pet being taken away.

   'But Dave never saw the mutant as something he owned,' he thought to himself.

Scowling, Dirk walked off and slammed his bedroom door shut.

Dave jumped at the loud noise that echoed through the quiet apartment. He never realized just how silent the house was when Dirk wasn't blasting his music.

Dave didn't like the silence.

He lazily got up and retrieved his headphones. Just as he thought, broken. But he didn't even care. His headphones were the first thing he had bought with his own money. Dave had been saving up for months, collecting coins and doing extra chores around the house. He remembers being so excited to get them, no matter how hard he tried he couldn't help but smile. Not too big because his bro would have gotten mad, but enough that Dirk made sure to strife him once they got back home.

Now the headphones were destroyed and he didn't even feel upset. He flinched at the screeching caw coming from his window. He walked over to investigate, pulling the blinds up with too much force than necessary. The loud noise startled the bird, but it didn't fly away. Dave scowled at it, wishing it would just leave him alone. It was loud and annoying, but then Dave realized it was the only noise keeping the silence away.

Dave sighed, unable to appreciate the gentle breeze from the open window.

The keys jingled as the door was unlocked. The light from the other room was almost blinding to the poor trolls using their night vision. Most had already learned to turn it off before morning, but Karkat still had no idea how. The smell of the troll feed was disgusting but the others waited eagerly and obediently for their turn. The lights were turned on and Karkat has to hide his eyes in his shoulder, otherwise they would get damaged. His ear twitched towards the clanging and sloshing sound. It was probably the same man who had been coming every other morning, but the young troll would never let his guard down.