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“Hey, ‘sup.”
Karkat’s eyes shoot open the second he hears that cracked, dry voice right up against his ear.
Without recuperacoons, sleeping is already an unpleasant experience. Without the slime, every troll found it difficult to get an acceptable amount of rest. With Karkat’s heightened anxiety, reaching the point of sleep is nearly impossible.
To make things worse, none other than Dave Strider has somehow managed to sneak into his room undetected. On top of that, Dave’s body is right up against his, his breath hitting Karkat’s ear in a way so bothersome that Karkat has no choice but to roll away – and land hard on the ground.
“What the fucking hell?!”
Grumbling, Karkat remains on the floor and sits up, rubbing his now bruised arm. Peering over the top of the bed, Dave stares at the troll below.
“Can’t a guy visit a bro in the middle of the night? I should be asking you the same thing.”
Groaning, Karkat glares straight into Dave’s dark sunglasses. “Why the fuck do you need sunglasses, how do you even see a fucking thing?” He rubs his eyes. “Is this some kind of moronic human ritual that spawned from the dipshit of my past self as a punishment for creating your insufferable race?”
“Hell yeah, it’s a ritual. Way to be insensitive, Karkat. I can’t believe you didn’t read up on this shit.” Dave’s face maintains the usual stoic, but his fingers grasping the edge of the bed are shaking slightly.
Karkat sighs dramatically. “Is it called the annoying prick routine? Is that what you’re doing?”
Dave shrugs. “Nah, something this treasured doesn’t get a name. If it had one it would be like ‘make Karkat uncomfortable with homoerotic subtleties for the sake of irony.’”
Karkat lies back down on the ground and turns away from Dave to face the wall. A long silence causes Karkat to roll over.
There’s Dave again, right in his face, and he jumps in surprise.
“I’m trying to fucking sleep here, don’t you get that? Or is your brain the shape and size of a wiggler's bulge?” Karkat snaps, putting his hand on Dave’s face and trying to push him away.
Dave swats Karkat’s hand away. “Who says I’m not?”
Karkat swats Dave’s hand in return. “You’re obviously not fucking concerned by the way you’re groping me!”
“Do you even know what groping is?” Dave pokes Karkat in the chest.
Grabbing his wrist, Karkat growls. “Will you shut up and get out?”
While Dave maintains his cool-kid cover with a hard, unemotional stare, Karkat feels Dave’s wrist still shaking. After a nightmare, Karkat experiences the same reaction. So many times, after a dream that rattled his sense of safety, he would wish for the comfort of someone else, a distraction. Karkat had never been able to find the courage to reach out to someone else.
Frowning, he lets go and gives him an irritated look before getting up and crawling back onto the bed. Stuffing his face into a pillow, he reluctantly pats the spot next to him three times and waits.
Within seconds, the bed shifts, and Karkat turns his head to see and feel a light Midnight Crew blanket over the two of them.
“Try not to get too excited, I don’t want to feel your troll dick bumping against mine in some kind of desperate depraved hunger that only my cock can fill.”
“Go the fuck to sleep,” Karkat says, removing Dave’s sunglasses and tossing them aside. He puts an arm around Dave’s shoulder.
“Woah, Karkat-“
“Shut the fuck up.”
Within minutes, the tension in Dave’s muscles melt, and they both succumb to sleep.