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It’s the television that wakes him.
Troy opens his eyes to see Abed, in his favorite chair, frantically turning down the tv’s volume. Troy’s sitting next to him (he’d fallen asleep watching M*A*S*H), and he can feel a strand of drool sliding out of the corner of his mouth.
“Abeeeeeeeeeed, what are you doin’?” Troy groans between yawns. As much as he hates to admit it, he can’t help but be a bit upset with Abed for waking him. He’d needed some rest, and he’d been having a good dream too, one with spaceships and dinosaurs and even Keanu Reeves…
Abed turns to Troy, a bit startled by his tone.
“Sorry, I’m turning off the volume, see? I’ll put on subtitles.”
Troy stretches his arms. “Alright man, just keep it down.”
He pauses.
“Sorry for being such a grump, I just needed some rest after all that studying yesterday.”
He chuckles.
“What do all those words even mean? There’s something in the textbook about cytolysis, what’s that, something Peirce got in the 80s?”
Troy giggles, expecting a smile to sneak onto Abed’s lips, and instead only seeing him tilt his head ever so slightly to the left, his eyelids squinted and fingers meddling with his hair.
Troy smiles awkwardly and turns his attention to the TV. The sight of a young Ally Sheedy greets him on the screen.
“Breakfast Club?”
“Yep. It’s the two disk special edition too. I finished watching season 6 of M*A*S*H, so I put this on. I’m gonna get to the audio commentary soon, I hope they don't forget to talk about the casting process.” Abed announces dryly, blinking a bit more rapidly than usual.
“Sounds good.”
The two friends sit there for a bit, Abed running his fingers through his hair, and Troy scratching at a particularly itchy spot on his back.
Troy breaks the silence.
“Hey, Abed, how d’ya manage to stay awake so long, it’s, like, at least two in the morning at least.”
“Don’t worry, I fell asleep at eleven.”
Abed stops to reflect, his fingers still entwined in his hair.
“I don’t think gaining immunity to sleepiness is gonna be a part of my arc this week.”
Troy smiles at the earnestness of his friend’s remark, before a question enters his mind.
“Hey, Abed, what woke you up?”
Abed turns his head away from his friend, and Troy can swear that he sees him flinch, just a little.
“Just some dream.”
Troy nods, but it’s an unsure action, slow and accompanied with a slightly furrowed brow.
Abed continues to look away, and Troy tries to focus on the movie, hoping it might distract from the unpleasant feeling that he can’t quite define.
“Troy?” Abed says, still not facing Troy.
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever get nightmares?” Abed inquired, his voice sharp and quick, albeit not rude.
Troy shifts in his seat, trying to see if he can catch a glance of Abed’s face, maybe gain some understanding of what’s going on.
“Well, yeah man, everyone has bad dreams every once in a while.”
Troy searches for something that might make Abed giggle.
“This one time, I had a nightmare that I was one of those dudes who gets kidnapped in the Saw movies, and for some reason, Jigsaw had the voice of one of my younger cousins, and she’s, like, in preschool.” Troy chuckles.
Abed doesn’t follow suit.
Troy’s soft laughter dies down, and he searches for a way to break the awkward silence before Abed does it for him.
“I had a nightmare.”
Troy nods, his suspicions being confirmed.
“Troy, is it normal to dream...to dream about things that have already happened, that have happened in the real world?”
Troy freezes.
“Abed, what-”
“Because a couple hours or so ago, I dreamt about something that happened before I came to Greendale.”
Abed turns to Troy, and he sees it.
Abed’s eyes, far from having the difficult to decode gaze that can often be seen in his pupils, are filled with something visceral, something easy to identify.
He looks afraid.
Troy immediately feels taken aback. He’s never seen Abed like this. Usually, he’s the one getting scared, the guy who has to be comforted after watching some 80’s horror flick, no matter how schlocky it may be.
“A-Abed, what happened?” Troy asks, trying to keep from flying off the handle.
Abed’s mildly trembling hands begin to fiddle with the strings of his green hoodie.
“I had a dream that...well...I was in my old high school. Like I was seventeen years old again or something.”
Abed swallows.
“But I wasn't in my body, it was as if I was floating outside of it, just watching what was going on, like a ghost…”
Troy starts to raise his hand, before remembering that this is probably a “no-touch time” for his friend.
“I saw myself at one of those pep rallies, the kind where everyone’s yelling about how the school football team is gonna beat the other team into the ground.”
The young man stops to take a breath.
“Everyone’s screaming, so teenage-Abed curls into a ball. That doesn’t work, so he starts beating his fists against the bleachers, and then he starts screaming.”
Abed feels a shiver slither up his spine.
“Some other students see him and start to laugh or yell at teenage-Abed to shut up, which is a pretty bad idea on their part because it just makes him scream even lounder, and before I know it I can’t even see teenage-me because everything's going all fuzzy like a home movie-”
Abed squeezes his eyes shut, feeling tears start to form. Slowly, he opens them back up.
“And then I woke up.”
Troy blinks back tears, and takes an unusually solemn breath.
“Abed, buddy, does this kinda thing happen a lot?”
“More than I would like to admit...it used to happen all the time before we started living together.”
Everything stops for a second, as if the whole world is waiting for Troy to process the full implications of what Abed’s just said. His lips part slightly as he does.
“It was always awful before you, but there was one thing that made it better, and that was my DVD collection. I could take my pick of any movie, pop it into my Blu-Ray, and all of a sudden everything would feel a little more normal.”
Troy leans in closer to Abed, preparing his voice to be as soft as possible.
“Abed, I know movies can be a good distraction from stuff like this, but I don’t know if you can just rely on that when you have a bad dream.” Troy whispers, knowing that a louder tone of voice could easily startle Abed.
“Now that we’re living together, I think it’s time for you to stop having to feel so alone when this kind of thing happens. I think that should have stopped a long time ago.”
Abed nods, and for the first time that night, he smiles.
“Troy, could you get my weighted blanket, the Batman one?” Abed requests, quiet as a soft breeze.
Troy nods and makes his way over to the bunk bed. He comes back lugging around the blanket in his arms, looking like he might fall over and drop it any second.
He carefully places it on Abed’s lap, and Abed, in turn, shifts the blanket’s position so that it covers his legs, arms, and chest, the weight sending a sensation of relief across his lanky frame.
After a tilt of the head, Abed picks the blanket back up and begins to carry it back to the blanket fort.
“What’re you doin’ Abed?”
Abed turns to Troy, by now having already started to spread out the heavy object on his section of the bunk bed, making it cover enough space to go on top of two people.
“I was thinking you could sleep under here too…”
Abed blushes as he realizes what he’s just said.
“Sorry, that probably sounds weird, I just think that, well, maybe we could share stuff like this if we’re living together now.”
“Yeah, I get it dude.”
Troy walks over and gets down to crawl under the blanket, with Abed doing the same. Abed smiles as he makes himself comfortable, and Troy is surprised that he’s never tried one of these before.
Once both college students are nearly fully covered, Abed glances at Troy.
“Hey, Troy, would it be okay if we do this more often, maybe make it a routine for whenever that kind of bad dream comes around?”
“Of course buddy, don’t even worry about it, I’m up for anything if you need it.” Troy says, his face softly glowing with warmth.
Abed nods, and then winces, because he’s afraid of what he’s about to say next.
“Troy, I know this is silly, but I’m still, well, a bit shaken up, and I was wondering…”
He looks away, his face once again slightly flushed.
“Could you hold onto me? Just for a while?”
His blush deepens.
“Y’know, to make it all better?”
Troy’s blushing too, but he doesn’t hesitate to give a soft “sure” and wrap his right arm around Abed’s shoulders, his touch solid and protective.
Abed smiles.
“Thanks.”
Troy yawns.
“Your welcome...y’know, I heard that in one of the Breakfast Club scenes, the one where they’re doin’ drugs, the marijuana was actually just some oregano.”
He giggles.
“Hey man, pass the oregano, this party's about to get kicked up to the next level!” Troy says in his best stoner-dude voice.
Abed snickers, and it’s soft, but boyish and carefree.
Troy snickers back, and soon both of them are laughing up a storm.
It’s immature and stupid and everything Abed needs right now.
As for Troy, Abed’s laughter is more than enough.
Everything about this moment is more than enough.