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You remember the clinking of metal, how it scratched at your ears and cut against your skin. You're so tired you almost fall over but you keep it strong. You keep up and try to avoid getting ambushed. When you aim for his neck he doesn't dodge, he doesn't block, he just let's you cut into the skin and cut his head off. Its weird, there's no blood, his head just stares at you from behind the shades he wears. His body stays up right, in a position where he's about to swipe at you, but he doesn't. You backup and then fall to the ground. You breathe for the first time in probably 3 hours, your chest hurts, your lungs hurt, the adrenaline melts off of you and you can feel how sore and in pain you are. You killed him.
You start sobbing, you don't know why, you should be relieved, he's gone, he won't hurt you again. You cry, not in that pretty way the movies do, ugly, snot runs down your nose, your eyes are bloodshot, you're gross and sweaty. You just cry. You try to put his head back on, you don't know why you do, but it won't work, you can't talk, you're just crying, begging for him to stop even though he remains still against the ground, you sob and you almost vomit.
Then you wake up
You shoot up right in bed, almost screaming, almost, but nothing comes out. You look around, you're not 13 anymore, you're 23, you're not in that apartment anymore. You're in a house, on earth c. You look next to you and Karkat is sitting there, upright, you've never seen him more concerned in your life. He reaches out to touch you, you let him, he hugs you and pulls you to his chest, shooshing you and you breakdown sobbing. He doesn't force you to explain what's going on, he knows, its another dream about him. You just cry.
He rubs your head and pulls you as closely as he can. He kisses your forehead and your eyelids. He wraps the blanket around your head and just keeps shooshing you, he even paps your face. Eventually your sobs turn into gentle pants and huffs. He pulls back enough to see your face, he mumbles “You really need that therapy thing Rose talked about” before kissing your nose. You hum and just lay into him “…I know” you gently rasp. He sighs and moves his hand from your hair to your cheek, he cups it, rubbing his thumb against the freckles on your cheeks.
You both don't say anything for long while, just staring into each other. Karkat eventually starts to shift, like he's about to stand up, you wrap your arms around him, he can't leave yet. He huffs a laugh and just quietly reassures you “I was gonna go and run a bath for us, Strider. I'm not going anywhere” you look off to the side, you guess a bath wouldn't be too awful, you let him go and he gets up, he goes into your bathroom and you just sit there as you hear the water running. You hate doing this, you feel like you woke him up and ruined his sleep just because of a fucking nightmare, he's been having issues sleeping in human beds so the fact that you just ruined the one night he's able to sleep makes you feel awful.
Karkat comes back soon enough, gently dragging you out of bed and into the bathroom, you take your clothes off, so does he. He gets in and you get in, sitting in front of him. He brings you close to his chest, the skin on skin contact makes you less out of it. You sigh and close your eyes, letting the water soothe your bones. He mumbles “Do you wanna talk about it?” You shake your head “its nothing new, same dream, same ending” he hums and kisses your forehead. He gets some of the body wash and starts to rub your body down with a gentle hand. It feels less invasive, less powerful, less harmful.
You close your eyes. He moves from your body to your hair, he pours a 2 in 1 conditioner and shampoo solution into your hair and massages the soap into it. You could almost fall asleep. You don't realize he's talking. “I know you're feeling some weird fucking guilt about this, takes one to know one, but i can promise you that you're not bothering me with this kinda shit. You deserve something gentle like this and I'm going to give it to you whether you like it or not. I like taking care of you” you smile. You wanna throw a sarcastic jab at him for being so sappy, but you can't bring yourself to do that. You just smile and nod.
You both get out of the bath after what felt like an hour, Karkat gives you some warm clothes, really warm clothes. And tells you to lay in bed, he's gonna make breakfast. You're about to say that he should lay down with you, but he overrides your words with a “its almost morning anyways, might as well start the day early. Now lay down, asshat.” And you lay down. You let the blankets surround you, you let the smell of Karkats pillow be the only thing you can smell. You almost forget about the dream, almost. But you know you're not at Texas anymore, you're in your house, with your stupidly adorable boyfriend, and you're safe. He's cooking you breakfast right now, and you're not going to have to starve for a week and eat spoiled food from the trash can. He's going to do this again when you have another nightmare instead of calling you a weak pussy for crying over it.
You're safe. You’re loved. Everything will be okay
In your reality, you are loved, its you