Chapter Text
Waking up is like standing inside and watching the rain fall down in streams on a windowpane. You aren’t sure how you came up with that analogy, but it sticks in your head as the room swims into focus, your eyes already open before your brain catches up enough to process what you’re seeing. Whatever light source there is seems to be switched off, and the only window in the room is covered by what is either a thick black curtain or a repurposed blanket. You can barely make out the dark walls, covered in shitty but professionally framed posters and miscellaneous decor, shelves full of something that might be thin books or record sleeves, and enough shapeless furniture to clutter the remaining space and tie it all together in a loose theme that nags at the back of your head as familiar, but superficially, almost as though the familiarity itself is somehow fake.
You take note of your position, reclining in a large bed with dark sheets that match everything else around you, and the last thing you remember is falling asleep in your own tiny bed on the meteor while trying your damnedest to ignore the sound of Karkat’s unmistakable shouting and the stray, intermittent honk from the vent in your room (it creeps the shit out of you that the troll clown is still wandering around, but even a healthy concern for your life isn’t enough to keep you awake indefinitely). The place you find yourself in now is strange, yet something in the back of your head is telling you that it’s familiar, that it’s okay, you can relax here, and you decide ‘what the hell’ and take the gut feeling at face value, letting yourself relax into the obscenely soft mattress while you listen to the distant sounds of a busy city, oddly muffled and somehow blurred, as if coming through several feet of water, and it’s the first thing that raises a red flag in your brain, followed immediately by a blaring siren of alarm when something pressed against your chest shifts without warning, startling you enough to make you tense.
"…Bro? What’s wrong?" comes the question, slow and sleep-muddled, characteristic of someone who’s been woken up unexpectedly. You don’t quite recognize the voice or understand the situation yet, and even though you’re still reeling from shock, that same spot in the back of your head prompts you with a handful of lines like a script. You follow them without thinking.
"Nothing, kiddo." And without meaning to, your hand moves almost of its own accord, lifting from your side and threading gentle fingers into the bed-headed mess of blonde hair pressed under your chin. "Go back to sleep."
"Mmkay." The reply is exhaled and slurred, the body molded against yours shifting, then relaxing again, and you’re left reeling, trying desperately to make sense of the situation, but before you can even begin to get a grasp on things, you’re fading, slipping away from the dark, muted room and jerking back into reality when a loud shout almost echoes off of your closed door, followed by the telltale angry stomp down the hall of your own personal favorite troll as he loses his shit at someone or something yet again, and you won’t admit to yourself that just this once, you’re almost grateful.