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Your name is Karkat Vantas, you are nineteen years old, and you haven’t slept in two days.
You are utterly oblivious to the rest of the world. A pair of squishy headphones are fixed to your head in a vice grip as it blasts MCR directly into your eardrums. You decide that “Blood” is the perfect background music to play while watching your level 85 dwarf berserker mage lay the smackdown on a village of trolls.
You are preparing for one of the most important quests you’ve ever known.
You have been grinding away for countless hours, gaining experience points, buying armor, learning new spells, and upgrading your weaponry in addition to slowly and steadily driving up the auction house prices by buying out all the most popular components and reselling them at double the price for which you bought them.
Your hands are trembling ever so slightly, your desk is littered in cans of Red Bull and Rockstar energy drinks, and your eyes are bloodshot all to hell, but your bronze dragon mount is fucking resplendent, you have more gold than you know what to do with, and you’ve managed to gain eight levels in the past five hours alone.
Then someone’s hands clamp over your shoulders—
“Yo, best friend!”
—and you blurt a shriek that makes your voice crack and nearly fall out of your chair.
You recoil and gawk up at Gamzee, your headphones askew, one hand pressed to your heart while the other grips the back of the chair. You stare at him for a few seconds, wide-eyed and panting, your heart hammering, before your tongue decides to work again.
“WHAT THE FUCK, GAMZEE.”
Your roommate stands there blinking at you in grey jeans and a purple hoodie, smelling of cigarettes, stale beer, and sweat. His face is still painted, though it’s smeared a little. He cracks a grin that looks torn between amused and sheepish.
“Whoa, sorry bro, I didn’t mean to be all disrupting you while you were in your motherfuckin’ game zone.”
“YOU NEARLY GAVE ME A FUCKING HEART ATTACK.”
You wrench the headphones the rest of the way off and turn around to pause your game. It’s only after you miss the “P” key three times that you realize you’re shaking all over. Your synapses are completely shot and your little scare turned the caffeine in your veins into pure, liquid terror. The resulting rush makes you feel sort of sick.
Game paused, you look back at him and find him grimacing at you. “Oh, damn. When was the last time you got your sleep on, man?”
The concern in his voice rankles you. “That doesn’t fucking matter. I’m busy.”
“Shiiit, you got some wicked eyebags going on there. You go outside and you’re gonna up and scare the hell out of some little kids—”
You turn back to your computer screen and begin straightening empty coffee cans, hoping Gamzee will take the fucking hint and go away. You end up knocking over more cans than you straighten. “Good.”
“This ain’t healthy, man. I say you should be putting that shit up for now and catch some z’s like they’re motherfucking endangered.”
Your jaw clenches. “No.”
“Karkat.”
“No.”
“Bro, c’mon.”
“And wake up covered in bruises with your drool in my hair? No. I’m not done with this yet.”
He peers at your shoulder at the paused game—“Looks all frozen to me.”—and then he’s kneading your neck and shoulders and your annoyance promptly evaporates as your brain short circuits. Your head tilts back automatically, your eyelids fluttering closed as you blurt a low groan.
“Goddamn, brother, how long you been in that chair?”
Gamzee’s thumbs of steel slip past the collar of your shirt and press a knot between your shoulders. Your spine pops and you make a thin, high sound in the back of your throat and nearly die of embarrassment then and there. You crack your eyes open to slits and glare up at him, your lips parting slightly in a dazed attempt at a sneer, but the only sound you can manage is, “Nnnhhhhhhh.”
He smiles, which only infuriates you further. “C’mon. Up.” He’s pulling you out of the chair before you can form any sort of protest, and before you know it he is marching you out of the room and down the hall.
“Gamzee—”
“Not another word, bro. You can kick the motherfuckin’ shit out of those goblins tomorrow.”
“Trolls.”
He steers you into the bedroom. “Fuck the trolls, they can just motherfucking chill. Even bad ass bitchtits wizards like you gotta get your nap on sometimes.”
“Mages.”
“However the fuck it goes, bro.”
You scowl as he plunks you onto the bed and pulls his hoodie over his head. As you blink at his bare chest, he stabs a finger at you. “Stay. Be right back.”
You have just enough time to frown before he disappears into the bathroom. You hear him splashing his face, and as the sound of him brushing his teeth reaches your ears, you absently run your tongue over your own, making a face at the sour film left over from who the fuck knew how many energy drinks and sodas.
The bathroom light clicks off before you can decide whether brushing your teeth would be too much effort at this point, and then you forget about that entirely as Gamzee returns with his pants fisted in one hand.
You snort—he wore the tuxedo print boxers today.
You fold your arms and glare, but sigh your defeat the moment he tosses his jeans in a corner and crawls in with you. He gives you enough time to peel off your own pants before he pulls you close and twines around you.
You hunch your shoulders and curl up, refusing to settle fully into your pillow. “You smell like a fucking bar.”
He breathes a relaxed sigh into your hair. “Yeah, we had a good gig. Merch table even sold out.”
Gamzee proceeds to tell you how it all went, how his C string broke during the second set, how they caught some teenager stealing a CD but let her keep it in the end, how some drunk dude came about a foot away from puking all over their drummer’s shoes.
All the while, his hands wander. Nothing lewd, just gentle, soothing touches. You bristle and squirm at first—you always object to this at first, this petting bullshit—but his voice is low and scratchy and his breath falls against your shoulder and you can’t help but relax into it, and goddamnit, your eyelids are getting heavy and your brain is already shutting off and
this is so
fucking
unfair.