i wanna feel lethal on the inside, i wanna read american psycho again

> Dave: Think.

You tap your fingers against your knee in an upbeat rhythm. At least, you're pretty sure it's upbeat. The lights above you do what they do best: hum and buzz tirelessly against your ears. You look up at them through your shades. You think they've gotten dimmer since you've been here, but you could always just chalk that up to your imagination. A dull fear strikes through you that they could shut off at any moment, but it's really unlikely. Even so, it'd be a welcome change from the hell your poor peepers have gone through/are currently going through. Your eyes ache to the back of your skull.

It's sickeningly quiet. None of your friends are online; none of them are talking. Karkat is still asleep. He's been snoozing for roughly 3 hours. You can practically hear the steady tick of a clock in the back of your head. You used to sleep with a watch under your pillow. It disappeared in November. You wonder if it's here.

You will for the time to go faster and rub your eyes, pushing your shades into your hair. You haven't taken them off much for perfectly reasonable... well, reasons. Your eyes pry open on instinct, but you immediately close them again. That hurts like a bitch.

Flicking your shades down, you sigh and cross your arms over your chest, leaning against the wall behind you.

Your name is Dave Strider and you are SO FUCKING BORED. You kind of want to scream. You don't, with much restraint, only because of Karkat.

He's nice to look at, you think. Less of an eyesore than the stupid yellow wallpaper. It doesn't hurt your head as much to look at him, so you do. Even in sleep, his brows are furrowed slightly as if he's mad about something or other. Probably is, having dreams about getting frustrated with his homies. You smile and almost laugh at the thought. You want to touch his hair, admittedly a little too much. It looks soft.

You tuck your hands in your armpits and look away from him again, eliminating that train of thought. God damn it, you really need to preoccupy yourself.

You think you might be going a little stir crazy. Not in the sense that you can't move, in the sense that you've been moving and you aren't going anywhere. No progress is being made. If it weren't for your friends, you would have given up already.

What a sight that would be. Inevitably starving to death on the soggy carpet in some game. You remind yourself that you have three lives at your disposal.

What would it feel like to die? You can't believe you're even entertaining the thought. With a bitter swallow, you can't help but admit to yourself that you're a little curious. All you know is that it would hurt. At least, you think so. You unconsciously pick at one of the deeper scars on your hand with your thumb and look over at Karkat for what you think is the hundredth time since he's fallen asleep.

You wish he'd wake up already. As much as you like staring at him in all your creepy glory, your thoughts are starting to hurt your head without a tangible distraction.

Nothing some good old fashioned AJ can't fix. You crack open a fresh bottle from your sylladex and take a swig, closing your eyes and sighing at the familiar flavor. This is your second to last bottle. You're gonna miss it when you run out. You screw the cap back on and captchalogue it.

...

Jesus. If hell was real, you think that this would probably be it. You run a hand down your face, careful of your shades, and slowly do a slide-flop against the wall to the soggy floor. It makes a small squelching sound against your weight, and you internally cringe. After a moment, you push yourself back into an upright position, ignoring the moisture that accumulates on your hand, and slouch against the wall again. You sigh quietly.

4 hours, 13 minutes, and 12 seconds. 13 seconds. Ugh. You get the point. You've got at least 47 minutes left until Eternal Boredom ends. That is too many god damned stutid minutes. That's the second time you've thought of the word stutid today. Third time. FUCK.

You used to have to wait for shit for hours, but not like this. Back then you had to keep your guard up at all times. Paranoia made the minutes go by shorter. Oddly enough, you wish you had the same crutch here. Yes, it's rank and loudly quiet and hurts to look at, but you stopped being afraid of this dump since you realized that there was nobody else here but you.

Well. You guess Karkat gave you a pretty good scare. But that's just cause this place is just so dead, it's hard to imagine anything living in it. Let alone a whole person.

You're honestly really glad you and him get along. You think if you had to be stuck here with someone you hated, it would be even more torture than the doing nothing that you're participating right now is. You think this Eternal Boredom would be a reprieve for alternate you. You feel a slight pang of jealousy, then remember that alternate Dave does not, in fact, exist. Still feel a little jealous. It's whatever.

You sit and think more for a while. You don't count on purpose. It hurts, as usual, and you're left with a throbbing ache in your temples that can only be soothed by not looking at the color yellow.

5 hours and 12 minutes, he stirs. His eyebrows twitch downwards and he props an arm under him to assist him in sitting up. You look away. Rubbing his eyes, Karkat blinks a few times, and you get to look at his eyes for the first time in however long he slept(5 hours, 13 minutes, 34 seconds- okay, shut the fuck up). You smile at him.

"Sup."

He squints at you. "What's got you so cheery? The ice cream man come through here while I was sleeping or something?"

"You know what ice cream is?"

"Don't test me." You shut your mouth, then tap your hands on your knees awkwardly.

"You should eat something," you say to break the silence. Karkat agrees.