The Stars Between -- (VLD)

[53] What's rustled your jimmies?

Lance woke slowly.

His brain gently picked up steam as he did so, rolling ever so gently down the track, metaphorical wheels groaning as they accelerated.

His brain train had a lot of stations to visit, working through the night's build up of weird dreams and side thoughts to reach the town he had mentally dubbed as 'alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic'.

So Lance woke like that one line in Rachael's favourite romance novel: slowly, then all at once. His sleep-addled thoughts couldn't quite grapple the title of the book, but he assumed it didn't matter, instead letting the train continue chugging along towards the day.

This was aided by a series of gentle taps to the side of his face.

Lance felt his eyebrows twitch at the taps to his left cheek, refusing to open his eyes just yet. Instead, he turned over, smooshing his face into his pillow, thus thwarting the attacker.

Or so he thought!

The poking resumed on his other cheek, and Lance attempted to block to no avail, still refusing to open his eyes.

He swatted at his enemy, only managing to connect with thin air as they darted out of reach. The poking paused for the briefest of moments, before continuing, Lance's half-hearted blocks continually thwarted by the dexterity the attacker showed.

"Hnngh."

Lance wasn't quite sure what he had been trying to say, but the poking paused again, giving the brain train time to reach the station. He cracked open his eyes to the soft light flooding his room, squinting just a tad.

When he didn't move in a few seconds, he received another poke to the cheek.

"Stop poking, m'up." Lance managed to string a few words together, admittedly slurred. He moved to rub at his eyes, only to stop, arms trapped underneath something (assumingly, his attacker). He did the mental equivalent of a shrug in response to this, and lifted his leg up instead to rub an ankle over his face.

A muffled giggle sounded to his left, a shushing noise to his right, and Lance lifted his head up off his pillow to catch sight of Mik and Lotty wrapped around his arms, Nea half hanging off the edge of the bed.

"Wake up!" Nea giggled, Mik tugging his foot down from near his face and Lotty slipping Lance's shiny blue brace over his ankle. She leant back to admire her work, and Lance held back a laugh.

Lotty frowned, ripping the brace back off and transferring it to his other ankle.

"Gold star." he snickered as the girls moved off his arms to allow him to sit up. He tried to scoop up a wriggling Mik, only to do so a little too enthusiastically.

She careened out of his arms and into Nea, both of them tumbling off the bed and out of view.

"Oh, shit!" Lance yelped, scrambling to lean over the edge and help, only to find they were gone - somehow out the door.

"I'll help them!" Lotty cried, slipping to the floor and dashing towards the door and peering out. "Are you okay?"

Lance relaxed as he heard their affirmative giggles, running back into the room.

"You've got a scratch!" Lotty said, pointing to Nea's arm. Nea looked down blankly for a second.

"Oh."

"Sorry." Mik said meekly, staring down at her claws.

"It's little, no problem!"

"I can fix it!" Lotty pulled open a tiny medkit she insisted on carrying around, carefully selecting the alien equivalent of a shimmery pink bandaid. She expertly ripped off the back and smoothed it over Nea's cut. "There, pink goes with yellow-green." she said proudly as the edges fused to Nea's skin, giving it one last pat and snapping her medkit shut again.