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The room is softly lit, dark except for the soft lamps and scented candles surrounding the bed. Well, “bed” might be stretching it, it’s more a humongous pillow with blankets and more pillows piled on top. It has no bed frame, not for lack of means to make one, but more a lack of desire to have one. It’s soft and it tickles your skin pleasantly.
There is a draft going through the room, but you don’t have much on to compensate for it. The only thing currently adorning your body is a pair of black boy shorts. That’s right, no bra. The Stri-gals are roaming free. Not exactly free, actually, as you are lying face down--shadeless, because wearing shades in bed is kind of weird and uncomfortable, you’re beginning to realize--, buried in the pillows, but the sentiment stands. Free-range titties, completely organic.
The whirring of the meteor creates a constant white noise, but moments like this are when it is most obvious. The humming is soft but insistent. You half feel that it’s driving you crazy, and half feel like it’s the only thing keeping you sane, grounded, at the moment. Maybe it’s both. Could be possible.
The atmosphere is comfy, but you are not exactly content. Something niggles at your brain and makes your head ache . Goosebumps cover your body, crawling up down and around, but you aren’t entirely sure that they’re from the chill. You feel a peculiar sort of hollowness occupy your chest. The darkness of the room nurtures it., but doesn’t necessarily make it grow.
Luckily, you are not alone.
The door to your room opens, before closing again quickly with a soft click. You hear the soft pad of sock muffled footsteps before a scratchy voice calls out to you.
“Dove?” Karkat asks. She sounds hazy to you, but you know logically she is right there.
You don’t bother to answer her verbally, but you do turn so you’re on your back after a moment. Despite the fact that your tits are now fully displayed to her, Karkat knows the gesture isn’t sexual. She’s good at judging things like that.
She’s just good at judging you like that, honestly.
She seems to take note of the fact that you are in a mood because she immediately strips her shirt off. She keeps her bra on and moves down to her pants. She is soon left in only her undergarments, which are charmingly mismatched. Her bra was a plain sports one, black in color, and her panties were frilly and pink, standing out against her gray skin. You wonder briefly where she got them. Probably Kanaya.
Karkat doesn’t like taking her clothes off much, she’s insecure about her body (which, frankly you have no clue why as she’s gorgeous) but she lets looser(er) when you get like this, all quiet and soft.
Sometimes you wish she would take everything off so that the two of you could embrace and feel nothing but warm skin. The rise and fall of her chest would be so much clearer, her breasts falling up and down with the movements. Your skin tones, a mix of white and charcoal, intertwined. It would be amazing.
Neither of you are ready for something like that right now, though. If you tried that now, it would either turn sexual, which you don’t want, or you--and she, for that matter--would start crying, which you also don’t want.
She approaches the bed cautiously, which you find adorable. Her big yellow eyes reflect the light of the candles beautifully, and suddenly you feel as if you are about to cry. Tears well in your eyes, and you sniffle. Karkat notices, because of course she does, and her eyes widen.
“Dove?” she questions, “Dove, what’s wrong? Did I fuck something up?”
As per typical, she thinks she did something wrong. You mentally tsk, chiding your girlfriend. Pushing yourself up from your laying position, you sit on the bed. Karkat follows the motion raptly, eyes tracking your milky white skin as it jiggles with you on its way to the new position. You grab onto her shoulders, hoisting her down with you so that she falls on top of you. Karkat, ever graceful, land practically spread eagle. Dork.
You wrap your hands around her, pushing your hands into her black hair, carefully avoiding her horns. For a little while, you just hold her. Then, when it feels appropriate, you speak.
“You love me,” you say. It is not a question. It has never been a question, really. Karkat loves you, and that becomes clearer and clearer with every breath you take, every word she says.
Karkat answers you anyway.
“I do, Dove. I really, really do.”
“I love you too, Karkat,” you tell her, even though she already knows. She deserves to hear it again and again. She deserves to hear it as many times as she wants. As many times as she needs. Even if she never needed to hear it again, you’d still tell her, because you kind of need to say it.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the ache in your chest dissipates. It doesn’t disappear, but it lightens noticeably. Karkat does that with a lot of your problems. She doesn’t get rid of them completely, nor do you expect her to, but she helps. She makes them easier to face, easier to grasp.
As you lay there, warm and still, like newborns, you feel heat flood your body. A soothing kind. Sleep calls to you, and you listen, falling into the kind of dreamless slumber that results in morning smiles and cups of un-burnt coffee on the kitchen counter. In your last moments of consciousness, you think, Good Night, Karkat. Thank you.
(You don’t know it, as you are sound asleep, but as you lay there, small snore escaping you occasionally, karkat observes. She watches you as you dream, and her heart grows just about seven sizes. She is absolutely gone for you, Dove Strider. Absolutely gone. Lucky you.)