InuNeko245; Yeah, I've read You're Better Than Your Tears upwards of like seven times now.

cooliochick5; That was the plan all along.

Mustangmoon23; All my Austin/Cedar Park/Leander knowledge is first hand experience! I used to attend a school in downtown Austin, so I know a thing or two, the place Dave worked is actually based off of a place I used to work but shhh ;P. Thank you for your comment, it is quite nice to know a fellow fan lives near by and I'm glad you're enjoying the story!

YOU GUYS ARE ALL SO NICE TO ME OMG I CAN'T EVEN FUNCTION PROPERLY!

I CAN'T EVEN- I JUST- UGH- I HAVE LOST THE ABILITY TO CAN!

IF YOU NEED ME I'LL BE THE GIRL IN THE CORNER YELLING AT MY COMPUTER OUT OF PURE AND UTTER CONFUSION AS TO WHY YOU LIKE ME!

THANK YOU GUYS FOR ALL THE NICE COMMENTS I JUST WANT TO HUG ALL OF YOU SO BAAAAAD!

I get more enthused to write every time I get a review! Because I'll check and I'll see someone saying that they like my story and it makes my brain go 'give the people what they want, Blaine' and I JUST WANT TO GIVE YOU GUYS EVERYTHING!

Every time I try to write I just sort of squeal into my hands out of joy. I wasn't expecting such a positive reaction, honestly! I was expecting someone would hate on me at least once by now! BUT THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH I AM NOT WORTHY OF ALL YOUR ATTENTION.

You're roused by the stench of antiseptics and cleanliness. It all smells too sterile to be your apartment. You don't want to wake up, because as you're coming to reality the edges of your senses flare with excruciating pain. You don't remember much of last night. You remember trying to fight back, in your dream at least. You remember John with a cut on his face. It's all blurry. So you finally open your eyes, seeing the clean hospital room that surrounds you, and the pain in your hands and feet flares.

You don't fully realize what's going on, and you grope around next to you, along the side of the hospital bed. You had never been in one yourself, but your mother had, quite a few times, and you knew a thing or two. It takes a moment and your hand and forearms ache as you move them but you grab hold of a chord and pull it into your line of sight so you can make sure it is the correct one.

With a small "Yes," of success you press the small button, dosing yourself with some morphine and sighing in satisfaction as the pain ebbs away. You don't really like how you knew that. You being a little kid and sitting in a hospital room, holding onto the chord and staring with wide eyes at your mom. Sometimes she'd say "Press that button for me sweety." And you'd be the obedient child and press it for your mother.

Of course, at the time you didn't know what it was. All you knew was that it made your mom happier. It made her feel better. It was when you were eight, you think, that Bro just told you what was really happening and you didn't like it, but whenever she asked you to press the button you still did it because it made the pain go away.

And "No eight year old in their right mind wants their mommy to be in pain." Is what you always told Bro when he asked you about it.

You remember then why you hate hospitals so much. They were a bad place. You were never happy when you were in one.

Reality takes your hand and pulls you back with the closing of a door and a familiar face frowning at you. It's strange to you, seeing him in his doctor clothes (scrubs you believe is the proper term) you're so used to seeing him in normal clothes. "Good morning." He greets. "I had to pull a few strings, but I managed to convince Wrenfield to give you to me." He smiles at you and for some reason you smile back. "So how are you, now that you re awake and can tell me all about it."

You don t try to think about it, about how depressing hospitals are to you, so you stick with a sort of 'I'm fine'. "I'm all kinds of good right now. Only thing that could make this better is if I knew what the fuck happened." You hold up your bandaged hands and quirk an eyebrow (which, to your dismay, is not barely seen over your typical aviators).

"You decided to put all of the sharp kitchen utensils on the floor and tap dance on them." He says with a small nod, that is accompanied by the twitchiest frown ever. You know a forced smile when you see one. This bitch is forcing that smile something fierce.

"Doesn't explain my hands." You say holding them up and wiggling your fingers, which sends a wave of ache up your arms and down your back. "Or your face." You point to the bandage across his cheek, hiding what you assume is the cut you saw last night.

This time the smile vanishes, and he just frowns. "Tell me what happened in the dream." He requests, sitting on the edge of the bed near your bandaged feet.

You really don't want to tell him about it. You're in a situation, however, where he's the doctor. He needs to know all these things to help you, you suppose.

You can't bring yourself to say anything for the first few minutes, and he just sits there, patiently waiting for you to speak. You stare at your hand, trying to figure out the easiest way to say it. "I was back home. It was different though, it was off, I can't pinpoint why, but it was. It's... Weird and I don't want to talk about it."

"You can either tell me about it, or you can tell Dr. Bruce, and I'm pretty sure you'd prefer a friend to know."

"Not exactly."

John quirks an eyebrow, before it falls back into place and he just sighs. "Is there anyone you will talk to?" You simply shake your head. "What about your brother?" You hesitate but find it in yourself to nod.

When this shit started you told him everything (not mentioning the fact he threatened you when you tried to keep quiet) so he knew all your nightmares inside and out. Somewhere you think he knows exactly what's wrong, when you mention some recurring detail he nods like he knows something you're too dense to see. It's strange because you never pegged him as being exceptionally smart. You think he may talk to Rose too much.

You still look back and regret introducing them.

One phone call and four hours later the bastard is sitting in the chair next to you as John explains to him what happened. You're kind of weirded out hearing him talk about you like you're not there. You suppose he's in the zone or whatever, the Doctor Zone. He's not your friend right now, he's your doctor and he's explaining your fucked up-ness to your older brother who puts on an interested facade just long enough for John to explain, and then leave the room, supposedly to tend to other sick people.

Bro doesn't say anything for a while, just sits in the chair, looking between you and his hands, which are folded together on his lap. You think he's waiting for you. He's patiently waiting for you to break the silence like all the other times he guilted you into sharing what goes on in your head.

But you refuse this time. You sit and stare at the sheets across your legs, hugging yourself despite the protest your hands offer. You don't reach for the morphine, not wanting to move and break the spell of you two not doing anything. The only thing the scene was missing was a television playing piece of shit sitcoms and your brother making off-handed comments about how they could have done such-and-such a thing better.

You know he's going to be the one to move first, so when he stands you are not surprised. You are surprised and express this vocally, when he shoves you to the side, sits on the bed and pulls you into his lap. He hugs you to his chest and with the most obnoxiously motherly tone the man is likely able to muster he says; "Now Dave, tell your big brother all about your problems."

He's such a dick.

You'd shove him away from you, but the stitching hurts enough already without you adding that to the mix. Instead you go for the morphine, dosing yourself and replacing the chord with a small huff.

You still refuse to talk, even though this weird cuddling is making you s fuckton uncomfortable. You know that if you tell him he'll piss off and leave you alone but fuck that noise, this is personal shit.

Part of your mind argues that you enjoy the weird cuddling. The part that makes you hug him does, at least. The part that wants to sock him in the jaw disagrees vehemently, reminding you that you have a roommate who, despite being in a coma, you're pretty sure knows everything that's going down around him.

It takes another hour of his obnoxious cuddling before you finally speak, and all you utter are a few words.

"Everyone was dead." You say and he leans back, looking at you like he can't believe you've even just spoken. He adjust so he can face you better and makes a small circular motion with his hands, encouraging you to continue.

"I was at the place, the little house with the shed and everyone was there. They were all just... Dead." You make a nonsense gesture with your hand, but he seems to get it, again, with the hand motion. "You, Rose, Karkat, John." You sigh a little, leaning into him a little more despite one half of your mind's protest to this brotherly-love crap, "Mom and Dad."

This is where he reacts, tensing significantly. Not many things got to him but mentions of your parents always did. He avoided the subject almost as much as you did, but he asked you to continue anyways.

You explain how everyone seems to have died, your mother and father being skipped over. They died in your dream how they died in real life, very depressing and you care not go into it. You tell your brother how he was shish kabob'd on his own souvenir katana from a business trip long past. Once everything is out you feel more worn out than before, hating how sharing is such an emotional chore for you.

You were hardened at a young age, unfortunately. Emotions were baggage. They weren't worth the trouble.

Bro finally gets out of the bed, tells you to get some rest and that he's staying in town until you're better. He leaves to get John and you're asleep before your doctor/friend/roommate arrives.

For some reason every now and then the file manager likes to delete my apastrophe's/quotation marks, so if there's something missing tell me so I can fix it.

Now admittedly this wasn't going to be up until Friday/Saturday but a CERTAIN REVIEW mentioning the possibility of ARTWORK OF THE FAN ORIGIN enthused me to write and I finished up the chapter and I'm just gonna give it to you now.

SO HAVE THIS AND NOW I'M GONNA GO WORK ON CHAPTER TWELVE

KTHXBAI

ps, eternallife14, check your inboooox~