Notes: Hey sorry its been a little while. I'm still alive at the moment. I would tell you all why I haven't been updating a lot but I know tons of you don't give a shit about any excuse I could ever make, so I'm not going to give you any. This one's a tad shorter than usual. I figured a small update was better than no update, right?

Warnings: Cursing probably

Rated: Teen as per the norm.

Updated November 18th 2013

Best Bros

Nightmares Part 3

Gamzee's fingers shook. Slashing. His eyes clenched tight. Beating. His feet beat against the floor quickly. Running. His jaw clenched tight, lips stuck in a thin line. Screaming. Splashes of green and blue overlapped grey tile and metal. Dead. Screams of horror and devastation filling ears covered by shaking hands. Gone. Pressing harder on his ears, Gamzee focused desperately on the small drops of clean tiled floor he could still see, fighting past what he knew to be nothing more than nightmares. Gone.

The fact that they were occurring while he was awake did not ease his nerves.

Forcing the images from his mind and the hands from his ears, Gamzee glared at the ground in front of his stumbling feet. He was tired. This was ridiculous. Where the fuck was Tavros already?

And then Karkat was there. Stopping quickly enough to where he almost tripped over his own feet, Gamzee blinked slowly at the smaller troll, who just glared up at him.

Gamzee found himself wondering if he was real.

Before he could bring the words to his lips, Karkat was speaking.

"What the fuck happened back there?" And once again, before Gamzee could respond, Karkat cut him off. "And don't give he that, 'I can take care of myself' bullshit, because I don't care about that and you're full of shit."

Gamzee's shoulders relaxed when instead of anger he felt amusement, the corner of his mouth quirking up. "Damn motherfucker, I was only worried about my bro."

Karkat cocked his head to the side, "That's not what I'm talking about."

Footsteps from behind him caught Gamzee's attention, and he hadn't the time to see who it was before Karkat was talking again and the footsteps stopped.

"You haven't been out in weeks Gamzee. You're clearly not fine and… god fucking damn it Gamzee tell me what the fuck is wrong," Karkat ended with a growl, obviously concerned, but to agitated to properly express it.

In that moment, all humor Gamzee had found in his situation had disappeared, replaced instead by a cold, calm anger. His face lost the smile everyone was used to, and his chin fell towards his neck trying to support his mouth, which had twisted into a snarl. Karkat took a startled step back at the sudden change, his eyes running up and down the trolls body, confused as to how he could hold such anger but leave his body to relaxed. His eyes flickering back up to Gamzee's face, before slipping past him, and a surprised gasp exited his mouth.

Gamzee suddenly didn't want to know who was behind him. Instead of asking, or even turning, he straightened his posture and walked right past Karkat.

And then there was a strong hand holding him back.

He knew who it was before he even turned around, the familiarly shaped fingers and soft skin were to much of a giveaway. All his anger washed away, and he felt himself shaking.

Apparently, the owner of the hand did too, and Gamzee was quickly scooped into a hug from behind. Gamzee would've laughed if it hadn't been the most wonderful feeling he'd had in weeks, the warmth of an embrace so much more inviting than the cold dampness of bloodied hands.

He heard footsteps, and knew Karkat had left. The arms only tightened around him.

"What's going on?" The normally jumpy and nervous voice was strong and unwavering, and Gamzee knew immediately that his friend had heard about his escapades earlier that morning.

He sighed out his nose and wondered how the fuck he would explain this one.