Technically, it's early by now.
Apr. 28th, 2016 10:25 pm“Q,” a voice says, and he is suddenly, dramatically, awake. He tries to flail, but all he manages to do is accidentally yank his earbuds out. The voice intercedes again. “Awake now?”
Oh. That’s- “Pyunma.” His voice squeaks. He clears his throat, tries again. “Hey, uh… um. Yeah.”
“You were dreaming,” Pyunma says, and removes his hand from Q’s shoulder. Guru probably thinks he’s smooth, but Q notices, because his shoulder is cold now.
“Man, tell me something I don’t know,” he says, instead of doing something about it. He blinks, trying to reconnect, reorient, get used to the reality of the world around him. It doesn’t work the way he’d hoped. His voice comes out tremulous despite all of his efforts, so he tries to play it off instead. “You watching me sleep?”
Pyunma shrugs. It’s a movement Q can feel, rather than see, and he realizes with an acute surge of awkwardness that he is still draped over Pyunma like an octopus. “Oh- sorry, lemme jus’ get out of your way here, sorry…” Pulling away is even colder, but Guru likes his space, Q knows that. Usually it doesn’t matter that he’s just being tolerated, but now- well. Better to pull away on his own than to be asked.
He watches as Pyunma sets aside a notebook, and it dawns on him. “ ‘Ey, you get any sleep? Aw, first night in foreva we’re roomies and I keep you up with my flailing.” It’s meant to be another apology, but Pyunma only shrugs like it’s nothing.
“I was keeping busy anyway,” he says. “You should get some more rest.”
“Naaah, I’m awake now.” Q twists his arms over his head, stretching. “So what were you doing?” He twines his way around Pyunma, hunting for the notebook, only to be stopped by Pyunma’s hand laid over it.
“Just some notes. Nothing interesting,” the clone says, in a gentle tone that nevertheless brooks no argument. Q resolves to get the information out of him later (marginally more difficult since it’s a physical notebook and therefore he can’t lean on the encryption until it submits, but he’ll get it sooner or later), but for now, he simply sprawls across the space remaining on the bed, the fog of his nightmares already lifting the longer he remains awake. For a while, he pulls out his phone and fiddles with it, but it’s the rare time of night in the few hours before dawn that even the most avid night owls among them are at least trying to sleep. It’s not just that the room he and Pyunma are sharing is silent. Everything is quiet and still, in a way that drives Q to distraction.