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You sat there, staring at his back as he slept.It was roughly 1 in the morning, and you were still wide awake, and very, very sad.Your eyes felt dry and you could feel the sadness in you weighing down on them.You could hear the YouTuber he had been watching when he was going to sleep, her voice was annoying in your opinion. It was whiny, and sounded like a 14 year old even though she was well into her 20s and was a successful adult.The nightlight shone a warm orange against the pillow that the salt rock was up against, reflecting off the white of his skull, and accentuating the orange of his hoodie. You could see his shoulder rising up and down with each of his breaths, something he never really needed to do, but had gotten into the habit of doing after the first few times you had panic attacks over the lack of breathing that signaled someone was actually alive. It was a comfort to you, though you felt bad about it, wondering if it was ever a bother to him to continuously pull in useless air, and exhale it. A train blew it's horn somewhere in the distance, offering more sound than the YouTuber, though the continuous lack of it was annoying. You felt like you were going to start crying again as an intense feeling of loneliness and longing for comfort, settled on your shoulders and wrapped itself around you like a shroud. The corner of the blanket bunched around his waist was soft in your hands as you reached out for him.He laid there, sleeping, as you curled into yourself, loosely gripping his blanket as you began to cry quietly, wanting to move and curl into his back like you used to, but being unable to make yourself move and do so. The last week had been he'll for both of you, both of your mental health slowly taking a dive into dangerous territory, and you'd spent the previous night wrapped in his arms, scared to death by the fact that you could have lost him that night, that he'd seriously considered, and had a plan to dust himself. With his plummet, came touch aversion, he couldn't touch anyone, or have anyone touch him, without feeling like there were bugs crawling inside his bones, being the cause of many of his own panic attacks that you couldn't help with because you couldn't comfort him. In turn, you couldn't get the comfort you needed; there were no hugs and cuddles to be given or received. As the week had dragged by, you'd retreated to the bottom right corner of the bed, sitting there next to the window, and drawing by the light of the moon, crying everyone you tried to go to sleep but failed for another two hours, managing to fall asleep over your art past 6 in the morning and waking up on your side and under your Hogwarts blanket a few hours later, as alone as you'd felt when you'd fallen asleep. You wanted to wake him up as he rolled over, laying on his back, hsi breathing changing as he settled down. You watched him through the breaks in your fingers. Your tears stopped and dried on your face as you sat back, resting your head on the wall. Once upon a time, he'd told you to wake him up if you were crying/panicking/not doing great in general, saying that being awake and comforting you was better than whatever he'd be dreaming about. You've never followed his instructions, anxiety getting in the way as you panicked or sobbed, or felt like you shouldn't be here anymore. You'd always sat on the corner of the bed, going through it all on your own, getting through it on your own as the clock ticked further into the late of night, and early morning. You wanted to wake him up, to tell him you couldn't sleep, to tell him that you just wanted some snuggles, but everything in you stopped you from moving forward and rousing him, everything in you screamed that he needed the sleep and the even if you did, he wouldn't be able to help you because of his touch aversion. So instead, you sat there, holding onto the small corner of his blanket that you'd had for awhile. Once again, after a brief moment of panic, thinking that you'd begun to hallucinate again as a small cloth moth fluttered in and out of your vision as you tried to slap it away with the very much oversized sleeve of you 3XL sweater, you began to cry again, either from panic, or another round of misery, you couldn't exactly tell. You retreated back into your ball, daring to go so far as to pull yourself completely into your sweater while still gripping the corner of the blanket as if it were some sort of life line to reality, or life itself if you were to dare venture that far into yourself. You tried to keep quiet, using your other hand to muffle your already suppressed and choked sobs. You could feel yourself shaking, shivering. It wasn't cold, not tonight. You've just been crying so much today -this week- that it was a stress on your body as you became more and more dehydrated, a migraine developing in the backs of your eyes, and you cried more as you tried to soothe the pain with your palm. Everything hurt, and you felt alone, even with him laying on the bed next to you. You've just been so sad this past week, and you just wanted some physical expression of love, some form of comfort as you quietly cried each night. Time ticked by as you cried, and you didn't register the movement on the bed until you were pulled from Sweaterville into strong boney arms that held you close to his chest. “You could've woken me up y/n” he whispered into your neck. You clung to his arms, squeezing your eyes shut and gritting your teeth as you hung your head. “You don't have to cry alone y’know. I'm always here, and I do believe I've told you to wake me up.”“You need the sleep,” you mumbled.“So do you y/n. You need more sleep than I do, and it seems as though I do enough for both of us. Besides, being awake and comforting you-”“is better than your dreams, yes I know,” you mumbled.“Then why didn't you wake me up? Why haven't you? Ever? It's been months since I first told you that, since we started sleeping in the same bed, and not once have you woken me up. Yet, every morning, for the past few weeks, the circles around your eyes are darker than they were the night before.” The concern in his voice was genuine as you moved around in his lap so that your head was resting on his clavicle, his arms wrapping around your shoulders. Your face felt dry and stretched as fewer tears fell and dried on your skin.“I… I don't know… I can't….”“Why not?” A skeletal hand rested itself on your head, petting your hair and moving across your scalp in slow, comforting movements.“‘Cause…. You… You always fall asleep first, and I dont… I don't know how to wake you up, or if I should, and what if you can't help because of the touch aversion, and what if waking you up causes you to have a panic attack because it pulled you out of a night terror or something,” you rattled on and on in a shaky voice as you listed off the reasons your anxiety would never let you wake him up, and the more you talked, the more you began to cry again, trembling in his arms. “And all I really want is some love and affection, but I can't ask you because you've been touch aversiony an-” you sobbed.“Oh sweetheart, you could've gone to Red, you didn't have to stay here and cry alone because you couldn't wake me up. He'd be here in the blink of an eye if you'd've called him.” “But what if he was busy, or if he was sleeping, or,or...” you trailed off, failing to find any other excuse so as to not call the other skeleton “He'd be here in the blink of an eye, no matter what he was doing or if he'd’ve been asleep.” he said, moving so that the two of you were laying down. You remained wrapped in his arms as you pressed closer into him, the blanket being pulled up to your shoulder.“You don't have to cry alone y/n.” He whispered into your hair as the two of you began to fall asleep.