"I don't think that would have really been stealing any more than it's stealing to eat the Milanos. You are a guest in my house. Unless you mean you were planning to sneak it out and fence it."

"I asked if I could eat the Milanos, though.  What's fencing?  Throwing it over a fence?  When it's not sword fighting..."

"Sell stolen goods to a person who is also called a 'fence', who specializes in getting them to the end user."

"I have never heard of this."

"A likely story."

"It is, yeah."

Scritch scritch.

"You should go more over here, now."  He grabs Haru's hand and moves it where he wants it.  "And the same spot on the other side."

Haru snorts but complies.

Mmmm.  He could almost fall asleep like this, except for how he definitely, absolutely is not at all at risk of doing that, because if he does that he will die, and it's so scary that he would really have to try for probably a very long time even if he did want to.  But externally he's not doing much except occasionally repositioning Haru's hand on his scalp.

They can hang out like that basically as long as Bug wants, though Haru will switch which hand is scritching and which one is holding his phone now and then.

That's fine, yeah.

He really hasn't been sleeping well, though, so he eventually notices his thoughts wandering in a way where he can't remember what he was thinking about thirty seconds ago and sits right up about it, heart lightly pounding.  Which is still a form of being not at all at risk of falling asleep, in a way.

"Okay.  Thanks for that."

"...if you say so. What startled you this time?"

"Started falling asleep.  Which might kill me."

"Are you sure 'kill' is the word you want? You came right back the once."

"No, I'm not.  ...But I think so?  I said 'might'; I think it's very likely to make me go away and kind of plausible that I never come back again once I do?  For reasons mentioned earlier.  ...I don't really want to talk about this.  I want to - continue being capable of having positive experiences."

"Okay, have you got a, shall we say bucket list?"

"- That's sweet of you but I think talking about that would also be bad.  I have to - be able to hold onto the character who's not.  As precarious as I am.  Even if I'm thinking about that."  What else, what else should he be talking about instead - he was going to say earlier - "You might try doing that with Julien.  The playing with our hair.  He won't ask for it because he'll probably think it would be sexually harassing you to, even though we've literally done that with like, some lesbian friends, but - if you want him to fall asleep faster than with the 'Goodnight, Moon' version of emergency prep.  It'll probably help.  And I don't think anything but the asking would be scary enough to make it not worth it."  He is being SO nice to Julien.  He's not only better he's also good.

"I can roll with a few more nights of Good Night Carbon Monoxide Detector but I'll ask him."

"I think that will still probably be necessary, it just might go faster this way."  Does... he doesn't want to talk about this but he doesn't think it'll go disastrously and he wants it out of the way.  "I think I should either plan to - invite Julien back - before it's time for bed, or I should sleep away from you."

"...I'm not thrilled about the second option, that'd get the backlash all the way up to full standard awakening levels and y'all'd be by yourself while I was unconscious for it."

He was fine this morning with that but - "Sure.  I can just maybe..."  It's manipulative and wrong and not accomplishing his goals to say 'die' here.  "Do the first one."

"Is the concern with just falling asleep while still Bug that you'd... panic about dying in your sleep, or..."

"Yes, and so I don't think I would be able to."