He sat bolt upright in bed, gasping for air. The darkness seemed to suffocate him, and Keralis wasn't sure if he was actually awake or not. Nightmares weren't a very new phenomenon for him, and he guessed his time spent in time dilation would have some nasty side effects.

Shakily, the wide-eyed Swede moved around the room, not quite awake yet, but he had to keep moving, he couldn't just stay here. But it was still too dark to see, too dark to be able to tell where he was going, he was stuck in time again, wasn't he, and he wouldn't be able to escape again, oh no oh no oh no...

Running blindly seemed like a perfectly reasonable thing to do at the time, anything to just get out of this darkness, this emptiness. His limbs felt like they were submerged in slime, stubbornly staying still, fighting against a lack of time, a lack of movement. He wailed in dismay as fear continued to rule his actions.

Keralis didn't realize he was stumbling around the center of New New Hermitville, as the nightmare still seized him and refused to let him go. He stumbled among the small roads, trying to use his hands to figure out where he was.

"Keralis?! Hey, Buddy, can you hear me?!" A voice came out, penetrating the darkness.

"...Bubbles?" The swede muttered, trying to pinpoint where the voice was coming from.

"Yeah, it's me! What are you doing out here, it's one o'clock in the morning!" His rowdy friend replied, a playful tone just barely masking the concern in his voice.

"...Bdubs, can.. can you k-keep talking?" He asked.

There was a silence for a second or two, and Keralis feared he had imagined the voice of his friend. But an answer cut through the darkness.

"You said my name, my real name. This... this must be serious. I'm right here buddy." Bdubs continued to speak to the panicking man, who slowly made his way over.

Eventually the two found each other, and they hugged in the middle of the road. Bdubs used his dryad abilities and made a honeysuckle vine grow on his arm, the sweet smell of which made Keralis smile a bit as he started to calm down.

"I...thank you, Bdubs." Keralis muttered after a while, after he had calmed down enough to actually see. The other man smiled at him.

"Of course, buddy. If you ever need something like this again, just say my name."

________________________________________________________________________________

I went a completely different direction with this than I originally anticipated, but I'm pretty happy with it! Although I guess I need to explain a few things.

So Keralis was stuck in time for about six years, after he went into a portal that was redirected for some reason back in Season 1. During that time, there were no sights and no sounds to help guide him. So yeah, the guy has a bit of a problem with lacking stimulation. As for why he can't see at this point, there was a time in my life that I used to have pretty bad night terrors, and there would be this period of time between waking up and falling back asleep in which I would be unable to see anything, despite my eyes being open, so yeah, that's terrifying. But I just need more of these two being cute together. (Platonic or not, you decide.)

Anyway, all that aside, I hope you enjoyed.

Sea you later!

-Aqua