Work Text:
9
Marc wakes up.
Marc wanders across nearly white dunes. For miles around, he sees nothing but sand and rippling air.
The sun in the sky doesn’t move, only scorches the surface to cinders. The sand beneath his feet, hot and gritty, seeps into his thin sandals, sticks to his sweaty face as the wind lifts it, and fills his eyes.
Marc searches for an oasis where he can drink water. Damn, he’s so thirsty. He needs rest so badly. But stopping means death, so Marc trudges through the sands in every direction, searching, searching, searching.
Until his legs buckle from exhaustion, until he falls face-first, until the wind covers him with sand, head to toe.
Marc falls asleep,
***
4
Steven wakes up.
He clings desperately to his pillow, grips the soft fabric of the blanket until his knuckles turn white, and surfaces with a deep, desperate gasp, leaving behind the impenetrable thickness of water.
Gusts of cold wind from the wide-open window bite at his bare chest and legs.
Steven gets out of bed, rubbing his eyes vigorously. He fell asleep in his pajamas.
The clock on the wall ticks deafeningly loud. Gus swims in circles in his aquarium, keeping time, and pale dust floats chaotically through the apartment in the sunlight. Everything is as usual.
Steven looks at the disheveled, foamy sheets and sighs again. This time, resigned.
Steven carefully makes the bed for as long as he can. When the remnants of sleep slip off his shoulders, hiding in the shadows of his mind or settling as pale dust on the floor—Steven doesn’t care—he finally decides to take a shower.
The package with the restraint finally arrives, and that evening Steven straps his ankle to the bedpost. He hopes he’ll thrash and squirm less, crumpling the bedding into a huge ball.
Steven falls asleep,
***
3
Marc wakes up.
Marc gropes around the nightstand for a cup of water and doesn’t find it. He wants to curse loudly, but his throat is so dry that all that comes out is a choked rasp.
It takes effort to get out of bed, to overcome himself and his body once again, to hobble to the kitchen and find the cup dry in the cupboard with all the dishes.
Marc fills it with water and drinks it all in one big gulp, then again and again. He sets the glass on the table and leans his forehead wearily against the cold kitchen cabinet door.
He has to go to work, but he needs time to pull himself together. Again.
The grains of sand in the hourglass fall deafeningly loud, like starving, frenzied beasts, pushing each other to slip down as quickly as possible. Marc resists the urge to smash the hourglass on the floor.
He’ll think about all this later, not now, and definitely not today.
When he returns in the evening, he’ll open the window wide to cool down, strip almost naked, and simply collapse into bed, and it will be a dreamless sleep. Just blissful darkness. Yes.
Marc falls asleep,
***
2
Steven wakes up.
He lazily scans the room until his gaze lands on a cup right on the nightstand. Steven picks it up and sees it’s filled to the brim with water.
He’s never thrown something away so quickly and so fiercely.
The cup doesn’t break, just spills all the water onto the floor.
Steven doesn’t want to clean it up, doesn’t want to think, doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to.
As he gets ready and heads to work, he orders a special restraint for people with sleep problems.
Steven leaves, only to return in the evening and curl up again on the hated bed, which serves as Charon’s boat to his own personal Hell.
Steven falls asleep,
***
1
Marc wakes up.
He inhales loudly and greedily, clawing at his chest with short, sharp nails. The air cuts his throat, making him cough, until wet drops form at the corners of his eyes. His whole body is jolted as if by lightning, twitching almost to the point of convulsions.
Marc bolts upright as if the bed is on fire, grabs the cup from the table, scoops water from the aquarium, and drinks it all to the last drop. By the last movement of his Adam’s apple, he’s fully awake and spits out whatever he didn’t swallow. Marc tries to catch his breath.
Next time, he decides to leave a cup of water on the nightstand by his bed.
Marc falls asleep,
***
10
Steven wakes up.
The dream is sticky, heavy, tangling his ankles with cold tentacles, pulling him back into the swamp. It clings to the inside of his eyelids, flows into his ears with the heavy splashes of deep, murky water.
Steven thrashes around, soaked to the bone, shivering, running his hands through the water, trying to find something solid, some kind of support. Ahead, behind, to the side—it’s all the damn swamp, dragging him deeper with every careless movement.
He’s cold, so terribly cold in this water, in this nowhere, in the middle of nothing, lit only by a crescent moon mocking him from above.
Steven falls asleep,
***
5
Marc wakes up.
Reality burns him with stifling, stale air, sticks to his skin with his damp pajamas and two layers of blankets. Something bites into his ankle like teeth, sending a jolt of pain through his body.
Marc groans and opens his eyes. He throws off the blankets and, after a few minutes of stillness, examines some device that’s chained his leg to the bedpost.
Marc furiously and irritably detaches himself from the thing, rips it off the post, and hurls it to the other end of the room. He gets up and opens the window, breathing in the fresh air deeply. The wind licks his damp temples especially coldly. The wind runs its fingers through his slightly damp curls and tousles them as it pleases.
Marc falls asleep,
***
6
Steven wakes up.
He examines his gaunt, tired face in the mirror, the dark circles under his eyes, and exhales nervously, lowering his head and gripping the cold edges of the sink tighter.
The restraint is no longer on the bedpost. And the apartment is so cold, as if someone decided to create their own personal Arctic Circle.
Steven tries to catch a ghost in his own house. Or in his own head.
Maybe he should befriend it.
Steven places a cup of water by the bed at night. He strips off almost all his clothes and opens the window wider.
He leaves the restraint attached to the post but doesn’t strap himself to it.
Steven falls asleep.
***
7
Marc wakes up.
There’s a cup of water on the nightstand. He’s almost naked, and the window is open.
The restraint hangs sadly on the post like a silent sign. His neatly folded pajamas lie on the chair.
At night, Marc puts them on.
He leaves the window slightly ajar so fresh air can still come in, but he places a heater by the bed.
He straps his ankle to the post and wraps himself in layers of blankets.
Marc falls asleep,
***
8
Steven wakes up.
He wakes up and feels warmth enveloping him from all sides.
Steven looks around at himself and the room, and laughs.
Steven falls asleep,
***