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Every night, when it falls quiet, Julien comes back to the waiting room.
It hovers just at the tips of his eyelashes, paints his vision in pink and orange. It's everpresent, blinds him during random times of the day, and when there is nothing else he could distract himself with, it comes in full clarity. In the darkness of the night, his memories have found the perfect canvas to paint the same picture over and over again.
He can't stop. As much as he wishes he could. It's something that has haunted him ever since, something that has been written in his core at this point.
During the day, these moments are only fleeting. They pass whenever someone says something to him, pulls him out of his haze; whenever there's action and meaning and premise in the alive world.
The night is different than the day. It's still, quiet. He knows that the absence of stimuli should be a relief to his brain, it should help him calm down, enter rest. Sleep. But he can't. He can't doze off. It's like that function is just plain turned off in his brain.
Julien hasn't slept for an entire decade. A spirit trapped in an eternal limbo, all he knew what to do was think. Think and turn the knob. That was all his existence. But mortal thoughts are fragile: they can't go on for very long. If you keep your brain running, if you keep it in high activity, you're gonna lose energy. Your thoughts will become foggy, sticky, slow. Normally this would lead to loss of consciousness, but for Julien, that point never comes. It has never come before. His thoughts slow down more and more, and time slows down with them, until it becomes just one final thought, stretched into eternity, like a ray of light on the verge of a black hole.
The night wraps him in silence, coats him in the emptiness of sound and movement, the void of thought. And all he can do is stare. He cannot dream. He cannot lose consciousness, in the normal way that every other person does.
His brain just... stops.
. . .
Ava probably shouldn't be awake at this hour, but today has been a boring day. Not much happening at work, and the case she's been assigned didn't make any progress. Unproductive days like these usually leave her full of energy when she should be tired and ready to fall asleep.
Listening to the faint ticking of the clock in the room, Ava lies there, thinking. Her brain apparently can't decide whether it should try to dream, or if it should keep theorising about the still-open police case. Her thoughts are quick as she goes over the gained clues, revises the words of witnesses, tries to connect it all.
Next to her, Julien lies in bed, turned away. In the darkness, she gazes at his silhouette, and thoughts of affection quickly replace the looping theories and ideas in her mind. He's so close, she can easily reach to him, touch him, and feel warm inside just by doing that. Maybe it would help her sleep better, too.
Ava turns on her side. Mindlessly, she slips her arms under his, wraps them around his torso, rests her head on his back. An undeniable feeling of comfort takes over her senses.
She lets out a sleepy sigh. That's much better.
But even as she's beginning to nod off, thinking of her loved one, Ava's detective mind picks up the subtle sensory clues that something is not right. It becomes more apparent the longer she's holding him. Julien's heartbeat is so slow, and he feels so... stiff.
A pinch of worry courses through her, but after a moment, she realises that the worst outcome, her instinctive suspicion, can't be true: he's breathing, she can hear it, so he didn't just suddenly die. Maybe he's having a nightmare, or maybe he's just awake and can't relax, like her.
"Julien, mon chéri," she whispers, rubbing her hands on his chest to get some sort of reaction from him. She hears him suddenly take a short breath in.
"Hey, are you alright?" she asks softly.
He doesn't answer, not at first. Instead, his hand reaches up to hers on his chest, and he cautiously brushes against it. His fingers are strangely cold. He presses his palm more firmly, as if to convince himself Ava's hand is really there.
"Mon Dieu..." he mumbles. And then he stills again, with only his hand twitching slightly.
She doesn't know where the problem lies, so she tries to investigate it carefully. "Have you slept any?"
"Non..." he says, slow and tired. "I can't."
"Nightmares?"
"No. I just... Je peux pas. Can't sleep."
"Why?" she asks again, but he just shrugs slightly, and mutters 'I don't know' in French.
Ava falls quiet, her mind gathering the information. She's pretty sure her own body doesn't become so scarily still whenever she's overthinking at night, so Julien must be dealing with something far more serious than that. Maybe it's insomnia: either genetic, or... induced...? Could he have gained it, as an effect of his trauma? A remainder of what he went through? Her protective instinct kicks in. If that's the case, she won't let sleeplessness plague her lover at night, not on her watch.
What could help here? She goes through the possible options. Tea? Melatonin? Medicine?
Deciding to get up and take some action, she untangles her hands from him, pulls them back to herself. Julien reaches for them, weakly - almost desperately - but their hands fail to meet properly and she barely registers the sensation.
"I'm going to the kitchen," she informs him. "I'll make you some tea, okay?"
"Wait... I'll... I'll go with you," Julien stumbles.
As they get off the bed, he brushes her palm again. Ava understands the silent request. She takes his hand, lets their fingers intertwine, and like that leads her lover to the kitchen.
. . .
The kettle sings a high note, declaring to all and sundry that its mighty contents have reached the boiling temperature.
Ava pours the water into two cups with teabags already placed in them. She has decided to make a drink for herself as well. She's just as sleepless as her partner, only for a different reason.
The tea is a mix of herbs: lemon balm, lavender, valerian. From what she knows, they should help Julien, for now at least. She's decided she doesn't want to experiment with medicine before doing any research, and without having him diagnosed. If tea doesn't solve it, that's when they'll have to take further steps.
Julien is seated next to a small kitchen table, gazing at the view from the window. As Ava sets the cups in front of them and sits down, she follows his eyes there. The scenery is beautiful: snow coats the ground and the trees on their porch, the white glistening in the moonlight, and she can see the tiniest particles of snowflakes falling through the night, gently and in no rush. She admires it for a while, then moves her gaze back to Julien.
Head resting in one hand, he's peacefully observing the sight. His face seems more relaxed and content instead of having that ghostly, miserable look that still hangs on him sometimes.
"You want sugar with it, dear?" she asks him, and he directs his face towards the tea. He nods, so she passes the sucrier and a teaspoon to him.
"What tea is it?" he manages.
"Herbal. It has a calming effect, should help you rest more easily."
Julien has an unreadable expression now, but he nods again, taking the cup and adding one teaspoon of sugar to it. Ava takes hers, still looking at him.
"If you don't mind telling me, chéri... what does your sleeplessness feel like?" she picks up. "I usually can't sleep a wink whenever I have too many thoughts in my head. Is that what yours is like, too?"
He shakes his head slightly, his lips pressed into a thin line. "I don't have many thoughts. I have... none of them. It's... It's..." He stops, looking for words. "...Mince. It's hard to explain."
"Does it have a connection to your time in the waiting room?" she tries.
"...Yes." Julien stirs his spoon in the cup. "I did not sleep when I was there."
Ava gazes at him intently, while he lets himself take a sip of the drink.
"There was no sleep," he murmurs, putting the cup back down. "There was only... being dead." He averts his gaze, slowly closes his eyes. "...Je me sens encore mort."
I still feel dead.
Ava's expression falls. She reaches a hand across the table and lays it on his, in hopes that it will bring him some comfort.
It does, somehow. Julien looks at their hands and moves his own to enclose Ava's inside. He does it carefully, with admiration. Each time they touch, it seems to him like it's the very first time. The gentle grazing of fingers, skin against skin, then a firm and warm hold: their ritual seems to fascinate him and move him deeply every time.
"Merci," he whispers. "For the tea, and... and for..." His lips quiver, and he fails to utter the last word.
Ava knows that he means the touch. She nods, but it saddens her to think about. He shouldn't see it as something rare, something that he needs to give a special thanks for. She has so much more to give him, so much more of her love to give for free. Ava gets up from the chair and walks to him. Julien looks at her questioningly, but says nothing as she goes for a hug, cradling his head in her arms; gently laying him on her chest. He says nothing, but his hands appear on her back, as if to say: stay like that, please.
She caresses his head like it's the most precious thing she's ever held. Sliding her palm on his cool, slightly wrinkled surface, she feels him shiver and let out a sigh. Julien rests on her chest, tense yet clinging to her, not wanting for it to stop. Ava bends down a little and plants a delicate, loving kiss on the top of his head.
"Je t'aime tellement," she murmurs to him.
"Je t'aime aussi," he responds quietly, touched.
They stay comfortably close for a few minutes. Julien noticeably relaxes in her arms, and Ava hopes that he will be okay, that once they get to bed, he'll finally get some sleep tonight. Touch seems to help him, so maybe she should allow herself to be more outwardly affectionate towards him, especially since he's often afraid to ask. All these thoughts are on her mind as she's holding him, and she promises herself to aid him in the best way she can.
. . .
Julien's body is a stage. The sensations dance on it like actors, feelings swirl around like colourful lights shed from above. The touch is a melody, a symphony, played by the delicate fingers of his lover and meant for just one listener - him.
He listens with awe. He listens with his heart open and his senses focused.
The blanket is adjusted over them, but all that matters to him is the body resting against his, and the hands that continue to slowly caress him while they are both back in bed. He's warm inside from the tea, and he wants nothing more than to be held tenderly, again, again.
Maybe it's the herbs' effect, or maybe it's the touch - something so clearly and undoubtedly alive, something that makes him live in the present - but the colours of the waiting room seem to fade from his mind. There is no room other than the stage, there is no stillness other than peace.
His thoughts can finally escape. A light is returned to the universe, spacetime is warped back to its traversable state.
Gently, his mind lets him rest again.