Sleeping Habits
1944
He wakes up pressed against the cold wall, burrows down lower so his face is under the blanket, tries to be invisible. He muffles his breathing with his wrist, tasting the dirty fabric. His hands feels heavy, like there’s metal in his bones dragging them down. There are two breathing bodies between him and the world. His eyelids are heavy and dragging down. He'll try to forget this for the rest of his life. He'll sleep like this for the rest of his life, shoulder pressed against the wall, warm sleeping body pressed hard against him, silent, still, almost warm.
1965
He wakes up, throws his head back against the pillow, stretches. Charles softly protests the movement and rolls so he’s resting more on his pillow and less on Erik. Feeling returns to Erik’s left hand, with phantom needle-pricks. The bed smells of cotton and sandalwood and sweat.
Charles is sleeping again already, entirely unguarded, as if sure he's safe. On the train from the city he’d watched Charles sleeping in his seat; he'd only woken when someone came near, and then only to reach to touch Erik’s wrist where Erik sat sheltered in the window seat, shoulder against the glass.
1982
He wakes with her pressed against him, naked, blue, scales catching the lamplight. Beautiful in a way he doesn’t think anyone has any words for. He certainly doesn’t, so he wakes her by kissing down the line of her hip instead. She rolls onto her back, still half-asleep, and then opens her eyes, with a flash of uncertainty.
He smiles to make his appreciation clear. She returns an arrogant smile, throws back her head.
They’re finished too early to have to get up yet. Mystique puts her head on his shoulder, and he drapes her over him like a blanket.
2001
He wakes up cold, his shoulder pressed against the hard plastic. Once again he’s been reaching out in his sleep, hand searching across the clean institutional cotton of the sheets. Once again he’s not sure who he’s been reaching for.
He sits up, turns his back to the plastic-blurred guards. He knows there are cameras, but it’s the principle of the thing. If there’s a tactile equivalent of tasteless, it’s the floor under his feet. It feels like there’s nothing to bear his weight, and in a minute he’ll realize it and fall.
Shoes help. One more day in hell.