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Long Night's Journey Into Sleep	By : beautifulliar Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Deathstars Views: 1506 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. I do not know the members of Deathstars. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Long Night's Journey Into Sleep
- 1
Long Night’s Journey Into Sleep

“Now open mine.” Cat slid a black-paper-wrapped box onto the table in front of their lead singer.

Whiplasher laughed, looked at Cat, then at the box, which was about the right size to hold a microphone, and said, smiling, “I’m almost afraid to open it.”

Cat sat back. “Don’t be. It’s nothing too frightening.” He grinned.

The five of them were seated around Nightmare’s kitchen table, though his kitchen wasn’t actually large enough for a table—or for walls, for that matter—so the table, a yard sale relic rescued from Nightmare’s parents’ storage, was on the other side of the short counter. Whip had the seat of honor, the one-armed arm chair dragged over from the corner. Skinny and Bone sat perched on the end of Nightmare’s bed, their knees and elbows bumping into each other’s. Cat and Nightmare had snagged the two wooden chairs that actually went with the table, not that that made them particularly great seats, but they were sturdy.

Half covering the iron cross Nightmare had carved into the table with a metal-handled military knife one night was the small pile of gifts that Whip had already tore into: a bottle of absinthe, two CDs, a gift card. Nightmare had given him a necklace—nothing special, just a black leather string with a silver star hanging from it. He’d tried to find a star with a skull in the middle of it—death star, right?—but no luck.

He lifted his beer bottle to his lips only to discover it was empty. He set it back on the table, then pushed it away with his fingertips.

“Go on,” Bone said. “Open it. The worst that can happen is you get an STD from it.”

Skinny laughed. Cat graced Bone with a narrow-eyed look, but it was without menace. His full lips pulled into a languid smile, and then he laughed, too.

“Go on and open it already,” Nightmare said, his voice holding less humor than Bone’s had.

“And what are you in such a rush for?” Whip put his hand on the box and pulled it toward him, but he was looking at Night from under canted eyebrows.

Nightmare dropped back in his chair, one arm over the back. He needed to take a leak. The bathroom was upstairs—out his room’s door, up the stairwell, down the hall. He shared it with everyone living in the building, except for the apartment on the third floor, which actually was a full-fledged apartment, indoor plumbing and all.

Whip, having gotten his don’t-spoil-my-birthday message across, said, “Now,” and turned his attention to the box. He lifted it to his ear and shook it a little. “It goes thunk,” he said, grinning. “Let’s see what goes thunk.” He turned it, searching for the taped side, then slid his fingers under the loose parts and tore the wrapping.

Skinny looked to be at least as curious as Whip; his elbows were on the table and he was leaning almost past Cat to catch a glimpse.

“What the--?” he said when the box started to be revealed.

Whip threw back his head and laughed.

“What is it?” Bone asked, leaning forward now, too, his elbow and knee banging into Skinny.

Whip lifted the box from the wrapping paper and said to Cat, “And what am I going to do with this?”

Oh Christ. Nightmare slapped his hand down on his pack of cigarettes and drew it over. As he slipped one out, he heard Cat saying, “You’ll have to use your imagination,” and before he could get his lighter to flare, Whip was leering back and saying, “My imagination can be a very dangerous thing, you know.”

Oh Christ.

Skinny was still staring at the box open-mouthed. As Nightmare sucked in a much-needed lungful of smoke, though, Skinny started cracking up.

“A...a…” He pointed a long, crooked finger at the box, which Whip was opening now, and he was laughing too hard to say what was on his mind, until “Oh fuck why the fuck did you get him a dildo?” burst out of him. His face was red from laughing.

Cat shrugged as though it was nothing, then laughed, too.

“Look! It’s a big, black cock!” Whip brandished it by its base.

Nightmare shoved his chair back and came to his feet. “I’m going to take a leak.” The chair knocked against the base of the counter behind him as he kicked it out of his way. He squeezed behind Cat’s chair, then headed for the door, his cigarette clamped between two fingers in his fisted hand.

Before he could get out of the room, he heard Skinny say, “Look—you’ve run him out of the place now. Next time, don’t bring any sex toys that make him feel inadequate.”

“Sorry, Nightmare!” Cat sing-songed.

Nightmare pulled the door closed behind him firmly, but not loudly. He sucked another drag from his cigarette as he took the stairs two at a time to the house’s second floor. Soon, at least, they’d head out and hit a club or two, get fucking plastered, maybe get in a better mood. Pissing improved matters a bit—he felt, as he stood there in front of the toilet, like he was pissing out an entire six pack of beer. He certainly felt lighter by the time he zipped up his jeans. He dropped his cigarette in the toilet before flushing.

Maybe, he thought as he trudged back down the stairs, they’d be getting ready to head out finally.

He opened the door—and sighed inwardly. They were all still around the table. Worse, Whip was holding the dildo out, and Night walked in just in time to see Cat give the shiny head of it a big, slow lick with a tongue that looked long enough to curl upward and touch its owner on the tip of his nose.

“Are we going to sit around here all night?” he asked. He refused to sit back down. He leaned over the table to grab his cigarette pack. Tamped a fresh one out.

“Is it just like a lollipop?” Whip was asking, watching Cat swirl his tongue around the head of the rubber dick again.

Skinny face was buried in his arms. His shoulders shook. Probably his arms were wet with tears.

“A lollipop without any flavor,” Cat said, tossing hair out of his face. “You should try it.”

Nightmare cleared his throat, loudly.

“We should order food in,” Whip said, waving the dildo. It had just enough give in it to do some waving on its own. “And then we can break into my bottle of birthday absinthe.” He smiled at Cat.

“I have to get to bed early tonight,” Bone said—he seemed least affected by Cat’s gift. He was sitting with his back against the wall and turning Skinny’s lighter onto one end then the other on the table.

“Pussy,” Skinny said.

Bone shrugged.

“No one goes to bed early on my birthday!” Whip pointed the head of the dildo toward Bone.

“This guy does,” Bone said with a stretch. “This year at least. I have to be up early. So—” He looked at his watch. “You can enjoy my presence for another hour and that’s it.”

Whip aimed the dildo back toward Cat’s lips; Cat touched it with his fingertips and pushed it toward Whip’s mouth. Whip grinned and waggled it back toward Cat.

“We should fucking go out,” Nightmare said.

“All right, all right, we’ll go out,” Whip said finally, but then he twisted in his chair to smirk at Nightmare. He waggled the rubber dick. “Right after you give the big black dildo a little love and respect.” He thrust it upward.

Night knocked it aside.

“Anybody else?” Whip asked, pointing the dildo around. “No?” He gave an exaggerated sigh. “All right. Let’s go scare the common folk, then. Where’s my jacket?”

Nightmare shrugged into his, then pulled his hair out from the back of it. By the time he’d located his keys and gone to stand by the door, the others were more or less ready to go, too. He opened the door. Bone and Cat filed past. As Whip walked by, Night stopped him with an outstretched arm. “You are not bringing that.”

“What? This?”

“Go put it over there with the rest of your toys. Go on now.” He a waved toward the gifts and shredded paper clumped in the middle of the table.

“You’re no fun,” Skinny said as Nightmare lifted his arm to let him past.

Nightmare said, “Would you rather your dead body wind up floating in the canal when someone got the wrong idea from him waving that stupid thing around all night?”

Skinny half-turned as if to reply, then thought better of it and headed out the building’s front door with the rest of them.

Nightmare put his arm across the doorway again.

“Ready?” Whip said, approaching, grabbing his arm to move it out of the way.

Night caught a handful of his jacket, then shot a glance at the table. The black cock lay on it, dull yet reflecting some of the room’s light, too. Good. “All right, let’s go,” he said, releasing Whip.

“You’re no fun, Emil!” Whip called as Nightmare stopped to lock the door.

***

Two bars, three hours and plenty of booze took the edge of Nightmare’s brown funk, but only the edge. They had managed to keep Bone with them for nearly an hour past when he said he needed to leave, and now, walking crookedly down the street, they were about to split off from Skinny, too.

“Weeeeeeeeee…have to go back to Emil’s,” Whip said, his words tripping over each other. He and Cat were behind Nightmare and Skinny, leaning on each other and stumbling with regularity up onto and back down off the curb. “My presents are all there, and I want to drink my abtsinithe. And listen to…to…. What’d…what’d I get to listen to again?”

“You’ll miss out on the ‘abtsinithe’,” Nightmare said to Skinny.

“You’ll have to get me a bottle for my next birthday.”

“Or,” Nightmare said, “you could take those two and their bottle of ‘abtsinithe’ home with you.”

“Yeah. Right. See ya!” He gave them a clipped salute and turned down the cross street.

Behind Nightmare, Whip was singing an old sailing song, off key, mumbling bits he couldn’t remember then coming in earachingly loudly on the bits he could.

A cat yeorwed hoarsely as they came upon it at the entrance of an alley.

“Here kitty kitty,” Cat said, hanging onto Whip’s shirt at the shoulder while he leaned down with his hand outstretched. He crooked his finger and said, “Here pussy pussy pussy pussy.”

The cat curved its spine. It growled lowly at the back of its throat.

Night was impressed that it hadn’t ducked away and run. Maybe Whip’s caterwauling had gotten its motor going. If that were the case, Cat was lucky the thing didn’t jump up screeching and attach itself by its claws to his face. “Come on,” he said. “Let it alone.”

The cat grumbled after them even after they were out of sight. And then Whip resumed singing.

Nightmare wanted to put some distance between himself and Whip’s racket, but his brown funk weighed him down. It took all his effort to keep going at all, and not drop onto the sidewalk and stare at the night above them.

Going up the steps at the front of his building a few minutes later, he felt felt like he had weights strapped around his thighs.

The front hall light was on. It was always on, night or day. At night it cast a thick yellow light that bred shadows at every opportunity. The shadow cast by his body—and Whip and Cat’s behind him—plunged the keyhole in his lock into darkness.

“Stop singing,” he said to Whip, furrowing his brow, trying to get the fucking key in the fucking hole.

“What?”

“I said stop fucking singing before you wake everyone up. Then I have to listen to the fucking landlady tomorrow when I have a fucking hangover.” The door bumped open as he tried to pull his key back out while pushing at the wood.

“Who wants absinithe!” Whip called as he tumbled into the room after Night.

Night managed to yank his key free—and stumble backward into Cat.

“Ow! Hey!” He laughed, getting out of Nightmare’s way. Nightmare quietly pushed the door closed.

“Abstinthe!” Whip called, brandishing the bottle. “Who wants some? We need glasses. And sugar.” He banged into the counter as he talked, then navigated around it, absinthe in one hand, the other yanking open doors and drawers, and leaving them hanging open. “Where the fuck’s your fucking sugar?”

Never mind weights strapped around his thighs—they pushed down on his shoulders now. Heavily, he crossed the small room, shoved past Whip, and retrieved a bowl from on top of the fridge. He glanced in it and didn’t see any bugs, though there was a thin, gray layer of dust along the top of the sugar. Or maybe it was just his eyesight. He dropped it on the counter in front of Whip and headed back out of the kitchen. “I’m fucking beat.” He took a seat on the corner of his bed and pulled one booted foot over the opposite knee so he could begin getting the fucking thing off his foot.

“This abstinence will help you get a good night’s sleep!” There was a clatter, then a “Damn.”

“Don’t wreck the god-damned place.” With a grunt, he pulled his left boot free.

Cat leaned on one of the chairs at the table and read the back of Whip’s CDs, or tried to at least—he kept pulling it closer to his face, then holding it away, squinting. Nightmare looked over and caught him trying to read it with one eye closed.

He grunted and yanked the other boot off.

“Drinks are ready!” Whip chimed. He stuck a spoon in his mouth—the one he’d been using for the sugar, probably, and held a glass out. Cat took it. Nightmare fell backward on his bed, arms upstretched.

The ceiling shrank and expanded, then started to ripple. He pulled himself up, shaking his head. When he closed his eyes, he saw stars, but not just any view of stars. No, this was the view he would have of stars if he were on a wildly out-of-control merry-go-round. He opened his eyes and shook his head again. And then registered Whip’s shirt right in front of his face.

“Here you go!” Way too fucking cheery for this time of night and Nightmare’s current state of being.

He squinted at the glass Whip was offering, then lifted a heavy arm to accept it.

“Is it good?” Whip asked.

Night hadn’t even tried it yet.

“It’s good!” Cat said. Nightmare’s ears picked up that he was across the room. Then he heard the couch creak as Cat dropped his weight onto it.

“Go on. Try it,” Whip said, grinning. He lifted his own glass to drink from it.

It tasted like black licorice. Nightmare wrinkled his nose, but swallowed. Then swallowed some more. “It’s fine,” he said, wiping his mouth with the side of his hand.

“It’s good!” Whip said.

“It’s fine.” Night set his glass on the table, then pulled off his shirt. Again he fell backward across his bed, arms up, this time tangled in his t-shirt. All the molecules in the ceiling seemed to be running toward its outer edges. He stared at it. He thought he was going to be okay. Maybe.

Whip laughed. He and Cat were murmuring.

Night pulled his arms free, then popped the button on his jeans, unzipped the fly. Lay there staring at the ceiling for another moment, readying himself to get up again. Last time, he promised. With a grunt, he pulled himself up.

“Which should we play?” Whip asked from the couch. He waved his two CDs.

“Neither. It’s too fucking late.”

Whip’s head dropped like someone had just turned his power off. He was staring at the two CDs in his lap. “I couldn’t get the fucking things open if I tried anyway.” They were still sealed in plastic. As he leaned over to drop them on the floor, the star on his necklace caught the light. To Night, it felt like a headache.

He peeled off his jeans and then, hopping sideways into the table and back into the bed, each of his socks.

“I’m going to bed,” he announced.

Whip was murmuring something in Cat’s ear. Cat laughed. Neither paid him any attention.

“Don’t make any noise, don’t puke on anything, and pay for anything you fucking break,” Night said, the words becoming little more than mutterings as he got under his sheets and hugged his pillow to his cheek.

His ears itched, listening to the giggles and murmurs and occasional loud words behind him.

He heard someone still in their boots get up and walk around.

He smelled fresh cigarette smoke.

More walking around.

Then the clomp of a boot dropping footless on the floor. Another boot. More talking. He was never going to be rid of them. He turned over and squinted in their direction. They had that fucking dildo again. He scowled as they laughed and clamped his eyes shut.

Whispering, giggling, murmuring. It was taking on a ridiculous sing-song tone.

He cracked his eyes open. All he saw was a dim blur. He blinked till his vision cleared. They were sitting on the floor, their backs against his couch, an ashtray between them. Absinthe glasses on the floor with them. Big black dildo waggling in Whip’s hand.

“Stick it in the glass,” is what he thought he heard Cat say as Cat stubbed out his cigarette.

“Mmm, you want an absinthe-flavored lollipop, yeah?”

Cat smiled, looking up from the ash tray.

Oh God. Nightmare closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, after the blurriness cleared again, he saw Cat smirking, if it was possible for one to smirk with his tongue sticking out. He watched him finish a long lick up the side of the cock. At the end of it, Cat caught his lower lip under his teeth and pushed the dildo, with his fingertips, back toward Whiplasher—who, grinning, as far as Nightmare could tell from his position, tilted his head and gave the thing a long, swirling lick of his own.

Cat watched, rapt, his lip still caught in his teeth.

Nightmare watched, not so rapt.

When Whip finished, Cat’s lip slid free. “How’s it taste?” it sounded like he said, and his voice was a little breathless.

“Like your spit.”

Cat grinned wider and shoved his shoulder. “You’re sure you know what my spit tastes like, hmm?”

“Well, this—” Whip waggled the dildo. “—didn’t taste like rubber cock, not entirely, and it doesn’t taste like abstinetence, you licked all that up. So what’s left, except your spit?”

“Mmm.” The black dildo was moving back toward Cat’s chin. Cat let his tongue roll out again, and flicked it quickly up and down against its head.

Nightmare squeezed his eyes closed again.

“Mmm. Hmmhahaha.”

Then: “Mmm.”

Then something that sounded more like heavy breathing than anything else.

Warily, Nightmare peered out again.

“Mmmaaaah.” And Cat’s laughter. By the time Nightmare’s vision straightened itself out, they were both going at the dildo, tongues sliding up and down on opposite sides, skating into and away from each other. Whip kissed the shaft a few times, then the head, his eyes half closed, or maybe all the way closed; it was tough to tell from the bed. Cat, his mouth open just inches away, his tongue paused just below where the head joined the shaft, seemed to be watching Whiplasher raptly.

Whip’s hand, the one that grasped the base of the dildo, dropped away, slowly, and then there was no dildo between them, just their tongues, then their mouths. Whip pulled Cat closer by the back of his neck. Cat tugged at the front of Whip’s shirt. They both slid on the linoleum floor, grappling with each other, trying to find a way that they fit just right.

Why? Why on his floor? Why right in front of him? Nightmare squeezed his eyes closed, then popped them back open. Why?

Cat turned his mouth away, but it was to speak in Whip’s ear while Whip kissed and bit his way down the side of Cat’s neck. What Nightmare thought he heard Cat say was, “What’s my piss taste like?” but quickly amended it to “What’s my spit taste like?”

What he thought he heard Whip murmur back against Cat’s neck was “Abstinentses and rubber cock.”

Cat swatted him.

Whip grasped the front of Cat’s shirt and dragged him toward him again.

Nightmare stared, his eyebrows pulled down. His mouth turned down. A bad taste lay his tongue: black licorice and annoyance.

“What about the cock?” Cat said, practically against Whip’s mouth.

“What about it?”

“Did you like licking it?”

“Mmhm.”

“Did you like sucking it?”

Nightmare was glad to have missed the sucking part.

“Mmhm.”

“I liked watching you lick and suck it,” Cat said into Whip’s hair. Nightmare watched Cat’s hand slip between them. Then he felt like he couldn’t pull his eyes away from the dark shadows in between their bodies. Cat’s elbow, poking outward, was moving. Nightmare had a pretty good idea what was going on in the shadows.

Cat said, “But if you’re going to lick and suck a cock….”

Nightmare saw him pull Whip’s hand between them, too.

“Mmmaahh—yeah.”

“Let me get it out.”

“Dip it in absinthe.”

Cat laughed. He was getting to his feet, with Whip’s hands sliding down his chest, his stomach, grabbing his hips, then finally holding him, one hand curled around the back of each thigh. He was staring up Cat, open-mouthed.

“Do you want me to dip it in absinthe?” Cat asked.

“Yes.”

“You hold the glass.”

Arrrgh! Before Cat could get his jeans undone, Nightmare picked himself up and threw himself onto his other side, face against the wall.

“Shit.” Whip.

“Shh.” Cat.

“We shouldn’t—”

“He’s asleep. He was just turning over.”

“Is he?”

“Listen to him.”

Listen to me, huffing against the fucking wall.

“I don’t hear anything.”

“He’s asleep. Night? Oh Nighty—”

“Shh. Don’t wake him. Maybe we should turn out the light.”

“Yes. You get it.”

A glass thunked against the floor. “Shit.”

“Shh.”

The light switch clicked.

Nightmare opened his eyes to darkness, wonderful darkness. His breath came back at him, off the wall. His knee was shoved against the wall. He had an itch in the middle of his back and his arm was starting to complain about the angle it was at, but he didn’t want to move. Maybe they’d fucking finish soon and go to sleep—or go home: even better. And then he’d have the place to himself and could finally get some sleep.

Murmurs and coaxes and breaths and sighs and a hitched gasp or two. Wet sounds. Soft pig sounds, the kind you make when you’re sucking on something. Nightmare’s fingernails dug into his palm.

“Oh yeah.” Breathy, hurried. “Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yes. Mmm. Yes….”

“Like this?” More sucking, those fucking sucking noises—then a wet popping sound, then more sucking and breathing and “Yeah, mmm, like—yeah.”

The contents of his stomach did summersaults in his belly.

“More absinthe,” Cat said. “Yeah. Pour it. No! Just a little.” Laughter.

Night could smell it, the fucking sticking sweet liquor-y smell of it, clinging to the air, smothering him. His throat muscles contracted. His belly muscles hitched and jumped.

He rolled, quickly, across the bed, off the bed, landed off-balance, grabbed the wall.

“Shit. Emil?”

“Night?”

He fought the door open, banged it against the wall, threw himself up the stairs, both hands pulling up the banister. The door at the end of the hallway was mercifully open. He didn’t bother with the light, just dropped, hard, onto his knees in front of the toilet and everything came spilling, hot and acidic and smelling of licorice, up through his throat.

Twice.

Crouched, he put his forehead down on his knees. His breath came back up at him, burning his nostrils. His fingers dug into his scalp. He rocked, slowly, back and forth.

He groaned at the sound of footfalls on the stairs. Then the hall. Fuck. Fuck.

The light came on—just a little of it got through his arms to his face. The muscles around his eyes tensed.

“Emil? You all right?”

He felt a hand on his head.

His stomach started to roil again. He dropped his knees, grabbed the sides of the toilet seat, and lurched forward.

Whiplasher held his hair back.

When he finished puking, he sat back, trembling, wrung out. Whip reached over and flushed the toilet.

Nightmare kept his eyes closed until he was sure there was nothing to see but clear water in a white bowl. It looked soothing.

“I’m sorry,” Whip said, smoothing Nightmare’s hair back.

Night shook his head.

“We shouldn’t have….”

“I shouldn’t have drank the fucking absinthe on top of everything else.” His throat was raw. He cleared it, closed his eyes.

“Let’s splash some water on your face. What do you say?”

Nightmare opened his eyes again. Not too swimmy. He nodded slowly, then let Whip help him to his feet.

He shuffled toward the sink, Whip guiding him. Whip turned on the cold water faucet. Nightmare bent and stuck his hands under the water, splashed his face. Splashed again. Shoved his mouth into the stream to get a mouthful of cool water. He swished it, then spit it back out. Then again. Whip was still smoothing his hair, patting his back. Some of it was wet now, from the faucet or the splashing or both.

Clutching the sink’s counter with one hand, he straightened, wiping his mouth. He saw himself in the mirror, hollowed out. Cored out. Whip, too, wasn’t looking exactly his best. His hair looked greasy, his eyes small and tired. Both of them were pale—they could almost go on stage like this, without their corpse makeup, and no one would notice the difference, except that their lips were pale, too.

“Feeling a little better yet?”

Night nodded.

“Want to stay up here a while longer, or are you ready to go back?”

He wiped his mouth again. “I’m all right.” He led the way, carefully, out of the bathroom, down the stairs, and back into his room, where the light was burning again.

“Look at him,” Whip said, nodding his chin toward Cat, splayed face-down on the couch, one leg dragging on the floor.

Nightmare shook his head. He felt chilly now. A shiver ran through him. Gooseflesh popped up along his arms. He pulled away from Whip’s arm and slipped under his blankets, pressed himself up against the wall.

“I think he’s down for the count,” Whip said, about Cat.

He heard movement and clothing behind and then felt the sheets shift. The mattress sank. The bed creaked. Then there was the click of the light, its switch within arm’s reach of that side of the bed.

Nightmare shifted. Clutched the pillow. Shifted again.

They’d stayed over each other’s houses so many times over the years, starting back when they each still lived at home, that it wasn’t strange for Whip to just climb into bed and turn out the light without so much as a May I?

“I guess I got carried away,” Whip said. “But if you can’t do that on your birthday, right, then what’s a birthday for?”

“Remind me next year,” Night said.

“What?”

“Remind me to throw the fucking party at your place.”

After a few beats, Whip said, “Crazy.”

Nightmare didn’t rise to the bait, but Whip didn’t let that trip him up. He said, “I tell you, it’s never gone too far. A little flirting—”

A little cocksucking.

“—I don’t know what happened.”

There was silence, then the mattress moved behind him—Whip, turning over, facing his back. Nightmare could picture him on one elbow, his chin propped in his hand.

“Emil.”

“What?” Nightmare’s voice sounded sludgy on purpose; he wanted to sound half asleep. He wanted to be half asleep.

Whip didn’t say anything right away. Night could feel a slight tugging at the sheet, and he knew exactly what that was: Whip picking at the blankets with his fingernails. Working himself up to whatever was going to come after “Emil.”

Nightmare resisted heaving a sigh and saying, “What?” again. It wasn’t easy.

Finally, Whip said, “Emil, I…I think I like him.” And then a pause, everything hinging on Emil’s response.

Nightmare rolled his eyes in the darkness. It caused a quick, dull pain behind his eyes. He squeezed them closed.

“Emil?”

He felt a hand on his shoulder. With a sigh, he rolled onto his back. Eyes open. Focusing on the ceiling, a soft, dark gray in the dark room. It was breathing. Or beating, like a giant heart. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. He felt like he could feel his pupils dilating and shrinking in rhythm.

Whiplasher was waiting for—acceptance? Approval? Validation? Go fuck yourself?

He opened his mouth said, “I think I’m going to be sick again.”

“Oh shit.” Whip bolted up, then yanked Night upright in the bed by his arms. “Do you want me to get the bin?”

Whatever had been breathing on the ceiling scattered down around him like electric confetti. He pulled his knees toward him, dropped his elbows on them, and covered his face with his hands. Deep breath. Deep breath. Deep breath. The mattress shifted as Whip jumped back on it. Night felt the edge of the plastic trash bin against his arm. Deep breath. Deep breath…. Slowly, he dropped his hands. He nudged the trash bin away from him.

When he looked up, Whip was knelt by him, hands out, ready to do something.

“Get me a fucking cigarette? I’ve gotta kill this shit taste in my mouth.”

Whip got off the bed and started poking around in the dark. He found a pack of cigarettes first, over on the floor by Cat’s knuckles. In a pair of jeans—his or Night’s, Night couldn’t tell from where he was sitting—he dug up a lighter. He carried a tin ashtray to the bed and sat cross-legged in his underwear at the end of it, facing Night, while Night lit up.

After Night had enjoyed two lung-filling drags, Whip held out his hand. Night passed the cigarette over.

“I keep making you sick,” Whip said before he took a pull of it.

Night shook his head.

They smoked in silence, till Whip stubbed the butt out in the ashtray and set it on the floor.

They climbed back under the sheets, Night moving slowly. Feeling like an old man. An old, beat-up, drunk man.

Cat let out a single loud snore, and Nightmare met it with a short, voiceless laugh.

Whip said, “Hah.”

After another moment, Night opened his mouth. Time seemed to slow as he tried to fit words together in his head. Finally, he gave up and just said, “I really don’t care if you like him. That’s your business.”

“You’re just saying that.”

Night pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes and sighed. “Yes and no.”

“Does this change everything?”

“You’ve been fucking flirting with him for months. How would this change anything if that didn’t? You know what I say?” His hands had fisted against his eyes. This whole conversation was stupid. The hangover in the morning was going to be terrible. “I say go for it. Get it out of your system. Just don’t fuck up the fucking band.”

Whip shifted onto his side again and lay with his arm shoved under his pillow, hugging it against his face. “Are you jealous?”

“To the very tips of my rotted toenails. Christ. What would I have to be jealous about?” He yanked the covers with him as he rolled over. “Go to fucking sleep already. Wait.” He had his eyes open. He could see the wall right in front of him clearly, even in the darkness, just a flat expanse. “One more thing.”

“What?”

“Don’t ever make me drink that shit again.”

He heard Whip shift again. Felt a tug on the blankets. “More for me then.”

Half a minute passed, then another. Nightmare made himself more comfortable. Pulled the blankets toward him again. And said, finally, “I’m pretty sure, you know…he likes you, too.”

He expected something back: Does he? or You really think so? or even No shit. But maybe he’d spoken to a sleeping person because all he heard were the slow, thick breaths of two sleeping drunks. He sighed again and muttered, Whatever, before adjusting his head on his pillow and closing his eyes, finally, for the night.

~fin~
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Long Night's Journey Into Sleep