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He doesn’t like sleeping. When he’s awake, he doesn’t have to deal with the realities in his dreams. When he’s awake, he can be with Hallan, and drown himself in all the day-to-day senses and feelings and thoughts of living and being alive and in love with Hallan. It seems too good to be true, that after Knyla and his fleeing from Gallifrey, that he could have it this good. He has Hallan, he has freedom, he has happiness.
But when he’s sleeping, it doesn’t matter what his life has turned into. All that matters is what was.
The dreams are different every time he sleeps, but they’re always similar enough to leave him with a sense of deja vu. Sometimes it’s Knyla, screaming his name as she slips into non-existence. Sometimes it’s Mantus, Rassilon’s right-hand sycophant, bringing him before Rassilon himself for his crimes in helping the people of Ysalus. Sometimes it’s Romana or Narvin, the disappointment evident in their voices as they blame him for everything that happened on Ysalus. Sometimes, there aren’t any other Time Lords, but the Daleks are storming the Panopticon, their metallic voices gratingly declaring victory over the Time Lords. On the worst nights, it’s a combination of people, and there’s a creeping dread that Eris can’t get rid of, a paralyzing fear, one that he can’t name, but steals through him, like a shadow, the way an ink blot spreads out over a piece of paper.
No matter which dream he has, the results are always the same: waking up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, frantic, terrified, unable to fall back asleep. Even if he could fall back asleep, he’d be too afraid to try.
So he tries to stay awake. If he can avoid falling asleep, then he doesn’t have to deal with it. He can focus on the altogether more pleasant aspects of being alive.
Although, when he’s awake and alone in the middle of the night after a nightmare about Knyla, it’s hard to focus on the good things. It’s a whole lot easier to remember the lonely nights in the TARDIS after first leaving. It’s a whole lot easier to remember Knyla, remember her screaming her name as he failed to save her. It’s a whole lot easier to remember his failure. All that work, all that time, all that love, all for nothing.
In the darkness of the TARDIS, alone and forgotten, it’s all too easy to slip into that feeling of being nothing.
If Hallan has noticed that he’s more and more sleep-deprived, that the dark circles under his eyes look like bruises, that he’s yawning uncontrollably despite the fact that Time Lords don’t usually yawn, he hasn’t given any sign of it. He’s been acting like everything is normal. And everything is normal, Eris supposes. He’s been having trouble with nightmares since Knyla… died. Why else would he pour all his time and energy into curing and unfreezing and nursing back to health a guard commander who was forgotten by everyone else centuries ago? If only so that he has something to focus on besides his own failures. He isn’t that old, only a few centuries, but he already has a failure that cost an entire planet its very existence resting on his shoulders. If Hallan knew…
He collapses in his bed one night, too tired to fight sleep any longer. He’s terrified of what will come, but he needs to sleep. His body needs it.
And sure enough, the dreams come again, twisting and terrifying and strange. He can’t move, he’s fixed in one place, staring in horror as the events unfold, as Knyla screams his name, as Daleks defeat the Time Lords, as Rassilon sentences him to the Oubliette of Eternity.
He sits bolt upright in bed, breathing hard, sweat soaking his hair, even though Time Lords typically don’t sweat. His eyes are wide, and he searches his room frantically for any signs of an intruder.
There is no one. It’s his imagination, his conscience. As always. Still, he remains in bed, unwilling to get up and find a phantom of his dream somewhere in the TARDIS, but equally unwilling to go back to sleep.
At long last, he gets up. He isn’t sure when Hallan will be up, but it will be a nice surprise for him to find Eris in the sitting room, waiting for him. The nightmare still lurks in the back of his mind, half-forgotten, but casting a shadow over everything else.
The TARDIS corridors are dark as he walks through them, barefoot and bare chested, indicating that it still thinks it should be the designated rest period. Or night, as it’s more commonly known. But since time doesn’t really exist in a TARDIS, designated rest period is the more technically accurate term. Time Lords don’t need a lot of sleep, as a general rule, but they still need some, and Eris is desperately behind on his.
Eris isn’t quite sure what he’s going to do in the sitting room. If he might be able to sleep without fear on the sofa there, or if he’ll turn on a lamp and try to keep himself busy, or if he’ll go to Hallan’s room and see if he can sleep with Hallan for the rest of the night. He won’t be able to sleep, but at least he’ll have the comfort of another person next to him.
He knows he won’t go to Hallan, though. He doesn’t want to disturb the commander. They’ve been so focused on getting Hallan back to full health that he’s neglected his own well-being a little bit, and now that Hallan is fully recovered, Eris doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardize it.
What he doesn’t expect is for Hallan to be sitting on the sofa, a lamp on, and a datapad in his hands. Eris rubs his eyes for a moment, and contemplates heading back to his room before the commander can see him, but it’s too late. Hallan must have heard him coming, because he sets the datapad down and looks up at him. His dirty-blond hair is still messy from sleep, and he looks tired.
“You’re awake, too?” Hallan asks. His voice is surprisingly businesslike.
Eris steps into the room a little further. “Yeah,” he replies, suddenly aware that neither he nor Hallan is wearing a shirt. “Couldn’t sleep.” He doesn’t have to say anything other than that, it’ll be alright. Hallan won’t have to worry. He doesn’t want Hallan to worry.
“Me neither,” Hallan says, stating the obvious. He pats the cushion on the sofa next to him. “You can sit with me. If you want.”
“Yeah, of course.” Eris walks over and sits down, wondering if Hallan will be okay with cuddling. All he wants to do right now is lean on Hallan, hug him, feel his heartsbeats. And maybe kiss him senseless. He looks so different from his usual self. Less orderly. More comfortable. More vulnerable. More kissable.
To his surprise, Hallan makes the first move. Usually it’s Eris, hugging the commander spur-of-the-moment, or kissing him because it will really surprise him, and it’s always fun to see Hallan shocked. But this time, Hallan casually wraps his arm around Eris’s shoulders, bringing him close.
This is an okay turn of events. More than okay, actually. Eris wants nothing more than to sit here like this for a very, very long time, until he can forget about the nightmare.
“What kept you from sleeping?” Hallan asks, his lips nearly touching the top of Eris’s head. He punctuates the question with a small kiss, and Eris can feel Hallan’s lips tracing over the top of his head, giving more tiny kisses. It’s very distracting, and Eris wonders if he can avoid Hallan’s question if he returns those kisses.
Instead, he shifts, so that he’s practically laying on top of Hallan. “Dunno,” he murmurs, enjoying the sensation of Hallan’s lips on the top of his head. “Didn’t want to be alone.”
“Oh?” Hallan has reached the side of Eris’s head now and continues kissing, going behind the ear and down to the neck, along the jaw. Frankly, Eris is shocked. Hallan has never done this before. He wonders if the commander is sleep-deprived or something, or if he found some ginger. But he seems more alert than Eris, and he doesn’t smell like ginger. He smells good, like rain and pine, clean and cool.
“What about you?” Eris finally asks, even though he knows it means Hallan will have to stop kissing him. He picks up Hallan’s free arm and begins running his fingers along his hand, exploring the scars and bumps and calluses.
Hallan makes a movement that Eris can't see, but he can feel, something like a shrug, but without as much movement, like he doesn’t want to disturb Eris. “I got enough sleep in cryo,” he replies shortly. There's something in his voice that makes Eris wonder if Hallan, like himself, is perhaps not being entirely truthful.
“Oh?” says Eris. “I didn't know cryo worked like that.” It's a simple tactic, playing dumb in an effort to get the subject to reveal more information. Eris feels a little guilty about using CIA tactics on Hallan; wonderful, perfect, beautiful Hallan, with his messy, too-long hair and his gorgeous smile and even teeth, and his cool skin, muscles rippling beneath, and his voice like ice and music.
Hallan does the half-shrug again. “I don’t know,” he says, a trace of annoyance in his voice. “I just… can’t stop thinking about everything. You know. From before cryo. It’s hard to believe Gallifrey survived, that Pandora was defeated. I was trying to figure out what happened.”
“It was keeping you up?”
Hallan lets out a small laugh, his chest rumbling against Eris’s head pleasantly. “Something like that.” He pauses. “What did you mean, when you said you were awake because you don't want to be alone?”
Eris nuzzles his head into Hallan’s muscular chest, eyes half shut. “Exactly what I said,” he murmurs sleepily. “Don't wanna be alone. Scary.” He might fall asleep right there, half on Hallan’s lap. Hallan is stroking his hair, like he's some sort of cat, and it feels nice. The lamp is on. Hallan is comfortable. And he's tired.
But Hallan apparently wants to unpack that last sentence. His fingers stop their combing, and he goes still. “Scary?” he says. It feels weird for Hallan to be saying that word. It’s something a little kid might say, or Eris, but not the big strong guard commander. “What’s so scary about it?”
Eris lets out a long, slow sigh and opens his eyes. “I can’t sleep,” he says, “because if I sleep, I have dreams, and if I have dreams, I’ll wake up, and if I wake up, then I’ll be too afraid to fall back asleep, because I don’t want to have the dreams again.”
There. He’s finally said it. It’s off his chest. He’s torn, because it’s good to get that out in the open, to stop keeping something from Hallan, but he also doesn’t want to say or do anything that could worry Hallan. He spent a lot of time helping the guard commander recover, and he doesn’t want anything to impede that progress.
Hallan’s fingers resume stroking, just barely. “You’ve been having nightmares?” He sounds worried. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“And worry you?” Eris sits up, just so he can look Hallan in the eye. “You’ve been dealing with enough, Hallan. I mean, you’re sitting out here in the middle of the night, trying to catch up on what I consider history, because when you went into cryogenic suspension, it hadn’t yet happened. Bad dreams are still only dreams. I don’t want to worry you.” It’s the first time he’s had anything even resembling an outburst at Hallan, and for a moment, he’s convinced he’s destroyed everything he’s been trying to build in this relationship.
But Hallan just heaves a heavy sigh, and the fingers that were stroking Eris’s hair only moments earlier find his back instead, long fingers sparking strange sensations in Eris’s stomach as they touch the bare skin on his back. “You didn’t want to worry me,” he says quietly. “Eris…”
This is it. This is where Hallan gets angry, and where, as Knyla would have said, the world goes to shit.
But the fingers just keep stroking, and his voice remains quiet. Calm. There’s an authority in Hallan’s voice that’s soothing. “I don’t need protecting, my love,” he says.
Eris starts. This is the first time Hallan has ever used a pet name. It rolls off his tongue so easily, though. It sounds so natural in his voice, but with what Eris knows about Hallan, it also sounds so unnatural. “But if you’re going to insist on doing so, at least let me protect you in turn.”
Eris half-turns, looking up at Hallan with sleep-filled eyes. “What can you do about nightmares?” he asks, his voice dull. “I don’t want you to worry about something you can’t help.”
“You can at least tell me about them,” Hallan suggests. “Or, if you have a nightmare, come to me when you wake up. I might not be able to stop them, but I can at least comfort you.”
“Don’t you ever get nightmares?” Eris asks. He’s halfway to laying fully across Hallan’s lap, and his fingers are lazily tracing the ridges of muscles across Hallan’s torso. “I mean, it was war when you went into cryogenic suspension. It can’t have been easy.”
A rueful smile crosses Hallan’s face. “Never had the time,” he says. “We were all down to almost no sleep because there were so few of us by the time I went under. In the spans that I had, I was so tired that I was completely blacked out the whole time.” He lets out a huff of breath that’s almost, but not quite, a laugh. “I still haven’t been able to break that habit,” he adds. “That’s why I’m out here.” With his free hand, he takes Eris’s hand — the one that has been stroking his chest — and brings it up to his lips, kissing it gently. “Your problem isn’t one I’m familiar with. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try to help.” He drops Eris’s hand and tries to hide a yawn behind his own, but Eris can see it, even though he’s half asleep.
“We should go back to bed,” Eris finally murmurs. He pauses. “Can I — can I stay with you?”
Hallan looks down at him, his eyebrows raising in surprise. “I… don’t see why not,” he says. “If it would make you feel better.”
“Yeah,” Eris says, too tired to feel embarrassed about this, even though it’s making him feel like a Time Tot again, when he would wake up from nightmares and try to find a family member who could soothe him. No one ever did. They just told him it was irrational to be afraid of something as transient as a dream, and to go back to bed. He sighs and moves, shifting so that he’s no longer laying across Hallan’s lap like some sort of pet. (Not that he minds laying across Hallan’s lap like some sort of pet; it’s just that they have to get up now, even if he doesn’t want to.)
They walk out of the room and into the maze of corridors that is the majority of the TARDIS interior, Eris wrapping his arm around Hallan’s waist and leaning his head onto his side. “Hallan?” he asks.
“Hmm?”
Oh, shit. How does he phrase this now? “Mmm,” he says, trying to figure out words. It doesn’t help that he’s so tired he can barely think. “You were acting funny before.”
The words are barely out of his mouth, but he already knows that wasn’t right. That wasn’t what he wanted to say.
Hallan stops walking. “What do you mean?”
Eris can’t tell if he’s curious, confused, or upset.
“I mean, you were… a lot more affectionate…” Eris still isn’t quite sure what he’s trying to say. “I mean, you were touching me and kissing me and stuff and you started it all. Which I’m happy about, I mean, I liked it a lot, but it was just… confusing, I guess.” That is quite possibly the least eloquent thing Eris has ever said, and he hopes Hallan will understand what he’s trying to say without getting offended.
Hallan sighs, the sound coming from somewhere deep in his chest. “You were upset about something,” he says. “And I know you’ve been tired recently, even if you haven’t been saying anything about it. I’m neither blind nor stupid.”
“Oh.” Eris isn’t quite sure what else he can say in response to that.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” Hallan adds, sounding slightly embarrassed. “You grew up on Gallifrey, same as me. You know how Time Lords are at this sort of thing.”
Eris lets out a humorless laugh.
“But I didn’t know what I should do, and you were upset, so I tried to think of what you’d do, and I thought you’d probably do something like that.” Hallan says it all very fast, like he’s afraid Eris will laugh at him or something.
Laughing at him doesn’t even cross Eris’s mind. He can’t quite process what Hallan just said, that this stern guard commander who never objects to kisses or physical affection but never initiates it, that he was trying to be like Eris, who is almost the exact polar opposite. He’s not quite sure what to say in response, or, in fact, how to respond in any way, shape, or form.
In the end, he pulls Hallan closer to him as they walk back to the commander’s room. “You can do that again whenever you want,” he says, and, in the dark, a smile begins teasing at the corners of his lips.
—————
Sleeping with Hallan is something Eris has given a lot of thought to. He’s been waiting for Hallan to demonstrate that it’s something he’d want to do. But Eris has been thinking about it for much longer than he wants to admit. He likes intimacy, and he really likes intimacy with Hallan. But he doesn’t want to pressure Hallan, and he knows the guard commander is a lot more hesitant about these kinds of things, because Hallan is a much better Time Lord than Eris could ever hope to be. Even onboard this TARDIS, exiled from Gallifrey, Hallan is careful about etiquette and social norms. Eris gets the distinct feeling that their relationship is the only way Hallan has ever been a less-than-perfect Time Lord, that it’s Hallan’s sinful secret. Truth be told, Eris didn’t know that he and Hallan would ever end up sleeping together. Hallan has always seemed perfectly content with their relationship as it is.
Given all of this, Eris is a little surprised to find himself lying in bed next to Hallan, even if they aren’t doing anything besides sleeping. He didn’t think he’d ever be in a position where he could reach over and touch Hallan, where he could hear the even breathing of the commander, where he could see the commander’s chest rising and falling as he sleeps beside him.
It was a little surprising, too, that Hallan fell asleep so quickly once they got to bed, but Eris supposes this is another thing left over from the civil war. Hallan can probably sleep on command, while Eris is stuck trying to figure out if he wants to risk falling asleep.
In the end, though, his eyelids close, leaving him to the mercy of whatever dreams choose to taunt him, as he tries to rest.
—————
When Eris next opens his eyes, he notices two things.
Thing number one: he knows he fell asleep not touching Hallan, but he is now very much touching Hallan. Their bare chests are touching, Hallan’s arm is underneath Eris’s neck, Eris’s arm is resting draped around Hallan’s chest, their legs are tangled. Eris isn’t quite sure how that happened, or when it happened, but happen it must have.
Thing number two: Eris feels rested.
He pulls back from Hallan for a moment, sees that he’s still asleep, looking happier in his sleep, more content. At peace.
Eris smiles sleepily and brings his head back to where it had been resting, somewhere against Hallan’s collarbone. He closes his eyes, feeling the steady thump-thump-thump-thump of Hallan’s double heartbeat. He still needs to catch up on a little sleep. Why not do that now? It’s not like anything can hurt him.
In the dim light of Hallan’s bedroom, with the cool body of a certain guard commander pressed up against his own, Eris’s dreams feel far away. And in that moment, Eris can think of them just as they are: dreams.