Work Text:
Charlie watches, wearily, as Nick thumbs tokens into the slot and slumps heavily against the machine. There’s a pregnant, tense pause as they wait for it to whirr to life – its ironically chipper pre-programmed voice bouncing out from the speakers – and declare that they’ve earnt back six hours of rest. It’s not enough, but it’ll take the edge off of things.
There’s a knack to these machines; to knowing which buttons to press to get exactly what you need. Nick presses a button to ask that his allocated sleep be portioned into three two-hour naps and hands Charlie two of the chips that the machine spits back out.
“No.” Charlie shakes his head emphatically. “You earnt it, you take the most.”
It’s useless to argue, and he knows it. There’s no way Nick will do anything other than think of others before himself. Last week, he donated his last hour of sleep to a nearly-broken Tara, who collapsed on stage at the end of the ballet her company was putting on to raucous laughter and applause from the upper class patrons of the theatre. Darcy had told Nick and Charlie all about it – almost apoplectic with rage as they described the ways soft silk gloves muffled the sound of hands clapping together while the stage manager raced forward to help drag Tara’s exhausted body off of the stage. None of the audience thought to tip their performers a token or two and the meagre amount that Tara has earnt during the ballet’s run wasn’t nearly enough to buy back enough sleep to recover.
When Charlie woke up from his nap that day, he had found Nick propped up on the floor next to their bed and staring at nothing – near-mad with tiredness – and nearly raced out of the door to beg for his old job back. Nick had grabbed him before he could reach the threshold of their bedroom and gripped him tight until Charlie came to his senses and remembered why he’d stopped working for Ben in the first place.
“It’s not worth it,” Nick had whispered, pressing a kiss to the back of Charlie’s neck. “Nothing’s worth that.”
So, here they are; Nick at the end of a twelve-hour shift, and Charlie watching helplessly as he teeters his way back to their beat-up old car. The two chips are cool in Charlie’s hand, and he closes his fist around them before following Nick. Losing them in the dust at the side of the road after Nick’s hard work isn’t an option.
Nick drives slowly. In this part of town, there’s as much danger in the form of other drivers as there is from his own sleep-deprivation. Everyone is on their way to work, all the time, and every bend in the road is lined with the remnants of past car crashes. Charlie shudders at the sight of a burnt-out husk of an old hatchback, still smouldering where someone has set it on fire again recently. When they get home, Nick will sleep for his allowed two hours, before the circuitry that’s been embedded in the back of his neck since he was ten years old jolts him awake again. He’ll get up, replace the sleep chip in Charlie’s own neck with the second one currently nestled in his palm, and then set off to work again in order to earn more. Work-work-sleep, work-sleep-work. Like always.
It was better when they both had a job – before Ben had to ruin it by locking Charlie in the back office and shoving his tongue down his throat – and they could pool their tokens into a decent amount of sleep between them. It’s not like Charlie hasn’t tried. There have been interviews, and meetings, and moments in offices where burly managers took one look at him and shook their heads. Even without the manic look in his eye from too many nights spent staring at the blinking clock on their bedside table, Charlie isn’t sure he’d have much luck in the factories that are usually hiring. Working as a general assistant for Ben Hope – whose father was very likely one of the patrons who enjoyed the sight of Tara collapsing the week before – paid enough in tokens to afford him and Nick a decent amount of sleep between them. Food was still scarce, but that never bothered Charlie anyway.
The car jolts, someone else slams their fist against their horn as Nick stalls and swears under his breath.
“Nick,” Charlie says quietly, a hand on his boyfriend’s back. “There’s no rush.”
Nick swipes a hand across his face.
“We need to get home. Need sleep.” There’s that monotone in his voice that he gets when he’s shutting down. Charlie leans across and presses a kiss to his shoulder.
There’s no point suggesting that they sleep in the car – two hours may not be long, but it’s enough time for someone to break in and take whatever they can find.
“Breathe,” Charlie whispers instead. “It’s okay.”
It’s not, but Nick seems to recover enough to make the rest of the journey.
In their building, some of their neighbours are wandering aimlessly in the corridors. The old man who lives upstairs – the one who once warned Charlie with a dark voice about not neglecting his pension – is leaning against the wall when they walk through the door, scraping his nails up and down the aged wallpaper. Judging by the rips in the pattern, he’s been there a while. Nick winds his arm around Charlie’s neck and gives the man a wide berth as they pass.
There’s no point in getting changed before they collapse into bed. Charlie is too tired to remember where he put his pyjamas. He’s not sure he’s seen them in weeks. Instead, he pulls Nick down onto their uncomfortable mattress and plucks one of the chips from his own palm. If he sends himself to sleep first, maybe he can sneak the second chip to Nick before he wakes up.