between [cookie] [clef, clemi-ish]

[Down]

So, I was going to write a short drabble because I couldn't sleep and I don't have the brain to study any more until I've slept. ...I ended up with this. ^^; 815 words of insomniac!Clef, post rayearth II, far more thinky and darkish than I meant. (also eight times the length. >.> DAMN YOU, BRAIN.) (title and prompt snagged from the 31_days comm on lj - between the click of the light and the start of the dream. It seemed appropriate? ^^; )


between

He couldn't sleep. Again.

It wasn't as if Clef wasn't tired ? he was exhausted, his head swimming if he tried to sit up, and his hands shaking on his glass of water. But his brain just wouldn't shut OFF. Running in circles over all the paper scattered on his desk, all the forms and the drafts and the bare skeleton of a system of government scribbled down (mostly in the margins). All the things that they had to do, he had to do, before Hikaru could finally sign over the burden on the knights's shoulders and they could stop looking so worn out and thin and pale, translucent skin, blue eyes darker than they should be in contrast even when Umi smiled and -

and he was thinking about Hikaru, dammit, the pillar, not the damned knight of Water.

(even if she was looking thinner and thinner and nearly grey yesterday and the strange potions she wore as a disguise smudging away in the evenings when she leant against his desk and nearly fell asleep on the floor, showing the worn out bruising around her eyes...)

...

Clef rolled over, shoving the bedcovers away in frustration and crushing his pillow to his chest as he curled around it. He was too tired to work ? he could not do any more until he'd had some sleep, because he couldn't SEE straight at the moment, let alone think in a logical line. So why could he not convince his brain that it needed to give in and stop feeling so damn guilty?  The sooner he slept, the sooner he could wake up and get back to work.

...Give it another half an hour. If he was still awake then (and he'd know because the bloody sun would be rising even if his clock wasn't sat mocking him on the bedside table;) then he'd take a sleeping potion. He'd have taken one hours ago if he hadn't had to the day before yesterday... and the last time he'd slept before that... and before that... His body's resistance was building up each time he drank one of the things, and the withdrawal symptoms were getting worse, too ? he couldn't afford to be nursing an addiction on top of everything else!

There was just too much to do, and too few people with authority left in this... interregnum? No, not that ? the post of the pillar still had all the power in the written law, and that was what they were trying to undo. Transition, then. Too few people with power to construct laws in this transitional time, and getting Hikaru to grant people them to help would only undermine their efforts in the end. But until this was sorted, and the people had a system to look to, they and the world were going to keep leaning on Hikaru, on the magic knights as a whole, and drain them more with every second they spent trying to get on with their lives.

Thank god the judiciary still stood, even if he was meant to be the bloody figurehead of it. He was using them as much as he could, throwing their duties in the courts over to LaFarga and the Guards, who could 'keep the peace' without upsetting anyone, but not draw up legislation.

(He'd wanted to murder Lantis a few weeks ago, for abandoning his post under Emeraude and therefore having no official job until there was someone to grant him one. Until the man had come to his study and said ?swear you'll let me go as soon as this is done and you can appoint me your 'personal assistant'?which was working so far. Ferio's position as Prince had only ever been an ceremonial thing, based on his sister's position, and designed to tide the world over until the new Pillar was drawn forth, but he'd been novice with the Guards before she came to power, so they'd promoted him and he was helping out there, at least.)

...and he was doing it again, lying there staring at the wall and dwelling on all the things he couldn't change.

And not sleeping.

Hell.

Clef glared at the tiny potion vial as if it could be held accountable for his failing, but it didn't even flinch. He snatched it off the table, glared at the lightening curtains when he didn't need to switch the light on to find the vial in the first place, and drained it in one gulp.

Tomorrow. He would worry about everything tomorrow.

...And pretend it didn't count as tomorrow until he'd slept, despite the sun rising.

(and the potion tasted faintly of salt and the dreams it smothered him in were deep and clinging things, filled with long straight hair that tangled into gnarled curls around his hands and fell lifeless and still over him when he couldn't stop this thing draining her dry.)