Inspired by my own insomnia. Sorry guys, I don't know when I'm coming back. I've hit a roadblock in the story, but that was only the initial reason for my absence. I'm having issues figuring out who I am and who I want to be. Pray for me?
Alphonse shifted in the dark, staring up at his ceiling as he prepared to spend another night longing for sleep. He'd spent four years without his body and unable to sleep, but he didn't seem to be able to sleep much better with his body than without it.
He would never admit it, but it had been easier to cope with constant wakefulness when he could console himself with the fact that it's okay, I don't have a body and I don't get tired. Now though, he had a body, and it needed sleep- wanted it, too. But no matter how hard he tried and no matter how long he lay there trying to shut his mind down, he couldn't. Despite the fact that there were tears of exhaustion in his eyes and bags beneath them, he couldn't fall asleep.
Something about those years of wakefulness must have stuck with him, Alphonse thought, because why else would he find himself unable to fall asleep before dawn each night?
Granted, the nightmares didn't help- visions of homunculi and chimera haunted his sleep, making him even less prone to sleep. It was never until his thoughts returned to his mother that he managed to slip away; he remembered the soothing touch of her hand on his forehead, relived the way she stroked his hair when he used to lay awake at night. And then at last Alphonse would drift away to the sound of his mother's humming.