Hi everyone! It's been a while since I've written, so I'm excited to get this one out there. This is kind of a companion piece to "Hugs, Drugs, and Friendly Spooning," but you do not need to read it to understand this one. In my mind, they just kind of happen in the same universe. This, like "Hugs," will probably be in two or three parts. Enjoy!
Having You Near – Part I
There was not a member of the Glee cast who was unaware of Chris's "odd" relationship with sleep. After all, they had had plenty of slumber parties, taken countless trips together, and taken a three-month tour together where they had practically lived in each other's hotel rooms. It was a hard thing to miss in such close proximity to the person who had it.
Normally, though, it wasn't anything to be worried about. It had, in fact, become something of a running joke among the group. They would amusedly listen to him talk in his sleep, ask his subconscious funny questions and await his equally nonsensical responses, see him get up and walk across the room only to realize he was sleepwalking…
And Chris didn't mind. They would, naturally, openly tease him about it the next day, but it was all in good humor.
Something that very few of the cast members had experienced, however, was a time when Chris's relationship sleep became a not-quite-so-light-hearted problem. Little did most of them know, there were times when sleep – for Chris – was downright terrifying.
It was around 2:15 am, and the kids had been put up in a hotel for the week while they did some out-and-about promotion in San Francisco. Darren – being a San Francisco native – had had the option of staying at his brother's house for the week, but opted for the hotel on the rationale that being "stuck" with his favorite gang of misfits was pretty much 90% of the fun of these promotional trips.
At that point in the very-early morning, several of the cast members had fallen asleep in their respective rooms; Jenna, Kevin, Heather, and Chris among them.
Darren, however, had been stretched out on one of the beds in one of their many rented rooms (they really didn't keep track of who was sleeping where, as it was constantly changing), talking with Harry and Dianna about nothing in particular when he realized he had left his notebook in the room across the hall.
Reasoning that as long as he was awake he might as well mess around with some of his leisurely songwriting, he excused himself from the conversation, hoisted himself off of the mattress, and walked barefoot out into the quiet hotel hallway, crossing to the adjacent door which, as per usual, had been propped open with the door stopper.
He sidled into the room, which would have been pitch dark had the just-slightly open curtains not been letting in a thin stream of light from the city outside the window. Taking a few more steps, Darren could just make out Chris's sleeping silhouette, nestled in the bed furthest from the window.
Taking extra care to remain quiet and not wake him, Darren tip-toed his way in between the two beds, feeling his way around the empty bed, the floor between the two, the nightstand… anywhere he might have left his notebook a few hours earlier. Sooner or later, he realized that his search would amount to naught in a room this dark.
A few seconds ticked by as he debated whether or not he should turn on the light and risk waking his sleeping costar or simply admit defeat and return to his bedroom, but in the end, he settled on the former. In his experience, after all, Chris was one of the soundest sleepers he had ever met. Very little had ever waken him up, and if there was one distinguishing feature about the Glee cast… it's how very, very loud we can be, thought Darren with a smile.
He reached to the nightstand and switched on the lamp, bathing the room in a bright, golden glow.
Instantly, Darren caught sight of his notebook, which had been set (probably by one of his cast mates) on the desk near the window. He retrieved it, and then made his way back to the nightstand to switch off the lamp, when something stopped him.
It was the just the softest of sounds, nearly imperceptible. Darren wasn't even sure what it was, but it sounded almost like a… whimper?
At this thought, Darren glanced in the direction of the only thing in the room from which the sound could have come.
At first, Darren didn't notice anything at all. Chris was, by all accounts, still tucked in bed, laying on his side, sound asleep. It only took another moment of looking him over to realize, though, that something was most definitely wrong.
His affect was flat; his face was not contorted in any way. He would have looked completely emotionless… had it not been for the tears streaming out of his barely-open eyes.
The next thing Darren noticed were his hands, which were resting on the mattress next to his pillow. They were still. No they aren't… what is… His fingers, Darren noticed, were twitching. The movement could not have been slighter or subtler, but, there it was. A pang of fear shot through Darren when it occurred to him that it looked as though Chris was paralyzed, trying desperately to regain motor control.
In an instant, the notebook was on the floor, and Darren was kneeling on the ground in front of Chris. He reached out, took hold of shoulders, and shook him – almost violently – and began to speak firmly and clearly, "Chris… Chris… can you hear me? Chris, you have to wake up… God, Chris, just wake up… come on, buddy, wake up…"
Darren was about two shoulder-shakes away from running to get help when Chris's eyes began to open. Looking into them, though, Darren instantly got the feeling that they were senseless, that he was still not fully conscious. He shook harder, spoke louder, "Chris, come on bud, wake up…"
Stirring, murmuring… Good, good, come on…
"Mmhelp… me…" Chris was panting. Panting. Practically hyperventilating, Darren realized with a start as he started to come to. Finally, Darren saw in Chris's watery eyes what was clearly and distinctly consciousness.
"God, Chris, you scared me to death…" Darren stammered, now sitting on the bed next to Chris and gripping his shoulders, "Are you all right?"
Chris, tears still streaming down his face, was shaking. He looked absolutely terrified. He was glancing around the room, confused, looking for something, or someone, to be afraid of…
Finally, in the smallest, most frightened whisper Darren had ever heard, Chris breathed… "Darren?"
"It's just me, Chris, I'm right here-"
"Darren!"
Before Darren could even process what was happening, Chris had shot up and thrown his arms around Darren's waist, crying, breathing harder than ever, and burrowing into him like his life depended on it.
There was no time for questions, not even in Darren's mind. He enveloped Chris in his arms, squeezing almost as tight as Chris was squeezing him, and began to ever-so-slightly rock him back and forth. Over Chris's sobs, Darren whispered soft, consoling phrases, just trying to calm him…
"Shhh… shhh… it's okay, it's okay… I'm right here, I'm not going to leave… whatever it was, Chris, whatever you saw, it's okay, it wasn't real…"
"God, Darren, it was…"
"It wasn't, Chris, it wasn't real…"
"It was so real…"
"I know… I know it seemed like it, but it wasn't, Chris, I promise… whatever it was, it's not real, and you're safe, I'm not going to leave you…"
"Don't… don't leave, please don't leave…"
"I won't," Darren said again, this time, firmer, stronger. He didn't know what Chris had been seeing, what he had been dreaming about, what had been happening in that nightmare… but he knew then, that he had to be the strong one. "You're okay… just breathe… just breathe…"
They stayed like that for a long time, Darren just holding him, rocking him back and forth, waiting for his breath to even out. Eventually, it did, and his sobbing turned into quiet crying, which turned into sniffling. Soon, Darren could feel Chris slowly pulling out of his embrace.
Once their arms were disentangled, Chris straightened up a bit and folded his legs pretzel-style beneath the blankets, wiping tears from his eyes with the back of his hand.
Darren pulled his legs onto the bed and sat similarly, facing Chris, and placing a hand on his knee as he asked, softly, "Chris… are you okay?"
Chris paused for a moment. Even with occasional tear still rolling down his cheek and with eyes red and puffy, Darren could see that he was honestly thinking about it. It wasn't long before his eyes found their way back to Darren's, and he shook his head "no."
It was as if whatever frightening, terrifying image Chris had seen his nightmare was suddenly crawling back into his mind; his face was once again contorting into an expression of sheer hopelessness and the tears were beginning to fall fast once again.
"Hey… hey, hey, hey…" Darren cupped Chris's cheeks in his hands, bringing him back to eye level. "It's going to be okay, Chris. All right? You're fine, it's over…"
"I-I-It just…" he closed his mouth and swallowed hard, "It just r-r-really seemed like it, Darren. It really, really seemed… real…"
"I know, Chris. I know. But it wasn't. You have to keep telling yourself that, okay?"
Chris nodded hastily, clearly trying to get a grip on himself. When his breathing had finally leveled out once again, Darren propped up his pillows and got Chris to sit back against the headboard while he went into the bathroom and filled a plastic cup with cold water. He also made sure that the hotel room door was closed before he made his way back to Chris's bedside – he thought it best that they didn't have any interruptions, at least for a little while.
Chris took a couple sips of water, then placed the cup on the nightstand. He gave Darren an apologetic look before saying, softly, but finally back in his normal, steady voice, "Thank you, Darren. I'm sorry about all this."
"Don't apologize," Darren said, climbing onto the bed and sitting pretzel-style at Chris's side. He rubbed Chris's upper arm fondly before continuing, somberly, "I'm just glad I happen to walk in here and see you… you were… like, trying to move, or something, but you couldn't…?"
Visibly, Chris shuddered. He wrapped his arms around himself – protectively, almost – and whispered darkly, "Yeah… that'll happen occasionally."
"… What, exactly? Oh, you don't have to talk about if you, you know…"
Chris, eyes still slightly teary, managed a small smile. "No, no it's okay. Um…" he sighed, and let his hands fall to rest in his lap. "Sometimes, this thing happens to me where I'll be having like, a dream, or a nightmare, and I start to wake from it, but… but not fully."
Darren gave him a questioning look, and he continued.
"Like, I'll start to wake up. Start to see my surroundings – generally a dark bedroom – and start to be able to feel my body position… but then, I only get that far. I can see everything around me, I can feel where my arms and legs and head and body are lying on the mattress – which parts of me are exposed and which parts are covered by the blankets – but, I can't move."
Darren cocked his head to the side, his brow furrowing as he listened.
"The bad part, though… the worst part… is that…" he swallowed again, and took a shuddery, uneasy breath, then said, softly, "I hallucinate. I see things that aren't there. Shadows in the dark start moving… I can feel things… touching me… but I can't move so I can't push them away…"
He took a few more breaths, then finally looked directly into Darren's eyes and said, "It sucks," with a humorless laugh.
"Chris… that's… that's awful. Have you ever taken any kind of sleeping pill? Any kind of medication?"
"A few years ago my doctor gave me something to make the sleeping deeper, mainly to keep me from sleepwalking, things like that, but I stopped taking those after a while because I figured the problems would go away in time. This thing, though… the half-awake, immobile thing… didn't happen that much until recently."
Darren shifted a little closer, placing an elbow on his knee supporting his head in the palm of his hand. "Maybe you should talk to a doctor again, see if this is something you can get checked out."
"Yeah… yeah, it'd probably be for the best."
A comfortable silence followed, and both young men were lost in thought for a while. Finally, Darren asked something that he'd wanted to ask since Chris had woken, but didn't want to pry. He figured, though, that he and Chris were always honest with each other, so Chris wouldn't feel pressured to talk about it if he didn't want to.
"Chris?"
Chris turned to look at him again. "Mmhm?"
"You mentioned that this thing… the weird, you know, paralyzed thing…" Chris nodded, "happens after you have a dream or a nightmare. Were you… having a nightmare this time? Before I woke you up?"
Chris stayed silent for a moment, then looked at Darren, his eyes somber, and a maybe even a little frightened, and nodded.
"Do you… want to tell me about it? Do you think, maybe… that would make you feel better?"
Chris took a few moments to himself, looking contemplative. His eyes finally starting dry and his sniffling dying down, he offered Darren a small smile and whispered, "Yeah. Yeah… okay."
Darren smiled back and sat a little straighter. Gently, he laid a hand on top of Chris's where it had been resting on the mattress, and gave it a comforting squeeze.
To be continued =) Thanks for reading! As always, I love hearing what ya'll think, so leave a comment if you feel so inclined. Part II shall be up soon!