A/N: Based off of this: invisibleheros. deviantart. com/art/Charles-Erik-Sleeping-Habits-215835556

It's been a hard day. Training is never easy; I know that. But I've been working a bit harder than usual for the past few days, and it's beginning to take its toll on me. I'm exhausted, in short, and all I want to do is sleep.

Charles rolls over to me in bed (I seem to be a frequent guest of his, more as a body heater than a sexual partner, but I am just fine with that) and places a kiss on my collarbone, then up my neck to my jaw. He kisses me deep and slow on the mouth, then sends a rather vulgar thought (for him, anyway) my way.

I shake my head. "Not tonight, Charles," I grunt, rolling over onto my side. "I'm weary. Let me sleep."

I feel him curl up behind me, his hands working over the tired muscles of my upper back and shoulders. "All right, Erik. I'm sorry. I'll let you sleep, then. But here, lie on your stomach; I'll rub you out to make you relax enough to get to sleep."

I obey, and in no time, I'm hearing the faintest whisper of, "Goodnight, love," in my ear before I'm drifting off to sleep, the last things my eyes seeing being the numerals on Charles' bedside clock. It's just after ten thirty.

…However, it's about an hour and a half later (about midnight) when I'm disturbed, woke straight out of a dreamless sleep to a slap in the face and Charles' light snoring. I'm jerk awake, at first thinking of attack, but soon slump back down and remove Charles' hand from my face. He's sleeping deeply, utterly unaware, and with a growl, I roll onto my side facing away from him and try to get back to sleep.

At approximately a quarter before two in the morning (I hadn't been able to get back to sleep since midnight), I feel the covers slip off of me. I glance over my shoulder to find Charles, warm and snuggly, curled up in a ball. I don't have the heart to tear them away from him – he looks so peaceful and serene, and this is his bed after all – so I simply bring myself into fetal position, using my own body heat to keep me warm.

I drift off to a vague sleep then, but it's just after two twenty when Charles starts kicking, turning and kicking – "Charles, stop it. Charles, you're kicking! Stop it! CHAR–" and I'm shoved onto the floor. I grumble lowly under my breath and peer up at him, and he's almost smiling in his sleep, the sheets a mess around his legs but still neatly tucked under his chin and around his torso.

I sigh roughly and make my way around to the other side of the bed, where he was initially sleeping. I untangle and tug over a few blankets over my body. I exhale again, this time through my nose, and close my heavy, dry-feeling eyelids as I settle down on my back.

It's around three fifty or four o'clock when I feel someone shifting in the bed. I leap into sitting position, and there's Charles, wandering the room, his eyes half-open and his lips parted, but I can tell that he isn't awake. He's mumbling, but not quite speaking, and he keeps pacing the room in a stiff, zombie-like manner.

Sleepwalking.

…Again.

With a gruff sound of protest, I toss back the warm sheets and make my way over to him. They say you're not supposed to wake a sleepwalker, but fuck that. I grab him by the collar of his pajama shirt and shake him. "Charles! Dammit, Charles, wake up!"

"Must balance my checkbook…" he murmurs, his head lolling to one side.

I can feel one of my eyes twitching. I release one side of his collar and pinch the bridge of my nose. "Let's just… get you back into bed."

"Mm'kay. Do my checkbook next Thursday. Love you, Erik," he says with a yawn and an odd slur to his words. He collapses then, and I stumble backward as I catch his weight against my chest.

I grumble something incoherent and unpleasant as I drag him back to his bed, setting him down onto his mattress and tucking him back in. He snores lightly, but he has that peaceful, beautiful look on his face again, so I suck it up and sigh again, slipping back into bed beside him.

At around five, Charles has a nightmare. He yells hoarsely and whimpers, and thrashes on the bed. I fall off the side of the bed and scramble up again, feeling like I hadn't slept a wink. I rush to his side and soothe him, rubbing his chest and stroking his hair as he slowly settles down and becomes quiet. He turns into me and grips my skin tightly, nuzzling his face into my pectorals, reminding me why I bother sleeping with his erratic patters in the first place.

I smile and press a kiss to his hair, but now I know I won't get back to sleep. I can still feel the edges of his nightmare as if it were my own, and I can see fragments. He must have mistakenly projected them to me, and they're a bit traumatic, even if I can't quite make out what they are about, exactly.

Charles winds up needing me for an hour of the remaining two or so hours we have before we have to get up again at seven thirty. We separate slowly, but I can't fall back asleep; at this point, I have true insomnia, and must have only gotten a decent two hours of sleep in total, give or take a few minutes.

The alarm of Charles' bedside clock chimes, beeping and cutting itself off when Charles moves to smack it. (Really, he can hear that during sleep but not me calling out to him? Figures.)

"Good morning, Erik!" he says brightly, stretching with a groan and yawning loudly. He slips out of bed and tears open the curtains, blinding me for a moment. Turning back to me, he asks, "Did you sleep well?"

I pick up my watch from the dresser near him using my gift, and I hurl it at his chest. He rubs the sore spot while I turn over and bury my head in the pillows.

"Ouch! Now, what was that for?" he says disapprovingly, and I can just picture the frown on his face.

"You kept me up all night," I retort, my words muffled but not unheard through the pillow. "Again."

"Oh! I'm terribly sorry, love," Charles apologizes instantly, coming to my side of the bed and rubbing my bare back. "But I'll make it up to you: you can have a nice, long nap up here this afternoon. How does that sound?"

And I actually grin with relief despite myself, lifting my head to peer over at him. "Sounds great, Charles. Thank you."