More Luke angst, wheeeee!
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It is three in the morning, and Luke still cannot fall asleep. The room is quiet, punctuated only by the soft breathing of those deeply entrenched in slumber and the occasional shifting of covers or unintelligible murmur. His own breathing sounds harsh and unnatural in his ears as he stares out into the dark, knees drawn up to his chest where he lies on his side. He envies the others their rest, if for the fact that ever since Akzeriuth, his own nights have been sorely lacking in it. His eyes idly trace out Guy's sleeping form as he runs again through the mistakes he's made that day; a poorly worded response to one of the Colonel's jabs, an inadequate parry in battle that might have led to his death had Guy not been in the right place at the right time. Later when they stopped for dinner, Anise had not-too-quietly remarked that Guy shouldn't have even bothered, knowing full well that she was within Luke's hearing. And when it came down to it, Luke found himself wondering if she might not have been right.
More than anything else, it is his repulsion for himself and for his actions that keep him awake so long; the omnipresent thinking of 'it's not my fault' replaced by the very opposite: it's all my fault. Dark circles under his eyes and a haunted expression greet him every time he looks in a mirror, and it's all he can do to keep from throwing up. It's hard to fall asleep, and when he does, his dreams hardly see fit to spare him the agony of his waking hours. Too often does he wake after dying in some grisly manner; death finding him in his dreams on the point of Asch's sword or drowning an acidic death in the miasma along with the victims of Akzeriuth. And so he stays awake (although he thinks that he deserves the dreams) and thinks about his failings. He never should have been born. His very existence has caused the suffering of so many, and for a long time now he's wished that he never existed.
The seconds tick by slowly, inexorably; and on and on it goes within his mind: a litany of self-hate that tears himself to shreds far more effectively than anything anyone else might have done.