Hello! I got some reviews, so I'll continue with the story. And because no one really reads what anyone writes up here, including myself, I'll say that it gets a little angsty. Just a little. Tiny bit, seriously. I feel better now. You have to read my other stories! Please?

A/N: In this story, all last names go first when introducing yourself.

Disclaimer: I don't own any and all Gravitational characters besides Doctor-san. She is all mine.

A Sleeping Problem

Chapter 1: Symptoms and Diagnosis

"K-san? Can we take a break?"

"You have thirty seconds."

"K!"

"Fine," said the happy-go-lucky manager. "…forty-five."

Shuichi heaved a great sigh, lowered himself to the ground, curled up and fell asleep. K ominously kept time with his watch. 'Three, two, one,' said the watch. The owner of the said watch bent over his vocalist's sleeping form and yelled at the top of his lungs, "WAKE UP CALL!"

Shuichi shrieked at the evil voice and jumped up, but he immediately fell back down onto his butt. He shook his head to clear it, and he tried again, but it didn't work. His eyes became wide. K shouted to the rest of the band to get moving, and when K noticed Shuichi hadn't gotten up, he pulled his gun.

"Your forty-five seconds is up. Let's go, go, go!" Hiro and Suguru began to fiddle with their instruments, subconsciously more active in response to K's shouts. Shuichi still sat on the floor and it seemed he had completely ignored the manager. His eyes were big as he sat there but they became bigger when his gun-wielding manager threateningly pointed his weapon at Shuichi's head.

"And why, exactly, are you still sitting there?" K asked in a sickeningly sweet voice.

Shuichi looked up at him and swallowed roughly and said, "Because I… I can't move m-my legs…" He was crying now, obviously scared. "I can f-feel them, I'm not paralyzed, but they won't move!" The rest of Bad Luck came to Shuichi worriedly, and Hiro knelt by the scared boy. "I can't move them! AHHHH! I don't want to die! HEELLPP!" A gunshot sounded close to his ear, and he shut up.

"Calm down Shu! It'll be okay. Just stay quiet," soothed Hiro, who was hiding the fact that he himself was freaking out. 'What does he mean he can't move? What's wrong?' He hadn't been that concerned when the vocalist initially fell, but then Shuichi had begun shouting, and then everyone became alert.

Soon enough, he calmed down, but it wasn't in response to Hiro's soothing voice. Trying to move, he succeeded this time and he stood up. He did this slowly and carefully, bracing himself with his arms. For a moment, everyone stared at him, and then they either sighed or rolled their eyes at Shuichi's antics and went back to work.

'He was faking it!' Everyone thought, 'It was all a hoax for a longer break!'

K swung his gun at Shuichi once more and threatened to shoot him if he didn't get singing in the next ten seconds. Shuichi took an experimental step forward, and then hearing the countdown from K, ran to his microphone singing scales. The rest of the day ran smoothly enough, besides the fact that Shuichi was half dead from exhaustion.

break in time & place

"Taidaima Yuki!" Shuichi called as he walked into the apartment Yuki and him shared. Kicking his shoes off tiredly and walking to Yuki's study even seemed as big a deal as saving the world. Or something like that.

'Gosh! Why am I so tired? I feel like lying down and sleeping for a century. YAWN!'

"Yuki?" The door to the study opened and a pink head poked into the room. Reliably, Yuki was sitting in front of his laptop tapping away at his latest novel. "Hiya, Yuki!" Yawn. "How was your day?"

"Go away"

"My day was fine, except for a bizarre thing happening to…yawn…my legs. But I'm okay now." Swinging his chair around, Yuki took a good look at his "unwanted" room-mate. For the first time in a while, he really looked at his devoted lover. He noticed his eyes were puffy, and that the skin underneath wasn't the right coloring, but he made himself a mental note to ask about this later. He simply told him, "Go to sleep," and turned back around.

Shuichi stared at his boyfriend and answered in a slurred voice, "Okay, maybe…yawn…I'll do that…"

After typing out another couple of words, Yuki noticed that he had never heard Shuichi exit, nor did he hear him talking. Just deciding to yell at the boy to leave him alone, he heard a sound like a sand bag hitting the floor.

Yuki whirled in his chair in alarm. On a bad note, Shuichi had collapsed. On a good note, he was breathing. Unfortunately for Yuki, he wasn't quite as perceptive as one would hope. Letting you in on a secret, Yuki panicked. He launched himself out of his chair and knelt beside the immobile singer.

"Brat…Shuichi! What's wrong?" 'What the heck is going on? Why did he collapse? People don't just collapse!' Yuki tried shaking him, but Shuichi only slumped in response. Seeing this, common sense was blocked from getting through to the novelist, and because he truly did love Shuichi, the blockage only became worse.

Picking Shuichi up by placing one arm behind his back and the other behind his knees, he cradled him and he ran out of the house. He barely paused to put his shoes on and didn't pause at all to lock the house. Running awkwardly down the deserted hallway toward the nearest elevator, Yuki's confused mind noticed a couple things. He definitely noticed Shuichi had lost some weight. Not much, but it was still quite noticeable.

Reaching the elevator, he punched the button the best he could. And another thing he noticed was the coloring of the skin under his eyes that had seemed strange earlier. It didn't really match with the rest of his skin. Deciding to investigate, the elevator finally reached them and it opened lazily, not having a care in the world. Rushing in and setting Shuichi down on the floor, he pressed the button for basement parking and knelt beside the pink-haired man once more. Running his fingers over Shuichi's cheek, he felt a fine powder come off on his fingertips from under the young man's eye.

"What the heck is this, Shuichi?" Of course, the pink-haired man didn't answer.

Doing so again, under the other eye this time, revealed more powder. Yuki took his shirt sleeve and rubbed gently at the curious patches. Five seconds later and the deepest, most offending shadows Yuki had ever seen were visible to the world. If anything, it looked like Shuichi had been beaten up, except there was no swelling. There had never been any swelling.

A bell signaled the had arrived at the basement, Yuki once again picked up the motionless Shuichi and gracelessly traveled to his Mercedes, gently placed Shuichi in the passenger seat despite his haste, ran to the driver's side, buckled them both, and sped away like the end of the world was knocking at his door.

For Yuki, maybe it was.

break in time & place

"Uesugi Eiri?"

Yuki jumped, pulled from his reverie, and stood to face the very practical-looking doctor. She was female and rather attractive, but Yuki didn't quite register this fact. Her nametag read "Kasan Isha"

"Yes, I am he."

"Please follow me, Uesugi-san." As they walked down the hall to their destination, Dr. Kasan filled him in on Shuichi's case. "Shindou-san has told me what has been happening to him. He says he has been extremely tired of late and has been growing worse because of a lack of sleep. He has been fighting urges to sleep at odd hours of the day for a couple months now. This afternoon, as he said, he fell because he said the muscles in his legs wouldn't respond. Then later, you run in carrying Shindou-san because he had fainted suddenly and without any external reason.

"My day was fine, except for a bizarre thing happening to…yawn…my legs. But I'm okay now."

Yuki felt a sharp pain in his stomach as he recalled what his boyfriend had been trying to tell him before he had collapsed. When he hadn't been listening. He almost ran into Dr. Kasan, who had stopped outside what must have been Shuichi's room. She turned to Yuki, "I will enlighten you of his diagnosis in here so you both may listen," and opened the door.

Walking into the room and seeing Shuichi in bed, yawning (which seems to be his favorite pastime lately) and awake lifted a weight from Yuki's chest he hadn't known had been there. The make hadn't been reapplied to Shuichi's face, and he looked terrible.

Catching sight of Yuki, Shuichi visibly brightened and smiled gleefully at the two of them. "Hey Yuki!" he said.

"Hey brat," Yuki replied. It would have seemed harsh except for the warmth that was evident in his voice, which was strange. He went to the chair beside Shuichi's bed and he lounged, making himself right at home in this strange place. "So, doc, what wrong with 'Lazy' over here?"

"YUUKIII!" Yuki gave Shuichi an innocent look. The smirk kind of ruined it though.

"Well," The doctor cleared her throat, and tried again. "Considering the symptoms: muscle failure, sudden and uncontrollable urges to sleep, and we have conducted some tests as well, we have found that Shindou Shuichi-san has developed…"

The two men waited anxiously for her.

"…narcolepsy."

"WHAT!"

"What?"

The poor doctor jumped and once again cleared her throat. "Well, this certainly is a surprise, I'm sure, but there are ways to cope with such a case as yours."

"Are you sure about this? You haven't made some mistake somewhere? Surely…?" The doctor shook her head at Yuki's objections.

"I'm sorry, Uesugi-san, but we are quite sure. Narcolepsy is known to develop between the ages of fifteen to late twenties. The straining and extremely stressful hours Shindou-san has kept has no doubt influenced the occurrence. He has told me that he usually only gets three hours of sleep a night. The body needs approximately 2688 hours of sleep in four months, which is how long he says this has been going on. Excluding inconsistency, Shindou-san has received only 128 hours of sleep in four months." At this Yuki had to forcibly keep his jaw from dropping. The doctor nodded in agreement, and Yuki stared at the vocalist, who blushed sheepishly. "I'd say his body has forgotten when to sleep except for the fact that it needs to."

"Um…yeah, this is great and all, but…what is narcolepsy?"

Plenty of sweat-drops and face-faults to go around.

break in time

After Dr. Isha and Yuki had recovered from Shuichi's ignorance, she began to explain.

"Well, narcolepsy is a disorder that impairs the ability of the central nervous system to regulate sleep." The doctor could swear she saw a light bulb flash on top of her patient's head.

"For people with narcolepsy, the messages that go to and from the brain about when to be asleep or awake are misguided. This causes the individual's ability to stay awake, even when they want to stay awake, impaired."

"So, doctor, you're saying that Shuichi could fall asleep at anytime at all and not have any control over it?"

"Yes, that's right. He could be eating, shopping, cooking, carrying on a conversation, and," she shuddered, "driving…and he could fall asleep."

When she finished, there was silence. Yuki was rubbing his eyes as if the difficulties to come had already taken their toll, and at some point in time during the doctor's explanation, Shuichi had fallen asleep.

break in time

Shuichi was to stay in the hospital for a one more day, then he would be allowed to go home, and morning, noon, and night during his stay, he slept. Yuki went home to write a little bit, taking advantage of the free time he knew he wouldn't have later in the weeks to come. When he arrived however, the full implication hit him full force. He would now have to take care of Shuichi even more (in his mind he already does this). He fell onto the couch and fell asleep.

break in time & place

Next day- 9:00 AM

Hiro, Suguru, and K went into the room and quietly closed the door. Shuichi was still asleep and they all settled quietly around the room; K leaned against a wall and Hiro and Suguru chose to sit in chairs on either side of the bed Shuichi was occupying.

"Do you think he will wake up soon?"

"I don't know. When Yuki-san so…thoughtfully called, he didn't say what was wrong with Shuichi, so we don't even know that much."

"Look at the bags under his eyes! Had you ever noticed?"

"No, I hadn't. He must have covered it up."

"Maybe if we shoot him…will that cure him?"

"NO!"

"NO!"

"SHHH!"

Shuichi woke up (no surprise) blinking the sleep from his eyes. 'Oy! What a day!...Why is everyone here? Where's Yuki?'

"Hey guys!" He said cheerfully as he sat up in his bed. He looked at the three men's long faces, even K. "What's up?"

Hiro spoke first. "Shuichi, why are you here?"

"Oh, that? I have this thing called narcolepsy."

"WHAT!"

"WHAT!"

"oO"

"Yep! It's causing me to fall asleep at any point in time." He nodded to himself, as if confirming his intelligence. "You didn't tell them, Yuki?" He asked as the man walked into the room.

"No, I decided you would chatter their ears off about it so I didn't waste my breath," He said smoothly, and this earned him a tongue being poked out at him.

"Is there a cure?" K asked. Yuki shook his head.

"Quote: 'It's a neurological disorder.' So it's all in his head and there's nothing we can do except hang on for our lives."

There was silence in the room for a moment, and then Yuki spoke again. "May I have a moment alone with Lazy over there?" For one thing, YUKI HAD ASKED FOR PERMISSION! And another, Yuki wasn't acting like his normal self. He hadn't been giving off the same "I'm a bastard, if you don't like it, I don't care" airwaves as before. He seemed temperate; not cold, but not overly warm either. He seemed pleasant, which was so unlike him that it set Shuichi on edge.

So, because Hiro, Suguru, and K had picked up on this and because he had asked nicely (still quite a shock), they left the two men in private.

Yuki had thought about what he would say to his lover when he got to the hospital, and had decided to take a completely different approach from what he would normally do. In other words, be gentle.

The transformed author closed the door behind the men exiting the room and pulled up a seriously uncomfortable chair next to Shuichi's bed. He sat down and rested his elbows on the edge of the bed. He looked into the violet orbs, who looked back at his own amber ones.

"Shuichi…"

"What is it, Yuki? What's wrong?"

"…You know this will change your life, right?"

"Of course I know that!" But Yuki was shaking his head.

"I don't think you do." Shuichi became confused and a frown appeared on his face. Yuki rushed ahead. "You can't do a lot of the things you used to because of this. Sure, there is a humorous side to it, like falling asleep into some food, but you walk to work, Shuichi. There are streets to cross, stairs you could fall down. You could be seriously hurt. You can't be the way you were before."

Shuichi listened to this and he asked, "There will be trouble, and… demanding times, right?" At this, Yuki nodded his head, wondering what the man was getting at. It seemed he wouldn't know however, because Shuichi pulled away just then. He looked up at the spotted ceiling tile and it looked as if the weight of all of this came down on him at once. After some time had passed, Yuki called Shuichi back from his thoughts. The pink-haired man's frown deepened as he looked at Yuki and it seemed to the author that he was scared of something. Yuki thought that it was what this narcolepsy thing threatening his life, but he was wrong.

"You will leave me, won't you. I mean, I have always been a burden to you, I know that, but now that this has caught me, you won't want me around. I will be an even bigger hassle than before. You won't want me, I know it." He whispered the last part, and Yuki noticed outside his shock that Shuichi's hands had balled into fists and his eyes had squeezed shut. Despite the outward signs of anguish, Shuichi's voice was only a matter-of-factly, completely void of emothion. "Now that I have this disease, you'll think I'm not worth the trouble and throw me out. You'll find a bimbo somewhere and forget all about me."

Yuki stared for a minute, then finally climbed out of the chasm that Shuichi's words had cast him into. He reached over urgently to his lover's hands and clutched them in his own. He had never known Shuichi to be this insecure about their relationship, no matter how rocky things were.

"Shuichi, listen to me, that won't happen. If I felt that way I would have thrown you out a long time ago, trust me. I didn't live the way I did by pledging I would leave women, I did leave them. You think you're any different? And besides, I've been 'taking care' of you for over a year now. This will be a cinch, okay?"

'Where the heck did that come from!'

"R-really?" Shuichi opened his eyes.

"Really," Yuki replied and Shuichi lunged himself at him, giving him the best glomp he could from the hospital bed.

"Nothing will ever be the same, will it?" He said into the author's shirt.

"No, but we'll live." Yuki gently picked up the form stretched between the bed and himself, and he laid him back on the bed. Holding onto the arms that were retracting from him, Shuichi mumbled, "Mmm…stay here, Yuki…please…"

"Okay." Letting himself be drawn into the bed with Shuichi, Yuki pulled the covers back and climbed in beside him. After shifting a couple times to accommodate for the small bed, they settled into it comfortably. 'Maybe the whole 'cuddling thing'…isn't so bad.' Yuki heard Shuichi's breathe become even after a few minutes, indicating he was falling asleep. Before he did, though, Shuichi mumbled under his breath, "Aishiteru, Yuki," and he was asleep before he heard Yuki's reply.

"Aishiteru, Shu."

- - - break in place

K stood against the door while the others went home; apparently mad about having to leave. K had insisted that they do, and when K insists, you'd better listen. He took his position at the door for the main reason of discouraging any one from thinking they wanted to enter. The guns helped of course.

Because he was leaning against the door, he consequently heard everything that had been said. He smiled and patted his gun fondly.

"This may be exactly what the doctor ordered."

TBC

Fluff is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Reviews would be much appreciated.