[George] Skipped Time: (Night 7) Insomniacs Anonymous (tag Carlos)

[sinanju.livejournal.com]

George eased her arm up and draped it around Carlos' neck. "Don't apologize," she said, and "C'mere," as she manhandled him gently until he lay with his head on her shoulder. George put her arms around him.

Carlos' heart was pounding and he was breathing heavily. He lay tense against her at first, but George continued to hold him and pet him and rubbed her cheek against his forehead and occasionally kissed him there while his heartbeat and breathing settled down and the tension seeped out of his muscles.

George was wide awake now. She wasn't sure how long she'd slept, but it felt like hours. More solid, uninterrupted sleep than she'd had in a long time. It had been very nice, but she knew she wouldn't sleep again tonight--or maybe this morning, depending on what time it was. She wondered if Carlos would sleep again, or if the nightmares were followed by insomnia.

"Nightmares, huh?" George said quietly. Distracting Carlos from whatever monsters were lurking in his thoughts seemed like a good idea. "I don't get nightmares much--I just don't sleep. Insomnia." She smiled in the dark. "You probably don't believe that, the way I conked out tonight, but it's true."

"Would you like to hear a story?"

"Sure," Carlos said. He spoke softly, with none of his usual cheer. George wasn't sure whether he really needed a distraction or was just indulging her. But she thought he needed a distraction.

George told him a story. Her story. Unlike the tearful rant she'd dumped on him two days ago over a half-butchered sea turtle, she spoke calmly and quietly. George talked to a long time, staring up at the darkness and holding Carlos close. She told him about her family, about her fatal encounter with that damn toilet seat, about meeting Rube and Betty, and Mason. She described the first soul she ever claimed, and the experience of being a reaper for two years.

"I've seen train crashes and car crashes and plane crashes. I've watched people mauled by bears or hit by buses or crushed by falling pianos or poisoned or drowned or electrocuted or decapitated by plate glass windows or...well, killed in more ways than you can imagine." (But no zombies,) she thought but didn't say. That wouldn't help.

In fact, tales of gruesome--or darkly funny--deaths probably weren't helping either. George shifted topics. She told Carlos about her first and--until today, only--other sexual experience, of never hearing from him again, and of vandalizing a window display in a fit of anger and being arrested for disturbing the peace.

"So...that's my story," George said at last.

She shifted position so she could look into his eyes. "Now you have a choice," she said. "You can tell me your story, if you like. And then you can fuck me again. Or we can talk afterward."