Stay ➣Romanogers

Chapter 1: Wise Up

The alarm goes off.

Steve's not asleep. He hasn't been for hours. Still, his arm is clumsy, his fingers numb and uncoordinated, as he reaches and fumbles to turn off the buzzing. It takes a couple tries, and not just because his body doesn't follow his brain's directions as well as it used to. He gets frustrated and eventually bangs the damn thing into submission.

Then silence.

Sighing, he rolls from his stomach to his back, looking up at the smooth, white ceiling of his bedroom. The last shadows of dawn are stretching there. He's watched them get smaller and smaller, shrinking minute by minute, hour by hour, from the long, deep swatches of the middle of the night to these faint gray ghosts. He closes his eyes. They burn with exhaustion, and he aches all over with fatigue. Another sleepless night. Another one. They bleed together now, one after another after another, so many in an endless parade of insomnia. He can't remember the last time he's slept eight hours straight. A year. Maybe more. It's long enough ago that he's forgotten what the label of well-rested feels like. He grunts a little chuckle. His brain, making up for the months his body languished. God has a sense of humor apparently. A shitty one but one nonetheless.

He breathes a moment, focusing on that because doing much more seems too strenuous. Idly he thinks his sheets could stand a wash. He can't smell the fabric softener anymore, and he feels... damp. Sweat from another nightmare he's not going to think about. When he woke up at whatever time that was (2:36 am, his brain supplies), he was soaked through with it. The bed still feels unpleasant, his t-shirt sticking to his skin and the sheets sticking to it. Laundry. That seems like a decent plan for today. It's Saturday, so no work. The alarm on the weekends is something his therapist suggested, something to help keep his body on a decent regimen. He has tons of things like that, little tools that are supposed to help him live a normal life. His life, a series of schedules and reminders and devices to help him recover.

Bullshit.

He opens his eyes again at the sound of loping feet as they click and pat on the hardwoods of the hallway and bedroom. There's no chance to roll over; the bed dips and suddenly there's a warm, wet nose in his face followed by a rough tongue laving his cheeks. "Ugh," he groans. Max is right there, practically pinning him down with his bulk. He's a big dog, some sort of lab mix with white fur that's thick and a tad longer than typical for this breed. Steve gives up on pushing him away, instead scooting over a bit so Max has room to lay right next to him. Those huge, brown eyes are watching him from where the dog's laying his head on his shoulder. Max is always up first thing. At least he greets the day happy. But then he's a dog; life is simple to him. Kibble and walks and smells and excitement over new people. Curling up to Steve all the time like the two of them are attached at the hip. Steve dismisses the bitter thoughts outright; being the way he is sucks, but it's not Max's fault. Max has been nothing but good to him, loyal and loving and simple, and that's something he knows he sorely needs, something that, yet again, his therapist recommended. Sam was the one to get him the dog as a present last year. He's been with Steve since he was a puppy.

Steve rubs Max's ears and tries not to delve too much into it all. It's been a weird thing, these last two years. Sometimes his brain seems to go on its own, bombarding him with things, some of which he can't stand to think and remember and others just random and almost nonsensical. Other times he can't make himself think, like it all just goes blank and his mind is disconnected from his body and from the world. No matter how he slices it, though, things are constantly betraying him. It makes for his sleepless nights and his difficult days. Sometimes... Just getting out of bed is such a chore he doesn't want to try.

Having Max panting and licking and nosing him helps, though. It really does. So does the noise from the wall behind his bed. It's a shared wall with the adjacent apartment, his bedroom butting up against what he's always assumed is theirs. The guy who used to live there, Mr. Phillips, relocated to DC a couple weeks back, and whoever's moving in is doing it today. It's not a lot of racket, but these folks got a really early start, and he's been listening to muffled voices and clanks and bumps and thuds maybe an hour now. The vent down to the left is where the noise is coming in the most, a direct conduit in a sense between the two rooms. He supposes he should be annoyed at all disturbance on a Saturday morning, but he can't make himself care. As he picks up on a woman's voice, his hand slows in in his petting. Max whines unhappily, looking at him with huge, pathetic dog eyes. "Alright," he consoles, pushing him aside. "Alright." Off go the sweaty, stale sheets and the comforter, and he levers himself out of bed. Things don't work quite right after his injuries; the lady who does his physical therapy tells him he's made tremendous progress, but he never quite feels it. He's stiff and limping when he pushes himself up.