Hc prompt;; How does Sebastian tend to sleep? Is he a deep sleeper, light? Does he have a position he prefers or tends to end up in? How about location, bed, couch, at the table after a night of drinking? Describe how it differs at different points in his life (pre fire, post TEW, post TEW 2)
Before the fire, he slept deep and usually passed out wherever Myra was in various (sometimes hilarious) positions. Ideally, this meant his arms wrapped around her in their bed. But if she stayed up late working and he didn’t have anything to contribute, he’d curl up on the couch in her office. If Lily ever had a nightmare or woke up in the middle of the night, he’d usually be the one to go to her (after an elbow or two from Myra to actually wake him up) because Myra leaving the bed would make him restless enough he’d have to get up and go find them anyway. More often than not, such occasions ended with Lily climbing into their bed, nestled between them. That was always his favorite, when they were all together, safe and relaxed.
Between the fire and Beacon, Myra started locking her office door in their apartment. And if he wasn’t self-medicating on whiskey, Sebastian might’ve started sleeping lighter just on the basis of being uncomfortable sleeping alone five nights out of the week. But he was drunk most of the time and that tended to black him out nice and definitively. Then, he could fall asleep anywhere as long as he had a bottle: table, couch, floor. It really never mattered.
After Beacon, he didn’t so much sleep lighter as he slept less, in fits and bursts. Hitting REM was a rare occasion worth celebrating. Usually he’d drift for an hour before a nightmare or his pure raw nerves would have him jolting back up on the couch in his tiny apartment. His therapist gave him sleeping pills but they just locked him in with his nightmares. It felt too much like being trapped inside a madman’s head, so he flushed ‘em. He hardly ever touched his bed and used the bedroom mostly for storage, deciding it was too far away from the exits. Besides, he usually fell asleep after heavy drinking and it was just easier to slip sideways on the couch next to the table full of files and photographs and scrawled notes than to get up and get undressed and crawl into bed.
After Union and Lily, he’s doing better in some ways and worse in others. He doesn’t drink himself to sleep, stay up all hours, or skip sleep completely. But he does have trouble falling asleep. When he does eventually, he usually stays asleep all night, tending to sleep deeply and dreamless once again. Though he still sometimes jolts awake. Less with nightmares now and more with a sudden paralyzing fear that Lily is gone again, that someone’s hurting her.Sometimes it’s enough to just stand breathless outside her bedroom, listening to her shift and sigh in her sleep. Other times he risks slipping inside to actually watch her cuddled up with her dolls. The panic attacks only ease when he’s made sure he’s absolutely awake and seen her again with his own eyes. And on the occasions she’s the one having a nightmare, he’ll hold her until she calms down and slips off to dreamland, but he won’t fall asleep again.
