Disclaimer:  : Alliance/Tri-Star own Lucien LaCroix, although I'm sure he'd dispute it, and I make no money off this regardless.  Written for prompts provided by Devo:  sleep, chafe, languor, hiss.  Now part of the "Lares & Penates" series.
Rated:  PG.
Who knew I'd been wanting to write one of the Nightcrawler's monologues?

Sleep

Such a simple word, sleep:  the drawn-out sigh of a tired child, the enfolding arms of mother night wrapped around you, the ease of a surface giving under you as enervation draws you down.  And yet.  And yet, perhaps, too simple, that word, that concept.  Sleep, which rhymes with deep, and keep.  Such a simple child's prayer, and how terrifying -- to sleep and be kept in that sleep, to plumb the deeps of your own mind with no control, really, for how many of us have dreams we do not control?  The deep dreams, the real dreams, the horrors of the every-day world violated or the unreal perpetrated upon us until we surface, with a gasp and a shock, from that languid, languorous keeping of sleep...

And on such nights, from such dreams, we flee, until sleep becomes a hissing rather than a sigh, until even daydreams chafe our souls and eventually, if we flee sleep long enough, the world, too, chafes, and cuts, and shreds, and bleeds reality upon our minds, melting colors and sounds to make sense bleed, and dreams sane, and sleep... enticing.

Oh, yes.  A simple word, sleep.  Simple as water, as food, as air.  Simple things all, are they not?

Very simple.  So simple that you sit there, listening to me, when you could be... asleep.

As could I, now that dawn comes.  Until another night, this is the Nightcrawler signing off.  Good night.  Sleep tight.  Don't let the monsters bite... deep.

~ ~ ~ finis ~ ~ ~

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