Ceiling, Floor, Door by Lau

“I spent days stupid nailed to your floor
And I spent nights pushed against you”

-Matt Nathanson
“Weight of It All”


It’s Sunday night, and Daniel is lying on the floor in the middle of his bedroom, on his stomach, nose pressed into the carpet. It smells like old books because he does not dust enough, and his face is starting to hurt from the pressure, and eventually he will turn his face so that he will be staring out the door and into the hallway, but not yet. For now, he wants the hurt because it’s his decision and no one can make him turn his head if he doesn’t want to, god damn.

Sunday nights have always been bad.

When he was in high school, Sunday was a rapid-fire decline from the very moment he got out of bed and formally recognized that it was the last day of the weekend by eating breakfast – or whatever meal happened to be served when he stumbled out of his room under the scrutiny of his mother’s eye.

Sunday afternoons would produce a sugar-rush of last minute attempts to hold on to the weekend before Monday shouldered its way through like the linebacker with the IQ lower than Daniel’s shoe size. And by the time it was time to go to sleep, he would stare at his white textured ceiling for hours and hours listening to his brothers snore and ruthlessly curse everyone he knew who was probably rocking in the arms of slumber as he lay, tortured and red-eyed.

The sick thing was, even after he left school and there was nothing to be afraid of from one week to another and the weekends didn’t even mean anything anymore, he still wouldn’t get any more than four hours of sleep on a Sunday night. Even if he didn’t have anywhere to be the next day, he would gaze unblinkingly at his fixtures while sleep teased him from below and above and left and right.

On the whole, Daniel slept fine. He was a hard sleeper; not easy to wake, which meant he didn’t have a bad time on the tour buses for the most part. But Sunday nights, he would lie stiff as a board and practice every breathing technique and body relaxation device he knew (including masturbating) in any attempt to beat his own mind into submission. He wrote novels in his head, trying not to think about not sleeping. And there were times when he would manage to drift off, just a bit earlier, and his body would jerk awake violently, throwing himself out of tangled sheets and hot pillows.

Darren hated it. Daniel hated Darren for hating it.

Back then, Sunday nights, Darren would sleep on the couch. Now, Darren slept in a whole different room with a whole bed on which he sprawled and slept like a baby. Daniel often had to stuff down the urge to go in there, jump on the bed, and run away. Just to know that someone else couldn’t sleep.

With an exasperated huff, Daniel reluctantly turned his head and pulled one arm up the carpet to scratch at the indentations on his nose from the fabric where they tingled. Instead of facing the hallway, he faced the closet and its full length mirror, and watched himself on the floor.

He could hear Darren pad by quietly, and then back-track to look in on him.

“You’re a pretty depressing house guest,” he joked.

Daniel didn’t say anything. He got sulky on a Sunday, in anticipation of the lack of sleep.

“Tired of staring at the ceiling?” He asked quietly.

Grunting into the carpet, Daniel replied, “My eyes are usually closed.”

“You know, it’s not like you have to wake up tomorrow at a certain time. You can sleep in as late you want. I won’t make any noise.” Darren scratched the back of his left calf with the toes on his right foot. If Daniel was going to stay another week, he wasn’t sure if he could take another Sunday like this one.

They’d had this conversation before, and it felt comfortable to Daniel, but it didn’t do anything to abate his nerves. “It doesn’t matter,” Daniel muttered fatalistically into the carpet. “I’ll wake up anyway.” He knew it sounded like he was telling Darren he was too loud, but he didn’t feel like being considerate because, God, he hated Sundays.

There was silence for a moment, and Daniel could see Darren’s shins in the mirror.

“I’m going to the studio to work tomorrow,” Darren said, almost to himself.

Daniel turned his head and his eyebrows flared. “Really?”

He nodded. “Really.” He took one step inside the room, and Daniel decided maybe he could sit up after all.

“I mean, that’s good news, right?” Daniel offered, folding his long legs away into places Darren wasn’t sure were physically possible.

“Very good news, yes.” Darren took another step inside, and sat down on the carpet with him. “Still can’t sleep on Sundays?”

Daniel twitched his lips to the side. “I’ll sleep longer on Monday to make up for it. I always do.”

“They why?” Darren asked, exasperated, and leaned forward to touch his elbows to his knees, as if a closer proximity could induce a different answer.

Daniel shrugged in a combination of guilt and frustration, and very much suddenly wanted Darren out of the room. He wanted to be alone, but he hated the idea that the other man might be sleeping while he was still mentally pacing his padded cell.

Sensing that he had overstepped some boundary, Darren climbed awkwardly to his feet and was reminded of the yearly immediacy of his birthday. He shut the thought away and cleared his throat. “I’ll guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

Daniel looked up, steeling himself that this was exactly what he wanted. Wallowing in his own misery had been known statistically to get him to sleep faster than being around other people. “Of course.”

“Good night, Dan.”

“Good night, Darren.”

The blonde watched his friend leave, watched the door shut him out of the hall. The thin beam of light that crept under the wood and splashed the carpet was exterminated, and Darren’s footsteps carried him down to his own room and into the bliss of sleep.

“Fuck,” Daniel said, narrowing his eyes at the door. It was the same color as the ceiling.

* * *

When Darren woke in the morning, he hummed contentedly under the arm that was slung over his hips, and the fingers that splayed on his chest. There was a very warm chin resting like a well-jigged woodcut on the pillow above his.

“Hello,” he said in lieu of ‘good morning’, because he wasn’t sure if it was one as of yet.

“Mm?” Daniel said, tightening the arm.

“I’ve got to get to the studio,” Darren said quietly, and the radio alarm went off to support him.

“Okay,” Daniel said.

A smile licked at the edges of Darren’s face, and he turned in the other man’s grip. “When did you show up?”

Daniel’s eyes were heavily lidded, but he was awake enough to answer. “Around three.”

Darren thought back, trying to remember the rigorous scientific efforts Daniel had forced him to record for so long about his sleeping patterns, trying to find some key to early sleep. “That’s pretty late, even for a Sunday.”

“I know,” Daniel said.

“Is that why?” Darren pushed his head into the pillow.

“Yes. Partly.” Daniel’s eyes focused on him. “No.”

The fingers drummed nervously on his back. “No?”

“Mm.” Daniel’s eyelids flickered. “Don’t you have to go to the studio?”

Darren didn’t even look at the clock. “Yes.”

They studied each other for a moment.

“I’ll be here when you get back,” Daniel said.

“Here?” Darren asked, amused. “In bed?”

“Wake me up, okay?” He asked, and pulled his arm back.

Darren smiled. “Okay.” He pressed a quick kiss to the sleeping man’s forehead and smiled to himself, and wondered how quickly he could finish the recording sessions that day. Maybe he’d start staying up later on Sundays.