Sleep Is for the Weak

Vic’s college roommate is decent enough, but after only a week or so of living together, they run into a fairly crucial problem: their sleeping schedules are definitely not in sync.

Vic is the kind of person who rises with the sun, and he’s also one of those people who does the impossible and takes early classes. He likes the calm morning air, the way that the sun creeps over the horizon in a sea of orange and yellow; he’s even fond of the birds that sing as the sky gets lighter, as stereotypical as that might sound.

Kellin, on the other hand, might as well be a fucking vampire, staying up all night and sleeping as far into the day as he possibly can before he’s forced to awaken for classes. He’s an enigma to Vic, but that’s fair enough, since Vic is an enigma to Kellin.

“I don’t understand how you do it, dude,” Kellin says one evening as Vic is getting ready to go to sleep and Kellin is sitting on his bed with his laptop. “Like, this is so early. The night has only just begun. Plus, you’re in college. You’re pretty much bound to end up cramming at three in the morning anyway, so you might as well adjust your sleep schedule to fit that.”

“I’ll deal with that when the time comes,” Vic replies dismissively, turning off the lights and hopping into bed. “Personally, I enjoy having a normal and acceptable sleep schedule.”

“The weirdest shit happens past midnight,” Kellin says, the light from the laptop screen illuminating his face.

Vic shakes his head and buries his face in his pillow, closing his eyes. “Whatever.”

What he wants is to get a good night’s sleep and wake up sometime before seven, but with a roommate like Kellin, he knows that’s unrealistic. Sure enough, a few hours later Vic is awoken by Kellin, who is absolutely laughing his ass off at something on his laptop. Vic curses his inability to be a heavy sleeper.

“What the fuck,” he mutters, still half-asleep and trying not to get too awake.

“What? Oh, sorry,” Kellin says in between giggles, and Vic has to admit, it’s kind of cute (but it’d be cuter if it weren’t at three in the morning). “It’s—it’s a video, I—”

Vic waves his hand vaguely. “I don’t think I want to know.”

He gets back to sleep fairly easily, fortunately, and wakes up around the time that he wanted to. He tries to keep quiet as he’s getting some of his stuff around, but he can still hear some shuffling from Kellin’s bed, and right as he’s pulling a clean shirt over his head, he hears Kellin complain from behind him: “It’s six-thirty. It’s, like, the middle of the night, dude.”

Vic quickly turns around while he’s fixing his shirt and finds Kellin staring at him with wide, sleep-deprived eyes. “Are you kidding me?” Vic says, laughing a little. “But three hours ago wasn’t the middle of the night?”

“No,” Kellin says, rubbing his eyes, and resting his head back against his pillow. “That’s, like, late evening. Roughly.”

“Roughly,” Vic repeats incredulously. Kellin’s a great guy and all, but Vic isn’t quite sure how they’re going to get along.

“I’m going back to sleep,” Kellin declares, pulling his covers up over himself and turning away. Vic briefly thinks about the fact that Kellin was probably staring at him while he put his shirt on. He hopes Kellin liked what he saw.

—

Neither of them mean to keep the other up all night. Really, they don’t. They just kind of do.

Somehow, Kellin always wakes Vic up in the middle of the night, and then a few hours later, Vic always ends up awakening Kellin early in the morning. They just can’t seem to get used to each other, so somewhere along the line, they decide to have some fun with it.

It starts when Kellin wakes Vic up by singing some pop song, not loud enough to disrupt anyone else in the dorm but loud enough to disturb Vic’s sleep. And Vic’s sleep is most definitely disturbed, and he lifts his head up with what he’s certain is a very unamused expression and says, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Oh,” Kellin replies, feigning innocence. “I’m just singing.”

“Could you not?” Vic says. In reality, he’s not that mad—once again, it’s actually weirdly cute—but he still treasures his sleep schedule, and he’d rather not have it wrecked by his roommate.

“Eh.” Kellin shrugs. “Maybe.”

A few hours later, when Vic wakes up for real, he takes the opportunity to open the window up all the way to let the rising sun shine obnoxiously, filling the room up with bright orange light. He doesn’t even have to do anything else, because a few seconds later, Kellin stirs, his eyes blinking open as he makes a sleepy grumbling noise. “Fuck,” he says, immediately shutting his eyes against the light. “What’s that giant ball of fire in the sky? Get it away from me.”

Vic just laughs. “It’s called ‘the sun.’”

“Ew.” With that, Kellin reaches up and closes the blinds before falling back into bed and resuming his sleep, but not before flipping Vic off.

—

In the following weeks, the two engage in a sort of war. Kellin blows an air horn in Vic’s ear (how the fuck did he even get one of those?), so Vic sets Kellin’s phone alarm for exactly six o’clock. Kellin draws on Vic’s face, so Vic covers the entire dorm room in sticky notes for when Kellin wakes up. Kellin dumps cold water on Vic’s face, so Vic does the classic shaving cream trick on Kellin. They’re strangely competitive, but even though it’s annoying for them to always have their sleep interrupted somehow, Vic finds himself having fun with all of it, and by the looks of it, he’s pretty sure that Kellin’s having fun, too.

One night while Vic is getting ready for bed, Kellin says, without looking up from the textbook he’s flipping through, “How do you feel about kissing boys?”

Vic stops in his tracks, his mind flashing back to a couple of weekends ago, when he drunkenly made out with another male college student. He doesn’t exactly hide his sexuality, but he didn’t expect Kellin to ever comment on it. He should’ve known, though; people always comment on it.

“Um,” he says, sitting down on his bed. “It’s…fun. I enjoy it.”

“Really? Me, too,” Kellin says casually.

Vic raises an eyebrow at him, suddenly suspicious about his intentions. “If you’re going to be kissing me in my sleep…”

Kellin laughs, finally looking up at him. “In your sleep? Oh, no. I’d ask permission first.”

From there, the conversation drops, but as Vic crawls under the covers and starts to drift off, he can’t help but wish and hope for something to happen eventually. He’s been thinking about kissing Kellin for a while now.

—

When Vic is awoken this time, it’s not to an air horn or Kellin’s singing. Instead, he’s awoken by the feeling of another body sliding into bed with him (and making sure to be as obvious as possible about it). Vic groans and opens his eyes, and in the darkness, he can make out the goofy grin on Kellin’s face.

“Kellin,” Vic says in a deadpan tone of voice. “Why are you in my bed?”

“Wakey wakey,” Kellin replies teasingly.

Vic rolls his eyes, trying not to smile (and also trying not to think about how close they are). “Okay. I’m awake now. You win. Great job.”

Kellin shifts a little, probably about to get out now that he’s completed his task, when Vic blurts, “Stay. You’re comfy.”

Kellin does that cute little giggle, and he doesn’t really do it that often, but when he does, it’s fucking adorable. “Okay,” he says, sounding almost bashful for once in his life. The bed is kind of small, so they have to press up fairly close to each other. “I can see that you also enjoy cuddling with boys,” Kellin states. “Not that that’s a problem.”

Vic just smiles, though part of him is still trying to get back to sleep. “Are you going to bed anytime soon?”

“What time is it? Like, one-thirty?” Kellin says. “I’ll probably stay up for at least another hour.”

Vic groans. “I hate you.”

“Oh, come on,” Kellin says. “I could think of a few ways to pass the time.”

“Like what?”

Now Kellin gets a little quieter, sounding almost nervous when he says, “Well, I mean, I could always kiss you.”

At this point, Vic allows himself to become fully awake. “Do it,” he says, always so casual, acting as if his heart isn’t pounding with excitement.

Kellin just stares at him in shock for a few moments, and then he leans forward, pressing his lips to Vic’s. It’s soft and sweet, just a taste, but it’s enough for now, and when they pull away, Vic says, “Normally I’d be pissed at you for waking me up at one-thirty in the morning, but this is good.”

“Great,” Kellin responds, his fingers fumbling to find Vic’s in the darkness. “We should do it again sometime, then. I mean, they do say that opposites attract, right?”