Addict

A/n: To Jeni-Dragon, for falling inlove with crazy!lovesick!Ulrich.

Warnings: Written at 1am, spanning to 3am. Enough said.

It's amazing the things you learn at one in the morning. For instance, every light in Kadic flashes yellow. There are no red lights and the usual twenty minute trip would probably only take you ten. Train whistles are much louder… I feel a 'if a tree falls in the forest' question coming on. Odd does, eventually, stop snoring and it turns into a heavy breathing. This is, of course, when Kiwi's snoring is loudest.

My handwriting is different at one am. It's more flowing, slanting. Girly, really. I write faster at night and as I sit here writing this I wonder why I'm finding this out. I should be asleep at one am.

The dorm looks different, too. It's doused in a strange mixture of falling moonlight, streetlights, and the reading light clipped haphazardly to my ankle.

My fingertips are rounder at one am. I'm sure Jer has a long winded explanation for this. Touching anything feels different with dulled, slower senses; yet, part of me almost feels cat like in my nocturnal state. If you wander the school grounds at midnight, no one will notice you. Everyone is asleep. Even Jim has retired from his nightshift to sleep.

Her window looks different at one am. The white drapes are sheer and look like something from a fairy tale and the very movement of them in the early morning's breeze stuns me to a near hypnotized state. The climbing roses are inviting and their thorns stand as a warning to keep out. I'm no braver at one am, and invoking her wrath at such an hour would not be sane or romantic. I'm sure I'd bleed all the same at one am.

The sounds in the woods behind the school are different. It's a whole other life at night. The birds are silent, for once in a blue moon, and the rustlings sound more acute. More placed. The grass looks different, if you can see it at all, and the cover of the trees blend together. It's easier to run though the woods at one am.

One am must be a time of magic, as ridiculous as that sounds. An hour of difference in the monotonous world. But it feels like you are the only soul alive or awake, conscious of the world around you. The sounds and sights, sightless really, and movements all belong to you.

Your own voice is louder; your breathing and sighing and even blinking is audible and you'd swear the entire world would be awake at your subtle, quiet command from such noise. I should be asleep, and not writing the recollections of the night, morning's? activities.

What could possibly keep me awake? Summer. Dear God, the promise and threat and approaching like lightning summer that is beating down on the door of our school year. I should be thrilled and dreaming peacefully of sleeping in and long nights of nothingness, but instead it is one am and I am awake and shaking in my own fear and anxiety that is riddling my body with sleeplessness. Such a trivial matter, really, but I have lost all sanity and my insomnia will not rest until the simple matter of my life is solved. The only thing that could possibly stand in the way of this summer's relaxation is her. That stubborn, egotistical, uppity, self-centered, proud, amazing, beautiful, frustrating girl who keeps me up at all hours pacing, just wondering what to do about her. Could you imagine?

I haven't slept all week. Two weeks? God, when was the last time I slept? I've been living on Odd's energy drinks and drinking coffee at every meal. I think I'm a tad addicted. My hand twitches between meals. That's normal right? It's been a slow down spiral since May rolled around. It started with one cup; I'm up to five. Or is it six?

I'm an addict, but coffee isn't the worst of my drugs. I'm addicted to her smile, her laugh, her smell for the love of life. I'm addicted to her hair- it's intoxicating, really, when she teases me, twirling it around one finger when she's reading. I'm addicted to her lips, so soft and small and perfect. I've lost it, I'm aware, but an entire summer without a fix? I'll die a slow painful death.

This should be illegal. The effect she has on me? They could bottle it and sell it to terrorists. It's worse at one am. I was literally outside her window before I talked myself out of sure death.

I'm counting down the hours to my demise; I know I won't make it to the train station before I collapse and convulse or something equally dramatic, but it's one am and I know she's asleep and I just want to be there. And not in the creepy stalker/rapist way, but the just-hearing-you-breathe-is-enough-to-find-fulfillment-in-life kind of way. Having her asleep on my shoulder just once was like heroine straight to my bloodstream.

This is insane and I can not take it anymore. I'll die. I swear I'll die. She has to have some clue, some hint, to what she does to me. Something must allude to the fact that I'll never sleep again if something isn't done because I am slowly but surely losing my mind to her a little bit more every night. She makes a guy want to be a drug addict. I will swear off coffee and amp and….and what's it called? Volt? And everything that has kept me alive the past month, oh God, it's been a whole month hasn't it?, if she will just stop the torture. I'll do what ever she wants. No matter the degree of humiliation or pain or how much it costs. I'll do it just make it stop. If she'll just make it--

"Ulrich? Ulrich wake up. You missed morning classes." Oh God, that's her voice. It finally happened. I've snapped and I'm hallucinating. "Up sleepy head!" Her laugh rings out in my head.

"Kill me."

"Did you seriously fall asleep writing in your diary? What does this say? June second, one am…One am? Ulrich!" Sitting up, I snatched the book from her grasp, elbows quivering as our fingers brush.

"Drank… too much coffee?" I offer. It is not a hallucination; or it is a very good one.

"He didn't stop muttering until around three. That's probably when he passed out." Odd is leaning against the door and, again, not a hallucination or a very elaborate, annoying one. She takes the book from my shaking hands and sets in on the floor, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Are you ok? You look terrible." I can smell her shampoo mixed with her detergent and it's like inhaling crack only better because I'm fully aware of what's going on. So maybe it's worse.

"I am terrible. I'm horrible and it's all your fault." She almost laughs, but that would probably kill me so I'm relieved when she doesn't. "You could end my suffering now, you know."

"Yeah….get some sleep, Ul. We'll tell Hertz you're sick." I manage to groan her name and cling to her arm as she gets up to leave. "Ulrich Stern. No coffee. Ever again." Odd rolls his eyes and excuses himself to gag in the hallway.

"Please?" I whine.

"You really need to sleep." She tugs the blanket loose, pulling it over me, forcing me to lay down with one arm and I absolutely melt like hot wax and do whatever she wants. And then she does it; she kisses my forehead and I know I'm screwed.

I'm hopelessly addicted. And yes I've gotten my fix and I can finally sleep with some peace, but I swear to all that is holy when I wake up it will be one am all over. Had she any sympathy she would kill me.

In my state of absolute haze and mental absence, my unconscious thoughts become to unconscious words and I mutter the stupidest thing I have quite possibly ever spoken in the form of an 'I love you' to her as she stands up. Before I can hate myself or throw myself from the window, she's already a nice, bright shade of red, frozen in her place like a manikin, and my mind has started to fall deeper into the realm of sleep; a place that we have not visited in a very. Long. Time.

I would trade anything in the world for that to keep her up until one am for just one night.