Eric woke bleary eyed to pounding on the door.
"You better be up. You need to be out the house in ten if you want to get to uni on time," he heard his sister yell through the door.
Blinking himself into a state of semi awakedness he rolled over and checked the time on his phone. Nine thirty.
'Fuck me,' Eric swore at himself. Sleep had only come to him two hours before when his body simply collapsed from tiredness.
He forced himself quickly out of bed, scrambling for clothes.
"I'll be down in a sec," he called. His sister is going to kill him if she found out he slept in.
He came downstairs to find a bowl of oatmeal ready for him on a table. Sarah stood arms crossed leaning against the counter. He smiled sheepishly at her as he sat down.
"Sorry, didn't get the best nights sleep," he apologized.
She was clearly trying to keep up the tough act, but when she saw the dark circles under his eyes her expression softened.
"It's fine," she said, "I can drive you this morning if you want."
"No need, it's a microbiology lecture this morning. They're all recorded anyway."
Sarah's stern expression returned, "I don't think that's a very good excuse. You miss one lecture and you'll start to skip them all."
Eric sighed. Sarah had been trying her best to fill some parental void ever since the accident. She had been living in another city, but had dropped everything when she had heard. She moved back in with Eric. She had insisted that she had been thinking of moving back anyway, but Eric knew that she was concerned for him. And Eric was grateful, he didn't know how he would have handled living in his childhood home all alone.
"I swear it's a one time thing," he insisted, "Just you know, stuff's been going on."
She sat down next to him at the table and laid a hand on his thigh.
"Not been sleeping great," she asked, clearly concerned.
"I- uh well no," Eric admitted, but turned quickly back to his oatmeal.
"Oh Eric, it's okay. I... I dream about them sometime," she said.
Eric raised an eyebrow. He was certain that she was not having the same dreams he was.
"It's true," she said seeing his questioning expression, "It's normally little stuff. Like us at the park as kids, or even just us having dinner at night. I understand its difficult."
'Of course,' Eric thought, 'She thinks it's our parents keeping me up.'
"Uh yeah... I don't know it's just been rough you know?" Eric said.
She gave him a warm smile, "It's okay, just don't let it effect uni alright?"
Eric nodded and began to eat again. He didn't particularly like lying to his sister. But telling her that their dreams of their dead parents had been keeping him up sounded a lot better than his BDSM dreams about Nicole.
----
Eric half stumbled into school. It had been a week of this. A week of no sleep. Every time he had tried to sleep unbidden thoughts of Nicole crept in. He wished that it was only dreams, that would be more excusable. But every time he let his thoughts wander, it all revolved around Nicole and not in a my friends ex gf acceptable way.
"Jesus you need more sleep," a peppy voice called from behind him.
Clara was walking towards him, looking very much more awake than him, though Eric figured most people on campus did. She was shorter than him, coming only to his chest. Black hair cut to at her neck and a baggy sweater hiding her body. A body that Eric had struggled not to stare at when they had all gone to the beach last summer. She was different from his other friends. For one she was a girl, and two she didn't drink much. They had met on their course, sharing many of their seminars together. Eric figured that it was useful to know someone as smart as Clara on his course, especially if she was that cute. Eric had made a decision not to flirt with her though. Not that he didn't want to. It was partly because he didn't want to lose the one person he knew on his course, but he was also slightly intimidated by her.
"Morning," he said.
"Up all night on Evergreen's report?" she asked.
