Insomnia did not come suddenly. It slipped into your life slowly, almost unnoticed, until it became something constant, something that stayed with you every night. At first there were single awakenings, then hours of turning from side to side, until eventually entire nights were spent with your eyes open, staring at the ceiling, your head filled with images you did not want to see. The nightmares did not disappear even when you were not sleeping, they stayed under your eyelids, returning in your thoughts, in brief flashes, in the feeling that something was about to happen again.

Your body gave in faster than you wanted to admit.

The exhaustion was heavy, physical, settling on your shoulders, pulling down every movement, every breath. Your hands sometimes trembled for no reason, your eyes burned, and your head ached as if something was tightening inside it. The medication used to help, gave you a few hours of silence, artificial sleep without dreams, but over time it stopped working. Higher and higher doses made no difference anymore. Your body got used to them just like it got used to the lack of rest.

Nights became the worst.

The silence was too loud, and every sound sharpened to the extreme. That was when you started leaving, wandering, looking for anything that would let you close your eyes for even a moment without the fear that something would come back again.

And eventually you started knocking on his door.

Chibs.

It was always late. Sometimes the middle of the night, sometimes the early hours of the morning, when the exhaustion was already unbearable. He opened the door half asleep, his gaze heavy, hair messy, voice rough from sleep, but he never complained. He did not ask why. He did not need to.

He let you in.

And that was enough.

His presence was different from anything you knew. Calm, warm, steady. You sat beside him, sometimes leaning against his shoulder, sometimes just sitting in silence, trying to catch a breath that had been shallow and uneven all night.

He said nothing.

He was just there.

And that was when the tension finally started to fade, when your body stopped being in a constant state of alert, your eyelids grew heavy. Sleep came slowly, uncertain, but it came.

Only with him.