Nerion knew his pulse wouldn't settle until the morning. The first nights at new places were always the worst, and both his body and mind were racing to try to keep on top of everything - in control of everything, as he always was.

He had never been a particularly good sleeper. What had started as a cranky, light sleep as a child had evolved into insomnia in his teenage years.

Now, at the age of 18 and a bleeding wound of loss still throbbing in his life, he simply did not sleep until he absolutely had to. Could not.

The apartment was everything they needed. Small, perhaps, but it had a separate bedroom for Quir and enough space for soundproofing panels. It was also hundreds of kilometres away from where they used to live, and for Nerion, that was the thing that mattered the most.

He was laying on the pullout couch, under a blanket that smelled nothing like home after the move. There were no blinds on the windows, he would have to fix that. The clock on the wall was left here by the previous owner; it was so loud Nerion had taken out the batteries even before Quir had said anything.

Right next to Nerion, under another blanket that didn't smell like home, was Quir. Shaking, back turned at him as if that could hide the fact that she wasn't sleeping any more than Nerion was.

She was trying to sleep, and he was too. It wasn't like either of them had options.

Time passed on steadily. The sounds of the neighbourhood were foreign, but it could have been worse. Just cars passing by, no police sirens or alarms or fights. It was a calm area, Nerion had made sure of it.

When he next looked at the clock from his phone, it had marched from middle of the night to two in the morning.

Quir had fallen asleep maybe ten minutes ago, but as soon as Nerion's phone flickered the palest blue light into the room, she twitched awake and turned to glance at him over her shoulder. Her eyes, groggy with the effort of sleep, were more blue than grey in this light.

"Go to sleep," Nerion whispered and locked the screen of his phone. Quir let out a small sniffling sound, before turning over and inching closer until her forehead rested on his shoulder.

"I can't sleep," she whispered back with a small, broken voice. Nerion wanted to say he didn't like any of this any more than she did, that she wasn't the only one who was sad, that things were tiring for him, too.

He said none of this, instead wrapping his arm around Quir's shoulders and trying to ignore the way her ears flinched down as if the sound had been a crash and not rustling of the fabric.

Similarly, he ignored any feelings of guilt, because it was an unproductive emotion.

A soft tap of the window caused him to flinch up, and next to him he heard Quir rustling up to sit as well. With a wave of his hand he commanded Quir to stay on the bed and made his way to the window as silently as he could be, heart palpating in his chest.

The window gave way to an open yard that meant nothing to him.

His thoughts wandered to the second floor of a house, a familiar garden, the sounds of Quir running up the stairs as if every movement had to happen at full speed. Familiar everyday things.

All of them, gone.

There were distant sounds of cars, but none on the street below. Finally, the knock on the window made itself known again; a branch, rapping away in the night wind, just thick enough to sound like a knock.

Nerion suppressed the urge to open the window and snap the offending branch. They would get used to it soon.

When he turned around, Quir was staring at him. Eyes wide and eerie in the lights reflecting from the streets, hair a mess, the oversized t-shirt on her huddled around her protectively.

“It’s just a branch, go to sleep,” Nerion whispered in annoyance as he sat on the bed. Quir clutched at the blanket between her fingers tightly. He could hear her teeth biting together and grinding against each other all the way to where he stood.

Him telling her to go to sleep, her telling him to lay down. Both would have equal effectiveness in this moment, he realised.

This wasn’t getting them anywhere.

“I’ll make tea,” he sighed and allowed his annoyance to seep out of his lungs in the frustrated tone that always made Quir look like a guilty puppy.

The kitchen light was dim and the whole world outside its light was engulfed in darkness. Nerion poured water in the kettle and left it on the stove, then sat on the floor and rested his head against the wall. He was exhausted.

A rustling sound emerged from the shadows, and a moment later Quir sat down next to him, blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She looked younger than she was, Nerion thought, with shoulders that shuddered at every sound or flash. With eyes that were constantly threatening to overflow with tears.

Inside Nerion, two thoughts battled for dominion.

Not my fault.

And, eternally on its heels: my fault.

They remained sitting there, side by side. When the water boiled, Nerion covered Quir’s ears with his hands. They drank tea and listened to the distant sounds of traffic, an aeroplane passing them far up overhead, police sirens just once but not here, not nearby, not for them.

When Quir’s head finally flopped on Nerion’s shoulder and she started to sleep, Nerion was still staring at the wall, unwilling to move, too tired to think.

The morning claimed the night before sleep could claim him, and only after the first rays of the morning started to sneak into the kitchen Nerion hazarded moving. Quir looked up, groggy from sleep, and made a dissatisfied sound.

“At least go to bed to sleep,” Nerion scoffed as he started to load the coffee machine.

The sun was rising, and the coffee washed away most of his exhaustion. He would sleep when there would be a chance, he decided, just like he always did. By the time he opened his laptop and took one last peek into the bedroom, he saw Quir curled up, fast asleep, blinds shut and a blanket pulled tightly over her eyes.

He closed the door, very silently, then slumped down on the kitchen chair and opened his work files.

It would be a busy day.