Up All Night

"Up All Night"

"RRRRRRRRRRGGGGGH!" Justine wasn't exactly fishing for sympathy, but at the same time she didn't exactly mind when Dylan looked up from his laptop to where she was angrily pulling her fabric off the sewing machine. She reached for the seam ripper, and let out another snarl of frustration when it slipped out of her fingers and fell to the floor.

"Something wrong?" Dylan asked mildly, setting aside his laptop and heading over to scoop up the seam ripper as it rolled across the living room floor. He handed it over with an expression of calm concern in his hazel eyes, like this was just another problem for him to fix-more trouble than a password reset, say, but nowhere near as significant as a critical patch failing to install. They'd only been roommates for about a month, but Justine had already come to rely on that calm competence.

Especially on nights like this. "Oh, I just fucked up this whole seam," she said, taking the ripper from his hand and undoing the last ten minutes worth of work. "And it's already twelve thirty and I've still got five more hours of work to do and the whole project is due at ten AM tomorrow and it's three-quarters of my grade and I'm just so tired!" The words gushed out like ketchup coming out of an upturned bottle, but Justine didn't care. She had big dark circles under her wide brown eyes and her dark hair felt stringy and greasy from exhaustion and she was officially at the point where she felt like cranky toddler wails were the only rational response to the situation.

Dylan pulled up the spare chair and sat down next to her. "Have you tried taking a nap? They say that twenty minutes of sleep can clear your head when you're pulling an all-nighter...and it sounds like this might be an all-nighter." He gave her a rueful smile. "Not that I won't be glad of the company, but there's a good reason why you don't normally stay up with me until six in the morning."

Despite herself, Justine smiled a little at that. Part of what originally made her agree to the whole living arrangement was Dylan's assurance that with his third-shift sleep schedule and her mix of classes and work, they probably wouldn't see each other enough to get on one another's nerves even if they didn't turn out to be compatible. It wasn't just that he was probably right, it was that he delivered the joke with a wry self-deprecating humor. That kind of easy-going playfulness...along with three months of increasingly desperate trawls of the Boston real estate market that had turned up nothing in her price range that seemed even remotely likely to open up before her current lease ran out and the rent in her building tripled...sealed the deal.

Still, she couldn't keep reality at bay with jokes for more than a few seconds at a time. "I've put in two double shifts in the past week and spent every waking moment at my sewing machine for the last five days," she said. "I just know that I go to sleep now, I won't be able to make myself wake up again. I'll keep hitting the snooze button until it's time for class." She put the fabric back onto the machine, silently cursing the way that her exhaustion made even the simplest of manual tasks an exercise in frustration.

Dylan gave her an appraising look, like he was wondering if it was worth making his next suggestion. "Well, there is one other thing we could try, if you'd like. I've done a little bit of hypnosis before, just sort of playing around with it, and one of the simple things it's good for is keeping you alert when you get tired." Justine quirked an eyebrow-she didn't have any experience with hypnosis beyond seeing it in cheesy old television shows, but it usually seemed like the exact opposite of 'alert'.

But before she could say anything, Dylan gave her another one of those self-deprecating grins that he was so good at. "I know how it sounds," he said, "but you can actually get by for a while on no sleep if you spend a little time in trance every couple of hours or so. Trance and sleep aren't the same state, but they're kind of close cousins, if you get my drift. It's like taking 'Concentrate of Nap' to get you through the night. I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to, but I thought you might be interested."

Justine rubbed the back of her neck, trying not to give away with her facial expression exactly how nervous the idea made her. She still didn't know Dylan all that well-he was a little bit more than a name in the classified ads and a face in a coffee shop now, but she wasn't really sure that she was ready to stare into his eyes and...and do whatever hypnotized people did in real life instead of that old episode of 'The Bionic Woman' she watched one night when she was stoned.

But just like when she agreed to move in with Dylan, Justine didn't see a whole lot of good alternatives. She knew she couldn't stay up much more than another hour, even if she drank Red Bull until her heart exploded. She needed his help. "Okay," she said at last. "What do I need to do?"

"You don't need to do anything," he said, his voice lowering just a little and somehow managing to become even more mellow. "You can just sit right there in the chair, keep looking at me, focus all your attention on my eyes and my voice, and simply relax. From time to time your thoughts may wander, perhaps drifting to the way that the muscles in your legs are feeling more and more relaxed and loose and limp and lazy, but you'll find that they always return to my eyes and my voice."

He reached out and very gently put his hand on Justine's shoulder, rocking her slowly and evenly back and forth as he spoke. "And every time you focus on my eyes and my voice, you'll find that it becomes easier and easier and you become more and more relaxed. You may find your attention moving to your chest as you take a long, slow, steady breath for me, but when your thoughts return to my eyes and my voice, you're going to be calmer and more centered on me. Those other thoughts get left behind whenever you return to my eyes and my voice. My eyes. And my voice."

Justine nodded, or at least she thought she nodded. The way he moved her body in a gentle swaying motion made her feel a little bit dizzy, and the exhaustion she felt only seemed to make it easier to follow his instructions. Thinking was the hard part right now; staring into Dylan's eyes and listening to his voice while her mind went blank seemed so easy in comparison. She blinked heavily, once. Then she forgot to blink at all for a while.

"That's right, Justine, deeper and deeper, down and down and down, feeling your body go limp and relaxed, feeling your eyelids become heavy." Dylan's voice sounded so soothing that Justine felt like a ragdoll in his grip. "Your head feels loose on your neck, it wants to slump into deep sleep so that you can listen to my voice and lose track of everything else, feeling so relaxed now, deeper and deeper and more and more heavy and relaxed and..."

He pulled her forward quickly, gathering her forward into his arms and saying, "Sleep," at the same time. Justine felt her breath go out in a soft sigh and her body went completely limp. The bubble of awareness in her mind burst, and she descended into a peaceful darkness.

*****

The next thing Justine remembered, her eyes were opening and she was looking up at Dylan from a prone position on the couch. She didn't remember lying down. She didn't remember standing up. The whole experience seemed like a fluffy white cloud in her brain-not a gap, exactly, just a soft patch that her thoughts felt perfectly comfortable steering around. Justine kind of wished she could go back under for a while, simply to enjoy the sensation, but she had a class project to-SHIT!

"Um...how long was I...?" she asked nervously, unable to even finish the sentence. The back of her head kept lurching in panic; her sense of time felt distorted and she had no idea how long she'd spent in the pleasant fog of hypnosis, but judging by how well-rested she felt, she couldn't imagine it being any less than three hours.

"About twenty minutes," Dylan replied, glancing over at his laptop to check the time. "How do you feel?"

"I feel..." Justine's mouth burst into a wide grin as she hopped lightly to her feet. "I feel wonderful! Thank you so much!" She leaned in and gave him a spontaneous hug and a kiss on the cheek before bounding over to the sewing machine, feeling almost lighter than air as she danced across the room.

When she sat back down, the work somehow felt like it went smoother-not just because Justine felt energized and alert instead of groggy and clumsy, but better than it had in days. She felt like her hands were rock steady and her fingers as nimble as a concert pianist. She seemed to notice everything in slow motion, like an athlete 'in the zone'...although it was difficult to imagine Michael Jordan stitching up a hemline on the sideline during a timeout.

Justine felt so good that she didn't even think about what had just happened for almost twenty minutes. When she did, though, she had a sudden lurch in the back of her brain that very nearly threw her newly-acquired super-stitchery off the track for a good few seconds before her hands went on auto-pilot and allowed her brain to think about what she'd just done.

They had a rule. Well, Justine had a rule, but Dylan agreed with it completely, because they didn't know each other that well and they were going to be roommates for at least a year together and it was always awkward when one person felt differently about another than the other did about them, or if they both felt the same way about each other for two weeks and then those feelings changed and there were still eleven months left on the lease. So the rule was simple. No Romance. And Justine had...well, not broken it, but at the very least possibly given Dylan reason to think that she was considering breaking it.

Admittedly, the rule was a month old now, and Justine had kind of...noticed Dylan, in that way that people sometimes snap out of the background of everyday life and become meaningful. It wasn't a crush, exactly; more the sort of proto-crush feeling of suddenly realizing she really liked spending time with Dylan a lot and he made her feel comfortable and at ease with herself. But still, even if she were to consider suspending the rule, the whole point of the rule was that she might just as easily be the one person who felt differently about the other as the person who was felt about. If any of that made any sense, and Justine was pretty sure it wouldn't to anyone who wasn't in her head at the moment.

Justine had the awkward realization that she was blushing furiously. She really hoped Dylan didn't notice.

He did. "You holding up okay over there?" he asked, glancing up from his laptop again. "If you need me to drop you again, just let me know. One trance probably won't last you all night. It's really more like you've tricked your brain into thinking it's had a good night's sleep, and sooner or later it's going to figure things out."

"Um, no, fine, I'm good, I'm really better than good," Justine said, reaching over and taking a long swig of soda that wasn't nearly cold enough to calm the heat of her blushes. She thought about just pressing the can to her bright red cheeks, but she didn't think she could get away with it with Dylan watching.

"Yeah, I gave you a couple of little suggestions while you were under," Dylan shrugged, looking back down at his computer. "You know, 'When you wake, you'll find it easy to focus on your work and do your best.' That kind of stuff. Just a little something to help you concentrate. I hope you don't mind."

"Oh, no," Justine said, shaking her head. "No, that's fine, I trust you. It's working really well, actually." It was, too. Justine had already made an hour's progress in forty minutes under the spell of whatever hypnotic mojo Dylan had hit her with. Frankly, if this was the kind of thing hypnosis could do for her, Justine might just ask him to put her under all the time.

"That's not surprising," Dylan said. "You're actually a really good hypnotic subject. Not many people can go that deep their first time in trance." He paused, a look of un-Dylan-like uncertainty on his face, like he was worried that complimenting her so soon after the kiss would bring the levels of affection in the room up to some kind of danger zone. (Or maybe Justine was projecting just a little.) "Um...you should be proud."

Justine stood up abruptly. "Thanks!" she said, her voice almost cracking. "Um, 'scuse me. Bathroom break." She left the room as quickly as possible, hoping that he didn't see her face.

After she scrubbed her face with cold water, Justine felt a little better. She still felt uncomfortably like she'd noticed something inside herself that she couldn't unsee, but at least she had it under control enough that she could push the awkward ball of emotions out of the way until she was done with her class project. After tomorrow morning, she would have the whole of Spring Break to process the way that she felt like suddenly crying with joy when Dylan said he was proud of her. It was probably just the all-nighter getting to her, anyway. She'd probably react the same way to a cat adoption video if she saw one right now.

When she came back out, Justine practically buried her nose in fabric for the next forty-five minutes, as much to keep her mind off of her emotions as to get her project done. She kept telling herself she could go a little bit longer before asking Dylan for help again, just a tiny bit longer before looking in his general direction and thinking about how nice it would feel to ask him to hypnotize her and hear him tell her that she was a very good hypnotic subject, and that she could go under for him very easily, and that she would go right back into that soft white fog in her mind and melt into a waking dream, and that she could look into those hazel eyes that she'd really been trying very very hard not to think about because they kind of messed with her equilibrium a little too much at the moment and-

"Justine?" Dylan said, snapping his fingers to get her attention. "You've been staring at the clock for about a minute. You okay?"

"I, um..." She rubbed her eyes, suddenly noticing the way they were burning like she hadn't blinked in forever. "I'm just a little tired, that's all. It's almost two in the morning."

"I think you need another trance," he replied, giving her a warm smile. "Come on over, I'll put the whammy on you again."

Justine giggled. "Is that what you really call it?" she asked, crossing the room with considerably less bounce in her step than on the previous occasion. "'Cause I think it'll be kind of hard to take it seriously if I have to keep asking you to put the whammy on me."

Dylan took her hand and locked gazes with her, his hazel eyes suddenly magnetic to her sleepy stare. "I understand," he said, his voice once again taking on that soft, rich tone that she remembered so well even if she couldn't recall exactly what he said in it. "It's so much easier to believe when I remind you how drowsy you are, and how easy it is to let your sleepy mind drift back into the warm, soft, heavy fog that sticks to your thoughts until you just can't think anymore, you need to sleep now. Sleep now. Sleep now."

He tugged gently on Justine's hand, and she slumped heavily onto the couch and into his arms as her eyes slammed shut.

*****

Justine woke up feeling almost a little too comfortable. She was resting against Dylan's thigh, her face turned slightly so that it pressed into his hip, and for a moment she just wanted to turn over and go back to sleep cuddled against the warmth of his body. But then reality reared its ugly head and she remembered that she had a project to finish...and that the person she was fully prepared to snuggle like a teddy bear was her roommate that she wasn't supposed to be affectionate with. She sat up bolt upright, trying to act like it was due to enthusiasm to return to her sewing project and not an attempt to get a little distance between her head and Dylan's lap.

Although clearly Dylan didn't mind, she thought to herself as she began to sew once more. He wasn't, like, grinding her head into his crotch or anything, but she did notice as she was waking that the fabric of his jeans was a little bit tighter in some places than others. The rule was clearly straining a little under the circumstances of tonight's all-nighter. And it wasn't the only thing.

Justine shifted position slightly, trying to find a good spot to work the foot pedal that didn't also squeeze her thighs together in a distracting way. Not that she hadn't done that from time to time-it was definitely a nice way to make the long hours at the machine fly by-but she was supposed to be getting her mind off of how nice hypnosis felt, and how good Dylan's voice sounded in her ears when he was putting her into a trance, and how blissful it felt to float in that white fog and not really think about anything that was going on. Because when Justine did think of that, all she could think of next was asking him to do it again.

And of course he would. Would, hell-he was going to, when this burst of energy wore off and her mind got drowsy again and she needed him to tell her to sleep in his eyes once more. But that was just it. She was looking forward to it. She was looking forward to it in ways that made her want to shift position again to see if she could get just the right rub going while she worked at the sewing machine, and it seemed increasingly obvious to her that Dylan was looking forward to it in exactly the same way. And while that would be nice...

Okay, no. That would be more than just nice. That would be really hot. It would be incredibly sexy to wake up from the next trance and see that tent in Dylan's jeans and do something about it. It would be beyond erotic, unzipping his fly and pulling out that stiff cock, watching his eyes roll back in his head as Justine engulfed him with her mouth. She wondered if she could actually suck his cock while he hypnotized her. That would be-

Wrong. Wrong and distracting and not a thought she needed in her head right now, she sternly scolded her own subconscious. Hypnosis was a therapeutic tool Dylan was using to help her bypass sleep, not some sort of kinky sex enhancer. Yes, it turned out that she got kind of turned on by it-she shifted position again, still unable to find a way of sitting that didn't at least make her labia nuzzle each other every time she pressed down on the pedal. Okay, so she got a lot turned on by hypnosis. But still, that didn't mean it was fair to ask Dylan to abuse his hobby in the name of sex. He probably learned it to help a friend stop smoking or something, not to turn his roommate into a blank-eyed cocksucker zombie.

(Oh fuck. Blank-eyed cocksucker zombie. She didn't know where it came from, but that sounded way fucking hotter than it should.)

Justine poured herself into her project, banishing the image from her mind with indifferent success. For every few minutes that she managed to pay close attention to her hems and inseams, there was another long stretch where she let her fingers work all by themselves while she thought about being hypnotized to strip naked while Dylan watched. Now that she'd actually experienced trance, she kept finding that sexual possibilities popped into her mind unprompted and unbidden, and they didn't seem to want to leave. She imagined being brainwashed into masturbating for him, into calling him 'Master', into one kinky fantasy after another that felt like they were squatting in her brain and refusing to leave. She was grateful that his actual hypnosis extended to helping her hands do the work on their own, because otherwise she'd have spent more time with the seam ripper than with the sewing machine.