![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shoots_kneecaps430. What time is bedtime?
For the past year or so - up until about six months ago - bedtime had been whenever he had drunk enough to pass out. That was, of course, if he wasn't too hungry or too cold to sleep. He'd been in a downward spiral and knew it - and to be honest, he really didn't care.
But then came the subway incident and his introduction to his new employer...
Even after everything that had happened and all he had done to himself, it wasn't more than a week at most before he was back into fighting trim. It was even less time than that for him to fall back into sleep patterns learned through necessity.
When other peoples' lives depended on you, you couldn't afford to be caught napping. It sounded cliche, but it was the absolute truth in work like his. In the military it started out more structured, but he still learned quickly to catch a nap whenever possible. One never knew when an enemy attack might come, and no one counted on a full eight hours no matter what shift they were supposed to be on.
Once his duties became more specialized, schedules and structure often went completely out the window. Sleep was necessary to keep him sharp and healthy, but it wasn't more important than achieving his goal. If something required him to stay awake, he stayed awake until it was done. If someone's life depended on him being awake to protect them, he stayed awake. If a raid happened at night after hours of slogging through the wilderness, bedtime came whenever all of the shooting was done - more often than not, in the transport on the way back to base.
Now he was in a very similar situation. Lives depended on him, and sleep came secondary to them. There were times when the bad guys stuck to a normal enough schedule that he could get a good night in, but he'd be damned if someone he was supposed to be protecting died while he was asleep.
---------------
Muse: John Reese
Fandom: Person of Interest
Word count: 339 per WordPerfect
Crossposted to LJ at "theatrical_muse"
For the past year or so - up until about six months ago - bedtime had been whenever he had drunk enough to pass out. That was, of course, if he wasn't too hungry or too cold to sleep. He'd been in a downward spiral and knew it - and to be honest, he really didn't care.
But then came the subway incident and his introduction to his new employer...
Even after everything that had happened and all he had done to himself, it wasn't more than a week at most before he was back into fighting trim. It was even less time than that for him to fall back into sleep patterns learned through necessity.
When other peoples' lives depended on you, you couldn't afford to be caught napping. It sounded cliche, but it was the absolute truth in work like his. In the military it started out more structured, but he still learned quickly to catch a nap whenever possible. One never knew when an enemy attack might come, and no one counted on a full eight hours no matter what shift they were supposed to be on.
Once his duties became more specialized, schedules and structure often went completely out the window. Sleep was necessary to keep him sharp and healthy, but it wasn't more important than achieving his goal. If something required him to stay awake, he stayed awake until it was done. If someone's life depended on him being awake to protect them, he stayed awake. If a raid happened at night after hours of slogging through the wilderness, bedtime came whenever all of the shooting was done - more often than not, in the transport on the way back to base.
Now he was in a very similar situation. Lives depended on him, and sleep came secondary to them. There were times when the bad guys stuck to a normal enough schedule that he could get a good night in, but he'd be damned if someone he was supposed to be protecting died while he was asleep.
---------------
Muse: John Reese
Fandom: Person of Interest
Word count: 339 per WordPerfect
Crossposted to LJ at "theatrical_muse"
