Work Text:
Mike came back downstairs after getting Tom and Crow settled in their beds for the night. Joel was still typing away on the computer, as he had been since dinner was over. Mike walked over and began kneading the other man’s shoulders. Joel let out a small moan of appreciation.
“Why so tense?” Mike inquired.
“I’ve gotta get this abstract typed up for Gypsy tonight. She’s got a meeting with her foreign investors Friday, and her staff needs at least 48 hours to go over everything to make sure we’re not giving away too many clues about the production process. We don’t want them to be able to go back and reverse-engineer this.”
“Don’t you usually just hand over your notes to her staff, and they do all the paperwork?” Mike asked as he continued his ministrations. Joel rolled his head from side to side, then sighed with pleasure as Mike’s fingers found a knot and worked it out.
“Yeah, but she had to let someone go last week. Turned out she had a corporate spy on the team – the woman was selling secrets to her old company. Gypsy wants to keep this top secret until a deal is made, so until she gets the results of the new background checks she ordered, she only has like three people to do the work of ten. So I ‘get to put my ideas in my own words instead of making her figure out what my scribbles mean’ as she so politely put it to me yesterday,” Joel finished. “I haven’t done a report like this since lab in college. I feel just as stupid writing papers now as I did then.”
“Were you a better speller then? Asymptote only has one ‘s’.”
“How do you know how to spell as – hey, you’re not supposed to be reading this! It’s top secret!” Joel protested.
Mike ran his hands over the top of Joel’s shoulders and down his chest, slowly. “I think you need a study break. Why don’t we go upstairs and I’ll finish working the tension out of your muscles.” He punctuated his words with slight nips at Joel’s right earlobe.
Joel sighed with more pleasure, but grabbed Mike’s wandering hands and held them still. “I’d love to, I really would. But I hafta get this report finished and emailed to Gypsy tonight, and you know I’ll end up asleep for one reason or the other if I go with you.” Joel let go of Mike’s hands and turned in his chair to face him. “I’m sorry, honey, but I just can’t. Not tonight.”
Mike chuckled ruefully. “I understand. I think I’m gonna head in anyway, read for a while, leave you in peace. Try not to make it an all-nighter, okay?”
“No promises. But I’ll try.” Joel pulled down Mike’s head and kissed him slowly, sliding his tongue into the other man’s mouth and exploring for a brief moment before pulling back. “Rain check for some other time?”
“Tease,” Mike breathed out.
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
*********
When Joel finally made it to their bedroom, after checking on the bots and making sure they were in sleep mode, Mike was also sound asleep, resting on his side facing the wall, snoring lightly. Joel slipped quietly into bed; tired as he was, it only took a few minutes of listening to Mike’s strangely comforting rumble to slip into unconsciousness.
So when he woke up suddenly a few minutes or hours later – he couldn’t quite make out the glowing numbers on the clock radio and he wasn’t going to bother with his glasses - Joel wondered blearily what it was that took him out of slumber. Just as he was slipping under again, a motion came from Mike’s side of the bed. Then repeated again, and again, furtively, as if Mike was trying to hide it.
Warmth flooded Joel’s soul. It was just like Mike to try and take care of things himself, so as to not bother Joel with his need. He felt not a little guilty about pushing Mike away earlier, not only because he didn’t want to – really didn’t want to, as his body was insistently reminding him at the moment, but because it was one of the seemingly rare nights where Tom and Crow went to bed without a fuss and stayed there, and they both hated to waste such an opportunity.
Joel rolled over and reached for his partner. Mike froze.
“Honey, it’s okay. I understand I left you hangin’ earlier. If you want to, we can take up where we left off...” Joel gently pressed his area against Mike’s backside. “...and I kinda want to.”
“Joel, it’s not what you think,” Mike whispered in the dark.
“Shhh, don’t argue, let me help.” Joel reached around to the front of Mike’s briefs, felt around, and found -
- a square of something. A small square, with ridges.
“The hell?” Joel said, bewildered. Mike sighed and reached for his lamp. The light illuminated the object Mike brought out from under the sheets.
“A Kit-Kat bar? You were unwrapping a Kit-Kat bar? In bed? At three in the morning?”
“It’s only two-twenty.”
“Seriously, a candy bar?”
“I didn’t wanna share!”