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Jon hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in ages. That was just his constant; he was used to it. Hence more naps at work than he ought to be probably be taking, but… routine. So waking up in the middle of the night while staying at Tim’s wasn’t unheard of, but usually he was the one awake and Tim was still always asleep if Jon hadn’t woken up him accidentally, but now…
Now Tim wasn’t in bed, and the sheets were cold. He wondered if that was what had woken him up in the first place. And that aside, he… definitely wasn’t going to get back to sleep without knowing. (Go figure.) He was the one with insomnia, not Tim. And if he’d been having nightmares again… God. Tim having nightmares was something else, mostly because… Jon didn’t know how to take care of him when he did have them.
Not that it stopped him going to check on him.
He left his glasses on the nightstand and headed to the kitchen, feet freezing against the hardwood of Tim’s hallways. God, he hated winter, he really did. But then, there was Tim, in the kitchen, knelt in front of the open fridge and wearing his t-shirt and sweats like it wasn’t winter out, or even cold in the house at all. And Jon had to blink a moment, trying to focus in the half light of the kitchen, to realize half of Tim’s perishables were on the floor around him, as he dug around in the fridge to, what, clean? It looked like he was– was trying to organize or something.
“Tim,” Jon managed, taking another step on the cold floor. He shivered, wrapping his arms around himself. “What are you doing…?”
“Oh.” Tim glanced over his shoulder, all… too awake, given the time. “Hey. Sorry, I wake you?”
“No. Unless it was the lack of you,” he considered, and then, again, “what are you doing?”
“Cleaning the fridge, a bit. I’m tired of shoving through things just to get a drink of milk, yeah?”
Right. Right. “Tim, it’s…” He didn’t even know. “It’s late.”
“Yeah, I know.” He grabbed a tub of butter? Sour cream? Jon couldn’t read it. He put them back in the fridge, considering. “I thought it’d take a sec, buuut then I got into a zone. I wasn’t really sleeping, anyway, so I might as well.”
Okay, so he understood doing things when you couldn’t sleep, sure. But that was, like… reading. Or… researching. Watching telly. Not so much… high focus tasks. Not cleaning out the refrigerator. “Tim… we have work in the morning.”
“I know,” he replied, voice bright and sunny and… ugh. Jon was so tired. But he couldn’t help creeping forward a bit to check in a little closer. “I’ll suffer for it,” Tim continued. “If I leave this now, I’ll probably never get back around to it, sooo…” He shrugged, and smiled as Jon came to a stop next to him. “You should go back to bed. Can’t have our boss dragging cause he spent the night at Tim’s. They might think we were up to something, huh?” he joked.
He really was just… completely awake. It was overtired mania, maybe, or just… the word, what was the word… hyperfocus. That. Oh. Right. Tim did do that sometimes, didn’t he? A paragon of knowledge when it came to architecture especially, but other times, too… now. Jon opened his mouth to reply before noticing Tim’s bare arms, covered in goosebumps. Because he was… standing at the fridge. In winter. In a t-shirt. He knew Tim didn’t mind the cold so much, but that made Jon even colder just looking at him.
“You’re covered in goosebumps.”
“Yeah, a little. I was gonna put something on, but. Haven’t made it that far yet.”
“Tim…” Jon sighed and just… relented, because he wasn’t one to talk. At all. But it was cold, so he gave up his spot by Tim and shuffled back across the kitchen and down the hall. His eyelids were already drooping, but he ignored them. He pulled on a pair of his socks and grabbed one of Tim’s sweatshirts, and headed back to the kitchen again. “Put this on,” he said, offering the hoodie and what was hopefully his best commanding voice. He had a feeling it just came out pleading, but… that worked, too, he guessed.
“Oh.” Tim had to do a double take before it clicked, it seemed like, but he did take the hoodie almost immediately. “Cheers. You didn’t have to.”
“Mmph.” I wanted to, Jon didn’t say, just grunted a tired response. And then, when Tim had gone back to shifting things around, dared to put his arms around his waist and lean in against his back.
“Jon.” He was laughing, but he still said his name in that fond sort of tone. Jon loved that tone. He leaned in closer, resting his cheek on his back. “You can go back to bed.”
“Yeah,” he mumbled, closing his eyes.
“I’ll literally probably finish this and then sleep like the dead. You don’t need to wait up.”
“I know.” He probably couldn’t if he wanted to, right now, actually wanting to sleep. But it was nice to lean up against Tim’s broad back, feeling the ripple of muscle and the feeling of breathing as he worked through the fridge. And he was warm, even though he’d been covered in goosebumps. That innate level of warmth that Jon could never manage, that he was always jealous over. “You’ll come back to bed.”
“Oh, absolutely. I mean, like I wouldn’t, when you’re all cuddly like this.”
“Shut up,” Jon muttered, tightening his grip around Tim’s waist. “We have work,” he stressed.
“You can just say you want to leech my body heat,” Tim teased, patting Jon’s hands.
“Don’t be stupid.” Jon huffed, finally pulling back. He wouldn’t talk Tim back to bed until he’d finished with this, and he couldn’t stop yawning himself. He’d probably be asleep before Tim even came back. Sadly.
“Uh huh.”
“I’m going back to bed.”
“Good!” Tim turned around, ducking to press a kiss to Jon’s cheek. “Thanks, Jon. I’ll be there soon. Promise.”
Jon nodded sleepily. “Good luck with the fridge.”
“Ha! Yeah. Why do I keep so much stuff I’ll never use again?”
He might have empathized on that, if he ever kept more than a few microwaveable dinners in his own at any given time. But anyway. He grumbled something in reply and turned back for the bedroom. He was going to freeze if he kept standing here.
… and besides, Tim didn’t want his help. Couldn’t use his help, Jon knew. Past semi-sheepish comments about ‘it probably being worse if you do,’ and Jon wasn’t offended about that. He… understood, at a base level. Not… not necessarily about cleaning out the fridge in the middle of the night, but it wasn’t like Tim didn’t leave him to his own devices when he got onto something, sometimes. It was just… it’d be more uncomfortable if Jon did try to push. So he didn’t.
And yes, his feet were freezing. Even with socks. So there was that.
He crawled back into bed with his socks on, burying himself beneath the blankets again.
And he was asleep by the time Tim came back to bed; Jon didn’t know what time that was, exactly, either, but he crowded in when he did, mumbling a greeting under his breath.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you,” Tim murmured. “Again.”
“Mm.” He tucked his head under his chin. “… finish the fridge…?”
“Yeah. Spic and span.”
“Nice…”
Tim laughed, pulling him into his arms. “Go back to sleep, boss.”
“You, too…” Jon murmured.
Jon drifted off again, secure in the knowledge Tim was settled again, curled around him and dozing already.