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There was a strange clicking noise in Mato’s hut as he tried to sleep. It was practically tapping his forehead slowly until he begrudgingly opened his eyes, rolled over and sat up.
Was it clicking? Clinks? Mato rubbed his eyes and was shocked to see it was chewing!
A vengefly was nibbling in a vain attempt to get into his foodbin?!
He leapt out of bed, grabbing a nail that was in the ground. “Oi!! Oi, shoo!” He yelled, swinging it to get it in the air.
He tried to strike the pesky, now squawking, pest but when he stepped forward without taking his eyes off his foe, he stepped on one of his floor pillows and slipped to the ground.
“Augh!”
The vengefly flew around him, pecking at him until he got up. He swatted at it again, but still missed and hit another nail in the ground. The impact almost made it come back towards his face!
With a thankfully unsliced face, Mato stood again. The vengefly squawked right in his ear, and Mato just... grabbed it with his hand!
It cried, trying to bite his hand but being unable to. “Ghhh…” Mato groaned, wondering if he should just throw it to the floor to squash its skull.
“You’re lucky I’m too tired to clean your blood off this floor…” He grumbled under his breath, moving to leave the hut.
He walked to the end of the cave, and let it go with a toss. It tried to fly back to him and squawked at him again.
“SQAW!” Mato vocalized back, louder. It was a sharp enough noise to make the vengefly disturbed and fly off, letting Mato go back inside to try and get back to bed.
He walked slowly, exhaustion filling him. He honestly was thrilled to get back into bed…but…
He also looked at the state of his home. The messy cot, the strewn blankets, and pillows. The skeletons on every wall, his shields, his clubs, his cooking supplies, his nails!
It was all a total disaster waking him up each second he looked at it.
He needed to take care of it like he’s been neglecting.
Maybe he’d fold a blanket. Scoot over some of these skeletons. He grabbed the first one and started to plan a complete rearrangement of his home in his sleep-deprived state.
He muttered under his breath. “It’ll only take a moment. To clean up these blankets and nails. Only a moment.”
---
Mato had been cleaning for likely a few hours at this point. He lit the fire and put on a kettle, and kept going way longer than he intended to.
Blankets folded and put on the side of the room for later. Pillows moved next to his bed, still in a pile but not in the way. His clubs were moved further against the wall, more behind the skeleton. He even found his wire broom and swept!
Blinking tiredly, he wondered if he should’ve swept last, but just poured himself a cup of tea to sip at while he thought of what else to do.
Drinking while looking about, he decided to dust the skeletons later. The biggest option he could think of was reorganizing his cooking supplies.
“Maybe I can…move my bed too! Rearrange!” Mato drank a big gulp of the hot tea, mumbling to himself. That would be another thing to do later. This tea needed sugar, he realized. Being tired made it taste bitter, he bet.
He opened his kitchen storage bin and saw it was pretty packed. Packed strangely. Like he got home and was so exhausted he just stuffed it in.
…Yeah that sounded a bit right. Mato went ahead and forgoed the sugar in his tea and put it down to start pulling out everything in that bin.
Hornet’s jam, the bag of sugar cubes, wrapped meat for tomorrow, there were a few pots and pans that didn't belong in this bin. This was food storage, not cooking supply storage.
Without finishing getting everything out of the first bin, Mato grabbed the cooking supplies and started taking them out too.
“I’ll wipe down the bins, put everything back, and then sleep. How long can that take?”
Mato stretched and his back gave a little snap noise. He sighed a yawn.
He’d need more tea for that.
---
Ogrim woke up slowly as his internal clock demanded. A delightful glow illuminated around his chest that lit up his burrow, and it made him wake with a smile.
He put his claw on his engagement charm and yawned. He always loved waking up to its beam, even if he never needed it in the safety of his burrow.
Maybe it knew when he dreamed? Ogrim couldn’t even remember his dream this time, so he wouldn’t be able to tell.
He looked about his burrow, stretched, and said to himself, “Time to tidy up!”
Using his claws and a time-earned method, he stood up and smoothed the dung below him back into a comfy pile. His bed was now made.
He walked the space of his burrow, stretching more while he checked for dry spots. Any patchiness in the burrow's integrity from an unfortunate lack of moisture needed to be dealt with swiftly.
Sometimes they soured his morning because he would have to break it, and line it again. It was a pain in the ass, his words.
Thankfully, he was spared and his home looked healthy. Ogrim couldn’t help but sigh with relief.
He made a few more dungballs, sticking them in corners. There really wasn’t much to his burrow morning routine if there wasn’t a dry spot.
So he had one more thing to do in this little routine. It was at a little dung table with an arch he made above it. He touched it up a bit, smiling somberly as he looked at what was under it.
Hegemol’s broken Hallownest Seal and his rusted old helmet. Trinkets of his past that still felt…alright to keep.
Ogrim sat on his knees and bent his head forward. To start a morning prayer.
A prayer for Isma and Dryya’s souls once more.
A prayer for Hegemol and Ze’mer’s safety.
He spoke to himself for a while and ended the prayer with the plea he gave every time he did. That they’d find each other again whenever it may happen.
But he still moved forward.
“-I love you four. Thank you.” Ogrim opened his eyes quickly, two little tears falling down his cheeks. He touched the seal, almost religiously. It was good luck if you asked him.
He took a deep breath and just said, “Okay.”
He stood and moved to leave his burrow. “Let’s bathe and start our day, beloved.” He talked to Mato even though he knew he wouldn’t be in his home with him unless it was a major emergency.
It made him chuckle every time they discussed those plans or situations.
But right now, he just wanted breakfast.
---
The winds were restless against Ogrim’s unprotected head, but it just made his eager step to his husband quicker. Plus it helped dry his damp fluff from his morning soak, so he took it in stride!
“Good morning, Mato!” He called into the hut, going through the first curtain. Before he could get the second one, he heard something clatter to the ground. “Huh-?”
“Oh, my gods-” Mato gasped, making Ogrim open the curtain in hurried concern. “Mato, what’s the ma-…oh.”
Ogrim first saw Mato, cloakless, looking at him extremely guiltily, and then he saw the floor.
One half was covered in various pots, pans, empty jars they used for tea herbs, their brand new kettle, and just all of their cutlery in a pile. The other half was all of the food sorted from things they need to eat today and stuff they stored from the garden, plus their cups in the wrong spot allegedly.
In other words, It was an organized wreck.
Mato bent over and picked up what he dropped, checking it for damage. He would’ve been very upset if he broke one of Ogrim’s favorite bowls.
He put it on the other side of the pile and started talking before Ogrim could even process the situation. “Okay. Okay okay, I know how this looks. I did not stay up all night doing this. Only most of it.”
“Mato…”
“I swear, no all-nighter this time, no guilty humming, I have slept!”
“Mato.”
Ogrim could see that this hut was a lot cleaner, even if everything was thrown on the floor. He knew that Mato had been cleaning for a long while then. “How long have you been cleaning, dear?”
Mato picked up a rag and put it in the now completely empty bins to wipe them clean. “I got woken by a stupid vengefly a while into my rest and have been tidying ever since. And-” He yawned as he switched bins.
“And I couldn’t even defeat it through my mess. So. I…it's been hours.”
Ogrim looked at the stuff Mato still had to do. “I’m glad you got this burst of motivation to tidy, but this is a lot done very early. If you wanted to clean, we could’ve done it together!”
Ogrim grabbed their tin of homemade mixed nuts from the food pile, opened it, and ate a few. He then gave it to Mato, and Mato had to eat some too.
“I figured you’d forget to eat in it.” He always did.
“I almost dozed away from myself, but couldn’t bear to. So I ate some caffeinated tea.”
Despite his misspeak, Ogrim had to ask. “How much? You need to rest anyways, but how much?”
Mato closed the tin and put it away in the now clean bin. “Uh…I…don’t remember- Two cups? Three?”
Mato stepped forward and knocked over a cup with the step, tea pouring onto the floor.
“Three and a half-” He admitted, before fumbling with the cloth to clean the spill. “Wah-!”
Ogrim sighed, carefully stepping around Mato’s piles to help him. He took the rag from Mato and wiped up all the tea. "Dear, rest. Eat more nuts. I'll help you clean."
Mato watched Ogrim put the rag down and start putting the food back.
"Oh, no. Ogrim, I want to finish! I don't want to…to to start stuff and dump it on you! Let me start getting the-"
He picked up the cup and looked at it for a moment. Ogrim wondered if he was confused…
After a few tired beats, Mato stated "The dishes! The dishes. Put away. And…we need to make the curtain stronger."
Mato started to grab the dishes, and Ogrim shook his head. "Sit a moment at least, love. You need a break and I've only just started. I won't do it all."
Typically, in moments like this where sleep eludes Mato, Ogrim would make Mato tea and help about the house until Mato takes a nap.
Then they can pick up their usual routine from there and have a grand time. But if Mato really did have three cups of tea already, Ogrim wasn't about to make his body fight that.
He didn’t think he’d be able to fight Mato down just yet, so he’d let him do what he wanted. Let it happen naturally.
So Ogrim let Mato pick up the dishes to start packing them away. “So you really couldn’t leave this until I got here, hm? Had to do it immediately?” He asked as he put the wrapped food to the side to put the sturdier jars on the bottom.
Mato picked some grime off the pan, mostly just burnt stuff you don’t have to clean all the way off of it, and put it away. “Yes. If I even thought about sleeping before it was finished, I would be like “Nailmaster Mato, if you put this off you’ll never get it done!” and I couldn’t bear that!” Ogrim nodded at this, humming.
They got into a rhythm of organizing, with Mato yawning every now and then. “You really didn’t need to help right away. You can make breakfast.” Mato offered, but Ogrim just tsked a few times.
“I’m not eating breakfast proper without you. That’s our pattern. You know us and our patterns.”
“I do, I do…” Mato spoke in a yawn, waving at him. “I just…mentally could not stand it a moment longer, you know? Wanted to get it done fast, on my own.” He sleepily shifted the pots so he could stick the kettle in, not thinking about how Ogrim might want to use it later.
“I still want to pull up some of these nails I left in the floor…you always say they’re in your way.”
Ogrim hummed, “Well, Let’s not let this improvement in home arrangement come from an accidentally destructive place. I want you to rest after we get this task done.” Ogrim put the soft meats on top of everything, very good at packing things into a small space.
He closed the food drawer and looked at Mato’s progress.
He had like, a small dent of the dishes organized. It concerned Ogrim that he was getting too tired to do this.
So he started grabbing dishes and putting them in as well.
“Ah, I got it!”
“It’s okay if you don’t.”
“I do!” Mato snapped a little bit, and Ogrim just gave him a tired, blank look. “Mato. Darling. We aren’t doing this today. I am helping you finish cleaning. You are taking a nap. I am making you breakfast. That’s our plan. Are you going to stick to it?”
Mato went silent, looking down and muttering, “By the time I finish it’ll be lunch-”
“Would you rather just eat lunch then?” Ogrim asked, taking the bowls and stacking them. Mato thought, and after a moment just went, “Yeah…”
“Then let’s finish.”
So Ogrim then helped Mato with the rest of the bins. The dishware stacked just as it used to be. Orderly, able to be closed, it was wonderful.
It also took a while, but it was an effort well worth.
Even if Mato was so quiet and tired, it honestly scared Ogrim a little bit. “I want…more tea. Did we bury the kettle?”
“You don’t need more caffeinated tea, dear.”
Mato just sighed loudly, making Ogrim chuckle. Caffeine kept Mato up but it sure did not make him feel awake.
He just felt even more tired as he stood and surveyed the room.
“Right, the nails. While you cook, I’ll get to the nails…” Mato yawned once more and started pulling up the nails one by one.
“Mato, we agreed that you’d take a rest while I cook. You’ve been cleaning most of the night. Listen to me and rest.”
Mato looked at the nails and his love, trying to decide which to actually listen to. “But, I can…do this in the meantime while you cook and rest while we eat.”
“You should rest while I cook.”
“Ogrim.” Mato lowered the nails, not happy.
“Mato.” Ogrim dared him to try and avoid his care to continue this unhealthy hyperfocus.
They stared at each other until Mato picked up another nail and straightened to look at Ogrim stubbornly.
Then his vision swam in his exhaustion.
With a little gasp, Mato nearly fell to the floor, but Ogrim quickly stood from his kneel to catch him.
He dropped the nails and bonked into Ogrim’s claws as he steadied him, lest he falls onto the sharp or dull nails.
Mato blinked hard, trying to clear his vision. Dizziness just clung to him as Ogrim led him to his bed, but Mato missed and sat on the ground.
“Geh-” He put his hand to his forehead, shaking it.
“Oh dear…dear, you must listen to me in times like this! You know that.” Mato took deep breaths, not wanting to sleep but even just steady breathing lulled him.
Ogrim knelt and held his shoulders. “I know how you get when you want to finish something no matter what. I know how terrible it feels to hold off or to take a break when you have that rare motivation, but not allowing yourself to do that harms you much more than you care to admit.” He lovingly adjusted his headband, trying to ground Mato.
“I’ve criticized your hut for its clutter before, yes, but never once has anyone asked you to harm yourself with exhaustion to fix it. Just to keep an open mind about it. To talk to me about it. We always say how we can do everything together.”
Ogrim took his hand and rubbed it comfortingly with the bumps of his claw. “Can’t this be one of those things?”
Mato’s vision calmed down, and he took in Ogrim’s words. “...yeah...yeah. I just…didn’t want this…to take long.”
Ogrim kissed his head, and Mato loved the feeling of his fluff on his cheek. “Heh…” He blushed a touch, sleepiness waving against him again.
“We can take as long as you need. We never need to rush. You don’t rush me. I don’t see the need to rush you. So why rush ourselves?”
“You’re righttt, you’re always right.” Mato groaned, earning one more smooch.
“What do you want for lunch?” Ogrim asked, ready to make whatever Mato wanted to eat.
“If I’m awake for it, we can do like…those uh. Vengefly tenders I made. I want…cosmic vengeance.”
Ogrim just chuckled at that, standing up. “Okay. We can do that. Take one of your blankets.” He grabbed one, giving it to Mato. “Enjoy your break. We’ll declutter more after.”
Mato stared at the blanket, and then Ogrim who just picked up the nails to move them to the side of the room for now.
“Ogrim…?”
“Yes, beloved?”
“...I love you…very very much…” His voice sounded so tired, but it was like he was already mentally decluttered.
Ogrim just gave him a weary smile, and replied, “I love you too, darling. You did a wonderful job, but you know I’d never let this slide.”
He opened the just tidied bin and pulled out their pan, ruining their work. But a clean environment never stayed clean, everyone knew that.
He fed the fire a bit, glad Mato didn’t even think to extinguish it when making his tea.
He put the pan in place and was also grateful that Mato chose such an easy lunch. Ogrim gathered the meat and spices, even some greens to toss in the mix.
“Revenge vengefly…” He snorted, smiling at Mato. “You can be quite the card, love.” He laughed towards Mato, but when he saw him lying against his bed with a dozed expression, he opted to keep quiet.
He would let Mato nap until the food was finished because he was so proud of him for what he accomplished even if the method was less than stellar for him.
The hut did look nice, he just wanted Mato to feel nice with it. So he would help, cook, and kiss him. It was going to be alright if they worked together.
Even when Mato began to snore, Ogrim knew they could get through any sleepy situation life threw at them.
They were the strongest two in the cliffs, after all!
Clutter or no clutter!