Work Text:
"This is hell. I don't rightly care if ya believe in it or not, this -is- it."
Shepherd leaned back in his chair, furiously blinking reddened eyes to hopefully bring some focus back to them. Sarnax was doing much the same in the seat next to him, looking as exhausted as he felt.
"...and this...lack of sleep is something you do -willingly-, Shepherd?"
"Not willingly! It jus' happens sometimes. An' I wouldn't wish it on anybody." He groaned, rubbing his aching eyes. "...never. Again. I don' care how good the extra credit it. I ain't doing this much work this quickly again."
The table in front of them was filled with scattered papers, books, haphazard notes (in both Shephard's scrawl and Sarnax's blocky lettering), one very beat-up laptop that smelt faintly of hay, and a small mountain of empty coffee cups. But resting in the middle, nearly completed, was their mock-up lesson for a junior class. They had -finally- almost finished, after three days of almost constant work.
Shepherd leaned forward to slap the enter key on his long-suffering laptop, sending the final page to the printer.
"Annnn'....done. Fuckin'. Finally. Jus' gotta wait for that slow-ass printer to do its thing an'-"
A gentle bump of a dozing head against his shoulder stopped him mid-sentance. He turned in suprise, watching Sarnax shoot to an upright postition beside him like a rocket, blinking sleepily.
"...y'all right there?"
"I...apologize. I believe I may have closed my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them, you were much closer than I realized."
"Uh huh."
The printer continued its long, drawn-out process across the room. Shepherd sighed and leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms.
"....they... really oughta get new printers."
Next to him, Sarnax sat back in his chair as well, staring blankly at the machines slow progress.
"Perhaps, next time, we could ask one of the others if we could borrow their printer..."
A loud yawn caused Shepherd to slide farther back in his seat. "...yeah, sure. If we ever recover from this, sure thing..."
It took almost twenty minutes before the ancient printer finally spat out the last few pages.
But neither of the men noticed as they leaned against each other, both fast asleep.