Work Text:
It's late.
That, of course, is a fact that both know of.
However, only one is willing to take it into consideration.
Blinking drearily, amid the laptops, stationary, and possibly the biggest glass of coke to ever exist, all on one bed, one may say that the prospect of sleeping is as clear as day, as clear as night, as clear as the digital numbers on the clock next to the bed that read: 1:17.
But no. According to his partner's apparent internal clock of eternal paranoia, "time only matters when it's past 3 a.m." — and the question is: will that quote ever need the title of "inspirational motivation"? No, it will not. Nor will it ever earn the title "inspirational motivation."
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Panic Week. The week where sleepless nights are encouraged and passing out during Social Justice (a.k.a. political conversating dumbed down a few notches) is acceptable. The week when no questions will be asked about how long it's been since either of them has slept, eaten, or even just completed the daily cycle of human hygiene.
This week is hell in a nutshell. Don't get him wrong; he loves his boyfriend's stubborn ambition and the care he has for his grades, but does that have to involve staying up night after night, moderating the already factually true paragraphs they've written repeatedly to make sure plagiarism won't get in the way of their already-obvious A?
Luke winces. Okay, that sounded terribly hypocritical, but once the morning of Monday passes, it's all downhill from there. He has every right to be tired, but he'll always be proud of himself for hiding it so well during these weeks. Though, unfortunately, that is not the case with his partner and/or boyfriend.
Zander has this... drive to do well in everything he does — sport is a different story entirely, but that's "Luke's job", so he says. Whether it be a math test, an English prepared reading, or even just some random worksheet or another that their Life Sciences teacher gives them, Zander always feels the need to outdo everyone in the room.
It's not really a bad thing; it just can get destructive, not only for himself but for others as well, and that's why Luke needs to figure out how to stop his partner from working himself into a frenzy without making him overthink even more.
So he starts up conversation. "Hey, remember that time where you got so mad at your partner for spelling a word wrong in your guys' presentation?" He lifts his head to meet Zander's deadpan stare, obviously debating whether to actually answer or not.
The only thing he gets is a hum in response before he's met with a slate of purple strands once again. Sighing, he closes his laptop — the only thing he was doing was staring at a slide he's probably memorised word for word at this point with a blank expression — and sits up from where he was leaning on the headboard of the bed.
Placing the laptop off his lap, the hand that he's not using to put it next to him reaches out to quickly remove the other's laptop from his own lap and place it down on his other side, praying for his life that he won't have to bear the wrath of being tackled at 1:17 in the morning.
Thankfully, he doesn't feel fingers reaching for his wrists to try and grab at them or the familiar pressure of a body crushing him from above. The only thing that greets him is an annoyed glare, eyebrows furrowed in a way that Luke only knows to mean that he's offended. The same mangled strands form before hanging over his complexion, hands lifted into the air like he's being held at gunpoint but at most, mocking the wielder.
Luke's eyes travel from his neck, where he recognises the same silver chain he'd given Zander for his birthday when he turned fifteen. It now hides under his collared shirt that's been untucked from his loosely worn pants since the time passed 6:00.
It's only when Luke hears him clearing his throat that he gives in to eye contact. Zander stares at him for a few seconds before dropping his arms to his sides and narrowing his eyes.
"Is there a reason why you had to manually steal my laptop, or was it a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing?" He asks with a sort of sharp edge to his words, like he's dragging the words from his tongue only when they reach the tip. Luke, unfazed by his irritation, raises his eyebrows expectantly, immediately cutting off the next sentence, ready to slip the other's motives.
Zander sighs deeply, dragging his hands through his hair. "You know how I am during these weeks. Just let me have another thirty minutes, please." He adds the manner to the end in an attempt to release the tension around them, but Luke doesn't budge.
"No. It's nearly 1:30 a.m." He pauses to loosen his posture. "We need to sleep at some point." He sounds desperate, and Luke knows he sounds desperate. But the thing is, he is desperate, so he wouldn't mind having to be teased about it for the next few days if it meant waking up the next day without a headache.
Zander breathes out a few effortless attempts at defending himself but comes up with nothing. Luke thinks he's won, swinging his legs over the side of the mattress to change into something more comfortable, but Zander stops him, eyes wide with unshed pleas that Luke hopes aren't strong enough to persuade him.
Luke closes his eyes, unwilling to let himself look into the other's eyes any longer than he needs to. He shifts his gaze to the ceiling and opens them again. "Zander, we can't—"
"Yes, we can!" Surprised by his outburst, Luke turns back to his boyfriend, his wide eyes turning defeated. He sits next to him, legs itching to move away from the endless routine that is most likely going to leave him in pieces by Saturday if he doesn't fathom a convincing argument.
Before his mind can travel too far into a solution, however, Zander pulls him out again with the onslaught. "Luke, we cannot stop now. It's Wednesday, and this is due for Friday. If we don't have this down by tomorrow, we could miss something or—or—"
"What have we missed? Please enlighten me: what do we have to have done more of that we didn't do for the past month that will possibly bring down our mark by five percent?" Luke, not realising how his impatience came through in how he phrased the sentence, holds his face in his hands. Luckily, he somewhat kept his voice down enough that no one in the house woke up to witness their senseless argument at now 1:20 in the morning.
Luke notices how Zander's hands form fists every few minutes and then unfold in repeated rhythms, and how his right leg has begun bouncing up and down since the argument — if Luke can now even call it that — had started.
Zander, alas, does not give up as easily as he'd initially thought. "Oh, I'm sorry that I'm the only one who cares about our overall mark. You knew from day one that I was going to be like this; you chose this. So, you have no right to complain."
"What do you mean I have no right to complain?"
"You," a finger is shot into his chest, "were the one that chose to be my partner. You," it digs into the fabric, "knew the package that went along with it."
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you can just control my life!" He swipes the finger away. "I'm allowed to have a say in this too. That's what a partnership's about, isn't it?" They're practically whisper-shouting at each other, faces mere inches apart, with how much either's point means for them to convince the other to understand.
It stays silent for a long moment, neither of them attempting to give one another a chance to shut their plea down. It remains that way until Zander opens his mouth to spit out another vile dose of poison at him, eyes perpetuating no form of truce, hands ready to plot another story.
"This is ridiculous." His hands come up to cradle his forehead. "You decided to be my partner; you decided to withstand the nights that you know I need in order to stay sane; you were the one to confront me and say, "Hey, I know how you work during these projects, and I'm fine with that", yet you still are the one to—"
Luke doesn't know why he does it. Maybe it was the atmosphere, the concept in which the tension changed, or the pure impulse that it took to make the other stop talking and help him understand the argument before diving straight into the controversy — and maybe Luke will never know, but he doesn't regret it.
They're now facing each other, eyes pointedly focused on one another's display: cheeks, chin, and chest brandished for one to see and for the other to long. Luke's hand covers the expanse of Zander's expression, only leaving his eyes exposed from his insistent impulse. But what Luke had hoped for in the motive prior is accomplished: it covers his mouth, preventing him from speaking any more soundless complaints.
Luke stares through the follicles that hover over his eyeline and tilts his head to the side — almost a complete imitation of what the other had done before— while leisurely leaning forward, finding that gaining a closer perspective will benefit him in the long run, yet he questions himself more and more as their faces lose proximity rather quickly.
Zander's eyes never leave Luke's perimeter; they travel with him as he moves closer, not having noticed how effective his method of silence was. Once they're sidling for an inch or so, Luke moves his head to the side, no longer maintaining eye contact with his partner.
He seems to have noticed a flaw in his plan, however, and he falters, his head not making any sudden movement closer to, as Zander guesses, his neck. Confused, he's about to lift his arms to manually pause whatever's happening next to him, but that's when Luke starts edging closer again.
Finally, after what felt like hours to both of them, Luke's head meets Zander's shoulder, creating a pathetic example of a hug. But that soon changes when Luke brings his loose arms up to wrap the open half of the other's body and cradle it, slowly drawing sketches out of gentle nails as he traces his hand around each limb with care, embracing the chance he has to calm his boyfriend.
Luke smiles softly when he feels the breath Zander lets out through the gap of his fingers that now sit comfortably over his chin — still over his mouth, but less of a threat; it more sits there as a grounding source for either of them to rely on. When Luke's hand reaches behind Zander's neck, he caresses the skin around it, opening his eyes from how they were lidded over to possibly make the best or worst decision of his life.
His head shifts, face lifting out of the other's shoulder to replace it with something softer. Zander, confused, turns his own slightly to meet the hair that sits behind Luke's. Though, with the other's hand limiting his turning point, he waits for whatever he feels his boyfriend doing.
The other opens his mouth. "Relax," a pause, "please?"
Eventually, without much anticipation, a pair of lips meet the side of his neck. Registering the scene, his posture tenses. It feels strange but nice, like he should want more but can't decipher what he wants more of. So he breathes a sigh of uncertainty as the pecks journey along the base of his neck to his jawline.
Luke, somewhat prideful, decides to trail his mouth along the entire expanse of his partner's neck, jaw, chest, and shoulder.
It soon ends up standing at an intimate level between them. And as they now wake up the following morning, Luke can easily say that he most definitely would risk a headache to live through it again.