Work Text:
Wilson doesn’t exactly know how he fell asleep.
He was this close to finishing the blueprints for his new project, a device used to park boats automatically using large magnets. (He opts to call it the Nautopilot purely for the comedic value.) He’d been working for a while, and the words he'd written down had been unfocusing themselves in his field of view for several minutes by the time he’d decided to take a break.
Wilson had just wanted to rest his eyes for a few moments before adding the final details to the blueprints.. And then, suddenly, he was being shaken awake (rather rudely, might he add!) by his automaton partner.
He startles, gasping deeply and blinking a few times. He looks up at them.
“WX-78? What are you doing up here?” He croaks, and the grogginess of his own voice startles him.
“I WAS GOING TO ASK YOU THE SAME THING. WHY ARE YOU NOT SLEEPING IN A BED?”
Why would I be sleeping? It was only afternoon the last time he’d checked. Wilson takes a quick peek at his digital watch to find it displaying the current time: 12:42 AM.
He must have made a face, because WX-78 squeezes his shoulder gently.
“HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WORKING UP HERE?”
“Since this morning,” he mumbles, unsure of just how time got away from him that badly.
“REALLY? I HAVE NOT SEEN YOU SINCE MONDAY,” they say.
“What day is it?”
They release a droning noise of displeasure, their robotic version of a sigh. “IT IS WEDNESDAY, WILSON.”
His stomach drops. Wednesday? He’d been up here for two days and hadn’t even realized.
“Oh,” he says. Wilson yawns and mulls it over for a moment. “Well, that’s fine. I don’t have another shift until tomorrow afternoon.. Er, later today, technically. I’ll just finish this last part and come down–”
“NO. YOU ARE GOING TO BED.”
“What? But I’m almost done–”
“I DO NOT CARE. I AM NOT DRIVING YOU TO THE HOSPITAL BECAUSE YOU DECIDED TO ACT BRAINLESS.”
“Why would I go to the hospital?”
“BECAUSE HUMANS NEED SLEEP, YOU IDIOT. IF YOU DO NOT SLEEP, YOUR BODY WILL SHUT ITSELF OFF. AND YOU WILL PROBABLY HIT YOUR BIG HEAD ON SOMETHING ON THE WAY DOWN.”
Wilson scrunches up his nose in annoyance. “That’s not true! I’ve gone at least five days without sleep before.” he says. “Also, my head isn’t that big,” he mumbles.
“THAT IS NOT A GOOD THING,” WX-78 says, and Wilson holds back an eye roll. “NOW, ARE YOU COMING WITH ME WILLINGLY, OR DO I HAVE TO DRAG YOU DOWN THERE MYSELF?”
Wilson sighs. “The first one,” he says, and he stands up. A chorus of crackles emits from his joints as he stretches, and he winces as his neck pops particularly loudly.
WX-78 starts to make their way towards the stairs down from the attic, and he follows along sluggishly. Maybe they’re onto something, because the feeling of exhaustion is quickly instilling itself in the forefront of his brain. He wobbles a little as he walks, and he’s thankful that WX-78 isn’t looking at him as they climb down the ladder.
Once Wilson steps off of the final step of the ladder to the attic, WX-78 folds the entire attic entrance back up. Wilson helps them push it back up into the closed position.
He ponders asking them how they even got up there, considering they can barely reach the cord to pull it down, but he decides he’d rather keep his kneecaps intact.
WX-78 turns to him.
“OKAY. NOW, TAKE A SHOWER. YOU STINK, AND YOUR SHIRT IS STAINED A DIFFERENT COLOR FROM YOUR SWEAT.”
Wilson opens his mouth to protest, but they interrupt him. “I AM NOT TAKING NO FOR AN ANSWER. I WILL PUT CLOTHES IN THERE FOR YOU, BECAUSE I FEAR THAT IF YOU WALK TOO MUCH YOU WILL FALL ON YOUR FACE.”
Wilson holds back a sigh. Well, I guess there’s really no getting out of this one, huh?
Wilson makes his way over to the pair’s shared bathroom. He flicks the light on, shuts the door, and goes through the motions of undressing himself. It goes slowly. As time goes on, Wilson begins to realize just how tired he is. His eyes refuse to stay open for more than a few seconds at a time if he isn’t forcing them open.
Wilson kicks his clothes into the corner of the room. He turns the shower on and walks in, immediately basking in the warm water caressing his sore joints. He finds his eyes closing several times without his consent, leaning into the nice feeling.
Eventually, Wilson blearily decides to sit on the floor of the shower so he doesn’t fall over. He doesn’t want to prove WX-78 right, after all.
He sits down and folds his legs, letting the water hit his hair and calves in such a soothing motion that he can’t help but to drift off for a little bit.
Until the bathroom door opens abruptly, that is. He belatedly realizes that their shower curtain is translucent and that they can very obviously see him sitting on the floor.
He stays quiet and hopes they don’t notice.
He sees their blurry form place something on the top of the toilet and nearly turn around, and then stop in their tracks.
“WILSON. DO NOT TELL ME YOU FELL ASLEEP.”
He groans.
“GET UP. YOU CAN SLEEP IN LESS THAN TWENTY MINUTES. YOU NEED TO ACTUALLY CLEAN YOURSELF OR THIS WHOLE THING IS POINTLESS.”
He groans again, burying his face in his legs.
“THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE. GET UP, OR I WILL MAKE YOU.”
Yeah, right, he thinks. It’s not like they can actually do anything.
After a few seconds, WX-78 reaches into the shower and turns the third lever all the way to the left, causing the water to go from pleasantly warm to scalding hot.
“Fuck!” Wilson shouts, stumbling to try to get up. After a few seconds, WX-78 flicks the lever all the way to the right, and the water switches to completely freezing. They retract their arm from the shower, and Wilson is too busy trying to get up without tripping and reaching for the lever to notice the few sparks emitting from their arm.
“Okay, okay, I get it! I’ll be out in five,” he says, scowling even though they can’t see his face.
“GOOD. I WILL BE TIMING YOU,” they say, and their exit from the room is marked by the soft click of the door closing.
As the water temperature finally climbs back to a level that Wilson deems acceptable, he starts to actually wash himself.
That little.. ugh. How rude, he thinks.
Wilson scrubs his body down with soap until his skin is pink, thinking back to WX-78’s earlier comment.
They were probably exaggerating, right? No, they never lie to save my feelings. Maybe I really do stink, he thinks. Wilson takes his time scrubbing his hair and finds it to be quite pleasant.
By the time he’s out of the shower, Wilson is actively fighting sleep. He sloppily towels himself off and looks over to see that WX-78 had laid out some boxers, socks, sweatpants, and a tank top for him. He puts the clothes on slowly, willing himself to stay awake long enough to get into the bed to make WX-78 happy.
He would honestly sleep on the floor if he had to.
Wilson picks up his discarded clothes off of the floor where he’d kicked them to. Out of curiosity, he sniffs them.
WX-78 was right. Bleh. His nose crinkles and he holds the smelly ball of clothing away from his face dramatically.
Wilson flicks the light off and exits the bathroom to find WX-78 standing outside of it, leaning against the wall.
“SIX MINUTES AND FORTY-TWO SECONDS. YOU TOOK LONGER THAN FIVE MINUTES,” they say, and Wilson can’t hold back his sigh this time.
“Sorry, your highness. I’ll try to get the predictions right next time,” he grumbles.
“GOOD,” WX-78 says, and Wilson is being dragged into their shared bedroom before he can say anything else sarcastic. WX-78 turns the light on as they enter the room. Wilson throws the clothes towards the laundry hamper as they pass by it and is not surprised to miss the basket entirely. They release his arm at the bed, and his stomach chooses that precise time to growl as loudly and embarrassingly as possible.
“DO NOT TELL ME YOU DID NOT EAT WHILE YOU WERE UP THERE.”
“I did!” He exclaims, but then backpedals. “Well.. it’s been a while.”
WX-78 frowns. “STAY HERE. DO NOT FALL ASLEEP YET OR I WILL WAKE YOU UP WITH A TASER,” they say, and exit the room.
Ah, creative threats. He smiles a bit.
It’s one of the many things Wilson loves about them, after all.
Wilson sits on the bed and leans his head back against the headboard, willing himself to stay awake for just a little longer.
Several minutes later, WX-78 comes back into the room with a bowl of something steaming and a glass of water. They sit both on the nightstand on Wilson’s side of the bed and walk back around to sit next to him.
“EAT. AND THEN WE WILL SLEEP,” they say, and pull out a tablet from their nightstand. They begin to read something, the obnoxiously bright light of the screen casting an interesting glow over their features.
Wilson looks over to the bowl to find steaming ramen noodles in it.
It’s such a small gesture, but he finds himself tearing up anyway. They could’ve been asleep by now. They could’ve just left him up there to sleep and wake up with a backache, or to whatever else might have happened. Maybe he’s just really sleep deprived, but something about the gesture really touches him. The tears threaten to spill.
He finds himself wrapped around their torso before he can stop it.
“Thank you,” he mumbles with a small sniffle, muffled by their neck against his mouth.
“WHATEVER,” they say, and fondly ruffle his damp hair before shoving him off of them. “NOW EAT. I AM LEAVING FOR WORK IN SEVEN HOURS, AND I WOULD LIKE TO RECHARGE FOR AT LEAST SIX OF THEM.”
Wilson nods. He turns to the steaming bowl and grabs it. Now that he thinks about it, he really can’t remember the last time he’d eaten. He wolfs down the noodles in record speed.
Wilson drinks some of the water and leaves the cup and the bowl on the nightstand, reasoning that it can be taken care of tomorrow. He climbs under the bedsheets, and then his gaze turns to WX-78. Their eyes meet, and he silently pleads for them to join him.
He impatiently watches as WX-78 stands up and puts their tablet away. They open a small hatch on their lower back and draw from it a long charging cable. They plug it into an extension cord on the floor, and Wilson reminds himself not to point out how much it looks like a tail again, because WX-78 hates being compared to an organic.
Even if it definitely looks like a tail.
After what feels like a ridiculously long time (although it was actually only one minute) WX-78 climbs into the bed and shifts to be under the bedsheets with him.
As soon as they're still, Wilson clings to their chest and nuzzles into it like a cat.
“I’m so lucky,” Wilson mumbles, nuzzling into them further. “So lucky..”
WX-78 says nothing, but the way they hold him close says enough.
Wilson falls asleep, feeling warm, full, and loved. What more could a man ask for?