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Zach was woken up from his sleep by a light sniffling sound — which sounded like crying
Thinking, he remembered his husband on his right. Zach opened his eyes, it was still dark.
He shuffled a little and placed a hand on what he think was Tristan's arm — it was too dark to tell — he felt him go rigid at his touch, the siffling coming to a sudden stop. "Tristan?" he murmured, "You awake?"
Tristan stayed silent, but Zach knew he was awake.
"Tristan."
Zach lifted himself up on an elbow to try and see Tristan better in the dark, he could hear Tristan's shaky breathes. He decided to just let it be and ask about it tomorrow.
***
Zach had woken up in the middle of the night once again.
Earlier that day, he had tried asking Tristan about last night, but he had just given him a look of feigned confusion. Zach wasn't unfamiliar to Tristan's masks.
He had tried to just go about his day, but when he turned over onto his back and looked over, Tristan was no where to be seen. Where did he go at this time of the night?
Zach managed to crawl out of bed and padded over to the door. Only wearing his shorts, the cold hallway made him shiver a little.
He stepped down slowly, trying to keep his balance on the stairs. He hadn't exactly gotten that much sleep.
Zach paused when he heard a sound—the sound of a phone vibrating?— he followed the sound, stepping into the kitchen.
He came to a halt when he noticed Tristan, who seemed to have fallen asleep on the kitchen counter sitting on the island chair. Zack stepped over and leaned in to see the caller ID of who was ringing. James. Zack's younger brother's fiancé, or in other terms, Tristan's half-brother.
Zach had noticed Tristan making an effort to acknowledge James's existence a lot more lately. He didn't exactly take their friendship as a calling-in-the-middle-of-the-night-one.
The phone stopped ringing, 3 missed calls from 'Jimbo'. He chose to ignore it and lightly wake Tristan up.
Tristan mumbled something incoherently, lifting his head from the bench, "Mm... Zach?" Tristan rubbed his eyes trying to focus his gaze, "Why are you..." he picked up his phone to presumably look at the time, "Why are you up at midnight...?"
"I was going to ask you the same thing, dollface." Zach lifted his hand to brush Tristan's fringe from his eyes, "You weren't in bed."
"Oh, yeah, couldn't sleep." Tristan got up from the seat an laid a hand on Zach's chest, "Just go back to sleep, I'll be there in a minute." he gave Zack a lazy smile, he looked tired.
"Alright." Zack ran a hand through Tristan's hair, "You okay?"
"What?"
"Don't act dumb, Tristan."
"I don't know what you're talking about..." Tristan averted his gaze, looking anywhere but Zach.
Zach studied the tension in Tristan, "Ok... you know you can talk to me about anything."
"Mhm." Tristan's voice cracked, his eyes suddenly more shiny, he stepped closer and basically leaned his whole body on Zack's. He buried his face into the crook of Zach's neck.
Zach could feel the tears on his skin, he laid a hand on the back of Tristan's head and one on his back.
***
Zach was giving Tristan some lecture... at least he thought he was. He couldn't exactly hear Zach over the blow dryer.
Yep. Zach had Tristan sat down on a stool, while Zach was drying his hair, that Zach washed for him!
Worst part was: he actually liked this, this actually had calmed him down after his little breakdown into Zach's shirt.
Finally, the blow-dryer turned off and Zach grabbed the hair brush.
They didn't say anything for a bit, yet Zach's touch still felt comforting as he ran his fingers through Tristan's scalp. Basically purring as he leaned into the touch.
Then Zach finished doing his hair. No one said anything still.
***
8 minutes later, Zach had brought him back to their bed.
"You want to talk about it?"
Tristan hummed into Zach's side, lifting his head, "About what?", he pouted exaggeratedly.
"You're impossible." Zach laughed at his pout and placed a kiss on his forehead.