Work Text:
“Giyuu?” After hours of even breathing, Kyoujurou’s sleepy, mumbling voice breaks through the silence in their room.
“Yes?” Giyuu replies as he tries to dim the lights of his laptop even more, sighing heavily when he sees it’s already at its lowest. His chest constricts with guilt. He was hoping this wouldn’t happen, since he promised Kyoujurou he wouldn't stay up late working, yet here he is, not halfway done with the workload he needs to hand in by the end of the week.
On any other day, Giyuu would’ve taken his laptop to the living room and spent his night working there, where he doesn’t disturb anyone’s sleep, but getting out of his bed to work alone is not an option.
It’s the beginning of winter, the chill creeping into the apartment through the smallest gaps in their doors and windows, painful coldness from their toes to the tips of their noses, rushing under the blankets at any miniscule movement. The frost outside can’t come in but it still manifests in Giyuu’s extremities, cold and painful. The only space heater they have is currently in the bedroom with them. Their kotatsu tragically broke a couple of days ago and they’re still evaluating if it’ll be worth fixing this one or buying a newer model.
Giyuu expects a “what time is it?” or a “still awake, love?” with bated breath, but instead, there’s an uncharacteristically long pause.
“Yes, Kyoujurou?” he repeats hesitantly.
“...” Kyojurou stirs in bed, turning slightly towards him as he starts mumbling. Most of what he says is unclear, slurred together and too low and raspy from sleep to be understood, except for “On the fridge?”
“... What?”
“Why are you on top of the fridge?”
A brief chuckle escapes through Giyuu’s nose as he realizes that this is one of those nights. He quietly shuffles in bed to get a quick look on Kyoujurou’s face to confirm his suspicions — Kyoujurou’s eyes are shut, face completely relaxed. It’s been a while since the last time Giyuu caught Kyoujurou sleeptalking, leading him to believe it was a thing of the past, but it was foolish of him to think so. Talkative and bubbly as Kyoujurou is, of course he would have much to say about his dreams while he’s dreaming. Giyuu smiles fondly.
“Just relaxing,” Giyuu explains, deciding to entertain the narrative to see where it goes. He closes his laptop and puts it on the nightstand as delicately as he can.
“Tall place to relax,” he replies in a monotone.
This isn’t new to him, so when Kyoujurou goes silent, Giyuu stays quiet and observes. What is it gonna be today? Just this one, out of context sentence? A full scene of absolute nonsense? Or will his beloved be plagued by anxious nightmares of a family life he’s long outlived, again? The last possibility makes him frown.
“Are you not coming down?” Kyoujurou asks a couple of minutes later and Giyuu can barely make up what he’s saying. The next line comes even more garbled than the last, starting with “The-” with what he assumes is a garbled name in between “here.”
“Who?”
“...” he mouths something to himself, moves around a little in the bed, tucking himself in a little more in the blankets. “Puppies…” There’s a pause. “Green ones. From space.”
“From space?”
“Mhmm.”
“Why are they here?” Another pause.
“Mmmhhmmuh…” Kyoujurou frowns. “Chicken nuggets...”
“That’s not good,” Giyuu laughs through his nose and replies humorously. “I’ll protect them for you.”
All he gets as a response is a thankful, contented mumble from Kyoujurou, who fully turns towards Giyuu and shuffles closer to him until his husband’s face is buried in Giyuu’s hip. He goes silent again and Giyuu simply waits.
Eventually Kyoujurou’s breathing evens out and he starts to lightly snore, lulled back to sleep by the weighted blankets and the dreams he left behind his eyelids. Giyuu sighs in relief.
As much as he would love to join his husband in the depths of sleep, he still has a lot of work to do. If he focuses for a little longer, he might be able to finish this document in around an hour. So Giyuu quickly stretches his arms above his head and cracks his fingers before picking up his laptop and jumping right back into it.
The next hour goes by in a blur of wall texts. Updating company files and planners, checking finances, analyzing financial records, reporting the results to his higher ups, forwarding issues that he can’t deal with to said higher ups, replying to emails… It’s an absolute bore of a job, being an accountant. Incredibly dull. Especially when his boney fingers ache each time he presses a key because of the cold, but it’s something he’s competent enough at and it’s a stable income to keep him comfortable in life, so it is how it is.
This year’s winter is especially brutal, he figures. Even Kyoujurou, who is basically a human heater, seems to suffer from it, clinging to Giyuu’s side, a hand delicately holding to his pajama pants, burying his cold nose on Giyuu’s hipbone.
When he feels Kyoujurou shuffle even closer (as if that was even possible), Giyuu allows his eyes to rest on his beloved’s sleeping figure, whose whole face is hidden on Giyuu’s flesh, only the pink tips of his ears and his lion’s mane of fiery blonde hair visible above the blankets. He runs his hands through the soft strands without thinking about it, heart swelling with impossible fondness.
Giyuu’s whole specialty is numbers but there is no amount of them that could quantify how precious Kyoujurou is to him. He’s so lucky to be with him.
When he does that, his pinky accidentally brushes against Kyojurou’s ear, sending a full body shiver through his spine, and all the warm fuzziness in Giyuu’s chest go away as he realized he royally fucked up. His husband stops snoring and mumbles in disgruntled confusion.
“Giyuu?” He hoped the question wouldn’t come and that Kyoujurou would fall asleep immediately after, but he doesn’t. His voice is still low and muffled from sleepiness but Giyuu can tell Kyoujurou’s mostly awake from tone alone. Giyuu resigns to it and sighs.
“Yes, love?”
“What time is it?” he slowly moves on the bed, lying on his back and rubbing his hands over his eyes. Giyuu turns off his lamp on the nightstand and Kyoujurou mumbles a groggy “Thanks.”
“It’s… late.” Giyuu hopes that sparing the details will make it easier but before he can do anything about it, Kyoujurou is propped up on his eyebrows and looking pointedly at the laptop’s digital clock.
“It’s 3 in the morning,” Kyoujurou deadpans, laying down again with a dramatic thud. He looks at Giyuu with such disappointment that he has to look away. “It’s so late… Why are you up?”
“Wanted to finish replying to my emails,” he explains, hesitantly typing down a couple more words in hope of finishing the sentence.
“Reply to them in the morning,” he proposes firmly, halfway to an order, as he starts pulling the blanket over themselves — including Giyuu’s open laptop.
“It’s important,” Giyuu insists, gently swatting Kyoujurou’s hand away. Kyoujurou pouts at him.
“Nothing’s more important than a good night of sleep, Giyuu. It’s so cold, too…”
It’s hard to deny that. Not only because Kyoujurou is speaking facts — if there is one thing Giyuu hates is having a poor night of sleep — but also because he is very convincing, and he knows it. Kyoujurou turns towards him on the bed and rests his hand on his knee, right behind the laptop, and rubs circles in his joint, looking at Giyuu with those big, bright, sad puppy eyes he does when he wants anything from him. He’s so warm too… and he looked so comfortable in their bed…
“Give me half an hour and I’ll lay down.”
“Giyuu, love, please…” Kyoujurou pouts more emphatically. “It’s the second time this week…”
“15 minutes,” Giyuu insists.
“No one will even reply to these before 10 a.m..” he runs his hands from Giyuu’s knee to splay them on the back of the laptop screen, not threatening to close it but ready to do so.
“10 minutes?”
“I’m sure you can wake up a little earlier and reply to these in the morning, your superiors won’t even know.”
Giyuu’s eyes flicker from his screen, to Kyoujurou’s puppy eyes, to the blankets, and back to his screen. He heaves a heavy sigh, types a couple final words and saves the draft before closing the laptop himself, putting it back on the nightstand.
“Only if you make me coffee,” Giyuu says as if it’s a demand, but smiles fondly when Kyoujurou beams at him.
“Absolutely!”
Next thing he knows, Kyoujurou’s arms are wrapped around Giyuu’s middle and he almost tackles him down into the bed, landing with an “Oof!” , immediately snuggling up to his side and resting his head on Giyuu’s shoulder. They laugh together for a bit until Kyoujurou pulls the covers up to their shoulders, wrapping them up for the night.
There’s a couple of guilty thoughts swirling in Giyuu’s mind as he closes his eyes for the night and absentmindedly peppers kisses on the top of Kyoujurou’s head, anxious about the emails left unanswered, but those worries all melt away as their breathing evens out in sync.