▤ = falling asleep on them {[ fluff is good for the soul ]}
It had been an incredibly long day. No, really. The work day ran over by six hours already, and there was still so much to be done. Roy was both lucky and immensely thankful that his ever loyal lieutenant had elected to stay and help when most everyone else tapped out after the second hour. When it came to reorganizing the investigative reports, no one wanted to stick around, and hardly anyone blamed them for harboring such feelings. Hell, if Roy had been of a lower status and a much less ambitious man, he would have ran home a long time ago as well.
Now, someone might think that this kind of “busy work” was best left to secretaries, but some of the information within these documents was best left classified, therefore those higher up in the chain of command were stuck with the work. Luckily it only happened once every year or two. That didn’t make it any more enjoyable, however.
It was the early hours of the morning. Outside the moon was high and the stars were twinkling, but their collective light was dimmed by the low hanging clouds. It was a chilly autumn and a low-hanging fog seemed to condemn the whole area. It made driving difficult, not that anyone would be driving anywhere anytime soon. Roy looked up from his stack of volumes and uttered a weak groan. “Perhaps we should take a break, Riza.” he continued with a sigh, leaning back in his chair and cracking his knuckles as he stretched his arms out far from his body. At this point, professional formality was thrown out the window. He addressed her by her name, and he didn’t really care. “Would you like some coffee?”
He stood and left without awaiting her answer, only gone a few minutes before returning with two steaming mugs. He handed one to her, “it’s how you like it,” while he brought his to his lips, taking a seat on a nearby sofa to attempt relaxing if even just for a minute. He had closed his eyes and reclined his head when Riza stood to join him, feeling the cushion dip slightly next to him. Her arm grazed his and they sat in silence for a long time. Well, it wasn’t true silence as there was a slight buzzing to the lamps, the crackling of the fire down the hall, the shuffling of papers in the next room over, and wind beginning to howl outside the window, but it was enough of a silence to enjoy it.
The weight of the figure next to him shifted, and he could feel the lieutenant pressed closer to him. There was something weary about the position, he recognized. “If you’d like, Riza,” he said finally, breaking the silence after taking his mug from his mouth. “you can leave. I can handle the last of this.” There was no response from his female companion, and when he looked down he realized that she had fallen asleep, her own mug loose in her hands and supported by her thighs, her head supported by both the back of the sofa and his shoulder.
Watching her for a short moment, he cracked a small, warm smile. She deserved the break, so he fell silent again, moving only enough to take her mug and set it on the nearby end table so that it wouldn’t spill. With her hands empty and her body at rest, Roy merely sat there for a while longer, the additional sound of Riza’s steady breath even more relaxing than the organic silence that had earlier encased the area. He could have nodded off right there, too, but, alas, there was work to be done. Gently he stood, carefully readjusted his friend so that she would not fall, and returned to his desk with her paperwork in hand. There was much to do, and he was glad at least one of them was able to find rest.
