Madison was mostly used to it by now, the sound having lost its edge to become a part of the nighttime ambiance. In fact he slept better with Jefferson than without him. But that was only when he slept at all, which didn’t seem to be happening any time soon. He’d been tossing and turning for what felt like hours, and now he lay on his side staring at the dark form of his partner, less annoyed by the sound itself than by what it represented: Jefferson enjoying the respite from existence that he himself was being denied.
For a moment Madison fantasized about putting a pillow over Jefferson’s face--not to kill him, just to force him to wake up. Of course there were better ways to do that, and Madison considered all of them in turn, but in the end he knew he couldn’t disturb the man’s sleep. Not when there was work the next morning.
God. Work. How was he ever going to get through work if he couldn’t get to sleep?
Madison groaned and turned away from Jefferson, but an unexpected sound followed; Madison’s stomach grumbled. Shit. He’d been awake so long that he was hungry again.
Madison rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. Falling asleep was so much harder when he was hungry. Maybe he should eat something. Sure, it might give him nightmares, and he might feel sick in the morning, but nightmares meant sleep and he was going to have a rough morning anyway. He’d get out of bed, then, and just throw together something small. Maybe some toast and--no, he’d run out of bread three days ago and hadn’t managed to get himself to the store yet. Maybe some crackers with--no, Jefferson had snacked on the last of the crackers that evening. Was there anything else ready to eat? A fruit or a vegetable? As if. No, the only food Madison currently had consisted of things that needed to be cooked.
For the first time that night, Madison reached for his phone, finally allowing himself to check the time. Maybe if it was early enough he could just order a pizza. He groaned again as his screen lit up, revealing the time to be just past two am. Damn. It seemed he was destined to lay awake all night. That being the case, however, maybe he could order a pizza first thing in the morning when the first shop opened. He pulled up a search for hours and sat bolt upright when he saw one single solitary pizza place that was open until 3am. He quickly threw back the covers and scrambled out of bed. He needed to get into the next room and make the call.
When Jefferson’s alarm started beeping at 5 am, he turned it off as quickly as possible so as not to rouse his partner. That settled, he turned towards said partner to get his morning dose of the man’s face and startled when he saw that Madison was not there. He climbed out of bed, worry rising within him. Madison had no reason to be up this early--maybe he was sick. Moments later, Jefferson found who he was looking for. Madison was seated at the kitchen table, his head resting on his arms. He was sharing his sleep space with an open pizza box containing most of a pie and a paper plate containing the crust of the single missing slice. Jefferson was sure he could parse what had happened here, but he supposed he could get the story from Madison later. For now, he thought the man should get his last two hours of sleep in bed to lower the astronomically high chance he had of waking up with a sore neck.
“James,” Jefferson said, shaking his partner’s shoulder. “James. Hon. Hey.”
Madison whined, scrunching his face.
“Come on,” Jefferson insisted. “You need to get to bed.”
Madison whined again, but this time he opened his eyes, squinting and blinking. “Okay,” he croaked out. He allowed Jefferson to help him to his feet and guide him to the bedroom. By the time Jefferson laid the blanket back over his body, he was already asleep.
“What in the world,” Jefferson muttered. He looked at Madison a moment longer, then leaned in to press a light kiss to his cheek. The man did not stir at all and Jefferson commenced his morning routine.
